Home » Guides » Holistic Shayne & Aurox Guide – Battleborn

Holistic Shayne & Aurox Guide – Battleborn

Holistic Shayne Aurox Guide - Battleborn
Holistic Shayne Aurox Guide - Battleborn

Overview

First off, to answer the first question most people ask, Shayne (the human) is female. She’s a teenage punk tomboy; Aurox (the alien) is an energy sucking rock alien. Interestingly, the internal file name for Shayne & Aurox is “BoyAndDjinn”, which suggests that, early on, they were probably inspired by Aladdin and were given a complete and total makeover later on. Furthermore, the devs weren’t even sure that S&A’s unique mechanic (Aurox separating from the damageable character model) was technically feasible.

Gameplay-wise, S&A are hard to define. They’ve got the hp+shield to qualify as a tank (the only character with more hp+shield is Attikus, and only barely) as well as the body type (because Aurox is massive) and an *extremely* tank type skill in Fetch; on the other hand, their other skills are decidedly non-tank-y, she has high run speed, and a mutable body type that makes it very easy to get away. They’ve got reasonably decent ranged functionality but are primarily melee fighters.

While you can probably play S&A effectively without ever really focusing on it heavily, a truly good S&A player is going to learn to master and capitalize on S&A’s changing states. Without Aurox, Shane is extremely fast and her model is about a third of the size that it normally is but her melee DPS is reduced significantly and you are effectively silenced (since you need to have Aurox to use your skills). Knowing how and when you’ll change state and how to capitalize on that can make a lot of difference.

Index

Abilities

Aurox:

S&A’s passive.
There are multiple elements to this. First off, as a passive effect, S&A have 20% damage reduction while their shield is active (even if Aurox isn’t present). More importantly, Aurox will separate from Shayne when they use their skills. While separated, only the Shayne model can take damage and Shayne’s movement speed is increased by 30% (for 2 seconds, starting from the moment they’re separated) but you cannot use any skills.

Unnamed Melee Attack:

S&A’s basic attack.
A pretty standard melee swipe: Shayne alternates between slashing with her boomerang (using it like a kukri in reverse grip, because it’s not like reality should get in the way of what looks cool) and punching with her bare fist. If Aurox isn’t separated, he shadow’s Shayne’s attacks, dealing the same damage with slightly better reach, doubling the number of attacks made. Aurox’s claw swipes are slightly off from Shayne’s, so they won’t hit the same spot.

Shayne’s Boomerang:

S&A’s alt-fire.
Shayne spends about half of a second opening her switchblade boomerang after which she will continuously throw boomerangs. They’re slow projectiles, and they’re heavy (so they fall), but, if they hit terrain, they’ll bounce and they’ll keep bouncing until they travel their max distance or hit something and deal damage to it. The damage per swing is *slightly* lower than Shayne’s melee attack. If Aurox isn’t present, the difference in DPS between their melee and ranged attack is negligible; if he is, however, the ranged attack will do a pittance compared to what would be dealt in melee.

Stealth Strike:

Skill 1.
Aurox vanishes into the air and Shayne goes invisible for up to 5 seconds. While you are capable of reviving downed opponents, building buildables, and capturing locations while stealthed, you cannot attack, though you can reappear earlier by pressing the activation button again. When the time is up or the effect is ended early, Aurox comes crashing down while Shayne does a rude gesture, dealing a bit of damage to and temporarily slowing any nearby enemies. Because Aurox vanishes when you use this, Shayne’s movement speed is improved in the seconds immediately after you use the skill so you can use this as a getaway or opening skill.

Fetch:

Skill 2.

Shayne sends Aurox forwards to grab a target and bring them to her. It also deals a little bit of damage. Aurox doesn’t move particularly quickly and the range is only middling so it takes some practice to be able to hit moving targets reliably. Aurox disappears as soon as you activate the skill but returns immediately if you hit something that can’t be grabbed (like the air, a buildable, or a giant shard); if you do hit something that can be grabbed, Aurox will pull them back to you. In general, it’s fast enough that you won’t notice him missing, unless you hit a target at extreme range.

