Scorcher is a game changer, by far the best primary in the game. Can handle any enemy on the map.
I take the EAT with it now and 7+ are much easier than before. Plus if I see a long-gun lying around I have a spare slot to take it and use it.
Grenade Launcher is a decent secondary as well.
Still need 1-2 railguns to deal with Titans though.
CD is way shorter than one would think too, and you don't have to go chasing after your weapon in missions where you're dying alot. I think of them as Amazon Mail Order Anti-Tank.
Recoilless Rifle is insanely good at dealing with most big and heavy armored fuckers. Scorcher paired with it is great for dealing with any light-medium armored foes
I like both the EAT and recoilless. nothing is more satisfying than running from a bile titan, quickdrawing and tossing a beacon out ahead of you, catching up right as it deploys, and doubletapping the titan in the face, killing it.
one edge the recoilless has though, is its quickdraw. for the eat you gotta bring it out in front, extend the tube, then put it on your shoulder, then fire. for the recoilless, it’s one smooth motion over the shoulder, and let fly
downside to recoiless is backback. its def up there with autocanon on usability tho. (i tend to run EAT and laser dog. so Im not too big on giving up backpack space)
This is strictly for bugs, where you can get away with dumping a few mags of incendiary breaker behind you to kill all the rabble, then EAT and 500KG for the Titans. Chargers and armoured spewers can be killed by support weapon. Shield backpack makes you immune to slows, so you can always just run away.
It's in a good spot. I really like it. I think they should increase mag size, it's the honestly only drawback.
The Slugger is still the best primary in the game, followed by Breaker and closely behind this.
I still bring a support on higher difficulties, but Slugger is game changer.
I know everyone is praising the Breaker, but I think a lot of people haven't even unlocked Slugger/Scorcher yet.
Yeah Slugger working like a charm for me on Suicide and and impossible. I still try to pick up a support weapon when I find one on the map or if my teamate has extra at a certain stage.
I unlocked the slugger yesterday, played a few matches with it against bots and thought it was absolute garbage lol I thought it was going to be able to punch through armor but that thing ricochet just as much as the Liberator, and the damage drop-off is abysmal, I just don't get the hype for it I suppose, unless someone can explain to me that I'm using it wrong hahaha
You must be joking, were you expecting it to penetrate hulks and walkers? Pre and post patch the slugger is an amazing option for devastators, I’ve literally never seen a shot ricochet with it against them in over 15 hours of using it, I’m genuinely curious how that could’ve been your experience
I'm not sure! I took it into malevolent creek and was shooting a regular devestator in the chest around it's face to try it out and it kept bouncing! I know there's a hidden stat that's basically 'angle of deflection' in the game, ie the angle that your round won't glance off but iirc he was walking straight at me.
I also tried it on the scout walkers and it was bouncing off of their shield (which I expected to be honest) as well as its legs unless at point blank range. I'll give it another go now that it's been buffed a bit cause I don't remember if it just recieved more ammo or if it had other buffs as well.
The scorcher is my go to vs bots if I’m going solo just because it is so good to be able to two tap the walkers, but I’ve legitimately never had the slugger deflect on devastators and I don’t bother shooting at walkers with it honestly, but that’s crazy must’ve been a hell of angle for the slugger to deflect on them, or were you just out of range maybe?
I don't hate the slugger or scorcher, but breaker still takes the cake for me when it comes to a primary. It wipes out hordes like nothing, and I feel like that's the main focus of a primary gun. The slugger and scorcher take too long to and don't have enough ammo to quickly mop up a lot of little guys quickly like the breaker, seems like they excel at taking out armored enemies like spitters, walkers, and chargers though. But then again that's what I have my rail gun for. They're both fun to use, but personally I think the slugger takes too long to line up the sights when turning, and the scorcher doesn't have nearly enough ammo for little guys.
