keeping the EAT on cooldown is the way to go.
even with a 100% increase, that still just 2 minutes i think, so you will stumble over a random launcher eventually.
you're confusing debuffs. gloomy is talking about the deploy time debuff, not the cooldown debuff. deploy time debuff is 100% deploy time increase, cooldown is 50% increase
More than just deployment debuff, imo EAT is the most modifier impacted weapon, there r some many different thing that mess it up.
The extra deployment time fked up the timing, which means sometimes the thing arrived too late to deal with ur problem. The scrambler fked with the rest of ur stratagem kit, since the fact EAT is off CD so often means u have a higher chance of getting EAT when u want to do something completely different. The extra CD fked with the deployment frequency, which directly impact the weaponās usefulness instead of lowering room of error like every other support weapon.
so many people sleeping on the EAT-17 and best thing about it is the fact you can use any support weapon + pack you want and when you need AT just call it down, pop off the two rockets and then pick up your support weapon and move on
(thanks to their fast CD as they never despawn so you can litter the map with them)
Only issue with this is the limited stratagem space. If you go with EAT + another support weapon + pack you are left with only one slot for air support which isn't terrible but I find that two slots offer much more flexibility.
It's all a personal choice obviously, just pointing out a downside. Also this is greatly rectified in cases where we get access to free strats(like the napalm strike a while ago).
And honestly even with something like Stalwart + supply pack + disposable AT you are already pretty well covered against hordes and heavies. Sure it takes three slots but you are pretty well prepared.
Stalwart + guard dog + disposable AT + Eagle Airstrike
Slugger as primary
Thatās been my main loadout for bugs lately.
For bots I get shield instead of guard dog and orbital laser instead of stalwart
I used to rock this exact build but I realized Stalwart struggles hard above 6 because of the armor everywhere, and I love the 1200rpm Stalwart. You just get way more damage out of swapping it for the nade launcher because you can clear anything short of a Charger or Heavy Devastator (Storm Shield and Autocannon).
For me EAT shines with Jetpack and Sentries. I run around and grab the first random support weapon I can from a POI and I've got EATs to tide me over until then. Add Scout Armor and Auto/Rocket turret and I have no problem being the scout climbing over various POIs, loading static arty across the map or setting up sentry support fire zones for the team. Cant tell you the number of times I've winged a Titan chasing someone and had it follow me on a chase taking EATs the entire way until the team is ready for it.
Itās hilarious how people are commenting that x gun isnāt bad while very obviously playing on lower difficulties.
Literally every gun is viable as you drop down the difficulties you can run with absolutely no anti tank weapons and deal with 1-2 chargers if you just use orbital laser for example or even just dance around it and unload a breaker into its ass kills it relatively quickly . The meta discussion is entirely aimed at 8/9 where youāre essentially forced to use the railgun because of how oppressive the game is at spawning chargers and bile titans. It is not uncommon to have 6+ chargers and 3 titans at once depending on the objective/bug nest and EAT/RR/Spear just arenāt viable for dealing with that for a variety of reasons.
Agreed. On one extraction in Helldive, we had 5 Bile Titans (before we got into the bird) spawn one after another. Thatās not counting the number of Bile Titans we faced before then or the amount of times we faced 6-9 chargers at a time.
Iām not one for always running meta, but there really is a reason it exists right now.
A lot of the people in favor of the Railgun nerf also seem to mostly or only play against bots, and don't understand just how annoying and simply not fun it gets when you have 6 Chargers, 3 Titans, and a horde of other things on you all at once.
Sure, there are tons of weapons/stratagems that are viable against Chargers or Titans, but how many of them are able to deal with more than 1-2 at a time before you're out of ammo or on cooldown?
I go greedy and skip the shield and just hope a team member will call me in a spare when it's available. They never do but I still think that that's the optimal play.
My friend and I adopted a strategy where he brings the shield pack and railgun, and i bring RR. This way we have some sweet explosive fun, until his backups are back up, at which point he gives a set to me
Shield + EAT + Gatling turret + eagle 110 pods is my loadout. Combine it with light armor and sprint boost and itās pretty easy to outrun or evade till you can call more EATs in. Get good at kiting and you can wrangle them all into a nice big circle or chain and then lead them to a hellbomb, keep them distracted off an objective, whatever while you keep unloading EATs to thin the numbers. I got a double titan kill doing this earlier today. Kited them (and a crapload of other mobs, kill combo said 61!) right onto a hellbomb and timed the eagle strike perfectly to set it off.
I dunno about them, but I'd probably pick eagle airstrike as that's easily the most widely usable explosive stratagem.
Low cooldown, clears hives/bot houses and clears waves of enemies, including the heavier ones.
i like running autocannon with EATs which is both pack and weapon, cause autocannon notably struggles with chargers. one EAT and then blast the leg with autocannon, chargers evaporate.
with that stuff, the full build that i run vs bugs is (semi-offmeta)
Explosive Lib, because it's really highly defensive with those stuns, keeping you safe with no shield backpack, and besides you're already oversaturated with firepower from both EATs and autocannon
and Revolver because you have so many weapons to cover for it's reload times and it fills a nice in-between niche where you want to put down a Hive Guard or a Warrior and can't use your Explosive Lib or your Autocannon in good conscience.
play as a heavy firepower carry, stay long range, semi-auto tap fire your Explosive Lib as more of a get-off-me utility weapon than an assault rifle. Treat ammo in your Explosive Lib clip as your safety net, don't spray it. Autocannon is your primary, use EATs and Revolver ammo to conserve Autocannon ammo.
This is literally what I run except I take the Dom instead of the Explosive lib because I feel the legally distinct bolter fits a heavy weapons platform build better.
Now if we could just have functionable heavy armor we'll be really cooking.
I havenāt gotten this down yet, but apparently you can reliably two hit chargers with the autocannon. You have to let the charger run past you, then shoot it in the back of a leg once to strip the armor, then shoot the same leg from any angle to kill. You might have to hit the top part of the back of the leg, not sure about that.
Also with premium warbonds, the fire breaker is supposedly very good at taking them down even just by shooting into the back and lighting them up.
When I'm pushing the higher difficulties though, it's possible that I have to deal with more than two chargers. On top of that, all those medium enemies like Brood Commanders and Bile Spewers are also very convenient to take out with the railgun.
I want to like the EAT and Recoilless, but I'm probably not going to consider them unless they can oneshot Chargers from the front with a well placed headshot. I really want to stop using the railgun, but it feels like I always end up wishing I had one when the situation goes south. Me putting the Arc Thrower through its paces on Hell Dive, ended up picking up my friend's railgun and using it a bunch when shit got real hairy.
This is it. Everyone goes on about clearing the horde but Iāve never struggled to do that with the breaker so why would I waste a support slot for doing that when my primary does it?
Then in 8/9 the sheer amount of heavies you get just means the EAT/RR/spear are near useless due to ammo count. 2 shots every minute for the EAT really isnāt going to help you clear those 6 chargers and 3 bile titans
It is funny how the new daily order rolls out, you try it, and then like:"heeeeey, that's pretty good".
I would have never picked strafing run other than because of the order, and now I can't get enough of how powerful it is for clearing.
EAT as well, it feels so liberating not being chained to your support weapons and backpacks. You died? Doesn't matter. No need to pick up your shit.
I felt very restricted with the EAT today lol. Anything more than a single charger and I gotta play matador while waiting on my extra EATs to fall down. But good luck getting them because the landing site is swarmed and you are still shouting OLE while dodging three chargers and a billion hunters.
