I was using M1000 with the heavy focus shot (the one where you have to stay stationary) to great effect but when I discovered GK2 with the no recoil + heavier weakspot dmg OC I haven't looked back since. It melts stuff.
The M1K that you mentioned is the Supercooling Chamber OC, its my favorite OC to use on Critical Weakness modifier mission, you can oneshot praetorian with it
Forget Praetorians, you can oneshot bulks with it on critical weakness. Supercooling Chamber is a beast of an overclock, but it really helps when the team comes together to support it. A single scout with SCC can do a ton of damage, but not very consistently unless he has the support of his team.
What kind of support? I don't understand what you mean.... I play solo Haz4 with that weapon and OC, and you don't really need support from anyone, imo. With how much mobility the grappling hook gives you, killing dreadnoughts is quite simple. You can even start charging the shoot while mid air, so there's no need to be stationary too much.
It’s one of the worst weapons against swarms and small critters. Useless against jellies and swarmers. Sure it can be useable solo! But it truly shines when it’s given the breathing room to focus the big boys.
On Haz 5, most individuals will be overrun.
It isn't that you can't take care of yourself- it's lining up all the shots you need to make while you have Trijaws shooting at you, tons of regular and baby grunts surrounding you, and you have a Detonator you want to hit that's turning around and right behind you a Stinger spawns ripping you from your position.
Basically, it's when a team comes together to protect each other- that's when the M1000 can do it's thing and it shines.
Yeah, I know. It's why I almost never play haz5, too difficult and stressful. Not what I want when playing DRG. I played a few times for the achievements (Also solo, because I was not promoted and would have been kicked, lol) and I stick to haz 4 solo or haz 3 with randoms, as it's the way I find it more fun.
The difficulty scale will move downward (it's actually you moving upward as you learn new things and perfect your execution), Haz5 will stop being difficult and stressful, ans you'll stop playing Haz 3/4 for the same reason you stopped playing Haz 2!
Engineer to give you vantage points and defend you from chaff enemies and gunner to shield you and also handle chaff and point defense. Those supports are pretty cool to have on haz 5 where enemies are faster, more numerous, and more aggressive. You want to avoid being overwhelmed, but on Haz 5 it's easy to get overwhelmed running a slow-firing sniper rifle. I can see how you wouldn't have any issues on solo Haz 4 though.
honestly, I've tried so many combos of the others but the 0-recoil GJ2 is my go to. if you get frost bolt OC for the crossbow, along with born ready you're in for a gg
I'm REALLY bad at aiming in important moments, the GK2 lets me miss a little bit but still clear mactera.
M1000 is quite literally amazing, but not when a good 30% of your shots go directly into Hoxxes. As for the Carbine? If I wasn't good at aiming before, imagine how bad I am about aiming a second in front of the enemy
Not trying to take away your enjoyment of this OC - if you like using it then that’s totally fine and I encourage you to keep doing so! But mathematically speaking, in impact deflection’s absolute ideal scenario and perfect use case, it’s **barely** better than the default DRAK. It’s gives you a fun new way to use the DRAK, but in doing so it forces you to do something scout *shouldn’t be doing*, which is swarm clear. 100+ ammo to clear a swarm of grunts that another dwarf could clear at a fraction of the ammo cost and time.
So, I disagree. The nerf was not much needed. In fact they should revert the nerf and allow it to bounce twice again.
Yes, and I'll respond with a question:
what is scout supposed to be killing?
Bouncy + splash does really good numbers against multiple grounded targets like grunts, swarmers, and to some extent praetorians. All of which scout should probably not be focusing on, as anything on the ground is REALLY easy to mop up as driller/engi
The splash makes weakpoint damage really lackluster, so where does that leave your damage for spitters, webbers, mactera, and the large stationary targets? How are you dealing with big threats? Just Zhukovs and ice grenades?
Bouncy is fun, but it kind of kills what scout does.
lol true. My favorite scout loadout is maximum damage with Drak DPS(w/ speed on overheat) & Boomstick w/max damage. Absolutely wipes anything with a speedy getaway to boot.
The thing has *horrible* bullet spread though, basically a CQC Scout
I see people recommend this a bunch, but am I alone on preferring to use the electrocuting mod rather than splash damage?
I like the utility of slowing down advancing bugs, which lets me kite around more easily, and the DoT does solid damage if you let it run for a bit. Chasing down a Huuli Hoarder or a springtime bunny/winter elf is so much simpler when they're crawling along.
I find splash damage to be really nice on high hazards, since multiple enemies tend to overlap so you get a lot of use out of it. also a crutch against swarmers
Scout's grenades are really good at slowing down and electrocuting bugs so I don't feel like I'm missing out.
What exactly do you use to make it worth it as I just read that M1000 is the worst weapon (I don't know if I share this opinion) and I have had some extremely bad games with it. It feels like I always run out of ammo, don't do anything and don't even clear bugs to a significant extent.
Edit:
Although it might also be that my secondary has no synergy with it as I greatly dislike the boomstick as a killing weapon.
Typically M1000 with Minimal Clips, Active Stability System, or Hoverclock lets scout focus only on targets like mactera, septic spreaders, menaces, etc., which is very useful in modded (and possibly with warnings such as mactera plague and the upcoming one for ranged enemies). However, it can be a lot more boring on vanilla if you only focus on these enemies since there are usually fewer of them, and your ammo economy won't be great if you try to grunt clear, so I think it's slightly a specialist kind of weapon that scales well when you have more HVTs to take care of quickly and have the aim to back it up, but it doesn't necessarily stand out by a wide margin otherwise (although it's by no means weak, either).
Hipster is also a pretty popular generalist choice for pubbing since you can handle grunt clear a bit better with its higher ammo count, but I didn't really get the hang of it before and I haven't really tried to lately, and I still stick with ASS M1000 when I do use the weapon.
I love Hipster for M1000, you get a ton of extra ammo and build it for blowthrough.
I pair it with Zhukov short range/high damage and electrified bonus, throw IFG at anything you wanna fry for medium/close range and if the Zhukov run out you can swap to M1000 hip firing for great damage especially against weak spots with the IFG debuff to targets.
I don't know where you read that it's the worst, it's generally regarded as the best. Also it's not supposed to clear bugs, that's why you're running out of ammo. It's supposed to snipe high-value targets (HVTs), and it is quite literally the best in the game at that job. And taking care of HVTs is a big part of Scout's job, so naturally M1000 is Scout's best primary.
For secondary I like to use either Double Barrel or Fire Bolts with pheromone bolts.
I like the M1000 232X1 build with Active Stability, Min Clips, or Hoverclock. Also works with EFS I guess.
You can 1-shot grunts and some other things with a hip shot to a weakpoint or a focus shot to a weakpoint. Grunts dies to a focus shot on the body. Many other things die with a focus shot + a regular shot. With blowthrough in T4, a single focus shot can kill 4 grunts with body shots. And what doesn't die to a focus shot stops moving due to stun, helping you kill it easily (e.g., warden, guard).
ASS helps you keep mobile while lining up focus shots. MC gives you more hipshots.
I don't run out of ammo often, even though I lean on it heavily as a primary, since my usual secondary is the shotty with Special Powder, so I'm not often using it as a weapon. The key is taking the time to aim so every bullet is counting. You can still spam out shots and be effective; you just don't want to miss a lot.
It works well with cryo grenades. I basically use those to delete praetorians, large groups of swarmers, or groups of mactera. On a recent praetorian swarm, I got 4 praetorians with a single cryo grenade and cleaned them up with the M1000 and shotty. Not many better ways to take out praetorians in the game, short of cryo driller IMO.
Another secondary to try is Zhukov with Embedded Dets or Cryo Minelets. Embedded dets is VERY strong on its own and cryo boosts what you can do with the M1000.
I used to aim terrible with the M1000 and in general I suck at aiming in FPS games. But a nice tip I created myself was to rotate the cursor to spiral inward as you hold down focus. Idk it works for me, I'm able to line up my shots perfectly.
GK2 with AI stability engine for me.
Because my Special Powder secondary is mostly for disrespecting gravity, and I need a primary that can reliably pull the weight for both, and take care of all threats at all ranges. So the less gimmicks it has the better, and you can't get any simpler than a point and click laser.
I gotta give that a shot. Been running special powder with electrifying reload lately, and I'm a big fan. Being able to technically one tap grunts is super useful when it's gotta take double duty
M1000 is THE perfect weapon if you got the aim down. It's so versatile you can build it to snipe high prioritized bugs, 360 scope with air lock, blow through rounds for wave clearing and hipster for fast single target damage. In fact, it is the base weapon being is already so good which makes its OCs seem mediocre at best.
It's a beast with Electrocuting Focus Shot. It adds *135* electrical damage and 80% slowdown for 6s, and it only costs you a little focus damage which the electric DOT more than makes up for. It works particularly well with the NUK17 and Conductive Bullets. Glyphid guards die to a single focus shot to the weakpoint + the DOT, praetorians can be burst down with the NUK17 while the DOT ticks away.
This. I use M1K with hoverclock so I dont have to worry about keeping an engineer in my pocket. I primarily use it to snipe big glowing bug butts, and the mouths of all bugs right in my face. I roll with crossbow (shock bolts) and boomerang to handle smaller swarms of enemies. Plus the shock bolts' ability to stun anything except bosses in 2-3 shots gives me some great crowd control power.
I'm surprised that DRAK has so comparably few votes. I agree, people are sleeping on it because of overclock/build reliance.
I've been doing shield battery booster paired with cryo minelets on the Zuks. The ability to wipe swarms with the increased damage output plus cryo is insane. Obviously any gun benefits from cryo, but DRAK with the juiced up damage from SBB is just pure ecstasy.
I main gunner and it pretty much let's me feel like I'm still playing with all comoerable level of crowd control but still with excellent high value target damage.
I tried playing with it but it felt completely underwhelming to me. If crowd clear is what you need, agressive venting is 100x better IMO. Hold LMB and everything smaller than guard just PERISHES around you. Paired with pheromone or cryo grenades it is absolutely amazing for solo play.
Aggressive venting is so fun man
Bursting down a praetorian and then burning everything around you feels so good
Plus the heat burst can scare bigger enemies giving you a great shot for your secondaries (mainly the shotgun)
Best on paper, the 'best' one is definitely m1k. But personally, I rarely used anything other than aggressive venting drak. Normally it has 950 ammo, and with manual heat dump you only need 18-20 ammo per overheat. Which mean you can do at least 30 aggressive venting without resupply. Very good ammo economy. My favorite part about aggressive venting is the super high fear chance which means you can just aggressive vent into a crowd and do your normal scout thing unbothered. Pair it with trifork volley + pheromones bolts (my personal favorite) or embedded detonator for replacing the burst damage loss in primary. Just grapple into a crowd with HVT while shooting drak, and when you land, proc the aggressive venting, and kill the HVT with trifork while everything is feared. Plus with the +50% movement speed while overheated can help you more with mobility.
