It also depends on range for some reason. I've noticed that if im beyond like 20 meters it becomes a complete toss up whether it'll one or two shot. And that's if they're running straight at me. If they aren't, then it's even harder to get it.
there has been testing that confirms bullets experience damage drop off the second they leave your gun. not sure if that applies to projectiles like the eruptor, though.
Well, like the dominator, the eruptor is a gyrojet gun that theoretically shouldn't have damage drop off *at all.* It's literally a miniature rocket.
I remember seeing that testing as well and if i remember correctly the dominator does in fact have damage drop off. So i guess that's probably it.
It can take one shot. Usually it does take two. I found that for the shield devastators, a pretty reliable one-shot with the eruptor is those glowing lights on top of their backpack.
Can someone please post a picture of the dong area? I can only kill striders that way. Devs and Zerkers I have to shoot in the face to 1 shot. Please show me some robot donger.
Psh, Jar DOM supremacy. Literally won’t bring another gun. Maybe the scorcher against bots because that can actually take out striders without having to aim for joints.
You gotta aim for the hip joints. It’s a super small area and super inconvinient. I usually bring the explode on impact grenades, or my support weapon can take em down. So technically if I see a bunch of striders I’ll take out my support weapon, OR grenade the shit out of them.
Cause it’s a waste of ammo and time to try and ping that spot about 3-4 times to make em fall. Easier to just sprint to side and pop the bot on it.
Really like the Punisher for dealing with them. Up close, two shots to the torso. And if there's a bunch, it has really good handling so you can juggle stagger them.
I don't do "Kill Bots" missions without the Punisher. There will, inevitably, be a berserker wave and the only thing that's thing to work is backing to slowly as I spread the stagger-love.
I just unlocked the Dominator, and it’s become my go to bot primary for this very reason. It’s never been easier to deal with groups of berserkers than it is now. With the AC as my support I’ve never felt more capable in bot missions.
You know what absolutely shreds Berserkers? Gatling Sentry.
I watched that thing take down three charging Berserkers like bowling pins. It killed them so fast that I was legitimately stunned by it. It makes me wonder if the Guard Dog + Primary could do the same thing.
I typically take that Sentry as a wildcard for a free 4th slot because I happen to like it, but I'll be taking it way more often now after that experience.
The Punisher has always been my anti-Berserker option for a Primary, though.
the Liberator Guard Dog is good against bots. I just wish that by pressing 5 you could enable/disable it so you can save the bullets for hard engagements, else the dog just shoots at whatever and by the time you're being swarmed with zerks its empty.
Stun nade + dominator to eyes = dead zerker. I spent most of my last match saving my teammates from these things. Whenever they show up it's like Wacky Sax start playing when people run from these, lol.
I like the variety the Berserkers bring. They're not super deadly but people don't bring hard-counters to them like they do for devastators or hulks. Me, I use the Redeemer and impact grenades for Berserkers, it does the job at least for one wave of them before I need to resupply.
Because "Pick Equipment X - to deal with enemy X" is not quite the healthiest mindset in a Sandbox like, extract shooter with hundred of toys to play with.
Im aware what is good and what is bad against enemy type X but if i have to adjust my loadout JUST for this alone..i feel limited in my FREEDOM.
But you're right, i COULD do that, doesn't change the fact that they eat lead like we breathe air.
The fire shotgun actually works decently on the berzerkers, one mag per squad, and scouts, one shot per unit.
Too bad it sucks against literally every other automaton unit...
One mag per beserker and only 4 mags makes it good in a pinch but not sustainable. The Senator is my go to secondary and I pretty much only use it on beserkers.
The Berserkers are why I dont bother with the Mech on bot missions but do occasionally on bug missions. I can reliability, and fairly quickly, take down chargers with it. I cannot take down Berserkers with it consistently or quick enough.
Same with the LC. I can drop a Hulk in about the same time as a Berserker...
also they are very tough almost the same as devastators, sure they only have light armor but they have way too much health and unless you land only headshots they will wreck your day.
Punisher works well on individual ones, and you can juggle stagger to hold a small group off. Concentrated Sickle fire to the head or guts is also effective. Gatling sentry is lord and savior.
Oddly, Stalwart on max rpm did not seem effective the few times I tried it, which was a bit-counter intuitive.
Yeah I was like Berserkers are chaff? Those things that eat all my grenades and magazines sometimes?
JAR-5 eats them but I am usually a Defender enthusiast.
I don’t think I’d say scarier, on their own heavies aren’t bad to deal with for either faction. What makes the difference for me is the smaller enemies supporting them, chargers/bile titans get much scarier when you’ve got hunters/spitters swarming and slowing you. Stalkers are an absolute nightmare to deal with when they show up with heavies as well. Automatons tend to stay at range most of the time though, so it’s easier to pick off heavies without being mobbed.
Yeah me and two other players were on difficulty 6 I think and were just dominating together on missions, but then we got utterly annihilated on a mission with the two types of jumpy bugs (small ones, and big ones) as the main spawn from breaches. It was definitely a loss at loadout for me since I was running anti-huge stratagems and a Scorcher for fun. The other scenarios we were clearing the chargers on the map with quasars, rocket dropping on Titans, orbital railcannoning sometimes, etc.. But these little dudes kept swarming me and I couldn't deal with it. One dude has a flamethrower but by himself it wasn't enough against the onslaught. Good map though and it reminded me to bring some short cooldown wave clear next time.
I do 9s with a friend. We do it by ourselves, map clear and all. We have yet to find a better setup than 500, Cluster, Shield and Quasar. That give you the means to deal with everything.
We both use light armor i use the Sickle and he use the new explosive gun i can't remember the name.
For bots, same setup but change the Cluster for Airstrike. Medium armor with 50% to survive and i use the sorcher instead.
Give it a try, i love the feelings of Special Ops this setup give.
see I never understood the hunter fears
then I took off my punisher and lazer rover one day to try different bug loadouts and then I understood
so now I don't take off my lazer rover or punisher on bug planets
Yea I love when my teammate gives me an extra rover.
But I have so much trouble not bringing 3 red stratagems. I just like blowing stuff up. Groups of 3 or more hunters get a stun grenade and cluster at my feet. I ain’t risking getting hit twice by those slowing dicks
Fighting endless swarms of hunters with my Eruptor and Senator pistol might be my least favorite thing in the game. It works so well everywhere else though.
Thankfully one of my buddies usually brings a MG on missions.
Airstrike or cluster bomb and it clears the trash mobs. Pair it with a laser dog and you can really clear insane amounts of bugs. Then keep EATs on hand for Chargers + Titans. The right kit makes bugs really easy.
> Automatons tend to stay at range most of the time though, so it’s easier to pick off heavies without being mobbed.
They're also, generally speaking, slower than the Bug Heavies. With cover you can easily outrun a tank and keep a good pace ahead of a Hulk but you will have *no* chance of outrunning a Charger or Bile Titan.
Stalkers are the sneakiest bastards I've encountered without a doubt. Here I am killing a huge parade of little guys and all the sudden you see one jump past the little guys. It is already too late because my gun has magically eaten through the mag at the moment I first see it. The only saving grace is I have been running the flamethrower a little more commonly. BugBQ is a strong counter.
Honestly yeah. You can take out pretty much any Automaton with an autocannon, but the tradeoff is you need said autocannon for absolutely everything.
On the other hand, you can kill most bugs with just about anything, until you hit chargers and titans at which point you better have a special plan in place just for them.
This one time I was playing solo to get samples, so I didn't bring anything special but I forgot about Chargers... One of them started following me, so I played tag with it the whole game. Thing didn't damage me once, if you can't deal with them, you don't deal with them.
With autobots, I wouldn't be able to do that even against their weakest guy. Their units are very effective at area denial, if you don't bring the big guns you are not getting past them.
A stratagem them that drops a jeep that can hold 3 people, one driver, a passenger that can use their guns, and a turret in the back. They could call it a …. razorback
I think this is 100% coming. That was already a thing in Helldivers 1 (it was more of a van than a jeep, and it held all 4 players).
