Dune Awakening: Late Game Comprehensive Build Guide

Updated for Patch 1.5: The console release of Dune: Awakening introduced some major combat balance changes that have shifted the meta towards more melee-focused playstyles. PC and Console use the same version of Dune: Awakening, so our build recommendations are the same for both platforms.

Once you reach the endgame in Dune Awakening and unlock the Overland Testing Stations your build will begin to matter a lot more. Not all Abilities are useful in endgame content, so our core loadout uses Abilities that scale well into higher difficulties, giving you the best build possible. This guide will give you a strong set of Skills, Abilities, and Techniques, then offer alternatives and paths to increase your power as you unlock more Skill Points and gear.

The most powerful builds in Dune Awakening use melee weapons for clearing regular enemies and defeating bosses. Hybrid setups using ranged for bosses and melee for regular enemies were originally the strongest, but the buff to melee heavy attack damage in update 1.5 has enabled melee only builds to pull ahead. Hybrid builds are still competitive, but they have a higher skill floor, require more gear, and usually deal less damage than melee only builds.

Quick Links:

• Overview & Playstyle
• Strengths & Weaknesses
• Core Build
  • Melee Weapon
  • Ranged Weapon - Optional
  • Armor
  • Equipment
• Abilities & Techniques
  • Abilities
  • Techniques
  • Abilities for Bosses
  • Techniques for Bosses
• Piloting the Build
  • Fighting Bosses
• Skill Trees
  • Skill Tree - 150 Skill Points
  • Skill Tree - 200 Skill Points
  • Skill Tree - 254 Skill Points
• Alternative Abilities
• Alternative Armor
• Headshot Build Variant
• PVP Build Variant
  • PVP Weapons

Overview & Playstyle

This guide will assume you have completed the story and crafted a full set of the highest tier gear you can before tackling the Overland Testing Stations. The core skill tree will use 150 skills points as a baseline which will give us the Abilities, Skills and Techniques we need to clear Testing Stations efficiently.

This build gives us the tools we need to go fast, not only through movement, but through raw power as well. This build uses strong burst skills for bosses, powerful CC abilities for regular enemies, and great movement abilities for traversal.

This build is designed to be useful in all PVE combat scenarios, allowing you to take it into any Testing Station without the need for respecs. However, if you'd like to use a more specialised build, check out the guides for our Overland Testing Stations.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Core Build

This build will work with a single melee weapon, however there's situations where having a ranged weapon or another blade will be helpful.

Melee Weapon Options

Performing a melee heavy attack against an unshielded enemy will deal the same damage as a slowblade attack penetrating a shield. Heavy and slowblade attacks deal much more damage compared to light attacks, so we'll be choosing a weapon based on how good its heavy attack is. The listed weapons are best in class, but you can use other weapons of the same type if these aren't available to you.

Melee weapons in order of preference:

• Replica Pulse-sword (Sword)
• Prescient Edge (Rapier)
• Leech's Maw (Dual Blades)
• Replica Pulse-knife (Short Blade)

Replica Pulse-sword has an AoE parry that replenishes extra stamina, helping you to avoid being caught out with an empty bar. Swords deal 10% more damage than other melee weapons, but they're slower and have less reach than rapiers and kindjals (short blades). When it comes to weapon choice, the sword is probably the easiest to use, although the rapier and dual blades may feel better depending on the situation.

Prescient Edge rapier has the longest reach out of the recommended weapons, allowing you to chain heavy attacks together, lunging at the enemy and hitting them, even as they try to get out of the way. Although the rapier's parry is hard to execute, lacks AOE, and does not return stamina, the extra reach you get during heavy attacks goes a long way in making up for this shortcoming. The extra reach makes it easier to stay out of range of frustrating shove attacks and reduces how often you trigger enemy Suspensor Blasts. Prescient Edge or Static Needle are preferred over Halleck's Pick, because the poison inflicted by Halleck's Pick will interrupt CC abilities.

Leech's Maw dual blades are a favourite of many players and they are lots of fun to use. Unfortunately, they have a short range and their unique slowblade attack is often less practical when compared to the other weapons. Dual blades have a great light attack, but light attacks deal substantially less damage than heavy attacks following the 1.5 update. The dual blades' heavy attack is very strong in situations where enemies or bosses can be stun-locked, so these blades can still be the best choice depending on the encounter. Leech's Maw is preferred over the Burning Blades because the fire inflicted by Burning Blades will interrupt CC abilities.

