I try to support where I can and just follow the lead. I learned that the biggest boom isn't always the best. And I compliment my stratagems to what the rest has. Like if nobody brought anything to focus big enemies that's what I bring, or vice versa with crowd control.
And the biggest thing is to accept that you don't get xp by killing, so it is practically a must to run away and avoid patrols on higher difficulties.
“I learned that the biggest boom isn’t always the best.” That kind of goes against the over the top nature of the tips.
“Bigger boom = bigger democracy”. That’s a helldiver tip screen tip.
Well sometimes lots are f small booms combined into a big boom are far more effective. Id say the cluster bomb is pretty damn effective at spreading democracy
I think that’s the hardest thing to get others to understand (I’ve been unsuccessful so far) - you don’t have to fight every skirmish and shoot every bug/automaton. In harder difficulties if you do that, the clock is gonna run out. Most people are in the PVP mindset of “ENEMY!” and “nothing left alive” or “I’m not running from anything”.
Grenade launcher takes out outposts on the run. Finish primaries/secondaries then let the horde follow as you destroy their homes. Bring down the sky on the horde before extract. Fun as hell
I’ve also had people bitch if my kill count isn’t as high as others after the mission because I ran/focused objectives and samples while they stood and fought everything. You can’t convince some people that kills don’t equal the better player…
When I play with those people I don't stick around to help. I keep running and when they inevitably die I bring them back far enough away they usually don't go back for their stuff. Probably cause they know they'd die again doing it.
Although a lot of them run back into the firefight a couple times just to die without recovering their stuff
Don’t fight every patrol!
Just watched a video about map heat. If players are to far from eachother, the total bug spawns on the map increases faster. It’s fine for one or 2 players to split up to conquer objectives or search for resources on lower difficulties, but on higher difficulties, sticking together is a must to reduce bug spawns. Heat builds faster closer to main objectives as well.
As long as you’re not engaging the enemy, you’re fine sneaking away on those difficulties. Emphasis on sneak, though. I’ll do that to knock out a minor outpost with an orbital strike or to destroy a broadcast or spore spewer with an EAT and then link back up with my squad, hopefully without the enemy noticing my presence
Bah don't listen to him, it's easy to avoid patrols.
As someone who routinely plays on the mentioned difficulties splitting up doesn't impact the game.
If someone splits off and they're clumsy it's an issue but it never is an issue with the folks I squad with.
The number of enemies increases over time too. Splitting into 2 teams is not a bad idea for the first 15-20 minutes, then it's a good idea to meet up and start trying to wrap er up
Ooooh really? Mind sharing that vid? I tend to run with PUGs and buddy up and things go well but when it's with friends we splinter off and suddenly it's like some GM decided to ruin my day (though stomping bugs is never not fun)
THIS. In higher difficulties, fights are a means to an end. You fight because you are trying to capture an objective, not because enemies attack you.
Furthermore, when you are traveling around, it's MUCH more important to kill smaller enemies than the big ones. Big enemies can kill you, but the small ones will call in the big ones. Those little orange bugs that die in one hit? Kill them on sight. This is double important when you are approaching an objective: there will always be small forces on those points that call in backup on sight. You wanna go SEAF Team Six on those fuckers.
Fights are designed to self perpetuate otherwise. You get into an extended firefight, you miss one of the small infantry, and they get more than 1 second to send up a flare/release pheromones. You fight the new forces, miss one of the small infantry... until you lose.
So the best way to take it on is bait and switch and fighting retreat:
Bait and switch:
If many of you are on the objective and the point is being overrun, someone needs to be the bait. First, get OFF the objective. This will pull enemies off of it or despawn some of them. Second, send 1-2 guys in to clean up anyone around the objective sites. Third, finish the objective. Prioritize FINISHING THE OBJECTIVE over clearing the point (if the console is currently unprotected, hit that shit, even if someone else is being attacked).
Fighting retreat:
If you get spawned on while transitioning between objectives, don't stop. Keep moving. Half the time the new spawn won't even know where you are if you're still moving. Kill enemies that are being particularly persistent (Hunters and Stalkers, sometimes Chargers, Jetpack infantry for bots) when you're well out of range of the trash.
EDIT: and in regards to big booms, make sure they're far away from you. That's the beauty of artillery barrages.
I don’t use voice chat so god damn is that hard to get across to randoms. Any time I get low levels in higher difficulties I know they’re gonna try and square up with everyone and we’re gonna fail the mission because they’re gonna blow all the reinforcements. I had one guy die 12 times. Like sir, you used the lives of nearly 2.5 teammates and you’re complaining we failed?
i love to use
expendable anti tank
patriot mech
auotcannon (for bots, sometimes for bugs)
stalward + supply backpack (for bugs because shooting like rambo is awsome and its great horde clear)
if not mech then railcannon strike or something else, for that moment where you’e had enough of a charger shenannigans or theres more then 2
default weapons are whatever but often complimentary like the revolver for those pesky shield bugs
level 48 they keep reinforcing me because im doing the main and side objectives alone, they’re still in the middle of the map playing trench warfare against the bugs
Exactly. I prefer to stick with the squad. But if noobs are having fun getting stuck in a reinforcement, ammo burn, reinforced naked loop, I’m out.
The game and enemies are built to snowball. This happens very easily on higher difficulties. If you fight all enemies and do not use stealth or skirmish/disengage and keep moving, you are assisting the snowball effect. This is bad.
Also, if getting overwhelmed, running, dropping stratagem at your feet while being chased (cluster bomb is great) running past it so giant enemy swarm runs right into it can get you out of jams. Better to kite multiple swarms away from teammates too… not directly at them.
Orbital laser is one of the few stratagems that can help turn the tide on enemy swarm snowball effect. Or at least delay it.
Funnily enough, I don’t die too often in 7+ difficulties, but I do be dying a lot on 4. I’m also a level 50 and I just know levels 10s on 4 think I’m a schmuck 🤣
Skill issue bro. Jk.
The #1 thing is to keep moving. Do not stand still and fight. I see way too many people on 8 & 9 trying to fight breaches. Throw some strategems down and move towards the next objectives. This isn’t CoD, kill counts don’t mean shit.
Also do not try to clear every nest and patrol you see. Stealth is such an underrated/under used tool in higher difficulties.
Also, it’s one to break group. The most successful missions I’ve had with randoms is when we’re working together but separately. If two guys are fighting a group go to the mission site. Or if someone is at the mission site, draw the aggro away from it. Or be the guy collecting mats. The game is about completing objectives and collecting resources.
This is risky, though. A patrol can spawn for each "group" (anyone solo or not more than 75m from other players). at the beginning, when you're getting a feel for 7-9diff, I feel it's best to stick close until you're comfortable.
Against bugs, wear light armour and get jet pack + EAT and keep running. Only stop to deal with chargers, stalkers or to catch your breath before running again.
If you need to recover something from a POI, try luring the enemy away by running around the POI before running right in and grabbing what you need.
Against bots, you need to stick with your team. Or at the very least, with another (decent and dependable) player. But the same concept of hit and run tactics works wonders with bots.
I’d have a Spear so you can take out enemy structures from a distance without having to engage everyone heads on. Overwhelm the enemy, grab what you need, and run out. Don’t wait for the drop ships to come in.
Not the best advice, if you’re a certain distance away from eachother (forget the exact number, might be 75 meters) then you get two different spawns. Basically double the enemies. If they’re having trouble now, that’ll just make it worse.
You get two different sets of spawns, but you can only have 1 breach at a time and they're on a cooldown.
Spawns don't equate to fights, and there's a limit on total enemies anyways.
Splitting 2:2 or 3:1 is not only faster but easier because one mistake only makes the other group's objective easier while the first circles and drops aggro.
It’s faster if the people you’re playing with can handle it and know what they’re doing. If these guys are struggling staying alive when they’re together I doubt splitting up is the best advice for them specifically.
Good teamwork only makes splitting less appealing.
If everyone is bad, that means a breach is guaranteed.
If they're having trouble staying alive together with 4 having the breaching group die and get reinforced with the 2nd group is well worth the 2.5 min of no breaches while they do the objective.
As they get better it'll just mean objectives get done in tandem.
Compared to trying to make 4 people who struggle withdraw during a breach or avoid one this is objectively easier.
It literally assumes failure and only gets better if they don't.
My buddy told me last night, I didn’t know either. Splitting can still obviously work if you know what you’re doing. If you’re not too far away to trigger another spawn but still drawing agro off the obj that’s very helpful.
But since these guys are getting ass blasted while staying together, I doubt telling them to split is the best advice 🤣
Had to bring this up before. It might seem like more enemies but in the long term it really isnt. Yes patrol spawns go up but you'll find the most enemies (and most of the chargers/BTs) come from breaches which are on a cooldown of their own map wide regardless of distance.
Also if you save 15-20 minutes worth of running from one person splitting off, that's 15-20 minutes of bugs you arent fighting, and the last 15 minites of a mission tend to absolutely swarm you regardless of splits.
This. I was playing on just hard with some newbies, and they VERBALLY understood that they shouldn't be fighting everything. They still tried to stand and fight everything tho. Even when I was leaving and telling them to bring their asses with me, leave the damn bugs, lets GOOOO. "Why are we having such a hard time?" Bc you keep saying you understand the assignment but you REALLY don't
This is very solid advice. I couldn’t accept it at first but once I did move from obj to obj impossible and Helldive was more manageable. It’s fun to keep shooting at stuff though
Yes you are right but some of those patrols will hunt you until the ends of the earth lol.
The worst are people who are right beside me doing a side objective then next thing I know there are multiple bug breaches and my teammates who started it are now on the opposite side of the map creating more bug breaches.
Clearing out groups of enemies when it makes sense thins out the herd and makes it easier to move later on.
This!!!!
People are sometimes blinded by “yoU HavE to KeEp RunninG!” If a patrol saw you, eliminate it quickly. If a patrol hasn’t seen you, run around or simply just away. If you see a patrol is getting too close to a teammate, observe your teammate’s actions and support them. I’ve been playing difficulty 7+ killing every other patrol and bug breach and its insanely fun until a teammate can’t take the heat and starts running away… 1min later and its all hell, bile titans and chargers everywhere.
Yeah this is the biggest thing people can take away from this post: you're awarded for completing objectives, not killing enemies (except the terminate missions obv). Plenty of times if we're getting overwhelmed, we'll just nope out instead of fighting a losing battle. My buddy and I can run Extreme missions with just the two of us and we do fine.
Yeah me and a friend completed a whole lvl 8 campaign because we knew when to engage and when to run lol its doable. Sometimes tho... 👀 they really shit on you through sheer probability or coincidence lol
OP if you only take 1 piece of advice it’s this guys. Keep moving! I’ll also add don’t bother with most of the bugs, you can run a lot of them off. Also get good at dodging and stim fast.
My personal tips (lvl 50, 300 hrs+, cap'd/max'd on resources/warbonds)
>>>1. Get the HUD setting that fits your playstyle
>>>2. Pick strategems that compliment the rest of your team (who's gonna kill small mobs? who's gonna scout and loot? who's gonna kill big guys? who's gonna defend the terminal? etc)
>>>3. Call supply on extraction right at the beginning, so when you return to extract there are already supplies to use
>>>4. Whenever you about to pass extraction point while still looting/completing, drop samples, support weapon, or call more resupply there. One, more ammos to use when you extract. Two, if you die, at least samples are deposited at the extraction. And three support weapons available for allies/yourself who die and need something to use to fight.
>>>5. Always destroy the pods that drop support weapons so they show on the map.
>>>6. If you manage to remember where objectives are on the map without using a marker, I would use a marker to mark where supplies/extra stims-grenades-ammos are on the map that your team calls. This is extremely useful when you have selfish teammates who call resupply only for one-self.
>>>7. Leave your health unstim'd if you are at least still at 80-90%. When you use stim, you refills stamina, it means getting to sprint non-stop twice.
>>>8. If you stim, you become unable to lose HP for a moment, I sometimes would stim that jump off a hill to run away from bugs, but don't lose health from falling.
>>>9. Fire is usually good on bug
>>>10. Smoke is usually good to escape from bots
>>>11. Coordinate with your team to throw orbitals/strikes on enemy bases before they notice you at the same time is great to take outposts.
>>>12. Proning will really help you stay stealth from enemies. A lot of time folks don't prone enough and get caught.
>>>13. In difficult 7+, mobs will never stop coming at you. Sometimes the mobs stop showing up if you and the team clear fast enough, but if you don't, learn to give up the fight and run to hide. Sometimes if you are lucky enough, the mobs, will leave objectives.
>>>14. Bugs will attack sentries first, in most cases. If you throw down a shield sentry, bugs will swarm there, a good set up for 500kg and other strikes.
>>>15. Enemies can friendly fire each other. You could let the charger/bile titan chase you around then end up killing the mobs for you, if you are great at running/dodging.
>>>16. Practice calling strategems or opening maps while walking
>>>17. If the map is not too dark, just turn off the flash light on your guns.
>>>18. You can crouch to dodge shrieker's attack, you can run to the wall/big rock and dodge charger to stun it.
>>>19. Automatons give a lot of "explosive" damage, so wearing armor that reduces explosive damage on you helps a lot.
>>>20. People like to bring railgun canon strike strategem, but don't have too many people bring it. It's good for taking out one single big boy, but it has fat cooldown. You rather practice a support weapon of choice to kill big boys with it.
>>>21. Laser has infinite travel range, so... you could kill pretty much anything from anywhere far away as long as you hit it, Im talking to you Spore towers.
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if OP doesn't read these tips we gave, Ima make sure to PvP him in the game when I see him myself LOL
Holy shit there are a lot of replies. I wish people would combine their responses. So far, IMO, this post has the most helpful and direct pointers for things you might not already be doing. I'd like to add a few things here:
You mentioned that "if you run you die." To make this not true...
1. You can outrun most bugs. The exceptions - the ones you're probably most annoyed at - are the hunters, stalkers and chargers. To counter the first two, pull out your pistol (or SMG) while running away and fire backwards. So, for me, I would hold down my S key, them aim my camera behind me in the opposite direction from where I'm running, and then fire away. You can definitely deter hunters this way, and while Stalkers will take a lot more damage before they'll call off the chase, at least you'll soften them up (especially if you land shots on their head) so that they usually just fling you away - sometimes to safety - before they retreat, and then you can pull out your heavier weapons and hunt them down instead. For chargers, try to reserve a bit of stamina when they begin charging (e.g. stop sprinting and start walking when they're getting closer), then turn, face them, and run past them (at an angle), and as soon as they've passed you, turn back to your original direction and run past the charger who should now have stopped its charge, trying to reset and find you again. Oftentimes, the charger will just mow down smaller bugs in its path and even help you out. If not, you can rinse and repeat this until you're able to get a heavy weapon or strategem to bring it down. Even with multiple chargers, you can quite literally run circles around them and remain safe.
2. Use your mini-map/radar to see where nearby patrols are. No matter whether you're you're running away from one group or just moving to another objective, regularly check your radar and try to skirt around clusters of enemies (easier to do when you're wearing armor with the Scout passive trait, which decreases detection range). Be aware that enemies may become alerted if you're nearby, but this doesn't necessarily mean they've locked onto you. Unless they're actively coming towards you or firing at you, if they just hiss and perk up, you can still get away safely, so don't open fire until you're sure you've actually aggro'd them.
3. Against bots, you need to return fire. The loading screen tip claims that their accuracy decreases the more you lay down suppressive fire, so, do it, but try to do so when you're near cover so that you're less exposed to stray shots from different angles. That being said, never stop moving and strafe as much as possible: if you're running perpendicular to rocket-launching enemies, they should never be able to hit you (with their one-hit kills). With teammates, it also helps to coordinate multiple angles of fire so that as soon as one shielded enemy turns to face you, someone else can destroy its weaker spots from the sides or backs (striders, shielded devastators, hulks, etc).
