If you've looked at Outriders builds recently, you've likely seen the plethora of bullet-oriented builds that utilize Blighted Rounds, Volcanic Rounds, or Twisted Rounds to obliterate Challenge Tier 15 content.
These builds are fantastic for pushing Expedition Challenge Tiers when you don't have good gear. Tricksters that want to experience Outriders' endgame without too much grinding should consider making a Twisted Rounds build. This guide will go over every aspect of a Twisted Trickster build, ranging from skills to gear. If you want to turn enemies into dust with sheer firepower, you've come to the right place. Let's begin.
Updated November 17th, 2021, by Charles Burgar: Outriders: New Horizon has made some major balance changes to the game that warranted an update to this guide. If you're looking for clear CT15 Expeditions with ease as a Trickster, this is the build for you. We've updated this guide with additional skill and mod recommendations, added multiple Legendary set recommendations, expanded a few parts of the guide, and added jump links to make this guide as easy to follow as possible.
Build Overview
This build focuses on making your weapons deal an absurd amount of damage with minimal investment, mostly by scaling your Firepower through the use of Twisted Rounds. With an ammo-replenishing mod in your weapon or armor, you can have 100% uptime on Twisted Rounds, allowing you to one-shot most enemies. To complement the aggressive playstyle, Hunt the Prey and Venator's Knife are used to let you teleport great distances while slowing targets. If you stay aggressive, this build can solo Challenge Tier 15 Expeditions.
Pros
- Easy to gear
- Deals an absurd amount of damage
- Has a simple ability rotation
Cons
- You're a glass cannon
- Forced to fight in close-range
- 'Meta' build—considered boring by some
Skills
We're going to assume you have a basic understanding of each skill. If you aren't familiar with the Trickster's skills, we cover them in our in-depth Trickster class guide.
- Twisted Rounds: The star of the show. While active, gain a drastic boost to your Firepower. This skill lasts until you reload or swap weapons.
- Hunt the Prey: Teleport behind a target, gaining a small Shield in the process. With certain armor mods, this skill becomes an incredible crowd control and debuff tool.
-
Venator's Knife: Throw a ricocheting knife, marking up to five targets. Enemies marked are Slowed and take double damage from the next hit they take.
- Alternative #1: Time Rift – provides excellent CC on a short cooldown.
- Alternative #2: Borrowed Time – helps mitigate the glass-cannon nature of this build and pairs well with the Chronosuit set.
Twisted Rounds
Maintaining this skill is imperative, as the damage increase it grants is immense. To have 100% uptime with this skill, you'll need an auto-loading mod on your weapon or armor piece. Partially or fully replenishing your magazine through these mods doesn't count as a reload, maintaining Twisted Rounds' absurd damage boost indefinitely. We'll cover all of those options in the "Gear and Mods" section.
Do not scale Anomaly with this skill. The benefits of Firepower far outweigh the added flat damage from scaling Anomaly. It's also worth noting that Twisted Rounds converts your weapon damage to Anomaly damage, allowing your gun to completely bypass physical armor. This makes armor-piercing useless for this build; don't spec for it.
Hunt The Prey
Some players might be surprised we're using Hunt the Prey instead of Borrowed Time. This is for two reasons:
- The Ugake Otarah set removes Hunt the Prey's cooldown if you teleport behind targets marked by Venator's Knife.
- Hunt the Prey is ideal for maintaining Outrider's Executioner, a 35% damage boost in your skill tree.
Hunt the Prey is fantastic for a shotgun-centric build, allowing you to teleport through walls to close the gap. The Shield isn't nearly as strong as Borrowed Time's Shield, but you can cast Hunt the Prey more frequently. We'll also be using mods that inflict Vulnerability and Slow to targets you teleport to, drastically increasing this skill's safety and your single-target DPS (damage per second).
If you want to use Borrowed Time on this build anyway to mitigate its survivability issues, replace Venator's Knife instead.
Venator's Knife
Venator's Knife is an excellent Deception skill that provides crowd control and a damage boost in one neat package. With a base cooldown of ten seconds, Venator's Knife can easily maintain the 35% damage boost provided by Disruptive Firepower, a skill tree passive, with a single cooldown reduction node from the skill tree.
With optimal gear, Venator's will set up each engagement. Throw it to mark five targets, then teleport behind one of them to output an absurd amount of damage. Teleport to the next marked target, kill them, rinse and repeat. By the time every marked target is dead, your cooldown should be reset.
Skill Alternatives: Borrowed Time And Time Rift
Depending on your current gear and playstyle, you might prefer using Borrowed Time or Time Rift. Due to the Instant Reload mod, we highly recommend you stick with using Hunt the Prey with this build, meaning your only skill swap available is Venator's Knife. Swapping this skill with something else will change which endgame armor set you'll want, so bear that in mind.
