Potato aim hero! (assault class)

So you've just jumped into the red solstice but find yourself dying repeatedly, or you can't just do the damage you need, welcome to potato aim hero, the auto aiming assault class of awesome. Some disclaimers, this build is a bit tough to use initially, my suggestion is to swap combat defence module for shotgun module if you have it unlocked but this is a build that anyone can jump right into from rank 0 (correct me if I'm wrong but attack speed power ups *should* be unlocked from the get go) this build/tactic is optimized for a normal difficulty game, but it should work in veteran as well, the attached screenshot is the powerups/components as I've used them myself in game to great effect.

So you have your new shiney assault build with these skills, where do you put your first 2 points? Combat defence module is my suggestion, though having them both in the stims module is perfectly viable. I suggest the combat defence module (and make sure it's in the 1st slot so it's on hotkey 1 for easy spammability) combat defence gives you an energy knife that starts out at 250 dmg at lvl 1 300 at 2, 350 at 3, 400 at 4, and a burly 500 at lvl 5 (also gives you avoidance, which is just a cherry on top really) 300 is your magic number for damage (and I'll touch on the shotgun module for you highspeed types that have it unlocked in a sec) 300 energy damage (which is what that combat blade does for damage) is enough to 1 hit zombies, horrors, parasites, and other early game trash, it also has a super short cooldown (3 or 5 seconds, either way, spam away) so you dump your 2 points in at the beginning and just leave em there till later. ♥♥♥♥ gets close between reloads, or you're surrounded and getting chewed on, aim the arc to catch the most baddys then click, watch em fall.

Stims will give you more survivability if you're having trouble using the combat blade as it does take a bit of finesse/experience to use it without swinging at empty air and having to wait for the cooldown while getting nibbled on. notes about stims: at level 2 on the stimulant module you unlock advanced stimulants ability, DO NOT USE THIS ABILITY until you upgrade combat stims to lvl 4, the reason is at lvl 2 and 3 it causes health degredation over the 40 seonds that the ability is active, don't do the zombies job for them, make them work for their meal, once it's at lvl 4 or 5, spam it like there's no tomorrow, extra damage and run speed? yes please.

Now with this build it's flexible in that you can swap a few things around and it still being workable, I usually run 3 dmg powerups but as my rank and specialty are fairly high so the dip to speed isn't that bad so I can get away with it. The main thing when choosing powerups is you want to increase your damage per second, whether that's with attack speed or with damage per shot is up to you. so either attack speed or attack damage powerups are your go to for this build

When selecting powerups ensure that your speed does not drop below 4.4 if using the pistol

When in doubt leave the power ups out. you do not have to have 3 powerups to be effective, hell you don't even need 1. so if you can't make it work, leave 1 or more powerups blank and you'll be fine!

The reason for this will be explained in the next section.

One of the most critical rule of this game is to ensure that except in VERY specific circumstances your speed never drops below 4.0, preferably 4.2, but 4.0 is absolute minimum. the reason for this is simple, alot of monsters in this game are slow, if you're slower than them, you're dead, that simple. where this comes in is your weapon choice and powerup choice will have different impacts on your speed which I will break down here for you.

Weapons:
Heavy weapons have an on person speed reduction of 10% from your suits base movement speed. In game when held in your hands, it reduces your speed by a further 30% heavy weapons include vindicator, minigun, stinger, arclite, and ACE-43

Light Weapons have an on person speed reduction of 5%, and an in hand penalty of 25%, light weapons include GAR, GAR-MS, GAR-GL, and Strike-V

Secondary Weapons (I made up the classification but it works) *these are not affected by the light weapon targeting system!* have an on person reduction of 3% and an in hand reduction of 0% (meaning you run your on paper speed when they're in your hand, very useful) weapons included are the SAR-58, M1GL, and FAS-18

Super light weapons are the pistol and the SMG, they have a 0% equipped speed reduction, but a 10% in hand movement reduction (thus when you are running with one of them out you just multiply your speed by 0.9 and that will be your actual speed)

Rocket Launcher has an equip penalty of 5% but an in hand penalty of 30% (just like a heavy weapon) so that's why it's in it's own little section.

For an example, even though my on paper speed is 4.77 with that build, we have to multiply it by 0.9 (or 90 percent of my speed) to find out my actual in game speed with my pistol in my hands, which would be 4.293, or 4.29, that is my maximum unbuffed speed in the game, whereas if I took a shotgun my speed on paper would drop to 4.62 but I would be able to run at 100% of that speed with the shotgun equipped. keep that in mind when doing a build of any class.

Now as for this I rock the regular GAR when I use the damage booster (remember you get that hit to your reload speed as well with damage powerups) so as to keep my reload speed snappy enough to keep the damage on while gunning dogs. GAR has a reload of 4s base, the MS and GL have a 5s reload speed. Which weapon you use is up to your tastes however, this build works superb with any light weapon (even the SMG, if you're a masochist that is) so taking a GAR-MS so you have a shotgun handy for tight encounters is always a plus. Strike-V and me have a love hate relationship, I want to love it, but it's just too finnicky for my taste (as it only does 30% of its damage within 5 ingame meters) but the extra 10% crit and the high damage per shot is a nice feature. for starters, stick with the GAR (or GAR-MS) till you get a pretty good handle on how to handle the various mobs you'll find.

Long story short, build works with any light weapon, though for the love of god and all that is holy, do not take the GL unless you know what you're doing, explosive friendly fire is a thing, and you will 1 hit any teammate with a grenade, stick with bullets for now champ.