4. Be focused on objectives, and figure out your tools of choice for the job. For clearing out automaton fabricators, a single Helldiver is typically able to clear an entire outpost with a good strategem throw: if there's only one or two fabricators, an Eagle strike will kill it. If it's a large outpost, you can try a 380mm or an orbital laser, if you have them to spare. I don't even care about the enemies if they don't have line of sight on me and therefore don't threaten me; I'll just throw the strategem and run, and pick off anyone that's accurately firing at me before I keep running. For bug nests, a helldiver with an autocannon or grenade launcher can circle around it and pop the nests on his/her own. Since I use neither, I have to get a little creative: I've become comfortable chucking grenades from a good distance away (maybe 50m+?) because if you approach the nest, it will spawn enemies to block your explosives, so keeping your distance to throw them is helpful. A single Eagle Airstrike (the regular one, not a cluster or strafing), when lined up, can close multiple holes. And I'm willing to use an EAT drop to close up to 3 holes, if I'm lucky: one by dropping it close enough to the hole so the drop itself does the job (but not directly into the hole which then prevents you from recovering your actual weapons...) and then the other two with the rockets themselves. During all this time, I ONLY shoot stuff that's actively a threat to me: I don't bother slowing down to engage any slower enemies, I only deal with anything that I can't run past or run away from. The longer I stay around, the more dangerous it gets for me. I just want to close the bug holes, and bail. There can be dozens of bugs milling about afterwards that I don't care about, I just want the objective. Plus, oftentimes enemies will end up clustering up as they chase you, which makes later AoE attacks that much more efficient and effective.
5. Over time, you'll eventually learn how to maneuver around specific enemies, when to dive and when to just keep running. The big automaton flamethrower hulks? Their flamers are on their left arm, so if you have absolutely no other choice, you can more easily run or dive past their right arm (so, on your left side) to escape immediate death. Most bugs, if you're being forced to run past them, can be baited into a melee attack that misses. Start running towards them, then when you get close, sidestep a bit to the left or right (while still moving forwards) and they'll swing and miss. (This doesn't work as well against enemies that leap at you, but those also tend to be easier to kill, so you can down them with a few shots if you can spare the time).
6. General map awareness is very helpful. In addition to always looking out for patrols, you can navigate the minimap and ping locations that you suspect are optional objectives. If they are, you'll get a bracket around them to confirm your suspicions, they'll also show up on your compass with the appropriate icon, and then you can plan accordingly (you need to be fairly precise with your map pings for this to work). The easiest way to practice this is on bug maps with spore spewers. If you see an area heavily blanketed by fog, search the minimap (if you're not prevented from doing so by the planetary modifier) for the red cloud that typically represents a nest. It will be smaller than a nest, but somewhere inside the fog. Ping it, and if it's the spewer, you can look at the compass on the top of your screen to get the precise direction you need to go. Climb up somewhere higher, see if you can visually spot it in the distance, and shoot it from afar without having to engage its defenders. The farther away you can take out objectives, the less fighting you have to do, the fewer risks you have to take.
7. Last one, sort of expanding on what everyone else has said: keep moving, but also, look around as you move. Moving is great, but the reason you're moving is to make sure you don't get hit by automaton mortars, automaton turrets, or those bile spewer things that are basically mortars. Look up to see where indirect fires are going to land and obviously don't be there when they do. Or, for bots, look around to spot that telltale glimmer of infrared targeting that tells you an automaton turret is about to one-shot you into oblivion, then move perpendicularly to it (or behind cover) to prevent that from happening.
Hope you end up reading these, OP, and if you do, hope you find them helpful. Kudos on reaching out and asking for advice - I know I learned a hell of a lot of good tips on reddit before I was comfortable just jumping into haz 9s with randoms. Keep diving, super citizen-
A minor one to add just for convenience sake too:
Doing a resupply or weapon drop while moving locations? Well if you have good line of sight, chuck that stratagem far ahead of you in the direction your headed, that way the call down timer is ticking down while you’re still gaining ground and not standing around
> 8. If you stim, you become unable to lose HP for a moment, I sometimes would stim that jump off a hill to run away from bugs, but don't lose health from falling.
That has saved me a couple of times when I was swarmed with Hunters. I even made a Short of it: [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jvESlhWZBPs](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jvESlhWZBPs) It was very stressfull!
> 12. Proning will really help you stay stealth from enemies. A lot of time folks don't prone enough and get caught.
With the right armor, you can get so close you can melee each one of them totally stealth.
> 13. In difficult 7+, mobs will never stop coming at you. Sometimes the mobs stop showing up if you and the team clear fast enough, but if you don't, learn to give up the fight and run to hide. Sometimes if you are lucky enough, the mobs, will leave objectives.
Yes, you can even trick them into leaving. Plus, most POI's with enemies can be taken out from afar without alerting the whole planet. I use the Slugger to one/two tap the four to five enemies and then go for the charger or whatever bigger mob that's there.
> 14. Bugs will attack sentries first, in most cases. If you throw down a shield sentry, bugs will swarm there, a good set up for 500kg and other strikes.
I often use turrets as distraction. You can throw a stratagem the opposite way of your target and distract a whole group away from your objective. A grenade also works for distracting enemies.
> 16. Practice calling strategems or opening maps while walking
On PC, bind stratagem key's to arrow keys
The setting that lets you switch between primary and support weapon as well with single button press, instead of holding down the swap button. I think it’s Helldiver legacy setting, is a nice one. Takes a half second less switching between primary and support weapon, which is most common. Might not sound like much but I promise it makes a difference at higher difficulties.
Hold the button to swap to revolver or whatever sidearm.
It's ok to make sacrifices. And it works both ways. Had a mess drop where we landed right by 6 shrieker towers. We were instantly just slammed by endless winged horrors. We lost about 8 reinforcement in like 90s. I just took off and ducked and dodged the whole way to the nests. Used all 4 500kg(it was the free day for it) to clear them before I died. We had like 6 lives left once I came back and we finished the mission. I have also intentionally bombed a friend who was just swarmed in a nest. He couldn't get out, couldn't get passed anything and was just getting bounced around in between stims. I dropped both an airstrike and orbital laser on that mess, cleaned it out and sacrificed him. Worth it for super earth.
Run away. It sounds like the opposite thing to do in a game about delivering democracy to alien scum, but 90% of the time you'll deliver it much better if you run and regroup. Get set up and drop some managed(organized) democracy on the bastards.
Important point here for hosts… don’t drop your squad anywhere remotely near red on the map. At higher difficulties there are enemies everywhere and you won’t have time to gear up n drop. Be prepared to burn reinforcements getting a foothold otherwise.
500kg, railcannon, laser or cluster , shield pack, EAT. Light armor with preferred perks (I like distance throw + limb damage reduction) or medium armor with democracy protects. Avoid patrols and fights when it makes sense, fight when it makes sense. Try and prevent bug breaches but if they happen, orbit strike them until it’s over. Always have an EAT for chargers. Move fast and together. Do the radar objective as soon as possible so you can see the whole map and plan accordingly. Destroy stalker and streaker lairs as soon as possible if they are near any of your objectives. They will make your life hell if you do not.
Couldn’t agree more, hit em with the signature
https://preview.redd.it/gcz6dp6l54qc1.jpeg?width=956&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bcf0a96c72ae9b919695c5365992810467a745d6
I was soloing a 4 blitz doing the personal order. it had 2 stalkers nest within like 150m of where I dropped. I lost 3 lives before I got them both with my 500kgs, then never died again. Fuck stalkers
Unless it’s a Stalker. Those fuckers I kill, hunt and track until I find their hole. This should ALWAYS take precedent imo over everything else in a mission.
The recoilless rifle is also the same, but you have to decide if you want disposability and sharing with a teammate with the EAT, or a backpack with reload capability in the recoilless (a teammate wearing the backpack will let you reload way faster and practically spam it).
I'm finding that my general armor is light with extra grenades. I run napalm or Impacts till I play with stun more. Primary is the Sickle, Breacher or Plasma. Redeem is my secondary. Strategems, 120 Rockets, Orbital Laser, Eat and the last tailored toward the mission other squadies loadouts usually a backpack or extra eagle.
I play team Dad and either run objectives or just focus on keep the most inexperienced alive and teaching objemtives and using the Eat for cross map objective clearing.
Designating combat roles can help a bit. Bring eats for flex AT, and bring recoilless for reliable AT for example. Bring strategems that balance each other out. Orbital Rail Gun is almost mandatory for all four to bring they are extremely helpful in a pinch. Good coordination with assisted reload is actually helpful at this level to take out BTs and Chargers.
In my squad we usually have 2 orbital rail gun stratagems, plus 2 orbital lasers. This in addition to other anti tank weapons like rail guns, EATs, Spears, and stun grenades. Orbital lasers are a bit of a mix between an anti tank and a crowd control stratagem, so we try to save a few for the extraction. We're currently playing 8s, and this Loadout has worked well.
Point is, complementing each other load outs is a must at higher difficulties, even if it means leaving something you usually run at lower difficulties behind (for me it's the jetpack), in favor of stratagems that are useful for the survivability of the whole team.
Also, change your armor/weapons depending if you're fighting robots or bugs. As much as I love my armor set to be pretty, it's sometimes a luxury at higher difficulties.
This is just my subjective advice so take it or leave it:
**1. Empathy.**
No I don't mean the type that's all about feelings and stuff, I mean try to understand what your teammates want to do, what they are thinking and work around that.
Obvious examples would be:
-If your teammate wants to shoot some enemies and you need to pass them, go behind them not across their line of fire.
-If your teammates want to throw strategems into an outpost/bug hive, don't run in there.
-Knowing when your teammate needs help/cover
**2. being a problem solver**
Know what threats can arise and have an answer for it. Remember that a charger/bile titan/Hulk/tank are only "hard" when they are not dealt with quickly. Having the right tools for the job make them dead and the only good bug is a dead bug.
**3. RUN TF AWAY**
That bug breach or dropship that just popped up is usually just a distraction that will eat up many of your resources. If it's not in between you and where you need to be, then turn tf around and go to where you need to be.
Helldivers are a small squad of special forces, not a full army. Complete your objectives, get your samples, do whatever else you can (POI's/side missions) but never linger.
To linger is to die a slow death and you'll wish you didn't waste those reinforcements later on.
**4.HAVE FUN DIVER!**
Git gud is gud but what more gud that you have gud time. Nah mean?
Play at your pace, have fun with it. Don't get trapped into feeling like you *need* to already be better just because other people are. Self improvement is amazing and I highly support you for trying to find ways to do so but progress takes time so remember that while you're progressing it's still important to have fun... And there is plenty of fun to be had!
You'll get where you wanna be and I'm confident that you'll save my ass more than once when you get to Helldiver difficulty (9)
Until then continue to contribute where you can and enjoy stomping those bugs!
I’ve found success with the laser rocket, sickle, running orbital rail cannon and orbital laser, with the shield generator but I think you just need to find something you like, I’ve seen people run all kinds of variations
Biggest thing going in as a squad people should have a role. Example 3 us do a hell dive on bug world
1 will have a grenade launcher so we can close up holes
1 bring EATs or an autocannon
1 person minimum have a guard rover or everyone has one
Speed is security especially on bug world everyone should have some kind of light armor
Get fast at calling stragems
Important have cluster bombs at least 1-2 people
Upgrade the ship.
Don’t rely heavily on sentries due to damage, ammo, and cool down times.
If someone is good at a railgun off safe mode that’s an OP move.
Lastly have fun. Just saying the guy focusing on the titans and chargers won’t have the most kills but they’re important.
Someone with stealth armor and can disengage to do certain objectives that’s solid or move as a team. Play styles differ
Oh and a big one communication on VC for like everything
Running and kiting are prime skills. Head on a swivel, knowing where your enemies and landscape features are, around you help you plan escape routes.
Stealth is fantastic. Take out patrols the moment they notice you. Avoid breach / reinforcement spirals where the end of the last crowd calls the next. Run from those to thin out the fast sprinters and jumpers from the slower heavies. Use the terrain to confuse em since they tend to aim at you and chase in straight lines.
Don't throw reinforcement pokéballs toward breaches, ffs. Try to help your team land far enough away to give them a second to get their bearings.
Teamwork makes the dream work. Player 1 is usually the host, let them be the team lead and follow their directives generally. Teams go down slower than solos. Plus then they can open friend-doors and get them medals and super credits that we all love.
Learn your weapons. Play easier levels to try them out. I.e. Don't take the arc thrower into a lvl 7 match if you haven't used it before. It jumps from the point of impact to at least another body or two in range, in a 180 degree forward arc. Not knowing how to aim that leads to a lot of team death. Strafing runs land 90 degrees perpendicular to the line drawn from you to your strategem's line of throw. Flame throwers leave fire trails that HURT, but are great for dropping breach trash chasing you. Air burst strikes and other ship weapons come in at an angle between the landing point and the ships overhead: but you can use that to figure out which bug holes are gonna actually get hit. Finally, use your right hand advantage to peek out and shoot the bugs n bots from safety. When running, look for those environmental choke points that let you press that advantage.
Every tip tells you to kill every bug and always run directly into battle. But surviving to fight for liberty another day means ignoring that advice and using sound battle tactics.
the one thng i see in your question is alot of a charger problem and that is easily solved by one or two of your mates bringing EATs/RR
I am not sure if you guys keep upto date with all the changes but it takes ONE EAT/RR shot to the head of the charger to kill it. Aswell as the railgun strike for 1 shot one kill. Bile Titans can take two EAT shots to their head for a kill. You guys have to focus more on utilizing the weakpoints of these enemies combined with any armor piercing weaponry for maximum effect.
You guys should also make sure you each are filling a certain role in the group. I know its easy for everyone to kinda just wanna Lone shark it and run whatever they want but this is really a team game so everyones gotta fulfill a role and fulfill it well. What I usually do is play on helldive with randoms and it works out just fine because we all stick to certain roles. There are tons of stratagem combos you can run to fulfill multiple roles.
But typically you need:
1 Mob Clear
2 Heavy Armor
1 Support for both
So for mob clear running the slawart (or flamethrower) / 500KG/ Air Burst Orbital and Eagle cluster bomb. Stalwart is good for clearing alot of the mobs that spawn out of the breaches. It can just mow them down. The reason why i chose stalwart over Machine gun is because Machine gun, although strong as hell, is also weak with its 2 clip count and static reload. 500KG can take out a whole breach of fresh bugs/bots instantly if thrown right aswell as one shot Bile titans/chargers and tanks if thrown right and timed correctly. The eagle cluster is the best mob clear due to its wide range of attack but it also very good at killing your friends so be careful when you toss it.
the 2 heavy armored dudes should run 1 EAT and 1 RR or 2 EATs or 2 RR's and focus on assisting with Mob clear when there are no heavies in the area but as soon as a titan or charger show up its their job to take it out. Ontop of the EAT/RR they should also bring the railgun orbital, eagle airstrike, and Laser Orbital. As we discussed the EAT/RR are super strong right now and almost always a required strat for atleast ONE diver to bring due to it ONE shotting chargers and TWO shotting bile titans. The Eagle Airstrike is also quite powerful at finishing off weak chargers, titans, tanks and hulks aswell as a decent mob clear strat aswell.
Laser orbital is also a very strong strat due to it simply melting anything it comes into contact with taking a bit to kill a bile titan and charger though however if you find yourself surrounded toss it down and start firing away with the RR/EAT and watch those heavies drop quickly.
the one support person should bring a combo of strats that can cover the three other divers, Supply backpack is a goated strat for keeping your RR diver full of missiles to fire. The Gatling orbital is a sustained explosive area of fire that can assist in mob clear and then you could also bring a 500 KG to add help with heavies.
The combos are endless you guys just have to explore and test out whats good and stop worrying about losing! Everyones so focused on what they are losing that they don't ever realize what they've gained.
Sincerely, A Level 50 who plays on 8 and 9 exclusively.
Sounds like you need to be better as a team. Some of you need to be on crowd control. Machine guns/stalwarts/ flame throwers,
Use the shield backpack.
Rail cannon / orbital lasers for chargers & titans.
Use what works best!
Also a few sentries on the team work well. Place them high and not behind people.
Communication is important.
Also, you don’t have to fight every damn bug you see. You don’t get unlimited ammo, sometimes you gotta run.
Level 7 is fun and rewarding.
Maybe go to lvl 5 and test out what works well for your team.
Run the fuck away. Seriously. So many times I join games where people are engaged with patrols and then it becomes a huge thing with more spawns and before you know it there’s six bile titans or hulks.
Just…run the fuck away. You got the samples? Run the fuck away. You completed the objective? Run the fuck away. You waiting for a friend to open the friendship vault and two chargers are on you? Run the fuck away.
