Love your videos man. My go to build for non-defense illuminate missions: - Armor: Medium killzone - Primary: Crossbow - Secondary: The machine gun pistol (i forget what it's called) - Grenade: Gas - Strategems: Guard Dog, Commando, Machine Gun Sentry, and Gatling Sentry or Eagle Strafing. Rationale: For the armor, primary reason is that it can withstand a shot from an enemy tesla tower if you accidentally run up on one. I love the crossbow, and when running it vs Illuminates, I need the guard dog. The travel time on the crossbow projectile adds a guaranteed miss rate to anything flying, and the guard dog mercs the overseers and drones. I can't even count the number of times it killed a drone before it could signal for reinforcements. And it actually helps you move faster because if there are a handful of small enemies, it will just one shot headshot them all and you don't even have to stop moving. For me, the Guard Dog here is a perfect example of "the best defense is a good offense." And, it seems to me that in a recent update, the Guard Dog shoots me WAY less than it used to. But maybe I am just getting used to working with it. Not sure. I'm not sure how I feel about the tesla tower in a pub game (except for defense missions). Seems like a recipe for trouble unless you split off on your own. I would sub in a machine gun sentry. Pub players are a little more in tune with how to avoid machine gun sentry fire. I sub in the machine pistol vs the Senator. It is good at breaking shields and can quickly shred a mini hoard if you are in trouble. Senator is dog water for breaking illuminate shields. The Eagle strafing run is very good and very viable. However, when I bring the machine pistol, I can feel free to leave it in exchange for a Gatling Sentry. For solos, this is a good tradeoff, imo. Having two sentries for added coverage on two streets buys you a lot of protection, especially during flag raising and rescue missions, as well as during extraction. However, it is slower to break the shields on the ships, and with full ammo, the machine pistol can only break the shields on two ships before needing a resupply. But, the guard dog or the sentries will often accidentally break the shields aiming at a voteless standing in the door of the ship.
while my aim has never been good for overseers in close range, the senator is surprisingly good at popping heads for me the stick boys like to get close enough that even thinking about explosive crossbow is suicide, but when they're that close it's easy to pull out the senator and click on heads, it even takes one less shot than the crossbow ...yeah I still can't ever hit the flying ones, I just leave those to the gatling turret and crossbow
I used to love the crossbow but it infuriated me when it bounces off the ground and explodes somewhere behind my target. Now I feel the Scythe is great for Illuminate, and either heavy machine gun or anti-materiel rifle. Jump pack.
On cold planets I tried the sickle and it’s actually pretty damn good. Not great against overseers but still pretty damn reliable. I like it mostly because the accuracy for taking out watchers. And of course ammo economy
@@ItzSpritz Yeah I use it mostly for watchers and voteless. I use my heavy machine gun or anti-materiel gun for overseers and larger units. Having a machine gun turrent (shorter cooldown version) is super handy with harvesters because it takes their attention.
The end is exactly why Guard Dog > Shield Pack. Overseers are super dangerous and you're not always going to be able to merc them with crossbow shots. The Dog can mow them down fairly easily.
Always interesting to see other people's loadouts! I have found that this loadout works best for me. I've been able to do Super Helldives with this: Heavy armor with the siegebreaker passive Breaker Shotgun. I have found it very effective in taking out the Voteless and the ship and harvester shields. Not so great against overseers, but that's not what I use this weapon for. Grenade pistol. For blowing up tesla towers and warp ships Eagle Strafing run. No reason needed. Best strategem against the squids Orbital Gas strike. Useful if you either need to get away or kill a warpship quick Jump pack. . Enhanced mobility allows you to get out of dicey situations. Pretty much needed with the heavy armor. AMR. The squids happen to be made out of a lot of material, so why not bring the anti-material rifle?
Glad to see another Orbital Gas Strike appreciator out there, although I haven't tried out the Tesla Tower yet. Also man, you'd think they'd have fixed that "anti-materiel" typo by now [joke]
AMR is the support weapon to use against the illuminate, 6 shots ship shields, 4 shots harvester shields, 4 shots harvester legs, 1 shot headshots overseers, and ammo is a non issue as there’s tons of ammo lined in the streets
Will try the AMR. Have been using the Recoiless Rifle, or Quasar Cannon, depending on my build. Using Quasar Cannon, I find the cooldown takes too long against Harvesters.
@ yea, plus if you miss then gg, amr covers a lot of bases and has a lot of utility with these missions, I go walking barrage, Jetpack, amr, and machine gun sentry with scout armor, crossbow, senator and incendiary nade for hordes
flamethrower is also really good, can handle every single troop in seconds, obvisously clears the voteless like its nothing, and its so sattisfying to use, can even take out the harvesters if you have arc resistant armor which I find to be the best for illuminate anyways
@@thesobolan7480 my only issue is the range on it, having arc armor is only useful if you’re getting close to harvesters, or if you get too close to a Tesla tower accidentally but if you’re paying attention that never happens, that’s why I use fire nades and crossbow for zombies
@@maximusbt4867 RR and QC both pretty low-tier against illuminate currently. Besides the awkwardness of shields and the overseer ablative armor countering them, there just isn't anything to worth shooting with them currently. An MG-43 can get a lower TTK on a harvester than a QC, while also killing hordes and overseers.
One thing I've noticed about Illuminate is that you're right, the overseers are the most dangerous units. I started running the machine gun because it rips them apart and is easy to hit. Can also take out the harvesters so it's a pretty well rounded weapon. Also frees up a stratagem slot so you don't need to use strafe anymore. Stalwart is better, but can't take out harvesters sadly.
@@voidcheque7019I just hate sniping, I wanna go brrrr. I run stalwart for clearing shields and voteless, scorcher for overseers, and the laser orbital for harvesters. There may be a better stratagem for harvesters, but even on 10 I don’t see many so the laser is usually enough. In a bad pinch the nade pistol can kill then but it’s not efficient lol
That tesla turret is extremely solid. Not really sold on the commando. The harvester one-shot is really nice, but I still think I prefer the machine gun for moments like that extraction when you want the extra firepower against groups of elevated overseers.
Guard Dog and Jump Pack are better for Illuminates. I only use the Shield Generator for Automatons and Termanids because they're more difficult than the Illuminate.
