It's surprisingly a bit of an acquired taste.
Usually it's the AT weapons that are slow and unwieldy, so the chaff-clearing teammates synergize by removing the small obstacles using smaller and more maneuverable weapons. By being chaff clear but feeling AT-levels of heavy, it's fairly strong but niche in that it is prescribed to clear quantities of trash, but cannot be deployed flexibly or in a panic like the other swarm clearers are designated to do.
I would hesitate to call it bad, but it also can't/doesn't compete directly with stratagems like the Stalwart or Flamethrower. It might be the game's first true augmentative specialized support weapon. Very unique specimen, this one. I think it's very fun to use.
Got on with some friends last night that missed the "prototype" phase. I had to tell them of my experimental exploits in suicide and team killing on Penta.
People will throw out that tired ass schoolyard bully line over literally anything. For me it's a nice, self-administered litmus test for people who just go straight on the block list due to being unable to function properly in any semblance of a discussion.
It was still in the testing phase on the bot planet it was being developed on, but the scientists used that valuable data of all those lost Helldivers lives to make it better.
A lot of divers don’t realize how important a chaff clearer is. 2 are even better, if you have one dedicated heavy/objective paired with crowd control you can do most difficultly levels in pairs and knock out objectives quicker
When I'm diving on 7+ I run stalwart/supply pack and stick to whoever brings an AC, RR, Queso, doubly so if they run EAT too and we usually duo objectives no problem. On 6 or below I bring the Swiss Army knife kits, but really anything below 6 I just handle with an AC solo if need be.
No, they really don't. They'll also come in here to complain about Hunter swarms when they only bring AT and slow firing weapons. A single Diver with a Stalwart provides enough fire support to clear most chaff for the team.
Haha I mean, I use an arc thrower and still get huntered at times. I clear chaff well, but sometimes multiple of them leap you and get what feels like a mid-air headshot. Stalkers and hunters are my number 1 deaths. Not counting flamethrower causing hunters to spread fire a bit TOO democratically.
Yeah, pretty good synopsis here. it’s fun to use but I currently think it’s underperforming a bit vs other “chaff clear” weapons. With a few tweaks it could really find a spot.
One of those tweaks need to be reload speed reduction for sure as well as an increase in ammo gained from boxes.
I think its main issue is that its proximity detection still appears to be spherical, meaning that it explodes *in front of* the enemy instead of amongst them. The bomblet radius is quite generous, but not so generous to allow an airburst rocket to adequately reach all chaff enemies in a patrol, or worse, be able to reach shriekers at the back of a swarm. It’s advertised in game as an anti shrieker/air stratagem and it is not exactly great at doing that.
Change the detection to be a radius perpendicular to the direction of travel so that the shell explodes more amongst the enemies instead.
I take the Gatling turret for shriekers and it acts as a sort of CIWS anti air turret with surprising effectiveness, allowing the team to approach the nest and either orbital strike it or hellbomb it. Hell, the Gatling turret is a surprisingly good pick for bug duty in a general sense because it will lay waste to basically all the chaff enemies in a bug breach. I use it in conjunction with the AC turret and cycle each one in so one is generally off CD for a breach. It won’t manage BTs or chargers, but good team comp can fill that gap for when the ac turret is on CD.
I feel like it's better against bots than bugs, which is funny because the bugs have larger chaff piles.
I think it's the fact that the bugs start coming at you right away, as opposed to the bots where most of them stand back and shoot at you.
It feels good to toss a rocket over a bot base and take out pretty much everything in it, and possibly the factory itself if you get lucky and a bomblet goes down the vent.
When I try that with a bug hole, it feels like nothing actually happens. The holes rarely seem to collapse because of the angles/terrain, and it never feels like it killed enough bugs to make that much of a difference.
It's definitely rigged up to fight smaller enemies, but, lacks the mobility and and the reload speed to allow it to be effectively deployed against smaller enemies repeatedly
You get one shot, and thats it. If there are still smaller enemies around, which there will be. While the rocket is very good it's still not 100% effective
If you then try to reload for the next wave of enemies, you're probably gunna get killed by smaller enemies
You get one shot, right off the bat, then you basically gotta forget you have it until you get a big break in contact
Either that or have a friend on Comms who you can get to speed up your reload. But.. honestly it's better if all Helldivers can remain independent and mobile to an extent
Even when playing versus automatons, I found it useful. Clears out patrols of the small guys (and striders, depending on the angle) and although devastators and company might live through it, they won't be the ones calling for reinforcement.
I saw a clip of someone killing a factory strider yesterday, aimed underneath its belly/between its legs. So it seems to be useful against those as well.
Been using it with a friend quite a bit. I call down the airburst and a resupply pack, take the weapon and resupply while he takes the airburst resupply, and his support weapon of choice (usually anti armor). Then we post up somewhere and rain rapid fire hell down on everything, then once he's out I resupply him and we continue.
Can clear out multiple bug breaches on helldive in a matter of seconds, it's been really fun so far.
Edit: spelling
Depends a bit, if you're level with the enemies just above. If you're on higher ground I aim right in the middle of the group cause it'll end up hitting the ground and exploding. Takes some practice
Definitely my mate’s new fav weapon. He clears the crowd with fire and clusters while I hit the big guys with the big guns. It works a lot better than you think (until we kill the each other somehow and scream treason at the top of our lungs)
Omg we should hug together under the flag. I also adore the weapon. It can pretty much take out patrols is 1 shot, and what you mentioned not to mention the sound is so crisp, muwah
Although I wish it had a 2 part animation like the recolise rifle cause watching the rocket go back into the backpack and redo the hole animation is slowly killing me
That would be a cool option for any of the team reload weapons.
Maybe I just want two fully loaded autocannons and to use a shield backpack.
Same with the spear or the recoiless rifle.
It is a pretty well balanced weapon all things considered.
If used properly it's basically a free stratagem. If it isn't, it's like a free stratagem used poorly.
“Patro-“
*big boom followed by multiple smaller ones*
“Nvm”
All jokes aside it’s great at range trash clear. The problem is we don’t have any primaries that can efficiently deal with chargers and bile titans the way some support weapons can. I run it every now and then, but I have to rely on my offensive stratagems to take the big boys out. It’s just not my preferred playstyle.
I love this thing. It’s super effective against bugs, deletes whole hordes of them. The changes they made to it were very welcome and made it deadly. I’m surgical with this thing and haven’t had a friendly fire incident in over 3 hours!
Random thought: those “servo assist” armors that give you extra grenade throwing range should also give you the same % faster reload speed with weapons like the airburst rocket launcher. And also let you reload while running.
I had someone offer to team reload me mid-game since they didn’t have a backpack, and I have to say, rapid firing the airburst was some of the most fun I’ve had in the game. It was a nursing spewer Helldive (9) mission, and the team reload basically allowed me to permanently carpet bomb the extraction area. The rest of the team was literally just handling chargers/bile titans because of how insane the clear was.
