The First Descendent - Tamer build

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Tamer is a powerful machinegun that appears around the middle of the main story quest and has a very high DPS rating, making it a natural favorite of players. You will still want Thunder Cage because during missions, The First Descendent sends an often overwhelming amount of enemies at you and you can very well run out of bullets for your gun or MP for your skills in a fight. However against single very tough targets like a Colossus, if you want to rely on a gun, then you want to consider something else.

For Machineguns, Enduring Legacy is the only weapon competitive with Tamer but that is an Ultimate tier weapon you need to farm. Enduring Legacy can do more damage by relying on superior Critical Hits compared to Tamer (without considering its Unique Ability). If you don't want to wait for Enduring Legacy, Tamer is a fine choice for a weapon against bosses. But if you can hold on and rely on your Thunder Cage for a while to get Enduring Legacy, it is a better investment.

Basic Weapon

We have some general notes about weapon stats in our Thunder Cage article so we will concentrate on the differences here that are relevant to Tamer.
  • Base Critical Hit Stats
    • The Base Firearm Critical Hit Rate for Tamer is 10% (compared to 20% for Thunder Cage).
    • The Base Firearm Critical Hit Damage Multiplier is 1.6x (compared to 2x for Thunder Cage).
    • With such a big difference, the same modules that provide Critical Hit Rate and Critical Hit Damage have different value here.
  • Critical Hit Rate
    • On Thunder Cage we used Better Insight and Edging Shot to provide a large bonus to Critical Hit Rate.
    • Edging Shot provides +43% more Critical Hit Rate but on Tamer this is only a +4.3% increase to the actual Critical Hit Rate. On a 4.72x Critical Hit Damage multiplier (achievable with Better Concentration and Concentration Priority modules), this is  only approximately 20% more damage at a cost of 15% ATK and therefore not worthwhile considering other module options.
    • Other secondary Critical Hit Rate modules can provide up to +14.5% Critical Hit Rate (or +1.45% to Actual Critical Hit Rate) and that is only worth around 6.8% damage.
    • We therefore use only the Better Insight module for a +39% Critical Hit Rate bonus (approximately 18% more damage).
  • Critical Hit Damage
    • Without Critical Hit Damage modules, critical hits at an Actual Critical Hit Rate of 13.9% and a basic 1.6x Actual Critical Hit Damage Multiplier provide 22.25% more damage.
    • Better Concentration, which adds +74.8% Critical Hit Damage, increases the Actual Critical Hit Damage Multiplier to 2.8x. This increases the damage contribution from critical hits to 38.92%, or over 16% more.
    • Since Better Concentration provides good value, Concentration Priority (+120% Critical Hit Damage) will also be use, for an Actual Critical Hit Damage Multiplier of 4.72x.
  • Secondary Bonuses
    • Based on our benchmarks of 13.9% Actual Critical Hit Rate and 4.72x Actual Critical Hit Damage, the various secondary bonuses on Rare purple modules are evaluated this way:
      • +1% ATK translates to ( 1% + (1% x 13.9% x 4.72) ) = 1.66% more damage
      • +1.5% Critical Hit Rate translates to (10% x 1.5%) x 4.72 = 0.7% more damage.
      • +6.5% Critical Hit Damage translates to (13.6% x (6.5% x 1.6)) = 1.4% more damage.
  • Reload
    • Reload times for a machinegun are extremely long -- 2.6 seconds for Tamer -- and with Concentration Priority, it will be 3.38 seconds. This is not the type of weapon you want to run out of ammunition when enemies are in your face, so be careful.
  • Weak Point Damage
    • As a build specifically for colossus fights, you might want to seriously consider Weak Point Damage because you will be expected to shoot weak points and that module can provide a very large damage bonus on top of regular weak point damage 
      • There will be opportunities to attack Weak Points while the enemy is basically disabled.
      • Hitting certain colossi such as Executioner at Weak Points will not cause their Enrage meter to increase, so whenever possible you want to hit Weak Points.
    • However, we personally feel that Weak Points are very hard to hit reliably, so we went for more reliable damage.
    • Weak Point Sight is a Malachite slot, and there are not that many good choices in case you have committed the slot but don't want Weak Point Sight. You could switch to Mental Focus and replace Sharp Precision Shot with Expand General Magazine.
  • Attribute ATK
    • Choosing an Attribute ATK basically adds 30% ATK to the weapon, though adjusted by enemy elemental resistance.
    • We like Electric, because Xantic slots have good alternatives if you end up not wanting to use that element.
    • For machineguns, Chill is also quite good because with Cerulean slots, if the penalties on Chill Prioirity (Reload Time) or Refrigerate Gunbarrel (Fire Rate) are too much, you could instead have Expand Weapon Charge  (Rounds per Magazine) or Recycling Genius (Reload Time Modifier).However, the Chill status doesn't seem to have much effect on colossi although it can affect Elites by slowing them down.

