DeadEye's Gunner Guide

Although deploying works for some, I rarely deploy because of my high accuracy build. I do sometimes for my RoF build if someone is running away and I can't catch them, or if I want to outgun a gunner that's a bit further than mid range and don't have any other options.

Well, took long enough, huh?

Dude's definitely the most memorable gunner I've played with. Many don't like the play style, but no one can say he doesn't know what he's doin.

I gotta say, i started doing some of this stuff deadeye, and i did better than usually, even got a melee or two ;D

Thanks for writing up the guide, DeadEye. I've only played you a couple of times and both times I got switched to your team after 1 round I think. But for the brief time I was against you, your mobility was what stood out, and something which I've not seen any other gunner use as effectively. The fact you're bouncing around the arena but still landing a steady stream of shots is very hard to fight against. The power of the claw! I don't think my old man fingers could cope with the claw. It's kind of tempting to pull out the drill and soldering iron and mod my controller with a trigger button for jet pack though!

Sweet. Did you run the accuracy build, or just use some of my tips?

Both i always ran acc/rof/armor

Do you constantly hold your controller with your hands in the "clawing position", or do you just switch it up when you have to claw? Seems pretty hard on the hands!

Just a small addition. The mortar has a small period of time after being fired and before it is armed where the shell is not primed. When it hits a wall it will bounce off rather than explode.

Most of the time this is an annoyance because of the shell's HUGE hitbox, which can cause you to miss.

However, much like the assasin's shuriken and the assault's grenade launcher, it can allow you to make trick shots. There's quite a few maps where you can bounce shells off walls and nuke turrets or shower bombs on enemy locations from a completely covered position.

Always take advantage of your weapon's arcing shots. Even though the sniper is your natural predator, there are places on most maps where you can rain shells on typical sniper locations with complete cover, just by lobbing them over walls. When you find these places and angles, remember them, and toss a few shells every time you walk by.

The gunner's deploy snare is not only good for getting kills. Even if you are at "pathetic damage" range, if you see a fight between a teammate and another pro, slowing the opponent down will give your teammate a huge advantage, especially against a tank or assasin.

Deploy is overlooked, but extremely powerful if used right. Leveling your deploy skill will increase the damage you deal when deployed, and make you take even less damage, but perhaps the most important part is that it speeds up the deploy animation inmensely. It takes about half a second to undeploy at level3, which means you can run away when a position turns bad more effectively than with the suicidal ~3 second undeploy animation at lvl1.

In the early game, your lvl2 mortar and single minigun are quite bad at taking out bot waves. Fo a quick "drive by" wave kill, one mortar shot will take out all the slims, your alt-mortar grapple will take out one blackjack, and your red grapple skill will take out the other, letting you pile through much faster than if you tried shooting them.

I noticed a lot of people using speed when playing as a gunner, or tank.

Do you feel that speed is not that important?

I stopped maining gunner when I ran into people clawing. I can't do it. My joints are wrecked from years of guitar. I can't even play support regularly because of the overuse of trigger it requires. The tank seems to be the easiest on my old man hands and one of the least dependant on clawing. I won't main gunner again until/if the bumper jumper control style comes out.

Keep your eye out for the Razer Onza controller. It's not out yet, but has to extra programmable L/R bumpers. I plan on giving it a try because like you I can't claw and recognize that it adds a whole other dimension to the game that can make you a better killer and avoider of damage.

That would be amazing. Thanks for the heads up.

Constant claw. For the first few months I only switched in close range(for BxRing in H2), but once it stopped hurting I just do it always. Really helps.

And I played against you the other day and you impressed me. Because our battles were in such range you gave me trouble with my accuracy build, but I adapted and started going more long range.

I don't run speed on my build, but I do get upset when people jack my Fasty Feet. As a Gunner I don't die too often, and since Fasty Feet drop so often I usually am able to get 3 in a relatively short amount of time.. Then the trick is not to die. I LOVE speed, but I don't think I should run an endorsement with something that drops on the map(which is why I LoL at kids who run juice)

And yes, the Razer Onza controller looks incredibly cool.

I was effing wondering how in the flippity I saw you flying, aiming and shooting that one game you played against us...(Where I got a lucky head crab on you while you were juiced and rung you out...) It was murder, i think you got like 40 something kills and never got killed again that match, but what do you do when there's a beast of a sniper on the other team?

Avoid him, flank or ragequit.

There aren't that many good snipers in this game, and if there is one, I can usually invite a friend who's better.

i've seen him go 74-4 running the same build i use.
in comparison my best is 58-4

Also keep in mind though that the controller was banned by MLG for this reason. Razer has delayed the release, probably to remove the extra buttons.

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i have found a little of a reverse of how you play, deploy-heavy with a little bit of clawing is working out very well for me, and i do have to say thanks for introducing me to it. clawing has really upped my gunner game.