I perform better with guard dog against both automatons and terminids. Heavy armor really makes shield generator obsolete against automatons, not to mention how the shield makes your hitbox bigger against rockets (especially the one shot from striders). You'll need to be more careful using cover if you don't want to eat stims 24/7, but it's not like you can walk out of cover mindlessly with the shield either. For terminids, you loose a big defensive layout against acid and ragdoll, but with good enough run&gun, the 100/200 kills the dog brings makes a big difference, and it's not just trash mobs, even commanders and acid spewers taste automatic freedom in a second. Maybe because I'm also abusing sentries, which divert a lot of enemies from rushing at you...
@@GrubKiller436 never talked about wearing heavy for terminids, but bots. Damage resistance really makes the difference against lasers, add -50% explosion damage passive and rockets feel like snowballs. If mobility is an issue to you, then jetpack instead of guard dog. Heavy + jetpack is not only more mobile but also more tanky than light + shield, I really don't see myself ever going light vs bots again.
@ipatchymakouli415 No, that's bad. Jet packs should only be used for illuminates. You ragdoll yourself all over the place with jetpacks, and the automatons are not going to be forgiving. And getting shot by robots stunlock you. You can use medium or heavy armor with shield generator or guard dog. And if you don't die a lot, running light armor doesn't make that much of a different. Jet packs for automatons is trash.
@@GrubKiller436 you don't ragdoll if you know how to use it though? just go back (S) right before landing for less than half a second, you'll never ragdoll, unless you eat a wall or something. Skill issue on that one.
Your "strafing-run-exploding-crossbow-warp-ship-kill" has been my go-to since several videos ago. The random games I've joined ppl have seen me do that and went "oh damn, thats easy". I've learned quite a bit from your videos. I'm lvl 52 atm but my skill is still lacking. Illuminates give me the hardest time with their ability to "swarm" out of nowhere.
@@robwright8949 Yea, sentries are great. Btw... have you noticed the MG turret shoots just above the heads of the zombies? I've noticed it on several runs. I started noticing when the turret would drain all it's ammo in 1 salvo. Till I paid more attention to it and saw it's tracers were right over the heads. Not always... but quite often.
@KuKoKaNuKo No, i haven't noticed that. That's interesting and I'll watch for it now. It may be that it's targeting the head in the same way the Guard Dog does
This is more like a day one loadout than an "ultimate" one. I think Commando is a noob trap. It's good but the MG-43 is just much more versatile and I find when the Harvester just decides it isn't going to die sometimes, a lost rocket is much more detrimental than some ammo from a mag. The crossbow also sucks for shields. Being caught without a strafing run and a bunch of shields sucks so much. The Jar-5 is effective against the entire lineup in addition to shredding shields so it's a no-brainer.
What in tf are you talking about right now? I don't think there's any ultimate Loadout but this one is actually VERY good. A lost rocket from an expendable weapon with a very short cooldown isn't detrimental at all. You have 5 Strafing runs, the chances of you running out are a complete noobdiver move, idk if you're aware but you have the option of re-arming them so you don't face the possibility of running out. And you can take out multiple shields in one go depending on positioning of the ships and the run. Honestly the Jar 5 is effective in the sense that it's SO easy to use it's predominantly the go to noob primary for practically any faction, bots, bugs or Squids you'll always have that one beginner using it.
I also like using the jet pack: After you strafe run the harvester, jump close to it and show it some love with the Commando. Almost feel like doom slayer going in for the kill with the meathook/ssg .. almost. Playing super aggresiv is so much fun, but does not always work ..
I hear a lot of people call the illuminates the easiest faction(mostly cause lack of elites), and i always feel the need to specify "as long as you focus the watchers and elevated overseers" cause otherwise you get stuff like this extract ending and it's hell
Interesting to see the variation in loadouts. The loadout I use that trivializes squids for me (at least until they add the full squid roster) is: Medium armor with peak physique, tenderizer, senator, gas grenades, MG34, liberator guard dog, hmg emplacement, MG34 sentry. The MG34 has just buckets and buckets of ammo, and the squid maps have even more ammo just lying around everywhere - I'm literally never short on ammo. I use MG for everything, including popping shields on landed UFOs. HMG emplacement can handle literally everything the squids have, the sentry is good for clearing out zombies & overseers. I use primary very very little - mostly just for the nice level of zoom on it, it pops the probes in like 3-4 rounds. Other than that it's an emergency backup for the MG34.
i dont like using the shield because when i used to use it a lot i became too reliant upon it and couldnt play without it. to compensate i use medium armor instead of light which i feel gives me a decent balance of speed and surviveability. my typical loadout is the Sickle (though lately ive been really enjoying the STA-11), Bushwhacker, Eagle Airstrike, Machine Gun Turret, Guard Dog (ballistic), and Commando. ive been messing around with the firebomb hellpods and the armed ressuply pod as well, lotta fun to just drop into voteless hoards on solo.. and the armed pods are useful against overseers.
That first death was definitely caused by the body of one of the watcher drones. They explode on death and sometimes bounce off midair, so if you're too close they can and will kill you. Happened to me a few times when using short ranged weapons like blitzer or flamethrower.
Actually, you need only 3 things to feel good against illuminats: crossbow, anti-material rifle (these 2 work great against fabricators/overseers/harvesters when you want to keep your distance) and a 500 kilo to instantly destroy ships without needing to break their shields, everythiny else is just here to make it more enjoyable. My best for now is this + jetpack + gatling sentry +muscle upgrade. That way you can always maintain decent pace without worrying of being overrun at any point.
It’s weird I used to be really bad at bots. I used every “crutch/meta” build you could just to survive. I just couldn’t hit weak points. After a week or so of spamming illuminates with those little floaty drones that summon reinforcements to ruin your game, my buddy and I have been totally dominating against bots. I think the illuminate have made me better at the game
This my Illuminate loadout. Worth a try. Sickle - Shreds shields and continues damage when Laser Cannon is almost overheated. Grenade Pistol - Only for Tesla Towers and Spawners Gas Grenade - Used if Machine Gun Sentry if off cooldown Electrical res. armor - this is optional but nice quality of life if you get surprised by Harvesters / Tesla Towers Laser Cannon - Used as primary, swap to Sickle before it overheats Machine Gun Sentry - Use for drops before you have SAM sites, swarms after Guard Dog (ballistic) - Helps with the fliers and random mobs. Orbital Gas Strike - Can delete 1 swarm or 1 spawner.
