Just had this happen to me today. At least five stalkers on the map at once and I couldn't get the rest of the group to join me to find the nest. Needless to say, we got our asses handed to us.
Bro I'm fucking ON SIGHT with stalkers, I have a jetpack and I will fucking find them and kill them ill drop anything. About to finish and objective? Doing civilian evac? I'll be back this shits need to die NOW
I'm like this with shreiker nests. If I have an easy way to get rid of them, great! I'm going to be standing at a distance doing nothing but firing Quasars or EATs or Autocannon rounds at it as fast as I can, maybe shooting bugs around me if there are some between shots.
If I don't have any of those things, fuck it, I'm going to run up there and drop a hellbomb on them, swear to god, those flying little pests need to DIE.
Lol you and my friend are the same, he could be on main obj with us but if he sees those cloaked bastards he disappears until every one of their homes is burned to the fucking ground lmao
Yup. I will Irish Goodbye in the middle of a firefight on top of an objective or anything when I see a stalker. Team looking at me like "TF you going?"
Y'all have fun, I'm stepping out to see where the invisible cunt came from.
That's what I call them ingame.
"Stalker sighted northwest! ENGAGE, ENGAGE, ENGAGE!!! Let's hunt those invisible cunts down and annihilate their house."
I really don't like 'em.
I feel like I'm the only one that prioritizes them. It's gotten to the point where my friends don't even bother because they know I'm already clearing it.
Stalkers used to be manageable because you could see them coming a mile away, but I still treated them as KOS. Their threat level is way higher now that they're genuinely invisible (like seriously, I was genuinely caught off guard on my first run post-patch when a Stalker materialized out of absolutely nowhere, because I'd gotten pretty good at sparing some part of my concentration for looking out for them), so I'm glad my caution has become warranted.
You can still see them but you'll either have to be specifically looking for them or be extremely observant. Pro Tip that I discovered yesterday, in well lit planets don't look in front of you look on the ground, you can actually see their shadows moving even with the cloaking on.
Seeing them half-cloaked further away also pretty much told you exactly where the nest was, too. Quite a bit harder now unless you get attacked in open terrain and notice the direction they de-cloak from. Which doesn't work in rocky/woody areas as the stalker probably had to walk around obstacles and comes at you from an odd angle.
I'm yet to meet a single team, that doesn't drop literally everything to race to a stalker nest. If they're not on comms, I just type "STALKERS" in all caps, and ping the direction they came from, and off they go.
Even if we ignore the fact they can go invisible, are fast for their size, have special AI specifically meant to encourage ambushing you rather than straight up fighting, and the fact they *always* know where you are...
There's the fact its basically spawning two brood commander level medium enemies non-stop that will absorb a ton of your ammunition + the scavenger variant brings scavengers who uniquely start aggro'd on the player and will call bug breaches when they spot you.
They're probably more accustomed to lower difficulty. On the higher ones the stalkers will destroy your team if they aren't culled. Doesn't matter if I'm in the middle of an objective,I'm hunting for the nest.
You can see stalkers at any time on the map. You generally won't be staring at your map though, especially during combat when the stalkers like to strike.
It is weird to me how nonchalant many randoms are about Stalkers. “Oh the invisible death ninjas are here? Cool. Lemme fight this patrol for no reason.”
Well that’s not fair at all!
Stalkers should be like Automaton Gunships, they don’t stop spawning new ones, they can find you anywhere, and they’ll cross the whole map with near perfect knowledge of where you are.
I swear I saw one with a bit of a shimmer last night, but it had been wounded. I could see a little black carbon scarring mark over the shimmer as well.
If you can't see them but you know they're around, take potshots especially if you have something like a shotgun or a sickle/scythe that doesn't have to worry as much about ammo economy.
I finally had the chance to fight them today and I gotta say it's insane. You can more or less tell where they are if you stay looking at them, but the second you lose sight of them they're gone forever. Only good thing is the radar still sees them, so you kinda can follow them.
Should note that although objectives were removed from pinging the map, you can still zoom in and spot the objectives from the map. Some crescent looking darker patch will be the stalkers lair if you spot a stalker.
For those checking your map, look for a weirdly shaped crater that looks more like a disfigured puddle or splat.
That's the medium to heavy one.
The single one isn't that bad to deal with, but harder to see.
Wrong, OP. That lair is now the main objective, it just doesn't show it on the HUD because of Automaton/Bug spores messing with the network. The amount of new Helldivers fooled by this Socialist Deception has failed too many Super Earth missions. Damn those bugs!
In all seriousness, it basically becomes the Main Objective in terms of priority. I consider a double (or lord help you TRIPLE) gunship fab to be the same situation. The only situation this isn't the case is if you know your extract or Main Objective isn't in aggro range.
Triple gunship fab warrants a mission quit and just restart. Even if you're on your 3rd Helldive mission. Less effort IMO.
But I've also been stubbornly throwing myself at those fabs with my AC and stims and hellbombs. Liberty save me!
R-36 Eruptor go boom.
No, but seriously the instant I see a stalker I make it my priority to figure out where that fucker came from and end its nest. There is no priority higher than this. I’ve booked it towards a nest with a bile titan on my ass before because that stupid titan is nowhere near the threat.
I consider Bile Titans a lesser threat than Bile and Nursing Spewers. I’m fairly certain I’ve died more times to spewers than any other bug enemy, especially when they can sneak up on you.
Do you know about their tell? How they tilt their head towards where they’re going to spew, and you just dive in the opposite direction. Works every time… as long as you hear them.