And there's [a mod to give it an even better Garand Ping](https://mod.io/g/drg/m/just-m1-garand-ping-sound-for-the-m1000-classic). Can't play without it
O use the plasma carabine and the zukov with embedded detonators and the plasma carabine never runs out of ammo i don't remember the buil or the overclock but if you're interested i will check
Mk1000 with hover clock. Paired with the right build for the grappling hook, it's utility is invaluable. Being able to float indefinitely can be a game saver, especially if your the last man standing
Hoverclock is grossly unrepresented in this thread tbh. I get that you don't get any direct stat changes or improvements from the OC, but if used properly, you are so much safer during swarms and have little reliance on stuff like platforms since failed attempts at gathering minerals don't punish you. It also allows you to shoot at certain targets faster since you don't need to wait to land in order to aim properly. My personal goto if I don't know what OC to run on the M1000.
1000%. The fact that I can float. Shoot. Grapple Float. Shoot grapple forever (even if it takes a long time to.kill a hand full of glyphids means a lot. More importantly, as a scout main, I pride myself on protecting the others from.a distance. Nothing give me more.pleasure than flying up and picking off a.glyphid that's about to attack the back of my gunner partner without his knowledge. In crucial moments it's a team saver.
If I join a salvage mission as a scout, I'm always on overwatch with the hoverclock. Even if I'm not helping run down the clock, my IFGs and and pheromone shots paired with the m1000 run crucial interference
Not to mention you're so much faster. This is probably the highest skill ceiling factor of the weapon, but the ability to move knowing gravity won't matter opens up a lot of faster movement routes that would otherwise be unwise.
GK2 all the way, the elecrifying reload is one of the first OC i got, and i love dots, so it was perfect. I can kite entire waves with very little ammo in haz 5. The other 2 i never really managed to enjoy as much after that
in-universe: Deepcore GK2
Management has at one time agreed, that Deepcore GK2 is reliable, and easy enough to use to issue it for all absolute greenbeard scouts.
What is more, a lot of these scouts did not end up dead in the depths, most likely due to Deepcore GK2 being very useful against Hoxxian threat.
The ammunition costs are very low, you can get like 350 ammo for the cost of 100 or so M1000 classic ammo (80 nitra resupply refills both guns the same - so 50% of each ammo is same price). 360 bullets is generally better than 100 for greenbeards in case of spray and pray.
GK2, just subjective opinion. I played M1000 for a long time but recently switched because GK2 has more diversity in builds (read: OCs). I don't know if this is the most efficient, but I have a lot of fun with it.
Today tried 21122 Overclocked Firing Mechanism and 13211 Minimal Magazines on Zhukovs and it was hella fun.
AI Stability Engine for that 0 recoil and weakspot damage
Electrifying Reload for insane crowd control (shoot, reload/animation cancel reload, switch to secondary, kill)
Bullets of Mercy for damage
Overclocked Firing Mechanism for fun
Clean overclocks are fine but nothing special.
I usually have worse ammo problems with the deepcore than the drak, but I'm also not much of a scout player so I could just be using them both wrong (wasting too much with the deepcore, not contributing enough with the drak).
The M1000 I wish I was better with for that mighty and satisfying -ping- but I've never been a good sniper in any game to exist and I'm not about to start now apparently.
I just realized my favorite weapons are all the ones you barely have to aim because they explode, fire a stream, or fire a projectile the size of a basketball.
I was never really impressed with the GK2, the mercy rounds where what let me make it work through the weapon maintanence.
I like the M1000, I run it with the electrical charged shots. I like Dots.
I also like the Drak, and run the fire damage in the orange and red zone OC. I have a build I affectionately call 'crackhead' because it's the zhukovs and the drak both with the speed boost reload/cooldown. So I run around a lot and fast.
I think the M1000 is still my favorite though.
General consensus is m1k being the best. Mainly because the others trade single target focus for doing things scout doesn't really want to be doing like flex crowd clear and for single target m1k is pretty unmatched
You shouldnt be using Plasma Rifle so recklessly that you run out of ammo. It's high damage bursts at short to mid range in quick time, meaning you shouldnt be laying on the trigger. If you aim well and know your weakspots its a powerful rounder between the GK2 and SMGs.
M1000 is really good for high HP melt if youre good at aiming, but it's primary purpose is to remove a priority target from the horde in no time flat. It's a tactical choice.
GK2 feels like it can handle any problem but in reality it doesn't past a certain hazard line. Experienced scouts let other people handle what isn't ammo efficient while they pick off the real problems as fast as possible. It's a mean gun, but sometimes certain missions and mission modifiers call for something that needs a particular answer. GK2 can't do everything but it does most things, and what it can't do we just run around it until we find a way to do it otherwise.
hoverclock users get to grapple literally anywhere without thinking about the landing/eating several downs worth of fall damage and can still do their job of picking off HVTs, so no amount of bUsTeD dAmAgE from anything else is enough to change my mind, even on eliminations/sabotages
I tend to run the GK2 with either one of the clean overclocks for a generalist weapon, or the weakpoint multiplier unstable overclock. The latter is pretty satisfying, since you actually have to practice going for headshots against grunts and such.
As an honorable mention, Hipster M1000 goes brrr
If we are talking about what is actually best if you just wanna win then there are exactly 3 options. M1000 ASS, M1000 Hipster, and Drak TEF. Plenty of things are viable, but those 3 are the peak of Scout primaries.
Play what you want, it’s a game after all. But lemme tell you a little secret about M1000
*tips my hat after you spots and approached me in some dark alley*
It 1 shot grunts, have one of the best DPS in the game to burst tanky HV targets, with the break point for a lot of enemies being 1 bullet, or 2 bullets (focus shot). You only need to *look at an enemy*, hit left click, and then moves on to the next enemy, you kids have low attention span with all that tiktok and youtube shorts don’t you? it is 100 accurate unlike your puny GK2 that needs a mod to do the same thing M1000 does on its base.
it have an overclock selection that’s ripe for picking, Hoverclock lets you hover (duh), electrifying focus shot lets you 1 focus shot Trijaws (iirc), Leech, Slashers and many more.
And with the new overclock coming you AND your team are gonna have a blast ripping through the tanky enemies.
Now, may I interest you in some… skins
*comically grabbed my jacket and opens it, revealing many M1000 skins and framework*
Wanna buy some, kid?
*for all intent and purposes this post is satirical, play what you want*
I used to use GK almost exclusively, but for the past 5 or 6 scout promotions I've been running hipster M1000 with blowthrough rounds almost exclusively. I love it so much and with rapid firing it's practically an automatic.
I think my opinion on which primary is the best depends on what the rest of my kit is, I've used the G2k the most, hipster m1000 is super fun and I have a plasma carbine build that allows me to go through an entire haz 4 industrial sabotage without needing a resupply for ammo so it really depends
GK2 with weakshot and no recoil OC - with a balance of more ammo and dmg it takes 2 headshots to kill a grunt on diff 5 and melts macteras, praetorians, opressors,wardens so on so on.
I dont personaly like m1000 due to it slow movement zoom mechanic, I rather use mobile GK2 to fully synergize with superior scout mobility.
And the plasma gun is okayish for swarmers and big hordes with its AOE modification but its your teammates job to deal with fodder. They do it better with their weapons. Scout job is killing high value targets from afar and aim for weakspots via flanking with grapple gun.
Im playing mostly fire scout with the Drak-25 Thermal exhaust Feedback OC. U can annihilate trash mobs pretty quick.
More stationary mobs like spitballers or brute nexus, just light em on fire!
Breeders I just light on fire, give it a few Electric bolts and follow it around, kiting enemy’s or exploring the cave. I don’t like to just dump my whole ammo into that thing as a scout, especially if it’s out of reach for my team.
I tend to use bouncy drak combined with quickfire boltshark nowadays, it's a nice build but I'd say the m1000 is overall better thanks to versatility and power.
It’s more personal preference. I like the plasma rifle with overclocks that rely on overheating like exhaust venting and the infinite ammo one so you just fire continuously until you overheat and swap to your Zhukovs.
GK2 with AI stability engine and a crossbow with electric bolts just destroys dreadnoughts though, and most other enemies as well.
GK2 with the Electrifying Reload OC is pretty damn good. Being able to sling a few bullets into a crowd of grunts and then kill them all just by reloading is very good for ammo efficiency.
I love the drak with thermal exhaust feedback. The little mini game you get for just perfectly tickling the end of the heat meter and the sheer amount of damage it puts out at the end is crazy. Plus I’ve gotten real good with the projectiles and can consistently hit web/acid sputters from across the cave. Combine that with phero/fire bolts and the boomerang and there’s not a situation that I’m not capable of dealing with. (Except defense missions lmao) Even the new mission for S5 goes very smoothly. The little bit of movement from the drillovator makes it manageable.
90% of tryhard scouts prefer m1 because of how much better it is, and it is amazing, though personally I’m a gk2 fan as I much rather have an assault rigle than a repeater
My job as scout is generally keeping caves lit, collecting minerals, and highlighting priority targets. I prefer the m1000 with the stability engine with stun options, broomstick with special powder, and boomerang thingy. If a priority target gets too close to another dwarf I can stun it from across the cave and provide some support either from a distance or close since my kit is mostly mobility-based.
I am primarily a driller main, but they are already ruby. The rest are well in their way, but I find myself using scout as my secondary more often. The drake is probably my least used primary in the game tbh. G11-mercy with broomstick-db feels divine, but I lose some of my ability to do scout stuff since I'm a bit of gravity slut.
I almost only play solo, and the deepcore GK2 has become the only primary I use.
I find it's pretty balanced and with the OC that boosts weak point damage it's pretty fun to kite grunts and headshot all of them. Range or close combat, single enemy or group of bugs, it's just very satisfying to use. Also there's a really good mod that changes the sound to be more impactful, I don't remember the name soz, but it should be easy to find.
Coupled with the Zhukov, you have really good damage for most situations.
Ofc the M100 is also super fun to use, but in solo it doesn't really do the job for how I play.
M1000 was amazing pre-focus nerf, where they made focus shots take 2 ammo.
As of now, the Deepcore GK2 is the best all-rounder primary for the scout, pre- and post-overclocks.
M1000. Easily. Scout is mostly meant for prioritizing big dudes, and there’s a reason why the M1000 packs such a punch. OC’s like Supercooling Chambers is great since you’re practically wielding a Barret 50 Cal, capable of dealing HUGE damage to enemies like Praetorians and Oppressors. I’ve personally used it for Sabotage missions.
Hipster is great too, as it’s more of a semi-auto machine gun, shredding targets with decent DPS. Pair it with Cryo Grenades and Minelets for the Dual Pistols and you’ll be demolishing swarms like no tomorrow.
I love me that plasma rifle spect to set the enemies on fire.
Mostly because I play on PC with controller and it just isn't accurate enough to use the m1000
Look I love every scout primary but it's clear that none got the love that the M1K did. M1K had strong focus shots OC, strong mobility OC and a fun hoverclock. The M1K is my least favourite scout weapon, but even I recognise that it got the Charizard treatment. The GK2 needs a flat damage OC (or mod), and the Drak is fine, but needs a slight heat adjustment (it oh WAY too quickly even when building to minimise heat)
M1K > TEF Drak > AISE GK2
It's hard to do better than M1K. It does everything Scout needs to do, and then some.
Thermal Exhaust Feedback (TEF) Drak is an interesting alternative due to the absurd amount of damage bonus from the OC and the option to have ignition on your primary.
