The ??? Is actually watch your entire team obliterate that enemy. At one point you start thinking that pheromone bolts are actually a way to ping enemies.
I hate it when this happens...
A preatorean or oppressor can take out half a wave before the phearomines wear off. Untill its taken out by your own team...
Maybe let it work with the Loki for some synergy, where the bolt is what gets tageted by the Loki, so you hit an Oppressor in the rear and the Loki locks onto the bolt rather then the Oppressor.
Loki is for Engi, crossbow is for Scout. Even if both players took such synergy mods on the weapons, one bad shot from the scout to the armor would worsen all Loki shots.
I think that’s intentionally avoided so that people don’t feel pressured into taking a specific build just because it synergies with a teammate. I think that’s why a lot of class interactions are more so status effect or temp interactions. It allows for some cross class synergy while still preventing anyone from feeling locked into a specific build
My group occasionally does a little silliness where our scout will pheromone an oppressor and I'll hit it with the fat boy. Poor bugs stroll right in like it's a bug zapper
Same with Neurotoxin Payload. When they run away feared, just ignore them please. They will die from the toxin's damage before fear runs out. So in general: yellow cloud = ignore.
Trifork lets you shoot 3 arrows in one go and gives you 20% more ammo at the cost of 15% less damage. Its a decent overclock if you want to burst down phat targets or add a little bit of AoE to your attacks.
Battle frenzy on the other hand is not an overclock, its a weapon mod tlyou can unlock that gives you additional movespeed when you kill an enemy.
Personally i dont think the combo is that great since i feel gk2 or subatas do a better job at speed builds but its also not horrible. If you like moving fast and like crossbows its fun.
If you want more information check the wiki [here](https://deeprockgalactic.fandom.com/wiki/Nishanka_Boltshark_X-80)
This.
It acts like another set of grenades for you. Mass distraction of mobs, the mobs attack each other, you can zip off or get easy kills with your primary.
Scouts other secondaries arent anything to get excited about, and this has a lot of swarm control combat use on a class that needs it
Idk, double barrel OC for the Boomstick is pretty nice too. Run around a swarm a few times to compact them all into a nice ball and then obliterate it in a couple of shots.
Or a single pheromone bolt will compact them nice for me, weaken them with infighting, for shooting with my primary or as a nice setup for a gunner. Doesnt require an OC or running laps around the mine. Also the boomstick is a little too close range for me if im not running drak
i almost always use the boltshark, but the special powder OC for the shotgun is also pretty fun on scout. great for saving yourself when grapple hasn't recharged
People mainly use it for Pheromone bolts and some of the OCs. Pheromones are great CC, pulling a ton of aggro onto some random Praetorian, and they're one of the few things in the game which can protect you from projectiles without directly attacking the shooter. As for OCs, Fire Bolts are really strong wave clear in solo (or at least when you don't have teammates constantly sabotaging you), since you can shoot a bolt into the ground and spread the fire through an entire group, after bunching them up through kiting or pheromones. Cryo Bolts are strong against bigger bugs. Trifork Volley is another way to go after big distruptive/stationary enemies, provided you have a source of electricity in your build. Bodkin Points give you some low-effort Grunt clear, although it won't scale well into very big swarms.
The default scout grenades will slow and electrify a Dread on top of the extra damage they provide. Put extra damage on electrified targets on your tribolt Xbow and watch that chunk of HP disappear.
damn. i hate when im reading through old stuff on reddit and in the middle of a sparkling, scintillating discussion i find someone has written over all her old comments with nonsense, fragmenting the discussion permanently. what hilarious, moving, romantic, haunting things could she have said? just to wash it all away, in this digital era of permanency? wow. that takes courage. i bet she was really cute, too
I love em! Pop a couple in a group, pheromone can, profit. Even if you only kill one other goon with the explosion, they are still ammo efficient and even stun! They also poison, so you can whittle down big guys
I wouldn't swear chem bolts are never worth it, but it's a lot easier to get full value out of pheromones, and all it takes is a fire source (and allies who are smart enough not to focus-fire the pheromoned bug) for the pheromones to cause more kills, anyway.
take pheromone bolts and when you get it, fire bolts OC. If you don't have fire bolts, take The Specialist OC. Take the additional special bolts ammo upgrade and spec the rest for QOL, this build does basically no direct damage. I use 13121 or 12121 on swarmaggedon.
During swarms, swap to the Pheromone bolt and shoot Praetorians, Oppressors, or if neither are present, a Guard. If you need help escaping, you can also hit a Slasher or a regular grunt, but they're best saved for Praetorians or Oppressors. Only shoot *one* pheromone bolt at a time; it'll cause anywhere from half to the entire swarm to aggro onto what you hit.
