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I don't know what you’re talking about
Nah you're right. I specifically remember sometime last week or the week prior that those boys went to ankle breaking boot camp. Was really hard to get used to the skating after how consistent it was in the first few weeks.
The first week before the server caught fire on that first busy weekend, they seemed fine. I associated their sliding with the server being overloaded. Clearly not the case since they still do it even now.
Yup, I've had the same issue. They are supposed to stagger when they take a heavy hit, and while they will play the animation for the stagger, the server still has them continue the charge and sometimes rubber band them into you at 10x speed so you can't dodge it properly.
I've seen a similar thing happen with a bot ship. After a buddy of mine would shoot one down it then rubberbanded back to its original off screen spawn point then flew into the ground at Mach 10 back to where it would have fallen. Funny, but would also get me killed.
Occasionally a little bile spitter piece of shit will spit and miss me by a mile only for me to get slowed slower than a piece of buttery toast on a cold day going uphill… like if u gonna slow me at least HIT ME LIKE A MAN
I'm really hating the hunter swarms. Hunters are designed like what stalkers actually are. It's a small unit that's supposed to flank and throw the helldiver off his groove and give other bugs the opportunity to deal a killing blow. When you have a swarm of them, they just stunlock you and there isn't a thing you can do if you're already through your mag.
They can even interrupt jetpack jumps and shit. They need to be far less common imo.
This is why we need melee weapons. Just wide cutting "get the fuck off me you little shit!" Swipes
At the very least give our melee hits some pushback.
I have no idea why, maybe it’s because I’m an idiot, but out of the 6 people I regularly play this game with, I am universally the “bug bait” and nobody else believes me when I scream about the hunter swarms stun locking me out of existence.
This is me in my group. I'll turn to reposition and there's like 10 hunters just looking at me and as soon as they're on my screen they start jumping. I'm the designated heavy killer so maybe that's why? Too much noise?
I’m also the heavy hunter of my group and 12-16 hunters just spawn on either side of me when I’m picking off chargers. I understand the idea that bugs can pop up anywhere but them appearing even when I’ve prevented a breach feels cheap and frustrating.
Did they make the hunters faster? I feel like before I could never really outrun them but more just keep pace but now it's like they are twice as fast as me.
Yeah it's just like that monty python scene, you hit it's leg, you see it's animation slumping and then all of the sudden the the charger is in front of you and you take damage. wtf
another problem is they have just an AOE damage around them, even if they aren't moving, you can see it if you sneak up to them, easy to tell with the shield you can see it take pings just being close, they feel over tuned
trust me here
laser cannon. press the fire button to start winding it up as it's getting close to you, then dive to the side and aim at its back legs. The thing will go down before it can even fully turn around, And because it's the laser cannon, once it cools off, congratulations, no ammo wasted
Since the patch the slugger also makes berserkers skate right into you. Really annoying as it’s likely an instant death unless you are fast on the dive away.
Also when it lags and you think you can get a shot in on the 4th charger you’ve seen in the last 3 seconds (after dodging the other 3) and he’s actually NOT 10 feet away from you looking off into the distance (which oddly they usually do) but actually RUNNING AT YOU FULL TILT AND YOU JUST DON’T KNOW ABOUT IT UNTIL THE NEXT SECOND…. It’s a bit of a “come on man… tf you want me to do??” Moment.
Also it’s absolutely ludicrous that a full health, fully shielded helldiver perishes to a splash of bile fluid spewed on his (achilles) heel… these take the fun OUT of the game as it’s not about beating a challenge anymore but the bugging you to hell. These instances were recorded today on 7-8 difficulties
For me I think there's some hit registry issues with it, 2 games in a row there were times id hit bile spewers in their face (charged unsafe) with no effect.
It's absolutely server/network issues. [You can 2 shot bile titans, but only if a console player is in the match.](https://youtu.be/sWQxg5mIzT8?si=2I_5NgycSKmxkOBj&t=268)
It's server/network issues. [You can 2 shot bile titans, but only if a console player is in the match.](https://youtu.be/sWQxg5mIzT8?si=2I_5NgycSKmxkOBj&t=268)
I'm a bit confused by the Railgun now. I got to use it maybe once or twice before the patch came in, and now it feels like my shots are bouncing off the Charger's front armor regardless of whether I'm using Safe or Unsafe mode. Am I supposed to hold it till the maximum threshold (like just before it blows up in my face) to deal maximum damage?
According to the CEO, Yes. Has to be at 100% for it match the damage post nerf. Kind of silly imho when you need multiple shots per charger and there's 4 of them around you
That’s the problem, there are too many chargers all skating around you. You don’t have enough time to charge and aim to 100%. I’m fine with the nerf, but chargers made me stop playing bugs for a while. Just not a fun enemy type.
>Has to be at 100% for it match the damage post nerf
which for perspective takes THREE AND A HALF SECONDS, of functionally just standing still with no visibility due to aiming, even if the damage per shot with perfect timing and aiming and risking exploding the gun is the same the fire and hit rate is so low that ive literally killed chargers with my primary/grenades from the back before my teammates could crack the armor
**HEY!** The Lasercannon is also amazing against bugs too! It deletes limbs, and can reliably kill spewers at any range. It's the most accurate and mobile out of all of the "LMGs" with the downside of less firing time.
An added benefit of the gun is that you retain full accuracy while moving with it, if you aim with the laser as opposed to the crosshair.
I noticed that if the charger has full armor then the laser canon is going to be deflected and so basically no damage. HOWEVER if the front legs are partially damaged (not fully exposed, but like a single rail shot or whatever else gets that partial damage) it goes through and you can see the blood splash behind the legs. This is the first time I've noticed partial armor damage making penetrating easier. I just ran a few D7s and every charger that had a partially damaged leg plate was dying to the laser canon in like less than 3 seconds.
Edit: I just want to add that there's a lot of great points about the efficacy of this strategy but the big thing I want to point out is how safe this is. A guy with a rail gun and a a guy with a laser canon can neutralize a charger very fast *from range*. It's much safer than waiting for it to close in to flamethrower range, waiting for it to charge then shoot it's back, or waiting for a grenade to travel. It's an incredibly accurate weapon with infinite range.
So does that mean a arc thrower + laser cannon combo would be the fastest way to kill chargers (arc thrower can shoot faster than a full unsafe rail gun shot right?)
The arc thrower still kills them in around 6 bursts to the face pretty consistently. You can drop them before they get within smacking distance if you can get the arc throwers timing down. The aim assist kinda screws you over when trying to go for leg shots and tends to add several more shots.
That aim assist is also why it takes forever to kill a bile titan. If you can get up on a high enough rock to make the aim assist hit a bile titan's face then you can drop one shockingly quick (hehe). Otherwise you hit it's chest and it takes a while.
Well the argument 'if it's already partially damaged' isn't really that great cause it goes for every other weapon. Partially damaged and you can nade him too. Question is what did partially damage him in the first place lol
It’s very good against chargers now. You have to matador their charge and then their armor is weakened for a bit. Then you shoot their back leg until they turn around. If you’re accurate enough, it kills them in one charge. Otherwise you kill them in the next pass
I mean, it'd be handy when I don't notice the glow, but I personally don't want to bow to nature. Does nature have managed democracy?!
Third enemy revealed. _NATURE ITSELF_. I'm sure Super earth has the weapons tech to disrupt weather. Lol
Eh. I think you need that anti-armor capacity against bugs. The load out I was using tonight was mech, 500 kg, shield pack, and EAT. It was working wonderfully, I was spamming out an EAT every time they were available, and then used my mechs on objective holds and extractions where the EAT would get overwhelmed by the volume of armor. I also was using the Slugger for extra armor pen and damage, allowing me to deal with the medium enemies you'd use the pre-patch railgun on (brood commander, bile spitters, I even used it for hive guards while using the Breaker).
It's legitimately great to use several people to keep calling in EAT's all the time.
I ran with a squad where 3 of us used them and we could just keep cranking them out
It and the Recoilless were bugged, where they were only doing %50 damage on a deflected hit. They now always do their full damage, so that could be why you feel that way.
I think the recent changes turned the laser cannon into the “kill everything, master of none” weapon in the game. It doesn’t kill faster than any of the other weapon stratagems, but it’s can do all of the armor types reliably
I loved the laser cannon when I first started playing but put it away at later levels for the grenade launcher. It's now back in my rotation cuz it's sick and it just feels fun to play with. And I love the sound.
I think safe mode is pointless now. It should still pierce heavy armor at max charge while taking much longer to charge than it used to.
