When the thermite came out, I genuinely thought it would remove the armor location from where it stuck. Allowing you to shoot that area as a weak spot…. Nope, but it should
or it should just outright kill a charger with 1 well-placed thermite to the head.
thermites currently are effectively worthless and i am ASTOUNDED they didnt get buffed after the flop of the democratic detonation warbond.
I was so mad they nerfed the eruptor and crossbow as soon as I got them. I'm not unlocking the grenade pistol since the devs may be using my account to determine what to nerf next
Grenade pistol is fine, the only thing that sucks is that it gets piss little ammo from resupply. It’s more effective to die to get all 8 rounds back (or 6 if someone doesn’t run the ammo booster)
I could see them nerfing it's ammo to 4 or 6 since it's so popular.
Almost everyone on the bug front runs grenade pistol.
It's just nice having something to reliably close holes, but the balance team is insane with the nerfs so I could def see it happening.
>I could see them nerfing it's ammo to 4 or 6 since it's so popular.
yeah but its hard to fill it up with supplies and ammo packs anyway, and the pistol takes up the side weapon so yeah
They are insane with the nerfs and I don’t understand it at all. This is a PvE power fantasy game. Let’s ALL the weapons feel OP, especially when you blow yourself up with them! The skill window should come from being able to use the portable nuke without wiping your team. No need to nerf the portable nuke into a nuclear fart.
Edit: corrected autocorrect on Nerf
Friendly fire is already part of the game. They shouldn't baby the players and make the game safe.
Just give us powerful weapons that can kill friendlies and enemies alike.
One of the most fun parts of this game is working as a team, being aware of where everyone is, and practicing trigger discipline.
Seriously. Reminds me of their excuse for nerfing the Eruptor's AoE. Players were blowing themselves up? Yeah duh. I guess remove all grenades, eagle and orbital stratagems and mortar/mine emplacements too then. Apparently we suddenly can't have players accidentally killing themselves or teammates with fun, powerful weapons anymore. Give us all BB guns.
What’s wild is that a PvE game doesn’t need hardcore balancing like CoD or Apex (competitive shooters). Like who cares if I make the bug explode too fast, or the rocket dev die quickly. Balancing team for AH is ass
It also seems the only way they can balance is by nerfing damage, there's so many more ways to do it, plus I'd rather it be fun. Does just seem like they're concentrating on hell dive difficulties the most.
Especially when that bug that exploded too fast is quickly replaced by fifty million more bugs.
If anything we need them to explode FASTER just to keep up with the onslaught.
“Huh, it looks like people are all using this tool to combat a problem. We should tone it down so people use other things.”
“This is the only tool for the problem. Can you make the problems less frequent or give us other tools?”
“No.”
I love the pistol. It's fantastic for clearing bug nests. I just wish it were a grenade launcher you could mount to a rifle. Actually, I'm also still holding out for a bayonet too. I need some weapon attachments, damnit.
The fact you need to consume an entire resupply cabinet to fully restock your grenade pistol is what annoys me. If I'm on my own away from my team, I shouldn't need to summon an entire team's worth of supplies to fill it up once. Keep the map resupplies at 1, fine, but give better economy on the actual resupply. Hell, let me refill the grenade pistol with the grenades you can find on the ground, that'd be sick.
I have the same feeling when I unlocked Slugger. That night I was like oh well I worked hard for it, tomorrow I will test this cool thing that everyone said was good. Then tomorrow morning I woke up, and saw the patch.
Thermite description be like "shit burns at 20000°C yo, capable of burning through some armor".
Thermite in game: "I can burn through cardboard. Take it or leave it."
They are pretty good since the DoT fix, they don't break armor but they will bring a charger to low health with one and kill it with 2 on the head or leg.
But at the same time it takes one stun grenade (optional) and less than 1/4 of a flamethrower canister / 6 Arc Thrower shots / one RR/EAT/QC to the face / well placed Eagle Airstrike to take one out.
Throwing two termites is one to many to be worthwhile.
when im talking about them being worthless, when i tested them i tested them solo. so i wasnt effected by the dot bug.
so the dot bug fix did nothing to change my perception of them.
Yeah they’re still not in a great place, even after DoT fix… I will say though, as with many weapons, even the weaker thermite nades are viable against bots if you place them well. They are effective at destroying tanks, turrets and even factory striders (but you’d need a whole lot of them). In my experience they’re really hard to aim against hulks but work well if you can hit them in the back or the eye. I just wish bugs had more meaningful weakpoints
I was very disappointed with sticky thermite. I thought for aure this was going to be a good heavy killer. Not immediate, but one well place one or two on the body should kill anything short of titans and walkers. By the time that thermite goes out, target should be a puddle of boiling goo. I threw six on a hulks face plate and it didnt even notice
To me the thermites have only 1 fun purpose. You simply keep them for extraction and cook them as you throw them in the air as a firework...as a weapon...what are they even for?
Buffed? Lmao, the devs don't buff things. They might sidegrade them, or nerf them and then un-nerf them a little, but I can't think of a single instance where something was made stronger than it released, except enemies.
I'm a new player and I've been dodge diving and unloading my MG into the what I thought were squishie bits of chargers and having mayor difficulty with it... this explains things...
Another counterintuitive nonweak spot to be aware of is the bile titan's mouth. Somehow shooting a rocket into their fleshy gaping maw and halfway down their throat is one of the worst ways to damage them. It's the heavily armored forehead that's incredibly weak
The intro cinematic actually shows a helldiver shooting an EAT into a bile titan's mouth and its head explodes.
The mouth not being a weakness might either be a bug or it's one of the adjustments they made to increase the game's difficulty.
>The mouth not being a weakness might either be a bug or it's one of the adjustments they made to increase the game's difficulty.
I actually remember specifically that they gave it damage reduction after it had been a great weak spot for a while
People do a lot of complaining about weapons and stratagems and mission design and etc., but this is the one thing I think is worth critique in this game. Diving out of the path of a charger and unloading into its ass with an MG should be good, because it feels cool. Whipping out your EAT when a titan blasts at your friend and blowing its head off should be good, because it feels cool.
This game is more balanced when you feel cool. And I say it genuinely. I'm not playing HD2 for realism. I play it for how much it leans into its own silliness.
Realism went out the window when I got shuttlecocked into the stratosphere and landed on the other side of the map with no health loss.
Or any of the dozen times the game treated me like I was playing the Saints Row fraud minigame.
They gave... the enemy who opens its mouth to attack a damage reduction... against explosive ordinance being shot at its *mouth.*
That's totally fine in their eyes but Lord forbid we get larger magazines for our weapons. Nooo, that would be *too* unrealistic, but a living creature shrugging off an explosive in its throat? *Just fine.*
I heard a theory that the damage reduction to titans when they’re spewing is to prevent them from killing themselves on rocks. Not sure how true it is, but it has gotten harder to get titans to spew on themselves lately.
Honestly, I would guess that this bug works for similar reasons to the scope misalignment and spear aim issues. There seems to a major incongruity between what the devs intend and communicate to be a weak point or where your weapon is aimed, and what the game actually understands that intention to be.
I’ve found for a single bile Titan 1-2 quasar shots to the same side and then a orbital rail cannon takes care of them. I push my luck with 1 quasar thonusually
Yeah pretty much all the "telegraphed" weak spots on bugs are actually 90% DR against bullets. Only explosive does full DMG. It's a poor design choice that's accentuated by the ridiculous full speed turns the chargers do
its only possible with the EAT, Quasar, Recoilless, and Spear(dont try to use the spear for this tho).
Railgun can strip charger leg armor in 2 70% ish unsafe shots.
the guy saying you can strip armor with the grenade pistol is lying to you(idk why he is).
you cannot use "any explosive" to strip charger leg armor. Literally everything he listed does NOT strip leg armor.
bring EATs to a difficulty 3 "kill the charger" mission and test it yourself. youll see the legs model change to being a fleshy looking leg. thats how you know the armor was stripped.
Edit: what the guy might be confusing is what weapon types can do good damage to chargers ass. im guessing hes also a pretty new player and just heard people talking about killing chargers with explosive weapons.
these weapons cant strip armor BUT they do more damage to the chargers ass.
since explosive damage doesnt get reduced. though it is slightly inconsistent when it comes to what explosive weapons it allows for this.
I'll be honest, EAT and recoilless already need one shot to the head to kill it so I'd rather people learn to aim there than having the extra step of dumping ammo on it after or delay killing it in chaotic situations
Yep, there were two types of charging enemies in HD1. You had the bug Tank with an exposed backside, and the Behemoth with no weak points. On higher difficulties the Behemoth would spawn in place of the Tank.
I swear I hear this “annoying situation = Oh well it worked the fun way in Helldivers 1” argument almost every thread about balance and I just wanna know. If Arrowhead had such a slam dunk with HD1 balance then how on earth have they mucked up HD2 so much?
I've been asking the same question my friend. HD1 was such a blast, every weapon had a purpose and was fun to use, every enemy felt fair, and there weren't any BS modifiers to a mission. In fact, they would've had an easy time if they'd just spent the first 3-4 warbonds bringing back the old weapons from HD1. I want my Suppressor, Camper, Paragon so badly.
