by Drexus-Workshop on 22/02/2025

DRAK-25 Plasma Carbine
Zhukov NUK17
Grappling Hook
Flare Gun
Light Scouting Suit
Pickaxe
Loadout Guide
This loadout uses Cryo Minelets and Conductive Thermals for swarm clear. Ill advised on single target (solution in conclusion at the bottom.)
Drak: Best used after throwing down a clip or half from the zukhovs, as it increases the freeze (and thus damage) on larger, slow targets such as praetorians or oppressors.
Zukhovs: The "primary" of this loadout, you will be using them quite often. The blowthrough is perhaps the most important upgrade as it allows minimal lost damage. To explain: When using minelets w/out blowthrough, hitting a bug wastes the potential for minelets, meaning you have to choose between direct or AOE; but the blowthrough means you can hit the bugs in front of you-- aiming downwards at and angle to hit them in the faces works best, I reccomend being JUST out of reach for the swarms for optimal damage, hence great potential on Salvage. This is not to mention the fantastic freezing ability allows your teammates to have more breathing room on the uplink or fuel cells (or blackbox on DDs or EDDs (Deep Dives & Elite Deep Dives))!
Conclusion: This loadout is best used for Salvage or even as a general loadout for the sheer swarm clear potential; however it does lose out when dealing with Swarmageddon, Mactera Plague, or on random Dreadnought encounters. Due to conductive thermals it is a good idea to focus fire on targets your team's driller, a gunner with burning hell/incendiary grenade, or and engineer with breach cutter (on large targets) is also firing at, as this maximizes ammo efficiency and potential damage. Using this loadout on elimination while not impossible, is HIGHLY ILL ADVISED! It is a SWARM CLEAR loadout, and you will cripple yourself SEVERELY attempting high-health single target DPS. If brought on a DD or EDD with a dreadnought objective, it is best to either have brough cryo grenades or as stated earlier, focus down driller, burning hell gunner, or breach cutter'd dreads and ignoring your secondary on the dreadnoughts.
Final Note: There is potential to consider bringing Serrated Edge on your pickaxe to deal with frozen praetorians as it has mathematically higher total DPS. The pheromone canister is used to group up enemies for a mas freeze to maximize the freezing potential of the minelets, however you can bring the IFG and the first upgrade on the tier 5 Zukhovs as an alternative.