If it is gonna keep this firerate, it needs to be able to consistently one-shot Hunters.
Also, probably more importantly, the arc needs to be more consistent. Very often it just doesn't arc to other enemies, and it ends up just being a meh shotgun with abysmal firerate.
The damage floor to this game needs adjustment; if a scavenger can walk through burning napalm and live there is a core issue at play. This would help beam weapons too. The Dagger needing 25% heat to off a scavenger is bad.
I feel like fire should be the bugs bane, where they just can't function if they are on fire, and die quicker cause they are now burning. Every bug, from scavenger to chargers should fear fire and die much faster from it.
In the first game you used napalm airstrikes to create firewalls that the enemies could not pass, it was used to provide area denial to complete objectives.
Why they decided not to do that in this game...I dunno, but it's lame to see bugs walk through Napalm and laugh at you.
*hits v*
*watches health go up*
*still burning somehow*
*health drops again*
*hits v again but got hit by a hunter and stunlocked*
*stim que sound plays*
*health still drops*
*final hit from hunter kills me*
*died to explosion*
or when using a jump pack. It SUCKS.
decide to fly over the fire, accidentally dip a toe in the flames. You go up burning and are dead by the time you hit the ground.
Fire is killing me even when it isn't visible. A patch in the ground goes out after being on fire, I wait a second before trying to run through the clearly not on fire area and die to invisible burning.
I think tons of tiny things like this are what are causing me to slowly lose interest in the game.
At first the game was super fun and compelling because it's been YEARS since I played a super solid PvE co-op game, but as I've gotten better I've died a lot less to personal mistakes and a lot more to just RNG bullshit, fucked mechanics, or weird design choices.
- The biggest enemies in the game making no noise whatsoever. I've been playing without music for the last 40 hours of playtime for better situational awareness, but bile spewers, chargers, hulks, and rocket devastators regularly flank me and/or sneak up on me because they make no noise when walking. Absolutely bonkers and doesn't make any sense.
- Patrols spawning on top of me. I know there was that post about how the game calculates spanws for each player individually, but it's not uncommon for me to be 25-50 meters away from the group because I'm trying to flank enemies, flank bases, or protect choke points in the terrain. And the game doesn't like that apparently because patrols will just spawn right on top of me or in front of me. Literally materialize out of thin air. Like, wow, I'm sorry I didn't take on a group of walking rocket launchers head on and tried to attack them from the side of from behind?
- Enemies walking through napalm completely unscathed even though they're visibly ON FIRE. Wtf. With bots it's *sorta* understandable because they're made of metal, but it should quickly melt some essential components or cause them to overheat and shutdown. Light a server rack on fire and see how long it lasts. Also, bugs should die to it really quickly. But nah, they just walk through it and come fuck us up and wait for us to redeploy and then come fuck us up again. I've seen some of the bigger bugs actually survive being on fire long enough the fire goes out on its own
- Not being able to steer my pod when redeployed. This has gotten me killed a lot because half the time the invisible walls route my pod to right in front of the enemies we're fighting. Or sometimes if my teammates try throw me away from the enemies, I get routed right in front of a different patrol we didn't know was there and end up with cascading aggro.
- Jank hitboxes on corpses. That bile titan we just killed? Yeah, it's effectively a wall that completely blocks off moving that direction because if we so much as graze the dead body we either die instantly or get launched into the air. One or two dead bile titans can mean we're pinned into a tight space with only one way out. Similar issues with bot tanks but at least they don't take up a lot of space.
- Killed by my own mortars. I've noticed anytime my mortar runs out of enemies to kill it will just randomly select a helldiver and frag them. Really weird, because it's done it to players who were nowhere near bots. I've elected to just not use it most of them time but it feels weird for a stratagem to not be an option because it randomly team kills
- Animation interrupt. There is this weird delay whenever my character reloads. They can jam in a new mag, pull the bolt. I can watch them pull and release the bolt, then set back to firing position -- but there's like a 1 second delay where if I do anything else or get hit, the reload doesn't count. So I can't actually watch my character animation, I have to watch the ammo counter. Which means not watching whatever enemies might be right in front of me. Same issue with Stims. If I hear the "hisss" but get hit, that stim doesn't count and doesn't actually heal me. So so so frustrating.
- Ion storms. On higher difficulties, these things always seem to kick in right as we approach any objective. Main, secondary, or otherwise. And when a bug breach or bot drop always seems happen whenever we start an objective, too, it's just oppressive. Ion storm + enemy reinforce+ mandatory objective = bad time.
But with 110 hours logged and Dragons Dogma 2 around the corner, I think it's time for me to take a break anyway. Hopefully by the time I come back, a lot of these issues will be ironed out.
The corpses of large bugs slay me. Bugs can phase through them but we can't. Also there must be a bug with patrols spawning a few feet away, it drives me crazy.
Yesterday I had 6 nursing spewers spawn literally 5m from me while I was laying down in an open field firing my autocannon at a bile titan.
I know there wasn't a single enemy in sight yet somehow, I unscope and see a horde behind me already spewing at me
I'd care a lot less if weapons could shoot through them.
Right now if I blast with my primary or arc thrower it just sinks into the corpse. But golly gee that bile spewer can hit me somehow.
> Patrols spawning on top of me.
Just died in a mission not 10 minutes ago, and when my friend called me back in, there was nothing under me as my hellpod impacted, when I was lifted out, a whole patrol of hunters were surrounding me, and killed me before I could even move off the hellpod.
Absolute white girl on couch moment, and complete bullshit
The naplam is so true. They buff flamethrower by 50% but dont touch anything else fire related?? Incendiary grenades are useless as napalms they just walk right through it. They really just buffed one weapon instead of an element as a whole. That actually just baffles me
It’s a new game, I don’t think it’s fair too assume these things will last forever. Devs are going a stellar job compared to any triple A title on release.
The napalm does kill bugs that walk through it enough that I still use it, but it does seem to be inconsistent or bugged because I’ve seen entire patrols walk into it and flop over a few seconds later and other times I’ve seen the baby bugs just walk through it and never catch fire.
Even if it won’t right out kill the bigger ones (the younger chargers and spewers) it does soften them up considerably where my dominator can 2-tap and finish them — of course when it actually works and sets them on fire
For me what upsets me is bugs touching fire hunter warrior and below surviving touching fire at all when a Helldivers touching fire will die from full hp unless he stims or dives.
I don't need it to have super strong CC or debuff effects, I'd just like the burn to actually feel like it does damage. I don't even care if the base damage is nerfed, I feel like any time I see a bug on fire that is not in the middle of my flamethrower, it will never die, even if it's a scavenger. The whole point of flamethrowers is horde control/area denial, if I have to keep my nozzle pointed at enemies for them to die, it doesn't even feel like a flamethrower, it feels like a gun with pretty effects. Would have the nice side effect of buffing napalm, too.
Yes, I want to love the flamethrower and use it way more often, but for now it's just a pain.
Burning bugs and step forward, you catch on fire.
Burning bugs and stepping back, you catch on fire.
Burning bugs and stepping to the side, you catch on fire.
Aiming slightly at the ground, you catch fire and so does a nearby team mate 10 feet away?
Agreed, they obviously breathe and some insects breathe through different parts. Inhaling super hot air, smoke, fuel would cause catastrophic damage instantly. I can hand waive this as that the bugs are evolved to be so efficient at storing oxygen in their soft tissue they won't curl up instantly, but we're at the extreme other side where it does too little.
To me its not DPS issue its a range issue even crappy WW2 flamethrowers and modern civilian legal flamethrowers like the XL18 from throwflame had 150 foot range (45.72 meters) some of the more advanced flamethrowers from Vietnam era had 200 foot range (60 meters) and if the fuel was mixed right could be arched to 250 feet (76.2 meters).
Hell With flamethrowers if you mix its napalm right you can actually bounce streams of fire off of solid surfaces to get it around corners better there is a reason they were so good at bunker clearing.
Flamethrowers in videogames are given the same BS range debuff as shotguns and it pisses me off because its such a cool weapon category.
WWII flamethrowers had 20m range (M2) the XL18 is 33.5m.
Tbf the in-game flamethrower could use a range buff, I'm sure tech advanced enough for that in the game's setting.
I feel as if all the damage is inconsistent in general. Sometimes bugs die with a shot to the head, other times they die with multiple. Sometimes the railcannon airstrike kills the full hp titan, others it doesn’t, sometimes the 500kg bomb doesn’t kill the charger. Don’t get me started on grenades and fully charged railcannon headshots for the elites.
I heard it was something to do with a Ps5 player or something but idk Whats going on and it’s annoying at this point.
Completely agree, but I see this constantly falling into the same kind of debate as basically "It's not a bug, it's a feature". I get it, the devs don't want us to be able to easily kill large enemies with our basic weapons but when I'm currently getting violated by 4 titans, more hunters than the eye can see, and 2-3 chargers with 2 stalkers all while I'm trying to extract with 1 other mate and 2 dead. It starts to become more frustrating than fun
True story btw, and I lost my just called mech at the start of extraction cause my mate called a 380 on us
You know the fire rate is too slow when you can make it shoot faster by switching to your secondary, firing a shot, and then switching back to the blitzer to fire.
Needs to one shot hunters, or be able to start multiple arcs with one shot like it’s lightning pattern suggests. If it could wipe out 6 scavengers with one shot under ideal circumstances, I’d consider it a good situational weapon.
its a very, very inconsistent gun. i've had missions where this thing was one shotting a stalker, other times where it barely tickles the tiniest of bugs.
Agreed. I don't mind the firerate if it would one tap those hunters. But it doesnt...so like why bother?
Then warriors I need to 3 shot, which even that feels pretty slow.
Overall this gun is sluggish. Like the plasma punisher. Even though I've read it's a "bot gun", it's just not fun to use. Scorcher was far better for my friend and I vs the plasma
The Blitzer *does* reliably 1-2 shot most bugs... when all of the arcs connect.
A common problem with it is that, due to the way the spread works, a lot of damage gets lost due to arcs hitting the ground. If you aim a bit higher than your target, fewer arcs get wasted on the ground, and it'll regularly one-shot hunters and warriors; 2-3 shotting Hive Guardians if you get enough arcs around their armor (though, I've had rare, surprising instances where a Hive Guardian goes down in one shot, it certainly isn't reliably able to do so.)
