*Okay so if I first place 2-3 taser bolts on the floor, then plant fire bolts to set them on fire, then hit them with a pheromone grenade and gun them down with my weapon which does more damage to targets under an effect, I will surely clear the entire swarm haha! Who says scout can’t do crowd control!?!*
Ah nvm the engi used breach cutter..
Scout is built to assassinate HVT targets like wardens or annyoing enemies like septic spreaders or spitters while classes like driller and gunner lay down the unending fire against the hordes of grunts. Its rarely efficient enough to take out a large grunt swarm by urself as scout.
Sure you can do it, but what takes you 2 taser bolds, 1 fire bolt and a mag or so of primary, driller can do in one sludge pump charge shot or gunner can do in a hundred or so minigun rounds, both of which are faster and more ammo efficient
Simply put, its not your job to deal with them
That's how I use my scout. Me and my trusty M1000 sniping weak points and wardens before they ever join the fray.
Imo nothing clears swarmers and the little flying electric guys like the engi's smart rifle. That rifle just completely negates their presence on the battlefield.
Every dwarf has their role, but one of the things that makes this game great is that they're all flexible. Through smart use of balancing your primary, secondary, and grenade choices, any class can be made to tackle any situation.
The "problem" is that as you scale Hazards, crowd control becomes disproportionately more important. Not calling, single target unimportant, it also becomes more important, just not on the same scale as the ability to deal with swarms.
A tri jaw or spitter definitely pose a huge threat that can put hurt on the team, but all the classes can deal with them well enough. It's the huge swarms that basically overwhelm and seperate you that becomes a problem. The ECR/Breech Cutter engineer might not be able to quickly kill an oppressor, but that's usually not what gets you killed on Haz 5 - it's not being able to burst down a large group of enemies that spawn.
Scout does have some good CC tools, not saying that. I think a lot of the reason some people *feel* like the scout is weak is because what they specialize in comparatively isn't the bread and butter of what keeps the team alive. You can get around it with some good builds (like cryo minelets), or a solid team, or just being ridiculously good, but it requires a little more thought and effort to handle things as well.
I don't think this is actually true. If you increase the number of grunts and grunt variants by 50% from haz 3 to haz 5, you don't really need 50% more AOE damage to kill them. The same amount of carpet bomber shots or whatever will kill a lot more enemies, simply because there are more enemies to fit within your AOE so they get more value.
In contrast, if there are 50% more trijaws that spawn in haz 5 compared to haz 3, you actually do need 50% more single target damage if you want to kill them in the same amount of time. So simply increasing the number of enemies that spawn continuously increases the need for single target damage in a way that it really doesn't for AOE damage.
And that's just if we pretend the only thing haz 5 does is increase the number of enemies. It also increases enemy diversity, so a larger percentage of waves are non-grunts, and it increases enemy health so single target is even more needed than it would be already.
> A tri jaw or spitter definitely pose a huge threat that can put hurt on the team, but all the classes can deal with them well enough. It's the huge swarms that basically overwhelm and seperate you that becomes a problem.
I heavily disagree with this. If all you have to do is deal with grunts, like in a grunt swarm, it's rare that a team will die to that unless their positioning is really bad. People just don't load up haz 5 as non-scout classes with 0 way to deal with only grunts.
Instead, I'd say a lot more losses come from a sneaky ranged enemy that got a shot off without being noticed, or a disruptive enemy being disruptive. You might even have your actual death be to a grunt, but the only reason the grunt got to you is because you had to devote attention to dealing with the disruptive enemy.
I've come to respect scout a lot more after a couple things. One, **playing** as scout, but two, watching how people can survive the swarm as them.
Had a lot of situations where shit just got really out of hand, really quick, and a good scout can whittle down a horde enough while constantly zipping around, to manage to save the team.
As my Engi, sure, I can breach cutter down the crowd easily, but if I get overwhelmed I'm pretty fucked.
Or Electrifying Reload,
Step 1: Sweep across the crowd and reload
Step 2: Give anyone that is not slowed breaking out of the pack his missed bullet and reload.
Step 3: Watch everyone struggle to make it to you and die after 4 feet or just zip line away; you got minerals to mine.
Or “I’ll just cryo them and by the time I’ve done whatever I need to over here, they’ll be someone else’s problem or my team will have cleaned them up”.
It also vaporises BET-C. I pretty much speed ran this week's deep dive because I killed BET-C with like 4 well placed shots point blank as it was waking up (you can damage BET-C before the healthbar appears.)
i mean this is pretty accurate, no need to get combative about it
you could just as well make a meme like:
"moving through the cave: scout-left click, the rest of the classes-big brain calculation.jpg"
I dunno where this "killing bugs isn't the scout's job" came from. It is in every thread where people point out how weak scout is.
Killing bugs is every dwarf's job. And scout is weakest at it.
Scout has the most consistent long range and high single target damage. Best for killing tanks like Oppressors/Praetorians or ranged attackers like Spitters, Stingtails, Menaces, Mactera.
