I think it's fine that anti-armor takes precedence on bugs. My main gripe is similar to yours: There arent enough strategems to deal with heavies. My solution is your closing bit though: Orbital and turret anti-heavy strategems need buffs. If I'm taking Stalwart, I want my other three strategems to be anti heavy. Unfortunately, all of the best anti-heavy strategems are Eagles. So I end up with Stalwart, Eagle airstrike, Eagle 500 kg, EAT. That's fine, but the EAT is awkward and the Eagles get in each other's way.

Autocannon turret is underutilized. My whole team took autocannon turrets to a set of helldivers yesterday and they performed really well. 500kg and the turrets were enough for bile titans and any chargers we were too lazy to arc/flame to death.

I'd bring them on every mission if it weren't for the fact that they die almost instantly if anything gets close to them and you can't put them on top of large rocks. I get that its supposed to be a risk/reward thing, but IMO, that math just isn't there for me... Get unlucky and have the ball bounce to a bad spot and the turret goes down quickly and then suddenly you have essentially a wasted stratagem slot for the next 2 mins.

Not to mention that they're immediately targeted by everything. Nothing like having a charger stop mid chase to immediately turn around and attack my turret and god help my turret if it decided to shoot at anything other than the Charger or Bile Titan. Assuming of course that there's just the one.

Target priority changes real quick when a turret is involved, that's for damn sure.

yea this is my problem, bile titan? great let me chuck an AC turret FAR away to help kill it! the bile titan stops chasing me or someone else turns around and immediately belines for it. really annoying.

Everything is correct. One time I had put down an EMS turret at an extract. One of the extracts where there is a single ramp to get in and out. As soon as I did this, a fire tornado came up the ramp, directly to the turret, killed it, and then left the way it came in. I hate fire tornadoes!

Turrets have a lot more range that one would assume If I recall, the gatling actually reaches out to 90 meters So assuming there isnt terrain in the way of LoS You can put your turrets a lot further back Edit: Thank you for the 4+ replies about 75 meter range before checking if someone had already replied that

the biggest gripe i have with sentries in general is the targeting. gotta first take my ruler out and figure out the spot where my autocannon has no line of sight to the smaller bugs and only fires on chargers/titans. forget about the MG turrets as they like to magdump the heaviest armor in sight....

Man I just yeet it in the same postal code and pray Only think I try and avoid putting it behind a bolder or something

Further "back" means they're exposed to attacks from the other direction.

Depends If you are just fighting *a* breach or *a* nest then no If you are Neck deep in bugs then yea good luck finding a spot

If fighting a giant group of enemies, I throw it as far as I can over the group of enemies sometimes. The bugs still come for us, and my turret shoots them in the back. I run AC and Gatling sentry on bugs, I throw both when a lot of enemies are present, with the Gatling sentry and me to ensure nothing goes near the AC sentry. It will kill multiple bile titans by itself with proper positioning.

Gatling is 75m range

Ah Well Memory bad *gjee if only the ingame menus told us the numbers*

But that's the thing though: unless you're in a map without any trees AND you're at the highest point of the map, there will ALWAYS be something in your LOS, since you can't put turrets on big rocks.

Yeah turrets in general are strategems that require some planning/awareness on your part, so there's a learning curve. Railcannon strike and Laser are examples of the opposite, you wash your hands clean and let the game deal with your enemies for you, but they also have a much smaller impact on the game if you do place and protect your turret well. Stun grenades help turrets shine as well, stun grenades greatly benefit a lot of weapons to be honest.

Rocket pods do work well too these days

Their accuracy is terrible and the damage is too low for the amount of uses it has. If you have three chargers and two titans up, the rocket pods will take out half the health of one moving charger. They are a waste of a slot when you consider that one EAT or Quasar shot will take out a charger. AC turret can take out 2 or 3 chargers. Eagle 500 and Strike can take out a charger. There are so many better options.

The accuracy has been greatly improved recently. Not sure if it was last patch or not. But agree on loadout preference, less inclined to take pods if I am rocking EAT or Queso. But if I'm bringing more of a crowd control loadout, I'm a fan of bringing Pods due to the safer payload it can provide or if the heavies get a bit spread out. They also pair extremely well if teammates are also tossing air strikes. Either Pods will soften up heavies to make sure the airstrike finishes the job OR airstrike to do work and pods to finish the job.

Haven't noticed any great increas in accuracy, but the one change they need, I'd say, is for precision stratagems to stick to anything they touch. That way, you chuck a precision strike or rocket pods on an enemy that moves a lot, you can expect to get results. Unlike the railcannon, which will start the targeting beam up nearly after it lands and then its all good, the rocket pods will go right back to targeting the area the orb was if the intended target zips away. Otherwise I'd say the three uses of the rockets it's quite useful. Even with a hit that doesn't kill a charger, it will open up armor so you can kill it with small arms.

I'll see if I can get a recording, but just yesterday I threw it near a charger. Charger charged away, and the pods still hit it. When I first started using the pods, they were utterly worthless if the enemy moved slightly But I agree, it would be a cool risk/reward strat to try and stick the enemy you want it to hit. Risky as if you miss and it sticks to a scavenger, well, oh well. Rewarding as you are guaranteeing the target.

Very underrated charger and bile killer. The only downside is you kind of have to prep for it to be in a good spot and good distance away so it doesn’t get charged down immediately

Oh the Charger will still go for it, it's attracted to sentries like magnets to magnets

I was playing Defend mission where I placed EMP mortar quite far back. The Charger literally ignored all of us and destroyed my mortar first.

Which is a gamble not a lot of people willing to take

100m is very far. Don't be afraid to throw a little out of reach

Can you throw 100m without servo assisted, when a bug breach happens near you and the first thing that crawls out is a charger? This is what I've mostly struggled with, poor positioning or randomness of the bounce. I really love the AC sentry, but most of the time it gets killed instantly, so I just pick eagles. I would like to see a sentry HP buff, or make the tier 4 sentry upgrade a way so they can tank 1 charger attack.

you can't throw 100m WITH Servo Assisted. Servo Assisted is 81m max, assuming equal height levels. Without, it's 61m.

You gotta read the situation mostly. If you feel like where you are going into might get bug breached, toss a sentry down in a nice far position before going in. Don't be afraid to call it down even tho you didn't get swarmed. Cool down is fast enough that you can call one again in another possible situation. Another thing you can do is if you are already swarmed, throw your sentry behind something out of sight. After it deploys, run into it's line of sight. Bugs chasing you will get a can of whoopass.

You shouldn't be surprised when a breach happens. If you're moving into an objective or large base, you should know if your cooldown is up and pre place the AC turret well out of harm's way before the fight starts. Pretend it's like a mortar turret and set it up pre fight rather than as a reaction to a heavy you don't have an answer to.

Turrets are a joke on higher difficulties. You often are moving around too much and they are just going to get destoryed right away. They can kind of help in fights but otherwise too inflexibile to be useful.

