Explosive Chemical Rounds will trigger not on the third shot, but the last shot at a target with 3 or more locks. This means that a low health enemy with 3+ locks on it, but only 1 shot required to kill it, will explode on that one shot, while still using only 1 ammo. Conversely, an enemy with many more locks, and the health to survive those shots, will not explode until the last shot hits it, sometimes causing your explosions to trigger later than you expect. Overall, I think this makes ECR an even better OC.
I thought it was funny that you called gunner soldier. The community has debated that soldier and defender would of been good alternatives to for gunner.
Haz 5 & Haz 5+ enjoyer here. I never enjoyed the Warthog until Pump Action came out. Now, I can't get enough of it. I am addicted to plowing through hordes of Grunts and Praetorians with it like a hot knife through butter. It shreds hordes and single targets alike, and to me, it makes the Warthog feel like a true primary weapon. I run it with rate of fire, ammo, armor breaking, and mag size. Turret whip, of course, but it's also great with automatic fire. I like to combo it with RPG Hyper Propellant so I can snipe/delete distant or high priority targets. I doubt I could convince you to love it with a RUclips comment, but at least be convinced that I love it! It is a powerhouse OC, and I hate going without it.
I love feedback loop for the shard diffractor. Theres no cap for how big the AOE can get tgat im aware of, so if you take the upgrade that converts kills into ammo and shoot into a swarm your AOE will become a mini sun and do a ton of damage.
For the pump action OC, consider that you need neither choke nor the extra pellets in the modifications: it’s intended for close range and you already have a monstruous damage bonus. With that out of the way, consider that it is a weird sidegrade to cycle overload: it’s intended to drop the one thing in front of you, and drop it QUICK. Grunts get deleted, slashers and guards go rather quickly as well, anything with a large or otherwise important weakspot will almost always be killed as quickly as with MPA. If the comparison is made you’re realistically only losing out on the range bonus. Bodyshotting grunts with the armor modification is funnee. Oh and if you’re sweaty like that the pump animation can be cancelled, nullyfying the fire rate negative :)
I knew I was going to enjoy this when you put stunner in Strong. Possibly one of the most slept on OCs. I do have some things to say in response as well. Light Weight Magazines (0:07:15) I think this should be in clean. While yes, 18 ammo isn't massive, warthogs base reserve is only 90. Using the standard 1, 2, 3, 2, X build, warthog has 98 damage total. It's A ~12.25% increase in ammo, which isn't nothing. It can also be used to make a decent high ammo warthog build (unlike mini-shells) using 1, 1, 3, 2, X. Finally, the reload speed decrease is less useful with the animation cancel, it does still decrease the total time. Cycle Overload (0:11:17) For the sheer amount of DPS this OC can provide & the fact the Engie has access to shard defractor for longer range engagements, I feel like this should be in strong. Here are the numbers for it, MPA & Stunner assuming all shots for each are hitting a 1x weakpoint on a stunned target with 1, 2, 3, 2, 1. Cycle Overload: 450 DPS (90 dmg per shot; 5 rps) Magnetic Pellet Alignment: 239.2 DPS (104 dmg per shot, 2.3 rps) Stunner: 312 DPS (104 dmg per shot, 3 rps) It's not a contest, CO wins handily. If you need to dump damage into something, it's in a class of its own (without having to hit WP or a stunned target). Minishells (0:13:48) The issue with this OCs is that it doesn't give you a way of efficiently spending the extra ammo it gives. I think this OC could do with a significant RoF buff so that the DPS increases to roughly stock. It would also make the no stun penalty less punishing. Pump Action (0:16:18) I feel like it belongs in strong because it provides both good single target damage & decent grunt clear at the same time. Shooting a Praetorian with it, you will really notice the extra damage. Using armor break makes it really consistent at killing grunts with body shots, so you can make use of the blow through more effectively. It also becomes better at consistently killing ceiling enemies in medium or smaller rooms. That's the best way I can put it, as I find it hard to explain why I enjoy it so much & why it feels as effective as it does. Run it with a crowd clear secondary build (preferably Breach) at least initially & I think you'll come around to it. Light Weight Round (0:22:50) I feel like this belongs in Meh. The ammo is nice for a full damage build, meaning Stubby can become your primary swarm clear while having something like Hyper Prop as your secondary. I feel like the RoF penalty could be reduced to -1 &/or the damage penalty be removed & it would still only be strong. Hyper Alloy Assembly (0:25:55) One thing to take into consideration is that most people running the "raw bullet" Stubby build take both damage upgrades. So 30% of 15 (9 + 3 + 3) is an additional 4.5 damage per shot. That's pretty good. The other thing is that you can get used to the recoil, as it is only vertical (& has a limit). The mag size penalty is a bit rough. Turret EM Discharge (0:33:43) This OC used to have damage falloff, however in the maintenance update? where they removed friendly fire damage, they also made it deal full damage in the 5m radius (60 electric). This OC is arguably too strong. Explosive Chemical Rounds (0:41:37) Both of your assumptions are correct. Base LOK-1 is under tuned & this OC is definitely too strong. Seeker Rounds (0:45:22) The ability to ignore armor is nice since with the T1 damage upgrade, you deal 27 damage (1/4 of a grunts health), so you can reliably 4 shot them. LOK-1 has an inherent 150% armor break chance, and unlike any other weapon, intrinsically has the "if a bullet breaks armor, it deals full damage" that is normally only on AB modifications/OCs. This is not enough to reliably break grunts armor however. I feel like the RoF penalty could be reduced, but my main problem with this is that it suffers from the issues of base LOK-1. Neuro-Lasso (0:50:16) This OC is a bit of a meme & isn't all that useful. It can be helpful for newer players who have an issue with bugs getting up into their face while locking on, & with the T3 Smart OS (TM) you can slow down an incoming crowd a bit. However the most fun thing to do is to use it to lock a dread into spinning death & watch it melt. Spinning Death (1:17:34) If you are only considering vanilla difficulties (Haz 1 - 5+), I definitely think it's strong. It's better suited to defensive fighting (think point defenses in salvage or hacking pods in Industrial Sabo) rather than pushing like regular Breach. Without T1 A (increased beam lifetime) it's duration is 3.8s up from 1.5s, & with T1 A (which you should take) it's 7.5s up from 3s. Also, according to Karl.gg (which I trust more than the terminal & wiki), this OC increases the width by 3m. Some basic testing in Sandbox confirmed this as well. Inferno (1:20:13) This is even stronger than you think. The damage reduction is straight up bugged & doesn't apply, meaning this things does full damage & ignites anything it touches. The armor damage penalty does still apply as normal though. Efficiency Tweaks (1:22:33) I feel like you were a bit harsh on this OC. Between the +50 reserve ammo & the +25 charge capacity, you're getting +75 ammo. For those who don't know, you always start with a full mag, so something that increases/decreases mag size also increases/decreases total ammo. For reference, automated beam controller gives you 90 ammo (+100 ammo, -10 charge capacity) with the large downside of having to empty the mag every time. Additionally, it's 75% of the T1 ammo upgrade (+100 reserve ammo), which allows you to take the increased direct/area damage while still having a relatively large ammo pool. Plascrete Catalyst (1:28:44) The recharge delay increase isn't really a downside (unless you shoot a platform until it explodes, in which case it is). That's because if, while firing, you interrupt the firing by pickaxing, pulling out the pinger etc, it instantly start recharging.