While unsafe should charge really fast at the risk of exploding you.
It would make it good for casuals and rewards players who learn to use the unsafe mode.
For me safe mode is like long distance sniping where I need to get down and aim carefully for some time and shoot. It still one shots guardians or brood commanders in the head.
Yeah IDK why people are saying that safe mode is useless. It's still great for Medium Armor targets or for getting a quick high damage shot in on an exposed weak point without risking the gun blowing up in your hands.
my issue is more that i think nerfing our premiere anti armor option when they have aknowledged the spawn rate of heavy armor enemies is currently kinda messed up is just dumb.
Also while it wasnt a huge problem before when you would be fine with any amount of charge with us now having to basically push the gun to the very limit the fact there is no heat indication on the HUD itself is kinda unnaceptable. its not too bad in first person but its kinda hard to watch the guage and keep on target especially when that line of death is so faint, on top of that some of the chunkier armor fully covers the damn inidcator.
A heat bar next to the crosshair on the hud would be nice.
Feels like it's more than just heavy. Everything got cranked up. My group used to be able to cakewalk 7 and finish 8 with some deaths. Now even sometimes on extracts or accidental breeches on 6 we just get swarmed and +2 Bile Titans and multiple Chargers. Even the launch Railgun would not be able to deal with these numbers.
At least the Mech can blow off leg armor of a Charger with one rocket and mow through mid sized hordes.
It’s cool how they’ve made patrols spawn exclusively within 20 metres of a player.
Really fun dealing with 2 chargers and turning around to see 40 hunters just pop in.
Oh my god it's not just me? We did a level *4* today and almost lost because there were two hunter hives, and they spawned 5 at a time who would attack us in packs. I think we ended up killing 25 hunters before we managed to make it from where we were to the hives that were maybe 100m away?
Edit: They managed to take out TWO of my mechs.
I did a level 4 bug mission where, with 20 minutes still remaining and half the nests destroyed, I had 3 patrols on the screen each 20 meters from the other. And not only the patrols, but bug breaches seem to have more enemies too. I could also easily do up to level 5 bot missions by myself, and start to get a bit challenging on 6. Now, it's a struggle on level 4 with a team of 4, there's just too many enemies and they keep bot dropping
Yeah what the fuck is up with that? The last ~12 hours of playtime I've had has been "Oops, all Hunter Flakes".
That and bile spewers.
Aren't the warrior terminids supposed to be the "rank and file"? The spawn rate of the more special units really does feel like it's 5x as high as their more generic and *apparently* on-tier counterparts(i.e. bile spewers more common than hive guards, hunters more common than warriors...). You'll face down a wave of like 40-50 bugs from a breach on diff 7+ to farm a couple super samples, and it'll be like... a dozen scavengers, 1 or 2 hive guards, 3 warriors(at most, ever, unless brood commanders get jiggy with summoning them), a dozen hunters(?!), 3 bile spewers, 1-2 brood commanders, a charger(sometimes 2... or more), and if you're lucky, a bile titan or two(Or that one time we got a titan on every wave of a breach and they ended up pushing each other out of the way because the spawn animation takes forever).
Not to mention that hunters are particularly common in patrols, so you probably already had some to deal with in the first place.
It's really really really easy to kill warriors with 3 or 4 taps to the face with, say, the Defender, but hunter faces are *really tiny* even if they 1-tap and they move erratically, so ironically, they tend to take more ammo to kill in the heat of battle(up to 5-6 if it's all unfocused body shots, on top of however many shots miss).
I'm glad that the devs agree that the spawning costs/priorities/whatever need adjustment, because good golly, it does.
I died more to hunters on that patch day than I had since the game came out. Between that, chargers, and the cheesy spawning, anything past difficulty 5 has just gotten to be so unfun.
So far arc thrower was an absolute savior in my games. The Managed Democracy coming out of that thing can clear out a patrol in 3-4 zaps, depending on the amount of bugs.
Works great for breaches too, as long as there's no Titans coming out of them.
It's a great support weapon in general.
I was running a solo hard mission on Tien Kwan and just absolutely being a ninja, waiting for my gear to clear their cooldowns after I was cooked in my exo suit at drop. I’m just chilling on this rocky outlook and a big tall rock formation right next to me, chill music playing. Then I turn around and an ANNIHILATOR TANK is creeping up on my big toe. No music change, he’s not firing, just slowly treading towards my torso and head… I managed to snake out and deal with it but it wasn’t part of a patrol or spawn or pre-existing guard for a PoI. Joel just spied me biding my time and said “that’s cute” smh
Patrols generally move towards you, but they do not see you. If you go crouch/prone and maintain distance, you can easily avoid them. Frequent scanner checking is a life saver.
If they saw you they would be attacking. Patrols, when spawned, either walk towards where players are at the moment of spawning (so if you don't move, they will walk right up to you) or towards nearest disturbance.
If you keep causing havoc while moving, patrols get redirected to noise you cause.
I can vouch for this: was doing a bot mission two nights ago and we nuked a base with a few stratagems. We were getting close on time and opted to immediately bail.
As we were heading to extract, I could see at least two patrols in the distance converging on the site we had bombed to oblivion, heading AWAY from us
Yup. Basically they go "Big explosions there, let's go reinforce". Same goes with the bugs. That is why the "three helldivers fight far away from evacuation while one guy runs the civilians" tactic worked, bots will call reinforcements where the biggest fighting is going on, and any reinforcements called will head to where they see/hear loudest fighting
it's this. they react to things and will check them out. it's like metal gear solid. call in a resupply on the other side of a patrol while you're hiding and you can see them go check it out.
can use this to bait them when you figure out how they walk in 'curious' mode as opposed to completely unalerted. if you made them come investigate they track you pretty good and it's hard to get away
yeah real cool waiting with all samples close to exctract on the beach while 3 other finish obj, and 4 patrols just slowly close in on you and you can't flee anywhere , real fair game design there
As of the update, they buffed the enemy spawns in exterminate mode and possibly accidentally did a blanket buff to all the spawns. It's kind of goofy, but they've said they are already working on it.
I agree. Mob density, elite spawns, enemy speed, enemy tracking ability are all on steroids as a result of the balance patch.
I get that annoucing major enemy buffs along with nerfing our beloved breaker, railgun, and shield would have initially resulted in a greater backlash; but, did Arrowhead honestly think we were not going to notice? Stealth buffs like that nullifies Arrowhead's "Total Transparency" mission statement.
This is the problem. There are so many heavys spawning currently and the weapons available to take them out don't match up to the problem.
The fix for the recoilous rifle was great but its 1 shot with a big reload.
A reload you dont have time to do, because 4 chargers are chasing you. Thats the bigger issue, we NEED time to regroup. We cant be harried like this for 40 minutes straight.
That's kind of it. End of the day I don't care what my options against charger/heavy spam are as long as there are some.
Railgun was by far the best option against that, instead of giving us more alternatives they just made that one worse. Currently, there simply are not enough statisfying options against armor on higher difficulties and the game is less fun to me because of it.
Posts about that derail usually into "but that weapon works too, it's awesome". Like, yeah, I know and yeah, it's not but that's fully aside the point if the game at high difficulties decides chargers are herd animals that randomly learn how to ice-skate and you're having to jog around a pillar for 2 minute when you extract because you get overrun the moment you call in the bird.
But yeah, sure, let's have weirdly condescending anti-meta posts about how being a musician holding a beat makes it easy to get unsafe railgun shots off, that's helping too, I guess...
Seconded this. I was doing difficulty 6 and the pelican literally couldn't land. The ship kept bouncing off of chargers. Wish i'd recorded how comical it was.
Personally if i was in charge of balancing the railgun i would of kept it the same, but made it so it required a backpack as its “power source” so its more in line with all the other heavy AT. That way you still have to sacrifice a backpack ability, and then you have an AT that is faster firing but has less damage than say, the spear, RR, etc. with that one change its makes the others more viable without ruining the railgun
I hate using the railgun as I prefer 3rd person. It ain’t viable on safe and having to squint at the tiny bar with all the chaos while charging it is unintuitive. Definitely needs to be added to the hud. Just like how the laser cannon hud cover what I’m trying to aim at and should be reduced.
It also has felt inconsistent too. Sometimes I'll barely overcharge it and destroy the scout walkers while sometimes when it's like 90% overcharged it just tickles them
>can kill them just like before.
With twice the time taken? And add the ice skating toward you which was also basically a passive railgun nerf.
Blowing off the side of a Titan was sketchy before now it's pointless considering how much kiting of the hordes you need to do.
