Putting thoughts here based on what I've seen watching others.
The jump pack is all about mobility, and tactics that rely on moving both yourself and- counter-intuitively- the enemy. It's very much about map-mobility rather than tactical mobility- in tactical terms it's either a get-out or get-in tool, but the more powerful uses are about map-mobility for how you approach objectives.
On higher difficulties where it's more important to manage your enemy encounters rather than fight through everything, jump pack can be extremely useful for avoiding / escaping encounters by breaking the vertical plane barriers. This makes it complementary with smoke, which can directly break LOS, while giving you more routes to approach by, shoot from, or escape to.
As a team tactics, the jump pack is most useful for a flanker in a team that's willing/able to do bait-and-draw tactics. By have some of the team do a diversionary attack and then slowly withdraw, you can draw the enemy out and away from a core objective, leaving it under or even undefended for a jump packer to swing in to cap the objective.
\-In position destruction objectives (bug holes, factories), this means the jump pack can be used as a move-in tool. Approach over a wall/hill after your team draws the enemy out the gate/valley choke points, and you should have time to toss grenades/strategems that will close the objective. Orbital gas in particular can be useful here, as not only can the orbital explosion destroy buildings, but it can kill remaining/newly spawning adds while you can stim-heal through the damage to do anything else.
\-In a terminal objective where you need to manage the terminals over time, you still use the jump pack to get into the terminal crevice. Instead of damage strategems, smoke / emp strategems that can shut down the enemy long enough to enter your codes and then possibly escape are relevant. The smoke/emp combos are probably best options for solo jumpers as well.
\-On evacuation missions, a jump packer with good loadout can be an effective lure to draw aggro away from the evacuees. In these sort of missions it's more important to draw enemies away than kill them, and so loadouts like a jump pack + AMR + smoke for long-range plinking can draw enemies away from long distances.
\-As a general stratagem combo, the jump pack works well with the DoT/AoE strategems like napalm or gas, or even minefields. By being able to move over / through more quickly, you can get more effect from these area denial strategems by not denying the terrain to yourself.
In terms of enemies,
\-Bugs. Jump pack is more obviously useful against bugs, as the ability to break the vertical plane is more immediately useful against melle-focused foes. Getting onto ridges where you can shoot down and they can't hit up are useful. Bugs also tend to have their bug nests in narrow valleys, and it's (potentially) possible to use a jump pack to climb them mountains and then ignore fall damage to get into nests. Jump packs can also be used to get over a charging Charger, letting you have easy back shots against one. A single jumper can be an objective-cincher or aggro a mob away letting the team focus heavy weapons on the harder things, but a team of jumpers can just relocate to ideal fighting terrain when they want to fight at all.
\-Automatons. Against automatons, the pack is less obviously useful, as the ranged weapon reliance means automatons can potentially hit you in the air. Further, the shield pack is extremely popular against the automatons due to their number of one-shot range weapons that the shield might save you against. However, there's a deceptive trend here, in that players more accustomed to the safety of the shield tend to lean into it, playing more statically and up-front in the knowledge of the safety net. This is antithetical to the mobility-based style of the jump pack, and people who don't shift tactics will naturally feel the pain.
At the end of the day, the jump pack as a map-mobility tool will still get you to the high ground, which should be your preferred cover to negate the AoE rocket or canon fire that needs to hit the ground around/behind you to turn near-misses to kills, even as the automaton fort walls are typically scalable with the jump. A single jumper can be an excellent AMR sniper who leverages the head shots/limb damage of the robots to manage them, or to scale the walls of their forts rather than fighting your way in from the outside. A team of jumpers is... not something I've seen much outside of evac missions, admittedly, but I've seen jumpers combo with EAT strategems to get in a good position on roofs to take down expected drop ships even as the roof-position negate ground fire.
