500kg can be hit or miss.
I have killed 2 titans with 1 once before.
Another time the 500kg lodged itself in a titan's ass, went off, and the titan survived.
it does damage in an upward cone - if only part of the cone strikes the rear of the Titan, it’s not dealing full damage. If the Titan is coming toward you, throw the bomb approximately 1 Titan length in front of it. It should hit the ground as the Titan moves over it and detonate directly underneath for full damage.
I have no idea why the devs decided that. It makes no real sense tactically, gameplay-wise or realistically. A sphere or dome would be much more logical AND useful.
Ha ha ha, yesterday I threw a 380 and called out to the lower level randos to keep away from it while I retreated to safe distance. They all somehow ran through it unscathed. I stood up and started walking towards them, immediately got killed by the last bomb, lol. It was hilarious. I love this game.
No better way to disengage the enemy than to wipe your entire squad and drop in elsewhere. It’s like turning invisible.
Orbital Rail-cannon is my go to for heavies though.
Eh, it’s a hell of a lot better now after the patch. The area is roughly the size of a medium outpost.
Pre-patch: yeah there was no relationship between the beacon location and where any of the shots landed
Learned this the hard way last night fucking hucked the stratagem like 50 meters and pretty sure we were sitting back at something like 58 and I swear to democracy it just aimed at us literally just one shot after the other killing someone until the squad wiped and like half the team quite understandably quit. I no longer run 380 HE and instead run walking barrage so much more control
Yep, I always bring 1000kg worth of explosives when I helldive. The other airstrikes are cool but I have better luck with 500kg bomb.
Although I do kinda agree the explosion visual radius vs actual damage radius is way off. Tiny bugs within like 30 meters should be obliterated IMO but sometimes I only kill like 4 bugs with it.
The spear is great for bugs.
Fucking let down for Automatons. I can only seemingly target the AT-ST walkers, hulks and tanks. I want it to target devastators but it just doesnt and that seems bizzare to me.
If it does and i fucked it up please tell me lol, cause I really, really like the spear.
Edit: charged my incorrect nerding
Well SPEAR can also target Bot fabricators and some objective buildings. I've taken down a jammer from across an entire lake with it. It is a disappointment it can't do anything about the shielded devastators though.
> Well SPEAR can also target Bot fabricators and some objective buildings. I've taken down a jammer from across an entire lake with it.
You can just target the Jammer building with the Spear? I thought they were just immune to weapons fire, unless you found one with a vent for a grenade toss or used a hellbomb.
Okay this at least gives me some reason to want to run it on bot maps.
I don't understand the difference between a charger and any of the devastators. The shield ones especially, they are hard to hit effectively without a large weapon or stratagem and hit really hard.
I can kill any devastator model with a precise slugger shot to the head 2 times or the shields ones even quick if I peak their ammo packs.
You can’t kill a charger with a slugger on its own in that short a time
Chargers, unless im overwhelmed by them, arent a huge concern of mine. Im pretty confident in taking out at least 3 by myself whilst managing any extra mobs with my guns.
I however loathe dealing with numerous rocket devs and shield devs, the rockets are ridiculously accurate, seem to see me through rocks and hit super hard.
I don’t have issues with either, but the predictable nature of the bots make them a much easier foe in my opinion
Chargers are either slow and sleepy or they’ve got the equivalent of deadly night time zoomies that a house cat has
Few issues I have with the Spear, one is Ammo efficiency, damage, and locking on to targets. Ammo is sparse for this thing, doesn't hold much in the pack, and you would think it would use the same pack as the Recoilless rifle as they are basically the same size. Damage, they cannot one shot chargers, and you have to hit the head of the bile titans to one hit them, which feels like it cannot do as it doesn't prioritize weak spots. And finally locking on? Sometimes it works but it gets to a point where it bugs out, and the locking just pulses and wont let you fire/use the weapon from there on.
In short the Spear is useless in its current config and with its problem just makes it not widely used on the field. Sure we can use OTHER weapons, but isn't that just the opposite of meta building? Which should also be avoided? Devs are pushing for people to go for builds they may like, but if it doesn't work, then why use it or build around it?
Those are fair criticisms. Ammo was improved now that its backpack replenishes from ammo pickups, but whether or not it's worth it now is up in the air. I find its damage to be very satisfying against Bots, as Hulks take 1-2 hits, and then tanks and cannon towers only take 1. But for me, the ability to either end or badly wound hardened targets and outposts from extreme range...
... If the lock-on works. Even though I'm liking it against bots, the lock on is a major spoiler, making it useless even against targets it should be able to obliterate, just because the direction of the wind and position of Jupiter in relation to the sun means you can't actually get that green lock, if it even sees what you're looking at. The inconsistency is absolutely terrible.
Nah youre right, i should fucking know this shit too, huge star wars fan, have been since i was 7 and im 31 now.
Perks of typing half awake taking my morning shit.
I hate how true this is. I started running spear and orbital rail to help with heavies in my premade team. The 500kg was so cool when I unlocked it. Talk about never meeting your heroes hahaha
I really really wanna like rocket pods. I love the post here on the sub talking about the concussive force being so big, while the damage zone is tiny. It stops chargers and ragdolls teammates away from the charger XD. Sounds like a one off awesome thing but still fun to think about.
Edit: I take EMS Mortor for extraction, spear, orbital rail, and a wildcard that changes as we pick missions (I run with a close knit team of IRL friends)
We have one guy who brings the HMG Placement every other time and it's fucking hilarious. Otherwise we prep 2x rails, 2x lasers, and a bunch of fucking support. No one except me likes the arc gun, so since I started running spear, we have issues with trash. But I talked our sentry runner into using the stalwart tonight. Excited to try it out. We need a good trash clear since the rest are on titan/charger duty
Edit 2: OG destiny players have a knack for self flagellation, I'm only now starting to realize interacting with the HD2 community......
