Besides buffing it's damage and stagger potential, I think you could make a neat interaction by having you shoot the arc thrower at the Tesla tower and basically juice it up making its next discharge stronger. (much like in Red Alert 2 you had tesla troopers juice up the tesla tower there)
WOW! Super cool adjustment. I would love to see the arc thrower shoot at the tesla tower and have it interact with it that way. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and checking out the video!
@@Wallbouncing I am interested in its object targeting to extend the range. if it could bounce off a forward drop or turret ect that could be interesting. Best uses i have found for arc is with 2 people. i call it the blue build. arc thrower, tesla, ems strike, ems mortar. stuns. it will destroy landmines tho. they work very well at protecting from patrols since they usually pay them no mind until they get in range and they last a while. mixed with ems mortar they can hold off groups decently. with 2 of them placed near an opening in a defense they ruin most things that try and get through but bodies will end up absorbing charges. The arc throwers stun lock enemies entering the area and the ems strikes and mortar also keep enemies at bay. kind of using them to bodyblock openings while the tesla works. the more tesla towers you get the more useful they are. lining up 4 or 8 in an area can shred pritty much anything. but you might also need to put your body on the line. even 4x of the ems strikes can keep an area perma stun locked.
@@Wallbouncing Give me an Aang vs Osai interaction where a Tesla Tower can shoot me and overcharge the charging Arc Thrower i'm holding, i would be SO down for that. Someone call Pilestedt :D
So here's the list of issues: 1. Targeting dead bodies 2. Targeting samples 3. Targeting enemies but not firing 4. Not chaining lightning when enemies are too close (gets it killed instantly) 5. Too slow of a firing rate to be useful on killing anything above a medium sized bug. 6. Too little health.
I'm not so sure it hitting random crap is a bug, i mean it's electricity at the end of the day. I know the Arc Thrower has some consistency but that's because we're physically pointing where the Arc should be going, but if there's anything between you and what you want to hit, it will either fizzle out or hit what's closest. Small edit: I'm not saying it isn't super inconsistent, i just want a reason for it!
as far as targeting is concerned the arc blitzer is actually a headshot beast it always headshots everything when blind fired which is really the best way to use this weapon. Even the arc thrower won’t do this. Also if a charger has lost all its leg armour (front) and you blind fire the blitzer towards it it will auto target that weak leg. So what i’m saying is that arc based weapons can auto target certain enemy spots and the blitzer in my testing is the best out of all of them hands down
@@Ser-Vex131in recent patch they said its a bug i think. Would’ve been dumb to have an already weak turret hit corpses in a game where it becomes a corpse party in seconds
Thankfully got a situation today where the Telsa Tower had about 40 seconds to attack a stuck Charger. After seeing no effect, Arc Thrower still took the same 6 shots to the head to kill the Charger, implying the Telsa Tower did 0 damage the whole time. Unfortunate experience.
srs, its a cool sentry in the right situation, the problem is, the right situation occurs so infrequently that the tower will sit unused for most of the game
Wow. Every tesla tower I called to try and fight a charger never even got more than 3 zaps before being destroyed. To know that it did little to nothing just goes to show how deep in the tier list this thing is haha. Thanks for sharing your experience (even though it sucked).
I can confirm too, watched my Tesla Tower shocking a stuck Charger for over 2 minutes with no results. Followed by it taking the normal amount of hits for my Arc Thrower to kill it
I remember how in the first game the Tesla tower was an absolute menace, attacking all enemies in it's range at once and staggering them for a moment, allowing it to kill even chargers reliably. Unfortunately the single targeting and especially the much longer ranges at which fights take place in HD 2 already make it unreliable even before taking all the inconsistencies into account :(
It really is amazing how much of the original game was good design around their 4 player screenlock. There's a lot that doesn't seem to make as much sense when going from the old format to the full open world 3D, but arc weapon/tower implementations are probably top of that list. I really want to like them cause they were favorites in HD1, but they are struggling a bit imo. I used to love using the arc thrower and heal gun while running along outside the transport vehicles. I could keep the vehicles in top shape for the team and the lighting would go right through em without damaging anyone inside, so you just needed to keep it between you and the enemy. I also miss little details like the shields protecting you from EMS effects, all the heal mechanics in general like the medic back pack and helping up fallen teammates, or that healing also refilled the shield. Reloading a friends recoiless was way better too. Just push E to reload it in 0.5s while near (instead of 6s alone) any time you were near, but in HD2 it glues both players together in this awkward way that prevents you doing anything else until you "stop reloading" for them, and the animations while moving sucks.
most of the new ship upgrades are completely useless. the extra arc is nice, probably the one exception, but fire damage is bugged so nobody is using it, superior packing is bugged, explosive resist turrets is bugged/pointless, orbital scatter basically doesn’t matter. kinda crazy lol
@InvaderTroy im loving the orbital scatter, has turned the 380mm into an absolute beast. 15% reduced spread is a much bigger reduction in area. I didnt find the barrages usable b4, now i prefer them over the laser. Harrier extra bomb is also a huge boost. But i agree that the level of buggyness and dysfunction on the new upgrades is frustrating and pretty extreme
I agree, I think the tesla tower is suffering from a multitude of issues. One being how confusing and inconsistent arc-lightning is, and the other being how object detection works. I do feel that the tower is locating something but it's criteria for targeting is nonsensical to a a point it's not very useful. Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts!
For a long time I was and still am big arc thrower fanboy, but the fact this thing refuses to target enemies close to you sometimes drives me absolutely crazy
I feel that. I have a tendency to dive backwards while charging a shot, just to kill a scavenger lol. Usually I just swap to the redeemer to handle those
i like using it against the bugs exclusivly, its great to throw onto a bug breach, and my favourite use is when there are flying bugs you can prone under it and just bait them into getting fried
Thanks for the clean summary! I know every stratagem has their pros and cons, but I feel that to name a pro for the tower is at this point very far reaching. Appreciate you taking the time to check out the video!
This thing was great back in the E-710 defense missions. The bugs were so focused on attacking the generators it would almost always survive its entire life and kill a ton of bugs, and it doesn't damage the generators.
In HD1 this tower was, tricky, but a Lot more useful once the healing beam was upgraded to repair machines. Basically, it allows us to repair towers from a distance, meaning the tower was much more sustainable.
6:56 I have the same problem with the Arc Thrower, it seems that sometimes if there’s foliage or particles nearby it will just hit the air directly in front of it, giving the appearance that it’s practically not firing. I can’t confirm it is foliage or particles that make it behave this way, I just can’t think of anything else.
I usually throw it together with a mortar away from objectives. The Mortar attracts all of the enemies with a long range and the tesla tower zaps all the enemies running towards it. It's really good for crowd control and moving enemies away from an objective, which then gives you more time to kill everything.
Great video Bro - your research is commendable. Understanding all these different Stratagems and how they usually work might just make the difference on the battlefield.
Appreciate your kind words! I like to think every stratagem has its uses and want to find as many possibilities as I can and make an argument for why it’s viable or not. Glad you appreciate my content and thanks for commenting!
Tesla towers where extremely useful on that first bug generator defense missions. 1. It didn't shoot generators 2. EMS cannons were also great in that mission
You think they don't know? Arc/lightning inherent randomness is it's downfall. I'm sure it's fucking hard to code or something in this build. It appears something is up with the way it targets. Not just the tower, but all arc weapons. Lightning hitting the ground, not hitting weak spots, and fizzing out is just part of the "fun" of learning how to kill with the arc thrower. This tower is dealing with all of that bugginess, with none of the human ability to adapt.
I like to think they are aware of it. When they were fixing the crash issues related to the arc-thrower I'm sure they found a lot of other relevant issues (hopefully). Thanks for watching and for your comment!
It really shines when hunter swarms spawn, cause its mostly consistent against them, or if you can get it to deploy on a rock where chargers can't ram it.
I see it shine in taking down those hunter swarms, but it's harder in those higher difficulties when those bug breaches almost always includes a charger or a bile titan if the mission progresses further. Thanks for checking out the video and for leaving a comment!
Here is a tip for the bugs; if you throw it next to one of the many large rocks that has a bit of rock jutting out above where you threw it, the Tesla Tower will land on the rock. This keeps Chargers away from it and only Spewers and Titans can do any real damage to it. A bonus is that Chargers will stand at the base of the rock looking at it forever allowing you to kill them with ease.
Appreciate your kinds words! Means a lot! During my testing I was having some slight eye pain watching so much tesla towers, so I had a feeling a lot of people may find it unpleasant. Thanks for taking the time to watch the video!
The arc thrower specifically is actually pretty consistent in my experience. The area where the arcs travel past the first target is in a cone in the direction you're aiming at. So you can completely avoid team kills if you just imagine a line (perpendicular to your line of sight) drawn across the enemy, and as long as your teammate is always on the side of the line closer to you, or is directly on the line, you'll never accidentally hit them with it. The only times I get team kills with it are when I'm focusing down a charger because my orbitals are on cooldown, and a teammate runs into that cone of range without me realizing it
arc thrower is incredibly consistent when paired with a jump pack. elevation makes it easy mode. most of my fizzled shots are just due to bad ground geometry because I can shut down whole breaches on diff7 by just taking the high ground and letting loose.
@@MachineElf_Official I noticed the cone thingy after like 4 uses.... im talking about the way it missfires and single bush can stop whole ass chain. How many times hunter was eating my ass and arc couldnt kill it whatssoever...
