Correction: It appears in my haste, I misread the armour changes - notes say ABOVE 100 (>100) only get the headshot damage reduction. In this case, it only means heavy armour and medium armour with the [Extra Padding] passive.
@bragoen I wouldn't because those have the base stat blocks with higher armor as a passive. Armor sets like Enforcer and Infiltrator stay inside their type while having higher armor, reduced speed, and lower stamina recovery, while also having a passive on top of that.
just a heads up, DO NOT use the plasma punisher togheter with the shield gen backpack, as it currently will cause the plasma balls to explode instantly in your face
@@221Prohunter small isn't an excuse for doing a shit job. They have the time to nerf our shit and make hidden changes and no time to test the game for even once?? Do you think this make sense?
Play as the network host *important* It pairs well with weapons that already clear hordes well or can close outposts. I pair it with flamethrower and it works pretty well. I imagine you'd have similar results when using it with the arc thrower or stalwart.
One day the Spear will actually work, and maybe one day they'll fix the patriot and the reticles being off-centre on many weapons. But they'll just continue to break and nerf things people enjoy. This game has been progressively getting less fun.
Super hyped for a lot of the buffs, especially the Senator speedloader. Glad the gunships got a cap, but the buff to their mobility hurts, especially since they still call a bot drop on spawning
@@mikeyjnson That'd be nice to see, but it'd depend on railgun being worthwhile now. I suspect it's only going to be able to take out hulks and below meaningfully, which I already use the arc thrower for. At that point I'd rather have a shield pack
@@DaiHachiHachi Yet another reason for me to use laser cannon more. Do you know if the Scythe is similar? I know they should have similar damage, though the cannon is especially effective against big bois
The two balance changes that I am confused by are the area reduction for both the eruptor and the crossbow. I get the ammo changes, but not those. They say they want the crossbow to be a "shaped charge" for killing single targets... but it takes 4 shots to kill a bile spewer. With the new ammo reduction, this "single target killer" can kill 10 bile spewers with it's ENTIRE ammo pool and not even do it quickly. I don't understand what its niche is anymore really. Similarly, with an ammo reduction and its inherently low rate of fire, I would have thought that they would want to lean into the Eruptor's large blast radius to further differentiate it from the crossbow and cement it as the slow, hard hitting, big boom primary. But, apparently not. They're both just... worse at the roles they are intended for? The rest of the patch outrage feels quite overblown to me, and I think the buffs vastly outweigh the nerfs. For instance, the counter sniper feels fantastic against bots now! It's wonderful popping devastators in the head with one bullet, and it really feels like it's finally doing what it was meant to do!
xbow's change didn't seem that great. since it didn't address the amount of ammo required to kill medium+ targets. And still has no capability to close bug holes (at least from patch notes). Arrowhead's balancing team is a joke.
Exactly the same here, I don't think anyone was calling them OP. The ammo changes are fine. No idea why they decided to nerf the AoE (It was because alot of people were using the gun wasn't it)
The laser cannons effectily unchanged with the “reduced damage against large volume bodies”. This basically means “we wanted to increase chaff damage without increasing heavy enemy damage”
Not just chaff but limbs as well, including headshots. So while body shots will yield reduced damage attacking limbs will see them come off in moments. The scythe ESPECIALLY benefits from this change, it feels better against bugs than the sickle now
this channel is invaluable to the community. i think the true _meta_ meta must be training on all the worst guns, because when they get buffed and everything else gets nerfed, you’ll be ahead of the meta
Previously the Eruptor had an 8m radius and damage falloff at 6m. So it did full damage all the way out to 6m. Radius is still 8m, but falloff happens at around 5m now. It's not that huge a change, the 8m damage still one shots scavengers. One benefit is you can now shoot it at a closer range without killing yourself, and with the fix to the knockback you can use it to blow yourself backwards without dying more easily.
The Eruptor's ammo changes don't feel too much worse because it's the kind of gun you grab a laser cannon or machine gun for chaff clear with anyways, but now it can't splash an entire small bot reinforcement, and with the strider buffs, it can't kill them head-on in a single shot anymore, which is a pretty big loss.
It is a loss, but it's still a primary, which I think people are missing the point of. Primaries aren't meant to be as powerful as stratagems as we'll always have them with us. The eruptor serves its purpose of being a high damage primary that can take care of objectives, but it shouldn't be a horde clearing tool, that would be going too far into stratagem territory
@@firewarrior2822I get that, but like, one of the main uses I had for it was as a crappy support so I could use an MG or stalwart. If it doesn’t do that, I can only see my load outs getting less diverse.
Tbh, I was freakin' affraid they would neutralise the structure destruction perk ( such as fabricators, nests, caches ) I'll have to give it a test on Automatons frontline but I think it Can still do a good job, especially with devastators.
As an Adjudicator main, I'm pleased with changes of this rifle. On the other hand, it feels now that Liberator penetrator is left behind. For me, it used to be a choice between more damage but less control of Adjudicator and more control but less damage of Penetrator, but now it feels like Adjudicator outperforms Liberator in almost everything.
I have only used the new Adjudictor a couple times, but it feels like it still kicks a little more than the penitrator, also the scope doesnt zoom in as much
@@TheJurzerker well yeah, that's what you get for more damage. Also, I prefer Adjudicator scope, rather than Lib-Penetrator or Eruptor. It's more clear, I wish AMR had the same scope, it would greatly increased it's comfort of use
Weirdly enough, I'd really take a slower firerate for the Adjudicator to be more efficient with its lacking ammunition. It feels good, sounds good, looks good... But it goes so quickly you can't enjoy much of the gunplay.
@@sirjazz1268 One one hand, you have a point, this thing eats trough ammo so fast you don't have time to really enjoy it. On the other hand, its fire rate is what makes it rival to things like scorcher. Although Scorcher has more damage per bullet, its semi-auto and 15 shots in a mag makes it into a kinda slow firing weapon, while Adjudicator has less damage per bullet, but more than twice the fire rate
@@G-Mastah-Fash Especially considering its range is now crap, the targeting is still broken half the time (it shoots foliage and dead bodies more than live enemies), and the charge time is doubled compared to before.
I liked stunlocking hulks with lightning, but I can understand that maybe not being intended behaviour. Arc Thrower still wrecks bugs, berserkers and Devastators, so I'll probably keep running it.
Small correction: changing the blast radius on the crossbow from 8m to 6m is much worse than a 25% reduction to the blast area. Because the formula for area by radius is pi * r^2, changing the radius from 8 to 6 means they cut the area almost in HALF. Considering damage falls off by range from the centre, this is an absolutely massive nerf.
@Thenlar you're right. He says "blast area" when listing the nerfs, but "radius" when giving the specific reduction. That's my mistake. I should have known our hero wouldn't make such an oversight!
@@TheQuatum i had a sudden flashback to grade 6 math, lol. In all seriousness, playing a lot of video games has made me very aware of just how strong any buff/nerf to blast radius is. Noticing how seemingly-small boosts to the radius of some AoE effect would produce huge onscreen differences made me suddenly appreciate what my teachers had been trying vainly to get me to realize all those years. The irony that it was video games that finally made me internationalize that math, lol...
1000%, I've played a few missions using the crossbow and it definitely suffers from too much Damage fall off-- often times I'd shoot literally adjacent of hunters and fleas and they don't die in one shot like before. Really weak against groups now
from what ive seen on reddit, a lot of these bug fixes don't work or work sometimes which considering we didn't even get some of the fixes we were all hoping for...really sucks, i hope the hotfix this week will bring some more as much as i love this game, it's hard not to feel burn out when bugs dont get fixed (or new ones show up) and good weapons get nerfed while everything else is sub par at best
@@rykenxiv I'm slightly confused by the lack of the Spear fix. Apparently it has been fixed on an internal build for nearly 3 weeks now, so it's surprising it hasn't made it to live yet. I guess maybe the fix broke something else or something like that.
Most of the other weapons are/were not sub par. They only felt that way because of all the crutches. The only weapons that should just feel amazingly powerful are call-in supports like honestly
@@ADirtyEwok I never trust what the community manager says. Everything they say is always stupid or separate from the reality, imho. Just to paraphrase things said that absolutely rub me the wrong way: "fire tornados are just enviornmental effects. They're not out to get you" "We have 15 more hidden stats we could tune. Just use the weapon you like" "no transmog because we want all armours to look and play their role" Just nothing but utter trash.
