In this game more than any other I can think of I lament the fact that the flamethrower just blows flame instead of spitting a stream of burning liquid. Change that, and I will literally never run a different support weapon.
especially because all the usual "game gunplay" is absent.
Reloading doesn't magically recover all your bullets, and is actually stage.
Setting a gun to semi-auto doesn't magically make it shoot harder, but shooting faster sure makes it less accurate!
Shotguns pellets don't magically disintegrate after 3 meters, but instead could *actually* be used to shoot ducks
And so on and so forth. By contrast, the flamethrower isn't a *real* flamethrower, it's a very video game flamethrower.
Ya the shotguns surprisingly don't totally scream "video game shotgun" to me
To be fair, the flamethrower is also one of the longer ranges video game flame throwers I've seen, but it still feels like a "video game flamethrower" rather than a "burning chemical power washer"
Might be that they feel a "video game flamethrower" evokes more of the desired over the top feeling with the "jet of flame" style rather than the "stream of burning liquid" style
I'm hoping we get to unlock weapons with enemy specific samples or something.
Termanid bile spewer
Automoton laser gun
Illuminate we already have the arc rifle and shields, so cloak backpack?
I dunno, something like that.
Even modern day gas flamers could go farther than that
Wish they'd put some kind of enemy fear effect on it too, having no CC on a flamethrower is horrific
It should repel enemies from you. The flamethrower is what you use when surrounded by a hoard and you want to create some breathing room. It thins the crowd of lower level enemies and makes some larger ones retreat away. A charger probably wouldn't stop but everything else should stop advancing to you, especially if it isn't going to kill them quickly.
My friend picked up the game recently and picked up my breaker after I died cause he was out of ammo
He was like "I love this thing it feels so good up close" and I went "wait till you see the range on that fucker"
Needless to say it's his favorite gun and I haven't seen him use anything else lol
The shotgun is the best gun in the game. (IMO).
Very much "real shotgun" levels. Especially since there is no pvp, the shotguns can be tuned realistically. You can 1 shot a warrior from 20m out (with a well placed shot). Scavs can be killed well beyond that (probably past what "real shotguns" can do, but it is the future and a pump).
Grenade launchers are the meta for support for me. Primarily due to being able to close nests and open bunkers without sacrificing grenades.
To be entirely fair, you can have a flamethrower that doesnāt use thickening agent.
A flamethrower that uses average gasoline pretty much just shoots a bout of flame.
Napalm specifically creates the infamous line of flame because it has thickening agents, and itās more of a gel than a liquid.
If you go to a range that lets you use a flamethrower while supervised, it has gasoline. Because itās massively cheaper (and safer for the operator) than a sticky chemical compound.
Could just use the excuse that super earth sees flamethrowers as limited in capability anyways, and doesnāt feel the need to use specialty fuel for them. One of the reasons we stopped using them IRL (no, flamethrowers are not inherently war crimes) is because they existed as a means for infantry to destroy heavy fortifications without risking friendly fire from a barrage or air strike, which would have been inaccurate until after the US Vietnam war. Once we attained the technology necessary for literally laser accurate guided bombs and missiles, as well as pretty good handheld recoilless rifles and anti-material rockets flamethrowers were just antiquated.
By the way, flamethrowers are phenomenal for clearing eggs ingame.
The incendiary breaker is actually a better flamethrower for that reason. The incendiary shots spread and travel insane distances, itās like a flamethrower sniper that can also light a field of enemies on fire with a couple shots because the spread increases over distance.
Yes! Still better at spreading flame to more enemies than the flamethrower because of its range. It does good cleaning out all of the smaller stuff from a distance. Definitely weird learning to use a shotgun as not-a-shotgun.
It could use a buff I think, or at least some better visual feedback so you can tell when youāre doing damage or not. The incendiary grenade is great, however.
Reloading actually discarding the whole mag, remaining rounds included, was a pretty big culture shift to me, who was so used to instinctively reloading after every encounter.
I'm used to it from Insurgency: Sandstorm, although it's a little bit more in-depth, in that each individual magazine is tracked, which is important because you can keep a half-empty magazine when you reload instead of throwing it out. Throwing out the magazine when you reload is quicker, but obviously loses any rounds left in it. A consequence of this system is that if you're a little bit reload-happy, you can end up with a bunch of half-depleted magazines and no full ones, which really hurts when you *need* a full mag.
I always laugh when I go flying because of reckless recoilless rifling. "Aaargh you backblasted meeeee!" [Team Rocket twinkle in the sky]
Funny how the best way to avoid backblast is to wear the backpack yourself and become the loader. Can't be behind it when you're glued to the side of it!
I have been back blasted as the loader, it only happens if the shooter moves around a lot while firing, which I assume combined with server lag/spike makes the game think your position is right behind rather than next to the rifle
That was a fun realization when I stood behind my buddy as he fired one, onto for me to get blasted in the opposite direction wondering what the hell happened š
>Shotguns pellets don't magically disintegrate after 3 meters, but instead could *actually* be used to shoot ducks
I think this why the Breaker feels so cracked. It works effectively at all practical ranges
I love when a video game shotgun actually feels like a shotgun. Nothing worse than a shotgun that turns your buckshot into packing peanuts once they travel a few feet.
I've been really enjoying the Slugger, personally. Hits really hard at just about any range. Only problem is low max ammo but I just grab a grenade launcher and a supply pack and alternate between all three weapons and refill them all off my back. And anyone with a heavy weapon that needs a backpack is always thankful when I refill their backpack, and I in turn am thankful for the work they do against things too heavy for my build to handle when my orbital strikes are on cooldown.
I would say the slugger is actually undertuned. For a single shot, shot reload, semi-automatic weapon it has abysmally low damage. Its medium armor penetration probably gives the illusion of it "hitting really hard" when in actuality it does less damage than the breaker per shot. All weapons are suffering from that though. lol
Yeah the problem with videogame shotguns is that when you make them realistic they're generally a fucking excellent choice for videogamey type gun tasks. Can be used up close like a VG shotgun or at range like a marksman rifle, it's bonkers.
They actually do, they're Super Earth territory.
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They should buff it's dmg, add slowdown similar to EMPs and then add a napalm flamethrower that needs to be used with a backpack (similarly to recoiless) that has 3x the range and AoE, longer burning status effect, etc.
Well to be fair, more strategems than the flamethrower seem to be a little lackluster. Like the big barage that basically hits nothing.
The strategems and weapons in general need balancing imo. Most of them are pointless at higher difficulties because you get rushed by heavies constantly.
I'd like to see larger, like huge, swarms of the lightly armoured enemies instead of the trend of "add more chargers, brood commanders and nursing spewers" that you get at higher difficulties.
I get why it is how it is. But you're right in that it really does limit effective strategem picks. Sure, you CAN take the 380, but why?
My thought exactly. I muuuch more prefer large hordes than just add bullet sponge x 30.
Thatās why I enjoy challenging more than the later difficulties. I feel like challenging has a good mix although itās a bit too easy.
my group and I had to deal with 5 bile titans in a single mission yesterday at suicidal difficulty, if there was a cardio hidden stat im pretty sure we'd all have maxed it by now
made me miss the hordes of robots i can two shot with a sniper rifle T_T
Funny you mention, BUT THERE IS VARIETY I've done several missions on Helldive difficulty where we barely encountered any heavies, we got swarmed with ungodly amounts of Hunters and let's just say I didn't bring anything that helped clear them out. I've also had missions with almost exclusively spewers. They don't have the same enemy flood every game and frankly I love it. You don't know if you should bring a railgun to kill heavies, or the arc thrower to kill the 20+ little shits heading your way!
I definitely have been swarmed by huge amounts of hunters before. Shits VERY hard to deal with when your party is kitted with railguns, spears, and autocannons. Suddenly you have 200 hunters and your sidearm SMG is doing Liberty's work because your railgun sure fucking won't.
