A video just in time to hit 10k subs! (also foot notes and amendments in this comment) Notes: - Crouching helps with the stability and recoil of the MG-43 and Stalwart, even better if you have the armour that further reduces recoil! If you need to stay mobile and advance, I'd recommend crouching while firing! While going prone helps even more, I find in grassy maps, I can't see anything to shoot at... - The Gatling and Machine Gun sentry will always fire for a minimum of about 1 second. If the bugs were smart, they'd send cannon fodder 1 by 1 to waste the sentries ammo. - The HMG Emplacement actually hits pretty hard. While its surface stats are similar to that of the MG-43, its damage is much higher. I did a mech test once with the emplacement and it only took 15 shots to destroy it compared to the MG-43's 78. This is just speculation of course... - ALSO, while the HMG does technically have Medium level penetration, it has AMR levels of Medium Penetration, allowing you blast through Walker bodies, Devestators, and Hulk faces! (Very useful to know and might be worth bringing into bot missions at the higher levels (will find out)) - For those who want to know what the Mech's stats are: > Total Ammo 1000 rounds > 0.8s wind up time > 21 rounds/s > Max Sustained Fire of 47.6s > Medium AP (haven't had opportunity to test if can pen Walkers which would make it Med III Penetration)
Upon reading your test with the mech I decided to try, so I shot the left arm (Rocket L) while prone 15m from the walker facing me, Slugger 13 shots, HMG 13 shots, MG 166 shots. Both the Slugger and HMG can destroy poi containers, so they might have about the same PEN, while the MG can't so it has less.
It should be noted that the HMG has a higher armor penetration than the MG-43. The HMG has the same AP value as the AMR, the autocannon, the safe mode railgun, and the Las Cannon. This AP value does full damage to the 2nd level of armor (things like hive defenders heads, bile spewer head armor, devastator bots chest armor, Strider's joints), and is capable of damaging the 3rd level of armor albeit not many things have it (Strider's frontal shield, Hulk's head/eye, Shrieker nests). You still do no damage to the 4th level of armor which is what we normally consider heavy armor.
A simple crouch does wonders for the MG and Stalwart, and makes the highest RPM setting far more viable, assuming you fire in bursts. (Which you should) If you aren't on the run, you should always be crouching, you'll land way more shots and do far more harm.
When you are shooting a full mag to an horde of bugs and the helldiver starts to scream and laugh… that’s one of the most pleasant feelings on the game
Especially because grenade armor gives recoil mitigation, so you can kick it up to 1100 and crouch/prone for a very steady and easy to aim river of lead. Never complain about hunters again. Grab stun grenades to support your team, hit the way more efficient 500kg every single time instead of running rail cannon, and get easy flanks on chargers. Stun them and then mag dump on their explosive weak backside with the scorcher. It won't kill outright but they bleed out pretty fast. You don't need impacts for CC. It does suck to have to wait for a teammate to blow bug holes though.
rn my best bug loadout is the eruptor + heavy armor + stalwart + guard dog rover. Eruptor can kill chargers and biles by hitting their soft squishy bits, stalwart clears out massive hordes of hunters, scavengers, and warriors, and the guard dog rover can kill hive guards and watch your back.
If the MG-43 resupplied ammo better it would be the only support weapon I use. MG’s are the most fun I’ve had in this game. Hearing your guy scream and laugh like a lunatic while you turn swarms into mush, is the most satisfying thing in the game
3:21 "No real reason to take the MG sentry" The Machine Gun Sentry has a higher turn rate than the Gatling gun, which is especially noticeable with the increased turn rate ship module upgrade. The Gatling gun also tends to waste ammo as it drags its firing line around to acquire new targets, possibly hitting allies. As a result, I believe that the MG Sentry's ability to hold multiple sightlines without significantly risking friendly fire makes it the most reliable sentry to drop in any situation. That being said, if enemies are coming from one direction, and you have proper time and angles to set it up, the Gatling's better.
It would be great with a shorter cool down. You make a good point about its merit though. I took a turret build into a bug mission and got swarmed by shreikers. The MG Sentry had much faster target acquisition and quickly shredded most of them, which allowed me a window to take out the nest. The Gatling sentry was taking out some of the direct dive attack shreikers but it was spraying a lot of ammo at times.
This is also my personal experience and preference. The lack of DPS matters so much less to me when the gatling burns like 2-3x as much ammo for the same amount of scattered chaff coming through a chokepoint Also I've never been killed by my own MG sentry, but I cannot count the amount if times the gatling has swiped across me while changing targets. It's even mission-killed my exosuits by breaking a leg so I couldn't turn at all! Tldr the MG sentry is a much safer option than the gatling is. (Anecdotally)
I've been using it with a full sentry strategem deck to grind common samples. It's ok and nice to have if the others are on cool down. I still wish it had a faster cool down because once i unlock rocket sentries i don't think I'll need it anymore.
One thing that should be noted, is that the HMG Emplacement has a High-Medium level of armor penetration, not just Medium; so about the same as the AMR. This means that it can damage things like the Strider Cockpits, Hulk Heads, and Shrieker Lairs, as well as dealing full damage to Medium armored enemies, instead of half, which, on top of being a higher damage already, makes it far more effective than it appears on paper. EDIT: Just read the pinned comment lol. This would probably be the explanation behind the increased damage.
It's still not as good as the gatling or auto-cannon sentries since you can act independently of them and as such are able to defend an area from multiple angles. HMG could work for choke points alongside the mortar sentry in bot missions however that is much lower utility.
4 thing with high-medium amor pen is autocannon, amr, laser cannon and hmg replacement. hulk head, flying bug nest, strider and heavy devastator shield is some example of these type of amor.
As my groups local machine gun/sentry chad, I've started using the incendiary breaker, Stalwart, Gatling and Autocannons turrets, and railcannon strike against bugs. The turrets and stalwart will chew through most groups of enemies, the incendiary breaker can deal with Chargers surprisingly well, and the railcannon gives you an option against bile titans or a panic button against chargers, if you're feeling desperate
@@not_kesjust focus shoot the butt same as all other primaries, breaker incendiary just has very good dps with the fast-ish fire rate and the fact it does fire damage over time (not a lot, but still adds up)
I run mostly this as well. I only change turrets to orbitals or a shield depending on the level and the group. But at heart, i clear the small guys so my team can focus the big ones. And survive and reinforce
Scorcher is really amazing for spewers. I don't think I want to play with a primary that doesn't just wipe out any spewer that appears at any range. It also does extra damage to a charger butt. But what you really want to do against a charger is make it stop, then shoot into the yellow bit inside the top of the leg. It's only visible from the rear. A Stalwart kills a charger in under a second this way, I'm pretty sure.
MG-43 my beloved. Even at level 50 I still tend to bring it with me, definitely my favourite weapon in the game. Switching to higher RPM has saved me and my squad from getting swarmed by medium-armoured enemies time and time again.
I also love it since it I like to lay down near some cover with a buddy covering me when I am reloading or getting rushed and then just switch it to 900 rpm and just let it go BRRRRRRRRRRRR like a german soldier at normandy during D-day.
The HMG sentry is wildly powerful for what it is. It's less x2 MG-43s and more like x2 baby autocannons or x2 anti-material rifles. It can kill Hulks from the front. Paired with the shield generator or shield backpack, you're also very durable. I agree the smol MG turret needs to have lower cooldown. Either that or triple it's ammo size to give it more than double the sustained fire of the Gatling.
If the mg-43 is based off the mg-42, the German 2nd world war machine gun, it probably fires 7.92, in comparison the sentry is a 50cal in line with the AMR which is probably supposed to be firing. Neat to see how there's some real world balance rather than x weapon is worse because reasons
@@eliaspanayi3465yes rl AMR uses 50cal or 20mm...the HMG does sound like a 50cal turret. Stalwart uses intermedite rifle cal, while mg43 uses full size rifle cal, aka 7.62, 30cal, 7.92 etc
I 100% condone the hatred for Stalkers :p Great video man. I’m convinced the devs made the in-game tooltips completely useless so that the community develops into something bigger lol, because it’s crazy how little info they give. Keep up the great work my friend :)
Stalkers are not a problem, they do not attack you in groups and half magazine of the Breaker is enough to kill em. Hunters howevere, OH BOY THE HUNTERS, they are EVIL incarnate.