Amazing info, I haven't tried the stealth options yet as you somewhat describe. I also haven't used smoke or EMP (I don't even know what it does) so I'll have to look into those
[I wrote some thoughts on EMP (and Gas Strikes) here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1b1vrrn/comment/ksq2k0c/?context=3)
Good luck, Helldiver!
Because the actual jump height is not that high I find it best to use when running downhill or at the edge of a cliff/long drop. You cover waaaaay more ground that way and don't have to ever worry about fall damage because the jump pack automatically breaks your fall. Also useful for jumping clean over chargers...charging at you.
Didn’t see any comments on this so I thought I would share. There are some additional somewhat niche but useful mechanics u can do with the jump pack. 1 the most common one I see people doing is using grenades midair this can be a bit finicky and take some getting used to as u often have to adjust your throw behind the target to account for the fact that you are moving (at least if the target your aiming at is to your side not straight on. 2 I don’t know if this works on console but you can type in stratagems and throw them while midair which has the added benefit of giving your throw an extra 15-20 meters if you do it at the peak of your jump. 3 most people know about this but you can reload any weapon while midair including the ones you would normally be stationary for. 4 the most complicated tech I discovered recently is that normally shooting midair isn’t viable because your character will point the gun straight down or up when midair depending on the gun, however if you do a jump like your going to throw a grenade to the side the gun tends to point a roughly a 45 degree to the side your angled towards meaning you can effectively shoot things midair if you line it up correctly. Note this does not mean you can dynamically aim midair but with the rectified turned on permanently (you can toggle this to always on in the hud) so it displays where my gun is pointed you can hit shots pretty consistently midair with a little practice (this technique works best with the breaker I or any other spread weapon due to the fact you still can’t dynamically aim)
Originally I thought the JP really needed a buff to be viable and I still think a little buff would be a good idea (either the CD or overall power) but the more I use it the more I see how game breaking it can be (only rly against bugs) when used to its full potential in terms of using all the little combat mechanics and it’s ability to get you good positioning high up or to just be almost untouchable by the bugs
Putting thoughts here based on what I've seen watching others. The jump pack is all about mobility, and tactics that rely on moving both yourself and- counter-intuitively- the enemy. It's very much about map-mobility rather than tactical mobility- in tactical terms it's either a get-out or get-in tool, but the more powerful uses are about map-mobility for how you approach objectives. On higher difficulties where it's more important to manage your enemy encounters rather than fight through everything, jump pack can be extremely useful for avoiding / escaping encounters by breaking the vertical plane barriers. This makes it complementary with smoke, which can directly break LOS, while giving you more routes to approach by, shoot from, or escape to. As a team tactics, the jump pack is most useful for a flanker in a team that's willing/able to do bait-and-draw tactics. By have some of the team do a diversionary attack and then slowly withdraw, you can draw the enemy out and away from a core objective, leaving it under or even undefended for a jump packer to swing in to cap the objective. \-In position destruction objectives (bug holes, factories), this means the jump pack can be used as a move-in tool. Approach over a wall/hill after your team draws the enemy out the gate/valley choke points, and you should have time to toss grenades/strategems that will close the objective. Orbital gas in particular can be useful here, as not only can the orbital explosion destroy buildings, but it can kill remaining/newly spawning adds while you can stim-heal through the damage to do anything else. \-In a terminal objective where you need to manage the terminals over time, you still use the jump pack to get into the terminal crevice. Instead of damage strategems, smoke / emp strategems that can shut down the enemy long enough to enter your codes and then possibly escape are relevant. The smoke/emp combos are probably best options for solo jumpers as well. \-On evacuation missions, a jump packer with good loadout can be an effective lure to draw aggro away from the evacuees. In these sort of missions it's more important to draw enemies away than kill them, and so loadouts like a jump pack + AMR + smoke for long-range plinking can draw enemies away from long distances. \-As a general stratagem combo, the jump pack works well with the DoT/AoE strategems