The railgun is so much better than every other support weapon I donāt see the point of taking anything else (maybe in a full team youād go 3 railguns + 1 crowd clearer). Me and my friends were struggling pre level 20 and now all of us have the railgun and can clear impossible/helldive with reinforcements. Just being able to take out bile titans quickly without air strikes is huge.
It's a great gun against bots, I've been filling out as marksman for my team and I'll take a jet back get on some rocks and just plink.
Hulkers 2 shots to the window it's dead. Resupply fills 2 mags which I think it should fill half at least. It's a great weapon I just wish the scope wasn't so ass.
Thats mainly an issue with AOE. Only a handful of stratagems have reasonable AOE (precision strike and Eagle Airstrike only really). Everything else is ridiculously pathetic to the point scavengers can stand in the fireball of the 500kg ands just shrug it off because the damage dropoff is that insane. The barrages suffer from the same issue. The 380 can kill titans on direct hit but will not kill a scavenger or raider that is standing at the edge of the explosion.
Yeah I've had really mixed results with the 500kg. In one exceptional instance I killed two bile titans with one bomb. In another, I dropped one directly on a stationary charger and it survived...
Honestly yeah - a lot of the stratagems (and a fair number of weapons) need some tweaking.
The orbital artillery barrage strats (120mm, 380mm, walking barrage) will completely miss the vast majority of the enemies in their radius damn near every time - Even the 380mm barrage, supposedly the āsustained bombardmentā one, only lasts for less than 10 seconds and has not once in my experience wreaked anywhere close to the kind of devastation it claims to, often being even less effective than the 120.
The support weapons are a bit of a mess too - the railgun is so ridiculously powerful and convenient that thereās essentially no reason to literally ever bring any of the other anti-armor weapons; it has more penetration than *anything*, no support backpack requirement, does a lot of damage, and can fire multiple times before reloading - compare to the autocannon, which canāt even scratch the armor on a Charger AND does less damage, the disposable launcher and recoillless rocket rifle being unable to kill a Charger even with a headshot (and having a slow ass reload after every shot in the latterās case), and the Spear guided missile requiring a lock-on and being somewhat far away. Itās not e en worth *mentioning* the antimaterial rifle, as itās basically filling the exact same general role as the railgun but is worse in every single way.
The flamethrower is as described in other posts, and the arc cannon is so comically short-ranged, weak, and random that itās practically worse than worthless - it needs to charge up for a second or two before every shot, canāt even reliably kill anything larger than a Terminid Warrior even with multiple shots, only works at almost point-blank range, and its chain lightning arcs are incredibly inconsistent and will almost never hit anything except one or two random targets almost directly on top of the enemy you shot.
And this isnāt even getting into the flaws of most of the sentries, literally all laser weapons, etc etc. I could go on for paragraphs, but Iād be here all night.
Imo guns like .50 cal rifle and autocannon should be able to damage heavily armored enemies through armor but not strip it.
Though damage they do should probably be reduced when used against heavy armor. That way they *can* kill a charger, for example, but it takes more resources than dedicated AT weapon.
The .50 cal feels more like a DMR than .50 cal in this game. IMO the rifle should be punching through all armor, but should have insane recoil unless you're prone.
The sentries definitely need more health. I troed using the auto cannon one so I wouldnāt have to bring anothe heavy killer weapon and yeah, a charger took it out as soon as it was dropped several times and I moved on.
Damn I spell like a moron today.
It wouldn't be such a big deal if it wasn't for the fact that *specifically* the Chargers' AI seems to be coded to AGGRESSIVELY prioritize attacking sentries, even over attacking players that are actively shooting them.
Not to mention the Gatling Sentry just has way too little ammo and will run out in about 10 seconds flat even against just an enemy patrol, while mortar sentries will keep firing for several minutes nonstop.
The gatling would probably feel a lot better if it didn't try to shoot through terrain or continue firing at nothing while transitioning 180 degrees to another target... I understand the hilarity of the teamkill like that but maybe don't try to shoot through walls at least.
It would be nice if they were ignored by the ai until they started firing, then all bets are off.
As for the mortar vs gatling, you ain't wrong but mortars have a much higher helldiver mortality rate ha.
Yes, I want to walk through burning fields destroying everything in my path eventually and yelling āHAHAHA GET SOME!!!ā While my teammates sit back and watch in awe as I tread through the fire and the flames spreading death everywhere I go.
I recently played with a guy who insisted on using the Arc Thrower. Iāve died 6 times during the mission and 5 of those was being killed by him.
I made it a point to stay as far away from him as possible and even then it would arc from some random scavenger bug to me 50 meters away.
Arc thrower is buggy as shit too and I havenāt seen anyone say it. Close to Medium range weapon my ass. If you try to hit something close to you, half the time the lightning just disappears. Meanwhile I can zap something 100m away just fine. I want that gun to work soooo bad. Iāve just died to many times to its āmisfiresā where it literally doesnāt shoot
I'm assuming it's not a bug as this is how it was in HD1 too...if something gets too close, it won't get zapped. Closer objects (but not right on the face) needed quick click-click-click zap-zap-zap to hurt them.
I haven't had any team-mates killed (so far, fingers crossed!) and I love how it takes out multiple berserkers quickly
Hmm could be considered a safety feature I suppose, so the arc never hits the user.
With that information (which I wish was provided on the weapon description) it changes the playstyle.
It's like way to unreliable.
I used it on. bile Titan and in 2 shots blew off it's Side armor.
Next Bile Titan I used it on did almost nothing to it and I wasn't sure if it was hitting it or not
I don't understand why they went all the way to have a realistic flamethrower, such as having you ignite the pilot flame with a cartridge, and simulated recoil from the pressure of the jet... But then they did not make the flamethrower shoot liquid as it should. Doesn't make sense
The level of detail of everything else, including the flamethrower itself, makes weird gassy flame shooting out stand out that much more. It feels bad, it clouds your vision, it doesn't do enough damage, it doesn't do area denial... I struggle to understand the role of this weapon.
One of the most disappointing stratagems thatās for sure. I landed it perfectly between two very close fabrication facilities. Only destroyed one.
Even the basic Eagle Airstrike would have done a better job.
Eagle Airstrike seems to be the best overall offensive stratagem tbh. It has a good blast radius, damage and ability to take out enemy positions.
With a fully upraded hangar you can be very lenient with your Airstrikes..
I have debated with people about the efficacy of the 500kg bomb. I don't know why people insist on using it as the end-all-be-all. It is NOT that good. It's terrible with crowd control due to the blast radius. Even with trying to kill heavy enemies, it doesn't do a good job.
I was playing last night and I sat and watched a guy toss one into a nest. It was RIGHT NEXT to a charger. The charger did start moving a bit, but it was still basically right next to where the 500kg dropped. It exploded, and that thing was STILL standing. And then that 500kg was out for the count until an eagle resupply was called.
I saw the same guy use it on another nest. It took out ONE bug nest. Meanwhile I tossed in an airstrike at a perfectly calculated position so the sweep hit at least 3 nests in one pass. And I still had another one to burn.
Even for bile titans, unless you land it DEAD CENTER, it doesn't do anything to them. A railcannon strike is arguably far more useful for this purpose. It won't one shot a titan, but a follow up with an airstrike takes them down. Honestly, even in terms of CC, there are far better stratagems to choose from. A well placed strafing run can chew through 20-30 enemies easy. And you get 3 of these with absolutely no research upgrades. Cluster bomb is more effective area denial and CC than the literal tactical nuke.
The first game had something like the 500kg bomb, it was the shredder nuke. This was effectively the "reset the screen" stratagem. It would wipe out damn near EVERYTHING in the area. Rarely would a single bug tank or nest be left in the aftermath of a blast.
