how on earth are you managing to pen the armour from straight on every time? It looks like you are shooting the front plate of the leg but in my experience that will just make it ricochet. Did you blast the back of the leg before recording or something? EDIT* Never mind, I just went into a mission to test and started shooting at that moment and my god the armour just doesnt work. I am assuming this is a bug with hit boxes or something.
@@Alvadar65 to me it seems like there's part of the leg armor that is considered medium. you can see most of the shot that pen the armor is hitting somewhere off center, sometime slight inner part sometime slight outer part. I think you can see it most clearly at 2:10 & 4:10 when some shot is obviously only bounced in a particular way and registered at some other angle.
@@張祥安-d2b I tested it out and it seems to be a bug. There is a certain point in the animation where they are turning around after charging where the hitbox for the leg that represents the heavy armour doesnt work correctly and you can break the armour. If you break it enough then you can keep shooting it. The video doesnt explain it too well, however after playing around with it myself it for sure feels like a bug. A very useful bug at the moment however, even if it can be a bit tricky to get the timing down when getting pressured by a bunch of other stuff in a real scenario.
I suspect that this probably a bug and that these animations are desyncing the protective armor around the leg weakpionts. But IMO it's a good bug since it gives you more options to kill chargers in the middle of a hectic fight without completely relying upon the railgun. Assuming that this is a bug, I hope that a proper balance patch is introduced before they fix it.
Well the solution is to give other sup weapons a bump and subsequently bump several of the strd primaries. Candidates for medium armor pen should be both R63-Diligence rifles, the Slugger shotty, Ar23-Liberator Explosive and the Stalwart LMG SW. Canidates for heavy armor pen meaning nearly ignores armor plates all together should be M63-Machine gun SW, AR23-Liberator Penatrator, the Senator pistol, and the Jar5-Dominator. Moving the Armor interaction profiles of each of these weapons would greatly benefit build/loadout diversity across all levels of play. As an addition to all of this I would also increase the spare ammo totals of nearly all light armor pen weapons by 2 magazines and subsequently increase the magazine size of the base liberator to 65. This would give these weapons an edge in the endurance department over their harder hitting alternatives, which is a standard practice for game balancing. The 65 shot magazine for the base liberator would make it nearly permanently viable at all difficulties and give it the feel of the Starship Troopers GI rifle that always seems like it has a bottomless mag until reloading is included for plot.
@@IDirtyMangoIyou wanna give heavy armor piercing to standard weapons (AND MACHINEGUNS) ?!? That's the whole fucking idea or heavy armor - can't take down tank with a revolver! I get the issue u guys have but this isn't about "builds". You're trying to make everything reliable against everything for the sake of "loadout diversity", but in those conditions 'loadouts' as a concept cease to function. You just take whatever you like and you're fine.
they REALLY should go all-out on this, it's getting really boring seeing nothing but people bring railguns and stuff in Helldive. This "bug" or whatever it is has really given me the ability to kill chargers with my Machine gun, which I still bring and honestly believe is still viable in Helldive (against mixed hordes), chargers are always the bane and this is amazing to deal with it.
Its seems like colission box checking for hit zones is not updated during the turning on the spot and only gets updated during the movement in direction
It seems to be a bug, small arms shouldn't be a le to do this. With the autocannon focus its back leg after a charge, it sometimes bounces off but it knly takes 2 proper connects to its leg to kill it. If it gets too close switch to your primary and focus the joint between its body and armoured foreleg. It's lightly armoured and there's a small weakpoont right where the leg connects to the armour you can sometimes see it as a green ball in the joint. Focusing fire on that spot will kill a charger in at most 20 breaker shots(if you dont hit the weakpoint at all) or at least 4-6 (if you only hit the weakpoint)
"There's hundreds more details like this in the game.... Just use logic and you will figure it out." -Pilestedt, CEO and Creative Director at Arrowhead Game Studios
There seriously needs to be some adjustment that makes the timing for this clearer. Either the window needs to be larger or some visual cue needs to be clearer. It just feels completely random with some exceptions, and when using non-automatic weapons, it just feels like a complete guessing game as to whether it'll bounce or not.
Damn thanks for posting this! This is very useful when you just died and tons of chargers are swarming at you and you have no any other way in countering them
Thank you so much! I tested it myself many times and couldn't figure it out. I'm not good at it, so my weak ass is still stable, but it's a great option. Thank you.
Been testing this myself since I learned it from you, it’s inconsistent but very handy in a pinch when it works. I rly appreciate you showing your work and making this stuff replicable, so many people are making claims about what works on what enemies and a lot of it complete bullshit. The dude you referenced in the pinned comment of your previous video, do you have any ideas on how his auto cannon rounds pierce charger front legs even in their walking animations? I’ve asked him and he doesn’t give a concrete answer, and I’ve only gotten the auto cannon to break charger legs shooting the back ones after a charge like you demonstrated in the previous vid. Off topic but also have you had any success shooting bile titans in the face with the auto cannon?
As for Elbethiums video, his clips still follow the same idea from this video in that he's shooting them during their post charge animations when the armor seemingly "turns off". There are some walking animations which also have this bug/feature but it's quite inconsistent and a waste of ammo to do guess work for that. In his last clip, the Charger is stuck but that's after it most likely did a long charge and was in the process of finishing turning around which is one of the possible windows of vulnerability hence the shots went through. He claims it works flawlessly for him but when I was doing my testing I can definitely tell you it's not - there's plenty of times when rounds bounce right off and you just have to wait for the next charge animation to try again. I've yet to have success with the supposed "one-shot" in the mouth of a Bile Titan with an Autocannon and even Railgun users don't seem to get consistent results so can't say for sure on that.
@@udonlarge There is a lot of randomness involved, yeah. I *have* had Bile Titan one-shots with the Rail Gun - freshly spawned ones. But they happen about as often as the ones where I somehow need a dozen of overcharged railgun shots into their mouths - or in other words, I get them once or twice per session. I have no idea what causes the irregularities there.