@@Venom_Snake_dll haha i think they have input reading lol as soon as you put your aim on them they start jumping around and strafing xD But they go down real fast tho :p
I find it funny everyone has a problem with the lone stalkers that follow you and not the 300 hunters that come at you at once lol. Hunter’s are so much more annoying imo
One thing that is a pro for the HMG Emplacement, it destroys Hulks super quickly. The accuracy you get from it allows you to hit the centerpoint consistently and take down the mech in a mere 3 seconds or less. Had a friend mow down three Hulks in quick succession with the HMG Emplacement the first time he tried it out and he hasn't stopped bringing it since with great success.
HMG feels like it's doing more way dmg because it shreds everything with very small number of bullets, which is why it not should used "sustained fire". Also, it is ignored by enemies unless manned, does not trigger any breaches/dropships (as long as no one else is spotted) and it can kill a full Shrieker nest from any distance with a mag.
@@siveonfarcloud4190 Good to know about the shrieker nest, we hadn't tried that on it yet. Yeah continuous fire isn't needed because it damages so well, granted it is fun haha.
Does it have to go through the weakpoint or will it damage it over all consistently? Like I know you can maim Devastators like taking off their arms and stuff, but can you do that to hulks?
@@steeljawX Yikes I would have to ask, I believe it does have to be the weak point since the chest armor is heavy while the weak point is medium high since railgun and anti-material can do the same.
I haven't tried the emplacement vs bots. I will just get instantly rocketed from crossmap, I can already feel it. Pretty awesome vs bugs though. Just a shame the game is currently crashing if there are too many objects on map. So the obvious loadout of EAT + Emplacement is kinda asking to crash.
When reloading the MG-43 you can use a melee to cancel the reload animation. Timing it until right after he dumps the old mag is a good idea as your character will pick up the reload at that point. I use this method of reloading a lot when kiting bugs.
I cannot begin to tell you how useful this video is to me; I am always ALWAYS the machine gunner in games where its an option and oftentimes, they get left behind and forgotten about in favor of more 'exotic' weaponry. I am so glad that as of yet, this playstyle is valid and useful throughout the difficulty levels. Subscribed!
If we're doing bugs, I always insist at least one of us bring a normal machine gun, it's insanely powerful against a surprising variety of enemies Great against bots too
100% agree on giving the more weaker or more awkward stratagems shorter cooldowns. Especially with how punishing some map conditions can be on higher difficulties. Being able to place a bunch of HMG emplacements over a 10 minute period defending an area would be sick.
It's always smart to have two people for crowd control and two people for heavy. The crowed control having MG and a stalwart. And the heavy having a auto cannon, and recoiless. That way you can save ammo by having everyone for everything. So the recoiless can focus on heavy. The auto cannon can focus on large to medium. And the two machine guns can focus on the smaller enemies.
I don’t love the static reload. LMG kind of gives more bang for the ammo - I just complement the LMG with a primary weapon that does Medium Armor pen. Regular MG just doesn’t have enough ammo to be “jack of all trades” type gun with the kind of downtime it has
@anpan6282 the static reload is not a problem. If being chased, start reloading, dive out of the reload, run more, and finish the reload as it saves your reload progress The mg is imho better than the stalwart once you get to higher difficulties. Stalwart is only good up to a point
@@anpan6282 the static reload is, unironically, the best part. because is so strong you need something that limits it. it is something you need to play around instead of just playing like normal. It also ISN'T a jack of all trades, it's specifically a weapon that counters reinforcements vs using all the time. also, sometimes, you need that rapid Medium pen so you can keep a bug breach from getting too out of hand. the other primary medium weapons just don't fire fast enough to counter a swarm of hive guards, commanders, and bile spewers.
This is a great little guide, exactly the kind of content I've been wanting from the helldivers 2 community. A lot of the tools we unlock at the early levels of the game tend to get overlooked in favor of the "cooler" stuff, but having a simple machine gunner on your team is an invaluable asset. I always love it when the end-game stats show just how many shots I fired and how many bugs I've killed just using the classic machine gun.
Good video, nice work on the in-depth explanations. One thing I'd add is the actual armor penetration values. They are 2 for the Stalward, 3 for the LMG, and 4 for the new HMG. I believe it's 3 for the MG and Chaingun sentries and 4 for the HMG emplacement. Just to clarify, if a weapon's armor penetration is below the target's armor value, the projectile bounces. If it's equal, it deals 50% damage, and if it's higher, it deals 100% damage.
for the MG sentry turret, i think it needs to get a significant advantage over the gatling, in one stat or another. I think either a significantly shorter cooldown or longer sustained fire time, would be good. For a shorter call-in cooldown, I'd try 90 seconds. Or for longer sustained fire time, id try somewhere between 300 rounds (upgraded) to 390 rounds (upgraded) to give it 27.3s or 35.5s of sustained fire, respectively. Or maybe being able to put down multiple at a time would be good. Similar to the un-upgrade Eagle Air Strike, we could throw down one MG sentry, wait 5 seconds or so, and throw down a second MG sentry. then there's the longer cooldown wait of 120s (or whatever would be fair). in this case, the two combined MG sentries would still have less sustained fire time than a single Gatling, still have less DPS than a single Gatling, but would have two angles to shoot from, and one sentry getting destroyed still leaves the second one able to shoot. MG43 support weapon also needs some love i think. maybe let it reload on the move just like the stalwart, or give it an extra magazine, or 200 rounds in each magazine. also i think it needs to reload more magazines per supply pickup. the ammo economy overall is rough for it, and between that and having to sit still to reload, im not sure the medium armor penetration is good enough for the trade off. Maybe 175 rounds per magazine, 4 total magazines, and resupply 2 magazines per supply crate... and maybe a 4.75s reload speed
I agree that the machine gun turret should have a shorter cooldown or maybe the gatling could have less range. I also am wondering how the hmg deployment direction works. Is it always straight ahead of where you throw it? Important to know so you can place it most effectively.
Your timing on releasing this is about as good as my timing in 2001 when I told my parents to change the channel because "it's not like the other tower's about to get hit" lol Heavy mg
Excellent breakdown! Happy that the sickle now dethroned the defender as the best all-rounder primary. It was too good compared to all the other assault and sniper rifles with the added benefit of being one-handed. As for machine guns, I still wouldn't take Stalwart since it occupies an invaluable support weapon slot that could be much better utilized using heavy armor shredders like the EAT or Recoilless.
thanks for this video it was just what i was looking for!! for machine guns, my rpm rule of thumb is if my team is assaulting an area the rpm goes up, if we're moving out of an area and need cover fire (automatons) the rpm goes low to somewhat conserve ammo and let the user keep moving and laying more fire down-range and to get to a safe spot to reload. if roaming or getting ambushed it's user preference
Of course, they *just released* a new HMG barely a couple days after this released… 😅 It appears to be a demounted version of the emplacement guns, with a RoF selector equivalent to the MG-43. 75-round belt on it, so half that of the MG-43… Would need to test it myself.
Great work, you earned my sub. Anecdotally in my static 9s group I have felt like the gatling has always outperformed machine gun sentry in every way. It's nice to see the actual numbers prove it.
As long as my teammates have strategems for the bigger bugs, i love running the gattling sentry, mg sentry and auto cannon sentry with my mg43. It's great for holding down objectives and not getting overwhelmed. Also 3 sentries if deployed properly can protect one another well which is great when you're on the run too.
Okay, worth noting that there *is* a reason to use MG sentry over Gatling (and its similar to why to use default pistol over auto pistol) MG sentry's lower firerate means that it tends to use an appropriate amount of ammo, and can stop firing when it needs to. The Gatling Sentry tends, instead, to overkill massively, both wasting ammo on the floor and on dead enemies. This is especially problematic when you consider that the Gatling (and possibly also the MG but thats realistically irrelevant) doesnt stop shooting when switching targets. This sweeps bullets into the universe, hitting absolutely nothing. Tl;Dr: MG sentry is more efficient, if having a longer ttk. Gatling has short ttk, but wasted ammo. If you use Sentries as Panic, Gatling is basically universally better. If you use Sentries as Support, MG has a genuinely viable Niche. Hope this helps!
Stalwart + Supply pack to deal with the swarms of hunters and other pests, Scorcher to deal with Hive Guard and spewers and even do work aganist charger bums, then Orbital Railcannon and 500kg + stun grenades to deal with Titans and more chargers seems very solid. Only thing you’d be missing is bug hole destruction, hopefully your teammates can deal with that or the grenade pistol coming out soon would be great!
One of the massive problems with MG sentries is when fighting bots they will dump there entire mag into the dropship, which it can't even hurt. Really pisses me off when I see it happen.