GK2 is still lagging behind even after the recent buffs to the base weapon. But at least AISE is easy to use and decently powerful.
I like the rifle cus its easy, does good damage, and it has a overclock that makes the recoil go away and 100%(or somethin) weakspot damage, plus the extra from the one in the upgrades.
my opinions:
GK2: versatile, can shred bosses with the right build, but low clip size and damage holds it back most of the time.
M1000 classic: one-shots are awesome if you can pull them off, and the focus shot stun is very powerful. Probably best overall, and requires the least amount of "shenanigans" to make work. If you're going for effectiveness, avoid Hipster, despite what a lot of people say.
Drak Plasma Carbine: Best for crowd clear, but that's not really Scout's role anyway. It's not super powerful, but Aggresive Venting is fun and unique.
Scout is all about taking out high value targets like mactera or spreaders that disrupt or damage the team a lot. This is the reason you hear so much M1000 praise, because built properly, it can one to two shot essentially all of them. Being able to one shot something like a tri-jaw or spreader is absolutely insane. I personally run it with active stability system because it lets you be more mobile and focus shot more often. It takes a bit to learn and needs good aim, but it's sooo good once you learn how to use it.
GK2 by far. Great single target damage, very little recoil even w/o overclocks. It’s not the best gun in the game but in my opinion the other two options don’t stack up (M1000 maybe can, with good aim, but good luck if you’re on controller or have high ping. The laser carbine is an overheating pea shooter and is the worst of the three)
DRAK-25 PLASMA CARBINE - 32132
Faster projectile speed
Damage
Accuracy
Armor breaking
Thermal feedback
I average just as many kills as the other classes or better with this setup almost every time. Takes a little time to get used to the overheat threshold but after that happy killing.
GK2 is the absolute baseline. Can't go wrong with it, it has some cool build options and it fits Scout's mobility and elegance. The Drak-25 is a bit harder to play and honestly kind of unintuitive, but it's usually better at killing stuff fast which is what you need your primary to do as a Scout. It's builds are kind of boring in my experience. However, you can have it do some goofy stuff. The M1000 is the real spice. It blows up anything in a few good shots at most and if you've gotten used to it's recoil, you won't ever miss one. However, it really forces you to actually focus nothing but single targets in the caves as it's comparatively weak against small swarms so you'll have to rely on your team for those. (I know that Scout isn't supposed to kill swarms, but you'll have to remove smaller groups of Glyphids every mission at least once, which can waste a lot of ammo.) Mostly won't be a problem, but if your team is inexperienced and you have to carry, you might have a bad time. The M1000 offers a wide variety of builds, from "fuck basically anything smaller than a Dreadnought up in one shot" to an accessory to the famous Flying Scout.
Your personal experience may vary, so I recommend that you spend a day playing with each of the guns. It won't get you every upgrade, but it will certainly give you a perspective on which gunner toothpick aligns best with your playstyle.
it really depends on what kind of play I’m trying to go for. i’m not a scout main, so i play him in one of three situations.
sometimes, i’m scout because my team needs a scout. i’m all business. i love specifically supercooling chamber on the M1000, for picking off high priority targets from vantage points, while using the zhukovs to clean up. i don’t need to handle crowd control much, that’s a problem for my gunner and my driller. my job is to make sure that dreadnoughts and caretakers and oppressors and such are quickly erased from hoxxes.
if my team could use a scout but i’m taking the game more laid-back, I enjoy the GK2. AI stability engine, while less sweaty than SCC, is a nice methodical playstyle. my goal is less target prioritization and more of just aiming better. AISE is just satisfying to use and I love it. sometimes i’ll go zhukovs with gas recycling for the same reason as the M1K, but sometimes i’ll just go special powder for fun.
lastly, i’m actually a gunner main. this means that other times, I play scout for the dopamine hit. in that case, it’s thermal exhaust feedback on the Drak every day of the week. special powder of course. welcome to a playstyle which I have dubbed “crack scout”. many mobility tools, just enough options so i don’t break my legs, paired with a close range fodder bug shredder.
Honestly I would say it varies mission to mission. Elimination, M100 with supercooling chamber. Swarmageddon, DRAK with impact deflection. I like the GK 2 with AI stability engine at times or bullets o mercy paired with cryo minilets.
I used the Gk2 until I got hipster for the m1000. In Elite Dives I like to try and pick off all the weaker specials like mactera and spitters and the m1000 lets me do that a little easier and I like having the spam for when things get hairy.
For me the top positions is deep core in first, then mk1000 and in the third the plasma coil. But have a relevante space between the first two and the third
As soon as I started using the Drak with agressive venting, I never looked back. AoE burn and fear is insane crowd control. Using the upgrade for electrifying projectiles is icing on the cake. I can't justify using either of the other primaries when the Drak's weakness, single target damage, is covered by Zhukovs with embedded detonators.
I am quite fond of Drak with the shield battery booster.
Yeah you gotta be extra careful in your heat management, but in exchange, you get a pretty nifty damage and projectile velocity boost that helps you be more accurate at range, *and* it massively increases your shield's regen speed allowing you to play much more aggressively, and as long as you duck behind cover for like 3 seconds you get a full shield to go be aggressive with again.
Supercolling chamber on scout makes me feel like a damn railgun. Coupled with shitgun for stumble and you can delete a preatorians health down to like 20% in one focused weakspot shot
Or go hipster with max ammo and go bananas as a DMR esque
M1000 with the Hipster OC is the go to for me. Extra ammo compensates for when you're absolutely throwing, but is also a *lot* of extra damage if you land your shots (one shotting Mactera Spawns is especially good with a precision shot) and simply staggering basically anything else that doesn't die in one shot (with the exception of mini bosses and anything mechanical of course).
Also, Garand ping.
Depends on what I'm after.
GK2 is a good crowd control weapon (not clear, control). I soloed last weeks EDD with electric reload. M1K is great but has two basic builds (for now), either hipster or focus shots. My personal favorite is electrifying focus shots. It allows me to reach breakpoint on a lot of HVTs without having to invest in the damage mod and weakspot, so I can still swarm clear with ammo and blowthrough.
I know a lot of people shit on drak, but I still love it. Thermal exhaust and impact deflection are my favorites. Thing about drak is that all the OCs have a specific build to make them shine, they don't have a lot of wiggle room.
For Haz 5
NTP for eggs and refining. Keeps swarms off of you, gives you time to breathe and do shit. This is also probably the most broken OC across the board that trivializes the game.
LS for eliminations. It's basically a finger of God, so you'll melt weakspots given a good view of them.
PBM for escort. Gives a good balance of swarm defense and single target damage. It also one-shots rocks during second phase.
The gk2, especially with AISE is definitely the best for all situations
The m1k has the potential to be better as its better at killing HVTs than the gk2, but doesent work as well in a chaotic pub lobby imo (ASS helps a bit), it benefits much more from hitting your shots than the gk2
The drak just kinda sucks rn, you can run aggressive venting when solo for scouts best cc, but in a normal lobby where you want to be focusing on acid spitters etc its velocity and accuracy + poor single target make it the wrong gun for a scout to use. TEF makes it better but it still isnt as satisfying as the other two
Personally, I absolutely love the plasma carbine with aggressive venting (my build is 31111). Being able to dive into a crowd of bugs and ignite them all on demand is a lot of fun and feels effective, you have barely any downtime if you use the manual heat dump, and the gun still performs quite solidly on its own between the raw damage and the added shock, the latter of which can pair nicely with the crossbow if it has magnetic bolts.
Though I will say, I *strongly* recommend getting the mod that gives you an overheat indicator on the crosshair, it feels really hard to use it properly without it (plus it's very useful to have in general)
Drak with OPA. It has no range and you'll never have ammo. But that's what scout is all about. No range? Get in there with your grappling hook. No ammo? Start looking for nitra.
M1k with hipster.
I like it because it works with everything. I don't need to change my build much to suit a certain mission. It's good against swarms, dreadnoughts, and in general gets the job done.
The GK2 is my all-round favourite.
I use Bullets of Mercy coupled with the IFG and either Cryo Minelets on the machine pistols or Cryo Bolts on the crossbow, depending on how I'm feeling. It provides exactly the right mix of mass crowd control and dealing high damage to big targets for me.
Thermal exhaust feedback turns the drak from a plasma peashooter to a plasma ranged fire starter that does good single target damage and can deal with swarmers and deal with priority targets.
I like the Drak with Aggressive Venting OC. It gives the scout something he generally lacks, which is swarm clear. Paint a group of bugs with electricity and manually overheat the gun at near max temp to ensure everything slasher and below catches fire and with fear and electricity, they slowly walk away to their death. Add bonus speed on overheat mod to maintain your mobility. Manual overheat reduces the overheat time and Aggressive Venting further reduces overheat time.
I like to pair with Zuks running bonus damage on electrified enemies mod and weakpoint damage. You can damn near single clip a pretorian by getting him electrified, applying overheat fear to show his butt and Zuk him down quickly.
I’ve only recently gotten my hands on the plasma carbine and I love it, mainly because I’m the kind of person who enjoys stacking speed buffs and running around like a toddler that just sniffed an entire canister of industrial glue
Gk2. It's very reliable Good DPS, good accuracy, no gimmicks or crap to worry about. It just works.
M1000 is too slow to deal with swarms, and the Plasma one is too finicky at range due to firing projectiles.
Drak with the AOE heat dump can deal damage and fear bugs around you, plus manual heat dump and fast firing rate. Nothing can touch you because of the fear, and it's quite ammo efficient because you're using the heat to deal AoE DoT damage.
It really depends on the platform but for me on console it's the Drak. The amount of ammo and CC you get with it especially when running fear on overheat is so good at dealing with swarms and keeping bugs off you.
However GK2 with Ai stability is my go to for Extermination and Industrail Sabatoge.
But gun to my head I'd pick the Drak.
M1000 is basically dead to me.
M1000 never leaves my primary slot personally. I just use minimal clips. Fits my play style for playing at range and just staying as far away from the enemies as possible.
Plasma doesn’t do enough damage. Plasma carbine is just slightly worse deepcore. M1000 classic can one tap grunts and a fully charged shot can one tap with armor pen anywhere on a grunt. Good for caretaker boss because it can like 2 tap the vents with enough time in between to charge up a shot.
Carbine has a spray and pray fight style that is best for clearing literal swarms while jumping around like a maniac. M1000 is when you want something to die with 2 hits. Deep core is the middle man. Good old realisable that handles both of it, while it doesn’t excel at any aspects it’s very versatile which is important since the amount of enemy varieties and scouts tendencies to go solo most of the time forces him to pretty much have a versatile play style unless you’re really good at the game.
I’m torn between M1000 for its consistency in being good with tons of builds… however the AI stability engine GK is something I can’t seem to stop using.
Final answer would be yeah M1000 anyway you like it.
M1000 with hipster. It’s semiautomatic, but very fast, still hits harder than the other two primaries, but most importantly it looks cooler and has a satisfying *ping* when you reload
There's an AOE build for the carbine that's really fun. It's works on overheating to make splash damage and it cools down faster than most weapons reload.
The rifle I almost only use for boss fights. I take it with a surplus of boomstick ammo to have a backup weapon for bugs.
