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My Cybernetic Slug Commando Build Guide - As Requested By You


Dstrukt
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Dstrukt's Cybernetic Slug Commando Guide

This guide was strictly made for X360A. Do not steal.

 

Note: My Berserker guide can be found HERE

 

I've been getting quite a few messages about my build after my post in this thread so here is my guide to building an absolutely unstoppable character that can solo every single level without dying and quite arguably with the quickest times possible in the game.

 

Before I begin, please read this disclaimer:

 

The numbers you see in this thread are from my maxed out Commando. That is to say, my Commando is wearing armor with ALL red runes applicable to my play style. He also possesses +4 across all his skills.

 

I will not be holding your hand through this entire process. Think of this as a foundation. Mould the nuances of this build to suit your style of play.

 

With that out of the way here's a short summary of this build's Pros/Cons:

 

Pros:

-Extremely high damage against regular individual enemies (5.5-8.5k per second on average for my final build)

-Immense range (Mine is currently at 6000+)

-Inexhaustible Combo Level (more on this later)

-Under 1 min boss takedowns (with maybe the exception of Hod)

-Limited use of melee/fierce attacks vs. regular dark polarity enemies unless they spawn in giant mobs (i.e. Ice Forest)

-Enemies rarely get close to you

 

Cons:

-Secondary fire sees limited use (mainly because by the time your rocket gets to the enemies, most if not all are already dead)

-Slower movement due to the cannon

-Ammo becomes depleted incredibly fast due to the extremely high rate of fire

 

First and foremost, the cannon is your friend. Many players argue that rifles are superior to cannons simply because their damage difference is almost negligible without the slower reload and movement speed. I contend that this is only true when it comes to Plasma, which most Commandos use as their primary ammo of choice. This is not the case with slug-users.

 

Onto the skills:

 

I will briefly illustrate the skills you should be leveling up in sets of 10 levels. Again, don’t take these numbers as finite. Modify them according to your needs/preferences.

 

Levels 1-10:

 

-6 points into ‘Wrecker of Mead Halls’

-7 points into ‘Rain of Iron’

-6 points into ‘Pinning Shot’

-4 points into ‘Bullet-Tree’

-3 points into ‘Smoothbore’

 

Not much to say here at the start. You simply want to set up your foundation for the next 10 levels.

 

 

Levels 11-20:

 

-Max ‘Rain of Iron’

-Max ‘Smoothbore’

-Max ‘Ballistic Telemetry Feedback'

 

You’ll notice we haven’t even touched the Cybernetic tree yet. This is intentional. If you haven’t picked up a slug cannon yet, I strongly suggest you do so. The increased ammo capacity and range more than make up for any shortcomings of using a cannon when you’re a slug-user.

 

Smoothbore and Rain of Iron are the meat and potatoes of this build. By level 20, you should begin to notice the potential of your character. Smoothbore makes it so enemies will fall each and every time a bullet hits them, halting their movement and making them easier prey. This is particularly true with Dark Elves which can be a real pain at this point in your character’s life.

 

Ballistic Telemetry Feedback coupled with a cannon is devastating. You should be hitting enemies way before they cover any real distance on you.

 

Levels 21-30:

 

-2 points into ‘Augmented Musculature’

-6 points into ‘Enhanced Mobility Actuators’

-Max 'Retooled Munitions Dispenser'

-1 point into ‘Ballistic Telemetry Feedback’ (Cybernetic tree)

-1 point into ‘Spirit of Fenrir’

 

More ammo = less time you need to reload. By this point, you should be already socketing runes into armor and weapons to boost your character’s abilities even further.

 

Runes to prioritize in this order: Slug Fire Rate, Slug Damage, Cannon Damage, Total Armor, Health, Increased Ammo, Cannon Range, Dexterity.

 

Here is where your Commando begins to surpass all the other classes in terms of kills per second and survivability. If your slug fire rate is above 30%, then you should be destroying all your enemies with ease; half of which should be aerial kills. Smoothbore coupled with the slug’s high rate of fire completely decimates any enemy in midair. How does this happen without having to melee? During the knockback animation, an enemy spends a split second in the air thereby allowing your next bullet to hit him if your fire rate is fast enough. This occurs subsequently and causes a ‘juggle.’

 

Thanks to TH’s system of rewarding more combo level for aerial kills, your Commando’s combo meter should almost always be at 2 or 3 allowing you nearly unlimited access to your battle cry and Ruiners. If not, your meter should go from 0 > 3 in about 5 seconds if there are enough enemies around and your battle cry is on.

