Build Breakdown: Lead Storm Overclock (Gunner's Lead Storm, Modded Hazard 6x2)¶
| Post Info | |
|---|---|
| Author | u/Virryn__ |
| Post Date | 2022-06-26 |
| Original Post Link | BUILD BREAKDOWN: Lead Storm (Gunner's Lead Storm) [MODDED: Haz6x2] |
This post will be a companion post to my previous post covering Gunner's Burning Hell overclock. As such, I'll largely be comparing the choices taken with this build to the ones taken previously. An important distinction to make is that Lead Storm requires a much more defensive and aware playstyle, so the mod choices will reflect that.
All numbers in this post are taken from the in-game Equipment Terminal (well, technically they were taken from my previous minigun post, which used in-game numbers).
TL;DR
While many of this build's tiers are subjective, I personally run 32313 in team games, paired with either Hellfire or Volatile Bullets, along with cluster grenades. I highly recommend the Weapon Heat Crosshair mod for any minigun build.
Weapon Heat Crosshair Mod
Why Lead Storm?¶
Burning Hell is a good option if you want safe and reliable swarm clear while still retaining good ignition potential for Volatile Bullets. But if you want your minigun to feel like a minigun and give it the power to shred through swarms and juicy targets alike, without any of that fire nonsense, Lead Storm is your go-to. While Lead Storm is an unstable overclock, it really only has one penalty: its stun chance and duration are both heavily decreased. Its other negative, 0x movespeed while firing, can be easily nullified if you learn to "bunny hop" with the weapon, by jumping, firing, ceasing fire right before you hit the ground, jumping again, and so on.
I was asked to also consider A Little More Oomph. A Little More Oomph is a solid pick if you don't expect to be the one pulling 100% of the weight in a team. The slight damage boost is the main draw, though the faster spinup time does also feel nice. Compared to Lead Storm, however, the only real reason to take ALMO over LSLS is to regain stun potential, as Lead Storm's damage potential is simply much higher and its movement penalty can be effectively removed with enough practice.
Tier 1¶
Our first options are Magnetic Refrigeration, which doubles the minigun's base cooling rate when not firing and reduces the cooling delay after the gun stops firing; Improved Motor, which increases fire rate by 4, to a total of 34 bullets per second (though the minigun's stats notoriously lie and the real firerate would only be 17); and Improved Platform Stability, which reduces the gun's base spread from 100% to 25%.
- Unlike Burning Hell, Lead Storm does not overheat very quickly. Even with sustained fire, it will be very difficult to overheat it. The main reason to take this mod on Burning Hell is so that you can tap-fire to make use of the damage cone more consistently, but this does not apply to Lead Storm.
- Sadly, the increase in fire rate does not increase the heat produced by the minigun, which means you unfortunately cannot take advantage of either Hot Bullets or Aggressive Venting faster. This upgrade does arguably give you an increase in DPS on Lead Storm, as you are using your bullets for your damage, but at the cost of a valuable accuracy upgrade (and thus some ammo efficiency, as some of your bullets will miss). Lead Storm already has a massive amount of DPS; it's kind of redundant to stack more on.
- Increased accuracy is very valuable on any fully automatic weapon.
Verdict
Take option 3 T1C Improved Platform Stability.
Tier 2¶
A somewhat boring tier, Oversized Drum adds 600 ammo to our pool, bumping us up to 3000, while High Velocity Rounds increases our damage per bullet by 2, for a total of 12. This is a personal choice, but it's important to note that Hot Bullets is affected by the damage upgrade; a fraction of your total damage is ADDED as heat damage (not converted), and thus you will heat enemies faster if you take the damage mod.
Hot Bullets
Hot Bullets is affected by the damage upgrade. More damage means more heat damage is added, allowing you to heat up enemies faster (very helpful if you use Volatile Bullets).
Verdict
Take either option, T2A Oversized Drum or T2B High Velocity Rounds.
Tier 3¶
Now we're getting to the good stuff. Hardened Rounds gives us 200% extra armor break, for a total of 300%. Improved Stun gives us 20% extra Stun chance, for a total of 40%. Blowthrough Rounds gives us one blowthrough penetration per bullet.
- Since you're using your bullets themselves to deal the majority of your damage, armor break can be quite helpful. It allows you to shred Brundles and Shellbacks quite quickly, but it also gives you more damage output on Grunts and their variants, as oftentimes you will not be hitting their weakpoints.
- Stun is a multiplicative upgrade, which means that it has a minimized effect when combined with the stun decrease in the Lead Storm overclock. Instead of a 40% stun chance with something like Burning Hell, Lead Storm gets a paltry 10% stun chance. This combined with a shorter stun duration means stun does not have very much value on Lead Storm. In fact, it can even be a hindrance, as a micro-stun will upset some enemies' pathing patterns, such as Wardens, which can make them wiggle around and cause you to miss quite a few bullets.
- Blowthrough is exceptional on Lead Storm, as an extra penetration allows you to theoretically double your DPS against swarms. It's also funny to be shooting a Dreadnaught and see one of your teammates' health bars go from full to 0 in 3 seconds because they stood on the wrong side of it.
