MCxShammas' Updated Gunner Guide

So my last gunner guide was made within a week of the release of MNC. I decided to create a newer, more accurate one because I realized that the old one was pretty terrible. So without further ado:

Index-
A. Weapons Breakdown
B. Skills Breakdown
C. Endorsements
D. Buy Order (Skills)
E. Role
F. Match-Ups
G. Juice

A. Weapons Breakdown

Minigun- The fastest killing weapon in the game other than a sniper headshot. The minigun rips through opponents of all types and is even stronger when upgraded. The minigun's secondary fire allows you to keep your barrels spinning and resume fire at the maximum rate. Too many people overlook this simple technique and it always ends up hurting them. Note that the minigun is most effective at short-medium range.

Mortar- The gunner's long range weapon and turret destroyer. This weapon does area damage, deals damage in chunks, can hit people trying to take cover, and is amazing at giving support fire. I usually end up using it more than my minigun. The thing that makes the mortar so amazing is that you can keep your distance without putting yourself in danger and quickly destroy enemy players. It also destroys the moneyball faster than the minigun. An important thing to remember about the mortar is that it must travel about 10-20 feet before the round splits. It doesn't do a lot of damage before the split, so you should always be using the minigun up close. Lastly, the mortar grapple is a nice way to kill bots quickly.

B. Skills Breakdown

Passive- The only necessary upgrade for the gunner. It makes your minigun twice as effective and allows your mortar to kill snipers, assaults, assassins, and supports in 2-3 rounds. Tanks and gunners only take 4 most of the time.

Slam- The slam is very situational. It can be used to create distance between you and your opponent and stuns them for a short period of time. The downside is that it is easily avoided and isn't really worth upgrading because you already have 2 of the strongest weapons in the game. It also leaves you vulnerable for a second in which they can capitalize and end up winning the fight.

Grapple- This is useless against enemy pros. You are always better off shooting them and no smart player will let you grab them. I use it to kill bots and never invest any money into it.

Deploy- This skill is extremely useful. It improves your accuracy, increases your crit chance, and allows you to slow down enemy players. It is often the deciding factor in who wins a gunner vs gunner fight and can even help you win in a double and triple team situation. I never upgrade to lvl 3 because I don't feel that the shield warrants $400. You shouldn't be deploying against snipers and putting yourself in bad situations anyway.

C. Endorsements

Gold- RoF
You need RoF for your mortar. It allows you to kill weak classes before they know what's going on and lets you kill turrets faster than supports can heal them. It also makes your minigun destroy people even faster. It's the only way you should be trying to kill snipers, and it only takes 2 shells.

Silver- Armor
Armor gives you about a 1.25x health boost in this spot, and it allows you to take a little extra damage against all classes. You'll out-shoot any gunners not using armor easily.

Bronze- Clip Size, Reload Speed
I use clip size because it adds 4 extra mortar rounds and enough minigun ammo to net an extra kill per clip. Reload speed gives you a .5 second boost on your minigun reload and it almost doubles the speed of the mortar reload. I never use accuracy because it isn't really necessary to give up a better endorsement for it. And if someone is that far away, I'll be mortaring them.

D. Buy Order (Skills)

1. Passive 2
2. Passive 3

I save the rest for juice. Sometimes I'll upgrade my deploy to 2, but I believe it only adds more crits.

E. Role

As a gunner, you should mainly be killing pros and turrets due to your inferior bot killing abilities. You have the ability to stay in combat and take out multiple enemies, and can be effective at any range. You are the main offensive force in your team.

Steel Peel: My favorite spot is on the right side ring that leads to the other team's elbow. You can kill anyone close up with the mini if they come from elbow, and you can mortar anyone who takes the jump pad from spawn. Once the ball goes down, you can hop on the glass to your right and mortar the ball.

LazeRazor: I usually set up around their bridge and mortar anyone leaving spawn. I can also take out any turrets they decide to set up around their spawn.

Grenade 3: I push one bridge all the way up and mortar the turret on that side. I can completely control that side and kill anyone leaving the spawn.

Ammo Mule: I usually push up and stay on top of the dome, but occasionally I'll push the right bridge and mortar their turrets.

F. Match-Ups

Assault- Don't let them get behind cover. If you catch them near you in the open, you will destroy them. If they get close, be ready to jump because that charge is devastating. If they are far away, mortar beats grenade launcher every time. Always watch out for bombs. Deploying is usually a bad idea because they will head crab you.