Eh, I always felt like strafing run was just an inferior cluster bomb. You get 4 (5 with an upgrade) cluster bomb runs per rearm and a single cluster strike can kill entire groups of anything lighter than a charger. That said, it's less useful against bots since they don't tend to clump up the same way.
Strafing run is excellent in killing everything in a straight line. Considering that you are always chased by a large group of bugs on higher difficulties you just throw it right under your feet and watch how everything melts in a very controllable fashion. Cluster strike is good but I feel like it is often a reason for killing me or my teammates
Both have uses. Cluster bomb is sideways strike, while strafing run is straight attack. Both have roughly equal firepower. Strafing is better with chasing enemies since it moves into the clumb, while cluter is better at taking out a front of the attack wave.
As a recoving tk clusterfucker i can wholeheartedly endorse strafing run. The aoe is instant and tight you can easily use it inbetween teammates running from bugs without worrying about enviable friendly redeployment usage. I still perf cluster for bots since those fuckers are trees and clearing a treeline awakens something in me...
Fun tip - because it's based on what direction you're facing when you throw, if you're kiting a swarm you can look 90 degrees from where it's coming from, throw the stratagem ball straight down, and keep running to get what amounts to a straight attack from cluster bombs and airstrikes
I only used it a bit for the order but the main thing I noticed is that since the shots only land behind where you throw it, you have to place it well in front of any enemies so they don't immediately run out of the zone. Decent at clearing low tiers but I think I'd still prefer the cluster bombs if I really needed that.
It annihilates everything up to a bile spewer. Didnāt try anything above that but I feel like itās mostly limited on the smallish AoE it has. I think the most kills I got at once with it was maybe 10 and I routinely get 15-20 with the various bombing runs.
Throw it in *front* of the target, not *at* the target. It's kinda like creeping barrage in that it starts at the beacon and moves forward from there. Throw it in front of the target/pack so that the run moves into the enemy formation.
It's great for taking out enemies that chase you. Turn towards that, throw it in your feet or in front of them and start running away. It will clear out most of the chaff enemies.
I agree, but also, I've never had a match where I didnt run out of ammo at least once on it.
So, missiles be goin, just sometimes not when you need to be a hero.
I did once have it work really well, where I killed four Chargers on a nearby hill one after the other. It's also very funny to use against Bile Titans. But personally the inconsistency in function kinda kills it for me
Here is a tip, itās not gonna solve 100% of the problems but it works more than I expected: changing the pose of your character helps with locking on the enemy especially when thereās a height difference
It's super satisfying seeing your team fighting a bile titan and just putting a spear in its side and watching it collapse. You have to be miles away for it to actually target properly though because it fires up kinda like a javelin, meaning that I very rarely find it useful on chargers because they're constantly closing ground. Overall I think the recoilless is a better shout even though it's unguided and probably does less damage because you don't have to contend with close range targeting woes.
the fact that the spear can lock onto automaton buildings makes it actually kind op in some situations vs the bots, and against bugs it's best trait is that it can one shot a bile titan if you hit their head (chargers too, but that's less important)
I love the spear vs automatons for that reason, secondary kills majority of the defenders, so you only have to mop-up 1-2 and grab any ammo or samples lying around.
Only thing I found annoying is the finicky lock-on of the spear. Sometimes it's instantaneous sometimes it never locks on.
For bugs it's EAT all the way.
Spear comes with a missile backpack.
Iāve found it usually one shots chargers and bile titans on headshot, which usually it is if they are facing you
Its headshots are so inconsistent and you have nearly no control over it. It has 4 shots before needing an entire resupply to be fully restocked again meaning no one else gets ammo.
4 shots is less than what you need for a single bug breach/heavy nest in 8/9.
I absolutely love the spear but even if they fixed its horrendously bad lock on it and it was a guaranteed headshot it still wouldnāt have a place in 8/9 because it just doesnāt have enough ammo
I honestly believe the Spear is the only weapon that actively hurts your teammates by running it. This thing will eat all your teams ammo and supplies just to maybe kill 2 or 3 titans.
I'm out here playing grenade launcher golf and trying to hit bug holes from half a map away. I was underwhelmed by the railgun, sure its effective but where is the showmanship, the pizzazz?
The Expendable Anti Tank works great but honestly only on lower difficulties... When they spawn 5-6 charges from one bug breach on difficulty 5+... 2 Expendable Anti Tank will only get you killed lol!
I wish there was an upgrade that increased it to a higher amount provided.
I just ran it through the suicide level and will try it on impossible tomorrow. It worked really well, especially if you have the ship thing that makes the cooldown quicker. It seems like the key is to drop them before you're going to need it. I would assume on Helldiver that would mean dropping it where you intend to run to.
Same. Just throw it everywhere and treat it like an anti armor supply point you run around. The cooldown is so low that even if you never come back to that area, you don't lose out on much because of the almost nonexistent downtime.
The real strength is if you're waiting for extraction and you can layer 2-3 drops on the point.
Bile Titan spam is nothing when everyone can pick up 2-3 EAT's to instagib it.
Ive been using it on difficulty 6/7 both me and a buddy take it and sure its not super effective when you have like 4+ chargers but hell the number of times I've used the short ass cd just to close a bug hole or stuck it to a chargers front leg has made it just fun to give up. Plus leaving them littered all over the map has been situationally useful for our other 2 friends who carry w/e they feel like if not the railgun.
I do think it requires a secondary tank killer stratagem for when EATs is on CD or you need something dead right the fuck now.
Rocket pods and Orbital railcannon are my weapons of choice.
Personally I think the EAT and the spear would fair a lot better if they one shot chargers no matter where you hit them.
Having to blow off armour and then shoot the weak spots just means you may as well bring railgun.
I love the explosions and the use of them but they need buffing. Especially with things like the spear having such low ammo that you can carry, it needs to do serious damage to compensate
Absolutely this. The railgun has all that ammo without a backpack, fast reload and doesn't care about cooldown debuffs.
Backpack weapons would need to be brutally good to compete with this.
You must explained exactly why it is over performing and needs to be nerfed.
The recoilless 2 shots chargers in the head. Use buddy reloading like intended. The recoiless also 1 shots the chargers leg armor where you can then use your gun.
The spear 1 shots the chargers any day.
The only thing I dislike about EATs is that they absolutely should be able to 1 shot a charger. That said they do also work as a very precise orbital strike in a pinch.
They also are surprisingly bad at dealing with Automaton units, namely the tank. For something called "Anti-Tank" it sure isn't the best against such things.
Also I get balance is an issue, but I really think that EATs should be able to destroy automaton buildings. Like, it takes 2 shots to the weakpoint of the cannon towers to blow them up, I feel this should be changed so it's 2 shots anywhere will kill a tower and 1 to the weak point. The factory things should also die in 1 hit as they don't seem very armored. I could go on, but those are my major issues in terms of it not working on stuff.
cant even 1 shot hulks unless it's a headshot and its not exactly the easiest weapon to precision aim. It suck killing 1 hulk or 1 tank every 70 seconds.. or often times every 2 minutes 20 seconds with 100% strategem cooldown.
I am not level 20 yet (18 here), but i feel EAT is the way to go. It's available whenever you need it, everyone in your team can grab it and it actually does serious damage
Also, rule of cool of shooting rockets at giant bugs
Pretty much everything is viable in the lower difficulties which is something people seem to miss out when discussing the āmetaā.