@@HiroTeaShiIt seems like Eviro effects and 120mm 380mm go after team mates. How they can miss objs and shit but snipe a player 45 meters out every time is bonkers. Or fire tornados suddenly curving towards me away from bugs
Dude i freaking love your videos. And when i went into your channel excited to see your updated guide on eruptor after its most recent nerfs (cuz im still using it regardless what everyone says about it now)....boy i was so sad and dissappinted to see you havent got a chance to take a look at that yet :( please do if you get the chance. Or maybe even wait till they release the newest eruptor buff they are promising to fix rheyr fudge up removing the shrapnel. But either way, good job. Please do more numbers helldivers 2 videos.
The scout strider explosive resistance change also affects some weapons. Namely the scorcher, which has dropped from a consistent 2 shot kill to a moderately inconsistent 3-4 shot kill. A fairly substantial nerf, given that strider killing was one a significant benefit of the gun. The eruptor, of course, still gets to one shot them.
As an arc blitzer main I would say this is an amazing buff to the gun, a 50% fire rate increase is insane, considering that it has the potential to one shot brood commanders. The gun went from a weapon focused on staggering and pushing back enemies to a weapon that can actually kill alot of bugs.
The Blitzer before was "secretly good" and now it's exceptional. It's still not quite as "killy" as say, the Breaker, but it makes up for it with that wide arc of potential staggers and the fact it, like the arc thrower, never needs to stop firing. I've had a good time running it alongside the arc thrower actually, using the Blitzer to create space and the arc thrower to murder hordes. (Vs bugs.)
The plasma shotgun also has a bug where when firing with a shield it will just explode on you. Genuinely wondering how many people they have QA testing all of these things cuz it doesn't seem to be a lot. Maybe even just one.
With a shield... so Shield Generator Backpack? If this is the case... could be the same problem as the mech where the projectile is spawning too close and detonating right as it leaves the gun but comes in contact with the shield...?
I agree, the nerfs to the crossbow feels completely unnecessary. The AOE change made it stand out as a horde control weapon from the Eruptor but now it will take more work to deliver the same results.
I agree, I played with it and the blast radius was pitiful compared to before. What were they thinking? The weapon already has a slow fire rate, and small mag size. They made the xbow less viable now.
a 40 round mag would help it a lot, let it body shot kill 2 Devs or with good head shots would be solid. 25 per mag is just to anemic. Lib pen has a similar problem.
Your elegant ways are profoundly relaxing. You are so much more thoughtful than other content creators. Hearing that you’ve got a lot of work to do, I hope that you can get a lot of gaming in soon 💗
Counter sniper now breaks the 1 shot head shot on devastators with 140 (it was 2 shots from defender or 3 from penetrator, so my best guess is that head is light 2 with 135 HP).
the counter sniper was already capable of 1 shotting heavy devastators, but only out to about 20 meters. Now it can 1shot them from a significant distance.
@@LouSaydus I couldn't get it to work before at any distance. I noticed that 1 Senator shots, 2 Defender or 3 liberator penetrator do the job. So 135 should be the right number.
It's weird how the Stalwart is basically the bigger brother of the Liberator. Similar to the MG43, it's also the bigger brother of the BR-14 Adjudicator, having half of the total amount of ammo carried with the MG43. It's quite interesting how there's a hidden "bullet types" in helldivers 2. Like 5.56 from stalwart and liberators, and 7.62 from mg43 and adjudicators. Which kind of makes sense for a military shooter game.
A couple of things here: In Helldivers 1, it WAS a primary weapon. Also, it fills that niche. If you bring a more specialist PRIMARY weapon with low sustained horde-clearing capability (DMR, Plasma shotgun, Crossbow, Eruptor etc), then the Stalwart basically lets you use your SUPPORT slot for a defacto PRIMARY weapon.
From what I see, arrowhead is bringing the trigger discipline closer to HD1, which make picking and choosing engagements much more important. Feeling the pressure of never having quite enough ammo is key.
A lot of the changes I'm noticing is them returning to their roots. Like the solo play having more enemies, people have been complaining about the game being hard to solo already, but if only they knew what solo in HD1 was like...
Actually, I wonder if this could now bé used as a perk for certain armors... The magazine distribution makes a lot more sence, but there could be some room now for a "gunner loadout" to carry +1 or +2 extra magazine for ballistical based weapons, for instance. That's a thing I'd love to see expended in the near future, more Armor perks for more build's variety, and create fun loadouts... Future will tell.
The explosive crossbow was already kind of a niche weapon. The nerfs basically made it where I have no real reason to bring it at all. It went from being good add clear because of it's AOE and good handling (effective vs scavs, leapers, hunters, warriors, bot infantry) and kinda bad against medium enemies (Brood Commanders, Bile Spewers, Nursing Spewers, and Devastators) to being kinda bad against everything while still retaining the ability to one-hit kill yourself from full health if you don't have anti-explosive armor on. The stagger is nearly worthless. The stagger is barely more than if you shoot them with any other gun except the Liberator Concussive. If it doesn't outright kill the enemy (the best CC is DEATH) or stun it for a very long time (like stun grenades), then that enemy is still a threat. All you're doing is delaying the inevitable. They could have at least added the ability to close bug holes and destroy fabricators, but in addition to being essentially a worse Eruptor (even after the Eruptor's nerf), it no longer has the niche of being a fast horde-clearing tool.
I think with such a fast updating live service title, the devs should give us some more information on the reasonings behind these changes. Obviously there is a clear intention with each change that they have in mind, of course sometimes it's better to not inform your test participants of the data you're looking for to avoid skewing results from bias. However, I think it would benefit the community overall to hear the devs thoughts on a lot of the more impactful changes. I liked hearing the reasonings behind why they changed the laser cannon the way they did, but I can't seem to understand why they would change the crossbow this way. So it would be fantastic to get some enlightment on that subject.
Yeah it makes no sense for them to alter the way a gun performs in the sandbox without expressing how they envision the gun being used. They clearly want us to play the way they imagine, and not the way the community shifts to. So just tell us what to do so our favorite guns stop being kneecapped
@@jeff3221 The issue I have with that is that they HAVE shifted weapons performance to be in line with community expectations before - The laser cannon was originally envisioned as basically an infinite-ammo machine gun, but they saw people wanted it to be the high-damage drilling laser it is now more specialized on burning down individual medium targets... and they made that change. So do they balance with community use, or do they balance on internal vision? if both, why the different case-by-case focus? all it does is generate ire from the community where some weapons seem to get love then other weapons are hit with random nerfs for seemingly no reason. I think there's actually TWO issues at play here - one, they clearly don't playtest or beta test changes with the game enough, or with a decent subset of community testers. A lot of these changes would be dead in the water if they'd run it past a group of average players, and others just don't make any sense at all. This kind of doubles as a QA issue - they often introduce NEW bugs when adding in stuff. See the Adjudicators scope being misaligned LITEALLY UPON RELEASE. The other issue is communications - if they DO have some sort of plan or vision, they sure as fuck don't communicate it. And given that this is a paid game that people pay money for... it's completely fair that people get angry when their product gets negatively changed with no explanation as to why. You buy the game in a certain state, so your completely justified in getting annoyed when the devs change the product you pay for negatively without giving you a good reason why. Imagine if you bought a nice sports car, then after owning it for 6 months the manufacturer came to your house, halved the speed limit and acceleration and swapped all the leather seats with fabric and didn't tell you why.
Im glad Ive been using the punisher plasma. Hopefully it feels better to use. Also the projectile very often goes between the arms for some reason. Im going to have to re-learn the arc though. For the explosion radius reduction. My guess is for the players that use it in close range. It pairs well with the explosion knockback bug fix. One thing I hate is the overall stagger nerfs though. For a hoard shooter, crowd control through stagger, especially for heavier enemies is important.
I loved my primary frag grenade but I feel the changes to the crossbow make is completely useless now. It should have struggled with moving things, you are firing a slow projectile (bolt) with a grenade taped to it. I can hit moving targets better, wooo. I can also hit less in general because the 25% area reduction is HUGE. For the Blitzer, glad they increased it's firerate. When playing it it felt like it needed 15-20% more fire rate. 50% should make this very very good against bugs. (and probably nerfed in the future due to infinite ammo) The Dominator nerf is warranted. I played the hell out of it before it was buffed and it only needed 50 more damage, so still a 75 damage buff. Will still be amazing. Can't wait to try the DCS because that gun felt so horrid to use. Now I just hope they fix the allignment of the blue scopes and remove all the crap from the blue and green scopes. There is a stealth nerf to the Scorcher. Strider pilots take less blast damage now. Well it also hits crossbow, eruptor, impact grenades, grenade launcher and grenade pistol. But I have a feeling it hurts Scorcher the most. Well and GL but, sadly, that has greatly fallen out of use for bots due to more big things and flying stuff. Also I hope the changes mean that all the sidearms are good in their own right now.
