Perk and Class Building Guide

This is a guide for a better overview of enhancement combinations for different gamestyles.
Designed to quickly look up combinations and builds with pictures to ease reading and realizing.

Overview

You played through the game twice? This is where the game just started!

In this guide I assume that you have every Unlockable and at least Overseer v3.0.
If you consider reading this beforehand - hidden unlockables will be mentioned, too.

The builds vary from very fast to very slow pace in gameplay.
I will start with general combination knowledge and go on to actual builds.

I will sort by highest priority first and combos are displayed as stairs.
Priorities are important to note, since most of the time you can't afford the whole setup several times prior to starting a run and are dependant of Cyber Implant Stations.









In some cases it's even wise to replace your Class Perk with something that makes your combination stronger and/or reduces flaws.

For advanced information regarding Perk Upgrades read Maximum Statistic Increases in the Builds section.


Prices for Enhancements / Perks: (and total cost)

The maximum amount of perks you can buy always equals your maximum finished Overseer Version.
The highest possibly recommended amount of perks you should buy is half of it, so you wont be broke if you die early.

1st Perk: 300
2nd Perk: 1.500 (1.800)
3rd Perk: 7.500 (9.300)
4th Perk: 37.500 (46.800)
5th Perk: 187.500 (234.300)
6th Perk: 937.500 (1.171.800)
7th Perk: 4.687.500 (5.859.300)
8th Perk: 23.437.500 (29.296.800)
9th Perk: 117.187.504 (146.484.304)

General Knowledge:

> Classes

There are 5 classes in this game. You can change the 3 available classes by exiting and loading again. Take what you need. Their Perks always spawn in the first slot.

Description:
class name (passive boni) + class specific replaceable Perk

Classes
Assassin (+20% Crits, +10% Speed) __________ + Cloak in Shadows
Cyborg (+20% Health, +2 Slots, choose from 4)__ + 200% Melee Damage
Hacker (+20% Energy, +10% Speed, purple key)_ + Ranged Drone Companion
Soldier (+15% Damage) ____________________ + 25% Frontal Damage Protection
Techie (+20% Energy, -20% Health) ___________ + Shield


Assassin
NanoEdge Shadow Blend
Enemies cannot spot you while you remain in the dark.
Reinforcements disabled starting from the next level.

The best for the sneak attack damage bonus. There is a blackout floor event.
You can be spotted in the dark if you stand too close in front of the enemy.

Cyborg
Cyborg Duramax Cyberarm
Increases melee damage by 200%.

The best general melee Class. With 12 Perk Slots the best 2 build class



Hacker
Omnitech Companion Drone
You get a free drone at the start of every level.

A reliable Perk.



Soldier
Duramax Riot Shield
reduces frontal damage by 25%.





Techie
NanoEdge EnergyShield
blocks damage worth of 25% energy capacity.

Make energy even more useful by taking Money Capacitor and
Energy Based Healing builds.

> Projectile Damage Perks

The order starts with the highest dps increase and goes further chronologically.

NanoEdge Crisis Protocol
Your normal projectiles inflict double base damage when your health is under 25%.

This is a 100% damage increase. Can best be combined with bad Luck and HP multipliers. Or godlike Medikit drop dodge skills.


Neurocore Stunner
15% chance to stun


Neurocore Sandman
Increases damage by 100% against stunned targets.

The higher the RPM the higher the effect.
Only take this if you already installed Neurocore stunner or this will have no effect.


Armocore Splinter Bullets
Your bullet will split in two shortly after leaving the barrel, and with a 30% damage increase.
You can shoot around corners by approximately 20°. Doesn't work on Shrapnel projectiles. In the perfect range you can hit one enemy twice. Neurocore Stasis Fields max range roughly displays this. Maximum explosives: two.

Armocore Explosive Bullets
The first round in every clip deals massive damage.

