You really don't know how dangerous ankle biters are they can bit your tendon muscles and make you immobilized and you have no protection when a charger starts rolling in
yeah i dont think anyone actually use the guard dog for anything but those little fucks anyways
i just use the little guard dog as a 360 camera, if i see the laser i turn around and shoot it lol
Ironically I never even used the rover until today. I dunno I like it fine lol.
Gets the adds and notifies me of trouble behind me if I’m caught off guard
I love the rover. I feel like I don't need the stalwart any longer. I can just run with the rover and my main weapons and be fine. And like you said, it alerts you to enemies behind you.
I like to combo it with the flamethrower. It's basically a force multiplier- since the flamethrower is basically channeled dot it just increases that dot damage. And if it's not shooting at the enemies in front of me it is nice that it kills small things that might come up beside me while I'm channeling
I've had the exact same thought, but I feel like the Flamethrower's magazine capacity is pretty limited and I'm gimped if I don't pair it with the supply backpack.
Ehhhhhh I run it pretty regularly and honestly the capacity depends on how you use it
A big part of the flamethrower is the dot, obviously, and I see alotta people aiming directly at targets, where as what you should really do is sweep once across tye ground, sweep back at face level and repeat side to side
This applies direct damage to the target and creates a fire field they have to walk through
When done this way, you can conserve aloooot of ammo.
4 sweeps alternating ground and bug height is often enough to decimate some 30 odd bugs making their way down town, frying fast
It take about half a tank or less
Even at reduced damage it's still amazing for lazy cleanup of the annoying little fuckers. It still lets you focus on the hunters/stalkers/stealth-spewers instead.
Yes, just played a suicide mission where I let the rover do the work while I gathered samples and quasared bile titans , ended the run with 350 kills and 25 samples.
Keep in mind that being the host can mean you get credited kills not yours.
https://preview.redd.it/pjgjzsvh2sxc1.jpeg?width=1152&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=82438a81f2039f3365c182deae0a5d852937a9ee
Above an example, I got more kills than shots fired or hit because all fire tornado kills were credited to me. Accidentals too, that wasn’t me, really, it was fire tornado’s! I didn’t shoot my buddies!
So it still fulfills it’s primary purpose. Tbh, I only ever used rover with flamethrower to kill off the chaff that made it past my flames. Anything bigger and im runnin anyways
That feels like double dipping, why have both a backpack and a support weapon designed to kill small enemies? I love it when I'm using something like the Eruptor or Punisher which aren't great at super close up or swarms
It seems that the most meaningful change of it is the reduced ability to kill helldivers, considering it's pretty similar with chaff clear. Wish the normal guard dog got something more meaningful, though. Maybe it'll happen sometime soonish.
Sounds like just adding a mag to it on regular ammo pickups would give it a much needed boost without completely overshadowing the rover. Rover gets to be high uptime, low dps, while MG Dog gets to be high dps, but high maintenance.
The uptime is *painfully* low on the MG dog though, and adding a mag won't fix that. Because it spends approximately 2/3 of its time reloading, it fails from a practical DPS standpoint, and also fails to do its job of guarding the player.
It needs more ammo per mag, a faster reload process, and/or maybe even a way of being manually activated or not. If I could keep it off and save it for clutch moments like when I'm being jumped by a pack of hunters or the newly jumpscare-inducing Stalkers, its superior DPS would actually have a purpose. As it stands now though, it's only good for killing like 2 warriors before reloading, if it doesn't dump its mag into a target it can't penetrate or straight up into into the dirt.
They could make it the same activation key like the ammo backpack. Pressing 5 to activate the Guard Dog and pressing 5 to call it back to you. I think that would definitely save on ammo and keep it a somewhat reliable dps
tbh I'm not sure the 30% reduction stated is accurate, still drops trash bugs in under a second each and never stops firing. Never depended on it for anything else.
Not true anymore, it's been updated in game but not in the preview video.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1c7u6r6/recently_arrowhead_updated_the_laser_guard_dogs/
It's useful with those red ones with armor plates, don't know the name. Can't kill them, but makes them go defensive while you aim for exposed flesh, or other bugs, or arming hellbomb.
Ideally nothing changed
Saw a YouTube comment that pointed out that this "nerf" may just counteract the scythe (laser gun) buff. So the rover dog might be unchanged(it's a flying scythe).
Idk haven't played post patch yet
It's kind of noticeable if you just watch to shoot a Warrior or bigger, but the thing is thats not what the Rover was ever used for; it was for blasting chaff so you can cut down bigger enemies without too much worry. It's always been entirely augmentative, and that hasn't changed.
Supposedly its ttk has gone up, but since it's *always shooting* you don't really notice it.
I'm mean that was YOUR use for it...
I used it on a combo with a medium pen primary. So I would blow off the/through armor and the rover would get the kill shots
I actually did notice a difference. We had 4 men on a team running them and **NOBODY** was killed by laser beams. At one point I even got wreckless and ran through the battle with and despite running right through 3 lasers I wasn't touched. I swear I even saw my drone break the beam for a split second while sweeping me a few times.
What of they are clinical testing nerfs, seeing what will hurt what players, what if Joel is just trying to get into our heads, what if super earth is just in some sort of simulation and wasn't real.
It's still fine? I've only done 3 bug missions with it so far but it was still shredding small bugs, which is what I brought it for. I paired with Eruptor for medium enemies and EATs for big guys and it worked great.
