Hi! Here to answer your questions about how targeting works with the arc-12! This has been my go to primary when dealing with bugs on helldive difficulty. The reason why its targeting seems inconsistent is because it prioritizes bolt targets in 3 ways: Nearest to furthest, outside of cone to inside of cone, and largest to smallest target. this is why it is best to aim in between 2 units you want to hit and higher so you use the bottom arch of the "cone" to target with (so angle up higher in the air). Counter intuitive at first, but once you master it, you are pretty much unstoppable against any bugs smaller than a charger. Hope this helps!
Wow! Thanks for explaining it so well. Definitely going to give the blitzer a try with all this in mind and will report back to let you know how it goes! Thanks for checking out the video and thanks so much for sharing. Glad to get insight from a blitzer trooper!
@@action-nerd The way I'm reading this, it would be because the weapon's aim cone is 3-dimensional. By aiming up, you're effectively making the cone tighter, as it now covers much less of the ground, allowing you to aim more specifically.
@@action-nerd it will find the fastest part of their body to connect to. If level it will go for legs and chest. If aimed high it will go for the head. It also helps avoid dead bodies.
Among a sea of low-effort, clickbaity HD2 content, your videos really stand out. Well researched, and a pleasure to listen to. Thanks for making these!
I appreciate your kind words! I enjoy making this content, not only because the game is really fun but I love the community too so I want to contribute as much as I can to it. Thank you so much for your comment and for checking the video out!
Regarding the question at 6:50, basically the bolts hit (disappeared) into a dead body and one chose a random target to the right. It happens a lot with arc weapons. There is an inner narrow cone to determine what target will be hit and if one is not found within the cone then it arcs outwards in the second wider cone. I've been using this for days now and overall I love it against bugs in my arc build. It does act weird or random at time for what targets are hit. But this is the best I have found so far.
I enjoy the unpredictable nature of the blitzers targeting. It’s lightning, you aren’t in control like with other guns, you’re simply guiding its power in a general direction. It’s like a game within a game.
woah you really opened up the weapon to me conceptually. i wasn't aware of just how much optimization you could fit around the downtime moment after firing. i will definitely be trying an aggressive melee blitzer type build. really nuanced and detailed video as always. a lot of different angles for consideration :3
I do feel like melee is really useful in the game, more so the bugs than the bots. There were times when I interrupted a hunter's attack mid jump with a melee and being able to weave that into the blitzer shots is pure dopamine gameplay haha. Thanks for you kind words and thanks for checking out the video!
Great video! The Blitzer has been my forever primary since the rate of fire buff, because I am not a skilled shooter :D (I use it with heavy medical armour, grenade pistol, impact incendiaries, commando, shield pack, rocket sentry and autocannon sentry - regardless of the mission). My feeling is that if you fire it from the hip it arcs wider and lower to the ground. This makes it misfire more unless you aim higher (about human head height). If you aim fire it then the cone seems to be narrower. I use this when near other players to shoulder fire ~30 degrees off to one side which lets you help someone who's being crowded in without shooting them as well as the enemy. I'm amazed to see you able to shoot automaton mines with it, as I am completely unable to replicate this at the moment. I recently committed to the Blitzer against the automatons as well, because it stunlocks beserkers. I've started to live longer by 'taking cover' against a mob of closer automatons by stun locking one and then getting up to it so that the others don't shoot you, and then squirting blasts to the side peek-dodging and keeping your closest victim stunned. Can't wait to try this weapon-swapping cheese :D
Appreciate your comment! It's nice to see how people think and what play-styles they have with different weapons in this game. Stun locking groups of enemies is really helpful and because of the stun-lock aspect of the blitzer I feel that it would feel great in a "support" type build since it provides that utility and teammates with higher DPS weapons can finish them off. Thanks for checking out the video!
Man I found your channel yesterday and already convinced me to make an arc build after the arc thrower vid. Then you drop this OTHER banger. Convinced x2 now hahah. Keep up the good work man!
Appreciate you checking out my videos and hope you're having a great time with the arc thrower. If you do intend to make a blitzer build I wouldn't recommend taking it with the arc thrower as they both serve the same general purpose, but by themselves they're really fun to play with! Thanks for your kind words and thanks for checking out the video!
Appreciate your kind words! Every video is a labor of love and this community is wonderful and I want to contribute to it as much as I can. Thanks for checking out the video!
Gave the arc thrower another go last night and I struggled to see any advantage over the blitzer other than it's range. The ability to get that first shot off from the blitzer immediately gets me out of many pinches. The missfire that happens with arc weapons seems more forgiving with the rate of fire of the blitzer. Also I've seen someone point out and this has worked for me, when you hip fire the blitzer it seems to shoot a wider spread of bolts and thus can hit more enemies if they are in a more horizontal line in front of you. Blitzer for short range and groups with the railgun for longer range and heavies is what i'm rolling with a lot and it's working for me plus has the fun factor. I found having the shield pack with the blitzer gives the closest feel to a tank build. Another awesome vid man. Keep up the good work.
Appreciate your kind words and thanks for sharing your experience with both the blitzer and the arc thrower. I enjoy seeing how you and everyone else feel about the weapons! Thanks for watching the video!
Nice breakdown. I've used it constantly since it came out, and I would just add (as others have) that you should be hipfiring this weapon. ADS limits your scope of targets slightly.
Thanks for your comment appreciate you sharing your experience. I wasn't very mindful of the difference between the ADS and hipfire with the blitzer but will pay more mind to it next time I use it. Thanks for checking out the video!
I actually deliberately aim in with it to focus the shot on killing the intended target, especially against mediums and hunters. Spreading the damage around in combination with the arc inconsistencies makes that a more reliable tactic IMO. I don't use first person, though, just a quick tap into aim to shrink the targeting cone as I fire.
Great video on the Blitzer man, would love to see you cover the new-and-improved airburst rocket launcher in another video! The latest patch greatly improved the sensitivity on the airburst, but a lot of people were burnt by the inconsistencies of the explosions when it first released. Now it works as intended I'd chalk it up as one of the more enjoyable weapons for a Helldiver to use. More explosions, more good!
Thanks for your kind words! Yeah, I do feel that since the initial release of the airburst it has turned a lot of people away from it. It is a very interesting support weapon and I am eager to review it soon!
I used the Eruptor since launch and nothing else, up until they nerfed the crap out of it. Now, I use the Arc Blitzer and it is a pretty sweet gun. If you've never tried it, use it for a match. It wrecks Brood Commanders and Bile Spewers/Nursing Spewers.
I haven't tried the Eruptor post patch but I did hear how it got gutted. Glad you're having a good time with the blitzer, it's super fun against the bugs! Thanks for checking out the video!
@Wallbouncing oh, yeah. The Eruptor used to be able to 1 shot Brood Commanders. Now it takes 3 or 4 shots. Supposedly, it is slated for ANOTHER update to "buff" it next patch because they got it wrong on damage application. Keep up the good work.
7:10 It shot all 5 bolts, but four of them went for a corpse, it seems like it shot the warrior because the corpse was shielding the rest of the enemies that were technically closer. The biggest issue with this gun, and all arc based weapons in general is that they target dead enemies too.
Thanks for your analysis on that clip. A lot of people were commenting something similar so I'm glad you were all able to help me figure that out. Targeting dead enemies sucks for the blitzer, and at least you can somewhat use it to your benefit with the arc thrower but the blitzer targeting corpses makes the weapon a bit harder to use. Thanks for checking out the video!
Things to note: -You can melee between shots (was mentioned, but not given enough emphasis) This allows you to deal with scavengers who get too close or parry hunters. -Aiming in decreases the cone size, making it more likely to target 1 enemy, hip firing is usually what you want to do since it'll spread the shot out more. -Some of the arcs not firing is due to an incomplete misfire. I do not know why it does, it just sometimes only misfires half your shot. -Sometimes it does a spear and sucks at aiming, this is most common for when it shoots over several scavengers for no reason and hits a warrior 6:40 Partial misfire (4/5 shots misfired, this is much rarer than a full misfire) Despite not aiming in and reducing the cone, it decided to aim above every scavenger and hit the bigger warrior These inconsistencies shouldn't happen, but since it's an arc weapon, it has the misfire issue and the weird locking issue. You simply got a double whammy.
Thanks for your input and appreciate you chiming in on that one clip. Funny how you mention that it sometimes, "does a spear" haha. Appreciate you checking out the video!
7:17 1. It fires 5 bolts every time 2. Bolts lock onto enemies in proximity to the random direction the bolt emerged from the gun (imagine the scatter of a shotgun) 3. Closer enemies are more likely to receive more bolts because they are closer in proximity to the bolt origin point, similar to a shotgun
Yeah it is a neat part about the blitzer that compared to the other arc weapons (arc thrower and tesla tower) this requires no charge time. Thanks for checking out the video!