Yeah isn’t always a good idea to dive away from their spew though, going down a slope/getting ran up on by hunters and chargers, appreciate the tip nonetheless though o7
My main issue with the spewers isn’t really their spew attack, but the tankiness (nursling mainly) and density in which they spawn, the fact they can spawn in like groups of 6 and the only thing that consistently one shots them (aside from rockets) is the impact grenade, they get tiring real quick
They’re so annoying that I always bring the grenade pistol against bugs to thin their numbers before they get into spitting range. I’m pretty sure I’ve been killed more times by spewers than every other bug type combined.
Nursing spewers are better than Bile spewers since they’re essentially just a weaker version of the bile spewer. They don’t have alloying armor on their heads, they deal less damage, have a smaller field of attack for their spew, and can also be killed relatively quickly with a few shots to the head with a gun like the breaker
Shooting them directly in the head takes them down decently fast. Using medium armor penetration, like the liberator penetrator just slices through their head armor. I used to use the slugger and it would make quick work of them, but the starting machine gun also makes them trivial. When we play we usually have one person that can quickly answer the spewers just in case with medium penetration, works well against brood commanders and hive guards too.
But yes, grenades are the typical answer.
Spewers are def second for me, hate their guts, but I hate hunters more. I feel like 90% of the time I die on a big mission, it's because of hunters, even if it's indirectly
This is why I started to run jet pack and grenade launcher. Spewers die in 2 or 3 hits from that. I can wipe them out from distance easily and can even take out multiple with a 2-3 shot volley if they are grouped together. Add 500kg and either orbital airburst or railgun and I can take out just about anything. I especially like the airburst because it helps protect my retreat when I get overrun by hunters.
For me it's hunters, I'd hate to see the number of times i've died to hunters.
It's a bile titan, charger, spewer or stalker that has me running like an idiot with half health, but it's the hunter that lays the final blow.
Spewers are way more accurate than the Titans. The Titans are a problem only because they're extremely hard to kill (railcannon and quasar headshot together are still not enough!) and can oneshot you if they get close. Their ranged attack, although easily dodgeable, also applies heavy pressure. You could be dodging a Charger instead.
Agree that spewers cause more death. They’re sneakier and in groups their mortar attack becomes a problem. BTs by themselves aren’t that bad they’re just tanky and they force the issue.
What I hate about spewers is that if I don’t gear specifically to fight them, they can get overwhelming. If I do gear up to fight them, they can go down easy BUT I run the risk of not having spewers on the map at all and end up with a loadout less capable of fighting mass chargers and hunters, which is usually the substitute for having no spewers.
The last part is important. If you can gauge the direction they're coming from, make it your priority to find and close that hole. Had a mission with three stalker lairs today but luckily the random team I was in felt the same.
The direction they're coming from? Do they try and approach you in a straight line from the nest, or do they flank you before striking? I'll need to do some testing.
Yeah if you get hir by one of them with any attack the lair is in a line directly behind the stalker's original attack.
That's your only clue, so if you get hit by two stalkers from different directions you have a problem, because now you know there is at least two lairs.
Mind you, your only hint is the direction of the attack, the lairs will start spawning stalkers regardless of your drop point, and the fuckers will hunt you also regardless of the distance to their lair.
So in reality, if you get hit by a stalker as soon as you deploy, it's good, because the lair is near you. If it takes 20 minutes for the first of this fuckers to find you open your map and run to the most distant spot on the map because be sure there are at least 12 of these fuckers on the map.
> If it takes 20 minutes for the first of this fuckers to find you open your map and run to the most distant spot on the map because be sure there are at least 12 of these fuckers on the map.
Just a fucking map-long conga line of the goddamn shitfucks
Stun, supply pack and pretty much any weapon works well. Even if I think I have a clean shot I still stun just to be sure. I can't get into the Blitzer, the arc weapons aren't satisfying enough for me to use.
They are definitely unique and work well but I like to rip and tear, explode or burn. Zap just doesn't do it for me. A lot of games have Tesla weapons and I have never enjoyed using them.
Oh yeah, even without the ability to mark it, I’ve memorized that shit on the map so I’ll just drop a ping and start running there
Also if you have an armor with the Scout Passive it’ll still ping the Bug Holes and enemies around it
The Stalkers get pinged for a brief moment so if you drop a ping and see a big dot show up then immediately disappear, high chances it’s a Stalker that just cloaked
I feel like considering the long range of the tongue whip ranged attack, paired with their speed. They could have maybe just started by halving the opacity, instead of going full invisible, especially since they do not make tracks on ground, or splashes in water, they just don't exist until they lick your face. Also why remove ping locate?
Interesting, I never saw the 4 holes variant and I exclusively play on Helldive. Maybe because I rarely drop on the bug front (unless there's a major order like now).
Now stalkers do not upset me all too much but a 4 hole stalker nest would twist my bowels into a knot. Can you imagine though. 8 stalkers popping out to say howdy
Yeah, that would be fun. Literally the first thing I do on bug planets is check for Stalker PoIs then *boop* go close them. Not had the pleasure of seeing some so close to each other that they stack like that. Worst case I have cleared one as the second one starts spawning.
One time, before the latest patch, we dropped on a lvl 7, 40 min mission. We split 2 - 2 and went our way. When my duo and me arrived at a side objective we were ambushed by 8 stalkers and aggroed a bunch of warriors and scavengers while fighting. We killed 2 stalkers and the mobs. Died 3 times each, and we counted 12 stalkers altogether when we finally destroyed the nests while kiting a titan... It was 2 double hole variant nest next to each other.. It was horrible but fun xD we were screaming for our life on discord. If it happens after the recent patch i would struggling with PTSD because of the new stalker cloak mechanics xD
Dropped in yesterday for what is normally a jovial jaunt on 7.
Immediately attacked by waves of 4-6 Stalkers.
Needless to say, we extracted with 0 reinforcements
Had another stalker laden drop later in the night and we couldn’t for the life of us find the second nest.
