Welcome to Method's living 'best build' guide for Testing Station No. 24 (Dark). This guide was written by Talath, the current fastest Testing Station speedrunner, and will showcase what we believe to be the strongest current build for the Testing Station.
If you are looking for the difficulty scaling or loot tables, check out our Testing Station Info Page or if you need a walkthrough then we also have a guide available.
Note: we will update this guide whenever we find a better build or improvements to the current build, so we advise you check back often.
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Video Guide
Check back soon for the video guide!
Weapons & Augments
Ranged Weapon
The best build for the Dark Testing Station only requires a melee weapon and a shotgun for its core loadout. The Perforator or Shellburster shotguns (scatterguns) are the best weapons for this build 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 burst damage.
For your shotgun, you will want the following Augments (in order of priority):
The Regis Tripleshot Repeating Rifle allows you to keep your distance from the hordes of enemies in this Testing Station and helps you to deal with adds in the boss fight. The best Augments for the Tripleshot are the Heavy Caliber Upgrade and JABAL Spitdart Expander, JABAL Augments can be found in Testing Station No. 195 (Poison).
The Ancient Way can find some value pre-boss as a source of area effect damage, helping to clear out the enemy hordes. The best Augments for The Ancient Way are Missile Launcher Fragmenter, and Heavy Caliber Upgrade.
Melee Weapon
For the mobs and lock-in rooms, the highest grade melee weapon you have is usually the best, although when competing with weapons of the same grade the rapier Static Needle comes out on top. Rapiers have the longest reach during lunge attacks, allowing you to chain lunges without missing your target. Rapier slowblade attacks are 10% faster when penetrating shields compared to other top weapons like the Replica Pulse-sword or Pulse-knife. The Static Needle is chosen over Halleck's Pick, because damage over time effects (like the poison damage inflicted by the Pick) cancel crowd control effects like Compel.
Alternatively you could use a Replica Pulse-sword for its area effect parry or the Replica Pulse-knife to keep some reach.
For your melee weapon, you will want the following Augments (in order of priority):
Garments & Augments
The Forge armor set is useful here primarily for the Blade Mitigation it provides, allowing us to survive some boss attacks that would kill us otherwise. This setup uses Ix-Core Leggings for the bonus reduced dash cost, however you can substitute in The Forge Pants or other armors with Blade Mititgation, such as Pincushion.
- Head: The Forge Helmet
- Chest: The Forge Chestpiece
- Legs: Ix-Core Leggings
- Gloves: The Forge Gloves
- Boots: The Forge Boots
The Blade-warding Weave or Woven Reinforcement Augmentations will both give additional Blade Mitigation, although they are not necessary.
Tools
For this Testing Station you will want to run a pretty standard Tool loadout:
- Power Pack: Young Sparky Mk6 > Accelerator Power Pack
- Shield: Adaptive Holtzman Shield
- Suspensor Belt: Full Suspensor Belt
Abilities & Techniques
We will be running a different build for the pre-boss section of the Testing Station, then switching Skills and Techniques before entering the boss fight. Both builds are outlined below.
Abilities & Techniques - Pre-boss Fight
Here's our suggested Ability loadout below:
- Ability Slot 1: Knee Charge
- Ability Slot 2: Weirding Step
- Ability Slot 3: Compel or Stop
And your Techniques:
- Technique Slot 1: Disciplined Breathing or Suspensor Dash
- Technique Slot 2: Manipulate Instability
- Technique Slot 3: Center of Mass
This loadout maximises mobility, while providing as much damage as possible through Manipulate Instability and Center of Mass. Use Compel to peel one mob away when there are two together, or to set up a flurry of slow blade attacks on an enemy Heavy. Stop is a strong alternative to Compel specifically in this Testing Station due to the large number of enemies you have to fight at once.
When the horde-like 'Subies' spawn alongside the Heavy in the second lock room, you can lure them next to the Heavy and fire your Ancient Way into the crowd as they fight. Alternatively you can gather up a few Subies and use Stop to buy a window to fire.
Abilities & Techniques - Boss Fight
Here's our suggested Ability loadout for the boss fight:
- Ability Slot 1: Attractor Field or Knee Charge
- Ability Slot 2: Energy Capsule
- Ability Slot 3: Compel
And your Techniques for the boss fight:
- Technique Slot 1: Battle Hardened or Manipulate Instability
- Technique Slot 2: Disciplined Breathing
- Technique Slot 3: Center of Mass
The build for this boss fight uses Spice Prescience and Battle Hardened to maximise our uptime on Attractor Field and Energy Capsule. While Spice Prescience is active you can unload two full Perforator clips during one Attractor Field and then recast it again almost immediately. Compel can be used to give some breathing room to buff and apply Attractor Field to the boss. The boss struggles to path to you if you circle around the pillars in the arena, and you can use this to your advantage if he's pushing you too hard.
In this fight you spend a lot of time backing away from the boss as you fire your shotgun and this can cause severe rubberbanding issues if the boss teleports behind you while you're moving backwards. To avoid this potentially deadly issue, start walking forwards the moment you see his teleport animation begin, then dodge like you normally would.
When the adds spawn you can take out a Tripleshot to deal with them at range or shotgun them down. Unless the boss is engaging you at the same time as the adds, save the stunning lights to give yourself a free damage window against the boss later. In the later phases when the boss turns invisible, he remains in place for several seconds allowing you to continue your DPS or even land a free-aimed Attractor Field.
The alternative setup uses Knee Charge instead of Attractor Field and relies on shotgun stagger to interrupt the boss's patterns. Knee Charge is primarily used defensively to create distance and break line of sight, giving you an opportunity to heal. Manipulate Instability increases your ranged damage when you stagger the boss with shotgun blasts and Disciplined Breathing helps us maintain the stamina we need against the boss's relentless aggression.
Skill Trees
Check out the images below where you can view the full skill trees for every Skill, Passive, and Technique we use. Techniques and Active Skills used in this build should be max level, before prioritising the Key Skills below.
Key Skills
Below are the skills you really don't want to be without for this build.
- Trooper: Scattergun Damage (Level 3)
- Trooper: Ranged Damage (Level 3)
- Mentat: Ranged Damage (Level 3)
- Bene Gesserit: Blade Damage (Level 3)
- Bene Gesserit: Short Blade Damage (Level 3) (Only if running a Dagger or Dual Blades)
- Bene Gesserit: Vitality (Level 3)
- Swordmaster: Optimized Hydration (Level 3)
- Swordmaster: General Conditioning (Level 3)
- Swordmaster: Blade Damage (Level 3)
- Swordmaster: Long Blade Damage (Level 3) (Only if running a Sword or Rapier)
- Planetologist: Rerouting (Level 3)
If you have extra points after filling out your tree as shown in the images above, you can add points to Rifle Damage and Heavy Weapon Damage.
