Haz5 Generalist Loadout - Engineer

Introduction

Refer to this post on r/technicaldrg for an explanation of the premise for these builds, which also outlines general build priorities and limitations. I wanted to use these karl.gg builds to give additional context regarding build decisions and gameplay notes so the Reddit post can remain concise for those just looking for a build without the detailed information included here.

Perks

Active

Dash:

On activation, Dash grants a speed boost and cancels any slowdown effect allowing you to reliably reposition yourself when necessary. This effect is consistently valuable and can proactively save you every 40/35/30/25 seconds. When a swarm of bugs is about to overwhelm you an untimely slowdown (Naedocyte shock, Slasher stun, Web Spitter web, Fungus Bogs/Goo Bomber floor goo, etc.) will guarantee you going down, which Dash is able to easily counter. The speed boost on its own is also great for general enemy kiting and movement around the caves.

Iron Will:

When downed this perk can be activated to instantly put you back on your feet for a 6/8/10/12 second invulnerable last stand once per mission. After the last stand ends you will go back to being downed unless you get some form of healing during the last stand duration. This perk is so valuable because it essentially gives you a second chance to get through the most difficult part of a mission without requiring any teammate attention cost. Take a moment before activating Iron Will to see if your team can get things under control. If not, look around for nearby Red Sugar, Resupply Pods, or enemies that you can pickaxe power attack when using the Vampire perk to regain health within last stand.

Passive

Vampire:

A resource that is typically limited within every mission is health. Vampire breaks that limitation by allowing you to regain 2/3/4/5 health with every medium or larger creature killed by a melee attack. In practice though, the major benefit Vampire provides is a reliable way to regain health during Iron Will last stand. Red Sugar or a Resupply Pod may not be close to where you went down, but there will almost always be a few bugs around your downed body. Vampire allows you to use those bugs as a healing source to ensure you will stay up after the Iron Will last stand timer runs out. Note that regular pickaxe strikes do not do much damage, power attacks are the best way to take advantage of Vampire during typical gameplay.

Resupplier:

This perk is actually 3 in one: more health from resupply (50% base to 60%/65%/70%/75%), faster resupply collection (20%/30%/40%/50%), and a full reload on all weapons/equipment after resupply. Health is a fairly limited resource on missions so anything that increases that resource is valuable. Needing to resupply in a stressful/dangerous situation is not uncommon so the additional resupply collection speed frequently prevents going down. The full reload to all weapons/equipment on resupply is another welcome quality of life improvement and can provide enough of a combat tempo boost to get a critical situation under control.

Born Ready:

This perk reduces the attention cost of keeping weapons/equipment reloaded and improves combat tempo by automatically reloading unequipped weapons/equipment after 15/10/5 seconds. Switching to a weapon in a stressful situation only to find the magazine empty is an easy way to go down. Time spent reloading also means time spent not shooting, which can make the difference between success and failure in a difficult mission. If Born Ready does not seem necessary, an alternate perk I would recommend in its place is Sweet Tooth to further increase the total health available throughout the mission combined with a speed boost on Red Sugar collection to reposition when at dangerously low health.

Equipment Notes

General Equipment

Pickaxe:

Serrated Edge (T1A) doubles power attack damage and is generally considered the best option in this tier. The additional damage is important to ensure that a power attack during Iron Will can reliably secure a kill (and corresponding health from Vampire) to stay up after last stand ends. Many dangerous enemies also take increased melee damage (Mactera, Korlok Tyrant-Weeds and their healing pods and sprouts, and most Rival enemies), which an increased damage power attack can kill outright or inflict significant damage.

Armor:

The most important perk is Breathing Room (T4C), which doubles the temporary invulnerability duration after your own revival from 3 seconds to 6 seconds. This is valuable because the base time to revive someone else or to collect a resupply is also 6 seconds. Breathing Room ensures that if you act right when you are revived you can make a big play without going down prematurely. Improved Generator (T1A) starts shield regeneration sooner, which reduces the amount of damage that gets through your shield into your health by regenerating the shield buffer more frequently. The alternatives in this tier are not compelling with Boosted Converter (T1B) delaying shield recovery time and Bigger Mineral Bag (T1C) not changing the number of trips required to get a full resupply. Healthy (T2B) gives more total shield + health than Overcharger (T2A), scales with Resupplier for more health recovery, and still works on missions with Shield Disruption.