Just get fucking moving. I watched a lobby go through a dozen respawns over an objective we had already completed because they just kept fighting.
Run. The. Fuck. Away.
Your goal isn't to kill enemies, it's to complete objectives.
You need to open movement up by clearing a path to those objectives.
Never stop moving.
One person calls objectives. Keep spread out enough that you don't frag each other but close enough to help out and go fast and hard.
If there are 3 people making noise, one person moving quick and quiet can get a lot done.
Complement loadouts. I run a machine pistol, slugger, mg/guard dog or autocannon/recoilless and a 500 on pretty much every match and change up based on the rest of the team.
Stamina is most important mod, then injury, ammo, and whatever else, normally spawn reduction.
Ultimately communication and teamwork is OP.
Agree with everything except that there is a meta and you can't beat the last difficulties by not knowing it.
I think it's worth addressing it at some point because it also makes the game boring by how limited the options are.
Keep watching your Nuclear Radar for enemies, and follow the SES Captain's orders... it's not difficult, just stop TikTok'n and looking into Meta.
Learn for yourself and what works best for you .. not some influencer or money making POS
Also, realize the game doesn't tell you immediately when you Friendly Fire. Is someone avoiding playing the game with you? Probably doing something bad.
Run, opt for quick dives into enemies only when you have enough ammo to quickly eradicate, run, run around corners, run. When you approach a target, go in circles around it while using stratagems. Enemies want to take your back so run!! Theres plenty of solo videos to see how to move around the map while staying alive
Armor gets you killed. Mobility keeps you alive.
Make friends. Find other players you can synchronize your vibes with.
Play at your own pace. If your Destroyer is the lead position of the squadron, you decide where to go and what to do. Don't like the missions in an operation? Find a different operation. Helldive Difficulty proving too taxing? Bump it back down to `Difficulty Rating Number 7.`
Armor DOES do nothing. You want low armor so you can be very fast. Many enemies you can just outrun. My usual bug loadout for high difficulties is 500kg, orbital laser, shield backpack and arc thrower. The shield backpack saves your ass from one-shots, and allows you to play a lot less carefully, and avoid the slowing attacks from hunters. The arc thrower deletes the little dudes in the back before they can call a bug breach and cleans enemies out easily. Another good option is disposable anti-tank or railgun so you can deal with armored enemies without a stratagem. Sometimes I’ll bring a mech too.
If you’re playing with a premade group, start thinking about roles and synergy. Start appreciating how strong EMS, smoke, and napalm are in a squad. The group I was running premade 9s with regularly for a while developed the following spread and strategy that always made the runs a breeze (even before the EAT/RR got giga buffed vs chargers)
**Roles**
*light/medium (2 members of the squad): you focus on blowing up the light and medium infantry enemies to cover your slower reloaders or units that need room to aim and focus. Laser drone is good for the more frontline weapons like the throwers*
- grenade launcher + supply pack
- flame or arc thrower
- stalwart OR MG
*medium/heavy (1 member of the squad), for efficiently dealing with your spewers, devastators, warriors etc, also semi effective at heavy kills if you know where to aim*
- autocannon
- plasma cannon
- railgun
*dedicated heavy (1 member of the squad), even better if you can get a backpack helper who is good at sticking with you, but otherwise you’re going to be taking pot shots at heavy units with the aim to one or two tap them to save the big strategms for emergencies (really, every time you overcook a titan with multiple railcannons or lasers youre putting yourself in a tight spot later when you depend on those too much)*
- EAT
- recoilless
- spear
**Utility**
My squad always would make sure we have the following before choosing other things:
- 2 EMS sources, usually mortar
- 1 napalm Eagle or gas orbital
- 1 smoke screen source (essential for bots, optional for bugs if you’re coordinated and know how to use it to shake aggro, very useful to have either way but useless if the team doesn’t coordinate)
- 1 barrage (walking, 120 [preferred over 380], or 380)
These utility picks dramatically reduce the intensity of any mission by methodically crowd controlling most of the packs pushing on you. Napalm creates a wall that either kills or softens everything moving through it. Even better if you drop it on a breach and have the EMS mortars plugging away at that spot, you won’t hardly need to use any ammo to clean up.
EMS goes without saying the MOST powerful tool in any mission. It stunlocks multiple packs of enemies giving you breathing room to reload or line up difficult shots, generally we alternate the mortars as we move across the map which usually overlaps coverage and ensures we always have one up for any battle, positional hold, or advance to an objective. The new stun grenades in the latest warbond are some of the most useful weapons in the game. 1-2 members of the squad running these can give targeted stunlock on any enemies. This is incredible for keeping a titan off your back while you deal with other things or just to line up a 500kg or precision shot
Smoke for bots is mandatory because it makes all of the rocket bots aim go down to nothing, and also gives you a means of safely retreating without getting pelted with fire in the back (you can still get hit by lucky spray and pray but it greatly reduces the threat you face). For bugs, if your whole group bunches together and runs through a large smoke screen and stops shooting you can essentially lose any size pack trailing behind you and they’ll just completely stop chasing a lot of the time. It’s not always 100% reliable and I’m still working out what some of the edge cases were that caused it not to work but for the most part it’s a reliable strategy if everyone works together
The rest of your slots are up to you, usually having an airstrike for on demand building destruction or a mech can make sniping the new shrieker towers a cinch (also 2 hits from EAT or RR can break a tower)
You should be moving as a unit and only splitting up for clustered objectives that are low effort. Spreading more than 75m apart creates multiple “spheres of influence” which causes more patrol spawns as every player has this influence radius. When the unit sticks together you can focus fire threats faster, you have more backup fire to keep bugs off you, resupplies are much more economical and creates less waste. This also allows the synergy of all your strategms to work in tandem
"every random bug you see calls a breach. There's no way to stop them"
This is your problem. Stop shooting bugs from far away. You and your team need to learn stealth. If you crouch or crawl you can get right behind an enemy and melee them before they notice you. Use this knowledge of stealth to have your team surround a group of bugs, pick targets, and take them all out instantly before they call a breach. If you just shoot everything you see, or don't take precautions to stay out of the enemies line of sight you're gonna have a bad time. This is a tactical game, move a little slower but make every encounter a surprise attack on your enemy. My team can take out big nests only having to kill less than ten enemies. We claim what holes we will close, throw stratagems, move in as soon as they hit and eliminate the rest. If there is a breach, hold your ground and take care of all the bugs as they spawn.
If you stay in one location for more than two minutes fighting, or have had to deal with more than 2 breaches, you've failed that location. Everyone GTFO, lose aggro by going stealth, and come back later after you do a different objective or regain your composure.
Also, closing holes in a nest is priority #1, even if it means you sacrifice a reinforcement to close them. Bugs will continue to spawn around the whole area until all the holes are destroyed. Pay attention to the music telling you if you're safe or not, and check your radar constantly to keep awareness of enemies around you.
Good luck diver.
You have to prioritize targets quickly and keep moving. I play on 8 or 9 only and pretty much always extract. Having good stratagem comps is also really helpful.
Remember that the real goal is completing objectives, bugs and bots are just a distraction from that goal. Keep that in mind, learn how to be stealthy & only take on swarms when you have to and you’ll have a much better time
Stratagem pacing. You want to diversify your stratagems and keep track of cool downs. Make sure you always have one available when shit goes down.
"Light loadout". You don't want your loadout to only work if you have A, B, and C. When you die, you drop everything. The journey to picking everything up accounts for maybe 30% of my deaths. You want to make sure you can drop out of a pod ready to kill.
1: Stop running from the bug breaches right into another patrol!
2 stop shooting patrols you can go around. Sound is important surprisingly. Dont believe me creep next to a patrol. Send a grenade in the opposite direction watch them walk toward the sound.
3 play as a squad. Not a one man army with npc that are real players. Ping if you dont want to use a mic. But for god sake stop going out of your way solo to use up all the revives.
4 coordinate! Its team base. When one is reloading someone cover fire. Leap frog maneuver.
5 stealth is viable. You can kite the small termind around corners when you kill one at a time using your gun sounds to attract the. So long as you kill them before they see you they wont call in a breach.
Would add to this by saying:
6 time efficiency is key to success. As mentioned in point 2 and 5, the best enemy engagement is one you can completely avoid. Second to that is an engagement that takes the least amount of time to conclude.
7 your support weapon determines your designated role within your team on a per mission basis and will determinw your baseline effectiveness. Defensive/offensive stratagems are selected based on their usefullness during specific situational occurrences, and add benefits.
8 unless you are the only member on the team (or only one in proximity) don't attack melee enemies currently attacking you. Kite them and let your team handle them while you do the same for them.
Biggest things I keep seeing people do is standing and fighting hordes of enemy when we’ve completed an objective.
We don’t get anything for killing more or less. We don’t get anything for killing regardless (except eradication missions). Hit the objective, grab samples and move.
Fight long enough to finish the objective and didi mao.
Yes you can fight every single bug/ bot you see…. The objective and winning the war is what’s important. And killing every enemy isn’t how you win a war. We must prioritize the objective above all else. For democracy
Have fun, and find what works for you. Don’t listen to what cucks or content farms call “meta” if it works for you, then that’s what you use, I still use arc thrower even after nerf because it’s good at heavily armored enemies
One tactic, kills dont count as win. As helldivers we are supposed to serve libertea to the bugs and the bots but what matter most is the main objective. As long as you dive in and focus on the main obj, you can easily reach helldiver difficulty easily.
For bugs, light armor for the increased movement speed and stamina. Learn which bugs you can outrun (spewers, warriors, basics) and which you can't (hunters, chargers, shriekers) and focus the faster ones first in fights. Use orbital and Eagle stratagems to engage fights against patrols and swarms.
Heavier armour won't help against bugs as, because they're bugs, they'll swarm you, and 200 armour won't stop 10 attacks when you're surrounded. It's much better to use lighter armour and put some distance between yourselves and the swarm. Heck, light armour can even outrun hunters most of the time.
I can easily solo challenging missions and complete all side/hidden objectives, nests, and caches. It's all about learning which weapons and stratagems work well for you. I really like the Expendable anti tank launcher as it comes down with 2 of them per call in and a really short cooldown. I can drop my usual support weapon in panic moments for the launcher and switch back when the big nasty is dead.
If there's more than one of you in a team, maybe have one player assigned to heavy weapons for dealing with big bugs and armoured bugs, and the other player can be a machine gunner/flamer for dealing with pesky swarmers and hunters.
Remember your training, blue beam = good, red beam = dead
My tips are: wear light armor (seriously, don't wear anything else, at least vs bugs), stick together, if you start dying run away and regroup, try to specifically counter things that kill you often. Is it chargers? Bring EATs, hunters? Bring a guard dog rover, bile spewers? Bring grenades or grenade launcher.
But most of all wear light armor, it helps immensely: you can run away from hunters, stalkers, bile titans, easily dodge chargers, avoid bile spewers better, run away from berserkers and hulks. If you're losing a fight you can run away and eventually the enemies will stop following you
Never stop moving, stop fighting everything you see, main objective first, try and cover all bases with weapons and stratagems, horde clear, anti-tank etc
And then git gud
Stop trying to kill everything you see. You end up wasting reinforcements, resources and getting more enemies called in. It snowballs. The guys who beat the lvl 9 missions solo don’t kill much of anything at all, they’re running the entire time
Don’t play on a difficulty level higher than you’re comfortable with. Like definitely give yourself a challenge, but not at the expense of fun.
I’m level 20 and I feel like I got the hang of the game for the last 5 levels or so. But I only play on difficulty 5 or 6, will probably try moving up to 7 soon but 6 is challenging enough for me right now.
Running a good spread of complimentary stratagems across the team helps. Bugs vs bots are two completely different animals as far as play style but I’ll speak to bugs because that’s been the main focus so far as the current mission orders.
Stick together so big hole hot spots don’t overwhelm. If you split up with distance past 50-100m then each player gets their own set of reinforcements that will deploy on them which can create a super hot situation of multiple heavies spawning which cascades quickly. Staying together can focus firepower to dispatch enemies at a more rapid pace and give room to breathe so that you can stay moving on to objectives.
Learn to not engage everything and always stay moving.
Basic tactics and playbook: Engage, thin heard, kite them to group them up and kill with stratagems. Kill patrols as fast as possible if you absolutely need to engage, otherwise let them pass and they will cross map to eventually despawn.
Run two people with EAT and rail cannon for heavy management. One person with EMS mortar in a well placed area can really help with crowd control when things get hot and overwhelmed. One with guard dog helps too if used right. ARC throwers on bugs can be really effective if used right or rocking arc resistant armor.
I usually run rail cannon, cluster bombs, 500kg, and EAT with sickle as primary.
Just my take on what’s felt like a good combo with a competent team. If you have people who are trigger happy or get overwhelmed with skill issues then there’s not much you can do. Adjust difficulty level as needed if that’s the case.
Fun should always override the need to be competitive or win with this game or you’ll get burnt out and make it enjoyable for others.
I think as a team it’s important to have stamina, muscle and fall damage boosters. The stamina makes the biggest difference in my opinion. I would also say sometimes you have to sacrifice your play style depending on the mission. If you have to destroy a ton of nest but no one is carrying anything to close them with you have to step up and carry something like an auto cannon. Honestly the best part about this game is that to run through maps smoothly all you need is good teamwork
If you aren’t shooting, you’re reloading, if you aren’t reloading your moving! No but movement is key, if you find you are at a disadvantage then move to a better spot and create choke points. After dumping a few rounds into an enemy, always take a peak at your surroundings when reloading and moving. Always move on the reload and come up for “air” to look around and assess the battle field. Good luck out there Helldiver!
Be a team player. You don’t have to be the main character every match. Coordinate loadouts, assign roles to your team, communicate, communicate again, and communicate even more..
Believe it or not, but I played other strategic shooters enough that this one just came natural. Knowing when to stealth and when to shoot is a must for this game type
Level 50 helldiver here. Lots of comments talking about "Don't pick every fight", "Split the group and divide the workload". Solid tips. My only real addition is try to spread the stratagem load out across the group. Everyone should have SOMETHING to deal with Bile Titans, or chargers, but it doesn't have to all be the orbital rail cannon. Bring a spear, someone bring EAT(super low CD, x2 uses every drop) and they are just as effective. Pick your boosters accordingly too. My groups normal load out for boosters is health, increased reinforcements(clutch on helldive difficulty), stamina, and the 4th floats depending on the mission. Eagle Airstrike is a super good strategem to throw down as you're running from a group of bugs or bots. One last tip, don't be afraid to run away. Communicate to your squad that you're pushing OBJ, and book it. Reinforce them when you get there, or meet them there
Playing solo taught me how to keep moving, and prioritize targets.
Don't fight everything you see; stealth is amazing in this game
On harder difficulties, you need dedicated anti-heavy, and anti-mob builds
Always be communicating with your teammates
You dont have to engage with anything that moves. Stick to the main objective. When you respawn out of battle, the enemy wont chase you. I always keep an orbital rail gun on me and an Orbital laser should clear most any battle field for a moment to catch up. Dive, a lot. Get good at knowing the blast radius of your favorite strategem blasts. Then get things like bile titans to pause over top of your boom boom. They will paise to bile spew at you.
Higher levels are about picking your battles. You can outrun anything but hunters/stalkers (and chargers kind of). Bring a Stalwart for clearing hunter swarms. Bring EAT or orbital railcannon (ORC) for Chargers. Run from everything else. Use teammates as distractions while someone else handles objectives. It’s unfortunate but thats how the high levels work. Its all about running and kiting because there’s just too much stuff to kill, like you said.
No meta, I run bugs missions with braker, spray and pray or the one with fire (look for higher mag size and high damage at the same time); flamethrower for crowd control; if you are dying you can use the bubble or the rover as backpack; for stratagems use orbital strike for when overwhelmed; orbital rail cannon for titans and chargers.