Absolute unit of a reply, I'll try to respond to at least some of it satisfactorily. Regarding CO vs Stunner vs MPA - The reason I put Stunner over CO has less to do with the DPS, and more to do with the safety that stunning consistently provides you. The higher the haz, the tougher the bugs, the more fasterer the bugs, the more bugs there are, and having an option to just whip around and stun several bugs in rapid succession is more useful than killing them, because oftentimes those bugs are not just grunts, they're guards, or stingtails, or some other godless abomination. MPA beats out Stunner for me largely because I think being able to peel enemies off the ceiling is useful when using Breach Cutter or PGL, making me less reliant on taking Shard for long range. Pump Action is definitely one I need to revisit, based on the replies, which is good because I love the warthog. Hyper Alloy is another I'll be revisiting. I'll learn to enjoy the more "bullet" less "electric" build on Stubby with more practice. The difference in fun that I had between EM Refire and HA was significant, but I can see what people are saying about them being more even in power than I thought. I also might have been a bit conservative, since HA is so new. Turret EM Discharge was the only Stubby I enjoyed for a looooong time. I'm coming around to other builds now but TEMD remains fantastic. Possibly, yes, TOO good. I want Neuro Lasso to be good, someday. It's such a silly idea. Spinning Death is definitely a "I like it too much" sort of OC. Love that thing. I thought that the Inferno bug had been fixed. It's wild that it's still around. I don't think it would affect its placement too much even if it did apply, but maybe I should have put it into TOO Strong... Yeah I should have made that note about Plastcrete in the video, how the recharge delay isn't a big deal. That's another OC I've recently been having a blast with and I've started to notice the little quirks. Thanks for the gargantuan comment! - Zach
As a filthy Explosive chemical rounds user I'm smiling openly ( the first ever over clock I got so I was spoilt early). Lok-1 is one of my fav guns in a video game and I playing FPS since the DOS era Wolfenstein. I once got 2000 kills in one mission on haz 5... yes use the old man "back in my day" voice tooo lol Rock and Stone!!
You really speak my language in almost all overclocks, except two: 1) Pump action - I don't know man, I really hated the warthog until got this in season 5, but tried it out and its a fantastic feeling. I rarely empty the magazine even thought it was reduced, it feels like a boomstick with half the damage and triple mag, much better at midrange and less good against swarms. Even though the fire rate is reduced I can dish out big damage with it fast, and I dont need to compensate for the recoil and waste ammo with fast firing. Just aim-tap-death-aim-tap-death, simple yet elegant. But to be honest I ran the warthog with only cleans then mini shells (because someone told me it is awesome), then got tired of it, so maybe it really is inferior to the other two. 2) Volatile impact reactor: this is such a pain to use. You need to avoid targeting bugs since the lava is the main point, which is a huge down compared to sticky flames. But the effect is so short too. Looks great on paper, but every time I used it I was like "please give me any other engi secondary to fight with". Btw I hated Stubby until the micro-conductor changes in season 5 btw, but that OC felt so good to use that it seriously made me like engi again. I ran it with overdrive booster because that one really complements it by giving both a long range option and a burst fire option, really the only things you need with micro conductor stubby. Last note: you are creating really good content, you clearly know this game better and put more work in your videos than ReapeeRon and many others. I'll give your channel a shout when youtube comes up again in DRG reddit and discord.
450 hours of only playing Engineer. I agree with this tier list. My favorite build in the game is movement + minions Engi. RJ250, SSG, Beast master, Dash, Gemini turrets of course. Take any primary you want really, but ECR and Turret EM are my go-to. Such awesome mobility and damage. I recommend taking disabled inertia in haz 1-4 if you just want to bounce around and have fun, but I like the damage t5 for haz 5/5+ and being more careful with my jumps.
Small disagree with light weight mags for warthog. +18 ammo doesn't sound like a lot, but the meta warthog build is all in on damage, the one ammo up mod competes for pellets. But overall, 18 ammo with all dmg stats, comes out to about 1,000 extra damage banked, and +500 dmg every resup. Its a very very boring but hard working OC. I run it with 12321, pretty bog standard, but its not just 'stock', it might play that way but the extra ammo is fairly huge for this gun, it just makes the gun feel more breathable, and idk how to explain that at all lol. Agree with the rest. Hyperalloy has less dps but higher ammo efficeny then EM ref. EM ref doesn't NEED weakpoints to hit its high dps, so its both easier to use and more consistent vs weird bugs. At the end of the day they are basically the same in output, take whichever feels better, they should be on the same tier tho. While I agree that Discharge and Not-Turret Arc are powerful, they rely on secondaries tailored to single target dps, which imo is a worse direction for those guns generally, so they indirectly suffer for it. Along with their need to get set up, they definitely have problems compared to the raw power of ECR you talk about later. Agree with the rest. Seeker rounds are bad. However, just yesterday I did the edd with some friends and someone accidentally brought seeker rounds and they genuinely did have some moments where it was kinda a huge boon. Does that mean its good? No. But I think it shows that even stuff low on the tier list can absolutely have its moments :>. Agree with the rest. Clean sweep is bait. Grunts on h5 have 108 hp. Slashers have an effective hp of 124.6 vs explosives. Guards have . . way more than that. The gun already does 110 dmg. The only breakpoints this hits is slightly increasing the number of basic grunts killed in the damage fall off area (between 2m and 3m, the dmg fall off goes down to 50% so its gotta be like the first 0.2m you retain the breakpoints for basic grunts). And damage for this gun in general is bait!! Say it with me, do not take damage mods for RJ250!!! Take 11131 with rj250. You hit the grunt for 37 dmg, then light it on fire, then stun it for 3 seconds taking 45dmg over those 3s of stun, leaving it with 26 health and still on fire. Any bugs that walk through those bugs, will also light on fire because of the density of heat spreading. And don't get me wrong, the gun still sucks, but you get mobility and can still clear trash at least! SOBBING. EVEN Stronger Plasma Current even got put into 'clean' 😭free my baby Light Weight Mags warthog, why does it get treated like this 😭. My gut feeling is spinning death is a little too high, but I honestly a lot of these are just generically Ok? Like you mentioned the base gun is so strong the OC is just spice on top or playstyle choices. I think this is the one I most disagree with your placements, but also they are such minor changes up or down a few, but thats just getting into the weeds so w/e. Agree with shard. Its a good video! In the future i'd love to see some spotlights of your favorite OC's and have more time to talk about them? For example when you were talking about spinning death it felt very clinical, but it felt like you had a lot to say on it, but wanted to move on for the sake of brevity. Also, I've seen someone a long while back take Neuro Lasso + Spinning Death, and it was actually an insane combo and I'd love to see you play with that too sometime. 13322 for lasso and 11112 for spinning death was their quoted build (and yes they skip stun on spinning death to show off Lasso, and yes that is an insane choice but trust 🙏) Toss on some prox mines and be evil :>>
Thanks for the kind words. I decided to skip talking TOO much about my favorite options in this video, because I'd rather just make individual videos for my favorite builds. I'll be working on those later this week, in fact. I'll take some time to revisit a few of the builds and playstyle tweaks you mentioned too. - Zach
Those are fightin' words you're saying about clean sweep (and pgl in general). Clean sweep is strong if you deliberately avoid going for an incendiary build, which as we all know has the huge combat advantage of making plumes of ragdolls and blood splatters that make the gun infinitely more satisfying than that lame, dull, and bloodless disintegration effect. Huge gameplay functionality right there.
@@Ivaneus27 T5 should've been an X because really anything is good in that slot and depends on playstyle. You can still rocket jump with prox trigger if thats a worry, because of how the OC affects your grenades. Personally I rarely rocket jump with it either, its a nice second dash in a really bad pinch (but generally i'm in that pinch because I don't have one of the other two secondaries lol). But yes point is thats a good choice too!! Just depends on playstyle! I was mostly upset at the idea that Shadowfire had implied that you can 'undo' the downside with damage mods, and wanted to focus in on that and show it works just fine by leaning into fire and it as a weapon first, tool second. But theres definitely nothing wrong with the other way around!!
I just got hyperpropellant and tbh I feel disappointed seeing this video after having a lot of struggle with it after I picked it up, a lot of the videos singing its praises ignore the blatant weaknesses it has, or was talking exclusively about pre-heat nerf and I hadn't realized the Inferno overclock I got for my breach cutter that I was planning to use until I unlocked it was as much of an asset as it actually is. Perhaps I'll have fun with it soon, and I'll come to enjoy it, even if just with friends, but I think a good lesson I learned is the best overclocks are the ones found along the way to becoming a gray beard, not the ones that you overhype in your head until you actually get it, that'll just set yourself up for dissapointment.