 

The 1 point in Spirit of Fenrir is mainly for emergencies and is honestly all you will need for the rest of the game. You could even omit this if you want but you're going to have a lot of points left over at the end anyway.

 

Also take note of the fact that your Hit Count will be obscenely high because of the aerial juggles which conveniently leads me to the next section.

 

Levels 31-40:

 

-Max ‘Augmented Musculature’

-Max ‘Ballistic Telemetry Feedback’ (Cybernetic Tree)

-7 points into ‘Terminal Ballistic Analysis’

 

With maxed Augmented Musculature, you should easily be dealing 10-15% more damage during each encounter due to the high hit count courtesy of Smoothbore and your fire rate. Maxed Ballistic Telemetry Feedback now means your range is +40% higher than normal; enemies won’t even know what hit them from half a screen away.

 

The 7 points into Terminal Ballistic Analysis means you’re doing damage to large groups while allowing each and every bullet that passes through your enemy to knock down the one behind it. Clearly now your Commando has reached the upper echelons of Godliness. Oh but wait, we still have 10 more levels to go.

 

Levels 41-50:

 

-Max ‘Terminal Ballistic Analysis’

-Remaining 7 points I leave up to you to use as you please

 

This is it. Your Commando is truly unstoppable. Maxed Terminal Ballistic Analysis means your bullets have an even greater chance of penetration which also means more enemies being knocked down the greater the size of the mob.

 

The final 7 points can be placed into any skills that you feel are worth increasing. Hardened Carbotanium Chassis is not a bad choice in my opinion.

Edited by Dstrukt
Fixed some spelling errors
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Final Tips:

-A great way to quickly raise your combo meter to level 1 at the start of a level is to launch an enemy into the air with your melee weapon and juggle them with your cannon until they die or performing an aerial finisher. *Thanks to FlipSwitch for reminding me of this*

 

-As soon as your combo meter hits 1 shortly after you start a level, activate your battle cry. You will recover that 1 level pretty much from the next enemy you kill and rocket up to 3 way before it runs out.

-Try to obtain the Metalstorm Level 3 charm, this way you will have the ability to ricochet your shots as well as penetrate. The main benefit of having this charm is that each one of your ricocheted bullets will also knock down an enemy when it connects...as if this character needs any more offensive power. More can't hurt though.

 

-Do not neglect your armor rating. Even Commandos get hit from time to time. I would recommend at least a +50-60% bonus as a minimum. +Health doesn't hurt either

-Runes to prioritize in this order: Slug Fire Rate, Slug Damage, Cannon Damage, Total Armor, Health, Increased Ammo, Cannon Range, Dexterity (listed by order of importance). Do not waste a second slot to max dexterity. The damage gain is negligible in relation to the value of that extra slot.

-+Skill runes also help a great deal if you can get your hands on them. I would suggest obtaining the one that increases ‘Rain of Iron’ to start. Max slug fire rate is +72% if you have +4 to Rain of Iron instead of 60%. The extra 12% is noticeable, believe me.

 

-If you're lucky enough to obtain +Skills to entire skill trees, consider placing 1 of those extra points into 'Spreader of Ruin'

 

-The only enemies in the game that will give you an ounce of trouble when you're level 50 are the ballistic immune trolls. You will have to kill them the old fashion way: melee. Thus, do not neglect your melee weapon too much. Thanks to your plentiful amount of Ruiners though, these encounters shouldn't be difficult at all. Simply fire one off to destroy the hammer/grenade arm at the beginning of the fight to nullify most of the troll's offensive capabilities. Remember to use aerial finishers on the main body to quickly destroy all the armor on the troll and mount for the kill. Simple yes?

 

-To fully utilize the 'looseness' of TH's aiming system, hold your RS towards your enemies at ALL times while you are firing and gradually wiggle it around the top left and top right corners relative to the enemy positions. If they are behind you, move the RS down and do the same. This way, as soon as an enemy is dead your gun will automatically target the next closest one. Remember to press the LB to re-center the camera when necessary.

If I think of any more tips, I'll add them here.

