Update landed 7/27/23, sorry for the delay!

You've probably got a few questions, like what is this strange creature and why would anyone bother to make a guide like this so long after the game's release? Well, having had very great personal success with the Physical Adept I thought why not try to blend two of the most dangerous playstyles aside from Physical Adept, gear accordingly and play the game like cover is a loose suggestion? This build is meant to flank enemies at all possible moments, shut down enemies via leyline casting and otherwise debilitate and kill everything. Yay! We will also play on hard as the game was intended. What better way to make sure our shenanigans are viable right?

Your initial build will look like something below, sweet mustache not included. Race doesn't matter either but Dwarves are adorable to me so I went with that. Orc or Troll are very good candidates for the build but keep in mind there will be no cyberware, your spell slots will be used for some self buffs and others like Mind Wipe, Petrify and Blindness. Area spells like Stun Ball are best used on leylines when they are used, and are not always worth a spell slot. A list of suggested loadouts will be included below as well.

Also note that this isn't meant to be the most efficient minmaxed this or that, it's just for fun. Use it or not, modify it however or don't, I just wanted to share a fun build and maybe entertain you with my cheap dive bar humor. I fully accept that there may be aspects of this build that seem odd or an inferior choice to other things and you can let me know how wrong I am in the comments section if you desire.

Suggested starting stats:

The underlined areas are what we'll be working on. You'll want to get willpower and spellcasting to 8 as your main goal, once that's done you have a solid enough foundation to work from to increase everything else. Along the way I would suggest getting Charisma to 4 and Summoning 3 so you can choose a totem. I went with Leopard for armor and movement.

Your main weapon aside from magic leylines is going to be your shotgun and grenades. The general idea is to stand on a leyline and use Spell Focus: Strip Armor, debuff spells like Petrify and Confusion or Glue, and destroy armor of strong units to help your team dispatch enemies. Well placed spells can turn whole encounters trivial, this is your specialty. Read on for information regarding spell and weapon loadouts.

Attributes

Willpower is your main stat, rank 8 in it and rank 8 Spellcasting is the top priority of this build. With the spellcasting requirements met and using items like the Imbued Hermetic Fetish and zero cost Cyberware like the Pain Editor, your spells will be very potent for the rest of the main campaign.

Quickness is our secondary priority attribute, you'll want to invest most of your Karma into it and Ranged/Shotgun skill. Rank 7 in all is comfy with Wild Aim and our role in the clutch, you will often find yourself close enough to enemies that you can reach out and gently caress their cheek so accuracy should not be an issue. It also gives access to the highest rank shotgun in the game.

Body is your safety net and depending on how confident you are it can be set to 8 or if you're feeling cheeky, 4. It's 26 Karma that could be spent on an additional rank of Quickness and the associated skills. Or you could dump it into ranks of Dodge, all that really matters is being comfortable with your health pool and knowing where to end your turn. I had 5 ranks of Body by the final mission, let your armor work and use Life Siphon when needed.

All of the other skills are inconsequential to our purposes outside of the random requirement of 3 intelligence to use Blindness. Biotech for example isn't really needed beyond rank 2 and that's only if you need to see enemy health, shaman salves and life siphon will take care of your healing. I am one of those people that needs to see enemy health don't mind me. Also keep in mind that if using the Pain Editor your intelligence goes down 1, so you will be locked out of casting Blindness if you plan to install it. Your stats will wind up looking something like this:



'What about Charisma?', I can hear you asking out loud. Charisma is for diplomats and we have a shotgun. With the magic of a Sharpie we can scrawl Diplomacy on the barrel and there! Just as good as Charisma investment. Jokes aside though you will want CHA 4 to use Petrify and Confusion. Seemingly random requirement there but whatever, it won't stop us from doing what we do best. You may even select a good etiquette option and get some extra Karma but always keep in mind the "♥♥♥♥ it, kill everything that moves" option is always on the table. It is also our default choice for every mission, so go loud and be proud! You have shotgun magic.

Spells to look out for as you paint the greater Hong Kong area a rusty red include(everything comes from the wiki):

Spell Focus: Strip Armor II - Decreases the target's Armor by 3. Upon successful hit, restores 1 AP to caster. Shares a cooldown with other Strip Armor spells. Stacks with Haste. You will be using this a lot.

