Imo even if the lock on is fixed (still waiting for that end of the month fix), it deserves a buff. It needs to be capable to one shot tanks, turrets, chargers, BTs too and from any angle, factory striders two shots in the head part at most. Even add some AoE to various AT weapons explosions because it comes only with 4 missiles. And that's not a lot, imo the backpack should add one more for a total of 5 shots vs RR's 7 shots. If team reloaded, I once depleted the entire backpack (don't ask how I managed to chain lock every single heavies in sight at 150m) in a matter of 3 seconds with meh result on target. It ironically needs a buff despite being the most powerful weapon in the game with something like quadruple digits damage I believe? Even worse than that is the fact that AT weapons can't one shot nursing or bile spewers all the time either shooting the sack but an autocanon will do fine on that after a few shots despite the major caliber/explosion difference. That's unbelievable.
One of the worst updates they added. I fucking hate how shit their map generation is, so they punish us by first making our stratagems bounce off mountains, and then they eventually add invisible walls to certain terrain to stop us from getting an edge. The entire studio is ran by masochists that just absolutely love to endure the most painful, rigorously nonsensical bullshitery I've ever seen. Every one of those guys just love taking fun away.
Yet they still havent fixed bots dropping on and inside cliffs and surviving inside killed dropships. Yes, lets just nerf the players more (the defence mission thing is an exploit though, illl give them that)
Alexus- Upon watching this video I have noticed lots of support weapons against the bots are in F tier. To balance this, I have decided to nerf the AMR, Laser Cannon and Auto Cannon.
Alexus: upon watching this video I have noticed that a lot of support weapons against the bots are in F tier. We have decided to unbalance the game by nerfing the AMR, Laser Cannon, and Autocannon, and we have also buffed all bots in every category they can be buffed in.
@@skoomd4447 After the drop of new exo suit and seeing how terrible it is... I'm taking even longer breaks between playing HD2 now... how the hell does an exosuit do less damage than a standalone weapon??? 🤦♂ There is zero logic there... and the fact that it's supposed to be useful against bots which smother you with rockets... so the flimsy armour doesn't match the description makes for an abysmal experience.
@@earthtaurus5515 What's worse is it does less damage that the standalone even when you use both shots as the same time. Like yes one of the arms should do more damage than the standalone weapon but if it dropped where you at least did like 1.5 times the damage when firing both at the same time it would have at least been better received.
They should allow support weapons with backpacks to be team reloaded even if you are wearing the backpack. It's a big ask to have a teammate wear your backpack just to reload you, and that also separates the ammo from the weapon. I should be able to walk to my friend with a Recoilless Rifle and start speed loading from his backpack.
Agree but also that it would make more sense to me because having to reach around and pull something from your own backpack seems a lot more awkward (and slow) than pulling something from someone else's backpack.
@@windsgrace688 i was just going to comment this lol. you see your guy take forever to grab a shell off of his own back to load yet your buddy can do the same thing really fast. i understand that they want people to do team strats but like what's easier grabbing a heavy shell from your own back or a heavy shell that's on someone else's back? i dont usually have issues with it cause i got people that like loading me because its "cool" but id love to have randos be able to come up and load me without them needing to give up there own packs
What most people don't get, when advocating for a weapon, is that main breakpoint is "can it kill charger relatively fast?" It wasn't me who designed chargers to spawn so often and to have sturdy weakpoint that is not so weak. Support weapons on bugs are taken mostly with consideration for chargers. Even flamethrower is loved just because it can deal with them. Let's imagine for a second this fantasy scenario where it's difficulty 7 and all chargers are extinct. If that'd happen - you will see so many people playing with machineguns. Bile titans are manageable with stratagems. But as of now you can only see people with AT options (maybe a single teammate with grenade launcher)
But I think applies to playing solo. When I play with my brother, he usually takes something AT (mostly Quasar) and then I can go with for example cluster rocket, and it works great.
@@madoqenplaying with friends/relatives/people you trust is different, that's true. You can even be somewhat of a functioning team. Most of helldivers play with randoms and you always need swiss army knife loadout because no one will be so kind to cover your weakness
Sounds about right. Armor should be a valuable resource when thrown against players but they just spam it constantly, the merit for killing them is just lost when you know they would spam another 10 at you.
Yes... but may I recommend playing on difficulty 5-6 then? Difficulty 7 is not meant to be straightforward. Especially when you push towards 9, when even strategems alone isn't going to be enough to save you from all the bile titans, so AT is practically required regardless. Though I'd note that this doesn't apply to solo play. In solo play, kiting and avoiding fights is the goto strat regardless, and should be less considered for balancing purposes as it would too heavily favour tactics that benefit stealth-type gameplay. (when soloing objectives, I often just stun the charger and drop aggro rather than engaging it)
@@LaserTractorI play a lot with "rando's" and I find that they will help you out if you let them. People also really appreciate it if you help them out, like clearing out a lot of chaff for them while they are blowing up a bile titan. You should try it.
Yeah well the CEO stepped down basically because that fucking idiot AH is ruining their game. And all AH’s dumb shit got reversed. Fucking clown that’s what you get for being a douche and purposely trying to ruin the game
Haha, no they're not! Now on a "totally" unrelated note... How often do you use the AMR, and how overpowered would you say it is compared to current state railgun? We- uh, I mean arrowhead have a vision, trust me! :) -"totally" not Alexus
This tierlist really does just showcase the design failures of this game Bug missions: How good is this against Chargers? That's the long and short of the question of viability of support weapons against Bugs. Chargers spawn way too often to be reliably dealt with using Stratagems unlike Bile Titans and ever since the turning radius buff Chargers need to be dealt with and can't be endlessly kited especially with the new Stalkers, Chargers can not be dealt with if a Stalker nest is currently active. Chargers need to be killed quickly and in great numbers, all the viable support weapons can do this. Bot missions: How good is this against Hulks, Gunships and Rocket Devastators? By far the most lethal 3 enemies in the game that also are way too populous to be dealt with using Stratagems or straight up immune to Stratagems (hello Gunships) Bringing a support weapon for "chaff" is nonsense because these 4 enemies can not be dealt with using Primary weapons or Stratagems reliably enough.
@@Luler-l8t Stalkers can be dealt with very easily with any precision weapon because they only have 130 HP on their head hitbox and can be dealt with by any viable primary weapon. Bile Spewers are a weird case because they are rare only appearing in 3/10 bug missions on hidden Acid enemy modifier in which case they don't appear in any other mission.
In uncoordinated public lobbies or singleplayer matches, this is more or less true. When you cannot reliably count upon teammates to take out targets with extreme prejudice using the specialize options for doing so, every player is forced to be more or less self-reliant. Which means you need a loadout that can do a bit of everything, and AT exists exclusively in the Support slot and in Stratagems- and as stated, charges can't really be dealt with via stratagems except those that drop hellpods (stick a charger with a blue-beam basically guarantees a kill as long as you can get the charger to stop moving for a moment) Same is true of bots, except the number of weapons capable of dealing with hulks is greater than for chargers, since even pen 4 weapons can pen the visor. However, in even loosely coordinated group play, teammates making use of extremely heavy AT options (like team-reloaded Recoilless/Spear) and a small bit of staying more or less together can enable others on the team to specialize into clearing out chaff via other non-AT weapons. Helldivers is a game about teamwork and coordination, although solo play is possible, its highly inadvisable for exaclty the fact that it enforces a very, very strict type of optimization.
I hate shieldens more than Hulks, rocket devastators and gunships combined. Ragdolling every now and then adds some spice into the game, unlike the sudden laser hailstorm which turns you into a sieve
@@TravisStockton Oh wow, you must be quite the pro at this game! Surely you have video evidence of such great gameplay. Oh, no? You are just baiting and will reply with "generic insult, I dont have to prove anything to you" comment cuz you know you are lying? Great, thx for participating! I will take "talking bs" for 500, Alex.
I would argue Heavy Devs are more of a threat than Gunships and Rocket Devs because just how accurate and high their DPS is. You can avoid Rocket spam if you can see it coming, you can't avoid Gatling spam, only heal through it.
Arrowhead really needs to get rid of the modifier that gives you only 3 stratagem slots. Or at least let us pick a fourth that will be locked until we take out AA Defense on the map.
they just need more interesting modifiers. Like Bile Spewer modifier (so we know that they're on the map) or shrieker modifier. There shouldn't just be a straight nerf to the strategems (like how orbitals become inaccurate)
@GameFuMaster i agree, and to expand on that point, there should be modifiers that HELP the players too. That's the one thing all games with mission modifiers seem to get wrong. There needs to be boons along with banes.
For me this game would improve 200% just by having something before the mission that tells you which enemies will spawn. Its such a different game when there: - Is a lot of chargers or - lots of spewers or - lots of hunters
@@siluda9255 depends on if you are solo or grouped, you fight the same number of patrols thus drops/breaches as one as you do as a group. and patrols ALWAYS spawn off-camera (even if that means behind a rock) so 99% of the time that means they spawn in aggro-range in a flanking position.
Back in a days granade launcher was ok, fast way to down whole patrol of bugs, to close nests. But ammo pool is horrible, increase it twice - will be nice weapon in party. Laser cannon can be good just by increasing damage and time required to overheat. Like we have a ton of weapons, that requires small tweaks. Just do it, check how it will go. Not enough? Tweak again! Too much? Make little tweak back. It is simle as that. We do need some insane weapons re-works in general.
Grenade launcher was great at the start before we had other options worked out and people played differently. It's still great on bugs blitz missions as you can very quickly take out an entire large big nest in 1 mag. Laser cannon is similarly great on hatcheries for taking out eggs and not needing to reload. Most weapons have their place and don't need to all be anti bile titan/hull/strider to have their place.
@@samwild6630 Though nowadays I just run eruptor (even post nerf) for that purpose, as it's more reliable for long-range hole closure, and I can still run it with recoilless to take care of chargers and titans and towers. Pair these with verdict to take care of lights and stalkers (you just run away from most mediums, the stray few that can keep up can still be handled by eruptor even post-nerf even if it takes a few more shots) and stuns to help with the hit-and-run, saving the rest of the strategems for horde clear, CC, and whatever you want. (I personally run AC turret, emp turret, and 500kg)
@@sinteleon This is my exact point. People jump on the bandwagon that all weapons aren't prenerf railgun that can 2 shot bile titans and therefore the game is bad and everything is trash. Yeah most primaries aren't good enough to handle helldive by themselves. A lot need some serious tweaking (Purifier). Most of the support weapons are fine for what they are meant to do. HMG needs sight alignment fixed and the spear needs it's target fix and more, but the others are all pretty fine.
The higher the difficulty the less options I have to choose from to have fun cause my strategems cant take 6 titans in a row especially when strategems are blocked to 3 lol
Bugs don't reduce stratagems to 3. You will always have 4 stratagems vs bile titans. Doesn't make the game any less awful, but I just wanted to clarify.
whats funny people will say "this is a team game" yet none of the stratagems are confirmed 100% lethal to kill a BT, heck i saw someone in my team put a 500kg (more like 50kg) bomb on a BT's face and its still chasing us after the explosion, now imagine every divers has 2 BT's and 3 chargers at once chasing em in helldive with limited options ITS LAUGHABLE even for someone who plays helldive
@@quanlinglingdingle6122 Feels like a roll of dice when using the 500kg against a BT. Sometimes a BT has taken no damage and gets oneshot by the bomb, next another BT comes in with its bile sack blown away and it tanks 500kg:s even when they blow up in the same exact spot the first BT got one shot by.....
@@quanlinglingdingle6122that’s the 500 mg bomb 😂, imo best way to deal with BL’s is getting under them shooting both their sacs and using either precision strike or orbital rail cannon. If you have the distance quasar can be really good too.
@@nicholasryan5906 did this a few days back - shot both of his sacs, used orbital railcannon and it still didn't kill him :/ meanwhile my friends are sometimes able to one-shot him with orbital railcannon without even destroying the sacs...
As a recent EAT addict, the main point of the weapon is missed so often. The fact it’s disposable is the key selling point. This is the support weapon to bring if you’re going to capitalise on the random support weapon spawns found during the mission or discarded by teammates. By the end of the of the round, it’s equal to having an extra Strategem slot! Or 6 if you find a tac pack Edit: This also makes a fun randomness to the mission that makes it play a bit more like a rougue-like style game
As a tier list, this doesn't make EATs any better. Its has numerous downsides. You are choosing to play the game in a very specific fashion in which EATs are the most suitable thing for your build and the way you want to play the game. As a more objective approach recoilless has a trade-off, but it does many unique things other anti-tank weaponry cannot do. It has very fast reload potential with an ally making it the fastest throughput anti-tank weaponry in the game with plenty of ammo to shore up its reserves. Even solo with longer reload the throughput on recoilless is insane compared to Quasar or EATs as you are only limited by how fast you can reload and how much ammo you have. Eats are affected by negative modifiers, requires you to stick around a specific section of the map to use it. Cant' really be brought in against jammers. End of missions with extra time stops EAT deployment. EAT is just very easily a grade lower than recoilless because you cannot carry all your ammo with you and you have no way to increase the throughput. Quasar is a middle ground. It removes many of the wielding restrictions of EATs by carrying it with you allowing you to use it, but it can't double tap as quickly. THough over the course of the game its throughput is pretty high and very flexible on movement. Recoilless is easily the highest tier weapon. If you put restrictions on yourself like saying, OH, I need to use this backpack slot that is where EATs can move to the top of a list. Though of a more objective list recoilless is the best anti-tank weaponry in the game. Even above orbitals in many cases due to its sheer spammability.
