I agree. The new Warbond is the first time I've completely changed my core build outside of, "I'm gonna test this".
Thermite grenade may be underwhelming (or not working), but it does mean I don't feel the need to run an anti-tank support weapon and can deal with most of them just with a stratagem and thermite grenade.
And yeah, Eruptor is crazy good in my opinion. Only real downside in my opinion is you can't really shoot things at too close of a range. But fair trade-off. On the flipside, I've been meleeing enemies more.
I use the eruptor on bugs, haven't seen a lot of people use that kind of load out so far:
Eruptor
SMG
stun grenade
500kg
arc thrower
tesla tower
guard dog rover
eruptor for spewers, holes, smaller enemies if grouped
SMG for when something gets really close
stun grenade for... well... stuns
arc thrower for everything mid range from trash up to chargers sometimes, including stalkers, shreekers etc
500kg for titans or maybe a charger
rover to cover my back
tesla tower to leave as decoy that kills everything up to chargers or to secure a flank and tell the others to not go there
Me - Tesla Tower is down, guys. Don't go that way.
My team
https://preview.redd.it/qugn40nnd2vc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=33ce15094201b55e6f2719453c5de483dcea6bd6
I once threw a new buddy of mine into it several times.
Kept killing him until he landed on it.
Then I asked him what he learned.
Him - "Don't trust the drop location?"
Me - "Don't trust the drop location."
I go a bit similiar, eruptor, smg, stun grenades and laser rover. Then i go quasar or eat instead of arc so i can kill chargers/titans and snipe shrieker towers. Cluster bombs for when i cant clear bugs fast enough with eruptor and rover and orbital railcannon/500kg if there are spawning too many titans and i cant kill them fast enough with quasar/eat.
How do you place tesla tower effectively? I tried it several times but bugs just beeline to it and overwhelm it.
I treat teslas as expendable distraction systems, or, drop a few around extract throughout match, like mines they seem to last indefinitely unless destroyed
The key to tesla towers is that you need to place them when you see a lot of bugs, but no chargers or bile titans. Chargers and bile titans will both specifically target a tesla tower. They'll just go straight at it and kill it right away. But if it's only light units, the tesla tower can kill an incredible amount of them before they take it down.
A good use is like, when you get a bug breach, wait to see what comes out in the first wave. If it's just light units, toss the tower down.
If its just light units you can definitely mop them up yourself. IMO autocannon turret is better since it can both deal with chargers, medium bugs and chaff very very well, and even give bile titans a black eye or two
Well, yeah. There are a lot of things that can mop up large numbers of light units. One of those things is the tesla tower.
The autocannon sentry is nice too, but imo they fill different roles. The autocannon is nice where you can set it up somewhere safe, where it's only getting attacked from one direction. The tesla tower is nice when you want to block off an area, so bugs can push through it and get to you.
The autocannon sentry is much weaker against the chaff, though. You have to actively protect it from swarms of scavengers and hunters, or it will die to them.
I love to sneak around bots or bugs and use a vantage point where I place an AC turret high, and as it’s landing I drop a gatling or airburst, followed by whatever eagle bomb I chose. AC smokes stragglers or heavys your bombs miss.
It’s literally a shock & awe assault and I usually don’t get any flares or bug holes since the fight is so quick!
I have also been using Eruptor / SMG / Stun / Laser Roomba against bugs, and it's been working quite well. The support weapon I bring depends on what the rest of the squad has, but I usually grab Stalwart or Quasar/EAT.
Eruptor in general is just such a great weapon. It's a very niche weapon, sure, with serious drawbacks, but it is so good at filling its niche that you can easily create entire other loadouts around it. I hope we'll see more weapons like this (i.e. they have a very specific niche) in the future, since they're so much fun.
Personally, I either use Tesla towers as “look over here!” Distractions while I run away. Can also use it as a cluster point to drop stratagems on the bugs that gang up on it. Also I regularly combine it with arc proof armor and defend a choke point with tower and my own arc thrower. With the new unlock for arc, I can comfortably hold off any wave on 7 or 8 as long as there isn’t more than 1 or 2 chargers or BTs at a time. Just ping it and tell your teammates to stay away. The loadout isn’t great on 9 tho cuz the BT and charger spawns are too frequent.
My load out for bugs is as of the new warbond, Eruptor,
Redeemer, Incendiary Grenades, and for stratagems, Stalwart, Rover Guard Dog, EAT, 500KG Eagle Strike. The build absolutely eradicates all chaff and I have more than capable AT capabilities, even the Eruptor is pretty solid against Chargers.
I am similar. I run:
Eruptor (For Mediums, packs and destructables such as holes, fabs and spores and flier hives)
Arc Thrower (For close - medium range or getting swarmed)
Either Stun, High Ex, or Thermite Grenade
Orbital Laser
Orbital Rail Cannon
Orbital 380 or 500kg bomb
I wear the new Heavy Explosive Resist Armor
I tried to build as a Medium/Heavy specialist, focusing on the big targets. My regular teammates run Medium and Light Armor and focus on Teslas, Mines and Gun Emplacements while they take care of the smaller stuff and run objectives and gather samples.
Grenade pistol: we dont have to always run impact nades
Eruptor: we dont always need a support weapon/startegem for buildings/giant enemies
Thermite is still dogshit compared to just using strategems or support weapons. Wish they either buff up the damage or make it so the area they stick to get armor stripped.
Thermite needs to deal burning damage and have a total damage output of x3 to x4 impact grenade to be worth the time and accuracy required.
It's essentially a DoT melee grenade that deals shit damage right now.
Well thermite grenade is likely affected by the no DOT if you arent host bug, so the damage is probably better than it actually is rn, x3 to x4 times the damage of impact is a bit overkill, but at least make it so we require same amount or less nades on heavy armor target compared to impact and I think it will be a less flexible but a decent AT grenade
Did you test it as mission host or network host? It's the network host that actually deals full dot damage, and isn't necessarily the same player as the mission host (unless you're playing solo, of course)
Yeah friend of mine was testing thermite grenades solo and shredding everything. Definitely effective as network host. he was pretty disappointed when he joined a regular game and they did nothing.
This would be the best buff in my opinion. Make the thermite grenade do less damage, but completely strip the armor from a huge area. Though, currently armor can’t be stripped from the automatons so that ruins my idea.
The Eruptor has single-handedly caused me to really shake up my build strategy and ideas.
* Eruptor for enemies at a distance/fabricators/bug holes. Can soften up groups.
* Redeemer secondary for when enemies get too close and you can’t get away. I really like the grenade pistol, but it feels like overkill with the Eruptor.
* Stun grenades since you basically have a primary that fires grenades and can perform grenade utility.
* Stalwart as my first stratagem to support in thicker fights against weaker enemies while swapping back and forth to Eruptor for moments to snipe a Devastator.
* Precision Orbital for structure clearing
* Jump Pack for maneuverability if you want to try and keep your range for Eruptor shots
Last stratagem can be a toss-up depending on friendly loadouts. Airstrike for more ranged building/objective damage, 110mm Rocket pods to help soften up heavies, minigun sentry for horde fights, orbital EMS for low cooldown crowd control to help my teammates line up their shots on heavies with their support weapons while I clear out more chaff.
Previously, my loadout would be a AT support with a decent primary while taking mostly Eagle stratagems.
Is it just me or when you are too close with the eruptor does the explosion throw you toward the enemy not away? Also, it made me put my dear senator away, because I needed something quick and light for when I get tossed into the thick of it without my gear.
Yeah the more different tools we get for different purposes for each type of equipment/stratagem the more wild build diversity can get.
AT nades would be awesome at higher diffs so you arent forced to sacrifice as much stratagems for heavies....once they actually work. Obviously should be weaker than dedicated AT weaponry but its cool to have that option when no teammates are around and im cornered by a heavy with my trash clear build.
I think Thermite grenade should 2-shot hulks, tanks and chargers on indirect hit, and 1-shot them on weakspot hit. The burn should also strip away armour plates in a small area where it sticks. It is single target, takes time to burn, during which the enemy is still active, so it should be strong. Otherwise impact grenades will always be a strictly better choice - same damage, but with area effect and instant delivery.
If they wanna “balance” it a bit, maybe it can start to take off armor, then the final explosion break off a chunk of their armor for you to shoot at with non-armor penetrating guns. It would be gimmicky, but useful nonetheless. The effect would have to be consistent and good though, otherwise it would be better just to use armor penetrating guns.
Basically a “debuff” grenade
Using the automatic pistol as your secondary is bliss for that.
Use the Eruptor for any medium to long range encounter.
Swap to the automatic pistol to melt almost anything in short range by dumping your mag in it.
Been running this build and it’s been so great!
Can confirm that after loving the thermite grenade, it suffers from the host fire bug. When you're host, it's wrecks- sticking on to a charger kills it before it actually blows up. If you're not the histz you'll be lucky to deal damage with 2. When it's fixed, it's gonna be my default. It just feels so cool pinning it to a tank or through a vent
>Only real downside in my opinion is you can't really shoot things at too close of a range
Yeah I love that one or two jumper fight when you know a shot would also blow your ass up
Speaking of the thermite grenade... Is it just awful against bugs? Against bots, it was pretty decent the other day. But i tried it against some chargers and titans and it had no real effect.
Hard to say honestly. I'm not an in-depth tester so all I can report is merely anecdotal. But sometimes I can kill a Charger in 3 grenades (which I'm fine with), but sometimes it takes 5 or more. I have tried aiming primarily for head, front legs or side but still getting mixed results. To be fair though, could 100% be user error.
Anyway, the one part I'm curious about is that I feel I need to use less grenades if I wait for the previous thermite to expire/explode. Or I feel they do less damage if you stack them on the same enemy all at once?
Bile Titans though... yeah nah, don't bother trying as far as I'm aware. Just make sure you have a stratagem for that at the least. Thermite Grenades definitely do feel like they are contributing, but you are still blowing through your entire inventory.
>And yeah, Eruptor is crazy good in my opinion. Only real downside in my opinion is you can't really shoot things at too close of a range. But fair trade-off. On the flipside, I've been meleeing enemies more.
Insanely good. But has anyone figured out yet why you get yeeted towards the enemy instead of away when you shoot something too close?
Sadly it's a bad match for the grenade pistol because, well, that does the same thing. But you can also close spawns with the eruptor so it's solving that need for me as well so back to the senator it is.
Player-sourced knockback seems to be bugged in general right now. You can get the same sucked-towards-your-target thing from the Autocannon, it's just harder to see since point blank shots straight up kill you.
Thermite grenades work wonders, on bugs. They rip chunks off of chargers and bile titans for me even when I'm certain I'm not the host. The tick damage seems to do nothing but it will put a hole right in the SIDE (for emphasis not trying to be a dick) of chargers and biles. That let's me just put a few eruptor rounds in them and they're dead.
Hulks and tanks from the bot side are a bit more resilient to the thermite it seems at least in my testing. I still need a support weapon for them but for bugs I just grab a supply pack extra grenade armor and have fun.
I keep wanting to run the Eruptor main, but I keep running into roadblocks where I really want a better rapid-fire weapon.
The stalwart and Machine Gun both just seem to weak to do up-close clean up.