Spell Focus: Life Siphon II - An initiate-level blood magic, practiced by the mages of Aztlan. If target is damaged by this spell, caster gains 6 HP per RND for 2 RNDs. Pierces up to 4 Armor. This might not seem like much at first glance but it adds up over time and can really help to heal during rounds where you're not taking damage. There will be a lot of those.

Petrify - Target loses all AP for 2 rounds and cannot attack or move.

Glue - Glues the target to the spot for 2 rounds.

Mind Wipe - Target ignores all enemies. This removes them from cover typically

Confusion - Target switches to your team and attacks your enemies. Lasts 2 RNDS.

Dispel Magic - As the name implies. Effective against enemy casters and physical adepts alike. More useful later on.

Blindness - Target is blinded and cannot see or attack targets. Lasts 2 RNDS. Strip armor and kill or use purely as Crowd control.

Aim II, Wild - Increases the target's to hit chance by 10-15%. Does not stack, nor affect AOE abilities. The next closest ally will also be affected. Lasts 3 RNDS.

Your highest spellcasting requirement is going to be rank 8 if you plan to use all of these spells as mentioned previously. Stand in the leylines when casting if you can manage to do so, it will increase the potency of your spells and can even make single target spells multi-target. This is huge when used to Petrify or blind more than one enemy and will likely spell the end of an encounter.

Do not underestimate the power of Glue, it doesn't look like much and you get it fairly early on but if used when enemies are in the open you can have your entire team pile grenades on top of them until there's nothing left but red-eye giblet gravy.

Leylines
From wiki:


Note the part where it says the Leylines are almost always away from cover. Don't worry though armed with the information above you can prevent most enemies from ever taking a shot. At the end of the day you'll save big on consumables as well from not taking damage, making your final missions a breeze with lots of health packs and salves to spare. It may seem weird at first but just slather that brown stuff into your eventual gunshot wounds/horrific burns and bam! All better.

Why a shotgun? Well, why not? Before I explain I'd like to talk about Smartlinks. What a Smartlink does not do: Make sandwiches or bring home beer. What it does: Smartlink versions of weapons have increased accuracy, but require that the user have a datajack and also typically require a higher Ranged Combat skill to equip.

The datajack reduces our Essence total and therefore also reduces magic effectiveness. Some forms of Bioware are good to use though, like the Pain Editor or Tailored Pheromones if you like to sweet talk folks. We can't dabble too much in tech without investing Karma, so we'll leave all that stuff out of this run. Besides, it also requires a Nuyen investment and you will be needing that for spells, shotguns, armor and cocaine. What else did you think a Shadowrunner spends their money on? Child support?

I mentioned Essence before and you're probably wondering about that if you haven't already looked it up. Below is an explanation of what Essence is, and why it matters so much.


As you can see, Essence mechanics require us to remain Cyberware free save for those Essence free pieces of Bioware. That would be Pain Editor for extra Willpower and Tailored Pheromones for a slight boost to Charisma. As mentioned above Charisma isn't specifically part of our build, I'm just mentioning it because it falls under the same umbrella as Pain Editor in that it costs no Essence and can be used to meet skill requirements. Casting Petrify and Confusion, for example.


This is the ideal form of your main tool. With no armor to get in the way this weapon fills enemies full of daylight faster than most, which will help you with juggling cooldowns. Criticals with this weapon will flatten most targets and if they manage to not die after you mag dump them, they won't be happy. The other option is the Enfield auto shotgun but the burst mode offers no incentives to use it and it costs 2 AP. You're better off just using the Defiance and skipping the Enfield purchase imo unless there's something I'm missing. If that is the case, please inflict yourself upon the comments section I am legitimately curious if there is a reason to use the Enfield.

Grenade Launchers/niche weapons

The short answer on whether to use grenade launchers is yes. The long answer is also yes, but with more words. The M79 is a good single shot launcher that can cause serious harm to groups of enemies and potentially damage armor on critical hits. The same applies to the ArmTech MGL-6 the little brother of the M79. The difference between the two is a drum magazine on the MGL-6 in exchange for slightly lower base damage, the M79 has to be reloaded between shots but can be devastating in the hands of a friend with the reloading arm cyberware. Both greatly benefit from the spell Glue, or Petrify especially when cast from a leyline.

Another weapon you might consider taking along is Sandblaster, if only to apply armor damage with Wide Load when your other methods are on cooldown. Each shot damages armor by 1, but the ammo capacity is low at 2. This is another weapon you might consider giving to a friend, like Gobbet. She doesn't have much to do when her spells are on cooldown or when she's got a summon out anyway, it's not a bad idea to keep it on her for when the opportunity arises.

