TEF is a pretty decent overclock. You can burn swarms to bits, and you can enjoy something like a >30% direct damage boost when you're burst-firing this thing. The power of the sun, in the palm of your hand(s).

We'll go over upgrades, but first, some bullet points:

• First and foremost, this overclock (OC) benefits GREATLY from the Weapon Heat Crosshair mod. This overclock relies on keeping an eye on your weapon heat, and that's made much, much easier by having it show up on your crosshair.
• To use an OC well, we need to understand the thing. Understanding what it encourages and discourages will help us make a decent build.
• "Starting when heat reaches 50%, add 1.5 fire damage (direct damage, basically) and 1.5 heat per 10% increase in heat, up to +6 damage/heat when the heat meter is >90%. 1.5X overheat duration, 1.2X heat per shot."
• Restated: We get our first fire bonus at 60% and get more at each 10% increase on our heat meter until we hit 90%. We overheat quicker, and overheats are 1.5X as long.
• So we want to be firing shots out at and above 60%, and we don't want to overheat our weapon. This means firing in short bursts above that point, or (as I've heard someone call it) edging our weapon while it's past 60% heat.
• Ideally, you'll have enough enemies around that you can shoot your way to 60%, then "edge" from there. Theoretically, we have a 60% damage boost if we're only firing bursts over the 90% threshold, but that's silly, and I'd ballpark something like a 30% average damage increase, plus a bunch of burn damage.
• Also, Cryos are great with this overclock. Your mileage may vary, but TEF can temperature-shock frozen enemies.

Mod Breakdowns

DRAK-25 - TEF - CABAB

Tier 1: In recent patches the DRAK's projectile speed got nerfed slightly, but it was enough that I'd recommend projectile speed over ROF. Up close it's not too much of an issue, but spitters on the opposite ends of caves and other far-way bugs can be a pain without this upgrade. Tier 2: Ammo > Damage. Ammo almost always gives more "total damage" and should be picked unless a damage increase will kill certain enemies in one or two shots. We're already getting a damage boost too, so a +2 really isn't very exciting for us. Tier 3: I went back and forth on this one for a while, but Gen 2 Cooling is the superior choice. Custom Coil Alignment is okay---I actually used it for a while. It can't cool the gun fast enough for huge swarms, but the ammo economy of it is a bit better. No cooling upgrade means that we'd be stuck at higher heats for longer, which means we'd have an easier time making use of our damage bonus for smaller swarms, but we'd have difficulty with more hectic situations. But, we can stop gen 2 cooling from cooling our gun too fast by edging (firing off a single shot when it starts to cool the gun). Doing this resets its cooling buffer, and lets us edge our way to victory, using our hot pipe to our advantage. Tier 4: PCF is our choice here. Aside from being better than the other options, PCF lets us fire a burst into an enemy and slow it down to 20% of its movement speed for 4 seconds. Remember this the next time you see something bigger than a grunt guard. Unfortunately, armor break and plasma splash don't offer us much. Plasma splash currently has no interaction with TEF. It used to in experimental builds, but for some reason they removed the synergy entirely. Unfortunate. Tier 5: We want to avoid overheating altogether, so we'll be running Thermal Feedback Loop. TFL actually synergizes wonderfully with this overclock -- we get higher damage and higher RoF the higher our heat meter is. The RoF bonus here is something like 38%-->76%-->115%-->154%.

Secondary Choices

Both secondaries work well with this build. I favour the boomstick since they can delete bugs that get too close for comfort, but the zhukovs' conductive bullets damage bonus have a fantastic synergy with PCF on the DRAK. Comment if you feel strongly one way or another. Boomstick: Jumbo Shells - AABAB - This thing will absolutely annihilate things in melee range, very very quickly. Best saved for beefier targets or swarms. - If you don't need ridiculous burst damage.. hold on, anecdote first because I don't think I've properly driven home how good jumbo shells can be. Before I wrote this I played a quick game in which I accidentally ziplined myself right next to a spitball infector. Panicking a little, I fire my two shots into the thing's weak point and hope for the best. On haz 4 solo, that did 85% of its health bar. With just a power attack to finish it off, I panic-killed a spitballer before it could launch a single attack against me. This build is powerful and very fun. - Alternatives: Jumbo Shells do more damage and total damage than any other option. Stuffed shells with extra pellets has 2 less ammo, but only does slightly less damage per shot. Compact shells works too if it's all you have unlocked (160 vs. 156 vs. 132 damage*pellets per shot). - If for whatever reason you want to use your boomstick to clear grunts, you could use AABAB with compact or stuffed shells.

Zhukovs:

• Many things work here. I'd actually advise against cryo minelets with this build, as we want our enemies to burn. You could technically go for a thermal shock build, especially with cryo grenades, but I haven't had much luck making that work well on anything but large enemies.
• Gas recycling is terrible and you shouldn't use it. 0x weakpoint damage makes the thing useless against macteras and anything with a face or squishy spot.
• Minimal clips BABBA is good, Custom Casings BBBBA is better. T5A's conductive bullets work very very well with the DRAK's PCF. I might add a comment later if I find that these do astronomically better than the boomstick. They've definitely got potential but I'm not sure how much.
• Embedded Dets AABCA is great for big lads. Take it if it's your style.

Perks & More

This stuff is probably obvious to a lot of folks reading this, but for newer players:

• If you're taking Iron Will (as most folks choose to), take vampire as well. Power attacking a grunt after you iron will is enough to get you back on your feet without a resupply or red sugar.
• As for your second active, I'd recommend Beastmaster or Field Medic. Both are very good picks. Steeves can draw aggro and pick off some bugs for you, and is generally great to have around. Field Medic makes 1 revive instant per mission, and you revive teammates 30% faster.
• I tend to go Iron Will/Beastmaster and I think it performs very well, but other stuff is good too. I occasionally see Beastmaster/Fieldmedic or one of the three with Heightened Senses.
• Heightened Senses is mostly a solo perk, at least in my books. Learning audio cues and staying on your toes will get you the same results as the perk, and your teammates should usually be there for you.
• Vampire, Resupplier, Born Ready, and Thorns (usually only on swarmageddon) tend to be my passive picks. Elemental insulation can also be pretty helpful, and others also have their use cases. Use whatever makes sense to you---sometimes you'll want to change your build based on what the objective/mission is.

And that's about it! Thanks for reading, and leave a comment if you've got any questions, I guess. I updated this to account for recent changes (S2 patch 4 and S3), but