The Outer Worlds Character Build: Deadly Gun

Quick, precise, ruthless, and ready.

Wilson Black carries the Vermin handgun in his hand and a Spectrum Vodka in another. You can say he is a masterful dual-wielder in that sense. Totally not in another. People are slow to distinguish him from the worst of the marauders, but they quickly begin to notice his wit once he starts talking. Don’t be mistaken, however. The last thing Wilson likes is the presence of humans and their endless drama around him. Or anything living, for that matter. He prefers wasting light ammo on the small bastards that creep up on him and reserves his Tactical Shotgun for those times when he is feeling… particularly playful.

It’s time for some hunting.

Characteristics of the Build

Deadly Gun (Wilson) is a solo ranged sniper DPS character build that sacrifices Strength and Charm to specialize in Dexterity and Perception.
If you want to re-create Wilson’s build, focus on Long Guns, Handguns, Sneak, and Lockpick, instead of Leadership and Melee.

This guide serves as a suggestion that targets a specific style of gameplay. Feel free to make as many changes to it as needed to suit your personal style!

Deadly Gun can be heavily customized. If you want, you can adapt several skill areas to switch between Long Guns (Shotguns in particular) and Heavy Weapons with a Dodge skill, but otherwise he plays best as a stealthy Long Gun sniper with Handgun options for ammo resource control.

Strengths of this Build:

Wilson has a fair survivability, deliciously high damage, and good resource management, which makes him a solid pick for the higher levels of difficulty of The Outer Worlds.
You will feel the power of Wilson’s ranged skills very early on. Without the initial character creation points invested, you will start with TTD Location Hit in both Handguns and Long Guns, higher Crit Chance (87.9% for Handguns!), and will be on your way to unlocking the next rank’s additional Critical Damage.
You will always have +30% Reload Speed, +20% Critical Damage, and +35% Bonus to Extra Headshot/Weakspot Damage from your Attributes if you don’t take any Flaws that counteract that. You will feel very comfortable travelling alone, should you follow Wilson’s lone wolf archetype.
Who doesn’t like combo headshots that clear up the entire battlefield? Wilson is predisposed to quickly become a true killing machine.
You will be very close to unlocking first rank in Sneak and Engineering, but with the initial point investment you can immediately unlock Hack’s novice ability in Stealth along with Sneak, or Medical and Science in Tech along with Engineering. If you want to, you can be moderately skilled across the list pretty early on. Otherwise, focus on Stealth for Sneak damage. It will also affect Hack, and with it you should feel far less of a penalty from your lower carrying capacity.
You can start with +10 in the Dialog tree to get a very good start in Persuasion skills. If you invest into that area even just a little more, you will almost always have the additional way out available to you in dialog, as well as some useful battle debuffing. Wilson might have a few rough edges, but his sharp mind translates well into his tongue.

Weaknesses of this Build:

Wilson is significantly disadvantaged against melee weapons, especially with the -10% to Melee Damage. He can be quick with a backup knife in his inventory without going into TTD, but don’t expect him to do anything impressive without dumping a lot of points into his Melee.
Wilson will be 35% slower to receive positive faction reputation and 15% faster to gain negative reactions. It will be counteracted by the heavily quest-based progression system in The Outer Worlds, but expect to make a few enemies along the way. The more targets, the better?
Don’t expect much from Companions under Wilson without trying to counteract the negative effects by investing heavily into Leadership. However, if you want to follow our Wilson build, you can benefit from solo perks instead.
Wilson is not a very good tank. He still has some basic health regeneration, but his build will benefit from a more stealthy gameplay.

Attributes

STRENGTH

Starting Skills (without initial point delegation)

Melee

1-Handed: 15
2-Handed: 3

Ranged

Handguns: 30 (Novice)
Long Guns: 25 (Novice)
Heavy Weapons: 15

Defense

Dodge: 30 (Novice)
Block: 15

Dialog

Persuade: 10
Lie: 3
Intimidate: 0

Stealth

Sneak: 18
Hack: 10
Lockpick: 20 (Novice)

Tech

Medical: 13
Science: 10
Engineering: 18

Leadership

Inspiration: 0
Determination: 13

Skill Level-Up Strategy

DIALOG, DEFENSE (Low Priority) | You do not have to worry about your Dialog skills whatsoever for this build. You will start with high enough points in the Persuasion skill to unlock its Novice ability with one of the two initial +10 invested into it. If you get your Persuasion to 30 or so, you are set until much later in the game. If you are not interested in alternative dialog options whatsoever, leave this skill area alone. If you notice yourself in need of dodging a lot after being discovered, you can bring Dodge skill to 40 or 60, but Block is useless to you.

STEALTH (High and Medium Priority) | You will most likely find all of the The Outer Worlds Stealth skills of use, but especially so Sneaking. Sneaking is essential for Wilson to deal as much damage as possible while hidden, which will eventually allow him to make one-shot killer combos with the majority of the enemy groups. You should probably invest beyond 50 into this skill.
You don’t have to level Hack beyond 50, but the skills you unlock until that point will allow you to buy and sell without returning to civilization, especially if factions are hostile to you. It will help a lot with carrying capacity management as well, since you will eventually start to feel its effects if you don’t invest into the counteracting perks. You will find Lockpick skill pretty useful if you enjoy looting, since you will spend less Magpicks over time to do so. Whether you want to invest beyond 50 into it is up to your personal playstyle, however.