Support- If they are near the firebase, mortar it because it kills it quickly and most of the time the support will be hit by area damage. Try not to get too close because the shotgun will destroy you. Minigun them from close-medium range. Don't deploy because they can stick you with an airstrike.

Gunner- If they are far away, mortar them. If they deploy it should be a free mortar kill. Up close, try to get the first shot. If neither of you are near cover, deploy and light him up. If you can get behind a wall, try and pop out firing mortars, or minigun them if they are too close.

Sniper- Any smart sniper will try to stay as far away as possible. 2 lvl 3 mortar shots will kill any sniper. Try to move as much as possible. Pop out of cover by mixing it up with jumps, jet packing, and strafing. If you just strafe out every time, he will know where your head is. NEVER deploy.

Tank- From long range they will almost always win. The only way to kill them is to get inside their comfort zone, but not close enough to get burned or charged. Deploying from outside of jet gun range is very useful. Rail gun will always end up beating your mortar.

Assassin. It only takes 2 mortar shots, and if they get close to you it's an easy minigun kill. Slam is useful, but most good assassins will be ready for it, so try to catch them as they land. Deploying is situational, because they can shuriken you to death so easily.
This is how most fights between a bad gunner and bad assassin go:
Assassin front grapples. Gunner immediately slams. Assassin is stunned and minigunned to death.
This is how most fights between a smart assassin and bad gunner go:
Assassin front grapples. Gunner immediately slams. Assassin jumps over it and lunges for the kill upon landing.
this is how fights between a smart gunner and assassin usually go:
Assassin front grapples. gunner waits. Assassin jumps expecting the slam. Gunner slams when the assassin lands and miniguns her to death.
Obviously there are other scenarios, but these are the most common.

G. Juice
If you plan on killing pros, use your mini. If you plan on shooting the ball and turrets, go mortar. Mortar kills most turrets in 1 shot. It also takes the ball about halfway down in 1 juice. The minigun will kill everyone in half a second.

In the same way that lunge needs its own guide, so does deploy. Against multiple enemies deploy is a bad idea unless they have to come at you one by one (laseRazor tunnel). The gunner has bugged hit detection with his legs. So the strategy right now against a good gunner (not the hordes of crappy ones you will see) is to control the high ground and make them shoot your feet. Your bullets won't hit them and they will kill you. Mind you this is totally absurd and I hope it changes soon.

As much as you promote the mortar you should know it is decent for killing bots. Because gunners have good defenses and offenses they are well suited to lead a group of bots to the ball (except against a sniper at the end of the line). When you get to their turrets you can kill their defenses often before your bots take much damage.

In case you missed it I'm posting this so you know... level 3 deploy is bugged right now. Don't buy it.

I would honestly never suggest making a bouncer. At 1/5 the cost of juice they just aren't worth it. The only time you ever wish you had one is when you are at the enemy base trying to push the ball. Running back to your base would be stupid to say the least.

I never buy lvl 3 deploy or bouncers. I don't believe I said anything about that in the guide.

I liked the guide, I like the fact that an updated was needed because the way people handle gunners had changed, assassins used to rush my face, hit X, slam, ring out, otherwise Mini to death, now it is a more technically difficult role to play.

I personally think Accuracy in gold or silver is a requirement, and I'm almost positive it doesn't just shift your reticule, it does increase your accuracy. I find the accuracy endorsement helps a lot on maps like Steel Peel or Ammo Mule, when your not often in a medium-short range situation.

Although, you have described some interesting mortar use, it is indeed a great turret killer, but also an effective bot killer, with an AoE splash like a level 3 sniper.

Good guide mate

I did some Gunner testing a few weeks back, just after the first server-side update. I don't have the figures on me, but Gold RoF was way better than Silver RoF, but only after passive 3 was unlocked. I was timing how long it took to empty a full clip for each passive level for each RoF endorsement. According to posts elsewhere, RoF works as follows:

Bronze: +7% Fire Rate Silver: +14% Fire Rate Gold: +21% Fire Rate

My timing seemed to confirm this, except that Gold for passive 2 was exactly the same as Silver, but then Gold for passive 3 was more like a 35% improvement. Maybe it was just bad data and it's been fixed now. Gunner's probably my least played class so I've played it very little since then.

Accuracy definitely made my bullets fire in a much tighter grouping, btw. Again, maybe the data has changed since.

Nice guide. I might give the Gunner another go.

