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seafood devil's daggers 2 (this game is very addicting be warned)

lmao. very interesting way to word that haha

@@ojb_ surely I must've misspoken

I'm stoked to hear that, that's awesome. Best advice: stop watching youtube videos on it for a bit! Discover all the fun synergies naturally :) The game is a lot of fun to learn, and I wouldn't want my crappy opinions stilting anybody's enjoyment of discovering these things on their own haha. Hope you guys have as much fun with the game as I have!

Sure, but I think the necessity of those mods to make the encounter feel fair is a big neon warning sign that the vanilla game's implementation is very lacking and needs to change. I remember a reddit post (because it amused me greatly) of someone saying "stalkers are perfect, don't change them" and it was revealed in the comment section that the person who posted this take... used mods to make the stalkers less oppressive. Like, they went out of their way to make a big statement how wonderfully fair the enemies were - and it turns out that they used mods to fix them! I think having to use mods to fix a balance issue is less appealing to me than using mods to improve the general experience. I'm not really sure why it's a hangup for me, nor why it feels like such a big leap, but it definitely feels like it crosses some sort of line. For me, anyway. I'd rather just remove stalkers entirely than have to install a mod which still kinda keeps them annoying but more playable. If too many people are using these fixes that it lowers the rate of complaints, GSG will just never do a balance patch for them. I kinda need people to be as angry about it as I am? Lol. I've sorta given up on stalkers entirely and I have zero faith that they will ever be a fun enemy for me, and that's okay. Some people enjoy fighting them (because some people are very weird and have terrible taste in enemy design :D), and enough people play on lower difficulties where they don't one-shot PLUS aren't playing try hard solo like me, so there's just no way I'm going to win the fight for a balance patch. If they end up tweaking it, it will be like the stingtail nerf which doesn't hit the core of why the enemies are unfun to fight. So rather than stick around in an abusive relationship that is slightly less abusive because of visibility mods/whatever, I'll just make a clean break. I don't feel like I'm missing out on any enjoyment from it, and that's totally okay for me. It just makes me less willing to ever pub again because stalkers exist in pubs and they tilt me there too.

@@ojb_ I think their attack is bad game design, the massive damage plus removing shields plus slowdown is too punishing because it easily snowballs into being downed. They should instead e.g. tag the player to receive more damage from other bugs and disable shield regeneration, something that is avoidable entirely through skilled movement but is still annoying enough the make players hunt them down.

hah, you're right. that ten minute mark is the first turning point over whether you're having a run capable of going the distance. the true barrier is island 31/32 however, which sits at around 30 mins. those islands have some pretty nuts things they throw at you, and if you're not above the curve by that point it's game over. crab champions is super fun for sure. just being able to craft a build from what you see and making the proper choices is really difficult sometimes, and that's a huge upside for replayability.

This guy sold his life just to be good at DRG, just so you feel better I respect that.

Lol I've noticed this too! I incidentally follow that unspoken rule myself, but not really on purpose. Usually what happens is pure laziness - I'll be mildly in the mood for the longer run commitment, see that the EDD is gross, and just decide to pivot to play something else instead. If that level of goofballery in not moving my eyes slightly up the screen to see the normal DD's modifiers sounds ridiculous to you, you may be underestimating my laziness or overestimating my enthusiasm for the full spectrum of DRG content out there :) For real though, I've done enough dives by now to know that there are some forced things in them I find patently unfun (dreads are a big one, so is sabo/escort, swarmaggedon, etc.). It's very often a "I'll put up with that [toxic stage here] but I'm not too happy about it", and that's honestly a pretty large barrier to my enthusiasm sometimes. Because I have specific tastes, there are very few weeks where a dive is fully comprised of things I'm super stoked to play (like mactera plague/duck and cover/speedrunnable eggs/etc.) and there's pretty much always at least one piece of a dive that would turn me off. This low chance of something genuinely fun being on the menu means it's very often a waste of time to even bother looking at the EDD itself, much less both the EDD and the DD. So most weeks I'm too lazy to even look at the EDD's modifiers on their own lol. FWIW, I *have* seen some modded teams run the normal deep dives on weeks where the EDD has some annoying modifiers (like a sabo etc.) - I know off the top of my head that vonacht and ph-jpeg's groups have each done a modded DD instead of an EDD because of similar reasons. Cubefather may also have swapped their usual weekly EDD for a DD, but I couldn't tell you for certain like I can with the others. I've 100% missed some fun dives because of this habit, but that's okay. If someone messages me and says "hey ojb you might like this week's DD/EDD, can you upload a video on it?", I'll probably check it out. Or even if I get a request to run a particular dive just to show my perspective on how I'd approach it especially if it's a doozy. I've never gotten any requests like that, but I'm totally open for running seeded requests if I have the free time to record!

