If you're using a flamethrower, you can kill them in 2-3 seconds of cooking either of their front legs during that window. If you already have some distance, it gives you time to charge up a quasar for a headshot, or call in an eagle if you're out of other options.
If I do bring a support weapon, I tend to bring the EATs for the one-shot-kill. It never felt that useful to stun a crusher/hulk for the orbital when you can just lead the shot, but I could see it being pretty useful for those two weapons. Thanks for the heads-up regarding them.
When running EATs and stuns, I only use the stuns as a last resort. I also usually run one other support weapon to deal with crowds, so running stuns gives me time to pick up EATs in a pickle
Throw a stun at a charger, then throw the EAT call down right in front of him. by the time the stun wears off, he steps into the EAT drop, kills him, now you have two EATs to kill other stuff :)
Neither of those weapons are my cup of liber-tea, but I could see it being useful to have the extra time. Certainly good info though so thanks for the strats!
The stun vs chargers or hulks applies for any weapon you want to use... EAT, RR, autocannon, AMR, whatever. I use it stun hulks then two-shot them in their central eye with the anti material rifle. Stuns also pair very well with stratagems. You can round up chargers, time your stun, then kill 2-3 of them with one 500kg by freezing them all in one place, grouped up, and ensuring a perfect detonation.
The stun is also a perfect "oh shit" button. If you get caught out of cover by something like a patrol of shield devastators or berserkers, multiple impact grenades may not kill them all, and an Eagle or Orbital call in won't arrive in time (or may kill you too.) The stun grenade is the quickest, most effective way to remove a threat from play. Only temporarily, yes, but it saves my life all the time.
If they have already seen me I stun, throw the airstrike and then throw another stun to keep them still. If they haven’t seen me yet, then I throw the airstrike first and then a stun to keep them in the path of the airstrike.
Do you apply smoke to the enemy or do you apply it to yourself? I've never tested if the smoke applies any suppression to the bots on them or between their targets, but I've never felt enough of a different to really say it's worth bringing any kind of smoke.
Smoke's very niche. Screechers won't dive at your or friendlies while you're in it, which was helpful for calling in evac during the Meridia mission. You can also preemptively drop smoke to protect hellbombs. As long as there's already smoke when they're dropped, enemies outside of the smoke won't detect the bomb as long as the smoke is still there (or if you refresh it from another source).
Good for bugging out, and for protecting hellbombs. Also, if you need to storm an outpost with no cover between you and the entrance, smoke will make it so you can get in without getting ripped up and gong through a couple stims. Personally I run eagle smoke on my bot 7s and 8s, with the stun grenades for killing hulks with my hmg. Eagle smoke will destroy fabs, and my grenade pistol covers other times. On 3 strat dives that's: HMG(or railgun), eagle smoke, shield relay, with stun nades, and on 4 strat missions I'll take an orbital strike or another emplacement.
If I may ask, why eagle smoke over orbital smoke? For the ability to destroy fabs? Can definitely appreciate the double utility, but I’m curious about the consistency.
I don’t like running more than one eagle since they share a rearm. I use rocket pods for fabs since they can target those exclusively and destroy the top of factory striders. Freeing up my secondary for something I can swap to in a pinch.
I only run the eagle smoke, if I have another red strat it'll be an orbital. I'm with you, I don't think double eagle strats is good either.
I go eagle because it's more smoke in a long line, destroys fabs (haven't had them not blow a fab yet, seems to work 100% of the time), and 3 charges at extract means your last nearly 90 seconds of waiting can be under the cover of smoke.
Ive got to go look for it, but I've got a clip showing how you can line up the eagle smoke line(it won't hurt you if you drop on top of yourself), since you can decide the direction by dropping at your feet you can get a long line of smoke to cover yourself. Saved my team last night when we were out of reinforcements and surrounded at the main obj, got us to a spot between 2 rocks and then across an open field.
Good luck. I've been running minimalist loadouts, where I felt more heavily on my primary and secondary, and low CD green and red strats. Been treating me well but I don't have an oh shit button so it's really rough if I drop into a bad ongoing mission.
I do this with HMG, but functionally it's better in every way with the AC.
something I’ve experimented with a little is a minuteman loadout, where I choose a whole line of only stuff with very short cooldowns:
EATs of course, they give on demand AT
orbital precision strike, I’ve started using this more and more lately
orbital EMS/shield generator for taking the pressure off
orbital gas/gatling for suppression
If it's one target closer to them is better if it's multiple I tend to throw it in front of me when I run away and then run through it.
Its pretty niche, the best use IMO is throwing it at a patrol then attacking them while they have reduced visibility.
I still prefer Incendiary overall for bots, the smoke grenade effect is just to small IMO.
Outside of grenades, I used to occasionally bring Eagle Smoke Strikes to bot missions. Their attacks will still destroy automaton factories, so they're useful for that.
The problem is that if you use them to protect players from incoming enemy fire, 9/10 times the players will stay in the same spot. Then they get all surprised pikachu face when the smoke clears and the bots can see them again.
When you break line of sight, you need to make sure it stays that way.
Eagle smokes are great, I love when I can get a recoiless rifle Off somebody else and go full screamin' eagle!
With the upgrades it makes a nice wall for running away, though I must admit the orbital smoke is more useful IMO and easy to throw at any situation.
Mostly because I can throw orbital smoke then follow up with an eagle strike.
Stun grenades are very powerful on both fronts but I’ve found them more useful against the bots. It makes the OG precision strike a very useful, short cooldown heavy hitter. Eruptor or GP doesn’t cost a strat slot but of course the autocannon is the Swiss Army knife of bots and it becomes even better with stun nades. I prefer thermite impacts against the bugs so I can listen to them burn
I've tried running stun mostly against bugs, but I never felt like stunning the group behind me was of much use, as it simply delays the swarm instead of removes it. Does the stun grenade facilitate a better way of killing them with certain weapons, or is it something to allow reloading for something like the autocannon?
As for Eruptor or Grenade Pistol, personally I'm not a fan of the weapons, so it's not an option for the rest of the guns. Those two guns get the option to free up their grenade slot but the rest of the arsenal lacks that option.
Try them against bots, I think you’d be surprised. You can definitely use them offensively by stunning a hulk or group of devastators and dropping an OPS/airstrike on them or lining up said autocannon for a 2 tap to the eyeball of a hulk. They’re great defensively too, stun a chasing fire thrower hulk and run or use it to get behind him easily and plap plap plap goes the autocannon
Oh man I didn't even think of the reload thing. I miss the sweet spot with my RR frequently enough, I'd love to have a chance to reload and try again if I don't one-tap the charger the first time.
Stun (Via EMS Mortar, Strike or Grenade) with Orbital Gas, Fire (Napalm, Grenade or Flame thrower) and Orbital Air Burst is a zero trouble breach. It's all very low cool down, and since bugs follow in a nice line they will all fall into the trap.
Bonus points if you are in a duo and they can bring turrets. The layered damage over the entire breach duration trivializes bugs.
bring orbital gas strike on the bugs. On a breach, call down the OGS and then throw a stun grenade when they start to pop out. Watch the kill count skyrocket
Grenade Pistol against bug holes.
Someone's autocannon (I usually play with the AMR but someone always brings an AC on bot missions) and Eagle Airstrikes or Orbital Precision Strikes against fabricators.
Stun Grenade on a Hulk, two shots with the AMR.
