The description has the Scout suggested playstyle; FAQ and clarifications for the video; all the links for the players who helped with my research; mods used and much more! A huge thank you to everyone in the Gaming Existence Discord server who gave feedback on my test videos and information for the video, link to join in the description. And thank you for watching! Rock and stone!
Honestly, every class is an HVT, as those are the most important enemies to get down. After the HVT's are down, then players should go after hoards or LTS's now that they aren't being shot at. Idk if everyone plays that way, but I know whenever I'm doing a mission, the enemies you put in HVT are the first ones I kill, no matter the class, as they are the most dangerous.
@@CarbonKnight9 yeah you're right the HVT needs to go down asap no matter what the class. But depending on the class you are using by switching to a different weapon it could have a big impact on the team. Such as the example in the video of a driller stopping horde DPS to deal damage to acid spitter. No right or wrong answers and it's situation dependant of course.
one enemy that can sometimes bridge the gap between horde and HVT is the slasher. While scanning for true HVTs, I'm also checking if there are any slashers sneaking up on / getting too close to my team members. The high damage and stun ability can quickly lead to the downfall of a dwarf, and can make relocating slow and dangerous. It's good practice to be aware of them and maybe pop them if they slip through the horde.
Good point. I meant to put in the video that someone suggested a HVT is anything that is about to deal damage to a player! Always a good idea to watch your fellow dwarves backs as the scout.
I love how this game is several years old and there's still tons of discussion on the roles of each of the classes and builds for optimizing to all of their play style options. It's amazing how many different ways you can play just one class.
Reason there is such a huge variety of builds is mainly due constant changes, balance patches, misinformed community members and individual preferences that some advocate as best. There are statistically best builds for any and every situation. It's when you begin to delve deeper and begin to take individual skill, weapon preferences, fighting style preferences, team composition in regards to class and their individual styles and competence as well as mission type and biome specific resistances, characteristics (like cave generation, unique spawn pool preferences), that is when actual build begins to take shape. There are only two videos i've watched regards drg builds that went that deep into analysis. This video including survey comments were relatively surface level, some statistics that compare low levels vs high levels fail to take into consideration available options (overclocks) that greatly impact their habits and efficiency not to mention few others
@@benismann true but the base game play hasn't changed. At the beginning Scout was fundamentally about lighting caverns and gathering minerals other classes could reach. It wasn't updates but rather experimentation and knowledge that gets us to this point. Otherwise why weren't scouts focusing on killing HVT's from day one? Or at least focusing on them when they came into the game since some enemies haven't existed the entire time.
I'm actually taken aback at just how high quality this guide was, this was incredible. I just happened to redownload Deep Rock after some time and was just curious about the class I mainly used back then.
I agree with the grey beards. Oppressors are tough but can be basically ignored while you kite the swarm. Anything with a ranged attack or slow is a much bigger threat. That acid spray on the big bugs just isn't a big threat unless you are cornered. Rollers are basically a projectile attack themselves. Basicly, anything you can't kite around a cave safely is a high priority thread, I would consider slashers a mid threat with acid spitters being somewhere in the mid to high area.
I love the new Electrifying Reload buffs for a mix of crowd control/elimination and HVT killing. While it isn't as fast at killing as the m1000, it is significantly more ammo efficient and in general play with less experienced players, it allows you to swap focus to the horde when they go down.
I unlocked Electric GK2 a few weeks ago, and it's so funny being able to spray a single mag across a horde of Grunts and watch them get taszed to death. And when HVTs show up, either burst them down with GK2, or tag them once for electric boosted arrows.
I used electric reload and embedded dets and there is such a good synergy between the two. Watch Angry groceries play modded difficulties with the build to see what i mean.
I play Scout much like an assassin, I always keep an eye (or ear) out for HVTs, and when I detect one, it will have several bullets in its dome within three seconds. I tend to run the GK2 because I find it suits my extremely mobile playstyle better than the M1k, and whatever secondary I feel like running. The boomstick helps with clearing groups of grunts and can deal some heavy damage against single targets such as Wardens or Goo Bombers, Zhukovs do much the same but are more sustained DPS, and the Boltshark can apply debuffs to enemies, has a great AoE option (explosive bolts), and has a build that rivals Hyper Propellant on sheer damage (Trifork Volley, Magnetic Shafts, Taser Bolts with either cryo or ifgs). Don’t worry, I also know my other three roles, those being the guy who lights the caves, the guy who gets nitra and other minerals, and the guy who finds leeches by getting grabbed by them.
The way I personally try to prioritize targets is to consider how to remove as much damage output (or similar threat) from the horde as quickly as possible. Thus, the higher their health, the longer it takes to remove their damage output, the lower their target priority. The higher their damage output, attack range and mobility, the higher priority. With the damage it takes to remove a single praetorian or opressor, you could wipe out an entire flock of mactera, who already pose a much more immediate offensive threat to begin with, therefore the mactera are a high value target, while the praetorian is not. Anything with a grab takes immediate priority, because the ability to remove a dwarf from combat may as well be equal to oneshotting them.
Berzerker can easily make up for scouts weak ammo pool and lack of splash damage. The grapple gives you a significant advantage in that you can enter a dense spot in a horde, release a power attack killing several grunts, then grapple away again like a Dwarf missile. Using the IFGs against the horde is also a good idea as it lets you delete swarmers in droves with the regular splash damage of default pickaxe attacks and more easily group up grunts for power attacks.
It's great to see combat and class role information being shared and taking the spotlight finally, though of course weapon breakdowns still is useful as ever. Appreciated your work here, Rock and Stone!
It was pointed out in one comment that the Grunt Slasher should technically be "in-between" the Horde and HVT, because he can deal a LOT of damage at once AND stun players, which might be a death sentence for a pursuing horde. However, I'd like to expand on that with HVT's that also should "technically" fall on the "Large Single Target" brand of enemies: Qronar Shellbacks, Goo Bombers, Stingtails and Menaces. These foes are a problem because they are High HP HVTs. They require a concentrated effort from multiple players in order to take down, and in this instance the team has to pull itself together to deal with them. I'd say that in a team with all classes, the engie and the scout should try and take these out together, while the Driller and the Gunner focus the horde and the other LST's. When you find a High hp HVT, you shouldn't pull out your primary, you should pull out the SCANNER and tag it, so that players can see it and you can take it out. Same thing for any other class really. Shellbacks, Menaces, Goo Bombers and Stingtails are an enemy type which, most of the time that requires teamwork and effort.
Great video! Love the in depth analysis of scouts strengths and weaknesses, and what enemies to prioritize, with statistics from the community and testimony from high-level players. You presented it in a way that was very easy to follow and the editing is great! Instant sub
I love this kind of video defining your roll as a class is so helpful to help players like me understand what tasks to prioritize and where exactly i can be of most use. Would love to see more for the other classes like this
This video is so well done, instead of just telling people "dont be a noob and do your work" you showed real data from players with several hours and made it easy to understand. I see this problem more often because the scout is one of the most popular character to choose between new players, and being in situations where the whole cave is pitch black and every single thing that i can not reach with my flame trower is focusing me while having a scout is super common. I think this happends because some players really dont want to play the other rolls and thus not knowing what type of damage they can do.
Just got my first ever promotion recently on scout and was looking for a way to be more useful in team combat. This was very informative, and I wholeheartedly thank you for this guide.
i recently switched to scout after maining gunner, as a result i have been using rewiring drak and double barrel and just taking on anything with a pulse, the added overheat speed and hook feels like a big improvement over the granny mobile and waddling desperately for cover as i pull out my mini-minigun.