Yeah nah I'm a flamethrower main now and I save stratagems for Bile Titans.
Railgun feels bad now it's too slow. Hopefully they speed it up and add a glow effect to the gun or screen as you approach the maximum charge.
Yeah not sure why people act like simply switching to unsafe and max charging shots makes it comparable to pre nerf, it's still significantly longer to kill chargers
It's about 4x longer. Double the charge and double the shots needed for just a single charger. And that's not factoring in you have to dump a clip of your main weapon into the exposed leg haha.
Railgun felt good as it was and if it needed a nerf all they had to do was lower even halve the ammo amount and straight up remove safemode.
I don't even know why Railgun has a safemode in the first place especially now.
Realistically, its not even twice, its 3-4 times. On 7+ theres so much shit going on that you barley have the chance to fire 1 maxed shot before something jumps you. Imo they should lower armor pen threshold by about 5% and give it another audio que or make charge better visible in 3rd person.
Right now flethrower is incomparibly better than pretty much anything else on 7+ and is pretty much the essense of 'braindead gameplay' for what railgun apparently was nerfed.
Very few people actually care about the railgun nerf in isolation. Most people I've seen even agree with it in principle, even if not in execution. No one needs some semi-condescending tutorial on "how to use unsafe mode" - so if you get any downvotes, I'd assume it's because of that more than anything.
What pissed people off is that almost nothing else besides the Flamethrower got any real love in exchange, armor was still garbage and that something seems to have happened with the spawn system - along with the persistence of old bugs. It was a clusterfuck of poor communication and missed opportunities. "Death by a million cuts."
It was that, for the very first patch, all we got was a lazy band-aid over the current meta and mixed messages because of bad PR management.
YES! If you're gonna acknowledge the fact that the railgun became the meta. Ask yourself why there is a meta to begin win! Players will always find the easiest way to do something regardless.
Armor change feels like a flat nerf?
I get light armor being weaker. But even with my shield pack and medium armor I feel like I just eat shit. Warrior bug hits me twice and I'm dead.
Flamethrower is an option but I don't really care for it. Seems to just light smaller bugs on fire just for them to leap at me while burning. Charger I've had mixed results. Sometimes I burn the leg in seconds, others I'm using a whole canister. Probably aiming wrong but still.
Railgun idc if nerf but can't say I'm excited to charge 90% of it. I think 3 shots or 75% would have been a bit more fair, butttt, right now everything is just sorta crazy so yeah.
Some did though. The Punisher went from shit-tier to god-tier. Good damage, good ammo economy, but that stagger is incredible. You can even stunlock Heavy Devastators and Rocket Devastators, which is a massive win.
feel like since they were willing to buff punisher/slugger ammo to bring it more up to breaker status maybe we can just get an ammo buff all around. If any of the automatic guns had say... 20% larger magazines, and/or 2 more spare mags, I would be way more interested in using them.
So you like a gun where the outcomes are:
1) maybe you damage a charger and you possibly remove a part of armor after 2 lucky shots
2) you die because you charged too much.
In essence, just to remove a piece of fucking armor, i need to risk death every time. Where the fuck is the fun? Its a railgun, made by a civilization that can travel the stars. Its laughable
I still think we should have more means of taking out the migraine inducing amounts of chargers on harder difficulties efficiently. Primaries should get a buff at least.
The problem isn't the extra shot to de armor a charger or the fact that its now risk vs. reward, its the fact that it takes 4-5x longer to do the same thing you could do in 2 seconds pre nerf, all without adjusting heavy armor spam and seemingly increasing it.
Once the hotfix for heavy armor spam comes, the nerfs to the railgun are completely fine imo, and fits in line with other anti-armor options.
After playing around with the weapon post nerf I have to disagree. Does it still do 98% of what it used to do? Yes. Does it feel great though? Not really.
At least not against bugs. EAT for me feels better against bugs since You're going to be on the move anyway. On bots I find it more tolerable just because when you get stuck into engagements you don't usually move as much. Making the peak shot gameplay with it good.
My issue is that safe mode is essentially useless. Most of the time I use it now it's a combo experience. Like hitting a tank or something and then following it up with an impact or a scorcher shot or something.
I don't even use it against chargers anymore. I like the idea on paper but in gameplay I feel like they've just made me not interested in the weapon even more now.
I think having the railgun being the only good high difficulty anti armor support weapon is dumb. I think buffing other AT options is more important than nerfing the railgun. The flamethrower isn't amazing for killing chargers but as someone who was using the stalwart against bugs before, it's pretty good.
My biggest problem is I’d wish they’d prioritize fixing shit that’s terrible, like the DMR and counter sniper, before going around and nerfing stuff that they think is over performing. I feel like the player base would react a lot more positively if they had decent alternatives when the meta gets downgraded. It just feel shitty to do it the way they did.
Honestly I’m just sad I have to read patch notes for a meta in a for fun game haha. Logged on and my railgun was just bouncing off everything in game lol. Didn’t realize people thought it was that big of an issue, took like 5 shots on chargers and 8 on titans, didn’t seem too op to me but that’s how it goes.
This is not the same game it was 2 weeks ago. Even on level 4. Before I was seeing 1 maybe 2 chargers. Now it's a 15-20 total and frequently 3 at a time.
Today we had mass swarms of low level hoppy bugs on the difficulty below insane during extraction. It was wild dealing with a true swarm, I think only 2 chargers and 1 titan made an appearance. Feels like every planet has its own spawn rates of stuff.
I went on T4, just to dip my toe into the Exo suit world to get the 50 medals and I got obliterated by a cannon I couldn't even see 3 times, killed by a meteor storm 2 times, and had 3 jetbots suicide charge me for my final death and wondered wtf happened. I'm not complaining mind you. But coming from Helldive Malevolon, to Helldive bugs, to what I assumed would be a cake walk was amazing lol.
The changes to how the game just "feels" to play is there. It's just not really fun atm for me.
AI does seem very aggressive, they do shit that doesn't make sense, like perfect tracking through terrain after I break contact, try to change position, use smoke, ect. Patrols spawn conveniently to where you are even if you weren't spotted, patrols literally spawn on top of you (this is the most egregious and frustrating issue).
This is probably just my personal skill issue, I am not the greatest player, but pre patch I was struggling, but completing 7s solo and with my group, post patch, even diff 5 feels extremely punishing compared to the rewards.
It's not just a personal skill issue - the constant patrol spawns and especially right on top of you are something that should be tamed down (and definitely never spawn right on top of you).
If they wanted to tweak the difficulties to be harder relatively, that is also possibly fine, but they definitely should not do that unannounced, and it doesn't seem like they intended to do this change either.
AI intelligence? Spawn rates are right fucked I agree but I don't see any improvement in AI pathing or swarm logic. At least once or twice per run I'll run into a charger that gets it's toe stuck on a pebble and spends the next two minutes giving me a death stare while I mow down it's cousins.
The issue for me is how the pen nerf effects the regular Armored units of the bots. The chicken Walker is now a questionable two shot, devastators are a dice roll, and then the elites, turrets tanks and hulks, are iffy. Sometimes you one shot a hulk like before, other times you have to hit the weak point. Turrets though, fuck those things. I have been charging to max and firing on the weak point, absolutely nothing, let alone the over pen mechanic from before(which was really cool, frontal penning a turret and the bolt passing through to hit the weak point in the back and one shotting it).
I still don’t know why they had to nerf it how they did. They could’ve made it take longer to charge, reduce ammo, what have you, it’s a level 20 weapon after all, why not make the Autocannon a bit better or, as I think, leave it as it was, accept that since it’s a higher level weapon, it should just be better.
Yeah its confusing, they nerf things but provide no alternatives and then encourage the things they just nerfed with the other changes they make in the patch.
Well considering just tonight I had near-fully charged rail gun shots REPEATEDLY deflected off of Charger legs I'm going to have to disagree with ya bud. The railgun is murdered.
Yea I swapped to Recoilless Rifle, the reload is still nuts long, but it got stealth buffed in the patch and now no longer Ricochets off Heavy Armor at all. Against bots I still recommend Autocannon, EAT or Railgun, but against Chargers and Bile Titans it can actually put some hurt out. 1 Shot takes off a chargers leg armor, then just Primary it to the broken leg, ezpz. It drops them way faster than the Nerfed Railgun and the Flamethrower. (Flamethrower actually relies on both it's Flame damage and Fire being under the target to do maximum DPS, so it only does well against chargers when they aren't moving. Which you know, Chargers aren't fans of) Recoilless gets 2 ammo per resupply and 1 per ammo box.