Agreed on that last part. Fun is often more important than effectiveness. Plus, it can be a fun experience trying to work around the weaknesses of an OC or a weapon. My favorite Engineer OC is Fat Boy, after all! - Zach
LET'S GOOO SPINNING DEATH IN STRONG TIER, base Breach Cutter is a kinda boring crutch weapon to me I found new appreciation for Spinning Death that changes the way you play it from an instant delete tool to like a very fun area control blender, it's just fantastic for slowing and stunning swarms down and creating an ultimate defense. Also the PGL has only three Overclocks: RJ250 Compound, Clean Sweep, and Compact Rounds/Pack Rat as runner ups. Pretty solid tierlist!
With more than 2000 hours in DRG, of the Engineer's OCs I'm the most fond of spinning death. Rather than having a setup, I bring the enemies to it and it does the work. Perfect for an engineer who does not stop moving.
1:00:09 i did not know that the rocket jump effect worked on teammates, very interesting. I suddenly want to play around with the RJ250 again over the Beam Cutter or Shard Shooter.
Fat Boy is situationally useful on missions with autoscroller sections (i.e. Escort Mission, Deep Scan) given the limited area bugs can approach from, so being able to guarantee bugs will be clustered together for large AoE damage, and creating a damage AoE to whittle down anything it _doesn't_ kill, is quite useful for thinning out swarms before they reach the objective... plus, it pairs well with sticky mines to save in ammo in those cases as well, for even more automated crowd-clearing... Edit: Also of note: Return to Sender is pretty situationally strong as a weapon against Dreadnaughts. The double pass of the beam will clear off a lot of damage in quite a short span. Edit 2: *_Holy shit, that's a strong combo for Spinning Death-_* I hadn't thought of that... that makes sense to be really good...
Fat Boy will probably get its own video at some point because I love it so much. But it's also pretty good in solo/duo missions, because you have way more resupplies and can compensate for its ammo issues more easily. Before I fell in love with Spinning Death and Roll Control, I used Return to Sender a LOT, big fan. Now though, it's all Spinning, all Death, all the time - Zach
The problem with fatboy in solos/duos is the bug density isn't high enough to justify it over some other secondary with AoE that has more ammo/utility. It can be decent in a trio where you throw the 4th resup charge to your engie so that he can just spam fatboy at the bigger bug densities but doesn't have the ammo economy for full stacks.
@@Joeggurnaut546 In general missions, maybe not, but Escort Mission generally has exceptionally high bug density, as well as lots of potential ammo if you pick the cave clean, usually giving you easily four resupplies during the Heartstone cracking phase. Otherwise, the Drillervator section is usually short enough to cover with a full set of mini-nukes, and you can take Sticky Mines in addition, if nukes aren't quite enough...
For Volatile Impact Reactor, you didn't really touch on its biggest strengths as an OC. First, the Lava effect is extremely ammo efficient, as all "sticky" effects are. Second, the Lava is it's own stand alone effect; it's powerful as it is and can't be augmented by any of the guns mods. And Third, the negatives of the mod do not impact single target damage in any way. The result of these three factors in conjunction means you can build a VIR Shard Diffractor entirely with single target mods (31211) and have incredible swarm control via the lava, an extremely strong pinpoint accurate trijaw/spitter/menace/infector/etc deleter, the ammo efficiency to perform both roles without issue, and absolutely ZERO meaningful downsides. Its not quite as strong as ECR due to actually having to aim, and you do need some situational awareness and ideally a good repellent set up to get the most out of it, but I do think it should probably be at the bottom of too strong just due to the complete lack of downsides.
I would say that in Haz5+ Nuke can be good Not best in slot I think that goes to HyperProp but you can take out a horde and let your teammates save ammo but it is still very ammo inefficient at this and shard diffractor is much better at this
PGL in general struggles with ammo efficiency. I love it a lot, but it feels less consistent than the other secondaries. I think some general buffs to the base gun/its mod tiers would do a lot to elevate ALL of its overclocks. They bug fixed the armor break stuff, incendiary compound, and a few other things a little while ago, so maybe they'll finally get around to tweaking it soon. Hopefully. - Zach
@@shadowfirehq I agree completely, especially for nuke, I would not mind losing area damage and having a slower tick rate in exchange for responsable ammo to mine with nukes to get ceiling minerals :)
Magnetic pellet alignment feels like a forgiving pocket sniper. My shot isn't good enough to really make the m1000 sing; i have too many near misses. MPA however has that perfect "close is good enough/fatal" for my floppy aim.
I don't care what anyone says about fat boy. I always do hazard 5/5+ and I barely run into issues with it. As long as you bring a primary with plenty of ammo you should be fine. Also having a mic helps because you can announce to your team when you are firing and to get back. It would be nice though if they just gave you 1 extra shell for it. Return to Sender is a fun overclock and hard to time right. I wish they would upgrade the breach cutter's plasma explosion a little and I think it would make return to sender much better. Thanks for the vid!
Hi! Thanks for such a detailed tier list! However, I personally can’t get why you put cycle overload that low. It has enough stopping power to let you run any secondary you want from shard to fatboy while keeping the turret whip without feeling like ages pass between your shots (yeah, I’m looking at you, mpa) and not requiring turrets with stun unlike stunner. Of course it cant’t hit at range but it just doesn’t need to. Warthog is a shotgun. So mpa for me always feels like stretching an owl to fit a globe - we have lok1 with executioner, why bother with that half-shotgun half-sniper? So imo cycle overload should sit next to stunner and mpa which is severely overhyped - below them both.
I find that running the new Turret Arc (someday I'll remember its new name) on the Stubby makes the platform-centric build really feel complete. I don't even use Repellent on that build, I just go max ammo and spam it around willy-nilly. Every corn of the cave is coated in plastcrete, every inch of plastcrete is electrified, every electrified enemy is being hit with Catalyst. A thing of beauty. - Zach
Fat boy is an excellent novelty, but not great practicality. Which doesn't inherently make it bad. Id rather struggle with something i adore than breeze through things and hate myself. Plus you can take a reliable primary to lean on
Ok this is a controversial opinion but I think Pump Action on the warthog is fantastic with the right build and in the right hands. You did ask for builds on the stuff you rated a little lower so here goes. 13312 or even 13322 turns this weapon into an absolute monster and I’m surprised I haven’t seen any RUclipsrs advocating for it tbh. Elephant in the room - no turret whip. I know. It breaks my heart to give it up but let me remind you that you’re giving up turret whip anytime you take a primary that isn’t warthog. Max fire rate on pump action feels so good to use and allows you to deal so much damage so quickly. Other elephant in the room - Ammo. You have to give up more ammo in tier 2 (which only gives you 28 more rounds or 14 more per resupply use) in exchange for tighter spread. When you use this build you have 7 rounds in the mag and 60 in reserve at full which seems low. (Part of why I give up turret whip is that it consumes more warthog ammo). I pair this with breach cutter lightweight cases 21112. Between breach cutter and blowthrough, the worst thing a group of bugs can do is walk up to you. You can deal with swarms and HVTs very effectively with this setup. I also use Gemini with armor break on turrets and swarmer drones. This setup turns the warthog into a tool that is a little expensive to use but lets you kill what needs to die super fast. It doesn’t hit any crazy breakpoints but it’s just all around good. I play on haz 5+2 bugs and have soloed a 4 player korlok with this setup.
I had a feeling my Pump Action take would be a little controversial, but I'm definitely happy to be proven wrong on it, because Warthog is my baby and I want to love all its OCs. When I last used it I got the feeling that it might be better to skip Turret Whip, but that was so against my instincts that I didn't experiment, oops. I'll find some time this week to test out your recommendations! - Zach
@@shadowfirehq I don’t think you’re wrong about anything you said about it but it’s definitely one of those “in the right hands” builds. It feels like the shotgun from halo with this setup! So fun and satisfying to use. I started this season only using the new stubby oc because it’s so good but I tried this pump action build and it feels so good I haven’t looked back. Looking forward to your next tier list videos!