Borrowed Time
Borrowed Time is a great survivability tool, giving you a powerful disengage tool and a durable Shield. On its own, Borrowed Time is solely a defensive buff, although a few armor mods can be installed to give this skill some offensive benefits. You're still losing out on quite a bit of damage since you can't proc Disruptive Firepower from your passive tree, but if you're struggling to stay alive in high-tier Expeditions, this is a great skill to use.
Time Rift
If you haven't played Outriders since launch, Time Rift was buffed a few months after launch. It now has a much lower cooldown, making it perfect for proccing the Disruptive Firepower passive while providing excellent crowd control. Some mods for Time Rift, such as Pain Transfer, are S-tier for this build. If you don't like Venator's Knife or aren't taking advantage of its double damage multiplier, Time Rift is an excellent replacement.
Skill Tree
This is a rather cookie-cutter skill tree, but it's the standard for good reason. Every node in the Assassin spec is boosting your damage in some form, whether that's from more frequent ability casts or a straightforward damage increase.
These are the notable passives you should grab:
- Shotgun Master: Shotgun Weapon Damage is increased by 15%.
- Disruptive Firepower: Activating a Deception skill increases your Weapon Damage by 35% for 8 seconds.
- Outrider Executioner: Activating Movement skills increases your Weapon Damage by 35% for 8 seconds.
- Bounty Hunter: Increase your Weapon Damage against Elites by 15%.
- Oddity Summation: Increases your magazine size by 50%.
- Cold Calculation: For each enemy in Close Range, your Weapon Damage is increased by 8%.
|
Note: The Leap of Quietus notable does not benefit this build. |
As for minor nodes, focus on the following:
- Close Range/Shotgun Damage
- Cooldown Reduction
- Generic Damage
The two Unforeseen End nodes in the tree give a 40% damage boost when shooting a target from the back, increasing Hunt the Prey's strength even more. Focus on hitting targets in their back or head whenever possible to maximize your damage.
If you're leveling, focus on grabbing Outrider Executioner and Disruptive Firepower first. From there, path through the cooldown reduction nodes towards the Cold Calculation capstone. Flesh out the tree as needed.
Gear And Mods
Until you get three pieces of a Legendary set, focus on obtaining armor with mods that boost your Firepower and skills. As long as you focus on scaling various damage sources (Close Range Damage, Firepower, and Shotgun Damage), you should be able to reach Challenge Tier 15 without much hassle. One or two mods that scale your defenses, such as Mitigation from Death, are also recommended.
Attributes
You'll want to keep an eye out for the following attributes on any items you find:
|
Weapons |
Armor |
|---|---|
|
Close Range Damage |
Close Range Damage |
|
Weapon Life Leech |
Bonus FIrepower |
|
Critical Damage |
Cooldown Reduction |
Close Range Damage is the most important stat, granting a percentage of bonus damage to any enemy within ten meters of you. Beyond that, Bonus Firepower grants a sizable amount of extra damage if it's on most of your armor pieces. The rest of your attributes aren't as important, but Cooldown Reduction and Weapon Life Leech go a long way to improving this build's consistency.
Weapons
Any shotgun works here. If you care about raw damage, pump-action shotguns can one-shot most enemies. Those that care more about add-clear will want to use an automatic shotgun.
Some good Legendary shotguns include:
- The Bulwark: Can be purchased from Tiago. This automatic shotgun applies bleed every second, allowing you to use Vampiric Mag to maintain Twisted Rounds.
- Darkness Charmer: A pump-action shotgun that deals extra damage with the first shot in a magazine. With the Ammo Bargain mod, this effect is always active.
Armor
Before you can get any Legendary sets, focus on obtaining epic items with the attributes and mods discussed in this section. You can even take rare items with perfect attributes and make them epic, if necessary.
Your endgame goal is to acquire one of these three Legendary armor sets. The third skill you use will determine which set is best for your character.
|
Armor Set |
Set Bonus |
Best With This Skill |
|---|---|---|
|
Trespasser |
Gain 6% damage for each enemy affected by a Deception skill. You cannot die while in Slow Trap. |
Time Rift |
|
Chronosuit |
Reverting time replenishes ammo in your clip. |
Borrowed Time |
|
Ugake Otarah |
Hunt the Prey does not consume cooldown when teleporting behind an enemy marked with Venator's Knife. |
Venator's Knife |
Mods
Your mods are essential for this build. Fortunately, you only need to use a few specific mods to get the most out of your Twisted Rounds.