@@ojb_ Thats a great insight, thanks for sharing. Although I have stopped playing because of uni, now I live through your videos :) Well if you have ever get a chance to a normal 6x2 dd, do consider it. (Doesnt necessarily have to be this week's though. Take your time) Cheers RnS

honestly i think the fact that it does mediocre dot is partially underappreciated because the "denied space" really isn't as impactful as it seems because of that lol. the game's VFX makes it seem very bad and ouch oof my shields owie, but you can totally run through nuclear fallout without really losing too much because of it. i mean, look how many times i basically nuke my own ring in this run and it's not the end of the world. that dot does just enough to tickle down swarmers, jellies, and most grunts, while giving you some lingering upsides versus the guys that live through it. granted, you can argue that the other secondaries do the same thing with a LOT more ammo (and it's true), but fat boy has some unique things that it does that other secondaries simply can't. and for me that's the terrain clear. i value it as highly as i value carve c4 - when used effectively, you move literal mountains.

without fat boy, how would i steal all the kills on swarmer tunnels that my friends are farming to inflate their kill counts?

@@ojb_ Hmm well said. Maybe my opinion of Fat Boy is more skewered partially because I'm too used to people shooting the grenade at me and several years of Radioactive Praetorian trauma when I hear the radiation sound effect. The Swarmer tunnel example speaks the greatest to me however, If I'm not stealing free kills from my teammates am I really playing Driller? An Engie player would likely have the same mindset in the never ending power struggle to pad stats

i'm so happy they finally buffed it to make it actually viable. those damage mod changes were insanely effective at making me not feel bad for taking it!

right there with you tbh. i love ragdolls but my potato pc doesn't :(

honestly it's worse in solo than multiplayer IMO. because fat boy has some downsides (no "get off me" button like breach cutter has), you're able to lean into your teammates' strengths to pick up that slack, and that's just something that doesn't exist in solo. fwiw, fat boy is basically meta in Chinese modded, but they tend to play different difficulties than the western scene. the extra resups are nice for ammo, but honestly all that lets you do is cause more chaos and not use your shots more intelligently :) i think in the hands of a good player looking to improve / paying attention to their impact, fat boy is more than viable in multiplayer. now, will it surpass something like roll control in sheer impact? probably not, because roll control is busted. also they sit in different niches and do different things, so it's tough to compare. BUT, fat boy absolutely is takeable and really not that bad. i personally like taking fat boy into industrial sabotage myself for the quad vent value!

well the good news is scouts still take cryo nades and people are still sleeping on deep pockets, so my impact can't be that high :D

@@ojb_ yeah, but one day you're going to blow up. I love deep pockets. I have some builds with it, some builds without. And every time I don't have it, I hate life.