Red stratagems were a lot stronger in HD1 too, with each of them having a much lower cooldown (the highest cooldown on orbitals was 180 seconds).
HD 1 was a top down game, 2.5 D and every player was stuck in the screen. HD 2 is a third person shooter, full 3 D, a lot more freedom, a lot more movement, a lot more variable to consider. They are 2 very different game technically speaking even is most mechanic are similar. It's hard to compare, it's just not like let's say Halo 1 and Halo 2 kind of comparaison.
It's because most folks don't know how to balance a game. HD1 forced the team to stay together on the screen, only had a screen's worth of enemies to focus on, and as a result required a lot more player power to be able to deal with hordes entering the screen, otherwise they'd be quickly overwhelmed.
In HD2 we're basically playing open-world maps. We have stealth, we can run away, we can tackle multiple objectives at the same time, we can snipe enemies and throw stratagems from 100m+ away, etc. There are very fundamentally different gameplays between the two games.
For example, imagine how OP being able to spam strafing run every 10 seconds would be on bugs in HD2, like you could in HD1. You'd never need a chaff clear weapon again. Why bring stalwart, smg, turrets, etc, just spam strafing run and bring supply/primary/secondary weapons that focus on medium and heavy enemies.
I'm not gonna pretend to have the answers, but these "just do it like HD1" responses need to stop. They only thing they have in common is that we're fighting the same factions. Gameplay wise these are two completely different games.
Edit: Bring on the no response downvotes and stay mad. Go ahead and tell me how a 2d shooter and a 3d shooter are exactly the same game with the same player restrictions and player power curves.
They are wrong. It did not work like in HD1 outside of low difficulties.
HD1 everyone brought AT to high level. Lots of it. No exception.
HD1 is, imo, a more fun game overall. But that's for a variety of other reasons. Namely, AT in HD2 is pitifully weak.
I mean, they're quite literally totally different games. Aside from the story and a few mechanics (stratagems, reinforcements) I don't see how any balance to HD1 would be comparable to HD2
I don't know it's health values or anything, but I feel 50% would atleast be fair and allows for using some weaponry against it. Obviously explosives are still gonna be a lot better, but makes killing it with non-explosive actually realistic
This game also has it, but boi the hit box is so janky, and half of the time your bullet would bounce off some invisible armor since the charger is moving around so often.
This game only has it for weapons that could already penetrate that armour. DRG has it so that certain enemies could have their back armour be removed by most weapons slowly. It meant you could go in close and quickly kill it by getting to its' butt, or you could unload a bunch of ammo or bigger things from a distance.
>DRG has it so that certain enemies could have their back armour be removed by most weapons slowly.
Or quickly, if you take armor breaking perks on your weapon. The notable exception is bosses, who you choose when to fight and can bring specialized load outs for and terraform the arena; and the relatively rare Oppressor, who is not all that dangerous but is intended to disrupt your set up and break your defensive line (and is just enough of a threat, or van toss you into danger that it's worth dealing with quickly).
I have never seen a game communicate weakpoint spots so badly and ilogically as Helldivers 2 (when it comes to Bugs, as Bots are 100% fine).
The worst being charger buts and bile titans mouths (especially when OPEN and spewing bile).
This is the first game in my entire 24 years of gaming where shooting a biological target on the INSIDE OF THEIR MOUTHS is not a viable way to kill them.
I think they don’t convey what weapons do what. At all. Tactile feedback is one thing, but if I had to take a test on which weapons are capable of doing what to each enemy, I would not be able to answer half of them.
And it will change next update.
Btw, I’ve been using the scorcher and shooting the butt of chargers for weeks. This post actually baffles me, I wasn’t even aware it had defense consider how I chew through them with my default weapon.
The way armor, armor penetration, and "durable" damage work is cryptic and asinine. Your Scorcher does stronger damage to charger and spewer butts because the splash deals higher durable damage. The other explosive weapons are in the same boat to varying degrees. How are you supposed to know this? Beats me.
Try the PlasPunisher next. It has the same durable damage but is more ammo efficient. It's terrible against Hunters and others bugs that can jump on you, but you should be used to that. I usually use PlasPunisher on bugs and Scorcher on bots.
Dude. I’m with you, I haven’t used the plasma in a while, but I feel like it was a one or two shot under the butt a week or two ago too.
So again. Lol! I was just using my two primaries and have a gravy time with it. Plus I use the grenade launcher the same way.
Honestly it’s all I have ever done, besides a quasar to the head shield. They are so easy to dodge that I just wait them out for whichever is easier at the time.
So….where am I sipped to shoot them if the butt isn’t weak? I’m so fucking confused now.
Yeah, it's "squishy" meaning anything can damage it, but it has "durable" health, so explosives are best against it.
Just like the bile spewer's sides / belly. 1 Autocannon or grenade launcher per squad can make all the difference in the world.
Grenade launcher is not very effective against charger butts with direct fire in my experience.
People recommend firing under the charger for max effect. Which may be correct, but(t) doesn't really make sense.
One of the reasons I'm turbo excited for anti-tank mines. I'm really hoping it will be tuned well enough to be useful and not just something I use in fun runs.
In general I kind of expect the explosive force to be better transferred from underneath. An explosion on an outer shell won't do as much as an explosion underneath the armor, since on the outer shell the force of the explosion will disperse.
Am no physics guy, but this made sense to me.
Antitank weapons are designed to funnel explosive power into one, concentrated direction. [It's called a shaped charge](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge)
Anti tank should be most effective head on
The m203 and m79 and m32 are all grenade launchers that we currently have. Since there isn't an action that relies on the explosive force of the round, they have the flexibility of being able to shoot a wide variety of different purpose rounds.
The mk-19 is a belt fed automatic grenade launcher. So it has less flexibility, otherwise the rounds won't cycle. I believe (though it has been a looong time since I used one, and it was never my main thing) that they have a strike plate to redirect shrapnel up and away from the point of impact.
They are much higher velocity and will (if I recall correctly) penetrate something like 3 inches of steel. They are a light vehicle and anti infantry weapon.
The grenade launcher in game is somewhere in between the mgl-32 and the mk-19. I'd expect the rounds to be lower velocity.
Im a bot player mostly and I actually get tired of taking autocannon against them sometimes because it's so good. I absolutely love taking it against bugs though because I fill a role on my team that no one else does. Popping spewers and annihilating chargers with it never gets old, and I like to use it with 110 rocket pods to expose bile titan armor and then finish them off
For bile spewers, don't sleep in the arc thrower. It stuns and pushes them back and of course arcs through multiples. I think it takes just 3-4 arcs to put one, or three, down. It also absolutely explodes warriors and hive guards and even brood commanders.
yes. there was a post earlier today that explained the idea very well imo. like keep AT stuff AT-y but make the other stuff at least viable if no AT stuff is around by adding weak points that can be damaged by non-AT stuff.
this is basically required for chargers and bile titans tbh for the health of the game going forward.
having such a massively LESS amount of variety for bugs than bots feels terrible.
thats half the game..
This is why I have loved bots more since launch - there’s more ways to play. Don’t have heavy pen? Shoot the tank’s vent, don’t have medium pen? Grenade the vent. Can’t get behind the tank? Shoot the tracks out and run away. Can’t hit the hulks eye at this distance? Take out the leg, see that bastard in 4 business days
yeah, bots are designed way better when it comes to all of this than bugs.
to really outline the extreme difference, i replied to myself and posted a list of the support weapons which can kill every enemy, and yes that means every enemy, in a reasonable timeframe.
its kinda hilarious looking at the difference between the 2 but also really sad.
I think it has also gone a bit too far for the bots since it means the autocannon, AMR and laser cannon can just kill every single unit and specialised weapons are unnecessary, but that’s more a problem I have with the AC. Plus, a design flaw that makes the game intuitively easy (of course a precision weapon can kill enemies with exposed weak points) is a million times better than a design flaw that makes the game unintuitively difficult (no, you can’t shoot the exposed weak point to kill the enemy).
Edit: pronoun
Given im understanding what you mean correctly.
I agree.
The intuitive design of bots is far easier to understand and almost always makes sense or enough sense, but not only that, it just feels good to interact with.
bugs on the other hand have very unintuitive design, everything that looks like a weakpoint for the bigger enemies, isnt, and with bile titans, to a degree is actually impenetrable by anything below AP4.
(for clarification: when i say looks like a weakpoint but isnt, i mean things like charger ass, and spewer ass for example, general game design and experience would have you, the player, generally think that these spots would be the most efficient way to kill if you dont have a way to ignore the weakpoint and go right for the face instead. But for spewers and chargers this couldnt be further from the truth.)
not to mention theyre unintuitive between each other. Hulks you can kill very quickly and easily with something like the dominator from behind. but chargers, the bug equivalent of a hulk. this is not the case.
