Marked for death OC for the M1K feels really bad to use.

[Ketrai]

I was hoping for a new OC that wasn't super situational, but the more I use it, the more it seems like it's stupidly situational.

The good :
- Killing praetorians and especially opressors is much easier.
- Lets you really nuke dreadnaughts

The bad :
- No focus damage. (deals like 1 dmg per shot)
- 3 ammo per focus shot.
- Various important enemies aren't affected, like the caretaker.
- Doesn't affect dreadnaughts for long so it's a huge ammo sink to keep them debuffed.
- Anything smaller than a praetorean or bot you likely would've killed or nearly killed with the focus shot damage.

In the end this means that this OC isn't even really that good at killing bosses other than dreads, and in normal missions you're only ever debuffing very specific bugs... It's a shame to have yet another OC be only good on very few specific missions.

I feel like this oc could really do with lesser penalties, mostly by doing 75-100% the damage of a normal shot, so you don't feel like you're heavily penalized for using the focus shot on moderately tanky enemy like a trijaw, slasher, guard, etc, and can play proper support scout. Right now you're better off running electrifying focus to support, or just playing off the fact focus shots stun, which is already very significant against praetorians anyways.

Also, this oc should really work on every enemy. Maybe to a lesser degree when it comes to certain boss enemies. But no effect just contributes to this OC being incredibly niche and requiring players to keep spreadsheets so they know what to shoot, what not to, and when to bring it...

[kestrel]

yeah i agree with basically all of this. it's in a similar boat to supercooling chamber where it's only good against LSTs like praetorians whereas the M1K is normally great against a wide variety of targets with the usual focus shot builds. using MFD just makes me wish i had EFS or hoverclock if i wanted to be a """support""" scout that badly

imo i think focuses doing zero damage is enough of a downside on its own. the mag size and focus cost increase penalties feel unnecessary, especially the latter

[Syro System]

It's very good against pretorians, oppressors, menaces, wardens, bulks, goo bombers, grabbers, rollers, all elite enemies, korloks (!), patrol bots, dreads.
Haven't had the chance to test it against omens yet.

Having it when fighting any of the above is a massive boon, and for enemies like grunts you can go super blowthrough and armor break and you'll be able to kill them ammo efficiently when needed.
Scout was never meant to be the primary combat class and his ammo economy reflects this.
He's always been utility/high value target picker.

[Lunacy]

Think it's the only new overclock that I don't like. The 3 ammo cost just makes it feel like its not worth it over just hitting it 3 times.

[Ketrai]

Originally posted by Syro System:

It's very good against pretorians, oppressors, menaces, wardens, bulks, goo bombers, grabbers, rollers, all elite enemies, korloks (!), patrol bots, dreads.
Haven't had the chance to test it against omens yet.

Having it when fighting any of the above is a massive boon, and for enemies like grunts you can go super blowthrough and armor break and you'll be able to kill them ammo efficiently when needed.
Scout was never meant to be the primary combat class and his ammo economy reflects this.
He's always been utility/high value target picker.

Menaces, elites, shellbacks, menaces, korlok sprouts.. etc are in this sort of awkward spot where they're not tanky enough to validate marking them, when a normal M1K can just stun and magdump them just as well. Note that whilst the overclock doesn't nerf the base capabilities of the weapon too hard, the real cost is not being able to take a better performing overclock like hipster for waveclear and quickly magdumping dangerous enemies with enhanced DPS.

Nexus' and spitballs would be good contenders, but the more universally useful cryo minelets are way, way better at taking them out. In fact, most of the cryo options scout has offer a better answer to problems than killing them a bit faster with marking. Frozen enemies don't have weakpoints, but they take 3x damage when shot, which is better than or equivalent to the natural weakpoints most enemies have, versus the 1.55x damage modifier of marking that does apply to weakpoints as well, but doesn't really push it over freeze damage in many cases. Or it outright instakills them in the case of mactera swarms. Leaving just bots, dreads, bulks and oppressors as enemies that are somewhat immune/hard to freeze, giving this weapon an edge the other options don't have.

In the end that leaves a sparse few enemies this is good at, and most of them are situational and won't be showing up in most missions...
- Stingtail
- Prae/opressors
- Warden
- Dreadnoughts
- Bulk
- Grabber
- Bomber
- Brundle
- Breeder
- Patrol bot
- Bot turrets

Doesn't affect
- Caretaker
- Omen

Untested
- Nemesis
- Prospector