9 TO DIEFinance Build
What is the Finance build?
Start on Budget Freeze, then aim for Reconciliation, Accrual and Invoice from the Finance pool. Add Balls in the Air and Sticky Notes from the shared skills. Put most talent points into Audit, and the rest into M&A. Finance has 90 health and ranks D tier on our arithmetic.
Finance has the lowest health of the nine at 90, and opens with Budget Freeze, which stops anything inside its ring from merging, growing or rebranding. Keep moving. We have identified some efficiencies, and you are standing in them.
Which skills and passives?
These six skills fill your six slots, and the six passives fill theirs. Passives that evolve one of your skills come first, since a skill evolves only at rank 5 with its partner owned. The remaining passive slots go to damage and cooldown, then whatever else is open.
| Skill | Source | Final dmg/s | Evolves with | Becomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Budget Freeze (start) | Finance | 71.1 | The Red Pen | Zero-Based Budget |
| Reconciliation | Finance | 76.4 | None | None |
| Accrual | Finance | 46.8 | None | None |
| Invoice | Finance | 30.1 | None | None |
| Balls in the Air | Shared | 1421.8 | Coffee | Juggling |
| Sticky Notes | Shared | 444.4 | None | None |
| Passive | Each rank | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The Red Pen | Crit chance +4% | Evolves Budget Freeze |
| Coffee | Skill speed +8% | Evolves Balls in the Air |
| Grade 7 | Damage +8% | General strength |
| The Phone | Cooldown -6% | General strength |
| The Projector | Extra shots +1 | General strength |
| Headphones | Area +8% | General strength |
How should I spend 51 talent points?
This plan puts points into Audit first, because it holds the most damage and cooldown talents of the three tracks. What is left goes into M&A, reaching its first milestone. It is a legal spend under the game's own unlock rules, and respecs are free, so nothing here is a commitment.
Your career path has been mapped. It is a circle.
Audit: 35 points
| Talent | Points | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Variance | 5 | Crit chance +2% per point. Explain this. |
| Materiality | 5 | Damage +4% per point. Big enough to matter. |
| Finding (milestone at 10) | 1 | Critical hits explode. Noted in the report. |
| Restatement | 5 | Crit damage +10% per point. The old number was wrong. So is this one. |
| Sample Testing | 3 | Pierce +1 per point. We checked twelve. Assume the rest. |
| Quarterly Close | 5 | Cooldown -3% per point. Four times a year, all night. |
| Forensic (milestone at 20) | 1 | Bosses take extra. Every receipt, every year. |
| Control Deficiency | 4 | Crit chance +2% per point. Significant. |
| Qualified Opinion | 5 | Damage +4% per point. Except for. |
| Material Weakness (milestone at 30) | 1 | Elites take extra. The board has been informed. |
M&A: 16 points
| Talent | Points | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Scale | 5 | Area +4% per point. Bigger is the strategy. |
| Lock-Up Period | 5 | Duration +6% per point. Nothing leaves for eighteen months. |
| Acquisition (milestone at 10) | 1 | Summons double. Welcome to the family. |
| Synergies | 5 | Damage +4% per point. Two plus two equals headcount. |
Which gear sets?
Finance has five sets, one per rarity from Approved up, and Month-End is the first you can realistically finish. Wear four pieces for the stat bonus and eight for the change to how things play. Stars add 20 percent of a piece's stats each, so keep them for pieces you will wear for a while.
| Set | Rarity | 4 pieces | 8 pieces |
|---|---|---|---|
| Month-End | Approved | Cooldown -12% | Kills burst. Contained, mostly. |
| Compliance Champion | Expensed | Duration +15% | The first hit on anything stuns it. Eye contact. |
| Middle Manager | Executive | Max health +12% | Kills refund cooldown. A friend of a friend of a friend. |
| Bean Counter | Grandfathered | Crit chance +8% | Elites take extra. Whales, in the trade. |
| Shadow IT | Legacy | Cooldown -10% | Summons double. Matrixed. |