This build focuses on marking enemies with a smoke grenade. The smoke grenade gives really good debuffs to enemies and the assassin mastery skill, Death knell, gives you see through the smoke against enemies.

The build uses FSA-12G & Tribune32 because they have high fire rate and good damage up close. This is preferable since smoke grenades are hard to deploy far away (you can replace these weapons with any weapons that have suppressors available). Also currently close quarter skills are much better than sniper skills.

As a tool this build uses Trip laser, since it gives free marks and has unlimited uses.

Both builds use adaptive armor, since these builds do not use armor bags and do not have trade skills, so one using these builds cannot risk taking permanent damage all the time.

Both builds use HET-5 Red Fox since Bulldozers are very lethal against both builds (unless you are using SA A144 or any good assault rifle). Although smoke debuff can weaken dozers quite a lot this build cannot handle them since shotguns are pretty weak against dozers.

Both builds also use Ammo Bag since ammo specialist skills make it possible to immediately replenish all throwables which is extremely handy and important since 10% change to get 1 back from every ammo drop is extremely inconsistent (sometimes you'll get grenades from every other ammo drop, sometimes it will take 20).

The most important weapon attachment for this build is any suppressor. This is required for Killer Kinesthetics skill to work (after killing marked target it will mark another enemy)
Otherwise you can use any weapon that does good damage at close range.
My weapon choices are following and have the following attachments:
FSA-12G:
>Ranged barrel (for extra damage and better spread)
>Extended Mag (Quick-pull might be a more intriguing choice, but with FSA the reload speed difference isn't that big and more bullets per mag is better, given the good fire rate)
>HQ stock (This build doesn't really care about specializing in 1 area, so other stocks for FSA are definitely options, but I wanted to create more general build)
>Projection RDS (Very good recoil reduction and penalty isn't that bad)
>12G Obellisk Silencer (Only available silencer)
>TAC Grip (It just gives the most buffs)
>Flat-side STAB Grip (With grips it is the same with stock, didn't want to specialize, chose the most generic)

Tribune32:
>Obelisk silencer (Better buffs than snub silencer)
>Quick pull mag (You want to use this gun to refresh Edge & Grit with combat reload)
>Underline stock (This weapon wants to be picked out of pocket, sprayed, reloaded and the put back, this is better stock for it)
>Box RDS (This weapon doesn't really care about targeting speed, but you can use others if they fit better your style)

The ammo specialist mastery allows you to replenish all throwables + plate up allows you to replenish Adaptive armor every 2 seconds even while taking damage (instead of 4.5 seconds without taking damage) when combined with Mower. And plate up is THE way to replenish lost armor chunks (techies, dozers, map and trades give you these quite regularly). (Fully loaded and scrounger aren't needed for this build to work)

The extra munitions skill is optional (the demolitionist mastery), but it helps you to create larger smoke areas and gets you more guaranteed grenades per heist. Enforcer is great for this build since most of the fighting happens inside smoke grenades and the skill line is the main way to get Edge & Grit. YOU CAN optionally play Demolitionist + Gunslinger tree instead of Enforcer tree to get yourself another good way to gain Grit + Edge, but it costs around 2x skill points and will change the playstyle of the build quite a lot.

Now we get to the fun part: -75% damage if the enemy is marked by smoke grenade. (-5% from armor, -10% from Grit and -60% from Threat assessment + Discombobulate). (I AM NOT SURE if percentages work this way in game, but hey, it is still quite the damage reduction for a smoked enemy) Also you do +20% damage to marked enemies (Combat marking) and have 20% change to "dodge" a bullet (Misdirect). All these effects given, you have all: Rush, Edge and Grit, which is easily done with Assassin + Enforcer.
The tactician tree is pretty invisible if you don't measure every hit you take and therefore entirely optional.

For the final skill investments this build has transporter + Assassin skill lines. Transporter is just really really good investment, ALWAYS. Assasin gives you the possibility of marking smoked enemies, easy way to rush and way to chain kills with boosted damage with Kinesthetics. Also stockpile for extra ammo bag uses. Transporter is optional, BUT not recommended to be removed. Deep pockets (from transporter) might be worth changing, if you don't have Stockpile + Fully loaded in use. Stockpile is otherwise optional.

