Ranking the Best Skill Builds in SGL

As many of you already know, I am pretty obsessed with skill builds, and since I've been playing around on a new account to really test out different setups to refine my previous suggestions of what really works in the game, I thought it was time for a refresh on the topic. If you find yourself a little lost at any point with my references to specific skills, I refer you to an article I wrote that discusses every skill in the game in much greater detail than I do here. This time around, I made a list of every possible skill build in the game that uses all 20 skill points, and there are a staggering 147 of them. For the sake of giving this article some longevity, I thought I'd introduce myself to any new readers out there since I'll be making a lot of decisions in this article about what the best builds are (mostly from a math perspective) and I want to make sure that I put my credentials out there so that no one dismisses this as just the ramblings of a math obsessed number crunching old fool that doesn't even play the game or really isn't even that good.

Since starting to play SGL in August of 2018, I have created and leveled six different accounts to level 27. My current fame total across all six characters is 23,247,847 accumulated across 244 days, 22 hours, and 41 minutes of play time. I've played a total of 13,043 PvP matches, winning 10,182 of them (78.1% win rate). I've accumulated 51,662 total PvP kills and 16,971 deaths for a KDR of 3.04. I've also accumulated most of my PvP fame from playing duels, and have reached as high as #21 on the all time duel leaderboard, though currently I believe I am more in the 26-27 slot. From a PvE perspective, I've run 4,396 instances of dungeons and arenas (720 Brothers of Fire, 219 Arena Bronze, 945 Voltaic Fist, 306 Blade Dancer, 1,200 Arena Silver, 679 Hive Mind, and 327 Arena Gold). I've participated in multiple tournaments, and my wins include duo speedruns of Voltaic Fist and Blade Dancer and a pistol duel tournament one of my guilds organized. I also recently set official records of 7:37 in Arena Silver, 3:26 in Brothers of Fire, 5:17 in Blade Dancer, and 5:38 in Arena Bronze. Also, while they are not #1 records, my best times in Hive Mind and Arena Gold are 8:12 and 9:43, respectively. I do not throw out any of these stats to boast; rather, I simply want anyone to know that I speak from a place of experience and success on implementing strategies based on mathematical analysis that I do on the game. That doesn't mean that I blindly follow the math because sometimes it can be misleading. At the end of the day, in-game experience trumps theoretical math.

With that out of the way, I've laid out a few rules for what constitutes an acceptable build (based on my experience and analysis) so that we can whittle down the list of 147 builds to something more manageable that people can pick from.

Rule #1: Passive Skills are more valuable than Active Skills.

Rule #2: Any build that has either a total of 3 points (Increased Selling Price) or 9 points (Increased Pickup Radius) in Survival is either wasting a point that could be better spent elsewhere or is missing further investment for a more optimized setup.

Rule #3: Any build that has either a total of 1 or 2 points in Combat is wasting points that could be better spent elsewhere.

Rule #4: Any build that has fewer than 5 points in Agility is far too slow to be both effective and enjoyable to play.

Rule #5: An effective PvP build should have a minimum of 9 points in Agility and 2 points in Survival.

Before I discuss how I've arrived at these rules, I wanted to briefly discuss the purposes of each tree. The Agility tree is focused on mobility and speed as well as increasing the amount of critical damage you can do. The active skills in this tree are also focused on burst damage where you do significantly increased damage in a short period of time. The Combat tree is focused on increasing the accuracy of your weapons as well as offering you powerful passive skills to boost your weapon damage at all times. The active skills in the Combat tree center around crowd control abilities. The Survival tree is focused on increasing the amount of health your character has as well as giving you passive skills to mitigate damage received. The active skills in the Survival tree serve to keep you alive or more well protected in the stickiest of situations. As if you hadn't guessed already, the strongest builds in the game will have some blend of Agility and Combat while spending little or no points in the Survival tree. That being said, there are still plenty of good reasons for investing in the Survival tree as long as it is balanced with adequate damage skills from the other two trees.

