Helldivers 2: For Managed Democracy!

[unreal merlin]

You can use tricks to bait them into immobilizing themselves! Throw the stratagem and either bait them into barfing (they stop moving) or if their abdomen is already popped run under their legs and behind to make them either do stompies or get confusd trying to turn around.

[cobalt patrol]

@glacial light this right here. Baiting them is the way and the light

[blissful sparrow]

i simply anticipate where they will be in 10 seconds.
Mostly by guessing how long my ally that is getting chased by it will survive :)

[supple siren]

Factory Striders continue to be a demon for me

[unreal merlin]

complex stratagem planning modifier is rough for OPS though

[tall stone]

Oh hey, OPS helps there!

Biggest thing is going to be the machine guns on its chin, but you can take those out with even a HMG.

[cobalt patrol]

Factory Striders quick run down:

Face openings are a weakpoint.
Knee openings are a weakpoint
Getting underneath and shooting into the dev factory is a big weak point

[tall stone]

Also it has less health than you think.

[cobalt patrol]

For strats, OPS, Eagle Airstrike, 500kg are all great to crunch it

[tall stone]

Two Hellpods and an OPS to the back will kill a Factory Strider.

[cobalt patrol]

2 quasar/RR/EAT to the face will blow it open, turning the entire head into a weak zone

500kg -> OPS tends to kill them real fast

380 barrage might kill them if it gets a couple of direc thits

but it's main use is getting your teamates to stop standing around the factory strider.

[tall stone]

2 OPS very nearly kills them, they just need a little extra chip damage after.

[cobalt patrol]

The b iggest threat is absololteuy their chin machine guns

once those are gone they loose 80% of the their threat, and it's just the cannon turret

when both cannon turret and chin turrets are gone all it can do is angrily make devs at you

...which it then tends to stand on

So you know

leave the poor puppy alone

it is trying it's best you monsters

[tall stone]

Yep!

[cobalt patrol]

It is however incredibly funny to hear angry factory strider noises in the distance and watch it very slowly walk around unable to do nayhting useful

[tall stone]

But those machine guns are absolutely killers and the worst thing about it. If you have a support weapon with medium pen, or even just a primary with medium pen, go for them first.

[modest fiber]

<@&1206091872716595200> welp i have tried some of the dot weapons and its quite fun c: also i am once again requesting for dudes

[cobalt patrol]

I wish the autocannon could peel them faster, tehy're a suprsingly hard shot with the AC

but the AMR or Laser cannon can chunk em off nicely

[tall stone]

Indeed. Laser cannon is pretty great against the strider if you go under it.

[cobalt patrol]

I'm fine iwth AC having some notable weakness though

it's such a fucking good gun

[tall stone]

Now of course the hard part is doing all the factory strider stuff while the other bots are around.

Especially flame hulks.

[cobalt patrol]

But i'm a crazy person (according to the reddit) who actually thinks Arrowhead's balancing is pretty great

See, i love scorcher hulks at this poiont

i've gotten so good at them i often just stop dead, stare em down

and then the hulk goes "I quit a nd dies"

(okay, so i shoot it with the autocannon during this, BUT THE POINT STANDS)

[tall stone]

I do love the propensity hulks have for stopping and standing still sometimes.

Especially after you drop a gunship on them.

[unreal merlin]

Independent of all the other stuff going on, Arrowhead has demonstrated that they have a very good head for balancing to achieve and maintain the intended experience.

[tall stone]

And snow planets give me my favorite Hulk tool: Snowballs.

Nothing quite like throwing a snowball at a Hulk's face and it being stunned.

[blissful sparrow]

the helldivers final tool: Baffling your enemy

[cobalt patrol]

Yeah. I find the talk about priamries feeling weak crazy

Like genuinely crazy

because so many of the primaries are so punchy and potent

and you watch chunks just get b lown out of things

like fuck, i have played destiny 2 where i can put a slug round into something's head and it goes "Yes, and?"

20k damage and it don't care!

(Some hyperbole involved here)

[unreal merlin]

Certain weapons don't sound particularly punchy (Scorcher) but in practice the gunplay overall feels excellent.

[tall stone]

People forget bad balance way too easily in the face of good, yeah.

[cobalt patrol]

Also people seem to expect that primaries will kill heavy units

and do it easily

whcih like... Chargers and Hulks can both be killed by primaries, it's just very risky

[tall stone]

Also, side note, finally tried Quasar again. The extra 5 seconds is noticeable, but not really stopping me still.

[cobalt patrol]

Tanks and Cannon turrets can be taken down by a few primaries, it's just an immensly dumb thing to do

(Yo ucan kill a cannon turret with the senator. it takes 18+ bullets, but by jove, you can do it)

[tall stone]

I'd rather just OPS the cannon turrets.

Tanks are thankfully good targets for it as well.

Just chuck the caller on top of 'em.

They make it nice and easy.

I also like being right next to them, because it's so safe.

[cobalt patrol]

Oh, killing them with the senator is an absurdly fucking dumb thing to do

I only did it because it was funny asd hell to fail crushing one iwth my pod

and then just go okay screw it;

bang bang bang bang bang bang reload bang bang bang bang bang bang reload, @unkempt river telling me to get d own so they can Quasar it, i refuse bang bang bang bang bang bang it finally explodes yeeting me off it

[tall stone]

Yeah, I'd be tempted to do the same.

[unkempt river]

That was, simply put, a little stressful for me

[cobalt patrol]

If you get the OPS/500kg behind the turret so it's explosion hits the vents, that frags them nicely too

But yeah, the balance in this game is greaT

primaries all ahve reaosn to bring them and good mixes of which chaff they do handle/dont handle\

and stuff like the scythe are in much healthier places now

[supple siren]

Scythe should have infinite range because: it would be funny

[cobalt patrol]

Supprot weapons all have cool niches and reasons, and the b uild crafting in this game is immensly good.

That's actualyl one reason i think people struggle is they dont understand that builds in this game are crazy important

you need to match Support Weapon, Secondary, Armor, Primary, Grenades and Strats together

And you need to understand where you have weakpoints in your loadout and hwat you'll do about them

[tall stone]

My eruptor weakpoint build was "I'm pretty sure other people will bring dedicated anti-tank"

[cobalt patrol]

like my beloved 500kg/OPS/Shield/Flamethower/Democracy/Grenade Pistol/Stuns loadout - Spewers and Bile Titans are issues for me. Clearing bug bases is enoguh of a problem i've been trying dropping 500kg for Airstrikes, and that's working out - iot makes me better into spewers as a side benny, too. and it's why i started bringing the dominator, becuase that just goes "lol, fuck you" at Spewers.

I saw someone the other day breining Autocannon sentry, laser drone, and gattling sentry +9 500kgs, no support weapon, and they did work. Totally different style and approach to me, eevery bit as valid

[tall stone]

When the Eruptor was working properly, I just didn't have a problem with spewers: One Shot to the Head.

And to be frank, I do think people kinda overstate how dangerous spewers are. Even when I get hunter slowed, I can just strafe-walk away from their damage.

[cobalt patrol]

Oh they just get me because i'm on the frontlines with the flamethrower

like i dont actually have a problem with them ganking me and being a weakpoint

it's a good thing!

[tall stone]

Ye

[cobalt patrol]

it's just "This is an issue my build has"

That i feel like is the other hting, people wnat to be good into everything

and it's just not how the game is setup or meant to work

[tall stone]

My build's pretty consistently have issues with heavies, but that's because I know for a fact that someone will bring EAT/Quasar.

[cobalt patrol]

I imaigne you'd understand quite quickly charger on me? drag it to penguin and watch it get served up as a tasty BQQ snack.

[tall stone]

Yep!

Also my life in the bug front has been massively improved by going "Fuck it" and equipping exclusively for Hunter Murder.

Breaker Incendiary, Rover, my usual favorite of Eagle Clusters, Laser Cannon, and either OPS/380.

Might fiddle around with airburst again for Hunter killing.

But yeah, turns out that if I just kill every hunter I see, the bug front becomes a lot more tolerable.

[cobalt patrol]

I did a funny on exterimiuanton earlier

got swarmed from all directions

so i started spinning in circles with the flamethrower

i survived!

...so did my teamates, shockingly

[tall stone]

That's a nice bonus!

[glacial light]

Me pistol whipping the cannon turret vent until it explodes, melee weapon when.

I like playing in a 4 person group cause I can bring less AT without really hurting myself.

Playing higher diff and someone usually comments how "easy" or "quiet" the mission was and how there weren't enough enemies to bog us down.
Also me throwing orbital airbursts, clusters, and quasars at every single bot drop before anyone notices.