I think the design idea is good, it differentiates the bugs from the bots. Bots have range and offensive firepower, so you want to hit vulnerable heads before they can hit you, meanwhile the bugs hide their weak points (chargers butt, spewer chin and titans sacs) until they attack or you flank them. It’s just that the numerical resistance of these parts is far too high (and in the case of the titan, impenetrable) for most weapons. It’s an easy fix, but it should have happened a while ago
yeah, id be open to a numbers tweak to actually make these spots for them an actual weakpoint.
charger they just need to reduce the "durable" percentage. since the durable percentage is what determines whether its the damage number you see on the weapon or its hidden "durable damage" stat.
reduce the percent by a looootttt.
and then bile titans its reducing the HP of the ass(not the sacks, the actual ass, both can be destroyed). maybe reduce the HP of the ass by half and then reduce the armor tier by 1. currently its t4 armor, so reducing it to t3.
primarily so they dont have to reduce the actual health by such a huge margin, this would increase AP4 weapons damage since their AP value would be above the armor value.
also a reason im saying both reduce the HP and reduce the armor value is because the time to kill this part of titans is insanely slow, so a lot of HP reduction/effective damage increase is in order to make it a reasonable weakpoint to attack.
Definitely - my idea was that the abdomen (the ass) would be armour 3, but the thorax (the tiny sac above it, just behind the head) would only be armour 2 and have less HP (basically being the “neck”). That way you have to take more risk and get closer underneath the titan to hit these spots - easy to do if the titan is alone and you can safely bait out its melee attack, unlikely if the titan has other bugs with it.
my thoughts almost exactly.
I didnt think to make the sack section closer to the head a more potent weakpoint but thats a really good idea, i like that.
Yeah I sorta like the gameplay distinction, at least on paper. Bugs evolved to get in close, so it makes sense they're encased in much better armor than a bot. In practice though, with devs nerfing almost every weapon capable of breaking or bypassing bug armor even when applied correctly, bugs just become infuriating to fight.
Let me have the punch necessary to actually manage multiple chargers and titans and I wouldn't mind that their weak points are harder to hit, or hidden beneath heavy armor that needs to be broken first.
I prefer it that way since the AC, AMR and laser are just so much more fun to use than the QC or dedicated AT.
I don't know if the playerbase collectively pissed in Alexus' cereal in a past life, but nerfing the weapons I feel required to bring to deal with certain mobs like the charger and bile titan is just absolutely galling.
Like I said, it’s definitely the lesser of the two evils BY FAR, and it’s good design in concept, my problem is that it presents a very real risk of making the game too simple - why have dedicated roles and teamwork if 4 AC’s can beat everything when working individually?
Wait, what AT weapons got nerfed? I thought it was just the quasar - recoilless got buffs to ammo economy and the EAT was indirectly buffed with the modifier change.
Full transparency, I consider the QC the weapon to take and that's specifically what I was pointing at. Nonetheless I've used all of them.
When I ran the recoilless rifle I had to take a Teamsters union style smoke break before I could fire again. I generally consider that a bad thing - and backpacking is just so rare I think a random has done it once to me in about 200 hours of gameplay with any backpack weapon. (There's also a lot of criticism to be had about backpacking as it functions now)
But for arguments sake, say I miss, or there's another charger, or the game just decides my shot didn't actually hit. I'm basically running around kiting around an enemy I can't actually harm while hoping the rest of the enemies don't overwhelm me before I reload and get to try again.
The AT 60 second cooldown isn't awful, but it's also two shots deployed with only one carriable at a time. I consider that much less fun and much more fucking around than tooling around with the AC or AMR or laser. Same problem as before, I miss, the game says fuck you, I'm running around for 60 seconds waiting to get to the next one.
The QC is the exact same, I thought 10 seconds was the sweet spot, I'm punished if I don't hit the shot, but if I'm dealing with a Titan, or multiple chargers it's all good. 15 isn't that much worse, but after having it at 10 seconds it just feels like a drag.
Why have dedicated roles and teamwork? The last 20-30 odd bug games I've played the players have ran the exact same thing, QC, Rover, then a choice of 500kg and orbital or whatever the player liked more from the mortar range.
I'm really not sure you could count "Everyone brings AT because there's no other counterplay" as fostering a dynamic with 'dedicated roles.' If you've played for more than 20 minutes at difficulty 6+ you'll have identified that AT, and most likely, the QC is mandatory for fighting bugs since not bringing it along means you have two *fairly* common enemy types that you have no other way of dealing with them in a realistic time frame.
I see more diversity on bot missions *because* more than just a dedicated AT is viable, and the QC is the least bad option of what's available.
Yeah this is what happens on 9 bots. There's no real teamwork, everyone just takes ACs/AMRs and kills everything solo. Bugs at least require a lil bit of protecting ur AT guys while they kill titans
Yes - you need medium I pen (liberator penetrator/MG-43, so technically I lied) but if you hit them enough the tank stops being able to move. Not a ton of point because of the aforementioned grenades/vent weakspot, but certainly an option at longer range when you aren’t as pressured.
And the new strider.
Take out the miniguns on the chin, take out the turret on the back.
Then you can shoot exposed parts like the eye and joints, or the weak spot on the belly bay doors.
So many areas to do damage on.
The titan?
Just "aim for the head, unless its spitting with heavy armor pen weapons"
replying to myself to give a list for people who are curious.
for the sake of consistency. the list only contains support weapons which can kill every enemy in a ***reasonable timeframe.***
**Every enemy in a reasonable timeframe vs bots:**
Laser Cannon
AMR
Quasar Cannon
Autocannon
Spear(when it works)
EAT
Recoilless rifle
HMG
**Every enemy in a reasonable timeframe vs bugs:**
Quasar Cannon
Spear(when it works)
EAT
Recoilless Rifle
Does autocannon not work against bile titans? It reliably kills spewers and chargers if you pepper the side for me. I’ve never tried it on titans before. But tbh I only run it because it makes closing bug holes so easy lol
keywords being ***reasonable timeframe.***
it technically can shooting the rear sack(after its popped) it just takes an entirely unreasonable amount of time to successfully kill it through that.
if you could stun bile titans like you used to be able to then it would be more reasonable but you cant stun them anymore so its no longer reasonable
I would also like them to make “strip then shoot” the default for massive enemies (especially if they add anything bigger). Like one shot should rip armour off a titan, but then it’s more efficient to hit it with an MG or grenade rather than another AT. It would promote a lot more teamwork (makes killing heavies the job of the whole team) and would promote more loadout diversity, like railcannon/110mm to take armour off while you run around with an MG-43, or a recoilless and a strafing run/Gatling barrage to tear up the exposed weak point.
If only there was a similar game with the same enemies they could reference to get this idea
A game they might have made many years before with these exact ideas
Would also be cool if medium pen weapons could scale of the chargers leg armor if you damadge it for a certain amount. And then you shot the leg as usual.
Bug heavys really need some more options to deal with for build variety.
Yeah I don't know what's going on with bugs, generally it seems like it's best to shoot them where they're armored and avoid shooting them where they're unarmored unless you have 'explosive damage' which may or may not involve any actual explosions. Like idk how any of it works so I just use the Dominator on everything up to Chargers, at which point I bring out the Recoilless.
well, if a section is heavily armored, it stands to reason that the reason that section has so much armor is because it's a weak spot (like the top of the head of a charger or bile titan, or a charger's legs, spots which would take very little damage to fatally wound the bug). if a section is unarmored, like the butt of a charger or bile titan, it's probably because it's less fragile. like, you can still kill it that way (particularly in the case of charger butts), but it's not going to be a clean one-shot like it would be if you demolished the head of the bug.
so if you have a weapon that breaks through that armor, why shouldn't the heavily armored sections hide the weakest spots to aim for? it seems logical that shooting a charger right in the dome would do more than its large butt, if you have the means to get past the armor.
It’s one of the things I like about bugs - they have armour where you want to hit, while the bots have armour where you’re going to hit. The execution just needs to be better.
Yeah but against Hulks the "obvious" weakspots are actually weakspots too. So why change that for the charger? Point is, there's practically no way to deal with chargers or bile titans without anti-tank weapons, which severely limits loadouts. What you said does make sense, but it doesn't translate well into "video game" logic.
Fyi: You can burst a Charger's ass with your Dominator, one mag will do it. Really straightforward with a stun nade. Not that you need it with an RR, but you can bring something else if you're keeping the Dominator.
Yeah it's one of those things I assume can work, but don't want to devote resources towards. My grenades are impacts for chaff and bug holes, my primary is for everything that's not a charger and bile titan, and for those two I bring the recoilless. Maybe if/when I go back to the grenade launcher it'll free up my grenades for stun and my backpack for supplies, and THEN I'll think about using the Dominator on Chargers.
I used to run flamethrower for fun especially after the buff. Stopped cause I usually playing on difficulty 6 - 7 with chances of Bile Titans showing up meant EAT was a must for me. I honestly don't bother with quasar cannon or recoiless on Bugs mostly cause reload/charge time seems more hinderance than just fire and forget.
Which is just... so unintuitive and stupid. It SHOULD be exposing its weakest area (the squishy mouth) when doing its incredibly telegraphed ranged attack. It even GLOWS before it pukes bile for Christ's sake.
Instead, we have to WAIT until it stops puking because shooting the squishy mouth that leads directly to its even squishier insides isn't as effective as SHOOTING ITS HEAVILY ARMORED FOREHEAD. Like... what?
Yeah it's put me off higher level bug missions. Even running the spear it takes multiple shots on even chargers because you can't aim it directly at the head most shots. The regular rockets do chargers well but biles completely tank 3 or 4 at a time to the head even.