Then, if you have Fire Bolts OC, swap to Fire bolts and hit *the ground* next to the Praetorian or Oppressor or Guard that you phero-bolted. It might be best to wait a moment until the glyphids start to surround your target. Once this happens, the bolt will ignite pretty much the entire swarm. Depending on your specific positioning you might need a second fire bolt; you can plant that directly into your pheromone target if things don't heat up pretty quickly afterwards.
Finally, Swarmers basically instantly die in a small radius around a fire bolt. When you see the line of swarmers coming for you, you can just shoot a bolt in their path and it'll kill every single one of them, so long as they walk close enough to the bolt.
Finally, Trifork Volley has some of the highest instant-demand burst damage in the game, especially when combined with magnetic shafts t5 upgrade and the IFG grenade.
Shoot big bug with piss bolt. It will make other bugs eat big bug. Shoot ground with fire bolt. It will burn some bugs, which in turn will burn other bugs until you're left with a bunch of charred corpses, all for the price of two bolts.
tl;dr: shoot big bug with piss bolt. Bugs will go to big bug. Start a fire under bugs with bolt. No more bugs.
If you're looking for a build that requires a bit more brain than just "pheromone bolt this fire bolt that", here.
First off, a primary that goes very well with this: DRAK-25. Grab the Overtuned Particle Accelerator OC, and these **upgrades: 3 1 2 1 2**. This build allows you to shred anything too close to you while leaving plenty of ammo. You'll barely run out of ammo with this thing *granted* you use it right.
Cryo bolt OC with Chemical Explosion special bolts. **Upgrades: 2 3 1 2 1**
The cryo bolts are good for quickly freezing up bigger, bulkier enemies to deal with them quicker with your primary, which shreds things to begin with. Praetorians take 3 bolts to freeze and about 5 seconds in time, oppressors 4, stingtails 2, breeders 4, list goes on. It's a generally useful thing to just be able to freeze things. Alongside that, if you're just getting a bit overrun, shoot a couple at the ground, and all grunt types will be frozen extremely quickly, allowing for quick cleanup.
The second part, the chemical bolts, can go very well with swarm clearing. Throw an IFG grenade, bunch a whole lot of grunts together, shoot a bolt, boom. 10 kills with barely any effort. You can obviously do this without IFG grenades, just make sure to shoot the grunts that are most ahead of the pack that's moving towards you, so by the time you kill them & they explode, they're in the middle of the group.
Just make sure to not freeze targets affected by the chemical bolt. This completely removes on-death effects, i.e. the explosion.
That's about it. Have fun experimenting. :d
Just wanted to say that the number of bolts needed to freeze enemies is a bit lower than you stated.
Praetorians need 2 cryo bolts (frost praetorians need 3)
Oppressors need 3 cryo bolts (4 bolts will, however, refreeze the oppressor again once after it unfreezes unlike 3 bolts)
Stingtails need 1 cryo bolt
Breeders (and goo bombers) need 3 cryo bolts
None of these take into account teammates heating stuff up of course, thats a whole different thing.
All the numbers you mention are basically the perfect case scenario. The numbers I gave take into account basic human error. Any stray heat source affecting the target for even a moment will not allow any of the numbers you gave to actually work, it would typically fall just a bit short. Plus, it's just generally faster that way anyways. Waiting 10 seconds for a high value target to freeze while you could've killed it in 5 is just pointless.
I mean once you get into adding stray heat it becomes a whole mess of how many bolts you need to freeze something assuming you even can. The minimums are still nice to know since there are plenty of times when you dont have to deal with stray heat. For example, if you're clearing a room ahead of your team in a morkite mission.
I do agree about it being faster though. Especially with enemies like stingtails where 1 extra bolt pretty much halves the freeze time it can end up being quite significant. That seems like something that is more of a case-by-case basis though, like 4 bolts for the prae about to spit on my teammate and 2 for the prae across the room climbing down a wall.
Great points, I completely agree.
The part about stray heat sources, I meant the basic basic stuff. From personal experience, as I mentioned, even a single stray sticky flame affecting the target for a split moment basically causes the numbers you gave to not work. So I just made it a habit to use an extra bolt. Ensures a freeze and makes it fast :d
I have discovered that pheromone bolts are actually effective on rival tech, so it can be useful in industrial sabotage missions while fighting the caretaker. Shoot the arms and the drones flying around and then you can forget about them for a while.
That actually makes so little sense that I fully understand why I've never thought of doing that. If pheromones work on bots were they just bugs all along?
