Helldivers 2: For Managed Democracy!

[cobalt patrol]

leggies, iirc

[oblique lotus]

legs

or crotch

both work

[unreal merlin]

Hulks deserve RR shots, don't be stingy.

[cobalt patrol]

Crotch, legs, ideally hip joints

but good luck with that

Just don't shoot the greaves on em

But Crotch/legs/joints are all fatal tagged, Legs are 1.5k hp, all durable, hips are 80% durable but only have 750 hp (A perfect shot might be able to one hit kill them?) and crotch is 1.8k also 80% durable

Railgun percfect charge is 1.5k normal damage and 562 durable.

So it's going to take 3 or 4 perfect charges to actually break the legs, or 2 to the hip joints, oof.

That's rough

[unreal merlin]

Mhm. Railgun is fun but certain things I simply would choose to use a different tool, because I don't have time to perfectly charge 2-3 shots: I need that thing dead promptly, so it gets a 500kg or something.

[cobalt patrol]

Yeah, Warstriders are probably target #1 currently for me

just too risky to leave alive

tbh, that really annoys me, they should have a proper weakpoint in the eye so you can snipe them with a good shot

it's not like nailing them is easy with a precison weapon given their fire barrage

[oblique lotus]

yeah a big part of why I go for recoilless or quasar against bots is having a fast response

[oblique lotus]

railgun 100% charge does 749.6 damage to the hip joint

and idk how helldivers rounds

oh it rounds down

so you could land 1 99% shot and then kill it with a senator

[cobalt patrol]

Oh, i mathed wrong

Good catch

Yeah, at the point you need 2 railguns to the hip joint, or just 2 to the legs + an ap4 hit of some kind,, i'd do the latter

[oblique lotus]

no you can do 1 railgun + 1 AP4 hit too

how do people feel about dust devils?

I've got 1k SC to burn

[burnt vapor]

I believe generally it’s considered pretty good

The coyote is an extremely solid rifle with good damage and capacity, medium pen and incendiary ammo

The spear gun some people swear by, I’ve heard it compared to the safe mode railgun

The napalm EAT is very funny

[cobalt patrol]

The only remotely gimmicky thing seems to be the silo, and even that is a guided super 500kg, so it's not without it's niche

Oh and pineapple has too little ammo

[burnt vapor]

I have heard that people have found the silo much more useful on bots compared to bug since it can one tap command bunkers and is very good for strider convoys

[ionic holly]

Silo is fuckin' great, i just treat it as an expendable "man fuck this factory strider" or some other large object/groupe of enemies

I'd advise just treating it as a "set it down and use it when you need it" personally, having it just sit around whil carrying the designator is Not Great

between the fact its marked as a sentry thus can draw far more aggro than a diver for no real reason (and doesnt explode on destruction) and you're basically down a support weapon slot till you use it

[weary granite]

The problem with Silo is a few things.

Demolition Force
Cooldown Time

This is the biggest gripe because of one thing.

Yes you can leave it anywhere on the map. But enemies can AND WILL target and destroy it.

[ionic holly]

I feel like considering the only things it cant pop are what? strammers and detector towers? its fine no?

i know folk wanted it to be this long range "fuck that strammer" but to my understanding arrowhead has always wanted you to engage with a strammer

[idle hollow]

yeah i am under the impression that it will body almost everything

does it kill leviathans?

[ionic holly]

Probably not

[idle hollow]

yeah probably not

[ionic holly]

but thats more fault of the leviathan than the silo

but yeah the silo is like
40 DF

[idle hollow]

oh it does fuck up leviathans

i dont think it one taps but

[ionic holly]

pops everything short of big objective things
which given how safe it can be to use as long as you dont just leave it behind and carry the designator

Dont levi's have a lotta EXDR?

cause the silo's damage is entirely explosive

Ah yeah heres the list of stuff it cant pop
yeah nah its DF is fine

[idle hollow]

It's like the wiki says, a guided 500kg

[ionic holly]

Sorta, iirc the 500 can pop research stations and detector towers

but i think with towers it has to be a direct impact, that shit is finnicky

also if you're curious why spore spewers are listed here

its because they have a health pool

while the silo might not have the demo force, it has the damage

but yeah, as someone whos brought the silo to every front, its a lot more useful than people give it credit
folk majority wise kinda got their assumptions knocked over due to the DF and wrote it off, even the timer isnt that bad

my method of using it is like said, bring it and calling it when i need it

i usually bring it along an actual support weapon since well, its not one

Sure you can just bring eagle 500s and accomplish the same thing but the amouunt of times ive had specifically the eagle 500 miss or come short or just
Not Kill something it should, has eh... soured me on it a lot

very much taking the "ill do it myself" approach

[burnt vapor]

It did great work on a bunker mission which meant we simply didn’t need to engage with 3/4 command bunkers which saved us a lot of time and blood

[cobalt patrol]

Nah, you just need to land it pretty close to detector towers. I nail them with 500kgs all the time

But at this point I've kinda burnt the timing on a dive throw to land the beacon perfectly into my muscle memory

[burnt vapor]

It really is incredible how throwing beacons at the right distance becomes an unconscious thing that can be done in the middle of a firefight

[sour falcon]

Unless the bounce fucks you

[strange vine]

Human brains literally evolved to do ballistic calculations fast and well, its in our genes

Our bodies and brain are optimized for Throwing Good

[burnt vapor]

True but it translating into a videogame where all of the biomechanics are reduced to pressing a button is still interesting

[quick plinth]

learning how to instincitvely judge range and lead in war thunder is still nuts to me

"the round im using is at around 1000 m/s and that guy is vaugely like 800m away, moving vaugely towards me and right, so right about there should be fine"

this all happens in like a split second

conversley the same thing with stratagem balls

its patterns I guess idk

[steady flame]

Alright yeah started running quasar + one of the guard dogs and war striders are way less scary

[lethal delta]

The quasar is goated

[steady flame]

Albeit this is diff 7 vs diff 9

But the one on one interactions have been better

[knotty folio]

My personal gripe with Quasar is how bad it feels to get flinched during the charge

I need to unlock Unflinching armor and try it again

[clever steeple]

i really like shooting down bot drops

[knotty folio]

Shooting tanks while midair or still attached to the dropship is my favorite since their debris doesn't fall

So you just get floating tank corpses

[steady flame]

Also started using the laser dog and frankly loving it

Uptime is amazing. Just wished it didn’t aim at their feet

[keen zinc]

Game is getting so buggy and titchy for me and my pals, anyone else having the same problems?

[steady flame]

Also yeah shooting dropships out of midair is infinitely satisfying

[keen zinc]

Random crashes, disconnects, frame drops, hangs, enemies behaving oddly, difficulty seems completely up in the air .

[normal juniper]

This plus audio bugs and you've got my experience atm

[steady flame]

Right. Utterly evil secondaries on this mission. Two strat jammers right next to each other so you have to take out both at the same time

Also didn’t help we got abandoned by the rest of our team

Aaand they team killed us at extract

Bunch of assholes

[rotund marten]

the good old hellbomb check

[cobalt patrol]

Def do a verify etc

[dusty spruce]

If you’re doing Bots, yeah. Bots occasionally have cursed operations for me where the audio and game will stutter, and occasionally will hard crash or d/c

doesn’t happen every day or every op, but it is only with automatons

[oblique lotus]

man gundog lands headshots like a pro cs player

[steady flame]

https://youtube.com/shorts/98xxXB5zPvc?si=Ruxr5kcLSjIgr1FW

[graceful bluff]

there's mods that make their sounds easier to notice but they're all shitposts it's great https://youtu.be/3ozAcrqO-I8

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1U9tgzPERc

[weary granite]

I might grab that mod so that I could actually spot the rare samples that I keep fucking missing in plain sight for some reason.

[graceful bluff]

https://www.nexusmods.com/helldivers2/mods/8385

It has several poses for different samples :v

[cobalt patrol]

Terrifying.

[odd arch]

I feel like the helldivers community is like two echo chambers with extreme takes making up shit about what the other is saying

[graceful bluff]

that's because most of them are led by youtubers that are ragebaiting for content

"Medium pen weapons are trash" "Light pen weapons are trash" Why don't you go find some light that's not from your monitor

[odd arch]

the game has a lot of issues but I feel like the camp that's properly identifying them just wants to turn it into yet another horde shooter

so wrong solutions

boiling it down to "make it so that when I shoot enemies they die" instead of modifying enemies so that they CAN have a plan enacted against them

[graceful bluff]

What I also noticed about these specific youtubers is that they very much feel like they did not understand the game is satire at all

[odd arch]

like, the problem with leviathans, dragonroaches and war striders isn't so much that they kill you and take ages to kill

it's that their behaviour is non-interactive

[graceful bluff]

Also that killing them feels like fighting the ocean, especially release leviathans

[odd arch]

if they could be lured into exposing weakpoints (...and having proper ones in the first place), diverted, managed in some way,

and not have two states

1. idle
2. moving towards you guns blazing

roaches have the window in the form of their hover but there's still nothing to do to break their strafing run cycle

[graceful bluff]

I also don't like that they seemingly have forgotten they have a really nice stealth system

like factory strider turrets just knowing where you are

[odd arch]

likewise with weapons

I think the balance is way off, a lot of them is just worse than the next similar thing without extra personality to offer

and tbh I feel AH wrote themselves into a corner by adding so many generic weapons that can't be meaningfully diversified AND made all relevant without major reworks

but stuff like the variable is a great example of what it could be, it's a clunky AR shooting pistol bullets, hard carried by the fire modes

[graceful bluff]

I still want them to add a shotgun like

Hit em with the nyaaa~

[odd arch]

I think the strength of the arsenal has been that the powerful options are weird and have to be worked around

but there's a few guns that just straighforwardly perform best

and they're the wrench in it all

[knotty folio]

Roaches are particularly bad offenders here, because their behaviour is entirely static

Even Fleshmobs technically have different attacks when they lose their arms, and gain immunity to statuses when losing their legs

[odd arch]

I go light on fleshmobs because they're the one (1) pressure unit the squids have, but they were kinda a prelude to these static designs

"just a straight up ball of HP" is perfectly conceptually fine, the lack of gimmick can be the gimmick

[knotty folio]

Heck, "lots of HP but no armor" is a unique niche

[odd arch]

but they're so frequently spawning, and they feel too small for their HP, and the one meaningful interaction they have is with gas

it feels confused

like it should be split into small fleshmobs and giga fleshmobs

and the unit we have is a weird in between

[calm sorrel]

early preview of the incredibly tanky burrowing units the bugs got

[knotty folio]

Ooh now I want fleshmobs that split into smaller fleshpods after taking too much damage

[calm sorrel]

looking forward to drill tank with no weakpoints when we go to bot caves

[odd arch]

it's kinda like roach wings

when I first saw fleshmobs, knowing the game, I assumed their thing will be blowing chunks off them

...no

[knotty folio]

I just wish War Striders didn't seem to take over all the tank spawn slots

I really adore fighting the actual tanks, so it makes me sad to see only one or two in a mission

They have a ton of personality

[graceful bluff]

The biggest problem people have with flesh mobs are also self inflincted

cause they blow up the legs and then get fucked by stun immune meatball

[calm sorrel]

That seems like a game design issue. Any other game would let you hurt something's legs to make it easier to slow down instead of harder

[odd arch]

no knees, no knee pain

[weary granite]

Honestly.

