User blog:Sarcastos/Blitzkreig Assault Build: Part I

New, intermediate or undecided Assaults, this build might pique your interest. More than a just build, this will be an entire doctrine of overwhelming, fast offense aka a Blitzkreig. In Part I, skill points and gear will be discussed, and Part II, maps, play style, teammates, and weaknesses of the build.

I. Skill Points

25 each Critical Shots, Movement Speed, and Adrenaline. This will form the foundation of your offense. Critical Shot for DPS. Movement Speed and Adrenaline for speed. Full points in Adrenaline means a period of 11 seconds of faster reload, fire rate and movement with a 25 second cool down that begins once you use it. That means if you perpetually use it, you can be in Adrenaline state for a little less than half of an entire game. But why 50 points devoted to speed? in late game, cores can raise DPS and armor by significant amounts, but not speed (only by a margin through Machine Assisted augments on leg armor and boots). Why not put some points in defense? Same reason. But more importantly, speed is your defense. If you can't destroy them before they become threats to you, then dodge them and their projectiles. More on this in Part II.

5-10 in Reload.

1 each Stimshot and  Assault Team. Stimshot gives 30% of your health back when you dip below 20% of your health. Even almost purely offensive build can't ignore such beneficial skill. Assault Team summons three temporary soldiers to help you. While they fire, their insignificant damage isn't what makes them valuable. It's that now you have three meat shields circling you, taking heat meant for you. If you're cornered, they also take up space, preventing non-shadow minions from getting too close until they die of course. This might buy you enough time to blast out of there.

The rest split between Killing Spree and Deadly Force. KS is feast or faminine, if you have the means to kill crowds of zombies immediately, and if you can out perform your teammates, then this skill only enhances your killing power. Otherwise you might never see it's benefits. DF simply adds more damage, but the way I see it is that it enhances your Critical Shot average damage.

II. Gear

For new Assaults, the best weapon is the best weapon you currently have. A 7*** Hardthorn is going to beat a 0 Hornet. Later on however there are certain guns that are more efficient than the rest. Hornet, Shockfield, Proposition (Prop is tricky, it is extremely high in DPS but also high in movement penalty), Sublight, and HIKS S300. Having DF, Adrenaline and Killing Spree available to you, you can field the DPS to make rocket launchers actually viable, minus the people who have lots of cores. This is important, because you should have exactly 2 weapons. One for both bossing and taking care of stragglers or fast individuals. The other should be an effective crowd controller. Having a pistol is pointless - you are fast enough that it's low damage and the possible mistakes when switching between 3 weapons instead of 2 is not worth it's low movement penalty, especially if you have a Hornet or a Shockfield. I've seen many different rocket launchers on different builds, and I will give a tier of the most popular but not necessarily the best rockets.

A tier - HIKS 3100

B tier - Luft and Jag

C tier - Feld

D tier - MPG followed by Lone Star.

That said, I've seen someone use a Lone Star in a NM game and he did pretty damn well. He dealt a lot of damage and killed way more than the other two members of the group (3100s). But he also put 14 points in Assault Team, and so he had fewer kills as I did (Feld) in that same game.

Armor

Chest: Rubicon Assist. No exception, this is the best armor for this build.

Boots: Titan MEM Sprints. Also non negotiable. Machine Assisted is a must.

Gloves: Titan IDS. You still want a fast reload time, without depending on spending too points on Reload, and these gloves with the Nimble aug will be enough.

Legs and Helmet: Doesn't really matter, so long as they either don't have a movement penalty or they give some small movement boost. The augs do matter, Machine Assisted aug on the legs and Smart Target and Target Assist on the helm.

What resistances to go for: Physical then Toxic then Heat. Heat is the least important, only dangerous in the form of Wicker and Necrosis fireballs, and the Necrosis spawn flame trail. Those projectiles are both slow and telegraphed, so they are relatively easy to avoid. The flame trail is also easy to avoid, it's a single line of fire set by a very slow moving creature on all fours. Toxic, on the other hand, will come in the form of numerous puddles right in front of you (say you pop a bloater who leaves a puddle, and also spawns worms that when the worms die, each leave a puddle) that limit the space you can manuever in. That also limits your offense by either removing you from where the action is, or it traps you in an area where you can be swarmed or hit by projectiles since it is harder for you to dodge them. More on this in Part II.