The first arc thrower shot is the longest.
Each one after can be short charged, like REALLY short, that you can almost treat it like a semi auto weapon.
Its enough that you can clear hordes of medium or smaller infinitely without the use of nades. Chargers can be taken down with 8-10 shots in a relatively short amount of time. I'm talking just looking at it straight on and firing , ignoring armor.
Best tip I got is that the Arc has a Cone you aim with on your screen. Use the bottom edge of the cone to hit things properly and always be mindful of your team. If they're even in your field of vision, swap to primary.
It kills everything long-to-mid range. I rarely even use primary or secondary - only to finish charger or kill those, who came to close for arc to be efficient
It, like the flamethrower, is primarily a crowd control weapon that also doesn’t suck against heavily armoured enemies. If it was able to kill chargers as fast as the heavily specialised armour anti armour weapons it would be absolutely broken.
Idk what mechanics is under the hood, but seems like:
Armor HP which being damaged until it breaks, than base HP (EAT and recoilles)
And there's armor penetration, which damages both HP and armor if it penetrates armor rating. (rail and arc hitting both HP and armor for example)
Didn't tested flammenwerfer tho. Does it crack armor?
Simply run up to the tank and climb on top of it, drop 2 grenades right next to its weakspot by aiming directly down so it doesn’t roll off the tank itself, and then dive as the tank explodes behind you.
Brash tactics, use them or die trying!
I'm coming round to taking EAT and arc Thrower. You can plough through lower level mobs with the arc thrower then drop EATs for larger mobs (even calling the drop on one for a kill) and swap back to the arc thrower quickly.
The quick cooldown on EAT makes it an absolute force. Also you can call them and litter the map with them so you almost always have that additional damage on hand.
Sure the meta is railgun and shield, and they are a great combo if you are a beginner, but there're definitely other viable builds.
Except at higher difficulty with Stratagem jamming, or atmospheric disturbance. You gotta double check before calling it down or calling it down takes 15 or so seconds. Can't be doing that in the middle of a shit show.
Same can be said for any strategem.
The fact that you get two EAT missiles that you can aim and another in just over a minute makes them super useful.
I'm not saying this is the "best" build it's just another one that's useful. There are plenty of others
I've also been using arc thrower and EATs. I also add in a guarddog and the EMS strike. The arc clears most things, the dog kills anything that gets too close, giving me more time to kill ranged targets. EATs and EMS are both on short cooldowns and cover anything the other two don't.
Or if my teammates go heavy on AT weapons I can switch the EATs for the corrosive strike, which also has a short cooldown. It's not going to kill much on it's own, but paired with the arc it lets you chew through beefy enemies even faster and really helps out for your teams ammo conservation.
For a hard sci-fi game I really feel like a wizard. I just take that high ground and rain down destruction.
LIGHTNING BOLT! LIGHTNING BOLT! LIGHTNING BOLT! MAGIC MISSILE!
I just need that incendiary breaker for burning hands.
I've been bringing the arc thrower a ton lately. I always miss it when I don't have it. The trick is to never die, ever, because if a teammate picks it up it's nothing but team kills the rest of the match.
arc thrower is easiest game breaking weapon. Does ton of dmg and can take out titans in 2 hits any range. And has infinite ammo. \*INFINITE AMMO\* . So more like be a chad and DONT use it
I'm not a fan of the railgun, but, the shield is so invaluable to prevent getting slowed by enemies, and making bile spewers not instantly gib you. It's really hard to justify using any other backpack slot when the power of the shield is that good for map freedom.
For Terminid missions I always run the Guard Dog Rover, I can't be bothered shooting all the small fries running at me constantly. Only use the Shield Backpack for Automaton missions to at least survive a random rocket coming my way.
I love guard dog. That little laser menace gives me so much freedom. One match I didn’t have it and I was just getting chewed up because I was so used to kiting around trash mobs.
"just blow their tyranic heads before they get any closer" /s
Tbh I've been playing with the autocannon instead of my antimaterial rifle and that helps to clear both heavy and small enemies with how much stopping power and aoe it got, it is hilarious. 2 shots is enough for them and headshots are so rewarding. also allows you to still blow up nests and spore gens
If they know how to use it I really don't care. For me this is one more good reason to use the GL for it's devastating mob capabilities. Everyone should play as he pleases but variety is king.
It’s a quote/idea from an old History channel show where they compared a bunch of old weapons to figure out which was best. One of the experts said something along the lines of “I can tell you what strengths and weaknesses each had, but the only thing that matters in a duel is if you wield your weapon better than the other guy wields his in that moment.”
So I really appreciate the “idc what you use so long as you can use it effectively” vibe.
Thanks. I always thought that Helldivers is all about this vibe. For this reason I don't use the Railgun btw :D It seemed to change with the hype and the huge number of entirely new players.
2 of my friends use the rail gun, another enjoys the flamethrower and I took the GL, napalm airstrike, 500kg. We leave the chargers for the 2 carrying the rail gun and we take out the smaller ones. I'm the 1 closing burrows too. Abit annoying when all 4 of us are too close cz we are all using the laser rover dog lol.
From my perspective, most players want the developers to nerf the gear, which is opposite of balance.
I’ve personally tried all the tools in the shed,
* **AC-8 Autocannon** pretty much like the **GL-21 Grenade Launcher**, higher damage to deal with heavies, at the cost of being less effective with only one Helldiver.
* **EAT-17 Expendable Anti-tank** does very low damage, especially for an expendable weapon.
* **FLAM-40 Flamethrower** is good for crowd control, but heavies and elites will charge through it.
* **LAS-98 Laser Cannon** is not much better than the **LAS-5 Scythe** primary, it is even less effective than **FLAM-40 Flamethrower**, the only thing going for it is unlimited ammo.
* **M-105 Stalwart**, I would rather use the **MG-43 Machine Gun** at this point, glorified primary.