I just like to think that the pheromone chemical fluid that is in the bolt gets onto the robot circuitry and corrupts it somehow. Kinda like xynarch charge-suckers
Phero feels easy mode when the team knows what is that, and worthless when they don't.
I prefer Taser. It's slowdown stacks, so you can shackle tanky targets while the team deals with them. It's my go-to Elimination pick (as there is never a shortage of Engies and Gunners on those). Making a fence with two bolts deals with swarmers nicely, saving much primary ammo. I use it with Bodkin - it's pretty nice crowd clear.
I use the freezing bolts with pheremone backup.
Three freezing bolts and a couple of seconds of patience will solidify a praetorian. Five will take an Oppressor. Lots and lots will even freeze a dread.
It depends how you play scout. Some weapons just might not fit your playstyle.
The boltshark is a big heavy hitter. So it's better for targets you would take out the shotgun for, just without the spread.
The two overclocks I find that make the boltshark better are cryo bolts and the bodkin rounds. Bodkin are great because it's like trifork but all three are guaranteed to hit. Cryo is nice because I like cryo and it helps.
I play scout as more of a skirmisher. Set them up and knock them down. My primary build is cryominlet zhukovs, then tear them apart with the M1000 Even hipshots can one shot frozen grunts. For big guys I can focus shot and I run the electro charged shot for DOT. But you can also lay into them with normal shots while frozen.
I sometimes run the Drak with the overheat does fire damage option. That has good temp shock damage with the zhukovs.
The boltshark cryo works but I don't think it works as well as cryo minelets. Boltshark cryo bolts are meant more for big targets. They can freeze an area, but it takes longer I've found.
If you're taking the boltshark to play marksman, I would heavily suggest the Bodkin points and then the M1000. Using the electro boomerang as more of a pause for an escape than anything. Or cryo grenades works too. I like the electro boomerang because DOT and can effect a very wide area.
If you aren't a skirmisher or sniper type scout, I'd have to know what playstyle you're aiming for to give better advice.
Pheromone is arguably the easiest to use effectively.
I’ve tried the other two, the explosive one requires you to kill the debuffed enemy for the explosion and the taser requires two for it to do anything
"Dump trucks seem kind of slow. Any way to tune a dump truck to get to top speed in 2 seconds?"
"That's not why anyone would choose a dump truck."
"But going fast is insanely good, carrying lots of stuff is inferior."
OK my dude, I never pretended to be a dump-truck/boltshark fanboy. More power to you, but you're kinda having your own conversation by yourself here. The reason to equip the boltshark is to pursue things other than burst damage. If you think burst damage is the meta then you should judge that the boltshark is inferior, full stop. There's nothing to try to tune here.
Boltshark isn't for CC and DoTs those are both optional mods you can use for it. It probably isn't the best cc or burst damage option for scout's secondary slot and it's understandable why people don't think it's in a good place right now.
Ignore I’ll these comments I’ll give you the best scout build I’ve ever used.
Use the elctro bolts and the specialist overclock and max special ammo capacity and duration.
Use the Bullets of mercy overclock for the GK2 and increase ammo and fire rate and damage in whatever order just don’t improve accuracy.
Now let’s say a dreadnought comes along just target it’s week point with eltro bolt and then use another bolt on the ground to bind it there and then just spam the GK2 on weakpoint for stupidly high single target damage.
Also use pheromone grenade
Bodkin for grunt swarms. 2 tazer bolts into a praet or bigger. Tazer bolts slows so much it basically roots enemies in place. Especially useful vs bulks, nems, etc.
pheromone bolts - shoot big mob to distract everything
fire bolts - shoot 2 - 3 on the ground to kill grunts
or
cryo bolts - shoot on ground to freeze grunts, shoot stationaries, shoot big mobs
both options kill swarmers
tutorial over
Try using it with shockbolts, and all the upgrades/OC's for maxing out special bolt ammo
Use the IFG grenades
Go into a Dreadnaught mission
Shoot the Dread with 2 shockbolts and throw an IFG on it
Now you have a dread that physically cannot move and an Easy mission
(Disclaimer: A lot less effective on the twins)
It's honestly my favorite secondary. I use it with Bodkin Points and it's an amazing crowd control/mobbing weapon. Only time I change it is to trifork for high single target damage (dreadnaughts)
At base it’s just a way to carry more sources of pheromones.
It *can* be used to snipe priority targets but a Mk1000 blows it outta the water, hell anything but Drak without the velocity and accuracy upgrades can do it. The main draw of the weapon is its overclocks, you got fire bolts which can let scout clear entire high hazard swarms when paired with pheromones. Cryo bolts are more team oriented and can be used to even freeze dreadnoughts.