I like using the EAT but i just throw it when i see a charger/titan to switch out with whatever support i use the other 85% of the time then once the threat is dealt with i pick up my original support weapon like a stalwart etc.
I use the stalwart religiously on top three difficulties. 🤣 it's not shit with the right stategems and equipment. But it shines best with one to two teammates running heavy weapons.
@@elfireii328 It's in an awkward spot where it's not a very good support weapon, but it would be way too good of a primary. In HD1, it was balanced around being a sidegrade to an assault rifle, so it would have to be nerfed pretty heavily to fit back into that role. Otherwise it would just render everything else obsolete vs bugs.
You had the knowledge, balls, and foresight to see that AH wouldn't release a patch today that would immediately make this video moot, bravo. I cheer for you daily good sir.
I believe that recoilless animation cancel became a thing after the patch where they fixed a bug with disappeariang rocket. Before you could just 'lose' one rocket if you interrupted realod at a wrong time. So they accidentally added a 'quick reload' mechanic, which I feel like should've been in the game from the very beginning for every weapon.
100% right about the RR reload cancel. The 2 seconds is nice but having essentially a little mini-game out of canceling the reload at the right moment. It adds some anticipation and interaction into what is usually a dull and tedious process.
I'm assuming this tier list is mainly based on solo helldive, since that's what you mostly play. I'd make the argument that in group play, the machinegun is C tier against bots. It can tear through devastators and berzerkers fairly fast, and without much aim. You just have to aim for lower torso shots with both, which is a pretty large area. I have not seen a single better weapon for rescuing a teammate getting W keyed by 12 zerkers than the machinegun. It's not *bad* at dealing with anything bot related except Striders, tanks, and gunships. Hulks can be taken out with a stun grenade and then shooting out the heatsink, or just shooting the heatsink if someone else has aggro. It's just overall decent at most things, which is what I would say C tier is meant for. While my personal favorite weapon against bots is the AMR. Sometimes my unga bunga desire for a big machinegun leads me to bring the MG into bot helldive missions. And it's actually pretty good at dealing with the *VERY* common threat of 8 billion rocket devastators coming at you every 7 seconds thanks to the patrol changes.
@@after_midnight9592 If I'm running MG on bots my primary is either scorcher or plasma punisher, MG, supply pack, and Eagle Airstrike with either orbital laser, or 110 rockets. This gives me tools to deal with most things the bots throw at me to at least a decent level. With airstrike and 110 rockets filling in the gaps where MG is weak. Or using laser instead of 110 so I can throw and forget it at objectives like heavy bases, or eye of sauron. EAT is a perfectly acceptable replacement for 110, and probably better most cases. I just personally like using 110's despite their occasional targeting wonkiness because of their versatility, and because I can use them to take out annihilators while I'm safely behind a rock. Or toss them over base walls and watch them hit the fabricator.
@@Deadsnake989 Plasma punisher is a good alternative cos it can also take out striders. Scorcher has too low fire rate for when bots close in, imo. I use primary for blank range cleanups, when there's no time to reload the MG. That's why I prefer MG and dominator, to quickly mop them up, just mag dump before MG can be safely reloaded. Supply pack is a must. Airstrike for base attacks and rail strike for hulks.
Having an autocannon bro in the squad is a godsend. Yeah they wont be able to help out with heavies, but everything else... It was only last night an autocannon bro had my back and saved my life against an absolute swarm of spewers.
I kill so many chargers as an Autocannon Bro. Quasar Kids just panic when they miss their shot. Easy kills on the charger"s hind end while he's playing tag with them. Even Bile Titans die so much easier if I soften them up with the Autocannon first (break the sacs).
Personally, I feel like he did the autocannon dirty for bugs. The autocannon can essentially deal with every enemy and most of the bug structures. Spore spewer, sherker nest, bug holes, and call be destroyed at a distance before you even get close to it. Granted, yes, it does take a backpack slot and can't really take out smaller enemies effectively, but that can be solves by using primary weapon.
TBH that's why I like taking the grenade launcher. AS LONG AS I can count on my teammates to deal with the bile titans and chargers, I can mow down everything else with a grenade launcher and resupply pack. Not to mention, keeps resupplies freed up for my teammates to use and gives me endless stims.
remember, this if AFTER the devs buffed the deflection angles months ago (patch after the railgun nerf and it's less talked about breach/drop spawn-tripling)
@@keenshibe7529 It's not jank, it's a intended mechanic for their to be deflection angles. It's suppose to add realism yet also make you factor in how you're shooting.
The SPEAR has a niche against bots as it can oneshot entire small-medium size bases from a mile away. I've completed difficulty 8 missions without firing a single bullet and just launching SPEARs.
Spear on paper seems like a top tier weapon. Auto aim, one shots even the heaviest enemies AND objectives/enemy spawners from hundreds of meters away. It just cant hold that peformance consistently. If they can figure out how to make it more consistent via the lock/ shot angles then itd be great.
@@LordVader69420 IMO its fine in terms of power as the only thing it cant one shot if the stars align is factory striders, to my knowledge anyway. it just needs to not be an edging machine and i think itd see infinitely more use. Buffing it after making it consistent would risk stepping on the toes of RR and making it obsolete.
I think the only one i disagree with is the Railgun placement. Definitely C tier at best imo. But other than that i completely understand every other placement.
I swear a number of these weapons were stealth nerfed. The grenade launcher used to be pretty darn good with an ammo pack at clearing hordes, now it isnt. The Machine gun had it's ammo pickups nerfed to one reload per resupply (even with the Superior Packing Methodology, you still only get one reload) while all the others MG get 2 reloads. Auto Cannon isn't that great any more, takes too many shots against mid tier mobs. All the rocket launchers don't hit hard enough and the damage dealt is a lot more random (sometimes the bile takes 2 recoiless to the head, sometimes as many as 6).
@@LordVader69420 While this is essentially true, the real question is: Is this fun? Why does a bile titan take less damage from the sides of the head, chin, and mouth than from a shot to the forehead when these parts seem to be less armored?
@@windsgrace688 idk, ask that dip$hit Alexus why he wants to suck all the fun out of the game. I was just trying to help buddy out because he doesn't know how to kill them effectively with a rocket launcher, and I just learned this the other day myself. To helldivers, knowledge is power 💪
@@windsgrace688 baiting BTs into spitting is far too easy. its more fun that they have resistance when they're attacking so they're not trivialized by some simple bait tactics.
The bot tier list boils down to what i use... AC and AMR because those weapons do the damn job, well i do bring EATs and recoiless ONLY on that specific rocket evac misssions
I prefer EAT + quasar for the rocket evac mission instead. Alternating between EAT and quasar helps to mitigate EAT cooldown downside, meaning you don't need to rely on resupplies.
@@sinteleon i mean at that point just run 2 quaso, you can survive the first 7 mins on existing stratagems then after that every new call-in means less cooldown between shots.
@@IRMentat Yes, but with the extra queso cooldown, even double queso isn't quite fast enough to take care of a triple dropship round. And it's not like the queso + EAT is wasted, the extras you get is helpful to take out the factory striders anyway.
That's why I take Quasar because if you don't OS a charger, well...have fun 😂 And it lets me pick the laser doggo, which is something I can't live without anymore in bug missions. Hearing those $%^&*" hunters screaming in pain while you do nothing is pure bliss.
That's the main reason I prefer the big plasma boi over the RR when I do take anti-tank: it's the fact you stay active and controllable during the "reload" phase, even if it's longer than the Recoilless. Clear chaff, kite the big guys, call in stratagems: you can keep playing instead of locking into a reload for 5 seconds. Assisted reloads are cool, though. Just not reliable given the required level of coordination and just how hectic firefights can get even with a good squad.
Arc Thrower's clearly S tier for bugs imo, damages everything, crazy horde cleaner with the ship upgradre, 2 shots broods to the head and pushes them back , 3 shots both kinds of spewers to the head and stuns their spewing attack, free charger kills with stun nades, orbital railcannon or 500kg didn't kill a titan? Just zap it 2-3-4 times to finish it off.
It is not their "vision" apparently Also don't complain, let arrowhead do their job, they know better, play with your mouth shut, know your place and be grateful for what you have (Sorry, I tried to make typical devs bootlicker comment)😂
Bro, a corrosive support weapon (and grenade) that reduces armour rating would be so good... but i have a feeling AH don't want to do that because they reeeeaaaaally like their rigid armour system.
Immediately down vote for the silly MG-206 hate. It's true that it's not Fantastic vs bugs, but it DOES kill chargers and BTs if you're careful. And then, vs Bots it becomes an absolute monster. I'll gladly dive with anyone to show them what the HMG (MG-206) can do. I've solo'd Hulks, Tanks, Turrets and even a few factory striders... all with the MG-206. It's a fantastic weapon.
it's not hate, if you like a weapon use it but understand the game please. go solo and try and kill a factory strider with the machine gun. let me know how many bullets it takes.
@OhDough I have and will continue to do exactly that: the MG-206 *can* solo Factory Striders. And it doesn't take as many bullets as you might think. "Understand the game" sounds just as toxic as those that say "skill issue". There is no skill issues here, just some quirks you need to get used to. But since you apparently don't know these facts, that means you obviously haven't gotten enough trigger time with one. Let me know if you want me to provide a demonstration 👍🤘
bro, no one but larpers call the HMG MG-206. thought you meant the machine gun. in any case it still doesn't compare to a real support weapon. use what ya want and cut back on the larping a bit.
Thanks for the video. Unless this specifically for _solo_ helldive difficulty, I'm surprised the Grenade Launcher and Autocannon were rated so low vs bugs, given their utility. Some of that utility is redundant if you're running the grenade pistol, but if you don't have that unlocked, these are both good IMHO assuming your teammates have solid anti-tank. Bug holes, destructible container doors, illegal broadcast towers, spore spewers and shrieker nests (this one is autocannon only, 9 shots from across the map), also efficient vs hive guards, brood commanders, nursing spewers, bile spewers, warrior groups, and charger tails in a pinch. I always run either of them with EATs so I have some dedicated anti-tank to support my teammates. If I was solo I'd probably need to avoid these and run more dedicated anti-tank stuff though.
The final thing you mentioned, about the “quick time event on reload” is very very true. It makes me think at games like Sniper Elite 5, or simply all Gears of wars, where you have exactly that: a little quick time event that makes you reload faster (and have a bonus in damage/fire rate/blast radius/ecc in the case of gears) when you take it right, and gives you a slight malus when you take it wrong. Yes, there is the possibility to elongate the reload time even more if you take it wrong, but it’s constantly fun, engaging and rewarding at the same time! It would be fantastic in helldivers 2 in my opinion.
I'd love to see your ideal loadouts for each Support weapon. How can you offset the shortfalls with different primaries and strategems? Feels like a more encompassing approach than just weighing them by themselves
And this is why I mostly stick to the same handful of weapons/stratagems for the content currently in the game. I like variety and want to have fun, but that's hard to achieve when a loadout for variety's sake feels nearly useless.
Does it kill titans? No. Does it kill chargers? No. Does it do anything that a base primary couldn't? No. It's an Eruptor on an 8 minute cooldown that also takes your support weapon slot.
@@Orudaiken"It's an Eruptor on an 8 minute cooldown that also takes your support weapon slot" I think that's going a little far. GL is semi auto, 10 round capacity vs 5, and you get to run the breaker incendiary in your primary slot. Neither the GL nor the Eruptor are very effective vs titans and chargers, but that's what EATs, 500kgs, and teammates are for. If you're solo or nobody on your team is running AT, then don't take it and go for an AT option yourself. In any other situation, it's good.
@@OrudaikenUnforeseen plot twist, its an explosive weapon (wait...grenades are explosive?) Just catch a charger after a failed charge and blow up its butt before it turns around to kill it, I've killed chargers multiple times doing this and its easy, and even easier with a stun grenade. Whilst it won't kill Bile Titans it takes like 2 shots to blow up the bile sac, and just take a stratagem to handle the big guy
@@OrudaikenAdditionally clears medium enemies in 3 shots or less, and whilst not the BEST at clearing stuff like hunters, scavengers and the like just take a breaker incendiary for that purpose, and to clear enemies who get too close to use the grenade launcher. The Grenade Launcher can perform very well once you get used to it
@crisppancakes743 Scorcher and Breaker Incendiary both outperform the grenade launcher at clearing medium units, and both outperform the grenade launcher at destroying titan sacs and charger butts. The only thing that you can even argue the grenade launcher is good at is closing holes. But even then, the Eruptor is better with 30 shots and better range, and the grenade pistol is arguably sufficient for every task the launcher could do. And even for using your launcher on light units? You would be better served with eagle clusterbomb, performing a whopping 15 runs in 8 minutes. And the moment you suggest using ammo drops for resupplies on trash units? Just use a primary that does enough clear with enough ammo economy. Grenade Laucher is F tier because of the opportunity cost.
18:37 As a spear religion enjoyer I can say without the doubt that a spera is extremly good against automatons and bugs you just need to play better :)
@@TheCosmicAstro- Refusing to even attempt to learn when the Spear will / won't lock on properly is like shooting Bile Titans in the body with the Quasar, taking 10 shots go kill, and complaining that it's unreliable. Medium range. Have it face you. Have height advantage. Don't shoot through smoke. Ping it. Crouch. First try 3rd person, then swap 1st person and shake around for the green box if need be. (The 1st person sight has an inertial 'resistance' as you approach the green lock angle in 1st person that you can absolutely get used to.) Not an "instant win" button against anything, but it will make real progress on the enemies you need to kill (chargers, bile titans, hulks, tanks, laser towers, fabs), quite unlike half the other options. Only option in the game for even semi-consistent long-range anti-tank kills (like killing titans / chargers / hulks chasing your friend 150m out). B-tier, and anybody ranking it lower is downranking from frustration alone.