Leviathans, War Striders, and Dragonroaches need some changes.

Personally (I'm waffling here) I would find it fun if they were interactive to the point of.

• Leviathan: Breaking their wings or gravity discs would force them to slow down and actually deal less damage or be less accurate because they are shunting more power to stay afloat. (Also nerf their hyper accuracy for the love of god.)

• War Striders: Remove the ragdoll from the fucking cannons and nerf the ragdoll on the grenades but up the damage. Also stop them from launching those fucking grenades from over 500m away. Those nades are supposed to be a threat to flush you out of cover, not nail the winning shot like they are Kobe. On top of that, they need heatsink weak spots on their back, and the ability to damage their legs to make them limp.

• Dragonroaches: When they do the diving strafing breath, any adequately strong enough weapon should make them stop breathing fire and crash land onto the ground. Still alive but it keeps them stumbling on the ground like a slower Bile Titan before they have a chance to get back to the skies. Also damaging their wings enough should force them to land to be a slightly slower Bile Titan.

Also for the love of fuck, nerf their goddamn spawn rates.

[odd arch]

hulks are a great design, very strange contrast with war striders in the same slot

frontal AP+accuracy check weakpoint, rear "can you stick to the rear long enough" weakpoint, all of their actions have very defined animations and recoveries

striders don't really need the weaponry, covered up weakpoints and point and shoot adventure all in one unit in this slot

like the extremely dangerous flame mortar hulk can still be goaded into charging you and juked in melee

the war strider only ever stands there and shoots you

[cobalt patrol]

LEvis, the main issues i have is

Infinite spawning
No appreciable weakpoint
Behaviour is of a stage hazard, not of a big enemey.

if they had some actual weak points, they actually dive-bombed the palyers and were ap roper enemy (Which intruns mean the strafe runs etc to take them down would be a viable considertion)

this would go a long way

[odd arch]

they worked so much better on super earth too

by so much better I mean you'd take note of where it is and keep a skyscraper in between

but at least this form of stage hazard wasn't causing early hair loss

and I even thought they were programmed to do strafing runs because the city streets made it appear that way

[cobalt patrol]

Warstriders are jnust... like, as an RR main i dont mind them, but they're not very interactive either.

and their level of spam is obnoxious as hell

[odd arch]

my chaotic gremlin suggestion is to make their eye a weakpoint that gives them very infrequent player position updates when destroyed

go off on that barricade I left a while ago, king

[cobalt patrol]

interesting idea, though i have no idea how practical it is to program

[odd arch]

with the "shoot at last known position" behaviour and smoke already in the game I don't imagine it'd be very complicated to fake having LOS obstructed most of the time

but either way this is the kind of stuff I think the new units need

[cobalt patrol]

This is one of thsoe times i wish i was a fly on the wall

to see into the design meetings etc

[weary granite]

Whoever their balancing team is, they need to play the games themselves.

Like seriously keep playing and not just choke at Diff 5 and get no objectives done.

[hexed steeple]

they've ran streams of them doing 10s while also dividing attention to chat engagement

i don't think striders as they are now are fun but you don't have to make shit up to make your point

[weary granite]

Wait have they actually? I actually didn't know that part, so my bad.

Still though, my gripes of the big three (Leviathans, War Striders, and Dragonroaches) are still staying.

Also, dunno if anyone got this bug.

Came across a War Strider that sent three salvos of grenades at me. Crashed my game with it.

Like 3 salvos in one activation.

Haven't been able to replicate it, but just putting this out there just in case anyone else comes across it or if it was just a freak accident on my end.

[rotund marten]

they did also have a stream of them eating shit on 5, so understandably I think helldiving experience varies significantly across the team

[odd arch]

tbh I don't think difficulty and how they're able to deal with it are a factor

what I find glaring rn is all conceptual

[oblique lotus]

Also a question of what you want to balance for which to some extent a design decision

But lets say the "balance team" (almost certainly too many people to make generalizations) can easily clear diff 10s, should their position be that the playerbase has a skill issue?

[azure rock]

my very new player opinion is "would this enemy be fun to fight while being ragdolled every time a single laser bolt grazes me"

and my experience with war striders from being brought into a team of "lets split up and sample farm on higher difficulties" is that they just gobble up my anti tank resources and make me lag

and i dont really see a compelling reason why they needed to be added?

[idle hollow]

Mines liberated soon™

With chopessa 4 to follow soon after

Which feels weird because i feel like they were offering us autocannons mechs or orbitals to make the mine liberation easier

[strange vine]

They have a nice niche of being an enemy that forces you out of cover with their grenades.

The issue is that while they replace tanks in enemy constellations (basically their spawn tables), they spawn significantly more, many times replacing hulks in spawns. They either need to really cut down on their spawn rate or give them better weakspots for non AT to kill them

[azure rock]

yeah i saw that the main thing is forcing you out of cover but i feel like those flying ships that rain gunfire down on you like a stratagem basically do that already?

and without significantly increasing the risk of my game crashing

though I'd be able to appreciate them a lot more if they cranked the spawn rates for them down way more

[clever steeple]

what are good orbital to have against bots?

[rotund marten]

eagle strafe does good work in all circumstances

[clever steeple]

ye, i got airstrike and 500kg

[sharp crater]

orbital gas is nice for bot drops

[rotund marten]

I'm personally fond of walking barrage or orbital laser for bases

[clever steeple]

Oh walking barrage!

[rotund marten]

the laser is more effective in ideal circumstances but you need to be careful that there's not a ton of active bots in the base when you throw it, because it'll get stuck zapping them rather than doing what you want it to do and zipping around between buildings and turrets to kill them all

[clever steeple]

gotcha

thx

[verbal summit]

I tend to bring 500kg and orbital airburst

[clever steeple]

i have the recoiless for anti air

sometimes fuck that particular fabricator

[azure rock]

things have worked out for me doing bots with Walking barrage, 500kg, EAT, and a flexslot for whatever

[fleet nacelle]

\ <@&1206091872716595200>

[naive hawk]

i’m down for diving

[oblique lotus]

sure

[steady flame]

Nice! We’ll be in ips-n vc

[azure rock]

im fairly new, if you cant find a fourth ill take the slot

[steady flame]

1668-7223

[hearty pier]

120mm is my choice for anti-bot orbital. Shorter cooldown and the denser strikes means it clears out bases more reliably than walking/380mm while still flattening a mass of bots

Honourable mention to gas/gatling but they serve a different purpose than the big barrages

[oblique lotus]

I like airburst

[knotty folio]

Laser is fun but it's extremely sad when a dog drops in and tanks the entire thing

[odd arch]

I can with great pleasure confirm that the warrant does work with Draw!

[knotty folio]

Using EATs against a tank enemy, makes sense

[azure rock]

they have short cooldowns!

[weary granite]

Ok, I am either stupid or my aim and my eyesight is just bad.

EATs to the side of a cannon and shredder tank turret are enough to kill it, right?

[knotty folio]

Not the side of a cannon tank, I don't think

[strange vine]

you want to hit the vent part

for annihilator tanks it's to the rear of the turret from the side

[knotty folio]

It's 2000 damage to a 2100hp part

[strange vine]

shredder tanks it's anything not the front shield

[unreal merlin]

EAT-17: 2000 damage AP6
Annihilator Tank: it's still AP5 and 2100 hp
Shredder: has much weaker sides of the turret

[weary granite]

Yeah I know Vent is weak spot, just thought the sides were enough to down those tanks. Shame.

[strange vine]

if you shoot this part, it counts as the vent

[weary granite]

Using EATs

[strange vine]

ime

[unreal merlin]

yeah if you get very close to the back edge/corner of the side it usually counts as "vent", this is true for cannon turrets (stationary) as well

[knotty folio]

It might be hitting the vent with the explosion as well

[weary granite]

Hmm, probably why it 'seems' inconsistent whenever I done the turrets with EATs.

[strange vine]

EAT explosion is only 150 AP3 damage, so thats not it

[knotty folio]

Oh, right, explosion is only AP3, so it would be 2097 damage

Wait nvm vent is 200% to main, so it could still be that

[strange vine]

maybe

just hit towards that part

behind the red side armor of the turret

and its consistent enough for me

[steady flame]

Feel like errata prime is not turning out the SC like it did last time we did farming

[unreal merlin]

Grand Errant is the place to be for SC farming.

[steady flame]

Oh that may be why

Where’s that?

Which front?

Salad, Advocates for Things ↩️

[Reply to:](#1204832579287519292 message) Grand Errant is the place to be for SC farming.