Most annoying thing is the charger hitting an F1 Turn as a dodge him and he just keeps following me like a heat seeking missile. Like dude weights as much as Optimus Prime running at least 40 MPH and hit a 0G turn like he’s racing at Le Mans is crazy
this... doesn't make sense to me. most weapons ricochet off a chargers legs until you break the armor... how are you just casually shooting the legs and dealing damage...
It doesn't make sense to me either other than being a possible bug like others have speculated. I don't roll with the Med/Heavy pen stats idea because there's plenty of times during testing when the same guns bounced off at the same spots/angle during the same animation. Timings and retrying after another charge was the only thing that I could get to work consistently. But I'll take what I can get against Chargers for now because running around with a Railgun isn't really my kind of fun.
I have tested this myself, and its REALLY inconsistent with guns, especially if theres a lot of other bugs around or other chargers at the same time. It's a lot easier with the autocannon from his last videos but again it can be tricky with more enemies around. This is probably a bug so i would only recommend doing this with the AC until they patch it or just stick to the EAT, Recoilness, and railgun until you destroy his front leg armor and then shot it with primary or secondary.
It is quite inconsistent, but it's a pretty good boon. I do hope they go all-out on this and make it more consistent and official, it'd open up more variety and playstyles than just...railgun railgun railgun, it's getting rather boring to see at this point.
@@sivel7493I doubt they're going to go all out on this because it looks like a bug but yeah you're are right railgun gets boring sometimes and my fix for that is to buff every support weapon so it can compete with the railgun
@@L_U_C_1_F_E_R what I mean by "go all out" is actually implementing and officialize this mechanic, make it more consistent. I know it's most likely bug or sth along that line , but it's definitely something the devs should consider. Even as a bug though, it's not anything jank-looking
@sivel7493 I mean, it doesn't make sense for a low caliber pistol to penetrate and negate any armor thats why they should buff other support weapons so they can deal with armor in their own way and not just the railgun. I know recoilness and eat can do that too but compared to the railgun they either nerf you for using them or are a worst choice
@@L_U_C_1_F_E_R ok I mean, I guess most primary weapons probably shouldnt be able to do it so effectively...especially the BREAKER (they gotta do sth about that gun). But yeah, support weapons that arent the Railgun/Autocannon should probably be made to be able to deal with chargers easier I agree.
the only reason i can think it would work like this particularly while turning or moving is just that the bullet that gets ricochet off the armor gets caught in the model anyway because of the movement?
@udonlarge i found that charger after "crush" become more vulnerable. he charges in some not really a big rock and stun himself, and right in this moment you can down him in like 1,5 sec with breaker just unleashing whole mag in his "soft spot" on one of the front legs. but it's still not well confident, so i may test a bit more
I've been doing this all this time, it has really elevated the Machine gun, which I love bringing in Helldive. Bug or not, I really wish the devs would ELELVATE or expand upon this more, maybe make it more consistent, so that stuff like...Railgun doesn't feel like the only thing people bring in Helldive. Honestly, anything that makes EVERY support weapon as on par with each other as possible would be amazing. I thought that every Charger is spawned with a chance of having one/multiple limbs vulnerable, honestly i dunno if there's a consistent trick to do this effectively, sometimes their legs are just vulnerable by default, sometimes they're vulnerabled after charging or move around, sometimes it feels like there's an angle to it.
Yes, every support weapon (and primary) should be viable in Helldive and it was that way in the first game! I loved having the freedom to try crazy combinations while still performing decently well so I'm quite puzzled as to why the balance feels quite off right now. Im fairly certain buffs or changes will come in the near future, but we'll have to tough it out for now.
@@CleverCheetah I mean I know yeah, but people pretty much ran mostly Railgun from all the Helldive games I've been in, Railgun's just WAYYY too dominant
After the latest weapon balance patch (8 March 2024), I don't think this works that consistently anymore. Normally, I would be able to down a charger solo, but lately I needed more help or AT options to take them down - even with the autocannon. Most of my bullets will bounce off the leg armor and I get the bullet deflection icon, but it is slightly more consistent when you hit the back of the legs, but that window is so fucking short. If anyone has a different experience, do let me know what I'm doing wrong.
Could it also be that shooting behind the armor plate on the hind of the leg is punching through the back of the armor and creating a hole in the front? Could explain the spotty results as ive noticed sometimes he’s got a big chip missing and sometimes its just a tiny spot depending on the weapon you were using, like the breaker just punched off all the armor practically leaving a large spot, whereas the sniper less so.
Thank you fellow warrior of light. Bile Titans don't seem to have much weaknesses right now other than sending explosive lead up their ass or straight in the mouth so I probably won't fiddle too much with them. My journey back to the Waking Sands has taken a detour to Space Vietnam where I will be spending most of my battles for awhile.
I would love to see a follow-up on this video that includes some of the other weapons (Jar dominator, plas-scorcher, etc). This vid is still incredibly good and useful as it is.
Hate to break it to you but I did see a dev acknowledge this as a bug in the official discord and they'd be looking into it so I'll probably be unlisting these videos once that patch hits (unless of course, they make this canon).
I went on this journey mainly because Chargers seemed like such a huge issue without proper AP tools or a Railgun and there wasn't an efficient way to take them down especially when there were 4 or more running around at higher difficulties. In HD1 you could 1-shot a Charger with an EAT or Recoilless but it just isn't the case for HD2 so I wanted to find a solution till buffs for the weapons come. As for the Automatons most of their heavy units come with big glaring weak spots on their backs which can be destroyed with most weapons so I don't think I'll be exploring too much into them unless things change.
