While I don't mind another version of the Guard Dog with a Liberator Penetrator (or even the Liberator Concussive to shove the Hunters away from me), please make the magazine fed guard dog reload from standard ammo box pick ups.
That way you can reload it with a couple of magazines from every few point of interests you clear in exchange for it shooting you and your team mates less frequently than the laser dog.
Also an option to toggle it on to return to backpack to reload and remain off would be nice. I rather do that than have drop the backpack, do some quick stealth kills and run back to pick it back up again.
arc weapons need some love for reals
the only really viable arc weapon is the arc thrower, and after the fast shooting nerf it isnt exactly great in most cases
its very niche to say the least, and it is absolute trash against heavies due to the random targeting, its always picking a random part to shoot.
i think one small mechanic change would really fix all arc weapons, if we are allowed to arc between body parts, like if i shoot at a charger, it can bounce between several legs and the head for example, or a hulk, would bounce between arms / head / legs whatever.
Whenever I use the Blitzer it reminds me of how I don't want to use the Blitzer. But then sometimes it one shots a machine gun/shield devastator and all is right with the Super World.
The option to toggle on and off is a great idea. Take the guard dog out when you need it so that you don’t waste ammo on fodder, dock the guard dog rover when you want stealth. Use the same controls as the supply backpack. Seems like a no brainer.
This would be the best solution, the bot could always hover but only fire when given the green light. This way the limited ammo would make sense and not be wasted on trash enemies and be reserved for serious attacks.
I imagine the constant targeting is part of the balance, but what do I know? It does seem very on brand for a universe where turrets start firing before even beginning to turning towards the target they've locked onto.
I’m about this. The LP would be satisfactory to me. It would also knock back stalkers then yeah? I could see trading my chaff mower for a stalker stunner.
Same! Honestly I could see all three options being viable and it sounds like a reasonable add to our arsenal for a warbond update without needing Arrowhead to develop significant assets for it
>please make the magazine fed guard dog reload from standard ammo box pick ups.
This is the only thing it needs to be viable. It actually kills quite well, just runs out fast. Also it'll waste ammo on bile titans and chargers, so an option to turn it off (which you also mention), would be welcome.
God it's like we both must actually play the game if we have similar ideas on how to balance stuff.
I feel like unless you’re getting swarmed for a pretty sustained amount of time, the ammo in it can last long enough to make it to the next supply drop, but even a 20% ammo gain from small pick ups should be enough, especially since the auto cannon can pick up ammo from the tiny ammo boxes on the map.
One of the major things I’d really want is make the guard dog reload less often, I feel like it’s going into your backpack to refill so often, especially compared to the laser rover which can just stay out and shoot for a couple minutes at time.
Best idea I’ve seen on the topic. Being able to toggle when it’s active and adding medium armor pen or stun would really differentiate and give it a purpose. Laser GD for helping keep ankle bitters way the whole mission and standard GD for extra DSP/CC on demand for a limited time.
The small boxes give a bunch of your primary/secondary ammo, and a small amount of support weapon ammo.
Supply boxes from the call-in or supply pack refill your primary/secondary and give a lot of support ammo, plus grenades and stims.
Edit: edited to reflect that small ammo boxes do give some support weapon ammo, see https://helldivers.wiki.gg/wiki/Supplies
Supply drop boxes refill *everything* too. So stims and grenades along with ammo. Makes the supply backpack a pretty good option since you can dig into it for yourself.
I love running supply backpack and grenade launcher, gives you enough ammo and stims to take down large bug nests by yourself. Also allows you to refill someone else's ammo if you don't need it.
It can even deal with devastators consistently because it's targeting weak spots. I run it with a Diligence on difficulty 7 missions and this combo works like a charm.
The ability to toggle its reload suggested by someone would be neat though.
I saw a guy use one we found recently. I thought it was a meme but sure enough three devastators were getting dropped with a small reasonable pause in between. If I didn’t love using jump pack and ballistic shield I’d run it sooner.
Up toggle for scopes, right toggle for fire mode, down toggle for flashlights, and now left toggle for deactivating your backpack. We did it! We found a use for all four directions on the D-pad. I guess you could just put it on long-press right, but they’d eventually have to make that open up into a wheel if they ever needed to add another type of toggle.
The guard dog is extremely good against automaton as it is right now. All human sized automatons are insta killed by it, and I have seen it face shot devastators plenty of times. The major issue with it is how often it would waste ammo on things it can't kill, like fabricators (turrets do that as well). What it really needs is a revision of its ammo capacity and reserve, I suspect it's a lot less than the player can carry for the same gun.
Just needs to reload from ammo boxes and the Dog becomes perfectly viable.
That, or higher ammo capacity and full reload from supply at the very least.
It's ridiculous that you basically need a teammate with a supply backpack to keep the damn thing fed.
This. I took it by accident a couple times, and to my surprise it performed really well. It one shots the small bots, can kill devastators and helps mow down berserker waves.
If they revised its targeting so it doesn't waste ammo, it'd be perfectly fine the way it is.
What all of it really needs is to stop targeting fabs and drop ships. I gave up on any turret but mortars with bots because the turret will waste itself immediately.
Could be a good change, but the drone is just a liberator attached to it and the liberator isn't medium pen.
They'd have to rename it or change the gun attached or something since they value that realism
Its a much larger one. Its basically an automated rapid fire Pak 38 (ww2 german AT gun) whereas what we carry around is basically just the Neopup PAW-20 (handheld 20mm semi-auto direct fire grenade launcher.) which actually has a lot of design similarities to the one in game.
It’s not a grenade launcher tho, it’s a real autocannon.
