Risk of Rain 2 Loader: Unlock, Build, and Best Items

Loader is Risk of Rain 2’s powerful burst damage character that can cause havoc on the battlefield with her Gauntlets and Grappling Hooks. She was ranked in Tier A+, which ultimately makes her one of the best Survivors in the game. Having said that, this Risk of Rain 2 Guide will show you how to unlock Loader, the best builds, the best items, and her abilities.

First, let’s have a look at the Loader’s optimal build in Risk of Rain 2:

How To Unlock Loader In Risk Of Rain 2?

Best Answer: The fastest way to unlock the Loader is by completing the Guidance Offline Challenge in Siren’s Call. Which is one of the two possible fourth stages. To complete this challenge, you will need to find and destroy 5 blue vulture egg nests.

These nests are hidden across the map and have randomized spawns. Once you destroy the fourth nest, the following text will appear in your chat.

Destroying the fifth nest triggers the Alloy Worship Unit boss spawn. “The whirring grows loud” appears in chat, signaling its arrival in the map center. The flying boss poses a challenge.

• When the boss’s health dips below 50%, it releases an alloy-supercharged detonation.
• A shield forms, and large blue circles reduce survivor mobility, exploding after five seconds for 400% damage and launching those caught into the air.
• Effective strategies include using survivors with long-range attacks like The Huntress or employing the Mercenary’s aerial assault.
• Defeating the Alloy Worship Unit unlocks the Loader in Risk of Rain 2, and each player receives a Legendary item from the boss.

Risk Of Rain 2 Loader Abilities

The Loader has a total of eight abilities. All of these abilities pack a serious punch and make her a survivor with the highest damage output in Risk of Rain 2. Here is a breakdown of all her abilities.

Primary Ability

Knuckle Boom is Loader’s main melee attack that can hit multiple enemies at once and deal 320% damage. You can gain a lot of barriers when combined with Scrap Barrier and easily destroy any common enemy.

Secondary Abilities

The Loader has two options to choose from for her secondary ability. Both of these abilities have a cooldown of 5 seconds.

• Grapple Fist: The Loader can fire her gauntlet forward, pulling her to the target. Grapple Fist can be used to grapple to anything including walls, ceiling, and even enemies.
• Spiked Fist: A better alternative to the Grapple Fist. Deals 320% damage upon firing the gauntlet forward. Pulls you towards heavy targets. Light targets will be pulled toward you.

Passive Ability

The Loader has an incredibly useful Passive called Scrap Barrier. She is immune to fall damage. Striking enemies with the Loader’s gauntlets grant a temporary barrier.

Utilities

The Loader has two options to choose from for her Utility. Both of these utilities have a cooldown of 5 seconds.

• Charged Gauntlet: The Loader can charge up a piercing punch for 600%-2700% damage, so it can be used to instantly kill almost all of the enemies in the game.
• Thunder Gauntlet: The Loader can charge up a single-target punch for 2100% damage that shocks enemies in a cone for 1000% damage.

Special Ability

• M551 Pylon: The Loader can throw a floating pylon that zaps up to 6 nearby enemies for 100% damage.
• Thunderslam: Slam your fists down, dealing 2000% damage on impact.

Best Combos

Now that you know all of the Loader’s Abilities in Risk of Rain 2, you must also know how to mix them all to get the highest damage while keeping yourself safe from enemy attacks. Loader is above MUL-T if you are curious to know how good she is.

• Utilize the knuckle boom for crowd control, slightly stunning and pushing enemies away with each hit.
• Small-sized enemies like Beetles, Imps, and Hermit Crabs can be overwhelming; leverage the knuckle boom for effective defense.
• Grapple Fist and Spiked Fist cooldown only activates upon landing on an enemy or terrain, allowing for strategic re-use.
• Combine knuckle boom with grapple abilities to reel in enemies, bringing them into melee range for attacks.
• Charged Gauntlet’s damage increases with Loader’s movement; charge it while reeling in smaller enemies for maximum impact.
• Execute combos with Grapple Fist, Spiked Fist, and Charged Gauntlet for substantial damage and confusing enemies.
• Avoid combining Thunder Gauntlet with Charged Gauntlet to ensure both skills are used effectively; Thunder Gauntlet pairs well with Thunder Slam.
• Maximize the effectiveness of M551 Pylon by using it after stunning enemies, such as following a Thunder Slam skill.

Best Loader Builds In Risk Of Rain 2

The two main types of builds that you can achieve with the Loader are the Attack Speed Build and the One-Shot Build.

Attack Speed Build

To create this build, you’ll need the Artifact of Command. Aim for 6 to 7 Lens Makers’ Glasses for white items, 2 fuel cells for green items, and a 57-leaf clover for your Legendary. Locate the newt altar on stages 1 or 2 for an early legendary, facilitating Void Fields traversal.