Tag Team:

Ultimate.
Shayne sends Aurox to the designated location to deal a signficant amount of damage to anything nearby over 5 seconds. After that 5 seconds, Aurox explodes, knocking all nearby enemies into the air and returning to Shayne. Using this will occupy Aurox for the entire 5 second duration, such that Shayne will be running quicky for a short period and spend the entire time a tiny model but a mediocre melee attack. Before using it, remember that you cannot end it early and cannot use any of your skills while this is resolving: you won’t be able to stealth and gtfo if the situation goes bad.

Helices

Level 1: Aura of Annoyance v. Welcome Committee

Recommendation: Any
AoA allows you to deal damage while stealthed, and WC gives you an overshield whenever you grab someone. It’s a pretty obvious choice between more damage and more survivability.

Level 2: Wait for the Drop v. Surprise Party

Recommendation: (PvP) Any; (PvE) Surprise Party
In PvE, slows aren’t really that useful because NPCs are too dumb to try and escape and easy enough to hit without slowing; in PvP, slows can prevent an enemy player from escaping and make it extremely easy to hit highly mobile and annoying characters (like Mellka).
The choice between these two in PvP comes down to whether you think more attacks or an easier target would be better at guaranteeing kills.

Level 3: Boomerang Bounce v. The Power of Two v. Hulk Out with Your Djinn Out

Recommendation: Any
This is a choice between being better at range damage (bouncing towards an enemy makes it better for multiple targets though it *is* possible, on occasion, for the bounce to hit the original target, dealing additional damage), better at melee damage (conditional upon keeping your shield up), or harder to kill.
Considering how large S&A’s shield is by default, it takes quite a few hits to break it and quite a long time for the default shield charge to fill it back up. At level 5, there’s an option that makes both of these much more viable.
I play a very melee focused S&A so I never take BB, though, if you’re going as a ranged or fusion S&A, it’s an excellent choice.

Level 4: What’s Yours Is Mine v. We’ll Take Everything v. Holding It Down

Recommendation: We’ll Take Everything or Holding It Down
Personally, I always take HID because a 2 second stun is incredibly powerful and useful in both PvP and PvE. Aurox *is* separated from Shayne for the entire 2 second stun duration (since the stun is basically Aurox hugging the target for 2 seconds, stopping them from doing anything), so keep that in mind. However, if you prefer to keep the pulling functionality, WTE is better. The primarily value in WTE isn’t that it allows you to grab/pull multiple targets (which is nice) but rather that it allows you to grab targets hiding behind other enemies (or still grab your primary target if something runs in front of you).
There is a slight “penalty” associated with WTE: Aurox grabs on his return to Shayne rather than when leaving her. As such, if you are trying to grab a target that is close, you will sometimes miss as Aurox goes all the way out before heading back in.

Level 5: The Immortal Aegis v. Don’t Stop Running

Recommendation: Any
TIA allows you to start your shield recharging with any skill use, which has excellent synergy with both PoT and HOwYDO, at level 3. Keep in mind, your shield begins recharging as soon as the skill resolves (i.e. as soon as Aurox returns to you) so you’ll need to remember that timing.
DSR lets you move faster for longer (it doubles the duration of Fleet-footed, which activates every time Aurox separates from you).
Personally, I like the synergy and survivability afforded by TIA with the previous helices, but for more mobility minded people, DSR is the choice to go with.

Level 6: Sneaky ‘n Resilient v. Shield Smasher

Recommendation: Sneaky ‘n Resilient
In PvE, shields aren’t common enough to bother with any kind of shield penetration. Furthermore, Fetch is an extremely low damage attack so giving it shield penetration doesn’t really amount to anything, even PvP.
Conversely, SnR isn’t particularly powerful and really just serves to make Stealth Strike a more effective escape tool, but it’s important to remember the sheer amount of AoEs that you’ll see in PvE and how a stealthed/cloaked character still leaves behind a telltale shimmer, so perceptive players will still be able to hit you.

Level 7: Alone Time v. Boom Goes the Boomerang v. Bigger, Badder, Djinn

Recommendation: Boom Goes the Boomerang or Bigger Badder Djinn
For AT, it’s important to note that this only applies while you have 0 shield. As such, as soon as your shield starts recharging, you lose the regen. Since BBD is a flat 240 shield, unless you plan on spending at least 11.5 seconds without any shield between every full charge of your shield, AT just isn’t worth it.
BGtB is only for those who are already seeking a ranged centric build. BBD is for melee fighters and anyone seeking more survivability.

