Haz5 Generalist Loadout - Gunner

Introduction

Refer to this post on r/technicaldrg for an explanation of the premise for these builds, which also outlines general build priorities and limitations. I wanted to use these karl.gg builds to give additional context regarding build decisions and gameplay notes so the Reddit post can remain concise for those just looking for a build without the detailed information included here.

Perks

Active

Dash:

On activation, Dash grants a speed boost and cancels any slowdown effect allowing you to reliably reposition yourself when necessary. This effect is consistently valuable and can proactively save you every 40/35/30/25 seconds. When a swarm of bugs is about to overwhelm you an untimely slowdown (Naedocyte shock, Slasher stun, Web Spitter web, Fungus Bogs/Goo Bomber floor goo, etc.) will guarantee you going down, which Dash is able to easily counter. The speed boost on its own is also great for general enemy kiting and movement around the caves.

Iron Will:

When downed this perk can be activated to instantly put you back on your feet for a 6/8/10/12 second invulnerable last stand once per mission. After the last stand ends you will go back to being downed unless you get some form of healing during the last stand duration. This perk is so valuable because it essentially gives you a second chance to get through the most difficult part of a mission without requiring any teammate attention cost. Take a moment before activating Iron Will to see if your team can get things under control. If not, look around for nearby Red Sugar, Resupply Pods, or enemies that you can pickaxe power attack when using the Vampire perk to regain health within last stand.

Passive

Vampire:

A resource that is typically limited within every mission is health. Vampire breaks that limitation by allowing you to regain 2/3/4/5 health with every medium or larger creature killed by a melee attack. In practice though, the major benefit Vampire provides is a reliable way to regain health during Iron Will last stand. Red Sugar or a Resupply Pod may not be close to where you went down, but there will almost always be a few bugs around your downed body. Vampire allows you to use those bugs as a healing source to ensure you will stay up after the Iron Will last stand timer runs out. Note that regular pickaxe strikes do not do much damage, power attacks are the best way to take advantage of Vampire during typical gameplay.

Resupplier:

This perk is actually 3 in one: more health from resupply (50% base to 60%/65%/70%/75%), faster resupply collection (20%/30%/40%/50%), and a full reload on all weapons/equipment after resupply. Health is a fairly limited resource on missions so anything that increases that resource is valuable. Needing to resupply in a stressful/dangerous situation is not uncommon so the additional resupply collection speed frequently prevents going down. The full reload to all weapons/equipment on resupply is another welcome quality of life improvement and can provide enough of a combat tempo boost to get a critical situation under control.

Born Ready:

This perk reduces the attention cost of keeping weapons/equipment reloaded and improves combat tempo by automatically reloading unequipped weapons/equipment after 15/10/5 seconds. Switching to a weapon in a stressful situation only to find the magazine empty is an easy way to go down. Time spent reloading also means time spent not shooting, which can make the difference between success and failure in a difficult mission. If Born Ready does not seem necessary, an alternate perk I would recommend in its place is Sweet Tooth to further increase the total health available throughout the mission combined with a speed boost on Red Sugar collection to reposition when at dangerously low health.

Equipment Notes

General Equipment

Pickaxe:

Serrated Edge (T1A) doubles power attack damage and is generally considered the best option in this tier. The additional damage is important to ensure that a power attack during Iron Will can reliably secure a kill (and corresponding health from Vampire) to stay up after last stand ends. Many dangerous enemies also take increased melee damage (Mactera, Korlok Tyrant-Weeds and their healing pods and sprouts, and most Rival enemies), which an increased damage power attack can kill outright or inflict significant damage.