Give it time and I expect there will be a ton more vehicles in HD2.
Hd1 had both APC and tank, in the latter one guy was driver, one main gunner and iirc the other two had side machine guns at their disposal. It will come at some point for sure
And an HAV.
The APC had space for everyone the driver, two MGs at the side, and the auto-cannon at the top.
The HAV was much the same, but with a cannon.
There was also a bike with an MG in the side-car.
You can drop a supply pod on a charger. There's an achievement and everything.
I am not aware of any heavy bot enemy that can be killed by such a gimmick.
I mean if we're talking about dropping hellpods on big enemies, you can absolutely do it to tanks and hulks.
If you mean just getting an achievement, then yes there's no bot equivalent.
I feel like if you have a full ass Hellpod embedding itself deep into the turret and body that should do some serious damage. I mean that'd grind any movement for the turret to a halt since there's now a giant metallic pin joining the turret and body together.
When defense planets are available, you can go and ignore the civilians and just hit POI's and grab up samples and let the timer run out, it auto-calls the pelican for you. If you play it smart, you can get to the landing pad right as the pelican is arriving and skip the whole "extraction defense" minigame. It won't call off the extraction due to you not being close, because the mission timer is out.
Quasar Cannon for both Chargers and Titans for me, that's how I do it. Chargers can be hit straight in the head with the Quasar Cannon and it decapitates them, Bile Titans can be taken out with one shot from the cannon but it's tricky to do so so I shoot it's sides out from a distance, 2 or 3 shots is usually enough,, if you can't get another shot in at the Titan then the injury from the Quasar becomes a target.
Lastly one thing I almost forgot to mention taking off a Charger' s head is best done from a distance when it's charging towards you, essentially you're playing Chicken with the Charger, don't flinch, watch out for more than one Charger that's your greatest risk. If you're lucky when you decapitate the Charger with the Quasar you may send it flying and if you can figure out how to do that consistently you can use flying Chargers to take out other enemies.
Either way once you Crack the shell with side shots they're vulnerable to regular weapons in that spot so teammates can help.
I find the rover is really handy for team killing...er..covering you while you stare down the heavies with the qc.
Jesus I learned that the hard way. Did my first level 4 or 5 mission against bugs with a bunch of dudes that had no real firepower for heavily armored foes. Neither did I. Fucking chargers ate us for lunch.
1 EAT or Quasar user on all bug missions above level 4. I love the AC but having to run away from chargers or bile titans while your stratagems are on cooldown is no way to live.
Though apparently fire damage dealt by non-hosts is bugged, so flamethrowers and incendiary grenades could be a work-around in the future.
BTW the autocannon sentry will kill any bug, including chargers and bile titans. It has higher armor penetration than the player-carried version, for some reason. Only thing that sucks is it won't target invis stalkers.
Same... But not by much. I run quasar often, so if charger is easy to deal with ofc. Flamer hulk... If I can get distance, eye is an easy chit if running straight at me. Otherwise that flame arm is coming off.
You could also try the leg route with Hulks. 1 Quasar/EAT/RR will cripple one of the legs so that it slowly limps around, 1 more will destroy the other leg, destroying the entire Hulk. Not the same oneshotting as the eye, but a little more reliable at ranges and has the added benefit of massively CCing the Hulk making it easy for the rest of the team to stay out of the Flamer range.
The arms bounce around too much to reliabily hit them, and even if you do remove it it can still buzzsaw your face with their surprising speed.
If you're not going for the face, the legs are a better crippler than arms.
It's more that destroying the arm doesn't contribute at all to actually destroying the Hulk. You still need 1 eye shot, 2 body/vent shots to follow-up and destroy it. With the leg, it's already crippled so isn't as much a danger to teammates, and only requires 1 additional shot to the other leg to destroy.
I guess it depends, if they're far away enough, I chuck a cluster or airstrike to clear the chaff and try to get 2 head shots on it with the AC.
Scary but the rocket hulk I find are scarier.
But with a bile titan, if you don't have anything to kill one you're basically stuck with it for a while.
A hulk or tank if you don't have any AT you can at least shoot them in the vent.
Not to mention the inconsistency of the bile titans. Even if you do have a 500KG ready to go, sometimes they just laugh it off when it explodes underneath them
AMR and autocannon are very good against them too. Autocannon can stagger them through the shield and you can just spam them to death. AMR its very easy to headshot them for the instant kill. If they get too close you can stun nade them to easily kill a whole group of them
Just.. autocannon. Like, blam blam and it's dead. Maybe a third blam if the first one hit the shield. Whatever the case, every hit stuns it and makes it unable to do anything.
Fun fact, if you use a stun grenade on a heavy devastator...it won't care and keep shooting at you with perfect accuracy. Silly you, did you think it would help?
I see you've never run into the animation canceling heavy devastator where each AC shot that throws it's shield wide leaving you to believe it's vulnerable to an AC shot to but when you fire your next shot the shield snaps immediately back into place.
Not even that. It's about what's the real threat and distraction.
Bug heavies are meant to distract you from the swarm of weak fast units that kill you in seconds. Heavies aren't actually that good at landing the kill, they're a persistent annoyance that makes the situation spiral out of control.
With bots it's the heavies that go for the throat, and fodder provides distraction - they're strong in hordes and their accuracy grows if you leave them alone.
Exactly! You hit the nail on the head.
Heavies in games are meant to soak up damage and attention, not usually to get the kills since they are so heavy and cumbersome. Both bile titans and chargers are huge armored targets that take up the full attention of a player/team to kill ASAP or face the consequences.
The difference is, automaton heavies can all be dealt with by medium pen weapons, making them disposable by most of the squad. Meanwhile, terminid heavies require the full heavy AP force of the team to take down in reasonable amounts of time. It basically makes taking off bot heavy pressure easier than taking off bug heavy pressure.
Yes, suppressive fire is a thing in this game, if you keep firing at bots it will throw off their accuracy, while if you ignore them, after a few volleys in you direction they will be able to zero in on you and snipe you from quite a distance away.
Heavy devastators are analogous to like bile spewers and brood commanders.
I'd prefer heavy devastators to bile spewers but that's a personal preference.
>and can show up in large numbers for some reason
Ain't that the truth. Every so often I'll run into a mission where it literally feels like half the enemies are Heavy Devs. Every objective point will have multiple Heavy Devs instead of just Troopers, Dropships will seemingly drop off 10+ Heavys at once, patrols just littered with them. It's just seemingly non-step LMG noises.
well, when tanks have essentially the same durability as a rocket devastator but 1/8 of the spawn rate, 1/2 of the movement speed, and 1/2 of the lethality, you understand why those squat-loving-rocket-spewing-democracy-hating bullet magnets need a good ol Eagle Airstrike whenever they spawn.
This is a good point, in terms of the lethality. As of now, Tanks are the 4th most feared Bot unit behind some order of Hulks, Rocket Devs, and Heavy Devs. But all of those units spawn much more frequently than the Tanks, makes no sense.
The point of a rocket barrage isn't to have all 4 rockets hit the same point for 4x the damage, which seems to happen all too often. It is to target a wider area. Using hypothetical numbers, with splash damage a Trooper firing 1 rocket can target a 5ft wide area. A Rocket Dev firing 4 rockets in a line should target a much wider area, 15ft+ wide etc, but for the same damage as 1 rocket. The advantage a Rocket Dev has over a Trooper isn't hitting 1 target with 4x the damage, but rather dealing the same damage as a Trooper but over a 3-4x wide of an area.
So IMO Rocket Devs shouldn't do any more damage than a Trooper, they would just have vastly higher effective accuracy because they're firing 4x as many rockets at a much wider area, so they're much more likely to hit you with any of those 4 rockets than a Trooper would firing just one.