Great stuff as always. Have you tried swapping the strafing run for the stalwart? I love it for taking down shields, drones, and hordes. Commando call in when harvesters arrive. At max rpm it erases shields. Gas grenades can take down ships through the doors as well.
I really wish they'd do something to give Eruptor it's identity back; it's just an inferior version of crossbow or purifier now. At least Purifier doesn't bounce when you hit the ground.
Eruptor one shots shields of the illuminate and can clear hordes. I don't think it'll ever go back to where it was but it is a good weapon in general, especially if you're running peak physique armor.
Programmable AP4 ammo would do the trick. 375 damage heat round, no splash damage. That would kill a charger in a single mag, but would take more than one mag for anything large like a Factory Strider or Bile Titan. Right now it's worse than Crossbow at handling swarms and single-beefy enemies, but add this round and suddenly you have an advantage! I would probably combine this with boosting the Hulk's eye to ~330 health so the Eruptor can't one-shot it.
Yes. Restore our babe the Eruptor. I like it so much more than the crossbow but at its current state you can't justify running it over the crossbow which does everything in a better way and is even one-handed
Flamethrower with flame resist armor. Machine gun turret-fastest cooldown. Laser-takes out whole bases and harvesters easy. Guard dog. This loadout has got me over 500 kills consistently. It's a lot of fun too.
I love the crossbow too! Really good damage and versatile at that too, I usually pair it with a senator and impact grenades! I run 3 blues and 1 green when I run Illuminate, Machine gun, gaurd dog, recon vehicle, and machine gun turret! So fun to just speed run a map feeling like war machine 😅 great video man!
Since its build show and tell in the comments I'll give my opinion AMR with guard dog, since amr is a no brainer, and the main strength I find over heavy machine gun aside from 1 shot for overseers, is being able to see a harvester far off, and take 1 shot easily to destroy its antenna so shields aren't a worry Guard dog helps clean up when enemies approach from very odd angles or I'm forced to make a break for it because of weird patrols Blitzer is imo the best by far primary weapon for illuminate, as it can deal with hordes of voteless extremely well, has no ammo concerns, and can lockdown an overseer to let guard dog do the heavy lifting on damage Bushwacker is a very underrated secondary I struggle to take off against any faction, but for illuminate it shreds shields, if I can't pop a harvester antenna before it engages then bushwacker helps just destroy it, it can mess up an overseer that gets a bit too close, is consistent enough against cognitive disruptor since blitzer won't target the destructible parts, and makes for a decent backup against warp ships Impact incendiary feel more consistent than gas since they detonate right away and can close off areas, doesn't need foresight like gas grenade, and I haven't had impact types fail to destroy a warp ship if I throw it in the door, but standard grenades sometimes do fail Stamina enhancement is a no brainer, and light gunner does wonders to help move around while stay durable enough Orbital gas destorys warp ships with ease and comes back fast, but can also be used to cc when necessary Strafing run clears streets pretty well and pops shields super consistently but I found 380 barrage to be nice when you find a medium or heavy encampment, eagle cluster also can clear better than strafing run but its a bit harder to use and doesn't pop shields as well
Scorcher is my favorite too. Deals well with voteless, overseers, and is more reliable at killing the search drones at range. Can even strip energy shields quickly in a pinch. I feel like the versatility of it as a primary leaves more options open for stratagems.
Crossbow can clear hordes of zombies quickly and also take out bases plus still kill overseers. Granted you need to be precise with your shot. I'd take the crossbow for the win. 🏆
(Someone having a different opinion is not a personal attack on you dummies) I’ve been running the eruptor, bushwacker, gas or stun grenades, mg43, and the peak physique passive. Eruptor can destroy ships and kill overseers and harvesters well enough, bushwacker staggers overseers and can one shot drones, and the mg43 is a great all rounder that gets more like a primary. All in all really solid, only tends to struggle with crowd control, but grenades and stratagems can trivialize that.
Gas strike is way better than anything Eagle-1 can bring, vs. Illuminate. It kills the spawner-ships in one shot, and the gas clears out the chaff. Just drop the stratagem *under* the lips of the ship, and you're done.
The only issue with this loadout is that it’s not great vs several swarms. Because they get so close it makes you limited to the senator The watchers are the sole reason I take a guard dog. It has other advantages but in a swarm it targets elevated overseers and watchers with ease. It can take out a few overseers and a few watchers before even having to reload. Tesla tower is probably the most resilient of the sentries, but the issue is its range. Machine gun it Gatling sentry would’ve absolutely mowed through a lot of that group before being destroyed. Instead of cross bow I take breaker incendiary or spray and pray so I can mowe down hoards even in close quarters
AMR has quickly become my favourite weapon to use. My go to build is as follows: Light gunner armor 500KG Eagle Airstrike AMR Supply Pack Punisher Starter frag grenade Having lots of success.
Personally, I would swap out the strafing run with the Gatling barrage. I found that I can close off entire streets and it allows me to escape. I would also swap out the crossbow with the arc Blitzer. It stuns the overseers and is really good for crowd control with the voteless. Don’t have to worry about ammo and doesn’t overheat. Finally, I would swap out the commando with the machine gun . In my time with the game, I found that the machine gun has a lot more utility than the commando.
@@geordiewood8768 oh yeah, I understand why he brings it. But I can do that with the machine gun and not have to worry about cooldowns or re-arm times. Plus, I can use it for horde clearing and to take down the harvesters.
Primary, halt shotgun Secondary, nade pistol Use the halt shot gun to stun swap to machine gun to Finnish stunned overseers Machine gun for gun ship shield than shoot nade pistol to blow up Supply pack Machine gun turret Gatlin turret Armour arc resistant
Solo play with towers or mortars are fine but as soon as u got a buddy or more its making more dmg to team then to enemies + game isnt difficult when u unlocked certain weapons and maybe 1 Battle Pass! Still hoping for difficulty 11,12,13 for the *veterans* cuz im already bored and making a pause... again :D
24:23 I do believe that's the first time I've seen a projectile make it inside the shield envelope just before the shield came up and kill the harvester after. :D
Did they make it harder to identify the SAM sites on the map? When your looking at the map to drop in i could identify the 2 or 3 SAM sites. Now they have like 6 that look alike.
Why don't you use the Stalwart, so that you can take down saucer shields easily without having to wait for a strat, and then just use the crossbow to blow them up?