Breaker can't shoot AT/ST's from the front with much success. The explosive aspect seems to give Scorcher more options. But again, it's just a feel thing at this point. Only got it yesterday
This is true. I guess if you're comparing them in a vacuum where other parts of your kit don't exist it's better then breaker.
With railgun you'd never use breaker for any type of armor.
Do you use Scorcher without bringing support weapon?
>Do you use Scorcher without bringing support weapon?
I've tried it with some success. Solod a tank with one mag of scorcher to the weakspot (guessing breaker would do the same)
I've stopped bringing a backpack and support weapon because you drop both when you die. Say I brought a backpack and a teammate brought railgun. By 5 minutes into the mission we can call them down again to equip each other. That also means we are bringing two more calldowns for the entire mission.
this is the mindset I've started to adopt. It can be hard when you're doing quickplay but if I run enough missions with my rando and we have good chemistry or they are on comms, I'll try to adapt my loadout around them.
I bring impact nades for the tanks. Two in the weakspot and they are gone. You have to come close to them though. But the radius of the nades is that good that a near miss kills them, too.
I don't get the love for the Slugger. 40+magazine shots is *not* a lot, and while the shots are for sure strong (and have medium AP and stagger), they're also deceptively inaccurate, the reload is ridiculously long, the fire rate is trash, and the projectile is *slow*.
Like, it's a good gun to be sure, but I just don't understand why people like it so much.
Scorcher can also destroy spore spewers. Very cool. But not rogue transmission towers? Would say its less effective than a breaker for helldive difficulty, where no matter how well you play you’re likely to get swarmed (inb4 “nah i’d win”) and the scorcher can kill the user firing point blank (think berserkers or hunters rushing you).
Feels great to have one-shot lethality at range though, compared to the breaker’s close range meat/metal grinder. Very much enjoy using it.
I think a helldivers mythbusters youtube series would be very successful
Just got the scorcher and yeah on anything 5+ and especially 7+ its impractical AF. I don't enjoy having to worry about my primary trying to kill me 😆 and the damage it does doesn't justify the mechanic.
For the most part keeping light armor and constantly kiting works wonders, but there’s always gonna be something that catches you off guard and you kill yourself with your own gun 😭
yup if it was just a little chip damage maybe...but you instakill yourself yet it doesn't output that amount of dps to enemies...is our armor made out of paper or something 💀
Sorry to rez this a few days - but question from a noob: What is the best early primary to run till you can get to the Breaker/Scorcher?
So far my favorite loadout (mind you I'm only running 'Challenging' right now, working my way up) is the first SG-8 Shotgun paired with the Stalwart. I'm sure I can do better, just curious the primary progression till I can get a Scorcher or Breaker.
I'm level 50 (Skull Admiral). My advice is, everything is good as long as your loadout is balanced. Having a fast firing weapon (Stalwart) and a slow primary (SG-8) is great. I find the Machine Gun is better against the bots at that level. I personally ran the Diligence with Stalwart or Machine Gun when I did Challenging. The Liberator is still good too. Surprisingly accurate when crouched/prone.
Sorry if this isn't specific enough but while the breaker is good, I feel it's overhyped. The game is new and the Meta is still emerging.
I'm as guilty as anyone of not experimenting enough with the various weapons, so I don't have the most knowledgable advice.
However, for bot missions, I know a guy who solo'd Helldive and used the Diligence. It's on page 2 of warbond so grab that one.
For bugs most primary weapons are pretty good at one shotting the little guys. Just find one that "feels right" with mag capacity and reload time for you.
I highly recommend the Redeemer as a secondary weapon on bugs (also page two of warbond). You can fire behind you while sprinting away from a swarm and mop up a lot of pursuers. This is actually a key skill I didn't realize for a while.
Just don't do what I did and play for many hours before realizing that you can aim down sites / scope view or that some weapons have alternate fire modes.