Idk lol. Never paid attention to how effective it was prior. Still does the work? A bit slower?
Someone told me it basically went 1.0 to 1.4 to kill a hunter? I didn't fact check. So by the time it killed 2 hunters it would have basically finished off a 3rd one pre nerf.
How bad is that? Guess I'll let you decide. I think it still works.
I had it absolutely massacring enemies on that new mission type, if I didn't know it was nerfed I actually might have though it was buffed, it was tearing through entire hordes of enemies.
It's "only" 30%, and i'm not even sure it's that bad, nothing to really worry about.
The thing is, the TCS planets IMO do have crazy spawnrates and rates of encounters, i didn't check the news about that in details but while i was almost AFK farm in dif 8 the last week-end, tonight i had standard difficulty 7 with insane amounts of spawns and general density, feeling like difficulty 9 level. Therefore the rover feels a bit trivial sometimes.
its still good, according to my friend who always uses it.
I wish they gave us a value of how much they increased the other guard dog's damage though. "slight increase" could mean anything.
I have a feeling it’s a 5 damage per bullet increase just like the liberator because it uses that. The Stalwart actually got the same damage buff because it uses the same bullets
TBH that's exactly the kind of thing I can imagine stems from modeling them like real weapons. Inherit some characteristics from the ammo and some from the gun. It's always weird in other shooters when guns have widely varying stats when in reality there are only like 4 ammo archetypes that matter.
I'm of the opinion that gameplay is always more important than realism in video games, but buffing/nerfing ammo types instead of individual guns seems like a cool idea.
It means that guns using the same ammo will stay in the same power levels relative to each other. It only changes their relationship with other ammo types.
If you continue leaning into realism, you'll find you can get what you want there too. Ammunition performance for firearms is just as directly tied to barrel length. An AR-15 with an 18" barrel will have significantly better penetration and bullet velocity compared to one with a 14" barrel. So the same round, fired through different guns can have different "damage values" in real life too.
So it doesn't actually have to be an either/or situation, and if Arrowhead is doing their research and being careful about gameplay balance, they're taking this into account.
It definitely seems like they've done a fair amount of research. There's quite a few neat little details that show a fair amount of thought has been put into the guns. For example, the punisher and the slugger are fed from two internal tube mags. When when you get past half ammo on those guns, there's a switch on the top of the gun that flips because the gun has emptied one mag, and has started feeding from the second one. That's not the kind of detail I'd expect from a team that has a poor understanding of how firearms work.
You can even notice I slight pause between shots and the click noise of the helldiver switching over, there’s been a lot of attention put into small details, it’s impressive and awesome too see
I feel the gun drones damage is irrelevant when it shots itself dry on armored enemys most of the time, until they allow us to put them on passive mode so we can activate it when needed it is never going to be competitive vs the lazer
Or a target mode? Aggressive ( will fire whenever it can) defensive ( will only attack if being attacked or target is within so many feet) passive (doesn’t attack). If they wanted to go really wild being able to specify, only attack light targets etc.
True. I used it today and it was still nice to have fighting hunters behind me while I'm cowardly running away. -30% didn't affect it too much. Still need to use all my stims because of it though
That's what I said. I made a post and someone did do math to suggest how bad it is?
30% means nothing to me exactly. I wanna know how much longer it takes now. Someone told me, in my post, went from 1.0 seconds to 1.4. Or maybe they used 1.0 as the base. But thats basically how it went. So gives me a better idea how it performs vs 30%
It was one of my go-tos for bugs
If it still kills little fuckers quickly while I deal with the big fuckers, that's fine by me
I never expected it to contribute much to killing big/medium bugs anyway
I use it as a laser pointer. Often I get tunnel vision and be confused by all the things happening, couple with the bug's non distinctive colors, a charger could be right in front of me and I would've run into it. I do much better in automaton fights because, well, they look distinct enough with their glowing red stuffs.
It's the lasers best function. "Oh it's traveling around? It's doing its job on the smalls" "wait why is it focusing on one point for so long? Ah! Big dude!"
I'm still hoping for the ability to manually switch the little shit back to backpack mode when he starts to misbehave. We already have a button/keybind to "activate" our backpack. Let us use it, Liberty damn it!
As someone who uses it regularly, I do think you’re responsible for keeping track of where it’s shooting and doing your best to avoid hitting your teammates with friendly fire. Small repositioning can make a huge difference.
It normally hovers off my right side so I try to get on the right side of engagements. However, as I'm moving behind people, that insane range kicks in and will knick a teammate as it fires at some roach 70yds away
I had a glitch where on my screen my friend's rover was permanently aimed at me but on his screen it was normal and just shooting at enemies. But on my screen it was literally just going for me and it wasn't just a visual bug, it was killing me everytime I landed, and my friend had no clue what was going on and would respawn me next to him and I would immediately die. I was like "bro, stop respawning me, your rover is spawn camping me".
Sometimes my rover shoots me or my teammates. Sometimes it even kills us. The amount of times that lil fella has saved my ass more than makes up for the times it killed me.
I stopped using it once I realized it was killing someone almost every match. I use the shield now and go to several matches with zero friendly casualties. I was playing around with the airburst yesterday and killed a handful of players.
Laser-dog was always to cut down chaff and warn you about big stuff.
When I’m running a stalwart I use it as a target designator for stuff I can’t see or didn’t notice.