[quick crown]

Another day of Airburst launcher another day i realize its aweful at killing any group of less than 5 skreechers lmao

But amazing at clearing ANYTHING on the ground

[glacial light]

If I notice everyone brings AT to bugs I run airburst launcher, deleting patrols before they can call breaches saves you a lot of time over the course of a mission

And it's indirect AT in that a breach prevented means the possibility of a charger/BT coming out of it goes from something to nothing. So my teammates can save their AT for when 8 bile titans spawn

I am sometimes tempted to run cluster and airburst launcher to bugs and be like, fuck you anything without armor you don't get to exist and fuck my teammates who wanted to play terminids you're just fighting chargers and bile titans.

I covet absurd kill count

[unkempt river]

Or you could just.... Become grenade pistol + stun 'nade pilled and cackle as the enemy cowers before your might

[pure wave]

I really wish the grenade launcher was a rotary tbh

Heavy... Grenade launcher...

[blissful sparrow]

luv milkor

[unkempt river]

(this is only sort of a joke, as I am unfortunately addicted to the supply pack, and find that the gp+s combo works so well with it, I struggle to give it up)

The Quasar nerf was the biggest L I've ever taken

The Quasar Nerf also screwing up the timer bar on the Quasar is also rough

[glacial light]

That's my current setup is supply pack with grenade pistol/stuns. Just having up to 8 extra grenades/stims on demand and learning to use it absolutely recklessly makes the game a lot easier.

I even wear medic armor so like it's harder to give up the supply pack

[unkempt river]

I think that, if I was better with it, the AM Sniper would likely be my choice for support, but the lascannon is my go to

[quick crown]

I'm mad that the EMS orbital doesn't stun BTs just because they didn't want the nades to stun BTs

[modest fiber]

ah yes the good old M32

[pure wave]

The thunker

I need the spinny and the revolver gameplay but explosive

[strange vine]

shoulder cannon or arm cannon?

[quick plinth]

back cannon like a transformer shoulder

[keen zinc]

shoulder

dont forget the massive dump truck ass heat sink

[golden ledge]

I think shoulder personally.

[cobalt patrol]

I am so fucking sick and tired of takes like "developers don't test their own game" and other we know game development better than the developers takes from the peanut galleries

Just oh my gods and fishes, it's exhausting

[pure wave]

Arm would be more fitting tbh but whatever goes harder

[unreal merlin]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1208390071074562139/1237809068882792648/Snapchat-86652303.mp4?ex=663cff07&is=663bad87&hm=d201d2ff4a91eacbdb4f8bbbf7fd2494c03b762a42653544949f0ce1b2eb31dd&

[honest acorn]

Tf killed that person?

Acute boneitis?

[sour whale]

it looks like they stepped on a mine there

but no explosion happened on that player's screen

it really is a lego star wars style death though, god

[honest acorn]

Ah mine with no explosion that makes sense

[ionic holly]

alright place your bets folks
will the next super store drop actually have heavy armour with engineering kit?

[glacial light]

You'll get another heavy with fortified and you'll like it!

[ionic holly]

I will await you at the end of the universe

in the final seconds of the entire death of all we know

and i will kick you in the crotch

Jokes aside just
ugh

[honest acorn]

never EVER

[ionic holly]

genuinely? i'd rather not get heavy armour at this point if it's just gonna be back and forths of fortified and servo assisted

i know fashion is a thing but, god i just don't care.

[sour whale]

there is one singular heavy armor that's padded instead of those two. but it would be nice to get some more variety in heavy armor abilities, yeah

[glacial light]

I just wished if they were going to add armor with the same type and perk they'd at least vary the stats a bit. The the 50 armor light scout and 70 armor light scout.

[ionic holly]

eh

I'm not that focused on stat variety

i just want heavy armour without one of the two most boring flavors

like i get the idea, they're meant to compensate for the slower run speed

but

i genuinely can't name a time i've needed the throw range or needed to tank an explosive

is it funny you can tank a automaton mine with fortified?

sure
but why would i step on one willingly?

[glacial light]

Pre explosive nerf fortified would let you survive a few rocket devastors volleys directly when they essentially one shot you

[ionic holly]

i get the idea, really

but holy fuck i just want more grenades

[glacial light]

As for throw range? Not needed but it's a significant boost and can help you clear fabs/nests from a far distance and it saves a lot of time over the course of a 40 minute mission.

[ionic holly]

Like said, i get the use cases

i just want dear god anything else
i'm pretty sure the last heavy armour we got with a different perk was the medic armour

least the winter warrior set looks good, even if it's samey passive wise

[honest acorn]

Yeah that was clutch

[glacial light]

Yea none of the armor perks are really necessary, +2 grenades don't seem like much to me but I would like to see a heavy engineer armor since people want it

[blissful sparrow]

i still run that baller silver explosive resist heavy armor, it just looks sexy

[glacial light]

Heavy I think has the lowest perk variety? Extra padding, Fortified, Servo Assisted, Med-Kit and that's it?

[ionic holly]

I believe so

[upbeat vector]

What does Light have?

[ionic holly]

Stealth and basically all of the above

Oh and arc res

[glacial light]

Electrical Conduit, Engineering Kit, Fortified, Scout, Servo Assisted, Med-kit, Scout

[ionic holly]

We did get a fortified

it was another green one somewhat recently

nope brain just saw you said that woops

[glacial light]

Medium is same number as light except no scout but democracy protects

[ionic holly]

actually there is a scout medium armour

battlefield technician

medium armour has access to every perk to my knowledge

[glacial light]

Ok ig medium wins out by 1 then

[ionic holly]

It kinda makes sense but like
i wish arrowhead would just come out and say "yeah hey we are restricting some perks due to armour class"

cause then i'd atleast stop hoping and just understand

[upbeat vector]

Yeah...

[ionic holly]

... shit man i'd even take another extra padding set for heavy
that's how bad it is

[glacial light]

I understand why they wouldn't say anything, cause they'd probably not want to feel like backtracking on their word.

[blissful sparrow]

considering how long it could take to make meshes for armor i could see them having like a backlog of armor in the pipeline to release and it just kinda ended up not evened out with a month+ lead time to catch up

[ionic holly]

I could too, lord knows we already have what likely looks like another warbond in the pipe

[copper crest]

I mean you can couch that in "currently...."

[ionic holly]

|| sleeveless armours ahoy||

[glacial light]

Art assets usually develop a lot faster than features so their art team is probably just making new armors cause they have the time and it's outpacing the rate they can conceptualize and develop new perks.

[ionic holly]

Like said i'm not really too fixated on new perks, i just would love more variety for heavy and light

... mainly heavy.

[pure wave]

It's so over

[ionic holly]

Hm?

[pure wave]

If people get access to stuff like that
I know there's gonna be some shenanigans

[ionic holly]

i mean
||its very specific armour sets that are meant to hit more jungle fighter/catachan aesthetics, not a universal thing||

[junior badge]

I'm this close to unsubbing from the subreddit about that stuff. I'm only in the Discord to read the patch notes anyway, so I also just stopped looking at anything non-official there, too.

Listening to the fandom, the balance is terrible.
Nevermind that everyone talks about how they're maining different stuff and using varied loadouts, balance clearly sucks.

[honest acorn]

Video game subreddits are all awful I never even joined this one

[ionic holly]

I just keep to this place and the steam posts about patches myself

not the discussion of those posts, just the posts

do not go into steam discussions

that shit is a cesspit that makes the reddit seem tame

[pure wave]

Factual and true statement

[ionic holly]

post was fact checked by true democratic helldivers

[glacial light]

Reddit is unusable with just complaints about nerfs after any patch and discord seems untenable.

[pure wave]

Solid source of memes tho

[glacial light]

I will stick around subreddit cause it goes back to funny memes after like 3-5 days

[ionic holly]

twitter can also be just as bad, specially if you peak at the unofficial media shit

[blissful sparrow]

Steam forums are generally about half a step above 4chan in terribleness

[quick crown]

nah, illuminates

[ionic holly]

they had a recent post that really got to my nerves about this "cycle" about a weapon slightly overperforming and it getting nerfed into the ground

course doesn't acknowledge the fact the eruptor's situation is a bug

[glacial light]

Yea last I saw steam forums it was bot boosted posts about "keeping wokeness out of HD"

Closest to HD2 community i'll interact with is this channel

[blissful sparrow]

what a suprise that moderation makes places more usable to interact with

[glacial light]

Source?

[granite rivet]

i was really hoping that there would be a CE-series heavy armor in democratic detonation, a bit dissapointed it's another FS-series

[blissful sparrow]

AAAAGGGH!
My game is stuck in controller controls and i can only walk, shoot and crouch and nothing else in game despite no controller being connected

[blissful sparrow]

holy shit this is so fucky. I cannot even bind keys to see if that resets it because even with a controller i can only clear binds, not select them to bind something

[unreal merlin]

divers will see this image and go "hell yeah"

[hexed steeple]

hell yeah

[sour whale]

hell yeah

[stone bridge]

hell yeah

[strange vine]

Hell yeah

[tall stone]

Hell yeah.

