Aliens: Fireteam Elite – Gunner Rifle Burst Setup Guide

The Skills

Controlled bursts and Let’s Rock are the core of this build, don’t skimp here.

Almost all buffs are additive. What this means is that you get diminishing returns the more of one stat you get. It is almost always a good idea to balance your stats on the gun (or skill) to some extent if you want to maximize DPS/efficiency.

Demo Rifle training. You can take the Doc Rifle Training for increased mag size, and you end up with almost the same DPS, we don’t need the accuracy so I prefer the max ammo and take Demo training. Take both recon, and gunner mastery perks, and Doc’s RoF perk to help augment our rifle DPS. The Doc perk is bugged, and only gives 10% RoF. It is pretty easy to remove this and replace it with a different weapon perk or a perk of your choice.

Quickload Interlink on Overclock gives us (most of the time – this is also bugged, and does not always give a free reload) a free reload, and gives our allies a 50% reload speed boost allowing them to use Overclock much more effectively. If you are not going solo/with bots, you should most likely be taking this. The only reason I say most likely is because of the bug, without the bug on the free reload there would be no reason not to take this.

Stopwatch gives you 20% RoF, and 10% reload to all your guns (20% of Overclock, which gives 100% RoF, and 50% reload) while your ability is recharging.

Targets Acquired significantly reduces CD while you are at max stacks (30%) and affects both abilities, very strong while in combat. This can be replaced by a 20% CD boost on Overclock for similar effect.

Focus Fire – The important thing is this multiplies the damage the enemy is taking, not adding damage to your gun, which means it is a multiplicative damage boost.

incendiary burst – This reduces the damage and range of the grenade, but also makes it a near instant cast and will stumble any enemies caught in the explosion including Drones and Elites. It also reduced the Cooldown to 20 seconds allowing you to use it very often with Targets acquired.

The Rifle

This is the most important tool in your entire kit, we have built our entire gunner around this.

The Sokolis my Rifle of choice, I will go over why.

Gruppa does more DPS, particularly if you are not hitting Weak Points (WPs) Gruppa also resets your Burst perks after every shot automatically, meaning there is no need to reset the trigger (left mouse click) every 4 shots to continue gaining our accuracy and stability, making it also easier to use in many situations.

Sokol with this build is able to 2 shot head shot runners on insane without any Stay on target stacks built up (at 310% WP damage). This means you can instantly clear small groups of Runners even on the hardest setting, at virtually any range.

The Tanker muzzle gives you a stun, this will stop anything for a short duration allowing you to pump out enormous DPS, and allows for very easy WP hits to maximize damage. Also gives you an ability to save allies who get grabbed by an alien. This versatility really suits the brute force the gunner brings to the table with the rifle.

You can swap this out for Counter Balance break, and you will gain a little more maximum DPS. You will likely want to take a second WP perk so we can continue 2 shotting runners without having to build up stacks.

With Stay on target, and Focus Fire build up, we will be doing nearly 10,000 in sustained DPS if we can hold on a weakpoint when Overclock is going. Since we are able to start this at very long ranges, with a stun to slow enemies down with, we can obliterate spitters, and other specials before they can do anything. This allows us to seriously injure most Elites before they are able to even get close.

The Gruppa is an incredibly solid auto burst gun, definitely the best option for DPS

The Kramer, if you really don’t like the burst/sniper style weapons, this build is likely not for you. However the Kramer’s RoF is just low enough that I am able to do trigger reset with little to no interruption in RoF, making it at least worth trying out:

The Shotgun

Shotguns provide the most DPS of any gun when ignoring WP damage. The one time our primary tool is weak is when enemies are very close, or at odd angles and we have limited access or difficutly shooting the WP.

Due to the very large magazine size, and relatively fast reload speeds, the Type 76 is going to give us the best DPS particularly when we have to use it during Overclock, and being automatic mean it gets full bonuses from our perks.

Nothing exciting here but to note even though we do not have perks for shotgun, it will still out DPS our rifle if we are mostly hitting the body (or the enemy doesn’t have a WP like the Crusher)

You will need to reset your trigger every 4 shots to maintain your accuracy and stability perks. Time it so you are releasing the mouse button just after a shot, before the next can queue.

The Scattergun, it will also get full benefit from our burst perks. The range is less (though at ranges this matters in we should primarily be using the Rifle anyway) has less accuracy, and less DPS as mentioned. The nice thing is it is easy to use, and the stumble is very good. Also no need to do any trigger resets, which may make it easier for some people to use.

Do you wanna build a shotgun~

Do you prefer using a shotgun? Great!

Simply replace Rifle training with Technician CQW Training or Gunner CQW Training

And then add in the perks you want, the RoF offers the most DPS outside of Overclock. Magazine Capacity and WP damage can offer almost as much, or more during Overclock. Reload speed comes in last since we will already have quite a lot built in, and we get a free reload from a Perk

Also for shotgun builds you will want to use Down Range. Because this perks bonus starts as soon as damage falls off begins on a weapon, it is actually most useful on weapons like the shotgun and can provide large damage bonuses in the 15~ to meter range.