@moroblizniak4457 if that happens you just have to change position to get a clear shot. It's annoying, but it's pretty manageable imo. It's worth it for the stagger and the ability to hit multiple enemies at the same time. Especially if you unlocked the perk that adds an additional lightning chain.
Funny enough I beat Helldive campaign (SOLO) against the bugs using the flame thrower and Tesla tower, it was pretty fun creating a hazard field. But sadly I think arc and lighting builds need more love from the devs after changes. It was a challenge but I had so many kills.
Thanks for sharing. That hazard field sounds super good. I’ve tried creating something similar in those defense missions with even the orbital gas strike and it choke points so well. Thanks for again for checking out the video and commenting!
Very thorough job. I'd assume Arrowhead is aware of the issues but is focused on fixing crashes and disconnects as a priority. Hopefully they get to it eventually. My take way was only use it if you can get on top of it and lay down to protect it 😁. (PS thanks again for not using colorful language). Keep it up man!
Thanks for checking out my video! I'm sure they know at length the extent of issues revolving around the arc-lightning in this game and yeah I'm just hoping they are able to address it soon! Always looking to keep my videos clean too! Appreciate you taking the time to check out the video!
You could try a perspective of a whole team of Tesla towers? All use arc Armour. Have all ship module ups that effect it. Could make for some funny content
bro, huge respect for the disclaimer about flashing lights. im not personally sensitive to that, but i have never seen anyone on youtube put a disclaimer for that. thanks for caring!
Of course! I had a hard time looking at my screen while testing the tower so I thought others might not find it so pleasant as well. Thanks for checking out the video!
Have been using the tesla on bug defence mission and it does manage to get a really nice amount of kills when its thrown at a bug breach. Really helps with getting rid of smaller bugs from one side and letting you focus on the other side.
I love bringing the Tesla into Rocket Defense missions. It's wonderful kicking back and watching things try while Mortars and EMortars do work. The only thing I need to worry about is heavy enemies, which is what the 4th slot is for.
The fact that it works on LOS is really interesting and such Helldivers 2 logic. A range of 20m except behind smoke, but it will hit you with a secondary arc by bouncing across your gun drone (but not the laser drone). I said to people in the HD2 Steam discussion forum that it should have a visible radius at the edge of 20m, and some people were very offended at the idea of a consistent and predictable feature.
There is one place that I love the TT. Bug exterminates with spewers. While yes, chargers and BTs will murder it, it also draws aggro from a ton of bile spewers and annihilates them. I toss one across the area from me and I can usually get at least 30 kills off of one unless a BT or charger pops up underneath them. Even if it does get wrecked by a charger or BT, it draws aggro from spewers from a huge range and it just wrecks them. One-shots spewers all day. I have seen one completely surrounded by spewer corpses and still hitting other bugs just fine, even arcing off of corpses to do it, and every one around the tower is one that isn't bothering you while you are reloading or lining up a shot on a heavy. Placement is important though. You want to put it somewhere open that the bugs have to path through but that limits avenues of attack. Next to walls is terrible since the walls tend to confuse the targeting (like with the other arc weapons). Probably the best example of a spot is the ramp down toward the center on the pit to the left of the sample pool. Put it in the open area at the top of that ramp and it catches three spawn locations, and the surrounding terrain keeps chargers and BTs from killing it instantly. Easy throw from the upper platform too. You will notice a massive drop in trash mobs, hunters, and spewers as long as it is up. Chargers often have to get close to actually charge there too and get a bit confused by the pathing, so I have seen one manage a charger kill from that spot a few times. Its like the arc thrower there though; shots to kill is both location and rng dependent. Both weapons seem to have a range of damage they deal based on nothing concrete I can identify. I have killed fresh chargers in seven clean shots with the arc thrower and also with 20 clean shots. I do think that if it arcs to another target it does more damage to that first hit, but its so damn random its hard to prove.
Im thinking, it has to do with being an entity with physics properties. Things that have no physics like exploding flowers, eggs, untouched samples are all do have physics properties ingame. But i think shooting samples kinda transforms them into another entity type, but weapons on the ground arent affected, also the shield meant to interact with projectiles in the game world, so it makes sense, that is shares a tag with the other items. So i would guess its a gameobject tag that tells the tower wether it can be hit or not and the devs simply haven't thought it completely through with all the possibilities.
I still like it against bugs. Even on higher difficulties. It's super common for you to have a breach you don't want to stick around for, and if you throw one of these, the way it plays out, a charger will spawn, pay 100% attention to it, charge it, then stop. A bile titan will actually go through an entire spew animation. Everything else dies. This gives you plenty of time to just run away if you need to- and it has upside in killing the chargers (and unfortunately not the titans) if you can find a good spot for it. Even better it means you can bait a breach with it to put enemy breaches on cooldown, then just run away with zero consequence. That's an insane amount of breathing room. It's a really common fallacy to think less of something just because it doesn't itself get optimized. If the mine deployment killed chargers/titans with a single mine, it would be stupidly strong and still some part of your lizard brain would think "yeah, but all the mines didn't get used".
Impressively thorough. I just recently picked up the tesla tower and was pretty confused how to work with it. Thanks for saving me a ton of time and frustration.
Thanks for your kind words. I appreciate this game a lot and am curious about all the interactions there is between these stratagems. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
I use leftbanktwo as the bgm in a lot of my videos and a lot of people share the same sentiment you do. It makes me glad to know a lot of you also have the same type of nostalgia for the game as I do. Thanks for checking out the video!
I use with my mates in the Arc Bro configuration. All with Electricity resistant armor, all with tesla, all with arc thrower. It's a zapping nightmare for enemy. But yes... probably the only real situation where is strong.
When I first saw the arc res armor, I immediately thought of the possibilities for a full squad with it + arc thrower and tesla towers wreaking havoc. But also that that'd be the only time to even consider using it. At least until the new faction shows up. :)
If everyone was running that arc-resistant armor and using the tesla tower it really can be no mans land haha. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
IDK how, but my experience varies wildly from your in terms of Tesla Tower's survivability. Haven't tried using it against bots, but versus bugs it never went down to ANYTHING other than heavies and friendly fire, meaning if you somehow manage to protect it from titans and chargers, it completely stops large groups and bullies breaches.
I love the tesla tower so to hear positive experiences about it is always welcomed to my ears (eyes?). I agree that placement is the biggest factor in overall effectiveness, and I'm still trying to figure out how to do it well. Thanks for sharing your insight and appreciate you taking the time to check out the video!
Thank you and great testing, Helldiver. What I want to start seeing from people doing these tests are full team strategem effectiveness. A lot of the tests everyone conducts are from a personal loadout standpoint, which is understandable. But what I want to know is: what is the effectiveness of an entire team called down 4 Tesla Towers together at the same time. 4 120/380 Orbitals at the same time. 4 Gas Strikes at the same time (once DoT is fixed). That's what I'm interested in.
Thanks for your kind words and I agree with your point. In this video (and in my other ones) I mainly cover how these stratagems affect the individual, and in my future videos I'll be sure to include how multiple uses of it with the team can have different outcomes. Thanks for checking out the video!
Four 120/380 orbitals at literally the same time and location will just hit the same locations as one would and overkill the shit out of some bugs/bots that were already gonna die 😂 now, if they were a bit spread out or staggered by 5-10 seconds each then you're on to something
@@HoepRemains "orbitals at literally the same time and location wll just hit the same locations" Actually this is not true. If you watch a video titled "Orbital Barrages are not random" you will find some very in depth testing that completely proves that wrong.
I love arc based weapons, that being said every time someone drops one immediately destroy it because it’s 100% going to kill your team more than the enemy.
Exact same issues with the Arc thrower. I charge it and hear it chirp, literally nothing but empty space (Visually) between me and the target and the arc just does not fire or goes else were. you see the ionization cloud track to what got targeted, but you don't see the bolt
So this tower is incredibly powerful but you nearly have to have a phd to play around it and team communication is imperative for it to work. Its like a mortar but worse in terms of potential TK but when it works and if you support it with additional sentries, its a meat grinder of a stratagem
One thing i noticed, is that enemies only target the battery part at the bottom. So if you where to put it behind a small rock, any bots or maybe a bile titan will try to aim for the battery but since the rock is in the way, they instead hit the rock. Unless you are behind it, in which case they aim towards you and destroy it. The only issue with bots is that usually they just stand there, just outside the range of the tesla tower. So they dont really get zapped. But i guess if you are followed by a huge squad of enemies, its a good distraction?
Super cool insight. In my testing I never paid attention as to where they are exactly shooting the tesla tower. Would need to test that out and see if it could make it survive a little longer. Thanks for your comment and thanks for checking out the video!
What about thinking about tesla tower not as a standalone automated stratagem that kills everything around that - but a supplementary stratagem that increase your personal and your teams ability to stand against the crowd of enemies (bugs in particular)? Where tesla tower is not really a defensive object to cover you and your team but the opposite - object to defend while it’s enhancing your kill potential. So for example: there is an overwhelming amount of bugs approaching your destination and you throw tesla tower between your team and the horde, while shredding the crowd with a machine gun or taking care of Chargers/Titans with heavier weaponry
@@Alticroo yes, if that’s what you enjoy the most, but game itself offers more then one option to deal with hordes of enemies. Tesla tower has essentially endless uptime in comparison to airstrikes. If the fix all the bugs and make tesla tower hit more precise, then this thing can be quite valid in the group of 4
Thanks for your kind words and I agree, the tesla tower is multikill central, but it has a lot of things going against it that makes it hard to use well in my opinion. Thanks for checking out the video!