[ionic holly]

hell yeah

[alpine seal]

hell yeah

[pure wave]

hell yeah

[daring monolith]

Hell yeah

[hot meadow]

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fgfupnnph89zc1.png

Pretty interesting I think

[honest acorn]

I genuinely think that's the result of someone playing to fatigue not balance decisions ngl

[stone bridge]

"basically unplayable" is a massive exaggeration yeah

[hot meadow]

I agree it’s an exaggeration, but I also think they’ve made some weiiiird tweaks.

Slugger for ex

Railgun also got vastly overnerfed.

[honest acorn]

Haha I think those were good changes (slugger)

Railgun was overnerfed for sure yeah

[hot meadow]

I guess I don’t understand the slugger tweak, which is the one that comes to mind

[honest acorn]

But also I think level 80 is what, like 250 hours?

That's a lotta time in a game that fast

[hot meadow]

Gotta be. It’s significantly more than me.

Im like… barely 50

[honest acorn]

Yeah I'm like level 57 or something and have way less than that

The weird balance change for me is all the fire buffs

While it was bugged

[hot meadow]

Yeah! Those too.

I thought that was a case of left hand not talking to right hand.

Regardless I’m actually pretty happy, I just thought the some of the changes were odd.

[honest acorn]

shame we couldn't trick AHS insot making the gas strike do even more damage

I think most of them have been good but the slugger was pretty extreme and the railgun seemed kind of reactionary

[hot meadow]

Yeah. Those really are the main two

I’m not like thrilled with the quasar cooldown nerf but I get it

That’s just me having favorites

[honest acorn]

Yeah that one's kind of a bummer but the Quasar was suuuper good and is still solid

I think the nerf was important so it didn't recharge fast enough to get the second dropship of a drop

[hot meadow]

True but sad

[unreal merlin]

I understand the railgun being dropkicked though. It's perfectly serviceable now and I'd totally run it as supplement if someone else is around that I can trust to be on the ball for heavier AT.

Being able to just POP brood commanders or cut a devastator in half on demand is very nice.

[honest acorn]

Yeah it handles important mediums super well

and you can free fire it with the tier 4 ammo one

[stone bridge]

It can also strip Charger legs again

It takes two well charged shots on unsafe, but it can do it

[honest acorn]

That's... mostly back where it was pre nerf isn't it?

[ionic holly]

Mm
very iffy about that response cause ive felt like we've been sitting nicely for balance

[stone bridge]

No it could do that on safe with two back to back shots before

You need to hold the charge for a reasonable length of time to get the same net result now

[cobalt patrol]

I genuinely feel like I'm taking crazy pills given the way people talk about balance. There's so much that's viable, so many options, even on high diff

[ionic holly]

Trust me, im in the same boat penguin

[meager saffron]

the thing that most shocks me about hd2 balance is that the liberator is good in high diff

[pastel igloo]

I have been running all the same shit with basically no diff and i almost exclusively play Helldive

[ionic holly]

like, i dont wanna vent about a friend just wanna grab something he said cause i feel
insane that i just dont get it

[honest acorn]

Ahh ok, I just flipped mine to unsafe and never looked back after a little while so I forgot

[pastel igloo]

Like the only thing that changed for me was being more careful with quasar

[ionic holly]

"Makes me wish I didn't get the weapon tbh and now I feel like they're just yanking our chain with "oh look its shiny and awesome" then "Hah, we nerfed it into the ground. Buy new weapons." "

This was after explaining why eruptor was doing less damage (he came asking if they made stalkers tankier, i was sure they didnt but then he mentioned using the eruptor)

[honest acorn]

Also yeah word, I remember when I was checking the reddit for takes last pass for the adjudicator, which I had considered a perfectly fine if bland gun which was a little pinched on ammo

[ionic holly]

i dont-
how do you have that take away from being told its a bug?

[honest acorn]

And it was seemingly universally panned as unusable

Later on AH gave it 2 extra mags and set it to full auto by default haha

[meager saffron]

it had some minor breakpoint issues that felt a lot worse than they were

[ionic holly]

They also just
Removed its recoil basically

like even as someone who liked the prior one, that recoil reduction was nice

[honest acorn]

Oh yeah they did reduce that

(I only used fortified armor when I was testing it so I noticed less haha)

[ionic holly]

But yeah just
Blegh, im really iffy about it cause their balance has felt pretty nice, its horizontal balancing presumably

[glacial light]

I'm surprised any studio employee, let alone a CEO would say this publicly to address the vocal concern on social media, earning those community goodwill ranks

[honest acorn]

I think there has been some "tall poppy syndome" with popular or meta picks, but usually I think those have been accurately assessed as strong/overperforming weapons

[ionic holly]

Mhm, and even when they are hit they're still usually very usable

[tall stone]

You cannot imagine the level of Eruptor complaints that are happening.

[ionic holly]

Slugger was doing a better job range than the range options, so it got reigned in and the marksmen got a buff later on

[cobalt patrol]

Yeah. Seeing claims like they don't test their own game is just insane

[ionic holly]

trust me mourge, i can

[tall stone]

My personal favorite for entertainment factor is that Eruptor was nerfed to make the next warbond sell better.

[ionic holly]

You'll always get those types, to be fair.

[hexed steeple]

these people getting their whining validated by the CEO might make things worse tbh

[ionic holly]

Can't forget the "NO NERFS, ONLY BUFFS, ITS JUST A PVE GAME!" crowd.

[glacial light]

The one nerf I want to see is Bile Spewer nerf, those mf still "one shot" me with a full bile stream and you have to be incredibly quick to dive away and they spawn so frequently for how deadly they are

[cobalt patrol]

Yes I'm actually concerned about that.

[ionic holly]

Yeah i loathe bile spewers too
on the upside, blitzer shots will stop them from spewing if you hit em while they're lifting their head up

[tall stone]

Bile spewers are a tad over-aggressive, yeah.

[ionic holly]

Specifically biles, cause ill note nursing seem to prioritize melee

[tall stone]

I still find them overall fine, but the weird random "Oh, I'm dead" moments aren't great.

[ionic holly]

considering they make up 80% of my deaths now n days rather than actual threats? yeahhhh im not the biggest fan

[tall stone]

I die to random Bilespewer and Hunter Swarms more often than not.

[glacial light]

Yea I wouldn't mind if they were kept the same but rarer and louder so you can tell if they're sneaking up on you. They're like deadlier than flamer hulks who are heavy units

[hearty sleet]

Did the Slugger's stagger output get changed? I think I've seen a few posts about how it lost punch mainly.

[ionic holly]

It get lessened stagger, yeah

[hot meadow]

Which I personally found odd as I thought it was the sniper rifle like behavior of the gun that was too strong, not the stagger

[ionic holly]

Bit of A bit of B

[glacial light]

I think someone in their discord said it got nerfed and it's the top 3 used weapon for bots/bug which may be true but I think also it'd an early shotgun in the free warbond

[ionic holly]

Yeah, ironically saw that on the reddit and people are trying to say they're lying which like

i think i'll trust someone who might have actual numbers

[pure wave]

They're Too quiet

the bile spewers are too sneaky

[ionic holly]

Honestly something ill always say
people just
generally have very overblown reactions to the idea of nerfs in general, maybe its my d2 speaking here but god
the amount of people who STILL whine about how handcannons need "so much more work to two tap" in pvp is
fuckin' insane

[cobalt patrol]

I do not miss.5s ttk and other insanity in D2

[meager saffron]

god do not get me started on scrub mentality in d2

[cobalt patrol]

Especially because I had to play PvP with about 300ms

Sub second ttks are horrible to play with when you're dealing with NZ ping

[ionic holly]

Trust me i am the exact same way

[cobalt patrol]

And then I would just swat folks with various FRs because that was more fun

[ionic holly]

I loathe short TTKs in pvp games in general cause it feels less about actually being good with a gun and just catching your enemy off guard

[cobalt patrol]

It's a tricky balance

[ionic holly]

Its part of why i still appreciate that bungie just said "yeah fuck it, bump up pvp health"

Now im not gonna sit here and taut d2 as some beacon of balance, but there is atleast a willingness to just
change fundamentals

Back to helldivers balance though, i really hope we dont just see a "everything is buffed!" patch because i betcha 10 to 1 thats gonna be followed up with a flood of "games too easy" posts

[meager saffron]

that and the fact that the game has settable difficulty levels

debatably it has too many difficulty levels

[cobalt patrol]

We're in full sociopathic hunt down what a developer has done previously and get our selves in a tizzy over it insanity now over balance

[ionic holly]

What?

[glacial light]

Bless developers who don't increase HP/damage of enemies with difficulty

[ionic holly]

Also correct

[glacial light]

Such a pet peeve of mines

[cobalt patrol]

That's what people are literally doing

[ionic holly]

Sorry just
trying to figure out what penguin meant, my brain might be fuzzi-
OH

oh for fucks.

god yeah no, this
this shit is giving me severe d2 flashbacks

twilight garrison moment

[meager saffron]

I am very relieved that breakpoints are constant across difficulty levels

[cobalt patrol]

So I absolutely think that's room for that approach. But it has to be used sparingly, and you have to understand where and why.