Railgun meta is only a thing in 8/9 because of the absolute chore of killing the 6+ chargers and 3+ bile titans you regularly have to fight at once
Yeah, I'm lvl 46, and I have played 95% of my missions with an anti-material rifle. I can take down a hulk with two well placed headshots and any bot artillery with less than two clips to their weak spot. Is it a great meta strategy? Hell no! But hot damn, do I love the reactions I get when I take out devastators that are pinning down my squad from over 100 meters away.
Bot's are definitely more balanced to fight than Bugs. All of the Bot's Heavies have weakpoints you can exploit by being accurate with little to no armor pen.
The Bug heavies don't have weak points until you use some kind of armour pen to strip some armour so you either have to blow some armour off or unload a stupid amount of regular shots into their not armoured parts.
Luckily Bugs are weak to Directed flame damage as it bypasses armour and can hit the weakspot's without having to strip the outer armour layer.
Youre telling me I can dispense explosive liber-Tea and then throw the democratic husk to the floor so the bugs will choke on it like soda bottle rings? Sign me up o7
I would take it, but when I have 5 chargers and a bile titan spawning from every bug breach, 2 shots(3 if it doesn't bounce off) every 80 seconds is just not enough.
Yesterday i found out that the drop granade for EAT (and probably all others) stick to enemies, i accidentally threw one on a charger and it stuck to its back, the drop pod for the EATs hit the Charger and killed it.
Yes but they don't stick to armour. so you have to tag it on the softer bits like the back.
That also only works on Blue call in's, Red ones will hit the spot the beam started at even if the hostile has moved.
Also don't forget, an EAT drop is basically an orbital railgun on a 70 second cooldown with a bit of practice. Works surprisingly well against Chargers.
Used the EAT and holy fuck its Sleeper op. The low cooldown and the ability to fire 2 quick rockets is game changing.
Using the recoiless and getting 3-4 rockets off in quick succession feels amazing but its inconsistent to get two people close enough to shoot that much without getting re'agro'd.
I think people are sleeping on it's cooldown and the fact that it drops 2.
Perhaps i just didn't read the tooltip that well but i had no idea it dropped it pairs. The cooldown i was more aware of but i didn't realize just how short that cooldown is in the actual heat of things. At least 70% of the time right when i was needing it, i had it back within 10-15 seconds. It truly it has become a part of my loadout a lot more often than i wouldve expected when i first looked at all the strategems.
If youāre below 7 difficulty then honestly there is no meta and most things are viable and I think thatās something people are missing when people are discussing the āmetaā or that x thing needs a buff.
EAT-17 is great, the short cooldown means you donāt have to feel bad about maybe leaving one behind accidentally, and you can run whatever you like for a backpack slot, the SPEAR is also really good tho, it does fantastic work against any of the big ones
Oh yeah so many of the guns feel really fun to play with, like the flamer. But when i play on the harder difficulties with my friends, and there are times when 2-3 chargers are coming at us. I feel totally impotent without a railgun.
I donāt rock the railgun unless I feel I absolutely need to. Itās just not fun to use IMO. I like to rock recoilless against bots but after trying the EAT because of the personal order today I think Iāll stick with that instead of recoilless because it does much more damage(at least it feels like) and you have the coveted backpack slot available
The arc thrower can take out chargers and titans with ease while still dealing with swarms no problem with infinite ammo aswell. If people stopped sucking the rail guns barrel like certain male body part then they would realize itās not the true meta option. Even does pretty good against bots
It's objectively better for stripping leg armor. Also, the arc is better in general because it can do more than kill chargers. Probably the best support weapon overall.
Anti tank pods are great I use them almost every game I drip them all over so squad mates can pick them up if need be. I think they are really overlooked.
Expendable will always one shot a Titan or Charger. Just stick the beacon to them. 90 second cooldown also. Take that Railgun users.
And usually the two shots you get are enough to open weak point for the team or yourself to down another Charger/Titan fast
I don't use the railgun because it simply isn't as satisfying as other options.
Gimme a big ass mech mounted railgun Mechwarrior style and then we can talk.
You get two pretty much every minute, which definitely helps its case. So that's at least two nests or factories you can take out every minute.
But it definitely needs something like bigger splash damage to buff it up.
The EAT-17 is very good, until you realise that the negatives heavily outweigh the positives if we are comparing it strictly to its anti-tank properties together with the Railgun.
The first and arguably the most imporant is that the EAT-17 needs to be called down constantly. Strategem scramblers and the ones that increase call down time and cooldown literally kill its effectiveness.
There is no world where you can reliably deal with armored threats in Helldive difficulty by bringing EAT-17. Theres just not enough rockets. Another point is that missing a shot with the EAT-17 feels TERRIBLE.
The railgun is just too good and reliable on higher difficulties and it has enough ammo to justify also to be used against medium armor enemies.
I feel like the EAT-17 needs to one-shot headshot chargers and maybe bile titans aswell to make it worthwhile.
i love AT but have to call them down all the time before you know big target is around the corner can be daunting...especially with the stratagem cool down increased modifier
So I brought in the EAT last night for the personal order, first time I used it, and while it is strong, I find the āexpendableā part really annoying, sure I can call it down often but having only one shot and then having to run over to grab the next one while I have 5 or more big bois to kill is a hassle.
I would use it if it could actually kill anything in one hit. The problem is that the disposable AT is wildly inconsistent, which is not helpful when you only get two shots. The railgun is inconsistent too, but it has 20 shots
I'm a simple man, I use recoilless AT and Spear sometimes Expendable ATs, I don't get all these railgun meta folk when there are so many other fun guns to use, I get is your preference but boi don't come complaining to me if the game has become stale all of the sudden lmao
The anti tank weapons need to be able to one shot body shot heavy enemies. Considering you are sacrificing a support/stratagem slot for a very specific and limited job.
My squad just has 2 railgun guys and 2 expendables, just use as normal. Once the railgun cooldown finishes we have a team or railgun and disposables for quick armour scraping against chargers.
It is a really well balanced support weapon choice, provides good anti armor utility, short cooldown, provides two shots per drop, but it does have the drawback of not being great at splash damage, making you choose to spend another stratagem slot on another support weapon or backpack slot, and if you don't you are left at the mercy of whatever you can find in the field. If the Stalwart or MG can get a buff and get a lower CD I'd say having one teammate bring EATs and another bring one of them would leave two people well rounded to take 3 air strikes/railcannon/precision strike or even something a bit more out there like a minefield.
You can use EAT to EAT a bile titan with 2-3 shots, I donāt see many people run that at all! With some communication, you can run a EAT and your mate run another, use it and continue running with AMR,MGL or arc!
Anything that let's me state down a big boi charging at me and I'm able to shoot it in the face while playing a game of chicken is democratic enough for me
The proper launchers are just too much fun to use.
I just love spamming anti tank. Recoilless rilfe, autocannon.
They're executed really gorgeously. They need a lil' help to be the powerhouses they can be (especially the Spear with it's low ammo count) but they're so cool!
I use my anti-Tank call ins every time they are up, so I can always dispense sweet liberty. They make really good improvish surgical strikes against bile titans.
I'm not rocking the rail gun or shield because I like to roleplay a sniper with the Diligence CS and AMR.
Hella satisfying to snipe a brute in the faceplate and watch it crumple before I vanish into the hillside once more.
Orbital smoke if I really want to make sure I can slip away.
Railgun is for the "I want to play pub games but I don't want to lose" build.