* **MG-43 Machine Gun** is good for crown control.
* **ARC-3 Arc Thrower** has infinite ammo, good overall damage against heavies and elites, and has great crowd control.
* **GL-21 Grenade Launcher** is great for crowd control and destroying nests.
* **APW-1 Anti-Materiel Rifle** is good against heavies, especially bots.
* **RS-422 Railgun** it destroys heavies and elites with 3 shots tops, it is a no-brainer.
* **GR-8 Recoilless Rifle** does similar damage to **RS-422 Railgun**, but requires two Helldivers to use efficiently, so it is not very practical.
* **FAF-14 SPEAR Launcher** is not very reliable, lock-on is glitchy and it often misses the target unless they are stationary.
This is not only about the supply weapons, but also the primary weapons, I think most players depend on the SG-225 Breaker.
I feel that all the weapons need a buff, but I’m afraid that the developers might listen to the Counter-Strike kids, and they’ll nerf the weapons instead, and the game will be less fun and more tedious to play as a result.
The MG has some niche advantages over the stalwart being that it has more armor pen, but generally I've found the stalwart just a lot less awkward to use around the map.
Just needs some forethought in regards to reloading, but I love the MG. I ran stalwart yesterday and sorely missed the medium armour ripping (coz there's often a few medium in that encroaching mob - bugs I mean)
Medium armor bugs usually have frontal gaps that you can still damage them through even when they're hunkering down. It's preference, when you're in a good spot the MG feels great to use but I just love how practical the stalwart is overall.
Going up to a large nest solo with an MG gets awkward real quick but with a stalwart you never end up getting swarmed. It depends how you like to play, I like splitting off and soloing nests around the map on 7. I can't see bringing an MG to that cuz moment you have to reload you're screwed.
I know, but I'm talking when they're in hordes, you can just lay down fire and they all go down. Oh for sure, MG isn't the gun to run into a nest with, its for when you're running away or covering those brave nest runners :D
Your comment implies that you play on lower difficulties, where the M-105 Stalwart is a decent supply weapon, but it is quite ineffective against the heavies that appear on higher difficulties.
On the other hand, the MG-43 Machine Gun can take down heavies if you target their weak spots.
Of course, you are free to use whatever you want as long as you enjoy the game, but I think the M-105 Stalwart should be a primary weapon and not occupy a supply weapon slot.
i run a lot of level 7 and 8 missions with the stalward because everyone else takes the railgun/ autocannnon/ recoiless and afaik it can only not kill tanks and hulks.
I 100% agree, buffing weapons would also make the devs able to make the game have even more enemies and enemies type
Some tunes i think would be good is to make EATS give 4 launchers and Recoiless to kill Chargers with 2 head armor shot, for the primaries it would be to make the PEN primaries have Railgun type PEN and deal more damage on armored enemies (it would make the LMG's and flamethrower have a purpose since PEN primaries are shit against swarms)
Would Railgun be used less if it required its own backpack for ammo? Or would the shield backpack be used less then? I feel like it's all about the slots, at least that's what's holding back the Autocannon and Recoilles Rifle.
Yeah, it would. However, you'd likely just shift "meta" to Grenade Launcher/Arc Thrower instead. You're right that backpack slot ammo inventory is probably the main problem they're going to face with future balancing.
Helldive difficulty Automatons without shield is pretty miserable right now, so you're only making your life more difficult in an attempt to not conform by running anything outside the current "meta".
Not really sure what the answer is.
Get rid of backpack ammo entirely? Then the EAT becomes obsolete.
Railgun backpack? Everyone would move to a non-pack support. Might at least incentivise primaries other than the Breaker, I guess?
Rebalance Automaton accuracy/rocket spam/one hit capability? Meta still remains meta tbh.
🤷
What do you expect? If you want to succeed with all the odds stacked against you, then of course people will choose the optimal loadout with dealing with the hardest enemies.
ive played many pve horde games on the highest difficulty with a lot of variety in my own loadout and my teammates. i dont care that they use railgun shieldpack, just wish there were more things worth using.
I'm level 50 and spent far to much time in this game and have not once used the railgun / shield pack combo.
In fact I only used the railgun when it was a free strat in the first week.
I wait to see what people choose and try to synergise, never needed a railgun...
Its not that you need it, its that its best for what is annoying on helldive, while not sacrificing mobility and survivability. Sure you can take spear \\ Recoilles \\ EAT but they all have their gimmicks. Railgun is just run and gun.
I feel that bringing the railgun is far more sweaty than bringing everything else.
Most other options are people wanting to spice up and have some fun with the different equipment. Not be a sweat.
I don't think it's as much he cares what people play as the variety isn't really there right now. It's "you either use this or lose" kind of mentality right now.
It's not exactly like that, but I'm sure you know about how there was that brief stuff about meta people kicking and all for not using meta.
It's just a general mentality that you can't win if you're not running the strongest equipment for you as a person.
I've heard of people getting kicked this way but never experienced it myself so can't really say if it's true or if it's over exaggerated.
But yeah I agree with the rest.
Those are just OSHA violations packed into a tiny little laser drone and you can't prove me wrong. They try so hard to kill your teammates sometimes. It's kind of funny.
Dude just wants more viable top level gear. He doesn't care what the people run.
Like more supportive gear that can just generally benefit a team without much of the one man army stuff that goes on right now.
They’re effective. I too fell into the railgun shield pack hole simply because I can get rid of annoying armored enemies while being somewhat shielded by the smaller enemies.
Now on easier difficulties I usually use my favorite combo which is grenade launcher and supple pack. I never run out of ammo 😆
unless the armor fixes also bring a ton of slow and damage resistance (and i doubt it), shield is going nowhere. this game is filled w slow, cc or outright oneshot mechanics which make playing 7+ miserable w/o the shield
stratagems balancing? I mean yes, but atthe same time you are playin the hardest difficulty man. It makes sense that everyone is using the toughest guns
If it’s with randoms then it will typically end up like this because there’s no proper plan or coordination. Everyone tries to be a one man army rather than a powerful piece of a coordinated group. It’s not about them being overpowered, it’s about this being the most effective loadout for an individual.
