**Update Changes:** - Today is a truly dark day. The Slugger (my favourite Shotgun) caught a nerf in a recent patch and now doesn't really stagger much very well. Especially Bots/Devestators. Still nice for dinging heads but, alas it's not so disruptive now. But hey, I guess the Punisher has a bit more use with it's stagger.
If your role is to stagger enemies and protect your team from melee threats while other people pour in the actual damage to finish them off, the punisher works quite well at range, as its spread can easily tag an entire group of three berserkers or a pair of spitters at once, staggering everything it hits - the stagger doesn't seem to care if you hit the target with the entire spread or a single pellet. The punisher has a hard time doing good damage at anything past 20 meters however as a lot of the spread will miss.
You missed a lot with the plasma punisher. It’s better for bots than it is for bugs. The reason why, is the explosion AOE scales with distance traveled. It can 1 shot anything below a devastator, including the walkers. It also has the stagger mechanic and can stagger devastators and cancel rocket devastator shots. Also, you can kill tanks from the front if you arc your shots, the explosion will damage the tank. You CAN squeeze them beneath Hulk legs, and it can sometimes kill and or stagger them. But it’s really hard. You can also shoot the bot drop ships and the AOE will kill everything in the ship before it even drops
I've been running the plasma since I unlocked it, I absolutely love it. The AOE, though small, helps a lot when facing large amounts of enemies and it's VERY good against bots, basically worth it purely for how easily it can take care of walkers. Highly underrated and misunderstood.
I once back to back killed 4 Stalkers by stun locking them with it. Maybe the damage isn't amazing, but that stagger has to be near the top. I've caused chargers mid charge to stumble a bit with it. And there's very little like getting 3 strider kills with one primary shot from the front. I wouldn't call it niche, I'd call it specific. I feel like it needs more practice to get good with it than most guns do, but it does things no others can.
@@BelacDarkstorm my current favorite way to take care of the scout walkers is to penetrate the front with the autocannon. it just ignores it and kills the guy behind it. Looking forward to trying this method though when i unlock it
@@isaacmacqueen9695you can do the same thing with the plasma punisher! i think it depends on where on the front, though it’ll never take more than two shots
FINALLY! Someone tells people which gun should be used for which faction instead of calling it bad or good. I got so frustrated when people were calling the railgun bad after the nerf. Sure it's not as effective against the bugs anymore, but I find it to be amazing when dealing with the bots.
@@Siphonalsthere is a bug that causes damage to vary wildly based on if a ps5 player is in the group. Playing on PC exclusively though, yeah its pretty shit. I know the point being made is about using it on bots, but I can literally dump like 10 overcharged shots into a charger before it goes down.
quick note about the armor 2:00 There are actually 10 levels of armor, with 1-3 falling under "Light" 4-6 "Medium" and the rest being Heavy or Vehicle armor iirc, from a dev interview I watched. so even though the Liberator and Slugger both have "light armor penetration", it's more like Liberator has level 1 and Slugger has level 3. The Slugger can break bug armor but it's can't go THROUGH medium armor like the Liberator Penetrator......... I think. Honestly my experience with armor has been weirdly inconsistent.
From what I've heard a good deal of the inconsistency is that apparently the armor doesn't entirely move in sync with the skeleton on a lot of armored enemies currently. The effect doesn't show up visually like the bug that we had with Helldivers joining your ship moving out of sync with their pods, but apparently it's similar to that. This can cause the armor to "lag" behind the animation of the model you're seeing and sometimes just get lost entirely.
I heard something similar, except that since the slugger is at the edge of light armor creeping into medium armor penetrating, weapons with that type of edge damage get something like a 50% chance to cause medium armor damage, ostensibly making it medium armor penetrating-lite
@@bryanzzz748 If I recall, it was if your armor pen value is equal to the armor value of the target, you do reduced damage. If you exceed the armor value, you do full damage. If you're below the armor value, your shot bounces right off causing no damage at all. So the confusion stems from the fact that the devs gave us the super simplified weapon stats (showing 4 stats + a couple keyword tags), instead of the full weapon stats (each weapon actually has around 50 different stats). We assume all "light armor pen" weapons should perform the same, and if they don't work it must be medium or higher, when that's not the case.
@@kedolan4992 We could really use more extensive stats, both for weapons/stratagems and for enemies. Maybe they could add a mechanic of having to kill a certain amount of enemies to reveal more and more stats about them.Or it could be tied to an in-game event about gaining scientific intel, then we would be given some more precise stats.
Interesting! The armor mechanic has been pretty weird and hard to figure out. Like things have 'light armor pen' but can put shots thru medium armor, and things that have medium armor pen dont seem to punch thru medium armor.
I unironically bring Punisher against bots. It instakills small bots and will stunlock big ones, very useful in keeping berserkers away from your squad. I run with light armor and get sneaky flanks to take out walkers and rocket guys and to split bot aggro. Surprisingly, I don't die that often playing like that.
The standard breaker shreds berserks in very short order. I consistently takr down 2-3 berserks per clip. That 30% damage penalty does not sound worth it, but I have not tried the spray & pray yet.
Yeah I've been using the buckshot pumpgun for as my standard gun and I really like it. I cant wait to try the slug shotgun though since ever since I started playing higher difficulties I end up seeing more of the big guys and its problems start to show up. It also seems like it would be effective in the bug camp too.
Something to note about the Punisher and Slugger The reload animation doesn't have a start delay like the Senator (revolver) does meaning you can load shells between shots pretty effectively. The time to load a shell is slightly longer than the time to shoot though so you do lose a little bit of fire rate but it's a useful thing to keep in mind when going into a larger fight. Sometimes you need to keep the pressure up and can't stop to reload for 10 seconds
If you start reloading and then vault over something, you glitch the gun into reloading no matter what so it just auto reloads while you fire away. (the reload does get interrupted by the firing animation though so you have to time it rather precisely to go through all your ammo. or you can just spray and pray until it's empty then wait till it's half full again then spray and pray and repeat)
you can completely stunlock hive guards, brood commanders, and stalkers at 1 shell with the reload thing. its actually crazy I wouldn’t be surprised if they nerf the reload speed a little bit
yea a 76-77 round mag on a shotgun is a lot better than 16-17 round mag who knew we can have belt fed shotguns (with the best in this case being our hands)
Definitely the strongest aspect of the pump shorties. Being able to just keep up a steady, uninterrupted salvo of hard hitting, staggering 12 Guage shells is really good at keeping bug swarms at bay.
I love the arc, so glad they fixed the crashing - especially with bugs you can take out tight hordes of loads of bugs in one or two shots, you can one shot most enemies including the brood commander if youre close enough, it tracks to stalkers when they jump and run - just removes bile spewers and nursing spewers. To avoid missing, like with the arc thrower you have to aim higher as rocks and corpses can get in the way- after that its a murder machine
I got my highest kill streak (or whatever it’s called) with the arc shotgun of 37. Sadly this was also when it crashed games, so my excitement was short lived. I’m glad that’s fixed though.
A less-known trick to using the Blitzer is that the long cycle time between shots (2 seconds) is *just enough* to swap to your secondary, shoot *once* and swap back. I run the Blitzer with the Senator revolver and you can significantly increase your damage output by swapping between both.
The Spray'nPray Breaker is actually a pretty decent weapon, especially in higher levels now that they've reduced Chargers/Bile Titans and replaced them with smaller bugs. Lot of people called it bad compared to the other shotguns but were testing all shotguns against Brood Commanders and Chargers, when it is designed for damaging/killing multiple minion enemies at once. Unfortunately because it was labelled as bad people are instead using the Incendiary Breaker and use it the way you're meant to use the Spray'n'Pray.
Exactly this ^ people still think it's bad, I saw a video of a guy calling the S&P bad...the footage was him shooting a bile titan???? Bruh I've been using it Vs bugs and bots and it works great, it's...a spray and pray!
