Red Death Reformed — Field Medic (Solar Hunter)

Centerpiece: Red Death Reformed (Pulse Rifle · Primary · Solar) · Subclass: Gunslinger · Role: Self-healing primary engine — the gun pays the medical bill so the whole kit is spent on damage and radiant Sandbox: 9.7.0 · Updated 2026-07-03

Kill anything with the gun and you're already healed — that's the whole pitch. Red Death Reformed cures you on every final blow and the catalyst leaves a restoration remnant for the team. So you build a Solar Gunslinger that only spends its kit on damage and radiant, because the weapon has already covered survival. Every fragment that would normally buy sustain gets re-spent on offence, and the gun's cure stacks on top of restoration for a survivability floor that asks the build for nothing.

The weapon

Intrinsic — Redemption: "Final blows with this weapon cure you and increase reload speed; reloading after final blows cures nearby allies."

Catalyst — Helping Hand: "Final blows charge this weapon. When the weapon is charged, the next final blow creates a healing burst at your location and leaves a remnant behind that provides restoration to allies."

A 340-RPM Solar pulse that turns your trigger finger into a heal button. Redemption applies cure to you on every final blow and ramps reload speed; a kill immediately followed by a reload sprays cure to nearby allies. On top of that, the catalyst charges from final blows, and the charged kill drops a healing burst plus a restoration remnant — a persistent heal-station for the fireteam. So the gun self-sustains on minors (a steady stream of cures) and drops team healing on the charged kill, all from primary ammo you'd be firing anyway. The trade: it's a primary pulse, so raw boss DPS is unremarkable. What it buys is the removal of "stay alive" from every other slot in the loadout.

Loadout

Why it works (the mechanics)

• The gun removes sustain from the build budget. Redemption cures you on every final blow and the catalyst adds a restoration burst plus a remnant. That's two healing verbs (cure and restoration) running off normal trigger-pulls, so the Solar kit's fragments and grenade — which would usually buy survivability — are all re-spent on offence and radiant. The survivability floor becomes "did I kill something," and a primary kills constantly.
• Cure and restoration stack, not overlap. Cure is a one-shot instant heal; the catalyst's restoration is a heal-over-time. Running both off the same weapon means you take a hit, eat the cure on the next kill, and stand in the restoration remnant — a survivability floor that needs no ability cooldown.
• Ember of Empyrean makes the heals self-perpetuating. "Solar weapon or ability final blows extend the duration of restoration and radiant effects applied to you." Red Death is a Solar weapon that kills continuously, so the catalyst's restoration and your radiant refresh toward their cap while you shoot — the gun feeds its own healing window (extended up to the 15-second maximum per Clarity).
• On Your Mark double-dips the 9.7.0 Weapons stat. Precision hits — which Red Death lands by design — stack the Weapons stat ×10 for a flat PvE weapon-damage increase on top of Solar surge mods. The pulse's biggest weakness, mediocre primary damage, is partly bought back just by landing the precision hits you're already landing.
• Knock 'Em Down plus Lightweight Knife is a near-free melee loop. A precision knife kill grants radiant via Ember of Torches; while radiant, knife final blows fully refund melee energy. The knife keeps you radiant (a weapon-damage buff that stacks with everything above) at almost no energy cost, and Empyrean keeps that radiant alive off gun kills.
• Star-Eater Scales turns the orb flood into Super uptime plus a heal. The build makes orbs constantly (Solar kills, finishers, Super). Star-Eater overcharges a full Super from orbs — the cast then grants a burst of healing plus bonus Super damage (up to +70% at 6 stacks, restoring 200 HP), with an overshield at max. So the one damage gap a primary build has — boss and priority burst — is filled by an overcharged Marksman Golden Gun that also heals on cast, on-theme with the whole medic identity.

Stats & mods

Weapons 200 → Health → Class. Weapons is the dump-everything stat: it raises PvE weapon damage and stacks with On Your Mark's ×10 and radiant to claw the primary pulse up to relevance. Health next because, despite all the healing, a primary build wants a larger pool to survive long enough for the next kill's cure. Class feeds Marksman's Dodge uptime — the on-demand ally-cure reload. Archetype lean: Gunner / Powerhouse pieces that favour Weapons, with any spare rolls into Class.

Mods:

• Boots: Solar Weapon Surge ×2–3 (straight onto Red Death and the Solar Special).
• Arms: Pulse Rifle Loader (backs up Redemption's reload ramp between kills).
• Chest: resist mods to preference (Concussive Dampener / elemental resist) — the healing covers the rest.
• Class item: Bomber / Outreach plus Orbs of Restoration to backfill Marksman's Dodge.
• Surge: Solar Weapon Surge — one element covers both the primary and the Special.
• Anti-Champion: none intrinsic to the weapon — lean on the artifact (Energy Acceleration → Unstoppable) and Golden Gun; slot artifact anti-Barrier/Overload as the activity demands.

Artifact — Implement of Curiosity

A Solar Gunslinger that wins by landing precision hits — exactly what this artifact rewards. Fever and Chill turns Red Death's stream of precision hits into free Radiant (no fragment spent), the Solar mods feed the surge/cure loop, and Energy Acceleration supplies the Unstoppable coverage the weapon has no intrinsic answer for.

Picks (2/3/2):

• Tier 1: Fever and Chill · Elemental Benevolence
• Tier 2: Cauterized Darkness · Energy Acceleration · Elemental Coalescence
• Tier 3: Radiant Shrapnel · Elemental Overdrive

• Fever and Chill makes rapid Solar precision hits grant Radiant — the gun's core action becomes a Radiant engine, freeing a fragment slot.
• Elemental Benevolence returns class-ability energy for granting allies buffs; the medic loop cures and radiants allies, so it backfills Marksman's Dodge.
• Cauterized Darkness adds Solar damage against debuffed targets, clawing the primary pulse's damage up.
• Energy Acceleration covers Unstoppable champions — the weapon breaks no champion on its own, so this is the anti-champion backbone.
• Elemental Coalescence ties the Solar Super element into Elemental pickups, feeding the buff and orb economy Star-Eater lives on.
• Radiant Shrapnel and Elemental Overdrive pay off the near-permanent Radiant uptime and drop Solar pickups that boost Red Death and the Solar Special directly.

Where it shines

• Solo / GM-tier survivability content: the gun is a portable medkit. You can push into rooms a normal primary build can't, because every kill heals you and the catalyst leaves a heal-station — ideal for solo flawless and GM ad-clear where dying to chip damage is the failure mode.
• Fireteam support: reloading after kills cures allies and the catalyst remnant is a restoration puddle — you're the medic without spending a Super or grenade slot on it.
• Champion coverage: the weapon breaks no champion intrinsically (Primary Solar pulse, no champion trait in the manifest). Bring Unstoppable from the artifact's Energy Acceleration, cover Barrier/Overload with artifact anti-champion mods or a Special/Heavy that carries the stun, and use Golden Gun on priority targets. The healing keeps you alive through every shield-down window.
• Weak spot: raw boss DPS. Red Death is a primary pulse; lean on the Heavy and an overcharged Marksman Golden Gun (Star-Eater + Knock 'Em Down) for burst.

Mod selection (masterworked — full allocation)

All 15 sockets used, 10 energy per masterworked piece; costs from the manifest. Core mods are the build's engine; fill mods are strong defaults — swap freely (chest resists should match the activity's damage types). Flex/loadout-dependent: the Special. - **Anti-Champion:** none intrinsic to the weapon — lean on the artifact (Energy Acceleration → Unstoppable); Golden Gun; slot artifact anti-Barrier/Overload as the activity demands.