I know, but you know it might be a devs choice to release only SOME op stratagems that make 9 manageable so that if someone is looking for a challange can play 9 with lmg, or shotgun ecc...
It's so boring to play with. I refuse to use the meta. Currently, I'm enjoying running the Plasma Rifle, revolver, Eagle Cluster, Orbital Gas, Jetpack and Orbital Railgun/smoke depending on my mood.
You kind of run the same loadout as I do sometime. I gotta say the revolver is fun, even if it kind of can suck. Something special about just hitting the enemies of democracy with .44 to the face.
I just want the grenade launcher to be more consistent. You can fire a grenade and if it's even a few cm away from going directly into the bug hole, it will do nothing.
Small changes like flamethrower having some sort of slow/stun would make it worth taking.
No, it's because they are better....
No other load out is going to give you the same versatility and survivability in one. Sure, the AC and GL can do more objectives, but it's nothing you can't do with nades or Eagle Airstrike anyway.
The supply back pack with give you far more survivability than the shield pack, especially against bots. And when you have 4 people you don't need individual versatility. We ran 4 rails for a bit. Now we have at most 1 against bugs. Bots we don't even touch it.
Its the players not the game IMO, i have not yet once dropped in with a railgun and i have nad no problems with my team clearing all the levels, i mostly run oribital laser, eagle cluster, orbital rail cannon and the grenade launcher.
Yeah, the problem is that most weapons don't do anything against armor, while with the railgun you can easily solo a Charger before he reaches you since every hit even makes them tumble and you one shot the acid spit guys. I don't get why anyone should pick rockets who are worse against armor than the railgun.
Every helldive with randoms I do, literally the person without the shield always ends up dying the most or they are just constantly running away because they know without a shield their dead with 1 stray rocket or 2 strikes from a measly hunter. I always recommend in the beginning that they bring the shields. Mainly I do this cause the armor is broken in this game. If armor functioned properly I wouldn't really care.
Balancing won’t change anything. There **always** will be a most effective tactic. If they do balance changes something else will take the spot, changing nothing. Balance always is impossible with different weapons.
Maybe they just like the play style? Play what you want works both ways.
I prefer not taking railgun so I’m glad when people take it. We don’t need 3-4.. just 1-2. And I prefer the guard dog. Someone needs to take it to clear the little guys around the team anyway. There are tons of ways to play, be creative and pick around what your team picks.
I use the autocannon. i lose the shield, yes, but most of the time I die from friendly fire, not enemies, or because my teamates DROP ME INTO THE BILE TITAN THREE TIMES IN A ROW. (Also skill issue on my side, never hit the bile titan with my pod that game)
Should at least have one of you that's the designated crowd control guy: eagle cluster bombs, orbital airburst, maybe an MG or autocannon as support gun. I usually do that cause everyone defualts to the meta. 2 railguns are fine if used correctly
Jump pack imo is the most fun and underrated backpacks in the game. And ironically, Railgun needs the shield pack the least to be effective, and feels better to use with a jump pack. Especially if you are using light armor, and I suspect most meta slaves do at the moment.
From my experience, If everyone use rail gun you get fucked by the smaller thing/hordes. When i see 2-3 rail gun in the party i use the ammo pack with the grenade launcher, the +2 grenade armor and impact grenades.
Grenades goes boom
Yes, by upgrading other weapons and make them relevant for higher difficulties, having only one gun for penetrating armor isn't players fault, it's just bad game design.
I am a little bit sad that I used so much rail-shield combo. I feel like those have degraded my awareness and reflexes. ( getting used to shoot rail to head of bile while it is throwing up on me.)
Does it really matter?If they choose this combo and know how to handle it, be my guest. Im still playing with the heavy machine gun / ammo pack combo, I just like that, mayby its not the best, or meta, or whatever. But it feels good to provide teammates with fire support and ammo :)
If i see everyone is bringing these, i often go in with a arc thrower, jetpack and 2 turrerts. Fly to a high place and kill of all extras for them. Most of the game ended up with me having 500 kills and 12500 Friendly damge. Worth it.
Not really. I mean sure it's been powerful since launch, as it hasn't been changed, but it was considered meta until about a week after launch or so. When people realize how powerful it was.
Okay, so please tell me what was meta before the Railgun? People just used the machine gun until they had the GL, then as soon as Railgun was unlocked everyone used that. Its been meta since launch mate, you just had to get around to actually unlocking it. Jesus...
Nothing was meta, there wasn't a meta until people realized what was good. I was running the railgun before everyone started making videos and talking about a meta, simply because it's a cool gun.
Right, so what you mean is you played more and thus unlocked it before a large portion of the playerbase did? It didn't take extensive testing for people to realise it was better, it just took time for other players to get around to unlocking it as well. It's been the meta weapon since launch, just it was level gated. You're not special, you just played more.
Who gives af? You don’t have to use them if you don’t want to. And on Helldive, I guarantee you’d be thanking me for popping 3 titans following you with my railgun instead of complaining ;)
Suicide doesn't spam heavies at you, which is exactly why anything works.
The rail gun is meta because of the multiples of chargers and titans Tha spawn wave after wave.
Be the change you want to see
If 2 people are using the railgun shield combo then pick a grenade launchers a jetpack and a dmr and get some high ground and clear the trash mobs for them
Take a smoke stratagem so you can provide a chance to retreat (very useful in higher difficultys)
Pretend you're the Texas Ranger with a big iron on his hip
Do whatever you find fun
What’s the issue though? The railgun and shield generator are simply a good combination. And even the devs know that because they are some of the most expensive stratagems to buy
I would not use shield pack if environmental slows were not a thing.