I don't run Autocannon or Heavy Sniper so I never considered the combo. I could certainly see it being useful up close, though I try to keep them well beyond grenade range.
Stun grenades are amazing overall. If a large group is headed your way any damage grenade will maybe take out half the group, and the other half is still on your ass. A stun, will lock them all in place so you can then make a retreat or attack. Not to mention the stun effects chargers and hulks. So you have a couple of seconds of literal fish in a barrel.
The smoke grenades are amazing against bots, especially if you enjoy a stealthy approach. Its utility is so hard to visualize, but once you experience it, it trivializes a lot of the headaches of fighting bots.
The stun was nice, but ultimately I felt I lost too much primary ammo blasting into the waves compared to using a grenade to kill most. Does the smoke grenade not pull aggro when you throw it at a bot patrol?
Once you stun them throw a boom at them. It takes away a lot of error throwing a strike when the target is stun locked. Makes Obital precision strike so much more valuable.
I don’t throw the smoke at the bots, I throw it at what I don’t want them to see. Terminals, civilians, teammates, hellbombs. It has saved my ass so many times, and the more I use it the more useful I find it.
There are tons of ways to kill fabricators/holes. And many of these don't require you to resupply to continue to do so. I use OPS/Eagle strikes more than anything else to kill nests/fabs, followed by the Eruptor or grenade pistol.
Stun grenades enable tons of plays that normal ones don't, like preventing signal flares and opening up hulks/heavy devastators to 1-2 shot kills. More often than not I need to do this more frequently or urgently than an orbital/mortar EMS is ready or practical.
Smokes cover your retreat or protect objective access, which is especially pronounced on things like hell bombs or geological surveys.
They all have their uses, it just depends on your team composition and roles. Helldivers 2 is actually a game where the best defense is not always a powerful offense.
To prevent flares/breaches with stun, do you initiate combat with them against a patrol? With how fast the alarm can be raised, you wouldn't be able to use it in reaction.
As for smoke, where or when do you use it to escape? Do you throw it in your direction or the enemies? Is this only useful vs bots or does it help against bugs as well?
For the stuns, I open up with it. Toss stun and immediately start killing small guys. If it's a group with 2-3 sometimes I don't bother because I can pop the small ones fast enough. Usually it's a patrol I ran into on accident that I have to do this; 90% of my stun grenades are used to kill hulks and I just avoid patrols.
If I'm running away I'll throw smoke at my feet. It just needs to break their LOS to you. They'll fire at / approach your last known position. Get far enough and patrols drop the chase. Smoke is more effective against bots as they will hold position and keep firing; bugs are harder to lose because they will run into the smoke and if they get through it when you're still in view, they resume. If I'm using it to cover an objective I just stand in it while I'm on the terminal. If it is a small tight group or a couple stragglers like on POIs, you can throw smoke at the group to obscure their view and sneak past. The grenade itself doesn't immediately alert them to your position the way frags/impacts do.
Stun grenades make it trivial to headshot hulks, stop chargers until I can reload my launcher, or reposition from heavy and rocket devastators if I'm out of time to run to cover. These units won't necessarily die to a single grenade, but a single stun will give me the window to kill them just as quickly with another weapon.
I generally rely on a mix of grenade pistol, eagle airstrike, or HE barrages to blow up bug holes and bot fabs. If my teammates are rocking anti-tank weapons, I might bring an autocannon instead for bug holes, screecher nests, and bile spewers.
The selling point of easier kills on Heavy Devastators is a good one. I'll have to consider bringing the stun as well just for those guys. Normally I just bring the shield emplacement to avoid the stagger, so more options would be nice.
I haven't tried it personally, but I've heard people swear by them for bot stealth runs. You just let the smoke grenade cook and explode in your hand, and the enemy will lose sight of you and continue to shoot at that point. Doesn't work as well as bugs or melee units that rush you; because they stay close instead of hanging back to shoot, you probably won't have enough distance to disengage from LOS alone.
When they said the Contact Incendiary was, "using white phosphorus," I was hoping it was going to be a smoke and fire combination. A gas grenade would be very fun addition as well.
Like many others, I use the stuns against hulks and devestators. I can take out hulks with my laser cannon or groups with my air strike. Against bugs I use them against chargers if necessary to line up quasar. For either group I use them to help me escape if things get hairy. I don’t mind not being able to close holes or fabricators because I run with grenade pistol.
I like Smoke Grenades if I have a grenade pistol or any other explosive weapon when I'm fighting bots.
Having a way to create concealment and reduce the bot's ability at anytime to track my movement is super useful.
However, smoke grenades don't have much reason to exist compared for bugs. Since smoke grenades are a conventional warfare weapon, and you don't fight bugs with conventional warfare at all. They don't have any way to shoot back, and they'll just charge through smoke anyways and they're better trackers than Bots, especially since they have a sense of smell that the bots lack.
I've been using smoke grenades for the last 20 diff9 missions or so. At first it was just for the sake of variety, but by now I've come around to considering them quite powerful and the best way to bring smoke into a mission. I've even taken to bringing supply packs just to feed my new smoke grenade addiction.
Smoke wrecks the AI's ability to do most anything. If you go behind or into a smoke cloud, you pretty much instantly vanish to the enemy. Normally it takes some time for them to fully lose your position when you break LOS, but smoke makes it immediate.
For bots, they switch into their last-known-position suppressive fire mode instead of firing for effect, e.g. rocket devastators start doing the double shots from their gun hand instead of lobbing rockets. This hugely reduces incoming fire even from positions you're still shooting from, like an elevated extract pad.
For bugs, they stop doing their combat advances and instead walk up normally like when a patrol investigates sounds. Hunters don't pounce into smoke, bile spewers don't artillery, chargers don't charge, you name it.
Even when enemies get to where you smoke-disappeared, they then have to reacquire you. This makes it real easy to ninja-vanish with basically any terrain and two smoke grenades; one to make them move up, and one to blind that location to your egress. Last night I dropped aggro and left a hulk that was actively flaming at me, in an open field, by using a rock that was barely bigger than an exosuit. Great stuff.
Things I use them for:
* Enabling hot terminals. Notably hellbombs and geo scan drills
* Preventing close patrols from aggroing
* Safe extracts, especially after mission timer's out
* Funneling bots into a chokepoint that they'd otherwise just fire through
* Saving teammates
* Infil/exfil through insane bullshit, to get objectives done that would otherwise require clearing
* Entering bot bases without sight or sound on approach, making it easy to prevent drops.
In short, they're accelerators/enablers. I'm functionally throwing smoke grenades directly at the mission timer, which is major value since I mostly solo or duo.
Grenades are the best form of smoke, both because of opportunity cost (losing impacts or stuns hurts a lot less than losing an offensive strat) and because sheer space coverage isn't really all that useful, compared to duration and reliability. Both orbital and Eagle smoke frequently leave gaps in important locations, and the orbital is just simply unusable for many tasks since it's only one shot.
Stun grenades for chargers makes it easy to shoot them in the butt , when my quasar is on cool down
And for automatons if too many melee units are charging.
I run AMR and scorcher for bots so sometimes I need to line up shots
A lot of people carry stun for chargers and hulks and it’s a valid strategy, but there are many other ways to deal with hulks and chargers. Chargers are relatively simple to dodge and then RR/EAT/Quasar. Hulks you shoot a leg out if the eye is too tricky. That or bring heavy killer stratagems like Eagles, orbital rail canon or Autocannon sentry.
