Decent Heavy Weapon + Power Armor builds for SFS?

I'm coming back and giving Starfinder a second chance now that it has had a chance to get a bit more material published, and I was wondering if there are any viable builds focused around wearing the best power armor you can get your hands on and firing the biggest gun you can carry.

Maybe Guard Soldier 1, 3, or 5 / Technomancer X to get all the proficiencies, and then juicing up your gun with magic?

Any particular guns or power armor that would be best to look at? Should I be looking to replace my gear every few levels as I hit new item level tiers, or using the armor upgrading rules?

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

If you're going to be in the back the chances to use guard are going to be pretty limited. Sharpshooter might be better because you'll constantly be shooting around some vesks tail.

Sharpshooter 1 technomancer x would power up your weapon the fastest i think.

The power armor and heavy weapon just don't synergize that well. Though you could use the strength and extra slots to carry more stuff.

In my opinion, going full Soldier will give you the best out of heavy weapons. Technomancers are not about weapons. Not that they can't use them, but it's not their focus.

In my opinion, going full Soldier will give you the best out of heavy weapons. Technomancers are not about weapons. Not that they can't use them, but it's not their focus.

I think it would depend on if you wanted one giant blast with a heavy weapon (unwieldy weapon) with overcharge where you don't need as much BAB or MORE DAAAKAAAAAA with the soldiers higher bab making up for the multiple attacks.

In my opinion, going full Soldier will give you the best out of heavy weapons. Technomancers are not about weapons. Not that they can't use them, but it's not their focus.

There are some ways to get some mileage out of a weapons Technomancer - especially using Fabricate Arms, so that you can effectively counter-pick weapons as needed.

SuperBidi wrote:

In my opinion, going full Soldier will give you the best out of heavy weapons. Technomancers are not about weapons. Not that they can't use them, but it's not their focus.

There are some ways to get some mileage out of a weapons Technomancer - especially using Fabricate Arms, so that you can effectively counter-pick weapons as needed.

So you conjure a big gun, juice up the gun with magic, and then blow the enemy away on round three. Or you could shoot him with you big gun 3 times.

Think I know which route I'd take.

Gun technomancers are interesting, but they're somewhat reliant on juicing up an unweidly heavy weapon with empowered weapon then shooting.

Which is typically not as good as a soldier's full attack, but is still decent. The technomancer option has the full array of spells to make up for the lack.

Personally, even though it might be sub-par mechanically, I like the bombard soldier for a power armor build. They get bonuses to certain heavy weapons from the strength afforded by power armor. They also make competent switch hitters.

Stand in front, hose down the enemy with line/blast/automatic weapons, then switch to melee while you tank their attacks to keep them off the backliners.

I'm also hoping the vanguard can be similar when the COM comes out.

I had originally been thinking Guard for the -1ACP +1Dex it gives your armor with only a 1 level dip, or if I took it all the way to 5 the free power armor proficiency. Several other styles could potentially work. Arcane Assailant would be on theme for a Technomancer, Sharpshooter and Bombard fit for gunners, etc.

I was imagining someone who doesn't move around a whole lot, and shoots a huge gun probably 1 big shot a round instead of rapid fire. Maybe something that explodes or does AoE damage? Not sure how area stuff would interact with some of the Technomancer spells/abilities.

Technomancer seemed like a solid base, since I could mostly ignore Str and focus on Int/Dex, then get most of my Str from Power armor. Maybe eventually mount a massive shoulder cannon in a weapon slot and carry a big melee weapon in my hands in case anything charged up to me.

I don't know what level SFS is going to cap out at, I'm used to PFS capping at level 12...so getting power armor at level 5+ or 7+ feels like it might be too late to really be worth building a character around...but if it goes higher, I could definitely see building up to that.

I am so used to the gear and wealth by level in PFS, that I find myself lost looking at all these weapon and armor charts...seeing 5 different iterations of the same weapon/armor at different tiers, and only getting a 10% buyback when you sell something sounds like it is going to be terrible trying to keep your combat gear current...and some of the posts about upgrading power armor instead of replacing it every few levels is even more expensive. In PFS I know about what level I should have certain gear requirements met...not so in SFS, any help there would be great.

