One of the most compelling aspects of Outriders is building characters is just as fun and challenging as playing, thanks to all the options that players have at their disposal. There are Legendary weapons, Legendary armor pieces, and Legendary sets, each with its own exclusive Tier 3 signature mod, which is the highest possible tier to have. The beauty of it is that Legendary sets come with a unique bonus obtained when wearing three or more pieces of the same collection, adding a certain flavor to each build. Also, Legendary items can also be dismantled while crafting at Dr. Zahedi's or from inventory, allowing players to permanently unlock those juicy T3 mods.
With this in mind, it's easy to see how build diversity is huge in Outriders, especially given that there are two primary forms of damage in the game: Firepower and Anomaly Power. The former refers to all damage dealt with weapons, and the latter to all damage dealt with abilities, but there is a catch here. Some weapon mods deal damage to enemies hit or under specific conditions and, despite coming from guns, they deal Anomaly damage. This further changes things up, making ranged weaponry a great tool in the hands of casters as well as players preferring a playstyle based on guns.
Outriders' Pyromancer Volcanic Rounds, And Weapons
Outriders has seen an increase in popularity for very potent Anomaly Power builds for Pyromancers, while Volcanic Rounds builds that were all the rage when the game launched have been on the sidelines. However, there has been a surge in their popularity once more thanks to new combinations being discovered, and other weapon archetypes becoming more viable than before. This specific build revolves around this skill that infuses the Pyromancer's bullets with fire, allowing them to bypass Armor and to pierce the target, causing burning damage.
Of course, the main source of damage here is Firepower, so the aim is to scale it as much as possible, while also adding more layers of offensive sources in order to be as effective as possible. In terms of weapons, considering switching them would make Volcanic Rounds go on cooldown. Players should simply focus on a single gun with lots of damage and a decent magazine capacity. As such, assault rifles, while great weapons overall, come with reduced magazine size and can make the build more difficult to handle.
This is because the aim is to never let Volcanic Rounds go on cooldown, constantly replenishing the magazine with bullets thanks to a combination of two armor mods for Feed the Flames. Thus, it would be best for players to go for either submachine guns or light machine guns thanks to their reduced RPM (which means that the magazine will stay full based on Feed the Flames' uptime) and increased magazine size.
They are also both considered to be assault weapons, meaning that they benefit from the Assault Master node on the Pyromancer's tree for a nice extra boost to damage. The only mandatory weapon mod is Killing Spree, which increases damage dealt by 25% per enemy killed, stacking up to three times, for a total 75%.
The best traits for weapons are:
- Crit Damage, which is useful for increasing damage dealt on enemies while hitting their weak spots
- Weapon Leech, extremely handy for more healing, also doubled by the node Leeching Force when using an Immobilize skill
- Close Range Damage, increasing damage against enemies within 10 meters
- Long Range Damage, increasing damage against enemies further than 18 meters
Pyromancer Volcanic Rounds: Best Armor Mods, Traits, Passives, And Skills
As for armor, the stats to look for are Bonus Firepower, of course, and Cooldown Reduction, mainly. The third trait can be either Close Range Damage or Long Range Damage, depending on personal preferences. In terms of mods, however, that's where armor pieces shine. The mods to look for are:
- Stare Into the Barrel, increasing Firepower based on the number of enemies in Close Range, up to five times. This is found on Tanner's Hat, but the legendary itself is not required and its mod is what matters.
- Captain Hunter, increasing damage by 25% against Elites.
- Sharp Eye, increasing Firepower when killing enemies while aiming down sights, staking up to three times.
- Flame Grasper, enabling Feed the Flames to hit two additional targets. This is especially strong when combined with:
- Bullet Absorption, which makes Feed the Flames replenish 33% of ammo in the magazine per enemy hit, meaning that with Flame Grasper this turns into 99% ammo replenished.
- Ashen Boost, increasing damage against enemies affected by Ash by 20%.
- Bloodlust, increasing Firepower per enemy killed, stacking up to three times.
- Bullet Kindling, which lets players deal 20% more damage against enemies affected by Burn.
- Critstack, stacking up to five times a bonus to both Anomaly Power and Firepower whenever a critical strike is dealt to enemies.
- Dum-Dum Bullets, increasing all damage dealt by 10% when using weapons within the Assault category, including assault rifles, submachine guns, light machineguns, and double guns.
The skills to use for this build include Volcanic Rounds and Feed the Flames, with the third being a personal preference, but most likely Ash Blast because of its AoE crowd control effects and its Immobilize tag, which helps keeping up the Leeching Force buff from the tree. The best nodes to pick on the skill tree are:
- Assault Master, increasing weapon damage with Assault weapons and increasing their drop chance
- Ashes to Ashes, which applies Vulnerable to enemies afflicted by Ash, meaning they take more damage
- Leeching Forse, doubling Weapon Leech from all sources (both weapon traits and from the tree) when using an Immobilize skill
- Hurt Twice as Long, increasing damage against Elites and reducing damage taken from them
- Burning Situation, increasing weapon damage for 10 seconds when using an Immobilize skill
- Incinerate, which applies Ash to all enemies affected by Burn when Burn ends
- Extinction, increasing damage dealt against against enemies with health values lower than 30%
That's all for this build of the week, which hopefully helps gamers willing to play a Volcanic Rounds spec, optimize their Pyromancers.
Outriders is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.