Now, as for Rule #1, this should be pretty obvious, but passive skills are so much more valuable because they impact every second of gameplay without your having to do anything whereas active skills can only be used when they are off cooldown. Active Skill choices are important, but it's your passive skills that most significantly impact the damage that you can do with your weapons, which constitutes the majority of the damage you will deal. Rule #2 should also be pretty obvious because the skills at 3 points and 9 points in the Survival tree do not impact the amount of damage you do or serve to mitigate the amount of damage you take (apart from the meager 1 HP that you gain from spending that point in Survival). For Rule #3, any seasoned player knows that Shockwave Pulse is a borderline useless skill and while MFG did recently fix the Ammo Up skill so that it increases the total amount of ammo you can carry with your secondary weapon by 17%, that's a rather nominal increase that doesn't provide a whole lot of value, especially in PvP where you are never going to pick up enough ammo drops to max out your secondary ammo capacity anyway. Given these points, I've concluded that spending only 1 or 2 points in the Combat tree is an utter waste of skill points. For Rule #4, I personally never dip below 6 points in Agility because I think that the Sneak Attack skill (20% extra damage to the back) is an invaluable skill, particularly in Arenas where spawn camping leads to much faster clear times. That being said, most of the community will agree that 5 points is the absolute minimum that should be spent in the Agility tree. Speed makes a huge impact to gameplay, both from a fun factor and an effectiveness standpoint, and the first 5 points in Agility have all but one of the skills that impact your movement speed. Supercharger is a skill that I always use in PvE (and almost always in PvP), and you also pick up increased movement speed, increased reload speed, and the ability to reload while sprinting by investing 5 points in the Agility tree. If you want to challenge this rule, go try a build that doesn't follow this rule and see just how annoying it is to play. Finally, I'll refer you to another article where I walk through how I've arrived at Rule #5 for PvP (as well as an excellent video created by one of, if not THE best PvP players in SGL that walks through viable PvP builds). The long and short of it is that for PvP, you need a build that focuses on Speed and Primary Weapon damage while incorporating as much defensive capability as possible without sacrificing too much damage. The high combat builds are great for PvE where you can find plenty of secondary ammo, but ammo for secondaries is very limited in PvP, and furthermore, even with the best possible perks on weapons and armor possible, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to use a high damage sniper rifle like Meltdown, Black Ice, or True Patriot to kill a target in PvP with a single bodyshot. You might be able to grab a few here and there, but it will only be on inexperienced players who aren't buffed or don't have good chest pieces, so if you want to roll with this build in PvP for fun, be my guest, but don't expect to be completely OP with it.

As if I haven't rambled on long enough already, I will get to the point and list out my new comprehensive list of the best skill builds in the game. I have used all the builds in the S Tier (unless otherwise specified) for a decent amount of time in order to really confirm the strengths of these builds beyond the mathematical analysis I've done on the side. I have posted a decision tree to help players decide on an S Tier build easily, and it can be found in the #knowledge-bank channel of the SGL Global Discord. As for the descriptions of each tier designation I used, first is the S+ Tier, which incorporates the absolute best skill builds in the game. There is only one that some might argue whether it should be classified as S+, but as for the rest, it should really not be a point of contention because I have absolute mathematical proof that they put out the most damage even if they might be harder to use than some other builds. I am of the strong opinion that the five builds that made the S+ list give the best picture of the distinct play styles that are possible in the game, though some may like variants of these builds that sit in other tiers better. Next is the S Tier, which contains many fantastic builds that are slight variations of the builds in the S+ tier to either optimize them for a specific purpose in PvP or add a small measure of survivability to make PvE a more consistent experience. After the S Tier, I will lay out the A Tier, which are builds that are perfectly acceptable to use, but they are just not optimized to the level where I would recommend these builds on their own. For every A Tier build, there is an S Tier build that basically does the same thing but does it slightly better. Finally, I will lay out the N Tier, which lists very niche builds that should only be used for a very specific purpose. Pretty much what the N Tier represents is a list of builds to use for ribbon/medal farming or just having a bit of fun when you're bored. Without further ado, here are the builds.

S+ Tier:

PvE Builds:

8A-12C-0S: This is the speedrunner's build for dungeons and the sniper's build for arenas. Because dungeons are very scripted affairs where you can avoid damage from enemies quite easily when you know exactly where to position yourself, maximizing damage with secondaries (particularly when tapping into that 15% iron sight damage boost) is key to clearing dungeons as quickly as possible. I don't recommend any build with 0 Survival until you have at least 39 HP on your chest and all your gear is 270 power because you will find it far too squishy, but with a great chest piece, it's easily manageable, even in Hive Mind. The other nice thing about 12 point Combat builds is that with the right perks and buffs, you can push the damage on four pistols above 440 with an iron sight bodyshot, which is enough damage to kill dreads, spiders, and thorns in a single shot. This makes for a lot of fun and it also makes you very efficient at clearing trash mobs. These pistols are the AT Kub II, Kestrei SJ-87, Black Dragon, and Legends Pistol. As a side note, because it is much easier to use iron sight with a controller, this is a fantastic build for controller users. One thing I will note is that after running a 9:43 Gold Arena with this build and a fantastic squad, I've come to love using this build pretty much everywhere in PvE because you can always expect your damage output to be at its maximum. Fight for Your Life is very powerful, but you are taking a bit of a gamble by sacrificing 15% iron sight damage for the chance at doing 15% more damage on top of that when your health is low. Also, because of the power this build gives my Black Dragon, I've all but abandoned using 9A-11C-0S except when I'm chasing those super high damage numbers.