Nvm

Found it

In fairness their names are similar

[hazy oriole]

solo silo probably isn't the most effecient thing to spend a strat on, but holy moly is it fun

[steady flame]

Gonna test how well the dust devils armour works with DE sickle since it’s only 40% vs 75%

In any case we’ve now bought the servants of freedom war bond

Alright yeah it does hurt but it’s not terrible

Meh we can probably make this work

[unreal merlin]

As long as you're using the Health boost alongside it, it's probably fine yeah

[odd arch]

I've been very fond of the killzone armour because partial protection when more than one damage type is consistently present is still great value

though nearly everything you'd expect to be acid is actually explosive

[hazy oriole]

at this point let the skittering bastards have it

[azure rock]

FUCK hellmire they can have it

[odd arch]

they hated it for it spoke the truth

[knotty folio]

Does it still have dragons? Spore burst + fire tornadoes doesn't seem that painful

[azure rock]

sounds laggy

[knotty folio]

Can't deny that

[rotund marten]

four ship upgrades left to get, next up is Morale Augmentation

my crew are probably quite mad at me for delaying their birthdays and paid bathroom breaks until now

[keen zinc]

wow i hate war striders

[azure rock]

yeah. today's session just had me thinking "wow. this is more laggy than the gunships while doing the same thing to me as they did"

[split parcel]

for anyone on pc that's had some performance issues recently, make sure your drivers are updated, you verify your files, and that failing everything else, you reinstall the game. was having some gnarly issues after into the unjust and once i did all that it's basically like new again

[azure rock]

a good tip to pass around yeah

[odd arch]

the game loves to shut down my PC on mission start/end in a way that doesn't generate crash logs

suboptimal

[weary granite]

You too huh?

[ionic holly]

hellmire is once again under attack

[idle hollow]

at least the DSS is there

no way we can lose... unless the bots attack mintoria and we fuck up the defence

[ionic holly]

✨ Helldivers proceed to fuck it up ✨

/j

[graceful bluff]

Honestly the dragonroach has made me like heavy fire resist armor so hellmire isn't even a problem anymore :v

[oblique lotus]

speargun or NEAT, decisions decisions

EAP?

EN?

[knotty folio]

NEATs are a ton of fun

[normal juniper]

NEAT is the term i hear used

also they're really good so long as you got distance

[oblique lotus]

yeah but they're not antitank

[normal juniper]

it mainly comes down to if you want something to funnel death into for chaff or if you want antitank cc

me personally i'm more of a speargun guy

it closes bug holes, blows up fabs, confuses anyone in its radius, and it stops a charger dead in its tracks

[oblique lotus]

it kills fabs?

[normal juniper]

if you hit the hole yeah

bc it's pretty accurate over longer distances

[oblique lotus]

huh

TIL

[graceful bluff]

Yeah it's a railgun that trades unsafe mode for an explosion and gas

it's also silent

[normal juniper]

it is more of a combo/utility weapon than most supports, but it's Really good at what it's good at

[graceful bluff]

You can do some absurd stealth on the bot front with it due to this

[normal juniper]

also its hitbox is both generous and precise when dealing with medium bots

if you aim mostly in the direction of a dev's head it'll shear that fucker off

and if you're Very precise it can one-tap a hulk

[rotund marten]

personally not a huge fan of the speargun but I think that's because I have a lot of practice with the grenade launcher, which does most of the same work but with a lot more ammo

[normal juniper]

speargun's chief advantages are the tight gas radius, the much longer arc, and the overpenetration

[fleet nacelle]

\ Don’t know why but we’re tempted to do a bit of knight diving

[steady flame]

Or just run a melee weapon in general

[normal juniper]

crossbow, melee, and ballistic shield should cover ur bases

[steady flame]

Yeah that was our general idea. That or swapping the ballistic shield for the backpack shield and going full Dune

[rotund marten]

OK, six warbonds left to grab, do I get Freedom's Flame or Polar Patriots next

[oblique lotus]

the stuff for polar is good

[rotund marten]

I'll go for that then

next one will be FF just to get the light fireproof armour to use with the DE Sickle

since I haven't tried that yet

now to not SC grind for a good long while because I need medals anyway

[strange vine]

I mean you dont need to aim for the head, its the chest its destroying

[steady flame]

hey going back to our earlier discussion about doing Knightdiver, what's the ranking on the various melee weapons in terms of effectiveness?

[split parcel]

i've had some good experiences with the axe

stun lance is pretty alright too

[steady flame]

Oh also does anyone know why the wiki states all melee weapons are medium armour pen and yet the game says they’re light?

[kindred furnace]

caught the milestone

[graceful bluff]

Because the hitbox goes through the armor

[oblique lotus]

that got patched recently

[graceful bluff]

I mean they most definitely still have medium armor pen so either they forgot the update the ui of all melee weapons or their fix didn't do anything :v

[knotty folio]

I'm pretty sure it's just the game giving false info

[oblique lotus]

oh wait medium pen derp

[trail creek]

I sometimes just like get kicked while I’m loading in on difficulty 1 missions lmao

[oblique lotus]

NEATs seem interesting

on urban maps they're too slow, I want faster horde clear

but on maps with more open space I think they're interesting

also on urban maps at short range it is entirely possible for a bomblet to arc back and hit you

[knotty folio]

Normally for "kicked while loading in" I assume it's a case of accidental SOS

But that would be surprising on D1

(It remains baffling that there is literally no way to disable SOS, and it's only one input off Reinforce)

[verbal summit]

Stun lance

Because you can use it with ballistic shield. Thr other melee weapons push the shield to the side when swinging which makes it pointless

[unreal merlin]

Don't forget to account for

• the re-block trick
• just having patience and awareness and don't attack when it would open you to counter attacks

But stun lance is just really good anyway, the stun lets you handle many enemies

[verbal summit]

Yeah stun doesn't need any of that therefore better

Plus it has stun which the others dont

[steady flame]

Fair but consider

Sword (or hatchet)

palolike/laura/madeline/lulu ↩️

[Reply to:](#1204832579287519292 message) Because you can use it with ballistic shield. Thr other melee weapons push the shield to the side wh…

Also would require us to buy two war bonds for peak melee efficiency, one for the lance, one for either reinforced epaulettes or peak physique

[verbal summit]

Sword doesn't work with ballistic shield like I just said

Hatchet idk how the swing works

So that's only a maybe

Anyway get urban legends anyway cus it's got peak in it

[fleet nacelle]

\ We know, and we don’t care

In the interim of first asking that question we did our own research

[steady flame]

The sword is peak aesthetic

We’re getting a sword

Well eventually get all the warbonds but masters of ceremony is next

Alright sorry that was harsher than we meant to be

Cryptid: Beaste of Whimsy ↩️

[Reply to:](#1204832579287519292 message) \ We know, and we don’t care
In the interim of first asking that question we did our own research

We do care, thank you for the insight

[odd arch]

running shieldless is great practice for shield imo

don't hard lean on the shield, have it as an extra layer

[verbal summit]

Haven't been playing as much lately but trying melee against rupture strain wasn't 100% awful

Rupture strain just wasn't much fun actually but with melee it was kind of better

Still tho I'd just be a liability to the team cus I can't really kill as much so I'm less useful but at least my survival was a bit better.

I'm glad they took em offline. Idk maybe it seems like a harsh thing to others but it feels like the right move.

[cobalt patrol]

I generally don't think melee is worth the squeeze. Supplemental it's nice, but I'd much rather a verdict/talon/senator in my secondary slot

[unreal merlin]

Melee is a fun sometimes thing, it's certainly not comparable to just gunning things down before they get to you but the self-imposed challenge can be quite entertaining

Just don't try fighting overseers without stun because their stupid ablative armor is annoying

[cobalt patrol]

Also because they'll headshot you with the staff melee and if that doesn't kill you, the followup while you're on the ground will

[rare nymph]

Once upon a time, me and a random in diff 9 decided to take on an overseer melee-only

It was like an adult fighting two toddlers, but we got em eventually

[unreal merlin]

It's certainly possible to do, they just don't flinch right when you land hits so there's not a lot of back-and-forth to do. You can machete-fight alpha commanders because they get scared after you cut their forelimbs off

[rotund marten]

someone made a site to sample people's Helldiving loadouts

this is about as much thermite as I expected

top grenade by a large margin on all three fronts, only close to high explosive on squids

[sharp crater]

tfw incendiaries aren't even on the chart

(they're all I use, I find them interchangable with wherever you would use gas but with more lethality)

[rotund marten]

against nids and squids both incendiaries combined are 8-9%, against bots they're negligible

Coyote is a solid third of all primary usage, everything else sub-10% (although top 3 are consistently Coyote, Libpen, Eruptor)

and then unsurprisingly the secondaries are Ulti, GP, Redeemer and Senator jockeying for the first four slots with the Talon a respectable fifth

[odd arch]

how is gas under frag

[rotund marten]

lots of people presumably lack gas

[odd arch]

oh right

sterilizer is the least picked support weapon, which I get but also not

I'm a sterilizer apologist

[split parcel]

I also like to take incendiaries, but generally I prefer the immediate stopping power of the gas grenade for bulkier groups, even if it won't kill most of the enemies in it

[unreal merlin]

Gas nades kick ass

[sharp crater]

yeah I respect em (but don't have em)

[unreal merlin]

"Stun" but lethal and has demo force

[split parcel]

I need to branch out more but I generally just use thermites for bots and gas for everything else

I also started taking Recoilless Rifle recently and have been having a good time with it. I've usually loathed backpack support weapons because I like flexibility over killing power, but damn if RR doesn't just kill shit

[graceful bluff]

I'm kinda amazed the firework grenade is too low to even be seen here

[rotund marten]

I think the pyros are limited by being three pages deep in the meme warbond

(fun as a lot of the stuff in there is)

[graceful bluff]

It absolutely tears apart bots though

[royal lantern]

I'm honestly surprised by how Gas grenades are but I guess it's hard when they're literally the only really valuable thing in an entire warbond

[graceful bluff]

oh yeah, gas would be basically the only other choice for bots for me

I like what thermite does but the amount you get just leaves so much to be desired for me

[stone bridge]

Bro's forgetting the Gas Drone

[royal lantern]

I think most people forget the Gas Drone unfortunately

[rotund marten]

thermite/ulti do admittedly show up in almost all my loadouts because they free me up to fuck around with all my stratagem slots

[stone bridge]