Level 8: Sustained Stealth v. Long Arm of the Lawless v. Djinn to the Face

Recommendation: Any
If you took Aura of Annoyance at level 1, Sustained Stealth is probably your best option here unless you’re noticing that you keep ending the skill early to explode (at which point I’m wondering why you took Aura of Annoyance). Conversely, if you’re using Stealth Strike as an escape tool more than an opening attack, Sustained Stealth is going to help you out much more than either of the others.
LAotL and DttF is a question of whether you want to hit more targets (or be able to hit other targets more easily) or if you want to hit them harder. If you’re not having issues hitting whoever you want to hit with Stealth Strike, go with DttF; if you are having issues, LAotL.

Level 9: Quite Fetching v. Got ‘Em v. Sic ‘Em, Aurox!

Recommendation: Quite Fetching or Got ‘Em
As I’ve said before, Fetch is not a skill you use for the damage. As such, improving the damage is a waste.
The choice between QF and GE is determined largely by how effective you are hitting at your target with it. If you need help hitting targets, GE is the way to go because, if you can’t hit a target, you’re not getting all of the various awesome effects to go along with it. If you are already hitting plenty of targets (and/or the target you intend to hit), QF means more Fetch, which is even better (especially if it’s stunning the enemy or giving you shield).

Level 10: Aurox Hungers v. Aurox Beckons

Recommendation: Aurox Beckons
AB will guaratee significantly more damage to a large number of enemies than AH will. The pull extends out a fair bit from the normal area of effect and, coupled with the slow, will guarantee that a large number of enemies take the full damage.
AH is primarily crippled by the need to wait until the effect ends before seeing any of the self healing. If you can survive the entire duration of Tag Team without getting the heal (especially since it’s not going to be as damaging of a Tag Team since you won’t have as many targets in it and they can escape without issue), you’d probably be better served with other mechanisms for staying alive.

Gear Stats

S&A are generalists built on a tank chassis: they’re extremely durable but can do a lot of different things. If you build for basic attacks, they can really rip their opponent’s apart; if you build for skills, you can take out minions and screw with enemy players very effectively; if you build for survival, it will take a lot to kill you. I’ll go over all stats here, based on how I personally categorize them, and provide a priority list for each category.

Offensive

(Attack Damage>Attack Speed>Cooldown=Skill Damage<Critical Damage>Shield Pen>Recoil=Reload):
Attack Damage is the most powerful contributor to S&A’s basic attacks. It’s better than Attack Speed (the second best) purely because it has higher values, and S&A don’t have any “per attack” benefits like other characters do.
Cooldown is normally pretty bad but it’s tied with Skill Damage because Stealth Strike and Fetch aren’t really valuable damage dealers though they are extremely useful for other (offensive) reasons.
Critical Damage is low value because S&A aren’t really accurate: their melee attack targets a number of different points and their ranged attack is large and unwieldy. Even a skilled player is going to have a hard time reliably scoring critical hits enough to make stacking it worthwhile.
Shield pen is utterly rubbish. It’s only useful in PvP because most enemies in PvE don’t have shields (and no bosses have them; Rendain’s shield doesn’t care about shield pen). Still, it actually does something unlike recoil and reload. Recoil and reload are only useful as penalties to take on gear since they do absolutely nothing to S&A.

Defensive

(Max Health=Damage Reduction<Max Shield<Health Regen<Cooldown<Healing Received<Shield Recharge=Shield Regen<CC duration):
By default, at level 10, S&A have 600 shield (worth at least 720 because of the 20% DR passive) and 2303 hp, which is 310 shy of the 3333 necessary for DR to be explicitly better than Max Health. However, S&A can get an extra 240 max shield as well as immediate shield recharge coupled with an extra 105 shield regen. If you take all of those helices, DR becomes explicitly better than Max Health. If you don’t, Max Health is best.
Max Shield is inferior to both max health and DR because the values are just so small (140 shield with S&A’s 20% DR equates to a mere 175 hp).
Health Regen is the only really reliable way for S&A to recover lost hp, so it’s extremely important.
Cooldown helps you survive by giving you more time cloaked (which means getting out of dangerous places as well as recharging your shield) as well as Fetch (assuming you took Immortal Aegis).
Healing Received is only useful if you have a party healer and, since S&A tend to run off to do their own thing, you can’t really plan on having one on you that often.
Shield Recharge and Regen are low priority because the values on gear just aren’t enough to make a dint compared to what they can manage with helices. If you want Shield Recharge and Regen, take the helices, not the gear.
CC duration is functionally worthless. CCs don’t last that long so the minute values of CC duration on gear basically mean nothing.