9A-11C-0S: This is the speedrunner's build for arenas. While arenas are also fairly scripted at least from the standpoint of where enemies spawn in each round, in Arena Silver and Arena Gold, there are so many explosions going on from killing decimators or getting shot by voidcallers that you can make frequent use of my favorite passive skill in the game, Fight for your Life, which boosts your damage by 30% when below 60% HP in PvE and 30% HP in PvP. When Fight for your Life is active, you can achieve the largest hits in the game with a secondary weapon with this build. I've done the math and it is theoretically possible to push your Meltdown sniper damage to almost 20,000 on Blade Dancer given the right perks and armor. Also, because I am a two thumbs touch user, I don't like to aim down sight very much, so this build is probably my favorite for PvE even though I always use 8A-12C-0S for any dungeon speedruns. Gotta give a shoutout to Daski Sky from Facebook who initially brought this build to my attention.

13A-0C-7S: From a math perspective, this build will not put out the same amount of damage, particularly with secondary weapons or pistols, that the previous two builds will, but the reason why this build slides into the S+ Tier is from a usefulness and consistency perspective. AM Bomb, even with the nerf that was put in place months ago, is an invaluable skill to speedrunning dungeons (particularly Brothers of Fire and Voltaic Fist), and in designing my teams to do speedruns, I almost always want at least one person to use this 13A-0C-7S build. It has plenty of great damage skills (Supercharger, Grenades, Fight for Your Life, 15% Critical Damage Boost) in addition to AM Bomb, so your crit damage is actually not shabby at all, especially when it comes to using your primary weapon. This build also has very high survivability because it contains all of the most valuable survival skills for playing PvE (Survival Kit, 15 HP, Melee Resistance, and Explosion Resistance). As if that wasn't enough, you also have 5% extra loot chance to help you with farming good gear. Whenever a newer player is asking for what build to use, this is always the first one that I recommend. Once you've reached 270 power and have great weapons and armor, then it gets a little boring for me to play because the secondary weapon power is so much lower than the first two builds, but I can't say enough on how perfectly balanced and easy to use this build is for PvE.

PvP Builds:

12A-0C-8S: Ask any seasoned PvP player on what the best build is for PvP, and I will put money on them telling you that this build is the best. Even though many people have been going back to using 9A-3C-8S to give up the extra crit damage for higher accuracy, the math does support 12A-0C-8S being the best possible build for PvP. It has the best blend of maximizing speed and primary weapon damage with defensive capabilities since the most important defensive skills for PvP are 15 HP, Deflector Skin, and 5% Projectile Resistance. It can be a difficult build to get used to because it doesn't have any extra accuracy boost, which certainly does benefit Faraday and Tesla users, but when you have trained your aim to not require the assistance of the Marksman skill, you will absolutely overpower other players when landing headshots consistently. As if that already weren't enough, the damage output of this build is virtually identical to 13A-0C-7S when it comes to PvE, so if you like to play PvP a lot but still occasionally want to play PvE, this is a great build to use.

Hybrid Builds:

