Fuse Tactica - Naya Skill Guide
During my playthrough of Insomniac's Fuse I quickly discovered that there was actually very few guides on how best to level up your characters. Now, Fuse doesn't give you a huge amount of freedom in how you develop each member of your group, but a bit of forward planning will ensure that your team works as efficiently as possible when tackling the campaign.
The other character guides can be found here:
Naya
Naya comes equipped with the Warp Rifle, a weapon that enables her to create miniature black holes whenever she shoots an enemy for long enough. In addition several enemies can be "marked" by the gun which will result in an even bigger chain reaction when a black hole is finally triggered.
However, all of this is actually a distraction to Naya's greatest power; her cloaking ability. Once she has plugged five points into her Tier One skills she unlocks the Phantom skill which enables her to become invisible for a short time. This ability shares its "ammo" with that of her Warp Rifle, in other words, the more you use one, the less you can use the other.
Given that the Warp Rifle is a rather awkward weapon to wield, and is dependent on enemies to be in close proximity to one another to exploit the black hole reactions, it's better to focus on Naya's cloaking skill. To maintain the RPG class analogies, Naya functions very much like a rogue character: capable of sneaking behind the enemy and dealing massive damage at close range whilst the enemy is occupied with the other characters.
Equipment
Secondary Weapon - The most important aspect of this kind of Naya skill build: the Prowler. Being invisible means that Naya is capable of getting right up in the opponents face before letting loose with the shotgun. Typically, this will result in one-shot kills on almost any ordinary opponent, the only ones that will require a bit more work are robots or bosses.
Take note that the Prowler doesn't have the greatest amount of ammunition, at least compared to other weapons, so don't go firing shots off just for the sake of it.
Sidearm - Given that Naya's Warp Rifle is going to be out of action, since all the ammo is going to be going into keeping you cloaked, the best choice here is the Dragonfly. The Prowler has a slow rate of fire and you need to be up close to use it. Should you find yourself without a cloak and trapped behind cover, a rapid-firing weapon that has a decent clip size is a nice thing to have. Also, it's really useful whenever a swarm of those exploding robot bugs attack you, the Prowler is simply too slow to take them out efficiently and will leave really short on ammo, a quick spray with the Dragonfly on the other hand will work perfectly.
Skills
Tier One - Tier One is the worst time with Naya; you don't have access to your cloak yet but you still need to be doing something. First off, put two points into Antimatter Coolant, that's right, only two points into your class-specific skill. Here's why, the only thing you want from here is the second perk which gives the Warp Rifle a 25% increase in its ammo capacity, in other words, more cloak time. The other two bonuses relate to the rifle's damage output which we don't care about.
After that you want three points in Firearms Specialist, which improves the Prowler, increases weak point damage, and gives your grenades a boost, as well as allowing you to carry more of them. A good tactic with Naya is to spam a crowd of enemies with grenades and then mop up the stragglers with the shotgun.
After that you can pick up the Phantom upgrade and move on to Tier Two.
Tier Two - It's all good from here. First off, you want to take both perks from the Phantom Upgrade section which makes cloaking last longer and cost less; always a good thing. Then it's over to Firearm's Expert with two points to give the Prowler a damage boost. You don't need the last level here, since you aren't carrying any of those weapons, so stick one point in Overcharge Capacitor. Even though it only gives the Warp Rifle a critical strike bonus, it's better than anything else.
Tier Three - Here's where this build goes into overdrive, you want to put your first three points into Xenotech Circuitry. The one thing that holds this build back is the chance that you run out of Warp Rifle ammo and can no longer cloak. With this skill maxed out, every kill with your shotgun gives almost a one in three chance that the enemy will drop some Warp Rifle ammo, which is as close to infinite cloaking as you're likely to get.
Phantom Overcharge Link is useless for this build (and pretty bad over all since it's far too cumbersome) so you're best maxing out the Fuse Grenade Upgrade, which means your grenades will be great at clearing out any enemies that are grouped together. At this point you can literally do what you like with this build, it's that powerful, but I'll quickly go over the final tier.
Tier Four - Unlike the other characters, stick your first point in Firearms Master to give your shotgun even more kick. After that go for Fusion Upgrade with one point and then max out Reserve Fusion Cells.
Since using this build I've since seen others using a similar strategy with their Naya, so it seems I'm not the only one that's caught on to how absurd this build is. I'd go as far to say it's one of the strongest ways you can play and happens to be one of the most fun as well, what with all its run and gun potential. Just make sure you don't become to isolated from the rest of your team and you'll do fine.
© 2013 LudoLogic