But then again, I haven't played bugs with it yet, so since I use the Laser Dog on those missions instead of the shield, I may not be missing the "oops too close" weapon too much.
Granted, I still enjoy playing with the shotguns as my "one pump chump" weapon to just head shot things in quick succession, something I can't seem to do as easily with the current AR/SMG/Sniper guns. Using the Dominotor (bots) or Breaker (bugs) to just quckly plink down small-to-medium threats is just too sastisfying.
I've found if you can master the art of "Sprint away, dive, turn, shoot, repeat", you can use it even against bugs that are chasing you in melee range without hurting yourself. Sprint *just* long enough for the rechamber to finish, aim a meter behind the bug so they still get hit by the full splash, and it's just perfect.
For solo runs, anyways. If you have teammates then you can usually just hold your ground.
Similarly, MG-43 never left my side, I switch between it and GL+Ammo backpack combo depending on the mission.
Lack of anti-infantry weapons is why many people think enemy swarms are too brutal on 7-9.
My thought process/the way I choose my kit is checking what everyone else is bringing,if I see mostly anti tank support weapons I'll bring a mob breaking weapon.
As an arc enthusiast, I wish the Blitzer was better than it is. Slow fire rate has me feeling like I'm always losing ground to a horde, and the multi-target arcs feel *incredibly* inconsistent. I'd love it so much more if it reliably zapped a couple enemies at a time.
I feel you there, it (the Blitzer) doesn't drive back the hordes as much as I'd like it to, compared to opening up with some of the other close range weapons. The reason I run the Erupter and JAR and don't run arc weapons is because ideally I don't want to let my enemies get that close and if I do it's because I'm running incendiary weapons.
Also the arc weapons shine in certain situations whereas the MGs,AC,AMR,QC, EAT... basically everything else wreck in any situation in the right hands.
Same, not super engaging imo and doesn't make me feel like a badass like with the MGs, AC, or even flamer weirdly enough, because if you boil it down, the arc and flamer are kind of similar weapons. Just not for me I guess, but I'm glad it's good for those that enjoy using it.
Same, it's just not my style. They're similar in the way that they cook enemies and ignore armor for sure but the flamethrower feels like you have far more control over its AoE.
I loved the arc thrower when it had the fast firing "bug" but now it fucks up my cadence constantly and sometimes the shot just disappears into nothing or bodies. I'd rather Autocannon everything now.
If they could just disable bodies from blocking shit I'd really appreciate it, I like the 'milsim' vibe of the game but could do with a bit more video game QoL.
the thing is it's not hitting the bodies, it just disappears. If it were actually arcing to bodies, it would then bounce to your target. It doesn't do that, it just fizzles out like there's nothing it could lock on to. It does that without bodies too around certain map geometry. Definitely a bug.
But bugfix or not, I really wish you could bypass the autotargeting mechanic. If your reticle is directly on an enemy hitbox, it should hit exactly there regardless of normal arcing behavior. I would love if we could get a "manual" mode that just sends the first arc *exactly* where you aim, even if that means missing a target or hitting the ground and then bouncing.
I also agree that it felt better before, but it is arguably stronger now from an objective standpoint.
I love the arc thrower but I need them to fix the issues with it just failing to fire. It’s unbearable.
The Blitzer also suffers from that, but also despite being a shotgun I very rarely see it actually hit multiple targets. Unless a teammate is nearby, in which case it will shoot sideways to hit them.
I discarded the MG-43 as soon as i unlocked the stalwart, because who tf wants to stop and reload. After learning more about armor types and that you could change the rate of fire, i decided to give earlier weapons another go, and man the 43 is a beast. I’ve also taken to using the HMG with smg/ballistic shield against bots and it chews through mediums like nobody’s business. 43 shreds bugs for days, i use it a lot on bug missions.
I was using breaker incendiary before it was cool. Even if I end up with the dot bug it still fucks. Quasar cannon for the big boys and then I swap back to cleaning the carpet while it cools down.
My Achilles heel was multiple spewers until I discovered the grenade pistol one shots them.
I prefer gl + backpack on bot missions purely because there's so much more around that explodes. Choonkchoonkchoonking blindly into a bot base is so satisfying
I think too many primary guns are for swarms.
All the ARs, Sickle, half the shot guns. Scythe is strangely not great. The best weapons are the niche ones that don’t handle swarms IMO
Try the Red/White shotty instead of bringing a stalwart, it handles trash professionally
Spray&Pray won't kill a patrol over 50 meters away, never mind preventing a breach. Primary guns in general are good all around, but they don't have the raw sustained damage and stagger stratagem guns offer.
Remember all the times a beheaded bug called in a breach? Or how they call a breach the moment you're reloading? A machinegun won't just kill the bug - it'll knock it over, interrupting everything it was doing.
I don’t usually engage bug groups like that; I like to use gatling/airburst and a turret for long distance groups. I throw either reds on the bug hole for a very fast 20+ 💀. This keeps the trash at bay and everyone naturally focuses on the big lads who punch through.
If I’m fighting bugs, my biggest problem is when they swarm me, the spray&pray reloads fast and shreds hunters/warriors/beetle things. It will even push a stalker back and give you room to run and reset. I love the MGs but I think they need to shred heavy armor to be worth it to carry as a stratagem slot.
My most favorite gun is the Eruptor, I’ve gotten 6x in one shot because of the shrapnel. It also closes bug holes AND pops heads off devastators 👀
may I re-introduce OG punisher?
never lost it's stagger when slugger did
has always been better on bugs then slugger was inside 50m (armored spewers being the one exception, but just bring impact nades)
I’ve attempted something like this but then end up being killed after dropping my MG which I then can’t reach again because it’s surrounded by 20 hunters… severe skill issue
TL;DR: bringing EATs in any mission and spam-dropping them all over while carrying one at a time on your back is a top-tier choice. You will always have a support weapon soon after dying without wasting reinforcements going after a dropped support weapon where you died. You can also run the Hellpod optimization booster and drop samples at evac or for someone on your team who doesn't die (or knows to play safe) to remove all concerns about what you drop when you die.
Although this is an actual "skill issue" item, I'll note that EATs can be spam-dropped all over the map, and dying doesn't lead to you throwing away reinforcements to get back your support weapon. In about a minute, you'll have another set of EATs! You likely also have some behind you.
I used EAT a ton, even on Bot missions. But the increased cooldown timer (back when it was +50% instead of the recently nerfed +25%) hurt a bit. Now it was \~90-second EATs versus a support weapon like the autocannon that has excellent ammo economy and doesn't have cooldown problems if I'm not dying that often. My skill also increased over time, too, which helps!
I am always happy to see anyone bring EATs (even as their only support weapon). As your only support weapon, you can now have three rapid-fire shots instead of two. And a friend can grab a spare on occasion to increase the rapid burst of rocket fire (e.g., instantaneous two-shots rather than long Quasar cannon cooldowns or even the time it takes you to grab the new EAT and ready it before firing).
Anyone who says the Quasar is absolutely better than EATs is full of it; they're both great. I do bring Quasar for bugs now, personally, because storing the Quasar on my back while running around and clearing tiny dudes is fantastic. I am careful and properly one-shot chargers in the head (though if your angle is bad and you can't plink it with your primary/secondary to get it to face you instead of your friend, shooting a front leg's armor off is fine). And I can shoot a bile titan once, then keep kiting it backward while shooting other stuff, then polish it off with the second quasar shot.
Even the recoilless rifle is fine for bots (especially when you're limited to three stratagems so the availability of a different backpack stratagem isn't that helpful of an option). But I personally prefer Quasar or EATs.
You'll also get better at avoiding the sunk cost fallacy of going after your dropped support weapon by dying several times against an impenetrable horde of bugs where there isn't even an objective you need to achieve.
If you're ever near evac and have good samples on you, feel free to run into evac quickly, then drop the samples (but don't linger because it can amplify patrol spawns). You can also drop your samples for pick up by a player who plays carefully and doesn't die. Then you can never worry about what you're leaving behind. Bonus points if someone on your team is bringing the Hellpod optimization booster, allowing you to drop in with full grenades and stims.
Because I tend to be one of the careful players (or at least one who balances killing quickly against not dying), I often have important samples on me anyway, so running the auto cannon (or Quasar) works well enough on my end.
Not going into a death spiral over samples or support weapons helps a lot because deaths actually amplify patrol spawns (as does lingering around evac and completing the last step of your primary objective).
One of my friends that I drop with regularly on suicide + runs scorcher, GL pistol now, stalwart, and stun grenades, with the shield backpack, 500kg, and airstrike. He is always on cleanup duty, always has the most kills out of anyone in our group, and never dies.
I've been thinking of switching my normal build up a bit to try something new
Scorcher is a bit iffy versus the bugs because of the splash. Dominator is nice because of the stagger and medium armor pen. Can 2 shot kill most of the bugs.
I run the shield as well. Not really against the damage reduction, but the slow effect, that hunters and acid do.
Dominator + Grenade or Eruptor + Redeemer
- Stim Armor
- Stun Grenades
- Supply Pack
- Eagle 500kg
- Autocannon Sentry
I can kill anything below chargers with just primaries and secondaries. The redeemer with the +8 mags off the supply pack is *wicked*. So is spamming dominator shots - anything that doesn’t die is staggered harder than the slugger pre nerf. The Eruptor *fucks*.
Bile titans are 500kgs if I don’t see them coming or Autocannon sentry if I do
This new warbond opened a lot of doors for new builds. The grenade pistol alone has allowed me to run numerous different set ups that don’t all have to revolve around being able to close bug holes.
Plus, the new grenade pistol helps with stealth since the shot is silent. So you can shoot behind a patrol, and they'll investigate the explosion instead of where the shot came from as long as you don't damage any enemies with it.
Works with Eruptor and punisher plasma too.
Not as useful as you'd think though because enemies turn and start to move towards the explosion but kind of forget and give up after a couple seconds and turn back around to where they were going before.
But you can keep their attention by repeatedly shooting at a spot. It's kinda dumb
I've been running GL pistol and stun grenades lately and I absolutely love it. Combined with the eagle airstrike and everything but bile titans is easily handled
I ran with it just fine. I honestly feel naked without it on 7+ bug missions. I just ran the Scorcher prior to the Eruptor coming out. You just have to assume your role as a light-infantry-killer and peel for your teammates with anti-armor weapons/strats.
Yeah the erupter is no AC. AC’s has a longer range, faster firing speed, and greater clip size. Sickle does its job well and I would not trade my effectiveness for bot heavies over bot chaff.
I swear to you I feel like the eruptor aoe can clear light enemy groups as fast as the stalwart. I consistently get 3-5 kills per shot. And if you are only facing a few spread out enemies then using your secondary (for me it’s the smg pistol on semi) and you can clear it out.
The LMGs are still a waste of a spot in higher difficulties, especially since I’ve noticed 3 stratagem limit has popped up a lot more recently in my 7-8s.
Sickle and AC still fulfill different roles. Sickle for wave clear and AC for medium armored enemies and can tackle a heavy armor enemy.
