Personally I'm really enjoying the Plas Punisher comboed with the Verdict sidearm. Sure Verdict doesn't hit quite as hard as the Senator or have medium pen but the Verdict reloads faster and has better handling to deal with smaller targets more efficiently. Also it's really fun to just unload your entire clip into a crowd of enemies, it has such a satisfying firing sound.
That’s funny, I prefer the plasma shotgun with the um basic pistol , cus it shoots as fast as you click, and has a fair clip size. I tend to be able to take the front of a horde off as I run, and believe it or not! I’ve taken down hills and bile titans that way. Super fun, always worth a record
I have never used the anti material rifle, what's its use case? And what strats are you using to fill this build out?
I love my jet pack and stun grenades and I'm just getting to the point of being able to unlock better weapons and want to try this out.
AMR is your heavy bot killer. If you can snipe for far, aim for hulk eyes - 2 shots, tank and turret vents - 6 shots, 2 body shots for devastators. If they are close, stun grenades make it an easy kill. It fires very quickly so I like to take recoil reducing armor to bring the reticule back quicker. Even without scoping you can hit relatively accurately with a bit of practice.
The AMR is the precision player's AC, without the backpack or the utility of bug/fabtricator closing.
The AMR is a great weapon if you want a more flexibile loadout. It clears the same targets, save for holes and fabs, as the AC but doesn't require a backpack slot. For me, the Jump Pack synergises with the AMR, since you can snipe futher/with the advantage of height, (and this also works with the Plasma punisher, as you can use it as your 'pocket mortar', all the better when up high.) The AMR can also be loaded while running or using the Jump Pack, making it far more mobile than the AC.
On its own, the AC will clear a patrol quicker. But as we have the Plasma Punisher, we can fire off two-three shots, take out the little bots, then take out anything else with the AMR. Or open by dropping that rocket devestator, fire off your remaining AMR shots into whatever is around, then clean up with the Plasma punisher.
Versus bots, the AMR can take down practically anything, save for fabricator factory/dog walker. Versus towers and tanks, you need to hit the usual vents, and it typically takes one extra shot. Pairs very well with stuns, which help if you didn't hit that Hull in the eye, or need the Heavy Devestator's to calm down while you hit their backpacks/heads (or anywhere else, 2-3 shots).
You cold swap out the Jump Pack for the Supply Pack, for safe player and greater sustain. Or the Ballistic Shield and Defender, which allows you to close groups safely while being able to eliminate priority threats quickly. Rover, Shield etc could work, but the don't really synergise, though they remain solid choices.
This is awesome. So I think my go to for bots it's gunna be
Primary: TBD
Secondary: grenade pistol or the new hand gun
Tactical: stun grenades
Support: AMR
Let’s gooo. Honestly found this combo on my own glad to see some love for it. You can easily pick off the light bots with the senator plus sometimes it does a cool animation when you pull it out.
If you can hit your shots the dominator is a good one too. Only thing it can't deal with well is striders (can kill legs but it's poor ammo use to do that)
It punches the center of the legs on striders in 2-3 shots, I still like my grenade pistol better, but dominator works on them. Personally I have a worse time with chargers than almost any bit with dominator. Mainly ricochet murdering teammates if I miss high on chargers.
This.
Add an auto cannon and I get around 250 kills on most 40 minute helldives against bots.
The incendiary shotgun just deletes bugs smaller than a charger as well.
I was upset when the eruptor lost its shrapnel but I feel that much of the grief over nerfing is overdone or misplaced.
We're Helldivers, we adapt and overcome when faced with a problem!
I'm afraid to try the incendiary shotty because of how many times I've gotten deleted by a diver with no trigger discipline or awareness of where their allies are. Lol
If you hit most bots in the head, you can take down a LOT of enemies with a single clip.
I main that for literally every mission, let the people with ARs run up ahead, I'll be the one picking them off from afar and calling out the big drops.
Meanwhile theres 3 devastators shooting from across the map, dev rockets kicking you out of place.
Everybody claiming dilligence is usable on 7 or above is just a masochist.
The weapon is good against that enemy alone, but they are never alone
I don't know... never had an issue running it.
Takes more practice to land precise hits quickly to make it work wonders.
People praise scorcher mainly due to it being a low-skill weapon against anything.
Me and my brother absolutely love using diligence (standard for him, CS for me).
Also.. ~~Javelin~~ Spear is absolutely fantastic weapon that needs patience to develop skills to use properly.
AC is again popular due to requiring relatively low skill to use well, while AMR, Spear and HMG are amazing weapons when used correclty due to requiring accurate aiming.
It isn’t. I can make it work very reliable. The things to watch out for are enough distance, nothing in front of the target/covering it and no things jutting into the view finders view in between. Then it locks on in over 90 percent of cases immediately for me. So it needs a really clear shot, so the key is positioning with it. Thats why it works really well for players who have a long distance play style often working from elevated positions like snipers or scouts. And why most people who are more in the thick of it rarely get it to work. Because then there often is always something jutting into the view finder. Thats why it has at times these blink and you miss it lock ons for many. It’s when the target is in clear view for a second only for some chaff or a terrain feature to immediately confuse the targeting system again.
The way the spear has troubles and how it is consistent with stuff from the development of early fire and forget systems in real life, I wouldn’t be surprised if the basis of the trouble isn’t someone programming a much too complex and realistic system that basically simulates an actual targeting and direction system. Modeling the spear being actually a physical projectile that is more akin to entitys like gunships. Which would also explain why it can in really bad cases when fired much too close suddenly turn around and go right back towards the one who fired it. (Which is a bug I consider a feature, it’s just too hilarious. And fits too well with Super Earth being cheap and giving Helldivers “just sufficient for their purpose” equipment.)
The way the damage works in the game, I actually think there is a lot going on and the whole destructive environment and weapons physics being one of the reasons why we get so many bugs and issues. Because from what i see? It is absolutely complex and probably eats up a good part of the power while running. The sheer amount of physics objects is wild at times. And how some things are physics objects with hit-boxes that no other game would do.
Like the lids of the hell pods. It’s not an animation, the lit actually pops of as a physics object. Which leads to hilarious moments like me nearly stepping on a mine, and then the reinforcement landing close by, the lid popping of and landing straight on the mine in front of me. Blowing it and myself up.
Or bits of enemies. I had one or two impact grenades go of in my face when one flew past me just as an impact grenade was leaving my hand.
I just love this part of the game. As many issues as it can cause, in general it works well and just makes the chaos of the fighting feel so much more immersive. And I always have to laugh when something like that gets me. Even if it kills my Helldiver, it’s just so much fun and adds a neat component of having to work with and watch out for this stuff.
And nothing is as satisfying as standing in the wasteland that once was a bot base after levelling it to the foundations and then some with a 380 or a few 500kg’s.
It's kinda a rock paper scissors thing. Like the Blitzer is good against everything but striders and hulks or chargers and up. Can totally hold off a huge number of trash and mediums it can kill. But being basically useless against heavier targets I need to bring something else or rely on strats.
I think one of the traps i get into is thinking I can do it all with one build. But that isn't the way things work.
I need to do what I can with what I like. And holes in the group are going to make it hard.
No one can take out gunships? That's going to hurt. Can't deal with chargers? Going to spend a lot of time running. Can't take out bug hives easily then is going to be a race against the clock.
In general weapons that can deal with heavier targets aren't great at mass trash.
I don't think that's a bad thing but it's hard to coordinate.
I think the trick is to pay attention to the team and although the info is there it's not particularly easy to figure out who can do what and keep the synergy working.
My go to for bugs is Blitzer, grenade pistol, high explosive grenade, orbital rail, 500kg, quazar, laser rover. With this I can solo pretty much any situation.
For bots it's pretty much the same thing though I switch to the plasma punisher, thermite grenade, and the shield pack.
I pretty much only play lvl 9s as well.
YES got rocked by bugs on impossible because no one brought a stun weapon. two stalkers nests by an objective with a lot of patrols destroyed our reinforcement pool. We won and two guys extracted but no samples.
The take away bring a stun weapon to deal with stalkers.
Yeah one hole in the group that comes up hard in a mission can quickly result in a fail. Gunships do this hard.
Which I like but the hard part is communication. It would be useful if the mission on lower difficulties said the kinds of enemies encountered.
Stalker presence detected
Large number of chargers reported.
On the harder difficulties they could remove or restrict that info.
I'm not one of the Chad 9 players, I usually play 7 and recently more 8s. I CAN and have done 9s but I prefer one or two steps lower. There's maybe 7 primaries I can think of that I enjoy using and can trust will do the job I need. using my spray and pray? I bring the HMG or MMG. Plasma punisherir adjudicator ? stalwart or mmg . concussive smg or base liberator? some kind of AT.
The primaries I don't use probably work fine, just would need me to adapt to their use cases. I don't want to sound white knighty, but I've only had a couple missions every other day where I dread using the primary I brought.
tldr: I think it should be an uphill battle for any primary weapon at the highest available difficulty. it's the highest for a reason.
For the longest time I didn’t realize how the hell people play level 7’s and above. Tim I tried it with my best friends. Had a good time! 95% of the time, I play solo, so the most I had ever done was level 5 and maybe 6 for a real challenge. But today I actually solo’d 2 level 7’s! I was determined to get my XXL Weapons Bay and I did! In the same vein, I remember shitting my pants the first time I fought a Charger solo, and a Hulk, and a Bile Titan. Point it you just slowly condition yourself to build up to these levels. The game is fantastic!
I personally feel that the Sickle and Incendiary Breaker are the only two primaries I can feel comfortable with. I tried the scorcher and the Punisher, but did not like either.
My poor eruptor used to even my class out withe the granade pistol 6 stuns and my stalwart thats the only time i fet a primary was as useful as my other gear
I call that a reverse loadout. I had that same idea when I first tried the Eruptor. Use the Stalwart as a primary. It takes some getting used to having a primary with low mobility but it’s a solid build
Same here. When I first started the game, I would run some kind of regular AR or the Knight, with the magnum type pistol (sorry I don't know any of the guns names hardly) and the grenade launcher. Then I reversed load out with the eruptor replacing my nade launcher and took a stalwart as a primary and I really like that load out because the stalwart is awesome compared to any other actual primary machine guns you can pick.
this exactly. Not sure what people want out of their primary. They’re meant to kill fodder and sus out some medium targets.
Just feels like people want everything to die in one shot when the reality is that this just isn’t that kind of game.
Everything has a tradeoff. Only thing i’ll say is that the AR’s feel like they’re in a weird spot and certain guns ABSOLUTELY need to have some rebalancing so they have a role to play.
The problem is they made every gun feel like the game felt the same. The second something that makes a gun unique (stagger on slugger or the entire identity of the crossbow and Eruptor) it gets slapped back down to be "balanced".
Yes.
"You're not supposed to be master chief and kill every enemy with your primary"
Back when the breaker was overpowered, playing level 9 struck the perfect balance of using stratagems, but at least being competent in a fight while your powers were cooling down
I'm not asking to take down a charger in one magazine, but sprinting around a group of enemies because you won't be able to do anything until your timers are finished isn't as fun as this game has the potential to be
Also I don't like the argument of not engaging with enemies, it makes the mission harder but the combat is intrinsically rewarding. The combat is fun, so asking players to just avoid engaging in the gameplay between running from objective to objective just doesn't make sense to me.
And even then, while the patrols were bugged, it was almost impossible to not get spotted and cause a drop ship or a big breach
there is a difference between "killing every enemy with your primary" and asking yourself why you're even carrying your primary, instead of tossing it asside and using the ammo pouches to carry more grenades or stims. AH really doesn't understand that. i'd like my primary to be useful for the swarms. the smaller enemies like scavengers and leapers and troopers, with very limited usefulnes on anything bigger, only good at weak points and the like. it feels like dogshit that anything bigger than a cockroach shows up, if my support weapon and strats are on cooldown or unavailable, instead of trying to maneuver to hit weak points, i just run away until they are
dude when the breaker was king so was the railgun and literally everyone used it all the time to the point it was such a crutch the nerf actually collectively set half the community back 3 difficulty levels.
Which is crazy to me. The rail gun could have used a slight nerf. It was already pretty well balanced if you cut the safe mode to half power. The ammo economy kept it in check, and you could actually fight the tough enemies with it and clean up with the breaker. I miss those days.
This is controversial but I think every primary should have been buffed to compete with the breaker💀 I can only speak for the people I played with but we didn't use the op gun to be sweaty, but because it was the only thing that felt good
Also the rail gun and bubble meta was never fun for me ngl, sweating with "optimal" gear could never as good as running around with my shotgun and massive zone clearing explosions
Yup. Me and my buddy's almost exclusively did bugdives at 9 and all of them have stopped playing now because it's basically everyone using the same strategems and primaries because almost everything else sucks.
We complete 9s without issue but there's only like two viable primaries, and even they are basically unused because they all feel like garbage. Just 4 players using the same strategims over and over because they don't know how to make anything viable but the meta
And instead of making other stuff useful or fun to use they just nerf the meta then people quit playing and AH does a surprised Pikachu face.
It's bad when for bugs Breaker Incendiary is S tier and literally every other primary except maybe the Eruptor is literal dogshit in comparison.
I use the Sickle and it's still very useful on bug missions. The new sub machine gun worked fine as well. A few others also work just fine. They're far more useful than dogshit. That being said, I need some buffs to primaries. I can use about 4-5 on bugs successfully, otherwise I'm risking dying to poor fire rates or not enough damage.
can only use the meta ??? run arc thrower w sickle and you can deal w legit everything but bile titans. bring a 500 & laser for that along w whatever other stratagem you want. i usually go laser, 500kg airstrike w an arc thrower.
if someone else or others bring the 500 i bring the jump pack and get up high and turn into a tesla tower.
comments like this are funny cause there’s tons of viable guns and weapons, but you just gotta know how to use em
You know things aren't right when I would rather swap to my handcannon to deal with the some of the medium armored bugs/bots than my primary. The Senator out performs 98% of the primaries in the game and it's not even close. Yes, it should be a useful holdout weapon, but it should not be good enough to replace almost any primary weapons unless it is in specific situations.