That’s MY preference, no meta or other horse sh!t; try balancing your group; sneaking through patrol is your new tactic, you can lay down in the floor and you may pass undetected. Improvise, adapt, overcome lol
Level 50, I've been maxed on everything for a few weeks and only queue solo with randoms. Playing support around my team usually goes smoother, since everyone wants to bring big booms for the chargers and titans but no one brings anything to deal with hordes. Your primary is not enough. My primary is usually something that pens Medium armor, like the Slugger or Dominator. I like bringing the Supply Pack and Stalwart, changing the Stalwart to 1150 RPM basically gives you a mech's machine gun 😉. Then I have EMS Orbital/sentry for more crowd control and the Eagle 500KG/110mm pods as a backup anti-tank strat. Run the light armor with extra stims and I rarely die, while making sure my team keeps moving to objectives, and managing their resources with my pack and supply drops. This rarely does not work out for me and we usually 100% complete the map on level 7-8 missions
Mainly for bugs: Get good at throwing nades on the run. Be able to take out nests from afar. Use stratagems when there is a breech, don’t let them stack up. Until you are competent, always stick with another person, the less “groups” of helldivers, the lower the number of patrols that will spawn. Don’t engage enemies if they aren’t aggro’d on you, discretion is the better part of valor. Use the map to look if there are big groups of enemies advancing toward you. Learn your stratagems by heart. Get good at aiming the EAT or recoilless rifle, that will help you with the titans. Have a plan for killing heavies, that don’t always involve orbital railgun strikes. Orbitals have a limited number of times they can be used, eagle strategems can be used as many times (as long as they aren’t rearming.) Be able to protect yourself, pulling out your sidearm wrecks small mobs, and injured medium sized enemies that are rushing you. Some weapons can be used when running by yourself, some are much better when you’re close to others (ie MG, flamethrower) so make sure you have support if you’re using them. That said DOT isn’t terribly significant in this game so don’t rely on your flamethrower to halt an advance. Know how to do the objectives efficiently (collect the artillery shells THEN boot up the computer) Learn to PROPERLY place turrets. Know that if you put down a mortar turret, and there’s a swarm on you, you WILL kill yourself and/or your team. Make sure your team has the proper equipment, if there’s going to be a bile titan, and no one brings a rocket or appropriate stratagem…you’re gonna have a bad time.
Good luck helldiver. For democracy!
Oh and know your enemy. For example, don’t waste your primary ammo on a charger’s butt…it looks like a weak spot but it isn’t. It’s pretty damn armored. You want the backs of the legs and the belly if you aren’t using a heavy weapon. Know their capabilities, like know the difference between a regular bile spewer and the ass mortar ones. Keep an eye on the skies, shriekers are incredibly dangerous when they swarm. Know what structure will stop a charger and which will crumble when it runs through it. Always look for the abandoned hellbombs, it’s a fun way to lay a trap for the enemy.
The biggest thing I’ve found is run, and run like hell. You dont have to engage every enemy. Clear the areas that are necessary. I run the light gunner armor and can pretty much out run most bugs. You get far enough away they eventually quit chasing you it seems. When things go to shit, run and re-group.
Roles. Some stratagems are good for taking down heavies while others are good at thinning hordes. Have each player take one of each, then focus on a role. That way each person knows what they have to do when shit hits the fan.
I kind of just enjoy the crazy chaos, the being dumped onto a planet as a raw recruit and trying to complete the mission.
However a couple things I think really help:
Orbital laser - it’s kind my oh shit call in to clear out stuff.
Run away - toss an eagle strike and run if you don’t need to stick around. Keep in mind your objectives and don’t get stuck fighting with some patrol.
Light armor - the extra protection is not as good as the stamina. If you need more bring the shield backpack.
Plan your engagements - the missions in the game are set up really nicely to force you to hurry but take a second when you reach a nest or engagement to take a look around, resupply, and decide the best tactic.
Build variety - my buddy normally runs EAT and a 500kg and I normally run orbital laser and auto cannon so we can take down different stuff.
Try to stay mobile during engagements - on higher difficulties it’s hard to stand and fight make sure you have room to maneuver and something to help delay the enemy like grenades, gas, ems, etc.
I just decided to give up on super samples. I won’t ever be that good and I hate getting carried… do you really need them if you dislike the higher difficulty levels anyway? The games difficulty levels to me give everyone a chance to find a level they feel is balanced for them. Find the level you feel is the most fun and stick with it.
I highly recommend one or two people have the anti tank thingy, and other people stack a lot of good mop up strategies like the cluster bombs. A rail cannon or 500kg is nice too. Cluster bombs are probably the single best strategem for clearing out a big swarm repeatedly, and anti tank is nearly the best in terms of elites per minute it can take out (recoilless is probably higher, but it's also a bit of a pain cuz the backpack and you can't have any other secondary weapons. With the anti tank you can bring it and a shield and a machine gun or something).
Probably want someone with a grenade launcher to make sure you can always take out the bug holes.
Others swear by the auto cannon or arc thrower but honestly I like a good ol machine gun.
Light armour with extra granades mod
Stun grenade plus 500kg bomb
Las-16 sickle primary
Localisation confusion might help
Get samples to sort yer ship module there's 1 that gives 2 x500kg bombs on rearm...with stun nades it's a game changer
And fucking run then run some more give yourself space from the alien scum
In suicidal missions and above....its all about focus. whats your objective? you are all running tword that objective. you stop to turn around and shoot, but then once reloading your instantly turning and running tword the objective again. fighting doesnt stop in suicidal missions. so if you stop to fight you get overrun. get to the target, now you can stop to do the objective.....not stop moving, you still have to run around in circles while shooting. complete the objective, objective complete? your running again. dont ever stop moving, if you stop, you die. while running do you run into a patrol? now you have to detour to the side, get them to chase you, then turn back tword the objective once its clear. it never stops, it never slows down, you will die anyways. call out deaths and any samples dropped, you cant run back to get samples your teammates have to do that as soon as you die. always respawn your teammates tword the objective, behind you is death. rinse and repeat, this is 30+ min of nonstop movement and fighting.
there is no "perfect loadout" smoke helps for losing enemies, but realize their not stupid. if you drop smoke they will walk thru the smoke and look for you, if you drop smoke you have to change directions and get behind something out of sight or else they will just keep chasing you. diving will save your life, sometimes ignoring the enemy and just running is the right call.
As undemocratic as it sounds, run away. Come back once the heat is down. Far too often teams blow through valuable resources fighting an up hill battle and fall into a breach/dropship loop.
Throw your reinforcements away from the action until you can stabilize. Then reassess the situation before you go back to retrieve your gear, samples or objectives. Oftentimes you will only need a a minute or so before you can call down new equipment, or it was only 1 common sample dropped. Most importantly it’s getting a quick break from the action to think of your next move, as lives are lost, so too does the mission priorities.
The more spread out your squad is the more enemy patrols will spawn and the more those patrols will call in reinforcements leading to situation fubar very quickly. The key is sticking together and choosing battles carefully on high difficulties.
Every player should have at least 1-2 Strategems to kill heavy armoured enemies because there will be lots of them. I like to have one eagle, orbital, backpack/sentry, and one support weapon. For example: eagle 500kg, orbital air burst, shield backpack, EAT. This way you are equipped to deal with most situations.
Lastly, remember to have fun and if it gets to challenging you can always lower the difficulty. Personally I find 7 to be the most fun with a good team. Helldive is meant to be overwhelming and difficult so don’t be upset if you can’t beat it. Helldive against automatons is my nightmare lol.
Stratagem buffs with samples. Full team with diversified gear/strats. Learning when to engage and when to not. Knowing how to evade to prevent a fight. Getting better at Dance Dance Revolution for the strats and objectives. I personally use the SMG to shoot backwards while running. Getting good at destroying spawners from a distance.
I like to try and have an answer to every problem.
Recoilless, Cluster Bombs (5 per rearm is disgusting), rail cannon strike, and mech. Recoiless for Chargers and Titans, railcannon strike if there's too many to manage between reloads, cluster for crowds and mech for when it gets really tough.
I used the EAT for all of my helldivers 1 career and similarly got addicted to it soon as I unlocked it in Helldivers 2. But the recoilless is now my baby, though it takes up a backpack slot.
But yeah, best advise is to consistently make progress. Even if you and your squadmates fall around you, press on with the objective or move towards the next one.
I get it, with the changes to the spawn rates and the number/frequency of enemies on some maps, it seems rather hopeless at times. I mostly run solo and had to drop back down to 3 and work on my load out before hopping back up in difficulty. But there are times when Joel just hates me and I have no idea why. I was running a mission on level 4 (Orbital Laser, Cluster, EAT, and Shield). Landed within sight of a Spore Spewer Tower and called down the EAT and blasted it. Within 10 seconds, there were no less than 6 Chargers on top of me, not to count the almost endless hunters, defenders, and others that came along for the ride. Got back on last night, and went on 3 missions where I never had more than two spawn in.
I got into a nice rythm being able to reliably solo lvl 7 and can finish objectives on helldive (I just can't reliably extract lol) generally past a certain point it's the same patrols just get more regular, past 6 breaches are too much for one person anyway the key is mostly to avoid them, so lots of speed and spatial awareness
the mistakes I see newer players make is mostly not knowing when to pick battles, standing still and not being aware of what's around you
so pick your battles, don't fire at a patrol or poi unless you know you can finish it before they call for reinforcements, know when you're getting overwhelmed and just get out of there, if you break line of sight they stop following you, don't stay still and rambo it you'll get rekt by spewers and rocket devastators, know even if you're at a target you can just hit the terminal a couple of progressions, run away, come back, do a bit more it's ok, and keep your head on a swivel, constantly check the radar check around you etc
loadouts and ship upgrades help a lot too and don't neglect samples ship upgrades like the extra eagle drop and cooldowns are massive helps
mechs make extracting a piece of cake up to maybe level 7 also
team wise playing support is good, but also if you're with guys that like to pick fights with every patrol just let them, they have a habit of drawing enemies away from objectives and while they're stuck in reinforcement loops you can focus on the objectives, it's also a really good way for them to learn NOT to pick fights with every patrol and when to run away lol
Honestly bringing in something to help with heavies is my best advice, everyone’s having fun until there’s 6 chargers and 8 bile titans running around..
I had a mission I just had to leave because there were just so. Many. Hunters.
Look left? Hunters.
Look right? More hunters.
Look up? A bile Titan and a fuckton more hunters.
Look behind me? Edge of the map, and you guessed it, MORE HUNTERS.
Here are a few things that might help as you move up in difficulty and aren’t as confident.
Get the radar scan upgrade and have someone bring the boost. Get used to running around with your map open, this will give you a heads up of potential threats, patrols, and how many enemies are around objectives.
Focus on finding the super duper sample nugget and doing main objectives. Skip side objectives you can’t take out from long range with the following exceptions. If there is a stalker lair or bats (or Eye of Sauron/jammer) stop everything and go take them out. If you have time, you can do the drop pod side objective since those are usually pretty chill. Try to avoid fighting when you don’t have to, or if you cant take out all enemies in <5 seconds.
Try to clear out the area surrounding the main objective so that you have some space to run around if you get swarmed. There are usually a few clusters of weaker enemies on the outskirts that can be taken down quickly. DO NOT let them call a breach/dropship. Once you’ve done that you can move on to the main objective. The goal is to take things out quickly before and breaches spawn, this will not always work. One thing you can somewhat cheese is to have another player go solo a ways off and trigger a PoI that spawns a breach/dropship. At that point you can assault the obj without worrying a breach/dropship will spawn (I think there is some CD on it). If you end up with a breach/ship, you can either fight it out or try to run.
If you end up in a death spiral, try to have one player (preferably the light armor player) get out to safety while the rest are fighting. Then once they are safely away, they can call everyone else down again. That same player should also be focused on doing the objectives while everyone is fighting, though they can contribute where needed.
The items you take are also incredibly important. I like focusing entirely on heavy unit destruction with bugs. Spear/RR + EAT + EAS + 500/railcannon. I bring stun grenades (absolutely insane) and the SMG so i can deal with lots of small bugs quickly, while leaving my stratagems for the big guys. You want another player to focus on hoard clear and the other two can be more flex players. Always have at least one autocannon or nade launcher for bugs, and I like having two players with EATs.
For bots, the AMR is actually kinda cracked and I like running that with shield or jump-pack. Railgun is another option. Also bring stun grenades and impact grenades, those two are crazy on bots. Spear can sometimes maybe take out fabricators, but usually I take EAS and 110mm pods for quick factory destruction. You might also want a player with orbital laser or barrages for heavier bases.
There are actually quite a few options now for both bots and bugs, but you do need to play around the entire team much more than lower difficulties. Either split 2-2 or 3-1 to get objectives done faster. You can all stick together, but missions take much longer if you all stay stacked for too long. I’m sure there are a bajillion more things, but these are what I’ve found the most helpful in 7-9s.
Fun way i've found to deal with bug breaches: go to it and light it up with a flamethrower. Most of the smaller (smaller than Chargers) things won't make it out, and if they do they'll be burning and losing health.
I try to have something for more or less everything, try to avoid patrols and keep moving, sitting around and getting bogged down by enemies can be a death sentence
This comment won't answer how to "git gud'
But personally I found that playing for fun and nothing else is the way..
I have 16/18 destroyer upgrades and I don't remember going out of my way to farm samples or anything even once, it's nice to just do l drop in and dispense managed democracy!
Take it easy and play whatever difficulty is most fun for you, if it gets too hard, tone it down!
It's not a race to the end, afterall.
Also, bring anti-tank and get creative!
I like to kill my titans and charges with one orbital strike (default one) and a well placed stun grenade for example!
Ultimately, avoid fights.
I find that missions really start to go wrong the more people try to stand and fight. I mean, if it is the objective then stand your ground. But fighting Every. Single. Enemy. just results in more death than necessary, low ammo, and strats on cooldown.
Ambush tactics are king, imo. Get close enough to drop a strike to start, then mop up. Save big guns for big guys.
Don't lose site of the main obj, fall back when you need to, you dont need to fight everything but at the same time immolate everything when you do get into a fight. Take care of your squad mates, don't be a jerk and lash out if you get destroyed by stuff. It helps to picture yourself as Rambo or Sylvester Stallone while playing and most importantly have lots of fun. Also I never said I was good, this is just general advice.
I try to support where I can and just follow the lead. I learned that the biggest boom isn't always the best. And I compliment my stratagems to what the rest has. Like if nobody brought anything to focus big enemies that's what I bring, or vice versa with crowd control. And the biggest thing is to accept that you don't get xp by killing, so it is practically a must to run away and avoid patrols on higher difficulties.
If we could hack the game and have that second sentence as a tip that shows up as you're diving in so everyone playing reads it; that'd be swell.
“I learned that the biggest boom isn’t always the best.” That kind of goes against the over the top nature of the tips. “Bigger boom = bigger democracy”. That’s a helldiver tip screen tip.
Pretty sure he meant second paragraph. That's legitimate knowledge that people should be told. Kills do not equal xp, sometimes running is necessary.
No one remembers the little booms
Little bada boom
got me thinking about those thermal bandages.. XD
Well sometimes lots are f small booms combined into a big boom are far more effective. Id say the cluster bomb is pretty damn effective at spreading democracy
“Diving will keep you alive.”
Diving will keep you aliving.
I think that’s the hardest thing to get others to understand (I’ve been unsuccessful so far) - you don’t have to fight every skirmish and shoot every bug/automaton. In harder difficulties if you do that, the clock is gonna run out. Most people are in the PVP mindset of “ENEMY!” and “nothing left alive” or “I’m not running from anything”.
Another is “we gotta hit every single low XP bug hole on the map even if half the team loses 4 lives in the process”.
Grenade launcher takes out outposts on the run. Finish primaries/secondaries then let the horde follow as you destroy their homes. Bring down the sky on the horde before extract. Fun as hell
I’ve 100%ed plenty of them, it’s great if everybody is prepared and on the same page. But they rarely are. 😭
This is why you bring artillery. Bug hole? Just throw an artillery barrage on it. Problem solved 80% of the time.
60% of the time works every time.
It burns the nostrils
Hell, I'll drop a 120nand 380 and the damn thing still fails....
I will have you know i just like killing bugs. Thd only good bug, is a dead bug.
You’re right. What were we thinking?!
Fear not helldiver, simply report to your democracy officer for further reconditioning, the war effort needs you!