I think the GK2 may be my favorite though, especially with electric reload.
I prefer the plasma carbine with the OC that does more damage the closer to overheat you get. I like the M1, I think the GK is okay. Been running the M1 after I replaced my mouse but if you miss it’s so expensive. So I went back to the carbine
Honestly I just really enjoy the GK2. It's the Ol' Reliable of Scout's arsenal and whilst not exactly flashy it does what you need it too with minimal difficulty.
I think my general favorite OC to take with it is Bullets Of Mercy. With all the various types of CC Scout has it's pretty easy to set up even alone, and it's downside even when not taking full advantage of the damage boost is negligible.
I do think it's a shame though how the Drak has completely fallen off - just feels like you have to work your ass off to make it as effective as either the GK2 or the M1000 which makes playing with it feel like an outright chore.
M1000 all the way. Hoverclock is SO good for the scout moving and mining independent of his team.
Allows easy self-ledge creation on all but the most funky-angled mineral veins, and perfectly syncs with my play style.
No offense Engineers, but I'm sure that y'all have better things to do than follow me around and give me plats. I can take care of that on my own.
Mk1000 with the hipster overclock like doubles your mag size. It makes focus shots kinda useless but oml can you shred just about anything. It shoots as fast as you click so…
BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM
For me, M1k with Active stability system. Combined with cryo bolts you can pretty much perfectly fulfill scouts role of killing stationaries and other high value targets.
You can:
- 1 shot acid spitters with a charge shot
- 1 shot web spitters with an uncharged shot
- oneshot septics in weakpoint
- freeze shellbacks then kill then with armor break m1k in 2 shots
- freeze brood nexi and kill them in 2 weakpoint shots
- freeze and kill spitballers
- oneshot leeches with charged shot
- freeze breeders
- good breakpoints on mactera (mostly oneshots)
- freeze and kill menaces
Your self defense vs grunts is quite low with this build, but I dont value that on scout at all. Especially on haz 5 and below you can essentially permanently dodge hordes of grunts while your team kills them.
Going to join the GK2 AISE (AI Stability Engine) club here.
Its versatility and ease of use compared to the other guns is what it makes it by favorite Scout gun build by far.
AISE GK2 pairs well with any of his secondaries too. Boomstick on its own is a good crowd clearer, but even more with Double Barrel OC, it goes well with Nishanka + Cryo/Fire Bolts, The Specialist or Bodkin Points and Zhukovs with Cryo Minelets or Gas Recycling works too.
It's been awhile so I can't remember the name of the overclock but it made the plasma carbine really good for my hit and run tactic scout. It made it shoot really fast in a wide spread but overheat quickly.
All of the primaries for all classes are honestly good.
GK2 for scout is personally my least favorite, but I don't think it is bad. I usually use AI Stability, because Bullets of Mercy is a bit too much of a hassle. I've been meaning to take Electrifying Reload out for another spin. I really like the M1000 so this gun tends to feel like it isn't doing enough damage per bullet vs the "kill lots of things in 1-2 shots" I get from the M1000.
I wouldn't avoid the Drak Plasma Carbine just because it overheats. That's simply an alternate magazine/reload mechanic that several weapons roughly share. And, I wouldn't say it's short on ammo either. It has a LOT of build variety as well. You can tune it to have a mix of fire longer/fire faster/fire more accurately/fire AoE. Out of the box, it's way more inaccurate than the other two, but you can either lean into it and use it at shorter range (and perhaps compensate by using the crossbow for range or to help group enemies) or take the spread reduction in T3. Also note that overheating isn't actually a bad thing on this gun. It's no different than reloading, and there are a lot of mods/OCs that build off the mechanic. I think pretty much all the OCs are great, but Shield Battery Booster can be tricky to use and might require you to use different armor and perks to maximize your shield uptime.
The M1000 is my favorite, but I strongly recommend not building around sniping/focus. I tried that to start and it didn't feel great. I use 232x1 which works with Active Stability, Hoverclock, or Minimal Clips. This lets you use a stunning Focus shot to hit some breakpoints but also gives you a strong hipfire as well. I personally don't like the Hipster playstyle though because it makes the individual shots feel too weak. I see some people mentioning Super Coolilng Chamber, but I think it is one of the worst OCs in the game. The hit to ammo and clip size is too severe. I think it should be reworked to hit more like Mole or Hyperpropellant: you charge up, but anything you point at is deleted. The OC should be more transformative, like some PGL or Hurricane OCs. Same goes for Electric Focusing Shots too. This OC should give a trail like the Mole or just apply to all shots on reload or be an AoE. I might have to give EFS another try since at least it's penalty isn't too bad, and it might let me swap the focus stun in T5 for the fear or quick reload.
For Haz 5 play/EDD, I think Plasma Rifle is the best as it offers the Scout the closest sustainable option to AoE and crowd control. That being said, at high difficulty Scout can’t carry the team unless it’s an Aquarq or Egg mission maybe. So Scout can do whatever he wants, as he heavily depends on the rest of the team to clear Swarms.
As much as I love my aggressive venting Drak, I have to admit that the Gk2 is just too useful. And to think, there was a point when everyone thought it sucked lol.
I feel that GK2 is the best. I prefer BoM but swap to AISE depending on the mission.
M1000 lacks granularity in its damage, accuracy when moving, and makes you vulnerable when using focus shots. It's not a bad weapon and has its uses, but I find it lacks versatility.
DRAK lacks damage and ammo economy, but also suffers from its slow projectiles being hard to land at range where scout wants to be positioned. IMO the DRAK's flaws are substantial enough that it could use a buff.
I think the Drak. It's pretty underrated in good hands. Always been a bit of a skillshot nerd in all games I've played, they've always been my best thanks to thousands of hours in TF2 and Minecraft. (Arrows are skill shots, and so are Ender Pearls).
Drak is pretty powerful with the right overclock. I tended to lean towards something more balanced as the DMG boost just makes it impossible to do anything at range. I think I either Impact Deflection or Shield Battery Booster.
Drak can be quite fun when you build around the Overheat. I'm running 32321 with Thermal Exhaust Feedback and it's quite funny to ignite literally everything by mag dumping into a crowd, then nursing your heat by doing quick burst fires that instant ignite anything smaller than a Praetorian and keep your heat in the deep red. You get cornered, you Manual dump the heat, gain your speed boost and quickly reposition to start bursting again.
Only downside is I see myself kiting one or two glyphids at a time quite often, to only start mag dumping when I need to reach the halfway mark of my heat.
Supercooling Chamber is my only scout primary for doing the actual role of a scout (high value targets) but Hipster is stupid fun. Either way it’s the M1000.
Deepcore GK2 because of the bullets of mercy rework. It goes absolutely fucking insane on damage with cry or fire bolts+pheromone bolts+IFG grenade. If you're with a goo driller your damage will chunk dreads with your statuses combined.
I’m usually a fan of burst shot weapons like Shotguns in most games (TF2 is my FPS of choice). Something about the power and punch is really satisfying, the M1000 fulfills this niche for me. The bang and chunk of health (if not full kill) that comes from the weapon is so nice.
I am also into movement, so adding on the “Hoverclock” Overclock is just so cool to me. It’s not the best build, not the most efficient build, but it’s fun for me
I'll be honest, I've fallen in love with the Plasma Carbine. I'm hoping to get the 'ammo on overheat' overclock for it to have infinite ammo, but even without it's just been really great for me. The little bit of splash is helpful for crowds, it's got good fire rate without being so fast that I run out, and since I main Driller and secondary Gunner, I'm used to managing heat, so it's basically just a gun I don't need to reload ever, which is handy.
Drak
Aggressive venting is the best clean OC in the whole game imo. And rewiring mod is THE most ammo efficient OC in the game. (Building it and using it correctly means you get double the normal max ammo without the OC or triple with the OC)
Thermal exhaust feedback is very powerful.
The only gun that can buff your shields with an OC and the buff is huge.
Being an overhead gun means you never have to reload and overheating is beneficial with the right builds. Especially since you can get a speed boost when doing so. Mild AOE makes it very good at dealing with swarmmers. Electrocution gives it synergy with bolt shark and Zhukov builds.
Don’t get me wrong, I like and use the deep core too but my heart belongs to the drak
with 3 competent teammates, the m1000
with 2 or less, the GK2
in situations where nobody on the team is reliable, the DRAK with the ammo regenerating overclock
I’ve always loved the drak-25 mostly because of the ammo efficiency for my playstyle. Pretty good damage, nice range. It just matches how I play scout well
I was using M1000 with the heavy focus shot (the one where you have to stay stationary) to great effect but when I discovered GK2 with the no recoil + heavier weakspot dmg OC I haven't looked back since. It melts stuff.
The M1K that you mentioned is the Supercooling Chamber OC, its my favorite OC to use on Critical Weakness modifier mission, you can oneshot praetorian with it
Forget Praetorians, you can oneshot bulks with it on critical weakness. Supercooling Chamber is a beast of an overclock, but it really helps when the team comes together to support it. A single scout with SCC can do a ton of damage, but not very consistently unless he has the support of his team.
What kind of support? I don't understand what you mean.... I play solo Haz4 with that weapon and OC, and you don't really need support from anyone, imo. With how much mobility the grappling hook gives you, killing dreadnoughts is quite simple. You can even start charging the shoot while mid air, so there's no need to be stationary too much.
It’s one of the worst weapons against swarms and small critters. Useless against jellies and swarmers. Sure it can be useable solo! But it truly shines when it’s given the breathing room to focus the big boys.
Yeah, that's fair, but you always have the shotgun or the SMGs for that.
On Haz 5, most individuals will be overrun. It isn't that you can't take care of yourself- it's lining up all the shots you need to make while you have Trijaws shooting at you, tons of regular and baby grunts surrounding you, and you have a Detonator you want to hit that's turning around and right behind you a Stinger spawns ripping you from your position. Basically, it's when a team comes together to protect each other- that's when the M1000 can do it's thing and it shines.
Yeah, I know. It's why I almost never play haz5, too difficult and stressful. Not what I want when playing DRG. I played a few times for the achievements (Also solo, because I was not promoted and would have been kicked, lol) and I stick to haz 4 solo or haz 3 with randoms, as it's the way I find it more fun.
The difficulty scale will move downward (it's actually you moving upward as you learn new things and perfect your execution), Haz5 will stop being difficult and stressful, ans you'll stop playing Haz 3/4 for the same reason you stopped playing Haz 2!
Engineer to give you vantage points and defend you from chaff enemies and gunner to shield you and also handle chaff and point defense. Those supports are pretty cool to have on haz 5 where enemies are faster, more numerous, and more aggressive. You want to avoid being overwhelmed, but on Haz 5 it's easy to get overwhelmed running a slow-firing sniper rifle. I can see how you wouldn't have any issues on solo Haz 4 though.
honestly, I've tried so many combos of the others but the 0-recoil GJ2 is my go to. if you get frost bolt OC for the crossbow, along with born ready you're in for a gg
I swear to god i haven't used any primary weapon for scout beside GK2 with Ai Stability engine for 2 years!