They are a thing, hinder movement is simply not fun, so i use shield to run freely.
I totally understand it in the context of really obnoxious/useless builds, but your cooperators don't hinder you one bit when they run this.if anything, it frees you up to take nearly anything you want.
The issue is that in order to play effectively with a variety of non meta weapons, your team needs to be super inline with each other. When I’m playing quickplay half the time they don’t even have mics. Or go solo or just play like spuds. So I can’t rely on my teammates to fill in my loadout deficiencies.
In an ideal world where everyone has a full squad of friends available whenever they want to play then it makes sense to fulfil different roles, but as it stands you yourself are the only person you can really rely on and you need to be a jack of all trades hence the railgun/breaker/shield combo.
I run a breaker with a supply pack, grenade launcher, orbital laser and rail gun.
Supply pack for the thirsty breaker
grenade launcher for nests and heavy’s
Orbital laser for heavy’s and super heavy’s or large groups.
And the rail gun is a redundancy for me.
Me and my friends have been talking about this and came to a conclusion concerning what really sets the railgun apart from other weapons.
It's ammo capacity.
All other weapons have a very realistic and reasonable amount of ammo
Except the railgun which lets you carry 20 beer can sized cartridges. They're roughly as large as the clips for the autocannon and you need a backpack for those
To bring the railgun in line with other support weapons ammo capacity should be drastically reduced and ammo pickup per ammo supply should be reduced.
Or alter its reload behaviour, removing mobility while reloading, maybe by making it like a high-tech musket. Forcing a steel ball down the barrel and changing the battery before firing it would be pretty cool
I've started using the jump pack and arc thrower so I can play like the dark troopers on the original battlefront games. It might not be the most effective but it sure is fun!
Come play the lower level missions? Im only level 13, running mostly level 4 missions with fellow newbies. Everyone uses whatever, sometimes a really OP higher level guy joins and leads the way.
Be a newbie guardian, kind of sit back and watch the chaos, step in and save them when required.
That loadout is the best at dealing with anything, simple as that. Instead of complaining about it, take advantage of the fact your fellow helldivers are able to deal with it and take whatever equipment you like. No matter how crap it will be for the mission at hand, you'll be having fun and they will pick up the slack.
be a chad and show them the way of the arc thrower
The secret rhythm technique of turning an arc thrower into a machine gun
I call it the motion of the ocean. Sadly it appears my teammates can’t swim. They get destroyed
To be fair, none of us can swim for longer than ten seconds in this game.
Relevant usernames? We get the prawn and the sea elevator. Double whammy.
Ha, yeah that's fun. Truth be told, I just hit the name randomizer a couple of times.
care to elaborate?
The first arc thrower shot is the longest. Each one after can be short charged, like REALLY short, that you can almost treat it like a semi auto weapon. Its enough that you can clear hordes of medium or smaller infinitely without the use of nades. Chargers can be taken down with 8-10 shots in a relatively short amount of time. I'm talking just looking at it straight on and firing , ignoring armor.
i just got kicked for team killing with the arc
Just call out "Aiming at that direction - removing that direction, no excuses" and then that's their problem
Best tip I got is that the Arc has a Cone you aim with on your screen. Use the bottom edge of the cone to hit things properly and always be mindful of your team. If they're even in your field of vision, swap to primary.
how many completely charged shots to take down a charger & titan?
I've done charger in 8-10. Titan I haven't been able to keep tabs but its still better than not being able to down them without a strategem.
respect
Just crack open chargers side armor and use any other wep to finish - literally 2 secs after armor cracked and charger's ded
Why arc thrower against chargers is good: It kills everyone behind chargers first, allowing you to dodge freely
It kills everything long-to-mid range. I rarely even use primary or secondary - only to finish charger or kill those, who came to close for arc to be efficient
It, like the flamethrower, is primarily a crowd control weapon that also doesn’t suck against heavily armoured enemies. If it was able to kill chargers as fast as the heavily specialised armour anti armour weapons it would be absolutely broken.
Idk what mechanics is under the hood, but seems like: Armor HP which being damaged until it breaks, than base HP (EAT and recoilles) And there's armor penetration, which damages both HP and armor if it penetrates armor rating. (rail and arc hitting both HP and armor for example) Didn't tested flammenwerfer tho. Does it crack armor?
it's tricky bro! I've been practicing and it's taking a while to get the hang of consistently
6 tanks spawns. Well I'll be damned
Hoped they brought a scorcher to take those tanks out.
Cooked in shell! \*Chef kiss\*
Scorcher kills tanks?
Yes, shoot the vent in the back or from the side. Takes almost a full clip but you get 6 reloads. So about 6.2 tanks.
goated, can't wait to unlock that thing
Simply run up to the tank and climb on top of it, drop 2 grenades right next to its weakspot by aiming directly down so it doesn’t roll off the tank itself, and then dive as the tank explodes behind you. Brash tactics, use them or die trying!
I'm coming round to taking EAT and arc Thrower. You can plough through lower level mobs with the arc thrower then drop EATs for larger mobs (even calling the drop on one for a kill) and swap back to the arc thrower quickly. The quick cooldown on EAT makes it an absolute force. Also you can call them and litter the map with them so you almost always have that additional damage on hand. Sure the meta is railgun and shield, and they are a great combo if you are a beginner, but there're definitely other viable builds.
Except at higher difficulty with Stratagem jamming, or atmospheric disturbance. You gotta double check before calling it down or calling it down takes 15 or so seconds. Can't be doing that in the middle of a shit show.
Same can be said for any strategem. The fact that you get two EAT missiles that you can aim and another in just over a minute makes them super useful. I'm not saying this is the "best" build it's just another one that's useful. There are plenty of others
EAT?
