 
|
Loader
|
||||
| |||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Abilities
Knuckleboom |
  | |
Cooldown: 0 seconds Batter nearby enemies for 120%. Every third hit deals 240% and knocks up enemies. | ||
Debris Shield |
  | |
Cooldown: 5 seconds Shield yourself for 100% of your health for 3 seconds while also increasing your move speed. | ||
Hydraulic Gauntlet |
  | |
Cooldown: 3 seconds Fire your gauntlet forward. If it hits an enemy or wall you pull yourself towards them, stunning and hurting enemies for 210%. | ||
M440 Conduit |
  | |
Cooldown: 2 seconds Place a lightning rod. After placing two, lightning surges between them, dealing 80% damage per second for 9 seconds. | ||
 M700X Discharge Conduit Place a lightning rod. After placing two, lightning surges between them, dealing 80% damage per second for 9 seconds and stunning initial enemies. | ||
M440 Conduit |
| |
Cooldown: 10 seconds Place a lightning rod. After placing two, lightning surges between them, dealing 80% damage per second for 9 seconds. | ||
M700X Discharge Conduit Place a lightning rod. After placing two, lightning surges between them, dealing 80% damage per second for 9 seconds and stunning initial enemies. | ||
Tips
- Contrary to what the description says, Debris Shield actually makes the loader completely invincible for a whopping 3 seconds, more time than any other immunity skill in the game. The speed boost is very brief however, and only lasts for a fraction of a second at the very beginning of the duration.
- Because of the Loader's naturally high attack speed, building on hit items such as AtG Missile Mk. 1, Ukulele, or Permafrost is more effective than most melee classes.
- Since Knuckleboom requires the player to continuously press the button to keep using the attack, stacking large amounts of attack speed items is actually not recommended, as most people simply cannot mash the button fast enough to maximize the attacks per second, wasting the items. Generally speaking, loader needs only about half the required attack speed cap in items to have the most amount of attacks per second if the player mashes the button. Any more than that will either need extremely quick fingers on the players part, or some form of script installed.
- It is worthy of note that while Knuckleboom is a 3-hit combo, one only needs to press the button twice to fully execute it. Holding the button on the second press will execute the last two hits together. Knowing this, it becomes much easier to execute the attack even at relatively high attack speeds.
- Getting a Wicked Ring is extremely valuable on the Loader, as with very few crit items, a Loader can maintain Debris Shield indefinitely in combat.
- Three Alien Heads also allow a Loader to maintain Debris Shield indefinitely, without the need to be in combat.
- Debris Shield will also provide invincibility to the players drones, making large numbers of drones very effective due to little risk of them being destroyed and having to pay to repair them.
- The M440 Conduit hitbox is actually much larger than the visuals would imply. This is because when the lightning rods arc lightning between each other, the game draws a hidden bounding box area, with the rods being opposite corners of said box, while the lightning visuals only draw the diagonal of the hitbox. This means that M440 Conduit is exponentially more effective if the separate rods are placed both horizontally AND vertically far apart, as the horizontal area of the lightning gets multiplied by the vertical distance between the rods.
- Hydraulic Gauntlet can be used to hook and travel to M440 Conduit lightning rods.
- Beware when using items such as Rusty Knife or Leeching Seed, the items effects will only happen when using Knuckleboom or Hydraulic Gauntlet, so be wary of this.
- There is a mobility quirk with the Loader, where if the player manages to press the 'Jump' button on the same frame of Knuckleboom's actual impact of the 1st or 2nd attack, the Loader will lunge forward a moderate distance in the direction he is facing. Having a timing window of 1 frame however, this trick is very difficult to pull off consistently.
- The Loader will be stopped prematurely if they hit an obstruction while using Hydraulic Gauntlet. This however does not include jump pads, and the player will usually dash over them, potentially saving time and health by not having to bounce all the way up.
- When using Hydraulic Gauntlet, Loader can sometimes pull themselves onto ledges, however, due to how the game's physics work, they must pull themselves to a ledge from a point below said ledge, e.g. hooking to a ledge while falling. A Loader pulling themselves when when are level with the ledge will result in them smashing their face into the ledge and not pulling on top of it, and pulling from above can sometimes fling them down and away from the ledge.
- Hydraulic Gauntlet will hook to the 'ghosts' which are generated by Happiest Mask & Jar of Souls. This can interfere with trying to hit an enemy, making these items less valuable for the Loader.
- Knuckleboom can effectively stunlock many enemies and break their attacks, especially inside the area of a Warbanner or when stacking Soldier's Syringe. This can make many very dangerous enemies (eg. Sand Crab , Rock Golem , and Spitter) very easy early on, making life much safer when using the Glass relic.
- Due to its large potential area coverage, M440 Conduit is very useful at killing all the tiny imps once they have spawned.
- The only difference that the Ancient Scepter version of loader's conduits has in comparison to the default variant is the stun that all enemies caught by the first tick of damage will suffer, making an overall low difference. If one has a choice in the matter, such as when using the artifact of command, it is a low priority item to have.
Trivia
- The Loader seems to have taken inspiration from the Caterpillar P-5000 Work Loader from the film Aliens.
- The Loader also bears a striking resemblance to Hyperion Engineers from the game Borderlands 2 being that they are also inspired by Aliens. The robots that serve alongside these engineers are also called Loaders.
- (Unconfirmed) According to a reddit post, The Loader originally appeared as a female character, but was changed to male in the release version of 1.2. It is unknown when or why this change was made. Regardless of if this can be confirmed or not, Loader is female in Risk of Rain 2
- The Loader has no ready animation (the animation the character makes when they are selected).
Achievements
| Travel for 20.000 feet using the Hydraulic Gauntlet. | Taser | |
| Kill the Overloading Magma Worm. | Gigantic Amethyst |