Marvel Heroes Rocket Raccoon Guide

Marvel Heroes Rocket Raccoon Guide by dragonsroc

Rocket is my favorite Marvel hero (Spider-Man ain’t got nothing on Rocket). The 2008 run of GotG was my first comic series that I read, and I was hooked. With that said, I was overjoyed to find he was in MH. I have been waiting for his review for a while now so that I could play Rocket like he was supposed to be played – as a gun-toting raccoon. Needless to say, while his review didn’t turn out to be as great as I’d hoped, a gunner build is finally viable. So here is my build for you gunners. I provided pictures for those that just want the build, and don’t care about the explanations.

Why should you use my build? Well, you don’t have to. But if you want a pure gunner build to stay true to Rocket’s character, I’ve got the build for you. Also, if you like to see lots of red numbers, this build is hitting high crit and brutal ratings (50%/50%). It’s fun to see his sig brutal for 1m+ four times in a row (I’ve seen it as high as 1.5m). This is an all-purpose build for all content in the game. You can use it for midtown, cosmics, raids, etc.

***Skills***

No gear

With gear

Boss Rotation: Gravity Mine (if you want to)>M78>Sig>Minigun and use all 4 sig shots when you can. Spam Assault Spec for the spirit. Reapply M78 when you need to. Don’t bother with Gravity Mine unless you’re going to fire the sig, as it’s not really worth it otherwise.

Mob Rotation: If there’s a lot of mobs with elites, burrow in, drop turret, burrow out to drop aggro, spam M78/BFG. Fire sig at elite crowds.

Skills to max: M78 Plasma Launcher, BFG, Photon Minigun, Groot, Keen Planning, Razor-Sharp Wits, H7 Fleetslayer, Assault Specialization

One Pointers: Combat Shield, Heavy Plasma Rifle, Timewarp Turret, Gravity Mine

Ult: for maximum STDPS, spam the hell out of the missiles. As long as 3-4/5 hit, you’re doing better DPS than the DoT. Trash pretty much dies immediately so you don’t need to bother with switching skills. The DoT is going to be better to use if you can hit 3 or more bosses at once with it (it doesn’t tag like BFG does, so they have to be in a line).

So as this was a gunner build, it’s fairly obvious to max M78, BFG, minigun and assault spec. The guns serve the purposes of a DoT, AoE and STDPS. The 4th gun, the Heavy Gauss Rifle, is not needed. After having tested it, it is, on average, a very slight DPS gain on my gear. The reason being that a if the HGR hits normally, you are overall losing DPS, while a crit is an overall slight DPS gain and a brutal is a DPS gain. Thus, it’s only a good gun to take if you are hitting 50%+ crit (which I am). The reason I’m not taking it is because 1) I hate charge skills, and 2) 20 points isn’t worth a very slight DPS gain.

Maxing the sig is fairly obvious, as it’s the only burst damage Rocket can get. Used normally, it is a mediocre sig that it best not used at all. However, you can animation cancel the sig to cut about 60-70% of it’s recovery, making it an actual worthwhile skill to use. To animation cancel it, use any skill immediately after you fire the nuke. You will have to repress the minigun key if you are holding it down when you fire off the sig.

For the last 3 skills I could max, I had a choice of 4 skills: Groot, Keen Planning, R-S Wits and Combat Shield. R-S Wits is an obvious take for the hefty crit/brutal rating, spirit/shield regen and comes with a nice RIF bonus. I took Groot for the extra damage and tankage he provides, since the less I’m being attacked, the more often I’m able to stand there and DPS. I decided to skip the Shield. Why? Because the difference between a level 1 shield and a maxed shield is ~800 defense. I am already sitting at 7.9k defense which translates to 39% reduction. That sounds low, except you then realize that the shield cuts damage by 25% already, so my actual reduction is really 54.25%. Thus, the extra defense was really not needed. I opted instead to max Keen Planning for the dodge as I am getting no dodge elsewhere, and thus the cost-benefit ratio was more in favor of the significant boost in dodge.

With that, I’m left with 3 skill points. I stuck one into the Timewarp Turret for it’s slow utility. It’s also handy by providing an extra target to tank for you. Threw one into Gravity Mine, because what the hell. It’s useful to add vulnerability in parties if no one else is doing it in their rotation, as Rocket breaking rotation to apply it is better than a better DPSer breaking rotation. And I threw the last point into the rifle as I prefer it over the pistols. I did not put any points into the laser drill burrow because my gear provides it for me.

Other Alternatives: If you want to take some different skills, go right ahead. Heavy Gauss Rifle is a viable tool to use if you’re a fan of charge skills. Bonus points of it actually being a DPS increase if you have enough crit. You can also choose to max the shield if you want. While the extra defense isn’t that useful, the max capacity of the shield is. At level one, any big boss hit (Jugg/Rhino charges, Raid bosses) will deplete the entire shield, which means you’ll have to hotbar the shield in an easily accessible place. You can also split half-half between Groot and Combat Shield if you want. Groot is pretty tanky at level 10+skills and isn’t really providing a ton of DPS. Meanwhile, the level 10 shield will expand it’s capacity to better manage those big hits depleting the shield.