Armor:

The most important perk is Breathing Room (T4C), which doubles the temporary invulnerability duration after your own revival from 3 seconds to 6 seconds. This is valuable because the base time to revive someone else or to collect a resupply is also 6 seconds. Breathing Room ensures that if you act right when you are revived you can make a big play without going down prematurely. Improved Generator (T1A) starts shield regeneration sooner, which reduces the amount of damage that gets through your shield into your health by regenerating the shield buffer more frequently. The alternatives in this tier are not compelling with Boosted Converter (T1B) delaying shield recovery time and Bigger Mineral Bag (T1C) not changing the number of trips required to get a full resupply. Healthy (T2B) gives more total shield + health than Overcharger (T2A), scales with Resupplier for more health recovery, and still works on missions with Shield Disruption.

Throwable:

• Tactical Leadbursters: These work by firing multiple radial volleys of bullets in all directions (576 bullets in total) after making contact with a surface. Each bullet does 20 damage making them do a significant amount of damage to anything within line of sight of them, including yourself and teammates, and should be used with caution. However, if used correctly they are one of Gunner's best throwables because of how well they deal with many of the most dangerous enemies. When entering a new cave with an unknown amount of Leeches, Spitball Infectors, and Acid/Web Spitters a couple well-placed Leadbursters will take care of them all by painting the entire cave with lead in seconds. Placing 2 Leadbursters under a Mactera cloud or next to a Bulk Detonator will eliminate those threats almost instantly. In practice it is common to throw Leadbursters in sets of 2 to prevent an unfortunate bullet pattern from leaving an intended target alive.
• Cluster Grenades: These split into 9 bomblets when thrown that each do 40 damage in a 3.85 meter radius to cover a large area with explosions. The large area they affect requires additional caution to avoid unnecessary self and teammate damage, similar to Leadbursters. What separates Clusters from other Gunner throwables are their inherent 50% stun chance with each bomblet. They do respectable area damage in addition to their ability to stun an approaching swarm for long enough to get things under control. When thrown more vertically, Clusters can split and explode in midair, which is a great tactic for neutralizing Mactera clouds while avoiding friendly fire.

For additional discussion about throwable options refer to the Grenades and Managing Explosive Results guide made by memtransmute in the Practical DRG discord.

Class-Specific Equipment

Zipline Launcher:

In tier 1 the main considerations are the increased functionality of Upgraded Connection Join (T1B) to increase zipline max angle by 6 degrees (+19% increase from base 32 degrees) or Reinforced Anchor (T1C) to increase zipline range by 10 meters (+33% from base 30 meters). Caves with tight quarters requiring T1B to successfully set up a high angle zipline tend to be more common than caves where the longer range from T1C would make a difference, which makes T1B the most commonly selected perk. Expanded Ammo Bags (T1A) increases total ammo by 1 (+25% from base 4 ammo) and brings the ammo total to 5, which results in 3 ammo being refunded with every resupply instead of 2. However, in practice this amount of extra ziplines throughout a mission tends to be unnecessary. In Tier 3 taking Increased Motor Traction (T3B) to increase zipline movement speed by 75 (30% increase from base 250) is enough to consistently dodge most enemy ranged attacks without requiring player attention, making it generally the best option. However, increasing fall damage reduction by 25% from Disconnection Protection (T3A) is currently bugged to last the entire mission until a player with the buff goes down. This is especially strong when combined with other general damage reduction options like charging the Coil Gun with T4A during a fall or specific fall damage reductions like Scout's armor T3A perk or Tunnel Rat buff beer. Slow zipline speed can be worked around by constantly jumping forward and re-grabbing the zipline to move quickly without T3B, but requires a lot of attention to do well. Players who cannot execute the technique would be vulnerable to ranged attacks without T3B, and players who can execute the technique would still need to take attention away from fighting to avoid mistakes that could lead to falling.