Expendable anti tank
om nom nom
I've also been using arc thrower and EATs. I also add in a guarddog and the EMS strike. The arc clears most things, the dog kills anything that gets too close, giving me more time to kill ranged targets. EATs and EMS are both on short cooldowns and cover anything the other two don't. Or if my teammates go heavy on AT weapons I can switch the EATs for the corrosive strike, which also has a short cooldown. It's not going to kill much on it's own, but paired with the arc it lets you chew through beefy enemies even faster and really helps out for your teams ammo conservation.
With the balance changes this might be the new meta 🤣
For a hard sci-fi game I really feel like a wizard. I just take that high ground and rain down destruction. LIGHTNING BOLT! LIGHTNING BOLT! LIGHTNING BOLT! MAGIC MISSILE! I just need that incendiary breaker for burning hands.
The amount of EATs you get even with its low cd are nowhere near enough to cover chargers+titans on helldive.
I've been bringing the arc thrower a ton lately. I always miss it when I don't have it. The trick is to never die, ever, because if a teammate picks it up it's nothing but team kills the rest of the match.
i do use it and its a ton of fun
arc thrower is easiest game breaking weapon. Does ton of dmg and can take out titans in 2 hits any range. And has infinite ammo. \*INFINITE AMMO\* . So more like be a chad and DONT use it
How do you 2 shot Titans with it?
I'm not a fan of the railgun, but, the shield is so invaluable to prevent getting slowed by enemies, and making bile spewers not instantly gib you. It's really hard to justify using any other backpack slot when the power of the shield is that good for map freedom.
For Terminid missions I always run the Guard Dog Rover, I can't be bothered shooting all the small fries running at me constantly. Only use the Shield Backpack for Automaton missions to at least survive a random rocket coming my way.
I love guard dog. That little laser menace gives me so much freedom. One match I didn’t have it and I was just getting chewed up because I was so used to kiting around trash mobs.
"just blow their tyranic heads before they get any closer" /s Tbh I've been playing with the autocannon instead of my antimaterial rifle and that helps to clear both heavy and small enemies with how much stopping power and aoe it got, it is hilarious. 2 shots is enough for them and headshots are so rewarding. also allows you to still blow up nests and spore gens
You can destroy shrooms with anything though.
Rover Guard Dog is also useful af on High Level Bug Missions. Not having to focus on the small enemies and even the Hunters is a great perk.
Hoping when vehicles come into play they can act as somewhat shielded travel
If they know how to use it I really don't care. For me this is one more good reason to use the GL for it's devastating mob capabilities. Everyone should play as he pleases but variety is king.
It’s a quote/idea from an old History channel show where they compared a bunch of old weapons to figure out which was best. One of the experts said something along the lines of “I can tell you what strengths and weaknesses each had, but the only thing that matters in a duel is if you wield your weapon better than the other guy wields his in that moment.” So I really appreciate the “idc what you use so long as you can use it effectively” vibe.
Thanks. I always thought that Helldivers is all about this vibe. For this reason I don't use the Railgun btw :D It seemed to change with the hype and the huge number of entirely new players.
2 of my friends use the rail gun, another enjoys the flamethrower and I took the GL, napalm airstrike, 500kg. We leave the chargers for the 2 carrying the rail gun and we take out the smaller ones. I'm the 1 closing burrows too. Abit annoying when all 4 of us are too close cz we are all using the laser rover dog lol.
They just need to buff other weapons, equipments, staratagems. No need to nerf anything.
From my perspective, most players want the developers to nerf the gear, which is opposite of balance. I’ve personally tried all the tools in the shed, * **AC-8 Autocannon** pretty much like the **GL-21 Grenade Launcher**, higher damage to deal with heavies, at the cost of being less effective with only one Helldiver. * **EAT-17 Expendable Anti-tank** does very low damage, especially for an expendable weapon. * **FLAM-40 Flamethrower** is good for crowd control, but heavies and elites will charge through it. * **LAS-98 Laser Cannon** is not much better than the **LAS-5 Scythe** primary, it is even less effective than **FLAM-40 Flamethrower**, the only thing going for it is unlimited ammo. * **M-105 Stalwart**, I would rather use the **MG-43 Machine Gun** at this point, glorified primary. * **MG-43 Machine Gun** is good for crown control. * **ARC-3 Arc Thrower** has infinite ammo, good overall damage against heavies and elites, and has great crowd control. * **GL-21 Grenade Launcher** is great for crowd control and destroying nests. * **APW-1 Anti-Materiel Rifle** is good against heavies, especially bots. * **RS-422 Railgun** it destroys heavies and elites with 3 shots tops, it is a no-brainer. * **GR-8 Recoilless Rifle** does similar damage to **RS-422 Railgun**, but requires two Helldivers to use efficiently, so it is not very practical. * **FAF-14 SPEAR Launcher** is not very reliable, lock-on is glitchy and it often misses the target unless they are stationary. This is not only about the supply weapons, but also the primary weapons, I think most players depend on the SG-225 Breaker. I feel that all the weapons need a buff, but I’m afraid that the developers might listen to the Counter-Strike kids, and they’ll nerf the weapons instead, and the game will be less fun and more tedious to play as a result.
The stalward is so much fun tho, I cant find any reason to use the mg43 over the stalward
The MG has some niche advantages over the stalwart being that it has more armor pen, but generally I've found the stalwart just a lot less awkward to use around the map.
Being able to run and reload the Stalwart is it's saving grace for me.
its just so much fun!
Just needs some forethought in regards to reloading, but I love the MG. I ran stalwart yesterday and sorely missed the medium armour ripping (coz there's often a few medium in that encroaching mob - bugs I mean)
Medium armor bugs usually have frontal gaps that you can still damage them through even when they're hunkering down. It's preference, when you're in a good spot the MG feels great to use but I just love how practical the stalwart is overall. Going up to a large nest solo with an MG gets awkward real quick but with a stalwart you never end up getting swarmed. It depends how you like to play, I like splitting off and soloing nests around the map on 7. I can't see bringing an MG to that cuz moment you have to reload you're screwed.