I like the pump action over magnetic pellet whatever as you can still 1 shot slashers and do good chunks of damage to praetorians at reasonable range, idk about the armor break it could be worth picking for a bit better grunt clear but that's not what I usually use it for so i keep the 1 extra dmg per pellet.
Everything is great in this vid except mini shells can be like training wheels when you cant oneshot grunts then mini shells drunt 2 shot is still effcent and also how is return to sender above light weight cases. Light weight cases is literally the best breach cutter oc because even a little more shots can do tonnes of damage.
You didn't look into smart trigger AT ALL it does not work as you described, it does not have the up and downsides you said it did either. It fires when you have full locks, reduces your maximum locks to 2 and reduces time to lock on by 95%. I don't know where you got your numbers, but this is a pretty big mistake in my opinion.
the problem with tier lists is that they follow absolute positions, instead of situational. drg is a game with many variables. one should question what the mission is oriented towards. is this a dreadnaught mission, caretaker mission, does this have elite enemies, mactera, swarmers, and such? one should also consider what the weapons main selections are, and what that weapon is paired with on the other end. you wouldn't take inferno on dread missions, you would take return to sender, because the fire means nothing here. and the damage from the basic overclocks are wasted. also, the breach cutter does not one hit everything. the 575 dps is mostly unused, because the beam doesn't pass through glyphids slow enough to make that stat count. if anything, it is closer to half of that amount. i was on yesterday and it took 3 breach cutter shots with HVC overclock to knock out a haz 3 praetorean, which is quite bad actually.
26:52 you are being generous imo, to me Hyperalloy is in Mid tbh, and Pump Action I´d probably put un strong but maybe with more play i´d leave it at mid
1:14:40 Return to sender is a Downgrade because as you said, you one shot everything you need, and if you really need to shoot something twice for like an Oppressor, Just Shoot It Twice, its just makes shooting Grunts a Waste because comparatebily you are using Twice The Ammo you´d use on them
take pump action on a 12321 warthog and a volatile impact reactor shard difactor with 32x1x with either shreders or proxi mines and you got yourself a build that i successfully take on haz5++ and enjoy
6:16, how is engineer the only class who dies in close quarters, he's debatably the best along with scout. If we're talking about primaries, which in this case you were talking about the Warthog, then both Gunner and Driller have it far worse, gunner having 2 primaries with windup and both the thunderhead and hurricane can do self damage and driller is focused around dot, so his only option is the cryo cannon which wouldn't even freeze most targets quick enough. Also, if the Warthog isn't good close up then how are you suppose to use it lmao, it's a shotgun
Lol gunners primaries dont work like that. The only way to damage yourself with thunderhead is to take mortar shells; and hurricane cant hit you with aoe at all. It can still hit with direct damage but only if you launch rockets up and aim at your feet. Also taking into account unhealthy stun and fear he has on most weapons and obviously his shield gunner should always be the last one to pass away from close quarters as well as scout. I agree that driller has it worse but no one is stopping you from equipping fear on flamethrower especially if it is built for direct damage (for e g recently added scorching tide). Or launching a snowball at your feet to instantly freeze every living thing around. And if the situation is truly desperate he can always pull out his drills that inflict stun and fear with crazy chances.
Should also be noted here that Driller can put stun or fear on his C4, and the AOE on it is HUGE. He has grenades that are great in close range fights that also vamp HP, and all of his primaries are extremely powerful in close to mid range. Gunner has 50% explosive resistance, his shield, and can use ziplines to avoid ground enemies too. In terms of dwarves in melee, I think Scout (who runs away), Driller (who kills stuff real good up close), and Gunner (shield, zip, also kills stuff good up close) would be a rough order of safety. Engineer movement abilities can be helpful in certain situations (jumping off a cliff and landing on a plat, hopping between multiple plats, or using plats to seal off approaches from incoming bugs) but if the bugs DO get to him, Breach Cutter is the only consistent, large AOE answer that he has. Shard is a bit slow to kill a large number of close bugs, PGL does self damage, Warthog and Stubby are usually slow to kill, and L0k-1 requires OCs to help at all. Base L0K-1 trying to lock onto enemies to deal mediocre damage while the bugs tear your legs off is a sad feeling. That's a big reason why Turret EM Discharge, Turret Whip, Breach in general, and Stunner are all rated highly by me. Soooo much safety. RJ250 gets a mention too, since you can use it to boost away from enemies if you're in a tough spot. - Zach
"Fat boy bad" is such a noob take tbh. Skilled players can both destroy hordes and not kill their teammates at the same time. Sure, you need to be a bit greedy but you will get more kills than anyone else anyway. I know that it doesn't work good on some missions but there are really not much 100% situations oc's.
TBH you can build RJ250 to deal similar AOE and, well then it does the Fat Boy cleaning job more efficient in most cases I like Fat Boy but it is kinda big tradeoff, cus you need to change your main weapon build to compensate for it
A lot of it has to do with personal preference and comfort on each class, of course, but I'd say that Scout and Driller are my preferences. Driller has a lot of built-in safety with solid waveclear and crowd control, but Scout can just ignore most enemies or even get them to fight each other while you focus entirely on objectives. Engineer is a bit trickier to play at higher difficulties, generally speaking, but with good movement and positioning his overall DPS IS crazy, and even though Gunner (soldier lel) is slow-ish compared to the others, his shield is about as safe as you can get. TL;DR version - Scout, if you forced me to pick one. Mobility = defense and offense in one. - Zach
Engineer is best solo class, best builds for destroying a swarm whilst moving quickly, and its so easy to kill things with it, scout had crap crowd control and single dps, gunner too slow and mediocre crowd control, and driller just isnt as good
Im planning on listening to the whole video, but i have to apologize for watching at x1.5 playback speed, thus reducing your watch retention time from my view by 25%... but you just talk too slow for how long the video is.
Chapter timestamps, comrades, free of charge.
Prologue- 0:00:10
Chapter 1 (Warthog)- 0:04:10
Chapter 2 (Stubby)- 0:20:11
Chapter 3 (L0k-1)- 0:39:12
Chapter 4 (PGL)- 0:55:45
Chapter 5 (Breach Cutter)- 1:10:33
Chapter 6 (Shard Diffractor and Final Thoughts)- 1:21:56
Explosive Chemical Rounds will trigger not on the third shot, but the last shot at a target with 3 or more locks. This means that a low health enemy with 3+ locks on it, but only 1 shot required to kill it, will explode on that one shot, while still using only 1 ammo.
Conversely, an enemy with many more locks, and the health to survive those shots, will not explode until the last shot hits it, sometimes causing your explosions to trigger later than you expect.
Overall, I think this makes ECR an even better OC.
I thought it was funny that you called gunner soldier. The community has debated that soldier and defender would of been good alternatives to for gunner.
j think bodyguard would've been better.
Combat Medic
Haz 5 & Haz 5+ enjoyer here. I never enjoyed the Warthog until Pump Action came out. Now, I can't get enough of it. I am addicted to plowing through hordes of Grunts and Praetorians with it like a hot knife through butter. It shreds hordes and single targets alike, and to me, it makes the Warthog feel like a true primary weapon. I run it with rate of fire, ammo, armor breaking, and mag size. Turret whip, of course, but it's also great with automatic fire.
I like to combo it with RPG Hyper Propellant so I can snipe/delete distant or high priority targets.
I doubt I could convince you to love it with a RUclips comment, but at least be convinced that I love it! It is a powerhouse OC, and I hate going without it.
Well you've convinced me to try it again a few times, for sure. I'll tweak the build and give it a go! - Zach
@@shadowfirehq Hell yeah, brother. Rock and Stone!
Just saw this comment after leaving mine lol pump action gang rise up!
@@andrew2976 WE RISE!
I've seen this echoed. Pump action clearly has a fan base. Many of which say it's the only way they like the shotgun.
