This was a pretty hard watch lol. I think this video really misses the point, wide lense doesn't benefit this gun because the rest of engies kit is considerably more impactful and trying to diversify every gun in your kit only makes engineer weaker than he already is for being a generalist. Swarmers aren't a huge problem because you have sentries and breach. Even SSGs. Every single clip here highlights the application here when you're not using nades sentries and barely using a secondary. What's happening here isn't that wide is great, but rather that it's needing to give you more work because you aren't using your whole kit to deal with threats effectively. Also for breach triple line < plasma trail for that exact swarmer reason. You also take macro and triple lock exclusively, I'm not sure what the imaginary ammo inefficiency here is relative to wide that you even say does waste ammo on things like preatoreans.. lol. Usually your content is very good but this isn't it.

The only thing you can do "wrong" in DRG is using a build that you don't find fun. If the build is "BAD" but fun for you, then it makes it a good build.

You just struggle to lock onto shredders because you use a scrub controller instead of a mouse

Macro Lens vs. CCD Lens? Where are my fellow Zoom Lens enjoyers? 😂

I use the macro lens. Saw your original video and was gonna leave a comment about how macro is better than CCD. I decided to try out CCD before speaking. Turns out CCD is in fact better. I wonder how many of the commentators actually tried CCD or if they're just parroting the recommended loadout from reddit.

Well argued, and totally makes sense that it works for you. When I first was playing around with the LOK-1, I remember getting frustrated that I often fired off before getting three locks if the swarm was too big. It was mostly a patience thing, but switching to speed and macro felt better on pinpointing the explosions, like you said. And similarly, I crafted my ECR build around my playstyle, too. So in swarmer examples, that's when I rely on my turrets to handle the stuff that would normally take a single bullet to clear, and I bring along Plasticrete Catalyst shard diffractor as my secondary. Partially because explosions funny, but also I use the platforms to help funnel swarms into tighter groups to make the ECR explosions more effective, and I'd also shoot my platforms without exploding them to use the AOE to clear swarmers as well

I think Macro-lens is simply a better choice if you're playing on mouse due to the fact that you're able to aim at whatever target you want to cause an explosion on way quicker, while the upgrades for wider angle likely do better on gamepads where it's harder to do that

You're definitely neglecting the turrets here, setting those up where you are fighting will basically guarantee safety from swarmers and shredders. Sure run this for swarmageddon if you aren't willing to deal with turret placement, but its wrong to say that this is the best way to play this overclock. The Lok-1 attempts to spread locks evenly between everything in its area of effect, so CCD struggles immensely against massive swarms where the bugs are too densely packed to get three lock ons on any one bug. Remember that shots that don't contribute to proccing ECR are a lot less ammo efficient, so while you are getting that extra chip damage its definitely not for no cost. Additionally, this makes the time it takes for you to build up enough locks to proc an explosion longer, since other bugs are fighting for the guns attention too, meaning that even the advantage of being able to ammo dump faster is mitigated because someone running macro lens would have already started their second volley by the time you finish the first. This difference is further exacerbated in scenarios where it takes multiple attempts for CCD to get a good lock, since macro lens basically never encounters this problem. The downside of macro lens being that its easier to get more locks than needed on an enemy is negligable, as you should always be aiming for three round bursts anyways rather than full locks. CCD might be more consistent on lower hazard levels where there's not usually going to be that density of bugs where its struggling to hit three locks or if you lack the better aim needed to make use of macro lens, but on haz 5 and especially modded difficulties this struggles a lot

Its a tradeoff. If you just want 3 round bursts with an explosion, Macro is better. If you want to scan large groups, CCD is better. Both can work, both are efficient, both have situations where they are not optimal.

I disagree wide lens in my own practice is inferior. Good video though. This style build focused content is great

Small tipp. Instead of switching weapons to cancel a lock on you can just tap right click/pick axe key for as little as a single frame to cancel it.

Interesting video. In the end I think this just comes down to playstyle. The macro lens almost gives up the gun's lock on, trading it for precise control. For me, I play a lot of FPS games on mouse and keyboard and I don't mind the extra effort and micromanagement of the macro lens. In return I get insane ammo efficiency. I've put enough practice into the build that swarmers and shredders are not an issue, I just aim at them with precision. But I can see how you would prefer the wide angle if you were less experienced with FPS or just playing on controller where you can't make the precise aiming corrections as easily.

3:20

Against swarmers and stuff, turrets and shredders work pretty well. I think most of the criticism was in the context of 4-player, where slows and CC and enemy density all scale the efficiency of splash damage.

One thing you should mention is your play style. I notice that in almost all your clips you try to get all the lock-ons you can in one burst. This probably has a big effect on the effectiveness because you’re usually fighting swarms where if all lock-ons are in effect, you get two explosions, and that’s probably enough to take everything out.

The shard diffractor with lava is by far the single best swarmed tool I’ve encountered. I would literally draw a small line (5ammo) and on haz 5.5 that five ammo comes close to 50 swarmer kills

I think it's wrong to say that there's no wasted ammo, however it's not something in your control to begin with. The Loki attacks the enemies in the order the locks were obtained. Because of that if you lock twice on one, then a few around the group, and finally get a third on the initial one, you end up possibly overkilling the group because the explosion went off last. Macro helps with this because you can focus your locks a bit better to avoid that situation more often. This doesn't change that it has pitfalls against more spread out groups.

Might surprise you, but i fully agree with your points. it's a different playstyle. However I think you I think you missed a few factors.

"and he took that personally"

I use the Macro-lens for the massive increase in range.