Builder

* Regular
* College

He's not really a ladies man.

* Builder
* 1998

 **Builder** is a construction worker now using his tools for destruction. He is armed with a red offset pipe wrench and dressed in a yellow safety vest with white reflective strips, a black T-shirt, yellow pants, a brown leather tool belt pouch, and a yellow hard hat over a black beanie.

 **1998** is Builder's first exclusive skin. He is armed with a baton and dressed in a red and yellow-striped jersey with shoulder pads, light gray pants with red and yellow highlights, white socks, black cleats, and a red and yellow football helmet with a yellow grill face mask.

He is a star reward, obtained for free when players collect 10 stars.

## Functionality

### Basics

Builder is a **damager**, meaning he will attack enemies and the barricade at close range while excelling at inflicting large amounts of raw damage to high health targets.

Builder is a decently capable melee unit. He has high health and good melee damage while his courage cost, movement speed, and preparation time are all moderate. His normal melee attacks involve him swinging his wrench either from the side or overhead, at a fairly slow speed. Builder's crit is a kick forward and comes out faster than his normal attack.

Some time after dying, Builder will turn into his namesake zombie.

### Perks and Abilities

Enemies struck by Builder's critical hit will be knocked back.

He has 90% resistance to bullet damage.

At level 13, unlocking Builder's special ability grants him double damage when attacking the barricade. This damage bonus makes Builder a very handy unit when it comes to finishing missions as fast as possible after clearing the battlefield of enemies. Additionally, Builder's special ability can be further strengthened by using the Fury buff, granting him insane quadruple damage and making quicker work of the barricade than most other melee units are capable of. However, since Builder is typically superseded by fast spam units who perform much better overall towards the endgame, it may not be all that necessary to unlock Builder's special ability later in the game if they haven't done so earlier.

## Gameplay

### Main Campaign

Builder is one of the first available units that can knock enemies back. His knockback perk is powerful as it comes in the form of a critical hit, an attack that deals double damage. It can also keep most enemies away from certain stationary units, the bus, or even other units who lack the knockback perk. In some cases, knockback can push enemies back into fire pools created behind them. In most cases though, the knockback perk greatly preserves a unit's own life as it puts a bit of distance between them and their target while potentially avoiding an attack. Builder's knockback perk is delivered in the form of a swift push kick, which is not only his most damaging attack but also his quickest compared to his regular attacks which both come out comparably slower.

Builder is also one of the first available units to have bullet resistance. Although this perk is negligible for the most part as many enemies rely on just melee damage, he sees use against certain gun-toting marauders in stage 3 where he can shrug off enemy ranged attacks and easily hit them. Few units are able to match him in this regard this early into the game.

Being an early star reward unit, his high base health and damage make him an excellent unit to use for low-level players. Builder is useful for melee support and dealing with both cluttered bundles of weak enemies and marauders wielding ranged weaponry alike.

Guard is considered Builder's direct upgrade as he boasts higher stats with the same perks at only a slightly higher courage cost. It is very helpful to replace Builder with Guard, though it isn't necessary.

### Skirmish

In League, Builder is a good unit to use in early low-level Skirmish thanks to his high health, bullet resistance, and good damage output. This allows him to act as a tank against low-level enemy ranged units and kill them easily. His fast critical hit speed allows him to possibly kill any enemy melee units before they can retaliate. However, towards the later levels of Skirmish, Builder's strengths may seem to waver. Some other bullet-resistant units may outperform Builder, be it in strength, speed, or overall better base stats for either the same courage cost or just slightly higher. Grenadier, for example, not only possesses an extremely effective manual ability to throw a grenade but faster attack speeds as well. Guard, as mentioned above, acts as a better version of Builder for only a bit more courage. It'll be very essential to replace him at some point with another damager class unit with bullet-resistance.

### Item Sets

Because of his status as a "master of none", Builder struggles with finding a set that benefits him in a truly meaningful way. Because of having low natural crit. chance and poor attack speed, he utilizes respective builds with low efficiency. Meanwhile, bonuses oriented towards tankiness don't help preventing Builder from getting outshined by Grenadier, who can get a better use out of them. Even SwissMade doesn't helps him a lot. This leave Builder with no options other than Fitness, Chef, and Boss. The latter two are the most optimal, since they help to accentuate Builder's role as the main 2/2 synergy activator in his team, given he is properly build for that. If his given +%crit chance items however, Gentleman can become a viable set due to his quick and effective crit attack.

To continue off the previous point, Builder benefits most from preparation time decrease watches. Meanwhile, cost reduction doesn't matters as much, given that you're still forced to run Generator when trying to play Builders efficiently. +% books for health and melee are also a good choice.

## Skins and Synergies

Builder, along with his respective skins, is a part of several teams: Builders and College.

 Team

In all of the above teams, Builder is merely one of the better units available for use. He is the only one who can realistically enable the 2/2 synergy of Builders, meanwhile in College team, he gets a lot out of the anti-zombification perk.

## Trivia

* The 1998 skin for Builder bears a heavy resemblance to the uniforms worn by the Washington Football Team (fmr. Washington Redskins).
* Before update 2.8.2, the 1998 skin was shortened from its old name, "Builder 1998."
* Before update 2.7.0, Builder is unlocked at bus level 2 for 90 coins.
* Builder used to have a different sprite in Dead Ahead: Quarantine.
* During college, builder used to date Redneck.

## Gallery

Builder's DA:Q sprite

 Humans
 TMF Squad