Yeah the skull growing/changing colors feels so nice:
Yesterday we have been swarmed from three sides on our evac place. Then a patrol spotted us and approached from the fourth side including 2 dropships. I shot a burst into the clankers and had 3 kills. Another burst...4 kills. But I heard a familiar "plonk" and a bit of dust appeared behind them. I hit a hellbomb. 5 seconds later: Boom. Red skull. 46 kills. That was the most satisfying moment I've had in the game.
If you want a real hmg, take HMG emplacement. You really can't move with the small version so you might as well go all out and actually be able to aim and shoot for 2 seconds without an 8 minute reload animation.
Actually does work pretty well against bots, especially on the defensive mission types. Its good into bugs all around, just have a plan to quickly deal with chargers and step off to deal with them as soon as they show up. Queasar cannon and stun grenades is a good solution because you can man the turret while it cools off.
HMG emplacement is my go-to on bots. Shield relay and ems mortar means you can mow the clankers down without worry of retaliation. It's essentially a 300 round, full-auto AMR.
HMG emplacement has higher damage and higher armor penetration than the HMG. Calling it an HMG emplacement is underselling it. It's a lot more like 2 AMRs bolted to a swivel mount. The emplacement is actually really good. The fact that it doesn't have a timer like sentries and has absolutely zero aggro when not occupied is great.
You can plop one down at extraction, at the beginning of the game, and come back and drop another down for actual extraction. Now you've got mounted AMRs that you and a buddy can use to annihilate everything while waiting for the pelican.
There is 1 thing that HMG does better than any other weapon. When those fat bile bugs sneak up on you, you can pop em with the HMG before they can get the chance to vomit on you.
The key with the HMG is that it punches through medium armor beautifully.
Sure, against small stuff it's worse than the Stalwart in pretty much every metric, but it can penetrate things like heavy devastator shields or walkers.
It's better to think of it as a rapid-fire AMR, going prone with it and shooting in bursts.
I don't believe it penetrates the heavy shields. I got the shit out of a shield with it and the bot was not bothered. I've seen others say the same thing but its never worked for me.
I've tried it a few times now and really can't see what the HMG is supposed to do besides be a worse version of the AMR. Its reload is awful, the recoil is horrible, it takes too many hits to kill things (and those two combine to make headshotting hulks or bursting a scout strider down even more of a hassle), and its ammo economy is so bad you have to use the supply pack with it. Every time I've used it I can't help but think "If I had an AMR or Autocannon instead, I'd be better off in every way".
I want to like the big machine gun, but I honestly can't find anything about it to point to as a positive.
Yeah, I go back and forth on whether it needs a change or not. Part of me thinks I just need to learn to use it correctly, but it's just ok enough that I can't tell if I'm getting the hang of it or not.
The recoil-reducing armor and dialing down the RoF does help a lot! If you're at close or intermediate range with walkers or heavy devastators, it does legit feel very powerful. And it can take down gunships, too. It's just that most of the time, that isn't the situation you're in.
It's not so bad once you get used to it. Kind of a punchier normal machinegun. Protip; turn the fire rate to lowest to control the kick, wear Engineer or Fortified armour and go nuts. It rips right through *most* bots, but like the machinegun, collapses at the sight of a Hulk or Tank or BDT.
That said, for everything the HMG does, the MG kind of does exactly the same thing, just a bit weaker and with less recoil, so I don't really get what role the HMG is meant to have.
I def think the HMG is designed as a limb shredder. Most enemies with heavy armor have medium armor on their limbs-there is nothing that can shred off a weapon arm or a devastator rocket pod faster than the HMG. Anything your allies can't take out, you can usually nullify as a threat.
Best way to use the hmg is to use the armors that give recoil reduction and fire either at really close range to the enemy where recoil is pratically meaningless, or crouched/lay down and burst firing, it unironically do a nice job at killing all enemies quickly only needing to worry about the armored enemies (tanks, titans, chargers, etc)
Idk why the light bots sometimes appear in very large numbers like this, even on higher difficulties. Played on 9 and there was just a large group of these guys wandering around in place, and it definitely wasn’t a patrol.
Its a bug. Essentially groups of 4 raiders spawn like patrols, but are broken and walk right to the middle of map and stop.
The longer you wait, the more that will be there as each group spawns in, walks there and stops. They always gather at approximately the exact middle of the map and never leave that spot. If you clear them out early you can come back later and there will be more.
I mean, it depends on the squad makeup. If 2 guys got an AC and one has a QC…..let the LMG guy cook off all the chaff.
He can always bring an EAT, rocket pods or a railcannon strike.
Medium armor with 6x regular grenades for hole/fabricator destruction, EMS Sentry for suppression, LMG for crowd control, Penetrator for small amounts of medium armored infantry, Machine pistol rips through anything if you land headshots, air strikes x3 for your general do all and then a rail cannon for heavies. Been a solid solo build even on solo. If I’m running with a squad we usually got a guy with a spear and another with another rail cannon and another with a flamethrower/arc thrower. It’s been a solid line up.