@@Larknok1 "Medium range. Have it face you. Have height advantage. Don't shoot through smoke. Ping it. Crouch. First try 3rd person, then swap 1st person and shake around for the green box if need be. (The 1st person sight has an inertial 'resistance' as you approach the green lock angle in 1st person that you can absolutely get used to.)" No shot youre being serious. if so, seek help
one thing that must be said for the airburst launcher is that it can 1shot tanks from the front. if you hit between the turret and the hull the clusters explode inside the turret and kill it.
The fact that every time I had to switch to unsafe mode whenever I receive a new railgun is a nuisance. Unsafe mode should be the default setting, if safe mode even exists. For this reason it makes the already mediocre railgun even less reason to use. I saw someone rocking a Railgun against bots. Trying to handle 6-7 gunship. It is hilarious.
Dude you had a brilliant idea. Gas Strike should reduce the armor values of anything it touches permanently by 1 or 2. The corrosive gas would literally soften up the enemy armor for other weapons.
AC C-tier???? It's my primary go to against bugs too. It should be in S tier alone for the ability to kill or (in case of bile titans) neutralise every kind of opponent. It's the most versatile weapon of all the support weapons regardless of enemy.
The worse thing about the HMG is that they want it to be a long ranged anti armor machinegun but the HMG emplacement already exist for that role and is actually better in that role despite not being able to move.
I'd say that while the AT isn't that great in most bot situations, they have 2 advantages over other support weapons. First, it can take out cannons from the front. Sometimes it's just inconvenient to get around them. Secondly they can take down dropships, which while in many scenarios it isn't optimal, there is 1 scenario which it is: evacuate high value assets, With quasar and EAT combo, you can easily shoot down all dropships from 1 side, letting dual mortar clean up. (and against factory strider, you've dual AT, which lets you easily kill it easily enough thanks to the effective lower cooldown from having 2 different AT available)
I used to be crazy about recoilless against bots, specifically because of how good it felt to take down dropships. Only took getting shredded by one heavy devastator pinned under the dropship wreckage I just made, then getting repeatedly shredded over and over trying to get my crap back.
very smart to put nothing in S tier so arrow head does not decide to nerf any of them. although they already nerfed all the weapons out of S tier. Nvm u done goofed with the bots
Always remember your support weapon should compliment your main weapons and stratagem to make up for anything else. For bugs, stalwart works great as a primary for crowds, pair it with the jar5, and 500kg, or railcannon shot for titans.
Nah bro, I take Autocannon vs bugs quite often, it's an all-rounder for every objective and it's very effective to have one guy in the stack with fast anti-medium. It's the best weapon for this role due to the speed and range, flamethrower is nice too for Chargers but you're quite slow without the range.
I run AC on big missions and being that support guy for the team (as long as my team is bringing EATs, quasar or recoiless - then I bring AC 100% of the time) You can kill shrieker nests and spore spewers and still have ammo to deal with regular enemies until you get a resupply. Also in a pinch close bug holes from distance if needed. And the obvious if you run into nursing or bile spewers. My opinion if you’re running with a team it is A-/B+.
Spear can make you feel like you are in godmode if it locks on 90% of the time. Happened to me once, and I was having such a fun time. Again, it sucks against hulks because it mistargets more than half the time (even when it is not moving). S-tier against gunships, because the lockon is super accurate there. But basically cannot lock on reliably to anything else. (Yes you can reposition, but you are wasting time). I would say it is C-tier right now, but can be A-tier if they fix the lock on and give it one more ammo.
The EAT cool down is only a minute. You can litter the battlefield with them on defense missions, and if you git gud you can use the pod itself as a weapon
You think the grenade launcher would be better if you could have different grenade types, gas, smoke, incidiary, shock, cryo? or maybe a backpack with these different types of ammo? or do you think they will just make different grenade launchers for warbonds?
@@maybeiamepic2263I'd said rating for a solo player. The stalwart, grenade launcher... these all perform well in their role, but that role isn't suited to solo 7+ runs.
@@sharktrap267 the entire selling point of the game is co op. Stupid to rank them this way and doesn’t even take into account your other stratagems. You could run the stalwart perfectly fine on bugs if you loud up on heavy killer stratagems. I’ve soloed helldives (level 9) with the grenade launcher because it clears nests well, leaves a backpack slot open, and has AOE and stagger for bigger targets. It’s a good weapon
@@maybeiamepic2263 that's mostly how he plays, so it makes sens that he'd review it based on solo play. That said, I don't play solo 7+, so I don't agree with everything presented. Just that I know why he completely disregards anything that can't deal with the biggest targets.
As far as I'm aware Planetary Modifiers and Spawn Tables don't change, so if you remember facing a lot of Bile or Nursing Spewers on one planet, you'll do so again, though most don't have eidetic memories, as such after the first mission in a multi-mission campaign you should be reasonably aware if there is Spewer spam in play. Personally, the devs really need to share more info with players, such as what foes we can expect in force on each planet, along with the supply lines, and more comprehensive weapon/stratagem data. HMG's reload is slightly below 6s like most stationary reload weapons, but without an option for animation cancel it doesn't feel great. Though apparently you can partially reload mid jump with a Jump Pack.
I personally don’t agree with the air burst rocket launcher being F tier against bugs (unless you were talking about just soloing) because you can take out an entire patrol with just one shot and if a bug breach starts and you’re not getting walked on by everything you can kill at most about 40 bugs. I love using the air burst rocket launcher when I’m in a team and my teammates are going with things that can take out heavy enemies and I just make sure that they don’t get completely swarmed
Dough goes hard on it and TBH i haven't had half the trouble he has in terms of getting it "to boom" where i want it to boom. The reload IS pain (relegates it to ambush/ranged/cover-fire) but at least it goes where you want and generally clears that spot up neatly. That said if there's 2-4 heavies chasing you down, it's only useful for sudoku. i'd like less "firework pop" and far more BOOM in the individual clusters ) a nice pretty dandelion of overlapping shrapnel & splosions not a firework of individual hits spreading all over the place.
@IRMentat Dough goes hard on most of the weapons. He's not typically wrong in his reasoning, but he is just overly harsh in the trashing of a weapon and it feels very doom and gloom.
@jacktheripper7935 I play with randoms and once had a team of players that were less than level 25 while I was running airburst, and we were mostly fine, and there were a ton of BTs
I'd specify this tier list is a solo dive list. I do run with someone who uses a spear a lot, it is a VERY specialized weapon and finicky to use. When you can cover for that the spear does work. Like bile titans can't even get close if the conditions are right, solo diving would be real hard to get that right. I'd probably still keep the tier list the same tbh 'cause some of these weapons need some help. xD
I main the machine gun for both bots and bugs (cuz fun for me) on level 7 and 8. It is not as good as other support weapons, but if you know where to hit them, it can take down most enemies. I think F is extremely harsh on it, unless he knows AH is watching
Seriously, I'm seeing so many more of these on TH-cam, discord and Reddit. "Emanciptor is not as bad as you'd think. People who think they suck are just bad at the game". I don't mind being called out as being bad at the game, but seriously, if you are saying that mechs are redeemable in any case (spare Automation Eradication missions, and the day we had free weapons experimentation), you are not sober. Like I'm not even kidding, the only time I enjoyed the mechs is after I drank. People saying that the Airburst and Mechs are good, are just Drunk Beyond Belief (TM). (Remember the tutorial tip? Don't drink and dive!)
I am in the camp that thinks the game has an issue with how bugs demand anti tanks while bots get to enjoy those ap 4 support weapons. Other than the occasional firebat, it is three options per faction basically and in each case there is a degree of samey-ness to all three. A very, very big degree for bugs of course with the rocket family. I think something to the effect of an increase to the viability of breaking chargers and titans with those ap4 tools against their thorax should happen on one side, and on the other I'm thinking an explosion buff to the rockets. Say, ~375 AP4 explosion and bump up the radius a meter. It'll kill a little clump of troopers if you catch one, kill a couple striders at once that are near each other, and have some tricks like a shot to a decent spot on the head blasting the miniguns off a factory strider, and should clean up the risk of a vent shot failing to kill things with vents. Meanwhile the extra explosion would not impact bugs in an overpowering way since you would still be doing it wrong if you use one on the chaff.
Could maybe use a G tier - Stands for "Gimmick" - for weapons which are terrible but have meme speedrun tech use cases. In it, I'd put the Spear against bots (because it can kill fabricators across the map, if you have the sightline and it feels like locking on), and the Airburst against bugs (because it can cross-map the egg destruction objectives, if you have the right sightline).
@@OhDough I'm not saying anything against you here. But I think the developers want us to work together to take stuff down. That's the appeal of COOP games in my opinion at least , each teammate being specialized in a way to take things down (thats what i like about thia game and deep rock galactic at least). I think the real issue is the stratagem discrepancy between heavy killing and non heavy killing. There is too hard of a line between how weapons can kill heavies. It wouldn't be easier to kill a bile titan with an HMG it just needs to be possible because EAT and recoiless would be better for ease of use anyway. They just need to nerf bile titan and charger spawns on bugs. Also you forget. Or probably don't even know, that tier 9 helldive is not the max difficulty of helldivers. 15 is the max difficulty of helldivers and that will eventually come to this game.
@@OhDoughKinda odd to rate weapons based on solo only for a team game. Imagine if someone rated Divinity in D2 as F tier since it’s not good solo, or Inspire Ace in PD2 as C tier since bots are bullet sponges that can revive each other instead. Noone would take them seriously.
@@OhDough -- that's not exactly right, though, since some weapons excel / really shine against targets at extreme ranges / when you're not being constantly aggro-rushed. For instance, the Spear is soooo much better in a 4x player environment. Sniping hulks / bile titans / chargers chasing your friend at 150m away is hilarious, fun, and surprisingly effective. Oddly, the lock-on at extreme ranges (on clear environment maps) feels much better than at close range. Since at any given time there's a bile titan chasing each other player, you pretty much always have targets. Your TTK on chargers / titans is often better than the recoilless, albeit less predictable. I would say it's B-tier against bugs. Not the best of the anti-heavy options (EAT, Quasar, Recoilless), but definitely belongs to be beside them. F-tiering it just because it's unreliable / frustrating is just weirdly disingenuous. A good player with the Spear is just 50x more effective than a player with the Stalwart / Airburst. Against bots, you get to snipe bot fabs and laser towers from any angle, *occasionally* 1-shot hulks (unreliable), and are among the very best options against tanks (kill from any angle). Not great for when you get aggro-rushed by hulks. I would honestly say B-tier again. Not anywhere near as good as AC / AMR, but honestly the best of the anti-heavy launcher weapons for the long-term utility alone.
Talking about the animation cancel for the reload reminded me of how gears reloads worked with time the reload and get more damage and it's quicker but mess it up and your jammed. They could really use that and speed reload up while needing to have skill under some pressure.
I started bringing ac bc everyone uses quasar so i can take care of medium enemies, chargers with a bit of work and if i really meed i can take care of titans too with one railcannon shot and then destroying the sacks under the titan or just using the 500kg, i think is nice to have one person with an ac on bug missions (i play diff7)
The Spear can be useful for long range base assault against bots. You can take out turrets/factories and sometimes circumvent the need to get close. I like that - even though it's not great for large enemies. The problem is the lock on, it's a nightmare and it makes it so unreliable I rarely take it. I do take it on 7-8 but on 9 I'll just go with something to kill striders/hulks.
Gotta disagree with the LC versus bugs. Your refusal learn it seems more like skill issue. You can leg tech a charger and kill a charger faster than the flamethrower. You run under a titan blowout the sacs very fast, then one rocket pod finishes it off. It’s not meant for killing scavengers and hunters.
@@XS69 that’s reductive. No primary can kill a charger in 2-3 seconds. Also if it could headshot a titan the existence of heavy anti-tank would be pointless. primaries that can blowout titan sacs quickly aren’t very good a dealing with chaff. It also has the fastest or on par with the RR ttk on spore towers/shrieked towers but at much greater ranges, takes a little over a full charge.
For bugs with the autocannon you stick with someone who has a heavy weapon and you focus down all the med armor enemies. Ya on bile spewer planets you get alot more use out of it. Smart idea for someone to bring one of those
I strongly disagree with this as a generell tier list. Many weapons are meant to be used in a team for certain roles and they perform very good at it. Even used only for solo, there are some disagreements, but they might come down to personal preference, which is ok, I guess
Autocannon can deal with chargers too, but you are right its not super efficient. AC does mean they can take stun grenades without worry and those plus airstrikes can take out chargers really well. As long as they are running just one eagle its not bad. I can take autocannon into bugs without issue and solo bug breaches pretty easily. Stun grenade and airstrike solves every problem thats not a bile titan. Rail cannon strike into blowing out their sacks with the autocannon kills titans 9 times out of 10 as well. That leaves a final stratagem slot open for something like orbital precision, which can take out both heavies, airburst for more chaff/breach control or whatever your team is lacking. EMS, napalm (not ideal because 2 eagles), EMS mortar or AC sentry (if scatter), or EATs if you really feel like its needed. Admittedly if a support weapon needs a special grenade out of a premium warbond to excel then that is a point against it being higher. But it really is the swiss army support weapon on both bots and bugs. Stun grenade sets up easy charger kills, or just buys enough space from the charger to clear chaff with the incendiary breaker and autocannon. Both the incendiary breaker and the sickle have a hard time quickly clearing medium enemies and thats where AC really shines. When they together do that so well you can have enough room to nuke down the heavies with your stratagems. Just my experience though. Been running AC almost exclusively for around 300 hours at this point. Also seems like everyone takes quasar when playing with randoms, so me running AC rounds out the group a lot more.
