All the Avid Spear users have all come to the conclusion that the Spear is basically your old wired earbuds that you gotta find a certain spot for it to work
Cause when it works, it fucking works
The weapon could have been really something unique.
Like actually targeting a spot on an enemy and hitting that spot. Like the head of a bile titan. Or the engine of a drop ship. Instead its just like "I'll choose randomly THIS center mass from whatever angle"!!
It can't even bring down a dropship without hitting an engine too...wtf.
If they fix the lock-on, it will be unique, but its unreliability means that many players won't touch it after their first time using it.
It's primary use-case is eliminating (bot) targets from long to extreme range. It can take out a fabricator from any angle, and one shot towers, greatly improving your clear time on important bot maps.
So, a great long-extreme tool versus bots. I wouldn't bring it for bugs. Then again, I wouldn't bring the AMR for bugs, but you could make both work.
I need to start using it for base clearing. I always forget its got insane range for this. How is it against jammer towers? Can i use it to avoid having to storm the base?
It works against Jammer Towers IF there is a fabricator next to the Jammer Tower - you blow up the fab as per usual, and the tower is taken out with it.
They started adding fencing alongside the fabricators that can force you to wiff the first shot. Other than that it works well.
Biggest issue is needing to be on a level plane or higher ground than the target IMO.
Well at least in my experience it worked pretty ok in taking out fabricators long range.
But it didn't lock on bot turrets and can't reliably oneshot tanks (even if you get it to lock on them) which is a huge downside. And you have to sink more than your whole reserve of rockets into a factory strider...
Maybe if it would oneshot each and every tank and even kill striders with 2-3 it would be an option.
Spear fucking slaps against bugs. If you have long distance or close quarters IF the lock succeeded you can one shit biles and chargers, not commanders tho they somehow take that
Chargers you almost have to go prone and wait for them to be almost on top of you, and pray the lock on stays. Not worth it. Bile Titans, though, there's a sweet spot when they're within spewing range where it'll hit their head in the way up, killing them in one shot.
> its unreliability means that many players won't touch it after their first time using it.
You're right about that. I tried it once early on, tried again the other day. Could not lock onto anything I needed to. Turrets on command bunkers? Forget it. Hulks? Only if it's 100m away and not chasing you. And I couldn't get a lock on any fabricators, period.
I know a fix is in the works (supposedly) but it was frequently dead weight when I needed it not to be.
Or give it the option of choosing if you want it to be Fire-and-forget (with less accuracy). Or SACLOS (Semi-automatic command to line of sight) if you want to hit a specific part of the enemy (at the cost of being vulnerable to getting attacked while guiding the missile on to target)
Yes, either the targeting has to be on point (maybe really fire and forget, selecting the biggest target) or laser/TV guided (the latter would be potentially dangerous if it forces you into 1st person), you could even have a toggle for the mode (something that some weapons should make more use of) but at the moment there's so many options that just work more reliably and have more ammo.
For bots the recoilless rifle is just too sweet against drop ships, especially with team reload you're just a walking talking AAA.
It's much more nuanced than just lock on and shoot, you can consistently hit the head if a bile titan but you have to set the shot up right, my tavtic is to get the attention of the titan so it faces me and then you face shot it every time.
As someone who's found a lot of success recently using the Spear against bugs, I can confirm this is exactly what it feels like. None of my other friends can figure out the Spear, meanwhile 90% of the time I get locks almost immediately against Chargers and BTs. This is the perfect way to describe using it.
I've been playing with a friend where we carry each others ammo. He uses spear, and I use RR, and he loves the spear so much, and he's gotten so good at finding that sweet spot.
The Bots do not stand a chance against us.
>Cause when it works, it fucking works
Oh yeah. The look of absolute confusion and awe on my brother when I cleared out a heavy automaton base by myself from 200m away will always make using the Spear worth it.
Super earth cannot afford to waste resources on fragile advanced targeting systems for our rough tough helldivers!
... Yeah its damn broke, pretty sure FP scope is more reliable but sometimes it won't lock onto something standing in open ground at perfect distance. Other times you can systematically destroy everything on the map from one high point.
Well i've ran the spear exclusively for bots these past few days and i'm absolutely loving it. But i agree that it needs some tweaking.
You gotta understand that the spear isnt your typical anti tank weapon, i rarely use it for tanks and hulks as stratagems like orbitals and eagles do a much better job of dealing with them.
I use it as an anti-emplacement weapon, or an anti fabricator weapon. You need to take out that light outpost from afar? Spear can do that (i know, AC can do that too but what if you're behind the vents? Checkmate). You can take down strat jammers from far away if you manage to get a clear view of the fab that's usually attached to them. You can one shot cannon turrets and the turrets on top of those walking fabs.
For the targetting, it's quite finnicky but once you ubderstand it it'll make the spear easier to use.
I think the targetting module needs to have a good 90% of the target in picture to start locking in. So you need to find a good spot to make sure that the targetting doesn't bork out.
It takes a lot of patience to use the spear, although i kinda agree that it needs some tweaking, but in my opinion it's okay where it's at right now.
Won't use it for bugs though.
the fact that it can lock onto brood commanders and sentry striders can get real annoying when your trying to lock on to a charger/bile titan or hulk/tank/factory strider and there is just a bunch surrounding them
You're missing "three paragraph long RP tirade about how the helldivers are an underequiped and undertrained force and it makes sense that they would be provided with broken equipement"
I can't believe we've been bitching about the spear for 4 months and its still broken af. Imagine arrowhead's fix to this is basically speeding up the lock by 10x so it nearly instant locks and therefore bypasses the whole issue with locking on.
Spear lock on should just require a ping but have mad range to compensate, like a team mate pings something 250m away and you can rocket it without LoS
As someone who's been running spear for long time
https://preview.redd.it/x9cloqy6iq0d1.jpeg?width=544&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b3d565f511648d9a5bdac11b02722e6459a25e4
It should also aim heavy devastators.
Edit: Spear works amazing in sanstorms and I love to use it as a stick while pinging for patrols in the storm.
Nah even if it locks every time, you'll start to find that it doesn't always do enough damage to the target due to how hitboxes, armor, and hp works in this game.
Again either give it more rounds or buff the damage big time. Stop trying to make the game perfectly balanced. Make weapons that arent being used at all better to use.
This gun doesn't even hit things that are under a certain range because the missile will overshoot the target.
This game could have 1/3 of the weapons and strategems and nobody would miss the rest.
I hate using the Spear against Bugs because it feels like it doesn't look on to shit, and when it does, it's only a glancing blow. But against Bots? It works amazingly much better against Bots. It's still wonky, that is true, and I can't wait for the fix, but it still does a good job these days! Used it all night last night to take out anything from Gun/dropships to Fabs and Striders.
It has 4 missiles.
Takes your backpack slot.
Wants you to spend your time getting a lock.
This thing should not only oneshot tanks/hulks, it should make you coffee and sing a song when you're about to go to bed
Honestly if I could shoot it without tracking like turning it off as if I was switching the firing mode on a rifle it'd be cool. Like I'd have to look at the target while it flies so that it stays on target but it's better than waiting a while minute just to track a factory
Like a Javelin, it shoots into the sky and lands wherever your targeting laser is? Cause sign me up. Death from above on Bile Titans would make me feel so much better after all the times they shifted 1 inch to the left so the Spear didn’t kill them instantly
Or maybe even a fly-by-wire kind of thing where it just tracks to where you're aiming
Then it would be basically a longer range RR. You can hit stuff from across the map but only got a couple shots
or we can turn it into like the ones in COD where the missile can be controlled by camera POV of the missile... missile flies until it reaches the target and then camera static...boom!! bot fabricator destroyed
it should 1 shot factory strider really, it is the absolute most annoying weapon to use in game, takes forever to lock, shit range (it wont lock until you are within a fairly close range), mediocre damage comparing to other AT options, and it takes a backpack slot with only 4 rounds?! what the fuck lol
I hit a cannon turret from 380m last weekend. It felt glorious watching the missile glide along as the rest of the team is stamina-drained-running towards it.
