DRG 6x2: no primary, no grenades, only hellfire (true solo gunner)
Channel: ojb
Date: 2023-09-22

No deaths, no bosco. Featuring ONLY hellfire coilgun in Fungus Bogs.

Today's episode of the "one weapon challenge" looks at one of the strongest weapons in the entire game: the coilgun with hellfire.

It's worth highlighting that it's not just hellfire that is doing the disgusting stuff here: hellfire is great damage of course and how things are dying. But coil gun's real strength lies in its tier 3 modification: fear. Those that know my scout play know how much I value fear on the m1000, and this is on a whole other planet of despicable.

Unlike fire bolts which I argued doesn't need a nerf, I think the coil gun probably could be reworked a bit. I tend to not be one to call for nerfs as the game is casual enough that there's a wide net of people that it would negatively affect. If you make any gun weaker, you will piss people off, and that is always something devs try and avoid. I just think it shouldn't have had fear on the base gun to begin with as maybe then it wouldn't be so painful to remove.

With this build, the AOE fear procs with the bare minimum level 1 charge, and given how many enemies it can hit around you or into a chokepoint, the power of that ability should not be undervalued. 

I'm of the opinion that gunner is the strongest class in the game, and his primary weakness is in a lack of mobility compared to other classes. His support tool (the shield generator) is the strongest utility across any class once you get above a certain hazard, and it's balanced purely by a small carry count and a medium length cooldown.

Coilgun fear serves much of the same role as shields, except it is extremely spammable and obscenely strong - oh, and it does damage too. You can guarantee resups, buy safety if surrounded by slashers, force your way through tight knit groups without getting a scratch, and the lingering effect of the electricity trail is enough to kill trash like swarmers or dissuade grabbers, while also helping to slow down big bugs for further safety and more breathing room. It does so many different things and each one on its own would have been enough to make it strong.

Hellfire tips the coilgun into "this is a primary weapon" tier; you get to do sustained damage directly with the weapon itself - by abusing chokepoints, you turn around enemies and force them to flee back along the choke, serving as heat sources for new bugs coming in and igniting virtually everything it passes on the way. Very quickly you reach absurd amounts of flame output and entire swarms melt away. My firebolts video briefly discussed how powerful fire is, and hellfire is more of the same but even faster to apply - with virtually no kiting required.

I want to stress that this is perhaps one of the most broken weapons in the entire game at the moment. If you're looking for sheer power fantasy, have at it. If there's a question of "which loadout is the most overpowered in the entire game" it's taking this variant of hellfire with minelayer hurricane mixed with leadbursters. That is the sort of loadout that is the only one that has defeated the stupidest difficulties like hazard 8x2 - it's really that strong. The strength is not determined by "40 nitra resup cheat mods" and high density of bugs into modded, but rather the smallest of care about positioning. Being able to use the weapon effectively makes it just as broken, if not even more broken, into unmodded vanilla difficulties as well, as it doesn't get any worse with less bugs. Oh, and you get a primary weapon and a grenade to use as well, and gunner's set of those tend to be top notch.

So if you're looking for that sort of thing - great! Maybe this playstyle suits you :) I'm not crazy about it personally, and while I actually enjoy the coilgun because it's fun to use, if I play it, I force myself to not take fear in tier 3 as it kinda breaks the game. I've played long enough now that I need to make these choices for myself to keep the game feeling fun and challenging, but by no means should others force themselves into the same handicap. If you're perhaps on the cusp of trying your hand at the modded difficulties (hell yeah!), hellfire is a great place to start and dip your toe in.

To perhaps put it in perspective, I am an okay gunner. I'm not incredible, but I do fine with positioning that if there's a class that I need to hard carry a bunch of brand new greenbeards through an EDD, I'm going to choose this one, as you're prepared for every scenario in the game with answers in the form of "use more gun". On my typical burning hell + volatile bullet gunner loadout, I can pretty comfortably make it through most maps on 6x2. Yet for all that bravado, I can't get anywhere close to besting Lx2 without hellfire coilgun. I'm not good enough without it, and this weapon turns wee babies into literal gods.

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Loadout:
22223 Hellfire

Perks:
Dash / Iron Will
Resupplier / Deep Pockets / Born Ready

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Highlights:

0:00 Build
0:44 Mission Start
20:48 Final stats page