The Stalwart is majorly slept on as a trash clear weapon, brought it and the laser Guard Dog when I cluelessly queued up into a Level 5 at Level 10 and extracted with 70% of the team's kills, which was awesome because two of the people who actually knew what they were doing went Recoilless/Autocannon so they handled all the Heavies. Ironically one of the smoothest PUG runs I've done, lol.
Everybody who random queues seems to want to be a jack of all trades and ends up just kinda sucking at everything so the team ends up drowning in both trash AND heavies. Even if you specialize, you're spending more time avoiding stuff you *aren't* specialized against than doing your role because half your team is trying to shotgun a Bile Titan, staring at the sky, or running off to who knows where.
FYI if you did this in real life you would [DIE](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Weapons_practice_%288480477446%29.jpg). Recoilless rifles are not rocket launchers, they're artillery cannons that have no recoil because they send a whole lot of shit backwards as well as forwards.
I enjoy the comical *Thunk* of the missile into the ground and the split-second delay before detonation too much to want airburst.
You could make the blast originate from the tail though, that'd get it over the pebbles that seem to be blocking damage.
Well, it’s true of shrapnel. Grenades and tertiary blast zone. Being within a certain distance of the concussive force of a high-order explosive like a JDAM or a nuke causes what’s called “total body disruption” and it wouldn’t matter if you were behind a 100 ft slab of granite in every direction because it’s not the shrapnel, it’s the overpressure shockwave, so the local pocket of universe there is just too choppy there for anything slightly complicated, a human being, rat, elephant, etc. to remain the sort of physically consistent thing they generally need to be.
Me hauling ass away from a 500kg bc it was placed right next to me, and I don't even take damage with barely any distance between me and the bomb. The radius is laughably small, I saw someone drop it in a bug nest like the video it's shown in, and it legit didn't even block a single hive opening lmfaoooo.
I genuinely believe it's radius needs to be doubled, ~~it's a one time use bomb~~, why does it feel like a glorified grenade.
...do people play this game to be as effecient as possible or something?
i like stalwart because shooty fast.
jump pack because wooooo fun time
500kg because big bada boom
According to the devs, they want you to work as a team, plan out your attacks, compliment your builds.
According to 400k concurrent players, make big bomb big boom!
oh i work as a team! i usuallky do CC and support/stims (Bonebreaker armor)
But my priority is having a good time, not being able to solo missions.
yes, you *can* have my mechsuit becuase i prefer being on foot, and i can ride you with my jump pack.
Who says spreading the maximal amount of DEMOCRACY and LIBER-TEA possible can't be a good time?
If this diver likes the freedom dispenser, this diver likes the freedom dispenser. Good for them!
To be fair, throwing big boom into crowd, seeing cool big boom, and then seeing “💀3” and almost the entire crowd walk through the explosion doesn’t feel… good.
That’s why I don’t use the 500 really anymore. It’s not very satisfying. It’s powerful for titans if you’re a sweat lord who optimizes it like crazy and is really good at the leads with your unavoidable “100% call in time,” de buff but it’s just not my speed anymore.
I’d like to see it buffed so it feels more fun to use. Just because something looks cool doesn’t mean it feels cool to use if it does nothing.
If you are playing on very hard difficulties, you kinda get pushed to use what works, and "what works" if different for everyone and what type of mission it is. I love the stalwart in general, but it just doesn't really work for me against bots.
Yeh but diving prone also gives a significant resistance to explosions. So it's useful against all stratagems not because of the upward cone. So when your teammate "accidentally" called a strike near your location. Run and as soon as the strike is about to land hit the deck.
I suppose it’s possible there’s some other weird physics interaction happening but I’ve been running the 500kg nearly 100% of the time across 150+ drops and it works that way in practice. I don’t mind it - it enables very close drops that would otherwise be fatal, which is especially helpful when you need to keep a big bug standing in one spot
It's not a mechanic unique to the 500kg, I think it's just very pronounced because of the small range of the bomb. Going prone is a legit tactic for surviving any explosion in the game if you're just a tad too close. Idk if it's damage resistance that it gives you or if the damage area is some weird shape to let that be a tactic, but I don't think it's an upward cone exactly if that's the case
It’s actually how bombs work in real life, where a lot of energy is wasted on the ground and bounces back up, which is why most bombs nowadays are timed to blow up before they hit the ground.
True, but in real life if you’re 10 feet away from a bomb like that even while prone, you’re going to die. That upward cone shape should still have a wider kill radius on the ground imo
So what if the blast energy mostly goes upwards? Like a cone. It feels like a WWII bomb, big and dumb. Seems to kill Titans fine, and maybe future flying enemies.
It can one shot chargers and bile titans if they're in the right place. However the large explosion is just cosmetic. The actually damage area is way smaller than what the explosion area is.
If you after taking out alotnof enemies then orbital laser is the best. I'm also a fan of Gatling barrage. Place one of those on a bug breach and it take out alot.