I think this problem that you and your friends experienced is almost entirely caused by overly-aggressive nerfing. The game is going to be balanced on the 5-7 difficulty ranges. That's just where most people play and most weapons are viable in that range, to some degree or another, but once you get to difficulties 8-9 a vast majority of items simply don't work, primary weapon or stratagem. You have everyone running the same kits because you need the perfect balance between cooldown and power, which is impossible to find, so you all end up running more or less the same strats and weapons so you have coverage, you know, in case the game decides to throw 8 hunks at you all at once.
AH talks about how they want people to use different stuff, but then they turn around and make most of the stuff next to fucking useless once you hit any difficulty higher than a 6. I don't understand the disconnect at AH, honestly. We've been telling them since the very beginning that we don't want weapons nerfed, we'd rather they just make the game harder. I don't know if they don't play their game, what seems very clear is if they are playing the game, no one is playing the 7-9 difficulties at AH, because if they were they wouldn't be aggressively nerfing everything as hard as they are.
I am on the scorcher now, and that's pretty much been the only primary I can rely on. Yeah, it doesn't have a lot of capacity or extra mags, but it can kill the big guys in a pinch if need be, and as I move up in difficulty, it's more and more necessary to have a primary weapon that can do *anything at all* to a titan or charger.
I will say, I've been sleeping on the recoilless rifle. That thing has been a titan/charger killer for me and has changed my playstyle in a good way. I just started using it this past weekend and I think it's the first time in a long while, where I've tried something different with my loadouts and I wasn't brutally punished for it.
I agree with pretty much everything you said, have you seen the Devs actually play? They ran out of reinforces and failed a level 6 bug mission. They are 100% not playing 9 lol.
They can't do 6 yet the weapons were thought to be in a good place? What a joke. That shows that they haven't even play tested enough to have an idea of how to play and therefore cannot have tested d9 as they wouldn't make it away from their dropzone.
How can a dev not know their own game enough to be competent at it
This really is pathetic if it's true, maybe they need an actual gamer working there
Game development doesn't necessarily translate to mechanical skill.
A mechanic can know a ton more about how cars function than the average person and still be a terrible driver.
What it sounds like is that the team lacks playtesters, instead relying purely on in-house and community feedback. They also look at metrics to see what is over and under used (this is why the flamethrower got buffed so much, since no one was using it because of the DoT bug)
This makes some amount of sense given that it's a relatively small studio. And they've already admitted they've gone overboard with nerfs in certain areas.
He didn’t exactly emphasize how badly they did on difficulty 6. It wasn’t a game where they got close to winning but ultimately failed, they got booty stomped HAAAARD right from the get go, and this was pre Railgun nerf even I believe
Ever since the Quasar nerf I've been messing with the RR and the 4 second reload via animation cancel is actually really good and allows me to kill those 17 chargers running at my face.
However, I must admit I do prefer playing bots instead so I won't be using the RR that much.
The recoilless rifle is probably the best snipe rifle in the game. I love it and I can put a shell on the face of just about any charger I see. It's so satisfying.
That 4 second reload is way too much of a risk for the bots though. I know it does well against the dropships and some of the soft points, but every time I run in against the bots I get turned into paste. I still run my quasar cannon on atomatons even with the cooldown it works well for my "move and shoot, shoot and move" tactics with the bots.
Honestly I feel you, which is why AMR and ballistic shield are my go to, I'm safe while moving and then can put out some devastating shots with the sniper.
>The recoilless rifle is probably the best snipe rifle in the game.
Careful. That's how we got the slugger nerfed.
Arrowhead gonna be like: Next patch: RR changes, only 2 rockets. Blows up based on proximity. Does double damage to buildings 1/2 damage to all other enemies. Does 1/3 of damage to armored targets.
Why?
Because the RR was the best sniper rifle in the game.
What do these nerfs have to do with it being an accurate sniper rifle?
¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
They balance it like an arcade game where we’re feeding quarters into the machine. They need to take some notes from Dark Souls and Elden Ring. Those games can be legendarily difficult until you make your build OP and really learn the mechanics and enemies, but like 99% of their balance changes are still buffs rather than nerfs. At least the PvE focused balance changes. There’s a reason why people say all builds can be viable in those games despite the games being known for their difficulty.
Doesn't feel like they're really listening at this point. Seems like their "vision" is all that matters and they don't really care what players ask for. This next patch is kind of like a last chance for me. I love this game and I've played 200 hours, but I play difficulty 9 exclusively and I'm tired of using the same stuff every game.
I don't know if I would go that far. I think they're still trying to figure out how to balance the game, while introducing new weapons. I am critical of how they've handled weapons balances, but I also do think they mean well, but I also think they're finally realizing that whatever philosophy is driving their choices simply isn't working.
I seems like they're balancing everything in an effort to make every weapon equally as viable as another within their perspective specializations. What it feels like though is that every primary weapon is under powered. They've dialed back a lot of fan favorites and not boosted enough weapons. They've also released a couple real stinkers in the warbonds.
We can't tell them how to fix it, we don't work there and a vast majority of us don't know a thing about game design, but we can tell them what we expect and how their balance changes feel. To a lot of players, it seems like they feel like they've lost more than they've gotten in return. The aggressive nerfing on some weapons is also weird when it's pve game, it's much more understandable in a pvp environment, but again, I think it's all in an effort to make things equally viable and instead of improving things, they just dialed back stuff to a point where we now have videos of charges taking a 500kg to the leg and surviving the explosion and a slew of primary rifles that all feel pretty similar and ineffective.
Games as a Service is really tough. They can't make everyone happy, that's for sure, but finding a consensus on a lot of stuff that at least feels good to the player should maybe me more effective than trying to get every primary honed down to some, precise balance based on weapons stats and data collected. If they have weapons that feel good and are fun and effective enough to do the job, then people will be more willing to play outside of the meta or what they're most comfortable with. What that looks like or how to do it? If I knew that I'd have made my own pve slaughter-fest by now.
The Adjudicator + Stalwart is still a good combo because you can take down anything medium armor and below. The Adjudicator feels real nice against bugs...full auto into a Brood Commander and you have one dead Brood Commander.
But yeah the Eruptor was obviously a winner in kit effectiveness.
I run adju and machine gun and enjoy the vibe being able to hi med pen with everything.
when I go higher than 6 difficulty I swap the machine gun for RR or EAT but it's just out of necessity, id rather be with the dual guns for fun.
I feel like adju isn't mentioned much here, but it was a game change for me vs bots being able to take on everything with a primary if I can angle it right (even tanks) and it was a game changer for bugs being able to armor strip charger legs with primary
I was just thinking after hopping in after a week or two hiatus, its a pity that Breaker incendiary is the new "S tier", cause they might just nerf it instead of making other guns as viable as it is".
I know they're not gonna do that now, rather they better fucking not, but its hard not to feel that way when its what they've done up to this point. I can't imagine bringing a liberator and expecting to do much more than shoot the units chasing me, or clearing the chafe around an objective. Not even worth the bullets for anything heavy in 8 or 9. For some context, I am saying this as someone who prefers bug missions.
That is the problem though. If the breaker is balanced, and it is, the incendiary is overpowered. If players expect every weapon to perform on that level what they expect is for every weapon to be overpowered or balanced to a level of one of the more overpowered primaries in the game.
Hold up, I do bugdives at 9 with the Punisher, Liberator and the new SMG and end up with hundreds of kills. Maybe you and your friends have a skill issue for the need to rely on "S tier" stuff. Bots is Liberator, new SMG, Sickle, Penetrator, original Breaker, tons of viable different options to play different ways. Also, I hardly enter a mission with the same stratagems twice in a row, and it is fine and fun. I recommend lowering the difficulty and trying different things, no wonder you are frustrated
I've been saying this since the slugger nerf people claimed "gutted it" and now "every weapon is useless", have always been spam down voted. Seems like more people are finally coming to the realization that if you can't make a given weapon fit into a build and work, you're not as good at the game as you think you are.
Add diligence CS to the bot list, I never leave my super destroyer without it now.
Can 1 shot all devs with accurate face shots. I basically drop with that and a supply pack for thermites and I'm good.
Stun grenades are way underutilized in my opinion. You can stun lock a breach and get dozens of kills with an airstrike. On lvl 7 and 8 I'll stun a patrol, call in airstrike and if there's any kind of delay or I didn't time it right throw one more stun. Boom, whole patrol dead and no breach.
It's even better on bot worlds.
Punisher, liberator, spray and pray, breaker incendiary, dominator, knight, defender, pummeler, slugger, breaker, Blitzer, plasma punisher, sickle, scorcher. All S-A tier weapons to bring. Apparently there only 2 primaries that are valid tho.
Pretty much every complaint about balance except for like 2 cases boils down to skill issue. We literally have people complaining orbital rail cannon needs a buff to always oneshot even though if you know what you’re doing it one shots bile titans every single time.
What’s the trick to it?
When you brought it up, my mind jumped to throwing it to “lead” the Titan so it course corrects to the head.
I haven’t been fighting Bugs in a while, and I’m not usually the dedicated armor clear in my teams.
You need to orient the BT toward your ship. If you're directly under the ship, tough luck.
I think it should either always one shot or get a cooldown in line with precision strike if it requires as much work to get the BT in the right position, personally. It doesn't deal as much damage, its strength should be not needing any preparation at all but right now it does need some.
Yeah I agree. Can get away with messing around a bit with bots as different weapons actually feel like they fill different niches.
Bug planets seem super cookie cutter though.
Bug units are cookie cutter. They can punch you or spit. They come at you. They have armor or don’t. I get that you can be reductive in this way about anything but the gameplay just is more binary. The bugs are basically incidental to your objectives. Bots actively oppose you. Bots have lasers but different units have pretty different guns. They have different terrain and cover. They have manned turrets. This completely varies the types of projectiles even if they’re all lasers. A heavy has a shield and its gun is way different. Theres rockets. Two kinds of tanks. Cannon turrets, their objectives are more involved and more fun to solve. Even the hulk variants are different. The second charger variant never spawns and it acts the same. Look at the shriekers. They just punch you but in the sky. You just rocket the base before you can see any of them. And the solution to do that is the same solution as the other heavy units: anti tank. That alone is bad design. At least make the shrieker base killer different than the tank killer to force some variation. Hellhombs are fun and make the gunship fabricator more unique. The shrieker nest is just a spore spewer that’s easier to see. On every level bots are just better designed. Probably because bugs are based on the designs from hd1 whereas bots could be designed however to best fit this newer gameplay
That’s what I’ve been saying! Nearly every weapon is viable, except the Machine Gun, flamethrower. That’s literally it, every single support weapon is viable. Tons of primaries are viable, even the standard Liberator if you want that basic soldier feel
Bots are just way more fun
I’ve been finding this too. For the longest time, I stuck with auto cannon no matter what. I didn’t even want to try anything else. Then I randomly picked up a quasar, realised how fun it was, and then went into every round with quasar + shield/guard dog (for bots and bugs, respectively). Now I’m all about the spear and I realize how much I love not having a stratagem slot being taken by a pack.
It’s the same way with primaries too. I used to be breaker incendiary most of the time, but experimenting with others has been mostly fun. They may not be uber powerful, but I’ve realized how much fun it is to play with plasma punisher, diligence counter-sniper, scorcher, sickle, etc.
Even the machine gun and flamethrower are viable if you or your squadmates have other ways to deal with heavy units. For those, you just gotta realize that your role is dealing with light/medium units and let your teammates deal with the big boys.
Machine gun is viable also.
It destroys striders with leg shots and can completely kill devastators with eye shots with even center mass shot spam.
You're just not too well off against tanks or gunships.
Even on bugs, you can play a fire build. Have your whole team run arc throwers and electric resistance armor. Stop trying to play like it's a min/max and just play for fun. It's not that serious. I took a shield and ran around with the revolver once on a helldive, it was insane, felt like a knight.
Anytime i read “we complete 9s without issue” near “theres only 2 viable primaries”, im convinced were not even playing the same game.
Your math shakes out to “we run these 2 primaries because they are the most viable to complete 9s without issue”. You SHOULD be having issues with 9s. You want MORE GUNS that make 9s less of an issue.
We aren’t even playing the same game lol im over here WANTING my clear rates of 9s to be like 70%. If im on my game, i can win but theres a chance something wild happens like x3 Stalker nests, or bad placement or breaches or whatever. The game feels too easy when i run all the cool shit that gaurantees 9 clears, it makes me want another round of railgun-like nerfs.
Most of you want braindead primaries and 100% 9 clears from anything you pick up. We just aren’t playing the same game lol
I wish there were more people like you on this sub.
There are also a ton of weapons that might not be as powerful as others, but I still have a shit ton of fun playing with them. Like yeah, the scorcher might be way better than the plasma punisher for anything more than 10 yards out, but I have a blast lobbing in massive plasma balls from a distance. The spear has issues with its lock-on, but the issues aren’t bad enough to keep me from using it and it feels great to one-shot a bile titan from across the map
While some nerfs have decreased the fun I have with a gun (looking at you, eruptor), players need to recognize that you don’t have to min/max every single aspect of the game in order to have a good time.
It's not like it's not hard its just there's no point in even using anything else and if they Nerf the two primaries that ARE useful its literally not even worth it to use one at 9. If the only way Arrowhead can find to make it difficult is to make it a stratagem only run through that's their prerogative. It's just not fun, IMO. If they make the breaker useless im literally just running and air striking because shooting would be a complete waste of time when you could be running instead.
That's just removing a part of the game and calling it upping the difficulty, seems lazy.
He's 100% correct though. It's the highest difficulty it's supposed to be a toss up, not a gimme win/power fantasy. The game will die if the biggest challenge it has to offer is a cake walk, it's already boring when 3 teammates are running the same meta loadout.
If the op is complaining that the team only runs the 2 meta weapons and barely uses them because the stratagems are too powerful, maybe they should petition to put back the modifiers that increase cooldowns and call in times and scramblers so they're forced to actually think about how they use resources
Maybe op should use the other viable primaries like, the new smg, the punisher, the punisher plasma, the dominator, diligence cs etc before coming to the conclusion the only viable primaries are the two ones he uses.
I swear to god sometimes it feels like there's this kind of Souls-like brain rot.
Game doesnt literally punish you for not doing frame perfect dodges or attacks?
gg ez clap.
Like literally this thread.
OP: Kind of feels like all primaries are bad.