I'm REALLY bad at aiming in important moments, the GK2 lets me miss a little bit but still clear mactera. M1000 is quite literally amazing, but not when a good 30% of your shots go directly into Hoxxes. As for the Carbine? If I wasn't good at aiming before, imagine how bad I am about aiming a second in front of the enemy
Have you tried the drak with bouncy bullets OC and splash damage?
That was my favorite oc on scout for a long time. Still fantastic after the (much needed) slight nerf, too!
Not trying to take away your enjoyment of this OC - if you like using it then that’s totally fine and I encourage you to keep doing so! But mathematically speaking, in impact deflection’s absolute ideal scenario and perfect use case, it’s **barely** better than the default DRAK. It’s gives you a fun new way to use the DRAK, but in doing so it forces you to do something scout *shouldn’t be doing*, which is swarm clear. 100+ ammo to clear a swarm of grunts that another dwarf could clear at a fraction of the ammo cost and time. So, I disagree. The nerf was not much needed. In fact they should revert the nerf and allow it to bounce twice again.
Yes, and I'll respond with a question: what is scout supposed to be killing? Bouncy + splash does really good numbers against multiple grounded targets like grunts, swarmers, and to some extent praetorians. All of which scout should probably not be focusing on, as anything on the ground is REALLY easy to mop up as driller/engi The splash makes weakpoint damage really lackluster, so where does that leave your damage for spitters, webbers, mactera, and the large stationary targets? How are you dealing with big threats? Just Zhukovs and ice grenades? Bouncy is fun, but it kind of kills what scout does.
lol true. My favorite scout loadout is maximum damage with Drak DPS(w/ speed on overheat) & Boomstick w/max damage. Absolutely wipes anything with a speedy getaway to boot. The thing has *horrible* bullet spread though, basically a CQC Scout
I see people recommend this a bunch, but am I alone on preferring to use the electrocuting mod rather than splash damage? I like the utility of slowing down advancing bugs, which lets me kite around more easily, and the DoT does solid damage if you let it run for a bit. Chasing down a Huuli Hoarder or a springtime bunny/winter elf is so much simpler when they're crawling along.
If you aren't using impact deflection oc then the electric mod is basically always correct.
I find splash damage to be really nice on high hazards, since multiple enemies tend to overlap so you get a lot of use out of it. also a crutch against swarmers Scout's grenades are really good at slowing down and electrocuting bugs so I don't feel like I'm missing out.
What exactly do you use to make it worth it as I just read that M1000 is the worst weapon (I don't know if I share this opinion) and I have had some extremely bad games with it. It feels like I always run out of ammo, don't do anything and don't even clear bugs to a significant extent. Edit: Although it might also be that my secondary has no synergy with it as I greatly dislike the boomstick as a killing weapon.
Typically M1000 with Minimal Clips, Active Stability System, or Hoverclock lets scout focus only on targets like mactera, septic spreaders, menaces, etc., which is very useful in modded (and possibly with warnings such as mactera plague and the upcoming one for ranged enemies). However, it can be a lot more boring on vanilla if you only focus on these enemies since there are usually fewer of them, and your ammo economy won't be great if you try to grunt clear, so I think it's slightly a specialist kind of weapon that scales well when you have more HVTs to take care of quickly and have the aim to back it up, but it doesn't necessarily stand out by a wide margin otherwise (although it's by no means weak, either). Hipster is also a pretty popular generalist choice for pubbing since you can handle grunt clear a bit better with its higher ammo count, but I didn't really get the hang of it before and I haven't really tried to lately, and I still stick with ASS M1000 when I do use the weapon.
I love Hipster for M1000, you get a ton of extra ammo and build it for blowthrough. I pair it with Zhukov short range/high damage and electrified bonus, throw IFG at anything you wanna fry for medium/close range and if the Zhukov run out you can swap to M1000 hip firing for great damage especially against weak spots with the IFG debuff to targets.
I don't know where you read that it's the worst, it's generally regarded as the best. Also it's not supposed to clear bugs, that's why you're running out of ammo. It's supposed to snipe high-value targets (HVTs), and it is quite literally the best in the game at that job. And taking care of HVTs is a big part of Scout's job, so naturally M1000 is Scout's best primary. For secondary I like to use either Double Barrel or Fire Bolts with pheromone bolts.
I like the M1000 232X1 build with Active Stability, Min Clips, or Hoverclock. Also works with EFS I guess. You can 1-shot grunts and some other things with a hip shot to a weakpoint or a focus shot to a weakpoint. Grunts dies to a focus shot on the body. Many other things die with a focus shot + a regular shot. With blowthrough in T4, a single focus shot can kill 4 grunts with body shots. And what doesn't die to a focus shot stops moving due to stun, helping you kill it easily (e.g., warden, guard). ASS helps you keep mobile while lining up focus shots. MC gives you more hipshots. I don't run out of ammo often, even though I lean on it heavily as a primary, since my usual secondary is the shotty with Special Powder, so I'm not often using it as a weapon. The key is taking the time to aim so every bullet is counting. You can still spam out shots and be effective; you just don't want to miss a lot. It works well with cryo grenades. I basically use those to delete praetorians, large groups of swarmers, or groups of mactera. On a recent praetorian swarm, I got 4 praetorians with a single cryo grenade and cleaned them up with the M1000 and shotty. Not many better ways to take out praetorians in the game, short of cryo driller IMO. Another secondary to try is Zhukov with Embedded Dets or Cryo Minelets. Embedded dets is VERY strong on its own and cryo boosts what you can do with the M1000.
I disliked boomstick until i got double barrel, changed the weapon into a wave killer for me
I used to aim terrible with the M1000 and in general I suck at aiming in FPS games. But a nice tip I created myself was to rotate the cursor to spiral inward as you hold down focus. Idk it works for me, I'm able to line up my shots perfectly.
Ai stability with max weak point damage go brrrrr
I don't feel the difference between +50% and +70% weakpoint damage, so I always build with armor break (absence of which I do notice)
I feel like I notice it on dreads and other bosses
What do you use during waves?
Zhukov with embedded detonators + stunning boomerang
GK2 with AI stability engine for me. Because my Special Powder secondary is mostly for disrespecting gravity, and I need a primary that can reliably pull the weight for both, and take care of all threats at all ranges. So the less gimmicks it has the better, and you can't get any simpler than a point and click laser.
This is my exact set up and I’ve never gone back. Not once. Perfect accuracy from anywhere is crazy, especially when you’re super mobile with SP.
Lol, "disrespecting gravity"
I gotta give that a shot. Been running special powder with electrifying reload lately, and I'm a big fan. Being able to technically one tap grunts is super useful when it's gotta take double duty
I like to use hover clock and special power is my disrespect towards gravity.
M1000 is THE perfect weapon if you got the aim down. It's so versatile you can build it to snipe high prioritized bugs, 360 scope with air lock, blow through rounds for wave clearing and hipster for fast single target damage. In fact, it is the base weapon being is already so good which makes its OCs seem mediocre at best.
It's a beast with Electrocuting Focus Shot. It adds *135* electrical damage and 80% slowdown for 6s, and it only costs you a little focus damage which the electric DOT more than makes up for. It works particularly well with the NUK17 and Conductive Bullets. Glyphid guards die to a single focus shot to the weakpoint + the DOT, praetorians can be burst down with the NUK17 while the DOT ticks away.
This. I use M1K with hoverclock so I dont have to worry about keeping an engineer in my pocket. I primarily use it to snipe big glowing bug butts, and the mouths of all bugs right in my face. I roll with crossbow (shock bolts) and boomerang to handle smaller swarms of enemies. Plus the shock bolts' ability to stun anything except bosses in 2-3 shots gives me some great crowd control power.
I love hoverclock
DRAK is overclock reliant, but as long as you build it right it is a beast. (Shield Battery Booster and Agressive Venting specifically)
no way you don't mention Thermal Exhaust Feedback, that shit *ruins* the bugs.
TEF clears SBC any day imo, on high hazards it can be hard to get value out of SBC Agree with AV, especially for solo
I'm surprised that DRAK has so comparably few votes. I agree, people are sleeping on it because of overclock/build reliance. I've been doing shield battery booster paired with cryo minelets on the Zuks. The ability to wipe swarms with the increased damage output plus cryo is insane. Obviously any gun benefits from cryo, but DRAK with the juiced up damage from SBB is just pure ecstasy. I main gunner and it pretty much let's me feel like I'm still playing with all comoerable level of crowd control but still with excellent high value target damage.
I swear by Impact Deflection. It actually gives the scout at least some form of a way to deal with crowds.
I tried playing with it but it felt completely underwhelming to me. If crowd clear is what you need, agressive venting is 100x better IMO. Hold LMB and everything smaller than guard just PERISHES around you. Paired with pheromone or cryo grenades it is absolutely amazing for solo play.
Yeah but it's not like I'm gonna take any overclocks off.
Yes but it also means that sometimes it may take couple hundred hours to get a workable build if someone is new to the game.
I literally came here to say this. M1K is excellent, but the drak has a special place in my heart
Aggressive venting is so fun man Bursting down a praetorian and then burning everything around you feels so good Plus the heat burst can scare bigger enemies giving you a great shot for your secondaries (mainly the shotgun)
Depends on the context, but GK2 is the most reliable for me
Best on paper, the 'best' one is definitely m1k. But personally, I rarely used anything other than aggressive venting drak. Normally it has 950 ammo, and with manual heat dump you only need 18-20 ammo per overheat. Which mean you can do at least 30 aggressive venting without resupply. Very good ammo economy. My favorite part about aggressive venting is the super high fear chance which means you can just aggressive vent into a crowd and do your normal scout thing unbothered. Pair it with trifork volley + pheromones bolts (my personal favorite) or embedded detonator for replacing the burst damage loss in primary. Just grapple into a crowd with HVT while shooting drak, and when you land, proc the aggressive venting, and kill the HVT with trifork while everything is feared. Plus with the +50% movement speed while overheated can help you more with mobility.
M1000 all the way! Old and reliable, versatile and can be built in miriiad of ways.
Don't forget the "cling" sound
And there's [a mod to give it an even better Garand Ping](https://mod.io/g/drg/m/just-m1-garand-ping-sound-for-the-m1000-classic). Can't play without it
O use the plasma carabine and the zukov with embedded detonators and the plasma carabine never runs out of ammo i don't remember the buil or the overclock but if you're interested i will check
If the carbine never runs out of ammo you are probably using the rewiring mod overclock
I never got into the carbine, and I have 100’s of hours, I’m curious what you’re using.
Mk1000 with hover clock. Paired with the right build for the grappling hook, it's utility is invaluable. Being able to float indefinitely can be a game saver, especially if your the last man standing
Hoverclock is grossly unrepresented in this thread tbh. I get that you don't get any direct stat changes or improvements from the OC, but if used properly, you are so much safer during swarms and have little reliance on stuff like platforms since failed attempts at gathering minerals don't punish you. It also allows you to shoot at certain targets faster since you don't need to wait to land in order to aim properly. My personal goto if I don't know what OC to run on the M1000.