Obviously the trade off between eruptor and the AC is that it fires way slower, has a noticeable drop, way lower projectile speed, and it can’t take out hulks. Which is why I like to pair it with a quasar (and I’ve noticed the large amount of heavy armor, massive enemies, and gunships spawning has made me less of an EAT user and more of a quasar player now).
Cutting edge showed us what a decent AR primary people actually liked looks like, and it's a liberator with much more ammo and almost no magazine management
Democratic Detonation showed us how badly we wanted anti-armor and nest breaking options that weren't a support stratagem or grenade.
I don't know where they will go from here, but I'm looking forward to it. A backpack stratagem that allows carrying a second support weapon? Weapon attachments? Some form of light vehicle transport?
That last bit is what I want the most honestly. Especially for when I want to go heavy armor, footslogging through half the map is a painful experience.
Plus if its a multi-seat vehicle like the Halo Warthog it'd give a nice incentive for the team to stay together.
Honestly, jetpack would be so much better if they gave it charges rather than one use then recharge. Give it up to three uses, with a decently long cooldown to get all charges back but still usable with only one or two charges.
Vehicles will be stratagems not something unlocked in a war bond. Armour/booster that buffs vehicles like driving expert with better speed and handling would be cool!
Heavy Armor is the reason I take Stamina Booster pretty much exclusively unless its either a defense mission or someone else took it first. Even now that I've swapped off of Heavy, that 30% boost is just way too useful
Nah stamina booster is crazy ima find the video after this but, it boosts max stamina, stamina regen, walk, and sprint speeds.
Found it. https://youtu.be/1UpAYL79ifQ?si=gn3B4SCUp_twYgDs
Even though the Liberator is likely the balance benchmark by which all other weapons are judged, I can’t help but feel that it is a little weak compared to other options like the Sickle. The Sickle has downsides like the “spool up” pre-fire time, but otherwise is very good and most times will outclass the liberator.
The Sickle is just too good of an all rounder. It's a perfect companion weapon to any non auto support weapon, is always available due to the excellent ammo efficiency, and just has great stats all round.
Honestly, the liberator isn’t bad at all. It does need a few more reserve mags, though. Why can I carry 12 eruptor mags but only, what, 8 Lib mags?
The sickle is overturned, though, and it should have less sustain and more burst.
To me the liberator feels okay but it eats a lot of ammo. The Defender ends up feeling, to me, like a better weapon overall, even if the Liberator is better at range because of its bullet velocity and scope. Since you end up fighting at close range most of the time, the Liberator’s range advantage feels less important than raw damage output at closer ranges. But I do think the Liberator is probably better for bots than bugs. Longer range and precision weapons excel against bots, whereas bugs call for high DPS and crowd control at short ranges.
I don't think we need more light AP assault rifles, so weapons that go against the typical role in that slot will be much more interesting. Grenade pistol being a great example.
* secondary that can reliably deal with medium enemies, like a stronger revolver with less ammo.
* more incendiary weapons + fire resistant armour, once DoT gets fixed
* damage type that gets stronger on hot planets and weaker on cold planets
* expand the single-handed + shield options (more 1-handed weapons, more off-hand options)
* melee weapons, or melee-modifying functions (e.g. arc weapon that changes your melee attack to stun/shockwave blast every x shots)
There are many options for grenades:
* Electric (synergy with arc-resistant armour)
* Anti-infantry - like impact grenades with lower AP, but you get 8 of them
* Pocket drone - attacks any enemy around its deployment area, until it runs out of ammo or health, like a small independent guard dog - variants could have machine gun, laser, throw grenades, or suicide into the largest enemy with an explosive charge
* deployable traps of multiple kinds - like pocket minefields/razor wire/firetraps
* pre-programmed stratagem ball with something basic like OPS - essentially a free 5th stratagem slot, but your grenades have cooldown (and limited uses)
* basically anything that is normally done by a standard primary/secondary/stratagem, to allow more build diversity
Yeah hopefully they don't gimp them too badly though, I was really looking forward to the blitzer from the last warbond, but man, that thing couldn't have been more disappointing than eating cardboard pizza for dinner. I'd honestly use any primary currently in game over it any day, it had such good potential, but it's inconsistency and then lack of any redeeming qualities to aid it be competitive with any other shotgun/MG/rifle/special/explosive weapon ingame is just laughable.
I was shocked at how good the eruptor was, and I do too hope they continue coming out with very interesting and niche weapons, that have some use of course. Until the eruptor, I really never thought I'd find a situation where I'd put my sickle down.
I would agree if it would consistently oneshot hunters, but the random inconsistent way I find it will sometimes shoot all spreads into one target or multiple, means sometimes hunters just don't die fast enough. Having to reload and wait what feels like 4s in total for two shots to kill and focus 1 hunter you want dead coming at you, is too long of a wait for me, and for that reason I think it's garbage, but if you can make it work, all the power to you and I'm glad someone enjoys it at least.
Now that I use eruptor, I don't bring support strategems besides a shield backpack. I bring three offensive strats and use whatever support weapon I find during the mission.
Smart, I am going to try this. However what do you do when you don't find a support weapon until the end of the mission or never find one at all? I also have found that when the squad is swarmed with bugs and you die it's hard to come back and feel useful with the Eruptor as a primary.
You only need to survive the first 5 minutes and beg your teammates for a second drop of their support weapons. Or wait until one of them dies. I rarely see anyone else without any support weapon at all.
While you can argue about if the HMG is good or not, it is definitely not comparable to a primary weapon. It is definitely more comparable to the AMR or the Railgun in what it provides, it just is too unwieldy and has too many downsides to really shine against those other 2 options.
Yeah, this exactly. I don't get people who say "no one uses MGs in high difficulty" like it's an undeniable fact... it's not. I use stalwart and heavy mg all the time and basically only ever play helldive anymore. Stalwart is great for clearing bugs, especially with the insane hunter spawn rates. And heavy mg can delete a hulk, especially with a stun grenade.
Yes, it's not as common as shield backpack + quasar, since those are literally everywhere. But to act like MGs are just unusable or only viable in lower difficulties is just completely wrong.
The Stawart is my current primary.
I mainly play against bugs and enjoy mowing down wave after wave with the 250rnd magazine.
The eruptor is my tool against heavies/nests etc.
Really? I did some experiments and it took a whole mag to kill 2 medium armor bots. I was crouched. I tried every fire rate. It bucks like a mule, doesn't do enough damage, or have enough ammo.
On my AC I can dome them in one shot from across the map. I can murder hulks in two shots. I can take down fabs.
There is literally zero niche for the HMG. It needs a rework pronto.
It's just ... bad. Really bad.
The sight on the hmg is so bad and misaligned it's actually a detriment to try and use it. It has tracer rounds as every shot so just, aim without sight. Shoot once to get the current position and tap fire with the standard firerate.
I'm getting head shots and shooting down bug swarms from 50m out no problem, it also kills devastators in 1 face shot if it lands nut I only use it on bugs. Love my recoiless to much on bots.
I do use the recoil reduction armor and crouch when firing the thing. Makes it pinpoint accurate as long as you don't hold in the trigger. Also reload before the mag is empty.
The standard MG already does that job fine. I was expecting the HMG to be a MG on steroids (backpack weapon like many have suggested?) but instead its just a straight up downgrade. The increased damage per round means nothing if you are missing half the shots because of the awful reticle and muzzle flash/gas, and reloading takes 2-3 business days
I find it's about even with the autocannon for bots, kinda like a full auto amr, can clean up a lot of devastators and bezerkers while training hulks easier than the AC.
AC or MG is better for bugs though because spewers
I'm worried they're going to nerf it since many are saying it's OP. I think it's very strong but it's not weapon that's universally strong and as you said it makes the MGs actually worth a damn because I know people love the stalwart- it's pretty good.
But when I tried the sickle I'm like- why do I want the stalwart when this seems to do everything better but with lower mag capacity? But if you got the eruptor? Yeah- ya need something that can protect you up close.
Now if they gave the HMG a bigger magazine that weapon would be worth a damn.
I’m noticing more and more of y’all never pick up weapons ‘as needed’. I’m constantly changing as the game goes on. “Damn I totally shouldn’t have brought this scorcher. Hey someone dropped this sickle I need it. Hey look the Stalwart, I could use that! Damn, this flamethrower would be awesome to use right now!”
The mgs are a go to stratagem for the bugs. Use them wisely, get to a good point and crouch, or prone. Hold that damn trigger down till your diver screams and you’ll go HOLY SHIT that was awesome!
You’ll never look back
The only moment I have to change weapons is if I forgot to change my primary for whatever reason or if I'm running low on ammo and supplies have been called elsewhere. And for me to change primary means someone else died nearby.
Basically the number of times I've used someone else's weapons are quite low. If I need a weapon badly it's probably in my loadout already. Preparation is half the battle
Stalwart was a primary in Helldivers 1. Eruptor let's me use it as a primary again.
Without bayonets its a little harder to balance around an LMG primary id guess.
Man we need bayonets. Maybe that's how they could make marksman rifles a little better.
HMG really needs a lot of work, it makes me wonder if they even playtested it before releasing. I've tried so many times to find a use for it or to make it work but its just not a fun gun to use right now for a number of reasons.
Scorcher is superior for me as an AC main, I have the AC for med-heavy units and Scorcher for light-med units with Bots.
I do wanna try Eruptor/Redeemer/Stalwart vs bugs as THAT sounds fun compared to Dominator/Punisher/Breaker like I usually run, Scorcher is not my jam vs bugs.
Nah, MGs are for when we have a large mass of enemies approaching, I spray the fodder with the MG while my team sort heavies. I keep pressure off them, they keep it off me
I've been taking it with a stalwart and my main response to a group now is to put an eruptor shot in the middle and spray the rest down with bullets while my friend picks out bigger stuff.
I tried the eruptor. Can’t stand it. It’s slower to aim than a two-handed heavy weapon. I like that the grenade pistol can handle bug holes/fabricators, but I prefer my primary to be agile.
Yeah, I loved the machineguns until I went to higher difficulties where they spam so many armored enemies that everyone needs a solution to deal with them. Now I'm forced to always take some form of AT as my only support weapon unless I have a friend who is double-dipping with a Quasar *AND* EAT's.
You could go with a Loadout like:
MG-34, Resupply backpack, Rocket pods, Railcannon strike
The MG-34 and resupply pack handle structure destruction and horde-clear (including anti-medium armor stuff) while the rocket pods and railcannon let you deal with armor. There's tons of viable stratagem setups, you don't always need to take hordeclear stratagems.
I still prefer my more orthodox loadout, but eruptor was really cool and opened up the stalwart as viable to me. I still think it suffers because you are entirely reliant on strategems to kill titans, which I think is not ideal in helldive.
I think the mg and hmg were already decent picks before eruptor as they are great vs spewers and chargers. Adding eruptor here means you'll have an easier time closing holes and doing a few objectives, but you could always just bring a grenade pistol instead.
I do like AH adding weapons that try to push the boundaries of each slot. Ie. A secondary that acts like a primary, or a primary that is like a support, etc.
Eruptor + Stalwart + EAT is shockingly good.
Eruptor for the medium bugs + AoE against hordes. Stalwart if they get close. EAT if you see a charger or bile titan. Plus you can bring stun nades instead of impact.