For alternative one pointers, if you prefer the pistols over the rifle, you’ve got an extra point. You can throw that into the shield (level 2 yay!), the jetpack or suppression/blaster turret (more aggro pull).

Raid Alternative: If you want to truly min-max raids, you’re going to want to move points from BFG/Keen Planning into Combat Shields. The only reason is because BFG is only useful in just a few spots, but is not really necessary, and the extra shield capacity is much more useful than the dodge. Dodge isn’t as useful because you aren’t really getting swarmed in raids, and the hits that don’t kill you, don’t really hurt, while the hits that will kill you, will kill you regardless of the dodge really. If you want to min-max even further, only put enough points into the shields so that the capacity is 1/3 your total life (if it can even go that high). There’s no reason for it to go higher as it can only absorb that much in one charge before you die anyway.

***Gear***

Artifacts: GotK, BTS, Adv Meta, HoN are, IMO, BiS

GotK needs no explaining, but if you want one, it’s because it provides massive critdmg/brutdmg on a build that has MASSIVE amounts of crit and brutal. BTS is your standard powerhouse in any energy hero. Adv Meta is very powerful for Rocket, as the +skills benefit him greatly due to his passives. He gets extra dodge, crit, brutal, defense and DR along with the +1 on his guns. The IAS is also handy to speed up both his minigun and his sig animation. Now the HoN is debatable as to whether it’s BiS versus an energy AI chip. The reason I think HoN is better is due to the spirit sustain. Now that his spirit pool is significantly smaller due to not using 4 Frigga blessings, he can run out pretty fast. Between HoN, Assault Spec and spirit on medkit, you will have 0 spirit issues. Also the proc to knockback can be a lifesaver sometimes. If you feel that you don’t need the spirit sustain, then a high roll energy AI chip would be the best replacement.

Alternatives: Energy AI, Adv Phoenix Feather, Magneto T-Shirt, HoD, Adv AIM Dispenser, Zigg, Random’s Protoplasm, Siege’s Targeting System, ASSS. More or less, in that order of effective replacements. Of course depending on your gear, some move up and down the list (ASSS for better survivability, AIM/Zigg for crit)

Blessings should all be Hela.

Medallion: Pyro is probably BiS. I haven’t tested anything else, but I can only really see Bullseye being better. Other good ones are Bullseye, Madam Hydra, Sauron, Doom, Goblin, Electro, Mega-Sentinel, Doc Oc, Juggs (more or less in that order)

Relic: Atlantis is probably BiS, due to the absurd crit and brutal ratings you’re getting on this build. Other good options are the usual – Lemuria and Xandar, though Subterranea, Attilan, Wakanda and Chandilar work in a pinch. I believe BFG counts as a DoT, so Wakanda should affect it.

Gear:
Staple gun provides a solid amount of energy dmg, IAS, crit, critdmg and +skills to the gun tree. Also gives spirit return. Pretty much everything we need. AMA or Destroyer Energy Rifle could be good here, though I think the staple gun would win.

Body Armor provides the burrow at a very high level. Very necessary. Only the new Apocalypse armor I could see replacing this, but then you’d lose out on the terrific stealth/movespd/atkspd boost, and one of the best dodges in the game (despite its non-canon). When underground, Rocket will dodge almost any and every attack (barring lag), including charges and DoTs. Not to mention you can burrow through almost every area you could fly over, without the limitation of height differences essentially making it better than any flight power. Also provides a lot of health, crit, spirit cost reduc, proj deflection, durability and some decent procs. Basically, just use this.

GoT Belt is BiS. No real competition. If you don’t have it, Rocket’s Apprehendroid Array will have to do.
Slot 4 can really be a lot of different things. Rocket’s slot 4 is terrible for a gunner build, though, and I would suggest a cosmic over it if you don’t have any uniques. I went with SHIELD boots because it provided health, lots of regen, +2 skills and spirit restore on medkit. Also because of the top 3 options here, these were the only ones I had. My other suggestions would be AIM Space Corps Zero Gravity Boots, Hydra Repulsor Boots, Sandals of Hercules or The Perfect Wave.
LW-60 minigun is BiS. crit/critdmg/brut/brutdmg and a whopping big +6 to the gun tree. Also provides a handy boost to Groot. There isn’t really any competition here. You could use the Brutal Shades if you really want, but they will be worse, and Rocket doesn’t really have lots of burst damage so you won’t be seeing giant red numbers all over the screen all the time.

Enchantments of Ranged/Energy on slots 1/5. Health on slots 2/3/4.