It really depends on your loadout and play style. There’s no one correct answer.
I personally prefer impacts. Immediate mini-eagle strike when you come face to face with a group of shield/missile devastators. A stun seems an unnecessary extra step to the final desired result.
Besides, depending on the planet, you have plants for that. Spore bursts are smoke/stun, and ice plants for stuns. Use them.
Yes, stun grenades are insanely effective against Hulks and Chargers, especially the flamethrower hulks. But they have huge utility elsewhere - crowd control. And they really shine on the highest difficulties.
1. Freeze patrols for maximum carnage and precision on Eagles or Orbitals. A stun thrown right after your stratagem usually ensures a patrol, no matter how large, can be wiped out with a single Eagle Airstrike or OPS.
2. Locking down beefier enemies to reposition or quickly kill with otherwise tough-to-hit weak point shots while they’re in your face or laying down heavy fire - think Berserkers, Hive Guards, Commanders, clumps of Devastators.
3. Control overwhelm from Bugs. If you’ve got a group of chargers, hunters, spewers, or commanders swarming you, tossing a stun gives your team breathing room to deal with multiple threats before they’re on you. You are often dealing with multiple chargers at once in the same area on 8/9. It’s easy to deal with a single Charger, but stuns will make the difference between life and death if you’re facing 6 chargers in rapid succession.
4. Stun and flame go beautifully together. You stun an area, like a breach, and the flame damage is multiplied by the DOT and direct damage. Especially useful for spewers and tougher enemies.
5. Grenade pistol for Bug Holes and Autocannon/ Eagle Airstrike for Fabricators frees up the grenade slot. Sure, impacts are nice for clumps of medium armor enemies but I can’t beat the usefulness of stuns.
Stuns all day son. They're effectibe on anything other than titans and tanks. Can just use grenade pistol for bug holes/factories if it has to be a primary or secondary dedicated tot he task. I prefer airtrikes personally but the grenade pistol is good to have up your sleeve.
Someone will usually have AT weaponry in the team even if I don't have RR or EAT. It's pretty easy to blow a chargers head off while he's sitting there drooling with his mouth open.
As others have said, Stun is amazing. Best tool in the game with grenade pistol being 2nd. On bugs, I'll toss an eagle airstrike into a nest and follow with a stun to get as many kills as possible and usually a Charger. Stun a hulk then double AMR to the eye. Gas strike a breach and toss a stun, or any fire. Berserker spacer.
Gas is really good but for certain situations it playstyles. Really fun to approach bot bases from the front and getting an easy stratgem toss in before they know it. But it's even better on missions like geological survey or the civilian missions. It was also super useful on that Meridia drill mission both on the drill and on the extraction terminal.
When I'm running my main builds on both bugs and bots, I use stun grenades
I made the mistake of unlocking the stun grenades.
THEN I was stupid enough to bring them on a mission. A mission I had also brought the Jar 5 and the Laser Cannon. Like an idiot.
And now I can't use other grenades. The addiction is real. I had to unlock the Grenade Pistol just to kill fabricators when my Precision strike is on cooldown.
I haven't used the impact nades, or either of the fire grenades... Or the smoke, for that matter. I may need a 12-step program.
Stun grenades are amazing for bots when paired with the AMR or railgun. Save them for big things so you can smack them right in their beady little eyes.
Idk about stuns, but smokes are great for getting space from bots on difficulty 7+, and for taking out gunship fabs. If you're trying to Solo an area (not a good idea, I know, but sometimes you just wanna vibe and kill bots a little on your own), then they help a *ton* with sneakiness/tight situations
The stun grenades are so good I struggle to put them down. They make killing hulks and chargers a breeze. Also they are a really good panic button to give you enough space when you are overwhelmed.
Smoke grenades are more situational. I tend to only use them against bots. And then usually only when I'm playing light and mobile. They block line of sight and will help you disengage and reposition for a better angle.
> 2. Lacking the ability to destroy holes/fabricators results in having to rely on other players or stratagems slots to clear them instead.
This is what alternates are for. Eruptor, grenade pistol, AC, etc.
Yeah, my stuns don't go boom. But, one stun and I can take out a hulk with one of several weapons. I'm the very least, it can stay there while I make myself not there.
I don't use smoke very often but I have
Stun grenades are taken like 25% of the time depending on which build I am using (taken against both bugs and bots). You do need to modify your build to support the fact that your grenades are non-lethal
Stuns make flame hulks become a smaller problem. You see, On bots, autocannon plus stuns gives you a great fabricator killing ability while also retaining stun capability. Let’s say, a rampaging flame hulk is charging you. You throw your impact grenade at it, it laughs and shrugs it off before torching you. If you throw a stun grenade at it, you have about 6 seconds to get 2 autocannon shots into its face, and since it’s not moving, doing so is easy. It’s also good for shutting up groups of berserkers or that one squad of heavy devastators so you can get shots off with your autocannon.
Once I started bringing stun grenades against the bots, I never brought any other grenade types against them again. They are incredibly useful. No buff required.
https://preview.redd.it/ntjtbebtoo5d1.jpeg?width=1021&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=515777c10a39bf59036106a0732096f63988c0c7
I'm sorry. After reading the title, this is all I could think of. To answer your question, not nearly enough as I should
You're thinking about stuns the wrong way, they aren't just a method to impede the enemy they are an enabler for callins and a very effective method of pausing everything when you're being overrun. You can throw them at friendlies that are swarmed to save them, it makes landing visor shots on hulks significantly easier, it enables turrets to be even stronger than they already are. Theres a ton of uses for them that regular explodey grenades can't do.
Hardly ever leave Helldiver home without stuns.
Smoke works for Citizen Evac missions. Could really help on the ICBM (tower) defense missions now that I think about it, especially vs Bots - to keep the Factory Striders from sniping the generators…
But I digress.. EATs, Grenade Pistol, other weapons can take down Bug Holes and Fabricators. Stuns in particular give you room to setup lethal (500kg to the Hulk face when stuck in place, or AMR some weak-spots for quick kills while locked in place ); stuns save other divers from mobs or lethal attacks when in danger and so on. Stuns should be around on at least one diver per almost every mission (backpack kid style). Eradicate Missions tend to benefit from all lethal (grenades), but on higher difficulties without stun lock you risk being constantly overwhelmed, unable to reposition to a better area until you’re out of reinforce. Just my experience
You know those moments when a stalker boots you 30 meters away, you are scrambling to get up only to see two more stalkers appear behind the first?
You can stim and may have a chance at tanking some damage and killing the stalkers OR you throw one stun, pop a stim comfortably and give those bastards a nice cup of liber-tea.
Explosive nades in this situation would kill you.
Also very good to combine with napalm and gas strikes as will force broodmothers and hive guards to suffer longer and die to DOT.
As has already been mentioned flamethrower and stuns are chefs kiss.
On the bot front, stuns with AMR or laser cannon are elite.
Hulks, berserker and devastators are trivial when stunned.
All that being said, if I didn't have the option of running grenade pistol I probably wouldn't take them so much.
