@@ragingreaper1190I only have about ten hours into Elden ring. I fucked I’m and chose a wretch, cuz he looks fuckin wild with a caveman club and diaper. I made the mistake of thinking I could smack some npc’s around… really fucked up.
Yeah you can tell when someone is new to high difficulty when they insist you absolutely have to have the railgun and shield to get through. I can finish a helldive with the flamethrower, ammo pack, and the 110 and 380. You just need to know where the shift key is.
@@tellesuThe game is skill based not meta based people need to stop trying to take the fun away from a game who's primary goal is fun but now your hearing cases of team killing or getting kicked because people aren't using "meta loadouts" it just ruins it for everyone I run the SMG 37, Machine pistol, Auto cannon and what ever stratagem others aren't for diversity reasons so we have a good variety.
@@tellesuagainst a bug I genuinely find it hard to get through it without the shield pack. This hunters will sneak up in you or you’ll get clipped by invisible bile from a titan and slow you down enough to end you. Definitely feels bad when 3 biles are on your tail and you don’t have a railgun but I usually try and run around solo which is apart of the issue
@@samuel10125all those weapons are solid tho. I’ve been enjoying flamethrower , revolver and, counter sniper. I use the shield cause I take a lot of fire damage from seemingly nothing
@@revolioclockbergjr.6780on helldive I'm definitely running shield. This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Those little hunters will mess you up
Most of the weapons came from the first game and I don't recall there being a minigun support weapon. Though that would be awesome. Don't need to reload but you have to deal with heat and ammo management or something like that.
i actually love the slugger against the terminids, it sucks for clearing the the little guys but the stagger is very usefull against anything larger, guardians, warriors, brood commanders, ticks and yes stalkers, slugger is one gun that I am not affraid to go toe to toe with stalkers, i noticed i usually walk forward as the get pushed back :D
Slugger is my preferred choice weapon against the clankers for similar reasons. Plus side to fighting the clankers: less adds to kill and the slugger can one shot everything that isn’t a tank or hulk
Tried experimenting with it today just to break away from the breaker and used the slugger. It was surprisingly good. A good trick to use with the pump shotgun is to hit reload after every shot and it basically feels like an unlimited clip weapon. The reload animation cancels out the pump action so it doesn't make a difference in shot speed.
From what I've seen from the community the diligence (OG not the counter sniper) is probably the most underrated gun in the game. It's the #1 primary weapon for me against bots. For context I play helldive with mostly 1 sometimes 2 buddies, no randos. Might be a case of it shining more w/ a coordinated team. My advice, leave the zoom all the way in and enable dynamic aiming in settings. Get a feel for when to 3rd person aim/ADS and develop your danger sense for tunnel vision. It fills the gaps that the railgun+redeemer have quite well and also destroys rocket pods on devastators in 2-3 shots which is much easier to pull off than 2 headshots (though the rail gun is still best when not needing to preserve ammo.) Great weapon for utilizing cover. Quick, accurate, and long range follow up shots make it great at preventing flares going out.
SG Punisher (up to medium distance) and SG Slugger (Up to far distance), does better job actually. And they can 1 shot the normal bots quickly, preventing reinforcements. Dilligence, I feel should be given some more Total Magazine, a +2 at least.
I use both the diligence and the counter sniper, in team play I've been able to use the counter sniper to pretty great effect vs the bots but i also agree that both need a little something the counter sniper more so. I don't like the slugger's reload though i have seen and heard great things about it. the defender is currently my go to i prefer it in most situations over the breaker, and it is super great in any mission where something needs to be carried the knight seems to be okay, but just doesn't perform quite as well.
Wow I'm surprised to see this comment lol I've been using it for the same reason. It's good for 1-tapping all the trash bots from any good distance and prevent dropship calls. The one major downside though is it's not good against berserkers and can overwhelm you without impact grenades or a good support weapon.
@@DisIngRaM I'll definitely try the slugger when it's unlocked, but I assume like me most people don't. I wouldn't mind a magazine buff either, or even some improvement to weakspot damage could fit it's playstyle and reward players who do so rather than shoot center of mass with a shotgun. It would reward people who have good recoil control / use the armor perk for that as well.
I use the senator as a retreat weapon. You never fire all rounds in one go. Pop a couple then reload. You can take down bigger things than you think. Also the draw looks cool and looking cool is the most important thing.
I personally love using the Diligence and the Senator. Primarily against automatons for that stopping power. Also, turns out, if you draw the Senator in third person, one of the animations is you spinning the revolver as you draw it. Plus, it just sounds so satisfying. Is it the best? No. Is it enjoyable, yes!
Slugger one shots a stalker in the head, one shots a ton of the warriors, punches through hiveguard armour and can stunlock multiple stalkers or brood commanders at once. It's amazing on bugs, pair it with a guard dog, and you can slaughter.
Came to the comments section to say exactly that... Why would slugger not be good vs bugs? 2shot the spewers.. and the first hit stops the acid vomit.. Warriors are 1 shot, brood commanders 3-4, Stalkers also 1-2 headshots Pair with supply pack and GL
The slugger also can shoot holes in the armor or chargers and than you can kill it with your secondary with ease from the front .ps dosnt work always tho dunno if that is a bug or intended
Weirdly at least for personal playstyle, I liked the Jar-5 for bugs, I just use the smg secondary to deal with little bugs and swap to the Jar when I need to for chunkier targets. I find myself actually managing my ammo better that way, and yes the explosive trait causes it to basically double up on its damage on weak points, you CAN chew through armor if necessary but you don't get the bonus explosive damage which is probably what you were detecting. The gun just likes to punch holes in stuff so I'll happily use it to make book binders out of bug hide lol
One shots dominator bots in the head and can headshot every bug but a charger, it's a beautiful headshot weapon and coincidentally a great stealth weapon
yea the limited ammo for Jar-5 isn't for one tapping the trash mobs. Jar-5 is for punching through medium armor and targeting weak points with explosive damage. Let other weapons (or other helldivers) deal with the chaff
Challenging is my meme difficulty run where I get rares, but the rush of tanky enemies like the chargers aren't so many where you need a railgun. That's where I mostly do my fun builds while farming rares. The best one I've had the most fun with is Fire Breaker, Fire Nade, Orbital Laser, Napalm Eagle, Flamethrower, and Rover. Just set everything on fire. Yeah it takes a whole canister to kill charger with the flamethrower, but you get all 4 canisters per ammo pick up. It's also the best for trash and you use the fire breaker for medium bugs just to kill them quickly. Throw some Napalm at a bug breach and let the DoT start ticking.
