[Gunner] Mastah's Guide - wiki wiki, hurry up!

Hi guys,

Since there is no guide written specifically for PC version yet, I thought I'd write a "little" one. I'm surely not the biggest Gunner expert here, but I believe my experience on both versions of the game is enough to give some key information to beginners.

I won't brag about my K/D ratio or anything here, but my tactics help me stay on top of scoreboards (earnings and kills) almost everytime in pubs, so I guess they are pretty decent.

1/ INTRODUCTION

First of all, you must know the following. If you play Gunner:

- You won't use your skills much. Gunner's main skill is his minigun, but that makes him a pure killing machine.
- Mortar can be devastating when breaching enemies base.
- As a huge "I-destroy-everything-in-my-sight" machine, you'll be slow and therefore an easy target to everyone.
- Following what was said above, be prepared to curse snipers a lot.
- You'll need to master the way to use your jetpacks, they'll help you a lot when moving or escaping.

2/ WEAPONS

Minigun: Gunner's main weapon, this can be a devastating tool when used correctly. Its disadvantage relies in the time it takes to spin it and start firing (using alt fire). That is why your main priority should be to upgrade it to level 3 ASAP in order to transform it to dual miniguns. This will grant less pre-spinning time for way more fire power.

Mortar: another strong weapon (when combined to RoF). It will fire a mortar which will split in 2 with level 2 Passive and in 3 with level 3 Passive. Mortar should be used only against turrets, robots and pros which stand at a long range from you. Its alt fire will allow you to grapple enemy pro or bots.

3/ SKILLS

Passive: the skill you MUST upgrade first, and which you will max when you get the additional 400$. As I said before miniguns are what makes Gunner deadly, you want to use their maximum fire power as soon as possible.

Slam: second most useful skill to upgrade after your passive. It will create a shockwave which will push enemies back, hurt them hard and slow them for a while. This can get you out of a lot of dangerous situations. Too many enemies around? Suspecting an assassin sneaking behind? Need to stop a robot lane which is coming to your moneyball? Just slam. Its range will be bigger everytime you upgrade it. Level 1 slam has a small range, but level 2 is really decent... I do not always upgrade it to level 3 though.

Grapple: as its name says, it will grapple your enemy (some of the bots or pros). Upgrading to level 2 will add a throw to it. Level 3 will deal really high damage when throwing an enemy. This skill used to be almost useless before due to the fact that the throw was only added at level 3. The last update of the beta has made it an interesting skill, really useful when there are too many aassassins sneaking around. I usually always upgrade it to level 2, right after my lvl 2 slam.

Deploy: this will transform the Gunner into an immobile minigun turret, and will increase his accuracy and will slow enemies. Level 3 adds a headshield to him, which is supposed to block snipers headhosts, but it's bugged atm. I never use this skill. However, it can be very efficient in some specific situations, e.g. when you're duelling another gun or against a juiced player. My opinion is that it makes Gunners an even easier target to shoot at. But some players have proved its utility, especially if combined with crits. Also, Gunners can't be grappled when deployed. As per sensitivepsycho's special request, I'll also add that deploying 1000 times will grant you the "HEAVY METAL" Pro Tag. :geek:

My skills buying order: Passive 2 > Passive 3 > Slam 2 > Grapple 2 > Slam 3 > Grapple 3 (you can also choose to upgrade directly to Slam 3 after having maxxed your Passive)


4/ ENDORSEMENTS

I'll list the ones I find useful for a Gunner, but then every player has their own playstyle.

- Rate of Fire (RoF): this is a MUST have when you play gunner. Both weapons will benefit from it, making you deadly at close and long range.
- Armor: I run gold armor a lot on my Gunner,it provides this little extra-survivability which can help you in a lot of situations.
- Accuracy: the more you get, the more you'll become a threat at long range (you will be able to deal high damage to anyone who stands on the other side of GrenADEiii in a matter of seconds)
- Crits: I barely use this, as I find RoF is enough to deal with everyone foolish enough to stay around when my guns are spinning. But some Gunners are really decent with it.
- Speed: you may want to use this if you find that your Gunner shows a lot of similarities with a snail. I personally think that their jetpacks and the speed drops give them enough mobility right now.
- Clip size: this one is fine when you want to get more comfortable and reload less in a middle of a fight or when taking down bots.

My current build is Armor, RoF, Accuracy. I use it 90% of the time (not always in that order). This will grant a great survivability coupled with a huge firepower.

5/ HOW TO PLAY?

Gunner's goal is to control the map, kill enemy pros and destroy turrets.

You'll need RoF and mortar to push hard and get enemy turrets down as soon as possible. This combined with pushing lanes can end the game really, really fast.