That leaves us with the MGL-6, which is easily worth a slot in your weapons loadout. Unload on tightly packed enemy groups, preferably after using Glue or Petrify and viola! Porkchop sandwiches.

City of Death loadout:



Power Bolt is nice to get some long range touches in and Dispel can remove the buffs of the various hellspawn making your task even smoother. Glue paired with launchers really shines throughout the mission and the rest of the game for that matter but note that the second form of Qian'ya happens on a field with no leylines.

Putting the package together, you will want to use magic first and then only use the shotgun after enemies are shut down. Stand in the leyline and use a spell on any enemies that are grouped together, any spell. You may notice that you hit multiple targets. You may also notice your regular cooldown is reduced, and that your spells are more potent on the leyline. You will want to cast mostly from here but clutch spells can save the day, just keep in mind how many turns your Blindness or Petrify will last. If utilizing Confusion (Spellcasting 6, CHA 4) it isn't necessary to target enemy clusters or be on a leyline, just cast on the strongest enemy in the room and let him make gravy while you watch the latest episode of All My Circuits.

As for damage spells and why I don't use them typically, I feel that my AP are better spent preventing enemies from using their AP at all. I like to start by running to a leyline and tossing Strip Armor to trigger foci: regain AP. Then, hasting the wizard to toss a debuff. After the turn ends, continue stripping armor and then either buff self or pull out the shotgun and pump all shots into your stripped target. If you have Wide Load and Sandblaster is loaded, fire it off when the opportunity comes up. Don't be afraid to stop shooting to re-apply buffs/debuffs and remember that your feet work as well if you need to reposition. Never stand in the purple stuff.

The last boss fight:

Congratulations! It all came down to this one encounter, all of our hard work, all of those bodies, every gram of cocaine... Pull out all the stops, and use Glue. Seriously, just don't use it on Qian'ya herself. Most of the enemies will try to melee and tend to use spells on tight groups so split up and make swiss cheese of them one by one, and apply liberal amounts of grenades as well, Izzy shines here with her launcher but so do Duncan and Gobbet. I had Gobbet use Sandblaster on Qian'ya from cover when the opportunity presented itself in addition to stripping armor. However you decide to do it, fill the Queen with daylight twice and you're golden. But wait! There's another step.

Note: During her second form when you enter the dimensional shift or whatever, Qian'Ya is vulnerable to Glue. So you can Glue her to the floor and ignore her while taking care of her lackeys. Yay!



Isn't she adorable? If you did the sidequests with Crafty you can leverage what you know and tell her to get bent, and she will do so if you choose the right options. Otherwise she takes Raymond (or Duncan!) with her for an eternity of very unpleasant sex and limited showers. Either way congratulations, you can proceed to the next chapter in style. Unfortunately this is where we part ways, but you don't need me anymore if you've come this far. You're a Harry now, shotgun wizard.

This guide was brought to you in part by the letters G and P, with shoutouts to both the letter Q and of course, cocaine. No frogs were harmed in the making of this guide.

Some changes going into the extended campaign for our strategy include: No more launchers, Izzy has her mini but you'll be using her less for explosions and more for decking. The magnetic arm cyber enhancement is the new meta, you will see magnetic armed individuals in nearly every enemy group. Enemy groups are much larger this time around as well, play conservatively and be very careful with each choice made or you will be ground to dust. Bring cram with you on every run and use it if needed, it can save you.

Attribute and gear references:
I am using an armor rebalancing mod, note the lower armor and slightly buffed stats.

Also, don't bother with Glue save for Tai Po. We're going to replace that with the highest rank Fireball to make up for the M79. Why? Well, casting from the leyline allows you to shoot a fireball that strikes enemies, then the enemy will cast an identical fireball at the nearest enemy, and so on. So we can cause these chain explosions and have been able to this whole time, but why only use it now? Well previously the Glue and grenades strategy worked too good, in a single turn you could shut down a whole enemy group and have them crispy with little setup. This new way requires using some AP to get to the leyline, fire the spell and then move. Don't end your turns on leylines anymore, make sure you can get to hard cover because the retaliation will very likely flatten your main character. If you're running it like me you've got 4 Body and can't afford to have 10 morons punching your face at the same time, so don't let them do that.