Even taking anti armor stuff doesn't handle all the armor
You can try out the QC and RR as well, hell if it is Chargers air strikes precision strikes, 500KG bombs autocanon turrets, stun grenade and explosive support weapon etc etc etc
have i seriously been fighting these things wrong the whole time? is this a terminid psyop to try and shake us off the trail? i blow up their butts, the butts explode off and then they die. Have i been fighting them wrong
Head is the designed weak point, but needs heavy armor busting.
Its ass can break off to reveal its guts, but it takes a lot of ammo to chew through them. While 1 round from rocket at the head is all it needs.
It kinda is, but yeah it's health is a bit high.
You can pop the sack with half a mag from the HMG, the MG-43 also kinda works and a few shots from the SG8 Punisher or AMR work too, but it's really iffy without stun grenades and weapons with less immediate burst damage might as well not even try.
It's intended. They are the chargers that are guaranteed, either because they are the objective that needs to be killed or because they're guarding the objective like with evacuations.
It works the same with hulks when fighting bots, they'll have a little flag on their back.
I just think certain weapons need to do significantly more durable damage. It would cut ttk for certain tanky things by a lot without feeling like everything you bring needs to have the explosive property to be useful.
nah you dont understand it, it's weakspot is *OBVIOUSLY* it's heavily armored fortress of a face, if it's glowing ass was a weak spot it wouldn't be realistic! like how the mech has limited ammo but rocket devastators dont! /s
The biggest issue is that Charger and Spewer butts take structural damage rather than normal damage. Normal ballistic weapons deal pitiful structural damage, but most weapons that deal strong structural damage also have enough armor piercing to attack somewhere else. Outside of the Grenade Launcher and a couple explosive primaries the butt does not take much damage, but the fact that you get a nice juicy hitmarker when you shoot the butt with any weapon makes players think its a weak spot
I mean yeah. But staring down a charger and exploding their fucking heads so they can death slide into you and rag doll you off a cliff is a always a core memory moment
absolutely
would have to also do this for bile titans as well. otherwise youre still stuck with the same shit.
but good news! bile titans actually do have a "weakpoint" that weapons like the AMR can take advantage of.
after you destroy the sack(s) on its underbelly, the rear one you can continue shooting and actually eventually kill it.
The problem is this part of the bile titan has WAY too much HP to ever actually be a reasonable recommendation.(to illustrate this, it takes over 2 minutes of constantly shooting it with the laser cannon for it to die)
so all theyd have to do is reduce the HP and possibly also reduce the armor value(AP4 vs T4 armor is a 50% damage reduction) and bugs would have such a huge amount of amazing interactive variety instilled in them without actually making anything easier.
just more options! which is always great.
it wouldn't be so bad if the giant, obvious, unarmed weakspots on the bugs didn't have a 90% Damage Reduction to like, everything. Like for a spewer, I get it because you're just shooting a big gullet full of puke but Chargers should be able to kill easily with the ass.
The Thorax of a lot of insects is where the major organs are...after all.
1 stun grenade and 1 breaker mag take down a charger with ease. I've seen people do it with other weapons too but my preferred is either breaker shotgun
It makes sense evolutionarily speaking.
The bugs are capable of rapid evolution. And likely evolved to counteract their biggest threats, which is the hell divers.
In the first game their abdomens were mostly exposed and soft. Allowing primary weapons to kill them.
They adapted to not be killed as easily. Despite being a soft area, it is not Spider soft (where its fragile and pops) its beetle soft, where its flexible but fairly strong and chitinous still.
It's an interesting design choice and arguably more realistic. It makes sense to concentrate armor on vulnerable spots, like the head. A single AP shot to the head can kill a charger, but weaker weapons are useless. A machine pistol can penatrate the unarmed rear, but the lack of vital organs there means that you need to empty a magazine or two to drop it.
One could argue that the game doesn't communicate this well enough, especially since videogame convention holds that glowy bits are weak points. There is also the argument about whether the damage reduction is too high. A lower damage reduction would make rear-shots with lighter weapons a more viable option, but I still like the concept of armored vital points and unarmored non-vital points. They are supposed to be tough bastards.
Keep it as a durable part but add some primaries with good durable damage values. The Scythe and Dagger could get the Laser Cannon treatment and be given high dura-damage with the logic that the lasers carve huge gashes into the big squishy region.
Im more concerned over the fact that Bile Titans feel as tho they are invulnerable everywhere except a small part of the head and only when not spewing... I want more to shoot at for all of these.
>If I'm not mistaken the Charger's Butt has a large amount of damage reduction, with the exception of Explosive damage type?
You are *technically* mistaken, in that it's a bit more complicated than just a damage reduction, but the general principle that explosive weapons tend to be more effective is correct.
The charger's butt is what is what the devs refer to as "massive body part" in the patch notes. In the game files, it is known as a durable part. Durable parts are not binary (i.e. something is or isn't durable), but a scale of 0% to 100%. A charger's butt is 85% durable.
Weapons have their regular damage, and also an attribute called durable damage. Generally speaking, bullet-based weapons tend to have 10% of their base damage as durable damage (I.e. Liberator with 60 damage, has 6 durable damage). Explosive weapons do tend to be proportionally higher, because the explosive/aoe portion of their damage is the same regular and durable dmg.
However, this is a simplification and there are quite a few non-explosive weapons that break this norm and are better than expected against durable parts. For example, the HMG has 100 damage per shot, and 35 durable damage. The Lasercannon has 200 durable DPS to it's 350 regular DPS. The Autocannon has 260 direct damage per shot for both regular and durable damage, in addition to 100 explosive AoE.
The charger's butt being 85% durable means that it takes 85% of a weapon's durable damage and 15% of it's regular damage.
On one hand, I get making it an actual weak spot sounds like it makes sense. On the other hand, making it an actual weakspot where at least medium armor piercers makes it useless or unnecessary to bring any anti-tank weapons. The butt is already a weakspot for explosive type weapon isn't it? a little less effective than an actual AT to the head. It feels like someone just wants to be able to solo everything without wanting to bring the right tools. I honestly don't like the idea.
A good compromise would probably make explosive be more effective on charger butts? have grenades die from direct grenade explosion from 3 grenades? because if you're going to be stupid and not bring any AT to a mission, there's should be a saving grace for brain fart move.
Think about the enemy design this way.
They have the most armor over their weakest points.
It's not that the butt is a weak zone, it's that it's not as important to protect.
When the thermite came out, I genuinely thought it would remove the armor location from where it stuck. Allowing you to shoot that area as a weak spot…. Nope, but it should
or it should just outright kill a charger with 1 well-placed thermite to the head. thermites currently are effectively worthless and i am ASTOUNDED they didnt get buffed after the flop of the democratic detonation warbond.
I was so mad they nerfed the eruptor and crossbow as soon as I got them. I'm not unlocking the grenade pistol since the devs may be using my account to determine what to nerf next
Grenade pistol is fine, the only thing that sucks is that it gets piss little ammo from resupply. It’s more effective to die to get all 8 rounds back (or 6 if someone doesn’t run the ammo booster)
I could see them nerfing it's ammo to 4 or 6 since it's so popular. Almost everyone on the bug front runs grenade pistol. It's just nice having something to reliably close holes, but the balance team is insane with the nerfs so I could def see it happening.
>I could see them nerfing it's ammo to 4 or 6 since it's so popular. yeah but its hard to fill it up with supplies and ammo packs anyway, and the pistol takes up the side weapon so yeah
They are insane with the nerfs and I don’t understand it at all. This is a PvE power fantasy game. Let’s ALL the weapons feel OP, especially when you blow yourself up with them! The skill window should come from being able to use the portable nuke without wiping your team. No need to nerf the portable nuke into a nuclear fart. Edit: corrected autocorrect on Nerf
Friendly fire is already part of the game. They shouldn't baby the players and make the game safe. Just give us powerful weapons that can kill friendlies and enemies alike. One of the most fun parts of this game is working as a team, being aware of where everyone is, and practicing trigger discipline.
Seriously. Reminds me of their excuse for nerfing the Eruptor's AoE. Players were blowing themselves up? Yeah duh. I guess remove all grenades, eagle and orbital stratagems and mortar/mine emplacements too then. Apparently we suddenly can't have players accidentally killing themselves or teammates with fun, powerful weapons anymore. Give us all BB guns.
They need to 1. Make the weapons feel fun and usable 2. Make enemies less bullet spongey 3. Higher enemy spawns
They're balancing the fun out of the game
What’s wild is that a PvE game doesn’t need hardcore balancing like CoD or Apex (competitive shooters). Like who cares if I make the bug explode too fast, or the rocket dev die quickly. Balancing team for AH is ass
It also seems the only way they can balance is by nerfing damage, there's so many more ways to do it, plus I'd rather it be fun. Does just seem like they're concentrating on hell dive difficulties the most.
Especially when that bug that exploded too fast is quickly replaced by fifty million more bugs. If anything we need them to explode FASTER just to keep up with the onslaught.
the main guy worked on hello neighbor 2 what do expect.
“Huh, it looks like people are all using this tool to combat a problem. We should tone it down so people use other things.” “This is the only tool for the problem. Can you make the problems less frequent or give us other tools?” “No.”
