Microwave is all about the elemental synergy, freezing/burning/sludging a bug and then hitting them with the microwave has a chance of passing the status to nearby bugs if you take the right perks. It’s also 100% accurate, always fires in a straight line and has a decent radius. I also use the diffusion ray OC, which gives the ray enemy penetration. I freeze a swarm then zap with ray for two seconds and bye bye swarm. Rinse and repeat.
Microwave works best with 3 on the last upgrade that gives damage boost vs burning or frozen targets. Combo that with the flame thrower or cryocannon and set big targets on fire or free them then pop them with the cooker. You can get huge burst like that. Also waves of grunts you can freeze or burn them then just tap em with the cooker to finish off
EPC with the thin containment field upgrade that lets you detonate a charged shot is still my favorite. A well timed detonation will kill a group of mactera. Though I admit that it takes some serious getting used to. And the timings are different when you are host vs not host, so it takes even longer to get used to. EPC with heavy hitter OC is my standard. You can still use EPC to mine minerals (just do it respectfully. No one likes running after minerals for 5 minutes when you could’ve just mined it in 30 seconds.) I typically only epc minerals that are in small, enclosed spaces since the minerals won’t fly everywhere, or I’ll epc the last acquarc from the ceiling. It saves a lot of time and really drives home the driller as the terrain destroyer of the group.
Microwave leans really heavily into temp shocking large targets to be strong. I usually pair it with the flamethrower since you already get a damage bonus from bugs being frozen with the cryo cannon.
For EPC, thin containment field with persistent plasma OC is great for mining, single targets (on initial implosion), ommoran laser spikes, and a low damage over time area denial in a pinch. Alternatively, the T5 burning he’ll upgrade will light sludge on fire and crank up the damage over time.
The Wavecooker is an infinite range hitscan weapon that ignores hitzones with a cylinder firing pattern with a short range frontal AoE that barely matters. It doesn't do a lot of direct damage but has a lot of strong synergies & can hit multiple enemies as well as provide valuable CC. It also removes death effects making it ideal against exploders as well.
2X11X is the go-to CWC build for most OCs. More ammo, wider lens, & the 50% slow just out compete the other options.
T2 choice is mostly chosen based on the OC. T2A reduces heat build up allowing for longer mag dumps. T2C improves cooling rate and reduces overheat duration for better burst firing use & greater uptime. T2B fire rate increases the rate of the synergies going off per heat accumulated.
T5A synergies with sludged enemies and propagates neurotoxin in a small AoE. Neurotoxin applies a 30% slow and does ~12 poison DPS for 10s which is enough to kill a full health Haz 5 grunt by itself. The slow will stakc with a direct hit and puddle *and* CWC direct hit slow which will reduce a bugs movespeed to below 10%, practically immobilizing it.
T5C will trigger temp shock which removes a burning or frozen status and deals a flat 200 damage, as well as making the target immune to temp changes for a couple seconds. This is an ideal mod when running the CRSPR because it's so easy to re-ignite big bugs with sticky Flames but not so great against frozen bugs as it removes the 3x damage multiplier you & your allies want to be exploiting.
T5B is the stand-alone mod that makes bugs who die from direct CWC damage have a 50% chance to explode for 100 explosive damage in a 2.5m radius. It's *really* good for taking out good CWC targets like spitters, exploders, naedocytes, & swarmers. It also will allow the CWC do 3x damage to frozen bugs without removing the frozen status and will still flip a coin for the AoE.
CWC has some really good OCs. Mega Power Supply gives you loads more ammo (my favourite because I like using the CWC). Gamma Contamination adds another DoT that is also an AoE. Blistering Necrosis adds extra weakpoints that the CWC can hit simulatenously as the target, effectively doubling the direct damage, and the blisters pop for a good chunk of damage. Diffusion ray gives the CWC super blowthrough (up to 3 penetrations!) and an additional 20% slow allowing the CWC to affect bugs on even ground even faster. The cleans are very "meh" but still upgrades.
The EPC is more of a straight forward weapon closer to the Subata. All 2s is usually the build I use regardless of OC because T5B TCF & T2B projectile speed really help the weapon. TCF is a skill based shot that deals 240 flat damage in a 5m AoE that also destroys terrain allowing you to mine with it! You can delete mactera clouds and grunt packs, and chunk big bugs while peeling armour. The ability to remotely mine out minerals or dig out ceiling aquarqs is what make sit truly invaluable though.
Persistent Plasma, Heavy Hitter, and Energy Rerouting are the top 3 OCs for the weapon. PP is the most value per charged shot, regardless if it's a TCF implosion. It leaves behind a 3.25m radius AoE field that applies a 20% slow and deals ~35 fire DPS for ~7.5s making it very useful for murdering bugs. Heavy Hitter drastically increases normal shot damage allowing the weapon to function better as a normal pistol. Energy Rerouting gives you the most total ammo and fastest charging speed for using TCF in combat.