It's "armors with armor rating *above 100* " - NOT "equal and above". So *medium armors* with 100 armor points *do not get the reduced damage on headshots.*
Im glad someone else at least had similar opinions regarding over one or unneeded nerfs. I had some agree in my comments and others...that were the "I solo helldive with the crossbow(same day as the update) and I love it." Someone literally said Eruptor is better than ever, even though it was only nerfed. Very confusing.
Holy Jesus Christ Born From Sweet Liberty, a buff to the Peacemaker's damage *_AND_* a speedloader for the Senator??? Boi, we stealth players eating *_GOOD_* tonight -- all pistols have the quietest firing sounds, so being able to one-shot small guards in the head without alerting anyone else is gonna be amazing.
I made a twitter post about my impressions on the patch before trying them out and after playing with the ones that had some actual changes(not just damage change) here is what I can say. Pros: - Diligence CS: it feels so much snappier and that's really all I wanted, BUT they give more damage to it and it's great. - BR14: as a marksmen rifle it under performs, but thinking of it as an assault rifle it's better. The recoil reduction really helps it out. Makes the liberator penetrator kind of pointless. - Senator: the speedloader is so much fun and changes how you should use this weapon for reload, which is empty the entire gun unlike other weapons where you want at least 1 bullet to reload faster. - Blitz arc shotgun firing faster is good, still not that good but more usable than previously. - Airburst rocket is now more reliable and less of a hazard to your team. Now makes for a good crowd control weapon against weak groups. - you do take less burning damage to give yourself enough time to heal and dive, but it still kills fast, where is the fire resist armour? - Punisher Plasma: shoots faster which is good, more reliable. - Supply packing works and it's great. - explosion bug fixed - headshot protection is nice, gives reason to use the medium and heavy armour(But armour rating is still a scam until it gives stagger protection) Meh: - Quasar cannon getting nerf only affects the toxic meta players who won't play with other things. And to those who are going to whine and say "buff other weapons to be on par with it. one: you'd still use the QC and not change your setup. Two: learn to adapt and use other things, the weapon has become a crutch for you meta players. Three: you're gonna stop playing the game just because ONE weapon is no longer meta" (To those who use it that ignore the meta[aka non-toxic, non-meta players]; While I enjoy the nerf for it, 5 extra second is maybe too long, 2-3 second maybe but 5 is a lot.) - Eruptor: questionable nerf. Cons: - Xbow: AoE nerf sucks, it was way more fun before blowing up a crowd but now it doesn't do that. it lost the crowd control aspect. - AR-23 Guard: This tool already sucks and it's getting a nerf? played with it to check and it still kills but I don't know why it needs a nerf.
9:33 it says Burning Damage reduced by 15%. I could be wrong, but didn’t the fire damage buff previously say something like all instances of fire damage? Therefore, I wonder if this means fire damage was reduced 15% or if when you are on fire (burning) damage is reduced 15%, which would actually be a buff. I cannot test this myself, but I am curious if you know the answer here.
Wait, how much is the damage reduction vs large enemies for the Laser Cannon? Cuz the base damage has been increased. Does that mean its performance vs heavies is still the same?
I was just coming around on the Senator, and now its buffed and I may never take it off. Also, the Blitzer is usable now! Been using both with an Autocannon support and crushing the bugs big time.
When I saw the Arc Blitzer had gotten a fire rate buff, and a huge one at that, I was so happy. I love the Blitzer as it pair very very well with the Las16 Sickle, giving stagger to large enemies and being able to deal damage to hive guards. So glad it got a buff
The Railgun should be increased in stagger since its meant to be a super speed projectile launcher, so its an armor penetration stopper. OR Have it be a projectile so fast it armor penetrates and deals a lot of damage because it comes out the other side. The current configuration makes no sense. Also give the HMG backpack
IMO railgun SHOULD be super high damage, and have blow-through, but should do basically no stagger. Also, a better scope. PLEASE. Its currently just bad. Give it back pre-nerf damage at near max charge, to make the risk actually worth the reward, allow the shots to multi-pen enemies (it's a fucking RAILGUN), and make safe mode able to consistently one-shot the weaker medium-tier enemies (bug warriors, striders etc). This would give it a skill ceiling for high-level play (positioning yourself for good, consistent multi-pen shots, hitting weak points for high-efficiency kills e.g. one-shotting a hulk in the face), a reason to bring it for safe mode and a benefit to UNsafe worth the risk (what other weapons risk DISARMING YOU even after respawning?!?!), while preventing it from just stunlocking heavy enemies to death. Another option I think would go over well would be to make unsafe mode either not destroy the weapon when it blows up (maybe call it a plasma discharge or something idk), or to instead just make going over the unsafe limit just shut down the weapon for like 45 seconds for an "extended cooldown cycle" or something. So you still get punished for going over the charge limit, but in a less frustrating way than being instantly killed and losing your weapon. If you call in the railgun, then fuck up the first shot, not only do you die but you're now without your support weapon for like 8 minutes. That's just frustrating more than anything, and punishes your TEAM as well as you, since you now can't contribute against heavy enemies for almost 10 minutes. I envision the railgun as being an in-between weapon from the autocannon and true rocket launchers. More ammo and rate of fire than rockets without having to stop to reload, while having more ammo but less damage, and the capability to heavy-armor pen that the autocannon doesn't have while still being cost-effective against medium-armor enemies but without the horde clearing capability or raw rate of fire and damage that the autocannon has. So if the rockets are anti-heavy specialty weapons and the autocannon is an anti-medium specialty weapon, the railgun would be a more balanced anti-medium/heavy weapon that's capable of doing both roles but not as well as the more specialist options. A great choice for bringing versatility to team loadouts where the other players are heavily specializing. If your guy that brought his RR, EAT and 110mm rocket pods dies, any nobody else has AT, you can step in to fill the gap.
I agree on the xbow. On the good end I don't notice the handling TOO much and the faster shot feels amazing... however it's selling point and why I used it so much was it's insane AOE damage output. You could clear a full bot drop of chaff in 1 second with 2 shots. And IDK that felt kind of crazy and maybe it was a bit powerful but it was fun and felt great. I REALLY feel the AOE reduction, it's so much less reliable and clearing out groups of enemies which is a real shame. I'll give it some more time to get used to it but as it stands I'm worried I'll eventually have to retire it.
It's worth noting that the Diligence CS can now take down devastators in 1 headshot instead of 2. Between that and it's ergonomics change I'd say it's one of the biggest winners of this patch.
I agree with your assessments, having spent all morning running through the mentioned guns: All the gun handling buffs feel really good. I don't mind the loss of total ammo capacity. It's balanced with the improved handling and aiming. Just need to use the side arm a bit more and call down resupp more frequently. Bad weapons seem to be much more usable now. The only changes I really disagree with are the crossbow changes and the solo patrol changes.
the devs elaborated on the patrol changes they were scaled down on amount of players more than intended Quote: "We unintendedly had non-linear scaling of the patrol spawns so they didn't spawn as often as they should have when less than 4 players. The intention is that 1 player has 1/4th of the patrols compared to 4 players, but it used to be that they had 1/6th. Scaling of patrol spawns was exponential before, and that felt good on 4 player lobbies but a bit too empty when playing with fewer players, especially when playing solo. So now we made the scaling of patrols to be linear, which means if you play solo you will get 25% of the patrols compared to a 4 player lobby instead of having about 17% of the patrols. There is still a cap of patrols that can spawn at the same time so during situations when we spawn a lot of patrols, such as extractions, even solo players won't notice the difference. The change is made to make the world feel less empty for 1 and 2 player lobbies, especially on high difficulty missions which was also slightly too easy for solo players compared to our intentions." Hope this clarifies the change for everyone - we're not making the game arbitrarily harder!
The ammo changes also encourage exploration in the map and utilizing the ammo packs at points of interest. I much prefer the greater amount of resupply per pack over the larger reserve and resupply inefficiency
@@Alex-gn6ii honestly kinda wish nade pistol got similar treatment like -2 nades but gets 3-4 from a resupply and 2 from an ammo pack instead of 2 from a resupply and 1 per pack
@@somedude4087 They are making the game harder though, 50% more spawns when solo is insane. Their logic is that 1 helldiver times 2 is the same as 2 helldivers working together, when it's not true. 2 helldivers is significantly better due to being able to cover each others' weakness, have more boosters and distract enemies and cover teammates. Very strange change imo
The shift towards less stagger seems to want to make the arc thrower and other strategems have their own niche which is probably for the better. Crossbow can at least shoot straight now so some weakpoints make it out better, some dont like charger rears and hulks. I can see why the explosion radius was changed but it was nice having a primary that could reasonably deal with heavys from the front, especially cuz its useless for flying enemies.
if they make QC severs please you need to sign up you help the commmuity so much i always wait for your stuff and really like your charts and numbers. i have use so much of your info on runs and it has improve my game i would love some help now on solo 9 helldive mode, the changes where so bad in my opinion it crashes my game sometimes because of the increase spawns sign... other than that please keep the video coming in your own time life can get busy sometimes.