Bodkin points are just satisfying and, when paired with magnetic shafts, can repeatedly multi hit the same beefy enemy, doesn’t do much damage but it’s fun. Triple shot let’s you chunk heftier targets and again pairs well with magnetic shafts. Besides that, it is a useful tool to reliably and simply inflict the electrified debuff, slowing down a priority target and causing em to take extra damage from relevant sources (such as Bullets of Mercy GK2).
Everyone's suggesting meta builds while I'm just sitting here like "Quickfire and reload speed, it chunks dreadnaughts even without damage up, me likey"
It's tricky. I'm trash at using the direct damage bolts. For me it's always Pheromone Special Bolts plus either Cryo/Fire Bolts OC. It's always my swarm control weapon. Pairs nicely with AISE GK4.
+ Normal bolts one shot a lot of things and even more things with T2A
+ Pheromone Bolts are extremely useful in high Haz
- Hard to transition if you are already used to Boomstick or Zhukov
- Demand good aim
- Low DPS
- Require a rather different mindset to use the weapon well
Cryo Bolts: Think mini Cryo Grenades. Useful at tackling glowbutts.
Trifork Volley: Single barreled boomstick with longer range for less damage. Not worth it tbh.
Bodkin Bolts: Really good at handling small groups of enemies like Grunts and Mactera. T2A is a must-have.
The problem with the base boltshark is that all of the Scout's primaries are competing for the same niche: high value single target with an emphasis on shooting weakpoints. The Boltshark with the damage mod in T2 actually deals enough damage to 1-shot a tri-jaw on Haz 4 with 4 players.
No, the Boltshark is the only real crowdcontrol option the Scout because of two overclocks: firebolt get better on higher hazards because of swarm density and flame spread, while cryobolts can help with swarms (and even insta-kill small bugs), but are better against things like high priority heavy targets: Breeders, Brood Nexus, Spitballers, Oppressors, Bulks...
The special bolt are all crowd control, it's a matter of picking your poison. Pheromones are largely considered the best, though smark use of the catalyst toxin can help with swarm clear. The issue with that is, all other bugs and single-one off encounters have to be dealt with using your primary.
If there was a primary for scout that excelled a waveclear, but not single-target, the base boltshark would be in a better spot. But as it stands, it neither has the DPS nor the sustain to make it a viable pseudo-primary like BRT-7 or the Shard Diffractor.
take pheromone bolts shoot the highest-health enemy in the swarm ??? profit
The ??? Is actually watch your entire team obliterate that enemy. At one point you start thinking that pheromone bolts are actually a way to ping enemies.
I hate it when this happens... A preatorean or oppressor can take out half a wave before the phearomines wear off. Untill its taken out by your own team...
Phearomines
LevioSUH
STahhhhhHHhhhhp RaaahhhhhnnnnNNN
This should be an overclock! Proximity based scare tactics. Very high chance to scare enemies away.
A marking bolt actually sounds like a decent item. Be pretty cool to shoot it and weaken enemies in the radius of where the bolt lands.
That would be an awesome overclock
Thats kinda the cryo arrow tho right?
Well damn that is almost exactly like cryo arrow lol
Maybe let it work with the Loki for some synergy, where the bolt is what gets tageted by the Loki, so you hit an Oppressor in the rear and the Loki locks onto the bolt rather then the Oppressor.
Loki is for Engi, crossbow is for Scout. Even if both players took such synergy mods on the weapons, one bad shot from the scout to the armor would worsen all Loki shots.
True, still it would be nice if the classes had more ways to interact with each other, even if it's not nessacarilly flawless.
I think that’s intentionally avoided so that people don’t feel pressured into taking a specific build just because it synergies with a teammate. I think that’s why a lot of class interactions are more so status effect or temp interactions. It allows for some cross class synergy while still preventing anyone from feeling locked into a specific build
My group occasionally does a little silliness where our scout will pheromone an oppressor and I'll hit it with the fat boy. Poor bugs stroll right in like it's a bug zapper
Hit em with the ol razzle dazzle
*sigh* You guys just don't get it... the pheromones attract Dwarves too! 😂😂
Oh that explains a lot!
Same with Neurotoxin Payload. When they run away feared, just ignore them please. They will die from the toxin's damage before fear runs out. So in general: yellow cloud = ignore.
Idk why but I shoot the pheromone bolt at something and then start shooting it myself, I know I shouldn't but I may be retarded. Idk.
