Metal Slug: Awakening – Cores Guide (3 Stars, Abyssal Operations Until Difficulty Level 8)

For general core info, or 2 star cores and below please check another cores guide.

Guide to Cores

By Xpectation

Quick note, all cores should be 3 stars, I just don’t have all these cores on 3 stars yet, so I used some 2 stars cores in the pictures as illustration instead.

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 Dragon Nosuke Core: PEN +12% OR
• 2x Jupiter King Core: Increase RoF by 12%.

Note: My preference goes to Dragon Nosuke, because PEN helps you increase DMG on your weapons and abilities, while your RoF only benefits your weapon DMG.

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 Dragon Nosuke Core: PEN +12%.

Substats preference in order:

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

Trevor Best Cores

Trevor is all about the close range burst damage. Since his abilities do a lot of DMG and he will need a shotgun for max DMG we will focus on shot DMG, PEN, CRIT Rate (increases the chance of refreshing Slashing Kick’s CD) and Close-Range DMG bonus. It is important to not spam your attacks with this core set-up. The correct order is ability – auto attack – ability – auto attack and so on, so you keep enhancing his auto attack DMG.

• 4x Sea Satan Core: Increase CRIT Rate by 12% & After using a skill, Increase the Character’s next Shot DMG by 120%.
• 2x Dragon Nosuke Core: PEN +12%. OR
• 2x Silence Core: CRIT DMG + 24%.

Note If your PEN is already above 30-35 then you can opt to go for CRIT DMG instead, I would say try out both 2-sets boosts and see which one you like best.

Substats preference in order:

• CRIT Rate
• PEN
• CRIT DMG
• Close-Range DMG Bonus
• ACC

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 Dragon Nosuke: PEN +12% OR
• 2x Sea Satan Core: Increase CRIT Rate by 12%

Note: Again you can either go for CRIT or PEN. If your PEN is above 30-35 you can go for extra CRIT Rate instead.

Substats preference in order:

• CRIT Rate
• CRIT DMG
• PEN

Eva Best Cores

Eva’s damage comes from her abilities aswell as her sniper. Her abilities DMG scale with her CRIT Rate and Debuff DMG bonus extends the time that her abilities stays active. Combined with PEN for more dmg on both her weapon as het abilities DMG is what we will focus on for her.

• 4x Silence Core: CRIT DMG +24% & Increase the next shot DMG by 100% every 4 sec.
• 2x Dragon Nosuke Core: PEN +12% OR
• 2x Sea Satan Core: Increase CRIT Rate by 12%.

Note: Again you can either go for CRIT OR PEN. If your PEN is above 30-35 You can go for extra CRIT Rate instead.

Substats preference in order:

• CRIT Rate
• Debuff DMG bonus
• PEN
• CRIT DMG
• ACC

Marco Best Cores

Marco is all about his burst DMG with his grenades and shotgun if you prefer burst on him. Or burst with his ultimate combined with an HMG gun. My preference goes to an HMG build, so I will set up his core page for HMG and not a shotgun. Debuff DMG bonus increases his RoF (Same build as in 2 stars core guide)

• 4x Dragon Nosuke Core: PEN +12% & For every 15 shots hitting the target, increase ATK by 8% for 8sec, up to 24% (The duration resets for each trigger)
• 2x Jupiter King Core: Increase RoF by 12%

Substats preference in order:

• Debuff DMG Bonus
• PEN
• CRIT RATE
• CRIT DMG
• 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. 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,…

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%.

Nadia substats preference in order:

• Debuff DMG Bonus
• PEN RES
• Block Rate
• CRIT RES

Gru substats preference in order:

• CRIT Rate
• PEN RES
• Block Rate
• CRIT RES

Tarma substats preference in order:

• PEN
• PEN RES
• Block Rate
• CRIT RES

Haran substats preference in order:

• CRIT DMG
• PEN RES
• Block Rate
• CRIT RES

Fio substats preference in order:

• PEN
• PEN RES
• Block Rate
• CRIT RES

Eri substats preference in order:

• CRIT Rate
• PEN RES
• Block Rate
• CRIT RES