Change Logs
1. Game v3.0; Release date: 29/4/2014
-Edited Rifle Section
-Edited Beam Section
-Edited Pulse Section

Hey y'all.

After about 150 hours of playtime, I have come up with some weapon configurations that have worked for me which I now enjoy playing against most of the time dominating enemies. I would like to share these configs with newcomers because the online community in general is pessimistic and not many will help you with builds. There is also no in-game option to view other players' loadouts. So for those newcomers who are having trouble deciding a weapon they are comfortable with, please try the weapons suggested in this guide and after you've gained some experience, you will start to dominate with similar strategies. You are highly encouraged to keep trying more combinations to ultimately build weapons that suit your play style the most.

Rifle offers very fast moving bullets that instantly apply damage to enemies you shoot. Rifles have decent range and offer good weapon crafting options. Below are some weapons I feel comfortable playing with:

v3.0 Update: The damage has very slightly been increased on the rifle setups. The damage is very negligible and not worth talking about.

1. Sniper Rifle


Aluminium, Optical Zoom, Headhunter, Semi Auto, Bolt Action, Slug

(+) A one-hit kill weapon if you aim anywhere close to the head. The sniper barrel offers more damage on body shots, but a headshot is what you should target. If you hit the body instead and do not kill the enemy, I suggest to use your 2nd weapon as dps to dish out the remaining damage asap. One hit can bring the enemy to half health which is usually enough to break his confidence to charge at you keeping him at a distance from you, I suggest using beam as secondary weapon. Try not to stay zoomed in for too long, Just zoom, drag your mouse and click. Find high spots on the map to for more coverage to spot enemies. I advise to stay behind covers to move in and out during the reload duration. I suggest to use slug grenade in your sniper loadout. Sniper rifles work best in Deathsnatch mode. You can also use snipers in extraction mode to kill the enemy extractor while staying at a safe distance from the teammates protecting him.

(-) If your enemy is a sniper, try to roll more often. constantly rolling enemies give a hard time to sniper users. If you are having problems against sniper enemies, switch to your close range loadout (shotgun for example) and try to kill the enemy from melee range. Shield is also a good utility against snipers as most body shots get wasted if the shield is on.

2. Machine Gun


Aluminium, Bio-Scanner, Galting, Spooling, High Capacity, Tesla

(+) Another very powerful dps rifle weapon, you can instantly dish tons of damage and secure a kill very quicky (two kills in one magazine if you are a good shot). This gun works decent at mid range, difficult to aim at long ranges but perfect at close range. Try to stick to your enemy player; jump if he jumps, maintain a small distance away from them and unload your bullets into his flesh. He will fall pretty fast. Since you will be maintaining close range with your target, I suggest to use a close range secondary weapon (shotgun for example). If you run out of bullets and still have not secured the kill, you can run behind cover to reload as this weapon reload time is decent. I will also suggest to use shield as the loadout equipment because staying close range can backfire pretty easy, the enemy might dish out more damage if he is using a slug pulse weapon. This machine gun works best in Jackhammer, Extraction and Domination. You can also spray and pray a group of enemies from medium range and you will be suprised at the amount of damage you can do.

(-) If your enemy is using a machine gun, try to bunny jump away from his range, use the map covers to maneuver away from him. Try forcing him into emptying his magazine and get back at him while he is reloading. Running towards your teammates might also save you, because as the number of targets in sight increase, the more difficult it can become for your enemy to maintain his crosshair at you.

3. Shotgun


Aluminium, Iron Sights, Wide Scatter, Semi Auto, Bolt Action, Slug

(+) One of my favourite weapons in the game. It is a little difficult to master in the beginning as the enemies will be continuously rolling or jumping, thus making it difficult for you to aim. But with practice you can own your enemies with this weapon. It does 74 damage (84 damage on pulse shotgun) on hit at close range and one melee follow up is a sure kill. Works best in close quarters fights. Try making good use of the terrain, hide into cover, popup again at the enemie's face and boom. Works best in all game mode, you should choose this weapon depending on the enemy gameplay style and the map. If you have two close range weapons in your loadout and the map is big (example four points) you can be an easy target to snipers.