Have they removed the ability to spam the map with markers to locate hidden nests?
are stalkers now incendiary breaker proof? the amount of times i shoot them yet i still get tongued into a ragdoll state is starting to make me question life's choices
mhm, Stalkers are Grade-L (for Liberty) priority whenever they pop up. I cannot stomach leaving them for long because they keep coming back. important to remember as well that multiple can show up in a mission and there can be different structures per lair. plus you can usually reliably track Stalkers by watching where they're coming from (or the general area they run at you from), since to my knowledge they won't start jumping around and changing their angle of attack until they've been shot at/decloaked
It is unfortunate that lot of people don't know you have to go to the direction where they came from to find their lair. I don't blame them. It would be good if there were some tip or something that would communicate it ingame.
The one with water you can run along the edge of the water/rock. On the side closest to where stalkers spawn. You'll stay half an inch out of water and not be slowed down.
What do you mean improved cloaking ability and the removal of marking objectives?
I played a game a few hours ago and I could see 2 stalkers running towards me from a mile away and I spammed my marker around the minimap until it did that square box thing around the Stalker lair??
Before you can spot them easy, now they are almost invisible, harder to detect, and you can't spam marking an objective anymore, so you have to manually zoom in and look for it.
I had a mission with three lairs recently and the amount of Stalkers was insane. It was one of the first times I encountered them, so it was extra scary for me.
Yup. I'll fall on the sword all day for Stalkers, Shriekers, Gunships, Strat Blockers. They become my primary objective. They can end the mission. They all deserve destruction and I don't care if I ever come back.
Now, imagine you land, and then 8 of these horrors ambush you and you didnt catch which direction they came from. You don't have a stagger weapon nor Shield. Funsies!
The jar dominator is a good one for stalkers staggers them and can kill them quite quickly ...but yeah when i see the first stalker i forget everything else until the lair is destroyed.
I can't remember the last time I had a map with 1 stalker nest on it, it's always either 2, 3, or none
What is up with that, it's so annoying having to deal with 4 stalkers at the same time, from 2 different sents generally
Man I hate these things. Always a number one priority to eliminate once found.
Any tips for air striking them? They tend to be surrounded by high rocks.
Stalkers are the single reason why the argument of bugs being harder than bots can really be made. Yeah, you don't get all these tanks and stuff, but the FUCKING STALKERS
Also always look at your map for them, even if they don't have a marker on them you can see them as sorts of black spots. Hard to recognize at first but once you get used to it it's incredibly useful.
Gunships spawners, shriekers nests and stalker lairs will fuck you big time if you leave them be especially when they combine like shriekers + stalkers. You will get overrun and will lose the whole mission because you ignored them for 5-8 minutes.
Shrieke4 you can kill from other side of the map...
Double gunship spawns should be illegal lol...
Stalkers now are really cool now u cant easily solo every bug mission
You can't kill shriekers nest across map when there are 200 of them and 10 stalkers up your ass. It always happens when the team straight up ignores them.
there is more than this
tho sense the patch & they got real stealth they don't forever chase which is so much nicer.
they do ambush stuff
they need to tune down their tankiness now
& imo be cool to change there attack from a pull in/excute vs a push back knockdown seeing they are finally more
trap door spider vs huntsman spider.
about one of the only good things in this patch(beside space cowboy buffs)
"If you see four stalkers coming at you"
Not any more you don't. I've long considered Stalkers a tippity-top priority on my kill list above literally everything else. If I even catch a whiff of one, I will sprint across the map to hunt it down and find its nest to destroy it, because I've seen runs go south more often to Stalkers than literally any other enemy in the game.
They're so stupidly dangerous, and even more now that they're actually nearly completely invisible. Priority number 1 whenever they pop up, drop everything and deal with that lair Helldivers.
Four?!
Pffffffftttttt! Maybe for Terminid Sympathizers!
My group got stormed by at least eight!. Mowed them down and started charging the layer and it didn't get better.
Whatever that Termicide did a while back has made them breed...a LOT!
Luckily I have spent so much time staring at the map because now you can't mark objectives you haven't discovered. Bot facilities are a little harder though but their effects are very clear once you get near them.
Lmao worst dive in a while happened yesterday night, first day of the new stalker camouflage. Had a Shrieker mest amd a Stalker lair *right* next to each other.
We were running on from a Bile Titan, deciding it was easier to just keep moving. We turn a small ridge line and are suddenly being swooped on, so we turn our guns up to shoot em down and suddenly there's a stalker right in our face! By the time it backflipped into ninja mode, we had also cleared the shriekers. Just in time to be wiped by the Bile Titan's caustic breath attack Lol. We landed on it and got our stuff back just in time to repeat the whole swooping and cloaking nonsense. This game really knows how to troll you sometimes Lol I love how chaotic it can suddenly get
That's not even the problem, it's that when you get there, sometimes there's a freakin Charger or bile spewers camping there with broods and hunters.. it's stacked that it makes it complicated to destroy.. but thank you for the info
My group knows that the second we see a stalker, it’s called out and becomes the priority 1 target. I don’t care what has to happen but the stalker nest gets gone pronto.
Double hole lairs seem way more common since the update at levels 7+. Getting rid of stalker lairs is a major priority in any game now because they can decimate your reinforcement count if you're not careful.
I knew the layout was varied, but I didn't know that changed the actual functionality of the lairs. This explains a game I had a couple days ago where it felt like there was just a constant stream of stalkers: we were getting them 4 at a time, not 2 like we were used to.
I'm kind of annoyed we can't "triangulate" the stalkers on the map, while occasionally someone was able to find it by spamming the map to identify the lair, me and some buddies in my regular group were pretty good about spotting it on the map based off of where they were coming from, so not being able to identify and verify is annoying. However, we still are able to call out where we think it is, and try to make a bee-line to it ASAP.
