So I have been playing the game pretty much nonstop since release. I have played more than a few MOBA’s, this is my first time trying to do any sort of guide. I’m no OM expert or anything, but I am good with him. I mostly queue solo, and almost exclusively in Incursion. So this is an Incursion guide. Nothing you read below is factual or backed up with real numbers or research, they are simply my opinions and experience playing a lot of the game and a lot of Oscar Mike. So without further ado, my guide for our favorite generic CoD marine character.
OSCAR MIKE
Oscar Mike is one of the first characters you have unlocked in the game. He’s a pusher, which means he excels at moving minions forward in battle and pushing fights towards the enemies base. You don’t really need to be at the front of the line with Oscar Mike, but you always want to be involved in the fire fight. He’s also very versatile, his helix allows for more than a couple different play styles. I fully embrace his pusher class and look to maximize DPS and minion killing effectiveness. But you can make him tankier, and with his laser attack + cloak, more of an assassin.
ASSAULT RIFLE
OM’s weapon is your typical FPS assault rifle. It’s fully automatic, has decent range, and a quick reload. The damage you deal does drop off with distance. It’s a great weapon for taking out minions, as well as both pestering enemies, or completely taking them out later in the game. It eats through shields, and can eat through an enemies health before they know it.
FRAG GRENADE
Of course the generic CoD guy has a noob-tube on his gun. The grenade does good damage and can explode 3 seconds after you shoot it, or 1 second after it hits someone. Unless, of course, you choose the helix option that makes it detonate right on impact, which you should always do.
STEALTH GENERATOR aka Ninja, Vanish aka Going Quiet… I’M PLAYING THE QUIET GAME!!
One of Mike’s best abilities. It really is what makes him a versatile character. Not only does it really save your ass in gunfights, but you can also use it to ambush enemies, or sneak into the enemies base for all sorts of shenanigans, like blowing ■■■■ up, stealing shards, or attacking a sentry.
AIRSTRIKE
Oscar Mike’s signature ability, ultimate, whatever they are called in this game. Does insane damage to one spot on the map. Has all sorts of upgrades, which we will get into later. Basically you activate it, aim your gun, and fire, and unleash hell.
TACTICAL ROUNDS
The first 15 rounds of every clip Oscar Mike unloads does 50% bonus damage. Keep this in mind when you’re firing and there is a break in the action. Instead of standing there with your thumb up your ass, RELOAD! Unlike in CoD where constantly reloading even when you’ve only fired 5 rounds can come back to haunt you, in this game you’re literally rewarded for it.
HELIX TREE
Level 1
Impact Trigger vs Sneak Attack
I always, ALWAYS ALWAYS go Impact Trigger here. What it does it makes your frag grenade explode immediately on impact, rather than having a 1-3 second fuse. The fuse sucks. You’ll have loads of situations where a well placed skill shot grenade will down a fleeing enemy. A 3 second fuse messes that all up. Sneak attack gives you a 16% bonus to an attack or skill that you use to break stealth. So if you’re looking for more of a stealth assassin type build, I guess that might work better for you. But for me the trade off is not worth it.
Level 2
Fragcendiary Grenades vs Nades On Nades
I don’t know if an easier helix decision exists in Battleborn for any character. The Fragcendiary Grenades ability turns your simple frag grenades into napalm dropping, minion annihilators. It also does great damage to enemy Battleborn. When your frag explodes, it throws down napalm, activating an AoE damage effect. Clears minions amazingly. The other option is Nades On Nades. It has a cool name, but really you’re trading potentially more burst damage for Fragcendiary’s guaranteed minion melting effectiveness. Nades On Nades has your frag spawning 5 mini grenades which trigger more damage. Take the napalm.
Level 3
Red Dot Sight vs Scope
The RDS allows you to move at full speed while aiming down the sights. This is ok, but the scope allows you to keep your damage higher at range. Furthermore, when you’re close enough to need to use the RDS, you can usually just hip fire. I always go scope. It allows you to take out minions from a distance, and pester snipers. Note: You do need 500 kills with the RDS for one of Mike’s lore challenges.