Dominator + arc thrower works well vs the bugs, and does wonders for your ammo management. On a side note, I've fallen in love with the Autocannon again after realizing you can 2 shot Crushers by shooting their front leg from the back after dodging a charge, then shooting it again from any direction
@@samuel10125 There's not much feedback for it yeah and it's a bit quirky to use (elevation can make it not connect) but it will kill everything in the game if you take the time to spam it out
@@dannycolwell8028 I'm pretty sure it can still charge like that though, unless it's really seconds away from dying when it starts to drag itself around. That's a good strat on low to medium difficulties but later on when there's hundreds of other things around you, you don't want a big hitbox running around on top of everything else
They should add speed reload booster that for normal weapons will just give you like a 20-25% reload boost, but for single load give straight up 2 shots per cycle (100% speed increase). Also it would make it compelling for people running machineguns or solo autocannon ecoilles. Also i think difference between Diligence variants need testing. If shooting a beefy target in a weakspot result in greater damage difference than should be, it is possible that counter sniper simply has a higher weakspot damage.
yeah this would be a good idea, even if they make it on page 9, it'd give me more use outta the Revolver and slow reload on rounds reloaded stuff. I also think that the explosive weapons need a rework, or something bc they are incredibly inconsistent for me. I play on PC and i think it has something to do with frame rate, if at 60fps it does hit correctly but if youre over that at like 120 which i play at, its inconsistent and there is literally no reason to run the explosive liberator over the default one. I've tried to run it and want to like it but its just plain bad. If they fixed these 2 issues (which are just balance related) I would love this game even more. It needs more variety, hence new enemy type, new weapons, buffs to the niche weapons, vehicles, new stratagems, etc; which is exactly what the devs plan on doing which is just fuckin awesome. The only thing is they are a dev team of 100 people and it may take a lot more time to do these things rather than what people are used to with AAA studios and their thousands of devs with COD or Blizzard. I love this game though and you can tell they have passion for it.
The sg8 slugger can 3/4 shot a brood warrior. One shot to each leg and 1/2 to the gead depending on distance and it dies like 2 seconds later. Stalkers get stunlocked by it. In desparate situations it can break a crusher's back legs and create a weakpoint, and if you break its front legs with a heavy armor piercing weapon the slugger can kill it in like 3 shots. It can shoot through armored termanids legs/head, and you can take a leg clean of if you hit between the plates while its walking up. Sg8 is literally one of the best weapons in the game. Pair it with an arc throuwe to solve its mob killing problems and you can use your other stratagem slots to find a solution for tank units
I personally really like the Dominator, love running that with a stalwart which i use as my primary. Using the dominator for large or armored enemies in particular.
I've been running Knight SMG | Senator | Arc Thrower and feel like I have something for every situation. Arc Thrower takes out trash and strips armor from bigger enemies, Knight SMG pumps out its entire clip in a heartbeat for some massive DPS to a sweet spot (with proper recoil compensation), and the Senator is my backup for swapping and popping heads. In defense of the senator it is not an all-situation weapon, it's very niche, but in that niche it dominates.
@@BillyMayhem2000 I've been running it on suicidal difficulty with few issues. I do run out of ammo sometimes, but if you're hitting points of interest you should be fine with ammo pickups between resupply drops.
The slugger is the best vs bugs. It rips off limbs in one shot. If you’re doing anything else, you’re doing it wrong. Clusters and redeemer for trash mobs, slugger for medium and rail for large. As someone with 3 accounts at Skull Admiral I can attest to this being one of if not the best gun in Helldivers 2. If you prefer to stick with your breaker, the Senator can actually deal with medium targets rather well.
You can't look at the damage numbers entirely because weapons have hidden stats. Most notably critical hit multipliers. When you land hits there is color coded "X" damage indicators. White means you are doing 10% of your total damage, and Red means 100%. Also factor in the hidden damage multiplier. So for example the Jar-5 has a 4x damage multiplier. Landing a red x hit means you theoretically could be hitting for 800 damage pershot over the standard 200. Also the explosive trait means you will also do 100% more damage to body parts.
For those who are curious where this comes from, this is actaully some misinformation spread by a bad test on how medium pen works. Basically someone tested how many shots it took to the head to down a brood commander, which all medium pen weapons took significantly less... The issue with the research at hand though is that they didn't test anything else and the commander is actaully a phenomenon in basically all enemies creatures. Every single creature other wise does not have a x4 multiplier to weak point shots, but they do have an increased multiplayer of some sort. The only issue is that it's typically just enough more than standard weapons to help them, like the penetrator for instance, down in the same amount of shots to the head for standard creatures. Hope this helps everyone
The scorcher was that magic moment for me. I had an idea of what I thought it would be and worked hard towards it but it turned out to be different, better and just a joy to shoot.
Honestly the JAR-5 Dominator id a favorite of mine to deal with the automatons. Treat the not trademarked bolter like a dmr of sorts and aim carefully snd mostnof the time everhthing goes doen with a single shot. Its horrible agianst thr bugs, but snything short of a hulk for this baby and ot goes down pretty easy
I run the Slugger as my main: here is why I love it against Terminid. Stunlocking stalkers - on difficulty seven when multiple stalkers start showing up the slugger is able to produce enough stun damage to keep two stalkers stumbling in place rather than retreating. reload - at one at a time reload you can actual slam fire and be reloading as fast as you are taking shots warrior/hive guard/feeder/broodcommander - stun/penetrate/bleed Hunters/scavengers - melee attacks to either stagger or finish off the smaller ones and create room for easy follow up one shot kills. combined with an ammo back pack/impact grenade this weapon system becomes the apex of fighting medium and smaller sized bugs on close range fast moving horde level.