A lot of questionable changes to be sure, but I am having fun playing with the buffs on certain weapons, especially the Plasma Punisher! Already liked it against bots, but it feels even nicer now thanks to its faster travel speed, better splash damage, and a hidden hitbox buff.
Testing builds against terminids, I realized my line up was super ammo heavy, and wanted to see how a supply pack would work. Not only was I able to keep up with ammo, I would have enough ammo to share with my buds. Supply pack is underrated imo, it's just a tricky pick when you're deciding the team line-up. Even harder in random games
I'm a stalwart enthusiast when fighting bugs, tried today on max amo spamming and god it was glorious, mid sized bugs got squashed like nothing, also love the revolver reload, makes it much more useful.
For the *most* part I like the changes. They definitelyngo to great lengths to make everything attractive compared to the rest. And for the most part most of the nerfs arent too bad. The quasar is admittedly very powerful so I understand the need to balance its usage. The crossbow changes are an absolute mystery. I like the better economy from bricks and boosted projectile speed but the nerfs were completely unneccessary. For most of the ammo changes i appreciate the increased restocks in exchange for reduced totals
Two medium armors that got the headshot resistance are the starting one with 150 extra padding and the the Enforcer with fortified stat. I tested the enforcer and it seemed quite good at tanking hits.
There are a lot of changes I approve of, but probably need some experience behind it for me to promote to others. It's a good chance for them to release that second larger supply pack with the many ammo reductions.
I know this is a rushed one put out because you are so busy. but in the future if you have more time, can you add the picture of the gun to the side? I don't remember all of these names >.
The sickle nerf is extremely heavy handed and the ammo runs out so fast that it’s almost unusable on higher difficulty. Heavy mg also still far too weak as the ammo count is pathetic making it useless compared to other stratagem options.
does the change to armor affect medium and light gunner armor? it says higher than 100 rating and none (besides the basic armor we start with) of those are higher than that
the steam patch notes are different then then the discord patch notes, which only further compounds the confusion and frustration on lack of clear communication.
I wish I could give an opinion on the nerfs and buffs, but since this recent patch my game is unplayable. stutters, massive frame drops... all smoothness gone. lowered my settings from ultra all the way down to low, but the issues still remain. Stability first, balance second. Adding bugs is the opposite of managed democracy. They should squash them.
I love the Adjudicator now. It has now replaced the Liberator Penetrator for me against the bots. It was too unwieldy and not enough ammo before. Now it feels great.
Senator not only got a speedloader reload, it also got a RED DOT sight as it shoud've been. Fantastic stuff! Also is it just me or is the round by round reload faster too? It felt like it had a weird lag before and now the entire animation looks smoother.
I would totally use the HMG and Machine Gun if their reloads weren't so ridiculously long. Especially the HMG. Its one thing to have a long reload, its just stupid when its both long and roots you in place.
The regular MG is especially hamstrung because of its ammo economy, which now can't logically be fixed because making it resupply both magazines off a resupply brick makes the packing methodology ship upgrade impact one less weapon
I tried the post patch blitzer and it was surprisingly powerful vs bugs now, still less than ideal vs bots though overall I find a lot of the nerfs/adjustments rather questionable but some are really welcome I'll grant that
Railgun being less able to stagger seems completely unnecessary, it was one of the only things going for it. Being able to stagger something quickly so a stratagem could kill it was basically required for most enemies. Also still gonna advocate for the damage in unsafe near the instant death point needs to be majorly buffed, where’s the reward for the risk.
Only problem with this is people could easily make a macro to charge the railgun to the absolute limit before firing, removing all risk while always getting the reward.
@@samgraffen9212 That's really not something that should be balanced around, though. The fact that less than 1% of players will do that has no bearing on the other 99%'s experience.
@@samgraffen9212 Even if you made such a macro, barely anyone would use it. A terrible strawman argument to use when the vast majority of players are casuals. Although at the rate this game is dying, there might only be hardcore players left by the end of 2024 if this incompetent dev team stays their current course.
The big laser canon was already doing more damage than the primary version (which did 300 dps exact) even before giving it medium armor pen. It’s definitely much higher than 350 dps.
As a plasma shotgun main against bots. It feels like the arc is the same, but it’s got a faster TTK. However it’s stun lock potential has felt like it’s been cut by 30-50% and it’s reduce ammo count means I can’t really used it as my indirect fire in a supporting role for blind fire any more. However it’s become a bit easier in taking out individual bots now.
Correction: It appears in my haste, I misread the armour changes - notes say ABOVE 100 (>100) only get the headshot damage reduction. In this case, it only means heavy armour and medium armour with the [Extra Padding] passive.
and some hybrid armours like the Enforcer (Medium armour with 128 rating and explosion passive)
@bragoen Came to the replies to say this. This is the only hybrid medium set so far, though.
@@petty5709 well, depends if you consider the medium with extra paddings as hybrid or not.
@bragoen I wouldn't because those have the base stat blocks with higher armor as a passive.
Armor sets like Enforcer and Infiltrator stay inside their type while having higher armor, reduced speed, and lower stamina recovery, while also having a passive on top of that.
A couple helmets add 5-7 armor even though its card doesn't show it. So those helmets are a bit more valuable now.
just a heads up, DO NOT use the plasma punisher togheter with the shield gen backpack, as it currently will cause the plasma balls to explode instantly in your face
Glad the update was thoroughly tested by the devs as usual.
@@SPACE_BOOOOOST Dude, it’s still a small team. They’ll fix that soon. Don’t take it so seriously.
working as intended to me
@@221Prohunter small isn't an excuse for doing a shit job. They have the time to nerf our shit and make hidden changes and no time to test the game for even once?? Do you think this make sense?
We do a little trolling
One day the thermite grenade will do something worthwhile. I hope
Play as the network host *important*
It pairs well with weapons that already clear hordes well or can close outposts. I pair it with flamethrower and it works pretty well. I imagine you'd have similar results when using it with the arc thrower or stalwart.
Next patch apparently.
One day the Spear will actually work, and maybe one day they'll fix the patriot and the reticles being off-centre on many weapons. But they'll just continue to break and nerf things people enjoy. This game has been progressively getting less fun.
More a network issue than a game issue here... Hopefully fixed soon, so I Can give it a proper try.
Super hyped for a lot of the buffs, especially the Senator speedloader. Glad the gunships got a cap, but the buff to their mobility hurts, especially since they still call a bot drop on spawning
Autocannon for gunships stays my go-to, But i wonder if the Railgun will be good for it. Im sensing Railgun/Supplypack meta
@@mikeyjnson That'd be nice to see, but it'd depend on railgun being worthwhile now. I suspect it's only going to be able to take out hulks and below meaningfully, which I already use the arc thrower for. At that point I'd rather have a shield pack
@@mikeyjnson Alternatively, we could be getting anti-air stratagems here soon
Laser cannon already destroys them in about 2 seconds hitting an engine, maybe even faster now with the buff.
@@DaiHachiHachi Yet another reason for me to use laser cannon more. Do you know if the Scythe is similar? I know they should have similar damage, though the cannon is especially effective against big bois
The two balance changes that I am confused by are the area reduction for both the eruptor and the crossbow. I get the ammo changes, but not those. They say they want the crossbow to be a "shaped charge" for killing single targets... but it takes 4 shots to kill a bile spewer. With the new ammo reduction, this "single target killer" can kill 10 bile spewers with it's ENTIRE ammo pool and not even do it quickly. I don't understand what its niche is anymore really.
Similarly, with an ammo reduction and its inherently low rate of fire, I would have thought that they would want to lean into the Eruptor's large blast radius to further differentiate it from the crossbow and cement it as the slow, hard hitting, big boom primary. But, apparently not. They're both just... worse at the roles they are intended for?
The rest of the patch outrage feels quite overblown to me, and I think the buffs vastly outweigh the nerfs. For instance, the counter sniper feels fantastic against bots now! It's wonderful popping devastators in the head with one bullet, and it really feels like it's finally doing what it was meant to do!
Wouldn't know any of the beneficial changes. I crashed out of the first two missions I tried to play and quit lol
xbow's change didn't seem that great. since it didn't address the amount of ammo required to kill medium+ targets. And still has no capability to close bug holes (at least from patch notes).
Arrowhead's balancing team is a joke.
Eruptor changes are somewhat pointless. If you used more than 8 clips without resupplying you were avoiding ammo packs.