A lot of developers just use it as a crutch

[meager saffron]

there's a certain flavor to 'everything is very tanky' but it can often be pretty dull

[cobalt patrol]

Like to go back to D2 - at high diff it turns into a bad cover shooter because everything does so much damage

[ionic holly]

As fucked as it sounds, do you know the best thing d2 did for difficulty? and this is as someone who HATED them back in the day

the current state of champions is genuinely the best thing d2 has done for difficulty.

[cobalt patrol]

An example where it works would be Slay the Spire, where the damage has been carefully tuned, and it forces more interesting decision points on your turns

[ionic holly]

our subclasses actually interact with them, so we dont pidgeon holed into guns as hard

[meager saffron]

yeah that was cool

and then >tormentors

anyway

this is helldivers

[meager saffron]

i would dispute this as someone who has multiple leaderboard GM speedruns

it is often still not actually fun or well-designed at high levels either though :p

[stone bridge]

I didn't play D2 for long at all but I honestly found the shooting mid at best

(this is part of why I didn't play for very long, aside from the NPE being horrible)

[meager saffron]

new penis experience

[hot meadow]

I’ll be the gently dissenting voice RE D2 and say whatever they did with the way primaries feel in light fall actually drove me completely out of the game

[stone bridge]

lomao

[hot meadow]

It’s kinda ineffable. It’s like something broke in what made D2 gunplay feel good

[ionic holly]

I couldnt disagree more myself but, not the point

Still, just worried about where helldivers balancing is gonna go

im loathing the "game too easy" posts

[meager saffron]

my advice as always

is to just not engage with the reddit or any other social media communities

you can just pretend these people do not exist and it will literally only improve your life

imo

you gain nothing from being aware that there are a lot of people who are wrong about things

[cobalt patrol]

Perhaps a better way to phrase is it created the imrpesison this is how you were supposed to play (as a bad cover shooter) even if that wsnt true

[meager saffron]

oh for sure

[cobalt patrol]

either way, it's high lethality etc was not fun

Re: not engaging with social media -= i get that, but if you dont have postive voices singing out, iit can let the echo chamber fester in bad ways

It's all complciated and blargh

in conclusion

play Slay the Spire for 6k hours

[meager saffron]

true!

[cobalt patrol]

and you too will be a better person

[meager saffron]

👍

[ionic holly]

I dont like games like slay the spire though

[cobalt patrol]

Well

thisi s why you're not a better person @ionic holly . obviously

[ionic holly]

Jokes on you i dont care about being a better person, i just care about being me

[honest acorn]

While you're not wrong I don't think its randoms like us' job to maintain those spaces

[ionic holly]

Also theres a difference between echo chamber and "i dont want to have a literal spreadsheet thrown at me because people hyperfixate on a meta to an unhealthy degree"

[cobalt patrol]

You're right, mods polay a big job

[ionic holly]

Like, I was talking with someone and they mentioned want shrapnel (more accurately, splash) on the EAT and i kinda just
didnt
get it? like, thats not its purpose though

[honest acorn]

I've definitely felt the need to do that in some places as well but its pretty exhausting

[ionic holly]

I tried to suggest the cluster if they wanted a rocket with more ad clearing power, they didnt take to that cause of the backpack (they like the jump pack, so fair) then i suggested the grenade launcher and they kinda just ehhhh'd it and repeated themself like i was stupid

Stuff like that kinda makes me realize some folk just
dont wanna try out different weapons and just want theirs to do everything

[honest acorn]

It sounds to me like they didn't really want like advice they just wanted what they like to be better yeah

[hearty sleet]

I guess the grenade pistol might fit that specific combo depending on their main weapon

[honest acorn]

Getting a good grade in weapon liking

[ionic holly]

See they mentioned they already run the GP so i was even more confused

like-
between the eruptor (pre bug) and GP, you have
far more ad clear than most people even need

your EAT doesnt also need to do ad clear

[honest acorn]

lmao yeah with GP+Eruptor what more do you want?

Pockets full of cluster bombs?

[glacial light]

A lot of players are bad at balance cause they just want their own setup to be the best

[ionic holly]

funniest part is they even run CBs

so legit, what the fuck do they want? it just sounds like they wanted the EAT to be stronger than it already is

[unkempt river]

<@&1206091872716595200> there's land to retake. Meridia and her cancerous children must be driven back. For SUPER EARTH!!!

[honest acorn]

The_Scavenger_Hater has logged on

[unkempt river]

... is that me? or....?

[glacial light]

I do want the EATs to be stronger and I am very biased, just let me carry both the EATs at the same time

[ionic holly]

See you acknowledge that bias though
(you're also mostly joking about wanting it stronger)

[honest acorn]

No sorry we were talking about a person running GP+Eruptor+cluster strike and not having enough

[unkempt river]

You do this and I think they become strictly better than recoilless, unfortunately :/

[ionic holly]

Yeah, like
launcher balance is in a very nice place currently

when the spear gets its lock fixed tomorrow

[graceful bluff]

https://fixupx.com/Pilestedt/status/1788307330607550499

[honest acorn]

we need this for the RR clearly

[graceful bluff]

What kinda nonsense is this

[glacial light]

Just buff the RR then the rest of the weapons /s

[graceful bluff]

The hell would it matter if you delay it or not

[ionic holly]

I think its mostly just an optics thing to him, sorta like "hey maybe we shouldnt be asking for money this soon after the PSN shit"

[glacial light]

What are the poll results

[honest acorn]

last I checked release it on schedule was winning by a wide margin

[ionic holly]

Majority in release tomorrow

[unkempt river]

74% for tomorrow, 26% for later

[honest acorn]

I can't help but think there's some kind of weird part of the fanbase that's for

[glacial light]

Fair, i'd only care to delay it if it mean more refining cause i'm not really interested in what it has to offer

[ionic holly]

I mean, again, optics wise i do get it
but its admittedly an unreasonable fear, most folk just
dont really hold the PSN stuff against arrowhead

[glacial light]

I wouldn't want to delay it for no reason

[graceful bluff]

and like, if they wanted to really give the boot to sony they'd have made it free

[honest acorn]

Looking at all the people complaining about weapons in the replies kinda confirms this for me

[ionic holly]

Eugh
and then you have these types

[cobalt patrol]

Yeah, how dare baskinator be a woman

Gods folk are psycopaths.

[glacial light]

Last patch was like 75% weapon buffs for weapons that weren't "meta"

[honest acorn]

Yeah I think AHS could stand to talk to people less lol

[glacial light]

People have such tunnel vision

[ionic holly]

yeah but they nerfed the omniweapons again!!1!!!

[glacial light]

Every last few patches has involved buffing unpopular weapons

[honest acorn]

Were there any nerfs last patch?

[ionic holly]

Yes

Lemme go grab it

[glacial light]

Until the sickle has 11 armor penetration and 1 shots bile titans it's garbage and the game is literally unplayble!

[ionic holly]

LAS-99 Quasar Cannon
Increased recharge time by 5 seconds

This was the only solo nerf

[unreal merlin]

commenting again how remarkably functional everything seems to be, there's very few weapons I think aren't worth it at all and it's mostly just a matter of being sensible in what stratagems and other things you pick to create a well-rounded loadout

that and uh

skill issues

[meager saffron]

yeah basically

[unreal merlin]

turns out if you're genuinely just bad at the game you don't do well

[cobalt patrol]

This is the one thing that really twists my head, like people get so offended about skill

and it's

this is a hard game!

it has 9 diffuclty levels for a reason!

[ionic holly]

Yeah, thats
kinda the point, you arent meant to cake walk shit

[cobalt patrol]

I'm a good player and i still dont tango with helldive most of the time because that's harder than i want my expereince

actually, scratch that, i am a very good player

[unreal merlin]

I don't think it's hard to meet some minimum bar of competency really, but every time I play with randoms I get shown otherwise

[glacial light]

Also a lot of people like, are gullible and misinformation spreads so quickly and people will get angry about something they haven't even tried

[cobalt patrol]

I need to stop talking down on myself with this shit

[unreal merlin]

and my bar of competency is like

• basic situational awareness
• not killing your allies

[unkempt river]

25 damage from the Dominator
Slightly Increased Redeemer Kick
Scyhte/Sickle Mag Count
Quasar Nerf ( )

[trail nymph]

Welcome to the internet

[ionic holly]

I dont think im a good player but ive been dragged in helldive enough to have to muscle through it enough that i have to beggrudingly accept that yeah im decent

[honest acorn]

Oh yeah and the xbow nerfs

[unreal merlin]

my baby crossbow...