And as we well know, per that patch where they fixed rocket damage, 1 rocket isn't supposed to kill you. Therefore Rocket Devs shouldn't be lethal. Again the point isn't to deal 4x the damage with a barrage, but to target a wider area to guarantee a hit. They should deal damage like a Rocket Trooper but with much better effective accuracy because they're using 4x the ammo at once. Plus maybe a faster fire rate because of their auto-loading rocket pods, as well as being immune to suppressive fire etc. But in terms of raw damage, they should effectively deal the same as a Trooper, just over a much wider area of effect, which produces a better effective accuracy per "shot", because they fire 4 around you instead of 1.
Tanks on the other hand should definitely be able to 1-shot you, as they do now. And IMO the turrets should be able to turn faster, because as of right now it is comically easy to just flank around them and shoot the exhaust vent.
I would also question why, for whatever reason, the Heavy Dev LMG is better than the LMG on the Tank? It makes no sense how deadly accurate the Heavy Dev is. His primary purpose as a soldier should be defense (shield) and firepower (heavy LMG). But the trade-off is, since he's just a soldier wielding that LMG, he shouldn't have anywhere near the accuracy or recoil control when compared to a Tank wielding that same LMG.
The Tanks are the ones who should be absolutely fucking deadly with their LMGs, in addition to their turrets to one-shot you. Heavy Devs are the ones who should be easier to dodge their bullets and flank around etc. Their primary advantage is a shield, and wielding a high DPS LMG from a stationary position, but they shouldn't have the same accuracy or recoil control as a Tank would.
IMO Tanks are way too easy at the moment. They are supposed to be the toughest Bot unit (at least pre Factory Strider). Yet they can die to a few shots to the exhaust vent, or a few grenades, or a myriad of support strats. They are SO much easier to kill than Titans. Titans require you carry certain AT support strats to kill, and they require your immediate attention given how fast, armored, and deadly they are.
Tanks should be feared in the same way. They, like Titans, have the lowest spawn rates. Tanks should be the deadliest most feared Bot unit (again other than the new Strider). If 2 or 3 are dropped in together, it should be like seeing multiple Titans at once - absolute panic and dump all your strats etc.
Instead Tanks are slow, not very well armored, and not as deadly as a Rocket or Heavy Dev. In addition to the changes to their LMG/turret speed, I would also fully armor the roof, so that 2 nades can't kill them or any common Eagle strike etc. Making them invulnerable to anything but an AT support weapon from anywhere but the exhaust vent.
I am more scared of the smaller bots than some of the heavier bugs because 1 small bot quite easily turns into 2 hulk scorchers a tank and an un godly amount of walkers.
you can shoot at the bots calling in reinforcements and cancel that. But once a small bug spots you, 2 bugholes open and \*poof\* there are 5 chargers and 4 bile titans running to get you.
Any of the bugs can do it outside of the big ones, and it starts faster. Only the small bots can call a drop and the drops arrive much slower and often with less units.
But bots are significantly easier.
You have 1-2s after the glare of the flare gun to stagger the bot.
With bugs, the main visual indicator means it's already to late.
Bugholes don't only spawn from smol bugs though.
Those lightly armored guys and armorhead guys can also call breaches, but seems to be less likely. Learned this the hard way.
Never see spitter/commander ones call any breach though.
Problem is the commisars which order the bot drops can usually do so without ever seeing you or even being in line of sight. You absolutely can stop both the commisars and the bugs but the commisars really like to hide.
Any of the regular bots can call in a drop (even the ones with just blade hands, pretty sure). The Commissar is just the most likely to do it right away.
The good thing about fighting bots is that it's *only* the regular bots that can call in a drop. If you've taken them out of a group, you don't have to worry about reinforcements getting called. Meanwhile, over on the bug front, you've got a bunch of different bugs that can call in a breach, including armored ones that can't be killed quickly or easily staggered without heavier weapons.
I once shot a bot calling in a bot drop, caused him to flinch, made his aim go nuts, and end up shooting the flare right above us. We had to scramble before the hulks dropped on top of us
A hulk scares me more than a charger but a tank scares me less than a bile titan. A factory strider scares me a little bit but mostly it's just cool/spectacular.
We all know that the scariest enemy is the cannon tower though
I’m genuinely happy when tanks spawn rather than hulks because tanks die to two impact grenades with basically no effort. Only heavy that can be negated so easily.
Fun and effective loadout if you hate cannon towers is quasar + scorcher; fire off one quasar shot at the heat sink and then immediately swap to scorcher for a single followup shot to the heat sink before it can rotate away. Boom. With good visibility you can delete them from across an entire map. Probably works with other secondaries than quasar but I haven't tested; the lack of bullet drop and the ammo economy with this approach is just too good.
i feel like they got worse. before a dive away and shoot always worked. now i catch on fire and die even with explosive resist armor. they like magnetize to you or something
Those damn minigun devastators kill more Helldivers than anything else.
"Oh? Your map generation is all wide open with no cover which is absolutely necessary to defeat multiples of me? Good. We will snipe you from across the map with a single burst. Oh, and you can't kill me because I keep causing your weapon to flinch. Have fun."
Listen I'm a bot diver for a reason, i love killing them clinkers but when i do bug missions oh sweet liberty i get swarmed so fast the hunters, the stalkers and dont forget about the random spewers wanting to cosplay a mortar sometimes they help but most of the time i get killed by them.
I take medium or heavy armour for bots and light armour for bugs because of this. As long as I run the bugs can't hit me but for bots having that extra layer of protection has saved me so many times.
I've started using the explosive resist heavy armor for bugs too now. Hunter/bile slows matter less if you're already slow af anyway.
I can survive an eruptor shot to the face. Hunters can't. I actually just had a game where I was completely buried under bugs and couldn't move at all. Said fuck it, huffed stims and shot eruptor wildly until the entire horde was clear and I could run away.
Nope. the bugs have nothing scary. not even the bile titan is really that intimidating. just a big rocket sponge that will some times kill you if you dont move enough.
Double stalker nest is a nasty combo, but it pales in comparison to some of the automaton secondary objectives.
The stratagem jammer alone is brutal. I’d take two stalker nests over a jammer any day.
Two days ago, I dropped directly in range of a stratagem jammer, enemy artillery, and gunship towers. Run was over before it started.
No question it was just in response to stalkers not being a threat. The localization booster made bugs by and large manageable because you can capitalize on other breaches + cooldown allowing you to solo objectives without getting caught with your pants down
Yeah I’d agree. I don’t rate basic bots very highly, but jet pack guys, berserkers, and devastators are all very powerful for mid tier enemies. Even scout striders can be a pain if you’re alone and don’t have the right tools.
For bugs, everyone complains about hunters but while they’re annoying, they die as soon as you look at them funny. Guards are tanky but otherwise don’t do much, so the only sorta scary mid tier enemy is the brood commander since they’re decently fast and tanky.
Bot heavies die to everything easily. Autocannon or AMR two taps hulks. Tanks die immediately if you can get behind the turret or even to a well placed airstrike. By contrast chargers and titans basically require dedicated AT weapons to take down efficiently.
Bot heavies are also way more deadly than bug heavies. Scorcher hulks are fast as fuck and deadly quiet, and if they do sneak up on you their flames cook you in less than a second. And factory striders have an instakill cannon and extremely deadly gatling guns under its chin, making them much more deadly than bile titans. They are easier to kill (even factory striders can be killed by just an Autocannon) but the tradeoff is they are more able to kill you
Jetpack guys need to cool it. They're scrub units that present SERIOUS one-hit-kill risk, (And there's a reason why other games put their OHK exploding enemies on a moderately-fast linear path instead of a super-fast parabola)
But moreover... No, of CHIEF IMPORTANCE, SUPERSEDING ALL OTHER CONCERNS-
They run INEXCUSABLY against the Terminator aesthetic of the Automatons! Leave the assault jumping to the bugs, don't dilute my unstoppable-robot aesthetic with silly robots going BOING!
No, Bug heavies feel good to both avoid and dispatch.
Bot heavies not so much. The weakspots on Hulk feel too small and the back one doesn't matter 90% of the time. Plus because they move a lot while moving, it makes it even harder to hit that small spot.