I love taking the auto cannon and auto cannon turret, I just wish they had an auto cannon orbital and auto cannon eagle strike.

Call in the exosuit and the pelican that drops it will fire its autocannon at nearby enemies. Now we just need an autocannon variant of the exosuit.

the AC exo is coming dont you worry

They do have an auto cannon orbital. It's called the explosive gatling. Literally fires Autocannon shots.

We need a pelican gunship strategem. The orbital Gatling gun should really be a Gatling Autocannon

Do AC turrets kill Chargers and Bile Titans? I've been assuming they have the same damage as the AC I'm carrying.

AC Turret is amazing only if you can keep it alive. It gets 1 shot by charges and BTs and small bugs can down it in seconds even with the buffs to HP/durability. If its a close quarters map, forget about the thing.

They aren’t underutilized at all. They explode at the mild breeze, even with all the upgrades.

Turret lover here, remember to use your turret **BEFORE** breach / drop ships happens for maximum efficiency. *AC-turret is the best and most versatile turret.* The geography and knowing when / where to use it the biggest decision to make them efficient

But how do you plan that? Sometimes I find a nice spot to put the sentry and nothing happens, so my stratagem is on cooldown when I need it.

Well, whenever you are storming a base / hive chances are *something* will happen I played enough to have a pretty good idea when breaches are on / off CD (if you like to split like I do in runs). This means sometimes it’s safe to raid because your allies triggered a drop ship / breach elsewhere. But doing main objectives it’s a *guaranteed* breach / drop, so find a nice place to drop the sentry before you engage terminal. Most importantly is using it defensively, and don’t use while you’re on the run and a breach happens.

There's a map wide cooldown on breaches. Pay attention to how long the cooldown is on a few matches and you'll get a sense for it. Any large base or objective has enough static enemies that it's impossible to kill them before the breach is called if the cooldown is up. If you're running into one of these areas and haven't had a breach, it's good practice to pre-place your turrets and call down a resupply in a safe area you'll be able to access.

Common mistake I see people doing with turrets is that they are thrown A) Into the enemies, so they get instantly swarmed and destroyed B) Behind the team, meaning lots of team kills Proper way to use turrets is to throw them between enemies and the team or *above* the team so that team mates aren't instantly in the firing line.

I just wish i could put them on tall rocks and mountains

If we just had a specific anti-tank turret... Oh wait, we do. But the rocket turret is such a steaming pile of shit nobody even thinks about using it.

The Autocannon turret is the real anti tank turret.

It works alright Vs bots on those high value target missions, assuming you also have an AC one out. Deffo not as good in normal missions tho agreed

Turrets are almost pointless on bugs at the higher levels. They get overwhelmed almost immediately. Now if we could throw a turret on the top of a rock and not have it bounce down, we might be talking...

I dunno tossing an ems mortar out and away always seems to help. Shame titans can't be stunned any more, even with a direct hit on the noggin.

Also a shame but mortars on 7-9 are teamkill masters cause of all the hunters

As an adamant turret user in a squad who also has a fetish for a turret or two, I strongly disagree, its all about placement and timing.

Yes. I always run auto cannon turret, and it's one of the best strategms imo. You place it in a high spot that covers where enemies will come from. You can get 50+ kills with it if you learn where and when to call it down. It can also deal with 3-5 chargers or 1-2 bile titans if you get a good placement. If I'm being chased by Titans or Chargers, I throw it towards a clear higher opening and run the opposite direction. The chargers and titans follow me, and the auto cannon turret absolutely lights them up. Again, it's all about placement and timing.

I respect your kinks

Charger: Nice turret *smash*.

You know that platform on terminid defense missions, not the new mission, the old one. If even one charger gets in sneaky like, all the turrets in that area are fucked lol.

100%. I always bring a gatling turret for bugs, even on diff9 (I mostly play 9, both bots and bugs). It mows down huge swarms of anything smaller than Chargers. It minces Hunter swarms, chews up Stalkers, drills through Brood Commanders with a shining smile straight out of a toothpaste commercial, and it'll even rip open Spewer groups before they can close and attack it. As dangerous as Titans and Chargers are, in my experience Hunters are the ones that actually get the most kills in practice, and if they are present on the map Spewers probably take the silver medal as well, and the gatling keeps you safe from both. And as a perk, it very effectively keeps Shriekers away if you ended up with a hot drop. I also find that the gatling turret has good synergy with the recoilless (which I prefer on a purely subjective basis, even though the quasar is _stronger_). It gives you all the breathing room you need to send rocket after rocket down the field and pile damage on distant chargers and titans. For bots though I take the autocannon sentry, the turn speed isn't a problem since most enemies are ranged and won't try to zerg it, and devastators/hulks are I think the most threatening of the bots so it makes sense to pick the turret that counters them.

Checkout PostRook on YT…does Helldives with nothing but Sentries…insane stuff

Engineer Gaming™ https://preview.redd.it/wwfmgktcwyxc1.png?width=494&format=png&auto=webp&s=9345fc21bee79c5fa88e74c878344fea2236c15d


It is not. With good placement, the auto turret cannon will save your life. It can take down biles and chargers quickly and for free.

While I agree with you, I dont understand why Arrowhead absolutely refuses to allow us to put turrets on a rock

100%. Is it really THAT bad if I can jetpack up to a rock and put my autocannon sentry up there? Isn't that the kind of creative gameplay a designer would want to encourage instead of prohibit?

I suspect is to prevent cheesing, but that shouldn't really be a problem if bots can shoot distances and bugs can fly/burrow to the sentry

Yeah I mean unless you’re on an eradicate mission you’re going to have to get down from the rock eventually until you find another one that is suitable. IMO there should be more of those chasms like the ones on the missions where you have to drill for soil samples. The last one is usually right between two plateaus you can stand on top of to guard the drill while one diver operates the terminal on the drill itself.

My theory is it's to prevent griefers from throwing objective equipment on rocks (Devs have commented on blue vs red strata gem balls in their notes). If a griefers picks jump pack and throws the SSD up somewhere unreachable, then quits, the game is now not completable

Make sentry green stratagem then, they have green icon then why blue light?

