Now that some time has passed since Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor entered into Early Access, we’ve had the chance to properly play around with the various class mods and their weapons. Unsurprisingly, we’ve noticed that some of the class mods have a much easier time getting through hazard 5 than others. In this Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor class mod tier list, we will attempt to rank them based on their performance in this most challenging part of the game. Note before we start, if you are a beginner in the game, you should check out our Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor beginner guide for more tips.
S Tier – Exceptional Performance
Heavy Gunner
The Heavy Gunner class mod will give the Gunner a passive boost to range and fire rate on [Heavy] weapons. In exchange, the class gets a 10% nerf to move speed. Let’s be honest here, this mod’s greatest strength is its starting weapon. Of course, we’re talking about the Heavy Autocannon. This may just be the single most powerful weapon in the game.
Even without upgrades, it deals enough damage to take on every enemy on the first stage, while also having impressive piercing capabilities. You’ll have to learn to deal with some of the weapon’s awkwardness, as well as grab a few move speed upgrades. But once those are taken care of, the Heavy Gunner will keep you alive through the worst swarms Hoxxes 4 has to offer. Unsurprisingly, the Heavy Gunner lands on the S-Tier of our Deep Rock Galactic:Survivor class mod tier list.
Sharp Shooter Scout
The Sharp Shooter class mod will buff your crit chance by +15% while also buffing the Scout’s already sizeable crit multiplier even further (+50%). Not only that, but dealing overkill damage unleashes a shrapnel explosion. To help the mod deal said overkill damage, it starts with the M1000 Classic, a fantastic high damage per shot rifle perfect for mulching through boss-type enemy health pools.
One of its final Overclocks literally fuses all the ammo in a clip into a single projectile that deals devastating damage to anything it hits. A frequent problem many class mods have on Haz 5 is doing enough single target damage to chew through the health pools of the bosses, and not to mention the Dreadnought in time. Not the Sharp Shooter though, and starting with such a good weapon really helps with the RnG required to get a reasonable build going. For this reason, the Sharpshooter Scout is easily S-Tier in our Deep Rock Galactic:Survivor class mod tier list.
A Tier – Very Good Performance
Juggernaut Gunner
The Juggernaut class mod for the Gunner will give you +50 More HP as well as 10 more Armor, thus making an already pretty tanky class even more difficult to bring down. This boost in survivability is not surprising, as taking damage will also grant you a temporary 10% damage boost that can stack up to 5 times. This way, you’ll always get more damage when you need it the most. Some advanced players will intentionally damage themselves to gain an advantage. In the magma core, you can stand on fire patches to gain free damage at a low HP cost thanks to the Gunner’s impressive HP pool.
The only thing keeping this class from being S tier is its starting weapon. For the record, The Bulldog Heavy Revolver is reasonably solid, featuring Overclocks that can grant it extra pierce or doubling the amount of bullets it fires. A word of caution, the armor buff while reloading on the Bulldog is bugged, and should be avoided at all costs at the time of writing. This class mod does come with a range malus of 50% to weapon range, but in a game where you’ll spend 80% of your time within hugging distance of a swarm, this hardly matters. All in all, the Juggernaut Gunner class mod earns its place in the A tier of our Deep Rock Galactic:Survivor class mod tier list.
Recon Scout
Joining the Juggernaut in the A-Tier of the Deep Rock Galactic:Survivor class mod tier list is the Recon Scout. This class mod buffs the Scout’s dodge chance by 25%. Upon a successful dodge, you’ll gain +35% Move Speed and +35% Reload Speed. This increases Scout’s naturally low survivability, and it lets you get out of harms way fast. Some artifacts can further increase dodge chance. One of them requires you to dodge 100 times in a run which can be a bit hard sometimes so we’d recommend cheesing it a bit.
The Zhukovs are an interesting weapon. Usually, it can only be described as decent. However, this all changes when you grab its final Overclock, “Death Spiral”, which sees them turn into an omnidirectional bullet hose and one of the best guns out there for generic bug removal. If comboed with the Overclock that changes its element to deal [Cold] damage, it can also become one of the best crowd control tools in the game. You’ll struggle to get to this point, but once you get there, it’s simply amazing.