@@ojb_ Ive been using Deep Pockets nonstop for the past 1,400 hours and it still makes me gag knowing people decide Vampire is somehow a better perk than it.

see, i can see why people cling to vampire, because the vamp/IW synergy can be outrageously strong in the craziest modded difficulties. having one person pop iron will, revive, and then stay alive to tag team a revive/output just a tiny amount of damage, etc. CAN be the difference between a win and a loss. because just simple revive chaining where you iron will and die having accomplished only one thing is much weaker than iron will and doing two things, because dying (even in a gunner shield) is time you're stealing from your teammates now having to revive you too. i'm of the opinion that this fail state that vampire truly shines in is rare, but i do recognize it is valuable and it absolutely exists. the problem is just that i'm also of the opinion that it's rare enough to not sacrifice a perk slot for it even at the (undeniable) loss of winrate that taking it off creates. now, i don't think vampire is as big a deal in solo versus multiplayer, because solo gives you a lot more control over where you're holding / how else you can recover / simplifies what you "need" to do in those bad situations, so it's important to state my bias too. back in the day when i still ran vampire, i found the truly cooked situations where i needed vampire to come back from a bad iron will because there was no other recovery available - really just didn't guarantee a win anyway. vampire hp is NOT enough to come back from if the situation has really gone down the tubes in true solo. recognizing that was my first big turning point against having the perk in my loadouts, and then it was a more thoughtful discussion over why i felt this way before i believed i was doing the right thing. deep pockets is underrated as hell though, and still needs to worm its way into more modded player's loadouts because they're missing out on substantial pacing gains that are easy to overlook.

@R4hmiel | one day you're going to blow up i see your c4, driller man. you can't fool me!

I actually kinda like them! They can be super toxic at times, but they might unironically be my favorite of the newest enemies added. I like that they force you to commit to pushes sometimes that you'd otherwise never have an incentive to go into. Definitely pretty fun as scout, at least. Driller... maybe not so much.

​@ojb_ i don't really hate them i just said it because algorithm reason

@@ojb_ this is my take on them. I love them. Commit to pushing. It encourages better play from the entire team. I also love them as driller, because I get to make crazy mole tunnels trying to find where to go. Naturally, scout is the best class to deal with them. But yeah, they are my favorite enemy in the game now.

​@@ojb_ if i played driller i can freeze him - another reason chose cryo driller

I don't know what that means, sorry! I think you got the wrong guy.

a crowd control shooter is still a crowd control shooter chief

I have no idea what's going on in these video's but I still come for the analysis in the description.

This page should have everything you need: ojb_dev.gitlab.io/drg/modlist.html (you'll have to copy paste the full link because youtube will not make it clickable)

all crimes are legal until you get caught. at least that's what my attorney tells me

i'll be honest, i'm not even convinced that CT really does enable the team to be better (outside of dreads). lots of very dangerous situations that scout can usually help the team out with (spitters on the ceiling, mackies, solo stationary clear, etc.) CT just kinda falls flat. i truly wonder if this thing is going to get a balance patch

@@ojb_ yeah good point, CT totally gimping your damage meaning you can barely handle Scout's priority targets. hopefully they can balance it better, the DRAK already has too many meh overclocks imo I don't think it needs more.

No such thing as off topic in an ojb comment section :) Special powder: it's good - probably the best choice for multiplayer scout in a large number of situations (excluding times when you might want to be cryo-bolting stationaries instead). Works outrageously well in solo basically until you're forced to stand still (i.e. a salvage bubble hold), but even then there are things it can do for you. Definitely check out @MePostVideo's recent pheroless salvage run if you want to see peak SP performance beyond my own abilities! The upside of SP is basically: immortality. The downsides are: I think it's pretty boring and makes the game easier when I run it. I know this is controversial because SP is a lot of player's favorite OC, but I personally don't like how much this overclock takes away the skill ceiling in interesting movement tech and positioning. Anyone who's seen upper level special powder techniques may double take at that statement ("what about heavy object carrying, or tight tunnel precision jumps, or amplified b-hops, etc.?!?"), but I sadly think the skill ceiling exposed by those new options aren't enough to offset the things you lose by having what's essentially a portal gun that teleports you. I hope it goes without saying that I'm not judging people who use it, but it's just one of those things I tend to avoid myself because it lets me get away with rubbish I shouldn't get away with. Once you've overcome the (second level?) skill floor of SP, it's very plain to see how much of a gamechanger it is in terms of being able to ignore basically every enemy. Nothing really matters when you have a stack of 20 get-out-of-jail-free cards in your back pocket, and mistakes in positioning, movement, grapples, mineral power attacks, terrain mishaps, aggression, missed shots, empty primary ammo, etc., all go completely unpunished. Room pushes into modded difficulties with lots of stationaries are particularly tragic, because the fun and strategy of having to push a filled room under constant pressure of melee bugs catching up is basically gone entirely when you can instantly get to the other side of the cave. I will say it gets a tiny bit more fun when the difficulty is truly truly cursed (and the stationary count is absurdly high, much higher than 6x2), but still I think it detracts from a lot of the game's interesting movement mechanics. You gain a heck of a lot of pacing speedup (which is extremely valuable in modded), while basically breaking down the balance of the game. I'm not even talking about the exploits you can unlock with the weapon, but rather the sillyness that comes about even when you play "fair". Specifically from the perspective of solo: the fact that SP is still a fire boomstick means you're still able to wave clear with it if you need to. So in the grand scheme of things you're not really giving up a whole lot for the whole, apotheosis thing. TL;DR: strong, very strong. Perhaps too strong for this weak-loadout enjoyer.