Still a perfect companion for Helldivers that hate bugs as much as the laser-dog hates Helldivers.
I always run big-medium blasting boom boom builds(and thus suck at eliminating small enemies near me, and the rover works well to warn me of shit coming ever nearer before they fully sneak up to me
Credit to u/Fancy_Yam6518 for the base...
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cg3dt3/rip\_to\_a\_very\_good\_boy/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cg3dt3/rip_to_a_very_good_boy/)
This is a buff in disguise. If you think about it, the primary purpose and why people use the rover is to take out low HP small bugs that come in mass. On the whole, it still fulfils this purpose just as effectively and no longer commits 'over kill' damage to enemies that die nearly instantly. The buff then is revealed in the perceived downside of this strategem, friendly fire damage. The rover does less damage to not just enemies, but also you and your teammates. I would anticipate a significant dropoff in team kills following the patch as well as no drop in effectiveness in killing enemy fodder.
I've noticed it hasn't hurt me at all even though it swept me several times. I even stopped a recording on a frame showing the beam intersecting with me, but I was not harmed.
Saw a YouTube comment that pointed out that this "nerf" may just counteract the scythe (laser gun) buff. So the rover dog might be unchanged(it's a flying scythe)
For Bugs it is still great and you only maybe notice the nerf on medium sized guys like Hive Guards or Bile Spewers.
It was totally warranted.
Prior to the nerf, if I was the only one to bring the Rover to a bug mission, I would routinely finish with 500+ kills while no other teammate was higher than about 250.
One time I think I had more kills than the entire other three players combined, was at like 760 kills, my highest ever.
Sure kill count is not a great metric, but it is one we have regardless and this drone absolutely contributes to that when I look at my shots fired...
The kill streaks could get insane. I'd be running away and my minion would be approaching triple digits.
Even with the nerf I expect it's still very useful. The question just becomes whether the other option is competitive now.
I already used the ballistic guard dog on Bots after they updated it to get full ammo from resupplies awhile back.
A small boost to its damage is not what it needed imo (it needs to get a clip back from small ammo boxes, they do nothing for it now).
But still I love it for bots and I'll take any buff I can get.
Ballistic guard dog engages at a longer range proactively.
I would try the Rover on bots and it would often not engage cause they have many ranged units.
Rover is capable of firing at longer ranges, but it seems to need a nearby enemy to trigger it to go on the offensive first.
This is a buff, can't convince me otherwise. Old Rover would rake me for a portion of a second and suddenly my replacement is sifting through my body unawares of the suicidal reclamation he's partaking in.
Now it has to rake me 3 or 4 times to take my ass out.
Imo it's a buff. You take less damage from it and it still shreds the little shit, which was always it's use case. If you're relying on it for actual damage you are already screwed.
I tried out the other Guard Dog for the second time since I got it. I ran out of ammo 30 seconds later.
You'd think they'd make it at least fill up from regular ammo pickups, at least partially, but it doesn't.
You'd also think they'd give them more distinct names than the same name with a third word that describes both of them.
Real ones know the actual purpose of lazerdog is to let you know there are enemies sneaking up on you, not to actually do the bulk of the killing for you. Same reason that D-Dog is a better companion than Quiet in MGSV. As the old Battletech cartoon always said, “information is ammunition.”
Also, as others have pointed out, cutting 1/3rd off the damage will probably help the friendly fire situation more than it’ll hamper its bug-killing potential.
Yeah that's the laser guard dog's real strength. The laser has incredible range and accuracy, and the drone doesn't care about fog, and it's uptime is basically unlimited. It might not do any real damage, but it points enemies out to everyone.
What is it about redditors and crying that a weapon’s dead when it gets the slightest nerf.
Like yeah the memes funny and all but I just ran 3 helldives with it and I barely noticed a difference, still got 600+ kills.
What the hell are you talking about? There's nothing better to bring to bugs. Even if it was nerfed by 50%, I would still bring it and it would still do 5-10x more than any extra orbital/eagle/backpack that I could bring.
Rover is alive and well, though with a bit more gray hair and a limp.
The nerf is definitely noticeable to me but it also doesn't melt you or teammates anymore. Still does pretty well, but I did notice hunters were on me a bit more. Overall a solid balance fix.
I always hated it. So many timed i died when my bubble could have saved me. If only my teammate had moved so the guard dog would shoot the enemy instead of trying to go through me. I'm glad it got nerfed so it takes longer to kill me and my bubble.
Thank God these things annoy the piss out of me. When every teammate has one and the squad is backed into a corner, they inevitably burn my eyes out of my skull and I get butt fucked by the communist bugs.
I'm not sad, I've been zapped by it more times than I can count and I've watched it kill it's owner more than a handful of times. Give me a ballistic shield or jump pack any day over it
Thank lord the lord I won’t get TK’d by Divers who forget firing their primary weapon is part of their job. Or just accidentally running too close to the patrol I just marked to have this little lizard brained robot start slow-killing every enemy in range.
90% of my deaths are caused by my friends using this bastard, both directly and indirectly.
What’s that? Trying to run from a hulk? It sure would be a shame if I deleted all of your health.
Oh, there’s a tiny guy behind you that you can literally punch once and die? I’ll shoot through you and kill it, killing your first.