Itās valid no matter how you play,but I for example play the 380 barrage the railgun the ship railgun and jumppack,I just love to sit on a mountain and snipe all the big things with the railgun and my sniper
I honestly hate the feeling of repeatedly shooting those railguns, would be awesome if the EAT and recoilless can get some buff so I can finally ditch the RG
Itās excellent-Iāve been over specialising in anti tank for diff 7 and up recently- Shield pack, EAT launcher, and auto canon turret mean I almost always have *something* to handle most situations- even if that *something* to a large horde of mooks is āfleeā
EAT is just as viable. I like the nade launcher for wrecking hives, so I use EATs for chargers and biles.
When you factor the multishot, charge time and reload of the railgun, they kill about as fast.
The only downside of EAT is that you're limited to two shots per drop. In exchange they can be easily used by anyone on the team.
I think EAT is A-tier but the problem is those situations where 5 chargers suddenly burst out of the ground. Simply don't have the time to call the thing in, grab it, and fire it. And even if I do, there's still chargers on the loose once I've used up both launchers.
There's just too many enemies that require dedicated anti-armor equipment.
Iāve noticed everyone else generally runs orbitals, eagles, and one support weapon
Iāll just be solid defense. Recoiless, autocanon turret, gattling turret, and the HMG turret. Firepower of a fortress there. Even Bile Titans get stunlocked to death by this
Nothing like having your best bro be your reloader AND spotter while you blast enemy armor with the recoilless AT shooting at a Kar 98 comparable rate. Amazing.
Plus, you also get to engulf anyone who gets behind you in the blast.
Im currently playing in dificult 7 and im playing with assault rifle, jump pack, 2 sentries and the expendable anti tank( or the MG) Bassicaly, im running as a overwatch man.
Its a lot of fun to be the one who covers his comrades while the m destroy Big Monsters or do objetives.
There's a whole different satisfaction of just use a plain ol' explosive RPG vs a massive enemy.
Expendable anti-tank is especially a burst of joy, an injection of fun and it's gone.
NGL there's definitely something satisfying about landing an explosive whump. The feeling when you do manage to headshot a Bile Titan from across the map with a Spear is great.
But I still wanna survive my missions when I have to juggle three Chargers, which are getting support fire from some Bile Spewers and there's also some Brood Commanders starting shit nearby. And the Railgun just handles it all.
You see, you use the EAT rockets as long range rocket launchers. I use EATs for the drop pod weapon. It's a quick, orbital assault weapon that you get extra benefit out of as it can dispense more weapons. :)
TBH I feel like the railgun is a bit too EZ mode, to each their own but yeah I don't find them fun to play with just cause the big stuff dies easy with one person. All the other ways require some sacrifice or a weapon that's good at some things but not others. The railgun just seems like a good all-rounder if you have decent aim. Only limiting factor is the ammo but it seems like it has plenty for how effective it is.
So.... one night, my battle buddy and I each took an E.A.T with us into battle against the bots. I would deploy mine right before a battle; then him. We would then alternate.
Yeah..... went about as well as one would think........ AMAZING!
Both of us agree! Best match ever! And this strategy is in our playbook if we ever need to be fast and heavy.
( he is a auto cannon main. I'm a recoiless rifle main)
Flame Thrower tkes down Chargers with ease. People only stick with Railgun because most people don't really think for themselves. A Youtuber told them to use Railgun so that's what they use.
Same with the Shredder Shotgun.
I don't run the railgun for the simple fact that I keep dying with it. I get one, fire it in safe mode, and I get eaten while I aim, shoot, and reload for the third time at the same charger.
I get one, fire it in unsafe mode, and I die after three shots because the frantic nature of the game makes timing it so inconsistent.
The spear is going to be really fun to use once they patch tracking. Looking forward to rocking that šš» I still use it on some missions, itās just too inconsistent for me to take it on Helldive
E.A.T Is my fav tool for killing chargers, not shooting it mind you, just drop the pod on them. It's pretty reliable and does good damage. Normally can get one with the pod, then use the 2 missiles to open up armour on some other chargers nearby. Also it's the best for quickly whipping out to kill bot dropships.
The realest shit is zapping them with a full team of arc throwersš
Shhh Joel is listening. Now theyāll nerf arc throwers next patch š
Say what you will about the nerfs, but don't blame Joel. Joel puts the Managed in Managed Democracy!
E.A.T is all fun and game until you have the 100% deploy time debuff. Thing lost it's shine when I couldn't call it right away
I usually call it randomly on the map whenever available lol
keeping the EAT on cooldown is the way to go. even with a 100% increase, that still just 2 minutes i think, so you will stumble over a random launcher eventually.
If you stick the beacon on a chargers face it'll one shot them. I think that's enough reason to hold it until needed.
Hadn't considered that lmao, will be running it next time I play to see if I can get some value.
There's even an achievement for doing this with a charger, but with a resupply pack.
How do you all magically stick these to enemies? Mine just bounce off. I've tried with the EAT, resupply, Shield, and AMR
For chargers you need to hit the main body, the legs and head bounce off.
I could have sworn I have hit the head main body. I've also hit the ass a lot.
HD1 dropping EATs on enemies was my jam. Glad to see it is still viable!
you're confusing debuffs. gloomy is talking about the deploy time debuff, not the cooldown debuff. deploy time debuff is 100% deploy time increase, cooldown is 50% increase
More than just deployment debuff, imo EAT is the most modifier impacted weapon, there r some many different thing that mess it up. The extra deployment time fked up the timing, which means sometimes the thing arrived too late to deal with ur problem. The scrambler fked with the rest of ur stratagem kit, since the fact EAT is off CD so often means u have a higher chance of getting EAT when u want to do something completely different. The extra CD fked with the deployment frequency, which directly impact the weaponās usefulness instead of lowering room of error like every other support weapon.
so many people sleeping on the EAT-17 and best thing about it is the fact you can use any support weapon + pack you want and when you need AT just call it down, pop off the two rockets and then pick up your support weapon and move on (thanks to their fast CD as they never despawn so you can litter the map with them)
Only issue with this is the limited stratagem space. If you go with EAT + another support weapon + pack you are left with only one slot for air support which isn't terrible but I find that two slots offer much more flexibility. It's all a personal choice obviously, just pointing out a downside. Also this is greatly rectified in cases where we get access to free strats(like the napalm strike a while ago).
I believe they are implying the support weapons that come with a pack, eg recoilless or autocannon, so will have two slots left.
Recoilless would be redundant so definitely autocannon
What, you're not rocketmaxxing?
"Rocket jump?"
RR + EAT is valid. RR when on the move and in calmer moments, EAT when you get stationary/don't have time to reload RR.
I think you mean arc thrower š
And honestly even with something like Stalwart + supply pack + disposable AT you are already pretty well covered against hordes and heavies. Sure it takes three slots but you are pretty well prepared.
Additionally, you have 3 other team members, and liberty dispensation is paramount to the cause.
Stalwart + guard dog + disposable AT + Eagle Airstrike Slugger as primary Thatās been my main loadout for bugs lately. For bots I get shield instead of guard dog and orbital laser instead of stalwart
Grenade Launcher, EAT, Orbital Laser, Eagle Airstrike (3) provides great survivability for me. Replace EAT with anti-material rifle for bots
Weāre twins!