Thanks again guys

Nerdy Canuck wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

In my opinion, going full Soldier will give you the best out of heavy weapons. Technomancers are not about weapons. Not that they can't use them, but it's not their focus.

There are some ways to get some mileage out of a weapons Technomancer - especially using Fabricate Arms, so that you can effectively counter-pick weapons as needed.

So you conjure a big gun, juice up the gun with magic, and then blow the enemy away on round three. Or you could shoot him with you big gun 3 times.

Think I know which route I'd take.

Empowered Weapon is a move action. Move action to boost it, standard to fire, all is good.

You can also toss in stuff like Spellshot, which opens up tricks like using sniper ranges for area spells. It's very much more of a "use this for clever solutions" thing than a "this is what you do at all times" thing, so you'd want a main weapon that's decent and general enough to be you're bread and butter.

If your goal is power armor and just dealing the most damage you can with a gun then I would suggest playing a sharpshooter soldier and just buying whatever gun is your fancy, including heavy arms.

There aren't really builds that focus on power armor, aside from a Armor Storm soldier, but those aren't really compatible with what you want. As Armor Storm just makes you better at using your power armor to make melee attacks.

That said, you can also make basically any class work to get power armor and heavy weapons, it just takes more work with some than others.

Exocortex mechanics aren't bad because they get proficiency with longarms and heavy armor, so it's less of feat investment than anyone but soldiers. At 7th level they can even get heavy weapons proficiency for free. So it's only 2 feats (weapon specialization and power armor proficiency). And you still get plenty of out of combat utility as a mechanic.

There's a Power Armor Jockey archetype in the forthcoming Character Operations Manual that will be available early November. It's the thing I'm most looking forward to horribly disappointing me.

I also look forward to seeing that and potentially being disappointed.

Maybe I'll just hold off on my power armor build until I can see the Character Operations Manual. Maybe one of the new classes, or other options in it will give me some inspiration.

I can tell you from experience of building a power armor wearing, big gun toting Sarcesian, Bombard Soldier is probably your best bet.

@
lvl 5 you get both power armor and the ability to add your new Str mod to damage. If you are firing one shot, you could easily add Deadly Aim to the shot.
To Hit: +11 = + 5 (BAB) + 5 (Dex) +1 (weapon focus)
To Hit (DA): +9 = + 5 (BAB) + 5 (Dex) +1 (weapon focus) - 2 (deadly aim)

Damage +9 = +5 (BAB) + 4 (Str)
Dmg (DA) +11 = +5 (BAB) + 4 (Str) + 2 (deadly aim)

With the gear boost Bullet Barrage you can add damage to projectile weapons (+1 +1 /4levels). Or you can go for Laser Accuracy to add +1 to hit with big laser weapons. It is only a +1 but, with a laser weapon, you are firing versus EAC.

NOTE: Heavy Firing can also be used in conjunction with the automatic, explode, or unwieldy special property.

Also you generally get to mount a weapon on the power armor, potentially leaving you with a free "hand" to take AoO's and/or switch hit when absolutely necessary.

For a while I had my main damage gun mounted to the armor, and I carried my backup gun, and it worked fine.

Nowadays I have both guns mounted to the armor, and I either go empty handed until something gets to me, or I just keep my Storm Hammer out just in case.

I just keep my Storm Hammer out just in case.

The Emperor Protects.

You don't know how much I wish just one other person at my table knew anything about 40k.

Not that my character comes off as a space marine. He seems more like a Fallout character than anything else. Initially I was going to try and model his behavior off of Amos from The Expanse, but as time goes on, his thing has basically turned into "I want to go over and see if there's something cool to see, or something dangerous I can save the Ysoki from."

(Amos rocks. That is all. :D )

The Expanse is great, looking forward to watching the new season on Amazon.