[Sunika Kubrow] General Use

Here it is. The Overguard Killer Dog. This dog's precept mods have been tweaked to be slightly less useless. Unleashed is basically an automatic Overguard deletion, letting you either finish the job or focus on other enemies. Savagery is now nice CC instead of just do a useless finisher attack. A nice bit of much needed tweaking, although these precept mods could definitely be made even better and more useful.

[Unleashed] also lets you not use the Overguard Posture Mod if you were planning on using it. Savagery is basically an inferior Howl / Radial Blind.

Precept Mods positions matter?

Yes, they do. Companions have a priority list when it comes to activating abilities. Below is a picture to show the priority list. Basically you start highest priority in the upper left and then move your way down the priority list by going right. This means precept mods are put in the upper left column mod slots for every companion, in the order you want the companion to prioritize said precept and 'ability' mods (the Bond mods). Thanks to the Simulcrum Warriors for having a picture on their companion builds.

Calculated Redirection and Reinforced Bond give faster fire rate, good for DPS.

Note that Duplex doesn't benefit and doesn't trigger Vicious and Seismic.

The empty slot can be for:

• (Primed) Pack Leader to keep your doggo alive better
• [Contagious Bond] if you have a grouping CC ability AND use Protector Posture

Otherwise, you can replace the following mods with anything else that you want:

• Primed Animal Instinct
• Duplex Bond
• Tenacious Bond if you don't want more crit damage
• [Calculated Redirection] + [Reinforced Bond] if you don't mind not having extra fire rate

Regarding gaining the crit dmg buff from Tenacious Bond, there're 3 ways to do it.

• Bite if it can raise the crit chance to 50% or above
• Hunter Synergy requires a primary with a "minimum 133% crit chance after mods, which requires a base CC of 44% + Critical Delay without a Riven" (Ninjase 2023)
• [Bite] and Hunter Synergy, lets your primary have a crit chance lower than 133%, but it should still be decent

Claws

General Heat/Elec build

[Frenzied Posture] if you want more status duration, [Elusive Posture] if you want to abuse [Duplex Bond] being able to attack even with Elusive which may also allow you to remove [Pack Leader], or [Protector Posture] (especially good if you have grouping CC ability + Contagious Bond), Persistent Posture for +40% damage, or Balanced Posture for passive 2 meter radius weak/light CC staggering whenever your companion moves around

Maul for more damage

Precision Conditioning for more damage - put this on every companion claw, especially important for companions whose default IPS damage is not slash - EXCEPTION can be for a build against non-Jupiter Corpus as they are weak to puncture, [Disabling Conditioning] is good here for taking down their shields faster, for Amalgam Corpus [Precision Conditioning] is best because they're not weak or resistant to any IPS damage, so in this scenario you just want to go all in on DoT as much as possible. another EXCEPTION can be for Corpus builds in which you may not have space for both [Maul] and a Conditioning mod, in this situation use the Conditioning mod over [Maul] for more damage and to make sure you have the ideal IPS damage type

Burning Claws for more damage, Heat status, and more status chance - lets you proc more often too because of the increased status chance, Heat = good against Grineer, Infested (also Deimos), and Corrupted. Against the Narmer, go for [Sepsis Claws] as they are weak to Toxin. Against the Murmur, use [Shocking Claws] as they are weal to elec. you may notice all 3 elementals here are DoT. this is because beast companions best kill enemies via DoT instead of raw damage. their slower attack speed and slow speed of locking onto new enemies makes them better suited for hitting once and (hopefully) proccing a strong DoT that can do most of the work. this is why I personally use [Frenzied Posture] because it seems to function the same as Persistent but offering 80% longer status duration

Immunity Resistance for more status damage - good for the DoTs

[Mecha Overdrive] for more status chance, much higher chance to proc DoTs

[Bite] gives a total 32.3% crit chance and 8x crit multiplier. this crit chance is not high enough, so now we gotta look at our options. just generally regarding [Bite] and [Hunter Synergy]:

If Bite gives less than 50% crit chance, you need to now decide if Hunter Synergy can increase the crit chance enough:

• If Bite + Hunter Synergy give less than 50% crit chance, don't use them
• If [Bite] + [Hunter Synergy] give 50% crit chance, it's optional if you wish to use both or not, there're pros and cons to both choices, neither is better than the other if you ask me