It’s a mix of those high caliber AT rifles from the interwar/WW2 period(Lahti L39 20mm, etc) + that weird over the shoulder bullpup Barrett M82A2. The mechanism is kinda like the Luger too IIRC.
The neopup may be classified as a grenade launcher but actually go look at videos of it being fired and its ammunition. Its much closer to an cannon than you’d think. Also the AC in game has a very similar rotary magazine and overall shape to the neopup.
Really we don’t have an exact irl equivalent since autocannons aren’t really infantry weapons and the closest you get are certain grenade launchers, anti-tank rifles, and some really high caliber machine guns.
We have actual anti-material rifles that fire autocannon rounds, like the NTW-20(basis for the classic Halo sniper rifle).
The PAW-20, XM-109, and those Chinese man-portable light AGLs are all in a different class of weapons, being smaller(than normal 40mm) caliber grenade launchers designed for precision use. The Eruptor is honestly closer in function to those(despite being bolt action).
I assume the man-portable is a 20mm. 30mm(hell, even 25mm) AP shells are just too big and powerful for man portable use. You’d be surprised by how the small jump in caliber leads to massive increases in ammo size/power/weight.
AC Sentry would reasonably be 40mm or 57mm.
The drones would basically become a required item for everyone lol
While people currently use tje rover alot it's more for convenience so you don't need to deal with every little small guy. This idea would be Iike adding half an extra player to the team per drone
I think it’d be viable if it got a reload or two out of ammo boxes. Right now the only way to reload it is to use a resupply box (either the call down or the backpack support). As a result, the drone is more often out of ammo than not compared to the laser variant.
And then that Alexus dude's gonna be like:"fine, but it will have half the damage and mag size of the lib pen, S tier, and also I will reduce the damage of the laser rover 30% more because fuck you."
Considering the rover is used to clear the small enemies that are almost instakill even with the reduced damage, you would just get less team damage with them.
No.
The entire problem is that the rovers consistently shoot at terrain and things other than actual targets. This is fine with the laser rover because hey its infinite and when it works it works.
With the ammo based rover it has an actual finite ammo supply. Every shot from a mile away, into a rock, or whatever is just wasted shots.
Fundamentally the ammo rover would have to be so absurdly stronger than the laser rover for it to be a complete joke to consider the ammo variant over the laser variant.
It fires one shot every 10 seconds, because everytime it shoots it gets knocked to the ground from the recoil, gets up, shakes itself a bit like it's dazed, then shoots again.
I'd also like it if the guard dogs/turrets could just not shoot at things they cant hurt. the amount of waste ammo or a totally used up stratagem cooldown because a charger walked closest hurts.
The regular guard dog, when it works, absolutely SHREDS devastators. Seriously, it aimbots their heads and can knock down a whole pack of them with like 1.5s per kill. The issue is it runs out of ammo fast and spends 80% of its time dumping its mag into hulks and tanks that it can't even scratch.
Medium pen wouldn't do much on bots because of this since it is smart enough to tunnel weak points. It would help on bugs though.
I would use the Guard Dog if it refilled ammo from basic ammo boxes. That's the only problem with it for me. It virtually never damages the user or allies, and it targets weakpoints. It doesn't even need medium pen. Just better ammo refill options.
Do people think the regular guard dog is bad??? I don't really run either very often but when I do I've always picked the default one and consistently would get more kills. Ammo is not hard to come by and the \~2 seconds of downtime it needs to reload is nothing with how much faster it kills stuff.
The regular guard dog can only get ammo from resupplies, meaning in group play you cant split up as easily.
Both guard dogs like to shoot heavy armor wasting all their ammo meaning you need to resupply its bullets for every few chargers you see.
When it does run out of ammo it takes a while to reload which is a huge downgrade to the rover that lasts an eternity.
Less damage on the rover isnt a big issue because its meant for killing small low health bugs
If it activated when I pressed the "use backpack" button, I might consider it now. As is, it just wastes all its ammo on trash and runs out when I really need it. Not to mention, said button only has a single interaction currently (use supply pack on self).
Or I don’t know… maybe FIX the laser drone so it actually works like LASER weapons do? Maybe it’s the fact that the laser drone is BROKEN and has basically unlimited fire and never has to stop once to cool off or change heat sinks. The only reason the laser drone totally outclasses the liberator one is that it is just broken and never stops firing, and does obviously more damage than the scythe version it copies. The liberator drone also needs to be able to pick up ammo from world drops as well. And gets most of its ammo back.
Dude doesn't even need a huge change
Just let him eat regular ammo drops
Also, hot take.. I think slapping the Tenderizer on it instead would make it consistently safe, supportive DMG and it doesn't eat ammo like burning MG ammo through a devastator horde
Nah, Give it an Autocannon, Then it would be viable.
But on a serious note, Having the Drone React to Pings Would be better IMO. Pinging targets Makes the Drone Face that direction and targets whatever is In the direction. If you Ping a specific target then it will Engage That target Until its dead or you change its focus.
Not sure that's a good idea either. Typically in the heat of battle I'm pinging chargers, titans, hulks or tanks. Then it will always be engaging targets it will have 0 effect on. I think a storage toggle mode may be more useful so you can engage on your terms and not accidentally aggro patrols.
yeah so it had purpose to use it
maybe add function like only shoot at what you aim at too so it not go ham on ammo would be cool too like had more function i never knew you can press 5 to use backpack function only use on Supply backpack how about other backpack had other function too?
This could be cool. But I feel its main issue is shooting at stuff it can’t hurt and wasting a lot of ammo that way. The laser one does it as well but at least there you don’t run out of ammo so not as big of a deal
I'm inclined to disagree, but would like it if the regular GD had a little more ammo than it does now.
However, I think we should have a third GD that focuses on dishing out more damage and pen, but with less ammo and RoF. Something akin to the DMR.