Played a bunch of helldive missions with the dominator, and it has a pretty big learning curve but it does pay off when you hit your headshots. 1 shot warriors and hunters, 3-4 shots hive guards and brood commanders and is also decent at murdering those stalkers. Also kinda small benefit but it can take down spore shrooms at any range in a bit less then a mag
I just wish they lowered recoil in Dominator. It is supposed to fire jet propelled ammo. Thing is, that kind of ammo actually has very little recoil (look up Gyroget rocket pistol)
I think the biggest issue with it is how long it takes to line up with where you're aiming when you move the reticule. Particularly annoying for those side-hopping hunters.
I've had great success with the scythe vs the bugs, throw some fire, pair it up with the rover and it is incredibly efficient cause you don't overkill anything, it's also not so bad dmg wise if you go for the limbs, which is easier because it's a constant beam. Been running it with Randoms on suicide and winning veeery comfortably. Obvious downside is that the rest of the stratagems are going to have to be heavy/elite killers and you're not gonna have the easiest time closing holes but the dmg vs crowds is really something
To me the Slugger and Dominator work pretty similar. While the slugger has worse ammo conservation and requires single reloads, it features a stagger on all fronts, terminid and automatons. The Dominator has a laser designator, which might keep your mates froom running through your LOF (wishful thinking, i know XD ), the reload is quicker and it rocks more ammo, but has no stagger. Both guns can 1 hit kill HS automatons, where only the dominator can HS Hulks. Pair both with the use of melee vs. terminids and you rock. Got trouble with small 'Nids swarming? Bring a flamethrower, gatling turret or napalm strikes. One bad thing on the dominator however is the more unresponsive aim, being floaty like an autocannon. Makes sense as it is a pocket AC.
So, did you know you can snap reload a round between slugger shots without losing any RoF right? It's a little APM intensive, but defacto means infinite magazine capacity.
Sometimes i can get the senator to get into this animation loop, where I'm reloading, but able to shoot between reloads. I'll be reloading, fire a shot, and go back to reloading, and it looks like I'm Speeding shooting. Senator is the reason I'm dying for a reload speed armor perk
The guard dog rover paired with the IE makes it feel so great. Rover just gets that last tick of damage you usually need. I also find spreading out my shots is much better than spamming it like the regular breaker.
Something I’ve had a lot of fun with is giving myself RP inspired challenges. My favorite so far is what I like to call “frontline general” where I run scorcher/slugger, senator, and the DP-11 armor with botslayer cape. Use the senator for everything smaller than stalker/hulk and your primary for everything else. And make sure you put on your best Sgt. Johnson voice while you do it.
I discovered today that the liberator explosive can close bug holes albeit w about a full clip. I imagine the JAR can as well bc of the explosive rounds but I don’t have it unlocked yet.
automatons do actually get less accurate when you fire at them with the breaker incindiary, but thats because the more you fire at them with anything, the more they are suppressed, and the breaker incindiary isnt likely to take them out, meaning you fire way more. its not a plus, but a light side effect of a minus.
Alright, only 2 cents I have to add on the P-4 Senator. It's shots don't trigger as much of an alert on each shot, so its a great sidearm for stealth, such as scouting. It also penetrates a fair level of termanid armor, and can crack charger legs.
I disagree about the Slugger when it comes to terminids. The fact that it knocks enemies back with each shot is really great considering a lot of things are trying to rush you. Against Stalkers it has saved me and my friends for the fact that I can simply stop them attacking and moving. You can also target the limbs of different types of enemies and remove them in a single shot. Very satisfying.
I think the armor penetrating is broken rn like the armor stats. The higher penetration should be better than higher damage but it doesn’t do that yet.
the slugger IS good vs terminids. 2-shots stalkers, hive guards, broodlords. 1-shots the smaller stuff but it does do it pretty slow for a swarm enemy, especially if you're terrible at aiming.
I really like the slugger against the terminids. While it’s not good at dealing with the trash bugs due to the low ammo capacity, it can blow the heads off brood commanders with two shots and drop stalkers with one shot to the face; coupled with the fact that it staggers them both to make follow up shots easier. I’ve been pairing it with an arc thrower or a rover drone to deal with some of the trash and clearing helldive difficulty without too much trouble. It also appears to blow clean through bugs and let you get collaterals, much like the rail gun. The slugger has to be my current favourite gun in the game, even if it’s not statistically the best
Only bring slugger shot gun against termanids if i have wave clear weapons like machine gun or grenade launcher does pretty with that combo, but also did not mention if you shoot hulk in back weak point you can also stagger lock them, 5 shots will kill and they cant turn attack or do anything but die very funny.
