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While past Bethesda Game Studios titles, like Fallout 4, were more story and action-oriented, the return to form as a genuine role-playing game in Starfield opens up countless doors when it comes to creating a viable build. You don’t have to play a voiced protagonist, which detracts from the immersion. Instead, you can carefully select skills, traits, and abilities to become the ultimate tank. If you’d like to mop up Crimson Fleet or Spacers easily, wielding a powerful assault rifle or shotgun, then here’s how to craft the best tank build in Starfield!
Crafting the Best Tank Build in Starfield
To start crafting a tank build in Starfield, don’t underestimate how important the character creator is in the long run. Every build in the game begins with a proper background, and for a tank, that means choosing one of the following:
- Soldier
- Fitness: Increases the amount of O2 available.
- Ballistics: All ballistic weapons, such as rifles and handguns, do additional damage.
- Boost Pack Training: Unlocks and improves the boost pack ability.
- Combat Medic
- Pistol Certification: The player can deal additional damage when using a sidearm.
- Medicine: Basic healing items, such as Med Packs, Trauma Packs, and Emergency Kits, heal more health faster.
- Wellness: Increases the player’s total health pool.
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- Wellness: Increases the player’s total health.
- Ballistics: Increases the damage of all ballistic weaponry.
- Piloting: Enables the ability to use ship thrusters.
The entire point of a tank build in Starfield is to deal massive damage while soaking up attacks as if they were mosquitoes. As such, focusing on the Wellness, Fitness, and Ballistics perks will make a significant difference in a tank’s survivability and damage-dealing capabilities.
Next, you must consider the various traits in Starfield, as some prove more beneficial and advantageous than others. For a tank, consider choosing:
- Alien DNA
- Positive: Increases the player’s available health and oxygen.
- Negative: Healing items such as food and Med Packs are ineffective.
- Terra Firma
- Positive: Grants additional health and oxygen while on the ground.
- Negative: Reduces overall health and oxygen while in space.
- Wanted
- Positive: When your health is low, you deal additional damage with all weapons.
- Negative: Occasionally, hostile bounty hunters will appear to take you down.
With your backgrounds elected and your traits in order, it’s time to consider the flow of your tank build. This is a long-term planning process, so considering future scenarios makes a difference here, which is why you should focus on the following skills when leveling up:
- Physical
- Wellness
- Pain Tolerance
- Nutrition
- Energy Weapon Dissipation
- Rejuvenation
- Combat
- Shotgun Certification
- Heavy Weapons Certification
- Ballistics
- Social
- Gastronomy
- Isolation
- Science
- Medicine
- Spacesuit Design
- Starborn Powers
- Reactive Shield
- Supernova
You’ll primarily spend most of your skill points in the physical tree to improve survivability. However, the combat tree proves just as necessary to successfully deal damage and take down mobs and bosses with relative ease. As you can see, we’ve allocated skills toward almost every weapon skill in the game, except pistols, as you’re more likely to use a primary weapon than a sidearm. But having the ability to use any weapon in the field effectively makes a big difference, especially if that weapon is a Microgun, which should be your chosen primary for most of the playthrough as a tank.
Unfortunately, to succeed in a tank build like this, you’ll need to allocate several skill points. As such, you’ll want to grind out levels quickly to start seeing a genuine difference in gameplay; otherwise, early on in the experience, you’ll likely find yourself somewhat weak.
Choosing Weapons for a Tank Build
As mentioned, you’ll likely want to opt for a heavy weapon like the Microgun for a tank build in Starfield. Some other critical weapons of choice for a tank include:
- Microgun: A heavy weapon, essentially a minigun in space, available from UC Surplus in New Atlantis. If you travel down to The Well, the shop proudly displays a Microgun on a crate near the front desk. If you’re careful, you can steal it and get away clean. Otherwise, wait for one to appear in the various weapon shops around the Settled Systems.
- Urban Eagle: While most of your skills revolve around damage-dealing with primary weapons, a powerful secondary can improve a bad situation. In this case, opt for the Urban Eagle. It’s a powerful revolver that deals 39 physical damage per hit. Its damage-dealing capabilities increase with the Ballistics and Pistol Certification skills, making it as strong as some primary weapons.
- Experiment A-7: The Experiment A-7 is a rare and legendary shotgun capable of firing 15×25 CLL Shells while dealing up to 119 points of physical damage per shot. It has a fire rate of 10, a range of 20, and a relatively low accuracy rating of just a tad over 50%. If you can manage to get your hands on this unique shotgun, prepare to wipe the floor with every Crimson Fleet flunky that steps in your path.
While most of these weapons come down to luck and completing the right questlines, knowing where to find the Experiment A-7 in Starfield can turn the tide of battle for this tank build. It’s located in various random containers spread throughout the world. As such, it’s a luck-based drop once you hit a specific level, though that level is currently unknown.
Combat Tips for a Tank
As a tank build, you’ll likely feel invincible at some point. With enough points placed into the proper skills, you essentially will be an unkillable tank. Still, combat in Starfield can unexpectedly take a turn for the worse, so here are a few tips to help you strive.
- Even when carrying a heavy weapon, aiming for the head is best to maximize the damage you’re dealing to enemies. A well-placed shot can deal a critical hit while conserving costly ammunition, as feeding the Microgun is not cheap.
- Use the boost pack to gain a height advantage over your enemies before raining down hellfire with the minigun-like Microgun. Despite your overall size and reliance on heavy weaponry and armor, remaining mobile makes you a challenging target to nail down.
- While bullets will prove most effective for many combat encounters, do not underestimate the strength or utility of explosives. A well-placed grenade can clear a cluster of Spacers hunkered down behind cover. They’re great at clearing rooms, too.
- Do not forget to mod your weapons at the workbench to benefit your tank build further. You can add components and parts to increase damage, accuracy, and capacity; you’ll likely need all three as you move into the mid- and late-game.
- As a tank, your instincts tell you to remain still and aggro enemies. But it’s typically best to remain mobile in Starfield while in a gunfight. Do not stay still; do not cower; keep pushing the enemy and landing hits and kills to end encounters sooner.
- If you must reload your weapon, remember that guns like the Microgun or Experiment A-7 have lengthy reload times. Try to stick to cover when reloading whenever possible to avoid unnecessary damage.
Related:
Best Space Pirate Build in Starfield
Starfield is available now on PC and