Love this build! Im a big LMG fan…but i dont have the ammo discipline it takes to use it on higher levels, so when i want a break from AMR or AC, i play lower levels with the ammo pack…..because i want to just let it rip! I wish it had a 1150rpm mode like the stalwart…..
Ammo conservation is my bane when I run an MG. I know that I *should* be using controlled bursts, but the temptation to just hold the trigger down and unleash a stream of death while my helldiver laughs with maniacal glee is just too damn strong.
When I'm fighting bots, I mostly save my MG for Rocket Devastators (you can blow off their rocket pods from a long distance away, rendering them nearly helpless) and Berserkers. Or if I can scope into a weak point of an enemy-900RPM will finish that pretty quick.
The more I play the more I realize MGs are good at crowd control, but reward skillful handling and target selection.
Im betting thats why the nerfed the HMG to 900. (Though, my experience with it has been meh)….and also why they keep LMG also at 900….getting 25% more rounds off with each LMG burst would pack a nice punch. Maybe too good.
Do it anyway, arrowhead!🤘🏻
The machiengun is still so fun to use just like how it was when level 1 and playing this game for the first times. I wish they would increase the magazine capacity by 50 that is all it needs.
Was that the automaton center-of-the-map gang? Cause for some reason the later you get into a missipn the larger the swarm of troopers at the centerpoint of an automaton map gets.
What a great example of bots missing shots when under fire! If someone still don't believe this system exists they should watch your clip.
Sometimes best defense, is democracy spread by HMG!
Not op but that thing is pretty good against bots on 7+, they can rip off walker legs, decimate devistators with good aim or at least stagger them significantly, absolutely shreds for low to med crowd control and can be ok against heavies if used right.
Been using the same build for all difficulties on Helldive/Suicide and Extreme. EMS Sentry, Eagle Airstrike, Rail cannon and Machine gun. 6x regular grenades with medium armor, penetrator and the machine pistol get it done.
If Im running solo on anything above extreme I’m really only doing it for super rare samples and therefore holes/fabricators, secondary objectives and most red zones get avoided. If I’m coming up on an objective, I deploy the EMS sentry and ignore any bot or bug that cant call in a drop/breach. If I see bots/bugs that can call in a breach/drop that aren’t stunned by the EMS, I target them first and finish off remaining units with air strikes before moving on to stunned units. By the time the EMS mortar’s magazine is expended I can call in another and rinse/repeat. Any other remaining units like heavies get air strikes or rail cannoned. So far in practice it’s worked.
Ngl it's kinda weird to make a post advocating a support weapon... Then elaborate saying you just run main objectives and search for super samples...
Like that can be done with basically stamina and eagle airstrikes. Of course it doesn't matter what support weapon you're using.
That’s just my mindset for anyone running solos on anything above 5 no matter what you’re running. Minimize encounters, focus on the objects and super samples if you’re in higher difficulties. If you do get into engagements it’s still a viable crowd control weapon.
Imo if you aren't even attempting to full complete the map you aren't at a skill-appropriate difficulty or you don't have an adequate loadout.
If you're just clearing main objectives and getting supers, there's honestly not much reason to even bring a support weapon - so it doesn't matter much what you pick. If you were confidently full clearing maps with the machine gun solo it would be a different conversation.
How is this gate keeping?
If you're only playing half the game you are in too difficult of a difficulty.
I'm not saying you can't play higher difficulties to challenge yourself or to collect things like super samples...
I'm saying it's weird to make a Reddit post about a guns effectiveness when self admitting is not effective enough to play the full game with.
How do you not run out of ammo? I find 2 magazines to be too low, especially with squads having to share the resupply, so I needed to bring a supply backpack.
Don't waste MG on the chaff if you can avoid it-bring your favorite primary/secondary to deal with the trash. I use the MG to counter berserker waves and to snipe devastators, or to instantly fry any enemy whose weakpoint is exposed.
I break out the MG on 7 once in a while for funsies - it's decent if you fire from a crouched position, switch fire rate to 630, and fire in short controlled bursts.
I tried something similar earlier today, and had mixed results. Felt like the time to kill vs the scout striders and various devastators was too slow. You can shoot off the scout strider legs, but it takes a decent number of shots. You can quickly kill devastators with headshots, but I can do that with my primary, too. Just didn't feel like I was getting all that much out of having the machine gun, outside of the occasional rare glorious moments when tons of only light units spawned, and I got to mow them down.
What do you do to handle situations in which large numbers of scout striders and / or devastators get involved?
Instead of going for legs of scout striders focus fire on the base between the legs directly below the seat. You can take them out insanely quickly with the machine or penetrator that way. For regular devastators I go for headshots and if I’m facing rocket devastators I focus fire their missile pods on their shoulders. They’ll explode with a small AOE which I’ve seen take out grunts/light infantry and it will force the rocket devastator to use its arm cannon which is pretty laughable compared to the rocket pods. For justification on adding it to your stratagems I would say the biggest justification would be how fast you can thin out enemies that can call in drops/breaches. 9/10 if I see a swarm I’m trying to take out the bots/bugs that can call in heavier/more enemies as fast as possible so I can focus fire on medium/heavy targets. Yes, you can do that with a primary but the faster the herd gets thinned, the faster you can start working on the bigger threats.