Absolutely love the senator, I'm definitely one of its biggest shills, premium warbond was worth it just for my chunky revolver, although the cape on page three was pretty snazzy as well
Great video man, truly. I hate that the HD2 community is putting so much emphasis into the "meta." Every gun has it's pros/cons, and although I can agree the Breaker is the easiest to use, it's no where near the best imo. Some added notes I've found: - Liberator Penetrator: Good against bugs, the armor penetration is very noticable, but I'm not sure the extra damage is. Outclassed by the counter sniper and defender imo because you have to build around it. That being said I'd take this over the Diligence (right now), Diligence needs an armor penetrating buff. - Defender: RIDICULOUSLY under used and underrated. If you prefer full auto weapons and/or like to run away, this is best in slot. - Punisher: think of this as a harder hitting breaker, it's better imo because you can one shot most things the Breaker can't, stun lock any bug/bot without heavy armor (charger, bile, hulk, tank), and you can mow through ads without blowing through 100rnds/second lol. Personally, even though 40rnds is wildly too low, I end up getting much more utility out of the pump shotguns compared to the breakers. - Dominator: Honestly, I think this is the best weapon overall. One shots damn near everything, decent ammo economy, flashlight and laser makes it extremely ubiquitous, and the armor penetration helps this go toe to toe with way more enemies than you'd think. It's a refined slugger in a way, with a mag reload and burst capabilities. - And the Slugger: my personal go to in almost any scenario. There isn't a non heavy enemy this thing doesn't one shot. 15rnds in the barrel tends to = 10-15 kills, whereas the same cannot be said about the breaker. The drawbacks for me, no light/laser, which makes hip firing a bit more difficult, and I've had teammates run in my path of fire and die (happens WAY less often when your teammates see your laser), low ammo economy, but I prefer it to the breaker/dom/scorcher, where I'm reloading every 3 kills and end up wasting ammo, and the zoom leaves a bit to be desired. An added bonus though, the slugger can blow through bunker doors that you usually have to throw a grenade at. Not super noteworthy, but it's nice if you're farming and running Again, great breakdown and insight Reaper, thanks!
Devs have released that armor pen is on a scale of 1-10. If your gun has less armor pen than the enemies armor value the bullets bounce off. If it has equal values it deals 50% of the damage it should. If it has more armor pen to enemy armor it deals 100%. Sorry, if this was in the comments already, I don't want to read through them all.
A little clarification about Armor Pen. The CEO actually talked about it, but said it wasn't his department so he's not 100% sure about values. But basically Armor is rated 0-10, if your gun has *less* Armor Pen then the Armor you bounce and do nothing, if *equal* to the Armor you do *half damage* , and if your Armor Pen is higher you do full damage. He said he believed that 'light armor penetration' was any value between 0 and 2 but this is the part he was less sure of. I expect guns like the Slugger, Senator, and Diligence have values on the higher end of 'light', probably 2 or 3 (if he was off about the value range), that's why some guns with lower raw damage seem to work better on certain enemies. On a related note Bugs are weak vs Explosive damage, so that might be affecting your results with certain guns.
JAR 5 Dominator has been a great gun for me to use as a primary but learning how the projectiles fly has been tricky yet beneficial. I've even been using it for the Termanids as well and I do agree it's not really a great choice for them but in a group of people who all have Breaker/Railguns I like it because I can focus those Front Armored Medium Bugs and rip through them saving my teammates those precious Railgun shots for bigger bugs, just make sure to have a Pistol/Uzi at the ready with a high capacity mag for small bugs. Otherwise I'd recommend a Arc Thrower with this combo (my buddies having the Breaker/Railgun Combo still) as it helps make you into a Crowd Controller for the small bugs and jumpers. Even the invisible Stalkers can't resist the Arc shots leaping to them through bugs. No joke it's satisfying watching a jumper try to get me only to shoot it with the Arc and watch the bolt hit the 2 leapers behind that one and they all die mid air or the one you shoot mid air becomes a Conduit to leap the jolt further into more of them. If you use the Arc Thrower vs bugs it's just happy times as the Warriors and Commanders do lots of body blocking for regular bullets but for the Arc it's no problem, especially with no heads they are still a conduit to send it through to more bugs. (Also if the Arc thrower isn't sending a bolt out for some reason then going first person helps, I have no idea why) Ahh The 'Senator' is more of an Automaton weapon than Termanids, the medium penetration helps if you just ran out of ammo and need to drop those 'chainsaw warriors' from their bloodthirsty charge as it can drop them to the head or chop them in half at the waist. One thing is for sure I'd love to have a Speed loader it is a must but probably should only work if the weapon has all rounds spent otherwise it will single load to save rounds. Be cool if we could swap ammo to make it a bit more viable, if it was 'explosive' for the damage to carry through a target better when compared to the other sidearm options. Having Weapon Modifications we could pick and choose what to use on a per mission basis, that would be cool. Compensator for control or Silencer for sneaky? Red Dot or Scope? Big Magazine with more sway/heavier motion or smaller mags with more of them with better Ergonomics? I do also agree...we need a Lever Action at least in .45-70 or bigger....with Depleted Uranium Incendiary Explosive Rounds that can penetrate Heavy Armor 😄Too much to ask for? 🤣
I honestly prefer the I-breaker over the normal breaker for bugs, mostly because of it's bigger mag. As long as you have something to compliment it that can take care of things that are bigger than a hunter, combined with the redeemer for getting stalkers out of your face, it can do it's job very effectively. It's not a workhorse weapon, and if you rely on it for all of your damage you'll be disappointed, but its great for spraying into groups and getting hunters out of your face.
The P-9 Senators main use is the single reloading, it makes it so u don’t waste bullets with it unless u miss ur shot, the slow reload can be a bit faster but other than that it’s perfect just the way it is 🔥😮💨
The dominator fire's gyro-jet HEAT rounds so it should work well against the bugs since they are weak to explosive damage. As for the Bile spitter's the sack takes more damage from explosives. Last weapons that can pen armor you are shooting deal FULL damage this was stated from the devs in an interview
The Diligence DMR is brilliant against the bots. It's accurate and packs a decent punch. As those overgrown Toasters keep their distance more often, having a DMR rifle really makes it easier.