Replica Pulse-knife is the compromise between the rapier and sword, as it keeps some of the reach that the rapier has, but loses the swords AOE parry. In a meta where heavy attacks are your main source of damage, the quick light attacks of this short blade don't find as much value.

For your melee weapon, you will want the following Augments (in order of priority):

• Blade Sharpener
• Heavy Metal Blade Coating
• Heavy Blade Adjuster

Ranged Weapons - Optional

Well augmented ranged weapons are still strong in PVE, but the majority of content will be faster and easier to clear with a melee weapon. If you want to add some ranged weapons to your build then a shotgun, spitdart, and missile launcher are the best choices.

Missile Launcher

Even a melee only build can benefit from using The Ancient Way, as it's one of the best ways to clear out groups of unshielded enemies and is recommended for The Old Quarry Testing Station boss.

Best Augments for The Ancient Way are Heavy Caliber Upgrade, Missile Launcher Fragmenter, and Missile Launcher Heavy Payload.

Shotgun

The Perforator or Shellburster shotguns are the best close range weapons and can be found in Testing Station No. 136 (Fire). Both shotguns have comparable sustained DPS, however the Perforator is the preferred shotgun for its superior burst damage. Shotguns are incredibly powerful and can stagger bosses and regular enemies alike. Keep in mind that the bleed/fire damage these guns inflict will break CC effects like Compel.

Best augments for the shotgun are Scattergun Rampage-Enhancement, Heavy Caliber Upgrade, and GRDA 44 Amplifier.

Spitdart

The Regis Tripleshot Repeating Rifle can deal damage comparable to shotguns, but its bullet spread can be an issue without the Attractor Field Ability. The JABAL Spitdart Expander really unlocks this gun's potential and even with a lower grade Expander you can double or triple your clip size. Keep in mind that the poison damage this gun inflicts will break CC effects like Compel.

Best augments for the Regis Tripleshot Repeating Rifle are JABAL Spitdart Expander, Heavy Caliber Upgrade, and JABAL Spitdart Amplifier.

Armor

The best all-rounder Armor set for PVE uses the Forge as a foundation, then swaps out the Gloves and Chestpiece for Circuit Gauntlets and Combat Exoskeleton Chestpiece. Forge is good for its Fire, Poison, and Blade mitigation, with the Fire Mitigation being most helpful in Testing Station 136 (Fire) runs. Another light armor set like Pincushion is a viable alternative, although you will have more difficulty against fire attacks that penetrate shields. We have to make some compromises when running one Armor set all the time, but this setup is a great core to build upon.

• Head: The Forge Helmet
• Chest: Combat Exoskeleton Chestpiece or The Forge Chestpiece
• Legs: The Forge Pants
• Gloves: Circuit Gauntlets
• Boots: The Forge Boots

Circuit Gauntlets reduce your Power usage by 10%. This works for everything, your shield, tools, energy weapons, and suspensor belt. Anything that uses power gets this benefit.

Combat Exoskeleton Chestpiece is a heavy armour chestpiece that increases your melee damage by 10%. It's the obvious choice for a melee build, but this bonus is additive with other damage bonuses from passive skills and Combat Specialisation, so light armour chestpieces like Forge or Pincushion are still good alternatives.

Equipment

A unique Power Pack or Shield isn't required for this build, but they are nice upgrades to have.

• Power Pack: Accelerator Power Pack > Young Sparky Mk6
• Shield: Adaptive Holtzman Shield > Holtzman Shield Mk5
• Suspensor Belt: Full Suspensor Belt

Full Suspensor Belt conserves your momentum when it's activated and transforms Knee Charge and Shigawire Claw into long range traversal Abilities. The Full Suspensor Belt also lets you float after jumping or travel upwards as long as your Power lasts.

The Accelerator Power Pack is the easiest upgrade to obtain in this list, because you can farm it at Testing Station 89 (Radiation) on Challenge Level 1 for the highest drop chance.

Young Sparky Mk6 and Adaptive Holtzman Shield are both drops found in the Deep Desert.