Agreed. The SnP Breaker has come into its' own with the recent balance patch shifting higher difficulties away from 'lots of the big guys' to 'big guys supported by absolute hordes of the small fry'.
Currently the primary guns in general are in a really good place imo, feels like nearly every single one is viable depending on your playstyle and what enemies you’re facing
This popped up in the rotating comments right after someone said "I heard the slugger has a tighter spread" Not much else to add, just thought I'd share something funny I saw
Arc-12 Blitzer does have some pros. Bugs: If you get swarmed by small enemies you can run away and HIPfire the weapon while looking behind you to fight off those pesky hunters while still being very mobile and nimble. This keeps alot of damage and pressure off of you while savely getting out of danger. Bots: It staggers Devastators and everything below their armor-thiccness. (Including bugs) Combine this with it's ~30m reach and you can quickly disable those barrage wielding tincans. Both: After using it for every mission since it got released, I can say the spread appears wider when using hipfire but is more concentrated on the center if you ADS. Sadly it does NOT penetrate Charger Armor and above so keeping something on your back that can deal with those guys will come in very handy. It performs best when not used as a Primary weapon, but rather the side-arm to your Statagem Slot Weapon. I mainly run Arc-12 Bliter + Arcthrower and it works wonders.
I've noticed that the blitzer will chain to targets behind the initial hit, in a cone pattern. If they are all in a line to the side, you might get a single jump, maybe not. If you shoot a target in the front, with a large group directly behind, it can jump to a lot of them. It's meant to be used in the playstyle you suggested here, running and hip firing behind you.
The Plasma Shotgun is SUPER EFFECTIVE against bots, idk what you meant there. Everything else was spot on though. It kills the bot walkers with a single shot center mass to the walker, and the bot behind it. Aiming it at the ground against foot soldiers really fucks them up too. The Punisher Plasma is seriously underrated.
i'm of the opinion that the plasma punisher is a really good weapon, it's unique capabilties has made certain encounters trivial whereas any other weapon would struggle. pair it up with an MG, stalwart or laser cannon and you got yourself a very deadly arsenal on your back for almost any situation.
@@Lagunaturbia cold planets and against termanids. In the situation where you want a long range weapon with unlimited ammo, the cannon is a good choice. Its usable against bots, but not ideal.
I don’t have Helldivers 2 yet but the videos that I’ve seen so far about weapons and enemies are helping me already figure out what I want so thanks for contributing, I’m definitely gonna want the punisher and the slugger
wow, this is only your second video? I like your style, quick and to the point! Hope you keep doing this series, you're onto something. Looking forward to your next videos!
Haven't tried it myself, but I hear that it's pretty effective. Then again, I only unlocked the thing the other day, so I haven't tried it out yet. Might run a "Shrieker-B-Gone" build (Incendiary Breaker to deal with the Shriekers, Autocannon for the nests)
I’ve also heard that the laser weapons are pretty good for them since they’re hit-scan. Haven’t tried that yet as I still don’t know when those things are going to be there, and there’s just so many combos to can play with.
@@chamberlane2899 The beam weapons are very good against shriekers since they have weak points at their wing joints. You can just sweep through them and down they go. The support laser can also kill the nests.
i have found for the incendiary breaker, one of the best strats is to fire 3-5 shots over a LARGE area at a horde of bugs, run around a bit, and repeat. this ensures you actually HIT the majority of the bugs, without burning through a TON of ammo
Its good that you pull out your pistol to deal with hordes of small enemies. I feel like players don’t realize that a back up weapon does not mean only use it when you run out of ammo on your primary. Like with the liberator P everyone’s like. Ugh bad magazine size and only good against armored enemies and bad for swarms. Its not made for swarms its meant for single medium targets not groups of enemies. They act like the machine pistol in their pocket doesn’t exist.
@@jmcfizzle29 I’d disagree with that. When they’re bunched up (which if I’m pulling it out, they probably are) it can clear out a good chunk very very quickly (enough to reload my primary, safely throw a ‘nade, or just reload the pistol). And when it comes to killing individuals, just hold reload, switch to single fire, and boom. It’s the starting pistol with more ammo.
@@jmcfizzle29 for the bugs it’s actually pretty effective against everything but the chargers and bile titans you just have to basically mag dump spewers and brood commanders but with its high rate of fire it has a fast ttk its a great secondary
I think this is the first time I've ever actually found a good vid from following a short's link. Good stuff! And I'm glad to see the Incendiary and Spray 'n' Pray being noted for what they're worth. Too many times I've gotten shit from teammates because I've ran either/or because 'it's not as good as the regular Breaker'
Plasma punisher i want to mention is fantastic against bots, and due to it's nature it is very useful against the shield bots because it staggers them and open them up to more attacks. Though i will admit against bugs i will take standard punisher
A bit of advice I saw from a short a week or so ago with the pump shotguns is to reload between every shot. It increases the fire rate by a small amount, but also means you don't have to worry about stopping to reload a half dozen or more shells at one time.
slugger and punisher's slow reload can be negated through spamming reload and shooting at the same time, this way you can shoot in a slower firerate but with the entire ammo capacity shot consecutively at your will
On the Incendiary Breaker, the main value of this gun is that you can pick and choose. If you see a bug about to call for help, unload into the damn thing. You're flanking a guard and don't know when you'll get another chance? Get a few full bursts into it. You're being pounced on by hunters? Time to empty a few mags. But if you have a lot of enemies a good distance away? You're flanking around a breach? Maybe you're being chased by a swarm and they can't catch up because you're a light armor gigachad? Just fire off 1 shot or 1 burst and keep running. Let that fire do its job and slow burn through the enemies
Glad to see you on Helldivers 2. I used to watch your videos on Total War Warhammer 2 back before 3 came out and my PC couldn't keep up. I'm looking forward to seeing more good stuff.
I noticed you didn't seem to know the range of the blitzer. You could have killed the charger in half the time if you had been closer with some of your shots.
I like arc blitzer just for the fact that it compliments the arc thrower a lot, you use arc thrower mostly for crowd control then when they get near you you use the arc blitzer to hit them hard and push them away then switch back to the arc thrower it mostly one shots any terminids till the warrior variants and can 2 shot spewers altho it still suffers from the fact that its an arc weapon that sometimes hone into dead enemies making it sometimes annoying to use
using it for fun or bc u like it it's alright but u could just replace the blitzer with the basic punisher or even better the slugger and u would get the same result but with more damage and more firerate, wich means u would be able to push enemies easier/faster and in bigger numbers
@@B1g_GR33N the blitzer covers a lot more aoe than the punisher since its an arc weapon the fire rate doesn't matter since I mainly use it to push away medium enemies and one shot small enemies also cuz it can penetrate medium armor aswell like the slugger but has more aoe I just need one shot to push them then I switch back to the arc thrower...the arc thrower is the main dmger anyways I've been using it a lot more on helldive difficulties cuz the punisher runs out of ammo cuz of so many swarms tbh xD
Damn dude nice job teasing me with the Short and leading me straight here! Immediately into the good info, and different info from the short! Taking notes...
i find thta the biggest balance issue is a information issue in this game not knowing how the guns work not knowing the stagger mechanics not knowing the slugger spread not knowing the shots to kill vs time to kill vs max dps not knowing how much burn damage is applied with better information, this game would be a lot smoother to balance
Blitzer is fairly ok, you just need to understand, that the lightning pathing hates objects like enemy corpses and small rocks. Hipfiring the Blitzer from even slightly elevated ground, you can potentially hit 6 enemies on both sides of your FoV - 3 from initial bolts, and 3 more through chaining. But when there are lots of dead bodies in the way, it can't reach the stuff behind them, so this needs to be accounted for. What makes Blitzer good for me personally is the infinite ammo + medium pen + stagger combo. This means I can finally stop using the ammo backpack and try out some other loadous, without the fear of getting bullrushed by 12 bile spewers or hiveguards/brood commanders.