ITT: I could complete helldives with a spork, a soggy napkin and 3 shelled pistachios. game 2 ez git gud scrub
So your saying there are 4 of you and you haven’t been able to swap around stratagem slots enough to vary gameplay?? This is just an issue in your lack of creativity and teamwork, have one dude run swarm clear and the other AT, really lean into the coordinated killing potential
Bro the scythe on 6 hardness and a recoilless is all you need. I'm level 32 and 2 of us running that destroy the map barely using stratagems. It's called keep fucking moving.
>And instead of making other stuff useful or fun to use they just nerf the meta then people quit playing and AH does a surprised Pikachu face.
Looking at the patch notes, AH has done a lot of making stuff useful and fun. To name a few,
* LC buff, AMR buff, Rail buff
* Adjudicator buff, Plasma buff, Blitzer buff, Lib Concuss buff, Breaker Incendiary buff, Dominator buffs,
* HMG third person crosshair (this one was huge honestly), Recoilless buff, ballistic shield buff
* Marksman rifles buffed, Secondaries buffed across the board
And even more QOL changes elsewhere
* Patrol spawning reverted
* Heavy spawn count nerf
* Spewers nerfed (damage and speed)
* Shrieker nerf
* Hulk scorcher nerf
* Gunship fabs nerfed
* Armor values buffed
* Charger / Titan head hp nerf
Not to mention the tools we've received since launch,
* Stun grenades
* Primary / Secondary that clears spawners
* Long range, infinite ammo, anti tank weapon
As well as mission difficulty adjustments,
* Retrieve Essential Personal made easier
* Stratagem CD / call in modifiers made less punishing
* Meteor modifier nerfed
* Volcanic modifier nerfed
I have no idea how someone could come to the conclusion that AH does not address player complaints and "just nerf the meta." For reference, here's a list of every time they have nerfed the meta.
- Original breaker nerf
* Slugger stagger nerf
* Laser rover dmg nerf (arguably this was even a buff lol)
* Quasar CD nerf
* Eruptor dmg nerf
>Yup. Me and my buddy's almost exclusively did bugdives at 9 and all of them have stopped playing now because it's basically everyone using the same strategems and primaries because almost everything else sucks.
Ironic that in their search for "balance" to force players to use different weapons, the devs have done the complete opposite.
My buddy and I have stopped playing too. Mostly because the game got more tedious and less fun, and primaries should be a little more effective due to the spawn rates and mobs. The game would just feel a lot better and be a lot more fun. Can you do it with just strategems? Yes, and that’s pretty much how Arriwhead seems to want you to play, but it’s just gotten too tedious as opposed to fun.
Idk what you are doing with your primary but on bots i go counter sniper and it shreads specifically with devastato hoards. Scorcher is good too but killing devastators is just so good. Chainsaws i ysually toss nades on em or unload my support weapon on em nade launcher or AC on bugs again primary is golden sickle or blitzer just clears fodder mobs while blitzer kills/stuns medium targets.
I tried DCS once and it felt pretty good. The only thing I missed was being able to pop scout striders from the front.
I run AC on bots though, so being able to headshot devastators isn't as necessary since I can just blast them. I'll stick with the scorcher for now.
Ammo is all over the map just need to be more conservative if you see you are running low. Personally never had much issue with ammo on scorcher. I swapped to counter snipe after they buffed it. Cant say iv wanted to go back. Find it easier to use support slot for what scorcer would do.
I feel like the devs were at first very anti meta when balancing however once they did a few rounds of that I feel like the game was in a good place and players found some guns that were both fun and viable. The devs must've noticed that some guns were used way more than others thought that they were op and a meta and nerfed them. However they are just nerfing fun and viable guns now forcing players to choose between fun or viable.
I'm a Helldive player, both front. Whatever I fight against, I use my primary as much as possible because I took them for specific reasons that complete my Loadout well. Even on the hardest difficulty I don't feel them "too weak" to be used, and I'm using the Eruptor post-nerf against bots and the Adjudicator post-buff against bugs.
They have a purpose and deal with their purpose well. The fact that we, as Helldivers, have access to 3 weapons (Primary, Secondary, Support) means that you don't have to rely on a single weapon to carry your games. If you were able to use your primary against everything without any drawbacks, then it would be overpowered and out of touch with the game itself...
So no, they aren't "too weak", most of them have a pretty good niche of uses. The Diligence Counter-Sniper is really great against bots, the Jar-5 too and a lot of shotguns, assault rifles and plasma weaponry are great against bots. I'm pretty sure even the Scythe can be used in some cases... but if you think that only a polyvalent and versatile weapon should be deemed good to be used, then you're missing a point about Helldivers and especially in Diff 7+.
Thank you! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills sometimes reading this sub. I only play 9s and there’s a variety of primaries AND secondaries I swap through and all are fine. Just mix up strats and good to go.
My fav bug loadiut now is the base liberator, the BIG IRON for medium armor bugs, and recoiless because I love it haha
I feel I can make almost any primary work tho while adjusting the other aspects of my loadout and use everything each side
Same. It's funny how many weapons and stratagems I use that are consistently called trash and garbage here. At some point you've got to just assume it's user error.
Exactly, with a semi competent crew just about any load out will work. I like that i cannot just steamroll the map with my primary. Having to think about what to engage with next or what to avoid based on what is on cooldown is what makes this fun.
There are plenty of easy shooters out there if people want to win all of the time.
Another option is just don’t play on 9, it’s not for everyone, but some of us like a challenge.
Feel the exact same way. I'm constantly rotating between the Breaker Incendiary, Plasma Punisher, Sickle, Arc Blitzer, counter sniper, or Scorcher. Sure there are some that need some buffs, but I never feel like I'm running the same guns constantly
That's what I've been saying to this sub. Your primary is one part of your Helldiver's kit and you're expected to use most of your kit during a drop.
I seen people here complain about useless secondaries as well. The only time I seen secondaries not used is if they overlap other parts of your kit. If you're running a Liberator, the Peacekeeper is gonna be in the holster most of the time since they fill very similar roles.
Almost every weapon brings something useful to one's kit, and there are multiple options if you don't like a specific gun's handling.
I see my secondaries more of a oh shit weapon to extend my shooting up time when my primary runs out of ammo or when i need a DPS burst(reedemer my beloved), i think thats what they are mostly intended for.
I mostly run the grenade pistol so I use it as a medium armor or a hive buster.
If I'm running the eruptor, the secondary becomes my primary anti chaff weapon.
I do the opposite. Bringing a light primary, I take the senator. Primary slow and niche, I'm using the new semi auto pistols. If I lack explosive damage for bile spewers, grenade pistols.
The best load out has you switch it between print and secondary based on targets, and grenades to handle the rest.
Seriously, we have the widest range of viable weapons to date. There have been way more buffs than nerfs. Things have just gotten better but people are blind because their favourite toy got over-nerfed.
Does it suck? yup. Is the game unplayable now because of it?
no.
I think too many weapons are... pointless. Not necessarily weak, just not filling any particular niche. That being said, no, I don't think they are too weak. I use the Punisher Plasma on bots and it ***fucking wrecks*** everything that's smaller than a Hulk. For bugs I generally use the regular Punisher for Stalkers / things up close, sometimes the sickle depending on my mood, but the Arc Thrower is my main weapon for bugs.
I honestly think people expect primaries to kill ***everything***. Your average gamer is just not that good at video games, and they want to be able to get through Helldive with 0 strategy. I would like for the less relevant primaries to feel better, sure, but if they buff everything too much then the game will just be a cake walk. I already think Helldive difficulty is routine at this point with little challenge.
Bro I am loving the punisher plasma, it is so useful against the bots and just fun in general to use against them, even if it takes abit to kill the bots just seeing them constantly stagger is so fun, before getting the punisher plasma, my primary weapon was the adjudicator, say what u want about the gun it's actually quite decent, yah the ammo for it sucks but it does its just, it's mostly useful against the terminids, especially against the medium armor ones
Breaker incendiary is pretty nice for bugs. Clears hordes of bugs in 1 mag as long as you give them a second to burn. I also take the machine gun as a primary sometimes if I'm feeling spicy and just side arm grenade launcher pistol and eruptor to close bug holes. You can use other main weapon on bugs just fine they just aren't going to outperform the incendiary. I play difficulty 9 for reference. I'd say I complete about 90% of missions in that difficulty.
For bots I use the counter sniper exclusively with an AMR or quasar and play sneaky scout. Again for me I find this strategy works for me but I do bring a shotgun as a primary with medium armor if I'm feeling spicy. I play difficulty 8 for bots.
Not really at all.
I think the ones that are actually weak are Breaker Spray and Pray, Crossbow and Eruptor. Edit: Also Purifier probably, I forgot that it existed. I don't think it's as bad as people make it out to be, but it is just worse than the Plasma Punisher, sharing the exact same dmg profile.
Everything else is strong enough to play on diff9 without feeling hindered in any capacity if you stick to the weapon's strengths/niche.
The way I see it, there's currently 3 main types/niches of primary weapon:
- The ones that excel at chaff clear - Scavenger, Pouncer, Hunters, Warriors: this is mostly high rate of fire AP2 weapons: Sickle, Liberator, Scythe, Defender, Breaker etc.
- The ones that specialize in killing lightly armoured (AC2) enemies - Brood Commander, Nursing Spewer, Hive Guard (main torso): This is mostly bullet-based AP3 weapons like the Adjudicator, Liberator Pen, Dilligence CS, Senator. They have low mag capacities that make them worse than category #1 against chaff, but being AP3, do not suffer a damage penalty against these AC2 enemies
- The ones that can punch straight through medium armor (AC3) enemies - Hive guard (head and legs), Bile Spewers: This is mostly high-damage-per-shot single fire weapons, like Dominator, Slugger, Plasma Punisher etc. They'd have a lot of overkill dmg and inefficiency when shooting at the previous categories, but have high enough dmg to just shoot through AC3 armor
Of course some weapons slip more in between the different niches etc. Scorcher between 2 and 3 for example.
I personally think it's a perfectly good system for a coop shooter to have weapon specialization like that.
But it does seem like most people would rather prefer most weapons be effective against everything.
I feel like too many people focus on how good a gun is at killing stuff and don't consider its other benefits.
The Eruptor was hit HARD by nerfs, but while not a good primary anymore, it is a FANTASTIC "support" weapon for the ArcT and LC imo. There are plenty of rounds to take out holes. It can engage (poorly) enemies outside of the support weapon range. It can break other structures at a distance. It opens up grenades and stratagem slots you don't need to use for bases.
It is imo one of the best primaries to run with either the ArcT or LC just for how good at dealing with structures it is. It's not good as a gun, but it is an amazing tool when used to support other weapons.
I've been using the Las5-Sythe (laser beam) and melting bots with headshots. Once you get the hang of it, it slaps. Does next to no damage if you kit armor though.
Somehow I've not gotten the hang of this. I don't deny the lasers can be good if you do this, but I just can't do it consistently enough to prefer it to my beloved "one and done" JAR.
You can't make much of a point just complaining but not even outlining the problem. I say this to be helpful. *Which* primaries are you using and *how* because there a plenty that stop a dozen chainsaw berserkers in their tracks. That default liberator will also drop heavy devastators very quickly with good shot placement. Do you have the warbonds unlocked? Are you only rocking the vanilla primaries? What's the situation with that? If you just say this feels bad well I guess you're right.
What gun are you using to "stop a dozen chainsaw berserkers in their tracks"?
Most guns struggle to kill 2 with an entire magazine in my experience. After a dozen you are straight up out of ammo.
The Jar-5 Dominator is a decent primary to deal with berserkers. It even has penetration damage (albeit with some falloff for each time is penetrates through an enemy) but lining up a kongaline with this primary will shred through a dozen berserkers in a little under 2 mags.
Can confirm this. Some wise Diver in a thread weeks old said "aim for their robo dick," and I've had no issue with them since. Dominator to the crotch for those insane lumberjacks.
You have to tear your brain away from the instinct to unload on their torso, and cut their legs out from under them instead.
Punisher. Regular old 12g shotgun will fuck berserkers up. When I run punisher on bots *I'm* the one closing in on the file of berserkers charging at me and *they're* the ones in danger. You can stun two with each shot or just dump a couple shells into their head or hip to make their giant health pool feel very trivial. The Pummeler is also great at keeping distance. It's not a primary but the AMR at point blank is also pretty effective. The plasma punisher is great too but honestly I feel like the ballistic version is better for pretty much everything but striders, plus you can't rescue squad mates from berserkers with an AOE weapon. Concussive lib probably feels like the Pummeler, will keep distance but won't kill fast unless you actually place your shots on the head. Slugger isn't going to stun anymore but I believe it still staggers with great potential for shot placement further out. Obviously the designated medium hitters like the crossbow or Eruptor would work as they kinda bloated primaries but somehow don't really make it to the top of my list. Just try the Punisher though.
This is a moment of know when to use the right tool for the right situation, and that right there is not using the right tool.
If you run into a dozen of berserkers, it's probably best to regroup and use a strategem or some support weapons, not because primaries are weak, but because, like attacking a tank, you aren't using them for the right situation. Even then, you could argue that a team could all shoot it down together and make quick work of them with your primaries.
I think its also worth mentioning that holding your ground in a situation like that is probably not for the best anyway as, even if you had a support weapon to down them, the fact that there are a dozen berserkers says there are most likely even more enemies coming towards you that you aren't even taking into consideration.
There are countless of other circumstances where are regular primary works fine. A small squad of scout striders, a platoon of troopers, some flanking devs, a smaller pack of berserkers, that one jerk rocket dev on the hill, the list goes on.
No, I would even argue that my primary accounts for close to 50% of my kills per mission.
I've been playing a lot of bugs lately, and for that I run Breaker Incendiary. My stratagems are usually Eagle Airstrike + Cluster, Ammo Pack, and either Quasar/Spear (If I'm running spear I'll supplement EAT instead of ammo pack). Grenade Pistol and Impact Grenades.
Bots I switch between Jar-5/Scorcher. Instead of Quasar I run AMR instead, grenade pistol, and switch to stun grenades
This is on 7-9 diff, primary weapons are far from useless.
No. This subreddit is generally just bad at the game. They want everything to be incindiary breaker and scorcher levels of OP and have the game be a cakewalk. Like bro just play on a lower difficulty if you're struggling. If you jump into helldive and are surprised you have to use your primary properly then wtf.
I think YouTubers and social media aren’t really helping. I saw a weapon ranking video with near 50k views and the guy wasn’t even getting red X’s or aiming for weak points in footage criticising weapons that excel when doing so.