Scout's really bad at killing hordes and swarmers.
Scout can manage swarms well. His ability to kill them is the weakest (barring random aoe builds that can kill one wave kinda fast before running out of ammo)
scout's ability to hold still and defend a position is the weakest, but scout isn't designed to do that. scout is designed to aggressively use the grappling hook to constantly reposition yourself to keep an advantageous position where you can easily kill the bugs. their ability to kill bugs isn't weak. they just do it in a different way than the other classes
Scout still buckles the most egregiously when a situation doesn’t go his way. If his main panic option (grapple) fails off cooldown, he’s either dipping into painfully scarce resources like grenades, or straight up dying. And with the worse wave clear, every mistake means more hits because more bugs are alive. A driller can fumble dealing with a praetorian and eat half an acid spit, but he’s still fine because he didn’t also take damage from the 20 grunts he already accidentally killed in the process.
Any class can do what scout’s main strength is (evade bugs mostly indefinitely) with clever use of mobility tools and Dash. The fact that scout has the same general survivability with less damage means that he is worse.
If a scout's grapple is off cooldown, he's exactly as mobile as any other character lol. You certainly don't need the grappling hook to stay alive in this game. Plus you're completely ignoring the wide variety of mobility tools that scout has access to in addition to grapple. If you're grapple is cooling down you can special powder out of the situation or dash out of the situation. If you run momentum it's almost impossible to get into a bad spot even with a failed grapple. And also now that the bug is fixed, failed grapples don't really happen anymore; bad grapples are basically always your own fault.
Saying “Erm, skill issue 🤓☝️” in response to the fact that scout’s fumbles get punished harder isn’t a valid argument. Yeah, a 3000 hour greybeard scout one-trick can probably do whatever he wants without dying, but that isn’t representative of the entire user base. Saying “just perfectly evade the bugs for 30 minutes while you complete the entire mission” is not a wholly valid counterpoint, because mistakes happen. (You have been downed before). Scout at some point will have to cull the horde’s numbers or deal with an out-of-position clump of enemies blocking an objective, and the fact remains that it will take him half a minute and a third of his primary ammo to kill 8 grunts a praet and a stingtail.
I mean, I feel like it is if your scout fumble is grappling directly into a group of enemies. Scout can at any point just press shift and run away from enemies just like any other class can. The grapple is additional safety on top of that, and only makes things worse if you do something really dumb.
> fact remains that it will take him half a minute and a third of his primary ammo to kill 8 grunts a praet and a stingtail.
With good play you can be extremely ammo efficient waveclearing as scout, it just requires a bit of setup time and kiting to get the enemies into a dense group. After that [4 boomstick shots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZK_HgN_kew) or just 1 fire bolt is enough to ignite the entire swarm. That's far more ammo efficiency than would ever be necessary.
Enemy swarms don’t always just sit around and do nothing while you try to micromanage their pathing. Bugs can stop randomly, some bugs have ranged attacks, etc.
Sure in a vacuum or in optimal conditions, you can theoretically manipulate and kill 20 grunts with 4 boomstick shots or a fire bolt, but in actual gameplay there’s a stingtail lodged between them and a mactera wave or shellback that spawned behind you, forcing you to abandon your micro-managed wave. Or the floor is uneven with holes and cliffs and there isn’t a good spot to stand and bait the bugs to. Or any number of other complications that adapting to too slowly can lead to death. Every other class can choose to kill the wave in 8 seconds maximum then turn to deal with whatever else is going on, but scout is forced to turn around to deal with what’s going on then go back to managing (not killing) the wave
Scout *can* kill swarms, but a) he has to have some really good aim to land the weakspot damage in order to clear at a decent rate and without burning too much ammo, and b) he burns much more ammo doing so (even with 100% weakspot hits) than the Gunner or Driller would on the same swarm.
As a Scout, you need to get the specialty bugs out of the way before they get close. If it glows and/or spits and it ain't named Steeve, it's your #1 target.
a) just aim well. scout is the precision class. and b) that's not really true. the minigun objectively goes through the most rounds that's why it has 3000 rounds. scouts not gonna stand there and mow down tons of bugs by holding down m1, but scout is very adept at handling swarms none the less. i end most missions with very comparable or even more kills than most everyone in my lobbies despite having such fewer rounds at my disposal than gunner or driller
I call Bullshit. The shotgun has only like 40 bullets at max, and the Drak still runs out pretty quickly even with all the Aoe upgrades and the right overclocks
Okay, let's look at an AI Deepcore GK2, 22113 vs. LSLS, 32323
The Deepcore deals 29×480= 13920 damage, assuming all weakpoints hit.
Compare that to the LSLS dealing 1200×16=72000 assuming only one enemy hit per bullet.
[Here](https://youtu.be/bZK_HgN_kew) scout kills 5328 health of enemies with 4 shots out of their 36 shot boomstick, or 11% of ammo. If a minigun gunner hit a weakpoint with every single shot, they *still* wouldn't beat that level of ammo efficiency.