Verdict
Take option 1 T3A Hardened Rounds or option 3 T3C Blowthrough Rounds. Experiment with both to see which performs best for you.
Tier 4¶
Another interesting pick. Variable Chamber Pressure gives us a 15% damage boost when the gun is fully stabilized (in other words, when you have reached max fire rate). Lighter Barrel Assembly decreases the spinup time of the minigun from 0.7 to 0.3 seconds, and its opposite, Magnetic Bearings, increases the time the minigun stays spun up by 1 second.
- Contrary to what I previously said in this post, stacking a 15% increase in DPS on top of Lead Storm's already insane DPS can be very powerful. Unlike the RoF upgrade, this upgrade doesn't force you to miss out on an accuracy upgrade, and doesn't shred your ammo pool any faster than if you had picked otherwise. With bunny hopping, you can hold a full spin quite easily and get quite a bit of use out of this upgrade.
- Faster spinup can be useful if you find yourself overwhelmed often. The damage upgrade definitely isn't mandatory, and if you're using Lead Storm more as a quick burst option (paired with something like the coilgun's Hellfire), this can be a nice mod to have.
- Honestly, I really don't know why Magnetic Bearings exists. You can manually tap-fire a couple shots to keep the weapon spun up, and the other two options on this tier blow it out of the water.
Verdict
Take option 1 T4A Variable Chamber Pressure or option 2 T4B Lighter Barrel Assembly.
Tier 5¶
The most drastic playstyle changes found on the minigun are in this tier. Aggressive Venting makes the gun explode when you overheat, producing large amounts of heat damage and Fear in a decent radius around you, while also reducing the recovery time from an overheat in half, to 5 seconds from 10. Cold as the Grave cools the minigun slightly whenever it kills an enemy. Hot Bullets adds 50% of your total damage to the weapon as heat damage.
- Aggressive Venting is less powerful with Lead Storm than it is with Burning Hell. While it still has quite a lot of value in solo, it's much more difficult to proc, and you will expend much more time and ammo trying to make use of it. In team games, a vent in a dangerous spot can save you, but you can also typically just shield and it won't make nearly as much of a dent in your ammo reserves.
- Cold as the Grave is honestly an even worse choice on Lead Storm than it is on Burning Hell. You benefit very little from your gun being cooled, as overheating already takes a very long time and you can usually get enough breathing room to take a break from sustained fire long enough to cool down.
- Hot Bullets is another nice damage boost that can help tear apart most targets, as well as being a nice ignition source, even if it's much slower than Burning Hell. Contrary to Burning Hell, Lead Storm benefits much more from igniting many targets at once before switching to Volatile Bullets to finish them off. If you're skilled enough, you can usually keep the minigun in the red even after taking 2 or 3 VB shots.
Verdict
Take option 1 T5A Aggressive Venting if you find you really need more survivability. Otherwise, take option 3 T5C Hot Bullets.
Secondary and Grenades¶
While Volatile Bullets Bulldog is still a good pick, especially in teams where others can ignite, it's much less necessary than when using Burning Hell. If you're expecting your team to be lacking in crowd clear, you can instead opt to take Hellfire on the coilgun, which has pretty insane waveclear.
Cluster grenades and incendiary grenades are both competitive choices. Sticky grenades, IMO, don't do enough swarm clear on their own for them to be worth it, even with their Fear potential. Clusters can be used to wipe large groups of trash or as an on-demand large area stun button for Mactera. Incendiaries have similar swarm clear to clusters, but they trade the stun potential for an instant ignition source, which can be useful with Volatile Bullets.
Playstyle and Tips¶
Lead Storm requires you to be much more aware of your positioning; the terrain, where enemies are coming from, what point you're at in the mission, these are all factors that can determine whether or not you survive or die in a swarm. Zipline camping is a legitimate tactic, as you are much less mobile than when using other Gunner primary builds.
- Keep your distance. Set up sightlines and use blowthrough if you have it to hold a line of enemies at bay.
- Assuming you're not using the faster spin-up mod, you can "pre-spin" the minigun when you hear bugs spawn so that it will be fully spun up when they come into view. This is most effective when done while airborne.
- Don't feel bad popping a shield before hunkering down and shredding a group of targets, whether they be Mactera, Spitters, or even Grunts that you don't think you can handle safely. A high health Gunner that's down a shield is much more valuable than a low health or dead Gunner, as being dead means you can't shield anyway.
- You will need to hug a Sticky Fuel driller much more than if you had Burning Hell, as while you have arguably much more powerful swarm clear than Burning Hell, it can only be applied effectively in one direction at once.
- The combo of Lead Storm and Volatile Bullets is much more situational than with Burning Hell; you will have to decide for yourself in many situations if focusing an enemy down with Lead Storm will be faster than trying to ignite it and then use Volatile Bullets.
- Use your grenades often. They can be lifesavers.
- This goes for any Gunner playstyle, but try to use shields proactively, rather than reactively. A team of 4 living dwarves can take advantage of a shield much more effectively than 3 dwarves trying to revive someone who died because there wasn't a shield down. Shield before you're overrun, rather than after.