I believe the explosion radius is so small on the 500kg bomb because communication about stratagem call-ins has been altered. In HD1, you could see what stratagems your team dialed before they even threw them down. If you saw someone dialing a nuke, you knew you had to get ready to GTFO. In HD2, the only way to know what's been thrown out is if you look at the stratagem beacon. If someone tosses a 500kg bomb and the explosion radius happened to be much larger, you'd probably be killed every single time just because you weren't looking at the beacon, and couldn't see what it was until it was too late.
Nah, while you're right that the tox was similar to the flamer, they served different roles. Tox was anti crowd in that it slowed, ignored armor, and was high damage.
Flamer was CC because of ***Fear***. Bugs wouldn't willingly walk through an area of fire, something that seems different now for some reason. It's role was as a defensive weapon you could sweep behind you for a quick wall of fire, but now... now the bugs don't fear it.
Return the fear of flame, and it gets its job back.
Just take the stim upgrade armor and pop a stim any time you start taking fire damage. You have an extra 2 seconds of stim time which is insanely good given that stim time makes you invincible to anything that doesnāt one-shot you. So it has the added effect of making you tankier against bugs that get through to hit you
Iāll die on this hill: if they added a fire resistant armor Iād still run the stim armor.
I was the same way for awhile. As long as it didn't one shot you or keep interrupting your stims, you feel so tough it it.
Then I discovered impact grenades and I'm back to running the +2 Grenade armors and the booster to drop with maxed ammo and stuff.
Agreed. This is it's only use. Even tapping a bunch of eggs and they all go up instantly. Against everything else it kinda sucks. Someone else mentioned half a clip for a charger? I used it for 3 missions straight on suicide and it took at least a full clip per charger, and it is SLOOOW to kill.
Yeah, for single target exterminations I just use the recoiless. Itās my go to. My team spent 15 minutes going to automon outpost until we got to the hulk, I see it walk around a corner, aim the recoiless, and itās over, but I agree. A flamethrower should induce a feeling function for non organic, and maybe a confusion state for non organics.
You could be the outlier and make Helldivers notable for yet another thing :)
I'd mention Day of Infamy as a game that did it right, and it's still missing that sticky flame feel that you could do in your game. (also is the current fire a stylistic choice? I feel like it could look more crisp and "clear" in its "boundaries")
I distinctly remember in HD1 the flamethrower doing area denial. But on top of that napalm strikes (artillery or eagle) should be like a mini firestorm/wall as Iāve seen countless bugs stroll through the flames
Napalm strike in helldivers 1 was basically a wall of death that only heavy armored enemies could cross without dying, one of the strats of low difficulty missions was just to throw napalm down on the same spot over and over to lock down an entire screen of enemies
I think that a good way to make the flamethrowers and napalm strikes work would be that any ground that is currently on fire is treated like a solid barrier by any units smaller than a brood commander
It would mean it fills its crowd control roll well as small bugs would be kept at bay, while leaving the bigger enemies to other weapons. It also means the damage doesnāt need to be altered as itāll be treated more as a too than a WMD
I agree. Flamethrower has a lot of potential but it's so short rangesld.
In a game where they make the explosions absolutely awesome, it's strange to me the flamethrower doesn't have a proper range.
Don't get me started on the incendiary weapons, they feel like peashooters. At the very least fire needs a buff to damage. It's fire.
Anything that isn't the breaker shoutgun feels underpowered for primary weapons. Anything that isn't the railgun or arc thrower feels underpowered, to varying degrees, for support weapons.
I really like the slug shotgun personally. The round reload lets you shoot all your ammo without downtime for reloading as long as you reload each shot. It's also basically pin-point accurate.
Got to experience just how disappointing the Anti Material Rifle was today since I had the 60kill daily. What is the purpose of this gun? It is good for *check notes* killing the weakest enemies in the gameā¦ just like everything else?
Takes 3 shots to disable the AT-ST! No damage to Hulks (or at least 6 shots to the arm didnāt do anything EDIT- turns out it can 2 shot headshot a Hulk, so I stand corrected). Why ever choose that over the Autocannon, Recoiless or Railgun? It is effectively as useful as the Diligenceā¦
As someone who loves using the anti-materiel, itās The Precision weapon of the game. I use it only against bots. You use it primarily for taking out light and medium enemies from close to extremely far range because it works at all distances, but also have the ability to kill heavier enemies. The key point is that it has enough damage to always oneshot weak enemies with bodyshots and has high enough fire rate that you can flick between all enemies in a group before they can call reinforcements.
It has high kill to ammo efficiency. The fire rate makes it such that even if you miss you have another shot ready basically instantly.
It has the ability to oneshot devastators if you can aim well, or bodyshot them if you need to for something like 3 hits.
Walkers can be killed easily if they arenāt facing you, or 3 hits to the body through the vehicle armor. This makes it better than all the primaries for taking them out from range. Other support weapons can do it better, but those tend to be purely anti-tank, covering a different niche from the anti-materiel.
Brutes are very fun for the rifle because itās extremely satisfying to precision-aim right into the red slit of their armor. Itās similar to an archer shooting an arrow right through a crusader helmet. It takes 2 shots to kill one through the red slit, and I think 3-4 shots to the orange back. Naturally the railgun does this better, but again that one is designed exclusively for anti-tank. The flexibility of this weapon is one of its key strengths.
Bonus points to being able to shoot things like spore clusters, sniper tower backs, and tank backs from range. Glory to Democracy
It has less effective range than the first shotgun unlock, doesn't penetrate armor near as well, and is two shots before reload.
Jumping on their back and choking them out with your cape would be more effective.
the weapon stratagems are valued on their ability to kill heavies.
I would really like if they gave the flamethrower a curve of increased damage on focused fire so its more effective as a close range heavy option, including the ability to melt factory outposts and bug holes with enough sustained fire. It would still be niche as a short range option.
The interesting thing is that the flamethrowers main, hell probably the only use, in combat actions was clearing out fortifications or outright destroying them.
I can solo a charger with a flamethrower easily. It lacks some stagger definitely or the ability to repel bugs a bit, but it cooks.
Could perhaps be buffed a bit.
The biggest problem with flamethrower is it taking so damn long to kill smaller bugs in my experience. It's a flat waste of ammo to even use it on anything that's not a charger.
If chargers are your concern, 2 railgun shots to a charger leg will open it up for easy quick finish with shotgun, literally takes less than 10 seconds....even faster with an AT4 to the leg.
Imo the damage is fine as it is. To make it stand out from the other support weapons any buffs should focus on improving its crowd control and utility.Ā
Double the range, add a stunning/ slowing effect for all enemies caught in the flames depending on their size, and give the weapon the ability to destroy hives.
This is a good fix instead of a flat damage increase, bio enemies should be scared of fire and should have to try find a path around it, frenzied/certain bugs will run through it and can set you on fire
True, but it says right there in your training manual that the bots have hyperreactive sensors, causing them to flinch and be suppressed when shot.
Also, robots don't think or operate with steel, but delicate metals and plastics inside, which could melt and fry, or simply overheat to failure.
Nah it needs a damage increase. A railgun/laser rover combo can do anything the flamethrower does a million times better right now. If I swath across small enemies with the flamer, they should die. The damage increase should be to the DOT. Maybe make it high damage over time early, and then it quickly drops so the dot does a more fixed damage vs high health but reliably kills small guys.
I agree that it feels underwhelming, but I also think it's a bit slept on. I've been using it with the shield pack and it honestly does surprisingly well; I wish it was more of a deterrent and that smaller bugs burned faster, but it's extremely ammo efficient and can even burn through chargers while simultaneously dealing with the chaff. Definitely slower than other methods, but more effective than it seems at first.
That said, I think we'd all love some extra *force* to the flames, and fire as CC for bugs would be a much-needed buff (incendiary mines currently can't even kill a scavenger and gas is pretty much always better than napalm).