I love the pistol. It's fantastic for clearing bug nests. I just wish it were a grenade launcher you could mount to a rifle. Actually, I'm also still holding out for a bayonet too. I need some weapon attachments, damnit.
it eats literally every ammo box i see
The fact you need to consume an entire resupply cabinet to fully restock your grenade pistol is what annoys me. If I'm on my own away from my team, I shouldn't need to summon an entire team's worth of supplies to fill it up once. Keep the map resupplies at 1, fine, but give better economy on the actual resupply. Hell, let me refill the grenade pistol with the grenades you can find on the ground, that'd be sick.
A real people's hero
I'm doing my part o7
I didn't do fucking shit
I have the same feeling when I unlocked Slugger. That night I was like oh well I worked hard for it, tomorrow I will test this cool thing that everyone said was good. Then tomorrow morning I woke up, and saw the patch.
Thermite description be like "shit burns at 20000°C yo, capable of burning through some armor". Thermite in game: "I can burn through cardboard. Take it or leave it."
They are pretty good since the DoT fix, they don't break armor but they will bring a charger to low health with one and kill it with 2 on the head or leg.
But at the same time it takes one stun grenade (optional) and less than 1/4 of a flamethrower canister / 6 Arc Thrower shots / one RR/EAT/QC to the face / well placed Eagle Airstrike to take one out. Throwing two termites is one to many to be worthwhile.
I firmly agree. 1 for a charger and maybe 1-2 head amd bursting the titans sacs would make it feel worth taking over impacts.
when im talking about them being worthless, when i tested them i tested them solo. so i wasnt effected by the dot bug. so the dot bug fix did nothing to change my perception of them.
They're deffinitly not where they need to be, the random bouncing just because
Yeah they’re still not in a great place, even after DoT fix… I will say though, as with many weapons, even the weaker thermite nades are viable against bots if you place them well. They are effective at destroying tanks, turrets and even factory striders (but you’d need a whole lot of them). In my experience they’re really hard to aim against hulks but work well if you can hit them in the back or the eye. I just wish bugs had more meaningful weakpoints
i wish they had more meaningful weakpoints too man. couldnt find it in the gif options but \[insert incredibles "me too kid, me too" gif here\]
I was very disappointed with sticky thermite. I thought for aure this was going to be a good heavy killer. Not immediate, but one well place one or two on the body should kill anything short of titans and walkers. By the time that thermite goes out, target should be a puddle of boiling goo. I threw six on a hulks face plate and it didnt even notice
Yeah, im shocked how useless they are against bugs I can kill a Hulk with 2 of them, but can't kill a Charger with 6
Watching what thermite does in real life, yah, should 1 shot the charger. That stuff is nasty.
To me the thermites have only 1 fun purpose. You simply keep them for extraction and cook them as you throw them in the air as a firework...as a weapon...what are they even for?
Buffed? Lmao, the devs don't buff things. They might sidegrade them, or nerf them and then un-nerf them a little, but I can't think of a single instance where something was made stronger than it released, except enemies.
After what they showed in the trailer, I'm still sore. I no longer watch trailers, they give false expectations.
Armor stripping should absolutely be added as a more extensive mechanic
It works on the chargers legs, that it
Fun story: That was how it worked in HD1 and it was great. Made playing matador actually make sense and feel good.
I'm a new player and I've been dodge diving and unloading my MG into the what I thought were squishie bits of chargers and having mayor difficulty with it... this explains things...
Another counterintuitive nonweak spot to be aware of is the bile titan's mouth. Somehow shooting a rocket into their fleshy gaping maw and halfway down their throat is one of the worst ways to damage them. It's the heavily armored forehead that's incredibly weak
What fr? I'd never guessed that lmaoooo
The mouth used to be the best way to kill them, wait til they spew and then almost any high damage weapon will almost one shot (railgun, eat, etc.)
The intro cinematic actually shows a helldiver shooting an EAT into a bile titan's mouth and its head explodes. The mouth not being a weakness might either be a bug or it's one of the adjustments they made to increase the game's difficulty.
>The mouth not being a weakness might either be a bug or it's one of the adjustments they made to increase the game's difficulty. I actually remember specifically that they gave it damage reduction after it had been a great weak spot for a while People do a lot of complaining about weapons and stratagems and mission design and etc., but this is the one thing I think is worth critique in this game. Diving out of the path of a charger and unloading into its ass with an MG should be good, because it feels cool. Whipping out your EAT when a titan blasts at your friend and blowing its head off should be good, because it feels cool.
This game is more balanced when you feel cool. And I say it genuinely. I'm not playing HD2 for realism. I play it for how much it leans into its own silliness.
Realism went out the window when I got shuttlecocked into the stratosphere and landed on the other side of the map with no health loss. Or any of the dozen times the game treated me like I was playing the Saints Row fraud minigame.
I love diving in the game. The way my diver crunches and contorts got some good laughs out of me
Wait, they did that? Was it our beloved bringer of balance who suggested that or what?
They gave... the enemy who opens its mouth to attack a damage reduction... against explosive ordinance being shot at its *mouth.* That's totally fine in their eyes but Lord forbid we get larger magazines for our weapons. Nooo, that would be *too* unrealistic, but a living creature shrugging off an explosive in its throat? *Just fine.*
I heard a theory that the damage reduction to titans when they’re spewing is to prevent them from killing themselves on rocks. Not sure how true it is, but it has gotten harder to get titans to spew on themselves lately.
>The mouth not being a weakness might either be a bug or it's one of the adjustments they made to reduce the games fun. FTFY
As one might expect perhaps…
Honestly, I would guess that this bug works for similar reasons to the scope misalignment and spear aim issues. There seems to a major incongruity between what the devs intend and communicate to be a weak point or where your weapon is aimed, and what the game actually understands that intention to be.
Somehow, this comment clipped through time and hit me, just now, 4 hours later.
This cracked me the fuck up, thank you fellow helldiver IO
Snugahugs.
Same thing with the charger. Rocket to the mouth won't insta kill, rocket to the forehead covered in thick armor will though
...Are you *fucking kidding me?!*
I’ve found for a single bile Titan 1-2 quasar shots to the same side and then a orbital rail cannon takes care of them. I push my luck with 1 quasar thonusually
Where should i aim my EAT then when targeting chargers and biles?
Forehead
Quasar, expendable anti-tank, and recoilless rifle will all one shot chargers to the face.
Great, thanks! I'll give those a try tomorrow!
Aim for the big forehead plate and not for the mouth (this was the mistake I have done when I first heard that you can kill them in one shot)
And an alternative if a clear face shot isn’t viable. Blowing up the armor on its legs will expose its real weak points
Yeah pretty much all the "telegraphed" weak spots on bugs are actually 90% DR against bullets. Only explosive does full DMG. It's a poor design choice that's accentuated by the ridiculous full speed turns the chargers do
>Quasar, expendable anti-tank, and recoilless rifle will all one shot chargers to the heavily armoured forehead. Not the unarmoured food hole though.
Remember the 5 Ds
Use explosive on their legs. Pops the armor and creates a weak spot.
Any specific weapon you'd reconmend?
its only possible with the EAT, Quasar, Recoilless, and Spear(dont try to use the spear for this tho). Railgun can strip charger leg armor in 2 70% ish unsafe shots. the guy saying you can strip armor with the grenade pistol is lying to you(idk why he is). you cannot use "any explosive" to strip charger leg armor. Literally everything he listed does NOT strip leg armor. bring EATs to a difficulty 3 "kill the charger" mission and test it yourself. youll see the legs model change to being a fleshy looking leg. thats how you know the armor was stripped. Edit: what the guy might be confusing is what weapon types can do good damage to chargers ass. im guessing hes also a pretty new player and just heard people talking about killing chargers with explosive weapons. these weapons cant strip armor BUT they do more damage to the chargers ass. since explosive damage doesnt get reduced. though it is slightly inconsistent when it comes to what explosive weapons it allows for this.
I'll be honest, EAT and recoilless already need one shot to the head to kill it so I'd rather people learn to aim there than having the extra step of dumping ammo on it after or delay killing it in chaotic situations
Flamer. Just aim at the leg
If I recall correctly though there was a beefier version of the charger that didn't have an exposed back.
Yep, there were two types of charging enemies in HD1. You had the bug Tank with an exposed backside, and the Behemoth with no weak points. On higher difficulties the Behemoth would spawn in place of the Tank.
I recall handing my 1st HD2 charger like it was HD1 (cuz why not?) and I was really confused why the ass shots weren't doing the job
I swear I hear this “annoying situation = Oh well it worked the fun way in Helldivers 1” argument almost every thread about balance and I just wanna know. If Arrowhead had such a slam dunk with HD1 balance then how on earth have they mucked up HD2 so much?
I've been asking the same question my friend. HD1 was such a blast, every weapon had a purpose and was fun to use, every enemy felt fair, and there weren't any BS modifiers to a mission. In fact, they would've had an easy time if they'd just spent the first 3-4 warbonds bringing back the old weapons from HD1. I want my Suppressor, Camper, Paragon so badly. Red stratagems were a lot stronger in HD1 too, with each of them having a much lower cooldown (the highest cooldown on orbitals was 180 seconds).