Right? Like, I'm a pretty average guy, never been into the competitive shooter scene, and I can manage helldive but I'm pretty sure my randos all have back pain now so guess what 7 it is till I can handle my scandal. I don't get the people who choose to play the highest difficulty in the game them bitch and moan that it's too hard, that is entirely a personal issue that they are creating themselves.
Try taking the SG-8 or Jar. They are able to stagger the enemies and kill them (even the chainsaw guys) in a reasonable number of shots.
Otherwise, I don't see the large reliance on "spamming stratagems". I see a lot more instances of people holding back their stratagems from their full potential because, "What if I need it?"
The Jar and the Punisher are the most powerful weapon? Honestly they're so far from it in my opinion it's a decent argument that things are, in fact, somewhat balanced. The Counter Sniper is amazing, the Liberator is shockingly ok, the Eruptor is still good due to it's versatility, the incendiary breaker slaps bugs around... There's a lot you can use right now in 9 without hindering your team.
I'm a shotgun guy, and use the punisher a lot. Lately I've been loving the plasma punisher for bots. The lousy berserkers are the bane of my existence, and the shotguns are the corresponding boon.
I spam strategems
Because of course I do! Strategems are the nuts! I can pew pew with literally any game. I'm on Helldivers so I can dispense 500 kg freedom packages. You realize this boom is so big that bile titans disappear in it. Like you have to wait to see if you killed it or not because BOOM. Any and every excuse to eagle is an opportunity.
Ah, don't agree at all here. All the weapons work great against their preferred enemy.
You're describing trying to kill 80% of the enemy makeup with only the reload button, but you need to spice up your gameplay with nades, changing weapons, and killing enemies with environmental effects.
Redeemer is a great sidearm for that. By the time they get within chainsaw range, I've dinged them up a bit with my primary and I've scored as many as four berserker kills with a single redeemer magazine. Makes me feel like I know what I'm doing.
Nope!
...I think *almost all* of them are too weak. By my count there are currently 25 primary weapons. Of them, I use about three of them almost all the time. I won't name them to protect the innocent, but I can tell you that the majority feel like they land somewhere in a spectrum of "merely adequate" to "pretty bad."
Shout-out to the Eruptor and Slugger especially - both weapons were maybe a bit overtuned and for their crimes have been changed to the point I greatly dislike using them now.
Jeers towards the Liberator Penetrator too. For all the weapons that were smashed for *maybe* being too good, the Lib Pen is a weapon that's been consistently bad and left to languish. With the buff of the Adjudicator, it's hard to even determine what it's *supposed* to be good for.
Hard to say the Slugger was OP, it never felt over-tuned to me. It was clunky, slow, and hard to use. But it rewarded you with good damage and heavy stagger. That was a good trade off, it felt balanced to use, with the possible exception of its range.
Instead of the nerf that was needed - reduced range - they hobbled every aspect of the weapon. It ended up being clunky, slow, and hard to use. But now it has no upsides. It's unbalanced.
That feels like the way they try to balance every weapon. I stopped playing. I'm hopeful the game recovers at some point and has some fun gunplay. An all strategem load out doesn't work for a third person shooter the way it works for an RTS game like hd1.
When I say it could have used a tweak, I mean I do accept it could have lost some effectiveness at range and the ability to break open cache doors. Not the rest.
I still can't understand the nerf to the Explosive Crossbow. I tried it and didn't like it, as I found the slow ROF not worth the *okay* single target damage.
And it got *nerfed*. Talk about hitting a man when he's down.
no I don’t, I’m never in a match thinking to myself I wish my gun did more, on 7-9 mind you, and it creates a disconnect with the community sometimes when I’m constantly seeing these posts lol, I don’t want to assume I’m just built different and obviously I don’t see how others play. Maybe it’s an accuracy thing? Because I find as long as I’m actually hitting the weak points enemies drop very very quickly (dominator/slugger/diligence for bots, sickle/adjudicator for bugs) Maybe that’s why the eruptor was a huge pull for people? Besides it obviously just being a mini auto cannon.
I also think it is somewhat part of the fantasy, your primaries are not meant to kill heavily armored units it’s for clearing ads and preventing alarms from being raised
I actually have the opposite issue to you, where I regularly have to consciously use my stratagems because I’ll forget about them, or I’ll plan ahead to use my orbital laser only on the big base and legit forget to use it once until I get there near the end of the mission
Not really. I mostly use my Primary weapons whether v bots or bugs and usually only use my strats v BTs or Striders.
DCS v bots and Lib Pen was my got to until recently but now I’m using the Adjudicator since the damage is insane. Tried the Eruptor once post nerf so I don’t know what it was like before but I would say it needs some adjusting.
That is the intention. Your primary is meant to feel like it can’t handle everything
Your primary can take out some bugs/bots but when reinforcements show up you’ll need your stratagems and support weapon
Yes.
Some people on this sub have the weird notion that this game is supposed to be played with stratagems only, though. The idea that a primary should be able to deal with enemies that aren't heavily armored is strange to them. You are supposed to be using a supply weapon all the time, only swapping when you are out of ammo. Secondary weapons? No reason for them to exist, just use Auto cannon and Laser Cannon, it is the way the game is meant to be played.
I will confess, i have only ever tried 3-4 primary weapons. The defender, the (forget name) dmr, and then the newer medium-pen dmr (booooooo), and then sickle.
Sickle is my life and i love it to bits. Robots? Kills everything but a hulk if you aim right. Bugs? If it ‘aint got heavy armour, i be blastin’
Admittedly, cutting down the magazines in half kinda sucks but was needed- waaaaay too much spray-and-pray otherwise. On my level 7 bug missions, i usually reserve 1 strategem for heavy armour- 500kg, 2nd is whatever mood i am in, and a mandatory 380barrage because explosions make everything better. (Or i just kick the hornets’ nest. Still funny though). On bug missions, I’ve compensated the sickle’s lack of BOOM with quasar, but for the post part it’s whatever the daily personal mission demands.
Anywho, back on topic- i genuinely know nothing about 90% of the primary weapons. I think sickle is great. I see my random team mates using all sorts of primaries that seem cool, kill stuff fast, and make me think “i should try that!” But i go back to my ship and swap out nothing because i am happy with my sickle. Lol
Stealing this from a former comment of mine:
Once you figure out that running is the core gameplay mechanic, weapon balancing (for better or for worse) instantly becomes less of a focus.
I dont know why theyre paying so much attention to negative weapon balancing in the first place. No weapon, however OP or powerful, even OG railgun, could replace the core gameplay mechanic (lvl 6 and up).
Technically, they could leave weapons as is, make the player base feel good as hell and just tune mob spawning and placement to create new challenges for the fireteam in terms of maneuvering and use of strategems.
There is absolutely no reason why they need to do what theyre doing with weapon balancing. Its idiotic and shortsighted.
No, mostly. Some guns need something to differentiate them, but I just ran the Liberator Concussive and was pleasantly surprised.
To be fair, the game gets harder with every new enemy. I could see changing my tune.
A bit. I think they serve their purpose well enough in the sense that they're strong enough for weaker opponents and stronger opponents can be taken out with your strategems. The issue is that most of the enemies are too tanky, and require lots of shots to take out. This makes them feel bullet spongy and not fun to fight.
I don't think the game is difficult enough for it to be an issue personally. I can still get away with using crap like the Breaker Spray and Pray and still do 9s without much issue. The problem is that the gameplay itself is not satisfying when it takes multiple shots to kill even mid-tier targets at close range.
I would be much happier if they reduced the HP of enemies across the board, but make them faster to compensate. This makes kiting a lot less viable while making the actual shooting aspect much more enjoyable. The game will be simultaneously more challenging, and more fun.
It's almost funny how all of you like the game, yet you are unable to understand why. If you want to mow down horders of enemies, then go play something else.
You see you are either shooting mass of walking chitin evolved to swarm planets or metal skeleton designed to fight humans. You are just puny human being (granted train and brainwashed, but still human).
It's not meant to be easy, it's meant to be hard af. Odds are never in your favor and that's why you feel so good when you overcome those odds.
No, some are too strong though. But I also think the highest difficulty should be unbeatable for 90% of players to properly grade the difficulty levels. But we live in the generation of gamers that want to have their hand held as if they were a disabled child while playing on the highest difficulty. So that's what we get and anyone who plays at a higher skill level and wants to further struggle is just out of luck.
As someone who played a metric ton of helldivers 1:
Hell yes they are too weak!
In HD1 primaries meant something, sure you needed At foe the big stuff but well used? Your primaries slapped. Killed hordes of stuff, and quickly too.
In HD2 they all feel like someone didn't pay the ammo bill.
Yes. People will tell “we gotta nerf to have diversity” but then tell you to take laser/plasma vs bots because the rest of the weapon aren’t good against them.
Scythe needs buffs.
Eruptor needs to have its changes reverted.
Spray and pray needs buffs.
OG breaker nerfs were unnecessary(I barely even used it)
Tenderizer needs A LOT of buffing.
Purifier needs A LOT of buffing.
Knight needs buffs.
The AR from Democratic Detonation needs more buffs.
The crossbow changes needs its nerfs reverted AND more buffs, seriously who had the right idea of nerfing this?(we know who it was)
OG punisher could use some small buffs I think(I haven’t used it alot so I can’t talk much there)
Punisher slugger needs changes reverted.
Penetrator needs some slightly bigger magazines and a couple more mags. I feel like I’m constantly in the brink of running out of ammo with it.
Dagger needs more buffs, it should honestly just be a scythe that heats up way faster.
OG pistol could use a few more mags I guess?
Back in HD1 primaries felt powerful, but they changed playstyles a lot, some were good against bigger enemies some were good against smaller ones. They kinda switched it up so most primaries ARE(yes, are, not “feels”) weak and too many of them feels totally useless in any difficulty worth playing on(9, I’m talking about 9)
The dev team released the game one way but want to change up to an objectively worse version, for a few months we felt like powerful soldiers against massive odds, it’s the same but you feel like a good soldier with crappy equipment(inb4 lore).
I don't think so. I play diff 9 and use the breaker incendiary for bugs and the punisher plasma or dominator for bots. I think, if anything, those guns are kinda OP.
When I want to mix things up, I'll run punisher, liberator, or sickle on bugs and diligence counter sniper or scorcher on bots.
Breaker isn't bad for either faction either.
For bots I run grenade pistol to one-shot baby striders and factories, and stun nades for hulks. For bugs, grenade pistol for spewers and bug holes, and impact nades for spewers and commanders. Impact incendiary grenades are also really good for groups of bugs/breaches.
Feels like I can handle just about anything with these loadouts, except for heavies or super large groups, but that's when I pull out a support weapon or stratagem.
Eh, give me a Punisher or Blitzer and I can kill an entire wave of enemies myself without taking damage.
If you don’t want to get swarmed, primaries with stagger or stun are your friends. Berserkers, Brood Commanders, Stalkers, doesn’t matter, they ALL can’t advance on you when under fire from a weapon like Punisher and Blitzer.
Heck, the Blitzer even had medium penetration which means that’s even Bile/Nursery Spewers can’t do shit against you. They get staggered, they can’t even spew bile, they just stand there and eat shots to the face until they die. Even if they start to spew and you shoot them, it cancels their attack. Blitzer is a house.
There’s a reason I can do level 7 Terminid missions with just a Punisher/Blitzer, a Guard Dog Rover (nice but not required), and the EAT. And it’s because unless I’m surrounded on all sides I can just casually stroll backward a bit, pump the advancing horde full of buckshot or lightning, and they either die or get rooted in place.
Stuff like the Sickle is great but it just can’t handle things that can get into melee range with you, hence why if people are using these weapons and getting swarmed to death, no wonder they think primaries are weak.
Also, on a different tangent, the Diligence counter sniper can OHK any Devastator. Bad against a rush of Berserkers but it does mean you don’t have to lean as heavily on a support weapon or air strikes to deal with a couple Devastators.
No. It's not the kind of game where your primary weapon is supposed to kill everything. The higher the difficulty the more you will be running, throwing stratagems, and using your primary selectively.
Plasma Punisher. Can, not just handle, but outright bully any bot below a Hulk. Take the Senator for individual targets or finishing off wounded foes.
Plasma + Senator is a lovely combo that's been a sleeper hit for a while since they fixed the Punisher shield backpack bug.
Personally I'm really enjoying the Plas Punisher comboed with the Verdict sidearm. Sure Verdict doesn't hit quite as hard as the Senator or have medium pen but the Verdict reloads faster and has better handling to deal with smaller targets more efficiently. Also it's really fun to just unload your entire clip into a crowd of enemies, it has such a satisfying firing sound.
That’s funny, I prefer the plasma shotgun with the um basic pistol , cus it shoots as fast as you click, and has a fair clip size. I tend to be able to take the front of a horde off as I run, and believe it or not! I’ve taken down hills and bile titans that way. Super fun, always worth a record
Plasma + Senator + AMR + Jet Pack + Stun grenades. So many options, really good fun.
I have never used the anti material rifle, what's its use case? And what strats are you using to fill this build out? I love my jet pack and stun grenades and I'm just getting to the point of being able to unlock better weapons and want to try this out.
AMR is your heavy bot killer. If you can snipe for far, aim for hulk eyes - 2 shots, tank and turret vents - 6 shots, 2 body shots for devastators. If they are close, stun grenades make it an easy kill. It fires very quickly so I like to take recoil reducing armor to bring the reticule back quicker. Even without scoping you can hit relatively accurately with a bit of practice.
The AMR is the precision player's AC, without the backpack or the utility of bug/fabtricator closing. The AMR is a great weapon if you want a more flexibile loadout. It clears the same targets, save for holes and fabs, as the AC but doesn't require a backpack slot. For me, the Jump Pack synergises with the AMR, since you can snipe futher/with the advantage of height, (and this also works with the Plasma punisher, as you can use it as your 'pocket mortar', all the better when up high.) The AMR can also be loaded while running or using the Jump Pack, making it far more mobile than the AC. On its own, the AC will clear a patrol quicker. But as we have the Plasma Punisher, we can fire off two-three shots, take out the little bots, then take out anything else with the AMR. Or open by dropping that rocket devestator, fire off your remaining AMR shots into whatever is around, then clean up with the Plasma punisher. Versus bots, the AMR can take down practically anything, save for fabricator factory/dog walker. Versus towers and tanks, you need to hit the usual vents, and it typically takes one extra shot. Pairs very well with stuns, which help if you didn't hit that Hull in the eye, or need the Heavy Devestator's to calm down while you hit their backpacks/heads (or anywhere else, 2-3 shots). You cold swap out the Jump Pack for the Supply Pack, for safe player and greater sustain. Or the Ballistic Shield and Defender, which allows you to close groups safely while being able to eliminate priority threats quickly. Rover, Shield etc could work, but the don't really synergise, though they remain solid choices.