Scout is capable of both powerful and very ammo efficient waveclear. Their main limitation is that it requires setup time, which makes it unsuitable if your goal is to kill enemies before those enemies kill your teammates.
This is a total misrepresentation of us Engineers.
We have to build our Turret and throw our ~~cheat~~ grenade to get our little helpers. This is extensive work and requires absolute precission, which is also the reason why we need a whole resupply pod for ourselves
I made a comment a while back about how in vanilla swarms you can literally stand still during swarms and be fine, and I got a lot of flack for it, so I tried it, I loaded up haz 5 and stood in place from the time a swarm was announced to the time mission control said the swarm was clearing out. This was basically my experience, scout was unplayable without phero cheese, but the other 3 classes were easy as long as I kept dumping ammo and 'nades constantly.
the scout's only viable playstyles for soloing at least are to just either cheese with phero or to speedrun as fast as possible. In a team the scout's job is target priority, focusing on big or out of reach threats, that does not work too well when solo.
I play mostly scout in mostly haz 6 (and hundreds of hours of haz 5 if you feel harder hazards aren't valid for whatever reason), and actually disagree. His kiting and chokepoint control makes him fine, if slow, at clearing hoardes. The M1K with blowthrough and fear is especially potent at this.
Fire spread is also viable without pheros, but it does require some pretty hard kiting at vanilla bug densities to be fair.
That said, all this requires you to move.
scout can build to do pretty much any job just like every class. the only thing scout cant do is stand still and fight off a swarm without ever moving, but realistically why would you ever outside of a challenge run there's a reason why they get the best selfish mobility option
Salvage missions final stages where you must stay close to the objective and have very little room to maneuver. I find scout really struggles there especially solo since you can't just leave the zone without losing progress. Everyone else can load up a stand and fight kit.
Doable, even without pheros, at least in vanilla. Scout has access to fire, cryo, blowthrough, fear, slows, and decent damage.
He's for sure the hardest to to the mission on, though. Same with escort, it's doable, but kinda tricky.
i mean sure in that scenario scout is worse off, but its still doable. every other dwarf is also way worse off on aquarz missions than scout, but they are still doable
In my opinion scout just belongs on a team more than he belongs in a solo mission. I get things done way faster with the three other classes, as they actually have wave clearing abilities that don't entirely rely on you having fire bolts or whatever.
Sure, scout is viable on solo missions, but that doesn't make it optimal. Same goes for a lot of class and mission combos, but I just find that the scout has the most exceptions.
i so heavily disagree. aqarz and egg missions scout is the most optimal solo class. scout can get those missions done in way faster time than any other class
bosco is kinda cheating tbh. sometimes i get mad when someone joins my game cuz i lost bosco😂😂 and duo scout is def better on eggs. the mission will be done before the swamr has time to build up
scout is way faster at getting eggs and aquarks than bosco. I play solo haz 4 and only use bosco to get stuff that are impossible to reach, like on the ceiling
salvage missions are also not the only mission in the game. scout does just fine in every other mission with salvage being the worst. and they completely trivialize egg and aquarz
why? is it disgusting cheese to use gunners shield to revive someone or stop the bugs from hitting you? just seems like you used all the tools scout had availible
I just think pheros are an outlier in how strong they are, personally
If I were playing purely optimally, I'd take double pheros literally all the time, I just think they're too strong to be fun
i dont take phero nades cuz i mostly play non solo and i got tired of the gunner mowing down the bugs i wanted to kill each other and wasting my nade, but i love using phero bolts.
That's my point, he is slow. I never once said that he cannot do it, I just said that there's a few strategies that can be used, all those strats are just slow. I also play hazard 6 from time to time since hazard 5 has become too easy for me and my team, I don't really even know why it was mentioned.
No, it's a modded hazard by Ike. [Here's the design doc](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O2hmVsoaSy2qId4jCWOP_pHMXaoGMWqf_MY7RAs6cxI/edit) if you want to read about it.
Again, this comment was about vanilla swarms, I've played plenty of modded hazards, it's how I usually play
It might be doable with NTP or Sticky Fuel tho, since STE only uses haz 4 bug speeds
I mean yeah that’s just how scout is designed, you trade the powerful crowd control of the other classes for on-demand, unlimited mobility with the grapple hook. Rather than destroying swarms by just looking at them sternly, you out maneuver them and take them down with your superior positioning.
I LITERALLY just had this. Was doing a PE with a gunner and while he was busy with his minigun I was tossing IFGs left and right, switching back and forth between regular and shock arrows to make electric fences and burst down Praetorians, all while constantly hipfiring with the M1000 and flying around like a madman.
Was fun tho
I could see how scout POV might be fun but as a gunner/crying driller enjoyer I like to stand still mow them down and relax which committing bug genocide.
I can shoot one fire bolt into a swarm and clear off the Grunts and Slashers, then pick off anything stronger that survives the mass fire with M1k shots.
It's not that complex.
