Gatling Plasma vs Gauss Minigun in May 2026

In general, how do these heavy guns stack up against one another after all the adjustments and nerfs these past few months?

It was my understanding that up until the Backwoods update, the Gauss Minigun was the complete and utter uncontested king of heavy damage. However, the Gauss Minigun got heavily nerfed in the Backwoods update. In addition, it also caught strays through its penta barrel innate explosion interaction with the damage calculation bug fixes in the April update.

On the other hand, the newer Gatling Plasma mods such as the accelerated nozzle and stinging core receptacle had their plans added into the Enclave activity reward pool and drop semi-frequently. In addition, it is my understanding that the Gatling Plasma has stayed relatively unnerfed through these recent updates unlike the Gauss Minigun.

How do they stack up against one another now that the Gauss Minigun has been brought down a peg or two? In addition, what builds with respect to weapon mods and legendary effects are holding up good now on these two guns?

I have been running Furious, Vital, V.A.T.S Optimized, and Conductors on both, and in daily driving the Gatling Plasma has been feeling better than the Gauss Minigun so far. However, I have not had time to test both of them against each other killing EN-06.