To spoil the meme a bit: no, this is not a great build and it's especially bad for escort which tends to require rapid solutions to dangerous problems. It's a bit of a longer running shitpost of me taking this loadout into modded and trying to win with it, but it's definitely pretty underpowered compared to other things you can take. The upside of bombodboom is that it's pretty compelling to play, and interesting in its mediocre-ness that is pretty unique. It has a bunch of really subpar things that each do very little, but you're forced to combo them together and there's a weird internal self-synergy that makes it just a little bit better. It's more fun the higher you go in difficulties (because you rely more and more on trying to force the best out of a bad situation), and while the loadout is technically viable, it's certainly lacking compared to the competition. So long winded explanation aside, no, this is not good damage for scout. This class really does have a lot of strong burst options for taking down high value (aka the most dangerous) targets, but these aren't really them. Bombodboom has a lot of built-in "mistakes" chosen for that offbeat internal synergy - it's more of a throwaway solo lark than anything you'd want to legitimately take into multiplayer; and as far as multiplayer goes, your team will almost certainly be better off if you can instead build towards HVT's instead, since the kit normally can handle those pretty well. This bit is controversial and I always feel bad tainting newer players with my opinion, but I do feel strongly about it so I might as well be honest. I don't think the GK2 primary is the ticket if you want to have the most impact / consistency / damage. Regardless of overclock or build - it just isn't there. You should *definitely* ignore this and play with it to form your own opinion (especially, especially, especially if you find gk2 fun - because that's what you should optimize against: fun). But for posterity, it simply lacks the consistent damage / utility that the m1000 brings, or the sheer sustain/impact that thermal exhaust feedback drak brings. There are lots of longer discussions on this channel about all the cool things the m1000 can do (fear chaining / simplicity / breakpoints / blowthrough / etc.), and at least a few discussing the role of the drak as well. And pretty much every upload I take the gk2 you will find a grumpy ojb regretting his decisions and being lame and complaining about it in the description lol. (Sorry) Regarding secondary choice - usually my favorite pick is the boomstick because it brings a lot of burst damage and utility - again, things the scout really likes being good at that you lose when you go for a goofy loadout like bombodboom. Bodkin is remarkably terrible and perhaps the worst way to build the crossbow, which is particularly impressive because the crossbow is overpowered as hell if you build it correct! Seriously, 13111 Fire Bolts/Cryo Bolts/Specialist all let you dive full into the phero bolt utility which is a lot, lot, lot stronger and leads to more effective damage output than this mess. Even something like tri-fork volley with damage bolts and boost into electric fields can slap. But it ain't bodkin points and likely never will be. Embedded detonators is like the one decently strong zhukov overclock and that's perhaps the best source of raw damage scout has access to, but even those I find pretty underwhelming most days. Boomerang is an egotistical thing when you see it in modded play here on youtube. Most high level scout players will agree that this thing is pretty heavily flawed. Seeing it used in a video is a bit of a flex because this nade falls off extremely hard when the game gets tough. The unreliability and slowness play big factors in it being pretty poor for a scout looking to do the best work they can do, but the real downside is that it simply doesn't scale into high density like the other nades which basically scale up to infinity with proper knowledge and kiting. This gets stuck with 8 bounces on a good day, and those eight seldom are all that impressive when shit has hit the fan. There are loads of essays like this sprinkled throughout my uploads to go back through if you're interested in more. You don't have to watch the videos or anything, because all the actual interesting stuff is in the description / pinned comment / replies to comments. This stolen loadouts series playlist might be a decent showcase of some various scout playstyles using different builds, if you want somewhere to start: czcams.com/play/PL7CrFpXhBEsJZfoQrK7JR-MkJYoaIcmO4.html --- RE: drill tanking damage This is a modded difficulty thing. It's part of hazard 6x2, and specifically it lowers the threshold for "big hit resistance" which basically means every munch by a grunt is less dangerous than in hazard 5. It's pretty necessary for the balance of escort missions on modded to not turn into "spend 30 minutes holding E and not even get to shoot guns in your shooter game". It may seem cheaty until you try and play it yourself and then you'll find it's not quite as forgiving as it may appear :) Still need to do a lot of decision making and micromanaging to maintain plates on 6x2 even with the buffs! Something else to know (and this IS applicable to vanilla haz5 and below!), is that repairing a plate to the full 100% gives doretta 4 seconds of invulnerability. So it's a very viable strat to try and keep doretta repaired to full, shoot some bugs in those 4 seconds, and then go back to repairing as it drops down to like ~90-95%. Just cycling those invulns can really outpace even some really terrible situations (and even survive a bulk det if you time it correct - but that's pretty hard to do). So there's a lot of me balancing against invuln timings in here as well that makes my dottie plates go a fair bit further than if I didn't play around that!