Abilities and Techniques

These are the core Abilities and Techniques we recommend for fighting regular enemies. This is our standard loadout, and you can use it in most situations. For boss encounters, you can switch to our dedicated boss loadout further below.

Abilities

• Knee Charge
• Weirding Step
• Compel

Knee Charge is combat ability that doubles as a traversal ability, allowing you to cover long distances when paired with a momentum preserving Suspensor like the Full Suspensor Belt. It's great for engaging or disengaging from fights.

Weirding Step is a movement ability that teleports you behind the targeted enemy, temporarily disabling them and giving you an opening to attack.

Compel is a ranged CC ability that can be used to peel enemies or buy yourself time to heal and set up for burst damage against bosses.

Techniques

• Center Of Mass
• Manipulate Instability
• Suspensor Dash or Disciplined Breathing

Center Of Mass is a 20% damage increase to all our blade attacks. The damage bonus from this Technique is additive with other bonuses, like those granted from passive skills, Inspiration or Combat Specialisation.

Manipulate Instability increases damage by 20% against staggered enemies, adding to our slowblade damage. When the target is staggered by your heavy attack, this 20% bonus will immediately apply to your damage. Damage to staggered targets is a multiplicative damage bonus and is applied after all other bonuses, making it more valuable than additive techniques like Center Of Mass.

Suspensor Dash lets you dash in midair. This Technique can be life saving in difficult combat encounters because the air dash allows us to conserve our stamina and get away quickly. The air dash is also faster than running, so it can be used for traversal outside of combat.

Disciplined Breathing improves your Stamina Regeneration by up to 20%, helping you to maintain one of your most valuable resources. If you don't find yourself using Suspensor Dash very often, this is a great alternative.

Abilities and Techniques for Bosses

These are the core Abilities and Techniques we recommend you use for boss fights.

Abilities for Bosses

• Inspiration
• Weirding Step
• Compel

Inpiration is cast to give a 35% melee damage bonus to you and nearby allies. The damage bonus from this Ability is additive with other bonuses, like those granted from passive skills, Center Of Mass or Combat Specialisation. In groups this Ability is incredibly strong, but it also works very well when playing solo.

Weirding Step is a great gap closer that lets you reach the boss immediately or teleport next to adds so you can deal with them instantly.

Compel is the longest CC in the game and works in all the boss fights, buying you enough time to bandage or kill adds. If you are fighting with Spice Prescience active and have the passive skill Voice Training at level 3, you can keep the boss CC'd indefinitely.

Techniques for Bosses

• Center Of Mass
• Manipulate Instability
• Disciplined Breathing or Reckless Lunge

Center Of Mass is a great all round damage increase and remains good in boss fights. The damage bonus from this Technique is additive with other bonuses, like those granted from Inspiration or Combat Specialisation.

Manipulate Instability is a huge damage boost. When the target is staggered by your heavy attack, this 20% bonus will immediately apply to your damage. Damage to staggered targets is a multiplicative damage bonus and is applied after all other bonuses, making it more valuable than additive techniques like Center Of Mass.

Disciplined Breathing increases stamina recovery rate by 20% and reduces your down time during boss fights.

Reckless Lunge gives 50% damage reduction whenever you do a running attack. This bonus only lasts for 5 seconds, but it can be a lifesaver when making risky attacks, such as against the Fire Boss in Testing Station 136. The damage reduction doesn't affect your shields, but it stacks additively with the Damage Reduction gained from Combat Specialisation. If you want to keep Disciplined Breathing, then Reckless Lunge can replace Center Of Mass instead.

Piloting the Build

Our core pre-boss Abilities, Knee Charge, Weirding Step, and Compel are used for clearing regular enemies. We'll give you some strategies and combinations to get the most use out of these Abilities, so you can efficiently clear Testing Stations.

Melee Heavy Attacks

Heavy attacks and slowblades that penetrate shields are the best ways to deal damage with this build. Against bosses using heavy attacks is the best strategy, because they deal the most damage and they stagger the target. This build stacks blade damage and damage to staggered targets, both of which apply to melee heavy attacks that naturally stagger the target.