Now you may wonder, why do I rock FMJ's in my GAR on this build, I'll tell you why. Dogs (i.e. Stalkers, devourers, F.L.U.F.F.Y.'s, thanatos, or anything that meanders on more than 2 legs) as well as holers/drillers (annoying asses that dig through the ground) have lower resistance to piercing (FMJ) damage, so you do more damage to them when you use the rifle, long story short, high value targets (anything that can catch and eat you) pull the GAR out, for two legged trash, the pistol (sexy sexy little thing that it is)

No, no I'm not. the pistol is a sexy little piece of death that's underappreciated by like everybody, especially in potatoaiming, the reason you ask? ammo efficiency. pure and simple the pistol is the most ammo efficient and consistent damage dealing weapon in the game (except the sniper rifle but, that's a marksman only thing) the pistol has more or less the same range as a gar, base damage of 40 per shot and firing at 120RPM, compared with the gar at 27dmg base with 200 RPM you're looking at a damage per minute of 4800 for the pistol and 5400 on the GAR. now to break it down for reloads the pistol does 480 base damage before having to reload, the GAR does 1350, but you factor that the pistol has a reload time of 2.7 seconds base, compared to the GAR's 4 second (and 5 for the GL and MS) variants, the increased down time can be the difference between life and death. overall the pistol *is* inferior to the GAR, which is why we save that bad boy for the big threats. basically pistol is trash killer 2000, you use it to save on ammo rather than pounding the piss out of zombies with FMJ rounds, taking 3-4 times the amount of rounds because of resistances. also pistol uses the opposite ammo type of your primary, so if you have FMJ's(in the GAR) it uses hollowpoints, but if you have hollow points (in the GAR) then it uses FMJs. so you can always swap their rolls for a change of pace, but pistol dog killer is.........eh not that great.

Basically put your first 2 points in your combat blade, then bullrush to lvl 4 stims, once that's done pop one into crit, then hit lvl 5 on stims (or bullrush light weapon targeting) then top off stims after it's up there. then dump any remaining points in crit. now the reason for the 1 point into crit before the light weapon targeting is for that delicious 15% crit chance, thus double damage (and more as you level it up, look at the tooltip and you'll see what I'm saying)

frome suit level 2(you start out at 2 remember)-15 it should look somewhat like this:

2: Combat defence module: lvl2, OR Stims lvl2 (adjust according to taste, but the rest is based off of using combat defence module for the first 2 levels)

3: Stims lvl1

4: Crit lvl1 (as you can't just bullrush to lvl 5 on a suit component to prevent overpowered abilities being used in early waves

5. Stims lvl 2
6. Stims lvl 3
7. Light weapon targeting lvl 1
8. Stims lvl 4
9. Light weapon targeting lvl 2
10. Light weapon targeting lvl 3
11. Light weapon targeting lvl 4
12. Light weapon targeting lvl 5
13. Stims lvl 5 (this can also be done earlier by swapping targeting for stims at suit level 7, just make sure you have both to lvl 5 by suit level 11)
14. Crit lvl 2
15. Crit lvl 3

Quick reference here:

2 combat defence module
5 combat stims
5 light weapon targeting (mandatory, the extra damage and reload speed mean you're a consistent ball of death)
3 critical strike module, this is pretty easy to guess but the more you have the more damage, so season to taste with this

(or 0, 5, 5, 5 if the combat defence module doesn't do it for you)

A variant when you get the shotgun module is:

1 Shotgun module (first level should be in this, don't put more than 1, not really worth extra points)

4 (or 5) combat stims (second level should be in this)

5 Light weapon targeting

4 (or 5 depending on stims) critical strike

plays the same way, but the longer range on the shotgun module (that doesn't use ammo or need a shotgun to use) is more forgiving, and you don't have to dump 2 points to get to our magical 1 hitting zombie 300 dmg, 2 small downsides, longer cooldown at 12 seconds, and you don't get the avoidance bonus.

No, pretty much this is designed as a droppod build so it's a bit slanted towards solo survivability, so if you dropship and turn yourself into a limpet with your teammates you probably won't even need/use it, feel free to pull levels out of this later game, or if you don't feel you're using it enough to justify it, 5 levels in crit, stims, and critical strike module a piece is pretty beast mode, and if you do that then just ignore the combat blade information but swap the build priority to full stims (til you can't put more) 1 into crit, top up stims, get full light weapon targeting, then top up your crit and you'll be golden. (rule of thumb, wave 9 and above it's of very limited use)

So how this works is the basic premise that you run with your pistol out for most of the game and auto aiming (or potatoaiming as it's known hence the title!) anything on two legs. If you get something on 4 legs then swap to your gar whilst auto aiming, or left clicking the offending quadriped so you don't hit a nice innocent zombie who's closer but less of a threat. so you just meander around helping your team/looting lockers/potatoaiming like a boss, and overall being awesome.

This is simple, as you don't have specialty weapons you bring whatever your team needs, think of yourself as an extra set of inventory space, so generally you want to prioritize Medical supplies OR explosives (if you're holding explosives, DO NOT use them, ask a more experienced person/Demo to place and use them when needed, you're just a walking death machine/storage box) biggest priority is ammo, you will blow through ammo that is a fact, so being the team pack mule/pocket medic is a good way to keep people happy with feeding you ammo so you can kill stuff for them. Basic and average lockers are your friends.

Whatever you do, if you're trying to run away, catch up to the group, save someones bacon, whatever it is that you have to move fast for. turn off the autoaim and have your pistol out, swapping weapons is instant as is turning on/off auto aim, but if you keep it on and your guys shooting away while walking, he will be slower. when in doubt, turn off the potato.

If you enjoyed the guide, or had more questions/comments leave a comment with some feedback and I'll see you guys in the game :) everyone's going to be shocked that I potato aim, but it works so HA