i've heard the same thing. the upside is that this may convince baby bubble gunners to upgrade their bubble sizes at least. the smallest size bubbles are pretty much always weaker than taking at least one radius upgrade and maybe introducing a generation to crime will have a silver lining

I know you just asked about rockets, but I figured I'd talk about the full bosco setup because I think there's really only one decent way to build him for general use. My usual bosco build is 31133, with respect to tier 1 mining speed (making him actually able to punch through dirt or mine nitra), tier 3 light (makes the light actually usable and becomes a pseudo scout flare), tier 4 cryo rockets (regular rockets don't do enough damage, and the other choices are weak), and tier 5 electric bullets (electricity = big target stun lock and additional DPS). The reason I tend to take this particular build into all classes is because the rockets are extremely unreliable and not worth speccing towards. They can take an abnormally long time to actually fire due to janky line of sight issues that are out of your control, and they can easily miss because they move slow and bosco doesn't have predictive aim. Under modded pressure, time spent trying to use a rocket is usually a waste compared to actively shooting because the rockets themselves really won't do much of anything unless you get lucky and the stars align. The reason rockets are weak comes down to the low damage of regular rockets (it's a very tiny radius that barely tickles anything actually scary) and inconsistency (they've got the whiff potential of scout's cryo nades but even worse). Looking at tier 4 in particular - only 50% fear is pretty sad with the small radius AND it's not a guarantee. Compare this to something like coilgun or m1k fear which are guaranteed and consistent, the rocket fear is pretty tragic for something that takes so long to resolve after you try and command bosco to shoot one out. Similarly tragic is 600% armor break... which isn't doing anything really? There are only a select few enemies that are armored enough for you to care, and they either move too quick to get hit (shellbacks / brundles) or are too dangerous to gamble trying to get a rocket to do anything when you should be shooting instead (stingtails). Armor usually isn't the end of the world and most loadouts can brute force their way through armor anyway - because if the build doesn't have a solution to it, it's not like bosco's inconsistent rockets are going to be enough in high difficulty situations. That leaves cryo, which at least have a potential niche. I think legitimately the best argument for cryo is: you can freely clear two nexii every ~10 minutes lol. Two cryo rockets isn't enough for breeder whales (you need a third, and that requires giving up light in tier 3 which only scout can really argue for), and even with 3 it's a gamble because that's 3 shots that can each easily miss PLUS it takes a long ass time to get bosco to obey the commands sometimes. The new conductive thermals drak OC changes some of this evaluation, e.g. you can freeze a breeder whale in one nade. But CT is a very very bad solo pick to the point where if it's being brought you're probably on a team and don't have bosco anyway. Freezing other stationaries is also a thing, but usually needs doing at the start of an encounter as the initial move to wake them up. Like, if you initiate a spitballer fight by freezing it with bosco, that's not half bad. If the spitballer is awake and you're trying to get bosco to freeze it under pressure, it's a lot more dangerous because of the unpredictability. You're also able to shoot cryo nades directly at your feet in something like a salvage bubble hold and not have to worry about taking any