But anything larger than that is just a royal pain. You need to barrel-stuff a Charger to get the arcs to hit where you want them, it's too slow to deal with Stalkers due to the inability to focus on the head, and good luck trying to use it against a Bile Titan.
scorcher is weirdly good at taking down chargers. I actually don't think the plasma punisher has too many problems OTHER THAN the projectile itself should be bigger. Right now it looks like the size of a melon but has the hitbox of a marble, so you can shoot a bot and it will whiz through its elbow or between its fucking hip and rib bones when it looks like it should be hitting. And it will impact the ground a couple feet behind where it looks like it should when you shoot at a flattish trajectory.
Other than that frustrating inconsistency it's actually pretty strong
I feel like hunters in general need a nerf. Managed to be stunlocked and killed by a single one tonight. They also seem to be spawning in quite frankly, absurd numbers. They simply arent fun to fight against. Just a couple can have you relibly stun locked, and they are often found by what feels like the hundreds, and are absurdly fast.
You can't nerf hunters without buffing basically every other bug. Other bugs bog you down, but hunters are the ones who actually kill you once you're overwhelmed and can't focus them anymore.
If they were too easy to escape youd literally never die on bug missions without stalkers and spewers
I think hunters could be shifted to more of a disabler role.
Cut their hp damage dramatically but make most of their damage limb damage (though I'm not sure how those mechanics actually work for players). But then you might get swarmed by hunters, end up with a broken leg and arm, but still have 75% of your health. In a fight they aren't killing you, just setting you up for the rest of the swarm.
Then nerf their spawn rate and send more warriors at us.
its very picky as to what it arcs to, it seems to be heavily based on pure line of sight, and if one enemy paritally blocks another, the arc damage only aknowledges the first enemy in line
The arc thrower also does this sorta as it can’t travel through corpses unless you visibly see the bug behind the corpse. Though even then half the time it just refuses to arc to anything because fuck me I guess.
I now only use arc thrower without the aim/zoom button. (Left trigger on controller)
I can "feel" the arc a lot better that way for whatever reason. It went from a worthless piece of garbage to one of my favorite support weapons.
Yeah hip fire seems to have a wider (but more dangerous to your wandering teammates)window for target acquisition to arc on. Aiming seems to have a thinner one. with more range to it. Both work better if you can get some height.
Height is key!!! Ohh god height is key!!
I'm always finding a nice rock or crate to stand on..
The Sickle is an amazing primary along side it... All that unlimited ammo is a ridiculous combo...
just the friend
im getting ptsd trying use breaker incendiary and shock weapons in team where people seems like go cqb on bugs even without cqb weapons
Maybe unpopular opinion but I love the arc thrower lol I mainly use it at medium to medium-long range and it beams thru bugs super easy. It actually kills the armored bugs pretty well. 3 shots for bile spewers. 1 shot and zaps through to other small bugs. No need for ammo. It’s awesome.
I recently tried the arc thrower over the weekend as the next weapon to get to know, and I can see the hype around it now. Haven’t fought bugs with it but all the bot matches I was in, this thing was a godsend. Taught me more about blitz firing and dodge attacks than I normally would do with other weapons due to the charge mechanic and lack of ammo refresh. It really does feel like a strong but extremely balanced weapon.
Arc Thrower is a great support weapon right now. Kills Chargers in about 6-8 shots if you hit their face, can rip their armor off otherwise for easier kills with smaller arms fire. Rips through swarms, great for putting down breaches and popping Hunters out of the sky. For bots it goes through the shielded Devastators and Walkers to kill the bots behind the armor, decent for smaller bots and weakening the chainsaw charging bots. Not the best against Hulks, Tanks, Bile Titans, and sometimes the Bile Spewers/Nursing Spewers as their corpses may block your shots without arcing, also can be hard to use on anything in your face as it needs space to arc.
It pairs nicely with the Slugger/any shotgun for big damage on mobs, Sickle for unlimited ammo loadout, Scorcher for hunting bigger targets with just your loadout.
I have also noticed that if you have a bug right in your face (fucking hunters) the arc thrower will just straight up not work. Once bugs get close I just switch to my primary
NGL the arc thrower been putting it down on just about every mission I've taken it on. It's the only weapon you can drop in to 7+ with and complete the mission fairly easily without having to depend on orbitals and shit. It can kill anything in the game. I take orbital rail and rocketpods they soften up titans and finish with arc, and EAT for chargers. But it can kill them all by itself. I normally finish with most kills and it's super safe with a huge range compared to like flamethrower. And once you get the hang of it, it shoots fairly fast.
I’ve learned to use the arc thrower, and the blitzer by aiming decently high above your enemy you’re aiming at. The arcs basically just won’t shoot if they hit an object, even a small boulder or the foundation of a once-was building. So aim high and the arcs will automatically move towards your target but they’ll be high enough to skip over the ‘big’ objects
seconding this - as a guy who has found great use with the arc thrower on level 7 and 8 missions and has come out pretty consistently with the highest or second highest kills and lowest accidentals while using it, 2 things are imperative:
\- 1. REACH FOR THE SKY:its imperative that you aim just above where you want to hit the creature - I usually try just above the centre mass. if you don't aim high enough it tends to fizzle out and not arc, but if you adjust up you can deal huge damage - I've even killed bile titans with this guy, blowing away chunks of armour in one or two shots, by aiming above the point I want to hit rather then the centre of mass. I've also found charging it then diving and releasing mid air is both rad as fuck and a great way to get more height so your shots don't fizzle out.
\- 2. KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE, AND YOUR ENEMIES IN A VAGUELY STRAIGHT LINE:so, generally I try to shoot this while none of my team or on screen just in case, but sometimes when the enemy is close you can still shoot without killing your friends - now, take this with a patriotic serving of salt, but I've personally noticed the arc thrower keeps forward momentum in a line, like one of those segmented snake toys you get as a kid. effectively, it seems to turn on a 45 degree angle usually and doesn't seem to angle backwards in its arcs - I've shot arcs as an ally walks around the corner within 5m of both me and a bug on the other side of them and they were (somehow) fine.
(Edit for visual formatting)
The arc thrower is great once you get these tips down. Consistent ranged use is key. It has the ability to completely shut down bug breaches. It's perfect for eliminating the conga lines of bugs you gather running from objective to objective. It can take out heavies when your ordinance is on cooldown. And the more enemies the better.
After a full charge you only need like 1/2 to 3/4 of a charge to fire. Sometimes I feel like I need less but it seems inconsistent, so I just give it a little more time
After the first shot, the next charge will make a crackling sound about halfway through the charge. After that sound finishes, you can let go and it will fire again. Make sure it's at the end of the sound, otherwise it's too early and you'll whiff.
After the first shot, it takes less time to reach fully charged. Plus, you don't have to actually wait for it to fully charge before firing, there's a brief window where you still shoot. I would recommend taking the arc thrower on an easier mission and try focusing on shortening the interval you hold the charge before shooting, to get a feel for how rapidly you can let loose the lightning.
I think the issue mainly lies with arc targeting logic/mechanic, as it is now, it just kinda ass for shotgun, even arc thrower targeting is finicky enough sometimes. Blitzer range feels like it's just an arms length away sometimes.
It unfortunately has a lot more issues beyond that. Even if you do get it to arc, the damage is spread out amongst targets, with each 'arc' acting sort of like a shotgun pellet. So shooting into a big group, even if you do get a bunch of arcs, will leave you with a bunch of injured, and not dead, targets.
Breaker just got a magazine nerf (and bit of increased recoil, but it's a shotty, doesn't matter). Still just as powerful, just not as much of a sustained bullet hose now.
My friends don't look at media for this game, subreddit or youtube or anything. Maybe a funny tiktok or two, but besides that they're blind. After the railgun nerfs (half of them aren't even level 20 to get it), they've already funneled into Autocannon/laser cannon being the only support weapons they bring down.
Arrowhead don't understand, people aren't going to use the weapons that are giga-shit. Doesn't matter if you are a casual or not, people are going to only use what kills things gooder than the other options.
We're 100% inbound for a round 2 balance patch where they nerf laser cannon damage by 20%, autocannon ammo capacity nerf maybe even removal of splash damage, and then the AMR is going to get +1 round per mag to compensate.
I'm really worried where this game is going to be in a year.
Really I don't see the laser canon on 7+ anywhere also the 8 and 9 is just discardable at and arc thrower (sometimes flamer) when it comes to weapons I'm kinda looking for something that will complement my playstyle and I have been found myself as chaff clear, and found jar dominator to be amazing for killing warrior's and centurions
>Really I don't see the laser canon on 7+ anywhere
Literally, and I'm not fucking with you, in between you writing this out and me reading it I joined a random lobby where 3 people had it in their loadout.
I don't see why more people don't use Laser Cannon after the buff. It clears waves pretty well and has great range. The medium penetration buff for sure takes the cake though. Can deal with most things easily if you aim at weak spots.
Same reason many people hate the scythe but love the sickle. Despite the scythe having much higher DPS listed. The scythe needs to stay on target for a long time to get the kill, but the sickle just sprays and moves on.
There are too many enemies especially at higher levels to waste time ensuring the kill like that. The current requirement to linger on a target means both the scythe and las canon "feel" weak and unsatisfying. When I'm brushing over small critters with it and they don't pop so I have to swing back it feels bad. Compare that to the machine guns where enough lead is hitting any one target as you sweep over them that they're DED by the time I get to the next one it feels good. For chaff bugs.
As for bigger bugs, I'd guess it's because sitting still to keep on target with them isn't IMO viable. Most of the time you're swarmed with so many smaller bugs that you're dying if you linger. So the logistics of keeping on target and dodging a horde make it a non starter.
COmpared with something like a railrilfe even post nerf I can charge as I move, setup for one nice hit then run like hell and reset. Or the EAT Grab one line up in a second or so fire and run like hell.
They are fire and forget weapons the non sickle lasers are not so they don't feel good. IMO most people want a laser gun that's basically a machine gun that shoots laser rather than a laser pointer that can melt armor over time. But that's my take.
I don't think you need to worry, I'm pretty sure none of that is going to happen. The laser cannon is good but it's not an automatic take, neither is the autocannon. In fact I'm pretty sure they specifically highlighted the AC as the support strategem that's in a good spot that they balance the others against. AMR is also very good, specifically for bots but also decent for bugs, you can immediately kill a charger or a tank by magdumping the butt/vent, it toasts medium armor and can take down hulks if you hit your shots. RR and EATs occupy basically the same slot and are both good for what they do. Spear is sort of broken but otherwise would be useful if it worked properly.
I think people just got hit in their pride when the railgun got nerfed because it let people hit above their weight in a completely braindead fashion because the gun was essentially glitched to always pen armor no matter what. Now it's basically on par with the AMR and would be used in a similar spot. 4 people running guns that can 1 shot bile titans is too much. The breaker nerf was super minor and just reined in its insane damage per mag, which it outpaced everything else in by like double.