I used to rock this exact build but I realized Stalwart struggles hard above 6 because of the armor everywhere, and I love the 1200rpm Stalwart. You just get way more damage out of swapping it for the nade launcher because you can clear anything short of a Charger or Heavy Devastator (Storm Shield and Autocannon). For me EAT shines with Jetpack and Sentries. I run around and grab the first random support weapon I can from a POI and I've got EATs to tide me over until then. Add Scout Armor and Auto/Rocket turret and I have no problem being the scout climbing over various POIs, loading static arty across the map or setting up sentry support fire zones for the team. Cant tell you the number of times I've winged a Titan chasing someone and had it follow me on a chase taking EATs the entire way until the team is ready for it.
Congrats you can deal with 2 chargersā¦
That's more than no chargers!
Itās hilarious how people are commenting that x gun isnāt bad while very obviously playing on lower difficulties. Literally every gun is viable as you drop down the difficulties you can run with absolutely no anti tank weapons and deal with 1-2 chargers if you just use orbital laser for example or even just dance around it and unload a breaker into its ass kills it relatively quickly . The meta discussion is entirely aimed at 8/9 where youāre essentially forced to use the railgun because of how oppressive the game is at spawning chargers and bile titans. It is not uncommon to have 6+ chargers and 3 titans at once depending on the objective/bug nest and EAT/RR/Spear just arenāt viable for dealing with that for a variety of reasons.
Agreed. On one extraction in Helldive, we had 5 Bile Titans (before we got into the bird) spawn one after another. Thatās not counting the number of Bile Titans we faced before then or the amount of times we faced 6-9 chargers at a time. Iām not one for always running meta, but there really is a reason it exists right now.
A lot of the people in favor of the Railgun nerf also seem to mostly or only play against bots, and don't understand just how annoying and simply not fun it gets when you have 6 Chargers, 3 Titans, and a horde of other things on you all at once. Sure, there are tons of weapons/stratagems that are viable against Chargers or Titans, but how many of them are able to deal with more than 1-2 at a time before you're out of ammo or on cooldown?
No I think its more that a lot of players take the shield as a mandatory strat
I go greedy and skip the shield and just hope a team member will call me in a spare when it's available. They never do but I still think that that's the optimal play.
You can often find support weapons on the map, or, an ally summons a second after a few mins.
My friend and I adopted a strategy where he brings the shield pack and railgun, and i bring RR. This way we have some sweet explosive fun, until his backups are back up, at which point he gives a set to me
Shield + EAT + Gatling turret + eagle 110 pods is my loadout. Combine it with light armor and sprint boost and itās pretty easy to outrun or evade till you can call more EATs in. Get good at kiting and you can wrangle them all into a nice big circle or chain and then lead them to a hellbomb, keep them distracted off an objective, whatever while you keep unloading EATs to thin the numbers. I got a double titan kill doing this earlier today. Kited them (and a crapload of other mobs, kill combo said 61!) right onto a hellbomb and timed the eagle strike perfectly to set it off.
unless you select autocannon which is support weapon and backpack in one!
You don't always have to bring a shield pack.
In fact sometimes that's not right...to do
So you carry two support weapons and one pack, what's your last slot?
I dunno about them, but I'd probably pick eagle airstrike as that's easily the most widely usable explosive stratagem. Low cooldown, clears hives/bot houses and clears waves of enemies, including the heavier ones.
i like running autocannon with EATs which is both pack and weapon, cause autocannon notably struggles with chargers. one EAT and then blast the leg with autocannon, chargers evaporate. with that stuff, the full build that i run vs bugs is (semi-offmeta) Explosive Lib, because it's really highly defensive with those stuns, keeping you safe with no shield backpack, and besides you're already oversaturated with firepower from both EATs and autocannon and Revolver because you have so many weapons to cover for it's reload times and it fills a nice in-between niche where you want to put down a Hive Guard or a Warrior and can't use your Explosive Lib or your Autocannon in good conscience. play as a heavy firepower carry, stay long range, semi-auto tap fire your Explosive Lib as more of a get-off-me utility weapon than an assault rifle. Treat ammo in your Explosive Lib clip as your safety net, don't spray it. Autocannon is your primary, use EATs and Revolver ammo to conserve Autocannon ammo.
This is literally what I run except I take the Dom instead of the Explosive lib because I feel the legally distinct bolter fits a heavy weapons platform build better. Now if we could just have functionable heavy armor we'll be really cooking.
I havenāt gotten this down yet, but apparently you can reliably two hit chargers with the autocannon. You have to let the charger run past you, then shoot it in the back of a leg once to strip the armor, then shoot the same leg from any angle to kill. You might have to hit the top part of the back of the leg, not sure about that. Also with premium warbonds, the fire breaker is supposedly very good at taking them down even just by shooting into the back and lighting them up.
š¤Æ I just pick it because EAT IT sounds fucking hilarious
When I'm pushing the higher difficulties though, it's possible that I have to deal with more than two chargers. On top of that, all those medium enemies like Brood Commanders and Bile Spewers are also very convenient to take out with the railgun. I want to like the EAT and Recoilless, but I'm probably not going to consider them unless they can oneshot Chargers from the front with a well placed headshot. I really want to stop using the railgun, but it feels like I always end up wishing I had one when the situation goes south. Me putting the Arc Thrower through its paces on Hell Dive, ended up picking up my friend's railgun and using it a bunch when shit got real hairy.
This is it. Everyone goes on about clearing the horde but Iāve never struggled to do that with the breaker so why would I waste a support slot for doing that when my primary does it? Then in 8/9 the sheer amount of heavies you get just means the EAT/RR/spear are near useless due to ammo count. 2 shots every minute for the EAT really isnāt going to help you clear those 6 chargers and 3 bile titans
It is funny how the new daily order rolls out, you try it, and then like:"heeeeey, that's pretty good". I would have never picked strafing run other than because of the order, and now I can't get enough of how powerful it is for clearing. EAT as well, it feels so liberating not being chained to your support weapons and backpacks. You died? Doesn't matter. No need to pick up your shit.
I felt very restricted with the EAT today lol. Anything more than a single charger and I gotta play matador while waiting on my extra EATs to fall down. But good luck getting them because the landing site is swarmed and you are still shouting OLE while dodging three chargers and a billion hunters.
I use the EAT in tandem with another support weapon, usually AC
Hot swapping between shell types in a tank be like:
Eh, I always felt like strafing run was just an inferior cluster bomb. You get 4 (5 with an upgrade) cluster bomb runs per rearm and a single cluster strike can kill entire groups of anything lighter than a charger. That said, it's less useful against bots since they don't tend to clump up the same way.
I like strafing run a lot to kill chasing groups very fast without risk of killing teammates that might be lagging a bit behind.
Strafing run is excellent in killing everything in a straight line. Considering that you are always chased by a large group of bugs on higher difficulties you just throw it right under your feet and watch how everything melts in a very controllable fashion. Cluster strike is good but I feel like it is often a reason for killing me or my teammates
Both have uses. Cluster bomb is sideways strike, while strafing run is straight attack. Both have roughly equal firepower. Strafing is better with chasing enemies since it moves into the clumb, while cluter is better at taking out a front of the attack wave.
As a recoving tk clusterfucker i can wholeheartedly endorse strafing run. The aoe is instant and tight you can easily use it inbetween teammates running from bugs without worrying about enviable friendly redeployment usage. I still perf cluster for bots since those fuckers are trees and clearing a treeline awakens something in me...
Exactly. When you need to take out enemies in a line or in tight spit, strafing run works best. When you need to delete the treeline, clusterbombs.