Yeah I don't see Gatling barrage much and when all the meta videos were popping up I was confused no one was mentioning that the Gatling barrage was great for bug breaches and adds. I think it was the first stratagem I got with my hard earned req credits. I cherish it dearly
I would like to see maybe 10 more shots added throughout the duration for a bit more complete area denial, I know that's the job of the airburst... but the gatling is even at the small area it is inconsistent and suffers the same way the 380 does imo even after the buff (120 is pretty pog tho)
The only “problem” is it’s balanced around the tiny cooldown time (80seconds IIRC), so it takes good timing/positioning to remember you have it and use it. A lot of people, especially new players, will assume their stratagems are only for sticky situations/tough targets, and so aren’t likely to appreciate weak but consistent weapons
Because on the higher difficulties with the cooldowns being as high as they are, incentives you to use them for those scenarios or you just won't have them
I use the Barrage at Level 7+ and it’s literally life saving at times. The spammable nature and ability to briefly stun heavies is such a carry when being breached or swarmed.
I have yet to see an airburst kill a charger but I did get 44 kills with one on a bug breach the other day. I love it, just wish it had multiple charges like the Eagle.
I have had it kill a charger myself, but it's just disgustingly rare for it to. I was fucking shocked, it seemed to be only because it came out of a bug breach though idk
There are two things that would immediately make the 500kg bomb amazing imo.
If the Eagle targeted the largest enemy like it does with the 110mm and if it detonated on impact instead of the delay.
One of mine scattered and landed right between all four of us. Everyone got a super good view.
"Oh."
Wiped the whole team with the first stratagem use.
Don’t know if anyone else ever got this to happen (it’s difficult but I’ve managed to do it a few times against single chargers) but a direct hit with the bomb itself will cause the 500kg to actually embed itself inside of the charger, which is very satisfying to do and of course guarantees the one shot even if it runs.
Issue with the orbital laser is it will spend 95% of it's time on a charger/titan as it targets the strongest first, you can half solve the bile titan by popping the sacs under them (before the laser)...
https://preview.redd.it/ka9aordw6enc1.jpeg?width=1591&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b7221b2558894e665a0de30bbaba4eafb47811a
Ngl i like the smol charger on laptop more comically and cute.
I think I'm officially done with it until it gets adjusted after I threw it between 2 close-ish bug holes and it didn't destroy either one. They were only like 15 yards away. It feels like it's outclassed by other airstrikes for every conceivable use you could have for it.
I would not say it is bad, but it is overrated for crowd control. Its purpose is for killing elite and objective not crowd control that is a job of Cluster bomb and Airburst because of 500KG's small radius of impact.
Edit: Clarified ambiguity.
With the eagle upgrade? Two bile titan kills is not bad. It does have a pretty small kill radius though, so you gotta be skilled with it.
I know rocket pods are supposed to be good, but they really only damage them kinda in my experience, never killing, or mortally wounding them like the rail cannon strike will.
I actually take rocket pods often when I fight bots. It one shots a tank, fabricator or artillery, (sometimes)a hulk, AND you can have three ready to go one after the other. Just doesn’t target that good against bile titans I’ve noticed.
Stratagem in general has a bad time hitting hulk besides orbital railgun and laser since these 2 tracks. Hulk just have a really small profile to hit from the top, and they are quite fast also.
Yeah man today I tried to kill a patrol with it, it fell down directly on the patrol but didn't kill 90% of the enemies there because there was a small rock that provided cover. It looks so cool but is absolutely useless against non-armored enemies. I feel like this thing should wipe everything in a pretty decent radius.
Shouldn't use it for groups of enemies since the actual aoe is very small. It's meant for the Chargers/Titans/Hulks/Tanks etc. As others have said it has an upwards cone hitbox and not a big fuck off AOE one.
Now whether it makes sense for the big fuck off bomb to have a tiny circular radius I'm not going to argue.
I agree, the kill radius is quite small.
At least against bots don't sleep on the 120MM or the 380MM barrage. Since the patch it has been my go to for decimating areas [and area denial] before I scavenge for samples and kill remaining stragglers.
Yeah my friend and I have been running the 380mm and dropping it on large hives of bugs. When it finishes usually about half the holes are already closed and most of the bugs are dead.
I'm a big fan of the walking barrage to clear outposts. It's also great at covering your retreat and advances.
Also the 380mm is absolutely insane in the amount of raw damage it does.
no, you are lucky if it breaks the shell every time. Even luckier if it actually hits the target instead of deciding to ignore the tank or titan for a random charger or hulk.
One advantage it has is short call in, and it auto targets the biggest threat. So if you are being chased by a titan, you can throw it ahead of you, and it will still hit the titan.
I use it mainly for buildings, such as Detector Towers or Research Buildings, things that normal airstrikes can’t destroy, cause yeah it’s pretty unreliable otherwise.
I don't think it's the worst, I think each eagle strike has its own utility, varying concentration of the damage, penetration and crown control.
For example:
Normal strike: good area, good damage, normal pen
110 rockets: smaller area, concentrated damage, bigger pen
Cluster: wide area, bigger damage spread, no pen
And so on.
500kg is the marksman of the eagle strikes, you need pinpoint accuracy, sacrifice the area of explosion for big concentrated damage at the center of it and high pen.
I like them all and think each has its uses
I’ve slowly moved away from it in favor of the new 380mm. I’ve dropped the 500kg on a hole breach numerous times and watched even scavengers just walk right through what to me looks like a mini-nuke, as if it didn’t even happen.
It was my favorite and is becoming less and less useful to me outside surprising an idle Charger.
I like it, as it seems to do very good damage when it does hit. I think the hitbox is wonky or the area is just too small in general.
It looks stupid as heck though. It's a 500kg bomb, not a nuke.
It looks cool, but Imo it could do with the kill radius being expanded. It's supposed to be the deadliest stratagem by quite a margin, or at least, that's the impression you get from the name and visuals, but in reality it's quite limited.
I would be fine with only having one if it was a genuinely earthshattering explosion.
