Outriders: How to Outdamage Tricksters, Pyromancers, and Technomancers as the Devastator

As Outriders players continually obtain more loot, mods, and legendary items since the game's launch, more builds emerge to tackle the endgame content. Recently, the Devastator class has been subject to discussion due to its lack of damage output. Some players even gave up on the class for this very reason, starting to play as some of the more popular classes and builds.

In fact, Outriders' Devastator was up until recently, and still is by some, deemed as a class with low damage output. Low enough to make players kick Devastators from their parties or disbanding the group, according to several Reddit users, because of the endgame being time-based when it comes to obtaining rewards. However, this could change as more people have reach the endgame and experiment with classes and builds.

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Recently, players have come up with a build for the Devastator that does not focus on the upper branch of its class-specific skill tree, the Vanquisher. This was the go-to choice for many players at the beginning, believing that a Firepower Devastator had to deal more damage than an Anomaly Power one simply because of how accessible weapons and ammunition are in comparison to skills, which all have cooldowns. On the contrary, this build does the exact opposite by focusing on the Devastator's bottom branch - the Seismic Shifter.

The build grabs pretty much all the reduced cooldown it can, while also focusing on Anomaly Power, nodes like Paladin (which increases Anomaly Power by 45% when using Protection skills, like Golem), Blood Donation (which heals the players by 25% of the Bleed damage they inflict), and of course, Earth's Heritage (which increases the damage of Seismic abilities such as Earthquake and Impale by 50%). Overall, the character ends up being extremely tanky, regenerating a lot of health thanks to Blood Donation, and dealing a lot of damage through the Seismic skills. Reportedly, this build is even able to solo CT 15 Expeditions and still grab the Gold Chest reward, meaning that the amount of time it needs to clear everything is pretty low.

While this build does have a huge damage output, sometimes able to outdamage even some of the more popular builds for Technomancers, Pyromancers, and Tricksters, it does come at a cost. Specifically, this build is much more gear-dependent than any of those builds for the other three classes, as the Devastator on its own does not have enough damage. Given that some of the build's major sources of damage reside in its ability to spam Earthquake, and, to an extent, Impale, the Devastator does need some extra source of damage on top of them.

As an Anomaly Power build weapons might seem trivial in a way, but the truth is that there are some guns with mods scaling off Anomaly Power and unleashing some major destructive force onto the enemies. Among such Outriders Legendaries, there are:

• Thunderbird, Inferno Seed, Heir to the Desert, Damascus Offering, Roaring Umbra, Disintegrator, Molten Eidola, Guillotine, The Anemoi, Anomaly Effigy, Bolt and Thunder, The Bulwark, The Daimyo, Darkness Charmer, Funeral Pyre, Icarus, Imploder, The Juggler, and The Landlubber.

These weapons can be extremely powerful in this build, each of them providing additional damage and glorious effects. The best approach here would be to have at least two, one of which should have a low cooldown for its special Tier 3 mod, and the other a longer cooldown, so it's easier to swap them around.

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As for the perks to look out for, the best ones are those that enhance the build in several ways. Anomaly Power, of course, is the main stat the build tries to stack as much of as possible. This is a big boost to both DPS numbers for skills and weapon Outriders mods, making the Devastator do exactly what it says on the tin: devastate enemies.

Another Important stat is Cooldown Reduction because of how skill-dependent this build is, and to make the DPS more consistent and the healing more reliable it is more advisable to have as much Cooldown Reduction as possible. This helps all the three Outriders skills the build uses: Golem (for protection and a huge damage increase from Paladin), Earthquake, and Impale.

Other useful stats include:

• Close Range Damage, which pairs very well with other nodes like Stone Circle and Through the Mob.
• Status Power, which is an incredibly powerful tool for having big spikes of damage on enemies from the Bleed effect applied through Earthquake, Impale, or the Devastator's base melee attack.
• Skill Life Leech, which makes the damage dealt by the skills leech a percentage of life back to the players in case the healing from Blood Donation does not suffice on its own.
• Armor, useful for tanking more incoming damage.
• Max Health, which always comes in handy when building a character that is supposed to stay alive both on its own and in parties.

As is likely very evident by now, this build does need a lot of specific gear, mods, and attributes to really shine, and Outriders is, after all, a looter shooter game. As a matter of fact, there are a few legendary pieces of gear to look out for that really help the Devastator become a monster.

Among them, the best ones are the pieces of the Seismic Commander set because of just how much damage they provide. The set bonus provides a 50% damage increase towards enemies that are affected by Bleed, which they always will thanks to melee attacks, Impale, and Earthquake.

Specifically, the pieces to look for are:

• the Helmet, which comes with the Ultimate Impaler Tier 3 mod, granting 2 more uses of Impale before it goes on cooldown.
• the Body Armor, which has the Palisade mod, granting Impale the ability to strike 2 additional enemies.
• the Leg Armor, coming with the Tier 3 Tainted Blood mod, increasing damage dealt to enemies affected by Bleed by another 25% (this stacks with the set bonus.)

The regular mods to look for are:

• Blood Shock, allowing Earthquake to inflict Bleed on enemies hit.
• Extra Quake, which provides an extra use of Earthquake before cooldown.
• Impaler, which grants an extra use of Impale (and stacks with Ultimate Impaler).
• Ground Crush, which increases Earthquake's damage.
• Rivers of Blood, increasing Impale's damage on Bleeding enemies by 50%.
• Second Quake, granting an additional Earthquake.
• Sharpened Spine, increasing Impale's damage.

Outriders is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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