Overview
The ultimate guide to building a rigger (drone user). The essential, recommended and starting stats to get the most out of the class. Also includes the basics of Etiquettes, team comps, nuyen and karma and how they affect the ultimate build.
Why Rigger?
Rigger’s are probably the most OP build in the game imho. Ultimately you’ll have 8AP total between your two drones, plus another 1-3 AP of your own each round. Combined with the right choices of secondary attributes you will be an absolute monster in the end-game, steamrolling through the final missions even on hard difficulty.
Essential Stats
Ultimately you will want at least:
Intelligence – 7 (9 is recommended)
Drone Control – 7 (9 is recommended)
Drone Combat – 7 (9 is recommended)
Charisma – 3
Spirit Summoning – 3 (Eagle Totem)
These stats by themselves will make you extremely powerful in the end-game. Your drones will have 3 AP each, making 6 AP total, and your Eagle Eye totem will increase their aim (and the aim of the rest of your party) by 15% (as long as they’re in range), making 6 AP of almost guaranteed damage. This aim can be further increased by the rest of your build which I will discuss later.
Even though I say you only need 7 of your primary stats, unless you’re wanting to play around a lot with a secondary build my personal recommendation is to go with 9 instead, as this gives an additional AP to each of your drones. After activating your drones you don’t have enough AP left over to get much mileage from an extensive secondary build.
Recommended Build
This build focuses on getting ranged combat as high as possible so that you can use the Laser Designator as well as rifles and other ranged weapons, even on hard difficulty.
Race – Human
Body – 4
Cyberware Affinity – 1
Quickness – 7
Ranged Combat – 7
Rifle – 1
Intelligence – 9
Drone Control – 9
Drone Combat – 9
Charisma – 4
Conjuring – 1
Spirit Summoning – 3
Totem – Eagle
Cyberware – Laser Designator, Reflex Trigger, Saeder-Krupp Skillwires x 2 (Universal Omnitech Cyberleg (Alpha) x 2 & Orthoskin (Bioware) optional)
Etiquettes – Security (nets +2 karma) and Gang (nets +1 karma and makes beginning easier)
Drones – Guardian Mk. 2, Guardian Mk. 2 Auto
Gear – Shamanic Fetish, Spirit Fetish
Weapons – Grenade launchers, tasers, rifles (especially Steyr Aug-CSL once you get it).
Suggested Companions – Is0bel, Duncan, Racter
Basically, the concept here is you start combat, unlock both your drones, activate the Laser Designator and Reflex Trigger and then Eagle Eye, which finishes your turn, then your drones go to town on basically everything in the room since they’ll have 4 AP each and very good accuracy at this point. Grenade launchers & tasers aren’t tied to any specific ranged weapon type, so they’re good for when you want to do some damage yourself and eventually you’ll get the Steyr Aug-CSL during a mission (hopefully), which will act similar to the laser designater while doing damage at the same time. One note, this is a VERY specific build and requires every single karma available with these stats. Unless you’re carefully following a guide you probably won’t be able to do this your first playthrough, so just go with 6 each in quickness & ranged combat and maybe put some more into rifles/body.
Starting Stats
Starting Stats
Race – Human
Body – 4
Cyberware Affinity – 1
Quickness – 4
Ranged Combat – 4
Rifle – 1
Intelligence – 3
Drone Control – 3
Drone Combat – 3
Charisma – 3 (Gang etiquette)
Conjuring – 1
Spirit Summoning – 2
Guidelines & Misc
Suggested Mission order:
Hard Landing – Made much easier by being a rigger, can hack the enemy drones.
City of Darkness – Only one minor battle, made trivial by summing the spirit from the environment.
Outsider – No combat required (since you have Gang etiquette.)
DeckCon 2056 – No combat required (since you have 4 int. Make sure to start talking to Is0bel before the prior mission to unlock this).
The Dig – Underground fight can be difficult unless you set up properly. Use overwatch.
Misdirection – Fights are easy w/ help from the other shadowrunner team.
Whistleblower – Avoid combat until after you finish the ship. Say you’ll fight both groups then run away to the bottom of the map as soon as combat starts and let them kill each-other, then kill the stragglers.
Retribution – Go to the basement. Set ambush and blow up canisters, etc.