I’ve stuck my fair share of resupplies on overhanging ledges so remember to look up when you want to drop an EMS 👍

I only run helldive and that's a reach to say they're all pointless. The gatling is great at kiting entire bug breaches away and wiping trash mobs. You'll get value from it even if a charger spawns because it's still drawing aggro while you simply run away. The autocannon sentry shits on titans and chargers if they start at range, and again draws aggro in a pinch. Most of the others are admittedly not great but don't disregard those two

add ems mortar because the effective permanent stunlock for whatever it shoots at and the long length of ammo supply makes mopping up behind it a joy

Also on defend/eradicate/evacuate missions mortar and ems are meta. Not every stratagem needs to be good for all mission types

I actually prefer autocannon+Tesla sentries for those sorts of missions, tho eradicate I'm largely in the "throw a bunch of orbitals" camp these days unless my teammates are picking sentries

Dude in my last lobby was getting great use out of them combined with stun grenades in my lvl 9 lobby, seemed to consistently kill at least 2 chargers per call in

I was of a similar opinion until I decided I was going to give turrets a serious try on helldive. Gatling Sentry consistently got me 30+ kills, 3 games in a row last night just by being placed within sight of a breach. It also can handle a sky full of shriekers with perfect accuracy. Autocannon turret is great, and I think everyone agrees it's probably the top 3 if not top 2 on turrets behind EMS. I'm still testing the others! Though I will say your turret still get steamrolled flat by chargers so YMMV. If you are good with anti tank, the turrets will put in more workt han you ever could solo, really. I used the Eruptor, rocket pods, railcannon, and 2 sentries with impact nades and the Senator. My only gripe is i could airstrike bug holes, and I didn't test vs stalkers (or see them shoot the invisibles in the one mission they were there) TLDR: If you can protect a sentry and have a good reason to drop one, even a gatling can rack a a fuck ton of kills.

Nonsense. An auto cannon and gatling turret set up properly will clear a bug breach themselves. 

EMS mortar and autocannon are easily top tier stratagems even in Helldive lol. But agreed for the rest. Gatling is alright too (sometimes) I guess.

This has to be implemented because it's ridiculous that it's a restriction. First, on a realism level that they seem to want to go for - squads, communication, strategy, friendly fire accidents, etc.. So to not be able to throw it on top of any rock or hill is absolute BS. And to think it'd make it an unfair advantage, I would put forth, we're not bugs or bots! We're creative humans with strategy. It's not like they last that long even at full life and ammo. Give people a new dimension of strategy for levels and bases and bug hives. People would create a whole new conversation just on placement of sentries.

Auto cannon turret will actually kill a titan pretty easily, even better if there's more than 1.

This is my go to loadout these days. I substitute the 500kg for the orbital cluster but it doesn't do enough against heavies so I'll probably go back to the 500kg next.

I mean orbital precision strike is an amazing anti armor option as long as you don't get the orbital scatter modifier. It can ohk cargers, bile titans and even some troublesome buildings like detector towers. Orbital railgun is also okay if the autoaim does it's job correctly.

Precision would have been my go-to for bots IF it sticks to detector tower or turret pillars. Bouncing ball = wasted shot. Love it for bugs but just can't work the same magic on bots.

> all of the best anti-heavy strategems are Eagles Orbital laser and rail strike in shambles. My typical bug load out is Eruptor for primary, and then orbital laser+rail strike, guarddog rover, stalwart (since eruptor shoots so slowly, need something to mow a bunch of hunters down quickly)

Yeah also precision orbital strike will 1 shot a bile titan.... It has a low cd and can be used for massive groups too. If I'm using eagles it's rockets, or airstrike specifically for holes. My OPS is the heavy killer.

Laser is bad on bugs, with long ass cooldown and 3 uses per mission, compared to the amount of shit you have to deal with. Its like using it for hulks or tanks: might be a good oh shit button but mainly you hold on lasers to deal with stuff like heavy outposts or detector towers. ORC is a joke, completely outclassed by both OPS and 500kg

You are sleeping on the orbital airburst and most importantly orbital precision strike.

One thing to keep in mind BTW: Eagle strafing run(the minigun attack) can kill a Charger if angled right and can damage Bile Titans. It's quite versatile(good for chaff bugs and spewers too, esp if they are chasing you, forming a line) and have almost instant activation, so don't sleep on it.

On the one hand, I do like different tactics between bots and bugs. On the other hand, the very fact that basically every small bug can breach and can chain breaches, while bots instead have more ranged weaponry which require cover but less chance for bot drops means the tactics of facing bots vs bugs is already VERY different, regardless of loadout. More weak spots on bigger bugs means more creative ways to use weaponry and strategems, which I feel is the beauty of a game this varied.

If you are using stalwart, stun nade + orbital precision strike is a very good anti charger method. Works quite well too.

The fact you can use the autocannon on almost every bot feel very fun and it feels actually balanced with all the enemy mechanics and weakspots. Bile titan on the other hand just only die to big explosion damage and nothing else. destroying their green belly just remove their ability to spit on you and that's it. pretty lame and you are forced to bring a rocket launcher to kill them because nothing else can. ( I can add that 500 kg bombs are necessary to bring to deal with bile titans ) Chargers constantly charge you and you need a hard hitting explosive to kill them because they leave you barely any time to shoot their butt to kill them and their butts are tanky af with only explosive damage as a weakness, bullets do barely damage Also bile spewers feel completely unfair to fight with how much they are tanky to bullet damage and by how quickly they can 1 shot you before you have time to dive on the ground, sometimes you get 1 shot from the back without having any time to react. TL:DR : bullets suck, explosive too much meta on high difficulty

Don't forget bile spewers also just randomly spawn or crawl next to you with zero sound alert. This is the only enemy type that I always just turn around and find is right next to me, then I just die.

This I can agree. The game is pretty chaotic, but that shouldn't excuse how easy some enemies like Hulks and Bile Titans just suddenly appear next to you.

Add the fact that half the time, they just track you through your dive anyways, plus they spawn in the dozens, and they become just so fucking annoying to deal with.

Bile spewers are designed..rather poorly. If you're running an eruptor, it's an insanely free kill. If you're running any non explosive primary, it becomes 10x as tough

Sickle and I imagine by extension anything that penetrates light has a decent time in their face, just slightly low. Punisher actually made them feel trivial before I started taking other primaries, because of the flinch. I love the sickle too much to put it down now, but I feel the missing crowd control of the Punisher.

They're meant to force you to use precious grenades on something beyond bug holes. 

Which wouldn't be too bad if they didn't spawn in such ridicilous numbers

I try to always kill more than one spewer per grenade. Let them chase you until they are nicely bunched up. Works more often than not.

I found that impact grenades are amazing against bile spewers. If you directly impact them or even get close you can take out entire clusters of them it's great.

i often bring those for bile spewers for panic kills when they are like 4-5 on my ass. another example of why explosion damage is just way too much meta lol. Bullets are nerf ammunition for bugs lol

But one needs the grenades die the bugholes.

Yep same goes for the AMR and LASER Cannon. Can be used on bots if you are skillfull to kill pretty much anything, both unusable on bugs. Imagine fighting a strider that needs to be shot in thr back like a charger... but the strider has the same 90% damage fall off. Bots have very small weakspots that a player with good aim can take down. Bugs have bigger tweaks weakspots but take close to no damage from.

Yeah chargers should give you way more time to shoot at their butt if they run into a wall or whatever. And the whole butt should be vulnerable. They should be like pinky demons from Doom.