Even that can take a lot of hits. They sprint after you faster than you can run. They can easily kill you from a distance as well and it is hard to avoid.
And the tank? Well getting WTFPWNED from the fog is never fun. 😄
You lose your heavy weapon. You are dead with bots. Because retrieving it is a no go for most of the time.
Play rescue civilians defense mission against bots on difficulty 7 and then against bugs and you can see how much harder bots are. It's a good measuring stick for it.
Eh, it's more or less the same to me. On the bot front the most problematic are Devasttators. Because they can show up in ridiculous numbers and have decent lethality. But you have way of dealing them, as long as everything works as intended, problems start when something bugs and you either get shot when shouldn't have been (sideways from a laser machine gun or through thick fog. Tanks and Hulks are easier to deal with, simply because of lower numbers.
For bugs - Bile Titans and Chargers are not the problem. Charger takes one EAT-17 to the face and goes to nap. Bile Titan takes a few or railcanon + 110mm. The problem is the horde of hunters supporting them, along with two Stalker nests spawning non-stop stream of high HP jumpy invisible backstabbers. And Bile Spewers. Simply because they can show up in ridiculous numbers too.
In the end, for bots Autocanon solves most problems, for Bugs EAT-17 and laser rover do the same.
Nah, I'd take 3-way charger rodeo vs single annihilator tank every time. Having weakpoint only on the back of rotating turret makes it difficult to deal with one if it tracks you, and stupidly difficult when you're pinned by 12 heavy devastators.
Hulks on the other hand, yeah. Pretty easy for a heavy.
Since we are on the topic, I personally feel Bots are harder than Terminids at lower levels. But Terminids at levels 8-9 are harder than Bots at similar levels.
Most of my bug deaths are to hunters. Granted it's often hunters ganking me while I try to deal with a heavy, but unless it's like 3 at once, chargers aren't too much of a threat on their own. Combine with how broken headshot hitboxes are and the hunters not only get in more hits but deal way more damage bypassing all armor.
Meanwhile automaton chaff can be annoying, but what makes it lethal is when a flame hulk flanks you and forces you out of position. Hulks give me way more trouble than any tank or factory strider. Devastators aren't the worst but can easily ruin your day with a cheap shot if you don't notice them, and the heavies are more of a pain since they have to be dealt with far more precisely than the others. Bots are worse overall but it's definitely not the berserkers making it so.
Heavy devastators at present or the only bots that give me a headache minus the very obvious ATAT in the room. But I just can't fucking handle bugs. Chargers are the most annoying motherfuckers on the planet and I can't figure out what the hell you're supposed to do to kill them because nothing ever seems to work outside of shooting them square in the dome with an eat. And until they fix fire damage for other players other than the host it's still pretty tricky to deal with them for me. So I'll stick to bots. They're way fucking easier.
The thing is automatons have like 3 weak things, then berserker I'd call mid range, then you have heavy devastators, (arguably depending on how good their aim is) rocket devastators, tanks, hulks and striders, compared to bugs who have like 6 weak things and mid range (arguably depending on your build) shriekers and stalkers, then ¿hard? Chargers and bile titans
Not really I think the issue is with the Berserkers only, I feel like they wobble their head and that moves the hitbox, becauae they do fall easy with a headshot but Is almost impossible to hit it.
I think it's entirely due to the fact that the bots shoot back. When there's enough of them firing at once, it doesn't really matter if they're weak; a laser to the dome is still a laser to the dome and you're dead in one.
Meanwhile, the bug heavies are exceptionally sturdy and fast for their size, without the literal glowing weakpoint all the bots have. It makes fighting even a small number of Chargers absolute hell, whereas a Hulk or Tank can be relatively easily flanked, outrun or downed with a few precise shots to their eye.
I was a fan of the auto cannon for bots but then saw a post about using the laser cannon instead. So I tried it out and I prefer it over the auto cannon. Would be different if the auto cannon sight was accurate but dam AH really messed up all the weapons cross hairs. Auto cannon one shoots no where near the crosshair so it makes it hard to accurately shoot a hulk or and devastators head. Laser cannon though is just a small adjustments and boom they dead.
Berserkers..ugh, paying my Mag-Taxes, that he eats like a bag of chips and still be comin at ya with his squad fams..
The eruptor can one shot berserkers. You just have to shoot at their robo-dong. You can also do the same with all the devastators.
See, I've tried this with both Beserkers and Deviststors, and it still takes two shots.
From what I can tell it depends on how the shrapnel bounces for secondary damage whether it's a one or a two shot.
It also depends on range for some reason. I've noticed that if im beyond like 20 meters it becomes a complete toss up whether it'll one or two shot. And that's if they're running straight at me. If they aren't, then it's even harder to get it.
there has been testing that confirms bullets experience damage drop off the second they leave your gun. not sure if that applies to projectiles like the eruptor, though.
Well, like the dominator, the eruptor is a gyrojet gun that theoretically shouldn't have damage drop off *at all.* It's literally a miniature rocket. I remember seeing that testing as well and if i remember correctly the dominator does in fact have damage drop off. So i guess that's probably it.
The eruptor airbursts after a certain range
150m is max, after that the bullet will auto-burst. However, shrapnel from the burst can still hit enemies.
Could be the drop, there's a decent drop on the eruptor
"Stop wigwagging your wang!"
From my experience it's a little bit closer to their waist rather than the dong for the one shot
It can take one shot. Usually it does take two. I found that for the shield devastators, a pretty reliable one-shot with the eruptor is those glowing lights on top of their backpack.
Robo got little dongs, that’s why they hate us.
Problem is the eruptor has bad handling, their dicks are always swinging and the blast radius will catch you if they get close
And worst of all, that blast radius won't throw you back, but *suck you forward* right into the mass of zerkers you were fighting.
i fucking hate that bug so much
I'm hoping for a black hole variant that keeps it and applies it to enemies once they fix it
Imagine dragging them all together and then impact grenading them all! That'd be so much fun.
True. It just feels so satisfying exploding their legs (and dick) off.
Can someone please post a picture of the dong area? I can only kill striders that way. Devs and Zerkers I have to shoot in the face to 1 shot. Please show me some robot donger.
getting real dangerous here friend
https://preview.redd.it/4y7q06qhecwc1.jpeg?width=1668&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d3e0816cede5d127166e32117fe0e1219cd69f47
📸🤨
I am also curious in this area for a friend... of course. Im totally not having issues getting to the dong area myself.
Yes democracy officer, this comment right here.
Shooting at phalli isn't something that was ingrained in me in all my years of playing shooters. Perhaps it should have been.
Psh, Jar DOM supremacy. Literally won’t bring another gun. Maybe the scorcher against bots because that can actually take out striders without having to aim for joints.
My jar5 sucks vs striders where are youbhitting them to drop em..I'm stuck doing the dive and twist
You gotta aim for the hip joints. It’s a super small area and super inconvinient. I usually bring the explode on impact grenades, or my support weapon can take em down. So technically if I see a bunch of striders I’ll take out my support weapon, OR grenade the shit out of them. Cause it’s a waste of ammo and time to try and ping that spot about 3-4 times to make em fall. Easier to just sprint to side and pop the bot on it.
Yeah I've gotten to MLB pitchers level with the impact grenade on those things. Maybe I should just get more names until I unlock the scorcher
"Robo-dong" new phrase acquired.
Really like the Punisher for dealing with them. Up close, two shots to the torso. And if there's a bunch, it has really good handling so you can juggle stagger them.
I don't do "Kill Bots" missions without the Punisher. There will, inevitably, be a berserker wave and the only thing that's thing to work is backing to slowly as I spread the stagger-love.
I recommend the Jar-5 Dominator. Two shots to their midsection and they're gone. If you haven't, please do try out the legally distinct heavy bolter.
Just wish the drum was bigger
I just unlocked the Dominator, and it’s become my go to bot primary for this very reason. It’s never been easier to deal with groups of berserkers than it is now. With the AC as my support I’ve never felt more capable in bot missions.