 

Just for fun, I've added an updated list of boss kill time ranges with my optimized Commando:

Boss Kill Times (an average)

 

Garm: 17-25 seconds (9/10 times he doesn't get a chance to even attack with his thorns)

Hel: 1st room: 2-3 seconds, 2nd room: 2-3 seconds, final room: 18 - 25 seconds

Everlasting Hate: 17-25 seconds

GRNDL-1: 25-40 seconds, more often than not, around the 30 second mark when my ruiners manage to freeze him (sometimes they don't for some reason) otherwise he runs around like an idiot eating up valuable time

 

 

 

There you have it. Send me a message if you’ve built your Commando this way and let me know your feelings about it. Feedback is always welcome.

 

If you have any concerns, PM me and I’ll try to be as prompt as I can with a response. If you want a demonstration of this build’s potential, send me a message on XBL and I’ll invite you into a co-op game.

 

EDIT: I can no longer demonstrate this build because I no longer own a copy of the game. Sorry. But rest assured, it is one incredible damage dealing machine.

 

Thanks for reading and happy gaming,

Dstrukt

 

GT: xI Dstrukt Ix

 

My Commando Stats

 

Hit Points: 2361/2361 (1523+55%)

Total Armor: 1759 (1011+74%)

Base Melee Damage : 429

Melee Weapon Damage: 2988 (2299+30%)

Final Melee Damage : 2051 (3417-40%)

 

Base Ranged Damage: 106 (71+50%)

Ballistic Weapon Damage: 567 (355+60%)

Final Ballistic Damage: 942 (673+40%)

Ballistic Range: 6068 (3161+92%)

 

Blunt Resistance: -15%

Slash Resistance: -15%

Pierce Resistance: -15%

Ballistic Resistance: 0%

Edited by Dstrukt
Added additional final tip
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This looks really interesting,I've had pretty much trouble getting the unstoppable achievements as a Defender and as a Bio-Engineer,I will definetely give this a try since it was a Commando that got me the unstoppable achievement for HoH.Is it possible to get them with this build on the first playthrough?Or only in higher levels?

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Good guide, i've been playing as a cyber commando for a few days am level 30 now, i went similar ways to you on the skill tree, but maxed different skills. I thikn i'll respec and take some of your advice, but like you said ill mould it round my own playign style. Persoanlly i switch bewteen rifles and cannons and always use slug, the ROF is just undeniable. But like i said good advice, will come of great use

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This looks really interesting,I've had pretty much trouble getting the unstoppable achievements as a Defender and as a Bio-Engineer,I will definetely give this a try since it was a Commando that got me the unstoppable achievement for HoH.Is it possible to get them with this build on the first playthrough?Or only in higher levels?

 

It is possible to get them all on your first playthrough. The enemies are a lot easier at lower levels and there are a lot less of them. If this Commando is not your first character then you can fund him with all the best equipment applicable to his current level along with runes from your higher level character.

 

Thanks for the feedback fellas. I'm happy to hear the guide is helping so many of you out. It took me a lot of respeccing to finally realize the full potential of my slug-user but it was well worth it. Currently sitting @ 1m for respec (which I've done about 3 times at this price already).

 

Appreciate the response guys.

Edited by Dstrukt
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On my second slot, I have Necrotization (Weapon and Armor version). I used Ablation for awhile but ultimately the +1 to only the armor skills seemed like a wasted opportunity to increase your offensive capabilities even further. With +1 to weapon skills, you increase your slug fire rate by 3% as well as your range by 4% respectively.

 

Honestly, enemies won't be hitting you all that much so it really isn't a big loss. I've found Necrotization to be more useful anyway as it seems to proc often when an enemy does hit me. It's a great way to add another layer of defense as well as offense to your arsenal.

 

EDIT: I've also added an update list of kill times for the most commonly run bosses in the game

Edited by Dstrukt
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Well,this does work pretty well,although there's still one problem I'm having when using firearms :

After I've killed a certain amount of enemies(for example on Ice Forest it is the second group of enemies on the first platform,after the first jump pad)using nothing but my gun,they just seem to get more resistent to bullets,I can barely scratch them, even after firing whole loads of amunition into them.

 

Is there something I'm doing wrong,because that's really jeopardising my unstoppable achievements(since the enemies get too close before I can take them out).