Regarding the targeting / number of bolts, I would assume it's just down to the weapon having a random spread of bolts. 5 bolts are fired at slightly different angles (like a shotgun), each with their own auto-aim capability within a cone, like the Arc Thrower has. (You can see the spread without auto-targeting by shooting into the air.) Since they have a spread, the auto-targeting cones don't all perfectly overlap - some might see an enemy on the left but not the right, some might see an enemy on the right but not the left. They always target the nearest enemy in the targeting cone, which generally means it ends up hitting the nearest 1-3 enemies. I think this explains all the examples within the video, and why it's inconsistent: it's random. Specifically the example at 6:50, I expect 4 of the bolts were aimed around the middle of the screen, which tried to target the nearby scavengers and fizzled out due to there being corpses in the way (normal arc weapon behavior). The last bolt was probably fired high and right, and the only viable target was the Warrior, which wasn't obstructed by a corpse due to having a higher center of mass, thus it fired correctly. As for why it only ever hits up to 3 targets, I expect this is basically just due to probability and geometry. The spread is basically a random venn diagram with 5 tightly clustered circles, so you'll almost always have significant overlap. You could theoretically hit 5 targets under perfect conditions, but it would be really hard to do.
I love this gun soo much and just like the tesla tower i'll throw my experience in with this gun too, not much I can really add other than it can 1 shot stalkers and brood commanders, it can also target explosive barrels and those little yellow exploding things on bug planets, learned a good bit more info about this thing through this video though, keep up the great work!
Thanks for your kind words! I did have moments where I was able to 1 shot a stalker, but that was on hellmire and I wasn't sure if it took some damage from the fire tornado before I got to it or if I got lucky and all 5 bolts got the headshot proc and that's what did it in. Appreciate your input and thanks for checking out my videos!
Oh, you're right I can definitely see it. I initially thought the shot misfired except for just 1 bolt but looking at the corpse in front the lighting does look to be directed towards. Any clue as to why the warrior was the one shot in that field of bugs? Nonetheless, thanks for sharing your insight and making the time to check out the video!
I've only been playing with it for the past week but because the MO is on bug planets I've found that it has exceptional utility. Two things that can be drawbacks to it. Your teammates probably don't understand how it works. The guy with the sniper build will consistently walk between you and your intended targets because apparently, he needs to close on the swarm bearing down on you to nail a shot with his AMR. If he's the host he'll kick you. Second, I've had trouble getting consistent damage on charger legs. It seems like the weapon wants to auto-lock on a head, and for everything up to a charger, this is a feature. Bring something that can help you deal with chargers on bug planets.
Thanks for your comment and for sharing your thoughts! I agree that yeah, beyond the charger, just heavies in general are hard with the blitzer so I like to use it just on the small to medium mobs and save the rest for my support weapon and stratagems. Thanks for checking out the video!
6:45 dead bodies affects where the bolts of lightning goes to. Just because YOU can see the enemies behind the dead body, doesn’t mean the line of sight from the tip of the Blitzer can see them and will likely be blocked by the dead bodies like in this case.
Just realized many others are basically saying the same thing as me… which is great. Other thing I noticed is that if you hip fire with the blitzer, it will more likely spread like a shotgun, but if you aim down sight (ADS), you can more likely focus fire your shots so that all 5 or most shots hit the specific target you are aiming for. So yeah, you can kind of shoot as you intend as long as you keep that in mind and reposition yourself when you have many dead bodies in front of you already.
R&D PSA Corpses count for the Blitzer targeting at 7:02 where you only saw one bolt 4 hit the dead bug at your feet There is a minimum range of 1m so to avoid the player counting at a valid target. I died to many times figuring that out. The blitzer will not stagger nursing spewers and their bigger siblings BUT it will interfere with their vomit ability. Stalkers will not stagger but interferes with their attacks they will maintain forward momentum but won't attack until the "stagger effect timer" wears off. With practice you can juggle 2 stalkers with 40% success rate should you be ambushed in a 1v2 scenario to delay your death and get help from teammates. Sincerely R&D guinea pig
R&D addendum The blitzer can puncture the terminid hive guard face plate while stopping forward momentum. Warriors and Brood Commanders will be staggered and pushed back Effective verses shrikers as an AA option (further testing required) Minimal use versus chargers. May puncture medium armor segment (testing required) and practice required for weakspot exploitation/stripped armor.
Thank you for all your service R&D guinea pig. I learned a lot from your comments, especially with the minimum 1m range. Thanks for checking out the video!
6:50 4 bolts hit the death body in front of you, one bolt went in another direction and hit another bug. The bolts get fired in a spread out pattern like a shotgun (shocker) and then autolock onto enemies, so the bolts that were fired vaguely towards the body went towards it while the bolt that went off to the side hit a different bug. Imagine firing a bullet shotgun and the directions that the bullets fired would go in
I believe that if you fire while aiming, the bolts will be more precise and focus on fewer enemies. If you don’t aim, it will be more spread out and target more enemies.
I mentioned how, in my arc thrower video, that there was a chance for the lightning to chain, which was that random element, and with all the inconsistencies I was happening upon with the blitzer I felt that chalking that all up to random chance could've been an argument to make as well. I just wasn't quite sure where to apply the RNG, to either the bollts being fired, the targets being chosen and so on. Nonetheless, thanks for checking out the video and I appreciate your insight!
Once I figure out how to get the blitz lightning to work and how to make it more predictable I'll definitely let you know so the swarming won't be so overwhelming next time! Thanks for checking out the video!
That's why I prefer to aim in for most shots, contrary to the advice given by other commenters. Very limited multi-targeting isn't nearly as helpful as reliable kill damage most of the time IMO
In you quiz, i suspect 4 bolts went to the bug body below and Infront if your barrel. When im using it i note a lot of shots go into bodys if i don't reposition when clearing numbers.
Hello. At 6:45, my take is that all other targets were blocked from the locking mechanism's view of the Blitzer, like it happens with Arc, when there are either dead bodies, rocks, or even an elevated slope of terrain like in here. The only enemy's hitbox high enough to clear all that was the Warrior. The other arcs were blocked from chosing a target, only that one had a path available. Since I'm writing this now, maybe you say it later in the video, but there is ONE huge argument in my view, that made sure I'll never use the Blitzer again (except just to have fun in lower, less demanding levels) that I haven't seen nobody share yet: Even tho Blitzer is good at dealing with bug breaches, it is terrible when it comes to preventing them. Enemies can be or come at you in rows and Blitzer will most of the time only fire at the front lines. What happens when you see a Scavenger, on the third row, preparing to call a BB ? Unless you have tremendous reflexes and switch to another weapon (if you have one for that and if your view on the target has not been obfuscated by then or you haven't been pounced on and so on...) consistently, you will watch, helpless, bug breaches happen right in front of your nose, without being able to do anything time and time again. Helldivers being first and foremost a time and resource management game... not being able to comfortably and reliably prevent BB is a huge deal-breaker.
I do mention later in the video how the blitzer is good when it comes to interrupting bugs trying to call breaches and to be honest, in all my time testing it, the bug was always up front close to me when it happened. I never was in a situation where the bug was far back and other bugs would be taking all the targeted shots from the blitzer. I can definitely see how that is frustrating to deal with it in that situation and I just feel lucky to not have been in that spot a lot. Not being to respond to the bug breaches because of the weapon's targeting does suck and it seems that with this weapon, when it works it works well and when it doesn't it's just painful. As for your insight for the targeting that one clip, I can see how the dead bodies and targets could block the blitzer's field of view, and it hitting the warrior could be because it was the larger unit and it was able to be detected by the blitzer. Thanks for that input! Sorry you went through those bug breach experiences but I appreciate you leaving your thoughts and checking out the video!
@@Wallbouncing Maybe it is partially due to the planet type. The number of obstacles an arc can meet varies immensely from my beloved Fenrir III to let's say the Creek. Maybe we didn't frequent the same neighborhoods that much and that could have influenced our observations. Cheers man o/
Honestly, I don't see it as that big of a deal. On difficulties past 6 the time between enemies change from roam state to aggro and call backup gets reduced significantly, meaning even if you manage to kill them right before the "alarm raiser" bug/bot launches pheromone cloud/dropship flare, it will STILL TRIGGER the breach/drop regardless, just with less visual cues. This made me reconsider tactics when approaching PoI's and objectives to trigger enemy reinforcements preemptively, so when you get to the desired location you can either fight the breach/drop and locals all at once or clear the PoI without worrying about getting overwhelmed because reinforcements cooldown is still going.
@@SepticFuddy That's what crowd control is for. Stun and impact grenades are your friends. Whenever you see a patrol or guarding bugs and you HAVE to take the fight, you start by Impact/stun nade all the smaller ones before starting to shoot. When talking about breaches, while in the middle of a big fight if plan A failed, then it's about map awareness and distancing yourself, I rarely see people disengaging fights, or only after so many resources have already been wasted.