10A-8C-2S: From the time I initially wrote this article until now, this build has moved from the A Tier all the way to the S+ Tier for a few reasons that I'll highlight. Originally, I had 9A-9C-2S as my top hybrid build in the game, but after taking the time to actually play 10A-8C-2S, I can tell you that it is superior. This build is technically a variant of 12A-8C-0S (see discussion in S Tier) that trades 17% crit damage and 5% loot chance for Survival Kit and 17 HP. The best way I can describe this build type is that it feels like a Rogue from World of Warcraft. You have two very strong crowd control active skills that make this build a doozie to face off against in duels. With the 9A-9C-2S build, you only have one of those crowd control abilities (Stunner), and you don't have Blink at your disposal as a gap closer move either. Because of that fact, playing PvP with 9A-9C-2S still works a lot like 9A-3C-8S when it comes to primary on primary and secondary on secondary action, and if you're facing an evenly matched opponent, the defense disadvantages of 9A-9C-2S will be very glaring. Blink just completes the arsenal that this type of player needs to make that sacrifice in defense worth it. Many people will likely give me some flak for recommending Blink for PvP, but I've given up buying into the unwritten rules that have governed PvP since the inception of this game. There are still times that I get absolutely stomped by someone who is just using their primary very effectively that shows that you can get good enough at this game to counter anything. Also, Kira's Basilisk boots are in the game for a reason, and Silver Arena can be really fun! From an offensive perspective, I took a different approach to using Blink after facing quite a few opponents with Kira's Basilisk boots. Instead of trying to use it to get the knockdown effect, I would use it as either a way to escape an exchange that I was losing or more easily pursue and finish a kill where I was winning the exchange. It was quite satisfying to chase people down very easily and finish them off quickly with some pistol backshots for just showing off with pure style. As for how this build behaves in PvE, it is so very similar to 12A-8C-0S that I am very happy to run with it all the time. Because of the lower crit, you need to have better gear to make your snipers work the same, but since I've farmed really great gear, my Lacroix and Black Dragon can kill most everything in the same amount of time, so that extra survivability is very, very nice. I know that having 20% extra primary magazine is better in PvE than Blink, but since this is a hybrid build, I just have decisively concluded that 10A-8C-2S is better for playing both modes because Blink is such a powerful tool to have at your disposal.

S Tier:

PvE Builds:

6A-12C-2S: This is a very popular variant of the 8A-12C-0S build that trades in 2% crit damage, 10% sprint speed, and Frag Grenades in exchange for 17 HP and Survival Kit. While I've used this build a lot, I really do miss the sprint speed and Frag Grenades because you basically have two active skill setups with this build: Supercharger and Survival Kit or Supercharger and Stunner. That being said, it is much easier to survive a lot of damage with this build, and the damage output with weapons is virtually the same as 8A-12C-0S. If you don't have a high HP chest, this build can still offer the experience of using 8A-12C-0S without feeling so squishy.

7A-12C-1S: This is another variant of the 8A-12C-0S build that trades 1% crit damage and 10% sprint speed in exchange for 1 HP and Survival Kit. Because Survival Kit can be put to great use in Arenas, especially to take out the Decimators when they spawn in Round 3 of Arena Silver, I've been having a lot of fun trying this build out. The 10% sprint speed is certainly noticeable when you don't have it, but this build still maintains the high iron sight damage and has frag grenades to use, so the damage output is virtually the same as 8A-12C-0S and it's quite a bit more fun than 6A-12C-2S. This should only be used with very high HP chests.

7A-11C-2S: This is a variant of 9A-11C-0S that trades in 2% crit damage, fight for your life, and 10% sprint speed in exchange for 17 HP and Survival Kit. While I don't really care for this build on paper because Fight for your Life is one of the key characteristics that defines how 9A-11C-0S works so well, it actually is a very fun build to run because it fixes the active skill problems that 6A-12C-2S has and maintains a decent level of survivability. Once you obtain a very high HP chest though, 7A-12C-1S is preferable to this build. I did consider the 1 point Survival build variant of 9A-11C-0S for inclusion in this tier, but 8A-11C-1S is inferior to both 7A-12C-1S and 7A-11C-2S because it still doesn't have fight for your life to do extra damage, so going for either a significant amount more HP or 15% iron sight damage is a pretty easy choice over just grabbing the 10% sprint speed.