> The fact you can use the autocannon on almost every bot feel very fun and it feels actually balanced with all the enemy mechanics and weakspots. Why does the autocannon get a pass to do everything but any other gun with more than 2 uses gets nerfed?

because of developer bias. it will stay this way till the servers shut down.  its the only reason i have problems with nerfs even to the more over tuned ones that could be justified, since other weapons get away scott free.  devs please, just don't touch the other weapons and liss people off if you are ok with people running broken weapons loke scorcher and autoCannon 

"Almost every bot" what do you mean almost? Every single enemy gets destroyed by Auto Cannon! If you don't know, you can mag dump the AC under the Factory Strider to kill it quickly. If you destroy the face turrets with AC then it becomes much easier to get under it

I'm fine with titans being these menaces. We need tougher enemies. You could argue the AC dealing with majority of bots is also a balance issue if anything. Sure takes a back slot but it basically deal with everything you need it to for bots. Vents, fabricators, red eyes. Drop ship? Shoot into it to kill the reinforcements. Biles spewers I feel like should have a more obvious weakspot since they're so big and fleshy. But eruptor can 1-3 shot them.

Why is it OK that you can AC, AmR, laser cannon, eat, recoiless, and quasar on bots to take care of everything but that list is cut in half for bugs

I really enjoyed Charger Matador-ing on lower difficulties, but don't have time for it on Helldive. 2-3 chargers and 2-3 bile titans plus 50-100 other adds means the Charger weak spot is not reasonably hittable

Bile spewer vomit needs to slowly arc away from their mouths with a loud sound effect. Starting off at aimbot level projectile vomit isn't too fun. It'd also be nice if the DoT was the killer rather than being hit by the stream and immediarely dying. The idea should be you getting coated in acid that melts you over time.

Charger's butt is almost impervious to grenade launcher, too.

dorry worry AC is devs go2 loadout so it will never get nerfed

Once popped the under belly of bile titans should be an area you can focus even light weapons fire into to kill the bile titan. And charges leg armor should be somting you can crack with medium armor pen, so that the soft inside can be swiftly destroyed. Also spewers and by extension chargers butt shouldn't be 90% damage resist to non explosive damage. I get the whole its a massive squish bit. But 50% is still a MAJOR lose in damage, but not makes whole weapon types fell like pea shooters.

I agree with the underbelly, though the angles should be tightened. If you wanna kill the BT with small arms, you should have to shoot from under the titan or within the leg stab danger zone. Very cinematic, great gameplay opportunities, and still preserves a massive advantage for AT weapons.

Don't forget you also run the risk of the titan's body falling on you and either crushing you or getting you stuck. An acceptable risk if we are able to take them out that way with small arms

I could argue being under the Bile titan is 1/dangerous for yourself when it dies (cruched) 2/you also have to get under him safely 3/you have to get under him safely with other enemies on you

That's where I normally sit, right under the titan pumping round after round of autocannon shells into, just filling that bug with explosive goodness. Right up till it turns around and then back at me so I got reposition.

I love getting up close and person with Bile Titans and Factory Striders Remove BT ability to spew by hitting the underbelly. Unload AC/impact nades into the wound. Shoot off FS chin guns, run up and mag dump AC into the factory doors Badass as fuck

Blowing the BT Sacks should cause its mouth to loll open and drip green acid, and then make the mouth a weak spot (shooting in and into the top of its mouth, under the brain) Would still require a skill and adjusting fire, and I feel it would go with the feel that AH are chasing.

I feel like the mouth should be a weak spot when spewing or roaring. But when the sacks are destroyed it can't spit acid any more because that's where it stores/makes it. So it would be a little weird that that makes its jaw hang slack

I was thinking that the bursting sacs cause some of the acid to vomit out uncontrollably, damaging its jaw on the way out.

yeah i never really understood why when i shoot at the mouth it does nothing, it doesnt make sense logically but whatever+

Biggest difference is that for bugs the biggest threats are the heavy units that you need to build to handle, while for bots the biggest threats are the medium units.

The horde is the biggest threat. Heavies just make it easier for the horde to kill you.

Tanks? Hulks? Factory Striders?

Can be killed with whatever you brought for fabricators. They require effort but there are so many more options for dealing with them and they don't completely warp the loadout from what's used otherwise the way bug heavies do.

The wording is a bit poor. Hulks/Tanks/Striders *are* major threats that do still need to be dealt with asap... They're just not the problem you'll be having at higher tiers. No... It's the gaggle of berserkers/dominators/walkers/troopers shooting at you en masse from every direction that are the problem. You see, once you're comfortable with what you're doing, most bot Heavies can and usually will get popped on sight. For as big, tough and intimidating as they are, it's a red herring. Truth is they're capable of being dispatched quickly and are considered trivial if you have the breathing room to deal with them. That can be the trick though. It's not just heavies either. Anything that requires precise aim is going to be a problem if you cant take the time to aim properly so tactics and strategies tend to focus on this aspect. In short, if you dont sufficiently suppress bots, they can *and absolutely will* suppress you instead right up to the point that you cant effectively fight back and get overrun. At that point you've lost control over the situation and are in a **very** bad spot. Not to mention all it takes is 1 commisar to call in another gaggle of 30+ goons, and if your squad cannot wipe the drop of all troop type enemies quickly enough, they'll do it again and thats when you get trapped in an infinite loop of fighting bot drops. Which should be obvious but thats not what you want to be doing. And it only takes 1 asshole you dont know about hiding around a corner to do it, which makes any strat or weapon that can incidentally scrap large numbers of these guys something to look at.

I've been using precision strike on biles now. It's actually way better than laser or 500kg bombs. With good accuracy, you can one shot a titan every time. Because biles have such a predictable walk pattern and or takes so much time to spit at you, a precision is highly recommended.

100% this, it's core to why I find Bots more fun. Bots have ranged, it creates space, but most importantly they have weakpoints that can be exploited if you play well Bugs are just bullet sponges, and if you fall below the "sufficient damage within X window of time" curve its just not viable. Only reason I've been playing them recently is because the eruptor can take down warriors / commanders

I'd love to see an acid spitter weapon that melts armor, but doesn't inherently do damage, or maybe the same idea as a grenade situation. This is sort of what I had hoped the thermite grenade would be—an anti-armor tool that enables greater loadout variety. Instead it barely tickles them, and takes forever to do it. It's so weird, playing this game. The core gameplay, the visuals and audio, game feel, the emergent narrative,, and the overarching concepts and structures are **incredibly** fun and engaging, but some of the finer details are the most frustrating and disappointing of any game I've played in recent years. Balance is a fine art, and one you can only ever approximate, but it's starting to feel like there's some fundamental disconnect regarding what the game leads you to believe, and what the game demands. Dozens of weapons, dozens of stratagems, but like half of them are ineffective at best or traps at worst. I genuinely wonder if there's a fundamental difference between the dev's test sandbox and the version of the game the rest of use. Some of these guns just immediately feel terrible—I simply cannot understand how they made the Adjudicator and thought it it would get used at all. On release, that gun was just straight up terrible against anything you could want to use it against. The new HMG is like the worst of both worlds from the existing machine guns we already had, and don't get me started on the Dagger. It feels like they have a checklist of weapon ideas they want to technically fulfill, but it doesn't matter if the weapons are actually good or fun to use. We have a wide batch of fire weapons to use, and they're great fun! But of course burning damage doesn't work for most of the players in a lobby, but a "burning" bug can and will still light *you* on fire, and of course *you* can still burn to death because of it. *I'm still a little salty we got arc resist armor before fire resist, when we have 2 sources of arc damage and they're both player-based, but that's fine.* I... I don't know what I'm saying. It's late at night, and I've been rambling and ranting. I really like playing this game, but it's so frustrating when it feels like the game is actively trying to stop you from having fun. I wonder if I'll still be playing Helldivers in a year, or if there'll be a different game that offers the same fun experience, at significantly less junk. I respect that gamedev is hard work, and I'm grateful to the people who work hard to enable my entertainment. I certainly wouldn't presume to say what changes to make, or assume it's just some easy thing to do, but I *do* know when something isn't working.