The HMG turret can solo all 3 shieker hives as well. Do note that if the turret gets destroyed while your on it you will die. Chargers are your worst enemy
Great analysis. Thanks for the data! I think your idea of making the Machinegun Sentry on a shorter cooldown could work, but I think it would also work well to just have it able to fire the same number of rounds, albeit at the slower rate. That would allow it to be active longer with the lower DPS.
Rounds per MINUTE is the standard for all weapons, so according to your data: Machine Gun Sentry: 660 RPM Gatling Sentry: 1,560 RPM HMG Emplacement: 660 RPM
Yay, nice to see some love for the Machine Guns. My current loadout is MG-43, Supply Pack and 2 free slots, with the Breaker Spray & Pray, Senator, Impacts and I wear the SC-15 Drone Master armor for the recoil reducing passive. I run the gun at the full 960 RPM for all occasions except for when the mission spawns Pouncers/Hunters instead of either Spewer variants where I run it down at 680 RPM in order to control the extra chaff spawns. I prefer the MG-43 in every instance over the Stalwart just because of the medium armor penetration letting it punch through any of the most common enemy spawns
Aight. Every other sentry gun guide didn't give me what you gave me in one 2 minute time slot. Thanks very much XD You have helped me both in darktide and helldivers XD Keep going Ryken, keep going.
Thanks! It's so good to see the numbers. Before unlocking both the gatling an mg turrets, I thought their differences would be efficiency vs dps, and was disappointing to notice the mg turret didn't have more sustain. The HMG emplacement seems to also need a buff, as it competes with the MG-43 for a stratagem slot while being even more stationary... perhaps it has better "medium" pen? still needs more.
As I'm learning from the wonderful comments here - the HMG Emplacement does indeed have better medium penetration! It has the same penetration as the AMR, allowing it to pierce through walker bodies, devestators, and hulk eyes. This might give it some purpose against automatons..
I got me a new loud out now since arc weapons cause crashes. I’ve been using the flamethrower since the issue but god this kit looks fun! -stalwart -supply pack -expendable rockets -orbital laser (I prefer it) 12/10 video.
I think one reason to take the regular MG sentry over the Gatling sentry is so that you don't cut down the rest of your squad with the higher rate of fire of the Gatling; the slower rate of fire of the MG means that someone could actually survive being in front of its line of fire if it acquires something on the other side of them where the Gatling would just destroy them without any chance for them to react, this means that the MG could be very useful as a panic button for high intensity situations where you have enemies all around you, but if you were to lay down a Gatling sentry it would just cut down everyone in the squad without giving them the option to maneuver. Additionally, even though it has less sustained firing time than the Gatling sentry, the MG sentry is arguably more efficient as it tends to kill enemies with just the right amount of ammunition before moving on to the next one where the Gatling will waste more ammo than it needs to on individual targets, this makes it exceedingly good at dealing with swarming enemies like scavengers, hunters, or rank and file bots. As far as man portable machine gun choices, I find I much prefer the MG-43 for its ability to chew through enemies with more armor and deal with lighter enemies with less ammunition use than the Stalwart, but I will not disagree that the Stalwart is useful as an ad-hoc Assault Rifle substitute if you're running a more specialized primary weapon like a marksman rifle or a shotgun, but I would not take it as a replacement for a primary unless I absolutely need to considering it takes up a stratagem slot and I thoroughly disagree with people who want it to be added as a another primary weapon instead of a support weapon.
I always use the MG sentry over the gatling specifically because the MG actually stops shooting while switching targets. Combined with the slightly higher turn speed, the MG sentry is much more useful and ammo efficient when thrown in less strategic areas, or when being overrun by a flanking patrol you hadn't expected, as it doesn't waste ammo and cut down teammates while swinging 180 to kill a random flanking scavenger
I usually take the MG sentry alongside the gatling sentry, the reason is fairly simple: it lets me cover multiple approach routes with sentry fire and allows me to stagger deploy my nest clearing power. That 180 sec cooldown feels more like a 90 sec cooldown when you are alternating sentries. It also helps that unless you are playing on higher difficulties the gatling tends to be overkill most of the time anyways.
The HMG emplacement is probably the best and most efficient stratagem to deal with big waves of reinforcements. If you have the lubricant upgrade it also turns way faster making it way more effective. It's still pretty bad at doing a full 180 turn, so it's better to place it backed against walls or places where it will be difficult to get flanked. Also another upside it has over everything else, is that it actually lasts forever as long as you don't deplete it's ammo or gets destroyed. I recommend placing them on cooldown in defense objectives, or when a bug breach or big bot drops are coming, it will help you and your teammates clear a lot of waves. It should be treated as a secondary weapon instead of something you want to man at all times, leaving the turret and only using it when needed or there's targets to shoot at from it's field of view. That way the cooldown will be ticking down all the time, and you can end up with a very fortified position, jumping between emplacements and using your AT weapons and stratagems for the few units the HMG can't deal with. Remember that ANYONE can man it, so you don't need to be using it yourself, and it can save your teammates on a pinch if they are carrying the AT loadouts instead of crowd control. Another advantage it has over bots, is that it actually is very good at dealing suppressive fire, and most bots won't even be able to return fire at you at medium ranges as long as you are shooting their way. Seriously, this stratagem is heavily underrated and you should give it a try. It needs a bit more thought and space to be effective as other stratagems, but it can be very versatile. Just remember that it will always deploy facing the direction you were looking at when you threw it, so if you are going to throw it at your feet, remember to turn around where the enemies are coming from.
Amazing vids. I promised myself not to fall into rabithole of obsession with Helldivers but looking at quality of your vids, I think that goes out of the window haha
I've unfortunately seen a lot of hate for the machine guns online for some reason. I, for one, love them all. I often bring one with me. And the machine gun emplacement is actually really good against tougher enemies. I've taken down chargers and even a bile titan with one. Always surprises my teammates 😅
I'm glad you are seeing success with your Helldivers videos! I hope we get something for Darktide this week, I love your darktide content. At least the horrible documentation and constant changers in Helldivers are a good source of content! :D
I agree with the cool downs being reduced for machine gun sentry and hmg emplacement, or another thought would be to increase the ammo of both of them to match. I always thought the machine gun had more sustained fire which makes it viable for holding a position for an extended duration. food for thought
Quick note about the regular mg emplacement, it intentionally fires at smaller units first. Meaning it wont dump its entire magazine into charger plates.
This video pretty much covered my normal mid level build. A sickle (will likely switch to slugger when i unlock it), a Stalwart, supply pack, EAT, and an orbital railrun (or on mid-lower some variation of an eagle). I also use +2 grenade armor with impact grenades mainly for bug holes and spewers...
Great analysis. Enjoying your vids and the data tables are a gold mine. Thank you for your work on this…and the othercomparison vids you’ve done. SUBSCRIBED!
The HMG sentry needs some buffs yeah but one thing it has it can one clip 3 shrieker towers (with a little extra left in the mag) which is bonkers on Blitz missions. Given how annoying shriekers can get especially if there are multiples sets, I have at times brought it just because it's around 20 seconds to remove a whole nest (3 towers) across the map on a relatively low CD.
Just something I've always noticed between the standard Machine Gun sentry and the Gatling one is despite having much more ammo, the standard one seems to last longer. I think it doesn't waste as many bullets on corpses and firing while turning as the standard Machine gun does by merit of it just firing slower.
Guard dog Rover is another cool option for MG/Stalwart builds instead of the supply backpack. It helps a lot with the crowd control and allows you to conserve ammo. While you focus on long distance and stronger enemies with the MG or Stalwart, the Guard dog eliminates the small pests, protects you from sneak attacks and will increase your DPS against stronger enemies when both fire at them.
Yeah the EAT/Stalwart combo works real, real well. You don't need to be toting around a big gun with the EAT, which leaves room for the Stalwart to clean up the trash, especially as you can reload on the move. Only issue is if you need more than those two shots, but that's when you either rely on orbital/eagle strategems or your teammates.
Ill be honest Im a huge stalwart hater and a huge machine gun glazer. I LOVE taking it in high-level bug missions, I can nearly single handedly deal with ALL the enemies smaller than a charger. It lets me fill such a nice niche, i just love it.
I use the stalwart as a primary. Hands down its the best anti-chaff bug weapon. Especially if you are covering your squadmates's flanks and during their reloads. It is accurate enough to keep from hitting them. I use it at 1100rpms all the time and just tap targets with small bursts. When we get overrun I'll hold it down and use to part the flood.
Just one small correction, you mention that the resupply pack can give 8 extra grenades and 8 stims. Idk if it is a bug or not but the resupply pack give 3 grenades back if you are hold a grenade when you resupply. So you can get 12 grenades. And if you resupply while holding the grenade when you have 2 or 3 grenades it lets you carry 5.