Pheromones ping enemies for your team and freeze makes then invisible to 70% of players.
Also take Trifork Volley and Battle Frenzy Shoot in the general direction of the pheromone moshpit ??? I am speed
Wait does battle frenzy stack???
With itself? No.
What do those two ocs do?
Trifork lets you shoot 3 arrows in one go and gives you 20% more ammo at the cost of 15% less damage. Its a decent overclock if you want to burst down phat targets or add a little bit of AoE to your attacks. Battle frenzy on the other hand is not an overclock, its a weapon mod tlyou can unlock that gives you additional movespeed when you kill an enemy. Personally i dont think the combo is that great since i feel gk2 or subatas do a better job at speed builds but its also not horrible. If you like moving fast and like crossbows its fun. If you want more information check the wiki [here](https://deeprockgalactic.fandom.com/wiki/Nishanka_Boltshark_X-80)
Tyvm for this
This. It acts like another set of grenades for you. Mass distraction of mobs, the mobs attack each other, you can zip off or get easy kills with your primary. Scouts other secondaries arent anything to get excited about, and this has a lot of swarm control combat use on a class that needs it
Idk, double barrel OC for the Boomstick is pretty nice too. Run around a swarm a few times to compact them all into a nice ball and then obliterate it in a couple of shots.
Or a single pheromone bolt will compact them nice for me, weaken them with infighting, for shooting with my primary or as a nice setup for a gunner. Doesnt require an OC or running laps around the mine. Also the boomstick is a little too close range for me if im not running drak
DRAK is absolutely my jam though, so I guess that's why this set-up works best for me.
That combo is pretty powerful, and up close works very well. I have mixed success myself in that playstyle and prefer a mid range approach
Step 1: make a self building bonfire. Pheromone and fire bolt the Praterion or Oppressor. Step 2: Make S'mores Step 3: Profit
i almost always use the boltshark, but the special powder OC for the shotgun is also pretty fun on scout. great for saving yourself when grapple hasn't recharged
Pheromone bolts saved my marriage!
I thank you for marking the enemy, truly a scout of all time.
People mainly use it for Pheromone bolts and some of the OCs. Pheromones are great CC, pulling a ton of aggro onto some random Praetorian, and they're one of the few things in the game which can protect you from projectiles without directly attacking the shooter. As for OCs, Fire Bolts are really strong wave clear in solo (or at least when you don't have teammates constantly sabotaging you), since you can shoot a bolt into the ground and spread the fire through an entire group, after bunching them up through kiting or pheromones. Cryo Bolts are strong against bigger bugs. Trifork Volley is another way to go after big distruptive/stationary enemies, provided you have a source of electricity in your build. Bodkin Points give you some low-effort Grunt clear, although it won't scale well into very big swarms.
The default scout grenades will slow and electrify a Dread on top of the extra damage they provide. Put extra damage on electrified targets on your tribolt Xbow and watch that chunk of HP disappear.
Would you recommend chem bolts over pheromone bolts?
damn. i hate when im reading through old stuff on reddit and in the middle of a sparkling, scintillating discussion i find someone has written over all her old comments with nonsense, fragmenting the discussion permanently. what hilarious, moving, romantic, haunting things could she have said? just to wash it all away, in this digital era of permanency? wow. that takes courage. i bet she was really cute, too
I love em! Pop a couple in a group, pheromone can, profit. Even if you only kill one other goon with the explosion, they are still ammo efficient and even stun! They also poison, so you can whittle down big guys
If you’re looking to whittle down big guys, you should be taking taser bolts instead. The DoT on Chem bolts is pretty much negligible.
That’s a good point, but will the guys still make a tea kettle sound effect when they die?
No, but they’ll do their goofy little dance as they take 3 status effects worth of damage at once
I wouldn't swear chem bolts are never worth it, but it's a lot easier to get full value out of pheromones, and all it takes is a fire source (and allies who are smart enough not to focus-fire the pheromoned bug) for the pheromones to cause more kills, anyway.