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OMG...i'm boosting the Jack of all Trades achievment and i've created a commando!!!it's awesome!!i have a lvl 50 human champion and i always use a mix of guns and hummer!but with that commando 4 or 5 enemies in the whole level got close to me!and now i'm a cybernetic commando!!!i have a question...is it possible to make alone the unstoppable achievments???hall of heros was done with the champion(never died with commando)

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OMG...i'm boosting the Jack of all Trades achievment and i've created a commando!!!it's awesome!!i have a lvl 50 human champion and i always use a mix of guns and hummer!but with that commando 4 or 5 enemies in the whole level got close to me!and now i'm a cybernetic commando!!!i have a question...is it possible to make alone the unstoppable achievments???hall of heros was done with the champion(never died with commando)

 

This question was answered in post #6

 

It is possible to get them all on your first playthrough. The enemies are a lot easier at lower levels and there are a lot less of them. If this Commando is not your first character then you can fund him with all the best equipment applicable to his current level along with runes from your higher level character.

 

Thanks for the feedback fellas. I'm happy to hear the guide is helping so many of you out. It took me a lot of respeccing to finally realize the full potential of my slug-user but it was well worth it. Currently sitting @ 1m for respec (which I've done about 3 times at this price already).

 

Appreciate the response guys.

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This is great, i hope this way i can get these fucking unstoppable achievements, i onl yhave one problem, im lv 47 cyber commando, but i assigned my skill tree new so often that it costs me 512 000 bounty now to resign it new :(

That sucks i only have like 300k, if someone could give me like 300k bounty, just as a present, that would be so cool :D...

Anyways if not im gonna harvest bounty and then try< this out!! THX

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I had given up on my commando once I hit lvl 10 for my jerk of all trades because of some wierd glitch that after reload he would just point at mobs and forget to pull the trigger. I messed around with your suggestions and found it to make things a bit more fun. Thanks for the tips yo.

Cyber champion still my fave but commando has now put my bio engineer on the back burners and is my 2nd fave.

Cheers

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I was having big expectations on this, but maybe I'm just terrible at this game :). ~ level 17 in the Ice Forest and just being eaten alive in the room with the Troll, Spider, and dozen or so Dark Elves.

 

I can't clear the Elves before I'm picked apart by the Spider, etc. Is this to be expected, or is there a strategy for dealing with these guys that I'm not picking up on? (ex-Defender, so no shock if I'm missing something). I went ahead and updated my gear from Aesir and gave it another go, but wow was it frustrating. Went back to farming on the 50 to get back the bliss of loot-whorage.

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You need to be throwing ruiners out left and right in situations like that. Switch targets often to keep them on their backs and focus your energy on taking out priority targets: the troll and spider. Blow off the trolls' hammer arms first using a ruiner or your cannon and leave them to hobble around aimlessly until everything else is dead.

 

Next focus on the spider and blow him away. When you see it start the ground pound animation, roll.

 

Doing all this while you are constantly on the move in a circle-strafe motion to keep the dark elves off you. Target them if they get too close to knock them back down. Dark elves take an incredibly long time getting back up.

 

Skirmishes like these are the hardest for young Commandos due to the overhwhelming amount of enemy types. Thankfully, it only gets easier after Ice Forest.

 

EDIT: Oh and most importantly, update to a new cannon as often as possible. I would recommend every 4-5 levels.

Edited by Dstrukt
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Thanks Eternal, glad you're enjoying your Commando.

 

It seems some of you are having a bit of trouble with dark polarity enemies, particularly in the Ice Forest. A good strategy is to knock them down with Smoothbore and proceed to using your fierce attacks until they are dead. If they manage to get back up, repeat as necessary.

 

Fortunately, as you become more powerful they become a lot easier to deal with, especially when you get some points into your Terminal Ballistics Analysis skill.

 

Also, I'm not sure if you fellas are using your ranged weapons to their fullest potentials. To fully utilize the 'looseness' of TH's aiming system, hold your RS towards your enemies at ALL times while you are firing and gradually wiggle it around the top left and top right corners relative to the enemy positions. If they are behind you, move the RS down and do the same. This way, as soon as an enemy is dead your gun will automatically target the next closest one. Remember to press the LB to re-center the camera when necessary.

 

EDIT: I've added the above tip to the Final Tips section

Edited by Dstrukt
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If your weapon is only doing 300 damage, then you haven't socketed any runes relative to a slug-user. Slug fire rate and slug damage are the two most important stats to increase in order for this build to work. The greater your fire rate and damage, the more effective you become.

 

If you want, send me a message on XBL and I'll show you this build in action.

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I just realized I totally omitted adding cannon damage runes from the guide for no apparent reason. It must have slipped my mind. I've now included adding cannon damage runes in the appropriate areas but just to reiterate, runes to prioritize in this order:

 

slug fire rate, slug damage, cannon damage, increased ammo, cannon range, improved reload.

 

Anything else is just gravy.

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