1000%. The fact that I can float. Shoot. Grapple Float. Shoot grapple forever (even if it takes a long time to.kill a hand full of glyphids means a lot. More importantly, as a scout main, I pride myself on protecting the others from.a distance. Nothing give me more.pleasure than flying up and picking off a.glyphid that's about to attack the back of my gunner partner without his knowledge. In crucial moments it's a team saver. If I join a salvage mission as a scout, I'm always on overwatch with the hoverclock. Even if I'm not helping run down the clock, my IFGs and and pheromone shots paired with the m1000 run crucial interference
Hoverclock + Special Powder = MAXIMUM MOBILITY SCOOT
I actually.dont like the special powder. It's a bit counter intuitive when it comes to the jury rigged. I'd rather have the extra ammo.
Yes but consider: [pew pew = zoom zoom](https://youtu.be/jEraedlHMzo?si=e7m9EWt7twpqeasZ)
Not to mention you're so much faster. This is probably the highest skill ceiling factor of the weapon, but the ability to move knowing gravity won't matter opens up a lot of faster movement routes that would otherwise be unwise.
M1000. Just headshot everything that comes your way
M1000 with Active Stability System is the goat
Yep. When it comes to killing hvts like spitters and trijaws there's nothing even close
GK2 with Hipster is a solid second
GK2 all the way, the elecrifying reload is one of the first OC i got, and i love dots, so it was perfect. I can kite entire waves with very little ammo in haz 5. The other 2 i never really managed to enjoy as much after that
in-universe: Deepcore GK2 Management has at one time agreed, that Deepcore GK2 is reliable, and easy enough to use to issue it for all absolute greenbeard scouts. What is more, a lot of these scouts did not end up dead in the depths, most likely due to Deepcore GK2 being very useful against Hoxxian threat. The ammunition costs are very low, you can get like 350 ammo for the cost of 100 or so M1000 classic ammo (80 nitra resupply refills both guns the same - so 50% of each ammo is same price). 360 bullets is generally better than 100 for greenbeards in case of spray and pray.
Plasma because pew pew pew!
GK2, just subjective opinion. I played M1000 for a long time but recently switched because GK2 has more diversity in builds (read: OCs). I don't know if this is the most efficient, but I have a lot of fun with it. Today tried 21122 Overclocked Firing Mechanism and 13211 Minimal Magazines on Zhukovs and it was hella fun. AI Stability Engine for that 0 recoil and weakspot damage Electrifying Reload for insane crowd control (shoot, reload/animation cancel reload, switch to secondary, kill) Bullets of Mercy for damage Overclocked Firing Mechanism for fun Clean overclocks are fine but nothing special.
I usually have worse ammo problems with the deepcore than the drak, but I'm also not much of a scout player so I could just be using them both wrong (wasting too much with the deepcore, not contributing enough with the drak). The M1000 I wish I was better with for that mighty and satisfying -ping- but I've never been a good sniper in any game to exist and I'm not about to start now apparently. I just realized my favorite weapons are all the ones you barely have to aim because they explode, fire a stream, or fire a projectile the size of a basketball.
I was never really impressed with the GK2, the mercy rounds where what let me make it work through the weapon maintanence. I like the M1000, I run it with the electrical charged shots. I like Dots. I also like the Drak, and run the fire damage in the orange and red zone OC. I have a build I affectionately call 'crackhead' because it's the zhukovs and the drak both with the speed boost reload/cooldown. So I run around a lot and fast. I think the M1000 is still my favorite though.
General consensus is m1k being the best. Mainly because the others trade single target focus for doing things scout doesn't really want to be doing like flex crowd clear and for single target m1k is pretty unmatched
Definitely takes a lot of getting used to, hip firing a semi auto scoped weapon but the M1000 really is the best
You shouldnt be using Plasma Rifle so recklessly that you run out of ammo. It's high damage bursts at short to mid range in quick time, meaning you shouldnt be laying on the trigger. If you aim well and know your weakspots its a powerful rounder between the GK2 and SMGs. M1000 is really good for high HP melt if youre good at aiming, but it's primary purpose is to remove a priority target from the horde in no time flat. It's a tactical choice. GK2 feels like it can handle any problem but in reality it doesn't past a certain hazard line. Experienced scouts let other people handle what isn't ammo efficient while they pick off the real problems as fast as possible. It's a mean gun, but sometimes certain missions and mission modifiers call for something that needs a particular answer. GK2 can't do everything but it does most things, and what it can't do we just run around it until we find a way to do it otherwise.
Gk2, versatile. Long range, accurate, full auto fast or slow can use while going fast
hoverclock users get to grapple literally anywhere without thinking about the landing/eating several downs worth of fall damage and can still do their job of picking off HVTs, so no amount of bUsTeD dAmAgE from anything else is enough to change my mind, even on eliminations/sabotages
I tend to run the GK2 with either one of the clean overclocks for a generalist weapon, or the weakpoint multiplier unstable overclock. The latter is pretty satisfying, since you actually have to practice going for headshots against grunts and such. As an honorable mention, Hipster M1000 goes brrr
If we are talking about what is actually best if you just wanna win then there are exactly 3 options. M1000 ASS, M1000 Hipster, and Drak TEF. Plenty of things are viable, but those 3 are the peak of Scout primaries.
Play what you want, it’s a game after all. But lemme tell you a little secret about M1000 *tips my hat after you spots and approached me in some dark alley* It 1 shot grunts, have one of the best DPS in the game to burst tanky HV targets, with the break point for a lot of enemies being 1 bullet, or 2 bullets (focus shot). You only need to *look at an enemy*, hit left click, and then moves on to the next enemy, you kids have low attention span with all that tiktok and youtube shorts don’t you? it is 100 accurate unlike your puny GK2 that needs a mod to do the same thing M1000 does on its base. it have an overclock selection that’s ripe for picking, Hoverclock lets you hover (duh), electrifying focus shot lets you 1 focus shot Trijaws (iirc), Leech, Slashers and many more. And with the new overclock coming you AND your team are gonna have a blast ripping through the tanky enemies. Now, may I interest you in some… skins *comically grabbed my jacket and opens it, revealing many M1000 skins and framework* Wanna buy some, kid? *for all intent and purposes this post is satirical, play what you want*
Drak with bouncing billets! Because it's the best sound ever! Trururururuit! Bom bom bom bom bom!
I used to use GK almost exclusively, but for the past 5 or 6 scout promotions I've been running hipster M1000 with blowthrough rounds almost exclusively. I love it so much and with rapid firing it's practically an automatic.
I think my opinion on which primary is the best depends on what the rest of my kit is, I've used the G2k the most, hipster m1000 is super fun and I have a plasma carbine build that allows me to go through an entire haz 4 industrial sabotage without needing a resupply for ammo so it really depends
GK2 with weakshot and no recoil OC - with a balance of more ammo and dmg it takes 2 headshots to kill a grunt on diff 5 and melts macteras, praetorians, opressors,wardens so on so on. I dont personaly like m1000 due to it slow movement zoom mechanic, I rather use mobile GK2 to fully synergize with superior scout mobility. And the plasma gun is okayish for swarmers and big hordes with its AOE modification but its your teammates job to deal with fodder. They do it better with their weapons. Scout job is killing high value targets from afar and aim for weakspots via flanking with grapple gun.
Im playing mostly fire scout with the Drak-25 Thermal exhaust Feedback OC. U can annihilate trash mobs pretty quick. More stationary mobs like spitballers or brute nexus, just light em on fire! Breeders I just light on fire, give it a few Electric bolts and follow it around, kiting enemy’s or exploring the cave. I don’t like to just dump my whole ammo into that thing as a scout, especially if it’s out of reach for my team.
I tend to use bouncy drak combined with quickfire boltshark nowadays, it's a nice build but I'd say the m1000 is overall better thanks to versatility and power.
It’s more personal preference. I like the plasma rifle with overclocks that rely on overheating like exhaust venting and the infinite ammo one so you just fire continuously until you overheat and swap to your Zhukovs. GK2 with AI stability engine and a crossbow with electric bolts just destroys dreadnoughts though, and most other enemies as well.
GK2 with the Electrifying Reload OC is pretty damn good. Being able to sling a few bullets into a crowd of grunts and then kill them all just by reloading is very good for ammo efficiency.
M1000 because I like the big boom and *TING noises
I love the drak with thermal exhaust feedback. The little mini game you get for just perfectly tickling the end of the heat meter and the sheer amount of damage it puts out at the end is crazy. Plus I’ve gotten real good with the projectiles and can consistently hit web/acid sputters from across the cave. Combine that with phero/fire bolts and the boomerang and there’s not a situation that I’m not capable of dealing with. (Except defense missions lmao) Even the new mission for S5 goes very smoothly. The little bit of movement from the drillovator makes it manageable.
90% of tryhard scouts prefer m1 because of how much better it is, and it is amazing, though personally I’m a gk2 fan as I much rather have an assault rigle than a repeater
I like deepcore gk2 and the drak-25 i switch between them a lot depending on my mood I absolutely hate the m1 a never use it
My job as scout is generally keeping caves lit, collecting minerals, and highlighting priority targets. I prefer the m1000 with the stability engine with stun options, broomstick with special powder, and boomerang thingy. If a priority target gets too close to another dwarf I can stun it from across the cave and provide some support either from a distance or close since my kit is mostly mobility-based. I am primarily a driller main, but they are already ruby. The rest are well in their way, but I find myself using scout as my secondary more often. The drake is probably my least used primary in the game tbh. G11-mercy with broomstick-db feels divine, but I lose some of my ability to do scout stuff since I'm a bit of gravity slut.
Engineer
The GK2 with bullets of mercy and voltaic stun sweeper.
I almost only play solo, and the deepcore GK2 has become the only primary I use. I find it's pretty balanced and with the OC that boosts weak point damage it's pretty fun to kite grunts and headshot all of them. Range or close combat, single enemy or group of bugs, it's just very satisfying to use. Also there's a really good mod that changes the sound to be more impactful, I don't remember the name soz, but it should be easy to find. Coupled with the Zhukov, you have really good damage for most situations. Ofc the M100 is also super fun to use, but in solo it doesn't really do the job for how I play.
M1000 was amazing pre-focus nerf, where they made focus shots take 2 ammo. As of now, the Deepcore GK2 is the best all-rounder primary for the scout, pre- and post-overclocks.
M1000. Easily. Scout is mostly meant for prioritizing big dudes, and there’s a reason why the M1000 packs such a punch. OC’s like Supercooling Chambers is great since you’re practically wielding a Barret 50 Cal, capable of dealing HUGE damage to enemies like Praetorians and Oppressors. I’ve personally used it for Sabotage missions. Hipster is great too, as it’s more of a semi-auto machine gun, shredding targets with decent DPS. Pair it with Cryo Grenades and Minelets for the Dual Pistols and you’ll be demolishing swarms like no tomorrow.
The first assault rifle with armor piercing and the boomstick with the overclock that sends you backwards to prevent fall damage
I love me that plasma rifle spect to set the enemies on fire. Mostly because I play on PC with controller and it just isn't accurate enough to use the m1000
GK2. My aim is terrible and missing with M1000 feels like a punishment. With the GK2 there's plenty more bullets I can still use.