Mandatory Mods (Pick One)
|
Mod |
Description |
Category |
|---|---|---|
|
Perpetuum Mobile |
You instantly replenish your magazine if you kill an enemy with 35% or less ammo remaining in your magazine. |
T2 Weapon Mod |
|
Vampiric Mag |
Killing shots on enemies afflicted with Bleed replenish 50% of ammo in your magazine. |
T2 Armor Mod |
|
Ammo Bargain |
While Twisted Rounds is active, killing shots replenish 20% of ammo in your magazine. |
T3 Armor Mod |
|
Instant Reload |
Using Hunt the Prey replenishes your magazine. |
T3 Armor Mod |
Ammo Bargain and Instant Reload are arguably the best of the bunch, but both of these items only come from Legendary armor pieces. If you can't get it to drop, use Perpetuum Mobile or Vampiric Mag. If your weapon doesn't bleed, the Vein Ripper T2 armor mod inflicts Bleed to enemies on a critical hit. Using any of these mods will allow you to maintain Twisted Rounds for hundreds of shots.
Other Mandatory Mods
|
Mod |
Description |
Category |
|---|---|---|
|
Strong Twist |
While active, Twisted Rounds increases your weapon's Firepower by an additional 15%. |
T1 Armor Mod |
|
Radiation Jump |
Hunt the Prey inflicts Vulnerability to the enemy you teleport behind. |
T1 Armor Mod |
|
Bloodlust |
Killing shots increase your Firepower by X. Stacks up to 3 times and deteriorates every 10 seconds. |
T2 Armor Mod |
The FIrepower boost from Strong Twist is immense since there aren't many percentage increases to Firepower in this build. Radiation Jump inflicts Vulnerability, a debuff that causes enemies to take 15% more damage from all sources. This should make killing Elites significantly easier.
There are a few mods that synergize well with this build that are highly recommended:
Recommended Mods
|
Mod |
Description |
Category |
|---|---|---|
|
Additional Mag |
Twisted Rounds is effective for two magazines before triggering its cooldown. (This is in case you can't kill an Expedition boss in a single magazine) |
T1 Armor Mod |
|
Eager Edges |
Venator's Knife bounces to two additional targets. |
T1 Armor Mod |
|
Death Shell |
Killing enemies while Borrowed Time is active reduces incoming Weapon Damage by 10% and Anomaly Damage by 10% for 10 seconds. Buff is removed at the end of the skill. Stacks up to 4 times. |
T3 Armor Mod |
|
Pain Transfer |
10% of Weapon Damage and 30% of Anomaly Damage is shared amongst targets affected by Time Rift. |
T3 Armor Mod |
If you're struggling with survivability, try to fit a couple of these mods in your build:
Defensive Mods:
|
Mod |
Description |
Category |
|---|---|---|
|
Emergency Stance |
Gain Golem for 4 seconds when your Health drops below 30%. Has a 10-second cooldown. |
T2 Armor Mod |
|
Mitigation From Death |
Killing enemies while aiming down sights grants X points of Armor for 10 seconds. Stacks up to 3 times. |
T2 Armor Mod |
|
Phantom Dash |
Your roll is replaced with a Phantom Dash, allowing you to phase through enemies. |
T2 Armor Mod |
|
Thirst For Blood |
Killing enemies with a weapon while they're afflicted with Bleed increases your Weapon Leech by 40% for 10 seconds. |
T2 Armor Mod |
The Armor values listed scale with your level. In general, they double or even triple your total Armor value.
Playstyle And Tips
You'll want to start each engagement by throwing your Venator's Knife or Time Rift, marking multiple targets while slowing them. Teleport behind one of them with Hunt the Prey, inflicting the target with Vulnerability while granting you two 35% damage increases from your skill tree. With Twisted Rounds active, fire a round into the enemy's back to deal a ludicrous amount of damage, one-shotting most enemies. Reapply your third skill and use Hunt the Prey whenever they're active to maximize your uptime on the 35% damage notables.
Should your Twisted Rounds run out, you'll want to play more cautiously until it comes back, using cover or teleporting out of harm's way to avoid as much damage as possible. If this is a common issue for you, use the Additional Mag mod or upgrade your gear to increase your Firepower.
For general tips:
- If you're struggling to kill certain Elites, use mods that grant Resistance Piercing. Your Twisted Rounds ignore armor, so the enemy must have high Resistance.
- Stay aggressive! You're a glass cannon that relies heavily on life leech. If you stop dealing damage, you'll die.
- Use your melee if you're surrounded by enemies that aren't slowed.
- Hunt the Prey ignores line of sight, allowing you to teleport through walls and floors to reach targets. This can make speedrunning Expeditions much easier.
- If you're struggling to deal damage, focus on upgrading your character's item level. Damage-enhancing mods, such as Killing Spree, are fantastic if you have room to spare.