Shield Generator:

Since there is not a perk to increase shield ammo it is generally better to select perks that make each shield use more helpful instead of improving shield recharge time to use multiple less helpful shields in a row. Therefore, Streamlined Integrity Check (T1A) that reduces shield recharge time by 1 second (-8% from base 12.5 seconds) and Fast Charging Capacitors (T2A) that reduces shield recharge time by 2 seconds (-16% from base 12.5 seconds) should both be avoided. This leaves Improved Projector (T1B) which increases shield radius by 0.5 meters (+19% from base 2.7 meters) and Larger Capacitors (T2B) which increases shield duration by 1.5 seconds (+25% increase from 6 second base) as the best options in those tiers. The primary decision in tier 3 is between Supercharged Coils (T3A) to increase shield radius by 0.8 meters (+25% from 3.2 meters including base + T1B bonus) or Improved Efficiency (T3C) to further increase shield duration by 1.5 seconds (+20% from 7.5 seconds including base + T2B bonus). In practice, providing additional time to stabilize a dangerous situation while inside the safety of a shield when using T2B and T3C is more commonly useful than needing the excessively large radius when using T3A and T1A. It should be noted that a niche use of the combined shield size increase from T3A and T1A is its ability to completely cover the Drilldozer during Escort Duty missions.

Weapon Notes

"Hurricane" Guided Rocket System (Hurricane)

Plasma Burster Missiles (PBM):

PBM is a balanced overclock that applies many significant penalties to the base Hurricane, including reducing missile direct damage, area damage, and explosion radius by 50%, reducing missile velocity by 25%, and reducing max ammo by 108 (38% from base). However, PBM improves missile turn rate by 30% and most importantly allows each missile to deal its damage 9 separate times before disappearing. Instead of exploding on initial contact, PBM missiles will continue to swarm around the crosshair target, hitting them multiple times a second. Despite all the damage penalties, if a single PBM missile is able to hit all 9 times it does more total damage than 4 regular missiles combined. This allows the PBM build to be incredibly ammo efficient and excel at single target damage once enough rockets are active simultaneously. In practice, once there are 8+ active rockets (maximum of 19 at one time) everything other than the highest health targets will get instantly deleted once the rocket swarm arrives. In the season 4 update PBM missile pathing was improved to not explode early from impacting terrain while swarming around a single target. A hidden effect was also added that makes PBM missiles indestructible for 1 second after making contact with a creature, allowing them to bounce off terrain temporarily instead of detonating. These small quality of life improvements make it possible to consistently get the full 9-hit value from every PBM missile, which has turned PBM from an unusable overclock into one of the strongest options in the game.

Tier 1 Perks:

Taking Missile Belts (T1A) for +72 max ammo is generally the best option to offset most of the -108 max ammo penalty from PBM. While playing solo, ammo efficiency is not as important so the direct damage increase from Pressurized Gas Cylinder (T1B) can be considered. However, note that the 50% direct damage reduction from PBM also applies to the +4 direct damage bonus (+25% from base 16 direct damage) from T1B, making it only provide a +2 direct damage bonus instead. The 50% missile explosion radius reduction from PBM also affects the +0.8 meter explosion radius bonus (+57% increase from base 1.4 meter radius) from Increased Blast Radius (T1C), reducing its value in a similar way to T1B.

Tier 2 Perks:

Bigger Jet Engine (T2A) increases missile velocity by 50% and increases missile turn radius by 125%, which stacks multiplicatively with the 30% turn rate improvement from PBM for a net 192.5% increase to turn rate. The turn rate increase significantly improves the responsiveness of missiles when switching targets and the increased speed helps when dealing with enemies at long range, making T2A the best pick. The other perk in tier 2 is Anti-Tank Missiles (T2B) to increase armor breaking from 100% to 200%. However, PBM missiles inherently ignore armor effects, except unbreakable armor, which eliminates the need to improve armor breaking from T2B.

Tier 3 perks:

In tier 3 the best option is Improved Feed Mechanism (T3B) to improve rate of fire by 1 (+33% increase from base 3 fire rate). The ability to quickly establish a pack of PBM missiles to ramp up damage when combat starts or to re-establish the missile pack after reloading is incredibly valuable. Taking Nano Missiles (T3A) to double magazine size is unnecessary with how much effective damage each PBM magazine has. Reloading more frequently by not taking T3A is also less punishing because the fear from Coil Gun with T3B can guarantee safety during reloads in nearly any situation, further reducing the value of T3A.