Modules

All Module information is based on the maximum possible enhancement level. Using matching slot types for half module cost, the total build is 79 module points out of 80 maximum.

Rifling Reinforcement - Firearm ATK 32%
Action and Reaction - Firearm ATK +61%, Recoil +20%
Chill Enhancement - Adds Chill ATK equal to 30% of Firearm ATK
Fire Rate UP - Fire Rate +25%
  • For large-magazine weapons, Fire Rate can be useful for quickly applying the full damage potential of your clip. We normally prefer more damage per bullet, but colossus and boss fights generally involve:
    • Having to take cover from overwhelming enemy fire.
      • So whenever you have the opportunity to safely shoot, try to make the most of it.
      • This is in contrast to Thunder Cage where you are generally using it to thin out enemy clumps that are easily defeated with a few bullets.
    • A timer on the fight.
Better Insight - Critical Hit Rate +39%
Better Concentration - Firearm Critical Hit Damage +74.8%
Concentration Priority - Firearm Critical Hit Damage +120%, Reload time -30%
Sharp Precision Shot
  • Module effect:
    • Fire Rate -20%
    • While pulling the trigger, Fire Rate +4%, Recoil -5%, and Firearm ATK +6% every 0.5s, up to 10 stacks.
  • The Firearm ATK bonus seems to affect the BASE Firearm ATK of the weapon as an increase in ATK from the Sharp Precision Shot module will also increase Attribute ATK from the Electric Enhancement module.
Expand Weapon Charge - Rounds per Magazine +49%
  • We considered supporting Chill Enhancement with Chill Priority or Refrigerate Gunbarrel for more damage, but since we are using Sharp Precision Shot and can hit the maximum of 10 stacks with a machinegun, we considered that increasing the Rounds per Magazine would be superior. Once we reached 10 stacks, we could sustain that maximum bonus for much longer with a bigger magazine and without the downsides that come with Priority or Gunbarrel module.
  • If sustained fire is not feasible, then you can consider the following swaps:
    • Sharp Precision Shot to Electric Enhancement
    • Chill Enhancement to Recycling Genius or Reload Expert
  • Expand Weapon Charge also makes Mental Focus an interesting alternative to Sharp Precision Shot.
    • Mental Focus: Fire Rate -10%. When firing a firearm, Firearm ATK +1% for 2s (up to 150 stacks). Removes effect when reloading or changing firearm.
      • You can very briefly pause if you need to.
      • For the maximum bonus you have to basically reach the end of the weapon clip for an average bonus of +75%.
Weak Point Sight - Weak Point Damage +35%
  • If you are very good at scoring Weak Point Damage, you may want to further invest in it by swapping something out for a Rare purple module like Weak Point Detection.
  • Have Aiming provides an even higher bonus and can stack with Weak Point Sight but comes with a 20% Accuracy penalty on a machinegun that already has a large reticle.
  • If you find you cannot target Weak Points frequently enough for this module to be worthwhile, then consider the following swap:
    • Weak Point Sight to Mental Focus
    • Sharp Precision Shot to Electric Enhancement
    • Chill Enhancement to Weapon Tuning

Summary

Firearm ATK +78% - 163%
  • Firearm ATK +78%
  • +30% Chill ATK
  • Around +55% average ATK from Sharp Precision Shot
Actual Critical Hit Rate 13.9%
Actual Critical Hit Damage Multiplier 4.72x


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