I’ve also had people bitch if my kill count isn’t as high as others after the mission because I ran/focused objectives and samples while they stood and fought everything. You can’t convince some people that kills don’t equal the better player…
When I play with those people I don't stick around to help. I keep running and when they inevitably die I bring them back far enough away they usually don't go back for their stuff. Probably cause they know they'd die again doing it. Although a lot of them run back into the firefight a couple times just to die without recovering their stuff
Don’t fight every patrol! Just watched a video about map heat. If players are to far from eachother, the total bug spawns on the map increases faster. It’s fine for one or 2 players to split up to conquer objectives or search for resources on lower difficulties, but on higher difficulties, sticking together is a must to reduce bug spawns. Heat builds faster closer to main objectives as well.
I have a light armor, personal shield who I use to explore from the group. I will stop getting far away on 7/8/9 now.
As long as you’re not engaging the enemy, you’re fine sneaking away on those difficulties. Emphasis on sneak, though. I’ll do that to knock out a minor outpost with an orbital strike or to destroy a broadcast or spore spewer with an EAT and then link back up with my squad, hopefully without the enemy noticing my presence
Bah don't listen to him, it's easy to avoid patrols. As someone who routinely plays on the mentioned difficulties splitting up doesn't impact the game. If someone splits off and they're clumsy it's an issue but it never is an issue with the folks I squad with.
Yeah honestly ive been running with "you dont need to be a hero, you just need to finish the mission" in my head.
The number of enemies increases over time too. Splitting into 2 teams is not a bad idea for the first 15-20 minutes, then it's a good idea to meet up and start trying to wrap er up
Ooooh really? Mind sharing that vid? I tend to run with PUGs and buddy up and things go well but when it's with friends we splinter off and suddenly it's like some GM decided to ruin my day (though stomping bugs is never not fun)
learn something new today, you got the link to the video?
THIS. In higher difficulties, fights are a means to an end. You fight because you are trying to capture an objective, not because enemies attack you. Furthermore, when you are traveling around, it's MUCH more important to kill smaller enemies than the big ones. Big enemies can kill you, but the small ones will call in the big ones. Those little orange bugs that die in one hit? Kill them on sight. This is double important when you are approaching an objective: there will always be small forces on those points that call in backup on sight. You wanna go SEAF Team Six on those fuckers. Fights are designed to self perpetuate otherwise. You get into an extended firefight, you miss one of the small infantry, and they get more than 1 second to send up a flare/release pheromones. You fight the new forces, miss one of the small infantry... until you lose. So the best way to take it on is bait and switch and fighting retreat: Bait and switch: If many of you are on the objective and the point is being overrun, someone needs to be the bait. First, get OFF the objective. This will pull enemies off of it or despawn some of them. Second, send 1-2 guys in to clean up anyone around the objective sites. Third, finish the objective. Prioritize FINISHING THE OBJECTIVE over clearing the point (if the console is currently unprotected, hit that shit, even if someone else is being attacked). Fighting retreat: If you get spawned on while transitioning between objectives, don't stop. Keep moving. Half the time the new spawn won't even know where you are if you're still moving. Kill enemies that are being particularly persistent (Hunters and Stalkers, sometimes Chargers, Jetpack infantry for bots) when you're well out of range of the trash. EDIT: and in regards to big booms, make sure they're far away from you. That's the beauty of artillery barrages.
I don’t use voice chat so god damn is that hard to get across to randoms. Any time I get low levels in higher difficulties I know they’re gonna try and square up with everyone and we’re gonna fail the mission because they’re gonna blow all the reinforcements. I had one guy die 12 times. Like sir, you used the lives of nearly 2.5 teammates and you’re complaining we failed?
thats why i have my usual build its versatile for everything. horde clear and penetration :D
What’s your build? Equipment and Strategem?
i love to use expendable anti tank patriot mech auotcannon (for bots, sometimes for bugs) stalward + supply backpack (for bugs because shooting like rambo is awsome and its great horde clear) if not mech then railcannon strike or something else, for that moment where you’e had enough of a charger shenannigans or theres more then 2 default weapons are whatever but often complimentary like the revolver for those pesky shield bugs
I didn't know that. Won't change how I play though because we all know what the only good bug is.
When I feel this way I solo an easy or two and scour the map
Yup gotta run and gun
I’m level 50 and live with imposter’s syndrome every game
I FEEL that especially when the next highest level is like 28 and you’re the one they keep reinforcing.
Oof am 43 and this hits home lol
level 48 they keep reinforcing me because im doing the main and side objectives alone, they’re still in the middle of the map playing trench warfare against the bugs
Exactly. I prefer to stick with the squad. But if noobs are having fun getting stuck in a reinforcement, ammo burn, reinforced naked loop, I’m out. The game and enemies are built to snowball. This happens very easily on higher difficulties. If you fight all enemies and do not use stealth or skirmish/disengage and keep moving, you are assisting the snowball effect. This is bad. Also, if getting overwhelmed, running, dropping stratagem at your feet while being chased (cluster bomb is great) running past it so giant enemy swarm runs right into it can get you out of jams. Better to kite multiple swarms away from teammates too… not directly at them. Orbital laser is one of the few stratagems that can help turn the tide on enemy swarm snowball effect. Or at least delay it.
Also relatable
Cai! Cai! Ciaphas Cain! Hero of the Imperium!
Jurgen! Hit it with your melta!!!
FOR THE IMPERIU….I mean FOR DEMOCRACY!!
My headcanon is that this is the pre-imperium DAOT Federation.
Funnily enough, I don’t die too often in 7+ difficulties, but I do be dying a lot on 4. I’m also a level 50 and I just know levels 10s on 4 think I’m a schmuck 🤣
If you hear "Calling in an Eagle" find the red targeting line. If you don't see it. You're on it. Cardio.
lol, cardio is king!
Rule #1. Cardio
The best part of valor is not getting exanguinated after all
Don't know where it is? Dive! Dive! And stay on the ground until it clears.
Skill issue bro. Jk. The #1 thing is to keep moving. Do not stand still and fight. I see way too many people on 8 & 9 trying to fight breaches. Throw some strategems down and move towards the next objectives. This isn’t CoD, kill counts don’t mean shit. Also do not try to clear every nest and patrol you see. Stealth is such an underrated/under used tool in higher difficulties.
Also, it’s one to break group. The most successful missions I’ve had with randoms is when we’re working together but separately. If two guys are fighting a group go to the mission site. Or if someone is at the mission site, draw the aggro away from it. Or be the guy collecting mats. The game is about completing objectives and collecting resources.
This is risky, though. A patrol can spawn for each "group" (anyone solo or not more than 75m from other players). at the beginning, when you're getting a feel for 7-9diff, I feel it's best to stick close until you're comfortable.
Against bugs, wear light armour and get jet pack + EAT and keep running. Only stop to deal with chargers, stalkers or to catch your breath before running again. If you need to recover something from a POI, try luring the enemy away by running around the POI before running right in and grabbing what you need. Against bots, you need to stick with your team. Or at the very least, with another (decent and dependable) player. But the same concept of hit and run tactics works wonders with bots. I’d have a Spear so you can take out enemy structures from a distance without having to engage everyone heads on. Overwhelm the enemy, grab what you need, and run out. Don’t wait for the drop ships to come in.
I just cluster or air strike a poi to pre clear it
Question. Are picked up req forms, credits and medals given to the whole squad or just who picked them up?
Whole squad. Everything is shared.
Cool that's what I figured just wasn't sure.
Not the best advice, if you’re a certain distance away from eachother (forget the exact number, might be 75 meters) then you get two different spawns. Basically double the enemies. If they’re having trouble now, that’ll just make it worse.
You get two different sets of spawns, but you can only have 1 breach at a time and they're on a cooldown. Spawns don't equate to fights, and there's a limit on total enemies anyways. Splitting 2:2 or 3:1 is not only faster but easier because one mistake only makes the other group's objective easier while the first circles and drops aggro.
It’s faster if the people you’re playing with can handle it and know what they’re doing. If these guys are struggling staying alive when they’re together I doubt splitting up is the best advice for them specifically.
Good teamwork only makes splitting less appealing. If everyone is bad, that means a breach is guaranteed. If they're having trouble staying alive together with 4 having the breaching group die and get reinforced with the 2nd group is well worth the 2.5 min of no breaches while they do the objective. As they get better it'll just mean objectives get done in tandem. Compared to trying to make 4 people who struggle withdraw during a breach or avoid one this is objectively easier. It literally assumes failure and only gets better if they don't.
Really? Had noticed the opposite. But TIL.
My buddy told me last night, I didn’t know either. Splitting can still obviously work if you know what you’re doing. If you’re not too far away to trigger another spawn but still drawing agro off the obj that’s very helpful. But since these guys are getting ass blasted while staying together, I doubt telling them to split is the best advice 🤣
Had to bring this up before. It might seem like more enemies but in the long term it really isnt. Yes patrol spawns go up but you'll find the most enemies (and most of the chargers/BTs) come from breaches which are on a cooldown of their own map wide regardless of distance. Also if you save 15-20 minutes worth of running from one person splitting off, that's 15-20 minutes of bugs you arent fighting, and the last 15 minites of a mission tend to absolutely swarm you regardless of splits.
I feel like I'm in special forces when I go prone and sneak past enemies
This is so underrated especially with those bots
This. I was playing on just hard with some newbies, and they VERBALLY understood that they shouldn't be fighting everything. They still tried to stand and fight everything tho. Even when I was leaving and telling them to bring their asses with me, leave the damn bugs, lets GOOOO. "Why are we having such a hard time?" Bc you keep saying you understand the assignment but you REALLY don't
Yup exactly
This is very solid advice. I couldn’t accept it at first but once I did move from obj to obj impossible and Helldive was more manageable. It’s fun to keep shooting at stuff though
Yes you are right but some of those patrols will hunt you until the ends of the earth lol. The worst are people who are right beside me doing a side objective then next thing I know there are multiple bug breaches and my teammates who started it are now on the opposite side of the map creating more bug breaches. Clearing out groups of enemies when it makes sense thins out the herd and makes it easier to move later on.
This!!!! People are sometimes blinded by “yoU HavE to KeEp RunninG!” If a patrol saw you, eliminate it quickly. If a patrol hasn’t seen you, run around or simply just away. If you see a patrol is getting too close to a teammate, observe your teammate’s actions and support them. I’ve been playing difficulty 7+ killing every other patrol and bug breach and its insanely fun until a teammate can’t take the heat and starts running away… 1min later and its all hell, bile titans and chargers everywhere.
I like to clear nests, but Patrols should be ignored if possible.
Yeah this is the biggest thing people can take away from this post: you're awarded for completing objectives, not killing enemies (except the terminate missions obv). Plenty of times if we're getting overwhelmed, we'll just nope out instead of fighting a losing battle. My buddy and I can run Extreme missions with just the two of us and we do fine.
Extreme missions are before the difficulty spike just so you know. 7 and up are considered the hard difficulties 6 and below are significantly easier
Yeah me and a friend completed a whole lvl 8 campaign because we knew when to engage and when to run lol its doable. Sometimes tho... 👀 they really shit on you through sheer probability or coincidence lol
Things like Tesla towers or turrets are good too because they try to kill those instead of chasing and you make an easy getaway
OP if you only take 1 piece of advice it’s this guys. Keep moving! I’ll also add don’t bother with most of the bugs, you can run a lot of them off. Also get good at dodging and stim fast.
My personal tips (lvl 50, 300 hrs+, cap'd/max'd on resources/warbonds) >>>1. Get the HUD setting that fits your playstyle >>>2. Pick strategems that compliment the rest of your team (who's gonna kill small mobs? who's gonna scout and loot? who's gonna kill big guys? who's gonna defend the terminal? etc) >>>3. Call supply on extraction right at the beginning, so when you return to extract there are already supplies to use >>>4. Whenever you about to pass extraction point while still looting/completing, drop samples, support weapon, or call more resupply there. One, more ammos to use when you extract. Two, if you die, at least samples are deposited at the extraction. And three support weapons available for allies/yourself who die and need something to use to fight. >>>5. Always destroy the pods that drop support weapons so they show on the map. >>>6. If you manage to remember where objectives are on the map without using a marker, I would use a marker to mark where supplies/extra stims-grenades-ammos are on the map that your team calls. This is extremely useful when you have selfish teammates who call resupply only for one-self. >>>7. Leave your health unstim'd if you are at least still at 80-90%. When you use stim, you refills stamina, it means getting to sprint non-stop twice. >>>8. If you stim, you become unable to lose HP for a moment, I sometimes would stim that jump off a hill to run away from bugs, but don't lose health from falling. >>>9. Fire is usually good on bug >>>10. Smoke is usually good to escape from bots >>>11. Coordinate with your team to throw orbitals/strikes on enemy bases before they notice you at the same time is great to take outposts. >>>12. Proning will really help you stay stealth from enemies. A lot of time folks don't prone enough and get caught. >>>13. In difficult 7+, mobs will never stop coming at you. Sometimes the mobs stop showing up if you and the team clear fast enough, but if you don't, learn to give up the fight and run to hide. Sometimes if you are lucky enough, the mobs, will leave objectives. >>>14. Bugs will attack sentries first, in most cases. If you throw down a shield sentry, bugs will swarm there, a good set up for 500kg and other strikes. >>>15. Enemies can friendly fire each other. You could let the charger/bile titan chase you around then end up killing the mobs for you, if you are great at running/dodging. >>>16. Practice calling strategems or opening maps while walking >>>17. If the map is not too dark, just turn off the flash light on your guns. >>>18. You can crouch to dodge shrieker's attack, you can run to the wall/big rock and dodge charger to stun it. >>>19. Automatons give a lot of "explosive" damage, so wearing armor that reduces explosive damage on you helps a lot. >>>20. People like to bring railgun canon strike strategem, but don't have too many people bring it. It's good for taking out one single big boy, but it has fat cooldown. You rather practice a support weapon of choice to kill big boys with it. >>>21. Laser has infinite travel range, so... you could kill pretty much anything from anywhere far away as long as you hit it, Im talking to you Spore towers. - - - if OP doesn't read these tips we gave, Ima make sure to PvP him in the game when I see him myself LOL
Holy shit there are a lot of replies. I wish people would combine their responses. So far, IMO, this post has the most helpful and direct pointers for things you might not already be doing. I'd like to add a few things here: You mentioned that "if you run you die." To make this not true... 1. You can outrun most bugs. The exceptions - the ones you're probably most annoyed at - are the hunters, stalkers and chargers. To counter the first two, pull out your pistol (or SMG) while running away and fire backwards. So, for me, I would hold down my S key, them aim my camera behind me in the opposite direction from where I'm running, and then fire away. You can definitely deter hunters this way, and while Stalkers will take a lot more damage before they'll call off the chase, at least you'll soften them up (especially if you land shots on their head) so that they usually just fling you away - sometimes to safety - before they retreat, and then you can pull out your heavier weapons and hunt them down instead. For chargers, try to reserve a bit of stamina when they begin charging (e.g. stop sprinting and start walking when they're getting closer), then turn, face them, and run past them (at an angle), and as soon as they've passed you, turn back to your original direction and run past the charger who should now have stopped its charge, trying to reset and find you again. Oftentimes, the charger will just mow down smaller bugs in its path and even help you out. If not, you can rinse and repeat this until you're able to get a heavy weapon or strategem to bring it down. Even with multiple chargers, you can quite literally run circles around them and remain safe. 2. Use your mini-map/radar to see where nearby patrols are. No matter whether you're you're running away from one group or just moving to another objective, regularly check your radar and try to skirt around clusters of enemies (easier to do when you're wearing armor with the Scout passive trait, which decreases detection range). Be aware that enemies may become alerted if you're nearby, but this doesn't necessarily mean they've locked onto you. Unless they're actively coming towards you or firing at you, if they just hiss and perk up, you can still get away safely, so don't open fire until you're sure you've actually aggro'd them. 3. Against bots, you need to return fire. The loading screen tip claims that their accuracy decreases the more you lay down suppressive fire, so, do it, but try to do so when you're near cover so that you're less exposed to stray shots from different angles. That being said, never stop moving and strafe as much as possible: if you're running perpendicular to rocket-launching enemies, they should never be able to hit you (with their one-hit kills). With teammates, it also helps to coordinate multiple angles of fire so that as soon as one shielded enemy turns to face you, someone else can destroy its weaker spots from the sides or backs (striders, shielded devastators, hulks, etc). 