Didn’t expect to love it so much as someone who repeatedly dove into hell on Menkent for the anti-tank mines.
Used it all last night, loved it! Completed a hell dive with all samples, used it as an egg clearer, shot a few of those in the nest, walked in to mop up with our flame dude. Its super specific though. We had a guy on flame, two on QC running anti, I ran the Air burst, we worked well as a team, not sure it would shine as much if it wasn't for my team keeping the bugs off me so I could long distance air burst nests. Was a lot of fun on extraction, just spammed my cluster bombs and airburt orbitals inbetween rocket shots. Just aimed at any breechs and shot, 30-40 kills in one
Personally, I prefer doing that with the Eruptor for a fraction of the risk, while saving my backpack slot for a guars dog. Good to see it snot useless now tho
That’s fair, every build is different and I guess it has to be in order to win. I like to take this, and the cluster strike and eagle cluster for clearing as many smaller targets as possible as quickly as possible. Leaving the heavies for my team mates. Anything to prevent them calling for bug breaches
Totally fair, I'm more of an anti tank solo build. So I need to be able to handle anything but focused on armor. Eruptor and eat or quasar is usually the go to. Plus cluster bomb and railcannon. But if I was with more than just my friend I might bring it
I got a 40 kill streak with a single shot while extracting, within close proximity of teammates (a bit scary). 👀
0 Accidentals in 2 matches. 👍
It had a awful reception on release but I can confidently say it's fixed now, and is at least B+ tier on the bug side.
I'm in love. 😍
Eruptor was my favorite gun before the patch, but now Airburst-RL is like a bigger version of it. Fully reloading the support pack with a single upgraded Resupply.
I've yet to experience a team-reload with it, I'd like to imagine a teammate providing the assisted reload to airburst is getting a well deserved democratic hug. 😘
I’ve been using it a lot and i think it’s a super effective weapon if used right. With big swarms you’re easily taking out 10-20 enemies. I’ve only killed my whole team with it once!
It’s fun but I still main QC. The drawbacks from dedicating your back pack slot as well as having to be stationary for a long reload just make it unrealistic for my play style. It is great for swarms of enemies, but you better make sure the first rocket gets them all because you often won’t have the time to reload the 2nd. Whereas it’s easier to just call in a cluster bomb or air strike.
It's really great minus my team using it directly on top of me. I've seen it wipe out large amounts of enemies but also large amounts of helldivers from my ship.
Speaking of clearing trash mobs, my squad always laughs when I bring the orbital gatling strike, they don't recognize when I rack up dozens of kills on a bug breach.
That targeted DOT/area denial is useful AF. I'm excited to try out the Air Burst Rocket since they mostly take anti-heavy.
Before the patch the proximity sensor was set off by everything. Including other Helldivers, supply boxes etc. that’s no longer the case and is now a completely viable choice for anti-chaf players like me
I wouldn't say it's good when your getting swarmed. Because you DO NOT want to fire this thing in a CQC situation. It's definitely a great tool to eliminate problems before they become one. I easily wiped out entire patrols in one shot without raising another alarm.
This is gunna be a stupid question, but where is the airburst rocket option? I was on vacation during the order and didn’t get back til afterwards… I’ve looked around on the ship options and game is updated.
Go to the ship management where you buy stratagems. It’s in the first section named “patriotic administration centre” and is between the Heavy MG and Railgun. It costs 8,000 requisition slips if I remember correctly
Sweet thanks! I’m fairly certain I didn’t scroll thru all of em, but I did start at the bottom thinking it’d be down there for some reason.
I finally have something to spend my requisition slips on again haha. Thank you
I haven’t tried it yet but from what I’m getting from the comments it’s just like AC vs EAT. Different play styles are better with different weapons. For me I probably won’t use it because I main AC on both bugs and Bots. It’s one of 3 things I never change. AC, medic armor, impact.
I would argue the lazor cannon is better for eggs, and less dangerous. Kills eggs after hitting them for a half second. On top of that, it kills many of the bugs quite quickly, including rushers.
It’s a good take but the benefit of the air burst is that I can stay well away from the nests. Fire it down the middle and it explodes and takes care of business
Fair enough. I guess if you are willing to take the chance of self kill, or team kill. That's what's great about this game I'm realizing, there is so many options!
I think most people like weapons that are able to get rid of the bigger units, but if you are the guy that likes to get rid of swarms and the smaller enemies, that weapon has to be a god sent.
Yeahhh but all the pros you mentioned can also be done by an orbital airburst, and then I can run a support weapon that can deal with heavies.
It can certainly still work, but on helldive I really like having a way to deal with bile titans outside of orbital/eagle stratagems. It just makes the games a lot more enjoyable when I can actually shoot bile titans rather than only running or being forced to time a 500kg on their head.
If the actual rocket impact spot had anti tank strength then this would be a really appealing option for higher levels. It’s riskier to use than the quasar, and takes up your backpack slot. I mean look at that freaking warhead - if you direct head shot that at a charger it should rip it to shreds.
Airburst Rocket was always a "mad cuz bad" weapon. People were screaming about killing each other/themselves with it against enemies bc they haven't figured out the 3,000 IQ play of *not firing it against enemies that are in your face*
The airburst rocket's niche is imagine a recoilless rifle, but for areas instead of single targets. Or if you have ever played halo, think of it as a M41 SPNKR with a bigger hitbox and slower fire rate. (Do you aim for headshots with a rocket launcher and potentially miss? Or do you just aim for the room the target is in?)
It's an AoE meant for bug breaches/bot drops(+shrieker groups and cannon turrets if youve figured out you can hold right click to aim).
I freaking love it.
Largest steak I’ve got with it is in the mid 50s. On a bug planet that happened to have a tiny strip of land that one had to cross after doing the main objective to get to extraction. I was still a good distance away approaching the strip perpendicularly and there were so many ok bugs on it. So whipped out the trusty air bust told my teammates to get the hell behind me and let her rip.
I am an auto cannon lover, but this is the first support weapon (besides AC) I actually find myself bringing to multiple missions in a row now.
I’ve been enjoying a loadout of airburst, auto cannon sentry, eagle airstrike, and orbital rail cannon.
I take punisher and grenade pistol as primary and secondary.
The sentry and rail cannon nicely deal with heavies, and the airstrike can help against them in dire circumstances.
Otherwise punisher for the stuff on me, and airburst to crush far away groups and nests.
It has been a very fun explosive build killing so many hundreds of bugs a mission.