Most weapons can take out a hulk????? Really? Damn I think my aim is bad then 😅 I'm not as patient as you are I guess😅 I kind of find it cringy that the front legs of the Charger are it's weak spots 😅 really big forward charging unit, surely it would've "evolved" to have armoured legs, or am I missing something?
Most Bots can be taken out with headshots as well. Anti-material rifle and AC shine for this, even taking out hulks. Anti materiel rifle seems to have improved weakspot damage as well, having the same shots to kill on a hulk as the AC. Diligence variants 2-3 headshot devastators.
@@Crayssius I love the Anti-material rifle! headshots on the Hulk are very very satisfying! I just hate having to shoot the Striders 3 times in the body -.- If the Railgun had a longer range scope, I think I'd love it more than the Anti-material, but the Railgun just comes in more clutch when my teammates are inches from being burnt to a crisp!
What's the sideswiping charge? I've only ever seen the chargers do one kind of charge, as far as I can tell. They select a target, initiate a charge, and then track the target if it moves out of the way, no?
There is one charge where it will stop and swipe its front body to either its right or left depending on where you are in an attempt to "elbow" you to the side, almost like an angry bull. It's easier to see if you're trying to dodge in a wide arc - if you notice him turning with you as if tracking you, he'll most likely do the swipes after that. This charge does trigger the vulnerability sometimes but it seems less consistent than the long charge where it just blows past you almost in a straight line and skids to a stop.
How do you know if it's happening? Does it not show the "hitting armor" icon? It looked like with the Peacemaker it didn't show the icon during the first volley of shots and intermittently showed the icon in the second volley.
Look for the visual and audio cue of green alien blood spurting from the spot you fire at, it should be fairly easy to spot. Even if the hitting armor icon appears, I'd still continue dumping rounds in if I see blood because it seems damage is still getting through. If there's no blood and very obvious ricochet/hitting armor icon, I'll wait for the next charge to try again.
Well I guess if this is a bug then this getting patched is sort of a nerf to the Autocannon no? Sucks because I just started getting good at doing it with the Autocannon. I suppose it still does ok damage against their abdomen weak point. Still think Arrowhead needs to lower the health of their "Actual" weak point. They don't even consider the legs a weak point even though stripping the armor off them is an actual game mechanic they themselves designed oddly enough. The fact they consider the abdomen an actual weak point is even more concerning.
If it does get patched, then that's one less thing the AC can do. However, it still offers plenty of versatility in plugging bug holes, illegal broadcasts, spore towers, and being an overall heavier hitter against larger trash mobs. With the change to the EAT and RR, there doesn't seem to be as many complaints about dealing with Chargers and I think Arrowhead doesn't want the AC to turn into the swiss army knife of support weapons where it can easily deal with everything. That said, it does seem a bit unfair that Automaton tanks have a huge glaring weak spot whereas we're stuck waiting for a Charger to bleed out after taking out its ass. In an ideal world, I think this "bug" would be a great asset to divers if they ran out of other AT options but obviously it shouldn't allow every weapon under the sun to penetrate the legs; maybe only stronger weapons like the Slugger or higher caliber rifles could take advantage of this. We'll just have to see in the upcoming patches.
@@udonlarge Totally agree that the AC does a lot of really cool things other than kill chargers, and I think it really shines against automatons. It is easily my favorite weapon to decimate bug holes. Been running it with the new stun grenades too and they really help give you time to reload when you're swamped with light enemies. What I'm really confused about is Arrowheads intentions with the charger abdomen and what the weak spot on them is actually supposed to be. They claim it was a "obvious weak point" in the patch notes and every time I reread what they say about that and the "Leg meta" it just doesn't make sense. I love the changes to the charger head armor, but how was that a "obvious weak point". If it really is supposed to be their abdomen then why do I see everyone recommend to not bother shooting it? Wish they would approach weak point design with the bugs the same way they do with bots. Bot weak points are harder to hit, but they feel like they actually reward the player making accurate shots on hulk heads or getting behind tanks.
@@cybervagabond2945 Yeah there was a lot of confusion when they released that statement because it didn't make any logical sense to shoot at the head when it has such an armored visual design. Even in the first game, the weak spot for "Chargers" was the back and it only took 1 EAT/RR or even pure primary arms if you focused on the butt. Only the fully armored version of the Charger had no visual weak spots in which case attempting a frontal shot would a heavy piercing AT weapon would make sense (and it only appeared on very high level missions). I can only imagine the dev was told to give that answer as a PR statement and/or is an extremely poorly worded explanation because it made zero sense to me when they didn't elaborate further on the actual "weak spot". If anything, it felt like the leg meta would be the new way they wanted us to deal with them to change things up from the first game.
Interesting, looks like the bouncing isn't consistent across the whole leg armor, there seems to be some angle that is basically heavy armor and at some angle only medium.
Dunno why but my AutoCannon just got bounced off all the times(100%) from the charger front legs, that charger front leg middle armor cannot be destruct it seems, but not the upper side of the armor I guess...
Imma be honest, I tried for like 2 hours tryna do it with the auto cannon; from the video u made… I only killed 1… what am I doing wrong? The armor ain’t penetrating
grenade launcher is the iffiest because there's no "bullet bounce" animation if there's no damage. Instead, aim for the ground under the charger with grenade charger.
When you see the Charger run past you and skid to a stop without doing side attacks, there is a high chance the armor on its legs have temporarily "turned off" so you can swing around and try to get shots to go right through the leg armor from any angle. If it fails, just wait for the next skid animation and try again, you'll start to understand the window where you can get shots through.
Na, you don't have to wait for him to start turning. When you dodge the charge where it skids to a stop, swing around and try to get shots into the closest leg (usually a rear one). With some practice you should start getting a feel for the timing.
I use the grenade launcher alot, you can shoot the ground under them and it can kill pretty quick especially if you blow out there back even from the front.