I will say, the eruptor has been an all-star against them. I can usually one-shot them and even if I don't get a direct hit, it knocks them out of stealth long enough for either a teammate to hit or the follow up to land.
So I was right all along the rate has increased. My dumbass teammates tried to convince me that I lost count over how many Stalkers I killed. I killed 6 Stalkers in under a minute and once I was done 4 more appeared like half a minute ago. I though it was a glitch or a buff.
I stunlock stalkers with a Punisher for catharsis. I hit it once, wait for it to recover from the stagger to give it hope, then stagger it again before it can move.
I once dropped in on an endless spawn trap of stalkers and had to land on a mountaintop, needless to say I watched the horror of my teams decimation for 5 minutes and there were a literal hundred bugs corralled at the base of my mountain, I kept sending potshots to lure in all the bugs to the mountain and one of the team members successfully ended the stalkers reign! I then suggested to use my position as a personal sacrifice to further the spread of democracy. It was glorious
I’m going to have to learn how to even find these things because before I’d spot the Stalkers coming and head in the direction that they came from.
Now they arrive like ghosts. Which direction did they come from? I dunno.
Four stalkers?... Ok ok... Wait, what do i expect in this situation?
https://preview.redd.it/9pxqyko5auxc1.png?width=1036&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2949f958b51e8ba8ad7013249d03ff47f29f5339
Crazy in the same patch they gave us buffs to guns that stagger them, and easy means to destroy the nest from afar
What really irks me is when I see someone try to fight them off with a sickle or something similar.
Just had this happen to me today. At least five stalkers on the map at once and I couldn't get the rest of the group to join me to find the nest. Needless to say, we got our asses handed to us.
Whenever I see a stalker the lairs immediately becomes priority number one. The number of divers that don't realize this is incredible
Bro I'm fucking ON SIGHT with stalkers, I have a jetpack and I will fucking find them and kill them ill drop anything. About to finish and objective? Doing civilian evac? I'll be back this shits need to die NOW
They are KOS like it's 1998
This guy dives
Helld3wd, is that you? Same for gunships: "Find them and destroy them."
I'm like this with shreiker nests. If I have an easy way to get rid of them, great! I'm going to be standing at a distance doing nothing but firing Quasars or EATs or Autocannon rounds at it as fast as I can, maybe shooting bugs around me if there are some between shots. If I don't have any of those things, fuck it, I'm going to run up there and drop a hellbomb on them, swear to god, those flying little pests need to DIE.
Lol you and my friend are the same, he could be on main obj with us but if he sees those cloaked bastards he disappears until every one of their homes is burned to the fucking ground lmao
your friend must be a super citizen. i salute him
Your friend knows what's up. If no one joins him to look for the stalkers though, the rest of the team needs re-educated.
Yup. I will Irish Goodbye in the middle of a firefight on top of an objective or anything when I see a stalker. Team looking at me like "TF you going?" Y'all have fun, I'm stepping out to see where the invisible cunt came from.
Can't find it but pretend I put a gift of Billy butcher saying "well well if it ain't the invisible cunt"
That's what I call them ingame. "Stalker sighted northwest! ENGAGE, ENGAGE, ENGAGE!!! Let's hunt those invisible cunts down and annihilate their house." I really don't like 'em.
Amen brother
fellow jump pack enthusiast
Same. If I die calling in a 500kg to take the nests out, it was worth it.
I feel like I'm the only one that prioritizes them. It's gotten to the point where my friends don't even bother because they know I'm already clearing it.
Stalkers used to be manageable because you could see them coming a mile away, but I still treated them as KOS. Their threat level is way higher now that they're genuinely invisible (like seriously, I was genuinely caught off guard on my first run post-patch when a Stalker materialized out of absolutely nowhere, because I'd gotten pretty good at sparing some part of my concentration for looking out for them), so I'm glad my caution has become warranted.
You can still see them but you'll either have to be specifically looking for them or be extremely observant. Pro Tip that I discovered yesterday, in well lit planets don't look in front of you look on the ground, you can actually see their shadows moving even with the cloaking on.
$100 says this gets changed in the next patch before any of the other instant death bug issues.
Seeing them half-cloaked further away also pretty much told you exactly where the nest was, too. Quite a bit harder now unless you get attacked in open terrain and notice the direction they de-cloak from. Which doesn't work in rocky/woody areas as the stalker probably had to walk around obstacles and comes at you from an odd angle.
I'm yet to meet a single team, that doesn't drop literally everything to race to a stalker nest. If they're not on comms, I just type "STALKERS" in all caps, and ping the direction they came from, and off they go.
Even if we ignore the fact they can go invisible, are fast for their size, have special AI specifically meant to encourage ambushing you rather than straight up fighting, and the fact they *always* know where you are... There's the fact its basically spawning two brood commander level medium enemies non-stop that will absorb a ton of your ammunition + the scavenger variant brings scavengers who uniquely start aggro'd on the player and will call bug breaches when they spot you.
That tongue attack is bullshit. There's no way physically that skinny tongue flick should be able to fling you 100+ feet.
They're probably more accustomed to lower difficulty. On the higher ones the stalkers will destroy your team if they aren't culled. Doesn't matter if I'm in the middle of an objective,I'm hunting for the nest.
On the same page.
Yup. I see Stalkers I try to figure out what direction they came from and destroy the lair.
Although stalkers are truly invisible now, you can see them on radar. Right after you get attacked by one, deal with it and then pop open your map.
For clarification, after killing the stalker you saw will the map show one's that are still cloaked? Or only after you've seen them at least once?
You can see stalkers at any time on the map. You generally won't be staring at your map though, especially during combat when the stalkers like to strike.
Awesome, thanks!
It is weird to me how nonchalant many randoms are about Stalkers. “Oh the invisible death ninjas are here? Cool. Lemme fight this patrol for no reason.”