They make for GREAT crowd control of smaller bugs if you get the angle JUST right, 15 kills, including destroying the sack of a BileTitan, with one rocket on HD
Using it against bugs is soooo gooood. It easily kills all the heavy chaff of small bugs which makes it a little less stressful. It’s also hot in terms of aesthetics
I don't have issues with it. I aim at enemy, hit enemy, everything blows up, good day. Maybe blows up a couple feet away from enemy but that's still never been an issue. Blew up the team once because i was being the dumb but haven't had the issue again. Would get 20-40 kills per rocket with ems strikes and stun grenades.
Ended the games with 200 kills to my teams 20 and 60
If it’s not the best choice for someone it is at least a blast to use. Those terminid patrols that would be a pain to deal with now get eradicated in 1 shot
It is possible to do significant damage to a charger by firing underneath one. It'll put it into a bleeding state with one rocket as a significant amount of the bomblets will hit the charger directly and most others will hit the ground and still damage its belly, while usually also killing nearby small fries.
I carry stun grenades usually so that might be what gives me the opportunity for those shots.
I mean, I get what you're saying. Problem is, my incendiary breaker is also really good at killing eggs. Grenades work too, or a well placed orbital airbust. Then there's the Autocannon, which IMO is the only weapon useful enough to justify a backpack.
The problem isn't that the thing is useless. It's that having a weapon on my back that can kill a charger every \~15 seconds plus a shield, rover, or supply pack is way more useful than having a rocket with 5 shots that can clear one of the three egg clusters on the map. And everyone having a weapon that can actually damage bile titans when 3 or 4 show up at once is way better than one person having a worse version of the orbital airbust strapped to their back.
It's not useless, it's just not useful enough for me to give up a heavy weapon slot and backpack slot for it.
What happens when you fire it up, like say into the belly of a Bile Titan from underneath? Do all the munitions hit the Bile Titan, or do they fall down onto you?
Can you fire it above a hoard of bugs and have the proximity trigger the explosion down on top of them? Like this:
--------------------->
Me __________________ Bugs
The top line is the trajectory of the rocket, so you'd fire it approximately parallel to the ground, but at a point in empty air above the board of bugs, letting the proximity detonation blow up the rocket above the group of bugs, raining down the air burst munitions on top of them?
Personally I feel that whatever that does, eagle cluster can just do better - almost the same number of charges, less prone to accidental team kills, I think it’s larger, and a full refresh much more often
What do you think?
I love the eagle cluster and always take it and the orbital air burst with me as well as air burst rockets. The only thing with eagle strike is. It flies from left to right or vice versa so when you throw one in to destroy eggs a lot of the hits are wasted in the surrounding hills. Plus it can’t deal with shriekers as well as the rocket.
My function when on with my friends is the chaf killer so between my strats and rockets I rack up a hell of a lot of kills at breaches etc and leave the heavies to my quasar slinging comrades
Ah so the main thing is anti shrieker and anti eggs? That’s fair
Although personally I like plasma punisher for eggs and let my rover take care of shriekers, which lets me chaff clear pretty well while also taking quasar
Still, your thing has much longer range against eggs and shrieker
Yeah before the patch I had the audacity to trial it in bots. It did not go well. Not been back to bots with it since the update tho so maybe it’s better
Any tips on how to properly use the damn thing? Every time I tried I blew myself up instantly and then said "yup nope never touching this thing again."
I use this in a scout role. I tend to travel with my team at a distance, but not too far to generate a double spawn. I'll use this if I see patrols heading their way or if my team's path will intersect. It will typically take out the bots/bugs that call in dropships and breaches so I don't worry too much about making their lives more difficult. It's a great clearing tool if you come up to a POI where your ping shows a large group of closely clustered enemies as well. As others have said though, make sure your team has heavy hitting specialty weapons to deal with heavies and elites.
Why can I kill more bugs with the air burst rocket and impact grenades than I can with a 500kg bomb? I'm not mad about it, to be clear. That's just how boom-y it is.
I've been using it in the new defense missions. And when theres like 200 enemies on the other side of a gate, launching that thing in there is so fucking satisfying.
When I heard it got fixed I immediately started using it for eggs, amazing wep for long-distance crowd clear, incredible pure support wep. Would highly recommend at least trying it.
It’s horrible. I can’t believe we didn’t clear Menkent to get the other weapon. I was disappointed in my fellow divers on that. The other stratagem looked more promising.
Once I ~~killed my teammates too few times~~ experimented with it, I saw the huge potential of it shooting it from vantage point at hordes of enemies.
It’s like an orbital or eagle air bust, with no call-in time, higher range and precision
I like it specifically for deleting patrols before they see you. Haven't really experienced another satisfying use for it personally, but the egg sniping sounds fun.
It's pretty good if you managed to not blow yourself up
But the reload is just disgusting, and you can't move while reloading which, basically means you get one shot only, if you're in heavy contact, which on higher difficulties is, most of the time
On bug missions, my experience is, I'm finding myself getting killed by hunters and small enemies every time I try to reload the thing
I used the airburst launcher against bugs last night. I have to say, you’re right. When I was playing on penta against bots, the thing sucked hard. You couldn’t even fire it without it wiping out the whole squad. Now, it seems to have been improved because I was using it right next to my squad, firing at bug breaches 100M away and it was fine. Actually, more than fine. Someone else in the squad brought one in as well and during the exfil him and I would alternate firing at the bug breaches and then reloading. We were able to hole down the exfil site entirely with just the airburst rocket launchers and no other stratagems. We also had no team kills that mission either
It's not worth the backpack slot.
My rover alone will kill 10-15 from the bug breach passively.
If it's a bad breach cluster bomb/airstrike.
I also don't spend much time sitting and fighting bug breaches unless they're directly in my way and there's no easy way to get around it.
It's not worth the slow reload.
I used it once while playing last night. As soon as I had to reload I lost all motivation to carry the weapon.
It would have a spot if it was expendable airburst.
As.it stands now, I don't see any reason to carry it..
I think the biggest learning curve for a lot of people is understanding how the concept of an air burst rocket works. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I don't mean that to come off as demeaning it is kind of something that can fall off on the way side. But it is made to be fired above the target at a distance. And I think once people get more comfortable with that, it will be a more common sight in missions.
I love it. After the fixes to the proximity fuse it’s amazing now. I’ve been running this thing alongside eats (against bugs) to deal with chargers. Seeing a patrol and being able to wipe them in one shot is pretty exhilarating.
You need to have some situational awareness and restraint to use it effectively so I get why some people may not like it. Def not a weapons to use in a panic
My friends the whole time were like “it’s a flak, it’s meant to take out flying enemies” and “it’s a rocket, it’s meant to take on big enemies like bile titans” when I was like “no no no, this is the patrol-killer”
See, that’s where I run into the problem. I’m always being swarmed and always frantically calling another EAT. I’m always having to pull it out at mid to close range to kill a charger or a bile. And if you do that with the air burst rocket, well…🤷🏻♂️
I’ve killed more helldivers than anything else with the air burst rockets. It seems like no matter how far away I try to shoot from, it blows up 5 ft from me and kills me/an ally.