Something I noticed is the Punisher shotgun staggers the shield, rocket and devastator bots really easy, and frok range too Even just clipping their feet, arm or shoulder with it will stagger them, allowing easier follow up shots, opening a window for teammates to kill it if you cant As good as the slugger is in almost every respect, the punisher is a much more forgiving weapon, but just as useful Hitting that eye slit can be a nightmare with the slugger in a bad situation
Yeah the slugger's lack of a spread means a lot of shots will do 0 damage instead of half+stagger. You'll end up burning through pistol ammo or slugs on the trash where your punisher would just splash them off the field.
Somehow never realized that the Slugger shoots slugs even though it says it in the description and is called the SLUGger. Speaking of the Slugger, you can actually reload in between shots to shoot indefinitely with very little downtime for reloading, getting rid of the slow reload problem (can also be done with the Punisher). Only downside to this is that the reload will get rid of your crosshair, making it a bit harder to hit shots, especially at a distance.
helldivers is one the few games that make shotguns 1=1 like they are in real life. The pellets just dont magically dissappear after 10m and you can snipe 100-150m with the punisher. It is always fun to play trap and skeet with the jumping robots or the dropships.
I like to reload my pump shotties AS i fire them, when i know i need more than the internal magazine can provide. i'm a little sad you didn't mention the versatility of never needing to wait for a full reload, but hey, that's just me. The regular breaker in particular is pretty reliable at killing small targets at medium range too. Great video
Just picked up Helldivers 2 this weekend, and now I find that my favorite Total War creator is making guides for the game. Looking forward to what methodologies you come up with for testing sentry turrets.
If there's one thing this game desperately needs it's a gun range mode. Just a single-player area, like the tutorial, that lets you go around and test out all of the equipment you've unlocked, (with maybe some "Press button to summon fodder" bits so you can actually see the effects on target,) so you can actually figure out what things actually do without, you know, the imminent threat of death getting in the way of learning. I had the exact same complaint about MGSV when it came out, (which seems pertinent here, given how many of the gameplay systems have overlaps with how MGSV works,) and some people gave me shit for it, but then a few years later I played Peace Walker for the first time, (which is basically a prototype for The Phantom Pain portion of MGSV anyway,) and PW *has* a freakin' gun range. It drives me a little nuts when developers go to great lengths to put together rather complex systems for their games, but then don't give the players any reasonable arena to figure out how they work. I guess to some extent, playing on Trivial difficulty in a private lobby gives you quite a bit of wiggle room to fuck around, but even that can be really inconsistent and you'll occasionally get matches where you seem to get swarmed by 5 times as many enemies as normal, (which I've been able to directly verify by kill count, given that I'm the only person in the game.) I realize Helldivers are, even in-universe, functionally expendable, but if you're gonna give a guy his own private military space ship to tool around in, you'd think you could spare a couple of acres on a liberated planet for him to set down once and a while and figure out what all the new guns do.
2 tips I have. For the Punisher and Slugger, you can reload between shots and keep roughly the same firerate that you would normally have. I do this all the time, and it allows me to chew through hordes like they're nothing. You don't even need to worry about ammo efficiency, because a single resupply box gives you 60 shells, and an ammo can gives you ~40. The damage at range is better than you'd expect, and it doesnt seem to lose it's stagger. Absolutely do not underestimate this shotgun, especially combined with DoT, or guard dogs. It's how I routinely rack up the most kills on my teams, while still being able to run something like the EAT or Recoilless Rifle to easily deal with chargers and titans. I frequently run punisher+napalm strikes against the bugs. It makes quick work of basically entirely bug breaches. The napalm kills most chaff, and anything that survives is weaker, and can be easily mopped up, or staggered so they stay in the fire. For the Blitzer, it's much better as a secondary to a stratagem weapon, and is great for buying time to swap to your stratagem. You can hot swap between the blitzer, and a different weapon, which allows you to keep fairly good crowd control, without burning through too much ammo. I personally run it alongside the MG-43. You fire the Blitzer, swap to the MG, fire a few rounds, and then swap back to the Blitzer. This allows you to make up for the Blitzer's poor rate of fire, as you can fire a good couple MG rounds while the Blitzer is on cooldown. Would I rather bring punisher+flamethrower(another favorite loadout) against bugs? Yeah. But it's still a fun and effective loadout, especially when I feel like running an MG (which are criminally underrated)
This is so much better and useful than all the other S to F tier lists; Every shotgun has a clear use for different cases and different playstyles. Thanks
I used to play the slugger a lot against the bots , the one shot in the head and the stagger effect was really cool but since it got nerfed I enjoy my life more with other weapons
the arc shotgun is OK in my opinion if you: A) never stop shooting. like never. keep a 100% uptime. shoot, flick your camera around like crazy looking for something to shoot at while your helldiver is doing the pump animation. compensate for low damage by never having to exit the fight and reload. instead of delivering high damage in bursts, you deal small sustained damage constantly. B) be a bit self sufficient, take on hordes by yourself but take your time. run light armor and kite enemies around, wearing them down slowly with your 100% damage uptime. you can run off on your own and never need a resupply. expendable anti-tank could be a good match for this since your combat encounters are going to be so long and slow. you get to call it down potentially multiple times against the same wave, compensating a bit for the gun's weakness. just kiting them in circles and zapping them constantly to wear them down. this also means you will get a lot of value from bringing low cooldown stratagems.
One thing to note with the Incendiary BReaker is that you WILL catch yourself and teammates on fire with the ricochets, so don't spray a charger or hive guard in the face with it while near others.
Slugger “it’s powerful over a decent range” it takes out spore towers the other side of the map with 6 shots. It’s a beast. Arc shotgun won’t hit the leg, it always aims at the “centre mass” of the creature same as all the other arc guns.
9:15 The Blitzer doesn't chain the same way the Arc Thrower does, it fires a spread of bolts that have independent targeting. They might all hit the same target or spread out amongst different targets.
the incendiary breaker is the KING of choke point denial, its essentially a flamethrower in the primary slot and FANTASTIC for dealing with large swarms of any size bug, its ROF also gives you the ability to deal with less than ideal pileups on yourself, I love using it in large sweeping motions over fields of bugs on dif 9 as more or less an extended range flamer. the more bugs you ignite with each shot, the more value you get out of it.
Nice video. I used to always use the Slugger because it's just generally useful, haven't been using shotguns much after I got the Diligence and Eruptor. But I desperately want them to make the Break-Action shotgun a stratagem you can purchase, because it's just hilariously fun to splatter (nearly) everything with that burst fire.
I've also found that the incendiary breaker is surprisingly effective against shriekers. Its large spread means it's easy to get a hit, and the fire usually takes em out pretty quick.
I havent used the arc blitzer yet but im saving up to get it. The way I thought abt it tho was that its meant for really close quarters which is what the arc thrower struggles with. In my mind it was supposed to complement the arc thrower and be the opposite/make up for where the arc thrower lacks. So the arc thrower is good for medium to long ish range and it takes out bugs in a bit of a line type trajectory. I was thinking the shotgun would be for very close range and when theres tons of bugs all around you. So when you shoot close up, itll be more of a web than a line and it will take out the really close ones and a few behind them. I ofc have never used it but maybe you can test it.
So, IDK if anyone mentioned it but it's about the Plasma Punisher. 1. Hits through the walker armor, killing the pilot without needing to flank them. 2. Kills all bots lower than berserker in 1 direct, or 2 splashes. 3. Can FIRE BEHIND COVER OR DOWN FROM THE HIGH GROUND (keeping you from being perforated by red glowy beams) 4. A stagger weapon. You shoot a heavy devastator and it opens up its shield, or staggers for your friends. Same as with Rocket Dev's 5. Perfect to pair with the Senator and the Stalwart OR the AMR (Anti Matt) and the Redeemer Pistol depending on what you want to play into, being more aggressive or passive since it works best in the middle ranges, I prefer this on a BOT mission and find it harder to use on BUG missions. Also, it staggers hive guards from holding shields up for you to spray your secondary into the legs.
