7:12 When you said "the MG-43 Machine Gun" i thought you said MG for free... wonder if that was the idea behind the number since its the only stratagem you have at the start 😂
i think the first upgrade is the pinnacle of the absurdity of helldivers 2. not ONLY do you not get full ammo for your weapons, the family of whatever helldiver you're playing for the next five minutes has to pay for the extra, AND you need to get a license for them to do so. i love it
I find it so funny that the helldivers community voted against the anti-tank mines because of how much team killing mines do, when the anti-tank mines don't team kill and we instead got the cluster launcher.
@@LPR44 There is nothing wrong with Hellmire. We go in with flamethrowers, incen mines and incen airstrike and not a single person gets set on fire, but 1000s of bugs do
Well... the bigger problem was that the AT mines required us to capture an entire extra planet before even having the option to try to get it, so most people just took the shortest path. A vote would have made sense if both planets took the same amount of effort.
@albinorhino4044 Hellmire is on the bug side. Menkent was in the way of the planet that had the AT mines and is an automaton planet and fire isn't that effective against the automatons. Unlike the bugs.
I wish they left superior packing methodology broken for 8 weeks before fixing it with the patch note "superior packing methodology training has been completed and now helldivers will begin to notice the benefits of the training in the field."
It honestly isn’t a bad pick against the Automatons, kills hulks faster than anything. Problem is you have to get super close to use it because the sight is shit
As someone who runs HMG with supply pack, I can confirm this is this case. If you think of the supply pack as primarily for yourself like an autocannon, RR or spear pack with the capability to restock your teammates if needed, this pairing is incredible - especially since (unlike the autocannon/RR/spear packs) it also resupplies your stims, grenades, primary and secondary ammo.
Personally I wish there was a cape or armor passive that would let me use an autoloader on my holstered secondaries. Imagine alternating fire between a senator and a smg as you push up with a shield
@@tipogameplay795 but then you aren't running supply pack, which is quite bad idea when you have sustained fire weapon with relatively low mag counter
It's one of the Stalwart's primary draws, and he didn't even mention it. I stopped watching the second he called the HMG "garbage" Clearly doesn't know what he's on about
@@neijrr The buff was that recent? This video was only a couple of months ago, around the time of that buff wasn't it? I might have jumped the gun, when exactly was the buff in relation to this video?
Reasons why I take recoilless over quasar: 1. You can animation cancel reload so instead of 6s it takes 4s (I usually tap stratagem menu) 2. Probably most powerful team reload weapon in the game, you can drop your backpack next to teammate in a pinch and ask teammate to help with reload 3. You can instantly fire while quasar needs to whind up before shooting I much rather spend this time on reload 4. You can split reload to 2 stages, first eject shell, deal with enemies and then insert new shell
Recoilless is goated, and i'm very happy to see people using it post quasar patch. The only issue I've ver encountered is it's sooo easy to just blast through ammo, but also it's sooo good
@@asabovesobelow1362 Personally, I just can't abandon my laser hovering doggo. Hearing those &€#@& hunters screaming in agony is the greatest pleasure.
Spear against bots is a great support weapon! The ability to clear fabricators and cannon towers over the entire map is just awesome and works very well. It is also good against gunships, decent against hulks (have yet to learn if there is a reliable possibility to one-shot them) and ok against factory striders. The only downside: you need planets with clear line of sight (ice or desert is great, forest is the worst).
Wait what? I haven’t used it much but I’ve never been able to take out a drop ship with one. It will lock on. Then the rocket will hit anything but the engine. How on earth do you make this work? I thought it was bugged or something.
Best support weapon for me. I have always loved sniper rifles - and if you have a certain accuracy, you can use them to fight any enemies, except perhaps a walking factory. And here I’m just not sure, because usually they bombard him with stratagems before I try something, and alone I don’t have the patience to run around looking for him.
the AMR deserves S tier against bots, if the heavy laser does. No backpack, decent ammo capacity, can kill tanks, hulks, factory striders, objective buildings, turrets etc pair with stun grenades and a supply pack and go crazy.
@@kbobkpop the entire back half is vulnerable, not just the vent exactly but essentially yes, only that. You can trick shot it with even a little angle tho.
As far as I can tell the two have the same pen and deal pretty similar damage (AMR has very high theoretical dps but has substantial recoil and has to reload) but the laser can infinite ammo and the AMR has absolutely abysmal ammo economy. Like, outside of the HMG I can't think of a single gun in the game that has worse ammo economy than the AMR.
@@Vorael flamethrower, grenade launcher, mg34... but i admit its not like the economy is overboard without a supply pack. you could have a supply pack tho, since it doesnt use a backpack slot. im repeating myself now
The AC-8 Autocannon actually kills a charger in 4 shots, just let it bleed out instead of wasting ammo. Additionally it can kill spore spewers and shrieker nests given about 9 shots.
I love the EAT-17. Not only do you get to drop them constantly throughout a battle, it's also one of the only "shareable" support weapons. It's nice to get a second launcher, but also cool to let a team mate grab one up to, and before you know it, you can drop 2 more.
Great video. What I like most about it is the fact that when anything is changed, this will provide a reference for what it changed from. Thanks, Spice!
The AMR has a faster reload time if you reload it while there's still a bullet in the chamber. This is because your helldiver won't need to manually chamber it and it will leave your AMR with 8/7 bullets.
Something that's a little annoying is that I'm a Recoilless Rifle user and lots of people have a misunderstanding with it (I also used to be one of those people too). It is gun for shooting tank rounds. That is why it is called the Recoilless Rifle, it has an open rear so you don't loose your shoulder when shooting a round that's meant for a tank. It is not a rocket launcher because it does not have the splash damage that Expendable Anti-Tank does, or shoot missiles. It shoots bullets, which is also why you have to eject the projectile casing.
I tried recoilless multiple times, but... I don't understand it. Yep, it's meant for tanks. But when a bile titan is coming for your life, you can't oneshot it with recoilless and you don't have time to load recoilless multiple times. When it comes to the accessibility of the shots, Quasar wins. You don't need to make manual reloads. You just do a shot and forget about it, it recharged automatically. When it comes to the ability to make 2-3 shots quickly, you just pick two EAT's or even more EAT's. When it comes to the ability to rapid fire and you have a teammate, you can give the backpack to him, but then the ammo is just gone in an instant. So I don't see why is it better than EAT or Quasar. So yeah, I'm stupid, I don't understand.
@@theshadower5565 For me, the 3 seconds it takes to fire the Quasar is a huge negative over the Recoiless. I bring Recoiless because against Terminids when things get hectic, I need to kill a Charger right THIS INSTANT. Trying to line up the shot for 3 seconds against one or multiple Chargers coming after you, along with hordes of other bugs makes it extremely difficult for me to use. Often times I can find time to reload my Recoiless and instantly one shot a Charger (especially by cancelling the last part of the reload animation), but for the Quasar, that 3 second wind up hurts when you are in the thick of it, when you both NEED this Charger dead AND need to RUN before getting jumped by Hunters. I'll take the longer reload then instant kill a Charger over the 3 second wind up when I need it dead NOW, before I get attacked by some other bug.
@@theshadower5565if you play on higher difficulties the RR has the potential of rapidly removing many bile titans that in rapid succession, whereas the quasar has a extremely long down time (15+3 seconds). You need two well placed rockets to kill a bile titan (unless you have the spear, in which case when the stars align thatd be 1). RR has a reload time of 6 but can be cut down to be about 5, and also can be reload assisted to be 1 second (not that youll see this often). Either way, in a good position the RR has far less downtime then the quasar. When you have to face 4+ bile titans, 18 seconds is simply not going to be helpful.
@@theshadower5565 You can reload cancel to load the RR faster though. I use it in Helldive bugs all the time and find time to reload for the most part. For Biles, I think only the Spear can one shot those. Not sure why it gets a negative for that.
If I were to balance the MG's, all I'd do is increase the ammo of Heavy MG to 125 rounds, the standard MG to 175, and keep the stalwart at 250. Maybe decrease HMG recoil ever so slightly, and I think this would cement these as good supports that clear chaff better than primaries, but not as heavy hitting as rocket launchers or autocannon.
I want the HMG to be belt fed from a backpack with maybe 300 rounds. Sacrifice a defense backpack for a heavy gunner offense. Can then introduce a minigun with backpack later on as well.
@@TheWileSpice With there being so many stratagems in the game i would love it if they made MGs a primary weapon. Since in still using the starting assault rifle and yet to unlock the incendiary shotgun
I don't see a problem with the machine gun at all. The heavy machine gun though doesn't really do anything that the machine gun doesn't already do. It probably does more damage, but the improvement isn't really noticeable enough.
Airburst is amazing for clearing large groups. 6-12 kills every shot with reliability. If everyone focused for heavy hitting weapons it's good but having 3 people focus heavy targets and 1 person taking care of the groups it's amazing. Love ending with 500 kills Also pair it with the auto cannon turret and target a POI or scout party on helldiver solo. Spear would also be S tier if it locked reliably. 1 shots Bile Titans from the front Grenade launcher is also great for blitz missions for destroying bug nest. Don't need to stop like the auto cannon
@@TheWileSpiceThat’s why it’s S tier for me. Like you said, not because it’s better than the Grenade launcher, but because it’s so much cooler, and can kill your friends easiest 😂
Not to mention before the explosion nerf this thing would clean house often wiping out 15 bots. After the nerf it's can still reliably wipe out groups. Just be sure to hit below the waistline on bots or near the ground to better utilize the burst.
Holy crap holy crap where the heck have you been all of my helldivers to life this is literally the best most informational and at the same time entertaining content I've seen from any RUclipsr so far as far as helldivers go all of the props go to you sir I'm going to subscribe I'm going to check out all of your videos thank you thank you thank you :)
Not gonna lie, I really like your videos. You don't just list the raw stats and stuff, you actually talk about the flavour text and lore, and its so nice
I feel like something forgotten a lot is the EAT being on short cool down makes rearming yourself after deaths much easier. It’s not always easy to go pickup a quasar or auto cannon after every death
Yeah, I just ran a Bot mission with the spear again and it feels great, IF it actually locks on. I would wish for a secondary firing mode or something like that, where you can guide the rocket with a laser pointer or fire on a spot on the ground after some windup. I had the annoying thing of tanks or factories "hiding" behind a less than meter wide column and therefore being untargetable.
Has way to little ammo, you will be wasting alot of team's ammo that could be Stun nades and stims, if i want to clear a heavy automaton base on helldive i can throw 380 barrage and a laser too ..
@icata12345 what are you talking about? No stims or nades wasted. You pick up ammo from regular ammo boxes. Could have 8 or more at some POIs. Easily take out a heavy base from 500m out. Farthest I've taken out objectives was 700m. Super vertical map and was able to take down 4 objectives. 2 medium bases, 1 small, 1 large. All from the ammo it came with and the POI that are buried stashes. Just 1 poi and I did more then half the objectives.