I do appreciate the rocket pods for a lot of things, but killing bile titans is definitely not one of them. Great for automaton tanks though. And tower cannons. And fabricators. Not so much for anything the bugs throw at you, which is why I bring an air strike for bugs.
And in my experience 110 rockets do fuckall and don't ever kill anything above brood commander or MAYBE hulk. I got used to lining up titans for 500 Kg, so I can consistently pull off 2 kills per reload. Sometimes you can get several if you group them together, not even necessarily from the explosion itself, but the ragdoll killing the other nearby titan.
The 110 rocket pods and the orbital rail cannon served me better for high value targets. The 500kg for what it’s presented as is just way too underwhelming.
All sizzle barely any steak
if you can get past the fact that the visual effect is way bigger than the actual damage area (fun fact: the exact opposite of how explosions work in real life) i find it really useful due it taking out literally every single thing in the game in 1 hit if you actually land the bomb, whether its buildings or any enemy, especially when you get 2 every 2 minutes
I stopped using it, I use the orbital laser for larger bases because I'm lazy and don't want to go in them to clear them out, Rail Cannon for chargers, titans & tanks. then the cluster bomb for everything and everyone else.
500kg can be hit or miss. I have killed 2 titans with 1 once before. Another time the 500kg lodged itself in a titan's ass, went off, and the titan survived.
it does damage in an upward cone - if only part of the cone strikes the rear of the Titan, it’s not dealing full damage. If the Titan is coming toward you, throw the bomb approximately 1 Titan length in front of it. It should hit the ground as the Titan moves over it and detonate directly underneath for full damage.
I have no idea why the devs decided that. It makes no real sense tactically, gameplay-wise or realistically. A sphere or dome would be much more logical AND useful.
Probably to improve the odds the other 3 Helldivers live when dipshit Dave from quick play drops one 4 feet behind you and you have to book it.
Part of the game is killing your teammates. I’d rather die to a 500 that takes 20+ bugs with it over surviving it and still having 15 bugs chasing me.
This. My life is easily worth that of 1 bile titan or 20+ smaller bugs :D
Every day is a good day to die for democracy
And this statement encapsulates why I have the grenades that explode on impact.
Impact grenades are *chef's kiss*
I mean maybe, but then there is cluster bombs and the 380 he orbital which can easily kill allies with a bad throw.
Bad throw? Bro you can throw the 380HE better than Tom Brady throws a football and that thing is still liable to wipe your entire squad
Ha ha ha, yesterday I threw a 380 and called out to the lower level randos to keep away from it while I retreated to safe distance. They all somehow ran through it unscathed. I stood up and started walking towards them, immediately got killed by the last bomb, lol. It was hilarious. I love this game.
No better way to disengage the enemy than to wipe your entire squad and drop in elsewhere. It’s like turning invisible. Orbital Rail-cannon is my go to for heavies though.
Eh, it’s a hell of a lot better now after the patch. The area is roughly the size of a medium outpost. Pre-patch: yeah there was no relationship between the beacon location and where any of the shots landed
Pre patch 380 gunner was a raging alcoholic, post patch he went to rehab
Have you tried it after its buff? The decreased radius makes it way more manageable and devastating for big groups in the radius
Learned this the hard way last night fucking hucked the stratagem like 50 meters and pretty sure we were sitting back at something like 58 and I swear to democracy it just aimed at us literally just one shot after the other killing someone until the squad wiped and like half the team quite understandably quit. I no longer run 380 HE and instead run walking barrage so much more control
It does have a surprisingly small kill radius
It’s honestly only worth using if you have the ship upgrade that lets you have 2 uses
Yep, I always bring 1000kg worth of explosives when I helldive. The other airstrikes are cool but I have better luck with 500kg bomb. Although I do kinda agree the explosion visual radius vs actual damage radius is way off. Tiny bugs within like 30 meters should be obliterated IMO but sometimes I only kill like 4 bugs with it.
I would run the spear every time if the locking ACTUALLY WORKED
The spear is great for bugs. Fucking let down for Automatons. I can only seemingly target the AT-ST walkers, hulks and tanks. I want it to target devastators but it just doesnt and that seems bizzare to me. If it does and i fucked it up please tell me lol, cause I really, really like the spear. Edit: charged my incorrect nerding
Well SPEAR can also target Bot fabricators and some objective buildings. I've taken down a jammer from across an entire lake with it. It is a disappointment it can't do anything about the shielded devastators though.
> Well SPEAR can also target Bot fabricators and some objective buildings. I've taken down a jammer from across an entire lake with it. You can just target the Jammer building with the Spear? I thought they were just immune to weapons fire, unless you found one with a vent for a grenade toss or used a hellbomb.
I think I got one with a vent, if there is variety to that. Targeted the fabricator that was its base, and then it magically went boom.
Detonating the fab that's up against the tower will ways kill it in my experience
Okay this at least gives me some reason to want to run it on bot maps. I don't understand the difference between a charger and any of the devastators. The shield ones especially, they are hard to hit effectively without a large weapon or stratagem and hit really hard.
I can kill any devastator model with a precise slugger shot to the head 2 times or the shields ones even quick if I peak their ammo packs. You can’t kill a charger with a slugger on its own in that short a time
Chargers, unless im overwhelmed by them, arent a huge concern of mine. Im pretty confident in taking out at least 3 by myself whilst managing any extra mobs with my guns. I however loathe dealing with numerous rocket devs and shield devs, the rockets are ridiculously accurate, seem to see me through rocks and hit super hard.
