Hello! This is a guide to get you through the Cosmic Trial with Rocket. Note: This is NOT the best Rocket. It is NOT end game Rocket. You will not find the BiS items in this build. 

Set Up

I capped myself at 150 Infinity Points for these trial guides. It won't take too long to build up that many. By the time you've leveled up a few characters for synergies and farmed some Heroic (Red) Challenges and terminals for some gear you may even be past 150 IP when you try the trial. Worst thing that can happen when you try the trial is you fail there is no punishment. So give it a shot and see if you're missing damage, survivability or both.

Not all end game builds work equally well with less IP and gear. I tried a couple of the builds that already existed and found one that worked well to get through the Cosmic Trial. 

The top 3 guides on itembase are all by Prinn. I read through them all and settled on this version - it's similar but a bit different than his beginner guide here:

https://itembase.mhbugle.com/build/934/

I opted into an extra turret and the Signature instead of the shield and the launcher. The shield I could see being very useful especially in cosmic content. I was able to do the trial w/out it. I chose the turret because I thought extra summons equals easier rotation to manage. 

Synergies

Summon damage, Energy Damage and our archetype stats (Energy + Intelligence) along w/ Squirrel Girl and Wolverine.

Infinities

I put 38 ranks into Deep Thought in the Mind Stone. We can refill our plasma ammo with our  but we want to channel our mini gun as much as possible to keep it ramped up. So more ammo = less uses of  and easier to keep the mini gun stacked is the theory.

GEAR

- This is the highest damage option at i70.

 and  are decent damage options that are pretty easy to farm up.  is good for rocket because we are draining our ammo constantly and getting access to the buff.  is another easy to access damage item. 
If you're feeling too squishy  and are my go to beefy artifact options. I did not use them on this trial but its certainly an option if you're struggling to stay alive.

His own uniques work for slot 1-5.There's better in some slots but we're trying to make gear as easy to get as we can.

For the medkit you want the shield on med kit use. Other than that prioritize + to spirit on medkit.

Inisgnia was just the one I had - look for something w/ bonuses to damage. You could also use  for some summon bonus.

Team Up

Jessica Jones is kind of becoming my default here. The grouping is just too good.

Playstyle 

 

- Our main filler. Hold down on your target. Stacks up to 30. We want to keep it stacked as much as possible.

- Vulnerable, area CD. Use on CD.

- These last for 30s. The weaken lasts for 4s. The CD is 5 seconds. I definitely overcasted this a ton. Just put two down and recast when they go away. Time spent casting this is less time mini gunning. Be better than me. Don't over cast it.

- Escape, dash, resets our Plasma Ammo. Don't reset ammo to early. We want to drain it down for the buff on our . Also we want more channel time on . So run your ammo down before using this.

- Good for Area damage. Was useful on adds in the Trial. Comparing to Prinn's build this is an ability they did not choose. Can swap this with  it's an area DoT.

- Prinn did not use this ability either. I wanted to all in on Rocket's summons though. Could swap for  or  if you want some extra defenses.

 - I am Groot.

- Damage CD. Use on CD.

Hopefully this helps you clear the Cosmic Trial so that you can start farming your best gear and move on to bigger and better content and bigger and better guides! Have fun out there.

Thanks!

 Lil