I actually think the Autocannon is great against bugs, if you bring it with chaff killing power like the Breaker Incendiary and leave killing heavies to your teammates. Autocannon is great against spewers, hive guards and brood commanders, it's great at long ranges to cover your teammates that have gotten seperated, it can deal with chargers in a pinch, it can close bug holes (most ammo efficient weapon of all for that purpose) and even destroy shrieker nests and spore spewers if necessary. And if you bring two heavy killing strategems like 500kg and EAT you're basically set up for anything short of extreme charger/titan spam. This IS coming from someone mainly playing on D7, though. No idea if it holds true on D9.
I stop for more than a month and don't get me wrong i WAS having a lot of fun BUT the dude that balance the weapons somehow find the way to make me quit really fast
Dough, I agree with the bug list. But I would like to highlight 2 situations about 2 of the F tier. Stalwart and Spear. Spear lock on has a way to make it work without moving and fast shooting. I saw it in a video. To lock on a desired target, do circular movement with the sight around the target. Like a bile Titan. And to keep firing without needing to lock on again to the same target, just reload with the aim button pressed. Spear is my go to support to "Defend" missions vs Bugs. Because the bile Titan comes to us facing us. It is easy to hit the headshot. Aside from this strict niche use, the spear is not useful enough to be chosen. After they nerfed the Quasar, I was trying to find another loudout to play vs Bugs, and I liked to use a combo with Stalwart! Dominator, Granade Pistol, Stalwart, Stun, Shield Backpack, 500kg and Optional last stratagem (napalm, cluster or EAT). I never play solo, but this loudout was surprisingly good at dealing with everything.
I thought I was going insane last night when I realized that to fight on the bug front, you *NEED* two support weapons to make things work. Like to have a balanced loadout I would essentially have to forgo any orbitals or eagles and focus solely on support weapons in the stratagem slot *just for myself*
About reload: I think they nailed reload with the AC on total accident. It actually has a very punishing reload but if you pay attention its super good.
I think its funny that the airburst launcher, which can wipe out bot drops and clear small to medium bases with a single shot is being put at F because it cant kill a charger quickly
Something worth mentioning when it comes to all of the heavily armored enemies; if you can damage it, then the shots aren’t wasted. Titan may take two rockets, but a titan that’s been catching strays from random explosions and arcs and etc CAN go down in just one rocket. My opinion on ammo economy is that with the sheer number of ammo supply points you can find around any map, so if you’ve got a weapon that can hurt the things, do your team a favor and hurt the things so the anti-tank handler can finish them off
I think the main problem with support weapons is that the devs want them to fit into different roles so a squad has to cover each other's weaknesses. It sounds good on paper for a team game but falls flat for a few reasons: -The roles are poorly defined. I don't think there should be a class system to be clear, but as the game is currently designed the only roles that matter are "chaff clear" and "heavy killer." -The game doesn't really incentivize teamwork beyond this. Hulks and Tanks are the only enemy types in the game that really reward a basic team maneuver by having a weak spot you can exploit by flanking with a buddy. -Primary weapons are designed to be weak on purpose, so they almost all get relegated to the "chaff clear" role already, making it hard to justify a stratagem weapon slot for that. -Even if we ignore that when playing with randos, they will be uncoordinated and less likely to cover a weakness of your build for you, it simply feels BAD to encounter an enemy you literally cannot do anything to. So even in a perfect team people still aren't really going to want to go for a loadout that makes them helpless against chargers, BT's, hulks, etc. plus their spawn rates are so high you can't even bring a heavy killer stratagem as a "just in case" measure. There's probably more to it than that but I think these are the main issues at least in my experience.
The issue with so many support weapons and strats are that they have a specific use case - but its not communicated. Airburst - killing mobs of shriekers, and trash mobs only. works on bugs, and bots (infantry and walkers, sometimes devastators) so really just defence missions for bots. the 110mm rocket pods are another one.. Its for killing tanks, it also tracks on factories amazingly, and occasionally against turrets. I still see people bringing it against bugs though.
I will point out that safe mode on the railgun allows you to kill many of the medium armor enemies in the game with a single shot. If you hit anything up to a Brood Commander in the head, the bugs will die. Spewers included. You just need unsafe mode for chargers and bile titans. Similar story for bots. You can 1-shot devastators with safe mode if you shoot their leg, head, or lower stomach. You can even kill hulks if you hit the eye. Unsafe mode is used on stuff like tanks and factory striders so you don't waste ammo. TLDR, safe mode hits lots of breakpoints without danger of exploding. Unsafe mode is for killing truly tanky targets quicker.
EAT: disposable nature means you if you die you haven't lost your anti tank option. I put above Recoiless. Quasar still good but that unnecessary nerf really hurts. Nad Launcher: solo its bad, but in a team one person bring for spewers and holes is great Exo Suit: will always be good vs bugs, since they can't shoot back. Auto Cannon: Should be at least B if not A. Quickly blow up nests, holes, and hive guard. Railgun: bruh. Put that thing in C where it belongs. Stawart: yall sleeping on its hunter clear. Not great but def better than F. Again, not solo
For a lot of stratagems the enemy types matter. AH could add specific mission subtypes like the destroy ammo supply mission against bots, but it's "Destroy Stockpiled Rockets", making rocket enemies very rare for the rest of the operation. Destroy Terminid Structures: Hunters - the 12 minute bughole closing mission would then remove a certain enemy type from the rest of the operation. If you don't get swarmed by hunters, maybe now's the time to use... actually, this might be better for primary weapons like the punisher plasma. It could even be limited such that static spawns can still contain these enemy types, but reinforcements (patrols/breaches/drops) don't. The existing rocket devestators still have enough ammo to keep fighting, but the bots can't bring new ones into the battle. The hunters that have already hatched are there, but no new ones are coming in. The ICBM that got launched was aimed at a tank production site, those won't be dropped in now. The Egg hatcheries that got destroyed were meant for spewers, goodbye to them. The data that you uploaded? Intel on the enemy types in the rest of the operation. Some of this could even be shared with all players on the planet: Doing an intel mission in a certain region (what are the world maps for?) could increase intel for everyone, and if a high enough threshold is reached, these (or at least some) spawn rate clues are available for all mission. Destroying certain enemy types might be bad to share, though, because then people might start complaining on a meta level about people choosing to remove certain enemy types when they have different preferences.
I have to say that I completely agree with everything you said about automatons, but... You can't be serious ranking the Autocannon so low against bugs. It is a great balanced weapon that can do a little bit of everything with a LOT of ammo and very fast fire rate and reload speed, specially if you do the reload trick where you reload every 5 shots so you always do the quick reload animation AND now you can get full ammo recovery from supply ammo boxes it's even better since you can be very aggressive with your ammo usage unlike other support weapons. Against chaff you can literally use your primary to kill them, like the Incendiary shotgun that deletes all chaff instantly. Criticizing because it's not good against chaff is like criticizing the Recoiless because it's bad against it too. Autocannon (against bugs) is supposed to be used against Brood Commanders, Guards and Spewers, which can easily snipe from far away in a horde while your team deals with the rest (or you change to your shotgun then and delete the rest yourself). You can break chargers's butt in 3 shots, which only takes ONE dodge of their charge if you time it right (you may need to use recoil reduction armor so the sights of the weapon move fast enough to land the shots), so it's decently fast at that too (but obviously not as good as the rocket launchers because those are specialized). But the true strength of the Autocannon against Bugs is its pinpoint accuracy at any practical range combined with the ability to destroy bug holes/spore tower/shriekers' nest at a fast fire rate (you don't need to reload constantly, you have 10 bullets so you can destroy a complete Heavy Outpost by yourself quickly from afar without having to get INSIDE the outpost itself (and if any bughole is out of range/wrong angle you use a stratagem to finish it). The whole point of why the Autocannon is good is all these 3 things combined into one single weapon, which makes it a very versatile one whose purpose is to remove the medium enemies (spewers, brood commanders, guards) of the fight quickly and then destroy outposts super fast. The fact that it can deal with Chargers too quickly is what pushes it to a solid A tier. I agree that against Automatons is S tier. Railgun is too high against bugs because any other weapon except maybe Spear can do anything better, unlike the Autocannon it's versatile but barely passable because you are providing very little to the team with the Railgun against bugs compared to all the benefits you provide by bringing an autocannon, and in Solo play Autocannon is even better if you are trying to destroy bugholes quickly.
i was thinking what you said about 16:20 and having a caustic modifier like in elite dangerous that reduces armor toughness would actually be super interesting, one of the things that makes elite dangerous really fun is stacking debuffs (caustic, heat sig makes enemies easier to track, drag is drag, force shell flings your enemies, etc.) and maybe having gas, flame, etc. do debuffs rather than damage over time would be super fun
I really feel like regardless of whether or not they buff or keep the mechs in the same state, that they should add an emergency eject button or something that will launch you out of the mech a fair distance away, and make the time it takes the mech to explode on you a little longer (maybe depending on damage received) when it reaches its damage threshold so you can react to that. 1. That sounds really fucking fun and like a great way to escape dangerous situations. 2. If you’re good at the timing (or predicting) you don’t have to get punished as ball-kickingly hard. Or y’know, alternatively, just actually make them heavily armored? Feels like piloting a squeaky toy sometimes
"Just reposition better" *proceeds to nerf climbing terrain because apparently good positioning is an exploit*
Imo even if the lock on is fixed (still waiting for that end of the month fix), it deserves a buff. It needs to be capable to one shot tanks, turrets, chargers, BTs too and from any angle, factory striders two shots in the head part at most. Even add some AoE to various AT weapons explosions because it comes only with 4 missiles. And that's not a lot, imo the backpack should add one more for a total of 5 shots vs RR's 7 shots. If team reloaded, I once depleted the entire backpack (don't ask how I managed to chain lock every single heavies in sight at 150m) in a matter of 3 seconds with meh result on target. It ironically needs a buff despite being the most powerful weapon in the game with something like quadruple digits damage I believe?
Even worse than that is the fact that AT weapons can't one shot nursing or bile spewers all the time either shooting the sack but an autocanon will do fine on that after a few shots despite the major caliber/explosion difference. That's unbelievable.
F U N D E T E C T E D
"meta = exploit" *(▀̿Ĺ̯▀̿ ̿) _Devs
One of the worst updates they added. I fucking hate how shit their map generation is, so they punish us by first making our stratagems bounce off mountains, and then they eventually add invisible walls to certain terrain to stop us from getting an edge.
The entire studio is ran by masochists that just absolutely love to endure the most painful, rigorously nonsensical bullshitery I've ever seen. Every one of those guys just love taking fun away.
Yet they still havent fixed bots dropping on and inside cliffs and surviving inside killed dropships. Yes, lets just nerf the players more (the defence mission thing is an exploit though, illl give them that)
Alexus- Upon watching this video I have noticed lots of support weapons against the bots are in F tier. To balance this, I have decided to nerf the AMR, Laser Cannon and Auto Cannon.
Alexus: upon watching this video I have noticed that a lot of support weapons against the bots are in F tier. We have decided to unbalance the game by nerfing the AMR, Laser Cannon, and Autocannon, and we have also buffed all bots in every category they can be buffed in.
If the any of those get nerfed im done with the game
@@skoomd4447 After the drop of new exo suit and seeing how terrible it is... I'm taking even longer breaks between playing HD2 now... how the hell does an exosuit do less damage than a standalone weapon??? 🤦♂ There is zero logic there... and the fact that it's supposed to be useful against bots which smother you with rockets... so the flimsy armour doesn't match the description makes for an abysmal experience.
@@earthtaurus5515 What's worse is it does less damage that the standalone even when you use both shots as the same time. Like yes one of the arms should do more damage than the standalone weapon but if it dropped where you at least did like 1.5 times the damage when firing both at the same time it would have at least been better received.
@@blueberyjuice8242 WAIT they nerf the AMR not long ago ? Im not playing the game like a month ago because "its too much fun"!
They should allow support weapons with backpacks to be team reloaded even if you are wearing the backpack.
It's a big ask to have a teammate wear your backpack just to reload you, and that also separates the ammo from the weapon.
I should be able to walk to my friend with a Recoilless Rifle and start speed loading from his backpack.
Very good point. Once someone told us how to do it, we never bothered to for the reason you just stated.
I’ve been commenting this everywhere I can. This is SUCH a needed feature!
Agree but also that it would make more sense to me because having to reach around and pull something from your own backpack seems a lot more awkward (and slow) than pulling something from someone else's backpack.
@@windsgrace688 i was just going to comment this lol. you see your guy take forever to grab a shell off of his own back to load yet your buddy can do the same thing really fast. i understand that they want people to do team strats but like what's easier grabbing a heavy shell from your own back or a heavy shell that's on someone else's back? i dont usually have issues with it cause i got people that like loading me because its "cool" but id love to have randos be able to come up and load me without them needing to give up there own packs
why lol
What most people don't get, when advocating for a weapon, is that main breakpoint is "can it kill charger relatively fast?"
It wasn't me who designed chargers to spawn so often and to have sturdy weakpoint that is not so weak.
Support weapons on bugs are taken mostly with consideration for chargers. Even flamethrower is loved just because it can deal with them.
Let's imagine for a second this fantasy scenario where it's difficulty 7 and all chargers are extinct. If that'd happen - you will see so many people playing with machineguns. Bile titans are manageable with stratagems.