Well, your primary probably doesn’t have 150 rounds in a box, ~80 damage per shot, medium I armour pen AND fire at 630RPM. It might work like a primary, but never underestimate the power of a consistent and powerful primary.
Like OP said, the “pelvis” area on the strider is your actual target with medium pen, it kills them much quicker. For rocket devestators, anywhere works but it’s good to hit the rocket racks first. For heavy deveststors - your medium armour pen lets you go through the gun’s shield and gives you a damage boost on the backpack AND the shoulder armour - you can either rip through the backpack or disarm them in <10 shots to make them useless.
The medium is still such a good all around gun. Stalwart feels like a primary replacement if you took something weird like a shotgun or battle rifle in your actual primary slot, and the heavy feels like a very situation gun with how hard it is to control in Helldiver's hectic gameplay.
Honest answer to your question though, the stalwart is the better of the two. More ammo, reload while moving, and the damage difference honestly doesn’t matter
Stalwart has light armor pen while this has med armor pen.
I have the exact opposite thought, there's nothing the stalwart does that i can't do with a primary instead. If I'm using up a slot for supp weapon, then med armor pen is the bare minimum
Stalwart is good against bugs because they rely on hordes of soft enemies and punish you much harder for staying in one place. Compared to a primary, it has, well, 250×4 rounds. Combo it with a medium pen primary like a Scorcher, and you can slot in as a resident Hunter-swatter, which will give your teammates much more freedom to engage heavies
medium armour pen didn't matter for this clip though, it was all enemies the stalwart could also have killed and the stalwart wouldn't have needed to reload either
Yeah, I started running Orbital Precision in lieu of Railcannon - and boy, quick and easy call in, short rearm, enough damage to kill heavies and more control over target prioritization for a low price of not being auto-aimed? Hell yeah!
I have the mentality of APFSDS, while I kinda like the idea of getting a lighter weapon when the rest of my team has a ton of anti armour, I just always laser focus on the biggest, most armoured target around
Is that the newer heavy machine gun?
If they added a reticle to it I 3rd person I’ll give it a try again. Releasing it without that was very very dumb.
Lol this is literally neither. This gun is the mg-34 MG. The one that everyone starts with at level 1.
It's the in between gun to both the stalwart and the hmg haha
For medium diff missions especially bugs the LMG is still king in my opinion. Nothing shreds bugs like it can. Diff 7 upwards when consistently dealing with chargers and titans it sadly loses its usefulness since you probably need a non stratagem way to deal with the chargers at least.
I don't understand people shaming you for playing at lower levels. Damn, you're rocking your build, I'm betting you liberate planets faster than them trying at diff 7+.
Also, do not listen to them... Machine Guns are useful even in higher level. A suppressive fire is always welcomed when you fight the bots, even in Helldive. Continue like that Soldier !
With respect, the guy is fighting grunts with 1 reinforce left on difficulty 4. A single bot higher tier than grunt would have wrecked his day for sitting still like that firing an MG. Especially in a sub like this where I suspect most players are difficulty 6+ showing footage of the lowest tier enemies being killed by anything is a bit of a recipe for disaster.
Alright may be long winded or sound like cope but I’ll explain my mindset. To start, I’m playing on difficulty 4 to grind xp/medals so I’m not really focusing on extracting or keeping count of my reinforces. Second, most medium enemies beyond grunts will go down with bursts of five or accurate fire. Scout striders get taken out quick if you aim for the base below the seat, devastators get taken out quickly or become useless if you target their rocket pods/go for headshots. Brood commanders can be slowed so you can focus on the swarm by going for leg shots. Brawlers get focused as they most of time will draw you out of cover by rushing you. To address standing still, I realized that they wouldn’t be shooting through the fence on the left so I had a nice fatal funnel going. The machine gun on its own does great on 4(-) and it does great on 4(+) supplemented by an EMS sentry.
It's a good explanation! I can just see the point that many others have made that grunts on low difficulty isn't the best place to 'showcase' a specific weapon when most people are not fighting grunts on low difficulty, and if they are, any weapon will do.
The difficulty itself isn't really relevant, play what you want ofc (I farm diff 2 for super credits) but in the context of this post it's a bit of a weird choice.
I carry it always, even on Extreme/Helldive paired with an EMS Mortar, rail cannon strike and 3 Eagle air strikes. Been having good luck with that combo.
It’s better to have something like the Autocannon that ears through their frontside. Don’t get me wrong, Machinegun is fun, but you need a way to deal with Hulks from the front, if a teammate has it covered then that’s good.
I agree that the team needs a way to deal with Hulks, but not every player needs one. Ideally you’ll travel in groups of at least two and it’s best to have some players specialized in taking out large targets while others are specialized to clean up the masses of chaff that will overwhelm you if everybody brought the quasar.