(-) If your enemy has a shotgun, switch to using your own dps weapon such as a machine gun or pulse weapon and try to dodge his shots. Make it difficult for him to aim, and if he missed one shot, try to uload all your bullets pierce into his skin. The player who uses the map and evasive maneuvering to his advantage will win the duel.

Beam is probably the most newcomer friendly weapon, as it does not require a lot of skill to aim. Offers good dps and you can support your teammates even from long ranges. For fresh starting players new to the game, they are given 2000 free blutes to spend on any weapon upgrade. My personal suggestion is to upgrade the beam magazine to heatsink and jump into the game.

v3.0 Update: Huge nerf to beam weapons. The range has been hit hard. I have always used a beam secondary weapon to assist my primary sniper rifle, If i am do secure the kill, I was able to do damage from max distance with my pryo beam setup. This is no longer possible for max ranges. The range nerf affects the beam sniper the most. A drop from range of 500.00 to 200.00. They have however increased the damage and rate of fire meaning the players will have to get closer before they decide to shoot. A nerf to the weapon but still a powerful weapon to have in your loadout.

1. DPS Beam




Aluminium, Iron Sights/X-ray, Assault, Full Auto, Heatsink, Tesla/Pyro

(+) Extremely powerful weapon, even though the machine gun rifle setups and pulse setups can deal more damage, the tesla beam is very accurate and can tear the enemies apart if you are using it correctly. I use this as a secondary weapon to my primary sniper or high damage rocket launcher. If you are at medium range from your target, you have high chances of dealing 100% of your weapon damage while you are dodging most of your enemy rifle or pulse bullets. Be careful, this weapon can overheat if you use it for too long, so you should always keep a watch on the percentage indicator at the top left of your screen. If you are above the 60% mark, try to purposely get behind cover while moving, then stop shooting your beam, hold the R (reload key), let the weapon cooldown for 2 seconds and then continue owning your enemy. The best beam users are those who can balance their damage with magazine capacity and use covers to their advantage. Staying in the open for too long is never advisable in loadout. If you foresee that the enemy will enter cover, stop shooting and let your weapon cooldown and continue after he is back in sight. Beam works very good in all game modes. I do not advise to use beam in Jackhammer because killing the hammer carrier with beam takes longer time which can be to your disadvantage.

(-) If your enemy is using a beam weapon, using pyro against them will cause their beam weapon to over heat. You can gain an advantage in a duel if you are using pyro. Beam weapons take more time to secure a kill. If your enemy is using beam, try to burst him down with your burst weapon setup (example rocket launcher, shotgun). Running away from a beam user does not always help, I suggest to fight back with stronger, close range weapons.

2. Sniper Beam


Standard, Optical Zoom, Sniper/Headhunter, Charged/Semi-Auto, Liquid Cooling, Slug

v3.0 Update: The range has been nerfed from 500.00 to 200.00. Still a very powerful weapon, you can no longer shoot from max range. The damage increase is good (30 with headhunter and 35 with sniper barrel).

(+) When fully charged, you can one-shot your enemies if you hit the head. Body shot also does a lot of damage. Using a charged weapon can be difficult for beginners, So i suggest to try Semi Auto with Sniper setup. It will take 3 shots to kill the enemy and it can be done in quick succession with less delay between the shots. The recoil is very low and using a beam sniper is easier than the rifle setup. At close range, you can still hit your shots without scope (no-zoom). Needless to say, you should try to stay at far distances from your enemy. If you become good with your aim, you can land all your three shots before the enemy can even spot your position. This weapon is also very good at cleaning up low health enemies. Thus, this weapon works great in game modes such as Deathsnatch and Domination where you might find lone enemies wandering in the open just to eventually yield to your beam sniper. I usually prefer a pulse dps weapon as secondary to this weapon.

