The Gunslinger shoots first and asks questions never in Star Wars Zero Company. This guide covers ability mechanics, weapon choices, secondary specializations, and build tips.
Best Gunslinger Build Overview
The Gunslinger is a critical hit focused DPS Specialization with an emphasis on shooting multiple times and at multiple targets. Under the right circumstances, they won’t stop shooting until there’s no one left to shoot!
- Best Weapons: Blaster Pistol or Blaster Rifle
- Best Mods: Cycler Barrel, Assassin’s Scope, and Ergonomic Stabilizer
- Best Utilities: Auto Rangefinder and Targeting Visor
- Secondary Specialization: Scout and Sharpshooter
- Recommended Talent: A Life of Labor or Cold Blooded
- Cross Training Priority: Focus Points, Critical Chance, and Critical Damage.
Let’s dive deeper and explain why and how each of those recommendations work together and how to use the Medic Specialization to its max potential in various situations.
Gunslinger Abilities and Mechanics
The Gunslinger Specialization grants an Operator four abilities: Open Fire, Quick Draw, Keen Eye, and Onslaught.
Open Fire (Ultimate)
Fire 2 Times at any combination of enemies.
This fun ability will use the Gunslinger’s primary weapon and not their sidearm. At max rank, it can fire up to 3 times at any combination of enemies. It’s useful for piling up damage on one target, or taking out multiple weaker targets like B1 Battle Droids.
Each rank of Open Fire will give each attack an additional 5% bonus to Chance-To-Hit (up to 20%). This is a static percentage and does not stack with each shot made. Level up this ability second after Quick Draw.
With the cost of 9 Advantage, you’ll need to be careful on when and how to use Open Fire.
Quick Draw (Standard)
Fire a lightning fast sidearm pistol shot.
You can use Quick Draw to generate stacks of Onslaught at the start of a turn, or for mopping up a group of weak enemies at the end of your turn. This ability is also useful against enemies with Overwatch or Retaliation as the damage doesn’t trigger their effects.
This is a Sidearm Attack and does not benefit from your Weapon Mods. It starts out with a 25% Chance-To-Hit Penalty Range, making it better suited for close combat encounters.
Each rank in this skill decreases this penalty by 5% until it’s negated at max rank. Level up this ability first to negate the penalty and increase its damage.
Use this on low health enemies as defeating an enemy with Quick Draw restores 1 AP, allowing you to reuse it and chain kills.
Keen Eye (Passive)
Increases this Operator’s Critical Chance for all Ranged Attacks by +6%.
This is a solid bonus critical chance that scales really well. At max rank, it’ll be a +18% critical chance for all ranged attacks. Level up this ability third after Quick Draw and Open Fire.
Onslaught (Passive)
Each attack within a single turn grants this Operator +1 Blaster Damage. This bonus applies only to attacks with this Operator’s primary blaster.
As your damage scales with each shot made with your primary weapon, weapons with lower AP costs can take more advantage of this passive. This will also scale with shots made with Open Fire as that uses primary blaster attacks.
Use Quick Draw at the start of a turn to take down weak enemies and generate Onslaught stacks. This will have your primary weapon attacks and Open Fire ability deal additional damage against tougher enemies.
An Astromech makes a great ally to grant up to 5 additional AP for the Gunslinger, allowing for even more Onslaught stacks!
Recommended Weapons
As this specialization works well with multiple attacks, you’ll want weapons with lower AP cost such as the Blaster Pistol and Blaster Rifle.
With their short and medium range, you’re more able to use Quick Draw without adding too much of a Chance-To-Hit Range Penalty which will occur with a Longarm Blaster.
Blaster Pistol
When the word Gunslinger comes up, people are going to think of a pistol wielding cowboy that takes down his opponents swiftly. The Blaster Pistol is the thematic and mechanical choice for this specialization
As each shot only costs 1 AP, you can easily stack up Onslaught for increased damage with subsequent shots. These stacks will help increase damage on Quick Draw, allowing you to more reliably finish off enemies to refresh and repeat the process.
The Blaster Pistol can also be upgraded at the Den to gain +6% critical chance. It’s one of two weapons that have this option (the other being the Longarm Blaster) and works well with the Keen Eye passive.
Recommended Weapon Mods and Utilities
A Cycler Barrel, Assassin’s Scope, and Ergonomic Stabilizer are a must for the Gunslinger. A chance for another AP with the Cycler Barrel is another Quick Draw or a shot from a primary Blaster Pistol.
The Assassin’s Scope is more accuracy and critical chance, good for your Quick Draw and stacks well with the Keen Eye passive. An Ergonomic Stabilizer has your blaster deal increased damage with each shot, making it work beautifully with the Onslaught passive.
For Utilities, an Auto Rangefinder is a useful tool to hit farther away targets. Back this up with a Targeting Visor for the additional critical chance.
Best Secondary Specialization Pairings
The Scout and Sharpshooter specializations work as good compliments to the Gunslinger. If you want to use Open Fire more often, the Scout is the way to go. If you want more critical chance, go with Sharpshooter.
Scout
A Scout is a good secondary for the Gunslinger due to the Combat Recon ability. This scans all enemies in an area, granting 1 AP for each enemy scanned.
With the high cost of Open Fire, this makes it easier to build up Advantage to use it and gain Onslaught stacks. Its passive ability, Tactical Timing, also helps you generate Advantage when wiping up enemies with Quick Draw.
Sharpshooter
The Sharpshooter ability you’d want to focus on is Zero In. While it consume 1 AP, it’ll give you +35% Chance-To-Hit and +21% Critical Chance at rank 5. With the right mods and weapon upgrades, you can get around a 74%+ chance to critically hit.
If you’re using Blaster Pistols, do note that moving to reposition will remove Lethal stacks from Zero In. Having an Astromech handy will help you benefit from Zero In while replenishing AP from a Cycler Barrel, Quick Draw, or the Astromech.
The Sharpshooter’s Training passive is also a good bonus as it adds +10% Chance-To-Hit with all Blaster Attacks. The added accuracy never hurts!
Recommended Talents
A Life of Labor and Cold Blooded are good compliments to the Gunslinger. If you like to gamble with your critical shots and need some durability, go with A Life of Labor. If you prefer to never leave anything to chance, go with Cold Blooded.
A Life of Labor
A Life of Labor is a good choice if you’re using the short range Blaster Pistols. You’ll be exposed to attacks more often so the extra durability from increased Health and Defense is nice. At ranks 3 and 4, it’ll grant +2 or +4 critical damage which is good for your high critical chance.
Cold Blooded
Sometimes you need something dead as soon as possible, auto criticals from Cold Blooded can do just that. Get it to max rank so you can apply two stacks of Vicious per turn for two critical hits.
Cross Training Priority
For Cross Training rewards, focus on Focus Points, Critical Chance, and Critical Damage. The Gunslinger is a very critical chance focused specialization, and the added damage is great for Blaster Pistols.