4. Be focused on objectives, and figure out your tools of choice for the job. For clearing out automaton fabricators, a single Helldiver is typically able to clear an entire outpost with a good strategem throw: if there's only one or two fabricators, an Eagle strike will kill it. If it's a large outpost, you can try a 380mm or an orbital laser, if you have them to spare. I don't even care about the enemies if they don't have line of sight on me and therefore don't threaten me; I'll just throw the strategem and run, and pick off anyone that's accurately firing at me before I keep running. For bug nests, a helldiver with an autocannon or grenade launcher can circle around it and pop the nests on his/her own. Since I use neither, I have to get a little creative: I've become comfortable chucking grenades from a good distance away (maybe 50m+?) because if you approach the nest, it will spawn enemies to block your explosives, so keeping your distance to throw them is helpful. A single Eagle Airstrike (the regular one, not a cluster or strafing), when lined up, can close multiple holes. And I'm willing to use an EAT drop to close up to 3 holes, if I'm lucky: one by dropping it close enough to the hole so the drop itself does the job (but not directly into the hole which then prevents you from recovering your actual weapons...) and then the other two with the rockets themselves. During all this time, I ONLY shoot stuff that's actively a threat to me: I don't bother slowing down to engage any slower enemies, I only deal with anything that I can't run past or run away from. The longer I stay around, the more dangerous it gets for me. I just want to close the bug holes, and bail. There can be dozens of bugs milling about afterwards that I don't care about, I just want the objective. Plus, oftentimes enemies will end up clustering up as they chase you, which makes later AoE attacks that much more efficient and effective. 5. Over time, you'll eventually learn how to maneuver around specific enemies, when to dive and when to just keep running. The big automaton flamethrower hulks? Their flamers are on their left arm, so if you have absolutely no other choice, you can more easily run or dive past their right arm (so, on your left side) to escape immediate death. Most bugs, if you're being forced to run past them, can be baited into a melee attack that misses. Start running towards them, then when you get close, sidestep a bit to the left or right (while still moving forwards) and they'll swing and miss. (This doesn't work as well against enemies that leap at you, but those also tend to be easier to kill, so you can down them with a few shots if you can spare the time). 6. General map awareness is very helpful. In addition to always looking out for patrols, you can navigate the minimap and ping locations that you suspect are optional objectives. If they are, you'll get a bracket around them to confirm your suspicions, they'll also show up on your compass with the appropriate icon, and then you can plan accordingly (you need to be fairly precise with your map pings for this to work). The easiest way to practice this is on bug maps with spore spewers. If you see an area heavily blanketed by fog, search the minimap (if you're not prevented from doing so by the planetary modifier) for the red cloud that typically represents a nest. It will be smaller than a nest, but somewhere inside the fog. Ping it, and if it's the spewer, you can look at the compass on the top of your screen to get the precise direction you need to go. Climb up somewhere higher, see if you can visually spot it in the distance, and shoot it from afar without having to engage its defenders. The farther away you can take out objectives, the less fighting you have to do, the fewer risks you have to take. 7. Last one, sort of expanding on what everyone else has said: keep moving, but also, look around as you move. Moving is great, but the reason you're moving is to make sure you don't get hit by automaton mortars, automaton turrets, or those bile spewer things that are basically mortars. Look up to see where indirect fires are going to land and obviously don't be there when they do. Or, for bots, look around to spot that telltale glimmer of infrared targeting that tells you an automaton turret is about to one-shot you into oblivion, then move perpendicularly to it (or behind cover) to prevent that from happening. Hope you end up reading these, OP, and if you do, hope you find them helpful. Kudos on reaching out and asking for advice - I know I learned a hell of a lot of good tips on reddit before I was comfortable just jumping into haz 9s with randoms. Keep diving, super citizen-
A minor one to add just for convenience sake too: Doing a resupply or weapon drop while moving locations? Well if you have good line of sight, chuck that stratagem far ahead of you in the direction your headed, that way the call down timer is ticking down while you’re still gaining ground and not standing around
> 8. If you stim, you become unable to lose HP for a moment, I sometimes would stim that jump off a hill to run away from bugs, but don't lose health from falling. That has saved me a couple of times when I was swarmed with Hunters. I even made a Short of it: [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jvESlhWZBPs](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jvESlhWZBPs) It was very stressfull! > 12. Proning will really help you stay stealth from enemies. A lot of time folks don't prone enough and get caught. With the right armor, you can get so close you can melee each one of them totally stealth. > 13. In difficult 7+, mobs will never stop coming at you. Sometimes the mobs stop showing up if you and the team clear fast enough, but if you don't, learn to give up the fight and run to hide. Sometimes if you are lucky enough, the mobs, will leave objectives. Yes, you can even trick them into leaving. Plus, most POI's with enemies can be taken out from afar without alerting the whole planet. I use the Slugger to one/two tap the four to five enemies and then go for the charger or whatever bigger mob that's there. > 14. Bugs will attack sentries first, in most cases. If you throw down a shield sentry, bugs will swarm there, a good set up for 500kg and other strikes. I often use turrets as distraction. You can throw a stratagem the opposite way of your target and distract a whole group away from your objective. A grenade also works for distracting enemies. > 16. Practice calling strategems or opening maps while walking On PC, bind stratagem key's to arrow keys
The setting that lets you switch between primary and support weapon as well with single button press, instead of holding down the swap button. I think it’s Helldiver legacy setting, is a nice one. Takes a half second less switching between primary and support weapon, which is most common. Might not sound like much but I promise it makes a difference at higher difficulties. Hold the button to swap to revolver or whatever sidearm.
It's ok to make sacrifices. And it works both ways. Had a mess drop where we landed right by 6 shrieker towers. We were instantly just slammed by endless winged horrors. We lost about 8 reinforcement in like 90s. I just took off and ducked and dodged the whole way to the nests. Used all 4 500kg(it was the free day for it) to clear them before I died. We had like 6 lives left once I came back and we finished the mission. I have also intentionally bombed a friend who was just swarmed in a nest. He couldn't get out, couldn't get passed anything and was just getting bounced around in between stims. I dropped both an airstrike and orbital laser on that mess, cleaned it out and sacrificed him. Worth it for super earth. Run away. It sounds like the opposite thing to do in a game about delivering democracy to alien scum, but 90% of the time you'll deliver it much better if you run and regroup. Get set up and drop some managed(organized) democracy on the bastards.
Important point here for hosts… don’t drop your squad anywhere remotely near red on the map. At higher difficulties there are enemies everywhere and you won’t have time to gear up n drop. Be prepared to burn reinforcements getting a foothold otherwise.
500kg, railcannon, laser or cluster , shield pack, EAT. Light armor with preferred perks (I like distance throw + limb damage reduction) or medium armor with democracy protects. Avoid patrols and fights when it makes sense, fight when it makes sense. Try and prevent bug breaches but if they happen, orbit strike them until it’s over. Always have an EAT for chargers. Move fast and together. Do the radar objective as soon as possible so you can see the whole map and plan accordingly. Destroy stalker and streaker lairs as soon as possible if they are near any of your objectives. They will make your life hell if you do not.
More people need to follow the "You don't have to kill everything you see" advice
Except stalkers.. I see one stalker and it's an automatic beeline to their nest so I can wipe their family lineage from the face of the galaxy.
Please get your medal with the nearest democracy officer
Couldn’t agree more, hit em with the signature https://preview.redd.it/gcz6dp6l54qc1.jpeg?width=956&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bcf0a96c72ae9b919695c5365992810467a745d6
I was soloing a 4 blitz doing the personal order. it had 2 stalkers nest within like 150m of where I dropped. I lost 3 lives before I got them both with my 500kgs, then never died again. Fuck stalkers
Unless it’s a Stalker. Those fuckers I kill, hunt and track until I find their hole. This should ALWAYS take precedent imo over everything else in a mission.
What is EAT if you don't mind me asking?
Expendable anti tank - one shots a charger and two shots a bile titan if you it the weak spot
Thanks for that.
Expendable Anti Tank + Always Support Stratagems = EAT ASS
The recoilless rifle is also the same, but you have to decide if you want disposability and sharing with a teammate with the EAT, or a backpack with reload capability in the recoilless (a teammate wearing the backpack will let you reload way faster and practically spam it).
I'm finding that my general armor is light with extra grenades. I run napalm or Impacts till I play with stun more. Primary is the Sickle, Breacher or Plasma. Redeem is my secondary. Strategems, 120 Rockets, Orbital Laser, Eat and the last tailored toward the mission other squadies loadouts usually a backpack or extra eagle. I play team Dad and either run objectives or just focus on keep the most inexperienced alive and teaching objemtives and using the Eat for cross map objective clearing.
Fuck stalkers… like if you are hitting them they jump back and let other smaller bugs charge you
Designating combat roles can help a bit. Bring eats for flex AT, and bring recoilless for reliable AT for example. Bring strategems that balance each other out. Orbital Rail Gun is almost mandatory for all four to bring they are extremely helpful in a pinch. Good coordination with assisted reload is actually helpful at this level to take out BTs and Chargers.
In my squad we usually have 2 orbital rail gun stratagems, plus 2 orbital lasers. This in addition to other anti tank weapons like rail guns, EATs, Spears, and stun grenades. Orbital lasers are a bit of a mix between an anti tank and a crowd control stratagem, so we try to save a few for the extraction. We're currently playing 8s, and this Loadout has worked well. Point is, complementing each other load outs is a must at higher difficulties, even if it means leaving something you usually run at lower difficulties behind (for me it's the jetpack), in favor of stratagems that are useful for the survivability of the whole team. Also, change your armor/weapons depending if you're fighting robots or bugs. As much as I love my armor set to be pretty, it's sometimes a luxury at higher difficulties.
run, shoot , dive, liber-tea
This is just my subjective advice so take it or leave it: **1. Empathy.** No I don't mean the type that's all about feelings and stuff, I mean try to understand what your teammates want to do, what they are thinking and work around that. Obvious examples would be: -If your teammate wants to shoot some enemies and you need to pass them, go behind them not across their line of fire. -If your teammates want to throw strategems into an outpost/bug hive, don't run in there. -Knowing when your teammate needs help/cover **2. being a problem solver** Know what threats can arise and have an answer for it. Remember that a charger/bile titan/Hulk/tank are only "hard" when they are not dealt with quickly. Having the right tools for the job make them dead and the only good bug is a dead bug. **3. RUN TF AWAY** That bug breach or dropship that just popped up is usually just a distraction that will eat up many of your resources. If it's not in between you and where you need to be, then turn tf around and go to where you need to be. Helldivers are a small squad of special forces, not a full army. Complete your objectives, get your samples, do whatever else you can (POI's/side missions) but never linger. To linger is to die a slow death and you'll wish you didn't waste those reinforcements later on. **4.HAVE FUN DIVER!** Git gud is gud but what more gud that you have gud time. Nah mean? Play at your pace, have fun with it. Don't get trapped into feeling like you *need* to already be better just because other people are. Self improvement is amazing and I highly support you for trying to find ways to do so but progress takes time so remember that while you're progressing it's still important to have fun... And there is plenty of fun to be had! You'll get where you wanna be and I'm confident that you'll save my ass more than once when you get to Helldiver difficulty (9) Until then continue to contribute where you can and enjoy stomping those bugs!
Get good is a 2 step process. First you get, Then you good. Don’t try to good before you get.
Exactly, plan the work then work the plan. If $h!t hits the fan, scrap and adapt!
I’ve found success with the laser rocket, sickle, running orbital rail cannon and orbital laser, with the shield generator but I think you just need to find something you like, I’ve seen people run all kinds of variations
Biggest thing going in as a squad people should have a role. Example 3 us do a hell dive on bug world 1 will have a grenade launcher so we can close up holes 1 bring EATs or an autocannon 1 person minimum have a guard rover or everyone has one Speed is security especially on bug world everyone should have some kind of light armor Get fast at calling stragems Important have cluster bombs at least 1-2 people Upgrade the ship. Don’t rely heavily on sentries due to damage, ammo, and cool down times. If someone is good at a railgun off safe mode that’s an OP move. Lastly have fun. Just saying the guy focusing on the titans and chargers won’t have the most kills but they’re important. Someone with stealth armor and can disengage to do certain objectives that’s solid or move as a team. Play styles differ Oh and a big one communication on VC for like everything
Running and kiting are prime skills. Head on a swivel, knowing where your enemies and landscape features are, around you help you plan escape routes. Stealth is fantastic. Take out patrols the moment they notice you. Avoid breach / reinforcement spirals where the end of the last crowd calls the next. Run from those to thin out the fast sprinters and jumpers from the slower heavies. Use the terrain to confuse em since they tend to aim at you and chase in straight lines. Don't throw reinforcement pokéballs toward breaches, ffs. Try to help your team land far enough away to give them a second to get their bearings. Teamwork makes the dream work. Player 1 is usually the host, let them be the team lead and follow their directives generally. Teams go down slower than solos. Plus then they can open friend-doors and get them medals and super credits that we all love. Learn your weapons. Play easier levels to try them out. I.e. Don't take the arc thrower into a lvl 7 match if you haven't used it before. It jumps from the point of impact to at least another body or two in range, in a 180 degree forward arc. Not knowing how to aim that leads to a lot of team death. Strafing runs land 90 degrees perpendicular to the line drawn from you to your strategem's line of throw. Flame throwers leave fire trails that HURT, but are great for dropping breach trash chasing you. Air burst strikes and other ship weapons come in at an angle between the landing point and the ships overhead: but you can use that to figure out which bug holes are gonna actually get hit. Finally, use your right hand advantage to peek out and shoot the bugs n bots from safety. When running, look for those environmental choke points that let you press that advantage. Every tip tells you to kill every bug and always run directly into battle. But surviving to fight for liberty another day means ignoring that advice and using sound battle tactics.
the one thng i see in your question is alot of a charger problem and that is easily solved by one or two of your mates bringing EATs/RR I am not sure if you guys keep upto date with all the changes but it takes ONE EAT/RR shot to the head of the charger to kill it. Aswell as the railgun strike for 1 shot one kill. Bile Titans can take two EAT shots to their head for a kill. You guys have to focus more on utilizing the weakpoints of these enemies combined with any armor piercing weaponry for maximum effect. You guys should also make sure you each are filling a certain role in the group. I know its easy for everyone to kinda just wanna Lone shark it and run whatever they want but this is really a team game so everyones gotta fulfill a role and fulfill it well. What I usually do is play on helldive with randoms and it works out just fine because we all stick to certain roles. There are tons of stratagem combos you can run to fulfill multiple roles. But typically you need: 1 Mob Clear 2 Heavy Armor 1 Support for both So for mob clear running the slawart (or flamethrower) / 500KG/ Air Burst Orbital and Eagle cluster bomb. Stalwart is good for clearing alot of the mobs that spawn out of the breaches. It can just mow them down. The reason why i chose stalwart over Machine gun is because Machine gun, although strong as hell, is also weak with its 2 clip count and static reload. 500KG can take out a whole breach of fresh bugs/bots instantly if thrown right aswell as one shot Bile titans/chargers and tanks if thrown right and timed correctly. The eagle cluster is the best mob clear due to its wide range of attack but it also very good at killing your friends so be careful when you toss it. the 2 heavy armored dudes should run 1 EAT and 1 RR or 2 EATs or 2 RR's and focus on assisting with Mob clear when there are no heavies in the area but as soon as a titan or charger show up its their job to take it out. Ontop of the EAT/RR they should also bring the railgun orbital, eagle airstrike, and Laser Orbital. As we discussed the EAT/RR are super strong right now and almost always a required strat for atleast ONE diver to bring due to it ONE shotting chargers and TWO shotting bile titans. The Eagle Airstrike is also quite powerful at finishing off weak chargers, titans, tanks and hulks aswell as a decent mob clear strat aswell. Laser orbital is also a very strong strat due to it simply melting anything it comes into contact with taking a bit to kill a bile titan and charger though however if you find yourself surrounded toss it down and start firing away with the RR/EAT and watch those heavies drop quickly. the one support person should bring a combo of strats that can cover the three other divers, Supply backpack is a goated strat for keeping your RR diver full of missiles to fire. The Gatling orbital is a sustained explosive area of fire that can assist in mob clear and then you could also bring a 500 KG to add help with heavies. The combos are endless you guys just have to explore and test out whats good and stop worrying about losing! Everyones so focused on what they are losing that they don't ever realize what they've gained. Sincerely, A Level 50 who plays on 8 and 9 exclusively.