When following lanes, you will be able to erase every pro who will stand in your way and prevent them from gaining juice. It is commonly said that Gunners are not really good at killing bots. That's quite true, however, you can gain juice really fast by killing them with your minigun/mortar, allowing you to make a deadly rush to the other base and escape quickly every two minutes.

If the other team forces you to play defensive, fine. Gunners can be really good at this (thanks to the damage they deal and their nice crowd control). Of course don't forget to buy turrets to help preventing juiced sins from ruining your day (Rockits & Shave ice only, pwease.)

Now jetpacks. They will be your best friend. The main difference between PC and Xbox relies in the fact that it's easier to jump and aim at the same time, thanks to the keyboard + mouse combo. That's the reason why jetpacks got nerfed during the beta. They'll refuel slower now, so it's crucial to learn how and when to use them. They will help you escape assassins, mortars, grenades, bombs, traps, ejectors, charges etc. There is a fuel bar visible next to your money on the bottom right of the screen, keep an eye on it if you want to master coordinated jumps.

Always use your jetpacks to position yourself on high grounds, you'll be even more dangerous like this (it can be pretty devastating combined with mortar).

A little tip also: jetpacks will burn your enemies, that is really useful when a cloaked sin is trying to grapple you.

Regarding PvP, Gunner is the most devastating pro, and can deal huge damage to anyone in less than a second. Just keep in mind to get your minigun pre-spinning with alt fire every time you think you'll encounter an enemy. With this method, combined with flying, you can kill 3 or 4 pros in a row really often.

For more details you can see Deadeye's really nice guide viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4773

One important thing is that you should avoid being killed too often - although this can be valid for other classes too. Here's why:

6/ BASIC TACTICS

Against juiced players: use your crowd control abilities (slam, mortar grapple and skill grapple, or even a combo of them 3) to slow them or even ring them out. Sins will hate you for that Also, you can use your deploy to try and deal really high damage to them, if they do not focus you - to be used at your own risks. (credits go to zarakon)

Against Assault: those can be really pesky, especially if they know how to harass you. Your best bet is to stay away from them and their bomb and not care much about them until they get close enough to be destroyed in 2 seconds. You can also take them by surprise. On a side note, a little funny trick to do is to use their bombs to get really close to them. Wait for them to throw a bomb, jump in its AoE with the right tempo and once they make it explode, use the explosion combined to your jetpacks and pre spinning to land on the unfortunate assault like a burning Angel of destruction

Against Tanks: a well played tank will a) either stay at long range and harass you with his railgun or b) try to take you by surprise with his charge / grenade and then burn you to ashes. Staying on high grounds or jumping a lot will be a good protection against the last option. Once a tank has missed his charge, he will be dead meat. Also, I believe slam can counter his charge (it was the case on Xbox if I recall well, not 100% sure though)

Against assassins: Most of them won't be a big deal for you because they don't exactly how to play their class, so they'll just keep going after you again and again, instead of taking care of bots and turrets. They will be free kills. Keep jumping to escape their grapple, and if they lunge + attempt a grapple just jump and slam, you'll make a lot of pancakes like this. If they manage a grapple on you but didn't kill you, counter-grapple them or fly back and shoot at them. Most of them will jump over your slam if you try to use it directly.

Against Supports: Not a big deal either, just stay away from their airstrikes and shotguns and you'll be fine. You can destroy their firebase in a matter of seconds with your minigun at a short range. Keep in mind to stay behind your bots when doing so, as firebases can deal a big amount of damage in a short time.

Against another Gunner: in close combat, the first one to spin his gun will be more likely to win. Deploy can be a good strategy too, even though I almost never use it. At a long range, use mortars and then minigun to finish him.

Against Sniper: I've kept the best for the end. As I said before, as a Gunner you'll hate snipers a lot. You are the less mobile and also the bigger class, which makes you a perfect target fot their - BOOM - headshot. Try to hug the walls as much as possible and learn their line of sight in every map, those won't change a lot from a player to another. You can try to harass them with mortar, but it will be at your own risks since you will expose yourself doing so.

6/ ADVANCED TACTICS

This part is dedicated to people who already have a good experience as Gunner, and hopefully it will help them know what to do when fighting vs other experienced players.

Against Assault: A good Assault is a pain to deal with. He'll never face you directly, but he will rather harass you at long range with GL or flank you with AR, charge and/or bomb. You should not take care about him too much at long range: GL is quite easy to avoid (just jump and stay out of grenades trajectory). At close range, be really careful where the Assault throws his bomb. Use bomb jump at your own risks, since you'll never know when it will detonate. Be always prepared to jump over his charge. Since your DPS outmatches his, use your minigun whenever possible.