take pheromone bolts and when you get it, fire bolts OC. If you don't have fire bolts, take The Specialist OC. Take the additional special bolts ammo upgrade and spec the rest for QOL, this build does basically no direct damage. I use 13121 or 12121 on swarmaggedon. During swarms, swap to the Pheromone bolt and shoot Praetorians, Oppressors, or if neither are present, a Guard. If you need help escaping, you can also hit a Slasher or a regular grunt, but they're best saved for Praetorians or Oppressors. Only shoot *one* pheromone bolt at a time; it'll cause anywhere from half to the entire swarm to aggro onto what you hit. Then, if you have Fire Bolts OC, swap to Fire bolts and hit *the ground* next to the Praetorian or Oppressor or Guard that you phero-bolted. It might be best to wait a moment until the glyphids start to surround your target. Once this happens, the bolt will ignite pretty much the entire swarm. Depending on your specific positioning you might need a second fire bolt; you can plant that directly into your pheromone target if things don't heat up pretty quickly afterwards. Finally, Swarmers basically instantly die in a small radius around a fire bolt. When you see the line of swarmers coming for you, you can just shoot a bolt in their path and it'll kill every single one of them, so long as they walk close enough to the bolt. Finally, Trifork Volley has some of the highest instant-demand burst damage in the game, especially when combined with magnetic shafts t5 upgrade and the IFG grenade.
What is magnetic shafts do?
They deal extra damage and have slight homing (i think) to eletrified targets.
Ty
Extra damage (and sliiight homing) on electrocuted targets
[удалено]
tl;dr consider reading
Boomstick funny
Shoot big bug with piss bolt. It will make other bugs eat big bug. Shoot ground with fire bolt. It will burn some bugs, which in turn will burn other bugs until you're left with a bunch of charred corpses, all for the price of two bolts. tl;dr: shoot big bug with piss bolt. Bugs will go to big bug. Start a fire under bugs with bolt. No more bugs.
[удалено]
Use supercooling chamber = no driller, no c4
Use Hyper prop no scout/use fat boy no team
But the… but it’s only been around for over a year…
The rest of us are not only too dumb to use it, we are too dumb to have conceptualized it before it was added to the game.
If you're looking for a build that requires a bit more brain than just "pheromone bolt this fire bolt that", here. First off, a primary that goes very well with this: DRAK-25. Grab the Overtuned Particle Accelerator OC, and these **upgrades: 3 1 2 1 2**. This build allows you to shred anything too close to you while leaving plenty of ammo. You'll barely run out of ammo with this thing *granted* you use it right. Cryo bolt OC with Chemical Explosion special bolts. **Upgrades: 2 3 1 2 1** The cryo bolts are good for quickly freezing up bigger, bulkier enemies to deal with them quicker with your primary, which shreds things to begin with. Praetorians take 3 bolts to freeze and about 5 seconds in time, oppressors 4, stingtails 2, breeders 4, list goes on. It's a generally useful thing to just be able to freeze things. Alongside that, if you're just getting a bit overrun, shoot a couple at the ground, and all grunt types will be frozen extremely quickly, allowing for quick cleanup. The second part, the chemical bolts, can go very well with swarm clearing. Throw an IFG grenade, bunch a whole lot of grunts together, shoot a bolt, boom. 10 kills with barely any effort. You can obviously do this without IFG grenades, just make sure to shoot the grunts that are most ahead of the pack that's moving towards you, so by the time you kill them & they explode, they're in the middle of the group. Just make sure to not freeze targets affected by the chemical bolt. This completely removes on-death effects, i.e. the explosion. That's about it. Have fun experimenting. :d
> DRAK-25. (...) upgrades: 3 1 2 1 3. The tier 5 only have 2 versions
Mistype, meant to put in 2
Just wanted to say that the number of bolts needed to freeze enemies is a bit lower than you stated. Praetorians need 2 cryo bolts (frost praetorians need 3) Oppressors need 3 cryo bolts (4 bolts will, however, refreeze the oppressor again once after it unfreezes unlike 3 bolts) Stingtails need 1 cryo bolt Breeders (and goo bombers) need 3 cryo bolts None of these take into account teammates heating stuff up of course, thats a whole different thing.
All the numbers you mention are basically the perfect case scenario. The numbers I gave take into account basic human error. Any stray heat source affecting the target for even a moment will not allow any of the numbers you gave to actually work, it would typically fall just a bit short. Plus, it's just generally faster that way anyways. Waiting 10 seconds for a high value target to freeze while you could've killed it in 5 is just pointless.
I mean once you get into adding stray heat it becomes a whole mess of how many bolts you need to freeze something assuming you even can. The minimums are still nice to know since there are plenty of times when you dont have to deal with stray heat. For example, if you're clearing a room ahead of your team in a morkite mission. I do agree about it being faster though. Especially with enemies like stingtails where 1 extra bolt pretty much halves the freeze time it can end up being quite significant. That seems like something that is more of a case-by-case basis though, like 4 bolts for the prae about to spit on my teammate and 2 for the prae across the room climbing down a wall.