My favorite scout loadout is drak with impact deflection OC and zhukov with impact detonators. While I would say it's not the best from a purely combat perspective (mainly because it lacks the ammo economy for modded difficulties), the reason I like it is because it allows me to quickly and effectively deal with things like swarmers and ambient waves on my own, so I can quickly get back to mining or whatever I was doing without having to involve for example the driller, while embedded detonators still allows me to quickly take out HVT (or anything really) at pretty much any distance.
Your videos are a life saver, I'm relatively new to the game and absolutely addicted and our videos are a life saver, NO ONE did it all as well as you. Rock and stone! I see you haven't uploaded in a while but lll be there for your return
Here's how I learned combat scout; First, I learned the best ways to use the flaregun and grapple to maximize my resource gain, then, I played a movement shooter called "ultrakill" up through the end of part two. Then, I built scout's GK2 for DPS and armor breaking, Zhukovs for mag-dumping with Imbedded dets, and the crossbow for bodkin points, with zap bolts for big guys. Then, I applied Movement Shooter gameplay to Scout, mostly with the GK2+Zhukovs. I can now kill at speed to keep up with Haz 5 and EDDs. I use zaparang for swarmer clear and support.
Regarding the fact that the most skilled players only ever use the M1K, bear something in mind: you can absolutely 100% play haz5 matches with any weapon, and most builds. In Haz4 or 5 I tend to use the Drak with Thermal Exhaust Feedback, the Deepcore AR with Bullets of Mercy, and the M1K with Hipster. Why do I use these OC's? Because it's more fun for me. There are two types of players in most gaming communities, those who hyper-focus the limits of the game mechanics to make the most powerful builds and take the game to the extreme, and those who have fun just playing the game. Both are important, and both are valid. This is just to say: whether you prefer running the meta, or the meme, its fine as long as you rock and stone. ;)
Absolutely LOVE the fact that someone made a video on this, I hit a roadblock of "Oh, this weapon isnt actually always best" until I found this, thanks man
great video...once the boomerang came out i finally had a solution to the swarm clear problem. now i happily main scout with drak with either embedded dets/special powder/cryobolts. the drak with cryobolts/taserbolts and boomerang is alot of fun. i use drak for most of the grunt clearing, cryobolts for spitballers/breeder/menace/prae and taserbolts for dreads/oppressors. its so fun to have three taserbolts in a dread and the rest of the team just wrecks the dread while it cant move...now EDD dread missions are so much fun :D
One of my favorite playstyle as scouts is to play pheromone scout. Light up a high value target with a pheromone dart, then either blast them with 2 fire darts or a firey aggressive venting and set entire hords ablaze. Its what i bring to most missions.
In general, this playstyle works around main weapon for HVT. And for horde/ST you probably want to build your secondary. If you are really good with ammo management and aiming, m1000 will be best option. But if you struggle with it, you can consider slightly different roles for weapons and choose drak focused on AOE + boltshark with pheromone bolts for CC and HVT. Special bolts will easily drop attention of different HVT and horde to large targets like praetorian or oppressor. And they probably will clear horde for you, while you switch back to casual bolts and clear HVT (new boomerang helps with stunning and focusing HVT) Such setup will help keep horde off from you, let you still focus HVT (both with boltshark or drak) and redirect attention from your team to large ST, letting bugs kill each other on their own. It really saves a lot of ammo and helps not to worry about swarmers, big accuracy and makes scout prepared for everything, but still mainly good versus HVT on the distance. But in this case all the mobility depends on perks and grappling hook setup.
Top notch presentation/editing and informative as always of course. Only some the text parts could have stayed a couple of seconds longer, in my opinion. Keep up the great work
My scout build is the disruptor: I use grapple and maneuver around high prio targets with GK2 weakpoint shot to stun. IFG/Boomerang for electrocute and slow/stun. Cryo Bolts for creating a freezing zone (overall crowd control duration/ammo efficiency wise much better than taking cryo grenades). But since I run bullets of mercy on gk2, I also take the toxin special bolt on crossbow to take out slashers and guards. The aoe damage is just a bonus. This way I have plenty tools of area and crowd control and with BoM I still have decent single target burst.
I use scouts mobility to distract a major portion of the horde to myself from my team, keeping my self alive as well, and clump them up to light them aflame I do this mainly on defense missions
When I do solo, I typically take m1000 primary, embedded detonators as secondary, and pheromone grenades. Now thats up to haz 4. And any time I have to do a scavenging mission, I'm pretty much boned during the phases where I have to stay put. But it works on haz 3 on all mission types.
I love using the double barrel overclock with the aoe damage increase (220 dmg) It kills groups of enemies easily and leaves pretorials with a power attacks worth of hp
I think a big difference which I would like to see a bit more focus on in the next survey is how much people adapt to different general situations. I personally don't want to think about what build I'm using and therefore build something I can use solo and my friends to the same so everyone does a lot of everything. If I wanted to I could talk with them and then change my loadout. I love using my Hipster Embedded Detonators, because it has enough horde clear for solo. This is probably also the reason I build my Gunner the way it is. I use Elephant Rounds to oneshot most mactera, although there are probably better secondaries if a scout kills all of them.
Awww awesome! Sometimes I put a video up and get quite low views and think is all the effort worth it. But messages like this really make me get back on it! Thank you, rock and stone!
I tend to play combat scout with a GK2, zukovs and a freeze grenade, but I do still try and keep the place lit up and pick off stuff like spitters first. It helps I mostly hang around haz 3 and 4 so its more so I can look after myself if I'm running with a rookie team.
Liked, subscribed, and commenting now for the algorithm. Holy crap the focus on data in this video was so helpful! This is what I always hope for in guides but you end up clicking through a bunch of half baked opinionated lets plays. Props props props, thank you for the EFFORT!
the problem with knowing this is that you really notice when someone is playing a class badly. ive played gunner last night and my scout is always the last one to arrive to the high nitras even though we got platforms set up. i was also the one clearing out the hvt (for the scout) while also shooting down the praetorians while also teaching the newbie engineer where to place platforms
Awesome you like the videos! On a bit of a break at the moment. I will do a community message actually saying to people I'm still alive. Thanks for the comment and nudging me to do something 😊
@@GamingExistence with the amount of effort it looks like you put in its okay lol you deserve a break! ive done some stats delves but nothing this deep, im also on console so i dont have access to all the helpfull mods on PC. if / when you do come back to making videos ill be the second person to like and subscribe. have a great rock and stone!
The thing that ends my runs the most is loosing control over the situation due to ranged and or disruptive enemies. Now I’m not a particularly skilled player but that’s my experience
i dunno, sometimes taking hipster + t1 ammo and turning your brain off completely during a swarm can be quite effective, and you will get lots of kills. In general i find taking t1 damage with hipster a situational choise. If theres a gunner on the team the barely alive grunt from a headshot will die quickly anyway, and the extra ammo means you get far more damage potential.
i absolutely love these videos and was wondering if there was any coming back for the Boltshark?... also id love if there was one done for the weapons with no overclocks. with as many new players coming in it feels like all the no OC content feels outdated
I would like to see the same survey questions responded to by a much higher number of high-level players, as 9 doesn't really get a representative sample, especially when it comes to weapon preference. I've got nearly 3000 hours in the game, and most of the high level scouts that I've talked to about this sort of thing (including myself) prefer the GK to the M1 due to the lower overkill, higher DPS and total damage, and more variety in overclocks and CC while still maintaining hitscan for long range, so when I see 89% in favor of a weapon that excels at long-range and LSTs in a game that has an overwhelming amount short range horde engagements, I'm thinking that there's some skew in those surveys.