[honest acorn]

That's the only one which makes me sad

Admittedly, the old Xbow was probably OP as fuck haha

People were just sleeping on it

[unreal merlin]

I think it'll be okay once it gets its armor pen fixed but I am gonna miss my "kill 8 scavengers with one bolt" gun

[glacial light]

Technically no, there were no weapon changes last patch 🤓
https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cn02h0/patch_01000303/

[unkempt river]

Xbow was actually buffs? Overall? idk

[glacial light]

Surprise patch!

[honest acorn]

🤓 indeed haha

[ionic holly]

https://tenor.com/view/jamiroquai-akuma-street-fighter-gif-9072199558938878662

[honest acorn]

It feels way worse to me now

[ionic holly]

It got retooled into something else and it doesnt feel as good

nor does it really do that new job well

[unreal merlin]

it may read like buffs but it is a kind of nerf, as it changes the use-case of it. also it is supposed to have medium armor penetration but it's bugged and has none

[honest acorn]

I think even with medium pen its still kind of just a worse dominator

[unreal merlin]

like if 420 damage w/ medium pen worked right I expect it would absolutely dunk on medium size enemies like devastators, but instead it takes 3-5 bolts

[honest acorn]

Hard to say for sure since armor is complicated

[unkempt river]

Just hit the head (/j)

[unreal merlin]

I just miss being able to run around stealth mode withit

[ionic holly]

Yeah, crossbow is the only thing i felt like they went the wrong way with

[unreal merlin]

but its blast radius is way too narrow for clearing and its damage is insufficient for anything besides inefficient killing of smaller enemies

last I tried it, it was like 2 bolts just to kill a warrior most of the time and that just doesn't cut it

[glacial light]

Crossbow they like completely changed it's original niche so understandable they messed up with such a drastic change

[ionic holly]

Mhm

honestly i dont even know quite how to fix it
i guess just pick one thing for it to focus on rather than trying to do both splash and medium killing?

[honest acorn]

yeah I think one or the other would be good

I liked the original maximum splash version

[glacial light]

Yea even though it was a crossbow it felt like a primary grenade launcher on release

[honest acorn]

but it cleared patrols a little too well

[glacial light]

LIke if you want an explosive that deals with medium enemies, the Eruptor is literally in the same warbond

[ionic holly]

So maybe shift to focus on splash but keep it a tinge lesser than the original?

[ionic holly]

I do still find it weird that the eruptor and crossbow dropped in the same warbond
they seem so... similair frankly, well on releast atleast

[honest acorn]

that's my feeling

keep the higher speed though imo

[unreal merlin]

Honestly I don't want an explosive that deals with medium enemies. I want to be able to make quick and precise chaff clear, like what the original crossbow and plasma punisher do.

[honest acorn]

with a smaller splash

[ionic holly]

plasma punisher my beloved

[unreal merlin]

the increased projectile speed is great

[ionic holly]

i havent gotten to use pun pun in a hot minute

[unreal merlin]

but I just got great satisfaction from killing 5x raiders and oh look now the only thing for us to fight is two lone devastators

three bolts? killed all the hunters for you, team

that combined with infiltrator armor to go raiding solo and ambushing patrols with its silent properties

[honest acorn]

Yeah that ruled

I really liked playing a solo side objective doer with it

[glacial light]

I tried plasma punisher recently and I noticed strider pilot's increased explosive resistation made the plasma take like 5 shots dead on at worst.

[supple aurora]

"arrowhead keeps on nerfing warbonds" mf's when you show them the; dominator, scorcher, grenade pistol, spear, sherrif, ext

[unreal merlin]

What about shooting the ground just behind their feet? That was always my tactic with plasma punisher or crossbow.

[glacial light]

I've never tried that

I am not clever

[unreal merlin]

Simply go around the armor.

[trail nymph]

Anyone up for some diving?

[unkempt river]

Probably in around 30 minutes? I have to cook food once the wife is home, then yeah

[strange vine]

tbh the eruptor now just has way too many downsides for the small amount of upsides it has

like yeah it definitely was a bit too "anti-chaff and anti-medium at the same time"

but as it is it's just, kinda bad

it needs more of a damage buff

or AP buff

[meager saffron]

it's bugged

lol

[strange vine]

is it really bugged given what the developer who balanced it said?

anyway, imo they should double down on it being autocannon-lite and give its bullet AP 4 like the autocannon's bullet

[stone bridge]

yes?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/a9u0bxT7OL

[strange vine]

now it does full damage to devastators and can pen hulk eyes, but its handling and bullet speed is still shit

[strange vine]

from a developer

also like, "shots to kill didnt increase" is a blatant lie

[stone bridge]

Was that before or after the CM post?

[strange vine]

i saw this shared around after the CM post was first shared

"removed an exploit that let players do more damage than intended" like shooting the enemy????

like, for the most part im fine with the balancing outside of less than a handful of specific ones

[tall stone]

Oh boy the same conversation points I get to see

[strange vine]

i again think they should double down on the eruptor being dedicated anti-medium/potential anti-heavy by giving its bullet AP 4

by giving it AP 4 it makes it unique among the primaries for being the only one with AP 4, allowing it to fully penetrate devastator bodies and deal damage to hulk heads, and fully makes it autocannon-lite

[honest acorn]

I don’t think there should be a pen 4 primary

[strange vine]

and you dont need to change anything else about the damage or handling, because the damage will be fine enough with the higher AP value and the handling is still absolute shit

i think they should at least test it out

[ionic holly]

Yeah i share this sentiment too

Also oh no the spreadsheet.

[strange vine]

lol

this is the spreadsheet i got that from btw https://invadersfromplanet.space/helldivers-2/

[strange vine]

the breaker incendiary actually has AP 4 lol

[honest acorn]

So the spreadsheet says

[strange vine]

specifically i believe for applying the fire DoT?

and this data iirc is datamined

[ionic holly]

That doesn't really seem like the same type of ap4 as the one you want for the eruptor.

[unkempt river]

Pretty sure every dot-applying weapon/support/etc has pen4+ for application effects only

[tall stone]

Most weapon data has to be datamined

[honest acorn]

Which sounds a lot like "it doesn't" to me

[strange vine]

well it does, technically

:P

[ionic holly]

technically doesn't warrant it for a bullet itself.

[stone bridge]

splitting hairs like that isn't useful

[tall stone]

It's what allows me to set Hive Guards on fire

[strange vine]

if it wasnt clear ive been joking about that part

[ionic holly]

also yeah if you look at the flamethrower it has a secondary AP of 4 aswell

Then why bring it up in a genuine discussion?

[unreal merlin]

you have failed to convey a jesting tone, diver

report to your hellpod for another suicide mission

[strange vine]

because i thought it was a funny technicality? i didnt think we were in some fucking dissertation examination

a primary having AP 4 may be too much but its worth testing to see how it actually feels

maybe dumpster the ammo even more if having its current ammo count is too much

[ionic holly]

Or just
don't give it AP4

i fail to see the problem with heavy pen being locked to support weapons

[strange vine]

its not heavy pen

its still "medium" pen

[honest acorn]

I don't think there should be a primary which can punch through the faceplate of a hulk

I think that capability should be support weapon only

[strange vine]

i think they should at least have something so people who bring horde clear weapons can have an answer for heavies outside of stratagems

and the eruptor handles so shittily already

its like 2-3 seconds between every shot, and the bullet is relatively slow with a maximum range

[unreal merlin]

You can already handle heavies using non-stratagems though, either through tactics (shooting hulks in the back) or well placed grenades (tanks). Chargers you matador and mag dump the abdomen.

[strange vine]

i already find it challenging to hit a hulk head with AC or AMR and sometimes the railgun

[ionic holly]

not to mention the grenade pistol, ammo eco may suck but fuck me can it dumpster heavies if you expose the squish bits

i've popped a BT's side open and killed it with 2 before

[strange vine]

grenade pistol is basically a pistol firing impacts

[unkempt river]

This is a non-issue if you run the Best Backpack in the Game™️

agh

sorry, forgot to turn off ping

[ionic holly]

you... did turn it off though?

[unreal merlin]

I normally keep grenade pistol exclusively for bug hole popping, the ammo economy is so bad I don't like using it unless I need to.

[strange vine]

you did turn it off

[ionic holly]

Like i appreciate the thought but you didn't mess up homie

[unkempt river]

oh, nvm, I'm just typing faster than thinking today (and also playing FTL on the side)

[ionic holly]

i just realized i'm fine with the GP's pickup just because it's the same rates as the spear

[honest acorn]

GP weirds me out mostly just because the blast is smaller than I expect

Notational damage is very high but it seels like it fails to kill things impacts don't

[tall stone]

Also, time for Veld and its Ion Storms

[ionic holly]

I expected the small blast myself so i just use it as a good ol point and shoot

[strange vine]

cause a lot of its damage is from the impact of the grenade too

[honest acorn]

It's more when it doesn't kill nursing spewers

Which I think is the GP's poor durable damage

[strange vine]

250 impact + 350 explosive

oh yeah

anyway even with the potential to kill hulk heads imo an AP 4 eruptor wouldnt break anything? like, all it means is you can maybe handle a hulk from the front instead of having to ring around the rosie

[ionic holly]

Ah. back to this.

i don't know how many times i can repeat myself without getting frustrated so it's likely better if i dip for a bit.