Would love to see the mg43 get some hefty buffs to its ammo. Just a bigger mag size so you dont have to reload it every 10 seconds would be amazing. Or one more clip so resupplies can provide 2 clips. Id even love to see an optional backpack that it comes down with that auto feeds rounds. You dont HAVE to take the backpack like you do with other backpack weapons, but if you do then you never have to reload it.
Yeah both the turret and the handheld version are very lacking right now. If the MG43 is gonna have a stationary reload, it should hold more rounds. It’s ammo economy is so bad for seemingly no reason. Low reserves overall, low belt size compared to the stalwart, and 1 measly belt replenished with a resupply. That really sucks. It needs a little something.
@@coliax8754 Medium enemies are not worth taking a dedicated weapon for. You can kill them with light weapons easily enough. The sickle can take them out no problem so theres no need to swap to the MG43. Stalwart will always massively outperform the MG43 because of this in terms of DPS, let alone ammo economy, and a 5 second long immobile reload. This build would be a voluntary handicap at any of the higher levels. The point of the stalwart is that it trades armor penetration for a mobile reload. If you gave the MG43 the exact same ammo as the stalwart youd still see a lot of stalwarts running around because of how crap a 5 second immobile reload is on a weapon thats basically supposed to function as a primary. The liberator penetrator is a good example of what you're saying being completely untrue. Lastly, the reverse of what you said will always be infinitely better. Taking the stalwart with a primary like the slugger or scorcher for mediums will 2 or 3x outperform taking the MG43 for mediums and a primary for lights.
@@thoughtgaming492 nah, light weapons have issues with spitters and warriors while the mg-43 can just mow them down. My point is, that you cant give the mg-43 more bullets without making the salward obsolete
@@coliax8754 Yes you can. The stalwart not only has more than double max ammo of the MG43, but also only gets back 30% of what the stalwart gets back per resupply pickup. You could increase the ammo on the MG43 by 50% and it still wouldn't even come close to the stalwarts ammo supply, and it would still require a hefty immobile reload. Im not asking for the MG43 to have more ammo than the stalwart, Im just asking for it to have more ammo. For example, if the MG43 simply had 3 belt clips instead of 2 for a 600 ammo capacity total, it would not only increase its max capacity by 25%, but it would double its resupply rate. Even after this, the stalwart has 100 more ammo per clip, 400 more max ammo, and gets 200 more shots per resupply. All while being able to reload on the move. You're crazy if you think that would make the stalwart obsolete. Also spitters can be taken down with a single clip from a light weapon, and weapons like the sickle have infinite ammo. And a single clip of light ammo can take down multiple warriors easily. The stalwart can also take down spitters and warriors with higher ammo efficiency than the MG43 can. Source: I do this every game in helldive. I dont waste support weapon slots on anything that can't get through charger armor and neither do 90% of other difficulty 9 players.
I sometimes use plasma punisher, stalwart, and I mix up what kills my heavy targets. Autocannon, railcannon, air strikes, and jump pack. Getting a higher pov on the terminid field makes the punisher and stalwart great, easy headshots, easy shots into big crowds, spewers butts etc.
I’ve been enjoying stalwart+plasma punisher against bugs. Plasma has that medium AP goodness to deal with the hive guards and bile spewers, while the stalwart mows down everything else.
I'd like to see the HMG's cooldown lowered to 90 seconds to match the shield generator. I feel like the Machine Gun could either get a boost to resupply amount or magazine size without treading on the stalwart's niche too much.
Stalwart or GL paired with the backpack and slugger is bug clearing perfection. Sweep away the trash with the big gun, switch to the slugger for armored foes. You either need specific stratagems or other teammates for chargers and titans, but that's a convo you and your squad need to have yourselves
When dealing with the green spitters and how many you often have to deal with the AP of the MG-43 becomes a massive upgrade to the Stalwart. If you drop your RPM down and crouch to put out 3-5 shot bursts every second or two your ammo will go much much further and you will spend much less time shooting corpses it makes a big difference especially with the MG-43 for how ammo hungry it is. Lastly the HMG emplacement can take out 3 shreaker nests from outside their range none of the other machine guns do damage to those nests and just for being able to do that can justify brining it if you know those flying fun bags will be on the map. Oh and a 3 shot burst to a green spitters head from the MG-43 is enough to put it down you can actually pick off a ton of these guys before you have to reload. Good luck out there Helldivers!!
Part of me wants to believe the MG sentry has some hidden stat we are unaware that makes it better than the Gatling at something (like damage or turn rate)... but part of me then remembers how bad some primary weapons are and how the starting pistol is completely obsolete when you unlock the machine pistol.... I cant believe how slow they are with balance patches.
Yeah the inter-weapon ballance is shit (hi there, primary machine guns) But it's slowly creaping to slightly better. They could do with some more patches there. Problem is the devs themselves seem to know less about weapon ballance than the players 😂😂
I'm a big fan of the MG-43 machine gun. Why recommend a supply backpack for the Stalwart though? Deep ammo reserves are already a strength of it, you don't need to accentuate it any further. The MG-43, however, really benefits from its poor ammo pickup being compensated for by carrying a supply pack.
True - and a fair point! I was just highlighting how you can push the ammo efficiency of the Stalwart even more with Supply Pack - maybe even allowing you to use the 1150 RPM more freely for, if nothing else, more satisfaction of putting holes in anything.
A video just in time to hit 10k subs! (also foot notes and amendments in this comment)
Notes:
- Crouching helps with the stability and recoil of the MG-43 and Stalwart, even better if you have the armour that further reduces recoil! If you need to stay mobile and advance, I'd recommend crouching while firing! While going prone helps even more, I find in grassy maps, I can't see anything to shoot at...
- The Gatling and Machine Gun sentry will always fire for a minimum of about 1 second. If the bugs were smart, they'd send cannon fodder 1 by 1 to waste the sentries ammo.
- The HMG Emplacement actually hits pretty hard. While its surface stats are similar to that of the MG-43, its damage is much higher. I did a mech test once with the emplacement and it only took 15 shots to destroy it compared to the MG-43's 78. This is just speculation of course...
- ALSO, while the HMG does technically have Medium level penetration, it has AMR levels of Medium Penetration, allowing you blast through Walker bodies, Devestators, and Hulk faces! (Very useful to know and might be worth bringing into bot missions at the higher levels (will find out))
- For those who want to know what the Mech's stats are:
> Total Ammo 1000 rounds
> 0.8s wind up time
> 21 rounds/s
> Max Sustained Fire of 47.6s
> Medium AP (haven't had opportunity to test if can pen Walkers which would make it Med III Penetration)
Upon reading your test with the mech I decided to try, so I shot the left arm (Rocket L) while prone 15m from the walker facing me, Slugger 13 shots, HMG 13 shots, MG 166 shots.
Both the Slugger and HMG can destroy poi containers, so they might have about the same PEN, while the MG can't so it has less.
It should be noted that the HMG has a higher armor penetration than the MG-43. The HMG has the same AP value as the AMR, the autocannon, the safe mode railgun, and the Las Cannon.
This AP value does full damage to the 2nd level of armor (things like hive defenders heads, bile spewer head armor, devastator bots chest armor, Strider's joints), and is capable of damaging the 3rd level of armor albeit not many things have it (Strider's frontal shield, Hulk's head/eye, Shrieker nests). You still do no damage to the 4th level of armor which is what we normally consider heavy armor.
@@josephburchanowski4636Yeap, reading through the comments tells me the same thing! Will update my pinned comment to reflect that!
A simple crouch does wonders for the MG and Stalwart, and makes the highest RPM setting far more viable, assuming you fire in bursts. (Which you should)
If you aren't on the run, you should always be crouching, you'll land way more shots and do far more harm.
I saw someone test damage of few guns with shield generator relay and Stal has about 55 damage while MG-43 is 80 and HMG sits at 200 damage per shot
When you are shooting a full mag to an horde of bugs and the helldiver starts to scream and laugh… that’s one of the most pleasant feelings on the game
I only get that from the machine gun. ❤
oh ya
Also flamethrower
Tbh, Stalwart + Supply Pack + EAT-17 + grenade armour + Scorcher/Slugger sounds like a fucking AWESOME bug loadout
Especially because grenade armor gives recoil mitigation, so you can kick it up to 1100 and crouch/prone for a very steady and easy to aim river of lead. Never complain about hunters again.