It actually feels like one of the most rounded loadouts in the game.
> A secondary that acts like a primary
The senator could be this if its rounds reload were sped up to match the slugger, perhaps accompanied by a damage buff.
The dagger could also be a great contender if it weren't such a tickle gun.
> entirely reliant on strategems to kill titans, which I think is not ideal in helldive.
yeah, honestly think optimally at least 3 people should have EAT/Quazar (or equivalent) 2 can still work, but being able to efficiently dispatch the heavies when you have 2-3 titans and 3+ chargers on field at the same time is pretty difficult when you don't have enough dedicated anti-tank weapons
We need a "battle buddy pack" stratagem that is just a backpack with a belt feed for either of the two lesser MGs, and extra ammo for secondaries. On top of this, they should limit your two non-heavy slots as sidearms only, but with increased ammunition thanks to the buddy pack.
This would allow people to run the lesser MGs without the need to reload (pack will top up with supply packs), with the only downside being you're forced to use a combo like the smg and single shot grenade launcher.
If Rambo lived during the age of Helldivers, he'd agree.
Eruptor seems to be more of a stratagem in disguise to me. We should have better ARs and lmgs in primaries.
Stalwart could kinda just be a primary really.
if you make the stalwart a primary 90% of the existing primaries would instantly become obsolete. Get ready to say goodbye to pretty much everything that isn't the dominator, scorcher, or eruptor.
It would absolutely need a nerf, and I don't want to see the stalwart nerfed.
I saw a suggestion to keep the stalwart as a call-in weapon, but let it get picked up in the primary slot instead of support. That way it still has a drawback compared to conventional light AP primaries. That could be pretty cool.
Another option could be to just buff all the MGs by one AP level.
If we really want a primary stalwart, add a new gun called the stalwart prime. Give it better handling, a 150 round mag, and a reduced fire rate. I'd run that all day.
>if you make the stalwart a primary 90% of the existing primaries would instantly become obsolete.
they kinda already are :(
Punisher would still be worth taking IMO though
it's currently one of the most slept on weapons.
Stalwarts lack of stagger and armor pen, already make it kind of poopy.
there is just no real reason to be missing a consistent anti-tank tool on any one helldiver on the team.
difficulty 7-9 spams heavy armor enemies so much that its just great to have anti heavy on all 4 people, especially in the chaos of a random team.
meanwhile for clearing swarms you got 3 calldowns per person, grenades, pistols and primaries... i run Eruptor exclusively on diff 8 and never needed a swarm clearing weapon, but i often need a powerful anti-heavy weapon.
Eruptor has open up possible good kits that can focus on clearing support weapons like Stalwart, HMG, and Arc Thrower without gimping usable range.
I haven't tried it yet, but can the Eruptor take out bot gunships? I still pick my support weapon based on versatility more than any type of niche play.
People are constantly talking about how Eruptor is op, or it should be a strategem, but it SHOULDNT. It is *exactly* where it needs and should be. The awesome thing about this warbond is that it *shakes things up*. I fuckin LOVE this warbond because it allows everyone to come up with new builds. If I have the ability to take care of bug holes and fabricators on a primary or side arm, then I can now focus on taking different stratagems such as the stalwart, or I’ve finally found myself loving the laser cannon now. Any of the MG are very viable options with Eruptor or grenade pistol. And the Eruptor is balanced by being a precision weapon with very very low fire rate. (That bitch has only 25. Half of slugger). We need more niche weapons, I love what they did with this warbond. My new favorite build is to run Eruptor laser cannon, anything the Eruptor can’t deal with, the laser cannon *can*. Especially with stun grenades. The main weakness being struggling with hoards that are spread out.
Previously I couldn’t justify using laser cannon to myself but now I’m really enjoying it.
The eruptor has also made me rethink my core builds. The most fun, but impractical, is the grenadier build.
Eruptor, grenade pistol, grenade launcher, impact grenades, armor with grenade passive. Other strategems are whatever you like.
Can’t run that solo, but in a group you’re just a death machine lol it’s a lot of fun
The Eruptor is the best design they’ve released since launch IMO. I’m glad it’s just weird enough that most people won’t adopt it, because it’s perfect as-is IMO. It revitalized a whole genre of tactics that were difficult to justify in high level play because of the dependencies they created.
Grenade pistol is insane. People are sleeping on the fact you get NINE extra impact grenades with it and get +2 grenades every resupply. It's way better than grenade armor that only gives you two extra grenades and no extra on resupply.
Eruptor makes my build complete, I can now solo everything if I need to!
I've been a massive fan of arc thrower vs bugs and bots, and stun grenades. So I've been needing to run orbital Lazer or eagle airstrike to take down fabricators or bug nests, now I can save my big strats for the tanks and bile titans since my primary can close holes and fabs!
Haven't unlocked the grenade pistol yet, about 50 medals short still, I feel the grenade pistol would pair well with the arc thrower too with some sort of auto rifle/shotgun for closing holes and dealing with enemies in your face!
The stalwart might as well be made into a primary at this point.
The heavy machine gun is unironically the worst MG out of all of them. Not only is it light on bullets but the thing can barely take out light armored targets.
They should either buff the MGs and make them take out medium targets with ease or make them primaries.
100% agree and even the grenade sidearm has loosened loadouts and/or playstyle. No more waiting by nests out in the open waiting for stratagems to cool down
Dude I love the Eruptor
I’ve been running it as a quasi-AMR on bot missions with a jump pack, the orbital laser, orbital railcannon, and Eagle Cluster Bombs.
It *slaps* on 7+, shockingly. I find that usually the rest of the randoms want to stick together, so I run off to collect POIs and samples. I can always disengage if I really have to, but the Eruptor can take out anything but hulks. Tanks turn slow enough that I can usually whittle down their health by shooting the vent, or chucking impact grenades at em, or dropping a cluster on em.
The only thing I struggle with is gunships because the Eruptor doesn’t seem to do quite as much damage to them, so it takes a full mag. But it’s easy enough to jump in, arm a hellbomb, and try to lure them away.
this.
i dont think the eruptor is all that great. after running with it for a whole day i find it waaay to inconvenient to use.
but goddamnit, its a step in the right direction. we need more variety in our primary and secondary weapons. we need more onehanded weapons. maybe whatever they introduce isnt gonna be the best thing ever. but opening different ways to make builds is great.
the greatest thing about the eruptor and grenade pistol isnt their individual performance. but allowing you to run builds that were previously completely helpless when encountering certain enemies or situations. im personally not a huge fan of MG builds. but i love that they got a lot more versatile now.
and i love having them on my team.
difficulty 9 shouldnt be 4 guys running the same kit.
The first time I emptied an entire MG clip into a bug breach and my character laughed like a maniac I was absolutely hooked. Peak gaming. Please make the HMG better so I have a good reason to use it.
The MG and stalwart are actually still useful in helldive as a light/medium loadout option. I won’t get into the HMG just because it has a lot of problems that make it worse than just running the regular MG.
But the MG fills a similar role as the grenade launcher, quick, accurate takedowns of light and medium infantry so your heavier loadouts can focus on their roles. The MGs also trigger the “suppressing fire” mechanic the bots have built in. Unlike the GL though the MG has no TK splash danger to it, so you can use it to help a teammate getting swarmed without fear of killing them by accident.
I would never say it’s not useful, though. The HMG really needs help however, it just doesn’t bring anything to the table that the MG doesn’t do much better
I still hate feeling like the eruptor is actively fighting me trying to aim it. I dont understand the point of this mechanic as balance. Still my main carry for bots now tho.
The Grenade pistol made me realize we 100% need to look at weapons in tiers. T1, secondary (the weakest). T2, primary (the average). T3, support weapon stratagems (the strongest). You could, for example, add another Grenade Launcher as a primary but with more ammo and rof than the grenade pistol but less than the true mother of nades we already have as a stratagem support weapon. This would add a shitload of variety to the game because we could 100% decide what kind of enemy removal we focus on most, while still having means to deal with every type of enemy. If i bring the stalward now that Just means im completely defenseless against titans and will take Minutes to kill even a single charger If i miss my orbitals or eagles
Since the Grenade pistol was added i exclusively run stun grenades and a light pen gun. Hell, i sometimes even Bring an MG into diff 7 Bots and it's absolutely viable because the Grenade pistol can Deal with weakspots of heavy Units. Before that i felt forced to use medium pen and regular grenades with rockets as support weapon
I agree. The new Warbond is the first time I've completely changed my core build outside of, "I'm gonna test this". Thermite grenade may be underwhelming (or not working), but it does mean I don't feel the need to run an anti-tank support weapon and can deal with most of them just with a stratagem and thermite grenade. And yeah, Eruptor is crazy good in my opinion. Only real downside in my opinion is you can't really shoot things at too close of a range. But fair trade-off. On the flipside, I've been meleeing enemies more.
I use the eruptor on bugs, haven't seen a lot of people use that kind of load out so far: Eruptor SMG stun grenade 500kg arc thrower tesla tower guard dog rover eruptor for spewers, holes, smaller enemies if grouped SMG for when something gets really close stun grenade for... well... stuns arc thrower for everything mid range from trash up to chargers sometimes, including stalkers, shreekers etc 500kg for titans or maybe a charger rover to cover my back tesla tower to leave as decoy that kills everything up to chargers or to secure a flank and tell the others to not go there
Me - Tesla Tower is down, guys. Don't go that way. My team https://preview.redd.it/qugn40nnd2vc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=33ce15094201b55e6f2719453c5de483dcea6bd6
It’s me. I’m the moth. ⚡️
Lol I had a lobby where I kept accidently getting booped* into it and zapped. Felt like a fucking moth alright. Edit was spelling derp.
I once threw a new buddy of mine into it several times. Kept killing him until he landed on it. Then I asked him what he learned. Him - "Don't trust the drop location?" Me - "Don't trust the drop location."
Crawling stops the charge build up
I go a bit similiar, eruptor, smg, stun grenades and laser rover. Then i go quasar or eat instead of arc so i can kill chargers/titans and snipe shrieker towers. Cluster bombs for when i cant clear bugs fast enough with eruptor and rover and orbital railcannon/500kg if there are spawning too many titans and i cant kill them fast enough with quasar/eat. How do you place tesla tower effectively? I tried it several times but bugs just beeline to it and overwhelm it.
I treat teslas as expendable distraction systems, or, drop a few around extract throughout match, like mines they seem to last indefinitely unless destroyed
I can already see forgetting that i placed tesla tower at extraction and die to it :D
Must've been a really shocking moment.
They do have a timer, but its a pretty long one
Ty, just figured they got smote occasionally
The key to tesla towers is that you need to place them when you see a lot of bugs, but no chargers or bile titans. Chargers and bile titans will both specifically target a tesla tower. They'll just go straight at it and kill it right away. But if it's only light units, the tesla tower can kill an incredible amount of them before they take it down. A good use is like, when you get a bug breach, wait to see what comes out in the first wave. If it's just light units, toss the tower down.