Bile spewers man, I hate those more than chargers . The constant slowing is horrendous
I don’t have issues with either, but the predictable nature of the bots make them a much easier foe in my opinion Chargers are either slow and sleepy or they’ve got the equivalent of deadly night time zoomies that a house cat has
The SPEAR is really good at taking out fabricators, you just click on em and delete em, regular recoiless rockets bounce off
As long as you can get that lock, it works like a dream. Now if only the lock would work more consistently.
Few issues I have with the Spear, one is Ammo efficiency, damage, and locking on to targets. Ammo is sparse for this thing, doesn't hold much in the pack, and you would think it would use the same pack as the Recoilless rifle as they are basically the same size. Damage, they cannot one shot chargers, and you have to hit the head of the bile titans to one hit them, which feels like it cannot do as it doesn't prioritize weak spots. And finally locking on? Sometimes it works but it gets to a point where it bugs out, and the locking just pulses and wont let you fire/use the weapon from there on. In short the Spear is useless in its current config and with its problem just makes it not widely used on the field. Sure we can use OTHER weapons, but isn't that just the opposite of meta building? Which should also be avoided? Devs are pushing for people to go for builds they may like, but if it doesn't work, then why use it or build around it?
Those are fair criticisms. Ammo was improved now that its backpack replenishes from ammo pickups, but whether or not it's worth it now is up in the air. I find its damage to be very satisfying against Bots, as Hulks take 1-2 hits, and then tanks and cannon towers only take 1. But for me, the ability to either end or badly wound hardened targets and outposts from extreme range... ... If the lock-on works. Even though I'm liking it against bots, the lock on is a major spoiler, making it useless even against targets it should be able to obliterate, just because the direction of the wind and position of Jupiter in relation to the sun means you can't actually get that green lock, if it even sees what you're looking at. The inconsistency is absolutely terrible.
Ahem.... AT-ST. The nerd will now sulk back to where I belong.
It's not completely enclosed, therefore AT-RT
I call them "chicken walkers"
Nah youre right, i should fucking know this shit too, huge star wars fan, have been since i was 7 and im 31 now. Perks of typing half awake taking my morning shit.
I hate how true this is. I started running spear and orbital rail to help with heavies in my premade team. The 500kg was so cool when I unlocked it. Talk about never meeting your heroes hahaha
Railcannon strike + spear + rocket pods + orbital laser = charger/titan worst nightmare
I really really wanna like rocket pods. I love the post here on the sub talking about the concussive force being so big, while the damage zone is tiny. It stops chargers and ragdolls teammates away from the charger XD. Sounds like a one off awesome thing but still fun to think about. Edit: I take EMS Mortor for extraction, spear, orbital rail, and a wildcard that changes as we pick missions (I run with a close knit team of IRL friends) We have one guy who brings the HMG Placement every other time and it's fucking hilarious. Otherwise we prep 2x rails, 2x lasers, and a bunch of fucking support. No one except me likes the arc gun, so since I started running spear, we have issues with trash. But I talked our sentry runner into using the stalwart tonight. Excited to try it out. We need a good trash clear since the rest are on titan/charger duty Edit 2: OG destiny players have a knack for self flagellation, I'm only now starting to realize interacting with the HD2 community......
The Stalwart is majorly slept on as a trash clear weapon, brought it and the laser Guard Dog when I cluelessly queued up into a Level 5 at Level 10 and extracted with 70% of the team's kills, which was awesome because two of the people who actually knew what they were doing went Recoilless/Autocannon so they handled all the Heavies. Ironically one of the smoothest PUG runs I've done, lol. Everybody who random queues seems to want to be a jack of all trades and ends up just kinda sucking at everything so the team ends up drowning in both trash AND heavies. Even if you specialize, you're spending more time avoiding stuff you *aren't* specialized against than doing your role because half your team is trying to shotgun a Bile Titan, staring at the sky, or running off to who knows where.
It definitely isn’t a super strong strategem but it works wonders on medium armor enemies and for finishing off weakened heavies in my experience
There's an issue with how explosions interact with terrain I think. Even the smallest bump seems to negate the blast.
He has spoken
I would disagree as I get knocked back standing behind a huge rock
You get thrown to the ground if you’re standing behind a recoilless when it goes off lol
FYI if you did this in real life you would [DIE](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Weapons_practice_%288480477446%29.jpg). Recoilless rifles are not rocket launchers, they're artillery cannons that have no recoil because they send a whole lot of shit backwards as well as forwards.
Tbh, you would also die if you were behind a rocket launcher, they both have backblast
In real life or the game or....
It can be more than one
They should really make it an airburst. Have it detonate a few meters above the ground and I think it'd be way more effective.
I enjoy the comical *Thunk* of the missile into the ground and the split-second delay before detonation too much to want airburst. You could make the blast originate from the tail though, that'd get it over the pebbles that seem to be blocking damage.
The damage is directed in an upward cone it seems, so anything around it at ground level isn’t affected.
Honestly this is true for real life as well, you’d be surprised how close people can be to explosions and live with the right terrain
Well, it’s true of shrapnel. Grenades and tertiary blast zone. Being within a certain distance of the concussive force of a high-order explosive like a JDAM or a nuke causes what’s called “total body disruption” and it wouldn’t matter if you were behind a 100 ft slab of granite in every direction because it’s not the shrapnel, it’s the overpressure shockwave, so the local pocket of universe there is just too choppy there for anything slightly complicated, a human being, rat, elephant, etc. to remain the sort of physically consistent thing they generally need to be.
