What would your rank as the strongest/weakest classes?

[TastefulSidecar]

Crit scout, baseline gunner, and turret engineer all feel stupidly strong.

Recon scout and driller feel miserable to play most of the time.

[fbane]

Use classes for their strengths.

Gunner and Engineer are the strongest overall. Scout 2nd and then driller last.

But in reality.. you should be using the driller to get minerals to up your permanent stats and use the other classes for the fun stuff.

[MAGA Slayer (8647) ⑨]

Driller ramps up pretty good later when I went full fire, though I am still newish.

[TastefulSidecar]

Originally posted by fbane:

Use classes for their strengths.

Gunner and Engineer are the strongest overall. Scout 2nd and then driller last.

But in reality.. you should be using the driller to get minerals to up your permanent stats and use the other classes for the fun stuff.

I mean thats kindof ♥♥♥♥♥♥ though, dont you think? Having 1/4 of the playable content be 'lul this is for farming so you can play the 2 good classes.' Each class/spec should at least feel viable for hazard 5. I grinded scout and driller and got rolled over and over, picked up engie and gunner and first run on both of them i cleared hazard 3 and 4 without even having overclocks

[ContrarianOrange]

Originally posted by TastefulSidecar:

...i cleared hazard 3 and 4 without even having overclocks

Didn't you have the overclocks from the driller's weapons?

[TastefulSidecar]

Originally posted by ContrarianOrange:

Originally posted by TastefulSidecar:

...i cleared hazard 3 and 4 without even having overclocks

Didn't you have the overclocks from the driller's weapons?

You’re right, i forgot that I had overclocks unlocked on the flame turret, nothing for the gunner though

[Bryan]

i don't think drillers feels weak, i cleared haz 2 on my first try with driller with 0 overclocks, the flame turrets are super strong and the ability to drill extremely fast is so good even in combat,

i do agree that Engi is pretty OP right now tho, if you get the overclock that turns your turrets into little tanks that follow you they just annihilate everything, i killed the end boss in like 2 seconds after it spawned on haz 2 with the engi.

[wogitalia]

For me gunner is a clear first, having what is by far the best weapon available as the base weapon (Thunderhead) is stupid powerful. That you can also get the Plasma Beam as well is just ridiculous as they might be the two most powerful base weapons that don't need RNG overclocking.

Engineer for me is clear 2nd but very RNG reliant, if you don't get plasma on the shotgun as the first overclock, just rage quit and start again. That you're also RNG dependent for the plasma/mining (not needed but makes a huge difference) on the turret also hurts. That the other two weapons don't matter at all (at least through hazard 4) if you do get those 3 RNG drops is a nice bonus though.

Other two feel a lot weaker to me, Driller has nice utility but such awful starting weapons it's hard to survive long enough to use that utility on the hazard levels where you start to actually need it (600 gold, 300 nitra). Scout is like a weaker version of engineer, if you get the cold RNG rolls, you're golden, if you don't, you die very quickly.

[ShAtTeR DrEaMz]

Recon Scout is the worst in the game. He does not get any DPS and can kill a boss roughly 1 out of 20 runs.

[Skyfusion]

Whoever thinks Driller is weak xD haven't played enough. Tier 2 Driller with the acid spread gun is literally the game on easy mode.

Gunner is actually trash for late runs. The fact you have to turn to the enemies to kill them is the deal breaker. You don't have enough time to mine gold/nitra and if you get the stupid quest to mine the blue ♥♥♥♥, you're done in later tiers of the biomes. At some point it get's good but early on is beyond trash.

Engineer with the shotgun surprisingly is the strongest build I've played with overall. As long as you get the SMG as 2nd gun, the game is gg. If you are lucky enough to get the electric shotgun overclock + the shooting on the opposing side you just wreck havoc. At this point I just walk around the map and everything dies while I mine whatever resource I see. It still requires a bit of luck to get the SMG but out of the 20 runs with it, I got it in 19 so the chances are pretty good.

The scout is pretty much solid for early on. It scales good in the first tiers, but I think in later tiers the other classes surpass him by a bit.

Overall, everything works if you are just a bit lucky with the sidequests/2nd gun.

[roddy]

all classes feel strong (or at least playable up to hazard 4) to me. My problem is with the useless weapons that have no overclock yet and that all bonus objectives at higher difficulties require some sort of high amount of resources (which pushes you strongly to use driller that needs to dig around).

