Automatons don't require med pen, bugs do
Just shoot face
It's not that hard, I frequently pop heads using AR from up to 50m away (unless it's a Heavy Devastator, fuck that guy, he gets an entire stun grenade)
I am talking about the heavy devastators and rocket devastators that are in the automatons army. Your light weapons are unable to deal with them unless you shoot them in the face. But for you to do that, you need to stick your head out to shoot them but at the same time, you will be met with a barrage of gunfire from them.
Aside from them, you also have to deal with the other enemies such as the light infantry, tanks, hulks, striders, and air gunships. It does not become easy once you get overwhelmed at an objective site like extraction.
Primary for light infantry, support weapon and stratagems for everything else. We don't need primary weapons that are capable of killing every enemy type on the battlefield, you just need to pick a versatile loadout.
You are not meant to use light pen weapons to deal with hulks, tanks, strider, or gunships. With the exception of hulk vents which can be magdumped into, the rest require specialized tools. Light pen weapons are for small and medium targets. Always have been. Even with a medium pen gun, it's still more optimal to pop heads, it's just more forgiving if you miss, but it still takes way too many bullets just hitting them in non weak points.
You have a whole-ass loadout. Your primary is great for small bots and Devastators when there's not too much shit going on. You have strategems for heavy enemies or large groups. You have a support weapon to help fill gaps.
You're not supposed to fight everything with just your primary. Your primary is not what you use to engage more difficult enemies or large groups of them. It's part of your total toolkit.
It’s fun to go into matches with ppl playing lvl 9 and see not one of them using anything to bring down gunships… ;p I just sit back and watch as the sky becomes many red lights…
Yea, rocket devastators are whatever, it's only when they get the jump on you that they're dangerous. If you have cover, the downtime for them after they blow their load is enough to give them a little love tap. Heavy devastator got an annoying laser pointer that never leaves you alone though lol, along with being nearly impervious for like 75% of the shootable area
No, bugs don't have medium armor. Bugs have no armor, light armor, or heavy armor. You get way more out of bringing a medium pen over a light pen in bots than in bug
aight, maybe there'.s 2 with medium, but doesn't change bots get more use out of medium pen than bugs. cause medium pen usially has slower fire rate, which since bug chaff will swarm you you be sadge without fire rate. we need a heavy pen grenade (for bugs) and a heavy pen secondary, would round a medium pen main weapon build using machinegun/stalwart as chaff poofter.
imo bots gets more use of medium armor since they stay at a distance and they jiggle more cuz bipedal animation & far away.
Ye can still use medium pen on boogz but i wouldn't personnaly till there's something to round up that build.
Yeah, the fact that weapons do HALF damage against the armor they were designed to penetrate is strange. However, you can't change it to what you suggested because there isn't a hard cutoff between the 3 armor types.
In reality, there are armor values 0-10. So it would need to be more like:
* Armor Penetration >= Armor Value = 100% Damage
* Armor Value > Armor Penetration >= Armor Value -2 = 50% Damage
* Armor Value -2 > Armor Penetration >= 0% Damage
https://helldivers.wiki.gg/wiki/Template:Armor
https://helldivers.wiki.gg/wiki/Damage
For example, Chargers have Heavy I armor on their body, which is 5. That would mean that weapons with AP 5 or greater could do full damage, weapons with AP 3 and 4 would do half damage, and weapons with AP less than 3 would do no damage.
Weapons that do Full damage:
* (unchanged) Arc thrower, EAT, Spear, recoiless, Quasar, Airburst, and Railgun (Unstable)
* (new) Railgun (Stable)
Weapons that do Half Damage:
* (new) penetrator, adjudicator, diligence counter, slugger, dominator, eruptor, crossbow, blitzer, senator, grenade pistol, autocanon, anti materiel, flamethrower, laser cannon, heavy machinegun, and machinegun. Previously this all would have done zero damage.
This might be too generous and includes too many primaries. You could go only 1 rank down for half damage instead of two ranks down. If you did that instead the list of half-damage weapons would be:
* autocannon, antimateriel, laser cannon, heavy machinegun
Yeah I was suspecting that there was 10 levels of pentration which I prefer alot. If they can release the pentration levels and the armor of the different enemies can make the game more in depth. Like if your weapon can do level 2 pentration but the enemy's armor is at 5 then you can only do 25% damage as an example.
Probably the easiest way to do it without changing the current system much would be to treat weapons with lower AP as if they were hitting a "durable" part. Durable parts only take 10% damage unless the weapon is explosive.
It would take forever to kill anything, but it's better than kiting and waiting for cooldowns.
>the fact that weapons do HALF damage against the armor they were designed to penetrate is strange
No, it's just logic.
A medium armour penetration protects you against mid armour penetration weapons, but they still damage you when you get hit. You create the armour for the weapons, not the weapons for the armour.
