This build is centered around a ground based combat style for Gunner, offering high DPS and high crowd control at the cost of damage sustainability over time and long range efficiency. This build has the potential for efficient wave clear and high burst damage as long as you are ready to set things on fire first.

This build is close to what would be the standard Fire Elemental build for Gunner, using two Overclocks that were obviously designed to be used together to create a different playstyle for the class. This guide will help you optimize the build and understand how to use it effectively.

If you want to get precise regarding damage, DPS and stats in general, you can use this build planner: https://karl.gg/build

• Have all the weapon modifications recommended unlocked.
  
• Have a promoted Gunner to unlock the 2nd active perk
  
• Have enough progress in the perk tree to unlock the recommended perks and the 3rd passive perk slot
  
• The Burning Hell OC for the "Lead Storm" Minigun and the Volatile Bullets OC for the "Bulldog" Revolver are both mandatory

This build was buffed in two ways with update 35:

• First, the overall damage of the "Bulldog" Revolver was boosted: the damage penalty from the Volatile Bullets OC was reduced from -25 to -10; The base damage of the Revolver was increased by 10 while each damage mod boost was reduced from 15 to 10. Overall, this means that our Bulldog setup will reach 60 damage where it previously reached only 40 (with the exact same upgrades).
  
  Here is a table giving an idea of the damage increase with +20 damage on the Revolver:
  
  Shot type

  Damage boost per shot after update 35

  Weakspot shot on burning target
  (x1 multiplier and with +60% weakspot damage)
  

  +128 (= 20 * (160/100) * 4)
  
  384 total damage
  (a Glyphid Praetorian has 1125HP on Haz5 with 4 players)

  Weakspot shot on burning target
  (x2 multiplier and with +60% weakspot damage)
  

  +256 (= 20 * (160/100) * 4 * 2)
  
  768 total damage
  (a Glyphid Menace has 1050HP on Haz5 with 4 players)

  Weakspot shot on burning target
  (x3 multiplier and with +60% weakspot damage)
  

  +384 (= 20 * (160/100) * 4 * 3)
  
  1152 damage total
  (a Glyphid Warden has 1200HP on Haz5 with 4 players)
  
  
• Second, the Stun mod of the "Lead Storm" Minigun was buffed with an increased stun chance in addition to the standard increased stun duration. This increases drastically the crowd-control potential of the gun, especially when combined with the Burning Hell OC.

Pros:

• High crowd-control at close range
  
• Very high burst damage on big targets
  
• Can deal with any kind of enemies in the game efficiently
  
• Good ammo management
  
• Work very well with a Flamethrower Driller

Cons:

• Requires you to play at close range overall to get its full potential (high risk, high reward)
  
• Weaker on a zipline
  
• Requires some setup and some decent aim for high burst shots
  
• Needs methodology when playing with a Cryo Driller

Every time a creature is hit by a fire attack, its temperature will increase. Once this temperature reaches the "Burn" threshold, the target will be put On-Fire, resulting in 12 to 18 damage per second while burning. At all time the creature is cooling down, its temperature decreasing at a fix rate. Once the temperature reaches the "Douse" threshold, the target will stop burning if it was On-Fire. This build offers 3 ways to increase the temperature of creatures:

• Burning Hell OC: increases the temperature of creatures 5 meters in front of you after firing the Minigun for long enough (after around 6-8 bullets shot)
  
• Hot Bullets Minigun mod: increases the temperature of creatures at any range once the Minigun is close to overheating
  
• Incendiary Grenades: instantly set On-Fire with the initial explosion, then increase the temperature of creature who walk in the lingering flames

Keeping creatures on fire will greatly increase your overall DPS while also allowing you to be ammo conservative when needed, by letting enemies burn to their death. Once a target is on fire, your Revolver will deal 4 times its damage on them with the Volatile Bullets OC.

You will be able to set everything on fire one way or another, at the exception of Dreadnoughts who just have a too good fire resistance.

If you are not careful you will constantely unfreeze the Driller's targets or even prevent him from freezing them in the first place. This can be very detrimental, especialy on bigger targets. The guidelines are as follow:

• it is way easier for you to set creatures On-Fire than it is for Driller to freeze them. Give him priority when he starts shooting a key target: either shoot something else or wait for the target to be frozen to unload your (not overheating) Minigun.
  
• Temperature shocks (i.e. unfreezing a target with fire or cooling down a burning target with ice) will deal 200 damage instantly and will get rid of most standard glyphid enemies so don't worry too much about those. This effect also works wonders on Q'ronar Shellbacks.
  