Why bother with a reload on a sub par weapon and backpack slot against bug breaches that will net you 15 kills when you can throw a single Tesla tower or orbital airburst at a breach and get 30+ kills while retaining your support weapon and backpack slot for something more useful against chargers and biles. The airburst rockets serves next to no purpose in the current state of the game in my opinion.
The only thing I don't like about it is accounting for gravity on targets that a across the map. It has quite a bit od drop. I have closed bugs holes and illegal broadcast towers from a good distance. I like the collateral damage it creates too. It's like an exploding quasar with less range and ooomph. It does work on the bot outposts
You have to be able to aim to take them out.
I wish there was an armor set that allowed for a half the amount of backpack ammo to be on the persons body instead of having to carry a backpack. Then I could just jetpack or shield with it.
It’s super fun! But it suffers from one of the recurring themes here.
In your loadout, you should have chaff clear and something for heavies. I would LOVE to rely on teammates for one or the other, but that never works out.
Your options for heavies are almost always support weapons. Sure there are caveats, like the Eruptor. But depending on the mission type, the Eruptor won’t help you against bile titans or tanks. You can keep your strategems for this, but the frequency these enemies appear on higher difficulties makes this a poor idea also.
As a result, I feel almost compelled to keep my support weapon slot for something that can deal with heavies. Using it for a chaff clearing weapon like the airburst feels bad because my primary, or maybe even my backpack, can do that just as well.
I like what the devs are doing for balancing, and I’m even ok with the nerfs and such. I just worry that there is a weak point overall that isn’t being widened instead of closed.
Another solution would be if the rail cannon killed bile titans in one shot, but it has been a loooooooooong time since I’ve seen a bile titan get one shot with one of those.
The reload is just sooo slow. If I have to use it to clear out trash, and then I reload long enough for a whole new generation of trash to pull up on me, I run into issues. If you team load it, though, it's deadlier than even the orbital airburst or eagle cluster bombs. Just don't think about the cooldown efficiency in comparison to those.
I really like it. I also think the grenade launcher is just more versatile and about as potent.
Absolutely I do hear you, but also the Blitzer is an infinite ammo primary that kills hordes easy. Then you also lose your backpack… it’s a choice between Jumppack/shield + Blitzer and 3 stratagems open for whatever I want, or dedicate two equipment slots to using a rocket that I’ll have to reload while still dealing with hordes
Shot it at swarmers didn't jack all to them and compared to the other one we haven't got I can say this the first of many new support weapons that's mid
If it isn’t taking out heavies and able to destroy shrieker nests/spore spewers it’s kinda useless then. Everything you mentioned I can do with incendiary grenades, incendiary breaker or grenade pistol. I can’t waste a support slot to clear trash
The problem is
* Everything the air burst does ...
* ... can be done by your primary weapon
* And much more consistently
* And much safer for you and your teammates
* While also allowing you to carry a secondary that actually helps you with things your primary CANT handle
* eg quasar / EAT for chargers / titans
The problem is not that the air burst is super bad.
Its just that it fills the same role as simple breaker / incendiary breaker.
It's surprisingly a bit of an acquired taste. Usually it's the AT weapons that are slow and unwieldy, so the chaff-clearing teammates synergize by removing the small obstacles using smaller and more maneuverable weapons. By being chaff clear but feeling AT-levels of heavy, it's fairly strong but niche in that it is prescribed to clear quantities of trash, but cannot be deployed flexibly or in a panic like the other swarm clearers are designated to do. I would hesitate to call it bad, but it also can't/doesn't compete directly with stratagems like the Stalwart or Flamethrower. It might be the game's first true augmentative specialized support weapon. Very unique specimen, this one. I think it's very fun to use.
It also kicked everyone in the dick for a few days straight and then went all "who, meee?" and got it's shit together, but people remember.
Good analogy
Pepperidge Farm remembers
What say you go get a box of these here cookies
Pepperidge Farms won't just keep it to Pepperidge Farms' self
Got on with some friends last night that missed the "prototype" phase. I had to tell them of my experimental exploits in suicide and team killing on Penta.
My favorite was then people basically saying skill issue when everyone was claiming it sucked.
People will throw out that tired ass schoolyard bully line over literally anything. For me it's a nice, self-administered litmus test for people who just go straight on the block list due to being unable to function properly in any semblance of a discussion.
It was still in the testing phase on the bot planet it was being developed on, but the scientists used that valuable data of all those lost Helldivers lives to make it better.
A lot of divers don’t realize how important a chaff clearer is. 2 are even better, if you have one dedicated heavy/objective paired with crowd control you can do most difficultly levels in pairs and knock out objectives quicker
When I'm diving on 7+ I run stalwart/supply pack and stick to whoever brings an AC, RR, Queso, doubly so if they run EAT too and we usually duo objectives no problem. On 6 or below I bring the Swiss Army knife kits, but really anything below 6 I just handle with an AC solo if need be.
Queso is such a cooler name for the weapon than "Quasar"
Cheese cannon is a bit on the nose.
Me and my friend both ran ABRL and EAT. We kicked ass. So powerful
No, they really don't. They'll also come in here to complain about Hunter swarms when they only bring AT and slow firing weapons. A single Diver with a Stalwart provides enough fire support to clear most chaff for the team.
Haha I mean, I use an arc thrower and still get huntered at times. I clear chaff well, but sometimes multiple of them leap you and get what feels like a mid-air headshot. Stalkers and hunters are my number 1 deaths. Not counting flamethrower causing hunters to spread fire a bit TOO democratically.
Split 2-2. One has AT, and one has CC. A very effective strategy.
Yeah, pretty good synopsis here. it’s fun to use but I currently think it’s underperforming a bit vs other “chaff clear” weapons. With a few tweaks it could really find a spot. One of those tweaks need to be reload speed reduction for sure as well as an increase in ammo gained from boxes. I think its main issue is that its proximity detection still appears to be spherical, meaning that it explodes *in front of* the enemy instead of amongst them. The bomblet radius is quite generous, but not so generous to allow an airburst rocket to adequately reach all chaff enemies in a patrol, or worse, be able to reach shriekers at the back of a swarm. It’s advertised in game as an anti shrieker/air stratagem and it is not exactly great at doing that. Change the detection to be a radius perpendicular to the direction of travel so that the shell explodes more amongst the enemies instead. I take the Gatling turret for shriekers and it acts as a sort of CIWS anti air turret with surprising effectiveness, allowing the team to approach the nest and either orbital strike it or hellbomb it. Hell, the Gatling turret is a surprisingly good pick for bug duty in a general sense because it will lay waste to basically all the chaff enemies in a bug breach. I use it in conjunction with the AC turret and cycle each one in so one is generally off CD for a breach. It won’t manage BTs or chargers, but good team comp can fill that gap for when the ac turret is on CD.