Maintenance Worker Engineer
Last but definitely not least in the A-tier of our Deep Rock Galactic:Survivor class mod tier list is the Maintenance Worker Engineer. As a class mod all about turrets and drones, it should be no surprise it comes with a passive that boosts the damage and reload speed of all constructs by +10%. It’s a useful but somewhat unremarkable buff, honestly. This class mod’s cling to fame is that it starts with the LMG Gun Platform.
Standing still to deploy turrets can introduce some awkwardness in a game with such a heavy emphasis on movement (especially during resource gathering) but the turrets make up for it in sheer power. The final overclock can give them a +150% buff to fire rate, at which point their rate of fire leaves the realm of LMGs and enters minigun territory. Further helping them out are Overclocks that let you carry extra charges, have the turrets move with you, or even change their bullets into plasma to let them bounce all over the place.
B Tier – Good Performance
Foreman Driller
The Foreman was an extremely hard one to rank. On one hand, this class mod can perform quite well on hazard 5 with the right build. On the other, it suffers from the fact that DoT effects require you to build in such a way that it may not synergize with the starting weapon(DoTs cannot crit for instance). The passive this time around is a powerful stacking buff to mining speed which enables you to grab just about every mineral on the map, and a lot of upgrades as a result.
It’s why this class mod is used to complete the various mining challenges. The starting weapon is the surprisingly competent yet often overlooked Subata pistol. Overclocks can change its damage type to [Acid] or double the amount of bullets it fires. A lightning fast reload by default and fire rate stacking means it can pump out good single target damage by piling on [Acid] debuffs. A decent class in our opinion, give it a chance.
Tinkerer Engineer
Following this trend of being difficult to properly rank is the Tinkerer. The passive is utterly fantastic, a +10% buff to XP gain and all weapons start at lvl 3. Because of this, it is possible to get at least 1 overclock for all equipped weapons and pull yourself way ahead of the power curve. The downside, or upside, depending on who you ask, is its starting weapon. The warthog is a powerful shotgun that deals good damage in addition to having projectiles that pierce and knock back targets. However, it only shoots in a narrow spread in the direction you are aiming, and it has no ability to auto track.
On keyboard and mouse this means being able to aim in only 8 directions, and the extreme sensitivity of the controls can make aiming diagonally a fiddly process. And you have no damage on enemies while you mine, as the gun is just shooting at the wall. So, the gist of the class is you start out with a disadvantage, but if you overcome it, you can acquire power extremely fast. For fans of the Warthog, this is an A-tier class, for those who dislike the shotgun, it can go as low as C-tier. For us, the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Classic Scout
The Classic Scout mod is your starting loadout. It comes with a solid 10% buff to move speed and a forgettable +20HP bonus. The starting weapon is the GK-2, a good but somewhat unimpressive assault rifle. With a myriad Overclocks that change damage type or its target acquisition properties it can slot on just about every build out there and perform competently at that. All of this makes sense, as it is the very first class mod you get to play with in the game. Ultimately, the Classic Scout is solid but nothing fancy. As a result it lands in the B-tier of our Deep Rock Galactic:Survivor class mod tier list.
The Interrogator driller winning a haz 5 mission on a pretty scuffed build thanks to the power of fire DoT stacking.
Weapons Specialist Gunner
The weapons specialist Gunner comes with an interesting passive. For every 100 bullets fired (Bosco’s gun included), the Gunner will unleash 8 high-powered bullets around him. Weapons with a high rate of fire are the way to go here so it should be no surprise the class starts with the Leadstorm minigun. The minigun is a very powerful weapon in its own right, and it would have definitely taken the class to A-tier if it weren’t for some quirks.