[strange vine]

k

regardless, eruptor as it stands needs something as its just kinda bad to use now

ive been trying it again vs bugs and bots and its just, bad now

bugged or not

[honest acorn]

I don't have anything else to say on the subject

[strange vine]

it takes too long to kill the things that other medium weapons can do easily

[cobalt patrol]

I might be around at some point, but i am heading out for a walk shortly

[strange vine]

at the very least before the shrapnel removal it could kill things like devastators in 1 hit

[meager saffron]

the walkerrrrrr

[strange vine]

without hitting the head

which genuinely no other weapon could do

[strange vine]

rude

[honest acorn]

I think if you're gonna bow it you should bow out

[ionic holly]

Fair point, apologies

[honest acorn]

I haven't had a chance to play much since the patch because of classes but the eruptor hasn't felt all that bad to me

I've only played bots

[strange vine]

it takes 2 shots to kill a hive guard now and 3 shots to kill a brood commander

[honest acorn]

The weird "occasionally kills something at 40 paces" shrapnel wasn't that important to it imo but the damage feels sort of mushy

[strange vine]

given the absolutely horrible ROF and low mag size

thats just painful

[honest acorn]

Albeit it was really weird previously with the charger under-detonation

[strange vine]

i never used it for that

like my loadout with bugs was eruptor + stalwart

stalwart as "primary" with eruptor for hive guards, spewers, brood commanders

but now it basically doubled its TTK for all those targets

which is just...bad

should note this is shooting their heads

not things like shooting the underside for the shrapnel to rip the legs off

[trail nymph]

<@&1206091872716595200> 2 more for the cause

[reef raven]

Out of curiosity anyone else having issues with frequent crashes?

[unkempt river]

?? you good, Adam?

[reef raven]

I just restarted playing this after a week or so off and I feel it's constantly crashing to desktop X_X (and I was really looking forward to now that the PSN requirement was reversed)

[cobalt patrol]

Oh noo, that sucks

[honest acorn]

<@&1206091872716595200> wanna diev?

[cobalt patrol]

I am considering

but like

also, Hades 2

[oblique hazel]

wait I'm sorry hades 2 is out?

how did I miss that

[oblique storm]

early access

[oblique hazel]

ohh that makes more sense

[wind arrow]

@winged hearth slot open

[winged hearth]

okay

coming

[strange vine]

hulk bruiser and hulk annihilator!

[tall stone]

Excellent Hulks.

[unkempt river]

Do (and this is VERY important) NOT clone me.

[royal lantern]

Wait a second theres two tiers of gun hulks?

I never even noticed

[cobalt patrol]

Therre's one that only spawns on defend civvy missions

same as Charger Behemoths

(Techincally it can spawn as an assassination target too)

[unreal merlin]

Never noticed because their fragile war machines don't last more than ten seconds against the might of the Helldivers.

[shy prairie]

speaking of my baby, the blitzer, do warbond updates bring balance changes? i forget

(also Niles i'm very sorry if I had ping on)

[strange vine]

Depends if the patch that adds them has any balance changes

Cant really determine

[strange vine]

Hulk Bruiser has an MG arm and a rocket arm, Hulk Annihilator has 2 rocket arms

[royal lantern]

Oh huh, I guess I never noticed that some are only chucking rockets vs shooting a gun and shooting rockets. I guess big bot firefights gets chaotic enough that it doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things

[cobalt patrol]

There shouldn't be a major patch and balance pass until the start of june

Their cadence is a big patch every month at teh start of the month, which includes the warbond

And then the warbond goes live on the second thursday of each month

[stone bridge]

Warbond is in about an hour, right?

[blissful sparrow]

11:00 CE(s)T usually yeah

currently its 10

[stone bridge]

I will very likely be requesting people to Send Dudes once it drops

[cobalt patrol]

You have my <insertvariousgunshere>

[modest fiber]

yea i just got enough money to buy it, so my wallet is ready

[cobalt patrol]

<@&1206091872716595200> Warbond is live

[hexed steeple]

wwowza

[modest fiber]

noice

[stone bridge]

<@&1206091872716595200> gonna form up in 5

[meager saffron]

pog

[cobalt patrol]

@stone bridge Cool, you can join on uis then

[stone bridge]

oh I promised Ashley I would play with it too

[hexed steeple]

ashley

[stone bridge]

ashley

[cobalt patrol]

VERY WELL

I'll join with you folks then 😛

[hexed steeple]

[cobalt patrol]

Betray cheese and Thresh.

[stone bridge]

we done it

[meager saffron]

#7390-7395 @oblique hazel @modest fiber

[alpine seal]

huh

the new superstore rotation - is this the first engineering kit heavy armor?

[alpine seal]

it is indeed

pretty neat!

[unkempt river]

You mind posting a pic? I'm stuck at work for like 3.5 more hours :(

[idle hollow]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/792632642662432768/1238055411844780105/image.png?ex=663de474&is=663c92f4&hm=2bc126fc6faed7d748c8f9250eab773c49daba7ec52ab376a04a3df8cd261f1e&

[cobalt patrol]

Sure

[modest fiber]

damng i wanna buy it.. but at the same time i want the new warbond too

[alpine seal]

these will be here for the next 3 days, the warbond will always be there

but they'll be back inawhile and you might be full on medals at this point

[modest fiber]

hmm.. tempting

[stark ether]

yeah they have been very clear about not having things leave permanently

they may rotate things out for a bit (shop wise not warbonds) eventually but it will always come back

[quartz cloak]

Bahh, 500SC right as the warbond drops and I can only afford the 375 package

Any recommendations on how to farm those?

[unkempt river]

Play level 1-3 missions. Consider pinging the players here or in the Helldivers discord and SPECIFICALLY mention you're doing SC farming. A typical L1 mission takes sub-20 minutes to clear all the POIs (less with more players) and usually nets 10-30 sc per run.

[unreal merlin]

If you're exceptionally lucky you might pick up a +100 SC spawn

[unkempt river]

Assuming a 15 minutes per game (including turn around) and a 20 SC average, you could snag those 200 SC in like, 2.5 hours of playing. Maybe more, maybe less.

If you're on tomorrow, I'll be on as well and would be up for helping you farm, just poke me

[naive dragon]

Anybody compared the new SMG to the old one in game yet? The numbers aren't looking amazing.

[cobalt patrol]

The new one is more about it's crowd contorl potential, it stunlocks stuff

also it strobes your eyes really badly

[burnt vapor]

Yeah the new SMG is like the liberator Concussive iirc

[naive dragon]

Strobes?

[unreal merlin]

Probably giant muzzle flash

[naive dragon]

Ah

I was hoping when they said it was slower but harder hitting that they meant it would have more damage or armor pen or something

But I guess if it can stun that's good

I need to save up to try it out

[cobalt patrol]

Not muzzle flash - impact flash when it hits. Like a tiny little flash bang going off constnatly when you hit things

It does hose stuff like Stalkers quite effectively

@stone bridge at one point started stun locking one and i just started wailing on it with my melee, it was v. funny

Honestly, outside of the strobe, it felt good to use - like not the most killy

but it'll hose down your targets tpretty effectivey and stagger stuff back

[orchid pulsar]

hmm nice

[strange vine]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/279613729803599883/1238082676796162048/this-has-to-be-an-old-version-this-cant-be-real-v0-nfttrvh99dzc1.png?ex=663dfdd8&is=663cac58&hm=4ef492a76b50be455743878a274f761bae5172550428e2d8a9190f064df9c1d7&

[cobalt patrol]

Tenderizer just seems like a bad liberator right now though

[naive dragon]

I've been doing MO instead of my preferred side of the conflict and I miss smg shield shenanigans

[cobalt patrol]

Like i know i'm inclined to defend the dev team in genral, but this genuinelyleft me going "huh?"

[strange vine]

"more stopping power"
"has the same damage as liberator"

I was at least expecting idk damage equal to adjudicator

But light armor pen

Better handling than adjudicator at the cost of not having medium pen

[cobalt patrol]

Yes, i'm genuinely confused at the tenderizer. the kindest thing i can come up with is like... maybe it missed an update somehow?

[strange vine]

Not "literally the liberator but worse stats except for recoil"

[cobalt patrol]

it doesnt even get full refills fromthe ammo supply

[naive dragon]

The only good thing I've heard about it is that it looks cool

[quick crown]

There a good list out of game to look over the new warbond?