I am a automaton main, and i cant get used to the flying overseers, they are to difficullt to hit form me, recommended loadout?, the harvesters and the rest dont give me problems
I wont recommend a specific loadout I am ALSO a bot player about level 80 and I do also have issues with flying overseers so I find directional shield gives the aiming comfort to take em out. BUT if you REALLY cant hit em, arc loadouts are super strong on the illuminate at the moment so try one of them. Good luck!
Diligence Counter Sniper is really good. Or just auto rifles like Tenderizer or Liberator Penetrator. Machine Gun is a good all rounder too IMHO (stalwart awesome to deal with Voteless but not much for the rest, HMG amazing if you can control its insane recoil, especially on controller I find it unusable).
No lie, the Halt just shuts them down if you can reliably switch to and from the stun rounds mid-fight. They stay stunned for a while, so you can stop a few at a time and just pick off the closest one before stunning the others again.
If you already completed the objective, but then die, I feel like you should be able to just end it why send another Helldiver just to go back up? Maybe have an incentive to actually extract but have an option to just move on
Waepons: Purfier 101 Granatluncher MG or the game gives me :D Gas Granats My Loadout: Eagle Strafing run Tesla tower Orbital Laser Jump Pack EZ clear now problem with nothing. Use O.Laser only when needed
instead of using the crossbow, try the purifier. it's fully charged shots wipes out hoards better imo. The only thing the crossbow has over top of it is damage and destructive capability. The purifier has more ammo, charged shots have great splash damage and one taps voteless, It can also Stagger Harvesters, Charged shots 2-tap both overseer variants, and its more accurate and more versatile.
Crossbow + gas grenades + Tesla/minigun sentry clears hordes and you don't need more than that. While Purifier is an S tier weapon, it doesn't come close to the crossbow being SSS tier, simply because it clears hordes, elites, destroy outposts, clears enemy tesla, destroys obstacles/open terrain, and often forgotten, is silent upon shooting (the explosion is not, but if enemies aren't already aware of your presence, they will check where the shot landed, not where you shot from like most weapons; niche but still usable to lure voteless patrols to your tesla). In terms of loadout, purifier wouldn't feel clunky if it could at leeeeast take shields down easily... Which isn't the case. Because to clear ships, sacrifying gas grenades isn't an reasonable option, your only choice would be the grenade pistol. Which means you can only destroy shields with stratagems (eg eagle strafing run) or the purifier, which is bad at it. On the other hand I've tried to make it work with redeemer for shield break and impact for outposts/Teslas, and it's the best I've found, but it's far from "better" than crossbow+ gas nades.
Both the Crossbow and Purifier are top tier weapons against the Squids. One has more hording clear without charging and can take out ships without switching to something else.
@@GooInYou I mean I commend anyone for their own Loadout. I personally wouldn't say there's any one particular Loadout better than the other. My personal favorite is Carbine HMG, takes out everything I need it too.
Why would you bring a stratagem for clearing shields when almost any weapon in the game does it? Wasting ammo? Ammo everywhere in Illuminate cities. A huge mistake at the beginning of the video made me not watch the rest.
Don't fall for the enemy propaganda, soldier! Super Earth's dedicated scientists developed laser/shield/tesla/jetpack technology only to have it shamelessly reverse-engineered by those xeno-squids before first contact.
Apologies for the mic issues!
it has already been resolved
Back onto the automaton front boys
Nah don’t worry
Bro how do you solo Not helldive, SUPER HELLDIVE.
You need to do an AMR build for the bot front
Love your videos man.
My go to build for non-defense illuminate missions:
- Armor: Medium killzone
- Primary: Crossbow
- Secondary: The machine gun pistol (i forget what it's called)
- Grenade: Gas
- Strategems: Guard Dog, Commando, Machine Gun Sentry, and Gatling Sentry or Eagle Strafing.
Rationale:
For the armor, primary reason is that it can withstand a shot from an enemy tesla tower if you accidentally run up on one.
I love the crossbow, and when running it vs Illuminates, I need the guard dog. The travel time on the crossbow projectile adds a guaranteed miss rate to anything flying, and the guard dog mercs the overseers and drones. I can't even count the number of times it killed a drone before it could signal for reinforcements. And it actually helps you move faster because if there are a handful of small enemies, it will just one shot headshot them all and you don't even have to stop moving. For me, the Guard Dog here is a perfect example of "the best defense is a good offense." And, it seems to me that in a recent update, the Guard Dog shoots me WAY less than it used to. But maybe I am just getting used to working with it. Not sure.
I'm not sure how I feel about the tesla tower in a pub game (except for defense missions). Seems like a recipe for trouble unless you split off on your own. I would sub in a machine gun sentry. Pub players are a little more in tune with how to avoid machine gun sentry fire.
I sub in the machine pistol vs the Senator. It is good at breaking shields and can quickly shred a mini hoard if you are in trouble. Senator is dog water for breaking illuminate shields.
The Eagle strafing run is very good and very viable. However, when I bring the machine pistol, I can feel free to leave it in exchange for a Gatling Sentry. For solos, this is a good tradeoff, imo. Having two sentries for added coverage on two streets buys you a lot of protection, especially during flag raising and rescue missions, as well as during extraction. However, it is slower to break the shields on the ships, and with full ammo, the machine pistol can only break the shields on two ships before needing a resupply. But, the guard dog or the sentries will often accidentally break the shields aiming at a voteless standing in the door of the ship.
“Hmm I should use the revolver?”
(Notices OP never misses)
“Ok shotgun and flamethrower it is!”
while my aim has never been good for overseers in close range, the senator is surprisingly good at popping heads for me
the stick boys like to get close enough that even thinking about explosive crossbow is suicide, but when they're that close it's easy to pull out the senator and click on heads, it even takes one less shot than the crossbow
...yeah I still can't ever hit the flying ones, I just leave those to the gatling turret and crossbow
That made me laugh, I’m the same way 😂I can’t hit shit
Same man. I’m quick to get sights on but I’m just inaccurate as hell
I used to love the crossbow but it infuriated me when it bounces off the ground and explodes somewhere behind my target. Now I feel the Scythe is great for Illuminate, and either heavy machine gun or anti-materiel rifle. Jump pack.
On cold planets I tried the sickle and it’s actually pretty damn good. Not great against overseers but still pretty damn reliable. I like it mostly because the accuracy for taking out watchers. And of course ammo economy
@@ItzSpritz Yeah I use it mostly for watchers and voteless. I use my heavy machine gun or anti-materiel gun for overseers and larger units. Having a machine gun turrent (shorter cooldown version) is super handy with harvesters because it takes their attention.