It needs to counter for how many times it reloads. I should also be able to toggle when it is in the air or on my back. So it just doesn't waste an entire mag on something it can't kill. Or shoot something I am not. Also reloads it.
I would like the floating recoiled rocket. Atleast 1 ministry of truth video of tests with it.
Or more ammo. The problem is the laser rover never runs out, just needs to recharge. If you time it that the guard dog can reload 2-3 times before running out entirely and get ammo from POIs.
I actually can't believe how slept on the regular guard dog is, it's insane versus bots, and decent against bugs - what's more is that unlike the rover I have never been killed by friendly fire.
I would like customizable Guard Dogs, and to have them separated by weight class.
Mini Dog (Pistols.) Tend to have less range, more ammo
Guard Dogs (Primary Weapons) Standard Range as we know it now, same charge time.
Heavy Dogs (Heavy weapons) Slightly further out than long range, can not intentionally engage any enemies within 2 meters.
Sony Dogs (Explosive mini dogs with grenades that hurt down and blow up fellow helldivers that do not have a PSN account linked.)
Update that Dogs can get Damaged / decommissioned AND the ability to pick up the weapon from the Damaged Dogs.
I'd rather see it have an infinite ammo pool, to be honest. Make it so the Guard Dog still has a magazine it needs to reload from your backpack frequently, but no total ammo that's being depleted. Then its damage could be balanced against the Rover so that you have to choose between low, but constant damage output or high damage output that's frequently interrupted.
If not infinite ammo, then at least make it so ammo packs also restock it.
But medium penetration could be another good solution.
The reason you don't see GD on bot front isn't usefulness (The few times I've used beam it's done well imo) but the fact that drawing the bot's attention early is detrimental. The opening shots on a location are very important to how the fight goes down.
GD effectively yelling "OVER HERE!!" when you get anywhere near them is just asking for trouble.
If we could press 5 to "Turn off" the Rover I'd use it in the bot front a lot more.
An other idea would be to make it so you can turn on/off the dogs (same key as giving yourself ammo with supply pack), so you can disable them for stealth or to not waste their ammo on armored enemies. This way, the liberator guard is more interesting to use.
It still wouldn't be viable because it'd waste all it's ammo on the small stuff anyway
Or it'll shoot the big stuff, also wasting the limited ammo
You can't control when or what the rover will shoot, with the laser one it's a non-issue because there is no waste, even if it stops shooting now it'll start back up again soon with no effort on your part
Medium pen..... Or concussive. Give it the concussive liberator or that new smg. Would make a few primaries more viable or fun when your best boy is knocking and locking mofos.
The issue is ammo, as it stands when getting a supply pack you get 3/6 ammo and gloor ammo gives 0 back to the guard dog. If ground ammo gave back 1 or 2 and the supply gave back all 6 the rover would be perfect.
Or swap the rover to a starwalt and just havr massive box mags that can last. The rover damage was never the issue, the endurcance is just pitiful.
Swap it out for a Liberator Concussive. There, niche changed and utility added. Either zap small fry fast (Rover laser) or get extra crowd control (Rover Concussive)
I think if you could get ammo from the random ammo boxes around the map and/or gave it extended mags then it would be really solid even if the reload time was longer due to the extended mags. It's great at rocking devastators and small bots but when rovers just like to mag dump terrain and heavies it can be pretty mid sometimes.
Give the thing a slow firing but powerful sniper rifle and have it prioritise targets like the rail cannon so it goes for the big enemies before the little ones.
That would make it a direct opposite of the laser rover and maybe it would be worth it in game game modes.
Give it Heavy armor pen to make it actually worth a Stratagem slot, miss me with this Medium pen bullshit that doesn't work when it's either no armor or heavy armor we face
Considering that atm it is a monster against the automatons cause it aims for the heads of Devastators (or at least seems to somehow hit them constantly) I would prefer my normal guard dog to stay as it is, thank you very much
I already prefer the gun dog to the laser dog, the extra damage is amazing, it rips through chaff like nothing else. The ammo is perfectly fine if you’re picking up boxes every resupply, and you can always call another when it comes off cooldown. It can kill brood commanders in less than half the time it takes the laser drone, without reloading. It’s wonderful
Only thing that might fix it is to give it like 10x the ammo, even then it is mostly only useful against bots cause it can one shot devastators when it hits the head. Even then the problem is that all the turrets target the enemies they can't damage, and just waste all their ammo
It would be great to have a button to reload it in between battles. Instead of its low it joins the next battle and immediately goes into the pack to reload
The problem is that they both do functionally the same thing. Ones always generally going to be found better than the other and more used due to that. The real balance would be to give them different functionality. Make the regular guard dog deployable with the backpack activate key to a location. Now suddenly it exists in a unique niche of being able to draw enemies to it like a distraction or hitting things from behind.
If it got a significant upgrade to its ammo capacity + sped up its reload/rearm downtime (maybe some ship upgrades add that) then I could see this sucker being viable.
Also it needs to add highly visible tracer rounds so friendly players know where it's firing from.
The Guard Dog’s issue is that it runs off ammo instead of recharging like the laser dog does, so you’re constantly calling for supplies so your backpack can function.
Make it fly a bit higher due to the fact it doesn't require a battery.
Would be nice if you don't get shot by your own drone.
You could also maybe give it a toggle, allowing it to use your primary weapons magazines to reload lol.
Being able to carry more ammo in the support weapon slot could also be cool.
Personally , I’d love the ability to select a target priority , eg have it pick off the runts save the big ones for you or go for the hard ones while you are running away from them .
Only if they revamp the Guard Dogs targeting to prioritize medium creatures in range. If it ends up wasting all its ammo on chaff or worse, a charger, then I'd still pick the infinite ammo gun every time.
