A note on the elemental bolts.

[Torres, The Devourer]

You know what? I think I was too hard on cryo/fire bolts. I was using them with the mentality I use with my usual dark plus trifork build.

I think something that is very useful with these bolts is the IFG for slowdown effects. I was using pheromone grenades on an haz 5 four-player lobby so I wasn't quite acquainted with these bolts. I think I'm just used to bodkin and quickfire and trifork.

I really like the concept of these bolts and how they are used, but I need some help. Do you guys have any tips and builds?

also PS. What is the deal with chemical explosion bolts? I have no clue how to use them either.

[🍈Little Goblin🍈]

*throwing* another cheeseburger

[Chris!!]

I use chemical explosion bolts the same way I use the PGL, except I shoot the bug ahead of me so it gets stunned and have the other mob nearly catch up with it, then finish it off with my primary to make a nice boom that kills 6 of them and significantly weakens the rest.

[Fryskar]

Originally posted by Mark, The Devourer:

You know what? I think I was too hard on cryo/fire bolts. I was using them with the mentality I use with my usual dark plus trifork build.

I think something that is very useful with these bolts is the IFG for slowdown effects. I was using pheromone grenades on an haz 5 four-player lobby so I wasn't quite acquainted with these bolts. I think I'm just used to bodkin and quickfire and trifork.

I really like the concept of these bolts and how they are used, but I need some help. Do you guys have any tips and builds?

also PS. What is the deal with chemical explosion bolts? I have no clue how to use them either.

Imo they're ok, just like the rest of scouts loadout.
For chemicals best shoot a bug leading a bunch with it. Its long reaction time makes it kind of awkward to use.

[RUCKUS RELOADED]

posters on /vm/ convinced me to give the elemental bolts another chance, and yeah they're ok but i still think they need buffs
pheromones + fire is a good combination, helped in part by fire spreading, but you need to get lucky and hope that enough bugs crowd together to start the chain reaction. the radius on these things is dog nuts and the fact they don't apply heat/freeze fast enough without stacking at least two leaves them very reliant on swarm formation, even if you stick them in the ground

i get scout isn't supposed to have good CC but these elemental bolts are a fair way of giving him indirect waveclear. i just wish they were better at their jobs. i would trade the ability to stack them with having a single bolt do more temperature damage, or trade putting them in the ground with giving them a bigger radius. there's just not much point when bodkin will instantly clap 3 bugs at once no questions asked

ironically chem bolts are in a pretty similar position of being potentially good but very held back by swarm formation, since the delayed explosion gives bugs a chance to run out of the way - an end consequence of not testing on haz 5
luckily there's a simple enough fix to this problem: reduce the falloff from %30 minimum damage to %40. doing so means that the explosion will always do 112 damage, which would be enough to oneshot grunts anywhere in its radius. i think that alone would be a huge buff in making chembolts more viable

[Frisky]

pheromones or ifgs to clump grunts together, then lay bolts on the floor near/infront of then, it's better to bolt the floor since that leaves a consistent AoE in one spot instead of bolting a glyphid running all over the place usually
1-2 fire bolts will usually ignite a whole horde, cryo might need a bit more since it doesn't spread as well iirc

[Heron]

Cryo bolts give you the utility of cryo nades against breeders, brood nexus and spitters with a slight delay and way more ammo and better range, which is great. Fired on the ground they annihilate swarmers and can stop swarms if you have a good choke point. I love them. They pair well with IFGs or allow you to save your cryo nades for actual swarms.

I like to run (Hoverclock) blowthrough M1k with them because it pairs well with the freeze and is my favourite scout primary anyway. Hoverclock is a nice replacement for Special Powder.

Haven't tried fire arrows but I guess it boils down to better wave clear at the expensive of cryo's awesome utility described above.

[Tulskiy]

They’re fine. Use utility to get max out of them.

Fire is super useful in pair with pheromones/ifg. Same applies to cryo, but u can also boost ST.
Note: don’t spam fire/cryo bolts, 2-3 is usually enough to clear mid-big crowd.

Chemicals can go rly nice with the same nades. It takes a bit of practice but once u got used to it u can clear some insane swarms. Ones again 2 bolts is enough. The hardest part is timing and get that grunt killed in right position. I like to finish him off with power attack. In the end this bolts aren’t better then fire/cryo + pheromones(bolts).

I most likely wouldn’t recommend any of these if u’re playing in a good competent team. Other classes can perform CC better, scout has some other stuff to do + aoe bolts are generally pretty slow, bolts, nades combinations, timing, positioning etc. Dont waste time, go fetch!

[Sokaku]

I just recently spent a couple of days messing around with bolt shark options. Previously I was pretty much set on Pheromone Bolts.. I love these things, fire & forget.

Elemental primary bolts: Fire & Ice. Honestly I don't like them much at all. Their effect is too weak to really feel like a fire & forget CC option except in pretty specific scenarios so their elemental damage tends to just feel like it balances out with the reduced instant damage. Honestly, they'd be too powerful otherwise though. I'm sure the DoT or eventual freeze does outweigh the loss of impact damage, but I'm not about to be sitting around waiting for that to take effect. When I pull out the secondary I either want something dead immediately, or I want to be able to ignore as many nasties in the area for as long as possible. I find the elemental bolts filled neither of those roles in themselves. The exception is combining fire bolts with Pheromone bolts. Tag a big nasty with a Phero, then tag 1 or 2 other surrounding nasties with fire bolts and watch them get drawn into the rumble. This does mean hanging around and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ with reload swaps where with Phero I'm more about getting out of Dodge, but it can erase swarms in the right circumstances for the cost of 3 bolts which is pretty damn powerful.

Electric Special: I really want(ed) to like this bolt. Honestly not for the chaining gimmick, but for DoT, slow, and what looks like it should be a fairly generous radial effect and duration. Unfortunately though II just haven't been able to get these to work... I've seen other Scouts that seem to be able to get a LOT of utility out of these, especially with Dreadnaughts so I definitely feel it is possible but so far it's taking far, far more time and attention for my liking. I'd honestly like to see the slow from arcs buffed, mainly when using them against groups. For single-target, the 2 bolt in the same bug arc effect is a bit OP, but trying to CC groups with these feels temperamental.

Explosive Chem: This one took a bit of playing around with, but I've actually come to really start to like this bolt. The DoT is honestly too weak, but in a nutshell it basically turns any hit target into a Volatile Guts bug on steroids. It synergizes extremely well with Phero Grenades or a Splash Damage Impact Deflection DRAK, and works quite well with IFGs. I like to max out Special ammo and effect duration then basically set my Boltshark to secondary and leave it there. For swarms you can either snipe a couple leading bugs so when they die their blast basically finishes off much of the rest of the swarm, or if you're on your own and facing the prospect of being overrun, peg off 2 or 3 of the approaching enemies, lure them into the radius of an IFG, zip to safetly, then hose down the group, or have them mangle each other up with a Phero grenade. Now if a reduced damage version of this bolt was available on primary to combine with Phero specials?? OMG that would be epic. (Fire bolts can be used pretty successfully this way, but I want the BOOM, not the sizzle.)

[Torres, The Devourer]

Reading these I got an idea.
I already have a primary that deals electric damage, so theoretically I could run chemical explosion bolts to boost AoE with trifork volley.

I also would like to try a build of 13111 with the elemental bolts with IFGs. I think Wyatt would be cool.

I think my favorite special bolt is pheromone Vijay because of how simple they are to use, but my use with trifork volley has shown me how strong electric bolts are. I’m really excited to give them a second shot.