Overview
A lot of people are baffled that I have mastered Toby, thinking either he’s trash or impossible to master. Played right, he can destroy anything and everyone. Someone told me to make a guide so here I am.
Character Overview
- Rogue Defender Toby was meant to be played defensively, but can also be very agressive and can also be an attacker
- Adorable He’s not adorable. Do not call him that, or you will be killed.
- Territorial Territorial is a pretty loose term to Toby. Anywhere can be your “territory,” be it a safe distance away or right in the fight. As long as your force field stays up, that is your territory.
- Advanced Toby has a bit of a higher learning curve that someone like Thorn or Marquis, but it isn’t horribly difficult to pick up
Boosters This is a pretty unique quality that helps Toby quite a bit. Similar to Caldarius, jumping twice procs a double jump, used either to cover more ground or to strafe. Toby, however, only gets 3 uses until they begin to cool down. Each charge takes 8 seconds.
UPR H8-MS Custom Railgun Toby’s bread and butter. Clicking Mouse1 releases a low damage discharge from the railgun that can be fired multiple times OR holding M1 charges the railgun to do more damage. Fully charged shots get even more bonus damage. Holding M2 zooms in, allowing for a more precise shot.
Me n’ My Mech Toby is a small, flightless aviant, but a badass engineer, so he made Berg, his piloted death machine. It allows him to use his abilities and has only one helix mutation. (Pretty sure they had no idea what to write here, so they stated the obvious).
- Arc Mine: If you saw that spiked ball on Berg’s arm, that is the arc mine. When launched, it deals 80 damage per second for 8 seconds (640 at level 1) to an area around the mine. After the 8 seconds, it explodes and deals an additional 133 damage. This is amazing at taking out minions or buildables, and later becomes important to taking on melee characters (or anyone really, they’re just a more prominent threat).
- Force Field: Toby can deploy a force field that can tank 850 damage. Sound “meh,” right? Wrong. Shooting the railgun through it increases bullet velocity (and a BUNCH of other things with helixes). This can give Toby an advantage against most anyone that tries to face him.
- Core Discharge: Toby’s ultimate. Berg charges up a laser beam for ~3 seconds and then fires it dead in front, dealing 250 damage per second (at level 1) for 6 seconds. Many people think it is useless, impractical, and makes the Killing on Rails challenge impossible. Many people don’t play Toby enough to know WHEN to use it. Think of it like a ranged version of Rath’s ult. It deals a stream of damage over a period of time, except rather than little range high mobility (Rath’s), it has high range little mobility. If someone’s at about 3/4 health, you can ult on them and take them out in seconds. What people always do, and why they think it’s awful, is they use it MID fight. Core discharge should be used either as an initiation attack or an execution. Mid fight, it cuts your move speed and renders you unable to fire for ~3 seconds, so of course that gives whoever they’re fighting a chance to kill them. Used right, core discharge can work miracles against enemies.
Helix
Me n’ My Magnets This gives shots that pass through your force field +25% increased damage. Contingency plan sounds good on paper, but is useless in context. The arc mine should be used as area denial early game, so blowing it up removes that AND removes the possibilty of getting a fully charged railgun shot to whatever you are shooting. Bonus damage will always be more useful.
Best Offense Allies who pass through the force field are granted health regen and attack speed (+14 HP/s, +15% attack speed). Not many people pass through my force field to make either particularily useful, so I would prefer the offensive buffs this provides. Faster attack speed on Toby allows your railgun to reach max charge faster, giving you an even higher edge when paired with Me n’ My Magnets. The health regen is small, but if you finish killing your target, you can get a quick heal before they come back for more.
Targeting overlay OR Still Alive! Sorry! Both are viable options, but Still Alive! Sorry! tends to be my preferred pick. Targeting Overlay allows you to see cloaked enemies through your scope, which REALLY helps taking out that OM, Shayne and Aurox, or Deane that tries to run away. Then again, if the enemy team has none of the mentioned Battleborn, or are bad and you can kill them anyways, get the bonus 240 shields.
Sorry I Broke Your Wrists This is where Toby starts to shift from a defender to an attacker. Hitting an enemy directly with arc mine (NOT the AoE, but the physical mine) stuns the target for 2 seconds. Two seconds allows for roughly two fully charged railgun shots to the enemy, which is about 600 damage for body shots or 1200 for two crits. When they take that much damage, the enemy will either run or try to kill you. Only go for the stun if you are SURE you can get the kill. The best place to stun people is right next to a force field, giving you that bonus damage and a guarentee that two shots will be fully charged. If they engage after the stun, strafe back and forth between your force field, quick melee them to the other side, charge, and shoot. Most of the time, repeating this step ensures the kill. Not always, but a decent bit. Getting the slow is a little obsolete, however the slow gets applied by the arc mine’s AoE rather than a direct hit, and lasts twice as long. The vortex is quite wonky and has no real use in Toby’s play style.
Panic Mode When you have no more Boosters, you get a temporary +30% damage reduction. Since they have an 8 second cool down, it lasts 8 seconds. In the last helix, I explained one of Toby’s most frequent battle scenarios: someone comes at you where you have a force field. Say you miss the stun. You can’t strafe forever with the boosters, so when you’re out, you have to wait 8 more seconds. Being able to tank that extra bit of damage can allow you to finish the pick and run away in time to heal. It may sound like this can be avoided by having four booster charges, but you almost will never have all four in stock when you really need them, and when you run out, won’t have the damage reduction to get you out alive.