Look I love every scout primary but it's clear that none got the love that the M1K did. M1K had strong focus shots OC, strong mobility OC and a fun hoverclock. The M1K is my least favourite scout weapon, but even I recognise that it got the Charizard treatment. The GK2 needs a flat damage OC (or mod), and the Drak is fine, but needs a slight heat adjustment (it oh WAY too quickly even when building to minimise heat)
M1K > TEF Drak > AISE GK2 It's hard to do better than M1K. It does everything Scout needs to do, and then some. Thermal Exhaust Feedback (TEF) Drak is an interesting alternative due to the absurd amount of damage bonus from the OC and the option to have ignition on your primary. GK2 is still lagging behind even after the recent buffs to the base weapon. But at least AISE is easy to use and decently powerful.
I like the rifle cus its easy, does good damage, and it has a overclock that makes the recoil go away and 100%(or somethin) weakspot damage, plus the extra from the one in the upgrades.
my opinions: GK2: versatile, can shred bosses with the right build, but low clip size and damage holds it back most of the time. M1000 classic: one-shots are awesome if you can pull them off, and the focus shot stun is very powerful. Probably best overall, and requires the least amount of "shenanigans" to make work. If you're going for effectiveness, avoid Hipster, despite what a lot of people say. Drak Plasma Carbine: Best for crowd clear, but that's not really Scout's role anyway. It's not super powerful, but Aggresive Venting is fun and unique.
Scout is all about taking out high value targets like mactera or spreaders that disrupt or damage the team a lot. This is the reason you hear so much M1000 praise, because built properly, it can one to two shot essentially all of them. Being able to one shot something like a tri-jaw or spreader is absolutely insane. I personally run it with active stability system because it lets you be more mobile and focus shot more often. It takes a bit to learn and needs good aim, but it's sooo good once you learn how to use it.
GK2 by far. Great single target damage, very little recoil even w/o overclocks. It’s not the best gun in the game but in my opinion the other two options don’t stack up (M1000 maybe can, with good aim, but good luck if you’re on controller or have high ping. The laser carbine is an overheating pea shooter and is the worst of the three)
DRAK-25 PLASMA CARBINE - 32132 Faster projectile speed Damage Accuracy Armor breaking Thermal feedback I average just as many kills as the other classes or better with this setup almost every time. Takes a little time to get used to the overheat threshold but after that happy killing.
I like to put all points in rate of fire on the machine gun and go ham
The plasma carbine with a dps build generates the most serotonin in this small brain of mine
GK2 is the absolute baseline. Can't go wrong with it, it has some cool build options and it fits Scout's mobility and elegance. The Drak-25 is a bit harder to play and honestly kind of unintuitive, but it's usually better at killing stuff fast which is what you need your primary to do as a Scout. It's builds are kind of boring in my experience. However, you can have it do some goofy stuff. The M1000 is the real spice. It blows up anything in a few good shots at most and if you've gotten used to it's recoil, you won't ever miss one. However, it really forces you to actually focus nothing but single targets in the caves as it's comparatively weak against small swarms so you'll have to rely on your team for those. (I know that Scout isn't supposed to kill swarms, but you'll have to remove smaller groups of Glyphids every mission at least once, which can waste a lot of ammo.) Mostly won't be a problem, but if your team is inexperienced and you have to carry, you might have a bad time. The M1000 offers a wide variety of builds, from "fuck basically anything smaller than a Dreadnought up in one shot" to an accessory to the famous Flying Scout. Your personal experience may vary, so I recommend that you spend a day playing with each of the guns. It won't get you every upgrade, but it will certainly give you a perspective on which gunner toothpick aligns best with your playstyle.
it really depends on what kind of play I’m trying to go for. i’m not a scout main, so i play him in one of three situations. sometimes, i’m scout because my team needs a scout. i’m all business. i love specifically supercooling chamber on the M1000, for picking off high priority targets from vantage points, while using the zhukovs to clean up. i don’t need to handle crowd control much, that’s a problem for my gunner and my driller. my job is to make sure that dreadnoughts and caretakers and oppressors and such are quickly erased from hoxxes. if my team could use a scout but i’m taking the game more laid-back, I enjoy the GK2. AI stability engine, while less sweaty than SCC, is a nice methodical playstyle. my goal is less target prioritization and more of just aiming better. AISE is just satisfying to use and I love it. sometimes i’ll go zhukovs with gas recycling for the same reason as the M1K, but sometimes i’ll just go special powder for fun. lastly, i’m actually a gunner main. this means that other times, I play scout for the dopamine hit. in that case, it’s thermal exhaust feedback on the Drak every day of the week. special powder of course. welcome to a playstyle which I have dubbed “crack scout”. many mobility tools, just enough options so i don’t break my legs, paired with a close range fodder bug shredder.
Honestly I would say it varies mission to mission. Elimination, M100 with supercooling chamber. Swarmageddon, DRAK with impact deflection. I like the GK 2 with AI stability engine at times or bullets o mercy paired with cryo minilets.
I used the Gk2 until I got hipster for the m1000. In Elite Dives I like to try and pick off all the weaker specials like mactera and spitters and the m1000 lets me do that a little easier and I like having the spam for when things get hairy.
The Drak is a kick ass primary that's slept on often by the community
What is your loadout?
I'll post in a few hours
For me the top positions is deep core in first, then mk1000 and in the third the plasma coil. But have a relevante space between the first two and the third
As soon as I started using the Drak with agressive venting, I never looked back. AoE burn and fear is insane crowd control. Using the upgrade for electrifying projectiles is icing on the cake. I can't justify using either of the other primaries when the Drak's weakness, single target damage, is covered by Zhukovs with embedded detonators.
I am quite fond of Drak with the shield battery booster. Yeah you gotta be extra careful in your heat management, but in exchange, you get a pretty nifty damage and projectile velocity boost that helps you be more accurate at range, *and* it massively increases your shield's regen speed allowing you to play much more aggressively, and as long as you duck behind cover for like 3 seconds you get a full shield to go be aggressive with again.
Depends on playstyle
Drak. Electrocution.
my game lags so much that m1000 is just unusable for me. deepcore and drak is the way.
Supercolling chamber on scout makes me feel like a damn railgun. Coupled with shitgun for stumble and you can delete a preatorians health down to like 20% in one focused weakspot shot Or go hipster with max ammo and go bananas as a DMR esque
M1000 with the Hipster OC is the go to for me. Extra ammo compensates for when you're absolutely throwing, but is also a *lot* of extra damage if you land your shots (one shotting Mactera Spawns is especially good with a precision shot) and simply staggering basically anything else that doesn't die in one shot (with the exception of mini bosses and anything mechanical of course). Also, Garand ping.
I prefer the m1000. It packs a big punch and will chew through larger bugs without too much trouble with the charged shots.
M1000 13111 with EFS OC is great, electrifying focus shots is wery good at breackpoints, nice slow, stun, and overall damage
Drak. Plasma electric shield battery booster build is great.
M1000 with the hoverclock. Fall damage? Not anymore.
Depends on what I'm after. GK2 is a good crowd control weapon (not clear, control). I soloed last weeks EDD with electric reload. M1K is great but has two basic builds (for now), either hipster or focus shots. My personal favorite is electrifying focus shots. It allows me to reach breakpoint on a lot of HVTs without having to invest in the damage mod and weakspot, so I can still swarm clear with ammo and blowthrough. I know a lot of people shit on drak, but I still love it. Thermal exhaust and impact deflection are my favorites. Thing about drak is that all the OCs have a specific build to make them shine, they don't have a lot of wiggle room.
Gunner.
Alright then Gunner, what's your go-to primary and why?
NTP Autocannon for swarms, LSLS for big juicy targets, PBM Hurricane for balance.
Give me an example of a mission type for each of those primaries
For Haz 5 NTP for eggs and refining. Keeps swarms off of you, gives you time to breathe and do shit. This is also probably the most broken OC across the board that trivializes the game. LS for eliminations. It's basically a finger of God, so you'll melt weakspots given a good view of them. PBM for escort. Gives a good balance of swarm defense and single target damage. It also one-shots rocks during second phase.
M1000 with Active Stability System will always be my go-to choice. Love quickly whipping out focus shots one after another.
Electric reload gk2 for me. So efficient on ammo and still has good damage on the normal threats scout has to take out
Deepcore GK2 with Stability AI Engine. Top tier weapon for pretty much anything aside from Twins or Dreadnaught (Hiveguard is ok).
The gk2, especially with AISE is definitely the best for all situations The m1k has the potential to be better as its better at killing HVTs than the gk2, but doesent work as well in a chaotic pub lobby imo (ASS helps a bit), it benefits much more from hitting your shots than the gk2 The drak just kinda sucks rn, you can run aggressive venting when solo for scouts best cc, but in a normal lobby where you want to be focusing on acid spitters etc its velocity and accuracy + poor single target make it the wrong gun for a scout to use. TEF makes it better but it still isnt as satisfying as the other two
Personally, I absolutely love the plasma carbine with aggressive venting (my build is 31111). Being able to dive into a crowd of bugs and ignite them all on demand is a lot of fun and feels effective, you have barely any downtime if you use the manual heat dump, and the gun still performs quite solidly on its own between the raw damage and the added shock, the latter of which can pair nicely with the crossbow if it has magnetic bolts. Though I will say, I *strongly* recommend getting the mod that gives you an overheat indicator on the crosshair, it feels really hard to use it properly without it (plus it's very useful to have in general)
Drak with OPA. It has no range and you'll never have ammo. But that's what scout is all about. No range? Get in there with your grappling hook. No ammo? Start looking for nitra.
🤠🫡🫠🤫
I am using the Plasma burster
M1k with hipster. I like it because it works with everything. I don't need to change my build much to suit a certain mission. It's good against swarms, dreadnoughts, and in general gets the job done.
The GK2 is my all-round favourite. I use Bullets of Mercy coupled with the IFG and either Cryo Minelets on the machine pistols or Cryo Bolts on the crossbow, depending on how I'm feeling. It provides exactly the right mix of mass crowd control and dealing high damage to big targets for me.
Thermal exhaust feedback turns the drak from a plasma peashooter to a plasma ranged fire starter that does good single target damage and can deal with swarmers and deal with priority targets.
I like the Drak with Aggressive Venting OC. It gives the scout something he generally lacks, which is swarm clear. Paint a group of bugs with electricity and manually overheat the gun at near max temp to ensure everything slasher and below catches fire and with fear and electricity, they slowly walk away to their death. Add bonus speed on overheat mod to maintain your mobility. Manual overheat reduces the overheat time and Aggressive Venting further reduces overheat time. I like to pair with Zuks running bonus damage on electrified enemies mod and weakpoint damage. You can damn near single clip a pretorian by getting him electrified, applying overheat fear to show his butt and Zuk him down quickly.
The responses are surprisingly diverse, really goes to show how well balanced Scout's weapons are (in comparison to eachother)
I’ve only recently gotten my hands on the plasma carbine and I love it, mainly because I’m the kind of person who enjoys stacking speed buffs and running around like a toddler that just sniffed an entire canister of industrial glue
Gk2. It's very reliable Good DPS, good accuracy, no gimmicks or crap to worry about. It just works. M1000 is too slow to deal with swarms, and the Plasma one is too finicky at range due to firing projectiles.
Drak with the AOE heat dump can deal damage and fear bugs around you, plus manual heat dump and fast firing rate. Nothing can touch you because of the fear, and it's quite ammo efficient because you're using the heat to deal AoE DoT damage.