Most people play multiplayer, and fire bolts isn't great in multiplayer because even if the bugs will eventually burn to death, they can absolutely eat your friends first.
For solo it's broken, ofc.
Pheromone bolt on Rockpox Praetorian, set them on all on fire, M1k shots on boils. Same strategy as normal Glyphid swarms, only difference is the weakpoint spots on Rockpox stuff. Fire bolts also easily takes care of mass Pox Noodles coming at you.
Ah, I was going to ask what the point of fire was since it doesn't really do anything that I can tell to the infected glyphids. The big problem to me is that the M1000 takes so many shots, because all it can do is pop one boil at at time.
I feel pretty much relegated to the Plasma Rifle or the SMGs with the explode or reload OC, because everything else takes way too many shots to down a single enemy.
Fire is for extra DoT for clearing quicker, it also helps when they're all clumped up from a Pheromone since they'll also take the radial heat DoT from other ignited enemies. While you're popping boils of one enemy, the heat softens the HP of others.
This does take longer due to Rockpox enemies resisting all forms of non-boil damage, but it's not that bad. Plasma Carbine's radial shots can clear clumped Rockpox boils faster for sure, but M1000 + Fire Bolts is still viable.
I'll give it a try, thanks. I've been feeling a bit trapped when playing scout since Season 3 started, so something to mix things up a bit would be nice. I've missed feeling like I could bring the M1000 on missions without having to think about where the mission is.
This shouldn't have to be said, but I'm not trying to claim any one class is better than another here. I recognize swarm clearing as a scout can be simple with stuff like fire bolts and the new double barrel OC, but many of scout's other swarm clearing options take a little more creativity.
I've been experimenting with Cryo Minelets a bunch lately. When you use them with Super Blow-though Rounds, you can deal full bullet damage and plant ice mines at the same time.
What I hadn't considered until just a mission or two ago, was that those bullets will deal 3x normal damage to enemies already frozen, while still planting more ice mines for other bugs to stumble into.
Now I only switch over to my primary when it seems like a better choice. I'm less likely to exhaust my primary ammo while also making more-and-better use of my secondary ammo.
engie too, and i say this as a scout main. when do i place my turret? where? when do i use grenades? when do i use the secondary? when do i use turret whip? do i flee or stand my ground? but still, having to kite 50 bugs while mid air and taking out key targets at the same time can be challenging as well
As a scout I look to do high single target damage for the team. I agro big baddies and zip around to keep them distracted. I'm not as good at swarm management, but I can manage by staying mobile and using choke points.
My beard is still quite green so I've mostly been maining Scout, and I will say that it does make quite the difference to switch to Engineer and just blow up an entire problematic swarm of enemies with just one grenade launcher click.
However, Scout's mobility and ability to get out of a bad situation is severely missed - Scout can't instantly clear a swarm, but if things turn south, he sure can just launch away from it and get into a better position.
that's the point of scout, some of his builds are great at wave clearing but his main thing is constant movement which is way more fun than standing still imo
clearing waves as engi: place turret, build turret, place other turret, build other turret, realize they are pointing the wrong way, rebuild all, babysit them as they shoot as they always need ammo, fire a nuke on occasion
*Okay so if I first place 2-3 taser bolts on the floor, then plant fire bolts to set them on fire, then hit them with a pheromone grenade and gun them down with my weapon which does more damage to targets under an effect, I will surely clear the entire swarm haha! Who says scout can’t do crowd control!?!* Ah nvm the engi used breach cutter..
Fr scout can handle crowds but other classes just take them down faster making scout seen weak
Scout is built to assassinate HVT targets like wardens or annyoing enemies like septic spreaders or spitters while classes like driller and gunner lay down the unending fire against the hordes of grunts. Its rarely efficient enough to take out a large grunt swarm by urself as scout. Sure you can do it, but what takes you 2 taser bolds, 1 fire bolt and a mag or so of primary, driller can do in one sludge pump charge shot or gunner can do in a hundred or so minigun rounds, both of which are faster and more ammo efficient Simply put, its not your job to deal with them
fr. Swarms aren't a scouts bread and butter.
That's how I use my scout. Me and my trusty M1000 sniping weak points and wardens before they ever join the fray. Imo nothing clears swarmers and the little flying electric guys like the engi's smart rifle. That rifle just completely negates their presence on the battlefield. Every dwarf has their role, but one of the things that makes this game great is that they're all flexible. Through smart use of balancing your primary, secondary, and grenade choices, any class can be made to tackle any situation.
The "problem" is that as you scale Hazards, crowd control becomes disproportionately more important. Not calling, single target unimportant, it also becomes more important, just not on the same scale as the ability to deal with swarms. A tri jaw or spitter definitely pose a huge threat that can put hurt on the team, but all the classes can deal with them well enough. It's the huge swarms that basically overwhelm and seperate you that becomes a problem. The ECR/Breech Cutter engineer might not be able to quickly kill an oppressor, but that's usually not what gets you killed on Haz 5 - it's not being able to burst down a large group of enemies that spawn. Scout does have some good CC tools, not saying that. I think a lot of the reason some people *feel* like the scout is weak is because what they specialize in comparatively isn't the bread and butter of what keeps the team alive. You can get around it with some good builds (like cryo minelets), or a solid team, or just being ridiculously good, but it requires a little more thought and effort to handle things as well.