Tier 4 Perks:

The additional 50% weakpoint damage from Taking Shrapnel Load (T4A) does not get directly penalized by PBM penalties, making it the best option. PBM missiles will swarm where the crosshair is targeting so aiming for weakpoints will still have the intended effect of significantly increasing damage, which is further improved by T4A. Zip Fuel (T4B) normally increases missile area damage by +4 (+20% from base 20 area damage), but the 50% area damage reduction from PBM applies to T4B, reducing its increase to only +2.

Tier 5 Perks:

The standout in this tier is Uncontrolled Decompression (T5B) that adds a 25% stun chance to each missile impact. 25% chance could initially seem inconsistent for a weapon like the Hurricane that does not fire incredibly quickly. However, this 25% stun chance is calculated on every missile hit, which triggers 9 separate times for every PBM missile. With multiple PBM missiles in the air each hitting an enemy multiple times a second, the 25% stun chance can be reliably triggered almost instantly. This allows PBM to completely neutralize any enemy that can be stunned, providing a significant level of safety. Napalm-Infused Rounds (T5A) reduces area and direct damage by 33% and converts the damage loss into heat. Heat is good, but not good enough to justify losing 1/3 of the damage from every shot. Nitroglycerin Compound (T5C) adds 1 area damage (+3% from 36 base total damage) to each missile for every 0.75 seconds it remains in the air. PBM missiles generally stay in the air for ~3 seconds during close to medium range combat, which would result in an a +1.5 average damage improvement (+4.2% from 36 base total damage) from T5C. This is such a small amount of damage that it is completely unnoticeable. The PBM 50% area damage penalty also applies to the damage bonus from T5C, making the already insignificant damage bonus even worse. Both T5A and T5C should be avoided in their current state for essentially every build, but especially with PBM.

Primary Weapon Alternatives:

The provided alternative weapon builds do not make an effective generalist loadout on their own. They are strong components that need to be combined appropriately across the full loadout to have a tool to deal with every type of combat threat. Typically, one weapon should focus on single target damage while the other focuses on horde clear/area damage. For example, if a primary weapon build specializes in single target damage then the loadout is best when paired with a secondary weapon build that specializes in horde clear/area damage, and vice versa. Once enough of both damage types are incorporated into a build then safety and utility become the next highest priorities.

• "Lead Storm" Powered Minigun [Lead Storm] 32113: This build has great single target damage but has significantly less safety than PBM due it applying stun far less effectively. With the minigun being hitscan it is very good at dealing with distant and fast-moving targets that can cause issues when using PBM. Hot Bullets (T5C) also allows the build to apply heat at any range, which makes it very effective during Industrial Sabotage missions.
• "Lead Storm" Powered Minigun [Burning Hell] 32223: [Burning Hell] trades some of the direct damage from [Lead Storm] to drastically improve its heat generation at close range, which is amazing when paired with the [Volatile Bullets] secondary weapon build below. This build is also safer than [Lead Storm] with its improved stun chance/duration and the quality of life improvement of being able to still move while shooting.
• "Hurricane" Guided Rocket System [Minelayer System] 31222: This build turns the Hurricane into one of the best horde clear weapons in the game with [Minelayer System] by nearly tripling the area damage that each rocket does once it lands on a surface and arms. The damage increase is so significant that it even does good single target damage if enemies path over mines. Taking T5B for stun also makes this build incredibly safe against anything moving along the ground. The build can struggle with Mactera but unguided direct shots can still be used when necessary.
• "Thunderhead" Heavy Autocannon [Neurotoxin Payload] 33122: The Autocannon is a very lackluster base weapon, but [Neurotoxin Payload] turns it into one of the most powerful horde clear tools in the game. The build provides an incredible amount of safety with the combination of its fear perk Suppressive Fire (T5B) and the 30% slow from the Neurotoxin effect. However, [Neurotoxin Payload] further reduces the already poor single target damage that the Autocannon has making it almost unusable against high health targets.