I love feedback loop for the shard diffractor. Theres no cap for how big the AOE can get tgat im aware of, so if you take the upgrade that converts kills into ammo and shoot into a swarm your AOE will become a mini sun and do a ton of damage.
in general play, hyperprop is outperformed by breach and shard, but in one niche it beats all with no competition. elimination with a cryo driller
Oh yeah its much worse then the others. Bit its also really fucking fun
It's also really good on Sabo. One shotting bots is nice.
@@ThaBeatConductor rips the eye outta the caretaker aswell
@@ThaBeatConductor i disagree because there is no reason to play sabotage when you're not being forced to by the game
@@annihilator_ron7691 ............ that doesn't change whether hyperprop is good on sabo or not, because it is good on sabo.
For the pump action OC, consider that you need neither choke nor the extra pellets in the modifications: it’s intended for close range and you already have a monstruous damage bonus. With that out of the way, consider that it is a weird sidegrade to cycle overload: it’s intended to drop the one thing in front of you, and drop it QUICK. Grunts get deleted, slashers and guards go rather quickly as well, anything with a large or otherwise important weakspot will almost always be killed as quickly as with MPA. If the comparison is made you’re realistically only losing out on the range bonus. Bodyshotting grunts with the armor modification is funnee.
Oh and if you’re sweaty like that the pump animation can be cancelled, nullyfying the fire rate negative :)
I knew I was going to enjoy this when you put stunner in Strong. Possibly one of the most slept on OCs.
I do have some things to say in response as well.
Light Weight Magazines (0:07:15)
I think this should be in clean. While yes, 18 ammo isn't massive, warthogs base reserve is only 90. Using the standard 1, 2, 3, 2, X build, warthog has 98 damage total. It's A ~12.25% increase in ammo, which isn't nothing. It can also be used to make a decent high ammo warthog build (unlike mini-shells) using 1, 1, 3, 2, X. Finally, the reload speed decrease is less useful with the animation cancel, it does still decrease the total time.
Cycle Overload (0:11:17)
For the sheer amount of DPS this OC can provide & the fact the Engie has access to shard defractor for longer range engagements, I feel like this should be in strong. Here are the numbers for it, MPA & Stunner assuming all shots for each are hitting a 1x weakpoint on a stunned target with 1, 2, 3, 2, 1.
Cycle Overload: 450 DPS (90 dmg per shot; 5 rps)
Magnetic Pellet Alignment: 239.2 DPS (104 dmg per shot, 2.3 rps)
Stunner: 312 DPS (104 dmg per shot, 3 rps)
It's not a contest, CO wins handily. If you need to dump damage into something, it's in a class of its own (without having to hit WP or a stunned target).
Minishells (0:13:48)
The issue with this OCs is that it doesn't give you a way of efficiently spending the extra ammo it gives. I think this OC could do with a significant RoF buff so that the DPS increases to roughly stock. It would also make the no stun penalty less punishing.
Pump Action (0:16:18)
I feel like it belongs in strong because it provides both good single target damage & decent grunt clear at the same time. Shooting a Praetorian with it, you will really notice the extra damage. Using armor break makes it really consistent at killing grunts with body shots, so you can make use of the blow through more effectively. It also becomes better at consistently killing ceiling enemies in medium or smaller rooms.
That's the best way I can put it, as I find it hard to explain why I enjoy it so much & why it feels as effective as it does. Run it with a crowd clear secondary build (preferably Breach) at least initially & I think you'll come around to it.
Light Weight Round (0:22:50)
I feel like this belongs in Meh. The ammo is nice for a full damage build, meaning Stubby can become your primary swarm clear while having something like Hyper Prop as your secondary. I feel like the RoF penalty could be reduced to -1 &/or the damage penalty be removed & it would still only be strong.
Hyper Alloy Assembly (0:25:55)
One thing to take into consideration is that most people running the "raw bullet" Stubby build take both damage upgrades. So 30% of 15 (9 + 3 + 3) is an additional 4.5 damage per shot. That's pretty good. The other thing is that you can get used to the recoil, as it is only vertical (& has a limit). The mag size penalty is a bit rough.
Turret EM Discharge (0:33:43)
This OC used to have damage falloff, however in the maintenance update? where they removed friendly fire damage, they also made it deal full damage in the 5m radius (60 electric). This OC is arguably too strong.
Explosive Chemical Rounds (0:41:37)
Both of your assumptions are correct. Base LOK-1 is under tuned & this OC is definitely too strong.
Seeker Rounds (0:45:22)
The ability to ignore armor is nice since with the T1 damage upgrade, you deal 27 damage (1/4 of a grunts health), so you can reliably 4 shot them. LOK-1 has an inherent 150% armor break chance, and unlike any other weapon, intrinsically has the "if a bullet breaks armor, it deals full damage" that is normally only on AB modifications/OCs. This is not enough to reliably break grunts armor however.
I feel like the RoF penalty could be reduced, but my main problem with this is that it suffers from the issues of base LOK-1.
Neuro-Lasso (0:50:16)
This OC is a bit of a meme & isn't all that useful. It can be helpful for newer players who have an issue with bugs getting up into their face while locking on, & with the T3 Smart OS (TM) you can slow down an incoming crowd a bit. However the most fun thing to do is to use it to lock a dread into spinning death & watch it melt.
Spinning Death (1:17:34)
If you are only considering vanilla difficulties (Haz 1 - 5+), I definitely think it's strong. It's better suited to defensive fighting (think point defenses in salvage or hacking pods in Industrial Sabo) rather than pushing like regular Breach. Without T1 A (increased beam lifetime) it's duration is 3.8s up from 1.5s, & with T1 A (which you should take) it's 7.5s up from 3s.
Also, according to Karl.gg (which I trust more than the terminal & wiki), this OC increases the width by 3m. Some basic testing in Sandbox confirmed this as well.
Inferno (1:20:13)
This is even stronger than you think. The damage reduction is straight up bugged & doesn't apply, meaning this things does full damage & ignites anything it touches. The armor damage penalty does still apply as normal though.
Efficiency Tweaks (1:22:33)
I feel like you were a bit harsh on this OC. Between the +50 reserve ammo & the +25 charge capacity, you're getting +75 ammo. For those who don't know, you always start with a full mag, so something that increases/decreases mag size also increases/decreases total ammo.
For reference, automated beam controller gives you 90 ammo (+100 ammo, -10 charge capacity) with the large downside of having to empty the mag every time. Additionally, it's 75% of the T1 ammo upgrade (+100 reserve ammo), which allows you to take the increased direct/area damage while still having a relatively large ammo pool.
Plascrete Catalyst (1:28:44)
The recharge delay increase isn't really a downside (unless you shoot a platform until it explodes, in which case it is). That's because if, while firing, you interrupt the firing by pickaxing, pulling out the pinger etc, it instantly start recharging.
Absolute unit of a reply, I'll try to respond to at least some of it satisfactorily.
Regarding CO vs Stunner vs MPA - The reason I put Stunner over CO has less to do with the DPS, and more to do with the safety that stunning consistently provides you. The higher the haz, the tougher the bugs, the more fasterer the bugs, the more bugs there are, and having an option to just whip around and stun several bugs in rapid succession is more useful than killing them, because oftentimes those bugs are not just grunts, they're guards, or stingtails, or some other godless abomination. MPA beats out Stunner for me largely because I think being able to peel enemies off the ceiling is useful when using Breach Cutter or PGL, making me less reliant on taking Shard for long range.
Pump Action is definitely one I need to revisit, based on the replies, which is good because I love the warthog.
Hyper Alloy is another I'll be revisiting. I'll learn to enjoy the more "bullet" less "electric" build on Stubby with more practice. The difference in fun that I had between EM Refire and HA was significant, but I can see what people are saying about them being more even in power than I thought. I also might have been a bit conservative, since HA is so new.
Turret EM Discharge was the only Stubby I enjoyed for a looooong time. I'm coming around to other builds now but TEMD remains fantastic. Possibly, yes, TOO good.
I want Neuro Lasso to be good, someday. It's such a silly idea.
Spinning Death is definitely a "I like it too much" sort of OC. Love that thing.
I thought that the Inferno bug had been fixed. It's wild that it's still around. I don't think it would affect its placement too much even if it did apply, but maybe I should have put it into TOO Strong...