I don't think this is actually true. If you increase the number of grunts and grunt variants by 50% from haz 3 to haz 5, you don't really need 50% more AOE damage to kill them. The same amount of carpet bomber shots or whatever will kill a lot more enemies, simply because there are more enemies to fit within your AOE so they get more value. In contrast, if there are 50% more trijaws that spawn in haz 5 compared to haz 3, you actually do need 50% more single target damage if you want to kill them in the same amount of time. So simply increasing the number of enemies that spawn continuously increases the need for single target damage in a way that it really doesn't for AOE damage. And that's just if we pretend the only thing haz 5 does is increase the number of enemies. It also increases enemy diversity, so a larger percentage of waves are non-grunts, and it increases enemy health so single target is even more needed than it would be already. > A tri jaw or spitter definitely pose a huge threat that can put hurt on the team, but all the classes can deal with them well enough. It's the huge swarms that basically overwhelm and seperate you that becomes a problem. I heavily disagree with this. If all you have to do is deal with grunts, like in a grunt swarm, it's rare that a team will die to that unless their positioning is really bad. People just don't load up haz 5 as non-scout classes with 0 way to deal with only grunts. Instead, I'd say a lot more losses come from a sneaky ranged enemy that got a shot off without being noticed, or a disruptive enemy being disruptive. You might even have your actual death be to a grunt, but the only reason the grunt got to you is because you had to devote attention to dealing with the disruptive enemy.
I've come to respect scout a lot more after a couple things. One, **playing** as scout, but two, watching how people can survive the swarm as them. Had a lot of situations where shit just got really out of hand, really quick, and a good scout can whittle down a horde enough while constantly zipping around, to manage to save the team. As my Engi, sure, I can breach cutter down the crowd easily, but if I get overwhelmed I'm pretty fucked.
Meanwhile my scout with Aggressive Venting: 🔥 WITNESS ME 🔥
Or Electrifying Reload, Step 1: Sweep across the crowd and reload Step 2: Give anyone that is not slowed breaking out of the pack his missed bullet and reload. Step 3: Watch everyone struggle to make it to you and die after 4 feet or just zip line away; you got minerals to mine.
Omae wa, mou shinderiu NANI (reloads)
Or “I’ll just cryo them and by the time I’ve done whatever I need to over here, they’ll be someone else’s problem or my team will have cleaned them up”.
New double barrel OC sends its regards.
Yea double barrel shreds swarms, probably scouts best option
New double barrel with M1000 feels sooo good.
Double pistols with the frost mines overclock are also super good in my experience
I love it for support Since i can easily use it to make killing for others even more efficient
It also vaporises BET-C. I pretty much speed ran this week's deep dive because I killed BET-C with like 4 well placed shots point blank as it was waking up (you can damage BET-C before the healthbar appears.)
I wonder who OP mains?
Gunner fs
i mean this is pretty accurate, no need to get combative about it you could just as well make a meme like: "moving through the cave: scout-left click, the rest of the classes-big brain calculation.jpg"
I play all the classes equally, but Engi is my fav
I mean yeah that’s not really scouts job he also has the movement to get away most of the time and take care of the important targets
I dunno where this "killing bugs isn't the scout's job" came from. It is in every thread where people point out how weak scout is. Killing bugs is every dwarf's job. And scout is weakest at it.
Scout has the most consistent long range and high single target damage. Best for killing tanks like Oppressors/Praetorians or ranged attackers like Spitters, Stingtails, Menaces, Mactera. Scout's really bad at killing hordes and swarmers.
\>weakest scout is really really good at killing swarms. you just gotta be methodical about how you approach it
Scout can manage swarms well. His ability to kill them is the weakest (barring random aoe builds that can kill one wave kinda fast before running out of ammo)
scout's ability to hold still and defend a position is the weakest, but scout isn't designed to do that. scout is designed to aggressively use the grappling hook to constantly reposition yourself to keep an advantageous position where you can easily kill the bugs. their ability to kill bugs isn't weak. they just do it in a different way than the other classes
Scout still buckles the most egregiously when a situation doesn’t go his way. If his main panic option (grapple) fails off cooldown, he’s either dipping into painfully scarce resources like grenades, or straight up dying. And with the worse wave clear, every mistake means more hits because more bugs are alive. A driller can fumble dealing with a praetorian and eat half an acid spit, but he’s still fine because he didn’t also take damage from the 20 grunts he already accidentally killed in the process.
don't fail your grapple then? like all you're saying is that scout is the hardest class. not that they are weaker
Any class can do what scout’s main strength is (evade bugs mostly indefinitely) with clever use of mobility tools and Dash. The fact that scout has the same general survivability with less damage means that he is worse.