12A-8C-0S: Originally, I had planned to include this build in the S+ Tier because on paper, this build puts out the highest average critical damage across all weapon types because of the combination of Fight for Your Life, the 15% Critical Damage skill, and the 25% Elite Damage skill. However, after spending time running this build, it's just too specific of a play style that I doubt everyone will want to put up with. This build takes a while to learn what it's about, but after a while, I did figure it out in a big way. The entire point of this build is to turn pistols into primary weapons and then unleash hell on the torment with your secondary weapon once Fight for Your Life kicks in. When you bring Black Dragon, Peregrine, or Ostrich with you, you will see how punishing this build can be. Because it's a pistol, it just doesn't really pull aggro in the same way that other weapons do from what I've found, so you can just run around from point to point blasting enemies apart. Black Dragon is by far my favorite, but it's oh so much fun to use Ostrich or Peregrine as a change of pace since the Black Dragon can feel a bit like swinging a huge sledgehammer from side to side over and over again. Whenever Fight for Your Life kicks in, you should switch to your secondary and unleash a huge wall of pain. It's when Fight for Your Life is active that the 12A-8C-0S build starts to fall more in line with the high combat builds as far as secondary damage is concerned, so it's definitely a much different play style that isn't very intuitive. That being said, it's a whole lot of fun when you play it how it's supposed to be played. It is more suited to Arenas where fight for your life can be utilized a whole lot more, so if you're taking this to dungeons, you'll be a bit disappointed, especially in Hive Mind. I really suggest taking an Auto Rifle with this build because there may be times where the enemies are packed too tightly together to use Fight for Your Life safely, in which case you'll want to pick off a few from a farther distance before running in to blast stuff apart with your pistol. When you think about it, your pistol kind of becomes this shotgun/close range sniper type of weapon, your auto rifle keeps its strengths when used for picking things off from a distance, and then you can either go with the flamethrower option of using an MG or being this vindictive warlock that fires huge ass sniper shots when running away at low health. This build can be frustrating if you try to use it like an 11 or 12 point combat build; you have to use this build like a freaking motorcycle driving, cigar smoking, Evel Knievel type of masochist. Learn to make Fight for Your Life your friend, and then you will understand the way of the ninja that is this build. Another word to the wise is that I suggest you use reliable hard-hitting secondaries like Lacroix, Black Ice, and Heretic because it will make the build not so frustrating to use when Fight for Your Life is not triggered. 10A-8C-2S and 9A-9C-2S are variants of this build, but this is the one case where the variant of the high damage build actually winds up being a bit more well rounded than the high damage build itself. After playing 12A-8C-0S for a long time, I can safely tell you that trading in 2 agility points for some extra defense doesn't change the performance or feel of the build nearly as much as 6A-12C-2S does for the 8A-12C-0S build or that 7A-11C-2S does for the 9A-11C-0S build.

PvP Builds:

9A-3C-8S: This is a variant of the 12A-0C-8S build that trades Blink, 18% critical damage, and 5% loot chance for 18% accuracy (and the meaningless Shockwave Pulse and expanded ammo capacity for primaries of the Ammo Up skill). This build was the meta build for PvP for a long time before the skill tree was revamped, and it's been making a comeback recently. The accuracy boost is definitely noticeable even though you do lose the benefit of higher critical damage, which is the key difference maker in competitive PvP. This build is the first one that I recommend to players who are just learning PvP in this game, though. Unfortunately, its relatively low damage output in PvE makes it pretty boring to use there.

9A-7C-4S: This is a variant of the 10A-8C-2S build that gives up 1% critical damage and 25% elite damage for 2 HP and Deflector Skin. I have had so, so, so much fun using this build in PvP with my Black Dragon pistol. I've gotten up to 100 damage on my backshots, and normally get 66 damage with each headshot against even the toughest of opponents. Using the combo of Stunner and Deflector is amazing in Duels, and I've beaten more than just newbies with my pistol using this build setup. The problem with this build is that it's nowhere near as good as 10A-8C-2S when it comes to PvE because of missing the Elite Damage, and without even the 20% primary magazine capacity that 9A-9C-2S possesses, the build just becomes less of an attractive choice for serious PvP usage. I do want to give RAMMER a shout out for bringing this build to my attention and to GOLDEN_THUNDER for practicing with me as I prepared for a pistol tournament I eventually won using this build that I would never have tried if it weren't for his help.

Hybrid Builds:

13A-3C-4S: This is a variant of 13A-0C-7S that is geared more towards PvP usage since melee resistance and explosion resistance aren't all that impactful in PvP, so the extra 18% accuracy that you pick up with this build for trading in 3 HP and the previously mentioned resistances is a great tradeoff for players who already have great chest pieces. It still retains Deflector Skin, which is an invaluable skill in PvP. Even though this build only offers marginally higher survivability compared to 9A-9C-2S, it has the best crit damage of any PvP build and a great boost to accuracy as well. Furthermore, its damage output is the same as 13A-0C-7S when it comes to PvE, so it's quite a good transition build for those players that have good gear but still want to play PvE with AM Bomb as well as be competitive in PvP. Also, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have only a small amount of experience playing PvP with this build, and I think that its true purpose is really headshot training. Because critical damage is the biggest strength with this build and the defense is low, you are punished if you don't land your headshots but significantly rewarded if you do. I can't say that I'm a big fan of serious usage of this build because of the fact that it feels every bit as squishy as 10A-8C-2S, but you have virtually none of the offensive capabilities as a reward for making a defensive sacrifice.

