u/Kepabar2001

I see lots of struggles about the newly buffed strain and how they can be too overwhelming, even on lower difficulties. Fear not for I believe we have finally found the true calling of the newly buffed Sterilizer!

First, one must understand your enemy. No, the Oxygenator is not pulling a "motivating shocks" on the enemy; it does not apply to them. They are only getting their mega speed bursts when they explode into spores near their buddies. So is there a way to kill them without them bursting? You betcha! Fire and Gas DoT will kill them without without them spore-bursting around each other. I think you see where this is going...

The Sterilizer has been recently buffed and it is much, much better than what it was (I would know because I used it a lot before just for fun). Hard to tell the newly buffed range but I would venture to guess that it's roughly 30m. That with the lingering clouds means you can spray down and create a swath of both DoT, confusion and slow that will both crowd control and also (if no one is bursting them) keep them from getting the zoomies.

My preferred loadout thus far has been Orbital Railgun (for the bile titans), Orbital Gas Strike (Gas is so good against Gloom strain and you can call in a big cloud every 65 seconds), Sterilizer (for massive, mobile crowd control), Rover Guard Dog (non-stop firing, clears chaff while also setting many targets on fire for even more non-bursting crowd control). Bring in some extra gas grenades for even more crowd control and whatever you feel like bringing to close bug holes. That's it! Give the new Sterilizer (and gas effects) a try and I think you may find yourself actually coming around to it being a good weapon that solidly fills its Crowd Control niche.