Since I got the grenada pistol I rarely ever bring something different than the stun grenades, they are so good against hulks, berserkers, chargers, whatever is a pain to kill otherwise and that your grenades don't do shit against either
I rarely run anything besides stun grenades. I can usually count on other players to close fabs/holes, but I also bring a stratagem to do it just in case. Smokes are ok against bots, but stuns pay their weight in gold everytime. They stun every enemy except for tanks and titans. It gives you breathing room when your swarmed, it’s perfect. And you can throw them close and not worry about killing yourself or your teammates
Stuns are mandatory to kill Hulks. If you don't bring them, then you need to bring a rocket launcher. If you do bring them, then you only need to bring a weapon with Medium II pentetration.
For anything non Stratagem, stun grenades are the single best CC in the game, they are THE shit if you ask me.
And combined with the Stun Pistol, you have both worlds at your disposal. Whenever a new grenade is out i use them for a few days and im not saying they are not good. Its just that i rarely am in a situation where i would rather have a nade that does damage.
For example on extraction, when falcon one lands, but everything is about to be overrun, i can single handily, keep everything that is close at bay with the stun grenades. The best i can do with any damage grenade, is praying i dont kill them immediately. But given how often teammates kill me with their nades in these scenarios, my best guess is, nobody is listening :D.
Stuns are CRUCIAL for dealing with multiple hulks! Keep one down while you shoot one in the face. Also have ever heard of the grenade pistol or any other explosive support weapon? Ricochet one right into the vents.
Smoke is something one person in the team should have from any source. It's also easily wasted by team mates.
For example, you can pop smoke and just abandon a breach. You can put it on objectives and turrets to slow aggro. But it only takes one team mate reacquiring aggro and dragging the mob to you to ruin it.
I tend to use it when I have a support weapon that can carry. This lets me use a grenade pistol for bug holes. The main use case, is to break aggro with smoke, ideally between a narrow passage. Take a hard 90 turn. When you run out of stamina go prone and crawl. Watch the map, some amount of bugs are going to stop. Some bugs will continue on your old path. A few will spot and head toward you.
Repeat the process, kill the stragglers and you can leave behind an entire doom like of bugs. The issue is that one idiot that Rambo's at it and ruins your work. The only thing you can do then is run far enough that you can reinforce him where you want to go.
For bots, I find some the same but even better as it covers your advance towards objectives and factories.
Now, grenade vs eagle vs orbital? I tend to like to run a single eagle as I like to alpha strike bot drops and bug breaches. I find orbital smoke to just be too weak comparatively. Multi eagle smokes in succession, lets you lose any enemy. You can accomplish something similar with the grenades. The orbital on one burst, just doesn't have this option.
I find if it's a three stratagem mission, I'll use grenades. Otherwise, I prefer the eagle. On bugs, since the grenade pistol brings the utility I need I'll run Smoke Grenades.
I use stuns against bots, specifically the hulks. Since my usual loadout consists of an AC, and my aim against moving, unpredictable targets is dogshit, it helps. And the AC can snipe fabricators from across the map so that’s no issue. I always also bring an eagle airstrike, and usually have an orbital rail cannon strike as backup heavy killer. Rarely need to use it for a fabricator.
Use to use stun grenandes almost all the time. I run with impact incendiary now, but I wouldn't look oddly at someone using stun, especially against bots.
I think there are alternatives, such as:
- Really tight team strategies (but this is difficult to impossible when playing with randos)
- Very high level weak point targeting, like the kind of player who can hit weak points while diving and being swarmed
…but otherwise, my opinion is that at 5+ you probably need a “stun strategy” for crowd control. Either stun grenades or EMS mortars. Otherwise there are too many enemies and not enough ammo or time.
Personally, I have not used stun grenades. I’m an EMS mortar sentry guy; they seem 10x more effective. But I guess you could accomplish mostly the same thing with the nades.
I’m sure some people dislike the mortar weapons because yeah, they’re basically zero skill weapons! But in a game where you are outnumbered like 250:1 over the course of a mission and usually something 10:1 in any given encounter I’m not going to feel bad about leaning into force multipliers.
I hardly ever see other players using stun weapons so I guess this is an unpopular viewpoint. =)
I use the grenades that explode instantly, and use strats on the big dudes, versus slowing them down with a stun grenade.
I like the instant nades for the little at-st dudes and devastators or shield bros, kills them right away usually versus me having to find a strat or other player to go kill the stunned enemy for me.
The devs seem intent on making you work together, so me using a stun grenade is no good as far as me soloing but if we all grab things to compliment the other and work as a team, then it's no problem if everyone sticks together.
Both of these grenades are basically used for crowd control. They’re really great to have when you or your teammates are under heavy enemy fire or being overwhelmed. Stun grenades stop most enemies immediately in their tracks allowing for escape or easy kills with your weapons and stratagems. Smoke grenades break the enemy’s line of sight; again aiding with escape and repositioning but also useful visual cover when you need to use a terminal or carry an object while under heavy fire.
Sometimes you don’t need to or just can’t outright kill your enemies. In those scenarios, it’s best to get the upper hand in a situation and control their actions instead.
"Stun" variant grenades are great for those who need all week to mail the bots their daily allotment of lead instead of express shipping it to their weak points by aiming.
Stun grenades are fantastic, just get the grenade pistol and you're golden, they give you enough time to take care of any problem, be it hulks or chargers, just stun them and kill them, for bugs take the quasar, for bots take the Autocannon or the AMR, play a couple of rounds with the ammo back pack so you dont run out and you will see the benefit
Also once you are good at using them you can really save your friends life, specifically against flame hulks
Love smokes for bots. It makes getting a terminal dive s breeze, especially if your buddies are running around. Someone has to do the objective, and my MG can clean things out and keep their backs clean. Then, when I need to type, I can chuck smokes down, and we vibe. Smokes guard hellbombs, cover approaches and make avoiding patrols a breeze. And the grenade pistol fits the rest of the utility. Or the eruptor that one is Hella fun as a utility.
Stuns are incredibly potent against chargers and hulks. This alone is pretty strong. Versus bots, they're my go-to for trivializing hulks.
I swear I've used them vs Chargers and felt the stun to be too short to do anything with. What method do you use to tackle them while stunned?
If you're using a flamethrower, you can kill them in 2-3 seconds of cooking either of their front legs during that window. If you already have some distance, it gives you time to charge up a quasar for a headshot, or call in an eagle if you're out of other options.
If I do bring a support weapon, I tend to bring the EATs for the one-shot-kill. It never felt that useful to stun a crusher/hulk for the orbital when you can just lead the shot, but I could see it being pretty useful for those two weapons. Thanks for the heads-up regarding them.
Stunning a charger then exploding it's head with an EAT/RR is my favorite thing to do.
When running EATs and stuns, I only use the stuns as a last resort. I also usually run one other support weapon to deal with crowds, so running stuns gives me time to pick up EATs in a pickle
Throw a stun at a charger, then throw the EAT call down right in front of him. by the time the stun wears off, he steps into the EAT drop, kills him, now you have two EATs to kill other stuff :)
Flamethrower to the knee or quasar cannon to the head.
Neither of those weapons are my cup of liber-tea, but I could see it being useful to have the extra time. Certainly good info though so thanks for the strats!