@@thoriusoff5985 I would say they have more HP on each of their legs since this theory capitalizes on the armor turning off, so you may require a few more shots depending on the weapon you're using but it should still go down fairly quick.
Because the armor is "turned off" during some animations. Very unlikely to be intended because it doesn't make sense in-universe. It's a glitch. The video explores the consistency of the vulnerability in these animations with different weapons and how to use them effectively.
After I made this video, I'm thinking yes but there are outlier findings I didn't include that still make some points of the original autocannon video theory possible so I won't discredit it totally just yet.
Back legs have medium armor. Medium armor pen and explosive weapons work on them. Additionally, the game even tells you angles matter -- shots will break or pen armor if they are at the correct angle. Shallow angles cause ricochets. Additionally, certain shotguns can break armor even when they are rated lower if all the pellets hit the same spot, which is also why they can break open container doors. Its also the same reason why the auto turret has such a high variability in how many shots to kill -- high angle causes the shot to effectively only do the aoe damage instead of getting a pen break. Shooting the back legs with it will give you better results due to it armor breaking AND aoe damaging the rear weakpoint.
I'm not sure if this is intended behavior or not but I have seen others posting bug reports using this video so whether or not it gets patched, we'll have to see.
@@udonlarge The only way I can understand this happening is that it's a purposeful underlying code behavior that was supposed to exist in a 2D Helldivers 2 that didn't get patched out in a 3D iteration of Helldivers 2, as we can tell that behavior would work and be favorable design choice when considering positioning. I'm here for this to be a real thing, honestly.
Oh naw something gotta be wrong with my game or something. U shot the charger up front and it broke armor with a damn revolver… naw forreal what’s going on?
I get a feeling that this is a armour syncing issue that will be tied to how resources are handled on all 4 connected parties. I know that the AI load is spread across all 4 connected players. With the load skewing towards the more beefer PC's. So when I take down most bile titans in 2/3 shots with a rail. Then that one in the same match takes 9. I know that someone has a sh*t PC and is running that titan haha. My guess is that what you are doing will not work for everyone. Its going to be very computer based.
This is odd because this is not how the game functions on live servers. Weapons you use normally would just bounce off the armor. There is some type of bug or exploit happening here possibly even cheating.
Uh, you mean Starship Troopers, which came out way before Lost Planet? Starship Troopers was their inspiration for Helldivers. Sounds to me like you’re really upset this game isn’t on Xbox. I mean, I’d be mad too if I purchased an Xbox to play multiplayer games and there are no good ones. What are you playing, Call of Doodoo? Halo Infinite, which flopped? Old Gears games? This is Helldivers 1 with a larger budget and new third person camera and aiming down sights and much more. Lost Planet never found as much success as Helldivers, just so you know, and it had a very basic “hit the glowing weak point!” gameplay style that felt very cheap. It also had a very different tone and the design was very Japanese. Try not to choke on the amount of salt you’ve experienced over Helldivers 2 and FF7 Rebirth being talked about endlessly and Xbox isn’t getting them.
![[PATCHED] Helldivers 2: Autocannon vs Chargers (2-3 Same Leg Shot Theory)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZHZd8dGK0vQ/mqdefault.jpg)
**UPDATE** PATCHED as of the Escalation of Freedom update on August 6th 2024. Was fun while it lasted.
how on earth are you managing to pen the armour from straight on every time? It looks like you are shooting the front plate of the leg but in my experience that will just make it ricochet. Did you blast the back of the leg before recording or something?
EDIT*
Never mind, I just went into a mission to test and started shooting at that moment and my god the armour just doesnt work. I am assuming this is a bug with hit boxes or something.
@@Alvadar65 to me it seems like there's part of the leg armor that is considered medium. you can see most of the shot that pen the armor is hitting somewhere off center, sometime slight inner part sometime slight outer part.
I think you can see it most clearly at 2:10 & 4:10 when some shot is obviously only bounced in a particular way and registered at some other angle.
@@張祥安-d2b I tested it out and it seems to be a bug. There is a certain point in the animation where they are turning around after charging where the hitbox for the leg that represents the heavy armour doesnt work correctly and you can break the armour. If you break it enough then you can keep shooting it. The video doesnt explain it too well, however after playing around with it myself it for sure feels like a bug. A very useful bug at the moment however, even if it can be a bit tricky to get the timing down when getting pressured by a bunch of other stuff in a real scenario.
@@Alvadar65 Yes, the armor seemingly just "turns off" after a straight charge where he skids to a stop.
I suspect that this probably a bug and that these animations are desyncing the protective armor around the leg weakpionts. But IMO it's a good bug since it gives you more options to kill chargers in the middle of a hectic fight without completely relying upon the railgun. Assuming that this is a bug, I hope that a proper balance patch is introduced before they fix it.
Yeah, anything that makes the railgun less oppressively must-have on higher difficulties would be very nice
Well the solution is to give other sup weapons a bump and subsequently bump several of the strd primaries. Candidates for medium armor pen should be both R63-Diligence rifles, the Slugger shotty, Ar23-Liberator Explosive and the Stalwart LMG SW. Canidates for heavy armor pen meaning nearly ignores armor plates all together should be M63-Machine gun SW, AR23-Liberator Penatrator, the Senator pistol, and the Jar5-Dominator. Moving the Armor interaction profiles of each of these weapons would greatly benefit build/loadout diversity across all levels of play. As an addition to all of this I would also increase the spare ammo totals of nearly all light armor pen weapons by 2 magazines and subsequently increase the magazine size of the base liberator to 65. This would give these weapons an edge in the endurance department over their harder hitting alternatives, which is a standard practice for game balancing. The 65 shot magazine for the base liberator would make it nearly permanently viable at all difficulties and give it the feel of the Starship Troopers GI rifle that always seems like it has a bottomless mag until reloading is included for plot.