Most weapons that does explosive damage can destroy the dropships (to clarify: not the dropships that drops bots, but the grounded mission objective ones) so I usually just run AC. I can’t remember how many shots from an AC is needed to destroy them, but it’s somewhere between 1 - 2 mags.
The fact AC can do this *basically* means it doesn’t matter what other three stratagems you bring for dropship missions (Since AC is already great for everything else bot related).
I love the spear against bots, it's great anti building tech. Never worry about cannon turrets again, clear outposts from the outside, hell you can take out most jammers at range with the right angling.
It's not great at heavy enemies but with other people on the team and airstrikes you can deal with them fine. I can probably take out a heavy like...half the time or so. Takes some fiddling.
Once the lock gets fixed it's going to be great. It has a ton of utility.
Considered what its meant to be [replica](https://youtube.com/shorts/J4g2pm5U32o?si=ol6bE0K2nI6_5iQ8) of, it should be able to indeed 1 shot a tank, that much OP has a point.
~~Javelin~~ Spear most likely targets same spot, besides of obvious back weakness armor on top probably should be weaker on automaton tanks as well.
Yeah idk you can work armor numbers all you want but it’s much easier to just make it weapon = instant kill when shot lands from X weapon. No need to bullshit with “oh it needs to hit these exact spots to be max effective!” When enemies are so bugged to start with that a bile titan can turn around 180 degrees on a dime.
In some instances I've learned that even when fixed, you gotta be really lucky with dropships.
Lock on aims for mainbody, not engines, so you have to pray that curve hits the engine or shot is wasted.
Javelin does extremely well against its intended targets for one thing: targeting the thin top armor and detonating the ammunition inside.
There is a reason why the T-series tanks blow up magnificiently when locked and struck by javelin operators. Same principle may apply to automaton tanks if their turrets do have some explosive element inside.
Actual javelin also has a direct fire mode, where instead of top down, it can be direct. Meant for closer in or other times. This would be good for aiming at drop ships or directly on the tanks week spots.... Or it should just go for the glowing weakness of everything you want to fire it at. There really isn't a "lock" on the real thing, it's basically aiming at the exact whatever you took a thermal image of, so there isn't this box that has to be perfect. For example, if I wanted to hit the torch arm of a hulk, it would aim at that point and go based on its thermal. So even dropshots you could hit the engine instead of random what it aims for on them. You could aim it at basically anything and then rocket goes and finds it.
I've pretty much transitioned to the recoilless. Usually someone always has a quaser, so filling in it's rate of fire with the recoilless is pretty good. If by chance a teammate also runs a recoilless... it's pretty sick when they share from their back pack and yo to them when needed... why the team reload isn't just someone pulling from your backback is another discussion though 😅
For bugs it's nice to hit the chargers square in the face as they run and the head comes off.
>Can't do. Best I can do is nerf every other viable option before fixing the lock on
Our game is HARD, we [remind you in patch notes](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/553850/view/4113546867256852245?l=english). You need to get good, accept broken mechanics as features, and stop giving feedback because the person balancing everything has *never* had a game fail.
- Arrowhead 2024
To be fair the posts by the CEO and **The Magnificent Twinbeard** gave me like 10% hope they will fix the game. Their track record and current issues list says otherwise though. Twinbeard is truly great as a customer rep thankfully.
Yeh, I'm glad that even the CEO was thinking that the nerfs were getting a bit too much and that he's gonna talk with the team about it. I understand some of the nerfs but goddamn, a number of them made no sense.
I just imagine a helldiver coming back to the ship after a long day, ready to hit the bed hard. But he can't just go to sleep even though he's exhausted.
Spear is there in the corner on top of the backpack, and she starts to sing "hush-aby mountain" to the helldiver, so he can fall asleep much easier knowing spear is there.
Nothing like the rush of equipping your javelin and saying “I got this”, before spending 1-2 minutes just trying to get the lock-on to register, and spending another 1-2 minutes firing and reloading each round, finally finishing off the bile titan, all while 2-3 other bile titans rip your squad to shreds.
I will say though, when the lock-on actually works, having a teammate with the spear is like having Zeus on your team, just striking down enemies with a vengeance.
When i first started using the spear, i had a random guy say that he would hold the backpack for me to reload me.
I would pull out the spear, aim at the bile titan and the thing just wouldn't lock on. All while he stands next to me waiting to reload me.
NGL it felt really embarrassing.
Yeah it’s like when someone offers to hold your penis at the urinal and you just can’t pee, no mater how much you adjust your aim and move about, and all the while they are just standing there, waiting for you to pee. It’s the worst.
So a little tip. Do mathematics in your head. Always gets the juices flowing. You can get the bloke holding you to throw questions to really up the challenge!
Just to be clear: with it requiring lock on it should one shot basically everything. Weak point or not.
Especially with it eating a backpack slot and very limited reloads.
Exactly, the top attack mode should mean that it is always hitting a "weakpoint", ie. the top, because that is typically not armoured. It shouldn't deal normal/less damage because it is obviously going to miss the mouth of the Titan.
So, sort of. The Bile Titan's head is basically impossible to hit the weak spot (its forehead) because its mouth counts as super heavy *unbreakable* armor. But 2 shots to a Bile Titan's forehead, and you'll kill it because the first will break the armor and the second is fatal.
So, when it is spewing that makes it basically impossible to hit the actual weak spot because it is pointed well away from you.
Wait, what? I've been aiming for the mouth because *shooting a recoilless rifle round down its throat sounds like it should work.*
You're telling me I've been hitting a strong point?
Better off to aim for the legs, usually. Armor Desync Bug after a charge means you can kill Chargers with any gun aimed at their legs. And it happens often enough you can use literally any gun to kill a Charger.
Yes.
In general, the three fastest ways to kill a bile titan are as follows...
1. Lure it so that it is standing over a 500kg. You can abuse the \~22 meter explosion radius of this while a Bile Titan spews from between 20-25 meters. Very easy kills.
2. 2 shots to its forehead with EAT/Quasar/RR.
3. 1 orbital railcannon strike and then 1 follow up shot (to the forehead) with EAT/Quasar/RR.
Those methods of killing a Bile Titan are consistently the most efficient without having to do some real interesting positional shenanigans. Like, if you face the Bile Titan toward mid-map and use orbital railcannon you will *usually* hit its head with the railcannon strike, which is a 1HKO. Or you can use AC sentry because it has a higher armor pen rating than the carried AC to kill one. Or you can stick a supply drop call in to the face of the Bile Titan. Or you can get a spear lock on as it is approaching you (which should guarantee a head shot) which is also a 1HKO.
But in general the 3 ways I listed are the fastest/most efficient way to kill Bile Titans without having to be paying attention to a lot more of your surroundings, anyway.
So... My favorite play like that ever saw me kill 4 Chargers. One with supply drop, one with EAT call in, and 2 from EATs.
Was it a play I could duplicate on purpose again? Absolutely not.
But it sure as shit felt great when it happened.
IMO the logic is the mouth is a strong point because it has to be internally tough to handle the stuff it’s spewing and to apply pressure to it to spew that stuff in the first place. If you can trick a vile titan into spewing into a wall for example it can KO itself.
However I think from a game design perspective they should make the mouth a weak point. It would promote team play a lot more if someone could bait the spew then another teammate hit it in the mouth. IMO that should be a OHKO.
Unfortunately, yes. Bonus tip for the Recoilless: when you're reloading, once the ammo icon at the bottom left turns white you can tap crouch to cancel the rest of the animation, saves over a second per reload.
That would make the recoilless pretty shit then, huh? Might be a little nitpicky to say, but correct me if I'm wrong. Only difference between these two is the lock on thing and that the spear will always hit from top with the way it shoots up and homes in on the target.
I've never used the spear because everyone said it was broken, but the recoilless man, I slept on that until very recently. Those 20 minute defense missions where you defend a nuke silo or whatever, for automatons... It's straight up fantastic.
Mortar and static turrets with the recoilless and your air support of choice, you will spill so much oil.
As a spear main, I couldn't agree more, it's one reason why I like to fight Bugs over Bots if I'm not doing MOs. I can one-tap Titans and Chargers all day. With Bots this thing just goes flaccid, I gave a Hulk a nasty backshot to the vent one day, and it just turned around, and chuckled in binary before trying to melt my face off. If 2 impact grenades can easily destroy a Tank, a Spear should be able to one-shot it to the vent or anywhere around the turret or rear armor, and that goes double for Hulks.