The tesla tower is designed to be paired with the EMS strike. You drop both at the same time on a bug breach and since everything is slowed it has a chance to function. Ive gotten a 38 killstreak with it. It also helps to put them up on rock formations so they cant be attacked
A single gattling turret does the same job, but better, without using two stratagem slots. It is far more versatile, too. I got a 51 kill streak by sticking a gattling next to a bug breach last night.
I usually use the TT to guard my EMS mortar. I throw them next time each other and the enemy will agro the mortar and the tower will kill them. If I see it being overwhelmed I’ll throw so arcs to it to help it out. That’s the best use case I’ve seen
Thanks for your comment and sharing your experience. I can see how that can be helpful and have tried it a couple of times. In those time a lone charger would come around and just destroy my little sentry nest which sucked haha. Appreciate you checking out the video!
Thoughts for Tower improvement: fire at all targets nearby not just one (maybe in a smaller aoe than the bolt), multiple towers can chain to each other, stun effect on hit
Thanks for your kind words! Since this video the Tesla Tower has gotten more health and has been a bit more durable. I'm having a lot of success bringing it on the bug front than the bot front. I still do think however that it needs some additional adjustments to compete with the other sentries. Thanks for watching!
Good video bro. Hope u making more of these. About the tesla tower, I think to make it "feel good to use" it's gotta be reconsidered from the ground up. But knowing Arrowhead only has 100 people working on everything new AND fixing gamebreaking bugs. I can't ever think they can even spare a single head to address this.
Thanks for your kind words. I know that Arrowhead isn't a big team, and I'm not calling for this to be an immediate priority for them given how much they have on their plate. I'm sure they got a lot of fun stuff in the works, but just hoping the tower gets some attention too because it is a really unique sentry in this game and I want it to work at least somewhat haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
I've had some success pairing the Tesla Tower with the Arc Thrower on Terminds. Place the tower between myself and an incoming horde. I run back and fire away, the enemies attack the Tower it drops and I try to fire at bugs that are attacking the tower. I've had good success with this on the smaller bugs on Helldive! But just one charger or Bile Titan will break it and ruin everything still
Since the tower always targets, but doesn't damage the sentry weapons. I wonder if we'll get an energy weapon turret that this can charge up to extend its battery life. Maybe quasar cannon turret with increased fire rate, or a juiced up rover/scythe beam.
Regarding targeting the samples. There was a patch or two early on where they worked on samples not just hanging in the air after changes in landscape (from explosions) If you pay attention to samples after 'removing the ground' you will see that they suddenly become able to move, so they dont hang in the air, out of reach of helldivers. I think @TacoEric is spot on with it being a different entity, I think the devs had to change what the sample is in order to let it fall to the ground. Maybe they gave the original entity 1hp and then changed its propperties when its 'dead' I believe its related to the patch because this type of hackfix is prone to strange unforseen interactions, like being targeted by the tesla tower.
It only really seems effective at area denial if you're teammates also stack Tesla towers around it but they'll still have the issue of falling apart as soon as armoured units can smell them
The one buff I'd love to see is 100% arc damage armor. Then, YOU BECOME THE TESLA TOWER CONDUCTOR! Imagine, running around the tower, aiming its lightning through your body!
Honestly, make it 150% resist -- make the lightning heal you. The inconsistency of targeting and timing would still keep it in check, but it would be funny
I personally like the tesla tower against bugs, the uptime is over 100% so on exterminate bug missions you can often just place one of these on one side of the map and just completely shut off that side of the map permanently unlike anything else can. Now, as soon as you go above hard difficulty and the charger and bile titan spawns start getting crazy on that mission type it becomes useless.... which means the tower is only good on lower difficulties where everything works. The problem is the uptime is the biggest draw of this tower and as soon as enemies spawn that can kill the tower it becomes useless and that's just a fundamental flaw. The arc tower also doesn't work as a panic tool like the gatling sentry does.
I think this is paired with a spear and resupply pack, you use it to give you cover while you spam spears at heavy targets. Only really viable on high visibility maps though
I found it somewhat useful on mission to just clear bug Numbers in area those 12 min mission where lost of small mobs just spawn alot around, it can hold it own side, piles and chargers just destroys them too easily. Tip. You can trow it otherside of walls and it can shoot enemies trough it no matter of los, if there is enemies on it range. Fun idea could be that on destoyed it could exlode to damage or stuns enemies around it
Maybe there's a analyze period in the cycle. Where it only fires when theres a "optimum path" after the cool down. what I mean by a optimum path is that there is a path to hit more than one target and prioritizes that. This means that if only one valid target is in there area it will wait till there is more. and maybe after a certain period, when there is none, it fires. as such it would take longer to hit that lone target vs a group. If this is the case, then what classifies as a target becomes essential. It seem like anything that can be damaged or has a state that can be changed like equipment can be a target. Since untouched sample are a non targeted it implies a state must be initialized, changed, or be picked up before it is considered a target, this is seen in a untouched sample being targeted when the ground beneath changes since the inital spawn condition has changed. not sure if this idea holds to testing but its something to consider.
Arc Blitzer doesn't damage the Tesla Tower either. You are correct that the TT baits you into building around it, until your weapons, armor, grenades, and most your strats are chosen specifically to make this one piece of cool looking jank work. And when you do it you're incredibly good at trash clearing, but so's anyone with a Liberator.
Thanks for the tip about the arc blitzer. Oversight on my end to think the arc thrower was the only electric weapon. Yeah, if the tesla tower was to "work" in a situation, I also knew that a lot more efficient options could've gotten the job done as well. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
Thank you for your hard work! Didnt know about the priming stage of the tower. I love using the tesla. As soon as i throw it down i just distance myself and cover other areas instead so i dont know much about its mechanics
It excels in the missions where yoy meed to defend generators, great for cheesing eradications, and its super good for placing by the door of the pelican
My feeling exactly, it is cool but niche and under performs atm, zaps you if you are prone near it when it shoots at an enemie, found that the hard way, hope it gets some love in the future.
Took one minute to realize how good this video was and how nice was to listen to you talking (I'm tired of the many content creators that can barely put two words together). Instantly subscribed.
Super kind words and that means a lot to me! I knew this video was longer than my other reviews, but wanted to make sure I'm relaying all the information I think is meaningful. Thanks for your comment and thanks for taking the time to check out the video!
You said the tower reaches farther and hits more chains than the other arc weapons. Considering this, and that helldivers are the most conductive targets for the tesla tower (because we carry and call in the most metallic objects on the field) can we call in the tower on ourselves, wear the arc resistant armor, and be the hottest damn capacitor the tower's ever seen? AKA can i have the tower fire at me then arc to nearby enemies?
Oh yeah, you can totally do that! Using the arc-resistant armor you can, in a way, influence the tesla tower by having it shoot you then having it arc to the enemy you want it to hit. You can have a full team with the arc-resistant armor and just basically a group of conduits for the lightning haha. Thanks for checking out the video and hope that answers your question!
About the unpriming, I'm not sure if it works as well as a client because I have been zapped while prone. When it comes to its performance though, I have had the most success on bug High Value Asset Extraction by placing it on top of stairs next to a gate, and using napalm strikes to burn the access to the stairs, all while being posted up at the gate behind. It can do a lot of work IF you cover it and "tower defense strategy" so that the enemies need to walk quite a bit to get in melee range. Chargers would not reach it or prioritize it, but any bile titan would ruin the fun. But really though, Napalm strike + Tesla Tower is an amazing combo against hordes defensively. It works because you are close enough to draw aggro, it's elevated so it takes longer for bugs to reach it all while it's able to damage them, and you also cover its back. I think it needs more health AND/OR be less prioritized in terms of aggro compared to players or other sentries, more range with a priority system to prioritize enemies for gameplay/fun reasons OR a higher fire rate, stagger because look at the lightning on that thing, an audio cue for when you are targeted, like a buzzing static noise like when thunder is about to hit you, and, most importantly, they need to fix arc weapons so that they arc properly.
Thanks for the comment and sharing your insight. I've tried placing it on leveled platforms in that new defense mission but it would misfire a lot, hitting some random thing I wasn't expecting before drawing aggro and getting destroyed. Appreciate you checking out the video!
The 'Gameplay and Uses' Section really answered a lot of questions I had about this thing! I always like Lightning Weapons in Game, shame that this seems kind of half baked.
Glad to know my testing answered some of your questions! I'm also a fan of the lightning in this game and hope it could get a little tweaked to be more predictable/consistent. Thanks for watching!
Huh this is weird, i've had almost the opposite results that you have had. I really do appreciate this amount of testing, it's fantastic. I use the tesla tower in combination with the gatling barrage and quasar, I use it to destroy patrols or anything I pull from hives, in my experience it easily mulches anything that isn't a charger (it can still kill them, it's that they charge into it before they can get hit enough) or bile titan. I've pulled multiple patrols through the same tesla tower getting a lot of use out of it, I think where it really falls flat is with team play, where you are likely to throw the thing it's likely to get an airstrike on top of it. Splitting off from the group is my usual role in the squad, I will clear half the map while the others clear the rest and this thing has been an absolute joy to watch gore bugs, I didn't know it suffered from the same issues that the arc thrower did with targeting but the only time i'd notice it getting destroyed was if multiple bile spewers were on it or the previous 2 threats came along.