@@IDirtyMangoIyou wanna give heavy armor piercing to standard weapons (AND MACHINEGUNS) ?!? That's the whole fucking idea or heavy armor - can't take down tank with a revolver!
I get the issue u guys have but this isn't about "builds". You're trying to make everything reliable against everything for the sake of "loadout diversity", but in those conditions 'loadouts' as a concept cease to function. You just take whatever you like and you're fine.
they REALLY should go all-out on this, it's getting really boring seeing nothing but people bring railguns and stuff in Helldive. This "bug" or whatever it is has really given me the ability to kill chargers with my Machine gun, which I still bring and honestly believe is still viable in Helldive (against mixed hordes), chargers are always the bane and this is amazing to deal with it.
@@IDirtyMangoI Slugger already has medium pen, it's a really good weapon.
Really ridiculous how their "weakpoint" is the most worthless thing to shoot on them
The trick with the GL (Not relevant to animations) is to fire under and hit the "butt." Pops it like a baloon.
Its seems like colission box checking for hit zones is not updated during the turning on the spot and only gets updated during the movement in direction
Huh...I must be timing my shots wrong, the autocannon just keeps bouncing for me. I didn't realize certain animations makes the armor tougher
It seems to be a bug, small arms shouldn't be a le to do this. With the autocannon focus its back leg after a charge, it sometimes bounces off but it knly takes 2 proper connects to its leg to kill it.
If it gets too close switch to your primary and focus the joint between its body and armoured foreleg. It's lightly armoured and there's a small weakpoont right where the leg connects to the armour you can sometimes see it as a green ball in the joint. Focusing fire on that spot will kill a charger in at most 20 breaker shots(if you dont hit the weakpoint at all) or at least 4-6 (if you only hit the weakpoint)
"There's hundreds more details like this in the game.... Just use logic and you will figure it out." -Pilestedt, CEO and Creative Director at Arrowhead Game Studios
Huh... wonder why that is the reason sometimes Bile Titans die super quick and other times they take a bit of finessing.
Hhmmm, you might be on to something
There seriously needs to be some adjustment that makes the timing for this clearer. Either the window needs to be larger or some visual cue needs to be clearer. It just feels completely random with some exceptions, and when using non-automatic weapons, it just feels like a complete guessing game as to whether it'll bounce or not.
it's a glitch, it's not supposed to be happening at all.
Its random. From this video it looks like its happening every time the charger turns. In my experience, i didnt get this bug at all bar once.
Damn thanks for posting this! This is very useful when you just died and tons of chargers are swarming at you and you have no any other way in countering them
Thank you so much!
I tested it myself many times and couldn't figure it out.
I'm not good at it, so my weak ass is still stable, but it's a great option.
Thank you.
Been testing this myself since I learned it from you, it’s inconsistent but very handy in a pinch when it works. I rly appreciate you showing your work and making this stuff replicable, so many people are making claims about what works on what enemies and a lot of it complete bullshit.
The dude you referenced in the pinned comment of your previous video, do you have any ideas on how his auto cannon rounds pierce charger front legs even in their walking animations? I’ve asked him and he doesn’t give a concrete answer, and I’ve only gotten the auto cannon to break charger legs shooting the back ones after a charge like you demonstrated in the previous vid.
Off topic but also have you had any success shooting bile titans in the face with the auto cannon?
As for Elbethiums video, his clips still follow the same idea from this video in that he's shooting them during their post charge animations when the armor seemingly "turns off". There are some walking animations which also have this bug/feature but it's quite inconsistent and a waste of ammo to do guess work for that.
In his last clip, the Charger is stuck but that's after it most likely did a long charge and was in the process of finishing turning around which is one of the possible windows of vulnerability hence the shots went through.
He claims it works flawlessly for him but when I was doing my testing I can definitely tell you it's not - there's plenty of times when rounds bounce right off and you just have to wait for the next charge animation to try again.
I've yet to have success with the supposed "one-shot" in the mouth of a Bile Titan with an Autocannon and even Railgun users don't seem to get consistent results so can't say for sure on that.
@@udonlarge There is a lot of randomness involved, yeah. I *have* had Bile Titan one-shots with the Rail Gun - freshly spawned ones. But they happen about as often as the ones where I somehow need a dozen of overcharged railgun shots into their mouths - or in other words, I get them once or twice per session. I have no idea what causes the irregularities there.
It's him, John helldiver
WRONG, its john helldiver 2
Great work showcasing this, keep up with the weapon tests and on point explanations.
Most annoying thing is the charger hitting an F1 Turn as a dodge him and he just keeps following me like a heat seeking missile. Like dude weights as much as Optimus Prime running at least 40 MPH and hit a 0G turn like he’s racing at Le Mans is crazy
You're doing God's work out there, helldiver. Keep it up
this... doesn't make sense to me. most weapons ricochet off a chargers legs until you break the armor... how are you just casually shooting the legs and dealing damage...
It doesn't make sense to me either other than being a possible bug like others have speculated.
I don't roll with the Med/Heavy pen stats idea because there's plenty of times during testing when the same guns bounced off at the same spots/angle during the same animation. Timings and retrying after another charge was the only thing that I could get to work consistently.
But I'll take what I can get against Chargers for now because running around with a Railgun isn't really my kind of fun.
@@udonlargepoo poo pee pee? 💩💩💩
You are doing Democracy's work!
I have tested this myself, and its REALLY inconsistent with guns, especially if theres a lot of other bugs around or other chargers at the same time. It's a lot easier with the autocannon from his last videos but again it can be tricky with more enemies around. This is probably a bug so i would only recommend doing this with the AC until they patch it or just stick to the EAT, Recoilness, and railgun until you destroy his front leg armor and then shot it with primary or secondary.
It is quite inconsistent, but it's a pretty good boon. I do hope they go all-out on this and make it more consistent and official, it'd open up more variety and playstyles than just...railgun railgun railgun, it's getting rather boring to see at this point.