I suspect that the five bolts have a scatter pattern like the shotguns, to determine a line for each, and then each bolt picks the closest target to its line.
With the buff this is officially my favorite bug smasher. Its the perfect balance between the ad clear of the breaker series of guns and the push back of the punisher. While yes its not as effective in each role as the fore mentioned weapons it still prefer it. Simply I like that I don't have to choose between: Do I want to not get swarmed Or Do I want to not get rag dolled/melted by brutes, spewers, and stalkers. I can effectively fight both and with unlimited ammo! As for issues they definitely need to fix the targeting. Far too many times does it "dry fire"/ zap the corpse to your left 3 times instead of the hunter jumping at you / or not hitting a portion of a body you desperately need to. Ie stripped charger leg or brute head for a 1 shot* The current solutions ive found are aiming above the enemy which results in a headshot 90% of the time. Constantly circling fighting a group. By shifting your angle vs constantly running back keeps the bodies from getting in the way. It doesn't have to be a big change either even a slight course adjustment will do. As for the charger situation welp gl and just use your secondary. Highly recommend the grenade pistol as it also fixes the issue of the blitzer not being able to pop eggs. I would like either a targeting fix or make it so ads makes a single focused stream to the cross hair and hip fire auto tracks like it does now. TL;DR: best Jack of all trades wep. Can CC and stun special units with unlimited ammo too. Great for when you get stuck fighting hordes or wanna solo from the group without stealing supply drops. Lastly aim above for ez 1 taps.
Thanks for your comment and really appreciate the insight coming from a veteran blitzer trooper. I agree with all your tips and feel that the blitzer is a very good all-rounder of a weapon. Thanks for checking out the video and sharing your insight!
From my experience, the Arc Thrower has an invisible ice-cream cone coming out the tip that it uses to target enemies, whereas the Blitzer has something more closely resembling a pizza slice, meaning that it can't be manipulated to target larger enemies well, or at least is far less than the level of control you have with the Arc Thrower. I find that even with the recent buff, the Blitzer is still lacking in DPS, and best used as a stun gun for Bile Spewers and Nursing Spiders, especially on the extermination missions. I did not know that it could stun Stalkers so well, and will have to give it a few more tries, as I've found my current favorite bug setup of Breaker Incendiary + Arc Thrower struggles with them. I also have a few questions about the Blitzer that I'd appreciate any answers to from more knowledgeable divers. First, I remember that in the Arc Thrower video, Wallbouncing showed that it was possible to fire accurately if the weapon was sticking through a piece of cover, even if it appeared to be pointed downward. Did you find the Blitzer was able to do the same? Don't think it's too important of a detail, but figured it might be a bit of knowledge that could make it more useful against bots. Second, does each bolt of lightning stagger or stun the full amount, or is the stagger split between all 5 bolts? In other words, do all 5 bolts have to connect to the same enemy to stagger it the full amount, or does only 1 bolt? If the latter, then I will be for sure using this for bugs from now on to deal with those double-stalker-hole-lairs, which have been a point of great pain in my efforts to spread democracy. Thanks in advance to any who may know the answers to my questions.
Hello! Thanks for your comment and I love the visualizations you made for the arc thrower and blitzer cone. As for your questions: 1) When pushed up against cover, the blitzer will be brought up and the barrel of the weapon will be close to your head pointing upwards. This allows you to still shoot the blitzer over cover since the lightning will try to go where your character is facing at. Since the weapon is already very close to your head, if you ADS the weapon will pretty much have the same view. In comparison to the arc thrower, when you are up against cover the weapon will be brought down with the barrel pointing downwards and every shot normally being eaten by the cover you're on. If you were to ADS with the arc thrower the view brings the barrel of the weapon closer to your head so you're able to still fire over cover. For both, if the barrel of the weapon is able to clip out of the cover, you can shoot like that while your body is still behind cover. 2) As for your second question, I found that all bolts carry the same amount of stagger. If 3 enemies were to get hit, they would get staggered the same amount, regardless of who got how many lightning bolts. Alternatively, if you were to only hit one enemy and one bolt was to hit them I observed them still having the full stagger period. It has been helpful in preventing multiple stalkers as well as beserkers from running me down. Hope that answers your questions and if anyone knows more please be sure to comment too as understanding this whole lightning thing about the arc weapons is a group effort! Thanks for checking out my videos!
On minute 6, I would say that the 5 lightning rays are primarily targeted at the closest target within the cone, but if theres another target available within ranges then it will spread 1 ray to each of those enemies, hence 4 for the primary hunter targeted and 1 to the additional on the right. This raises the question: If there were 5 available targets, would all five be hit with 1 ray instead? Ps. On the 5:27 mark, one of your rays went 4 to your primary target and 1 ray to a hunter corpse on the left. Maybe a bug? 😅
The misfire seems to me to be the same issue that hurts the Spear. Basically it is not able to find a target for some reason. It hangs up on the same terrain issues that the Spear does, but not as bad because it is instant lock instead of having to spend time locking on. Enemies with any part of their bodies occluded by terrain make it misfire the most.
I've been hearing that a lot and how it affects the behavior in which the blitzer targets so I'll take those nuggets and tips with me the next time I dive with it. Thanks for checking out the video!
6:51 Whats happening here is the blitzer is landing all 4 bolts on the dead scavenger and the last one on the next available target, besides friend or foe the arcs seem to target dead bodies too
blitzer is legit. They just need to add an arc grenade or something. helldivers is REALLY coming into it's own now with these elemental weapons. Just running a FULL fire build now and its so fun lol.
I've been loving the elemental weapons in the game too. Even though the arc weapons fire inconsistently, the fire took some time to fix, and the plasma weapons are kind of on the side, they introduce a lot of variety into the game that I appreciate. Arc grenade would be wonderful. Someone mentioned an arc orbital and I thought that would be insane! Thanks for checking out the video too!
Arc weapons often target close corpses. Arc thrower has same issue, it's in the "known issues" in patch. Also, low to high ground firing seems to cause misfires a lot too
Very accurate, nuanced take on a weapon. As a Tesla Trooper in heart I consider it as mini Arc Thrower with reverse firing mechanism. Unfortunately, there isn't any reason besides cool factor to bringing more than one of those "elemental" strategems, because they generally fill the same role in your build and also because devs enforce armorgate meta on mid and high difficulties. Blitzer gives me that utility without sacrificing mobility or anti-tank weapon slot.
Thanks for your comment. I do feel that yeah the blitzer or the arc thrower would be enough but having both on you is kind of redundant. Thanks for your input and thanks for checking out the video!
I really enjoy the Blitzer, Grenade Pistol and Quasar - besides grenades, ammo-grenades or stims you won't have any problems. I simply enjoy that very much.
I heard a lot of people saying that the hipfire is very different from the ADS and I can't believe I never noticed it but will keep it in mind in my future dives with the blitzer. Thanks for checking out the video and commenting!
I read somewhere that it behaves differently depending if you aim (hold right mouse button) or hipfire. When aiming it should mostly arc to single target while hipfiring will target multiple. Haven't tested this myself tho yet.
When you ADS it brings the blitzer closer to you and moves the cone since I believe the origination point of the targeting cone is at the end of the weapon. As to whether or not it actually tightens the cone I'm not sure but will definitely keep that in mind when testing it again as that is an interesting take. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and for checking out the video!
Blitzer acts like any electricity would act. it seeks/prio out the closest conductor... even if that is a dead body or a ammo pack, basicly anything that is'nt terrain but an object the blitzer will arc towards. I usually always back inbetween shots to make sure that the dead are left behind so the frontline will be viable targets, also the reticle of the weapon plays a part in the arc and if you do have a headshot lined up on for example a broodmother most of the time the bolts will prioritize the head over any other viable conductor points making that head pop with full dmg.
Thanks for checking out the video and some other people were mentioning the role the reticle of the weapon plays and I wish I was more aware of that while doing my initial tests but will keeping it in mind when I bring it again in my future dives. Thanks for your comment!
Since the buff it’s my favourite primary against bugs. It’s biggest downside to me is that it shoots just slowly enough for a Stalker to get an attack in between shots. But if this gun was put at 60 firerate it would probably be to strong
The blitzer is very good against the bugs and yeah if a stalker is already on top of you the stagger time with the blitzer isn't enough to completely lock it down. The only counterplay to those stalkers is to recognize them as they're approaching so you can stun them just enough so they can't reach you, but after the patch that made their cloaking better that's not as easy anymore. Thanks for checking out the video and thanks for your comment!
@@kappa1032 Stun grenades helps a lot. I throw one as soon as i see multiple stalkers. Blitzers is not enough to lock them down. If you have a friend with a blitzer you can alternate your shots to keep them stunlocked. But that’s not always possible. I run 99% of my games with randoms.
i think aiming (right click by default) changes the aim a little bit. i assume that it reduces the aim cone for more precise enemy choice, otherwise i usually just hipfire
I've seen a lot of people say something similar and after trying it again I think they're right. Hipfiring the weapon does make the cone for targeting enemies wider as opposed to aiming down sights.