friendly fire from it. But even so, it has the same pretty mediocre effect that scout cryo nades have as well - it just doesn't do much as unfreeze timings are extremely quick. It might give you a moment of calm which can be enough to unfuck a bad situation, but it's never consistently powerful enough to rely on. So yeah, rockets are frustrating and underperformant. Even if you build into them and take full damage / full rocket bosco, you're going to be underwhelmed in the hard difficulties. I've taken 11332 into some pacifist runs and really haven't been impressed. I think bosco could use some tweaks here and there to be more fun. Here are some off the cuff ideas: * The right click to fire rocket should be a more substantial build choice. Instead of rockets, let me have a few bug repellent platforms, for example. Or a single use gunner shield. This can make different classes want to spec into different things and make it more interesting perhaps. It might also be too strong, I'm not sure. I'm a bad person to try and balance bosco because I avoid him mostly. * Rockets should reuse the code for patrol bot missiles or septic shots and get HOMING! The dipshit robot's age is showing, and him needing straight line of sight is a big problem and prone to random things suddenly passing through the trajectory and forcing a whiff. Just have it arc over terrain and hell, fake it a bit to make it cheat in the favor of players - I don't care. Just make the rockets come out instantly and hit the target with consistency and they'd be super reasonable finally. --- Side note 1: the reason I take tier 3 light even into scout is because of how low I rank rockets. And on scout I tend to not need the extra revive either, because scout is a slippery bugger. And so it's easier to keep that tier fixed regardless of class because the other classes definitely can get serious use out of an on demand scout flare. Side note 2: my number one tip for bosco rocket use in modded difficulties - forget you have them. Yes, in theory you can marginally improve play on occasion. But they typically aren't worth it nor reliable enough to really matter, and often the time invested to even try and fire one is going to be dangerous and get you killed (unironically). If you see an opportunity to use one - great! But seriously I don't tend to bother with rockets outside of a nexus or an attempt at perhaps a group of fliers now and again and it's really not a big loss. The one exception is solo salvage bubbles where you should be prepared to aggressively drop a cryo at your feet now and again to buy space. If you get caught up trying to optimize around them, you will get burned by the inconsistency and leave more frustrated with the failures than satisfied with successes (this was my experience, at least).

​@@ojb_ thanks for the answer. I completely agree with you on 31133 being the most useful Bosco build, though it's kinda sad to learn that rockets are, indeed, impractical on custom difficulties. However, that piece of advice about shooting cryo rockets while defending a salvo objective actually sounds like a decent (though very niche) use case, I think I'll try to do it when there is a chance. Also, the idea with adding arc/homing to the rockets really sounds like a simple yet effective solution, I have no idea why GSG haven't thought of implementing something like that, that could really make rockets great again (oh wait, they were never great in the first place).

i said fun twice oops. Also I just did the math and a fire bolt with damage fails to oneshot a spitter by exactly 5 health :(

Actually, I wonder if some weird taser bolt/specialist build would work. Then again, CT doesn’t really do much to help with taser bolt swarm clear, as their issue was never dps