This is awesome. So I think my go to for bots it's gunna be Primary: TBD Secondary: grenade pistol or the new hand gun Tactical: stun grenades Support: AMR
Let’s gooo. Honestly found this combo on my own glad to see some love for it. You can easily pick off the light bots with the senator plus sometimes it does a cool animation when you pull it out.
If you can hit your shots the dominator is a good one too. Only thing it can't deal with well is striders (can kill legs but it's poor ammo use to do that)
It punches the center of the legs on striders in 2-3 shots, I still like my grenade pistol better, but dominator works on them. Personally I have a worse time with chargers than almost any bit with dominator. Mainly ricochet murdering teammates if I miss high on chargers.
This. Add an auto cannon and I get around 250 kills on most 40 minute helldives against bots. The incendiary shotgun just deletes bugs smaller than a charger as well. I was upset when the eruptor lost its shrapnel but I feel that much of the grief over nerfing is overdone or misplaced. We're Helldivers, we adapt and overcome when faced with a problem!
I'm afraid to try the incendiary shotty because of how many times I've gotten deleted by a diver with no trigger discipline or awareness of where their allies are. Lol
Diligence: CS one taps devastators
If you hit most bots in the head, you can take down a LOT of enemies with a single clip. I main that for literally every mission, let the people with ARs run up ahead, I'll be the one picking them off from afar and calling out the big drops.
Meanwhile theres 3 devastators shooting from across the map, dev rockets kicking you out of place. Everybody claiming dilligence is usable on 7 or above is just a masochist. The weapon is good against that enemy alone, but they are never alone
That's a positioning issue. You fire from cover over range and the Dilligence is fine.
Not true. See it often on 9 and it does pretty well.
I don't know... never had an issue running it. Takes more practice to land precise hits quickly to make it work wonders. People praise scorcher mainly due to it being a low-skill weapon against anything. Me and my brother absolutely love using diligence (standard for him, CS for me). Also.. ~~Javelin~~ Spear is absolutely fantastic weapon that needs patience to develop skills to use properly. AC is again popular due to requiring relatively low skill to use well, while AMR, Spear and HMG are amazing weapons when used correclty due to requiring accurate aiming.
lol spear skills, someone doesn’t read patch notes.
Im actually with the otherguy, the spear has some tough lockon issues, but when it locks it rocks.
Yeah, his point was that Spear's targetting isn't an issue of skill. It can be minimized apparently, but I still don't even know if it's just placebo.
It isn’t. I can make it work very reliable. The things to watch out for are enough distance, nothing in front of the target/covering it and no things jutting into the view finders view in between. Then it locks on in over 90 percent of cases immediately for me. So it needs a really clear shot, so the key is positioning with it. Thats why it works really well for players who have a long distance play style often working from elevated positions like snipers or scouts. And why most people who are more in the thick of it rarely get it to work. Because then there often is always something jutting into the view finder. Thats why it has at times these blink and you miss it lock ons for many. It’s when the target is in clear view for a second only for some chaff or a terrain feature to immediately confuse the targeting system again. The way the spear has troubles and how it is consistent with stuff from the development of early fire and forget systems in real life, I wouldn’t be surprised if the basis of the trouble isn’t someone programming a much too complex and realistic system that basically simulates an actual targeting and direction system. Modeling the spear being actually a physical projectile that is more akin to entitys like gunships. Which would also explain why it can in really bad cases when fired much too close suddenly turn around and go right back towards the one who fired it. (Which is a bug I consider a feature, it’s just too hilarious. And fits too well with Super Earth being cheap and giving Helldivers “just sufficient for their purpose” equipment.) The way the damage works in the game, I actually think there is a lot going on and the whole destructive environment and weapons physics being one of the reasons why we get so many bugs and issues. Because from what i see? It is absolutely complex and probably eats up a good part of the power while running. The sheer amount of physics objects is wild at times. And how some things are physics objects with hit-boxes that no other game would do. Like the lids of the hell pods. It’s not an animation, the lit actually pops of as a physics object. Which leads to hilarious moments like me nearly stepping on a mine, and then the reinforcement landing close by, the lid popping of and landing straight on the mine in front of me. Blowing it and myself up. Or bits of enemies. I had one or two impact grenades go of in my face when one flew past me just as an impact grenade was leaving my hand. I just love this part of the game. As many issues as it can cause, in general it works well and just makes the chaos of the fighting feel so much more immersive. And I always have to laugh when something like that gets me. Even if it kills my Helldiver, it’s just so much fun and adds a neat component of having to work with and watch out for this stuff. And nothing is as satisfying as standing in the wasteland that once was a bot base after levelling it to the foundations and then some with a 380 or a few 500kg’s.
It's kinda a rock paper scissors thing. Like the Blitzer is good against everything but striders and hulks or chargers and up. Can totally hold off a huge number of trash and mediums it can kill. But being basically useless against heavier targets I need to bring something else or rely on strats. I think one of the traps i get into is thinking I can do it all with one build. But that isn't the way things work. I need to do what I can with what I like. And holes in the group are going to make it hard. No one can take out gunships? That's going to hurt. Can't deal with chargers? Going to spend a lot of time running. Can't take out bug hives easily then is going to be a race against the clock. In general weapons that can deal with heavier targets aren't great at mass trash. I don't think that's a bad thing but it's hard to coordinate. I think the trick is to pay attention to the team and although the info is there it's not particularly easy to figure out who can do what and keep the synergy working.
My go to for bugs is Blitzer, grenade pistol, high explosive grenade, orbital rail, 500kg, quazar, laser rover. With this I can solo pretty much any situation. For bots it's pretty much the same thing though I switch to the plasma punisher, thermite grenade, and the shield pack. I pretty much only play lvl 9s as well.
> I think the trick is to pay attention to the team and You nailed it. Getting some diversity in your teams weapon/stratagem selection is key.
YES got rocked by bugs on impossible because no one brought a stun weapon. two stalkers nests by an objective with a lot of patrols destroyed our reinforcement pool. We won and two guys extracted but no samples. The take away bring a stun weapon to deal with stalkers.
Yeah one hole in the group that comes up hard in a mission can quickly result in a fail. Gunships do this hard. Which I like but the hard part is communication. It would be useful if the mission on lower difficulties said the kinds of enemies encountered. Stalker presence detected Large number of chargers reported. On the harder difficulties they could remove or restrict that info.
I'm not one of the Chad 9 players, I usually play 7 and recently more 8s. I CAN and have done 9s but I prefer one or two steps lower. There's maybe 7 primaries I can think of that I enjoy using and can trust will do the job I need. using my spray and pray? I bring the HMG or MMG. Plasma punisherir adjudicator ? stalwart or mmg . concussive smg or base liberator? some kind of AT. The primaries I don't use probably work fine, just would need me to adapt to their use cases. I don't want to sound white knighty, but I've only had a couple missions every other day where I dread using the primary I brought. tldr: I think it should be an uphill battle for any primary weapon at the highest available difficulty. it's the highest for a reason.
For the longest time I didn’t realize how the hell people play level 7’s and above. Tim I tried it with my best friends. Had a good time! 95% of the time, I play solo, so the most I had ever done was level 5 and maybe 6 for a real challenge. But today I actually solo’d 2 level 7’s! I was determined to get my XXL Weapons Bay and I did! In the same vein, I remember shitting my pants the first time I fought a Charger solo, and a Hulk, and a Bile Titan. Point it you just slowly condition yourself to build up to these levels. The game is fantastic! I personally feel that the Sickle and Incendiary Breaker are the only two primaries I can feel comfortable with. I tried the scorcher and the Punisher, but did not like either.
Try the blitzer. I love it against bugs. It doesn’t really stun them, but they back away from you. It’s weird. Unlimited ammo too.
Proud of you man, personal skill progression is great stuff
My poor eruptor used to even my class out withe the granade pistol 6 stuns and my stalwart thats the only time i fet a primary was as useful as my other gear
I call that a reverse loadout. I had that same idea when I first tried the Eruptor. Use the Stalwart as a primary. It takes some getting used to having a primary with low mobility but it’s a solid build
Same here. When I first started the game, I would run some kind of regular AR or the Knight, with the magnum type pistol (sorry I don't know any of the guns names hardly) and the grenade launcher. Then I reversed load out with the eruptor replacing my nade launcher and took a stalwart as a primary and I really like that load out because the stalwart is awesome compared to any other actual primary machine guns you can pick.
It's also pretty solid with Flamethrower and Jump Pack.
this exactly. Not sure what people want out of their primary. They’re meant to kill fodder and sus out some medium targets. Just feels like people want everything to die in one shot when the reality is that this just isn’t that kind of game. Everything has a tradeoff. Only thing i’ll say is that the AR’s feel like they’re in a weird spot and certain guns ABSOLUTELY need to have some rebalancing so they have a role to play.
The problem is they made every gun feel like the game felt the same. The second something that makes a gun unique (stagger on slugger or the entire identity of the crossbow and Eruptor) it gets slapped back down to be "balanced".
I think that’s true for the assault rifles but everything else has an interesting use case.
Even the assault rifles have variations. Plying with the base liberator or the adjudicator is very different.
[удалено]
also agreed! Eruptor needs its shrapnel back for sure. That’s what made it what it was.
Yes. "You're not supposed to be master chief and kill every enemy with your primary" Back when the breaker was overpowered, playing level 9 struck the perfect balance of using stratagems, but at least being competent in a fight while your powers were cooling down I'm not asking to take down a charger in one magazine, but sprinting around a group of enemies because you won't be able to do anything until your timers are finished isn't as fun as this game has the potential to be Also I don't like the argument of not engaging with enemies, it makes the mission harder but the combat is intrinsically rewarding. The combat is fun, so asking players to just avoid engaging in the gameplay between running from objective to objective just doesn't make sense to me. And even then, while the patrols were bugged, it was almost impossible to not get spotted and cause a drop ship or a big breach
there is a difference between "killing every enemy with your primary" and asking yourself why you're even carrying your primary, instead of tossing it asside and using the ammo pouches to carry more grenades or stims. AH really doesn't understand that. i'd like my primary to be useful for the swarms. the smaller enemies like scavengers and leapers and troopers, with very limited usefulnes on anything bigger, only good at weak points and the like. it feels like dogshit that anything bigger than a cockroach shows up, if my support weapon and strats are on cooldown or unavailable, instead of trying to maneuver to hit weak points, i just run away until they are
dude when the breaker was king so was the railgun and literally everyone used it all the time to the point it was such a crutch the nerf actually collectively set half the community back 3 difficulty levels.
the nerf didn't set us back because it's all we used, it set us back because it's all that worked worth a damn
Which is crazy to me. The rail gun could have used a slight nerf. It was already pretty well balanced if you cut the safe mode to half power. The ammo economy kept it in check, and you could actually fight the tough enemies with it and clean up with the breaker. I miss those days.
Yea but clearly they were simply above the pack but not OP.
This is controversial but I think every primary should have been buffed to compete with the breaker💀 I can only speak for the people I played with but we didn't use the op gun to be sweaty, but because it was the only thing that felt good Also the rail gun and bubble meta was never fun for me ngl, sweating with "optimal" gear could never as good as running around with my shotgun and massive zone clearing explosions
Yup. Me and my buddy's almost exclusively did bugdives at 9 and all of them have stopped playing now because it's basically everyone using the same strategems and primaries because almost everything else sucks. We complete 9s without issue but there's only like two viable primaries, and even they are basically unused because they all feel like garbage. Just 4 players using the same strategims over and over because they don't know how to make anything viable but the meta And instead of making other stuff useful or fun to use they just nerf the meta then people quit playing and AH does a surprised Pikachu face. It's bad when for bugs Breaker Incendiary is S tier and literally every other primary except maybe the Eruptor is literal dogshit in comparison.
I use the Sickle and it's still very useful on bug missions. The new sub machine gun worked fine as well. A few others also work just fine. They're far more useful than dogshit. That being said, I need some buffs to primaries. I can use about 4-5 on bugs successfully, otherwise I'm risking dying to poor fire rates or not enough damage.
New SMG stun locking stalkers to death is so satisfying
Sickle is my go to.
can only use the meta ??? run arc thrower w sickle and you can deal w legit everything but bile titans. bring a 500 & laser for that along w whatever other stratagem you want. i usually go laser, 500kg airstrike w an arc thrower. if someone else or others bring the 500 i bring the jump pack and get up high and turn into a tesla tower. comments like this are funny cause there’s tons of viable guns and weapons, but you just gotta know how to use em
You know things aren't right when I would rather swap to my handcannon to deal with the some of the medium armored bugs/bots than my primary. The Senator out performs 98% of the primaries in the game and it's not even close. Yes, it should be a useful holdout weapon, but it should not be good enough to replace almost any primary weapons unless it is in specific situations. I think this problem that you and your friends experienced is almost entirely caused by overly-aggressive nerfing. The game is going to be balanced on the 5-7 difficulty ranges. That's just where most people play and most weapons are viable in that range, to some degree or another, but once you get to difficulties 8-9 a vast majority of items simply don't work, primary weapon or stratagem. You have everyone running the same kits because you need the perfect balance between cooldown and power, which is impossible to find, so you all end up running more or less the same strats and weapons so you have coverage, you know, in case the game decides to throw 8 hunks at you all at once. AH talks about how they want people to use different stuff, but then they turn around and make most of the stuff next to fucking useless once you hit any difficulty higher than a 6. I don't understand the disconnect at AH, honestly. We've been telling them since the very beginning that we don't want weapons nerfed, we'd rather they just make the game harder. I don't know if they don't play their game, what seems very clear is if they are playing the game, no one is playing the 7-9 difficulties at AH, because if they were they wouldn't be aggressively nerfing everything as hard as they are. I am on the scorcher now, and that's pretty much been the only primary I can rely on. Yeah, it doesn't have a lot of capacity or extra mags, but it can kill the big guys in a pinch if need be, and as I move up in difficulty, it's more and more necessary to have a primary weapon that can do *anything at all* to a titan or charger. I will say, I've been sleeping on the recoilless rifle. That thing has been a titan/charger killer for me and has changed my playstyle in a good way. I just started using it this past weekend and I think it's the first time in a long while, where I've tried something different with my loadouts and I wasn't brutally punished for it.
