If you want to play Marauder as a heavy-damage powerhouse in Aliens Fireteam Elite 2, this end-game build is designed around exactly that.
The build combines the M12A1 Rocket Launcher, M39A2 Submachine Gun, and a heavily upgraded Dead Eye perk to create a Marauder that can handle hordes, stagger enemies, and melt elite targets.
The key idea is simple: use the SMG to build and maintain Dead Eye stacks, use Blast Cannon to weaken and control tougher enemies, and then bring out your heavy weapons when something needs to disappear immediately.
This build works particularly well in Horde Mode, but it can also be used in campaign missions when you need strong sustained damage and crowd control.
Aliens Fireteam Elite 2 Marauder End-Game Build Guide
Before getting into every perk and attachment, here’s the basic setup:
- Class: Marauder
- Primary Weapon: M39A2 Submachine Gun
- Signature Weapon: M12A1 Rocket Launcher
- Main Perk: Dead Eye
- Secondary Focus: Blast Cannon
- Third Focus: Titan Rockets
- Playstyle: High sustained DPS, crowd control, elite killing
- Best For: Horde Mode and high-difficulty content
The build revolves around maintaining your Dead Eye stacks while using the SMG as your main weapon.
Once Dead Eye is sufficiently stacked, you gain massive stopping power and recoil benefits. That lets the SMG stagger enemies while remaining accurate and easy to control.
When an elite or heavily armored enemy appears, you switch gears and use Blast Cannon, Titan Rockets, and the Rocket Launcher to finish the job.
How the Marauder Build Works
The build has three main components.
First, the M12A1 Rocket Launcher provides huge burst damage against priority targets and tightly packed groups.
Second, Dead Eye is stacked as high as possible. The build increases its maximum bonus to 150% increased stopping power and reduced recoil, allowing even the SMG to stagger enemies effectively.
Finally, the M39A2 SMG provides the sustained fire needed to maintain Dead Eye stacks while also applying the Cryogenic Ammunition augment.
This creates a useful combat loop:
SMG → build Dead Eye → slow enemies → Blast Cannon → Rocket Launcher/Titan Rockets → return to SMG.
The result is a Marauder that can handle both large groups and high-priority targets without constantly relying on limited heavy ammunition.
M12A1 Rocket Launcher Build
The M12A1 Rocket Launcher is the main burst-damage weapon in this build.
It’s primarily used for two situations:
- Killing priority targets.
- Clearing densely packed groups of enemies.
Against elites, a well-placed rocket can remove a huge portion of their health.
In Horde Mode, you should look for situations where several enemies are grouped together. If you can hit four or more targets with a rocket, the ammunition becomes much more valuable.
However, heavy weapon ammunition is limited, so don’t waste rockets on enemies that your SMG can comfortably handle.
Save your rockets for elites, large targets, and dense enemy groups.
M12A1 Internal Magazine
Use the LFN Reverb Raider Internal Magazine – Explosive.
This increases the weapon’s effect radius and explosive radius by 10%.
Essentially, you’re making the Rocket Launcher’s explosions bigger, which improves its effectiveness against groups.
M12A1 Barrel
Use the Dual Rail Booster.
It provides:
- +10% weak point damage
- +10% weak point stopping power
The Rocket Launcher naturally has negative weak point damage, so this attachment helps compensate for that drawback.
The weak point stopping-power bonus is also useful for making the weapon more effective against tougher enemies.
M12A1 Armature
Use the Bracing Armature.
The attachment reduces handling by 12%, but provides several defensive benefits.
After taking damage, you gain:
- 25% increased damage resistance
- 10% stagger resistance
- 20% reduced recoil
These effects last for 5 seconds.
The reduced handling isn’t particularly important for a weapon like the Rocket Launcher, making the defensive bonuses worthwhile.
M12A1 Trait
Keep the M12A1 Rocket Launcher Trait.
It increases the effect radius and explosion radius by another 5%.
Combined with the explosive internal magazine, this makes your rockets considerably better at clearing groups.
M12A1 Augment
The build does not require an augment for the Rocket Launcher.
Augments can potentially push the weapon further, but they can also be expensive and significantly change how a weapon performs.
For this particular setup, the Rocket Launcher already performs its job extremely well without one.
M39A2 Submachine Gun Build
The M39A2 SMG is arguably the most important weapon in the build.
Unlike the Rocket Launcher, which has limited ammunition, the SMG is what you’ll use for most of the mission.
You want a weapon that has:
- High fire rate
- Good accuracy
- Reliable sustained damage
- Enough consistency to maintain Dead Eye
The M39A2 fits the role extremely well.