That sounds like a great combo for absolutely tearing through all the bug fodder. Explosives and lightning are a sick combination. Thanks for sharing and thanks for checking out the video!
What if instead of one wide cone for the five bolts to choose a target in, it is rather five narrow cones next to each other for each bolt to target in. This might explain why one target takes 4 bolts to the other’s 1 as despite both being in the big cone only one enemy is in 4/5 which is why it seems to prioritize closer targets with more bolts. As for the misfire, that seems to be just Arc things.
The idea of each bolt having its cone is really interesting. As puzzling as the arc weapons are, speculating about the way it works is really a fun brain teaser haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
I used this for about 30 d9 bug games, but honestly I find breaker incendiary better for bugs at the moment. It's biggest flaws are how slow it is to kill several chunkier enemies like armoured bile spewers and how inconsistent it is versus enemies at point blank range, its also just too short of a range for the flying bugs most of the time. Also, by the time I kill 4 enemies I could have killed 12+ with incendiary or flamethrower, which often means you can't clear a wave quick enough. The only value I found was on brood mothers headshots and stagger. It's certainly not bad, but I don't find it great. Not tried it on bots.
Thanks for your comment and I appreciate your criticism on the blitzer instead of saying the gun just sucks. I understand your plight with the flying enemies, as the only time you'll be able to kill the shriekers is if they are diving to attack you so that makes the blitzer more reactionary than a proactive weapon in those fights. I also do feel like against the bugs that fire is pretty strong (especially with the recent DOT fix) so other options are better than the blitzer. Appreciate your comment and insight and thanks for checking out the video!
@Wallbouncing The issue with the proactivity is they still often damage you even if you kill them midair. But yeah, I think it's pretty well balanced, I wouldn't mind a little extra range though for those air enemies, because if it had that I'd use it more often.
I had the exact same thought. With the blitzer having pretty good crowd control I felt like I was stunning units more than killing them and thought that if there was ever a "support" loadout in this game the blitzer would be a good primary for it. Thanks for checking out the video!
🤔 what if the blitzer has not a sigle cone, but each of the 5 lightings has its own? That would explain wait 4 out of 5 hit the dead body in the clip: it was the closer to their cone, while the single one who got the enemy was on the periphery of the fifth arc/ray/lightning
Thinking of each of the bolts having their own cone with their own targeting is a unique idea and given how the possibility of RNG can still be a part of the blitzer (and arc lightning behavior) as well then I feel like its possible. Thanks for your comment and thanks for checking out the video!
can you switch between blitzer and arc thrower as they recharge on your side/back to get infinite stun-lock? also blitzer probably hits more bolts the more accurate you are, and the bolts split between enemies based on how far they are from the reticle, if one is 10 degrees away and the other is 40 degrees, then the first will get 4 bolts and the other 1. 6:52 idk bro joel works in mysterious ways
If you were to switch from the blitzer to the arc thrower, the time it takes for you to take out the arc thrower then charge it may be longer than the actual recharge time just for the blitzer so it may be better off to stick with having the blitzer out. As for your point about distance from the reticle, that is interesting to think about and is not something that has crossed my mind so I will definitely be considering that. Thanks for your comment and appreciate the insight!
Thanks for your input. I’ve been seeing a lot of other comments about the corpse and looking at it more it seems that that’s what’s happening, but do you have an idea on why the single bolt went to that single bug out of all those other bugs? Thanks again for your comment and thanks for checking out the video!
I do think blitzer is good enough for solo matches, and do you use it to solo against the bugs and/or the bots? If for the bots, you have any tips to share? Nonetheless, thanks for your comment and checking out the video!
Thanks for pointing that out. Someone else also mentioned that but I thought the gun misfired and only one bolt came out. The corpse in front does answer where the majority of the shot went to but do you have any clue as to why the single bot went to the lone warrior bug? Someone mentioned how the blitzer targeting also needs line of sight and the corpses may have blocked the field of view and only the warrior was big enough to get targeted. Nonetheless, thanks for your comment and thanks for checking out the video!
@@Wallbouncing I think your explanations before, as the fov of the weapon being a cone, is a about as appropriate as it gets to describe its behavior and how it acquires targets. Plus the consideration if you're not the host of a match, server lag, etc
I like to either take the grenade pistol for the bug holes or the senator for long range precision shots such as a stalker I can see from far away or a bile spewer while it's in that artillery shooting phase. Hope that answers your question and thanks for checking out the video!
I liked bringing redeemer as an "oh shit" button against hunter flanks, but that was before the buff so it may be less necessary now. I was mostly running it with GL so I didn't need any of the other utility he mentioned
Hello fellow diver! I got it from the super citizen edition. It comes with a cape, a helmet, a title, and even a weapon! Hope that helps and thanks for checking out the video!
Fire weapons are on my queue to look into. Looking at what's coming up I'd have to say the Polar Patriot warbond first when it comes out tomorrow then maybe back to weapons, but I have not done any of the orbitals/eagles so I might want to do one of those (but not locked into anything yet). Thanks for checking out the video!
I love this gun even if it fired weird it's the beeeeeeest run and gun weapon just hip fire in the general direction of enemies as you dip duck and dive
Glad you're enjoying using the blitzer and yeah even when I get swarmed it gets overwhelming unless I'm perma-diving backwards and away haha. Thanks for your comment and thanks for checking out the video!
It'd be super funny if you can have just some bag of nails for your grenade slot as utility to help out the arc thrower haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
Oh my goodness you're right. I had the fire rate I could've just done the math I don't know why I tried to manually time it haha. Thanks for the clarification and thanks for checking out the video!
Hi! Here to answer your questions about how targeting works with the arc-12! This has been my go to primary when dealing with bugs on helldive difficulty. The reason why its targeting seems inconsistent is because it prioritizes bolt targets in 3 ways: Nearest to furthest, outside of cone to inside of cone, and largest to smallest target. this is why it is best to aim in between 2 units you want to hit and higher so you use the bottom arch of the "cone" to target with (so angle up higher in the air). Counter intuitive at first, but once you master it, you are pretty much unstoppable against any bugs smaller than a charger. Hope this helps!
Wow! Thanks for explaining it so well. Definitely going to give the blitzer a try with all this in mind and will report back to let you know how it goes! Thanks for checking out the video and thanks so much for sharing. Glad to get insight from a blitzer trooper!
Why would you aim up?
@@action-nerd The way I'm reading this, it would be because the weapon's aim cone is 3-dimensional. By aiming up, you're effectively making the cone tighter, as it now covers much less of the ground, allowing you to aim more specifically.
@@action-nerd it will find the fastest part of their body to connect to. If level it will go for legs and chest. If aimed high it will go for the head. It also helps avoid dead bodies.
Pretty much the same way you would use the arc thrower, aim above their heads to increase headshot chance and avoid obstacles
Among a sea of low-effort, clickbaity HD2 content, your videos really stand out. Well researched, and a pleasure to listen to. Thanks for making these!
I appreciate your kind words! I enjoy making this content, not only because the game is really fun but I love the community too so I want to contribute as much as I can to it. Thank you so much for your comment and for checking the video out!
Agree! Subscribed immediately after your jump pack video!
@@Corner5tone Appreciate your kind words! Thanks for checking out my videos!
Regarding the question at 6:50, basically the bolts hit (disappeared) into a dead body and one chose a random target to the right. It happens a lot with arc weapons. There is an inner narrow cone to determine what target will be hit and if one is not found within the cone then it arcs outwards in the second wider cone.
I've been using this for days now and overall I love it against bugs in my arc build. It does act weird or random at time for what targets are hit. But this is the best I have found so far.
Thanks for your insight on that clip and helping me understand it. Appreciate you checking out the video!
Yep I was going to
Say pretty much the same
I enjoy the unpredictable nature of the blitzers targeting. It’s lightning, you aren’t in control like with other guns, you’re simply guiding its power in a general direction. It’s like a game within a game.
I imagine the helldivers bitching about it all the time, and then still bringing it anyway
woah you really opened up the weapon to me conceptually. i wasn't aware of just how much optimization you could fit around the downtime moment after firing. i will definitely be trying an aggressive melee blitzer type build. really nuanced and detailed video as always. a lot of different angles for consideration :3
I do feel like melee is really useful in the game, more so the bugs than the bots. There were times when I interrupted a hunter's attack mid jump with a melee and being able to weave that into the blitzer shots is pure dopamine gameplay haha. Thanks for you kind words and thanks for checking out the video!
