Overclock Discussion: "Stubby" Voltaic SMG

[Karl's Jr]

Day 10 of the overclock discussion series. If you missed a previous day and want to contribute the links are below. Please try to stay on topic and only discuss what you like/dislike about a OC. If you disagree with someone please provide your experiences with the OC. If someone disagrees with you, just let it go. Please don't clog the discussion with repetitive arguments. Please give feedback for all the OCs you've used, not just your favorite. Also note if you found an OC so unpleasant you never even tried it.

The weapon today is the engineer's "Stubby" Voltaic SMG with the following OCs

Super-Slim Rounds: +5 Magazine Size, x0.8 Base Spread

Well Oiled Machine: +2 Rate of Fire, -0.2 Reload Time

EM Refire Booster: +2 Electric Damage, +4 Rate of Fire, x1.5 Base Spread

Light-Weight Rounds: +180 Max Ammo, -1 Damage, -2 Rate of Fire

Turret Arc: +Turret Arc (10m range), -120 Max Ammo, -2 Rate of Fire

Turret EM Discharge: +Turret EM Discharge (5m range), -5% Electrocution %, -3 Damage

Links to past discussions if you missed them
Overclock Discussion: CRSPR Flamethrower
Overclock Discussion: "Warthog" Auto 210
Overclock Discussion: "Lead Storm" Powered Minigun
Overclock Discussion: Deepcore GK2
Overclock Discussion: Subata 210
Overclock Discussion: Deepcore 40mm PGL
Overclock Discussion: "Bulldog" Heavy Revolver
Overclock Discussion: Jury-Rigged Boomstick
Overclock Discussion: Cryo Cannon

[Chibbity]

I got both the clean ones and they are decent, nothing too amazing but nice to have.

Also have Turret EM discharge but it's pretty situational, if setup properly it can destroy but that's pretty difficult to pull off, especially with rando's.

[Karl's Jr]

First a note for people who hate this gun. I see your complaints and would like to remind you this gun works best when fired in burst. You can spray-n-pray at close quarter, but to maintain accuracy fire in bursts. At max shock chance a five bullet burst has an 83% chance to shock an enemy.

I currently use Super-Slim Rounds because it lets you fire longer bursts and more of them before you need to reload. Solid upgrade.

The other one I have that I wish was better is Turret EM Discharge. Don't get me wrong, when it works it's amazing. If you set this thing up in a choke point you can do some real damage. But there is no indication to the cooldown time of the ability. You can unload a whole clip to no effect because the thing is not ready for another burst. The thing needs first a listed recharge time in its description. A better solution though is for the turret to give off a visible queue that it is currently in cooldown. My recommendation is that it glows with heat and smokes. Once it stops glowing and smoking you can shoot it again.

[Chibbity]

Originally posted by Karl's Jr:

I currently use Super-Slim Rounds because it lets you fire longer bursts and more of them before you need to reload. Solid upgrade.

I'm torn between that and well "oiled machine."

I find the increased fire rate really helps apply the debuff in short order.

[Karl's Jr]

Originally posted by Chibbity:

Originally posted by Karl's Jr:

I currently use Super-Slim Rounds because it lets you fire longer bursts and more of them before you need to reload. Solid upgrade.

I'm torn between that and well "oiled machine."

I find the increased fire rate really helps apply the debuff in short order.

Does the increased fire rate effect recoil? That was my only concern.

[Chibbity]

Originally posted by Karl's Jr:

Does the increased fire rate effect recoil? That was my only concern.

Not especially, it still fires in nice controlled bursts.

Plus you have the option of DPSing faster on tough targets.

[ColdTooth]

I only have super slim rounds, and it's probably the best OC for the gun. Makes it more accurate, and the weapon itself isn't bad in critical weakness, or even in mactera plague, but poor against larger targets. Would like the other clean OC as it is a faster dps overall.

[Fryskar]

I currently use the light weight rounds as its the only oc i got for it.
Its decent, giving you a lot of ammo as trade off for dps and a bit direct dmg.

Over all you deal more dmg if you can electrolute the bugs right.