Against Tanks: I've never faced a good Tank who would try to take me down from afar. Railgun is more an harassment tool, and you have your Mortars to counter it. He'll usually try to take you by surprise, closing the distance between you and him as fast as possible, and then proceed to burn the hell out of you. Take a close look at his product grenades, they're not that hard to avoid. Also, if they hit you, just backpedal as fast as possible to avoid the bombs; you can still see a bit, since the leaflets won't cover the whole screen. Just aim at the ground or under you, and you'll be able to see where you are going or who you are hitting by looking at the top of your screen. However, Tank's most lethal weapon vs Gunners is not nades, but rather lvl 3 charge. This will stun you for a long time, enough to be burnt to ashes even with a Gold armor. And jetpacks jump may not be enough to avoid it. It's crucial to always stay out of Tank's charge.

Against Assassins: A good Sin is a PAIN to deal with. You won't be able to do much against her, as she'll juice like crazy and will destroy all of your turrets in a matter of seconds. Good thing is, she won't care much about you, so try to be useful in another way. Make sure to protect your bots as much as possible, and try to prevent her from gaining Juice too fast. Establish a strong defense with a Support or two, use all your money in Shaveices and Rockits, and ask the italian dudes to hack/overheal them.

Against Supports: A decent Support will know that staying near his firebase and keeping it overhealed is not the best idea ever. He'd rather rely on his two best friends against you: shotgun and airstrikes. Try to avoid open zones where you would be easily ground zeroed. Be prepared to run like crazy under the first bridge you see when you see that big orange bomb on the top of your head. Always be aware of the map around you and the possible paths from where the Support could suddenly arrive, ready to shotgun you to pieces. If that happens, backpedal like crazy to try and stay away from his shotgun range. You should be able to kill him faster than he will kill you. Hopefully.

Against another Gunner: It's quite sad to say, but I've yet to face a really, REALLY good Gunner. However, against a competent one, you must always take the advantage with your pre-spinning. Use your jetpacks also, it's harder to hit a flying target. Take advantage of your endorsements / his endorsements. If you have an accuracy build and he has a RoF build, make sure to always stay far away from him, and vice versa.

Against Sniper: this will be a very hard fight for you. A good Sniper will land headshots quite easily, you should never stay in his LoS more than half a second. Harass him from afar with your mortars, try to use them from behind walls whenever possible. Alyways move carefully, never stay in an open area for too long. Switch lanes very often, play 100% defensive if you're forced to.


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I think I've covered most of the important things about Gunners, sorry for the big piece of text and my not-so-good english. If you think I have missed any important point please feel free to let me know and I'll update accordingly.

Hope this will help

Re: Mastah's Gunner Guide

Thanks for the great guide Mastah!

It's good to see that we are on the same page on some things (grapple, deploy, 'sins, Snipers, similar endorsements...) although I'm nowhere near your skill level. Good matches yesterday! There was a lot of cursing on TS from those of us who were on the opposing team... :lol:

Re: Mastah's Gunner Guide

And thanks for the comment!

Yes I remember the games we had against each other, it was really fun indeed

Re: Mastah's Gunner Guide

Yes, slam does counter the knockback/knockdown of the tank's charge. You'll still take the damage, but he'll get damaged and slowed by your slam while you're able to jump backwards and probably kill him.

Also, some tips for fighting juiced players:

Gunner has 3 crowd control moves that can ruin a juiced player's moment. Slam will knock people away and slow them down. On Grenade III it will often ring them out. You can also chain your mortar grapple and skill grapple one after the other to neutralize almost an entire juice.

Gunner's incredible damage output also means he can straight up kill juiced pros reasonably well, as long as they're focused on something else. If you're in a good position for it, the slowdown+crits of Lv2 deploy can also make quick work of a juiced player.

Re: Mastah's Gunner Guide

You're right zarakon, I mentioned juiced players really quickly in the deploy part but it may be worth creating a specific paragraph for that, I'll update the guide.

Thanks

Re: Mastah's Gunner Guide - quickee quickee, hurry up!

Update: I have revamped the "Skills" part a bit according to the last changes on Gunners (Grapple).

Re: [Gunner] Mastah's Guide - quickee quickee, hurry up!

Nice guide. About the deploy skill, I think it is most effective on defense, or destroying turrets when you know you have your back covered by team mates. Especially against jackbots coming into your base.

Re: [Gunner] Mastah's Guide - quickee quickee, hurry up!

Great guide. I've only spent about 16 hours or so playing the game, but it's almost entirely as Gunner and I've been doing really well, almost always coming in 1st in my games. Since you've already written a guide, I wanted to add some points for consideration.