Great video! The Blitzer has been my forever primary since the rate of fire buff, because I am not a skilled shooter :D (I use it with heavy medical armour, grenade pistol, impact incendiaries, commando, shield pack, rocket sentry and autocannon sentry - regardless of the mission). My feeling is that if you fire it from the hip it arcs wider and lower to the ground. This makes it misfire more unless you aim higher (about human head height). If you aim fire it then the cone seems to be narrower. I use this when near other players to shoulder fire ~30 degrees off to one side which lets you help someone who's being crowded in without shooting them as well as the enemy. I'm amazed to see you able to shoot automaton mines with it, as I am completely unable to replicate this at the moment. I recently committed to the Blitzer against the automatons as well, because it stunlocks beserkers. I've started to live longer by 'taking cover' against a mob of closer automatons by stun locking one and then getting up to it so that the others don't shoot you, and then squirting blasts to the side peek-dodging and keeping your closest victim stunned. Can't wait to try this weapon-swapping cheese :D
Appreciate your comment! It's nice to see how people think and what play-styles they have with different weapons in this game. Stun locking groups of enemies is really helpful and because of the stun-lock aspect of the blitzer I feel that it would feel great in a "support" type build since it provides that utility and teammates with higher DPS weapons can finish them off. Thanks for checking out the video!
Man I found your channel yesterday and already convinced me to make an arc build after the arc thrower vid. Then you drop this OTHER banger. Convinced x2 now hahah. Keep up the good work man!
Appreciate you checking out my videos and hope you're having a great time with the arc thrower. If you do intend to make a blitzer build I wouldn't recommend taking it with the arc thrower as they both serve the same general purpose, but by themselves they're really fun to play with! Thanks for your kind words and thanks for checking out the video!
This is some crazy detail and work put into this, I love it.
Appreciate your kind words! Every video is a labor of love and this community is wonderful and I want to contribute to it as much as I can. Thanks for checking out the video!
Gave the arc thrower another go last night and I struggled to see any advantage over the blitzer other than it's range. The ability to get that first shot off from the blitzer immediately gets me out of many pinches.
The missfire that happens with arc weapons seems more forgiving with the rate of fire of the blitzer. Also I've seen someone point out and this has worked for me, when you hip fire the blitzer it seems to shoot a wider spread of bolts and thus can hit more enemies if they are in a more horizontal line in front of you.
Blitzer for short range and groups with the railgun for longer range and heavies is what i'm rolling with a lot and it's working for me plus has the fun factor. I found having the shield pack with the blitzer gives the closest feel to a tank build.
Another awesome vid man. Keep up the good work.
Appreciate your kind words and thanks for sharing your experience with both the blitzer and the arc thrower. I enjoy seeing how you and everyone else feel about the weapons! Thanks for watching the video!
Thanks!
Oh wow, appreciate the super thanks! This is my first one, so I’m going to screenshot it and frame it, haha
Nice breakdown. I've used it constantly since it came out, and I would just add (as others have) that you should be hipfiring this weapon. ADS limits your scope of targets slightly.
Wish I had seen this earlier. I kept dying yesterday thinking it got a stealth nerf. Turns out I was using ADS without thinking
Thanks for your comment appreciate you sharing your experience. I wasn't very mindful of the difference between the ADS and hipfire with the blitzer but will pay more mind to it next time I use it. Thanks for checking out the video!
I actually deliberately aim in with it to focus the shot on killing the intended target, especially against mediums and hunters. Spreading the damage around in combination with the arc inconsistencies makes that a more reliable tactic IMO. I don't use first person, though, just a quick tap into aim to shrink the targeting cone as I fire.
Great video on the Blitzer man, would love to see you cover the new-and-improved airburst rocket launcher in another video!
The latest patch greatly improved the sensitivity on the airburst, but a lot of people were burnt by the inconsistencies of the explosions when it first released.
Now it works as intended I'd chalk it up as one of the more enjoyable weapons for a Helldiver to use. More explosions, more good!
Thanks for your kind words! Yeah, I do feel that since the initial release of the airburst it has turned a lot of people away from it. It is a very interesting support weapon and I am eager to review it soon!
I used the Eruptor since launch and nothing else, up until they nerfed the crap out of it. Now, I use the Arc Blitzer and it is a pretty sweet gun. If you've never tried it, use it for a match. It wrecks Brood Commanders and Bile Spewers/Nursing Spewers.
I haven't tried the Eruptor post patch but I did hear how it got gutted. Glad you're having a good time with the blitzer, it's super fun against the bugs! Thanks for checking out the video!
@Wallbouncing oh, yeah. The Eruptor used to be able to 1 shot Brood Commanders. Now it takes 3 or 4 shots. Supposedly, it is slated for ANOTHER update to "buff" it next patch because they got it wrong on damage application.
Keep up the good work.
3:53 This was my question, and now I have a definitive answer. Thank you.
Glad to help! Thanks for checking out the video!
Comprehensive video, man! Thanks! 👍
7:10 It shot all 5 bolts, but four of them went for a corpse, it seems like it shot the warrior because the corpse was shielding the rest of the enemies that were technically closer. The biggest issue with this gun, and all arc based weapons in general is that they target dead enemies too.
Thanks for your analysis on that clip. A lot of people were commenting something similar so I'm glad you were all able to help me figure that out. Targeting dead enemies sucks for the blitzer, and at least you can somewhat use it to your benefit with the arc thrower but the blitzer targeting corpses makes the weapon a bit harder to use. Thanks for checking out the video!
@@Wallbouncing Maybe the blitzer has like a set fire spread and certain bolts prioritize enemies in their own radius.
Things to note:
-You can melee between shots (was mentioned, but not given enough emphasis) This allows you to deal with scavengers who get too close or parry hunters.
-Aiming in decreases the cone size, making it more likely to target 1 enemy, hip firing is usually what you want to do since it'll spread the shot out more.
-Some of the arcs not firing is due to an incomplete misfire. I do not know why it does, it just sometimes only misfires half your shot.
-Sometimes it does a spear and sucks at aiming, this is most common for when it shoots over several scavengers for no reason and hits a warrior
6:40
Partial misfire (4/5 shots misfired, this is much rarer than a full misfire)
Despite not aiming in and reducing the cone, it decided to aim above every scavenger and hit the bigger warrior
These inconsistencies shouldn't happen, but since it's an arc weapon, it has the misfire issue and the weird locking issue. You simply got a double whammy.
Thanks for your input and appreciate you chiming in on that one clip. Funny how you mention that it sometimes, "does a spear" haha. Appreciate you checking out the video!
7:17
1. It fires 5 bolts every time
2. Bolts lock onto enemies in proximity to the random direction the bolt emerged from the gun (imagine the scatter of a shotgun)
3. Closer enemies are more likely to receive more bolts because they are closer in proximity to the bolt origin point, similar to a shotgun
fun fact! there is no timing required. just click and hold during the cooldown, and it'll fire as soon as possible!
Yeah it is a neat part about the blitzer that compared to the other arc weapons (arc thrower and tesla tower) this requires no charge time. Thanks for checking out the video!
Regarding the targeting / number of bolts, I would assume it's just down to the weapon having a random spread of bolts. 5 bolts are fired at slightly different angles (like a shotgun), each with their own auto-aim capability within a cone, like the Arc Thrower has. (You can see the spread without auto-targeting by shooting into the air.) Since they have a spread, the auto-targeting cones don't all perfectly overlap - some might see an enemy on the left but not the right, some might see an enemy on the right but not the left. They always target the nearest enemy in the targeting cone, which generally means it ends up hitting the nearest 1-3 enemies.
I think this explains all the examples within the video, and why it's inconsistent: it's random. Specifically the example at 6:50, I expect 4 of the bolts were aimed around the middle of the screen, which tried to target the nearby scavengers and fizzled out due to there being corpses in the way (normal arc weapon behavior). The last bolt was probably fired high and right, and the only viable target was the Warrior, which wasn't obstructed by a corpse due to having a higher center of mass, thus it fired correctly.
As for why it only ever hits up to 3 targets, I expect this is basically just due to probability and geometry. The spread is basically a random venn diagram with 5 tightly clustered circles, so you'll almost always have significant overlap. You could theoretically hit 5 targets under perfect conditions, but it would be really hard to do.
I love this gun soo much and just like the tesla tower i'll throw my experience in with this gun too, not much I can really add other than it can 1 shot stalkers and brood commanders, it can also target explosive barrels and those little yellow exploding things on bug planets, learned a good bit more info about this thing through this video though, keep up the great work!
Thanks for your kind words! I did have moments where I was able to 1 shot a stalker, but that was on hellmire and I wasn't sure if it took some damage from the fire tornado before I got to it or if I got lucky and all 5 bolts got the headshot proc and that's what did it in. Appreciate your input and thanks for checking out my videos!
6:58 All 5 bolts fire, but the other 4 target a corpse under the gun... looks that way to me anyway
Oh, you're right I can definitely see it. I initially thought the shot misfired except for just 1 bolt but looking at the corpse in front the lighting does look to be directed towards. Any clue as to why the warrior was the one shot in that field of bugs? Nonetheless, thanks for sharing your insight and making the time to check out the video!