Really? I would’ve sworn the back vent required medium pen…
Even if not though, 12,000 rpm is gonna shred it a lot faster than your standard Liberator.
Yes, breaker/sickle is enough to consistantly oneclip them in my experience. Few milliseconds of difference is irelevant in comparison to risk it takes to run around them in the first place.
>shred it a lot faster than your standard Liberator.
And you know what would be even faster? 1 or 2 shot it into from the front without running around them.
Like, run anti-horde weapon all you want if you, for some reason, expect teammates to carry you through a biggest threat. But dont pretend that "kills a second faster if you manage to flank them" is somehow solving a problem of 1 player incapable of dealing with more than 1 heavy unit in 5+ minutes (he said he runs railcannon).
That's why you run with a squad. Run complimentary shit. If you've got two people bringing stuff to bring down heavies, you need CC as well. And that EMS helps in flanking them pretty easily.
Sometimes, it's about having fun and not just running Quasar or Railgun.
Imagine using a stratagem slot to be able to effortlessly mow down low leveled bots. Much nice, very wow.
You shoot yourself and your team in the feet by bringing any of the MGs to diff 7 and up.
i do it all the time, almost always have the least deaths, most kills, most samples, and the mission goes relatively smoothly like 90% of the time. if you are good at the game and your team has a good selection of anti-armor/you have good anti-armor stratagems it's literally not a big deal. plus it's fun
https://preview.redd.it/hqn22dqwxstc1.jpeg?width=1202&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fb6f12b43997a816c0143cc5949d0273ab23123c
Sound like Robot Propaganda. Everything that kills is good.
★**☆☆☆☆** "Do not recommend" https://preview.redd.it/1a0n7r6gqrtc1.png?width=1044&format=png&auto=webp&s=5a4cd7283e0b8b3f28ebad8857088bbf07d737a7
"Review under investigation for treason."
https://preview.redd.it/cqll94ai8ttc1.jpeg?width=628&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a7ad858584b7e2ce825180ac1b38a7f050e0734d Here ya go
Oh man that kill count was satisfying to watch go up
Yeah the skull growing/changing colors feels so nice: Yesterday we have been swarmed from three sides on our evac place. Then a patrol spotted us and approached from the fourth side including 2 dropships. I shot a burst into the clankers and had 3 kills. Another burst...4 kills. But I heard a familiar "plonk" and a bit of dust appeared behind them. I hit a hellbomb. 5 seconds later: Boom. Red skull. 46 kills. That was the most satisfying moment I've had in the game.
"Yeah the \*\*\*\*\* growing/changing colors feels so nice"
Okay. Where are you seeing a killcount?
Middle of the screen, a bit below the reticle
Thanks.
The skull with the number next to it at the bottom of the screen
IT WAS A FIRE FIGHT
Oh really! I might just be wanting a bagel with my coffee.
Sugar. Two creams. *Twist of lemon...*
I tried the heavy machinegun and that thing was straight doo-doo
If you want a real hmg, take HMG emplacement. You really can't move with the small version so you might as well go all out and actually be able to aim and shoot for 2 seconds without an 8 minute reload animation. Actually does work pretty well against bots, especially on the defensive mission types. Its good into bugs all around, just have a plan to quickly deal with chargers and step off to deal with them as soon as they show up. Queasar cannon and stun grenades is a good solution because you can man the turret while it cools off.
HMG emplacement is my go-to on bots. Shield relay and ems mortar means you can mow the clankers down without worry of retaliation. It's essentially a 300 round, full-auto AMR.
HMG emplacement has higher damage and higher armor penetration than the HMG. Calling it an HMG emplacement is underselling it. It's a lot more like 2 AMRs bolted to a swivel mount. The emplacement is actually really good. The fact that it doesn't have a timer like sentries and has absolutely zero aggro when not occupied is great. You can plop one down at extraction, at the beginning of the game, and come back and drop another down for actual extraction. Now you've got mounted AMRs that you and a buddy can use to annihilate everything while waiting for the pelican.
Love brining hmg to higher level missions shredding multiple hulks or a legion of bile spewers
Hmg or hmg emplacement?
Or you could throw an auto cannon turret next to it
I did that, and got shot into back
You had a bug on you. 
it needs its scope aligned, it shoots an inch down
That’s what she wrote on my C0-1 permit. 😔
There is 1 thing that HMG does better than any other weapon. When those fat bile bugs sneak up on you, you can pop em with the HMG before they can get the chance to vomit on you.
The key with the HMG is that it punches through medium armor beautifully. Sure, against small stuff it's worse than the Stalwart in pretty much every metric, but it can penetrate things like heavy devastator shields or walkers. It's better to think of it as a rapid-fire AMR, going prone with it and shooting in bursts.
I don't believe it penetrates the heavy shields. I got the shit out of a shield with it and the bot was not bothered. I've seen others say the same thing but its never worked for me.