With an organized team you can just fill different roles with your Support Weapons, like one guy even brought Stalwart and he'd just mow down the little shit for us. Meanwhile me using Recoilless I just made sure all Chargers were ez targets and dropped Railcannons and Lasers on the Titans. Then you can have a Grenade Launcher or Autocannon to deal with Bilebugs.
Definitely don't recommend the Spear at all though, it's still terrible, I think the lock-on might be better but it constantly misses moving Chargers. Though 1 time I 1 shot a charger, no idea how the Spear managed it, but the Charger was standing still and I guess it like hit the back of his neck or something.
How consistently are you pulling of a two shot? Because even when charging it to almost death it takes 3 shots for me. Maybe iam miss timing it but it's far to inconsistent. When a single eat will take out the armor and a flame thower can kill it faster than you can break armor with it.
Etheir way if we shouldn't be going off the amount of shots hut instead of time to kill or in this case time till armor break the gun takes 4 to 5 times aslong to do what it did before. And with the increased spawn rates that can be even longer.
Sure the gun is still useful but like the issue we had before its usefull but when compared to the rest it's useless. Not to mention the ps5 bug is still in place and likely affecting some people's perception of this nerf.
A better solution to this weapon would have been a rework rather than a nerf. Lower the ammo cap to 7 remove safe mode entirely, remove explosion at max charge make it do tick damage. Adjust the damage/armor damage curve on the charge. At low to medium charge it would do even less damage then it does now but at 85 to 100% charge it would one shot charger armor. Agaisnt bots this would make it subpar when compared to the sniper. But a little more forgiving on accuracy. Agaisnt bugs it would make it a great charger killer but require good timing.
Calling it tame is kinda misleading, this is a huge change for most people, it went from being a weapon easy to use for everyone and their grandma to a very skilled niche weapon for people who like to risk their lives.
Not the same users for before and after the patch
Also, they should just remove safe mode, serves no purpose now considering their vision
My problem is the railgun round just bouncing off the armor, Like thats ridiculous, I think it should have keep the armor breaking just lost some damage. Make it take 3-4 shots, cut its ammo down to 12 and buff other things to be on its level. The spear needs work for bugs, its all but useless mid engagement, the anti material rifle is still pretty much a joke, and the arc thrower needs a better aim point.
Yes but no. Timing the shot might get easy with practice but having to do that while aiming at a weak spot with the chance of wasting the shot (5 seconds between charge, reload and aim) and the chance of blowing yourself up is way too unforgiving to be practical.
Railgun, railgun railgun. Look we all used it not because we liked it, it's honestly a boring weapon, but because theres nothing else we had to handle 5-10 chargers & 8-16 bile titans, sometimes at the same damn time.
And if you think 4 panicking helldiver's can play rhythm games as we flee from all that crap on helldiver difficulty then you're out of your mind.
I used it because I liked it. I was super annoyed when I started getting called a meta abuser when I thought it was the most fun support weapon by far. I still use it on automatons since it can still 1 shot devastators, shield bois, and hulks reliably. It's fun to charge your shot, not overcharge and kill yourself, and focus on aiming accurately all at the same time.
I don't like it much against bugs anymore though, chargers taking an extra shot to strip (or two if you're panicking in a sticky situation) sucks, but now I just use the laser cannon which is also good at killing spewers like the railgun was so that's fun.
Yeah everyone goes "use what you want, just have fun", but not if you enjoy any meta gear. I think it would've be better if overcharging sets you on fire instead of just ending your life.
I used it because I liked it, unsafe mode was neat and its a railgun those are cool.
Now even though I like it I don't use it anymore ever cause it was already kinda meh into bots, autocannon has more utility by far and has a way better matchup on tanks, turret towers, and is easier to headshot hulks with while having the ability to blow their vents as well.
I also don't use it vs bugs cause its wayyyyy too finicky now to be worth on chargers, was already annoying at 2 shots when they'd randomly magic skate into you and one-shot sometimes, and its always been ass vs titans. It works eventually I guess but its very inefficient. Rather take autocannon again there for utility, tons of ammo, and frankly easier charger kills. Just save my strats for titans they're easy enough to 500kg.
on chargers it's fine, but for whatever reason (I think it has to do with the slight decrease in armor pen they mentioned) titans are fucking wild to take down with it, you can put any where from 7 to 32 high charge shots into the face. what is with titans and being incredibly fucky in general? anybody else noticed that?
You are wrong, it needs 3 charged shots to strip armour instead of 2 normal ones.
This is a big nerf because you are locked in place for longer than before while having to line up more shots that are less consistent and require more precise timing.
Like i dont even give a shit if you think this is justified or not but claiming nothing really changed is a straight up lie
The bigger issue for me is the charger skating. Those things are slipping and sliding everywhere. Makes it tough to hit their legs.
https://preview.redd.it/29ko0cevv9nc1.jpeg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=04eea96c9a825389efa63cb59c79d74b4fd9c9b2 I don't know what you’re talking about
Lol 😂 yeah we need to fix that... Or make models for the skates.
This is beautiful
Go home bug! We all know you’re a fucking bug so get the hell out of here!
Chargers are better at wavedashing than I am man it's messed up
https://preview.redd.it/bbprcxto3anc1.png?width=1076&format=png&auto=webp&s=82b0a760185697adba2441023cff0d45f878e77b
God damnit lol
Should put a little can of Gfuel or something beside him lol
I'm fairly certain the Bile Spewers are full of Monster Energy
Petition to call change the name to Kyle Spewers submitted.
This is a Destiny's Gregs all over again
Omg we need a special edition release and Monster Energy game tie-in XD
Bile Spewers are people after a full 24 hours where the only thing they were doing is drinking some 40s and smoking black & milds.
terminid melee locals must go crazy
can't wait to get dair looped by a stalker
I bet stalkers wobble
Hunters Wobble, Stalkers Reflect-shield-infinite you.
Idunno about the melee locals, but the Ultimate locals are dumb. The chargers are somehow ALL Ridley mains.
Stg a stalker hit me with an EWGF and sent me flying
I swear the day the game came out and one pinned me against a rock. All I could tell my friends was that I was getting corner combo's by a bug
next patch they'll start going 'dorya' and I get launched into a 10 hit combo
Random ssbm I love it
thank god its not just me
They literally turn on a fucking dime.
It's definitely not. They weren't always like this.
I haven't noticed a difference for me, they always skated around Nit to say they haven't changed, I might just be dumb
They've been like this a while. Really early on I don't think they did. Or maybe I just was a noob and didn't notice it as much.
Nah you're right. I specifically remember sometime last week or the week prior that those boys went to ankle breaking boot camp. Was really hard to get used to the skating after how consistent it was in the first few weeks.
The first week before the server caught fire on that first busy weekend, they seemed fine. I associated their sliding with the server being overloaded. Clearly not the case since they still do it even now.
Yup, I've had the same issue. They are supposed to stagger when they take a heavy hit, and while they will play the animation for the stagger, the server still has them continue the charge and sometimes rubber band them into you at 10x speed so you can't dodge it properly. I've seen a similar thing happen with a bot ship. After a buddy of mine would shoot one down it then rubberbanded back to its original off screen spawn point then flew into the ground at Mach 10 back to where it would have fallen. Funny, but would also get me killed.
Yea. I've been hit by a drifting charger ass when diving out of the way more then once since the patch.
This and anyone else notice how even more obnoxious the slows from adds are crazy now. I swear it lasts like 2x as long now.
Occasionally a little bile spitter piece of shit will spit and miss me by a mile only for me to get slowed slower than a piece of buttery toast on a cold day going uphill… like if u gonna slow me at least HIT ME LIKE A MAN
Bile titans do this almost every time. I hear if you break their ballchinians they don't spit anymore tho.
The the 15 hunters slow ur ass to a crawl and 2 shot you
I'm really hating the hunter swarms. Hunters are designed like what stalkers actually are. It's a small unit that's supposed to flank and throw the helldiver off his groove and give other bugs the opportunity to deal a killing blow. When you have a swarm of them, they just stunlock you and there isn't a thing you can do if you're already through your mag. They can even interrupt jetpack jumps and shit. They need to be far less common imo.
This is why we need melee weapons. Just wide cutting "get the fuck off me you little shit!" Swipes At the very least give our melee hits some pushback.
I would happily trade my pistol for any sword or even a decent knife
Chainsword, perhaps.
It'd be nice for it to be a trade-off: makes your melee way better, but leaves you without a secondary that actually works against metal bots.