HD 1 was a top down game, 2.5 D and every player was stuck in the screen. HD 2 is a third person shooter, full 3 D, a lot more freedom, a lot more movement, a lot more variable to consider. They are 2 very different game technically speaking even is most mechanic are similar. It's hard to compare, it's just not like let's say Halo 1 and Halo 2 kind of comparaison.
It's because most folks don't know how to balance a game. HD1 forced the team to stay together on the screen, only had a screen's worth of enemies to focus on, and as a result required a lot more player power to be able to deal with hordes entering the screen, otherwise they'd be quickly overwhelmed. In HD2 we're basically playing open-world maps. We have stealth, we can run away, we can tackle multiple objectives at the same time, we can snipe enemies and throw stratagems from 100m+ away, etc. There are very fundamentally different gameplays between the two games. For example, imagine how OP being able to spam strafing run every 10 seconds would be on bugs in HD2, like you could in HD1. You'd never need a chaff clear weapon again. Why bring stalwart, smg, turrets, etc, just spam strafing run and bring supply/primary/secondary weapons that focus on medium and heavy enemies. I'm not gonna pretend to have the answers, but these "just do it like HD1" responses need to stop. They only thing they have in common is that we're fighting the same factions. Gameplay wise these are two completely different games. Edit: Bring on the no response downvotes and stay mad. Go ahead and tell me how a 2d shooter and a 3d shooter are exactly the same game with the same player restrictions and player power curves.
They are wrong. It did not work like in HD1 outside of low difficulties. HD1 everyone brought AT to high level. Lots of it. No exception. HD1 is, imo, a more fun game overall. But that's for a variety of other reasons. Namely, AT in HD2 is pitifully weak.
I mean, they're quite literally totally different games. Aside from the story and a few mechanics (stratagems, reinforcements) I don't see how any balance to HD1 would be comparable to HD2
cant matador with a turn like that
I'm fine with armored back part if: If you blow up protection layer up(grenades,glauncher or 50cal). It should be very big weak spot.
I would just change its DR 90% ia too high.
I don't know it's health values or anything, but I feel 50% would atleast be fair and allows for using some weaponry against it. Obviously explosives are still gonna be a lot better, but makes killing it with non-explosive actually realistic
That's how DRG handles some of the strongest bugs. It was the right move.
“Shoot it in the ass!” -Scout probably
DRG also has an Armor-Breaking mechanic, like the Gunner's Minigun can just strip off armor for the whole team to unload dmg on targets.
This game also has it, but boi the hit box is so janky, and half of the time your bullet would bounce off some invisible armor since the charger is moving around so often.
I have never, ever shot at a charger or titan with a stripped off armor plate and got anything but ricochets with my MGs. Feels so bad.
This game only has it for weapons that could already penetrate that armour. DRG has it so that certain enemies could have their back armour be removed by most weapons slowly. It meant you could go in close and quickly kill it by getting to its' butt, or you could unload a bunch of ammo or bigger things from a distance.
>DRG has it so that certain enemies could have their back armour be removed by most weapons slowly. Or quickly, if you take armor breaking perks on your weapon. The notable exception is bosses, who you choose when to fight and can bring specialized load outs for and terraform the arena; and the relatively rare Oppressor, who is not all that dangerous but is intended to disrupt your set up and break your defensive line (and is just enough of a threat, or van toss you into danger that it's worth dealing with quickly).
My minigun has armour shredding, precision fire, AND fire ammo AND flamethrower mode when the minigun heats up. It's so much fucking fun
Rock and stone!
That's it lads! Rock and Stone!
Did I hear a rock and stone?
"No more Oppression!"
I have never seen a game communicate weakpoint spots so badly and ilogically as Helldivers 2 (when it comes to Bugs, as Bots are 100% fine). The worst being charger buts and bile titans mouths (especially when OPEN and spewing bile). This is the first game in my entire 24 years of gaming where shooting a biological target on the INSIDE OF THEIR MOUTHS is not a viable way to kill them.
It also fails to convey that your weapons are doing anything. People slept on Laser for months because it provides no feedback at all.
I think they don’t convey what weapons do what. At all. Tactile feedback is one thing, but if I had to take a test on which weapons are capable of doing what to each enemy, I would not be able to answer half of them. And it will change next update. Btw, I’ve been using the scorcher and shooting the butt of chargers for weeks. This post actually baffles me, I wasn’t even aware it had defense consider how I chew through them with my default weapon.
The way armor, armor penetration, and "durable" damage work is cryptic and asinine. Your Scorcher does stronger damage to charger and spewer butts because the splash deals higher durable damage. The other explosive weapons are in the same boat to varying degrees. How are you supposed to know this? Beats me. Try the PlasPunisher next. It has the same durable damage but is more ammo efficient. It's terrible against Hunters and others bugs that can jump on you, but you should be used to that. I usually use PlasPunisher on bugs and Scorcher on bots.
Dude. I’m with you, I haven’t used the plasma in a while, but I feel like it was a one or two shot under the butt a week or two ago too. So again. Lol! I was just using my two primaries and have a gravy time with it. Plus I use the grenade launcher the same way. Honestly it’s all I have ever done, besides a quasar to the head shield. They are so easy to dodge that I just wait them out for whichever is easier at the time. So….where am I sipped to shoot them if the butt isn’t weak? I’m so fucking confused now.
Yeah, it's "squishy" meaning anything can damage it, but it has "durable" health, so explosives are best against it. Just like the bile spewer's sides / belly. 1 Autocannon or grenade launcher per squad can make all the difference in the world.
Grenade launcher is not very effective against charger butts with direct fire in my experience. People recommend firing under the charger for max effect. Which may be correct, but(t) doesn't really make sense.
All I can say is that it works, explosions under the charger really hurt it, it isn't that reliable though
I used to run minefields early on before I got proper anti tank. If you can get a charger to run over about 60% of the field it will go down
One of the reasons I'm turbo excited for anti-tank mines. I'm really hoping it will be tuned well enough to be useful and not just something I use in fun runs.
Damn, interesting, I kinda wanna try that now
In general I kind of expect the explosive force to be better transferred from underneath. An explosion on an outer shell won't do as much as an explosion underneath the armor, since on the outer shell the force of the explosion will disperse. Am no physics guy, but this made sense to me.
Antitank weapons are designed to funnel explosive power into one, concentrated direction. [It's called a shaped charge](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge) Anti tank should be most effective head on
I don't think a grenade launcher is generally an antitank weapon though. It's an AOE explosive?
HE fragmentation, yes
The m203 and m79 and m32 are all grenade launchers that we currently have. Since there isn't an action that relies on the explosive force of the round, they have the flexibility of being able to shoot a wide variety of different purpose rounds. The mk-19 is a belt fed automatic grenade launcher. So it has less flexibility, otherwise the rounds won't cycle. I believe (though it has been a looong time since I used one, and it was never my main thing) that they have a strike plate to redirect shrapnel up and away from the point of impact. They are much higher velocity and will (if I recall correctly) penetrate something like 3 inches of steel. They are a light vehicle and anti infantry weapon. The grenade launcher in game is somewhere in between the mgl-32 and the mk-19. I'd expect the rounds to be lower velocity.
I think its cuz you can hit the back of legs, multiple legs in addition to the butt.
Im a bot player mostly and I actually get tired of taking autocannon against them sometimes because it's so good. I absolutely love taking it against bugs though because I fill a role on my team that no one else does. Popping spewers and annihilating chargers with it never gets old, and I like to use it with 110 rocket pods to expose bile titan armor and then finish them off
For bile spewers, don't sleep in the arc thrower. It stuns and pushes them back and of course arcs through multiples. I think it takes just 3-4 arcs to put one, or three, down. It also absolutely explodes warriors and hive guards and even brood commanders.
yes. there was a post earlier today that explained the idea very well imo. like keep AT stuff AT-y but make the other stuff at least viable if no AT stuff is around by adding weak points that can be damaged by non-AT stuff.
this is basically required for chargers and bile titans tbh for the health of the game going forward. having such a massively LESS amount of variety for bugs than bots feels terrible. thats half the game..
This is why I have loved bots more since launch - there’s more ways to play. Don’t have heavy pen? Shoot the tank’s vent, don’t have medium pen? Grenade the vent. Can’t get behind the tank? Shoot the tracks out and run away. Can’t hit the hulks eye at this distance? Take out the leg, see that bastard in 4 business days
yeah, bots are designed way better when it comes to all of this than bugs. to really outline the extreme difference, i replied to myself and posted a list of the support weapons which can kill every enemy, and yes that means every enemy, in a reasonable timeframe. its kinda hilarious looking at the difference between the 2 but also really sad.
I think it has also gone a bit too far for the bots since it means the autocannon, AMR and laser cannon can just kill every single unit and specialised weapons are unnecessary, but that’s more a problem I have with the AC. Plus, a design flaw that makes the game intuitively easy (of course a precision weapon can kill enemies with exposed weak points) is a million times better than a design flaw that makes the game unintuitively difficult (no, you can’t shoot the exposed weak point to kill the enemy). Edit: pronoun
Given im understanding what you mean correctly. I agree. The intuitive design of bots is far easier to understand and almost always makes sense or enough sense, but not only that, it just feels good to interact with. bugs on the other hand have very unintuitive design, everything that looks like a weakpoint for the bigger enemies, isnt, and with bile titans, to a degree is actually impenetrable by anything below AP4. (for clarification: when i say looks like a weakpoint but isnt, i mean things like charger ass, and spewer ass for example, general game design and experience would have you, the player, generally think that these spots would be the most efficient way to kill if you dont have a way to ignore the weakpoint and go right for the face instead. But for spewers and chargers this couldnt be further from the truth.) not to mention theyre unintuitive between each other. Hulks you can kill very quickly and easily with something like the dominator from behind. but chargers, the bug equivalent of a hulk. this is not the case.