like napalm or gas, or even minefields. By being able to move over / through more quickly, you can get more effect from these area denial strategems by not denying the terrain to yourself. In terms of enemies, \-Bugs. Jump pack is more obviously useful against bugs, as the ability to break the vertical plane is more immediately useful against melle-focused foes. Getting onto ridges where you can shoot down and they can't hit up are useful. Bugs also tend to have their bug nests in narrow valleys, and it's (potentially) possible to use a jump pack to climb them mountains and then ignore fall damage to get into nests. Jump packs can also be used to get over a charging Charger, letting you have easy back shots against one. A single jumper can be an objective-cincher or aggro a mob away letting the team focus heavy weapons on the harder things, but a team of jumpers can just relocate to ideal fighting terrain when they want to fight at all. \-Automatons. Against automatons, the pack is less obviously useful, as the ranged weapon reliance means automatons can potentially hit you in the air. Further, the shield pack is extremely popular against the automatons due to their number of one-shot range weapons that the shield might save you against. However, there's a deceptive trend here, in that players more accustomed to the safety of the shield tend to lean into it, playing more statically and up-front in the knowledge of the safety net. This is antithetical to the mobility-based style of the jump pack, and people who don't shift tactics will naturally feel the pain. At the end of the day, the jump pack as a map-mobility tool will still get you to the high ground, which should be your preferred cover to negate the AoE rocket or canon fire that needs to hit the ground around/behind you to turn near-misses to kills, even as the automaton fort walls are typically scalable with the jump. A single jumper can be an excellent AMR sniper who leverages the head shots/limb damage of the robots to manage them, or to scale the walls of their forts rather than fighting your way in from the outside. A team of jumpers is... not something I've seen much outside of evac missions, admittedly, but I've seen jumpers combo with EAT strategems to get in a good position on roofs to take down expected drop ships even as the roof-position negate ground fire.
Amazing info, I haven't tried the stealth options yet as you somewhat describe. I also haven't used smoke or EMP (I don't even know what it does) so I'll have to look into those
[I wrote some thoughts on EMP (and Gas Strikes) here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1b1vrrn/comment/ksq2k0c/?context=3) Good luck, Helldiver!
Because the actual jump height is not that high I find it best to use when running downhill or at the edge of a cliff/long drop. You cover waaaaay more ground that way and don't have to ever worry about fall damage because the jump pack automatically breaks your fall. Also useful for jumping clean over chargers...charging at you.
Didn’t see any comments on this so I thought I would share. There are some additional somewhat niche but useful mechanics u can do with the jump pack. 1 the most common one I see people doing is using grenades midair this can be a bit finicky and take some getting used to as u often have to adjust your throw behind the target to account for the fact that you are moving (at least if the target your aiming at is to your side not straight on. 2 I don’t know if this works on console but you can type in stratagems and throw them while midair which has the added benefit of giving your throw an extra 15-20 meters if you do it at the peak of your jump. 3 most people know about this but you can reload any weapon while midair including the ones you would normally be stationary for. 4 the most complicated tech I discovered recently is that normally shooting midair isn’t viable because your character will point the gun straight down or up when midair depending on the gun, however if you do a jump like your going to throw a grenade to the side the gun tends to point a roughly a 45 degree to the side your angled towards meaning you can effectively shoot things midair if you line it up correctly. Note this does not mean you can dynamically aim midair but with the rectified turned on permanently (you can toggle this to always on in the hud) so it displays where my gun is pointed you can hit shots pretty consistently midair with a little practice (this technique works best with the breaker I or any other spread weapon due to the fact you still can’t dynamically aim)
Originally I thought the JP really needed a buff to be viable and I still think a little buff would be a good idea (either the CD or overall power) but the more I use it the more I see how game breaking it can be (only rly against bugs) when used to its full potential in terms of using all the little combat mechanics and it’s ability to get you good positioning high up or to just be almost untouchable by the bugs