Control

(Cooldown):
If you want to make S&A a better controller, the only option is to grab Cooldown. They can be pretty effective at it with the right helix choices, but, if you don’t, it’s not really worth it, since Cooldown doesn’t speed things up as much as you might like.

Mobility

(Move speed=Cooldown>Sprint speed>CC duration):
Move speed is useful in combat and out of combat and is increased by sprint speed. Cooldown helps because you get Fleet-footed every time you use a skill so more skills = more speed. Sprint speed is only really useful outside of combat. CC duration reduces the duration of slows and stuns but is still absolutely terrible.

Economy

(Shards>Buildable):
Getting shards helps you buy gear as well as construct buildables. Buildable reduction makes them way cheaper, however. Something to consider is that I only find these stats remotely useful in PvP. PvE gives you shards like candy; unless you’ve got someone who bogarts all of the shards, every mission should provide a surplus of shards even if you have a triple legendary loadout (like I do for pretty much everyone). In PvP, however, these are absolutely amazing and can actually be the foundation of an effective strategy.

Legendaries

These are some specific legendaries to keep in mind for S&A.

Gloves (attack damage):

Pacifier (algorithm), Symbiotic Gauntlet (sentinel), Vow of Vengeance (renegade), Lorrian Godhand (rogue)
Pacifier makes it harder to break your shield and start dealing hp damage to you, on multiple fronts in fact because it’s reducing damage dealt and increasing your shield. Symbiotic Gauntlet syncs well with S&A’s massive shield (as well as potential for shield recharge/regen) and makes them harder to kill. VoV is just pure face melting because it increases attack speed and, as a melee, you’re going to be generating those increased damage stacks like crazy. Keep in mind, the VoV stacks *only last 3 seconds*; as such, if you’re playing a ranged S&A (or even a melee/ranged fusion S&A), you will not be benefiting from the legendary effect. If you’re going as a ranged S&A, use Pacifier or SG.
Lorrian Godhand is an interesting mobility driven option though it’s somewhat impeded by the fact that, as a melee character, you’re often going to be surrounded by enemies. It’ll make it better for closing with enemies (remember to sprint) but only marginal for getting the hell out of dodge.

Swords (attack speed):

Stolen Edge of Arcvynorr (sentinel)
SEoA is the current gold standard of attack speed legendaries: the stacks are permanent and relatively easy to acquire, and it provides an good stat in addition to the attack speed. It’s also dropped from the Sentinel mission, which has 4 of the best legendaries in the game in its loot table.
Vow of Zealous Fury used to be absolutely amazing but it was gutted in the Winter Update. Don’t use it.

Watches (cooldown):

Firmware Update 1.51c (algorithm), 5-Ringer Discount (rogue)
If you want to spam your skills to screw with your enemies, FU and 5-Ringer are both incredibly powerful. FU rewards you for spamming your skills as much as possible while 5-Ringer rewards you even more if you’re cuddled up close with a bunch of other Rogues. The secondary stats on both are mediocre, but the leg effects are absolutely amazing.

Goggles (critical damage):

Heliophagic Goggles (heliophage)
While you’re not going to be chaining crits for uber damage, S&A’s flurry of melee attacks means that you will sometimes get lucky. You get attack speed to go with the critical damage and the special effect is quite nice. In PvE, a blind is basically a stun and, in PvP, it’s extremely disorienting to players.