Grab stun grenades to support your team, hit the way more efficient 500kg every single time instead of running rail cannon, and get easy flanks on chargers. Stun them and then mag dump on their explosive weak backside with the scorcher. It won't kill outright but they bleed out pretty fast. You don't need impacts for CC. It does suck to have to wait for a teammate to blow bug holes though.
Honestly with the EAT cooldown being so low, I just run it and load up on orbital and Eagle stratagems since the sickle doesn't use ammo
I have been running this, but guard dog instead of supply pack
rn my best bug loadout is the eruptor + heavy armor + stalwart + guard dog rover. Eruptor can kill chargers and biles by hitting their soft squishy bits, stalwart clears out massive hordes of hunters, scavengers, and warriors, and the guard dog rover can kill hive guards and watch your back.
If the MG-43 resupplied ammo better it would be the only support weapon I use. MG’s are the most fun I’ve had in this game. Hearing your guy scream and laugh like a lunatic while you turn swarms into mush, is the most satisfying thing in the game
When the bug is fixed with the mew module you’ll have your wish
3:21 "No real reason to take the MG sentry" The Machine Gun Sentry has a higher turn rate than the Gatling gun, which is especially noticeable with the increased turn rate ship module upgrade. The Gatling gun also tends to waste ammo as it drags its firing line around to acquire new targets, possibly hitting allies. As a result, I believe that the MG Sentry's ability to hold multiple sightlines without significantly risking friendly fire makes it the most reliable sentry to drop in any situation. That being said, if enemies are coming from one direction, and you have proper time and angles to set it up, the Gatling's better.
It would be great with a shorter cool down. You make a good point about its merit though. I took a turret build into a bug mission and got swarmed by shreikers. The MG Sentry had much faster target acquisition and quickly shredded most of them, which allowed me a window to take out the nest. The Gatling sentry was taking out some of the direct dive attack shreikers but it was spraying a lot of ammo at times.
This is also my personal experience and preference. The lack of DPS matters so much less to me when the gatling burns like 2-3x as much ammo for the same amount of scattered chaff coming through a chokepoint
Also I've never been killed by my own MG sentry, but I cannot count the amount if times the gatling has swiped across me while changing targets. It's even mission-killed my exosuits by breaking a leg so I couldn't turn at all!
Tldr the MG sentry is a much safer option than the gatling is.
(Anecdotally)
I've been using it with a full sentry strategem deck to grind common samples. It's ok and nice to have if the others are on cool down. I still wish it had a faster cool down because once i unlock rocket sentries i don't think I'll need it anymore.
@archmagosavagadro5420 you'll need it. The rocket Sentry sucks. The Auto Cannon is the DPS king.
also, MG sentry is less likely to kill you as it doesnt keep firing while switching targets
One thing that should be noted, is that the HMG Emplacement has a High-Medium level of armor penetration, not just Medium; so about the same as the AMR.
This means that it can damage things like the Strider Cockpits, Hulk Heads, and Shrieker Lairs, as well as dealing full damage to Medium armored enemies, instead of half, which, on top of being a higher damage already, makes it far more effective than it appears on paper.
EDIT: Just read the pinned comment lol. This would probably be the explanation behind the increased damage.
It's still not as good as the gatling or auto-cannon sentries since you can act independently of them and as such are able to defend an area from multiple angles. HMG could work for choke points alongside the mortar sentry in bot missions however that is much lower utility.
4 thing with high-medium amor pen is autocannon, amr, laser cannon and hmg replacement. hulk head, flying bug nest, strider and heavy devastator shield is some example of these type of amor.
@@anhnguyentuan8035 That's a good point; I didn't think about that. I'll add those to the comment.
@@anitaremenarova6662I would be good with it if it had frontal armor a gunsite and cooldown around 100 to 120
@@Raven5431 You can use it with the shield generator but I agree that the cooldown is too long for needing an operator.
As my groups local machine gun/sentry chad, I've started using the incendiary breaker, Stalwart, Gatling and Autocannons turrets, and railcannon strike against bugs. The turrets and stalwart will chew through most groups of enemies, the incendiary breaker can deal with Chargers surprisingly well, and the railcannon gives you an option against bile titans or a panic button against chargers, if you're feeling desperate
Incendiary breaker can deal with Chargers? Mind sharing the engagement strategy? :O
@@not_kesjust focus shoot the butt same as all other primaries, breaker incendiary just has very good dps with the fast-ish fire rate and the fact it does fire damage over time (not a lot, but still adds up)
I run mostly this as well. I only change turrets to orbitals or a shield depending on the level and the group. But at heart, i clear the small guys so my team can focus the big ones. And survive and reinforce
@kes_poco combine it with some HE grenades and its better.
Scorcher is really amazing for spewers. I don't think I want to play with a primary that doesn't just wipe out any spewer that appears at any range. It also does extra damage to a charger butt.
But what you really want to do against a charger is make it stop, then shoot into the yellow bit inside the top of the leg. It's only visible from the rear. A Stalwart kills a charger in under a second this way, I'm pretty sure.
MG-43 my beloved.
Even at level 50 I still tend to bring it with me, definitely my favourite weapon in the game.
Switching to higher RPM has saved me and my squad from getting swarmed by medium-armoured enemies time and time again.
I also love it since it I like to lay down near some cover with a buddy covering me when I am reloading or getting rushed and then just switch it to 900 rpm and just let it go BRRRRRRRRRRRR like a german soldier at normandy during D-day.
I had no idea you could switch fire rate
@@eliaspanayi3465same i have no idea until i watched this video
I really want to like the MG43 but ever since I started running slugger alongside stalwart I can’t go back, honestly it needs an ammo or reload buff
Sorry I just ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️➡️
The HMG sentry is wildly powerful for what it is. It's less x2 MG-43s and more like x2 baby autocannons or x2 anti-material rifles. It can kill Hulks from the front. Paired with the shield generator or shield backpack, you're also very durable.
I agree the smol MG turret needs to have lower cooldown. Either that or triple it's ammo size to give it more than double the sustained fire of the Gatling.
If the mg-43 is based off the mg-42, the German 2nd world war machine gun, it probably fires 7.92, in comparison the sentry is a 50cal in line with the AMR which is probably supposed to be firing. Neat to see how there's some real world balance rather than x weapon is worse because reasons
That shield emplacement and HMG combo is absolutely hilarious against bots!
@@eliaspanayi3465*Erika song plays*
@@eliaspanayi3465yes rl AMR uses 50cal or 20mm...the HMG does sound like a 50cal turret. Stalwart uses intermedite rifle cal, while mg43 uses full size rifle cal, aka 7.62, 30cal, 7.92 etc
I 100% condone the hatred for Stalkers :p
Great video man. I’m convinced the devs made the in-game tooltips completely useless so that the community develops into something bigger lol, because it’s crazy how little info they give. Keep up the great work my friend :)
Stalkers are not a problem, they do not attack you in groups and half magazine of the Breaker is enough to kill em. Hunters howevere, OH BOY THE HUNTERS, they are EVIL incarnate.
@@Venom_Snake_dll haha i think they have input reading lol as soon as you put your aim on them they start jumping around and strafing xD
But they go down real fast tho :p
Same. I like how secondaries are ultimately silent
Sounds like you aren’t listening to the B R A S C H T A C T I C S
I find it funny everyone has a problem with the lone stalkers that follow you and not the 300 hunters that come at you at once lol. Hunter’s are so much more annoying imo
One thing that is a pro for the HMG Emplacement, it destroys Hulks super quickly. The accuracy you get from it allows you to hit the centerpoint consistently and take down the mech in a mere 3 seconds or less. Had a friend mow down three Hulks in quick succession with the HMG Emplacement the first time he tried it out and he hasn't stopped bringing it since with great success.
HMG feels like it's doing more way dmg because it shreds everything with very small number of bullets, which is why it not should used "sustained fire".
Also, it is ignored by enemies unless manned, does not trigger any breaches/dropships (as long as no one else is spotted) and it can kill a full Shrieker nest from any distance with a mag.
@@siveonfarcloud4190 Good to know about the shrieker nest, we hadn't tried that on it yet. Yeah continuous fire isn't needed because it damages so well, granted it is fun haha.
Does it have to go through the weakpoint or will it damage it over all consistently? Like I know you can maim Devastators like taking off their arms and stuff, but can you do that to hulks?
@@steeljawX Yikes I would have to ask, I believe it does have to be the weak point since the chest armor is heavy while the weak point is medium high since railgun and anti-material can do the same.
I haven't tried the emplacement vs bots. I will just get instantly rocketed from crossmap, I can already feel it.