If you are fighting at long range let me ask who are you fighting? Gunners are good about picking their fights; don't pick fights you are likely to lose. But know that long range fights can be won with 1-2 mortar hits and finishing with the gun (or vice versa if they are hiding). If you need accuracy, deploy, get the kill and then undeploy (do not try this against snipers). All the maps have mid range engagement zones with the exception of parts of Grenade III arena. With enough practice you can become rather accurate with a golf ball sized reticle. I'm decent at finishing off red enemies across grenade III with no accuracy endorsements.

For clarity sake yes the endorsement tightens the spacing on your shots. But I prefer the spread while juiced as it helps you get more hits (basically a golden gun shotgun effect). I can pick up speed endorsements and I can turn on an accuracy endorsement by deploying. The only hole in this strategy is fighting assaults before you get your level 3 passive. This can be overcome with an overheal. If you take accuracy you lose damage or defense and that means in the case of gunner vs gunner that I kill you.

My thought process with gold accuracy and a silver rof set up was that if I can land all my bullets ( accuracy ) while shooting relatively quickly then that can only be good, although you have more durability, if your not hitting every shot, I have greater killing power. it's an opinion thing, I have tried many variants of both an offensive and defensive gunner, I have more success with my offensive build.

If you can get used to not using accuracy, it's better in the long run because armor and RoF are much more useful. And like UberGunner said, the mortar is your long range tool and deploying gives you an accuracy boost.
Also to whoever was talking about RoF, the main reason I use it is for the mortar and it has an insanely small difference between silver and gold. The minigun tears everything up as it is, so RoF isn't too important of a factor on it.

Good guide.

I'd personally say to almost NEVER deploy against a tank that knows what hes doing if he has product grenade at level 2 (and especially level 3). It would be most effective at the range you described it, but is pretty much guaranteed to take full clusterbomb damage if grenade is at 3.

At the same time, most people are terrible with the grenade, so this would likely work against 90% of the people.

(I totally leave room for the possibility that your skills with the gunner are something I have not encountered and there is a sweet spot in the tank's huge mid range gap that would result in him getting destroyed.)

Gold armor might drastically alter this fight, but most deployed gunners hit by cluster bomb die out right or are red lined after this. I don't know how many gunners run gold armor in the matches I play.

This guide is pretty good, and I think I've learned some things from it. But playing a gunner myself, I feel that I'd like to contribute a bit to the content of the guide.


Slam is a situational tool, but I value it higher than I value deploy, and this is why. If you have a good pair of ears, you can hear a cloaked assassin coming for you. As she nears you, you slam down, damage her cloak, send her flying away from you, AND slow her down for an easy minigun kill. When facing tanks and assaults (At least in my experiences), they will charge you as soon as you're in range for them to hurt you. So the best counter to this is to time when they will do their dash, be hovering in the air when they dash, and then slam down when they finish. You'll either pancake them for an instant kill or slam and stun them for the easy kill after you get back up. Also, again from my experiences, when you've got two gunners right next to each other, it seems to be a matter of who DOESN'T slam that wins. If you see a support trying to hack a turret, run up and slam near him. He'll get knocked away, cancel the hack, and the turret is less dangerous. Snipers... are snipers. Slam is useless against them.

If I'm shooting at the ball I typically don't deploy, because that leaves you as a huge target to the opponents who come out of the spawn to stop you.

Juicing as a gunner is devastating. Building the juice midgame is surprisingly simple.
Step 1: Find a cluster of blackjacks together.
Step 2: Blast the triple mortar into the crowd.

Since each of the three mortar balls each have splash damage and you're hitting a crowd of bots, that's 3 balls x however many bots are in the cluster's worth of juice per shot. This builds juice up almost as fast as the sniper's explosive ammo. The only downside is, since it is so powerful, it will tend to kill a group of bots before the juice bar is full, so you need to have some juice built up beforehand, or blast a few shots at a turret.

And finally for my contribution... Endorsements. I prefer reload speed 2, because the reload speed is ridiculously long on the minigun.

That's all I've got, feel free to critique what I've said. I'm a big boy, I can handle some harsh words.

There's no need to deploy against a tank at mid-long range. The only way a tank can attempt that fight is by having gold rate of fire. If the tank has gold rof and is far enough away that you would consider deploying..... you can just walk away. When he gets close you'll be full health and if you pre-spin you should win. If he's smart he will attempt to charge you, but jumping will render the charge mostly useless. The other thing to bear in mind is that the default clip for the gunner is long enough to spray during the entire blind effect and still kill the tank afterward.