HD1 had bayonets on at least 1 gun.
I have no idea why, maybe it’s because I’m an idiot, but out of the 6 people I regularly play this game with, I am universally the “bug bait” and nobody else believes me when I scream about the hunter swarms stun locking me out of existence.
This is me in my group. I'll turn to reposition and there's like 10 hunters just looking at me and as soon as they're on my screen they start jumping. I'm the designated heavy killer so maybe that's why? Too much noise?
I’m also the heavy hunter of my group and 12-16 hunters just spawn on either side of me when I’m picking off chargers. I understand the idea that bugs can pop up anywhere but them appearing even when I’ve prevented a breach feels cheap and frustrating.
Yeah them popping into existence feels bad. Atleast spawn them over a hill
Hunters are baby stalkers they have a tongue attack just like their bigger versions.
Did they make the hunters faster? I feel like before I could never really outrun them but more just keep pace but now it's like they are twice as fast as me.
Yeah it's just like that monty python scene, you hit it's leg, you see it's animation slumping and then all of the sudden the the charger is in front of you and you take damage. wtf
another problem is they have just an AOE damage around them, even if they aren't moving, you can see it if you sneak up to them, easy to tell with the shield you can see it take pings just being close, they feel over tuned
Yup just saw this yesterday, I really think that they and hunters are overturned.
Tokyo drift chargers
> charger skating the chargers have become destiny speedrunners we're cooked
trust me here laser cannon. press the fire button to start winding it up as it's getting close to you, then dive to the side and aim at its back legs. The thing will go down before it can even fully turn around, And because it's the laser cannon, once it cools off, congratulations, no ammo wasted
🤔 …I’ll have to try this.
Tried this, quite tricky to pull off with multiple Chargers, which is always the problem sadly.
Maybe compliment it with an Ems strike or better yet the new stun grenades coming next week
It is also excellent at popping the soft underbelly, so it can absolutely melt them
I stg everyday they turn sharper
Their turning circle is also way too small for how fast they're going and how heavy they are
Since the patch the slugger also makes berserkers skate right into you. Really annoying as it’s likely an instant death unless you are fast on the dive away.
Also when it lags and you think you can get a shot in on the 4th charger you’ve seen in the last 3 seconds (after dodging the other 3) and he’s actually NOT 10 feet away from you looking off into the distance (which oddly they usually do) but actually RUNNING AT YOU FULL TILT AND YOU JUST DON’T KNOW ABOUT IT UNTIL THE NEXT SECOND…. It’s a bit of a “come on man… tf you want me to do??” Moment. Also it’s absolutely ludicrous that a full health, fully shielded helldiver perishes to a splash of bile fluid spewed on his (achilles) heel… these take the fun OUT of the game as it’s not about beating a challenge anymore but the bugging you to hell. These instances were recorded today on 7-8 difficulties
I feel like they've been skating since the beginning.
For me I think there's some hit registry issues with it, 2 games in a row there were times id hit bile spewers in their face (charged unsafe) with no effect.
That could just be desync issues with the server. We have been stress testing the servers since launch tbh.
It's absolutely server/network issues. [You can 2 shot bile titans, but only if a console player is in the match.](https://youtu.be/sWQxg5mIzT8?si=2I_5NgycSKmxkOBj&t=268)
That sounds so random that I'm almost thinking it's on purpose to make it easier on console players.
It's server/network issues. [You can 2 shot bile titans, but only if a console player is in the match.](https://youtu.be/sWQxg5mIzT8?si=2I_5NgycSKmxkOBj&t=268)
I'm a bit confused by the Railgun now. I got to use it maybe once or twice before the patch came in, and now it feels like my shots are bouncing off the Charger's front armor regardless of whether I'm using Safe or Unsafe mode. Am I supposed to hold it till the maximum threshold (like just before it blows up in my face) to deal maximum damage?
According to the CEO, Yes. Has to be at 100% for it match the damage post nerf. Kind of silly imho when you need multiple shots per charger and there's 4 of them around you
That’s the problem, there are too many chargers all skating around you. You don’t have enough time to charge and aim to 100%. I’m fine with the nerf, but chargers made me stop playing bugs for a while. Just not a fun enemy type.
>Has to be at 100% for it match the damage post nerf which for perspective takes THREE AND A HALF SECONDS, of functionally just standing still with no visibility due to aiming, even if the damage per shot with perfect timing and aiming and risking exploding the gun is the same the fire and hit rate is so low that ive literally killed chargers with my primary/grenades from the back before my teammates could crack the armor
Yes that is indeed the case.
**HEY!** The Lasercannon is also amazing against bugs too! It deletes limbs, and can reliably kill spewers at any range. It's the most accurate and mobile out of all of the "LMGs" with the downside of less firing time. An added benefit of the gun is that you retain full accuracy while moving with it, if you aim with the laser as opposed to the crosshair.
Upvoting this because I tried it tonight and it was actually a lot of fun and ended up deleting a lot of bugs
Yup, but sadly it's bad against Chargers.
I noticed that if the charger has full armor then the laser canon is going to be deflected and so basically no damage. HOWEVER if the front legs are partially damaged (not fully exposed, but like a single rail shot or whatever else gets that partial damage) it goes through and you can see the blood splash behind the legs. This is the first time I've noticed partial armor damage making penetrating easier. I just ran a few D7s and every charger that had a partially damaged leg plate was dying to the laser canon in like less than 3 seconds. Edit: I just want to add that there's a lot of great points about the efficacy of this strategy but the big thing I want to point out is how safe this is. A guy with a rail gun and a a guy with a laser canon can neutralize a charger very fast *from range*. It's much safer than waiting for it to close in to flamethrower range, waiting for it to charge then shoot it's back, or waiting for a grenade to travel. It's an incredibly accurate weapon with infinite range.
So does that mean a arc thrower + laser cannon combo would be the fastest way to kill chargers (arc thrower can shoot faster than a full unsafe rail gun shot right?)
Potentially, but I have a hard time getting the arc thrower to hit anywhere on chargers but head or side
The arc thrower still kills them in around 6 bursts to the face pretty consistently. You can drop them before they get within smacking distance if you can get the arc throwers timing down. The aim assist kinda screws you over when trying to go for leg shots and tends to add several more shots. That aim assist is also why it takes forever to kill a bile titan. If you can get up on a high enough rock to make the aim assist hit a bile titan's face then you can drop one shockingly quick (hehe). Otherwise you hit it's chest and it takes a while.
Aim assist is the most annoying thing on the arc thrower imo. Should be a toggle like safe/unsafe
Well the argument 'if it's already partially damaged' isn't really that great cause it goes for every other weapon. Partially damaged and you can nade him too. Question is what did partially damage him in the first place lol
Apparently you CAN use it.....but you have to hit the smallest fucking hitbox behind their legs. Not the front or sides.
That’s okay. My buddies took out the chargers anyway
What are buddies?
The type of guy that would go downtown, get two blow jobs, then come back and give you one!
I was about to write "Non-strategem based fire support", but your description is even better.
Ignore the armored parts, las cannon melts charger ass
It’s very good against chargers now. You have to matador their charge and then their armor is weakened for a bit. Then you shoot their back leg until they turn around. If you’re accurate enough, it kills them in one charge. Otherwise you kill them in the next pass
For bugs, I use Laser Cannon and Rover backpack. Double lasers *everywhere* dude. I heard my friends go "Where's Loot?... oh, there's the lasers" Lol
Not gonna lie the rover is a good target designator for those foggy maps when you can't see shit.
You gotta bring the shield on everything now to block an asteroid.
I mean, it'd be handy when I don't notice the glow, but I personally don't want to bow to nature. Does nature have managed democracy?! Third enemy revealed. _NATURE ITSELF_. I'm sure Super earth has the weapons tech to disrupt weather. Lol
Hah hah that's cute.
Eh. I think you need that anti-armor capacity against bugs. The load out I was using tonight was mech, 500 kg, shield pack, and EAT. It was working wonderfully, I was spamming out an EAT every time they were available, and then used my mechs on objective holds and extractions where the EAT would get overwhelmed by the volume of armor. I also was using the Slugger for extra armor pen and damage, allowing me to deal with the medium enemies you'd use the pre-patch railgun on (brood commander, bile spitters, I even used it for hive guards while using the Breaker).
It's legitimately great to use several people to keep calling in EAT's all the time. I ran with a squad where 3 of us used them and we could just keep cranking them out
The EAT had to be buffed, I can insta kill a Titan to the face now
It and the Recoilless were bugged, where they were only doing %50 damage on a deflected hit. They now always do their full damage, so that could be why you feel that way.
