One of the newer threats to Deep Rock Galactic is the Rival Tech faction, which competes with us to gather the rich minerals down in the caves of Hoxxus. However, rather than fighting other dwarfs, they send robots to handle the dirty work.
All the Rival Tech robots are different in contrast to the swarms of bugs players are accustomed to fighting. We found that Driller is one of the best dwarf classes in Deep Rock Galactic to counter these robots, especially on Rival Presence missions. We will give you our best machine-killing build for Driller to fight back against Rival Tech.
Rival Tech Weaknesses
Most of the Rival Tech faction’s robots we have fought against share similar weaknesses and strengths. One of the main features we can exploit to get the upper hand against the machines is their weakness to Heat damage.
Whenever a robot is fully set on fire, it will explode and die almost instantly. Even the deadly Nemesis machine unit is highly vulnerable to Heat damage. In Deep Rock Galactic, Driller is our best pick to customize his build. This is because all his primary weapons currently function off different elemental damage types.
CRSPR Flamethrower
Rival Tech’s robots naturally explode in just a few moments under heat pressure rather than a stream of bullets. Therefore, in Deep Rock Galactic, the CRSPR Flamethrower is a no-contest pick for our driller build to fight machines. We highly recommend the following build for the flamethrower:
- High-pressure Ejector: Extends the range of your flames.
- Triple Filtered Fuel: Increases the rate of fully setting targets on fire.
- Sticky Flame Slowdown: Adds a slow to your flame trails left on surfaces.
- Sticky Flame Duration: Increases the uptime on your sticky flames.
- Heat Radiance: Adds a Heat AOE around you, ensuring close targets burn up faster.
Additional Benefits in Deep Rock Galactic to Picking the Flamethrower for Your Anti-Machines Driller Build
Not only does this strengthen the time to set targets on fire, but any surface you spray slows while keeping your targets Ignited. Not only is this mod build great for eliminating any robots, but it’s also one of the best bug-killing builds for the driller in Deep Rock Galactic!
Almost all the Overclocks currently available for the CRSPR Flamethrower are great picks for the weapon. Most of the Overclocks add some additional ammo, such as the Compact Feed Valves or Lighter Tanks, which makes up for not choosing any base ammo mods. The only mod we suggest not using is the Fuel Stream Diffuser, which has no significant upsides for using.
Related Article: Guide to Promoting in Deep Rock Galactic
Secondaries
We can recommend two secondaries for this build, yet one currently holds strength over the other. Both the Experimental Plasma Charger & the Colette Wave Cooker are great picks for this build.
Using the Experimental Plasma Charger in Your Driller Build
The Experimental Plasma Charger is the weaker option in Deep Rock Galactic for this Driller build. Yet, there are still reasons to choose this secondary weapon. The plasma charger’s final mod list has the option to give the gun’s primary fire heat damage atop its regular plasma shots.
Thematically this continues the Heat theme in Deep Rock Galactic with the driller build, and the charged shot is excellent for clearing out hordes at the cost of more ammo. The mod build we use for this weapon is:
- Increased Particle Density: Extra primary fire damage.
- Overcharged Plasma Accelerator: Improved primary fire velocity.
- Improved Charge Efficiency: Charged shots use less ammo.
- High-Density Battery: More Ammo
- Plasma Burn: Heat damage on primary fire.
While this is a build focused on using the primary fire since the Plasma Burn mod unfortunately only works with regular shots. Otherwise, optimizing the plasma charger for a charged shot build is often better.
Recommended: Colette Wave Cooker Secondary for this Anti-Machine Driller Build in Deep Rock Galactic
The more recommended weapon for this kind of driller build in DRG is the Colette Wave Cooker. This handheld microwave gun allows you to boil your targets inside out and works exceptionally well with heat and cold damage. The mod Temperature Amplifier causes targets set on fire or frozen solid to have a rapid shift in temperature, causing a burst of damage.
The burst caused by Temperature Amplifier deletes normal bugs and takes chunks out of bosses but isn’t very effective at killing robots. Since the flamethrower already does excellent work at destroying Rival Tech, we recommend this secondary weapon for dealing with any other enemy. Our driller weapon build for the Colette Wave Cooker in Deep Rock Galactic is:
- Magnetron Tube: Extra ammo.
- Larger Power Supply: Increased fire rate.
- Temperature Amplifier: Causes temperature shocks with high burst damage to Frozen or Burning targets.
- Power Supply Overdrive: Decreases the AOE radius but increases the rate of fire. This can be toggled on and off.
- Exothermic Reactor: Adds the chance for temperature shocks to trigger an AOE damaging mist.
The Colette Wave Cooker is a fantastic secondary and allows Driller to have more synergy with his primary weapons. This little microwave gun is excellent for whatever Driller build you are running in Deep Rock Galactic.
Equipment to Include in Your Deep Rock Galactic Driller Build to Destroy Machines
Lastly, there are a few choices between what equipment to bring. Impact Axes are an excellent pick for Driller since he lacks direct non-elemental damage with this build. These axes deal high burst damage to Dreadnaughts or other special bugs.
However, if you want to keep in the theme of a complete Heat build, you can use the Neurotoxin Grenades instead of the Impact Axes. The Neurotoxin Grenades take a while to deploy, but the poison cloud explodes when combined with Driller’s flamethrower.
Wrap Up
That’s our best machine-killing build in Deep Rock Galactic for the Driller class. This build will make quick work of any Rival tech machine you come across except The Caretaker in Deep Rock Galactic since they are considered a boss enemy. Use those sticky flames to your advantage whenever possible, even against the Nemesis. As always, Rock and Stone, fellow Dwarfs!