Even though I had some negative experiences with the Tesla Tower, I'm sure there are some people who have had nothing but success. I'm not the best player so hearing these experiences will help me improve and be better in using it so thanks for your insight and appreciate you commenting and checking out the video!
I use the tower on bug breaches. Ultimate crowd control for bugs… unit a biotitan pops. They just stomp it. 😅 Note: Biotitans can’t be stunned, but the EMS Mortar Sentry will slow them WAY down.
I came to this video to see if I could learn tips and tricks for using the Tesla Tower. I learned two things: One, the Tesla Tower is even more confusing than I thought it was. Two, I can punch-block automaton grenades?! XD
About your testing using different armor types (light/heavy on the helldiver) arc damage seems to bypass armor and just hit health directly although it does seem to possibly damage or weaken the armor but that has been kinda inconsistent for me
Never thought of the arc damage as completely ignoring the armor and just hitting the diver directly. Interesting comment! Thanks for checking out the video!
I think another thing that needs to be tested is how the tesla tower performs when there's two to four covering an area. As sucky as it is for them to target each other; I still want to see what it would be like for four towers to hide behind a corner and ambush targets. Maybe the 3 second delay could be countered when there's already three other towers priming? I think some of the ways the tower needs to be buffed to be viable is to allow it to do heavier stuns and resist a little more damage.
There's a lot of potential with the tesla tower, and I feel that given it's current state any form of adjustment would be happily accepted by the community. Thanks for checking out the video and sharing your thoughts!
The Tesla tower should get its Armor piercing increased to at least 5 or higher. The fact that it currently does zero damage to chargers makes it pretty lackluster in higher level bug missions.
Give it arc thrower stagger and consist targeting & I feel like this thing would be a monster. Maybe even shoot in multiple directions at once per shot to make up for that prime effect.
I agree. Being able to stagger would increase its survivability a lot and will let it be able to send out more shots. Thanks for checking out the video and for commenting!
Appreciate your kind words. Yeah, it took a lot longer than I expected. I try to make my videos more bite-sized but with how inconsistent the tower was there was a lot of different case situations I just had to test out. Thanks for watching!
I don't know if this is just my experience, but have you noticed whether the ems field negates the arc chain sometimes? I use the arc thrower quite often, and I've seen the ems field from mortars block my arc shots sometimes. Maybe this might help determine if the tower arcs and the arc thrower arcs are different engine/code-wise.
Very interesting insight. I've been doing a lot of testing with the arc thrower recently and although WE are deciding where to shoot the lightning, it's logic for selecting targets where you "shoot" it tends to follow the same rules as the tesla tower. Still trying to figure things out but I've seen the arc thrower also hit dead bodies, sentries, and even samples, but will continue to run it through a lot of tests! Thanks for checking out the video!
Kinda my experience with sentries in general. I hail Mary it across the map and the moment it spawns a charger or titan agros on it despite me shooting at them. Boom gone. Agro to towers should be reduced or something. Right now 7/10 times they get mowed over before being effective.
There is another way to survive it without either a shield gen or "electrical conduit" armor any "Liberty protects" armor can proc on the 50% chance and save you at 1 hp, has happened to me several times, even with the arc thrower friendly fire
Good tip. When I recorded the audio in multiple sessions I realized that I didn't mention it in the first half so I included it in the second. The "Liberty Protects" perk is so useful in general, and it's very neat to survive a tesla tower strike. Thanks for watching!
I remember trying out Tesla during a Defense mission because I thought that'd be where it'd shine, since it'd have plenty of enemies to chain to. Not only did it get destroyed, immediately, almost constantly. I don't think I even got more than maybe one or two kills on some bot troopers during that whole mission. Tesla has to be bugged or just grossly underpowered. I'd hope that one day they jack the firing rate of it way up and give it a damage bump (at least enough to one shot all varieties of bot troopers, and up to warrior type bugs) AND give it vastly more HP so that it can do its job as a mob zapper that's fantastic at dealing with smaller infantry. Tesla tower just needs help, because otherwise it's more of a hinderance than a help, and a waste of a stratagem slot, it's genuinely more dangerous to you and your team than it ever was to the enemy.
Appreciate you sharing your thoughts and I agree with your points. Given it's design and its purpose, I can see potential, but it is in desperate need of adjustments to help it perform its job better, let alone live longer. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
They should just rework it. Make it a deploy a static field that slowly damages and stuns the enemy. enemies and any enemy that is gets caught in it will create an arc that chains enemies and also applies the same effect. And if helldivers prone before the time limit let's say 2.5 seconds, then they are not effected. This is good because its the only offensive sentry that you can survive from if you get caught in it. Autocanoon, mortar, sentry, machine gun all are lethal if your careful, but with this purposed change, you have leeway to escape
How do multiple tesla towers interact with each other? Do combined tesla towers from multiple players negate some of the problems one tesla tower by itself have? such as low durability and inability to kill things quick enough before getting destroyed itself?
Since the tesla tower would generally hit the next closest thing, if there were multiple tesla towers next to each other they might just start zapping one another (they won't damage each other, but they won't be hitting the intended targets). If they were placed just outside of each other's range I think for it to really work out well all the helldivers would need to draw aggro away from them so they can do their work. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
I started to get bored with using my regular build and started running the Tesla tower every match and it's got a lot of advantages. The best way to use it is to throw it when there's a patrol or you're being chased by a bunch of bugs. Being able to drop it nearly every 2 minutes, you can use it often, and I've gotten 50+ killstreaks with it as I've gotten better at using it. I use it on the defend missions and ended upwards of 570 kills on suicide mission. They need to be placed in corners near the door, and you need to deal with any chargers using a quasar. Higher difficulties it is not viable, however, as there are too many chargers and bile titans
the only meta use ive seen for the tesla tower in my 150 hours is when the Silo event was goin from the major order a month ago, i remember it was good area denial with a decent cooldown
Been loving the Arch Thrower. Such a great fun weapon. Even started using the Arch Blitzer on Bug missions only. Very surprised by its effectiveness. I gotta completely agree with you on the Tesla Tower. Been using it on Defense mission with Bots and Bugs and it almost immediately dies every time. I even have the new upgrade for explosive resistance and I can’t tell the difference. Seen one rocket take it down. The devs need to take a good look at it. It needs love.
Honestly love the tesla tower, arc thrower, and just about everything from the cutting edge warbond. I think the tower has the same issues as the blitzer, it doesn't really know how to pick targets consistently.
I am a huge fan of the arc weapons and everything about the lightning in this game, except for the firing inconsistencies haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
Besides buffing it's damage and stagger potential, I think you could make a neat interaction by having you shoot the arc thrower at the Tesla tower and basically juice it up making its next discharge stronger. (much like in Red Alert 2 you had tesla troopers juice up the tesla tower there)
WOW! Super cool adjustment. I would love to see the arc thrower shoot at the tesla tower and have it interact with it that way. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and checking out the video!
@@Wallbouncing I am interested in its object targeting to extend the range. if it could bounce off a forward drop or turret ect that could be interesting. Best uses i have found for arc is with 2 people. i call it the blue build. arc thrower, tesla, ems strike, ems mortar. stuns. it will destroy landmines tho.
they work very well at protecting from patrols since they usually pay them no mind until they get in range and they last a while. mixed with ems mortar they can hold off groups decently.
with 2 of them placed near an opening in a defense they ruin most things that try and get through but bodies will end up absorbing charges. The arc throwers stun lock enemies entering the area and the ems strikes and mortar also keep enemies at bay. kind of using them to bodyblock openings while the tesla works.
the more tesla towers you get the more useful they are. lining up 4 or 8 in an area can shred pritty much anything. but you might also need to put your body on the line. even 4x of the ems strikes can keep an area perma stun locked.
@@Wallbouncing Give me an Aang vs Osai interaction where a Tesla Tower can shoot me and overcharge the charging Arc Thrower i'm holding, i would be SO down for that. Someone call Pilestedt :D
maybe just increase its chain length and effective diameter with the juicing?
@@Deezul653 could just let you shoot it withthe arc thrower to increase your arc throwers range.
So here's the list of issues:
1. Targeting dead bodies
2. Targeting samples
3. Targeting enemies but not firing
4. Not chaining lightning when enemies are too close (gets it killed instantly)
5. Too slow of a firing rate to be useful on killing anything above a medium sized bug.
6. Too little health.
I'm not so sure it hitting random crap is a bug, i mean it's electricity at the end of the day. I know the Arc Thrower has some consistency but that's because we're physically pointing where the Arc should be going, but if there's anything between you and what you want to hit, it will either fizzle out or hit what's closest.
Small edit: I'm not saying it isn't super inconsistent, i just want a reason for it!
and it’ll chain from a bug to a teammate 40 meters away from it killing then instantly
Seriously how TF does something like this bypass quality control
as far as targeting is concerned the arc blitzer is actually a headshot beast it always headshots everything when blind fired which is really the best way to use this weapon. Even the arc thrower won’t do this. Also if a charger has lost all its leg armour (front) and you blind fire the blitzer towards it it will auto target that weak leg. So what i’m saying is that arc based weapons can auto target certain enemy spots and the blitzer in my testing is the best out of all of them hands down
@@Ser-Vex131in recent patch they said its a bug i think. Would’ve been dumb to have an already weak turret hit corpses in a game where it becomes a corpse party in seconds
Thankfully got a situation today where the Telsa Tower had about 40 seconds to attack a stuck Charger. After seeing no effect, Arc Thrower still took the same 6 shots to the head to kill the Charger, implying the Telsa Tower did 0 damage the whole time. Unfortunate experience.
