🧬 Builds & Archetypes: Skills, Weapons & Powers

Launch week's community answer: the triangle. One maxed melee weapon (the posture game), one upgraded firearm (the weak-point game), one leveled transmutation — flamethrower for burn pressure or a Stasis tool for control — and the passive upgrades that keep your Ferro Flask and posture math honest. The achievement list quietly endorses it: Bladesmith, Gun of Glory and Transmutation Artifex are three separate trophies for exactly these three commitments.

Melee answers posture. Firearms answer weak points and distance. Transmutations answer status. Every arena the campaign throws asks one, two or all three questions, and a build with all three lines covered is never stuck. The bosses hub marks which boss leans on which line: the Marshall is melee-posture, the Slaughtermill is positioning-burn, the Iron Regiment is Stasis. Breadth comes later — Arsenal Absolute is the endgame's collection trophy, not a build step.

• The Duelist — parry-first, Claymore-forward, minimal status. Highest skill ceiling; Aurelius is its graduation. Weak to packs.
• The Skirmisher — firearm-forward, weak-point hunting, burn pressure from range. Strongest against the horror back half; needs ammo discipline.
• The Occultist — transmutation-heavy, Stasis-locked heavies, Ignite-swarm control. The Iron Regiment's nightmare; needs the other lines covered for duels.
• The Wall — posture-tanking with flask efficiency and patient stagger math. The forgiving first build; slower clears, fewer deaths.

Chapter one: main melee weapon two notches, flask-adjacent passives as they appear. Chapter two: finish Bladesmith on the main weapon. Chapter three: Gun of Glory on the firearm you actually carry. Back half: Transmutation Artifex on your status pick, then breadth. Every mid-campaign wall in the community's report maps to skipping one of these steps — the Marshall for the melee max, the back half for the status tool.

The community is still mapping how forgiving late-game respec is, so build commitments before the Iron Marshall should assume some permanence. The safe pattern: commit to the triangle, experiment with side weapons on banked patrol runs (Jack-knife's no-death tour doubles as a try-before-you-buy), and leave true build experiments for the post-campaign cleanup season when income outpaces costs and the checklist page orders the remaining trophies.