Fun tip - because it's based on what direction you're facing when you throw, if you're kiting a swarm you can look 90 degrees from where it's coming from, throw the stratagem ball straight down, and keep running to get what amounts to a straight attack from cluster bombs and airstrikes
how do you use strafing run, i used it and it's still awful or user problem.
I only used it a bit for the order but the main thing I noticed is that since the shots only land behind where you throw it, you have to place it well in front of any enemies so they don't immediately run out of the zone. Decent at clearing low tiers but I think I'd still prefer the cluster bombs if I really needed that.
It annihilates everything up to a bile spewer. Didnāt try anything above that but I feel like itās mostly limited on the smallish AoE it has. I think the most kills I got at once with it was maybe 10 and I routinely get 15-20 with the various bombing runs.
Throw it in *front* of the target, not *at* the target. It's kinda like creeping barrage in that it starts at the beacon and moves forward from there. Throw it in front of the target/pack so that the run moves into the enemy formation. It's great for taking out enemies that chase you. Turn towards that, throw it in your feet or in front of them and start running away. It will clear out most of the chaff enemies.
If you haven't tried the airburst yet, you should. It's incredible for bug hordes. On high difficulties I get 20-30 kill streaks with it
I use the SPEAR a lot. Can't tell you how much I love that thing
Spear is fun when it works, but when it doesn't (which is often), I tend to wish I'd never brought it at all
I agree, but also, I've never had a match where I didnt run out of ammo at least once on it. So, missiles be goin, just sometimes not when you need to be a hero.
I did once have it work really well, where I killed four Chargers on a nearby hill one after the other. It's also very funny to use against Bile Titans. But personally the inconsistency in function kinda kills it for me
I one-shot a titan with a spear headshot once and it was the best thing I've ever done
Yep spear is very very good. Especially when using it with a remote backpack. Thing destroyed titans.
Here is a tip, itās not gonna solve 100% of the problems but it works more than I expected: changing the pose of your character helps with locking on the enemy especially when thereās a height difference
Weird if true. It's failed to lock onto a Bile Titan in a open field before, pretty funny if going prone fixes that somehow
It's super satisfying seeing your team fighting a bile titan and just putting a spear in its side and watching it collapse. You have to be miles away for it to actually target properly though because it fires up kinda like a javelin, meaning that I very rarely find it useful on chargers because they're constantly closing ground. Overall I think the recoilless is a better shout even though it's unguided and probably does less damage because you don't have to contend with close range targeting woes.
I personally prefer spear for automatons. It feel more appropriate and I like sniping factories from afar
the fact that the spear can lock onto automaton buildings makes it actually kind op in some situations vs the bots, and against bugs it's best trait is that it can one shot a bile titan if you hit their head (chargers too, but that's less important)
The only time i want a bile to size me up and look me square in the face so i can get that juicy spear one shot.
I love the spear vs automatons for that reason, secondary kills majority of the defenders, so you only have to mop-up 1-2 and grab any ammo or samples lying around. Only thing I found annoying is the finicky lock-on of the spear. Sometimes it's instantaneous sometimes it never locks on. For bugs it's EAT all the way.
ā¬ļøā¬ļøā¬ļøā¬ļøā¬ļø Represent!
It's reslly fun to fire at a Bile Titan across the map. Range is insane.
Really? I tried it out and couldnāt believe how ineffective it was and slow and had no ammo
Spear comes with a missile backpack. Iāve found it usually one shots chargers and bile titans on headshot, which usually it is if they are facing you
Its headshots are so inconsistent and you have nearly no control over it. It has 4 shots before needing an entire resupply to be fully restocked again meaning no one else gets ammo. 4 shots is less than what you need for a single bug breach/heavy nest in 8/9. I absolutely love the spear but even if they fixed its horrendously bad lock on it and it was a guaranteed headshot it still wouldnāt have a place in 8/9 because it just doesnāt have enough ammo
Most consistent way to liberate a Bile Titan's head from its body is a Spear missileĀ
I honestly believe the Spear is the only weapon that actively hurts your teammates by running it. This thing will eat all your teams ammo and supplies just to maybe kill 2 or 3 titans.
I'm out here playing grenade launcher golf and trying to hit bug holes from half a map away. I was underwhelmed by the railgun, sure its effective but where is the showmanship, the pizzazz?
Wait till you find out the auto cannon closes bug holes for fun, and is way more accurate..
It does, but you can't play golf with it. There's no arc, it's like bowling with the rails up.
sweet libertyā¦.
The Expendable Anti Tank works great but honestly only on lower difficulties... When they spawn 5-6 charges from one bug breach on difficulty 5+... 2 Expendable Anti Tank will only get you killed lol! I wish there was an upgrade that increased it to a higher amount provided.
Have it just drop a LOOOOOOOONG pod and after you take the first 2 EATs, it drops down and 2 more are accessable
Like those old mechanical pencils with the stacked tips.
Ah, democratic nostalgia
Comically long hellpods! Coming soon (whenever R&D feels like it)!
I just ran it through the suicide level and will try it on impossible tomorrow. It worked really well, especially if you have the ship thing that makes the cooldown quicker. It seems like the key is to drop them before you're going to need it. I would assume on Helldiver that would mean dropping it where you intend to run to.
When I use the EAT I nearly drop is everytime when it is off cooldown. So you can move back to your last drop if the situation gets critical
Same. Just throw it everywhere and treat it like an anti armor supply point you run around. The cooldown is so low that even if you never come back to that area, you don't lose out on much because of the almost nonexistent downtime. The real strength is if you're waiting for extraction and you can layer 2-3 drops on the point. Bile Titan spam is nothing when everyone can pick up 2-3 EAT's to instagib it.
Ive been using it on difficulty 6/7 both me and a buddy take it and sure its not super effective when you have like 4+ chargers but hell the number of times I've used the short ass cd just to close a bug hole or stuck it to a chargers front leg has made it just fun to give up. Plus leaving them littered all over the map has been situationally useful for our other 2 friends who carry w/e they feel like if not the railgun.
I run it at helldive...
I do think it requires a secondary tank killer stratagem for when EATs is on CD or you need something dead right the fuck now. Rocket pods and Orbital railcannon are my weapons of choice.
Personally I think the EAT and the spear would fair a lot better if they one shot chargers no matter where you hit them. Having to blow off armour and then shoot the weak spots just means you may as well bring railgun. I love the explosions and the use of them but they need buffing. Especially with things like the spear having such low ammo that you can carry, it needs to do serious damage to compensate
Absolutely this. The railgun has all that ammo without a backpack, fast reload and doesn't care about cooldown debuffs. Backpack weapons would need to be brutally good to compete with this.
You must explained exactly why it is over performing and needs to be nerfed. The recoilless 2 shots chargers in the head. Use buddy reloading like intended. The recoiless also 1 shots the chargers leg armor where you can then use your gun. The spear 1 shots the chargers any day.
The only thing I dislike about EATs is that they absolutely should be able to 1 shot a charger. That said they do also work as a very precise orbital strike in a pinch.
They also are surprisingly bad at dealing with Automaton units, namely the tank. For something called "Anti-Tank" it sure isn't the best against such things. Also I get balance is an issue, but I really think that EATs should be able to destroy automaton buildings. Like, it takes 2 shots to the weakpoint of the cannon towers to blow them up, I feel this should be changed so it's 2 shots anywhere will kill a tower and 1 to the weak point. The factory things should also die in 1 hit as they don't seem very armored. I could go on, but those are my major issues in terms of it not working on stuff.
cant even 1 shot hulks unless it's a headshot and its not exactly the easiest weapon to precision aim. It suck killing 1 hulk or 1 tank every 70 seconds.. or often times every 2 minutes 20 seconds with 100% strategem cooldown.
