Faction upgrades are the best way to raise your gear floor.

The first priority is to unlock the daily free loot from each faction by unlocking the first capstones, which is a bonus after you get a few upgrades. Most of the gear you get from these aren't that useful for gearing up, but having free cradle fodder every day helps a lot. Nucaloric also has upgrades that give you free patch kits and free shield charges daily, which has been buffed from 3/day to 5/day. Make sure to collect those two upgrades ASAP as that's a 2000 credit/day profit.

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Some folks from SeraphMax's discord figured out the most cost effective items to turn your credits into cradle XP. By far the most efficient way is buying the sidearm and punch from Traxus, and those became even more effective because their costs were reduced by 35. It's a small amount of cradle XP, but it's practically free so you should look to cradle the whole stock every day. At the later levels it's a pretty small amount of XP but it's a big help early on.

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After you've unlocked your initial capstones in each faction, I recommend focusing hard on Cyberacme. Bag upgrades make every run more profitable, and it isn't hard to get the needed salvage for those upgrades.

Make sure to hoard as much biostripping as you can, because the Nucal upgrades that we're moving to next requires a lot. The only places to find biostripping is in Hauler, Cryo, and Arms Lockers. So basically just Hauler. Shield upgrades are the most important gear for combat. So once you've unlocked purple backpacks from Cyberacme, purple shields is the next priority. Shoutout to Counterintel, which is in my opinion the best head implant that is purchasable in the armory. It's not great on Cryo where you typically know where the other players are, but it's so strong on the other maps for helping survive an ambush or giving instant comms to your teammates.

After initial capstones, cyberacme, and nucal, the next best options are less clear, but my pick is Arachne. Arachne gets great implants early (Parting Gift and Edge Runner), and later it gets Bits Per Second and True Shot Barrel. Blue weapon mods from Traxus are nice, especially the far reach optic, and doesn't take too long to reach. Later Traxus gets purple chip mods and gold weapon mods. Sekiguchi gets cores, which can be pretty important depending on which shells and cores you prefer. Sekiguchi also gets The First Law and Checkmate which are great options for most shells.

The most time efficient way to rank up in your factions is pretty boring, but I'll let you know anyways. It's repeatable contract farming. To farm contracts, grab one that you know you can finish quickly like Activate a Tad and Defeat 5 UESC. Try not to settle for one that only has one objective though because it gives less reputation. Just go into perimeter solo on a free kit, speedrun the contract, and leave. You don't get any loot from your run, but you also don't have to wait around 10 mins for exfils to show up just to exfil with a few green mods and a little salvage, assuming you don't die in a pvp fight. Every faction has repeatable contracts that can be spammed this way, but Cyberacme has the best ratio of easy tasks in its contract pool. This is also doable with a squad or duo.

TLDR: 1st Capstones in each Faction, Cyberacme Purple Backpack, Nucal Purple Shield (6th capstone), and then it's dealer's choice but I recommend Arachne, Traxus, Sekiguchi, then Mida.

Hopefully folks find this helpful!

If you're like me you've probably been under the impression that triage is really good for free kits and early wipe, but is pretty subpar once you start getting kitted. I was wrong. It's also very strong in the late game.

The key to making triage go brr is to use a reinforced gold shield. There are lots of options for stacking up utility and heal effects, but reinforced effectively doubles all of these effects. Yes, specter shields are broken OP and better than reinforced, but I would rather be using this build if my opponent has a thermal equipped. A reinforced shield on your teammate will effectively double the heals you give them too, through the drone and shareware.

The purple core Med Drone Overcharge is important -- it gives a huge boost to how quickly your drones heal and how long they last too. For the other core I like Double Dose so the team's signal jammers and energy amps last a long time, especially on cryo where we pop em like candy.

The gun you always want to bring with this build is a gold volt thrower. It kills very fast, it's the easiest gun in the game to use, and it goes crazy with Battery Overcharge. Battery Overcharge causes your target to become EMPed when you break their shield, temporarily taking away their abilities and dealing extra damage. Combine it with an Alternating Current chip mod, and you won't lose a TTK race except up close to gold WSTR and sometimes Drrvish. Reverse Card has a very similar effect too. Note that with this setup you can't die to a Misriah two tap -- you heal too fast. Despite its powerful stat-checking prowess, what really makes it degenerate is peek shooting. If you peek for a quarter second, hold down the trigger, and unpeek back to cover while still holding the trigger, you can briefly shoot them around the wall with the tracking. You will surely break their shield which should almost instantly get you back to full health and shield. Then you repeek while they're still low, continue trading damage, and rinse/repeat. It won't take long before your team is full HP and the enemy team all needs to heal. Then you commit to the push and end the fight with ease. And if you didn't know, gold volt thrower's AOE will damage enemies through their bubbles, so there is very little counterplay once you have a health lead.

For the second gun I recommend your favorite long range gun on bigger maps. On small maps, a thermal bully, Drrvish, or gold magnum will do work. The thermal is helpful against assassins and specter shields because the volt thrower does not lock onto invisible enemies very well. Volt thrower is pretty useless if an assassin ults onto you, so the thermals are a clutch counter to our weakness.

There are tons of good implants with varying difficulties to acquire. Regen Matrix goes crazy, but is really hard to find. Autonomous Emergency Kit heals you on down or finish, and Parting Gift heals you when you down or finish as well. And yes they stack. If you don't have a Regen Matrix, Energy Reservoir can be purchased from Sekiguchi and has great synergy with Triage, granting loads of ability energy to your teammates and giving you useful stats in prime/tactical recovery.

