Each of the four classes in Outriders is unique, completely customizable, and offers different ways to play People Can Fly’s popular looter shooter. Out of the four, the Devastator is the classic tank class. Eat bullets, sponge aggro, smash enemies to pieces.
In this in-depth guide to the Devastator, we’ll cover everything you need to know about this character, from skills and perks to mods and ideal playstyles. We’ll also include links to our specific build guides throughout.
Destructive Devastator Playstyles
The Devastator is a primarily close-range character with the ability to be built into a full tank. It’s a class that offers synergy with Bleed and can be extremely useful against Elite’s charged attacks, thanks to its range of interrupt skills. Here are some of the basic playstyles of the Devastator.
- Pure Tank – Head down the Warden skill tree with the Devastator and you’ll be able to build a tank class with boosts to health, armor, and resistance against status effects.
- Invincible Devastator – A high-tempo build that specializes in healing with Gravity Leap helping find a balance between damage and defense.
- In Your Face – A pure damage build (usually down the Vanquisher tree) that specializes in blasting enemies to pieces with Shotguns. Simple, and effective.
We have some sample Devastator build guides live already, including your standard go-to Devastator build (perfect for a first playthrough), as well as a guide to building a Devastator that’s basically invincible. You can also choose a more healing-centric option.
A Slayer Healer
The Devastator heals by killing enemies that are in close range. With 24 percent of your max health restored upon killing an enemy standing next to you, the Devastator can feel very sustainable, even if you’re stood in the middle of the fight. Read more about Devastator’s healing ability here.
Devastator Skills That Go Boom
The Devastator’s eight skills are broken down into four categories: Seismic, Interrupt, Protection, and Kinetic. They’re all useful, but Outriders is all about finding skills (and the mods that complement them) that work with your favored playstyle. Here’s what you can expect.
Earthquake
Earthquake is a powerful early game skill and really represents what the Devastator is all about – causing chaos and dealing AOE damage. This skill sends out a shockwave that interrupts all enemies in its path and deals damage.
Golem
Best suited to a defensive playstyle, the Golem skill creates a protective shield around you that absorbs 65 percent of incoming damage. Perfect for a tank Devastator build, or to sustain damage until your other skills have come off cooldown.
Gravity Leap
Arguably one of the Devastator’s most fundamental skills, Gravity Leap is super useful for pretty much any playstyle. You can use it to leap away from danger, or straight into danger. It’s a crucial part of our Invincible Devastator Build, which uses the skill to consistently heal damage.
Reflect Bullets
Reflect Bullets is a defensive skill that has you stopping bullets in time like it’s 1999. It sets up a protective barrier around you (and your teammates) then reflects that damage back at enemies. That includes melee damage. Pretty good for a defensive build.
Impale
Impale is the first skill that includes any mention of Bleed, which is the Devastator’s main status debuff. There is plenty of synergy with mods, skills, perks, and weapons that complement the Bleed affliction, and Impale is a crucial part of any build that specs down that route. Because of the boost to health regen and armor that comes along with this skill, it’s also useful for a type of support Devastator build.
Tremor
Tremor is the Devastator in a nutshell. It deals AOE damage within a medium radius around you and then heals for a percentage of damage dealt. This healing is actually a health drain, so you’ll be weakening enemies while you’re at it. Great for any build that relies on health regen to stay alive.
Boulderdash
Although the Devastator is a tank, it’s the Kinetic skills of Boulderdash (and Gravity Leap) that make this class feel very maneuverable. Boulderdash is a forward charge finished off with a ground slam that deals damage and interrupts enemies. You’ll smash straight through enemies, ideal for getting out of tight spots.
Endless Mass
Endless Mass inflicts Bleed, deals damage, and acts as crowd control on a busy battlefield. It’s the final skill you’ll unlock and you might ignore it because you’ve got so used to the other skills. However, you should check it out – with the right mods, it can be devastating. Excuse the pun.
We’ve already compiled a list of the best skills for the Devastator and then ranked them on their usefulness. Worth looking at if you’re still unsure about which skills you should choose.
The Devastator Skill Tree
Like every class in Outriders, the Devastator’s skill tree is split into three distinct paths:
- Vanquisher – All about Shotgun damage, boosts to Kinetic skills, rounded off with a big boost to overall weapon damage for its final perk.
- Warden – Head down this route if you want to build a pure tank build, with a focus on health, armor, and resistance.
- Seismic Shifter – Focuses on boosting Anomaly Power for the Devastator’s more explosive skills.