I love the Airburst for Egg Nest Missions, i often have 1-2 shots them form like 200+ Meters aways, it just satisfying when it happends and pretty effective. It also great to 1-2 Shot if placed good Ammunition Depos in Sabotage Mission.
@@DOSdaze not the fact that its nearly 1200rpm makes it among the highest damaging bullet weapons in the game? Oh you didnt know you could turn up the fire rate?
I do have to say for the HMG, recoil reduction heavy armor, supply pack and only against bots. I've been having quite a bit of fun with it against bots lately. Not saying it is amazing but it does give you a lot of stun grenades to run around with as well. Kinda fun swatting gunships out of the sky. I would never take this for bugs though.
I have also tried it for a couple of days consequtively against bots. I think it is a viable option, but I do not enjoy it as much as AC, laser cannon, spear, or recoilless rifle... not sure if I will choose it again. As you say: not amazing... it is viable. But I simply don't like it. Stalwart feels really great, but the HMG ... nah.
I think my biggest issue with it, is it feels bad to use as a machine gun, which the fire rates encourage me to do. But it's better used like a burst fire marksmans rifle
@@TheWileSpice Not going to disagree there. It needs more rounds in the drum. I tend to keep it on the medium fire since that gives you the best RoF to handling middleground. I also don't run it often because it is a bit janky. Though I am also someone who loves to play with the Knight, so I may just be insane.
@@TheWileSpice I think this is exactly why I dislike it! It just does not feel like a machine gun. I realized that I only use it against hulks on short distance, against gunships and sometimes hesitantly against devastators. And, of course, opportunity shots on weakpoints, all at short range due to the high recoil. Is this what you meant by "burst fire marksman rifle" or did you think about longer ranges?
About the HMG : It definitely does enough damage to justify the small clip size. 76 bullets is enough to kill 19 devasator, 7 devastator and a factory strider, 3 bot emplacements (mortars, AA turrets), a spore spewer, or half a bile titan's abdomen. It's a bit weird to have to carefully line up single shots or 4-shot burst with a machine gun rather than going full auto, but it's definitely worth it. The scope is extremly missalined tho. About the railgun : It's an anti-medium weapon that can goes against heavies, not a dedicated anti heavies. It can kill chargers with 3 70% shots and one shot hulks in safe mode, but where it shine is one-shotting devastators, brood commanders, bile spewers and stalkers with a very good handling and precision. If it was reverted, it would be the best anti-heavies support weapon while not even being a dedicated anti-heavy. What would be the place of the like of Quasar cannon and EAT if the railgun does their job better ?
I guess in my opinion, it handles so poorly that you don't get the value it gives on paper unless you sit still, which isn't great against the bots. It feels poor to use as a machine gun. More like a really fat marksmans rifle lol. The scope pains me!
@@TheWileSpice That's about right, as a machine gun it's quite bad unless you're firing from directly under a BT or factory strider. But as a precision weapon it work well.
I been running railgun and my only problem with it is it’s horrible at taking out gunships . Do you know how many shots it takes to take down gunships on unsafe mode ?becuase I haven’t done it yet
Potential damage is incredibly hypothetical for obvious reason, and even then the both the stalwart and the machine gun blows the hmg out of the water. Both the hmg and mg have the same breakpoints on devs/berserkers. The perk it does have is being able to kill strider factories, as youve stated, as well as tanks, turrets and iirc gunships? There are two ways to fix the hmg, but machine guns themselves also need some buff imo. First is to have better economy. Despite having far less ammo (225+1 in total), the hmg doesnt really do a hell a lot of damage per round compared to the mg, which means for most enemies that they can both handle the breakpoint isnt that significant, especially if you take ammo economy into consideration. For example, the mg requires 6 rounds to kill a Brood commander, whereas the hmg needs 4. Respectively, thats 4% and 5.33% of 1 magazine. Increasing the damage might be a solution, but i do think having more ammo in a magazine and reserve is the way to go. More shooting and less reloading would go a long way. Secondly, it needs a better optic. That dot scope, outside of being misaligned STILL, doesnt play nice with how the hmg is best used. Give it a scope option with 3 level zoom. Finally, i think all machine guns need to have increased ergo or handling when crouched or prone. The hmgs biggest issue is how terrible it feels to handle, that despite having a good position, unless enemies are walking directly towards you, it is difficult to maximise its usage. In fact i think all weapons should get better handling when in a lower stance, but machine guns really need this feature.
I love how in-depth your HD2 vids are. The greater the knowledge given the better prepared we are to spread democracy! Hope for smaller updates on previous vids and possible other Weapon category lists!
Glad you have been enjoying them! Exactly, extra training material for all Helldivers. Dropped a video yesterday covering the new balance changes to the Sentry, orbital & eagle stratagems! :)
2 things i wanted to say: No.1: the EAT's Droppod can be used as an extra weapon that can be used to kill chargers (i dont know about bio titans) and additionally can be thrown away for other weapons in the field. because they're one use, not carrying one and picking up a spawned flamethrower instead, calling in spares when you need them is incredibly useful. not sure if it would bump it into S based on that, but the versatility should definitely be considered. No.2 The Spear has 2 "secret" buffs. the first is when locked on that lock remains locked whilst reloading, meaning you can unleash a second rocket immediately after reloading the second. this makes support reloads even more useful for the spear (i'm not certain but i think it's about 1.5 sec on support reloads. you're a much better judge than i though). this thing is great for taking down striders. the second one is the rocket always attempts to hit the weak point of the enemy. i'll admit, i will have to double check, but against hulks and tanks the rocket always targets the eyes of hulks and the copulas of tanks. if you have the distance these things one shot them easily. a bonus thing i found for lock on: you do not have to use the reticule. the outer circle is often better to get a lock on with, as your aim is not hampered by bits of terrain. keeping moving also helps and always hold fire. the rocket can only fire with a lock so if the lock is hard to maintain launching the moment you have anything is superb. All in all whilst i agree the spear is not the best, its lovck on being really problematic, it's extremely powerful against bots. because their heavies are so slow, and their fabricators easy to lock onto. rarely do i find a time when i don't need this thing. it's not the best, but i would argue a B for the bots, even if it took a lower grade for the Bugs.
I get the point of this was to assess each support weapon on its own, but to not even mention how much the supply pack does for some weps skews the ratings hugely. Anything that doesn't already have a backpack or infinite ammo can be used as a primary weapon with the supply pack, which gives you the added bonus of effectively quadrupling your reserves of stims, grenades and primary and secondary ammo AND being able to provide unparalleled team support with mobile resupplies. I personally think the supply pack makes the AMR better than the autocannon for bots. It also makes the MG and HMG head and shoulders better than the stalwart. If you keep the HMG on the lowest rpm, take a knee and aim carefully it absolutely rips through the battlefield, easily the most underappreciated sleeper pick of all support weps
Fair point, but then there's a lot of other factors to consider as well. AMR + Supply is a potent combo, but Autocannon will also free up a slot for another Stratagem which can come in handy in missions with the -1 Stratagem modifier against bots. Definitely will impact how it feels to use some support weapons on a personal basis, though. There's a good reason why Grenade Launcher + Supply pack is my goto for bug Blitz missions.
For having tested the AMR against automatons recently, it definitely outclasses the autocannon (which is used to play very often against them) for me. It has the same armor penetration and very decent damage too, making it essentially a slightly less powerful autocannon (at least against armored foes) that doesn't take a backpack slot and has less maximum ammo. But if you pair this with a ressuply back pack, using stun grenades, you can absolutely obliterate automatons all on your own, since the backpack provides you with more ammunition than the autocannon one, but also grenades, ammo for your primary and secondary and stims as well. The stun grenades gives you essential crowd control ans space to work with against heavy hitters like hulks or heavy devastators. It also makes your life so much easier when fighting in a stratagem disturber area, as you'll be far less likely to run out of supplies before destroying it. The only scenario that's gonna give you trouble is if you're alone facing a cannon turret or one of the tanks and can't reach their weakpoint for whatever reason, which will require another stratagem (either 500kg, orbital precision strike or rail canon). But if you play as a team, you can always have someone with a spear / EAT / RR / QC to deal with those, and you're good to go. It's now my preferred loadout, i'm just more likely to run heavy armor to avoid the random rockets one shots, but since you don't do as much running around (and away) against bots, it's not really a big deal for me, especially with the stamina booster.
The MG-206, fired in short bursts from a defensive position, is a hog against bots. Drops hulks in 5 rounds to the head, drops dominators and everything else in one, can chew up gunships and pulls striders apart. Don't sleep on it.
Thanks for the tip, my light armor scout with the AMR has been working fantastic, but I've been looking for a heavy setup so I can play around with the more drawn out gunfights. For Democracy!
The heavy machine gun is one of the few weapons in this game I think actually does need improved AP. It just does the same thing as the regular machine gun. And while some suggest giving it a backpack and a ton of ammo, I think being able to just shoot a charger in the leg would go a longer way in making it stand out from the regular machine gun. The recoil isn't that bad, I just fire in short bursts well prone, unless I'm super close. The railgun is amazing, as long as you realize it's not an anti-havy weapon. It's anti-medium. And you can blow through multiple brood commanders with a single shot if they're lined up. Or instantly kill heavy devastators from the side. And something people rarely ever talk about, It's one of the quieter support weapons in existence, allowing you to eliminate threats at a point of interest or objective location without any breaches or drops being called. It's a great weapon for mobile, stealth players.
you have my sub wile spice. these videos are pure information, straight to the point, which is needed to spread managed democracy. thank you for your service.
I feel like the only disagreement I have is with the railgun, I think it works perfectly fine as long as it’s viewed more as an AMR that can deal with heavies in a pinch. Against bots, being able to delete hulks is amazing, and not having to go for head or midriff on devs is useful when holding an angle. Generally I then run rocket pods to deal with tanks. Id put rail as a solid A- to B+ against bots. While I find the rail’s performance against bots consistent, fighting bugs with it is a lot more bimodal. In a generic game where your heavy hitters come in the form of titans and hunter swarms, it would be a solid C. However with the bug spawning seeming to be very biased depending on the mission seed, sometimes creating hordes of one type of bug in particular. In the case of spewers specifically it is a solid B+. Being able to dismantle the conga line of spewers that seems to inevitably form on missions where they spawn, or pick off individual ones sneaking up on teammates is invaluable. Along with I’ve found that commanders in particular can destroy the cohesion of a team by being just tanky enough against non support weapons to draw fire while rushing in, and then distracting the team from engaging the rest of the approaching swarm, the railgun is also a good counter to commanders as long as they are engaged swiftly after emerging. Finally I will add that the railgun can combo quite effectively with dedicated anti tank against titans, with a hit from an EAT equivalent followed by 1-2 overcharged railgun shots being able to decap a bile. Generally I would say against bugs the railgun is between a B+ and a C+ depending on spawn composition.