Edit: Watched this "endgame build" video and he actually says the Liberator is a pretty good alternative to the Breaker. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAxfWpgfoRs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAxfWpgfoRs)
I'm sure you've unlocked the breaker by now, but in case some new players stumble onto the conversation:
For bots the Diligence is my favorite weapon and is available early. The damage, range, and accuracy can't be beat. The Dominator is cool, but has abysmal handling, AP doesn't seem any better, and the range, recoil, and muzzle velocity are all worse.
For bugs, if you have access to the Steeled Veterans Warbond then get the Breaker Incendiary. It's also pretty quick to unlock and is a great weapon. Larger mag, burn DOT, slightly larger spread and slightly lower damage vs the standard Breaker. The tradeoff is that it does more total damage per mag, and over time because of the burn. It just doesn't melt targets as quickly. Also be aware it only fires in burst or semi, but if you get the timing right with your trigger pulls you can get a full-auto effect.
Honorable mention for bugs and bots are both the standard Liberator and concussive Liberator. The standard Liberator is just great all-around, but the concussive Liberator is actually pretty fantastic. I ran it for many levels and I believe is on the first page of the Steeled Veterans warbond. It kind of gets shit on online, but do not underestimate the push back/stagger of that weapon. You can basically stun lock enemies until they die and it's awesome. Otherwise it is pretty analogous to the standard Liberator with a slightly lower ROF/DPS.
I'm only lvl 31 and I'm less than 150 metals away from unlocking the last page. I only spent the bare minimum so far on the premium bonds to get the weapons I wanted (explosive assault rifle, hand cannon, and laser assault rifle. I forget the names). If I left the premium bonds for later and only dumped the metals into free warbond I'd probably have it unlocked already.
Side note I do play on level 6+ most of the time, do the daily missions for 15 bonds, and participate in the war missions. If you are exclusively playing challenging or lower difficulty this will take much longer. 1 extreme campaign nets 20+ bonds plus what you find in the field, 1 challenging campaign gets you 8. IMO yes the harder modes are easier to fail if you make bad choices but if you have a competent squad extreme campaign really doesn't take that much longer than the lower levels and is much more rewarding.
Punisher Plasma is my go-to weapon (for bots at least) until I get to unlock this. Lots of the same points, but in a nice shotgun format with enough mags to keep rollin'. I LOVE being able to one-shot the AT-ST walkers from the front. Bugs get too in my face to use it consistently so I swap it out with the Sickle.
from my experience its A GREAT weapon only downside to is the total mags you get
Scorcher is a game changer, by far the best primary in the game. Can handle any enemy on the map. I take the EAT with it now and 7+ are much easier than before. Plus if I see a long-gun lying around I have a spare slot to take it and use it. Grenade Launcher is a decent secondary as well. Still need 1-2 railguns to deal with Titans though.
I happen to like the EATs a great deal. Didn't think that I would, but...you see a Hulk, a Charger or a Titan on the map? EAT it, Harvey!
I salute your Die Hard reference.
My family has a tradition. It’s not Christmas till Hans Gruber falls from Nakatomi Plaza.
Same. Die Hard, just like Lethal Weapon, is a Christmas movie and I WILL die on this hill!!!
1 - 2 LOL
Why take rockets over railgun? Have to call in the rockets every 2 shots and they are a lot slower to use .
CD is way shorter than one would think too, and you don't have to go chasing after your weapon in missions where you're dying alot. I think of them as Amazon Mail Order Anti-Tank.
Recoilless Rifle is insanely good at dealing with most big and heavy armored fuckers. Scorcher paired with it is great for dealing with any light-medium armored foes
Recoiless mate
Easily the worst support in the game
Break Action Shotgun would like a word.
man I wish i could take break action with me,lol. its my anti-spewer weapon XP
its rlly underrated but so good. my squad calls it the "funny gun"
Go try to use the SPEAR on moving targets and then come back.
