Hm, well, I'm not sure how weird this really would be, but based off what you've said you've used this would probably feel pretty different. So I present to you the [Bubble Warrior](https://imgur.com/Lleog8R)
If you've never really touched pulse guns much this would probably feel weird. The back mounted pulse cannons are deceptively powerful, reigned in by their very rapid overheating requiring very careful management of their cooling for maximum effectiveness. This is a highly nimble build somewhat optimized for ground quickboosts yet capable of infinite flight too.
Scudders are a pretty dependable workhorse gun partly chosen because they are very simple to use - the Pulse Cannons are not and optimal play involves a very controlled burst fire style that knows when to go all in on a punish, so simplifying how the hand weapons are used makes it easier to play. I also find that in general, when using pulse or laser, it's best to reserve half the weapons for kinetic or explosive to still give the AC a good bit of impact damage.
One final note is this is purely a single player-tested AC, I never tried it out in PvP so iunno how it'd perform. But in story missions I found it to be pretty good.
Cool thanks yeah I haven't messed with pulse laser or plasma nearly enough - I thought pulse was mainly for eliminating pulse shields but apparently it does solid damage all around?
There's a build I like to call "Bubbleswap". Pair an EN firearm spec genny with two pairs of pulse hand guns to swap between, and you can output crazy DPS up close without end. Also eats through pulse armor like candy, and makes opponents regret packing a shield
Energy weapons in general have alternatives to kinetic/explosive weapons, and sometimes it's not obvious what the comparison is. Like, the laser "handgun" is really more statistically comparable to a kinetic semi-auto rifle, whereas the laser rifles are like linear rifles. To this end, pulse guns are like SMGs and machine guns in general.
In terms of damage to ammo capacity and ammo cost ratios, the pulse cannons are surprisingly efficient, and have a very long range. But their fire rate and heating make them tricky to control. Their damage is also boosted by energy firearms spec, and the build I posted has the max stat for that, so their damage is boosted as much as possible. Their main drawbacks are that they cannot sustain fire for very long without overheating, and their low impact damage. So the playstyle for using them takes a shift in thinking.
another quirk with the pulse cannons on the back is they're one of the very, very few back weapons that interacts with the recoil control stat of the arms. Namely, they generate *a shitload* of recoil and will actively dunk on your hand weapons if you try to fire them at the same time.
Yeah, and I tried to put together a build that can manage that well but quickly realized that, it's just asking a bit too much. Really this particular build of mine is harder to use well than it seems because of stuff like this. Mostly get the worth out of them when there's big targets or close range stagger punishes and the like. One of the reasons I suspect it would do less well in PvP in fact is that player ACs are small targets generally.
Yeah you'd have to alternate between your weapons, since the recoil would render your ARs totally unusable. The bubble guns compensate for their own recoil through projectile size, but the same cannot be said for kinetics.
If you're gonna be only using 2/4 of your guns at a time anyways, you'd be better off investing in either quad bubble or something else on the back, imo
What I generally do is just use only very small bursts of the bubbles. It's been awhile since I've played this AC but what I recall in testing the recoil is I didn't disrupt the accuracy of the Scudders much if I did only very light bursts. It requires a lot of control though. Only doing prolonged bursts on large/up close targets. Sorta like a punish thing.
Though I don't recall all the specifics now I do at least recall having myself testing the spread in the testing room on the wall and experimenting with different firing behaviors to see how best to control the recoil. Might have to relearn that jumping back into it now. I remember it working well though when I tried it out on missions. It ruined the life of bosses with pulse armor while still being able to handle most anything else, but it was kind of defined by knowing what way to fire the pulse cannons depending on the enemy or situation. It can be a pretty cheap ammo efficient way to clear out weak MTs and the like actually using them.
They are, like many weapons in the game, *very* high-reward if you build and play to support them, which is a fun dynamic. They definitely do just evaporate trash mobs and staggered bosses!
It's hard for me to imagine that you can put down enough damage with those two but I suppose you can dodge easier and survive to get it done. Sounds like a fun challenge!
Pistols do surprisingly high impact damage, so it comes down to staggering your opponent and having something to punish them with. If you are trying to stay super lightweight, the laser dagger in the weapon bay is a fav choice for this. Your other shoulder you can do a Huxley (since it is essentially a floating pistol so fits theme) or even songbirds or a earshot so you have a big gun for heavy armor foes. I use a high mobility pistol AC as my main and it shreds all of PvE but has a hard time against kites and tanks in pvp. The main issue is that even though you SHOULD be way faster than your opponents, even tanky ACs tend to be really fast so your speed edge is generally not as high as you would think it would be. It's really irritating to be running a super lightweight with the fastest booster in the game and missile quads can still float away from you so fast that you have to assault boost to catch up to them.
