Scout Building Guide | Deep Rock Galactic | Pro Tips

Today we talk about the speed demon that is the scout. Are you ready to go fast?

Tip for new scouts: dont mind not having the most kills. Thats is not your job. Your job is killing high value targets like opreasors, menace, warden ect. Fokus on lighting and mining a bit more than on swarm clear

a few things to mention: 1. bullets of mercy is a heavily defensive oriented overclock. i generally take it with cryo mineletts for the zhukovs, or the cryo/fire arrows for the boltshark, while running salvage, or other defensive missions. 2. the stun on the shotgun pairs with BOM quite well. both stun features the shotgun has, delivers a combined of 6 seconds of status effect, which is way longer than the stun feature on the gk2. 3. special powder is more than a meme. the overclock is very useful in avoiding fall damage, due to cooldown on the grapple tool. often is the case that the scout is in need of using the pickaxe to create a resting point above a mineral node, this is when special powder will come in handy. 4. when it comes to the flare gun, i always take more flares for standard mining missions, and deep dives. the longer duration, i take for egg hunt missions, point extraction, and liquid morkite missions. the reason is that the former tend to be long missions, where players are spending more time moving around, where more will often be needed, whereas the latter is stationary areas with a single large zone.

i dont agree with your reccomended perk choices for the most part. 1. unstoppable is wasted since u have a grapple, extra mobility is made redundant on grapple alone 2. deep pockets is debateable, u got the most mobility in the game, so u of all classes can do multiple deposits rather easy 3. resupply is good 4. hoverboots is a crutch that you should ditch immediately. field medic should be your first choice since u are most likely the last one alive in your team when things go south and u have the mobility to reach anyone in need of a quick ress pair that with ironwill and u have a perk combination that can literally save otherwise doomed runs 5. heightened senses is good, u dont wanna die deep in caves and have a teammate go all the way out there in hard to reach places to ress u otherwise good video edit: i realise i might come off as passive aggressive but thats far from the case :) just sharing what ive learned

About the M1000, I think it's important to mention the secret "wave cleaner" build. Let me explain. If you use tier 2 armor breaking, you can kill grunts in two bodyshots, or one shot to the head (if you don't, you will need 3 shots to the body). Combine this with piercing at tier 4 and you can spam left click in waves and DESTROY them. It's especially good with the EMP slow grenade. For good single target damage, you can still use the focus shot and you get the 3 other upgrade tiers to better your gun.