9A-9C-2S: After playing with the 10A-8C-2S build for a significant amount of time, I demoted this lovely build from the S+ Tier. When it comes to PvE, you have many of the same key skills that impact damage as 10A-8C-2S (Supercharger, Fight for your Life, 50% Pistol Damage, 25% Elite Damage), plus you have access to the Stunner skill, 20% extra magazine capacity for your primary weapon (which is very beneficial for those high DPS weapons like Faraday, Tesla, and Furious Fungus), and a total of 24% extra accuracy on all your weapons. On top of that you grab Survival Kit and 17 extra HP, so there's a decent boost to your defensive capabilities as well. In PvP, it is more heavily suited to flanking and strategic playstyles rather than the Rambo-esque charge on the frontline style of the 12A-0C-8S build. Since I play mostly duels, I can tell you that this build has helped me defeat far better players than me more than once. Overall, I did conclude that since most players will be used to the magazine sizes of their primary weapon of choice that exist without the 20% extra capacity skill, having a strong skill like Blink in their arsenal was a better reward for trading off all of that defense that a PvP build with 8 points in Surivival offers.

A Tier:

PvE Builds:

8A-11C-1S: I had initially left this build off of the list because I think that 7A-11C-2S and 7A-12C-1S are considerably better builds (see above); however, any build with lord of war is actually pretty good in PvE, so I figured that I'd include this one anyway. It's a variant of 9A-11C-0S that trades 1% critical damage and fight for your life for 1 HP and Survival Kit. While sprint speed is a big deal for PvP, it's not absolutely necessary for PvE (even though it is very noticeable). In reality, any build that has Lord of War and Elite Damage is a pretty decent build, so I had to include this build somehow even though I personally won't use it (much like all the other builds in the A list).

6A-8C-6S: I lovingly call this build the Goldilocks build because it's as close as you can get to spending an even amount of points in all the trees. It ends up playing a lot like 6A-12C-2S but without the significantly higher damage for your secondary weapon. I mean I understand going for 6 points in Survival because it really helps you not die through a whole lot of enemy fire, but when you have to give up 15% iron sight damage, 25% secondary damage, and 20% primary magazine capacity just to have 4 more HP, melee resistance, and explosion resistance, then I really want to look elsewhere (like 13A-0C-7S). On top of all of those tradeoffs, you still have a build that has a serious problem when it comes to having a variety of good active skills to use as well as slower movement speed without the 10% sprint speed boost at 8 points in Agility. I'm not trying to say that this build is terrible because it's not; however, it's just not something that will ever really be fun to use. Like Ron Swanson famously said, "Never Half-Ass two things; Whole-Ass one thing." This is to say, if you like the high survivability that spending 6 points in Survival offers you, then just go for 13A-0C-7S if you're only going to play PvE or go for 12A-0C-8S if you're going to play both PvE and PvP. As an update, I have found one very good use for this build, and that is for running PvE content naked with a pistol. I was ribbon farming with 8A-6C-6S and decided to give this build a try so that I could get higher damage on elites even though I had to sacrifice sprint speed (frag grenade sacrifice wasn't an issue because that would invalidate the run for the ribbons that I was farming). I can't really decide whether I preferred the sprint speed or the elite damage, but at least I did find that this build is useful for at least one thing.

PvP Builds:

9A-0C-11S: If it's not already apparent, then I'll lay it out plainly. Every point you invest in the Survival tree means that you've sacrificed having higher damage from other skills in the skill tree. You always want your investment in the Survival tree to be very measured and have a very specific purpose. This build is really a variant of 12A-0C-8S that focuses entirely on defensive capabilities. It still follows my rules for an effective PvP build, but the extra 3 points in Survival really don't offer you all that much in the way of defense. The 3 HP won't make a difference as to how many shots it takes to kill you in almost any circumstance, the ninth point in Survival is a complete and utter waste (boosted pickup radius), Emergency Shield can be put to effective use with a good team in Elimination and Capture the Flag, but it also isn't going to be the game winner if the opposing team uses like 1% of their brain, and the Autoheal Skill is only of marginal benefit because oftentimes, you will either win an exchange or die in it, so having your health regen a second or so faster also won't make the difference in winning a game versus losing it. Another thing when it comes to Emergency Shield is that no matter what, if you are outside of the shield, your bullets will bounce off of it, so this skill is an extremely annoying thing to see in PvE because it will absolutely mess your teammates up, and melee enemies have no problem running you out of that shield so that you are just hosed. I don't mind seeing Emergency Shield in PvP because it creates some fun and confusing close range action, but it is one of the most annoying things to see used in PvE. It should also be mentioned that I had reported a bug with relation to the Autoheal skill not working at all back in May of 2020 to MFG, but I am not sure if it has been fixed, so use this build at your own risk. As if my hatred for it wasn't clear enough, this build has awful damage output in PvE. However, I had to include this build in the A Tier list because it technically follows the rules for an effective PvP build and has been successfully used by a handful of players even if it's very much not my taste.