Throwable:

• S.S.Gs: These are a fantastic throwable, with their greatest benefit being the complete lack of strategy or attention cost needed to use them effectively. If additional damage is ever needed an S.S.G can be mindlessly thrown anywhere and for the next 40 seconds a group of 5 friendly Shredders will automatically start attacking anything within range. They are incredibly effective against Swarmers/enemy Shredders/Naedocytes, but the slow and armor breaking they inflict also make them a great tool for dealing with larger enemies. Their primary weakness is that only one S.S.G can be active at a time so they do not benefit from throwing multiple at once. Accidentally throwing an additional S.S.G when a current one is active will simply deactivate the previous set of shredders and should be avoided.
• L.U.R.E.s: These are a competitive alternative throwable available to Engineer. Each one will continuously attract up to ~12 simultaneous enemies towards it for 20 seconds while active. Multiple L.U.R.E.s will each attract their own set of ~12 enemies, which can allow ~36-48 enemies (a large chunk of an entire swarm) to be distracted simultaneously if 3-4 are thrown at once. This can create on-demand breathing room during a difficult swarm keeping you and the rest of the team from going down. L.U.R.E.s also help to create a dense cluster of enemies around them that make area damage like Breach Cutter shots incredibly efficient. If any of the ~12 enemies the L.U.R.E. is attracting dies then the L.U.R.E. will immediately attract a new enemy in range. Consistently eliminating enemies around each L.U.R.E. will greatly improve its efficiency and allow it to attract many more enemies than its initial 10 target cap throughout the 20 second duration.

For additional discussion about throwable options refer to the Grenades and Managing Explosive Results guide made by memtransmute in the Practical DRG discord.

Class-Specific Equipment

Platform Gun:

Repellant Additive (T3B) is a game-changing perk that turns the Platform Gun from an average mobility tool into one of the best ways to control the battlefield during a swarm if understood properly. Enemies want to take the shortest path to players, but repellent platforms count as a significantly longer distance than regular terrain. Therefore, with the right platform setup enemies can be funneled into predictable choke points to make movement tracking easier and significantly improve the effectiveness of area damage. For a more detailed explanation of this mechanic and examples of how to apply it to regular gameplay check out this amazing Repellent Additive Platforms Guide made by memtransmute in the Practical DRG discord. With how powerful Repellant Additive is it makes sense that maximizing repellent platform ammo from Expanded Ammo Bags (T1B) is generally considered the best option. High Capacity Magazine (T1C) can be an effective alternative to allow a large number of platforms to be placed before a reload delay to quickly establish a hold location at the cost of less overall ammo.

LMG Gun Platform:

Defender System (T4A) is generally considered the best option because it is the only way turrets do enough damage to one shot Swarmers/Shredders/Naedocytes, which effectively doubles turret ammo when fighting them. The alternative option is Hawkeye System (T4B), which does not improve performance in meaningful ways. The additional range that T4B provides can even reduce turret effectiveness by allowing ammo to be spent on more distant enemies which are inherently less dangerous than nearby enemies. LMG MKII (T1B) does further improve turret damage, but only slightly, and not enough to hit any additional efficiency breakpoints. The alternative, Gemini System (T1A) allows 2 turrets to be active at once and is generally considered the better option. Twice as many active turrets will effectively double turret damage at the cost of double ammo consumption, which can be very helpful during difficult swarms. Keeping both turrets active throughout a mission may result in ammo issues but this can be mitigated by only keeping a single turret active until the additional damage of a second turret is necessary. While maintaining a single active turret remember to recall turrets by holding the reload button before placing a new turret down. This ensures the other turret stays on hand and eliminates travel time when a new turret needs to be built. Maintaining 2 turrets throughout a mission makes the reduced build time from Quick Deploy (T2B) a substantial quality of life improvement. Even with increased damage from T4A and 2 active turrets from T1B, turrets do not output enough single target damage to effectively handle high health targets. Therefore the utility from Stun (T3B), which can be activated twice as often with 2 active turrets, is generally preferred over the armor breaking from Penetrating Rounds (T3A).

Weapon Notes

"Stubby" Voltaic SMG (Stubby)

EM Refire Booster (EMR):

With the November 2023 Maintenance Update the Stubby received multiple buffs to the base weapon and its perk tiers, which was enough of an improvement for it to become a top tier option. EMR is a balanced overclock that improves rate of fire by 4 (+36% from base 11 fire rate) and 2 electric damage increase (+22% from 9 damage base) at the cost of a 50% larger base spread. This turns the Stubby into a single target damage powerhouse, but still retains enough ammo economy to be a fantastic generalist weapon. The weapon can struggle with ammo efficiency against large groups of Swarmers/Shredders/Naedocytes, but the secondary weapon in this build is very good at covering that weakness.