Pretty awesome vs bugs though. Just a shame the game is currently crashing if there are too many objects on map. So the obvious loadout of EAT + Emplacement is kinda asking to crash.
When reloading the MG-43 you can use a melee to cancel the reload animation. Timing it until right after he dumps the old mag is a good idea as your character will pick up the reload at that point. I use this method of reloading a lot when kiting bugs.
Oh nice! Learned something!
I cannot begin to tell you how useful this video is to me; I am always ALWAYS the machine gunner in games where its an option and oftentimes, they get left behind and forgotten about in favor of more 'exotic' weaponry. I am so glad that as of yet, this playstyle is valid and useful throughout the difficulty levels. Subscribed!
If we're doing bugs, I always insist at least one of us bring a normal machine gun, it's insanely powerful against a surprising variety of enemies
Great against bots too
100% agree on giving the more weaker or more awkward stratagems shorter cooldowns. Especially with how punishing some map conditions can be on higher difficulties. Being able to place a bunch of HMG emplacements over a 10 minute period defending an area would be sick.
It's always smart to have two people for crowd control and two people for heavy.
The crowed control having MG and a stalwart.
And the heavy having a auto cannon, and recoiless.
That way you can save ammo by having everyone for everything.
So the recoiless can focus on heavy.
The auto cannon can focus on large to medium.
And the two machine guns can focus on the smaller enemies.
And don't forget the MG people to always carry an EAT
Scorcher+Stalwart is neat.
i love the MG more then the LMG. the medium pen just absolutely wrecks and cuts through all the bugs like butter.
I don’t love the static reload. LMG kind of gives more bang for the ammo - I just complement the LMG with a primary weapon that does Medium Armor pen. Regular MG just doesn’t have enough ammo to be “jack of all trades” type gun with the kind of downtime it has
@anpan6282 the static reload is not a problem. If being chased, start reloading, dive out of the reload, run more, and finish the reload as it saves your reload progress
The mg is imho better than the stalwart once you get to higher difficulties. Stalwart is only good up to a point
@@anpan6282 the static reload is, unironically, the best part. because is so strong you need something that limits it. it is something you need to play around instead of just playing like normal. It also ISN'T a jack of all trades, it's specifically a weapon that counters reinforcements vs using all the time. also, sometimes, you need that rapid Medium pen so you can keep a bug breach from getting too out of hand. the other primary medium weapons just don't fire fast enough to counter a swarm of hive guards, commanders, and bile spewers.
@@lupvirga that’s fair. I’ll need to play around with it more
@@lupvirga I dig it. I like the idea of a powerful firearm with mobility trade-offs, ideal for supporting a squad.
This is a great little guide, exactly the kind of content I've been wanting from the helldivers 2 community. A lot of the tools we unlock at the early levels of the game tend to get overlooked in favor of the "cooler" stuff, but having a simple machine gunner on your team is an invaluable asset. I always love it when the end-game stats show just how many shots I fired and how many bugs I've killed just using the classic machine gun.
Good video, nice work on the in-depth explanations. One thing I'd add is the actual armor penetration values. They are 2 for the Stalward, 3 for the LMG, and 4 for the new HMG. I believe it's 3 for the MG and Chaingun sentries and 4 for the HMG emplacement.
Just to clarify, if a weapon's armor penetration is below the target's armor value, the projectile bounces. If it's equal, it deals 50% damage, and if it's higher, it deals 100% damage.
The Stalwart is exactly what it's name implies. Simple reliability.
Reliably out of ammo
for the MG sentry turret, i think it needs to get a significant advantage over the gatling, in one stat or another. I think either a significantly shorter cooldown or longer sustained fire time, would be good. For a shorter call-in cooldown, I'd try 90 seconds. Or for longer sustained fire time, id try somewhere between 300 rounds (upgraded) to 390 rounds (upgraded) to give it 27.3s or 35.5s of sustained fire, respectively.
Or maybe being able to put down multiple at a time would be good. Similar to the un-upgrade Eagle Air Strike, we could throw down one MG sentry, wait 5 seconds or so, and throw down a second MG sentry. then there's the longer cooldown wait of 120s (or whatever would be fair). in this case, the two combined MG sentries would still have less sustained fire time than a single Gatling, still have less DPS than a single Gatling, but would have two angles to shoot from, and one sentry getting destroyed still leaves the second one able to shoot.
MG43 support weapon also needs some love i think. maybe let it reload on the move just like the stalwart, or give it an extra magazine, or 200 rounds in each magazine. also i think it needs to reload more magazines per supply pickup. the ammo economy overall is rough for it, and between that and having to sit still to reload, im not sure the medium armor penetration is good enough for the trade off. Maybe 175 rounds per magazine, 4 total magazines, and resupply 2 magazines per supply crate... and maybe a 4.75s reload speed
Im using the sentry turrets as decoy to pull out all bugs from a nest to close the holes or destroying all eggs. Works great.
MG-43 needs some love holy shit
10/10 intermission. The well researched and informative video was great too. It felt like the MG turret was a bit ammo starved and you proved it.
I agree that the machine gun turret should have a shorter cooldown or maybe the gatling could have less range. I also am wondering how the hmg deployment direction works. Is it always straight ahead of where you throw it? Important to know so you can place it most effectively.
Your timing on releasing this is about as good as my timing in 2001 when I told my parents to change the channel because "it's not like the other tower's about to get hit" lol
Heavy mg
I KNOW! AND I WAS A AWAY ON HOLIDAY TOO!
The intermission alone is worth a like. The rest of the video is also good, warms my sentry-loving heart.
I love bringing this setup with me, Stawart, Slugger, resupply backpack, 500kg bomb and rocket pods, with this i'm ready for anything!
best Helldivers data/deep dive content I've found. Thank you for your work citizen!
These are genuinely some of the best breakdowns and reviews i have seen on youtube in years, thank you kind Sir.
Excellent breakdown! Happy that the sickle now dethroned the defender as the best all-rounder primary. It was too good compared to all the other assault and sniper rifles with the added benefit of being one-handed. As for machine guns, I still wouldn't take Stalwart since it occupies an invaluable support weapon slot that could be much better utilized using heavy armor shredders like the EAT or Recoilless.
Extremely good work and very informative, thanks.
Glad you enjoyed it!
thanks for this video it was just what i was looking for!! for machine guns, my rpm rule of thumb is if my team is assaulting an area the rpm goes up, if we're moving out of an area and need cover fire (automatons) the rpm goes low to somewhat conserve ammo and let the user keep moving and laying more fire down-range and to get to a safe spot to reload. if roaming or getting ambushed it's user preference
Of course, they *just released* a new HMG barely a couple days after this released… 😅
It appears to be a demounted version of the emplacement guns, with a RoF selector equivalent to the MG-43. 75-round belt on it, so half that of the MG-43… Would need to test it myself.
Great work, you earned my sub. Anecdotally in my static 9s group I have felt like the gatling has always outperformed machine gun sentry in every way. It's nice to see the actual numbers prove it.
That's very true, I always use the Stalwart as primary. Always at the lowest RPM to conserve ammo, any higher RPM and you're sure to overshoot.
As long as my teammates have strategems for the bigger bugs, i love running the gattling sentry, mg sentry and auto cannon sentry with my mg43. It's great for holding down objectives and not getting overwhelmed. Also 3 sentries if deployed properly can protect one another well which is great when you're on the run too.
Okay, worth noting that there *is* a reason to use MG sentry over Gatling (and its similar to why to use default pistol over auto pistol)
MG sentry's lower firerate means that it tends to use an appropriate amount of ammo, and can stop firing when it needs to.
The Gatling Sentry tends, instead, to overkill massively, both wasting ammo on the floor and on dead enemies.
This is especially problematic when you consider that the Gatling (and possibly also the MG but thats realistically irrelevant) doesnt stop shooting when switching targets. This sweeps bullets into the universe, hitting absolutely nothing.
Tl;Dr: MG sentry is more efficient, if having a longer ttk. Gatling has short ttk, but wasted ammo.
If you use Sentries as Panic, Gatling is basically universally better.
If you use Sentries as Support, MG has a genuinely viable Niche.
Hope this helps!
Love your content Ryken, for both Darktide and Helldivers. Keep up the hard work.
Glad you like them!
Nothing beats good old Dakka. Thanks for this guide!
Stalwart + Supply pack to deal with the swarms of hunters and other pests, Scorcher to deal with Hive Guard and spewers and even do work aganist charger bums, then Orbital Railcannon and 500kg + stun grenades to deal with Titans and more chargers seems very solid.