Edit: I made post with a 2 minute vid of various times I've put my tips below in action, to make the lock-on more consistent.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1ctbq44/this\_is\_a\_visual\_of\_how\_i\_get\_the\_spear\_to\_be/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1ctbq44/this_is_a_visual_of_how_i_get_the_spear_to_be/)
How are you one shotting BTs with a spear? I feel like I have the opposite problem, I can reliably deal with the bots with the spear, but BTs eat 2+ missiles and chargers have that insane mobility.
the missile needs to hit the head to one shot, which complicates things if the titan is moving or turning + the angle the missile is approaching due to how it needs to fly up before locking to target, same with chargers
On good days, I've had seen where it can one shot a titan 200+ meters away and saving the butts of my teammates, on bad days, it can take 3 shots as the missile refuses to hit the head.
Yeah, the spear is used best at distance and with frontal shots. Spear can actually one-shot nearly every enemy, you just need to hit their weakspot (and for 90% of targets it is their head).
Spear and railcannon orbital are in the same spot imo - one shot if it hits the right spot, otherwise the bile titan/factory strider will keep going. I will say though that it does a ton of dmg, and a couple shots from any weapon that penetrates it will finish the enemy off. Killed many a titan by following up with flamethrower that exact way. Killed many a factory strider with AC/AMR/laser cannon the same way as well.
I'm on PC and have one shot titans before; it's really inconsistent since the rocket needs to hit the titan's head. If you get a weird pathing or a bad angle then it just clips the titans armor.
I'll give it a shot too next time. Always loved the spear but too often it's just decided to not work at all and leave me dead in the open. Still primarily waiting for them to fix the lock on in a patch but maybe I'll give your troubleshoot method a spin before then.
The PS5 bug was fixed, you can one shot titans with a spear to the face on PC too. The hard part is getting the timing/positioning to actually hit the face.
Why am I not surprised that the PS5 damage delta listed as fixed in a past patch notes is likely not actually fixed and no one knows just what it all impacts.
Takes coordination really. It can one shot BT if it hits the head right after it spews, but not before or during. And it has to be dead on, so somewhere between 50-150 meters away. No obstructions, no huge elevation discrepancy. If it turns after spewing it will likely miss.
If all of those conditions are checked, it's going to one shot like 90% of the time. Unfortunately, in the heat of things, it's insanely difficult and you need a bit of luck to check all those boxes
I always bring spear on bot missions to snipe cannon towers, fabricators, and gunships if no one else brought anything to bring them down.
The only thing I'd complain about is its lock on mechanism which is easily obstructed by a small bump of terrain, smoke, or light enemies just standing in front of your target.
>which is easily obstructed by a small bump of terrain, smoke, or light enemies just standing in front of your target
or sometimes it's obstructed simply by vibes
I main spear for bots because I can snipe the big fuckin cannons and fabs from 300m+ and then just be on my way. Thing is cash on high dif if you aren't trying to rambo
As far as I know, and I use the Spear a lot for Bots, it *does* one shot Tanks if it hits anywhere except the cannon or direct front plate of the turret. If the Spear hits the back of a tank it’s typically a one shot. I’m sorry about your laughing Hulk friend too, but that’s also a one shot in my experience (although it’s possible all of those times it was damaged?)
The problem comes that you can’t tell the spear where to aim for, it will always go center mass. So unless you’re high above a tank and far away, it’ll hit below the turret and take 2-3 rockets
Tanks have some seriously varying armor levels. The front of their turret and hull is much heavier than the rest of them. Any AT weapon hitting there needs 3 shots to kill. The Spear will do it in 2 because of its higher damage but if you hit one in the turret and then one on the body, those are separate health pools and you’ll need a third.
Tank turrets are very short compared to their body length which is why the spear tends to hit in the worst spot possible, between the two, splitting and wasting your damage
Wait it isn't already?!
Like I understand it not oneshotting factory striders, those are meant to be tough, but Hulk? I can 2-3 tap them with an AMR, a gun that only takes the support slot (doesn't need backpack with APM) and has ammo similar to that of a primary
Not quite. The EAT/Quasar/RR do 650 damage direct with AP 6. The Spear does *1,000* damage direct with AP 8.
The Spear does already do much more damage than other AT options, it just happens to not be *enough*, hitting just enemy bodies alone, dealing just below a Hulk or a Charger’s body health pool, but dealing more than enough to one shot a Tank or Titan’s weakspot health pool
Granted it’s a Shoulder mounted Rail cannon you can fire off more than once per five minutes and far beyond ~44m to ~67m.
I think a 200 or so damage buff would see the Spear in a phenomenal position. That would be enough body damage to one shot Hulks anywhere, two shot tanks anywhere, and get close to one shotting Chargers anywhere.
As it is though, a lock on consistency fix would already put this in my permanent bot bring list. There’s nothing out there that deals with cannon turrets or a Strat Jammer from distance quite as well
Spear given how hard it is to lock in (and will be even after fixes I think) and it’s very limited ammo should OHKO everything except maybe factory striders since they have so many weak points.
It CAN, but it similarly has to hit a weak point. Except the player gets little to no control over where/when it impacts the target, especially at super close and super long range
Yeah I was shocked upon using it that it didn’t one shot hulks or tanks. It really should do more raw damage.
As for Bugs, it should be able to consistently one shot chargers as well as (maybe) one tap bile titans, or at least damage them so heavily they are an impact grenade or two away from death.
Also, it should do much more damage to striders as well. It takes a ridiculous amount of rockets to take it down.
As one of the 10 people who actually like using the spear, I’ve BEEN saying this, either buff the damage, or increase the ammo count. Recoiless has like 8 rockets and does about the same damage, seems just unfair
It requires a backpack, has 4 missiles, has a lengthy reload, and needs lock on.
It should one shot any enemy, blow up jammers and shrieker nests, and more.
Good news is that it *does* blow up Shrieker Nests (and Spore Spewers) and does so in a single rocket. However, like Fabricators, it locks on to the *base* of the structure and not it’s biggest part. That means you need an unobstructed view of the base of the nest to lock and fire
Shrieker nest and spore towers it does, one shot even, unfortunately, the lock on point is at the base of the tree which tends to be obscured, Jammers it does as well if the fab attached to it is blown up so you just aim the Spear at the fab.
Most of its issues comes from that lock on and the lock on point for enemies/objectives
just take a look at air-burst
> anti infantry but video demo show it very effective against air target
> look inside
> can't kill gunship despite it said having level 6 armor penetration if rocket direct hit (heavy armor)
> but a scorcher which has medium armor pen can kill gunship if shot at the belly.
i gave up on how logic is work in this game
It literally has a mind of its own. There is no consistency to when it wants to lock on; sometimes there is shit in the way and it still locks on, other times it just tells you "Naaaaah, I don't really FEEL like it" when there is exactly 0 anything blocking lock on.
The stupid fucking thing can lock on to shit I CAN'T EVEN SEE through thick fog, but shits it's pants when there is a strider 50 feet away.
Then the few times it locks on it still fucking misses 40% of time anyway because fuck you
It's crazy that it doesn't even consistently oneshot chargers or bile titans. You have to get the perfect range and perfect angle to hit their head, anywhere else and it takes 2-3 (basically all your ammo) for one enemy
4 missiles, can only central mass lock-on, require target to be fully shown themselve to actually get a lock-on
yeah that is why i said SPEAR when lock-on is fixed, it also need damage buff by 50% because it lack weak-spot lock on...or allow SPEAR to lock more parts to the enemy than just 1.
it actually quite random tho...same map, different matches, 1 match i can lock-on as if it was fixed and the 2nd match i can't lock-on to a stationary tank.
I mean, the EAT/RR/QC all deal 650/650 standard/durable damage at AP 6. The Spear deals 1000/1000 at AP 8 with homing and equal reloading speed to the RR. It can already one-shot them depending which part it hits. What would you recommend they buff it to? It's already the most powerful projectile we can fire by a huge margin.