Yeah it's ability to drop hulks so easily and that it one shots everything less than that is pretty strong. I'd argue it's also very solid against chargers. It being kind of un-great against titans and factory striders doesn't warrant it being ranked so low by seemingly everyone. Also we can't go back to pre-nerf OG railgun, there would still be no reason to ever take anything else
In my opinion the arc thrower is the best weapon to use against the Terminds because you can kill a charger in 5 headshots and stun lock spewers, I’ve never really used it against the bots since you do have to be around 50 meters to hit one so I’ve personally never recommend using one against bots. My mindset when it comes to fighting either faction is Bugs = AOE and DOT whiles the Bots are Pression Explosions and Infinite Ammo
I would put it in S but I tried to suppress my extreme love for the weapon haha. I do agree it's amazing as it gives you an option for every enemy except Bile Titans. Only issue is when the bodies start piling up on level 9, you struggle to land shots past them.
The Arc Thrower STILL fails to properly discharge about 30% of the time. It's slow, does bad damage to anything that isn't chaff, and the Blitzer primary is literally better in every way..
stalwart may not be the optimal bug pick, but i find that running the stalwart with eats and 500kg/precision strike (4th slot could be another AT stratagem or CC like gas) gives you enough flexibility to deal with chargers/bile titans while also able to do cc fairly well obviously doesnt contend with the power of the incendiary breaker, but its still the most fun loadout for me
you should use the basic airstrike over the 500kg. The 500kg does only slightly more damage and the normal airstrike hits a MUCH wider area. It's also less problematic when trying to take out things like nests.
Personally love the grenade launcher. It's my go to for nearly all missions with how many enemies it can take out + it's ease of use at blowing up fabs, bug holes, and other objectives. The recent buff to spore spewers (fog generators) really hurt it though, so I may switch to the recoiless rifle from now on. Still, I'll miss the stagger it causes on any target it doesn't outright blow up
You dont really need dps, because for most enemies its not that useful. What you should look up is H2AEN, which gives you a better picture. Breakpoints, ammo efficiency, time to kill are far better metrics and less obvious. Use these instead.
12:27 Bit of a nitpick but a cartridge is an individual round, aka the bullet, casing, gunpowder, and primer. The thing you’re referring to is a clip that contains five cartridges. To clear up any further confusion, a clip grips a bunch of cartridges for easier/faster handling, while a magazine basically stores them in a spring-loaded box to feed them into the weapon. In the autocannon’s case, you use a clip to load a built-in magazine, but most weapons just use external magazines.
It’s fun just gotta get use to it . Glad more people starting to use it. Take armor with 30% recoil and extra nades and supply pack til u get used to it . I found it’s easier to handle when turning fire rate down to 450 and crouching when u can . I love running under factory striders and unloading a clip in its belly to take it down
A note for the recoiless rifle. You can swap weapons/uncrouch after the game shows you put the rocket in the launcher and cut off about 2 seconds from the total reload.
It needs a particle effect when it hits, maybe a big arc of electricity against bots, a spray of blood and shell fragments vs bugs... its lack of hit verification through effect animation is highly lacking is my main issue with it, orbital railcannon got way more thought and consideration.. love that strategem
I think a lot of people really misunderstand the HMG- and I get it. The other two LMGs more or less share a role and niche, and it's fair to assume the HMG will do the same. When you try to apply it to that role, and it doesn’t work, it's frustrating. That said, the HMG is a genuine workhorse when used correctly in it's actual role. It's a dedicated weapon for dealing with heavy-medium targets. I wouldn't take it against bugs, but it can be a gamechanger for medium/close range engagements against bots. Renegade Tom actually made a pretty solid video on it not longer ago, and I was pleased to see someone else give it the love it deserves.
I really want to like the HMG, but the recoil and mag size are just awful. I think if AH buffs these 2 things even a little I'd use the weapon fairly often.
Take armor with 30% less recoil and extra nades for stun . Turn rpm down to 450 and take a knee when can and it’s easy to control and so much fun . Once u get used to it u won’t need a supply pack
@@M4W3L brother it’s goes out quick since the mag is small compared to the other machines guns even at a slower fire rate plus the constant reloading isn’t worth taking in the higher difficulty’s and supply isn’t worth bringing for the heavy machine gun since you can’t reload while running like the grenade launcher since the grenade launcher and supply pack is really good with each other. lower difficulty is whole different story since you can use anything
On the 2nd upgrade for justification for more munitions, I would present traitor barrage Currently traitor barrage shells is shared between 380mm, walking and orbital precision. While we need to wait for 4 mins between each barrage cool-down, once traitor status activates, it never stops raining 380mm shells So the thought is that super earth is still cheaping out on offensive use of munitions, but are willing to expend everything to kill one traitor Hang on, someone is at the do-*gets blown up by 380mm shells
The heavy machine gun doesn't actually sit in the same use case as the other two, lvl 4 armor pen means that it can punch through a hulk's eye and you don't need to be too precise with the firerate. It's a heavy unit suppression tool rather than a crowd clearing one.
If I could add in one thing to the game, it'd be an ammo belt backpack. It's effect would be that for specific weapons (like the machine guns, assault rifles and marksmen rifles) your mags are converted into a single pool as the backpack feeds ammo into the gun in place of the mags. It could even increase the maximum ammo capacity.
@@TheWileSpice Thank you :) I just had a little thought, using previous tier lists (practical use and coolness) are probably not quite suitable for some missions; plus some of them first appear on different difficulties, which is an interesting moment for listing. Also it is possible to divide them by three groups (Automaton missions/Terminid missions/common missions), if you like it. Idk. Just thought it can be a little advice or something :)
you deserve way more subs, nice work! NO mention of the mech though? I know it isn't a weapon but it is in the support category or AH may make a vehicle category when they add more mayybe lol
Honestly, the heavy mg is up there with some of the good unlocks in the game like the Blast-Absorption turret upgrade. Again it’s I something I hear you praise time and time again.
You forgot to mention how much more op the grenade launcher becomes when you equip a resupply backpack being able to spray grenades downrange without concern for ammo
Great vid!! But i gotta say i love using the he MG- 206 again bots. Put on your heavy armour, bring your shield BP and scream for FOR SUPER EAAAAAARTH!!! Fireing in smaller bust, getting in close with it and fire only at armoured tagets NEVER at the small ones, they dont deserve the honor of getting liberated by the the MG-206
Thank ya! I could see the value in using it more sparingly against the Bots. I suppose I still wish it had way more ammunition and was slightly faster to use.
Hey, great video! Just a suggestion/feedback, but maybe it would be nice if you put up more numbers regarding various weapon stats from your tests on the screen that way someone could quickly go back to reference it instead of needing to listen over and over again. Keep up the good work!
I don't agree personally, support weapons are supposed to be stronger than primaries and it is the ideal chaff clear support weapon. I don't think we need to take that niche away from it. Also HMG with 5AP just seems silly, that's the same as EAT/RR/Quazar
Heavy machinegun with reduced recoil armor perk will let you auto dump into a hulks eyeball when prone, bonus points if you have anything to stun it and keep it still, and lets you auto dump into ANYTHING thats exposed and smaller than a tank. Amazing at taking out shield devastators too, just make sure you set it to the lowest fire rate for more control. Its not E tier, but atleast C tier on bots and D tier on bugs. You gotta change your whole kit around it. A supply backpack lets you be a lot more aggressive too with ammo dumping because you get two mags like a stalwart, where the medium MG only gets one magazine.
In my opinion, the "Ariburst" rocket launcher is the single trashiest unreliable thing ever. I wipe patrols maybe 10% or the time aiming dead center of the group from above and get maybe 2-3 kills about 90% of the time. But that only works if I fire it from over 75m otherwise the helldiver-seeking clusters will kill me half the time. And that is so, so, so much worse when i see someone else use it, they usually end up with double-digit collaterals. And before anyone says i didn't give it it's chance, i used it for about 5 missions pre-patch and about 5 post-patch and found it hardly usable even in it's intended purpose (horde clear). They really missed the ball on it and should have made it an actual airburst rocket instead of a proximity-fused cluster bomb. Something like light armor penetration 15m radius explosion with fragments that falloff over 30m would have been very good for trash clear. Instead we have a very unreliable hand-portable cluster bomb. The great missed opportunity for most people is the recoilless riffle, this thing slaps. Especially when team-loading It just melts anything, especially Factory Striders, chargers and Bile Titans. Railgun is, in my opinion, a very good medium killer and a poor man's heavy killer. I have not played before the huge original nerf but, i believe it should be moved to primary weapons as it is now, after all in the first game, the railgun WAS a primary weapon. Plus, it would give a good reason/opportunity to bring a machine gun! Lastly, the HMG has one single redeeming quality in my book, it slaps against automaton, it seemed like you forgot they existed when talking about the HMG. It can shoot through the weakpoints of any enemy in the automaton side.
You can shoot the Quasar even more in one mission. Just like the EAT you can call down a second one and juggle between the two while one is cooling down. Before the nerf the timing was almost perfect for sustained fire, but now it's still an option. This is very situational but super useful when dealing with a gun ship factory or a big bot drop.
The thing about the HMG is, because it has Medium Pen 2, it actually does twice as much damage per shot to Medium armor targets as the Medium Machine Gun. At 900 rpm you knock a Devastator out with a single burst. At 450 you do more damage to Medium targets than a MG-43 at 900 rpm, and you can keep it on target when crouched in Recoil Reduction armor. And it has pen 4 which means you can kill Hulks by shooting them in the eye, and because 450 crouched in RR armor is controlable, you can actually hit the eye at close range. It also has 35% structural damage instead of 10% like other machine guns so it can kill structures, charger and Bile Titan tails. It is a high skill floor/high skill ceiling weapon. On automatons, I'm enjoying taking the DCS, HMG, grenade pistol, stun grenades and a supply pack with fortified armor. When you are really in the groove, it's fun combination, with the DCS being able to head shot Devastators and one shot rangers, and the HMG able to absolutely blitz walkers, Devestators, tanks, turrets, able to knock out Hulks, and even able to take down Gunships, you feel like a combination Hercules and Rambo rolled into one. But when you're off... oh boy that's not pretty. Not pretty at all.
A strategy I did on one of those new defense missions where you have to hold out for about 20 minutes was double-fisting laser cannons to deal with factory striders on my own. As soon as one was just about to overheat, I would swap to the other one and continue beaming it in the eye.
I have a tip that works fantastically. If you aim all the way up, the grenade launcher and pistol will land it's shot almost exactly 55m ahead of you. I've killed hundreds of enemies this way. It's amazing for running from big crowds of bots to fire behind you without being exposed, and if you deviate your aim around properly you can wipe out bases full of enemies and clean out fabs and tunnels by hand. It's saved us so many times, I'm shocked at how effective it is.