I feel like it might be similar to when you shoot the arc thrower and it just... fizzles.
srs, its a cool sentry in the right situation, the problem is, the right situation occurs so infrequently that the tower will sit unused for most of the game
Wow. Every tesla tower I called to try and fight a charger never even got more than 3 zaps before being destroyed. To know that it did little to nothing just goes to show how deep in the tier list this thing is haha. Thanks for sharing your experience (even though it sucked).
maybe the tower only hit the body? idk how arc weapons work with respect to multiple hitboxes
I can confirm too, watched my Tesla Tower shocking a stuck Charger for over 2 minutes with no results. Followed by it taking the normal amount of hits for my Arc Thrower to kill it
I remember how in the first game the Tesla tower was an absolute menace, attacking all enemies in it's range at once and staggering them for a moment, allowing it to kill even chargers reliably.
Unfortunately the single targeting and especially the much longer ranges at which fights take place in HD 2 already make it unreliable even before taking all the inconsistencies into account :(
It really is amazing how much of the original game was good design around their 4 player screenlock. There's a lot that doesn't seem to make as much sense when going from the old format to the full open world 3D, but arc weapon/tower implementations are probably top of that list. I really want to like them cause they were favorites in HD1, but they are struggling a bit imo.
I used to love using the arc thrower and heal gun while running along outside the transport vehicles. I could keep the vehicles in top shape for the team and the lighting would go right through em without damaging anyone inside, so you just needed to keep it between you and the enemy.
I also miss little details like the shields protecting you from EMS effects, all the heal mechanics in general like the medic back pack and helping up fallen teammates, or that healing also refilled the shield.
Reloading a friends recoiless was way better too. Just push E to reload it in 0.5s while near (instead of 6s alone) any time you were near, but in HD2 it glues both players together in this awkward way that prevents you doing anything else until you "stop reloading" for them, and the animations while moving sucks.
I can tell you right now, the 50% reduction to explosions means absolutely fucking nothing. A single rocket will still kill it
most of the new ship upgrades are completely useless. the extra arc is nice, probably the one exception, but fire damage is bugged so nobody is using it, superior packing is bugged, explosive resist turrets is bugged/pointless, orbital scatter basically doesn’t matter. kinda crazy lol
@InvaderTroy im loving the orbital scatter, has turned the 380mm into an absolute beast. 15% reduced spread is a much bigger reduction in area. I didnt find the barrages usable b4, now i prefer them over the laser. Harrier extra bomb is also a huge boost. But i agree that the level of buggyness and dysfunction on the new upgrades is frustrating and pretty extreme
Good luck testing if the extra arcs are bugged.
There's something I love about the fact that this is like a wild animal and you're trying to understand it's behavior
There's a ton of bugs in this game around object detection and clipping. I reckon a lot of the Spear's problems are also the tesla weapons'.
I agree, I think the tesla tower is suffering from a multitude of issues. One being how confusing and inconsistent arc-lightning is, and the other being how object detection works. I do feel that the tower is locating something but it's criteria for targeting is nonsensical to a a point it's not very useful. Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts!
For a long time I was and still am big arc thrower fanboy, but the fact this thing refuses to target enemies close to you sometimes drives me absolutely crazy
I feel that. I have a tendency to dive backwards while charging a shot, just to kill a scavenger lol. Usually I just swap to the redeemer to handle those
As a fellow arc-thrower fanboy, I now understand your pains with the tesla tower haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
i like using it against the bugs exclusivly, its great to throw onto a bug breach, and my favourite use is when there are flying bugs you can prone under it and just bait them into getting fried
actually genius. that seems like a great use case.
So an oversized bug zapper for the oversized bugs. Makes sense.
Thanks for the clean summary! I know every stratagem has their pros and cons, but I feel that to name a pro for the tower is at this point very far reaching. Appreciate you taking the time to check out the video!
As a arc thrower user I feel all this pain and more shooting nothing with clear targets to see is so frustrating
I still tense up when the Arc shot fizzles out.
I've seen that so many times and it is above and beyond annoying
This thing was great back in the E-710 defense missions. The bugs were so focused on attacking the generators it would almost always survive its entire life and kill a ton of bugs, and it doesn't damage the generators.
In HD1 this tower was, tricky, but a Lot more useful once the healing beam was upgraded to repair machines. Basically, it allows us to repair towers from a distance, meaning the tower was much more sustainable.
It also healed vehicles and shields. Was one of my favorites. Man, HD1 is one of my favorite games of all time.
6:56 I have the same problem with the Arc Thrower, it seems that sometimes if there’s foliage or particles nearby it will just hit the air directly in front of it, giving the appearance that it’s practically not firing. I can’t confirm it is foliage or particles that make it behave this way, I just can’t think of anything else.
I usually throw it together with a mortar away from objectives.
The Mortar attracts all of the enemies with a long range and the tesla tower zaps all the enemies running towards it.
It's really good for crowd control and moving enemies away from an objective, which then gives you more time to kill everything.
Great video Bro - your research is commendable.
Understanding all these different Stratagems and how they usually work might just make the difference on the battlefield.
Appreciate your kind words! I like to think every stratagem has its uses and want to find as many possibilities as I can and make an argument for why it’s viable or not. Glad you appreciate my content and thanks for commenting!
Tesla towers where extremely useful on that first bug generator defense missions.
1. It didn't shoot generators 2. EMS cannons were also great in that mission
We need a dev to see this, maybe it will get a massive bug fix and slight rework in the future!!
You think they don't know? Arc/lightning inherent randomness is it's downfall. I'm sure it's fucking hard to code or something in this build. It appears something is up with the way it targets. Not just the tower, but all arc weapons. Lightning hitting the ground, not hitting weak spots, and fizzing out is just part of the "fun" of learning how to kill with the arc thrower. This tower is dealing with all of that bugginess, with none of the human ability to adapt.
@@Lildoc911 i honestly believe they don't
I like to think they are aware of it. When they were fixing the crash issues related to the arc-thrower I'm sure they found a lot of other relevant issues (hopefully). Thanks for watching and for your comment!
It really shines when hunter swarms spawn, cause its mostly consistent against them, or if you can get it to deploy on a rock where chargers can't ram it.
I see it shine in taking down those hunter swarms, but it's harder in those higher difficulties when those bug breaches almost always includes a charger or a bile titan if the mission progresses further. Thanks for checking out the video and for leaving a comment!
Here is a tip for the bugs; if you throw it next to one of the many large rocks that has a bit of rock jutting out above where you threw it, the Tesla Tower will land on the rock. This keeps Chargers away from it and only Spewers and Titans can do any real damage to it.
A bonus is that Chargers will stand at the base of the rock looking at it forever allowing you to kill them with ease.
Nice video dude, I enjoy listening to your investigations.
I also appreciate the flash warning at the beginning, it's rare to see! 😊
Appreciate your kinds words! Means a lot! During my testing I was having some slight eye pain watching so much tesla towers, so I had a feeling a lot of people may find it unpleasant. Thanks for taking the time to watch the video!
Arc based weapons are very inconsistent.
The arc thrower specifically is actually pretty consistent in my experience. The area where the arcs travel past the first target is in a cone in the direction you're aiming at. So you can completely avoid team kills if you just imagine a line (perpendicular to your line of sight) drawn across the enemy, and as long as your teammate is always on the side of the line closer to you, or is directly on the line, you'll never accidentally hit them with it. The only times I get team kills with it are when I'm focusing down a charger because my orbitals are on cooldown, and a teammate runs into that cone of range without me realizing it
arc thrower is incredibly consistent when paired with a jump pack. elevation makes it easy mode. most of my fizzled shots are just due to bad ground geometry because I can shut down whole breaches on diff7 by just taking the high ground and letting loose.
@@MachineElf_Official I noticed the cone thingy after like 4 uses.... im talking about the way it missfires and single bush can stop whole ass chain.
How many times hunter was eating my ass and arc couldnt kill it whatssoever...
@@IliumGaming 100%, I always pair it with the jump pack for that very reason
@moroblizniak4457 if that happens you just have to change position to get a clear shot. It's annoying, but it's pretty manageable imo. It's worth it for the stagger and the ability to hit multiple enemies at the same time. Especially if you unlocked the perk that adds an additional lightning chain.
Funny enough I beat Helldive campaign (SOLO) against the bugs using the flame thrower and Tesla tower, it was pretty fun creating a hazard field. But sadly I think arc and lighting builds need more love from the devs after changes.
It was a challenge but I had so many kills.
Thanks for sharing. That hazard field sounds super good. I’ve tried creating something similar in those defense missions with even the orbital gas strike and it choke points so well. Thanks for again for checking out the video and commenting!
Cap
Very thorough job. I'd assume Arrowhead is aware of the issues but is focused on fixing crashes and disconnects as a priority. Hopefully they get to it eventually. My take way was only use it if you can get on top of it and lay down to protect it 😁. (PS thanks again for not using colorful language). Keep it up man!