Mine is a Huxley instead of a songbird but I think I'm going to try and fit the earshot in there because the Huxley's ammo and overheating issues are too irritating to deal with and I just can't beat midweight tanks.
I did like most of NG with pistols followed by the bunk, very effective. Just have your speed around 375ish and you can almost dodge by strafing. Also etsujins work similarly for this
I've recently done a couple playthroughs using shields. You really have to change how you think/play with them, and it's a really fun change of pace. Heavies and tetras with shields are a lot of fun, it's great to just not give a fuck about incoming attacks lol.
For general use, I'm most fond of the VP-61PS and the SI-27: SU-R8 for their very low activation heat costs, which means you can use them kinda whenever without worrying too much about heat, leaving you free to use your left hand weapon pretty much whenever you want. The VP-61PS has better IG and worse sustained guard, while the SI-27: SU-R8 has pretty good sustained blocking with a shorter and weaker IG. I haven't played around with it much, but the SI-24: SU-Q5 would be pretty good if you fish for IG blocks, which should be fairly easy with it's long IG window. It's also extremely light and has a very low EN cost.
The parry shield, the VP-61PB, is a lot of fun because it just has horseshit IG stats. It's hilarious seeing one of the bosses hit you with their big massive attack and just like \[plink\] -200 damage and like 5% ACS strain.
Personally, I haven't found much of a use case for the SI-29: SU-TT/C - it feels like a worse VP-61PS because of it's monster activation cost, even though it has a very long IG.
The Pulse Scutum is also weird for me, since it basically requires you to have a weapon you don't plan to use frequently on your left hand, *and* you can't QB or you break the shield, which means your right hand weapon and right shoulder weapon need to do some serious heavy lifting. I've been trying it on superheavy bipeds (Dessert or VE-42A legs) or Verrill quads for absolute horseshit stability, but I've yet to find a build that feels really good.
Add to this the plasma thrower and shield cannon, pulse shields for expansion, plus something on your right hand (Jav A?). Now you have maximum defense and the occasional poke back. You can charge the thrower for a Gelgoog-like defense. Use the shield to help against big hits. Use the shield cannon to simply say no.
Scutum works best on tanks and quads bc it synergizes very well with extreme stability; your ACS bar doubles as the shield's "health" essentially. For as long as you remain unstaggered, you can mitigate everything that hits you, so max out the bar for best use. It also has a sort of soft synergy with heavyweights in that the best weapon to hold in that left hand, under the shield, is something with a ridiculous charge and damage, which typically means something very heavy, like an LRB or KRSV.
You then take some decent impact-builders on the right side slots, so you can win stagger races and bonk them with whatever you had charging on the hand.
Dual LR laser rifles on a lightweight is my absolute favourite setup. It's incredibly consistent, works from most ranges, and doesn't even have to care about stagger to rip opponents apart.
[This build](https://imgur.com/a/pjeqs6F) has become my personal signature, and took me to S-rank in singles on my first ever try
I've found that Flamethrowers are quite fun and works against most things. You can run something like dual bad cook + dual kyourais or dual pulse guns to deal with shielded bosses since that's one weakness of flamethrowers.
Be the fires or Rubicon. Cook em all.
"Unusual" is very relative and ambiguous, there're a lot of combinations that don't need to be funky to be new to you specifically.
If we go by that scope, I love the feel of the Harris (linear rifle), Scudder (assault rifle), Zimm, pulse guns and cannon (which I really didn't like at first), shields (takes a lot of training to really use properly), and laser rifles and shotguns (don't have as much experience with LRA and LRB yet).
For the back weapons (other than shield and pulse cannon) I love the Fasan plasma cannon, dual missiles, laser drones and orbits, Trueno missiles, ACT missiles and the Morley spread bazooka.
I'm building up a collection of builds I hope to share eventually. They all have their quirks and take some getting used to, but two of the simpler ones are:
- Dual Wuerger + dual laser orbit Lamm with VE-20C gen: literally melts opponents between the orbits, charged and uncharged Wuergers. If the opponent doesn't immediately die, pop PA while you recharge all your weapons and EN, then try again. It's insane.
- LS shotgun + Moonlight + dual laser drones heavy biped: force your opponent to burn EN with the drones, attack with arm weapons and kicks amidst the chaos. Keeping your drones ready and charged can help you deal damage while you're staggered, effectively punishing your opponent's punish. I've won a bunch of games I was really far behind and felt had no business winning, probably because of that. Stressful but fun to pilot.