The end is exactly why Guard Dog > Shield Pack. Overseers are super dangerous and you're not always going to be able to merc them with crossbow shots. The Dog can mow them down fairly easily.
Always interesting to see other people's loadouts! I have found that this loadout works best for me. I've been able to do Super Helldives with this:
Heavy armor with the siegebreaker passive
Breaker Shotgun. I have found it very effective in taking out the Voteless and the ship and harvester shields. Not so great against overseers, but that's not what I use this weapon for.
Grenade pistol. For blowing up tesla towers and warp ships
Eagle Strafing run. No reason needed. Best strategem against the squids
Orbital Gas strike. Useful if you either need to get away or kill a warpship quick
Jump pack. . Enhanced mobility allows you to get out of dicey situations. Pretty much needed with the heavy armor.
AMR. The squids happen to be made out of a lot of material, so why not bring the anti-material rifle?
Breaker on the horde. I bet thats satisfying
love the amr on illuminate :)
Glad to see another Orbital Gas Strike appreciator out there, although I haven't tried out the Tesla Tower yet. Also man, you'd think they'd have fixed that "anti-materiel" typo by now [joke]
AMR is the support weapon to use against the illuminate, 6 shots ship shields, 4 shots harvester shields, 4 shots harvester legs, 1 shot headshots overseers, and ammo is a non issue as there’s tons of ammo lined in the streets
Will try the AMR. Have been using the Recoiless Rifle, or Quasar Cannon, depending on my build.
Using Quasar Cannon, I find the cooldown takes too long against Harvesters.
@ yea, plus if you miss then gg, amr covers a lot of bases and has a lot of utility with these missions, I go walking barrage, Jetpack, amr, and machine gun sentry with scout armor, crossbow, senator and incendiary nade for hordes
flamethrower is also really good, can handle every single troop in seconds, obvisously clears the voteless like its nothing, and its so sattisfying to use, can even take out the harvesters if you have arc resistant armor which I find to be the best for illuminate anyways
@@thesobolan7480 my only issue is the range on it, having arc armor is only useful if you’re getting close to harvesters, or if you get too close to a Tesla tower accidentally but if you’re paying attention that never happens, that’s why I use fire nades and crossbow for zombies
@@maximusbt4867 RR and QC both pretty low-tier against illuminate currently. Besides the awkwardness of shields and the overseer ablative armor countering them, there just isn't anything to worth shooting with them currently. An MG-43 can get a lower TTK on a harvester than a QC, while also killing hordes and overseers.
One thing I've noticed about Illuminate is that you're right, the overseers are the most dangerous units. I started running the machine gun because it rips them apart and is easy to hit. Can also take out the harvesters so it's a pretty well rounded weapon. Also frees up a stratagem slot so you don't need to use strafe anymore. Stalwart is better, but can't take out harvesters sadly.
AMR is one shot to the head or jetpack if I remember correctly 🤷🏻♂️ a lot of people sleep on the AmR. With supply packs, you can main it.
@@voidcheque7019I just hate sniping, I wanna go brrrr. I run stalwart for clearing shields and voteless, scorcher for overseers, and the laser orbital for harvesters. There may be a better stratagem for harvesters, but even on 10 I don’t see many so the laser is usually enough. In a bad pinch the nade pistol can kill then but it’s not efficient lol
That tesla turret is extremely solid. Not really sold on the commando. The harvester one-shot is really nice, but I still think I prefer the machine gun for moments like that extraction when you want the extra firepower against groups of elevated overseers.
Ditch the shield pack. The jump pack will get you over those city walls and on top of those buildings!
The tesla tower surely works solo but with randoms I would pick a sentry. The flame one has a ton of ammo
Guard Dog and Jump Pack are better for Illuminates.
I only use the Shield Generator for Automatons and Termanids because they're more difficult than the Illuminate.
I perform better with guard dog against both automatons and terminids.
Heavy armor really makes shield generator obsolete against automatons, not to mention how the shield makes your hitbox bigger against rockets (especially the one shot from striders).
You'll need to be more careful using cover if you don't want to eat stims 24/7, but it's not like you can walk out of cover mindlessly with the shield either.
For terminids, you loose a big defensive layout against acid and ragdoll, but with good enough run&gun, the 100/200 kills the dog brings makes a big difference, and it's not just trash mobs, even commanders and acid spewers taste automatic freedom in a second. Maybe because I'm also abusing sentries, which divert a lot of enemies from rushing at you...
@ipatchymakouli415 Okay but I don't like moving slowly. Especially I always wear light armor for terminids.
@@GrubKiller436 never talked about wearing heavy for terminids, but bots.
Damage resistance really makes the difference against lasers, add -50% explosion damage passive and rockets feel like snowballs.
If mobility is an issue to you, then jetpack instead of guard dog.
Heavy + jetpack is not only more mobile but also more tanky than light + shield, I really don't see myself ever going light vs bots again.
@ipatchymakouli415 No, that's bad. Jet packs should only be used for illuminates. You ragdoll yourself all over the place with jetpacks, and the automatons are not going to be forgiving. And getting shot by robots stunlock you. You can use medium or heavy armor with shield generator or guard dog. And if you don't die a lot, running light armor doesn't make that much of a different. Jet packs for automatons is trash.
@@GrubKiller436 you don't ragdoll if you know how to use it though? just go back (S) right before landing for less than half a second, you'll never ragdoll, unless you eat a wall or something. Skill issue on that one.
Your "strafing-run-exploding-crossbow-warp-ship-kill" has been my go-to since several videos ago. The random games I've joined ppl have seen me do that and went "oh damn, thats easy". I've learned quite a bit from your videos. I'm lvl 52 atm but my skill is still lacking. Illuminates give me the hardest time with their ability to "swarm" out of nowhere.
Sentries are your friend, preferably, the MG sentry as it has the lowest cool down time
@@robwright8949 Yea, sentries are great. Btw... have you noticed the MG turret shoots just above the heads of the zombies? I've noticed it on several runs. I started noticing when the turret would drain all it's ammo in 1 salvo. Till I paid more attention to it and saw it's tracers were right over the heads. Not always... but quite often.