Thanks for checking out my video! I'm sure they know at length the extent of issues revolving around the arc-lightning in this game and yeah I'm just hoping they are able to address it soon! Always looking to keep my videos clean too! Appreciate you taking the time to check out the video!
You could try a perspective of a whole team of Tesla towers? All use arc Armour. Have all ship module ups that effect it. Could make for some funny content
bro, huge respect for the disclaimer about flashing lights. im not personally sensitive to that, but i have never seen anyone on youtube put a disclaimer for that. thanks for caring!
Of course! I had a hard time looking at my screen while testing the tower so I thought others might not find it so pleasant as well. Thanks for checking out the video!
Have been using the tesla on bug defence mission and it does manage to get a really nice amount of kills when its thrown at a bug breach. Really helps with getting rid of smaller bugs from one side and letting you focus on the other side.
I love bringing the Tesla into Rocket Defense missions. It's wonderful kicking back and watching things try while Mortars and EMortars do work. The only thing I need to worry about is heavy enemies, which is what the 4th slot is for.
I find that the Tesla tower acts more like a minefield than a turret since it's more of a stationary AoE than an aimed unit.
The fact that it works on LOS is really interesting and such Helldivers 2 logic. A range of 20m except behind smoke, but it will hit you with a secondary arc by bouncing across your gun drone (but not the laser drone). I said to people in the HD2 Steam discussion forum that it should have a visible radius at the edge of 20m, and some people were very offended at the idea of a consistent and predictable feature.
There is one place that I love the TT. Bug exterminates with spewers. While yes, chargers and BTs will murder it, it also draws aggro from a ton of bile spewers and annihilates them. I toss one across the area from me and I can usually get at least 30 kills off of one unless a BT or charger pops up underneath them. Even if it does get wrecked by a charger or BT, it draws aggro from spewers from a huge range and it just wrecks them. One-shots spewers all day. I have seen one completely surrounded by spewer corpses and still hitting other bugs just fine, even arcing off of corpses to do it, and every one around the tower is one that isn't bothering you while you are reloading or lining up a shot on a heavy.
Placement is important though. You want to put it somewhere open that the bugs have to path through but that limits avenues of attack. Next to walls is terrible since the walls tend to confuse the targeting (like with the other arc weapons). Probably the best example of a spot is the ramp down toward the center on the pit to the left of the sample pool. Put it in the open area at the top of that ramp and it catches three spawn locations, and the surrounding terrain keeps chargers and BTs from killing it instantly. Easy throw from the upper platform too. You will notice a massive drop in trash mobs, hunters, and spewers as long as it is up. Chargers often have to get close to actually charge there too and get a bit confused by the pathing, so I have seen one manage a charger kill from that spot a few times. Its like the arc thrower there though; shots to kill is both location and rng dependent. Both weapons seem to have a range of damage they deal based on nothing concrete I can identify. I have killed fresh chargers in seven clean shots with the arc thrower and also with 20 clean shots. I do think that if it arcs to another target it does more damage to that first hit, but its so damn random its hard to prove.
Im thinking, it has to do with being an entity with physics properties. Things that have no physics like exploding flowers, eggs, untouched samples are all do have physics properties ingame. But i think shooting samples kinda transforms them into another entity type, but weapons on the ground arent affected, also the shield meant to interact with projectiles in the game world, so it makes sense, that is shares a tag with the other items. So i would guess its a gameobject tag that tells the tower wether it can be hit or not and the devs simply haven't thought it completely through with all the possibilities.
weapons and grenades probably share their own separate tag
I still like it against bugs. Even on higher difficulties. It's super common for you to have a breach you don't want to stick around for, and if you throw one of these, the way it plays out, a charger will spawn, pay 100% attention to it, charge it, then stop. A bile titan will actually go through an entire spew animation. Everything else dies. This gives you plenty of time to just run away if you need to- and it has upside in killing the chargers (and unfortunately not the titans) if you can find a good spot for it. Even better it means you can bait a breach with it to put enemy breaches on cooldown, then just run away with zero consequence. That's an insane amount of breathing room.
It's a really common fallacy to think less of something just because it doesn't itself get optimized. If the mine deployment killed chargers/titans with a single mine, it would be stupidly strong and still some part of your lizard brain would think "yeah, but all the mines didn't get used".
Impressively thorough. I just recently picked up the tesla tower and was pretty confused how to work with it. Thanks for saving me a ton of time and frustration.
Appreciate your kind words! Glad I was able to help you out! Thanks for checking out the video!
Your testing is incredible. You've put in a lot of work to give us this insight. I hope the devs see this and give it a buff.
Thanks for your kind words. I appreciate this game a lot and am curious about all the interactions there is between these stratagems. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
Leftbanktwo being used as the bgm made me flashback to playing LBP2 as a child and now im crying
I use leftbanktwo as the bgm in a lot of my videos and a lot of people share the same sentiment you do. It makes me glad to know a lot of you also have the same type of nostalgia for the game as I do. Thanks for checking out the video!
Step 1) Wait until the other hell-divers aren't looking
Step 2) Deploy the tesla behind them.
I use with my mates in the Arc Bro configuration. All with Electricity resistant armor, all with tesla, all with arc thrower.
It's a zapping nightmare for enemy. But yes... probably the only real situation where is strong.
When I first saw the arc res armor, I immediately thought of the possibilities for a full squad with it + arc thrower and tesla towers wreaking havoc. But also that that'd be the only time to even consider using it. At least until the new faction shows up. :)
If everyone was running that arc-resistant armor and using the tesla tower it really can be no mans land haha. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
IDK how, but my experience varies wildly from your in terms of Tesla Tower's survivability. Haven't tried using it against bots, but versus bugs it never went down to ANYTHING other than heavies and friendly fire, meaning if you somehow manage to protect it from titans and chargers, it completely stops large groups and bullies breaches.
I love the tesla tower so to hear positive experiences about it is always welcomed to my ears (eyes?). I agree that placement is the biggest factor in overall effectiveness, and I'm still trying to figure out how to do it well. Thanks for sharing your insight and appreciate you taking the time to check out the video!
Thank you and great testing, Helldiver. What I want to start seeing from people doing these tests are full team strategem effectiveness. A lot of the tests everyone conducts are from a personal loadout standpoint, which is understandable. But what I want to know is: what is the effectiveness of an entire team called down 4 Tesla Towers together at the same time. 4 120/380 Orbitals at the same time. 4 Gas Strikes at the same time (once DoT is fixed). That's what I'm interested in.
Thanks for your kind words and I agree with your point. In this video (and in my other ones) I mainly cover how these stratagems affect the individual, and in my future videos I'll be sure to include how multiple uses of it with the team can have different outcomes. Thanks for checking out the video!
Four 120/380 orbitals at literally the same time and location will just hit the same locations as one would and overkill the shit out of some bugs/bots that were already gonna die 😂 now, if they were a bit spread out or staggered by 5-10 seconds each then you're on to something
@@HoepRemains "orbitals at literally the same time and location wll just hit the same locations"
Actually this is not true. If you watch a video titled "Orbital Barrages are not random" you will find some very in depth testing that completely proves that wrong.
I love arc based weapons, that being said every time someone drops one immediately destroy it because it’s 100% going to kill your team more than the enemy.
Exact same issues with the Arc thrower. I charge it and hear it chirp, literally nothing but empty space (Visually) between me and the target and the arc just does not fire or goes else were. you see the ionization cloud track to what got targeted, but you don't see the bolt
So this tower is incredibly powerful but you nearly have to have a phd to play around it and team communication is imperative for it to work. Its like a mortar but worse in terms of potential TK but when it works and if you support it with additional sentries, its a meat grinder of a stratagem
One thing i noticed, is that enemies only target the battery part at the bottom. So if you where to put it behind a small rock, any bots or maybe a bile titan will try to aim for the battery but since the rock is in the way, they instead hit the rock. Unless you are behind it, in which case they aim towards you and destroy it. The only issue with bots is that usually they just stand there, just outside the range of the tesla tower. So they dont really get zapped. But i guess if you are followed by a huge squad of enemies, its a good distraction?
Super cool insight. In my testing I never paid attention as to where they are exactly shooting the tesla tower. Would need to test that out and see if it could make it survive a little longer. Thanks for your comment and thanks for checking out the video!
What about thinking about tesla tower not as a standalone automated stratagem that kills everything around that - but a supplementary stratagem that increase your personal and your teams ability to stand against the crowd of enemies (bugs in particular)?
Where tesla tower is not really a defensive object to cover you and your team but the opposite - object to defend while it’s enhancing your kill potential.
So for example: there is an overwhelming amount of bugs approaching your destination and you throw tesla tower between your team and the horde, while shredding the crowd with a machine gun or taking care of Chargers/Titans with heavier weaponry
eagle strikes
@@Alticroo yes, if that’s what you enjoy the most, but game itself offers more then one option to deal with hordes of enemies.
Tesla tower has essentially endless uptime in comparison to airstrikes. If the fix all the bugs and make tesla tower hit more precise, then this thing can be quite valid in the group of 4
It should be going completely wild when there's a horde of enemies in range. Like every half second it hits every enemy in range.
Your research is admirable. Such a weird stratagem. It's been responsible for some crazy kill streaks, but its behavior is super inconsistent.
Thanks for your kind words and I agree, the tesla tower is multikill central, but it has a lot of things going against it that makes it hard to use well in my opinion. Thanks for checking out the video!
