Far Far West Best Weapons — Tier List and Loadout Picks

The Far Far West best weapons list is shorter than it looks because most of the weapon roster is situational. Two weapons carry the first 15 hours of play. A third becomes essential the moment you have a teammate. Everything else is a tool for specific moments — wave clears, boss phases, close-range scrambles — and treating those tools as primaries is how new players end runs early.

This guide ranks the current weapon roster by how it actually performs against the game's combat patterns, not by stat sheet.

TL;DR: Winchester repeater is the strongest beginner-to-intermediate weapon. Lightning revolver pairs with fire spells for the elemental combo chain — best secondary in the game right now. Minigun has the highest DPS ceiling but punishes you on boss phase resets. Dynamite is for clustered wave clear only. Tomahawk and standard revolver are situational. Build the Winchester-plus-lightning-revolver loadout first; everything else slots in around it.

Key Takeaways

• Winchester repeater (S tier): best all-purpose primary, no skill ceiling on basics
• Lightning revolver (S tier secondary): applies electric for combo chains with fire spells
• Minigun (A tier): highest sustained DPS, dangerous reload window for new players
• Dynamite (B tier): AOE only, valuable in cluster moments, dead weight elsewhere
• Standard revolver (B tier): high burst with precise aim, punishing if you miss
• Tomahawk (C tier): short range, limited ammo, mostly skip for solo runs

Tier List by Use Case

The columns matter more than the tier letter. A C-tier weapon (tomahawk) for solo play might be A-tier in a four-player squad where you have a dedicated front-liner soaking damage while you flank. Read across the row for context.

S Tier — The Two Weapons That Carry Early Play

Winchester repeater

Reliable per-shot damage, forgiving aim, ammo economy that holds up in every current zone. The Winchester is the weapon you can pick up at hour one and still run at hour fifty without performance falling off. Patch notes haven't touched its base stats since launch — Evil Raptor seems to consider it the baseline, and they're right.

What makes it work: the aim window is wide enough that landing shots doesn't depend on reflex, and the firing cadence keeps you in DPS during enemy attack windups. Most other primaries either commit you to longer reload cycles or punish missed shots harder.

What it doesn't do: the Winchester won't carry you against Joker-buffed elite waves or boss enrage phases. It's the consistent baseline, not the burst tool.

Lightning revolver

The lightning revolver is the weapon that earns its slot through the elemental combo system specifically. Fire-electric-acid detonation requires applying all three elements in sequence. Fire from your spell. Electric from the lightning revolver. Acid from a third teammate (or solo, from a separate spell rotation).

The math: a two-player squad with one player on Winchester-plus-lightning-revolver and the other on a fire spell automatically generates electric application on every shot, which means the only missing element is acid. That's the cleanest combo loadout in the current build.

Solo, the lightning revolver still earns its slot — it's a reliable medium-range secondary independent of the combo system. But the case for it is dramatically stronger in co-op.

The Winchester does the unglamorous work. Reliable damage, forgiving aim, ammo that lasts the run. It's the answer for nearly every encounter that isn't specifically a boss damage check.

GODEEPER: Elemental combos, the Joker system, and the Gamba Machine basics covered for new players. Far Far West Beginner Guide →

A Tier — The Skill-Gated DPS

Minigun

Highest sustained DPS in the game. Also the weapon most likely to get you killed if you don't know boss phase timing.

The minigun's reload cycle is long enough that an enemy wave reset during your reload animation puts you in the open with no firing option. New players hit this on their first or second boss attempt, conclude the minigun is bad, and switch back to the Winchester. The minigun isn't bad — it requires you to know when boss phases reset so you can pre-empt the reload before exposure.

Around hour 15-20, when you've fought each boss enough times to know their windows, the minigun becomes the strongest wave-clear weapon and a top-tier boss-burn option during vulnerable phases. Before then, it's a tax on your runs.

B Tier — Situational Tools

Standard revolver

High per-shot damage with precise aim. The revolver works for players whose accuracy is reliable in PvE patterns. Miss a shot and you lose a meaningful chunk of your magazine; land your shots and the revolver outdamages most weapons in its weight class.

The Winchester's wider aim window makes it the safer S-tier choice. The revolver is the alternative for players who want reward for aim discipline — and to be clear, the reward is real, just not worth the inconsistency for most.

Dynamite

AOE wave clear in clustered moments. Dynamite has a throw arc and detonation delay that makes it useless against single targets, but in the moments when three or more skeletons or bandits have clumped, a single throw clears the lane.

The mistake is treating dynamite as a primary. It isn't. It's a slot you keep loaded for the moments the encounter creates a cluster, then ignore for the rest of the run.

Dynamite earns its slot in the moments three or more enemies cluster — which happens often enough during wave resets to keep one stick equipped, even if you only throw twice per mission.