But as of now you can only see people with AT options (maybe a single teammate with grenade launcher)
But I think applies to playing solo. When I play with my brother, he usually takes something AT (mostly Quasar) and then I can go with for example cluster rocket, and it works great.
@@madoqenplaying with friends/relatives/people you trust is different, that's true.
You can even be somewhat of a functioning team.
Most of helldivers play with randoms and you always need swiss army knife loadout because no one will be so kind to cover your weakness
Sounds about right. Armor should be a valuable resource when thrown against players but they just spam it constantly, the merit for killing them is just lost when you know they would spam another 10 at you.
Yes... but may I recommend playing on difficulty 5-6 then? Difficulty 7 is not meant to be straightforward. Especially when you push towards 9, when even strategems alone isn't going to be enough to save you from all the bile titans, so AT is practically required regardless.
Though I'd note that this doesn't apply to solo play. In solo play, kiting and avoiding fights is the goto strat regardless, and should be less considered for balancing purposes as it would too heavily favour tactics that benefit stealth-type gameplay. (when soloing objectives, I often just stun the charger and drop aggro rather than engaging it)
@@LaserTractorI play a lot with "rando's" and I find that they will help you out if you let them. People also really appreciate it if you help them out, like clearing out a lot of chaff for them while they are blowing up a bile titan.
You should try it.
the fact that NONE of these rapid fire weapons can one-hit bodyshot a hunter is a testament to how much the balancing team hates fun
So everything under armoured does should be a 1 hit kill?
lol aim for the head controller scrub
@@albenjammin Hunters are fodder enemies that attack in swarms, they're not supposed to tank shots like that.
@@garrettclark7778lol get a life loser
Bro not even the AMR can one shot hunters sometimes.
be careful with the tier lists brother, AH is watching
nice, now they will nerf the anti material sniper to the shitter, and wont nerf the autocannon why? because pielsted LOVES auto cannon
@@TravisStockton “The game is piss easy at difficulty 9 🤓”
Yeah well the CEO stepped down basically because that fucking idiot AH is ruining their game. And all AH’s dumb shit got reversed. Fucking clown that’s what you get for being a douche and purposely trying to ruin the game
Haha, no they're not!
Now on a "totally" unrelated note...
How often do you use the AMR, and how overpowered would you say it is compared to current state railgun?
We- uh, I mean arrowhead have a vision, trust me! :)
-"totally" not Alexus
Who is AH?
This tierlist really does just showcase the design failures of this game
Bug missions: How good is this against Chargers? That's the long and short of the question of viability of support weapons against Bugs. Chargers spawn way too often to be reliably dealt with using Stratagems unlike Bile Titans and ever since the turning radius buff Chargers need to be dealt with and can't be endlessly kited especially with the new Stalkers, Chargers can not be dealt with if a Stalker nest is currently active. Chargers need to be killed quickly and in great numbers, all the viable support weapons can do this.
Bot missions: How good is this against Hulks, Gunships and Rocket Devastators? By far the most lethal 3 enemies in the game that also are way too populous to be dealt with using Stratagems or straight up immune to Stratagems (hello Gunships)
Bringing a support weapon for "chaff" is nonsense because these 4 enemies can not be dealt with using Primary weapons or Stratagems reliably enough.
@@Luler-l8t Stalkers can be dealt with very easily with any precision weapon because they only have 130 HP on their head hitbox and can be dealt with by any viable primary weapon. Bile Spewers are a weird case because they are rare only appearing in 3/10 bug missions on hidden Acid enemy modifier in which case they don't appear in any other mission.
In uncoordinated public lobbies or singleplayer matches, this is more or less true. When you cannot reliably count upon teammates to take out targets with extreme prejudice using the specialize options for doing so, every player is forced to be more or less self-reliant. Which means you need a loadout that can do a bit of everything, and AT exists exclusively in the Support slot and in Stratagems- and as stated, charges can't really be dealt with via stratagems except those that drop hellpods (stick a charger with a blue-beam basically guarantees a kill as long as you can get the charger to stop moving for a moment)
Same is true of bots, except the number of weapons capable of dealing with hulks is greater than for chargers, since even pen 4 weapons can pen the visor.
However, in even loosely coordinated group play, teammates making use of extremely heavy AT options (like team-reloaded Recoilless/Spear) and a small bit of staying more or less together can enable others on the team to specialize into clearing out chaff via other non-AT weapons.
Helldivers is a game about teamwork and coordination, although solo play is possible, its highly inadvisable for exaclty the fact that it enforces a very, very strict type of optimization.
I hate shieldens more than Hulks, rocket devastators and gunships combined. Ragdolling every now and then adds some spice into the game, unlike the sudden laser hailstorm which turns you into a sieve
@@TravisStockton Oh wow, you must be quite the pro at this game! Surely you have video evidence of such great gameplay. Oh, no? You are just baiting and will reply with "generic insult, I dont have to prove anything to you" comment cuz you know you are lying? Great, thx for participating! I will take "talking bs" for 500, Alex.
I would argue Heavy Devs are more of a threat than Gunships and Rocket Devs because just how accurate and high their DPS is. You can avoid Rocket spam if you can see it coming, you can't avoid Gatling spam, only heal through it.
Arrowhead really needs to get rid of the modifier that gives you only 3 stratagem slots. Or at least let us pick a fourth that will be locked until we take out AA Defense on the map.
they just need more interesting modifiers.
Like Bile Spewer modifier (so we know that they're on the map) or shrieker modifier.
There shouldn't just be a straight nerf to the strategems (like how orbitals become inaccurate)
@GameFuMaster i agree, and to expand on that point, there should be modifiers that HELP the players too. That's the one thing all games with mission modifiers seem to get wrong. There needs to be boons along with banes.
Ya did it, gamer.
For me this game would improve 200% just by having something before the mission that tells you which enemies will spawn. Its such a different game when there:
- Is a lot of chargers
or
- lots of spewers
or
- lots of hunters
for reeal, our destroyers can see how much samples we can find on the mission but can't spot for shit gigantic green pimple ? c'mon
I've thought this as well. We need some kind of intel during the loadout screen to guide our choices.
Why not have it also roll your average predicted damage/score, and you dont even have to do the mission?
So much work was put into this game, only for bad balancing to destroy all that work.
One spoonful of tar ruins a barrel full of honey (old russian saying)
@@LaserTractor Dang, so true.
Ngl i find 9 easy as right tbh
Allright settle down with the hyperbolic negativity. Games still fun as hell, hopefully the ceo stepping down can help with the nerf-happy alexis
@@siluda9255 depends on if you are solo or grouped, you fight the same number of patrols thus drops/breaches as one as you do as a group.
and patrols ALWAYS spawn off-camera (even if that means behind a rock) so 99% of the time that means they spawn in aggro-range in a flanking position.
This isnt a guide to emotional support, its better.
I don’t need emotional support when I have heavy weaponry
It is therapy to me.
Alexus looking at all tier B and above weapon :
"NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERF!!!"
Imagine him with the lemon dude's voice in Adventure time.
Most of the B tier weapons aren't even good. He's definitely being too nice to the railgun. Its at best C tier.
please, all C tier and above
He is nerfing all of them. Period.
@@GooiYingChyi Don't you dare insult Lemongrab he had a good redemption arc.
Why dont they fire alexus jeez
Back in a days granade launcher was ok, fast way to down whole patrol of bugs, to close nests. But ammo pool is horrible, increase it twice - will be nice weapon in party.
Laser cannon can be good just by increasing damage and time required to overheat.
Like we have a ton of weapons, that requires small tweaks. Just do it, check how it will go. Not enough? Tweak again! Too much? Make little tweak back. It is simle as that. We do need some insane weapons re-works in general.
They already increased laser cannon damage, it's honestly fine as it is now, as a primary weapon replacement that has better penetration.
Grenade launcher was great at the start before we had other options worked out and people played differently.
It's still great on bugs blitz missions as you can very quickly take out an entire large big nest in 1 mag.
Laser cannon is similarly great on hatcheries for taking out eggs and not needing to reload.
Most weapons have their place and don't need to all be anti bile titan/hull/strider to have their place.
@@samwild6630 Though nowadays I just run eruptor (even post nerf) for that purpose, as it's more reliable for long-range hole closure, and I can still run it with recoilless to take care of chargers and titans and towers. Pair these with verdict to take care of lights and stalkers (you just run away from most mediums, the stray few that can keep up can still be handled by eruptor even post-nerf even if it takes a few more shots) and stuns to help with the hit-and-run, saving the rest of the strategems for horde clear, CC, and whatever you want. (I personally run AC turret, emp turret, and 500kg)
Grenade launcher with the supply pack and airburst orbital cleans up huge numbers. But you need to rely on your team for anti armor.
@@sinteleon This is my exact point.
People jump on the bandwagon that all weapons aren't prenerf railgun that can 2 shot bile titans and therefore the game is bad and everything is trash.
Yeah most primaries aren't good enough to handle helldive by themselves. A lot need some serious tweaking (Purifier).
Most of the support weapons are fine for what they are meant to do. HMG needs sight alignment fixed and the spear needs it's target fix and more, but the others are all pretty fine.
The higher the difficulty the less options I have to choose from to have fun cause my strategems cant take 6 titans in a row especially when strategems are blocked to 3 lol
Bugs don't reduce stratagems to 3. You will always have 4 stratagems vs bile titans. Doesn't make the game any less awful, but I just wanted to clarify.
whats funny people will say "this is a team game" yet none of the stratagems are confirmed 100% lethal to kill a BT, heck i saw someone in my team put a 500kg (more like 50kg) bomb on a BT's face and its still chasing us after the explosion, now imagine every divers has 2 BT's and 3 chargers at once chasing em in helldive with limited options
ITS LAUGHABLE even for someone who plays helldive
@@quanlinglingdingle6122 Feels like a roll of dice when using the 500kg against a BT. Sometimes a BT has taken no damage and gets oneshot by the bomb, next another BT comes in with its bile sack blown away and it tanks 500kg:s even when they blow up in the same exact spot the first BT got one shot by.....
@@quanlinglingdingle6122that’s the 500 mg bomb 😂, imo best way to deal with BL’s is getting under them shooting both their sacs and using either precision strike or orbital rail cannon. If you have the distance quasar can be really good too.
@@nicholasryan5906 did this a few days back - shot both of his sacs, used orbital railcannon and it still didn't kill him :/ meanwhile my friends are sometimes able to one-shot him with orbital railcannon without even destroying the sacs...
As a recent EAT addict, the main point of the weapon is missed so often. The fact it’s disposable is the key selling point. This is the support weapon to bring if you’re going to capitalise on the random support weapon spawns found during the mission or discarded by teammates. By the end of the of the round, it’s equal to having an extra Strategem slot! Or 6 if you find a tac pack
Edit: This also makes a fun randomness to the mission that makes it play a bit more like a rougue-like style game
a risky strategy that sees you weakened against the heavies for a maybe help-out against the masses.
Tho not without its benefits.
As a tier list, this doesn't make EATs any better. Its has numerous downsides. You are choosing to play the game in a very specific fashion in which EATs are the most suitable thing for your build and the way you want to play the game. As a more objective approach recoilless has a trade-off, but it does many unique things other anti-tank weaponry cannot do.
It has very fast reload potential with an ally making it the fastest throughput anti-tank weaponry in the game with plenty of ammo to shore up its reserves. Even solo with longer reload the throughput on recoilless is insane compared to Quasar or EATs as you are only limited by how fast you can reload and how much ammo you have. Eats are affected by negative modifiers, requires you to stick around a specific section of the map to use it. Cant' really be brought in against jammers. End of missions with extra time stops EAT deployment. EAT is just very easily a grade lower than recoilless because you cannot carry all your ammo with you and you have no way to increase the throughput.
Quasar is a middle ground. It removes many of the wielding restrictions of EATs by carrying it with you allowing you to use it, but it can't double tap as quickly. THough over the course of the game its throughput is pretty high and very flexible on movement. Recoilless is easily the highest tier weapon.
If you put restrictions on yourself like saying, OH, I need to use this backpack slot that is where EATs can move to the top of a list. Though of a more objective list recoilless is the best anti-tank weaponry in the game. Even above orbitals in many cases due to its sheer spammability.
this is really cool, I'm gonna try a few runs like this. ive never used the found support weapons
I like using the EAT but i just throw it when i see a charger/titan to switch out with whatever support i use the other 85% of the time then once the threat is dealt with i pick up my original support weapon like a stalwart etc.
@@blazewing2343 he gets it 😉
I want my old arc thrower back.
Hah
Current arc thrower is still amazing
@@Drayhgoit's amazing at sucking ass that's for sure.
Please no
@@Drayhgo meh, blitzer works better
The stalwart is pretty much a mini-MG42. It's shit, but holy hell is it fun to bump the rpm to 1150 and mag dump into trash mobs.
I wish it were a primary like in hd1.
I use the stalwart religiously on top three difficulties. 🤣 it's not shit with the right stategems and equipment. But it shines best with one to two teammates running heavy weapons.
I wanted to do a Eruptor + stalwart build once...before the eruptor's huge nerf...
@@jacktheripper7935 i do eruptor + stalwart or stalwart + dominator with grenade pistol. pistol for holes, dominator for chargers and hiveguards
@@elfireii328 It's in an awkward spot where it's not a very good support weapon, but it would be way too good of a primary. In HD1, it was balanced around being a sidegrade to an assault rifle, so it would have to be nerfed pretty heavily to fit back into that role. Otherwise it would just render everything else obsolete vs bugs.