M39A2 Underbarrel
Use the Catalytic VFG.
It provides:
- +7% critical hit chance
- 4% reduced recoil
The recoil reduction can stack up to five times and lasts for 6 seconds.
This works particularly well with the build’s focus on continuous fire.
M39A2 Magazine
Use the Compound Magazine.
It provides:
- +15% magazine capacity
- +4% fire rate on hit
The fire-rate bonus stacks up to 20% and lasts for 3 seconds.
Since you’re constantly firing the weapon, maintaining the bonus should be relatively easy.
M39A2 Optic
Use the Micro Red Dot Sight.
It provides:
- 8% reduced spread
- 10% increased weapon range
- 10% increased handling
This helps turn the M39A2 into a more accurate mid-range weapon.
M39A2 Trait
The recommended trait is Type 111 Directed Particle Emitter.
This trait is unlocked from a Hunter signature weapon.
Whenever you hit an enemy, your damage increases by 1%, stacking up to 20%.
The stacks reset after 1 second without hitting an enemy.
Since this Marauder build is designed around continuous SMG fire, maintaining the stacks should be relatively easy.
This is exactly what you want from the weapon because the entire build rewards you for maintaining pressure.
M39A2 Augment
Use the Cryogenic Ammunition – Unstable augment.
This augment reduces damage and stopping power, but provides a much more important benefit for this particular build.
It allows your weapon to slow and potentially stun enemies, including elites.
That gives you more control over incoming enemies and creates opportunities to hit them with your Rocket Launcher.
The small damage reduction is worth the utility because the slow effect works perfectly with the rest of the build.
Dead Eye Is the Core of the Build
The most important part of this Marauder setup is the Dead Eye perk.
The goal is to build Dead Eye as high as possible and keep it active throughout combat.
The SMG is perfect for this because of its high fire rate and accuracy.
As you continue hitting enemies, you build Dead Eye stacks.
With the right perks, the maximum bonus reaches 150% increased stopping power and reduced recoil.
That is an enormous improvement.
It means your SMG becomes much more capable of staggering enemies, even though you’re not using a traditional heavy weapon.
Dead Eye Perks
Use Stack ‘Em Up 1 and Stack ‘Em Up 2.
Together, these increase the maximum Dead Eye bonus by 100%, allowing the build to reach the full 150% bonus.
This is the foundation of the build.
The higher your Dead Eye stacks, the more effectively your SMG controls the battlefield.
Blind Rage
Take Blind Rage.
When Dead Eye reaches the required threshold, this perk provides:
- +10% damage
This is another reason to keep Dead Eye active.
You’re not simply building stacks for stopping power. You’re also unlocking additional offensive bonuses.
Feel No Pain
Use Feel No Pain for additional survivability.
When the Dead Eye requirement is met, this perk gives you:
- +15% damage resistance
This helps the Marauder survive while maintaining aggressive pressure.
In The Zone
Use In The Zone to improve reload speed.
Once the Dead Eye condition is met, it provides:
- +50% reload speed
This is particularly valuable when using the M39A2 because the build is constantly firing.
Faster reloads mean less downtime and make it easier to maintain your Dead Eye stacks.
Blast Cannon Setup
The second major focus of the build is Blast Cannon.
Instead of treating Blast Cannon purely as an emergency crowd-control ability, this build uses it proactively.
You want to use Blast Cannon to weaken dangerous enemies and make your entire loadout more effective.
Empowered
Use Empowered.
It gives you:
- +10% damage for 5 seconds
after triggering Blast Cannon.
This makes Blast Cannon part of your offensive rotation rather than simply a defensive tool.
Fortress
Use Fortress for additional survivability.
It provides:
- 25% damage resistance for 5 seconds
after triggering Blast Cannon.
This is especially useful when you’re dealing with enemies at close range.
Breaching Blast
Take Breaching Blast.
After an enemy is hit by Blast Cannon, its:
- Penetration resistance
- Penetration armor
are reduced by 25% for 5 seconds.
This is particularly useful against armored targets.
You can use Blast Cannon to weaken the target and then immediately follow up with your heavy weapons.
Overload
Use Overload to gain an additional Blast Cannon charge.
The downside is a 50% increased cooldown, but having another charge gives you more opportunities to control enemies and activate the associated buffs.
The goal isn’t necessarily to spam Blast Cannon.
Instead, use it at the right moment to weaken important targets and activate your defensive and offensive bonuses.
Titan Rockets Setup
Titan Rockets are useful in this build, but they’re not the centerpiece.