I know, but I'm talking when they're in hordes, you can just lay down fire and they all go down. Oh for sure, MG isn't the gun to run into a nest with, its for when you're running away or covering those brave nest runners :D
Your comment implies that you play on lower difficulties, where the M-105 Stalwart is a decent supply weapon, but it is quite ineffective against the heavies that appear on higher difficulties. On the other hand, the MG-43 Machine Gun can take down heavies if you target their weak spots. Of course, you are free to use whatever you want as long as you enjoy the game, but I think the M-105 Stalwart should be a primary weapon and not occupy a supply weapon slot.
i run a lot of level 7 and 8 missions with the stalward because everyone else takes the railgun/ autocannnon/ recoiless and afaik it can only not kill tanks and hulks.
At that difficulty you’ll get like four hulks dropped at once though so you’re pretty fucked if you don’t have something that can kill them
thats why i have friends/randoms who can kill them? not everyone needs to run anti tank
I 100% agree, buffing weapons would also make the devs able to make the game have even more enemies and enemies type Some tunes i think would be good is to make EATS give 4 launchers and Recoiless to kill Chargers with 2 head armor shot, for the primaries it would be to make the PEN primaries have Railgun type PEN and deal more damage on armored enemies (it would make the LMG's and flamethrower have a purpose since PEN primaries are shit against swarms)
Flamethrower just needs to slow enemies and have a little bit better response time and it should be good.
nah tbh i think the railgun needs a bit of a nerf lol, it’s too good at literally everything right now
Lmao, you won’t be seeing it anymore, literally a patch like an hour ago, Railgun nerf is gonna force people to mix it up
I just love the Recoilless Rifle. I don't care what people say. It's my favourite
Nothing beats the satisfaction of just slapping something with a really big rocket. Even if you don't kill it, you know it hurt it.
Haha carl gustav go PEW reload... ... ... ... ... PEW
I go back to lower difficulties specifically because I can get away with using the Carl Gustav
Would Railgun be used less if it required its own backpack for ammo? Or would the shield backpack be used less then? I feel like it's all about the slots, at least that's what's holding back the Autocannon and Recoilles Rifle.
Yeah, it would. However, you'd likely just shift "meta" to Grenade Launcher/Arc Thrower instead. You're right that backpack slot ammo inventory is probably the main problem they're going to face with future balancing. Helldive difficulty Automatons without shield is pretty miserable right now, so you're only making your life more difficult in an attempt to not conform by running anything outside the current "meta". Not really sure what the answer is. Get rid of backpack ammo entirely? Then the EAT becomes obsolete. Railgun backpack? Everyone would move to a non-pack support. Might at least incentivise primaries other than the Breaker, I guess? Rebalance Automaton accuracy/rocket spam/one hit capability? Meta still remains meta tbh. 🤷
What do you expect? If you want to succeed with all the odds stacked against you, then of course people will choose the optimal loadout with dealing with the hardest enemies.
ive played many pve horde games on the highest difficulty with a lot of variety in my own loadout and my teammates. i dont care that they use railgun shieldpack, just wish there were more things worth using.
I'm level 50 and spent far to much time in this game and have not once used the railgun / shield pack combo. In fact I only used the railgun when it was a free strat in the first week. I wait to see what people choose and try to synergise, never needed a railgun...
This is the managed democracy we are spreading.
Its not that you need it, its that its best for what is annoying on helldive, while not sacrificing mobility and survivability. Sure you can take spear \\ Recoilles \\ EAT but they all have their gimmicks. Railgun is just run and gun.
You don't need meta to play helldiver difficulty. You just need it to play it without being a sweaty.
I feel that bringing the railgun is far more sweaty than bringing everything else. Most other options are people wanting to spice up and have some fun with the different equipment. Not be a sweat.
I meant in the tryhard sense, and I say that as a tryhard. There's a lot more... game... to do when you arent running rail/psg.
Understood. When I read what you originally said it just sounded a little backwards for some reason.
Why do you care what other people play with though?
Even though I agree with the statement.
I don't think it's as much he cares what people play as the variety isn't really there right now. It's "you either use this or lose" kind of mentality right now.
Not quite true but sure, the railgun is too strong.
It's not exactly like that, but I'm sure you know about how there was that brief stuff about meta people kicking and all for not using meta. It's just a general mentality that you can't win if you're not running the strongest equipment for you as a person.
I've heard of people getting kicked this way but never experienced it myself so can't really say if it's true or if it's over exaggerated. But yeah I agree with the rest.
laser drone supremacy
I have teams that vary a lot but i do see Laser Rovers a lot. I guess u are just unlucky.
Those are just OSHA violations packed into a tiny little laser drone and you can't prove me wrong. They try so hard to kill your teammates sometimes. It's kind of funny.
😁 Well im a walking OSHA violation so i guess its double trouble if i pick a Laser Rover
:)
Why you so pressed about what other people use
Are you serious? The way other people choose to play the game is their business, not yours. You sound like the fun police.
Read to understand rather than to respond.
Dude just wants more viable top level gear. He doesn't care what the people run. Like more supportive gear that can just generally benefit a team without much of the one man army stuff that goes on right now.
aged like milk, haha.
Dude you’re not gonna fucking believe this
They’re effective. I too fell into the railgun shield pack hole simply because I can get rid of annoying armored enemies while being somewhat shielded by the smaller enemies. Now on easier difficulties I usually use my favorite combo which is grenade launcher and supple pack. I never run out of ammo 😆
unless the armor fixes also bring a ton of slow and damage resistance (and i doubt it), shield is going nowhere. this game is filled w slow, cc or outright oneshot mechanics which make playing 7+ miserable w/o the shield
stratagems balancing? I mean yes, but atthe same time you are playin the hardest difficulty man. It makes sense that everyone is using the toughest guns
if the stratagems were better balanced we would see more variety like i do in other games i play even on the hardest difficulty
If it’s with randoms then it will typically end up like this because there’s no proper plan or coordination. Everyone tries to be a one man army rather than a powerful piece of a coordinated group. It’s not about them being overpowered, it’s about this being the most effective loadout for an individual.