A thing about the autocannon is that it can kill chargers pretty well with matadors. The backside of the frontleg can be penetrated and damaged, and chargers die instanly if one of the front legs is destroyed like when shooting an exposed part with your primary.
The flamethrower will always have a place in my Heart. The simple feeling of bellowing out a stream of flame at bugs and lighting everything on fire makes the pyromaniac in me smile and gifdy with Joy. Combined with napalm and an amm backpack I'll dish out as much flame as i want.
Against bots the railgun is actually quite good. Hulks, devastators, and scout striders are the big concerns most of the time and the railgun can easily one tap them in unsafe mode with good accuracy. Against tanks, turrets, and factory striders its not very effective but they are usually in low enough numbers that airstrikes/orbitals can deal with them. The only thing that the railgun is poor against that can't be covered by stratagems would be gunships so that needs to be handled by somebody with an AC, AMR, Laser Cannon, or the other AT weapons. When taking on a flyer fab, the railgunner would probably be the person running in to plant the hellbomb while somebody provides anti air coverage. Having a railgun blow the top half off a rocket dev or heavy dev is extremely satisfying.
I think a fun idea for ship upgrades would be for us to be able to unlock different scopes by spending samples on the super destroyer. And more zoom levels. For example, for the AMR we can buy a scope that gives us 250 or 300-meter scopes for like 20 super samples, 200 common, and 200 rare, or something ridiculous we could grind towards.
Fun fact. Stalwart actually can damage charger leg armor leaving small at first, then bigger and bigger holes in it's armor. Not the greatest idea considering you have all other ways to kill a charger... but like where it's only option it's ok.
i love the way this is structured. you should do one for the primaries and secondaries. yes i know there are already 100 of those videos. but the way you break down each one with penetration, what they can and cant do. its a great structure. most other primary weapon tier lists just say "this gun is ass" then move on.
A few peeps have been requesting the same so it's on the list of videos now. I would like to cover the Stratagems first, which sort of works since we are (hopefully) expecting buffs & stuff to the primaries soon.
Anyone who is coming to this video a little later, can confirm that the HMG is pretty nasty now. It kinda needs an ammo pack. Not necessarily, but allows you to use it much more. It can kill everything quickly besides a bile titan. And even then will shreds it sacks. You can 2-3 shot a hulk to the head, or shred its back. Shoot a walking fabricator in the stomach and drop it in like 15ish bullets. The gunship can even be killed if you can track it's engines. The HMG will destroy any horde no matter how beefy, extremely quickly. It is very slow to turn and aim, but there's armor that helps with this now. Highly recommend this weapon.
The one (major) saving grace for the heavy machine gun is that it kills bile titans in 2 mags, and can penetrate their flesh (IE the popped green parts). When pumped up to max fire rate, this can be done reasonably fast at that. The other two machine guns, by comparison, both deflect once the two bile sacs are popped, even to the exposed underside
The Spear can also turn you into your teams main support, specially agaisnt the bot, gunship targeting your bro? spear, fabricator annoying your team? spear, tank? spear, hulk? spear, factory walker? 3 - 6 spear shots, only thing you have problem with is small enemies and dropships, but you can lock in tanks before they are even dropped
I do wish it was more consistent against Factory Walkers. But its really a treat against a lot of things on the bot side. I thoroughly enjoy clearing bases from across the map haha.
AMR is perfectly capable on bugs It's easy enough to sweep all mediums and lights no matter what the range and it can do it without starting breaches at very safe ranges. It can also rapid fire chargers butts in a pinch as well, which can be done after a dive dodge since you'll probably have the angle for it.
I'd emphasize the 'heavy' in heavy machinegun. Get rid of the hip fire reticule entirely, give it an accuracy buff when fired from prone or behind cover, and a penalty if you try and fire while moving, buff the damage a little bit, and give it an optional ammo backpack. Lastly - make it the first machinegun where another player can help you reload - wherein they pull out the next ammo box, and clip the belts together before the current one is spent, negating the reloads entirely. I spent two years as an assistant machinegunner, and I'd link up all the 220rnd belts we were given into one long ass belt and carry it in my backpack. When we got to a shooting position, I'd pull my pack off, open it up, and tap my gunner into the whole keg of like 600~ rounds. We only needed to stop for barrel changes or malfunctions.
Flamethrower is just absolutely insane against bugs. Finished a solo suicide mission with 809 kills and at one point, I killed 4 behemoth chargers in one engagement and my kill streak reached 63. Should honestly be S tier no questions asked against terminids.
The AMR was the first strategem I bought. This thing has gotten me through all of my battles and saved me in my most intense battle so far. (To give some sort of idea of how intense it was, take malevolen creek and select one of the missions.)
AMR is defiantly my favorite against bots. It’s not for every situation because you still have to figure out how to deal with tanks. But it is very fun to run scout armor and run the map like a goon taking out every small-medium base along the way.
I love taking the expendable with either the amr or the auto gun, and I'll just drop my weapon for an expendable, shoot both off, and then pick my main gun back up. It's very nice for taking out targets that I couldn't already get through.
i am a huge fan of the heavy machine gun because it genuinely is a lifesafer in higher difficulties, you can kill hulks from the front with ease by aiming for the head and can quickly mow down a swarm of striders or berserkers once you get the handling down
I've had the game just under a month. I gotta say the grenade launcher at lvl 5 is such a game changer. I'd recommend any new player make that a priority purchase.
Fun fact, the AMR (along with, I presume but haven't tested, all non energy magazine weapons),, if you reload with some ammo left, you will reload faster and have an extra round available.
Changes to the HMG to make it viable: Make it a backpack weapon, where the backpack feeds ammo directly into the gun, so you can't need to reload, double ammo capacity because backpack. 225 turns into 450, and no reload, but it takes a backpack slot. Drop the recoil by 5.
![Shenseea - Dating Szn (Options) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/eUePmZFIXUg/mqdefault.jpg)
7:12 When you said "the MG-43 Machine Gun" i thought you said MG for free... wonder if that was the idea behind the number since its the only stratagem you have at the start 😂
Mind blown hahaha. Surely that's what it means?!
Same lmaooo
I think it’s named after the German MG 42 from WWII
@@gpdragonfire1652But then edited to be 4 free? Cuz I mean, they didn't keep the 42 number? 🤔
@@redreaper1991 coz you get it for free after a tutorial
i think the first upgrade is the pinnacle of the absurdity of helldivers 2. not ONLY do you not get full ammo for your weapons, the family of whatever helldiver you're playing for the next five minutes has to pay for the extra, AND you need to get a license for them to do so. i love it
Democracy 🇺🇸
Wow super earth really is just space America
I’d vote for the fact the orbitals are muzzle loaded if not upgraded, but that’s a strong second pick haha
That and the turrets are reinforced with super glue and Styrofoam
@@memelord7113nah Space US in this case would opt for Space A10 Warthogs due to the lack of enemy air units
I find it so funny that the helldivers community voted against the anti-tank mines because of how much team killing mines do, when the anti-tank mines don't team kill and we instead got the cluster launcher.
I wanted the AT mines, but I loathe playing in the fire planets with all my heart
@@LPR44 fire tornadoes are the real enemy on those planets.
@@LPR44 There is nothing wrong with Hellmire. We go in with flamethrowers, incen mines and incen airstrike and not a single person gets set on fire, but 1000s of bugs do
Well... the bigger problem was that the AT mines required us to capture an entire extra planet before even having the option to try to get it, so most people just took the shortest path.
A vote would have made sense if both planets took the same amount of effort.
@albinorhino4044 Hellmire is on the bug side. Menkent was in the way of the planet that had the AT mines and is an automaton planet and fire isn't that effective against the automatons. Unlike the bugs.
Hip firing the MG43 into a swarm of bugs is the most cinematic this game can get
*Gooooooood Morning, Vietnam!*
*Sympathy for the Devil plays in the distance*
I argue that, and my argument is hip firing the flame thrower
HMG
GET SOME GET SOOOOOOME
Tell that to 4 people throwing 380mm on a heavy automaton outpost
I wish they left superior packing methodology broken for 8 weeks before fixing it with the patch note "superior packing methodology training has been completed and now helldivers will begin to notice the benefits of the training in the field."
Yeah…. 😅and we were crushing it.
I once heard someone say the HMG would be a lot of fun if you just wore an ammo pack that reloaded it as you shot.
I could see this being very much true.
It honestly isn’t a bad pick against the Automatons, kills hulks faster than anything. Problem is you have to get super close to use it because the sight is shit
As someone who runs HMG with supply pack, I can confirm this is this case.
If you think of the supply pack as primarily for yourself like an autocannon, RR or spear pack with the capability to restock your teammates if needed, this pairing is incredible - especially since (unlike the autocannon/RR/spear packs) it also resupplies your stims, grenades, primary and secondary ammo.
Personally I wish there was a cape or armor passive that would let me use an autoloader on my holstered secondaries. Imagine alternating fire between a senator and a smg as you push up with a shield
@@M4W3L Yeah all HMG needs is a small bump from 75 to 100 mag size, staged reload, and maybe slightly tune down the recoil when crouched
I love that you can still hear the helldiver's muffled screaming in the background while firing the MGs
Hahaha, had to keep it in!
Worth mentioning: The Stalwart reload speed is slow, but it's possible to run while reloading. The MG and HMG require stationary reloading.
With the Jump Pack, you can reload while in mid-air.
@@tipogameplay795 but then you aren't running supply pack, which is quite bad idea when you have sustained fire weapon with relatively low mag counter
It's one of the Stalwart's primary draws, and he didn't even mention it.
I stopped watching the second he called the HMG "garbage"
Clearly doesn't know what he's on about
@@geegeetomlinson2316 when this video was made hmg was petty much the worst support weapon, it's only later that hmg was buffed to its current state
@@neijrr The buff was that recent? This video was only a couple of months ago, around the time of that buff wasn't it?
I might have jumped the gun, when exactly was the buff in relation to this video?
Feels like it took exactly 8 weeks for Upgrade Packing to be working...Probably a coincidence
Arrowhead being realistic, nice
Lore accurate W?
Reasons why I take recoilless over quasar:
1. You can animation cancel reload so instead of 6s it takes 4s (I usually tap stratagem menu)
2. Probably most powerful team reload weapon in the game, you can drop your backpack next to teammate in a pinch and ask teammate to help with reload
3. You can instantly fire while quasar needs to whind up before shooting I much rather spend this time on reload
4. You can split reload to 2 stages, first eject shell, deal with enemies and then insert new shell
Animation canceling is crazy I take out entire Bot Drop drop ships single handedly
Recoilless is goated, and i'm very happy to see people using it post quasar patch. The only issue I've ver encountered is it's sooo easy to just blast through ammo, but also it's sooo good
You give up your back pack slot though, so no shield or dog.
@@asabovesobelow1362 Personally, I just can't abandon my laser hovering doggo.
Hearing those &€#@& hunters screaming in agony is the greatest pleasure.
You can also just hit the crouch button again and it will cancel the animation and you're ready to shoot standing up.