[Derpykat5]

I've got 3 of them;
Well Oiled Machine; Clean overclocks are clean overclocks.
Turret Arc; Never used it. I don't run Gemini so it's utterly useless to me.
Light-Weight rounds; The one I'm currently using. It's basically taking an additional ammo upgrade with some drawbacks. I built it CCBAB, for a nice little 890 ammo spray n' pray monster.

[phenir]

Originally posted by Karl's Jr:

The other one I have that I wish was better is Turret EM Discharge. Don't get me wrong, when it works it's amazing. If you set this thing up in a choke point you can do some real damage. But there is no indication to the cooldown time of the ability. You can unload a whole clip to no effect because the thing is not ready for another burst. The thing needs first a listed recharge time in its description. A better solution though is for the turret to give off a visible queue that it is currently in cooldown. My recommendation is that it glows with heat and smokes. Once it stops glowing and smoking you can shoot it again.

There is no cooldown on the explosion, it's based on your guns electrocution chance. When you shoot a bullet that would have electrocuted and it hits the turret, explosion happens. This is why I don't like this oc, it's inconsistent and if you build for max electrocution chance, your primary gun now does crap damage. The explosions themselves are very nice; good damage and aoe, inflicts electric and fear but I don't think that's worth giving up your primary weapon for when your secondary is typically made for aoe already. The -3 damage is too steep of a disadvantage when you already have to give up a lot of dps just to get a high electrocute chance to take full advantage of the OC. There's also the issue of the sentry getting "buried" in enemies making it hard to shoot and you can't stand near the turret because the explosions cause friendly fire damage as well.

[Dwarfurious]

I got the Damage/RoF one and im enjoying it; i feel like this is how a SMG should be. Shouldnt be accurate, shouldnt do weakpoint, should be a bullet hose, raw damage. Dont like when every weapon feels the same, felt like gk2 for awhile with just taking potshots to critpoints all day.

[DeMasked]

Only have two here:

Well Oiled Machine which is fine.

Turret Arc which can be pretty good if you build for Electrocution Chance as it can severely slow enemies including Dreadnought + with positioning can be pretty good. Definitely want to be shooting at the turret + enemy behind it to set up the electric arc.

[koan]

I used to swear by the SMG fully modded for electricity, but I find myself using the shotgun more often after getting a few overclocks for both. None of those mods really seem worth my time for the SMG. They certainly don't interest me enough to choose the SMG over the shotgun. I hope for more interesting OCs in the future because these just aren't cutting it...

[Lunacy]

I got Turret Arc, trying it out for a bit and well one you need two turrets to use it properly to actually make the fence (can still electricute the turret for small aoe). Seems to be based on your SMG's shock chance so to build around it you're sacrificing a lot of personal dps just for a gimick and I don't like it overall.
Best use I found for it was trolling teammates at the end by making a slowdown fence on the way into the pod.

[SpaceMan62]

EM Refire Booster.

I absolutely love this overclock. Using it I've decided to fully max out the firerate (18 RPS) and electrocution chance (30%). Sure, you can't hit anything very reliably beyond boomstick range, but the DPS output is insane and the extra electric damage is a great bonus. Gotta bring extra ammo instead of damage at T2, though, and you gotta fire it in bursts or you'll run out very quickly.

[Syncourt]

Only have turret arc, but it has such a low chance to proc. This makes it require tuning your weapon mods towards shock chance, which still isn't very reliable for activating them at range due to the weapons stability (even with stability mod) and the worst part is that this completely cripples your guns DPS and total output. Combined with the -2 rate of fire from the OC that makes it even worse.

Then you have to waste ammo proccing the turrets, waste ammo to do some decent damage output from your weapon and deal with the 120 ammo loss from the OC on top. Ammo runs dry very quickly.

The only way it can be efficient to take right now is if your team lets the enemies reach the arc and kills everything as soon as it leaves the arc. Basically, its a bunker OC, because that almost never happens in general play.

The turrets should just proc 100% of the time, removing the reliance on your shock chance, removing the restrictive mod setup and removing the low reliability and waste of time trying to proc your turrets from over 5ft away.

If the intention is to encourage taking shock builds, at least make the mod provide a +20% shock chance to make it more reliable.

One last little thing, you should be able to see when the arc is wearing off, then re-proc it (resetting it's duration) and be able to tell that it's been recharged.