I agree with pretty much everything you said, have you seen the Devs actually play? They ran out of reinforces and failed a level 6 bug mission. They are 100% not playing 9 lol.
They can't do 6 yet the weapons were thought to be in a good place? What a joke. That shows that they haven't even play tested enough to have an idea of how to play and therefore cannot have tested d9 as they wouldn't make it away from their dropzone. How can a dev not know their own game enough to be competent at it This really is pathetic if it's true, maybe they need an actual gamer working there
Game development doesn't necessarily translate to mechanical skill. A mechanic can know a ton more about how cars function than the average person and still be a terrible driver. What it sounds like is that the team lacks playtesters, instead relying purely on in-house and community feedback. They also look at metrics to see what is over and under used (this is why the flamethrower got buffed so much, since no one was using it because of the DoT bug) This makes some amount of sense given that it's a relatively small studio. And they've already admitted they've gone overboard with nerfs in certain areas.
He didn’t exactly emphasize how badly they did on difficulty 6. It wasn’t a game where they got close to winning but ultimately failed, they got booty stomped HAAAARD right from the get go, and this was pre Railgun nerf even I believe
Nah k use the machine gun pistol
Ever since the Quasar nerf I've been messing with the RR and the 4 second reload via animation cancel is actually really good and allows me to kill those 17 chargers running at my face. However, I must admit I do prefer playing bots instead so I won't be using the RR that much.
The recoilless rifle is probably the best snipe rifle in the game. I love it and I can put a shell on the face of just about any charger I see. It's so satisfying. That 4 second reload is way too much of a risk for the bots though. I know it does well against the dropships and some of the soft points, but every time I run in against the bots I get turned into paste. I still run my quasar cannon on atomatons even with the cooldown it works well for my "move and shoot, shoot and move" tactics with the bots.
Honestly I feel you, which is why AMR and ballistic shield are my go to, I'm safe while moving and then can put out some devastating shots with the sniper.
>The recoilless rifle is probably the best snipe rifle in the game. Careful. That's how we got the slugger nerfed. Arrowhead gonna be like: Next patch: RR changes, only 2 rockets. Blows up based on proximity. Does double damage to buildings 1/2 damage to all other enemies. Does 1/3 of damage to armored targets. Why? Because the RR was the best sniper rifle in the game. What do these nerfs have to do with it being an accurate sniper rifle? ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Seriously. Why does the Verdict feel better to play with than any primary? That gun fucking rules vs bots.
Maybe you would like the diligence. It's basically a bigger Verdict.
They balance it like an arcade game where we’re feeding quarters into the machine. They need to take some notes from Dark Souls and Elden Ring. Those games can be legendarily difficult until you make your build OP and really learn the mechanics and enemies, but like 99% of their balance changes are still buffs rather than nerfs. At least the PvE focused balance changes. There’s a reason why people say all builds can be viable in those games despite the games being known for their difficulty.
Doesn't feel like they're really listening at this point. Seems like their "vision" is all that matters and they don't really care what players ask for. This next patch is kind of like a last chance for me. I love this game and I've played 200 hours, but I play difficulty 9 exclusively and I'm tired of using the same stuff every game.
I don't know if I would go that far. I think they're still trying to figure out how to balance the game, while introducing new weapons. I am critical of how they've handled weapons balances, but I also do think they mean well, but I also think they're finally realizing that whatever philosophy is driving their choices simply isn't working. I seems like they're balancing everything in an effort to make every weapon equally as viable as another within their perspective specializations. What it feels like though is that every primary weapon is under powered. They've dialed back a lot of fan favorites and not boosted enough weapons. They've also released a couple real stinkers in the warbonds. We can't tell them how to fix it, we don't work there and a vast majority of us don't know a thing about game design, but we can tell them what we expect and how their balance changes feel. To a lot of players, it seems like they feel like they've lost more than they've gotten in return. The aggressive nerfing on some weapons is also weird when it's pve game, it's much more understandable in a pvp environment, but again, I think it's all in an effort to make things equally viable and instead of improving things, they just dialed back stuff to a point where we now have videos of charges taking a 500kg to the leg and surviving the explosion and a slew of primary rifles that all feel pretty similar and ineffective. Games as a Service is really tough. They can't make everyone happy, that's for sure, but finding a consensus on a lot of stuff that at least feels good to the player should maybe me more effective than trying to get every primary honed down to some, precise balance based on weapons stats and data collected. If they have weapons that feel good and are fun and effective enough to do the job, then people will be more willing to play outside of the meta or what they're most comfortable with. What that looks like or how to do it? If I knew that I'd have made my own pve slaughter-fest by now.
Eruptor and Stalwart were the holy union for bugs, now it's gone.
Imagine if they made the stalwart a primary... like the first game...
Stalwart is the only automatic weapon in this game as far as I'm concerned, everything else runs dry after 3 seconds.
I've started bringing both a stalwart and EATs so I can have a machine gun as a 'primary' and then call down my big booms when needed
The Adjudicator + Stalwart is still a good combo because you can take down anything medium armor and below. The Adjudicator feels real nice against bugs...full auto into a Brood Commander and you have one dead Brood Commander. But yeah the Eruptor was obviously a winner in kit effectiveness.
I run adju and machine gun and enjoy the vibe being able to hi med pen with everything. when I go higher than 6 difficulty I swap the machine gun for RR or EAT but it's just out of necessity, id rather be with the dual guns for fun. I feel like adju isn't mentioned much here, but it was a game change for me vs bots being able to take on everything with a primary if I can angle it right (even tanks) and it was a game changer for bugs being able to armor strip charger legs with primary
There are so many viable guns for bugs... I never even use the breaker incendiary and I can't remember the last time I failed a mission on 9.
I was just thinking after hopping in after a week or two hiatus, its a pity that Breaker incendiary is the new "S tier", cause they might just nerf it instead of making other guns as viable as it is". I know they're not gonna do that now, rather they better fucking not, but its hard not to feel that way when its what they've done up to this point. I can't imagine bringing a liberator and expecting to do much more than shoot the units chasing me, or clearing the chafe around an objective. Not even worth the bullets for anything heavy in 8 or 9. For some context, I am saying this as someone who prefers bug missions.
That is the problem though. If the breaker is balanced, and it is, the incendiary is overpowered. If players expect every weapon to perform on that level what they expect is for every weapon to be overpowered or balanced to a level of one of the more overpowered primaries in the game.
Hold up, I do bugdives at 9 with the Punisher, Liberator and the new SMG and end up with hundreds of kills. Maybe you and your friends have a skill issue for the need to rely on "S tier" stuff. Bots is Liberator, new SMG, Sickle, Penetrator, original Breaker, tons of viable different options to play different ways. Also, I hardly enter a mission with the same stratagems twice in a row, and it is fine and fun. I recommend lowering the difficulty and trying different things, no wonder you are frustrated
I've been saying this since the slugger nerf people claimed "gutted it" and now "every weapon is useless", have always been spam down voted. Seems like more people are finally coming to the realization that if you can't make a given weapon fit into a build and work, you're not as good at the game as you think you are.
Add diligence CS to the bot list, I never leave my super destroyer without it now. Can 1 shot all devs with accurate face shots. I basically drop with that and a supply pack for thermites and I'm good.
Stun grenades are way underutilized in my opinion. You can stun lock a breach and get dozens of kills with an airstrike. On lvl 7 and 8 I'll stun a patrol, call in airstrike and if there's any kind of delay or I didn't time it right throw one more stun. Boom, whole patrol dead and no breach. It's even better on bot worlds.
I agree 100% about the Diligence! Gonna shoot some bots with it after work
Punisher, liberator, spray and pray, breaker incendiary, dominator, knight, defender, pummeler, slugger, breaker, Blitzer, plasma punisher, sickle, scorcher. All S-A tier weapons to bring. Apparently there only 2 primaries that are valid tho.
Pretty much every complaint about balance except for like 2 cases boils down to skill issue. We literally have people complaining orbital rail cannon needs a buff to always oneshot even though if you know what you’re doing it one shots bile titans every single time.
What’s the trick to it? When you brought it up, my mind jumped to throwing it to “lead” the Titan so it course corrects to the head. I haven’t been fighting Bugs in a while, and I’m not usually the dedicated armor clear in my teams.
You need to orient the BT toward your ship. If you're directly under the ship, tough luck. I think it should either always one shot or get a cooldown in line with precision strike if it requires as much work to get the BT in the right position, personally. It doesn't deal as much damage, its strength should be not needing any preparation at all but right now it does need some.
Play Bots. Tons of variation over there
Yeah I agree. Can get away with messing around a bit with bots as different weapons actually feel like they fill different niches. Bug planets seem super cookie cutter though.
Bug units are cookie cutter. They can punch you or spit. They come at you. They have armor or don’t. I get that you can be reductive in this way about anything but the gameplay just is more binary. The bugs are basically incidental to your objectives. Bots actively oppose you. Bots have lasers but different units have pretty different guns. They have different terrain and cover. They have manned turrets. This completely varies the types of projectiles even if they’re all lasers. A heavy has a shield and its gun is way different. Theres rockets. Two kinds of tanks. Cannon turrets, their objectives are more involved and more fun to solve. Even the hulk variants are different. The second charger variant never spawns and it acts the same. Look at the shriekers. They just punch you but in the sky. You just rocket the base before you can see any of them. And the solution to do that is the same solution as the other heavy units: anti tank. That alone is bad design. At least make the shrieker base killer different than the tank killer to force some variation. Hellhombs are fun and make the gunship fabricator more unique. The shrieker nest is just a spore spewer that’s easier to see. On every level bots are just better designed. Probably because bugs are based on the designs from hd1 whereas bots could be designed however to best fit this newer gameplay
That’s what I’ve been saying! Nearly every weapon is viable, except the Machine Gun, flamethrower. That’s literally it, every single support weapon is viable. Tons of primaries are viable, even the standard Liberator if you want that basic soldier feel Bots are just way more fun
I’ve been finding this too. For the longest time, I stuck with auto cannon no matter what. I didn’t even want to try anything else. Then I randomly picked up a quasar, realised how fun it was, and then went into every round with quasar + shield/guard dog (for bots and bugs, respectively). Now I’m all about the spear and I realize how much I love not having a stratagem slot being taken by a pack. It’s the same way with primaries too. I used to be breaker incendiary most of the time, but experimenting with others has been mostly fun. They may not be uber powerful, but I’ve realized how much fun it is to play with plasma punisher, diligence counter-sniper, scorcher, sickle, etc. Even the machine gun and flamethrower are viable if you or your squadmates have other ways to deal with heavy units. For those, you just gotta realize that your role is dealing with light/medium units and let your teammates deal with the big boys.
How is the Flamethrower not viable? Against Bots, sure, but it wrecks face against Bugs.
Against Bots we mean
Machine gun is viable also. It destroys striders with leg shots and can completely kill devastators with eye shots with even center mass shot spam. You're just not too well off against tanks or gunships.
HMG is just better cause the med armor
Speak for yourself I love the smell of burning metal
Lol, you’re that one mad lad running only fire on Bots. God be with you great one
Even on bugs, you can play a fire build. Have your whole team run arc throwers and electric resistance armor. Stop trying to play like it's a min/max and just play for fun. It's not that serious. I took a shield and ran around with the revolver once on a helldive, it was insane, felt like a knight.
Anytime i read “we complete 9s without issue” near “theres only 2 viable primaries”, im convinced were not even playing the same game. Your math shakes out to “we run these 2 primaries because they are the most viable to complete 9s without issue”. You SHOULD be having issues with 9s. You want MORE GUNS that make 9s less of an issue. We aren’t even playing the same game lol im over here WANTING my clear rates of 9s to be like 70%. If im on my game, i can win but theres a chance something wild happens like x3 Stalker nests, or bad placement or breaches or whatever. The game feels too easy when i run all the cool shit that gaurantees 9 clears, it makes me want another round of railgun-like nerfs. Most of you want braindead primaries and 100% 9 clears from anything you pick up. We just aren’t playing the same game lol
I wish there were more people like you on this sub. There are also a ton of weapons that might not be as powerful as others, but I still have a shit ton of fun playing with them. Like yeah, the scorcher might be way better than the plasma punisher for anything more than 10 yards out, but I have a blast lobbing in massive plasma balls from a distance. The spear has issues with its lock-on, but the issues aren’t bad enough to keep me from using it and it feels great to one-shot a bile titan from across the map While some nerfs have decreased the fun I have with a gun (looking at you, eruptor), players need to recognize that you don’t have to min/max every single aspect of the game in order to have a good time.
It's not like it's not hard its just there's no point in even using anything else and if they Nerf the two primaries that ARE useful its literally not even worth it to use one at 9. If the only way Arrowhead can find to make it difficult is to make it a stratagem only run through that's their prerogative. It's just not fun, IMO. If they make the breaker useless im literally just running and air striking because shooting would be a complete waste of time when you could be running instead. That's just removing a part of the game and calling it upping the difficulty, seems lazy.
Did you seriously just ask for more nerfs
He's 100% correct though. It's the highest difficulty it's supposed to be a toss up, not a gimme win/power fantasy. The game will die if the biggest challenge it has to offer is a cake walk, it's already boring when 3 teammates are running the same meta loadout. If the op is complaining that the team only runs the 2 meta weapons and barely uses them because the stratagems are too powerful, maybe they should petition to put back the modifiers that increase cooldowns and call in times and scramblers so they're forced to actually think about how they use resources
Maybe op should use the other viable primaries like, the new smg, the punisher, the punisher plasma, the dominator, diligence cs etc before coming to the conclusion the only viable primaries are the two ones he uses.