8A-0C-12S: This is a slight variation to the 9A-0C-11S build that trades Fight for your life and 1% crit damage for 1 HP and the Flash Cooldown skill. In theory, I prefer this build to the 9A-0C-11S build (even though I hate both of them) simply because designing a high survival build to also have fight for your life is a bit counterintuitive (especially for PvE), even if fight for your life is a truly invaluable skill for PvP. The build is absolutely tailored towards heavy active skill usage because of the faster cooldown, so it has been effectively used in a team setting by good PvP players (edit: one good PvP player (MeatAllDay)).

10A-0C-10S: As if we needed another high survival variant of 12A-0C-8S, I give you this very odd build that is designed around using both Emergency Shield and Blink. Writing about these three high survival builds has my blood boiling, but with this build, at least it has enough of a goofiness factor to offer up a bit of potential fun in PvP. I will write more about the perils of using Blink in PvP when talking about the next build, but I will likely never try this build out.

10A-6C-4S: This build is a variant of 9A-7C-4S that trades 1% accuracy and Stunner for 1% crit damage and Blink. I tried this build out when practicing for a pistol tournament that I won (with my trusty 9A-7C-4S build), and I just found that either I didn't judge the blink distance correctly and wasn't able to consistently convert Blinks into easy kills or my opponent was wearing Kira's Basilisk boots to counteract Blink. Because of this (and the fact that you will get a lot of hatred from the community if you rely too much on Blink), I definitely recommend 9A-7C-4S over this build.

12A-6C-2S: This is an alternate variant of the 12A-8C-0S build that trades 25% Elite Damage and Stunner in exchange for Survival Kit and 17 HP. I originally included this build in the S Tier because this build yields the maximum crit values for using your pistol in PvP, but honestly you need to have god like aim with your pistol all the time because there is no deflector or stunner (like with 9A-7C-4S) at your disposal to make it easier to challenge your opponent in PvP when you are using a pistol and they are using their primary weapon. Furthermore, in looking at whether this will turn any pistol into a 2 headshot kill in PvP against an opponent with 8 points in survival, it will only do that with a very good roll of the AT Kub II, which is an extremely difficult pistol to use in PvP because the fire rate is so ridiculously low, so the extra crit damage from this build just kind of ends up being a waste when you look at the number of hits it takes to kill a typical opponent. I will give you full disclosure that I haven't spent a ton of time running this build, however I have to give a shoutout to the OG Pistol whipper, Snipeymcgee, who used to wreck people with this build and his trusty Peregrine. Since I don't really play my original account anymore due to the quality of the gear I have on my latest account, I did change my original account to this build just for fun, and in one CTF match, I was able to land a 146 damage backshot on an opponent (instantly killing them). This of course was only possible because of Supercharger, Fight for Your Life, and Sneak Attack, but it was a hilarious moment for me.

Hybrid Builds:

12A-4C-4S: This build is a variant of 13A-3C-4S that trades 1% crit and AM Bomb for 1% higher Accuracy and Rocket Man. Look, Rocket Man can be fun for sure, but it's not going to fool the more seasoned players many times, if at all, and it's a pretty wild skill to try to use except in very close range. 1% higher accuracy isn't really going to have much of an impact, and AM Bomb is a much more useful skill than Rocket Man, so I never recommend this build to anyone even though it isn't really that far off from 13A-3C-4S.

12A-3C-5S: This build is a variant of 13A-3C-4S that trades 1% crit and AM Bomb for 1 more HP and Melee Resistance. I just can't get on board with that decision because of the greater usefulness of the crit damage and AM Bomb when you aren't even gaining that much in survivability, especially when it comes to PvP. Like all builds in the A Tier, this build isn't terrible, but it's just ever so slightly different from an already great build that I would never recommend that someone use this build.