Level 4
Back in a Jiff vs Tactical Espionage Action
Back in a Jiff starts your shield recharge as soon as you pop the cloak. For me, this is a no brainer, but it comes down to play style. I use the cloak mostly to escape bad situations. My health is already low, I’m likely going to die, I’ll pop the cloak and start recovering my shields. The Tactical Espionage Action buffs your movement speed by 30% when cloaked. Some Mikes like to run all around the map while cloaked, being more of a disruptor than a pusher. If that’s your style, you’ll probably prefer this one to Back in a Jiff.
Level 5
Hollow Point vs Debilitating Rounds vs Double Tap
Note: Debilitating Rounds is a Helix Mutation that is added at character rank 9. Level 5 is all about affecting your Tactical Rounds, which are the 15 rounds in every clip that give you bonus damage. You know what is mo betta than 15 bonus damage rounds? 30! That’s what Double Tap does, it doubles the bonus rounds. What Hollow Point does is it applies shield penetration to your 15 bonus rounds. And Debilitating Rounds adds a bonus to any critical hit landed with your 15 rounds. Both of these are nice, but in my experience neither of them really compares to simply doubling your amount of bonus rounds to 30.
Level 6
Far-flung Frags vs Stealthy Shields
FFF gives your noob tube 75% more velocity. So you can launch them a lot farther. In Incursion you can shoot them way ahead to start damaging some minions on their way, and by the time they get to you, you’re almost ready to fire another one. Plus when enemies are retreating, it makes it a lot easier to land a long shot with one and finish them off. What Stealthy Shields does is it increases your shield recharge while in cloak. But for me personally, when I cloak, I am near death and just looking to survive. My enemy will either be good enough to see me through the cloak and kill me anyway, or not. You’ll find most people lost Oscar Mike very easily while cloaked, myself included. Take the longer noob tube.
Level 7
Agility Training vs High Velocity Ammo vs Disruptor Rounds
Note: High Velocity Ammo is a Helix Mutation unlocked at character rank 3. Personally I think this is another easy decision. You take the higher damage that HVA provides. It boosts your rifle damage by 18%. Agility Training gives you a speed buff, but I find Oscar Mike is fast enough already, plus you have your cloak. The Disruptor Rounds are nice, they add a shield penetration to all of your bullets, but why not take higher damage period on all bullets?
Level 8
Fragpocalypse vs Concentrated Frags vs Embiggened Boom
Note: Concentrated Frags is a Helix Mutation unlocked at character rank 5. This level is all about your noob tube. You have two options that increase the frags damage, and one that makes the affected area large. Fragpocalypse adds 15% damage with no strings attached. If you want the extra damage, it’s there. Concentrated Frags ups the extra damage to 30%, but takes 25% off of the affected area. Basically it hits harder, but covers less area. What Embiggened Boom does is it simply increases the area the grenade damages. By 50%. A huge increase. I prefer this to the other two, but to be honest, Concentrated Frags is good too, assuming you have good aim.
Level 9
Stealth Savings vs Ghost Mode vs Operation Sneaky Ghost
Note: Ghost Mode is a Helix Mutation unlocked at character rank 12. This level is dedicated to your cloaking ability. I always go with Stealth Savings. It shortens the cooldown of the cloak depending on how long you were previously cloaked, up to 40%. So if you barely stayed cloaked, your cooldown is shorter. I rarely make extended sneak missions into enemy territory, so my cloaked time is usually small. What Ghost Modes does, is allows you to cloak, activate your air strike ultimate, and stay cloaked. Personally I think this is pretty useless, unless you cloak while really low on health and want to continue the fight as opposed to run. And if you want a longer cloak, Sneaky Ghost is for you. It extends the cloak period by 8 seconds. I have seen Mikes sneak into the enemy base, go past the first Sentry, and attack the second Sentry because they had very long cloaks going. You can also cloak and sit by watching a firefight and pop up at the most opportune time. Very useful for setting up an ambush. But I feel it can be done without needing the extra 8 seconds.
Level 10
Holy Crap, Space Lasers! vs Danger Close vs Holy Crap, Concussive Strike!
Note: Danger Close is a Helix Mutation unlocked at character rank 7. Lastly we have level 10, which revolves around your ultimate attack, the airstrike. Each of these options drastically changes the attack, so choose wisely. Space Lasers changes your airstrike from a missile barrage to a laser beam of death. It crams the damage into a smaller space and hilariously, can go through buildings. See that Marquis head glitching on the ramp and sniping your sentry? Dead. See someone run up to the supply depot to heal? Dead. The trade off here is the damage is a lot more controlled. You can’t take out an entire minion wave with this.