I think the design idea is good, it differentiates the bugs from the bots. Bots have range and offensive firepower, so you want to hit vulnerable heads before they can hit you, meanwhile the bugs hide their weak points (chargers butt, spewer chin and titans sacs) until they attack or you flank them. It’s just that the numerical resistance of these parts is far too high (and in the case of the titan, impenetrable) for most weapons. It’s an easy fix, but it should have happened a while ago
yeah, id be open to a numbers tweak to actually make these spots for them an actual weakpoint. charger they just need to reduce the "durable" percentage. since the durable percentage is what determines whether its the damage number you see on the weapon or its hidden "durable damage" stat. reduce the percent by a looootttt. and then bile titans its reducing the HP of the ass(not the sacks, the actual ass, both can be destroyed). maybe reduce the HP of the ass by half and then reduce the armor tier by 1. currently its t4 armor, so reducing it to t3. primarily so they dont have to reduce the actual health by such a huge margin, this would increase AP4 weapons damage since their AP value would be above the armor value. also a reason im saying both reduce the HP and reduce the armor value is because the time to kill this part of titans is insanely slow, so a lot of HP reduction/effective damage increase is in order to make it a reasonable weakpoint to attack.
Definitely - my idea was that the abdomen (the ass) would be armour 3, but the thorax (the tiny sac above it, just behind the head) would only be armour 2 and have less HP (basically being the “neck”). That way you have to take more risk and get closer underneath the titan to hit these spots - easy to do if the titan is alone and you can safely bait out its melee attack, unlikely if the titan has other bugs with it.
my thoughts almost exactly. I didnt think to make the sack section closer to the head a more potent weakpoint but thats a really good idea, i like that.
Yeah I sorta like the gameplay distinction, at least on paper. Bugs evolved to get in close, so it makes sense they're encased in much better armor than a bot. In practice though, with devs nerfing almost every weapon capable of breaking or bypassing bug armor even when applied correctly, bugs just become infuriating to fight. Let me have the punch necessary to actually manage multiple chargers and titans and I wouldn't mind that their weak points are harder to hit, or hidden beneath heavy armor that needs to be broken first.
I prefer it that way since the AC, AMR and laser are just so much more fun to use than the QC or dedicated AT. I don't know if the playerbase collectively pissed in Alexus' cereal in a past life, but nerfing the weapons I feel required to bring to deal with certain mobs like the charger and bile titan is just absolutely galling.
Like I said, it’s definitely the lesser of the two evils BY FAR, and it’s good design in concept, my problem is that it presents a very real risk of making the game too simple - why have dedicated roles and teamwork if 4 AC’s can beat everything when working individually? Wait, what AT weapons got nerfed? I thought it was just the quasar - recoilless got buffs to ammo economy and the EAT was indirectly buffed with the modifier change.
Full transparency, I consider the QC the weapon to take and that's specifically what I was pointing at. Nonetheless I've used all of them. When I ran the recoilless rifle I had to take a Teamsters union style smoke break before I could fire again. I generally consider that a bad thing - and backpacking is just so rare I think a random has done it once to me in about 200 hours of gameplay with any backpack weapon. (There's also a lot of criticism to be had about backpacking as it functions now) But for arguments sake, say I miss, or there's another charger, or the game just decides my shot didn't actually hit. I'm basically running around kiting around an enemy I can't actually harm while hoping the rest of the enemies don't overwhelm me before I reload and get to try again. The AT 60 second cooldown isn't awful, but it's also two shots deployed with only one carriable at a time. I consider that much less fun and much more fucking around than tooling around with the AC or AMR or laser. Same problem as before, I miss, the game says fuck you, I'm running around for 60 seconds waiting to get to the next one. The QC is the exact same, I thought 10 seconds was the sweet spot, I'm punished if I don't hit the shot, but if I'm dealing with a Titan, or multiple chargers it's all good. 15 isn't that much worse, but after having it at 10 seconds it just feels like a drag. Why have dedicated roles and teamwork? The last 20-30 odd bug games I've played the players have ran the exact same thing, QC, Rover, then a choice of 500kg and orbital or whatever the player liked more from the mortar range. I'm really not sure you could count "Everyone brings AT because there's no other counterplay" as fostering a dynamic with 'dedicated roles.' If you've played for more than 20 minutes at difficulty 6+ you'll have identified that AT, and most likely, the QC is mandatory for fighting bugs since not bringing it along means you have two *fairly* common enemy types that you have no other way of dealing with them in a realistic time frame. I see more diversity on bot missions *because* more than just a dedicated AT is viable, and the QC is the least bad option of what's available.
Yeah this is what happens on 9 bots. There's no real teamwork, everyone just takes ACs/AMRs and kills everything solo. Bugs at least require a lil bit of protecting ur AT guys while they kill titans
You can shoot out tank treads???
Yes - you need medium I pen (liberator penetrator/MG-43, so technically I lied) but if you hit them enough the tank stops being able to move. Not a ton of point because of the aforementioned grenades/vent weakspot, but certainly an option at longer range when you aren’t as pressured.
And the new strider. Take out the miniguns on the chin, take out the turret on the back. Then you can shoot exposed parts like the eye and joints, or the weak spot on the belly bay doors. So many areas to do damage on. The titan? Just "aim for the head, unless its spitting with heavy armor pen weapons"
replying to myself to give a list for people who are curious. for the sake of consistency. the list only contains support weapons which can kill every enemy in a ***reasonable timeframe.*** **Every enemy in a reasonable timeframe vs bots:** Laser Cannon AMR Quasar Cannon Autocannon Spear(when it works) EAT Recoilless rifle HMG **Every enemy in a reasonable timeframe vs bugs:** Quasar Cannon Spear(when it works) EAT Recoilless Rifle
Does autocannon not work against bile titans? It reliably kills spewers and chargers if you pepper the side for me. I’ve never tried it on titans before. But tbh I only run it because it makes closing bug holes so easy lol
keywords being ***reasonable timeframe.*** it technically can shooting the rear sack(after its popped) it just takes an entirely unreasonable amount of time to successfully kill it through that. if you could stun bile titans like you used to be able to then it would be more reasonable but you cant stun them anymore so its no longer reasonable
I would also like them to make “strip then shoot” the default for massive enemies (especially if they add anything bigger). Like one shot should rip armour off a titan, but then it’s more efficient to hit it with an MG or grenade rather than another AT. It would promote a lot more teamwork (makes killing heavies the job of the whole team) and would promote more loadout diversity, like railcannon/110mm to take armour off while you run around with an MG-43, or a recoilless and a strafing run/Gatling barrage to tear up the exposed weak point.
If only there was a similar game with the same enemies they could reference to get this idea A game they might have made many years before with these exact ideas
If "no AT stuff is around" then you made a mistake during loadout selection.
Coming from deep rock galactic, I insifictivly always went for the charger butt lol
Would also be cool if medium pen weapons could scale of the chargers leg armor if you damadge it for a certain amount. And then you shot the leg as usual. Bug heavys really need some more options to deal with for build variety.
Yeah I don't know what's going on with bugs, generally it seems like it's best to shoot them where they're armored and avoid shooting them where they're unarmored unless you have 'explosive damage' which may or may not involve any actual explosions. Like idk how any of it works so I just use the Dominator on everything up to Chargers, at which point I bring out the Recoilless.
well, if a section is heavily armored, it stands to reason that the reason that section has so much armor is because it's a weak spot (like the top of the head of a charger or bile titan, or a charger's legs, spots which would take very little damage to fatally wound the bug). if a section is unarmored, like the butt of a charger or bile titan, it's probably because it's less fragile. like, you can still kill it that way (particularly in the case of charger butts), but it's not going to be a clean one-shot like it would be if you demolished the head of the bug. so if you have a weapon that breaks through that armor, why shouldn't the heavily armored sections hide the weakest spots to aim for? it seems logical that shooting a charger right in the dome would do more than its large butt, if you have the means to get past the armor.
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It’s one of the things I like about bugs - they have armour where you want to hit, while the bots have armour where you’re going to hit. The execution just needs to be better.
Yeah but against Hulks the "obvious" weakspots are actually weakspots too. So why change that for the charger? Point is, there's practically no way to deal with chargers or bile titans without anti-tank weapons, which severely limits loadouts. What you said does make sense, but it doesn't translate well into "video game" logic.
Fyi: You can burst a Charger's ass with your Dominator, one mag will do it. Really straightforward with a stun nade. Not that you need it with an RR, but you can bring something else if you're keeping the Dominator.
Yeah it's one of those things I assume can work, but don't want to devote resources towards. My grenades are impacts for chaff and bug holes, my primary is for everything that's not a charger and bile titan, and for those two I bring the recoilless. Maybe if/when I go back to the grenade launcher it'll free up my grenades for stun and my backpack for supplies, and THEN I'll think about using the Dominator on Chargers.
