Helldivers 2 - Hell is more diverse than ever as PlayStation's demographics continue to grow and change.

[Back me up!]

Oh yeah, don't forget your Pod Boosters! Everyone pretty much unlocked the first one ( Hellpod Space Optimization) but the others are just as useful.

 

[Maginot]

I've done it with the AC, but it took about half of a mag in the process.

You have to ricochet it off the heavy armor plate above the vent hole to divert it in. Only one round is necessary.

 

[Gondola Enjoyer]

Lets talk weapons and strategems, what are your guys favourites' and what advice do you have for them?

From the stuff I've tried:

Spoiler: Guns

Liberator normal: It's a gun that does gun things, pretty good
Liberator Penetrator: Seems good, but the lower magazine and damage sabotage the shit out of it, sure, you can punch through the medium bots' chests or the crab bugs' legs, but the damage is pathetic
Pump action: It's alright, but doesn't really seem to have any major advantages over the breaker
Breaker: it's the breaker
Diligence: Really good against bots, takes out any small fry in one headshot, not so useful against bugs
Defender SMG: more or less the normal liberator without a zoom scope, and slower ROF and cranked damage, one handed trait is fantastic for hipfiring behind you, transporting SSSDs, or the riot shield meme

For sidearms, the automatic does the same damage as the default pistol, has a bigger mag, and obscene ROF

Spoiler: Stratagems

Precision strike: it's good but really boring
Eagle 500kg: sex, the blunt impact can oneshot tanks or fabricators before it even explodes
Eagle napalm: Eeeeeeh, it's alright for dropping into bugbreaches?
Orbital Railcannon: Will oneshot a tank, will barely do 50% to a bile titan, very situational
Orbital laser: Very good, but the entire team shares the 3 uses, so it's a waste to have multiple people running it
Orbital 120/380: I love killing myself while being 45-60 meters from the beacon
Orbital walking barrage: It's the orbital artillery except you can aim it, really good at flattening bot bases
Gatling, autocannon, EMS, and missile sentry: Based, dope, superlit, thanks for bringing one
Mortar sentry in anything but an exterminate mission: kill yourself now
Either of the machine guns: if you're bringing one of these to difficulty 6 and up, I'm going to call you gay and kick you
Autocannon/Recoilless rifle: Good solo, amazing if you have two guys running the same weapon so they can circlejerk each other
EATS: Great damage, doesn't take up a backpack slot, very fast cooldown, completely overshadowed by the
Railgun: Completely fucking busted, 20 shots, effectively infinite armor pen, extremely fast reload, no backpack needed, funniest teamkilling weapon combined with the "50% chance to avoid lethal damage" armor and the fact that it'll save you from the railgun exploding in your hands
Laser guard dog: An infinite ammo laser rifle with perfect aim firing at targets at all times, the only downside is friendly fire, or it zapping you sometimes
Backpack shield bubble: Strong as hell against automatons, saves you from instant death rockets so many times, shows the world that you're afraid of the rockets though

 

[Jikka]

medium armor pent

I tried the final gun in the premium warbond that had medium pent for primaries they are shit I thought it would at least take down atst automatons or deal with turret weakpoints but it doesn’t unfortunately the breaker can still damage what the game calls medium pent enemies at least in my experience since you can mag dump and still kill by hitting weak points with less recoil and move the target reticle faster

Orbital laser: Very good, but the entire team shares the 3 uses, so it's a waste to have multiple people running it

they’ve fixed it now so it’s 3 uses per person now it’s a very good base clearing option
My main load out is usually cluster air strike eagles laser orbital and mortar/eats for depending on what I’m feeling like rail gun is nice but being able to delete bases I find is better than fighting the tougher enemies that I can kite or lure away. I also like running the added throwing range armor to just mail my grenades/stratagems into the vents a mile away from the base which just feels good every time I hit them

 

[Sigmund Freud]

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Helldivers 2. The satire is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical media literacy most of the jokes will go over a typical player's head. There's also Super Earth's facistic outlook, which is deftly woven into it's characterisation- its' personal philosophy draws heavily from Mein Kampf, for instance. Twitter users understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realise that they're not just funny- they say something deep about FACISM. As a consequence people who enjoy Helldivers 2 truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in the Helldivers' far-right catchphrase "HAVE A CUP OF LIBER-TEA," which itself is a cryptic reference to Paul Verhoeven's movie Starship Troopers. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those alt-right chuds scratching their heads in confusion as Arrowhead's genius wit unfolds itself on their screens. What fools.. how I pity them.