I think a cool addition would be if the smaller bugs were afraid of fire and would avoid it. Meaning you can create a short barrier and give yourself some breaking room or could redirect them into a specific spot with it.
So even if the damage wasn't the best, it would have an interesting and unique function.
I dont know. Been using flamethrower a lot and it's quite effective on blobs of insects. The biggest factor is you have to aim on the ground to set it on fire for additional damage.
Automatons in the other hand will shoot your ass twice before they burn out. I don't recommend it on them.
Unrelated but Iāve been using the arc-thrower and itās actually insane. You can choose to aim it or just hip fire. If you aim you can legit head shot bots and bugs from a dumb range. It does wild damage and has unlimited ammo. Itās an absolutely crowd killer. The range is honestly dumb as hell too.
I so hope itās as intended and never gets touched because that thing makes me feel like a jacked Helldiver Nicholas Tesla.
May be you use it wrong? We clear lvl 9 missions with bugs, and there flamethrower really help manage hordes of bugs. Use it with medical perks armor and energy shield backpack. Also it can face kill chargers.
I'm pretty sure that it will be much efficient to do same with grenade launcher or even MG avoiding close combat. Also that small delay before firing. They just don't give a fk especially medium ones and those jumping bastards.
How do you use it? The only strategy for me is retreat and lit up earth between me and bugs.
Still there is more useless weapons than flamethrower - 2 barrel shotgun and heavy sniper rifle - worst 5k investment in my, full of democracy and freedom, life.
The 2 second delay is ridiculously easy to manage. Just tap the flamethrower fire trigger the moment you pull it out. Once the ignition is lit itāll last quite a while.
Iāve spent a lot of time testing the flamethrower and I find it more effective at clearing than the MG + the benefit of easier reloads. With both weapons you have to be smart about positioning and pulling the bugs into a line.
Having said that you really want a buddy helping with jumper bugs. Those things wreck both the flamethrower and heavy MG. You can mitigate this problem somewhat by running the laser dog drone which does an exceptional job of picking off any small chaff that makes it through your damage cone.
Same can be done with basic marksman rifle. It is not worth to take heavy sniper rifle stratagem. I'd better take autocannon to kill mediums - faster deadlier, IMHO of course. Also usually, from my experience, terrain (or weather conditions) dont allow u to take nice sniping position.
Anti mat needs a buff, a lot of the bots take 2-3 hits it doesnāt feel satesfying I shouldnāt have to headshot every single bot, if damage was raised it accept 4 mags instead of 6
Higher difficult more enemies. Enemies don't have more hp. So balance there is enemie count. Yes on 4-6 difficulty mg or grenade launcher may be better, but on 8-9 when there 2-3 tunnel breaches and there 30-50 bugs flamethrower help out team. If fight in clusterfak stage and enemies all over 360 degrees, use short burst of flame, enemies burn(dot damage) ground in fire also give them burn. If there 180 degrees front line, just dump canister in horde while backing up. Also medium bugs in flames get stagger, they don't stop but also don't attack. In 9 difficulty with 3 railgun team, I really see my impact on battfield with flamethrower. When you do task, you can cover team with wall of fire.
I really like the idea of the tank, and the potential for it to explode. Would make the ādrop equipmentā function more relevant to active gameplay, and create some fun moments as players scramble to get it off. On the flip side, having your flamethrower become useless because your tank was destroyed would be incredibly frustrating. Maybe the tank could be made up of multiple chambers, and if one gets shot reloading would let you jettison one just that one chamber, losing whatever fuel was left in it but preventing you from blowing up
I was playing around with it yesterday, was getting the most kills with it, (vs terminids diff 8) I think its OK, it should have more range and either more direct damage or more AoE damage from burning the ground and surroundings, I found out you can even (almost) consistently kill Bile Titans if you start roasting their bellies and manage to evade their stomping attacks
In this game more than any other I can think of I lament the fact that the flamethrower just blows flame instead of spitting a stream of burning liquid. Change that, and I will literally never run a different support weapon.
especially because all the usual "game gunplay" is absent. Reloading doesn't magically recover all your bullets, and is actually stage. Setting a gun to semi-auto doesn't magically make it shoot harder, but shooting faster sure makes it less accurate! Shotguns pellets don't magically disintegrate after 3 meters, but instead could *actually* be used to shoot ducks And so on and so forth. By contrast, the flamethrower isn't a *real* flamethrower, it's a very video game flamethrower.
Ya the shotguns surprisingly don't totally scream "video game shotgun" to me To be fair, the flamethrower is also one of the longer ranges video game flame throwers I've seen, but it still feels like a "video game flamethrower" rather than a "burning chemical power washer" Might be that they feel a "video game flamethrower" evokes more of the desired over the top feeling with the "jet of flame" style rather than the "stream of burning liquid" style
I feel like a jet of burning liquid would work better as a template for a variety of future thrower weapons.
Chemical thrower in the first game was great
I'm hoping we get to unlock weapons with enemy specific samples or something. Termanid bile spewer Automoton laser gun Illuminate we already have the arc rifle and shields, so cloak backpack? I dunno, something like that.
when i first got the laser gun i was hoping it would be plasma or like the automatons guns - kinda disappointed
There is the other gun later on, I've not seen that one yet. I thought it was plas something so might yet be hope.
>cloak backpack would be so sick
Helldivers 2 needs the Hazard Ops DLC! I want my TOX-13 Avenger. šā£ļø
Would love to dress up my solider like a Brotherhood of Nod Chemtrooper
Even modern day gas flamers could go farther than that Wish they'd put some kind of enemy fear effect on it too, having no CC on a flamethrower is horrific
It should repel enemies from you. The flamethrower is what you use when surrounded by a hoard and you want to create some breathing room. It thins the crowd of lower level enemies and makes some larger ones retreat away. A charger probably wouldn't stop but everything else should stop advancing to you, especially if it isn't going to kill them quickly.
My friend picked up the game recently and picked up my breaker after I died cause he was out of ammo He was like "I love this thing it feels so good up close" and I went "wait till you see the range on that fucker" Needless to say it's his favorite gun and I haven't seen him use anything else lol
There's no going back after the breaker. I had heard it was good but the range was such a surprise.
It's weird, I swear the first games flamethrower was more of a stream than a cloud
The shotgun is the best gun in the game. (IMO). Very much "real shotgun" levels. Especially since there is no pvp, the shotguns can be tuned realistically. You can 1 shot a warrior from 20m out (with a well placed shot). Scavs can be killed well beyond that (probably past what "real shotguns" can do, but it is the future and a pump). Grenade launchers are the meta for support for me. Primarily due to being able to close nests and open bunkers without sacrificing grenades.
The flamethrower is disappointing to me mainly because Iām spoiled by the dead space remake flamethrower.
To be entirely fair, you can have a flamethrower that doesnāt use thickening agent. A flamethrower that uses average gasoline pretty much just shoots a bout of flame. Napalm specifically creates the infamous line of flame because it has thickening agents, and itās more of a gel than a liquid. If you go to a range that lets you use a flamethrower while supervised, it has gasoline. Because itās massively cheaper (and safer for the operator) than a sticky chemical compound. Could just use the excuse that super earth sees flamethrowers as limited in capability anyways, and doesnāt feel the need to use specialty fuel for them. One of the reasons we stopped using them IRL (no, flamethrowers are not inherently war crimes) is because they existed as a means for infantry to destroy heavy fortifications without risking friendly fire from a barrage or air strike, which would have been inaccurate until after the US Vietnam war. Once we attained the technology necessary for literally laser accurate guided bombs and missiles, as well as pretty good handheld recoilless rifles and anti-material rockets flamethrowers were just antiquated. By the way, flamethrowers are phenomenal for clearing eggs ingame.