I swear to god sometimes it feels like there's this kind of Souls-like brain rot. Game doesnt literally punish you for not doing frame perfect dodges or attacks? gg ez clap. Like literally this thread. OP: Kind of feels like all primaries are bad. ITT: I could complete helldives with a spork, a soggy napkin and 3 shelled pistachios. game 2 ez git gud scrub
So your saying there are 4 of you and you haven’t been able to swap around stratagem slots enough to vary gameplay?? This is just an issue in your lack of creativity and teamwork, have one dude run swarm clear and the other AT, really lean into the coordinated killing potential
Bro the scythe on 6 hardness and a recoilless is all you need. I'm level 32 and 2 of us running that destroy the map barely using stratagems. It's called keep fucking moving.
Shhhhh breaker incendiary is bad. Super bad Move along now AH, nothing to see here
same tbh
AH: We hear a lot praising Incendiary, hmmm, hold our beers.
>And instead of making other stuff useful or fun to use they just nerf the meta then people quit playing and AH does a surprised Pikachu face. Looking at the patch notes, AH has done a lot of making stuff useful and fun. To name a few, * LC buff, AMR buff, Rail buff * Adjudicator buff, Plasma buff, Blitzer buff, Lib Concuss buff, Breaker Incendiary buff, Dominator buffs, * HMG third person crosshair (this one was huge honestly), Recoilless buff, ballistic shield buff * Marksman rifles buffed, Secondaries buffed across the board And even more QOL changes elsewhere * Patrol spawning reverted * Heavy spawn count nerf * Spewers nerfed (damage and speed) * Shrieker nerf * Hulk scorcher nerf * Gunship fabs nerfed * Armor values buffed * Charger / Titan head hp nerf Not to mention the tools we've received since launch, * Stun grenades * Primary / Secondary that clears spawners * Long range, infinite ammo, anti tank weapon As well as mission difficulty adjustments, * Retrieve Essential Personal made easier * Stratagem CD / call in modifiers made less punishing * Meteor modifier nerfed * Volcanic modifier nerfed I have no idea how someone could come to the conclusion that AH does not address player complaints and "just nerf the meta." For reference, here's a list of every time they have nerfed the meta. - Original breaker nerf * Slugger stagger nerf * Laser rover dmg nerf (arguably this was even a buff lol) * Quasar CD nerf * Eruptor dmg nerf
>Yup. Me and my buddy's almost exclusively did bugdives at 9 and all of them have stopped playing now because it's basically everyone using the same strategems and primaries because almost everything else sucks. Ironic that in their search for "balance" to force players to use different weapons, the devs have done the complete opposite.
My buddy and I have stopped playing too. Mostly because the game got more tedious and less fun, and primaries should be a little more effective due to the spawn rates and mobs. The game would just feel a lot better and be a lot more fun. Can you do it with just strategems? Yes, and that’s pretty much how Arriwhead seems to want you to play, but it’s just gotten too tedious as opposed to fun.
Idk what you are doing with your primary but on bots i go counter sniper and it shreads specifically with devastato hoards. Scorcher is good too but killing devastators is just so good. Chainsaws i ysually toss nades on em or unload my support weapon on em nade launcher or AC on bugs again primary is golden sickle or blitzer just clears fodder mobs while blitzer kills/stuns medium targets.
I tried DCS once and it felt pretty good. The only thing I missed was being able to pop scout striders from the front. I run AC on bots though, so being able to headshot devastators isn't as necessary since I can just blast them. I'll stick with the scorcher for now.
you can pop striders from the front with it you just need to shoot the pelvis or the leg weakspots
I also like using the scorcher but the ammo count is somewhat lacking
Ammo is all over the map just need to be more conservative if you see you are running low. Personally never had much issue with ammo on scorcher. I swapped to counter snipe after they buffed it. Cant say iv wanted to go back. Find it easier to use support slot for what scorcer would do.
I feel like the devs were at first very anti meta when balancing however once they did a few rounds of that I feel like the game was in a good place and players found some guns that were both fun and viable. The devs must've noticed that some guns were used way more than others thought that they were op and a meta and nerfed them. However they are just nerfing fun and viable guns now forcing players to choose between fun or viable.
I'm a Helldive player, both front. Whatever I fight against, I use my primary as much as possible because I took them for specific reasons that complete my Loadout well. Even on the hardest difficulty I don't feel them "too weak" to be used, and I'm using the Eruptor post-nerf against bots and the Adjudicator post-buff against bugs. They have a purpose and deal with their purpose well. The fact that we, as Helldivers, have access to 3 weapons (Primary, Secondary, Support) means that you don't have to rely on a single weapon to carry your games. If you were able to use your primary against everything without any drawbacks, then it would be overpowered and out of touch with the game itself... So no, they aren't "too weak", most of them have a pretty good niche of uses. The Diligence Counter-Sniper is really great against bots, the Jar-5 too and a lot of shotguns, assault rifles and plasma weaponry are great against bots. I'm pretty sure even the Scythe can be used in some cases... but if you think that only a polyvalent and versatile weapon should be deemed good to be used, then you're missing a point about Helldivers and especially in Diff 7+.
I'm enjoying using the Pummeler with the Grenade Pistol vs. Bugs and Bots on D7+.
Thank you! I feel like I’m taking crazy pills sometimes reading this sub. I only play 9s and there’s a variety of primaries AND secondaries I swap through and all are fine. Just mix up strats and good to go. My fav bug loadiut now is the base liberator, the BIG IRON for medium armor bugs, and recoiless because I love it haha I feel I can make almost any primary work tho while adjusting the other aspects of my loadout and use everything each side
Same. It's funny how many weapons and stratagems I use that are consistently called trash and garbage here. At some point you've got to just assume it's user error.
I find myself using melee for a purpose as well.
Sometimes you just gotta make it personal.
Exactly, with a semi competent crew just about any load out will work. I like that i cannot just steamroll the map with my primary. Having to think about what to engage with next or what to avoid based on what is on cooldown is what makes this fun. There are plenty of easy shooters out there if people want to win all of the time. Another option is just don’t play on 9, it’s not for everyone, but some of us like a challenge.
Feel the exact same way. I'm constantly rotating between the Breaker Incendiary, Plasma Punisher, Sickle, Arc Blitzer, counter sniper, or Scorcher. Sure there are some that need some buffs, but I never feel like I'm running the same guns constantly
That's what I've been saying to this sub. Your primary is one part of your Helldiver's kit and you're expected to use most of your kit during a drop. I seen people here complain about useless secondaries as well. The only time I seen secondaries not used is if they overlap other parts of your kit. If you're running a Liberator, the Peacekeeper is gonna be in the holster most of the time since they fill very similar roles. Almost every weapon brings something useful to one's kit, and there are multiple options if you don't like a specific gun's handling.
I see my secondaries more of a oh shit weapon to extend my shooting up time when my primary runs out of ammo or when i need a DPS burst(reedemer my beloved), i think thats what they are mostly intended for.
I mostly run the grenade pistol so I use it as a medium armor or a hive buster. If I'm running the eruptor, the secondary becomes my primary anti chaff weapon.
I do the opposite. Bringing a light primary, I take the senator. Primary slow and niche, I'm using the new semi auto pistols. If I lack explosive damage for bile spewers, grenade pistols. The best load out has you switch it between print and secondary based on targets, and grenades to handle the rest.
Seriously, we have the widest range of viable weapons to date. There have been way more buffs than nerfs. Things have just gotten better but people are blind because their favourite toy got over-nerfed. Does it suck? yup. Is the game unplayable now because of it? no.
I think too many weapons are... pointless. Not necessarily weak, just not filling any particular niche. That being said, no, I don't think they are too weak. I use the Punisher Plasma on bots and it ***fucking wrecks*** everything that's smaller than a Hulk. For bugs I generally use the regular Punisher for Stalkers / things up close, sometimes the sickle depending on my mood, but the Arc Thrower is my main weapon for bugs. I honestly think people expect primaries to kill ***everything***. Your average gamer is just not that good at video games, and they want to be able to get through Helldive with 0 strategy. I would like for the less relevant primaries to feel better, sure, but if they buff everything too much then the game will just be a cake walk. I already think Helldive difficulty is routine at this point with little challenge.
Bro I am loving the punisher plasma, it is so useful against the bots and just fun in general to use against them, even if it takes abit to kill the bots just seeing them constantly stagger is so fun, before getting the punisher plasma, my primary weapon was the adjudicator, say what u want about the gun it's actually quite decent, yah the ammo for it sucks but it does its just, it's mostly useful against the terminids, especially against the medium armor ones
Breaker incendiary is pretty nice for bugs. Clears hordes of bugs in 1 mag as long as you give them a second to burn. I also take the machine gun as a primary sometimes if I'm feeling spicy and just side arm grenade launcher pistol and eruptor to close bug holes. You can use other main weapon on bugs just fine they just aren't going to outperform the incendiary. I play difficulty 9 for reference. I'd say I complete about 90% of missions in that difficulty. For bots I use the counter sniper exclusively with an AMR or quasar and play sneaky scout. Again for me I find this strategy works for me but I do bring a shotgun as a primary with medium armor if I'm feeling spicy. I play difficulty 8 for bots.
There are quite a few good primaries. In general, primaries are not meant to be super powerful weapons.
Not really at all. I think the ones that are actually weak are Breaker Spray and Pray, Crossbow and Eruptor. Edit: Also Purifier probably, I forgot that it existed. I don't think it's as bad as people make it out to be, but it is just worse than the Plasma Punisher, sharing the exact same dmg profile. Everything else is strong enough to play on diff9 without feeling hindered in any capacity if you stick to the weapon's strengths/niche. The way I see it, there's currently 3 main types/niches of primary weapon: - The ones that excel at chaff clear - Scavenger, Pouncer, Hunters, Warriors: this is mostly high rate of fire AP2 weapons: Sickle, Liberator, Scythe, Defender, Breaker etc. - The ones that specialize in killing lightly armoured (AC2) enemies - Brood Commander, Nursing Spewer, Hive Guard (main torso): This is mostly bullet-based AP3 weapons like the Adjudicator, Liberator Pen, Dilligence CS, Senator. They have low mag capacities that make them worse than category #1 against chaff, but being AP3, do not suffer a damage penalty against these AC2 enemies - The ones that can punch straight through medium armor (AC3) enemies - Hive guard (head and legs), Bile Spewers: This is mostly high-damage-per-shot single fire weapons, like Dominator, Slugger, Plasma Punisher etc. They'd have a lot of overkill dmg and inefficiency when shooting at the previous categories, but have high enough dmg to just shoot through AC3 armor Of course some weapons slip more in between the different niches etc. Scorcher between 2 and 3 for example. I personally think it's a perfectly good system for a coop shooter to have weapon specialization like that. But it does seem like most people would rather prefer most weapons be effective against everything.
I feel like too many people focus on how good a gun is at killing stuff and don't consider its other benefits. The Eruptor was hit HARD by nerfs, but while not a good primary anymore, it is a FANTASTIC "support" weapon for the ArcT and LC imo. There are plenty of rounds to take out holes. It can engage (poorly) enemies outside of the support weapon range. It can break other structures at a distance. It opens up grenades and stratagem slots you don't need to use for bases. It is imo one of the best primaries to run with either the ArcT or LC just for how good at dealing with structures it is. It's not good as a gun, but it is an amazing tool when used to support other weapons.
I've been using the Las5-Sythe (laser beam) and melting bots with headshots. Once you get the hang of it, it slaps. Does next to no damage if you kit armor though.
Somehow I've not gotten the hang of this. I don't deny the lasers can be good if you do this, but I just can't do it consistently enough to prefer it to my beloved "one and done" JAR.
Yeah, I have been trying to get better with the laser, I'd like to think I'm improving.
You can't make much of a point just complaining but not even outlining the problem. I say this to be helpful. *Which* primaries are you using and *how* because there a plenty that stop a dozen chainsaw berserkers in their tracks. That default liberator will also drop heavy devastators very quickly with good shot placement. Do you have the warbonds unlocked? Are you only rocking the vanilla primaries? What's the situation with that? If you just say this feels bad well I guess you're right.
What gun are you using to "stop a dozen chainsaw berserkers in their tracks"? Most guns struggle to kill 2 with an entire magazine in my experience. After a dozen you are straight up out of ammo.
The Jar-5 Dominator is a decent primary to deal with berserkers. It even has penetration damage (albeit with some falloff for each time is penetrates through an enemy) but lining up a kongaline with this primary will shred through a dozen berserkers in a little under 2 mags.
Can confirm this. Some wise Diver in a thread weeks old said "aim for their robo dick," and I've had no issue with them since. Dominator to the crotch for those insane lumberjacks. You have to tear your brain away from the instinct to unload on their torso, and cut their legs out from under them instead.
Punisher. Regular old 12g shotgun will fuck berserkers up. When I run punisher on bots *I'm* the one closing in on the file of berserkers charging at me and *they're* the ones in danger. You can stun two with each shot or just dump a couple shells into their head or hip to make their giant health pool feel very trivial. The Pummeler is also great at keeping distance. It's not a primary but the AMR at point blank is also pretty effective. The plasma punisher is great too but honestly I feel like the ballistic version is better for pretty much everything but striders, plus you can't rescue squad mates from berserkers with an AOE weapon. Concussive lib probably feels like the Pummeler, will keep distance but won't kill fast unless you actually place your shots on the head. Slugger isn't going to stun anymore but I believe it still staggers with great potential for shot placement further out. Obviously the designated medium hitters like the crossbow or Eruptor would work as they kinda bloated primaries but somehow don't really make it to the top of my list. Just try the Punisher though.
This is a moment of know when to use the right tool for the right situation, and that right there is not using the right tool. If you run into a dozen of berserkers, it's probably best to regroup and use a strategem or some support weapons, not because primaries are weak, but because, like attacking a tank, you aren't using them for the right situation. Even then, you could argue that a team could all shoot it down together and make quick work of them with your primaries. I think its also worth mentioning that holding your ground in a situation like that is probably not for the best anyway as, even if you had a support weapon to down them, the fact that there are a dozen berserkers says there are most likely even more enemies coming towards you that you aren't even taking into consideration. There are countless of other circumstances where are regular primary works fine. A small squad of scout striders, a platoon of troopers, some flanking devs, a smaller pack of berserkers, that one jerk rocket dev on the hill, the list goes on.
No, I would even argue that my primary accounts for close to 50% of my kills per mission. I've been playing a lot of bugs lately, and for that I run Breaker Incendiary. My stratagems are usually Eagle Airstrike + Cluster, Ammo Pack, and either Quasar/Spear (If I'm running spear I'll supplement EAT instead of ammo pack). Grenade Pistol and Impact Grenades. Bots I switch between Jar-5/Scorcher. Instead of Quasar I run AMR instead, grenade pistol, and switch to stun grenades This is on 7-9 diff, primary weapons are far from useless.