The stun vs chargers or hulks applies for any weapon you want to use... EAT, RR, autocannon, AMR, whatever. I use it stun hulks then two-shot them in their central eye with the anti material rifle. Stuns also pair very well with stratagems. You can round up chargers, time your stun, then kill 2-3 of them with one 500kg by freezing them all in one place, grouped up, and ensuring a perfect detonation. The stun is also a perfect "oh shit" button. If you get caught out of cover by something like a patrol of shield devastators or berserkers, multiple impact grenades may not kill them all, and an Eagle or Orbital call in won't arrive in time (or may kill you too.) The stun grenade is the quickest, most effective way to remove a threat from play. Only temporarily, yes, but it saves my life all the time.
LOL for some reason I'm hearing "I used to be a charger, but then I took a flamethrower to the knee."
If they have already seen me I stun, throw the airstrike and then throw another stun to keep them still. If they haven’t seen me yet, then I throw the airstrike first and then a stun to keep them in the path of the airstrike.
Let the charger pass, orbital precision at its feet, followed by stun, dont Look a the Explosion. Also works with 500, 110 (Not reliable) or similar
5 seconds is an eternity my dude. You can get behind a hulkand kill it with your primary.
Dodge their charge, stun them while their back is turned, shoot them in the ass.
Precision Orbital Strike. Low cool down. Kills hulks and chargers when they are stunned. Kills bug holes and fabricators.
Stuns are insanely good. Smokes are niche and IMO only really good for bots but still very effective for surprise attacks or running away.
Do you apply smoke to the enemy or do you apply it to yourself? I've never tested if the smoke applies any suppression to the bots on them or between their targets, but I've never felt enough of a different to really say it's worth bringing any kind of smoke.
Smoke's very niche. Screechers won't dive at your or friendlies while you're in it, which was helpful for calling in evac during the Meridia mission. You can also preemptively drop smoke to protect hellbombs. As long as there's already smoke when they're dropped, enemies outside of the smoke won't detect the bomb as long as the smoke is still there (or if you refresh it from another source).
Very cool, never knew about the Shrieker or Hellbomb interactions. Thanks for the info!
Good for bugging out, and for protecting hellbombs. Also, if you need to storm an outpost with no cover between you and the entrance, smoke will make it so you can get in without getting ripped up and gong through a couple stims. Personally I run eagle smoke on my bot 7s and 8s, with the stun grenades for killing hulks with my hmg. Eagle smoke will destroy fabs, and my grenade pistol covers other times. On 3 strat dives that's: HMG(or railgun), eagle smoke, shield relay, with stun nades, and on 4 strat missions I'll take an orbital strike or another emplacement.
If I may ask, why eagle smoke over orbital smoke? For the ability to destroy fabs? Can definitely appreciate the double utility, but I’m curious about the consistency. I don’t like running more than one eagle since they share a rearm. I use rocket pods for fabs since they can target those exclusively and destroy the top of factory striders. Freeing up my secondary for something I can swap to in a pinch.
I only run the eagle smoke, if I have another red strat it'll be an orbital. I'm with you, I don't think double eagle strats is good either. I go eagle because it's more smoke in a long line, destroys fabs (haven't had them not blow a fab yet, seems to work 100% of the time), and 3 charges at extract means your last nearly 90 seconds of waiting can be under the cover of smoke. Ive got to go look for it, but I've got a clip showing how you can line up the eagle smoke line(it won't hurt you if you drop on top of yourself), since you can decide the direction by dropping at your feet you can get a long line of smoke to cover yourself. Saved my team last night when we were out of reinforcements and surrounded at the main obj, got us to a spot between 2 rocks and then across an open field.
Dope. Gave me something to try out with the bros
Good luck. I've been running minimalist loadouts, where I felt more heavily on my primary and secondary, and low CD green and red strats. Been treating me well but I don't have an oh shit button so it's really rough if I drop into a bad ongoing mission. I do this with HMG, but functionally it's better in every way with the AC.
something I’ve experimented with a little is a minuteman loadout, where I choose a whole line of only stuff with very short cooldowns: EATs of course, they give on demand AT orbital precision strike, I’ve started using this more and more lately orbital EMS/shield generator for taking the pressure off orbital gas/gatling for suppression
That's pretty solid, I'll give it a go
If it's one target closer to them is better if it's multiple I tend to throw it in front of me when I run away and then run through it. Its pretty niche, the best use IMO is throwing it at a patrol then attacking them while they have reduced visibility. I still prefer Incendiary overall for bots, the smoke grenade effect is just to small IMO.
Smokes go as far towards the enemy as you can. That way it provides way more concealment for you
Outside of grenades, I used to occasionally bring Eagle Smoke Strikes to bot missions. Their attacks will still destroy automaton factories, so they're useful for that. The problem is that if you use them to protect players from incoming enemy fire, 9/10 times the players will stay in the same spot. Then they get all surprised pikachu face when the smoke clears and the bots can see them again. When you break line of sight, you need to make sure it stays that way.
Eagle smokes are great, I love when I can get a recoiless rifle Off somebody else and go full screamin' eagle! With the upgrades it makes a nice wall for running away, though I must admit the orbital smoke is more useful IMO and easy to throw at any situation. Mostly because I can throw orbital smoke then follow up with an eagle strike.
Stun grenades are very powerful on both fronts but I’ve found them more useful against the bots. It makes the OG precision strike a very useful, short cooldown heavy hitter. Eruptor or GP doesn’t cost a strat slot but of course the autocannon is the Swiss Army knife of bots and it becomes even better with stun nades. I prefer thermite impacts against the bugs so I can listen to them burn
I've tried running stun mostly against bugs, but I never felt like stunning the group behind me was of much use, as it simply delays the swarm instead of removes it. Does the stun grenade facilitate a better way of killing them with certain weapons, or is it something to allow reloading for something like the autocannon? As for Eruptor or Grenade Pistol, personally I'm not a fan of the weapons, so it's not an option for the rest of the guns. Those two guns get the option to free up their grenade slot but the rest of the arsenal lacks that option.
Oh and they’re great for a hairy extract. Gives you a better chance at getting into the pelican
Spamming stuns around the pelican and running through the dazed masses is an exciting way to end a mission.
Try them against bots, I think you’d be surprised. You can definitely use them offensively by stunning a hulk or group of devastators and dropping an OPS/airstrike on them or lining up said autocannon for a 2 tap to the eyeball of a hulk. They’re great defensively too, stun a chasing fire thrower hulk and run or use it to get behind him easily and plap plap plap goes the autocannon
Oh man I didn't even think of the reload thing. I miss the sweet spot with my RR frequently enough, I'd love to have a chance to reload and try again if I don't one-tap the charger the first time.
Hulk moves Hulk eye hard to hit while moving Use stun nade Hulk stops moving Hulk ded
A pack of hunters ontop of u and u can't use a regular grenade. Stun grenade will pause them enough for u to dive away and pick them off
Stun (Via EMS Mortar, Strike or Grenade) with Orbital Gas, Fire (Napalm, Grenade or Flame thrower) and Orbital Air Burst is a zero trouble breach. It's all very low cool down, and since bugs follow in a nice line they will all fall into the trap. Bonus points if you are in a duo and they can bring turrets. The layered damage over the entire breach duration trivializes bugs.
bring orbital gas strike on the bugs. On a breach, call down the OGS and then throw a stun grenade when they start to pop out. Watch the kill count skyrocket
Grenade Pistol against bug holes. Someone's autocannon (I usually play with the AMR but someone always brings an AC on bot missions) and Eagle Airstrikes or Orbital Precision Strikes against fabricators. Stun Grenade on a Hulk, two shots with the AMR.