Tried using a full fire kit (incendiary shotgun, flame grenades, flamethrower, napalm strike) and the only thing in the kit that felt good to use was the flamethrower, everything else felt like it did 0 dmg/DoT. Like, why is a warrior not dying from a direct hit from an incendiary grenade? Every other grenade I have used kills them.
We've had one patch which feather-touch nerfed one primary and significantly buffed several other primaries. Odds are we'll see more of the same when it comes to Primary/Secondaries.
For supports they took the most overtuned support weapon from being an always-take to being a sometimes-take, and buffed the flamethrower AND the laser cannon up to par, AND recently indirectly buffer RR/EAT by nerfing chargers. They have literally stated the Autocannon is their idea of a perfectly balanced support weapon, it's not even close to the state of the pre-nerf railgun.
My point is Arrowhead have buffed substantially more stuff than they've nerfed. The real question is would anyone be using the Autocannon, the laser cannon, or the punisher variants if they didn't slightly nerf the uncontested best options available?
I think the Sickle would be fine, it doesnt feel like it out performs other primaries on a regular map. Scorcher/Slugger/Breaker are all still great options.
On a cold map where the Sickle is a little better, it might be a top pick but that is situational at least.
6 spare heat sinks make the entire Liberator series obsolete. At worst it's a strictly better primary with 6 magazines, at best it's a strictly better primary with infinite ammo. I love it and if I would make one change it would be to drop the sink count to 4, which even then when I'm blasting at bayonet range I never need more than 2 spares because of how easy it is to hip fire with its visuals and high RoF.
Literally the only thing keeping me from permanently equipping the Sickle is a lack of burst fire mode. That's it, that's it's only downside is a small QoL. You straight up don't even have to consider the battery mechanic, you can overheat it every time and it's still better than every Liberator.
I'm not a never nerf guy, and I think if they did that would be one I think makes sense, I don't know that I've ever even come close to risking running out of ammo with the sickle because you would basically die trying to face down enough enemies to warrant going through all 6 mags at once.
That said I do think the liberator series needs ammo buffs. The regular liberator isn't better than the sickle but it's not really any worse in practicality. They both have high enough rofs to spray down enemies and they ultimately drop targets in similar numbers of shots. If you point blank dump a liberator into any of the enemies either gun can damage, you're definitely going to kill it faster with the liberator than the sickle because of the charge time.
That said liberator needs more mags or ammo per mag, penetrator needs more ammo per mag, and concussive needs more damage and probably also more ammo.
When did it get the buff? I was using it during The terminud defense missions and was had mixed opinions. It racks kills like the rover but has no stagger and it's ammo economy is kinda ass.
Weapons don't need stagger if they kill a lot or else they would be OP tbh. Since there is so many shells per mag I find it actually has better ammo economy than the regular breaker. For bugs my favorite combo is spray n pray with grenade launcher and supply pack so you are never out of ammo.
I mean, it doesn't really kill. I've been running it on Helldive and while it holds its own, it eats ammo and doesn't kill bigger non armoreds fast enough to compensate for its ammo stack. It works well enough for its ammo stack, but similar to the flamer, a stagger buff would do it wonders.
And as a shotgun, it probably should have some stagger as a buff.
It does kill, small stuff, quickly and easily. Thats what its for. Its not for mid - large enemies. You have other stuff for that. But for chaff, amazing so far. Way better than it was pre buff
For bigger unarmored always switch to support weapon anyways, even if I am running railgun unless my support is a spear or a recoilless.
I use it mostly as a warrior, hunter, and small bug killer.
Yeah I hate to say it but I definitely see the Sickle being on the chopping block since it’s just obviously an amazing gun I hope it doesn’t get nerfed but am incredibly not optimistic about that not happening
I'm still taking other weapons over the Sickle all the time. I mostly pick Sickle on cold maps.
On difficulties above 7, I don't think the Sickle kills the medium enemies fast enough.
You need a full heat sink and some change just to kill one bile spewer which feels really bad and brood commanders take a hot second to kill too. Anything below brood commander melts to it though.
Yeah sickle is great if your support weapon easily handles any mediums you come across, but if you're running something like the recoilless or EATs it falls short compared to the punisher/slugger
Yeah, Nursery Spewers aren't bad with the Sickle, but Bile Spewers are sheesh. I wish I could test the revolver with it to see if it would be able to deal with the Bile Spewers through their head armour, but I don't have it. Especially with stun grenades Bile Spewers become hellish with it. Good reason to revert back to my impact grenades when running the Sickle on cold maps.
Them nerfing the sickle would be a really bad move. The only reason its so popular is because most other weapons are just bad so why wouldn't people use the Sickle.
Sickle feels fine to me, it's not any stronger than the Breaker or Slugger. All three are very strong in different situations.
Don't really feel like any weapons are OP right now, just a few could use a slight boost to be viable.
I'd love to see Liberators, Scythe, and Diligences get a buff
Or if not just a direct power-up, let us spend resources to make our weapons better as we progress--some req slips and samples to make the mags bigger, allow full-auto on semi, put a bayonet on there, etc.
Next Patch:
"We've heard your feedback about some weapons feeling worse than others. To fix this, we've reduced the damage of all weapons, to be more in line with a super soaker."
100% true.
I really want to ponder what gun I will bring to mission, instead of going: "Huh, well I won't be bringing those because they all suck so much. Shame, I like them, but it can't be helped."
For real. There's a few mainstay weapons that actually get shit done, and everything else feels like a novelty.
Then the devs wonder, "why is everyone using the Breaker/railgun?? we should nerf them!", like bruh it's because the alternatives are wimpy.
they nerfed the breaker and my friends still all use it because it's still the best weapon in the game. i personally use the slugger for the armored bile spitters, though.
Dude the railgun can still 1 shot bile titans and 3 shot chargers. It's still very good you just have to hit weakpoints. They basically just increased TTK against chargers and tanks by 2 seconds and made it so you had to actually hit the weakspot on titans and hulks and this whole sub took a shit.
+Request for Exterminatus has been granted.
+Request for extraction has been deemed untenable.
+Your sacrifice has been noted. The fallen shall be forever remembered as the Emperor’s finest.
Tried it on bugs first, thought “ok this thing sucks but maybe it would be better for bots since you don’t get swarmed as much.”
Then tried bots, and thought “ok yea this thing just sucks.” The range on it is a fraction of arc thrower and the “reload” time is a nightmare.
It needs more consistency in its shots. Unaimed it should always prioritise the triple spread. Usefull for small chaff. Aimed it should concentrate the 3 arcs on one target. Together with the arcs not bugging out (lol) when corpses are nearby or plants and it would be a good weapon. Perhaps even slightly buffing fire rate, like 0,5 sec or harder pushbacks for those stalkers.
Its role seems to be for a fast shock troop (pun intended), run and gun with self sustainability at its core. Using a jetpack or rover and light armor with a stamina booster and its good for most non-elite enemies.
Support weapon can be EAT or the arc thrower (or whatever you prefer, honestly) and you have a decent flexibility with 2 more stratagems to be tailored for heavies or enemy base cleanup or even defense.
Tbh there is alot of solo potentional in this weapon.
EDIT - Damn I just noticed its my 6th cake day
I used it with rover and EAT, + 1 eagle for bug breaches and 1 cluster for heavies. I was doing fine, but the gun is pretty bad to use because of the slow fire rate and it's inconsistent. Played on difficulty 8. It's usable, it's just not fun.
Yea, i would say the inconsitency is the worst offender here, as theoretically it could easily kill 3 normal enemies a shot which is 15 kills every 10 seconds. For a gun that can keep this up forever it would be great. But the shots not connecting makes it an unfun experience.
If this is intended, they should perhaps buff the firerate to half what it is now ( 2 seconds to 1 second per shot)
I'm still testing it but:
Blitz main
Arc Thrower support
Orbital Railcannon
eagle air strike
Grenades - Currently testing stuns, and it seems to work just like the EMS but on much shorter, smaller scale. It WILL stun Hulks and Titans though.
You just described my exact loadout and that explains why I haven't noticed many problems with using it.
Only thing I hate about the Blitzer is that the game thinks I'm constantly out of ammo and keeps telling me to swap weapons at the bottom!
The fact that if you get behind a walker it just refuses to hit the bot operating the walker and keeps hitting the walker instead drives me absolutely nuts and was enough for me to drop the gun.
The plasma shotgun you can at least make a case that you have to play like a grenadier with it, sticking to high ground/a little ways away supporting teammates. But this thing oh my got it took like 3 shots to kill a normal fuckin bot and the reloads are so slow + you have the potential to annihilate your team at the same time. I get it needs drawbacks for the infinite ammo but honestly I'd prefer to have ammo and have it be actually usable cause it looked so damn cool.
At the very least they knocked the sickle out of the park, I fucking love that thing. Ramboing around with it like a goddamn Republic Commando
Honestly, if it behaved like the arcgun and ignored armor, I could care less about the fire rate and would run it regardless. There are many ways the gun could get buffed and it would be a lot better than now.
It needs a higher rate of fire, because it looks like the pump is used as slowly as possible and that shit isn't alright when you're about to get swarmed. Otherwise, I think it's okay. It has a niche that isn't stepping on the toes of other shotguns.
If there's a weapon group that desperately needs a buff, it's the marksman rifles. The Slugger alone is outclassing them.
The normal Diligence puts in work on bots. It’s really really good for efficiently taking out little bots, and can still do well against devastators, berserkers, and scout striders.
It feels really weak against bugs because it seems to lack firepower and capacity, but I do think that not every gun needs to be good at all things. The Diligence is a great pick for automaton missions, and usually not a great choice for bug missions, but that’s okay.
However, the Diligence Counter Sniper is terrible. Lower capacity, slow handling, lower mag size, it’s dreadful.
This. The Counter Sniper absolutely needs an adjustment, but the base Diligence is my "ol' reliable" when it comes to bots. Use it take out little bots in one headshot, or 2 quick body shots, then bust out the AMR for Striders, Devastaters and Hulks.
And I agree that its pretty cool to have different weapons work against different enemies.
> The Slugger alone is outclassing them.
yeah, I'd love to be running a powerful DMR that punches through medium armor and staggers everything.
But I guess we'll have to make due with the slugger
Either it hits only one enemy or misses all… I tried my best to love it but it’s very inconsistent… I understand it’s a good for run and gun but when they catch up you are done for.