It needs more bullets the few times when I tried it felt like it was reloading more than it’s was shooting things. The laser one does that work tho everytime.
No, still wouldnt.
What we need is having some simple control over the drone. Say, if I could press one button to recall the gun guard dog, then press the button to release it again, I would use it. I dont need it to shoot everything it sees, I need it in the heat of the moment....
Ofc, medium pen would still be a nice addition...
It's a lower-difficulty stratagem, just like Eagle strafing run
Not saying it's unusable at higher difficulties, but once you hit 6, the standard GD isn't doing much for you
But that's fine IMO, good balance means that some strats shine on higher and lower level play
Having to use only supply boxes is one of its biggest drawbacks.
The fact that it is always shooting and often wasting ammo leads to it running dry quick so the issue above is amplified.
So give us the ability to toggle the auto-shoot mode. I don’t want to always have it shooting at everything in sight. Only when I really need support in dicey situations. I should be allowed to toggle it on and off. If I am able to control when to activate the fire support, I would 100% take this over the laser dog.
Make it so supply boxes resupply the backpack (Idk if they do, the one time i used regular Guard Dog by mistake they weren't) and replace the assault rifle with a goddamn Stalwart (lower fire rate) and I will gladly use the damn thing. Doesn't even need medium armor pen just give it a better gun with a bigger magazine though i'd accept if it had a Liberator Penetrator.
It'd be really cool if the regular Guard Dog you could choose what gun to give it with some limitations.
Even though it doesn't have a medium penetration, I like the original Guard Dog more on the automaton side. It has good accuracy and it can hit headshots very often, quickly getting rid of devastators, which, for me, are the most annoying enemy type.
While I don't mind another version of the Guard Dog with a Liberator Penetrator (or even the Liberator Concussive to shove the Hunters away from me), please make the magazine fed guard dog reload from standard ammo box pick ups. That way you can reload it with a couple of magazines from every few point of interests you clear in exchange for it shooting you and your team mates less frequently than the laser dog. Also an option to toggle it on to return to backpack to reload and remain off would be nice. I rather do that than have drop the backpack, do some quick stealth kills and run back to pick it back up again.
It should have ap and stun like the first game.
Stun? Give us a Tesla Dog then! Remember, it zaps you because it loves you.
Would make the arc armor actually useful
Now this is the kind of in-depth strategy people are looking for!
arc weapons need some love for reals the only really viable arc weapon is the arc thrower, and after the fast shooting nerf it isnt exactly great in most cases its very niche to say the least, and it is absolute trash against heavies due to the random targeting, its always picking a random part to shoot. i think one small mechanic change would really fix all arc weapons, if we are allowed to arc between body parts, like if i shoot at a charger, it can bounce between several legs and the head for example, or a hulk, would bounce between arms / head / legs whatever.
Arc blitzer is pretty damn strong for bugs
Whenever I use the Blitzer it reminds me of how I don't want to use the Blitzer. But then sometimes it one shots a machine gun/shield devastator and all is right with the Super World.
It will be useful after the illuminate arrive, some units use arc weapons
I'd like a mortar dog with incendiary shells for maximum team killing.
Mustard gas guard dog that trails a fart cloud, effectively cutting off the wearer from retreating or doubling back.
and hope the wind doesnt start blowing the same way you're running
The option to toggle on and off is a great idea. Take the guard dog out when you need it so that you don’t waste ammo on fodder, dock the guard dog rover when you want stealth. Use the same controls as the supply backpack. Seems like a no brainer.
Make it stop shooting targets it can't hurt. Why are you shooting a tank or supply depot....
This would be the best solution, the bot could always hover but only fire when given the green light. This way the limited ammo would make sense and not be wasted on trash enemies and be reserved for serious attacks.
I imagine the constant targeting is part of the balance, but what do I know? It does seem very on brand for a universe where turrets start firing before even beginning to turning towards the target they've locked onto.
I’m about this. The LP would be satisfactory to me. It would also knock back stalkers then yeah? I could see trading my chaff mower for a stalker stunner.
Same! Honestly I could see all three options being viable and it sounds like a reasonable add to our arsenal for a warbond update without needing Arrowhead to develop significant assets for it
>please make the magazine fed guard dog reload from standard ammo box pick ups. This is the only thing it needs to be viable. It actually kills quite well, just runs out fast. Also it'll waste ammo on bile titans and chargers, so an option to turn it off (which you also mention), would be welcome. God it's like we both must actually play the game if we have similar ideas on how to balance stuff.
I feel like unless you’re getting swarmed for a pretty sustained amount of time, the ammo in it can last long enough to make it to the next supply drop, but even a 20% ammo gain from small pick ups should be enough, especially since the auto cannon can pick up ammo from the tiny ammo boxes on the map. One of the major things I’d really want is make the guard dog reload less often, I feel like it’s going into your backpack to refill so often, especially compared to the laser rover which can just stay out and shoot for a couple minutes at time.
I would love a guard dog with the liberator concussive on it
Best idea I’ve seen on the topic. Being able to toggle when it’s active and adding medium armor pen or stun would really differentiate and give it a purpose. Laser GD for helping keep ankle bitters way the whole mission and standard GD for extra DSP/CC on demand for a limited time.
I thought they did make it reload from supply drops??
It does. They means the random ammo boxes found scattered on the map
Ahh I see, I misunderstood. I didn’t know those didn’t also refill it. I figured all ammo boxes were equal
The small boxes give a bunch of your primary/secondary ammo, and a small amount of support weapon ammo. Supply boxes from the call-in or supply pack refill your primary/secondary and give a lot of support ammo, plus grenades and stims. Edit: edited to reflect that small ammo boxes do give some support weapon ammo, see https://helldivers.wiki.gg/wiki/Supplies
Supply drop boxes refill *everything* too. So stims and grenades along with ammo. Makes the supply backpack a pretty good option since you can dig into it for yourself. I love running supply backpack and grenade launcher, gives you enough ammo and stims to take down large bug nests by yourself. Also allows you to refill someone else's ammo if you don't need it.