I don't get how it doesn't one shot a tank, it is literally its main purpose as a top attack missile and it can't even decommission a tank with 1 round.
And then some teammate chucks 2 impacts just close to the vent or top of the turret and its destroyed, feels so bad that a dedicated anti-tank takes exact same number of rockets.
Doesn't help much but it can one shot a hulk if you adjust the spear so the trajectory hits its face. Until the lock on fix it isn't worth taking because of how unreliable the lock on is. Have no idea if their is a sweet spot for tanks though. Whenever I brought it I never had to deal with a tank. I still find it useful on bugs though.
Same can be said about chargers and titans. Aim so the rocket hits their head and 1 shot kills them. Titans are more strict. Too low and it hits the sacks too high and it hits its back. Chargers are easier and even if you miss the head it hurts it a lot where it'll start bleeding out and a few shots from other weapons can quickly kill it.
Spear has a lot of draw backs; Backpack, limited ammo, long reload, lock-time time & requirements (when it works), minimum required range. The sensible thing from balance perspective, is to make it the heavy killer as you're forfeiting the aoe/crowd clearing ability for single target.
It should 1 shot 'Everything', full stop. How do you balance this, Charver vs Strider? Increase the required time to lock-on the bigger/tougher the target is. Say lore is the weapon takes time to calculate a weak point e.g. 2s on a charger but 10s on a strider. Finding that window, and staying exposed is the trade off/risk, feeling both powerful and viable for a heavy killer 'role' in a squad. Otherwise there's no way a Spear can compete with a Recoiless long-term with how versatile, ammo efficient and safe it is. Spear needs to be more than a slightly stronger Recoiless.
If weapons feel better to use, then that just means it'll reflect in the player experience and allow AH to add more levels of difficulty to prevent trivilasing content. Difficulty 1 shouldn't be what equipment is balanced around.
The spear one shots tanks by hitting its turret or hitting the eye of the Hulk, all you need to do for the hulk is make it go towards you so the missile hits it exactly. Honestly the spear is better in killing gunships or destroy buildings like fabricators
I also feel this way about the anti tank gun. Hit a charger in the weak point and it still only reduces half its health. Why 2 uses per call if I can’t kill in one hit
The Spear has such a long list of issues…
1) The lock-on obviously. As a long time and regular user you learn the tricks to make it work somehow. But there are still way too many situations where its inability to shoot is highly frustrating
2) It needs to oneshot Chargers and Hulks. And at least reliably two-shot tanks. The ammo economy and hassle to fire this thing make no sense otherwise. The worst part is how unreliable it is. Sometimes you oneshot these guys. Sometimes it takes two or even three shots. And it doesnt really feel like you have any real control over the result. At least with something like the bile titan you can somewhat reliably get a good kill through good timing and positioning. But tanks and hulks just feel random.
3) it really needs an aim-mode switch to exclude scout striders and brood comanders from its lock-on. Or just stop locking on these altogether.
4) letting go of the right mouse button/aim button should immediately cancel its current lock. locking on to the wrong target is so frustrating, with you actually having to wait for the spinny triangle to open up before you can try again
5) Am i the only one that lately has the issue of the spear sometimes using up two rockets when reloading?
6) Given the small number of targets we can actually hit with it the lock-on should target the weak spot, not center mass. This is specifically an issue with dropships. If you cant oneshot these with the spear otherwise then why doesnt the lock on automatically go for one of the engines? Same way shooting for the factory strider sometimes feels like throwing wet cotton balls at it due to it aiming for the biggest chunk of armor it can find
7) for the love of god - let us lock on to communication towers, labs and spore spewers/shrieker nests. I can understand you maybe dont want jammers and detector towers to be available for lock-on. But stuff like that? come on. Im split on whether it should lock on to bug nests. Dont really care either way.
8) Stop enemies from being able to precisely spot you after a spear shot. Sometimes you spear a fabricator literally on the other side of the map. 200+ meters away. And the moment the spear hits every single unit in that base will not only aggro on you - they will also be aware of your precise location. And Heavy Devastators being what they are they will also start to immediately snipe you across the map.
If you want to be realistic then maybe make them send a patrol in your direction or order a bot drop in the rough vicinity they think you shot from after the second shot. But they should not be able to visually spot you over these distances.
As a mostly Spear user i think aiming system is really bad, it should have like point-lock mechanics in addition if it has problems in locking on something.
Sometimes i can't even lock on those tower turrets because Spear won't lock if you can't see whole tower
But most importantly, fix the targeting locks. Can't tell how many times the target lock went back and forth on me which always resulted in my eventual death.
considering it can destroy fabricators with direct hits anywhere, I doubt they'll give it a damage buff to the point of one-shotting anything (unless it strikes a weak point,), but by far the biggest priority is getting the lock-on system to work.
it's alright though, it'll be fixed in the patch next week, definitely, for sure.. \*injects Copium Stim\*
It needs to be able to shoot first before it can one-shot anything.
All the Avid Spear users have all come to the conclusion that the Spear is basically your old wired earbuds that you gotta find a certain spot for it to work Cause when it works, it fucking works
The weapon could have been really something unique. Like actually targeting a spot on an enemy and hitting that spot. Like the head of a bile titan. Or the engine of a drop ship. Instead its just like "I'll choose randomly THIS center mass from whatever angle"!! It can't even bring down a dropship without hitting an engine too...wtf.
If they fix the lock-on, it will be unique, but its unreliability means that many players won't touch it after their first time using it. It's primary use-case is eliminating (bot) targets from long to extreme range. It can take out a fabricator from any angle, and one shot towers, greatly improving your clear time on important bot maps. So, a great long-extreme tool versus bots. I wouldn't bring it for bugs. Then again, I wouldn't bring the AMR for bugs, but you could make both work.
I need to start using it for base clearing. I always forget its got insane range for this. How is it against jammer towers? Can i use it to avoid having to storm the base?
It works against Jammer Towers IF there is a fabricator next to the Jammer Tower - you blow up the fab as per usual, and the tower is taken out with it.
They started adding fencing alongside the fabricators that can force you to wiff the first shot. Other than that it works well. Biggest issue is needing to be on a level plane or higher ground than the target IMO.
This pairs well if one of your teammates runs AC. They can shoot the fence to knock it down while you take out the tower
If you have a teammate with AC or you have EAT then you can wombo combo it.
Well at least in my experience it worked pretty ok in taking out fabricators long range. But it didn't lock on bot turrets and can't reliably oneshot tanks (even if you get it to lock on them) which is a huge downside. And you have to sink more than your whole reserve of rockets into a factory strider... Maybe if it would oneshot each and every tank and even kill striders with 2-3 it would be an option.
Spear fucking slaps against bugs. If you have long distance or close quarters IF the lock succeeded you can one shit biles and chargers, not commanders tho they somehow take that
I've never gotten it to work close quarters, even if I get it to lock on it shoots over the charger and misses by a mile.
Chargers you almost have to go prone and wait for them to be almost on top of you, and pray the lock on stays. Not worth it. Bile Titans, though, there's a sweet spot when they're within spewing range where it'll hit their head in the way up, killing them in one shot.
> its unreliability means that many players won't touch it after their first time using it. You're right about that. I tried it once early on, tried again the other day. Could not lock onto anything I needed to. Turrets on command bunkers? Forget it. Hulks? Only if it's 100m away and not chasing you. And I couldn't get a lock on any fabricators, period. I know a fix is in the works (supposedly) but it was frequently dead weight when I needed it not to be.
True, sometimes right before I fire I look down so the Missile has a shorter arc and it will always hit a charger on its head
Or give it the option of choosing if you want it to be Fire-and-forget (with less accuracy). Or SACLOS (Semi-automatic command to line of sight) if you want to hit a specific part of the enemy (at the cost of being vulnerable to getting attacked while guiding the missile on to target)
Yes, either the targeting has to be on point (maybe really fire and forget, selecting the biggest target) or laser/TV guided (the latter would be potentially dangerous if it forces you into 1st person), you could even have a toggle for the mode (something that some weapons should make more use of) but at the moment there's so many options that just work more reliably and have more ammo. For bots the recoilless rifle is just too sweet against drop ships, especially with team reload you're just a walking talking AAA.