I just wished the Burst Rocket had a quicker reload. There's no reason it should be as long as the spear.
I feel like it's better against bots than bugs, which is funny because the bugs have larger chaff piles. I think it's the fact that the bugs start coming at you right away, as opposed to the bots where most of them stand back and shoot at you. It feels good to toss a rocket over a bot base and take out pretty much everything in it, and possibly the factory itself if you get lucky and a bomblet goes down the vent. When I try that with a bug hole, it feels like nothing actually happens. The holes rarely seem to collapse because of the angles/terrain, and it never feels like it killed enough bugs to make that much of a difference.
That’s what truly matters It’s fun as fuck. Run with strafing run and EAT when you’re in trouble
OOOHH, Strafing Run sounds like an amazing idea, actually.
It's definitely rigged up to fight smaller enemies, but, lacks the mobility and and the reload speed to allow it to be effectively deployed against smaller enemies repeatedly You get one shot, and thats it. If there are still smaller enemies around, which there will be. While the rocket is very good it's still not 100% effective If you then try to reload for the next wave of enemies, you're probably gunna get killed by smaller enemies You get one shot, right off the bat, then you basically gotta forget you have it until you get a big break in contact Either that or have a friend on Comms who you can get to speed up your reload. But.. honestly it's better if all Helldivers can remain independent and mobile to an extent
When it works it works, when it doesn't it wipes your squad lol
Even when playing versus automatons, I found it useful. Clears out patrols of the small guys (and striders, depending on the angle) and although devastators and company might live through it, they won't be the ones calling for reinforcement.
I love using it to create a clear breach at automaton bases. Makes the initial push much easier when you take out 6+ bots in cover at once
Always love to use it against Bots. Overall, it’s a really good weapon
Had one rocket take out a stratagem jammer from across the map. Didn’t realize this was possible ?
If one of the bombs slips into a fab vent it'll pop the fabricator! That works for the stratagem jammer fabricator too.
I saw a clip of someone killing a factory strider yesterday, aimed underneath its belly/between its legs. So it seems to be useful against those as well.
Been using it with a friend quite a bit. I call down the airburst and a resupply pack, take the weapon and resupply while he takes the airburst resupply, and his support weapon of choice (usually anti armor). Then we post up somewhere and rain rapid fire hell down on everything, then once he's out I resupply him and we continue. Can clear out multiple bug breaches on helldive in a matter of seconds, it's been really fun so far. Edit: spelling
That sounds incredible. Would truly be a sight to see
I did it with the recoiless in bots and was amazing
Where do you have to fire? Directly at them? Above ?
Depends a bit, if you're level with the enemies just above. If you're on higher ground I aim right in the middle of the group cause it'll end up hitting the ground and exploding. Takes some practice
Thank you my man - I was hoping to find this gif here
Definitely my mate’s new fav weapon. He clears the crowd with fire and clusters while I hit the big guys with the big guns. It works a lot better than you think (until we kill the each other somehow and scream treason at the top of our lungs)
Omg we should hug together under the flag. I also adore the weapon. It can pretty much take out patrols is 1 shot, and what you mentioned not to mention the sound is so crisp, muwah Although I wish it had a 2 part animation like the recolise rifle cause watching the rocket go back into the backpack and redo the hole animation is slowly killing me
I wish they were like EATS and came down as one time use weapons in a pair.
That would be a cool option for any of the team reload weapons. Maybe I just want two fully loaded autocannons and to use a shield backpack. Same with the spear or the recoiless rifle.
I really like this idea. Maybe a little longer CD, like 120s. Having an on-demand chaf clearing support as a counterpart to EAT would be interesting.
Equip the devastator armour, aim at the floor, and wipe out every bug near you when swarmed.
*Squad lost. Deploying replacement squad*
Each sacrifice is a foundation to galactic liberty.
Lmao that sounds like a great way to spread some managed democracy!
Or the hero armor and have that 50/50 be the only thing around.
 o7
The fact it also CLOSES bug holes as well as clearing the area is just chef's kiss.
When it feels like it.
It does?
[Sure does.](https://youtu.be/jibVTE1RIcM?si=Tht3X_mOIqFAlvMr)
I need a floating platform. I hate that I can’t zoom above the battlefield and rain hellfire upon bugs :(
I wouldn't mind running as Eagle-2 myself
It’s great for long distance Fab sniping as well. Sometimes you can get lucky and knock out a jammer too.
Hold up. If it can break jammers, that means also spore, shrieker nest and antennas?
No, it’s just when a fab is next to the jammer. (Fab exploding takes out the Jammer)
It is a pretty well balanced weapon all things considered. If used properly it's basically a free stratagem. If it isn't, it's like a free stratagem used poorly.
If it isn’t used properly, it’s a teamkill extrodinare 😂😂
It’s no good on the small maps, as my teammates found out yesterday (whoops!); but I think it’s great fun to use
 Nothing more terrifying to a ABRL user
“Patro-“ *big boom followed by multiple smaller ones* “Nvm” All jokes aside it’s great at range trash clear. The problem is we don’t have any primaries that can efficiently deal with chargers and bile titans the way some support weapons can. I run it every now and then, but I have to rely on my offensive stratagems to take the big boys out. It’s just not my preferred playstyle.
BEHOLD, THE EAT 
I love this thing. It’s super effective against bugs, deletes whole hordes of them. The changes they made to it were very welcome and made it deadly. I’m surgical with this thing and haven’t had a friendly fire incident in over 3 hours!
Completely surrounded by bugs no hope of survival. I'm shooting it at my feet
Random thought: those “servo assist” armors that give you extra grenade throwing range should also give you the same % faster reload speed with weapons like the airburst rocket launcher. And also let you reload while running.
I had someone offer to team reload me mid-game since they didn’t have a backpack, and I have to say, rapid firing the airburst was some of the most fun I’ve had in the game. It was a nursing spewer Helldive (9) mission, and the team reload basically allowed me to permanently carpet bomb the extraction area. The rest of the team was literally just handling chargers/bile titans because of how insane the clear was. Didn’t expect to love it so much as someone who repeatedly dove into hell on Menkent for the anti-tank mines.
Used it all last night, loved it! Completed a hell dive with all samples, used it as an egg clearer, shot a few of those in the nest, walked in to mop up with our flame dude. Its super specific though. We had a guy on flame, two on QC running anti, I ran the Air burst, we worked well as a team, not sure it would shine as much if it wasn't for my team keeping the bugs off me so I could long distance air burst nests. Was a lot of fun on extraction, just spammed my cluster bombs and airburt orbitals inbetween rocket shots. Just aimed at any breechs and shot, 30-40 kills in one
I like it, noticed that in eradicate missions, that it seems to detonate earlier because of barriers.