Very good analysis! I like your videos 👍🏻
Appreciate your kind words and I'm glad you enjoy them!
Hip fire helps hit more targets and most important thing is stay on the move like side steps and moving backwards.
I've only been playing with it for the past week but because the MO is on bug planets I've found that it has exceptional utility. Two things that can be drawbacks to it. Your teammates probably don't understand how it works. The guy with the sniper build will consistently walk between you and your intended targets because apparently, he needs to close on the swarm bearing down on you to nail a shot with his AMR. If he's the host he'll kick you. Second, I've had trouble getting consistent damage on charger legs. It seems like the weapon wants to auto-lock on a head, and for everything up to a charger, this is a feature. Bring something that can help you deal with chargers on bug planets.
Thanks for your comment and for sharing your thoughts! I agree that yeah, beyond the charger, just heavies in general are hard with the blitzer so I like to use it just on the small to medium mobs and save the rest for my support weapon and stratagems. Thanks for checking out the video!
6:45 dead bodies affects where the bolts of lightning goes to.
Just because YOU can see the enemies behind the dead body, doesn’t mean the line of sight from the tip of the Blitzer can see them and will likely be blocked by the dead bodies like in this case.
Just realized many others are basically saying the same thing as me… which is great.
Other thing I noticed is that if you hip fire with the blitzer, it will more likely spread like a shotgun, but if you aim down sight (ADS), you can more likely focus fire your shots so that all 5 or most shots hit the specific target you are aiming for.
So yeah, you can kind of shoot as you intend as long as you keep that in mind and reposition yourself when you have many dead bodies in front of you already.
R&D PSA
Corpses count for the Blitzer targeting at 7:02 where you only saw one bolt 4 hit the dead bug at your feet
There is a minimum range of 1m so to avoid the player counting at a valid target. I died to many times figuring that out.
The blitzer will not stagger nursing spewers and their bigger siblings BUT it will interfere with their vomit ability.
Stalkers will not stagger but interferes with their attacks they will maintain forward momentum but won't attack until the "stagger effect timer" wears off. With practice you can juggle 2 stalkers with 40% success rate should you be ambushed in a 1v2 scenario to delay your death and get help from teammates.
Sincerely R&D guinea pig
R&D addendum
The blitzer can puncture the terminid hive guard face plate while stopping forward momentum.
Warriors and Brood Commanders will be staggered and pushed back
Effective verses shrikers as an AA option (further testing required)
Minimal use versus chargers. May puncture medium armor segment (testing required) and practice required for weakspot exploitation/stripped armor.
Thank you for all your service R&D guinea pig. I learned a lot from your comments, especially with the minimum 1m range. Thanks for checking out the video!
@@Wallbouncing It is no trouble for me the R&D Division is never run by a single individual but a team of many including us Guinea Pigs
6:50 4 bolts hit the death body in front of you, one bolt went in another direction and hit another bug. The bolts get fired in a spread out pattern like a shotgun (shocker) and then autolock onto enemies, so the bolts that were fired vaguely towards the body went towards it while the bolt that went off to the side hit a different bug. Imagine firing a bullet shotgun and the directions that the bullets fired would go in
Always hip fire the Blitzer! Always!
I believe that if you fire while aiming, the bolts will be more precise and focus on fewer enemies. If you don’t aim, it will be more spread out and target more enemies.
I belive it shoots more concentrated in first person down the sights, and 3rd person from the hip it spreads more.
The targeting inconsistency is most likely as simple as lightening is probabilistic, so there'll always be a random element, which benefits the theme.
I mentioned how, in my arc thrower video, that there was a chance for the lightning to chain, which was that random element, and with all the inconsistencies I was happening upon with the blitzer I felt that chalking that all up to random chance could've been an argument to make as well. I just wasn't quite sure where to apply the RNG, to either the bollts being fired, the targets being chosen and so on. Nonetheless, thanks for checking out the video and I appreciate your insight!
I like this thing but the targeting can be super frustrating. If you get swarmed it will often prefer to take out the wrong thing at the wrong time
You can hit whatever targets you want, there’s just a knack to it
Once I figure out how to get the blitz lightning to work and how to make it more predictable I'll definitely let you know so the swarming won't be so overwhelming next time! Thanks for checking out the video!
I just let that subconscious pattern recognizing side of my brain do it's thing and after a while I stopped missing targets and got better with it.
@@LizardOnAMushroom2358 precisely this, any good autist knows to just let your pattern recognition take over and you can master the weapon easily
That's why I prefer to aim in for most shots, contrary to the advice given by other commenters. Very limited multi-targeting isn't nearly as helpful as reliable kill damage most of the time IMO
In you quiz, i suspect 4 bolts went to the bug body below and Infront if your barrel.
When im using it i note a lot of shots go into bodys if i don't reposition when clearing numbers.
>shoot into crowd of bugs
"nice, this shit slaps"
>shoot into crowd again
>all lightning goes into the corpse
>mfw
arc-12 blitzer moment
Hello. At 6:45, my take is that all other targets were blocked from the locking mechanism's view of the Blitzer, like it happens with Arc, when there are either dead bodies, rocks, or even an elevated slope of terrain like in here. The only enemy's hitbox high enough to clear all that was the Warrior. The other arcs were blocked from chosing a target, only that one had a path available.
Since I'm writing this now, maybe you say it later in the video, but there is ONE huge argument in my view, that made sure I'll never use the Blitzer again (except just to have fun in lower, less demanding levels) that I haven't seen nobody share yet:
Even tho Blitzer is good at dealing with bug breaches, it is terrible when it comes to preventing them. Enemies can be or come at you in rows and Blitzer will most of the time only fire at the front lines. What happens when you see a Scavenger, on the third row, preparing to call a BB ? Unless you have tremendous reflexes and switch to another weapon (if you have one for that and if your view on the target has not been obfuscated by then or you haven't been pounced on and so on...) consistently, you will watch, helpless, bug breaches happen right in front of your nose, without being able to do anything time and time again.
Helldivers being first and foremost a time and resource management game... not being able to comfortably and reliably prevent BB is a huge deal-breaker.
I do mention later in the video how the blitzer is good when it comes to interrupting bugs trying to call breaches and to be honest, in all my time testing it, the bug was always up front close to me when it happened. I never was in a situation where the bug was far back and other bugs would be taking all the targeted shots from the blitzer. I can definitely see how that is frustrating to deal with it in that situation and I just feel lucky to not have been in that spot a lot. Not being to respond to the bug breaches because of the weapon's targeting does suck and it seems that with this weapon, when it works it works well and when it doesn't it's just painful. As for your insight for the targeting that one clip, I can see how the dead bodies and targets could block the blitzer's field of view, and it hitting the warrior could be because it was the larger unit and it was able to be detected by the blitzer. Thanks for that input! Sorry you went through those bug breach experiences but I appreciate you leaving your thoughts and checking out the video!
@@Wallbouncing Maybe it is partially due to the planet type. The number of obstacles an arc can meet varies immensely from my beloved Fenrir III to let's say the Creek. Maybe we didn't frequent the same neighborhoods that much and that could have influenced our observations.
Cheers man o/
Honestly, I don't see it as that big of a deal.
On difficulties past 6 the time between enemies change from roam state to aggro and call backup gets reduced significantly, meaning even if you manage to kill them right before the "alarm raiser" bug/bot launches pheromone cloud/dropship flare, it will STILL TRIGGER the breach/drop regardless, just with less visual cues.
This made me reconsider tactics when approaching PoI's and objectives to trigger enemy reinforcements preemptively, so when you get to the desired location you can either fight the breach/drop and locals all at once or clear the PoI without worrying about getting overwhelmed because reinforcements cooldown is still going.
I'd like to know how you're reliably preventing BB on helldive with a primary weapon because I can't imagine
@@SepticFuddy That's what crowd control is for. Stun and impact grenades are your friends. Whenever you see a patrol or guarding bugs and you HAVE to take the fight, you start by Impact/stun nade all the smaller ones before starting to shoot. When talking about breaches, while in the middle of a big fight if plan A failed, then it's about map awareness and distancing yourself, I rarely see people disengaging fights, or only after so many resources have already been wasted.
I suspect that the five bolts have a scatter pattern like the shotguns, to determine a line for each, and then each bolt picks the closest target to its line.
With the buff this is officially my favorite bug smasher. Its the perfect balance between the ad clear of the breaker series of guns and the push back of the punisher. While yes its not as effective in each role as the fore mentioned weapons it still prefer it. Simply I like that I don't have to choose between:
Do I want to not get swarmed
Or
Do I want to not get rag dolled/melted by brutes, spewers, and stalkers.
I can effectively fight both and with unlimited ammo!