• Unlock the Bazaar for three Gestures of the Drowned and a Spinel Tonic.
• Combine 2 fuel cells and 3 Gestures of the Drowned to make the tonic last indefinitely.
• Acquire 2 war horns for a permanent 70% attack speed bonus with the active Spinel Tonic.

Balance Lens Maker’s Glasses and Tougher Times to minimize damage. Combine 3 Predatory Instincts for added Critical Chance, making Loader tankier with increased attack speed after Tougher Times. Opt for infusions with Predatory Instincts. Most Legendaries work well, except for Shaped Glass, which halves temporary hitpoints.

One-Shot Build

The requirement for the One-Shot Build is the upgraded Spiked Fist and the default utility Charged Gauntlet. Although Thunder Gauntlet is also a good choice it can not compete with the Charged Gauntlet. You can go for full glass cannon and shade glass with this build because the One-Shot protection is not so great on the Loader. To increase your damage output, you can go for the Elite Ukulele and Guitar Bands.

• With this build, you should always go for the Crowbars so your gauntlet can get the highest burst of damage in the game, for a single target.
• Doing up to 2700% damage depends on how fast you are moving.
• You can apply the same enhancements to Engineer, who also proved to be efficient.

Attack Speed Build Or One-Shot Build

One of Loader’s special abilities is that you will gain temporary hit points every time you attack someone using the Knuckleboom, Spiked Fist, Charged Gauntlet, or Thunder Gauntlet. The thing is, the amount of temporary hit points gained is not determined by how hard you attack.

You will gain the same number of hit points per hit whether you deal low damage or very high damage. This is why you should focus on increasing the Attack speed with Loader. Hence, Attack Speed Build is the better option for Loader.

Risk Of Rain 2 Loader Best Items

The only two ways to increase her movement speed are using items and skills; spiked fist and grappling fist. With the Loader, your main focus should be the items that increase the movement speed and AoE damage. Here are some of the best items that you can choose for your Loadout.

Kjaro’s Band

Just like Acrid, the Kjaro Band works very well with Loader. This item will hit enemies with a runic flame tornado upon attacks that deal 400% damage or more. The loader is capable of doing more than 400% damage very easily, making this item very useful.

Backup Magazine

This item will give the player an additional charge (+1 additional charge per stack) of their secondary. Backup Magazines are very essential for the Loader because you can get an additional grapple per stack. This was also the case with Artificer, whom I tested during the recent patch.

Lens Maker’s Glasses

This item gives the player a 10% chance per stack to critically strike on each hit, so you can deal double the damage using the Loader. The critical effect will not only apply to your four abilities but also to other forms of damage, like equipment.

Will-o’-the-wisp

Using this item will improve Loader’s crowd control. This item spawns an area-of-effect attack in a 12-meter radius upon killing an enemy. The damage increases by 280% and the range increases by 2.4 meters when this item is stacked. Equip this and AtG Missile Mk. 1, and you have the perfect combination of becoming a singular threat to the enemies.

Focus Crystal

The loader can make perfect use of the Focus Crystal since she is a melee survivor. The Focus Crystal increases damage by 20% to enemies if they are in a 13-meter radius. Thus, equipping this item tops your loader’s existing base damage with an extra 20%, which will prove devastating while doing the runs.

Energy Drinks

It will be a poor strategy to equip all the damage-dealing items and miss out on the mobility ones. As mentioned earlier, Loader is a bulky brute who has mediocre dexterity. This is why I highly recommend using Energy Drinks since they can boost the sprint speed of Loader by 25%. You can also use this with Mercenary and see an ultimate boost.

Paul’s Goat Hoofs

This item can also be used to increase the Loader’s mobility. It increases her movement speed by up to 14%.

Ukulele

The Ukulele gives every single attack a 25% chance to hit up to 3 enemies within 20 meters with lighting for 80% damage. Each stack increases the maximum amount of targets by two and the range by two meters.

ATG Missile

This item gives the player a 10% chance to launch a homing missile that deals 300% total damage(per stack), upon hit. The ATG Missile is extremely powerful for Loader when stacked, especially in combination with other total damage proc. items such as Ukulele.

Loader is a tremendous survivor for dealing burst damage and getting out of rough spots. As a melee character, developers struck a balance by sacrificing little on her speed. However, they gave her two critical skills that enable her to flee crowds of enemies or take the fight head-on by grappling herself right into the enemy’s face.

Overall, out of the 11 survivors, she can offer various playstyles and makes very good use of some of the items in Risk of Rain 2.

That concludes my Risk of Rain 2’s Loader Guide. Hopefully, this guide will help you choose the best build and items for Loader so you can master this character and dominate the battlefield.

For a similar read, check out our Risk of Rain 2 Rex Guide.