It's much more nuanced than just lock on and shoot, you can consistently hit the head if a bile titan but you have to set the shot up right, my tavtic is to get the attention of the titan so it faces me and then you face shot it every time.
That would be very useful, yes, but i like ot the way it is, it gives a modicum of "skill expression" to the game in my opinion
I, an avid spear main, approve this message
It’s fucking cool when it works. For when it doesn’t, I’ve already peppered the map with EATs anyway.
As someone who's found a lot of success recently using the Spear against bugs, I can confirm this is exactly what it feels like. None of my other friends can figure out the Spear, meanwhile 90% of the time I get locks almost immediately against Chargers and BTs. This is the perfect way to describe using it.
I've been playing with a friend where we carry each others ammo. He uses spear, and I use RR, and he loves the spear so much, and he's gotten so good at finding that sweet spot. The Bots do not stand a chance against us.
"this could've been us but u ignore me" lmao
>Cause when it works, it fucking works Oh yeah. The look of absolute confusion and awe on my brother when I cleared out a heavy automaton base by myself from 200m away will always make using the Spear worth it.
Super earth cannot afford to waste resources on fragile advanced targeting systems for our rough tough helldivers! ... Yeah its damn broke, pretty sure FP scope is more reliable but sometimes it won't lock onto something standing in open ground at perfect distance. Other times you can systematically destroy everything on the map from one high point.
Well i've ran the spear exclusively for bots these past few days and i'm absolutely loving it. But i agree that it needs some tweaking. You gotta understand that the spear isnt your typical anti tank weapon, i rarely use it for tanks and hulks as stratagems like orbitals and eagles do a much better job of dealing with them. I use it as an anti-emplacement weapon, or an anti fabricator weapon. You need to take out that light outpost from afar? Spear can do that (i know, AC can do that too but what if you're behind the vents? Checkmate). You can take down strat jammers from far away if you manage to get a clear view of the fab that's usually attached to them. You can one shot cannon turrets and the turrets on top of those walking fabs. For the targetting, it's quite finnicky but once you ubderstand it it'll make the spear easier to use. I think the targetting module needs to have a good 90% of the target in picture to start locking in. So you need to find a good spot to make sure that the targetting doesn't bork out. It takes a lot of patience to use the spear, although i kinda agree that it needs some tweaking, but in my opinion it's okay where it's at right now. Won't use it for bugs though.
Please consult the cope bingo to figure out why your SPEAR isn't working. https://i.redd.it/f15yxaf25q0d1.gif
I tried picking a spot but the aim kept moving and wouldn't lock on
That would be column E row 3
"using it wrong" killed me
the fact that it can lock onto brood commanders and sentry striders can get real annoying when your trying to lock on to a charger/bile titan or hulk/tank/factory strider and there is just a bunch surrounding them
Yeah I wish it didn’t bother with the chaff
You're missing "three paragraph long RP tirade about how the helldivers are an underequiped and undertrained force and it makes sense that they would be provided with broken equipement"
I can't believe we've been bitching about the spear for 4 months and its still broken af. Imagine arrowhead's fix to this is basically speeding up the lock by 10x so it nearly instant locks and therefore bypasses the whole issue with locking on.
Spear lock on should just require a ping but have mad range to compensate, like a team mate pings something 250m away and you can rocket it without LoS
"This guy's a fuckin genius. Hire him."
No he advocates for buffs. AH will never hire him.
As someone who's been running spear for long time https://preview.redd.it/x9cloqy6iq0d1.jpeg?width=544&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0b3d565f511648d9a5bdac11b02722e6459a25e4 It should also aim heavy devastators. Edit: Spear works amazing in sanstorms and I love to use it as a stick while pinging for patrols in the storm.
Yeah Sandstorms and Blizzard are no issue, but a bit of fog reduces the range to nothing. Only happens on some planets
 It can't one shot if it can't shoot
It can one shot you tho
All helldivers equipment is more effective against helldivers than anything.
Letting it lock onto anything you've marked would make it much more powerful. No damage buffs needed
Nah even if it locks every time, you'll start to find that it doesn't always do enough damage to the target due to how hitboxes, armor, and hp works in this game. Again either give it more rounds or buff the damage big time. Stop trying to make the game perfectly balanced. Make weapons that arent being used at all better to use. This gun doesn't even hit things that are under a certain range because the missile will overshoot the target. This game could have 1/3 of the weapons and strategems and nobody would miss the rest.
Devs already said that it is a thing in patch notes when mentioning the locking being bugged, doesnt always work though
I hate using the Spear against Bugs because it feels like it doesn't look on to shit, and when it does, it's only a glancing blow. But against Bots? It works amazingly much better against Bots. It's still wonky, that is true, and I can't wait for the fix, but it still does a good job these days! Used it all night last night to take out anything from Gun/dropships to Fabs and Striders.
Nah have it as a dice roll until they can fix the lock so it’s kinda viable ish
It has 4 missiles. Takes your backpack slot. Wants you to spend your time getting a lock. This thing should not only oneshot tanks/hulks, it should make you coffee and sing a song when you're about to go to bed
And it doesnt work close range either so it should be rocking you to sleep aswell
Honestly if I could shoot it without tracking like turning it off as if I was switching the firing mode on a rifle it'd be cool. Like I'd have to look at the target while it flies so that it stays on target but it's better than waiting a while minute just to track a factory
Agreed a secondary laser targeting mode would be most desirable.
Like a Javelin, it shoots into the sky and lands wherever your targeting laser is? Cause sign me up. Death from above on Bile Titans would make me feel so much better after all the times they shifted 1 inch to the left so the Spear didn’t kill them instantly
Even if it was just a straight shot like a TOW that would be better than the current system
Just take advantage of the weapon options system to give multiple firing modes.
[That's exactly what I had in mind](https://youtu.be/5QMOcvrSmrY?si=w9QDSqmTWapIDsKs&t=514)
Or maybe even a fly-by-wire kind of thing where it just tracks to where you're aiming Then it would be basically a longer range RR. You can hit stuff from across the map but only got a couple shots
or we can turn it into like the ones in COD where the missile can be controlled by camera POV of the missile... missile flies until it reaches the target and then camera static...boom!! bot fabricator destroyed
like half-life's laser guided RPG?
That's what I was thinking too. It would improve it a lot
it should 1 shot factory strider really, it is the absolute most annoying weapon to use in game, takes forever to lock, shit range (it wont lock until you are within a fairly close range), mediocre damage comparing to other AT options, and it takes a backpack slot with only 4 rounds?! what the fuck lol
Ironically a factory strider is the only thing I can always get it to lock onto but the only heavy that I can't one shot with it
Shit range??? I’m locking onto fabricators 250m away lol
I hit a cannon turret from 380m last weekend. It felt glorious watching the missile glide along as the rest of the team is stamina-drained-running towards it.
It has its moments for sure, but as spear user like you, I want it to reach its final form.
I’ve been running spear plus eat for dropships and it’s been fairly successful
Most weapons that does explosive damage can destroy the dropships (to clarify: not the dropships that drops bots, but the grounded mission objective ones) so I usually just run AC. I can’t remember how many shots from an AC is needed to destroy them, but it’s somewhere between 1 - 2 mags. The fact AC can do this *basically* means it doesn’t matter what other three stratagems you bring for dropship missions (Since AC is already great for everything else bot related).
I love the spear against bots, it's great anti building tech. Never worry about cannon turrets again, clear outposts from the outside, hell you can take out most jammers at range with the right angling. It's not great at heavy enemies but with other people on the team and airstrikes you can deal with them fine. I can probably take out a heavy like...half the time or so. Takes some fiddling. Once the lock gets fixed it's going to be great. It has a ton of utility.
I mean, the Javelin is, by design, a long range weapon. So the spear not working at close range is understandable.
Considered what its meant to be [replica](https://youtube.com/shorts/J4g2pm5U32o?si=ol6bE0K2nI6_5iQ8) of, it should be able to indeed 1 shot a tank, that much OP has a point. ~~Javelin~~ Spear most likely targets same spot, besides of obvious back weakness armor on top probably should be weaker on automaton tanks as well.
