Overview

Welrod is a defensive handgun that massively debuffs the enemy’s accuracy, and is probably one of the closest things to a handgun tank. This is not a go-ahead to start replacing SMGs with Welrod, as “tank” is relative to other handguns, she is still far squishier and ill-suited for quite a bit of content.

Her tiles and tile coverage are excellent, letting Welrod provide strong utility for both offensive and defensive options. Despite her inherent squishiness due to being an HG, Welrod’s skill can also support her teammates’ survivability. Because of this, Welrod is a decent support for heavily survival-focused teams.

Welrod and pretty much evasion tanking on the whole still has its flaws, and the resources spent raising a 5 star for a specialized role that can quickly lose its effectiveness likely would be better spent raising better generalist options like Grizzly.

Full analysis

If reading this full analysis, please read until the end, as while Welrod’s kit is certainly strong, outdated guides and unfamiliarity with GFL’s gameplay often give people the wrong impression of how to use her.

First, what are Welrod’s strengths? Welrod’s tiles are definitely her strong suit. Her spread of 20% Dmg and 16% RoF is both quite strong due to her rarity, but also low enough to not overcap a usual ARs’ RoF. Her tile coverage is really good, letting her cover the entire backline and any allies on the same column from the front or both DPS when in the back column. This makes Welrod able to flexibly be inserted into teams without too much concern for overcap.

Welrod’s skill is a 45% debuff to all enemies’ accuracy. Once activated it can relieve a lot of incoming damage onto whatever doll is tanking. Welrod can support tanks when a team composition is highly reliant on evasive tanking, like pairing her with a SMG maintank. Additionally, it can benefit T-dolls reliant on debuffs such as KSVK Mod.

Welrod also has a base critical hit rate of 40% as opposed to the standard 20% for HGs. This does not make a significant impact on her performance but it means she does ever so slightly more DPS.

For those reasons, Welrod was considered one of the most versatile HGs. Her ability to “tank” as an HG yet provide RFHGs with considerably strong tile buffs was great. However, that is mostly in the past. Despite her kit specializing in boosting survivability, Welrod still suffers from the fact that she is an HG. Older RFHGs that used Welrod as a “main tank” could get away with her tiny healthpool because enemies were not as dangerous. Now, high-end enemies in all factions have attacks that either have far too much accuracy or straight up ignore evasion, thus rendering her skill useless. For examples from each major faction: Hydras, SWAP Jaegers, Smashers, and Doppelsoldners.

For alternatives to make up for Welrod’s flaws, it is usually a better plan to have another dedicated DPS buffing HG, since you want to kill them before they even get to shoot. Dolls like HP-35 and MP-446 Mod outdo Welrod’s synergy with KSVK Mod. P22 and HS2000 are both HGs that provide powerful tilebuffs, buff DPS on their skill, and increase team survivability. That’s more than Welrod can offer. Even for tanking high-pressure attacks, there are SMGs with tiles that buff RFs and more survivability than Welrod, such as MP5 Mod, Dorothy Haze, and Lusa.

The alternative application for Welrod is in a team purely focused on survival. A team that runs a SMG maintank in the frontline against a long duration bossfight can benefit from Welrod in the back. She provides decent buffs to the backline, and her weakness of being squishy is not a problem if she is not the one tanking. Her skill massively spikes the already tanky frontline to new heights in order to survive longer. This kind of team is questionable in comparison to just beating the fight faster with more DPS, but it is a possible application

Overview

Welrod’s neural upgrade is great. Before, she was a vaguely niche handgun who had been sidelined due to many enemies destroying any evasion-dependent units. Now she is half-immortal. Her second skill creates a nigh-unbreakable shield after taking damage. She gets armor and bonuses on her skill 1 from her special equipment, making even her mod 3 decent. Mod 2 is still a majority of her utility though, and can be stopped at.

Due to how her kit works, Welrod MkII Mod becomes actually useful for tanking the high damage attacks of enemies. She can work on teams that need someone to absorb these kinds of attacks, potentially early in the fight. She also still retains the ability to assist another maintank in surviving crazy fights.