@@sivel7493I doubt they're going to go all out on this because it looks like a bug but yeah you're are right railgun gets boring sometimes and my fix for that is to buff every support weapon so it can compete with the railgun
@@L_U_C_1_F_E_R what I mean by "go all out" is actually implementing and officialize this mechanic, make it more consistent. I know it's most likely bug or sth along that line , but it's definitely something the devs should consider. Even as a bug though, it's not anything jank-looking
@sivel7493 I mean, it doesn't make sense for a low caliber pistol to penetrate and negate any armor thats why they should buff other support weapons so they can deal with armor in their own way and not just the railgun. I know recoilness and eat can do that too but compared to the railgun they either nerf you for using them or are a worst choice
@@L_U_C_1_F_E_R ok I mean, I guess most primary weapons probably shouldnt be able to do it so effectively...especially the BREAKER (they gotta do sth about that gun). But yeah, support weapons that arent the Railgun/Autocannon should probably be made to be able to deal with chargers easier I agree.
That is extremely interesting. Thanks for sharing! I am curious if they will fix it.
Awsome video thanks! Also idk why some shots get deflected but do not show the deflect icon like at 4:10 for example
thanks for doing the tests amigo
This is such a game changer!!
the only reason i can think it would work like this particularly while turning or moving is just that the bullet that gets ricochet off the armor gets caught in the model anyway because of the movement?
@udonlarge i found that charger after "crush" become more vulnerable. he charges in some not really a big rock and stun himself, and right in this moment you can down him in like 1,5 sec with breaker just unleashing whole mag in his "soft spot" on one of the front legs. but it's still not well confident, so i may test a bit more
I've been doing this all this time, it has really elevated the Machine gun, which I love bringing in Helldive. Bug or not, I really wish the devs would ELELVATE or expand upon this more, maybe make it more consistent, so that stuff like...Railgun doesn't feel like the only thing people bring in Helldive. Honestly, anything that makes EVERY support weapon as on par with each other as possible would be amazing. I thought that every Charger is spawned with a chance of having one/multiple limbs vulnerable, honestly i dunno if there's a consistent trick to do this effectively, sometimes their legs are just vulnerable by default, sometimes they're vulnerabled after charging or move around, sometimes it feels like there's an angle to it.
Yes, every support weapon (and primary) should be viable in Helldive and it was that way in the first game! I loved having the freedom to try crazy combinations while still performing decently well so I'm quite puzzled as to why the balance feels quite off right now.
Im fairly certain buffs or changes will come in the near future, but we'll have to tough it out for now.
Not just rail gun you have recoilless rifle, EATS, and Spears lol.
@@CleverCheetah I mean I know yeah, but people pretty much ran mostly Railgun from all the Helldive games I've been in, Railgun's just WAYYY too dominant
@@sivel7493that’s because they haven’t learned the power of Palpatine yet. Arc Thrower for the win LOL
@@donalddouds6033 i don't think you've used Arc Thrower on higher difficulties with multiple chargers and 20+ other mobs coming at you
After the latest weapon balance patch (8 March 2024), I don't think this works that consistently anymore. Normally, I would be able to down a charger solo, but lately I needed more help or AT options to take them down - even with the autocannon. Most of my bullets will bounce off the leg armor and I get the bullet deflection icon, but it is slightly more consistent when you hit the back of the legs, but that window is so fucking short.
If anyone has a different experience, do let me know what I'm doing wrong.
Could it also be that shooting behind the armor plate on the hind of the leg is punching through the back of the armor and creating a hole in the front? Could explain the spotty results as ive noticed sometimes he’s got a big chip missing and sometimes its just a tiny spot depending on the weapon you were using, like the breaker just punched off all the armor practically leaving a large spot, whereas the sniper less so.
Thank you for the test video! This is really helpful.
Pray do a bile titan one and return to the Waking Sand, or, kind of.
Thank you fellow warrior of light. Bile Titans don't seem to have much weaknesses right now other than sending explosive lead up their ass or straight in the mouth so I probably won't fiddle too much with them.
My journey back to the Waking Sands has taken a detour to Space Vietnam where I will be spending most of my battles for awhile.
I would love to see a follow-up on this video that includes some of the other weapons (Jar dominator, plas-scorcher, etc). This vid is still incredibly good and useful as it is.
Hate to break it to you but I did see a dev acknowledge this as a bug in the official discord and they'd be looking into it so I'll probably be unlisting these videos once that patch hits (unless of course, they make this canon).
@@udonlarge Dang, well hopefully that just means they'll be making the legs always damageable instead of only being weak during certain frames.
Im glad that it still worked but why did the devs have not patch this? Did the players say do not remove it or something?
Your guess is as good as mine. It might be that the fix for this is more complex than we think and the other bugs/issues have a higher priority.
really good information here, Thanks mate.
Will you be doing one for the Automatons?
I went on this journey mainly because Chargers seemed like such a huge issue without proper AP tools or a Railgun and there wasn't an efficient way to take them down especially when there were 4 or more running around at higher difficulties. In HD1 you could 1-shot a Charger with an EAT or Recoilless but it just isn't the case for HD2 so I wanted to find a solution till buffs for the weapons come.
As for the Automatons most of their heavy units come with big glaring weak spots on their backs which can be destroyed with most weapons so I don't think I'll be exploring too much into them unless things change.
Most weapons can take out a hulk????? Really? Damn I think my aim is bad then 😅 I'm not as patient as you are I guess😅
I kind of find it cringy that the front legs of the Charger are it's weak spots 😅 really big forward charging unit, surely it would've "evolved" to have armoured legs, or am I missing something?
@@thebutcha7590 yes, if your teammate is getting it's attention, shoot the back glowing heat sink you can down hulk with pretty much any weapon.