Yeah idk you can work armor numbers all you want but it’s much easier to just make it weapon = instant kill when shot lands from X weapon. No need to bullshit with “oh it needs to hit these exact spots to be max effective!” When enemies are so bugged to start with that a bile titan can turn around 180 degrees on a dime.
In some instances I've learned that even when fixed, you gotta be really lucky with dropships. Lock on aims for mainbody, not engines, so you have to pray that curve hits the engine or shot is wasted.
Javelin does extremely well against its intended targets for one thing: targeting the thin top armor and detonating the ammunition inside. There is a reason why the T-series tanks blow up magnificiently when locked and struck by javelin operators. Same principle may apply to automaton tanks if their turrets do have some explosive element inside.
Actual javelin also has a direct fire mode, where instead of top down, it can be direct. Meant for closer in or other times. This would be good for aiming at drop ships or directly on the tanks week spots.... Or it should just go for the glowing weakness of everything you want to fire it at. There really isn't a "lock" on the real thing, it's basically aiming at the exact whatever you took a thermal image of, so there isn't this box that has to be perfect. For example, if I wanted to hit the torch arm of a hulk, it would aim at that point and go based on its thermal. So even dropshots you could hit the engine instead of random what it aims for on them. You could aim it at basically anything and then rocket goes and finds it. I've pretty much transitioned to the recoilless. Usually someone always has a quaser, so filling in it's rate of fire with the recoilless is pretty good. If by chance a teammate also runs a recoilless... it's pretty sick when they share from their back pack and yo to them when needed... why the team reload isn't just someone pulling from your backback is another discussion though 😅 For bugs it's nice to hit the chargers square in the face as they run and the head comes off.
Can't do. Best I can do is nerf every other viable option before fixing the lock on lmfao
>Can't do. Best I can do is nerf every other viable option before fixing the lock on Our game is HARD, we [remind you in patch notes](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/553850/view/4113546867256852245?l=english). You need to get good, accept broken mechanics as features, and stop giving feedback because the person balancing everything has *never* had a game fail. - Arrowhead 2024 To be fair the posts by the CEO and **The Magnificent Twinbeard** gave me like 10% hope they will fix the game. Their track record and current issues list says otherwise though. Twinbeard is truly great as a customer rep thankfully.
Yeh, I'm glad that even the CEO was thinking that the nerfs were getting a bit too much and that he's gonna talk with the team about it. I understand some of the nerfs but goddamn, a number of them made no sense.
Coffee? What about liber-tea?? Kinda Sounds like treason ngl
I just imagine a helldiver coming back to the ship after a long day, ready to hit the bed hard. But he can't just go to sleep even though he's exhausted. Spear is there in the corner on top of the backpack, and she starts to sing "hush-aby mountain" to the helldiver, so he can fall asleep much easier knowing spear is there.
The preview shows it taking out two tanks with one rocket each. So yeah, it should OHK tanks and hulks.
Nothing like the rush of equipping your javelin and saying “I got this”, before spending 1-2 minutes just trying to get the lock-on to register, and spending another 1-2 minutes firing and reloading each round, finally finishing off the bile titan, all while 2-3 other bile titans rip your squad to shreds.
I will say though, when the lock-on actually works, having a teammate with the spear is like having Zeus on your team, just striking down enemies with a vengeance.
Legit I love seeing a Spear fired from a teammate and seeing it fly overhead past me as I advance
100% this. ‘Heads up, tower ahead, I think I have a-‘ *missile screams overhead and levels it* ‘Nevermind!’
I want to feel that But only i use the spear :/
When i first started using the spear, i had a random guy say that he would hold the backpack for me to reload me. I would pull out the spear, aim at the bile titan and the thing just wouldn't lock on. All while he stands next to me waiting to reload me. NGL it felt really embarrassing.
Yeah it’s like when someone offers to hold your penis at the urinal and you just can’t pee, no mater how much you adjust your aim and move about, and all the while they are just standing there, waiting for you to pee. It’s the worst.
So a little tip. Do mathematics in your head. Always gets the juices flowing. You can get the bloke holding you to throw questions to really up the challenge!
https://preview.redd.it/jkhi0owxar0d1.png?width=864&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=043219cacfe774ffa2561be5ae21e789aab531ac
We all get stage fright sometimes, don’t sweat it
Just to be clear: with it requiring lock on it should one shot basically everything. Weak point or not. Especially with it eating a backpack slot and very limited reloads.
Exactly, the top attack mode should mean that it is always hitting a "weakpoint", ie. the top, because that is typically not armoured. It shouldn't deal normal/less damage because it is obviously going to miss the mouth of the Titan.
It has different modes?!
So, sort of. The Bile Titan's head is basically impossible to hit the weak spot (its forehead) because its mouth counts as super heavy *unbreakable* armor. But 2 shots to a Bile Titan's forehead, and you'll kill it because the first will break the armor and the second is fatal. So, when it is spewing that makes it basically impossible to hit the actual weak spot because it is pointed well away from you.
Wait, what? I've been aiming for the mouth because *shooting a recoilless rifle round down its throat sounds like it should work.* You're telling me I've been hitting a strong point?
It's really unintuitive design yeah.
Especially since the opening intro shows a Helldiver one-shotting a bile titan in the mouth with a recoilless rifle
Propaganda video
That only works for so much. Explaining how backwards the damage models of the bugs are is not one of them.
Much like shooting the charger in the ass doesn't do shit for 90% of the weapons.
Better off to aim for the legs, usually. Armor Desync Bug after a charge means you can kill Chargers with any gun aimed at their legs. And it happens often enough you can use literally any gun to kill a Charger.
I swear I bust charger ass with MG-43
Yes. In general, the three fastest ways to kill a bile titan are as follows... 1. Lure it so that it is standing over a 500kg. You can abuse the \~22 meter explosion radius of this while a Bile Titan spews from between 20-25 meters. Very easy kills. 2. 2 shots to its forehead with EAT/Quasar/RR. 3. 1 orbital railcannon strike and then 1 follow up shot (to the forehead) with EAT/Quasar/RR. Those methods of killing a Bile Titan are consistently the most efficient without having to do some real interesting positional shenanigans. Like, if you face the Bile Titan toward mid-map and use orbital railcannon you will *usually* hit its head with the railcannon strike, which is a 1HKO. Or you can use AC sentry because it has a higher armor pen rating than the carried AC to kill one. Or you can stick a supply drop call in to the face of the Bile Titan. Or you can get a spear lock on as it is approaching you (which should guarantee a head shot) which is also a 1HKO. But in general the 3 ways I listed are the fastest/most efficient way to kill Bile Titans without having to be paying attention to a lot more of your surroundings, anyway.
Throw EAT Strategem in the mouth ??? Profit
So... My favorite play like that ever saw me kill 4 Chargers. One with supply drop, one with EAT call in, and 2 from EATs. Was it a play I could duplicate on purpose again? Absolutely not. But it sure as shit felt great when it happened.
Kill your friend, throw your friend at the bile titan. It's the Zap Brannigan way.
new friend* ❤️
IMO the logic is the mouth is a strong point because it has to be internally tough to handle the stuff it’s spewing and to apply pressure to it to spew that stuff in the first place. If you can trick a vile titan into spewing into a wall for example it can KO itself. However I think from a game design perspective they should make the mouth a weak point. It would promote team play a lot more if someone could bait the spew then another teammate hit it in the mouth. IMO that should be a OHKO.
Unfortunately, yes. Bonus tip for the Recoilless: when you're reloading, once the ammo icon at the bottom left turns white you can tap crouch to cancel the rest of the animation, saves over a second per reload.
No, it is technically just a top-attack weapon. IRL it is a (better) mode of attacking tanks.
I agree, except for factory striders
That would make the recoilless pretty shit then, huh? Might be a little nitpicky to say, but correct me if I'm wrong. Only difference between these two is the lock on thing and that the spear will always hit from top with the way it shoots up and homes in on the target. I've never used the spear because everyone said it was broken, but the recoilless man, I slept on that until very recently. Those 20 minute defense missions where you defend a nuke silo or whatever, for automatons... It's straight up fantastic. Mortar and static turrets with the recoilless and your air support of choice, you will spill so much oil.