I think there are a few reasons why those seem less important or relevant: 1. It's far more common for someone to not "get" scout, spend all their gk2 ammo on grunts, and then declare that the class is trash. Or similarly, decide they really enjoy spending all their gk2 ammo on grunts and just end up being a bit of a dead weight. Which isn't to blame them, honestly, the game doesn't even attempt to communicate this class role info to players, and since you start out on difficulties that spawn mainly grunts it's hard not to fall into that trap as a new scout. There's just not an equivalent trap for other classes- generally their roles line up with what people already want to do- shooting grunts is just fine for them. 2. GE pulls a lot of information for their videos from experience of modded difficulties and opinions from people who play modded difficulties. Normally this is great, modded is a great testbed to see what builds do and do not actually perform when piloted by a skilled player but also still under pressure, and the scout role is essentially analogous- a player who finds haz 5 challenging but doable will have basically the same incentives as a very good player who finds modded difficulties challenging but doable. But this kinda breaks down for gunner in particular. In modded you're already playing with good players with known builds, so it's optimal to build gunner with basically a full single target focus, since nobody but gunner can really provide that level of single target, while an AOE gunner is usually made redundant by driller's excellent AOE options. But this is pretty bad advice for someone playing vanilla, since that level of single target is totally unnecessary, and you won't have the coordination with your team necessary to keep you safe despite lacking AOE tools. 3. Engineer in general, and gunner in vanilla kinda don't have a specific role in combat? You could argue that for engineer it's burst damage, but the presence or lack of burst damage is usually not going to impact the team very much- it's more a descriptive statement of their kit rather than a role that they need to fill. And gunner usually just shoots any and all bugs, and has the ammo pool to do so. So it's hard to make a video about roles for them. I guess a driller video could be ok, since there's a strong argument similar to scout that driller's kit excels at AOE, so trying to build them for single target goes against role and probably won't feel very good (they'll never be as good at single target as other classes). But going back to point 1, it feels like most players get it and so there isn't a big need to tell them something they've already gathered.
While yes single target focused scout is indeed the best for co-op I prefer making my builds with solo focus (hazard 5 4 man scaling solo) because they do about 90% of the job the single target build can do while still letting you solo swarms if you need to. I'd definitely run single target focused scout more if i consistently played with great players but I often play with very low levels/beginners who will die and leave me alone against a swarm. My personal go to is M1000 with a balanced build (good single target with blowthrough) + Boltshark with pheromone bolts and fire bolt overclock + Pheromone nades. With this build I can easily take out the high threat targets like acid spitters in 1 shot, stun/kill menaces fast, stun/kill goo bombers fast etc. and I typically rival the others in overall kills by the end due to the crossbows insane swarm clearing abilities when paired with pheromones. The shotgun special powder is fun to use but, imo, its a worthless overclock. Can it get you places faster as well as help you escape faster? yes, is it the only thing that does a good job at it? No the grappling hook itself is more than enough in 99% of scenarios without having to take terrible damage for your secondary but that's just me. EDIT: I'm level 591 for reference, Engi & Driller are Legendary 3, Scout is legendary 2, gunner Legendary 1.
Yeah there's a world of difference between a player playing a hard (for them) difficulty that wants to mesh well with their team, vs a player playing an easier (for them) difficulty where they really don't want to have to rely on their team. I don't think GE or any of the players he specifically cites would have any issue with your build and why you use it, he just tends to focus on giving advice to that first group of players instead of the second because the second aren't the ones who really need the advice. And there's a danger that if you present the two alternatives, people who are in the first group might say "oh I want to be able to do everything myself" and end up hurting their teams because they aren't capable of carrying on that difficulty. A bit of "you should know the rules before you break them" kind of thing.
I feel pheromones are seriously underrated. My friend got me hooked on them, they're just so useful for distracting all the bugs while you res teammates, or for as you said using firebolt with them and grouping them up with pheromones before lighting them on fire 👌
@@CarbonKnight9 Imo its just the best one outright due to how much it does at once. - The boomerang has a really strong stun that people like but in reality its 8.5 seconds and it only stops enemies in place. - The frost nades let you do massive burst damage to whatever you hit. - The IFG is just a longer lasting (albeit weaker) frost nade with its primary function and provides a decent CC. Now if we compare Pheromone to them: - Boomerang vs Pheromone: Pheromone lasts for 15 seconds and if you hit a group of enemies it basically disables the entire swarm AND they do damage to each other. - Frost nades vs Pheromone: Pheromone doesn't directly buff your damage to the targets but grouping them up results in a similar effect. If you can group them up a single charged M1000 shot will pierce a lot of them thereby making your total damage output, at worst, comparable. To top this off if there's oppressors in the group and they do slam attacks they usually end up clearing the entire swarm themselves without you needing to add any input at all. - IFG vs Pheromone: not even comparable tbh, only advantage you have with IFG or Frost nades is taking down a single big target but at that point you're wasting nades imo. For me Scout's pheromones are kind of like Drillers axes, the clear and obvious best choice for most builds. I've been playing around with Scout builds a lot recently while i grind out my Legendary 3 promotion and almost every build always comes back to "well Pheromones would just work better". Like for example I made a Cryo Minelet build and was using them with the other nades but then I just went "this would be so much better with pheromones" and the combo became: 1. wait for them to group up a bit, 2. pheromone them, 3. entire swarm piles up in a small space, 4. 1 mag of Cryo minelets = entire swarm frozen 5. shoot a few M1000 blowthrough shots into it and swarm is gone.
@@VorpalSword9 I can definitely see that being the case yeah. Reminds me of when my friends started playing CS:GO years ago and kept forcing AK's/M4's right off the bat when they didn't even have a solid grasp of how recoil/movement works and as a result played really badly. I talked to them and got them to focus on getting good with pistols/SMG's first, maybe an AWP/Scout here or there, until they understood the basics of how recoil and movement inaccuracy works and while they were learning they were still extremely useful by getting a kill here or there with SMG's. Once they grasped the basics I told them to start using AK's and M4's and they immediately were better at using them than if they kept running/spraying with no recoil control like they were doing in the past. From that point of view I completely understand telling Greenbeards to focus on what their class does best and not to try to make "all around" builds which do that singular job marginally worse.
@@DebasedAnon IFGs last for 15 seconds, slows enemies, and also makes them take 30% more damage. It's good for controlling crowds and letting your allies mop up the swarm inside it and also letting you burst down tankier targets like oppressors or prateorians. I think it allows for the joke of "the best crowd control is death" to be a reality if your team and you can coordinate and shred swarms with it. You also carry 6 of them at once which lets you be more liberal with it too!
I think that the other classes are far more flexible and less pidgeon holed than Scout. They can decimate hordes and still burn down other targets in no time. Scout is useless against hordes and only has his single niche. It would be nice if Scout was given a weapon that would also allow him to play in different ways, because it seems to me Scouts generally enjoy very little appreciation in the community, because they don't shine with any impressive numbers at the final result and their impact is only felt in terms of lightning. His 3rd primary weapon for example is barely different than the first, other than being far less flexible for all situations. It would have been a great idea to turn this into a horde fighting weapon instead. I understand the community will probably want to keep Scouts stuck in their 1 niche, but in the end, it's about having fun and Scouts should also have the same options that all other classes have.
drak is exactly a horde fighting weapon, low accuracy (comparatively), high rof, high ammo, low damage, and overclocks like aggressive venting and overtuned particle accelerator that excel at killing grunts fire bolts on the crossbow can also carry any build due to how potent firespread is and the amount of fire bolts you get, up to 27
As far as I'm concerned, I hit the big bugs with pheromone darts and then kill the smaller but higher threat bugs while the other bugs and my teammates take out the big ones. If the big one that I tapped is still alive, then I tap it again or finish it off.