Act like Frag Grenades spliting into Shrapnels 180° from your direction. Loses effect upon penetration. Effective on Pistols, too. Doesn't work on Explosives.
Correlates with Splinter Bullets

Chiphow Achilles Targeting
30% damage increase to bosses

Can be replaced with Armocore Splinter Bullets (except for 3rd boss Icarus) to double the damage bonus.


Armocore Incendiary Bullets
Critical hits set enemies on fire for 3 secs.

Humans will panic if you're unseen. Good with medium to high RPM.
Organic kills leave corpses for Crashware Gib Money.

> Rate of Fire, Reload Speed & Clip Size

Rate of Fire(RoF) is displayed on weapons as Rounds Per Minute(RPM).
RoF Perks also have effect with explosive weapons that are not an ability.
While RoF ensures the damage output, the reload speed and clip size increase its availability.


Rate of Fire

Neurocore Skill Wires
Boosts weapon reload speed by 20% and rate of fire by 20%.

2 for 1.



Chiphow Weapon Master
improves enemy knockback by 100% and rate of fire by 20%.

Really helpful for following drones.
The knockback doesn't work on explosives.


Chiphow Gun Mechanix
increasing rate of fire (and thus damage) by 20%.






Reload Speed and Clipsize

Chiphow LoaderArt
chip improves the clipsize of weapons by 50% and increases reload speed by 100%.




Neurocore Reload Booster
Increases manual reload speed by 100%.

Manual reload speed!
The tone will be raised the more the end of the clip is near.


Chiphow AmmoArt
improves the clipsize of weapons by 100%.

Bought weapons spawn wit random stats, too.

> Grenades and Explosive Barrels

With every explosive you have to be cautious to not let Cyber Implant Stations explode before you use them. Otherwise and incase your Luck upgrade is pretty high up you can mostly build on
Heavy Robot Drops. In any case speed is your best friend to walk straight out of explosion radii easily.

Chain Reactions
Armocore Explodz
Exploding barrels and biotanks explode instantly when you hit them, and with 20% larger Radius.
This is good for starting chain reactions. Even better in later chapters. Works with Bullet-like projectiles.


Neurocore Combat Disruptor
enemies have a 20% chance to drop a live (Frag) Grenade when they die.

Armocore Submunitions
every explosive you deploy has a 30% chance to spawn three small submunitions.

Submunitions are half radius Frag Grenades each with 360° spread.



Increase Grenade Radius
Armocore Attractor Grenades
Enemies do not avoid your grenades anymore and explosive radius is increased by 25%.
Highly recommended for small grenades like Cluster Grenades or to annihilate rooms.


Armocore myGrenade
cuts all fuse times in half and increases the explosive radius 40%.
Obvious reason. The only case in which you need to be cautious is while using Antioch Grenades.




Exceptions
Frag Grenades and Armocore Submunitions shoot out Shrapnels in a tight pattern while Piercing Pulse and Laser Pulse use Bullet-like projectiles and their random spread. Armocore Splinter Bullets don't interact with grenade Shrapnels.
Also Armocore Explosive bullets are quarter sized Frag Grenades and don't interact with radius perks, too.

> Healing Methods

I always recommend to take just one Healing Perk or Healing Perk Combination for your final build. With many Luck Upgrades you can even count on Medikit drops.
A notable fact is that Autodocs, Mediplus Floor Healing and Mediplus Nano Vampires are based on Maximum HP which can often be disregarded.

Mediplus Floor Heal
will heal 35%HP after each level.

This is quite nice if you're just running through lower Overseer levels. Also quite nice with little Luck upgrades to compensate the lack of Medikit drops.
Best healing Perk if you dont have (m)any Slot Upgrades.


Energy based
Can be combined with the Money Capacitor tree incase your main damage is an Ability.
Also see Fire Suit.

Mediplus Nanites
turns 15% of collected energy cells into health

The higher the Overseer Version, the more Energy drops.

Neurocore Pain Collector
Converts 40% of damage Taken into energy

Works well with Mediplus Nanites, the converted damage does heal you.