As for issues they definitely need to fix the targeting. Far too many times does it "dry fire"/ zap the corpse to your left 3 times instead of the hunter jumping at you / or not hitting a portion of a body you desperately need to. Ie stripped charger leg or brute head for a 1 shot*
The current solutions ive found are aiming above the enemy which results in a headshot 90% of the time. Constantly circling fighting a group. By shifting your angle vs constantly running back keeps the bodies from getting in the way. It doesn't have to be a big change either even a slight course adjustment will do. As for the charger situation welp gl and just use your secondary. Highly recommend the grenade pistol as it also fixes the issue of the blitzer not being able to pop eggs. I would like either a targeting fix or make it so ads makes a single focused stream to the cross hair and hip fire auto tracks like it does now.
TL;DR: best Jack of all trades wep. Can CC and stun special units with unlimited ammo too. Great for when you get stuck fighting hordes or wanna solo from the group without stealing supply drops. Lastly aim above for ez 1 taps.
Thanks for your comment and really appreciate the insight coming from a veteran blitzer trooper. I agree with all your tips and feel that the blitzer is a very good all-rounder of a weapon. Thanks for checking out the video and sharing your insight!
From my experience, the Arc Thrower has an invisible ice-cream cone coming out the tip that it uses to target enemies, whereas the Blitzer has something more closely resembling a pizza slice, meaning that it can't be manipulated to target larger enemies well, or at least is far less than the level of control you have with the Arc Thrower.
I find that even with the recent buff, the Blitzer is still lacking in DPS, and best used as a stun gun for Bile Spewers and Nursing Spiders, especially on the extermination missions. I did not know that it could stun Stalkers so well, and will have to give it a few more tries, as I've found my current favorite bug setup of Breaker Incendiary + Arc Thrower struggles with them.
I also have a few questions about the Blitzer that I'd appreciate any answers to from more knowledgeable divers.
First, I remember that in the Arc Thrower video, Wallbouncing showed that it was possible to fire accurately if the weapon was sticking through a piece of cover, even if it appeared to be pointed downward. Did you find the Blitzer was able to do the same? Don't think it's too important of a detail, but figured it might be a bit of knowledge that could make it more useful against bots.
Second, does each bolt of lightning stagger or stun the full amount, or is the stagger split between all 5 bolts? In other words, do all 5 bolts have to connect to the same enemy to stagger it the full amount, or does only 1 bolt? If the latter, then I will be for sure using this for bugs from now on to deal with those double-stalker-hole-lairs, which have been a point of great pain in my efforts to spread democracy.
Thanks in advance to any who may know the answers to my questions.
Hello! Thanks for your comment and I love the visualizations you made for the arc thrower and blitzer cone. As for your questions:
1) When pushed up against cover, the blitzer will be brought up and the barrel of the weapon will be close to your head pointing upwards. This allows you to still shoot the blitzer over cover since the lightning will try to go where your character is facing at. Since the weapon is already very close to your head, if you ADS the weapon will pretty much have the same view. In comparison to the arc thrower, when you are up against cover the weapon will be brought down with the barrel pointing downwards and every shot normally being eaten by the cover you're on. If you were to ADS with the arc thrower the view brings the barrel of the weapon closer to your head so you're able to still fire over cover. For both, if the barrel of the weapon is able to clip out of the cover, you can shoot like that while your body is still behind cover.
2) As for your second question, I found that all bolts carry the same amount of stagger. If 3 enemies were to get hit, they would get staggered the same amount, regardless of who got how many lightning bolts. Alternatively, if you were to only hit one enemy and one bolt was to hit them I observed them still having the full stagger period. It has been helpful in preventing multiple stalkers as well as beserkers from running me down.
Hope that answers your questions and if anyone knows more please be sure to comment too as understanding this whole lightning thing about the arc weapons is a group effort! Thanks for checking out my videos!
As for the stagger effect, I found through experience that one bolt is enough to stun a bile spewers attack.
On minute 6, I would say that the 5 lightning rays are primarily targeted at the closest target within the cone, but if theres another target available within ranges then it will spread 1 ray to each of those enemies, hence 4 for the primary hunter targeted and 1 to the additional on the right. This raises the question: If there were 5 available targets, would all five be hit with 1 ray instead?
Ps. On the 5:27 mark, one of your rays went 4 to your primary target and 1 ray to a hunter corpse on the left. Maybe a bug? 😅
Excellent video!
Thank you! Appreciate your kind words!
The misfire seems to me to be the same issue that hurts the Spear. Basically it is not able to find a target for some reason. It hangs up on the same terrain issues that the Spear does, but not as bad because it is instant lock instead of having to spend time locking on. Enemies with any part of their bodies occluded by terrain make it misfire the most.
Apparently it's a lot better to hipfire the weapon instead of aiming down sights too
I've been hearing that a lot and how it affects the behavior in which the blitzer targets so I'll take those nuggets and tips with me the next time I dive with it. Thanks for checking out the video!
6:51 Whats happening here is the blitzer is landing all 4 bolts on the dead scavenger and the last one on the next available target, besides friend or foe the arcs seem to target dead bodies too
This is a great video well made
Appreciate your kind words! Thanks for making the time to check out the video as well!
blitzer is legit. They just need to add an arc grenade or something. helldivers is REALLY coming into it's own now with these elemental weapons. Just running a FULL fire build now and its so fun lol.
I've been loving the elemental weapons in the game too. Even though the arc weapons fire inconsistently, the fire took some time to fix, and the plasma weapons are kind of on the side, they introduce a lot of variety into the game that I appreciate. Arc grenade would be wonderful. Someone mentioned an arc orbital and I thought that would be insane! Thanks for checking out the video too!
Arc weapons often target close corpses. Arc thrower has same issue, it's in the "known issues" in patch. Also, low to high ground firing seems to cause misfires a lot too
Appreciate you checking out the video and thanks for your insight. Great tips!
Very accurate, nuanced take on a weapon.
As a Tesla Trooper in heart I consider it as mini Arc Thrower with reverse firing mechanism.
Unfortunately, there isn't any reason besides cool factor to bringing more than one of those "elemental" strategems, because they generally fill the same role in your build and also because devs enforce armorgate meta on mid and high difficulties.
Blitzer gives me that utility without sacrificing mobility or anti-tank weapon slot.
Thanks for your comment. I do feel that yeah the blitzer or the arc thrower would be enough but having both on you is kind of redundant. Thanks for your input and thanks for checking out the video!
I really enjoy the Blitzer, Grenade Pistol and Quasar - besides grenades, ammo-grenades or stims you won't have any problems.
I simply enjoy that very much.
Great video 👍
Thanks! Appreciate you checking out the video
I've heard that the Blitzer is a lil backwards in that you have a more focused shot hip fired and a more spread shot when aiming
I heard a lot of people saying that the hipfire is very different from the ADS and I can't believe I never noticed it but will keep it in mind in my future dives with the blitzer. Thanks for checking out the video and commenting!
I read somewhere that it behaves differently depending if you aim (hold right mouse button) or hipfire. When aiming it should mostly arc to single target while hipfiring will target multiple.
Haven't tested this myself tho yet.
That is exactly correct. I have a few dozen hours with the Blitzer and can confirm that ADS will tighten the cone.
When you ADS it brings the blitzer closer to you and moves the cone since I believe the origination point of the targeting cone is at the end of the weapon. As to whether or not it actually tightens the cone I'm not sure but will definitely keep that in mind when testing it again as that is an interesting take. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and for checking out the video!
Blitzer acts like any electricity would act. it seeks/prio out the closest conductor... even if that is a dead body or a ammo pack, basicly anything that is'nt terrain but an object the blitzer will arc towards. I usually always back inbetween shots to make sure that the dead are left behind so the frontline will be viable targets, also the reticle of the weapon plays a part in the arc and if you do have a headshot lined up on for example a broodmother most of the time the bolts will prioritize the head over any other viable conductor points making that head pop with full dmg.
Thanks for checking out the video and some other people were mentioning the role the reticle of the weapon plays and I wish I was more aware of that while doing my initial tests but will keeping it in mind when I bring it again in my future dives. Thanks for your comment!
@@Wallbouncing you should also try the hipfire for clearing small fry and horde CC. hipefire behaves alot more different that aim does.
Hip fire!!!! Do not ads or first person!!
Since the buff it’s my favourite primary against bugs. It’s biggest downside to me is that it shoots just slowly enough for a Stalker to get an attack in between shots. But if this gun was put at 60 firerate it would probably be to strong
Running into same issue. Might have to switch to stun grenades for this purpose
The blitzer is very good against the bugs and yeah if a stalker is already on top of you the stagger time with the blitzer isn't enough to completely lock it down. The only counterplay to those stalkers is to recognize them as they're approaching so you can stun them just enough so they can't reach you, but after the patch that made their cloaking better that's not as easy anymore. Thanks for checking out the video and thanks for your comment!