Only thing you’d be missing is bug hole destruction, hopefully your teammates can deal with that or the grenade pistol coming out soon would be great!
One of the massive problems with MG sentries is when fighting bots they will dump there entire mag into the dropship, which it can't even hurt. Really pisses me off when I see it happen.
Thank you! You have taught me a few new strategem combinations.
Ive been running supply and MG because well, it just feels super cool. Didnt even know i could change the rpm. Thanks for the video.
Thanks for the breakdown, Ryken. I always enjoy your analysis.
My pleasure! Love the work you do to - answering the questions we all wondering about!
Can't wait to get the slugger, really want to run the Stalwart.
Always appreciated the Darktide content, thank you for this wonderful Helldivers Breakdown!
Amazing video! Thank you for just stating facts and not stalling out like most youtube videos do now
Glad you enjoyed!
been running the HMG turret, machine gun, EAT's, and the mech. Against bugs its really good
The HMG turret can solo all 3 shieker hives as well. Do note that if the turret gets destroyed while your on it you will die. Chargers are your worst enemy
Great analysis. Thanks for the data! I think your idea of making the Machinegun Sentry on a shorter cooldown could work, but I think it would also work well to just have it able to fire the same number of rounds, albeit at the slower rate. That would allow it to be active longer with the lower DPS.
Rounds per MINUTE is the standard for all weapons, so according to your data:
Machine Gun Sentry: 660 RPM
Gatling Sentry: 1,560 RPM
HMG Emplacement: 660 RPM
Yay, nice to see some love for the Machine Guns. My current loadout is MG-43, Supply Pack and 2 free slots, with the Breaker Spray & Pray, Senator, Impacts and I wear the SC-15 Drone Master armor for the recoil reducing passive. I run the gun at the full 960 RPM for all occasions except for when the mission spawns Pouncers/Hunters instead of either Spewer variants where I run it down at 680 RPM in order to control the extra chaff spawns. I prefer the MG-43 in every instance over the Stalwart just because of the medium armor penetration letting it punch through any of the most common enemy spawns
Aight.
Every other sentry gun guide didn't give me what you gave me in one 2 minute time slot.
Thanks very much XD You have helped me both in darktide and helldivers XD Keep going Ryken, keep going.
I didn't even know you could change RPM! 😯 Another great vid! Thanks mate.
This has been eye opening, I think I’ll try out the stalwart over the flamethrower for bug missions for a little bit because of this.
Thanks! It's so good to see the numbers.
Before unlocking both the gatling an mg turrets, I thought their differences would be efficiency vs dps, and was disappointing to notice the mg turret didn't have more sustain.
The HMG emplacement seems to also need a buff, as it competes with the MG-43 for a stratagem slot while being even more stationary... perhaps it has better "medium" pen? still needs more.
As I'm learning from the wonderful comments here - the HMG Emplacement does indeed have better medium penetration! It has the same penetration as the AMR, allowing it to pierce through walker bodies, devestators, and hulk eyes.
This might give it some purpose against automatons..
I got me a new loud out now since arc weapons cause crashes. I’ve been using the flamethrower since the issue but god this kit looks fun!
-stalwart
-supply pack
-expendable rockets
-orbital laser (I prefer it)
12/10 video.
Orbital laser is great - love that stratagem so much since it provides excellent covering fire!
I think one reason to take the regular MG sentry over the Gatling sentry is so that you don't cut down the rest of your squad with the higher rate of fire of the Gatling; the slower rate of fire of the MG means that someone could actually survive being in front of its line of fire if it acquires something on the other side of them where the Gatling would just destroy them without any chance for them to react, this means that the MG could be very useful as a panic button for high intensity situations where you have enemies all around you, but if you were to lay down a Gatling sentry it would just cut down everyone in the squad without giving them the option to maneuver.
Additionally, even though it has less sustained firing time than the Gatling sentry, the MG sentry is arguably more efficient as it tends to kill enemies with just the right amount of ammunition before moving on to the next one where the Gatling will waste more ammo than it needs to on individual targets, this makes it exceedingly good at dealing with swarming enemies like scavengers, hunters, or rank and file bots.
As far as man portable machine gun choices, I find I much prefer the MG-43 for its ability to chew through enemies with more armor and deal with lighter enemies with less ammunition use than the Stalwart, but I will not disagree that the Stalwart is useful as an ad-hoc Assault Rifle substitute if you're running a more specialized primary weapon like a marksman rifle or a shotgun, but I would not take it as a replacement for a primary unless I absolutely need to considering it takes up a stratagem slot and I thoroughly disagree with people who want it to be added as a another primary weapon instead of a support weapon.
I always use the MG sentry over the gatling specifically because the MG actually stops shooting while switching targets.
Combined with the slightly higher turn speed, the MG sentry is much more useful and ammo efficient when thrown in less strategic areas, or when being overrun by a flanking patrol you hadn't expected, as it doesn't waste ammo and cut down teammates while swinging 180 to kill a random flanking scavenger
SUPER EARTH THANKS YOU FOR YOUR INVALUABLE SERVICE.
I usually take the MG sentry alongside the gatling sentry, the reason is fairly simple: it lets me cover multiple approach routes with sentry fire and allows me to stagger deploy my nest clearing power. That 180 sec cooldown feels more like a 90 sec cooldown when you are alternating sentries. It also helps that unless you are playing on higher difficulties the gatling tends to be overkill most of the time anyways.
The HMG emplacement is probably the best and most efficient stratagem to deal with big waves of reinforcements. If you have the lubricant upgrade it also turns way faster making it way more effective. It's still pretty bad at doing a full 180 turn, so it's better to place it backed against walls or places where it will be difficult to get flanked. Also another upside it has over everything else, is that it actually lasts forever as long as you don't deplete it's ammo or gets destroyed.
I recommend placing them on cooldown in defense objectives, or when a bug breach or big bot drops are coming, it will help you and your teammates clear a lot of waves. It should be treated as a secondary weapon instead of something you want to man at all times, leaving the turret and only using it when needed or there's targets to shoot at from it's field of view. That way the cooldown will be ticking down all the time, and you can end up with a very fortified position, jumping between emplacements and using your AT weapons and stratagems for the few units the HMG can't deal with. Remember that ANYONE can man it, so you don't need to be using it yourself, and it can save your teammates on a pinch if they are carrying the AT loadouts instead of crowd control. Another advantage it has over bots, is that it actually is very good at dealing suppressive fire, and most bots won't even be able to return fire at you at medium ranges as long as you are shooting their way.
Seriously, this stratagem is heavily underrated and you should give it a try. It needs a bit more thought and space to be effective as other stratagems, but it can be very versatile. Just remember that it will always deploy facing the direction you were looking at when you threw it, so if you are going to throw it at your feet, remember to turn around where the enemies are coming from.
Amazing vids. I promised myself not to fall into rabithole of obsession with Helldivers but looking at quality of your vids, I think that goes out of the window haha
Thank you! I love games that have a lot depth and nuance - makes the discovery all the more interesting to carry out!
Been using the heavy machine gun it’s so good! It will be meta when it’s officially put into the game
Very good video. Can't whait for the HMG in the future update. I love machingun are so fun to use.
I've unfortunately seen a lot of hate for the machine guns online for some reason. I, for one, love them all. I often bring one with me. And the machine gun emplacement is actually really good against tougher enemies. I've taken down chargers and even a bile titan with one. Always surprises my teammates 😅
I'm glad you are seeing success with your Helldivers videos! I hope we get something for Darktide this week, I love your darktide content. At least the horrible documentation and constant changers in Helldivers are a good source of content! :D
I hope so too! I'm aching waiting for Fatshark to do something...
I agree with the cool downs being reduced for machine gun sentry and hmg emplacement, or another thought would be to increase the ammo of both of them to match. I always thought the machine gun had more sustained fire which makes it viable for holding a position for an extended duration. food for thought
Quick note about the regular mg emplacement, it intentionally fires at smaller units first. Meaning it wont dump its entire magazine into charger plates.
This video pretty much covered my normal mid level build. A sickle (will likely switch to slugger when i unlock it), a Stalwart, supply pack, EAT, and an orbital railrun (or on mid-lower some variation of an eagle). I also use +2 grenade armor with impact grenades mainly for bug holes and spewers...
I love your vidéos and your vibe keep on the good work !
Great analysis. Enjoying your vids and the data tables are a gold mine. Thank you for your work on this…and the othercomparison vids you’ve done. SUBSCRIBED!