The gun will shoot in the direction you’re aiming. This isn’t as much of an issue as with other weapons with such a mode of attack as the minigun will auto aim in a massive area in front of you. However, during boss fights you will have to face the enemy to deal damage and then run away to reposition when they get too close. This will severely dig into your damage output. The final two OCs can also anti-synergize with some builds. One will cut your fire rate by half, which means less bullets to proc the passive. The other lowers the damage output of other guns to further buff the minigun. As a result, we’ve put it in the B-tier of our Deep Rock Galactic:Survivor class mod tier list.
Interrogator driller
The Interrogator Driller class mod used to occupy the now defunct D tier of this tier list. This was a result of DoT effects having very little in terms of damage scaling on higher difficulties, resulting in the class being anemic against high HP targets. This was changed with Update 2, which brought with it the potency mechanic. Potency now allows you to add DoT stacks faster and increases the maximum amount of stacks you can place on an enemy. Fire DoTs have seen an impressive glow up as they’ve gone from the weakest elemental type to being king on this class.
Grab fire weapons, (especially Krakatoa turrets), stack potency and DoT upgrades, toss in some [Beam] type bonuses (range/lasting) and you’ve got yourself a strangely potent haz 5 build that can rival some of the best out there. That being said, [Cold] and [Acid] weapons usually don’t do that much damage on their own, so they’ve been relegated to support functions in this fire meta. As for the negatives, this focus on fire DoTs can make this class mod feel a bit one-note at times.
The flamethrower, even with the potency mechanic, is still only an OK weapon. Either way, we’re glad to see this class elevated from its humble beginnings. This is a hard one to rank because the performance it gets on most builds is simply OK, but then you build for fire with certain setups, and end up trivializing the hardest parts of the game. Because of the vide variety of its performance of its builds, we’ve placed in the B tier…for now.
C Tier – Unremarkable Performance
Demolitionist Engineer
The Demolitionist Engineer class mod will buff the reload speed and AoE size for all weapons with the [Explosive] tag by 20%. It also gains access to all the explosive weapons in the game. The weakness of this class is that it has trouble dealing with high HP targets in time. Explosive weapons in this game are usually good at clearing swarms or providing some form of support functionality. The PGL you start with being a decent example of the former.
You do still have access to the default engineer’s weapons pool to help you out, however. Another quirk that can be quite problematic, which isn’t really a fault of the class, is that all the fancy explosion effects can obscure quite a large part of the map. Getting hit by something you can’t see being an annoying semiregular occurrence with this class as a result. It can beat Haz5 with the right build, it just took some effort. Ultimately, these issues put it at C-tier at the time of writing.
Strong Armed Driller
Interestingly, the Strong Armed Driller has somewhat of a similar issue when dealing with high HP targets. For starters, its passive is a 20% range buff to throwable weapons. This is quite unimpressive as, once again, this is a game where 80% of the map is covered by bugs. The thing that truly defines this class is its access to all throwable weapons. These are a mixed bag, with a good chunk of them adding either crowd clear or support functionality. Combo this with drillers focus on damage over time effects, and you run into issues with high health targets.
The Impact axes, while dealing good damage and extreme knock back, have an annoying tendency to push bugs into you as they fly back to the Driller. On the other hand, some throwables are quite good, such as the fantastic Leadburster grenade. Not only does it deal good damage when leveled up, but when combined with [Cold] weapons, it’s possible to spawn them inside an enemy, making it take catastrophic amounts of damage as a result. All in all, it lands in the C-tier of our Deep Rock Galactic:Survivor class mod tier list.
A meme build centered around covering the screen in as many explosions as possible by using the Demo Engineer’s access to explosive weaponry. (Now not nearly as potent with the changes
to improve visibility)
Conclusion
At the time of writing all the class mods in Deep Rock Galactic:Survivor can make it through hazard 5, hence the lack of an F-tier in this tier list(and D tier now). Keep in mind that the game is still in early access so the games balancing is all over the place both in terms of mechanics and weapons. If the Roadmap is anything to go by, things can and will change over time as new gear gets added and old one rebalanced. Personally, we’re looking forward to seeing the game evolve. Rock and Stone, miner.
Image Credits: Ghost Ship Publishing.
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