The tesla tower is designed to be paired with the EMS strike. You drop both at the same time on a bug breach and since everything is slowed it has a chance to function. Ive gotten a 38 killstreak with it. It also helps to put them up on rock formations so they cant be attacked
A single gattling turret does the same job, but better, without using two stratagem slots. It is far more versatile, too.
I got a 51 kill streak by sticking a gattling next to a bug breach last night.
I usually use the TT to guard my EMS mortar. I throw them next time each other and the enemy will agro the mortar and the tower will kill them. If I see it being overwhelmed I’ll throw so arcs to it to help it out. That’s the best use case I’ve seen
Thanks for your comment and sharing your experience. I can see how that can be helpful and have tried it a couple of times. In those time a lone charger would come around and just destroy my little sentry nest which sucked haha. Appreciate you checking out the video!
Thoughts for Tower improvement: fire at all targets nearby not just one (maybe in a smaller aoe than the bolt), multiple towers can chain to each other, stun effect on hit
great video - you really made a deep research on the topic. hope devs will do something with this thing.
Thanks for your kind words! Since this video the Tesla Tower has gotten more health and has been a bit more durable. I'm having a lot of success bringing it on the bug front than the bot front. I still do think however that it needs some additional adjustments to compete with the other sentries. Thanks for watching!
Good video bro. Hope u making more of these.
About the tesla tower, I think to make it "feel good to use" it's gotta be reconsidered from the ground up. But knowing Arrowhead only has 100 people working on everything new AND fixing gamebreaking bugs. I can't ever think they can even spare a single head to address this.
Thanks for your kind words. I know that Arrowhead isn't a big team, and I'm not calling for this to be an immediate priority for them given how much they have on their plate. I'm sure they got a lot of fun stuff in the works, but just hoping the tower gets some attention too because it is a really unique sentry in this game and I want it to work at least somewhat haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
You need to place it on elevated ramps and use its range. It can reach very far down, and kill things that walk under it.
You would think bugs touching it would get insta-killed 🤣 That would be a fun use case to bait chargers to take them out with it.
I've had some success pairing the Tesla Tower with the Arc Thrower on Terminds. Place the tower between myself and an incoming horde. I run back and fire away, the enemies attack the Tower it drops and I try to fire at bugs that are attacking the tower. I've had good success with this on the smaller bugs on Helldive! But just one charger or Bile Titan will break it and ruin everything still
Since the tower always targets, but doesn't damage the sentry weapons. I wonder if we'll get an energy weapon turret that this can charge up to extend its battery life. Maybe quasar cannon turret with increased fire rate, or a juiced up rover/scythe beam.
Regarding targeting the samples.
There was a patch or two early on where they worked on samples not just hanging in the air after changes in landscape (from explosions)
If you pay attention to samples after 'removing the ground' you will see that they suddenly become able to move, so they dont hang in the air, out of reach of helldivers.
I think @TacoEric is spot on with it being a different entity, I think the devs had to change what the sample is in order to let it fall to the ground. Maybe they gave the original entity 1hp and then changed its propperties when its 'dead'
I believe its related to the patch because this type of hackfix is prone to strange unforseen interactions, like being targeted by the tesla tower.
It only really seems effective at area denial if you're teammates also stack Tesla towers around it but they'll still have the issue of falling apart as soon as armoured units can smell them
The one buff I'd love to see is 100% arc damage armor. Then, YOU BECOME THE TESLA TOWER CONDUCTOR! Imagine, running around the tower, aiming its lightning through your body!
I'd take it all the time if that was the case. I wouldn't even care if it hit me haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
Honestly, make it 150% resist -- make the lightning heal you. The inconsistency of targeting and timing would still keep it in check, but it would be funny
I personally like the tesla tower against bugs, the uptime is over 100% so on exterminate bug missions you can often just place one of these on one side of the map and just completely shut off that side of the map permanently unlike anything else can. Now, as soon as you go above hard difficulty and the charger and bile titan spawns start getting crazy on that mission type it becomes useless.... which means the tower is only good on lower difficulties where everything works. The problem is the uptime is the biggest draw of this tower and as soon as enemies spawn that can kill the tower it becomes useless and that's just a fundamental flaw. The arc tower also doesn't work as a panic tool like the gatling sentry does.
I think this is paired with a spear and resupply pack, you use it to give you cover while you spam spears at heavy targets. Only really viable on high visibility maps though
So much testing and detailed information. Thank you for your effort and great content.
Thank you for your kind words. Appreciate you taking the time to comment and for checking out the video!
I found it somewhat useful on mission to just clear bug Numbers in area those 12 min mission where lost of small mobs just spawn alot around, it can hold it own side, piles and chargers just destroys them too easily. Tip. You can trow it otherside of walls and it can shoot enemies trough it no matter of los, if there is enemies on it range. Fun idea could be that on destoyed it could exlode to damage or stuns enemies around it
the guard dog rover is mostly sillicon, so does not attract Arc bolts, however, the guard dog liberator is mostly metallic, so does attract arc bolts
Maybe there's a analyze period in the cycle. Where it only fires when theres a "optimum path" after the cool down.
what I mean by a optimum path is that there is a path to hit more than one target and prioritizes that. This means that if only one valid target is in there area it will wait till there is more. and maybe after a certain period, when there is none, it fires. as such it would take longer to hit that lone target vs a group.
If this is the case, then what classifies as a target becomes essential. It seem like anything that can be damaged or has a state that can be changed like equipment can be a target. Since untouched sample are a non targeted it implies a state must be initialized, changed, or be picked up before it is considered a target, this is seen in a untouched sample being targeted when the ground beneath changes since the inital spawn condition has changed.
not sure if this idea holds to testing but its something to consider.
Arc Blitzer doesn't damage the Tesla Tower either.
You are correct that the TT baits you into building around it, until your weapons, armor, grenades, and most your strats are chosen specifically to make this one piece of cool looking jank work. And when you do it you're incredibly good at trash clearing, but so's anyone with a Liberator.
Thanks for the tip about the arc blitzer. Oversight on my end to think the arc thrower was the only electric weapon. Yeah, if the tesla tower was to "work" in a situation, I also knew that a lot more efficient options could've gotten the job done as well. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
Thank you for your hard work!
Didnt know about the priming stage of the tower. I love using the tesla. As soon as i throw it down i just distance myself and cover other areas instead so i dont know much about its mechanics
Appreciate the kind words. Glad to hear there are some people who are having positive experiences with the tower! Thanks for checking out the video!
It excels in the missions where yoy meed to defend generators, great for cheesing eradications, and its super good for placing by the door of the pelican
My feeling exactly, it is cool but niche and under performs atm, zaps you if you are prone near it when it shoots at an enemie, found that the hard way, hope it gets some love in the future.
Took one minute to realize how good this video was and how nice was to listen to you talking (I'm tired of the many content creators that can barely put two words together).
Instantly subscribed.
... together 😅
@@lukeguest300 now that you corrected a minor spelling mistake, the world is a much better place.
Thank you, luke.
Ha you don't see the irony about putting words together?
@@lukeguest300 I do, but It's not like I've murdered the english language.
Thanks for the correction anyways, I don't want to sound rude or anything.
Super kind words and that means a lot to me! I knew this video was longer than my other reviews, but wanted to make sure I'm relaying all the information I think is meaningful. Thanks for your comment and thanks for taking the time to check out the video!
You said the tower reaches farther and hits more chains than the other arc weapons. Considering this, and that helldivers are the most conductive targets for the tesla tower (because we carry and call in the most metallic objects on the field) can we call in the tower on ourselves, wear the arc resistant armor, and be the hottest damn capacitor the tower's ever seen? AKA can i have the tower fire at me then arc to nearby enemies?
Oh yeah, you can totally do that! Using the arc-resistant armor you can, in a way, influence the tesla tower by having it shoot you then having it arc to the enemy you want it to hit. You can have a full team with the arc-resistant armor and just basically a group of conduits for the lightning haha. Thanks for checking out the video and hope that answers your question!
The tesla tower is FANTASTIC for defense. Put on the place where the initial bug breachers or bot drops.
11:57 "zap, poof, redness"
Becoming red paste is a side effect of taking the tesla tower haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
About the unpriming, I'm not sure if it works as well as a client because I have been zapped while prone.
When it comes to its performance though, I have had the most success on bug High Value Asset Extraction by placing it on top of stairs next to a gate, and using napalm strikes to burn the access to the stairs, all while being posted up at the gate behind. It can do a lot of work IF you cover it and "tower defense strategy" so that the enemies need to walk quite a bit to get in melee range. Chargers would not reach it or prioritize it, but any bile titan would ruin the fun. But really though, Napalm strike + Tesla Tower is an amazing combo against hordes defensively. It works because you are close enough to draw aggro, it's elevated so it takes longer for bugs to reach it all while it's able to damage them, and you also cover its back.
I think it needs more health AND/OR be less prioritized in terms of aggro compared to players or other sentries, more range with a priority system to prioritize enemies for gameplay/fun reasons OR a higher fire rate, stagger because look at the lightning on that thing, an audio cue for when you are targeted, like a buzzing static noise like when thunder is about to hit you, and, most importantly, they need to fix arc weapons so that they arc properly.