GODEEPER: Why ARC Raiders' weapon meta uses similar trade-offs — sustained DPS versus reload exposure, situational AOE versus primary. The same logic carries between the two games. ARC Raiders Weapons Tier List →

C Tier — Skip for Solo Play

Tomahawk

Short range, limited ammo, exposes you to ARC and bandit attack patterns at distance. The tomahawk has one strength: close-range high damage when you can flank to the enemy. In four-player squads with a tank front-line, that flanking opportunity exists. Solo, you don't have anyone to draw aggression while you flank, which means most tomahawk attempts end with you taking damage at range trying to close the gap.

It's not unusable. It's just second or third choice in any role where it could fit.

Recommended Loadouts

Solo run loadout

Winchester repeater plus lightning revolver. Fire spell.

This combination handles every encounter type the game throws at solo players. Winchester for sustained damage and wave management. Lightning revolver as the medium-range secondary and combo enabler. Fire spell as your damage-over-time tool that also sets up the combo chain when you cycle to electric or acid.

The Winchester is your default. The lightning revolver is for medium-range when you want the electric tag. The fire spell is the consistency layer that pays off if your spell rotations land all three elements in sequence on a boss.

Two-player squad loadout

Player 1: Winchester plus lightning revolver, fire spell. Player 2: Winchester plus minigun, acid spell.

This loadout splits the elemental chain across the two players. Player 1 handles fire-electric. Player 2 handles acid. Detonations become consistent on bosses. Outside boss phases, both players have Winchester for wave management, and player 2's minigun covers the burst windows when boss vulnerability opens up.

Four-player squad loadout

Distribute weapons by role:

• Front-line: Winchester plus tomahawk, parry spell
• Flanker: Lightning revolver plus standard revolver, fire spell
• Damage: Minigun plus Winchester, electric spell
• Support: Dynamite plus revolver, acid spell

Each player covers one of the elemental triggers. The front-line tomahawk earns its slot because the front-liner is taking aggro, which means the tomahawk's flanking weakness disappears. The support player's dynamite covers the cluster moments while the rest of the squad focuses on positioning.

Tips

Buy variants from the Gamba Machine after every mission. Hotfix 3 added visible odds. Skip rotations with bad odds, pull on rotations with good ones. Variants change stat distribution — a Winchester variant trading reload for ammo capacity is meaningfully different from base stats.

Don't upgrade a weapon you haven't committed to running for ten hours. Weapon upgrades cost resources you could spend elsewhere. The cost-benefit only pays off if you're still running the weapon ten or fifteen hours later.

Lightning revolver pairs with fire, not the other way around. If your build is electric-focused, a lightning revolver is redundant. The synergy comes from fire applying first and electric tagging second — flip that and you're not chaining anything.

The minigun's reload window is your boss phase reset window. If you can predict when bosses reset (most have audio or visual tells), you can time the minigun's reload to match. Once you can do this, the minigun's DPS ceiling becomes accessible.

Dynamite throws need lead time for moving clusters. Clusters move. The detonation delay means you throw where they will be, not where they are. This is a 2-3 second prediction. Practice it on weak waves before relying on it for boss phases.

Common Mistakes

Running the minigun on first boss attempts. This is the most common new-player mistake. The reload cycle eats the timing you don't yet have. Switch to Winchester for the first few attempts. Come back to the minigun once you know the boss windows.

Treating dynamite as a primary. Dynamite slots into one moment per encounter on average. Building your run around it means you're under-equipped for the other 90% of the fight.

Skipping the Gamba Machine for weapons. Visible odds means it's not gambling — it's evaluation. Skipping it costs you variants that would meaningfully shift your build.

Using the tomahawk in solo runs without considering the flanking gap. The tomahawk wants you flanking. Solo, you don't have a front-liner pulling aggro, so the flank ends with you in the open at distance. Either bring a longer-range secondary or swap the tomahawk out entirely.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best weapon in Far Far West? The Winchester repeater for general PvE. Reliable damage, forgiving aim, ammo economy. The lightning revolver is the best secondary when paired with fire spells.

Should I use the minigun? Not in your first 15 hours. The reload window punishes you during boss phase resets. Once you know the reset timing, the minigun becomes top-tier.

What weapon goes with fire spells? Lightning revolver. It applies electric, the second element in the fire-electric-acid combo chain.

Is dynamite worth using? Yes, but only for AOE wave clear. Single-target use is inefficient.

What weapons should I avoid? None outright. The minigun, tomahawk, and standard revolver are situational. Use them in the situations they're designed for, not as primaries.

How does weapon upgrading work? Upgrade at the Town between missions. The Gamba Machine offers rare variants with visible odds since Hotfix 3.

References

• Far Far West on Steam — official store page, current patch notes, weapon balance changes
• Evil Raptor on Steam — developer page with patch announcements
• Far Far West Beginner Guide — elemental combos, Joker system, and the basics this guide assumes
• Far Far West Early Access Launch — launch context, Early Access roadmap, and what's coming
• ARC Raiders Weapons Tier List — comparable extraction game weapon meta for cross-genre context