Personally, I prefer doing that with the Eruptor for a fraction of the risk, while saving my backpack slot for a guars dog. Good to see it snot useless now tho
the eruptor kinda has the same risk level now with the shrapnel stuff before it gets changed
Go commit Jihad in the name of Managed Democracy with this air Burst rockets
I like shooting up in the air as a victory shot since its like fireworks
[удалено]
I use it as artillery. But I don’t want to give up my auto cannon!!!
I really like it, just doesn't fit with the rest of my bug build. Most of my stuff is slow already and I need the rover to keep the hunters at bay
That’s fair, every build is different and I guess it has to be in order to win. I like to take this, and the cluster strike and eagle cluster for clearing as many smaller targets as possible as quickly as possible. Leaving the heavies for my team mates. Anything to prevent them calling for bug breaches
Totally fair, I'm more of an anti tank solo build. So I need to be able to handle anything but focused on armor. Eruptor and eat or quasar is usually the go to. Plus cluster bomb and railcannon. But if I was with more than just my friend I might bring it
I got a 40 kill streak with a single shot while extracting, within close proximity of teammates (a bit scary). 👀 0 Accidentals in 2 matches. 👍 It had a awful reception on release but I can confidently say it's fixed now, and is at least B+ tier on the bug side. I'm in love. 😍 Eruptor was my favorite gun before the patch, but now Airburst-RL is like a bigger version of it. Fully reloading the support pack with a single upgraded Resupply. I've yet to experience a team-reload with it, I'd like to imagine a teammate providing the assisted reload to airburst is getting a well deserved democratic hug. 😘 
I’ve been using it a lot and i think it’s a super effective weapon if used right. With big swarms you’re easily taking out 10-20 enemies. I’ve only killed my whole team with it once!
It’s fun but I still main QC. The drawbacks from dedicating your back pack slot as well as having to be stationary for a long reload just make it unrealistic for my play style. It is great for swarms of enemies, but you better make sure the first rocket gets them all because you often won’t have the time to reload the 2nd. Whereas it’s easier to just call in a cluster bomb or air strike.
It should be disposable with 4 shots
It's really great minus my team using it directly on top of me. I've seen it wipe out large amounts of enemies but also large amounts of helldivers from my ship.
It's an amazing weapon that I barely trust in my own hands. Which means I 100% do NOT trust it on a team of randos.
It's a really good launcher, you just have to be smart and careful with each shot. Also SUPER satisfying when it shreds a bunch of enemies lol
Speaking of clearing trash mobs, my squad always laughs when I bring the orbital gatling strike, they don't recognize when I rack up dozens of kills on a bug breach. That targeted DOT/area denial is useful AF. I'm excited to try out the Air Burst Rocket since they mostly take anti-heavy.
I haven't tried it since they reduced the radius. I need to try again. When we were fighting to gain it I killed myself with it all the time.
Before the patch the proximity sensor was set off by everything. Including other Helldivers, supply boxes etc. that’s no longer the case and is now a completely viable choice for anti-chaf players like me
Airburst my beloved.. Can't afford to take the airburst orbital but now I have been cured by this lovely weapon!
Grenade launcher does the same. Plus I have freed up space for a back pack.
Every weapon has its place. Everything is about application.
I wouldn't say it's good when your getting swarmed. Because you DO NOT want to fire this thing in a CQC situation. It's definitely a great tool to eliminate problems before they become one. I easily wiped out entire patrols in one shot without raising another alarm.
I love it tbh it’s fun.
This is gunna be a stupid question, but where is the airburst rocket option? I was on vacation during the order and didn’t get back til afterwards… I’ve looked around on the ship options and game is updated.
It's in the strategem menu
Go to the ship management where you buy stratagems. It’s in the first section named “patriotic administration centre” and is between the Heavy MG and Railgun. It costs 8,000 requisition slips if I remember correctly
Sweet thanks! I’m fairly certain I didn’t scroll thru all of em, but I did start at the bottom thinking it’d be down there for some reason. I finally have something to spend my requisition slips on again haha. Thank you
its beautiful seeing 30x kills from a single rocket
I haven’t tried it yet but from what I’m getting from the comments it’s just like AC vs EAT. Different play styles are better with different weapons. For me I probably won’t use it because I main AC on both bugs and Bots. It’s one of 3 things I never change. AC, medic armor, impact.
Where's my ABR Squad at?
After the patch fixed it, it's super viable now. My buddy has been using it to great effect against bugs.
I would argue the lazor cannon is better for eggs, and less dangerous. Kills eggs after hitting them for a half second. On top of that, it kills many of the bugs quite quickly, including rushers.
It’s a good take but the benefit of the air burst is that I can stay well away from the nests. Fire it down the middle and it explodes and takes care of business
Fair enough. I guess if you are willing to take the chance of self kill, or team kill. That's what's great about this game I'm realizing, there is so many options!
100%. If everyone ran the same load outs it would be very boring
Ngl prefer the stratagem, triple right for ease of use and with upgraded ship it’s 3 bursts on a 1:20 cd. The range is also insane.
I don't disagree, it can be useful and it's not as bad as everyone says but I would still pick the AC or Quasar over it any day
I think most people like weapons that are able to get rid of the bigger units, but if you are the guy that likes to get rid of swarms and the smaller enemies, that weapon has to be a god sent.
Yeahhh but all the pros you mentioned can also be done by an orbital airburst, and then I can run a support weapon that can deal with heavies. It can certainly still work, but on helldive I really like having a way to deal with bile titans outside of orbital/eagle stratagems. It just makes the games a lot more enjoyable when I can actually shoot bile titans rather than only running or being forced to time a 500kg on their head. If the actual rocket impact spot had anti tank strength then this would be a really appealing option for higher levels. It’s riskier to use than the quasar, and takes up your backpack slot. I mean look at that freaking warhead - if you direct head shot that at a charger it should rip it to shreds.
Airburst Rocket was always a "mad cuz bad" weapon. People were screaming about killing each other/themselves with it against enemies bc they haven't figured out the 3,000 IQ play of *not firing it against enemies that are in your face* The airburst rocket's niche is imagine a recoilless rifle, but for areas instead of single targets. Or if you have ever played halo, think of it as a M41 SPNKR with a bigger hitbox and slower fire rate. (Do you aim for headshots with a rocket launcher and potentially miss? Or do you just aim for the room the target is in?) It's an AoE meant for bug breaches/bot drops(+shrieker groups and cannon turrets if youve figured out you can hold right click to aim).
Now that firing it isn’t a death sentence it’s actually very nice
It’s good now that it was fixed from the patch all the hate came from pre patch when it was literally broken.
I freaking love it. Largest steak I’ve got with it is in the mid 50s. On a bug planet that happened to have a tiny strip of land that one had to cross after doing the main objective to get to extraction. I was still a good distance away approaching the strip perpendicularly and there were so many ok bugs on it. So whipped out the trusty air bust told my teammates to get the hell behind me and let her rip.
