Review: Ocucor (U24.0.8)

The MR8 Ocucor is a Corpus beam secondary adapted from Sentient components. It has a unique feature of emanating energy tendrils that attack additional targets upon achieving kills. Though fun, the tendrils resetting on reload really kills much of the weapon's special functionality at higher levels, and the weapon itself is not exceptional.

Acquisition

The Ocucor must be researched at a Dojo's Energy Lab.

Stats

As the first beam weapon I've covered so far, it's worth quickly going through their special behaviour. Beam weapons only consume half an ammo per "shot", so the Ocucor for instance only consumes 6 rounds per second at base. Multishot mods do not give them additional beams, simply increasing damage. All beams have perfect accuracy at base, with limited range.
Upon initially firing, beam weapons start off dealing only 20% damage, which increases to 100% over 0.6 seconds of continuous fire. 0.8 seconds after not firing, the damage drops back down to 20% over 2 seconds.

The Ocucor's crit stats are rather mediocre, usable only because the Primed secondary crit mods are fantastic. On the other hand, it has a good Status Chance and high ROF, compounded by being majority Radiation. With only a very small amount of Puncture damage at base, the Ocucor will proc a lot of elemental status. Base Radiation damage also allows for the rare and powerful Corrosive + Radiation combination.

The Ocucor has a limited range of 20m, which is more than enough for close quarters, but can be lacking for larger tilesets. Thanks to being a beam weapon, it has a much higher Reload Ratio than otherwise expected, at 4.17.

The Ocucor has a unique gimmick. Upon achieving a kill, it gains an energy tendril, to a maximum of four tendrils. While the weapon is firing, each tendril will seek out and attack nearby enemies, with seemingly at most one tendril per enemy. Upon reloading, the tendril count is reset to zero. Notably, the tendrils will latch on to enemies even if the main beam completely misses.

Each tendril appears to do around 25% of the damage of the main beam. In this image, corresponding the two sets of damage numbers, we have the main beam dealing (82,107,131,154), with the tendril dealing (21,26,31,38) respectively. The damage numbers are increasing due to beam ramp-up behaviour. The tendrils also seem to have the same, or at least decently high, Status Chance, as secondary targets receive a lot of status procs.

When there are not enough enemies for all tendrils, the remaining tendrils will attach to the primary target, though seemingly do not deal extra damage or status procs.

Augments

None.

Builds

0-Forma Status:

With no native polarities, you have to start off pretty basic for Ocucor builds. This above build is a decent pure status build, going for full Corrosive. If you don't have Jolt, you can drop in Augur Pact. With very low damage, this build is only really effective against armoured units, excelling at proccing a lot of Corrosive. Corrosive + Radiation damage also hits both armour types super effectively. A Gas build can be effective against Corpus or groups, as the majority elemental base damage means you'll be proccing a fair amount of Gas. Notably, kills from Gas procs will activate tendrils, and the tendrils will also proc a lot more Gas.

0-Forma Crit:

The lack of native polarities and the barely usable crit stats mean that a Forma-less crit build is actually weaker than a pure status build, and I wouldn't recommend using it.

Recommended Setups: Corrosive vs Grineer, Corrupted, Infested, armoured Corpus, Gas vs unarmoured Corpus


3-Forma Primed Crit:

Three V polarities lets you fit in both Primed Crit mods, as well as Lethal Torrent. The Primed Crit makes it worthwhile building for crit, as without them, a pure status build will deal more damage. There is space to switch out one of the 60/60s for a 90% elemental for a bit more raw damage, but less status application.

3-Forma Status:

If you don't have Primed Crit mods, or want to maximise status, this build (still with three V polarities) will proc Corrosive very frequently and deal a reasonable amount of damage. Alternatively, you could also mix-and-match elementals to have another damage type, such as Viral + Electric. It all depends on what enemies you're building for.

Recommended Setups: see above, also consider: (Gas or Viral + Electric) vs unarmoured Corpus, (Corrosive + Heat) vs Infested

4-Forma Status:

An added - polarity offers a status build a fair bit of flexibility, though depending on what you want in your other slots, even more may be necessary. I love Punch Through so have included Seeker, but Pathogen Rounds is an option for more Corrosive damage and bias. Eject Magazine is also an option if you want to preserve the tendrils, which I'll detail further below. Likewise, (Primed) Slip Magazine allows you to have the tendrils active for longer since you have more ammo before having to reload.

Recommended Setups: see above.

5-Forma Crit:

Another V polarity lets you comfortably use both Primed Crit mods, while having some build options available. You will need to use even more Forma if you want to use the 90% elementals instead, though this also depends on what you want as the last mod. I've slotted in Seeker as usual, but (Primed) Slip Magazine and Eject Magazine are both options as well.

Recommended Setups: see above.

My Build:

This is as far as I could get before getting bored, the Ocucor just doesn't really interest me. I focused on crit for maximum damage-per-shot to try and get tendrils. However I didn't get enough benefit from it to continue with this venture.

Combat Use and Summary

With high Status Chance, ROF and base Radiation damage, the Ocucor is a fantastic anti-armour weapon. With a Corrosive status build, even without the extra shots from Multishot, it procs a lot of Corrosive on enemies, and the Corrosive + Radiation damage combo hits both armour types quite hard. The Ocucor eats through armoured targets quite quickly, and with its gimmick, can do so for multiple enemies at once.

