Alpha Tactical Demolition System mk. III

NOTE: Gear set bonuses are not being correctly calculated on this page.  Actual recorded skill power, in the game is:

• Base: 382,439
• With Talented: 434,590
• With Death by Proxy: 451,974
• WIth Both Active: 504,124

Ever get tired of that annoying LMB grenade spam?  Ever wish you could be the one who spams? 

Want something you can slap together before you've collected any classified pieces, that you can use for a lot of PVE content while you're still trying to put together the sets?

This is your build.

The ATDS is designed to do five things:

1. Boost your skills' damage output, and add sustain, by stacking as many inheritable weapon talents (see guide: here) and other bonuses as possible.
2. Use max gear score weapons on a 10K ELE build without worrying about other stat requirements.
3. Boost your guns' damage output by way of AB's bonus weapon damage, and free weapon talents, to help your 3K firearms punch above its weight.
4. Enhance your skill haste and power to require only 3 mod slots to reach within a point of the cap, and stretching your 10K ELE to provide over 380K base skillpower before any bonuses like Talented, or Death by Proxy, proc, pushing well over 500K if both are active at the same time.
5. Enable extremely frequent use of signature skills to boost survivability, defensive, or offensive capabilities as required via the combination of Determined and massive skill haste/power.

Using a pair of AR's (Talented, Determined, Destructive / Ferocious, Determined, Predatory) gives us two modes of operation.

• Primary:
  • Weapons AND Skills all get Determined, Destructive, and Predatory for any kills.  Gun kills will additionally proc Talented.
• Secondary:
  • Talented is traded-away to add Ferocious to Destructive, to be used when facing mobs with higher concentrations of elite NPCs.  ALL kills will continue to proc Determined and Predatory.

How to Play

This build is all about playing from cover.  Your primary offensive skill is the cluster seeker.  It can engage a large number of targets, over a massive area, while you enjoy the comfort of whatever you're hiding behind.  Anything it doesn't kill with a bleed will be easy pickings for your AR.  BFB's can be used as a fallback for NPC's that get too close, targets of opportunity (i.e. mobs packed together tightly enough that you can wipe them all with one shot), or for killing blows where a little extra punch is called-for.

Rather than worrying about building stacks by hitting targets with your guns, this build starts with a very high base skillpower, and has three different on-kill bonuses it can use separately or together to boost output:

• Talented: Active on kills with your primary AR, or sidearm if you want to flip over to it for a quick kill shot.
• Death by Proxy: Active on any kill of an enemy skill proxy, including skill on skill kills (i.e. BFB'ing a turret/med box).
• Demolition Expert: Active on any explosives kill, including skills and/or enemy weak point explosions.

Even without any of these bonuses active, your skills will be lethal to NPC's all the way up into the elite range.  Some of the heavier classes may survive, albeit very weakened.  Either of the two skill-boosting bonuses (Talented, DBP) will individually get you close to, or beyond 450K skillpower.  Together, they'll push it past the point of diminishing returns.  Having two explosive skills slotted means you can also lead off with a BFB for an easy explosives kill, then use the Demolition Expert bonus to send out some enhanced seekers.  This approach should be used with caution, though, as you will be vulnerable without a deployable skill for ~12 seconds.

Predatory should be active almost 100% of the time during combat to help with sustain, but don't be afraid to use the recovery link as a burst heal.  It can be recovered extremely fast if you're getting kills, sometimes even before the immunity lockout has finished.

In the Dark Zone, you're not going to win a stand-up fight in PVP.  However, you can use this build to effectively clear landmarks and even do contamination events (by way of the sustain Predatory and Recovery Link can give you).  When it comes time to extract, you can keep a scrambler up 100% of the time, enabling you to hide out of sight and evade would-be gankers long-enough to pop a survival link and attach your bag to the rope in the final 4 seconds, if necessary.

Playing Legendaries?  If you know the content well-enough, and you have the patience, soloing is entirely possible.

Best of all, this build doesn't require any 5- or 6-piece talents.  As long as you have a NinjaBike bag, you can put it together using all non-classified pieces, upgrading to classified ones as you go for the increased stat ranges.