SegmentNextRisk of Rain 2 Loader Guide: Unlock, Skills And The 2,700 Percent Hit
Loader is the survivor built around momentum. Her grapple is not an escape tool that happens to move you, it is the wind up for her biggest attack, because the damage on her charged punch rises with how fast she is travelling when it lands. Add a barrier on every hit and total immunity to fall damage, and you get a character who solves the two things that usually end a run: being cornered, and the ground.
How To Unlock Loader
Loader is unlocked by the Guidance Offline challenge, which asks you to defeat the unique guardian of Siren's Call. That guardian is the Alloy Worship Unit and it does not spawn by itself. Find and destroy six Alloy Vulture Nests around the map; the game tells you a distant whirring has started when the fifth falls, and the sixth brings the boss down. Beating it also drops a legendary item for every player in the run, so the detour is worth taking even after Loader is yours. The rest of the roster's requirements are on our survivor unlock guide.
Base Stats
| Stat | Value |
|---|---|
| Health | 160, plus 48 a level |
| Damage | 12, plus 2.4 a level |
| Armor | 20 |
| Movement speed | 7 metres a second |
That 160 is well above the 110 most survivors start with, and the 20 armor is the part people forget: it is the same figure the newer Seeker carries and it is why Loader survives hits that stagger a Huntress. Our character tier list puts her first for exactly this combination of numbers and mobility.
Loader's Abilities
| Slot | Skill | Damage | Cooldown | What it really does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Passive | Scrap Barrier | Barrier worth 5 percent of maximum health and shields | None | Every gauntlet hit tops up a temporary barrier, and Loader takes no fall damage at all |
| Primary | Knuckleboom | 320 percent | None, about 0.6 seconds between swings at base attack speed | The barrier engine; it exists to keep the passive running |
| Secondary | Grapple Fist | None | 5 seconds | Fires up to 80 metres and pulls you to the target, which is how you build the speed the utility wants |
| Utility | Charged Gauntlet | 600 to 2,700 percent | 5 seconds | Charges for 2.5 seconds and gains 30 percent damage for every metre a second you are travelling when it lands |
| Special | M551 Pylon | 100 percent a zap | 20 seconds | A deployed pylon that chains to as many as six enemies, so it covers the ground you are swinging away from |
The Three Alternate Skills
Each of Loader's alternates is a separate challenge, and each one trades her setup for something more immediate.
| Skill | Replaces | What it does | Challenge |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spiked Fist | Grapple Fist | 320 percent and a stun instead of a pull, on the same 5 second cooldown | Loader: Swing By |
| Thunder Gauntlet | Charged Gauntlet | A 2,100 percent punch plus a 900 percent lightning cone, with no velocity requirement | Loader: Earthshatter |
| Thunderslam | M551 Pylon | 2,000 percent on impact and an 8 second cooldown instead of 20 | Loader: The Thunderdome |
Thunder Gauntlet is the one that changes how she plays rather than how she hits. Charged Gauntlet rewards a player who grapples first and punches second; Thunder Gauntlet pays a flat, very large number whether you arrived at speed or standing still, which makes Loader far easier and slightly less interesting. Thunderslam is close to a straight upgrade for solo runs, since a 2,000 percent slam every eight seconds beats a pylon you have to leave behind.
How To Play Loader
The loop is grapple, then punch. Fire Grapple Fist at an enemy or a piece of scenery beyond your target, let it drag you, and release Charged Gauntlet while you are still moving; the difference between a standing punch and one thrown at the end of a long swing is the difference between 600 percent and something close to 2,700. Because the grapple has an 80 metre reach and a five second cooldown, that loop is also your travel plan, and stages that other survivors cross on foot become three swings.
Fall damage immunity is worth more than it sounds. It means the top of any map is a safe place to be, and it means you can cancel a bad fight by grappling upward and dropping somewhere else. Keep Knuckleboom swinging whenever an enemy is in range, because the barrier from Scrap Barrier is temporary and decays; the difference between a Loader at full barrier and one who has been grappling for ten seconds without punching anything is enormous when a Stone Golem's laser arrives.
Items Worth Prioritising
Movement speed does double duty on Loader in a way it does for nobody else, because Charged Gauntlet reads your velocity as damage. Paul's Goat Hoof sits in the S tier of our items tier list at 14 percent a stack for that reason alone, and the Hopoo Feather's extra jumps give you more ways to be airborne and moving when a punch lands. The same list's Tougher Times stacks with her barrier rather than competing with it, since one blocks a hit outright and the other absorbs what does land.
Attack speed matters less here than it does for the survivors on our builds guide, where the Soldier's Syringe is a Mercenary staple, because Loader's damage sits on two long skills rather than on a primary. Treat the Syringe as barrier uptime rather than as damage, and put the red items into survivability instead.
Loader Questions
Is Loader the best survivor in Risk of Rain 2?
She takes first place on both of the rankings we compared, and the case is not mainly about damage. Every run that ends does so because you could not leave a fight or could not survive one more hit, and the grapple answers the first while the barrier and 160 health answer the second.
What is Loader's mastery skin?
Classic, earned by completing a run with her on Monsoon, as every survivor's mastery skin is. Our skins guide lists all of them.
Does Loader take fall damage?
No, ever, which also means the Artifact of Frailty on our artifacts guide, the one that makes falling lethal, costs her nothing at all. For everything a run asks after you have picked her, start at the Risk of Rain 2 hub.