Nice video! As someone with a bit too much time in the game, I have a couple (more than a couple) thoughts/corrections/things to add: Perks: Unstoppable is a bit of a sleeper pick, but not really for scout. You can already grapple over goo sand through slowdowns so it’s not a huge game changer. Extra speed while carrying is nice, but not as nice as other options. Perks: Deep pockets means less trips to the mule, but you already have the means to get there and back quickly. You decide if this is useful to your playstyle. Note: use your personal waypoint (laser pointer + rmb) to mark veins you’ll need to come back to. Perks: Born ready is a generally really good perk, and it’s especially nice on scout. Your secondaries are (for the most part) high burst damage with low sustain, so having them reload in the background is a huge boon. Perks: Hover boots are a safe pick, but once you get the hang of using your hook, you may want to switch to something that brings you more benefit. All three of the active perks shown in the video are great options. One thing I wouldn’t recommend is Dash- it’s an amazing perk, just very redundant on our little blue man. Miscellaneous Weapon thoughts, roughly in order of appearance: GK2: T3 recoil also reduces max bloom on your gun by a significant amount. Try taking it for a few missions, this tier isn’t as much of a no-brainer as it seems. GK2: battle frenzy is nice, although it can be a bit finicky to set up and usually can’t be relied upon consistently. For most builds, T5 rate of fire is a significant damage increase and should probably be taken. Although, moving faster is always fun, so you decide. M1K: T1 ammo is pretty much always better, I agree. M1K has amazing breakpoints already, so the damage mod doesn’t let you kill anything in a less amount of shots. I’d only ever recommend damage on a dreadnought mission. M1K: It should be noted that T2 armor break lets you kill a grunt in a single focused body shot, or two unfocused body shots. This is REALLY good for any builds taking blowthrough, as you’ll be firing into crowds a whole lot. This isn’t completely relevant here but I’m putting it here anyway: by pulling out your laser pointer or pickaxe at the correct time, you can ‘reload cancel’ your weapons to get back to shooting faster. Look at your HUD- right after your mag fills back up, hit the button. Putting this specifically here because it could influence your T5 pick on the M1K if you’ve been using Killing Machine (KM is still faster, but you could also pick another mod using this technique) Drak: not much to say here, video coverage is good and most mod tiers are up to preference. Keep in mind drak basically has two types of builds: those that want to overheat (aggressive venting, rewiring mod) and those that don’t (shield battery booster, thermal exhaust feedback). Make sure to change your mods accordingly, because most will benefit one of these types while making the other harder to play! Boomstick: Don’t take T2 reload speed, ever. The mechanics are complicated, but the long and short of it is that reload delay is tied to rate of fire: so the extra rate of fire Double Trigger gets you actually makes your reload ‘faster’ by decreasing the delay before reloading. If you want a proper breakdown on this, Check out LazyMaybe’s boomstick breakdown- it’s really comprehensive. Boomstick: T3 armor break is… alright? Scout generally has better armor break options, but it could be worth taking on occasion. Also, T3 Shockwave is really bad. Your shockwave is really only good for killing swear and jellies, and it can already do that without the upgrade. Boomstick: special powder go brrrr. Also, make sure you don’t jump while shooting above you. Ouch. Nuk17: if you’re using these to drill into weakpoints, take weakpoint in T4. You get 30% weakpoint damage bonus, which is VERY significant on this gun. Ammo mods are usually a priority, but put a bit of extra thought into T4 on this weapon. Both weakpoint and blowthrough are very strong options. Nuk17: Scout has a ton of options to inflict electric stuns, so almost every build that wants to kill big things should take conductive bullets. 33% more damage is a LOT, and if you’re activating it with IFGs you also get another 30% damage bonus. Note that, if you’re turned off by the seemingly low damage output shown off in this video, it’s usually a lot better than that. Boltshark: again, mods are pretty much up to player preference. I recommend T2 ammo for most of the transformative overclocks, minus bodkin points which needs damage to one-shot grunts to the body. If special bolts are a bit overwhelming and you find yourself forgetting to use them, pheromone bolts are a nice choice. They’re a very simple crowd control option- just shoot praetorians you see in a pack and let the bugs sort it out. Grenades: all of Scout’s grenades are very powerful, so you should always take a moment to think of what grenade will most benefit a build. Generally, IFGs and Pheromones are great for grouping enemies, and Cryos are great at letting you burst them down. Boomerangs are a great panic button and essentially let you shut down bugs for 9 seconds. Great on wardens, menaces, mactera, etc. Grapple: while harder to use, faster dwarf speed in T3 is really good. This lets you get out of sticky situations faster, and also lets you fling yourself around with reckless abandon. Dangerous, but fun! Grapple: fall damage resistance is great for learning, but make sure to take it off once you’re comfortable- the other mods in this tier are very strong. Also, this may be a redundant mod choice if you use hover boots, so plan accordingly. Flare gun: yup, it’s a flare gun. It does 60 direct damage, if you were asking. General scout tips: Always be grappling. Seriously, there’s no reason not to. It’s fast, it’s efficient, it’s fun. If you’re out of reach of bugs, you’re playing scout right. Otherwise, get to grappling. Look up. Spitters are a team’s worst enemy, and you are best equipped to take care of them (usually). Take them out when you see them for a free 10% team morale buff. Look up. No platforms? Grapple on top of a nitra vein, and once you come to a stop, power attack the wall at a slightly downward angle. This should create a nice dwarf-sized nook for you to stand in and mine the vein. LOOK UP. I’d also like to emphasize that none of my recommendations (or those in the video) are a requirement to play the class. Mod balance in DRG is generally really good, so play with what you want! Nobody gets mad if you aren’t using a certain mod, so if it’s fun, keep it on. Anyway, that was a lot of things. Sorry about that. I’m definitely not the intended audience here, but nice video. Looking forward to seeing how your preferences change as you grow more accustomed to this speedy lad. Rock and stone, miner!

The special powder when mastered is definetly able to reduce falling damage, I mean shooting down litterally adds upward momentum which mitigates the fall damage

I forgot u were uploading today, so glad I caught it!

I've owned this game since it launched and I hate to say that before about a week ago I only had like 100 hours in it. Now I'm at 125 and totally hooked since I convinced my friends to buy it. I'm firmly a scout main, not just because grapple hook is insanely fun, but because I don't trust anyone else to do the dirty work of providing light and killing HVTs. My current loadout is M1000, Zhukov, and boomerang. Just beat my first elite dive with that. Sometimes I'll swap the rifle out for the AR and the pistols out for the crossbow for the pheromone bolts. I love the boomerangs though, especially for when a swarm of Mactera show up and my gunner doesn't have a shield bubble up. That stun prevents a ton of potential damage.

Heightened Senses is essential for Roaming Scouts and solo missions. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a solo run, taking 30+ minutes to mine everything that I can, just to get taken out by a leech. It really really sucks.

Electrifying reload on the GK is an ammo economy machine. Very effiecient too. You can kill Haz 5 grunts, lootbugs, most low tier enemies with 1 bullet. You can tag fester fleas once and kill them with the DOT, saving you from having to chade them down. You can also quickly spray your whole mag at a big group of enemies, slowing them all down, watching them die, as you can kite, mine, deposit, revive, resupply, ping mushrooms or gold in peace. The value is insane.