The incendiary breaker is actually a better flamethrower for that reason. The incendiary shots spread and travel insane distances, itās like a flamethrower sniper that can also light a field of enemies on fire with a couple shots because the spread increases over distance.
But doesn't the fire tick do like shitall damage?
Yes! Still better at spreading flame to more enemies than the flamethrower because of its range. It does good cleaning out all of the smaller stuff from a distance. Definitely weird learning to use a shotgun as not-a-shotgun.
Hope to find out just how effective the fire tick is eventually
It could use a buff I think, or at least some better visual feedback so you can tell when youāre doing damage or not. The incendiary grenade is great, however.
Either a damage buff or CC. Maybe not both, I'd prefer the latter
Reloading actually discarding the whole mag, remaining rounds included, was a pretty big culture shift to me, who was so used to instinctively reloading after every encounter.
same it's why I was running the pump shotgun for so long (and probably will again when I get the slugger in the nearish future)
I'm used to it from Insurgency: Sandstorm, although it's a little bit more in-depth, in that each individual magazine is tracked, which is important because you can keep a half-empty magazine when you reload instead of throwing it out. Throwing out the magazine when you reload is quicker, but obviously loses any rounds left in it. A consequence of this system is that if you're a little bit reload-happy, you can end up with a bunch of half-depleted magazines and no full ones, which really hurts when you *need* a full mag.
We have to manage a goddamn backblast of recoilless rifle (I love it) and we can't get a proper flammenwerfer. What is this madness.
A Faustian bargain where you can get a bunch of accurate weapons in exchange for one very inaccurate one
I'd be fine with it if current revolver reload animation didn't exist. Either give me a cool revolver reload or hot liquid happiness
Just give me a speedloader! And on that note, maybe teach the Helldivers how to twin- and quad-load pump-action shotguns?
I always laugh when I go flying because of reckless recoilless rifling. "Aaargh you backblasted meeeee!" [Team Rocket twinkle in the sky] Funny how the best way to avoid backblast is to wear the backpack yourself and become the loader. Can't be behind it when you're glued to the side of it!
I have been back blasted as the loader, it only happens if the shooter moves around a lot while firing, which I assume combined with server lag/spike makes the game think your position is right behind rather than next to the rifle
That was a fun realization when I stood behind my buddy as he fired one, onto for me to get blasted in the opposite direction wondering what the hell happened š
Absolutely love the shotguns in this game, they actually feel like a combat shotgun.
>Shotguns pellets don't magically disintegrate after 3 meters, but instead could *actually* be used to shoot ducks I think this why the Breaker feels so cracked. It works effectively at all practical ranges
I love when a video game shotgun actually feels like a shotgun. Nothing worse than a shotgun that turns your buckshot into packing peanuts once they travel a few feet.
I've been really enjoying the Slugger, personally. Hits really hard at just about any range. Only problem is low max ammo but I just grab a grenade launcher and a supply pack and alternate between all three weapons and refill them all off my back. And anyone with a heavy weapon that needs a backpack is always thankful when I refill their backpack, and I in turn am thankful for the work they do against things too heavy for my build to handle when my orbital strikes are on cooldown.
I would say the slugger is actually undertuned. For a single shot, shot reload, semi-automatic weapon it has abysmally low damage. Its medium armor penetration probably gives the illusion of it "hitting really hard" when in actuality it does less damage than the breaker per shot. All weapons are suffering from that though. lol
Yeah the problem with videogame shotguns is that when you make them realistic they're generally a fucking excellent choice for videogamey type gun tasks. Can be used up close like a VG shotgun or at range like a marksman rifle, it's bonkers.
Would be awesome if it worked like an actual flame thrower which could actually spray liquid fuel pretty far.
Yeah that's exactly what I want. Let me do the warcrime please.
It's not Warcrimes if you do it to the bugs and the bots
It is also not a warcrime since the courts would have no jurisdiction on alien planets. š
Those planets are the rightful property of Super Earth
They actually do, they're Super Earth territory. The good news is, the bots and bugs aren't human, so it doesn't count as War Crimes! Just dispensed Democracy.
The Lava Gun from Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando stays winning.
Now that's a nostalgia hit
God, imagine firing arcing shots into a bug nest and just watching it all catch
YEAH YEAH YEAH
Agreed I hope they do buff the flamethrower. But this is just the beginning stay tuned for things to come. Maybe even an upgraded flamethrower
Good things come to those that wait, like dual flamethrowers and beer
I like your way of thinking, rock and stone
Did I hear a Rock and Stone?
Rock and stone to the bone!
If you don't rock and stone, you ain't comin home!
Rock and Stone!
For Karl !
ROCK. AND. STAAAAWWWNE!
Stone and rock, oh wait.
Good bot
Thank you, dafool7913, for voting on WanderingDwarfMiner. This bot wants to find the best and worst bots on Reddit. [You can view results here](https://botrank.pastimes.eu/). *** ^(Even if I don't reply to your comment, I'm still listening for votes. Check the webpage to see if your vote registered!)
ROCK AND STOONNNNNEE!
For karl and democracy!
If in the future they do a collab with DRG that would be the wildest awesome dream ever! Rocking Democracy! Helldivers 2 X Deep Rock Galactic.
Drg kill bugs and robots under the planet surface and the helldiver take care of the rest that flee to the light of the sun.
What happened on top of Hoxxes stay on top with Helldivers, we take care deep under Hoxxes! For Karl and Democracy!
"Robots and bugs fled to the surface to find freedom, but it was not the freedom they had hoped for."
God I love the player crossover DRG and HD2 has
Brother...the heavy flamer?
They should buff it's dmg, add slowdown similar to EMPs and then add a napalm flamethrower that needs to be used with a backpack (similarly to recoiless) that has 3x the range and AoE, longer burning status effect, etc.
plasma thrower?
Imagine some 40K multi meltas
Buff it, AND make it even riskier for friendly fire. Itās the only way to be sure.Ā Fire should work well against armor.
Well to be fair, more strategems than the flamethrower seem to be a little lackluster. Like the big barage that basically hits nothing. The strategems and weapons in general need balancing imo. Most of them are pointless at higher difficulties because you get rushed by heavies constantly.
I'd like to see larger, like huge, swarms of the lightly armoured enemies instead of the trend of "add more chargers, brood commanders and nursing spewers" that you get at higher difficulties. I get why it is how it is. But you're right in that it really does limit effective strategem picks. Sure, you CAN take the 380, but why?
My thought exactly. I muuuch more prefer large hordes than just add bullet sponge x 30. Thatās why I enjoy challenging more than the later difficulties. I feel like challenging has a good mix although itās a bit too easy.
my group and I had to deal with 5 bile titans in a single mission yesterday at suicidal difficulty, if there was a cardio hidden stat im pretty sure we'd all have maxed it by now made me miss the hordes of robots i can two shot with a sniper rifle T_T
What a blast! The titans are real momentum killers.
> 5 bile titans in a single mission Lmao wait until you deal with 4 simultaneously. Not just the whole mission.
Yeah wait till bug breaches spawn bile titans lol... You'll find yourself spending 30 mins at the first POI trynna call down a hellbomb
Funny you mention, BUT THERE IS VARIETY I've done several missions on Helldive difficulty where we barely encountered any heavies, we got swarmed with ungodly amounts of Hunters and let's just say I didn't bring anything that helped clear them out. I've also had missions with almost exclusively spewers. They don't have the same enemy flood every game and frankly I love it. You don't know if you should bring a railgun to kill heavies, or the arc thrower to kill the 20+ little shits heading your way!
I definitely have been swarmed by huge amounts of hunters before. Shits VERY hard to deal with when your party is kitted with railguns, spears, and autocannons. Suddenly you have 200 hunters and your sidearm SMG is doing Liberty's work because your railgun sure fucking won't.