The HMG sentry needs some buffs yeah but one thing it has it can one clip 3 shrieker towers (with a little extra left in the mag) which is bonkers on Blitz missions.
Given how annoying shriekers can get especially if there are multiples sets, I have at times brought it just because it's around 20 seconds to remove a whole nest (3 towers) across the map on a relatively low CD.
Just something I've always noticed between the standard Machine Gun sentry and the Gatling one is despite having much more ammo, the standard one seems to last longer. I think it doesn't waste as many bullets on corpses and firing while turning as the standard Machine gun does by merit of it just firing slower.
Guard dog Rover is another cool option for MG/Stalwart builds instead of the supply backpack. It helps a lot with the crowd control and allows you to conserve ammo. While you focus on long distance and stronger enemies with the MG or Stalwart, the Guard dog eliminates the small pests, protects you from sneak attacks and will increase your DPS against stronger enemies when both fire at them.
Yeah the EAT/Stalwart combo works real, real well. You don't need to be toting around a big gun with the EAT, which leaves room for the Stalwart to clean up the trash, especially as you can reload on the move. Only issue is if you need more than those two shots, but that's when you either rely on orbital/eagle strategems or your teammates.
Great round up,much appreciated, coming from someone who has put 130 hours into HD2
Ill be honest Im a huge stalwart hater and a huge machine gun glazer. I LOVE taking it in high-level bug missions, I can nearly single handedly deal with ALL the enemies smaller than a charger. It lets me fill such a nice niche, i just love it.
commenting so more people can see this video, incredible information
I use the stalwart as a primary. Hands down its the best anti-chaff bug weapon. Especially if you are covering your squadmates's flanks and during their reloads. It is accurate enough to keep from hitting them.
I use it at 1100rpms all the time and just tap targets with small bursts. When we get overrun I'll hold it down and use to part the flood.
Just one small correction, you mention that the resupply pack can give 8 extra grenades and 8 stims.
Idk if it is a bug or not but the resupply pack give 3 grenades back if you are hold a grenade when you resupply. So you can get 12 grenades. And if you resupply while holding the grenade when you have 2 or 3 grenades it lets you carry 5.
Pilestedt: Every strategem should have a unique selling point.
Helldivers: Machine gun sentry exists.
loved the intermission
Having the darktide 2 closing sound is mad fitting for helldivers 2, HERETIICCCSSSSS
Would love to see the mg43 get some hefty buffs to its ammo. Just a bigger mag size so you dont have to reload it every 10 seconds would be amazing. Or one more clip so resupplies can provide 2 clips. Id even love to see an optional backpack that it comes down with that auto feeds rounds. You dont HAVE to take the backpack like you do with other backpack weapons, but if you do then you never have to reload it.
Yeah both the turret and the handheld version are very lacking right now.
If the MG43 is gonna have a stationary reload, it should hold more rounds. It’s ammo economy is so bad for seemingly no reason. Low reserves overall, low belt size compared to the stalwart, and 1 measly belt replenished with a resupply. That really sucks. It needs a little something.
That would be too strong. MG-43 has medium armor piercing, so pair it with a stickle for light enemies and you wont have ammo problems anymore
@@coliax8754 Medium enemies are not worth taking a dedicated weapon for. You can kill them with light weapons easily enough. The sickle can take them out no problem so theres no need to swap to the MG43.
Stalwart will always massively outperform the MG43 because of this in terms of DPS, let alone ammo economy, and a 5 second long immobile reload. This build would be a voluntary handicap at any of the higher levels.
The point of the stalwart is that it trades armor penetration for a mobile reload. If you gave the MG43 the exact same ammo as the stalwart youd still see a lot of stalwarts running around because of how crap a 5 second immobile reload is on a weapon thats basically supposed to function as a primary.
The liberator penetrator is a good example of what you're saying being completely untrue.
Lastly, the reverse of what you said will always be infinitely better. Taking the stalwart with a primary like the slugger or scorcher for mediums will 2 or 3x outperform taking the MG43 for mediums and a primary for lights.
@@thoughtgaming492 nah, light weapons have issues with spitters and warriors while the mg-43 can just mow them down. My point is, that you cant give the mg-43 more bullets without making the salward obsolete
@@coliax8754 Yes you can. The stalwart not only has more than double max ammo of the MG43, but also only gets back 30% of what the stalwart gets back per resupply pickup. You could increase the ammo on the MG43 by 50% and it still wouldn't even come close to the stalwarts ammo supply, and it would still require a hefty immobile reload.
Im not asking for the MG43 to have more ammo than the stalwart, Im just asking for it to have more ammo. For example, if the MG43 simply had 3 belt clips instead of 2 for a 600 ammo capacity total, it would not only increase its max capacity by 25%, but it would double its resupply rate. Even after this, the stalwart has 100 more ammo per clip, 400 more max ammo, and gets 200 more shots per resupply. All while being able to reload on the move. You're crazy if you think that would make the stalwart obsolete.
Also spitters can be taken down with a single clip from a light weapon, and weapons like the sickle have infinite ammo. And a single clip of light ammo can take down multiple warriors easily. The stalwart can also take down spitters and warriors with higher ammo efficiency than the MG43 can.
Source: I do this every game in helldive. I dont waste support weapon slots on anything that can't get through charger armor and neither do 90% of other difficulty 9 players.
I've been looking for this info everywhere! Thank you! Would love to see a breakdown of the other sentries as well. 😊
You are to Helldivers what MatAWG is to War Thunder. Love the breakdowns.
Congrats on 10k!!!🎉
Thank you!!
I sometimes use plasma punisher, stalwart, and I mix up what kills my heavy targets. Autocannon, railcannon, air strikes, and jump pack. Getting a higher pov on the terminid field makes the punisher and stalwart great, easy headshots, easy shots into big crowds, spewers butts etc.
I’ve been enjoying stalwart+plasma punisher against bugs. Plasma has that medium AP goodness to deal with the hive guards and bile spewers, while the stalwart mows down everything else.
I'd like to see the HMG's cooldown lowered to 90 seconds to match the shield generator. I feel like the Machine Gun could either get a boost to resupply amount or magazine size without treading on the stalwart's niche too much.
thank you so much Ryken. great video and explanation. cheers
Thanks for watching! Glad you enjoyed!
Stalwart or GL paired with the backpack and slugger is bug clearing perfection. Sweep away the trash with the big gun, switch to the slugger for armored foes. You either need specific stratagems or other teammates for chargers and titans, but that's a convo you and your squad need to have yourselves
When dealing with the green spitters and how many you often have to deal with the AP of the MG-43 becomes a massive upgrade to the Stalwart. If you drop your RPM down and crouch to put out 3-5 shot bursts every second or two your ammo will go much much further and you will spend much less time shooting corpses it makes a big difference especially with the MG-43 for how ammo hungry it is. Lastly the HMG emplacement can take out 3 shreaker nests from outside their range none of the other machine guns do damage to those nests and just for being able to do that can justify brining it if you know those flying fun bags will be on the map. Oh and a 3 shot burst to a green spitters head from the MG-43 is enough to put it down you can actually pick off a ton of these guys before you have to reload. Good luck out there Helldivers!!
Jesus this Video is great. I love how the community is piecing together synergies and the numbers we don't get told by the developers.
Excellent video, fantastic work and a great benefit to the community
excellent breakdown video i will try that loadout on my next solo run thank you.
Good luck, Soldier! o7
Part of me wants to believe the MG sentry has some hidden stat we are unaware that makes it better than the Gatling at something (like damage or turn rate)... but part of me then remembers how bad some primary weapons are and how the starting pistol is completely obsolete when you unlock the machine pistol.... I cant believe how slow they are with balance patches.
Yeah the inter-weapon ballance is shit (hi there, primary machine guns)
But it's slowly creaping to slightly better. They could do with some more patches there. Problem is the devs themselves seem to know less about weapon ballance than the players 😂😂
9:34 “You missed! How could you miss!? He was 3 feet in front of you!”
Mulan reference always melts my heart
I'm a big fan of the MG-43 machine gun. Why recommend a supply backpack for the Stalwart though? Deep ammo reserves are already a strength of it, you don't need to accentuate it any further. The MG-43, however, really benefits from its poor ammo pickup being compensated for by carrying a supply pack.
True - and a fair point! I was just highlighting how you can push the ammo efficiency of the Stalwart even more with Supply Pack - maybe even allowing you to use the 1150 RPM more freely for, if nothing else, more satisfaction of putting holes in anything.
Only true Helldivers learn to love the Heavy MG
Gotta have a full video on all the sentries, need this kinda info from the Autocannon sentry