Thanks for the comment and sharing your insight. I've tried placing it on leveled platforms in that new defense mission but it would misfire a lot, hitting some random thing I wasn't expecting before drawing aggro and getting destroyed. Appreciate you checking out the video!
According to thos being prone stops the helldiver from 'waking up' amd priming, not protecting the helldiver from damage or targeting.
Can’t wait till we’re in a Tesla Tower meta. Thank you for this testing.
You and me both! Appreciate your kind words and thanks for checking out the video!
The 'Gameplay and Uses' Section really answered a lot of questions I had about this thing!
I always like Lightning Weapons in Game, shame that this seems kind of half baked.
Glad to know my testing answered some of your questions! I'm also a fan of the lightning in this game and hope it could get a little tweaked to be more predictable/consistent. Thanks for watching!
Speaking about defensive stratagems, the mine fields are great for those "waves" mission.
The mine fields are great and I love taking both versions in those defense missions. Thanks for checking out the video!
Huh this is weird, i've had almost the opposite results that you have had. I really do appreciate this amount of testing, it's fantastic. I use the tesla tower in combination with the gatling barrage and quasar, I use it to destroy patrols or anything I pull from hives, in my experience it easily mulches anything that isn't a charger (it can still kill them, it's that they charge into it before they can get hit enough) or bile titan.
I've pulled multiple patrols through the same tesla tower getting a lot of use out of it, I think where it really falls flat is with team play, where you are likely to throw the thing it's likely to get an airstrike on top of it. Splitting off from the group is my usual role in the squad, I will clear half the map while the others clear the rest and this thing has been an absolute joy to watch gore bugs, I didn't know it suffered from the same issues that the arc thrower did with targeting but the only time i'd notice it getting destroyed was if multiple bile spewers were on it or the previous 2 threats came along.
Even though I had some negative experiences with the Tesla Tower, I'm sure there are some people who have had nothing but success. I'm not the best player so hearing these experiences will help me improve and be better in using it so thanks for your insight and appreciate you commenting and checking out the video!
My 3rd favourite team killing stratagem after 380mm and antipersonnel mines 😂
From what I've seen the explosion resist on sentries is probably bugged lol, doesn't actually seem to do anything
I use the tower on bug breaches. Ultimate crowd control for bugs… unit a biotitan pops. They just stomp it. 😅
Note: Biotitans can’t be stunned, but the EMS Mortar Sentry will slow them WAY down.
Thanks for your tip and for the comment! Appreciate you taking the time to watch the video!
I came to this video to see if I could learn tips and tricks for using the Tesla Tower. I learned two things:
One, the Tesla Tower is even more confusing than I thought it was.
Two, I can punch-block automaton grenades?!
XD
Thanks for checking out the video and glad that you were able to at least get some takeaways from this haha! Appreciate the comment
can you revisit this now that the buff everything update gave the tesla tower and arc thrower heavy stagger
Ngl the idea of the tesla intercepting a projectile like jaeger's gadget would be op but cool
Beyond that, being to intercept the rockets from devastators would make this instant S-tier haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
About your testing using different armor types (light/heavy on the helldiver) arc damage seems to bypass armor and just hit health directly although it does seem to possibly damage or weaken the armor but that has been kinda inconsistent for me
Never thought of the arc damage as completely ignoring the armor and just hitting the diver directly. Interesting comment! Thanks for checking out the video!
I think another thing that needs to be tested is how the tesla tower performs when there's two to four covering an area. As sucky as it is for them to target each other; I still want to see what it would be like for four towers to hide behind a corner and ambush targets. Maybe the 3 second delay could be countered when there's already three other towers priming?
I think some of the ways the tower needs to be buffed to be viable is to allow it to do heavier stuns and resist a little more damage.
There's a lot of potential with the tesla tower, and I feel that given it's current state any form of adjustment would be happily accepted by the community. Thanks for checking out the video and sharing your thoughts!
The Tesla tower should get its Armor piercing increased to at least 5 or higher. The fact that it currently does zero damage to chargers makes it pretty lackluster in higher level bug missions.
Give it arc thrower stagger and consist targeting & I feel like this thing would be a monster. Maybe even shoot in multiple directions at once per shot to make up for that prime effect.
I agree. Being able to stagger would increase its survivability a lot and will let it be able to send out more shots. Thanks for checking out the video and for commenting!
Wow! You did quite the in depth review on this. Well done! This must have taken a lot of time!
Appreciate your kind words. Yeah, it took a lot longer than I expected. I try to make my videos more bite-sized but with how inconsistent the tower was there was a lot of different case situations I just had to test out. Thanks for watching!
I don't know if this is just my experience, but have you noticed whether the ems field negates the arc chain sometimes? I use the arc thrower quite often, and I've seen the ems field from mortars block my arc shots sometimes. Maybe this might help determine if the tower arcs and the arc thrower arcs are different engine/code-wise.
Very interesting insight. I've been doing a lot of testing with the arc thrower recently and although WE are deciding where to shoot the lightning, it's logic for selecting targets where you "shoot" it tends to follow the same rules as the tesla tower. Still trying to figure things out but I've seen the arc thrower also hit dead bodies, sentries, and even samples, but will continue to run it through a lot of tests! Thanks for checking out the video!
Kinda my experience with sentries in general. I hail Mary it across the map and the moment it spawns a charger or titan agros on it despite me shooting at them. Boom gone.
Agro to towers should be reduced or something. Right now 7/10 times they get mowed over before being effective.
There is another way to survive it without either a shield gen or "electrical conduit" armor
any "Liberty protects" armor can proc on the 50% chance and save you at 1 hp, has happened to me several times, even with the arc thrower friendly fire
Good tip. When I recorded the audio in multiple sessions I realized that I didn't mention it in the first half so I included it in the second. The "Liberty Protects" perk is so useful in general, and it's very neat to survive a tesla tower strike. Thanks for watching!
I remember trying out Tesla during a Defense mission because I thought that'd be where it'd shine, since it'd have plenty of enemies to chain to.
Not only did it get destroyed, immediately, almost constantly. I don't think I even got more than maybe one or two kills on some bot troopers during that whole mission. Tesla has to be bugged or just grossly underpowered. I'd hope that one day they jack the firing rate of it way up and give it a damage bump (at least enough to one shot all varieties of bot troopers, and up to warrior type bugs) AND give it vastly more HP so that it can do its job as a mob zapper that's fantastic at dealing with smaller infantry.
Tesla tower just needs help, because otherwise it's more of a hinderance than a help, and a waste of a stratagem slot, it's genuinely more dangerous to you and your team than it ever was to the enemy.
Appreciate you sharing your thoughts and I agree with your points. Given it's design and its purpose, I can see potential, but it is in desperate need of adjustments to help it perform its job better, let alone live longer. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
They should just rework it. Make it a deploy a static field that slowly damages and stuns the enemy. enemies and any enemy that is gets caught in it will create an arc that chains enemies and also applies the same effect.
And if helldivers prone before the time limit let's say 2.5 seconds, then they are not effected. This is good because its the only offensive sentry that you can survive from if you get caught in it. Autocanoon, mortar, sentry, machine gun all are lethal if your careful, but with this purposed change, you have leeway to escape
Thank you for making this video!!
Thanks for taking the time to check out the video. Appreciate your comment!
How do multiple tesla towers interact with each other? Do combined tesla towers from multiple players negate some of the problems one tesla tower by itself have? such as low durability and inability to kill things quick enough before getting destroyed itself?
Since the tesla tower would generally hit the next closest thing, if there were multiple tesla towers next to each other they might just start zapping one another (they won't damage each other, but they won't be hitting the intended targets). If they were placed just outside of each other's range I think for it to really work out well all the helldivers would need to draw aggro away from them so they can do their work. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
I started to get bored with using my regular build and started running the Tesla tower every match and it's got a lot of advantages. The best way to use it is to throw it when there's a patrol or you're being chased by a bunch of bugs. Being able to drop it nearly every 2 minutes, you can use it often, and I've gotten 50+ killstreaks with it as I've gotten better at using it. I use it on the defend missions and ended upwards of 570 kills on suicide mission. They need to be placed in corners near the door, and you need to deal with any chargers using a quasar. Higher difficulties it is not viable, however, as there are too many chargers and bile titans
the only meta use ive seen for the tesla tower in my 150 hours is when the Silo event was goin from the major order a month ago, i remember it was good area denial with a decent cooldown
Oh yes. I wish the TCS mission was back so I can test its potential there. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
Been loving the Arch Thrower. Such a great fun weapon. Even started using the Arch Blitzer on Bug missions only. Very surprised by its effectiveness.
I gotta completely agree with you on the Tesla Tower. Been using it on Defense mission with Bots and Bugs and it almost immediately dies every time. I even have the new upgrade for explosive resistance and I can’t tell the difference. Seen one rocket take it down. The devs need to take a good look at it. It needs love.
Appreciate you sharing your own personal thoughts on the Tesla tower and for checking out my video!
loving all these helldiver dives of the gear
Thanks for your kind words! I have more in the work so stay tuned! Hoping to give a lot of meaningful value with each video. Thanks for watching!
Here for the LBP music in the background
Honestly love the tesla tower, arc thrower, and just about everything from the cutting edge warbond. I think the tower has the same issues as the blitzer, it doesn't really know how to pick targets consistently.
I am a huge fan of the arc weapons and everything about the lightning in this game, except for the firing inconsistencies haha. Thanks for checking out the video!