Tier 1 Perks:

Increased Caliber Rounds (T1A) adds +3 direct damage (+33% from 9 damage base) which is significant enough to outperform every other option in the row. The raw damage increase improves burst damage potential and the bonus is significant enough to even match the increased ammo efficiency if Expanded Ammo Bags (T1C) was taken to increase max ammo by 120 (+29% from base 420 ammo) instead. Stubby has an inherent 25% chance to electrocute targets which slows enemies by 80% and applies a 3 second damage over time (DoT) effect that does 12 damage/second. Taking Upgraded Capacitors (T1B) improves that inherent chance from 25% to 50% on every bullet, which results in more frequent slows and triggering T4B more consistently. However, the Stubby's high single target damage in this build causes enemies to die before the DoT duration can complete, reducing its damage contribution. Higher electrocution chance also means a higher chance of overlapping DoT applications, further reducing its relative effectiveness.

Tier 2 Perks:

This row is mostly up to preference but High Capacity Magazine (T2A) to improve magazine size by 10 (+33% from base 20 magazine) is what players generally use. The magazine size increase improves burst damage and combat tempo by reducing the frequency of reloads during regular gameplay. Recoil Dampener (T2B) reduces recoil by 30% and can be helpful for staying accurate during sustained fire at long ranges, but the Stubby's recoil is quite manageable without the assistance of T2B. Since EMR already provides such a large fire rate improvement, taking Improved Gas System (T2C) to improve fire rate by 3 (+20% from 15 fire rate including base + EMR bonus) suffers from diminishing returns and tends to not be chosen as often.

Tier 3 perks:

The damage and ammo perks in this tier have the exact same values as their counterparts in tier 1. The comparison once again makes increased damage from High Velocity Rounds (T3A) the best option for its better burst damage and equivalent ammo efficiency to Expanded Ammo Bags (T3B).

Tier 4 Perks:

Weapons that have their damage split up into many small values like pellets from the Scout's Jury-Rigged Boomstick or from a high rate of fire weapon like the Stubby are not as effective at breaking armor as high damage single shot weapons. This is because any shot that breaks armor takes no damage penalty, but all the shots on the armor piece before it breaks has its damage reduced (20% reduction from light armor, 50% reduction from medium armor, 100% reduction from heavy armor). On its own, Hardened Rounds (T4C) improving armor break by 250% (+500% from base 50%) would be very good, but is less effective on the Stubby, especially when compared to the other perk options in this tier. The 2 remaining options both provide a 25% damage bonus but Hollow-Point Bullets (T4A) only triggers when hitting weakpoints while Conductive Bullets (T4B) only triggers when a target is electrified. In practice, only aimbots have the accuracy needed to make T4A more effective than T4B. The increased rate of fire from EMR will quickly trigger the Stubby's inherent 25% electrocution chance, making electrified enemies a fairly common target. Once activated, T4B applies its damage bonus to weakpoint and non-weakpoint hits, converting the bonus damage as electric damage. This makes the damage bonus easy to take advantage of and makes the Stubby even more effective against targets weak to electric like Mactera.

Tier 5 Perks:

Improved Accuracy (T5C) is a newly added perk in this tier and it reduces the 1.5x base spread when using EMR to 0.9x (10% better than base Stubby). This transforms the Stubby from a weapon that is difficult to use outside of short range into a reliable medium range weapon and passable at longer ranges. Increasing magazine size by 20 (+67% from base 30 magazine) from Magazine Capacity Tweak (T5A) is somewhat redundant after already taking T2A, but can be considered if T2B was taken. Electric Arc (T5B) gives a 25% chance that the Stubby's inherent electrocution becomes an area effect. There is a 25% chance that the inherent electrocution effect triggers in the first place, and only a 25% chance for that trigger to then become an area effect from T5B. This results in only a 6% chance to trigger T5B, which is too rare to make a noticeable difference.

Primary Weapon Alternatives:

The provided alternative weapon builds do not make an effective generalist loadout on their own. They are strong components that need to be combined appropriately across the full loadout to have a tool to deal with every type of combat threat. Typically, one weapon should focus on single target damage while the other focuses on horde clear/area damage. For example, if a primary weapon build specializes in single target damage then the loadout is best when paired with a secondary weapon build that specializes in horde clear/area damage, and vice versa. Once enough of both damage types are incorporated into a build then safety and utility become the next highest priorities.