I personally recommend the insta heal perk for the scout. The amount of times I had to clutch and revive someone while everyone was down but me is proof enough that it's a good perk

Something import to keep in mind is a lot of the overclocks make some upgrades near useless. A good example is the auto retrieval combined with the flame arrows on the bow, or damage upgrades with embedded detonators on Zhukov’s (the reason for these two specifically is flame arrows are unretrievable and embedded detonators do a flat amount of damage no matter the damage of the weapon) In my experience the scout seems to have more of these conflicts between upgrades and overclock when compared to other classes so it’s just something to keep in mind when choosing your load out- make sure you aren’t choosing two things that just don’t work together.

Scout without an Engi and wanna reach high up Morkite/Gold? Aim grappling hook a bit higher than resource, fire, release before the grapple does the break, aim down slightly, power attack. You'll create a small nook where you can carefully dig the resource below you. Practice makes perfect! Fair warning, it works well with flat/positive angle walls but is pretty much impossible on negative(like a ceiling in a cabin) angle walls.

Nice video! Just wanna add some things that this video didn’t mention, or just briefly touched upon: Perk options: Controversial, but I like Bug Thing. You can zip right past every lootbug and not have to waste any time or ammo in getting free nitra. Works well with Deep Pockets. Also works well with Hoverclock and/or Special Powder to more safely do flybys on ceiling lootbugs. GK2 overclocks other than Bullets of Mercy; AI Stability Engine. Perfect accuracy, zero spread, and recoil is non-existent. Great for taking out distant spitters. Also comes with a 50% weakpoint bonus, great for HVTs like Wardens and Menaces. To elaborate on M1k’s Hoverclock; this is, IMO, Scout’s best tool (in tandem with his grapple) for mineral and objective gathering. Also allows Scout to fly if his grapple has minimal cooldown. Can cancel the focus mode with pickaxe or grapple to not spend ammo (Special Powder does allow for going faster, but requires spending ammo to benefit). It is Hoverboots perk but better and will consistently prevent all fall damage if timed right. I have a Google Doc if you’re interested in more detail and comparison between Hoverclock and Special Powder. To elaborate on Zhukov Embedded Dets; easily one of Scout’s best single-target DPS tools, if not his best one. Depending on both weapons’ builds and the Hazard level, a Focus shot from M1k (with Stun in tier 5 to make the follow-up easier) plus a mag dump of Embedded Dets will handle several HVTs easily. In particular, Wardens, Menaces, Praetorians, and Bombers. Also on Zhukovs, giving a shoutout to Gas Recycling. Good damage, and Season 3 gave it Armor Break, so with Blowthrough tier 4 it’s good for clearing multiple grunts off of you in a pinch. Cryo Minelets are also good but I haven’t used them much. Which brings me to Crossbow overclocks; Cryo Bolts. Great single-target utility. Slow to freeze most enemies, but one cryo bolt will quickly freeze Spitballers and Broods, which you can then pluck off easily with most GK2 and M1k builds. Three cryo bolts (maybe four, can’t remember) in quick succession will freeze a Breeder and have it fall and shatter to death. Unlike Cryo Minelets, you can hit a target directly and it’ll freeze (don’t need a surface), and being on the crossbow you can snipe breeders etc. from across the cave with good aim. As far as bosses, IFGs are Scout's best nade for that role. Their effects last a long time, you get a lot of them, and it benefits against everything (dreads, Korloks, Bet-C's, etc). As others have mentioned, it also counting as Electric is great for build synergy (mag shaft Crossbow and conductive bullet Zhukovs namely). IFG's boost is also the only way to increase the explosion damage from Embed Dets (from 38 to roughly 50 per bullet). Elaborating on Boomerang; it’s excellent against the shockers / jellyfish, as well as shredders. Also good to buy the Scout some breathing room in reviving someone.

Excellent video with a lot of great detail!

I think a good idea for future videos could be to take build suggestions from commenters and explore them, since not only would further involvement with the community, it could open doors to fun new builds to have. On the subject of the Zhukovs, I've primarily used those while hard maining scout, because of the damage increase I get from bonus damage on electrified enemies. This pairs really well with the electrifying shots from the plasma rifle and the stun sweeper, as you could shoot something like a praetorian until you see it's shocked, and then just unload your clips into it's backside easily for a quick kill. I combine this with aggressive venting, and this makes for a really good swarm control/ single target mix build that covers a wide variety of situations. It's carried me through solo elite deep dives and I love it.

I like the idea of using the crossbow with Pheromone Bolts, the Pheromone Cannister, and the Beast Master perk to turn as many bugs against each other as possible.

ai stability engine GK2 with 21212 build, a smooth head-shot machine, best to run it with critical weakness anomaly

As someone who plays the scout because of my adhd monkey brain, I recently made my favorite build ever. It uses the drak over click that increases dmg and also overheat time, and also the upgrade that increases movement speed after you overheat. Especially on missions with a lot of bug swarms or ones with swarmageddon this is some of the most fun I’ve ever had