9:50 The Arc Blitzer always aims towards weak points, so it was aiming for the head of the charger and not the exposed leg. A workaround is the move around the charger so the auto aim will hit the leg on the way, but it's honestly just too tedious with the arc also going into corpses and rocks.
Something else to note with the breaker, I have found switching fire mode to semi helps not blowing through the ammo as quickly, and with a fast enough trigger finger still fires quickly in a pinch without switching back.
I think the main reason the Blitzer is "bad" is because you need to stay right around it's max range for full effect, and it likes to "hit" rocks and things in front of you, even with line of sight. If it weren't for the second part of that, it is my favorite bug weapon. [THIS COMMENT HAS BEEN CURATED BY TRUSTED MINISTRY OF TRUTH MEMBERS]
I see the arc blitzer as more of a survival tool than a weapon. It has a sort of run and gun playstyle like the incendiary breaker but rather than killing with DOT from fire you're staggering crowds to create breathing room so you can call in a stratagem or have enough room to charge the arc thrower or reload your recoilless/mg etc. You can just throw hip fire shots behind you in the general direction of whatever's chasing you and still hit it.
Information on the two guns you didn’t like, which are actually two of my favorites. Plasma: I take the plasma punisher against bots, for a couple of reasons. It can kill the striders with one shot to the front, as the explosion basically ignores the armor and instantly kills the trooper driving it. It can also kill shield devastater from the front pretty easily as well. Secondly, it has a really good stagger, allowing you to stunlock anything smaller than a hulk (All the devastaters). Thirdly, it has a lot of drop, which, while limiting its range, allow you to shoot things from behind cover while they can’t shoot you back. Favorite bot primary. Arc Blitzer: This is an amazing gun for kiting bugs. It ignores Medium and light armor, but I don’t think it ignores heavy like the other arc weapons. What it’s good for is running and gunning. I would recommend using it if you are going heavy on air strikes. It’s not a good weapon to stand and fight with. It will arc to dead bodies and miss what you are shooting at. But if you are running away, that’s not a problem. You sprint, then flick behind you, shoot, and keep running. The arcs lock on to targets, so you don’t have to aim. The DPS is terrible, but the burst is pretty high so it ends up that the damage over the time when you are actually shooting it is super high if you are running and gunning. Also has a stagger effect, which can stop bile spewers from spitting at you. Also will one shot brood commander if you hit it perfectly.
The incendiary is awesome against the bugs. When you’re being chased by a horde nothings better than spraying an entire mag and nearly killing 20 bugs from burn damage alone
I do want to add a note to the incendiary breaker... You can lob shots into crowds from afar pretty reliably; I do this all the time but it isnt the most ammo efficient way to far this weapon but it is very fun.
I could swear there was a loading screen tip that mentioned radiators having 95% resistance to damage that was ignored by explosive, but I don't have it saved.
Missed +1 point for rounds reload of the Punisher: I mostly use the punisher, nearly every time I stop aiming down sights, turn away from the enemy, or reposition I press reload. Pulling the trigger, being staggered, diving strategem menu or map use (and maybe a few other) will cancel reloads but with the punisher it doesn't matter whether I've only put 1 shell or more in it, that's 1+ more than I had in it, I barely find myself with an empty gun. Plenty of close calls where I'm halfway thru a reload and get sprung by a bug behind me I hadn't noticed and can fire a couple rounds into them and continue reloading. Compared to magazine gun reloads where you need to drop mag, insert new, then cock weapon. Cancelling the reload before new mag is in means you still need to put a new mag in, if reload is canceled after mag insertion only need to cock it but that could be the difference between needing a stim or needing reinforcing.
Just a note for the end: the break-action shotgun also seems to have the tightest spread of all the shotguns, so you can use it to stagger enemies at a distance.
**Update Changes:**
- Today is a truly dark day. The Slugger (my favourite Shotgun) caught a nerf in a recent patch and now doesn't really stagger much very well. Especially Bots/Devestators. Still nice for dinging heads but, alas it's not so disruptive now. But hey, I guess the Punisher has a bit more use with it's stagger.
You didn’t cover the dominator, that seems to do what the slugger did, just not as well imo
It doesnt stagger as much, and it cant break doors anymore. RIP Slugger
ngl i just run and gun with the basic sg breaker it just fits my playstyle and allows me to demolish devastators so fast
Zerk i’m on keyboard and mouse and idk how to use the jump pack, there is no tutorials for keyboard and mouse on yt xan you please make one
@@ukecovers6129 Space bar, man.
I heard the Slugger has a tighter spread than the Punisher.
It's a slug, so yeah
Yeah, it's a shotgun with a really tight spread.
I'm pretty sure this was meant as a joke... If so good minor troll joke
Tighter spread you say..
*nyomnyomnyom*
"The Punisher needs to be up close and personal"
*me using it for long range*: huh... you sure?
Yeah it's surprisingly effective at range. My go to weapon if I'm on a hot planet and can't bring the sickle.
💯. It can still consistently take out basic units at 100 m.
It's knock back also makes it pretty good against devastators and berserkers.
It'll kill small stuff at range, and still has the push back, but you do lose a lot of its damage at long range.
If your role is to stagger enemies and protect your team from melee threats while other people pour in the actual damage to finish them off, the punisher works quite well at range, as its spread can easily tag an entire group of three berserkers or a pair of spitters at once, staggering everything it hits - the stagger doesn't seem to care if you hit the target with the entire spread or a single pellet.
The punisher has a hard time doing good damage at anything past 20 meters however as a lot of the spread will miss.
its my go to bot weapon lately. I use slugger for bugs.
You missed a lot with the plasma punisher. It’s better for bots than it is for bugs.
The reason why, is the explosion AOE scales with distance traveled. It can 1 shot anything below a devastator, including the walkers. It also has the stagger mechanic and can stagger devastators and cancel rocket devastator shots. Also, you can kill tanks from the front if you arc your shots, the explosion will damage the tank.
You CAN squeeze them beneath Hulk legs, and it can sometimes kill and or stagger them. But it’s really hard.
You can also shoot the bot drop ships and the AOE will kill everything in the ship before it even drops
I've been running the plasma since I unlocked it, I absolutely love it. The AOE, though small, helps a lot when facing large amounts of enemies and it's VERY good against bots, basically worth it purely for how easily it can take care of walkers. Highly underrated and misunderstood.
I once back to back killed 4 Stalkers by stun locking them with it.
Maybe the damage isn't amazing, but that stagger has to be near the top.
I've caused chargers mid charge to stumble a bit with it.
And there's very little like getting 3 strider kills with one primary shot from the front.
I wouldn't call it niche, I'd call it specific. I feel like it needs more practice to get good with it than most guns do, but it does things no others can.
@@BelacDarkstorm my current favorite way to take care of the scout walkers is to penetrate the front with the autocannon. it just ignores it and kills the guy behind it. Looking forward to trying this method though when i unlock it
@@isaacmacqueen9695you can do the same thing with the plasma punisher! i think it depends on where on the front, though it’ll never take more than two shots
the falloff is too quick, if it was like grenade launcher i'd be okay, but half the time i have to aim at the sky to shoot enemy, not very tactical
FINALLY! Someone tells people which gun should be used for which faction instead of calling it bad or good. I got so frustrated when people were calling the railgun bad after the nerf. Sure it's not as effective against the bugs anymore, but I find it to be amazing when dealing with the bots.
It's baffling that people call it a peashooter even though it can one shot most bots (including Hulks) as long as you charge it a bit.
as in, charge it a bit more than is safe.