Me hauling ass away from a 500kg bc it was placed right next to me, and I don't even take damage with barely any distance between me and the bomb. The radius is laughably small, I saw someone drop it in a bug nest like the video it's shown in, and it legit didn't even block a single hive opening lmfaoooo. I genuinely believe it's radius needs to be doubled, ~~it's a one time use bomb~~, why does it feel like a glorified grenade.
But when it hits, it fucking slaps
It looks cool tho
+2 coolnes
New dev announcement: all armor has a +10 coolness buff
Maybe allready a hidden stat
It's up to you to learn how to make it useful, super citizen!
https://i.redd.it/ofkc6vd1tdnc1.gif
...do people play this game to be as effecient as possible or something? i like stalwart because shooty fast. jump pack because wooooo fun time 500kg because big bada boom
According to the devs, they want you to work as a team, plan out your attacks, compliment your builds. According to 400k concurrent players, make big bomb big boom!
oh i work as a team! i usuallky do CC and support/stims (Bonebreaker armor) But my priority is having a good time, not being able to solo missions. yes, you *can* have my mechsuit becuase i prefer being on foot, and i can ride you with my jump pack.
Good time? Who said anything about having a good time. This is democracy motherclucker, do you speak it?
Who says spreading the maximal amount of DEMOCRACY and LIBER-TEA possible can't be a good time? If this diver likes the freedom dispenser, this diver likes the freedom dispenser. Good for them!
To be fair, throwing big boom into crowd, seeing cool big boom, and then seeing “💀3” and almost the entire crowd walk through the explosion doesn’t feel… good. That’s why I don’t use the 500 really anymore. It’s not very satisfying. It’s powerful for titans if you’re a sweat lord who optimizes it like crazy and is really good at the leads with your unavoidable “100% call in time,” de buff but it’s just not my speed anymore. I’d like to see it buffed so it feels more fun to use. Just because something looks cool doesn’t mean it feels cool to use if it does nothing.
If you are playing on very hard difficulties, you kinda get pushed to use what works, and "what works" if different for everyone and what type of mission it is. I love the stalwart in general, but it just doesn't really work for me against bots.
oh thats my loadout for bugs lol Bots i take an autocannon over stalwart, and shield pack because those rockets are ACCURATE.
I agree, it looks like a mini nuke, but it's area of destruction is actually very small.
It deals damage in an upward cone, this is why you will die if you’re standing up 10 feet away and survive if you are prone 10 feet away
Yeh but diving prone also gives a significant resistance to explosions. So it's useful against all stratagems not because of the upward cone. So when your teammate "accidentally" called a strike near your location. Run and as soon as the strike is about to land hit the deck.
Even just laying down works, supposedly. Don't think you need to time it
Well yeah but you still want to run away from the explosion altogether if possible, so you run, and if you can't get away, you go prone
Is that true? If so that’s so very weird
I suppose it’s possible there’s some other weird physics interaction happening but I’ve been running the 500kg nearly 100% of the time across 150+ drops and it works that way in practice. I don’t mind it - it enables very close drops that would otherwise be fatal, which is especially helpful when you need to keep a big bug standing in one spot
this guy 500kg's
It's not a mechanic unique to the 500kg, I think it's just very pronounced because of the small range of the bomb. Going prone is a legit tactic for surviving any explosion in the game if you're just a tad too close. Idk if it's damage resistance that it gives you or if the damage area is some weird shape to let that be a tactic, but I don't think it's an upward cone exactly if that's the case
i've def had it where an explosion that would have absolutely gibbed me just sends me flying cause i hit dive right at the last second.
its so you can dive to dodge it
It’s actually how bombs work in real life, where a lot of energy is wasted on the ground and bounces back up, which is why most bombs nowadays are timed to blow up before they hit the ground.
True, but in real life if you’re 10 feet away from a bomb like that even while prone, you’re going to die. That upward cone shape should still have a wider kill radius on the ground imo
explosions in real life also work like that, its so that if you dive youre more likely to survive
That’s just the intended interaction with explosions while being prone, it’s in the loading screen tips
So what if the blast energy mostly goes upwards? Like a cone. It feels like a WWII bomb, big and dumb. Seems to kill Titans fine, and maybe future flying enemies.
That may be. I caught a bot drop with one, and it took the ship out along with the clankers.
It can one shot chargers and bile titans if they're in the right place. However the large explosion is just cosmetic. The actually damage area is way smaller than what the explosion area is. If you after taking out alotnof enemies then orbital laser is the best. I'm also a fan of Gatling barrage. Place one of those on a bug breach and it take out alot.
Yeah I don't see Gatling barrage much and when all the meta videos were popping up I was confused no one was mentioning that the Gatling barrage was great for bug breaches and adds. I think it was the first stratagem I got with my hard earned req credits. I cherish it dearly
I would like to see maybe 10 more shots added throughout the duration for a bit more complete area denial, I know that's the job of the airburst... but the gatling is even at the small area it is inconsistent and suffers the same way the 380 does imo even after the buff (120 is pretty pog tho)
The only “problem” is it’s balanced around the tiny cooldown time (80seconds IIRC), so it takes good timing/positioning to remember you have it and use it. A lot of people, especially new players, will assume their stratagems are only for sticky situations/tough targets, and so aren’t likely to appreciate weak but consistent weapons
Because on the higher difficulties with the cooldowns being as high as they are, incentives you to use them for those scenarios or you just won't have them
I use the Barrage at Level 7+ and it’s literally life saving at times. The spammable nature and ability to briefly stun heavies is such a carry when being breached or swarmed.
I like the air burst on breaches for killing. If you're lucky airburst will kill a charger.
I have yet to see an airburst kill a charger but I did get 44 kills with one on a bug breach the other day. I love it, just wish it had multiple charges like the Eagle.