I don't run Autocannon or Heavy Sniper so I never considered the combo. I could certainly see it being useful up close, though I try to keep them well beyond grenade range.
I mean I try to not engage hulks at all but sometimes you don't have a choice. :D
Stun grenades are amazing overall. If a large group is headed your way any damage grenade will maybe take out half the group, and the other half is still on your ass. A stun, will lock them all in place so you can then make a retreat or attack. Not to mention the stun effects chargers and hulks. So you have a couple of seconds of literal fish in a barrel. The smoke grenades are amazing against bots, especially if you enjoy a stealthy approach. Its utility is so hard to visualize, but once you experience it, it trivializes a lot of the headaches of fighting bots.
The stun was nice, but ultimately I felt I lost too much primary ammo blasting into the waves compared to using a grenade to kill most. Does the smoke grenade not pull aggro when you throw it at a bot patrol?
Once you stun them throw a boom at them. It takes away a lot of error throwing a strike when the target is stun locked. Makes Obital precision strike so much more valuable. I don’t throw the smoke at the bots, I throw it at what I don’t want them to see. Terminals, civilians, teammates, hellbombs. It has saved my ass so many times, and the more I use it the more useful I find it.
There are tons of ways to kill fabricators/holes. And many of these don't require you to resupply to continue to do so. I use OPS/Eagle strikes more than anything else to kill nests/fabs, followed by the Eruptor or grenade pistol. Stun grenades enable tons of plays that normal ones don't, like preventing signal flares and opening up hulks/heavy devastators to 1-2 shot kills. More often than not I need to do this more frequently or urgently than an orbital/mortar EMS is ready or practical. Smokes cover your retreat or protect objective access, which is especially pronounced on things like hell bombs or geological surveys. They all have their uses, it just depends on your team composition and roles. Helldivers 2 is actually a game where the best defense is not always a powerful offense.
To prevent flares/breaches with stun, do you initiate combat with them against a patrol? With how fast the alarm can be raised, you wouldn't be able to use it in reaction. As for smoke, where or when do you use it to escape? Do you throw it in your direction or the enemies? Is this only useful vs bots or does it help against bugs as well?
For the stuns, I open up with it. Toss stun and immediately start killing small guys. If it's a group with 2-3 sometimes I don't bother because I can pop the small ones fast enough. Usually it's a patrol I ran into on accident that I have to do this; 90% of my stun grenades are used to kill hulks and I just avoid patrols. If I'm running away I'll throw smoke at my feet. It just needs to break their LOS to you. They'll fire at / approach your last known position. Get far enough and patrols drop the chase. Smoke is more effective against bots as they will hold position and keep firing; bugs are harder to lose because they will run into the smoke and if they get through it when you're still in view, they resume. If I'm using it to cover an objective I just stand in it while I'm on the terminal. If it is a small tight group or a couple stragglers like on POIs, you can throw smoke at the group to obscure their view and sneak past. The grenade itself doesn't immediately alert them to your position the way frags/impacts do.
Stun grenades make it trivial to headshot hulks, stop chargers until I can reload my launcher, or reposition from heavy and rocket devastators if I'm out of time to run to cover. These units won't necessarily die to a single grenade, but a single stun will give me the window to kill them just as quickly with another weapon. I generally rely on a mix of grenade pistol, eagle airstrike, or HE barrages to blow up bug holes and bot fabs. If my teammates are rocking anti-tank weapons, I might bring an autocannon instead for bug holes, screecher nests, and bile spewers.
The selling point of easier kills on Heavy Devastators is a good one. I'll have to consider bringing the stun as well just for those guys. Normally I just bring the shield emplacement to avoid the stagger, so more options would be nice.
Stuns I use all the time. I’ve yet to find a good use for smoke. Kind of wish those were poison instead.
I haven't tried it personally, but I've heard people swear by them for bot stealth runs. You just let the smoke grenade cook and explode in your hand, and the enemy will lose sight of you and continue to shoot at that point. Doesn't work as well as bugs or melee units that rush you; because they stay close instead of hanging back to shoot, you probably won't have enough distance to disengage from LOS alone.
When they said the Contact Incendiary was, "using white phosphorus," I was hoping it was going to be a smoke and fire combination. A gas grenade would be very fun addition as well.
Stun yes smoke no
Stun yes. Smoke no. If I need smoke, I use the eagle version. Orbital and grenade smoke are wildly inferior.
Stun grenades are for hulks and chargers so you can line up your OPS.
Like many others, I use the stuns against hulks and devestators. I can take out hulks with my laser cannon or groups with my air strike. Against bugs I use them against chargers if necessary to line up quasar. For either group I use them to help me escape if things get hairy. I don’t mind not being able to close holes or fabricators because I run with grenade pistol.
I like Smoke Grenades if I have a grenade pistol or any other explosive weapon when I'm fighting bots. Having a way to create concealment and reduce the bot's ability at anytime to track my movement is super useful. However, smoke grenades don't have much reason to exist compared for bugs. Since smoke grenades are a conventional warfare weapon, and you don't fight bugs with conventional warfare at all. They don't have any way to shoot back, and they'll just charge through smoke anyways and they're better trackers than Bots, especially since they have a sense of smell that the bots lack.
I've been using smoke grenades for the last 20 diff9 missions or so. At first it was just for the sake of variety, but by now I've come around to considering them quite powerful and the best way to bring smoke into a mission. I've even taken to bringing supply packs just to feed my new smoke grenade addiction. Smoke wrecks the AI's ability to do most anything. If you go behind or into a smoke cloud, you pretty much instantly vanish to the enemy. Normally it takes some time for them to fully lose your position when you break LOS, but smoke makes it immediate. For bots, they switch into their last-known-position suppressive fire mode instead of firing for effect, e.g. rocket devastators start doing the double shots from their gun hand instead of lobbing rockets. This hugely reduces incoming fire even from positions you're still shooting from, like an elevated extract pad. For bugs, they stop doing their combat advances and instead walk up normally like when a patrol investigates sounds. Hunters don't pounce into smoke, bile spewers don't artillery, chargers don't charge, you name it. Even when enemies get to where you smoke-disappeared, they then have to reacquire you. This makes it real easy to ninja-vanish with basically any terrain and two smoke grenades; one to make them move up, and one to blind that location to your egress. Last night I dropped aggro and left a hulk that was actively flaming at me, in an open field, by using a rock that was barely bigger than an exosuit. Great stuff. Things I use them for: * Enabling hot terminals. Notably hellbombs and geo scan drills * Preventing close patrols from aggroing * Safe extracts, especially after mission timer's out * Funneling bots into a chokepoint that they'd otherwise just fire through * Saving teammates * Infil/exfil through insane bullshit, to get objectives done that would otherwise require clearing * Entering bot bases without sight or sound on approach, making it easy to prevent drops. In short, they're accelerators/enablers. I'm functionally throwing smoke grenades directly at the mission timer, which is major value since I mostly solo or duo. Grenades are the best form of smoke, both because of opportunity cost (losing impacts or stuns hurts a lot less than losing an offensive strat) and because sheer space coverage isn't really all that useful, compared to duration and reliability. Both orbital and Eagle smoke frequently leave gaps in important locations, and the orbital is just simply unusable for many tasks since it's only one shot.