It still sucks against bots lol
@@enderbirds3814you ain’t using it right If it sucks. It’s not the best but it don’t suck 💀
@@Siphonalsthere is a bug that causes damage to vary wildly based on if a ps5 player is in the group. Playing on PC exclusively though, yeah its pretty shit. I know the point being made is about using it on bots, but I can literally dump like 10 overcharged shots into a charger before it goes down.
Great video!
0:00 - Intro
0:05 - Punisher
1:31 - Slugger
3:01 - Breaker
4:23 - Spray 'n' Pray Breaker
5:21 - Incendiary Breaker
7:06 - Plasma Punisher
8:58 - Arc Blitzer
10:21 - Break Action
And a even better comment 🙏
Thank you. This guy needs to add chapters to his videos.
Thanks
quick note about the armor 2:00
There are actually 10 levels of armor, with 1-3 falling under "Light" 4-6 "Medium" and the rest being Heavy or Vehicle armor iirc, from a dev interview I watched.
so even though the Liberator and Slugger both have "light armor penetration", it's more like Liberator has level 1 and Slugger has level 3. The Slugger can break bug armor but it's can't go THROUGH medium armor like the Liberator Penetrator......... I think. Honestly my experience with armor has been weirdly inconsistent.
From what I've heard a good deal of the inconsistency is that apparently the armor doesn't entirely move in sync with the skeleton on a lot of armored enemies currently. The effect doesn't show up visually like the bug that we had with Helldivers joining your ship moving out of sync with their pods, but apparently it's similar to that. This can cause the armor to "lag" behind the animation of the model you're seeing and sometimes just get lost entirely.
I heard something similar, except that since the slugger is at the edge of light armor creeping into medium armor penetrating, weapons with that type of edge damage get something like a 50% chance to cause medium armor damage, ostensibly making it medium armor penetrating-lite
@@bryanzzz748 If I recall, it was if your armor pen value is equal to the armor value of the target, you do reduced damage. If you exceed the armor value, you do full damage. If you're below the armor value, your shot bounces right off causing no damage at all. So the confusion stems from the fact that the devs gave us the super simplified weapon stats (showing 4 stats + a couple keyword tags), instead of the full weapon stats (each weapon actually has around 50 different stats). We assume all "light armor pen" weapons should perform the same, and if they don't work it must be medium or higher, when that's not the case.
@@kedolan4992 We could really use more extensive stats, both for weapons/stratagems and for enemies.
Maybe they could add a mechanic of having to kill a certain amount of enemies to reveal more and more stats about them.Or it could be tied to an in-game event about gaining scientific intel, then we would be given some more precise stats.
Interesting! The armor mechanic has been pretty weird and hard to figure out. Like things have 'light armor pen' but can put shots thru medium armor, and things that have medium armor pen dont seem to punch thru medium armor.
I unironically bring Punisher against bots. It instakills small bots and will stunlock big ones, very useful in keeping berserkers away from your squad. I run with light armor and get sneaky flanks to take out walkers and rocket guys and to split bot aggro. Surprisingly, I don't die that often playing like that.
Yup, this is what I’ve loved the punisher for. Stagger helps keep enemies away, and a well placed head shot still does a decent chunk of damage.
Aim just right with the punisher, and I’ve had some luck 1 shoting the medium bots in the head
Punisher and light armour is really strong for most circumstances
The standard breaker shreds berserks in very short order. I consistently takr down 2-3 berserks per clip. That 30% damage penalty does not sound worth it, but I have not tried the spray & pray yet.
Yeah I've been using the buckshot pumpgun for as my standard gun and I really like it. I cant wait to try the slug shotgun though since ever since I started playing higher difficulties I end up seeing more of the big guys and its problems start to show up. It also seems like it would be effective in the bug camp too.
Something to note about the Punisher and Slugger
The reload animation doesn't have a start delay like the Senator (revolver) does meaning you can load shells between shots pretty effectively. The time to load a shell is slightly longer than the time to shoot though so you do lose a little bit of fire rate but it's a useful thing to keep in mind when going into a larger fight. Sometimes you need to keep the pressure up and can't stop to reload for 10 seconds
If you start reloading and then vault over something, you glitch the gun into reloading no matter what so it just auto reloads while you fire away.
(the reload does get interrupted by the firing animation though so you have to time it rather precisely to go through all your ammo.
or you can just spray and pray until it's empty then wait till it's half full again then spray and pray and repeat)
you can completely stunlock hive guards, brood commanders, and stalkers at 1 shell with the reload thing. its actually crazy I wouldn’t be surprised if they nerf the reload speed a little bit
@@luck0000 Ohhhh. that's what triggers that? I had that happen a few times and never made the connection. Thanks for the info
yea a 76-77 round mag on a shotgun is a lot better than 16-17 round mag
who knew we can have belt fed shotguns (with the best in this case being our hands)
Definitely the strongest aspect of the pump shorties. Being able to just keep up a steady, uninterrupted salvo of hard hitting, staggering 12 Guage shells is really good at keeping bug swarms at bay.
I love the arc, so glad they fixed the crashing - especially with bugs you can take out tight hordes of loads of bugs in one or two shots, you can one shot most enemies including the brood commander if youre close enough, it tracks to stalkers when they jump and run - just removes bile spewers and nursing spewers. To avoid missing, like with the arc thrower you have to aim higher as rocks and corpses can get in the way- after that its a murder machine
It really is truly great at taking out spewers
THEY FIXED IT?
I got my highest kill streak (or whatever it’s called) with the arc shotgun of 37. Sadly this was also when it crashed games, so my excitement was short lived. I’m glad that’s fixed though.
I'm always on people's case about writing hoard when they mean horde. It seems you've found an unhappy medium.
A less-known trick to using the Blitzer is that the long cycle time between shots (2 seconds) is *just enough* to swap to your secondary, shoot *once* and swap back. I run the Blitzer with the Senator revolver and you can significantly increase your damage output by swapping between both.
This game needs a firing range.
THIS! I've been saying this forever
Indeed I always struggle trying new guns
@@FrankMiklaskijust play trivial missions. They’re basically free. It would be a good call to add a shooting range though.
The Spray'nPray Breaker is actually a pretty decent weapon, especially in higher levels now that they've reduced Chargers/Bile Titans and replaced them with smaller bugs. Lot of people called it bad compared to the other shotguns but were testing all shotguns against Brood Commanders and Chargers, when it is designed for damaging/killing multiple minion enemies at once. Unfortunately because it was labelled as bad people are instead using the Incendiary Breaker and use it the way you're meant to use the Spray'n'Pray.
Exactly this ^ people still think it's bad, I saw a video of a guy calling the S&P bad...the footage was him shooting a bile titan???? Bruh
I've been using it Vs bugs and bots and it works great, it's...a spray and pray!
Honestly it’s because they made it handle so slow I would use it but on mnk it feels so bad
Agreed. The SnP Breaker has come into its' own with the recent balance patch shifting higher difficulties away from 'lots of the big guys' to 'big guys supported by absolute hordes of the small fry'.
Currently the primary guns in general are in a really good place imo, feels like nearly every single one is viable depending on your playstyle and what enemies you’re facing
@@xanderlaskey2753 This ! I feel the same, I'm sure id' love the gun if it had the reactivity of the breaker !
[THIS COMMENT HAS BEEN DELETED BY THE MINISTRY OF TRUTH]
You forgot the [and is being under investigation for treason] 😂😂😂
This popped up in the rotating comments right after someone said "I heard the slugger has a tighter spread"
Not much else to add, just thought I'd share something funny I saw
@@jessadakornnantasupawatana360sometimes no investigation was needed
A@@iamthereddemon20
[THIS COMMENT IS BEING INVESTIGATED FOR TREASON]
Arc-12 Blitzer does have some pros.
Bugs: If you get swarmed by small enemies you can run away and HIPfire the weapon while looking behind you to fight off those pesky hunters while still being very mobile and nimble. This keeps alot of damage and pressure off of you while savely getting out of danger.