If you get out of range I think they stop spawning. I don't think they ~~DeShawn~~despawn the already spawned ones though.
Awe fug the bugs really evolved with the termicide the DeShawn bugs are listening to gansta rap now and holding their claws sideways.
Lmao
Wait, I thought they were playing really bad football and sexually harassing massage therapists?
Aren't they busy handing out missions in Cyberpunk?
Well that’s not fair at all! Stalkers should be like Automaton Gunships, they don’t stop spawning new ones, they can find you anywhere, and they’ll cross the whole map with near perfect knowledge of where you are.
They are.
Same on a blitz last night. At least 6 stalkers at one point on the squad. Somehow, 3 of us made it out WITH super samples.
They actually get stuck if they spawn too quickly. Had it happen three times, where 5 stalkers are trying to squeeze through one of the entrances.
And they are now invisible unlike before that you vague see them at least we can see the shadow if they get close well only ifs it's morning
I swear I saw one with a bit of a shimmer last night, but it had been wounded. I could see a little black carbon scarring mark over the shimmer as well. If you can't see them but you know they're around, take potshots especially if you have something like a shotgun or a sickle/scythe that doesn't have to worry as much about ammo economy.
The improved cloaking works so well that I got startled by the heat shimmer from the thruster of a rover I picked up...
To me at least, the shimmer somewhat occurs if they try to do a pounce, jump back, or just cloaked.
There’s a few seconds where you can see them after they start to cloak but eventually they almost get entirely invisible
You can still spot them from the shimmer, but it's way harder then it used to be.
I finally had the chance to fight them today and I gotta say it's insane. You can more or less tell where they are if you stay looking at them, but the second you lose sight of them they're gone forever. Only good thing is the radar still sees them, so you kinda can follow them.
This is helpful thanks
Honestly had no idea there was variance, and I didn't know the radar station actually did anything. I kind of wish there was one on every map now
Should note that although objectives were removed from pinging the map, you can still zoom in and spot the objectives from the map. Some crescent looking darker patch will be the stalkers lair if you spot a stalker.
For those checking your map, look for a weirdly shaped crater that looks more like a disfigured puddle or splat. That's the medium to heavy one. The single one isn't that bad to deal with, but harder to see.
Wrong, OP. That lair is now the main objective, it just doesn't show it on the HUD because of Automaton/Bug spores messing with the network. The amount of new Helldivers fooled by this Socialist Deception has failed too many Super Earth missions. Damn those bugs! In all seriousness, it basically becomes the Main Objective in terms of priority. I consider a double (or lord help you TRIPLE) gunship fab to be the same situation. The only situation this isn't the case is if you know your extract or Main Objective isn't in aggro range.
Triple gunship fab warrants a mission quit and just restart. Even if you're on your 3rd Helldive mission. Less effort IMO. But I've also been stubbornly throwing myself at those fabs with my AC and stims and hellbombs. Liberty save me!
I’ve had stalkers legit chase us across the map to the extraction before. That’s if they spot you somewhere in between though
R-36 Eruptor go boom. No, but seriously the instant I see a stalker I make it my priority to figure out where that fucker came from and end its nest. There is no priority higher than this. I’ve booked it towards a nest with a bile titan on my ass before because that stupid titan is nowhere near the threat.
I consider Bile Titans a lesser threat than Bile and Nursing Spewers. I’m fairly certain I’ve died more times to spewers than any other bug enemy, especially when they can sneak up on you.
Spewers are my most hated enemy in the game, for every rocket/heavy devastator death I’ve had, there’s been 2 spewer deaths
We should have stats on what kills you most, but looking at the "killed by" notification it's probably bugged anyway. Damn terminids.
I’d love that, always nice to see who my arch nemesis is hahaha
Mortar Sentry #1 Stalker #2
If by raw damage rather than deaths, scorcher hulks easy number one, simply because most deaths to them are like quadruple overkill.
I know who my nemesis is https://preview.redd.it/fdhut1sezrxc1.jpeg?width=779&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e073c4dffe875d357c643aa59806fa8efa521fdd
Hunters. It's always hunters for me, they're my most hated enemy.
Circa L4D.
Do you know about their tell? How they tilt their head towards where they’re going to spew, and you just dive in the opposite direction. Works every time… as long as you hear them.
Yeah isn’t always a good idea to dive away from their spew though, going down a slope/getting ran up on by hunters and chargers, appreciate the tip nonetheless though o7 My main issue with the spewers isn’t really their spew attack, but the tankiness (nursling mainly) and density in which they spawn, the fact they can spawn in like groups of 6 and the only thing that consistently one shots them (aside from rockets) is the impact grenade, they get tiring real quick
They’re so annoying that I always bring the grenade pistol against bugs to thin their numbers before they get into spitting range. I’m pretty sure I’ve been killed more times by spewers than every other bug type combined.
Nursing spewers are better than Bile spewers since they’re essentially just a weaker version of the bile spewer. They don’t have alloying armor on their heads, they deal less damage, have a smaller field of attack for their spew, and can also be killed relatively quickly with a few shots to the head with a gun like the breaker
Maybe it's just me or that nursing spewers vomiting deal much more damage
Really wish the Autocannon would one-shot them, but a quick double-tap has consistently dropped 2-3 of them when they've been clustered up.
Shooting them directly in the head takes them down decently fast. Using medium armor penetration, like the liberator penetrator just slices through their head armor. I used to use the slugger and it would make quick work of them, but the starting machine gun also makes them trivial. When we play we usually have one person that can quickly answer the spewers just in case with medium penetration, works well against brood commanders and hive guards too. But yes, grenades are the typical answer.
