Wrangler: the employee the launch rankings got wrong

The best Wrangler build in 1.0

Four upgrades, and each one pays into the same pot:

The shape is a loop rather than a combo. Eyes Up Here is the engine, because it is the piece that turns a kill into a permanent buff; Dead or Alive is the accelerator, because a mark that jumps means the second kill arrives faster than the first; Blood, Sweat, Tears is the fuel line, paying health for lasso uptime that Eyes Up Here pays back; Tumbleweed is the maintenance, keeping the gun loaded while you move.

One caveat before you copy it: 1.0 gave Tumbleweed a new pattern, so a grid built during Early Access will not fit this stack any more. Re-fit first, then judge.

The kit: a lasso and a dash

Rocket Lasso pulls objects or launches you forward. In practice it does two jobs that pull in opposite directions: it isolates a weak enemy so you can kill it and take the health or ammo it drops, and it moves you — sometimes into the middle of the thing you were trying to shoot. Game Rant's launch ranking is blunt about that second half: the lasso can easily be used wrong, putting him in a dangerous position.

Air Dash is a midair dash. The same ranking calls it arguably the worst of the available mobility options, which is a fair reading of a single dash in a game where one employee can fly and turn in the air.

So the launch verdict was: a mobility kit that does not solve mobility, attached to a pull you can misjudge. That verdict was about the kit as it exists at level one.

The ranking flip, with dates attached

Two sources, opposite conclusions. Keeping the dates on them is the only way this stays useful:

Nothing in the first ranking is wrong. It describes a fresh employee. The second describes an employee with four specific upgrades online, several of which turn kills into permanent stacking damage. A day-one ranking cannot see that, because nobody had it on day one.

This is also why this site does not print a single tier number for employees anywhere. The number belongs to a patch and a playtime, not to the character.

Three movement layers, not one

The reason the "worst mobility" label did not survive is that the Wrangler's movement is not the dash. It is the dash plus two slide-based upgrades, and the community wiki's strategy write-up is the source that lays this out:

• Dust Kick (Rare) — jump out of a slide for a burst of upward speed.
• Tuck'n'Roll (Rare) — jump out of a slide for a burst of forward speed.
• Run together, the wiki describes them as a leap comparable to the Bruiser's Nose Dive in arc and distance, with a much shorter cooldown — and independent of either base ability, which is what gives the Wrangler three movement options at once.
• Dash Immunity (Epic) — brief immunity after using your Air Dash. The wiki calls this on-demand, unconditional invulnerability, and it is the piece that lets the Wrangler stand inside a shock field and keep firing.

That wiki page was last edited on 22 October 2026, two days after 1.0, so treat it as current community knowledge rather than as a measurement. The mechanic names, though, are repeated across the upgrade trees and match what the 1.0 notes touch.

What 1.0 changed

• Yank em! moved from Standard to Rare, with the minimum leap force raised from +20% to +26%.
• Tumbleweed, Landing Roll, Deadeye and Rocket Jump all changed patterns. A pattern change is not a nerf, but it does break a grid you built in Early Access — rebuild it before you conclude the Wrangler fell off.

Playing the lasso without feeding

The failure mode Game Rant describes is real and it is mechanical, not a skill issue: the lasso moves you toward whatever you pulled. Two habits reduce it, and both come from reading the kit rather than from testing:

1. Pull what you can kill this second. The reward the ranking names is a kill that drops health or ammo — a pull that does not end in a dead enemy is a pull that only spent a cooldown.
2. Keep Blood, Sweat, Tears as the escape, not the opener. Refunding the lasso at a health cost is what lets you pull, disengage and pull again; spending it on the way in leaves you with the dash.

That second habit is inference, clearly marked: no Threat 7 test has been run for this page, and the build's reputation rests on players who have run one.

When the Wrangler is the wrong pick

• You are still levelling. The stack is the employee. Before Eyes Up Here and Dead or Alive are online you are playing the kit the launch ranking reviewed.
• You want a support. The Wrangler brings nothing to anyone else's positioning. Scrapper's pole does; Glider's salvo is at least described as healing allies.
• You play at low threat with randoms. A pull that mispositions is survivable with a Bruiser holding the room and much less so without one.

Next in the roster

Glider for the early game, Bruiser for the doorway, Scrapper for team mobility, the Mycologist for the 1.0 unlock. All five are compared on the employee index, and the grids live in the build guide.