[1.7.2] Fire Annihilator guide

[trungaczne]

Insane/RL winner: https://te4.org/characters/230424/tome/ ... 9400ec54c5
I made plenty of bad choices in the build however. Read on for explanation.
I suppose one win is not convincing by itself but this includes a lot of knowledge accumulated from previous failures on what doesn't work. Also Annihilator needs some sort of a guide. There's sure to be a lot of ways to play Annihilator, this is one of it.

In a nutshell
Annihilator is a ranged attack-scaling character with some summoning abilities. Annihilator has some pronounced weaknesses:
- Weak to status early game (late game you can compensate with injectors/salves/tinkers)
- Weak to casters early game - Reactive armor provides no protection vs spells. Shield talents are short lived.
- Low mobility - steam generators eat up inscription slots, mobility talents are mediocre (Safety Override requires flamethrower equipped, Death from Above takes a turn to cast)
- High cooldown on about everything.
- Turret falls off late game.

Annihilator however also has some strengths:
+ Is a tinker class so you're really strong late game defensively
+ Steamrolls early game with turret.
+ Very easy cornersniping.
+ AOE on about everything, plenty of damage all around.

Brief guide
End game skills
Magnetism: 1/0/0/0
Gadgets: 5/5/5/0+
Demolition: 1+/5/5/0+
Heavy Weapons: 5/0-1/0-1/0-1
Turrets: 4/1/4/3
Artillery (unlocked at 20): 5/5/5/5

Combat training: 5/2/0/5/0/0
Physics: 3/2/1/0+
Chemistry: 5/3/1/5
Engineering: 0-1/0-1/0-1/0-5
Blacksmith (unlocked with Wyrm bile): 1/1+/1+/1+

Prodigies
At 25 take Master of Disaster, at 42 take Arcane Might.

Race
Doomelf (1/4-5/0/0 racial)

Cat points
inscription/artillery/inscription/blacksmith
If cornac: inscription/spiderbot/artillery/inscription/blacksmith

Rough class talent allocation scheme while leveling:
1 Grenade Launcher/1 Static Shock
4 in Deploy Turret
4 in Upgrade, Exoskeleton
2 in Goggles
2 in Hunker Down
5 in Autoloader
1/5/1/1 in Artillery tree
3 in Reactive Armor
Then 5/0/0/0 Heavy Weapons and 5/5/5/5 Artillery, then the rest is up to you

Inscription set up:
Level 10-19: Shatter Afflictions/Steam Generator/Movement/Injector
Level 20-33: Shatter Afflictions/Steam Generator x2/Movement (rocket pod time)
Level 34+: Injectors x2/Steam Generator x2/Movement (make sure to get lvl 3 Frost/Water Salve before switching)
After gaining access to Font of Sacrifice: Injectors x2/Steam Generator x2/Dissipation (invest in defense/damage before removing movement)

Tinkers:
Obviously tinkers are flexible so there's no fixed set up, but here are the top tinkers you should use:
Early game use focus lens helm/grounding strap cloak/rustproof body/kinetic stabiliser feet/thunderclap coating gun/iron grip gloves/fungal web belt
Late game use focus lens helm/grounding strap cloak/crystal plating body/kinetic stabiliser feet/winterchill edge gun/iron grip gloves/alchemist's helper belt
I use focus lens because between it + goggles you can deal with stealthy enemies well enough. Kinetic stabiliser over rocket boots because early game and late, getting teleported after casting Hunker Down/Deploy Turret will likely get you killed. If you can get some teleport immunity late then rocket boots is preferred.

Itemisation:
Early game just stack flat health and get some res.
Late game you need to mix +all stats, +crit mul, +% fire damage, some minimal %fire pen to scale your damage. On shots look for high crit, crippling (slow) and healing reduction. For survivability, phys/cold/nature/acid res are quite important, then flat health and other resist, then some heal mod and regen stats ("of life" greater ego).

Gameplan:
Up until Far East: either autoexplore or if you don't feel safe, scout with Goggles, then cornersnipe with Steamgun Turret + Overclock + Upgrade. When turret pulls aggro, walk out and Lock On + Flamethrower things till they die. If things don't go your way, Hunker Down/teleport/movement away and heal up with Medic Turret.