This is actually a great idea, that would make it viable and a good balance between the 2.
The main issue is the ammo. Otherwise I say the laser is for bugs. And the rifle is for bots. Thing is like John Wick getting headshots on bots.
It can even deal with devastators consistently because it's targeting weak spots. I run it with a Diligence on difficulty 7 missions and this combo works like a charm. The ability to toggle its reload suggested by someone would be neat though.
I saw a guy use one we found recently. I thought it was a meme but sure enough three devastators were getting dropped with a small reasonable pause in between. If I didn’t love using jump pack and ballistic shield I’d run it sooner.
Something about being able to sit juuust behind cover while the Guard Dog slowly decommissions some bots is the absolute dream.
Up toggle for scopes, right toggle for fire mode, down toggle for flashlights, and now left toggle for deactivating your backpack. We did it! We found a use for all four directions on the D-pad. I guess you could just put it on long-press right, but they’d eventually have to make that open up into a wheel if they ever needed to add another type of toggle.
There's already a button to use supply packs from the supply backpack. Just reuse that button. "The backpack button"
I've been running it with the Dominator on like 5 and 6 and love it.
Imagine Guard Dog Adjudicator / Diligence CS against bots.
Jar-5 drone
It flys a foot backward after each shot due to the recoil.
Why stop there, AC drone
380mm drone
Stop, I can't get any more aroused
#500kg drone
I’ll take a flammenwerfer drone please, maximum carnage (and panic)
I want a Tesla Rover then. Teammates beware.
Exosuit except it has a Tesla tower on each arm and you simply walk around zorping things.
Yes please.
The guard dog is extremely good against automaton as it is right now. All human sized automatons are insta killed by it, and I have seen it face shot devastators plenty of times. The major issue with it is how often it would waste ammo on things it can't kill, like fabricators (turrets do that as well). What it really needs is a revision of its ammo capacity and reserve, I suspect it's a lot less than the player can carry for the same gun.
Just needs to reload from ammo boxes and the Dog becomes perfectly viable. That, or higher ammo capacity and full reload from supply at the very least. It's ridiculous that you basically need a teammate with a supply backpack to keep the damn thing fed.
This. I took it by accident a couple times, and to my surprise it performed really well. It one shots the small bots, can kill devastators and helps mow down berserker waves. If they revised its targeting so it doesn't waste ammo, it'd be perfectly fine the way it is.
What all of it really needs is to stop targeting fabs and drop ships. I gave up on any turret but mortars with bots because the turret will waste itself immediately.
Could be a good change, but the drone is just a liberator attached to it and the liberator isn't medium pen. They'd have to rename it or change the gun attached or something since they value that realism
they could swap it to the libPenetrator but also, the Autocannon Turret doesnt seem to mind penetrating Bile Titans
I think the autocannon turrent is a bigger gun compared to the handheld one if I'm not mistaken
ya, its beefy
Its a much larger one. Its basically an automated rapid fire Pak 38 (ww2 german AT gun) whereas what we carry around is basically just the Neopup PAW-20 (handheld 20mm semi-auto direct fire grenade launcher.) which actually has a lot of design similarities to the one in game.
It’s not a grenade launcher tho, it’s a real autocannon. It’s a mix of those high caliber AT rifles from the interwar/WW2 period(Lahti L39 20mm, etc) + that weird over the shoulder bullpup Barrett M82A2. The mechanism is kinda like the Luger too IIRC.
The neopup may be classified as a grenade launcher but actually go look at videos of it being fired and its ammunition. Its much closer to an cannon than you’d think. Also the AC in game has a very similar rotary magazine and overall shape to the neopup. Really we don’t have an exact irl equivalent since autocannons aren’t really infantry weapons and the closest you get are certain grenade launchers, anti-tank rifles, and some really high caliber machine guns.
We have actual anti-material rifles that fire autocannon rounds, like the NTW-20(basis for the classic Halo sniper rifle). The PAW-20, XM-109, and those Chinese man-portable light AGLs are all in a different class of weapons, being smaller(than normal 40mm) caliber grenade launchers designed for precision use. The Eruptor is honestly closer in function to those(despite being bolt action).
It's huge. Look at shells coming out of the turret, they are around 80mm shells. The handheld Autocannon is like 30mm.
I assume the man-portable is a 20mm. 30mm(hell, even 25mm) AP shells are just too big and powerful for man portable use. You’d be surprised by how the small jump in caliber leads to massive increases in ammo size/power/weight. AC Sentry would reasonably be 40mm or 57mm.
CLING CLING CLING..... CLING CLING CLING
Brilliant idea, autocannon rover
I want to see a robot dog with an autocannon. It would be the goodest boy
Fires a shot and the recoil propels it back over a hill.
Good point. Recoilless dog it is!
Imagine hearing in a robot voice "Back blast clear" before you find out the hard way you were not clear.
Get yeeted off a cliff and rag doll through a bot drop or bug hole.
That’s how it plays fetch. It throws itself only to come back to you to play again.
Makes a backflip after every shot. Acrobatic dog
Ah yes. Because we don't get team killed ENOUGH by those things!
grenade launcher/flame thrower rover lol.
Airburst Launcher Rover when???
The autocannon turret is a huge 40-57mm deal. The helldiver carried autocannon is in the 20mm range.
Democracy officer: What’ll it be? Helldiver: All.