• LOK-1 Smart Rifle [Explosive Chemical Rounds] 21111: On its own, this build is the strongest generalist primary weapon in Engineer's kit and can almost handle an entire mission by itself. The build has good personal safety by more reliably applying the electric status and adding an area fear effect. The build has very ammo efficient horde and Swarmer/Shredder/Naedocyte clear capabilities, but is only an average tool for single target damage. Consistently executing the 3-lock burst combat loop without inefficient locks is also more difficult than the "point and shoot" simplicity of the recommended Stubby build.
• LOK-1 Smart Rifle [Executioner] 11112: This build is the best single target damage tool in Engineer's kit, but does not have the ammo efficiency to be used against anything other than high health targets. [Executioner] provides a significant bonus to weakpoint damage, which punishes body shots. Make sure to always line up shots to ensure the entire burst hits a weakpoint. The build should be paired with a highly ammo efficient alternative secondary weapon that excels as a horde clear/area damage weapon.
• "Stubby" Voltaic SMG [Turret EM Discharge] 21221: This is arguably the most ammo efficient horde clear/area damage primary weapon in Engineer's kit, but it is limited by turret positioning. Enemies need to get close enough to fully built turrets to be damaged by the discharge effect. If turrets need to be repositioned they need to also be rebuilt, which takes a significant amount of time that is usually not available during a swarm. This makes proper hold setups using repellent platforms critical in getting the most out of this build.
• "Warthog" Auto 210 [Magnetic Pellet Alignment] 12321: This build is not the best primary weapon at any role between horde clear/area damage and single target damage, but it does all the roles decently well. The accuracy bonuses from [Magnetic Pellet Alignment] make it effective at almost all reasonable ranges. Turret Whip (T5A) is a good way to deal with groups of enemies and provides safety through a stun and fear effect. The weakpoint bonus from [Magnetic Pellet Alignment] allows it to deal an acceptable amount of single target damage, while being especially effective against Mactera.

For additional alternative primary weapon options not mentioned above refer to the Modded DRG Buildonomicon made by Vonacht in the Practical DRG discord. Those builds will be specialized for coordinated teams in modded difficulties but serve as strong starting points for generalist builds in Haz5.

Breach Cutter (BC)

Roll Control (RC):

As of the November 2023 Maintenance Update, Roll Control was given several improvements that now make it one of the best Breach Cutter overclocks. RC is a clean overclock that causes the Breach Cutter beam to spin quickly (3.33 rotations per second) like a fan/propeller while it is traveling forward, allows the beam to be steered towards the crosshair while the trigger is held, and increases beam lifetime by 0.5 seconds (+33% increase from base 1.5 seconds). A limitation of typical Breach Cutter shots is they can only travel in a straight line and the beam is very thin. This will result in typical shots missing enemies that are scattered across irregular cave terrain or are not grouped tightly like in Mactera clouds. However, the beam steering and spinning from RC makes it significantly easier to ensure each shot will pass through a large number of enemies, regardless of terrain or enemy grouping, to drastically improve ammo efficiency.

Tier 1 Perks:

Taking Prolonged Power Generation (T1A) to increase projectile lifetime by 1.5 seconds (+100% increase from base 1.5 seconds) is usually the best pick. However, since RC now provides a small bonus to projectile lifetime, selecting High Capacity Magazine (T1B) to improve magazine size by 3 (+100% from base 3 magazine) can be considered. We are not getting a bonus to total ammo from T2A so we need a way to improve our ammo economy. The +3 mag size from T1B also contributes towards total ammo (+20% from base 15 total ammo) making T1B the best option to mitigate the ammo loss from not taking T2A.

Tier 2 Perks:

Beam spinning from RC means that taking Loosened Node Cohesion (T2C) to increase the beam width of every shot by 3 meters (+100% from 3 meter base) essentially quadruples the area that is being hit. This is a significant efficiency increase, which even outperforms Expanded Ammo Bags (T2A) to increase total ammo by 6 (+40% increase from base 15 total ammo). It is punishing to miss out on the total ammo from T2A, but taking T1B helps to offset the loss. Since RC causes the beam to spin so quickly, enemies towards the outer edge of each shot will not take beam damage for very long, reducing the overall damage contribution from the beam itself. Therefore, increasing beam damage by 175 (30% increase from 575 base damage) by taking Condensed Plasma (T2B) is less valuable than T2C.

Tier 3 Perks:

BC has a very slow reload and unfortunately reducing the reload time by 0.6 seconds (18% from 3.4 second base) from Improved Case Ejector (T3B) is not enough to change that. In practice, using Born Ready is the best way to reload the BC by completely bypassing its inherent slow reload speed. The increased magazine size from T1B also makes reloads less frequent which further reduces the value from T3B. Therefore, the valuable quality of life improvement of completely removing the 0.2 second beam expansion delay from Quick Deploy (T3A) makes it the best option.