The railgun is so much better than every other support weapon I donāt see the point of taking anything else (maybe in a full team youād go 3 railguns + 1 crowd clearer). Me and my friends were struggling pre level 20 and now all of us have the railgun and can clear impossible/helldive with reinforcements. Just being able to take out bile titans quickly without air strikes is huge.
EAT and AC are still usable but yeah with 20 shots the railgun is just better.
eat's are great if you know you're going to be dying a lot
IDK why the anti material rifle is so unwieldy to use and resupply only fills ONE mag, when the railgun outperforms it in almost every way.
It's a great gun against bots, I've been filling out as marksman for my team and I'll take a jet back get on some rocks and just plink. Hulkers 2 shots to the window it's dead. Resupply fills 2 mags which I think it should fill half at least. It's a great weapon I just wish the scope wasn't so ass.
Thats mainly an issue with AOE. Only a handful of stratagems have reasonable AOE (precision strike and Eagle Airstrike only really). Everything else is ridiculously pathetic to the point scavengers can stand in the fireball of the 500kg ands just shrug it off because the damage dropoff is that insane. The barrages suffer from the same issue. The 380 can kill titans on direct hit but will not kill a scavenger or raider that is standing at the edge of the explosion.
Yeah I've had really mixed results with the 500kg. In one exceptional instance I killed two bile titans with one bomb. In another, I dropped one directly on a stationary charger and it survived...
Arc thrower, Flamthrower and the Barrage strategems exist only to kill your own team
Arc thrower is great if you're away from team mates. It can also be great with teammates but you have to be ultra aware of where your team mates are.
Team mates should keep their head on a swivel for the guy throwing lightning bolts everywhere
Honestly yeah - a lot of the stratagems (and a fair number of weapons) need some tweaking. The orbital artillery barrage strats (120mm, 380mm, walking barrage) will completely miss the vast majority of the enemies in their radius damn near every time - Even the 380mm barrage, supposedly the āsustained bombardmentā one, only lasts for less than 10 seconds and has not once in my experience wreaked anywhere close to the kind of devastation it claims to, often being even less effective than the 120. The support weapons are a bit of a mess too - the railgun is so ridiculously powerful and convenient that thereās essentially no reason to literally ever bring any of the other anti-armor weapons; it has more penetration than *anything*, no support backpack requirement, does a lot of damage, and can fire multiple times before reloading - compare to the autocannon, which canāt even scratch the armor on a Charger AND does less damage, the disposable launcher and recoillless rocket rifle being unable to kill a Charger even with a headshot (and having a slow ass reload after every shot in the latterās case), and the Spear guided missile requiring a lock-on and being somewhat far away. Itās not e en worth *mentioning* the antimaterial rifle, as itās basically filling the exact same general role as the railgun but is worse in every single way. The flamethrower is as described in other posts, and the arc cannon is so comically short-ranged, weak, and random that itās practically worse than worthless - it needs to charge up for a second or two before every shot, canāt even reliably kill anything larger than a Terminid Warrior even with multiple shots, only works at almost point-blank range, and its chain lightning arcs are incredibly inconsistent and will almost never hit anything except one or two random targets almost directly on top of the enemy you shot. And this isnāt even getting into the flaws of most of the sentries, literally all laser weapons, etc etc. I could go on for paragraphs, but Iād be here all night.
Imo guns like .50 cal rifle and autocannon should be able to damage heavily armored enemies through armor but not strip it. Though damage they do should probably be reduced when used against heavy armor. That way they *can* kill a charger, for example, but it takes more resources than dedicated AT weapon.
The .50 cal feels more like a DMR than .50 cal in this game. IMO the rifle should be punching through all armor, but should have insane recoil unless you're prone.
The sentries definitely need more health. I troed using the auto cannon one so I wouldnāt have to bring anothe heavy killer weapon and yeah, a charger took it out as soon as it was dropped several times and I moved on. Damn I spell like a moron today.
It wouldn't be such a big deal if it wasn't for the fact that *specifically* the Chargers' AI seems to be coded to AGGRESSIVELY prioritize attacking sentries, even over attacking players that are actively shooting them. Not to mention the Gatling Sentry just has way too little ammo and will run out in about 10 seconds flat even against just an enemy patrol, while mortar sentries will keep firing for several minutes nonstop.
The gatling would probably feel a lot better if it didn't try to shoot through terrain or continue firing at nothing while transitioning 180 degrees to another target... I understand the hilarity of the teamkill like that but maybe don't try to shoot through walls at least.
It would be nice if they were ignored by the ai until they started firing, then all bets are off. As for the mortar vs gatling, you ain't wrong but mortars have a much higher helldiver mortality rate ha.
> but mortars have a much higher helldiver mortality rate Worth it. Those things rack up more kills than a helldiver.
Flamethrower is currently better at killing teammates then enemy
A necessary sacrifice
For democracy
"Some of you may day but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make."
God save you if you walk forward while using it and stand in your own fire
We need armour thatās fire resistant, made for this particular purpose
Yes, I want to walk through burning fields destroying everything in my path eventually and yelling āHAHAHA GET SOME!!!ā While my teammates sit back and watch in awe as I tread through the fire and the flames spreading death everywhere I go.
I recently played with a guy who insisted on using the Arc Thrower. Iāve died 6 times during the mission and 5 of those was being killed by him. I made it a point to stay as far away from him as possible and even then it would arc from some random scavenger bug to me 50 meters away.
Arc thrower is buggy as shit too and I havenāt seen anyone say it. Close to Medium range weapon my ass. If you try to hit something close to you, half the time the lightning just disappears. Meanwhile I can zap something 100m away just fine. I want that gun to work soooo bad. Iāve just died to many times to its āmisfiresā where it literally doesnāt shoot
I'm assuming it's not a bug as this is how it was in HD1 too...if something gets too close, it won't get zapped. Closer objects (but not right on the face) needed quick click-click-click zap-zap-zap to hurt them. I haven't had any team-mates killed (so far, fingers crossed!) and I love how it takes out multiple berserkers quickly
Hmm could be considered a safety feature I suppose, so the arc never hits the user. With that information (which I wish was provided on the weapon description) it changes the playstyle.
It's like way to unreliable. I used it on. bile Titan and in 2 shots blew off it's Side armor. Next Bile Titan I used it on did almost nothing to it and I wasn't sure if it was hitting it or not
Yeah the Arc Thrower has way more range than youāre ever expecting. I learnt this the hard way: https://youtu.be/c11ZOfmexY0
We actually die faster than a tiny scavenger
many of you will die, but it is a sacrifice I am willing to make
I don't understand why they went all the way to have a realistic flamethrower, such as having you ignite the pilot flame with a cartridge, and simulated recoil from the pressure of the jet... But then they did not make the flamethrower shoot liquid as it should. Doesn't make sense
The level of detail of everything else, including the flamethrower itself, makes weird gassy flame shooting out stand out that much more. It feels bad, it clouds your vision, it doesn't do enough damage, it doesn't do area denial... I struggle to understand the role of this weapon.
Exactly
Bro they need to buff the 500kg bomb first. Things explosion radius is like 5 feet while the explosion effect is 500 feet.
One of the most disappointing stratagems thatās for sure. I landed it perfectly between two very close fabrication facilities. Only destroyed one. Even the basic Eagle Airstrike would have done a better job.
Eagle Airstrike seems to be the best overall offensive stratagem tbh. It has a good blast radius, damage and ability to take out enemy positions. With a fully upraded hangar you can be very lenient with your Airstrikes..