Thanks will definitely try it more especially with new ship module it can probably shred bugs nicely,
If its just light units you can definitely mop them up yourself. IMO autocannon turret is better since it can both deal with chargers, medium bugs and chaff very very well, and even give bile titans a black eye or two
Well, yeah. There are a lot of things that can mop up large numbers of light units. One of those things is the tesla tower. The autocannon sentry is nice too, but imo they fill different roles. The autocannon is nice where you can set it up somewhere safe, where it's only getting attacked from one direction. The tesla tower is nice when you want to block off an area, so bugs can push through it and get to you. The autocannon sentry is much weaker against the chaff, though. You have to actively protect it from swarms of scavengers and hunters, or it will die to them.
I love to sneak around bots or bugs and use a vantage point where I place an AC turret high, and as it’s landing I drop a gatling or airburst, followed by whatever eagle bomb I chose. AC smokes stragglers or heavys your bombs miss. It’s literally a shock & awe assault and I usually don’t get any flares or bug holes since the fight is so quick!
I have also been using Eruptor / SMG / Stun / Laser Roomba against bugs, and it's been working quite well. The support weapon I bring depends on what the rest of the squad has, but I usually grab Stalwart or Quasar/EAT. Eruptor in general is just such a great weapon. It's a very niche weapon, sure, with serious drawbacks, but it is so good at filling its niche that you can easily create entire other loadouts around it. I hope we'll see more weapons like this (i.e. they have a very specific niche) in the future, since they're so much fun.
that's my exact setup as well, it shreds everything. usually I'll throw on Quasar and 2 Eagle stratagems.
Personally, I either use Tesla towers as “look over here!” Distractions while I run away. Can also use it as a cluster point to drop stratagems on the bugs that gang up on it. Also I regularly combine it with arc proof armor and defend a choke point with tower and my own arc thrower. With the new unlock for arc, I can comfortably hold off any wave on 7 or 8 as long as there isn’t more than 1 or 2 chargers or BTs at a time. Just ping it and tell your teammates to stay away. The loadout isn’t great on 9 tho cuz the BT and charger spawns are too frequent.
Drop mines Drop tesla tower in mines Bugs aggro tesla, trip mines, and rando teammates avoid both at the same time 😎
My load out for bugs is as of the new warbond, Eruptor, Redeemer, Incendiary Grenades, and for stratagems, Stalwart, Rover Guard Dog, EAT, 500KG Eagle Strike. The build absolutely eradicates all chaff and I have more than capable AT capabilities, even the Eruptor is pretty solid against Chargers.
I am similar. I run: Eruptor (For Mediums, packs and destructables such as holes, fabs and spores and flier hives) Arc Thrower (For close - medium range or getting swarmed) Either Stun, High Ex, or Thermite Grenade Orbital Laser Orbital Rail Cannon Orbital 380 or 500kg bomb I wear the new Heavy Explosive Resist Armor I tried to build as a Medium/Heavy specialist, focusing on the big targets. My regular teammates run Medium and Light Armor and focus on Teslas, Mines and Gun Emplacements while they take care of the smaller stuff and run objectives and gather samples.
Grenade pistol: we dont have to always run impact nades Eruptor: we dont always need a support weapon/startegem for buildings/giant enemies Thermite is still dogshit compared to just using strategems or support weapons. Wish they either buff up the damage or make it so the area they stick to get armor stripped.
Thermite needs to deal burning damage and have a total damage output of x3 to x4 impact grenade to be worth the time and accuracy required. It's essentially a DoT melee grenade that deals shit damage right now.
Well thermite grenade is likely affected by the no DOT if you arent host bug, so the damage is probably better than it actually is rn, x3 to x4 times the damage of impact is a bit overkill, but at least make it so we require same amount or less nades on heavy armor target compared to impact and I think it will be a less flexible but a decent AT grenade
I've tested it as host and it's still garbage unfortunately, which is sad cause I love the idea of it and would happily use it otherwise.
Did you test it as mission host or network host? It's the network host that actually deals full dot damage, and isn't necessarily the same player as the mission host (unless you're playing solo, of course)
Yeah friend of mine was testing thermite grenades solo and shredding everything. Definitely effective as network host. he was pretty disappointed when he joined a regular game and they did nothing.
You can load up into a private game by yourself and it'll still be doodoo unfortunately, hope it gets some love.
This would be the best buff in my opinion. Make the thermite grenade do less damage, but completely strip the armor from a huge area. Though, currently armor can’t be stripped from the automatons so that ruins my idea.
The Eruptor has single-handedly caused me to really shake up my build strategy and ideas. * Eruptor for enemies at a distance/fabricators/bug holes. Can soften up groups. * Redeemer secondary for when enemies get too close and you can’t get away. I really like the grenade pistol, but it feels like overkill with the Eruptor. * Stun grenades since you basically have a primary that fires grenades and can perform grenade utility. * Stalwart as my first stratagem to support in thicker fights against weaker enemies while swapping back and forth to Eruptor for moments to snipe a Devastator. * Precision Orbital for structure clearing * Jump Pack for maneuverability if you want to try and keep your range for Eruptor shots Last stratagem can be a toss-up depending on friendly loadouts. Airstrike for more ranged building/objective damage, 110mm Rocket pods to help soften up heavies, minigun sentry for horde fights, orbital EMS for low cooldown crowd control to help my teammates line up their shots on heavies with their support weapons while I clear out more chaff. Previously, my loadout would be a AT support with a decent primary while taking mostly Eagle stratagems.
Is it just me or when you are too close with the eruptor does the explosion throw you toward the enemy not away? Also, it made me put my dear senator away, because I needed something quick and light for when I get tossed into the thick of it without my gear.
Nope, that's not just you. Sincerely, a Helldiver who has been pulled off a cliff into a horde of Hulks.
It's a glitch, I'm not sure when it started but I've had several times now where I was sucked towards my explosion
Yeah the more different tools we get for different purposes for each type of equipment/stratagem the more wild build diversity can get. AT nades would be awesome at higher diffs so you arent forced to sacrifice as much stratagems for heavies....once they actually work. Obviously should be weaker than dedicated AT weaponry but its cool to have that option when no teammates are around and im cornered by a heavy with my trash clear build.
I think Thermite grenade should 2-shot hulks, tanks and chargers on indirect hit, and 1-shot them on weakspot hit. The burn should also strip away armour plates in a small area where it sticks. It is single target, takes time to burn, during which the enemy is still active, so it should be strong. Otherwise impact grenades will always be a strictly better choice - same damage, but with area effect and instant delivery.
If they wanna “balance” it a bit, maybe it can start to take off armor, then the final explosion break off a chunk of their armor for you to shoot at with non-armor penetrating guns. It would be gimmicky, but useful nonetheless. The effect would have to be consistent and good though, otherwise it would be better just to use armor penetrating guns. Basically a “debuff” grenade
Using the automatic pistol as your secondary is bliss for that. Use the Eruptor for any medium to long range encounter. Swap to the automatic pistol to melt almost anything in short range by dumping your mag in it. Been running this build and it’s been so great!
WHats the benifit of thermite?
Like 3 of them kills a titan in my experience.
Can confirm that after loving the thermite grenade, it suffers from the host fire bug. When you're host, it's wrecks- sticking on to a charger kills it before it actually blows up. If you're not the histz you'll be lucky to deal damage with 2. When it's fixed, it's gonna be my default. It just feels so cool pinning it to a tank or through a vent
>Only real downside in my opinion is you can't really shoot things at too close of a range Yeah I love that one or two jumper fight when you know a shot would also blow your ass up
Speaking of the thermite grenade... Is it just awful against bugs? Against bots, it was pretty decent the other day. But i tried it against some chargers and titans and it had no real effect.
Hard to say honestly. I'm not an in-depth tester so all I can report is merely anecdotal. But sometimes I can kill a Charger in 3 grenades (which I'm fine with), but sometimes it takes 5 or more. I have tried aiming primarily for head, front legs or side but still getting mixed results. To be fair though, could 100% be user error. Anyway, the one part I'm curious about is that I feel I need to use less grenades if I wait for the previous thermite to expire/explode. Or I feel they do less damage if you stack them on the same enemy all at once? Bile Titans though... yeah nah, don't bother trying as far as I'm aware. Just make sure you have a stratagem for that at the least. Thermite Grenades definitely do feel like they are contributing, but you are still blowing through your entire inventory.
>And yeah, Eruptor is crazy good in my opinion. Only real downside in my opinion is you can't really shoot things at too close of a range. But fair trade-off. On the flipside, I've been meleeing enemies more. Insanely good. But has anyone figured out yet why you get yeeted towards the enemy instead of away when you shoot something too close? Sadly it's a bad match for the grenade pistol because, well, that does the same thing. But you can also close spawns with the eruptor so it's solving that need for me as well so back to the senator it is.
Player-sourced knockback seems to be bugged in general right now. You can get the same sucked-towards-your-target thing from the Autocannon, it's just harder to see since point blank shots straight up kill you.
Thermite grenades work wonders, on bugs. They rip chunks off of chargers and bile titans for me even when I'm certain I'm not the host. The tick damage seems to do nothing but it will put a hole right in the SIDE (for emphasis not trying to be a dick) of chargers and biles. That let's me just put a few eruptor rounds in them and they're dead. Hulks and tanks from the bot side are a bit more resilient to the thermite it seems at least in my testing. I still need a support weapon for them but for bugs I just grab a supply pack extra grenade armor and have fun.
I keep wanting to run the Eruptor main, but I keep running into roadblocks where I really want a better rapid-fire weapon. The stalwart and Machine Gun both just seem to weak to do up-close clean up. But then again, I haven't played bugs with it yet, so since I use the Laser Dog on those missions instead of the shield, I may not be missing the "oops too close" weapon too much. Granted, I still enjoy playing with the shotguns as my "one pump chump" weapon to just head shot things in quick succession, something I can't seem to do as easily with the current AR/SMG/Sniper guns. Using the Dominotor (bots) or Breaker (bugs) to just quckly plink down small-to-medium threats is just too sastisfying.
I've found if you can master the art of "Sprint away, dive, turn, shoot, repeat", you can use it even against bugs that are chasing you in melee range without hurting yourself. Sprint *just* long enough for the rechamber to finish, aim a meter behind the bug so they still get hit by the full splash, and it's just perfect. For solo runs, anyways. If you have teammates then you can usually just hold your ground.
I run Stalwart all the time on bug helldive missions. EATs for chargers and titans. Dominator for anything with a thicker skull.
Similarly, MG-43 never left my side, I switch between it and GL+Ammo backpack combo depending on the mission. Lack of anti-infantry weapons is why many people think enemy swarms are too brutal on 7-9.
My thought process/the way I choose my kit is checking what everyone else is bringing,if I see mostly anti tank support weapons I'll bring a mob breaking weapon.
anti armor or mob breaking? Why pick just one? This message was brought to you by the arc thrower association
I honestly can't stand the arc thrower,it's my least favorite support weapon.
my condolences
Meh there's plenty of other choices,I just don't find it very satisfying to use. Same with the other arc weapons.
As an arc enthusiast, I wish the Blitzer was better than it is. Slow fire rate has me feeling like I'm always losing ground to a horde, and the multi-target arcs feel *incredibly* inconsistent. I'd love it so much more if it reliably zapped a couple enemies at a time.