• If [Bite] + [Hunter Synergy] give like 80% or higher crit chance, i won't say it's strictly obligatory, but you have good reasons to put both mods on

• If [Bite] gives 50%, it's optional if you want to put on [Hunter Synergy], if the addition of [Hunter Synergy] can get you to some 80% crit chance or higher, which will most likely be the case, I'd say to put it on, but if it's something like 60-70%, I personally wouldn't put on HS
  NOTE that if you don't [Reach] a 50% or higher crit chance, [Tenacious Bond] won't trigger its crit damage buff, and you should unequip it

Bell Ringer gives light CC that only really benefits your companion - enemies cannot attack your companion while knocked down

Cull the Weak is Condition Overload but for Claws, and I have some thoughts on it:

• If you don't use a primer and don't use Bite + HS, then you should use CtW
• If you don't use a primer and have a >50% crit chance, don't use CtW
• If you use a primer, regardless of the crit chance, use CtW

basically for the general use build, if you use a primer, CtW is always worth using due to the high extra damage your companion will be able to do.
the crit chance is important because of the +240% extra damage on non-critical hits, if your companion isnt using crit mods, you're getting +240% extra damage on pretty much all hits

60% dual stat elemental mods will not mix when a 330% elemental mod is equipped, but they do add to the given elements damage and increase the status chance - these can be used over [Bell Ringer] and CtW (only if your companion won't gain anything from using it, check the list above for when to use CtW), and they can also be used if you dont have any crit mods on

Corpus builds

the same stuff for Posture mods above applies here

the same stuff regarding crit mods applies here

there's no space for [Maul] because of [Mecha Overdrive], so instead you have to use a Conditioning mod

Precision Conditioning for Amalgam Corpus BUT also for a General Corpus build that works fine against Regular Corpus (non-Jupiter Corpus) and Amalgam Corpus (Jupiter Corpus)
Disabling Conditioning for Regular Corpus - they are weak to Puncture, lets your companion take down the shields faster, i explain why you want your companion to engage with shields later

the same stuff regarding Immunity Resistance applies here

Sepsis Claws for General Corpus and Regular Corpus - bypasses shields
Shocking Claws for Amalgam Corpus - they are weak to Elec

Bell Ringer for Impact procs - this will make sense for the next mod

[Magnetic Strike] for Magnetic procs on Impact Procs from [Bell Ringer]. This is a combo that I will refer to as the 'Bell Strike' or 'Magnetic Ringer' combo.
1 when a companion with [Bell Ringer] equipped knocks down enemies, the knockdown will trigger Impact procs on the enemies.
2 [Magnetic Strike] applies Magnetic Procs on enemies that your companion procs Impact on.
3 [Bell Ringer]'s knockdown Impact procs trigger this effect.
4 Magnetic procs lower the total amount of shields that a (Corpus) unit has, making your companion able to take down their shields faster.
5 Magnetic procs also trigger a very strong Elec proc once the enemy's shields have been fully depleted.
6 assuming you have Sepsis Claws, then you proc Toxin, Imapct, Magnetic, and Elec at least, that's 4 status effects, and if you proc slash/puncture too, that's 5, this is relevant for the next mod

Cull the Weak for more damage - time for round 2 for my thoughts on this mod. the Corpus builds are the only builds in which you have reason to use CtW regardless of crit chance and primer. this is because, as mentioned above, your companion can proc up to 5 statuses on its own without your help. there's no need for a primer, but youre of course always welcome to use one for even more damage :)
NOTE that using [Shocking Claws] will subtract 1 status effect as you won't have toxin, but against Amalgam Corpus you'll take down their shields faster due to the Elec weakness
this isn't going to hurt your damage output in any meaningful way though, so don't worry about it. the non-crit +240% extra damage isnt going to result in a higher damage than [Bite]'s extra crit multiplier either, so even if [Bite] (+ HS) can give you a good crit chance, it's not worth it to unequip them in hopes of consistently hitting the +240% extra dmg

almost the same stuff regarding 60% dual stat elemental mods applies here, except the Bell Strike combo is now obligatory, so if the dual stat mods are to replace any mods, it will be [Bite] and [Hunter Synergy], but only if they both result in a <50% crit chance