• Don't shoot Macteras at the same time as your Cryo Driller. If he decides to freeze one let him finish.
  
• If the Driller is constantly extinguishing the big targets you try to kill, maybe drop a line in the team chat to explain the situation. I never had to do this but hey, communication is key in a game like Deep Rock Galactic.

There should be enough creatures to shoot on high hazard difficulties so you don't have to interfere with one anohter too much. You'll get the flow eventually after spending enough time along Cryo Drillers, practice is key here.

Perks were chosen to provide maximum combat efficiency:

• Resupplier is useful to resupply quickly when using a shield on a resupply pod. It also increases your chances to heal in time when using the perk Iron Will.
  
• Born Ready is very useful to always have your Revolver ready. Set things On-Fire, get your Revolver out and kill them, then instantly switch back to your minigun. No downtime.
  
• Vampire is very good when coupled with stun and fire on the Minigun: wait for stunned enemies to be low on health to finish them with your pickaxe. It is also useful to get some health back when using Iron Will.
  
• Dash is a lifesaver in a lot of dangerous situations. Use it to reposition yourself and to navigate more easily above big gaps with the increased jump distance.
  
• Iron Will is perfect to save the day. Use a resupply pod (quickly with Resupplier) or kill a creature with your pickaxe to heal and not go down when the duration ends. If you can only revive a teammate then do it and throw a Shield at your feets before going down so they can safely revive you right after.

Our Minigun is built for close range combat and sustainability. It provides a lot of crowd control and will let us set enemies on fire.

T1: we take increased cooling rate and reduced cooling delay. This will help us compensate the increased heat generation of the Burning Hell OC, making us more efficient against larger groups of creatures. Once you get used to the heat management of the gun, you can consider switching to reduced spread for more accuracy (higher risk to overheat, but more DPS, especially at range).

T2: we take ammo to stay in the fight longer. The Burning Hell OC will already provide a sufficient DPS increase so we'll focus on sustainability.

T3: we take increased stun chance and duration to greatly increase both our crowd control and our efficiency against big targets. This will allow us to set enemies on fire and stun them at the same time, rendering them immobile while they burn to death or while we easily aim for their weakspot with our Revolver. Damage vs Armor is good but will be useful against fewer enemies compared to Stun.

This also pairs rather well with the Vampire perk: shoot a Glyphid to set it on fire and stun him, wait for his HP to lower then finish it with a pickaxe hit. You can easily and safely recover HP with lone bugs this way.

T4: we take spinup time reduction to be more reactive. Reaction time is very important on high hazard difficulty. Furthermore, the Burning Hell OC incites to not held the trigger for too long, shooting little salves instead of long ones. This mod will be useful every time you press the trigger.

T5: we take Hot Bullets to get a method to set enemies on fire from afar when our gun starts getting hot. This will be very useful against enemies you don't want to approach or can't approcach (Bulk Detonators, Spitterplants or Glyphid Menaces most notably) and will be very strong against macteras in general. Furthermore, the increased heat generation from the Burning Hell OC will help you trigger Hot Bullets sooner: you can then shoot several little salves of bullets to keep the gun hot without making it completely overheat.

Overclock: we take Burning Hell to set everything on fire 5 meters in front of us while we shoot. This will heat enemies very quickly, allowing to set multiple targets on fire at the same time. This will also make quick work of Swarmers. You'll need to be more careful with your heat management but overall this will boost your damage and your ammo efficiency.

Our Revolver is built for accuracy, burst weakspot damage and sustainability.

T1: we take accuracy to be more efficient at long ranges. Furthermore, the reload speed is not needed because we use the perk Born Ready.

T2: we take ammo to be at the comfortable amount of total ammo that will allow us to shoot what we need to without worrying too much about running out.

T3: we take Hollow-Point Bullets for a massive increase in weakspot damage, especially when coupled with the Volatile Bullets OC.

T4: we take damage to reach some Haz5 breakpoints, most notably to kill Glyphid Spitters in one shot in the body (through armor) and to kill Mactera Spawns in one shot in the weakspot. This is another great damage boost when coupled with the Volatile Bullets OC.

T5: we take Dead-Eye to remove the aim penalty while moving. This is a very important modification because we want to always be in movement on Haz5 and miss as little shots as possible.