Beam Splitter Now Toby is a force to be reckoned with. In addition to having a high power fully charged shot through the force field, two MORE shots are sent with it to the left and right. all three will hit a target at about twice the melee range of any character (not an exact measurement, just an approximation.) When all three hit, granted its fully charged, you can do 700-800 damage WITH ONE HIT. This, in combination with a stun, will allow you to melt anyone who comes near you. The bigger projectiles helix is obsolete, as a well placed normal shot will do the exact same, but that shot could have been 3 shots. The bonus shield damage helix is also kinda useless as the normal arc mine damage typically takes out a shield between the time of impact and the fully charged shot hitting them.
Riding the Rail OR Heartpiercer Reduced railgun charge time means more fully charged shotguns melting enemies. Now, sometimes the enemy team will be composed of all really squishy characters (Benedict, Orendi, etc.). If you haven’t had a problem killing them after the stun, get the pierce. It can help a lot clearing minions or teams. If they have a tank or two (Montana, ISIC, Boldur, etc.) or are playing capture (as pierce is near useless there), get the reduced charge time. The explosion from the helix does a LOT of damage, but only works if you die. You shouldn’t die. Do NOT rely on it to finish of your enemy unless they have almost no health and you jump on them as you’re being returned to Nova in shame.
Room for Mistakes Your force field is pretty big as it is, and has a short cooldown timer, so you can put one up and be able to cover an entire lane, choke point, control point, whatever. The bigger force field is only useful for turtling in one spot, but that’s not a good way to play Toby. Being able to have the shield up long enough to clear a target is much more important.
Mines, Mines, Mines! OR What’s Mine is Yours The helix mutation is better, but is unlocked at level 12, so prior, get What’s Mine is Yours. These are pretty basic helixes, either range, cooldown, or damage. The range provides much more area denial, and the damage boost isn’t too much. -20% cooldown however shaves off 3 seconds from the cooldown timer, making you ready to stun even sooner, and may save your life.
Triple Charge OR Endangering Species Both are very viable options. Triple Charge replaces the solid beam for 3 bursts of damage, overall doing less, but also knocks enemies back, pierces, and is good for knocking people into walls or off a map. The slow is just an addition to the regular beam, which is great for maps without easy escape areas, such as Overgrowth. All in all, this one just boils down to preference.
Gear
- Green Battery: Shields are good
- Green Shield Recharge Rate: Shields are good
- Purple Crit w/ shield: Aim good, also shields are good
Lore Challenges
- Pick on Your Own (Shield) Size! Absorb 20,000 damage with Force Field. This comes naturally from playing Toby. Difficulty 0/10
- Temper, Temper, Ta-BOOM Kill 20 enemies with Berg’s self-destruct mechanism. Berg’s self destruct is a helix mutation. This one takes a little, granted you have to level Toby up, and then kill yourself to try for kills. I find that killing primal thralls or swarmers in story mode does just fine. Not very hard. Difficulty 3/10
- Rejection Hit 250 enemies with rounds accelerated by Force Field. Again, comes from playing Toby normally. Difficulty 0/10
- None Shall Pass Detonate 50 Arc Mines with your railgun. This is the other choice for the first helix. Not hard, its just you have to waste the first helix option. Difficulty 0/10
- Killing on Rails Get 10 double kills using Core Discharge. This is NOT as hard as everyone makes it out to be. I got all ten in my first 40 matches with Toby, including the first 20 where I was learning what a Toby was. It doesn’t specify, but the SECOND kill has to be with core discharge, NOT both. I will admit that my first 7 were both with the ult, and I got the last 3 in one match using this tactic. The easiest way to do it is by playing capture. Theres no minions or sentries to worry about, and people usually run in groups of two or three. When you have the ult unlocked, you have the stun as well. when you find two, place a force field down and stun one. Then, WEAKEN the other one to about 20% health. Finally, shoot the other one to about 70% health and pop the ult. Finish off the one with lower health and chase the other one down. This won’t guarantee a successful double kill but will work every now and then. This strategy is if you want a challenge. the easy strat is to do the same, but after you stun the first guy, kill the second, peg the stunned one ONCE with a fully charged shot, then pop the ult. This works even easier at higher levels, as the damage increases and you can get that slow or knockback to help you out. If your team mops the floor with the enemy, steal ALL the varelsi possible to get to level 6, 7 or 10. These are when you can do enough damage in a short amount of time to get the double kills you need. Remember, games last a decent bit of time. Yes, not every time will be a double kill, but averaging about one every 3 games is really good. In the end, it boils down to being able to get a double kill, and the luck of having the other person not being able to escape your ult.
EDIT: Patch as of July 21: Now you only need one ult double kill, and they buffed his ult damage. Now, it should be a decent bit easier, just follow the same guidelines for getting the double Difficulty 5/10
Conclusion
Toby can fit well with any team comp, as either a damage dealer, lane clearer, frag stealer, sniper, or crowd controlling son of an aviant. With enough time and practice, you can also be a Master of Toby.