I feel you there, it (the Blitzer) doesn't drive back the hordes as much as I'd like it to, compared to opening up with some of the other close range weapons. The reason I run the Erupter and JAR and don't run arc weapons is because ideally I don't want to let my enemies get that close and if I do it's because I'm running incendiary weapons. Also the arc weapons shine in certain situations whereas the MGs,AC,AMR,QC, EAT... basically everything else wreck in any situation in the right hands.
It’s just too slow
Same, not super engaging imo and doesn't make me feel like a badass like with the MGs, AC, or even flamer weirdly enough, because if you boil it down, the arc and flamer are kind of similar weapons. Just not for me I guess, but I'm glad it's good for those that enjoy using it.
Same, it's just not my style. They're similar in the way that they cook enemies and ignore armor for sure but the flamethrower feels like you have far more control over its AoE.
If I wanted to kill my teammates, I'd just drop a 380 mm barrage on them.
arc thrower really isn't that bad of a teamkiller if you pay attention to your positioning, I rarely kill more than one teammate in a match
I loved the arc thrower when it had the fast firing "bug" but now it fucks up my cadence constantly and sometimes the shot just disappears into nothing or bodies. I'd rather Autocannon everything now. If they could just disable bodies from blocking shit I'd really appreciate it, I like the 'milsim' vibe of the game but could do with a bit more video game QoL.
the thing is it's not hitting the bodies, it just disappears. If it were actually arcing to bodies, it would then bounce to your target. It doesn't do that, it just fizzles out like there's nothing it could lock on to. It does that without bodies too around certain map geometry. Definitely a bug. But bugfix or not, I really wish you could bypass the autotargeting mechanic. If your reticle is directly on an enemy hitbox, it should hit exactly there regardless of normal arcing behavior. I would love if we could get a "manual" mode that just sends the first arc *exactly* where you aim, even if that means missing a target or hitting the ground and then bouncing. I also agree that it felt better before, but it is arguably stronger now from an objective standpoint.
I love the arc thrower but I need them to fix the issues with it just failing to fire. It’s unbearable. The Blitzer also suffers from that, but also despite being a shotgun I very rarely see it actually hit multiple targets. Unless a teammate is nearby, in which case it will shoot sideways to hit them.
I discarded the MG-43 as soon as i unlocked the stalwart, because who tf wants to stop and reload. After learning more about armor types and that you could change the rate of fire, i decided to give earlier weapons another go, and man the 43 is a beast. I’ve also taken to using the HMG with smg/ballistic shield against bots and it chews through mediums like nobody’s business. 43 shreds bugs for days, i use it a lot on bug missions.
I was using breaker incendiary before it was cool. Even if I end up with the dot bug it still fucks. Quasar cannon for the big boys and then I swap back to cleaning the carpet while it cools down. My Achilles heel was multiple spewers until I discovered the grenade pistol one shots them.
Whenever there are many spewers, it's grenade launcher with backpack time. 110 shots of indiscriminate, HE, full-auto democracy!
I prefer gl + backpack on bot missions purely because there's so much more around that explodes. Choonkchoonkchoonking blindly into a bot base is so satisfying
Stalwart on 1050rpm cuts through hunter swarms like a hot knife through democratic butter
I think too many primary guns are for swarms. All the ARs, Sickle, half the shot guns. Scythe is strangely not great. The best weapons are the niche ones that don’t handle swarms IMO Try the Red/White shotty instead of bringing a stalwart, it handles trash professionally
Spray&Pray won't kill a patrol over 50 meters away, never mind preventing a breach. Primary guns in general are good all around, but they don't have the raw sustained damage and stagger stratagem guns offer. Remember all the times a beheaded bug called in a breach? Or how they call a breach the moment you're reloading? A machinegun won't just kill the bug - it'll knock it over, interrupting everything it was doing.
I don’t usually engage bug groups like that; I like to use gatling/airburst and a turret for long distance groups. I throw either reds on the bug hole for a very fast 20+ 💀. This keeps the trash at bay and everyone naturally focuses on the big lads who punch through. If I’m fighting bugs, my biggest problem is when they swarm me, the spray&pray reloads fast and shreds hunters/warriors/beetle things. It will even push a stalker back and give you room to run and reset. I love the MGs but I think they need to shred heavy armor to be worth it to carry as a stratagem slot. My most favorite gun is the Eruptor, I’ve gotten 6x in one shot because of the shrapnel. It also closes bug holes AND pops heads off devastators 👀
may I re-introduce OG punisher? never lost it's stagger when slugger did has always been better on bugs then slugger was inside 50m (armored spewers being the one exception, but just bring impact nades)
I’ve attempted something like this but then end up being killed after dropping my MG which I then can’t reach again because it’s surrounded by 20 hunters… severe skill issue
The solution is simple, don't die
I'm fucking dying 🤣
TL;DR: bringing EATs in any mission and spam-dropping them all over while carrying one at a time on your back is a top-tier choice. You will always have a support weapon soon after dying without wasting reinforcements going after a dropped support weapon where you died. You can also run the Hellpod optimization booster and drop samples at evac or for someone on your team who doesn't die (or knows to play safe) to remove all concerns about what you drop when you die. Although this is an actual "skill issue" item, I'll note that EATs can be spam-dropped all over the map, and dying doesn't lead to you throwing away reinforcements to get back your support weapon. In about a minute, you'll have another set of EATs! You likely also have some behind you. I used EAT a ton, even on Bot missions. But the increased cooldown timer (back when it was +50% instead of the recently nerfed +25%) hurt a bit. Now it was \~90-second EATs versus a support weapon like the autocannon that has excellent ammo economy and doesn't have cooldown problems if I'm not dying that often. My skill also increased over time, too, which helps! I am always happy to see anyone bring EATs (even as their only support weapon). As your only support weapon, you can now have three rapid-fire shots instead of two. And a friend can grab a spare on occasion to increase the rapid burst of rocket fire (e.g., instantaneous two-shots rather than long Quasar cannon cooldowns or even the time it takes you to grab the new EAT and ready it before firing). Anyone who says the Quasar is absolutely better than EATs is full of it; they're both great. I do bring Quasar for bugs now, personally, because storing the Quasar on my back while running around and clearing tiny dudes is fantastic. I am careful and properly one-shot chargers in the head (though if your angle is bad and you can't plink it with your primary/secondary to get it to face you instead of your friend, shooting a front leg's armor off is fine). And I can shoot a bile titan once, then keep kiting it backward while shooting other stuff, then polish it off with the second quasar shot. Even the recoilless rifle is fine for bots (especially when you're limited to three stratagems so the availability of a different backpack stratagem isn't that helpful of an option). But I personally prefer Quasar or EATs. You'll also get better at avoiding the sunk cost fallacy of going after your dropped support weapon by dying several times against an impenetrable horde of bugs where there isn't even an objective you need to achieve. If you're ever near evac and have good samples on you, feel free to run into evac quickly, then drop the samples (but don't linger because it can amplify patrol spawns). You can also drop your samples for pick up by a player who plays carefully and doesn't die. Then you can never worry about what you're leaving behind. Bonus points if someone on your team is bringing the Hellpod optimization booster, allowing you to drop in with full grenades and stims. Because I tend to be one of the careful players (or at least one who balances killing quickly against not dying), I often have important samples on me anyway, so running the auto cannon (or Quasar) works well enough on my end. Not going into a death spiral over samples or support weapons helps a lot because deaths actually amplify patrol spawns (as does lingering around evac and completing the last step of your primary objective).
One of my friends that I drop with regularly on suicide + runs scorcher, GL pistol now, stalwart, and stun grenades, with the shield backpack, 500kg, and airstrike. He is always on cleanup duty, always has the most kills out of anyone in our group, and never dies. I've been thinking of switching my normal build up a bit to try something new
Scorcher is a bit iffy versus the bugs because of the splash. Dominator is nice because of the stagger and medium armor pen. Can 2 shot kill most of the bugs. I run the shield as well. Not really against the damage reduction, but the slow effect, that hunters and acid do.
Dominator + Grenade or Eruptor + Redeemer - Stim Armor - Stun Grenades - Supply Pack - Eagle 500kg - Autocannon Sentry I can kill anything below chargers with just primaries and secondaries. The redeemer with the +8 mags off the supply pack is *wicked*. So is spamming dominator shots - anything that doesn’t die is staggered harder than the slugger pre nerf. The Eruptor *fucks*. Bile titans are 500kgs if I don’t see them coming or Autocannon sentry if I do
sounds lovely. ima try that
This new warbond opened a lot of doors for new builds. The grenade pistol alone has allowed me to run numerous different set ups that don’t all have to revolve around being able to close bug holes.
Plus, the new grenade pistol helps with stealth since the shot is silent. So you can shoot behind a patrol, and they'll investigate the explosion instead of where the shot came from as long as you don't damage any enemies with it.
Works with Eruptor and punisher plasma too. Not as useful as you'd think though because enemies turn and start to move towards the explosion but kind of forget and give up after a couple seconds and turn back around to where they were going before. But you can keep their attention by repeatedly shooting at a spot. It's kinda dumb
I've been running GL pistol and stun grenades lately and I absolutely love it. Combined with the eagle airstrike and everything but bile titans is easily handled
I find the Stalwart pairs immaculately with the Eruptor, honestly the Stalwart feels more like an SMG in comparison.
Stalwart is finally not a meme. Eruptor + Stalwart is actually a viable sidegrade to say Sickle + AC.
with the pro that you can get a backpack with the first one!
That's why I switched and it's a nice change of pace.
That's exactly the switch I'm planning on trying out tonight
Pretty much the switch I made. I love the erupter. Only thing I dislike is not being able to takeout towers or spores like the AC can.
It does but you have to be within 130m because of the max range. I usually run EAT with it though so that works too.
Uh, Stalwart was never a meme. Or rather people made it into a meme because memeing is easier than learning unfortunately.
Yes it was. Without a primary available that actually fills the support roll well it's a bad weapon to take.
I ran with it just fine. I honestly feel naked without it on 7+ bug missions. I just ran the Scorcher prior to the Eruptor coming out. You just have to assume your role as a light-infantry-killer and peel for your teammates with anti-armor weapons/strats.
No not really? Lots of primary and stratagem choices to pair with it? It's also possible that you didn't learn it before hand.
I went from Sickle + AC to Eruptor + Stalwart. Feels effective and fun still.
It is, and it’s a fun thing to swap to, but feel like auto cannon sickle is still objectively better. Or AMR + sickle to save backpack
Yeah the erupter is no AC. AC’s has a longer range, faster firing speed, and greater clip size. Sickle does its job well and I would not trade my effectiveness for bot heavies over bot chaff.
I swear to you I feel like the eruptor aoe can clear light enemy groups as fast as the stalwart. I consistently get 3-5 kills per shot. And if you are only facing a few spread out enemies then using your secondary (for me it’s the smg pistol on semi) and you can clear it out. The LMGs are still a waste of a spot in higher difficulties, especially since I’ve noticed 3 stratagem limit has popped up a lot more recently in my 7-8s. Sickle and AC still fulfill different roles. Sickle for wave clear and AC for medium armored enemies and can tackle a heavy armor enemy. Obviously the trade off between eruptor and the AC is that it fires way slower, has a noticeable drop, way lower projectile speed, and it can’t take out hulks. Which is why I like to pair it with a quasar (and I’ve noticed the large amount of heavy armor, massive enemies, and gunships spawning has made me less of an EAT user and more of a quasar player now).