New Arrowhead nerf guide just dropped
You had the knowledge, balls, and foresight to see that AH wouldn't release a patch today that would immediately make this video moot, bravo. I cheer for you daily good sir.
I believe that recoilless animation cancel became a thing after the patch where they fixed a bug with disappeariang rocket. Before you could just 'lose' one rocket if you interrupted realod at a wrong time.
So they accidentally added a 'quick reload' mechanic, which I feel like should've been in the game from the very beginning for every weapon.
100% right about the RR reload cancel. The 2 seconds is nice but having essentially a little mini-game out of canceling the reload at the right moment. It adds some anticipation and interaction into what is usually a dull and tedious process.
I'm surprised no other games copied gears of war active reloads.
I'm assuming this tier list is mainly based on solo helldive, since that's what you mostly play. I'd make the argument that in group play, the machinegun is C tier against bots. It can tear through devastators and berzerkers fairly fast, and without much aim. You just have to aim for lower torso shots with both, which is a pretty large area. I have not seen a single better weapon for rescuing a teammate getting W keyed by 12 zerkers than the machinegun. It's not *bad* at dealing with anything bot related except Striders, tanks, and gunships. Hulks can be taken out with a stun grenade and then shooting out the heatsink, or just shooting the heatsink if someone else has aggro. It's just overall decent at most things, which is what I would say C tier is meant for.
While my personal favorite weapon against bots is the AMR. Sometimes my unga bunga desire for a big machinegun leads me to bring the MG into bot helldive missions. And it's actually pretty good at dealing with the *VERY* common threat of 8 billion rocket devastators coming at you every 7 seconds thanks to the patrol changes.
I always run an MG and dominator on bots, to cover from medium to blank range. I take out striders with grenade pistol and the rest with EAT.
@@after_midnight9592 If I'm running MG on bots my primary is either scorcher or plasma punisher, MG, supply pack, and Eagle Airstrike with either orbital laser, or 110 rockets. This gives me tools to deal with most things the bots throw at me to at least a decent level. With airstrike and 110 rockets filling in the gaps where MG is weak. Or using laser instead of 110 so I can throw and forget it at objectives like heavy bases, or eye of sauron.
EAT is a perfectly acceptable replacement for 110, and probably better most cases. I just personally like using 110's despite their occasional targeting wonkiness because of their versatility, and because I can use them to take out annihilators while I'm safely behind a rock. Or toss them over base walls and watch them hit the fabricator.
@@Deadsnake989 Plasma punisher is a good alternative cos it can also take out striders. Scorcher has too low fire rate for when bots close in, imo. I use primary for blank range cleanups, when there's no time to reload the MG. That's why I prefer MG and dominator, to quickly mop them up, just mag dump before MG can be safely reloaded. Supply pack is a must. Airstrike for base attacks and rail strike for hulks.
Having an autocannon bro in the squad is a godsend. Yeah they wont be able to help out with heavies, but everything else... It was only last night an autocannon bro had my back and saved my life against an absolute swarm of spewers.
I kill so many chargers as an Autocannon Bro. Quasar Kids just panic when they miss their shot. Easy kills on the charger"s hind end while he's playing tag with them. Even Bile Titans die so much easier if I soften them up with the Autocannon first (break the sacs).
@@CovertJaguar you are doing democracy proud sir
Personally, I feel like he did the autocannon dirty for bugs. The autocannon can essentially deal with every enemy and most of the bug structures. Spore spewer, sherker nest, bug holes, and call be destroyed at a distance before you even get close to it. Granted, yes, it does take a backpack slot and can't really take out smaller enemies effectively, but that can be solves by using primary weapon.
TBH that's why I like taking the grenade launcher. AS LONG AS I can count on my teammates to deal with the bile titans and chargers, I can mow down everything else with a grenade launcher and resupply pack. Not to mention, keeps resupplies freed up for my teammates to use and gives me endless stims.
5:24 what in the actual fuck is that did that EAT deflected??
Lol, I was wondering that, too
Sadly that's just typical HD2 jank which happens occasionally when shooting from an angle. It happens with chargers too.
remember, this if AFTER the devs buffed the deflection angles months ago (patch after the railgun nerf and it's less talked about breach/drop spawn-tripling)
Yes, recoilless rifle and EATs can deflect.
@@keenshibe7529 It's not jank, it's a intended mechanic for their to be deflection angles. It's suppose to add realism yet also make you factor in how you're shooting.
I just love ohdough's monotone semi-sarcastic way of speaking😂 ripping shitty game design with that tone is hilarious
The SPEAR has a niche against bots as it can oneshot entire small-medium size bases from a mile away. I've completed difficulty 8 missions without firing a single bullet and just launching SPEARs.
When it works, it's very useful against the bots. "When" being the keyword...
@LordVader69420 39 seconds every Tuesday
Spear on paper seems like a top tier weapon. Auto aim, one shots even the heaviest enemies AND objectives/enemy spawners from hundreds of meters away. It just cant hold that peformance consistently. If they can figure out how to make it more consistent via the lock/ shot angles then itd be great.
@FiendLuckless it doesn't one shot everything though, it still needs a buff of some sort after it gets fixed...
@@LordVader69420 IMO its fine in terms of power as the only thing it cant one shot if the stars align is factory striders, to my knowledge anyway. it just needs to not be an edging machine and i think itd see infinitely more use. Buffing it after making it consistent would risk stepping on the toes of RR and making it obsolete.
The fact I came from remnant 2 to helldivers 2 as well and them both suffering the same fate as well is absolutely bonkers
yup, there's a crusade against fun and I'll never understand it.
I think the only one i disagree with is the Railgun placement.
Definitely C tier at best imo.
But other than that i completely understand every other placement.
I swear a number of these weapons were stealth nerfed. The grenade launcher used to be pretty darn good with an ammo pack at clearing hordes, now it isnt. The Machine gun had it's ammo pickups nerfed to one reload per resupply (even with the Superior Packing Methodology, you still only get one reload) while all the others MG get 2 reloads. Auto Cannon isn't that great any more, takes too many shots against mid tier mobs. All the rocket launchers don't hit hard enough and the damage dealt is a lot more random (sometimes the bile takes 2 recoiless to the head, sometimes as many as 6).
Don't shoot the bile titan while it's spewing. It takes less damage during the animation.
@@LordVader69420 While this is essentially true, the real question is: Is this fun? Why does a bile titan take less damage from the sides of the head, chin, and mouth than from a shot to the forehead when these parts seem to be less armored?
@@windsgrace688 idk, ask that dip$hit Alexus why he wants to suck all the fun out of the game. I was just trying to help buddy out because he doesn't know how to kill them effectively with a rocket launcher, and I just learned this the other day myself. To helldivers, knowledge is power 💪
@@windsgrace688 baiting BTs into spitting is far too easy. its more fun that they have resistance when they're attacking so they're not trivialized by some simple bait tactics.
@@MagikarpPoweruntil you have to kill more than one bile titan, then suddenly its a stupid mechanic
The bot tier list boils down to what i use... AC and AMR because those weapons do the damn job, well i do bring EATs and recoiless ONLY on that specific rocket evac misssions
I prefer EAT + quasar for the rocket evac mission instead. Alternating between EAT and quasar helps to mitigate EAT cooldown downside, meaning you don't need to rely on resupplies.
@@sinteleon i mean at that point just run 2 quaso, you can survive the first 7 mins on existing stratagems then after that every new call-in means less cooldown between shots.
@@IRMentat Yes, but with the extra queso cooldown, even double queso isn't quite fast enough to take care of a triple dropship round. And it's not like the queso + EAT is wasted, the extras you get is helpful to take out the factory striders anyway.
Most fun is when everyone brings both mortars and hmg emplacements on those missions.
@@after_midnight9592 You really only need 2 emp mortars anyway (one for each side)
Stalwart is kinda how the primary weapons assault riffles should be
I still prefer queso to recoilless simply because I don't have to sit still and reload.
Well i mean youre still gonna be behind cover but yeah unli ammo and you get to pick another backpack with the queso
That's why I take Quasar because if you don't OS a charger, well...have fun 😂
And it lets me pick the laser doggo, which is something I can't live without anymore in bug missions.
Hearing those $%^&*" hunters screaming in pain while you do nothing is pure bliss.
That's the main reason I prefer the big plasma boi over the RR when I do take anti-tank: it's the fact you stay active and controllable during the "reload" phase, even if it's longer than the Recoilless. Clear chaff, kite the big guys, call in stratagems: you can keep playing instead of locking into a reload for 5 seconds.
Assisted reloads are cool, though. Just not reliable given the required level of coordination and just how hectic firefights can get even with a good squad.
Arc Thrower's clearly S tier for bugs imo, damages everything, crazy horde cleaner with the ship upgradre, 2 shots broods to the head and pushes them back , 3 shots both kinds of spewers to the head and stuns their spewing attack, free charger kills with stun nades, orbital railcannon or 500kg didn't kill a titan? Just zap it 2-3-4 times to finish it off.
Spear should definitely one shot hulks.
Instead of nerfing the crossbow and eruptor, they should have buffed the grenade launcher.
It is not their "vision" apparently
Also don't complain, let arrowhead do their job, they know better, play with your mouth shut, know your place and be grateful for what you have
(Sorry, I tried to make typical devs bootlicker comment)😂
Bro, a corrosive support weapon (and grenade) that reduces armour rating would be so good... but i have a feeling AH don't want to do that because they reeeeaaaaally like their rigid armour system.
Immediately down vote for the silly MG-206 hate. It's true that it's not Fantastic vs bugs, but it DOES kill chargers and BTs if you're careful. And then, vs Bots it becomes an absolute monster. I'll gladly dive with anyone to show them what the HMG (MG-206) can do. I've solo'd Hulks, Tanks, Turrets and even a few factory striders... all with the MG-206. It's a fantastic weapon.
it's not hate, if you like a weapon use it but understand the game please. go solo and try and kill a factory strider with the machine gun. let me know how many bullets it takes.
@OhDough I have and will continue to do exactly that: the MG-206 *can* solo Factory Striders. And it doesn't take as many bullets as you might think. "Understand the game" sounds just as toxic as those that say "skill issue". There is no skill issues here, just some quirks you need to get used to.
But since you apparently don't know these facts, that means you obviously haven't gotten enough trigger time with one. Let me know if you want me to provide a demonstration 👍🤘
bro, no one but larpers call the HMG MG-206. thought you meant the machine gun. in any case it still doesn't compare to a real support weapon. use what ya want and cut back on the larping a bit.
@@OhDough so you're covering your ignorance with toxicity and attempted insults back at me? Wow. You're a POS.
@OhDough Jeez you're trying to spout hate because you never bothered to do proper research for your vid? So toxic man. Get a life.
Me watching him dive under a charger while blasting its face:
"Oh that's a cool pro move diving under it. I usually dive backwar- oh nvm he's dead."
Thanks for the video.
Unless this specifically for _solo_ helldive difficulty, I'm surprised the Grenade Launcher and Autocannon were rated so low vs bugs, given their utility. Some of that utility is redundant if you're running the grenade pistol, but if you don't have that unlocked, these are both good IMHO assuming your teammates have solid anti-tank. Bug holes, destructible container doors, illegal broadcast towers, spore spewers and shrieker nests (this one is autocannon only, 9 shots from across the map), also efficient vs hive guards, brood commanders, nursing spewers, bile spewers, warrior groups, and charger tails in a pinch.
I always run either of them with EATs so I have some dedicated anti-tank to support my teammates. If I was solo I'd probably need to avoid these and run more dedicated anti-tank stuff though.
The final thing you mentioned, about the “quick time event on reload” is very very true. It makes me think at games like Sniper Elite 5, or simply all Gears of wars, where you have exactly that: a little quick time event that makes you reload faster (and have a bonus in damage/fire rate/blast radius/ecc in the case of gears) when you take it right, and gives you a slight malus when you take it wrong. Yes, there is the possibility to elongate the reload time even more if you take it wrong, but it’s constantly fun, engaging and rewarding at the same time! It would be fantastic in helldivers 2 in my opinion.
I'd love to see your ideal loadouts for each Support weapon. How can you offset the shortfalls with different primaries and strategems? Feels like a more encompassing approach than just weighing them by themselves
And this is why I mostly stick to the same handful of weapons/stratagems for the content currently in the game. I like variety and want to have fun, but that's hard to achieve when a loadout for variety's sake feels nearly useless.
F tier to grenade launcher against bugs is crazy
Does it kill titans? No. Does it kill chargers? No. Does it do anything that a base primary couldn't? No. It's an Eruptor on an 8 minute cooldown that also takes your support weapon slot.
@@Orudaiken"It's an Eruptor on an 8 minute cooldown that also takes your support weapon slot"
I think that's going a little far. GL is semi auto, 10 round capacity vs 5, and you get to run the breaker incendiary in your primary slot. Neither the GL nor the Eruptor are very effective vs titans and chargers, but that's what EATs, 500kgs, and teammates are for. If you're solo or nobody on your team is running AT, then don't take it and go for an AT option yourself. In any other situation, it's good.
@@OrudaikenUnforeseen plot twist, its an explosive weapon (wait...grenades are explosive?) Just catch a charger after a failed charge and blow up its butt before it turns around to kill it, I've killed chargers multiple times doing this and its easy, and even easier with a stun grenade. Whilst it won't kill Bile Titans it takes like 2 shots to blow up the bile sac, and just take a stratagem to handle the big guy
@@OrudaikenAdditionally clears medium enemies in 3 shots or less, and whilst not the BEST at clearing stuff like hunters, scavengers and the like just take a breaker incendiary for that purpose, and to clear enemies who get too close to use the grenade launcher. The Grenade Launcher can perform very well once you get used to it
@crisppancakes743 Scorcher and Breaker Incendiary both outperform the grenade launcher at clearing medium units, and both outperform the grenade launcher at destroying titan sacs and charger butts.