Maximum Autodoc
Mediplus Medical Enhancer
You get 50% more health from autodocs and medikits.

The more Luck you have the more Medikits drop and the less you need this.


Crashware Health Gambler
The autodoc will heal you 100% more 4 of 5 times. However the autodoc will hurt you a bit 1 of 5 times. You can even die.

This is random. Luck increase the chance. Doesn't hurt much.

MediPlus Medical Amplifier
When pickung up a medikit or using an autodoc you'll also heal allies next to you with 50% efficiency.

I guess this works together, but i couldn't try it yet.


Damage Based
Mediplus Nano Vampires
a 60% chance to gain 0.7% of health from each kill.

Can nicely be put together with Explosives.



Mediplus Critheal
Heals you 2HP every time you crit an enemy.

Considerable with any high Rate of Fire Weapon and any Class. Assassins push this. Although it doesn't scale with HP it is still very good on OSv10.0 with high RPM.

> Tank Perks

Omnitech Deflector Shield
blocks 4% of damage for each 50 points of energy you have (up to 40%)
The most recommended defense Perk in this game.




Duramax Titanium Cranium
reduces incoming damage by 20%





Duramax Subdermal Armor
reduces explosion damage by 70%.

The faster you are,the better you can dodge rockets and the less this is needed. On higher Overseer versions you're sometimes forced to either dodge and run into mines or get hit by the rockets because of the lack of free space right after the spawn which makes this really helpful in the lategame(OS v4.0+).


Sidenote: You can't stack explosion damage protection to 100%.
I tried the soldier's Duramax Riot Shield with everything listed above but still received damage. Explosive damage will be reduced by 70%, and the other multipliers will reduce received damage based on whats left.

Builds:

> Max Stat Increase & Money Catalyst

Preferable Classes:
Assassin (+20% Crits, +10% Speed) + Cloak in Shadows
Hacker (+20% Energy, +10% Speed, purple key) + Ranged Drone Companion
Techie (+20% Energy, -20% Health) + Shield

Preferable Weapons and Abilities:
Depending on your Overseer level you will need either a weapon on a high enough level or plenty of overall passive damage upgrades or perks to kill Key Masters and Bosses.


Money Calatyst
Omnitech Energy Compensator
grants bonus credits for unused energy capacity at level end (5 per 1 energy)
Energy wont drain.

Omnitech Energy Capacitor
increases Energy Capacity by 40%


NanoEdge Symbiote
increases health and energy capacity by 20%, speed by 10%



Total Cost: 300+1500+7500 = 9300

NanoEdge Musclevital
increases health by 33% and speed by 20%

Dont buy this. Get it from Cyber Implant Stations or Heavy Robot Drops.





Money Making

Omnitech Energy Compensator as the best money maker is essential to make speedruns on lower overseer versions worth additionally to the Max Stat Increases.
Omnitech Energy Capacitor and NanoEdge Symbiote are the only 2 enhancements that increase Energy Capacity, but since buying both additionally to the Compensator have an additional cost of 9000, I recommend, that you just buy the Capacitor until you have a total Energy Capacity of ~1000 with all bonuses, because there is that awkward possibility to die before its worth it just by not concentrating enough on dodging shots and punching drones.

Cyber Implant Stations are always welcome to get either NanoEdge Symbiote(see above), Omnitech Instant Credits(1), Omnitech Floor Bonus(2). or, incase you got Grenade Launcher, Grenades or C4, the Crashware Gib Money(4)(works on humans, the humanlike Heavy Robots, and both of their corpses).







At a certain point you can go on with your higher OS versions for more money than any perk can give you. You'll feel it when you reach it.