Knee Charge

Knee Charge is used as a traversal and combat ability in this build. You can aim Knee Charge in any direction, even upwards, then once you begin travelling you can activate your Full Suspensor Belt to preserve the momentum. This can be used to travel long distances across Hagga Basin or quickly move across the room in a Testing Station.

Knee Charge is primarily used to stagger enemies, setting them up for slowblades or heavy attacks.

Weirding Step

Weirding Step teleports you behind the targeted enemy, temporarily disabling them and making them vulnerable to attack. Weirding Step will usually let you chain multiple slow blade attacks, but it also works well as a CC tool for setting up heavy attacks.

Compel

Compel is an incredibly powerful CC Ability and works great as a peel Ability, taking heavys out of the fight or splitting up melees when more than one attacks you.

Compel can be used in a CC chain by casting it against a heavy, then slowblading them three times and dashing back as they try to suspensor blast you. After backing away to safety you can re-engage with Weirding Step, getting two more slowblades against the heavy, before they have a chance to attack again.

Fighting Bosses

We take Inspiration, Weirding Step, and Compel into boss fights. For ranged strategies strategies, you can check out our Overland Testing Station walkthroughs and builds.

Inspiration

Inspiration's 35% damage boost is important for maximising burst damage against bosses. Bosses will regularly become immune to CC (indicated by a white border and tint around their health bar), making them much more dangerous to fight. This is an ideal time to activate Inspiration, as well as between boss phases while the boss is invulnerable.

Compel

Compel can be used to disable the boss for long periods of time, giving you window to heal, recharge your shield, or take out adds. If you have Spice Prescience activated and Voice Training at level 3 for -30% Voice Cooldowns, you can cast Compel again after the boss recovers, keeping them out of the fight indefinitely. If you feel comfortable fighting against the boss's mechanics, Compel also works well as a CC to set them up for easy heavy attacks.

Weirding Step

Weirding Step is used as a gap closer during boss fights, allowing you to teleport across the room to quickly deal with adds, or re-engage the boss.

Reckless Lunge - Technique

Reckless Lunge triggers when you do a running attack for 50% damage reduction. We use this to our advantage in dangerous boss fights where attacks can be unpredictable, such as the Knee Charge from the boss in Testing Station 195 (Poison), or the Pyrocket shots from the Testing Station 136 (Fire) boss. Reckless Lunge is also great to use whenever your shield goes down, increasing your survivability while you wait for it to come back up.

Skill Trees

These are the skills we recommend you use for the core build. The 150 Skill Point build will give you the Abilities, Techniques, and Passives you need to get started.

Skill Tree - 150 Skill Points

For our first 150 Skill Points we want to pick up as many damage passives as possible, while still putting points into our core Abilities. We take two levels in Solid Stance so the Testing Station 152 (Electric) boss won't stagger us with his shots. Take Short Blade Damage instead if you're using a Replica Pulse-Knife or Leech's Maw. You can take Disciplined Breathing Disciplined Breathing instead of Rerouting if stamina management is a problem.

Key Skills

Trooper - Center Of Mass, Suspensor Dash.

Planetologist - Rerouting.

Bene Gesserit - Manipulate Instability, Blade Damage, Weirding Step, Compel, Voice Training, Vitality.

Swordmaster - Blade Damage, Long Blade Damage, Reckless Lunge, Solid Stance (level 2), Knee Charge, General Conditioning, Inspiration.

Skill Tree - 200 Skill Points

At 200 we can add some quality of life skills, improving equipment repair, power, healing, and stamina regeneration.

New Key Skills

Trooper - Gunsmith, Field Maintenance, Suspensor Efficiency.

Mentat - Tailoring.

Planetologist - Overcharge.

Bene Gesserit - Self-Healing.

Swordmaster - Disciplined Breathing.

Skill Tree - 254 Skill Points

At Combat level 100, we'll have access to 54 more Skill Points, allowing us to pick up some ranged skills.

Alternative Path: Instead of spending points on ranged skills you can invest into the Planetologist tree, picking up important farming skills like Sandcrawler Yield and Vehicle Mining.

New Key Skills

Trooper - Ranged Damage, Scattergun Damage, Heavy Weapon Damage, Energy Capsule, Battle Hardened, Attractor Field.

Mentat - Ranged Damage, Rifle Damage.