[cobalt patrol]

I'm twenty somethign medals away from the new plasma gun

hoping that lives up to things

impact incins seem nice too

[strange vine]

Apparently it cant even kill a scout strider from the front as advertised in the trailer

[naive dragon]

One step closer to all burn loadout

Just need a flare gun

[strange vine]

Flare gun would be cute

Purifier
Damage: 250
Capacity: 15
Recoil: 20
Fire rate: 250

[cobalt patrol]

Hmm. A flare gun could be interesting? Like if it was high impact damage, no pen, but also ingited...

yeah, i wouldn't hate that at all, honestly

I used to love the Pyro's flaregun back in tf2

Got infamous with some friends because they'd close to melee range and suddenly get FLARE GUNNED at point blank

which t ended to leave htem going "But, huh, why, that's...what'

(also they were dead)

[strange vine]

Flare gun literally fire version of grenade pistol

[cobalt patrol]

tbh, i think if a flaregun could close bug holes, that'd probably be bad

[strange vine]

Or maybe even grenade pistol but it shoots thermites lol

[cobalt patrol]

Okay, Thermite launcher sounds hilarious

I do hope they do somehing for the Thermite grenades

feels like "One shots a hulk/charger with good aim" is a fiar place for them to be

right now they two shot and it's like okay, cool, you can do this faster with impacts?

[naive dragon]

Firebat gaming

[royal lantern]

I'm genuinely kind of baffled by how they've been balancing the new stuff in the warbonds

Like in general the balancing team seems conservative with power to the point where they almost want you not to use anything

[strange vine]

Like seriously

Ive been really souring on their balancing decisions

Like all ive been hearing is the fire grenade being the only good thing in there

Havent heard much about the pistol

[tall stone]

So, starting things off weaker is generally a good balancing decision. You can make things more powerful and people will not complain. If you nerf something even a little bit, people loose their god-damn minds.

[stone bridge]

That's a pretty severe exaggeration

[strange vine]

Concussive smg is alright from reports

[stone bridge]

Imo

[royal lantern]

Well this is definitely true, and in general something I agree with, but it also feels like they're just working from a much lower baseline than seems to make sense to me

[stone bridge]

They just rebuffed the Railgun, they buffed RR/EATs to kill chargers in one headshot, they tuned up the AMR, fire and gas are in incredibly good spots

[strange vine]

This is true, but theres "a bit weaker" and "this is literally the liberator but worse in every way except recoil and handling"

And doesnt even match up with the weapon description

Im fine with the railgun now but imo it still needs an extra something somewhere

[stone bridge]

Like, please don't fall into the rabbit hole of listening to people on the subreddit or official Discord and look at this with a little more distance

[royal lantern]

Oh no I think the stratagem weapons are really solid right now, it's the primaries and grenades that feel kind of wonky.

[naive dragon]

Railgun my beloved

[strange vine]

The stratagem weapons are fairly good yeah

[tall stone]

Grenades aren't wonky. There is Thermite and Smoke that are in ??? positions.

And Thermite grenade is probably the only fire thing that's just meh.

[naive dragon]

Thermite was very nice for clearing bot towers iirc

[strange vine]

But a few primaries, including almost everything from the new warbond, are baffling in how theyre balanced

[naive dragon]

Because I think I'd just lob one on it and run

[strange vine]

Thermite needs 2 to kill a tower doesnt it?

[naive dragon]

I thought I only needed one but my memory could be shit

I did go back to impact either way

[stone bridge]

Most of the primaries are fine - I think they missed the mark on the Eruptor but they'll fine tune that and the new Warbond stuff

[tall stone]

If anything, Impact and Stuns are a bit on the strong side.

[strange vine]

Idk while i dont expect balance to be spot on on first release it kinda sours the novelty of a new warbond if the weapons underperform

Sure you can do a balance pass

But that takes time

What really gets me is the disconnect between the tenderizer's stats and description

[stone bridge]

I don't really know what else to say besides that they can't get it right every time, and that I think Arrowhead deserves a lot more slack than the community has given them in regards to balancing decisions

[tall stone]

Especially given how your average person knows squat about balancing.

[strange vine]

I mean in general i agree, but theres something fucky with how theyre trying to balance primaries that just, produces a lot of underwhelming stuff it feels

[royal lantern]

All I really know is that I want them to buff the regular laser cannon even more because I can't help but always use it

[strange vine]

Laser cannon is fiiiiine

[blissful sparrow]

it is always a bit weird how people act like its a personal slight by the devs specifically targeted at them in particular if they reduce a number by 9 instead of 8

[strange vine]

Yeah some people get way too invested in the numbers of a fictional gun

[junior badge]

I strongly suspect that the tenderizer fell victim to the recent buffs for the liberators, in the sense that it's balanced vs pre-buff liberators.

[strange vine]

Yeah thats what ive been thinking

[junior badge]

It didn't get updated at the same time because it wasn't out yet, but really needs it.

[strange vine]

Sucks they didnt catch it

[junior badge]

And will get it in the next round of patches, I bet.

[tall stone]

Also there may have been a rather big event that kinda disrupted the development cycle for this warbond.

Something, I dunno, utterly community shaping.

[junior badge]

Might not have been able to, I think. Some of the big patches get frozen ahead of time to push them out to the consoles, iirc.

So the pre-buff state is ready and gets pushed out, even though they know that some numbers are now off.

Again, I bet they'll change that right quick.

[strange vine]

Idk how AH is set up but regular devs shouldnt have been pulled into discussions with the whole sony thing, that feels like something upper management would be handling?

[tall stone]

The devs have consistently shown they're willing to fix things.

AH is a small company.

[royal lantern]

Yeah and with the CEO saying he's not satisfied with balancing either, I can't imagine we won't see some fairly big changes in the next patch or the one after that

[strange vine]

Looking at the pistols stats it looks like, compared to the senator, it trades the medium armor pen for better magazine

I think thats a fairly good niche

Imo the tenderizer should get slightly worse handling than the liberator but get the same ballpark of damage as the adjudicator

High damage dealing light armor pen AR

[blissful sparrow]

considering its called the tenderizer it might have quite high durable damage to blow off chunks of enemies?

[strange vine]

Will have to see

[tall stone]

Also, to be on my own thing here for a bit, how's the actually important part of the Warbond: The booster?

[tight zephyr]

My friend got me this game last night and I was having fun until I got my hands on a flamethrower.

Then I had some kind of religious experience.

[tiny owl]

Flamethrower/Jump Pack is such a fun build

Zipping around like a pyromaniac flea will never not be fun

[strange vine]

Concussive needs more love

[tall stone]

Flamethrower good.

[tight zephyr]

It was a pleasure to burn. To see things eaten, to see things blacken and change. I saw the bugs’ mounds jump up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. I strode in a swarm of fireflies. While the bugs went up in sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning.

So yeah I think I have a favorite weapon.

The default assault rifle was a lot of fun, too. I always like seeing a default gun that's actually punchy and enjoyable.

[strange vine]

God i fucking wish they did not obfuscate all the weapon stats

It does not encourage people to test things out

It encourages the people who hardcore care about weapon performance to data mine that shit

And only hurts casual players who can only go off of the in game stats

[tall stone]

The testing is too unreliable.

[tight zephyr]

Is there a shotgun and is it good?

[tall stone]

Several, and yes.

[strange vine]

Like fucking darktide's weapon stat screen is leagues ahead of hd2's its not even funny

[tight zephyr]

fucking sick this game rules

[strange vine]

All the shotties are great

To good

There isnt really a stinker among them imo

[tall stone]

Doesn't Darktide basically not update?

[tight zephyr]

I want a shotgun that reduces whatever I point it at to a puree, so I'm happy to hear that.

[strange vine]

Darktides been putting out consistent weapon/talent tweak updates when theyre not on sabbatical for holidays

And honestly it feels like they have a super solid idea of how to balance the game

Most everything is viable now

Coming down to preference on weapon play style or how you pair it with the many talent tree options

Out of the hundreds of weapon tweaks there's not been more than a handful that ive gone ???? on

And like darktide has even more weapons that are kinda samey than hd2

Given a ton of weapon types have 3 variants to each

But theyre still differentiable enough

And still roughly the same power level

It still comes down to personal preference

[tight zephyr]

I'm an incredibly easy to please player. I tend not to look at stats and I like when I point a gun at something and it dies.

[strange vine]

Seeing more people say the smg is p good

[strange vine]

People saying slow down goop and hunters arent a problem with it

[tall stone]

This warbond is 100% worth it then.

Fuck Hunters.