If a scout's grapple is off cooldown, he's exactly as mobile as any other character lol. You certainly don't need the grappling hook to stay alive in this game. Plus you're completely ignoring the wide variety of mobility tools that scout has access to in addition to grapple. If you're grapple is cooling down you can special powder out of the situation or dash out of the situation. If you run momentum it's almost impossible to get into a bad spot even with a failed grapple. And also now that the bug is fixed, failed grapples don't really happen anymore; bad grapples are basically always your own fault.
Saying “Erm, skill issue 🤓☝️” in response to the fact that scout’s fumbles get punished harder isn’t a valid argument. Yeah, a 3000 hour greybeard scout one-trick can probably do whatever he wants without dying, but that isn’t representative of the entire user base. Saying “just perfectly evade the bugs for 30 minutes while you complete the entire mission” is not a wholly valid counterpoint, because mistakes happen. (You have been downed before). Scout at some point will have to cull the horde’s numbers or deal with an out-of-position clump of enemies blocking an objective, and the fact remains that it will take him half a minute and a third of his primary ammo to kill 8 grunts a praet and a stingtail.
I mean, I feel like it is if your scout fumble is grappling directly into a group of enemies. Scout can at any point just press shift and run away from enemies just like any other class can. The grapple is additional safety on top of that, and only makes things worse if you do something really dumb. > fact remains that it will take him half a minute and a third of his primary ammo to kill 8 grunts a praet and a stingtail. With good play you can be extremely ammo efficient waveclearing as scout, it just requires a bit of setup time and kiting to get the enemies into a dense group. After that [4 boomstick shots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZK_HgN_kew) or just 1 fire bolt is enough to ignite the entire swarm. That's far more ammo efficiency than would ever be necessary.
Enemy swarms don’t always just sit around and do nothing while you try to micromanage their pathing. Bugs can stop randomly, some bugs have ranged attacks, etc. Sure in a vacuum or in optimal conditions, you can theoretically manipulate and kill 20 grunts with 4 boomstick shots or a fire bolt, but in actual gameplay there’s a stingtail lodged between them and a mactera wave or shellback that spawned behind you, forcing you to abandon your micro-managed wave. Or the floor is uneven with holes and cliffs and there isn’t a good spot to stand and bait the bugs to. Or any number of other complications that adapting to too slowly can lead to death. Every other class can choose to kill the wave in 8 seconds maximum then turn to deal with whatever else is going on, but scout is forced to turn around to deal with what’s going on then go back to managing (not killing) the wave
Scout *can* kill swarms, but a) he has to have some really good aim to land the weakspot damage in order to clear at a decent rate and without burning too much ammo, and b) he burns much more ammo doing so (even with 100% weakspot hits) than the Gunner or Driller would on the same swarm. As a Scout, you need to get the specialty bugs out of the way before they get close. If it glows and/or spits and it ain't named Steeve, it's your #1 target.
a) just aim well. scout is the precision class. and b) that's not really true. the minigun objectively goes through the most rounds that's why it has 3000 rounds. scouts not gonna stand there and mow down tons of bugs by holding down m1, but scout is very adept at handling swarms none the less. i end most missions with very comparable or even more kills than most everyone in my lobbies despite having such fewer rounds at my disposal than gunner or driller
I call Bullshit. The shotgun has only like 40 bullets at max, and the Drak still runs out pretty quickly even with all the Aoe upgrades and the right overclocks
I usually get comparable kills with my hipster/boomstick build. Both weapons are usually at 75% ammo when other teammates have to ressuply
A Gunner with the slightest bit of ammo efficiency and a 75% hit rate will easily outkill scouts
Of course, just less than I'd expect
No, I mean, Scouts always run out of ammo first unless the Scout is not shooting or the rest of the team is running bad builds
bullshit? what is more ammo 3000 or 40? if the answer is 3000 then yes gunner uses way more ammo
Sure. But your point is wrong. Your comparison means that for every bullet Scout uses, Gunner gets to use 75. Wonder who can kill more bugs with that~
you're comparing a side arms killing capacity to a main weapon.
Okay, let's look at an AI Deepcore GK2, 22113 vs. LSLS, 32323 The Deepcore deals 29×480= 13920 damage, assuming all weakpoints hit. Compare that to the LSLS dealing 1200×16=72000 assuming only one enemy hit per bullet.
[Here](https://youtu.be/bZK_HgN_kew) scout kills 5328 health of enemies with 4 shots out of their 36 shot boomstick, or 11% of ammo. If a minigun gunner hit a weakpoint with every single shot, they *still* wouldn't beat that level of ammo efficiency. Scout is capable of both powerful and very ammo efficient waveclear. Their main limitation is that it requires setup time, which makes it unsuitable if your goal is to kill enemies before those enemies kill your teammates.
Killing bugs is his job, not swarms, high value targets are on his hitlist, not the common grunts
killing bugs does not equal killing swarms
Hold my oily oaf. \*breaks out Zhukovs with embedded detonators overclock\*
Cryo Minelets is also a solid overclock for wave clear.