And yes, by the way, i DO have a Karl Marx tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the bull's eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they're within 25cm of cock size of my own (preferably bigger) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid

 

[Defensive Ella Purnell]

Lets talk weapons and strategems, what are your guys favourites' and what advice do you have for them?

I've really taken to using SMG primarys for fighting bugs. The ability to shoot backwards as you run is very useful, you can alternate between sprinting away and turning to fire when your stamina depletes, which will keep them off your ass long enough for it to recharge. The starting SMG fires too fast for my liking, burns through ammo really quickly. I find the 2nd SMG to be much better (it's called the defender or something like that, unlocked on war bonds page 3). It has a slower rate of fire but is pretty accurate even at mid range when crouched.

For strategems I just unlocked the 350KG high explosive orbital barrage for the purpose of blowing up outposts but it seems very inprecise. The shells scatter over a wide area and often don't hit what i was aiming for, instead vaporising a teammate standing 20 metres away from the beacon. I can't unlock the 500KG bomb drop yet so what other strikes are good for outposts? Ones that will take a few fabricators and bugholes with them.

Also one thing I've been wondering: The expendable anti tank rocket vs. The recoiless rifle. Why on earth would you choose the former? It's single use vs. The recoiless rifle's 6 reloads. I would hope it does more damage but I can't find stats and dont have enough money to buy it just to find out. On that note are either of them worth using over the autocannon anyway?

Spoiler: Weapon/stratagem sperging

I'd say pretty much any combination of weapons and stratagems are okay beneath difficulty 6.

When you get to 6 and higher I start to pay more attention to what people are using. For weapons Breaker obviously and auto pistol are great, the 400 damage grenade is decent as are the impact ones. Sometimes I use incendiary for bug missions. Railgun goes without saying, before that's unlocked the autocannon is really good because you get a bunch of shots without a reload. I preferred the expendable anti-tank to the recoilless gun because I don't like wasting a backpack just to be able to reload.

The first eagle airstrike is good at literally any level, I'm 32 and still bring it to helldiver missions sometimes. 500kg bomb is great but explosion is surprisingly small. If you aim the airstrike properly you can easily take out medium bases whereas the big bomb seems to randomly leave buildings/holes sometimes. For orbital strategems the starting precision strike is actually decent at lower levels, not as viable as the eagle airstrike later on but it's never useless. I love the railcannon strike but it sometimes only clips Bile Titans and it takes 2 or even 3. Laser beam is good too. Autocannon turret is really good, I dont really bother with the others except mortars on defense missions. I usually bring the laser drone on bug missions and shield for automaton, although the shield is also useful on bug missions.

 

[Betonhaus]

I'm hearing that there is a trend going around of traitors deliberately firing on their teammates and demanding pvp.

 

[The Grognard]

I think the Gatling turret works great as a rear-guard weapon to throw about 90 degrees to your left or right while there's a large pack of things trying to kill you chasing. It draws aggro and kills smaller enemies pretty well.

 

[Dumpster dived waifu]

For the eagle stuff, what do they mean by re-arm? I've seen it in a couple of descriptions, but since I don't use any I have no idea what they mean.

 

[Gondola Enjoyer]

For the eagle stuff, what do they mean by re-arm? I've seen it in a couple of descriptions, but since I don't use any I have no idea what they mean.

Depending on which eagle strike you use, you have a certain number of charges. The cooldown between charges is very short, but when you spend all charges, the eagle itself has to go back to the ship to get more ammo, which takes 2 minutes (I think, I never paid attention) after which all of your charges are restored. All of the different eagle strikes are attached to the same plane, so if you run 3 different eagle strikes, you have to spend everything, or send it to rearm manually to get a single strike back after expending all charges for that strike.