This build is very volatile and unfriendly build towards civilians, so be prepared to pay some cleaning costs after heists. Compared to smoke build, the build relies much more on hipfire, since you cannot throw grenades while ADS and this build has to get the grenades out much faster than the smoke build. Grenades become pretty much your secondary weapon so you can use almost anything there. Definitely recommend this build to less populated heists, like Syntax error, Cook off or Boys in blue.

This build really prefers weapons that can kill around 10-20m away with hipfire, so SMGs and ARs are really good options here. In this picture I use SMG to level it up, but it works very well anyways.

Both builds use adaptive armor, since these builds do not use armor bags and these builds do not have trade skills one using these builds cannot risk taking permanent damage all the time.

Both builds use HET-5 Red Fox since Bulldozers are very lethal against both builds.

Both builds also use Ammo Bag since ammo specialist skills make it possible to immediately replenish all throwables which is extremely handy and important since 10% change to get 1 back from every ammo drop is extremely inconsistent (sometimes you'll get grenades from every other ammo drop, sometimes it will take 20).

As a tool you can use anything you prefer.

Any good mid-range hipfire weapon does well in this build as long as it has attachments that buff hipfiring.

>This build doesn't care about aiming down sights (ADS) so you can equip attachments that lower targeting speed without hesitation.
>TQ stock (or stocks with similar effects for some specific weapons)
>Any barrel extension that gives good recoil or spread buffs (depends on a weapon which is the best)
>Quick pull mag (if available) this build is going to use combat reload to refresh Edge and Grit constantly.
>Any vertical grip that reduces spread (beware that Cylinder Grip lowers weapon swap speed quite a lot while giving a little of other good buffs so it might not be the best choice)
>Any grip that doesn't weaken weapon spread or instead gives really good buffs
>Projection RDS (best sight for any hipfire build or weapon that uses hipfire)

Any revolver with Box RDS and you should do just fine, you aren't going to use your secondary a lot anyways (only to give you edge and maybe shoot enemies that have taken a hit from grenade).

The ammo specialist mastery allows you to replenish all throwables + plate up allows you to replenish Adaptive armor every 2 seconds when killing, even while taking damage (instead of 4.5 seconds without taking damage) when combined with Mower. And plate up is THE way to replenish lost armor chunks (techies, dozers, map and trades can give you these quite consistently if you know what you are doing). The difference to smoke build is that we have Frugal thrower to give this build even more grenades, since this build uses these grenades to kill the enemies immediately it is important to have almost every possible way to replenish the grenades. Scrounger, Frugal thrower and Fully loaded are optional, but removing all of these makes the build much more tedious and harder to play.


Demolitionist is the primary way of getting Grit and Rush. This build uses Cooker to get Grit going, Overcooked to make grenades become impact grenades and Blowback to make any mid-range weapon viable (since Blowback REMOVES any armor status from the enemy except bulldozer). Enforcer gives you staggering protection from your own grenades (and shields) as long as you have Grit, which is easily enabled by Cooker and combat reload keeps up the Edge and Grit so you don't have to be wasting the grenades to keep Grit up. If you have strong enough weapon you CAN remove Demolitionist ACED + Blowback. This makes most of the SMGs and Rifles + J&M Castigo 44 a lot weaker (no more 1 tap headshots). Also Solid can be removed if you never hit yourself with explosions.

With gunslinger this build makes hipfire viable and gains edge when needed.

Transporter is the best general skill line in the game and Stockpile gives your ammo bags more charges.
These skill lines are optional, but VERY critical in many scenarios.

Now you should be able to use these explosives very effectively and violently.

Remember to deploy Ammo bag(s) ONLY when you need them. Otherwise random geniuses will go on and take literally all of the ammo bag charges for themselves without any hesitation.

Also one should remember that bulldozer takes 2 shots to body and 3+ shots to head from Red Fox (I see people shooting dozers head with Red Fox waay too many times)

These builds will not survive very well in solo mode because these builds lack all the recovery skills and bags (Health and armor). Especially frag grenade build will suffer alone since killing civilians is just so easy and cops really like to swarm near civs. In solo mode snipers, Bulldozers and really dumb AIs will make for really hard runs. If you are a hardcore player here is a challenge for you.