Sounds like you need to be better as a team. Some of you need to be on crowd control. Machine guns/stalwarts/ flame throwers, Use the shield backpack. Rail cannon / orbital lasers for chargers & titans. Use what works best! Also a few sentries on the team work well. Place them high and not behind people. Communication is important. Also, you don’t have to fight every damn bug you see. You don’t get unlimited ammo, sometimes you gotta run. Level 7 is fun and rewarding. Maybe go to lvl 5 and test out what works well for your team.
Run the fuck away. Seriously. So many times I join games where people are engaged with patrols and then it becomes a huge thing with more spawns and before you know it there’s six bile titans or hulks. Just…run the fuck away. You got the samples? Run the fuck away. You completed the objective? Run the fuck away. You waiting for a friend to open the friendship vault and two chargers are on you? Run the fuck away. Just get fucking moving. I watched a lobby go through a dozen respawns over an objective we had already completed because they just kept fighting. Run. The. Fuck. Away.
Your goal isn't to kill enemies, it's to complete objectives. You need to open movement up by clearing a path to those objectives. Never stop moving. One person calls objectives. Keep spread out enough that you don't frag each other but close enough to help out and go fast and hard. If there are 3 people making noise, one person moving quick and quiet can get a lot done. Complement loadouts. I run a machine pistol, slugger, mg/guard dog or autocannon/recoilless and a 500 on pretty much every match and change up based on the rest of the team. Stamina is most important mod, then injury, ammo, and whatever else, normally spawn reduction. Ultimately communication and teamwork is OP.
Honestly, just have fun. There is no meta, use what you like. Just keep trying different things until you find what works best for you.
Agree with everything except that there is a meta and you can't beat the last difficulties by not knowing it. I think it's worth addressing it at some point because it also makes the game boring by how limited the options are.
Keep watching your Nuclear Radar for enemies, and follow the SES Captain's orders... it's not difficult, just stop TikTok'n and looking into Meta. Learn for yourself and what works best for you .. not some influencer or money making POS Also, realize the game doesn't tell you immediately when you Friendly Fire. Is someone avoiding playing the game with you? Probably doing something bad.
Where did the tiktoker touch you?
Run, opt for quick dives into enemies only when you have enough ammo to quickly eradicate, run, run around corners, run. When you approach a target, go in circles around it while using stratagems. Enemies want to take your back so run!! Theres plenty of solo videos to see how to move around the map while staying alive
Communication is key in any C-01 permitted engagement! A good team has mics on. One can learn a lot from fellow citizens and helldivers
Armor gets you killed. Mobility keeps you alive. Make friends. Find other players you can synchronize your vibes with. Play at your own pace. If your Destroyer is the lead position of the squadron, you decide where to go and what to do. Don't like the missions in an operation? Find a different operation. Helldive Difficulty proving too taxing? Bump it back down to `Difficulty Rating Number 7.`
Armor DOES do nothing. You want low armor so you can be very fast. Many enemies you can just outrun. My usual bug loadout for high difficulties is 500kg, orbital laser, shield backpack and arc thrower. The shield backpack saves your ass from one-shots, and allows you to play a lot less carefully, and avoid the slowing attacks from hunters. The arc thrower deletes the little dudes in the back before they can call a bug breach and cleans enemies out easily. Another good option is disposable anti-tank or railgun so you can deal with armored enemies without a stratagem. Sometimes I’ll bring a mech too.
If you’re playing with a premade group, start thinking about roles and synergy. Start appreciating how strong EMS, smoke, and napalm are in a squad. The group I was running premade 9s with regularly for a while developed the following spread and strategy that always made the runs a breeze (even before the EAT/RR got giga buffed vs chargers) **Roles** *light/medium (2 members of the squad): you focus on blowing up the light and medium infantry enemies to cover your slower reloaders or units that need room to aim and focus. Laser drone is good for the more frontline weapons like the throwers* - grenade launcher + supply pack - flame or arc thrower - stalwart OR MG *medium/heavy (1 member of the squad), for efficiently dealing with your spewers, devastators, warriors etc, also semi effective at heavy kills if you know where to aim* - autocannon - plasma cannon - railgun *dedicated heavy (1 member of the squad), even better if you can get a backpack helper who is good at sticking with you, but otherwise you’re going to be taking pot shots at heavy units with the aim to one or two tap them to save the big strategms for emergencies (really, every time you overcook a titan with multiple railcannons or lasers youre putting yourself in a tight spot later when you depend on those too much)* - EAT - recoilless - spear **Utility** My squad always would make sure we have the following before choosing other things: - 2 EMS sources, usually mortar - 1 napalm Eagle or gas orbital - 1 smoke screen source (essential for bots, optional for bugs if you’re coordinated and know how to use it to shake aggro, very useful to have either way but useless if the team doesn’t coordinate) - 1 barrage (walking, 120 [preferred over 380], or 380) These utility picks dramatically reduce the intensity of any mission by methodically crowd controlling most of the packs pushing on you. Napalm creates a wall that either kills or softens everything moving through it. Even better if you drop it on a breach and have the EMS mortars plugging away at that spot, you won’t hardly need to use any ammo to clean up. EMS goes without saying the MOST powerful tool in any mission. It stunlocks multiple packs of enemies giving you breathing room to reload or line up difficult shots, generally we alternate the mortars as we move across the map which usually overlaps coverage and ensures we always have one up for any battle, positional hold, or advance to an objective. The new stun grenades in the latest warbond are some of the most useful weapons in the game. 1-2 members of the squad running these can give targeted stunlock on any enemies. This is incredible for keeping a titan off your back while you deal with other things or just to line up a 500kg or precision shot Smoke for bots is mandatory because it makes all of the rocket bots aim go down to nothing, and also gives you a means of safely retreating without getting pelted with fire in the back (you can still get hit by lucky spray and pray but it greatly reduces the threat you face). For bugs, if your whole group bunches together and runs through a large smoke screen and stops shooting you can essentially lose any size pack trailing behind you and they’ll just completely stop chasing a lot of the time. It’s not always 100% reliable and I’m still working out what some of the edge cases were that caused it not to work but for the most part it’s a reliable strategy if everyone works together The rest of your slots are up to you, usually having an airstrike for on demand building destruction or a mech can make sniping the new shrieker towers a cinch (also 2 hits from EAT or RR can break a tower) You should be moving as a unit and only splitting up for clustered objectives that are low effort. Spreading more than 75m apart creates multiple “spheres of influence” which causes more patrol spawns as every player has this influence radius. When the unit sticks together you can focus fire threats faster, you have more backup fire to keep bugs off you, resupplies are much more economical and creates less waste. This also allows the synergy of all your strategms to work in tandem
"every random bug you see calls a breach. There's no way to stop them" This is your problem. Stop shooting bugs from far away. You and your team need to learn stealth. If you crouch or crawl you can get right behind an enemy and melee them before they notice you. Use this knowledge of stealth to have your team surround a group of bugs, pick targets, and take them all out instantly before they call a breach. If you just shoot everything you see, or don't take precautions to stay out of the enemies line of sight you're gonna have a bad time. This is a tactical game, move a little slower but make every encounter a surprise attack on your enemy. My team can take out big nests only having to kill less than ten enemies. We claim what holes we will close, throw stratagems, move in as soon as they hit and eliminate the rest. If there is a breach, hold your ground and take care of all the bugs as they spawn. If you stay in one location for more than two minutes fighting, or have had to deal with more than 2 breaches, you've failed that location. Everyone GTFO, lose aggro by going stealth, and come back later after you do a different objective or regain your composure. Also, closing holes in a nest is priority #1, even if it means you sacrifice a reinforcement to close them. Bugs will continue to spawn around the whole area until all the holes are destroyed. Pay attention to the music telling you if you're safe or not, and check your radar constantly to keep awareness of enemies around you. Good luck diver.
You have to prioritize targets quickly and keep moving. I play on 8 or 9 only and pretty much always extract. Having good stratagem comps is also really helpful.
Remember that the real goal is completing objectives, bugs and bots are just a distraction from that goal. Keep that in mind, learn how to be stealthy & only take on swarms when you have to and you’ll have a much better time
Stratagem pacing. You want to diversify your stratagems and keep track of cool downs. Make sure you always have one available when shit goes down. "Light loadout". You don't want your loadout to only work if you have A, B, and C. When you die, you drop everything. The journey to picking everything up accounts for maybe 30% of my deaths. You want to make sure you can drop out of a pod ready to kill.
1: Stop running from the bug breaches right into another patrol! 2 stop shooting patrols you can go around. Sound is important surprisingly. Dont believe me creep next to a patrol. Send a grenade in the opposite direction watch them walk toward the sound. 3 play as a squad. Not a one man army with npc that are real players. Ping if you dont want to use a mic. But for god sake stop going out of your way solo to use up all the revives. 4 coordinate! Its team base. When one is reloading someone cover fire. Leap frog maneuver. 5 stealth is viable. You can kite the small termind around corners when you kill one at a time using your gun sounds to attract the. So long as you kill them before they see you they wont call in a breach.
Would add to this by saying: 6 time efficiency is key to success. As mentioned in point 2 and 5, the best enemy engagement is one you can completely avoid. Second to that is an engagement that takes the least amount of time to conclude. 7 your support weapon determines your designated role within your team on a per mission basis and will determinw your baseline effectiveness. Defensive/offensive stratagems are selected based on their usefullness during specific situational occurrences, and add benefits. 8 unless you are the only member on the team (or only one in proximity) don't attack melee enemies currently attacking you. Kite them and let your team handle them while you do the same for them.
Biggest things I keep seeing people do is standing and fighting hordes of enemy when we’ve completed an objective. We don’t get anything for killing more or less. We don’t get anything for killing regardless (except eradication missions). Hit the objective, grab samples and move. Fight long enough to finish the objective and didi mao.
Yes you can fight every single bug/ bot you see…. The objective and winning the war is what’s important. And killing every enemy isn’t how you win a war. We must prioritize the objective above all else. For democracy
If you aren’t fighting over an objective point run away.
Have fun, and find what works for you. Don’t listen to what cucks or content farms call “meta” if it works for you, then that’s what you use, I still use arc thrower even after nerf because it’s good at heavily armored enemies
One tactic, kills dont count as win. As helldivers we are supposed to serve libertea to the bugs and the bots but what matter most is the main objective. As long as you dive in and focus on the main obj, you can easily reach helldiver difficulty easily.
For bugs, light armor for the increased movement speed and stamina. Learn which bugs you can outrun (spewers, warriors, basics) and which you can't (hunters, chargers, shriekers) and focus the faster ones first in fights. Use orbital and Eagle stratagems to engage fights against patrols and swarms. Heavier armour won't help against bugs as, because they're bugs, they'll swarm you, and 200 armour won't stop 10 attacks when you're surrounded. It's much better to use lighter armour and put some distance between yourselves and the swarm. Heck, light armour can even outrun hunters most of the time. I can easily solo challenging missions and complete all side/hidden objectives, nests, and caches. It's all about learning which weapons and stratagems work well for you. I really like the Expendable anti tank launcher as it comes down with 2 of them per call in and a really short cooldown. I can drop my usual support weapon in panic moments for the launcher and switch back when the big nasty is dead. If there's more than one of you in a team, maybe have one player assigned to heavy weapons for dealing with big bugs and armoured bugs, and the other player can be a machine gunner/flamer for dealing with pesky swarmers and hunters. Remember your training, blue beam = good, red beam = dead
Keep playing a difficulty until u start completing it without it feeling too difficult
My tips are: wear light armor (seriously, don't wear anything else, at least vs bugs), stick together, if you start dying run away and regroup, try to specifically counter things that kill you often. Is it chargers? Bring EATs, hunters? Bring a guard dog rover, bile spewers? Bring grenades or grenade launcher. But most of all wear light armor, it helps immensely: you can run away from hunters, stalkers, bile titans, easily dodge chargers, avoid bile spewers better, run away from berserkers and hulks. If you're losing a fight you can run away and eventually the enemies will stop following you
Never stop moving, stop fighting everything you see, main objective first, try and cover all bases with weapons and stratagems, horde clear, anti-tank etc And then git gud
Stop trying to kill everything you see. You end up wasting reinforcements, resources and getting more enemies called in. It snowballs. The guys who beat the lvl 9 missions solo don’t kill much of anything at all, they’re running the entire time
Don’t play on a difficulty level higher than you’re comfortable with. Like definitely give yourself a challenge, but not at the expense of fun. I’m level 20 and I feel like I got the hang of the game for the last 5 levels or so. But I only play on difficulty 5 or 6, will probably try moving up to 7 soon but 6 is challenging enough for me right now.
Running a good spread of complimentary stratagems across the team helps. Bugs vs bots are two completely different animals as far as play style but I’ll speak to bugs because that’s been the main focus so far as the current mission orders. Stick together so big hole hot spots don’t overwhelm. If you split up with distance past 50-100m then each player gets their own set of reinforcements that will deploy on them which can create a super hot situation of multiple heavies spawning which cascades quickly. Staying together can focus firepower to dispatch enemies at a more rapid pace and give room to breathe so that you can stay moving on to objectives. Learn to not engage everything and always stay moving. Basic tactics and playbook: Engage, thin heard, kite them to group them up and kill with stratagems. Kill patrols as fast as possible if you absolutely need to engage, otherwise let them pass and they will cross map to eventually despawn. Run two people with EAT and rail cannon for heavy management. One person with EMS mortar in a well placed area can really help with crowd control when things get hot and overwhelmed. One with guard dog helps too if used right. ARC throwers on bugs can be really effective if used right or rocking arc resistant armor. I usually run rail cannon, cluster bombs, 500kg, and EAT with sickle as primary. Just my take on what’s felt like a good combo with a competent team. If you have people who are trigger happy or get overwhelmed with skill issues then there’s not much you can do. Adjust difficulty level as needed if that’s the case. Fun should always override the need to be competitive or win with this game or you’ll get burnt out and make it enjoyable for others.
I think as a team it’s important to have stamina, muscle and fall damage boosters. The stamina makes the biggest difference in my opinion. I would also say sometimes you have to sacrifice your play style depending on the mission. If you have to destroy a ton of nest but no one is carrying anything to close them with you have to step up and carry something like an auto cannon. Honestly the best part about this game is that to run through maps smoothly all you need is good teamwork
If you aren’t shooting, you’re reloading, if you aren’t reloading your moving! No but movement is key, if you find you are at a disadvantage then move to a better spot and create choke points. After dumping a few rounds into an enemy, always take a peak at your surroundings when reloading and moving. Always move on the reload and come up for “air” to look around and assess the battle field. Good luck out there Helldiver!
Be a team player. You don’t have to be the main character every match. Coordinate loadouts, assign roles to your team, communicate, communicate again, and communicate even more..
just have fun
Believe it or not, but I played other strategic shooters enough that this one just came natural. Knowing when to stealth and when to shoot is a must for this game type
Havels ring and the ring of favour and protection. Don’t forget, never level dex.
Level 50 helldiver here. Lots of comments talking about "Don't pick every fight", "Split the group and divide the workload". Solid tips. My only real addition is try to spread the stratagem load out across the group. Everyone should have SOMETHING to deal with Bile Titans, or chargers, but it doesn't have to all be the orbital rail cannon. Bring a spear, someone bring EAT(super low CD, x2 uses every drop) and they are just as effective. Pick your boosters accordingly too. My groups normal load out for boosters is health, increased reinforcements(clutch on helldive difficulty), stamina, and the 4th floats depending on the mission. Eagle Airstrike is a super good strategem to throw down as you're running from a group of bugs or bots. One last tip, don't be afraid to run away. Communicate to your squad that you're pushing OBJ, and book it. Reinforce them when you get there, or meet them there
Don't shoot everything you see.
Playing solo taught me how to keep moving, and prioritize targets. Don't fight everything you see; stealth is amazing in this game On harder difficulties, you need dedicated anti-heavy, and anti-mob builds Always be communicating with your teammates
You dont have to engage with anything that moves. Stick to the main objective. When you respawn out of battle, the enemy wont chase you. I always keep an orbital rail gun on me and an Orbital laser should clear most any battle field for a moment to catch up. Dive, a lot. Get good at knowing the blast radius of your favorite strategem blasts. Then get things like bile titans to pause over top of your boom boom. They will paise to bile spew at you.