Overclock: we take Volatile Bullets to synergize with the Burning Hell OC of our Minigun. This will allow to deal massive amounts of burst damage to burning creatures, effectively killing most of them in 1 or 2 shots. See the Breakpoints & Combat Strategy section for more details. Each bullet dealing 4 times its damage, this OC virtually multiply our ammo by 4 if we only shoot burning creatures, making it very sustainable.

Our Shield Generator is built to be polyvalent and a junk of all trades. It could be specialized in duration, range or cooldown but I prefer to have it perform a little better in all those areas rather than sacrificing one.

T1: we take the small range upgrade.

T2: we take the cooldown upgrade to get our shield back faster in tense situations, but the duration upgrade is also very viable.

T3: we take the duration upgrade considering that we already have a range upgrade and that the extension of effects when outside of the shield is not super useful.

Tips:

• Don't keep the Shields only for yourself, sometimes it can be great to drop one for your teammates, especially if you are safely shooting from a Zipline.
  
• If you have more than 2 Shields before resupplying, always drop one on the ressuply pod, for safety measures.
  
• The Shield won't block explosions (C4, Exploders, Bulk Detonators, etc) so be careful.
  
• While inside the Shield Generator you get an increase recharge rate for your Armor's shield. This can allow you to survive against some damage overtime like toxic gaz clouds or fire hazards.

Our Zipline Launcher is built for navigation rather than combat. Our build being rather focused on short range combat, we mostly want to shoot from the ground than from the air.

T1: we take the angle upgrade to be able to reach high grounds more easily. The ammo upgrade is useless because you will still recover the same amount of ammo (2) from a resupply pod.

T2: range upgrade.

T3: we take the movement speed ugrade to get a better chance at dodging some projectiles. This is mostly a quality of life upgrade.

Tips:

• If you fall from the Zipline by being shot at, there is a short delay where you can grab back onto it. It might save your life if you know you won't be able to dodge a projectile.
  
• Hold the interact key ('E' by default on PC) to automatically grab onto a Zipline when in range, rather than trying to time it when the prompt appears.
  
• Don't be afraid to set up a zipline to be out of reach of melee attacks when defending an area.
  
• The perk Born Ready will also reload your Zipline Launcher

Our pickaxe is built to favour single target damage in order to help eliminate resilient creatures at close range (especially armored ones).

T1: unclocks Power Attack.

T2: we take increased damage.

The Incendiary Grenade is a fantastic tool for crowd control. It also has the benefit to limit friendly fire on impact compared to the other Gunner grenades. It will only explode when hitting a creature or when hitting the ground otherwise it will bounce against walls. The initial explosion will instantly set the creatures in range on fire while the lingering flames will increase the temperature of those walking in them, eventually setting them on fire.

When to use it:

• against a large pack of Glyphids
  
• against a pack of Macteras (you need to aim well in order for it to explode on one of the flying bugs)
  
• against a big target that you want to quickly set on fire, preferably Praetorians and Oppressors when they are grouped.

Our armor is built around combat and survival.

T1: we take reduce delay to start recovering our shield sooner. This is better to prevent some trash damage against smaller enemies.

T2: we take increased health. The use of the Resupplier and Vampire perks favours a larger HP pool.

T3: Explosion damage resistance.

T4: we take Static Discharge to slow down nearby enemies in order to get enough time to escape.

Note: "critical hits" mean shots hitting the weakspot of the target.

As a general strategy you'll want to shoot your Minigun in short burst to set things on fire and stun them. Get close enough to set enemies on fire, or use Hot Bullets to set them on fire from afar (way less ammo efficient). Don't hesitate to spray all creatures in a horde to stun as many as possible to create space. Let the fire do its work to save ammo.

You should always set big targets on fire before shooting them with your Revolver. At the exception of Web Spitters, you should probably only use your revolver on burning creatures.

This list details breackpoints on hazard 5 difficulty. This is not an in-depth guide on how to fight each enemy but rather a list of interesting breakpoints and ways to engage each of them if you want to be efficient.




Fire will not be very useful against bosses (except Korlok) and you will overheat faster, preventing you from spamming too much. Overall your DPS against bosses won't be affected if you manage your heat correctly. Focus on playing safe, the damage will be there anyway.

This build is what made me love Gunner. It is extremely fun to set enemies on fire and extremely satisfying to land those massive Revolver shots. This build got buffed with update 35 which now makes it one of the most powerful builds for Gunner, making it competitive with Autocannon builds.

I hope you'll find this build as fun as me. Feel free to share your opinions and to adapt this build to your needs.

Find out my favorite Scout builds in my other guide:
https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2481830928
Rock and Stone !