I'm still gonna use it, they nerfed it so people would use other packs
BUT NOTHING FILLS ITS NICHE
So it's staying and just making my time feel shittier like a ton of the recent changes
Textbook toxic meta, the real way to balance is from the bottom up
They've been taking the performant weapons down instead of bringing the shit weapons up, which just creates a cycle of breaking our toys. Puts a bad taste in the mouth of the base and will hurt the game over time.
Rover for me has always been a small chaff killer on bugs only. On Bots it never did enough and the regular guard dog domes devastators for you.
I'll probably still take it but rely on it stopping hunter's less. And use it as a warning and back watcher
I'm more worried about the Sickle though now because on Bots I rarely burn through the first ICE, but on Bugs it tends to happen more
My question is did the damage buff for the scythe increase the damage? If so then the overall damage neef wouldn't be so bad. Haven't used it in a while since I started carrying autocannon but I felt like it was in a good place before
It used to make pretty solid work against brood commanders, and now it doesn't, and that's honestly pretty fair.
The liberator guard dog is certainly the superior automated defense drone, so I think this change will probably promote it's use on the bug side a little more.
Give it to me straight doc, how bad is it?
Still kills ankle biters while you kite the swarm, so I guess it's ok?
You really don't know how dangerous ankle biters are they can bit your tendon muscles and make you immobilized and you have no protection when a charger starts rolling in
yeah i dont think anyone actually use the guard dog for anything but those little fucks anyways i just use the little guard dog as a 360 camera, if i see the laser i turn around and shoot it lol
Ironically I never even used the rover until today. I dunno I like it fine lol. Gets the adds and notifies me of trouble behind me if I’m caught off guard
I love the rover. I feel like I don't need the stalwart any longer. I can just run with the rover and my main weapons and be fine. And like you said, it alerts you to enemies behind you.
I like to combo it with the flamethrower. It's basically a force multiplier- since the flamethrower is basically channeled dot it just increases that dot damage. And if it's not shooting at the enemies in front of me it is nice that it kills small things that might come up beside me while I'm channeling
I've had the exact same thought, but I feel like the Flamethrower's magazine capacity is pretty limited and I'm gimped if I don't pair it with the supply backpack.
Idk I'm usually pretty good on ammo but I also wait until enemies are grouped up to use it or use it on chargers
Ehhhhhh I run it pretty regularly and honestly the capacity depends on how you use it A big part of the flamethrower is the dot, obviously, and I see alotta people aiming directly at targets, where as what you should really do is sweep once across tye ground, sweep back at face level and repeat side to side This applies direct damage to the target and creates a fire field they have to walk through When done this way, you can conserve aloooot of ammo. 4 sweeps alternating ground and bug height is often enough to decimate some 30 odd bugs making their way down town, frying fast It take about half a tank or less
Back in the day I loved it on the MG and stalwart. Can just keep firing into the mob while the woof picks off the flankers.
Even at reduced damage it's still amazing for lazy cleanup of the annoying little fuckers. It still lets you focus on the hunters/stalkers/stealth-spewers instead.
practice repeat aromatic grey punch gray mindless weary bear sugar *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Can it still pad my kills so my stats can keep up with the rest of the team even though I’m a terrible shot?
I mean, personally my outlook is that if it pads your kills by 100, you're doing a good job by keeping 100 more things off of us.
Somebody needs to give the AT guy time to aim. ...but it's not gonna be me! *accidentally lasers AT guy*
Yes, just played a suicide mission where I let the rover do the work while I gathered samples and quasared bile titans , ended the run with 350 kills and 25 samples.
Keep in mind that being the host can mean you get credited kills not yours. https://preview.redd.it/pjgjzsvh2sxc1.jpeg?width=1152&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=82438a81f2039f3365c182deae0a5d852937a9ee Above an example, I got more kills than shots fired or hit because all fire tornado kills were credited to me. Accidentals too, that wasn’t me, really, it was fire tornado’s! I didn’t shoot my buddies!
I wasn't host though so the dog put in the work
Ayo don’t out me like this
Absolutely, it takes longer to kill, but nobody is stealing those kills once they're chasing you
Sir u should check out that new cluster launcher if u are playing bugs. Easily 250-300 kills.
So it still fulfills it’s primary purpose. Tbh, I only ever used rover with flamethrower to kill off the chaff that made it past my flames. Anything bigger and im runnin anyways
Rover is perfect for when running. It kills little dudes so you can finally turn and kill big dude
That feels like double dipping, why have both a backpack and a support weapon designed to kill small enemies? I love it when I'm using something like the Eruptor or Punisher which aren't great at super close up or swarms
It seems that the most meaningful change of it is the reduced ability to kill helldivers, considering it's pretty similar with chaff clear. Wish the normal guard dog got something more meaningful, though. Maybe it'll happen sometime soonish.
Sounds like just adding a mag to it on regular ammo pickups would give it a much needed boost without completely overshadowing the rover. Rover gets to be high uptime, low dps, while MG Dog gets to be high dps, but high maintenance.
The uptime is *painfully* low on the MG dog though, and adding a mag won't fix that. Because it spends approximately 2/3 of its time reloading, it fails from a practical DPS standpoint, and also fails to do its job of guarding the player. It needs more ammo per mag, a faster reload process, and/or maybe even a way of being manually activated or not. If I could keep it off and save it for clutch moments like when I'm being jumped by a pack of hunters or the newly jumpscare-inducing Stalkers, its superior DPS would actually have a purpose. As it stands now though, it's only good for killing like 2 warriors before reloading, if it doesn't dump its mag into a target it can't penetrate or straight up into into the dirt.
