Ouroboros

At a Glance

The Ouroboros is the SMG that turns kills into ammunition and ammunition into stacks. Its talent, Eternity, refreshes your magazine on every kill and adds a permanent (per-engagement) damage stack each time. After six kills the rifle is sitting at +30% weapon damage and you haven't reloaded once. For room-clearing SMG play in dense PvE encounters, very few weapons feel as relentless as a fully-stacked Ouroboros.

In TU22.1 it lives in the upper-mid tier of the SMG slot because the talent rewards a playstyle that the meta still encourages: chain kills aggressively, stay forward, and let the rifle reward you for kill velocity rather than reload management.

Last reviewed: 2026-04-25 · TU22.1 · Verified vs in-game

Stats

A 22k base with 800 RPM is a comfortable mid-tier SMG profile. The whole point of the Ouroboros is that you should rarely actually need to reload, so the standard reload time barely matters in practice.

Damage shape

At zero stacks the rifle is an average SMG. At full stacks (six kills) it's hitting +30% above baseline, which puts it in top-tier SMG territory. The trick is that the stack only resets if you reload manually or die. Killing keeps the loop going indefinitely.

Talent: Eternity

The mechanic is one of the cleanest in the SMG slot:

1. Killing an enemy refreshes your magazine to full without a reload.
2. Each refresh adds +5% weapon damage.
3. Stacks max at 6 (+30% weapon damage).
4. Manual reload resets all stacks.

The loop in practice: you fire into a target, kill it, your mag refills automatically, you fire into the next target with +5% damage active, kill that one, +10%, and so on. By the sixth kill, the rifle is doing 30% more damage per round and you haven't reloaded once across an entire room of enemies.

The defining moment of the talent is the first time a player realizes they shouldn't ever press R during a sustained fight. It changes how you think about magazine management.

Top Builds

Striker Aggression

• Brand: 4 Sokolov, 2 Petrov
• Chest: Obliterate or Vanguard
• Backpack: Spotter
• Mask: Striker
• Holster: Striker

The classic Striker SMG build. Striker rewards sustained hits and Ouroboros rewards sustained kills. Stack the two and you have a rifle that gets harder with every kill while your brand bonuses ride along.

Hunter's Fury Push

• Brand: 4 Hunter's Fury, 2 Empress
• Chest: Intimidate
• Backpack: Composure

The aggressive close-range build. Hunter's Fury fires on cover-to-cover pushes, Ouroboros stacks on each kill, and the combined pressure clears rooms faster than almost any other SMG setup.

Picaro's Endurance

• Brand: 4 Picaro's, 2 Hana-U
• Chest: Obliterate
• Backpack: Spotter

A reload-immunity build (Picaro's gives +3 weapon damage as long as you don't reload) stacked on top of Eternity (which avoids reloads naturally). The result is a build where the math is constantly compounding while you push.

PvE vs PvP

PvE

In PvE, the Ouroboros shines in any encounter with continuous kill flow. Countdown floors, Summit dense floors, and any heroic content where reds keep spawning are ideal. The talent loops cleanly when the kill rate is high.

In raids, the Ouroboros is less ideal because boss phases don't generate kills frequently enough to stack. Use it in clear phases and swap to a sustained DPS exotic for bosses.

PvP

In PvP, the Ouroboros is a punishing pick when you can chain kills, but the kill requirement makes it inconsistent against organized teams that hold back. Best used as an aggressive duelist's secondary in DZ.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Magazine refresh on kill effectively removes reload management
• +30% weapon damage at full stacks is one of the largest sustained buffs in the SMG slot
• Synergizes with reload-avoiding talents like Picaro's
• Aggressive playstyle is rewarded directly

Cons:

• Stacks reset on manual reload; punishing for habitual reloaders
• Talent value drops on isolated single-target encounters
• Lower per-round damage than top-tier non-talent SMGs
• Stack gain caps at 6, so the buff plateaus quickly

FAQ

Do stacks carry across encounters? Stacks persist as long as you keep killing within a reasonable window. They reset on manual reload or if you stop killing for too long.

Does the refresh fully refill the magazine? Yes. Every kill refreshes the magazine to full, regardless of how many rounds you'd already fired.

Does it work on Specialization weapon kills? The talent triggers on Ouroboros kills specifically. A Specialization kill doesn't refresh your SMG magazine.

Should I run it with Picaro's? Yes, the synergy is excellent because both reward not reloading. The combined damage profile produces some of the highest sustained SMG numbers possible.

Is it raid viable? Clear phases yes, boss phases no. Swap weapons between phases for best results.

What happens if I die? Stacks reset on death. The talent treats death like a hard reload.

Closing

The Ouroboros is the SMG for players who want to push, kill, and never stop firing. The talent rewards an aggressive, kill-velocity playstyle that maps perfectly onto room-clearing encounters in TU22.1's PvE landscape. If you find yourself constantly reloading mid-fight and frustrated by it, this is the rifle that fixes the problem by making reloads obsolete during the kill chain. Slot it, push forward, kill everything, and watch the stacks climb. By the sixth kill you'll wonder how you ever played an SMG that asked you to reload.