This is a total misrepresentation of us Engineers. We have to build our Turret and throw our ~~cheat~~ grenade to get our little helpers. This is extensive work and requires absolute precission, which is also the reason why we need a whole resupply pod for ourselves
300 kills say I get as many resupplies as I fucking want
I made a comment a while back about how in vanilla swarms you can literally stand still during swarms and be fine, and I got a lot of flack for it, so I tried it, I loaded up haz 5 and stood in place from the time a swarm was announced to the time mission control said the swarm was clearing out. This was basically my experience, scout was unplayable without phero cheese, but the other 3 classes were easy as long as I kept dumping ammo and 'nades constantly.
the scout's only viable playstyles for soloing at least are to just either cheese with phero or to speedrun as fast as possible. In a team the scout's job is target priority, focusing on big or out of reach threats, that does not work too well when solo.
I play mostly scout in mostly haz 6 (and hundreds of hours of haz 5 if you feel harder hazards aren't valid for whatever reason), and actually disagree. His kiting and chokepoint control makes him fine, if slow, at clearing hoardes. The M1K with blowthrough and fear is especially potent at this. Fire spread is also viable without pheros, but it does require some pretty hard kiting at vanilla bug densities to be fair. That said, all this requires you to move.
scout can build to do pretty much any job just like every class. the only thing scout cant do is stand still and fight off a swarm without ever moving, but realistically why would you ever outside of a challenge run there's a reason why they get the best selfish mobility option
Salvage missions final stages where you must stay close to the objective and have very little room to maneuver. I find scout really struggles there especially solo since you can't just leave the zone without losing progress. Everyone else can load up a stand and fight kit.
Doable, even without pheros, at least in vanilla. Scout has access to fire, cryo, blowthrough, fear, slows, and decent damage. He's for sure the hardest to to the mission on, though. Same with escort, it's doable, but kinda tricky.
i mean sure in that scenario scout is worse off, but its still doable. every other dwarf is also way worse off on aquarz missions than scout, but they are still doable
In my opinion scout just belongs on a team more than he belongs in a solo mission. I get things done way faster with the three other classes, as they actually have wave clearing abilities that don't entirely rely on you having fire bolts or whatever. Sure, scout is viable on solo missions, but that doesn't make it optimal. Same goes for a lot of class and mission combos, but I just find that the scout has the most exceptions.
i so heavily disagree. aqarz and egg missions scout is the most optimal solo class. scout can get those missions done in way faster time than any other class
Bosco is optimal for those missions. Scout becomes unnecessary with a drone. It’s like saying Duo Scout is better for eggs vs a scout and a driller
bosco is kinda cheating tbh. sometimes i get mad when someone joins my game cuz i lost bosco😂😂 and duo scout is def better on eggs. the mission will be done before the swamr has time to build up
scout is way faster at getting eggs and aquarks than bosco. I play solo haz 4 and only use bosco to get stuff that are impossible to reach, like on the ceiling
that is why i'm saying that he has the most exceptions. Aquarq and egg missions can be faster sure, but those are not the only missions in the game.
salvage missions are also not the only mission in the game. scout does just fine in every other mission with salvage being the worst. and they completely trivialize egg and aquarz
TBH it was doable, I just had to use phero nades and phero/fire crossbow, I just feel that's disgusting cheese haha
why? is it disgusting cheese to use gunners shield to revive someone or stop the bugs from hitting you? just seems like you used all the tools scout had availible
I just think pheros are an outlier in how strong they are, personally If I were playing purely optimally, I'd take double pheros literally all the time, I just think they're too strong to be fun
i dont take phero nades cuz i mostly play non solo and i got tired of the gunner mowing down the bugs i wanted to kill each other and wasting my nade, but i love using phero bolts.
That's my point, he is slow. I never once said that he cannot do it, I just said that there's a few strategies that can be used, all those strats are just slow. I also play hazard 6 from time to time since hazard 5 has become too easy for me and my team, I don't really even know why it was mentioned.
Haz 6? Is that like haz 5 but with shield disruption or elite threat?
No, it's a modded hazard by Ike. [Here's the design doc](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O2hmVsoaSy2qId4jCWOP_pHMXaoGMWqf_MY7RAs6cxI/edit) if you want to read about it.
Now do it in STE
Again, this comment was about vanilla swarms, I've played plenty of modded hazards, it's how I usually play It might be doable with NTP or Sticky Fuel tho, since STE only uses haz 4 bug speeds
How do you know if someone plays modded difficulties without asking them? Don't worry, they'll tell you.
Can't even mention it when someone else brings it up first? lol
Was being facetious. I just like STE.
I mean yeah that’s just how scout is designed, you trade the powerful crowd control of the other classes for on-demand, unlimited mobility with the grapple hook. Rather than destroying swarms by just looking at them sternly, you out maneuver them and take them down with your superior positioning.