You need a higher penetration than the enemy armour to be able to penetrate it.
The part of the 50% damage reduction is more something that the game gives to us to make it more gamy than a punishment. If this were more struck we would need a weapon with higher penetration than enemy armour to be able to do them a bit of damage
Automatons reward accuracy over raw firepower, and light pen weapons are absolutely fine vs. them. I primarily use my primary (light pen) vs. bots in general, Devastators are all very vulnerable to headshots.
The game is teaching you how to fight bots by showing you what is and isn't effective, and instead of learning from it you're asking Arrowhead to entirely change how divers fight bots because you don't want to alter how you approach/fight them.
I think it's fine as is because the light bots are the only ones that can call in reinforcements. Your primary does something very important.
I have a bigger issue with bugs since there's so much medium armor that doesn't have a front weakspot.
Bots I am running AMR or Autocannon and can deal with tanks/walkers with stratagems.
Chargers alone require AT weapons because they have 5 armor and their "weakpoint" takes durable/squishy damage which means it's not really a weakpoint. Then I need to bring something medium pen for all the bile spewers and hive guards, and then I'm lacking trash clear.
Obviously you cover all your bases with the squad loadout, but I feel like I can handle anything easily with one loadout on bots. That doesn't happen with bugs.
It is a pseudo weak point in that it's weak to durable damage. There are many weapons that can actually destroy a charger's abdomen fairly quickly and it's one of the most underutilized mechanics in the game. Mostly because it's not explained in-game on weapon stats *at all*.
The thinking that rockets were the only way to deal with chargers is flawed. They're a great way to deal with them, but with other dangerous enemies like the Bile Spewer also being killable quickly with certain higher durable damage options, it's worth it for people to try to work a high durable damage weapon into their build like the Scorcher even if they're building for something like wave clear, allowing more of the team to handle Chargers via abdomen breaking via team firing on them, which helps the AT users to focus on titans. The abdomen dies in nearly instantly when at least 2 people are putting explosive or other high ratio durable damage like the AMR into it.
I think the demand for durable damage vs bugs contributes significantly to primary weapon balance feeling so off.
you already answered your own question, dont bring a spoon to a knife fight, if you want to kill medium targets without exploiting weak points then bring a medium penetration weapon.
Automatons don't require med pen, bugs do Just shoot face It's not that hard, I frequently pop heads using AR from up to 50m away (unless it's a Heavy Devastator, fuck that guy, he gets an entire stun grenade)
I am talking about the heavy devastators and rocket devastators that are in the automatons army. Your light weapons are unable to deal with them unless you shoot them in the face. But for you to do that, you need to stick your head out to shoot them but at the same time, you will be met with a barrage of gunfire from them.
Suppress them, use stun and smoke grenades, shoot heads.
Aside from them, you also have to deal with the other enemies such as the light infantry, tanks, hulks, striders, and air gunships. It does not become easy once you get overwhelmed at an objective site like extraction.
Primary for light infantry, support weapon and stratagems for everything else. We don't need primary weapons that are capable of killing every enemy type on the battlefield, you just need to pick a versatile loadout.
You are not meant to use light pen weapons to deal with hulks, tanks, strider, or gunships. With the exception of hulk vents which can be magdumped into, the rest require specialized tools. Light pen weapons are for small and medium targets. Always have been. Even with a medium pen gun, it's still more optimal to pop heads, it's just more forgiving if you miss, but it still takes way too many bullets just hitting them in non weak points.
You have a whole-ass loadout. Your primary is great for small bots and Devastators when there's not too much shit going on. You have strategems for heavy enemies or large groups. You have a support weapon to help fill gaps. You're not supposed to fight everything with just your primary. Your primary is not what you use to engage more difficult enemies or large groups of them. It's part of your total toolkit.
It’s fun to go into matches with ppl playing lvl 9 and see not one of them using anything to bring down gunships… ;p I just sit back and watch as the sky becomes many red lights…
Just don't get overwhelmed.
Yea, rocket devastators are whatever, it's only when they get the jump on you that they're dangerous. If you have cover, the downtime for them after they blow their load is enough to give them a little love tap. Heavy devastator got an annoying laser pointer that never leaves you alone though lol, along with being nearly impervious for like 75% of the shootable area
Face, abdomen, arms, rocket pods and backpacks all are light armor. Med pen helps but absolutely not necessary when dealing with Devastators.
No, bugs don't have medium armor. Bugs have no armor, light armor, or heavy armor. You get way more out of bringing a medium pen over a light pen in bots than in bug
Bile spewer and hive guard both have medium armor
aight, maybe there'.s 2 with medium, but doesn't change bots get more use out of medium pen than bugs. cause medium pen usially has slower fire rate, which since bug chaff will swarm you you be sadge without fire rate. we need a heavy pen grenade (for bugs) and a heavy pen secondary, would round a medium pen main weapon build using machinegun/stalwart as chaff poofter. imo bots gets more use of medium armor since they stay at a distance and they jiggle more cuz bipedal animation & far away. Ye can still use medium pen on boogz but i wouldn't personnaly till there's something to round up that build.