I didn’t use the breaker until the incendiary version. Punisher is king imo. Unlocked slugger recently and it’s been a beast imo. Only downside is hitting hunters is harder with a slug than a buck shot but trade off is substantial. The slugger is absolutely fine against the bugs. Stalkers get flinch locked if not out right 1-2 shot and everything else can die in similar conditions. Well placed shots drop bugs. Only thing I will say is that chargers and titans are its counter and maybe spewers if you have trouble landing headshots
If you have a red hit marker, you are doing 100% damage. If you have a white hit marker, you are still dealing damage, but it's reduced in the ballpark of ~60% which means the Jar-5 would go from 200 damage per shot to 80. I don't know why the designed it this way, but if you are hitting a "fleshy weak spot" such as the sacks on a Spewer or Bile Titan, or the butt of a Charger, you'll only deal 10% damage, unless your weapon is classified as Explosive (so the Jar-5 Dominator or the Plas-1 Scorcher), in which case you actually deal 100% damage. Something like the Defender SMG is doing 7 damage per shot against a Charger butt, but the Jar-5 Dominator is doing 200 damage per shot. You have the option of either shooting the head of a Spewer for 80 damage or shooting the butt for 200 damage. But since different body parts seem to have different health totals, I'm not sure which is better because I haven't personally unlocked the Jar-5 yet to test it out.
Dominator is a fantastic weapon, just not when used improperly. if you are taking the Dominator against nids, I recommend pairing it with the rover backpack and either the grenade launcher OR railgun depending on you want to focus on crowd control or big game hunting. Dont waste ammo against anything not armored if possible, that usually means scavengers, warriors and hunters/pouncers. you can 1 or 2 shot most of these enemies with the dominator but I would only recommend that if you are getting swarmed. instead let your rover focus on the smaller enemies while you use the Dominator against guardians, brood commanders, stalkers, spewers, pretty much anything thats not a charger or bile titan. the dominator can kill those medium and heavy armored enemies in half a magazine if you know what your doing and maintain fire control. by far the best weapon for elites that arent super heavy armored. The Dominator is also really, REALLY good against bots, easily able to 2-4 shot anything not a tank or hulk. you can kill devastators, berzerkers, rocket devastators and heavy devastators in about 3-5 shots if you are good at aiming for heads/backpacks. especially if you are low or out of railgun ammo to use. obviously the railgun is superior for killing anything bot, but if its not available or you are out of ammo the dominator can easily kill the heavier units easily. and while it cant directly kill the atst walkers, you can dive or flank them and kill them and all other infantry in 1-2 shots. The dominator is hampered by the fact that it only has 15 rounds and 6 magazines, but if you properly utilize it, it will tear through most enemies in the game in really short order. but if you are using it against everything or dont have trigger control, you will burn through ammo quick. The Dominator has pretty damn good range, and the medium armor pen+explosive ammo does a lot of damage to most things, its just not a rifle to be used in every situation unless you have your own ammo supplies. But if you can control your fire and learn the weapon, you can take advantage of the Burst fire mode really well against chonky enemies where aiming isn't that difficult (like spewers, berzerkers) then you can really clear house effectively.
One weird quirk of the Senator is you hardly EVER overkill trash with it. Redeemer is easy to end up using all of your ammo on 2-4 targets because it shoots so fast and has no burst mode, the Senator you switch to one tap whatever you need to get rid of and go back to reloading your primary with a few shots left. Also interesting about the Counter Sniper, it has a higher zoom available compared to the regular Diligence making it lean more into being a long range weapon. Sadly the handling just makes it awful for anything that's not shooting single targets while prone.
I actually use the diligence pretty religiously against bots when playing normal non-defense missions, it's hard to beat the ability to single tap all the normal bots at distance and even cutting the chainsaw dudes in half in 4 shots pretty reliably.
The problem is ease of use, all around, high ttk. There is a reason why "meta" setups exist. whereas a lot of these other weapons become niche. The average player isn't going to experiment if their first time with a weapon isn't fun and let's be honest, there's a lot of "Experiment, put in some hours, etc." with something like the Jar-5 to start getting that fun factor out of it and knowing when to use it. That's why weapons like the Breaker, Defender, Railgun, etc. will always see way more play than any other weapon and why most people would consider any other weapon that doesn't perform around it's level as trash. Jar-5 is sluggish, not every situation is going to allow you to use it effectively, where the breaker has good range, highest base damage, and will kill it either faster or slightly slower than every other weapon making it the go to for the majority. it doesn't have the same setbacks as other weapons outside of not piercing medium armor. I'm just using these few as an example. However a lot of weapons do need a buff (buffs don't always mean just up damage: Spray and Pray tho... different story lol) to perform well enough for the average joe to actually try experimenting and using other weapons. Breaker as it stands has viability in every situation where most other weapons do not, even against armor because of enemy weak points, grenades, and stratagems. I'm in defense of experimenting with other weapons, but just calling it like it is and using a team to make up for the weakness of a weapon isn't exactly a method everyone can use and should never be the baseline for said weapon.
7:06 That effect actually has nothing to do with the breaker specifically. The bots have a suppression mechanic were they'll become less accurate and stop shooting if they are under fire
The incendiary is pretty good imo when completed with the revolver and railgun it clears adds with ease and the bigger threats take 5 or 6 shots with the breaker and 2 or 3 revolver shots
As someone who came from 40k, the Jar-5 Dominator is my go-to. It's the closest i can get to a boltgun. Now, granted, the Jar-5 is rocket propelled like the boltgun, it is not the size of a redbull can.
I main the Dominator and Senator against everything, and it's my support slot that varies depending on enemy. For Terminids, it's Autocannon time for the AoE explosive hits. For Automatons it's normally Railgun or Anti-Material, because I can run those with the energy shield. Can't put damage down range if the slightest hit can kill.
Slugger can be useful against the bugs if you take it to compliment a crowd clearing support weapon. I take it if I'm using a flamethrower so I can take care of more armored bugs and not waste my flamer on them. It can also stunlock stalkers, which you failed to mention.
I think the Diligence counter sniper has one of those hidden mechanics the CEO talked about, and that for this gun one of those is a higher head shot bonus than any other gun except for maybe the anti-material rifle.
Breaker has 1.5x critical hit multiplier and more often than not requires an entire mag to drop even warriors lest you face the armored ones and most of your shots bounce. Jar-5 has medium armor pen and a 4x critical hit multiplier. One shot will blow off the head of a warrior bug and easily pierce the armor of armored ones. It will also shoot through hive guards and brood commanders. It still needs a mag capacity increase or more extra mags. Jar-5 is for people trying to be accurate over the point at enemy and mag dump breaker.
