Strategy:Whizkid

Whizkid is an advanced trait that helps in situational dilemmas. This is a great trait to have, especially the two levels in it, if you can spare the two levels of Finesse required to get it.

Whizkid allows one to build advanced and master assemblies out of weapons, armor, and boots. Furthermore, it allows one to just slap on mods to any old weapon/armor/boots just 'cuz it looks and performs cool. Even more, completing the 2 levels of Whizkid BEFORE any assembly is finished will allow one to put one additional mod onto the completed assembly, whether it be a basic, advanced or master assembly.

Technicians can exploit the two levels of Whizkid to put on certain mods to certain weapons/armor/boots that normally would not accept any mods before. In addition, the Scavenger trait allows a Technician to "unload" an empty assembled/modded/exotic/unique non-melee weapon and produce a random mod pack, anything from the measly technical mod pack to the worshiped onyx and nano mod packs.

Bottom line? Whizkid is a great "secondary" build to have. Invest in Whizkid whenever you can, and you won't be disappointed.

GinDiamond (talk) 21:22, 14 October 2013 (CEST)

To contextualize how good having Whizkid is, by being able to apply more than one mod to your equipment, it essentially lets you hit harder, hit faster, hit more accurately, move faster, and be more protected than you would be otherwise, in effect being able to grant the stat boosts of several other traits all at once. And that's before getting into the advanced and master assemblies it allows you to build, or the unique effects granted by the rare mods that you can never get from traits. However that does not mean that Whizkid should be a trait you gun for early, as you still need the actual mods to apply to your stuff in order for Whizkid to actually do anything. Indeed, investing in Whizkid while you're still in Phobos will often be a dead level at that moment, when you'll be lucky to have more than a half dozen mods by the time you reach Phobos Anomaly, while any mods you do have at that point will probably mostly go to building important basic assemblies you want ASAP like Tactical boots, Fireproof armor, and the Tactical shotgun. It might be annoying having mods taking up inventory space that you're saving for an advanced/master assembly or to apply to one of your already modded equipment, but you will usually be better off investing in traits that will be immediately impactful and sacrificing some inventory space for the short term. Generally the earliest you can justify investing in Whizkid will be right before or after clearing Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab, as your mod selection can become quite decent by then and you'll likely have a rare mod or two too that can significantly impact the course of your run. When to invest in Whizkid is one of those things that highly depends on the state of your run and you should adapt accordingly; is the RNG being generous with giving you a ton of mods early? Sure go and invest in it before you even reach Deimos. But does the RNG have a complete drought of mods in another run and you were unable to get the guaranteed mods from the special levels along the way? Then you should delay Whizkid late into Deimos or even until sometime in Hell if it takes you that long to finally build up the mod collection to really benefit from the trait.

Overall Whizkid is a quintessential post-mastery trait for any build whose master does not block it, but when investment into it is impactful is highly situational and will vary from run to run. On a final note, in Angel of 100/Archangel of 666 games, investment into Whizkid is an absolute must, and any mastery that blocks it should be avoided like the plague. Over the course of 100/666 levels, you will come across an unfathomable amount of mods and the great moddable exotics you would be unlikely to find in the standard game, having no Whizkid will leave you so much weaker later in the game, while you will have a ton more levels to make use of that tricked out modded equipment. Not to mention that with nightmare enemies and bosses showing up within the deeper levels as regular enemies, you will need the best equipment you can manage. The caveat is you likely will have to put off investing in Whizkid even later than in the standard game, as without the special levels, you will miss out on a lot of guaranteed mod drops, and so unless you get particularly lucky early on, it can take a while to build up enough of a mod supply to get good usage from Whizkid. Omega Tyrant (talk) 06:03, 7 July 2023 (UTC)