Bots: It staggers Devastators and everything below their armor-thiccness. (Including bugs) Combine this with it's ~30m reach and you can quickly disable those barrage wielding tincans.
Both: After using it for every mission since it got released, I can say the spread appears wider when using hipfire but is more concentrated on the center if you ADS. Sadly it does NOT penetrate Charger Armor and above so keeping something on your back that can deal with those guys will come in very handy.
It performs best when not used as a Primary weapon, but rather the side-arm to your Statagem Slot Weapon. I mainly run Arc-12 Bliter + Arcthrower and it works wonders.
Same here Thrower as primary and blit,ee for close quarters.
I'm doing the same, works great
so its just a bad breaker
I noticed that the Blitzer will sometimes 1-shot stalkers.
I've noticed that the blitzer will chain to targets behind the initial hit, in a cone pattern. If they are all in a line to the side, you might get a single jump, maybe not. If you shoot a target in the front, with a large group directly behind, it can jump to a lot of them. It's meant to be used in the playstyle you suggested here, running and hip firing behind you.
always good to see warhammer numbers guy help with helldivers
The Plasma Shotgun is SUPER EFFECTIVE against bots, idk what you meant there. Everything else was spot on though. It kills the bot walkers with a single shot center mass to the walker, and the bot behind it. Aiming it at the ground against foot soldiers really fucks them up too. The Punisher Plasma is seriously underrated.
i'm of the opinion that the plasma punisher is a really good weapon, it's unique capabilties has made certain encounters trivial whereas any other weapon would struggle. pair it up with an MG, stalwart or laser cannon and you got yourself a very deadly arsenal on your back for almost any situation.
when would you rather use the laser cannon?
@@Lagunaturbia cold planets and against termanids.
In the situation where you want a long range weapon with unlimited ammo, the cannon is a good choice.
Its usable against bots, but not ideal.
It is able to one shot the striders (AT ST) and four shot the heavy devastors
The blitzer got a 30% fire rate buff and is now BONKERS, and I say that as someone who used it a lot before the buff
Damn, straight to the point, no bs. Quick and short.
Nice new channel. Wish a quick and steady grow!
I don’t have Helldivers 2 yet but the videos that I’ve seen so far about weapons and enemies are helping me already figure out what I want so thanks for contributing, I’m definitely gonna want the punisher and the slugger
*This comment is being reviewed under suspicion of treason. Thank you for your unwavering, democratic support.*
What? No garbage theme tune? No hello fresh plug? No 'like and subscribe' before we're even going?
Love you xx
I fine the slugger is absolutely essential for staggering Stalkers and Piercing through medium armor.
1:42 I mean… TECHNICALLY, it has the TIGHTEST spread… that’s what she sai…
wow, this is only your second video? I like your style, quick and to the point! Hope you keep doing this series, you're onto something. Looking forward to your next videos!
He has a ton of videos like this about the mechanics of Total War Warhammer, and probably other games too. @Zerkovich
The incendiary breaker is the best thing against the flying baddies
Its amazing against them
Haven't tried it myself, but I hear that it's pretty effective. Then again, I only unlocked the thing the other day, so I haven't tried it out yet.
Might run a "Shrieker-B-Gone" build (Incendiary Breaker to deal with the Shriekers, Autocannon for the nests)
I’ve also heard that the laser weapons are pretty good for them since they’re hit-scan. Haven’t tried that yet as I still don’t know when those things are going to be there, and there’s just so many combos to can play with.
@@chamberlane2899 The beam weapons are very good against shriekers since they have weak points at their wing joints. You can just sweep through them and down they go. The support laser can also kill the nests.
Shriekers barely exist and are barely a threat. Taking a sub-par primary to counter a low tier threat isn't worthwhile.
i have found for the incendiary breaker, one of the best strats is to fire 3-5 shots over a LARGE area at a horde of bugs, run around a bit, and repeat.
this ensures you actually HIT the majority of the bugs, without burning through a TON of ammo
Keep it up bro. Nice videos. Fun to watch, informative and straight to the point.
Thank you for clearing that up, I've been trying to figure out between the Punisher versus Slugger.
I was checking if there is a new video about shotguns 50 minutes ago, and then 2 minutes later its here.
You were late 2 minutes! Unforgivable!
For democracy, I will do better!
entertaining and informative vid, i loved how you showed the spread of the weapons. subbed!
Its good that you pull out your pistol to deal with hordes of small enemies. I feel like players don’t realize that a back up weapon does not mean only use it when you run out of ammo on your primary. Like with the liberator P everyone’s like. Ugh bad magazine size and only good against armored enemies and bad for swarms. Its not made for swarms its meant for single medium targets not groups of enemies. They act like the machine pistol in their pocket doesn’t exist.
There are also few things cooler than blind firing into a hoard while sprinting away
I agree but at the same time it's so easy to run out of ammo with the machine pistol that it has very limited use case as a small enemy killer
@@jmcfizzle29 I’d disagree with that. When they’re bunched up (which if I’m pulling it out, they probably are) it can clear out a good chunk very very quickly (enough to reload my primary, safely throw a ‘nade, or just reload the pistol). And when it comes to killing individuals, just hold reload, switch to single fire, and boom. It’s the starting pistol with more ammo.
@@jmcfizzle29 for the bugs it’s actually pretty effective against everything but the chargers and bile titans you just have to basically mag dump spewers and brood commanders but with its high rate of fire it has a fast ttk its a great secondary
Honestly only use it when I don't got enough time to reload when berserkers or a buncha hunters are approaching
I think this is the first time I've ever actually found a good vid from following a short's link. Good stuff! And I'm glad to see the Incendiary and Spray 'n' Pray being noted for what they're worth. Too many times I've gotten shit from teammates because I've ran either/or because 'it's not as good as the regular Breaker'
Thank you so much for treating each weapon with the idea that there is a use for your playstyle.
7:30
“You can blow it’s arse off and it will bleed”
P. Diddy liked that.
Plasma punisher i want to mention is fantastic against bots, and due to it's nature it is very useful against the shield bots because it staggers them and open them up to more attacks. Though i will admit against bugs i will take standard punisher
A bit of advice I saw from a short a week or so ago with the pump shotguns is to reload between every shot. It increases the fire rate by a small amount, but also means you don't have to worry about stopping to reload a half dozen or more shells at one time.
slugger and punisher's slow reload can be negated through spamming reload and shooting at the same time, this way you can shoot in a slower firerate but with the entire ammo capacity shot consecutively at your will
As someone who enjoys the plasma punisher, they can take out the 2 legged bot walkers with one leg shot. Super efficient.
On the Incendiary Breaker, the main value of this gun is that you can pick and choose. If you see a bug about to call for help, unload into the damn thing. You're flanking a guard and don't know when you'll get another chance? Get a few full bursts into it. You're being pounced on by hunters? Time to empty a few mags.
But if you have a lot of enemies a good distance away? You're flanking around a breach? Maybe you're being chased by a swarm and they can't catch up because you're a light armor gigachad? Just fire off 1 shot or 1 burst and keep running. Let that fire do its job and slow burn through the enemies
Wait is this Zerkovich?❤Did not know he had a second channel! What a blessing
Glad to see you on Helldivers 2. I used to watch your videos on Total War Warhammer 2 back before 3 came out and my PC couldn't keep up. I'm looking forward to seeing more good stuff.
@Zerkovich is that you? Cought me off guard 😅
Loving the Helldivers 2 content so far, loved your Total War Warhammer content as well. I really appreciate the really informative content!
I noticed you didn't seem to know the range of the blitzer. You could have killed the charger in half the time if you had been closer with some of your shots.
I love your WH content, happy to see you on the Helldivers scene, for democracy!