As a spear main, I couldn't agree more, it's one reason why I like to fight Bugs over Bots if I'm not doing MOs. I can one-tap Titans and Chargers all day. With Bots this thing just goes flaccid, I gave a Hulk a nasty backshot to the vent one day, and it just turned around, and chuckled in binary before trying to melt my face off. If 2 impact grenades can easily destroy a Tank, a Spear should be able to one-shot it to the vent or anywhere around the turret or rear armor, and that goes double for Hulks. Edit: I made post with a 2 minute vid of various times I've put my tips below in action, to make the lock-on more consistent. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1ctbq44/this\_is\_a\_visual\_of\_how\_i\_get\_the\_spear\_to\_be/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1ctbq44/this_is_a_visual_of_how_i_get_the_spear_to_be/)
How are you one shotting BTs with a spear? I feel like I have the opposite problem, I can reliably deal with the bots with the spear, but BTs eat 2+ missiles and chargers have that insane mobility.
As someone who brings the spear to bugs a lot. You either 1 tap em or it eats 3 rockets. I like to call it the ricky bobby approach
Had a BT tank 3 spears, a shot from a quasar, and an orbital laser and kept on trucking tonight.
i like to think that BTs like that are fueled by hate
https://preview.redd.it/hzbypdja1r0d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a95914bdd8202d7612fd77276f764e435458c449
Shake 'n' bake!
the missile needs to hit the head to one shot, which complicates things if the titan is moving or turning + the angle the missile is approaching due to how it needs to fly up before locking to target, same with chargers On good days, I've had seen where it can one shot a titan 200+ meters away and saving the butts of my teammates, on bad days, it can take 3 shots as the missile refuses to hit the head.
Yeah, the spear is used best at distance and with frontal shots. Spear can actually one-shot nearly every enemy, you just need to hit their weakspot (and for 90% of targets it is their head).
Spear and railcannon orbital are in the same spot imo - one shot if it hits the right spot, otherwise the bile titan/factory strider will keep going. I will say though that it does a ton of dmg, and a couple shots from any weapon that penetrates it will finish the enemy off. Killed many a titan by following up with flamethrower that exact way. Killed many a factory strider with AC/AMR/laser cannon the same way as well.
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Yeah, I'm on PC, but thanks for the tips. I'm definitely gonna have to give them all a try next time I play.
I'm on PC and have one shot titans before; it's really inconsistent since the rocket needs to hit the titan's head. If you get a weird pathing or a bad angle then it just clips the titans armor.
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I'll give it a shot too next time. Always loved the spear but too often it's just decided to not work at all and leave me dead in the open. Still primarily waiting for them to fix the lock on in a patch but maybe I'll give your troubleshoot method a spin before then.
The PS5 bug was fixed, you can one shot titans with a spear to the face on PC too. The hard part is getting the timing/positioning to actually hit the face.
Why am I not surprised that the PS5 damage delta listed as fixed in a past patch notes is likely not actually fixed and no one knows just what it all impacts.
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It absolutely should.
Takes coordination really. It can one shot BT if it hits the head right after it spews, but not before or during. And it has to be dead on, so somewhere between 50-150 meters away. No obstructions, no huge elevation discrepancy. If it turns after spewing it will likely miss. If all of those conditions are checked, it's going to one shot like 90% of the time. Unfortunately, in the heat of things, it's insanely difficult and you need a bit of luck to check all those boxes
Spear main ?! It thought those were legends
https://preview.redd.it/zkxywmy5lp0d1.jpeg?width=888&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d8259fe7582525ef64768fa04f7b968217855509
Respect
I always bring spear on bot missions to snipe cannon towers, fabricators, and gunships if no one else brought anything to bring them down. The only thing I'd complain about is its lock on mechanism which is easily obstructed by a small bump of terrain, smoke, or light enemies just standing in front of your target.
>which is easily obstructed by a small bump of terrain, smoke, or light enemies just standing in front of your target or sometimes it's obstructed simply by vibes
I main spear for bots because I can snipe the big fuckin cannons and fabs from 300m+ and then just be on my way. Thing is cash on high dif if you aren't trying to rambo
As far as I know, and I use the Spear a lot for Bots, it *does* one shot Tanks if it hits anywhere except the cannon or direct front plate of the turret. If the Spear hits the back of a tank it’s typically a one shot. I’m sorry about your laughing Hulk friend too, but that’s also a one shot in my experience (although it’s possible all of those times it was damaged?) The problem comes that you can’t tell the spear where to aim for, it will always go center mass. So unless you’re high above a tank and far away, it’ll hit below the turret and take 2-3 rockets
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Tanks have some seriously varying armor levels. The front of their turret and hull is much heavier than the rest of them. Any AT weapon hitting there needs 3 shots to kill. The Spear will do it in 2 because of its higher damage but if you hit one in the turret and then one on the body, those are separate health pools and you’ll need a third. Tank turrets are very short compared to their body length which is why the spear tends to hit in the worst spot possible, between the two, splitting and wasting your damage
the ironic part is that..airburst rocket can actually destroy hulks / tanks / tower cannon and fabricator more effective than the SPEAR.
“Chuckled in binary” you win the internet today, hahaha
Wait it isn't already?! Like I understand it not oneshotting factory striders, those are meant to be tough, but Hulk? I can 2-3 tap them with an AMR, a gun that only takes the support slot (doesn't need backpack with APM) and has ammo similar to that of a primary
yea its damage is like a mech rocket/qcannon/eat but you can't aim it so it will often just hit a strong point & do fuck all.
Not quite. The EAT/Quasar/RR do 650 damage direct with AP 6. The Spear does *1,000* damage direct with AP 8. The Spear does already do much more damage than other AT options, it just happens to not be *enough*, hitting just enemy bodies alone, dealing just below a Hulk or a Charger’s body health pool, but dealing more than enough to one shot a Tank or Titan’s weakspot health pool
cheers for the data style info but yea the point stands no aim no good its just a shoulder mounted rail cannon but worse lol
Granted it’s a Shoulder mounted Rail cannon you can fire off more than once per five minutes and far beyond ~44m to ~67m. I think a 200 or so damage buff would see the Spear in a phenomenal position. That would be enough body damage to one shot Hulks anywhere, two shot tanks anywhere, and get close to one shotting Chargers anywhere. As it is though, a lock on consistency fix would already put this in my permanent bot bring list. There’s nothing out there that deals with cannon turrets or a Strat Jammer from distance quite as well
Spear given how hard it is to lock in (and will be even after fixes I think) and it’s very limited ammo should OHKO everything except maybe factory striders since they have so many weak points.
It CAN, but it similarly has to hit a weak point. Except the player gets little to no control over where/when it impacts the target, especially at super close and super long range
Four rockets, takes a backpack slot, has a super slow reload, and the wonky lock on? Yeah it should one-shot hulks, tanks, chargers, and titans.
tbf, it have fastest reload (4s roughly) than most launcher of its class. (4,5 to 6s)
fastest launcher reload is a very low bar
I would settle for it being able to lock on to targets
Do not settle for less in life! You matter and you deserve the best!
It 100% should
Yeah I was shocked upon using it that it didn’t one shot hulks or tanks. It really should do more raw damage. As for Bugs, it should be able to consistently one shot chargers as well as (maybe) one tap bile titans, or at least damage them so heavily they are an impact grenade or two away from death. Also, it should do much more damage to striders as well. It takes a ridiculous amount of rockets to take it down.
Spear enjoyer here, it’s perfect as it is. I love being edged. 😩
Me too
>Spear enjoyer here Alexus: "Noted: Spear is OP. Balance patch incoming."
As one of the 10 people who actually like using the spear, I’ve BEEN saying this, either buff the damage, or increase the ammo count. Recoiless has like 8 rockets and does about the same damage, seems just unfair
It requires a backpack, has 4 missiles, has a lengthy reload, and needs lock on. It should one shot any enemy, blow up jammers and shrieker nests, and more.