It's literally a top tier choice into bugs/squids after the buffs it received

Absolutely zonked crowd control choice

[odd arch]

it ain't half bad into bots either, very funny warp/jump pack alternative for running into bases, chucking nades into every opening and running out

evade being shot by not being there to be shot vs evade being shot by fully autonomous pocked sand

the range the drone flies out to is fully sufficient within a base

[split parcel]

The gas armor is super good

Like it's crazy how often I can just drop gas mines or an orbital gas strike onto an objective or POI and just do what I need to do completely unhindered and unscathed

I do think Sterilizer needs some love though

[knotty folio]

Honestly pretty unsurprising, Thermites are the only main-loadout AT option other than the Ultimatum, they're great for clearing outposts on bots and squids (and turrets on bots), and they come in Democratic Detonation which is often the recommended first warbond

[odd arch]

clearing objectives with everything permanently stunned by gas mines is awesome, but I can't convince my team not to appear out of nowhere next to me and start dying to the mines repeatedly

I mined the area 3 minutes before you arrived please don't

[rotund marten]

thermites are just so important for loadout flexibility at high difficulties, too

sure, my grenade slot is near-permanently locked to the sparkly stuff, but now I can bring things that aren't recoilless rifle

[knotty folio]

I suspect that if there were two separate thermites, one that only worked on structures and another that only damaged enemies, each would see reasonable use

Getting both is just wild value

[knotty folio]

This is particularly baffling because gas mimes don't even kill you very fast, it's hard to accidentally die to them

*gas mines

Maybe they don't realize that diving clears the DoT, which is understandable

[oblique lotus]

I like frags against squids

And imo against bots the explosive crossbow offers similar peformance with better responsiveness and reduced chances of oops

[split parcel]

Does it? I thought that was only fire

[knotty folio]

I think it clears all status effects? Pretty sure it does for gas at least

[unreal merlin]

Being prone/diving does not affect gas.

Diving does clear fire, but it's actually faster to just drop prone on the spot (Z is default keybind) and then you can immediately stand back up.

[knotty folio]

Actually it looks like gas mines don't apply a DoT status to Helldivers at all (just constant damage while in the gas), so diving just helps you clear the area faster

[graceful bluff]

https://youtu.be/_k_NMhQPuPA

[ionic holly]

shoutout to my new weirdest reason for being kicked

i kept hitting heavies with my spear, the launcher not the speargun; that were apparently already thermited (couldn't see the visual effects so shrug) so after like the 5th or so time i got kicked for "making me waste my grenades"

[steady flame]

Right our game is somehow behaving even worse so we’re doing a fresh reinstall

Thank god it’s only 23gb on Xbox

[strange vine]

Cried in 140gb pc

[oblique lotus]

I mean thats the cost of thermites

They're slow

So its entirely possible that you have two people lining up on the same target because a thermite takes 6.5s to kill something

[unreal merlin]

baby mad

[knotty folio]

Also... the thing they stuck with the thermite died? Why does it matter who actually dealt the finishing blow?

Unless they care way too much about kill counts I guess

[unreal merlin]

It's part of why I don't like thermites: if you throw it and someone else instantly kills the thing with a RR, your contribution is rendered meaningless. This is just an instance of someone not being able to handle that feeling like an adult.

This happens a lot vs bugs, like chargers. Thermite to the face only for Teammate B to use one of many possible (faster) ways to kill it before the thermite pops, meaning my thermite was wasted.

[strange vine]

Ive been moving towards ultimatum for supplemental AT for that reason tbh

[daring monolith]

I really like running EATs and RR but bug front I've been running more and more thermites

[knotty folio]

I'm not so much of a fan of them on bugs, they're nice vs chargers but a pain to use against titans, and anything can kill Impalers

And it's painfully wasteful to use them on bug holes, though sometimes you don't have time to reload an Eruptor or whatnot

[daring monolith]

I'm not a big fan overall, I prefer regular HE or frags most times overall (sometimes incendiary)

[oblique lotus]

imo grenades are also pretty plentiful

So if a thermite is wasted it's kinda /shrug because whatever its one grenade

[supple siren]

Thermite bothers me, loves to bounce off the target

[steady flame]

Yep seems something has broken with our helldivers as the audio keeps breaking every time we boot it up

[knotty folio]

Hmm, perhaps I should avoid using gas mines + mortar sentry in city maps

Just had a mission with a reward of 0 requisition slips

[verbal summit]

I think you should use it more

My friend n I considered making a net negative on a mission cus we were playing with a friend who just got the game

So that we could make them go in debt since they literally just started

[cobalt patrol]

To be honest outside of defence missions I think mortar sentry is a mistake

It's just a huge team kill idiot that you have no control over, and even if it's not ruining your experience, it usually makes things shit for teammates

[verbal summit]

Idk people give tesla tower and other things shit cus it teamkills

But like just be aware enough for it not to

Admittedly I'm not that aware when it comes to mortar

But my friends complaining about arc dog and arc tower are completely unjustified.

Like when I play with people that take positioning into account the amount of friendly kills is very low

[azure rock]

Can't imagine arc being much of an issue since my usual group prefers the "four solo players in a squad" method of play

[oblique lotus]

Arc tower is fine imo but mortar plus melee enemies is a bad time

[knotty folio]

Yeah, I only really find it usable on bot cities

Where there are fewer melee enemies, you can use the buildings to limit the firing lines, and its trajectory lets it soften up the inside of bases the terrain is normally too flat to give a vantage against

[dusty spruce]

Arc dog can be chaotic but I’m a firm believer most arc tower friendly fire is entirely on who gets killed. Sorta like people who walk too close to orbital barrages. As long as it’s not dropped on the squad, it’s fine

[knotty folio]

Depends on the placement for the tower, really - if it's in a clear space, it's on the person who got killed, but if it's right behind a wall or otherwise obscured there's not much avoiding it except a very quick dive

[rotund marten]

my main complaint with the mortar is that it both teamkills and doesn't do very much damage

[knotty folio]

It's also obnoxiously efficient at removing minefields on defense

[rotund marten]

tesla tower and friends kill helldivers because they kill everything, whereas the mortar's accuracy is terrible because enemies like to move a lot and the few that are standing still and fighting you tend to die before the mortar can get around to them anyway

[knotty folio]

(Please don't bring it on defense)

[rotund marten]

arc grenades do occasionally annoy me slightly because it's very easy to miss one but tesla tower is usually fine

it's about the same as gatling tower, you need to watch your placement

[supple siren]

Arc Tower is reactable and understandable, Arc Dog has a passion for murdering teammates, swear it goes out of the way to chain erratically

[graceful bluff]

funnily enough I'm still of the opinion that the arc dog does the least amount of teamkilling of the offense dogs

[steady flame]

Finally a major order that isn’t against the bots or bugs

[knotty folio]

I would put my bet on the laser dog, its damage is low enough you can usually survive if it does target through you and its line of fire is so much more visible

Though in terms of absolute numbers it's probably higher because more people use it

[strange vine]

absolutely not, when i took arc dog like 4 out of 5 of my friend's deaths on one mission was from arc dog lmfao
like she wasnt even anywhere near me most of the time and she still got arc'd to and died instantly

the arc being a combination of unpredictable in its trajectory after the first target, deceptively long range, and enough damage to instantly kill someone means its the most bloodthirsty of them all

[strange vine]

like in terms of least killy? thats gas dog, since it usually just goes to the enemy its targeting and its only damage is the low gas dot

[idle hollow]

fart dog probably does the least yeah

[knotty folio]

I assumed gas dog was out of contention since they specified offensive dogs

But yeah it's absolutely safest to be around of all the dogs

[verbal summit]

It's literally just a 30m range it's so easy to stay out but people will never blame themselves for walking into it or being around the enemy that arcs through it to them

[knotty folio]

I mean, it does enough damage to 1shot a helldiver even after arcing twice, with a 90 degree maximum curve

For light armor users an unlucky headshot can kill on the fourth target

[steady flame]

Our personal experience with the laser dog is pretty much “tries to kill you, but can’t”

By this we mean it has a tendency to fire at enemies at such an angle that the beam is maybe a foot away from hitting us in the back of the head

But then if it does hit it doesn’t deal much instant damage

[knotty folio]

I like Tesla towers, but it's a bit unreasonable to say an entire 60m-radius circle should never be entered for 2m30s

(20m per jump)

[rotund marten]

I find the laser dog kills the bearer more than it kills anyone else, because sometimes it can get the angle just right and drill you in the side of the head

kills poor light-armoured me very quickly

I still run it quite a lot, since it's amazing for voteless

[knotty folio]

It chews through light armor divers, yeah

Though at least it sometimes gives a nice warning as the beam swings towards you

(Sometimes it's sneaky about it though)

[knotty folio]

Also nice for being able to kill Floverseers with the burn

Btw, has anyone else encountered a few random jet troopers on the bot front recently? I had a few show up during extraction on the bot major order planet yesterday, had thought they could only spawn when it was Jet Brigade

[idle hollow]

nop it's just like the bile variant bug spawns

sometimes there's jetpack johnnys on the bot front without jet brigade, sometimes not

[knotty folio]

TIL, guess I just never noticed before

[verbal summit]

I feel it's still pretty avoidable by just being behind the diver with the arcdog and the enemies.

Like I've had people who I told that to n listened well and they rarely would get killed by it

[split parcel]

If I'm near a bunch of people and can't get a safe angle, I just toggle the dog off

It's nice if people keep jumping in front of Dog Breath

[azure rock]

anyone have any gear tips for the illuminates?