Yeah I should have made that note about Plastcrete in the video, how the recharge delay isn't a big deal. That's another OC I've recently been having a blast with and I've started to notice the little quirks.
Thanks for the gargantuan comment! - Zach
armor break is garbage on pellet weapons
micro conductor add on is the second best overclock in the game and you cannot convince me otherwise
As a filthy Explosive chemical rounds user I'm smiling openly ( the first ever over clock I got so I was spoilt early). Lok-1 is one of my fav guns in a video game and I playing FPS since the DOS era Wolfenstein. I once got 2000 kills in one mission on haz 5... yes use the old man "back in my day" voice tooo lol Rock and Stone!!
You really speak my language in almost all overclocks, except two: 1) Pump action - I don't know man, I really hated the warthog until got this in season 5, but tried it out and its a fantastic feeling. I rarely empty the magazine even thought it was reduced, it feels like a boomstick with half the damage and triple mag, much better at midrange and less good against swarms. Even though the fire rate is reduced I can dish out big damage with it fast, and I dont need to compensate for the recoil and waste ammo with fast firing. Just aim-tap-death-aim-tap-death, simple yet elegant. But to be honest I ran the warthog with only cleans then mini shells (because someone told me it is awesome), then got tired of it, so maybe it really is inferior to the other two. 2) Volatile impact reactor: this is such a pain to use. You need to avoid targeting bugs since the lava is the main point, which is a huge down compared to sticky flames. But the effect is so short too. Looks great on paper, but every time I used it I was like "please give me any other engi secondary to fight with".
Btw I hated Stubby until the micro-conductor changes in season 5 btw, but that OC felt so good to use that it seriously made me like engi again. I ran it with overdrive booster because that one really complements it by giving both a long range option and a burst fire option, really the only things you need with micro conductor stubby.
Last note: you are creating really good content, you clearly know this game better and put more work in your videos than ReapeeRon and many others. I'll give your channel a shout when youtube comes up again in DRG reddit and discord.
Heck yes, been looking forward to this for at least a week or two!
450 hours of only playing Engineer. I agree with this tier list.
My favorite build in the game is movement + minions Engi. RJ250, SSG, Beast master, Dash, Gemini turrets of course. Take any primary you want really, but ECR and Turret EM are my go-to. Such awesome mobility and damage. I recommend taking disabled inertia in haz 1-4 if you just want to bounce around and have fun, but I like the damage t5 for haz 5/5+ and being more careful with my jumps.
Small disagree with light weight mags for warthog. +18 ammo doesn't sound like a lot, but the meta warthog build is all in on damage, the one ammo up mod competes for pellets. But overall, 18 ammo with all dmg stats, comes out to about 1,000 extra damage banked, and +500 dmg every resup. Its a very very boring but hard working OC. I run it with 12321, pretty bog standard, but its not just 'stock', it might play that way but the extra ammo is fairly huge for this gun, it just makes the gun feel more breathable, and idk how to explain that at all lol. Agree with the rest.
Hyperalloy has less dps but higher ammo efficeny then EM ref. EM ref doesn't NEED weakpoints to hit its high dps, so its both easier to use and more consistent vs weird bugs. At the end of the day they are basically the same in output, take whichever feels better, they should be on the same tier tho. While I agree that Discharge and Not-Turret Arc are powerful, they rely on secondaries tailored to single target dps, which imo is a worse direction for those guns generally, so they indirectly suffer for it. Along with their need to get set up, they definitely have problems compared to the raw power of ECR you talk about later. Agree with the rest.
Seeker rounds are bad. However, just yesterday I did the edd with some friends and someone accidentally brought seeker rounds and they genuinely did have some moments where it was kinda a huge boon. Does that mean its good? No. But I think it shows that even stuff low on the tier list can absolutely have its moments :>. Agree with the rest.
Clean sweep is bait. Grunts on h5 have 108 hp. Slashers have an effective hp of 124.6 vs explosives. Guards have . . way more than that. The gun already does 110 dmg. The only breakpoints this hits is slightly increasing the number of basic grunts killed in the damage fall off area (between 2m and 3m, the dmg fall off goes down to 50% so its gotta be like the first 0.2m you retain the breakpoints for basic grunts). And damage for this gun in general is bait!! Say it with me, do not take damage mods for RJ250!!! Take 11131 with rj250. You hit the grunt for 37 dmg, then light it on fire, then stun it for 3 seconds taking 45dmg over those 3s of stun, leaving it with 26 health and still on fire. Any bugs that walk through those bugs, will also light on fire because of the density of heat spreading. And don't get me wrong, the gun still sucks, but you get mobility and can still clear trash at least!
SOBBING. EVEN Stronger Plasma Current even got put into 'clean' 😭free my baby Light Weight Mags warthog, why does it get treated like this 😭. My gut feeling is spinning death is a little too high, but I honestly a lot of these are just generically Ok? Like you mentioned the base gun is so strong the OC is just spice on top or playstyle choices. I think this is the one I most disagree with your placements, but also they are such minor changes up or down a few, but thats just getting into the weeds so w/e.
Agree with shard.
Its a good video! In the future i'd love to see some spotlights of your favorite OC's and have more time to talk about them? For example when you were talking about spinning death it felt very clinical, but it felt like you had a lot to say on it, but wanted to move on for the sake of brevity. Also, I've seen someone a long while back take Neuro Lasso + Spinning Death, and it was actually an insane combo and I'd love to see you play with that too sometime. 13322 for lasso and 11112 for spinning death was their quoted build (and yes they skip stun on spinning death to show off Lasso, and yes that is an insane choice but trust 🙏) Toss on some prox mines and be evil :>>
Thanks for the kind words. I decided to skip talking TOO much about my favorite options in this video, because I'd rather just make individual videos for my favorite builds. I'll be working on those later this week, in fact. I'll take some time to revisit a few of the builds and playstyle tweaks you mentioned too. - Zach
Plascrete Catalyst makes conductive rounds way better. You get single target and multi target all in one package
Those are fightin' words you're saying about clean sweep (and pgl in general). Clean sweep is strong if you deliberately avoid going for an incendiary build, which as we all know has the huge combat advantage of making plumes of ragdolls and blood splatters that make the gun infinitely more satisfying than that lame, dull, and bloodless disintegration effect. Huge gameplay functionality right there.
Why are you using proximity trigger with the rocket jump mod?
Disabled Inertia Inhibitor is the obvious choice with RJ250.
@@Ivaneus27 T5 should've been an X because really anything is good in that slot and depends on playstyle. You can still rocket jump with prox trigger if thats a worry, because of how the OC affects your grenades. Personally I rarely rocket jump with it either, its a nice second dash in a really bad pinch (but generally i'm in that pinch because I don't have one of the other two secondaries lol). But yes point is thats a good choice too!! Just depends on playstyle!
I was mostly upset at the idea that Shadowfire had implied that you can 'undo' the downside with damage mods, and wanted to focus in on that and show it works just fine by leaning into fire and it as a weapon first, tool second. But theres definitely nothing wrong with the other way around!!
I just got hyperpropellant and tbh I feel disappointed seeing this video after having a lot of struggle with it after I picked it up, a lot of the videos singing its praises ignore the blatant weaknesses it has, or was talking exclusively about pre-heat nerf and I hadn't realized the Inferno overclock I got for my breach cutter that I was planning to use until I unlocked it was as much of an asset as it actually is.
Perhaps I'll have fun with it soon, and I'll come to enjoy it, even if just with friends, but I think a good lesson I learned is the best overclocks are the ones found along the way to becoming a gray beard, not the ones that you overhype in your head until you actually get it, that'll just set yourself up for dissapointment.
Agreed on that last part. Fun is often more important than effectiveness. Plus, it can be a fun experience trying to work around the weaknesses of an OC or a weapon. My favorite Engineer OC is Fat Boy, after all! - Zach
Whoot! Looking forward to the Gunner video.