A well made video, I can tell you did your research, but just a little comment nagging in the back of my mind that I need to get out... Every class goes after acid spitters, web spitters, mactera, menaces etc first, not just scout, because they're the most dangerous and can change a situation quickly, which is why I call them priority targets. So yes, scout should be prioritizing them, but so should everyone else. For most scout builds, I'd say that scout's group clear is not great, with some exceptions. Scout is notoriously bad against swarmers, and I feel that at least GK2 and M1000 are built more for single target, while Drak is more balanced, so if you aren't counting said priority targets as all classes should be focusing on them anyway, then I'd say scout's next job is usually to kill the tanky guys, with few exceptions. Side note: I love your weapon break down vids, but with all the buffs, upgrade tier, and oc changes, GK2 is a completely different beast, and I wonder if you'll ever make a second video about it, maybe make a short video that says 'see my old gk2 breakdown first' then explain the few things that have changed, as it genuinely is a good weapon now that with 3 different ocs it has higher dps than the legendary hipster now, giving it a spot as scout's highest single target dps weapon. Love your content though! Thanks!
Thanks for the comments. I have replied about the HVT targeting on your other message. As for the GK2. I may well try and do an update video. Not sure if I will or just address the changes when I get to the Scout best builds compared video. Rock and stone!
Obviously if you see a hvt that isn't dead, you should kill it no matter what class you are. However, scouts have a few advantages that make it generally their job. First, scouts can kill them when they're much further away due to having very accurate primaries. If you're a driller you probably aren't going to waste time taking several seconds to try to kill a spitter that's 50m away because your kit just isn't good at that, but a scout can kill it in an instant so with a good scout the driller usually shouldn't end up in a situation where they need to kill an HVT. Second, the other classes have a lot more to focus on. HVTs on their own don't tend to be too dangerous, since you can dodge ranged attacks. It's when you either 1) don't notice the hvt and it does massive damage when you aren't expecting it or 2) you're getting swarmed so have to split your attention between the swarm and the HVT. Stopping to deal with the HVT first might mean dying to the swarm, and dodging the HVT's attack might bring you in a direction that causes you to die to the swarm. Because scout is bad at horde clear, they can devote all of their attention to HVTs and constantly have their head on a swivel watching out for them, unlike other classes that have other things to do. This means they're much better at catching those surprise HVTs. They also aren't threatened by the swarm, since safety is always a grapple away, so there's never a case in which they have to prioritize something else over the HVTs. Both of these mean that while killing HVTs is good for everyone, it's scout's main job while the other classes just do it if they need to.
Green beard scout offen forget to pop web spitter or even set up lightings. I'd prefer a new comer scout to do his share while not having the most sleak skills then someone just trying to grab kills and don't even collect nitras.
Do you think you could defeat a haz 5 mission on max drunk (like after drinking a blackout stout)? I feel like that’s the hardest the base game gets, wonder if it’s possible
Thank you and welcome to DRG! Using mods created by the community to make the game harder. A lot of people found that once they unlocked all the overclocks and found good builds, that Haz 5 was winnable 99% of the time and wanted more a challenge.
Still love the Lok-1 to be honest. I and a lot of people in my research group still consider it with Executioner: 1,1,1,1,2 to be the best engineer primary when backed up with an inferno breach cutter. The Lok-1 helps to assist if not be better at HVT killing than the Scout. Yet the breach cutter can still provide immediate horde clear if the driller and gunner need it. The modded difficulty players still use it a lot in those games so that should speak volumes. Hope that helps 🙂 Rock and stone!
Amazing video as usual. Makes me really sad to see the Drak not getting much love, but I can understand why. Scout was the last class I started taking to Legendary and the reason is simple - love its playstyle, I just have a piss-poor aim and was afraid to try it out. Using controller instead of mouse doesn't help. I mostly stick to the 'spray and pray' so the Drak felt like the best compromise. M1000 gives me anxiety since you have a very limited ammo pool and every single shot has to count, especially at higher hazards. Some told me to give it a chance with Hipster. It's indeed a ridiculous overclock. But I hate to rape my R2 trigger. GK2 also felt better but Drak just settled it for me, either with OPA or bouncy. Mostly the former: I find it very solid for close/mid range HVT and grunts in general. (Yes, I also kill some of them as a Scout, I can't help it.) Spitters, Menaces, Breeders and the like I take them down with Embedded Detonators unless they're sitting on the other side of Hoxxes. Comfy setup for me, but I'll never be a GOOD Scout so the almighty elite M1000 will remain out of my league lol
Doesnt the Thunderhead and Flame thrower have more ammo efficiency than minigun? Both can specialise with huge ammo pools. I see that the graph shows base ammo, but i always feel like the minigun runs out of juice so fast
I am just coming back to the game after a few year break. Would you recommend sticking with the GK2 and Sawed-Off? Or are the m1000 and Zhukov just better?
The description has the Scout suggested playstyle; FAQ and clarifications for the video; all the links for the players who helped with my research; mods used and much more! A huge thank you to everyone in the Gaming Existence Discord server who gave feedback on my test videos and information for the video, link to join in the description. And thank you for watching! Rock and stone!
Ten seconds in.
Driller should be in the hvt category as well.
@@themarlboromandalorian thinking because of the wave cooker?
Honestly, every class is an HVT, as those are the most important enemies to get down. After the HVT's are down, then players should go after hoards or LTS's now that they aren't being shot at. Idk if everyone plays that way, but I know whenever I'm doing a mission, the enemies you put in HVT are the first ones I kill, no matter the class, as they are the most dangerous.
@@CarbonKnight9 yeah you're right the HVT needs to go down asap no matter what the class. But depending on the class you are using by switching to a different weapon it could have a big impact on the team. Such as the example in the video of a driller stopping horde DPS to deal damage to acid spitter.
No right or wrong answers and it's situation dependant of course.
I should heavy pickaxe the gliphid bulk detonator every time without fail
one enemy that can sometimes bridge the gap between horde and HVT is the slasher. While scanning for true HVTs, I'm also checking if there are any slashers sneaking up on / getting too close to my team members. The high damage and stun ability can quickly lead to the downfall of a dwarf, and can make relocating slow and dangerous. It's good practice to be aware of them and maybe pop them if they slip through the horde.
Good point. I meant to put in the video that someone suggested a HVT is anything that is about to deal damage to a player!
Always a good idea to watch your fellow dwarves backs as the scout.
I love how this game is several years old and there's still tons of discussion on the roles of each of the classes and builds for optimizing to all of their play style options. It's amazing how many different ways you can play just one class.
Reason there is such a huge variety of builds is mainly due constant changes, balance patches, misinformed community members and individual preferences that some advocate as best. There are statistically best builds for any and every situation. It's when you begin to delve deeper and begin to take individual skill, weapon preferences, fighting style preferences, team composition in regards to class and their individual styles and competence as well as mission type and biome specific resistances, characteristics (like cave generation, unique spawn pool preferences), that is when actual build begins to take shape. There are only two videos i've watched regards drg builds that went that deep into analysis. This video including survey comments were relatively surface level, some statistics that compare low levels vs high levels fail to take into consideration available options (overclocks) that greatly impact their habits and efficiency not to mention few others
well it's not like the game wasnt updated in those years...
@@benismann true but the base game play hasn't changed. At the beginning Scout was fundamentally about lighting caverns and gathering minerals other classes could reach. It wasn't updates but rather experimentation and knowledge that gets us to this point. Otherwise why weren't scouts focusing on killing HVT's from day one? Or at least focusing on them when they came into the game since some enemies haven't existed the entire time.