First - the mortar launcher is highly, highly underrated. While it's true that it only does fair-to-decent damage against bots, it lends a *huge* amount of versatility in doing so, and weakens them for your teammates even if you don't finish them. The lack of damage drop-off lets you fire into the enemy's gate from as far away as your own base on AmmoMule arena, and the arc means you can do it from behind cover. It does great damage against turrets, and from a safe distance away. I've also taken out many an opposing gunner by jetpacking away from their effective minigun range while carpet bombing them with mortars. Not to mention, the psychological effects on the opposing players of having a constant stream of explosives pouring through one of the exits can really mess up their ability to push out and take control. Even if you don't get kills, forcing back people due to wounds delays them for some time. And unlike the minigun, the reload is fast enough that you don't need to retreat to cover to do it.

That brings me to the overall role of the Gunner, at least for me - he's a midfield switch. The Tank is charging headlong into the front lines, the Assassin/Assault is flanking, and the Sniper/Support is shoring up defenses. Meanwhile, the Gunner is holding midfield with constant mortar pressure for lane control and a quick minigun switch to deal with any pros who try to slip by to go on offense. The Gunner is also an effective base-wrecker, able to clear turrets with relative safety to himself. I've seen videos of people purporting to show how to play the Gunner class firing at Rock-its with a minigun at point blank range. This is madness.

I actually probably use the mortar more than the minigun, overall. Both are great weapons, but the ability to clear lanes, suppress the opposing team and reload quickly (!) means I'm much more likely to switch to the minigun when I need it rather than the other way around.

Re: [Gunner] Mastah's Guide - quickee quickee, hurry up!

You left out one other great advantage of the mortar: you don't slow down to a crawl while using it

Re: [Gunner] Mastah's Guide - quickee quickee, hurry up!

Agree, Mortar Launcher is really underrated. Like you, I use it a lot too, but mostly on open spaces where I can be sure I'll have enough time to switch to Minigun before getting rushed over by a pro.

And Mortar + Juice = lots of fun

Re: [Gunner] Mastah's Guide - quickee quickee, hurry up!

Excellent guide.

I think Crit is especially useful when encountering another gunner. It can make all the difference imo. Also, controlling the upper ground is really helpful, particularly on Ammo Mule Arena. When you're on the top of that dome in the middle, it's a good vantage point to mortar bots, and it also lets you see practically everything going on, among other things.

Re: [Gunner] Mastah's Guide - quickee quickee, hurry up!

I know this works in the 360 version, so I suppose the PC version should be the same. Mortar shells have a short arming distance, if they hit a wall before this distance is up, they will bounce in a different direction, then arm and split as normal. When this happens by mistake, it'll make you miss and annoy you, however there are many spots in which you can use the bounce to make trick shots from behind cover.

For example, on grenade3, you can shoot at the first turrents nub from full cover by aiming at the opposite wall just outside the archway. Aim a little more to the side, and you'll be shooting the bot spawner door. If you find and learn these spots, you can rain fire on unsuspecting enemies, turrents and bots.

Also, 'wiki' is the hawaiian word for "hurry up", that's what he's saying

Re: [Gunner] Mastah's Guide - quickee quickee, hurry up!

they recently removed mortar bounces

it didn't actually show up in the patch notes, so it may have been an unintentional change

Re: [Gunner] Mastah's Guide - quickee quickee, hurry up!

Yup, bouncing mortars have been removed

And thanks for the tip! I'll update the title

Nice guide, even though I have to admit my style of playing is kind of different. I barely use the minigun, it's a nice weapon to have when people get too close, but other than that, it's all mortar. Mainly because when you've played enough with it, you tend to be capable of predicting the players movement. And of course with a decent enough hit you can strike out assassins and snipers in one hit.

Other than that, I pretty much only build up my skill in passive and slam. Slam is probably the easiest way to kill(ring out) the assassins, and other than that I have the mortar. I find that grapple is just ridiculous for the gunner when you've got slam. Chances are you're better off flying and using the minigun if slams on cooldown, rather than trying to grab an assassins.

As far as deploying myself. I think I've done it once, and that was just me, hitting the wrong key
I do notice that is has it's efficiency with the accuracy, but honestly all it takes is a solid sniper, or a couple of mortars. And avoiding to get hit by the deployed gunner isn't that hard when you're free to move and take cover.

Well I guess that's just my take on the gunner

Interesting point of view! I've seen this build a few times, it looks quite fun to play. However, it must be used with caution:

- People who just started playing will have a lot of trouble using it as it's kind of difficult to get used to mortar at the beggining.
- Against good players, it won't be that useful as they can predict its trajectory and easily dodge every hit.

As for grapple, I had exactly the same point of view as yours before the update. But as a counter-grapple, it's an amazing tool. I strongly recommend to upgrade it to level 2 at least. Slam can easily be dodged by anyone, I use it mainly for pancakes now

I'd add that deploying increases your accuracy, and deploying 1000 times unlocks the best ProTag in the game - HEAVY METAL.

MMMMMEEEEEETTTTTTTAAAAAAALLLLL

Yes you're right, I'll add that (not the ProTag related part :geek

:/

Don't be sad, it has been updated