The Slicer is a mobile, melee-oriented class in Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core who uses his trusty Plasma Blade to and gravity-defying movement to push back hordes of Core Spawn. This class shines best at hit-and-run tactics, and if you want to win more missions while playing as the Slicer, you need to take advantage of his high burst damage and unmatched ability to traverse the caves.
In this guide, I’ll be sharing with you the best DRG: Rogue Core Slicer build I’ve used so far to give you an idea of what upgrades, weapons and Enhancements to use on your next deep dive using this class.
How to Unlock the Bar & Buy Drinks in Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core
It’s not a DRG game if you can’t buy some beer before dropping into the planet’s core, so here’s what you need to do exactly that.
Best Slicer Build in Rogue Core — Enhancements
Rogue Core has plenty of random elements that you need to deal with, so we’ll start off with the thing that you have the most control over: Enhancements. These give you small stat bonuses that can pile up to provide meaningful bonuses during your runs. For this Slicer build, I opted to use the following:
- Health
- Nimble
- Sweet Tooth
- 2x Ammo Pouch
- Handle Grip
- Skull Crusher
- Unstoppable
Health and Sweet Tooth will help you stay alive for longer. The latter in particular works very well with any Character Upgrades that make enemies drop Red Sugar Chunks. Since Sweet Tooth increases the healing potency of all Red Sugar Chunks, you can potentially end up with more chunks than what you actually need, resulting in a surplus of healing that you or your teammates can use for later.
Ammo Pouch simply gives you more ammo, while Handle Grip and Skull Crusher increase your damage with Pickaxe swings and Power Attacks respectively. These will further help with ammo conservation, and they’ll help you reach breakpoints that reduce the overall hits needed to take out enemies.
Unstoppable is a quality-of-life upgrade that will let you throw things farther. Great for Toolboxes, Geodes, and anything else that needs to get chucked at something.
Use the highest-level Enhancements you have so you can scale well into the higher Depth levels.
Character Upgrades
Whenever I play Slicer in Rogue Core, I prioritize taking the following Character Upgrades whenever they appear:
|
Snapfire Extraction |
Score two Weakpoint hits in a row to spawn Red Sugar chunks. Excellent for every class in Rogue Core, especially Slicer since he usually finds himself up in the enemy’s faces. |
|---|---|
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Better Red Sugar |
Even more Red Sugar healing efficiency. Synergizes well with Snapfire Extraction. |
|
Cooling Unit |
Deal Cold Damage to enemies within 2 meters of you for every 10% Armor you have. This prevents Creepers from sneaking up at you, and it lets you freeze bigger targets as you slice them up. |
|
Crippling Strike |
Stun enemies when you deal Melee Damage to them. This perk is amazing for crowd control, especially when something big is right in front of you. |
|
Flux Conduit |
Gain Ability Recharge Rate for every missing unit of Armor. This will significantly reduce Blitz’s cooldown when fully active, giving you a much higher chance of surviving without Armor. |
|
Hemoforge |
Killing enemies while below 50% health makes them drop 1 Red Sugar. The healing from this is small, but it will absolutely save your life. |
|
Brawler |
Gain 250% Power Attack Recharge Rate. Gain Stone Skin when dealing Melee Damage. |
Melee-related Upgrades also apply to your Plasma Blade/Slice ability.
The key takeaway here is to prioritize getting Upgrades that increase your HP sustain (via Red Sugar drops) and provide some sort of benefit while you’re close to enemies. Crippling Strike is a personal favorite of mine since it works even against the larger Core Spawns.
Who’s That Character?
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Easy (7.5s)Medium (5.0s)Hard (2.5s)Permadeath (2.5s)
Priority Bio-Booster Upgrades
- Outmaneuver negates the movement speed penalty from using your Pickaxe as a melee weapon, provided that you actually hit something first.
- Close Quarter Combat intensifies your damage against any enemy within 2.5 meters. Perfect for aggressive melee brawl playstyles.
- Death Resonance decreases the cooldowns of your abilities by 10% when you kill enemies. Perfect for moments where you really need to get out of a sticky situation using your laser sword or dash abilities.
- Seeing Red is great for going on killstreaks. Stack enough damage, and even your Pickaxe will be able to one-shot Core Spawn Creepers with a solid hit to the face.
If you’re playing Solo, I recommend getting as many Rocket Upgrades for Cooper as you can. Prioritize the ones that allow Cooper’s Rockets to break Armor and regenerate faster.
Weapons
Frankly, any weapon will do, but since we’re focusing on a close-range playstyle, consider getting the following when they appear on your runs:
- Zhukov NUK17 SMGs are perfect for this Rogue Core Slicer build. They’re strong enough to mow down hordes of incoming Creepers, and they’re great for finishing off larger targets wounded by your Power Strikes and Plasma Blade Slice attacks.
- The Hammerstorm 58MM Heavy Rifle works as an anti-elite weapon. It’s fairly accurate, but the relatively slow travel time of its projectiles make it a bit hard to use against distant moving targets.
- Jury-Rigged Boomstick complements the Slicer’s high-damage, hit-and-run playstyle. Slice something up with your Plasma Blade, and if it’s still alive, blast it away with your Boomstick.
Try to get weapons and Character Upgrades that make you deal Elemental damage. These will greatly increase your outgoing damage, especially against bigger Core Spawn like Clamorheads and Edgestalkers. Elemental damage that inflict damage-over-time effects like Poison and Heat are also very useful to counter that one run modifier that makes enemies recover health after not taking any damage.
How to Play Slicer in DRG: Rogue Core
The Slicer is probably the simplest class in Rogue Core, but there’s more to this than just slicing things up with a big laser sword. The Slice ability is incredibly strong for culling hordes and weakening elites, but this class’ true strength is actually in its Blitz ability.
Blitz allows you to perform a short dash toward your cursor, and you can use this to gain height or even cancel fall damage entirely. Since the enemies in DRG: Rogue Core are either melee-only or use projectile-based attacks, having the ability to rapidly reposition and evade incoming damage is invaluable.
When you’re playing as the Slicer, you should always be using Blitz whenever it’s not cooling down. Use it to create distance between you and your enemies, reach advantageous positions, or just kite Core Spawn around while your teammates pick them off. When everyone else on the team has fallen, you can use this unmatched mobility to make some run-saving plays.
Shield Belt is a highly situational ability, but it’s pretty good too. It works great against Gatekeeper bosses, and it makes Scorcher Horde modifiers much more manageable.
