This guide will detail the best demolition builds in Starfield, so expect lots of heavy weapons and explosives. We’ll review the best traits for your character and which weapons will best suit this fiery play style.
Whether you go in all guns blazing or take a more subtle approach, knowing the best traits and weapons for your builds will play a vital role in your success as you adventure across the galaxy. The Demolition Build, in particular, will require your heaviest armor and most powerful weapons to blast away at everything around you.
Best Backgrounds for Demolition Builds
The Demolition build has a focus on combat and survivability. The best-starting background for the demolition build is the Soldier. This background gives you the three starting skills: Fitness, Ballistics, and Boost Pack Training. These are all combat-focused skills that will aid you in the early-game combat.
Combat Medic will serve you well as a Demolition build, giving you three helpful starting skills. Pistol Certification will provide you with 10% more damage with pistols, Medicine will make it so Med Packs heal 10% more, and Weight Lifting will let you carry ten extra kilograms of equipment. The latter will prove very helpful with lugging around a bunch of extra explosives.
Best Traits and Skills for Demolition Builds
The ideal choice for demolition builds in Starfield is the Wanted trait. This trait grants a damage boost when your health is low, but it has the drawback of attracting random mercenaries who will attempt to eliminate you.
Terra Firma is also an excellent trait, as it gives you increased stats while you're in combat on a planet. You can also take some easy quality of life traits such as Kid Stuff or Dream Home.
For this demolition build, it's advisable to skip traits altogether—as each trait has its downside.
Here is the list of skills we recommend opting for with the Demolition build:
- Weight Lifting: If you plan on carrying heavy weapons, you will need a lot of carry capacity. Also, grab the relevant Skill Magazines.
- Demolitions: Deal increased explosive damage and take reduced explosive damage.
- Heavy Weapon Certification: Increase heavy weapon damage and resistance while aiming down sights.
- Weapon Engineering: Someone who loves heavy weapons should be modding and upgrading their firepower.
- Shotgun Certification: Get up close and personal to blast away enemies with shotgun shells.
- Boost Pack Training: The boost pack gives you excellent mobility to catch your enemies off guard from above.
- Wellness: Increase your health.
- Pain Tolerance: Take reduced ballistic damage and walk through the hails of bullets.
- Energy Weapon Dissipation: Take reduced laser damage and reflect it at enemies.
- Rapid Reloading: Never let the gunfire stop.
- Crippling: Cripple your enemies with your powerful blasts to make them even less threatening
- Armor Penetration: Don't let armor stop you from blowing up your next target.
Best Weapons and Armor for Demolition Builds
You will want to arm yourself with the heaviest weapons for this build. Here are the most powerful guns you can get your hands on in Starfield when it comes to sheer power and explosiveness.
N67 Smartgun
The N67 Smartgun can be purchased from the UC Distribution vendor in the Commercial District of New Atlantis on Jemison. This uniquely powerful minigun fires at a breakneck speed and can mow down enemies in a comical fashion. It's a must-have if your preferred playstyle involves slowly walking toward enemies while holding a railgun.
This weapon will cost you roughly 37,000 Credits, which might seem a lot at the start, but it's worth the trouble as a Demolition build can use it throughout the game. You can also steal the Minigun from the UC Surplus in the Well for an alternative weapon with even more weapon modding options!
The Negotiator
The heavy weapon Negotiator is a powerful grenade launcher that can do massive single-target and AoE damage. It's a late-game weapon but extremely potent at its job. Before you get this weapon, you can also use the Ashta Tamer, a weaker version of this weapon. You can get the Negotiator from any of the following shops:
Ashta Tamer
The Ashta Tamer is a powerful and relatively easy-to-great Grenade Launcher that can cause some serious explosive damage to everyone around you. It functions as a good grenade launcher and can deal incendiary damage to enemies caught in its blast. It's a modified Bridger, and you can mod it to make it even more powerful.
You can loot it from a crate in a cavern while completing the main story quest, The Empty Nest.
For the secondary weapon, we suggest sticking with an Assault Rifle like the AA-99 or a heavy sidearm revolver such as the MagShot to clean up any stragglers.
Best Armor for Demolition Build
As for armor, you’ll want something resistant to environmental and status effects. If you’re playing around with heavy weapons, an armor that can defend you against any explosive damage will be a good idea. You wouldn’t want to blow yourself up now accidentally, would you?
Stick with the heaviest armor with the bulkiest stats that you can find. While you can find suits like the Mantis or Mark 1 early on, they don't provide the demolitionist aesthetic.
While you are here, why not check out some of our other guides and articles like Starfield - Food & Drink or Play Starfield Without a Console or PC?
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