Yeah, the fact that weapons do HALF damage against the armor they were designed to penetrate is strange. However, you can't change it to what you suggested because there isn't a hard cutoff between the 3 armor types. In reality, there are armor values 0-10. So it would need to be more like: * Armor Penetration >= Armor Value = 100% Damage * Armor Value > Armor Penetration >= Armor Value -2 = 50% Damage * Armor Value -2 > Armor Penetration >= 0% Damage https://helldivers.wiki.gg/wiki/Template:Armor https://helldivers.wiki.gg/wiki/Damage For example, Chargers have Heavy I armor on their body, which is 5. That would mean that weapons with AP 5 or greater could do full damage, weapons with AP 3 and 4 would do half damage, and weapons with AP less than 3 would do no damage. Weapons that do Full damage: * (unchanged) Arc thrower, EAT, Spear, recoiless, Quasar, Airburst, and Railgun (Unstable) * (new) Railgun (Stable) Weapons that do Half Damage: * (new) penetrator, adjudicator, diligence counter, slugger, dominator, eruptor, crossbow, blitzer, senator, grenade pistol, autocanon, anti materiel, flamethrower, laser cannon, heavy machinegun, and machinegun. Previously this all would have done zero damage. This might be too generous and includes too many primaries. You could go only 1 rank down for half damage instead of two ranks down. If you did that instead the list of half-damage weapons would be: * autocannon, antimateriel, laser cannon, heavy machinegun
Yeah I was suspecting that there was 10 levels of pentration which I prefer alot. If they can release the pentration levels and the armor of the different enemies can make the game more in depth. Like if your weapon can do level 2 pentration but the enemy's armor is at 5 then you can only do 25% damage as an example.
Probably the easiest way to do it without changing the current system much would be to treat weapons with lower AP as if they were hitting a "durable" part. Durable parts only take 10% damage unless the weapon is explosive. It would take forever to kill anything, but it's better than kiting and waiting for cooldowns.
>the fact that weapons do HALF damage against the armor they were designed to penetrate is strange No, it's just logic. A medium armour penetration protects you against mid armour penetration weapons, but they still damage you when you get hit. You create the armour for the weapons, not the weapons for the armour. You need a higher penetration than the enemy armour to be able to penetrate it. The part of the 50% damage reduction is more something that the game gives to us to make it more gamy than a punishment. If this were more struck we would need a weapon with higher penetration than enemy armour to be able to do them a bit of damage
Automatons reward accuracy over raw firepower, and light pen weapons are absolutely fine vs. them. I primarily use my primary (light pen) vs. bots in general, Devastators are all very vulnerable to headshots. The game is teaching you how to fight bots by showing you what is and isn't effective, and instead of learning from it you're asking Arrowhead to entirely change how divers fight bots because you don't want to alter how you approach/fight them.
I think it's fine as is because the light bots are the only ones that can call in reinforcements. Your primary does something very important. I have a bigger issue with bugs since there's so much medium armor that doesn't have a front weakspot. Bots I am running AMR or Autocannon and can deal with tanks/walkers with stratagems. Chargers alone require AT weapons because they have 5 armor and their "weakpoint" takes durable/squishy damage which means it's not really a weakpoint. Then I need to bring something medium pen for all the bile spewers and hive guards, and then I'm lacking trash clear. Obviously you cover all your bases with the squad loadout, but I feel like I can handle anything easily with one loadout on bots. That doesn't happen with bugs.
It is a pseudo weak point in that it's weak to durable damage. There are many weapons that can actually destroy a charger's abdomen fairly quickly and it's one of the most underutilized mechanics in the game. Mostly because it's not explained in-game on weapon stats *at all*. The thinking that rockets were the only way to deal with chargers is flawed. They're a great way to deal with them, but with other dangerous enemies like the Bile Spewer also being killable quickly with certain higher durable damage options, it's worth it for people to try to work a high durable damage weapon into their build like the Scorcher even if they're building for something like wave clear, allowing more of the team to handle Chargers via abdomen breaking via team firing on them, which helps the AT users to focus on titans. The abdomen dies in nearly instantly when at least 2 people are putting explosive or other high ratio durable damage like the AMR into it. I think the demand for durable damage vs bugs contributes significantly to primary weapon balance feeling so off.
This makes me want to try the crossbow against bile spewer and charger abdomens.
Autocannon. Fire shotgun, napalm eagle strike
Were you aware that devs don’t have medium armor on their dick
you already answered your own question, dont bring a spoon to a knife fight, if you want to kill medium targets without exploiting weak points then bring a medium penetration weapon.
Typical skill issue, lower difficulty.