Hopefully someone found that useful. If there's other triage tech I'm missing let me know.

TLDR: The build is Reinforced Gold Shield, Med Drone Overcharge, Gold Volt Thrower with Alternating Current/Reverse Card, paired with a thermal Bully, Drrvish, Magnum, or your favorite long range gun.

Season 3 delayed from September 22 to October 6.

A larger update they're calling Symbiosis will release on December 8.

The Oct 6 release will have a progression and economy reset, a new Rewards Pass, Quality-of-life improvements, and balance updates.

Between October and December there will be gameplay experiments and a temporary return of Vault Breaker.

The December 8 "Symbiosis" release includes a new Runner shell, permanent PvE mode, and a refreshed Perimeter zone with a new boss. The update will also include a social space/firing range, an experimental team deathmatch mode, and improvements to new player onboarding.

--

I'm a little bummed that we have to wait longer, but I'm also happy to wait and let them cook. Bungie knows they're up against the wall, and a lot of these features are heavily requested so they're trying to give us what we want. If it's too little too late, oh well. For now I'll continue being a certified blast haver.

https://preview.redd.it/i57ghdul8olh1.png?width=770&format=png&auto=webp&s=2bc787839c85273cd3d4412b886acfeb0bde592c

Info from https://www.reddit.com/r/Marathon/comments/1sf3khs/full_compiled_melee_knife_guide_postpatch_1053/

The 3-hit combo is three light-attack inputs, but the third hit counts as a heavy attack and does extra damage. The original post has lots of other useful info but this is the key take away.

Since each template gives you 3 keys now, it is reaaaally easy to level the cradle quickly. One completed template = 29k xp. Season reset is on September 22nd and the Firestorm event ends on Tuesday the 1st. Get those resets in to have some bonus stats for the start of next season.

https://x.com/MarathonDevTeam/status/2080753500565479475

For me it's probably Drrvish/gold Brrt with Outland, except on Cryo where snipers are less useful. For Cryo I think Magnum+Drrvish or Magnum+Circuit Breaker is my favorite

Gold volt thrower goes crazy too and it's incredibly easy to use. Not sure what to pair it with though.

Each vault has a guaranteed unique weapon drop, which come with the weapon's gold mod as well as an extra bonus effect. Every vault has a chance at dropping gold salvage, with the higher ones having better odds.

Vault 1 - Drrvish (Brrt, fires 5 shots at a time in a spread like a shotgun, and has a thermal mod)
Vault 2 - Watchtower (Channel Rifle)
Vault 3 - Salt Wages (Conquest, returns some ammo to magazine on kill)
Vault 4 - Free-Tail (Circuit Breaker)
Vault 5 - Omnipositor (M77, increases base rate of fire)
Vault 6 - Fist of Phobos (Stryder, increased detection distance for the radar beep)

Vaults 1 and 2 have a small chance to drop a DNA key, which you need to kill the Compiler boss.

Vaults 3 and 4 have a higher chance to drop a DNA key.

Vaults 5 and 6 have a (nearly) guaranteed DNA key.

Vault 5 tends to drop lots of schemas, with a chance at a misriah schematic too. It usually has a synapse cube. Sometimes you can run this vault and the Compiler in a single run, especially if you clear the lobby of players quickly.

Vault 6 tends to drop lots of shields, frequently having 2-3 gold shields.

I think the Drrvish and Omnipositor are the best of all these uniques, but they're all very good except for Salt Wages which is just okay.

Vault 1 is an easy key to get (wardens, pinwheel, etc.), has great loot, and is the easiest to open, so it's frequently contested. It's the only vault that only requires batteries.

Vault 5 is also popular because it's not too hard to do, has the (nearly) guaranteed DNA key, and has the very powerful Omnipositor.

It's not a very strong weapon overall, but situationally it's INSANE. The gold mod causes huge aoe damage after hitting a number of shots, even if you're shooting a bubble. While shooting a bubble, the AOE damage goes right through the bubble and blows up the unsuspecting runners inside. Add torch bug for maximum team wiping potential. You won't be out TTKing a battle pistol or Misriah, but if you catch someone in a bubble or find a flank, you can blow up multiple players very quickly. This is a nice weapon to use in cryo if you're mizzy-poor, and most folks have no idea that they are no longer safe inside their bubble.

To manage the overheating battery, just feather the trigger a couple times when the heat goes over the 3rd bar. You'll barely lose any RPM and still reset the heat that way.

This one goes out to all my fellow mid players who don’t completely suck at the game but also aren’t very good. LMG shields can be a game changer.

Personally, I do alright in solos. By keeping an eye out, playing safe, and making sure I’m listening, I usually can avoid or win fights. But I lose plenty of fights in solos still.

But I often struggle in trios to contribute, especially in cryo fights. I’m not fast enough to flick between targets on console at close range. My aim isn’t great. I struggle to even see players sometimes. Even if I stick all my shots, the other players usually see me first and win the 1v1.

HOWEVER. This weekend in cryo I decided to bring in some LMGs and suddenly I was actually helpful to my team and getting knocks and staying alive. The shield was giving me that extra second so I wouldn’t get absolutely melted right as the fight started.

I play triage, and I stick to the backline or mid line of my trio. Close enough that the recoil spread isn’t too crazy to hit shots. Far enough that I don’t get melted by an enemy that slides behind me. It works pretty well, especially for laying down a wall of fire if your teammates go down or get low on health.

I know this is a crutch, but it’s been helping me overall. Ideally, you’ll get better game sense and strategy and not get into situations where you’re just going straight shot for shot with an opponent. But it’s hard to learn that when you’re dead lol.