Pauldrons (damage reduction):

Blissbeast Skull Plate (void’s edge), Burning Sunset (rogue), “Alamo-7” Armor (algorithm), Peril-Sensitive Pauldrons (rogue)
Blissbeast Skull Plate provides damage reduction and a nice chunk of regeneration. Gotta love it. S&A has a *really* thick shield and decent amount of hp, so you’re not liable to get the legendary effect super often, but it’ll help recovering from big attacks. Burning Sunset makes it a lot harder to screw with you when you’re on a rampage because it allows you to ignore the damage from one skill every 30 seconds (only useful in PvP; this does nothing in PvE). The CC duration fits with the theme of ignoring opponent’s trying to screw with you. “Alamo-7” Armor should probably also be mentioned here because it’s a reasonable option to consider. A7A provides a useless secondary stat, but 2 seconds of immunity gives you all the time you need to Stealth Strike and flee before you die.
The primary stat for the PSP is extremely good for S&A, but the secondary and legendary effect stats are useful but not exactly optimal. If you’ve got an ally with a Demon Bear legendary, it’s even better. It’s not necessarily a first tier option, but it’s definitely something to consider.

Injectors (health regen):

Oath of the Sustained (renegade)
An excellent utility legendary that also helps out your team. You get health regen, increased damage, and a portion of all damage dealt (which can be quite a lot) is given to your allies as life.

Armor (max hp):

Vigilance Link (sentinel), Vampiric Vestment (jennerit), Pain-2-Gain Re-Knitter (upr), Squad Goals BDU (mike ops)
Vigilance Link gives you 2 excellent survivability stats and makes your team more durable as well. Excellent for team players and more support minded people. Vampiric vestments will give you hp, more hp when you kill things, and more attack damage so that it’s easier to kill things. Normally, I wouldn’t recommend VV for PvP, but S&A are pretty durable and, with Stealth Strike, hard to kill. Pain-2-Gain Re-Knitter has both of S&A’s best survivability stats, though, as a character with little damage recovery and a ♥♥♥♥♥on of shield, it’s hard to take enough hits to your hp to make P2G really worth it. If you’re running ops, SG BDU is better because it provides more hp than P2G with the exact same DR contributions: if you’ve got at least 56 ops points, SG BDU is better than P2G can possibly be.
Premium Health Plan bears mentioning here because S&A have the largest shield in the game, which makes it seem pretty inviting. Don’t bother with it. They don’t have the recovery tools to get back from taking hp damage and the amount of shield recharge on this is a pittance compared to what you can get through your helices. As I said before, if you want shield regen, get it from the helix.

Batteries (max shield):

Modernista (saboteur), Executive Insurance Policy (llc), SKNK-WRK Decoherence Refractor (montana ops)
Modernista is a good anti-ranged shield with a good secondary stat. An excellent way to discourage snipers in PvP since you can avoid the first crit and hurt them in the process. EIP is only really legit in PvP where you need the extra shards, but, if you build around S&A recharging their shields (with the helix choices), you can have an overshield extremely often. If you’re doing ops, SKNK is the single best survivability item you can bring since provides the most DR possible on any single item (19.2%) if you’re running for 100 ops points: 19.2% DR is a 23% increase in TTK, which means that it’ll provide more survivability than anything else, including SG BDU.

Boots (move speed):

Boots of the Brute (saboteur)
I wouldn’t use them for PvE since you don’t need to slow enemies, but they’re useful in PvP since they let you keep up with enemy players exceptionally well.

Generators (shield regen):

“Smack Attack” Slinger (lore)
The only generator I would bother with but only for a true melee/ranged fusion build. The primary stat is meh (marginally better if you elect out of certain helices but into others), and the secondary stat is excellent (though held back by the fact that, as a lore legendary, it’s going to have junk-y stats compared to a max roll of any other). The legendary effect isn’t as awesome as you would hope since it only refers to the last melee strike that hit: even if you’ve dealt 10k melee damage with 200 damage claw swipes, you’ll only get 40 additional damage on your next boomerang attack (and only on that next one, which is really crappy).

Pins (skill damage):

Bola’s Target Finder (experiment)
The gold standard of skill damage legendaries. Attack speed (amazing) in addition to skill damage and a bonus effect that makes enemies take more damage after being damaged by your skills (absolutely incredible with Stealth Strike and Fetch). This is the only skill damage item I would dream of using on S&A since it gives a useful secondary and allows skills to augment their more important attack damage.