For additional alternative primary weapon options not mentioned above refer to the Modded DRG Buildonomicon made by Vonacht in the Practical DRG discord. Those builds will be specialized for coordinated teams in modded difficulties but serve as strong starting points for generalist builds in Haz5.

Armskore Coil Gun (Coil Gun)

Ultra-Magnetic Coils (UMC):

The Coil Gun is Gunner's best secondary weapon and is usually the best option in any build. UMC is a clean overlock that adds 0.5 meters to trail radius (+167% from base of 0.3 meters) and adds 1 second of trail duration (+20% from base of 5 seconds) with no penalties. The Coil Gun's trail is generally its best way to do damage (15.6 damage/second), and UMC provides a substantial improvement to the radius allowing the trail damage to hit significantly more enemies. In practice, this UMC build is an incredibly efficient horde clear weapon, especially strong against Swarmers/Shredders/Naedocytes, while also being one of the most powerful tools for self defense in the game.

Tier 1 Perks:

The best option in this tier is Resonance Tuning (T1C) for the +2 second increase to trail duration (+40% from base 5 seconds) due to the fairly weak alternative options. An acceptable alternative is Larger Battery for +280 ammo (+44% from base 640 ammo), but tends to be more ammo than necessary since most shots in practice will only be consuming 10 ammo at a time. Extra Coil (T1A) providing +40 direct damage (+31% from base 130 damage) is not as valuable when compared to the area damage the trail effect contributes against multiple enemies and should not be considered.

Tier 2 Perks:

Controlled Magnetic Flow (T2B) allows shots to be fired at partial charges in increments of 25% (25%, 50%, 75%, 100%) instead of requiring a full 100% charge for every shot. The partial shots will scale their ammo consumption and direct damage accordingly, but it does not affect trail damage, radius, and duration or any additional effects such as the fear from T3B or the damage from T4B. This effectively reduces the ammo cost of each shot from 40 (100% charge) to 10 (25% charge) with almost no downsides, which is incredible for ammo efficiency. A 75% shot should be used to consistently eliminate Acid Spitters before they can leave the trail, but 25% shots should generally be used otherwise. Taking Optimized Magnetic Circuit (T2C) increases charge speed by 150%, but a 100% charge shot with T2C costs 40 ammo and is still not as fast as a 25% charge shot with T2B that only costs 10 ammo. Overcharger (T2A) adds +12.5 direct damage (+10% from base 130 damage) for every 0.25 seconds of holding the shot after reaching 100% charge. T2A direct damage is somewhat acceptable, but is still fairly small when compared to the incredible ammo efficiency of trail damage with T2B 25% shots. T2C can be considered in [Hellfire] and [The Mole] builds and T2A can be considered in [Triple-Tech Chambers] builds, but it is still difficult to justify losing T2B.

Tier 3 Perks:

Fear Trajectory (T3B) adds a powerful 250% fear trail with a 5 meter radius to every shot and is arguably the strongest perk in the game. 250% fear is strong enough to reliably apply the fear status to basically every enemy that is not completely fear immune, and the 5 meter trail radius allows it to affect a huge number of enemies with every shot. The fear status is a strong defensive effect because it forces enemies to stop what they are doing and move 10 meters away from the fear source before acting normally again. Enemies cannot attack when they are feared, and when paired with the electric trail slow from T5C it takes enemies even longer to move the 10 meters away before acting normally again. The effectiveness of T3B is not altered by partial shot scaling from T2B either, which means the incredibly powerful T3B effect can keep entire swarms permanently feared with minimal ammo consumption by spamming 25% shots. Concussive Shockwave (T3A) adds a 50% stun chance trail with a 1.5 meter radius to every shot, which is significantly less powerful than T3B. However, fear can be counterproductive when trying to maximize trail damage by causing enemies to walk away from the trail. If the additional safety from T3B is not necessary then T3A can be taken to improve area damage against hordes when trail stacking such as in [Triple-Tech Chambers] builds.