5 years
I'm actually taken aback at just how high quality this guide was, this was incredible. I just happened to redownload Deep Rock after some time and was just curious about the class I mainly used back then.
Thank you and welcome back to DRG! Rock and stone!
Elite production and very useful information. You deliver yet again!
Amen. DRG content aside, the style and presentation in this vid are top notch.
I agree with the grey beards. Oppressors are tough but can be basically ignored while you kite the swarm. Anything with a ranged attack or slow is a much bigger threat. That acid spray on the big bugs just isn't a big threat unless you are cornered. Rollers are basically a projectile attack themselves. Basicly, anything you can't kite around a cave safely is a high priority thread, I would consider slashers a mid threat with acid spitters being somewhere in the mid to high area.
I love the new Electrifying Reload buffs for a mix of crowd control/elimination and HVT killing. While it isn't as fast at killing as the m1000, it is significantly more ammo efficient and in general play with less experienced players, it allows you to swap focus to the horde when they go down.
I unlocked Electric GK2 a few weeks ago, and it's so funny being able to spray a single mag across a horde of Grunts and watch them get taszed to death. And when HVTs show up, either burst them down with GK2, or tag them once for electric boosted arrows.
I used electric reload and embedded dets and there is such a good synergy between the two. Watch Angry groceries play modded difficulties with the build to see what i mean.
I play Scout much like an assassin, I always keep an eye (or ear) out for HVTs, and when I detect one, it will have several bullets in its dome within three seconds.
I tend to run the GK2 because I find it suits my extremely mobile playstyle better than the M1k, and whatever secondary I feel like running. The boomstick helps with clearing groups of grunts and can deal some heavy damage against single targets such as Wardens or Goo Bombers, Zhukovs do much the same but are more sustained DPS, and the Boltshark can apply debuffs to enemies, has a great AoE option (explosive bolts), and has a build that rivals Hyper Propellant on sheer damage (Trifork Volley, Magnetic Shafts, Taser Bolts with either cryo or ifgs).
Don’t worry, I also know my other three roles, those being the guy who lights the caves, the guy who gets nitra and other minerals, and the guy who finds leeches by getting grabbed by them.
The way I personally try to prioritize targets is to consider how to remove as much damage output (or similar threat) from the horde as quickly as possible.
Thus, the higher their health, the longer it takes to remove their damage output, the lower their target priority.
The higher their damage output, attack range and mobility, the higher priority.
With the damage it takes to remove a single praetorian or opressor, you could wipe out an entire flock of mactera, who already pose a much more immediate offensive threat to begin with, therefore the mactera are a high value target, while the praetorian is not.
Anything with a grab takes immediate priority, because the ability to remove a dwarf from combat may as well be equal to oneshotting them.
Berzerker can easily make up for scouts weak ammo pool and lack of splash damage.
The grapple gives you a significant advantage in that you can enter a dense spot in a horde, release a power attack killing several grunts, then grapple away again like a Dwarf missile.
Using the IFGs against the horde is also a good idea as it lets you delete swarmers in droves with the regular splash damage of default pickaxe attacks and more easily group up grunts for power attacks.
Berserker scout gaming!!!
I also run berzerker. Came in clutch quite a few times cause it fully disassembles basically anything that isn't a dreadnought or nemesis, etc.
It's great to see combat and class role information being shared and taking the spotlight finally, though of course weapon breakdowns still is useful as ever. Appreciated your work here, Rock and Stone!
Insane. High quality, easy to follow.
dont mind me just commenting to help out this amazing drg player and his analysis videos
It was pointed out in one comment that the Grunt Slasher should technically be "in-between" the Horde and HVT, because he can deal a LOT of damage at once AND stun players, which might be a death sentence for a pursuing horde.
However, I'd like to expand on that with HVT's that also should "technically" fall on the "Large Single Target" brand of enemies:
Qronar Shellbacks, Goo Bombers, Stingtails and Menaces.
These foes are a problem because they are High HP HVTs.
They require a concentrated effort from multiple players in order to take down, and in this instance the team has to pull itself together to deal with them.
I'd say that in a team with all classes, the engie and the scout should try and take these out together, while the Driller and the Gunner focus the horde and the other LST's.
When you find a High hp HVT, you shouldn't pull out your primary, you should pull out the SCANNER and tag it, so that players can see it and you can take it out.
Same thing for any other class really. Shellbacks, Menaces, Goo Bombers and Stingtails are an enemy type which, most of the time that requires teamwork and effort.
Great video! Love the in depth analysis of scouts strengths and weaknesses, and what enemies to prioritize, with statistics from the community and testimony from high-level players. You presented it in a way that was very easy to follow and the editing is great! Instant sub
Honestly, didn't learn all that much, but this video is very well done and written. Nice job, thanks dwarf brethren.
I love this kind of video defining your roll as a class is so helpful to help players like me understand what tasks to prioritize and where exactly i can be of most use. Would love to see more for the other classes like this
This video is so well done, instead of just telling people "dont be a noob and do your work" you showed real data from players with several hours and made it easy to understand. I see this problem more often because the scout is one of the most popular character to choose between new players, and being in situations where the whole cave is pitch black and every single thing that i can not reach with my flame trower is focusing me while having a scout is super common. I think this happends because some players really dont want to play the other rolls and thus not knowing what type of damage they can do.
Just got my first ever promotion recently on scout and was looking for a way to be more useful in team combat. This was very informative, and I wholeheartedly thank you for this guide.
i recently switched to scout after maining gunner, as a result i have been using rewiring drak and double barrel and just taking on anything with a pulse, the added overheat speed and hook feels like a big improvement over the granny mobile and waddling desperately for cover as i pull out my mini-minigun.
Love the in depth break down of the Scout's roll in combat. Analyzing game design in this way is a huge passion of mine.
Gotta say, dude. Your DRG analysis vids are the best I've found. Appreciate you. Rock and Stone, bud!
My favorite scout loadout is drak with impact deflection OC and zhukov with impact detonators. While I would say it's not the best from a purely combat perspective (mainly because it lacks the ammo economy for modded difficulties), the reason I like it is because it allows me to quickly and effectively deal with things like swarmers and ambient waves on my own, so I can quickly get back to mining or whatever I was doing without having to involve for example the driller, while embedded detonators still allows me to quickly take out HVT (or anything really) at pretty much any distance.
Your videos are a life saver, I'm relatively new to the game and absolutely addicted and our videos are a life saver, NO ONE did it all as well as you. Rock and stone! I see you haven't uploaded in a while but lll be there for your return
Here's how I learned combat scout; First, I learned the best ways to use the flaregun and grapple to maximize my resource gain, then, I played a movement shooter called "ultrakill" up through the end of part two. Then, I built scout's GK2 for DPS and armor breaking, Zhukovs for mag-dumping with Imbedded dets, and the crossbow for bodkin points, with zap bolts for big guys. Then, I applied Movement Shooter gameplay to Scout, mostly with the GK2+Zhukovs. I can now kill at speed to keep up with Haz 5 and EDDs. I use zaparang for swarmer clear and support.
Regarding the fact that the most skilled players only ever use the M1K, bear something in mind: you can absolutely 100% play haz5 matches with any weapon, and most builds.
In Haz4 or 5 I tend to use the Drak with Thermal Exhaust Feedback, the Deepcore AR with Bullets of Mercy, and the M1K with Hipster.
Why do I use these OC's?
Because it's more fun for me.
There are two types of players in most gaming communities, those who hyper-focus the limits of the game mechanics to make the most powerful builds and take the game to the extreme, and those who have fun just playing the game. Both are important, and both are valid.
