Welcome to Method's living guide for the best build for Testing Station No. 89 (Radiation). 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
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Weapons & Augments
Ranged Weapons
The nerf to energy weapons that came in 1.3.5 has almost halved the damage dealt by weapons like the Lasgun and Experimental Lightning Gun against bosses. This has shifted the meta back towards weapons that can use the Attractor Field to maximum effect, such as the Perforator, Shellburster, and Tripleshot. The best build for this Testing Station is a variant of the Attractor Field build, which uses the high burst damage of shotguns (scatterguns) to kill the boss as quickly as possible, before cleaning up adds with The Ancient Way. If available a Tripleshot Rifle can also be used to supplement your damage at long range, providing you with a safer engage distance.
The Perforator or Shellburster shotguns 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 superior burst damage. These are the Augments you should use (in order of priority):
The Ancient Way is used for clearing adds at the end of the boss fight and even at lower grades it far outshines alternative area effect weapons like the Pyrocket. The best Augments for The Ancient Way are the Heavy Caliber Upgrade and the Missile Launcher Fragmenter.
The Regis Tripleshot Repeating Rifle pairs well with the Attractor Field, allowing you to keep your distance from the boss once the room fills with adds. 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).
If you have a high grade Seethe, that can be found in Testing Station No. 195 (Poison) and the Augment Rafiq Snubnose Heavy Kit, that can be found in Testing Station No. 152 (Electric) you can run a headshot build against the boss. The Seethe build takes headshot skills and the Marksman Technique for maximising damage and drops Attractor Field in favor of Explosive Grenade to trigger the Trooper skill Reflexive Reload.
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
Radiation build-up is unavoidable in this station so we have to wear a Radiation Suit for the entire run. If you have access to the Tactical Radiation Suit the added armor is preferred when compared to the Radiation Suit Mk6. It's possible to run a Pincushion Armor set, however it needs to be fully Augmented with Radiation Absorbing Fabrics and Radiation Shielded Latticing to compete with a Radiation Suit. The cost of such a speciality loadout is not worth it when there are high armor alternatives like the Tactical Radiation Suit that do the job much cheaper.
Radiation Mitigation Augments cannot be added to the Radiation Suit, so we have to rely on Iodine Pills for more mitigation.
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
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.
Abilities & Techniques - Boss Fight
Here's our suggested Ability loadout for the boss fight:
- Ability Slot 1: Attractor Field
- Ability Slot 2: Energy Capsule
- Ability Slot 3: Compel
And your Techniques for the boss fight:
- Technique Slot 1: Death from Above
- Technique Slot 2: Battle Hardened
- 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. We make optimal use of Death from Above during this fight by circling the boss in the air as we fire into the Attractor Field. In addition to increasing our damage, using the Full Suspensor Belt makes it much harder for enemies to hit us because their shots are all angled upwards.
The goal at the start of the boss fight is to stay close to the boss and do as much damage as possible in the shortest amount of time, making constant use of Attractor Field and Energy Capsule. Mid-way through the fight we can circle around the arena more, playing around the cooldowns on Energy Capsule and Attractor Field to do the highest damage fly-bys that we can. If things get too dangerous towards the end of the fight, flying to the top of the arena, Attractor Fielding the boss and switching to a Tripleshot can safely take you the rest of the way. Once the boss is down, The Ancient Way is used to quickly clean up the adds.
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 Suspensor Efficiency, Rifle Damage, and Heavy Weapon Damage.