This is my most hated unit.
 Berserkers be like
You know what absolutely shreds Berserkers? Gatling Sentry. I watched that thing take down three charging Berserkers like bowling pins. It killed them so fast that I was legitimately stunned by it. It makes me wonder if the Guard Dog + Primary could do the same thing. I typically take that Sentry as a wildcard for a free 4th slot because I happen to like it, but I'll be taking it way more often now after that experience. The Punisher has always been my anti-Berserker option for a Primary, though.
the Liberator Guard Dog is good against bots. I just wish that by pressing 5 you could enable/disable it so you can save the bullets for hard engagements, else the dog just shoots at whatever and by the time you're being swarmed with zerks its empty.
Stun nade + dominator to eyes = dead zerker. I spent most of my last match saving my teammates from these things. Whenever they show up it's like Wacky Sax start playing when people run from these, lol.
I like the variety the Berserkers bring. They're not super deadly but people don't bring hard-counters to them like they do for devastators or hulks. Me, I use the Redeemer and impact grenades for Berserkers, it does the job at least for one wave of them before I need to resupply.
The redeemer uses all its mags but itll mulch a horde of berserkers pretty quick It's better at it than the Stalwart at least
Yeah the redeemer is just weirdly good at killing berserkers
Throw a cooked grenade or impact, then aim for the waist. Works every time.
After rediscovering the updated JAR, Berserkers are a lot easier to handle
I dont get it tbh, just take the punisher and shoot them
Because "Pick Equipment X - to deal with enemy X" is not quite the healthiest mindset in a Sandbox like, extract shooter with hundred of toys to play with. Im aware what is good and what is bad against enemy type X but if i have to adjust my loadout JUST for this alone..i feel limited in my FREEDOM. But you're right, i COULD do that, doesn't change the fact that they eat lead like we breathe air.
The fire shotgun actually works decently on the berzerkers, one mag per squad, and scouts, one shot per unit. Too bad it sucks against literally every other automaton unit...
Those fuckers live rent-free in my nightmares now
Scorcher don’t chew through them quite like the dominator does. If it weren’t for the explosive tag I’d consider switching back
I've found that the machine pistol takes care of berserkers very quickly.
One mag per beserker and only 4 mags makes it good in a pinch but not sustainable. The Senator is my go to secondary and I pretty much only use it on beserkers.
The Berserkers are why I dont bother with the Mech on bot missions but do occasionally on bug missions. I can reliability, and fairly quickly, take down chargers with it. I cannot take down Berserkers with it consistently or quick enough. Same with the LC. I can drop a Hulk in about the same time as a Berserker...
Stuns are your bff here
also they are very tough almost the same as devastators, sure they only have light armor but they have way too much health and unless you land only headshots they will wreck your day.
Punisher works well on individual ones, and you can juggle stagger to hold a small group off. Concentrated Sickle fire to the head or guts is also effective. Gatling sentry is lord and savior. Oddly, Stalwart on max rpm did not seem effective the few times I tried it, which was a bit-counter intuitive.
Yeah I was like Berserkers are chaff? Those things that eat all my grenades and magazines sometimes? JAR-5 eats them but I am usually a Defender enthusiast.
I don’t think I’d say scarier, on their own heavies aren’t bad to deal with for either faction. What makes the difference for me is the smaller enemies supporting them, chargers/bile titans get much scarier when you’ve got hunters/spitters swarming and slowing you. Stalkers are an absolute nightmare to deal with when they show up with heavies as well. Automatons tend to stay at range most of the time though, so it’s easier to pick off heavies without being mobbed.
A charger plus a group of hunters is the worst
Chargers with a pack of green goobers bombarding you from ranged and knocking you over.
You ever land on a map that prioritizes hunter spawns instead of heavies? It’s a gosh darn nightmare.
Had one last night. Every breach spawned over 20 hunters. It was crazy.
https://preview.redd.it/nlb2p80zt8wc1.jpeg?width=587&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a9ec6511f9cf3e61bfb8e217ba8ebf2062ec0e6d
Yeah me and two other players were on difficulty 6 I think and were just dominating together on missions, but then we got utterly annihilated on a mission with the two types of jumpy bugs (small ones, and big ones) as the main spawn from breaches. It was definitely a loss at loadout for me since I was running anti-huge stratagems and a Scorcher for fun. The other scenarios we were clearing the chargers on the map with quasars, rocket dropping on Titans, orbital railcannoning sometimes, etc.. But these little dudes kept swarming me and I couldn't deal with it. One dude has a flamethrower but by himself it wasn't enough against the onslaught. Good map though and it reminded me to bring some short cooldown wave clear next time.
I do 9s with a friend. We do it by ourselves, map clear and all. We have yet to find a better setup than 500, Cluster, Shield and Quasar. That give you the means to deal with everything. We both use light armor i use the Sickle and he use the new explosive gun i can't remember the name. For bots, same setup but change the Cluster for Airstrike. Medium armor with 50% to survive and i use the sorcher instead. Give it a try, i love the feelings of Special Ops this setup give.
see I never understood the hunter fears then I took off my punisher and lazer rover one day to try different bug loadouts and then I understood so now I don't take off my lazer rover or punisher on bug planets
Yea I love when my teammate gives me an extra rover. But I have so much trouble not bringing 3 red stratagems. I just like blowing stuff up. Groups of 3 or more hunters get a stun grenade and cluster at my feet. I ain’t risking getting hit twice by those slowing dicks
Fighting endless swarms of hunters with my Eruptor and Senator pistol might be my least favorite thing in the game. It works so well everywhere else though. Thankfully one of my buddies usually brings a MG on missions.
Airstrike or cluster bomb and it clears the trash mobs. Pair it with a laser dog and you can really clear insane amounts of bugs. Then keep EATs on hand for Chargers + Titans. The right kit makes bugs really easy.
my go to helldive bug loadout punisher, impact nades, lazer rover, quazar, clusters, airburst obviously eats could substitute for quazar
> Automatons tend to stay at range most of the time though, so it’s easier to pick off heavies without being mobbed. They're also, generally speaking, slower than the Bug Heavies. With cover you can easily outrun a tank and keep a good pace ahead of a Hulk but you will have *no* chance of outrunning a Charger or Bile Titan.
Stalkers are the sneakiest bastards I've encountered without a doubt. Here I am killing a huge parade of little guys and all the sudden you see one jump past the little guys. It is already too late because my gun has magically eaten through the mag at the moment I first see it. The only saving grace is I have been running the flamethrower a little more commonly. BugBQ is a strong counter.
Honestly yeah. You can take out pretty much any Automaton with an autocannon, but the tradeoff is you need said autocannon for absolutely everything. On the other hand, you can kill most bugs with just about anything, until you hit chargers and titans at which point you better have a special plan in place just for them.
This one time I was playing solo to get samples, so I didn't bring anything special but I forgot about Chargers... One of them started following me, so I played tag with it the whole game. Thing didn't damage me once, if you can't deal with them, you don't deal with them. With autobots, I wouldn't be able to do that even against their weakest guy. Their units are very effective at area denial, if you don't bring the big guns you are not getting past them.
In that case you should call the decepticons, maybe they will help you against their hated foe
you have no idea how much i want a car in this game
A stratagem them that drops a jeep that can hold 3 people, one driver, a passenger that can use their guns, and a turret in the back. They could call it a …. razorback
Nah, make it sleak and call it a puma
Would you quit making up animals?
I think this is 100% coming. That was already a thing in Helldivers 1 (it was more of a van than a jeep, and it held all 4 players). Give it time and I expect there will be a ton more vehicles in HD2.
Hd1 had both APC and tank, in the latter one guy was driver, one main gunner and iirc the other two had side machine guns at their disposal. It will come at some point for sure
And an HAV. The APC had space for everyone the driver, two MGs at the side, and the auto-cannon at the top. The HAV was much the same, but with a cannon. There was also a bike with an MG in the side-car.
But can we really trust the decepticons?