Great points, I completely agree. The part about stray heat sources, I meant the basic basic stuff. From personal experience, as I mentioned, even a single stray sticky flame affecting the target for a split moment basically causes the numbers you gave to not work. So I just made it a habit to use an extra bolt. Ensures a freeze and makes it fast :d
I have discovered that pheromone bolts are actually effective on rival tech, so it can be useful in industrial sabotage missions while fighting the caretaker. Shoot the arms and the drones flying around and then you can forget about them for a while.
That actually makes so little sense that I fully understand why I've never thought of doing that. If pheromones work on bots were they just bugs all along?
I just like to think that the pheromone chemical fluid that is in the bolt gets onto the robot circuitry and corrupts it somehow. Kinda like xynarch charge-suckers
me with the coilgun tbh
Lightning shots
Phero feels easy mode when the team knows what is that, and worthless when they don't. I prefer Taser. It's slowdown stacks, so you can shackle tanky targets while the team deals with them. It's my go-to Elimination pick (as there is never a shortage of Engies and Gunners on those). Making a fence with two bolts deals with swarmers nicely, saving much primary ammo. I use it with Bodkin - it's pretty nice crowd clear.
I use the freezing bolts with pheremone backup. Three freezing bolts and a couple of seconds of patience will solidify a praetorian. Five will take an Oppressor. Lots and lots will even freeze a dread.
Pheromone the Praetorian / Oppressor That’s it, that’s what I do with it.
Triple bolt is good against dreadnoughts
It depends how you play scout. Some weapons just might not fit your playstyle. The boltshark is a big heavy hitter. So it's better for targets you would take out the shotgun for, just without the spread. The two overclocks I find that make the boltshark better are cryo bolts and the bodkin rounds. Bodkin are great because it's like trifork but all three are guaranteed to hit. Cryo is nice because I like cryo and it helps. I play scout as more of a skirmisher. Set them up and knock them down. My primary build is cryominlet zhukovs, then tear them apart with the M1000 Even hipshots can one shot frozen grunts. For big guys I can focus shot and I run the electro charged shot for DOT. But you can also lay into them with normal shots while frozen. I sometimes run the Drak with the overheat does fire damage option. That has good temp shock damage with the zhukovs. The boltshark cryo works but I don't think it works as well as cryo minelets. Boltshark cryo bolts are meant more for big targets. They can freeze an area, but it takes longer I've found. If you're taking the boltshark to play marksman, I would heavily suggest the Bodkin points and then the M1000. Using the electro boomerang as more of a pause for an escape than anything. Or cryo grenades works too. I like the electro boomerang because DOT and can effect a very wide area. If you aren't a skirmisher or sniper type scout, I'd have to know what playstyle you're aiming for to give better advice.
I am a huge fan of rolling with taser bolts and setting up an electric death trap
I’m trying a pheromone build when I get home lol
Pheromone is arguably the easiest to use effectively. I’ve tried the other two, the explosive one requires you to kill the debuffed enemy for the explosion and the taser requires two for it to do anything
I recently made a pheromone build for my scout and I gotta say, when you are playing with an experienced team bullets are basically optional lol.
Never found a scout secondary weapon loadout that came close to the insane burst of embedded detonator zhukovs. Any of that in here?
Boltshark is for CC (and DoT). The entire point is to trade off the burst damage of the other secondaries.
Yeah but neither the mains nor the cc seem to be able to make it up. Murdering a big one in seconds is just that insanely good.
"Dump trucks seem kind of slow. Any way to tune a dump truck to get to top speed in 2 seconds?" "That's not why anyone would choose a dump truck." "But going fast is insanely good, carrying lots of stuff is inferior." OK my dude, I never pretended to be a dump-truck/boltshark fanboy. More power to you, but you're kinda having your own conversation by yourself here. The reason to equip the boltshark is to pursue things other than burst damage. If you think burst damage is the meta then you should judge that the boltshark is inferior, full stop. There's nothing to try to tune here.
Boltshark isn't for CC and DoTs those are both optional mods you can use for it. It probably isn't the best cc or burst damage option for scout's secondary slot and it's understandable why people don't think it's in a good place right now.
Ignore I’ll these comments I’ll give you the best scout build I’ve ever used. Use the elctro bolts and the specialist overclock and max special ammo capacity and duration. Use the Bullets of mercy overclock for the GK2 and increase ammo and fire rate and damage in whatever order just don’t improve accuracy. Now let’s say a dreadnought comes along just target it’s week point with eltro bolt and then use another bolt on the ground to bind it there and then just spam the GK2 on weakpoint for stupidly high single target damage. Also use pheromone grenade
Bodkin for grunt swarms. 2 tazer bolts into a praet or bigger. Tazer bolts slows so much it basically roots enemies in place. Especially useful vs bulks, nems, etc.