[verbal summit]

Same

Tho if people took positioning into account more then there'd be a lot less kills n the dog would get a lot less of a bad rep

[oblique lotus]

You want firepower more than you want armor piercing particularly for fleshmobs, so fire, shrapnel, high firerate weapons, etc

Gundog headshots voteless all day every day

Autocannon flak also rips up most enemies and the medium pen AP mode can take on harvesters

Mg sentry does a lot of work

[royal lantern]

Orbital Gas Strike goes crazy

But that's not unusual

[sharp crater]

the regular MG and stalwart are great too

[oblique lotus]

overseers want either explosive damage, medium pen headshots, or high rof light pem

leviathans imo blow the turrets off and ignore

For harvesters shoot the hip joints

The shield is AP0 so kill it with small stuff

A rocket to the body will also do it

I prefer eagle strafe to eagle cluster against illuminates

They tend to form strings leading towards you

The variable is very good

Iirc total can oneshot a harvester

The knight is also solid since you can just magdump stuff though I'd still probably prefer the variable

[split parcel]

WASP is super good into Illuminate. You can kill Fleshmobs in like 4 or 5 rockets, Harvesters in a similar number, and overseers in 2

Eruptor also 2-shots Fleshmobs

[azure rock]

oh nice

so just treat it like a zombie apocalypse

[weary granite]

Laser Dog: "Aim first then shoot."

Liberator Dog: Thumbs Up

Laser Dog proceeds to beam headshot the diver.

[weary granite]

Extensive testing has led me to this with the WASP.

Fleshmobs: Solid 3 Rockets and then finish off with primary. 4 if you want to guarantee kill.

Overseers of any kind: 1 Solid Rocket to swat them into nonexistence. Make some distance otherwise WASP flight path will screw you over.

Harvesters: 1 Mag Dump usually takes it down.

Stingrays: 3 Rockets to swat it out of the sky.

Only thing poor WASP can't really deal with are Leviathans and Voteless swarms.

[knotty folio]

I was talking about the "Tesla tower friendly fire is entirely on the friendly firee"

[knotty folio]

(Somewhat luck-based)

[cobalt patrol]

Mortar will actively team kill people in a way none of those do, because of how it's targeting works. It's just not worth using. and again, even if you're having fun, you will be making it horrible for other people

[graceful bluff]

You do realize you can shoot it when it stops being useful right?

[split parcel]

Gotcha, I forgot the numbers, been quite a while since I fought illuminate lmao

[knotty folio]

And personally I do. I'm not the one claiming my Tesla Towers are free of sin.

[graceful bluff]

Mine are full of sin

and pilk

[knotty folio]

Mine don't have any pilk, all the space is full of a lust for blood

[graceful bluff]

Mine just have a lust for amkos blood in particular I feel

[knotty folio]

They're like mosquitoes, some people are just particularly tasty to Tesla Towers

[graceful bluff]

And like mosquitos they usually fly too

(I swear jetpack mains account for like 90% of people running into my teslas)

[knotty folio]

I want to say something about bugzappers but that would confuse the metaphor

[graceful bluff]

You'd think it'd make it easier for them to see it

[knotty folio]

Idk if it's true of player-placed ones but sometimes the illuminate ones just don't have the effects load

So they just look like particularly spikey telephone poles

[graceful bluff]

Sounds like a krill issue

[knotty folio]

No, that would be if they looked like particularly spikey nets

[graceful bluff]

Seriously though one small change to the callout system I really want would help most of these cases of people running into mines and tesla towers

just keep the callout on screen until they acknowledge it

rather than a few seconds

[knotty folio]

The same thing would be nice for resupplies, though at least those show up on the map

Also I don't think they have a dedicated voiceline, IIRC it uses the same voiceline as emplacements? Might be wrong there though

[unreal merlin]

Teslas are referred to as sentries by the ping

[cobalt patrol]

Yeah, it does at least show their icon when you ping them

[steady flame]

Alright squid diving time

Got our odst armour too so we’re properly dressed to fight the covenant illuminate

Also our audio is weirdly working way better???

It’s not breaking immediately so, small mercies

[knotty folio]

The audio breaking seems to be mostly on bots and in caves on Oshaune, I think?

[steady flame]

Yeah but ours was previously breaking just, in the ship

Lark ↩️

[Reply to:](#1204832579287519292 message) The audio breaking seems to be mostly on bots and in caves on Oshaune, I think?

[knotty folio]

Oh, whoof, glad that's not happening any more

[tight zephyr]

I still don't like fighting squids.

[steady flame]

I’m finding them…alright

Chaotic

But not too bad

[tight zephyr]

I've never found a loadout for them I liked.

[weary granite]

For me personally it is just Flamer Primary, Ultimatum/Grenade Pistol, Gasnade, Heavy Fireproof, and Wasp then choose whatever else.

It is purdy goob.

[keen zinc]

I was about to be specifically calling you out for defending teslas

But your admission of guilt is sufficient

[knotty folio]

I really like the Eruptor into squids, but it's annoyingly inconsistent at 1shotting floverseers

Very good for popping Harvester shields though

[strange vine]

Disabling particles_local_lighting apparently improves fps by 20 fps

[azure rock]

how would i go about doing that--just go into the files, open up the settings as a txt, and typing in false?

[strange vine]

yes

open user_settings.config in your text editor of choice

search for particles_local_lighting and set it to false and save

anecdotally it does seem to improve FPS overall for me

[azure rock]

oh sweet

will do thanks

[strange vine]

quickly sketched out a squid unit concept

[split parcel]

That's pretty promising

[azure rock]

^

[unreal merlin]

Communication is good. I get the implication that the unruly masses elsewhere are whining vocally though, explaining why this reads as so apologetic.

[sweet surge]

HD reddit has been whining for weeks so that must be it lol

[cobalt patrol]

It's been pretty loud.

Tbh, there's some pretty visible tech debt at this point, lots of stuff keeps breaking - random crashes, I've if my emotes has lost sound, etc. I well understand frustration on that boiling over (especially when the rest of the world is on fire)

[oblique lotus]

HD reddit has been whining since launch

[dusty spruce]

Oh good, they're finally addressing the game's state. Now to see if they actually deliver on it.

[azure rock]

i would love an optimization update

[split parcel]

Seems like that's what we're getting

[idle hollow]

all reddit does ever is whine

[normal juniper]

And they Also whine that Arrowhead won't listen to them when they've been so constructive-

[strange vine]

https://youtu.be/gSDd1EBc2Bc

[clever steeple]

incredible

[cobalt patrol]

It really doesn't. I browse it pretty regularly. There's points where it got really toxic, by the mods actually stepped in to address things. It only gets loud now when there genuinely are issues

[sweet surge]

They do get carried away with their complaining sometimes

Valid or not

[cobalt patrol]

Oh, absolutely.

[strange vine]

another squid unit idea

[hazy oriole]

only accept this if i canshoot the overseer off and then ride it around

[knotty folio]

Not a huge fan of it being an Elevated Overseer specifically, assuming it's a fairly mobile unit in the first place - it seems like it would be fairly unpleasant to destroy a tanky, obnoxiously-mobile unit and have it become more annoying to kill

Also seems a bit odd to have everything be 50% durable, but that's a nitpick

I do like the idea of a mechanical unit in the Fleshmob tier for the illuminate - I had been thinking of something like the Magrider from PS2, but a Ghostier option is fun too

[strange vine]

well its not gonna be that mobile, prolly just as slow as an observer

[knotty folio]

Fair, I just can't help but immediately assume Ghost mobility, given the shape

Though I think even if it's not particularly mobile a Floverseer is dubious, it does lead to interesting questions of whether or not you actually want to destroy it, but you have to be careful of putting enemies you don't want to shoot in a shooter

[graceful bluff]

Regular overseer, if destroyed at speed I wanna see that fucker skip like a stone

[knotty folio]

Getting into a head-on crash with it in an FRV, the overseer meets my gunner three meters above the point of impact

[weary granite]

I would like to get on the thing, execute the overseer with my Jar-5 and get in the manta to drive it around.

[cobalt patrol]

I wanna know what the freaky mechanical flowers are in Illumiante cities

[strange vine]

The barrel attachment sway increases are quite considerable to. The compensator adds 25%! weapon sway, Flash hider 10%, and muzzle break 20%. The angled foregrip provides a -25% to weapon sway stat.

[odd arch]

whyyyy

[cobalt patrol]

Yes, it's very annoying

And the display is bugged so you can't see it

This is part of why I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to "the game needs a big clean up" pass type posts

There's just too much ctuft like that

[dusty spruce]

Seeing that just beamed the desire for a C4/similar support weapon or grenade (dynamite is close). Our own version of a SLAM from Half Life or LAM from Deus Ex.
HD1 had the satchel charges which were quite fun to use.

[knotty folio]

IDK if I'd call C4 serious, it's a bit too excitable

[north fiber]

only if you hit it really really hard

[unreal merlin]

C4 is famously *un-*excitable, what are you talking about

[calm sorrel]

it's a very professional putty

[knotty folio]

I suppose it's hard to get it excited, but once you do it becomes very excited

[tardy onyx]

Yeah like, c-4 can only be set off by shock waves. You can literally burn it. Though that is a terrible idea cause it releases all sorts of not good chemicals.

[cobalt patrol]

This si totally fine to cook with, honest

[cobalt patrol]

"One step closer to a galaxy purged of Xenophobia!"

[split parcel]

i am now god's most fervent Arc Dog acolyte

[unreal merlin]

Welcome to the electric side.

[burnt vapor]

This is the way of least resistance

[verbal summit]

Unfortunately for you I'm the arc dog acolyte as far as I know

I'll run around to put you between me and the enemies to make sure I'm the one and only acolyte

Or we could share but we'll both have to take care of positioning.

[graceful bluff]

I just like the tesla tower way more

[cobalt patrol]

The fuck is that from, Nalesh? that is a scary arse kangaroo

[graceful bluff]

From the kangaroo chronicles

[blissful sparrow]

German Political comedy author about living together with a communist kangaroo.
The kangaroo fought for the vietkong

[harsh kayak]

Känguru Chroniken, Manifest, Offenbarung & Apokryphen. Sehr schön

[split parcel]

Been really trying to maximize the Pacifier recently, have always felt it was a liiiiittle weak but still really useful, and I think I found the secret Squiddar sauce that works really good for me personally

The crux of the set is Pacifier, Talon, and the Borderline Justice armor. Pacifier pretty easily stuns enemies, and the armor lets you swap to Talon for some quick, accurate shots to finish them off

Arc Dog is also really nice for mulching hordes of little guys instantly so you can focus on medium units

[tight zephyr]

I'm gonna try a Super Helldive against squids.

I fucking hate fighting squids, so maybe it'll help me figure out how to fight them.