Alternative Abilities

These Abilities are alternatives that might be better to use, depending on the situation or your personal preference.

Crippling Strike

Crippling Strike staggers and slows enemies in front of you. This skill could replace Weirding Step or Knee Charge, although it lacks the mobility those Abilities provide. As a combat Ability Crippling Strike is mostly used as a way to stagger enemies, but the slow is still valuable utility.

Deflection

Deflection will block projectiles from hitting you for as long as your stamina lasts. This Ability functions great as a panic button for when your shields go down. In the Testing Station 152 (Electric) boss fight Deflection will negate the boss's shots allowing you to safely wait for your shields to come back online.

Shigawire Claw

Shigawire Claw is primarily a traversal ability due to its long cooldown when used against enemies. However, it offers incredible utility in the open world and in PvP. Against Masano, the Fire Boss in Testing Station 136, it's one of the most effective ways to interrupt her hovering attack.

Source of Power

Source Of Power boosts Power Regeneration by 30% for anyone standing inside its large area effect. This Ability works best when playing in groups and helps to sustain energy weapons or shields. It costs seven Skill Points to acquire this Ability because it's at the end of the Mentat skill tree.

Explosive Grenade for Reflexive Reload

Explosive Grenade damage falls off in higher difficulty Testing Stations, but we can use it to proc the skill Reflexive Reload which will instantly reload the currently equipped weapon. Weapons with long reload times like The Ancient Way and Seethe will benefit the most from this, but it will work with any non-energy weapon. It costs 12 Skill Points to unlock level 3 Explosive Grenade and Reflexive Reload, so it's a sizeable investment.

Alternative Armor

Ix-core Leggings

Ix-core Leggings are light leg armor with the same Blade Mitigation as The Forge Pants, but they trade the Poison and Fire Mitigation for 10% Stamina Dash Cost Reduction (6% more than The Forge Pants).

Power Harness

Power Harness gives you 50 extra Power Capacity. If you were using a Young Sparky Mk6, this would equate to a 7% increase in shields. Of course, power is also used by your other pieces of equipment, like Suspensor Belts, tools, and energy weapons, all of which will work for longer periods of time.

Pincushion Set

Pincushion is a light armor set like the Forge, providing the same Blade Mitigation and Stamina Dash Cost Reduction, but loses the Poison and Fire resist for some Dart Mitigation.

Headshot Build Variant

Using a weapon like Seethe enables a different style of play where we don't use a melee weapon against bosses and focus on maximising headshot damage. Headshot builds have a higher skill floor than melee builds and deal less damage overall. Regardless, they can be a lot more enjoyable and rewarding to play, allowing for more skill expression.

Headshot Pistol

Seethe has a high headshot multiplier, 2x compared to the 1.5x standard, and really starts to put out damage after being augmented. There's a higher skill floor with the Seethe, so if you can't get consistent headshots your damage output won't be very competitive. The Seethe's headshot playstyle works best when you take the Headshot Damage passive and use the Technique Marksman.

Best Augments for the Seethe are Rafiq Snubnose Heavy Kit, Heavy Caliber Upgrade, and Tactical Enhancer.

Key Skills

The Mentat tree has four skills we'll need when switching to a headshot variant and maxing Ranged Damage from the Trooper tree will help as well.

Marksman is taken at level 3 and slotted as a technique, replacing Center Of Mass. The 20% extra headshot damage is a great bonus and is required for this kind of build.

Headshot Damage, Ranged Damage and Pistol Damage are taken because we need more headshot damage and the Seethe benefits from bonus Pistol/Ranged Damage.

PVP Build Variant

The core of this build is PVE focused, but you could take it into PVP with some different weapons and a heavier investment into ranged damage.

In Update 1.5, Funcom introduced a hidden PVP shield bonus that reduces all incoming damage to shields by 33%. With this change, two equally matched players will be unable to one-shot each others shields. In groups, fights are still chaotic and multiple quickly timed shots can break your shield instantly, but players are relying more on weapons that penetrate shields or apply DOTs.

In PVP there's a preference towards traversal Abilities, so we recommend running Shigawire Claw and Knee Charge. Crippling Strike is the most common third ability, because it's the best way to counter the Reckless Lunge Technique, which makes enemies almost impossible to kill. The Weirding Step, Gravity Mine combo mentioned with A Dart For Every Man below is an option, but against groups a poorly executed Gravity Mine combo can end up getting you killed instead. Source Of Power is practically mandatory for base raiding, because the Lasgun is such a Power hungry weapon.