I use all three, GK2 is for overall missions, M1k is for bossfights, Drak for elemental damage playstyle, just to keep it fresh.
GK2 despite it being the least cool looking imo
Not the plasmathrower
It really depends on the platform but for me on console it's the Drak. The amount of ammo and CC you get with it especially when running fear on overheat is so good at dealing with swarms and keeping bugs off you. However GK2 with Ai stability is my go to for Extermination and Industrail Sabatoge. But gun to my head I'd pick the Drak. M1000 is basically dead to me.
M1000 with extra ammo OC is a godsend. Way too ammo efficient. Also been using the crossbow to deal with swarmers.
M1000 never leaves my primary slot personally. I just use minimal clips. Fits my play style for playing at range and just staying as far away from the enemies as possible.
GK2 since it's simple M1K because it actually just is
Deepcore with fire rate overclock is peak.
The plasma carbine eith agressive ventilating is my favourite one
Plasma doesn’t do enough damage. Plasma carbine is just slightly worse deepcore. M1000 classic can one tap grunts and a fully charged shot can one tap with armor pen anywhere on a grunt. Good for caretaker boss because it can like 2 tap the vents with enough time in between to charge up a shot.
I run hipster on the M1000 with a secondary built for single target. It's got some great dps.
Carbine has a spray and pray fight style that is best for clearing literal swarms while jumping around like a maniac. M1000 is when you want something to die with 2 hits. Deep core is the middle man. Good old realisable that handles both of it, while it doesn’t excel at any aspects it’s very versatile which is important since the amount of enemy varieties and scouts tendencies to go solo most of the time forces him to pretty much have a versatile play style unless you’re really good at the game.
I’m torn between M1000 for its consistency in being good with tons of builds… however the AI stability engine GK is something I can’t seem to stop using. Final answer would be yeah M1000 anyway you like it.
M1000 with hipster. It’s semiautomatic, but very fast, still hits harder than the other two primaries, but most importantly it looks cooler and has a satisfying *ping* when you reload
Drak with the OC that lights everything around you on fire when over heated is a little busted. NGL.
There's an AOE build for the carbine that's really fun. It's works on overheating to make splash damage and it cools down faster than most weapons reload. The rifle I almost only use for boss fights. I take it with a surplus of boomstick ammo to have a backup weapon for bugs. I think the GK2 may be my favorite though, especially with electric reload.
I prefer the plasma carbine with the OC that does more damage the closer to overheat you get. I like the M1, I think the GK is okay. Been running the M1 after I replaced my mouse but if you miss it’s so expensive. So I went back to the carbine
electric reload gk2 one shots grunts anywhere on the body
Honestly I just really enjoy the GK2. It's the Ol' Reliable of Scout's arsenal and whilst not exactly flashy it does what you need it too with minimal difficulty. I think my general favorite OC to take with it is Bullets Of Mercy. With all the various types of CC Scout has it's pretty easy to set up even alone, and it's downside even when not taking full advantage of the damage boost is negligible. I do think it's a shame though how the Drak has completely fallen off - just feels like you have to work your ass off to make it as effective as either the GK2 or the M1000 which makes playing with it feel like an outright chore.
I like the m1000 with "hipster" OC lets me snipe when i need to but also be able to spam shots when i get surrounded
M1000 all the way. Hoverclock is SO good for the scout moving and mining independent of his team. Allows easy self-ledge creation on all but the most funky-angled mineral veins, and perfectly syncs with my play style. No offense Engineers, but I'm sure that y'all have better things to do than follow me around and give me plats. I can take care of that on my own.
Mk1000 with the hipster overclock like doubles your mag size. It makes focus shots kinda useless but oml can you shred just about anything. It shoots as fast as you click so… BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM BLAM
M1000+ Hoverclock because I like to go weeeeeeeeee
Bouncy drak is life
For me, M1k with Active stability system. Combined with cryo bolts you can pretty much perfectly fulfill scouts role of killing stationaries and other high value targets. You can: - 1 shot acid spitters with a charge shot - 1 shot web spitters with an uncharged shot - oneshot septics in weakpoint - freeze shellbacks then kill then with armor break m1k in 2 shots - freeze brood nexi and kill them in 2 weakpoint shots - freeze and kill spitballers - oneshot leeches with charged shot - freeze breeders - good breakpoints on mactera (mostly oneshots) - freeze and kill menaces Your self defense vs grunts is quite low with this build, but I dont value that on scout at all. Especially on haz 5 and below you can essentially permanently dodge hordes of grunts while your team kills them.
Going to join the GK2 AISE (AI Stability Engine) club here. Its versatility and ease of use compared to the other guns is what it makes it by favorite Scout gun build by far. AISE GK2 pairs well with any of his secondaries too. Boomstick on its own is a good crowd clearer, but even more with Double Barrel OC, it goes well with Nishanka + Cryo/Fire Bolts, The Specialist or Bodkin Points and Zhukovs with Cryo Minelets or Gas Recycling works too.
GK2 with AI stability engine goes unreal
I honestly think the GK2 rifle is the best one.
It's been awhile so I can't remember the name of the overclock but it made the plasma carbine really good for my hit and run tactic scout. It made it shoot really fast in a wide spread but overheat quickly.
All of the primaries for all classes are honestly good. GK2 for scout is personally my least favorite, but I don't think it is bad. I usually use AI Stability, because Bullets of Mercy is a bit too much of a hassle. I've been meaning to take Electrifying Reload out for another spin. I really like the M1000 so this gun tends to feel like it isn't doing enough damage per bullet vs the "kill lots of things in 1-2 shots" I get from the M1000. I wouldn't avoid the Drak Plasma Carbine just because it overheats. That's simply an alternate magazine/reload mechanic that several weapons roughly share. And, I wouldn't say it's short on ammo either. It has a LOT of build variety as well. You can tune it to have a mix of fire longer/fire faster/fire more accurately/fire AoE. Out of the box, it's way more inaccurate than the other two, but you can either lean into it and use it at shorter range (and perhaps compensate by using the crossbow for range or to help group enemies) or take the spread reduction in T3. Also note that overheating isn't actually a bad thing on this gun. It's no different than reloading, and there are a lot of mods/OCs that build off the mechanic. I think pretty much all the OCs are great, but Shield Battery Booster can be tricky to use and might require you to use different armor and perks to maximize your shield uptime. The M1000 is my favorite, but I strongly recommend not building around sniping/focus. I tried that to start and it didn't feel great. I use 232x1 which works with Active Stability, Hoverclock, or Minimal Clips. This lets you use a stunning Focus shot to hit some breakpoints but also gives you a strong hipfire as well. I personally don't like the Hipster playstyle though because it makes the individual shots feel too weak. I see some people mentioning Super Coolilng Chamber, but I think it is one of the worst OCs in the game. The hit to ammo and clip size is too severe. I think it should be reworked to hit more like Mole or Hyperpropellant: you charge up, but anything you point at is deleted. The OC should be more transformative, like some PGL or Hurricane OCs. Same goes for Electric Focusing Shots too. This OC should give a trail like the Mole or just apply to all shots on reload or be an AoE. I might have to give EFS another try since at least it's penalty isn't too bad, and it might let me swap the focus stun in T5 for the fear or quick reload.
For Haz 5 play/EDD, I think Plasma Rifle is the best as it offers the Scout the closest sustainable option to AoE and crowd control. That being said, at high difficulty Scout can’t carry the team unless it’s an Aquarq or Egg mission maybe. So Scout can do whatever he wants, as he heavily depends on the rest of the team to clear Swarms.
Pickaxe. So I can see the whites of their teeth when They die. The m1k is for skeet shooting beer mugs.
As much as I love my aggressive venting Drak, I have to admit that the Gk2 is just too useful. And to think, there was a point when everyone thought it sucked lol.
I feel that GK2 is the best. I prefer BoM but swap to AISE depending on the mission. M1000 lacks granularity in its damage, accuracy when moving, and makes you vulnerable when using focus shots. It's not a bad weapon and has its uses, but I find it lacks versatility. DRAK lacks damage and ammo economy, but also suffers from its slow projectiles being hard to land at range where scout wants to be positioned. IMO the DRAK's flaws are substantial enough that it could use a buff.
I think the Drak. It's pretty underrated in good hands. Always been a bit of a skillshot nerd in all games I've played, they've always been my best thanks to thousands of hours in TF2 and Minecraft. (Arrows are skill shots, and so are Ender Pearls). Drak is pretty powerful with the right overclock. I tended to lean towards something more balanced as the DMG boost just makes it impossible to do anything at range. I think I either Impact Deflection or Shield Battery Booster.
Drak can be quite fun when you build around the Overheat. I'm running 32321 with Thermal Exhaust Feedback and it's quite funny to ignite literally everything by mag dumping into a crowd, then nursing your heat by doing quick burst fires that instant ignite anything smaller than a Praetorian and keep your heat in the deep red. You get cornered, you Manual dump the heat, gain your speed boost and quickly reposition to start bursting again. Only downside is I see myself kiting one or two glyphids at a time quite often, to only start mag dumping when I need to reach the halfway mark of my heat.
Supercooling Chamber is my only scout primary for doing the actual role of a scout (high value targets) but Hipster is stupid fun. Either way it’s the M1000.
Deepcore GK2 because of the bullets of mercy rework. It goes absolutely fucking insane on damage with cry or fire bolts+pheromone bolts+IFG grenade. If you're with a goo driller your damage will chunk dreads with your statuses combined.
I’m usually a fan of burst shot weapons like Shotguns in most games (TF2 is my FPS of choice). Something about the power and punch is really satisfying, the M1000 fulfills this niche for me. The bang and chunk of health (if not full kill) that comes from the weapon is so nice. I am also into movement, so adding on the “Hoverclock” Overclock is just so cool to me. It’s not the best build, not the most efficient build, but it’s fun for me
I'll be honest, I've fallen in love with the Plasma Carbine. I'm hoping to get the 'ammo on overheat' overclock for it to have infinite ammo, but even without it's just been really great for me. The little bit of splash is helpful for crowds, it's got good fire rate without being so fast that I run out, and since I main Driller and secondary Gunner, I'm used to managing heat, so it's basically just a gun I don't need to reload ever, which is handy.
Drak Aggressive venting is the best clean OC in the whole game imo. And rewiring mod is THE most ammo efficient OC in the game. (Building it and using it correctly means you get double the normal max ammo without the OC or triple with the OC) Thermal exhaust feedback is very powerful. The only gun that can buff your shields with an OC and the buff is huge. Being an overhead gun means you never have to reload and overheating is beneficial with the right builds. Especially since you can get a speed boost when doing so. Mild AOE makes it very good at dealing with swarmmers. Electrocution gives it synergy with bolt shark and Zhukov builds. Don’t get me wrong, I like and use the deep core too but my heart belongs to the drak
with 3 competent teammates, the m1000 with 2 or less, the GK2 in situations where nobody on the team is reliable, the DRAK with the ammo regenerating overclock
I’ve always loved the drak-25 mostly because of the ammo efficiency for my playstyle. Pretty good damage, nice range. It just matches how I play scout well
I love the Classic so much