[strange vine]

This is funny lmao

Fuck forgotten weapons though

[pastel igloo]

Was gonna say

[strange vine]

Shame the dude is a shit

[sinful bay]

Pummeler w/ shield 👀

[sinful bay]

o-oh
What happened? 😦

[strange vine]

He associates with far right fuckheads including a white apartheid dude iirc

[azure pewter]

One of my friends met him at a competition and said he had a pretty rancid vibe

[sinful bay]

https://tenor.com/view/1-sad-gif-13736063974553656612

It keeps happening

[strange vine]

yeah its a shame :/

[sinful bay]

Reminds me how recently I dizcovered Chadverse(a sword/medieval historian youtuber) was shown to be very... far right and had horrible opinions
But as an counterpoint i discovered an amazing LGBT fencing youtuber

[tiny owl]

Sadly a lot of the youtube HEMA scene had some pretty horrendous eggs. Anything related to firearms I've basically given up on

[orchid pulsar]

<@&1206091872716595200> i wanna get some medals for the new warbond whos down

[orchid pulsar]

im assuming itl just be 7s

[cobalt patrol]

Crashing in bed, sorry

[orchid pulsar]

yeah no problem

[hot meadow]

So tenderizer might be bugged

Salty title not mine, picture relevant

https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cnspm2/this_has_to_be_an_old_version_this_cant_be_real/

[modest fiber]

it looks quite neat tho

[quick plinth]

more like tenderizer stats were fine before the lib buff

[sinful bay]

Join the GunGore telegram chat, is very pro LGBT

[strange vine]

the only thing thats "bugged" is it having an older version of the textures

[hot meadow]

I think it looks cool and I’m sure I’ll use it once it isn’t a worse liberator.

[strange vine]

well its more accurate and has less recoil i guess

[hot meadow]

I mean it’s literally just a worse liberator

I’m sure that’s not intended

[sinful bay]

That reminds me,
Bike update when

[hot meadow]

Also can someone remind me - do all primaries get full ammo back on using a resupply box?

[quick plinth]

why does that bike have what looks like a 23-1(if not a KPV) mounted on it?

[modest fiber]

i mean there was a bike made by french that had an anti armour weapon mounted on it, quite funny

[pure wave]

Impractical
But funny

[alpine seal]

almost all of them, with some weird standouts

the plasma punisher and new tenderizer, for some

both get 50% which i assume is not intended

[hot meadow]

Ok cool, I couldn’t remember if I was confusing that with the ship upgrade that made all my support weapons fill up

Thanks!

[sinful bay]

Necessities breeds inovations

[quick plinth]

apparently a railcanon and 2 - 4 AC rounds(to the abdomen) is all it takes for a BT kill

[glacial light]

AH shipped a gun in the wrong color, this has gone too far! Literally unplayable my computer refuses to launch HD2 anymore until they fix it

[blissful sparrow]

~~meanwhile i actually can't play the game anymore cause the controls don't work 😔 ~~

[glacial light]

Random but strike throughs go through emojis?!

[hexed steeple]

the emoji got hit with the supreme divine art blood-sated sword soul

[blissful sparrow]

you can apply most formatting to emojis

[junior badge]

The magic of UNICODE

[strange vine]

trying out the tenderizer
its pretty pinpoint accurate but its an ammo hog
frequently reloading
it definitely needs more damage imo, just a small amount

[stark ether]

all praise the consortium

[dusty spruce]

I think the tendy is bugged, since I hear it still only gets half ammo from supply boxes. That may help with the ammo issues

[strange vine]

i mean even with that it still consumes its 10 mags real fast

[ionic holly]

HEAVY
ENGINEERING
KIT

[pure wave]

That FUCKS

[ionic holly]

AND WINTER WARRIOR IS PAGE ONE?

IT MUST BE MY FUCKIN BIRTHDAY

[keen zinc]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cndi5i/interesting_news/

[hazy oriole]

Anyone given the new pistol a try? That's the thing I was most excited for and I wanna know how it performs

[keen zinc]

its on page 3

i need warbonds

<@&1206091872716595200> the war effort needs you! to help me get warbonds

https://discord.gg/Fv8k8MCa

[glacial light]

I need the medals but unfortunately work is undemocratic ally necessary

[keen zinc]

ghnn

[trail nymph]

Give me like 30 minutes

[glacial light]

What are the new pistols stats compared to senator?

I remember senator has 175 damage and 6 rounds and I believe medium pen?

[glacial light]

Hmm yea I guess since senator is med pen a better comparison for the new pistol would be the base pistol?

Unless the new pistol has a secondary mechanic I don't know about it's just a pistol that shoots bullets right?

I can't wait to try out the new energy weapon it seems really cool

[hot meadow]

Footage of the new smg makes it look reaaaaaal nice.

[ionic holly]

Unless they slipped in something last second, nah its just a higher damage light pen pistol

Which i mean
its got well over 100 damage our other light pen pistol options

Likely any case where i use the senator is gonna be replaced by the verdict

[keen zinc]

its a better self defense option than the senator

but a worse pick option

[glacial light]

Oh yea 75 damage compared to 125 is big, in guessing it's supposed to full a niche between peacemaker and senator

[ionic holly]

Mhm

[glacial light]

I do not use peacemaker enough but I wonder if there's enough breakpoints where peacemaker would take 2 shots to kill something and the verdict 1 less

[south temple]

is there word on the tenderizer yet? is it shit?

[honest acorn]

Brutal way to start that assessment tbh

[keen zinc]

it is shit

[pastel igloo]

yay

Helldivers won't launch

[south temple]

https://tenor.com/view/crying-emoji-dies-gif-21956120

expected but still tragic

can’t wait to use it anyway

[pastel igloo]

ok i restarted my pc and it seems to work now

love it when technology arbitrarily does not do the one thing it's supposed to do but then does it for again no particular reason

[south temple]

real tbh

[pastel igloo]

was about to do some hymns if it didn't work

[south temple]

trying to coerce my poor computer into working makes me feel like a tech priest it’s great

sounds like a jet engine because i’ve been putting off cleaning it, explodes when i have too many tabs open (more than 2) but damn i WILL run cyberpunk and helldivers on ultra

[pastel igloo]

i should see if i can actually run it on higher settings now

when i first got the game i had to do some finagling to get it to play smoothly

just cause it was trying to commit murder on my CPU by eating it alive

[south temple]

yeah i have to take my computer apart it runs everything kinda shit rn

[south temple]

SAME

[pastel igloo]

and like my computer is pretty good

not like beefy or anything but it runs everything i can throw at it just fine

but Helldivers 2 was just a fucking CPU monster

[south temple]

yeah mine works just about as good as it needs to but recently it’s been dying

there’s prolly an insane amount of dust in there

[hot meadow]

Still convinced it is bugged, ie does not have intended stats

Looks like it is an old build of the weapon, or at least one that wasn’t updated after the lib buffs

[ionic holly]

Man i kinda love the tenderizer

little surprised since i wasnt that impressed with its intial showing

[stark ether]

has there been any news on the steam region locking?

[south temple]

what about it appeals to you?

i’ve not used it yet but i’m aching to tbh

[south temple]

wdym

[ionic holly]

Workhorse, doesnt do anything special

[south temple]

ahh ok

i just like infantrymaxxing

heavy armor, assault rifle, AT4s, supply pack, HMGS, and i have become heavy infantry

[ionic holly]

I personally love it, but ive noted most dont, adjudicator moment for me

[south temple]

adjudicator is so fun

[hot meadow]

Resupply doesn’t work correctly for the gun, the colors are off, and as far as I can tell the stats are just liberator but worse

[steady flame]

Personally I love a good RR or AC over an EAT, but I entirely respect that. I should try supply pack-(H)MG.

[hot meadow]

Obviously if folks like it I’m not saying not to like it

I’m just saying it seems bugged to my eyes

[ionic holly]

Release adjudicator

[south temple]

hmm yeah that does point to a previous build or something

[south temple]

the eat’s got that aesthetic tho

[south temple]

make it the FAL it was meant to be

[steady flame]

True, just.. Never liked disposable AT options myself, if I'm going into it, I'm going into it.

muad’dib apologist ↩️

[Reply to:](#1204832579287519292 message) the eat’s got that aesthetic tho

[ionic holly]

Also

new drip thanks to polar patriots

[south temple]

oooh

[ionic holly]

Pummeler feels fantastic by the way
could maybe use a slightly lower ROF, or just give some more love to lib con

[south temple]

oh good

[hazy oriole]

I wonder how good it'll be for ballistic shield builds...

[south temple]

prolly heat

stun is based

[hazy oriole]

In particular I'm hoping it can stagger rocket devs well, I've always struggled with them using the shield

[ionic holly]

Fucking great frankly

[runic cairn]

<@&1206091872716595200> dive?

[ionic holly]

Personal remark
while i like the tenderizer i do think it needs just
10 more damage? and the pickup to not be weird

puts it at 70, keeps it as a nice middle ground between the liberator itself and the adjudicator

[quartz cloak]

Which would be a nice middle ground between high-capacity rapid-fire, and low-capacity high-recoil

[ionic holly]

I know 10 probably doesnt make it hit any new breakpoints buts a matter of feel

[quartz cloak]

You know what's funny, this warbond would be a decent bit better before the last hotfix

[ionic holly]

(also admittedly breakpoints can be iffy to rely on in proper heat of combat, conceptual versus practical and all that)

[glacial light]

I'm thinking many of the warbond's stats were determined before the big buff patch

[strange vine]

oh my god the purifier sucks ass

just absolute shit