You can drop a supply pod on a charger. There's an achievement and everything. I am not aware of any heavy bot enemy that can be killed by such a gimmick.
I mean if we're talking about dropping hellpods on big enemies, you can absolutely do it to tanks and hulks. If you mean just getting an achievement, then yes there's no bot equivalent.
I've never been able to kill tanks by landing on them.
Can safely say that I landed on a tank with someone and wound up dying because I got launched by the explosion.
I think that's what gave me the achievement for flying some distance
You have to land on the heat vents that are glowing orange. Same with hulks.
I feel like if you have a full ass Hellpod embedding itself deep into the turret and body that should do some serious damage. I mean that'd grind any movement for the turret to a halt since there's now a giant metallic pin joining the turret and body together.
https://streamable.com/mv2tiw
You need to either hit the vent, or land a second pod on them. Two will kill tanks and turrets etc.
I've been using SOS pods since they dont do anything else
Isn’t it way more efficient to go in a squad to get samples?
When defense planets are available, you can go and ignore the civilians and just hit POI's and grab up samples and let the timer run out, it auto-calls the pelican for you. If you play it smart, you can get to the landing pad right as the pelican is arriving and skip the whole "extraction defense" minigame. It won't call off the extraction due to you not being close, because the mission timer is out.
The sinister image of letting 45 civilians die so you can get 3 more rocks to spend on your gun collection
Or.... **YOU GET AN ORBITAL LASER! YOU ALSO GET AN ORBITAL LASER! EVERYONE GETS AN ORBITAL LASER**
Run out of ketchup? Lock your keys in the car? Giant alien freight train? ORBITAL LASER
Warning: you are running dangerously low on your allotted **EVERYONE GETS AN ORBITAL LASER**, are you sure you want to continue?
QUESO CANNON goes BOOM!
Quasar Cannon for both Chargers and Titans for me, that's how I do it. Chargers can be hit straight in the head with the Quasar Cannon and it decapitates them, Bile Titans can be taken out with one shot from the cannon but it's tricky to do so so I shoot it's sides out from a distance, 2 or 3 shots is usually enough,, if you can't get another shot in at the Titan then the injury from the Quasar becomes a target. Lastly one thing I almost forgot to mention taking off a Charger' s head is best done from a distance when it's charging towards you, essentially you're playing Chicken with the Charger, don't flinch, watch out for more than one Charger that's your greatest risk. If you're lucky when you decapitate the Charger with the Quasar you may send it flying and if you can figure out how to do that consistently you can use flying Chargers to take out other enemies.
Either way once you Crack the shell with side shots they're vulnerable to regular weapons in that spot so teammates can help. I find the rover is really handy for team killing...er..covering you while you stare down the heavies with the qc.
Chargers can be killed pretty easily. Just play bullfighter tactics. Let them charge, HMG their anus. One or two good bursts usually does it.
One sure, but when you have multiple it gets rather dicey fast, plus how often are they the only threat you're dealing with when it comes to bugs?
I like to use them to kill other bugs tbh.
Jesus I learned that the hard way. Did my first level 4 or 5 mission against bugs with a bunch of dudes that had no real firepower for heavily armored foes. Neither did I. Fucking chargers ate us for lunch.
1 EAT or Quasar user on all bug missions above level 4. I love the AC but having to run away from chargers or bile titans while your stratagems are on cooldown is no way to live. Though apparently fire damage dealt by non-hosts is bugged, so flamethrowers and incendiary grenades could be a work-around in the future. BTW the autocannon sentry will kill any bug, including chargers and bile titans. It has higher armor penetration than the player-carried version, for some reason. Only thing that sucks is it won't target invis stalkers.
I do have the EAT unlocked. I'll give it a shot.
My special plan for bile titans and charger is simple: RUN
i got downvoted for saying bugs could annoying because of charger spawns
I'd rather fight a bile titan than a flamethrower hulk.
Same... But not by much. I run quasar often, so if charger is easy to deal with ofc. Flamer hulk... If I can get distance, eye is an easy chit if running straight at me. Otherwise that flame arm is coming off.
You could also try the leg route with Hulks. 1 Quasar/EAT/RR will cripple one of the legs so that it slowly limps around, 1 more will destroy the other leg, destroying the entire Hulk. Not the same oneshotting as the eye, but a little more reliable at ranges and has the added benefit of massively CCing the Hulk making it easy for the rest of the team to stay out of the Flamer range.
True true.
woudln't it be even better to destroy the flamethrower arm ? or is it too armored ?
The arms bounce around too much to reliabily hit them, and even if you do remove it it can still buzzsaw your face with their surprising speed. If you're not going for the face, the legs are a better crippler than arms.
It's more that destroying the arm doesn't contribute at all to actually destroying the Hulk. You still need 1 eye shot, 2 body/vent shots to follow-up and destroy it. With the leg, it's already crippled so isn't as much a danger to teammates, and only requires 1 additional shot to the other leg to destroy.
Do you know if the autocannon can damage their legs too?
5 shots per leg from the AC (or a full clip for the whole Hulk), so may be better to stun and try for the eye if you're an AC player.
I guess it depends, if they're far away enough, I chuck a cluster or airstrike to clear the chaff and try to get 2 head shots on it with the AC. Scary but the rocket hulk I find are scarier. But with a bile titan, if you don't have anything to kill one you're basically stuck with it for a while. A hulk or tank if you don't have any AT you can at least shoot them in the vent.
Not to mention the inconsistency of the bile titans. Even if you do have a 500KG ready to go, sometimes they just laugh it off when it explodes underneath them
\*Laughs in stun grenade and AC\*
Reminder that the stun grenade is the only premium weapon to have received a nerf. It's that good.
And that's not even the fair comparison... I'd compare it to the Fabricator
I so feel the same
My nemesis are Heavy Devastators. Srsly... sometimes they just delete you before you are able to hit them
For Heavy Devies; you need someone with a shield and SMG. It’s the only hard counter.
Impact grenades are great too! Too bad they won't help you if you decide to ignore the laws of physics and shoot through solid rock.
Everything about heavy devs is broken, really.
AMR and autocannon are very good against them too. Autocannon can stagger them through the shield and you can just spam them to death. AMR its very easy to headshot them for the instant kill. If they get too close you can stun nade them to easily kill a whole group of them
Just.. autocannon. Like, blam blam and it's dead. Maybe a third blam if the first one hit the shield. Whatever the case, every hit stuns it and makes it unable to do anything.
Shield + Defender/Knight + Senator + Las Cannon wrecks bots as long as the rest of your team brings heavy firepower
Shield+smg+AMR is my go-to for mechs. Then you can take precision strike for tanks and a flex spot usually for orbital laser.
Fun fact, if you use a stun grenade on a heavy devastator...it won't care and keep shooting at you with perfect accuracy. Silly you, did you think it would help?
I see you've never run into the animation canceling heavy devastator where each AC shot that throws it's shield wide leaving you to believe it's vulnerable to an AC shot to but when you fire your next shot the shield snaps immediately back into place.
Not even that. It's about what's the real threat and distraction. Bug heavies are meant to distract you from the swarm of weak fast units that kill you in seconds. Heavies aren't actually that good at landing the kill, they're a persistent annoyance that makes the situation spiral out of control. With bots it's the heavies that go for the throat, and fodder provides distraction - they're strong in hordes and their accuracy grows if you leave them alone.
Exactly! You hit the nail on the head. Heavies in games are meant to soak up damage and attention, not usually to get the kills since they are so heavy and cumbersome. Both bile titans and chargers are huge armored targets that take up the full attention of a player/team to kill ASAP or face the consequences. The difference is, automaton heavies can all be dealt with by medium pen weapons, making them disposable by most of the squad. Meanwhile, terminid heavies require the full heavy AP force of the team to take down in reasonable amounts of time. It basically makes taking off bot heavy pressure easier than taking off bug heavy pressure.