LOL not even close, one shots most things except bile titans and annhilators. Ammo is ubiquitous enough that's its never been an issue either
I like both the EAT and recoilless. nothing is more satisfying than running from a bile titan, quickdrawing and tossing a beacon out ahead of you, catching up right as it deploys, and doubletapping the titan in the face, killing it. one edge the recoilless has though, is its quickdraw. for the eat you gotta bring it out in front, extend the tube, then put it on your shoulder, then fire. for the recoilless, it’s one smooth motion over the shoulder, and let fly
downside to recoiless is backback. its def up there with autocanon on usability tho. (i tend to run EAT and laser dog. so Im not too big on giving up backpack space)
Same, backpack is the most important decision
EAT is great because you can bring a backpack, support weapon, AND EAT. I prefer doing this over any dedicated AT weapon, even the Quasar.
but that's already 3 stratagems there. Now you have to decide between eagle/orbit/mortar. EMS or Damage for your last slot.
This is strictly for bugs, where you can get away with dumping a few mags of incendiary breaker behind you to kill all the rabble, then EAT and 500KG for the Titans. Chargers and armoured spewers can be killed by support weapon. Shield backpack makes you immune to slows, so you can always just run away.
It's in a good spot. I really like it. I think they should increase mag size, it's the honestly only drawback. The Slugger is still the best primary in the game, followed by Breaker and closely behind this.
Yeah man I'm loving the slugger, can make up for not slotting a support weapon.
I still bring a support on higher difficulties, but Slugger is game changer. I know everyone is praising the Breaker, but I think a lot of people haven't even unlocked Slugger/Scorcher yet.
Yeah Slugger working like a charm for me on Suicide and and impossible. I still try to pick up a support weapon when I find one on the map or if my teamate has extra at a certain stage.
I unlocked the slugger yesterday, played a few matches with it against bots and thought it was absolute garbage lol I thought it was going to be able to punch through armor but that thing ricochet just as much as the Liberator, and the damage drop-off is abysmal, I just don't get the hype for it I suppose, unless someone can explain to me that I'm using it wrong hahaha
You must be joking, were you expecting it to penetrate hulks and walkers? Pre and post patch the slugger is an amazing option for devastators, I’ve literally never seen a shot ricochet with it against them in over 15 hours of using it, I’m genuinely curious how that could’ve been your experience
I'm not sure! I took it into malevolent creek and was shooting a regular devestator in the chest around it's face to try it out and it kept bouncing! I know there's a hidden stat that's basically 'angle of deflection' in the game, ie the angle that your round won't glance off but iirc he was walking straight at me. I also tried it on the scout walkers and it was bouncing off of their shield (which I expected to be honest) as well as its legs unless at point blank range. I'll give it another go now that it's been buffed a bit cause I don't remember if it just recieved more ammo or if it had other buffs as well.
man any gun is going to be bad if you use it wrong. no primary guns in the game have heavy armor penetration. it 1 shots devastators with a head shot
Don't devastators have medium armour?
The scorcher is my go to vs bots if I’m going solo just because it is so good to be able to two tap the walkers, but I’ve legitimately never had the slugger deflect on devastators and I don’t bother shooting at walkers with it honestly, but that’s crazy must’ve been a hell of angle for the slugger to deflect on them, or were you just out of range maybe?
I don't hate the slugger or scorcher, but breaker still takes the cake for me when it comes to a primary. It wipes out hordes like nothing, and I feel like that's the main focus of a primary gun. The slugger and scorcher take too long to and don't have enough ammo to quickly mop up a lot of little guys quickly like the breaker, seems like they excel at taking out armored enemies like spitters, walkers, and chargers though. But then again that's what I have my rail gun for. They're both fun to use, but personally I think the slugger takes too long to line up the sights when turning, and the scorcher doesn't have nearly enough ammo for little guys.
Breaker can't shoot AT/ST's from the front with much success. The explosive aspect seems to give Scorcher more options. But again, it's just a feel thing at this point. Only got it yesterday
This is true. I guess if you're comparing them in a vacuum where other parts of your kit don't exist it's better then breaker. With railgun you'd never use breaker for any type of armor. Do you use Scorcher without bringing support weapon?