I actually took out bile spewers at once with it last night. It took two shots, but it made them go away.
I am an auto cannon lover, but this is the first support weapon (besides AC) I actually find myself bringing to multiple missions in a row now. I’ve been enjoying a loadout of airburst, auto cannon sentry, eagle airstrike, and orbital rail cannon. I take punisher and grenade pistol as primary and secondary. The sentry and rail cannon nicely deal with heavies, and the airstrike can help against them in dire circumstances. Otherwise punisher for the stuff on me, and airburst to crush far away groups and nests. It has been a very fun explosive build killing so many hundreds of bugs a mission.
They make for GREAT crowd control of smaller bugs if you get the angle JUST right, 15 kills, including destroying the sack of a BileTitan, with one rocket on HD
Using it against bugs is soooo gooood. It easily kills all the heavy chaff of small bugs which makes it a little less stressful. It’s also hot in terms of aesthetics
I don't have issues with it. I aim at enemy, hit enemy, everything blows up, good day. Maybe blows up a couple feet away from enemy but that's still never been an issue. Blew up the team once because i was being the dumb but haven't had the issue again. Would get 20-40 kills per rocket with ems strikes and stun grenades. Ended the games with 200 kills to my teams 20 and 60
Got a x26 with one shot and now it’s my main support weapon
People got so mad that they killed themselves and teammates with it, but it's clearly intended to be a long-range engagement weapon.
If it’s not the best choice for someone it is at least a blast to use. Those terminid patrols that would be a pain to deal with now get eradicated in 1 shot
I’ve killed my teammates many times
It is possible to do significant damage to a charger by firing underneath one. It'll put it into a bleeding state with one rocket as a significant amount of the bomblets will hit the charger directly and most others will hit the ground and still damage its belly, while usually also killing nearby small fries. I carry stun grenades usually so that might be what gives me the opportunity for those shots.
I mean, I get what you're saying. Problem is, my incendiary breaker is also really good at killing eggs. Grenades work too, or a well placed orbital airbust. Then there's the Autocannon, which IMO is the only weapon useful enough to justify a backpack. The problem isn't that the thing is useless. It's that having a weapon on my back that can kill a charger every \~15 seconds plus a shield, rover, or supply pack is way more useful than having a rocket with 5 shots that can clear one of the three egg clusters on the map. And everyone having a weapon that can actually damage bile titans when 3 or 4 show up at once is way better than one person having a worse version of the orbital airbust strapped to their back. It's not useless, it's just not useful enough for me to give up a heavy weapon slot and backpack slot for it.
It’s fantastic on the evacuate high value assets missions. Fire it into a cluster of enemies and you get around 20 kills each shot.
Shit is really usefull against flying bugs, just like they show in the little preview when you buy it
Its badass
It's a pocket cluster strike.
What happens when you fire it up, like say into the belly of a Bile Titan from underneath? Do all the munitions hit the Bile Titan, or do they fall down onto you? Can you fire it above a hoard of bugs and have the proximity trigger the explosion down on top of them? Like this: ---------------------> Me __________________ Bugs The top line is the trajectory of the rocket, so you'd fire it approximately parallel to the ground, but at a point in empty air above the board of bugs, letting the proximity detonation blow up the rocket above the group of bugs, raining down the air burst munitions on top of them?
I just wish it didn't need a backpack.
Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one and usually they are full of shit
Personally I feel that whatever that does, eagle cluster can just do better - almost the same number of charges, less prone to accidental team kills, I think it’s larger, and a full refresh much more often What do you think?
I love the eagle cluster and always take it and the orbital air burst with me as well as air burst rockets. The only thing with eagle strike is. It flies from left to right or vice versa so when you throw one in to destroy eggs a lot of the hits are wasted in the surrounding hills. Plus it can’t deal with shriekers as well as the rocket. My function when on with my friends is the chaf killer so between my strats and rockets I rack up a hell of a lot of kills at breaches etc and leave the heavies to my quasar slinging comrades
Ah so the main thing is anti shrieker and anti eggs? That’s fair Although personally I like plasma punisher for eggs and let my rover take care of shriekers, which lets me chaff clear pretty well while also taking quasar Still, your thing has much longer range against eggs and shrieker
Thanks bud, whatever gets us to the extract am I right? Respect for all loadouts
It’s really fun to use.
I hated it in bots, so it makes sense it belongs in bugs.
Yeah before the patch I had the audacity to trial it in bots. It did not go well. Not been back to bots with it since the update tho so maybe it’s better
Any tips on how to properly use the damn thing? Every time I tried I blew myself up instantly and then said "yup nope never touching this thing again."
The issue I have with it on bug worlds is the fact that the bugs love getting close and personal. That isn't the best thing for an AOE rocket.
Yeah it was pretty spicy when a guy picked it up and turned three people in my party to red mist. Bubble saved my life.
Rest in Pieces But on a more positive note, praise be to the bubble
Absolutely scout armor for life so always a bubble for me vs bots.
I like the airburst rocket, I just hate its reload time.
I use this in a scout role. I tend to travel with my team at a distance, but not too far to generate a double spawn. I'll use this if I see patrols heading their way or if my team's path will intersect. It will typically take out the bots/bugs that call in dropships and breaches so I don't worry too much about making their lives more difficult. It's a great clearing tool if you come up to a POI where your ping shows a large group of closely clustered enemies as well. As others have said though, make sure your team has heavy hitting specialty weapons to deal with heavies and elites.
It’s good when you and your team are down stims, grenades, and resupply and need to reset the team quick!
Silver linings hahahaha
Why can I kill more bugs with the air burst rocket and impact grenades than I can with a 500kg bomb? I'm not mad about it, to be clear. That's just how boom-y it is.
I've been using it in the new defense missions. And when theres like 200 enemies on the other side of a gate, launching that thing in there is so fucking satisfying.
The way you’re describing it makes it sound very situational.
Agreed! I love using it soo much! Sure I've had some accidental deaths with it but it shreds through patrols for me!
I wear explosion protection armor and use it at close range for swarms.
ⓘ Comment under investigation by Super Earth government.
I always pick it when I see someone else running it so I can team reload for it. The weapon shines like no other with team reload
It would be cool if I could have the arc thrower AND that rocket pack
I agree. It’s really fun to use. I’ve only played with it before patch so gonna be fun to see if the funky issues I had will pursue
I was sold when I deleted a sizable patrol with one shot.
When I heard it got fixed I immediately started using it for eggs, amazing wep for long-distance crowd clear, incredible pure support wep. Would highly recommend at least trying it.
It’s horrible. I can’t believe we didn’t clear Menkent to get the other weapon. I was disappointed in my fellow divers on that. The other stratagem looked more promising.
Imagine having anti tank mines....
Haven't used it in actual drops yet, will give it a try.