Non-Legendary Gear

Since legendaries generally require extensive PvE to acquire (even the loot pack legendaries are easier to get via PvE due to the ease at acquiring commander packs via the ops), most PvP players won’t have ready access to many of them. Of course, because they require so many shards to activate, many PvPers don’t bother using them in the first place (they’d rather activate cheaper gear and use spare shards on buildables). It should also be mentioned than many newbies won’t have ready access to a full spread of gear either so this provides them some stuff to look out for.

Keep in mind that all of these items can be acquired from Core loot packs; each item also has a relevant faction listed; if you’re looking for a specific item, your best bet is to open faction or commander packs of that type so that the loot table is smaller.

This list will not be comprehensive. I’m only mentioning those items that I feel are most relevant/important. I’ll also be labeling them based upon faction, rarity, and if you want the version with a penalty if possible (items with penalties are cheaper to activate; in general, only use gear with a penalty that doesn’t affect your character since it’s basically a free cost reduction).

Gloves (attack damage):

LLC (epic), Eldrid (all)
First and foremost, the Eldrid gloves are all awesome because max hp is absolutely amazing and the conditional effect on the rare and uncommon versions are extremely easy to activate. S&A do have a shield so you don’t want to reduce it with the penalized versions.
The LLC epic glove is good because it provides some more shield. The other gloves aren’t worth it because of bad conditional requirements.

Swords (attack speed):

LLC (epic), Eldrid (all)
The exact same stuff here as with the gloves, with a different primary stat. Same rules apply, though the gloves still tend to be better because S&A prefer attack damage more than attack speed.

Wrenches (buildable cost):

Jennerit (common, penalized)
Excellent for PvP building loadouts, this is the only free wrench that doesn’t penalize S&A at all. The higher rarity wrenches tend to not be worth it because you’re spending shards to save the same amount on later purchases.

Watches (cooldown):

Rogue (common or rare, penalized), Jennerit (common, rare, or epic, penalized)
S&A don’t have any heals so the penalized Rogue versions don’t punish them in the least. The Jennerit versions penalize them *slightly* by making Shayne’s boomerangs less accurate due to the recoil penalty. The conditional on the Jennerit rare is easier to activate, and the secondary stat on the Jennerit epic are generally more useful, so keep those in mind.

Pauldrons (damage reduction):

Rogue (rare)
12.4% DR after activating a skill is extremely good, given how much S&A like DR and how they tends to use their skills (especially if you use Fetch as a pull instead of a stun). Don’t go for the penalized version because that’s -hp, which is bad: you end up losing almost as much TTK as you gain.

Injectors (health regen):

Eldrid (rare), LLC (rare), Jennerit (epic)
The only other way S&A have of recovering their hp so a regeneration item of some kind is virtually a necessity. The conditional on the Eldrid one is extremely easy to activate (just don’t die) and stays up for as long as you might need after it’s been activated. The LLC variant will give you regen when you’re getting beat upon (when your shield is down), but it won’t really heal you as much outside of combat so which is better depends upon how often you figure you’ll die. The Jennerit epic version is excellent because it also provides you with a bit of attack damage (cramming in more regen is less important since S&A have great shield helices); the uncommon version isn’t worth it because the kill proc is too unreliable imo.

Armor (max hp):

Eldrid (rare), LLC (rare)
The LLC rare is one of the best max hp items in the game for PvP. As soon as your shield breaks, your max hp and current hp both increase by 210. As soon as you have a shield again, your max hp and current hp are both reduced by 210 (though no less than 1). It’s extremely good. The Eldrid variant is basically a bridge gap until you can get the LLC one.

Battery (max shield):

Jennerit (common, penalized)
Excellent for cheap PvP loadouts, the common Jennerit battery is the only free battery that doesn’t penalize S&A at all. The other batteries tend not to be worth it because of bad conditionals. The epic LLC battery might seem like a viable option, but, compared to the free Jennerit battery, you’re having to delay activation and then spend 1040 shards in order to gain 1.4 shards/sec; that’s time at the beginning without advantage and ~12 minutes after buying before you break even on the cost. The short duration of PvP matches (and even more PvE games) means that you’re screwing yourself over that way.