18:25 did you call Gunner a soldier? I guess that's not too far off lol
great video, helpful for me as I'm still somewhat new to the game, ty
Huh yeah, guess I did. My TF2-pilled brain is showing, oops - Zach
LET'S GOOO SPINNING DEATH IN STRONG TIER, base Breach Cutter is a kinda boring crutch weapon to me I found new appreciation for Spinning Death that changes the way you play it from an instant delete tool to like a very fun area control blender, it's just fantastic for slowing and stunning swarms down and creating an ultimate defense.
Also the PGL has only three Overclocks: RJ250 Compound, Clean Sweep, and Compact Rounds/Pack Rat as runner ups. Pretty solid tierlist!
With more than 2000 hours in DRG, of the Engineer's OCs I'm the most fond of spinning death. Rather than having a setup, I bring the enemies to it and it does the work. Perfect for an engineer who does not stop moving.
As an engineer main myself I agree with this tierlist as a whole. Rock and Stone Brother!
Thank you for the DEEP DIVE Video 🎉
I watch IT Yesterday in the Kotchen when i cook.
Very imteresting and good Examples in the Video 😊👍🏻
1:00:09 i did not know that the rocket jump effect worked on teammates, very interesting. I suddenly want to play around with the RJ250 again over the Beam Cutter or Shard Shooter.
it's very funny to troll your friends on low-grav missions with this thing, especially on missions types like egg hunt where the cave rooms are huge.
this guy is fucking hilarious
Fat Boy is situationally useful on missions with autoscroller sections (i.e. Escort Mission, Deep Scan) given the limited area bugs can approach from, so being able to guarantee bugs will be clustered together for large AoE damage, and creating a damage AoE to whittle down anything it _doesn't_ kill, is quite useful for thinning out swarms before they reach the objective... plus, it pairs well with sticky mines to save in ammo in those cases as well, for even more automated crowd-clearing...
Edit: Also of note: Return to Sender is pretty situationally strong as a weapon against Dreadnaughts. The double pass of the beam will clear off a lot of damage in quite a short span.
Edit 2: *_Holy shit, that's a strong combo for Spinning Death-_* I hadn't thought of that... that makes sense to be really good...
Fat Boy will probably get its own video at some point because I love it so much. But it's also pretty good in solo/duo missions, because you have way more resupplies and can compensate for its ammo issues more easily.
Before I fell in love with Spinning Death and Roll Control, I used Return to Sender a LOT, big fan. Now though, it's all Spinning, all Death, all the time - Zach
The problem with fatboy in solos/duos is the bug density isn't high enough to justify it over some other secondary with AoE that has more ammo/utility. It can be decent in a trio where you throw the 4th resup charge to your engie so that he can just spam fatboy at the bigger bug densities but doesn't have the ammo economy for full stacks.
@@Joeggurnaut546 In general missions, maybe not, but Escort Mission generally has exceptionally high bug density, as well as lots of potential ammo if you pick the cave clean, usually giving you easily four resupplies during the Heartstone cracking phase. Otherwise, the Drillervator section is usually short enough to cover with a full set of mini-nukes, and you can take Sticky Mines in addition, if nukes aren't quite enough...
For Volatile Impact Reactor, you didn't really touch on its biggest strengths as an OC. First, the Lava effect is extremely ammo efficient, as all "sticky" effects are. Second, the Lava is it's own stand alone effect; it's powerful as it is and can't be augmented by any of the guns mods. And Third, the negatives of the mod do not impact single target damage in any way.
The result of these three factors in conjunction means you can build a VIR Shard Diffractor entirely with single target mods (31211) and have incredible swarm control via the lava, an extremely strong pinpoint accurate trijaw/spitter/menace/infector/etc deleter, the ammo efficiency to perform both roles without issue, and absolutely ZERO meaningful downsides.
Its not quite as strong as ECR due to actually having to aim, and you do need some situational awareness and ideally a good repellent set up to get the most out of it, but I do think it should probably be at the bottom of too strong just due to the complete lack of downsides.
You can shoot both your turrets at the same time with Pump Action, thats enough reason to use it (imo)
I would say that in Haz5+ Nuke can be good
Not best in slot I think that goes to HyperProp but you can take out a horde and let your teammates save ammo but it is still very ammo inefficient at this and shard diffractor is much better at this
PGL in general struggles with ammo efficiency. I love it a lot, but it feels less consistent than the other secondaries. I think some general buffs to the base gun/its mod tiers would do a lot to elevate ALL of its overclocks. They bug fixed the armor break stuff, incendiary compound, and a few other things a little while ago, so maybe they'll finally get around to tweaking it soon. Hopefully. - Zach
@@shadowfirehq I agree completely, especially for nuke, I would not mind losing area damage and having a slower tick rate in exchange for responsable ammo to mine with nukes to get ceiling minerals :)
Microconductor + plascrete is the best overall engie build, period. It does nothing poorly except for needing setup
I personally use executioner and plasticrete catalyst
Works fine for me
@@someguy9520i use the same weapons lol, but i run executioner and overdrive booster when i find a breeder or bulk or something else healthy
Micro-Conductor Add-On is too addictive, I can't use anything else anymore...
I used the Explosive Chemical Rounds OC for the longest on the Lok1. I'm actually enjoying the Smart Trigger OC. My build is 2, 3, 3, 2, 2
Magnetic pellet alignment feels like a forgiving pocket sniper. My shot isn't good enough to really make the m1000 sing; i have too many near misses. MPA however has that perfect "close is good enough/fatal" for my floppy aim.
I don't care what anyone says about fat boy. I always do hazard 5/5+ and I barely run into issues with it. As long as you bring a primary with plenty of ammo you should be fine. Also having a mic helps because you can announce to your team when you are firing and to get back. It would be nice though if they just gave you 1 extra shell for it. Return to Sender is a fun overclock and hard to time right. I wish they would upgrade the breach cutter's plasma explosion a little and I think it would make return to sender much better. Thanks for the vid!
Hi! Thanks for such a detailed tier list! However, I personally can’t get why you put cycle overload that low.
It has enough stopping power to let you run any secondary you want from shard to fatboy while keeping the turret whip without feeling like ages pass between your shots (yeah, I’m looking at you, mpa) and not requiring turrets with stun unlike stunner.
Of course it cant’t hit at range but it just doesn’t need to. Warthog is a shotgun.
So mpa for me always feels like stretching an owl to fit a globe - we have lok1 with executioner, why bother with that half-shotgun half-sniper?
So imo cycle overload should sit next to stunner and mpa which is severely overhyped - below them both.
32:50 i end up running around with the platform gun as if it's a primary. Pairing this with the plastecrete catalyst is funny.
I find that running the new Turret Arc (someday I'll remember its new name) on the Stubby makes the platform-centric build really feel complete. I don't even use Repellent on that build, I just go max ammo and spam it around willy-nilly. Every corn of the cave is coated in plastcrete, every inch of plastcrete is electrified, every electrified enemy is being hit with Catalyst. A thing of beauty. - Zach
Thank God someone who actually knows that mini shells and fat boy are shit overclocks.
Fat boy is an excellent novelty, but not great practicality. Which doesn't inherently make it bad.
Id rather struggle with something i adore than breeze through things and hate myself.
Plus you can take a reliable primary to lean on
Pro: Pump action shotguns are cool. Thats all i need on an OC for me
For pump action i go ammo and damage for generalist build and more pellets and armor break for single target
Ok this is a controversial opinion but I think Pump Action on the warthog is fantastic with the right build and in the right hands. You did ask for builds on the stuff you rated a little lower so here goes. 13312 or even 13322 turns this weapon into an absolute monster and I’m surprised I haven’t seen any RUclipsrs advocating for it tbh. Elephant in the room - no turret whip. I know. It breaks my heart to give it up but let me remind you that you’re giving up turret whip anytime you take a primary that isn’t warthog. Max fire rate on pump action feels so good to use and allows you to deal so much damage so quickly. Other elephant in the room - Ammo. You have to give up more ammo in tier 2 (which only gives you 28 more rounds or 14 more per resupply use) in exchange for tighter spread. When you use this build you have 7 rounds in the mag and 60 in reserve at full which seems low. (Part of why I give up turret whip is that it consumes more warthog ammo). I pair this with breach cutter lightweight cases 21112. Between breach cutter and blowthrough, the worst thing a group of bugs can do is walk up to you. You can deal with swarms and HVTs very effectively with this setup. I also use Gemini with armor break on turrets and swarmer drones. This setup turns the warthog into a tool that is a little expensive to use but lets you kill what needs to die super fast. It doesn’t hit any crazy breakpoints but it’s just all around good. I play on haz 5+2 bugs and have soloed a 4 player korlok with this setup.
