Outriders’ Trickster class is a must-play for any rogues out there. This class thrives on quick hit and run kills, getting deep into enemy lines before bending the laws of space and time to get out of any sticky situations. It’s certainly the most flashy class available. With Outriders is coming to Game Pass on the same day as its release, you can get all the flash at none of the cost.
This class may initially seem a little tricky to get to grips with, but once you get over all the flash and fanfare of it, it’s not too tough to understand. That isn’t to say it’s a weak class, far from it. The Trickster is a great class for both solo or team players, offering great survivability and great support potential.
How To Heal As A Trickster
The first step to building any class in Outriders is to consider how they heal. Instead of giving players a slowly regenerating health bar, or intermittent health pick-ups, Outriders encourages hyper-aggressive play by rewarding specific kills with health – the only way to gain life is to take it.
The Trickster heals in the same way as the Devastator – by getting close-range kills. This suits the play style of this class perfectly, as it encourages fast and deadly hit-and-run tactics. Each close-range kill will heal 20% of your max HP and grant you a shield that will mitigate damage, making your escape a little less dangerous.
Strongest Trickster Subclass
The Harbinger subclass makes the Trickster a little tankier by boosting health, armor, and shields, but it doesn’t do much for damage output. The Trickster is a damage dealer, not a tank, so avoid this subclass.
The Reaver subclass boosts skill power and skill leech – health regain from damage done by skills. This is a decent class for those who want to focus purely on the damage-dealing skills the Trickster has to offer, but this still limits the real damage dealing potential of the class.
The Assassin subclass offers the most bang for your buck. It contains perks that increase weapon damage, short-range damage, damage done from behind enemies, and includes some boosts for all your skills. This is the most versatile subclass and means every tool in your Trickster arsenal will be available to you. This subclass increases your damage based on how many enemies are near you too, making it perfect for getting quick kills when you’re behind enemy lines. It also offers a decrease to your movement skills, making maneuvering around your opponents trivially easy and making you a deadly, near impossible to hit target. Activating deception skills will also increase weapon damage by a huge 50%, meaning your weapons will cause some serious carnage.
Trickiest Trickster Skills
To synergize with your Assassin subclass properly, you’ll want to be using movement and deception skills. Slow Trap is an incredible deception ability that summons a time-warping bubble that will cause all enemies and bullets within its radius to slow down. It makes you feel like you’re Neo in the Matrix. This is a great skill to use when you’re in a cluster of enemies and you need some time to think or kill. It’s also a great defensive ability that you can use around your team to help them survive an onslaught of bullets. Just make sure you don’t stare at them for too long, once the skill runs out all those bullets will start flying again.
Hunt the Prey and Borrowed Time are both really great movement skills that will help you quickly kill enemies and get out of dodge before the tables get turned on you. Hunt the Prey teleports you behind an enemy of your choosing and grants you a shield bonus. This enables you to get a quick kill by shooting enemies in the back. The shield will allow you to take some hits from their allies while you reposition yourself. Fans of Overwatch’s Tracer will understand what Borrowed Time is. Upon activation, you get a shield bonus and your location is marked. Triggering the skill again within 28 seconds will teleport you back to the marked spot. This is a great skill to use to rush into the enemy position and get a couple of quick kills before you teleport back out to safety.
Temporal Blade and Cyclone Slice are both damage-dealing skills that summon anomaly blades to hurt and interrupt your opponents. It may be worth replacing Borrowed Time with one of these if you’re confident in your ability to survive behind enemy lines. The Assassin subclass gives you 50% extra weapon damage when you activate a damage skill, so these still have a use in this build.
Sneaky Trickster Tactics
Tricksters are at their best when they’re deep behind enemy lines and hitting them in the back. A great way to use this build is to activate your Borrowed Time skill while you’re with your team or behind cover to get a shield bonus. Then use Hunt the Prey to teleport behind an enemy and get even more shield. Then, activate Slow Trap and go wild and shoot everyone in sight. Try to make sure you’re hitting enemies from behind as this will deal extra damage thanks to the Assassin’s perks. If your health gets low or your shield runs out, hit your Borrowed Time skill again and warp out of there. before the enemies even know what hit them.
As mentioned above, you could swap out Borrowed Time for Cyclone Slice. That way, after you teleport behind an enemy and use Slow Trap, you can send a whirlwind of anomaly blades to slice through all the trapped opponents. You’ll have to escape by yourself, but with the weapon damage boosts from your damage and deception skills you should be able to tear through scores of enemies and not have to retreat.