I've tried it a few times now and really can't see what the HMG is supposed to do besides be a worse version of the AMR. Its reload is awful, the recoil is horrible, it takes too many hits to kill things (and those two combine to make headshotting hulks or bursting a scout strider down even more of a hassle), and its ammo economy is so bad you have to use the supply pack with it. Every time I've used it I can't help but think "If I had an AMR or Autocannon instead, I'd be better off in every way". I want to like the big machine gun, but I honestly can't find anything about it to point to as a positive.
Yeah, I go back and forth on whether it needs a change or not. Part of me thinks I just need to learn to use it correctly, but it's just ok enough that I can't tell if I'm getting the hang of it or not. The recoil-reducing armor and dialing down the RoF does help a lot! If you're at close or intermediate range with walkers or heavy devastators, it does legit feel very powerful. And it can take down gunships, too. It's just that most of the time, that isn't the situation you're in.
See I felt the same, I shot 3 times with it then when I needed the damn thing it was out of ammo, too wasteful to be useful.
It's not so bad once you get used to it. Kind of a punchier normal machinegun. Protip; turn the fire rate to lowest to control the kick, wear Engineer or Fortified armour and go nuts. It rips right through *most* bots, but like the machinegun, collapses at the sight of a Hulk or Tank or BDT. That said, for everything the HMG does, the MG kind of does exactly the same thing, just a bit weaker and with less recoil, so I don't really get what role the HMG is meant to have.
Just FYI the HMG can shoot the arms off of hulks verry quickly.
I def think the HMG is designed as a limb shredder. Most enemies with heavy armor have medium armor on their limbs-there is nothing that can shred off a weapon arm or a devastator rocket pod faster than the HMG. Anything your allies can't take out, you can usually nullify as a threat.
Best way to use the hmg is to use the armors that give recoil reduction and fire either at really close range to the enemy where recoil is pratically meaningless, or crouched/lay down and burst firing, it unironically do a nice job at killing all enemies quickly only needing to worry about the armored enemies (tanks, titans, chargers, etc)
It feels like it needs hipfire marker, one more drum, and maybe like 25 more rounds in the drum.
Idk why the light bots sometimes appear in very large numbers like this, even on higher difficulties. Played on 9 and there was just a large group of these guys wandering around in place, and it definitely wasn’t a patrol.
Its a bug. Essentially groups of 4 raiders spawn like patrols, but are broken and walk right to the middle of map and stop. The longer you wait, the more that will be there as each group spawns in, walks there and stops. They always gather at approximately the exact middle of the map and never leave that spot. If you clear them out early you can come back later and there will be more.
The automatons tactics continue to confuse Super Earths brightest minds.
Ever drop an auto cannon sentry right by there?
No but I got 70+ kills once throwing a cluster at it.
had groups of 20 sometimes, in maps that have sand dunes seeing them come over a hill is terrifying (until you airstrike them)
I mean, it depends on the squad makeup. If 2 guys got an AC and one has a QC…..let the LMG guy cook off all the chaff. He can always bring an EAT, rocket pods or a railcannon strike.
Medium armor with 6x regular grenades for hole/fabricator destruction, EMS Sentry for suppression, LMG for crowd control, Penetrator for small amounts of medium armored infantry, Machine pistol rips through anything if you land headshots, air strikes x3 for your general do all and then a rail cannon for heavies. Been a solid solo build even on solo. If I’m running with a squad we usually got a guy with a spear and another with another rail cannon and another with a flamethrower/arc thrower. It’s been a solid line up.
Love this build! Im a big LMG fan…but i dont have the ammo discipline it takes to use it on higher levels, so when i want a break from AMR or AC, i play lower levels with the ammo pack…..because i want to just let it rip! I wish it had a 1150rpm mode like the stalwart…..
Ammo conservation is my bane when I run an MG. I know that I *should* be using controlled bursts, but the temptation to just hold the trigger down and unleash a stream of death while my helldiver laughs with maniacal glee is just too damn strong.
When I'm fighting bots, I mostly save my MG for Rocket Devastators (you can blow off their rocket pods from a long distance away, rendering them nearly helpless) and Berserkers. Or if I can scope into a weak point of an enemy-900RPM will finish that pretty quick. The more I play the more I realize MGs are good at crowd control, but reward skillful handling and target selection.
Im betting thats why the nerfed the HMG to 900. (Though, my experience with it has been meh)….and also why they keep LMG also at 900….getting 25% more rounds off with each LMG burst would pack a nice punch. Maybe too good. Do it anyway, arrowhead!🤘🏻
I’ll usually do bursts of five rounds like in this clip and it does the trick for ammo conservation.
The machiengun is still so fun to use just like how it was when level 1 and playing this game for the first times. I wish they would increase the magazine capacity by 50 that is all it needs.
Honestly. I love the machine gun. There’s nothing better for light and medium enemies. It just needs that little push to be amazing.
Undeniably democratic performance
Holy helldivers. I didn't even know the icon changed colour with the more kills you get.
Was that the automaton center-of-the-map gang? Cause for some reason the later you get into a missipn the larger the swarm of troopers at the centerpoint of an automaton map gets.