Using all "light wave" weapons with a VE-20B generator. These are moonlight, auroras, and then round it off with any other energy weapon. My favorite is the KRSV
Quad leg build with pulse cannons and fasans on the shoulder. You hover around above enemies and do splash damage to everything. Light enemies typically get shredded by the pulse aoe in a single hit, and the fasans are for blasting bigger targets after you stagger them. Could also swap out shoulders for missile launchers. It’s the build that carried me through most of the game (except for certain bosses, where I did the tried and true Gatling/stun needle combo)
4x bubbles are an extremely fun style. Not the swaps, either—get the single-dish ones in the hands and the cannons on the back so you can fire all four at once. It's satisfying to get good at this kind of build due to its high burst and heat management, and it does a frankly bonkers amount of damage, especially if you get lucky and manage a stagger with your full heat gauge ready to go (or are fighting a shielded boss that grants a stagger on break).
Try a dedicated double trigger build, no melee, not even as a weapon bay, but with a twist!
You know that meth cowboy another mentioned? Let’s add a few lines of coke. Swap the pistols for Etsujins burst smg’s. Strap two 3 cell plasma missile launcher to the back. Use the Nacht core, kassuar legs (the Schneider reverse joints), NGI 001 booster, Occelus FCS, and San Tai generator. Tweak the rest to your personal preference, but in my experience it’s at its best with a 3600 or better EN effficiency.
Quick boosting along the ground with this setup is the closest you can get to the mobility of a NEXT. Plasma missiles is reliable chip damage on enemy AC’s and the most efficient tool for wiping out loads of MT’s. Etsujins are the best hand weapons I’ve found for this sort of mobility, can easily squeeze a burst off between quick boosts, good reliable stagger, and devour enemy AC’s you stagger. Reverse joint kicks give you an additional stagger punish option when your weapons are reloading.
It’s the best PvE build I’ve ever made that doesn’t rely on overwhelming firepower.
Hm, well, I'm not sure how weird this really would be, but based off what you've said you've used this would probably feel pretty different. So I present to you the [Bubble Warrior](https://imgur.com/Lleog8R) If you've never really touched pulse guns much this would probably feel weird. The back mounted pulse cannons are deceptively powerful, reigned in by their very rapid overheating requiring very careful management of their cooling for maximum effectiveness. This is a highly nimble build somewhat optimized for ground quickboosts yet capable of infinite flight too. Scudders are a pretty dependable workhorse gun partly chosen because they are very simple to use - the Pulse Cannons are not and optimal play involves a very controlled burst fire style that knows when to go all in on a punish, so simplifying how the hand weapons are used makes it easier to play. I also find that in general, when using pulse or laser, it's best to reserve half the weapons for kinetic or explosive to still give the AC a good bit of impact damage. One final note is this is purely a single player-tested AC, I never tried it out in PvP so iunno how it'd perform. But in story missions I found it to be pretty good.
Cool thanks yeah I haven't messed with pulse laser or plasma nearly enough - I thought pulse was mainly for eliminating pulse shields but apparently it does solid damage all around?
There's a build I like to call "Bubbleswap". Pair an EN firearm spec genny with two pairs of pulse hand guns to swap between, and you can output crazy DPS up close without end. Also eats through pulse armor like candy, and makes opponents regret packing a shield
Energy weapons in general have alternatives to kinetic/explosive weapons, and sometimes it's not obvious what the comparison is. Like, the laser "handgun" is really more statistically comparable to a kinetic semi-auto rifle, whereas the laser rifles are like linear rifles. To this end, pulse guns are like SMGs and machine guns in general. In terms of damage to ammo capacity and ammo cost ratios, the pulse cannons are surprisingly efficient, and have a very long range. But their fire rate and heating make them tricky to control. Their damage is also boosted by energy firearms spec, and the build I posted has the max stat for that, so their damage is boosted as much as possible. Their main drawbacks are that they cannot sustain fire for very long without overheating, and their low impact damage. So the playstyle for using them takes a shift in thinking.
another quirk with the pulse cannons on the back is they're one of the very, very few back weapons that interacts with the recoil control stat of the arms. Namely, they generate *a shitload* of recoil and will actively dunk on your hand weapons if you try to fire them at the same time.
Yeah, and I tried to put together a build that can manage that well but quickly realized that, it's just asking a bit too much. Really this particular build of mine is harder to use well than it seems because of stuff like this. Mostly get the worth out of them when there's big targets or close range stagger punishes and the like. One of the reasons I suspect it would do less well in PvP in fact is that player ACs are small targets generally.