Each tree will push your playstyle in a specific direction. Thanks to Outrider’s great skill tree reset, you can play around with these different styles whenever you want to. Mix and match or complete an entire tree, it’s up to you.
Vanquisher
Vanquisher might be one of the most satisfying Devastator builds if you’re keen on staying mobile and dealing massive damage with close-range weapons.
There are perks in here to reduce Kinetic cooldowns (for more Gravity Leaps) and a decent boost for Assault Rifles, so you have a bit of medium-range potential as well.
Warden
The Warden tree is all about increasing the Devastator’s max health, armor, and health regeneration. It’s the perfect tank build that also offers a different way of boosting damage.
This tree’s power all comes from its final perk – Mighty Tank. Mighty Tank increases your Firepower and Anomaly Power based on Armor. You can build a super tanky Devastator with high armor and still do damage.
Seismic Shifter
The Seismic Shifter tree boosts Anomaly Power, Skill leech and reduces the cooldown of Seismic skills (like Tremor and Impale). This is also where most of the Bleed synergy comes from with the Devastator class.
One of the best perks for that Bleed synergy is Blood Donation; you are healed for 25 percent of your Bleed damage. This is great if you’ve built up a mix of mods and weapons that are kitted out with Bleed stats.
Deadly Devastator Gear
Outriders is all about gearing up and then gearing up some more. Throughout the campaign – and into the later stages of intense Expedition runs – you’ll find yourself overflowing with loots of different rarity and usefulness. If you are struggling with high world tier quests, it might be because your gear isn’t up to scratch, or you might need to check out our tips for playing on a high world tier.
Don’t worry if all that loot is confusing you: it gets easier once you’ve decided on a set playstyle. By the very end of the game, you’ll want to start thinking about how to maximize your Devastator build with some legendary weapons, and of course, some legendary armor.
Devastator Legendary Armor Sets
The Devastator has four sets of legendary armor, although you can only get one set’s bonus at once. Here’s a quick look at what each set does, and how they might complement your chosen playstyle.
- Deathproof – Reduces the cooldown of Boulderdash by 90 percent, so you can see how fun that might be for a full Seismic build.
- Marshal – There’s a big boost to Endless Mass here, it will split damage between four enemies pulled into the skill with 10 percent anomaly and 30 percent weapon damage.
- Seismic Commander – This set increases damage towards enemies afflicted by Bleed by 50 percent, and therein lies the perfect set for a Bleed build for the Devastator.
- Statue – Designed for a tank Devastator, this armor set doubles Firepower when using Tremor or Golem, and will double Weapon Skill Leech for you and your teammates. Pretty nasty.
You shouldn’t forget about legendary weapons, either. Once you’ve started farming expeditions for loot, you can start to tweak and stat-up your favorite weapons. If you’re interested in what the best legendary weapons are for the Devastator, we’ve got you.
Devastator Mods
There are loads of mods in Outriders, and plenty that are class-specific to the Devastator. Check out our complete guide to the best mods here. Each mod will complement a very unique playstyle. Chopping and changing your weapon and armor mods is one of the most satisfying parts of Outriders. Here are some of our favorites.
Weapon Mods
- The Tier 3 Bleeding Bullets mod, found on the Bulwark, synergizes brilliantly with the Devastator’s Bleed build (along the Seismic Shifter tree)
- The Tier 3 Fortress Perk, found on the awesome Deathshield shotgun, gives a damage bonus based on up to 43 percent of your max armor, a great mod for a tanky Devastator
- The Tier 1 Soul Devourer mod provides healing for each killing shot, something the Devastator specializes in
Armor Mods
- The Double Jump mod for the Devastator’s Gravity Leap skill is one of the most fun (and most broken) mods in the game, found on the legendary Marshal’s Gauntlets
- Primal Weakness is a legendary mod found on the Deathproof Mask, this mod boosts the Boulderdash skill to reduce the resistance of enemies by 50 percent… permanently (completely broken when you have the full set of Deathproof armor)
- Thirst For Blood is a tier 2 neutral Armor mod that increases Weapon Leech for every enemy you kill afflicted by Bleed, just a bit more synergy for the Devastator
There are loads of mods out there to choose from, probably too many to cover here. We’ve written up the best mods for the Devastator if you want some extra details.
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Harry Alston is a writer based in the UK. He was once number one in the world on Call of Duty: Black Ops and now spends his days chasing that past glory.
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