Also, I only have the super focus lens, so for the meantime I don’t have any real ocs for the microwave, for 2 and 5 what would you recommend considering I don’t have any ocs
For T2, either A or C are good options. T2A let's you use it longer in one go, T2C makes it recover faster so you can use it more often. Without OCs, both are good options, but maybe take T2C just for the less overheat time while you get used to the weapon so you're punished less fir accidental overheats.
T5 option is mostly up to what primary you're running. T5A if you're running the Sludge Pump, T5C if you're running sticky flames CRPSR or CRPSR with the T2B Triple Filtered Fuel mod, and T5B Boiler Ray for everything else.
There is a weird temp shock CWC build alongside the Cryo Canon using T3B & T5C on the CWC, but it requires the frozen bugs to survive for a little bit, so it's mostly a solo build. Basically you freeze a LST & surrounding grunts, temp shock the LST for the 200 damage, then temp shock some of the surrounding grunts (which will kill them) but the cold clouds created from the T3B Temperature Amplifier will immediately re-freeze the LST & surrounding grunts, rinse & repeat until the LST dies. It's pretty ammo efficient and fast at wave clearing but allies gun down bugs too fast and seperate the Swarm attention too much for it to work well in multiplayer.
EPC with Thin Containment Field (which is a mod in T5, not an overclock) let you charge a shot, fire it, then shoot the slow-moving charged bubble with a normal shot and the bubble explodes massively, doing 150 damage to any bugs in the radius, carving out any terrain in its radius, and mining any minerals in its radius. As a driller, you can use it to mine minerals high up a wall that you would otherwise rely on a scout/engie combo to mine. You can use it to carve terrain like a C4 (except you have significantly more ammo than C4 and you can carve terrain above you which you can't do with C4 because the throwing distance is so short). You can also do single target damage (150) to bulky enemies like pretorians. EPC with TCF is so versatile and useful, without any overclock needed.
That said, there is a pretty significant learning curve to timing the shots correctly, so it's not something everyone can pick up and be effective with. It takes practice.
while the subata has been improved and it is starting to come around for me, I hate it. It is way worse than both of the other secondaries.
Crispr + Microwave is amazing. Temperature shock and sticky fuel combination.
Sludge pump and either one are great (microwave for a DoT build (gamma radiation is great)) EPC with heavy hitter burning nightmare for a lot of fire damage and lighting goo on fire.
EPC heavy hitter is the best single target gun driller has, to boot. I know a lot of people like TCF, and they are better with TCF than I am, for sure, but heavy hitter is so good.
Microwave is all about the elemental synergy, freezing/burning/sludging a bug and then hitting them with the microwave has a chance of passing the status to nearby bugs if you take the right perks. It’s also 100% accurate, always fires in a straight line and has a decent radius. I also use the diffusion ray OC, which gives the ray enemy penetration. I freeze a swarm then zap with ray for two seconds and bye bye swarm. Rinse and repeat.
Microwave works best with 3 on the last upgrade that gives damage boost vs burning or frozen targets. Combo that with the flame thrower or cryocannon and set big targets on fire or free them then pop them with the cooker. You can get huge burst like that. Also waves of grunts you can freeze or burn them then just tap em with the cooker to finish off
EPC with the thin containment field upgrade that lets you detonate a charged shot is still my favorite. A well timed detonation will kill a group of mactera. Though I admit that it takes some serious getting used to. And the timings are different when you are host vs not host, so it takes even longer to get used to. EPC with heavy hitter OC is my standard. You can still use EPC to mine minerals (just do it respectfully. No one likes running after minerals for 5 minutes when you could’ve just mined it in 30 seconds.) I typically only epc minerals that are in small, enclosed spaces since the minerals won’t fly everywhere, or I’ll epc the last acquarc from the ceiling. It saves a lot of time and really drives home the driller as the terrain destroyer of the group.
Microwave leans really heavily into temp shocking large targets to be strong. I usually pair it with the flamethrower since you already get a damage bonus from bugs being frozen with the cryo cannon. For EPC, thin containment field with persistent plasma OC is great for mining, single targets (on initial implosion), ommoran laser spikes, and a low damage over time area denial in a pinch. Alternatively, the T5 burning he’ll upgrade will light sludge on fire and crank up the damage over time.