(-) The liquid cooling setup overheats very quickly and takes longer time to reload which can be a big disadvantage in a situation where every second counts, therefore having a strong secondary weapon is suggested. If an enemy is using Beam sniper, he can be very accurate with his aim and he can be a menace in the game. Try to avoid staying in open clear fields, move from cover to cover, either totally avoiding the enemy or just fight him with your dps weapon and hope he misses his beam shots.

Launcher is a tricky weapon which depending on the play style can be a very easy to use or a very frustrating one. If you love jumping a lot, you can quicky jump to high altitude locations on the map, launcher can be your solid weapon of choice to score kills. Launcher has splash damage, meaning you can still hit the opponent if your rockets miss his body and hit the ground, landing rockets on the body is a more difficult task thereby acting as a double-edged sword that backfires. Launcher weapon crafting has the most setups and can force you to spend a lot of hours on weapon crafting to decide what setup works for you. You will be satisfied with a lot of builds but in the end you should identify your playstyle and customize the weapon that will work best for you.


1. Single Barrel Rocket Launcher



Compact, Iron Sights, Cage, Semi Auto, Slug, Lobbed, Impact, Contact, Explosive

(+) High damage, quick reload time, spammable if combined with jump. Suggested equipment is jump boots. Aiming will require some time to get used to, but once you get hang of the physics when using this weapon, you can be a nightmare for your enemies. Jumping and rolling around in loadout is one of the best things you can do to survive duels and take less damage, this weapon is the best choice for people who are good at maneuvering. Your opponent is dead met if you are able to land two rockets at him. If you land one, you take down half his health, you can reposition yourself to take the second shot. Even if you keep missing your shots, you can keep jumping and persist in trying. Jump and shoot - keep at it again and again, and with practice, you will be so good that the enemies will hate you. Works good in all game modes. I suggest to use any mid range or melee ranged weapons as the secondary weapon.

(-) If your opponent is using this weapon with his jump boots, the target can be very difficult for you to kill. You should try to estimate the timing of his fire, the moment you see the rocket come out of his weapon you should jump away from the blast location. If you jump pre-maturely, the enemy will try to fire at the location where you will land making you an easier target for him. So, you should move around wisely when dealing with rocket launcher enemies, try avoiding walls, dead-ends, compact locations wtih less room to move around.


2. Proximity Mine Launcher


Standard, Iron Sights, Heavy, Semi-Auto, Slug, Super-Slow, Sticky, Proximity, Explosive/Tesla


(+) High damage if the target takes the damage from it. Placing two mines over each other is a 100+ damage. The only game mode this is good to use is Jackhammer where placing the mine in a good spot or in the hammer chamber will result in a kill if the enemy steps near it unknowingly. Super-Slow has the most damage, but the rockets are too slow to be actually useful in the game (except for remote controlled launcher). If you get close to your target location where you want to place the mine, the speed of the launcher will not be an issue. Please keep in mind that there is a limit of two mines that can be placed from this setup, it also requires two mines to bring down an enemy at full health, so I suggest to put the two mines together. Also stay away from the explosion radius when placing the mine. There are other ways to play the proximity mine launchers using mortar option to drop down the mine on the enemies' body, but I did not have too much success with those setups.

(-) You will encounter very few users of proximity mines, because it requires strategic placement on the map which not many players (myself including) are aware of. I've seen people spamming mines with their hexabarrel all over the map, but they are easy to spot and they deal less damage, also consider the fact that the damage can be completely avoided by jumping or rolling away with good reaction time. If you spot a mine, shoot it down with any weapon. If you estimate or figure out proximity mines in the hammer location, throw a grenade and the mines will explode.