The Rocket Launcher and Dead Eye combination does most of the heavy lifting.
Still, a few perks make Titan Rockets fit the build much better.
Auto Rocket
Use Auto Rocket.
Whenever you reload your weapon, this perk fires an additional homing rocket.
This gives you another source of burst damage and helps maintain pressure without requiring you to manually fire every rocket.
Improved Loader
Take Improved Loader.
This increases the fire rate of Titan Rockets, allowing the ability to deal its damage over a shorter period.
The faster delivery makes it more useful against enemies that need to be eliminated quickly.
Fire and Forget
Use Fire and Forget.
This causes enemies to take:
- 25% more damage from area-based attacks
- 8% of their total life as bleed damage over 8 seconds
This works nicely with the build’s focus on explosive and area damage.
Titan Rockets become particularly effective when used against groups or already-weakened elite targets.
Additional Core Perks
After setting up Dead Eye, Blast Cannon, and Titan Rockets, use your remaining perk slots to improve the overall performance of the build.
Heavy Weapons Training
Use Heavy Weapons Training.
It provides:
- +20% maximum heavy weapon ammunition
- +15% heavy weapon reload speed
This is extremely useful because the M12A1 Rocket Launcher is an important part of the build.
More ammunition means more opportunities to use your strongest burst weapon during a mission.
Rough and Tumble
Take Rough and Tumble.
This reduces the amount of damage you receive from area-of-effect attacks by 50%.
It’s a straightforward defensive perk that gives the Marauder more survivability.
Universal Reload Speed Perk
Use the Weapon Reload Speed Universal Core Perk for the final slot.
It provides another 3% reload speed.
It’s a small bonus, but it’s useful when you’re trying to maximize the efficiency of the overall loadout.
Complete Marauder Build
Here’s the complete setup in one place.
Weapons
Signature Weapon: M12A1 Rocket Launcher
- LFN Reverb Raider Internal Magazine – Explosive
- Dual Rail Booster
- Bracing Armature
- M12A1 Rocket Launcher Trait
- No augment required
Primary Weapon: M39A2 SMG
- Catalytic VFG
- Compound Magazine
- Micro Red Dot Sight
- Type 111 Directed Particle Emitter
- Cryogenic Ammunition – Unstable
Main Perks
- Dead Eye
- Stack ‘Em Up 1
- Stack ‘Em Up 2
- Blind Rage
- Feel No Pain
- In The Zone
Blast Cannon Perks
- Empowered
- Fortress
- Breaching Blast
- Overload
Titan Rockets Perks
- Auto Rocket
- Improved Loader
- Fire and Forget
Other Core Perks
- Heavy Weapons Training
- Rough and Tumble
- Weapon Reload Speed Universal Core Perk
How to Play the Marauder Build
Once the build is complete, the gameplay loop is relatively straightforward.
Start most fights with your M39A2 SMG.
Your goal is to continuously hit enemies and build your Dead Eye stacks.
As the stacks climb, your stopping power and recoil bonuses become stronger.
Once you reach the important Dead Eye threshold, your other perks activate as well.
You’ll gain additional damage, damage resistance, and reload speed.
This is when the SMG really starts to shine.
Because you’re using Cryogenic Ammunition, you can also slow enemies and potentially stun tougher targets.
Once an elite becomes slowed, use Blast Cannon to weaken it and activate your buffs.
Then bring out the Rocket Launcher or Titan Rockets to finish the target.
After the priority target is dead, immediately return to the SMG and begin rebuilding your Dead Eye stacks.
The basic cycle is:
Build Dead Eye → slow enemies → Blast Cannon → heavy weapon burst → return to SMG.
This Marauder build is designed for players who want to stay aggressive while having an answer for almost every type of encounter.
The M39A2 SMG handles sustained combat and builds Dead Eye.
The Cryogenic Ammunition augment adds valuable crowd control.
Blast Cannon weakens and controls dangerous targets while providing additional offensive and defensive buffs.
Then the M12A1 Rocket Launcher and Titan Rockets deliver the explosive burst damage needed to finish elites and clear dense groups.
The most important thing to remember is that your Rocket Launcher ammunition is limited.
Don’t waste your rockets on enemies that your SMG can handle.
Build your Dead Eye stacks, keep the SMG firing, slow important targets, use Blast Cannon proactively, and save your heavy weapons for the moments where they provide the most value.
If you enjoy aggressive gameplay, explosive weapons, and watching your damage numbers climb, this is an excellent Marauder setup to take into end-game content and Horde Mode.