CT does scale up tasers to make their single target a bit better, but they still struggle with the crossbow's main dilemma in that it's effectively a wave clear gun and you're better off taking firebolts and a real primary. Like, you can chuck a few fire bolts and tasers onto a dread and do a decent amount of damage after a bit of CT spam, but it's still kinda slow based on my own tests. And having to hit a crossbow shot against ranged enemies is usually pretty tricky compared to a hitscan boomstick, so even if you can in theory toss out bolts too, you're still pretty weak to some of the most dangerous enemies you'll face. Idk, it is a thing. But I'm not convinced it's a strong thing. The dread synergy is basically the only thing I care about, and honestly shaped/jumbo bursts feel like the best you can do. Taking CT with firebolts just feels weaker than FB with a real primary.

i've got a ripper bod ready for the beach at st kilda

@@ojb_ that sentence went over my head. Something about religion?

if bombodboom is a religion then i am the pope prepared to spread the good word

I finally got off my ass and made a page to have it all in one place! Hopefully this link works: ojb_dev.gitlab.io/drg/modlist.html EDIT: youtube why..... You may have to copy paste that full line because at least on my end youtube is messing up the URL and breaking the link :/

@@ojb_ oh my! Thank you gentledwarf

@@ojb_ wow that was really neat, I didn't expect it to be so detailed, thank you so much! Also, just a suggestion you're totally entitled to ignore, you could even do something like this (maybe not as detailed, so it won't be as time consuming) with your most used builds, like a build list? A list of builds? You would have to build it accordingly to the builds you usually build, and tho building it may take a while, it would surely be appreciated!

that actually crossed my mind as i was making that modlist page believe it or not! i have a few controversial opinions and was considering a tierlist / build page on that site, but that's a project for another day. i'd want to do it justice and do it right, but longer writeups are a fair bit of work and just collecting the mods together took me many hours in lieu of that project (which is probably far off or unlikely to ever be completed), i can drop a few builds i enjoy playing here. these are NOT the strongest meta builds (quite purposely, because i often don't find the strongest things fun), but these are my comfort picks that i tend to vibe with a lot myself. --- scout: 23112 Minimal Clips [m1000] 12233 Double Barrel / 21313 Jumbo Shells / 21313 Shaped Shells [boomstick] IFG / Phero gunner: 32323 Burning Hell [minigun] 21321 Volatile Bullets [bulldog] Leadburster / Incendiary engineer: 12113 EM Refire [stubby] / 23321 Pump Action [warthog] 21132 RJ250 [pgl] / 23122 Roll Control [breach] Plasma Bursters [though anything is good, plursters are most fun] driller: 23232 Sticky Fuel [flames] / 32212 Disperser Compound [sludge] 21122 Energy Rerouting [epc] Impact Axe --- hopefully i didn't screw up the builds here too badly. most of these have different tweaks you can adjust based on preference. for example, tier 3 of the minigun can take whatever and do fine (but i prefer blowthrough), while something like a jumbo shells boomstick can take double ammo instead of full damage etc. these are just a small select few that i enjoy playing minus any typos i may have made where i'm sharing misinformation. the overclocks and grenades should be correct at least!

@@ojb_ looking forward to the whole thing!

Hah, I don't blame you. It's a bit convoluted so let's break it down: 6x2 = hazard 6, double enemies (haz6 speeds up bugs slightly and makes them do more damage, while also increasing stationaries like spitballers/leeches/etc. and making swarms happen much more frequently; the x2 double enemies just lets it spawn more enemies at a time) ι = the greek letter "iota" 6x2ι = 6x2 iota. This is an offshoot of the original 6x2 difficulty with some tweaks specifically for (true) solo EDDs. I built it a while back but it's essentially 6x2 with a few changes: slower wave timers (comparable more to haz5 than haz6), more encounter spawns (rooms are more heavily guarded when you first arrive), and a new addition that prevents bulk detonators from spawning inside salvage bubbles (because losing to RNG after 1hr of intense play feels bad). ' = my own indication that I've tweaked something further. This tickmark refers to me removing stingtails and stalkers since I don't enjoy playing against them. --- Combined, 6x2ι' is a pretentious but short way to declare what difficulty this run was played on. In this case: it's essentially 6x2 but with slower wave timers and no stingtails/stalkers. There are a lot of different community modded difficulties out there so it's good to have some notation for it!