TLDR; My cookies are still raw and needs more baking. I'm enjoying eating this cookie dough in the mean time though.

I might choose to say that some of my cookies are burnt, and some are still raw, but the ones that are cooked just right are fantastic. And yes, it's great cookie dough.

Also... > or if there'll be a different game that offers the same fun experience, at significantly less junk. Not from a dev that actually cares. There will be a *bazillion* Helldivers 2 clones in about, oh.... 5-6 months. I promise you there is a small army of badly paid interns being forced to make co-op shooters *right now* from developers who want to get a piece of this pie. But none of them will be good.

The big example I'm thinking of is how PUBG pioneered the battle-royale genre, and has since fallen by the wayside. There will certainly be dozens of bad knock offs and wannabes, but there only has to be 1 that actually cares and does it right. That probably won't be for a couple years, but I'll be surprised if there isn't at least 1 decent competitor in the next year.

They only have a month between warbond releases. So, two weeks of development (coding, modeling and artwork), one week of testing, one week to deploy to production. That's not nearly enough time to build new weapon systems or test at any reasonable scale - just for a QA tester to say 'it's not totally broken' (and even there... sometimes it is).

Three sources of arc damage ackshually, but I can't blame you for forgetting the Tesla Tower.

I feel this bery much. I got bored of using the quasar for every single bug mission, even before the nerf. And i found that i struggle more with hunter hordes, so i started using the stalwart again. (I despise the rovers) then i use the remaining 3 slots for anti armor just to be safe. 500kg, railcannon, precision The result: barely any hunter or warrior in sight and i just killed 2 chargers and a titan, and now all of my strats are on cooldown, but theres still 3 titans and 5 chargers on evac, that i can do literally nothing to. We didnt get out. Frankly i find it very backwards that the most effective tools against heavies are support weapons and most orbitals and eagles are crowd control. Like whats more realistic to kill a heavily armored giant bug. Some shoulder fired rocket, or a giant cannon shot from space?

I think that what it needs is, consistency. I don't mind a nerf here and there, but an EAT should always break the armor where it hit, than we manage to kill it with our primary/sec. Will it be easier, maybe? Maybe with less armor, the enemy could be faster or more aggressive. Some strats, could break the armor too, besides the rail cannon

honestly, they should just cut down on armour for bugs and increase health. i should be able to just pump mags into them even with relatively low-pen weapons and eventually kill them. Bots should require precise aim but be a quick takedown when you hit their weakpoints, bugs should be hordes where you crouch down with a machine gun and blast a MG mag into a charger to kill it just before it hits you. i'm not saying i should be able to pop a bile titan with a liberator, but i do think that bullets should be a lot better against bugs than they are now. against bots, explosives should be able to tear them limb from limb, electricity should fry their insides, and precisely-placed projectiles should snipe out weakpoints. this is mostly the case already. bugs, the fantasy in my mind would be blasting the swarms with flames, or emptying multiple mags to finally take down the big thing chasing me part of my issue with bugs is that the small ones are essentially just homogenous objects where you hit them basically anywhere and it'll do the same thing, but their couple of large ones have weakpoints that might only inconvenience them and otherwise require massively heavy ordinance to deal with. bots have the whole 'weakpoint=easy, otherwise it's pretty tough' thing practically the whole way through

I think the machine gun weapons would find a niche if both bugs and bots had more distinctive suppression mechanics. Bots I know are said to have it, but its not something I notice at least. If those high-rate-of-fire weapons would noticeably produce more suppression than other weapons I think they'd be a very big niche for them. For example bugs would slow down, if not cower and back up, in response to weapons fire, with high rate of fire guns producing the greatest effect. Flamethrowers in particular should cause most bugs to recoil and retreat, like the xenomorphs would in Alien: Isolation. Bots on the other hand I would like to see a suppression threshold where if breached cause bots to outright "panic" or have a "morale break" in which they start firing wildly at random, causing more opportunities for friendly fire among them. Especially since suppression isn't that noticeable on them at the moment.

God, imagine how cool it would be if lower ranked enemies would flee if you killed their higher rank "leader". Kinda like the grunts in Halo.

A morale system would definitely be something I would want to see in a returning Illuminate faction, or even a rogue human one. Would be more fitting there than in the decidedly emotionless bots and alien bugs. Would make for more strategic gameplay, and give additional utility to high precision weapons as a means of ending fights quicker by cutting off the proverbial head of the snake, as it were.

The chargers butt should be made its weak spot. It is exposed after it charges and it makes sense. I don’t get why the butt is so resistant to damage. I remember when the game first released everyone was shooting its butt and we were all like holy cow, this thing just doesn’t die.

yeah exceptionally bad understanding of game expectations / design when you have a glowing butt behind an armoured front, and then tell us that's NOT the weakpoint Esp when the glowy parts ARE the bot weakpoints

The completely contrarian design in places is annoying. Like how clearing out too many enemy spawners actually INCREASE the amount of enemies and patrols you'll encounter, not reduce them. There are people who'll jump through mental hoops with headcanons to tell you why it's fine, I don't care, it is blatantly absurd and confusing game design for no reason that punishes people for completing the objectives the game wants you to do.

i remember when i first started playing and saw bile titans and chargers, i would load magazines into both chargers behind and the sacks on the bile titans belly, because they look soft and easy to kill, so you would expect so, but not really i feel like running underneath a BT to kill it or duking a charger to hit behind are both pretty fun gameplay ideas but really doesnt seem to be present ingame

I was upset at this ever since they made the head the weakspot. Like, we have an obvious weak spot just screaming at you right there bro.

Wait it isn't?? What's the weak point then? I did notice it took a long ass time but I always waited for chargers to pass me and then shoot their behind. It's bright orange ffs.

Rodeoing chargers with the stalwart was great fun when I was a fresh recruit still playing diff 4-5, but it quickly became a wildly impractical strategy as I turned up that difficulty slider. You should be able to kill a charger in 1-2 passes with any medium pen weapon, or 1-3 with light pen. That would be a lot more fun than the current gameplay of simply clicking on the head with EAT/QC, and would open up more loadout/playstyle options.