The only thing that you can even argue the grenade launcher is good at is closing holes. But even then, the Eruptor is better with 30 shots and better range, and the grenade pistol is arguably sufficient for every task the launcher could do.
And even for using your launcher on light units? You would be better served with eagle clusterbomb, performing a whopping 15 runs in 8 minutes. And the moment you suggest using ammo drops for resupplies on trash units? Just use a primary that does enough clear with enough ammo economy. Grenade Laucher is F tier because of the opportunity cost.
16:20 and 16:24. Wow. Such riveting gameplay mechanics by those devs. What a fun addition to the game those gunships were
18:37 As a spear religion enjoyer I can say without the doubt that a spera is extremly good against automatons and bugs you just need to play better :)
Cope
@@TheCosmicAstro-
Refusing to even attempt to learn when the Spear will / won't lock on properly is like shooting Bile Titans in the body with the Quasar, taking 10 shots go kill, and complaining that it's unreliable.
Medium range. Have it face you. Have height advantage. Don't shoot through smoke. Ping it. Crouch. First try 3rd person, then swap 1st person and shake around for the green box if need be. (The 1st person sight has an inertial 'resistance' as you approach the green lock angle in 1st person that you can absolutely get used to.)
Not an "instant win" button against anything, but it will make real progress on the enemies you need to kill (chargers, bile titans, hulks, tanks, laser towers, fabs), quite unlike half the other options.
Only option in the game for even semi-consistent long-range anti-tank kills (like killing titans / chargers / hulks chasing your friend 150m out).
B-tier, and anybody ranking it lower is downranking from frustration alone.
@@Larknok1 "Medium range. Have it face you. Have height advantage. Don't shoot through smoke. Ping it. Crouch. First try 3rd person, then swap 1st person and shake around for the green box if need be. (The 1st person sight has an inertial 'resistance' as you approach the green lock angle in 1st person that you can absolutely get used to.)"
No shot youre being serious.
if so, seek help
one thing that must be said for the airburst launcher is that it can 1shot tanks from the front. if you hit between the turret and the hull the clusters explode inside the turret and kill it.
The fact that every time I had to switch to unsafe mode whenever I receive a new railgun is a nuisance. Unsafe mode should be the default setting, if safe mode even exists. For this reason it makes the already mediocre railgun even less reason to use.
I saw someone rocking a Railgun against bots. Trying to handle 6-7 gunship. It is hilarious.
i mean there is a setting in the game that is supposed to keep fire modes stored the way you put them but it doesn't seem to work at all
Railgun absolutely needs better damage against gunships, tanks, and cannons
@@MagikarpPower"Experimental weapon specializing in high armor penetration" >sucks at armor penetration
Dude you had a brilliant idea. Gas Strike should reduce the armor values of anything it touches permanently by 1 or 2. The corrosive gas would literally soften up the enemy armor for other weapons.
AC C-tier???? It's my primary go to against bugs too. It should be in S tier alone for the ability to kill or (in case of bile titans) neutralise every kind of opponent. It's the most versatile weapon of all the support weapons regardless of enemy.
The worse thing about the HMG is that they want it to be a long ranged anti armor machinegun but the HMG emplacement already exist for that role and is actually better in that role despite not being able to move.
I'd say that while the AT isn't that great in most bot situations, they have 2 advantages over other support weapons. First, it can take out cannons from the front. Sometimes it's just inconvenient to get around them. Secondly they can take down dropships, which while in many scenarios it isn't optimal, there is 1 scenario which it is: evacuate high value assets, With quasar and EAT combo, you can easily shoot down all dropships from 1 side, letting dual mortar clean up. (and against factory strider, you've dual AT, which lets you easily kill it easily enough thanks to the effective lower cooldown from having 2 different AT available)
I used to be crazy about recoilless against bots, specifically because of how good it felt to take down dropships. Only took getting shredded by one heavy devastator pinned under the dropship wreckage I just made, then getting repeatedly shredded over and over trying to get my crap back.
very smart to put nothing in S tier so arrow head does not decide to nerf any of them. although they already nerfed all the weapons out of S tier. Nvm u done goofed with the bots
Always remember your support weapon should compliment your main weapons and stratagem to make up for anything else. For bugs, stalwart works great as a primary for crowds, pair it with the jar5, and 500kg, or railcannon shot for titans.
Nah bro, I take Autocannon vs bugs quite often, it's an all-rounder for every objective and it's very effective to have one guy in the stack with fast anti-medium. It's the best weapon for this role due to the speed and range, flamethrower is nice too for Chargers but you're quite slow without the range.
I run AC on big missions and being that support guy for the team (as long as my team is bringing EATs, quasar or recoiless - then I bring AC 100% of the time) You can kill shrieker nests and spore spewers and still have ammo to deal with regular enemies until you get a resupply. Also in a pinch close bug holes from distance if needed. And the obvious if you run into nursing or bile spewers. My opinion if you’re running with a team it is A-/B+.
Bug*
This tier list is valid for solo play only.
GL in F tier for bugs ? No way.
Spear can make you feel like you are in godmode if it locks on 90% of the time. Happened to me once, and I was having such a fun time. Again, it sucks against hulks because it mistargets more than half the time (even when it is not moving). S-tier against gunships, because the lockon is super accurate there. But basically cannot lock on reliably to anything else. (Yes you can reposition, but you are wasting time).
I would say it is C-tier right now, but can be A-tier if they fix the lock on and give it one more ammo.
OhDough the sights were never fixed
On the AMR? Yeah they were mostly, they feel maybe a tiny bit off at >150m maybe
The EAT cool down is only a minute. You can litter the battlefield with them on defense missions, and if you git gud you can use the pod itself as a weapon
You think the grenade launcher would be better if you could have different grenade types, gas, smoke, incidiary, shock, cryo? or maybe a backpack with these different types of ammo? or do you think they will just make different grenade launchers for warbonds?
Also great vid, keep it up.
The grenade launcher is fine, he’s just rating everything how well it can kill chargers and titans.
@@maybeiamepic2263I'd said rating for a solo player. The stalwart, grenade launcher... these all perform well in their role, but that role isn't suited to solo 7+ runs.
@@sharktrap267 the entire selling point of the game is co op. Stupid to rank them this way and doesn’t even take into account your other stratagems. You could run the stalwart perfectly fine on bugs if you loud up on heavy killer stratagems. I’ve soloed helldives (level 9) with the grenade launcher because it clears nests well, leaves a backpack slot open, and has AOE and stagger for bigger targets. It’s a good weapon
@@maybeiamepic2263 that's mostly how he plays, so it makes sens that he'd review it based on solo play.
That said, I don't play solo 7+, so I don't agree with everything presented. Just that I know why he completely disregards anything that can't deal with the biggest targets.
As far as I'm aware Planetary Modifiers and Spawn Tables don't change, so if you remember facing a lot of Bile or Nursing Spewers on one planet, you'll do so again, though most don't have eidetic memories, as such after the first mission in a multi-mission campaign you should be reasonably aware if there is Spewer spam in play. Personally, the devs really need to share more info with players, such as what foes we can expect in force on each planet, along with the supply lines, and more comprehensive weapon/stratagem data.
HMG's reload is slightly below 6s like most stationary reload weapons, but without an option for animation cancel it doesn't feel great. Though apparently you can partially reload mid jump with a Jump Pack.
I personally don’t agree with the air burst rocket launcher being F tier against bugs (unless you were talking about just soloing) because you can take out an entire patrol with just one shot and if a bug breach starts and you’re not getting walked on by everything you can kill at most about 40 bugs. I love using the air burst rocket launcher when I’m in a team and my teammates are going with things that can take out heavy enemies and I just make sure that they don’t get completely swarmed
Dough goes hard on it and TBH i haven't had half the trouble he has in terms of getting it "to boom" where i want it to boom.
The reload IS pain (relegates it to ambush/ranged/cover-fire) but at least it goes where you want and generally clears that spot up neatly.
That said if there's 2-4 heavies chasing you down, it's only useful for sudoku. i'd like less "firework pop" and far more BOOM in the individual clusters ) a nice pretty dandelion of overlapping shrapnel & splosions not a firework of individual hits spreading all over the place.
@IRMentat Dough goes hard on most of the weapons. He's not typically wrong in his reasoning, but he is just overly harsh in the trashing of a weapon and it feels very doom and gloom.
TBF you can bring anything playing as a squad because others can compensate as you mentioned
@@asocil4722 but if your team isn't good and you get chased by a BT, well...
Have fun running for 2-5 minutes.
If you play with random, that is.
@jacktheripper7935 I play with randoms and once had a team of players that were less than level 25 while I was running airburst, and we were mostly fine, and there were a ton of BTs
I'd specify this tier list is a solo dive list. I do run with someone who uses a spear a lot, it is a VERY specialized weapon and finicky to use. When you can cover for that the spear does work. Like bile titans can't even get close if the conditions are right, solo diving would be real hard to get that right.
I'd probably still keep the tier list the same tbh 'cause some of these weapons need some help. xD
Only thing I disagree is MG, it still be the best weapon to kill horde of medium bugs efficiently. Just aim for the head and one tap each bug.
I main the machine gun for both bots and bugs (cuz fun for me) on level 7 and 8. It is not as good as other support weapons, but if you know where to hit them, it can take down most enemies. I think F is extremely harsh on it, unless he knows AH is watching
The Grenade Launcher has lost its luster with the introduction of Grenade pistols. It sorely needs a buff in damage and explosive radius.
Wait, what are you even talking about?
All mechs are rock-solid S-tier!
- says helldiver trying to cope with worsening new releases 😮
Seriously, I'm seeing so many more of these on TH-cam, discord and Reddit. "Emanciptor is not as bad as you'd think. People who think they suck are just bad at the game".
I don't mind being called out as being bad at the game, but seriously, if you are saying that mechs are redeemable in any case (spare Automation Eradication missions, and the day we had free weapons experimentation), you are not sober.
Like I'm not even kidding, the only time I enjoyed the mechs is after I drank.
People saying that the Airburst and Mechs are good, are just Drunk Beyond Belief (TM).
(Remember the tutorial tip? Don't drink and dive!)
I am in the camp that thinks the game has an issue with how bugs demand anti tanks while bots get to enjoy those ap 4 support weapons. Other than the occasional firebat, it is three options per faction basically and in each case there is a degree of samey-ness to all three. A very, very big degree for bugs of course with the rocket family.
I think something to the effect of an increase to the viability of breaking chargers and titans with those ap4 tools against their thorax should happen on one side, and on the other I'm thinking an explosion buff to the rockets. Say, ~375 AP4 explosion and bump up the radius a meter. It'll kill a little clump of troopers if you catch one, kill a couple striders at once that are near each other, and have some tricks like a shot to a decent spot on the head blasting the miniguns off a factory strider, and should clean up the risk of a vent shot failing to kill things with vents. Meanwhile the extra explosion would not impact bugs in an overpowering way since you would still be doing it wrong if you use one on the chaff.
3 different shirts in 1 video. the work put in
Could maybe use a G tier - Stands for "Gimmick" - for weapons which are terrible but have meme speedrun tech use cases.
In it, I'd put the Spear against bots (because it can kill fabricators across the map, if you have the sightline and it feels like locking on), and the Airburst against bugs (because it can cross-map the egg destruction objectives, if you have the right sightline).
Video should be called "solo helldive tier list"
it's the only way to properly rate weapons. if your teammates hold your hands how can you tell if a weapon is good?
@@OhDough I'm not saying anything against you here. But I think the developers want us to work together to take stuff down. That's the appeal of COOP games in my opinion at least , each teammate being specialized in a way to take things down (thats what i like about thia game and deep rock galactic at least). I think the real issue is the stratagem discrepancy between heavy killing and non heavy killing. There is too hard of a line between how weapons can kill heavies. It wouldn't be easier to kill a bile titan with an HMG it just needs to be possible because EAT and recoiless would be better for ease of use anyway.
They just need to nerf bile titan and charger spawns on bugs.
Also you forget. Or probably don't even know, that tier 9 helldive is not the max difficulty of helldivers. 15 is the max difficulty of helldivers and that will eventually come to this game.
@@OhDoughKinda odd to rate weapons based on solo only for a team game. Imagine if someone rated Divinity in D2 as F tier since it’s not good solo, or Inspire Ace in PD2 as C tier since bots are bullet sponges that can revive each other instead. Noone would take them seriously.
@@OhDough -- that's not exactly right, though, since some weapons excel / really shine against targets at extreme ranges / when you're not being constantly aggro-rushed.
For instance, the Spear is soooo much better in a 4x player environment. Sniping hulks / bile titans / chargers chasing your friend at 150m away is hilarious, fun, and surprisingly effective.
Oddly, the lock-on at extreme ranges (on clear environment maps) feels much better than at close range. Since at any given time there's a bile titan chasing each other player, you pretty much always have targets.
Your TTK on chargers / titans is often better than the recoilless, albeit less predictable. I would say it's B-tier against bugs. Not the best of the anti-heavy options (EAT, Quasar, Recoilless), but definitely belongs to be beside them. F-tiering it just because it's unreliable / frustrating is just weirdly disingenuous. A good player with the Spear is just 50x more effective than a player with the Stalwart / Airburst.