For Techniques a pretty standard choice is Reckless Lunge, Center Of Mass, and Suspensor Dash. You can swap in other Techniques like Disciplined Breathing, Conservation Of Energy or Battle Hardened, depending on personal preference, however Reckless Lunge is mandatory.

PVP Weapons

Dunewatcher

Dunewatcher poison can be scaled by Toxicity Amplifier, letting you apply a sizeable poison DOT to enemies from long range. This weapon doesn't have very good body or shield damage, so it's only used for its one-shot poison application.

Best PVP Augments for Dunewatcher are JABAL Spitdart Toxicity Amplifier, and JABAL Spitdart Expander.

Penetrator

Penetrator is a drillshot with good accuracy and range. Drillshots are pretty underwhelming in PVE, but in PVP, the bleed DOT and stagger inflicted by the Penetrator makes it a worthwhile weapon.

Best PVP Augments for the Penetrator are Scattergun Rampage-Enhancement, Drillshot FK7 Sprayer, and Drillshot FK7 Optimizer.

Plastanium Pyrocket

Plastanium Pyrocket might seem like a gimmick weapon at first, but its damage penetrates shields, making it pretty good in PVP. It's unreliable at long range, but for close ranged skirmishes, the Pyrocket pairs well with other DOT weapons.

Best PVP Augments for the Plastanium Pyrocket are Heavy Caliber Upgrade, Pyrocket Supercharger, and Pyrocket Quickloader.

Perforator

Perforator shotgun staggers enemies and deals massive damage against unshielded targets. Against shielded enemies the stagger can force them to dash away, making it a useful tool when depleting your target's stamina.

Best PVP Augments for the Perforator are Scattergun Rampage-Enhancement, Heavy Caliber Upgrade, and GRDA 44 Amplifier.

Regis Disruptor Pistol

Regis Disruptor Pistol at a high grade with two Disruptive Augments this gun can two-shot shields in PVP. In fights where people are using power with suspensor belts, or getting peppered by Lightning Guns, Regis Disruptor Pistol is still strong.

Best PVP Augments for shield breaking with a Regis Disruptor Pistol are Disruptive Coating, Rafiq Snubnose Disruptive Coating and Rafiq Snubnose Expander.

Experimental Lightning Gun

Experimental Lightning Gun will deal very high energy damage to unshielded players because most players are stacking Dart and Blade Mitigation. As a shield cracker it's not as effective as you might expect, but there aren't many options available.

Best PVP Augments for the Experimental Lightning Gun are Karpov 38 Pressurizer, Quick-Release Trigger, and Disruptive Coating or Heavy Caliber Upgrade.

A Dart For Every Man

A Dart For Every Man is a close range shield cracker in PVP that can be used as a part of a Weirding Step, Gravity Mine combo. You teleport behind your opponent, drop a Gravity Mine so they can't dodge, and unload your entire clip into them. If you find your enemies are escaping too easily, you can run Prana-Bindu Strikes to hold them in place while the mine activates. After their shield is broken you can switch to a Perforator to finish them off.

Best PVP Augments for A Dart For Every Man are Disruptor M11 Sprayer, Disruptive Coating, and Disruptor M11 Quickloader.

Black Market K-28 Lasgun

Black Market K-28 Lasgun is the best weapon for destroying bases and grounded aircraft. For base raiding this gun is best paired with the Source Of Power Ability, so it can be fired indefinitely.

Best PVP Augments for the Black Market K-28 Lasgun are Heavy Caliber Upgrade, Lasgun Amplifier, and Lasgun Harmonizer.

The Ancient Way

The Ancient Way is great at taking down ornithopters from a distance and can destroy components in a single shot with the right Augments and Grade. Splash radius doesn't have an effect on how many components are damaged by The Ancient Way, so the Missile Launcher Fragmenter Augment isn't required in PVP.

Best PVP Augments for The Ancient Way are Heavy Caliber Upgrade, Missile Launcher Heavy Payload, and Missile Launcher Fragmenter.