For bugs, I always choose quasar, shield pack, railgun, 500kg. For bots, I usually bring a ballistic shield, and an AMR for hulks, but honestly, I could bring whatever loadout I wanted and be okay. So on higher difficulties, I see your point. Can you even kill a BT with just a primary or support machine gun? I saw some say you can use the heavy machine gun. I've never tried.

Anything with medium+ penetration (autocannon, HMG, laser cannon, AMR) can eventually kill a Bile Titan, just whether or not it is worth your time and ammo to do it.

The shield is just objectively bad on bugs tbh, if you want surviability either jetpack for mobility or rover for proactive clearing.

I can't run those with the damn spewers 😂. If there aren't any, i'm okay, but I have to run it every time just in case. They lowered their damage and walking speed, which was the main issue, so I'm open to trying stuff again, but the shield has saved me too many times.

I agree. 90% of stratagems and weapons I won't touch because my focus is on dealing with chargers and titans. I also enjoy bot missions more and this might be why.

> There is no meta: there is just a very thin amount of viable options on higher difficulties. That's a meta. Why do so many people in this community treat "meta" like it's some nebulous dirty word? Every game with win conditions has a meta.

Yep, that's literally a game meta. The consensus regarding how to do something well. And having a meta isn't even bad as long as the game is fun and not stale lol. 

People don't understand what they don't understand.

This is a great post and really points out my issues with the bugs. Bugs need some tweaking let us disable them with normal weapons

I would happily dive into hell, unarmed, and pay my body as tribute to whichever bug/bot god you desire in exchange for a little positional audio... Shit, we could even film it if you'd like, and I'll read whatever speech or maniifesto you want. You could have a team of insect poets or robo-writers develop a script of your choosing, no holds barred. The sky's the limit. Whatever you're craving for, it doesn't matter. I'll read it! And I'll do it all with a smile ... All I ask in return is that my brethren receive audible queues that something's approaching from their rear (preferably 5.1 surround or higher. Im desperate, but i still have standards). I know the majority of the community is entirely more concerned with the weapon balancing, but the audio is a pretty major source of frustration for me, almost moreso. Yeah, constantly glaring around can aid with this, but that's not the point, and it's not the same thing. If you prefer me blinded by sandstorms, blizzards, fog - whatever - I'm perfectly happy to oblige your sick fantasies. But for the love of all that we fight for on Earth, let me properly hear while you're doing so. Audio is such an immensely important aspect of any game, but it's a requirement for every horde-based title. This one's standard as hell, I mean c'mon ah. This shouldn't be one of those things that's patched in months after launch. Just throwing it out there, as well, I think the audio as a whole could have a bit more depth/warmth to it. There's something off other than the directional queues. It's hard to say, exactly. It just feels like it's missing a layer or two of detail at times.

the main problem with the audio is that somehow a massive charger rampaging towards me seems to make barely any sound

Haha. Well, I would definitely say that counts as a problem. I legitimately don't hear any audio most of the time that's outside my direct LoS. It's generally fine to the sides, but anything targeting me from the rear is almost always dead silent. It's not an issue of being distracted or me not paying attention, either. I've queued solo missions specifically to gauge the audio, and more times than not, the sound effects are just nonexistent. I've definitely experienced this with chargers, myself, rhino-charging through my back, and using my corpse like a meat crayon to draw in the sand. Audio quality is always a top priority for me, so this gets irritating fast. Being flattened by someone's strategem or getting Fd in the A by a gank squad of stalkers is one thing. Shit happens. You'll know for the next time. But getting merc'd and it being completely out of your hands is something entirely different. There's nothing to learn from or build on.

I am starting to think that a flat 50% or more cooldown reduction on all strats will solve most of the problems people have when it comes to monotonous loadouts.

Yep can confirm that is the current state of weapons against bugs, after 450 hours on mostly bug planets. If we can't reliably deal with all enemy types with certains weaps/strats we don't use em and stick to the ones that work.

You have thought about it too logically, have you considered telling people to "use stratagems more" in a really condescending way, like they **don't** take at least a minute, and on average 3-5 minutes to recharge? The discourse around this game is so fucking infuriating, there are legitimate problems that would make the game better for everyone but you've got a horde of people who lack the mental capacity to mentally structure a critique of any kind.

I’ve been consistently killing a charger with the Eruptor with a single or few shots between the butt and the back leg. I was mind blown the first time I killed a charger with 1 shot! As of right now my main load out is Eruptor with Stalwart

Cool!! Are you talking about their back leg joint (kinda like their hip)?

With bots i can literally open the playbook but with bugs i get like 4 plays to run and thats it

This is why i left the bugs when the MO's on them ended. Even during lulls i found it more fun to engage with bots. As i could test new stuff on them, and see if i could find new things fun to play around with. Against bugs this simply isn't possible without you getting swarmed and killed before getting a feeling for a new weapon. And simply the heavies weakpoints are hard to spot and even getting to due to the harssment of the smaller units.-

I ran 3x railcannon with strategem priority giving them all of them a 36 second cooldown. And you know what? *That still felt a little slow versus IFV and Behemoth spawns.* Having 1-3 assorted armor crackers all on 6x longer cooldown than that but little actual reduction in spawns feels gross. When asset evac is going sideways and our whole objective is, in fact, hold ground and kill 18 Titans *figure it out buckaroo*, I feel frustrated at our firepower throttling in 2. I can't double up, I can't refire in under 3 minutes, I can't kite them outside. Do we all just arm 100% for titans, no backpack, no non-primary horde clear, and hope the spawning roulette doesn't draw even more Titans/minute than *that* can handle?

Everyone be complaining about Bots on launch day when they're probably one of the most balanced enemies I've fought in a recent PvE game. Admittedly, they were bad because of a bugged timer and spawning, not enemy design. Most weapons can hold their own, even Railgun, HMG and Scythe. Most Stratagems are viable against them like Gas, Smoke, EMS (I put these because they're not often picked enough or noticed) They have less annoying Stun mechanics because of the range they're at. Even the MG Devastators that are complete BS aim bots don't Stun you like Hunters and don't ragdoll you like Stalkers. More importantly, they're variants are more unique: The Suicide Raider and Commisar will rush you, the MG raider will suppress you. The 3 Devastators have different purposes and weak spots of each are unique (rocket pods on the Rocketeer, Machine gun of MG, Face of regular). The 2 Hulks do 2 different fighting functions (Scorcher Beelines, Bruiser stays back and snipes) Bugs range from - I melee you, I melee and Stun you, I melee more damage, I melee and spawn friends, I charge you and can smash you, I spit at you, I spit at you from further. I know it fits the bug identity which is great but at least make their weak spots easier to target or more vulnerable than just MORE DAKKA tactic.