Spear against bots is a great support weapon! The ability to clear fabricators and cannon towers over the entire map is just awesome and works very well. It is also good against gunships, decent against hulks (have yet to learn if there is a reliable possibility to one-shot them) and ok against factory striders. The only downside: you need planets with clear line of sight (ice or desert is great, forest is the worst).
Second this
If only it worked correctly...
If the Hulks are walking straight at you you'll usually get the missile to go straight into their eye and one shot them.
@@Ben-fk9ey Hm... will try to make this, thanks!
Wait what? I haven’t used it much but I’ve never been able to take out a drop ship with one. It will lock on. Then the rocket will hit anything but the engine. How on earth do you make this work? I thought it was bugged or something.
Always happy to see people recognizing the Laser Cannon for the incredible automaton weapon it is.
Its truly a beast of a weapon against them
@@TheWileSpiceThrow a ballistic shield and you will feel amazing!
The 6 for the AMR's aesthetics actually breaks my heart a little bit
also should be s tier against bots as it allows you to use shield or whatver backpack
Especially because you can become a Mandolorian if you go AMR and Jumppack, literally don’t play anything else when vs bots.
Hahaha, I'm sorry fellow 'Diver. Guess its just not for me!
@@TheWileSpicefair enough
Best support weapon for me.
I have always loved sniper rifles - and if you have a certain accuracy, you can use them to fight any enemies, except perhaps a walking factory. And here I’m just not sure, because usually they bombard him with stratagems before I try something, and alone I don’t have the patience to run around looking for him.
the AMR deserves S tier against bots, if the heavy laser does. No backpack, decent ammo capacity, can kill tanks, hulks, factory striders, objective buildings, turrets etc pair with stun grenades and a supply pack and go crazy.
Can the AMR kill tanks beyond hitting the heat sinks?
@@kbobkpop yeah, takes nearly the whole mag though, so its not the best there but it can do it
@@kbobkpop the entire back half is vulnerable, not just the vent exactly but essentially yes, only that. You can trick shot it with even a little angle tho.
As far as I can tell the two have the same pen and deal pretty similar damage (AMR has very high theoretical dps but has substantial recoil and has to reload) but the laser can infinite ammo and the AMR has absolutely abysmal ammo economy. Like, outside of the HMG I can't think of a single gun in the game that has worse ammo economy than the AMR.
@@Vorael flamethrower, grenade launcher, mg34... but i admit its not like the economy is overboard without a supply pack. you could have a supply pack tho, since it doesnt use a backpack slot. im repeating myself now
Stalwart just feels perfect for an LMG.
I agree. Amazingly fun to use.
For a game purposes yeah, but that black-hole magasine sure would be fun if it could be shared with the other MGs, this thing has bottomless mags.
It's my favourite. ☺️ Huge plus is screaming FOR SUPER EEAAAARTH!!! 10/10
It feels like crap wtf? Support weaoon slot with no AP? Give me a break m8
@@leeham6230thats for your fellow helldivers to deal with. You're on cleanup duty vs small enemies with your stalwart.
The AC-8 Autocannon actually kills a charger in 4 shots, just let it bleed out instead of wasting ammo.
Additionally it can kill spore spewers and shrieker nests given about 9 shots.
How do you force bleed?
@@mothmanafterdark5924 Destroy it's but.
And you can kill a bile titan with the AC-8 by shooting its tail off from the underside. Doesn't take too many shots either, I think around 12.
@@DCTriv It's a tad inconsistent due to ricochet angles but yes it is possible.
Anytime I have an autocannon and I see a bug tower, I take that shit out. Very useful for taking out structures like that.
I love the EAT-17. Not only do you get to drop them constantly throughout a battle, it's also one of the only "shareable" support weapons. It's nice to get a second launcher, but also cool to let a team mate grab one up to, and before you know it, you can drop 2 more.
Great video. What I like most about it is the fact that when anything is changed, this will provide a reference for what it changed from. Thanks, Spice!
Thanks Cash. Will be interesting to see how much things change in the future!
The AMR has a faster reload time if you reload it while there's still a bullet in the chamber. This is because your helldiver won't need to manually chamber it and it will leave your AMR with 8/7 bullets.
yo real shit 👀
i've gotta try that out
@@starblissed It works on most ballistic weapon in the game actually. That includes all assault rifles, marksman rifles and smgs.
Yea but that’s a wasted bullet
@@kinguchiha6212 No its not. I just said the bullet is in the chamber. It is literally still in the gun.
@@mystery_exe I knew it worked on most guns, just for some reason I thought it didn't for the AMR. no idea why lmao
Something that's a little annoying is that I'm a Recoilless Rifle user and lots of people have a misunderstanding with it (I also used to be one of those people too).
It is gun for shooting tank rounds. That is why it is called the Recoilless Rifle, it has an open rear so you don't loose your shoulder when shooting a round that's meant for a tank. It is not a rocket launcher because it does not have the splash damage that Expendable Anti-Tank does, or shoot missiles. It shoots bullets, which is also why you have to eject the projectile casing.
I tried recoilless multiple times, but... I don't understand it. Yep, it's meant for tanks. But when a bile titan is coming for your life, you can't oneshot it with recoilless and you don't have time to load recoilless multiple times.
When it comes to the accessibility of the shots, Quasar wins. You don't need to make manual reloads. You just do a shot and forget about it, it recharged automatically.
When it comes to the ability to make 2-3 shots quickly, you just pick two EAT's or even more EAT's.
When it comes to the ability to rapid fire and you have a teammate, you can give the backpack to him, but then the ammo is just gone in an instant.
So I don't see why is it better than EAT or Quasar. So yeah, I'm stupid, I don't understand.
@@theshadower5565 For me, the 3 seconds it takes to fire the Quasar is a huge negative over the Recoiless. I bring Recoiless because against Terminids when things get hectic, I need to kill a Charger right THIS INSTANT. Trying to line up the shot for 3 seconds against one or multiple Chargers coming after you, along with hordes of other bugs makes it extremely difficult for me to use.
Often times I can find time to reload my Recoiless and instantly one shot a Charger (especially by cancelling the last part of the reload animation), but for the Quasar, that 3 second wind up hurts when you are in the thick of it, when you both NEED this Charger dead AND need to RUN before getting jumped by Hunters.
I'll take the longer reload then instant kill a Charger over the 3 second wind up when I need it dead NOW, before I get attacked by some other bug.
@@theshadower5565if you play on higher difficulties the RR has the potential of rapidly removing many bile titans that in rapid succession, whereas the quasar has a extremely long down time (15+3 seconds). You need two well placed rockets to kill a bile titan (unless you have the spear, in which case when the stars align thatd be 1). RR has a reload time of 6 but can be cut down to be about 5, and also can be reload assisted to be 1 second (not that youll see this often).
Either way, in a good position the RR has far less downtime then the quasar. When you have to face 4+ bile titans, 18 seconds is simply not going to be helpful.
@@theshadower5565 You can reload cancel to load the RR faster though. I use it in Helldive bugs all the time and find time to reload for the most part. For Biles, I think only the Spear can one shot those. Not sure why it gets a negative for that.
@@theshadower5565now its not so bad since u can reload cancel
19:33 you can also cosplay as an airstrike by slowly pulling your aim down while shooting to make all the grenades land at the same time.
If I were to balance the MG's, all I'd do is increase the ammo of Heavy MG to 125 rounds, the standard MG to 175, and keep the stalwart at 250. Maybe decrease HMG recoil ever so slightly, and I think this would cement these as good supports that clear chaff better than primaries, but not as heavy hitting as rocket launchers or autocannon.
The ammo capacity change really would make the HMG & MG feel so much better to use. Just more up-time in combat makes such a big difference!
I want the HMG to be belt fed from a backpack with maybe 300 rounds. Sacrifice a defense backpack for a heavy gunner offense. Can then introduce a minigun with backpack later on as well.
@@TheWileSpice With there being so many stratagems in the game i would love it if they made MGs a primary weapon. Since in still using the starting assault rifle and yet to unlock the incendiary shotgun
For the heavy i think 25 more rounds in the mag and heavy armor piercing wkuld be better.
I don't see a problem with the machine gun at all.
The heavy machine gun though doesn't really do anything that the machine gun doesn't already do.
It probably does more damage, but the improvement isn't really noticeable enough.
Airburst is amazing for clearing large groups. 6-12 kills every shot with reliability. If everyone focused for heavy hitting weapons it's good but having 3 people focus heavy targets and 1 person taking care of the groups it's amazing. Love ending with 500 kills
Also pair it with the auto cannon turret and target a POI or scout party on helldiver solo.
Spear would also be S tier if it locked reliably. 1 shots Bile Titans from the front
Grenade launcher is also great for blitz missions for destroying bug nest. Don't need to stop like the auto cannon
And its a beautiful light show every time as well. So much fun to use.
@@TheWileSpice I've made some amazing saves from over 200m wiping out dozens chasing a fellow Helldiver. They get saved amd get a show
@@TheWileSpiceThat’s why it’s S tier for me. Like you said, not because it’s better than the Grenade launcher, but because it’s so much cooler, and can kill your friends easiest 😂
Not to mention before the explosion nerf this thing would clean house often wiping out 15 bots. After the nerf it's can still reliably wipe out groups. Just be sure to hit below the waistline on bots or near the ground to better utilize the burst.
Holy crap holy crap where the heck have you been all of my helldivers to life this is literally the best most informational and at the same time entertaining content I've seen from any RUclipsr so far as far as helldivers go all of the props go to you sir I'm going to subscribe I'm going to check out all of your videos thank you thank you thank you :)
Thank you! Welcome to the club & I hope you enjoy the other videos!
No it fucking isn't this guy is so unbelievably wrong about so much.
Not gonna lie, I really like your videos. You don't just list the raw stats and stuff, you actually talk about the flavour text and lore, and its so nice
Much appreciated! The lore of the game is quite humorous so I wanted to have fun with it!
I feel like something forgotten a lot is the EAT being on short cool down makes rearming yourself after deaths much easier. It’s not always easy to go pickup a quasar or auto cannon after every death
When you have a Spear user in your team on Automatons, objectives become trivial. I think the low ranking is due to impatience.
No, its the fact that the spear is just inconsistent. The lock on is still bugged 3 months after release!
Yeah, I just ran a Bot mission with the spear again and it feels great, IF it actually locks on. I would wish for a secondary firing mode or something like that, where you can guide the rocket with a laser pointer or fire on a spot on the ground after some windup.
I had the annoying thing of tanks or factories "hiding" behind a less than meter wide column and therefore being untargetable.
Has way to little ammo, you will be wasting alot of team's ammo that could be Stun nades and stims, if i want to clear a heavy automaton base on helldive i can throw 380 barrage and a laser too ..
If the lock on was spot on I'd probably put it a tier above for both lists.