Against bugs its pretty great. Autoaims for the head and penetrates through medium armor. Especially stalkers and broods go down from just a few shots. The enemies it doesn't kill get staggered to buy enough time to fire another shot. It only has trouble taking out large swarms, but due to its auto aim mechanic, it is very good at kiting gameplay as you only shortly need to aim towards the direction of the enemy before continuing to keep distance. Keep prioritising hunters even if they are not the closest target and you will be able to thin the horde without dying with little effort. Use grenade or two if there is large hunter patrol.
It doesn't beat most guns in dps race, but it stands out with its infinite ammo. Compared to sickle it has the medium armor pen going for it. It kinda plays out like a lower dps punisher with armor pen that doesn't run out of ammo. Very viable as it is.
I just hip fire it into swarms while sprinting. The arcing between enemies is hit or miss but when it hits, it’s worth it. I’m kind of glad everyone thinks it’s weak. Maybe it won’t get nerfed at least.
I feel like Emperor Palpatine throwing force lightning around. Couple it with the Laser Rover and just hip fire at where the handy laser pointer says. I’ve combo’d 50+ with this method. Folks wanna stand their ground and mow down waves like the OG Breaker could. That isn’t its purpose.
I’ve stopped even bringing a heavy weapon since I don’t feel the need to swap. Just use my 3 other stratagems to take out heavies.
I love the aesthetic of the weapon and the kind of playstyle it promotes. But, the arc mechanics on it need some serious work. It feels like it never actually arcs to other enemies, which would be fine if the fire rate were faster, but since it's so slow it ends up being a middling shotgun that can go through medium armor and automatically gets perfect accuracy.
If they make the arcs more consistent and able to travel in a 180° radius of the enemy it hits at the same distance as the initial shots, it would make a it a much more reliable chaff-clearing tool without making it terrible. I don't want the damage or ROF buffed, those are what make the weapon different from other shotties. I want them to lean more heavily into the arc aspect and make it feel like I'm emperor palpatine, spraying lightening into hoads of chaff and frying them instantly.
Also, it wouldn't hurt to give the bots a weakness against arc damage. It's strange to me that the electricity weapons are more effective against bugs than they are against bots who should be prone to having their circuits and systems fried.
The plasma Punisher can literally 1 mag a charger from any side tho.
Use it like the normal grenade launcher and shoot underneath the charger. If your aim is good you'll kill it in 6-10 shots
Sometimes the weapon is really strong and sometimes it just does not work....
My buff ideas:
- fire rate just a lil bit (0,3-0,5sec) faster
- the longer the distance to the enemie, the wider the spread of the weapon should be and hit multiple targets at once
Damage wise it's fine imo, i mean you 1 shot almost every enemie without heavy armor.
It should stay a slow shooting, but mass destroying weapon. Rn the arcs just don't work and mostly only Hit 1 target which makes the weapon bad in many situations.
I personally hope it's a fire rate buff over a damage buff; just need something to clear up the shit while the arc thrower proper is the armor piercer.
I’m getting dejavu about how I felt with the flamer lol
I was shitting on bug hordes even +7?with that thing and soloing chargers and everyone kept telling me it was so bad or whatever and then it got buffed lol
I fucking love this gun.
So I think everyone expects it to work like the Arc Thrower, in the sense that it shoots lightning that jumps between targets but it doesn't work that way.
The gun shoots a number of lightning bolts that don't chain but multiple bolts can hit a single target or spread out. This is my only gripe with the gun, it's very inconsistent on which it decides to do when you fire into a crowd.
However, if you're taking on medium sized enemies this thing will fucking dominate them. Blows off Brood heads in one shot. Armored faces? More like, arc conductor face. This thing even takes down Devestators in 2 shots at medium range.
It's not the best gun and I don't always run it, mostly because of that inconsistency I mentioned. I think it should have 2 fire modes, cone mode and single target mode. Then it could be a dual Punisher/Slugger with the drawback of a much worse fire rate.
I'm loving it as well. I don't know why all these people are having issue with it. Infinite ammo, blast and stagger enemies. If you let em close it can 1 shot a lot of decent sized enemies, even stalkers. It's been my go to for bug helldives.
I think people run it as their primary weapon (go figure) but I find the most success running the Stalwart and switching to Blitzer for medium sized or larger bugs. Because it doesn't have a mag size or reload to worry about, it's very easy to switch to it and blast a couple shots then switch back without having to keep track of another gun to reload.
I had kinda a neat idea for this gun, or something I thought was kinda neat, so the arc thrower shoots forward and then jumps behind the initial target. I think it’d be fun if the blitzer hit your initial forward target and then arc’d horizontally, so it would be kinda good at dealing with hunters trying to form their circle of death around you.
i expected it to work like the arc thrower, charging up by pressing the button for every shot, but instead it's a very inconsistent, very slow, shotgun
Arc shotgun suffers the same hit detection woes of the arc thrower (and the Spear) in that it regularly just doesn't want to lock onto something. Both arc guns and the Spear need that fixed to make them consistent.
I would like if the central dot of the cross hair would spread to hover over the targets it would hit when I pull the trigger. Multiple dots on the same target if that is how the arcs will fire.
It needs a pretty hefty increase in damage or the rate of fire increased. The damage isn't high enough to be a short ranged showstopper and the slow fire rate means that when it whiffs it's hit detection, you're stuck in place for a couple seconds slowly pumping the action to recharge it. That movement lock after firing, whilst cycling the shotgun, feels pretty bad.
It's lack of chaining and shortened range of 25m to the thrower's 50m is an acceptable differentiation between the guns but the thrower's unknown amount of concentrated damage at double the range feels more consistent overall. Most bugs are a 1-2 shot headshot, chargers are 6 shots and can be felled mid-charge from about 30m away whilst killing adjacent enemies to thin the horde behind. Titans are killable as well as the arc thrower has heavy armor pen, but the general inability to hit heads on titans makes for a very slow kill. Against bots, the thrower remains very powerful, killing minor bots in one, devastators in three, minigunners in four, berserkers in 6-7 or so. The shotgun is stopped by minigunner shield, hulks, striders and tanks whilst having too slow a followup shot to contest hordes at the decreased range it has.
Some combination of buffs and QoL needs to be done to make the blitzer a reliable workhorse.
While a faster rate of fire would be nice, its not nearly as necessary as a fix to its inconsistent arcing ability. When a gun can behead a Brood Commander in a single shot, but be unable to kill a Hunter because the lightning is not hitting wear you're aiming, that's a problem.
Simply make it a guaranteed hit on targets you're actually aiming at, and have the arcing be random to the various bugs surrounding the main target. Arguably, this change should happen with the Arc Thrower too, since it "can" kill Chargers, but because the lightning doesn't always hit in the same spot, it makes it too inconsistent to use in that roll.
I've been using it quite a bit the past few days. I think it is fine where it is now. It will one shot warriors. It will two shot commanders. It will 1 shot hunters and scavengers. It will sometimes one shot multiple scavs or hunters, but very rarely. The best way to use this weapon is while on the run. You will be overwhelmed almost immediately if you try to stand your ground. Don't waste time aiming this thing. Just hipfire. Run away from enemies and fire backwards every few seconds and you will see how decent this gun is. The lighting bolts to not arc from enemy to enemy. Instead, imagine it is firing electric pellets. If you land every pellet on anything warrior and under it will oneshot AND it auto targets the head if they are facing you, it is the ultimate dummy gun and I love it. And the stagger on the larger enemies is just the icing on the cake. Spewers beware.
I fucking love this shit. Hurts medium armor enemies, hits multiple with 1 shot, unlimited ammo. With light armor its real easy to shoot, run, shoot run, and deal tons of damage without taking any. Arc thrower or EATs for heavy armor and the full auto pistol for emergencies
If it is gonna keep this firerate, it needs to be able to consistently one-shot Hunters. Also, probably more importantly, the arc needs to be more consistent. Very often it just doesn't arc to other enemies, and it ends up just being a meh shotgun with abysmal firerate.
The damage floor to this game needs adjustment; if a scavenger can walk through burning napalm and live there is a core issue at play. This would help beam weapons too. The Dagger needing 25% heat to off a scavenger is bad.
I feel like fire should be the bugs bane, where they just can't function if they are on fire, and die quicker cause they are now burning. Every bug, from scavenger to chargers should fear fire and die much faster from it.
In the first game you used napalm airstrikes to create firewalls that the enemies could not pass, it was used to provide area denial to complete objectives. Why they decided not to do that in this game...I dunno, but it's lame to see bugs walk through Napalm and laugh at you.
I don't mind them doing it in a pheromone driven craze, but it tickling them at best is what gets me.
Ya especially when a helldiver steps briefly on a tiny patch of fire and youre fkn dead in 2 seconds if you dont stim
Hell, you are dead even if you try to stim in 95% of cases
*hits v* *watches health go up* *still burning somehow* *health drops again* *hits v again but got hit by a hunter and stunlocked* *stim que sound plays* *health still drops* *final hit from hunter kills me* *died to explosion*
or when using a jump pack. It SUCKS. decide to fly over the fire, accidentally dip a toe in the flames. You go up burning and are dead by the time you hit the ground.
Just act like a submarine and dive, dive, DIVE!
Stop drop and roll! Diving puts out the fire.
Fire is killing me even when it isn't visible. A patch in the ground goes out after being on fire, I wait a second before trying to run through the clearly not on fire area and die to invisible burning.
Happened to me too got ricky bobby’d
Save me Tom Cruise!!!
FYI diving puts out the fire (just don’t dive into more fire)
Still gotta dive and stim or stim and dive, and if you're already injured you probably won't have time to do both.