Exactly the same here, I don't think anyone was calling them OP. The ammo changes are fine. No idea why they decided to nerf the AoE (It was because alot of people were using the gun wasn't it)
Don't try and understand them. You'll get wrath from those who worship at the altar of Arrowhead
The laser cannons effectily unchanged with the “reduced damage against large volume bodies”. This basically means “we wanted to increase chaff damage without increasing heavy enemy damage”
So it is changed, considerably so. What are you trying to say?
This is what I was thinking, haven’t tested but I hope so.
@@winkoman3 you deal more damage to chaff is the buff
@@winkoman3 hes saying its not changed. it got a damage buff against small enemies only, is what hes saying
Not just chaff but limbs as well, including headshots. So while body shots will yield reduced damage attacking limbs will see them come off in moments. The scythe ESPECIALLY benefits from this change, it feels better against bugs than the sickle now
this channel is invaluable to the community.
i think the true _meta_ meta must be training on all the worst guns, because when they get buffed and everything else gets nerfed, you’ll be ahead of the meta
That's thinking ahead of the curve (also why I always try to get good with the worse weapons since they can only be buffed :p)
That is literarly a meta lol. Omg i love this atetude.
*cradles and blows raspberrys onto the mp-98 knight* Your perfect the way you are! 😚
Until they get the crossbow treatment, lol.
oppsite holds true too, all meta weapon would be nerf soon xD . so dont get too ' use' to how they preform.
Previously the Eruptor had an 8m radius and damage falloff at 6m. So it did full damage all the way out to 6m. Radius is still 8m, but falloff happens at around 5m now. It's not that huge a change, the 8m damage still one shots scavengers. One benefit is you can now shoot it at a closer range without killing yourself, and with the fix to the knockback you can use it to blow yourself backwards without dying more easily.
Its actually the opposite rn the blast still sucks you in and the shrapnel radius that hits you is bigger now
The Eruptor's ammo changes don't feel too much worse because it's the kind of gun you grab a laser cannon or machine gun for chaff clear with anyways, but now it can't splash an entire small bot reinforcement, and with the strider buffs, it can't kill them head-on in a single shot anymore, which is a pretty big loss.
It is a loss, but it's still a primary, which I think people are missing the point of. Primaries aren't meant to be as powerful as stratagems as we'll always have them with us. The eruptor serves its purpose of being a high damage primary that can take care of objectives, but it shouldn't be a horde clearing tool, that would be going too far into stratagem territory
@@firewarrior2822I get that, but like, one of the main uses I had for it was as a crappy support so I could use an MG or stalwart. If it doesn’t do that, I can only see my load outs getting less diverse.
Tbh, I was freakin' affraid they would neutralise the structure destruction perk ( such as fabricators, nests, caches )
I'll have to give it a test on Automatons frontline but I think it Can still do a good job, especially with devastators.
As an Adjudicator main, I'm pleased with changes of this rifle. On the other hand, it feels now that Liberator penetrator is left behind. For me, it used to be a choice between more damage but less control of Adjudicator and more control but less damage of Penetrator, but now it feels like Adjudicator outperforms Liberator in almost everything.
The liberator still outperforms the adjudicator in terms of total ammo, meaning it retains the role the og liberator was intended for: chaff clear
I have only used the new Adjudictor a couple times, but it feels like it still kicks a little more than the penitrator, also the scope doesnt zoom in as much
@@TheJurzerker well yeah, that's what you get for more damage. Also, I prefer Adjudicator scope, rather than Lib-Penetrator or Eruptor. It's more clear, I wish AMR had the same scope, it would greatly increased it's comfort of use
Weirdly enough, I'd really take a slower firerate for the Adjudicator to be more efficient with its lacking ammunition.
It feels good, sounds good, looks good... But it goes so quickly you can't enjoy much of the gunplay.
@@sirjazz1268 One one hand, you have a point, this thing eats trough ammo so fast you don't have time to really enjoy it. On the other hand, its fire rate is what makes it rival to things like scorcher. Although Scorcher has more damage per bullet, its semi-auto and 15 shots in a mag makes it into a kinda slow firing weapon, while Adjudicator has less damage per bullet, but more than twice the fire rate
One indirect nerf worth pointing out: The Hulk's increased resistance to stagger means they no longer get stun-locked by the arc thrower
Very sad about this.
Which was the only reason to ever pick it.
@@G-Mastah-Fash Especially considering its range is now crap, the targeting is still broken half the time (it shoots foliage and dead bodies more than live enemies), and the charge time is doubled compared to before.
@@Spectacular_Insanityyeah zero reason for bots now.
I liked stunlocking hulks with lightning, but I can understand that maybe not being intended behaviour.
Arc Thrower still wrecks bugs, berserkers and Devastators, so I'll probably keep running it.
Small correction: changing the blast radius on the crossbow from 8m to 6m is much worse than a 25% reduction to the blast area.
Because the formula for area by radius is pi * r^2, changing the radius from 8 to 6 means they cut the area almost in HALF. Considering damage falls off by range from the centre, this is an absolutely massive nerf.
You are correct that the reduction in area is massive, but he said a 25% reduction in blast *radius*, which is also correct (but misleading).
@Thenlar you're right. He says "blast area" when listing the nerfs, but "radius" when giving the specific reduction. That's my mistake. I should have known our hero wouldn't make such an oversight!
This was such a smart comment. How do you apply math to daily situations so comfortably? Genuine question as I would love to.
@@TheQuatum i had a sudden flashback to grade 6 math, lol.
In all seriousness, playing a lot of video games has made me very aware of just how strong any buff/nerf to blast radius is. Noticing how seemingly-small boosts to the radius of some AoE effect would produce huge onscreen differences made me suddenly appreciate what my teachers had been trying vainly to get me to realize all those years.
The irony that it was video games that finally made me internationalize that math, lol...
1000%, I've played a few missions using the crossbow and it definitely suffers from too much Damage fall off-- often times I'd shoot literally adjacent of hunters and fleas and they don't die in one shot like before. Really weak against groups now
The Adjudicator is kinda just a better Liberator Penetrator at this point.
Well it was just a bad Liberator Penetrator when it came out
agreed
Just wanted to say, your videos are some of the best and I always look forward to seeing what you have to say.
Glad you like them!
Notably the armor buff means the starter Helldiver armors now get the lower headshot damage, giving it late-game appeal!
I wish they'd add a shield bash attack with the ballistic shield, like a tackle; that or the swing the Automatons with shields do to melee.
from what ive seen on reddit, a lot of these bug fixes don't work or work sometimes which considering we didn't even get some of the fixes we were all hoping for...really sucks, i hope the hotfix this week will bring some more
as much as i love this game, it's hard not to feel burn out when bugs dont get fixed (or new ones show up) and good weapons get nerfed while everything else is sub par at best
Yea, i was hoping for Spear and DOT fix... guess we wait for awhile..
@@rykenxiv I'm slightly confused by the lack of the Spear fix. Apparently it has been fixed on an internal build for nearly 3 weeks now, so it's surprising it hasn't made it to live yet. I guess maybe the fix broke something else or something like that.
Most of the other weapons are/were not sub par. They only felt that way because of all the crutches. The only weapons that should just feel amazingly powerful are call-in supports like honestly
@@ADirtyEwok I never trust what the community manager says. Everything they say is always stupid or separate from the reality, imho. Just to paraphrase things said that absolutely rub me the wrong way:
"fire tornados are just enviornmental effects. They're not out to get you"
"We have 15 more hidden stats we could tune. Just use the weapon you like"
"no transmog because we want all armours to look and play their role"
Just nothing but utter trash.
@@HiroTeaShiIt seems like Eviro effects and 120mm 380mm go after team mates. How they can miss objs and shit but snipe a player 45 meters out every time is bonkers.
Or fire tornados suddenly curving towards me away from bugs
Armours with rating *ABOVE* 100 reduce head damage, the regular medium armours and extra padding light arent changed.
Thank you for making time to record this video!
Keep up the good work!
Dude i freaking love your videos. And when i went into your channel excited to see your updated guide on eruptor after its most recent nerfs (cuz im still using it regardless what everyone says about it now)....boy i was so sad and dissappinted to see you havent got a chance to take a look at that yet :( please do if you get the chance. Or maybe even wait till they release the newest eruptor buff they are promising to fix rheyr fudge up removing the shrapnel. But either way, good job. Please do more numbers helldivers 2 videos.
The scout strider explosive resistance change also affects some weapons. Namely the scorcher, which has dropped from a consistent 2 shot kill to a moderately inconsistent 3-4 shot kill. A fairly substantial nerf, given that strider killing was one a significant benefit of the gun.
The eruptor, of course, still gets to one shot them.
As an arc blitzer main I would say this is an amazing buff to the gun, a 50% fire rate increase is insane, considering that it has the potential to one shot brood commanders.