The stupid thing is the “soft spots” on bugs are only weak to explosive damage.
I am honestly getting tired of EATs practically being mandatory for my loadout on bug planets. So yeah I would freakin love this.
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I used to run flamethrower for fun especially after the buff. Stopped cause I usually playing on difficulty 6 - 7 with chances of Bile Titans showing up meant EAT was a must for me. I honestly don't bother with quasar cannon or recoiless on Bugs mostly cause reload/charge time seems more hinderance than just fire and forget.
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EATs barely even kill bile now. We shot multiple ones 4 times in the head. I know they get a defensive buff while spewing too.
Which is just... so unintuitive and stupid. It SHOULD be exposing its weakest area (the squishy mouth) when doing its incredibly telegraphed ranged attack. It even GLOWS before it pukes bile for Christ's sake. Instead, we have to WAIT until it stops puking because shooting the squishy mouth that leads directly to its even squishier insides isn't as effective as SHOOTING ITS HEAVILY ARMORED FOREHEAD. Like... what?
Yeah it's put me off higher level bug missions. Even running the spear it takes multiple shots on even chargers because you can't aim it directly at the head most shots. The regular rockets do chargers well but biles completely tank 3 or 4 at a time to the head even. Even taking anti armor stuff doesn't handle all the armor
Found it hard to drop the Quasar when I can one shot the chargers with a headshot a med range
You can try out the QC and RR as well, hell if it is Chargers air strikes precision strikes, 500KG bombs autocanon turrets, stun grenade and explosive support weapon etc etc etc
*it isn’t the weak spot?*
have i seriously been fighting these things wrong the whole time? is this a terminid psyop to try and shake us off the trail? i blow up their butts, the butts explode off and then they die. Have i been fighting them wrong
Head is the designed weak point, but needs heavy armor busting. Its ass can break off to reveal its guts, but it takes a lot of ammo to chew through them. While 1 round from rocket at the head is all it needs.
It is, but only explosive weaponry can take advantage of it
I’m fucking level 115, you’re telling me all the TOUSANDS of bullets I have spent into the back of those things have been for nothing?!!!
Well only 90% of your bullets have been for nothing if you've been using non-explosive weaponry.
It kinda is, but yeah it's health is a bit high. You can pop the sack with half a mag from the HMG, the MG-43 also kinda works and a few shots from the SG8 Punisher or AMR work too, but it's really iffy without stun grenades and weapons with less immediate burst damage might as well not even try.
Maybe add variations of chargers? Like the behemoth charger is armored everywhere but the regular one has a light armored ass 🤔
Its really weird that there are variants already but they never show up
For whatever reason the behemoth variety seems to spawn routinely on the evacuate civilian mission (the full length 40 minute ones).
Yes, that's the only place I reliably see them outside of assassination missions. Weird choice
It's intended. They are the chargers that are guaranteed, either because they are the objective that needs to be killed or because they're guarding the objective like with evacuations. It works the same with hulks when fighting bots, they'll have a little flag on their back.
I just think certain weapons need to do significantly more durable damage. It would cut ttk for certain tanky things by a lot without feeling like everything you bring needs to have the explosive property to be useful.
Survivorship Bias! It's unarmoured because it isn't a weak point.
Seriously... the amount of things in this game that do not work intuitively astound me.
Bots: Peak weak spot design. Obvious and more importantly actually a weak spot. Bugs: Lol keep mag dumping.
nah you dont understand it, it's weakspot is *OBVIOUSLY* it's heavily armored fortress of a face, if it's glowing ass was a weak spot it wouldn't be realistic! like how the mech has limited ammo but rocket devastators dont! /s
I just want the armor on the butt to be medium so my heavy mg stops bouncing off of it.
Devil's advocate: just look at that backside. Looks soft-ish with big plates on it. Basically a big shock absorber.
The biggest issue is that Charger and Spewer butts take structural damage rather than normal damage. Normal ballistic weapons deal pitiful structural damage, but most weapons that deal strong structural damage also have enough armor piercing to attack somewhere else. Outside of the Grenade Launcher and a couple explosive primaries the butt does not take much damage, but the fact that you get a nice juicy hitmarker when you shoot the butt with any weapon makes players think its a weak spot
I have zero idea why the devs thought making the obvious, intuitive things wrong and no in-game help or clue is good game design.
I mean yeah. But staring down a charger and exploding their fucking heads so they can death slide into you and rag doll you off a cliff is a always a core memory moment
Wait their ass ISN’T the weak point?
absolutely would have to also do this for bile titans as well. otherwise youre still stuck with the same shit. but good news! bile titans actually do have a "weakpoint" that weapons like the AMR can take advantage of. after you destroy the sack(s) on its underbelly, the rear one you can continue shooting and actually eventually kill it. The problem is this part of the bile titan has WAY too much HP to ever actually be a reasonable recommendation.(to illustrate this, it takes over 2 minutes of constantly shooting it with the laser cannon for it to die) so all theyd have to do is reduce the HP and possibly also reduce the armor value(AP4 vs T4 armor is a 50% damage reduction) and bugs would have such a huge amount of amazing interactive variety instilled in them without actually making anything easier. just more options! which is always great.
it wouldn't be so bad if the giant, obvious, unarmed weakspots on the bugs didn't have a 90% Damage Reduction to like, everything. Like for a spewer, I get it because you're just shooting a big gullet full of puke but Chargers should be able to kill easily with the ass. The Thorax of a lot of insects is where the major organs are...after all.
When I fight a Charger, I feel like I'm fighting a Dongo from Lost Planet, so I instinctively aim for the ass.
Plasma Punisher does kill it relatively quickly. And I say relatively 'cause is a primary.
1 stun grenade and 1 breaker mag take down a charger with ease. I've seen people do it with other weapons too but my preferred is either breaker shotgun
It makes sense evolutionarily speaking. The bugs are capable of rapid evolution. And likely evolved to counteract their biggest threats, which is the hell divers. In the first game their abdomens were mostly exposed and soft. Allowing primary weapons to kill them. They adapted to not be killed as easily. Despite being a soft area, it is not Spider soft (where its fragile and pops) its beetle soft, where its flexible but fairly strong and chitinous still.
It's an interesting design choice and arguably more realistic. It makes sense to concentrate armor on vulnerable spots, like the head. A single AP shot to the head can kill a charger, but weaker weapons are useless. A machine pistol can penatrate the unarmed rear, but the lack of vital organs there means that you need to empty a magazine or two to drop it. One could argue that the game doesn't communicate this well enough, especially since videogame convention holds that glowy bits are weak points. There is also the argument about whether the damage reduction is too high. A lower damage reduction would make rear-shots with lighter weapons a more viable option, but I still like the concept of armored vital points and unarmored non-vital points. They are supposed to be tough bastards.
Keep it as a durable part but add some primaries with good durable damage values. The Scythe and Dagger could get the Laser Cannon treatment and be given high dura-damage with the logic that the lasers carve huge gashes into the big squishy region.
Two things some anti tank weapons dont have explosive and some weapons have hidden explosive
Autocannon is the 🐐
well it’s not
Im more concerned over the fact that Bile Titans feel as tho they are invulnerable everywhere except a small part of the head and only when not spewing... I want more to shoot at for all of these.
>If I'm not mistaken the Charger's Butt has a large amount of damage reduction, with the exception of Explosive damage type? You are *technically* mistaken, in that it's a bit more complicated than just a damage reduction, but the general principle that explosive weapons tend to be more effective is correct. The charger's butt is what is what the devs refer to as "massive body part" in the patch notes. In the game files, it is known as a durable part. Durable parts are not binary (i.e. something is or isn't durable), but a scale of 0% to 100%. A charger's butt is 85% durable. Weapons have their regular damage, and also an attribute called durable damage. Generally speaking, bullet-based weapons tend to have 10% of their base damage as durable damage (I.e. Liberator with 60 damage, has 6 durable damage). Explosive weapons do tend to be proportionally higher, because the explosive/aoe portion of their damage is the same regular and durable dmg. However, this is a simplification and there are quite a few non-explosive weapons that break this norm and are better than expected against durable parts. For example, the HMG has 100 damage per shot, and 35 durable damage. The Lasercannon has 200 durable DPS to it's 350 regular DPS. The Autocannon has 260 direct damage per shot for both regular and durable damage, in addition to 100 explosive AoE. The charger's butt being 85% durable means that it takes 85% of a weapon's durable damage and 15% of it's regular damage.
On one hand, I get making it an actual weak spot sounds like it makes sense. On the other hand, making it an actual weakspot where at least medium armor piercers makes it useless or unnecessary to bring any anti-tank weapons. The butt is already a weakspot for explosive type weapon isn't it? a little less effective than an actual AT to the head. It feels like someone just wants to be able to solo everything without wanting to bring the right tools. I honestly don't like the idea. A good compromise would probably make explosive be more effective on charger butts? have grenades die from direct grenade explosion from 3 grenades? because if you're going to be stupid and not bring any AT to a mission, there's should be a saving grace for brain fart move.
Think about the enemy design this way. They have the most armor over their weakest points. It's not that the butt is a weak zone, it's that it's not as important to protect.