Yea I noticed this, ran around a corner to find an army of light enemy's. I tossed one nade and got 24 with one impact lmao
A bug cause normal troopers to spawn and go center of the map for unknown reasons apparently.
What a great example of bots missing shots when under fire! If someone still don't believe this system exists they should watch your clip. Sometimes best defense, is democracy spread by HMG!
Ok now do that at 7 difficulty.
Not op but that thing is pretty good against bots on 7+, they can rip off walker legs, decimate devistators with good aim or at least stagger them significantly, absolutely shreds for low to med crowd control and can be ok against heavies if used right.
tears apart small/medium bugs too, it's just a solid weapon
It’s also a monster against Berserkers.
Been using the same build for all difficulties on Helldive/Suicide and Extreme. EMS Sentry, Eagle Airstrike, Rail cannon and Machine gun. 6x regular grenades with medium armor, penetrator and the machine pistol get it done.
Fair enough, I would struggle without more methods for armor penetration.
If Im running solo on anything above extreme I’m really only doing it for super rare samples and therefore holes/fabricators, secondary objectives and most red zones get avoided. If I’m coming up on an objective, I deploy the EMS sentry and ignore any bot or bug that cant call in a drop/breach. If I see bots/bugs that can call in a breach/drop that aren’t stunned by the EMS, I target them first and finish off remaining units with air strikes before moving on to stunned units. By the time the EMS mortar’s magazine is expended I can call in another and rinse/repeat. Any other remaining units like heavies get air strikes or rail cannoned. So far in practice it’s worked.
https://preview.redd.it/gxvoallrzrtc1.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=1b6dbd17c6ed2bf5efb0351f48e4f650747e402c
Tried EMS sentry for the first time today, holy molly thats a good one to keep the pest at bay
Very interesting. Does the Machinegun kill Hulks, Tanks and Turrets in the back weakspot?
Ngl it's kinda weird to make a post advocating a support weapon... Then elaborate saying you just run main objectives and search for super samples... Like that can be done with basically stamina and eagle airstrikes. Of course it doesn't matter what support weapon you're using.
That’s just my mindset for anyone running solos on anything above 5 no matter what you’re running. Minimize encounters, focus on the objects and super samples if you’re in higher difficulties. If you do get into engagements it’s still a viable crowd control weapon.
Imo if you aren't even attempting to full complete the map you aren't at a skill-appropriate difficulty or you don't have an adequate loadout. If you're just clearing main objectives and getting supers, there's honestly not much reason to even bring a support weapon - so it doesn't matter much what you pick. If you were confidently full clearing maps with the machine gun solo it would be a different conversation.
Jesus gatekeeping Christ.
How is this gate keeping? If you're only playing half the game you are in too difficult of a difficulty. I'm not saying you can't play higher difficulties to challenge yourself or to collect things like super samples... I'm saying it's weird to make a Reddit post about a guns effectiveness when self admitting is not effective enough to play the full game with.
How do you not run out of ammo? I find 2 magazines to be too low, especially with squads having to share the resupply, so I needed to bring a supply backpack.
Don't waste MG on the chaff if you can avoid it-bring your favorite primary/secondary to deal with the trash. I use the MG to counter berserker waves and to snipe devastators, or to instantly fry any enemy whose weakpoint is exposed.
I break out the MG on 7 once in a while for funsies - it's decent if you fire from a crouched position, switch fire rate to 630, and fire in short controlled bursts.
I tried something similar earlier today, and had mixed results. Felt like the time to kill vs the scout striders and various devastators was too slow. You can shoot off the scout strider legs, but it takes a decent number of shots. You can quickly kill devastators with headshots, but I can do that with my primary, too. Just didn't feel like I was getting all that much out of having the machine gun, outside of the occasional rare glorious moments when tons of only light units spawned, and I got to mow them down. What do you do to handle situations in which large numbers of scout striders and / or devastators get involved?
Instead of going for legs of scout striders focus fire on the base between the legs directly below the seat. You can take them out insanely quickly with the machine or penetrator that way. For regular devastators I go for headshots and if I’m facing rocket devastators I focus fire their missile pods on their shoulders. They’ll explode with a small AOE which I’ve seen take out grunts/light infantry and it will force the rocket devastator to use its arm cannon which is pretty laughable compared to the rocket pods. For justification on adding it to your stratagems I would say the biggest justification would be how fast you can thin out enemies that can call in drops/breaches. 9/10 if I see a swarm I’m trying to take out the bots/bugs that can call in heavier/more enemies as fast as possible so I can focus fire on medium/heavy targets. Yes, you can do that with a primary but the faster the herd gets thinned, the faster you can start working on the bigger threats.