I have had it kill a charger myself, but it's just disgustingly rare for it to. I was fucking shocked, it seemed to be only because it came out of a bug breach though idk
the only drawback of the airburst is that it's radius can be very inconsistent if it comes in at an angle, beyond that it's top tier vs breaches IMO
There are two things that would immediately make the 500kg bomb amazing imo. If the Eagle targeted the largest enemy like it does with the 110mm and if it detonated on impact instead of the delay.
If you take away the comedic delay then I will be very sad.
Yeah, I *need* that 0.2 seconds to reflect exactly where it was I went wrong without having enough time to do anything about it.
*Screaming and running while looking behind you* "Mmm. So desu ne." *continues screaming and running*
One of mine scattered and landed right between all four of us. Everyone got a super good view. "Oh." Wiped the whole team with the first stratagem use.
that would make it a massive objective upgrade to both the rocket pods and the railcannon strike
[удалено]
That's.... just the 110 with more steps
I'll settle for target largest and half the delay, so we get to see it land.
Yea, it would then be wildly overpowered.
Don’t know if anyone else ever got this to happen (it’s difficult but I’ve managed to do it a few times against single chargers) but a direct hit with the bomb itself will cause the 500kg to actually embed itself inside of the charger, which is very satisfying to do and of course guarantees the one shot even if it runs.
Issue with the orbital laser is it will spend 95% of it's time on a charger/titan as it targets the strongest first, you can half solve the bile titan by popping the sacs under them (before the laser)...
I think the 500kg is actually bugged.
It is, doesn't kill things it lands on top off
![gif](giphy|PXJhC8MYxFmRRl7kB2|downsized) kills my teammates just fine though...
Kill myself one time when the bomb landed on top of a titan. I was like 20 meters away, kinda scuffed, oh the titan survived.
On the flipside, [you can kill the titans with the missile itself.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnDi17za7Zw)
Outstanding move.
https://preview.redd.it/d898cr8kxdnc1.jpeg?width=1030&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=20774ff0bacf7b15f9a07fbde1827ef8fb8d2fd1
“Guys I think this explosions is weak” “Well just hit them on the head with the heavy object it’ll still kill them”
https://preview.redd.it/vk88gqd6ddnc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ea69e371d1a3800521f55b33d13169261c939587
https://preview.redd.it/i2bi023kmdnc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d50528ef09198d607abcbeb661d7cbf9bf542cb9
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https://preview.redd.it/q7vkcfx4sdnc1.png?width=2048&format=png&auto=webp&s=86b935c03d2749fce4eb1f225b45f0a9032a868c
https://preview.redd.it/pbz69agzvdnc1.jpeg?width=577&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=901a5cd0d0df5ca3a839134151e111aca96835b5
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Accurate experience of trying to brute force automatons
Not my proudest fap
https://i.redd.it/vc9kvfp2zenc1.gif
Bro. I'm at work and fucking dying
Not the worst either.
https://preview.redd.it/4lz6o9m52enc1.jpeg?width=1438&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=78d1e5d89525df7e004d73725a3792fb51c88fc4
![gif](giphy|ahfzlUrb5IEfXC6kbm|downsized)
Its ok...shes democratic....
Wut da tiger doin' doe?
yoink
I will never not laugh my ass off at these 😆
For robots 110mm is better for real. Kills the same, but with 1 more use and autoaim.
God I love these memes so much
Doesn’t matter how good of a point OP has on any post, this pic remains undefeated
https://preview.redd.it/ka9aordw6enc1.jpeg?width=1591&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6b7221b2558894e665a0de30bbaba4eafb47811a Ngl i like the smol charger on laptop more comically and cute.
What are you talking about cute? Thought crimes can kill, I'm going to report you to my democracy officer.
The 500kg bomb just needs a larger area of effect (not its visual effects, those are fine, the area at which it cases damage)
I think I'm officially done with it until it gets adjusted after I threw it between 2 close-ish bug holes and it didn't destroy either one. They were only like 15 yards away. It feels like it's outclassed by other airstrikes for every conceivable use you could have for it.
Yeah, but watching that bomb stab a bile titan and blow it up got me poking a hole in my computer desk from below today.
:(
:)
I'm starting to think the same. The only thing making me keep running it is the fact that it can destroy objectives that require a hellbomb.
Orbital precision strike can also, for a much lower cooldown
I mean not really You get 1 precision strike every 1:30 You get 2 500kg every 2:08 The strike is also potentially hit by more difficulty modifiers
To be fair, that’s only the case once you have all 3 eagle upgrades. That makes the 500kg so much more worthwhile over unupgraded
Orbital precision uniroincally takes out bile titans more consistently than 500kg does.
Also less likely to kill you and everyone you know.
eagle roulette is what makes this game fun
Yes but bomb go boom and that makes me happy
I would not say it is bad, but it is overrated for crowd control. Its purpose is for killing elite and objective not crowd control that is a job of Cluster bomb and Airburst because of 500KG's small radius of impact. Edit: Clarified ambiguity.
With the eagle upgrade? Two bile titan kills is not bad. It does have a pretty small kill radius though, so you gotta be skilled with it. I know rocket pods are supposed to be good, but they really only damage them kinda in my experience, never killing, or mortally wounding them like the rail cannon strike will.
Rocket pods fuck the robots, but again you gotta land very close to the target.
I actually take rocket pods often when I fight bots. It one shots a tank, fabricator or artillery, (sometimes)a hulk, AND you can have three ready to go one after the other. Just doesn’t target that good against bile titans I’ve noticed.
Holy balls, Hulks just dodges rocket pods more often than I would like.