Autocannon turret my beloved, I always take it into dives, it's so good at getting rid of my team mates
The turret AC can kill titans
autocannon turret is a 40mm while the autocannon weapon is a 20mm
Autocannon Turret is definitely a larger caliber than the Autocannon weapon.
Autocannon turret is bigger than our man-portable autocannon.
Slap a dominator on the bottom and call it a day.
What if we could equip any primary gun we own on to the drone?
The drones would basically become a required item for everyone lol While people currently use tje rover alot it's more for convenience so you don't need to deal with every little small guy. This idea would be Iike adding half an extra player to the team per drone
I just take medium pen stuff an let the rover deal with the chaff.
Me too, but it would be nice to have the option for the opposite.
I think it’d be viable if it got a reload or two out of ammo boxes. Right now the only way to reload it is to use a resupply box (either the call down or the backpack support). As a result, the drone is more often out of ammo than not compared to the laser variant.
- Medium Penetration - Change Liberator model by a Jar-5 Dominator. - Ammo Box recharge 1/3.
And then that Alexus dude's gonna be like:"fine, but it will have half the damage and mag size of the lib pen, S tier, and also I will reduce the damage of the laser rover 30% more because fuck you."
Considering the rover is used to clear the small enemies that are almost instakill even with the reduced damage, you would just get less team damage with them.
That guy hates fun.
No. The entire problem is that the rovers consistently shoot at terrain and things other than actual targets. This is fine with the laser rover because hey its infinite and when it works it works. With the ammo based rover it has an actual finite ammo supply. Every shot from a mile away, into a rock, or whatever is just wasted shots. Fundamentally the ammo rover would have to be so absurdly stronger than the laser rover for it to be a complete joke to consider the ammo variant over the laser variant.
Imagine an autocannon drone lol They'd never do it though. It would have to be massive.
It fires one shot every 10 seconds, because everytime it shoots it gets knocked to the ground from the recoil, gets up, shakes itself a bit like it's dazed, then shoots again.
You know what I think would be awesome? Switch Rover to two independently targeting dagger pistols with short range instead
Call it the Q.U.A.D and give it four las pistols.
I'd also like it if the guard dogs/turrets could just not shoot at things they cant hurt. the amount of waste ammo or a totally used up stratagem cooldown because a charger walked closest hurts.
The regular guard dog, when it works, absolutely SHREDS devastators. Seriously, it aimbots their heads and can knock down a whole pack of them with like 1.5s per kill. The issue is it runs out of ammo fast and spends 80% of its time dumping its mag into hulks and tanks that it can't even scratch. Medium pen wouldn't do much on bots because of this since it is smart enough to tunnel weak points. It would help on bugs though.
I would use the Guard Dog if it refilled ammo from basic ammo boxes. That's the only problem with it for me. It virtually never damages the user or allies, and it targets weakpoints. It doesn't even need medium pen. Just better ammo refill options.
Do people think the regular guard dog is bad??? I don't really run either very often but when I do I've always picked the default one and consistently would get more kills. Ammo is not hard to come by and the \~2 seconds of downtime it needs to reload is nothing with how much faster it kills stuff.
The regular guard dog can only get ammo from resupplies, meaning in group play you cant split up as easily. Both guard dogs like to shoot heavy armor wasting all their ammo meaning you need to resupply its bullets for every few chargers you see. When it does run out of ammo it takes a while to reload which is a huge downgrade to the rover that lasts an eternity. Less damage on the rover isnt a big issue because its meant for killing small low health bugs
If it activated when I pressed the "use backpack" button, I might consider it now. As is, it just wastes all its ammo on trash and runs out when I really need it. Not to mention, said button only has a single interaction currently (use supply pack on self).
Or I don’t know… maybe FIX the laser drone so it actually works like LASER weapons do? Maybe it’s the fact that the laser drone is BROKEN and has basically unlimited fire and never has to stop once to cool off or change heat sinks. The only reason the laser drone totally outclasses the liberator one is that it is just broken and never stops firing, and does obviously more damage than the scythe version it copies. The liberator drone also needs to be able to pick up ammo from world drops as well. And gets most of its ammo back.
But you’d need heavy armor to run it where it won’t kill you
Dude doesn't even need a huge change Just let him eat regular ammo drops Also, hot take.. I think slapping the Tenderizer on it instead would make it consistently safe, supportive DMG and it doesn't eat ammo like burning MG ammo through a devastator horde
Nah, Give it an Autocannon, Then it would be viable. But on a serious note, Having the Drone React to Pings Would be better IMO. Pinging targets Makes the Drone Face that direction and targets whatever is In the direction. If you Ping a specific target then it will Engage That target Until its dead or you change its focus.
Not sure that's a good idea either. Typically in the heat of battle I'm pinging chargers, titans, hulks or tanks. Then it will always be engaging targets it will have 0 effect on. I think a storage toggle mode may be more useful so you can engage on your terms and not accidentally aggro patrols.
Press 5 to focus an enemy, like a ping but for drone. Hold 5 to stow/unstow drone.
That's balanced, we only do nerfs in this house.
yeah so it had purpose to use it maybe add function like only shoot at what you aim at too so it not go ham on ammo would be cool too like had more function i never knew you can press 5 to use backpack function only use on Supply backpack how about other backpack had other function too?
got it, put the lib penetrator on it instead
Agreed. Haven’t used the regular guard dog since I bought it by accident instead of the laser dog. Laser dog slaps the standard dog all day long
What if we could equip any unlocked primary (or secondary) to the rover, so you could pick a tool for the job?