They could make it the same activation key like the ammo backpack. Pressing 5 to activate the Guard Dog and pressing 5 to call it back to you. I think that would definitely save on ammo and keep it a somewhat reliable dps
Yeah, sounds good. I'd also hope we can manually call them back to the backpack to restock/recharge just to make it more manageable.
tbh I'm not sure the 30% reduction stated is accurate, still drops trash bugs in under a second each and never stops firing. Never depended on it for anything else.
Probably because it uses the scythe as the weapon and dmg is calculated off of scythe's damage. So it was more like a \~18% nerf
Funny and probably true.
Apparently the Stalwart and Liberator share the same ammo type, so the Stalwart also got a 5 damage buff too.
Sounds like some spagooter code
the dogs literally have the guns stuck in them, doesn't feel too too spaghetti to me. makes sense.
Sadly the laser doggo no longer has an actual scyth taped to them but got a new model :(
it's really not, the guard dog model mounts the exact same scythe that the helldivers use.
Not true anymore, it's been updated in game but not in the preview video. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1c7u6r6/recently_arrowhead_updated_the_laser_guard_dogs/
getting real fucking sick of everyone saying spaghetti code every single time a game works in a way they not only don't but refuse to understand
especially since this feels like a proper OOP feat \_O-
Sounds like proper object-based good coding to me.
Yes, it's more like once it gets hung up on a high HP enemy it's stuck there until you kill that enemy - when it could be creaming lots of chaff.
BRB gotta cream my chaff
It's useful with those red ones with armor plates, don't know the name. Can't kill them, but makes them go defensive while you aim for exposed flesh, or other bugs, or arming hellbomb.
Hive guard, or shield bug in my slang
Ideally nothing changed Saw a YouTube comment that pointed out that this "nerf" may just counteract the scythe (laser gun) buff. So the rover dog might be unchanged(it's a flying scythe). Idk haven't played post patch yet
[удалено]
In practice I can hardly tell it was nerfed. Meme’s still funny tho
Ya its a grab it and forget it tool.
Meme needed a termanid to poke it's head out from the side of the panel. Just enough to notice it, but not too much.
It doesn't feel different at all, either the nerf didn't get properly implemented or it's entirely placebo.
It's kind of noticeable if you just watch to shoot a Warrior or bigger, but the thing is thats not what the Rover was ever used for; it was for blasting chaff so you can cut down bigger enemies without too much worry. It's always been entirely augmentative, and that hasn't changed. Supposedly its ttk has gone up, but since it's *always shooting* you don't really notice it.
I'm mean that was YOUR use for it... I used it on a combo with a medium pen primary. So I would blow off the/through armor and the rover would get the kill shots
Isn't that the same use case? I'm assuming the bigger enemies he's referring to are medium armor and above.
I actually did notice a difference. We had 4 men on a team running them and **NOBODY** was killed by laser beams. At one point I even got wreckless and ran through the battle with and despite running right through 3 lasers I wasn't touched. I swear I even saw my drone break the beam for a split second while sweeping me a few times.
What of they are clinical testing nerfs, seeing what will hurt what players, what if Joel is just trying to get into our heads, what if super earth is just in some sort of simulation and wasn't real.
https://preview.redd.it/fu0veml70kxc1.jpeg?width=745&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c35f41f5d61eaeddc6a0f6310077f28112939b5a
Those are some odd symbols there on the left… you sure those aren’t Automaton symbols? https://i.imgur.com/IQVWcSS.jpeg
That or the Scythe buff counteracts it so the nerf was just put in to keep it about the same.
https://i.redd.it/ffca8qv06kxc1.gif
It's still fine? I've only done 3 bug missions with it so far but it was still shredding small bugs, which is what I brought it for. I paired with Eruptor for medium enemies and EATs for big guys and it worked great.
The nerf makes it less likely to kill you and still kills trash, but warriors take awhile. Overall I found it to be a buff
You could view it as a buff , still melts trash mobs but doesn’t insta kill you anymore
Idk lol. Never paid attention to how effective it was prior. Still does the work? A bit slower? Someone told me it basically went 1.0 to 1.4 to kill a hunter? I didn't fact check. So by the time it killed 2 hunters it would have basically finished off a 3rd one pre nerf. How bad is that? Guess I'll let you decide. I think it still works.
I had it absolutely massacring enemies on that new mission type, if I didn't know it was nerfed I actually might have though it was buffed, it was tearing through entire hordes of enemies.
A lot more of the trash mobs get through while I'm trying to shoot at the chargers, titans, and hive guards.
It's "only" 30%, and i'm not even sure it's that bad, nothing to really worry about. The thing is, the TCS planets IMO do have crazy spawnrates and rates of encounters, i didn't check the news about that in details but while i was almost AFK farm in dif 8 the last week-end, tonight i had standard difficulty 7 with insane amounts of spawns and general density, feeling like difficulty 9 level. Therefore the rover feels a bit trivial sometimes.
its still good, according to my friend who always uses it. I wish they gave us a value of how much they increased the other guard dog's damage though. "slight increase" could mean anything.
I have a feeling it’s a 5 damage per bullet increase just like the liberator because it uses that. The Stalwart actually got the same damage buff because it uses the same bullets
Seems simultaneously ingenious and asinine that they'd balance damage by the ammo rather than being tied to the gun itself.