@KuKoKaNuKo No, i haven't noticed that. That's interesting and I'll watch for it now. It may be that it's targeting the head in the same way the Guard Dog does
This is more like a day one loadout than an "ultimate" one. I think Commando is a noob trap. It's good but the MG-43 is just much more versatile and I find when the Harvester just decides it isn't going to die sometimes, a lost rocket is much more detrimental than some ammo from a mag. The crossbow also sucks for shields. Being caught without a strafing run and a bunch of shields sucks so much. The Jar-5 is effective against the entire lineup in addition to shredding shields so it's a no-brainer.
What in tf are you talking about right now? I don't think there's any ultimate Loadout but this one is actually VERY good. A lost rocket from an expendable weapon with a very short cooldown isn't detrimental at all. You have 5 Strafing runs, the chances of you running out are a complete noobdiver move, idk if you're aware but you have the option of re-arming them so you don't face the possibility of running out. And you can take out multiple shields in one go depending on positioning of the ships and the run. Honestly the Jar 5 is effective in the sense that it's SO easy to use it's predominantly the go to noob primary for practically any faction, bots, bugs or Squids you'll always have that one beginner using it.
For consol its a bit harder to hit the rocket overseers with the crosbow thats why i would go with the purefire
Take a guard dog mate. He’ll be your best friend
I also like using the jet pack: After you strafe run the harvester, jump close to it and show it some love with the Commando. Almost feel like doom slayer going in for the kill with the meathook/ssg .. almost. Playing super aggresiv is so much fun, but does not always work ..
I hear a lot of people call the illuminates the easiest faction(mostly cause lack of elites), and i always feel the need to specify "as long as you focus the watchers and elevated overseers" cause otherwise you get stuff like this extract ending and it's hell
Interesting to see the variation in loadouts. The loadout I use that trivializes squids for me (at least until they add the full squid roster) is:
Medium armor with peak physique, tenderizer, senator, gas grenades, MG34, liberator guard dog, hmg emplacement, MG34 sentry. The MG34 has just buckets and buckets of ammo, and the squid maps have even more ammo just lying around everywhere - I'm literally never short on ammo. I use MG for everything, including popping shields on landed UFOs. HMG emplacement can handle literally everything the squids have, the sentry is good for clearing out zombies & overseers. I use primary very very little - mostly just for the nice level of zoom on it, it pops the probes in like 3-4 rounds. Other than that it's an emergency backup for the MG34.
Yes, but I feel that loadout would struggle with solo super helldive.
i dont like using the shield because when i used to use it a lot i became too reliant upon it and couldnt play without it. to compensate i use medium armor instead of light which i feel gives me a decent balance of speed and surviveability.
my typical loadout is the Sickle (though lately ive been really enjoying the STA-11), Bushwhacker, Eagle Airstrike, Machine Gun Turret, Guard Dog (ballistic), and Commando. ive been messing around with the firebomb hellpods and the armed ressuply pod as well, lotta fun to just drop into voteless hoards on solo.. and the armed pods are useful against overseers.
This is about how every one of my games goes, I've stopped trying to extract and I just wait out the timer then wait for Pelican 1.
That first death was definitely caused by the body of one of the watcher drones.
They explode on death and sometimes bounce off midair, so if you're too close they can and will kill you.
Happened to me a few times when using short ranged weapons like blitzer or flamethrower.
Actually, you need only 3 things to feel good against illuminats: crossbow, anti-material rifle (these 2 work great against fabricators/overseers/harvesters when you want to keep your distance) and a 500 kilo to instantly destroy ships without needing to break their shields, everythiny else is just here to make it more enjoyable.
My best for now is this + jetpack + gatling sentry +muscle upgrade.
That way you can always maintain decent pace without worrying of being overrun at any point.
It’s weird I used to be really bad at bots. I used every “crutch/meta” build you could just to survive. I just couldn’t hit weak points. After a week or so of spamming illuminates with those little floaty drones that summon reinforcements to ruin your game, my buddy and I have been totally dominating against bots. I think the illuminate have made me better at the game
from minute 32 to minute 40 is my average 40 minute mission against difficulty 10 Illuminates lmao
What awesome video you give me good ideas to try new loadouts
This my Illuminate loadout. Worth a try.
Sickle - Shreds shields and continues damage when Laser Cannon is almost overheated.
Grenade Pistol - Only for Tesla Towers and Spawners
Gas Grenade - Used if Machine Gun Sentry if off cooldown
Electrical res. armor - this is optional but nice quality of life if you get surprised by Harvesters / Tesla Towers
Laser Cannon - Used as primary, swap to Sickle before it overheats
Machine Gun Sentry - Use for drops before you have SAM sites, swarms after
Guard Dog (ballistic) - Helps with the fliers and random mobs.
Orbital Gas Strike - Can delete 1 swarm or 1 spawner.
Great stuff as always. Have you tried swapping the strafing run for the stalwart? I love it for taking down shields, drones, and hordes. Commando call in when harvesters arrive. At max rpm it erases shields. Gas grenades can take down ships through the doors as well.
I really wish they'd do something to give Eruptor it's identity back; it's just an inferior version of crossbow or purifier now. At least Purifier doesn't bounce when you hit the ground.
Eruptor one shots shields of the illuminate and can clear hordes. I don't think it'll ever go back to where it was but it is a good weapon in general, especially if you're running peak physique armor.
Programmable AP4 ammo would do the trick. 375 damage heat round, no splash damage. That would kill a charger in a single mag, but would take more than one mag for anything large like a Factory Strider or Bile Titan.
Right now it's worse than Crossbow at handling swarms and single-beefy enemies, but add this round and suddenly you have an advantage!
I would probably combine this with boosting the Hulk's eye to ~330 health so the Eruptor can't one-shot it.
Yes. Restore our babe the Eruptor. I like it so much more than the crossbow but at its current state you can't justify running it over the crossbow which does everything in a better way and is even one-handed
Flamethrower with flame resist armor. Machine gun turret-fastest cooldown. Laser-takes out whole bases and harvesters easy. Guard dog. This loadout has got me over 500 kills consistently. It's a lot of fun too.
flamethrower absolutely carries me against the illuminate, can handle every unit fantasticly
I love the crossbow too! Really good damage and versatile at that too, I usually pair it with a senator and impact grenades! I run 3 blues and 1 green when I run Illuminate, Machine gun, gaurd dog, recon vehicle, and machine gun turret! So fun to just speed run a map feeling like war machine 😅 great video man!