This is just to say: whether you prefer running the meta, or the meme, its fine as long as you rock and stone. ;)
Absolutely LOVE the fact that someone made a video on this, I hit a roadblock of "Oh, this weapon isnt actually always best" until I found this, thanks man
This video is incredibly high quality , thank you for the guide !
Your editing skills are crazy good now, it really helps convey the facts and keeps my attention! Also, yooo my quote made it in!
Great to hear! It was an awesome quote and when I saw your name I was like oh yeah that's going in! Good to have you on the screen again!
Insane content. Well done; thank you for making this.
This video is really well edited. It feels like a super-high budget type of thing.
I was having a pretty rough day but saw you uploaded, great stuff!
Hope it helps and that tomorrow is better! Rock and stone :)
@@GamingExistence No doubt about it. Rock and Stone!
The bulldog with elephants rounds is my lil m1000
great video...once the boomerang came out i finally had a solution to the swarm clear problem. now i happily main scout with drak with either embedded dets/special powder/cryobolts.
the drak with cryobolts/taserbolts and boomerang is alot of fun. i use drak for most of the grunt clearing, cryobolts for spitballers/breeder/menace/prae and taserbolts for dreads/oppressors. its so fun to have three taserbolts in a dread and the rest of the team just wrecks the dread while it cant move...now EDD dread missions are so much fun :D
Thank you, I was wasting so much ammo for no reason until I watched this video
One of my favorite playstyle as scouts is to play pheromone scout.
Light up a high value target with a pheromone dart, then either blast them with 2 fire darts or a firey aggressive venting and set entire hords ablaze. Its what i bring to most missions.
Awesome! Pheremones and fire is extremely powerful! Rock and stone! 🔥 🪨
M1k + nuk with boomerang is my favorite loadout.
All three weapons synergize with each other.
Love your deep rock videos. Great high level analysis, hope you keep making content like this for the game
In general, this playstyle works around main weapon for HVT.
And for horde/ST you probably want to build your secondary.
If you are really good with ammo management and aiming, m1000 will be best option.
But if you struggle with it, you can consider slightly different roles for weapons and choose drak focused on AOE + boltshark with pheromone bolts for CC and HVT.
Special bolts will easily drop attention of different HVT and horde to large targets like praetorian or oppressor. And they probably will clear horde for you, while you switch back to casual bolts and clear HVT (new boomerang helps with stunning and focusing HVT)
Such setup will help keep horde off from you, let you still focus HVT (both with boltshark or drak) and redirect attention from your team to large ST, letting bugs kill each other on their own. It really saves a lot of ammo and helps not to worry about swarmers, big accuracy and makes scout prepared for everything, but still mainly good versus HVT on the distance. But in this case all the mobility depends on perks and grappling hook setup.
Just getting into Deep Rock and I'm extremely impressed by this video. Rock and stone!
Great as always, just commenting for the algorithm! Hopefully this helps to dispel the common myth that prats and oppressors are HVTs at all.
Thank you and yes cross fingers!
when you said welcome at the beginning of the video i was half expecting you to follow up with “to the internet”
Always makes my day when GE does another video upload :)
Top notch presentation/editing and informative as always of course. Only some the text parts could have stayed a couple of seconds longer, in my opinion. Keep up the great work
My scout build is the disruptor:
I use grapple and maneuver around high prio targets with GK2 weakpoint shot to stun.
IFG/Boomerang for electrocute and slow/stun.
Cryo Bolts for creating a freezing zone (overall crowd control duration/ammo efficiency wise much better than taking cryo grenades).
But since I run bullets of mercy on gk2, I also take the toxin special bolt on crossbow to take out slashers and guards. The aoe damage is just a bonus.
This way I have plenty tools of area and crowd control and with BoM I still have decent single target burst.
Sounds good, really leaning into those scout strengths! Rock and stone!
I use scouts mobility to distract a major portion of the horde to myself from my team, keeping my self alive as well, and clump them up to light them aflame
I do this mainly on defense missions
When I do solo, I typically take m1000 primary, embedded detonators as secondary, and pheromone grenades.
Now thats up to haz 4. And any time I have to do a scavenging mission, I'm pretty much boned during the phases where I have to stay put. But it works on haz 3 on all mission types.
underrated content wow holy shit so well edited only 8k views wtf
I love using the double barrel overclock with the aoe damage increase (220 dmg)
It kills groups of enemies easily and leaves pretorials with a power attacks worth of hp
I think a big difference which I would like to see a bit more focus on in the next survey is how much people adapt to different general situations. I personally don't want to think about what build I'm using and therefore build something I can use solo and my friends to the same so everyone does a lot of everything. If I wanted to I could talk with them and then change my loadout. I love using my Hipster Embedded Detonators, because it has enough horde clear for solo. This is probably also the reason I build my Gunner the way it is. I use Elephant Rounds to oneshot most mactera, although there are probably better secondaries if a scout kills all of them.
I hope in a year I see this channel with 100K+ subs. Absolutely terrific content.
Awww awesome! Sometimes I put a video up and get quite low views and think is all the effort worth it. But messages like this really make me get back on it! Thank you, rock and stone!
I tend to play combat scout with a GK2, zukovs and a freeze grenade, but I do still try and keep the place lit up and pick off stuff like spitters first. It helps I mostly hang around haz 3 and 4 so its more so I can look after myself if I'm running with a rookie team.
As scout i tend to use my weapons for personal defense. My job is to get nitra, my team having the ammo it needs is my weapon
Liked, subscribed, and commenting now for the algorithm. Holy crap the focus on data in this video was so helpful! This is what I always hope for in guides but you end up clicking through a bunch of half baked opinionated lets plays. Props props props, thank you for the EFFORT!
damn good content my guy, now you got a new sub!
Rock and stone!
I'm just happy they haven't touched the Bodkin OC coz I can 1-hit 3 grunts with it. At least on Haz 3
Running HoverGarand and Bodkin X-bow.
Fantastic video, editing and information density is on point as always. A great reference for anyone looking to improve their scout play :)
the problem with knowing this is that you really notice when someone is playing a class badly.
ive played gunner last night and my scout is always the last one to arrive to the high nitras even though we got platforms set up.
i was also the one clearing out the hvt (for the scout) while also shooting down the praetorians while also teaching the newbie engineer where to place platforms
Great video, thanks!
Wow I feel like I’m going through a professional and highly top secret briefing
YOUR PRODUCTION IS SO GODLY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Holy cow, what a content!
the quality, wow.
Alot of love in this game it's refreshing
I didn't realize haz 6x2 was THAT popular
Good quality vid subbed
I would love to see a video like this on the driller
That would explain why I am always out of ammo as scout, maybe I am way too kill hungry
Maybe! Sometimes with the scout it's about taking a bit more time to line up for M1000 blowthrough or Boomstick blowthrough/fire spread etc.
Can you do This series of videos for all classes and breakdown their overclocks as well?
I will see!
Hey man I just found your channel and I love your videos!! Have you stopped making them?
Awesome you like the videos! On a bit of a break at the moment. I will do a community message actually saying to people I'm still alive. Thanks for the comment and nudging me to do something 😊
@@GamingExistence with the amount of effort it looks like you put in its okay lol you deserve a break! ive done some stats delves but nothing this deep, im also on console so i dont have access to all the helpfull mods on PC. if / when you do come back to making videos ill be the second person to like and subscribe. have a great rock and stone!