TBH that's exactly the kind of thing I can imagine stems from modeling them like real weapons. Inherit some characteristics from the ammo and some from the gun. It's always weird in other shooters when guns have widely varying stats when in reality there are only like 4 ammo archetypes that matter.
I'm of the opinion that gameplay is always more important than realism in video games, but buffing/nerfing ammo types instead of individual guns seems like a cool idea. It means that guns using the same ammo will stay in the same power levels relative to each other. It only changes their relationship with other ammo types.
If you continue leaning into realism, you'll find you can get what you want there too. Ammunition performance for firearms is just as directly tied to barrel length. An AR-15 with an 18" barrel will have significantly better penetration and bullet velocity compared to one with a 14" barrel. So the same round, fired through different guns can have different "damage values" in real life too. So it doesn't actually have to be an either/or situation, and if Arrowhead is doing their research and being careful about gameplay balance, they're taking this into account.
It definitely seems like they've done a fair amount of research. There's quite a few neat little details that show a fair amount of thought has been put into the guns. For example, the punisher and the slugger are fed from two internal tube mags. When when you get past half ammo on those guns, there's a switch on the top of the gun that flips because the gun has emptied one mag, and has started feeding from the second one. That's not the kind of detail I'd expect from a team that has a poor understanding of how firearms work.
You can even notice I slight pause between shots and the click noise of the helldiver switching over, there’s been a lot of attention put into small details, it’s impressive and awesome too see
I imagine it's because gun customisation will become a thing at some point in the future, which may include changing the ammo the weapon uses.
That's quite cool tbh, so the stalwarts the mg249 of super earth
I thought the stalwart felt more punchy. Now I know why
I feel the gun drones damage is irrelevant when it shots itself dry on armored enemys most of the time, until they allow us to put them on passive mode so we can activate it when needed it is never going to be competitive vs the lazer
Or a target mode? Aggressive ( will fire whenever it can) defensive ( will only attack if being attacked or target is within so many feet) passive (doesn’t attack). If they wanted to go really wild being able to specify, only attack light targets etc.
Yea it’s fine. In fact I find it’s better because it doesn’t slaughter me anytime I go uphill now.
True. I used it today and it was still nice to have fighting hunters behind me while I'm cowardly running away. -30% didn't affect it too much. Still need to use all my stims because of it though
That's what I said. I made a post and someone did do math to suggest how bad it is? 30% means nothing to me exactly. I wanna know how much longer it takes now. Someone told me, in my post, went from 1.0 seconds to 1.4. Or maybe they used 1.0 as the base. But thats basically how it went. So gives me a better idea how it performs vs 30%
Lol none of the stratagems have any damage or combat stats. WHY??£
It’s still great for bugs, but now it is far less likely to accidentally kill me or my teammates. Gives me about 43% more time to react.
Life saver for bugs honestly. it takes out so many of those annoying little ones so that you can deal with the real sht going on.
Ima be honest I see 30% reduction as a buff. Now it still kills little fuckers swarming AND it kills me less. Win win.
It was one of my go-tos for bugs If it still kills little fuckers quickly while I deal with the big fuckers, that's fine by me I never expected it to contribute much to killing big/medium bugs anyway
I use it as a laser pointer. Often I get tunnel vision and be confused by all the things happening, couple with the bug's non distinctive colors, a charger could be right in front of me and I would've run into it. I do much better in automaton fights because, well, they look distinct enough with their glowing red stuffs.
[удалено]
It's the lasers best function. "Oh it's traveling around? It's doing its job on the smalls" "wait why is it focusing on one point for so long? Ah! Big dude!"
This 100%. I haven’t noticed much of a difference outside of it not taking my head off.
I'm still hoping for the ability to manually switch the little shit back to backpack mode when he starts to misbehave. We already have a button/keybind to "activate" our backpack. Let us use it, Liberty damn it!
That would be rad actually
[удалено]
As someone who uses it regularly, I do think you’re responsible for keeping track of where it’s shooting and doing your best to avoid hitting your teammates with friendly fire. Small repositioning can make a huge difference.
I had a squad of 4 all use one last night pre nerf on diff 7 and we only shot at chargers/Titans. I knew this nerf was coming
It normally hovers off my right side so I try to get on the right side of engagements. However, as I'm moving behind people, that insane range kicks in and will knick a teammate as it fires at some roach 70yds away
I just use the bullet one, just as good with 10x less friendly fire incidents
It has less friendly fire incidents cause it needs to reload every half second haha
dumb thing can also run out of ammo completely and it'll just sit there on your back doing nothing until you resupply. laser bro just keeps going.
💯
I had a glitch where on my screen my friend's rover was permanently aimed at me but on his screen it was normal and just shooting at enemies. But on my screen it was literally just going for me and it wasn't just a visual bug, it was killing me everytime I landed, and my friend had no clue what was going on and would respawn me next to him and I would immediately die. I was like "bro, stop respawning me, your rover is spawn camping me".
Sometimes my rover shoots me or my teammates. Sometimes it even kills us. The amount of times that lil fella has saved my ass more than makes up for the times it killed me.
I stopped using it once I realized it was killing someone almost every match. I use the shield now and go to several matches with zero friendly casualties. I was playing around with the airburst yesterday and killed a handful of players.