Against bots, you get to snipe bot fabs and laser towers from any angle, *occasionally* 1-shot hulks (unreliable), and are among the very best options against tanks (kill from any angle). Not great for when you get aggro-rushed by hulks. I would honestly say B-tier again. Not anywhere near as good as AC / AMR, but honestly the best of the anti-heavy launcher weapons for the long-term utility alone.
Talking about the animation cancel for the reload reminded me of how gears reloads worked with time the reload and get more damage and it's quicker but mess it up and your jammed. They could really use that and speed reload up while needing to have skill under some pressure.
I started bringing ac bc everyone uses quasar so i can take care of medium enemies, chargers with a bit of work and if i really meed i can take care of titans too with one railcannon shot and then destroying the sacks under the titan or just using the 500kg, i think is nice to have one person with an ac on bug missions (i play diff7)
The Spear can be useful for long range base assault against bots. You can take out turrets/factories and sometimes circumvent the need to get close. I like that - even though it's not great for large enemies. The problem is the lock on, it's a nightmare and it makes it so unreliable I rarely take it. I do take it on 7-8 but on 9 I'll just go with something to kill striders/hulks.
Gotta disagree with the LC versus bugs. Your refusal learn it seems more like skill issue. You can leg tech a charger and kill a charger faster than the flamethrower. You run under a titan blowout the sacs very fast, then one rocket pod finishes it off.
It’s not meant for killing scavengers and hunters.
If it doesn't one shot 8 bile Titans it's shit. This guy uses this game to vent/work out his mental issues.
In other words, it can do stuff primary weapons can do.
@@XS69 that’s reductive. No primary can kill a charger in 2-3 seconds. Also if it could headshot a titan the existence of heavy anti-tank would be pointless. primaries that can blowout titan sacs quickly aren’t very good a dealing with chaff. It also has the fastest or on par with the RR ttk on spore towers/shrieked towers but at much greater ranges, takes a little over a full charge.
For bugs with the autocannon you stick with someone who has a heavy weapon and you focus down all the med armor enemies. Ya on bile spewer planets you get alot more use out of it. Smart idea for someone to bring one of those
I strongly disagree with this as a generell tier list. Many weapons are meant to be used in a team for certain roles and they perform very good at it. Even used only for solo, there are some disagreements, but they might come down to personal preference, which is ok, I guess
Autocannon can deal with chargers too, but you are right its not super efficient. AC does mean they can take stun grenades without worry and those plus airstrikes can take out chargers really well. As long as they are running just one eagle its not bad. I can take autocannon into bugs without issue and solo bug breaches pretty easily. Stun grenade and airstrike solves every problem thats not a bile titan. Rail cannon strike into blowing out their sacks with the autocannon kills titans 9 times out of 10 as well. That leaves a final stratagem slot open for something like orbital precision, which can take out both heavies, airburst for more chaff/breach control or whatever your team is lacking. EMS, napalm (not ideal because 2 eagles), EMS mortar or AC sentry (if scatter), or EATs if you really feel like its needed.
Admittedly if a support weapon needs a special grenade out of a premium warbond to excel then that is a point against it being higher. But it really is the swiss army support weapon on both bots and bugs. Stun grenade sets up easy charger kills, or just buys enough space from the charger to clear chaff with the incendiary breaker and autocannon. Both the incendiary breaker and the sickle have a hard time quickly clearing medium enemies and thats where AC really shines. When they together do that so well you can have enough room to nuke down the heavies with your stratagems.
Just my experience though. Been running AC almost exclusively for around 300 hours at this point.
Also seems like everyone takes quasar when playing with randoms, so me running AC rounds out the group a lot more.
Forget the tier list. Who's telling the masses what will happen if we don't defend the supply line to angels venture lol.
I actually think the Autocannon is great against bugs, if you bring it with chaff killing power like the Breaker Incendiary and leave killing heavies to your teammates. Autocannon is great against spewers, hive guards and brood commanders, it's great at long ranges to cover your teammates that have gotten seperated, it can deal with chargers in a pinch, it can close bug holes (most ammo efficient weapon of all for that purpose) and even destroy shrieker nests and spore spewers if necessary. And if you bring two heavy killing strategems like 500kg and EAT you're basically set up for anything short of extreme charger/titan spam.
This IS coming from someone mainly playing on D7, though. No idea if it holds true on D9.
Did you find the fun yet?
I stop for more than a month and don't get me wrong i WAS having a lot of fun BUT the dude that balance the weapons somehow find the way to make me quit really fast
The spear is like a taser gun for police.
When it works it's awesome being able to snipe factories, mortars, and anti-air turrets.
Fo' Hwy?? :P
Dough, I agree with the bug list. But I would like to highlight 2 situations about 2 of the F tier. Stalwart and Spear.
Spear lock on has a way to make it work without moving and fast shooting. I saw it in a video. To lock on a desired target, do circular movement with the sight around the target. Like a bile Titan. And to keep firing without needing to lock on again to the same target, just reload with the aim button pressed. Spear is my go to support to "Defend" missions vs Bugs. Because the bile Titan comes to us facing us. It is easy to hit the headshot. Aside from this strict niche use, the spear is not useful enough to be chosen.
After they nerfed the Quasar, I was trying to find another loudout to play vs Bugs, and I liked to use a combo with Stalwart!
Dominator, Granade Pistol, Stalwart, Stun, Shield Backpack, 500kg and Optional last stratagem (napalm, cluster or EAT). I never play solo, but this loudout was surprisingly good at dealing with everything.
Idk why that dolphin dive was pretty funny to me at 1:08
I thought I was going insane last night when I realized that to fight on the bug front, you *NEED* two support weapons to make things work. Like to have a balanced loadout I would essentially have to forgo any orbitals or eagles and focus solely on support weapons in the stratagem slot *just for myself*
Laser cannon is at best ok against bots because of how quick you can kill Hulks and Gunships
yeah It definitely needs some improvements
Its sad that the first thing to make a support weapon even OK on helldive is "can it kill chargers"
About reload: I think they nailed reload with the AC on total accident. It actually has a very punishing reload but if you pay attention its super good.
I think its funny that the airburst launcher, which can wipe out bot drops and clear small to medium bases with a single shot is being put at F because it cant kill a charger quickly
Something worth mentioning when it comes to all of the heavily armored enemies; if you can damage it, then the shots aren’t wasted. Titan may take two rockets, but a titan that’s been catching strays from random explosions and arcs and etc CAN go down in just one rocket. My opinion on ammo economy is that with the sheer number of ammo supply points you can find around any map, so if you’ve got a weapon that can hurt the things, do your team a favor and hurt the things so the anti-tank handler can finish them off
I think the main problem with support weapons is that the devs want them to fit into different roles so a squad has to cover each other's weaknesses. It sounds good on paper for a team game but falls flat for a few reasons:
-The roles are poorly defined. I don't think there should be a class system to be clear, but as the game is currently designed the only roles that matter are "chaff clear" and "heavy killer."
-The game doesn't really incentivize teamwork beyond this. Hulks and Tanks are the only enemy types in the game that really reward a basic team maneuver by having a weak spot you can exploit by flanking with a buddy.
-Primary weapons are designed to be weak on purpose, so they almost all get relegated to the "chaff clear" role already, making it hard to justify a stratagem weapon slot for that.
-Even if we ignore that when playing with randos, they will be uncoordinated and less likely to cover a weakness of your build for you, it simply feels BAD to encounter an enemy you literally cannot do anything to. So even in a perfect team people still aren't really going to want to go for a loadout that makes them helpless against chargers, BT's, hulks, etc. plus their spawn rates are so high you can't even bring a heavy killer stratagem as a "just in case" measure.
There's probably more to it than that but I think these are the main issues at least in my experience.
The issue with so many support weapons and strats are that they have a specific use case - but its not communicated.
Airburst - killing mobs of shriekers, and trash mobs only. works on bugs, and bots (infantry and walkers, sometimes devastators) so really just defence missions for bots.
the 110mm rocket pods are another one.. Its for killing tanks, it also tracks on factories amazingly, and occasionally against turrets. I still see people bringing it against bugs though.
The spear could be fixed if it actually flew up and came down from above like a javelin
I will point out that safe mode on the railgun allows you to kill many of the medium armor enemies in the game with a single shot.
If you hit anything up to a Brood Commander in the head, the bugs will die. Spewers included. You just need unsafe mode for chargers and bile titans.
Similar story for bots. You can 1-shot devastators with safe mode if you shoot their leg, head, or lower stomach. You can even kill hulks if you hit the eye. Unsafe mode is used on stuff like tanks and factory striders so you don't waste ammo.
TLDR, safe mode hits lots of breakpoints without danger of exploding. Unsafe mode is for killing truly tanky targets quicker.
EAT: disposable nature means you if you die you haven't lost your anti tank option. I put above Recoiless. Quasar still good but that unnecessary nerf really hurts.
Nad Launcher: solo its bad, but in a team one person bring for spewers and holes is great
Exo Suit: will always be good vs bugs, since they can't shoot back.
Auto Cannon: Should be at least B if not A. Quickly blow up nests, holes, and hive guard.
Railgun: bruh. Put that thing in C where it belongs.
Stawart: yall sleeping on its hunter clear. Not great but def better than F. Again, not solo
For a lot of stratagems the enemy types matter. AH could add specific mission subtypes like the destroy ammo supply mission against bots, but it's "Destroy Stockpiled Rockets", making rocket enemies very rare for the rest of the operation. Destroy Terminid Structures: Hunters - the 12 minute bughole closing mission would then remove a certain enemy type from the rest of the operation. If you don't get swarmed by hunters, maybe now's the time to use... actually, this might be better for primary weapons like the punisher plasma.
It could even be limited such that static spawns can still contain these enemy types, but reinforcements (patrols/breaches/drops) don't. The existing rocket devestators still have enough ammo to keep fighting, but the bots can't bring new ones into the battle. The hunters that have already hatched are there, but no new ones are coming in.
The ICBM that got launched was aimed at a tank production site, those won't be dropped in now. The Egg hatcheries that got destroyed were meant for spewers, goodbye to them. The data that you uploaded? Intel on the enemy types in the rest of the operation. Some of this could even be shared with all players on the planet: Doing an intel mission in a certain region (what are the world maps for?) could increase intel for everyone, and if a high enough threshold is reached, these (or at least some) spawn rate clues are available for all mission. Destroying certain enemy types might be bad to share, though, because then people might start complaining on a meta level about people choosing to remove certain enemy types when they have different preferences.
I have to say that I completely agree with everything you said about automatons, but... You can't be serious ranking the Autocannon so low against bugs. It is a great balanced weapon that can do a little bit of everything with a LOT of ammo and very fast fire rate and reload speed, specially if you do the reload trick where you reload every 5 shots so you always do the quick reload animation AND now you can get full ammo recovery from supply ammo boxes it's even better since you can be very aggressive with your ammo usage unlike other support weapons.
Against chaff you can literally use your primary to kill them, like the Incendiary shotgun that deletes all chaff instantly. Criticizing because it's not good against chaff is like criticizing the Recoiless because it's bad against it too. Autocannon (against bugs) is supposed to be used against Brood Commanders, Guards and Spewers, which can easily snipe from far away in a horde while your team deals with the rest (or you change to your shotgun then and delete the rest yourself). You can break chargers's butt in 3 shots, which only takes ONE dodge of their charge if you time it right (you may need to use recoil reduction armor so the sights of the weapon move fast enough to land the shots), so it's decently fast at that too (but obviously not as good as the rocket launchers because those are specialized).
But the true strength of the Autocannon against Bugs is its pinpoint accuracy at any practical range combined with the ability to destroy bug holes/spore tower/shriekers' nest at a fast fire rate (you don't need to reload constantly, you have 10 bullets so you can destroy a complete Heavy Outpost by yourself quickly from afar without having to get INSIDE the outpost itself (and if any bughole is out of range/wrong angle you use a stratagem to finish it). The whole point of why the Autocannon is good is all these 3 things combined into one single weapon, which makes it a very versatile one whose purpose is to remove the medium enemies (spewers, brood commanders, guards) of the fight quickly and then destroy outposts super fast. The fact that it can deal with Chargers too quickly is what pushes it to a solid A tier. I agree that against Automatons is S tier. Railgun is too high against bugs because any other weapon except maybe Spear can do anything better, unlike the Autocannon it's versatile but barely passable because you are providing very little to the team with the Railgun against bugs compared to all the benefits you provide by bringing an autocannon, and in Solo play Autocannon is even better if you are trying to destroy bugholes quickly.
railgun does the auto cannons job better and you can move while reloading without giving up a backpack vs bugs
i was thinking what you said about 16:20 and having a caustic modifier like in elite dangerous that reduces armor toughness would actually be super interesting, one of the things that makes elite dangerous really fun is stacking debuffs (caustic, heat sig makes enemies easier to track, drag is drag, force shell flings your enemies, etc.) and maybe having gas, flame, etc. do debuffs rather than damage over time would be super fun
I really feel like regardless of whether or not they buff or keep the mechs in the same state, that they should add an emergency eject button or something that will launch you out of the mech a fair distance away, and make the time it takes the mech to explode on you a little longer (maybe depending on damage received) when it reaches its damage threshold so you can react to that.
1. That sounds really fucking fun and like a great way to escape dangerous situations.
2. If you’re good at the timing (or predicting) you don’t have to get punished as ball-kickingly hard.
Or y’know, alternatively, just actually make them heavily armored? Feels like piloting a squeaky toy sometimes
Man talking FACTS. SO many support weapons just feel MEH at the highest difficulty levels. Where is the goddamn FUN!?!?
This is why i always play bots instead of bugs when theres no focused major order. Bots you can bring weapons that dont feel like chucking rocks.