RANGED (High Priority) | Wilson’s extreme damage is his primary strength. Invest into Ranged skills to get the full benefit of his bonuses. We recommend that you invest one of the initial +10s here to get Handguns to Competent (40) and get Long Guns very close. This will allow you to have a blast even with the starting equipment and start with Long Guns pretty early. You can carry a Heavy Weapon, should your enemies get a little too close. However, focus in Long Guns with Handguns as a secondary specialization. You can always swap, and swap frequently to quickly take out lower-level enemies in the field (Handguns), and to snipe out the hordes of enemies in the distance before they get a chance to even discover your location (80 in Long Guns will give you no Weapon Sway after each kill, combined with some perks for incredible combos). Invest plenty and enjoy!

TECH (Low Priority) | Tech is not a bad area to invest into, but mid-game or even later on. Simply invest the remaining 2 points into Engineering to be able to be able to fix your equipment in the field. Then, until you get weapons you really like you won’t need to worry about leveling or improving your equipment. Medical can be useful for some Critical Damage (with Ambidextrine, for example), TTD or Ranged Spread, but you should get by just fine without. Ideally, you won’t be losing a lot of health either, but have some Adrenos on you just in case. However, later in the game you can dump some excess points into this area to improve your favored equipment and, should you find a Shrink Ray or Mind Control Ray, to deal extra Plasma Damage with additional in-field debuff benefits.

Player Perks

Recommended Player Perks:

Tier 1

Harvester: +15% Health Restored per Kill – This is a good way for you to skip healing even in more difficult situations due to your high damage output.
Lone Wolf: +25% Increase to Damage when alone in the party – You won’t get any very high bonuses to your companions, so you can commit to solo playstyle to get a very nice bonus to your damage.
Quick and the Dead: +50% Tactical Time Dilation Recharge Rate – You will be doing a lot of your mass damage and debuffing in the TTD mode.
Slow the World: +25% Tactical Time Dilation Meter Max – Useful addition to Quick and the Dead.

Tier 2

Scanner: +20% Bonus to Extra Headshot / Weakspot Damage (Only in Tactical Time Dilation Mode) – This will combine with your already high bonuses for even more damage.
The Reaper: +25% Tactical Time Dilation Restored per Kill – This is the great way for you to deal as much damage at the start of the battle as possible.

Tier 3

Steady Hand: -100% Ranged Weapon Sway, -100% Movement Penalty to Accuracy – The Ranged Weapon Sway elimination is very useful to Wilson, further expanding the useful bonus of Long Gun’s Deadly Focus.
Boom, Headshot!: Headshot kills deal 25% of their damage to enemies within 2.5m – This bit of AoE will add additional effectiveness to your sniper one-shot kill combos.
Solo Sneaker: -33% Detection Radius of Enemies (When you have no companions in the party) – Goes along with Lone Wolf’s ideology. Sneaking is quite important to Wilson’s build.

Useful Perks:

Tier 1

Toughness: +50% Base Health – Wilson isn’t particularly tanky, so you would a little bit more versatile in the field if you take this (say, with Heavy Weapons).
The Negotiator: -20% Vendor Prices – Even with a good ammo management, this isn’t a bad bonus to have towards those purchases.
A Few Bits More: +100% Additional Ammo stock on Vendors, +100% Additional Consumable and General stock on Vendors – Same as above, take this if you want to be fully restocked more often.
Pack Mule: +50kg Carrying Capacity – You shouldn’t be struggling too much with this, but if you are, this perk will make a difference early on.

Tier 2

The Collector: +5m Interactable Highlight Range – Useful for exploration and looting.
Soliloquy: +10 Dialog Skills (Without companions in the party) – Another good solo perk to take for your build, especially if you like those extra dialog options and don’t want many points to go towards this tree.
Run and Gun: -65% Movement Penalty to Accuracy – If you run around or dodge with your Handgun, Shotgun, or Heavy Weapons, this will be a good investment.

Tier 3

Super Pack Mule: +100kg Carrying Capacity – If Pack Mule wasn’t enough, this should eliminate any carrying capacity issues.
Penetrating Shots: Ranged Attacks inflict -1 Armor Rating for 10s, and can stack up to 10 – Armor can become problematic for your Handguns and Shotguns. This will also improve the damage you deal to massively armored enemies that you weren’t able to take out quickly.
Armor Master: +100% Skill Bonus, +10% Armor Rating Bonus – Not a bad one to have if you wield Heavy Weapons and for doubling Skill bonuses on your armor.

Companions

We suggest that you travel solo in The Outer Worlds.

Wilson’s charm and low Leadership and Dialog investment priority will do little to make your Companions very effective in the field. You could technically bring a Nyoka and Felix with you to Sneak around and deal additional damage to humans you disable with the Persuade skill (should you invest into Felix’s perk), but you might as well commit to solo playstyle and take solid increases to your sneaking and damage instead.

Solo playthrough with Wilson is a unique experience in itself.

Gear

Carry a Handgun and a few Long Guns to target low-level and higher-level enemies. Dead-Eye Assault Rifle II, Assault Rifle Ultra, and Dead-Eye Assault Rifle are all good options to work towards the end for one-shot kill combos on long distances. Shotguns like Tactical Shotgun II will be a good option for a closer range along with higher-end Handguns, but will perform less effectively against heavily armored targets. You can have a Heavy Weapon for a close-range AoE, should you get ambushed.

If you go along with Wilson’s build, snipe targets at long distance with a variety of Rifles early on and work towards Assault Rifles later on.

You should be okay with Light Armor, should you commit to a sneaky sniper build. Wear Medium or even Heavy (make sure you don’t take Sneak penalty) if your game difficulty is making it hard to absorb damage.