Build Breakdown: Volatile Bullets (Gunner's Bulldog Overclock, Modded Hazard 6x2)¶
| Post Info | |
|---|---|
| Author | u/Virryn__ |
| Post Date | 2022-06-14 |
| Original Post Link | BUILD BREAKDOWN: Volatile Bullets (Gunner's Bulldog) [MODDED: Haz6x2] |
One of Gunner's main roles in the Sticky Fuel composition is lots of single target damage against chunky enemies. This includes Praetorians, Oppressors, Wardens, Menaces, Goo Bombers, Spitballers, and Breeders, to name a few. His best option for this is Volatile Bullets, which pairs very nicely with a Sticky Fuel Driller, a minigun or Hurricane built for fire damage (such as Burning Hell), and other teammates that have quick and easy ignition options, such as the Scout's White Phosphorus mod on the Boomstick.
All numbers in this post are taken from karl.gg's build section.
TL;DR
23321/21311 (they're essentially the same build) are the most reliable options. Best used in a team with other flame-based builds, though can also shine when combined with incendiary grenades or Gunner primaries built for heat.
Why Volatile Bullets?¶
Elephant Rounds and Lead Spray are the two biggest competitors to Volatile Bullets, so I'll break them down individually. Some players have also suggested that Homebrew Powder is a good alternative, but I personally am not a huge fan of unreliable RNG-based damage.
- Elephant Rounds is a good choice when you aren't bringing a quick ignition source to the table, and you know your team is speccing likewise. It has good accuracy, high direct damage, and can be used to quickly delete single targets such as lone Mactera or Spitters, or you can magdump it into a Praetorian's back to chunk a reasonable amount of their health quickly. However, it has two major drawbacks that Volatile Bullets doesn't: massive recoil, and lower magazine size (with a noticable reload speed decrease to boot). The recoil makes the Bulldog incredibly difficult to fire multiple times in succession reliably; most likely, you will end up missing one of your shots. This compounds with the fact that you only get three shots, and you spend quite a bit longer reloading after those three shots than you would if you had Volatile Bullets.
- Lead Spray is often touted as being one of the best single target damage dealers in the game. The problem with this is that it's on paper. In practice, Lead Spray suffers against anything that isn't in spitting distance, simply because mechanically, the BRT is never as accurate as the Bulldog can be. As such, many of your bullets are wasted. Compared to Volatile Bullets or Elephant Rounds, you will likely need to spend quite a bit more time ensuring that you've killed the Mactera or Spitter you were shooting at, as some of your bullets likely missed the target.
So why use Volatile Bullets? Because its downside has almost no impact on its performance, and its
upside is massive. You get triple QUADRUPLE damage on burning targets, compared to
cryo's 3x bonus, and you ALSO get weakpoint damage applied, with a weakpoint damage bonus of 60%. On
Hazard 6 with 4 players, Volatile Bullets can 4-weakpoint-shot a Bulk Detonator with an IFG on
top of it, and kill it in roughly 6 or 7 weakpoint hits without an IFG.
Tier 1¶
First, we have a choice between Quickfire Ejector, a 0.7 second reload time decrease, and Perfect Weight Balance, a 70% decrease in spread. You should really be running Born Ready on a fire Gunner build, so a reload speed bump is unnecessary. Even if it weren't, the accuracy boost is basically mandatory to be able to hit the broad side of a barn, and the base reload speed of the Bulldog is fast enough.
Verdict
Take option 2 T1A Perfect Weight Balance.
Tier 2 and 4¶
I'm combining these tiers because they each have identical damage and ammo mods, Increased Caliber Rounds/High Velocity Rounds and Increased Ammo Bags/Increased Ammo Bags, which increase damage by 10 or ammo by 12 respectively. Tier 2 also has Floating Barrel, which reduces your successive shot spread by 80% and your recoil by 25%.
Double damage Volatile Bullets is really not worth it. It doesn't hit any new breakpoints on juicy targets except Wardens and Menaces (which will have likely already taken enough damage during ignition to die without double damage), and you lose a lot of damage potential to overkill on enemies such as Praetorians. Even if your aim is good, you will likely end up out of ammo too soon for it to matter.
Double ammo Volatile Bullets is also not a very good tradeoff. You lose immediate damage in exchange for total damage, but even on Hazard 6x2 games with 4 players, there will usually not be enough targets for you to empty your ammo reserves, though that depends on your aim. The damage loss is too harmful to make more ammo valuable enough.
Damage/ammo allows you to oneshot Mactera Spawn to the weakpoint without igniting them. It also allows you to oneshot ignited Spitballers, Grabbers, and Goo Bombers when hitting their weakpoints. You will very rarely run out of ammo with this build, and if you do, you likely are overwhelmed and have larger issues than being out of Bulldog shots.
A recoil decrease is really not worth giving up an ammo or damage mod, especially considering that Volatile Bullets already has the near-pinpoint accuracy of the base Bulldog. If you need to spam shots, it's likely on a target that you can get close to, such as a Praetorian or Oppressor, or it's an enemy that you can afford to miss a few shots on, such as a Bulk that your team has spotted quickly.