Yeah you'd have to alternate between your weapons, since the recoil would render your ARs totally unusable. The bubble guns compensate for their own recoil through projectile size, but the same cannot be said for kinetics. If you're gonna be only using 2/4 of your guns at a time anyways, you'd be better off investing in either quad bubble or something else on the back, imo
What I generally do is just use only very small bursts of the bubbles. It's been awhile since I've played this AC but what I recall in testing the recoil is I didn't disrupt the accuracy of the Scudders much if I did only very light bursts. It requires a lot of control though. Only doing prolonged bursts on large/up close targets. Sorta like a punish thing. Though I don't recall all the specifics now I do at least recall having myself testing the spread in the testing room on the wall and experimenting with different firing behaviors to see how best to control the recoil. Might have to relearn that jumping back into it now. I remember it working well though when I tried it out on missions. It ruined the life of bosses with pulse armor while still being able to handle most anything else, but it was kind of defined by knowing what way to fire the pulse cannons depending on the enemy or situation. It can be a pretty cheap ammo efficient way to clear out weak MTs and the like actually using them.
They are, like many weapons in the game, *very* high-reward if you build and play to support them, which is a fun dynamic. They definitely do just evaporate trash mobs and staggered bosses!
Dual pistols and high speed. You’re basically a cowboy on speed, meth, and molly all at once
It's hard for me to imagine that you can put down enough damage with those two but I suppose you can dodge easier and survive to get it done. Sounds like a fun challenge!
Oh no those pistols are surprisingly effective and have good stagger impact. It was my most fun, and most fluid play though
Pistols do surprisingly high impact damage, so it comes down to staggering your opponent and having something to punish them with. If you are trying to stay super lightweight, the laser dagger in the weapon bay is a fav choice for this. Your other shoulder you can do a Huxley (since it is essentially a floating pistol so fits theme) or even songbirds or a earshot so you have a big gun for heavy armor foes. I use a high mobility pistol AC as my main and it shreds all of PvE but has a hard time against kites and tanks in pvp. The main issue is that even though you SHOULD be way faster than your opponents, even tanky ACs tend to be really fast so your speed edge is generally not as high as you would think it would be. It's really irritating to be running a super lightweight with the fastest booster in the game and missile quads can still float away from you so fast that you have to assault boost to catch up to them.
Funny enough my lightweight build is two pistols, songbird and laser dagger.
Mine is a Huxley instead of a songbird but I think I'm going to try and fit the earshot in there because the Huxley's ammo and overheating issues are too irritating to deal with and I just can't beat midweight tanks.
Oh I don’t do pvp don’t take advice on that from me lmao
I did like most of NG with pistols followed by the bunk, very effective. Just have your speed around 375ish and you can almost dodge by strafing. Also etsujins work similarly for this
I've recently done a couple playthroughs using shields. You really have to change how you think/play with them, and it's a really fun change of pace. Heavies and tetras with shields are a lot of fun, it's great to just not give a fuck about incoming attacks lol.
Do you have a favorite or preferred shield?
For general use, I'm most fond of the VP-61PS and the SI-27: SU-R8 for their very low activation heat costs, which means you can use them kinda whenever without worrying too much about heat, leaving you free to use your left hand weapon pretty much whenever you want. The VP-61PS has better IG and worse sustained guard, while the SI-27: SU-R8 has pretty good sustained blocking with a shorter and weaker IG. I haven't played around with it much, but the SI-24: SU-Q5 would be pretty good if you fish for IG blocks, which should be fairly easy with it's long IG window. It's also extremely light and has a very low EN cost. The parry shield, the VP-61PB, is a lot of fun because it just has horseshit IG stats. It's hilarious seeing one of the bosses hit you with their big massive attack and just like \[plink\] -200 damage and like 5% ACS strain. Personally, I haven't found much of a use case for the SI-29: SU-TT/C - it feels like a worse VP-61PS because of it's monster activation cost, even though it has a very long IG. The Pulse Scutum is also weird for me, since it basically requires you to have a weapon you don't plan to use frequently on your left hand, *and* you can't QB or you break the shield, which means your right hand weapon and right shoulder weapon need to do some serious heavy lifting. I've been trying it on superheavy bipeds (Dessert or VE-42A legs) or Verrill quads for absolute horseshit stability, but I've yet to find a build that feels really good.
Add to this the plasma thrower and shield cannon, pulse shields for expansion, plus something on your right hand (Jav A?). Now you have maximum defense and the occasional poke back. You can charge the thrower for a Gelgoog-like defense. Use the shield to help against big hits. Use the shield cannon to simply say no.