I said I wasn't going to do a mission by mission breakdown but there's so little to the extended campaign I figured why not? I was originally planning to make it highly detailed and really in-depth and kept running into snags both literal and figurative, the project was going nowhere. So then I got drunk one night and did what any other drunk me would do, and played the entire extended campaign with maximum violence. It worked like a charm, and below I've pieced together what I can recall of that night.

Rude Awakening - Sift through the dialogue however you like, once you get to control your characters go in the general direction of Combat Pang's shop. You can fight gangers on the way but it's a waste of time, you're a slayer of kings. The police you encounter will open fire on you no matter what iirc, so take them out quick and grab the MacGuffin they drop. I avoided the group shooting civvies, I know, I'm a jerk. Once inside Combat Pang's you can either bribe him(lol), use your charisma(lol) or take the rock by force. We're taking option 3. I'm told that killing Sunny ends the fight immediately but I prefer to grease Pang first (ha!) and Petrify Sunny at the start of the fight, THEN drop her in the following round. Either way it's a quick engagement and you come away with Auntie's rock. Now it's time to celebrate, nose candy and grilled chicken for everyone!

Detention - Bring Duncan for this run if you gave him the magnet arm upgrade. You did give him the magnet arm upgrade, right? This mission has a lot of potential explosive combat in it, starting with the opening moments on the roof if you so choose. Or you can walk by the drones without firing a single shot and just enter the building, so walk casually by your radio controlled friends and go inside. On the penthouse floor we have some choices. We can have Isane and her friends leave or kill them, but if you let them live Isane shows up later where she can be influenced to fight on our side. From here there are multiple ways to get down to the plaza level, do whatever you need to do in order to make that happen but try to avoid combat for now. Sounds uncharacteristic for us, but there is a method to the madness.

Once on the plaza level there is a jackpoint that can be used to acquire a file on Isane, which will get her to help you outside. From here if you have ratparty.sim you can use it on the odd machine to clear everyone out and make Gobbet very happy. On the outside you have three choices: side with ♥♥♥♥♥, side with Yamatetsu, or tell both to get bent. Be advised that telling both to get bent can be extremely deadly, as you will suddenly have more than a dozen very angry people armed with Panther cannons and various other forms of kinetic violence trying to kill you and steal your new experimental buddy. Either way, choose a side or don't and hunker down. Let the mercs kill each other for a few turns and take out the ones that get too close to your group. Stay in heavy cover and remember that there will be reinforcements coming off the side streets, after a few turns of heavy fighting you can mop up and send Lilly off safely. Mission complete! Side note: You might want to swap in Confusion for this mission, it can be very helpful to have a rando with a Panther gunning people down for you.

Namazu - I didn't like this one, it felt tedious. The basic idea here is to acquire the MacGuffin plus an extra MacGuffin to cure your team of space AIDS. In doing so you can be nice to the research scientists and let the subjects go free or choose rudeness and ignore the test subjects, take out Janet Tang and trash the place on the way out. Either way there's a lot of talking to be had so make choices carefully and mind those closets full of security guards. There's a lot of those. My personal choice is to cap Janet, ignore the test subjects and take all the vials. Don't forget to snag that sweet pistol before leaving.

Tiger's Den - You might get annoyed with me for this but upon starting the mission and getting inside the station, see the leyline? Go stand on it and enter combat, the "kill everyone, quickly" option is on the table. Proceed through the bottom floor ventilating everything in your way and go to the elevator. On the next level it's more of the same until reaching the evidence room, then going back out we continue shooting until nothing is left. Izzy is required if you want to do the matrix portions (Panther Assault cannon!) but Gaichu and Racter/Koschei are all fantastic in their own ways it's hard to go wrong here. I would give you more to go on but it's basically a John Wu movie sans doves flying in slow motion and opera music. Mind the pig closets in the training area and snag the extra weapons before leaving the command center.

Tai Po - Shoot everything. No really, it works. You can be fancy and do the extra things like picking up the control module and collecting evidence against Krait, but where's the fun in that? Spider tanks are susceptible to Glue, focus play around the leylines and burn them down one by one while petrifying or blinding enemies. I had Izzy with me instead of Racter and I feel like Koschei would have probably made the final mission too easy even with the spider tanks, that lovable little robot is a beast. Mind the pig closets with this one as well and have fun burning down the warehouse.

Well there it is, the end of the extended campaign. If you've read this far thanks so very much, you deserve a medal for slogging through this poorly written set of paragraphs. Maybe I'll make another one of these for a different game but until then, I always forget what the proper Shadowrunish thing to say is for a farewell.