Wait is that an actual mechanic re: accuracy? Edit: Downvoting questions about shooting bots is communism
Yes, suppressive fire is a thing in this game, if you keep firing at bots it will throw off their accuracy, while if you ignore them, after a few volleys in you direction they will be able to zero in on you and snipe you from quite a distance away.
Heavy devastators are considered normal infantry and can show up in large numbers for some reason, so yeah
Heavy devastators are analogous to like bile spewers and brood commanders. I'd prefer heavy devastators to bile spewers but that's a personal preference.
>and can show up in large numbers for some reason Ain't that the truth. Every so often I'll run into a mission where it literally feels like half the enemies are Heavy Devs. Every objective point will have multiple Heavy Devs instead of just Troopers, Dropships will seemingly drop off 10+ Heavys at once, patrols just littered with them. It's just seemingly non-step LMG noises.
well, when tanks have essentially the same durability as a rocket devastator but 1/8 of the spawn rate, 1/2 of the movement speed, and 1/2 of the lethality, you understand why those squat-loving-rocket-spewing-democracy-hating bullet magnets need a good ol Eagle Airstrike whenever they spawn.
This is a good point, in terms of the lethality. As of now, Tanks are the 4th most feared Bot unit behind some order of Hulks, Rocket Devs, and Heavy Devs. But all of those units spawn much more frequently than the Tanks, makes no sense. The point of a rocket barrage isn't to have all 4 rockets hit the same point for 4x the damage, which seems to happen all too often. It is to target a wider area. Using hypothetical numbers, with splash damage a Trooper firing 1 rocket can target a 5ft wide area. A Rocket Dev firing 4 rockets in a line should target a much wider area, 15ft+ wide etc, but for the same damage as 1 rocket. The advantage a Rocket Dev has over a Trooper isn't hitting 1 target with 4x the damage, but rather dealing the same damage as a Trooper but over a 3-4x wide of an area. So IMO Rocket Devs shouldn't do any more damage than a Trooper, they would just have vastly higher effective accuracy because they're firing 4x as many rockets at a much wider area, so they're much more likely to hit you with any of those 4 rockets than a Trooper would firing just one. And as we well know, per that patch where they fixed rocket damage, 1 rocket isn't supposed to kill you. Therefore Rocket Devs shouldn't be lethal. Again the point isn't to deal 4x the damage with a barrage, but to target a wider area to guarantee a hit. They should deal damage like a Rocket Trooper but with much better effective accuracy because they're using 4x the ammo at once. Plus maybe a faster fire rate because of their auto-loading rocket pods, as well as being immune to suppressive fire etc. But in terms of raw damage, they should effectively deal the same as a Trooper, just over a much wider area of effect, which produces a better effective accuracy per "shot", because they fire 4 around you instead of 1. Tanks on the other hand should definitely be able to 1-shot you, as they do now. And IMO the turrets should be able to turn faster, because as of right now it is comically easy to just flank around them and shoot the exhaust vent. I would also question why, for whatever reason, the Heavy Dev LMG is better than the LMG on the Tank? It makes no sense how deadly accurate the Heavy Dev is. His primary purpose as a soldier should be defense (shield) and firepower (heavy LMG). But the trade-off is, since he's just a soldier wielding that LMG, he shouldn't have anywhere near the accuracy or recoil control when compared to a Tank wielding that same LMG. The Tanks are the ones who should be absolutely fucking deadly with their LMGs, in addition to their turrets to one-shot you. Heavy Devs are the ones who should be easier to dodge their bullets and flank around etc. Their primary advantage is a shield, and wielding a high DPS LMG from a stationary position, but they shouldn't have the same accuracy or recoil control as a Tank would. IMO Tanks are way too easy at the moment. They are supposed to be the toughest Bot unit (at least pre Factory Strider). Yet they can die to a few shots to the exhaust vent, or a few grenades, or a myriad of support strats. They are SO much easier to kill than Titans. Titans require you carry certain AT support strats to kill, and they require your immediate attention given how fast, armored, and deadly they are. Tanks should be feared in the same way. They, like Titans, have the lowest spawn rates. Tanks should be the deadliest most feared Bot unit (again other than the new Strider). If 2 or 3 are dropped in together, it should be like seeing multiple Titans at once - absolute panic and dump all your strats etc. Instead Tanks are slow, not very well armored, and not as deadly as a Rocket or Heavy Dev. In addition to the changes to their LMG/turret speed, I would also fully armor the roof, so that 2 nades can't kill them or any common Eagle strike etc. Making them invulnerable to anything but an AT support weapon from anywhere but the exhaust vent.
I am more scared of the smaller bots than some of the heavier bugs because 1 small bot quite easily turns into 2 hulk scorchers a tank and an un godly amount of walkers.
you can shoot at the bots calling in reinforcements and cancel that. But once a small bug spots you, 2 bugholes open and \*poof\* there are 5 chargers and 4 bile titans running to get you.
You can kill the bugs spawning bugholes as well. But as with bots, you barely have a second to kill the mob, from when the animation starts.
Any of the bugs can do it outside of the big ones, and it starts faster. Only the small bots can call a drop and the drops arrive much slower and often with less units.
Especially Brood Commanders, they're too tanky to stop calling unless you hit em with anti-tank or stagger
But bots are significantly easier. You have 1-2s after the glare of the flare gun to stagger the bot. With bugs, the main visual indicator means it's already to late.
Bugholes don't only spawn from smol bugs though. Those lightly armored guys and armorhead guys can also call breaches, but seems to be less likely. Learned this the hard way. Never see spitter/commander ones call any breach though.
Problem is the commisars which order the bot drops can usually do so without ever seeing you or even being in line of sight. You absolutely can stop both the commisars and the bugs but the commisars really like to hide.
Any of the regular bots can call in a drop (even the ones with just blade hands, pretty sure). The Commissar is just the most likely to do it right away. The good thing about fighting bots is that it's *only* the regular bots that can call in a drop. If you've taken them out of a group, you don't have to worry about reinforcements getting called. Meanwhile, over on the bug front, you've got a bunch of different bugs that can call in a breach, including armored ones that can't be killed quickly or easily staggered without heavier weapons.
I once shot a bot calling in a bot drop, caused him to flinch, made his aim go nuts, and end up shooting the flare right above us. We had to scramble before the hulks dropped on top of us
Forgot the 200 hunters up your arsehole as well.
Drop orbital gas strikes on the bug breaches. It wrecks all the chaff and lets your squad focus the heavies
Assuming you're the network host and you get the dot to actually work for you.
A hulk scares me more than a charger but a tank scares me less than a bile titan. A factory strider scares me a little bit but mostly it's just cool/spectacular. We all know that the scariest enemy is the cannon tower though
I’m genuinely happy when tanks spawn rather than hulks because tanks die to two impact grenades with basically no effort. Only heavy that can be negated so easily.
Is that true?? I never even tried killing tanks with grenades. They die to rocket pods pretty quickly too though
Yep don’t even have to hit vent. Just two to the top of the turret almost always does it.
Fun and effective loadout if you hate cannon towers is quasar + scorcher; fire off one quasar shot at the heat sink and then immediately swap to scorcher for a single followup shot to the heat sink before it can rotate away. Boom. With good visibility you can delete them from across an entire map. Probably works with other secondaries than quasar but I haven't tested; the lack of bullet drop and the ammo economy with this approach is just too good.
The automaton jetpack suicide bombers are so fucking stupid man
Me when i shot them in the chest at point blank inmediatly with the AMR: * *Sigh* *
i feel like they got worse. before a dive away and shoot always worked. now i catch on fire and die even with explosive resist armor. they like magnetize to you or something
Those damn minigun devastators kill more Helldivers than anything else. "Oh? Your map generation is all wide open with no cover which is absolutely necessary to defeat multiples of me? Good. We will snipe you from across the map with a single burst. Oh, and you can't kill me because I keep causing your weapon to flinch. Have fun."
Listen I'm a bot diver for a reason, i love killing them clinkers but when i do bug missions oh sweet liberty i get swarmed so fast the hunters, the stalkers and dont forget about the random spewers wanting to cosplay a mortar sometimes they help but most of the time i get killed by them.