With some active tendrils, the Ocucor is also quite effective against groups, capable of dealing damage to up to five targets at once. This however requires it to have achieved four kills with the same mag previously, which often means you don't have much left in the current mag. At higher levels, I found that I would rarely have even two tendrils active, as I often required half a mag just to get one kill, depending on the enemy. Without tendrils active, the Ocucor is mediocre against groups, otherwise being just an ordinary single target beam weapon. Likewise, with relatively poor single target DPS by secondary standards, the Ocucor isn't great against unarmoured heavies.

A Gas-based build fares much better against groups. With majority base Radiation damage, the Ocucor will proc a lot of Gas, especially with active tendrils. Any kills from Gas procs will activate tendrils as well. With all tendrils active, the Ocucor can be proccing Gas on up to five individual targets at once, for impressive AoE damage. However, because Gas is a poor direct damage type, such a build will fare even worse against heavier targets, especially armoured ones.

Nonetheless, the base Radiation damage with multi-targeting and high Status Chance can be very useful. The added element of light CC and neutralising of Eximus and Ancient auras is quite effective, and makes killing groups with those enemies a lot easier.

With the tendrils resetting on reload, it can be quite difficult to maintain their presence. However, they notably do not reset if the Ocucor is reloaded by a reload-while-holstered mod like Eject Magazine, or the new Synth mod set. By getting kills with the Ocucor then holstering it for a short time, you can refill it to full ammo while also preserving all the tendrils you had built up beforehand. This makes the Ocucor one of the only weapons where Eject Mag is a good option, and isn't just worse than reloading it directly. With that said, I find using these sorts of mods to be annoying and gimmicky in itself, and I feel that the tendrils aren't effective enough to justify losing mod slots to these mods.

My main issue with the Ocucor is the unreliability of the tendrils, as their presence and effectiveness relies on killing weak enemies with the first few shots of your mag. In-game, this is not always possible or necessarily a good idea especially if there are heavies nearby. From my use of it at higher levels, I rarely had more than one tendril active by the time I'd used half a mag. I pretty much never got remotely close to reaching its full potential except at lower levels like non-endless Fissures (on a related note, the infinite ammo buff from Fissures is glorious on the Ocucor).

Ultimately, the Ocucor feels like a weapon trying to be good at both single target and group damage, but falls behind in both. Even in just secondary beam weapons, I feel that the Atomos and Synoid Gammacor both perform better overall, the Atomos because its chaining effect is reliable, and the SGammacor because it is much more powerful. Compared to them, the biggest advantage the Ocucor has is its base Radiation damage, which is fantastic for its procs. The Ocucor is by no means a bad secondary, just not an especially good one. Given its research and crafting costs, I would only recommend going for it if you have already, or intend to, do a lot of Fortuna farming.

Scores

Vs Trash Mobs: 4/5 - Very good Reload Ratio and a gimmick that gives it multi-targeting abilities. However, the gimmick requires kills to activate and resets on reload, which results in fairly low tendril uptime without inconvenient workarounds. The Ocucor is unexceptional against groups without active tendrils. A Gas build in particular fares surprisingly well against groups because of how it interacts with tendrils.
Vs Unarmoured Heavies: 1.5/5 - Low direct damage output by secondary standards, the Ocucor kills unarmoured heavies a lot slower than many other options. It does fare betterrr once it has tendrils, but this is enemy reliant.
Vs Armoured Heavies: 4/5 - Majority Radiation base damage with a fairly high Status Chance and ROF, the Ocucor can proc a lot of Corrosive, and deal decent Corrosive + Radiation damage to armoured enemies. Its gimmick also allows rapid armour stripping of multiple enemies at once.

Vs Variants

None.

Competitors

As mentioned previously, the main competitors for the Ocucor are the Atomos and Synoid Gammacor, with the Gaze Kitgun being worth a mention as well. The Synoid Gammacor and Gaze Kitgun have better single target killing power thanks to their high raw stats. The Atomos is weaker, but is far more efficient and effective against groups, with a reliable chaining mechanic and not relying on getting kills first.

The other standard beam pistols, Cycron and Spectra are more different, or not worth mentioning. The Cycron is a pure status beam pistol, but is notable for its battery mechanic, rather than a conventional magazine. The Spectra has (slight) majority Slash damage, but otherwise is rather lacking in overall stats.

Rivens

As a new weapon, the Ocucor has a moderate 3/5 (1) Riven Disposition. A decent Riven can give it a large boost, but not enough to significantly change any build directions.

Damage/Multishot are great to have as always. If you want to do a crit build, Crit Chance/Damage are good as well. An element like Toxin can help with elemental combos and increasing bias - particularly good for a Corrosive status build. Punch Through helps crowd killing efficiency further, allowing you to get much more value out of your main beam. +Mag Capacity allows you to keep your tendrils active for longer, which is also quite helpful.

-Max Ammo can be tolerable if you don't use the Ocucor too much, and is generally not a problem with Ammo Case/Mutation/etc. -Zoom is perfect since it is only effective at short range anyway. +Recoil has no effect. -Puncture costs almost no damage and can boost your Riven significantly, as can -Impact/Slash if they are possible stats for the Ocucor. If you're using reload-while-holstered mods, -Reload Speed isn't a problem. If all you care about status-wise is Corrosive procs, -Status Duration is tolerable, but I wouldn't recommend it personally. If you're not doing a crit build, -Crit Chance/Damage could be alright, though again I wouldn't recommend it. -Fire Rate improves your ammo efficiency and allows you to keep the tendrils active longer, but of course costs you significant DPS.