I had a feeling my Pump Action take would be a little controversial, but I'm definitely happy to be proven wrong on it, because Warthog is my baby and I want to love all its OCs. When I last used it I got the feeling that it might be better to skip Turret Whip, but that was so against my instincts that I didn't experiment, oops. I'll find some time this week to test out your recommendations! - Zach
@@shadowfirehq I don’t think you’re wrong about anything you said about it but it’s definitely one of those “in the right hands” builds. It feels like the shotgun from halo with this setup! So fun and satisfying to use. I started this season only using the new stubby oc because it’s so good but I tried this pump action build and it feels so good I haven’t looked back. Looking forward to your next tier list videos!
Pump is peak.
Pump Action enjoyers unite! 11312 is my preferred build.
Fully agree! 13312 is so much fun to use
I like the pump action over magnetic pellet whatever as you can still 1 shot slashers and do good chunks of damage to praetorians at reasonable range, idk about the armor break it could be worth picking for a bit better grunt clear but that's not what I usually use it for so i keep the 1 extra dmg per pellet.
try the armor break mod, in most cases it lets you one shot body shot grunts, which means you can blow through and kill two grunts with one body shot
Everything is great in this vid except mini shells can be like training wheels when you cant oneshot grunts then mini shells drunt 2 shot is still effcent and also how is return to sender above light weight cases. Light weight cases is literally the best breach cutter oc because even a little more shots can do tonnes of damage.
You can turret whip both turrets without the blowtrough.
You didn't look into smart trigger AT ALL it does not work as you described, it does not have the up and downsides you said it did either. It fires when you have full locks, reduces your maximum locks to 2 and reduces time to lock on by 95%. I don't know where you got your numbers, but this is a pretty big mistake in my opinion.
The best engineer OCs are the ones that make your guns as stupid as possible.
the problem with tier lists is that they follow absolute positions, instead of situational. drg is a game with many variables. one should question what the mission is oriented towards. is this a dreadnaught mission, caretaker mission, does this have elite enemies, mactera, swarmers, and such? one should also consider what the weapons main selections are, and what that weapon is paired with on the other end. you wouldn't take inferno on dread missions, you would take return to sender, because the fire means nothing here. and the damage from the basic overclocks are wasted.
also, the breach cutter does not one hit everything. the 575 dps is mostly unused, because the beam doesn't pass through glyphids slow enough to make that stat count. if anything, it is closer to half of that amount. i was on yesterday and it took 3 breach cutter shots with HVC overclock to knock out a haz 3 praetorean, which is quite bad actually.
26:52 you are being generous imo, to me Hyperalloy is in Mid tbh, and Pump Action I´d probably put un strong but maybe with more play i´d leave it at mid
1:14:40 Return to sender is a Downgrade because as you said, you one shot everything you need, and if you really need to shoot something twice for like an Oppressor, Just Shoot It Twice, its just makes shooting Grunts a Waste because comparatebily you are using Twice The Ammo you´d use on them
take pump action on a 12321 warthog and a volatile impact reactor shard difactor with 32x1x with either shreders or proxi mines and you got yourself a build that i successfully take on haz5++ and enjoy
6:16, how is engineer the only class who dies in close quarters, he's debatably the best along with scout. If we're talking about primaries, which in this case you were talking about the Warthog, then both Gunner and Driller have it far worse, gunner having 2 primaries with windup and both the thunderhead and hurricane can do self damage and driller is focused around dot, so his only option is the cryo cannon which wouldn't even freeze most targets quick enough. Also, if the Warthog isn't good close up then how are you suppose to use it lmao, it's a shotgun
Lol gunners primaries dont work like that. The only way to damage yourself with thunderhead is to take mortar shells; and hurricane cant hit you with aoe at all. It can still hit with direct damage but only if you launch rockets up and aim at your feet. Also taking into account unhealthy stun and fear he has on most weapons and obviously his shield gunner should always be the last one to pass away from close quarters as well as scout.
I agree that driller has it worse but no one is stopping you from equipping fear on flamethrower especially if it is built for direct damage (for e g recently added scorching tide). Or launching a snowball at your feet to instantly freeze every living thing around. And if the situation is truly desperate he can always pull out his drills that inflict stun and fear with crazy chances.
Should also be noted here that Driller can put stun or fear on his C4, and the AOE on it is HUGE. He has grenades that are great in close range fights that also vamp HP, and all of his primaries are extremely powerful in close to mid range.
Gunner has 50% explosive resistance, his shield, and can use ziplines to avoid ground enemies too. In terms of dwarves in melee, I think Scout (who runs away), Driller (who kills stuff real good up close), and Gunner (shield, zip, also kills stuff good up close) would be a rough order of safety.
Engineer movement abilities can be helpful in certain situations (jumping off a cliff and landing on a plat, hopping between multiple plats, or using plats to seal off approaches from incoming bugs) but if the bugs DO get to him, Breach Cutter is the only consistent, large AOE answer that he has. Shard is a bit slow to kill a large number of close bugs, PGL does self damage, Warthog and Stubby are usually slow to kill, and L0k-1 requires OCs to help at all. Base L0K-1 trying to lock onto enemies to deal mediocre damage while the bugs tear your legs off is a sad feeling.
That's a big reason why Turret EM Discharge, Turret Whip, Breach in general, and Stunner are all rated highly by me. Soooo much safety. RJ250 gets a mention too, since you can use it to boost away from enemies if you're in a tough spot. - Zach
"Fat boy bad" is such a noob take tbh. Skilled players can both destroy hordes and not kill their teammates at the same time. Sure, you need to be a bit greedy but you will get more kills than anyone else anyway. I know that it doesn't work good on some missions but there are really not much 100% situations oc's.
TBH you can build RJ250 to deal similar AOE and, well then it does the Fat Boy cleaning job more efficient in most cases
I like Fat Boy but it is kinda big tradeoff, cus you need to change your main weapon build to compensate for it
And a skilled player will do the same, only better with a stock PGL.
@@totoru4ever TBH all the stock or other non supercharged propellant mods can do RJ250 can do more ammo efficient
What's the best solo class in game?
A lot of it has to do with personal preference and comfort on each class, of course, but I'd say that Scout and Driller are my preferences. Driller has a lot of built-in safety with solid waveclear and crowd control, but Scout can just ignore most enemies or even get them to fight each other while you focus entirely on objectives. Engineer is a bit trickier to play at higher difficulties, generally speaking, but with good movement and positioning his overall DPS IS crazy, and even though Gunner (soldier lel) is slow-ish compared to the others, his shield is about as safe as you can get.
TL;DR version - Scout, if you forced me to pick one. Mobility = defense and offense in one. - Zach
@@shadowfirehq thank you
@@SimonWoodburyForget so what's the best build?
@@SimonWoodburyForget so how you can say if you don't know
Engineer is best solo class, best builds for destroying a swarm whilst moving quickly, and its so easy to kill things with it, scout had crap crowd control and single dps, gunner too slow and mediocre crowd control, and driller just isnt as good
1:31:45 there's nothing in-between those first to things, other than crazy people.
Im planning on listening to the whole video, but i have to apologize for watching at x1.5 playback speed, thus reducing your watch retention time from my view by 25%... but you just talk too slow for how long the video is.
Ur just GAHAHAHAYYYYY
Putting mini shells into downgrade is pure blasphemy, if you're relying on stun chance = skill issue
Truly
MPA sucks because that's scout's job