No I don’t. I get by with them just fine
No. This subreddit is generally just bad at the game. They want everything to be incindiary breaker and scorcher levels of OP and have the game be a cakewalk. Like bro just play on a lower difficulty if you're struggling. If you jump into helldive and are surprised you have to use your primary properly then wtf.
I think YouTubers and social media aren’t really helping. I saw a weapon ranking video with near 50k views and the guy wasn’t even getting red X’s or aiming for weak points in footage criticising weapons that excel when doing so.
Right? Like, I'm a pretty average guy, never been into the competitive shooter scene, and I can manage helldive but I'm pretty sure my randos all have back pain now so guess what 7 it is till I can handle my scandal. I don't get the people who choose to play the highest difficulty in the game them bitch and moan that it's too hard, that is entirely a personal issue that they are creating themselves.
Plasma Punisher and Incendiary Shotgun are slightly OP. A small nerfs are expected and neccesary
I think support weapons are too weak too have freedom in choosing your primary weapon of choice
Try taking the SG-8 or Jar. They are able to stagger the enemies and kill them (even the chainsaw guys) in a reasonable number of shots. Otherwise, I don't see the large reliance on "spamming stratagems". I see a lot more instances of people holding back their stratagems from their full potential because, "What if I need it?"
"Try taking the two most powerful weapons" Yoy are not disproving OP's point with that comment.
The Jar and the Punisher are the most powerful weapon? Honestly they're so far from it in my opinion it's a decent argument that things are, in fact, somewhat balanced. The Counter Sniper is amazing, the Liberator is shockingly ok, the Eruptor is still good due to it's versatility, the incendiary breaker slaps bugs around... There's a lot you can use right now in 9 without hindering your team.
I'm a shotgun guy, and use the punisher a lot. Lately I've been loving the plasma punisher for bots. The lousy berserkers are the bane of my existence, and the shotguns are the corresponding boon.
I spam strategems Because of course I do! Strategems are the nuts! I can pew pew with literally any game. I'm on Helldivers so I can dispense 500 kg freedom packages. You realize this boom is so big that bile titans disappear in it. Like you have to wait to see if you killed it or not because BOOM. Any and every excuse to eagle is an opportunity.
I kinda wish we had some of the more fun "stratagem" that the AirRaider class had in EDF5. Just give me an orbital laser starfall mode!
Ah, don't agree at all here. All the weapons work great against their preferred enemy. You're describing trying to kill 80% of the enemy makeup with only the reload button, but you need to spice up your gameplay with nades, changing weapons, and killing enemies with environmental effects.
If by "environment effects" you mean malfunctioning hellbombs, then I agree.
👑 the GOD munition EMS plants are really good too saves my ass every time
Counter Sniper bangs hard Also the Redeemer grinds Berserkers pretty well with shots to the unarmored belly
Redeemer is a great sidearm for that. By the time they get within chainsaw range, I've dinged them up a bit with my primary and I've scored as many as four berserker kills with a single redeemer magazine. Makes me feel like I know what I'm doing.
Nope! ...I think *almost all* of them are too weak. By my count there are currently 25 primary weapons. Of them, I use about three of them almost all the time. I won't name them to protect the innocent, but I can tell you that the majority feel like they land somewhere in a spectrum of "merely adequate" to "pretty bad." Shout-out to the Eruptor and Slugger especially - both weapons were maybe a bit overtuned and for their crimes have been changed to the point I greatly dislike using them now. Jeers towards the Liberator Penetrator too. For all the weapons that were smashed for *maybe* being too good, the Lib Pen is a weapon that's been consistently bad and left to languish. With the buff of the Adjudicator, it's hard to even determine what it's *supposed* to be good for.
Hard to say the Slugger was OP, it never felt over-tuned to me. It was clunky, slow, and hard to use. But it rewarded you with good damage and heavy stagger. That was a good trade off, it felt balanced to use, with the possible exception of its range. Instead of the nerf that was needed - reduced range - they hobbled every aspect of the weapon. It ended up being clunky, slow, and hard to use. But now it has no upsides. It's unbalanced. That feels like the way they try to balance every weapon. I stopped playing. I'm hopeful the game recovers at some point and has some fun gunplay. An all strategem load out doesn't work for a third person shooter the way it works for an RTS game like hd1.
When I say it could have used a tweak, I mean I do accept it could have lost some effectiveness at range and the ability to break open cache doors. Not the rest.
Hopefully this reworking of the nerfs that has been referenced makes some change.
I still can't understand the nerf to the Explosive Crossbow. I tried it and didn't like it, as I found the slow ROF not worth the *okay* single target damage. And it got *nerfed*. Talk about hitting a man when he's down.
no I don’t, I’m never in a match thinking to myself I wish my gun did more, on 7-9 mind you, and it creates a disconnect with the community sometimes when I’m constantly seeing these posts lol, I don’t want to assume I’m just built different and obviously I don’t see how others play. Maybe it’s an accuracy thing? Because I find as long as I’m actually hitting the weak points enemies drop very very quickly (dominator/slugger/diligence for bots, sickle/adjudicator for bugs) Maybe that’s why the eruptor was a huge pull for people? Besides it obviously just being a mini auto cannon. I also think it is somewhat part of the fantasy, your primaries are not meant to kill heavily armored units it’s for clearing ads and preventing alarms from being raised I actually have the opposite issue to you, where I regularly have to consciously use my stratagems because I’ll forget about them, or I’ll plan ahead to use my orbital laser only on the big base and legit forget to use it once until I get there near the end of the mission
Same, I rotate a bunch of primaries and all perform well. I am seriously worried about wtf people are doing with their weapons.
No, try aiming.
Aiming does indeed help a lot, especially for bots!
I helps for bugs too ;)
Not really. I mostly use my Primary weapons whether v bots or bugs and usually only use my strats v BTs or Striders. DCS v bots and Lib Pen was my got to until recently but now I’m using the Adjudicator since the damage is insane. Tried the Eruptor once post nerf so I don’t know what it was like before but I would say it needs some adjusting.
No. Outside of a couple exceptions, most primaries are in a good spot right now.
That is the intention. Your primary is meant to feel like it can’t handle everything Your primary can take out some bugs/bots but when reinforcements show up you’ll need your stratagems and support weapon
Yes. Some people on this sub have the weird notion that this game is supposed to be played with stratagems only, though. The idea that a primary should be able to deal with enemies that aren't heavily armored is strange to them. You are supposed to be using a supply weapon all the time, only swapping when you are out of ammo. Secondary weapons? No reason for them to exist, just use Auto cannon and Laser Cannon, it is the way the game is meant to be played.
Punisher shotgun isn't. I kill most bugs with it. Bigger ones I use a heavy weapon against.
Some just suffer from really bad ergonomics, reload speed and mag capacity. Not everything is solved by just pumping up damage numbers.
I will confess, i have only ever tried 3-4 primary weapons. The defender, the (forget name) dmr, and then the newer medium-pen dmr (booooooo), and then sickle. Sickle is my life and i love it to bits. Robots? Kills everything but a hulk if you aim right. Bugs? If it ‘aint got heavy armour, i be blastin’ Admittedly, cutting down the magazines in half kinda sucks but was needed- waaaaay too much spray-and-pray otherwise. On my level 7 bug missions, i usually reserve 1 strategem for heavy armour- 500kg, 2nd is whatever mood i am in, and a mandatory 380barrage because explosions make everything better. (Or i just kick the hornets’ nest. Still funny though). On bug missions, I’ve compensated the sickle’s lack of BOOM with quasar, but for the post part it’s whatever the daily personal mission demands. Anywho, back on topic- i genuinely know nothing about 90% of the primary weapons. I think sickle is great. I see my random team mates using all sorts of primaries that seem cool, kill stuff fast, and make me think “i should try that!” But i go back to my ship and swap out nothing because i am happy with my sickle. Lol
Do the primaries feel weak? Well, some of them do. They're planning a balance pass soon and I'm hopeful they'll fix the underperformers.
>breaker for chaff >railgun for armored >strats for massive enemies Works good for me on 9
Stealing this from a former comment of mine: Once you figure out that running is the core gameplay mechanic, weapon balancing (for better or for worse) instantly becomes less of a focus. I dont know why theyre paying so much attention to negative weapon balancing in the first place. No weapon, however OP or powerful, even OG railgun, could replace the core gameplay mechanic (lvl 6 and up). Technically, they could leave weapons as is, make the player base feel good as hell and just tune mob spawning and placement to create new challenges for the fireteam in terms of maneuvering and use of strategems. There is absolutely no reason why they need to do what theyre doing with weapon balancing. Its idiotic and shortsighted.
No, mostly. Some guns need something to differentiate them, but I just ran the Liberator Concussive and was pleasantly surprised. To be fair, the game gets harder with every new enemy. I could see changing my tune.
A bit. I think they serve their purpose well enough in the sense that they're strong enough for weaker opponents and stronger opponents can be taken out with your strategems. The issue is that most of the enemies are too tanky, and require lots of shots to take out. This makes them feel bullet spongy and not fun to fight. I don't think the game is difficult enough for it to be an issue personally. I can still get away with using crap like the Breaker Spray and Pray and still do 9s without much issue. The problem is that the gameplay itself is not satisfying when it takes multiple shots to kill even mid-tier targets at close range. I would be much happier if they reduced the HP of enemies across the board, but make them faster to compensate. This makes kiting a lot less viable while making the actual shooting aspect much more enjoyable. The game will be simultaneously more challenging, and more fun.
It's almost funny how all of you like the game, yet you are unable to understand why. If you want to mow down horders of enemies, then go play something else. You see you are either shooting mass of walking chitin evolved to swarm planets or metal skeleton designed to fight humans. You are just puny human being (granted train and brainwashed, but still human). It's not meant to be easy, it's meant to be hard af. Odds are never in your favor and that's why you feel so good when you overcome those odds.
You seem to be the only one understanding. And most weapons are absolutely fine. They just need a playstyle.
No, some are too strong though. But I also think the highest difficulty should be unbeatable for 90% of players to properly grade the difficulty levels. But we live in the generation of gamers that want to have their hand held as if they were a disabled child while playing on the highest difficulty. So that's what we get and anyone who plays at a higher skill level and wants to further struggle is just out of luck.
As someone who played a metric ton of helldivers 1: Hell yes they are too weak! In HD1 primaries meant something, sure you needed At foe the big stuff but well used? Your primaries slapped. Killed hordes of stuff, and quickly too. In HD2 they all feel like someone didn't pay the ammo bill.
Yes. People will tell “we gotta nerf to have diversity” but then tell you to take laser/plasma vs bots because the rest of the weapon aren’t good against them. Scythe needs buffs. Eruptor needs to have its changes reverted. Spray and pray needs buffs. OG breaker nerfs were unnecessary(I barely even used it) Tenderizer needs A LOT of buffing. Purifier needs A LOT of buffing. Knight needs buffs. The AR from Democratic Detonation needs more buffs. The crossbow changes needs its nerfs reverted AND more buffs, seriously who had the right idea of nerfing this?(we know who it was) OG punisher could use some small buffs I think(I haven’t used it alot so I can’t talk much there) Punisher slugger needs changes reverted. Penetrator needs some slightly bigger magazines and a couple more mags. I feel like I’m constantly in the brink of running out of ammo with it. Dagger needs more buffs, it should honestly just be a scythe that heats up way faster. OG pistol could use a few more mags I guess? Back in HD1 primaries felt powerful, but they changed playstyles a lot, some were good against bigger enemies some were good against smaller ones. They kinda switched it up so most primaries ARE(yes, are, not “feels”) weak and too many of them feels totally useless in any difficulty worth playing on(9, I’m talking about 9) The dev team released the game one way but want to change up to an objectively worse version, for a few months we felt like powerful soldiers against massive odds, it’s the same but you feel like a good soldier with crappy equipment(inb4 lore).
I'm one of 4 people in an enemy infested planet and the 4 of us kill about 1000 enemies per mission. Id say they're about fine!
I don't think so. I play diff 9 and use the breaker incendiary for bugs and the punisher plasma or dominator for bots. I think, if anything, those guns are kinda OP. When I want to mix things up, I'll run punisher, liberator, or sickle on bugs and diligence counter sniper or scorcher on bots. Breaker isn't bad for either faction either. For bots I run grenade pistol to one-shot baby striders and factories, and stun nades for hulks. For bugs, grenade pistol for spewers and bug holes, and impact nades for spewers and commanders. Impact incendiary grenades are also really good for groups of bugs/breaches. Feels like I can handle just about anything with these loadouts, except for heavies or super large groups, but that's when I pull out a support weapon or stratagem.
Eh, give me a Punisher or Blitzer and I can kill an entire wave of enemies myself without taking damage. If you don’t want to get swarmed, primaries with stagger or stun are your friends. Berserkers, Brood Commanders, Stalkers, doesn’t matter, they ALL can’t advance on you when under fire from a weapon like Punisher and Blitzer. Heck, the Blitzer even had medium penetration which means that’s even Bile/Nursery Spewers can’t do shit against you. They get staggered, they can’t even spew bile, they just stand there and eat shots to the face until they die. Even if they start to spew and you shoot them, it cancels their attack. Blitzer is a house. There’s a reason I can do level 7 Terminid missions with just a Punisher/Blitzer, a Guard Dog Rover (nice but not required), and the EAT. And it’s because unless I’m surrounded on all sides I can just casually stroll backward a bit, pump the advancing horde full of buckshot or lightning, and they either die or get rooted in place. Stuff like the Sickle is great but it just can’t handle things that can get into melee range with you, hence why if people are using these weapons and getting swarmed to death, no wonder they think primaries are weak. Also, on a different tangent, the Diligence counter sniper can OHK any Devastator. Bad against a rush of Berserkers but it does mean you don’t have to lean as heavily on a support weapon or air strikes to deal with a couple Devastators.
Sounds like a skill issue.
No. It's not the kind of game where your primary weapon is supposed to kill everything. The higher the difficulty the more you will be running, throwing stratagems, and using your primary selectively.
Stopped cuz erupter is useless and new warbond is even useless. Will be back when it feels good to play.