At this point you can buy the two Guardian drones, and combat gets MUCH easier. Make sure to have rank 7 Drone Combat by this point and 8k nuyen saved up. The rest of the missions you can do in any order you want. You can substitute Bad Qi for any of the missions after DeckCon as well. Gobbet will trivialize all the fights except for the last, but it will be a bit of a challenge.
Karma:
There is a maximum of 223 karma available as a human, including your starting point in Body, Quickness, Strength, etc. Of these, a total of 5 require certain stats/etiquittes to obtain, the rest can be obtained regardless. 2 of these 5 points require the Security etiquette (Bad Qi). 1 point requires the Gang etiquette (and 3 Charisma, City of Darkness). 1 point requires 6 charisma (one of the last missionsProsperity Tower, easily obtainable with spirit & shamanic fetish and/or the pheromone cyberware). You can also obtain this point with certain combinations of other stats, but this is the easiest way. The last point requires the Shadowrun etiquette (or 4 strength. City of Darkness). This one I skip, leaving me with 222 karma. I personally used the Karma Guide [Spoilers] by Bootch to help me find all karma.
Nuyen:
Nuyen is hard to come by. I’ve been keeping track, and basically there’s about 25k nuyen total in the game, assuming you sell all consumables and unique weapons (except for Steyr AUG-CSL), get all paydata and the best mission rewards and wait until just before the end to turn in all the meta-data to Maximum Law. This is enough to get the two guardian drones, the fetishes, the outfit with 8 armor and all the cyberware, including the optional ones. I don’t recommend buying any drones or outfits until the best ones become available. I tend to use my starter rifle until I get the Steyr AUG-CSL, but if you want to play around with taser’s or grenade launchers (you can get one in the second mission) there is enough money to do so. Also, if you handled things right in a prior mission (got the incriminating evidence on Josephine Tsang from Prosperity Tower) you’ll get another 5k from Auntie Cheng after completing the final mission. For the bonus content maybe?
Companions:
Is0bel – Just about every mission has some paydata or something for her to hack, plus her explosives and pistols are actually pretty decent in combat. I think I literally take her on every mission. Her Augment Gear: Mini-Launcher upgrade can trivialize several fights if you set a bunch of remote mines before combat starts. I tend to take her Steady Shot and launcher upgrades.
Gobbet – Don’t have much use for her except the Bad Qi mission since she’s good at destroying summoned spirits. Get the upgrade that destroys spirits instead of controlling them.
Duncan – Your best damage dealer, I think I literally take him on every mission. Mercy Kill and Shiawase Magnet Arm are amazing. Because of Eagle Eye I tend to keep my team bunched up, which draws a lot of grenades, and it’s pretty comical watching him keep throwing them back.
Racter – I usually take him for my last spot. His ability to buff drones is very useful (he can buff yours), and his drone is pretty good as well. Definitely take his AP upgrade, besides that I tend to take his melee upgrades.
Gaichu – Competes with Racter for my last spot. Basically I use him to melee enemies and get rid of their cover so my drones can pick them off. I like his ghoul upgrades. Unfortunately his accuracy is pretty bad on hard difficulty which is why I tend to take Racter.
Progression:
Basically, get the last point in Charisma and Spirit Summoning, then dump everything into Intelligence/Drone Control/Drone Combat until they’re all 9, then keep improving Quickness and Ranged Combat. Get the Sauder-Krupp skill wires ASAP.
AP:
You start with 2 AP and then after completing a certain number of missions you will have 3. After activating both of your drones you should only have 1 AP left over, usually for Eagle Eye. However, I think because of a bug, I seem to usually have 3 AP on the second round even with both drones activated, which is really what makes the Ranged Combat skill useful. For more AP you have to get 5 in Body & Cyberware Affinity in order to get Wired Reflexes, but unfortunately you only have enough Karma to get 5 in Ranged Combat at that point, which just doesn’t give good enough accuracy on hard difficulty, imho. This is why I prefer the build I do.
Note regarding Decking:
I don’t recommend combining a decker build with rigger. A couple of the more challenging fights in the game require your decker to be jacked in to the matrix while the rest of your team fights. This means your drones with their 8 AP of killing power will be useless in those fights. Besides, Is0bel is more than adequate for all the matrix sections and is overall a solid character anyway.