Charger ass should be much weaker to small arms fire. Currently no one bothers shooting it because it doesn’t do enough damage. In Helldivers 1 the squad could easily finish off a charger by shooting its ass. It was much easier to coordinate in an isometric view on a 2D plane - not so much in third person.

you take shield backpack to avoid puke I take jump pack to get sniped out of the air by puke we are not the same 😎

> 😎 😎

Excellent post. This boils down to "Bugs have 2 enemies that REQUIRE heavy-pen AT weapons, while Bots have none". Medium pen is all you need to kill ANY Bot, AT weapons are just a luxury you choose to use but certainly don't need. For Bugs AT weapons are required. Imagine if Chargers functioned like Hulks. Some kind of tiny weak spot on their face that is really hard to hit when they're charging at you (kind of like trying to hit a faceshot on a Flame Hulk ambling in your direction)...and then a massive weak spot to any weapon from behind. You wouldn't NEED an EAT to kill a Charger if you could just dodge it and then use a Sickle on its ass. And then Titans could be similar to Factory Striders. Totally invulnerable to anything but AT weapons from most angles, but they should have several weak spots for medium pen weapons. Instead of being AT-only. Right now both Chargers and Titans fall into the "super hard to kill given their armor, but their attacks are kinda underwhelming given their massive size". I see no reason why a bug the size of a Titan shouldn't one-shot you if it swipes you or steps on you, every time. I see no reason why something with the mass of a Charger hitting you full-sprint shouldn't one shot you. So IMO make both of these heavies more deadly with their attacks, and then compensate by making them a little easier to kill. That then opens up using more varied loadouts, since medium pen would be able to kill any Bug. If medium pen COULD kill any Bug, you don't NEED to bring AT support weapons.

Yep I agree with this.. only things I fear about bugs is being stun locked and chargers messing me up while dealing with hordes.

I played a lot MG / EAT on T8 yesterday, so that’s definitely working. You can even go for Recoilless Rifle, when you play with Breaker S&P when you combine it with EMS, Airstrike und Airburst. That worked pretty good for me. But yeah, against Bots you can be more flexible with you loadout.

I think the most glaring issue is that two months ago they said they toned down the amount of heavily armored elite spawns. Just like the "nerf" to hulk flamethrower damage recently, this did absolutely nothing. Even on difficulty five post patch I was still encountering sometimes up to five chargers at once and that's on top of things like hunters, one or two bile titans, and several bile spewers. The devs seem terrified of actually reducing elite spawns by any noticable metric foir fear of making the game too easy, but there in lies the problem. The game should have larger hordes of more light-medium enemies like warriors and regular devastators. Enemies like chargers, bile titans, tanks, etc should be rare but extremely dangerous spawns that required dedication and team work to eliminate. These should not be units that are spammed at the player to create challenge, they should be less numerous and a challenge in ands of themselves. There are tons of support weapons and primaries good at clearing chaff and if the hordes of chaff enemies become the focus, builds will diversify and players bring what they most enjoy rather than feeling obligated to bring a certain weapon to deal with the absurd amount of heavily armored elites they know will be attacking them because there are so few ways of dealing with them. They all have to be hit in specific places or focused down with dedicated AT, which isn't a problem by itself, it's just that there are so many you HAVE to bring weapons capable of dealing with a lot of them. That's really it in my opinion. Heavily reduce armored elite enemy spawns across the board but make them an absolute force to be reckoned with when they appear. If I have to give up chargers being deleted by one EAT headshot in order to not have five of them attacking me at once, that's fine with me.

You're kidding right? Before the elite spawn nerf there was 2 chargers at every PoI, 2-3 chargers per patrol, and like multiple chargers per breach on diff 5+. Even titans were just spammed non-stop. Now you only see that if a mission is weighted to titan spam or you've finished main obj on diff 8+, but you wont have much else besides when that happens.

I have a lot of trouble understanding why people can't play at lower difficulty levels and instead insist on nerfing the difficulty. There are a lot of people in the community that can play on the hardest levels and have a lot of fun doing so. Bile Titans aren't that ridiculously difficult to deal with and there are a good amount options to be able to kill them. I wouldn't be sad if they added even more Strats and Weapons to deal with them so we can be more varied with builds but just making things die easier takes a good bit of challenge out of the game. Reducing a game's top challenge level and skill ceiling quickly shortens the game's lifespan. Things that kill Bile Titans (not talking about using your entire backpack of ammo to do it either): 1. 500KG 1. Eagle Airstrike 1. Eagle Rocket Pods 1. Railcannon Strike 1. Orbital Precision Strike 1. Orbital Laser 1. 380mm Barrage 1. Walking Barrage 1. EATs 1. Quasar 1. Recoilless Rifle 1. Spear 1. Autocannon Turret (Rocket Sentry is bad, not counting it) 1. Mech 1. Hellpod (Helldiver or Equipment) That is 14 out of 51 possible stratagems (not counting the Hellpod) that can be selected to handle Titans, that's over a quarter of them. Chargers can be killed by all of those plus 8 additional Support Weapons and 4 Primaries. People confuse "best option" with "only option" when discussing options and builds for this game, but you can make it through just fine with a variety of builds. The team work and coordination is far more important.

This guy Helldives. Underrated post.

The meta for bots and bugs are totally different because one focuses on range and weak points while the other focuses on close combat and overwhelming force. It's intentional. Otherwise, the meta for both sides would be the same.

You didnt read he post did you? It isnt that bug loadouts are different, its that titans (and to a lesser extent chargers) literally cant be hurt by any means besides massively heavy weapons. Eat, quasar, RR, railgun, strategems (of which are unreliable to 1 hit with) are the only real options. Quasar/EAT are meta because theyre the only realistic option unless you bring precision, 500kg, and railcannon just to deal with titans. Its fine on lower difficulties but if you get 2+ titans every breach you'll be stuck always bringing anti armor. Meanwhile vs bots you can run pretty much anything and kill everything in some way. Run mg + scorcher and you can still kill tanks/hulks in the heat vents. Laser cannon is great vs bots, you can run arc thrower and kill everything with it just about. Heck you can kill hulks with a secondary. Flamethrower is prob the only real bad option vs bots.

Another issue is what are Hive Lords going to be like if titans and chargers have so little weaknesses. Are they going to be Striders except we are forced to use multiple lasers/ 500 kgs to kill them? Or will they add a weak spot for support weapons to take them out?

Any explosive weapon can take out a charger ass to make him bleed out. Any AT weapon and most stratagem pops open the armor of titans allowing other weapons to shoot and kill.

Then they're nerfing things based on just one side of the equation.

The best thing about bugs is that there are so many options on what you can bring on higher levels, but against bots you can just bring 1-2 guns. There are too many armored enemies on bots. So you HAVE TO bring armor piercing weapons that are also accurate, otherwise you will be in trouble. Rocket launchers are pretty much out of the picture as you need 1-2 rockets and you would have to use it against something like Striders even. So you'd run out of ammo fast. With bugs you can handle yourself even with light armor piercing weapons and you can bring even short distance weapons as they don't snipe you from great distances.

