Metal Slug: Awakening - Core Guide (4 Stars, Abyssal Operations Difficulty 9-15)

For general core info, or 2 star cores and below please follow this guide or another for older scores.

Guide to Cores with 4-Stars

By Xpectation

Updated Cores for 4-star cores (abyssal operations difficulty level 9-15)

Important: Eva, Marco and Trevor are not included in this guide. Their cores are still the same as in the 3 star core guide. Just get the same cores but with 4 stars instead of 3 for them. You can check those here: #core guide (3 stars, abyssal operations until difficulty level 8).

Lyla Best Cores

Lyla is all about her summon damage, fast firing guns and long range damage so we give her cores to enhance these stats.

4x Hairbuster Riberts Core: Increase Long-Range DMG bonus by 12% & Every ally nearby (teammate or summons) increase ATK by 8%, up to a maximum of 32%.
2x Glonar Core: For every 15 bullets fired, increase summons bonus DMG by 40% for 8 secs.

Substats preference in order

CRIT Rate + Long-Range DMG bonus
PEN
CRIT DMG
ACC
PEN RES

Scarlett Best Cores

Scarlet her DMG comes from her tennisballs, therefor we want to boost her “enhanced weapon”-state for bigger burst damage. Since she is more ability damage based, we will also focus on PEN a lot to make her abilities do even more DMG. Her debuff DMG bonus also gives her abilities extra DMG, so that’s the 3rd thing we will also focus on (we will focus the most on this in the substats.)

4x Hyde Core: Debuff DMG increased by 8% & When triggering Enhanced weapon, character’s ATK increased by 30% for 8 seconds.
2x Big John Core: When triggering ‘enhanced weapon’, characters PEN increases by 20% for 8 seconds.

Substats preference in order

Debuff DMG Bonus
PEN
ACC
Close-Range DMG bonus (if shotgun) / Long-Range DMG bonus (if sniper or bazooka)
PEN RES

Violet Best Cores

Violet is all about her burst abilities spam. We will put the focus on CRIT Rate, CRIT DMG and PEN.

4x Hyde Core: Debuff DMG increased by 8% & When triggering Enhanced weapon, character’s ATK increased by 30% for 8 seconds.
2x Big John Core: When triggering ‘enhanced weapon’, characters PEN increases by 20% for 8 seconds.

Substats preference in order

CRIT Rate
CRIT DMG
PEN
ACC

Spec-ops (supports) Best Cores

Supports are there to apply a debuff and then get swapped out. Or in sky event / peak of glory event you play these characters to tank. Therefor we will focus on defensive substats (ofcourse go for the yellow highlighted stats first to boost their abilities). On firepower characters you go left and right cores ATK and top HP cores. On Spec-ops you can go ALL HP cores or do,the same as your firepower cores, it’s up to your preference. This way on top with defensive substats, you will be able to tank very long in modes like sky event/peak of glory/mecha 3v3,…

There are 2 support pages now. 1 to support any character (the old core page). And a second option which is only to support Lyla to boost her summons!

Option 1: Supporting any firepower character

4x Steel Worm Destroyer Core: When character enters the battle, increase the ATK of all characters in the team by 15% for 10 seconds. Triggers once every 20 seconds. & when the character is in the team, increase the ATK of all deployed characters by 10%.
2x Fallwalker Core: When the character is in the team, increase the ATK of all deployed characters by 6%.

Option 2: Supporting Lyla

4x Joint Operation 2 Core: When the character is in a team, the entire teams Debuff bonus DMG +5% & When there are summons nearby, the entire teams weapon shot DMG +20%.
2x Fallwalker Core: When the character is in the team, increase the ATK of all deployed characters by 6%

Nadia substats preference in order