DRG 6x2: no primary, no grenades, only VIR shard diffractor (true solo engineer)
Channel: ojb
Date: 2023-10-26

No deaths, no bosco, no sentries, no primary weapon, no grenades, no problem. Featuring ONLY* volatile impact reactor shard diffractor in Magma Core.

This is episode 3 of the "use only one weapon" challenge miniseries.

The biggest concern of engineer challenges like this would appear to be ammo, but of course in a real map you have access to your primary weapon and sentries to even things out more. The reason VIR is so strong is because it singlehandedly does the two most important things you need doing at high difficulty true solos:

- Trash clear (via very easy to use spray the ground with flames like a counterfeit driller)

- High value target deletion (it slaps into weakpoints and deletes stuff like spitballers with infinite ranged accuracy)

It's not quite as powerful as gunner's hellfire or scout's crossbow, but it does the job it needs to do pretty well. For context, those other challenge runs I believe were the first go-through attempt with each - what you see in those uploads is extremely typical gameplay based on their consistency. This one took a LOT more attempts (although I suck at engineer, and die to stingtails a ton). You'll notice this map didn't have stingtails on it and perhaps that's why it was a win. I kept losing to that particular enemy because unlike other classes with panic button access (gunner shield; scout grapple; driller cope tunnel hobbit hole escape hatch), engineer "just dies" ™. 

Seriously, it's not that VIR can't kill stingtails really well (it can, but not as well as something like inferno breach cutter), it's just in a challenge run like this one where you can't use other weapons as a stingtail solution, you get pulled into very dangerous shit without the ability to counterplay said pulling, unless you play super passively in the first place (BOORINGGGG). VIR in particular is a damage over time trash killer, and you have to be preemptive with your killing before the bugs get to you. Stingtails = you don't have time for the DOT to kill, and so engineer "just dies" ™. This contrasts to something like the breach cutter, which is a fantastic panic button as it really lets you get bugs off you RIGHT NOW.

After I ran this run, I attempted an inferno breach cutter run under the same challenge constraints. It's also strong enough to solo a mission as well, but it is much more ammo draining and requires you to build or play around much tighter chokepoints. VIR shines in letting you play out in the open and ignore all that (though it would probably be stronger if you actually played like a "good" engineer ala what you'll see in my breach cutter vid).

Beyond the breach cutter upload, we might be done with the "secondary weapons strong enough to solo 6x2" limited series, unless I'm forgetting something obvious. Unfortunately for driller fans, I don't think any of driller's secondaries fit the bill for this series. I think TCF is your closest candidate, but you're going to run out of ammo unless you really speedrun to the very end of maps and skip all the caves but the treasure room lol.

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Is this the best build for VIR shard? Who can know. I certainly don't. Can anyone really know? Perhaps it is like the mystery of why we have blue veins but we bleed red. Science hasn't answered that. (Update from ojb's lawyers: actually they have. It's blue light caused by looking at your cell phone. The blue light goes straight into your bloodstream and causes growths at the back of your eyeballs).

Can this particular setup shred 6x2's and every flavor of vanilla? Yes. Can it see why kids love the taste of cinnamon toast crunch? Not a chance. (Update from ojb's lawyers again: science has figured out that one too. The reason cinnamon toast crunch tastes good is because of microplastics in groundwater put there by mr. funko [ceo of funko pop corp] in a dastardly plan to sell corn based cereal products to today's underprivileged youths. These youths are particularly vulnerable because of excessive consumption of corno [erotic corn based imagery] on their phones; this has caused growths at the back of the eyeballs, which have a side effect of enhancing susceptibility to corn based crunch products and also commonly correlated with instances of death by eye cancer. I mean, really. This is basic science. Read a pamphlet or something - we're lawyers, not your mum).

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Loadout:
21213 Volatile Impact Reactor

Perks:
Dash / Iron Will
Resupplier / Thorns / Deep Pockets

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Highlights:

0:00 Build
0:46 Mission start
22:32 Final stats page

*I mean, I also use the pickaxe, thorns, and platforms too, but who's really counting.

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p.s. update from ojb: my lawyers say "it's a bad idea" to show off my cornhole on the internette and keep calling the fun game i play with the fork and the power socket "dangerous" and "stupid". they dont understand the allure of the buzz

p.p.s. update from ojb's lawyers: don't stick forks in power sockets; you'll get growths behind your eyeballs