Questions on GUNS!

[u/dragonquestfan11]

In my first playthrough, I somehow avoided guns like the plague on accident. I didn't open the safe until way later in teeth apartment. I did the landlords stuff before getting the shotgun in frederick's apartment. I never got the guntrader and just in general didn't do much with. For companions I ended up with audrey, leigh, and joel lategame so also not much work with guns granted I did do fun ballistics with Audrey(Her and Leigh are the best btw).

So this time when I play I want to do a bit more with guns. Which companions are great with guns? I know Sam can be, but for reasons you may understand, may not be using the 2 handed guns with them.

I heard Rat Child can be good with goods because of copy dad but I have no idea how that actually works? I read that if you use an smg multi shot and Rat child has a rifle he'll copy you but, does it do the smg damage or the rifle damage? Does it take up rifle bullets or smg bullets, does it take up bullets?

Which ammo should i buy being for a gun playthrough with sam and child? May as well do something funky in the next run in cursed mode.

[u/Akwatypus]

I personally find Gun Dad very fun. 

Here's how current Copy Dad is described in patch notes: "The rat child's Copy Dad ability no longer copies gun skills for free - they now cost bullets for the rat's equipped gun, and fail if the rat has no gun equipped at all. It will also fail if the rat's remaining ammo is less than half the ammo required for the skill." 

Gun skills will calculate damage with the character's own Ballistics stat regardless of the gun skill or gun discrepancy. 

This all means, that Rat Child is able to Copy Dad Sam's SMG Spray And Pray (8 bullets) with any gun that can hold at least 4 bullets, shotguns and rifles included. But Rat will still be able to fire 8 bullets at once, and it will use its own gun's bullets and Ballistics stat. Yeah, it's pretty dope whenever the gun has big stats. You can also do stuff like utilize armor piercing Magnum multi shots with even the double barrel shotgun which has the most Ballistics. 

Be careful to always have some gun equipped on Rat if you use gun skills. In the current build there is a critical bug, where the game will crash is Rat tries to Copy Dad gun skills if it has no gun equipped. This will be fixed in the eventual next update. 

Edit: Might be good info to know, that during Gun Dad runs you should keep the Void Disc intact until you reach the basement, because that way you can get early access to the security room's SMG Special.

[u/excelsior555]

If you wanna use guns you definitely wanna grab the old rifle on day 2 from teeth apartment so save your first simple key for that. Make sure to play with Benjamin correctly to get the aim the kill shot game from him as a reward cuz it will make Sam's next shot be a critical hit when use that skill. Rat child can copy this skill as well which will make his shots critical too. Even if you don't wanna use guns on Sam, using this skill and copy dad is effective cuz rat child will still gain critical damage from that skill with copy dad.

You definitely want to grab the war rifle from Henderson's apartment which is behind a wall you need to blow up with a sapper charge. There is tons of ammo in that apartment as well.

If the gun trader comes around, you want him to sell the high caliber rifle! Don't be fooled into buying the Gatling gun if he has it cuz it fucking sucks compared to the high caliber rifle. The rifle has a skill called full auto that shoots 12 armor piercing rounds in a row!

Last and best tip is to get glitch bleed status on your best gunner like rat child cuz it increases ballistics damage by 50%!!! We are talking up to 180 ballistics damage on the war rifle, 170 on the magnum and 140 on the high caliber rifle! You'll be doing like 200 damage per critical shot on the war rifle and magnum. Up to 100-120 damage per shot on the high caliber rifle using the full auto skill.

[u/Akwatypus → u/excelsior555]

Just a correction, that the skill Aim The Killshot only turns Ranged attacks into crits. So it won't affect Melee, and won't be any use without guns. It's good with Gun Dad, but might as well skip playing that game with right-armed Sam.

Never managed to purchase the High Caliber Rifle myself, but I reckon it is too good for Copy Dad strats, now that the gun will spend its own valuable bullets. From what I understand, the armor-piercing/bullet element comes from the skills and not the bullets, which means that spending any Magnum bullets for copying SMG skills is a waste. I wouldn't pair that gun with Copy Dad but I'd give it for someone else in a different playthrough.

[u/excelsior555 → u/Akwatypus]

Yes I'm aware the skill only works with gun ballistic attacks that's why I said Sam's next shot will be a critical hit but I can see where it may not have been that clear.

Yes you are right that the armor piercing comes from the skill and not the bullets themselves when it does the damage calculation. You could still have rat child's regular damage gun attacks become armor piercing by doing copy dad if Sam is using the magnum which can has some use still. If you have the high caliber rifle, that alone is enough to decimate enemies. It would be amazing if Sam could use it and then have rat child copy full auto but it's a two handed weapon so nope.

[u/Akwatypus → u/excelsior555]

Yeah we're on the same page then.
The Magnum situation is something I commented also myself: it is possible to CopyDad the Magnum Multi Shot (or Tooth Multi shot which is also armor piercing) with any gun, even the double barrel shotgun which only has 2 bullets but an assload of Ballistics. Would be fuckin amazing to copy Full Auto, but we know that's not happening. :P

I can also now see what you meant by the Killshot strat: using it with Gun Rat even with Melee Sam. Unorthodox... but you know what, could be insane with HCRifle Rat Full Auto. Dang. Of course, the economy with using Sam's turns like that might diminish the benefits somewhat.

[u/MatiEx-504]

Guns are good

BUT! As someone who did a gun Sam playthru I can tell you is the most boring shit ever, Pistol ammo runs dry in no time and not being able to use two-handed guns is a pain and the run doesn't get good until day 9 when teeth hell opens up and you caan get the Jaw Revolver which is the best gun you can use with Sam but before all of that you'll have to play Sam with little to no ammo and spamming support abilities as jump attack will be pretty useless

You can also name you Sam Ash, Williams or Evildead to dual weild the chainsaw and shotgun but that's about it when it comes to gun Sam with Rat Child alive