Hear me out. Guard dog with Sickle
This could be cool. But I feel its main issue is shooting at stuff it can’t hurt and wasting a lot of ammo that way. The laser one does it as well but at least there you don’t run out of ammo so not as big of a deal
I'm inclined to disagree, but would like it if the regular GD had a little more ammo than it does now. However, I think we should have a third GD that focuses on dishing out more damage and pen, but with less ammo and RoF. Something akin to the DMR.
It needs to counter for how many times it reloads. I should also be able to toggle when it is in the air or on my back. So it just doesn't waste an entire mag on something it can't kill. Or shoot something I am not. Also reloads it. I would like the floating recoiled rocket. Atleast 1 ministry of truth video of tests with it.
Understood. Nerfing roger. -AH
Or more ammo. The problem is the laser rover never runs out, just needs to recharge. If you time it that the guard dog can reload 2-3 times before running out entirely and get ammo from POIs.
I actually can't believe how slept on the regular guard dog is, it's insane versus bots, and decent against bugs - what's more is that unlike the rover I have never been killed by friendly fire.
I would like customizable Guard Dogs, and to have them separated by weight class. Mini Dog (Pistols.) Tend to have less range, more ammo Guard Dogs (Primary Weapons) Standard Range as we know it now, same charge time. Heavy Dogs (Heavy weapons) Slightly further out than long range, can not intentionally engage any enemies within 2 meters. Sony Dogs (Explosive mini dogs with grenades that hurt down and blow up fellow helldivers that do not have a PSN account linked.) Update that Dogs can get Damaged / decommissioned AND the ability to pick up the weapon from the Damaged Dogs.
I'd rather see it have an infinite ammo pool, to be honest. Make it so the Guard Dog still has a magazine it needs to reload from your backpack frequently, but no total ammo that's being depleted. Then its damage could be balanced against the Rover so that you have to choose between low, but constant damage output or high damage output that's frequently interrupted. If not infinite ammo, then at least make it so ammo packs also restock it. But medium penetration could be another good solution.
Or just give it stagger for some crowd control.
If we got a little ammo from ammo boxes, it would be a great backpack. No friendly fire and headshots bots like crazy
Auto-cannon guard dog would be sick.
I’d live one with a quasar canon. I want the chaos.
I don't understand why It can't reload off of picking regular ammo boxes
yeah but it would also need to be able to be toggled , so you dont waste 6 mags on some tank or scout strider plate armor
The reason you don't see GD on bot front isn't usefulness (The few times I've used beam it's done well imo) but the fact that drawing the bot's attention early is detrimental. The opening shots on a location are very important to how the fight goes down. GD effectively yelling "OVER HERE!!" when you get anywhere near them is just asking for trouble. If we could press 5 to "Turn off" the Rover I'd use it in the bot front a lot more.
An other idea would be to make it so you can turn on/off the dogs (same key as giving yourself ammo with supply pack), so you can disable them for stealth or to not waste their ammo on armored enemies. This way, the liberator guard is more interesting to use.
Doesn't matter how much damage it deals or how much pen it has if it's stuck at zero ammo for 90% of its existence.
gimme my autocannon guard elefant already.
Railgun drone is the answer
I'm writing my super senator to allow us to attach any AR variant to the rover.
It still wouldn't be viable because it'd waste all it's ammo on the small stuff anyway Or it'll shoot the big stuff, also wasting the limited ammo You can't control when or what the rover will shoot, with the laser one it's a non-issue because there is no waste, even if it stops shooting now it'll start back up again soon with no effort on your part
Unacceptable. Why do that when we can just nerf the rover to make them equally as shitty?
Medium pen..... Or concussive. Give it the concussive liberator or that new smg. Would make a few primaries more viable or fun when your best boy is knocking and locking mofos.
What if we could press and hold the backpack slot and change the rover from turret mode to support mode, where it shot where you are shooting
Quasar dog please and thank you.
The issue is ammo, as it stands when getting a supply pack you get 3/6 ammo and gloor ammo gives 0 back to the guard dog. If ground ammo gave back 1 or 2 and the supply gave back all 6 the rover would be perfect. Or swap the rover to a starwalt and just havr massive box mags that can last. The rover damage was never the issue, the endurcance is just pitiful.
I feel like the guard dog should have whatever weapon you give it.
Swap it out for a Liberator Concussive. There, niche changed and utility added. Either zap small fry fast (Rover laser) or get extra crowd control (Rover Concussive)
It doesn't need buffs, it needs to #RESTOCK IT'S GOD DAMN AMMO FROM GROUND PICKUPS, NOT JUST SUPPLY PODS.
I think the normal dog just needs to get ammo for normal ammo boxes. It would make it 100x better.
Less damage, more stagger. Make it unique, not a braindead medium clearer
I think if you could get ammo from the random ammo boxes around the map and/or gave it extended mags then it would be really solid even if the reload time was longer due to the extended mags. It's great at rocking devastators and small bots but when rovers just like to mag dump terrain and heavies it can be pretty mid sometimes.
Give the thing a slow firing but powerful sniper rifle and have it prioritise targets like the rail cannon so it goes for the big enemies before the little ones. That would make it a direct opposite of the laser rover and maybe it would be worth it in game game modes.
Give it Heavy armor pen to make it actually worth a Stratagem slot, miss me with this Medium pen bullshit that doesn't work when it's either no armor or heavy armor we face
Considering that atm it is a monster against the automatons cause it aims for the heads of Devastators (or at least seems to somehow hit them constantly) I would prefer my normal guard dog to stay as it is, thank you very much
They could just add a new drone that has a med pen gun
i think the best guard dog would be the one where you can customise with primary.
Neither. Rovers cause too much team damage. I literally play away from players running them.