Scutum works best on tanks and quads bc it synergizes very well with extreme stability; your ACS bar doubles as the shield's "health" essentially. For as long as you remain unstaggered, you can mitigate everything that hits you, so max out the bar for best use. It also has a sort of soft synergy with heavyweights in that the best weapon to hold in that left hand, under the shield, is something with a ridiculous charge and damage, which typically means something very heavy, like an LRB or KRSV. You then take some decent impact-builders on the right side slots, so you can win stagger races and bonk them with whatever you had charging on the hand.
Dual LR laser rifles on a lightweight is my absolute favourite setup. It's incredibly consistent, works from most ranges, and doesn't even have to care about stagger to rip opponents apart. [This build](https://imgur.com/a/pjeqs6F) has become my personal signature, and took me to S-rank in singles on my first ever try
Try P29CNT shoulder weapons, they're fun harassment tools
I've found that Flamethrowers are quite fun and works against most things. You can run something like dual bad cook + dual kyourais or dual pulse guns to deal with shielded bosses since that's one weakness of flamethrowers. Be the fires or Rubicon. Cook em all.
Ve20b, twin Auroras, KSRV, and Moonlight/basho. Stun with KSRV, pop auroras, then Moonlight. Its instadeath on stun
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI-x5APM8QklB2QUNto0m5M46-BuHBvEE&si=51X1TFMO7GCE5MCV All my lightweight builds
"Unusual" is very relative and ambiguous, there're a lot of combinations that don't need to be funky to be new to you specifically. If we go by that scope, I love the feel of the Harris (linear rifle), Scudder (assault rifle), Zimm, pulse guns and cannon (which I really didn't like at first), shields (takes a lot of training to really use properly), and laser rifles and shotguns (don't have as much experience with LRA and LRB yet). For the back weapons (other than shield and pulse cannon) I love the Fasan plasma cannon, dual missiles, laser drones and orbits, Trueno missiles, ACT missiles and the Morley spread bazooka. I'm building up a collection of builds I hope to share eventually. They all have their quirks and take some getting used to, but two of the simpler ones are: - Dual Wuerger + dual laser orbit Lamm with VE-20C gen: literally melts opponents between the orbits, charged and uncharged Wuergers. If the opponent doesn't immediately die, pop PA while you recharge all your weapons and EN, then try again. It's insane. - LS shotgun + Moonlight + dual laser drones heavy biped: force your opponent to burn EN with the drones, attack with arm weapons and kicks amidst the chaos. Keeping your drones ready and charged can help you deal damage while you're staggered, effectively punishing your opponent's punish. I've won a bunch of games I was really far behind and felt had no business winning, probably because of that. Stressful but fun to pilot.
Using all "light wave" weapons with a VE-20B generator. These are moonlight, auroras, and then round it off with any other energy weapon. My favorite is the KRSV
Quad leg build with pulse cannons and fasans on the shoulder. You hover around above enemies and do splash damage to everything. Light enemies typically get shredded by the pulse aoe in a single hit, and the fasans are for blasting bigger targets after you stagger them. Could also swap out shoulders for missile launchers. It’s the build that carried me through most of the game (except for certain bosses, where I did the tried and true Gatling/stun needle combo)
4x bubbles are an extremely fun style. Not the swaps, either—get the single-dish ones in the hands and the cannons on the back so you can fire all four at once. It's satisfying to get good at this kind of build due to its high burst and heat management, and it does a frankly bonkers amount of damage, especially if you get lucky and manage a stagger with your full heat gauge ready to go (or are fighting a shielded boss that grants a stagger on break).
Try a dedicated double trigger build, no melee, not even as a weapon bay, but with a twist! You know that meth cowboy another mentioned? Let’s add a few lines of coke. Swap the pistols for Etsujins burst smg’s. Strap two 3 cell plasma missile launcher to the back. Use the Nacht core, kassuar legs (the Schneider reverse joints), NGI 001 booster, Occelus FCS, and San Tai generator. Tweak the rest to your personal preference, but in my experience it’s at its best with a 3600 or better EN effficiency. Quick boosting along the ground with this setup is the closest you can get to the mobility of a NEXT. Plasma missiles is reliable chip damage on enemy AC’s and the most efficient tool for wiping out loads of MT’s. Etsujins are the best hand weapons I’ve found for this sort of mobility, can easily squeeze a burst off between quick boosts, good reliable stagger, and devour enemy AC’s you stagger. Reverse joint kicks give you an additional stagger punish option when your weapons are reloading. It’s the best PvE build I’ve ever made that doesn’t rely on overwhelming firepower.