Since its build show and tell in the comments I'll give my opinion
AMR with guard dog, since amr is a no brainer, and the main strength I find over heavy machine gun aside from 1 shot for overseers, is being able to see a harvester far off, and take 1 shot easily to destroy its antenna so shields aren't a worry
Guard dog helps clean up when enemies approach from very odd angles or I'm forced to make a break for it because of weird patrols
Blitzer is imo the best by far primary weapon for illuminate, as it can deal with hordes of voteless extremely well, has no ammo concerns, and can lockdown an overseer to let guard dog do the heavy lifting on damage
Bushwacker is a very underrated secondary I struggle to take off against any faction, but for illuminate it shreds shields, if I can't pop a harvester antenna before it engages then bushwacker helps just destroy it, it can mess up an overseer that gets a bit too close, is consistent enough against cognitive disruptor since blitzer won't target the destructible parts, and makes for a decent backup against warp ships
Impact incendiary feel more consistent than gas since they detonate right away and can close off areas, doesn't need foresight like gas grenade, and I haven't had impact types fail to destroy a warp ship if I throw it in the door, but standard grenades sometimes do fail
Stamina enhancement is a no brainer, and light gunner does wonders to help move around while stay durable enough
Orbital gas destorys warp ships with ease and comes back fast, but can also be used to cc when necessary
Strafing run clears streets pretty well and pops shields super consistently but I found 380 barrage to be nice when you find a medium or heavy encampment, eagle cluster also can clear better than strafing run but its a bit harder to use and doesn't pop shields as well
9.5/10. Only thing I would change is the primary. Scorcher ttk is faster than crossbow vs overseers.
Purifier ammo economy is much better against overseers and it can handle voteless swarms much better. I switched a while ago and can't go back.
@@thunderhammer7 i hate the charging mechanic, so does takibo
Scorcher is my favorite too. Deals well with voteless, overseers, and is more reliable at killing the search drones at range. Can even strip energy shields quickly in a pinch. I feel like the versatility of it as a primary leaves more options open for stratagems.
@@ugolattanzio9152 yeah that charging mechanic is why I use the scorcher too, I know it's a good gun but I just can't get used to it
Crossbow can clear hordes of zombies quickly and also take out bases plus still kill overseers. Granted you need to be precise with your shot. I'd take the crossbow for the win. 🏆
Honest question, doesn't it get boring playing solo all the time?
Hey Takibo, I'd love to see you do a defense mission against any faction. I've been struggling to do them solo.
How are you moving and calling in stratagems. I doubt you’re using arrow keys bc you control terminals with WASD ?
Arrow keys. Terminals use the same keys as strategems.
Dropping the shield generator to prevent death by pod is brilliant
The Eagle Strafe + Crossbow has been my favorite Illuminate combo since the beginning. So good
(Someone having a different opinion is not a personal attack on you dummies) I’ve been running the eruptor, bushwacker, gas or stun grenades, mg43, and the peak physique passive. Eruptor can destroy ships and kill overseers and harvesters well enough, bushwacker staggers overseers and can one shot drones, and the mg43 is a great all rounder that gets more like a primary. All in all really solid, only tends to struggle with crowd control, but grenades and stratagems can trivialize that.
Bro are you 15 ? Insulting people is literally a personal attack, re-read your dumb comment please
Gas strike is way better than anything Eagle-1 can bring, vs. Illuminate. It kills the spawner-ships in one shot, and the gas clears out the chaff. Just drop the stratagem *under* the lips of the ship, and you're done.
what and evac. reminds me of a t5 ending with 7 harvesters. we did not evac
The only issue with this loadout is that it’s not great vs several swarms. Because they get so close it makes you limited to the senator
The watchers are the sole reason I take a guard dog. It has other advantages but in a swarm it targets elevated overseers and watchers with ease. It can take out a few overseers and a few watchers before even having to reload. Tesla tower is probably the most resilient of the sentries, but the issue is its range.
Machine gun it Gatling sentry would’ve absolutely mowed through a lot of that group before being destroyed.
Instead of cross bow I take breaker incendiary or spray and pray so I can mowe down hoards even in close quarters
Gas grenades have slowly become my favourite grenade. Great utility and now that they can destroy spammers they’re definitely top tier
Great video! Can you tell me what keybindings you use to call in stratagems since you can run and turn while calling them in?
Hey takibo can you do an automaton run showcasing the anti-tank emplacement please?
I would be intrigued if you made a SOLO tierlist on all factions and do stratagems and weapons in the same video :3
AMR has quickly become my favourite weapon to use.
My go to build is as follows:
Light gunner armor
500KG
Eagle Airstrike
AMR
Supply Pack
Punisher
Starter frag grenade
Having lots of success.
this is my exact loadout but i run the ar drone, this is so funny to see
38:50 Yeah, I learned the hard way that those scout drones got small but deadly explosions
Whats up legend!
Dead Watchers deal quite a bit of explosion beneath them.
I don't appreciate how squishy light Siege-Ready is against Illuminate.
i like the ballistic shield more than the shield generator for illuminate. makes overseers much easier
I gotta say, the illuminates are a completely different ball game. I’ve literally seen patrols and groups materialize 10 meters in front of me
Best solo player in helldivers like always 👍
Takibo is by far my favorite HD creator.
However, the best HAS to be Sarge. Dude is quite literally John Helldiver himself
Personally, I would swap out the strafing run with the Gatling barrage. I found that I can close off entire streets and it allows me to escape. I would also swap out the crossbow with the arc Blitzer. It stuns the overseers and is really good for crowd control with the voteless. Don’t have to worry about ammo and doesn’t overheat. Finally, I would swap out the commando with the machine gun . In my time with the game, I found that the machine gun has a lot more utility than the commando.
The reason he runs the strafing run is to take out shields and it has an 8 second cool down time.
@@geordiewood8768 oh yeah, I understand why he brings it. But I can do that with the machine gun and not have to worry about cooldowns or re-arm times. Plus, I can use it for horde clearing and to take down the harvesters.
Primary, halt shotgun
Secondary, nade pistol
Use the halt shot gun to stun swap to machine gun to Finnish stunned overseers
Machine gun for gun ship shield than shoot nade pistol to blow up
Supply pack
Machine gun turret
Gatlin turret
Armour arc resistant
Dropping items is common knowledge. That your blue stratagem can get stuck to your backpack is new ^_^
him dropping a commando at himself made me chuckle lmao
fully agree with the loadout.