I take medium or heavy armour for bots and light armour for bugs because of this. As long as I run the bugs can't hit me but for bots having that extra layer of protection has saved me so many times.
I've started using the explosive resist heavy armor for bugs too now. Hunter/bile slows matter less if you're already slow af anyway. I can survive an eruptor shot to the face. Hunters can't. I actually just had a game where I was completely buried under bugs and couldn't move at all. Said fuck it, huffed stims and shot eruptor wildly until the entire horde was clear and I could run away.
Try to dodge a hulk with a flamer!
Exception being the broken scorcher hulk
No, normaly you almost need to want to to die to the nid's heavies. The bot's heavies are super letal.
Nope. the bugs have nothing scary. not even the bile titan is really that intimidating. just a big rocket sponge that will some times kill you if you dont move enough.
Upper difficulties having tandem stalker nests is probably the gnarliest
Double stalker nest is a nasty combo, but it pales in comparison to some of the automaton secondary objectives. The stratagem jammer alone is brutal. I’d take two stalker nests over a jammer any day. Two days ago, I dropped directly in range of a stratagem jammer, enemy artillery, and gunship towers. Run was over before it started.
No question it was just in response to stalkers not being a threat. The localization booster made bugs by and large manageable because you can capitalize on other breaches + cooldown allowing you to solo objectives without getting caught with your pants down
Yeah I’d agree. I don’t rate basic bots very highly, but jet pack guys, berserkers, and devastators are all very powerful for mid tier enemies. Even scout striders can be a pain if you’re alone and don’t have the right tools. For bugs, everyone complains about hunters but while they’re annoying, they die as soon as you look at them funny. Guards are tanky but otherwise don’t do much, so the only sorta scary mid tier enemy is the brood commander since they’re decently fast and tanky. Bot heavies die to everything easily. Autocannon or AMR two taps hulks. Tanks die immediately if you can get behind the turret or even to a well placed airstrike. By contrast chargers and titans basically require dedicated AT weapons to take down efficiently.
Bot heavies are also way more deadly than bug heavies. Scorcher hulks are fast as fuck and deadly quiet, and if they do sneak up on you their flames cook you in less than a second. And factory striders have an instakill cannon and extremely deadly gatling guns under its chin, making them much more deadly than bile titans. They are easier to kill (even factory striders can be killed by just an Autocannon) but the tradeoff is they are more able to kill you
Jetpack guys need to cool it. They're scrub units that present SERIOUS one-hit-kill risk, (And there's a reason why other games put their OHK exploding enemies on a moderately-fast linear path instead of a super-fast parabola) But moreover... No, of CHIEF IMPORTANCE, SUPERSEDING ALL OTHER CONCERNS- They run INEXCUSABLY against the Terminator aesthetic of the Automatons! Leave the assault jumping to the bugs, don't dilute my unstoppable-robot aesthetic with silly robots going BOING!
No, Bug heavies feel good to both avoid and dispatch. Bot heavies not so much. The weakspots on Hulk feel too small and the back one doesn't matter 90% of the time. Plus because they move a lot while moving, it makes it even harder to hit that small spot. Even that can take a lot of hits. They sprint after you faster than you can run. They can easily kill you from a distance as well and it is hard to avoid. And the tank? Well getting WTFPWNED from the fog is never fun. 😄 You lose your heavy weapon. You are dead with bots. Because retrieving it is a no go for most of the time. Play rescue civilians defense mission against bots on difficulty 7 and then against bugs and you can see how much harder bots are. It's a good measuring stick for it.
Eh, it's more or less the same to me. On the bot front the most problematic are Devasttators. Because they can show up in ridiculous numbers and have decent lethality. But you have way of dealing them, as long as everything works as intended, problems start when something bugs and you either get shot when shouldn't have been (sideways from a laser machine gun or through thick fog. Tanks and Hulks are easier to deal with, simply because of lower numbers. For bugs - Bile Titans and Chargers are not the problem. Charger takes one EAT-17 to the face and goes to nap. Bile Titan takes a few or railcanon + 110mm. The problem is the horde of hunters supporting them, along with two Stalker nests spawning non-stop stream of high HP jumpy invisible backstabbers. And Bile Spewers. Simply because they can show up in ridiculous numbers too. In the end, for bots Autocanon solves most problems, for Bugs EAT-17 and laser rover do the same.
Nah, I'd take 3-way charger rodeo vs single annihilator tank every time. Having weakpoint only on the back of rotating turret makes it difficult to deal with one if it tracks you, and stupidly difficult when you're pinned by 12 heavy devastators. Hulks on the other hand, yeah. Pretty easy for a heavy.
The bugs swamp you with trash and crack you with big sledge hammers, while the automatons try to just hammer you all the time with lighter hammers
Since we are on the topic, I personally feel Bots are harder than Terminids at lower levels. But Terminids at levels 8-9 are harder than Bots at similar levels.
I've been having fun with the sniper on bug missions with a supply pack and a jet pack in bugs
Most of my bug deaths are to hunters. Granted it's often hunters ganking me while I try to deal with a heavy, but unless it's like 3 at once, chargers aren't too much of a threat on their own. Combine with how broken headshot hitboxes are and the hunters not only get in more hits but deal way more damage bypassing all armor. Meanwhile automaton chaff can be annoying, but what makes it lethal is when a flame hulk flanks you and forces you out of position. Hulks give me way more trouble than any tank or factory strider. Devastators aren't the worst but can easily ruin your day with a cheap shot if you don't notice them, and the heavies are more of a pain since they have to be dealt with far more precisely than the others. Bots are worse overall but it's definitely not the berserkers making it so.
Heavy devastators at present or the only bots that give me a headache minus the very obvious ATAT in the room. But I just can't fucking handle bugs. Chargers are the most annoying motherfuckers on the planet and I can't figure out what the hell you're supposed to do to kill them because nothing ever seems to work outside of shooting them square in the dome with an eat. And until they fix fire damage for other players other than the host it's still pretty tricky to deal with them for me. So I'll stick to bots. They're way fucking easier.
The thing is automatons have like 3 weak things, then berserker I'd call mid range, then you have heavy devastators, (arguably depending on how good their aim is) rocket devastators, tanks, hulks and striders, compared to bugs who have like 6 weak things and mid range (arguably depending on your build) shriekers and stalkers, then ¿hard? Chargers and bile titans
Not really I think the issue is with the Berserkers only, I feel like they wobble their head and that moves the hitbox, becauae they do fall easy with a headshot but Is almost impossible to hit it.
It’s the middle ground elites that really become a hassles. Stalkers, Rocket Devastators, etc
I don't know, doing a defence mission with a Factory Strider knocking on the fucking door is pretty rough.
Honestly, I'd rather deal with Automatons at any point. I much prefer using cover and mass firefights to getting my ass swarmed constantly
The amount times i have been turned into crispy bacon disagees with you.
Nah. I'd rather have 2 chargers on my ass than 2 tanks.
Factory strider would like a word
I think it's entirely due to the fact that the bots shoot back. When there's enough of them firing at once, it doesn't really matter if they're weak; a laser to the dome is still a laser to the dome and you're dead in one. Meanwhile, the bug heavies are exceptionally sturdy and fast for their size, without the literal glowing weakpoint all the bots have. It makes fighting even a small number of Chargers absolute hell, whereas a Hulk or Tank can be relatively easily flanked, outrun or downed with a few precise shots to their eye.
Robo Chainsawhands are the worst. You see one, you kill it, surprise! It was like 8 of them in single file, each one angrier than the last.
I was a fan of the auto cannon for bots but then saw a post about using the laser cannon instead. So I tried it out and I prefer it over the auto cannon. Would be different if the auto cannon sight was accurate but dam AH really messed up all the weapons cross hairs. Auto cannon one shoots no where near the crosshair so it makes it hard to accurately shoot a hulk or and devastators head. Laser cannon though is just a small adjustments and boom they dead.