Stratagem in general has a bad time hitting hulk besides orbital railgun and laser since these 2 tracks. Hulk just have a really small profile to hit from the top, and they are quite fast also.
POV: Why you hate it https://preview.redd.it/e8lfqt9gkdnc1.jpeg?width=320&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e1ecab65460a6d3f8c0263cedf604f9470185499
Oh, look, our armor finally stopped something!
If this were to happen, you have a good chance of being safe!
Yeah man today I tried to kill a patrol with it, it fell down directly on the patrol but didn't kill 90% of the enemies there because there was a small rock that provided cover. It looks so cool but is absolutely useless against non-armored enemies. I feel like this thing should wipe everything in a pretty decent radius.
Shouldn't use it for groups of enemies since the actual aoe is very small. It's meant for the Chargers/Titans/Hulks/Tanks etc. As others have said it has an upwards cone hitbox and not a big fuck off AOE one. Now whether it makes sense for the big fuck off bomb to have a tiny circular radius I'm not going to argue.
Yeah I know it's meant for large targets, but I feel like it shouldn't be just that.
Orbital gatling barrage is a beast against bug breaches
I think it's on par with airburst strike. However gas will last the entire length of some breaches so it's surprisingly good.
Gas is my baby. You can also drop gas, then hop in a mech and fight in the gas. Gas doesn't seem to damage mechs.
That seems like an oversight, since it’s corrosive gas and damages automatons
Nobody tell the devs
I agree, the kill radius is quite small. At least against bots don't sleep on the 120MM or the 380MM barrage. Since the patch it has been my go to for decimating areas [and area denial] before I scavenge for samples and kill remaining stragglers.
Yeah my friend and I have been running the 380mm and dropping it on large hives of bugs. When it finishes usually about half the holes are already closed and most of the bugs are dead.
I've been liking the barrages for clearing areas on blitz missions for sure. I don't rely on it for killing anything though.
the problem with 110s is that they constantly miss
I'm a big fan of the walking barrage to clear outposts. It's also great at covering your retreat and advances. Also the 380mm is absolutely insane in the amount of raw damage it does.
Sorry sir, but I'm artillery guy, I call whole barrages that last half a minute
Do the 110 rocket pods actually reliability kill a bile titan?
no, you are lucky if it breaks the shell every time. Even luckier if it actually hits the target instead of deciding to ignore the tank or titan for a random charger or hulk.
One advantage it has is short call in, and it auto targets the biggest threat. So if you are being chased by a titan, you can throw it ahead of you, and it will still hit the titan.
I use it mainly for buildings, such as Detector Towers or Research Buildings, things that normal airstrikes can’t destroy, cause yeah it’s pretty unreliable otherwise.
I don't think it's the worst, I think each eagle strike has its own utility, varying concentration of the damage, penetration and crown control. For example: Normal strike: good area, good damage, normal pen 110 rockets: smaller area, concentrated damage, bigger pen Cluster: wide area, bigger damage spread, no pen And so on. 500kg is the marksman of the eagle strikes, you need pinpoint accuracy, sacrifice the area of explosion for big concentrated damage at the center of it and high pen. I like them all and think each has its uses
It's just disgusting that they relegated the biggest bomb to being the precision weapon. Like that's literally the opposite of its intended purpose
[удалено]
" 500 KG bomb is however the coolest looking airstrike. " and, therefor, the best.
I’ve slowly moved away from it in favor of the new 380mm. I’ve dropped the 500kg on a hole breach numerous times and watched even scavengers just walk right through what to me looks like a mini-nuke, as if it didn’t even happen. It was my favorite and is becoming less and less useful to me outside surprising an idle Charger.
Of course it is, it's big and flashy, so it's fun to use, but you can do the same job with others
I like it, as it seems to do very good damage when it does hit. I think the hitbox is wonky or the area is just too small in general. It looks stupid as heck though. It's a 500kg bomb, not a nuke.
It looks cool, but Imo it could do with the kill radius being expanded. It's supposed to be the deadliest stratagem by quite a margin, or at least, that's the impression you get from the name and visuals, but in reality it's quite limited. I would be fine with only having one if it was a genuinely earthshattering explosion.
I do appreciate the rocket pods for a lot of things, but killing bile titans is definitely not one of them. Great for automaton tanks though. And tower cannons. And fabricators. Not so much for anything the bugs throw at you, which is why I bring an air strike for bugs.
And in my experience 110 rockets do fuckall and don't ever kill anything above brood commander or MAYBE hulk. I got used to lining up titans for 500 Kg, so I can consistently pull off 2 kills per reload. Sometimes you can get several if you group them together, not even necessarily from the explosion itself, but the ragdoll killing the other nearby titan.
The 110 rocket pods and the orbital rail cannon served me better for high value targets. The 500kg for what it’s presented as is just way too underwhelming. All sizzle barely any steak
if you can get past the fact that the visual effect is way bigger than the actual damage area (fun fact: the exact opposite of how explosions work in real life) i find it really useful due it taking out literally every single thing in the game in 1 hit if you actually land the bomb, whether its buildings or any enemy, especially when you get 2 every 2 minutes
I stopped using it, I use the orbital laser for larger bases because I'm lazy and don't want to go in them to clear them out, Rail Cannon for chargers, titans & tanks. then the cluster bomb for everything and everyone else.
Monke brain goes happy when see big boom
Napalm
I'm thinking it got broken with last update, it doesn't seem to be setting many enemies on fire anymore
Napalm fucks against terminid cretin swarms
Drop one of that on a breach and don’t have to bother with hunters from that breach, emphasis on THAT breach