The gun went from a weapon focused on staggering and pushing back enemies to a weapon that can actually kill alot of bugs.
As soon as I saw the changelog this was my first thought. Loving it with a grenade pistol, a SPEAR and stun grenades
Problem is that just like the Arc thrower, it often shoots foliage and dead bodies more than the enemies directly in front of the crosshairs.
The Blitzer before was "secretly good" and now it's exceptional.
It's still not quite as "killy" as say, the Breaker, but it makes up for it with that wide arc of potential staggers and the fact it, like the arc thrower, never needs to stop firing.
I've had a good time running it alongside the arc thrower actually, using the Blitzer to create space and the arc thrower to murder hordes. (Vs bugs.)
The plasma shotgun also has a bug where when firing with a shield it will just explode on you. Genuinely wondering how many people they have QA testing all of these things cuz it doesn't seem to be a lot. Maybe even just one.
With a shield... so Shield Generator Backpack? If this is the case... could be the same problem as the mech where the projectile is spawning too close and detonating right as it leaves the gun but comes in contact with the shield...?
@@rykenxiv Yep, with the shield backpack. The gun immediately hits you if you fire while the shield is active.
I'd argue 0.
The grenade pistol has 2 shots on spawn.
Literally anyone playing with the weapon in 1 mission would have realized that
@@GameFuMaster not always
that was only the case with hellpod space optimisation booster
and supposedly they fixed that
or marked that bug as known
@@GameFuMaster knowing a bug exists and replicating it are just the first part of the issue. Fixing the bug is not always as simple
You mentioning and demonstrating the stalwart buff shows you actually care about this game and do the work for your videos, no slop content here!
Pretty sure by Large Body Entities, they mean like Spore Spewer and Propaganda Towers which the Laser cannon could melt stupidly quickly.
I agree, the nerfs to the crossbow feels completely unnecessary. The AOE change made it stand out as a horde control weapon from the Eruptor but now it will take more work to deliver the same results.
I agree, I played with it and the blast radius was pitiful compared to before. What were they thinking? The weapon already has a slow fire rate, and small mag size. They made the xbow less viable now.
I was just starting to love the Blitzer too.... And it got a significant buff?! I'm ecstatic! 😁
The BR-14 is basically a MG43 with half of its ammo. But, at least it is usable now, but ammo is still a problem with it.
a 40 round mag would help it a lot, let it body shot kill 2 Devs or with good head shots would be solid. 25 per mag is just to anemic. Lib pen has a similar problem.
Quasar is nerfed, billions must switch to autocannon
Its really not that bad.
I think the autocannon nerf is worse than the quasar nerf.
@@shatara42 Autocannon was nerfed?
Its still on par if not faster than the EAT.
you forgot the clown mask
Your elegant ways are profoundly relaxing. You are so much more thoughtful than other content creators. Hearing that you’ve got a lot of work to do, I hope that you can get a lot of gaming in soon 💗
Counter sniper now breaks the 1 shot head shot on devastators with 140 (it was 2 shots from defender or 3 from penetrator, so my best guess is that head is light 2 with 135 HP).
the counter sniper was already capable of 1 shotting heavy devastators, but only out to about 20 meters. Now it can 1shot them from a significant distance.
@@LouSaydus I couldn't get it to work before at any distance. I noticed that 1 Senator shots, 2 Defender or 3 liberator penetrator do the job. So 135 should be the right number.
Great vids. Appreciate the levels of detail you go to.
It's weird how the Stalwart is basically the bigger brother of the Liberator.
Similar to the MG43, it's also the bigger brother of the BR-14 Adjudicator, having half of the total amount of ammo carried with the MG43.
It's quite interesting how there's a hidden "bullet types" in helldivers 2. Like 5.56 from stalwart and liberators, and 7.62 from mg43 and adjudicators. Which kind of makes sense for a military shooter game.
U see it has the flashlight? Yea, might be a primary weapon 🤣
A couple of things here:
In Helldivers 1, it WAS a primary weapon.
Also, it fills that niche. If you bring a more specialist PRIMARY weapon with low sustained horde-clearing capability (DMR, Plasma shotgun, Crossbow, Eruptor etc), then the Stalwart basically lets you use your SUPPORT slot for a defacto PRIMARY weapon.
From what I see, arrowhead is bringing the trigger discipline closer to HD1, which make picking and choosing engagements much more important.
Feeling the pressure of never having quite enough ammo is key.
A lot of the changes I'm noticing is them returning to their roots. Like the solo play having more enemies, people have been complaining about the game being hard to solo already, but if only they knew what solo in HD1 was like...
@@firewarrior2822solo becomes comically easy when you even slightly begin to understand how patrols work, the nerf to solo was entirely warranted
@@The-Caged-King Oh I agree, I'm on board with the nerf, sorry if I sounded like I wasn't
Actually, I wonder if this could now bé used as a perk for certain armors... The magazine distribution makes a lot more sence, but there could be some room now for a "gunner loadout" to carry +1 or +2 extra magazine for ballistical based weapons, for instance.
That's a thing I'd love to see expended in the near future, more Armor perks for more build's variety, and create fun loadouts... Future will tell.
That is genuinely gay
good luck with the work dude, thanks for making the effort to do all the math my brain is incapable of.
The liberator and stalwart buff it is likely due to they are using the same type of ammo. It seems their underlying code use ammo to compute damage.
The explosive crossbow was already kind of a niche weapon. The nerfs basically made it where I have no real reason to bring it at all. It went from being good add clear because of it's AOE and good handling (effective vs scavs, leapers, hunters, warriors, bot infantry) and kinda bad against medium enemies (Brood Commanders, Bile Spewers, Nursing Spewers, and Devastators) to being kinda bad against everything while still retaining the ability to one-hit kill yourself from full health if you don't have anti-explosive armor on.
The stagger is nearly worthless. The stagger is barely more than if you shoot them with any other gun except the Liberator Concussive. If it doesn't outright kill the enemy (the best CC is DEATH) or stun it for a very long time (like stun grenades), then that enemy is still a threat. All you're doing is delaying the inevitable.
They could have at least added the ability to close bug holes and destroy fabricators, but in addition to being essentially a worse Eruptor (even after the Eruptor's nerf), it no longer has the niche of being a fast horde-clearing tool.
Perfect content as always man. And the darktide music at the end is always 👌
The senator speedloader is great but what I really love is that the fixed the god awful sight by adding a red dot to it so you can actually aim now
I think with such a fast updating live service title, the devs should give us some more information on the reasonings behind these changes. Obviously there is a clear intention with each change that they have in mind, of course sometimes it's better to not inform your test participants of the data you're looking for to avoid skewing results from bias.
However, I think it would benefit the community overall to hear the devs thoughts on a lot of the more impactful changes. I liked hearing the reasonings behind why they changed the laser cannon the way they did, but I can't seem to understand why they would change the crossbow this way. So it would be fantastic to get some enlightment on that subject.
Yeah it makes no sense for them to alter the way a gun performs in the sandbox without expressing how they envision the gun being used.
They clearly want us to play the way they imagine, and not the way the community shifts to. So just tell us what to do so our favorite guns stop being kneecapped
@@jeff3221 The issue I have with that is that they HAVE shifted weapons performance to be in line with community expectations before - The laser cannon was originally envisioned as basically an infinite-ammo machine gun, but they saw people wanted it to be the high-damage drilling laser it is now more specialized on burning down individual medium targets... and they made that change.
So do they balance with community use, or do they balance on internal vision? if both, why the different case-by-case focus? all it does is generate ire from the community where some weapons seem to get love then other weapons are hit with random nerfs for seemingly no reason.
I think there's actually TWO issues at play here - one, they clearly don't playtest or beta test changes with the game enough, or with a decent subset of community testers. A lot of these changes would be dead in the water if they'd run it past a group of average players, and others just don't make any sense at all. This kind of doubles as a QA issue - they often introduce NEW bugs when adding in stuff. See the Adjudicators scope being misaligned LITEALLY UPON RELEASE. The other issue is communications - if they DO have some sort of plan or vision, they sure as fuck don't communicate it. And given that this is a paid game that people pay money for... it's completely fair that people get angry when their product gets negatively changed with no explanation as to why. You buy the game in a certain state, so your completely justified in getting annoyed when the devs change the product you pay for negatively without giving you a good reason why. Imagine if you bought a nice sports car, then after owning it for 6 months the manufacturer came to your house, halved the speed limit and acceleration and swapped all the leather seats with fabric and didn't tell you why.
This is my favorite Helldivers 2 channel!
thank you for your hard work always
the stalwart being indirectly buffed was such a surprise
Im glad Ive been using the punisher plasma. Hopefully it feels better to use. Also the projectile very often goes between the arms for some reason. Im going to have to re-learn the arc though.