Ring: Health and crit dmg are important. Then go for crit, ranged/area dmg, brutal and finally brutal dmg.

Insignia: All the Guardian Insignias are worthless for this build. So you really only have a choice of SHIELD ones. That pretty much only leaves you with O’Grady as BiS, but since they cost an arm and a leg, go with whatever you can. Affixes you want are health and crit dmg. +1 skills if you can get it. Crit, ranged dmg, brutal and brutal damage are secondary choices.

Costume: Crit dmg all the way. You have insane crit and brutal ratings. Why would you want anything else?
For the core, I’d go with +1 energy, 25%/100 on medkit. +1 fighting works as well instead of energy. The medkit is pretty important though for spirit sustain and burst health regen. Swap out the damage stat for LL/invul if you feel like you want better health management. Of course the best core you could get is energy/invul/25%medkit.

Legendary: Gungnir.

I’ve tested CCR, and while it works, it’s not better. If you already have a maxed CCR and no gungnir, you don’t need to bother switching. CCR averages about half a second to a second longer TTK versus Gungnir which isn’t that much. However, CCR provides some nice health/spirit return (that should really get put on one rank to make CCR better) which is always useful.

Runeword: Bowazon on an energy Uru.

Defense or Ranged Uru work too, since this build doesn’t use the only melee attack he has anyway (the dash). For any ranged hero that isn’t mental, Bowazon is pretty much BiS. You could use God of Mischief too if you want to, even though Rocket isn’t mental. If you can’t afford it, get Fire Barrage. If, for some reason you can’t afford that, then I guess River of the Soul works to never need to use a medkit for spirit…

***Synergies***

Wolverine, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Starlord, Ms Marvel, Mr. Fantastic, Loki, Squirrel Girl, Cable, Invisible Woman are what I’d go with (if I had them).

Alternatives are Silver Surfer, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Man, Jean Grey, Human Torch, Black Widow, Taskmaster, Emma Frost, Daredevil, Storm, Captain America (no particular order).

***Omega System***

I haven’t really explored the system too much post review, so I can’t tell you the best nodes. I can however point out some of the best nodes to take.

Nanotechnology>Spin Tech: Obviously great. Rocket doesn’t struggle with trash mobs thanks to the power of BFG. He struggles with STPDS on bosses, so this is a priority as it gives the biggest bang for the most part.

Psionics>Melt Face: This is currently where I’m throwing my excess points. Since this build achieves a 50/50 crit/brut rating, getting as much crit/brut dmg as possible is going to up your damage the most. Since the first 20 or so levels are fairly cheap, I’m dumping the rest of my points here until I hit ~20, where the cost won’t be as good as getting a new node.

Special Weapons>Focused Plasma Cannon/Assault Rifles/Fury’s Needle Gun These are solid ranged/energy damage nodes. I have no idea the cost/benefit ratio, but I’m like 100 points away from even getting to a new node past Melt Face so I haven’t really done the math.

Arcane Attunement>Doom’s Mystic Armor: It seems pretty meh to me, since this build already gets a high amount of crit and brutal. But this node is there and works for this build.

Special Weapons>Mandroid Armor: Durability is always handy. And it’s cheap.

Neural Enhancement>Guilt Suppression Research: Best node for brutal rating if you need it. Also provides some spirit return.

Human Augmentation>Elixir of Immortality: A revive is always handy. Even if it is a 30m cooldown.

Nanotechnology>Nano-mines: No more gravity mine!

Psionics>Phoenix Force: +10 energy. But super super expensive.

Molecular Adjustment>Xerogenesis/Exogenesis/Antigenesis: They’re not good cost/benefit ratio nodes. But if you got 3k Omega Points, you might have to start branching out for the more expensive ones.

***Hotbar Setup***

I am using the hotbar extension tweak for the 2nd hotbar. My 2nd hotbar uses the keys 1,2,3,4,C,R with medkit on Q. 

So when it’s all said and done, what kind of stats am I hitting? Well I’ll tell ya…

+6 Energy, +7 Fighting
5325 Energy+Ranged+Gun DR (extra 600 boss, 121 area and 213 unaware)
24.3% IAS
3574 Energy+Gun crit (I imagine somewhere above 50%)
8921 crit dmg (266%)
2006 brutal (a little under 50%. includes hela+wolvie synergy. doesn’t include bowazon/gungnir procs)
3905 brutal dmg (460%)
16,281 health, +4 durability
7,942 defense (39%, 54.25% with shield mitigation)
4057 dodge (32%)

This gives me a very steady average of ~25s on the middle boss dummy. Much less if the sig brutals 4 times, and goes no higher than ~26.5s. On the top dummy, averages about 8-9s. Seen it go as low as a tad over 6s, and as high as 10s. I could shave it down some more with more relics, a better insignia, and better rolls on my costume, artifacts and gear.