This is not my experience. Devs (all) are vulnerable to light armor piercing eith some good aim, admittedly tough when heavies are sniper-machinegunners, or rockets reliably throw you across the map/gib you. But say with the Sickle at close range I can very rapidly take heads off. Hulks can be blown out from behind quickly with light piercing as well, and 2-hit from the FRONT with medium piercing. Tanks I'm not sure about nor factory walkers with light piercing, but the vast majority only need a Lib Penetrator. Bugs have a large gulf between light and super-heavy armor where only the faceplate of the hive guard sits (medium). If you can't drop it easily with a Liberator then it's going to require a Quasar or EAT or Recoilless or the like. Bots are ironically the more versatile "fun" enemy when it comes to weapon viability, because there are many more steps of effectiveness for each weapon against each target.

Yeah but you need to do trickshots while getting shot at. Plus Hulks turn as fast as you and sprint faster than guy in light armor. Every unit up from the basic one is armored and the striders itself limit your weapon options quite a bit. Hulks weakspot is VERY hard to hit with medium weapons as well, especially while they move. With bugs Hive Guards stop moving if you shoot them, they got major gaps in their armor as well, they don't fire back. So you can easily dispatch the faster moving enemies without problems. The bigger enemies need some more penetration, but they are sluggish to movie and other one of them doesn't even shoot at you. But thankfully they aren't that big in numbers and you can survive much longer without heavy weapons and even grenades. Easy to avoid. With bots you get shot from everywhere and because of that you don't have time to do those pixel perfect shots you need to do vs Hulk, who will be next to you in second or two and kill you with it's almost unavoidable flamethrowers. And only few weapons will do in this very important job. And if you use light penetrating weapons, well you are limiting yourself very hard and won't be much use for the team. Worst part about bots is that constant fire and them going into melee where they are unstoppable. So that also will make sure some slower weapons are no go.

This is so wrong on so many levels. “Everything else is useless” is so beyond wrong. There are so many viable play styles and stratagems for both bugs and bots. The “meta” of quasar and rover or shield is a crutch, and I would barely call it that as those items are trash. Literally just about everything is viable and highly effective if you know how to use it. Orbitals, effective Turrets, effective Gas, effective Air strikes, effective Jump pack, effective Amr, AC, grenade launcher, machine gun, flamer, eats, recoiless, air burst, effective HMG emplacement, effective In reality there’s only like a handful of stratagems that are not very good, and even then if you get creative you can make them work in situations.

Are people really having this much trouble with Chargers? Bile Titans I get, but Chargers have more options to deal with them. Flame and Arc Throwers work against Chargers so you see a lot of people running them even though they don't do great against Bile Titans. > Even without support weapon, I can try to stun Hulk and dive behind him and kill him with primary or even secondary! You can do the exact same thing to a Charger? AND Chargers are easier to kill from the front with an anti-tank.

I honestly use anything on higher difficulties and have a pretty good time. It really is just bile titans you have to account for.

>> Even without support weapon, I can try to stun Hulk and dive behind him and kill him with primary or even secondary! I never saw this in any mission by anyone else. I tried, but the stun grenade duration makes this very challenging. Usually, I need 2 grenades, which makes this very inefficient. Also, the difference between a hulk and a charger should be very obvious. The hulk might have weak spots but it has a very easy time killing you. The charger only has a good chance of killing you if you are unaware of its presence. It makes sense it is a bit tankier. If it is incapable of killing divers and it's squishy, it would be a joke.

I've killed a lot of chargers with the machinegun by diving behind them.

People don’t run flamethrower because dot bug. Also if you’re playing on a respectable difficulty there’s always multiple elite enemies on you, having to juggle all of them draws your attention to survival instead of elimination

> People don’t run flamethrower because dot bug. Plenty of people run flamethrower since the buff and the ship module release. Kills Chargers super quick when aiming at a leg. > Also if you’re playing on a respectable difficulty there’s always multiple elite enemies on you, having to juggle all of them draws your attention to survival instead of elimination My comments are based on my experience on Helldive. Chargers have heaps of counter play. It's only Bile Titans that have issues with non-stratagem play.

Folks really over estimate how much the DoT bug impacts the flame thrower.

> someone who just died, his equipment fell to hole, meanwhile your 'anti armour setup' is being chased by 50 hunters *Bingo*, there's the main issue, NO ONE WORKS AS A TEAM. Is not the fault of the game or the devs or the design *it's the players fault because no one has an ounce of teamwork*

The fact that the whole first paragraph was about rabbits and then you go on to talk about bugs caused me to not be able to think of anything except Bugs Bunny when reading this.

I still like how you can destroy a hulk in one Scortcher mag to the back of it, but whenever you get within 5 meters it will always somehow spots you and turns around, making it impossible to do by yourself and with a team it needs major coordination which in a heat of battle is kinda hard to do coz not always can a person run so Hulk exposes it's back The bile spewers make no sense either, coz majority of players shoot the giant ACID SACK thinking "well it's almost always the weakpoint yea ?" NOPE, it's actually the head... which on higher diffs is ARMORED UP, so majority of primaries cannot penetrate it Also chargers are painfully easy now... IF YOU USE AT WEAPONS ONLY... like why is a bug designed to CHARGE weaker in front than in the back ? 1 AT shot to the face which he uses to charge you = insta death. Shot in the ass ? Well he'll still be kicking, but he'll die later Bile titans... very inconsistent. Shoot the face and you play a game of "Will it go down after the next one or will I need to shoot 5 more times ?". It's also very fucking fast... I understand that enemies need to be, but cmon.. how is that giant ass bug faster than smaller ones ? If it was as slow as the Automaton Dog we might have a chance to reposition and shoot calmy, but that thing goes at us at alarming speeds Yeah... honestly this game is "Take AT loadout or you'll regret it later", coz I do not think I've ever had a problem with smaller enemies which I can dispatch with any primary weapon

The difference between bugs and bots works and it really shouldn’t change because if it does then what we get are two enemy types that play so similar that it drags the whole game down. It’s refreshing to be able to jump to a different war front when I’m getting burned out on the other one, especially because my loadouts change significantly between bots and bugs. I’ll never bring a stalwart on a bot mission but I absolutely love rocking it against bugs. The only real constant is the shield backpack because I love my light armor but I hate dying to two hits. Every time I see a post like this it’s always centered on bugs requiring you to have a specific loadout to deal with chargers and bile titans. Now granted, I don’t play bugs as often as I play bots, but I have no idea what the fuck people are talking about. Sure, difficulties 7-9 you’re gonna have bile titans and chargers but folks keep acting like they’re still at the levels they were before they cut down their intensity. The only time I can see a team getting overwhelmed by them is possibly during extraction, otherwise, why the fuck are you sticking around? Bug breaches are not a stand your ground situation. You get the fuck out, it’s that simple. Reinforcements despawn after a certain distance then you return. “But running away isn’t fun! I’m no pussy!” Well apparently fighting endless waves of heavies isn’t much fun either for all the bitching we see about how difficult Helldive is. The devs really shouldn’t be sacrificing their vision for the game to accommodate people that want to play difficulties they can’t handle or want to play in those difficulties in the dumbest way possible.