I've seen two other gunners that I would call my equals. I can count the times I've been beaten one on one against a tank (aka started with full health, juice wasn't a factor) in the last 500 games on one hand. I can say this because I know when to retreat and when to press forward against a tank.

And if you jump for a second while backpedaling you only take the initial blind damage.

Excellent advice. Also bear in mind if you are slamming while they are charging you will interrupt their charge. Slamming like this can warp you away from a grapple that would otherwise put you out of the ring.

I see gunners do this all the time and wonder why they lose. I tell them never slam another gunner. However, be aware that there are times when you should slam. I can't tell you when to slam as it is just a reflex at this point; you'll have to discover that for yourself.

Deploying against the ball greatly increases your damage. It is risky but it is often worth the risk if you know where to deploy (or if you are unopposed).

I feel that's a waste but if it works for you then don't change your setup.

Is your reply written under the assumption that I was talking to you? It seems like thats how you interpreted it, or at least your quoting suggests so.

The fact that the gunner has to RUN from the gold rate of fire tank at long range would seem to indicate that the tank is the stronger class in the match up at that range. Shammas appears to reach a similar conclusion in this very guide.

Also, i've killed many a gunner who tried to retreat by banking a product grenade around cover. At the very least, I deny them their first position of choice behind cover, making them move further away, often into a less advantageous position.

I was unaware you could jump while deploying. If a tank shoots a product while a gunner starts deploying, the gunner will not have enough time to finish deploying, undeploy, jump, and move, before taking damage.

We've been over the close range debate before, and basically it comes down to slam vs charge. If the gunner baits the charge successfully, he wins. If tank baits the slam, he wins. If tank hits charge, he wins. If tank does nothing, Gunner wins. Slam counters charge provided the tank does not have enough altitude to simply fly over the slam effect (jump charging). All of this is before factoring in product's blind and AoE/damage forced position change. It could go either way, but I'd say it leans towards tank.

These are my 2 main classes and I can definitely say that the tank has the advantage everywhere except just outside jet gun range. It's almost impossible to miss with the rail gun and the fact that it shoots around corners allows you to retreat and place shots on the approaching gunner. The only way the gunner wins this is if it's a 2v1, otherwise the tank will just be able to pin the gunner down.

Not really I was just wanted to comment on a few things.

Making someone retreat is great sometimes, but 9/10 you probably wanted to kill them instead. If you are clever with the terrain you can get close enough to the tank so that the RoF doesn't matter and he's on shot 3 or 4 when he dies. When I see the RoF tank, I usually retreat, heal, reposition and then kill him. And then I remember what he's using and play accordingly. I don't run away for very long. On maps like steel peel and grenade III once he has lost this fight and I've gotten the better terrain he won't be able to get it back.

The idea of deploying against a tank as a gunner is as comical to me as it would be for a tank to deploy (or try using the railgun) against a sniper. Is this a 1 on 1 fight? If not fine, but if so then we're not talking about a very good gunner. And that means we're talking about what to do when facing novices.

It is important to note that the average gunner doesn't pre-spin (more relevant for people reading this discussion that missed the last one). I think we may actually disagree on what is close range. From the perspective of a gunner, I call long range anything that would be killed faster by a mortar (and maybe finished with a few stray bullets). An example of this would be the jump ramp on grenade III to the opposing base (sniper) platform. I define middle range as : I probably need to pre-spin so the target can't get away. I'm on the outer ring of the annihilator in steel peel (standing on the rear section with no glass) and a support comes down past the first glass barrier from his base jump.... I would call that the beginning of middle range. From that distance as he moves closer the minigun becomes more viable. If tanks define close range as in their cone of flame from the jetgun, then gunner close range is going to be something like 1.5 times as far. Any distance hovering around 1.5x (and honestly quite a bit less) the range of your jetgun is pretty much a free tank kill. If you charge in then you can't knock me over. If you don't charge in then you die. If I start the fight with good position the blind won't matter. I can retreat slightly and force you to be in my line of fire before I can see again. I'm used to moving while blinded and it's not hard to setup this reposition (it can however be hard to shoot you while blinded). Jumping and juking can mess up your attacks but it doesn't do much against mine.

The reason I don't deploy is because, for some reason, I'm ALWAYS the target when the moneyball is being shot. Even if I'm hiding, even if there's other gunners... I'm always the target, so I have to stay on the move. I must have some sort of target on my back.

As far as ROF vs Reload goes... I might give ROF 2 a try. I just like reloading faster and getting back in the game as fast as I can.