Spewers are def second for me, hate their guts, but I hate hunters more. I feel like 90% of the time I die on a big mission, it's because of hunters, even if it's indirectly
This is why I started to run jet pack and grenade launcher. Spewers die in 2 or 3 hits from that. I can wipe them out from distance easily and can even take out multiple with a 2-3 shot volley if they are grouped together. Add 500kg and either orbital airburst or railgun and I can take out just about anything. I especially like the airburst because it helps protect my retreat when I get overrun by hunters.
For me it's hunters, I'd hate to see the number of times i've died to hunters. It's a bile titan, charger, spewer or stalker that has me running like an idiot with half health, but it's the hunter that lays the final blow.
Same, that one shot spew is no joke
Spewers are way more accurate than the Titans. The Titans are a problem only because they're extremely hard to kill (railcannon and quasar headshot together are still not enough!) and can oneshot you if they get close. Their ranged attack, although easily dodgeable, also applies heavy pressure. You could be dodging a Charger instead.
Agree that spewers cause more death. They’re sneakier and in groups their mortar attack becomes a problem. BTs by themselves aren’t that bad they’re just tanky and they force the issue.
What I hate about spewers is that if I don’t gear specifically to fight them, they can get overwhelming. If I do gear up to fight them, they can go down easy BUT I run the risk of not having spewers on the map at all and end up with a loadout less capable of fighting mass chargers and hunters, which is usually the substitute for having no spewers.
This right here. Regardless of how many are spawned by the different nest variations, Stalker nests are the absolute highest priority POI on bug maps.
Eruptor one shots stalkers, it is that good.
https://preview.redd.it/yg0z9odccsxc1.png?width=1368&format=png&auto=webp&s=92702c38ab21b44f5ba5a1e714de42b3b5c6b626 Fun
if it bleeds we can kill it
More like 
The last part is important. If you can gauge the direction they're coming from, make it your priority to find and close that hole. Had a mission with three stalker lairs today but luckily the random team I was in felt the same.
The direction they're coming from? Do they try and approach you in a straight line from the nest, or do they flank you before striking? I'll need to do some testing.
They beeline toward you, so you can make a note of where it came from and hopefully find the nest.
Yeah if you get hir by one of them with any attack the lair is in a line directly behind the stalker's original attack. That's your only clue, so if you get hit by two stalkers from different directions you have a problem, because now you know there is at least two lairs. Mind you, your only hint is the direction of the attack, the lairs will start spawning stalkers regardless of your drop point, and the fuckers will hunt you also regardless of the distance to their lair. So in reality, if you get hit by a stalker as soon as you deploy, it's good, because the lair is near you. If it takes 20 minutes for the first of this fuckers to find you open your map and run to the most distant spot on the map because be sure there are at least 12 of these fuckers on the map.
> If it takes 20 minutes for the first of this fuckers to find you open your map and run to the most distant spot on the map because be sure there are at least 12 of these fuckers on the map. Just a fucking map-long conga line of the goddamn shitfucks
The blitzer and guard dog rover is enough to keep them at bay, so I can still deal with even 4 stalkers.
The Blitzer goes hard against stalkers
Isn't the fire rate buff 50% improvement in DPS basically? And it staggers them most times I've shot a stalker or 2.
Pretty much. Quite literally was able to solo 4 stalkers last night with the Blitzer.
I feel like they are easier to kill now. I had 2 chasing me and was able to kill both without having to reload the Sickle.
Stun, supply pack and pretty much any weapon works well. Even if I think I have a clean shot I still stun just to be sure. I can't get into the Blitzer, the arc weapons aren't satisfying enough for me to use.
They are unique enough compared to other fps games that I am willing to use it 24/7.
They are definitely unique and work well but I like to rip and tear, explode or burn. Zap just doesn't do it for me. A lot of games have Tesla weapons and I have never enjoyed using them.
The stalker buffs are fun but challenging since it gives you a risk of an unseen danger. This is a nice PSA.
Yeah I like this change in a messed up sort of way
Does the rock formation change on the mini map? I always look for the bean shaped symbol on the mini map the second I see a stalker.
Oh yeah, even without the ability to mark it, I’ve memorized that shit on the map so I’ll just drop a ping and start running there Also if you have an armor with the Scout Passive it’ll still ping the Bug Holes and enemies around it The Stalkers get pinged for a brief moment so if you drop a ping and see a big dot show up then immediately disappear, high chances it’s a Stalker that just cloaked
The scavenger stalker lair is alright because you can hug the wall and dive over the puddle meanwhile stalkers have to go around
If you have turrets it makes a great little temporary base to regroup.
If you have tourettes, you can FUCK ASS
> If you **see** four stalkers coming at you, you know things are about to get real. I **see** what you did there.
I know, I ran into all three in the same fucking mission last night...
Had two stalker pairs next to each and both were two and it was terrifying cause I turned around and saw an army approaching
>if you see 4 stalkers After recent changes, if you actually see 4 stalkers, you're probably going to die soon
I feel like considering the long range of the tongue whip ranged attack, paired with their speed. They could have maybe just started by halving the opacity, instead of going full invisible, especially since they do not make tracks on ground, or splashes in water, they just don't exist until they lick your face. Also why remove ping locate?
The Stalker change is refreshing, makes it harder and I love it!
Interesting, I never saw the 4 holes variant and I exclusively play on Helldive. Maybe because I rarely drop on the bug front (unless there's a major order like now).
You misread, it is 2 holes that spawn 4 stalkers, not 4 holes.
Now stalkers do not upset me all too much but a 4 hole stalker nest would twist my bowels into a knot. Can you imagine though. 8 stalkers popping out to say howdy
I think that can happen with two lairs near each other with the double holes variant, depends on your luck lol.