The thing that ends my runs the most is loosing control over the situation due to ranged and or disruptive enemies. Now I’m not a particularly skilled player but that’s my experience
Great video!
i dunno, sometimes taking hipster + t1 ammo and turning your brain off completely during a swarm can be quite effective, and you will get lots of kills. In general i find taking t1 damage with hipster a situational choise. If theres a gunner on the team the barely alive grunt from a headshot will die quickly anyway, and the extra ammo means you get far more damage potential.
😱 little bobby tables, from one of my favorite jokes of all time.
i absolutely love these videos and was wondering if there was any coming back for the Boltshark?... also id love if there was one done for the weapons with no overclocks.
with as many new players coming in it feels like all the no OC content feels outdated
I would like to see the same survey questions responded to by a much higher number of high-level players, as 9 doesn't really get a representative sample, especially when it comes to weapon preference. I've got nearly 3000 hours in the game, and most of the high level scouts that I've talked to about this sort of thing (including myself) prefer the GK to the M1 due to the lower overkill, higher DPS and total damage, and more variety in overclocks and CC while still maintaining hitscan for long range, so when I see 89% in favor of a weapon that excels at long-range and LSTs in a game that has an overwhelming amount short range horde engagements, I'm thinking that there's some skew in those surveys.
Im the scout that shuts down any big bug immediately so i dont need to worry later
The real high value targets for the supreme gigachad scout are the gold, nitra and mineral veins.
Great video! Do you plan on doing these for other classes?
Potentially but not on the radar right now! Thank you for the comment!
I think there are a few reasons why those seem less important or relevant:
1. It's far more common for someone to not "get" scout, spend all their gk2 ammo on grunts, and then declare that the class is trash. Or similarly, decide they really enjoy spending all their gk2 ammo on grunts and just end up being a bit of a dead weight. Which isn't to blame them, honestly, the game doesn't even attempt to communicate this class role info to players, and since you start out on difficulties that spawn mainly grunts it's hard not to fall into that trap as a new scout. There's just not an equivalent trap for other classes- generally their roles line up with what people already want to do- shooting grunts is just fine for them.
2. GE pulls a lot of information for their videos from experience of modded difficulties and opinions from people who play modded difficulties. Normally this is great, modded is a great testbed to see what builds do and do not actually perform when piloted by a skilled player but also still under pressure, and the scout role is essentially analogous- a player who finds haz 5 challenging but doable will have basically the same incentives as a very good player who finds modded difficulties challenging but doable. But this kinda breaks down for gunner in particular. In modded you're already playing with good players with known builds, so it's optimal to build gunner with basically a full single target focus, since nobody but gunner can really provide that level of single target, while an AOE gunner is usually made redundant by driller's excellent AOE options. But this is pretty bad advice for someone playing vanilla, since that level of single target is totally unnecessary, and you won't have the coordination with your team necessary to keep you safe despite lacking AOE tools.
3. Engineer in general, and gunner in vanilla kinda don't have a specific role in combat? You could argue that for engineer it's burst damage, but the presence or lack of burst damage is usually not going to impact the team very much- it's more a descriptive statement of their kit rather than a role that they need to fill. And gunner usually just shoots any and all bugs, and has the ammo pool to do so. So it's hard to make a video about roles for them. I guess a driller video could be ok, since there's a strong argument similar to scout that driller's kit excels at AOE, so trying to build them for single target goes against role and probably won't feel very good (they'll never be as good at single target as other classes). But going back to point 1, it feels like most players get it and so there isn't a big need to tell them something they've already gathered.
While yes single target focused scout is indeed the best for co-op I prefer making my builds with solo focus (hazard 5 4 man scaling solo) because they do about 90% of the job the single target build can do while still letting you solo swarms if you need to. I'd definitely run single target focused scout more if i consistently played with great players but I often play with very low levels/beginners who will die and leave me alone against a swarm.
My personal go to is M1000 with a balanced build (good single target with blowthrough) + Boltshark with pheromone bolts and fire bolt overclock + Pheromone nades.
With this build I can easily take out the high threat targets like acid spitters in 1 shot, stun/kill menaces fast, stun/kill goo bombers fast etc. and I typically rival the others in overall kills by the end due to the crossbows insane swarm clearing abilities when paired with pheromones.
The shotgun special powder is fun to use but, imo, its a worthless overclock. Can it get you places faster as well as help you escape faster? yes, is it the only thing that does a good job at it? No the grappling hook itself is more than enough in 99% of scenarios without having to take terrible damage for your secondary but that's just me.
EDIT: I'm level 591 for reference, Engi & Driller are Legendary 3, Scout is legendary 2, gunner Legendary 1.
Yeah there's a world of difference between a player playing a hard (for them) difficulty that wants to mesh well with their team, vs a player playing an easier (for them) difficulty where they really don't want to have to rely on their team. I don't think GE or any of the players he specifically cites would have any issue with your build and why you use it, he just tends to focus on giving advice to that first group of players instead of the second because the second aren't the ones who really need the advice. And there's a danger that if you present the two alternatives, people who are in the first group might say "oh I want to be able to do everything myself" and end up hurting their teams because they aren't capable of carrying on that difficulty. A bit of "you should know the rules before you break them" kind of thing.
I feel pheromones are seriously underrated. My friend got me hooked on them, they're just so useful for distracting all the bugs while you res teammates, or for as you said using firebolt with them and grouping them up with pheromones before lighting them on fire 👌
@@CarbonKnight9 Imo its just the best one outright due to how much it does at once.
- The boomerang has a really strong stun that people like but in reality its 8.5 seconds and it only stops enemies in place.
- The frost nades let you do massive burst damage to whatever you hit.
- The IFG is just a longer lasting (albeit weaker) frost nade with its primary function and provides a decent CC.
Now if we compare Pheromone to them:
- Boomerang vs Pheromone: Pheromone lasts for 15 seconds and if you hit a group of enemies it basically disables the entire swarm AND they do damage to each other.
- Frost nades vs Pheromone: Pheromone doesn't directly buff your damage to the targets but grouping them up results in a similar effect. If you can group them up a single charged M1000 shot will pierce a lot of them thereby making your total damage output, at worst, comparable. To top this off if there's oppressors in the group and they do slam attacks they usually end up clearing the entire swarm themselves without you needing to add any input at all.
- IFG vs Pheromone: not even comparable tbh, only advantage you have with IFG or Frost nades is taking down a single big target but at that point you're wasting nades imo.
For me Scout's pheromones are kind of like Drillers axes, the clear and obvious best choice for most builds. I've been playing around with Scout builds a lot recently while i grind out my Legendary 3 promotion and almost every build always comes back to "well Pheromones would just work better". Like for example I made a Cryo Minelet build and was using them with the other nades but then I just went "this would be so much better with pheromones" and the combo became:
1. wait for them to group up a bit,
2. pheromone them,
3. entire swarm piles up in a small space,
4. 1 mag of Cryo minelets = entire swarm frozen
5. shoot a few M1000 blowthrough shots into it and swarm is gone.
@@VorpalSword9 I can definitely see that being the case yeah. Reminds me of when my friends started playing CS:GO years ago and kept forcing AK's/M4's right off the bat when they didn't even have a solid grasp of how recoil/movement works and as a result played really badly. I talked to them and got them to focus on getting good with pistols/SMG's first, maybe an AWP/Scout here or there, until they understood the basics of how recoil and movement inaccuracy works and while they were learning they were still extremely useful by getting a kill here or there with SMG's.
Once they grasped the basics I told them to start using AK's and M4's and they immediately were better at using them than if they kept running/spraying with no recoil control like they were doing in the past.
From that point of view I completely understand telling Greenbeards to focus on what their class does best and not to try to make "all around" builds which do that singular job marginally worse.
