The Tokyo Struggle

Hey Guys, I hope that this is the proper place to post this.

I've been having some issues with Tokyo, and was wondering if I could get some help as it is rage inducing, and I don't want to just give up, as dying is starting to get expensive.

My build right now is at chronicle.thesecretworld.com/character/Decemviri and is currently what I am trying to use. Incase the link doesn't work, the abilities are as follows.

Active:
The Business
Shootout
Out for a Kill
Pump Action
Buckshot
Deadly Aim
Breaching Shot

Passive:
Gross Anatomy
Immortal Spirit
Bloodsport
Glimmer of Hope
Circulation
Dark Potency
Iron Maiden

For the most part, I can kill single enemies in Kaidan fine, though they bring me quite low health wise. Since I only have 3 controllers, groups are a death sentence. My gear is about 350hit and 500ish Penetration, all blues with the exception of 3 issue epics and epic pistols from the end of the story. All attack talismans, except for one major heal, and one major health.

I have tried to finish the tower defense mission, but just barely got through the first stage, with several deaths, and can't get through the next stages. I haven't even attempted any of the Kaidan story missions yet. Is there anything I can change that will give me a better chance at completing some of Kaidan, or should I just stick to the Transylvania missions.

Thank you in advance for all the help.
Decemviri

Heya Decem 🙂 Kaidan is often a bugger, and with your build, I can understand your struggles!

Your build itself isn't bad in terms of most of the game, but for Kaidan it needs some work. In Kaidan you;re going to need more AoE for the groups. They hit hard in large numbers, so trying to single target them down is going to take a long time!
Even with AoE, you're still going to find it takes a while to take stuff out. That means that it's useful to have a lot more healing than in your build. You may also find you need a heal talisman or two to up the healing amount.

I would suggest use fist abilities along with an aoe weapon of choice - i like blade, but hammer or chaos also works fine. That way you can build 5 resources with aoe, then use an aoe consumer + a healing consumer to keep you alive for another rotation. Getting a healing neck piece will make sure that heals pack a punch (a healing minor will do later on probably, but survival is the priority over speed of kill), so make sure you're doing issue 7 whenever it's off cd 🙂

For fastest xp, I recommend the sabotage missions in transylvania, they're really good on repeat as you know what to do, and it gives you useful sneaky practice! Combine that with repeating the issues and you should have your fist skilled up to 10 in no time 🙂

Ah, fellow victim of AEGIS system.

Don't think you need Deadly Aim and Breaching Shot in solo play, better to replace them with emergency heals, stuns or roots.
Since you're using pistols and shotgun, take a look at premade Desperado elite deck. Personally I don't like it but I was running with it in Kaidan for some time and it works.

For Tower Defence mission you can often (well, depends on your dimension, I guess) run into some other person or team doing it and group with them for easy run. Try also to do other missions, story and otherwise - I find Tower Defence one of the hardest Tokyo missions if doing it solo. Don't be ashamed to ask for help with missions in cabal or general LFG chat - once you start getting upgraded AEGIS controllers and capacitors, depleting shields will be much easier and you will catch up quickly, all you need to do is endure the early Tokyo hell.

Hey guys, in order to have easier time in Tokyo you should look into survivability/solo builds alternatively scenario builds, as these builds provide best combination of survivability and offense when dealing with mobs on your own. I would advice to explore different abilities without relying on the premade decks as those decks are generally not good.

A lot of effective builds utilize leech, but be aware that you can't leech on shield, so might not be the best choice until you can destroy shields very fast. Other options would be hindering and mobility, coupled with some passive healing, you then rely on not getting hit too much, and the last option is to go very defensive with straight up healing for your of hand weapon. Last option is very useful if you only have 1 set of AEGIS controllers.

You can check out some solo builds on TSWDB to get ideas.

I use a Chaos/Hammer build with leeching frenzy, and immortal spirit as backup (well, I use it to proc CiB, but it's also good as backup), not very useful as long as they are shielded, but, as soon as the shield drops, I can doubleMS them for extra heals, get back up and AoE until they're dead.

It's useful to run a double builder deck, if you don't have Aegis speed maxed up, to avoid having to switch controllers midfight, or you can use mods (don't remember what is called the one that switch controllers, and the one for the shields) that sets your aegis controller according to the shield of your enemy before the fight.

Tbh, I like to have more control over it, but, I heard it's quite nice.

Last thing, it's not bad to have a single target consumer, just in case, but you'll want something faster than shootout (Molten Steel wins over pretty much everything). Also, there are a lot of fast CD impairs in chaos (Domino effect ftw), and, if you really want to get fancy, and invest in some evade, the fleeting fortress effect is quite nice, been running an evade set for tokyo and it works quite well. I do get the occasional damage spike, due to the lack of block, but, most of the time, I have Inevitability and Fleeting fortress active. The only downside is that evade is really low in gain, so, you will need multiple pieces to get to 500.

Blade is also pretty good, instead of chaos, good for Frenzy AoEs to trigger leeching frenzy. Blade\Assault Rifle is also a pretty good deck, that gives you the range as well, for some fight you might want it. Check TSWDB or the buids subsection in the official forum, there's plenty of material, but, yes, optimizing the build is a pretty good way to minimize grief 😀 .