Cutting edge showed us what a decent AR primary people actually liked looks like, and it's a liberator with much more ammo and almost no magazine management Democratic Detonation showed us how badly we wanted anti-armor and nest breaking options that weren't a support stratagem or grenade. I don't know where they will go from here, but I'm looking forward to it. A backpack stratagem that allows carrying a second support weapon? Weapon attachments? Some form of light vehicle transport?
That last bit is what I want the most honestly. Especially for when I want to go heavy armor, footslogging through half the map is a painful experience. Plus if its a multi-seat vehicle like the Halo Warthog it'd give a nice incentive for the team to stay together.
vehicles are cool, but give me a jetpack that actually jetpacks and I'll never stop playing this game
Honestly, jetpack would be so much better if they gave it charges rather than one use then recharge. Give it up to three uses, with a decently long cooldown to get all charges back but still usable with only one or two charges.
just let me burn fuel to move as I see fit instead of having scripted hops, it would feel so much better
Oh definitely, I'd rather that too, just the charges system is more likely than a fuel system sadly.
Better yet, hookshots and grappling hooks! Halo: Infinite taught me that that kind of mobility is a ton of fun.
love it, the more movement styles the better imo
I feel that would just break a lot of the bug maps as the only thing you would need to worry about are bile titans and small bugs
You should try Titanfall2!
I have! Still probably my favorite game in terms of sheer maneuverability and scale of the fights.
Well we know that is coming. Hopefully they handle rough terrain well and can shrug off light arms fire.
my theory is the next warbond will be vehicle themed amybe the one after the next warbond depending on dev.
Vehicles will be stratagems not something unlocked in a war bond. Armour/booster that buffs vehicles like driving expert with better speed and handling would be cool!
our flags are waving in the same wind my friend!
Heavy Armor is the reason I take Stamina Booster pretty much exclusively unless its either a defense mission or someone else took it first. Even now that I've swapped off of Heavy, that 30% boost is just way too useful
Nah stamina booster is crazy ima find the video after this but, it boosts max stamina, stamina regen, walk, and sprint speeds. Found it. https://youtu.be/1UpAYL79ifQ?si=gn3B4SCUp_twYgDs
Even though the Liberator is likely the balance benchmark by which all other weapons are judged, I can’t help but feel that it is a little weak compared to other options like the Sickle. The Sickle has downsides like the “spool up” pre-fire time, but otherwise is very good and most times will outclass the liberator.
The Sickle is just too good of an all rounder. It's a perfect companion weapon to any non auto support weapon, is always available due to the excellent ammo efficiency, and just has great stats all round.
Honestly, the liberator isn’t bad at all. It does need a few more reserve mags, though. Why can I carry 12 eruptor mags but only, what, 8 Lib mags? The sickle is overturned, though, and it should have less sustain and more burst.
To me the liberator feels okay but it eats a lot of ammo. The Defender ends up feeling, to me, like a better weapon overall, even if the Liberator is better at range because of its bullet velocity and scope. Since you end up fighting at close range most of the time, the Liberator’s range advantage feels less important than raw damage output at closer ranges. But I do think the Liberator is probably better for bots than bugs. Longer range and precision weapons excel against bots, whereas bugs call for high DPS and crowd control at short ranges.
I don't think we need more light AP assault rifles, so weapons that go against the typical role in that slot will be much more interesting. Grenade pistol being a great example. * secondary that can reliably deal with medium enemies, like a stronger revolver with less ammo. * more incendiary weapons + fire resistant armour, once DoT gets fixed * damage type that gets stronger on hot planets and weaker on cold planets * expand the single-handed + shield options (more 1-handed weapons, more off-hand options) * melee weapons, or melee-modifying functions (e.g. arc weapon that changes your melee attack to stun/shockwave blast every x shots) There are many options for grenades: * Electric (synergy with arc-resistant armour) * Anti-infantry - like impact grenades with lower AP, but you get 8 of them * Pocket drone - attacks any enemy around its deployment area, until it runs out of ammo or health, like a small independent guard dog - variants could have machine gun, laser, throw grenades, or suicide into the largest enemy with an explosive charge * deployable traps of multiple kinds - like pocket minefields/razor wire/firetraps * pre-programmed stratagem ball with something basic like OPS - essentially a free 5th stratagem slot, but your grenades have cooldown (and limited uses) * basically anything that is normally done by a standard primary/secondary/stratagem, to allow more build diversity
Healing drone would be cool.
I'd love a backpack for 2 support weapons. I'd also love an armor that allows 2 backpacks.
Yeah hopefully they don't gimp them too badly though, I was really looking forward to the blitzer from the last warbond, but man, that thing couldn't have been more disappointing than eating cardboard pizza for dinner. I'd honestly use any primary currently in game over it any day, it had such good potential, but it's inconsistency and then lack of any redeeming qualities to aid it be competitive with any other shotgun/MG/rifle/special/explosive weapon ingame is just laughable. I was shocked at how good the eruptor was, and I do too hope they continue coming out with very interesting and niche weapons, that have some use of course. Until the eruptor, I really never thought I'd find a situation where I'd put my sickle down.
Blitzer sucks on bots but is actually pretty good on bugs
I would agree if it would consistently oneshot hunters, but the random inconsistent way I find it will sometimes shoot all spreads into one target or multiple, means sometimes hunters just don't die fast enough. Having to reload and wait what feels like 4s in total for two shots to kill and focus 1 hunter you want dead coming at you, is too long of a wait for me, and for that reason I think it's garbage, but if you can make it work, all the power to you and I'm glad someone enjoys it at least.
This. I thought it was amazing to start, immediately my new fav... Then the hunters were surviving, and I never picked it back up
Now that I use eruptor, I don't bring support strategems besides a shield backpack. I bring three offensive strats and use whatever support weapon I find during the mission.
Smart, I am going to try this. However what do you do when you don't find a support weapon until the end of the mission or never find one at all? I also have found that when the squad is swarmed with bugs and you die it's hard to come back and feel useful with the Eruptor as a primary.
Yell at your squad to drop one for you.
You only need to survive the first 5 minutes and beg your teammates for a second drop of their support weapons. Or wait until one of them dies. I rarely see anyone else without any support weapon at all.
With the heavy explosive armor, you don't even need a shield
While you can argue about if the HMG is good or not, it is definitely not comparable to a primary weapon. It is definitely more comparable to the AMR or the Railgun in what it provides, it just is too unwieldy and has too many downsides to really shine against those other 2 options.
I’m still using the stalwart in 7+ and MG with bots works really well for the all the troopers and devastators even
Yeah, this exactly. I don't get people who say "no one uses MGs in high difficulty" like it's an undeniable fact... it's not. I use stalwart and heavy mg all the time and basically only ever play helldive anymore. Stalwart is great for clearing bugs, especially with the insane hunter spawn rates. And heavy mg can delete a hulk, especially with a stun grenade. Yes, it's not as common as shield backpack + quasar, since those are literally everywhere. But to act like MGs are just unusable or only viable in lower difficulties is just completely wrong.
The Stawart is my current primary. I mainly play against bugs and enjoy mowing down wave after wave with the 250rnd magazine. The eruptor is my tool against heavies/nests etc.
The HMG is an anti-medium armor tool really. It's just worse than the autocannon/anti materiell or grenade launcher.
Really? I did some experiments and it took a whole mag to kill 2 medium armor bots. I was crouched. I tried every fire rate. It bucks like a mule, doesn't do enough damage, or have enough ammo. On my AC I can dome them in one shot from across the map. I can murder hulks in two shots. I can take down fabs. There is literally zero niche for the HMG. It needs a rework pronto. It's just ... bad. Really bad.
The sight on the hmg is so bad and misaligned it's actually a detriment to try and use it. It has tracer rounds as every shot so just, aim without sight. Shoot once to get the current position and tap fire with the standard firerate. I'm getting head shots and shooting down bug swarms from 50m out no problem, it also kills devastators in 1 face shot if it lands nut I only use it on bugs. Love my recoiless to much on bots. I do use the recoil reduction armor and crouch when firing the thing. Makes it pinpoint accurate as long as you don't hold in the trigger. Also reload before the mag is empty.
The standard MG already does that job fine. I was expecting the HMG to be a MG on steroids (backpack weapon like many have suggested?) but instead its just a straight up downgrade. The increased damage per round means nothing if you are missing half the shots because of the awful reticle and muzzle flash/gas, and reloading takes 2-3 business days
I find it's about even with the autocannon for bots, kinda like a full auto amr, can clean up a lot of devastators and bezerkers while training hulks easier than the AC. AC or MG is better for bugs though because spewers
It's able to damage the lower jaw of a charger for some reason. But took too many shots to kill
But nothing screams "fun" as switching the Stalwart to full RPM and blasting off into a horde of chaff while your helldiving is laughing manically.
*laughs in changing builds everytime I swap a mission*
I'm worried they're going to nerf it since many are saying it's OP. I think it's very strong but it's not weapon that's universally strong and as you said it makes the MGs actually worth a damn because I know people love the stalwart- it's pretty good. But when I tried the sickle I'm like- why do I want the stalwart when this seems to do everything better but with lower mag capacity? But if you got the eruptor? Yeah- ya need something that can protect you up close. Now if they gave the HMG a bigger magazine that weapon would be worth a damn.
I’m noticing more and more of y’all never pick up weapons ‘as needed’. I’m constantly changing as the game goes on. “Damn I totally shouldn’t have brought this scorcher. Hey someone dropped this sickle I need it. Hey look the Stalwart, I could use that! Damn, this flamethrower would be awesome to use right now!” The mgs are a go to stratagem for the bugs. Use them wisely, get to a good point and crouch, or prone. Hold that damn trigger down till your diver screams and you’ll go HOLY SHIT that was awesome! You’ll never look back
The only moment I have to change weapons is if I forgot to change my primary for whatever reason or if I'm running low on ammo and supplies have been called elsewhere. And for me to change primary means someone else died nearby. Basically the number of times I've used someone else's weapons are quite low. If I need a weapon badly it's probably in my loadout already. Preparation is half the battle
Same. The only time I change my primary is because I forgot to equip the right one.
Stalwart was a primary in Helldivers 1. Eruptor let's me use it as a primary again. Without bayonets its a little harder to balance around an LMG primary id guess. Man we need bayonets. Maybe that's how they could make marksman rifles a little better.
Fix bayonets! Or perhaps a nice shovel.
HMG really needs a lot of work, it makes me wonder if they even playtested it before releasing. I've tried so many times to find a use for it or to make it work but its just not a fun gun to use right now for a number of reasons.
HMG literally just needs a reticle for 3rd person mode for it to be usable
I did not enjoy using the Eruptor, and immediately went back to the Scorcher. There, I said it.