I like arc blitzer just for the fact that it compliments the arc thrower a lot, you use arc thrower mostly for crowd control then when they get near you you use the arc blitzer to hit them hard and push them away then switch back to the arc thrower it mostly one shots any terminids till the warrior variants and can 2 shot spewers
altho it still suffers from the fact that its an arc weapon that sometimes hone into dead enemies making it sometimes annoying to use
using it for fun or bc u like it it's alright but u could just replace the blitzer with the basic punisher or even better the slugger and u would get the same result but with more damage and more firerate, wich means u would be able to push enemies easier/faster and in bigger numbers
Add in ammo being a non factor and you got s good combo
@@B1g_GR33N Or he can have fun. You gain nothing from playing with the same guns over and over again
@@B1g_GR33N the blitzer covers a lot more aoe than the punisher since its an arc weapon the fire rate doesn't matter since I mainly use it to push away medium enemies and one shot small enemies also cuz it can penetrate medium armor aswell like the slugger but has more aoe
I just need one shot to push them then I switch back to the arc thrower...the arc thrower is the main dmger anyways
I've been using it a lot more on helldive difficulties cuz the punisher runs out of ammo cuz of so many swarms tbh xD
Damn dude nice job teasing me with the Short and leading me straight here! Immediately into the good info, and different info from the short! Taking notes...
i find thta the biggest balance issue is a information issue in this game
not knowing how the guns work
not knowing the stagger mechanics
not knowing the slugger spread
not knowing the shots to kill vs time to kill vs max dps
not knowing how much burn damage is applied
with better information, this game would be a lot smoother to balance
Best video about Shotguns to date. Thank you.
Blitzer is fairly ok, you just need to understand, that the lightning pathing hates objects like enemy corpses and small rocks.
Hipfiring the Blitzer from even slightly elevated ground, you can potentially hit 6 enemies on both sides of your FoV - 3 from initial bolts, and 3 more through chaining. But when there are lots of dead bodies in the way, it can't reach the stuff behind them, so this needs to be accounted for.
What makes Blitzer good for me personally is the infinite ammo + medium pen + stagger combo. This means I can finally stop using the ammo backpack and try out some other loadous, without the fear of getting bullrushed by 12 bile spewers or hiveguards/brood commanders.
You are a great content creator. I have watched all of your videos after watching this one they are understandable they are to the point thank you.
Something I noticed is the Punisher shotgun staggers the shield, rocket and devastator bots really easy, and frok range too
Even just clipping their feet, arm or shoulder with it will stagger them, allowing easier follow up shots, opening a window for teammates to kill it if you cant
As good as the slugger is in almost every respect, the punisher is a much more forgiving weapon, but just as useful
Hitting that eye slit can be a nightmare with the slugger in a bad situation
Yeah the slugger's lack of a spread means a lot of shots will do 0 damage instead of half+stagger. You'll end up burning through pistol ammo or slugs on the trash where your punisher would just splash them off the field.
Somehow never realized that the Slugger shoots slugs even though it says it in the description and is called the SLUGger. Speaking of the Slugger, you can actually reload in between shots to shoot indefinitely with very little downtime for reloading, getting rid of the slow reload problem (can also be done with the Punisher). Only downside to this is that the reload will get rid of your crosshair, making it a bit harder to hit shots, especially at a distance.
Positive comment
helldivers is one the few games that make shotguns 1=1 like they are in real life. The pellets just dont magically dissappear after 10m and you can snipe 100-150m with the punisher.
It is always fun to play trap and skeet with the jumping robots or the dropships.
The spread on that slugger is just super tight, even at range it holds together really well
"How often do you run out of ammo, unless you're using a Breaker of course." Felt that.
Voice cracking on the arc blitzer was hilarious
I like to reload my pump shotties AS i fire them, when i know i need more than the internal magazine can provide. i'm a little sad you didn't mention the versatility of never needing to wait for a full reload, but hey, that's just me. The regular breaker in particular is pretty reliable at killing small targets at medium range too. Great video
5:31 I love the Incendiary Breaker, especially as it causes DOT with the fire.
5:07 I had to watch this bile titan drop from the sky multiple times to make sure I wasn't high
Just picked up Helldivers 2 this weekend, and now I find that my favorite Total War creator is making guides for the game. Looking forward to what methodologies you come up with for testing sentry turrets.
love videos that dont like focus on a "meta" and just explain the strengths and weaknesses of each gun in an informative and neutral way ❤
God damn your channel growth is insane, great video btw
If there's one thing this game desperately needs it's a gun range mode. Just a single-player area, like the tutorial, that lets you go around and test out all of the equipment you've unlocked, (with maybe some "Press button to summon fodder" bits so you can actually see the effects on target,) so you can actually figure out what things actually do without, you know, the imminent threat of death getting in the way of learning.
I had the exact same complaint about MGSV when it came out, (which seems pertinent here, given how many of the gameplay systems have overlaps with how MGSV works,) and some people gave me shit for it, but then a few years later I played Peace Walker for the first time, (which is basically a prototype for The Phantom Pain portion of MGSV anyway,) and PW *has* a freakin' gun range. It drives me a little nuts when developers go to great lengths to put together rather complex systems for their games, but then don't give the players any reasonable arena to figure out how they work.
I guess to some extent, playing on Trivial difficulty in a private lobby gives you quite a bit of wiggle room to fuck around, but even that can be really inconsistent and you'll occasionally get matches where you seem to get swarmed by 5 times as many enemies as normal, (which I've been able to directly verify by kill count, given that I'm the only person in the game.) I realize Helldivers are, even in-universe, functionally expendable, but if you're gonna give a guy his own private military space ship to tool around in, you'd think you could spare a couple of acres on a liberated planet for him to set down once and a while and figure out what all the new guns do.
2 tips I have.
For the Punisher and Slugger, you can reload between shots and keep roughly the same firerate that you would normally have. I do this all the time, and it allows me to chew through hordes like they're nothing. You don't even need to worry about ammo efficiency, because a single resupply box gives you 60 shells, and an ammo can gives you ~40. The damage at range is better than you'd expect, and it doesnt seem to lose it's stagger.
Absolutely do not underestimate this shotgun, especially combined with DoT, or guard dogs. It's how I routinely rack up the most kills on my teams, while still being able to run something like the EAT or Recoilless Rifle to easily deal with chargers and titans.
I frequently run punisher+napalm strikes against the bugs. It makes quick work of basically entirely bug breaches. The napalm kills most chaff, and anything that survives is weaker, and can be easily mopped up, or staggered so they stay in the fire.
For the Blitzer, it's much better as a secondary to a stratagem weapon, and is great for buying time to swap to your stratagem.
You can hot swap between the blitzer, and a different weapon, which allows you to keep fairly good crowd control, without burning through too much ammo. I personally run it alongside the MG-43. You fire the Blitzer, swap to the MG, fire a few rounds, and then swap back to the Blitzer. This allows you to make up for the Blitzer's poor rate of fire, as you can fire a good couple MG rounds while the Blitzer is on cooldown.
Would I rather bring punisher+flamethrower(another favorite loadout) against bugs? Yeah. But it's still a fun and effective loadout, especially when I feel like running an MG (which are criminally underrated)
This is so much better and useful than all the other S to F tier lists; Every shotgun has a clear use for different cases and different playstyles. Thanks
I used to play the slugger a lot against the bots , the one shot in the head and the stagger effect was really cool but since it got nerfed I enjoy my life more with other weapons
7:03 something to note with the incendiary breaker is that bugs can't call in a breach when their on fire
the arc shotgun is OK in my opinion if you:
A) never stop shooting. like never. keep a 100% uptime. shoot, flick your camera around like crazy looking for something to shoot at while your helldiver is doing the pump animation. compensate for low damage by never having to exit the fight and reload. instead of delivering high damage in bursts, you deal small sustained damage constantly.
