What are the best overclocks for Deep Rock Galactic's Engineer?

The Engineer brings a varied arsenal to the table, using cutting edge technology to assemble the wackiest weapons you can imagine. From laser cutters, to almost sentient assault rifles, this class has it all! And then, there’s the overclocks. These are able to improve your weapons capabilities, or even change how they function completely, changing your playstyle. These upgrades are interchangeable, and they make Deep Rock Galactic even more fun than it already is. All the overclocks are good, so don’t be afraid of experimenting with them, and find the ones that suit your playstyle the best. We have experimented with Engineer’s overclocks to bring you our selection of the best and most useful ones to date!

10. Volatile Impact Reactor - Shard Diffractor

The Shard Diffractor is able to create a dense beam of energy using the power of a Hearthstone shard. This makes this weapon great to deal with big threats, as it deals damage continuously on a focused point. Volatile Impact Reactor adds another functionality to this weapon, letting it melt terrain into lava, damaging anything that comes into touch with the scorching rocks! This overclock helps the Shard Diffractor have area of effect, and it becomes especially good at defending chokepoints, complimenting your turrets.

What Makes Volatile Impact Reactor Great?

• The Shard Diffractor is a unique weapon by itself, and with this overclock, you add something else to its playstyle.
• This overclock increases the area of effect capabilities of the Shard Diffractor, shoring some of its weaknesses.
• You’ll be able to defend chokepoints like nobody else!
• You can work around the negatives of this overclock with your builds, making it a powerful weapon in your arsenal.

Overclock details

• +Volatile Impact
• 0.5x Area Radius
• 0.5x Charge Capacity
• Whenever the beam touches the ground, it will be turned into hot magma for 7 seconds in a 0.3m radius. The magma deals 5 Fire and 5 Heat damage every 0.1-0.15 seconds, equating to 40 DPS + 15 DPS from the On Fire status effect. The magma also slows any enemy in its radius by 0.7x (30%).

9. Return To Sender - Breach Cutter

The Breach Cutter is arguably one of the best weapons in the game, since it deals fantastic area of effect and single target damage, and it is capable of ignoring armor. Return to Sender causes the beam to boomerang back to the point you shot it from, potentially doubling the damage it deals, and improving its area of effect capabilities even further! If you have this overclock, don’t skip on it, since it will make the Breach Cutter one of the finest weapons in the Engineer's arsenal.

What Makes Return To Sender Great?

• This overclock lets you return the beam back, doubling the damage you deal per beam.
• You can use Plasma Trail or Triple Split Line, depending on what you want to do with the weapon.
• You’ll still be able to quick fire your beam if you want to, making this overclock essentially an upgrade.

Overclock details

• +Return to Sender
• -6 Max Ammo
• When you hold down the trigger, the plasma beam will emerge from the breach cutter like normal. When you release the trigger, the beam will reverse. This is very useful because you can deal twice the damage with one beam. If you want to spam fire or fire the weapon normally, you have to tap the trigger. This will cause the beam to continue its path until it breaks, like without the Overclock.

8. Lightweight Magazines - "Warthog" Auto 210

The Warthog Shotgun is a serviceable weapon that lets you deal with anything that comes your way. It’s especially great at dealing damage to weak points, since you can shotgun all the pellets into one spot. If you’re up close, it will reduce anything on your crosshairs to dust. Lightweight Magazines is a straight up upgrade for the Shotgun, increasing its ammo while reducing its reload time. This overclock does nothing fancy, but it’s very serviceable and has no drawbacks.

What Makes Lightweight Magazines Great?

• Having more ammo never hurt anyone. Except anything that you shoot.
• This overclock lets the Warthog reload faster, reducing its downtime.
• This is a clean overclock, which means that it has no downsides to it!

Overclock details

• +18 Max Ammo
•  -0.4s Reload Time

7. Executioner - LOK-1 Smart Rifle

The LOK-1 Smart Rifle is an almost sentient assault rifle, since you will be able to latch tethers that will create a path for the bullets! You can curve these tethers to find the best trajectory for them. And then there’s Executioner. Just the name of this overclock makes you feel badass. This overclock will let you execute any threat, since it increases the damage this weapon deals to weak points! The faster lock-on synergises with the damage increase, letting you pump lead into any bug that comes your way. The LOK-1 is already a fantastic single target weapon, and with practice and this overclock, you’ll be able to see health bars disappear in a blink of an eye!

What Makes Executioner Great?

• The LOK-1 Smart Rifle is a fantastic weapon by itself, but this overclock takes it to the next level.
• You’ll most likely be using this weapon for its single target damage, so increasing weak point damage will bring it to the next level.
• The faster lock-on makes shooting the max bullet bursts easier and more reliable.

Overclock details

• +50% Weakpoint Damage Bonus at Full Lock
• x0.5 Lock-On Time
• -12 Max Ammo
• -12 Magazine Size
• x0.66 Max Targets

6. Magnetic Pellet Alignment - "Warthog" Auto 210

We’ve mentioned the Warthog before, but now we bring the Magnetic Pellet Alignment overclock into the spotlight. This one will upgrade your Shotgun by increasing the damage it deals to weak points, making the weapon an excellent choice to deal with high priority targets. The reduced spread synergises with the increased weak point damage, letting you be more accurate and deliver all the pellets necessary to create a hole through any bugs that are unfortunate enough to come close to you.

What Makes Magnetic Pellet Alignment Great?