[Tyyne]

Originally posted by roddy:

all classes feel strong (or at least playable up to hazard 4) to me. My problem is with the useless weapons that have no overclock yet and that all bonus objectives at higher difficulties require some sort of high amount of resources (which pushes you strongly to use driller that needs to dig around).

Secondary objectives are randomly selected, no matter the hazard level and they require no resources.

[Parbuckle]

The challenge I have with Driller is most of his stuff is DOT, which on Hazard four means I just start to take too much "Ticky Tack" damage, unlike Gunner that has the clear-any-path-cannon-of-death and Engineer with his ability to pick up experience via the energy barrier.

So, I've been trying to mine the 300 Nitra with Driller on Haz four, but I tend to die on third or 4th level cause I have no way to ace the boss quickly.

[roddy]

Originally posted by Tyyne:

Originally posted by roddy:

all classes feel strong (or at least playable up to hazard 4) to me. My problem is with the useless weapons that have no overclock yet and that all bonus objectives at higher difficulties require some sort of high amount of resources (which pushes you strongly to use driller that needs to dig around).

Secondary objectives are randomly selected, no matter the hazard level and they require no resources.

Sorry I was not clear, as I couldn't recall the right terminology. I meant the "side/ sub/ secondary" objectives required to unlock the "blue circles", like collect 500 nitra, or collect 500 gold, etc. on difficulty 4 and above.

[Darkunov]

I only have about 8 hazard levels unlocked so most class permutations are still locked for me.

That said, from what I can access Driller is easily the best and Eng easily the worst. Driller is the only class I've been able to kill the boss and extract with (I managed to kill the boss immediately before dying once as the scout). On the other hand, Trying to get LMG 18 on Magma Core 2 is a pain in the ass and I've often died on the first two levels because Eng just doesn't nearly deal enough damage. So much so I'm considering him unplayable until his turrets get some form of piercing by default.

In fact, the only time I managed to break through the first 2-3 levels was the one run I got the moving turrets overclock. Every single other run, regardless of if I keep trying to move around and mine stuff or if I stay as still as possible to milk turret dps, he's completely useless.

Meanwhile even just the starting Driller synergizes perfectly with the game's mechanics. You mine faster which means you can often buy out the shop or get the most out of the supply drop's gold/nitra = dmg items, and your starting weapon even shoots backwards (and his other weapons don't care which direction you face) so you don't lose any dps for mining.

[Dionysus]

Fun to see so many different class picks in this thread. Seems like there's something for everyone. I think it'd be helpful if you mention which hazard level you're currently on, too, because that changes what feels strong a ton.

Like, for example, recon scout - I love playing them and on haz 4 they've got maybe the strongest floor 1-2 of all the classes, but they have so, so much trouble taking down big elites and especially the juggernaut. Getting powdered nitra or gold tipped bullets feels borderline mandatory. But, you get a really strong early mineral economy to get you there, too.

Gunner is seems very strong but is totally antithetical to my playstyle of juking and mineshaft kiting due to the facing issues. I'm sure I could get used to that, but it's a lot of muscle memory to get rid of (and dangerous to get rid of, because it's what you have to do for all the other classes!).

Engineer feels like kind of a DPS check. If you can get enough levels and gold early on to get your turret and shotgun stack to a point where you can kill bugs as fast as they come, you're a god. It's also a lot more flexible than gunner since you can dump turrets in front of your mineral patch to secure a lot more time than you'd otherwise get.

Driller is super fun but his weapons feel weak to very weak on higher haz levels. A lot of them only become good with specific overclocks, which is murder when everything has so much HP that it's hard to secure EXP. Add to that that he has the worst starting weapons by a wide margin, and you have a really, really rocky start even with a quality mineral economy start -- although I still think scout recon on average gets more minerals floor 1-2 due to the simple fact that you spend more time running than mining on basically every single floor, so movespeed bonuses are better than a scaling mining bonus. I love the way it's implemented, though - it's fun and skill-based to change your running in such a way that you refresh the mining speed buff by nicking pieces of rock as you run from wall to wall.

I still want to try out more interrogator driller on higher haz levels. The flamethrower kind of sucks, but the DOT damage buff starting bonus seems really strong with the right weapons. With driller I've had the most success with krakatoa/neurotoxin grenade/wave cooker. I bet the cryo canon will be strong, too, but I haven't hit rank 21 yet.