Most Bots can be taken out with headshots as well. Anti-material rifle and AC shine for this, even taking out hulks. Anti materiel rifle seems to have improved weakspot damage as well, having the same shots to kill on a hulk as the AC. Diligence variants 2-3 headshot devastators.
@@Crayssius I love the Anti-material rifle! headshots on the Hulk are very very satisfying! I just hate having to shoot the Striders 3 times in the body -.- If the Railgun had a longer range scope, I think I'd love it more than the Anti-material, but the Railgun just comes in more clutch when my teammates are inches from being burnt to a crisp!
This enemy blows some major balls honestly.
Ah yes, the Helldiver masterclass. Glad to see it!
What's the sideswiping charge? I've only ever seen the chargers do one kind of charge, as far as I can tell. They select a target, initiate a charge, and then track the target if it moves out of the way, no?
There is one charge where it will stop and swipe its front body to either its right or left depending on where you are in an attempt to "elbow" you to the side, almost like an angry bull. It's easier to see if you're trying to dodge in a wide arc - if you notice him turning with you as if tracking you, he'll most likely do the swipes after that.
This charge does trigger the vulnerability sometimes but it seems less consistent than the long charge where it just blows past you almost in a straight line and skids to a stop.
Its him! Its John Helldiver!
Has this been fixed or does it still work?
How do you know if it's happening? Does it not show the "hitting armor" icon? It looked like with the Peacemaker it didn't show the icon during the first volley of shots and intermittently showed the icon in the second volley.
Look for the visual and audio cue of green alien blood spurting from the spot you fire at, it should be fairly easy to spot.
Even if the hitting armor icon appears, I'd still continue dumping rounds in if I see blood because it seems damage is still getting through.
If there's no blood and very obvious ricochet/hitting armor icon, I'll wait for the next charge to try again.
@@udonlargeThanks so much! This helped a lot! It's not the most consistent, but helped me in a few tight spots tonight!
Well I guess if this is a bug then this getting patched is sort of a nerf to the Autocannon no? Sucks because I just started getting good at doing it with the Autocannon. I suppose it still does ok damage against their abdomen weak point. Still think Arrowhead needs to lower the health of their "Actual" weak point. They don't even consider the legs a weak point even though stripping the armor off them is an actual game mechanic they themselves designed oddly enough. The fact they consider the abdomen an actual weak point is even more concerning.
If it does get patched, then that's one less thing the AC can do. However, it still offers plenty of versatility in plugging bug holes, illegal broadcasts, spore towers, and being an overall heavier hitter against larger trash mobs.
With the change to the EAT and RR, there doesn't seem to be as many complaints about dealing with Chargers and I think Arrowhead doesn't want the AC to turn into the swiss army knife of support weapons where it can easily deal with everything. That said, it does seem a bit unfair that Automaton tanks have a huge glaring weak spot whereas we're stuck waiting for a Charger to bleed out after taking out its ass.
In an ideal world, I think this "bug" would be a great asset to divers if they ran out of other AT options but obviously it shouldn't allow every weapon under the sun to penetrate the legs; maybe only stronger weapons like the Slugger or higher caliber rifles could take advantage of this. We'll just have to see in the upcoming patches.
@@udonlarge Totally agree that the AC does a lot of really cool things other than kill chargers, and I think it really shines against automatons. It is easily my favorite weapon to decimate bug holes. Been running it with the new stun grenades too and they really help give you time to reload when you're swamped with light enemies.
What I'm really confused about is Arrowheads intentions with the charger abdomen and what the weak spot on them is actually supposed to be. They claim it was a "obvious weak point" in the patch notes and every time I reread what they say about that and the "Leg meta" it just doesn't make sense. I love the changes to the charger head armor, but how was that a "obvious weak point". If it really is supposed to be their abdomen then why do I see everyone recommend to not bother shooting it? Wish they would approach weak point design with the bugs the same way they do with bots. Bot weak points are harder to hit, but they feel like they actually reward the player making accurate shots on hulk heads or getting behind tanks.
@@cybervagabond2945 Yeah there was a lot of confusion when they released that statement because it didn't make any logical sense to shoot at the head when it has such an armored visual design.
Even in the first game, the weak spot for "Chargers" was the back and it only took 1 EAT/RR or even pure primary arms if you focused on the butt. Only the fully armored version of the Charger had no visual weak spots in which case attempting a frontal shot would a heavy piercing AT weapon would make sense (and it only appeared on very high level missions).
I can only imagine the dev was told to give that answer as a PR statement and/or is an extremely poorly worded explanation because it made zero sense to me when they didn't elaborate further on the actual "weak spot". If anything, it felt like the leg meta would be the new way they wanted us to deal with them to change things up from the first game.
Interesting, looks like the bouncing isn't consistent across the whole leg armor, there seems to be some angle that is basically heavy armor and at some angle only medium.
Dunno why but my AutoCannon just got bounced off all the times(100%) from the charger front legs, that charger front leg middle armor cannot be destruct it seems, but not the upper side of the armor I guess...
Any news on the Dominator, have you tested it?
About 6 shots to 1 leg with the Dominator (I just unlocked it).
Imma be honest, I tried for like 2 hours tryna do it with the auto cannon; from the video u made… I only killed 1… what am I doing wrong? The armor ain’t penetrating
grenade launcher is the iffiest because there's no "bullet bounce" animation if there's no damage. Instead, aim for the ground under the charger with grenade charger.
Not sure what's going on, do we need to shoot the leg when facing it directly (no angle)?
When you see the Charger run past you and skid to a stop without doing side attacks, there is a high chance the armor on its legs have temporarily "turned off" so you can swing around and try to get shots to go right through the leg armor from any angle. If it fails, just wait for the next skid animation and try again, you'll start to understand the window where you can get shots through.
Thank you, I will keep trying@@udonlarge
I just test it in the Escalation update and they finally patched it
Thanks for the update & testing!