B) be a bit self sufficient, take on hordes by yourself but take your time. run light armor and kite enemies around, wearing them down slowly with your 100% damage uptime. you can run off on your own and never need a resupply. expendable anti-tank could be a good match for this since your combat encounters are going to be so long and slow. you get to call it down potentially multiple times against the same wave, compensating a bit for the gun's weakness. just kiting them in circles and zapping them constantly to wear them down. this also means you will get a lot of value from bringing low cooldown stratagems.
a lot of work required to make it decent but if you like the gun you can definitely get value from it still if you center your strategy around it.
One thing to note with the Incendiary BReaker is that you WILL catch yourself and teammates on fire with the ricochets, so don't spray a charger or hive guard in the face with it while near others.
Slugger “it’s powerful over a decent range” it takes out spore towers the other side of the map with 6 shots.
It’s a beast.
Arc shotgun won’t hit the leg, it always aims at the “centre mass” of the creature same as all the other arc guns.
9:15 The Blitzer doesn't chain the same way the Arc Thrower does, it fires a spread of bolts that have independent targeting. They might all hit the same target or spread out amongst different targets.
Slugger: Meh.
Punisher: Alright.
Breaker: Nice.
Spray and Pray: Cool.
Plasma Punisher: Oh yeah!
Incendiary: Badass.
the incendiary breaker is the KING of choke point denial, its essentially a flamethrower in the primary slot and FANTASTIC for dealing with large swarms of any size bug, its ROF also gives you the ability to deal with less than ideal pileups on yourself, I love using it in large sweeping motions over fields of bugs on dif 9 as more or less an extended range flamer.
the more bugs you ignite with each shot, the more value you get out of it.
the Slugger performs better than any long range scoped rifle at sniping
So nice to see these breakdowns and appreciation for underused weapons. Thanks for the video!
Nice video. I used to always use the Slugger because it's just generally useful, haven't been using shotguns much after I got the Diligence and Eruptor. But I desperately want them to make the Break-Action shotgun a stratagem you can purchase, because it's just hilariously fun to splatter (nearly) everything with that burst fire.
Doing Warhammer and Helldivers. Quite the combo. Got your new channel in my recommended. I didn't even know it existed. Lol
I've also found that the incendiary breaker is surprisingly effective against shriekers. Its large spread means it's easy to get a hit, and the fire usually takes em out pretty quick.
watching this for nostalgia.
rip slugger, your stagger will be missed
I havent used the arc blitzer yet but im saving up to get it. The way I thought abt it tho was that its meant for really close quarters which is what the arc thrower struggles with. In my mind it was supposed to complement the arc thrower and be the opposite/make up for where the arc thrower lacks. So the arc thrower is good for medium to long ish range and it takes out bugs in a bit of a line type trajectory. I was thinking the shotgun would be for very close range and when theres tons of bugs all around you. So when you shoot close up, itll be more of a web than a line and it will take out the really close ones and a few behind them. I ofc have never used it but maybe you can test it.
So, IDK if anyone mentioned it but it's about the Plasma Punisher.
1. Hits through the walker armor, killing the pilot without needing to flank them.
2. Kills all bots lower than berserker in 1 direct, or 2 splashes.
3. Can FIRE BEHIND COVER OR DOWN FROM THE HIGH GROUND (keeping you from being perforated by red glowy beams)
4. A stagger weapon. You shoot a heavy devastator and it opens up its shield, or staggers for your friends. Same as with Rocket Dev's
5. Perfect to pair with the Senator and the Stalwart OR the AMR (Anti Matt) and the Redeemer Pistol depending on what you want to play into, being more aggressive or passive since it works best in the middle ranges, I prefer this on a BOT mission and find it harder to use on BUG missions. Also, it staggers hive guards from holding shields up for you to spray your secondary into the legs.
Ey nice. Finally TH-cam recommends me someone I recognize. Glad to see you branching out from Total War.
9:50 The Arc Blitzer always aims towards weak points, so it was aiming for the head of the charger and not the exposed leg. A workaround is the move around the charger so the auto aim will hit the leg on the way, but it's honestly just too tedious with the arc also going into corpses and rocks.
With the recent buff to the Blitzer (50% increased fire rate) you should check it out again.
Hey ole Mr. Grimgor Ironhide main himself! didn't even know you had this channel. great content all around, keep it up! games I jump between.
Something else to note with the breaker, I have found switching fire mode to semi helps not blowing through the ammo as quickly, and with a fast enough trigger finger still fires quickly in a pinch without switching back.
Great vid. Concise, funny, well edited.
I think the main reason the Blitzer is "bad" is because you need to stay right around it's max range for full effect, and it likes to "hit" rocks and things in front of you, even with line of sight.
If it weren't for the second part of that, it is my favorite bug weapon.
[THIS COMMENT HAS BEEN CURATED BY TRUSTED MINISTRY OF TRUTH MEMBERS]
"It's hard to see that the plasma punisher is useful against bots," ~the only gun that can stunlock all devastators.
I see the arc blitzer as more of a survival tool than a weapon. It has a sort of run and gun playstyle like the incendiary breaker but rather than killing with DOT from fire you're staggering crowds to create breathing room so you can call in a stratagem or have enough room to charge the arc thrower or reload your recoilless/mg etc. You can just throw hip fire shots behind you in the general direction of whatever's chasing you and still hit it.
Information on the two guns you didn’t like, which are actually two of my favorites.
Plasma: I take the plasma punisher against bots, for a couple of reasons. It can kill the striders with one shot to the front, as the explosion basically ignores the armor and instantly kills the trooper driving it. It can also kill shield devastater from the front pretty easily as well. Secondly, it has a really good stagger, allowing you to stunlock anything smaller than a hulk (All the devastaters). Thirdly, it has a lot of drop, which, while limiting its range, allow you to shoot things from behind cover while they can’t shoot you back. Favorite bot primary.
Arc Blitzer: This is an amazing gun for kiting bugs. It ignores Medium and light armor, but I don’t think it ignores heavy like the other arc weapons. What it’s good for is running and gunning. I would recommend using it if you are going heavy on air strikes. It’s not a good weapon to stand and fight with. It will arc to dead bodies and miss what you are shooting at. But if you are running away, that’s not a problem. You sprint, then flick behind you, shoot, and keep running. The arcs lock on to targets, so you don’t have to aim. The DPS is terrible, but the burst is pretty high so it ends up that the damage over the time when you are actually shooting it is super high if you are running and gunning. Also has a stagger effect, which can stop bile spewers from spitting at you. Also will one shot brood commander if you hit it perfectly.
Letting the warrior call in a breach just to demonstrate the damage over time is crazy
The incendiary is awesome against the bugs. When you’re being chased by a horde nothings better than spraying an entire mag and nearly killing 20 bugs from burn damage alone
I do want to add a note to the incendiary breaker... You can lob shots into crowds from afar pretty reliably; I do this all the time but it isnt the most ammo efficient way to far this weapon but it is very fun.
I could swear there was a loading screen tip that mentioned radiators having 95% resistance to damage that was ignored by explosive, but I don't have it saved.
Missed +1 point for rounds reload of the Punisher:
I mostly use the punisher, nearly every time I stop aiming down sights, turn away from the enemy, or reposition I press reload. Pulling the trigger, being staggered, diving strategem menu or map use (and maybe a few other) will cancel reloads but with the punisher it doesn't matter whether I've only put 1 shell or more in it, that's 1+ more than I had in it, I barely find myself with an empty gun. Plenty of close calls where I'm halfway thru a reload and get sprung by a bug behind me I hadn't noticed and can fire a couple rounds into them and continue reloading.
Compared to magazine gun reloads where you need to drop mag, insert new, then cock weapon. Cancelling the reload before new mag is in means you still need to put a new mag in, if reload is canceled after mag insertion only need to cock it but that could be the difference between needing a stim or needing reinforcing.
Just a note for the end: the break-action shotgun also seems to have the tightest spread of all the shotguns, so you can use it to stagger enemies at a distance.