Kripp's Force Field Dooley Build

Core Placement

The Armored Core takes a central position on the board, allowing it to both provide ample amounts of Shield scaling while still receiving enough Charges.

Due to the Large size of Force Field, you can't afford to include many more Shield items without greatly hindering the speed of the Core. Thankfully, Duct Tape more than makes up for this.

Dooley's flexible nature allows you to work with a variety of items, meaning those that occupy the left side can be interchanged depending on what's available. As a general rule of thumb, prioritize Small items with low Cooldowns.

Armored Core

Armored Core is a powerful scaler that gives you a great edge in the first couple days of PvP. With board space limits and a much lower power ceiling, it's easy to just turtle-up and win via fatigue.

Outside of the occasional Poison build this is a very effective strategy, and during the early stages of the game that can be a rare find. The few that exist tend to be quite slow, giving you a reasonable chance of still reaching the Sandstorm before the Poison drains you.

While its own late game scaling is a bit weaker than previously, this is easily made up for by premium skills like Titanium Casing. As a Dooley-exclusive skill, Titanium Casing is by far the best choice, but there are many solid alternatives to help bolster your defense.

Duct Tape

Duct Tape is the heart and soul of the build. It's an absolute must-have, so be sure to take every opportunity offered to find it. You can get it from Banannabal if you're lucky, but otherwise you'll need to make shopping a priority (over events) until it's acquired.

Placed directly to the right of the Armored Core creates a fast and powerful scaling loop of Shield. This gets out of hand quickly, allowing Duct Tape to essentially become a single-slot fortress.

You won't get anywhere near the same amount of Shield output from anything else this size; even larger (or multiple) Shield items often can't compare. A Bronze Duct Tape is all you truly need, but if it's not available, you should probably pivot to something else.

Force Field

Force Field has a very high ceiling but an incredibly low floor. Its Damage output is very much dependent on your rate of Shielding versus the opponent's rate of Damage. If your Shield is gone by the time Force Field goes off, it hits for basically zero.

While Poison can triumph over passive Shield builds, Force Field builds tend to scale much faster, making them an excellent matchup. Burn on the other hand can be challenging. Despite the fact that Shield halves each tick of Burn, if the fire grows big enough it becomes impossible to sustain a Shield.

Timing matters a lot. Sometimes you'll be able to apply a fresh Shield right before the Force Field activates, while other times it'll break just a fraction of a second too soon.

However, if you find ways to gain Shield at the start of combat (either via events or skills like Defense Grid), you may be able to blast your opponent before they get the chance to react.

Kripp's Force Field had the Shielded enchant which doubles its active Shield amount. This makes it scale much faster with Armored Core, allowing it to better fuel its own game plan instead of just relying on the rest of the build.

Speed Control Package

Haste and Slow are both incredibly important, especially for a build's late game viability. Previously this came best in the form of skills, but now that their use is capped, items are a critical component.

GPU ensures permanent Haste uptime on the Core while First Aiden helps apply it across the board. It's not a perfect setup, but the Battery does help jumpstart the build by being placed to the right of First Aiden.

Cool LEDs offers a ton of disruption by Slowing the opponent's items. This buys time to ramp up the Shield scaling, as without some form of on-start Shield, the build can be a bit soft against burst Damage.

Buddy System

Buddy System isn't always usable since Dooley has A LOT of Friends. However, when it aligns with your build you get a ton of immediate Cooldown reduction with no scaling time required.

Depending on your setup, there's probably a good argument to be made for even dropping a Friend or two if you happen to come across this skill. The faster the Core moves, the more Shield Duct Tape will create.

Keen Eye

Keen Eye is a reliable way to get at least some Crit, provided you don't already have any other forms of Crit scaling. It's a little harder to get to an effective rate now that Building Crescendo was finally nerfed, so Keen Eye helps have at least something.

Having at least some Crit can go a long way with this build, as being able to stack Shield is a must. By being able to Crit, you enable the chance for luck to swing some fights that are otherwise unwinnable.

Net Launcher

Net Launcher works great with Force Field's short four second Cooldown. It quickly spreads a ton of Slow across the enemy board which allows Cool LEDs to cascade its effects.

It's a great form of disruption that you won't have to wait long to trigger. It's also available at Silver tier, making it obtainable relatively early in the run (usually from levelling up to five).