Verdict
Take one ammo and one damage option.
Tier 3¶
Super Blowthrough Rounds gives the Bulldog 3 blowthrough penetrations; Explosive Rounds gives you 30 area damage in a radius around the bullet, but halves your direct damage; and Hollow Point Bullets gives you +35% weakpoint damage bonus, for a total of 60%. This tier is pretty braindead.
Why the hell anyone would take blowthrough on the Bulldog is beyond me. On the very rare chance that you manage to line up two enemy weakpoints, congratulations! You don't even have the weakpoint damage mod to make full use of your shot! If you want multikill potential on the Bulldog, take Explosive Rounds. Don't use this mod.
While exploding bullets sounds like a decent pairing with Volatile Bullets, remember that this mod HALVES your direct damage, and explosive damage DOES NOT benefit from weakpoint damage. On top of that, you're still giving up the weakpoint damage bonus mod, which is a very powerful boost to pretty much any Bulldog build except Magic Bullets.
Volatile Bullets benefits massively from an increased weakpoint multiplier.
Verdict
Take option 3 Hollow Point Bullets.
Tier 5¶
The final tier for the Bulldog is sadly lacking in my opinion. We're given two fairly underwhelming options: Dead-Eye, which removes the penalty your accuracy receives when you move, and Neurotoxin Coating, which has a 50% chance to inflict Neurotoxin on enemies hit by a bullet.
- Dead-Eye is incredibly helpful when you need to hit a strafing shot, which ends up being pretty much any shot you're trying to make while not in a shield. If you're standing still, you're taking damage.
- While Neurotoxin is a decent status effect, on a heavy hitter like the Bulldog, it doesn't do much. This upgrade really only helps hit eventual breakpoints on targets like Trijaws or Acid Spitters, but you can simply pop them once with the Bulldog and then switch back to your primary and focus them for a couple milliseconds. The slow isn't powerful enough to be useful on larger targets, especially without the potential for Fearing bugs to get them to expose their weakpoints to you.
Verdict
Take option 1 Dead-Eye.
Primary and Grenades¶
As stated above, fire-based primaries are your best options. These include Burning Hell and/or Hot Bullets Lead Storm, or the Hurricane with Napalm-Infused Rounds. It also massively helps to have a CRSPR Driller, Inferno Breach Cutter / Incendiary Compound PGL Engineer, or White Phosphorus Boomstick Scout on your team.
While the obvious choice is incendiary grenades, if you have a fire-based team composition these largely become redundant if you're using them solely for ignition, though they can still be handy for general swarm clear. Cluster grenades are another good option, as mentioned in my Burning Hell breakdown.
Playstyle and Tips¶
Volatile Bullets works best when you have a well-organized team, with players ready to ignite dangerous targets on command. This shines when you're communicating over voice with your teammates, and you're familiar with each others' playstyles. If you're in a public lobby, you will need to be much more aggressive with your ignitions to make the most of Volatile Bullets.
- If you're using a Hot Bullets minigun build that makes use of Magnetic Refrigeration on tier 1, try to apply multiple ignitions in one firing pass, then switch to Volatile Bullets and pop all the targets you've ignited. This will save time compared to pulling out the Bulldog after each ignition, then having to reheat the minigun.
- If you're using a Hot Bullets minigun build that DOESN'T make use of Magnetic Refrigeration, the minigun will usually stay heated long enough for you to switch to Volatile Bullets, shoot an enemy, switch back, and begin spinning the minigun again. However, sweeping over multiple targets while the minigun is hot is also a valid strategy here. Find what loop works best for you.
- Your aim, obviously, is a large factor in how effective you are with Volatile Bullets. If you find you can't hit an enemy's weakpoint (or you don't have an angle), it's still worth going for bodyshots on some enemies. 180 damage per bullet is nothing to scoff at.
- Target priority is quite important as a fire Gunner, as you have to manage which enemies are on fire at a given time. While DRG is a very situational game and target priority lists are context-sensitive, a general list I try to follow is this, in no particular order: Goo Bombers, Menaces, Grabbers, Menaces, Bulks, and Wardens. Praetorians and Oppressors can also become dangerous if not dealt with quickly in enclosed spaces, or on static objectives such as Salvage.
- Don't tunnel vision. Many times I find myself focusing on attempting to ignite a goo bomber that's haranguing a teammate across the map, while there are 6 slashers and an exploder walking up behind me. If you really need something ignited and dead, don't feel bad about shielding yourself. A dead Gunner is much worse than a Gunner that's down one shield who's now killed three or four dangerous enemies by himself.
- Utilize Born Ready to smoothly switch between igniting enemies and killing them. Ignite a couple targets, kill them, go about your day and wait for Born Ready to reload the Bulldog, repeat. Volatile Bullets targets are usually not so pressing as to demand that you manually reload, and if they are, you can shield.