Maximum Statistic Increases

Unlock Stations are what we are looking for.
Those allow the possibility to either decide
firstly between switching your ability or 500 credits,
secondly between 1000 credits or increasing a random stats maximum (the Upgrade Station is brighter in this case),
or thirdly between increasing a random stat if it isn't maxed out yet or an equal amount of credits of its upgrade price, which is very important for Money Making.
The credits vary depending on the stat, e.g. for the 201st damage upgrade you can alternatively take 176.200, while for the 200th energy upgrade you'll just get 66.200.

If you dont have any maxed out stats, there is still (I guess) a 50% chance to increase the maximum of the randomly chosen stat.

With ~100 on every stat and Overseer 1.0 you might aswell just ignore all enemies except those heavy human-like robots and walk around in the whole map before you go to the next level. The Heavy Robots sometimes drop Perks which you can pick up with the Use button (Default E). After picking it up, or cancelling the process, every unused Cyborg Implant Station will change its selection. If cancelled, the dropped Perk will disappear.

If there is a Special Level Entrance available, make sure you checked every corner of the map first before you go in.
Golden Unlock Stations can also give the possibility to increase a stats maximum, so make sure to check Hooloovoo's Guide for Secret Equipment and remember their places before you start this grind.
The Unlock Station in the secret room after Icarus does not upgrade stats.

Two things are very important for this:
1. If you got enough damage and money Cyber Implants to kill bosses fast, you can focus on looking out for Unlock Stations and finding special level entrances and ignore the enemies completely.

2. You dont want to waste any time solving riddles in Chapter 5. They just take way too long and the chances to get an Unlock Station are just as high as in any other map.

> Two-shot clearing

Recommended Class:
Cyborg (+20% Health, +2 Slots, choose from 4) + 200% Melee Damage
Instant Perks Can be used with any class and build.

Strategy:
Yes I know this is obvious, but just the fact that it's possible makes me giggle a little.
The Cyborg's ability to choose from 4 instead of 3 Perks at Cyborg Implant Stations + the additional 2 slots will most probably grant you this combo more often than any other class.

The only flaw this method has is that the game only spawns money in 10 and 100 drops so higher OS versions will most likely cause a heavy framerate drops - even if you only use one of the Perks.


Crashware Gas Overload (one-shot)
Do you smell something funny? All living enemies will die instantly!





Crashware System Overload (one-shot)
Hack the chamber to send a shutdown signal disabling all active robotic enemies once and instantly.


Big purple drones will spawn their children.

> Fire Suit

Make your enemies tingle between the pleasing wish of moving and turning towards you and the pure fear of walking through fire. They will turn away from the center of the fire to avoid burning.
Force them into a corner in which you have the might to decide their fate.
Works with bosses like the one from chapter 1, too.

Recommended Classes
Pretty much anything. Just try to stay outside of your own explosions. The fire is fine.

Fire Suit
Flame Grenades Ability
Cluster Grenades also spawn smaller Flame Grenades.
Burning ground radius doesn't scale with perks. Just the Explosion.

Duramax Graphene Weave
total protection from fire damage.
You can still burn without receiving any damage.

Armocore Firestarter
Fires you start have 4x burn time.





This is the base. It's even better with Armocore Attractor Grenades (See Grenades and Explosives) since it burns enemies before they try to dodge the fire.

Now let's get to the interesting part:

Fire Suit Level 2
Neurocore Pain Collector
Converts 40% of damage taken into energy.

Mediplus Nanites (See Healing Perks)
turns 15% of collected energy cells into health

With Duramax Graphene Weave you wont get any damage in or on fire BUT the damage you would have received counts towards damage.The result is that you never lack energy and can slowly heal being on fire.

You can put this together with defensive and health perks and -incase you took it to the next level- with Money Catalyst since you can refill your Energy all by yourself.

> Melee Bruiser

Recommended Classes
Cyborg (+20% Health, +2 Slots) +200% Melee Damage
Soldier (+15% Damage) +25% Frontal Damage Protection

Secondary
Assassin (+20% Crits, +10% Speed) + Cloak in the Shadows (sneak attacks)
Hacker (+20% Energy, +10% Speed, purple key) + Ranged Drone Companion


Melee Damage
Duramax Scythes
improve melee damage by 200%


Duramax Bone Lacing
Increases health by 25%, and melee damage by 50%






Speed
NanoEdge Musclevital
20% speed increase and 33% health increase.