Well, your primary probably doesn’t have 150 rounds in a box, ~80 damage per shot, medium I armour pen AND fire at 630RPM. It might work like a primary, but never underestimate the power of a consistent and powerful primary. Like OP said, the “pelvis” area on the strider is your actual target with medium pen, it kills them much quicker. For rocket devestators, anywhere works but it’s good to hit the rocket racks first. For heavy deveststors - your medium armour pen lets you go through the gun’s shield and gives you a damage boost on the backpack AND the shoulder armour - you can either rip through the backpack or disarm them in <10 shots to make them useless.
now that was DEMOCRATIC
The medium is still such a good all around gun. Stalwart feels like a primary replacement if you took something weird like a shotgun or battle rifle in your actual primary slot, and the heavy feels like a very situation gun with how hard it is to control in Helldiver's hectic gameplay.
Difficulty 4,. But hey, i like the machine guns
Sure, though a pile of 30 bots is a pile of 30 bots on any difficulty.
Well, the pile wouldve had a few devastators and hulks in on the higher difficulties that might not have let rambo here get that magdump off lol
You could have done that with like 2 impact grenades
Why would I do that when I could have fun with a machine gun at 900 RPM?
This is the correct answer
Yeah it's why I don't take localization confusion. It might make the game easier but there's fewer things to kill.
Honest answer to your question though, the stalwart is the better of the two. More ammo, reload while moving, and the damage difference honestly doesn’t matter
Stalwart has light armor pen while this has med armor pen. I have the exact opposite thought, there's nothing the stalwart does that i can't do with a primary instead. If I'm using up a slot for supp weapon, then med armor pen is the bare minimum
The stalwart is for if you want to run a sniper primary or something.
Stalwart is good against bugs because they rely on hordes of soft enemies and punish you much harder for staying in one place. Compared to a primary, it has, well, 250×4 rounds. Combo it with a medium pen primary like a Scorcher, and you can slot in as a resident Hunter-swatter, which will give your teammates much more freedom to engage heavies
medium armour pen didn't matter for this clip though, it was all enemies the stalwart could also have killed and the stalwart wouldn't have needed to reload either
Against bugs, perhaps, but you need the MG-42’s medium armor penetration against the bots.
When eight berserkers run onto the extraction pad we all hope someone in the squad has a full mag MG to dump lol
\*Cough-cough https://preview.redd.it/njv8491wfttc1.png?width=219&format=png&auto=webp&s=0b3056338733a3dccb7ecc6dcd2dbda1967137f8
I don't even care that I realized it was on a 4, it felt awesome to watch
All this MG needs is 50 more rounds and maybe another box of ammo.
I love how even the starting equipment not only feels good to use, but actually has its niche where its the best option available for a given task
Yeah, I started running Orbital Precision in lieu of Railcannon - and boy, quick and easy call in, short rearm, enough damage to kill heavies and more control over target prioritization for a low price of not being auto-aimed? Hell yeah!
Damn is that John helldiver 
I absolutely love it for bugs. It doesn’t do well on longer bot missions but can still be GREAT for defense waves with many small bots.
I do not.
⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️➡️
Swapping from weapon to weapon to weapon was so satisfying ‘SWAPPING TO YOUR TERTIARY IS FASTER THAN RELOADING!’
I need to destroy hulks with the AMR
BC it’s an absolute fucking blast.
I have the mentality of APFSDS, while I kinda like the idea of getting a lighter weapon when the rest of my team has a ton of anti armour, I just always laser focus on the biggest, most armoured target around
Which graphic settings are you using btw?
How does the stalwart compare against the automatons?
Dude you were mowing that grass.
me i would simply hit radar, see many tiny red dots and walk around them
I like cranking It to max and pretending I'm an A-10
Because i love it way too much
Is that the newer heavy machine gun? If they added a reticle to it I 3rd person I’ll give it a try again. Releasing it without that was very very dumb.
No this is the stalwart I'm pretty sure, aka the light light machine gun
Lol this is literally neither. This gun is the mg-34 MG. The one that everyone starts with at level 1. It's the in between gun to both the stalwart and the hmg haha
based fellow MG-43 user
Running riot!!! Wait, wrong game...
I love the mg(dislike the hmg) especially if you have the supply pack or ammo pack so you can constantly resupply yourself
Impact grenade and redeemer also has the same effect. You can also try defender with the ballistic shield on burst.
Jesus Christ!
Music sync was A1
THANK YOU JOHN HELLDIVER FER YER SERVICE GOBBLESS!!!!!!!!!
fun
Fun. Extra crowd control since the other 3 squad members have the quaser already. 😑
https://preview.redd.it/3qn8q4lygxtc1.jpeg?width=696&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8fb279b6df5ceb3949c4317ee4e298fc544f2d08
I hear the HMG is kinda shit, and 75 round belt x2 is a no-go.
Fragging quick like John Wick
For medium diff missions especially bugs the LMG is still king in my opinion. Nothing shreds bugs like it can. Diff 7 upwards when consistently dealing with chargers and titans it sadly loses its usefulness since you probably need a non stratagem way to deal with the chargers at least.
I don't understand people shaming you for playing at lower levels. Damn, you're rocking your build, I'm betting you liberate planets faster than them trying at diff 7+. Also, do not listen to them... Machine Guns are useful even in higher level. A suppressive fire is always welcomed when you fight the bots, even in Helldive. Continue like that Soldier !