Anyways, seems people who metafag the hardest, are the most skill challenged, more news at 11.

 

[The Early 2000s]

I can't wait for the mechs to be added, the leaks look awesome.

 

[Hiccup Scream]

For the second time in a 1 week period all liberation progress on Erata Prime, thousands of cumulative hours from more then 100k players has been erased. The first was a greater then 80% reduction, the dev team didnt even let it get to 50% this time before they stepped in. The supposed dynamic campaign isnt looking so dynamic. The other bug worlds have also been reduced but as they cant even get up to 1%, so you wouldnt notice it unless you were taking screenshots to keep track. This article states its one guy behind all of it, making sure that unplanned victories dont occur, so unless youre playing where the devs want you, and at the pace they expect, you wont actually be able to make any real progress on the bogus macro game.

 

[SiccDicc]

For the second time in a 1 week period all liberation progress on Erata Prime, thousands of cumulative hours from more then 100k players has been erased. The first was a greater then 80% reduction, the dev team didnt even let it get to 50% this time before they stepped in. The supposed dynamic campaign isnt looking so dynamic. The other bug worlds have also been reduced but as they cant even get up to 1%, so you wouldnt notice it unless you were taking screenshots to keep track. This article states its one guy behind all of it, making sure that unplanned victories dont occur, so unless youre playing where the devs want you, and at the pace they expect, you wont actually be able to make any real progress on the bogus macro game.

For Dungeons and Dragons to be such an inspiration you think these morons would know that railroading a campaign is one of the worst things a Dungeon Master can do.

 

[BingBongDingDong]

Been running orbital railcannon, napalm, flammenwaffen, and shield. I feel like a agent of chaos, its great killing everything, teammates and enemies alike.

 

[TheArtilleryman]

For the second time in a 1 week period all liberation progress on Erata Prime, thousands of cumulative hours from more then 100k players has been erased. The first was a greater then 80% reduction, the dev team didnt even let it get to 50% this time before they stepped in. The supposed dynamic campaign isnt looking so dynamic. The other bug worlds have also been reduced but as they cant even get up to 1%, so you wouldnt notice it unless you were taking screenshots to keep track. This article states its one guy behind all of it, making sure that unplanned victories dont occur, so unless youre playing where the devs want you, and at the pace they expect, you wont actually be able to make any real progress on the bogus macro game.

 

[Rungle]

Leaks showing off mechs and buggies

 

[Steinercard]

I'm more than a little pissed off that Liberation progress keeps resetting. Does our contributions to the war effort matter or not? The devs say it does and then reset progress on a whim because "it's going too fast." If Arrowhead wants us to see Joel as a GM then he's being a weaselly and inexperienced GM who's trying to railroad the group into "the story" which he's trying to messily smash the game into as opposed to letting the story play out through gameplay. Instead of just erasing progress, why can't the GM accept the players have won something and plan something harder to beat afterwards? Arrowhead themselves want us all to see "Joel" as a GM. So speaking as a GM. If the players in my game do something I don't anticipate I pivot things towards that. Instead of just going. "Um, no. You didn't do what I wanted. So we're doing that instead." It's really not hard. Even for a live service game where they're deliberately patching in content that's unavailable to players so they can unlock it later. Which you'd think would be in service to this idea that players are reacting to things and thus need content generated rapidly.

 

[Back me up!]

The only good thing the GM is doing is that, apparently, random people are getting access to the Mech/Vehicle stragems to try out during a mission as a form of marketing/hype.

But yeah, it does sound like the dude who they hired as the GM is not going with teh flow.

 

[Hiccup Scream]

more than a little pissed

glad im not the only one.

"it's going too fast."

Veld apparently is also going too fast, despite 300k players it was dripping a 1% an hour. Even the worlds they want you on will not progress if they dont desire it, obnoxious.

 

[NSJAP]

No wonder no one wants to play against bots, stratagem scrambler is just shit mechanic. + just encountered a bug where I could not lock on the tower turret with my spear, thanks arrowhead, ill stick with the bugs