Nanoedge Symbiote
Increases health and energy capacity by 20%, and speed by 10%.

The speed helps to avoid melee damage by drones. You always want to make the first hit.


If you don't buy the Speed tree make sure to check out Tank and Mediplus Perks to get some placeholders during a run.


Aura of Effect
Neurocore Stasis Field
slowing down enemy movement around you.

This is essential for the chapter 2 mini boss called Bruiser to stay out of his range.

Omnitech Personal Guard
Automatically zaps three nearby hostiles with bolts of electricity.

A nice tool to passively kill following drones. Has a smaller radius than Neurocore Stasis Field.


Blowtorch
With the Blowtorch and its short range you can replace the Melee Damage Perks with any gun related Perk. But don't forget that even the Blowtorch has a minimum range of 1 human.
The Blowtorch does not burn enemies by nature but compensates that with massive single target damage output.

> One Shot Reload Build on Penetration

There are three weapons in this game that penetrate enemies by nature:

Heavy Rifle________ Electron __________ Gauss Gun________








While the Heavy Rifle penetrates just enemies and probably destroys something behind them,
the Electron and Gauss Gun penetrate any Bullet-destructible object on their path.
The Gauss Gun has a charge up time additionally to the reload time which makes this build pretty skill and ability based. So instead of the One Shot Reload Build I suggest Reload Speed & Clip Size perks for the Gauss Gun specifically. I would also recommend that you use this weapon without Rate of Fire perks first to make sure your shots are hitting their targets on lower OS versions.


Recommended Classes
Assassin (+20% Crits, +10% Speed) + Cloak in Shadows (sneak attack bonus)
Soldier (+15% Damage) + 25% Frontal Damage Protection

One Shot Reload Build
This build is made for slow shooting weapons like Grenade Launcher, Pistols or the penetrating Heavy Rifle and Electron.

Armocore Splinter Bullets
Your bullet will split in two shortly after leaving the barrel, and with a 30% damage increase.

Correlates with Explosive Bullets and is the only independent increase.

Armocore Explosive Bullets
The first round in every clip deals massive damage.

This only takes effect on the first enemy hit.



Since it's based on the first round, you will need to build up anything that makes you reload faster.
Reload speed and clip size dont matter for this build at all.

Reload Speed
Chiphow LoaderArt
chip improves the clipsize of weapons by 50% and increases reload speed by 100%.

Automatic reload speed is good for the start.

Neurocore Reload Booster
Increases manual reload speed by 100%.

With both together you can pretty much kill bosses with first bullets much faster.

Neurocore Skill Wires
Boosts weapon reload speed by 20% and rate of fire by 20%.

For this build you dont need RoF, so this is either a placeholder or a slight bonus worth the slot.

> Sandman Stunner Build on Mini Gun

The Devastator Mini Gun needs to charge up.

Mini Gun








The big flaw is the gap between the shootings created by reloading and charging.
Because of the Devastator's Rate of Fire you can keep all melees including Speedsters on distance while shooting, so I recommend focussing primarily on the DPS instead of Health and Healing Perks.


Recommended Classes
Assassin (+20% Crits, +10% Speed) + Cloak in Shadows
Hacker (+20% Energy, +10% Speed, purple key) + Ranged Drone Companion

Secondary:
Cyborg (+20% Health, +2 Slots) + 200% Melee Damage
Can easily one-shot any melee enemies during the reload process.

Sandman Stunner Build
This build is good for any fast shooting weapon. The Devastator has a tradeoff that makes you much slower while shooting but makes it possible to keep melee enemies on a distance by shooting them.