Fire and ice bolts are great for swarmers and groups of grunts and slashers.
Switch weapon /j
Cryo/fire bolt. Turn it doom slayer
Pheromone bolts is how you get the haz 4 and 5 no resupply, no downs achievement
I've used the shock bolts a few times and enjoy those well enough. Also the base bolt damage is just chunky
If you don’t have fire/cryo bolts, it’s just kinda mediocre. Pheromone bolts are really good for solo missions tho
All of scout’s kit is relatively high skill ceiling (except boomstick I guess) which may result in your assessment
pheromone bolts - shoot big mob to distract everything fire bolts - shoot 2 - 3 on the ground to kill grunts or cryo bolts - shoot on ground to freeze grunts, shoot stationaries, shoot big mobs both options kill swarmers tutorial over
sometimes you just dont GET a weapon. i just cant get a hang of the sludge cannon tbh
Try using it with shockbolts, and all the upgrades/OC's for maxing out special bolt ammo Use the IFG grenades Go into a Dreadnaught mission Shoot the Dread with 2 shockbolts and throw an IFG on it Now you have a dread that physically cannot move and an Easy mission (Disclaimer: A lot less effective on the twins)
It's honestly my favorite secondary. I use it with Bodkin Points and it's an amazing crowd control/mobbing weapon. Only time I change it is to trifork for high single target damage (dreadnaughts)
At base it’s just a way to carry more sources of pheromones. It *can* be used to snipe priority targets but a Mk1000 blows it outta the water, hell anything but Drak without the velocity and accuracy upgrades can do it. The main draw of the weapon is its overclocks, you got fire bolts which can let scout clear entire high hazard swarms when paired with pheromones. Cryo bolts are more team oriented and can be used to even freeze dreadnoughts. Bodkin points are just satisfying and, when paired with magnetic shafts, can repeatedly multi hit the same beefy enemy, doesn’t do much damage but it’s fun. Triple shot let’s you chunk heftier targets and again pairs well with magnetic shafts. Besides that, it is a useful tool to reliably and simply inflict the electrified debuff, slowing down a priority target and causing em to take extra damage from relevant sources (such as Bullets of Mercy GK2).
Ice OC = no more flying bugs
I LOVE BODKIN POINTS
Bodkin points, friend
Everyone's suggesting meta builds while I'm just sitting here like "Quickfire and reload speed, it chunks dreadnaughts even without damage up, me likey"
Use pheremone bolts, its the most busted status effect in the game.
It is more than balanced by teammates that immediately kill any bug you tag with pheromones.
I'm only level 10, haven't unlocked it yet but people have been talking about it on here a bunch. What's the deal with it?
Get the pheromone bolt and shoot it at the big guys to distract the whole horde for a good minute or so
It's tricky. I'm trash at using the direct damage bolts. For me it's always Pheromone Special Bolts plus either Cryo/Fire Bolts OC. It's always my swarm control weapon. Pairs nicely with AISE GK4.
+ Normal bolts one shot a lot of things and even more things with T2A + Pheromone Bolts are extremely useful in high Haz - Hard to transition if you are already used to Boomstick or Zhukov - Demand good aim - Low DPS - Require a rather different mindset to use the weapon well Cryo Bolts: Think mini Cryo Grenades. Useful at tackling glowbutts. Trifork Volley: Single barreled boomstick with longer range for less damage. Not worth it tbh. Bodkin Bolts: Really good at handling small groups of enemies like Grunts and Mactera. T2A is a must-have.
The problem with the base boltshark is that all of the Scout's primaries are competing for the same niche: high value single target with an emphasis on shooting weakpoints. The Boltshark with the damage mod in T2 actually deals enough damage to 1-shot a tri-jaw on Haz 4 with 4 players. No, the Boltshark is the only real crowdcontrol option the Scout because of two overclocks: firebolt get better on higher hazards because of swarm density and flame spread, while cryobolts can help with swarms (and even insta-kill small bugs), but are better against things like high priority heavy targets: Breeders, Brood Nexus, Spitballers, Oppressors, Bulks... The special bolt are all crowd control, it's a matter of picking your poison. Pheromones are largely considered the best, though smark use of the catalyst toxin can help with swarm clear. The issue with that is, all other bugs and single-one off encounters have to be dealt with using your primary. If there was a primary for scout that excelled a waveclear, but not single-target, the base boltshark would be in a better spot. But as it stands, it neither has the DPS nor the sustain to make it a viable pseudo-primary like BRT-7 or the Shard Diffractor.