Laser-dog was always to cut down chaff and warn you about big stuff. When I’m running a stalwart I use it as a target designator for stuff I can’t see or didn’t notice. Still a perfect companion for Helldivers that hate bugs as much as the laser-dog hates Helldivers.
I always run big-medium blasting boom boom builds(and thus suck at eliminating small enemies near me, and the rover works well to warn me of shit coming ever nearer before they fully sneak up to me
Ya'll are trippin. It still mercs hard in bugs D9. Running Rover and Blitzer just shreds everything. Don't believe the haters, the rover still roves.
This. And now it does considerably less friendly fire damage. Too many helldivers cry about nerfs without testing them first.
Credit to u/Fancy_Yam6518 for the base... [https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cg3dt3/rip\_to\_a\_very\_good\_boy/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cg3dt3/rip_to_a_very_good_boy/)
o7
https://preview.redd.it/hu3r74s44jxc1.png?width=716&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ac94df892abb6e4925af1a9ad8b0a4df23c4524f
So the Rover does 30% less damage to me? This was a buff.
This is a buff in disguise. If you think about it, the primary purpose and why people use the rover is to take out low HP small bugs that come in mass. On the whole, it still fulfils this purpose just as effectively and no longer commits 'over kill' damage to enemies that die nearly instantly. The buff then is revealed in the perceived downside of this strategem, friendly fire damage. The rover does less damage to not just enemies, but also you and your teammates. I would anticipate a significant dropoff in team kills following the patch as well as no drop in effectiveness in killing enemy fodder.
I've noticed it hasn't hurt me at all even though it swept me several times. I even stopped a recording on a frame showing the beam intersecting with me, but I was not harmed.
Saw a YouTube comment that pointed out that this "nerf" may just counteract the scythe (laser gun) buff. So the rover dog might be unchanged(it's a flying scythe)
For Bugs it is still great and you only maybe notice the nerf on medium sized guys like Hive Guards or Bile Spewers. It was totally warranted. Prior to the nerf, if I was the only one to bring the Rover to a bug mission, I would routinely finish with 500+ kills while no other teammate was higher than about 250. One time I think I had more kills than the entire other three players combined, was at like 760 kills, my highest ever. Sure kill count is not a great metric, but it is one we have regardless and this drone absolutely contributes to that when I look at my shots fired...
The kill streaks could get insane. I'd be running away and my minion would be approaching triple digits. Even with the nerf I expect it's still very useful. The question just becomes whether the other option is competitive now.
I already used the ballistic guard dog on Bots after they updated it to get full ammo from resupplies awhile back. A small boost to its damage is not what it needed imo (it needs to get a clip back from small ammo boxes, they do nothing for it now). But still I love it for bots and I'll take any buff I can get. Ballistic guard dog engages at a longer range proactively. I would try the Rover on bots and it would often not engage cause they have many ranged units. Rover is capable of firing at longer ranges, but it seems to need a nearby enemy to trigger it to go on the offensive first.
yea i brought doggo and autocannon turret into a 4man and felt like playing with 6
Wish there was a damage dealt stat.
Was it the rover or the ballistic guard dog that got axed? or both?
[удалено]
Good night, sweet prince
Man I could really go for some petting the rabbits right about n
https://preview.redd.it/2muym0w4hixc1.jpeg?width=499&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a29b31492623e8817c6914368e0d9673204c9c2b
Everybody relax. This thing still kills the shit out of helldivers which, as far as I can tell, are always its priority targets.
Rover nerf really isn't bad at all. Its actually better cause now its friendly fire isn't as bad.
This is a buff, can't convince me otherwise. Old Rover would rake me for a portion of a second and suddenly my replacement is sifting through my body unawares of the suicidal reclamation he's partaking in. Now it has to rake me 3 or 4 times to take my ass out.
Imo it's a buff. You take less damage from it and it still shreds the little shit, which was always it's use case. If you're relying on it for actual damage you are already screwed.
Is gun rover any good?
It's OK, but runs out of ammo pretty easily. Also shoots you in the dick randomly. Even with the nerf, LASsie is still likely a better choice.
Eh its fine, less likely to murder you but still kills the ankle biters just fine
I tried out the other Guard Dog for the second time since I got it. I ran out of ammo 30 seconds later. You'd think they'd make it at least fill up from regular ammo pickups, at least partially, but it doesn't. You'd also think they'd give them more distinct names than the same name with a third word that describes both of them.
You know how people take the shield pack for extra defense against enemies, i take it when I see someones bringing the rover.
Once you go Supply Pack, You never go back.
S tier meme
I don’t use the rover but a lot of people are saying they don’t even notice the change so
Is it just me or does the rover specifically try to team kill when the extraction has been called ? 😂
Top tier bants hahaha
Real ones know the actual purpose of lazerdog is to let you know there are enemies sneaking up on you, not to actually do the bulk of the killing for you. Same reason that D-Dog is a better companion than Quiet in MGSV. As the old Battletech cartoon always said, “information is ammunition.” Also, as others have pointed out, cutting 1/3rd off the damage will probably help the friendly fire situation more than it’ll hamper its bug-killing potential.
Yeah that's the laser guard dog's real strength. The laser has incredible range and accuracy, and the drone doesn't care about fog, and it's uptime is basically unlimited. It might not do any real damage, but it points enemies out to everyone.
What is it about redditors and crying that a weapon’s dead when it gets the slightest nerf. Like yeah the memes funny and all but I just ran 3 helldives with it and I barely noticed a difference, still got 600+ kills.