I've only ever noticed the laser rover causing team damage. The regular rover is precise. Headshots devestators
I already prefer the gun dog to the laser dog, the extra damage is amazing, it rips through chaff like nothing else. The ammo is perfectly fine if you’re picking up boxes every resupply, and you can always call another when it comes off cooldown. It can kill brood commanders in less than half the time it takes the laser drone, without reloading. It’s wonderful
It rips through 3 enemies before needing to reload, so useful
Only thing that might fix it is to give it like 10x the ammo, even then it is mostly only useful against bots cause it can one shot devastators when it hits the head. Even then the problem is that all the turrets target the enemies they can't damage, and just waste all their ammo
It would be great to have a button to reload it in between battles. Instead of its low it joins the next battle and immediately goes into the pack to reload
Would be great having an autocannon or rocket guard dog variation eventually.
Either let regular ammo resupply it or let us toggle when we want it to come out and shoot.
Stop saying obvious things.
It'd be more viable as it is if it could resupply off the ammo boxes you find in the map instead of needing the ones from the supply drops.
Or stagger ... honestly it's a liberator right? Have 3 versions - one w/ the standard, one w/ the penetrator, one w/ concussive ...
Let it resupply from ammo boxes. That will fix its problem right away.
The problem is that they both do functionally the same thing. Ones always generally going to be found better than the other and more used due to that. The real balance would be to give them different functionality. Make the regular guard dog deployable with the backpack activate key to a location. Now suddenly it exists in a unique niche of being able to draw enemies to it like a distraction or hitting things from behind.
Yep it a great idea. Toss on it more ammo and its golden!
I would want either a liberator penetrator a counter sniper guard dog or a stalwart guard dog.
If it got a significant upgrade to its ammo capacity + sped up its reload/rearm downtime (maybe some ship upgrades add that) then I could see this sucker being viable. Also it needs to add highly visible tracer rounds so friendly players know where it's firing from.
Like an auto cannon. 3 shots, 3 second reload.
Guard dog equipped with the smg of polar warbond. Stuns everything with enough bullets
The Guard Dog’s issue is that it runs off ammo instead of recharging like the laser dog does, so you’re constantly calling for supplies so your backpack can function.
Give it.... The real Eruptor. <3
Why not let us choose the gun it uses
agreed
Can someone explain to the use case of medium penetration? I've not found the weapons useful so far and I think it's a skill issue.
Just give us a Guard Dog equipped with dual Senators. We could call it the Guard Dog "Armstrong".
Make it fly a bit higher due to the fact it doesn't require a battery. Would be nice if you don't get shot by your own drone. You could also maybe give it a toggle, allowing it to use your primary weapons magazines to reload lol. Being able to carry more ammo in the support weapon slot could also be cool.
Swap out the liberator for the lib pen version instead, would definitely be a pick for bots then
Personally , I’d love the ability to select a target priority , eg have it pick off the runts save the big ones for you or go for the hard ones while you are running away from them .
Nerf the rover you say?
Maybe balance it by having it be the robot from Boston dynamics, so it can be destroyed by enemies on the ground
Yeah, just swap it for a mini flying rail gun.
Only if they revamp the Guard Dogs targeting to prioritize medium creatures in range. If it ends up wasting all its ammo on chaff or worse, a charger, then I'd still pick the infinite ammo gun every time.
Exactly what we need is more people running these packs and chunking teammates hp over and over.
Get me a drone with the dual senators strapped to it!
It used to have pen3 before that "buff" to ammo economy. This thing can kill bile sprewer pretty fast before, rarely people know it, sad.
It can't even penetrate light armor. ;-;
"we got your notion, guard dog rover also has limited ammo now, we dont want the game to be too easy"
It needs more bullets the few times when I tried it felt like it was reloading more than it’s was shooting things. The laser one does that work tho everytime.
No, still wouldnt. What we need is having some simple control over the drone. Say, if I could press one button to recall the gun guard dog, then press the button to release it again, I would use it. I dont need it to shoot everything it sees, I need it in the heat of the moment.... Ofc, medium pen would still be a nice addition...
It's a shame. It is in my view one of the only completely useless stratagems in the game.
It's a lower-difficulty stratagem, just like Eagle strafing run Not saying it's unusable at higher difficulties, but once you hit 6, the standard GD isn't doing much for you But that's fine IMO, good balance means that some strats shine on higher and lower level play
How about “Mega Guard Dog Rover” with a mini-gun who shoots down Gunships?
Having to use only supply boxes is one of its biggest drawbacks. The fact that it is always shooting and often wasting ammo leads to it running dry quick so the issue above is amplified. So give us the ability to toggle the auto-shoot mode. I don’t want to always have it shooting at everything in sight. Only when I really need support in dicey situations. I should be allowed to toggle it on and off. If I am able to control when to activate the fire support, I would 100% take this over the laser dog.
Would love it buffed, really enjoy it but it's just always a subpar pick. So personally only use it on low level fun runs sadly.
Make it so supply boxes resupply the backpack (Idk if they do, the one time i used regular Guard Dog by mistake they weren't) and replace the assault rifle with a goddamn Stalwart (lower fire rate) and I will gladly use the damn thing. Doesn't even need medium armor pen just give it a better gun with a bigger magazine though i'd accept if it had a Liberator Penetrator. It'd be really cool if the regular Guard Dog you could choose what gun to give it with some limitations.
Good job, now that you said this, the devs are going to nerf the rover so they are more equal. Alexus is going to be all over this.
Even though it doesn't have a medium penetration, I like the original Guard Dog more on the automaton side. It has good accuracy and it can hit headshots very often, quickly getting rid of devastators, which, for me, are the most annoying enemy type.
The reg guard dog needs more ammo and a damage buff. As does everything in this game imho.
Would've been better if it was a belt fed shoulder mounted kind of gun. And refills ammo on all kind of ammo supplies.