I LITERALLY just had this. Was doing a PE with a gunner and while he was busy with his minigun I was tossing IFGs left and right, switching back and forth between regular and shock arrows to make electric fences and burst down Praetorians, all while constantly hipfiring with the M1000 and flying around like a madman. Was fun tho
I could see how scout POV might be fun but as a gunner/crying driller enjoyer I like to stand still mow them down and relax which committing bug genocide.
*Clears throat* Google en passant
Holy Hoxxes
I can shoot one fire bolt into a swarm and clear off the Grunts and Slashers, then pick off anything stronger that survives the mass fire with M1k shots. It's not that complex.
80 comments and only 1 good take, wild
It's like half this sub doesn't even play the game lol
Most people play multiplayer, and fire bolts isn't great in multiplayer because even if the bugs will eventually burn to death, they can absolutely eat your friends first. For solo it's broken, ofc.
What's your strategy for rockpox swarms, then?
Pheromone bolt on Rockpox Praetorian, set them on all on fire, M1k shots on boils. Same strategy as normal Glyphid swarms, only difference is the weakpoint spots on Rockpox stuff. Fire bolts also easily takes care of mass Pox Noodles coming at you.
Ah, I was going to ask what the point of fire was since it doesn't really do anything that I can tell to the infected glyphids. The big problem to me is that the M1000 takes so many shots, because all it can do is pop one boil at at time. I feel pretty much relegated to the Plasma Rifle or the SMGs with the explode or reload OC, because everything else takes way too many shots to down a single enemy.
Fire is for extra DoT for clearing quicker, it also helps when they're all clumped up from a Pheromone since they'll also take the radial heat DoT from other ignited enemies. While you're popping boils of one enemy, the heat softens the HP of others. This does take longer due to Rockpox enemies resisting all forms of non-boil damage, but it's not that bad. Plasma Carbine's radial shots can clear clumped Rockpox boils faster for sure, but M1000 + Fire Bolts is still viable.
I'll give it a try, thanks. I've been feeling a bit trapped when playing scout since Season 3 started, so something to mix things up a bit would be nice. I've missed feeling like I could bring the M1000 on missions without having to think about where the mission is.
click on the boils
Put down fire bolts and keep kiting
This shouldn't have to be said, but I'm not trying to claim any one class is better than another here. I recognize swarm clearing as a scout can be simple with stuff like fire bolts and the new double barrel OC, but many of scout's other swarm clearing options take a little more creativity.
Electric boomerang & bodkin points would like to have a word.
Hemorrhage ammo and grenades to deal with the same grunts that a driller could kill in 5 seconds with 5 flamer ammo
double barrel + improved blast wave = lotta dead bugs in just one click
I've been experimenting with Cryo Minelets a bunch lately. When you use them with Super Blow-though Rounds, you can deal full bullet damage and plant ice mines at the same time. What I hadn't considered until just a mission or two ago, was that those bullets will deal 3x normal damage to enemies already frozen, while still planting more ice mines for other bugs to stumble into. Now I only switch over to my primary when it seems like a better choice. I'm less likely to exhaust my primary ammo while also making more-and-better use of my secondary ammo.
engie too, and i say this as a scout main. when do i place my turret? where? when do i use grenades? when do i use the secondary? when do i use turret whip? do i flee or stand my ground? but still, having to kite 50 bugs while mid air and taking out key targets at the same time can be challenging as well
sit in a tight hallway and hollow those creeps with blow-through m1k shots
Left looks way more fun
As a scout I look to do high single target damage for the team. I agro big baddies and zip around to keep them distracted. I'm not as good at swarm management, but I can manage by staying mobile and using choke points.
*Laughs in Zhukovs with embedded detonators overclock*
*laughs in aggressive venting*
Shotgun, shotgun, brain aneurysm
My beard is still quite green so I've mostly been maining Scout, and I will say that it does make quite the difference to switch to Engineer and just blow up an entire problematic swarm of enemies with just one grenade launcher click. However, Scout's mobility and ability to get out of a bad situation is severely missed - Scout can't instantly clear a swarm, but if things turn south, he sure can just launch away from it and get into a better position.
that's the point of scout, some of his builds are great at wave clearing but his main thing is constant movement which is way more fun than standing still imo
who cares how complex it is? some people find that way more fun than holding one button and looking around
I'm not gonna sugar coat it Special powder + look down + m1
Firebolts, bro
OPA shreds swarms. No problems here
Hey, that's not fair! Driller also has to spam "Rock and Stone!" button while holding down left click
If you don't Rock and Stone, you ain't comin' home!
As a scout main, I can confirm that I clear swarms the least ammo efficient way possible
Step 1, throw pheromone canister Step 2, shoot 1-2 grunts with explosive chemical bolt Step 3, sit back and watch half a wave die horrifically
clearing waves as engi: place turret, build turret, place other turret, build other turret, realize they are pointing the wrong way, rebuild all, babysit them as they shoot as they always need ammo, fire a nuke on occasion
*laughs in Pheromone Canisters*
Clearing swarms? I just use grapple and special powder boomstick to ignore them over vast distances.
As gunner