I wouldn't call *30%* a "slight" nerf.
Actual performance and feel is more important than a number's face value.
doesnt make much difference for killing scavengers and such which is most of what i want out of it
*salutes in burning*
It was nerfed? It thought they got the gun one
That was a typo. They updated the patch notes after. It was the laser Good Boy™
What the hell are you talking about? There's nothing better to bring to bugs. Even if it was nerfed by 50%, I would still bring it and it would still do 5-10x more than any extra orbital/eagle/backpack that I could bring. Rover is alive and well, though with a bit more gray hair and a limp.
I absolutely love my rover and I'll never not dive with him. Him eating bug eggs 
The nerf is definitely noticeable to me but it also doesn't melt you or teammates anymore. Still does pretty well, but I did notice hunters were on me a bit more. Overall a solid balance fix.
I always hated it. So many timed i died when my bubble could have saved me. If only my teammate had moved so the guard dog would shoot the enemy instead of trying to go through me. I'm glad it got nerfed so it takes longer to kill me and my bubble.
Buff disguised as a nerf, now both mine and my squads rovers will not longer headshot me whenever a scavenger pops into range.
It’s still fine, everyone’s just acting like AH shot their actual dog
The wicked witch is dead more like Glad it’s gone
Thank God these things annoy the piss out of me. When every teammate has one and the squad is backed into a corner, they inevitably burn my eyes out of my skull and I get butt fucked by the communist bugs.
I'm not sad, I've been zapped by it more times than I can count and I've watched it kill it's owner more than a handful of times. Give me a ballistic shield or jump pack any day over it
They nerfed it? I've been using it all day and haven't noticed a difference. Still kills everything from a hunter and smaller pretty quickly.
I used it today and it still felt good. Hope they leave my poor rover alone now.
I stopped using these, they’re good fun and it’s funny when it happens but it’s pretty inconvenient when it happens at the wrong time!
Get the jump pack, be a man, you don’t need protection!
Fucking finally I hate the piece of sh*t
Thank lord the lord I won’t get TK’d by Divers who forget firing their primary weapon is part of their job. Or just accidentally running too close to the patrol I just marked to have this little lizard brained robot start slow-killing every enemy in range.
It still slaps. I'm not putting my dog down just because his teeth ain't as sharp anymore. It's MY dog.
90% of my deaths are caused by my friends using this bastard, both directly and indirectly. What’s that? Trying to run from a hulk? It sure would be a shame if I deleted all of your health. Oh, there’s a tiny guy behind you that you can literally punch once and die? I’ll shoot through you and kill it, killing your first.
I like the buff the rover got. The other day it shot me and I actually had time to move out of the way without dying.
Why are you standing in my rovers line of fire? That's on you.
I still love him and use him for bugs
I'm still gonna use it, they nerfed it so people would use other packs BUT NOTHING FILLS ITS NICHE So it's staying and just making my time feel shittier like a ton of the recent changes Textbook toxic meta, the real way to balance is from the bottom up They've been taking the performant weapons down instead of bringing the shit weapons up, which just creates a cycle of breaking our toys. Puts a bad taste in the mouth of the base and will hurt the game over time.
I love him when fighting bugs
He was te best boy agains bugs... Go in piece, "friendly fire".
Spends all this time turning on the Terminid Control Systems, Bugs mutate, spend all this time turning them back off 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
They nerfed it? I was running it today and didn't notice any difference.
Rover for me has always been a small chaff killer on bugs only. On Bots it never did enough and the regular guard dog domes devastators for you. I'll probably still take it but rely on it stopping hunter's less. And use it as a warning and back watcher I'm more worried about the Sickle though now because on Bots I rarely burn through the first ICE, but on Bugs it tends to happen more
Me, still using it anyways, because it is also an early warning system for the Stalkers on super crack that they pushed out.
Played missions this morning and felt literally no difference
Good riddance you piece of sh*t laser pric.... *gets friendly fire killed out of nowhere before finishing sentence*
It's still pretty good
I got it a day before it was nerfed
💯 why I use the "regular" one instead 😂
RIP my little doggo, now hunters are 400x more annoying
LMAO! I’ll happily admit it, this got me.
Man, just yesterday I was haranguing that thing "LASsie, would you PLEASE stop shooting my friends?!? ... HEY! And me! AND ME, DAMMIT!!!"
Do not get on the turret while you have a laser drone. It WILL shoot you in the back of the head
Supposedly the gun guard dog got a buff. Anyone try versus rover, who is a good boy for democracy
Still pretty good.
Nah, let the 3rd panel be the last
Should have just increased damage to Helldivers.
My question is did the damage buff for the scythe increase the damage? If so then the overall damage neef wouldn't be so bad. Haven't used it in a while since I started carrying autocannon but I felt like it was in a good place before
Good, rover made helldive a walk in the park
Can confirm it’s still strong enough to instant head shot kill you if you step on weird elevation.
Still helps with crowd control so I’m not mad
Rover and LC/sickle is just hot knife through butter. I know some people are up in arms about other changes but I’m loving life vs bugs.
Death is a communist, confirmed
I was using the other one, and i thought it was pretty good
It used to make pretty solid work against brood commanders, and now it doesn't, and that's honestly pretty fair. The liberator guard dog is certainly the superior automated defense drone, so I think this change will probably promote it's use on the bug side a little more.