• This overclock increases the damage the Warthog deals to weak points, making this weapon especially great for Elimination missions.
• The reduced spread will let you be more accurate and be able to pump all the lead in your chamber without any of it flying away.
• The reduced rate of fire is barely a drawback, especially if you tap-fire the Shotgun.

Overclock details

• x0.5 Base Spread
• +30% Weakpoint Damage Bonus
• x0.75 Rate of Fire

5. EM Refill Booster - "Stubby" Voltaic SMG

The “Stubby” Voltaic SMG is a serviceable submachine gun, letting you dish respectable amounts of punishment at a close to mid range. It is also able to electrify enemies, dealing damage over time and slowing them. With EM Refill Booster, we improve this weapon’s electrifying capabilities, by increasing the electric damage it deals, and the firing rate of this gun. This makes the Stubby a serviceable weapon that brings damage and crowd control to the table.

What Makes EM Refill Booster Great?

• EM Refill Booster will further increase the electricity damage of this weapon, letting you kill bugs faster.
• This overclock increases your rate of fire, synergising further with electricity, since you’ll be able to proc it more often.
• The increased spread on this overclock won’t affect it too much, since you usually will be shooting targets close to you.

Overclock details

• +2 Electric Damage
• +4 Rate of Fire
• x1.5 Base Spread

4. High Voltage Crossover - Breach Cutter

Having High Voltage Crossover in your arsenal will make the Breach Cutter an even better area of effect weapon, because this overclock will enable this weapon to deal electricity damage! Electricity is able to deal damage over time and slows down the affected enemy, giving this weapon more killing power and some crowd control. The Breach Cutter won’t stop being an excellent weapon, and being able to electrocute bugs on command is just icing on the cake.

What Makes High Voltage Crossover Great?

• It never hurts to increase the Breach Cutter damage, and by electrifying enemies, the damage you’ve dealt will linger into a damage over time effect.
• The Engineer doesn’t have much crowd control, so this overclock gives him a way of shoring that weakness.
• The Breach Cutter is a fantastic weapon, and this overclock will bring it to the next level.

Overclock details

• +High Voltage Crossover
• x0.6 Magazine Size
• Electrocution Chance: 100% (4 Electric damage every 0.25s). Duration: 4s

3. Lightweight Cases - Breach Cutter

Lightweight Cases is a very simple overclock. It increases ammo and reduces reload time. Compared to other Breach Cutter overclocks it might look simple, but the Breach Cutter is already a fantastic weapon that can deal with anything that comes towards you, so having such a simple upgrade will be enough for this weapon. Having more ammo is simply great for the Breach Cutter, since you can’t carry a lot, and reducing reload time can free up Born Ready from your passive perks, and let you pick something else.

What Makes Lightweight Cases Great?

• This is a clean overclock, which means it has no downsides.
• Lightweight Cases increases ammo capacity, letting you fire more beams before having to call for a Resupply Depot.
• Having reduced reload time on the Breach Cutter feels great, since you will be able to start shooting sooner.

Overclock details

• +3 Max Ammo
• -0.2s Reload Time
• 2. Fat Boy - Deepcore 40mm PGL

2. Fat Boy - Deepcore 40mm PGL

Who decided that the Engineer should bring a portable nuke to Hoxxes II? We don’t know, but what we know is that Fat Boy is a fantastic overclock. This overclock quadruples(!) the area damage of the Deepcore 40mm PGL and increases the area of effect of the weapon. When the nuke explodes, it leaves an irradiated trail on the impact area, dealing even more damage to anything that was too resilient to die from the explosion. There aren’t many things more fun than firing a literal nuke at a group of bugs and watching the explosion. We take no responsibility for any dwarves nuked by you.

What Makes Fat Boy Great?

• Fat Boy drastically increases the damage the Grenade Launcher deals, making it great at killing large amounts of bugs.
• The extra area is great, letting you hit more bugs with a single nuke.
• The radiation damage post explosion will deal with any bug that didn’t die from the explosion.

Overclock details

• x4 Area Damage
• +1m Radius
• x0.3 Max Ammo
• x0.7 Projectile Velocity
• After the explosion, it creates a spherical field (8m radius, centered at point of impact) that does 25 radiation damage every 0.75 - 1.25 seconds to enemies and 6 radiation damage every 0.5 - 1.0 seconds to players. The field lasts for 15 seconds.

1. Hyper Propellant - Deepcore 40mm PGL

By now you’re able to tell that we really like the Grenade Launcher’s overclocks. We chose Hyper Propellant to be at the top of the list because it changes how you use the PGL: instead of shooting an area for the explosion, you want to shoot the grenade directly at an enemy. The increased projectile velocity will let you be more accurate with your shots. With this overclock, you make the Deepcore a “potato” cannon, dealing massive amounts of direct damage to anything you want to take down.

What Makes Hyper Propellant Great?

• This overclock is simply fun to use, since you’ll be able to play a very unfair game of dodgeball with your enemies.
• Hyper Propellant increases the direct damage of the projectile massively, killing almost anything with one shot.
• The increase in projectile velocity will let you hit bugs more accurately, since you won’t have to lead your shot as much.
• The overclock does decrease the explosion area, but doesn’t decrease its damage, keeping some area of effect capabilities.

Overclock details

• +385 Direct Damage
• +350% Projectile Velocity
• x0.3 Radius
• -2 Max Ammo

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