[azure rock]

squid objectives are kind of annoying all around

[ionic holly]

is hellmire unironically under attack again

yep

[azure rock]

they really want us to play on hellmire

they can call me back when they release the performance update and I'll gladly fight terminids again

not a fan of the squid front personally so I'll get ready to really enjoy more bot or bug fronts

[tight zephyr]

Nope fuck this I'm going back to the bots.

The Eruptor is the only gun that's any good against the squids that I've found and I hate using the Eruptor, so nuts to this.

[naive hawk]

been enjoying the halt from truth enforcers
stuns everything except the flying overseers and that’s due to game jank because Coding is Hard™

makes dodging meatballs and executing grounded overseers easy

[steady flame]

Ah dammit we missed out on getting our hatchet by one day

Haven’t had a chance to really boot the game up all week and saw the hatchet in the superstore yesterday only to log on today and see the store has rotated

[oblique lotus]

explosive crossy is solid against squids

I've been running xbow/verdict/thermite + gundog/quasar/500kg/MG turret

and that's solid

[odd arch]

squids my beloathed

I think they need a major redesign of the units they already have on top of getting more

[split parcel]

I'd use the halt so much more if it were easier to swap ammunition quicker

[odd arch]

because my experience with the faction is running circles around them because they can't do shit about me, then something weird happens and they instakill me

[naive hawk]

bind weapon wheel and change right weapon wheel option to the same button and set them both to press

or are you on controller because i don’t know how it works there

[odd arch]

they're either stage decoration or accelerated backhop geometry phasing fleshmob

a bunch of nerds tripping over their own feet that'll never catch up to me or overseer headshot beam

no in between

the fact I was convinced that flying overseers just can't do shit demonstrates it best

I kept rolling abysmal accuracy on them so they did nothing

then like two weeks after they were added I got the first headshot beam

and they got the ball rolling

[split parcel]

I am on controller, yeah. Not really any good options that I've found

[ionic holly]

i'd use the halt if the m90A didnt exist /light hearted

[naive hawk]

i think i saw a controller player recommend a button combo in some video comment section let me go dig it up

i can’t test this but replies seem to agree with this suggestion

though it still seems slower than on pc

[split parcel]

What I have done is on an Xbox controller is hold B to open the wheel and RB to swap function right, typically a more fluid motion than hold X tap X

And in OPs case it doesn't mess any general action up, but if he's talking Playstation, that would make Warp Pack a lot more annoying

Which I use fairly frequently and did try the Xbox equivalent (A button) and it wasn't a good solution iirc

[naive dragon]

Out here stealthdiving the illuminate shid is stressful lol

[strange vine]

lmaooo

[naive dragon]

excellent

[strange vine]

https://www.vxreddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1nsd3rl/the_automatons_were_absolutely_not_expecting_this/

[stark ether]

https://tenor.com/view/i-love-it-gif-18812641

[cobalt patrol]

You know what would gneuinelym kae the Laser sentry better?

If it always overheated and exploded, but it's explosion was a lot bigger.

So it becomes something you're supposed to throw into groups of enemies and it'll draw aggro before it goes off like a massive bomb

Like literlaly, make it go up like a 500kg

[naive dragon]

yes

[knotty folio]

That's the Flame Sentry, please don't have the Laser Sentry entirely replace its niche

Which really could do with a larger blast on it, though 500kg size would be rather too much IMO

[split parcel]

I've been having some real whack 500kg shenanigans happening, like not killing Devastators/Hulks that are like, ten feet away from it

[cobalt patrol]

I dont think it'd replace the niche? Flame sentry is more a dedicated hose things down, thisi sa "...oh no, that is not how that's supposed to be used" lean into it's overheat and blow up gimmick

[unreal merlin]

Frankly I'd rather it not blow up and instead learn how to pace itself for longevity :v

[cobalt patrol]

My question then is what's differeintating it from MG/Gattling sentries

and tbh, "the turret is smartenough to not blow it self up" doenst fit the vibe.

Runaway thermal explosion does and is very funny.

(Re: flame sentry, i'd argue for that it should just get genuinely tougher, give it more hp/armor so it can fight a bit better)

[split parcel]

Yeah laser sentry has always felt weird to me. Like i feel like I need a sentry when I need constant additional firepower for a time. If I don't need that, I probably don't need a sentry right then and there. If laser sentry does fire constantly, it quickly overheats and loses a big chunk of value. But if it has time to cool off, I probably didn't need it in the first place

[unreal merlin]

The trick honestly is to throw it in spots that it likely cannot sustain the beam constantly, where enemies have to approach around a corner or something first and so LOS is frequently broken. MG/Gatling you can just drop wherever.

[cobalt patrol]

This is why, with my terminally game designer brain, i'm advocating for making it's blow itself up more attractive, because that's actually fun/interesting imho.

ANd give its a bit more of a clear reason to bring it vs other options

[unreal merlin]

I'm biased to things in games that let me eliminate ammo dependency, so "turret that has more longevity" appeals to me for the same reason the Quasar does, and for the same reason I occasionally rant at how the switch to "clips" in Mass Effect 2 was really dumb

[split parcel]

What niche does laser sentry have over Gun sentry in that case though? Like you could just also do that with a gun sentry

Does the Laser have a longer duration?

[unreal merlin]

more AP and it doesn't dump its entire magazine before vanishing

[unreal merlin]

if it is forced to take cooling breaks due to losing LOS, yes it will last longer overall

not longer than a sentry that isn't firing at anything, but that's not a very useful statistic to look at

[cobalt patrol]

Fairnuff. I'm purely looking at what are the niches, what can this do?

I think you could make the laser sentry be a more long lasting sentry, where it has autoamtic cutoff for it's olverheating and then has to cooldown, that's not uninterinsting, neccesariyl, but it's less interesitng than oh, it's a bomb

[unreal merlin]

by cooling break I mean like, it has like 2-3 seconds of not hosing something with its laser

it genuinely doesn't need much to work

the same trick works for MG/Gatling sentries anyway, but in the form of "enemies are being funneled into a sort of kill box"

[split parcel]

Heavy armor pen is nice, didn't recall that

[unreal merlin]

like this (except have a lot more separation from the LOS obstructor so it getting rushed down and overwhelmed)

[knotty folio]

The issue is right now Flame Sentry is so fragile that at least IME its best use is already what you're suggesting for the Laser Sentry - it doesn't have the damage or range to keep itself alive against large groups of enemies, but it can draw in a horde and clear them when it explodes

So if the Laser Sentry were able to do the same thing but also had 50m range I'm not sure why I would ever use the Flame Sentry

Though as you mentioned buffing the Flame Sentry's survivability would let it be horde clear without needing to explode, in which case there wouldn't be a conflict

[cobalt patrol]

Yeah, that to me is a case of two seperate issues:

The flame sentry should be able to brawl and survive. It should be "You stuck an armoured tank of a sentry down", the trade off bieng it's limited range, the payoff being it's firepower and ability to tank.

The LAS sentry should be acting as an aggro dump, where it requires clever forethought to maximize it's firing time and lure in enoguh stuff to make the explosion worthwhile

[split parcel]

okay did some testing and machine gun sentry lasts for 2 minutes 30 seconds and laser sentry lasts 3 minutes flat

or rather, that's their max duration

[knotty folio]

Wish the wiki had sentry durations

[weary granite]

New Charger Variant

https://youtube.com/shorts/zkBi5D5LN0w?si=qqVItaria6OFu_-_

It has been dubbed the Slider.

[idle hollow]

is the singularity going back to where it came from (or so help me)

[cobalt patrol]

Naaah

[steady flame]

Figured we’d pay a visit to Meridia since we weren’t here when it first got destroyed

[azure rock]

oh bots again? yay i can play again

[uncut hatch]

Wtf is vessel 00 or nucleus? They gonna give us some crazy orbital or a atom bomb?

[ionic holly]

i hope it's a new freebie strat, been really long since the last

[strange vine]

they were hinted at in a very old major order to capture an automaton data center

[strange vine]

was reminded that the Democracy Officer has a personal sauna on the super destroyer
on a vessel where space is at an extreme premium that says so much about super earth

[uncut hatch]

Yeah that saunas are important to democracy B)

[idle hollow]

it IS a swedish game

and the capital is in what was stockholm

[rotund marten]

<@&1206091872716595200> kill robots

[naive hawk]

sure

[naive hawk]

6945-5553

[tight zephyr]

DEPLOY ME TO CYBERSTAN I YEARN FOR THE MINES

[ionic holly]

Huh
a suggestion of mine got added to a mod

[cobalt patrol]

What does the mod do?

[ionic holly]

Just changes stratagem names to be goofy stuff

[rotund marten]

how's the Verdict, for those who have it? finally made it to the third page of Polar Patriots, so I get it for free after my shiny new Purifier

[ionic holly]

It's a very good secondary, if you want a higher power spammy option it's really good for that

And if you don't wanna commit entirely to just a higher powered secondary like the revolvers

[odd arch]

I'm a bit whatever on it

I do prefer the revolver or something spammy to the middle deagle

[ionic holly]

(i've had the talon give out on me consistently when i've needed to spam with my secondary so i fell out with it)

[odd arch]

but it's solid

[strange vine]

Its my mainstay, its got enough damage to one or twoshot most chaff and med pen means you can use it in a pinch vs most mediums

Decent ammo per mag

[ionic holly]

my secondary of choice now n days is the socom but objectively the verdict is really good

[rotund marten]

I'll give it a shot then, I was looking for more stuff that plays nicely with the gunslinger armour

Senator is solid but a little low on the ammo capacity

[cobalt patrol]

Good, but outclassed by the talon over all

Still very good punchy secondary.