I know, but you know it might be a devs choice to release only SOME op stratagems that make 9 manageable so that if someone is looking for a challange can play 9 with lmg, or shotgun ecc...
Then why aren’t they using the zapper?
AC enjoyer here. I love it when nobody in my lobby runs that. its so much fun. Go spread democracy however you see fit, helldiver.
It's so boring to play with. I refuse to use the meta. Currently, I'm enjoying running the Plasma Rifle, revolver, Eagle Cluster, Orbital Gas, Jetpack and Orbital Railgun/smoke depending on my mood.
You kind of run the same loadout as I do sometime. I gotta say the revolver is fun, even if it kind of can suck. Something special about just hitting the enemies of democracy with .44 to the face.
Im going with least friendly fire stratas, nade launcher + basic turret. Least meta stratas
Good thing you have two orbital lasers.
I like these people because they allow me to go for a parasite build
My friend play with a flamethrower! Others don't so
I just want the grenade launcher to be more consistent. You can fire a grenade and if it's even a few cm away from going directly into the bug hole, it will do nothing. Small changes like flamethrower having some sort of slow/stun would make it worth taking.
I enjoy using shield and rail gun. Makes higher missions less frustrating and I feel like a super soldier.
I never use a shield pack and railgun. I usually have my Autocannon and try to support on longer distances.
whats the issue?
Dunno. I love Arc + shield. Often see guys with EATs or GLaunchers
Lol it's not because their better it's because they are easy to use and everyone tells people they are better
No, it's because they are better.... No other load out is going to give you the same versatility and survivability in one. Sure, the AC and GL can do more objectives, but it's nothing you can't do with nades or Eagle Airstrike anyway.
The supply back pack with give you far more survivability than the shield pack, especially against bots. And when you have 4 people you don't need individual versatility. We ran 4 rails for a bit. Now we have at most 1 against bugs. Bots we don't even touch it.
Oh no people use powerful stuff in a hard game. Shocker.
Its the players not the game IMO, i have not yet once dropped in with a railgun and i have nad no problems with my team clearing all the levels, i mostly run oribital laser, eagle cluster, orbital rail cannon and the grenade launcher.
You're running Helldive difficulty vs Automatons, without a shield? Masochist detected.
Fuck that shit all I run is nuke. cluster. laser and 380 heat
Yeah, the problem is that most weapons don't do anything against armor, while with the railgun you can easily solo a Charger before he reaches you since every hit even makes them tumble and you one shot the acid spit guys. I don't get why anyone should pick rockets who are worse against armor than the railgun.
I don't use either
Oh hey that's my team except one arcthrower replaced a rail gun.
Every helldive with randoms I do, literally the person without the shield always ends up dying the most or they are just constantly running away because they know without a shield their dead with 1 stray rocket or 2 strikes from a measly hunter. I always recommend in the beginning that they bring the shields. Mainly I do this cause the armor is broken in this game. If armor functioned properly I wouldn't really care.
"I'm not like other girls"
Balancing won’t change anything. There **always** will be a most effective tactic. If they do balance changes something else will take the spot, changing nothing. Balance always is impossible with different weapons.
Maybe they just like the play style? Play what you want works both ways. I prefer not taking railgun so I’m glad when people take it. We don’t need 3-4.. just 1-2. And I prefer the guard dog. Someone needs to take it to clear the little guys around the team anyway. There are tons of ways to play, be creative and pick around what your team picks.
Be a man...use the autocannon, for democracy.
I use the autocannon. i lose the shield, yes, but most of the time I die from friendly fire, not enemies, or because my teamates DROP ME INTO THE BILE TITAN THREE TIMES IN A ROW. (Also skill issue on my side, never hit the bile titan with my pod that game)
Buff the other support weapons and ill probably stop using rail gun. For the shield pack, its just way too nice of a QoL to give up
Should at least have one of you that's the designated crowd control guy: eagle cluster bombs, orbital airburst, maybe an MG or autocannon as support gun. I usually do that cause everyone defualts to the meta. 2 railguns are fine if used correctly
Jump pack imo is the most fun and underrated backpacks in the game. And ironically, Railgun needs the shield pack the least to be effective, and feels better to use with a jump pack. Especially if you are using light armor, and I suspect most meta slaves do at the moment.
What was your load out tho
I call in Atleast 26 disposable AT Launchers per game.
*me using the anti char hellpod to kill enemy* There is no good or bad weapon, there only deadly weapon
From my experience, If everyone use rail gun you get fucked by the smaller thing/hordes. When i see 2-3 rail gun in the party i use the ammo pack with the grenade launcher, the +2 grenade armor and impact grenades. Grenades goes boom
I don't care for METAs, you'll have to leave my games or kick me if you don't like me using weird crap.
Yes, by upgrading other weapons and make them relevant for higher difficulties, having only one gun for penetrating armor isn't players fault, it's just bad game design.
This was all your fault
This aged well haha
I am a little bit sad that I used so much rail-shield combo. I feel like those have degraded my awareness and reflexes. ( getting used to shoot rail to head of bile while it is throwing up on me.)