The senator has a hidden perk that cuts through armor. Use it on Brood Commanders, The Armor Bugs, and the Legs of the Chargers and it'll take them out fast. If you take the armor off a Charger's leg you can kill it with all 6 shots
I love using the slugger. It will two shot stalkers so long as you follow the first stunning shot with a shot to the face. The only bugs I struggle with the slugger are chargers. Sometimes, I can penetrate the legs most of the time I can't.
JAR-5 its top tier. The p-19 on single for double tap the small ones and the jar for the rest. For bugs its so good. And the scorcher on automatons its top tier, bye bye to walkers and the rest without using ur railgun on them. I say to every random who ask me advide (im lvl 50 and sometime run lvl4 diff to help randoms) that the breaker its the easiest gun to use but not the best. On the strategement with good teammates variaty win against 4 railgun w shield backpack. Once a guy rock the recoiless and only eagles and laser. He always took down reinforcements while another had supply with machinegun and me and other pushing with meta (railgun and shield backpack) and bro was soooo easy. We could literaly clear any horde of automatons.
There are some things that cant be replaced. The Difference between 531 and 544 speed its noticible on bugs. On bugs 544 speed its the go to and I cant see myself using other thing than the CE-74 Breaker armor (544 speed, 2 more nades) and against automatons u dont need that superior speed so there I can use anything but the Trench Paramedic (531 speed, 2 more stims, 2+ secs of stim effect duration) its so op that rn I dont even need the backpack shield. Maybe when armor rating works we will see changes but for now a team of 4 MED-KIT armors and scorchers and smg Defenders and breakers and each gun targeting the enemys where it shines... oh boy people wont know this until some youtubers start making those kind of videos
Slugger takes out those Medium sized bugs you talked about with ease if you have good aim. Two shots in the head to kill stalkers. 3 shots through the armor for the hive guards.
I enjoy the dominator against the terminids. Decent at range. It kills the medium size bugs easily. I pull out the uzi if hunters get close. It's great to have a gun that staggers the bugs. The slugger is great too.
LOL the breaker is a good all-rounder, that's it. The Jar-5 killing power and ammo efficiency is S tier, It shreds bugs. It's balanced by its sluggish handling. It takes some getting used to but once you've mastered it you'll never go back to the B their breaker. It's the meta weapon for bugs. Also, the jar-5 kills spewers in 4-6 headshots. 2-3 headshots for brood commanders, you can drop three brood commanders and 4 warriors with one mag. (all headshots of course) It is liberation incarnate. I love this game because each weapon has a skill cap to get the most out of it. The only reason everyone thinks the breaker and railgun gun are S-teir is because they are so brainless, neither excels in any area. The meta weapon for Bots for example is the Anti-material rifle. you can drop hulks in two headshots, and drop devastators in one headshot, Striders in three shots. It kills quicker than the rail gun and is more ammo efficient.
I actually like the marksman rifles, the ballistic shield, and the uzi like one against the bots. When I have the rifle the shield is on my back and protecting me from some of the incoming fire as I retreat to gain some distance to use the rifle against them, and if I can't run and have to face them, I can use the shield and the uzi like gun in close quarters against most of them. Obviously biggest downfall is much larger enemies and explosives, but certain stratagems handles that.
Slugger shot gun 2 taps brood guys in the head, and if your good enough, 1 taps stalkers in the head. If you miss the head on the stalker, you can at least stunlock it.
I believe you forgot to mention the Scorcher.... hands down the best gun not named the breaker (and I honestly believe it is the best gun period when you pair it with a shield and the machine pistol.) It is better at the bots than even the Breaker but falls behind with terminids (you will likely blow yourself up with the weapon once or twice (but hey you can 5-7 tap a spore tower across the map.))
I stopped using Breaker when on occasion it was disappearing during mission (as in completely, couldn't pick one from a body, if respawned primary would also be missing), leaving me without Primary. But I could pick different primaries from dead so I just started using Jar-5 Dominator and it's doing quite well.
You honestly should give the slugger an other try, its so much quicker in taking out bigger threat, 2 shots the stalkers in the head, 3 shots the armored guys THROUGH the head armor (light armor penetrating??? hello?) 1 shots warriors and everything bellow, 3 shots brood commanders in the head, 3 shots a charger leg after armor is stripped. Seriously if I'm playing in a team and the others take care of the small bugs and i can focus on the bigger ones, its such a great weapon, I've been loving it ever since i unlocked it for about the last 25-30 hours of my gametime
The senator was made to one-tap little buggers with one hit, no matter where you hit em. With the other pistol you need to touble tap em. And with the full auto pistol, good luck trying to take out 6 small bugs with one magazine.
I use the slugger for terminid since i like its stun lock and damage on the mid teir stuff like hive guards and stalkers. To make up in small enemies i use the redeemer sub or pistol as they are perfect for killing small enemies quickly
You can one shot stalkers with the Slugger every now and again. Plus with the knockback, you can sweep 2-3 out from under you in a hurry. I use it exclusively now having switched completely off the Breaker in all instances.
I'm the opposite, Jar-5 destroys level 8-9 on Terminids for me.Since Bile Spewers and Hive Guard both have medium armor, the Jar-5 actually comes cluch in killing these for me. The bullet velocity and handling on the Jar-5 makes it way too unweildy to go for headshots against automatons,and it can't even kill Berserkers quick enough before they get close. If you are going for headshots, the Diligence is where it's at. Or if you want something that packs a punc and has better handling AND has a blast radius, use the scorcher.
I think the slugger has a fair bit of damage drop off at range, at close range against a brood comander, you can three shot them, if you land all your shots on the head, and were the head used to be. But at range, even hitting head shots, its typically 5+ rounds. Iits still effective when comlimenting your squads CC capability, you focus medium and medium/large threats, and you squad takes care of the little guys.