The Talon being self loading just tends to outdo it for emergency fall back weapon

[ionic holly]

Eh...
i've mentioned it but that cooling need has been less than trustworthy for me, i'll take just loading another magazine over waiting

[rotund marten]

I am interested to see how it does with gunslinger because I'm fairly sure gunslinger armour does not affect cooling speed

but it does make reloads stupidly fast

[split parcel]

I have actually stumbled on a talon loadout I really love

Pacifier + Talon + Gunslinger armor + Directional Shield

For medium units. Pacifier for a stun, quick swap to Talon to finish them off. Usually only takes 3-4 Talon shots, and if you've got good aim you can hit weak points for even quicker kills

Directional Shield keeps you remarkably safe and gives you time to line up good Talon shots under heavy fire

Very, very ammo efficient build with great survivability and utility imo. Been having a blast with it on automatons

[rotund marten]

I was using Talon + Scorcher on Oshaune, because Talon can blast the armoured warriors out of your face at ranges too close to use the Scorcher

didn't have Purifier at the time but I hear it's S tier

Directional Shield I can never get used to, what's the pros over the regular shield?

[split parcel]

Still has great durability, covers a larger area than ballistic shield, and crucially it recharges.

[rotund marten]

I gave it a go, but admittedly that was vs bugs and it doesn't seem like the best pick against melee units

I should try it again vs robits, since it might pair well with my Variable

[split parcel]

If you mean the shield pack that's like, omni-directional, the directional shield legit blocks what feels like 10x more damage

[rotund marten]

Variable greatly appreciates being able to sit there and methodically headshot its way through a pack of devs

[split parcel]

Can't variable and directional shield at the same time unfortunately

[rotund marten]

does it only work with one-handed stuff?

[split parcel]

Yeah, it's an offhand thing, just like the ballistic shield

[rotund marten]

well, that's incredibly dumb, nevermind then

back to normal shield or laser drone

[burnt vapor]

I still don't know why they did that it's so silly

[rotund marten]

at least unless I'm running a gunslinger setup

[split parcel]

I honestly feel unkillable with it sometimes with Gunslinger armor

Like that particular setup

[rotund marten]

I'll give it a try with the Verdict then, once I've got the medals for it

[split parcel]

Polar Patriots is the last warbond I need to buy I think

Just feels a bit like "Democratic Detonation at home"

Got some generally useful stuff in there but not a toooon that really excites me

Where DD did have stuff that excited me

[strange vine]

directional shield doesnt block melee attacks iirc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkFDcy8vVfY

[oblique lotus]

DShield has 300 hp vs 200

Wait sorry wrong number

DShield is 1k capacity vs normal shield 150

[split parcel]

Alright so it is just a lot bigger lol

[knotty folio]

Shield Pack also only recharges when broken, while DShield starts recharging 3s after taking damage

I should really use the DShield more against bots, I already run xbow+Talon

(Well, technically the shield pack does regen, but it takes 60s of no damage)

Also half the recharge delay after being broken on dshield (6s vs 12s)

[sweet surge]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/553850/view/543369627969783286

[split parcel]

TLDR PC install size is big because some things are duplicated so that HDD users don't have ridiculous load times. They're working on methods to reduce this currently

[calm sorrel]

yeah, they definitely did that intentionally because they just care so much about players on weaker systems...

[split parcel]

It's not like it's been terribly nice to run on stronger systems either, and it's probably the better alternative between "it takes up more space" vs "everyone takes significantly longer to load because there is one player in the squad with a slower HDD"

[odd arch]

vermintide, on the same engine, also suffered install size bloat from duplicating every map asset for HDD users

like two years ago? they decided to just bite the bullet and remove all the copies

tbh a computer capable of running either of these games that's still on a HDD would be a very curious specimen

...I was the owner of one such PC but I'm not representative because I used every arcane trick in the potatomicon to run the games when I shouldn't be able to

I suspect most people with an antique PC don't sidestep minimum requirements by disabling the game's lightning engine, then go on to complain that it loads slow on a HDD

[royal lantern]

Many people are also probably running the game off an HDD, ironically, because it's really big and they don't want it taking up a huge chunk of their SSD

[azure rock]

1. Refuses to optimize the game, demanding higher specifications or play at 144p
2. But we have duped assets so HDDs can play, too!

let me read the blog before i express my hopes

Okay, I'd be elated for a file size decrease for PCs

Are there ways to be like

here's an opt on package for HDD drive users!

and just leave me out of it?

[supple siren]

Love when a game would have language packages back in the day instead of just loading every sound file

[graceful bluff]

Eternally reminded of bethesda games on the microsoft store downloading a full game folder for every single language

Which made the filesize many times larger on that specific version

[blissful sparrow]

the UPlay launcher does actually allow you to pick and select which languages you install

[lethal delta]

Bethesda games in micro store were so bad I went and bough the games on steam rather than play the ones I got for free on the store

[graceful bluff]

yeah, bethesda couldn't be bothered doing that on the microsoft store(partially due to the way the microsoft store stores games is fucking stupid but that's a whole other can of worms)

[lethal delta]

I needed to edit the windows registry to change the game language

[oblique lotus]

It probably was intentional, you store a bunch of decompressed assets specifically to improve load times

[ionic holly]

New PB on melee kills

[oblique lotus]

That's fairly standard practice and it's a trade off between install size and "wait for your PC to decompress the asset every load"

[oblique lotus]

This is tech debt

Now you have to maintain Helldivers 2 and Helldivers 2 HDD edition

[graceful bluff]

Due to the engine I don't think there's a single aspect of the game that isn't tech debt :v

[ionic holly]

my favourite "holy shit this has so much tech debt due to the engine" games
helldivers 2 and payday 2

[azure rock]

lmao yeah

[azure rock]

but that's fair. they seem busy with the live service portion

still though

people shouldn't have their parts fried because of oshuane or whatever it was

[versed bison]

This would be less of an opt-in package and instead would have to replace all existing data files, which is not something I'm sure steam DLC supports?

The duplicated data needs to be stored with where it is frequently loaded, in the same file, or else it is not at all guaranteed that the data is nearby on the disk, especially on a crowded HDD.

This would probably have to be a separate beta branch and that means maintaining an entire separate build depot specifically containing these different files

in practice, if you're still on a HDD and playing any fancy looking game from the last five years, you've probably come to accept that load times are going to be hell

Hell, you're probably not playing anything recent at all because of that.

[azure rock]

so i guess the more sensible option would be to just full send the hardware barrier?

[oblique lotus]

Yeah but that makes the game much worse for a subset of the playerbase which will be extremely unpopular

[oblique lotus]

Also it means maintaining a separate build and making sure that it plays nice with the main branch and dealing with new bugs plus you need to make sure that new content or even bugfixes work in both branches and on and on and on

[graceful bluff]

The wildest thing about it though, is that I feel like the engines having a much better time with helldivers than it is vermin/darktide, and they fuckin' made the engine

[calm sorrel]

Thanks to the Sony account thing, they've already made the game inaccessible to subsets of the player base before. Can't really afford to do that again as much as it would benefit the majority

[versed bison]

SSDs are still more expensive than HDDs per gigabyte last time I checked, so you're messing with your intended hardware audience by making them store more than they need for a benefit which does not apply to them, on hardware where space is more of a premium.

But no, this isn't "fuck optimization", this is "when is this tradeoff worse than the problem "

[oblique lotus]

Iirc a SSD is like 3x the cost of a HDD

[versed bison]

It sounds like they do mostly automated builds, but that doesn't mean they can't accidentally fuck up builds or beta branch configuration for 10 months straight lmao

[oblique lotus]

I mean even with automated builds these are two different versions of the game

And you need to make sure that both work

[blissful sparrow]

the builds at my work are automated and they are fucked up about 40% of the time lmao

[versed bison]

"whoops when did the asset duplication pipeline break, HDDs have been getting junk data for 2 weeks"

[split parcel]

The benefit does kind of apply to SSD users; current implementation means HDD users load into games faster

Like in a roundabout way

[calm sorrel]

they've managed to add bugs back in to automated builds because I guess patches aren't built off of the most recent patch. So I really don't trust them running two versions that have to be compatible

[versed bison]

The real question is how many of 12% of HDD steam users are trying to actually play H2

[blissful sparrow]

"But didn't our automic tests catch that?"
"They did... we just sent the email notifcation about it to noone"

[versed bison]

Which thankfully is an open question they've acknowledged when looking at the data they have

[steady flame]

Yeah our HD2 install on Xbox is sub 40gb?

[calm sorrel]

that's the benefit of there being a finite number of xbox configurations (none of them have HDDs anymore)

[graceful bluff]

It's much easier to optimize for consoles since you generally know what the hardware is

[steady flame]

We know

[versed bison]

Because most hardware still running only a HDD is likely over 7 years old, the one person I know who still uses a HDD has a side SSD for games that need the speedup

[steady flame]

Just brining it up

…bringing

[graceful bluff]

unless you're activision where you deliberately balloon the game size so you can't play other games :v

[versed bison]

Also noted in the news posted above

[steady flame]

Side note we’re still annoyed by the size of modern games since we hate having to do storage juggling on our Xbox

We have about 8 TB of storage total spread of internal storage and 2 external storage bricks. Want to know how much we have for internal storage?

1!

and 90% of modern games need internal storage

aaaaaa

GSC did their stupid upgrade to the original stalker trilogy games and now they’re all series x|s optimized which means they can’t run off our external storage

[calm sorrel]

even without the duplicate stuff for speed reasons, there's still going to be a lot of bloat in there

[azure rock]

for the most part it's why i stick to smaller games, with hd2 being an obvious exception

[steady flame]

We also try to do that

[versed bison]

…It should be noted also that the medium-term approach they're thinking of is to keep some commonly used data always loaded to still keep HDD load times down even with deduplication

Which will certainly eat RAM, but hey, they're trying to do something about it.

If they cut the size in the meantime, that's checkbox 1 of 3 for me actively thinking of buying this game instead of staring at videos and playing Helldivers 1

[azure rock]

but it's tough! like you said, even after getting 8tb you're barely left with anything

[strange vine]

Not my experience

[sweet surge]

Yea I haven't seen that many complaints from the tide games when compared to HD

[split parcel]

In the upcoming balance pass I'm looking very forward to my beloved Sterilizer getting some attention

[knotty folio]

Vermintide 2 was literally unplayable for my group when we tried it

We gave up on it entirely after spending a week trying to get it to work and only successfully running like two missions, with crashes or disconnects ending 80% of the runs

[split parcel]

How long ago was that?