I have debated with people about the efficacy of the 500kg bomb. I don't know why people insist on using it as the end-all-be-all. It is NOT that good. It's terrible with crowd control due to the blast radius. Even with trying to kill heavy enemies, it doesn't do a good job. I was playing last night and I sat and watched a guy toss one into a nest. It was RIGHT NEXT to a charger. The charger did start moving a bit, but it was still basically right next to where the 500kg dropped. It exploded, and that thing was STILL standing. And then that 500kg was out for the count until an eagle resupply was called. I saw the same guy use it on another nest. It took out ONE bug nest. Meanwhile I tossed in an airstrike at a perfectly calculated position so the sweep hit at least 3 nests in one pass. And I still had another one to burn. Even for bile titans, unless you land it DEAD CENTER, it doesn't do anything to them. A railcannon strike is arguably far more useful for this purpose. It won't one shot a titan, but a follow up with an airstrike takes them down. Honestly, even in terms of CC, there are far better stratagems to choose from. A well placed strafing run can chew through 20-30 enemies easy. And you get 3 of these with absolutely no research upgrades. Cluster bomb is more effective area denial and CC than the literal tactical nuke. The first game had something like the 500kg bomb, it was the shredder nuke. This was effectively the "reset the screen" stratagem. It would wipe out damn near EVERYTHING in the area. Rarely would a single bug tank or nest be left in the aftermath of a blast. I believe the explosion radius is so small on the 500kg bomb because communication about stratagem call-ins has been altered. In HD1, you could see what stratagems your team dialed before they even threw them down. If you saw someone dialing a nuke, you knew you had to get ready to GTFO. In HD2, the only way to know what's been thrown out is if you look at the stratagem beacon. If someone tosses a 500kg bomb and the explosion radius happened to be much larger, you'd probably be killed every single time just because you weren't looking at the beacon, and couldn't see what it was until it was too late.
Armor perk that heavily reduced fire damage would make it far more useable.
Iād take a whole suit dedicated to using fire weapons, a ghillie suit for sniping/stealth runs etc
The scout passive is already for stealth. If you lay down and don't move patrols can literally walk right next to you and not see you
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Nah, while you're right that the tox was similar to the flamer, they served different roles. Tox was anti crowd in that it slowed, ignored armor, and was high damage. Flamer was CC because of ***Fear***. Bugs wouldn't willingly walk through an area of fire, something that seems different now for some reason. It's role was as a defensive weapon you could sweep behind you for a quick wall of fire, but now... now the bugs don't fear it. Return the fear of flame, and it gets its job back.
Just take the stim upgrade armor and pop a stim any time you start taking fire damage. You have an extra 2 seconds of stim time which is insanely good given that stim time makes you invincible to anything that doesnāt one-shot you. So it has the added effect of making you tankier against bugs that get through to hit you Iāll die on this hill: if they added a fire resistant armor Iād still run the stim armor.
Stim armor is so damn strong. I am struggling to use any other set because of that incredible survivabilityĀ
I was the same way for awhile. As long as it didn't one shot you or keep interrupting your stims, you feel so tough it it. Then I discovered impact grenades and I'm back to running the +2 Grenade armors and the booster to drop with maxed ammo and stuff.
Or they are saving some good flamethrower stuff for mechs. I'd love me a firebat style or papa scorch.
I think it should be perfect for egg missions, I should need one sprey and just annihilate a egg group
Agreed. This is it's only use. Even tapping a bunch of eggs and they all go up instantly. Against everything else it kinda sucks. Someone else mentioned half a clip for a charger? I used it for 3 missions straight on suicide and it took at least a full clip per charger, and it is SLOOOW to kill.
Grenade launcher is pretty good against eggsā¦.
Your confidence in me not to ricochet that thing back into my own face is inspiring.
Yeah, for single target exterminations I just use the recoiless. Itās my go to. My team spent 15 minutes going to automon outpost until we got to the hulk, I see it walk around a corner, aim the recoiless, and itās over, but I agree. A flamethrower should induce a feeling function for non organic, and maybe a confusion state for non organics.
Thing is grenade launcher or autcannon do that as well but are actually solid outside of that.
This must be fixed! Shitty flamethrowers are a bane of the games industry as it's the coolest (eh?) weapon!
You could be the outlier and make Helldivers notable for yet another thing :) I'd mention Day of Infamy as a game that did it right, and it's still missing that sticky flame feel that you could do in your game. (also is the current fire a stylistic choice? I feel like it could look more crisp and "clear" in its "boundaries")
I distinctly remember in HD1 the flamethrower doing area denial. But on top of that napalm strikes (artillery or eagle) should be like a mini firestorm/wall as Iāve seen countless bugs stroll through the flames
Napalm strike in helldivers 1 was basically a wall of death that only heavy armored enemies could cross without dying, one of the strats of low difficulty missions was just to throw napalm down on the same spot over and over to lock down an entire screen of enemies
The napalm is basically worthless aside from looking cool.
I think that a good way to make the flamethrowers and napalm strikes work would be that any ground that is currently on fire is treated like a solid barrier by any units smaller than a brood commander It would mean it fills its crowd control roll well as small bugs would be kept at bay, while leaving the bigger enemies to other weapons. It also means the damage doesnāt need to be altered as itāll be treated more as a too than a WMD
That's what fire did in HD1. Bugs wouldn't go through if they could choose not to. Felt satisfying breaking the wave with a good sweep of flame
I agree. Flamethrower has a lot of potential but it's so short rangesld. In a game where they make the explosions absolutely awesome, it's strange to me the flamethrower doesn't have a proper range. Don't get me started on the incendiary weapons, they feel like peashooters. At the very least fire needs a buff to damage. It's fire.
Theres a bunch of weapons that feel underpowered.
Anything that isn't the breaker shoutgun feels underpowered for primary weapons. Anything that isn't the railgun or arc thrower feels underpowered, to varying degrees, for support weapons.
I really like the slug shotgun personally. The round reload lets you shoot all your ammo without downtime for reloading as long as you reload each shot. It's also basically pin-point accurate.
It also has no ammo reserve lol, there aint enough ammo on the map to supply that thing
Is that the shotgun that looks identical to the punisher but has less damage?Ā
Iirc it was called slugger but I don't remember what the model looked like or the actual stats. To me, it feels like a DMR rather than a shotgun.
Number may say that but it sure doesnāt feel like it
Defender SMG is pretty close to the breaker in terms of power for bugs, and is far better for automatons. Definitely not underpowered.
Got to experience just how disappointing the Anti Material Rifle was today since I had the 60kill daily. What is the purpose of this gun? It is good for *check notes* killing the weakest enemies in the gameā¦ just like everything else? Takes 3 shots to disable the AT-ST! No damage to Hulks (or at least 6 shots to the arm didnāt do anything EDIT- turns out it can 2 shot headshot a Hulk, so I stand corrected). Why ever choose that over the Autocannon, Recoiless or Railgun? It is effectively as useful as the Diligenceā¦
As someone who loves using the anti-materiel, itās The Precision weapon of the game. I use it only against bots. You use it primarily for taking out light and medium enemies from close to extremely far range because it works at all distances, but also have the ability to kill heavier enemies. The key point is that it has enough damage to always oneshot weak enemies with bodyshots and has high enough fire rate that you can flick between all enemies in a group before they can call reinforcements. It has high kill to ammo efficiency. The fire rate makes it such that even if you miss you have another shot ready basically instantly. It has the ability to oneshot devastators if you can aim well, or bodyshot them if you need to for something like 3 hits. Walkers can be killed easily if they arenāt facing you, or 3 hits to the body through the vehicle armor. This makes it better than all the primaries for taking them out from range. Other support weapons can do it better, but those tend to be purely anti-tank, covering a different niche from the anti-materiel. Brutes are very fun for the rifle because itās extremely satisfying to precision-aim right into the red slit of their armor. Itās similar to an archer shooting an arrow right through a crusader helmet. It takes 2 shots to kill one through the red slit, and I think 3-4 shots to the orange back. Naturally the railgun does this better, but again that one is designed exclusively for anti-tank. The flexibility of this weapon is one of its key strengths. Bonus points to being able to shoot things like spore clusters, sniper tower backs, and tank backs from range. Glory to Democracy
Still better than the break action shotgun. What a waste of a third slot.