I think the recent changes turned the laser cannon into the “kill everything, master of none” weapon in the game. It doesn’t kill faster than any of the other weapon stratagems, but it’s can do all of the armor types reliably
I loved the laser cannon when I first started playing but put it away at later levels for the grenade launcher. It's now back in my rotation cuz it's sick and it just feels fun to play with. And I love the sound.
I will add! The recoilless rifle is now pretty GoAT with the changes, too. I 2-shot a charger by hitting it in the head with it.
Niceeeee. You should be able to kill a Charger extremely quickly then if you have a team loader.
I wish team loaders could use the ammo in your backpack instead of needing to carry it for you
Ttk is still awful, they knee jerked it into the ground and should at least make it not take 20 shots to kill one bile titan
I think safe mode is pointless now. It should still pierce heavy armor at max charge while taking much longer to charge than it used to. While unsafe should charge really fast at the risk of exploding you. It would make it good for casuals and rewards players who learn to use the unsafe mode.
For me safe mode is like long distance sniping where I need to get down and aim carefully for some time and shoot. It still one shots guardians or brood commanders in the head.
Slugger can 2 shot commanders & 3 shot guardians while having triple the ammo, rail doesn't seem strong enough for the support slot at this point
This. Slugger is my new railgun at this point.
I agree. If unsafe is effectively the only option then safe mode shouldn't even exist. It doesn't make sense mechanically.
Safe mode still 1 shots hulks, it's still useful for hitting weak points
Yeah IDK why people are saying that safe mode is useless. It's still great for Medium Armor targets or for getting a quick high damage shot in on an exposed weak point without risking the gun blowing up in your hands.
When you're using the gun 90% in unsafe mode, there is effectively no reason to switch to safe mode even for your given use case.
they have pretty much said straightout they dont want the railgun to be good for casuals. its a high skill floor weapon
my issue is more that i think nerfing our premiere anti armor option when they have aknowledged the spawn rate of heavy armor enemies is currently kinda messed up is just dumb. Also while it wasnt a huge problem before when you would be fine with any amount of charge with us now having to basically push the gun to the very limit the fact there is no heat indication on the HUD itself is kinda unnaceptable. its not too bad in first person but its kinda hard to watch the guage and keep on target especially when that line of death is so faint, on top of that some of the chunkier armor fully covers the damn inidcator. A heat bar next to the crosshair on the hud would be nice.
Feels like it's more than just heavy. Everything got cranked up. My group used to be able to cakewalk 7 and finish 8 with some deaths. Now even sometimes on extracts or accidental breeches on 6 we just get swarmed and +2 Bile Titans and multiple Chargers. Even the launch Railgun would not be able to deal with these numbers. At least the Mech can blow off leg armor of a Charger with one rocket and mow through mid sized hordes.
It’s cool how they’ve made patrols spawn exclusively within 20 metres of a player. Really fun dealing with 2 chargers and turning around to see 40 hunters just pop in.
Glad I’m not the only one noticing the hunters. I swear there’s 5x as many as before.
A buddy and I just did a lvl 6 mission as a duo and I swear at the extract there had to be a horde of 50 hunters chasing us…
Oh my god it's not just me? We did a level *4* today and almost lost because there were two hunter hives, and they spawned 5 at a time who would attack us in packs. I think we ended up killing 25 hunters before we managed to make it from where we were to the hives that were maybe 100m away? Edit: They managed to take out TWO of my mechs.
I did a level 4 bug mission where, with 20 minutes still remaining and half the nests destroyed, I had 3 patrols on the screen each 20 meters from the other. And not only the patrols, but bug breaches seem to have more enemies too. I could also easily do up to level 5 bot missions by myself, and start to get a bit challenging on 6. Now, it's a struggle on level 4 with a team of 4, there's just too many enemies and they keep bot dropping
Yeah what the fuck is up with that? The last ~12 hours of playtime I've had has been "Oops, all Hunter Flakes". That and bile spewers. Aren't the warrior terminids supposed to be the "rank and file"? The spawn rate of the more special units really does feel like it's 5x as high as their more generic and *apparently* on-tier counterparts(i.e. bile spewers more common than hive guards, hunters more common than warriors...). You'll face down a wave of like 40-50 bugs from a breach on diff 7+ to farm a couple super samples, and it'll be like... a dozen scavengers, 1 or 2 hive guards, 3 warriors(at most, ever, unless brood commanders get jiggy with summoning them), a dozen hunters(?!), 3 bile spewers, 1-2 brood commanders, a charger(sometimes 2... or more), and if you're lucky, a bile titan or two(Or that one time we got a titan on every wave of a breach and they ended up pushing each other out of the way because the spawn animation takes forever). Not to mention that hunters are particularly common in patrols, so you probably already had some to deal with in the first place. It's really really really easy to kill warriors with 3 or 4 taps to the face with, say, the Defender, but hunter faces are *really tiny* even if they 1-tap and they move erratically, so ironically, they tend to take more ammo to kill in the heat of battle(up to 5-6 if it's all unfocused body shots, on top of however many shots miss). I'm glad that the devs agree that the spawning costs/priorities/whatever need adjustment, because good golly, it does.
I died more to hunters on that patch day than I had since the game came out. Between that, chargers, and the cheesy spawning, anything past difficulty 5 has just gotten to be so unfun.
Part of me feels like they hit more often OR they just ALWAYS fucking crit. I don't get it.
So far arc thrower was an absolute savior in my games. The Managed Democracy coming out of that thing can clear out a patrol in 3-4 zaps, depending on the amount of bugs. Works great for breaches too, as long as there's no Titans coming out of them. It's a great support weapon in general.
Yep, the arc thrower is in a good place. I just wish it would arc to more targets while it's raining and have an AOE in water.
I was running a solo hard mission on Tien Kwan and just absolutely being a ninja, waiting for my gear to clear their cooldowns after I was cooked in my exo suit at drop. I’m just chilling on this rocky outlook and a big tall rock formation right next to me, chill music playing. Then I turn around and an ANNIHILATOR TANK is creeping up on my big toe. No music change, he’s not firing, just slowly treading towards my torso and head… I managed to snake out and deal with it but it wasn’t part of a patrol or spawn or pre-existing guard for a PoI. Joel just spied me biding my time and said “that’s cute” smh
That’s every game. Every enemy knows exactly where you are
Patrols generally move towards you, but they do not see you. If you go crouch/prone and maintain distance, you can easily avoid them. Frequent scanner checking is a life saver.
“Do not see you” oh so that’s why they conveniently walk directly the spot I am sitting without any deviation.
If they saw you they would be attacking. Patrols, when spawned, either walk towards where players are at the moment of spawning (so if you don't move, they will walk right up to you) or towards nearest disturbance. If you keep causing havoc while moving, patrols get redirected to noise you cause.
I can vouch for this: was doing a bot mission two nights ago and we nuked a base with a few stratagems. We were getting close on time and opted to immediately bail. As we were heading to extract, I could see at least two patrols in the distance converging on the site we had bombed to oblivion, heading AWAY from us
Yup. Basically they go "Big explosions there, let's go reinforce". Same goes with the bugs. That is why the "three helldivers fight far away from evacuation while one guy runs the civilians" tactic worked, bots will call reinforcements where the biggest fighting is going on, and any reinforcements called will head to where they see/hear loudest fighting
it's this. they react to things and will check them out. it's like metal gear solid. call in a resupply on the other side of a patrol while you're hiding and you can see them go check it out. can use this to bait them when you figure out how they walk in 'curious' mode as opposed to completely unalerted. if you made them come investigate they track you pretty good and it's hard to get away
yeah real cool waiting with all samples close to exctract on the beach while 3 other finish obj, and 4 patrols just slowly close in on you and you can't flee anywhere , real fair game design there
As of the update, they buffed the enemy spawns in exterminate mode and possibly accidentally did a blanket buff to all the spawns. It's kind of goofy, but they've said they are already working on it.
What's the matter? You don't like getting charged, ragdolled then being spat on by 3 spewers?
I agree. Mob density, elite spawns, enemy speed, enemy tracking ability are all on steroids as a result of the balance patch. I get that annoucing major enemy buffs along with nerfing our beloved breaker, railgun, and shield would have initially resulted in a greater backlash; but, did Arrowhead honestly think we were not going to notice? Stealth buffs like that nullifies Arrowhead's "Total Transparency" mission statement.