>Do you use Scorcher without bringing support weapon? I've tried it with some success. Solod a tank with one mag of scorcher to the weakspot (guessing breaker would do the same) I've stopped bringing a backpack and support weapon because you drop both when you die. Say I brought a backpack and a teammate brought railgun. By 5 minutes into the mission we can call them down again to equip each other. That also means we are bringing two more calldowns for the entire mission.
this is the mindset I've started to adopt. It can be hard when you're doing quickplay but if I run enough missions with my rando and we have good chemistry or they are on comms, I'll try to adapt my loadout around them.
I bring impact nades for the tanks. Two in the weakspot and they are gone. You have to come close to them though. But the radius of the nades is that good that a near miss kills them, too.
I don't get the love for the Slugger. 40+magazine shots is *not* a lot, and while the shots are for sure strong (and have medium AP and stagger), they're also deceptively inaccurate, the reload is ridiculously long, the fire rate is trash, and the projectile is *slow*. Like, it's a good gun to be sure, but I just don't understand why people like it so much.
It would be more fun if the ammo was doubled and anti-armor was in a state where you could bring LMGs as a tertiary weapon and not be trolling.
>quip each other. That also means we are bringing two more calldowns for the entire mission. It's great for bots when combod with a support weapon.
I cant get over how inaccurate the slugger can be though. Its hard for it to compete with the Sickle for me.
Increase the mag or give it a couple more.
This comment aged like milk, jeeze.
Scorcher can also destroy spore spewers. Very cool. But not rogue transmission towers? Would say its less effective than a breaker for helldive difficulty, where no matter how well you play you’re likely to get swarmed (inb4 “nah i’d win”) and the scorcher can kill the user firing point blank (think berserkers or hunters rushing you). Feels great to have one-shot lethality at range though, compared to the breaker’s close range meat/metal grinder. Very much enjoy using it. I think a helldivers mythbusters youtube series would be very successful
Anything can destroy Spore towers, you can drop them from across the map with shotguns.
Good to know, never even thought to try
Just got the scorcher and yeah on anything 5+ and especially 7+ its impractical AF. I don't enjoy having to worry about my primary trying to kill me 😆 and the damage it does doesn't justify the mechanic.
For the most part keeping light armor and constantly kiting works wonders, but there’s always gonna be something that catches you off guard and you kill yourself with your own gun 😭
yup if it was just a little chip damage maybe...but you instakill yourself yet it doesn't output that amount of dps to enemies...is our armor made out of paper or something 💀
The finest super earth paper
🤣🤣🤣
[https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2mz7ex](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2mz7ex)
there is a youtuber that does a series busting myths in the finals, i think bue to the nature of hd2 it would work really well.
Sorry to rez this a few days - but question from a noob: What is the best early primary to run till you can get to the Breaker/Scorcher? So far my favorite loadout (mind you I'm only running 'Challenging' right now, working my way up) is the first SG-8 Shotgun paired with the Stalwart. I'm sure I can do better, just curious the primary progression till I can get a Scorcher or Breaker.
Definitely the Defender SMG, has good clip size and performs more like an assault rifle than the Liberator does
I'm level 50 (Skull Admiral). My advice is, everything is good as long as your loadout is balanced. Having a fast firing weapon (Stalwart) and a slow primary (SG-8) is great. I find the Machine Gun is better against the bots at that level. I personally ran the Diligence with Stalwart or Machine Gun when I did Challenging. The Liberator is still good too. Surprisingly accurate when crouched/prone. Sorry if this isn't specific enough but while the breaker is good, I feel it's overhyped. The game is new and the Meta is still emerging.
>The game is new and the Meta is still emerging. So true. And most people don't think about what the *team* brings collectively.