@icata12345 what are you talking about? No stims or nades wasted. You pick up ammo from regular ammo boxes. Could have 8 or more at some POIs. Easily take out a heavy base from 500m out. Farthest I've taken out objectives was 700m. Super vertical map and was able to take down 4 objectives. 2 medium bases, 1 small, 1 large. All from the ammo it came with and the POI that are buried stashes. Just 1 poi and I did more then half the objectives.
I love the Airburst for Egg Nest Missions, i often have 1-2 shots them form like 200+ Meters aways, it just satisfying when it happends and pretty effective. It also great to 1-2 Shot if placed good Ammunition Depos in Sabotage Mission.
Youd still have to go in there for the sampels so i dont really see the point
@@dripwastaken7884 Max Samps+Max Upgrades
@@chriss4107 your teammates might not be maxed tho thats why i always pick all sampels up even tho im maxed too
Only thing you missed to add for the Stalwart, it can be reloaded while on the move compared to the other LMG/MG
It's written in text on screen during the reload timer. He just didn't say it out loud.
Yeah this point really should have been emphasized; for me its the main reason to use the Stalwart over others.
@@DOSdaze not the fact that its nearly 1200rpm makes it among the highest damaging bullet weapons in the game? Oh you didnt know you could turn up the fire rate?
I do have to say for the HMG, recoil reduction heavy armor, supply pack and only against bots. I've been having quite a bit of fun with it against bots lately. Not saying it is amazing but it does give you a lot of stun grenades to run around with as well. Kinda fun swatting gunships out of the sky.
I would never take this for bugs though.
I have also tried it for a couple of days consequtively against bots. I think it is a viable option, but I do not enjoy it as much as AC, laser cannon, spear, or recoilless rifle... not sure if I will choose it again. As you say: not amazing... it is viable. But I simply don't like it. Stalwart feels really great, but the HMG ... nah.
I think my biggest issue with it, is it feels bad to use as a machine gun, which the fire rates encourage me to do.
But it's better used like a burst fire marksmans rifle
@@TheWileSpice Not going to disagree there. It needs more rounds in the drum. I tend to keep it on the medium fire since that gives you the best RoF to handling middleground. I also don't run it often because it is a bit janky. Though I am also someone who loves to play with the Knight, so I may just be insane.
@@TheWileSpice I think this is exactly why I dislike it! It just does not feel like a machine gun.
I realized that I only use it against hulks on short distance, against gunships and sometimes hesitantly against devastators. And, of course, opportunity shots on weakpoints, all at short range due to the high recoil. Is this what you meant by "burst fire marksman rifle" or did you think about longer ranges?
@@ludewichThat's how MGs, especially larger ones are used though, burst firing.
About the HMG : It definitely does enough damage to justify the small clip size. 76 bullets is enough to kill 19 devasator, 7 devastator and a factory strider, 3 bot emplacements (mortars, AA turrets), a spore spewer, or half a bile titan's abdomen. It's a bit weird to have to carefully line up single shots or 4-shot burst with a machine gun rather than going full auto, but it's definitely worth it.
The scope is extremly missalined tho.
About the railgun :
It's an anti-medium weapon that can goes against heavies, not a dedicated anti heavies. It can kill chargers with 3 70% shots and one shot hulks in safe mode, but where it shine is one-shotting devastators, brood commanders, bile spewers and stalkers with a very good handling and precision.
If it was reverted, it would be the best anti-heavies support weapon while not even being a dedicated anti-heavy. What would be the place of the like of Quasar cannon and EAT if the railgun does their job better ?
I guess in my opinion, it handles so poorly that you don't get the value it gives on paper unless you sit still, which isn't great against the bots.
It feels poor to use as a machine gun. More like a really fat marksmans rifle lol.
The scope pains me!
@@TheWileSpice That's about right, as a machine gun it's quite bad unless you're firing from directly under a BT or factory strider. But as a precision weapon it work well.
I been running railgun and my only problem with it is it’s horrible at taking out gunships . Do you know how many shots it takes to take down gunships on unsafe mode ?becuase I haven’t done it yet
Potential damage is incredibly hypothetical for obvious reason, and even then the both the stalwart and the machine gun blows the hmg out of the water. Both the hmg and mg have the same breakpoints on devs/berserkers. The perk it does have is being able to kill strider factories, as youve stated, as well as tanks, turrets and iirc gunships?
There are two ways to fix the hmg, but machine guns themselves also need some buff imo. First is to have better economy. Despite having far less ammo (225+1 in total), the hmg doesnt really do a hell a lot of damage per round compared to the mg, which means for most enemies that they can both handle the breakpoint isnt that significant, especially if you take ammo economy into consideration. For example, the mg requires 6 rounds to kill a Brood commander, whereas the hmg needs 4. Respectively, thats 4% and 5.33% of 1 magazine. Increasing the damage might be a solution, but i do think having more ammo in a magazine and reserve is the way to go. More shooting and less reloading would go a long way.
Secondly, it needs a better optic. That dot scope, outside of being misaligned STILL, doesnt play nice with how the hmg is best used. Give it a scope option with 3 level zoom.
Finally, i think all machine guns need to have increased ergo or handling when crouched or prone. The hmgs biggest issue is how terrible it feels to handle, that despite having a good position, unless enemies are walking directly towards you, it is difficult to maximise its usage. In fact i think all weapons should get better handling when in a lower stance, but machine guns really need this feature.
@@Soleprofit559 I've been told 4, but I've yet to hit one. Ironically, the railgun's projectile is very slow.
I love how in-depth your HD2 vids are. The greater the knowledge given the better prepared we are to spread democracy! Hope for smaller updates on previous vids and possible other Weapon category lists!
Glad you have been enjoying them! Exactly, extra training material for all Helldivers.
Dropped a video yesterday covering the new balance changes to the Sentry, orbital & eagle stratagems! :)
2 things i wanted to say:
No.1: the EAT's Droppod can be used as an extra weapon that can be used to kill chargers (i dont know about bio titans) and additionally can be thrown away for other weapons in the field. because they're one use, not carrying one and picking up a spawned flamethrower instead, calling in spares when you need them is incredibly useful. not sure if it would bump it into S based on that, but the versatility should definitely be considered.
No.2 The Spear has 2 "secret" buffs. the first is when locked on that lock remains locked whilst reloading, meaning you can unleash a second rocket immediately after reloading the second. this makes support reloads even more useful for the spear (i'm not certain but i think it's about 1.5 sec on support reloads. you're a much better judge than i though). this thing is great for taking down striders. the second one is the rocket always attempts to hit the weak point of the enemy. i'll admit, i will have to double check, but against hulks and tanks the rocket always targets the eyes of hulks and the copulas of tanks. if you have the distance these things one shot them easily. a bonus thing i found for lock on: you do not have to use the reticule. the outer circle is often better to get a lock on with, as your aim is not hampered by bits of terrain. keeping moving also helps and always hold fire. the rocket can only fire with a lock so if the lock is hard to maintain launching the moment you have anything is superb. All in all whilst i agree the spear is not the best, its lovck on being really problematic, it's extremely powerful against bots. because their heavies are so slow, and their fabricators easy to lock onto. rarely do i find a time when i don't need this thing. it's not the best, but i would argue a B for the bots, even if it took a lower grade for the Bugs.
Great points! The Spear one is really nice & I noticed it mostly on Factory Walkers (Since it struggles a lot against them sadly?!)
I will say, i love this style of tier list instead of people just slapping thier favorites up with barely any discussion on why
I get the point of this was to assess each support weapon on its own, but to not even mention how much the supply pack does for some weps skews the ratings hugely. Anything that doesn't already have a backpack or infinite ammo can be used as a primary weapon with the supply pack, which gives you the added bonus of effectively quadrupling your reserves of stims, grenades and primary and secondary ammo AND being able to provide unparalleled team support with mobile resupplies.
I personally think the supply pack makes the AMR better than the autocannon for bots. It also makes the MG and HMG head and shoulders better than the stalwart. If you keep the HMG on the lowest rpm, take a knee and aim carefully it absolutely rips through the battlefield, easily the most underappreciated sleeper pick of all support weps
Fair point, but then there's a lot of other factors to consider as well. AMR + Supply is a potent combo, but Autocannon will also free up a slot for another Stratagem which can come in handy in missions with the -1 Stratagem modifier against bots.
Definitely will impact how it feels to use some support weapons on a personal basis, though. There's a good reason why Grenade Launcher + Supply pack is my goto for bug Blitz missions.
For having tested the AMR against automatons recently, it definitely outclasses the autocannon (which is used to play very often against them) for me. It has the same armor penetration and very decent damage too, making it essentially a slightly less powerful autocannon (at least against armored foes) that doesn't take a backpack slot and has less maximum ammo. But if you pair this with a ressuply back pack, using stun grenades, you can absolutely obliterate automatons all on your own, since the backpack provides you with more ammunition than the autocannon one, but also grenades, ammo for your primary and secondary and stims as well. The stun grenades gives you essential crowd control ans space to work with against heavy hitters like hulks or heavy devastators.
It also makes your life so much easier when fighting in a stratagem disturber area, as you'll be far less likely to run out of supplies before destroying it. The only scenario that's gonna give you trouble is if you're alone facing a cannon turret or one of the tanks and can't reach their weakpoint for whatever reason, which will require another stratagem (either 500kg, orbital precision strike or rail canon). But if you play as a team, you can always have someone with a spear / EAT / RR / QC to deal with those, and you're good to go.
It's now my preferred loadout, i'm just more likely to run heavy armor to avoid the random rockets one shots, but since you don't do as much running around (and away) against bots, it's not really a big deal for me, especially with the stamina booster.
the diver screaming at 5:33 gotta be the best part of the video
Hahahaha, its beautiful when there's swarms of enemies on the other end!
The MG-206, fired in short bursts from a defensive position, is a hog against bots. Drops hulks in 5 rounds to the head, drops dominators and everything else in one, can chew up gunships and pulls striders apart. Don't sleep on it.
Thanks for the tip, my light armor scout with the AMR has been working fantastic, but I've been looking for a heavy setup so I can play around with the more drawn out gunfights. For Democracy!
The heavy machine gun is one of the few weapons in this game I think actually does need improved AP.
It just does the same thing as the regular machine gun.
And while some suggest giving it a backpack and a ton of ammo, I think being able to just shoot a charger in the leg would go a longer way in making it stand out from the regular machine gun.
The recoil isn't that bad, I just fire in short bursts well prone, unless I'm super close.
The railgun is amazing, as long as you realize it's not an anti-havy weapon.
It's anti-medium.
And you can blow through multiple brood commanders with a single shot if they're lined up.
Or instantly kill heavy devastators from the side.
And something people rarely ever talk about, It's one of the quieter support weapons in existence, allowing you to eliminate threats at a point of interest or objective location without any breaches or drops being called.
It's a great weapon for mobile, stealth players.
you have my sub wile spice. these videos are pure information, straight to the point, which is needed to spread managed democracy. thank you for your service.