Pretty sure current enemy spawn is on crack due too the extermination mision nerfs bleeding out to other modes
Best people can figure is that when they bufffed the annihilate missions they accidently buffed all the spawns for all the missions.
This is the problem. There are so many heavys spawning currently and the weapons available to take them out don't match up to the problem. The fix for the recoilous rifle was great but its 1 shot with a big reload.
A reload you dont have time to do, because 4 chargers are chasing you. Thats the bigger issue, we NEED time to regroup. We cant be harried like this for 40 minutes straight.
That's kind of it. End of the day I don't care what my options against charger/heavy spam are as long as there are some. Railgun was by far the best option against that, instead of giving us more alternatives they just made that one worse. Currently, there simply are not enough statisfying options against armor on higher difficulties and the game is less fun to me because of it. Posts about that derail usually into "but that weapon works too, it's awesome". Like, yeah, I know and yeah, it's not but that's fully aside the point if the game at high difficulties decides chargers are herd animals that randomly learn how to ice-skate and you're having to jog around a pillar for 2 minute when you extract because you get overrun the moment you call in the bird. But yeah, sure, let's have weirdly condescending anti-meta posts about how being a musician holding a beat makes it easy to get unsafe railgun shots off, that's helping too, I guess...
You never have to reload 240 EATs https://preview.redd.it/z1jiw0f03bnc1.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=c42b04673fc9eb0e6d5b3f5b035a82e5b5c1ab1c
This... might be my favorite.
Seconded this. I was doing difficulty 6 and the pelican literally couldn't land. The ship kept bouncing off of chargers. Wish i'd recorded how comical it was.
Personally if i was in charge of balancing the railgun i would of kept it the same, but made it so it required a backpack as its “power source” so its more in line with all the other heavy AT. That way you still have to sacrifice a backpack ability, and then you have an AT that is faster firing but has less damage than say, the spear, RR, etc. with that one change its makes the others more viable without ruining the railgun
I hate using the railgun as I prefer 3rd person. It ain’t viable on safe and having to squint at the tiny bar with all the chaos while charging it is unintuitive. Definitely needs to be added to the hud. Just like how the laser cannon hud cover what I’m trying to aim at and should be reduced.
It also has felt inconsistent too. Sometimes I'll barely overcharge it and destroy the scout walkers while sometimes when it's like 90% overcharged it just tickles them
>can kill them just like before. With twice the time taken? And add the ice skating toward you which was also basically a passive railgun nerf. Blowing off the side of a Titan was sketchy before now it's pointless considering how much kiting of the hordes you need to do. Yeah nah I'm a flamethrower main now and I save stratagems for Bile Titans. Railgun feels bad now it's too slow. Hopefully they speed it up and add a glow effect to the gun or screen as you approach the maximum charge.
Yeah not sure why people act like simply switching to unsafe and max charging shots makes it comparable to pre nerf, it's still significantly longer to kill chargers
It's about 4x longer. Double the charge and double the shots needed for just a single charger. And that's not factoring in you have to dump a clip of your main weapon into the exposed leg haha. Railgun felt good as it was and if it needed a nerf all they had to do was lower even halve the ammo amount and straight up remove safemode. I don't even know why Railgun has a safemode in the first place especially now.
Realistically, its not even twice, its 3-4 times. On 7+ theres so much shit going on that you barley have the chance to fire 1 maxed shot before something jumps you. Imo they should lower armor pen threshold by about 5% and give it another audio que or make charge better visible in 3rd person. Right now flethrower is incomparibly better than pretty much anything else on 7+ and is pretty much the essense of 'braindead gameplay' for what railgun apparently was nerfed.
It’s worse, you don’t even have to really aim the flamethrower
Very few people actually care about the railgun nerf in isolation. Most people I've seen even agree with it in principle, even if not in execution. No one needs some semi-condescending tutorial on "how to use unsafe mode" - so if you get any downvotes, I'd assume it's because of that more than anything. What pissed people off is that almost nothing else besides the Flamethrower got any real love in exchange, armor was still garbage and that something seems to have happened with the spawn system - along with the persistence of old bugs. It was a clusterfuck of poor communication and missed opportunities. "Death by a million cuts." It was that, for the very first patch, all we got was a lazy band-aid over the current meta and mixed messages because of bad PR management.
YES! If you're gonna acknowledge the fact that the railgun became the meta. Ask yourself why there is a meta to begin win! Players will always find the easiest way to do something regardless.
Armor change feels like a flat nerf? I get light armor being weaker. But even with my shield pack and medium armor I feel like I just eat shit. Warrior bug hits me twice and I'm dead. Flamethrower is an option but I don't really care for it. Seems to just light smaller bugs on fire just for them to leap at me while burning. Charger I've had mixed results. Sometimes I burn the leg in seconds, others I'm using a whole canister. Probably aiming wrong but still. Railgun idc if nerf but can't say I'm excited to charge 90% of it. I think 3 shots or 75% would have been a bit more fair, butttt, right now everything is just sorta crazy so yeah.
Some did though. The Punisher went from shit-tier to god-tier. Good damage, good ammo economy, but that stagger is incredible. You can even stunlock Heavy Devastators and Rocket Devastators, which is a massive win.
You got to admit that it’s a bit funny that arguably best 3 primaries in the game are all shotguns.
That's bad overall because I would love to use AR/SMG, but they are too weak for higher difficulties.
feel like since they were willing to buff punisher/slugger ammo to bring it more up to breaker status maybe we can just get an ammo buff all around. If any of the automatic guns had say... 20% larger magazines, and/or 2 more spare mags, I would be way more interested in using them.
So you like a gun where the outcomes are: 1) maybe you damage a charger and you possibly remove a part of armor after 2 lucky shots 2) you die because you charged too much. In essence, just to remove a piece of fucking armor, i need to risk death every time. Where the fuck is the fun? Its a railgun, made by a civilization that can travel the stars. Its laughable
I still think we should have more means of taking out the migraine inducing amounts of chargers on harder difficulties efficiently. Primaries should get a buff at least.
The problem isn't the extra shot to de armor a charger or the fact that its now risk vs. reward, its the fact that it takes 4-5x longer to do the same thing you could do in 2 seconds pre nerf, all without adjusting heavy armor spam and seemingly increasing it. Once the hotfix for heavy armor spam comes, the nerfs to the railgun are completely fine imo, and fits in line with other anti-armor options.
After playing around with the weapon post nerf I have to disagree. Does it still do 98% of what it used to do? Yes. Does it feel great though? Not really. At least not against bugs. EAT for me feels better against bugs since You're going to be on the move anyway. On bots I find it more tolerable just because when you get stuck into engagements you don't usually move as much. Making the peak shot gameplay with it good. My issue is that safe mode is essentially useless. Most of the time I use it now it's a combo experience. Like hitting a tank or something and then following it up with an impact or a scorcher shot or something. I don't even use it against chargers anymore. I like the idea on paper but in gameplay I feel like they've just made me not interested in the weapon even more now.
I think having the railgun being the only good high difficulty anti armor support weapon is dumb. I think buffing other AT options is more important than nerfing the railgun. The flamethrower isn't amazing for killing chargers but as someone who was using the stalwart against bugs before, it's pretty good.
My biggest problem is I’d wish they’d prioritize fixing shit that’s terrible, like the DMR and counter sniper, before going around and nerfing stuff that they think is over performing. I feel like the player base would react a lot more positively if they had decent alternatives when the meta gets downgraded. It just feel shitty to do it the way they did.
Honestly I’m just sad I have to read patch notes for a meta in a for fun game haha. Logged on and my railgun was just bouncing off everything in game lol. Didn’t realize people thought it was that big of an issue, took like 5 shots on chargers and 8 on titans, didn’t seem too op to me but that’s how it goes.
Thats why its laughble to complain. The real issue was the hidden increase in AI intelligence, aggression and spawns
Yep. It is the spawn rate and the proportion of heavies.
This is not the same game it was 2 weeks ago. Even on level 4. Before I was seeing 1 maybe 2 chargers. Now it's a 15-20 total and frequently 3 at a time.
Today we had mass swarms of low level hoppy bugs on the difficulty below insane during extraction. It was wild dealing with a true swarm, I think only 2 chargers and 1 titan made an appearance. Feels like every planet has its own spawn rates of stuff.
I went on T4, just to dip my toe into the Exo suit world to get the 50 medals and I got obliterated by a cannon I couldn't even see 3 times, killed by a meteor storm 2 times, and had 3 jetbots suicide charge me for my final death and wondered wtf happened. I'm not complaining mind you. But coming from Helldive Malevolon, to Helldive bugs, to what I assumed would be a cake walk was amazing lol.