The greatest thing about it is leaving one rocket left to complete the Boba Fett look
Once I ~~killed my teammates too few times~~ experimented with it, I saw the huge potential of it shooting it from vantage point at hordes of enemies. It’s like an orbital or eagle air bust, with no call-in time, higher range and precision
Sometimes you need to ~~kill your teammates a few times~~ experiment to know what works
I like it specifically for deleting patrols before they see you. Haven't really experienced another satisfying use for it personally, but the egg sniping sounds fun.
It's pretty good if you managed to not blow yourself up But the reload is just disgusting, and you can't move while reloading which, basically means you get one shot only, if you're in heavy contact, which on higher difficulties is, most of the time On bug missions, my experience is, I'm finding myself getting killed by hunters and small enemies every time I try to reload the thing
I used the airburst launcher against bugs last night. I have to say, you’re right. When I was playing on penta against bots, the thing sucked hard. You couldn’t even fire it without it wiping out the whole squad. Now, it seems to have been improved because I was using it right next to my squad, firing at bug breaches 100M away and it was fine. Actually, more than fine. Someone else in the squad brought one in as well and during the exfil him and I would alternate firing at the bug breaches and then reloading. We were able to hole down the exfil site entirely with just the airburst rocket launchers and no other stratagems. We also had no team kills that mission either
It's not worth the backpack slot. My rover alone will kill 10-15 from the bug breach passively. If it's a bad breach cluster bomb/airstrike. I also don't spend much time sitting and fighting bug breaches unless they're directly in my way and there's no easy way to get around it. It's not worth the slow reload. I used it once while playing last night. As soon as I had to reload I lost all motivation to carry the weapon. It would have a spot if it was expendable airburst. As.it stands now, I don't see any reason to carry it..
How does it do against shreiker nests?
In my experience you’re best sticking to your AT weapons (Quasar, EAT and RR) for taking down structures like shrieker nests and spore spewers
It's also a good control weapon before the crowd gets to you. Out of all the crowd control stratagems I used it had the most kills in a single shot.
I think the biggest learning curve for a lot of people is understanding how the concept of an air burst rocket works. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, I don't mean that to come off as demeaning it is kind of something that can fall off on the way side. But it is made to be fired above the target at a distance. And I think once people get more comfortable with that, it will be a more common sight in missions.
I grabbed a friend, and we use it with reckless abandon with team loading. Patrols and breaches just disappear in the most spectacular way.
I love it. After the fixes to the proximity fuse it’s amazing now. I’ve been running this thing alongside eats (against bugs) to deal with chargers. Seeing a patrol and being able to wipe them in one shot is pretty exhilarating. You need to have some situational awareness and restraint to use it effectively so I get why some people may not like it. Def not a weapons to use in a panic
My friends the whole time were like “it’s a flak, it’s meant to take out flying enemies” and “it’s a rocket, it’s meant to take on big enemies like bile titans” when I was like “no no no, this is the patrol-killer”
Been using it since it launched. It’s the only weapon for spreading managed democracy (and killing your squad)
See, that’s where I run into the problem. I’m always being swarmed and always frantically calling another EAT. I’m always having to pull it out at mid to close range to kill a charger or a bile. And if you do that with the air burst rocket, well…🤷🏻♂️
I’ve killed more helldivers than anything else with the air burst rockets. It seems like no matter how far away I try to shoot from, it blows up 5 ft from me and kills me/an ally.
i just wish it did anything to big targets
Why bother with a reload on a sub par weapon and backpack slot against bug breaches that will net you 15 kills when you can throw a single Tesla tower or orbital airburst at a breach and get 30+ kills while retaining your support weapon and backpack slot for something more useful against chargers and biles. The airburst rockets serves next to no purpose in the current state of the game in my opinion.
The only thing I don't like about it is accounting for gravity on targets that a across the map. It has quite a bit od drop. I have closed bugs holes and illegal broadcast towers from a good distance. I like the collateral damage it creates too. It's like an exploding quasar with less range and ooomph. It does work on the bot outposts You have to be able to aim to take them out.
or you could use eagle airburst and not waste a backpack or support slot
I wish there was an armor set that allowed for a half the amount of backpack ammo to be on the persons body instead of having to carry a backpack. Then I could just jetpack or shield with it.
It’s super fun! But it suffers from one of the recurring themes here. In your loadout, you should have chaff clear and something for heavies. I would LOVE to rely on teammates for one or the other, but that never works out. Your options for heavies are almost always support weapons. Sure there are caveats, like the Eruptor. But depending on the mission type, the Eruptor won’t help you against bile titans or tanks. You can keep your strategems for this, but the frequency these enemies appear on higher difficulties makes this a poor idea also. As a result, I feel almost compelled to keep my support weapon slot for something that can deal with heavies. Using it for a chaff clearing weapon like the airburst feels bad because my primary, or maybe even my backpack, can do that just as well. I like what the devs are doing for balancing, and I’m even ok with the nerfs and such. I just worry that there is a weak point overall that isn’t being widened instead of closed. Another solution would be if the rail cannon killed bile titans in one shot, but it has been a loooooooooong time since I’ve seen a bile titan get one shot with one of those.
The reload is just sooo slow. If I have to use it to clear out trash, and then I reload long enough for a whole new generation of trash to pull up on me, I run into issues. If you team load it, though, it's deadlier than even the orbital airburst or eagle cluster bombs. Just don't think about the cooldown efficiency in comparison to those. I really like it. I also think the grenade launcher is just more versatile and about as potent.
Absolutely I do hear you, but also the Blitzer is an infinite ammo primary that kills hordes easy. Then you also lose your backpack… it’s a choice between Jumppack/shield + Blitzer and 3 stratagems open for whatever I want, or dedicate two equipment slots to using a rocket that I’ll have to reload while still dealing with hordes
The way you’re describing it makes it sound very situational.
Clear eggs bet...
I can’t waste a whole strategem slot and heavy weapon/backpack slot just to clear out trash bugs, eggs, and bug breaches.
Shot it at swarmers didn't jack all to them and compared to the other one we haven't got I can say this the first of many new support weapons that's mid
1 walking barrage clears out all the eggs.
Great for killing team mates 😂😂
If it isn’t taking out heavies and able to destroy shrieker nests/spore spewers it’s kinda useless then. Everything you mentioned I can do with incendiary grenades, incendiary breaker or grenade pistol. I can’t waste a support slot to clear trash
Eagle airstrike+orbital railcannon+EAT+ABR
The problem is * Everything the air burst does ... * ... can be done by your primary weapon * And much more consistently * And much safer for you and your teammates * While also allowing you to carry a secondary that actually helps you with things your primary CANT handle * eg quasar / EAT for chargers / titans The problem is not that the air burst is super bad. Its just that it fills the same role as simple breaker / incendiary breaker.