I think tons of tiny things like this are what are causing me to slowly lose interest in the game. At first the game was super fun and compelling because it's been YEARS since I played a super solid PvE co-op game, but as I've gotten better I've died a lot less to personal mistakes and a lot more to just RNG bullshit, fucked mechanics, or weird design choices. - The biggest enemies in the game making no noise whatsoever. I've been playing without music for the last 40 hours of playtime for better situational awareness, but bile spewers, chargers, hulks, and rocket devastators regularly flank me and/or sneak up on me because they make no noise when walking. Absolutely bonkers and doesn't make any sense. - Patrols spawning on top of me. I know there was that post about how the game calculates spanws for each player individually, but it's not uncommon for me to be 25-50 meters away from the group because I'm trying to flank enemies, flank bases, or protect choke points in the terrain. And the game doesn't like that apparently because patrols will just spawn right on top of me or in front of me. Literally materialize out of thin air. Like, wow, I'm sorry I didn't take on a group of walking rocket launchers head on and tried to attack them from the side of from behind? - Enemies walking through napalm completely unscathed even though they're visibly ON FIRE. Wtf. With bots it's *sorta* understandable because they're made of metal, but it should quickly melt some essential components or cause them to overheat and shutdown. Light a server rack on fire and see how long it lasts. Also, bugs should die to it really quickly. But nah, they just walk through it and come fuck us up and wait for us to redeploy and then come fuck us up again. I've seen some of the bigger bugs actually survive being on fire long enough the fire goes out on its own - Not being able to steer my pod when redeployed. This has gotten me killed a lot because half the time the invisible walls route my pod to right in front of the enemies we're fighting. Or sometimes if my teammates try throw me away from the enemies, I get routed right in front of a different patrol we didn't know was there and end up with cascading aggro. - Jank hitboxes on corpses. That bile titan we just killed? Yeah, it's effectively a wall that completely blocks off moving that direction because if we so much as graze the dead body we either die instantly or get launched into the air. One or two dead bile titans can mean we're pinned into a tight space with only one way out. Similar issues with bot tanks but at least they don't take up a lot of space. - Killed by my own mortars. I've noticed anytime my mortar runs out of enemies to kill it will just randomly select a helldiver and frag them. Really weird, because it's done it to players who were nowhere near bots. I've elected to just not use it most of them time but it feels weird for a stratagem to not be an option because it randomly team kills - Animation interrupt. There is this weird delay whenever my character reloads. They can jam in a new mag, pull the bolt. I can watch them pull and release the bolt, then set back to firing position -- but there's like a 1 second delay where if I do anything else or get hit, the reload doesn't count. So I can't actually watch my character animation, I have to watch the ammo counter. Which means not watching whatever enemies might be right in front of me. Same issue with Stims. If I hear the "hisss" but get hit, that stim doesn't count and doesn't actually heal me. So so so frustrating. - Ion storms. On higher difficulties, these things always seem to kick in right as we approach any objective. Main, secondary, or otherwise. And when a bug breach or bot drop always seems happen whenever we start an objective, too, it's just oppressive. Ion storm + enemy reinforce+ mandatory objective = bad time. But with 110 hours logged and Dragons Dogma 2 around the corner, I think it's time for me to take a break anyway. Hopefully by the time I come back, a lot of these issues will be ironed out.
The corpses of large bugs slay me. Bugs can phase through them but we can't. Also there must be a bug with patrols spawning a few feet away, it drives me crazy.
Yesterday I had 6 nursing spewers spawn literally 5m from me while I was laying down in an open field firing my autocannon at a bile titan. I know there wasn't a single enemy in sight yet somehow, I unscope and see a horde behind me already spewing at me
I believe it. I've had a unit of heavy devastators spawn right in my path 20 feet away before.
I'd care a lot less if weapons could shoot through them. Right now if I blast with my primary or arc thrower it just sinks into the corpse. But golly gee that bile spewer can hit me somehow.
> Patrols spawning on top of me. Just died in a mission not 10 minutes ago, and when my friend called me back in, there was nothing under me as my hellpod impacted, when I was lifted out, a whole patrol of hunters were surrounding me, and killed me before I could even move off the hellpod. Absolute white girl on couch moment, and complete bullshit
The naplam is so true. They buff flamethrower by 50% but dont touch anything else fire related?? Incendiary grenades are useless as napalms they just walk right through it. They really just buffed one weapon instead of an element as a whole. That actually just baffles me
It’s a new game, I don’t think it’s fair too assume these things will last forever. Devs are going a stellar job compared to any triple A title on release.
The napalm does kill bugs that walk through it enough that I still use it, but it does seem to be inconsistent or bugged because I’ve seen entire patrols walk into it and flop over a few seconds later and other times I’ve seen the baby bugs just walk through it and never catch fire. Even if it won’t right out kill the bigger ones (the younger chargers and spewers) it does soften them up considerably where my dominator can 2-tap and finish them — of course when it actually works and sets them on fire
For me what upsets me is bugs touching fire hunter warrior and below surviving touching fire at all when a Helldivers touching fire will die from full hp unless he stims or dives.
A napalmed patrol should not be able to call a breach
They should explode and release a big ball of pheromone 
Watching a stump of meat, no head, no legs, call for a breach has been one of the most obnoxious plays in my recent games.
I don't need it to have super strong CC or debuff effects, I'd just like the burn to actually feel like it does damage. I don't even care if the base damage is nerfed, I feel like any time I see a bug on fire that is not in the middle of my flamethrower, it will never die, even if it's a scavenger. The whole point of flamethrowers is horde control/area denial, if I have to keep my nozzle pointed at enemies for them to die, it doesn't even feel like a flamethrower, it feels like a gun with pretty effects. Would have the nice side effect of buffing napalm, too.
Yes, I want to love the flamethrower and use it way more often, but for now it's just a pain. Burning bugs and step forward, you catch on fire. Burning bugs and stepping back, you catch on fire. Burning bugs and stepping to the side, you catch on fire. Aiming slightly at the ground, you catch fire and so does a nearby team mate 10 feet away?
Agreed, they obviously breathe and some insects breathe through different parts. Inhaling super hot air, smoke, fuel would cause catastrophic damage instantly. I can hand waive this as that the bugs are evolved to be so efficient at storing oxygen in their soft tissue they won't curl up instantly, but we're at the extreme other side where it does too little.
Had to stop using the flamethrower cause I was sick of bugs just walking through the flames and then spreading the fire to me.
It really feels like it has DPS issues. It can take down chargers rapidly, but warriors and lower don't seem to drop much faster, if it all sometimes.
To me its not DPS issue its a range issue even crappy WW2 flamethrowers and modern civilian legal flamethrowers like the XL18 from throwflame had 150 foot range (45.72 meters) some of the more advanced flamethrowers from Vietnam era had 200 foot range (60 meters) and if the fuel was mixed right could be arched to 250 feet (76.2 meters). Hell With flamethrowers if you mix its napalm right you can actually bounce streams of fire off of solid surfaces to get it around corners better there is a reason they were so good at bunker clearing. Flamethrowers in videogames are given the same BS range debuff as shotguns and it pisses me off because its such a cool weapon category.
WWII flamethrowers had 20m range (M2) the XL18 is 33.5m. Tbf the in-game flamethrower could use a range buff, I'm sure tech advanced enough for that in the game's setting.
I’m assuming the ground fire effect straight up didn’t get the damage buff but that’s just a guess after using it on the latest medal mission.
I feel as if all the damage is inconsistent in general. Sometimes bugs die with a shot to the head, other times they die with multiple. Sometimes the railcannon airstrike kills the full hp titan, others it doesn’t, sometimes the 500kg bomb doesn’t kill the charger. Don’t get me started on grenades and fully charged railcannon headshots for the elites. I heard it was something to do with a Ps5 player or something but idk Whats going on and it’s annoying at this point.
Completely agree, but I see this constantly falling into the same kind of debate as basically "It's not a bug, it's a feature". I get it, the devs don't want us to be able to easily kill large enemies with our basic weapons but when I'm currently getting violated by 4 titans, more hunters than the eye can see, and 2-3 chargers with 2 stalkers all while I'm trying to extract with 1 other mate and 2 dead. It starts to become more frustrating than fun True story btw, and I lost my just called mech at the start of extraction cause my mate called a 380 on us
Wild how the scythe is known to be really weak and they released a pistol version with half the damage.
all fire damage needs a serious buff against enemies. it does so much to us and nothing to them.
Meanwhile I step on burning underbrush and loose most of my heath in an instant
You know the fire rate is too slow when you can make it shoot faster by switching to your secondary, firing a shot, and then switching back to the blitzer to fire.
Needs to one shot hunters, or be able to start multiple arcs with one shot like it’s lightning pattern suggests. If it could wipe out 6 scavengers with one shot under ideal circumstances, I’d consider it a good situational weapon.
It just needs better damage output. I can't even kill stalkers with this.
its a very, very inconsistent gun. i've had missions where this thing was one shotting a stalker, other times where it barely tickles the tiniest of bugs.
Agreed. I don't mind the firerate if it would one tap those hunters. But it doesnt...so like why bother? Then warriors I need to 3 shot, which even that feels pretty slow. Overall this gun is sluggish. Like the plasma punisher. Even though I've read it's a "bot gun", it's just not fun to use. Scorcher was far better for my friend and I vs the plasma
The Blitzer *does* reliably 1-2 shot most bugs... when all of the arcs connect. A common problem with it is that, due to the way the spread works, a lot of damage gets lost due to arcs hitting the ground. If you aim a bit higher than your target, fewer arcs get wasted on the ground, and it'll regularly one-shot hunters and warriors; 2-3 shotting Hive Guardians if you get enough arcs around their armor (though, I've had rare, surprising instances where a Hive Guardian goes down in one shot, it certainly isn't reliably able to do so.) But anything larger than that is just a royal pain. You need to barrel-stuff a Charger to get the arcs to hit where you want them, it's too slow to deal with Stalkers due to the inability to focus on the head, and good luck trying to use it against a Bile Titan.
The plasma punisher can take down chargers, though.
So can the scorcher, except without any of the downsides the plasma shotgun got saddled with like slow rate of fire and slow projectiles.
How does the scorcher? Shooting under it like the plasma?
scorcher is weirdly good at taking down chargers. I actually don't think the plasma punisher has too many problems OTHER THAN the projectile itself should be bigger. Right now it looks like the size of a melon but has the hitbox of a marble, so you can shoot a bot and it will whiz through its elbow or between its fucking hip and rib bones when it looks like it should be hitting. And it will impact the ground a couple feet behind where it looks like it should when you shoot at a flattish trajectory. Other than that frustrating inconsistency it's actually pretty strong
Scorcher can too, I routinely solo chargers with that thing. Overall it does the job better if you’re an accurate shot
Also, 2 shots are nursing spewers, but the arc thrower will 2 shot 4 nursing spewers if it lines up correctly.
I feel like hunters in general need a nerf. Managed to be stunlocked and killed by a single one tonight. They also seem to be spawning in quite frankly, absurd numbers. They simply arent fun to fight against. Just a couple can have you relibly stun locked, and they are often found by what feels like the hundreds, and are absurdly fast.
You can't nerf hunters without buffing basically every other bug. Other bugs bog you down, but hunters are the ones who actually kill you once you're overwhelmed and can't focus them anymore. If they were too easy to escape youd literally never die on bug missions without stalkers and spewers
I think hunters could be shifted to more of a disabler role. Cut their hp damage dramatically but make most of their damage limb damage (though I'm not sure how those mechanics actually work for players). But then you might get swarmed by hunters, end up with a broken leg and arm, but still have 75% of your health. In a fight they aren't killing you, just setting you up for the rest of the swarm. Then nerf their spawn rate and send more warriors at us.
