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There are four different classes you can choose from in Deep Rock Galactic but only one of them is the most mobile and effective all around. The Scout is the most useful character you can pick because his support tools and abilities allow you to complete objectives with maximum efficiency, as opposed to taking things slower or focusing on combat with the other characters.
If you've only been playing Gunner up until now or are interested in mastering and Promoting your Scout, this is a brief guide that will explain all of Scout's benefits and how to properly use him. He's a well-rounded character that can warm you up to the game before choosing the other classes.
Scout's Best Support Tool: The Grappling Hook
This is the best support tool in the entire game. The Scout has a grappling hook that he can equip and fire anywhere, whether it's on the ceiling or across a canyon. With the grappling hook, you can escape danger in an instant or reach places other dwarves could never reach without extreme help. This tool allows you to hastily complete and even speed run missions.
The Gunner has a similar support tool, the Zipline Launcher. This is a stationary grappling hook that needs stable ground on both ends to be placed. This tool is very slow and is more useful for when your team needs to go back and forth inside one large area. The grappling hook is faster and can be attached to any surface, though only the Scout can use it.
The best way to use the grappling hook is to use it to reach areas that would take other characters too long to reach, as they would have to dig or use slower tools. Every map is procedurally generated, so you'll often find ore growing in hard-to-reach areas that need some work to retrieve. Also, if someone gets downed and you're far away, you're able to reach them faster than the other characters could.
Benefits Of The Grappling Hook
- Retrieve unreachable materials
- Escape quickly
- Save teammates
- Speedrun
The Best Scout Weapons To Equip
A basic Scout starts out with the Deepcore GK2, Jury-Rigged Boomstick, and Inhibitor-Field Generator. That's an assault rifle, shotgun, and a grenade that slows down enemies with a force field. As you level up your Scout and complete assignments, you can unlock the M1000 Classic, Zhukov NUK17, a cryo grenade, and a pheromone grenade. That's an assault rifle, dual submachine guns, a freeze grenade, and an attraction grenade.
Primary and Secondary Guns
The M1000 Classic and Zhukov NUK17 are your best bet. You can purchase the second assault rifle through the Assignments terminal - it's better than the first because it hits harder for a slower rate of fire. That means you can save your primary weapon for bosses while you keep the dual submachine guns with more ammo for all the little guys.
The beginner firearms are not bad - they offer you a regular experience, especially when you upgrade them. However, switching to these new guns gives a kick and makes you think about where your bullets are going.
Grenades
The first grenade you're given is a little boring, as all it does is make creatures slower when they enter the explosion radius. This isn't overly useful for many situations, and when playing an action game, players want explosions. That's why the cryo grenade is your only safe bet.
The pheromone grenade attracts enemies, which is helpful if you want to draw them away from reviving a teammate, but it won't help you do extra damage for your team. The cryo grenade freezes multiple enemies for a good chunk of time. Not only does this stop receiving damage for all players and allows you to aim more accurately, but sometimes this can instantly kill enemies. If a flying enemy is frozen, they drop to the ground and shatter.
Overall Best Weapons:
- M1000 Classic
- Zhukov NUK17
- Cryo grenade
The Best Perks To Use As The Scout
Perks can be unlocked by reaching different milestones in the game. Milestones could be to retrieve 12 alien eggs or to visit a specific biome more than once. When you complete milestones, you get Perk Points which can then be spent to earn Perks. Perks are equipped at the Equipment terminal. The best perks to equip on your Scout are as follows:
Hover Boots
The Hover Boots perk allows you to hover in the air for a short period of time before falling. This is extremely useful for the Scout because, when you use your grappling hook, you can't stay there unless there's ground beneath your feet. If not, you'll fall to your death. This is a common Scout struggle, trying to get used to not taking fall damage all the time when using the grappling hook. With the Hover Boots, you can negate this fall damage and also mine more efficiently. If you have to grapple somewhere on the ceiling, you can counter the height by using Hover Boots right before you hit the ground or to mine quickly.
Field Medic
Field Medic is useful because of the Scout's mobility. As the scout can rapidly traverse and reach more areas, it is the more effective class for saving teamates. If you're going out of your way, being the member to save everyone, Field Medic will help even more with that. Field Medic allows you to revive teammates up to 25% faster and gives you the ability to instantly revive once per mission. Take advantage of this by zooming in for a save and instantly reviving players.
Second Wind
Second Wind gives you a sprint boost. The Scout is already fast as it is, so imagine the speed you get if you combined the grappling hook with Second Wind. This will make you near unstoppable when you need to run, and is a buff that wouldn't be as useful for other classes.
Beast Master
The Beast Master perk would just allow you to do more damage in battle. The other classes have strong firepower. Gunner has a minigun, Engineer has a grenade launcher, and Driller has a flamethrower. All the Scout has is regular rifles. While useful, having a pet beast in battle would allow you to do as much damage as everyone else is. Beast Master allows you to tame a glyphid grunt. To do so, you have to have the perk equipped and walk up to any glyphid grunt and interact with it.
Scout Works Best With The Engineer
The Scout may be an awesome character who has the best mobility and efficiency with quest missions, but he works the best with an Engineer at his side. Together, Scout and Engineer are unstoppable. The reason they are so compatible is because of the Engineer's platform gun. The gun places platforms literally anywhere on the map. This is best when paired with the Scout's grappling hook.
In an effective team, your Engineer will place platforms underneath ore and other materials that are in hard-to-reach areas. Then your Scout would grapple to the material and be able to land on the platform instead of fall to their death. Because Scout can't mine while on their grappling hook, they need somewhere to drop. Engineers don't need to think about it, just place platforms where you see useful items and have the Scout retrieve them. This provides maximum efficiency for retrieval missions where you need X amount of Morkite and Aquarq for example.
Scout Class Overview
All-in-all, Scout is able to retrieve ore and materials faster than anyone else and can get to where he is going quickly. This is where he stands out. Though he has some basic firearms at the start, he makes up for it with upgrades and being the best at completing retrieval objectives.