Neurocore Stunner
15% chance to stun

Neurocore Sandman
Increases damage by 100% against stunned targets.

With low damage weapons you will need several shots to kill enemies so you have to dodge their bullets for survival. The Devastator doesn't really give you this option so you can only count on mass bullet impact or even better: stuns.


Armocore Splinter Bullets
Your bullet will split in two shortly after leaving the barrel, and with a 30% damage increase.

This will double the bullet count. The Devastator impact keeps enemies on distance and because of its high RoF there is a chance that enemies are disrupted when trying to shoot. The more bullets impact on an enemy the higher the chance.



Now you can build up with the 2-for-1 rate of fire, reload speed and clip size Perks.
When Devastator is equipped, pick up any speed perks on your way.

Level 2
Neurocore Skill Wires
Boosts weapon reload speed by 20% and rate of fire by 20%.
2 for 1.

Chiphow Weapon Master
improves enemy knockback by 100% and rate of fire by 20%.

This very short stun is important since it will keep enemies back, even without the Devastator RPM.



Chiphow LoaderArt
chip improves the clipsize of weapons by 50% and increases reload speed by 100%.
2 for 1.




Self Heal (see Healing Methods)
NanoEdge Nano Vampires(0.7%HP per kill) are a reliable active heal for this build.
Incase you took an Assassin, the Mediplus CritHeal(2HP per crit) should also be ok.

Optional
After you finished your build so far you can take the last remaining build supporting perks like Chiphow Gun Mechanix, Neurocore Reload Booster or Chiphow AmmoArt
(see Rate of Fire, Reload Speed & Clip Size).

If you think your crit chance is good you can also take Armocore Incendiary Bullets
(Projectile Damage Perks).

Other Build Mentions

Since it takes quite a while to fully finish a build in this guide, I will give you some hints on whats possible, so you get a little "inspiration".

Stealth
Works with Assassin just as much as with any class that has NanoEdge Chameleon Skin. Focus on damage perks and you'll be fine. Works well with any high damage low speed weapon.

Explosive Weapons
Since grenade radius perks dont suit to weapons, you can increase your damage output by RoF.
+
Crashware Gib Money
You can blow up any enemy that has a body. So take what blows up and blow up!

Antioch Grenades + Radius
Bored of looking in every room and trying to remember the walls and objects that will hinder your dodge skills? Open a door, throw Annihilation itself inside and watch.

NanoEdge Crisis Protocol
Ever asked yourself wether having all the health bonus perks is worth it?
Together with Crisis Protocol you can finally find out!

Maximum Gamble
While Crashware Health Gambler grants you just 1 out of 5 chances to get hit by yourself, try out how much of your luck is skill with a charging up weapon, Antioch Grenades and Crisis Protocol!

Ion Weapon + Plasma Burst Ability
Take the Sandman Stunner combo, Rate of Fire and Damage Perks to finish off any enemy with the right damage type. Shoot humans with plasma and robots with ion energy for maximum damage! The higher your energy capacity the higher the possible total damage output you'll have.
The only trade-off is that you can't really kill the orange swarms and have to dodge them to keep up the pace. (can be slightly countered by Armocore Explosive Bullets)

[omega]

Thanks for the guide!
The Fire Suit Level 2 build is pretty cheesy and carried me through OS8 so far. And I'm pretty sure the Icarus Unlocking Station dropped a max stat increase for me at least once.

[Boneyard Spleeneater]

Love your guide. Been farming dough to gear up for higher Overseer runs.

I would suggest that Techie be first choice. On OS 1, and mostly on OS 2, he can pretty much clear it without ever taking actual damage. The shield is very useful on low levels, especially once you have a decent pool of energy. This allows you to A) blow right through enemies without spending a lot of time dodging, and B) get rid of defense/healing mods and go for more offense/money mods.

I had the quick-loading explosive laser shotgun build going for a few levels, and I cleared them and got to the exit in no time (although I did waste few upgrade stations).