Far East and onward: you can still cornership, but you'll be seeing open confrontation (Prides/final boss) often. In those scenario Unstoppable Force salve + Pain Suppressor salve + Lock On + Hunker Down on the first turn then Death from Above (DFA). After the first DFA cast, if things don't go well, use the movement speed to reposition before refiring. Vs arcane casters, Dissipation before Hunker Down especially if they have Disruption shield or resist piercing sustains (like Uttercold). Late game for Annihilator is pretty much kill or be killed, you don't have the kiting powers of a rogue or gunslinger so the answer to most issues is usually to get more damage somehow.

At High Peak, just dig and cornersnipe stair guardians with turrets + DFA if they prove too annoying. Remember you get a lot of ms from DFA so running for the stairs is always an option.

Further explanations/discussions
Class talents

Gadgets: 5 Autoloader is self explanatory. 5 Exoskeleton because it's just EHP and we're too squishy without it. 5 Goggles because it's a massive damage steroid for us + turret (cast them after goggles) with Track on top. The main question is whether to use AED or not. I think given that AED, when you compare it to Hunker Down, offers some nice tradeoffs: it scales off your own health (so it benefits from your resists instead of being naked like turrets), it's not vulnerable to AOE unlike Turrets but it doesn't protect your other turrets and can't be used to block out shots/enemies. I think if you forgo turrets completely, this should be taken, however I haven't used this myself.

Magnetism: Magnetic Field and Capacitor Discharge only worth dump points for their passives if you have nothing else to invest in. Static Shock isn't worth more than 1 point since we'll use Pain Suppressor salve a lot. Lightning Web is interesting, say in my character above I could have considered maxing this instead of Autoloader late game. The main issue with it is that between 1 turn to cast, 4 turns duration and 18s cooldown, it's really clunky to use. Don't use Titanic just to power this - get a shield with real resist instead.

Demolition: 1/3+/5/0 should be on every build. Reactive armor might proc a bit too frequently due to the low threshold so it's only an okayish layer of defense, not fantastic. Sapper (Incendiary Grenade) is just there for more damage and fire conversion. Autoloader/Grenade Launcher should be maxed together (or no investment). Autoload isn't really strong because it takes 1 turn to set up, it's awkward to use with DFA and the random grenade damage type might be suboptimal if you're stacking more %fire damage.

Heavy Weapons: outside of Heavy Weapon itself, the other abilities just are too reactive and requires set up to be invested in. Late game you want to start a fight with DFA for the ms + evasion and you might not have a heavy weapon equipped to comfortably use any of the abilities. The heavy weapon themselves are fine though - you'll use the Flamethrower 99% of the time as a rotation filler because it ignores armor and deals fire damage.

Turrets: 4 points in Turret gives us all options, including Medic Turret which remains rather useful lategame - don't put a 5th point since we don't rely on it. 1 point in Overclock because the shield strength doesn't matter a lot of the time - if a turret survives the initial burst the +%health from Upgrade + base Overclock shield is often enough to keep it alive for the full duration. Upgrade on a steamgun turret is incredible and even during late game an upgraded turret (if it lives can still crank out 3K+ crits) which justifies its existence (outside of providing very necessary cornersniping/blocking). 3 points in Hunker down and no more because you can't scale the turret health and they tend to die instantly at 4-5 points, which isn't exactly a great thing since you might want them around for the damage or so you can medic turret them.

Artillery (unlock at 20): Rocket pod is Annihilator's best talent as long as you can sustain the steam cost. Burning Phosphorus/Lock On is just more damage for pod. Death from Above (DFA) is a very strong talent all around, you should have it maxed by the time you get your Arcane Might + font of sacrifice power spike. Hunker Down + DFA to start a fight and if things don't go your way, you usually have 1-2 turns to run out. You can also cornersnipe with it so keep that in mind.
Note on Rocket Pod: Brawlers have a passive that causes them to run faster when targetted by projectiles (like rockets) so it might get you killed.

Spiderbot (don't unlock unless Cornac): 5/2+/5/0 should be standard and self explained. I've heard good things about this but as of 1.7.2 spiderbot unequips its body armor on death which makes it really annoying to use. It's not particular tanky (kind of like a turret) but can deal a lot of damage (use the ranged version) and costs no steam to sustain. Usually you're tight enough for class talent points + gold to reasonably maximize the bot's potential.