Thank you kindly! Welcome to the club. For Super Earth!
I feel like the only disagreement I have is with the railgun, I think it works perfectly fine as long as it’s viewed more as an AMR that can deal with heavies in a pinch.
Against bots, being able to delete hulks is amazing, and not having to go for head or midriff on devs is useful when holding an angle. Generally I then run rocket pods to deal with tanks. Id put rail as a solid A- to B+ against bots.
While I find the rail’s performance against bots consistent, fighting bugs with it is a lot more bimodal. In a generic game where your heavy hitters come in the form of titans and hunter swarms, it would be a solid C. However with the bug spawning seeming to be very biased depending on the mission seed, sometimes creating hordes of one type of bug in particular. In the case of spewers specifically it is a solid B+. Being able to dismantle the conga line of spewers that seems to inevitably form on missions where they spawn, or pick off individual ones sneaking up on teammates is invaluable. Along with I’ve found that commanders in particular can destroy the cohesion of a team by being just tanky enough against non support weapons to draw fire while rushing in, and then distracting the team from engaging the rest of the approaching swarm, the railgun is also a good counter to commanders as long as they are engaged swiftly after emerging. Finally I will add that the railgun can combo quite effectively with dedicated anti tank against titans, with a hit from an EAT equivalent followed by 1-2 overcharged railgun shots being able to decap a bile. Generally I would say against bugs the railgun is between a B+ and a C+ depending on spawn composition.
Yeah it's ability to drop hulks so easily and that it one shots everything less than that is pretty strong. I'd argue it's also very solid against chargers. It being kind of un-great against titans and factory striders doesn't warrant it being ranked so low by seemingly everyone. Also we can't go back to pre-nerf OG railgun, there would still be no reason to ever take anything else
In my opinion the arc thrower is the best weapon to use against the Terminds because you can kill a charger in 5 headshots and stun lock spewers, I’ve never really used it against the bots since you do have to be around 50 meters to hit one so I’ve personally never recommend using one against bots. My mindset when it comes to fighting either faction is Bugs = AOE and DOT whiles the Bots are Pression Explosions and Infinite Ammo
I would put it in S but I tried to suppress my extreme love for the weapon haha.
I do agree it's amazing as it gives you an option for every enemy except Bile Titans. Only issue is when the bodies start piling up on level 9, you struggle to land shots past them.
The Arc Thrower STILL fails to properly discharge about 30% of the time. It's slow, does bad damage to anything that isn't chaff, and the Blitzer primary is literally better in every way..
stalwart may not be the optimal bug pick, but i find that running the stalwart with eats and 500kg/precision strike (4th slot could be another AT stratagem or CC like gas) gives you enough flexibility to deal with chargers/bile titans while also able to do cc fairly well
obviously doesnt contend with the power of the incendiary breaker, but its still the most fun loadout for me
Agreed. When you want a proper fully automatic run & gun style playthrough it's the weapon to choose. It feels so good to use.
you should use the basic airstrike over the 500kg. The 500kg does only slightly more damage and the normal airstrike hits a MUCH wider area. It's also less problematic when trying to take out things like nests.
Personally love the grenade launcher. It's my go to for nearly all missions with how many enemies it can take out + it's ease of use at blowing up fabs, bug holes, and other objectives. The recent buff to spore spewers (fog generators) really hurt it though, so I may switch to the recoiless rifle from now on. Still, I'll miss the stagger it causes on any target it doesn't outright blow up
It truly is an amazing siege weapon. Can clear bases in a flash with it!
Railgun is my favorite stratagem against bugs. The way you deal with bile titans is 1 eat shot and 1 railgun shot, very good.
we need more videos like these and also a DPS CHART for current weapons and how much dps for each mob and part of mob deals!
You dont really need dps, because for most enemies its not that useful. What you should look up is H2AEN, which gives you a better picture. Breakpoints, ammo efficiency, time to kill are far better metrics and less obvious. Use these instead.
A DPS chart would have been nice. I might slip it into a future video if I can.
12:27 Bit of a nitpick but a cartridge is an individual round, aka the bullet, casing, gunpowder, and primer. The thing you’re referring to is a clip that contains five cartridges.
To clear up any further confusion, a clip grips a bunch of cartridges for easier/faster handling, while a magazine basically stores them in a spring-loaded box to feed them into the weapon. In the autocannon’s case, you use a clip to load a built-in magazine, but most weapons just use external magazines.
Fun fact about the autocannon: if you target the small rear leg of a charger, it will destroy the leg in 3ish hits and kill the charger
Now I feel an urge to use HMG
It’s fun just gotta get use to it . Glad more people starting to use it. Take armor with 30% recoil and extra nades and supply pack til u get used to it . I found it’s easier to handle when turning fire rate down to 450 and crouching when u can . I love running under factory striders and unloading a clip in its belly to take it down
Does a ton of damage. People just gotta stop acting like it's a stalwart and wasting it on light targets. Sights desperately need fixing though
I have dropped 5 hulks in one magazine on 750 fire with the recoil reduction heavy armor. HMG is strictly for bots lol, and it does its job very well
@@Skizzy461 THANK YOU!! I THOUGHT I WAS ONLY ONE
A note for the recoiless rifle. You can swap weapons/uncrouch after the game shows you put the rocket in the launcher and cut off about 2 seconds from the total reload.
as a railgun main i will highly disagree with you it's an actual beast once you've mastered it.
Yeah it has a high skill ceiling, thats why most Divers think it isn't good anymore
It needs a particle effect when it hits, maybe a big arc of electricity against bots, a spray of blood and shell fragments vs bugs... its lack of hit verification through effect animation is highly lacking is my main issue with it, orbital railcannon got way more thought and consideration.. love that strategem
yeah I love the railgun it’s an allrounder in my opinion and extremely fun especially the long range snipes
I think a lot of people really misunderstand the HMG- and I get it. The other two LMGs more or less share a role and niche, and it's fair to assume the HMG will do the same. When you try to apply it to that role, and it doesn’t work, it's frustrating.
That said, the HMG is a genuine workhorse when used correctly in it's actual role. It's a dedicated weapon for dealing with heavy-medium targets.
I wouldn't take it against bugs, but it can be a gamechanger for medium/close range engagements against bots.
Renegade Tom actually made a pretty solid video on it not longer ago, and I was pleased to see someone else give it the love it deserves.
Imo HMG is a jack of all trade weapon, it can do a lot of things but not excel at anything like other weapons
I really want to like the HMG, but the recoil and mag size are just awful. I think if AH buffs these 2 things even a little I'd use the weapon fairly often.
Bring a supply pack, turn the rpm down and take a knee brother
Take armor with 30% less recoil and extra nades for stun . Turn rpm down to 450 and take a knee when can and it’s easy to control and so much fun . Once u get used to it u won’t need a supply pack
@@M4W3L brother it’s goes out quick since the mag is small compared to the other machines guns even at a slower fire rate plus the constant reloading isn’t worth taking in the higher difficulty’s and supply isn’t worth bringing for the heavy machine gun since you can’t reload while running like the grenade launcher since the grenade launcher and supply pack is really good with each other. lower difficulty is whole different story since you can use anything
On the 2nd upgrade for justification for more munitions, I would present traitor barrage
Currently traitor barrage shells is shared between 380mm, walking and orbital precision.
While we need to wait for 4 mins between each barrage cool-down, once traitor status activates, it never stops raining 380mm shells
So the thought is that super earth is still cheaping out on offensive use of munitions, but are willing to expend everything to kill one traitor
Hang on, someone is at the do-*gets blown up by 380mm shells
The heavy machine gun doesn't actually sit in the same use case as the other two, lvl 4 armor pen means that it can punch through a hulk's eye and you don't need to be too precise with the firerate. It's a heavy unit suppression tool rather than a crowd clearing one.
If I could add in one thing to the game, it'd be an ammo belt backpack. It's effect would be that for specific weapons (like the machine guns, assault rifles and marksmen rifles) your mags are converted into a single pool as the backpack feeds ammo into the gun in place of the mags.
It could even increase the maximum ammo capacity.
You should try Main objectives/Tactical objectives (or both) tier list, like Radar Station, Stalker Lair, Destroy Automaton Gunships, etc
Thats a fun idea actually. I'll add that to the list!
@@TheWileSpice Thank you :)
I just had a little thought, using previous tier lists (practical use and coolness) are probably not quite suitable for some missions; plus some of them first appear on different difficulties, which is an interesting moment for listing. Also it is possible to divide them by three groups (Automaton missions/Terminid missions/common missions), if you like it. Idk. Just thought it can be a little advice or something :)
i’ve always been a grenade launcher and laser cannon believer and i’m glad they’re getting the recognition they deserve
you deserve way more subs, nice work! NO mention of the mech though? I know it isn't a weapon but it is in the support category or AH may make a vehicle category when they add more mayybe lol
Thank you kindly! & I'm kind of banking on the other mech variants being released so they can have a dedicated video haha.
Honestly, the heavy mg is up there with some of the good unlocks in the game like the Blast-Absorption turret upgrade. Again it’s I something I hear you praise time and time again.
The video we've been waiting for 👏
I hope you enjoy!
You forgot to mention how much more op the grenade launcher becomes when you equip a resupply backpack being able to spray grenades downrange without concern for ammo
Great vid!! But i gotta say i love using the he MG- 206 again bots.
Put on your heavy armour, bring your shield BP and scream for FOR SUPER EAAAAAARTH!!!
Fireing in smaller bust, getting in close with it and fire only at armoured tagets NEVER at the small ones, they dont deserve the honor of getting liberated by the the MG-206
Thank ya!
I could see the value in using it more sparingly against the Bots. I suppose I still wish it had way more ammunition and was slightly faster to use.
Hey, great video! Just a suggestion/feedback, but maybe it would be nice if you put up more numbers regarding various weapon stats from your tests on the screen that way someone could quickly go back to reference it instead of needing to listen over and over again. Keep up the good work!
Thank ya! & That could be handy.
Stalwart must be a primary weapon (reduce magazine to 150), MG43 needs to have faster reload and HMG must have high penetration 1.
But it feels so good with 250 per magazine! Its beautiful as is, in my opinion.
I think it should be a stratagem that you have to call in but it takes your primary slot when you pick it up
No leave it, go do that in your dreams 🙄
@@blakefenslerjr4858 why are you being so rude? I still use the stalwart I was just saying it would be fun if it did that.
I don't agree personally, support weapons are supposed to be stronger than primaries and it is the ideal chaff clear support weapon. I don't think we need to take that niche away from it. Also HMG with 5AP just seems silly, that's the same as EAT/RR/Quazar
Heavy machinegun with reduced recoil armor perk will let you auto dump into a hulks eyeball when prone, bonus points if you have anything to stun it and keep it still, and lets you auto dump into ANYTHING thats exposed and smaller than a tank. Amazing at taking out shield devastators too, just make sure you set it to the lowest fire rate for more control. Its not E tier, but atleast C tier on bots and D tier on bugs. You gotta change your whole kit around it. A supply backpack lets you be a lot more aggressive too with ammo dumping because you get two mags like a stalwart, where the medium MG only gets one magazine.