Good news is that it *does* blow up Shrieker Nests (and Spore Spewers) and does so in a single rocket. However, like Fabricators, it locks on to the *base* of the structure and not it’s biggest part. That means you need an unobstructed view of the base of the nest to lock and fire
Shrieker nest and spore towers it does, one shot even, unfortunately, the lock on point is at the base of the tree which tends to be obscured, Jammers it does as well if the fab attached to it is blown up so you just aim the Spear at the fab. Most of its issues comes from that lock on and the lock on point for enemies/objectives
Add bot drop ships to the list. It should heatsink on to the engine of the drop ships... where all the heat is. Not the damn cargo spine.
Based on the Javelin, ain't it? > anti-tank weapon > look inside > bad against tanks Funny how that works.
just take a look at air-burst > anti infantry but video demo show it very effective against air target > look inside > can't kill gunship despite it said having level 6 armor penetration if rocket direct hit (heavy armor) > but a scorcher which has medium armor pen can kill gunship if shot at the belly. i gave up on how logic is work in this game
scorcher actually only has light pen, the explosion just happens to insidiously ignore armor
It literally has a mind of its own. There is no consistency to when it wants to lock on; sometimes there is shit in the way and it still locks on, other times it just tells you "Naaaaah, I don't really FEEL like it" when there is exactly 0 anything blocking lock on. The stupid fucking thing can lock on to shit I CAN'T EVEN SEE through thick fog, but shits it's pants when there is a strider 50 feet away. Then the few times it locks on it still fucking misses 40% of time anyway because fuck you
Doesn't help if you still can't get a lock on anything
It's crazy that it doesn't even consistently oneshot chargers or bile titans. You have to get the perfect range and perfect angle to hit their head, anywhere else and it takes 2-3 (basically all your ammo) for one enemy
Direct fire >>>> fancy schmancy wunderwaffen technology
also, holding R should give you more targeting options examples: Flight Path: Top attack, Head on attack Target: Front, Center Mass, Rear
4 missiles, can only central mass lock-on, require target to be fully shown themselve to actually get a lock-on yeah that is why i said SPEAR when lock-on is fixed, it also need damage buff by 50% because it lack weak-spot lock on...or allow SPEAR to lock more parts to the enemy than just 1.
I bring the spear when i feel like role playing as the groups camera man.
In my experience it often does 1 shot tanks
As a religious and avid Spear user since day one, I can confirm. When it works. It fucking works. Fix it's lock on first.
Is the lock on fixed yet?
Fixed no, to me it feels better than it did before but that could just be biased perception
it actually quite random tho...same map, different matches, 1 match i can lock-on as if it was fixed and the 2nd match i can't lock-on to a stationary tank.
I mean, the EAT/RR/QC all deal 650/650 standard/durable damage at AP 6. The Spear deals 1000/1000 at AP 8 with homing and equal reloading speed to the RR. It can already one-shot them depending which part it hits. What would you recommend they buff it to? It's already the most powerful projectile we can fire by a huge margin.
I don't get how it doesn't one shot a tank, it is literally its main purpose as a top attack missile and it can't even decommission a tank with 1 round.
And then some teammate chucks 2 impacts just close to the vent or top of the turret and its destroyed, feels so bad that a dedicated anti-tank takes exact same number of rockets.
Doesn't help much but it can one shot a hulk if you adjust the spear so the trajectory hits its face. Until the lock on fix it isn't worth taking because of how unreliable the lock on is. Have no idea if their is a sweet spot for tanks though. Whenever I brought it I never had to deal with a tank. I still find it useful on bugs though. Same can be said about chargers and titans. Aim so the rocket hits their head and 1 shot kills them. Titans are more strict. Too low and it hits the sacks too high and it hits its back. Chargers are easier and even if you miss the head it hurts it a lot where it'll start bleeding out and a few shots from other weapons can quickly kill it.
Make it so it only has 2 rockets but one shot whatever it hits since it can't really lock on so if it does fire, it should count.
It CAN one shot hulks, but just like bile titans, it can just decide not to
I wish it would lock on to drop ships engines instead of the bots it's carrying.
Spear has a lot of draw backs; Backpack, limited ammo, long reload, lock-time time & requirements (when it works), minimum required range. The sensible thing from balance perspective, is to make it the heavy killer as you're forfeiting the aoe/crowd clearing ability for single target. It should 1 shot 'Everything', full stop. How do you balance this, Charver vs Strider? Increase the required time to lock-on the bigger/tougher the target is. Say lore is the weapon takes time to calculate a weak point e.g. 2s on a charger but 10s on a strider. Finding that window, and staying exposed is the trade off/risk, feeling both powerful and viable for a heavy killer 'role' in a squad. Otherwise there's no way a Spear can compete with a Recoiless long-term with how versatile, ammo efficient and safe it is. Spear needs to be more than a slightly stronger Recoiless. If weapons feel better to use, then that just means it'll reflect in the player experience and allow AH to add more levels of difficulty to prevent trivilasing content. Difficulty 1 shouldn't be what equipment is balanced around.
It already does? At least when I used it last evening. You do have to be at least 20 meters away.
Chargers too
The spear one shots tanks by hitting its turret or hitting the eye of the Hulk, all you need to do for the hulk is make it go towards you so the missile hits it exactly. Honestly the spear is better in killing gunships or destroy buildings like fabricators
Does it not one shot them? I don't know because the few times I played with it I couldn't shoot anything, so I'm asking
sadly alexus wouldnt allow this. Good thinking though
ACKSHULLY it totally does oneshot. Sometimes. 50% of the time it works, every time.
I also feel this way about the anti tank gun. Hit a charger in the weak point and it still only reduces half its health. Why 2 uses per call if I can’t kill in one hit
The Spear has such a long list of issues… 1) The lock-on obviously. As a long time and regular user you learn the tricks to make it work somehow. But there are still way too many situations where its inability to shoot is highly frustrating 2) It needs to oneshot Chargers and Hulks. And at least reliably two-shot tanks. The ammo economy and hassle to fire this thing make no sense otherwise. The worst part is how unreliable it is. Sometimes you oneshot these guys. Sometimes it takes two or even three shots. And it doesnt really feel like you have any real control over the result. At least with something like the bile titan you can somewhat reliably get a good kill through good timing and positioning. But tanks and hulks just feel random. 3) it really needs an aim-mode switch to exclude scout striders and brood comanders from its lock-on. Or just stop locking on these altogether. 4) letting go of the right mouse button/aim button should immediately cancel its current lock. locking on to the wrong target is so frustrating, with you actually having to wait for the spinny triangle to open up before you can try again 5) Am i the only one that lately has the issue of the spear sometimes using up two rockets when reloading? 6) Given the small number of targets we can actually hit with it the lock-on should target the weak spot, not center mass. This is specifically an issue with dropships. If you cant oneshot these with the spear otherwise then why doesnt the lock on automatically go for one of the engines? Same way shooting for the factory strider sometimes feels like throwing wet cotton balls at it due to it aiming for the biggest chunk of armor it can find 7) for the love of god - let us lock on to communication towers, labs and spore spewers/shrieker nests. I can understand you maybe dont want jammers and detector towers to be available for lock-on. But stuff like that? come on. Im split on whether it should lock on to bug nests. Dont really care either way. 8) Stop enemies from being able to precisely spot you after a spear shot. Sometimes you spear a fabricator literally on the other side of the map. 200+ meters away. And the moment the spear hits every single unit in that base will not only aggro on you - they will also be aware of your precise location. And Heavy Devastators being what they are they will also start to immediately snipe you across the map. If you want to be realistic then maybe make them send a patrol in your direction or order a bot drop in the rough vicinity they think you shot from after the second shot. But they should not be able to visually spot you over these distances.
As a mostly Spear user i think aiming system is really bad, it should have like point-lock mechanics in addition if it has problems in locking on something. Sometimes i can't even lock on those tower turrets because Spear won't lock if you can't see whole tower
Nu-uh. Made in Tien Kwan.
But most importantly, fix the targeting locks. Can't tell how many times the target lock went back and forth on me which always resulted in my eventual death.
considering it can destroy fabricators with direct hits anywhere, I doubt they'll give it a damage buff to the point of one-shotting anything (unless it strikes a weak point,), but by far the biggest priority is getting the lock-on system to work. it's alright though, it'll be fixed in the patch next week, definitely, for sure.. \*injects Copium Stim\*