@@ojb_ ok, thanks, got it

I made a new page to house my full mod list! The stuff you're interested in has its own dedicated section :) ojb_dev.gitlab.io/drg/modlist.html (you'll probably have to copy that whole line manually because youtube will butcher the link creation unfortunately)

That does kinda sound like burnout to me, and I've been there myself. I think you gotta make sure you don't lose the "fun" element of playing, and it's quite easy to just hard focus on "getting good" that you're no longer having a fun time when you play, or getting angry at yourself when making mistakes, etc. It's easier/cozier/more enjoyable to just watch someone else go through the grind, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. If you grind away obsessively trying to win every run three things can happen. One: you've gotten gud and now you rarely lose, and the game is no longer as interesting. Two: it didn't work and you burned out hard while making yourself miserable in the process. Three: you've gotten gud and decided to up the ante and put a new piece of cheese above the mouse wheel to grind to a new goal beyond the first one. I don't think any of these endgame scenarios are particularly compelling myself. This is really just a big hint that it's a game and you gotta, gotta, gotta put fun first - enjoy the journey, not the destination, because whatever's at the other end probably isn't worth it. These days I upload less than I used to and it's just random runs I was in the mood to play. I don't currently have any particular goals I'm pushing for and that's totally okay. Every upload could be the last one and I'm not too worried about it! If the motivation isn't there, then definitely don't force it. Life's too short :')

@@ojb_ thanks for the insight, super helpful!

i think the gk2 one is pretty cool off the bat. couple of inertia effects already in the game (esp for engy, not sure if i can think of any else off the top of my head lol) and definitely meshes well with scout always being on the move local ag field is also awesome pairing with scouts high mobility and is kinda reminiscent of hoverclock and special pow also aiding scouts movement m1k oc def sounds interesting and a bit different than the others, but its not like we havent seen a different ammo pool w the addition of the new minigun oc very cool list overall!

gk2 one sounds really cool and i'd love to try that out m1k i like the idea of but feel like the balance on it can be tricky to get right. it could be implemented in a lot of different ways and picking one that is fun to play and at the right power level seems slightly challenging since you're going to be messing with breakpoints on a breakpoint heavy gun. (lasers might be a way to give the m1k access to fire to compete with TEF perhaps!) drak sounds not for me :) something i want for scout is for the flare gun to do a bit of heat damage. i want ignition on my flare gun! it would make loadouts like ERED or bombodboom a bit more viable in certain scenarios, and slightly changes the value of using it as a weapon (while making it slightly more complicated when using it as a flare gun, because gas clouds exist etc.)

@@ojb_ I wish the heat source with a harpoon end stuck into enemies and dealt heat 😭

Not sure as it wasn't me and I stole these strats :) I'll hazard a guess though - many exploits happen by accident, but the trick is noticing it and making the realization so that it can be repeated and weaponized. Like, how many players accidentally had a shield skip this event and didn't realize it was consistently repeatable? It took the right player at the right time to see it once and then try it a second time, and that's the beauty of things like this. Sometimes it's active effort through trying to apply something that worked in a different context via experimentation, but lots of the time it's just luck mixed with a keen eye to make the leap!

@@ojb_ That ik lol but if you put it like that it makes sense but I'm surprised someone had the thought to put the shield on it before breaking it.

It's honestly not too crazy! Leftover shield from fighting enemies, or aggressively starting the event while under existing pressure to avoid a swarm timer or something is definitely something that could happen. A lot of seemingly low chance events are boosted enormously by raw numbers. There are a lot of players out there playing a lot of runs and seeing the pillar many times that something like this nears a mathematical certainty of being discovered. Kinda like the birthday problem from probability!

i will relay your kind words to my elderly computer. this hunk of junk has never been called peak before

those rocks and stones aren't going to mine themselves! gotta bring a pick to make sure i'm able to secure any gold nuggies along the way