Tier 4 Perks:

Applying a 100% chance to stun any enemy for 3 seconds when hit by a BC shot by taking Disruptive Frequency Tuning (T4B) is an absolute game changer with RC. When combined with the increased beam width from T2C it allows every shot to stun a huge number of enemies, allowing Engineer to create on-demand breathing room during dangerous situations. Armor Breaking (T4A) improves BC shot armor breaking by 200%, but since BC has 100% inherent armor breaking to begin with, T4A just does not provide the same value that T4B does.

Tier 5 Perks:

Plasma Trail (T5B) leaves a Persistent Plasma field behind each BC beam as it travels that does 20 damage per second and lasts for 4.6 seconds. T5B is generally considered the best perk on this tier, but it is especially valuable with RC. A negative aspect of the beam spinning from RC is enemies will not always take as much direct beam damage when compared to a typical shot. This makes T5B the primary damage source over beam damage in this build, which incentivizes spacing out shots since Plasma Trails do not stack. The stun from T4B has a great synergy with T5B and will keep enemies in each Plasma Trail longer to maximize its effective damage. Triple Split Line (T5C) is typically taken to increase the area affected by each beam. It essentially thickens each BC shot by adding an additional beam above and below the normal beam. However, the extra area coverage from T5C is redundant and unnecessary with the increased area covered from RC spinning. Explosive Goodbye (T5A) allows each shot to explode for 40 damage in a 3.5 meter radius and leave behind a 3.25 meter radius of Persistent Plasma that does 35.56 damage per second for 4.6 seconds while also slowing enemies in the area by 20%. Unfortunately T5A does not provide the same area coverage that T5B provides, and costs additional attention to use it well. Allowing the T5A detonation to occur on its own at the end of the beam lifetime to reduce attention cost will likely result in a poorly placed explosion. A perk in this row needs to be very good to compete with T5B, and T5A is not that perk.

Secondary Weapon Alternatives:

As discussed more thoroughly in the beginning of the Primary Weapon Alternatives section, these alternative builds are strong components of a generalist loadout. They still need to be combined appropriately to ensure the loadout has a tool to deal with every type of combat threat.

• Breach Cutter [Inferno] 11122: This build does not affect as much of an area with each Breach Cutter shot as RC, but it does significantly more beam damage in the area it does affect. Each beam also travels much further, which makes it incredible at dealing with stationaries like Spitball Infectors and Brood Nexuses. It also basically instantly ignites the targets it hits, which spreads fire for good horde clear/area damage while also adding a lot of value if a Gunner teammate is using "Bulldog" Heavy Revolver [Volatile Bullets].
• Shard Diffractor [Volatile Impact Reactor] 31113: This build plays a lot like Driller's CRSPR Flamethrower with sticky flames, but paints the ground with magma instead of sticky flame. The magma does a significant amount of damage to enemies and also lights them on fire for even more damage through fire spread, making the build incredibly efficient at horde clear. However, the direct beam can also be used to do fantastic single target damage, making the build one of Engineer's strongest generalist secondary weapons. The magma effect also slows enemies by 30% which provides some amount of safety, but not nearly as much as the recommended RC build. The build's safety can be further reduced for more damage against electrified targets by taking T5A instead of T5C.
• Shard Diffractor [Overdrive Booster] 21111: This is Engineer's best single target damage option in the secondary slot, and is significantly better at Caretaker eye damage than PGL with [Hyper Propellant] due to how radial damage is calculated. However, it lacks the ammo economy to be used on anything other than high health targets and should always be paired with a primary weapon with high ammo efficiency for horde clear. For medium health targets a non-boosted beam can be used to avoid wasting ammo from stopping the beam before the magazine runs out.
• Deepcore 40MM PGL [RJ250 Compound] 11131: The PGL does not do great direct area damage because the damage drops off significantly as it gets closer to the edge of the blast radius. However, the heat each shot applies from Incendiary Compound (T3A) does not have dropoff, which will ignite almost every enemy caught in the blast. This makes the build an acceptable horde clear option due to the area damage that fire spread inflicts, but a very bad single target damage option. It provides some amount of safety through fear, but the primary benefit of this build is the mobility it provides and the significant ammo boost PGL needs to be effective across a full mission.

For additional alternative secondary weapon options not mentioned above refer to the Modded DRG Buildonomicon made by Vonacht in the Practical DRG discord. Those builds will be specialized for coordinated teams in modded difficulties but serve as strong starting points for generalist builds in Haz5.