Best Trickster Perks
Most Useful Trickster Weapons
As you’ll be dealing damage up close and personal, the best weapons to use for this build will definitely be shotguns and SMGs. The Assassin subclass has a perk that increases magazine sizes by 50% which is perfect for both those weapons as they typically have small magazines.
A shotgun should definitely be your primary weapon as they pack more of a punch than SMGs, but they’re still useful if you need to spray a bit. Don’t overthink things here, just use weapons that pack a punch up close.
Crafty Trickster Mods
Mods are passive skills – like perks – that can be found on weapons and armor. Disassembling an item with a certain mod will allow you to unlock it and rebuild it into a different item you craft. Once you unlock a mod you’re free to use it as often as you like, so get experimenting. Weapon mods are available to all classes, while most armor mods are class-specific. Below are some of the best mods for weapons and armor available to the Pyromancer. While you’re obviously free to use whatever you like, the mods outlined below offer the best synergy with the build already created.
Weapon Mods
- Ricochet does exactly what it says on the tin, ricochets your shots from one target to another within a five-meter radius. This is great for doing double damage to enemies grouped close together and trapped by your Slow Trap.
- Ruler of Leeches increases your weapon leech by 20% upon getting a killing shot. This will enable you to stay in the fight for longer.
- Shield Maiden grants a small amount of shield with each shot, perfect for the Trickster who already relies on shields to mitigate some damage.
- Gale of Protection – killing shots will stir up a gale that stops bullets for five seconds. This will help both you and your teammates.
- Body Snatcher is a hilarious mod. If you land a killing shot on an enemy another will be teleported to its place, enabling you to fire on it without having to move. This can also help pull enemies away from your team and towards you, perfect for a tank class.
- Killing Spree enables you to go on great killing sprees by increasing weapon damage by 30% per kill shot. This effect can stack up to five times granting you huge damage bonuses and making you an absolutely deadly force on the field.
- Ricochet, Body Snatcher, and Killing Spree are the best mods here for sheer damage. Ricochet would probably work better on an SMG so you can send bullets flying everywhere, while Body Snatcher is definitely best on a shotgun.
Armor Mods
There are a huge amount of armor mods that work very well with this build, but you can only use five at a time, so some shortlisting needs to be done. So, to make it easier, this guide will show groups of mods that can be used to focus on certain types of buffs.
If you want to really boost your close-range longevity, use Life of the Party, Introvert, What Goes Around, Personal Space, and Shield Zap.
Life of the Party reduces incoming damage based on how many enemies are in close range, while Introvert increases the range at which enemies can be considered close, making the effect of Life of the Party even greater. What Goes Around causes incoming bullets to have a 20% chance to deflect off of you and hit a nearby enemy instead.
Shield Zap lets loose a bolt of lighting from your shield every few seconds, ricocheting off of nearby enemies. Personal Space boosts your damage based on the number of close-range enemies, which works well with Introvert. This set of mods will make you a much bigger threat behind enemy lines, as you’ll be much tougher and able to deal a lot more damage.
If you’d rather focus on boosting your skills and synergizing with them, use Backstabber, Dance of Death, Time Blast, Time Space Protection, and Death Shell.
Backstabber and Dance of Death boost your Hunt the Prey skill. They deal extra damage to the enemy you teleport behind and decrease the skill’s cooldown respectively. Time Blast also works with Hunt The Prey, causing a slowing effect in a five-meter radius around the target you teleport behind, giving you some time to get your shots off before your opponents retaliate.
Time Space Protection and Death Shell both boost your Borrowed Time skill. Time Space Protection gives you extra armor and resistance while the skill is active, meaning you won’t have to pull out as quickly as you would otherwise. Death Shell gives you a stackable buff – for each enemy killed (up to four) while Borrowed Time is active, incoming weapon and weapon damage is reduced. These will make you much more durable while borrowed Time is up, meaning you can spend more time killing and less time worrying about being killed.
Phantom Dash replaces your default roll with a dash that allows you to pass straight through enemies. This is an absolutely essential skill for the Trickster, as you’ll want to capitalize on the Assassin subclass’ bonus backstab damage. Swap out one of the mods you don’t get much use out of in the two sets above and replace it with Phantom Dash to create a truly unstoppable phantom assassin.
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Issy is an avid film lover, writer, and game-player based in the UK. He combines his love of film and games in his writing, trying to find as many connections between the two mediums as possible. When he’s not writing, playing, or watching, Issy loves to DJ and look after his growing collection of houseplants, as they make him feel more adult.
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