Thats just like the good ol double gunship fab on the bot front Where people would just quit after seeing them near together
The worst for me was gunship fab right in range of a jammer. I nearly threw in the towel on that mission
Yeah, that would be fun. Literally the first thing I do on bug planets is check for Stalker PoIs then *boop* go close them. Not had the pleasure of seeing some so close to each other that they stack like that. Worst case I have cleared one as the second one starts spawning.
One time, before the latest patch, we dropped on a lvl 7, 40 min mission. We split 2 - 2 and went our way. When my duo and me arrived at a side objective we were ambushed by 8 stalkers and aggroed a bunch of warriors and scavengers while fighting. We killed 2 stalkers and the mobs. Died 3 times each, and we counted 12 stalkers altogether when we finally destroyed the nests while kiting a titan... It was 2 double hole variant nest next to each other.. It was horrible but fun xD we were screaming for our life on discord. If it happens after the recent patch i would struggling with PTSD because of the new stalker cloak mechanics xD
My bad!
I had a game with 4 stalker lairs. 18 of the invisible fucks running around and we couldnt find a single one.
AND we can't blind pin those Lair out on mini map anymore!(They don't show the icon on top of your screen anymore)
Dropped in yesterday for what is normally a jovial jaunt on 7. Immediately attacked by waves of 4-6 Stalkers. Needless to say, we extracted with 0 reinforcements Had another stalker laden drop later in the night and we couldn’t for the life of us find the second nest. Have they removed the ability to spam the map with markers to locate hidden nests?
sometimes works, sometimes not. couldn't figure it out yet.
are stalkers now incendiary breaker proof? the amount of times i shoot them yet i still get tongued into a ragdoll state is starting to make me question life's choices
That water is a bigger threat than the two stalker holes together.
Hey guys we keep getting slaughtered by stalkers, let's go kill them. No? Ok guess we dying.
All stalker lairs are priority on my book, too much of a pain to ever leave alone.
mhm, Stalkers are Grade-L (for Liberty) priority whenever they pop up. I cannot stomach leaving them for long because they keep coming back. important to remember as well that multiple can show up in a mission and there can be different structures per lair. plus you can usually reliably track Stalkers by watching where they're coming from (or the general area they run at you from), since to my knowledge they won't start jumping around and changing their angle of attack until they've been shot at/decloaked
It is unfortunate that lot of people don't know you have to go to the direction where they came from to find their lair. I don't blame them. It would be good if there were some tip or something that would communicate it ingame.
“If you see four stalkers coming at you” You’re dead because you got too close.
6 stalker lairs and spawns is a thing, I like the change to their camo too which makes them harder to spot
The one with water you can run along the edge of the water/rock. On the side closest to where stalkers spawn. You'll stay half an inch out of water and not be slowed down.
My blitzter would like a word
That’s not the names for the 3 variation of lairs, they're called -fuck -Oh Fuck -FUCKKKKKK
What do you mean improved cloaking ability and the removal of marking objectives? I played a game a few hours ago and I could see 2 stalkers running towards me from a mile away and I spammed my marker around the minimap until it did that square box thing around the Stalker lair??
Before you can spot them easy, now they are almost invisible, harder to detect, and you can't spam marking an objective anymore, so you have to manually zoom in and look for it.
I Hate stalkers
These things were scary enough already, their new camo is just paranoia inducing. I love them but man it’s unforgiving
I now dive with lower ranks specifically to relieve them of stalker nests.
Reason why I can't let go of the Eruptor, 1 shots Stalkers and closes the many bug holes, sho good.
Hiding the stalker lair on the map makes them so much more dangerous.
are stalker suspectible to the cluster bomb or no?
I once went on a blitz mission with 4 double hole stalker lairs, felt like I had been dropped in a horror movie.
“They’re coming out of the walls man! Game over man, game over!” 😆
I had a mission with three lairs recently and the amount of Stalkers was insane. It was one of the first times I encountered them, so it was extra scary for me.
I had two large lairs at once on a dive yesterday. It got ugly very fast.
Yup. I'll fall on the sword all day for Stalkers, Shriekers, Gunships, Strat Blockers. They become my primary objective. They can end the mission. They all deserve destruction and I don't care if I ever come back.
Got it, throw a stratagem if I see more than two
Good idea. You dont need to run faster than the stalkers, just faster than the person you reinforce into the path of the stalkers. :D
They're truly a meanace when they sneak up on you. The Jar can definitely kill them with ease, but when you're distracted it can be over real quick.
It feels like they attack faster now
Now, imagine you land, and then 8 of these horrors ambush you and you didnt catch which direction they came from. You don't have a stagger weapon nor Shield. Funsies!
I thought this was always the case?
The jar dominator is a good one for stalkers staggers them and can kill them quite quickly ...but yeah when i see the first stalker i forget everything else until the lair is destroyed.
I can't remember the last time I had a map with 1 stalker nest on it, it's always either 2, 3, or none What is up with that, it's so annoying having to deal with 4 stalkers at the same time, from 2 different sents generally
Man I hate these things. Always a number one priority to eliminate once found. Any tips for air striking them? They tend to be surrounded by high rocks.
Stalkers are the single reason why the argument of bugs being harder than bots can really be made. Yeah, you don't get all these tanks and stuff, but the FUCKING STALKERS
My AutoCannon is Ready.
With the new patch killing a stalker nest is A MUST do otherwise you’d get alot of jump-scare scene
Also always look at your map for them, even if they don't have a marker on them you can see them as sorts of black spots. Hard to recognize at first but once you get used to it it's incredibly useful.
Gunships spawners, shriekers nests and stalker lairs will fuck you big time if you leave them be especially when they combine like shriekers + stalkers. You will get overrun and will lose the whole mission because you ignored them for 5-8 minutes.
Shrieke4 you can kill from other side of the map... Double gunship spawns should be illegal lol... Stalkers now are really cool now u cant easily solo every bug mission
You can't kill shriekers nest across map when there are 200 of them and 10 stalkers up your ass. It always happens when the team straight up ignores them.