Tier 4 Perks:

The perks in this tier have very little impact on the effectiveness of any Coil Gun build and make the decision less important. Defense Enhancement (T4A) reduces all damage taken by 50% while charging the Coil Gun and is primarily taken in the build for its utility for reducing fall damage. The damage reduction can also be useful for reducing the damage from stray hits in the short time getting to a 25% charge, and becomes more useful with overclocks that benefit from 100% charge shots such as [Hellfire]. Shockwave (T4B) adds 20 explosive damage in a 3 meter radius to every shot, which is not reduced by partial charge scaling from T2B. This is still a relatively small amount of damage, but becomes better when paired with [Triple-Tech Chambers] that shoots much more frequently than other overclocks. The area damage can also be helpful against large groups of Swarmers/Shredders/Naedocytes once they get close enough.

Tier 5 Perks:

Since the November Maintenance Update almost every Coil Gun build apart from UMC needs to take the increased trail radius from Dilated Injector System (T5B) to be effective. However, since UMC contributes such a large increase to trail radius on its own it can afford to take Electric Trail (T5C) to add an electric effect to its base trail that adds +8 electric damage/second (+51% from base 15.6 damage/second) and slows all enemies by 80%. This effect is incredibly valuable when combined with the fear from T3B, and significantly improves the defensive value the build provides. Necro-Thermal Catalyst (T5A) increases direct damage against burning enemies by 30% and if the direct damage kills a target it will cause it to explode for 80 damage in a 6 meter radius. This build does not use fire so T5A is irrelevant, but T5A can still be difficult to use in other builds since the explosion will only trigger from direct damage, not trail damage.

Secondary Weapon Alternatives:

As discussed more thoroughly in the beginning of the Primary Weapon Alternatives section, these alternative builds are strong components of a generalist loadout. They still need to be combined appropriately to ensure the loadout has a tool to deal with every type of combat threat.

• Armskore Coil Gun [Hellfire] 22212: This build trades some of the safety from the UMC electric trail slowdown for a massive amount of area damage from increased trail radius and heat application for fire spread. Use 100% charge shots when damage and heat is needed and 25% charges to simply apply fear for safety. A single 100% shot applies enough heat to set Rival turrets on fire and quickly wipes out waves of Shredders, making this the best Gunner secondary build for Industrial Sabotage missions.
• Armskore Coil Gun [Triple-Tech Chambers] 32122: This build trades the significant safety benefits that the fear from T3B provides and takes stun instead. The primary reason is to ensure enemies do not run away from the damage trail left by every shot. The damage from these trails can stack, so when the 3 consecutive shots from [Triple-Tech Chambers] are overlapped with each other it creates a powerful zone of concentrated area damage. Since shots will be made in groups of 3 it helps to more reliably trigger the stun from T3A and use the damage from T4B.
• "Bulldog" Heavy Revolver [Volatile Bullets] 23321: This is the strongest single target damage weapon build in the game, but it requires targets to be on fire to take advantage of its incredible damage. To consistently use its strength, [Volatile Bullets] benefits greatly from team coordination to assist with igniting enemies, especially at longer ranges. The build will struggle to be effective if teammates bring multiple cold sources, which limits its consistency as a generalist weapon.
• BRT7 Burst Fire Gun [Experimental Rounds] 23122: This build has worse single target damage than [Volatile Bullets] against ignited enemies, but it trades that power in ideal conditions for consistent strength in all conditions. [Lead Spray] significantly penalizes accuracy, which makes it stronger against enemies that are consistently frozen, but it struggles to hit any enemy further than close range. This makes [Experimental Rounds] generally preferred for its comparable damage and significantly further effective range for a small total ammo penalty.

For additional alternative secondary weapon options not mentioned above refer to the Modded DRG Buildonomicon made by Vonacht in the Practical DRG discord. Those builds will be specialized for coordinated teams in modded difficulties but serve as strong starting points for generalist builds in Haz5.