Danger Close is, in my opinion, utterly worthless. It changes the attack so that it follows Oscar Mike as he moves. This might be a good ability in some modes, I can see it having its uses in Meltdown maybe, but I have never once felt the need to have my missiles follow me around. If someone is chasing me after I pop the airstrike and I have no cloak, that’s my bad. You can focus it at your feet to catch people in the damage area.
I started out loving the laser option but I have made the switch to Concussive Strike. It adds a 3 second slow to anyone damaged by the airstrike. So it makes it extremely hard for them to escape the blast radius before the missiles kill them until they die from it. Laser is probably better for taking out sentries, missiles are better for minions and other Battleborn.
So that is my helix build. I’ve pretty much stopped making any variations to it, this is what works best for me in Incursion.
Early Game
Oscar Mike is not very strong at the start of the game. His damage is low, his noob tube sucks. Don’t expect to get any Battleborn kills unless the people are really bad or you pick up someones sloppy seconds. Focus on getting shards and buying stuff at the start to get your level up going. Then focus minions. Once you hit level 2, you get the napalm grenade, and then it’s aaaaaaaaaall aboard the minion XP gravy train.
Stay in your lane, farm minions to keep the XP rolling in. If other Battleborn come, attack them. You’ll find a lot of enemies run when they see the napalm damage over time. If you get outnumbered or low on health, cloak, and run back to your sentry. Collect the shards around there, try to build something. If you’re not terribly low on health, go to the supply station for a short time and heal some. If you’re near death, teleport back to base. Not only do you get full health, but there are sure to be loads of shards you can collect on your way back to the battle.
Mid Game
Once you hit level 5, you have your scope and you have your 30 Tactical Rounds. You now deal real good damage. I still stick to the lane, because you are damn good at clearing minions, but feel free to branch out more and pick up shards or the Thrall mercenaries whenever you feel like it. If a minion wave reaches your Sentry, you can destroy them with one napalm grenade.
You also have your ultimate now, and if you’ve been clearing minions like you were supposed to, you’re probably one of a few, if not the only person who has unlocked their ultimate so far. I cannot tell you how many times I am playing Incursion and unlock my Airstrike and see the enemies Oscar Mike is only level 2 or 3. Remember to clear those minions. Anyway, your airstrike is great for not only clearing minions, but also does loads of damage to elite bots and Thralls. If you see them coming, don’t hesitate to drop it down. Weaken them up so that if they do break through, the Sentry will take them out easily. Also, watch your left and right, you will constantly see fights going on. Drop an airstrike on unsuspecting enemies engaged with other players. They’ll die.
Late Game
Oscar Mike in the late game is a beast. He can single handedly clear minion waves, his critical hits can take out Thralls in seconds, and his cloak makes him able to stay in a battle until he is on death’s doorstep but is able to escape. All your shard collecting and minion killing should have you loaded with money, build stuff. Not only does it help you level up, there are loads of challenges you get post-match XP for, and any structure you can build is just one more structure the enemy has to destroy.
Continue to push the minion path to the enemies last sentry. You can attack it either from up high in the supply station room, or from the side. I prefer to sneak down and destroy the turrets throughout the base, then go back up and attack from there. You have high DPS, a napalm at the entrance door works wonder for deterring enemies from coming in, and if they do, kill them or cloak away.
Gear
I don’t have a strong grasp on the games gear yet, nor do I have much of it. I have unlocked Mike’s legendary gear, but for the high cost (1800 shards) it does not seem to be worth it. I currently roll gear that gives me +20% shield penetration, -25% recoil (15 base, -10 more for 6 seconds after a reload), and +12 reload speed/8% attack speed. Shield penetration is great because a lot of people (myself included) will stick around in a fight with low HP because of the shield being fully charged. So if you can penetrate that shield, you can kill them before they even know what is happening.
I hope you have enjoyed this guide. Feel free to post any opinions/corrections on it. Also, if anyone plays on Xbone, add me. My GT is Cpt RonCodpeace