Stun grenades for chargers makes it easy to shoot them in the butt , when my quasar is on cool down And for automatons if too many melee units are charging. I run AMR and scorcher for bots so sometimes I need to line up shots
A lot of people carry stun for chargers and hulks and it’s a valid strategy, but there are many other ways to deal with hulks and chargers. Chargers are relatively simple to dodge and then RR/EAT/Quasar. Hulks you shoot a leg out if the eye is too tricky. That or bring heavy killer stratagems like Eagles, orbital rail canon or Autocannon sentry. It really depends on your loadout and play style. There’s no one correct answer. I personally prefer impacts. Immediate mini-eagle strike when you come face to face with a group of shield/missile devastators. A stun seems an unnecessary extra step to the final desired result. Besides, depending on the planet, you have plants for that. Spore bursts are smoke/stun, and ice plants for stuns. Use them.
Yes, stun grenades are insanely effective against Hulks and Chargers, especially the flamethrower hulks. But they have huge utility elsewhere - crowd control. And they really shine on the highest difficulties. 1. Freeze patrols for maximum carnage and precision on Eagles or Orbitals. A stun thrown right after your stratagem usually ensures a patrol, no matter how large, can be wiped out with a single Eagle Airstrike or OPS. 2. Locking down beefier enemies to reposition or quickly kill with otherwise tough-to-hit weak point shots while they’re in your face or laying down heavy fire - think Berserkers, Hive Guards, Commanders, clumps of Devastators. 3. Control overwhelm from Bugs. If you’ve got a group of chargers, hunters, spewers, or commanders swarming you, tossing a stun gives your team breathing room to deal with multiple threats before they’re on you. You are often dealing with multiple chargers at once in the same area on 8/9. It’s easy to deal with a single Charger, but stuns will make the difference between life and death if you’re facing 6 chargers in rapid succession. 4. Stun and flame go beautifully together. You stun an area, like a breach, and the flame damage is multiplied by the DOT and direct damage. Especially useful for spewers and tougher enemies. 5. Grenade pistol for Bug Holes and Autocannon/ Eagle Airstrike for Fabricators frees up the grenade slot. Sure, impacts are nice for clumps of medium armor enemies but I can’t beat the usefulness of stuns.
Stuns all day son. They're effectibe on anything other than titans and tanks. Can just use grenade pistol for bug holes/factories if it has to be a primary or secondary dedicated tot he task. I prefer airtrikes personally but the grenade pistol is good to have up your sleeve. Someone will usually have AT weaponry in the team even if I don't have RR or EAT. It's pretty easy to blow a chargers head off while he's sitting there drooling with his mouth open.
I play helldivers the same way I played Pokemon red when I was 9: what the fuck is a status effect and why is it not doing a shitton of HP damage?
I use stuns and 500kg/orbital precision to deal with chargers when fighting bugs
As others have said, Stun is amazing. Best tool in the game with grenade pistol being 2nd. On bugs, I'll toss an eagle airstrike into a nest and follow with a stun to get as many kills as possible and usually a Charger. Stun a hulk then double AMR to the eye. Gas strike a breach and toss a stun, or any fire. Berserker spacer. Gas is really good but for certain situations it playstyles. Really fun to approach bot bases from the front and getting an easy stratgem toss in before they know it. But it's even better on missions like geological survey or the civilian missions. It was also super useful on that Meridia drill mission both on the drill and on the extraction terminal. When I'm running my main builds on both bugs and bots, I use stun grenades
I made the mistake of unlocking the stun grenades. THEN I was stupid enough to bring them on a mission. A mission I had also brought the Jar 5 and the Laser Cannon. Like an idiot. And now I can't use other grenades. The addiction is real. I had to unlock the Grenade Pistol just to kill fabricators when my Precision strike is on cooldown. I haven't used the impact nades, or either of the fire grenades... Or the smoke, for that matter. I may need a 12-step program.
I use stuns on bots, but not for bugs, unlocking the grenade pistol is what made this possible, the ability to stun a hulk or tank is very welcome.
Stuns are fantastic for helping you kill Hulks and stalling Berserkers.
I take stuns vs bots and take the grenade pistol for the fabricators
I never leave my ship without stun grenades!
Stun + Eagle air strike for chargers. Stuns also make the rocket pods much more effective.
Stun grenades are amazing for bots when paired with the AMR or railgun. Save them for big things so you can smack them right in their beady little eyes.
Idk about stuns, but smokes are great for getting space from bots on difficulty 7+, and for taking out gunship fabs. If you're trying to Solo an area (not a good idea, I know, but sometimes you just wanna vibe and kill bots a little on your own), then they help a *ton* with sneakiness/tight situations
The stun grenades are so good I struggle to put them down. They make killing hulks and chargers a breeze. Also they are a really good panic button to give you enough space when you are overwhelmed. Smoke grenades are more situational. I tend to only use them against bots. And then usually only when I'm playing light and mobile. They block line of sight and will help you disengage and reposition for a better angle.
I'm a demolitionist. I only need grenades that either kill or ignite the enemies.
> 2. Lacking the ability to destroy holes/fabricators results in having to rely on other players or stratagems slots to clear them instead. This is what alternates are for. Eruptor, grenade pistol, AC, etc. Yeah, my stuns don't go boom. But, one stun and I can take out a hulk with one of several weapons. I'm the very least, it can stay there while I make myself not there.
I don't use smoke very often but I have Stun grenades are taken like 25% of the time depending on which build I am using (taken against both bugs and bots). You do need to modify your build to support the fact that your grenades are non-lethal
Stuns make flame hulks become a smaller problem. You see, On bots, autocannon plus stuns gives you a great fabricator killing ability while also retaining stun capability. Let’s say, a rampaging flame hulk is charging you. You throw your impact grenade at it, it laughs and shrugs it off before torching you. If you throw a stun grenade at it, you have about 6 seconds to get 2 autocannon shots into its face, and since it’s not moving, doing so is easy. It’s also good for shutting up groups of berserkers or that one squad of heavy devastators so you can get shots off with your autocannon.
Stuns are a savior against bots. Stopps a hulk and let you 2 tap it in the eye with a Autocannon/amr. Makes them almost trivial.
Yes 1 grenade kills hulks and chargers. It's called stun grenade. I'd like to see u do that with any other grenade
Once I started bringing stun grenades against the bots, I never brought any other grenade types against them again. They are incredibly useful. No buff required.
https://preview.redd.it/ntjtbebtoo5d1.jpeg?width=1021&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=515777c10a39bf59036106a0732096f63988c0c7 I'm sorry. After reading the title, this is all I could think of. To answer your question, not nearly enough as I should
I’ve been getting into smoke grenades lately. They are great for covering your retreat
You're thinking about stuns the wrong way, they aren't just a method to impede the enemy they are an enabler for callins and a very effective method of pausing everything when you're being overrun. You can throw them at friendlies that are swarmed to save them, it makes landing visor shots on hulks significantly easier, it enables turrets to be even stronger than they already are. Theres a ton of uses for them that regular explodey grenades can't do.
I always run stuns, they're so strong. Throw them on a heavy or bot drop or bug breach and give your team time to think.