N Tier:

PvE Builds:

7A-13C-0S/6A-13C-1S/5A-13C-2S: Rather than write about these three builds individually, I decided to group them all together because the only real point in using any of them is to have Hunter Mines in your arsenal. I could go on for ages about how much I hate Hunter Mines for both PvE and PvP, but I'll just stop it at saying that it's a crappy, crappy skill that's completely inferior to AM Bomb. Use one of these builds to get ribbons and medals for Hunter Mines if you care about collecting those, but move on to another build when you're done. On a personal note, I used 7A-13C-0S to farm my Hunter Mine medal, and it was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be because it is so very close in damage output to 8A-12C-0S and Hunter Mines can be these fun little trip mines that keep enemies from bugging you too much while you focus on the big targets. That being said, I hate how little control I have over where the mines go and the long cooldown is definitely very, very bad. I do not plan on using any of these builds again now that I have my medal, but I don't think I'd ever use 5A-13C-2S because I never like giving up Sneak Attack in PvE.

8A-6C-6S: Since there is a hidden ribbon for running PvE content naked with a pistol, this is the best build I could come up with for doing that. Since you won't have any HP from a chest piece, you'll definitely need a lot of resistance. Grabbing the 50% extra pistol damage in the Combat tree is a no-brainer here, but rather than go for all the resistances in the Survival tree, I decided to go for speed instead and ended up with this build. I have used this build for some naked BoF and Arena Bronze runs, and with the projectile resistance buff from the bar of war, it does not feel squishy at all, and the speed and damage made the task fairly easy to be honest.

7A-0C-13S: Similar to Hunter Mines, I could go on a while about how useless EMP is nowadays (it used to be everywhere in PvP but it received a very welcome nerf some time ago), but I'll just say that this is perhaps the only build I would ever consider using if I were farming EMP ribbons/medals. Beyond doing that, I absolutely do not recommend this build for anything.

PvP Builds:

6A-4C-10S: For the PvP Builds, I simply wanted to include some quirky builds that could be fun if you are insanely bored and not worried about your KDR or W/L ratio. This build centers around employing a strategy of using Emergency Shield and Rocket Man together to destroy people that dare challenge you inside your bubble. It violates my PvP build rule, and I've never used this build myself, but it could be great fun in Capture the Flag.

0A-7C-13S: I only include this build because I was actually beaten by PurpleMayuge (my apologies for the likely misspelling) with this build when I was messing around with my pistol build. This build involves using a strategy of combining EMP and Stunner so that the stunned opponent can't use deflector to counter the Stunner. Because this has zero points in agility, this violates so many rules for me that I only mentioned it because this is used for trolling in duels at the absolute worst level. Use the build if you want to laugh at being a human worthy of pure hatred.

Conclusion:

There you have it, folks. This is absolutely everything that I have learned about builds in my time playing the game, and I know it's overkill. I want this article to illustrate that (1) the skill tree revamp that MFG did a while back was absolutely necessary and it actually offered us a lot of variety (maybe not so much in PvP, but certainly a lot for PvE) and (2) there is a build to suit every purpose including having fun instead of just min/maxing everything. I also truly think that how well any of these builds work for any one player will be dependent on the amount of HP that is on their chest, the quality of their weapon perks, and their ability to maneuver in both PvE and PvP without getting blown to pieces. In general, you should pick a build from the S+ or S Tiers and skew higher in Survival the lower the quality of your gear and/or skill level is. When you get a really high HP chest (my ideal chest is 42 HP or better), I love using 8A-12C-0S for whenever I am in full PvE grinding mode because it is so versatile and does such high damage, but 10A-8C-2S is pretty much my go to these days as I love to be able to hop into a duel when I get the urge. Still, you really can't go wrong with 13A-0C-7S for playing PvE very consistently with any quality of gear, and while 9A-3C-8S is certainly the build that I recommend that beginners use in PvP, 12A-0C-8S is a fantastic build choice at any level for playing both PvE and PvP even though it does require some training with your aim when you use rifles like Faraday and Tesla. I hope that this insanely long article both helps newer players who are trying to decide which combination to choose and maybe offers veteran players some insight into new possibilities to continue to make the game fun after years filled with many highs and lows. Happy hunting, friends!

--InsulinMaze