[knotty folio]

A few years, maybe? Been a while

[sweet surge]

Didn't say they never had issues

[north fiber]

Hell, Fatshark is kind of known for their absolute shit shows of launches

Darktide on launch as a fucking mess

[split parcel]

It is very playable now, has been for a hot minute iirc. Darktide is pretty good now too. Helldivers 2 is definitely the worst performing of the bunch

[split parcel]

Yeah. They really have a knack for not learning a damn thing when it comes to how to launch a game lmao

[north fiber]

Fatshark: wait a year

[split parcel]

Or two

[knotty folio]

Yep, just providing some anecdata (n=4)

[knotty folio]

The game had been out for three years at least, since Sister of the Thorn was out when we tried it

[graceful bluff]

Every major patch is a mess from what I hear from friends playing it lmao

[split parcel]

most recent one has been pretty good so far

[azure rock]

whats the uhh

comparison between crossbow and eruptor like

[split parcel]

Crossbow has a lot better ergonomics and is 1 handed, eruptor does more damage and handles like a boat

[naive hawk]

the listed damage number of the eruptor does not include the Three Thousand And Three Hundred shrapnel damage

[unreal merlin]

crossbow has long range skillshots 😎

way better ergonomics and a refire/reload speed that isn't glacial

[azure rock]

ahh

thank you all

[knotty folio]

Eruptor has a hard max range of 180m, which is relevant for sniping objectives

[odd arch]

crossbow is more convenient in practically every metric imaginable, even has stealth uses

[knotty folio]

It also has pen 4 on the main projectile, which allows it to kill some enemies the crossbow can't in a pinch

[odd arch]

the eruptor however is the unimaginable power of the sun in my primary slot

this does not discredit the crossbow's power, it has enough that combined with the convenience it's imo THE meta weapon

[knotty folio]

The crossbow also doesn't have the eruptor issue of canceling the bolt pull if you do something right after firing

[odd arch]

but it lacks the sauce of bringing a battleship cannon to bear on that guy over there

[supple siren]

There's something folksy and wholesome about using Arma Diaboli to fire explosives though, the Crossbow is damn efficient for a one hander. Both will be spending a lot of time reloading though

[azure rock]

think ill give the crossbow a spin then

[odd arch]

firing the crossbow attracts no attention so long as the bolt doesn't pass close by someone

so it can be used to make enemies go "huh??" while you do the objective

[azure rock]

could you elaborate on that

like if you snipe an obj without the bolt flying near an enemy you just stealth the mission?

[odd arch]

if it does damage it'll cause an alert, I'm not sure what will happen if the only thing it damages is a spawner/other objective

but if it safely explodes off to the side enemies will flock to that point to investigate

[azure rock]

oh!

OH!

...

is stealth interesting in hd2?

[odd arch]

very divisive

I like it

stealthing entire missions is a full commitment but doing a bit is very useful and imo fun

[azure rock]

really? how do you go about doing that? especially in city maps

[odd arch]

stealth into a base, wrath of god it, then drop the pursuit so the entire reinforcement wave gets wasted on you while the rest of your team gets a breather

doing some stealth has no gear requirements really, just be aware of the minimap so you don't walk into pre-alerted enemies, then break LOS and use low posture and obstructions to get to your desired position
enemies operate both on cones on vision and hearing range and have a pretty generous investigation period

if they saw you, you can prone and they'll usually lose you, if they heard you, get away from that spot

[azure rock]

o woa

[odd arch]

stealth kills are kinda a thing? but alert spreading is probably the most bug prone part of the game with every update so it's a mystery how it works rn

enemies that are passive will generally not cause an alert if killed "quickly"™ out of sight of anyone else

patrols however always know if they lose someone

smoke nades will have enemies completely clueless if they haven't seen you prior to the cloud, though throwing the grenade will aggro them

you can cook it in your hand if you're trying to solid snake a whole objective

[azure rock]

how do you deploy smoke without aggro then--oh okay

thanks for preemptively saying that

i forgot you could cook grenades tbh

[odd arch]

sentries also make great decoys if deployed far away enough that enemies don't react to the stratagem call-in and don't get to see you on their way to the sentry

this is risky though because it puts them into combat which makes them react much faster to noticing you

[naive hawk]

i was running jump pack + quasar and soloing side stuff in a city map yesterday

advice for dif 10 gameplay in general but

[odd arch]

"overwhelming violence and fast legs" is the more practical form of stealth, needs its own snappy name tbh

[naive hawk]

no witnesses stealth

[sharp crater]

speedrunning

[azure rock]

honestly sounds like guerilla tactics

[knotty folio]

If you want to practice stealth remember you can press 5 to leash your dog

[azure rock]

yuuup

have to use that button since the backpack will be refilled but not auto deployed

[naive hawk]

this was revealed to me in a dream

[graceful bluff]

crossbows also good for stealth since it only makes a noise upon landing

[unreal merlin]

As a certified Stealth Diver, I'm not entirely sure on this but it certainly is fun to use as a Stealth Diver primary.

[azure rock]

might try stealth diving then

how does throwing stratagems work in that case?

[naive hawk]

i think red stratagems alert enemies but blue and greens don’t

[unreal merlin]

The Exploding Crossbow possesses several traits that make it a strong utility weapon.
Uniquely, because it fires crossbow bolts, this weapon has a very low sound signature, only alerting enemies within 10 meters of the wielder that it has been fired. This gives it stealth applications that other weapons do not have.

All stratagem beacons will alert enemies to some degree.

If you throw them far enough away from you and are not already being observed/enemies aren't alerted, they will turn to look at the beacon first instead of whatever you're doing.

If it's a Sentry you called in, they'll typically turn to look at the sentry beacon and then fight the sentry that comes down. MG Sentry is an excellent distraction tool in this way due to its low cooldown and general effectiveness against most enemies.

[graceful bluff]

It's so nice for making a noise on the other side of a base to lure enemies away

[azure rock]

woah..

i should stealthdive more

[graceful bluff]

and yeah mg and mortar sentries are amazing for distracting

Cause if all they know are sentries, they don't call in bot drops

The purifier is another weapon that's great for stealth diving cause you can use its charge shot like you do with the crossbow cause it also has a very low noise level

[azure rock]

oooh

what warbond is that

[unreal merlin]

The ODST armor popularized stealth gameplay because the armor passive is more clearly written, but the truth is that stealthdiver gameplay has been in since launch with the three core light/medium scout armors.

[azure rock]

odst?

[unreal merlin]

Not having your legs ever break IS a pretty awesome benefit though

[unreal merlin]

The Halo crossover warbond

paired with the suppressed SMG and Pistol for even more stealth gameplay

[graceful bluff]

polar patriots I think?

[unreal merlin]

scout armor has always let you just low-crawl through entire enemy bases though

[graceful bluff]

They apparently don't even really have lower noise level than similar weapons though iirc

[unreal merlin]

The statistics of the suppression is not well documented yet, but I can testify that it does work. What a lot of complaints base their "this doesn't work!" on seems to be that if you shoot at enemies, they and enemies around them still react to you. This makes sense given how suppressors actually work.

What it certainly does do is limit the chance of other nearby enemy packs, patrols, or outposts from noticing you killing whatever you're dealing with. It helps you keep from aggro-ing pack after pact of enemies.

I do think the SOCOM pistol needs like, +10 damage. This puts it to the breakpoint of one-shot for Devastator heads while still being light pen and not hitting any other breakpoints

cuz if you go through all the effort to line up a headshot on one of those, you deserve the reward of them dying quickly so you can keep doing your stealth bit

[azure rock]

i would greatly appreciate being able to just headshot them with the stealth pistol

[grave sail]

https://youtube.com/shorts/2X9M0zfy1eM?si=pv-pV28kwAvj-KsC

[rotund marten]

Purifier get

time to see if this thing lives up to its reputation compared to the Scorcher

[cobalt patrol]

It's big edge is the flexavbility of the aoe or the mag dump capability (which is very, very usefu lto blow hulk vents or kill impaler faces, and similar stuff)

[rotund marten]

Scorcher is ample for the latter, but struggles at the former

how is it for cannon towers and tank vents?

it's always nice to full-auto the scorcher into one of those and score a quick kill

[cobalt patrol]

I have never actually thought to try it for those

I dont, tbh, run it on the bot front very much

[rotund marten]

scorcher, IMO, is the god-gun for bots, it just melts everything that isn't a hulk or larger

interested to try purifier

[oblique lotus]

I prefer the explosive crossy but the scorcher is also really solid

I'm warming to the solo silo

[cobalt patrol]

I'm a deadeye stan

[verbal summit]

Purifier is pretty much just a scorcher if it could ALSO do more and better things

It does more damage than the eruptor with a shot

Or that's what my friend told me

But I love spreading unverified information

[naive hawk]

eruptor projectile + eruptor explosion + a single piece of eruptor shrapnel is more damage than a max charge purifier
the eruptor spits out 30 pieces of shrapnel per shot

[knotty folio]

Heck, against medium armor Eruptor does more even without the shrapnel

But yeah functionally eruptor will deal 3-5 times as much damage to the primary target

Nearby targets are more randomized but it's rare for something in the explosion radius to completely dodge shrapnel

[hearty pier]

First time I've managed to deflect an EAT off a hulk. Was an unpleasant surprise

[rotund marten]

ok, purifier is pretty fun for overseers

I like the double tap

[dusty spruce]

I find the purifier to be all-around better than the scorcher, in most cases. It feels rather ammo efficient if you take your time to charge it.

[unreal merlin]

The biggest drawbacks to the purifier I would point out are:

• very risky to use with allies in proximity to the target (they WILL be killed by the AOE)
• low response times, can be overwhelmed easier (you want to be charging every shot but this doesn't work when there's 57 hunters running at you)

[dusty spruce]

But that’s why I find it better. The charged aoe feels better to prevent that swarm from getting close in the first place. That little hunter hop doesn’t carry it outside the range of the blast

It’s also the better option for burrowers, when those return

Granted, I never full auto the scorcher, so the purifier just feels better for me.

need to get truth enforcers so I can carry the purifier, the plasma pistol, and the epoch to just carry three versions of the same gun