In my opinion, the "Ariburst" rocket launcher is the single trashiest unreliable thing ever. I wipe patrols maybe 10% or the time aiming dead center of the group from above and get maybe 2-3 kills about 90% of the time. But that only works if I fire it from over 75m otherwise the helldiver-seeking clusters will kill me half the time. And that is so, so, so much worse when i see someone else use it, they usually end up with double-digit collaterals. And before anyone says i didn't give it it's chance, i used it for about 5 missions pre-patch and about 5 post-patch and found it hardly usable even in it's intended purpose (horde clear).
They really missed the ball on it and should have made it an actual airburst rocket instead of a proximity-fused cluster bomb. Something like light armor penetration 15m radius explosion with fragments that falloff over 30m would have been very good for trash clear. Instead we have a very unreliable hand-portable cluster bomb.
The great missed opportunity for most people is the recoilless riffle, this thing slaps. Especially when team-loading It just melts anything, especially Factory Striders, chargers and Bile Titans.
Railgun is, in my opinion, a very good medium killer and a poor man's heavy killer. I have not played before the huge original nerf but, i believe it should be moved to primary weapons as it is now, after all in the first game, the railgun WAS a primary weapon. Plus, it would give a good reason/opportunity to bring a machine gun!
Lastly, the HMG has one single redeeming quality in my book, it slaps against automaton, it seemed like you forgot they existed when talking about the HMG. It can shoot through the weakpoints of any enemy in the automaton side.
You can shoot the Quasar even more in one mission. Just like the EAT you can call down a second one and juggle between the two while one is cooling down. Before the nerf the timing was almost perfect for sustained fire, but now it's still an option. This is very situational but super useful when dealing with a gun ship factory or a big bot drop.
Thats a great mechanic to abuse for the defence missions to be fair.
The thing about the HMG is, because it has Medium Pen 2, it actually does twice as much damage per shot to Medium armor targets as the Medium Machine Gun.
At 900 rpm you knock a Devastator out with a single burst. At 450 you do more damage to Medium targets than a MG-43 at 900 rpm, and you can keep it on target when crouched in Recoil Reduction armor.
And it has pen 4 which means you can kill Hulks by shooting them in the eye, and because 450 crouched in RR armor is controlable, you can actually hit the eye at close range.
It also has 35% structural damage instead of 10% like other machine guns so it can kill structures, charger and Bile Titan tails.
It is a high skill floor/high skill ceiling weapon.
On automatons, I'm enjoying taking the DCS, HMG, grenade pistol, stun grenades and a supply pack with fortified armor.
When you are really in the groove, it's fun combination, with the DCS being able to head shot Devastators and one shot rangers, and the HMG able to absolutely blitz walkers, Devestators, tanks, turrets, able to knock out Hulks, and even able to take down Gunships, you feel like a combination Hercules and Rambo rolled into one.
But when you're off... oh boy that's not pretty. Not pretty at all.
It's not bad but man the sights need to be fixed
You are my favorite helldivers content creator!!!!!
Absolutely love your work - 69/42 aesthetics rating to me
Amazing video. I would add that the Spear is the perfect weapon to take down the Automaton gunships
Really fantastic. Nice to have all that info in one place.
A strategy I did on one of those new defense missions where you have to hold out for about 20 minutes was double-fisting laser cannons to deal with factory striders on my own. As soon as one was just about to overheat, I would swap to the other one and continue beaming it in the eye.
I'm happy you gave the Airburst launcher a 9.5 for aesthetics. After the balance patches it feels amazing at horde clear, beast of a weapon now.
I have a tip that works fantastically. If you aim all the way up, the grenade launcher and pistol will land it's shot almost exactly 55m ahead of you. I've killed hundreds of enemies this way. It's amazing for running from big crowds of bots to fire behind you without being exposed, and if you deviate your aim around properly you can wipe out bases full of enemies and clean out fabs and tunnels by hand. It's saved us so many times, I'm shocked at how effective it is.
A thing about the autocannon is that it can kill chargers pretty well with matadors. The backside of the frontleg can be penetrated and damaged, and chargers die instanly if one of the front legs is destroyed like when shooting an exposed part with your primary.
The flamethrower will always have a place in my Heart.
The simple feeling of bellowing out a stream of flame at bugs and lighting everything on fire makes the pyromaniac in me smile and gifdy with Joy.
Combined with napalm and an amm backpack I'll dish out as much flame as i want.
It is glorious to be fair, one of the most fun weapons to use in the game!!!
using the sniper against the bots is so satisfying them head shots ouu weee
Against bots the railgun is actually quite good. Hulks, devastators, and scout striders are the big concerns most of the time and the railgun can easily one tap them in unsafe mode with good accuracy. Against tanks, turrets, and factory striders its not very effective but they are usually in low enough numbers that airstrikes/orbitals can deal with them. The only thing that the railgun is poor against that can't be covered by stratagems would be gunships so that needs to be handled by somebody with an AC, AMR, Laser Cannon, or the other AT weapons. When taking on a flyer fab, the railgunner would probably be the person running in to plant the hellbomb while somebody provides anti air coverage. Having a railgun blow the top half off a rocket dev or heavy dev is extremely satisfying.
I think a fun idea for ship upgrades would be for us to be able to unlock different scopes by spending samples on the super destroyer. And more zoom levels. For example, for the AMR we can buy a scope that gives us 250 or 300-meter scopes for like 20 super samples, 200 common, and 200 rare, or something ridiculous we could grind towards.
Fun fact. Stalwart actually can damage charger leg armor leaving small at first, then bigger and bigger holes in it's armor. Not the greatest idea considering you have all other ways to kill a charger... but like where it's only option it's ok.
i love the way this is structured. you should do one for the primaries and secondaries. yes i know there are already 100 of those videos. but the way you break down each one with penetration, what they can and cant do. its a great structure. most other primary weapon tier lists just say "this gun is ass" then move on.
A few peeps have been requesting the same so it's on the list of videos now. I would like to cover the Stratagems first, which sort of works since we are (hopefully) expecting buffs & stuff to the primaries soon.
HMG does really well with the shield generator for automatons. It’s harder to set up, sure, but it’s fantastic when it does work
Anyone who is coming to this video a little later, can confirm that the HMG is pretty nasty now. It kinda needs an ammo pack. Not necessarily, but allows you to use it much more. It can kill everything quickly besides a bile titan. And even then will shreds it sacks. You can 2-3 shot a hulk to the head, or shred its back. Shoot a walking fabricator in the stomach and drop it in like 15ish bullets. The gunship can even be killed if you can track it's engines.
The HMG will destroy any horde no matter how beefy, extremely quickly.
It is very slow to turn and aim, but there's armor that helps with this now. Highly recommend this weapon.
The one (major) saving grace for the heavy machine gun is that it kills bile titans in 2 mags, and can penetrate their flesh (IE the popped green parts). When pumped up to max fire rate, this can be done reasonably fast at that.
The other two machine guns, by comparison, both deflect once the two bile sacs are popped, even to the exposed underside
The Spear can also turn you into your teams main support, specially agaisnt the bot, gunship targeting your bro? spear, fabricator annoying your team? spear, tank? spear, hulk? spear, factory walker? 3 - 6 spear shots, only thing you have problem with is small enemies and dropships, but you can lock in tanks before they are even dropped
I do wish it was more consistent against Factory Walkers. But its really a treat against a lot of things on the bot side. I thoroughly enjoy clearing bases from across the map haha.
AMR is perfectly capable on bugs
It's easy enough to sweep all mediums and lights no matter what the range and it can do it without starting breaches at very safe ranges. It can also rapid fire chargers butts in a pinch as well, which can be done after a dive dodge since you'll probably have the angle for it.
It is yeah, I'd just put it 1 tier below vs the Bots though, just due to the heavies being more of an issue on the bugs
I'd emphasize the 'heavy' in heavy machinegun.
Get rid of the hip fire reticule entirely, give it an accuracy buff when fired from prone or behind cover, and a penalty if you try and fire while moving, buff the damage a little bit, and give it an optional ammo backpack.
Lastly - make it the first machinegun where another player can help you reload - wherein they pull out the next ammo box, and clip the belts together before the current one is spent, negating the reloads entirely.
I spent two years as an assistant machinegunner, and I'd link up all the 220rnd belts we were given into one long ass belt and carry it in my backpack. When we got to a shooting position, I'd pull my pack off, open it up, and tap my gunner into the whole keg of like 600~ rounds. We only needed to stop for barrel changes or malfunctions.
Thank you for detailed review! Could you please explain where did you find penetration data? Is it ripped from files or tested manually?
Flamethrower is just absolutely insane against bugs. Finished a solo suicide mission with 809 kills and at one point, I killed 4 behemoth chargers in one engagement and my kill streak reached 63. Should honestly be S tier no questions asked against terminids.
The AMR was the first strategem I bought. This thing has gotten me through all of my battles and saved me in my most intense battle so far. (To give some sort of idea of how intense it was, take malevolen creek and select one of the missions.)
AMR x Malevalon Creek collab goes hard haha.
AMR is defiantly my favorite against bots. It’s not for every situation because you still have to figure out how to deal with tanks. But it is very fun to run scout armor and run the map like a goon taking out every small-medium base along the way.
I love taking the expendable with either the amr or the auto gun, and I'll just drop my weapon for an expendable, shoot both off, and then pick my main gun back up. It's very nice for taking out targets that I couldn't already get through.
The MG 42 and guard dog (bullet one) is my favorite bug build if my team are all running AT, it absolutely shreds.
if you bring a drone to my missions I will kick you.
@@Dudeman9339 That's fine, I wouldn't want to carry you anyway.
@@Dudeman9339 L
i am a huge fan of the heavy machine gun because it genuinely is a lifesafer in higher difficulties, you can kill hulks from the front with ease by aiming for the head and can quickly mow down a swarm of striders or berserkers once you get the handling down
I appreciate that the MG-43 is always a useful weapon, even when one obtains better ones. It allows new players to still contribute.
Yep, its a decent weapon for sure!
I've had the game just under a month. I gotta say the grenade launcher at lvl 5 is such a game changer. I'd recommend any new player make that a priority purchase.
Fun fact, the AMR (along with, I presume but haven't tested, all non energy magazine weapons),, if you reload with some ammo left, you will reload faster and have an extra round available.
A couple of folks had mentioned! Something I didn't know!
Changes to the HMG to make it viable: Make it a backpack weapon, where the backpack feeds ammo directly into the gun, so you can't need to reload, double ammo capacity because backpack. 225 turns into 450, and no reload, but it takes a backpack slot. Drop the recoil by 5.