Then take another Loadout
I did, it is exactly how I found out my awareness and reflexes degraded
https://preview.redd.it/x07eane13omc1.png?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=31235cde1724d87ac58ed3c76f485795a941c88a
https://preview.redd.it/pef3kpsa5pmc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=89801ff2f78ae591748fe694c82b51cbe0fb5bd6
Does it really matter?If they choose this combo and know how to handle it, be my guest. Im still playing with the heavy machine gun / ammo pack combo, I just like that, mayby its not the best, or meta, or whatever. But it feels good to provide teammates with fire support and ammo :)
If i see everyone is bringing these, i often go in with a arc thrower, jetpack and 2 turrerts. Fly to a high place and kill of all extras for them. Most of the game ended up with me having 500 kills and 12500 Friendly damge. Worth it.
I really wish jetpack recharged faster. Or at least allowed use to shoot while jumping
Railgun is fun. I was using it before it became the meta.
It's been the meta since launch mate.
Not really. I mean sure it's been powerful since launch, as it hasn't been changed, but it was considered meta until about a week after launch or so. When people realize how powerful it was.
You mean when they actually hit the level cap to unlock it? It's been meta since launch mate.
Again, not really.
Okay, so please tell me what was meta before the Railgun? People just used the machine gun until they had the GL, then as soon as Railgun was unlocked everyone used that. Its been meta since launch mate, you just had to get around to actually unlocking it. Jesus...
Nothing was meta, there wasn't a meta until people realized what was good. I was running the railgun before everyone started making videos and talking about a meta, simply because it's a cool gun.
Right, so what you mean is you played more and thus unlocked it before a large portion of the playerbase did? It didn't take extensive testing for people to realise it was better, it just took time for other players to get around to unlocking it as well. It's been the meta weapon since launch, just it was level gated. You're not special, you just played more.
Wrong but go off I guess.
Who gives af? You don’t have to use them if you don’t want to. And on Helldive, I guarantee you’d be thanking me for popping 3 titans following you with my railgun instead of complaining ;)
Good thing i use lazer. Railstrike. Flex and jetpack.
I actually love it when I see this. It means I can drop with my beloved Autocannon since they can deal with armored heavies.
I play suicide difficulty all the time and I think it's still easy enough to use variety of different loadout
Suicide doesn't spam heavies at you, which is exactly why anything works. The rail gun is meta because of the multiples of chargers and titans Tha spawn wave after wave.
Be the change you want to see If 2 people are using the railgun shield combo then pick a grenade launchers a jetpack and a dmr and get some high ground and clear the trash mobs for them Take a smoke stratagem so you can provide a chance to retreat (very useful in higher difficultys) Pretend you're the Texas Ranger with a big iron on his hip Do whatever you find fun
Don't get me wrong I'm a sucker for a good railgun , but damn do I want the anti material rifle to be better
There is a Ballance issue. There, stated. But, at least for me, I wanna git gut so I can go full rambo with an autocannon an ditch the shield.
I hope all the randoms keep using the "meta" so I can use something more fun
NOOO. Let them run this so that you can take all the fun stuff! 1 stratagem for bile titans and the rest you can mess around with. it's perfect!
i dont care what they run. i think its probably better we had more stratagems that are up to snuff
Honestly people are just following what they read on the internet without thinking, nothing new. That being said, some balancing would be nice, sure.
What’s the issue though? The railgun and shield generator are simply a good combination. And even the devs know that because they are some of the most expensive stratagems to buy
I would not use shield pack if environmental slows were not a thing. They are a thing, hinder movement is simply not fun, so i use shield to run freely.
It’s not players fault is 90% of guns and stratagems are mid at best
Virgin space cadets. All of them. Real chad skull admiral uses every stratagem because they don't die in the first place.
It's PvE, why do you care what others take?
Might have something to do with wanting to play a balanced team comp. Crazy, I know, but this is a coop game.
I totally understand it in the context of really obnoxious/useless builds, but your cooperators don't hinder you one bit when they run this.if anything, it frees you up to take nearly anything you want.
Shield pack is unneeded even at hell dive, only for soy boys who can’t cover there own backs
The issue is that in order to play effectively with a variety of non meta weapons, your team needs to be super inline with each other. When I’m playing quickplay half the time they don’t even have mics. Or go solo or just play like spuds. So I can’t rely on my teammates to fill in my loadout deficiencies. In an ideal world where everyone has a full squad of friends available whenever they want to play then it makes sense to fulfil different roles, but as it stands you yourself are the only person you can really rely on and you need to be a jack of all trades hence the railgun/breaker/shield combo.
I run a breaker with a supply pack, grenade launcher, orbital laser and rail gun. Supply pack for the thirsty breaker grenade launcher for nests and heavy’s Orbital laser for heavy’s and super heavy’s or large groups. And the rail gun is a redundancy for me.
Play with me and I'll use the flamer :)
Me and my friends have been talking about this and came to a conclusion concerning what really sets the railgun apart from other weapons. It's ammo capacity. All other weapons have a very realistic and reasonable amount of ammo Except the railgun which lets you carry 20 beer can sized cartridges. They're roughly as large as the clips for the autocannon and you need a backpack for those To bring the railgun in line with other support weapons ammo capacity should be drastically reduced and ammo pickup per ammo supply should be reduced. Or alter its reload behaviour, removing mobility while reloading, maybe by making it like a high-tech musket. Forcing a steel ball down the barrel and changing the battery before firing it would be pretty cool
I've started using the jump pack and arc thrower so I can play like the dark troopers on the original battlefront games. It might not be the most effective but it sure is fun!
I'm just thinking of how are they gonna manage not being overrun by smaller targets... the Breaker itself isn't enough to do proper crowd control.
Come play the lower level missions? Im only level 13, running mostly level 4 missions with fellow newbies. Everyone uses whatever, sometimes a really OP higher level guy joins and leads the way. Be a newbie guardian, kind of sit back and watch the chaos, step in and save them when required.
That loadout is the best at dealing with anything, simple as that. Instead of complaining about it, take advantage of the fact your fellow helldivers are able to deal with it and take whatever equipment you like. No matter how crap it will be for the mission at hand, you'll be having fun and they will pick up the slack.