For the explosion radius reduction. My guess is for the players that use it in close range. It pairs well with the explosion knockback bug fix.
One thing I hate is the overall stagger nerfs though. For a hoard shooter, crowd control through stagger, especially for heavier enemies is important.
I loved my primary frag grenade but I feel the changes to the crossbow make is completely useless now.
It should have struggled with moving things, you are firing a slow projectile (bolt) with a grenade taped to it.
I can hit moving targets better, wooo. I can also hit less in general because the 25% area reduction is HUGE.
For the Blitzer, glad they increased it's firerate. When playing it it felt like it needed 15-20% more fire rate. 50% should make this very very good against bugs. (and probably nerfed in the future due to infinite ammo)
The Dominator nerf is warranted. I played the hell out of it before it was buffed and it only needed 50 more damage, so still a 75 damage buff. Will still be amazing.
Can't wait to try the DCS because that gun felt so horrid to use. Now I just hope they fix the allignment of the blue scopes and remove all the crap from the blue and green scopes.
There is a stealth nerf to the Scorcher. Strider pilots take less blast damage now. Well it also hits crossbow, eruptor, impact grenades, grenade launcher and grenade pistol. But I have a feeling it hurts Scorcher the most. Well and GL but, sadly, that has greatly fallen out of use for bots due to more big things and flying stuff.
Also I hope the changes mean that all the sidearms are good in their own right now.
It's "armors with armor rating *above 100* " - NOT "equal and above". So *medium armors* with 100 armor points *do not get the reduced damage on headshots.*
Im glad someone else at least had similar opinions regarding over one or unneeded nerfs. I had some agree in my comments and others...that were the "I solo helldive with the crossbow(same day as the update) and I love it." Someone literally said Eruptor is better than ever, even though it was only nerfed. Very confusing.
One big change I didn't see mentioned is that the Dominator had it's blinding smoke removed.
Very good video and I have the same reactions you have for almost everything.
Holy Jesus Christ Born From Sweet Liberty, a buff to the Peacemaker's damage *_AND_* a speedloader for the Senator???
Boi, we stealth players eating *_GOOD_* tonight -- all pistols have the quietest firing sounds, so being able to one-shot small guards in the head without alerting anyone else is gonna be amazing.
8:18 thanks for covering the shadow buff to stalwart, no one else is covering it
Another banger Encik
Will you do an updated crossbow guide since the muzzle velocity changes messed with the trajectory making the current guide obsolete?
The liberator penetrator definitely needs a 45-round mag now that the regular liberator and adjudicator are buffed.
I made a twitter post about my impressions on the patch before trying them out and after playing with the ones that had some actual changes(not just damage change) here is what I can say.
Pros:
- Diligence CS: it feels so much snappier and that's really all I wanted, BUT they give more damage to it and it's great.
- BR14: as a marksmen rifle it under performs, but thinking of it as an assault rifle it's better. The recoil reduction really helps it out. Makes the liberator penetrator kind of pointless.
- Senator: the speedloader is so much fun and changes how you should use this weapon for reload, which is empty the entire gun unlike other weapons where you want at least 1 bullet to reload faster.
- Blitz arc shotgun firing faster is good, still not that good but more usable than previously.
- Airburst rocket is now more reliable and less of a hazard to your team. Now makes for a good crowd control weapon against weak groups.
- you do take less burning damage to give yourself enough time to heal and dive, but it still kills fast, where is the fire resist armour?
- Punisher Plasma: shoots faster which is good, more reliable.
- Supply packing works and it's great.
- explosion bug fixed
- headshot protection is nice, gives reason to use the medium and heavy armour(But armour rating is still a scam until it gives stagger protection)
Meh:
- Quasar cannon getting nerf only affects the toxic meta players who won't play with other things. And to those who are going to whine and say "buff other weapons to be on par with it. one: you'd still use the QC and not change your setup. Two: learn to adapt and use other things, the weapon has become a crutch for you meta players. Three: you're gonna stop playing the game just because ONE weapon is no longer meta" (To those who use it that ignore the meta[aka non-toxic, non-meta players]; While I enjoy the nerf for it, 5 extra second is maybe too long, 2-3 second maybe but 5 is a lot.)
- Eruptor: questionable nerf.
Cons:
- Xbow: AoE nerf sucks, it was way more fun before blowing up a crowd but now it doesn't do that. it lost the crowd control aspect.
- AR-23 Guard: This tool already sucks and it's getting a nerf? played with it to check and it still kills but I don't know why it needs a nerf.
Does the -15% damage reduction to fire apply only to helldivers or just all around (Fire user in bug missions)
Thanks for the great breakdown! Some really odd changes in this one.
the thumb drew me in instantly. secret buzzsaw buff??? gimme gimme
9:33 it says Burning Damage reduced by 15%. I could be wrong, but didn’t the fire damage buff previously say something like all instances of fire damage?
Therefore, I wonder if this means fire damage was reduced 15% or if when you are on fire (burning) damage is reduced 15%, which would actually be a buff. I cannot test this myself, but I am curious if you know the answer here.
Wait, how much is the damage reduction vs large enemies for the Laser Cannon? Cuz the base damage has been increased. Does that mean its performance vs heavies is still the same?
I love rocking Stalwart with supplypack against bugs and go full on BRRRRRRR!! By far my fav loadout, I didnt even notice the dmg buff somehow
I was just coming around on the Senator, and now its buffed and I may never take it off. Also, the Blitzer is usable now! Been using both with an Autocannon support and crushing the bugs big time.
When I saw the Arc Blitzer had gotten a fire rate buff, and a huge one at that, I was so happy. I love the Blitzer as it pair very very well with the Las16 Sickle, giving stagger to large enemies and being able to deal damage to hive guards. So glad it got a buff
Yep Blitzer is my favorite gun even before the update, it's kinda a sleeper weapon, many players don't use it or don't use it correctly
The Railgun should be increased in stagger since its meant to be a super speed projectile launcher, so its an armor penetration stopper. OR Have it be a projectile so fast it armor penetrates and deals a lot of damage because it comes out the other side. The current configuration makes no sense. Also give the HMG backpack
IMO railgun SHOULD be super high damage, and have blow-through, but should do basically no stagger. Also, a better scope. PLEASE.
Its currently just bad. Give it back pre-nerf damage at near max charge, to make the risk actually worth the reward, allow the shots to multi-pen enemies (it's a fucking RAILGUN), and make safe mode able to consistently one-shot the weaker medium-tier enemies (bug warriors, striders etc). This would give it a skill ceiling for high-level play (positioning yourself for good, consistent multi-pen shots, hitting weak points for high-efficiency kills e.g. one-shotting a hulk in the face), a reason to bring it for safe mode and a benefit to UNsafe worth the risk (what other weapons risk DISARMING YOU even after respawning?!?!), while preventing it from just stunlocking heavy enemies to death. Another option I think would go over well would be to make unsafe mode either not destroy the weapon when it blows up (maybe call it a plasma discharge or something idk), or to instead just make going over the unsafe limit just shut down the weapon for like 45 seconds for an "extended cooldown cycle" or something. So you still get punished for going over the charge limit, but in a less frustrating way than being instantly killed and losing your weapon. If you call in the railgun, then fuck up the first shot, not only do you die but you're now without your support weapon for like 8 minutes. That's just frustrating more than anything, and punishes your TEAM as well as you, since you now can't contribute against heavy enemies for almost 10 minutes.
I envision the railgun as being an in-between weapon from the autocannon and true rocket launchers. More ammo and rate of fire than rockets without having to stop to reload, while having more ammo but less damage, and the capability to heavy-armor pen that the autocannon doesn't have while still being cost-effective against medium-armor enemies but without the horde clearing capability or raw rate of fire and damage that the autocannon has. So if the rockets are anti-heavy specialty weapons and the autocannon is an anti-medium specialty weapon, the railgun would be a more balanced anti-medium/heavy weapon that's capable of doing both roles but not as well as the more specialist options. A great choice for bringing versatility to team loadouts where the other players are heavily specializing. If your guy that brought his RR, EAT and 110mm rocket pods dies, any nobody else has AT, you can step in to fill the gap.
I agree on the xbow. On the good end I don't notice the handling TOO much and the faster shot feels amazing... however it's selling point and why I used it so much was it's insane AOE damage output. You could clear a full bot drop of chaff in 1 second with 2 shots. And IDK that felt kind of crazy and maybe it was a bit powerful but it was fun and felt great. I REALLY feel the AOE reduction, it's so much less reliable and clearing out groups of enemies which is a real shame.