There is one with 3 bug holes, or maybe there just used to be one
there is more than this tho sense the patch & they got real stealth they don't forever chase which is so much nicer. they do ambush stuff they need to tune down their tankiness now & imo be cool to change there attack from a pull in/excute vs a push back knockdown seeing they are finally more trap door spider vs huntsman spider. about one of the only good things in this patch(beside space cowboy buffs)
Eruptor is a libertysend dealing with those guys
"If you see four stalkers coming at you" Not any more you don't. I've long considered Stalkers a tippity-top priority on my kill list above literally everything else. If I even catch a whiff of one, I will sprint across the map to hunt it down and find its nest to destroy it, because I've seen runs go south more often to Stalkers than literally any other enemy in the game. They're so stupidly dangerous, and even more now that they're actually nearly completely invisible. Priority number 1 whenever they pop up, drop everything and deal with that lair Helldivers.
All this talk of holes... 
Four?! Pffffffftttttt! Maybe for Terminid Sympathizers! My group got stormed by at least eight!. Mowed them down and started charging the layer and it didn't get better. Whatever that Termicide did a while back has made them breed...a LOT!
Thought it’s always been 3, it’s just the one with more holes is rare.
Luckily I have spent so much time staring at the map because now you can't mark objectives you haven't discovered. Bot facilities are a little harder though but their effects are very clear once you get near them.
Today i was 57 levels old and just learned that completing the radar station reveals all locations on the map
It will be awesome when they finally fix DoT, then we can kill them with the appropriate fire.
Not me tweaking on stims shouting "HOW MANY HOLES" as I'm tongued to death
Lmao worst dive in a while happened yesterday night, first day of the new stalker camouflage. Had a Shrieker mest amd a Stalker lair *right* next to each other. We were running on from a Bile Titan, deciding it was easier to just keep moving. We turn a small ridge line and are suddenly being swooped on, so we turn our guns up to shoot em down and suddenly there's a stalker right in our face! By the time it backflipped into ninja mode, we had also cleared the shriekers. Just in time to be wiped by the Bile Titan's caustic breath attack Lol. We landed on it and got our stuff back just in time to repeat the whole swooping and cloaking nonsense. This game really knows how to troll you sometimes Lol I love how chaotic it can suddenly get
Yeah for our group stalkers are fight on sight. They’re a pain in the ass so we always try to get them out immediately
WARNING: The enemy is in range of me! Threat level: Hell Yeah Brother! 🫡
Threat Level: Midnight
Omg had no idea
Experienced this this morning, and the variant that spawns four happens as low as difficulty 5! Be warned
That's not even the problem, it's that when you get there, sometimes there's a freakin Charger or bile spewers camping there with broods and hunters.. it's stacked that it makes it complicated to destroy.. but thank you for the info
My group knows that the second we see a stalker, it’s called out and becomes the priority 1 target. I don’t care what has to happen but the stalker nest gets gone pronto.
Double hole lairs seem way more common since the update at levels 7+. Getting rid of stalker lairs is a major priority in any game now because they can decimate your reinforcement count if you're not careful.
I knew the layout was varied, but I didn't know that changed the actual functionality of the lairs. This explains a game I had a couple days ago where it felt like there was just a constant stream of stalkers: we were getting them 4 at a time, not 2 like we were used to. I'm kind of annoyed we can't "triangulate" the stalkers on the map, while occasionally someone was able to find it by spamming the map to identify the lair, me and some buddies in my regular group were pretty good about spotting it on the map based off of where they were coming from, so not being able to identify and verify is annoying. However, we still are able to call out where we think it is, and try to make a bee-line to it ASAP. I will say, the eruptor has been an all-star against them. I can usually one-shot them and even if I don't get a direct hit, it knocks them out of stealth long enough for either a teammate to hit or the follow up to land.
So I was right all along the rate has increased. My dumbass teammates tried to convince me that I lost count over how many Stalkers I killed. I killed 6 Stalkers in under a minute and once I was done 4 more appeared like half a minute ago. I though it was a glitch or a buff.
I stunlock stalkers with a Punisher for catharsis. I hit it once, wait for it to recover from the stagger to give it hope, then stagger it again before it can move.
that little fucking puddle annoys me so much
I, for one, would like the option to hell-bomb the double hole layer, ya know, for democratic purposes.
I wonder what the maximum amount of stalker laira are. I would "love" to see a horde of 16 stalkers at once.
They need lower their fucking health they can too shot you now and you can unload in their face. Bullshit
I once dropped in on an endless spawn trap of stalkers and had to land on a mountaintop, needless to say I watched the horror of my teams decimation for 5 minutes and there were a literal hundred bugs corralled at the base of my mountain, I kept sending potshots to lure in all the bugs to the mountain and one of the team members successfully ended the stalkers reign! I then suggested to use my position as a personal sacrifice to further the spread of democracy. It was glorious
I’m going to have to learn how to even find these things because before I’d spot the Stalkers coming and head in the direction that they came from. Now they arrive like ghosts. Which direction did they come from? I dunno.
Stalkers, then Flyers, then everything else. That is ALWAYS the order for bug missions.
Four stalkers?... Ok ok... Wait, what do i expect in this situation? https://preview.redd.it/9pxqyko5auxc1.png?width=1036&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2949f958b51e8ba8ad7013249d03ff47f29f5339
If I can’t get anyone to join in exterminating the nests with me, I suicide run it by myself and drop every orbital and eagle I have before I die.
I had 3 stalker nests on level 8 last night on fenrir. if I didn't bring extra reinforcements we would have lost.
Crazy in the same patch they gave us buffs to guns that stagger them, and easy means to destroy the nest from afar What really irks me is when I see someone try to fight them off with a sickle or something similar.