Heavy Carry build guide, apoc viable. No fluff, no monolith.

Heya, I recently did an apoc run with this build where I didn't get stuck; even against some real painful modifiers and rough bosses. Sunken witch, base sha hala, awakened king, meatball, that stupid stone warrior boss. This went through the gauntlet. I keep seeing people asking about heavy carry builds and all the youtubers pushing sandstorm and nebula spam even on carry builds, like they won't get nerfed. We aren't doing that. We have a loyal friend and a laser mini gun, we don't need mods. I anticipate the dlc balance patch will barely affect this build, if at all. If you're looking for an engineer build with no micromanaging, no worrying about manual buffs, and no swapping, you're in the right place.

Archetypes: Engineer primary, Handler supplemental.

Vulcan is the best all around for everything. Sometimes the flamethrower might be better, sometimes you might have the distance benefit to use the railgun but do you know what you have to do for those? Open the menu and swap. We don't have time for that, there's dran to mow down.

I use Support dog, I like the movement speed. Attack dog is also good. I don't find guard dog necessary, we're taking Rugged so the reduced damage to dog isn't a huge deal and dog creates enough threat without the skill bonus.

Whispering Marble & Dried Clay Ring, a combo you can't go wrong with. Along with A'Taerii Booster, Ring of Ordnance, & Crimson Dreamstone. This gives a solid mix of damage and staying alive because you probably will get hit some. I'm not perfect and are odds are, you aren't either. Crimson dreamstone is important because crit chance is fairly reliable with vulcan, giving regular uptime on max stacks. Heavy carry damage really comes from having Overclock active as often and for as long as possible without giving up survival. You may also consider swapping in Kolket Eyelet if using regen route instead of leech.

Speaking of survival, that's why we're using one of the best relics in the game, Profane Heart. It really is that simple! Leech is good. This is the one thing I'm not sure if we'll see nerfed or not, but if that's the case there's also Tranquil Heart. For a slightly less aggressive combat approach. In either case, you want Skill Duration, Skill Damage, & Skill Cooldown fragments. If you aren't playing on apoc just save your relic dust, switch to apoc and spend it all until you get mythics.

Traits are fairly flexible, we have so many trait points now, you probably already take some stuff you don't need. I will list what I recommend a, few things I don't recommend, and why. Fortify & kinship are built in, but here's the rest of your options; Gifted, Leech, Regrowth, Strong Back, Vigor, Expertise, Barkskin, Fitness, Rugged, Triage or Siphoner. Strongback is good if you're wearing Leto's v2 because it will let you fat roll if you need to drop turret. I personally dress for fashion because I'm comfortable with fitness carry dodging. The iframes are pretty generous when you're used to it. I see some people recommend swiftness, from what I can tell it does not affect heavy carry speed so I don't use it. I sometimes see untouchable, but either it doesn't apply to carry dodge or the frames are already generous enough that it's a waste of points. You should be carrying most of the time, so flashcaster is also not a huge gain.

Gifted, Expertise, Rugged, and Fitness are not essential but highly recommended. Regrowth & Triage for Tranquil Heart, Leech & Siphoner for Profane Heart.

You shouldn't be using weapons much if all is according to plan, but sometimes you might need to! I find Monarch with Momentum a good choice in the rare instances I need it. For melee I like Crystal Staff or Wrathbringer with Shielded Strike, as the mod it will apply the shield even with heavy carry melee strikes. This does more than you might think, so use it in a pinch if you need to! I carry Meridian as a sidearm because it looks cool, I never find myself using it at all. You could use nebula or monolith for just a pinch more damage, but you know, maybe don't? There's enough already. Besides, this is the every mans engineer build. No mod swapping nonsense for us.

Barring getting full combo'd and single shot attacks, you should be able to loosely trade with the leech format. A few hits won't kill you and playing smart gets your health right back. Dog can hold aggro to a reasonable degree. So long as you aren't sloppy, this will see you through. Regen healing is more reliable but less aggressive. If you do get hit you have to back off instead of doubling down. Which works better for you will vary but they are both good. Remember, always be using overclock!