I love the tesla tower, such a great zone controlling tool
Please try this loadout vs squids. It's my favorite now.
Sta assault rifle
Grenade pistol
Arc resistant armor
MG-43
Supply pack
Commando
Gatling Barrage
Solo play with towers or mortars are fine but as soon as u got a buddy or more its making more dmg to team then to enemies + game isnt difficult when u unlocked certain weapons and maybe 1 Battle Pass!
Still hoping for difficulty 11,12,13 for the *veterans* cuz im already bored and making a pause... again :D
24:23 I do believe that's the first time I've seen a projectile make it inside the shield envelope just before the shield came up and kill the harvester after. :D
I caught that too. Was really cool
quick question why do you not pick up any samples have watched a couple of your vid now and noticed that
Did they make it harder to identify the SAM sites on the map? When your looking at the map to drop in i could identify the 2 or 3 SAM sites. Now they have like 6 that look alike.
I use blitzer as a primary because it doesnt reload and it stun locks overseers and drones
Hey bro, good video, im new sub, what's your settings for best FPS? I have Radeon 5600g and RX 6650XT and its so laggy :c
Gas grenade over incendiary is WILD
It's always a good day when you post a happy new year!🎉🎉🎉
The sickle is so good for illuminates
Why don't you use the Stalwart, so that you can take down saucer shields easily without having to wait for a strat, and then just use the crossbow to blow them up?
I am a automaton main, and i cant get used to the flying overseers, they are to difficullt to hit form me, recommended loadout?, the harvesters and the rest dont give me problems
I wont recommend a specific loadout I am ALSO a bot player about level 80 and I do also have issues with flying overseers so I find directional shield gives the aiming comfort to take em out. BUT if you REALLY cant hit em, arc loadouts are super strong on the illuminate at the moment so try one of them. Good luck!
Diligence Counter Sniper is really good. Or just auto rifles like Tenderizer or Liberator Penetrator. Machine Gun is a good all rounder too IMHO (stalwart awesome to deal with Voteless but not much for the rest, HMG amazing if you can control its insane recoil, especially on controller I find it unusable).
No lie, the Halt just shuts them down if you can reliably switch to and from the stun rounds mid-fight. They stay stunned for a while, so you can stop a few at a time and just pick off the closest one before stunning the others again.
Not gonna lie, i'm not even in game and i just about reached for B to hug at that intro lol
what sort of cheats allow you to input stratagems while moving?
Change your stratagem inputs to your arrow keys. That will allow you to move and do inputs at the same time.
If you already completed the objective, but then die, I feel like you should be able to just end it why send another Helldiver just to go back up? Maybe have an incentive to actually extract but have an option to just move on
the snitch roombas where doing extra work at the end there.
Did the seaf Sam get bugged or something. At extract all the drops got by
Afaik they have a maximum range, it's possible they were to far away or didn't have line of sight.
One day Taki will learn how to reload :D
Why does no one use the blitzer?
Tesla tower is no joke. Wow
Does someone know when he streams?
Make sure to check your mic gate, you cut out a couple of times
Waepons:
Purfier 101
Granatluncher
MG or the game gives me :D
Gas Granats
My Loadout:
Eagle Strafing run
Tesla tower
Orbital Laser
Jump Pack
EZ clear now problem with nothing. Use O.Laser only when needed
This loadout works great if you can hit your single shot weapons. Definitely not me.
instead of using the crossbow, try the purifier. it's fully charged shots wipes out hoards better imo. The only thing the crossbow has over top of it is damage and destructive capability. The purifier has more ammo, charged shots have great splash damage and one taps voteless, It can also Stagger Harvesters, Charged shots 2-tap both overseer variants, and its more accurate and more versatile.
Crossbow + gas grenades + Tesla/minigun sentry clears hordes and you don't need more than that.
While Purifier is an S tier weapon, it doesn't come close to the crossbow being SSS tier, simply because it clears hordes, elites, destroy outposts, clears enemy tesla, destroys obstacles/open terrain, and often forgotten, is silent upon shooting (the explosion is not, but if enemies aren't already aware of your presence, they will check where the shot landed, not where you shot from like most weapons; niche but still usable to lure voteless patrols to your tesla).
In terms of loadout, purifier wouldn't feel clunky if it could at leeeeast take shields down easily... Which isn't the case. Because to clear ships, sacrifying gas grenades isn't an reasonable option, your only choice would be the grenade pistol. Which means you can only destroy shields with stratagems (eg eagle strafing run) or the purifier, which is bad at it.
On the other hand I've tried to make it work with redeemer for shield break and impact for outposts/Teslas, and it's the best I've found, but it's far from "better" than crossbow+ gas nades.
Crossbow is better if you pair it with an AMR.
Both the Crossbow and Purifier are top tier weapons against the Squids. One has more hording clear without charging and can take out ships without switching to something else.
I like the Purifier but crossbow + AMR is the most versatile setup I've found for the squids @ThePartisan13
@@GooInYou I mean I commend anyone for their own Loadout. I personally wouldn't say there's any one particular Loadout better than the other. My personal favorite is Carbine HMG, takes out everything I need it too.
Shovels we need shovels ( med. Amor. Pen. Onehand)
16:28 Fast thinker moment
The Commando is really nice but the crossbow can't hit flying things. The AMR would've served you much better.
It can if you don't suck
You know nothing @ougioshino6940
Why would you bring a stratagem for clearing shields when almost any weapon in the game does it? Wasting ammo? Ammo everywhere in Illuminate cities. A huge mistake at the beginning of the video made me not watch the rest.
I just use guard dog because it melts overseers
Ironically with tesla tower and shield vs illuminates ur basically using their own tech against them, very democratic lol
Don't fall for the enemy propaganda, soldier! Super Earth's dedicated scientists developed laser/shield/tesla/jetpack technology only to have it shamelessly reverse-engineered by those xeno-squids before first contact.
W Video
Nice run! Next time, I recommen........................... it's not for everyone, but works really well for me. Cheers!
you 2 shot any overseer with the purifier too
That's a terrible loadout but you're such a good player that you can pull it off. Nice one
That got hairy!
The "Ultimate loadout" changes every week
What's up legends~~
Scorcher
Grenade Pistol
Incendiary Grenade
Shield pack
Heavy MH
Gatling Sentry
Orbital Laser
Nothing I can't deal with.
Lmao him saying “well that’s it boys. Full map clear” and 16 minutes still left in the video tells me extract won’t be easy