It doesn't work for me, do I need to wait for it to U-turn to shoot the legs??
Na, you don't have to wait for him to start turning. When you dodge the charge where it skids to a stop, swing around and try to get shots into the closest leg (usually a rear one). With some practice you should start getting a feel for the timing.
@@udonlarge Ok, will try that later on. Thank u for ur reply!
Looks really wierd and not something that suppose to happen, looks more like a bug
Any good method to take down Bile Titan?
1 Shot as a mouth with Railgun Unsafe Overcharge
500 KG or Railgun unsafe
If you have multiple Titans, have recoiless with a buddy helping. You will clean every Titan in seconds if you hit the head.
I use the grenade launcher alot, you can shoot the ground under them and it can kill pretty quick especially if you blow out there back even from the front.
I've noticed explosive shots don't do as much damage as some bullets lol.
Does it work on behemorh charger?
yes
@@udonlarge dont they have more armor on leg ?
@@thoriusoff5985 I would say they have more HP on each of their legs since this theory capitalizes on the armor turning off, so you may require a few more shots depending on the weapon you're using but it should still go down fairly quick.
@@udonlarge kk i ll test this when i get back of vaccation i see behemoth in every video so i was worried of how i ll take them with antimatter rifle
I don’t get any of this ? Why are you able to shoot through their armour with normal weapons ?
Because the armor is "turned off" during some animations. Very unlikely to be intended because it doesn't make sense in-universe. It's a glitch.
The video explores the consistency of the vulnerability in these animations with different weapons and how to use them effectively.
Does it still work?
(edit) no
REST IN PIECE my beloved "trick". downright clueless now that this is patched.
Back to conventional AT options like the EAT or RR unfortunately.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?
That GL does so little damage to chargers 😢
still works?
(edit) no
Is this the reason autocannons can two shot chargers and not that it’s meant to work from the back lol
After I made this video, I'm thinking yes but there are outlier findings I didn't include that still make some points of the original autocannon video theory possible so I won't discredit it totally just yet.
Ah now I no longer need to abandon my autocanon
Waiting for a railgun vs titan oneshot test
wow that grenade launcher clip
This is actually insane, ty for the info 🫡
I would be using a machine gun if chargers weren't an issue. Plus i got kicked a few times just for not running a railgun
Back legs have medium armor. Medium armor pen and explosive weapons work on them.
Additionally, the game even tells you angles matter -- shots will break or pen armor if they are at the correct angle.
Shallow angles cause ricochets.
Additionally, certain shotguns can break armor even when they are rated lower if all the pellets hit the same spot, which is also why they can break open container doors.
Its also the same reason why the auto turret has such a high variability in how many shots to kill -- high angle causes the shot to effectively only do the aoe damage instead of getting a pen break.
Shooting the back legs with it will give you better results due to it armor breaking AND aoe damaging the rear weakpoint.
I think this got fixed, it always ricochet now
Anti-material S tier weapon confirmed
Have you reported this bug? This should be fixed .
I'm not sure if this is intended behavior or not but I have seen others posting bug reports using this video so whether or not it gets patched, we'll have to see.
Honestly i feel like this should just be made a feature, Chargers are annoying enough as is. This at least gives you some counterplay.
Since it's been quite some time, I'm assuming it's canon till they decide to (eventually) fix it - if at all.
Wait, so if I am to understand, while a Charger is rotating they lose their armor? This is kind of fucking insane and weird behavior.
Something along those lines ?desync/hitbox/collision/etc. If this gets patched I just hope it comes with balance changes.
@@udonlarge The only way I can understand this happening is that it's a purposeful underlying code behavior that was supposed to exist in a 2D Helldivers 2 that didn't get patched out in a 3D iteration of Helldivers 2, as we can tell that behavior would work and be favorable design choice when considering positioning.
I'm here for this to be a real thing, honestly.
Why my game doesn't look good as your
Different settings and graphics card?
Wish the revolver had a speedloader.
Inconsistency is the worst thing that can happen to a game.
Also what made games of the same type boring.
Oh naw something gotta be wrong with my game or something. U shot the charger up front and it broke armor with a damn revolver… naw forreal what’s going on?
i was a charger once... then i took a bullet to the knee...uh.. or joint..
just animation cancel, one shot easy
Jar 5?
About 6 shots to 1 leg.
This is such a weird bug 😂😂😂
I get a feeling that this is a armour syncing issue that will be tied to how resources are handled on all 4 connected parties. I know that the AI load is spread across all 4 connected players. With the load skewing towards the more beefer PC's. So when I take down most bile titans in 2/3 shots with a rail. Then that one in the same match takes 9. I know that someone has a sh*t PC and is running that titan haha. My guess is that what you are doing will not work for everyone. Its going to be very computer based.
This is odd because this is not how the game functions on live servers. Weapons you use normally would just bounce off the armor. There is some type of bug or exploit happening here possibly even cheating.
meh, glorified lost planet
should be easy after fighting demons and xenos for 30 years
Uh, you mean Starship Troopers, which came out way before Lost Planet? Starship Troopers was their inspiration for Helldivers. Sounds to me like you’re really upset this game isn’t on Xbox. I mean, I’d be mad too if I purchased an Xbox to play multiplayer games and there are no good ones. What are you playing, Call of Doodoo? Halo Infinite, which flopped? Old Gears games?
This is Helldivers 1 with a larger budget and new third person camera and aiming down sights and much more. Lost Planet never found as much success as Helldivers, just so you know, and it had a very basic “hit the glowing weak point!” gameplay style that felt very cheap. It also had a very different tone and the design was very Japanese.
Try not to choke on the amount of salt you’ve experienced over Helldivers 2 and FF7 Rebirth being talked about endlessly and Xbox isn’t getting them.
Hate the chargers! Bad coding monsters! Hope they Will fix them