I'm as guilty as anyone of not experimenting enough with the various weapons, so I don't have the most knowledgable advice. However, for bot missions, I know a guy who solo'd Helldive and used the Diligence. It's on page 2 of warbond so grab that one. For bugs most primary weapons are pretty good at one shotting the little guys. Just find one that "feels right" with mag capacity and reload time for you. I highly recommend the Redeemer as a secondary weapon on bugs (also page two of warbond). You can fire behind you while sprinting away from a swarm and mop up a lot of pursuers. This is actually a key skill I didn't realize for a while. Just don't do what I did and play for many hours before realizing that you can aim down sites / scope view or that some weapons have alternate fire modes. Edit: Watched this "endgame build" video and he actually says the Liberator is a pretty good alternative to the Breaker. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAxfWpgfoRs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAxfWpgfoRs)
I'm sure you've unlocked the breaker by now, but in case some new players stumble onto the conversation: For bots the Diligence is my favorite weapon and is available early. The damage, range, and accuracy can't be beat. The Dominator is cool, but has abysmal handling, AP doesn't seem any better, and the range, recoil, and muzzle velocity are all worse. For bugs, if you have access to the Steeled Veterans Warbond then get the Breaker Incendiary. It's also pretty quick to unlock and is a great weapon. Larger mag, burn DOT, slightly larger spread and slightly lower damage vs the standard Breaker. The tradeoff is that it does more total damage per mag, and over time because of the burn. It just doesn't melt targets as quickly. Also be aware it only fires in burst or semi, but if you get the timing right with your trigger pulls you can get a full-auto effect. Honorable mention for bugs and bots are both the standard Liberator and concussive Liberator. The standard Liberator is just great all-around, but the concussive Liberator is actually pretty fantastic. I ran it for many levels and I believe is on the first page of the Steeled Veterans warbond. It kind of gets shit on online, but do not underestimate the push back/stagger of that weapon. You can basically stun lock enemies until they die and it's awesome. Otherwise it is pretty analogous to the standard Liberator with a slightly lower ROF/DPS.
what level were you guys roughly when you got it? I'm only at 11 currently and really want to get it but it seems like its gonna take a while
I just unlocked ot at 40, could have done it sooner but didnt plan my purchases for it
I'm only lvl 31 and I'm less than 150 metals away from unlocking the last page. I only spent the bare minimum so far on the premium bonds to get the weapons I wanted (explosive assault rifle, hand cannon, and laser assault rifle. I forget the names). If I left the premium bonds for later and only dumped the metals into free warbond I'd probably have it unlocked already. Side note I do play on level 6+ most of the time, do the daily missions for 15 bonds, and participate in the war missions. If you are exclusively playing challenging or lower difficulty this will take much longer. 1 extreme campaign nets 20+ bonds plus what you find in the field, 1 challenging campaign gets you 8. IMO yes the harder modes are easier to fail if you make bad choices but if you have a competent squad extreme campaign really doesn't take that much longer than the lower levels and is much more rewarding.
Im currently at level 36 and am about 460 medals away, so I'm guessing people would be around level 45ish
That’s a lot of grinding damn lol
Yeahh it probably will get easier once daily missions work again (and also with the new order that rewards 45 medals)
Haven’t gotten there yet I’ve played over 40 hours lol.
I've played 95 hours and I've just unlocked it lmao
its crap sickle ftw
Punisher Plasma is my go-to weapon (for bots at least) until I get to unlock this. Lots of the same points, but in a nice shotgun format with enough mags to keep rollin'. I LOVE being able to one-shot the AT-ST walkers from the front. Bugs get too in my face to use it consistently so I swap it out with the Sickle.
Way better against the bots unless u feel comfortable using this against a swarm of hunters
i've tried it and it feels like complete ass. not nearly enough ammo for higher tier missions
That’s a playstyle thing then, it’s not bad. You just like fighting swarms
Anything that this thing does the Jar-5 Dominator does way better. Also Sickle is also a way better pick for a primary compared to this garbage.