Miasma (don't unlock): this is kind of similar to Artillery in that it's a (mostly) offensive category that doesn't get in the way of you shooting things with Heavy Weapons. It's a lot more defensive, doesn't complement Artillery and deals entirely acid so eventually you might find unlocking both Artillery + this to be too expensive in itemisation talent points and action to make each turn. Between the two Artillery is the better category (Rocket Pod is ridiculous). Miasma can also be clunky at times due to Miasma Adaptation limiting its usefulness. If you decide to go take this over Artillery I'd go 5/3/1+/3+. This is a good category, it just has to compete with Artillery.

Prodigies
Arcane Might is pretty much necessary to scale our damage, but we only need it later in the game. Master of Disasters gives us a large power spike at level 25 and basically guarantees we'll be strong enough till level 42, but it might be replaced with one of the following:
1. Ethereal Armour: the bonuses are pretty good. However, this has less synergy with this class because outside of Light Armour training we don't have any other source of defense, which is a stat that's only useful when you're stacking it sky-high. As we're kind of immobile, we can't run around and refresh the armors after they are shredded either. You might find yourself losing stacks too quickly late game and being unable to refresh them, negating much of the benefits.
2. Vital Shot: It's a strictly good talent, however I'd rather take a passive prodigy because as an Annihilator you often find yourself spending too much time setting things up (Goggles + Hunker Down + DFA) to find a good time to use this.
3. Meteoric Crash: only used for the fire res bonus. You can focus on acid/phys instead and still get plenty of fire damage. Quite dependent on your gears and is only useful late game so MoI is smoother as a level 25 talent.
4. Giant Leap: use it as an escape mechanism. It has a really long cooldown though, so it isn't fantastic.
5. Pain Enhancement System: probably only worth it on a Shalore. Take AM first and this after.

Antimagic?
In one of my failed runs I went AM and that the limited access to items limit my damage output too much, which contradicts the goal to kill enemies before they kill you Also 8 dispels on Dissipation is definitely preferred vs Archmage enemies.

Race
None of the other races have anything equivalence to Haste of the Doomed so Doomelf has an irreplacable edge here, especially because it works well both early and late game. Ogre can ogrewield a rifle and a shield but other races can just unequip their shield if they really want. Drem can Frenzy out Turrets, Lightning Web and Hunker Down but is only useful late game since you can't afford the steam early on. Cornac can go for Spiderbot at level 10 which is pretty nice but it does slow down your investment in other categories so it's not a large improvement early game over HotD.

Final words
Just remember if you die and ask yourself what you could do better, more damage is always the answer.

[tremonius]

Thanks for the guide. My experience with Annihilator was very similar to yours with some minor differences, but I focused on acid damage rather than fire.

-i found that antimagic fits really well, as it helps with mages that are otherwise a big problem. Exoskeleton and reactive armor are good for melee but magic users terminated me in the first tries. Antimagic, silence and manaburn in particular solved that issue. Before that, i woudl normally reach level 30 no prob and the cecilia would finish me.
-very similar point distribution but i also opened the Chemical warfare tree (cornac) and it was amazing. particularly the last talent is really crazy, it hit really really hard (in a cone!) and basicall 1-2 shot everyone on Insane that was not a unique randboss or similar.
-antimagic+crit reduction+miasma made the character quite tanky for the first turns but after the first turns, some tactical withdrawls were in order if something managed to survive. Changing places with fire towers was awesome.
-Death from above is nuts but I only used it as an escape so not sure if 5 points is worth it. I guess depends on play style.
-I found a rifle which became the end game weapon. The fact that heavy weapons used steam speed rather that weapon speed, sure helped to cancel the speed penalty! With the rifle and artillery i did ~6-8K damage per turn and fumigate could hit for 14K+ when critting. I killed the sorcerers in about 6 turns. I focused on +acid damage and crit but used the rod as well for the damage reduction.
-I learned to hate high level summoners and their minotaurs as i couldn't hit them despite max dex and accuracy. Had some close calls in high peak.
-Fire turret was a real saver throughout the game, as enemies tend to focus on the tower despite me shooting them in the face most of the times (didn't see the same for the steamgun tower). Excellent for blocking. I used it more as a delay tactic than for damage.
-i seldom used hunker down in the normal rotation due to cost, left it for "oh shit" moments. their steamguns also helped. Could probably survice without them though.
-i did not use at all the 2,3 and 4 skill of heavy weapons. The first was maxed and heavy weapons are awesome only with that!

i felt invincible and the Atamaton one shot me...ow well......