P4 has saved me so many times, it has that hidden medium armor pen. I will swear by the Senator every time. its been my perm side arm when i unlocked it
The Senator isnt a meme weapon, it is just alot more situational. Its the only pistol that can shoot through medium armor like the Hive Guard terminids. It also 1 shot hunters if you can aim.
y'know, for someone named Raging Reaper you are remarkably relaxed and chill
Come back june 21 for elden ring: shadow of the erdtree on stream, the rage is gonna get real lol
@@ragingreaper1190just found this channel but I’ll be there. Here’s to raging 🍻
@@ragingreaper1190I only have about ten hours into Elden ring. I fucked I’m and chose a wretch, cuz he looks fuckin wild with a caveman club and diaper. I made the mistake of thinking I could smack some npc’s around… really fucked up.
Finally someone who actually talks about meta but actually play at the highest difficulty. As a skull admiral I salute you helldivers
Yeah you can tell when someone is new to high difficulty when they insist you absolutely have to have the railgun and shield to get through. I can finish a helldive with the flamethrower, ammo pack, and the 110 and 380. You just need to know where the shift key is.
@@tellesuThe game is skill based not meta based people need to stop trying to take the fun away from a game who's primary goal is fun but now your hearing cases of team killing or getting kicked because people aren't using "meta loadouts" it just ruins it for everyone
I run the SMG 37, Machine pistol, Auto cannon and what ever stratagem others aren't for diversity reasons so we have a good variety.
@@tellesuagainst a bug I genuinely find it hard to get through it without the shield pack. This hunters will sneak up in you or you’ll get clipped by invisible bile from a titan and slow you down enough to end you. Definitely feels bad when 3 biles are on your tail and you don’t have a railgun but I usually try and run around solo which is apart of the issue
@@samuel10125all those weapons are solid tho.
I’ve been enjoying flamethrower , revolver and, counter sniper. I use the shield cause I take a lot of fire damage from seemingly nothing
@@revolioclockbergjr.6780on helldive I'm definitely running shield. This guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Those little hunters will mess you up
I'd love to see a mini gun with a belt fed backpack for sure, im suprised there isn't one in the game to begin with
Most of the weapons came from the first game and I don't recall there being a minigun support weapon. Though that would be awesome. Don't need to reload but you have to deal with heat and ammo management or something like that.
i actually love the slugger against the terminids, it sucks for clearing the the little guys but the stagger is very usefull against anything larger, guardians, warriors, brood commanders, ticks and yes stalkers, slugger is one gun that I am not affraid to go toe to toe with stalkers, i noticed i usually walk forward as the get pushed back :D
Slugger is so good against bugs, the fact you can get stalkers off ur ass with it makes it great
Slugger is my preferred choice weapon against the clankers for similar reasons. Plus side to fighting the clankers: less adds to kill and the slugger can one shot everything that isn’t a tank or hulk
Same, once you rock the slugger. It’s hard to go back to the breaker. Literally the unsung goat the the community is sleeping on.
Tried experimenting with it today just to break away from the breaker and used the slugger. It was surprisingly good. A good trick to use with the pump shotgun is to hit reload after every shot and it basically feels like an unlimited clip weapon. The reload animation cancels out the pump action so it doesn't make a difference in shot speed.
I feel like the stagger is so overrated. You could just kill most the bugs with the breaker instead of stun locking them
From what I've seen from the community the diligence (OG not the counter sniper) is probably the most underrated gun in the game. It's the #1 primary weapon for me against bots. For context I play helldive with mostly 1 sometimes 2 buddies, no randos. Might be a case of it shining more w/ a coordinated team.
My advice, leave the zoom all the way in and enable dynamic aiming in settings. Get a feel for when to 3rd person aim/ADS and develop your danger sense for tunnel vision. It fills the gaps that the railgun+redeemer have quite well and also destroys rocket pods on devastators in 2-3 shots which is much easier to pull off than 2 headshots (though the rail gun is still best when not needing to preserve ammo.) Great weapon for utilizing cover. Quick, accurate, and long range follow up shots make it great at preventing flares going out.
Fellow diligence user, I look forward to meeting you back on Melevalon Creek.
SG Punisher (up to medium distance) and SG Slugger (Up to far distance), does better job actually. And they can 1 shot the normal bots quickly, preventing reinforcements.
Dilligence, I feel should be given some more Total Magazine, a +2 at least.
I use both the diligence and the counter sniper, in team play I've been able to use the counter sniper to pretty great effect vs the bots but i also agree that both need a little something the counter sniper more so. I don't like the slugger's reload though i have seen and heard great things about it. the defender is currently my go to i prefer it in most situations over the breaker, and it is super great in any mission where something needs to be carried the knight seems to be okay, but just doesn't perform quite as well.
Wow I'm surprised to see this comment lol I've been using it for the same reason. It's good for 1-tapping all the trash bots from any good distance and prevent dropship calls. The one major downside though is it's not good against berserkers and can overwhelm you without impact grenades or a good support weapon.
@@DisIngRaM I'll definitely try the slugger when it's unlocked, but I assume like me most people don't. I wouldn't mind a magazine buff either, or even some improvement to weakspot damage could fit it's playstyle and reward players who do so rather than shoot center of mass with a shotgun. It would reward people who have good recoil control / use the armor perk for that as well.
I use the senator as a retreat weapon. You never fire all rounds in one go. Pop a couple then reload. You can take down bigger things than you think. Also the draw looks cool and looking cool is the most important thing.
Lol looking cool is the most important thing
The Incendiary Breaker may not be the best weapon, but it makes me feel powerful so i like it.
I personally love using the Diligence and the Senator. Primarily against automatons for that stopping power.
Also, turns out, if you draw the Senator in third person, one of the animations is you spinning the revolver as you draw it.