Boots (movement speed):

Rogue (common/epic, penalized), Jennerit (common/rare/epic, penalized)
While you don’t really need the mobility in PvE, S&A can very much so use this in PvP. The penalties on both of these categories don’t affect them at all and the conditionals on the rare Jennerit version is actually quite easy for S&A to maintain.

Shard Gen (free shards):

Jennerit (common, penalized), Rogue (common, penalized)
Virtually required for most PvP loadouts, these free shard gens don’t penalize S&A at all. The higher rarity shard gens tend to not be worth it because you’re having to wait to activate it before starting to generate shards, effectively doubling the cost.

Loadouts

General PvE:

Stolen Edge of Arcvynorr, Vow of Vengeance, Blissbeast Skull Plate
A lot of damage and attack speed with a bit of DR and regen from Blissbeast.

Pure Damage PvE:

Stolen Edge of Arcvynorr, Vow of Vengeance, Bola’s Target Finder
Also known as the “I’ll kill you before you break my shield” build, you’re going for pure damage and attack speed. It’s risky, but the payoff is worth it if you can avoid taking health damage too often (generally by using Stealth Strike to escape).

Pure Ranged PvE:

Symbiotic Gauntlet, Stolen Edge of Arcvynorr, Oath of the Sustained
SG instead of VoV because you don’t plan on doing melee attacks. OotS will keep you topped off and adds to your attack damage (and also heals your allies). SEoA is just too awesome to not take (just make sure to get your 5 crits in, even if you have to melee a few times at the beginning).

Melee/Ranged Fusion PvE:

“Smack Attack” Slinger, Stolen Edge of Arcvynorr, Symbiotic Gauntlet
Since you plan on mixing it up a bit more, SAS is more viable, though it still doesn’t add too much. It’ll help taking out runners or getting a decent opening attack with the Boomerang, but I wouldn’t focus too heavily on it. Honestly, you’ll probably get better results out of the Pure Ranged build unless you’ve got a healer on your team.

Pure Tank PvE:

Blissbeast Skull Plate, Pain-2-Gain Re-Knitter, Modernista
Tons of DR and hp with a bit of regen. The Modernista could feasibly be replaced by an Executive Insurance Policy, but the cooldown is going to be more useful in PvE than the additional shards will (unless you run with people that don’t know how to share). If you’re doing ops, use the SG BDU instead of P2G and SKNK instead of Modernista.

Mike Ops / Pure Damage PvP:

Erratic Shard Extractor (-reload), Stolen Edge of Arcvynorr, Vow of Vengeance
A shard generator ensures that you can afford the other 2 legendaries. While BotB is necessary for most other melee PvP builds, Shane can slow with Stealth Strike and bring targets back with Fetch so it’s not as necessary. SEoA + VoV are going to give you the most bang possible (and, if you need to catch runners, remember that the stacks for VoV last 3 seconds, so you can still tag them with your boomerang fully buffed); if you have problems getting to/sticking to your enemies, trade either of them for BotB.

Fast Leveling PvP:

Erratic Shard Extractor (-reload), Erratic Tempestian Cred-Stick (-reload), Stolen Edge of Arcvynorr
Build as much as possible to get easy xp and level up as quickly as possible. Make sure you stick around the fights as well so that you’re not sacrificing minion xp for build xp. SEoA is there for when you hit level 10 and don’t need to build for xp any more. BotB and VoV are also options for the legendary (BotB if you’re having problems keeping up; VoV if are having no problems as pure melee and want to absolutely maximize your damage with a single leg), though SEoA is the most generally useful (since it makes you better at both ranged and melee).

Cheap and Functional PvP:

Trickster’s “Painkiller”, Stout Ekkuni Wristguard, Stout Aelfrin Warblade
Since there aren’t any legendary items, you don’t really need a free shard gen (though you could replace either the glove or the pin if you really wanted). The Eldrid uncommon glove and sword can be replaced by the epic versions if you’re worried about dying, but it will increase the price a fair deal (it currently costs 2352; going from uncommon to epic would cost 336 each). Another option, if you want to go for an earlier advantage and cheaper loadout, the Erratic Internal Capacitor could replace any of them.

Written by
Awesome By Analysis

Let Me Know What You Think

0 0

Leave a Reply

Lost Password

Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.

Thank You Badass !
Follow me on social media so we can talk
Send this to a friend