@@DebasedAnon IFGs last for 15 seconds, slows enemies, and also makes them take 30% more damage. It's good for controlling crowds and letting your allies mop up the swarm inside it and also letting you burst down tankier targets like oppressors or prateorians. I think it allows for the joke of "the best crowd control is death" to be a reality if your team and you can coordinate and shred swarms with it. You also carry 6 of them at once which lets you be more liberal with it too!
I think that the other classes are far more flexible and less pidgeon holed than Scout. They can decimate hordes and still burn down other targets in no time. Scout is useless against hordes and only has his single niche.
It would be nice if Scout was given a weapon that would also allow him to play in different ways, because it seems to me Scouts generally enjoy very little appreciation in the community, because they don't shine with any impressive numbers at the final result and their impact is only felt in terms of lightning.
His 3rd primary weapon for example is barely different than the first, other than being far less flexible for all situations. It would have been a great idea to turn this into a horde fighting weapon instead.
I understand the community will probably want to keep Scouts stuck in their 1 niche, but in the end, it's about having fun and Scouts should also have the same options that all other classes have.
drak is exactly a horde fighting weapon, low accuracy (comparatively), high rof, high ammo, low damage, and overclocks like aggressive venting and overtuned particle accelerator that excel at killing grunts
fire bolts on the crossbow can also carry any build due to how potent firespread is and the amount of fire bolts you get, up to 27
The real trick is cryo-minelets make scout very strong against crowds, and once frozen enemies take 3x damage.
As far as I'm concerned, I hit the big bugs with pheromone darts and then kill the smaller but higher threat bugs while the other bugs and my teammates take out the big ones. If the big one that I tapped is still alive, then I tap it again or finish it off.
Scout is just a guerrilla sniper nice
A well made video, I can tell you did your research, but just a little comment nagging in the back of my mind that I need to get out...
Every class goes after acid spitters, web spitters, mactera, menaces etc first, not just scout, because they're the most dangerous and can change a situation quickly, which is why I call them priority targets. So yes, scout should be prioritizing them, but so should everyone else. For most scout builds, I'd say that scout's group clear is not great, with some exceptions. Scout is notoriously bad against swarmers, and I feel that at least GK2 and M1000 are built more for single target, while Drak is more balanced, so if you aren't counting said priority targets as all classes should be focusing on them anyway, then I'd say scout's next job is usually to kill the tanky guys, with few exceptions.
Side note: I love your weapon break down vids, but with all the buffs, upgrade tier, and oc changes, GK2 is a completely different beast, and I wonder if you'll ever make a second video about it, maybe make a short video that says 'see my old gk2 breakdown first' then explain the few things that have changed, as it genuinely is a good weapon now that with 3 different ocs it has higher dps than the legendary hipster now, giving it a spot as scout's highest single target dps weapon.
Love your content though! Thanks!
Thanks for the comments. I have replied about the HVT targeting on your other message.
As for the GK2. I may well try and do an update video. Not sure if I will or just address the changes when I get to the Scout best builds compared video. Rock and stone!
Obviously if you see a hvt that isn't dead, you should kill it no matter what class you are. However, scouts have a few advantages that make it generally their job. First, scouts can kill them when they're much further away due to having very accurate primaries. If you're a driller you probably aren't going to waste time taking several seconds to try to kill a spitter that's 50m away because your kit just isn't good at that, but a scout can kill it in an instant so with a good scout the driller usually shouldn't end up in a situation where they need to kill an HVT.
Second, the other classes have a lot more to focus on. HVTs on their own don't tend to be too dangerous, since you can dodge ranged attacks. It's when you either 1) don't notice the hvt and it does massive damage when you aren't expecting it or 2) you're getting swarmed so have to split your attention between the swarm and the HVT. Stopping to deal with the HVT first might mean dying to the swarm, and dodging the HVT's attack might bring you in a direction that causes you to die to the swarm.
Because scout is bad at horde clear, they can devote all of their attention to HVTs and constantly have their head on a swivel watching out for them, unlike other classes that have other things to do. This means they're much better at catching those surprise HVTs. They also aren't threatened by the swarm, since safety is always a grapple away, so there's never a case in which they have to prioritize something else over the HVTs. Both of these mean that while killing HVTs is good for everyone, it's scout's main job while the other classes just do it if they need to.
Your editing is.....fucking astonishing.
Green beard scout offen forget to pop web spitter or even set up lightings.
I'd prefer a new comer scout to do his share while not having the most sleak skills then someone just trying to grab kills and don't even collect nitras.
I solo hazard 5 missions and this is idk. I enjoy disposing of whole hordes with most of my equipment. I guess tastes do differ =\
any plans to make a video on the shard diffractor?
Not at the moment 😔 Currently working on some different content.
i feel validated
i take armor breaking on the gk2 so i can break the armor off of pretorians so my team can kill them quicker
Do you think you could defeat a haz 5 mission on max drunk (like after drinking a blackout stout)? I feel like that’s the hardest the base game gets, wonder if it’s possible
I did Haz 7 no Bosco refinery so yeah I think that's very possible tbh!
Great video, but just a green beard here: Haz 6 and Haz 7??
Thank you and welcome to DRG!
Using mods created by the community to make the game harder. A lot of people found that once they unlocked all the overclocks and found good builds, that Haz 5 was winnable 99% of the time and wanted more a challenge.
@@GamingExistence Gotch ya! Yet to check out the modding part of this community, but I am sure I will soon. Just completed my first Haz 5 last night!
@@alexlochner4143 Awesome! Congratulations 🎉 I'm assuming it went well!
With so many previous videos about the Engineer's LOK-1, has your opinion that weapon changed at all? Does it still have a place on your team?
Still love the Lok-1 to be honest. I and a lot of people in my research group still consider it with Executioner: 1,1,1,1,2 to be the best engineer primary when backed up with an inferno breach cutter.
The Lok-1 helps to assist if not be better at HVT killing than the Scout. Yet the breach cutter can still provide immediate horde clear if the driller and gunner need it.
The modded difficulty players still use it a lot in those games so that should speak volumes.
Hope that helps 🙂 Rock and stone!
Amazing video as usual.
Makes me really sad to see the Drak not getting much love, but I can understand why.
Scout was the last class I started taking to Legendary and the reason is simple - love its playstyle, I just have a piss-poor aim and was afraid to try it out. Using controller instead of mouse doesn't help.
I mostly stick to the 'spray and pray' so the Drak felt like the best compromise.
M1000 gives me anxiety since you have a very limited ammo pool and every single shot has to count, especially at higher hazards.
Some told me to give it a chance with Hipster. It's indeed a ridiculous overclock. But I hate to rape my R2 trigger.
GK2 also felt better but Drak just settled it for me, either with OPA or bouncy. Mostly the former: I find it very solid for close/mid range HVT and grunts in general. (Yes, I also kill some of them as a Scout, I can't help it.)
Spitters, Menaces, Breeders and the like I take them down with Embedded Detonators unless they're sitting on the other side of Hoxxes.
Comfy setup for me, but I'll never be a GOOD Scout so the almighty elite M1000 will remain out of my league lol
Thanks for the kind comment. I get annoyed when I miss a few focus shoots let alone on the controller so I don't blame you on leaving it at home!
Me as a scout: *proceed to shoot praetorians with focus shoot with m1k*
Doesnt the Thunderhead and Flame thrower have more ammo efficiency than minigun? Both can specialise with huge ammo pools. I see that the graph shows base ammo, but i always feel like the minigun runs out of juice so fast
Hehe, I'm in there
TY
I am just coming back to the game after a few year break. Would you recommend sticking with the GK2 and Sawed-Off? Or are the m1000 and Zhukov just better?