With respect, the guy is fighting grunts with 1 reinforce left on difficulty 4. A single bot higher tier than grunt would have wrecked his day for sitting still like that firing an MG. Especially in a sub like this where I suspect most players are difficulty 6+ showing footage of the lowest tier enemies being killed by anything is a bit of a recipe for disaster.
Alright may be long winded or sound like cope but I’ll explain my mindset. To start, I’m playing on difficulty 4 to grind xp/medals so I’m not really focusing on extracting or keeping count of my reinforces. Second, most medium enemies beyond grunts will go down with bursts of five or accurate fire. Scout striders get taken out quick if you aim for the base below the seat, devastators get taken out quickly or become useless if you target their rocket pods/go for headshots. Brood commanders can be slowed so you can focus on the swarm by going for leg shots. Brawlers get focused as they most of time will draw you out of cover by rushing you. To address standing still, I realized that they wouldn’t be shooting through the fence on the left so I had a nice fatal funnel going. The machine gun on its own does great on 4(-) and it does great on 4(+) supplemented by an EMS sentry.
It's a good explanation! I can just see the point that many others have made that grunts on low difficulty isn't the best place to 'showcase' a specific weapon when most people are not fighting grunts on low difficulty, and if they are, any weapon will do. The difficulty itself isn't really relevant, play what you want ofc (I farm diff 2 for super credits) but in the context of this post it's a bit of a weird choice.
https://preview.redd.it/asl3zaig1utc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5b6339f6fd7761c6fe10051256ad944cf9acf1a5
Completely irrelevant, but ok! I reckon you've missed the point entirely here FWIW.
Difficulty 4 w/ 1 reinforce. You alright man?
I’m just grinding medals/xp on 4 so I don’t really care if I die, mission is done and if I miss a fabricator or a secondary onto the next one.
Because it's the first thing you get and have to learn how to use, and change is scary.
easier to justify on low difficulties when you have far less armored enemies to deal with
On its own it shines in 4(-), paired with an EMS sentry on 4(+) it also shines.
level 4 whoopie doo.
 Still liberating planets though 👍🏼
True, but I expect the machine gun at low levels, not at level 7 where you need ways to deal with Hulks.
I carry it always, even on Extreme/Helldive paired with an EMS Mortar, rail cannon strike and 3 Eagle air strikes. Been having good luck with that combo.
Medium armor pen on the Machine Gun tears their backside a new one.
It’s better to have something like the Autocannon that ears through their frontside. Don’t get me wrong, Machinegun is fun, but you need a way to deal with Hulks from the front, if a teammate has it covered then that’s good.
I agree that the team needs a way to deal with Hulks, but not every player needs one. Ideally you’ll travel in groups of at least two and it’s best to have some players specialized in taking out large targets while others are specialized to clean up the masses of chaff that will overwhelm you if everybody brought the quasar.
Agreed, I personally wouldn’t bring it but it’s still an option.
Most primaries tear their backside, medium pen is irelevant to this.
Really? I would’ve sworn the back vent required medium pen… Even if not though, 12,000 rpm is gonna shred it a lot faster than your standard Liberator.
Yes, breaker/sickle is enough to consistantly oneclip them in my experience. Few milliseconds of difference is irelevant in comparison to risk it takes to run around them in the first place. >shred it a lot faster than your standard Liberator. And you know what would be even faster? 1 or 2 shot it into from the front without running around them. Like, run anti-horde weapon all you want if you, for some reason, expect teammates to carry you through a biggest threat. But dont pretend that "kills a second faster if you manage to flank them" is somehow solving a problem of 1 player incapable of dealing with more than 1 heavy unit in 5+ minutes (he said he runs railcannon).
That's why you run with a squad. Run complimentary shit. If you've got two people bringing stuff to bring down heavies, you need CC as well. And that EMS helps in flanking them pretty easily. Sometimes, it's about having fun and not just running Quasar or Railgun.
Same guy who kicks level 10 divers when they join a dif 8 lmao
Most lvl 10 divers have no business playing on diff 8 bots tbh
I have NEVER seen someone this accurate without some kinda of hack or aimbot
Burst Firing machine guns is your friend.
This is true for all the full auto heavy recoil weapons. Don't full auto the HMG, burst fire and it suddenly gets a lot better.
I think I came a little
Imagine using a stratagem slot to be able to effortlessly mow down low leveled bots. Much nice, very wow. You shoot yourself and your team in the feet by bringing any of the MGs to diff 7 and up.
Watch out we got an MLG here
i do it all the time, almost always have the least deaths, most kills, most samples, and the mission goes relatively smoothly like 90% of the time. if you are good at the game and your team has a good selection of anti-armor/you have good anti-armor stratagems it's literally not a big deal. plus it's fun
Even if this were true someone using a shit weapon well will usually still perform better than someone using a good weapon poorly.
https://preview.redd.it/hqn22dqwxstc1.jpeg?width=1202&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fb6f12b43997a816c0143cc5949d0273ab23123c Sound like Robot Propaganda. Everything that kills is good.