I'll give it some more time to get used to it but as it stands I'm worried I'll eventually have to retire it.
It's worth noting that the Diligence CS can now take down devastators in 1 headshot instead of 2. Between that and it's ergonomics change I'd say it's one of the biggest winners of this patch.
I agree with your assessments, having spent all morning running through the mentioned guns:
All the gun handling buffs feel really good. I don't mind the loss of total ammo capacity. It's balanced with the improved handling and aiming. Just need to use the side arm a bit more and call down resupp more frequently. Bad weapons seem to be much more usable now.
The only changes I really disagree with are the crossbow changes and the solo patrol changes.
the devs elaborated on the patrol changes
they were scaled down on amount of players more than intended
Quote: "We unintendedly had non-linear scaling of the patrol spawns so they didn't spawn as often as they should have when less than 4 players. The intention is that 1 player has 1/4th of the patrols compared to 4 players, but it used to be that they had 1/6th.
Scaling of patrol spawns was exponential before, and that felt good on 4 player lobbies but a bit too empty when playing with fewer players, especially when playing solo. So now we made the scaling of patrols to be linear, which means if you play solo you will get 25% of the patrols compared to a 4 player lobby instead of having about 17% of the patrols. There is still a cap of patrols that can spawn at the same time so during situations when we spawn a lot of patrols, such as extractions, even solo players won't notice the difference. The change is made to make the world feel less empty for 1 and 2 player lobbies, especially on high difficulty missions which was also slightly too easy for solo players compared to our intentions."
Hope this clarifies the change for everyone - we're not making the game arbitrarily harder!
The ammo changes also encourage exploration in the map and utilizing the ammo packs at points of interest. I much prefer the greater amount of resupply per pack over the larger reserve and resupply inefficiency
@@Alex-gn6ii honestly
kinda wish nade pistol got similar treatment
like
-2 nades but gets 3-4 from a resupply and 2 from an ammo pack
instead of 2 from a resupply and 1 per pack
@@somedude4087 They are making the game harder though, 50% more spawns when solo is insane. Their logic is that 1 helldiver times 2 is the same as 2 helldivers working together, when it's not true. 2 helldivers is significantly better due to being able to cover each others' weakness, have more boosters and distract enemies and cover teammates.
Very strange change imo
@@Boamere thats how it was intended to be
besides
its for higher difficulties
The shift towards less stagger seems to want to make the arc thrower and other strategems have their own niche which is probably for the better. Crossbow can at least shoot straight now so some weakpoints make it out better, some dont like charger rears and hulks. I can see why the explosion radius was changed but it was nice having a primary that could reasonably deal with heavys from the front, especially cuz its useless for flying enemies.
I think you're right. They're increasing the value of the supply backpack that's why the ammo economy is being tuned right now.
Can we have access to the weapon tables doc(with just read-only permissions) please?
if they make QC severs please you need to sign up you help the commmuity so much i always wait for your stuff and really like your charts and numbers.
i have use so much of your info on runs and it has improve my game i would love some help now on solo 9 helldive mode, the changes where so bad in my opinion it crashes my game sometimes because of the increase spawns sign...
other than that please keep the video coming in your own time life can get busy sometimes.
A lot of questionable changes to be sure, but I am having fun playing with the buffs on certain weapons, especially the Plasma Punisher! Already liked it against bots, but it feels even nicer now thanks to its faster travel speed, better splash damage, and a hidden hitbox buff.
Man the counter sniper feels *so* good now
CS users unite
So if explosive type weapons deal extra damage to certain body parts.... Do energy type weapons have a special effect on certain enemies?
Testing builds against terminids, I realized my line up was super ammo heavy, and wanted to see how a supply pack would work. Not only was I able to keep up with ammo, I would have enough ammo to share with my buds. Supply pack is underrated imo, it's just a tricky pick when you're deciding the team line-up. Even harder in random games
I'm a stalwart enthusiast when fighting bugs, tried today on max amo spamming and god it was glorious, mid sized bugs got squashed like nothing, also love the revolver reload, makes it much more useful.
For the *most* part I like the changes. They definitelyngo to great lengths to make everything attractive compared to the rest. And for the most part most of the nerfs arent too bad. The quasar is admittedly very powerful so I understand the need to balance its usage. The crossbow changes are an absolute mystery. I like the better economy from bricks and boosted projectile speed but the nerfs were completely unneccessary. For most of the ammo changes i appreciate the increased restocks in exchange for reduced totals
Two medium armors that got the headshot resistance are the starting one with 150 extra padding and the the Enforcer with fortified stat. I tested the enforcer and it seemed quite good at tanking hits.
There are a lot of changes I approve of, but probably need some experience behind it for me to promote to others.
It's a good chance for them to release that second larger supply pack with the many ammo reductions.
I know this is a rushed one put out because you are so busy. but in the future if you have more time, can you add the picture of the gun to the side? I don't remember all of these names >.
The sickle nerf is extremely heavy handed and the ammo runs out so fast that it’s almost unusable on higher difficulty.
Heavy mg also still far too weak as the ammo count is pathetic making it useless compared to other stratagem options.
does the change to armor affect medium and light gunner armor?
it says higher than 100 rating
and none (besides the basic armor we start with) of those are higher than that
I have re-read the notes and have corrected myself in my pinned comment! Thanks for pointing it out!
Where did you see those guard dog changes? The only change I saw was the damage nerf to the MG variant in the steam patch notes.
the steam patch notes are different then then the discord patch notes, which only further compounds the confusion and frustration on lack of clear communication.
I wish I could give an opinion on the nerfs and buffs, but since this recent patch my game is unplayable. stutters, massive frame drops... all smoothness gone. lowered my settings from ultra all the way down to low, but the issues still remain. Stability first, balance second. Adding bugs is the opposite of managed democracy. They should squash them.
I love the Adjudicator now. It has now replaced the Liberator Penetrator for me against the bots. It was too unwieldy and not enough ammo before. Now it feels great.
Senator not only got a speedloader reload, it also got a RED DOT sight as it shoud've been. Fantastic stuff!
Also is it just me or is the round by round reload faster too? It felt like it had a weird lag before and now the entire animation looks smoother.
I would totally use the HMG and Machine Gun if their reloads weren't so ridiculously long. Especially the HMG. Its one thing to have a long reload, its just stupid when its both long and roots you in place.
The regular MG is especially hamstrung because of its ammo economy, which now can't logically be fixed because making it resupply both magazines off a resupply brick makes the packing methodology ship upgrade impact one less weapon
I tried the post patch blitzer and it was surprisingly powerful vs bugs now, still less than ideal vs bots though
overall I find a lot of the nerfs/adjustments rather questionable but some are really welcome I'll grant that
Railgun being less able to stagger seems completely unnecessary, it was one of the only things going for it. Being able to stagger something quickly so a stratagem could kill it was basically required for most enemies. Also still gonna advocate for the damage in unsafe near the instant death point needs to be majorly buffed, where’s the reward for the risk.
Only problem with this is people could easily make a macro to charge the railgun to the absolute limit before firing, removing all risk while always getting the reward.
@@samgraffen9212 That's really not something that should be balanced around, though. The fact that less than 1% of players will do that has no bearing on the other 99%'s experience.
@@samgraffen9212 Even if you made such a macro, barely anyone would use it. A terrible strawman argument to use when the vast majority of players are casuals.
Although at the rate this game is dying, there might only be hardcore players left by the end of 2024 if this incompetent dev team stays their current course.
I think the thought process regarding the crossbow was lighting up a crackpipe.
Im really sad about the Eruptor change, it is super fun but was definitely NOT the best option to go with, praying its slight
This is the best channel for helldivers updates
The big laser canon was already doing more damage than the primary version (which did 300 dps exact) even before giving it medium armor pen. It’s definitely much higher than 350 dps.
you are questioning why the super earth nerfed and buffed weapons?
THIS IS TREASON!!!!!!!
Was really hoping the slugger would get some love this patch
As a plasma shotgun main against bots. It feels like the arc is the same, but it’s got a faster TTK.
However it’s stun lock potential has felt like it’s been cut by 30-50% and it’s reduce ammo count means I can’t really used it as my indirect fire in a supporting role for blind fire any more. However it’s become a bit easier in taking out individual bots now.
12 mags+4x6 is 36, 8x5 is 40.
I think they push the ammo hungry guns to use resupply backpack more, basically granting 1 extra mag per ammo box.
Is burn damage down for the enemy to or just us
Does the Stalwart now have hitmarkers when hitting enemies?
I get the nerf to the ammo economy on the eruptor but why nerf the blast radius, isn’t that its purpose?
Lots of uncalled for nerfs this patch, it feels like all these weapons they wanted to buff they felt they had to nerf in some other way. Not sure why