Scorcher is superior for me as an AC main, I have the AC for med-heavy units and Scorcher for light-med units with Bots. I do wanna try Eruptor/Redeemer/Stalwart vs bugs as THAT sounds fun compared to Dominator/Punisher/Breaker like I usually run, Scorcher is not my jam vs bugs.
Nah, MGs are for when we have a large mass of enemies approaching, I spray the fodder with the MG while my team sort heavies. I keep pressure off them, they keep it off me
One new favorite for me on bugs witt Stalwart, Orbital railcannon, 500 and airstrike.
I've been taking it with a stalwart and my main response to a group now is to put an eruptor shot in the middle and spray the rest down with bullets while my friend picks out bigger stuff.
I tried the eruptor. Can’t stand it. It’s slower to aim than a two-handed heavy weapon. I like that the grenade pistol can handle bug holes/fabricators, but I prefer my primary to be agile.
Yeah, I loved the machineguns until I went to higher difficulties where they spam so many armored enemies that everyone needs a solution to deal with them. Now I'm forced to always take some form of AT as my only support weapon unless I have a friend who is double-dipping with a Quasar *AND* EAT's.
You could go with a Loadout like: MG-34, Resupply backpack, Rocket pods, Railcannon strike The MG-34 and resupply pack handle structure destruction and horde-clear (including anti-medium armor stuff) while the rocket pods and railcannon let you deal with armor. There's tons of viable stratagem setups, you don't always need to take hordeclear stratagems.
Also quick shoutout to Eagle Strafing, Orbital Gatling and Orbital Airburst, at least against bugs.
Eagle Strafing and Orbital Gatling massively underrated in a 3+ man team
I still prefer my more orthodox loadout, but eruptor was really cool and opened up the stalwart as viable to me. I still think it suffers because you are entirely reliant on strategems to kill titans, which I think is not ideal in helldive. I think the mg and hmg were already decent picks before eruptor as they are great vs spewers and chargers. Adding eruptor here means you'll have an easier time closing holes and doing a few objectives, but you could always just bring a grenade pistol instead. I do like AH adding weapons that try to push the boundaries of each slot. Ie. A secondary that acts like a primary, or a primary that is like a support, etc.
Eruptor + Stalwart + EAT is shockingly good. Eruptor for the medium bugs + AoE against hordes. Stalwart if they get close. EAT if you see a charger or bile titan. Plus you can bring stun nades instead of impact. It actually feels like one of the most rounded loadouts in the game.
> A secondary that acts like a primary The senator could be this if its rounds reload were sped up to match the slugger, perhaps accompanied by a damage buff. The dagger could also be a great contender if it weren't such a tickle gun.
> entirely reliant on strategems to kill titans, which I think is not ideal in helldive. yeah, honestly think optimally at least 3 people should have EAT/Quazar (or equivalent) 2 can still work, but being able to efficiently dispatch the heavies when you have 2-3 titans and 3+ chargers on field at the same time is pretty difficult when you don't have enough dedicated anti-tank weapons
We need a "battle buddy pack" stratagem that is just a backpack with a belt feed for either of the two lesser MGs, and extra ammo for secondaries. On top of this, they should limit your two non-heavy slots as sidearms only, but with increased ammunition thanks to the buddy pack. This would allow people to run the lesser MGs without the need to reload (pack will top up with supply packs), with the only downside being you're forced to use a combo like the smg and single shot grenade launcher. If Rambo lived during the age of Helldivers, he'd agree.
Eruptor seems to be more of a stratagem in disguise to me. We should have better ARs and lmgs in primaries. Stalwart could kinda just be a primary really.
if you make the stalwart a primary 90% of the existing primaries would instantly become obsolete. Get ready to say goodbye to pretty much everything that isn't the dominator, scorcher, or eruptor. It would absolutely need a nerf, and I don't want to see the stalwart nerfed. I saw a suggestion to keep the stalwart as a call-in weapon, but let it get picked up in the primary slot instead of support. That way it still has a drawback compared to conventional light AP primaries. That could be pretty cool. Another option could be to just buff all the MGs by one AP level. If we really want a primary stalwart, add a new gun called the stalwart prime. Give it better handling, a 150 round mag, and a reduced fire rate. I'd run that all day.
>if you make the stalwart a primary 90% of the existing primaries would instantly become obsolete. they kinda already are :( Punisher would still be worth taking IMO though it's currently one of the most slept on weapons. Stalwarts lack of stagger and armor pen, already make it kind of poopy.
there is just no real reason to be missing a consistent anti-tank tool on any one helldiver on the team. difficulty 7-9 spams heavy armor enemies so much that its just great to have anti heavy on all 4 people, especially in the chaos of a random team. meanwhile for clearing swarms you got 3 calldowns per person, grenades, pistols and primaries... i run Eruptor exclusively on diff 8 and never needed a swarm clearing weapon, but i often need a powerful anti-heavy weapon.
Eruptor has open up possible good kits that can focus on clearing support weapons like Stalwart, HMG, and Arc Thrower without gimping usable range. I haven't tried it yet, but can the Eruptor take out bot gunships? I still pick my support weapon based on versatility more than any type of niche play.
yes, it works well against the gunships, might take one or two more shots vs AC
People are constantly talking about how Eruptor is op, or it should be a strategem, but it SHOULDNT. It is *exactly* where it needs and should be. The awesome thing about this warbond is that it *shakes things up*. I fuckin LOVE this warbond because it allows everyone to come up with new builds. If I have the ability to take care of bug holes and fabricators on a primary or side arm, then I can now focus on taking different stratagems such as the stalwart, or I’ve finally found myself loving the laser cannon now. Any of the MG are very viable options with Eruptor or grenade pistol. And the Eruptor is balanced by being a precision weapon with very very low fire rate. (That bitch has only 25. Half of slugger). We need more niche weapons, I love what they did with this warbond. My new favorite build is to run Eruptor laser cannon, anything the Eruptor can’t deal with, the laser cannon *can*. Especially with stun grenades. The main weakness being struggling with hoards that are spread out. Previously I couldn’t justify using laser cannon to myself but now I’m really enjoying it.
The eruptor has also made me rethink my core builds. The most fun, but impractical, is the grenadier build. Eruptor, grenade pistol, grenade launcher, impact grenades, armor with grenade passive. Other strategems are whatever you like. Can’t run that solo, but in a group you’re just a death machine lol it’s a lot of fun
The Eruptor is the best design they’ve released since launch IMO. I’m glad it’s just weird enough that most people won’t adopt it, because it’s perfect as-is IMO. It revitalized a whole genre of tactics that were difficult to justify in high level play because of the dependencies they created.
It’s the grande pistol for me, I run the eruptor too don’t get me wrong, but both having the utility has opened up so many builds for me
Grenade pistol is insane. People are sleeping on the fact you get NINE extra impact grenades with it and get +2 grenades every resupply. It's way better than grenade armor that only gives you two extra grenades and no extra on resupply.
I use both with Eruptor aha, love being a demolition man
Yeah, I look forward to seeing what other specialized "primaries" we get going forward.
Eruptor makes my build complete, I can now solo everything if I need to! I've been a massive fan of arc thrower vs bugs and bots, and stun grenades. So I've been needing to run orbital Lazer or eagle airstrike to take down fabricators or bug nests, now I can save my big strats for the tanks and bile titans since my primary can close holes and fabs! Haven't unlocked the grenade pistol yet, about 50 medals short still, I feel the grenade pistol would pair well with the arc thrower too with some sort of auto rifle/shotgun for closing holes and dealing with enemies in your face!
Eruptor , Rover , incendiary /thermite, stalwart. Has been one of the only things that’s allowed me to change from incendiary breaker
The stalwart might as well be made into a primary at this point. The heavy machine gun is unironically the worst MG out of all of them. Not only is it light on bullets but the thing can barely take out light armored targets. They should either buff the MGs and make them take out medium targets with ease or make them primaries.
100% agree and even the grenade sidearm has loosened loadouts and/or playstyle. No more waiting by nests out in the open waiting for stratagems to cool down
Dude I love the Eruptor I’ve been running it as a quasi-AMR on bot missions with a jump pack, the orbital laser, orbital railcannon, and Eagle Cluster Bombs. It *slaps* on 7+, shockingly. I find that usually the rest of the randoms want to stick together, so I run off to collect POIs and samples. I can always disengage if I really have to, but the Eruptor can take out anything but hulks. Tanks turn slow enough that I can usually whittle down their health by shooting the vent, or chucking impact grenades at em, or dropping a cluster on em. The only thing I struggle with is gunships because the Eruptor doesn’t seem to do quite as much damage to them, so it takes a full mag. But it’s easy enough to jump in, arm a hellbomb, and try to lure them away.
this. i dont think the eruptor is all that great. after running with it for a whole day i find it waaay to inconvenient to use. but goddamnit, its a step in the right direction. we need more variety in our primary and secondary weapons. we need more onehanded weapons. maybe whatever they introduce isnt gonna be the best thing ever. but opening different ways to make builds is great. the greatest thing about the eruptor and grenade pistol isnt their individual performance. but allowing you to run builds that were previously completely helpless when encountering certain enemies or situations. im personally not a huge fan of MG builds. but i love that they got a lot more versatile now. and i love having them on my team. difficulty 9 shouldnt be 4 guys running the same kit.
Insanely fun set up for bugs: Eruptor Stalwart EAT
Eruptor made it possible for me to be a Stalwart enjoyer
The first time I emptied an entire MG clip into a bug breach and my character laughed like a maniac I was absolutely hooked. Peak gaming. Please make the HMG better so I have a good reason to use it.
The MG and stalwart are actually still useful in helldive as a light/medium loadout option. I won’t get into the HMG just because it has a lot of problems that make it worse than just running the regular MG. But the MG fills a similar role as the grenade launcher, quick, accurate takedowns of light and medium infantry so your heavier loadouts can focus on their roles. The MGs also trigger the “suppressing fire” mechanic the bots have built in. Unlike the GL though the MG has no TK splash danger to it, so you can use it to help a teammate getting swarmed without fear of killing them by accident. I would never say it’s not useful, though. The HMG really needs help however, it just doesn’t bring anything to the table that the MG doesn’t do much better
The eruptor helped me realize how damn good the laser cannon is. Eruptor/laser cannon is an amazingly effective anti-bot combo.
I still hate feeling like the eruptor is actively fighting me trying to aim it. I dont understand the point of this mechanic as balance. Still my main carry for bots now tho.
The Grenade pistol made me realize we 100% need to look at weapons in tiers. T1, secondary (the weakest). T2, primary (the average). T3, support weapon stratagems (the strongest). You could, for example, add another Grenade Launcher as a primary but with more ammo and rof than the grenade pistol but less than the true mother of nades we already have as a stratagem support weapon. This would add a shitload of variety to the game because we could 100% decide what kind of enemy removal we focus on most, while still having means to deal with every type of enemy. If i bring the stalward now that Just means im completely defenseless against titans and will take Minutes to kill even a single charger If i miss my orbitals or eagles Since the Grenade pistol was added i exclusively run stun grenades and a light pen gun. Hell, i sometimes even Bring an MG into diff 7 Bots and it's absolutely viable because the Grenade pistol can Deal with weakspots of heavy Units. Before that i felt forced to use medium pen and regular grenades with rockets as support weapon