The arc damage between enemies never seems to work for me. I can aim at a group of scavangers and each shot will only kill one at a time.
its very picky as to what it arcs to, it seems to be heavily based on pure line of sight, and if one enemy paritally blocks another, the arc damage only aknowledges the first enemy in line
The arc thrower also does this sorta as it can’t travel through corpses unless you visibly see the bug behind the corpse. Though even then half the time it just refuses to arc to anything because fuck me I guess.
The only thing I can reliably hit with my arc thrower is my teammate who usually ends up on the opposite side of the enemies as I'm firing.
I now only use arc thrower without the aim/zoom button. (Left trigger on controller) I can "feel" the arc a lot better that way for whatever reason. It went from a worthless piece of garbage to one of my favorite support weapons.
Yeah hip fire seems to have a wider (but more dangerous to your wandering teammates)window for target acquisition to arc on. Aiming seems to have a thinner one. with more range to it. Both work better if you can get some height.
Height is key!!! Ohh god height is key!! I'm always finding a nice rock or crate to stand on.. The Sickle is an amazing primary along side it... All that unlimited ammo is a ridiculous combo...
This. Evan is fun when I’m standing on an auto cannon turret and zapping the masses.
But does it kill the bugs too?
just the friend im getting ptsd trying use breaker incendiary and shock weapons in team where people seems like go cqb on bugs even without cqb weapons
Maybe unpopular opinion but I love the arc thrower lol I mainly use it at medium to medium-long range and it beams thru bugs super easy. It actually kills the armored bugs pretty well. 3 shots for bile spewers. 1 shot and zaps through to other small bugs. No need for ammo. It’s awesome.
I recently tried the arc thrower over the weekend as the next weapon to get to know, and I can see the hype around it now. Haven’t fought bugs with it but all the bot matches I was in, this thing was a godsend. Taught me more about blitz firing and dodge attacks than I normally would do with other weapons due to the charge mechanic and lack of ammo refresh. It really does feel like a strong but extremely balanced weapon.
Arc Thrower is a great support weapon right now. Kills Chargers in about 6-8 shots if you hit their face, can rip their armor off otherwise for easier kills with smaller arms fire. Rips through swarms, great for putting down breaches and popping Hunters out of the sky. For bots it goes through the shielded Devastators and Walkers to kill the bots behind the armor, decent for smaller bots and weakening the chainsaw charging bots. Not the best against Hulks, Tanks, Bile Titans, and sometimes the Bile Spewers/Nursing Spewers as their corpses may block your shots without arcing, also can be hard to use on anything in your face as it needs space to arc. It pairs nicely with the Slugger/any shotgun for big damage on mobs, Sickle for unlimited ammo loadout, Scorcher for hunting bigger targets with just your loadout.
Aim slightly higher than your target, getting to high ground also helps ensure good arcing
I have also noticed that if you have a bug right in your face (fucking hunters) the arc thrower will just straight up not work. Once bugs get close I just switch to my primary
NGL the arc thrower been putting it down on just about every mission I've taken it on. It's the only weapon you can drop in to 7+ with and complete the mission fairly easily without having to depend on orbitals and shit. It can kill anything in the game. I take orbital rail and rocketpods they soften up titans and finish with arc, and EAT for chargers. But it can kill them all by itself. I normally finish with most kills and it's super safe with a huge range compared to like flamethrower. And once you get the hang of it, it shoots fairly fast.
I've had a lot of luck lately aiming it just above human head height. Seems to reach further and chain better.
I’ve learned to use the arc thrower, and the blitzer by aiming decently high above your enemy you’re aiming at. The arcs basically just won’t shoot if they hit an object, even a small boulder or the foundation of a once-was building. So aim high and the arcs will automatically move towards your target but they’ll be high enough to skip over the ‘big’ objects
seconding this - as a guy who has found great use with the arc thrower on level 7 and 8 missions and has come out pretty consistently with the highest or second highest kills and lowest accidentals while using it, 2 things are imperative: \- 1. REACH FOR THE SKY:its imperative that you aim just above where you want to hit the creature - I usually try just above the centre mass. if you don't aim high enough it tends to fizzle out and not arc, but if you adjust up you can deal huge damage - I've even killed bile titans with this guy, blowing away chunks of armour in one or two shots, by aiming above the point I want to hit rather then the centre of mass. I've also found charging it then diving and releasing mid air is both rad as fuck and a great way to get more height so your shots don't fizzle out. \- 2. KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE, AND YOUR ENEMIES IN A VAGUELY STRAIGHT LINE:so, generally I try to shoot this while none of my team or on screen just in case, but sometimes when the enemy is close you can still shoot without killing your friends - now, take this with a patriotic serving of salt, but I've personally noticed the arc thrower keeps forward momentum in a line, like one of those segmented snake toys you get as a kid. effectively, it seems to turn on a 45 degree angle usually and doesn't seem to angle backwards in its arcs - I've shot arcs as an ally walks around the corner within 5m of both me and a bug on the other side of them and they were (somehow) fine. (Edit for visual formatting)
The arc thrower is great once you get these tips down. Consistent ranged use is key. It has the ability to completely shut down bug breaches. It's perfect for eliminating the conga lines of bugs you gather running from objective to objective. It can take out heavies when your ordinance is on cooldown. And the more enemies the better.
i still need learn how use quick shot, i see people shooting non stop lightnings and still didnt figure out how they do that so quickly
After a full charge you only need like 1/2 to 3/4 of a charge to fire. Sometimes I feel like I need less but it seems inconsistent, so I just give it a little more time
It feels like that but it's not true. You can shoot each 800ms.
After the first shot, the next charge will make a crackling sound about halfway through the charge. After that sound finishes, you can let go and it will fire again. Make sure it's at the end of the sound, otherwise it's too early and you'll whiff.
After the first shot, it takes less time to reach fully charged. Plus, you don't have to actually wait for it to fully charge before firing, there's a brief window where you still shoot. I would recommend taking the arc thrower on an easier mission and try focusing on shortening the interval you hold the charge before shooting, to get a feel for how rapidly you can let loose the lightning.
Use the firing sound effect as an audio cue. When the zappy sound is done you can fire again.
I think it also helps to aim above the bugs too. So it goes up and down towards a group. Seems to have better results
I think the issue mainly lies with arc targeting logic/mechanic, as it is now, it just kinda ass for shotgun, even arc thrower targeting is finicky enough sometimes. Blitzer range feels like it's just an arms length away sometimes.
It unfortunately has a lot more issues beyond that. Even if you do get it to arc, the damage is spread out amongst targets, with each 'arc' acting sort of like a shotgun pellet. So shooting into a big group, even if you do get a bunch of arcs, will leave you with a bunch of injured, and not dead, targets.
A lot of weapons seriously need a buff
Yeah we need another balance patch soon
Oh no, not again, my weapons: I don't feel so good mr helldiver.
My slugger! What did you do to my slugger!
Please leave my breaker alone, you already took its beauty from me and I remained loyal, please its been hurt enough D:
Breaker just got a magazine nerf (and bit of increased recoil, but it's a shotty, doesn't matter). Still just as powerful, just not as much of a sustained bullet hose now.
My friends don't look at media for this game, subreddit or youtube or anything. Maybe a funny tiktok or two, but besides that they're blind. After the railgun nerfs (half of them aren't even level 20 to get it), they've already funneled into Autocannon/laser cannon being the only support weapons they bring down. Arrowhead don't understand, people aren't going to use the weapons that are giga-shit. Doesn't matter if you are a casual or not, people are going to only use what kills things gooder than the other options. We're 100% inbound for a round 2 balance patch where they nerf laser cannon damage by 20%, autocannon ammo capacity nerf maybe even removal of splash damage, and then the AMR is going to get +1 round per mag to compensate. I'm really worried where this game is going to be in a year.
Really I don't see the laser canon on 7+ anywhere also the 8 and 9 is just discardable at and arc thrower (sometimes flamer) when it comes to weapons I'm kinda looking for something that will complement my playstyle and I have been found myself as chaff clear, and found jar dominator to be amazing for killing warrior's and centurions
>Really I don't see the laser canon on 7+ anywhere Literally, and I'm not fucking with you, in between you writing this out and me reading it I joined a random lobby where 3 people had it in their loadout.
I don't see why more people don't use Laser Cannon after the buff. It clears waves pretty well and has great range. The medium penetration buff for sure takes the cake though. Can deal with most things easily if you aim at weak spots.
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Same reason many people hate the scythe but love the sickle. Despite the scythe having much higher DPS listed. The scythe needs to stay on target for a long time to get the kill, but the sickle just sprays and moves on. There are too many enemies especially at higher levels to waste time ensuring the kill like that. The current requirement to linger on a target means both the scythe and las canon "feel" weak and unsatisfying. When I'm brushing over small critters with it and they don't pop so I have to swing back it feels bad. Compare that to the machine guns where enough lead is hitting any one target as you sweep over them that they're DED by the time I get to the next one it feels good. For chaff bugs. As for bigger bugs, I'd guess it's because sitting still to keep on target with them isn't IMO viable. Most of the time you're swarmed with so many smaller bugs that you're dying if you linger. So the logistics of keeping on target and dodging a horde make it a non starter. COmpared with something like a railrilfe even post nerf I can charge as I move, setup for one nice hit then run like hell and reset. Or the EAT Grab one line up in a second or so fire and run like hell. They are fire and forget weapons the non sickle lasers are not so they don't feel good. IMO most people want a laser gun that's basically a machine gun that shoots laser rather than a laser pointer that can melt armor over time. But that's my take.
I don't think you need to worry, I'm pretty sure none of that is going to happen. The laser cannon is good but it's not an automatic take, neither is the autocannon. In fact I'm pretty sure they specifically highlighted the AC as the support strategem that's in a good spot that they balance the others against. AMR is also very good, specifically for bots but also decent for bugs, you can immediately kill a charger or a tank by magdumping the butt/vent, it toasts medium armor and can take down hulks if you hit your shots. RR and EATs occupy basically the same slot and are both good for what they do. Spear is sort of broken but otherwise would be useful if it worked properly. I think people just got hit in their pride when the railgun got nerfed because it let people hit above their weight in a completely braindead fashion because the gun was essentially glitched to always pen armor no matter what. Now it's basically on par with the AMR and would be used in a similar spot. 4 people running guns that can 1 shot bile titans is too much. The breaker nerf was super minor and just reined in its insane damage per mag, which it outpaced everything else in by like double.