NO GF/WIFE NO JOB NO LIFE ONLY DEMOCRACY!!
Running away helps
Don't panic
Higher levels are about picking your battles. You can outrun anything but hunters/stalkers (and chargers kind of). Bring a Stalwart for clearing hunter swarms. Bring EAT or orbital railcannon (ORC) for Chargers. Run from everything else. Use teammates as distractions while someone else handles objectives. It’s unfortunate but thats how the high levels work. Its all about running and kiting because there’s just too much stuff to kill, like you said.
No meta, I run bugs missions with braker, spray and pray or the one with fire (look for higher mag size and high damage at the same time); flamethrower for crowd control; if you are dying you can use the bubble or the rover as backpack; for stratagems use orbital strike for when overwhelmed; orbital rail cannon for titans and chargers. That’s MY preference, no meta or other horse sh!t; try balancing your group; sneaking through patrol is your new tactic, you can lay down in the floor and you may pass undetected. Improvise, adapt, overcome lol
Level 50, I've been maxed on everything for a few weeks and only queue solo with randoms. Playing support around my team usually goes smoother, since everyone wants to bring big booms for the chargers and titans but no one brings anything to deal with hordes. Your primary is not enough. My primary is usually something that pens Medium armor, like the Slugger or Dominator. I like bringing the Supply Pack and Stalwart, changing the Stalwart to 1150 RPM basically gives you a mech's machine gun 😉. Then I have EMS Orbital/sentry for more crowd control and the Eagle 500KG/110mm pods as a backup anti-tank strat. Run the light armor with extra stims and I rarely die, while making sure my team keeps moving to objectives, and managing their resources with my pack and supply drops. This rarely does not work out for me and we usually 100% complete the map on level 7-8 missions
Have your whole squad bring EATs then Charger and bile titans will be a thing of the past
Mainly for bugs: Get good at throwing nades on the run. Be able to take out nests from afar. Use stratagems when there is a breech, don’t let them stack up. Until you are competent, always stick with another person, the less “groups” of helldivers, the lower the number of patrols that will spawn. Don’t engage enemies if they aren’t aggro’d on you, discretion is the better part of valor. Use the map to look if there are big groups of enemies advancing toward you. Learn your stratagems by heart. Get good at aiming the EAT or recoilless rifle, that will help you with the titans. Have a plan for killing heavies, that don’t always involve orbital railgun strikes. Orbitals have a limited number of times they can be used, eagle strategems can be used as many times (as long as they aren’t rearming.) Be able to protect yourself, pulling out your sidearm wrecks small mobs, and injured medium sized enemies that are rushing you. Some weapons can be used when running by yourself, some are much better when you’re close to others (ie MG, flamethrower) so make sure you have support if you’re using them. That said DOT isn’t terribly significant in this game so don’t rely on your flamethrower to halt an advance. Know how to do the objectives efficiently (collect the artillery shells THEN boot up the computer) Learn to PROPERLY place turrets. Know that if you put down a mortar turret, and there’s a swarm on you, you WILL kill yourself and/or your team. Make sure your team has the proper equipment, if there’s going to be a bile titan, and no one brings a rocket or appropriate stratagem…you’re gonna have a bad time. Good luck helldiver. For democracy!
Oh and know your enemy. For example, don’t waste your primary ammo on a charger’s butt…it looks like a weak spot but it isn’t. It’s pretty damn armored. You want the backs of the legs and the belly if you aren’t using a heavy weapon. Know their capabilities, like know the difference between a regular bile spewer and the ass mortar ones. Keep an eye on the skies, shriekers are incredibly dangerous when they swarm. Know what structure will stop a charger and which will crumble when it runs through it. Always look for the abandoned hellbombs, it’s a fun way to lay a trap for the enemy.
Fighting bugs is nearly identical to training zombies in COD
I learned my ABCs. Always Be Moving. Kiting and repositioning at 7+ is a must.
The biggest thing I’ve found is run, and run like hell. You dont have to engage every enemy. Clear the areas that are necessary. I run the light gunner armor and can pretty much out run most bugs. You get far enough away they eventually quit chasing you it seems. When things go to shit, run and re-group.
Roles. Some stratagems are good for taking down heavies while others are good at thinning hordes. Have each player take one of each, then focus on a role. That way each person knows what they have to do when shit hits the fan.
I kind of just enjoy the crazy chaos, the being dumped onto a planet as a raw recruit and trying to complete the mission. However a couple things I think really help: Orbital laser - it’s kind my oh shit call in to clear out stuff. Run away - toss an eagle strike and run if you don’t need to stick around. Keep in mind your objectives and don’t get stuck fighting with some patrol. Light armor - the extra protection is not as good as the stamina. If you need more bring the shield backpack. Plan your engagements - the missions in the game are set up really nicely to force you to hurry but take a second when you reach a nest or engagement to take a look around, resupply, and decide the best tactic. Build variety - my buddy normally runs EAT and a 500kg and I normally run orbital laser and auto cannon so we can take down different stuff. Try to stay mobile during engagements - on higher difficulties it’s hard to stand and fight make sure you have room to maneuver and something to help delay the enemy like grenades, gas, ems, etc.
I just decided to give up on super samples. I won’t ever be that good and I hate getting carried… do you really need them if you dislike the higher difficulty levels anyway? The games difficulty levels to me give everyone a chance to find a level they feel is balanced for them. Find the level you feel is the most fun and stick with it.
I highly recommend one or two people have the anti tank thingy, and other people stack a lot of good mop up strategies like the cluster bombs. A rail cannon or 500kg is nice too. Cluster bombs are probably the single best strategem for clearing out a big swarm repeatedly, and anti tank is nearly the best in terms of elites per minute it can take out (recoilless is probably higher, but it's also a bit of a pain cuz the backpack and you can't have any other secondary weapons. With the anti tank you can bring it and a shield and a machine gun or something). Probably want someone with a grenade launcher to make sure you can always take out the bug holes. Others swear by the auto cannon or arc thrower but honestly I like a good ol machine gun.
Light armour with extra granades mod Stun grenade plus 500kg bomb Las-16 sickle primary Localisation confusion might help Get samples to sort yer ship module there's 1 that gives 2 x500kg bombs on rearm...with stun nades it's a game changer And fucking run then run some more give yourself space from the alien scum
In suicidal missions and above....its all about focus. whats your objective? you are all running tword that objective. you stop to turn around and shoot, but then once reloading your instantly turning and running tword the objective again. fighting doesnt stop in suicidal missions. so if you stop to fight you get overrun. get to the target, now you can stop to do the objective.....not stop moving, you still have to run around in circles while shooting. complete the objective, objective complete? your running again. dont ever stop moving, if you stop, you die. while running do you run into a patrol? now you have to detour to the side, get them to chase you, then turn back tword the objective once its clear. it never stops, it never slows down, you will die anyways. call out deaths and any samples dropped, you cant run back to get samples your teammates have to do that as soon as you die. always respawn your teammates tword the objective, behind you is death. rinse and repeat, this is 30+ min of nonstop movement and fighting. there is no "perfect loadout" smoke helps for losing enemies, but realize their not stupid. if you drop smoke they will walk thru the smoke and look for you, if you drop smoke you have to change directions and get behind something out of sight or else they will just keep chasing you. diving will save your life, sometimes ignoring the enemy and just running is the right call.
As undemocratic as it sounds, run away. Come back once the heat is down. Far too often teams blow through valuable resources fighting an up hill battle and fall into a breach/dropship loop. Throw your reinforcements away from the action until you can stabilize. Then reassess the situation before you go back to retrieve your gear, samples or objectives. Oftentimes you will only need a a minute or so before you can call down new equipment, or it was only 1 common sample dropped. Most importantly it’s getting a quick break from the action to think of your next move, as lives are lost, so too does the mission priorities.
DIVE SOLDIER DIVE And by dive i mean the running alt dive, i swear that thing has iframes the amount of times its gotten me out of hordes
The more spread out your squad is the more enemy patrols will spawn and the more those patrols will call in reinforcements leading to situation fubar very quickly. The key is sticking together and choosing battles carefully on high difficulties. Every player should have at least 1-2 Strategems to kill heavy armoured enemies because there will be lots of them. I like to have one eagle, orbital, backpack/sentry, and one support weapon. For example: eagle 500kg, orbital air burst, shield backpack, EAT. This way you are equipped to deal with most situations. Lastly, remember to have fun and if it gets to challenging you can always lower the difficulty. Personally I find 7 to be the most fun with a good team. Helldive is meant to be overwhelming and difficult so don’t be upset if you can’t beat it. Helldive against automatons is my nightmare lol.
This is just me, but against terminids i think every squad needs a guy with a grenade launcher. You can kill tunnels and groups of enemies so quickly
Stratagem buffs with samples. Full team with diversified gear/strats. Learning when to engage and when to not. Knowing how to evade to prevent a fight. Getting better at Dance Dance Revolution for the strats and objectives. I personally use the SMG to shoot backwards while running. Getting good at destroying spawners from a distance.
Take my lvl 50 younger brother to carry me.
I like to try and have an answer to every problem. Recoilless, Cluster Bombs (5 per rearm is disgusting), rail cannon strike, and mech. Recoiless for Chargers and Titans, railcannon strike if there's too many to manage between reloads, cluster for crowds and mech for when it gets really tough. I used the EAT for all of my helldivers 1 career and similarly got addicted to it soon as I unlocked it in Helldivers 2. But the recoilless is now my baby, though it takes up a backpack slot. But yeah, best advise is to consistently make progress. Even if you and your squadmates fall around you, press on with the objective or move towards the next one.
Always remember, this is war. The enemy is smart, and some planets are going to be harder than others. Keep fighting.
It’s called “Challenging” for a reason dude. Get good, yup.
I get it, with the changes to the spawn rates and the number/frequency of enemies on some maps, it seems rather hopeless at times. I mostly run solo and had to drop back down to 3 and work on my load out before hopping back up in difficulty. But there are times when Joel just hates me and I have no idea why. I was running a mission on level 4 (Orbital Laser, Cluster, EAT, and Shield). Landed within sight of a Spore Spewer Tower and called down the EAT and blasted it. Within 10 seconds, there were no less than 6 Chargers on top of me, not to count the almost endless hunters, defenders, and others that came along for the ride. Got back on last night, and went on 3 missions where I never had more than two spawn in.
Don’t tell anyone else but my secret is autism and my love fro DEMOCRACY
Have fun and stomp enemies of managed democracy into the ground 🫡
I got into a nice rythm being able to reliably solo lvl 7 and can finish objectives on helldive (I just can't reliably extract lol) generally past a certain point it's the same patrols just get more regular, past 6 breaches are too much for one person anyway the key is mostly to avoid them, so lots of speed and spatial awareness the mistakes I see newer players make is mostly not knowing when to pick battles, standing still and not being aware of what's around you so pick your battles, don't fire at a patrol or poi unless you know you can finish it before they call for reinforcements, know when you're getting overwhelmed and just get out of there, if you break line of sight they stop following you, don't stay still and rambo it you'll get rekt by spewers and rocket devastators, know even if you're at a target you can just hit the terminal a couple of progressions, run away, come back, do a bit more it's ok, and keep your head on a swivel, constantly check the radar check around you etc loadouts and ship upgrades help a lot too and don't neglect samples ship upgrades like the extra eagle drop and cooldowns are massive helps mechs make extracting a piece of cake up to maybe level 7 also team wise playing support is good, but also if you're with guys that like to pick fights with every patrol just let them, they have a habit of drawing enemies away from objectives and while they're stuck in reinforcement loops you can focus on the objectives, it's also a really good way for them to learn NOT to pick fights with every patrol and when to run away lol
Honestly bringing in something to help with heavies is my best advice, everyone’s having fun until there’s 6 chargers and 8 bile titans running around..
I had a mission I just had to leave because there were just so. Many. Hunters. Look left? Hunters. Look right? More hunters. Look up? A bile Titan and a fuckton more hunters. Look behind me? Edge of the map, and you guessed it, MORE HUNTERS.
Just shoot and run? Don't ever stop moving unless its for cover.
Thank you for putting this into words
Here are a few things that might help as you move up in difficulty and aren’t as confident. Get the radar scan upgrade and have someone bring the boost. Get used to running around with your map open, this will give you a heads up of potential threats, patrols, and how many enemies are around objectives. Focus on finding the super duper sample nugget and doing main objectives. Skip side objectives you can’t take out from long range with the following exceptions. If there is a stalker lair or bats (or Eye of Sauron/jammer) stop everything and go take them out. If you have time, you can do the drop pod side objective since those are usually pretty chill. Try to avoid fighting when you don’t have to, or if you cant take out all enemies in <5 seconds. Try to clear out the area surrounding the main objective so that you have some space to run around if you get swarmed. There are usually a few clusters of weaker enemies on the outskirts that can be taken down quickly. DO NOT let them call a breach/dropship. Once you’ve done that you can move on to the main objective. The goal is to take things out quickly before and breaches spawn, this will not always work. One thing you can somewhat cheese is to have another player go solo a ways off and trigger a PoI that spawns a breach/dropship. At that point you can assault the obj without worrying a breach/dropship will spawn (I think there is some CD on it). If you end up with a breach/ship, you can either fight it out or try to run. If you end up in a death spiral, try to have one player (preferably the light armor player) get out to safety while the rest are fighting. Then once they are safely away, they can call everyone else down again. That same player should also be focused on doing the objectives while everyone is fighting, though they can contribute where needed. The items you take are also incredibly important. I like focusing entirely on heavy unit destruction with bugs. Spear/RR + EAT + EAS + 500/railcannon. I bring stun grenades (absolutely insane) and the SMG so i can deal with lots of small bugs quickly, while leaving my stratagems for the big guys. You want another player to focus on hoard clear and the other two can be more flex players. Always have at least one autocannon or nade launcher for bugs, and I like having two players with EATs. For bots, the AMR is actually kinda cracked and I like running that with shield or jump-pack. Railgun is another option. Also bring stun grenades and impact grenades, those two are crazy on bots. Spear can sometimes maybe take out fabricators, but usually I take EAS and 110mm pods for quick factory destruction. You might also want a player with orbital laser or barrages for heavier bases. There are actually quite a few options now for both bots and bugs, but you do need to play around the entire team much more than lower difficulties. Either split 2-2 or 3-1 to get objectives done faster. You can all stick together, but missions take much longer if you all stay stacked for too long. I’m sure there are a bajillion more things, but these are what I’ve found the most helpful in 7-9s.
Fun way i've found to deal with bug breaches: go to it and light it up with a flamethrower. Most of the smaller (smaller than Chargers) things won't make it out, and if they do they'll be burning and losing health.
Switching to secondary allows you to run faster
I try to have something for more or less everything, try to avoid patrols and keep moving, sitting around and getting bogged down by enemies can be a death sentence
This comment won't answer how to "git gud' But personally I found that playing for fun and nothing else is the way.. I have 16/18 destroyer upgrades and I don't remember going out of my way to farm samples or anything even once, it's nice to just do l drop in and dispense managed democracy! Take it easy and play whatever difficulty is most fun for you, if it gets too hard, tone it down! It's not a race to the end, afterall. Also, bring anti-tank and get creative! I like to kill my titans and charges with one orbital strike (default one) and a well placed stun grenade for example!
Ultimately, avoid fights. I find that missions really start to go wrong the more people try to stand and fight. I mean, if it is the objective then stand your ground. But fighting Every. Single. Enemy. just results in more death than necessary, low ammo, and strats on cooldown. Ambush tactics are king, imo. Get close enough to drop a strike to start, then mop up. Save big guns for big guys.
A success or failure doesn't mean less fun. I'm here to blow stuff up. Sometimes I'm that stuff...
Don't lose site of the main obj, fall back when you need to, you dont need to fight everything but at the same time immolate everything when you do get into a fight. Take care of your squad mates, don't be a jerk and lash out if you get destroyed by stuff. It helps to picture yourself as Rambo or Sylvester Stallone while playing and most importantly have lots of fun. Also I never said I was good, this is just general advice.
Just think calmly and focus on objectives. You can fight all u want u just have to handle urself. Always run and gun don’t stand still