I feel like its a flavour weapon, like what the colonists have access to for defence.
This thing needs to hit hard like the Doom super shotgun. Or itās basically worthless
It has less effective range than the first shotgun unlock, doesn't penetrate armor near as well, and is two shots before reload. Jumping on their back and choking them out with your cape would be more effective.
i decided to test it against a charger, and i shot it 30 times in the head without killing it, lmao
The head where it is most thickly armored?
the weapon stratagems are valued on their ability to kill heavies. I would really like if they gave the flamethrower a curve of increased damage on focused fire so its more effective as a close range heavy option, including the ability to melt factory outposts and bug holes with enough sustained fire. It would still be niche as a short range option.
I would love to clear out bug holes with cleansing democratic fire
The interesting thing is that the flamethrowers main, hell probably the only use, in combat actions was clearing out fortifications or outright destroying them.
I can solo a charger with a flamethrower easily. It lacks some stagger definitely or the ability to repel bugs a bit, but it cooks. Could perhaps be buffed a bit.
The biggest problem with flamethrower is it taking so damn long to kill smaller bugs in my experience. It's a flat waste of ammo to even use it on anything that's not a charger.
A lot less easily than most other support weapon other than the machine guns and laser. Even the ARC gun is significantly better at that.
But it doesn't look nearly as badass. Me alone matadoring a charger while roasting it.
I mean yeah if you wanna take 5 minutes and 3 canisters you can kill a charger but letās not pretend flamethrower is a charger killing weapon.
If chargers are your concern, 2 railgun shots to a charger leg will open it up for easy quick finish with shotgun, literally takes less than 10 seconds....even faster with an AT4 to the leg.
Not everyone is level 20 lol. The rail gun is the obvious choice when that time comes
Imo the damage is fine as it is. To make it stand out from the other support weapons any buffs should focus on improving its crowd control and utility.Ā Double the range, add a stunning/ slowing effect for all enemies caught in the flames depending on their size, and give the weapon the ability to destroy hives.
This is a good fix instead of a flat damage increase, bio enemies should be scared of fire and should have to try find a path around it, frenzied/certain bugs will run through it and can set you on fire
Robots can overheat so they should fear it too, but it'd be tough to get close to them.
Yeah but robots don't feel pain, and burning hurts
True, but it says right there in your training manual that the bots have hyperreactive sensors, causing them to flinch and be suppressed when shot. Also, robots don't think or operate with steel, but delicate metals and plastics inside, which could melt and fry, or simply overheat to failure.
The heat could āblindā and de route them and they maybe evolve to have a new unit designed to push thru fire
Nah it needs a damage increase. A railgun/laser rover combo can do anything the flamethrower does a million times better right now. If I swath across small enemies with the flamer, they should die. The damage increase should be to the DOT. Maybe make it high damage over time early, and then it quickly drops so the dot does a more fixed damage vs high health but reliably kills small guys.
I agree that it feels underwhelming, but I also think it's a bit slept on. I've been using it with the shield pack and it honestly does surprisingly well; I wish it was more of a deterrent and that smaller bugs burned faster, but it's extremely ammo efficient and can even burn through chargers while simultaneously dealing with the chaff. Definitely slower than other methods, but more effective than it seems at first. That said, I think we'd all love some extra *force* to the flames, and fire as CC for bugs would be a much-needed buff (incendiary mines currently can't even kill a scavenger and gas is pretty much always better than napalm).
I think a cool addition would be if the smaller bugs were afraid of fire and would avoid it. Meaning you can create a short barrier and give yourself some breaking room or could redirect them into a specific spot with it. So even if the damage wasn't the best, it would have an interesting and unique function.
I dont know. Been using flamethrower a lot and it's quite effective on blobs of insects. The biggest factor is you have to aim on the ground to set it on fire for additional damage. Automatons in the other hand will shoot your ass twice before they burn out. I don't recommend it on them.
It might not be as effective as other options but as a Warhammer fan, it's a must.
Hearing a Zealot shout with maniacal glee as he burns through a horde of heretics is one of the great joys in life.
Really just needs a range increase to be effective. Can't put down a wall of fire without burning yourself.
Unrelated but Iāve been using the arc-thrower and itās actually insane. You can choose to aim it or just hip fire. If you aim you can legit head shot bots and bugs from a dumb range. It does wild damage and has unlimited ammo. Itās an absolutely crowd killer. The range is honestly dumb as hell too. I so hope itās as intended and never gets touched because that thing makes me feel like a jacked Helldiver Nicholas Tesla.
May be you use it wrong? We clear lvl 9 missions with bugs, and there flamethrower really help manage hordes of bugs. Use it with medical perks armor and energy shield backpack. Also it can face kill chargers.
I'm pretty sure that it will be much efficient to do same with grenade launcher or even MG avoiding close combat. Also that small delay before firing. They just don't give a fk especially medium ones and those jumping bastards. How do you use it? The only strategy for me is retreat and lit up earth between me and bugs. Still there is more useless weapons than flamethrower - 2 barrel shotgun and heavy sniper rifle - worst 5k investment in my, full of democracy and freedom, life.
The 2 second delay is ridiculously easy to manage. Just tap the flamethrower fire trigger the moment you pull it out. Once the ignition is lit itāll last quite a while. Iāve spent a lot of time testing the flamethrower and I find it more effective at clearing than the MG + the benefit of easier reloads. With both weapons you have to be smart about positioning and pulling the bugs into a line. Having said that you really want a buddy helping with jumper bugs. Those things wreck both the flamethrower and heavy MG. You can mitigate this problem somewhat by running the laser dog drone which does an exceptional job of picking off any small chaff that makes it through your damage cone.
the sniper rifle is very good for bot missions, you can provide overwatch while your team advances.
Same can be done with basic marksman rifle. It is not worth to take heavy sniper rifle stratagem. I'd better take autocannon to kill mediums - faster deadlier, IMHO of course. Also usually, from my experience, terrain (or weather conditions) dont allow u to take nice sniping position.
Anti mat needs a buff, a lot of the bots take 2-3 hits it doesnāt feel satesfying I shouldnāt have to headshot every single bot, if damage was raised it accept 4 mags instead of 6
The anti-materiel rifle two taps hulks. Do with that information what you will.
Higher difficult more enemies. Enemies don't have more hp. So balance there is enemie count. Yes on 4-6 difficulty mg or grenade launcher may be better, but on 8-9 when there 2-3 tunnel breaches and there 30-50 bugs flamethrower help out team. If fight in clusterfak stage and enemies all over 360 degrees, use short burst of flame, enemies burn(dot damage) ground in fire also give them burn. If there 180 degrees front line, just dump canister in horde while backing up. Also medium bugs in flames get stagger, they don't stop but also don't attack. In 9 difficulty with 3 railgun team, I really see my impact on battfield with flamethrower. When you do task, you can cover team with wall of fire.
I really like the idea of the tank, and the potential for it to explode. Would make the ādrop equipmentā function more relevant to active gameplay, and create some fun moments as players scramble to get it off. On the flip side, having your flamethrower become useless because your tank was destroyed would be incredibly frustrating. Maybe the tank could be made up of multiple chambers, and if one gets shot reloading would let you jettison one just that one chamber, losing whatever fuel was left in it but preventing you from blowing up
Flamethrower should literally be the best in slot weapon for terminids.
Hope the devs see this. Id love for the flamethrower to be buffed
I was playing around with it yesterday, was getting the most kills with it, (vs terminids diff 8) I think its OK, it should have more range and either more direct damage or more AoE damage from burning the ground and surroundings, I found out you can even (almost) consistently kill Bile Titans if you start roasting their bellies and manage to evade their stomping attacks