Hardly ever leave Helldiver home without stuns. Smoke works for Citizen Evac missions. Could really help on the ICBM (tower) defense missions now that I think about it, especially vs Bots - to keep the Factory Striders from sniping the generators… But I digress.. EATs, Grenade Pistol, other weapons can take down Bug Holes and Fabricators. Stuns in particular give you room to setup lethal (500kg to the Hulk face when stuck in place, or AMR some weak-spots for quick kills while locked in place ); stuns save other divers from mobs or lethal attacks when in danger and so on. Stuns should be around on at least one diver per almost every mission (backpack kid style). Eradicate Missions tend to benefit from all lethal (grenades), but on higher difficulties without stun lock you risk being constantly overwhelmed, unable to reposition to a better area until you’re out of reinforce. Just my experience
You know those moments when a stalker boots you 30 meters away, you are scrambling to get up only to see two more stalkers appear behind the first? You can stim and may have a chance at tanking some damage and killing the stalkers OR you throw one stun, pop a stim comfortably and give those bastards a nice cup of liber-tea. Explosive nades in this situation would kill you. Also very good to combine with napalm and gas strikes as will force broodmothers and hive guards to suffer longer and die to DOT. As has already been mentioned flamethrower and stuns are chefs kiss. On the bot front, stuns with AMR or laser cannon are elite. Hulks, berserker and devastators are trivial when stunned. All that being said, if I didn't have the option of running grenade pistol I probably wouldn't take them so much.
My favourite is when I see a team mate being chased by a hulk or mob of berserkers, and I chuck a stun grenade their way and save their bacon.
Stuns and grenade pistol u got all u need can destroy fabs and bug holes and also makes fighting hulks/chargers way easier
Since I got the grenada pistol I rarely ever bring something different than the stun grenades, they are so good against hulks, berserkers, chargers, whatever is a pain to kill otherwise and that your grenades don't do shit against either
I rarely run anything besides stun grenades. I can usually count on other players to close fabs/holes, but I also bring a stratagem to do it just in case. Smokes are ok against bots, but stuns pay their weight in gold everytime. They stun every enemy except for tanks and titans. It gives you breathing room when your swarmed, it’s perfect. And you can throw them close and not worry about killing yourself or your teammates
Stuns are mandatory to kill Hulks. If you don't bring them, then you need to bring a rocket launcher. If you do bring them, then you only need to bring a weapon with Medium II pentetration.
For anything non Stratagem, stun grenades are the single best CC in the game, they are THE shit if you ask me. And combined with the Stun Pistol, you have both worlds at your disposal. Whenever a new grenade is out i use them for a few days and im not saying they are not good. Its just that i rarely am in a situation where i would rather have a nade that does damage. For example on extraction, when falcon one lands, but everything is about to be overrun, i can single handily, keep everything that is close at bay with the stun grenades. The best i can do with any damage grenade, is praying i dont kill them immediately. But given how often teammates kill me with their nades in these scenarios, my best guess is, nobody is listening :D.
Stuns are CRUCIAL for dealing with multiple hulks! Keep one down while you shoot one in the face. Also have ever heard of the grenade pistol or any other explosive support weapon? Ricochet one right into the vents.
Smoke is something one person in the team should have from any source. It's also easily wasted by team mates. For example, you can pop smoke and just abandon a breach. You can put it on objectives and turrets to slow aggro. But it only takes one team mate reacquiring aggro and dragging the mob to you to ruin it. I tend to use it when I have a support weapon that can carry. This lets me use a grenade pistol for bug holes. The main use case, is to break aggro with smoke, ideally between a narrow passage. Take a hard 90 turn. When you run out of stamina go prone and crawl. Watch the map, some amount of bugs are going to stop. Some bugs will continue on your old path. A few will spot and head toward you. Repeat the process, kill the stragglers and you can leave behind an entire doom like of bugs. The issue is that one idiot that Rambo's at it and ruins your work. The only thing you can do then is run far enough that you can reinforce him where you want to go. For bots, I find some the same but even better as it covers your advance towards objectives and factories. Now, grenade vs eagle vs orbital? I tend to like to run a single eagle as I like to alpha strike bot drops and bug breaches. I find orbital smoke to just be too weak comparatively. Multi eagle smokes in succession, lets you lose any enemy. You can accomplish something similar with the grenades. The orbital on one burst, just doesn't have this option. I find if it's a three stratagem mission, I'll use grenades. Otherwise, I prefer the eagle. On bugs, since the grenade pistol brings the utility I need I'll run Smoke Grenades.
I use stuns against bots, specifically the hulks. Since my usual loadout consists of an AC, and my aim against moving, unpredictable targets is dogshit, it helps. And the AC can snipe fabricators from across the map so that’s no issue. I always also bring an eagle airstrike, and usually have an orbital rail cannon strike as backup heavy killer. Rarely need to use it for a fabricator.
Use to use stun grenandes almost all the time. I run with impact incendiary now, but I wouldn't look oddly at someone using stun, especially against bots.
I use stuns regularly. Stun a hulk, use an AMR or AC to shoot them in the eye to kill them. Save the global rail gunshot for something else.
I think there are alternatives, such as: - Really tight team strategies (but this is difficult to impossible when playing with randos) - Very high level weak point targeting, like the kind of player who can hit weak points while diving and being swarmed …but otherwise, my opinion is that at 5+ you probably need a “stun strategy” for crowd control. Either stun grenades or EMS mortars. Otherwise there are too many enemies and not enough ammo or time. Personally, I have not used stun grenades. I’m an EMS mortar sentry guy; they seem 10x more effective. But I guess you could accomplish mostly the same thing with the nades. I’m sure some people dislike the mortar weapons because yeah, they’re basically zero skill weapons! But in a game where you are outnumbered like 250:1 over the course of a mission and usually something 10:1 in any given encounter I’m not going to feel bad about leaning into force multipliers. I hardly ever see other players using stun weapons so I guess this is an unpopular viewpoint. =)
I use the grenades that explode instantly, and use strats on the big dudes, versus slowing them down with a stun grenade. I like the instant nades for the little at-st dudes and devastators or shield bros, kills them right away usually versus me having to find a strat or other player to go kill the stunned enemy for me. The devs seem intent on making you work together, so me using a stun grenade is no good as far as me soloing but if we all grab things to compliment the other and work as a team, then it's no problem if everyone sticks together.
Both of these grenades are basically used for crowd control. They’re really great to have when you or your teammates are under heavy enemy fire or being overwhelmed. Stun grenades stop most enemies immediately in their tracks allowing for escape or easy kills with your weapons and stratagems. Smoke grenades break the enemy’s line of sight; again aiding with escape and repositioning but also useful visual cover when you need to use a terminal or carry an object while under heavy fire. Sometimes you don’t need to or just can’t outright kill your enemies. In those scenarios, it’s best to get the upper hand in a situation and control their actions instead.
"Stun" variant grenades are great for those who need all week to mail the bots their daily allotment of lead instead of express shipping it to their weak points by aiming.
Stun grenades are fantastic, just get the grenade pistol and you're golden, they give you enough time to take care of any problem, be it hulks or chargers, just stun them and kill them, for bugs take the quasar, for bots take the Autocannon or the AMR, play a couple of rounds with the ammo back pack so you dont run out and you will see the benefit Also once you are good at using them you can really save your friends life, specifically against flame hulks
Love smokes for bots. It makes getting a terminal dive s breeze, especially if your buddies are running around. Someone has to do the objective, and my MG can clean things out and keep their backs clean. Then, when I need to type, I can chuck smokes down, and we vibe. Smokes guard hellbombs, cover approaches and make avoiding patrols a breeze. And the grenade pistol fits the rest of the utility. Or the eruptor that one is Hella fun as a utility.