3. Hexabarrel Lanchers




Compact, Long Range Scope, Hexabarrel, Semi-Auto, Tesla, Agile, Impact, Contact, Flak
Standard, Bio-Scanner, Hexabarrel, Salvo, Health, Agile/SuperSlow, Impact, Contact, Flak

(+) Good for dealing lots of damage at grouped up targets. Very good in modes such as blitz and domination. You can play the support role where you do not capture the point but you help your team with heal launcher and spam tesla at your opponents who want to capture the point. Combine this setup with a turret equipment, find a high spot near the capture point and spam rockets. You can spam rockets from any range. I advise to move from cover to cover when spamming the rockets and do not let the enemies have chance to a close quarter combat with you.

(-) The splash damage from rockets hit you as well. If you are using pyro, then you will catch fire if you launch the rocket on the wall/surface you are taking cover behind. This weapon is very spam-able but the damage can be low if aimed away from the target. If your opponent is using this weapon, charge straight at him, try pushing him to a corner and jump/roll around a lot to evade the rockets.

Pulse bullets are stronger than the rifle bullets and pulse weapon setups deal very high damage. The drawback of pulse is that the bullet travel time is very slow making the weapon useless for long ranges (It is possible to hit the enemy but very difficult if the target is mobile). Pulse weapon handling is therefore the most difficult out of all the array of setups available in this game.

v3.0 Update: The pulse weapons have received a lot of changes in this patch. I have not used any skipping pulse in my weapons, so I will not discuss it here. The changes to shotgun is not a nerf but a buff considering the changes in reload time (from 2.13 to 1.7).

1. High DPS Pulse




Compact, Iron Sights, Gatling, Full-Auto, High Capacity, Slug, Slow Pulse
Compact, Laser Guidance System, Gatling, Full Auto, High Capacity, Tesla, Slow Pulse/Corkscrew

(+) Very high damage output. Best to be used at medium range, if you use it at close range you may skip many pulses wasting bullets. Please note that if you are not using laser guidance, you should try to align yourself in such a way that the target is going to move in a straight line ahead of you. If you are, and your opponent is taking left and right turns, then it will be difficult for you to land your pulses on him. A plus point with pulse weapons is that the pulses are visible while in the air before they hit the target, making it easier for you to aim when raining pulses at your enemy. Spooling is also a good option, but can be a disadvantage for you in some situations.
This weapon is good for all game modes. I suggest to use a burst weapon (example: launcher, shotgun) as secondary in combination with this weapon.

(-) If your enemy is using a pulse weapon and you are close in range, you should try to roll right and left over and over and snake around until the enemy is out of pulse bullets. If you are in medium range, you should jump backwards while trying to kill him with your own weapon. Moving around in a straight direction is suicidal against pulse weapons.

2. Pulse shotgun


Compact, Iron Sights, Wide/Narrow Scatter, Semi-Auto, Bolt-Action, Slug

(+) and (-) similar to the shotgun rifle.

V3.0 Update: The buff i consider for the pulse shotgun is huge. The reload time has been reduced from 2.13 to 1.7 which makes this shotgun better than the rifle shotgun (1.83s reload time). The range for pulse shotgun is more and the damage difference is also huge. The damage has been slightly nerfed in this patch (from 86.92 to 84.65) which is a trade I accept anyday in exchange for the reload time reduction.

The above mentioned setups cover less than 1% of the possible combinations in loadout. However, I have found them to be very powerful and useful in the current loadout game modes. Feel free to try them out and improve them further. Also, let me know of your success with the setup and your improvement in the comment section. Thanks for reading and enjoy loadout.

Additional tips: I would suggest new players to practice moving around the map more and more, to explore the map for accessible locations, sniper spots, good turret placing spots. And most importantly, every player should try to memorize the location of health and equipment pick ups. More than aim and weapon crafting, if you wisely move around the map and pick up health pack at the right time, you can turn the tables around in your favour. You can get 10 straight kill streaks if you keep moving from one pick up to another, constantly refilling your grenade pouch and a second life in the game without dying or naggingly being pestered to respawn.