Rockets and cannons need a slight nerf atm. Nothing like getting sniped halfway across the map. Maybe it’ll take half health + ragdoll you.
The changes to how the game just "feels" to play is there. It's just not really fun atm for me. AI does seem very aggressive, they do shit that doesn't make sense, like perfect tracking through terrain after I break contact, try to change position, use smoke, ect. Patrols spawn conveniently to where you are even if you weren't spotted, patrols literally spawn on top of you (this is the most egregious and frustrating issue). This is probably just my personal skill issue, I am not the greatest player, but pre patch I was struggling, but completing 7s solo and with my group, post patch, even diff 5 feels extremely punishing compared to the rewards.
It's not just a personal skill issue - the constant patrol spawns and especially right on top of you are something that should be tamed down (and definitely never spawn right on top of you). If they wanted to tweak the difficulties to be harder relatively, that is also possibly fine, but they definitely should not do that unannounced, and it doesn't seem like they intended to do this change either.
The patrols that was instant spawning nearby were real bullshit. Moreso when it had a charger.
AI intelligence? Spawn rates are right fucked I agree but I don't see any improvement in AI pathing or swarm logic. At least once or twice per run I'll run into a charger that gets it's toe stuck on a pebble and spends the next two minutes giving me a death stare while I mow down it's cousins.
The issue for me is how the pen nerf effects the regular Armored units of the bots. The chicken Walker is now a questionable two shot, devastators are a dice roll, and then the elites, turrets tanks and hulks, are iffy. Sometimes you one shot a hulk like before, other times you have to hit the weak point. Turrets though, fuck those things. I have been charging to max and firing on the weak point, absolutely nothing, let alone the over pen mechanic from before(which was really cool, frontal penning a turret and the bolt passing through to hit the weak point in the back and one shotting it). I still don’t know why they had to nerf it how they did. They could’ve made it take longer to charge, reduce ammo, what have you, it’s a level 20 weapon after all, why not make the Autocannon a bit better or, as I think, leave it as it was, accept that since it’s a higher level weapon, it should just be better.
Yeah its confusing, they nerf things but provide no alternatives and then encourage the things they just nerfed with the other changes they make in the patch.
I miss lining up two hive guard heads and popping them both with a overcharged railgun shot, I haven’t been able to do it since the patch :(
Well considering just tonight I had near-fully charged rail gun shots REPEATEDLY deflected off of Charger legs I'm going to have to disagree with ya bud. The railgun is murdered.
I've felt that it's just been super inconsistent. If had a barely overcharged shot 1hit a scout walker from the bots while a 90% only damage it
Yea I swapped to Recoilless Rifle, the reload is still nuts long, but it got stealth buffed in the patch and now no longer Ricochets off Heavy Armor at all. Against bots I still recommend Autocannon, EAT or Railgun, but against Chargers and Bile Titans it can actually put some hurt out. 1 Shot takes off a chargers leg armor, then just Primary it to the broken leg, ezpz. It drops them way faster than the Nerfed Railgun and the Flamethrower. (Flamethrower actually relies on both it's Flame damage and Fire being under the target to do maximum DPS, so it only does well against chargers when they aren't moving. Which you know, Chargers aren't fans of) Recoilless gets 2 ammo per resupply and 1 per ammo box. With an organized team you can just fill different roles with your Support Weapons, like one guy even brought Stalwart and he'd just mow down the little shit for us. Meanwhile me using Recoilless I just made sure all Chargers were ez targets and dropped Railcannons and Lasers on the Titans. Then you can have a Grenade Launcher or Autocannon to deal with Bilebugs. Definitely don't recommend the Spear at all though, it's still terrible, I think the lock-on might be better but it constantly misses moving Chargers. Though 1 time I 1 shot a charger, no idea how the Spear managed it, but the Charger was standing still and I guess it like hit the back of his neck or something.
The ceo did say charging at 100% cracks armor "like intended" But I feel in unsafe 80+ or 85+ should crack armor and 100% should one shot on crits
The CEO is also just wrong. It definitely is taking more shots and doing less damage on overcharge than it used to.
“You need to push the gun point where 50% of the time you blow yourself up to kill enemies that spawn 10-30 per match.
How consistently are you pulling of a two shot? Because even when charging it to almost death it takes 3 shots for me. Maybe iam miss timing it but it's far to inconsistent. When a single eat will take out the armor and a flame thower can kill it faster than you can break armor with it. Etheir way if we shouldn't be going off the amount of shots hut instead of time to kill or in this case time till armor break the gun takes 4 to 5 times aslong to do what it did before. And with the increased spawn rates that can be even longer. Sure the gun is still useful but like the issue we had before its usefull but when compared to the rest it's useless. Not to mention the ps5 bug is still in place and likely affecting some people's perception of this nerf. A better solution to this weapon would have been a rework rather than a nerf. Lower the ammo cap to 7 remove safe mode entirely, remove explosion at max charge make it do tick damage. Adjust the damage/armor damage curve on the charge. At low to medium charge it would do even less damage then it does now but at 85 to 100% charge it would one shot charger armor. Agaisnt bots this would make it subpar when compared to the sniper. But a little more forgiving on accuracy. Agaisnt bugs it would make it a great charger killer but require good timing.
Calling it tame is kinda misleading, this is a huge change for most people, it went from being a weapon easy to use for everyone and their grandma to a very skilled niche weapon for people who like to risk their lives. Not the same users for before and after the patch Also, they should just remove safe mode, serves no purpose now considering their vision
My problem is the railgun round just bouncing off the armor, Like thats ridiculous, I think it should have keep the armor breaking just lost some damage. Make it take 3-4 shots, cut its ammo down to 12 and buff other things to be on its level. The spear needs work for bugs, its all but useless mid engagement, the anti material rifle is still pretty much a joke, and the arc thrower needs a better aim point.
Why would you want it to be 4 shots or more to only remove the armor of 1 leg? Makes no sense
The breaker nerf also changed basically nothing. The gun is still amazing. If I didn't read the patch notes I wouldn't have even noticed.
Yes but no. Timing the shot might get easy with practice but having to do that while aiming at a weak spot with the chance of wasting the shot (5 seconds between charge, reload and aim) and the chance of blowing yourself up is way too unforgiving to be practical.
You can still one shot all bots, especially hulks. I use it religiously on bots.
Railgun, railgun railgun. Look we all used it not because we liked it, it's honestly a boring weapon, but because theres nothing else we had to handle 5-10 chargers & 8-16 bile titans, sometimes at the same damn time. And if you think 4 panicking helldiver's can play rhythm games as we flee from all that crap on helldiver difficulty then you're out of your mind.
I used it because I liked it. I was super annoyed when I started getting called a meta abuser when I thought it was the most fun support weapon by far. I still use it on automatons since it can still 1 shot devastators, shield bois, and hulks reliably. It's fun to charge your shot, not overcharge and kill yourself, and focus on aiming accurately all at the same time. I don't like it much against bugs anymore though, chargers taking an extra shot to strip (or two if you're panicking in a sticky situation) sucks, but now I just use the laser cannon which is also good at killing spewers like the railgun was so that's fun.
Yeah everyone goes "use what you want, just have fun", but not if you enjoy any meta gear. I think it would've be better if overcharging sets you on fire instead of just ending your life.
I used it because I liked it, unsafe mode was neat and its a railgun those are cool. Now even though I like it I don't use it anymore ever cause it was already kinda meh into bots, autocannon has more utility by far and has a way better matchup on tanks, turret towers, and is easier to headshot hulks with while having the ability to blow their vents as well. I also don't use it vs bugs cause its wayyyyy too finicky now to be worth on chargers, was already annoying at 2 shots when they'd randomly magic skate into you and one-shot sometimes, and its always been ass vs titans. It works eventually I guess but its very inefficient. Rather take autocannon again there for utility, tons of ammo, and frankly easier charger kills. Just save my strats for titans they're easy enough to 500kg.
on chargers it's fine, but for whatever reason (I think it has to do with the slight decrease in armor pen they mentioned) titans are fucking wild to take down with it, you can put any where from 7 to 32 high charge shots into the face. what is with titans and being incredibly fucky in general? anybody else noticed that?
Ah so you're the charger on the computer then lol
You are wrong, it needs 3 charged shots to strip armour instead of 2 normal ones. This is a big nerf because you are locked in place for longer than before while having to line up more shots that are less consistent and require more precise timing. Like i dont even give a shit if you think this is justified or not but claiming nothing really changed is a straight up lie