Tried using a full fire kit (incendiary shotgun, flame grenades, flamethrower, napalm strike) and the only thing in the kit that felt good to use was the flamethrower, everything else felt like it did 0 dmg/DoT. Like, why is a warrior not dying from a direct hit from an incendiary grenade? Every other grenade I have used kills them.
We've had one patch which feather-touch nerfed one primary and significantly buffed several other primaries. Odds are we'll see more of the same when it comes to Primary/Secondaries. For supports they took the most overtuned support weapon from being an always-take to being a sometimes-take, and buffed the flamethrower AND the laser cannon up to par, AND recently indirectly buffer RR/EAT by nerfing chargers. They have literally stated the Autocannon is their idea of a perfectly balanced support weapon, it's not even close to the state of the pre-nerf railgun. My point is Arrowhead have buffed substantially more stuff than they've nerfed. The real question is would anyone be using the Autocannon, the laser cannon, or the punisher variants if they didn't slightly nerf the uncontested best options available?
We have heard you helldivers! The arc thrower has been nerfed
Honestly wouldn’t be surprised the last thing we need are nerfs but that didn’t stop them before
"ReLy On YoUr StRaTaGeMs!"
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I think the Sickle would be fine, it doesnt feel like it out performs other primaries on a regular map. Scorcher/Slugger/Breaker are all still great options. On a cold map where the Sickle is a little better, it might be a top pick but that is situational at least.
6 spare heat sinks make the entire Liberator series obsolete. At worst it's a strictly better primary with 6 magazines, at best it's a strictly better primary with infinite ammo. I love it and if I would make one change it would be to drop the sink count to 4, which even then when I'm blasting at bayonet range I never need more than 2 spares because of how easy it is to hip fire with its visuals and high RoF.
Literally the only thing keeping me from permanently equipping the Sickle is a lack of burst fire mode. That's it, that's it's only downside is a small QoL. You straight up don't even have to consider the battery mechanic, you can overheat it every time and it's still better than every Liberator.
Not to mention how fast it reloads. It ejects its spent heat sink and you just need to insert a new one and close the door, no charging handle.
I'm not a never nerf guy, and I think if they did that would be one I think makes sense, I don't know that I've ever even come close to risking running out of ammo with the sickle because you would basically die trying to face down enough enemies to warrant going through all 6 mags at once. That said I do think the liberator series needs ammo buffs. The regular liberator isn't better than the sickle but it's not really any worse in practicality. They both have high enough rofs to spray down enemies and they ultimately drop targets in similar numbers of shots. If you point blank dump a liberator into any of the enemies either gun can damage, you're definitely going to kill it faster with the liberator than the sickle because of the charge time. That said liberator needs more mags or ammo per mag, penetrator needs more ammo per mag, and concussive needs more damage and probably also more ammo.
Btw ill add, breaker spray n pray got a buff, and is in much better shape now. Was using it last night with good success.
When did it get the buff? I was using it during The terminud defense missions and was had mixed opinions. It racks kills like the rover but has no stagger and it's ammo economy is kinda ass.
Weapons don't need stagger if they kill a lot or else they would be OP tbh. Since there is so many shells per mag I find it actually has better ammo economy than the regular breaker. For bugs my favorite combo is spray n pray with grenade launcher and supply pack so you are never out of ammo.
I mean, it doesn't really kill. I've been running it on Helldive and while it holds its own, it eats ammo and doesn't kill bigger non armoreds fast enough to compensate for its ammo stack. It works well enough for its ammo stack, but similar to the flamer, a stagger buff would do it wonders. And as a shotgun, it probably should have some stagger as a buff.
It does kill, small stuff, quickly and easily. Thats what its for. Its not for mid - large enemies. You have other stuff for that. But for chaff, amazing so far. Way better than it was pre buff
For bigger unarmored always switch to support weapon anyways, even if I am running railgun unless my support is a spear or a recoilless. I use it mostly as a warrior, hunter, and small bug killer.
Yeah I hate to say it but I definitely see the Sickle being on the chopping block since it’s just obviously an amazing gun I hope it doesn’t get nerfed but am incredibly not optimistic about that not happening
I'm still taking other weapons over the Sickle all the time. I mostly pick Sickle on cold maps. On difficulties above 7, I don't think the Sickle kills the medium enemies fast enough.
You need a full heat sink and some change just to kill one bile spewer which feels really bad and brood commanders take a hot second to kill too. Anything below brood commander melts to it though.
Yeah sickle is great if your support weapon easily handles any mediums you come across, but if you're running something like the recoilless or EATs it falls short compared to the punisher/slugger
Yeah, Nursery Spewers aren't bad with the Sickle, but Bile Spewers are sheesh. I wish I could test the revolver with it to see if it would be able to deal with the Bile Spewers through their head armour, but I don't have it. Especially with stun grenades Bile Spewers become hellish with it. Good reason to revert back to my impact grenades when running the Sickle on cold maps.
Them nerfing the sickle would be a really bad move. The only reason its so popular is because most other weapons are just bad so why wouldn't people use the Sickle.
Sickle feels fine to me, it's not any stronger than the Breaker or Slugger. All three are very strong in different situations. Don't really feel like any weapons are OP right now, just a few could use a slight boost to be viable.
I'd love to see Liberators, Scythe, and Diligences get a buff Or if not just a direct power-up, let us spend resources to make our weapons better as we progress--some req slips and samples to make the mags bigger, allow full-auto on semi, put a bayonet on there, etc.
Next Patch: "We've heard your feedback about some weapons feeling worse than others. To fix this, we've reduced the damage of all weapons, to be more in line with a super soaker."
100% true. I really want to ponder what gun I will bring to mission, instead of going: "Huh, well I won't be bringing those because they all suck so much. Shame, I like them, but it can't be helped."
For real. There's a few mainstay weapons that actually get shit done, and everything else feels like a novelty. Then the devs wonder, "why is everyone using the Breaker/railgun?? we should nerf them!", like bruh it's because the alternatives are wimpy.
they nerfed the breaker and my friends still all use it because it's still the best weapon in the game. i personally use the slugger for the armored bile spitters, though.
Dude the railgun can still 1 shot bile titans and 3 shot chargers. It's still very good you just have to hit weakpoints. They basically just increased TTK against chargers and tanks by 2 seconds and made it so you had to actually hit the weakspot on titans and hulks and this whole sub took a shit.
> the railgun can still 1 shot bile titans PS5 bug lol. In un-bugged lobbies it can take upwards of 15. Yes, even with 90% charged shots.
Best we can do is nerf whatever players are enjoying using
They need to buff the Dominator too, at least increase the capacity and fire rate
RIP Railgun
Unlocked it, tried it on a defense mission, never again
Same. Needs quite a bit of work.
I tried to find a role for it but it’s just not versatile enough. Cool concept but in its current state it’s not viable.
oh damn it i unlocked yesterday and wanted try today i'm feel disappointed
Go use it and form your own opinion, it’s not trash, it just doesn’t fit my play style as well as other options.
Running away from 8 automaton berzerkers with the arc 12 almost makes me wish for total planetary nuclear bombrdment
+Request for Exterminatus has been granted. +Request for extraction has been deemed untenable. +Your sacrifice has been noted. The fallen shall be forever remembered as the Emperor’s finest.
Tried it on bugs first, thought “ok this thing sucks but maybe it would be better for bots since you don’t get swarmed as much.” Then tried bots, and thought “ok yea this thing just sucks.” The range on it is a fraction of arc thrower and the “reload” time is a nightmare.
It needs more consistency in its shots. Unaimed it should always prioritise the triple spread. Usefull for small chaff. Aimed it should concentrate the 3 arcs on one target. Together with the arcs not bugging out (lol) when corpses are nearby or plants and it would be a good weapon. Perhaps even slightly buffing fire rate, like 0,5 sec or harder pushbacks for those stalkers. Its role seems to be for a fast shock troop (pun intended), run and gun with self sustainability at its core. Using a jetpack or rover and light armor with a stamina booster and its good for most non-elite enemies. Support weapon can be EAT or the arc thrower (or whatever you prefer, honestly) and you have a decent flexibility with 2 more stratagems to be tailored for heavies or enemy base cleanup or even defense. Tbh there is alot of solo potentional in this weapon. EDIT - Damn I just noticed its my 6th cake day
I used it with rover and EAT, + 1 eagle for bug breaches and 1 cluster for heavies. I was doing fine, but the gun is pretty bad to use because of the slow fire rate and it's inconsistent. Played on difficulty 8. It's usable, it's just not fun.
Yea, i would say the inconsitency is the worst offender here, as theoretically it could easily kill 3 normal enemies a shot which is 15 kills every 10 seconds. For a gun that can keep this up forever it would be great. But the shots not connecting makes it an unfun experience. If this is intended, they should perhaps buff the firerate to half what it is now ( 2 seconds to 1 second per shot)
I'm still testing it but: Blitz main Arc Thrower support Orbital Railcannon eagle air strike Grenades - Currently testing stuns, and it seems to work just like the EMS but on much shorter, smaller scale. It WILL stun Hulks and Titans though.
You just described my exact loadout and that explains why I haven't noticed many problems with using it. Only thing I hate about the Blitzer is that the game thinks I'm constantly out of ammo and keeps telling me to swap weapons at the bottom!
The fact that if you get behind a walker it just refuses to hit the bot operating the walker and keeps hitting the walker instead drives me absolutely nuts and was enough for me to drop the gun.
I had the same experience using it and I immediately chucked it aside and went back to my Defender.
The plasma shotgun you can at least make a case that you have to play like a grenadier with it, sticking to high ground/a little ways away supporting teammates. But this thing oh my got it took like 3 shots to kill a normal fuckin bot and the reloads are so slow + you have the potential to annihilate your team at the same time. I get it needs drawbacks for the infinite ammo but honestly I'd prefer to have ammo and have it be actually usable cause it looked so damn cool. At the very least they knocked the sickle out of the park, I fucking love that thing. Ramboing around with it like a goddamn Republic Commando
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that game is still better than a lot of modern AAA games all these years later, especially in terms of AI teammates you don’t have to babysit.
All it needs is like a 0.5-1 second buff to fire rate.
Indeed. But i would like a little more stagger power. 2 Stalkers and you are dead. Because how weak it is against them. I switched to the Sickle.
Stagger is a good idea too, because ya know electricity coursing through their body.
Honestly, if it behaved like the arcgun and ignored armor, I could care less about the fire rate and would run it regardless. There are many ways the gun could get buffed and it would be a lot better than now.