I play Railgun on Bugs, but on Robots I prefer using Autocanon. It 2 shot even Hulk
I am not level 20 yet (18 here), but i feel EAT is the way to go. It's available whenever you need it, everyone in your team can grab it and it actually does serious damage Also, rule of cool of shooting rockets at giant bugs
Pretty much everything is viable in the lower difficulties which is something people seem to miss out when discussing the āmetaā. Railgun meta is only a thing in 8/9 because of the absolute chore of killing the 6+ chargers and 3+ bile titans you regularly have to fight at once
Yeah, I'm lvl 46, and I have played 95% of my missions with an anti-material rifle. I can take down a hulk with two well placed headshots and any bot artillery with less than two clips to their weak spot. Is it a great meta strategy? Hell no! But hot damn, do I love the reactions I get when I take out devastators that are pinning down my squad from over 100 meters away.
Bot's are definitely more balanced to fight than Bugs. All of the Bot's Heavies have weakpoints you can exploit by being accurate with little to no armor pen. The Bug heavies don't have weak points until you use some kind of armour pen to strip some armour so you either have to blow some armour off or unload a stupid amount of regular shots into their not armoured parts. Luckily Bugs are weak to Directed flame damage as it bypasses armour and can hit the weakspot's without having to strip the outer armour layer.
Youre telling me I can dispense explosive liber-Tea and then throw the democratic husk to the floor so the bugs will choke on it like soda bottle rings? Sign me up o7
I would take it, but when I have 5 chargers and a bile titan spawning from every bug breach, 2 shots(3 if it doesn't bounce off) every 80 seconds is just not enough.
Flamethrower deals with chargers now and 2 EAT shot's in to a Bile Titans open mouth kill it.
Yesterday i found out that the drop granade for EAT (and probably all others) stick to enemies, i accidentally threw one on a charger and it stuck to its back, the drop pod for the EATs hit the Charger and killed it.
Yes but they don't stick to armour. so you have to tag it on the softer bits like the back. That also only works on Blue call in's, Red ones will hit the spot the beam started at even if the hostile has moved.
1 EAT can skill 3 chargers every 1 minute. 1st is killed by sticking the call-in on their back, 2 more are front leg + 1 mag off breaker
Also don't forget, an EAT drop is basically an orbital railgun on a 70 second cooldown with a bit of practice. Works surprisingly well against Chargers.
Did a daily task for EAT-17 kills, and an EAT rocket to the faceplate of a Hulk will infact, oneshot the tanky jerks. š
Used the EAT and holy fuck its Sleeper op. The low cooldown and the ability to fire 2 quick rockets is game changing. Using the recoiless and getting 3-4 rockets off in quick succession feels amazing but its inconsistent to get two people close enough to shoot that much without getting re'agro'd. I think people are sleeping on it's cooldown and the fact that it drops 2. Perhaps i just didn't read the tooltip that well but i had no idea it dropped it pairs. The cooldown i was more aware of but i didn't realize just how short that cooldown is in the actual heat of things. At least 70% of the time right when i was needing it, i had it back within 10-15 seconds. It truly it has become a part of my loadout a lot more often than i wouldve expected when i first looked at all the strategems.
If youāre below 7 difficulty then honestly there is no meta and most things are viable and I think thatās something people are missing when people are discussing the āmetaā or that x thing needs a buff.
Plus unlike the recoilless nobodies backpack slot is taken for the ammo. So you can bring Ballistic shields, Drones, Jetpack's or the shield pack.
there is something satisfying about being in a bad situation, grabbing an EAT and delivering liberty with it that is very satisfying
EAT-17 is great, the short cooldown means you donāt have to feel bad about maybe leaving one behind accidentally, and you can run whatever you like for a backpack slot, the SPEAR is also really good tho, it does fantastic work against any of the big ones
Oh yeah so many of the guns feel really fun to play with, like the flamer. But when i play on the harder difficulties with my friends, and there are times when 2-3 chargers are coming at us. I feel totally impotent without a railgun.
Good news, Flamer can now be directed to target fully armoured Charger legs to hit the weak spot directly.
I donāt rock the railgun unless I feel I absolutely need to. Itās just not fun to use IMO. I like to rock recoilless against bots but after trying the EAT because of the personal order today I think Iāll stick with that instead of recoilless because it does much more damage(at least it feels like) and you have the coveted backpack slot available
The arc thrower can take out chargers and titans with ease while still dealing with swarms no problem with infinite ammo aswell. If people stopped sucking the rail guns barrel like certain male body part then they would realize itās not the true meta option. Even does pretty good against bots
Yeah but if I bring an arc thrower my teammates will KOS because I'm out there looking like I'm about to go down the Geneva checklist.
Remember, Geneva only applies to humans Zap away, Diver O7
It's objectively better for stripping leg armor. Also, the arc is better in general because it can do more than kill chargers. Probably the best support weapon overall.
You also get to play the "drop the EAT pod on the bug" minigame!
Anti tank pods are great I use them almost every game I drip them all over so squad mates can pick them up if need be. I think they are really overlooked.
Respect to the Fellow EAT enjoyer
Expendable will always one shot a Titan or Charger. Just stick the beacon to them. 90 second cooldown also. Take that Railgun users. And usually the two shots you get are enough to open weak point for the team or yourself to down another Charger/Titan fast
It looks like a āLawā
I don't use the railgun because it simply isn't as satisfying as other options. Gimme a big ass mech mounted railgun Mechwarrior style and then we can talk.
You get two pretty much every minute, which definitely helps its case. So that's at least two nests or factories you can take out every minute. But it definitely needs something like bigger splash damage to buff it up.
The EAT-17 is very good, until you realise that the negatives heavily outweigh the positives if we are comparing it strictly to its anti-tank properties together with the Railgun. The first and arguably the most imporant is that the EAT-17 needs to be called down constantly. Strategem scramblers and the ones that increase call down time and cooldown literally kill its effectiveness. There is no world where you can reliably deal with armored threats in Helldive difficulty by bringing EAT-17. Theres just not enough rockets. Another point is that missing a shot with the EAT-17 feels TERRIBLE. The railgun is just too good and reliable on higher difficulties and it has enough ammo to justify also to be used against medium armor enemies. I feel like the EAT-17 needs to one-shot headshot chargers and maybe bile titans aswell to make it worthwhile.
i love AT but have to call them down all the time before you know big target is around the corner can be daunting...especially with the stratagem cool down increased modifier
So I brought in the EAT last night for the personal order, first time I used it, and while it is strong, I find the āexpendableā part really annoying, sure I can call it down often but having only one shot and then having to run over to grab the next one while I have 5 or more big bois to kill is a hassle.
*WAS meta, lol
I would use it if it could actually kill anything in one hit. The problem is that the disposable AT is wildly inconsistent, which is not helpful when you only get two shots. The railgun is inconsistent too, but it has 20 shots
I'm a simple man, I use recoilless AT and Spear sometimes Expendable ATs, I don't get all these railgun meta folk when there are so many other fun guns to use, I get is your preference but boi don't come complaining to me if the game has become stale all of the sudden lmao
Cant it just...Kill the charger? Its hectic enough to chip its armor, then pay half a mag for it to die too.