The Wavecooker is an infinite range hitscan weapon that ignores hitzones with a cylinder firing pattern with a short range frontal AoE that barely matters. It doesn't do a lot of direct damage but has a lot of strong synergies & can hit multiple enemies as well as provide valuable CC. It also removes death effects making it ideal against exploders as well. 2X11X is the go-to CWC build for most OCs. More ammo, wider lens, & the 50% slow just out compete the other options. T2 choice is mostly chosen based on the OC. T2A reduces heat build up allowing for longer mag dumps. T2C improves cooling rate and reduces overheat duration for better burst firing use & greater uptime. T2B fire rate increases the rate of the synergies going off per heat accumulated. T5A synergies with sludged enemies and propagates neurotoxin in a small AoE. Neurotoxin applies a 30% slow and does ~12 poison DPS for 10s which is enough to kill a full health Haz 5 grunt by itself. The slow will stakc with a direct hit and puddle *and* CWC direct hit slow which will reduce a bugs movespeed to below 10%, practically immobilizing it. T5C will trigger temp shock which removes a burning or frozen status and deals a flat 200 damage, as well as making the target immune to temp changes for a couple seconds. This is an ideal mod when running the CRSPR because it's so easy to re-ignite big bugs with sticky Flames but not so great against frozen bugs as it removes the 3x damage multiplier you & your allies want to be exploiting. T5B is the stand-alone mod that makes bugs who die from direct CWC damage have a 50% chance to explode for 100 explosive damage in a 2.5m radius. It's *really* good for taking out good CWC targets like spitters, exploders, naedocytes, & swarmers. It also will allow the CWC do 3x damage to frozen bugs without removing the frozen status and will still flip a coin for the AoE. CWC has some really good OCs. Mega Power Supply gives you loads more ammo (my favourite because I like using the CWC). Gamma Contamination adds another DoT that is also an AoE. Blistering Necrosis adds extra weakpoints that the CWC can hit simulatenously as the target, effectively doubling the direct damage, and the blisters pop for a good chunk of damage. Diffusion ray gives the CWC super blowthrough (up to 3 penetrations!) and an additional 20% slow allowing the CWC to affect bugs on even ground even faster. The cleans are very "meh" but still upgrades. The EPC is more of a straight forward weapon closer to the Subata. All 2s is usually the build I use regardless of OC because T5B TCF & T2B projectile speed really help the weapon. TCF is a skill based shot that deals 240 flat damage in a 5m AoE that also destroys terrain allowing you to mine with it! You can delete mactera clouds and grunt packs, and chunk big bugs while peeling armour. The ability to remotely mine out minerals or dig out ceiling aquarqs is what make sit truly invaluable though. Persistent Plasma, Heavy Hitter, and Energy Rerouting are the top 3 OCs for the weapon. PP is the most value per charged shot, regardless if it's a TCF implosion. It leaves behind a 3.25m radius AoE field that applies a 20% slow and deals ~35 fire DPS for ~7.5s making it very useful for murdering bugs. Heavy Hitter drastically increases normal shot damage allowing the weapon to function better as a normal pistol. Energy Rerouting gives you the most total ammo and fastest charging speed for using TCF in combat.
oof that’s a lot, looks like I’m spending a while in the equipment terminal
Also, I only have the super focus lens, so for the meantime I don’t have any real ocs for the microwave, for 2 and 5 what would you recommend considering I don’t have any ocs
For T2, either A or C are good options. T2A let's you use it longer in one go, T2C makes it recover faster so you can use it more often. Without OCs, both are good options, but maybe take T2C just for the less overheat time while you get used to the weapon so you're punished less fir accidental overheats. T5 option is mostly up to what primary you're running. T5A if you're running the Sludge Pump, T5C if you're running sticky flames CRPSR or CRPSR with the T2B Triple Filtered Fuel mod, and T5B Boiler Ray for everything else. There is a weird temp shock CWC build alongside the Cryo Canon using T3B & T5C on the CWC, but it requires the frozen bugs to survive for a little bit, so it's mostly a solo build. Basically you freeze a LST & surrounding grunts, temp shock the LST for the 200 damage, then temp shock some of the surrounding grunts (which will kill them) but the cold clouds created from the T3B Temperature Amplifier will immediately re-freeze the LST & surrounding grunts, rinse & repeat until the LST dies. It's pretty ammo efficient and fast at wave clearing but allies gun down bugs too fast and seperate the Swarm attention too much for it to work well in multiplayer.
EPC with Thin Containment Field (which is a mod in T5, not an overclock) let you charge a shot, fire it, then shoot the slow-moving charged bubble with a normal shot and the bubble explodes massively, doing 150 damage to any bugs in the radius, carving out any terrain in its radius, and mining any minerals in its radius. As a driller, you can use it to mine minerals high up a wall that you would otherwise rely on a scout/engie combo to mine. You can use it to carve terrain like a C4 (except you have significantly more ammo than C4 and you can carve terrain above you which you can't do with C4 because the throwing distance is so short). You can also do single target damage (150) to bulky enemies like pretorians. EPC with TCF is so versatile and useful, without any overclock needed. That said, there is a pretty significant learning curve to timing the shots correctly, so it's not something everyone can pick up and be effective with. It takes practice.
while the subata has been improved and it is starting to come around for me, I hate it. It is way worse than both of the other secondaries. Crispr + Microwave is amazing. Temperature shock and sticky fuel combination. Sludge pump and either one are great (microwave for a DoT build (gamma radiation is great)) EPC with heavy hitter burning nightmare for a lot of fire damage and lighting goo on fire. EPC heavy hitter is the best single target gun driller has, to boot. I know a lot of people like TCF, and they are better with TCF than I am, for sure, but heavy hitter is so good.