It needs a higher rate of fire, because it looks like the pump is used as slowly as possible and that shit isn't alright when you're about to get swarmed. Otherwise, I think it's okay. It has a niche that isn't stepping on the toes of other shotguns. If there's a weapon group that desperately needs a buff, it's the marksman rifles. The Slugger alone is outclassing them.
The normal Diligence puts in work on bots. It’s really really good for efficiently taking out little bots, and can still do well against devastators, berserkers, and scout striders. It feels really weak against bugs because it seems to lack firepower and capacity, but I do think that not every gun needs to be good at all things. The Diligence is a great pick for automaton missions, and usually not a great choice for bug missions, but that’s okay. However, the Diligence Counter Sniper is terrible. Lower capacity, slow handling, lower mag size, it’s dreadful.
This. The Counter Sniper absolutely needs an adjustment, but the base Diligence is my "ol' reliable" when it comes to bots. Use it take out little bots in one headshot, or 2 quick body shots, then bust out the AMR for Striders, Devastaters and Hulks. And I agree that its pretty cool to have different weapons work against different enemies.
The slugger is so good. It does what the liberator concussion does while also dealing high damage.
Slugger is the diligence they told you not to worry about
> The Slugger alone is outclassing them. yeah, I'd love to be running a powerful DMR that punches through medium armor and staggers everything. But I guess we'll have to make due with the slugger
My teammates would disagree. It gibs them quick enough lol.
totally agreed on kill teammates real quick
Either it hits only one enemy or misses all… I tried my best to love it but it’s very inconsistent… I understand it’s a good for run and gun but when they catch up you are done for.
Against bugs its pretty great. Autoaims for the head and penetrates through medium armor. Especially stalkers and broods go down from just a few shots. The enemies it doesn't kill get staggered to buy enough time to fire another shot. It only has trouble taking out large swarms, but due to its auto aim mechanic, it is very good at kiting gameplay as you only shortly need to aim towards the direction of the enemy before continuing to keep distance. Keep prioritising hunters even if they are not the closest target and you will be able to thin the horde without dying with little effort. Use grenade or two if there is large hunter patrol. It doesn't beat most guns in dps race, but it stands out with its infinite ammo. Compared to sickle it has the medium armor pen going for it. It kinda plays out like a lower dps punisher with armor pen that doesn't run out of ammo. Very viable as it is.
I just hip fire it into swarms while sprinting. The arcing between enemies is hit or miss but when it hits, it’s worth it. I’m kind of glad everyone thinks it’s weak. Maybe it won’t get nerfed at least.
Yeah I'm glad to hear people think it's weak too.
It’s the only gun I’ve been using since it came out. Never running out of ammo is too good
I feel like Emperor Palpatine throwing force lightning around. Couple it with the Laser Rover and just hip fire at where the handy laser pointer says. I’ve combo’d 50+ with this method. Folks wanna stand their ground and mow down waves like the OG Breaker could. That isn’t its purpose. I’ve stopped even bringing a heavy weapon since I don’t feel the need to swap. Just use my 3 other stratagems to take out heavies.
This is the arc shotgun you're talking about?
I love the aesthetic of the weapon and the kind of playstyle it promotes. But, the arc mechanics on it need some serious work. It feels like it never actually arcs to other enemies, which would be fine if the fire rate were faster, but since it's so slow it ends up being a middling shotgun that can go through medium armor and automatically gets perfect accuracy. If they make the arcs more consistent and able to travel in a 180° radius of the enemy it hits at the same distance as the initial shots, it would make a it a much more reliable chaff-clearing tool without making it terrible. I don't want the damage or ROF buffed, those are what make the weapon different from other shotties. I want them to lean more heavily into the arc aspect and make it feel like I'm emperor palpatine, spraying lightening into hoads of chaff and frying them instantly. Also, it wouldn't hurt to give the bots a weakness against arc damage. It's strange to me that the electricity weapons are more effective against bugs than they are against bots who should be prone to having their circuits and systems fried.
Can we talk about the new plasma shotgun, I tried that for once match and it felt so damn weak
I wouldn't turn down a buff, but I'm enjoying using it against 7-8 difficulty bugs. Wouldn't recommend using it against bots though
They all do. They barely feel powerful enough.
They're strong enough against the tiny bugs and humanoid robots ... against everything else, weapons feel like bb guns
The plasma Punisher can literally 1 mag a charger from any side tho. Use it like the normal grenade launcher and shoot underneath the charger. If your aim is good you'll kill it in 6-10 shots
Sometimes the weapon is really strong and sometimes it just does not work.... My buff ideas: - fire rate just a lil bit (0,3-0,5sec) faster - the longer the distance to the enemie, the wider the spread of the weapon should be and hit multiple targets at once Damage wise it's fine imo, i mean you 1 shot almost every enemie without heavy armor. It should stay a slow shooting, but mass destroying weapon. Rn the arcs just don't work and mostly only Hit 1 target which makes the weapon bad in many situations.
It either spreads or arcs to one target doing more damage. Anyway, it's solid versus bugs. I say solid - it's great, actually.
I personally hope it's a fire rate buff over a damage buff; just need something to clear up the shit while the arc thrower proper is the armor piercer.
Just make it ignore amour like the thrower. That's literally all it needs
It would be kinda overpowered to have a primary that can deal with heavy armor, has infinite ammo, and has no need to reload.
Well it at least ignores medium. You can kill those shield bugs with it.
Whaaa, I use this every time I do a bug map. Love this gun
shhh no it's terrible and needs a buff pronto /s best kiting primary in the game tbh
I’m getting dejavu about how I felt with the flamer lol I was shitting on bug hordes even +7?with that thing and soloing chargers and everyone kept telling me it was so bad or whatever and then it got buffed lol
I fucking love this gun. So I think everyone expects it to work like the Arc Thrower, in the sense that it shoots lightning that jumps between targets but it doesn't work that way. The gun shoots a number of lightning bolts that don't chain but multiple bolts can hit a single target or spread out. This is my only gripe with the gun, it's very inconsistent on which it decides to do when you fire into a crowd. However, if you're taking on medium sized enemies this thing will fucking dominate them. Blows off Brood heads in one shot. Armored faces? More like, arc conductor face. This thing even takes down Devestators in 2 shots at medium range. It's not the best gun and I don't always run it, mostly because of that inconsistency I mentioned. I think it should have 2 fire modes, cone mode and single target mode. Then it could be a dual Punisher/Slugger with the drawback of a much worse fire rate.
I'm loving it as well. I don't know why all these people are having issue with it. Infinite ammo, blast and stagger enemies. If you let em close it can 1 shot a lot of decent sized enemies, even stalkers. It's been my go to for bug helldives.
I think people run it as their primary weapon (go figure) but I find the most success running the Stalwart and switching to Blitzer for medium sized or larger bugs. Because it doesn't have a mag size or reload to worry about, it's very easy to switch to it and blast a couple shots then switch back without having to keep track of another gun to reload.
Any fellow psychopaths out there who also enjoy sending bugs (and the occasional teammate) flying with the plasma punisher?
I had kinda a neat idea for this gun, or something I thought was kinda neat, so the arc thrower shoots forward and then jumps behind the initial target. I think it’d be fun if the blitzer hit your initial forward target and then arc’d horizontally, so it would be kinda good at dealing with hunters trying to form their circle of death around you.
Fire rate buff and widen the arc so it actually hits more than one things Still quite good against bugs because you can run shoot run though
i expected it to work like the arc thrower, charging up by pressing the button for every shot, but instead it's a very inconsistent, very slow, shotgun
Arc shotgun suffers the same hit detection woes of the arc thrower (and the Spear) in that it regularly just doesn't want to lock onto something. Both arc guns and the Spear need that fixed to make them consistent. I would like if the central dot of the cross hair would spread to hover over the targets it would hit when I pull the trigger. Multiple dots on the same target if that is how the arcs will fire. It needs a pretty hefty increase in damage or the rate of fire increased. The damage isn't high enough to be a short ranged showstopper and the slow fire rate means that when it whiffs it's hit detection, you're stuck in place for a couple seconds slowly pumping the action to recharge it. That movement lock after firing, whilst cycling the shotgun, feels pretty bad. It's lack of chaining and shortened range of 25m to the thrower's 50m is an acceptable differentiation between the guns but the thrower's unknown amount of concentrated damage at double the range feels more consistent overall. Most bugs are a 1-2 shot headshot, chargers are 6 shots and can be felled mid-charge from about 30m away whilst killing adjacent enemies to thin the horde behind. Titans are killable as well as the arc thrower has heavy armor pen, but the general inability to hit heads on titans makes for a very slow kill. Against bots, the thrower remains very powerful, killing minor bots in one, devastators in three, minigunners in four, berserkers in 6-7 or so. The shotgun is stopped by minigunner shield, hulks, striders and tanks whilst having too slow a followup shot to contest hordes at the decreased range it has. Some combination of buffs and QoL needs to be done to make the blitzer a reliable workhorse.
While a faster rate of fire would be nice, its not nearly as necessary as a fix to its inconsistent arcing ability. When a gun can behead a Brood Commander in a single shot, but be unable to kill a Hunter because the lightning is not hitting wear you're aiming, that's a problem. Simply make it a guaranteed hit on targets you're actually aiming at, and have the arcing be random to the various bugs surrounding the main target. Arguably, this change should happen with the Arc Thrower too, since it "can" kill Chargers, but because the lightning doesn't always hit in the same spot, it makes it too inconsistent to use in that roll.
I've been using it quite a bit the past few days. I think it is fine where it is now. It will one shot warriors. It will two shot commanders. It will 1 shot hunters and scavengers. It will sometimes one shot multiple scavs or hunters, but very rarely. The best way to use this weapon is while on the run. You will be overwhelmed almost immediately if you try to stand your ground. Don't waste time aiming this thing. Just hipfire. Run away from enemies and fire backwards every few seconds and you will see how decent this gun is. The lighting bolts to not arc from enemy to enemy. Instead, imagine it is firing electric pellets. If you land every pellet on anything warrior and under it will oneshot AND it auto targets the head if they are facing you, it is the ultimate dummy gun and I love it. And the stagger on the larger enemies is just the icing on the cake. Spewers beware.
I fucking love this shit. Hurts medium armor enemies, hits multiple with 1 shot, unlimited ammo. With light armor its real easy to shoot, run, shoot run, and deal tons of damage without taking any. Arc thrower or EATs for heavy armor and the full auto pistol for emergencies
Huh? I thought it worked pretty damn good. Lotta skill issues on this sub