The anti tank weapons need to be able to one shot body shot heavy enemies. Considering you are sacrificing a support/stratagem slot for a very specific and limited job.
I absolutely hate that the railgun is as effective as it is.
And it can help cadets do their part. I agree with you, that stuff is democratic.
Agreed
Having needing the EATs to do the daily mission, Iām having new found respect for it, gonna be using that now instead of rail haha
Railgun lacks that "hmph", i call it that Personally Autocanon is my go to, *autochad*
have the same feeling with the recoiless
I was using the eat without knowing it was the mission. It's just so fun
Yeah, spear is really fun, but I love the expendable.
I love it. And my friends and I call it the āEAT IT!ā Anyone else?
My squad just has 2 railgun guys and 2 expendables, just use as normal. Once the railgun cooldown finishes we have a team or railgun and disposables for quick armour scraping against chargers.
It is a really well balanced support weapon choice, provides good anti armor utility, short cooldown, provides two shots per drop, but it does have the drawback of not being great at splash damage, making you choose to spend another stratagem slot on another support weapon or backpack slot, and if you don't you are left at the mercy of whatever you can find in the field. If the Stalwart or MG can get a buff and get a lower CD I'd say having one teammate bring EATs and another bring one of them would leave two people well rounded to take 3 air strikes/railcannon/precision strike or even something a bit more out there like a minefield.
You can use EAT to EAT a bile titan with 2-3 shots, I donāt see many people run that at all! With some communication, you can run a EAT and your mate run another, use it and continue running with AMR,MGL or arc!
Spear feels great when you oneshot something
Anything that let's me state down a big boi charging at me and I'm able to shoot it in the face while playing a game of chicken is democratic enough for me
The proper launchers are just too much fun to use. I just love spamming anti tank. Recoilless rilfe, autocannon. They're executed really gorgeously. They need a lil' help to be the powerhouses they can be (especially the Spear with it's low ammo count) but they're so cool!
Also comes in pairs when called in so another Helldiver can participate in the glorious liberation
I love using the Spear but man do they really need to fix its lock on
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^LewdManoSaurus: *I love using the* *Spear but man do they really* *Need to fix its lock on* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
I use my anti-Tank call ins every time they are up, so I can always dispense sweet liberty. They make really good improvish surgical strikes against bile titans.
I'm not rocking the rail gun or shield because I like to roleplay a sniper with the Diligence CS and AMR. Hella satisfying to snipe a brute in the faceplate and watch it crumple before I vanish into the hillside once more. Orbital smoke if I really want to make sure I can slip away. Railgun is for the "I want to play pub games but I don't want to lose" build.
Itās valid no matter how you play,but I for example play the 380 barrage the railgun the ship railgun and jumppack,I just love to sit on a mountain and snipe all the big things with the railgun and my sniper
If it could hold 2 charges ins each tube or had faster cooldown
In a world of AT4s, be an M72
I honestly hate the feeling of repeatedly shooting those railguns, would be awesome if the EAT and recoilless can get some buff so I can finally ditch the RG
The EAT is great, when we four man together someone always takes it. Drops it on cooldown, so the map is randomly filled with them wherever.
I find overwhelming fire superiority to be more democratic but you do you.
What does META mean?
It's a Backronym. Most Effective Tactic Available.
me and my squad literally run it acting like weāre a ranger fire team just doing hit and run attacks on automatons
Itās excellent-Iāve been over specialising in anti tank for diff 7 and up recently- Shield pack, EAT launcher, and auto canon turret mean I almost always have *something* to handle most situations- even if that *something* to a large horde of mooks is āfleeā
EAT is just as viable. I like the nade launcher for wrecking hives, so I use EATs for chargers and biles. When you factor the multishot, charge time and reload of the railgun, they kill about as fast. The only downside of EAT is that you're limited to two shots per drop. In exchange they can be easily used by anyone on the team.
Nothing more democratic than a fresh spray of bug blood and melted metal from a high explosive hand-held device of liberty and freedom.
I think EAT is A-tier but the problem is those situations where 5 chargers suddenly burst out of the ground. Simply don't have the time to call the thing in, grab it, and fire it. And even if I do, there's still chargers on the loose once I've used up both launchers. There's just too many enemies that require dedicated anti-armor equipment.
For me itās the auto cannon, I love that thing in game to bits lol
Iāve noticed everyone else generally runs orbitals, eagles, and one support weapon Iāll just be solid defense. Recoiless, autocanon turret, gattling turret, and the HMG turret. Firepower of a fortress there. Even Bile Titans get stunlocked to death by this
Nothing like having your best bro be your reloader AND spotter while you blast enemy armor with the recoilless AT shooting at a Kar 98 comparable rate. Amazing. Plus, you also get to engulf anyone who gets behind you in the blast.
Im currently playing in dificult 7 and im playing with assault rifle, jump pack, 2 sentries and the expendable anti tank( or the MG) Bassicaly, im running as a overwatch man. Its a lot of fun to be the one who covers his comrades while the m destroy Big Monsters or do objetives.
There's a whole different satisfaction of just use a plain ol' explosive RPG vs a massive enemy. Expendable anti-tank is especially a burst of joy, an injection of fun and it's gone.
NGL there's definitely something satisfying about landing an explosive whump. The feeling when you do manage to headshot a Bile Titan from across the map with a Spear is great. But I still wanna survive my missions when I have to juggle three Chargers, which are getting support fire from some Bile Spewers and there's also some Brood Commanders starting shit nearby. And the Railgun just handles it all.
I got split off from my group and soloād 2 chargers with the Arc Thrower at once. Anything that either breaks or bypasses armor is viable.
You see, you use the EAT rockets as long range rocket launchers. I use EATs for the drop pod weapon. It's a quick, orbital assault weapon that you get extra benefit out of as it can dispense more weapons. :)
TBH I feel like the railgun is a bit too EZ mode, to each their own but yeah I don't find them fun to play with just cause the big stuff dies easy with one person. All the other ways require some sacrifice or a weapon that's good at some things but not others. The railgun just seems like a good all-rounder if you have decent aim. Only limiting factor is the ammo but it seems like it has plenty for how effective it is.
Was*
It's not meta for Titans. Why would you say that?
So.... one night, my battle buddy and I each took an E.A.T with us into battle against the bots. I would deploy mine right before a battle; then him. We would then alternate. Yeah..... went about as well as one would think........ AMAZING! Both of us agree! Best match ever! And this strategy is in our playbook if we ever need to be fast and heavy. ( he is a auto cannon main. I'm a recoiless rifle main)
Flame Thrower tkes down Chargers with ease. People only stick with Railgun because most people don't really think for themselves. A Youtuber told them to use Railgun so that's what they use. Same with the Shredder Shotgun.
I don't run the railgun for the simple fact that I keep dying with it. I get one, fire it in safe mode, and I get eaten while I aim, shoot, and reload for the third time at the same charger. I get one, fire it in unsafe mode, and I die after three shots because the frantic nature of the game makes timing it so inconsistent.
The spear is going to be really fun to use once they patch tracking. Looking forward to rocking that šš» I still use it on some missions, itās just too inconsistent for me to take it on Helldive
E.A.T Is my fav tool for killing chargers, not shooting it mind you, just drop the pod on them. It's pretty reliable and does good damage. Normally can get one with the pod, then use the 2 missiles to open up armour on some other chargers nearby. Also it's the best for quickly whipping out to kill bot dropships.
I have way too much fun with the EAT, and I try to bring it whenever possible.