@@kappa1032 Stun grenades helps a lot. I throw one as soon as i see multiple stalkers. Blitzers is not enough to lock them down.
If you have a friend with a blitzer you can alternate your shots to keep them stunlocked. But that’s not always possible. I run 99% of my games with randoms.
Lets see how long the blitzer lasts. Thanks for the vid!
Thanks for the comment and appreciate you checking out the video!
i think aiming (right click by default) changes the aim a little bit. i assume that it reduces the aim cone for more precise enemy choice, otherwise i usually just hipfire
I've seen a lot of people say something similar and after trying it again I think they're right. Hipfiring the weapon does make the cone for targeting enemies wider as opposed to aiming down sights.
Bro, I've been pairing this with the stun grenades and grenade launcher on lvl 9 helldive. All my teammates want me to save bugs for them to kill 🤣
That sounds like a great combo for absolutely tearing through all the bug fodder. Explosives and lightning are a sick combination. Thanks for sharing and thanks for checking out the video!
It's always been great for regaining safe distance for weapons like GL
What if instead of one wide cone for the five bolts to choose a target in, it is rather five narrow cones next to each other for each bolt to target in.
This might explain why one target takes 4 bolts to the other’s 1 as despite both being in the big cone only one enemy is in 4/5 which is why it seems to prioritize closer targets with more bolts.
As for the misfire, that seems to be just Arc things.
The idea of each bolt having its cone is really interesting. As puzzling as the arc weapons are, speculating about the way it works is really a fun brain teaser haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
This gun is decent against the bugs, but essentially useless against the bots.
I used this for about 30 d9 bug games, but honestly I find breaker incendiary better for bugs at the moment. It's biggest flaws are how slow it is to kill several chunkier enemies like armoured bile spewers and how inconsistent it is versus enemies at point blank range, its also just too short of a range for the flying bugs most of the time. Also, by the time I kill 4 enemies I could have killed 12+ with incendiary or flamethrower, which often means you can't clear a wave quick enough. The only value I found was on brood mothers headshots and stagger. It's certainly not bad, but I don't find it great. Not tried it on bots.
Thanks for your comment and I appreciate your criticism on the blitzer instead of saying the gun just sucks. I understand your plight with the flying enemies, as the only time you'll be able to kill the shriekers is if they are diving to attack you so that makes the blitzer more reactionary than a proactive weapon in those fights. I also do feel like against the bugs that fire is pretty strong (especially with the recent DOT fix) so other options are better than the blitzer. Appreciate your comment and insight and thanks for checking out the video!
@Wallbouncing The issue with the proactivity is they still often damage you even if you kill them midair. But yeah, I think it's pretty well balanced, I wouldn't mind a little extra range though for those air enemies, because if it had that I'd use it more often.
Pair this with the supply pack and you can be the support guy for your team
I had the exact same thought. With the blitzer having pretty good crowd control I felt like I was stunning units more than killing them and thought that if there was ever a "support" loadout in this game the blitzer would be a good primary for it. Thanks for checking out the video!
🤔 what if the blitzer has not a sigle cone, but each of the 5 lightings has its own? That would explain wait 4 out of 5 hit the dead body in the clip: it was the closer to their cone, while the single one who got the enemy was on the periphery of the fifth arc/ray/lightning
Thinking of each of the bolts having their own cone with their own targeting is a unique idea and given how the possibility of RNG can still be a part of the blitzer (and arc lightning behavior) as well then I feel like its possible. Thanks for your comment and thanks for checking out the video!
I believe it can arc to more than one target, but you need to hipfire the weapon. I don't know this personally, but saw it in another YT video.
I have noticed that when I'm surrounded by corpses it tends to just hit the corpses instead of the enemy I hope they fix this soon
can you switch between blitzer and arc thrower as they recharge on your side/back to get infinite stun-lock? also blitzer probably hits more bolts the more accurate you are, and the bolts split between enemies based on how far they are from the reticle, if one is 10 degrees away and the other is 40 degrees, then the first will get 4 bolts and the other 1. 6:52 idk bro joel works in mysterious ways
If you were to switch from the blitzer to the arc thrower, the time it takes for you to take out the arc thrower then charge it may be longer than the actual recharge time just for the blitzer so it may be better off to stick with having the blitzer out. As for your point about distance from the reticle, that is interesting to think about and is not something that has crossed my mind so I will definitely be considering that. Thanks for your comment and appreciate the insight!
Yeah, no point in trying that, because you can fire 2 shots from Blitzer normally in the time you switch to Arc Thrower and charge the shot.
Your last example had 4 going into a corpse on the ground, leaving 1 for the target.
Thanks for your input. I’ve been seeing a lot of other comments about the corpse and looking at it more it seems that that’s what’s happening, but do you have an idea on why the single bolt went to that single bug out of all those other bugs? Thanks again for your comment and thanks for checking out the video!
hmm does the arc thrower not ignore armor? and would that not mean the blitzer also ignores armor??
Blizters goated, i solo with it so often now.
I do think blitzer is good enough for solo matches, and do you use it to solo against the bugs and/or the bots? If for the bots, you have any tips to share? Nonetheless, thanks for your comment and checking out the video!
@@Wallbouncing ah nah fuck the bots, i wouldnt take the blitzer to them. Sorry for the misleadingness. I only use it for bugs
6:52
I think enemy corpses can block shots
Thanks for pointing that out. Someone else also mentioned that but I thought the gun misfired and only one bolt came out. The corpse in front does answer where the majority of the shot went to but do you have any clue as to why the single bot went to the lone warrior bug? Someone mentioned how the blitzer targeting also needs line of sight and the corpses may have blocked the field of view and only the warrior was big enough to get targeted. Nonetheless, thanks for your comment and thanks for checking out the video!
@@Wallbouncing I think your explanations before, as the fov of the weapon being a cone, is a about as appropriate as it gets to describe its behavior and how it acquires targets. Plus the consideration if you're not the host of a match, server lag, etc
Which secondary would be best to combine with the blitzer for bugs? Grenade pistol for holes?
I like to either take the grenade pistol for the bug holes or the senator for long range precision shots such as a stalker I can see from far away or a bile spewer while it's in that artillery shooting phase. Hope that answers your question and thanks for checking out the video!
I liked bringing redeemer as an "oh shit" button against hunter flanks, but that was before the buff so it may be less necessary now. I was mostly running it with GL so I didn't need any of the other utility he mentioned
when enemy is close. the # of bolts condens. You must have distance, medium i say. not up close.
how did you get that cape fellow helldiver? :O
Hello fellow diver! I got it from the super citizen edition. It comes with a cape, a helmet, a title, and even a weapon! Hope that helps and thanks for checking out the video!
Could you study the fire weapons next? They have patched those weapons so much the community is definitely not in agreement with each other.
Fire weapons are on my queue to look into. Looking at what's coming up I'd have to say the Polar Patriot warbond first when it comes out tomorrow then maybe back to weapons, but I have not done any of the orbitals/eagles so I might want to do one of those (but not locked into anything yet). Thanks for checking out the video!
@@Wallbouncing understood
I love this gun even if it fired weird it's the beeeeeeest run and gun weapon just hip fire in the general direction of enemies as you dip duck and dive
Arc grenades coming soon
I'll be on top to cover those right away! Thanks for checking out the video!
I love the Blitzer, until rambo runs out in front of you and you kill him with friendly fire🎉🎉🎉
if they made this weapon also chain the electricity from the 5 bolts this weapon would literally have UNLIMITED POWER!!!
If blitzer lightning chained, even once, it would be a super overpowered weapon haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
I enjoy using this, but have to admit Hunters fuck me up in packs of 3 or 4
Glad you're enjoying using the blitzer and yeah even when I get swarmed it gets overwhelming unless I'm perma-diving backwards and away haha. Thanks for your comment and thanks for checking out the video!
I find the redeemer fills that gap nicely. Take out the ones closest to you using the running hipfire feature and then switch back to the blitzer
Need a nail gun to guide the arc chain
It'd be super funny if you can have just some bag of nails for your grenade slot as utility to help out the arc thrower haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
2:47 1.33...33s cuz 60/45
Oh my goodness you're right. I had the fire rate I could've just done the math I don't know why I tried to manually time it haha. Thanks for the clarification and thanks for checking out the video!
Can’t wait for a shocking nerf.
The blitzer needs an entire overhaul or it needs to be removed
Or until AH nerfs the Blitzer into the stone age.
Praying to the AH devs to not touch the blitzer or the auto cannon haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
Idk… the blitzer as a solo only player is basically impossible. The weapon just feels so underwhelming.
vs bots this weapon is poop
The Blitzer sucks, and no one should use it
I think they should a just added the extra ark with the expansion upgrade it'd be ok but it'd start killing whole teams of players easy
I think a weapon being op means it needs to be costly to the team to use