Plus, it just sounds so satisfying. Is it the best? No. Is it enjoyable, yes!
i love using this load out makes me feel like a space cowboy lol
Slugger one shots a stalker in the head, one shots a ton of the warriors, punches through hiveguard armour and can stunlock multiple stalkers or brood commanders at once. It's amazing on bugs, pair it with a guard dog, and you can slaughter.
Came to the comments section to say exactly that... Why would slugger not be good vs bugs? 2shot the spewers.. and the first hit stops the acid vomit..
Warriors are 1 shot, brood commanders 3-4, Stalkers also 1-2 headshots
Pair with supply pack and GL
@@chzbrglahow to consume the supply pack? I can only pick it up when drop it up lol
@@typicalgoodguyclub4gamesdown on d-pad
the supply backpack can refill you when you press 5
The slugger also can shoot holes in the armor or chargers and than you can kill it with your secondary with ease from the front .ps dosnt work always tho dunno if that is a bug or intended
Weirdly at least for personal playstyle, I liked the Jar-5 for bugs, I just use the smg secondary to deal with little bugs and swap to the Jar when I need to for chunkier targets. I find myself actually managing my ammo better that way, and yes the explosive trait causes it to basically double up on its damage on weak points, you CAN chew through armor if necessary but you don't get the bonus explosive damage which is probably what you were detecting. The gun just likes to punch holes in stuff so I'll happily use it to make book binders out of bug hide lol
One shots dominator bots in the head and can headshot every bug but a charger, it's a beautiful headshot weapon and coincidentally a great stealth weapon
yea the limited ammo for Jar-5 isn't for one tapping the trash mobs. Jar-5 is for punching through medium armor and targeting weak points with explosive damage. Let other weapons (or other helldivers) deal with the chaff
Challenging is my meme difficulty run where I get rares, but the rush of tanky enemies like the chargers aren't so many where you need a railgun. That's where I mostly do my fun builds while farming rares. The best one I've had the most fun with is Fire Breaker, Fire Nade, Orbital Laser, Napalm Eagle, Flamethrower, and Rover. Just set everything on fire. Yeah it takes a whole canister to kill charger with the flamethrower, but you get all 4 canisters per ammo pick up. It's also the best for trash and you use the fire breaker for medium bugs just to kill them quickly. Throw some Napalm at a bug breach and let the DoT start ticking.
Flamethrower with rover vs bugs is insane
Dominator + arc thrower works well vs the bugs, and does wonders for your ammo management. On a side note, I've fallen in love with the Autocannon again after realizing you can 2 shot Crushers by shooting their front leg from the back after dodging a charge, then shooting it again from any direction
I saw a video where someone showed it working even with the back legs, gonna try it once I get my mouse back.
I tried the Arc Thrower it fell like it was doing nothing.
@@samuel10125 There's not much feedback for it yeah and it's a bit quirky to use (elevation can make it not connect) but it will kill everything in the game if you take the time to spam it out
If you pop a chargers ass with the autocannon it will start bleeding out and you can ignore it until it dies
@@dannycolwell8028 I'm pretty sure it can still charge like that though, unless it's really seconds away from dying when it starts to drag itself around. That's a good strat on low to medium difficulties but later on when there's hundreds of other things around you, you don't want a big hitbox running around on top of everything else
They should add speed reload booster that for normal weapons will just give you like a 20-25% reload boost, but for single load give straight up 2 shots per cycle (100% speed increase). Also it would make it compelling for people running machineguns or solo autocannon
ecoilles.
Also i think difference between Diligence variants need testing. If shooting a beefy target in a weakspot result in greater damage difference than should be, it is possible that counter sniper simply has a higher weakspot damage.
yeah this would be a good idea, even if they make it on page 9, it'd give me more use outta the Revolver and slow reload on rounds reloaded stuff. I also think that the explosive weapons need a rework, or something bc they are incredibly inconsistent for me. I play on PC and i think it has something to do with frame rate, if at 60fps it does hit correctly but if youre over that at like 120 which i play at, its inconsistent and there is literally no reason to run the explosive liberator over the default one. I've tried to run it and want to like it but its just plain bad. If they fixed these 2 issues (which are just balance related) I would love this game even more. It needs more variety, hence new enemy type, new weapons, buffs to the niche weapons, vehicles, new stratagems, etc; which is exactly what the devs plan on doing which is just fuckin awesome. The only thing is they are a dev team of 100 people and it may take a lot more time to do these things rather than what people are used to with AAA studios and their thousands of devs with COD or Blizzard. I love this game though and you can tell they have passion for it.
The sg8 slugger can 3/4 shot a brood warrior. One shot to each leg and 1/2 to the gead depending on distance and it dies like 2 seconds later. Stalkers get stunlocked by it. In desparate situations it can break a crusher's back legs and create a weakpoint, and if you break its front legs with a heavy armor piercing weapon the slugger can kill it in like 3 shots. It can shoot through armored termanids legs/head, and you can take a leg clean of if you hit between the plates while its walking up. Sg8 is literally one of the best weapons in the game. Pair it with an arc throuwe to solve its mob killing problems and you can use your other stratagem slots to find a solution for tank units
This is how I play. Slugger, Redeemer, Arc Thrower. Anti-Heavy Strategems, like orbital railcannon, rocketpods, orbital laser, airstrike, etc.
I personally really like the Dominator, love running that with a stalwart which i use as my primary. Using the dominator for large or armored enemies in particular.
I do this except with the grenade launcher.
try that with the ar thrower you'll have a blast
Against bugs or bots?
Bugs atm, bots I tend to use the Slugger instead of the Dominator@@deleteduser7132
@@deleteduser7132 of you mean Arc thrower it's good for "BOTH"
As someone who mained swat on halo reach the diligence just feels right
I've been running Knight SMG | Senator | Arc Thrower and feel like I have something for every situation. Arc Thrower takes out trash and strips armor from bigger enemies, Knight SMG pumps out its entire clip in a heartbeat for some massive DPS to a sweet spot (with proper recoil compensation), and the Senator is my backup for swapping and popping heads. In defense of the senator it is not an all-situation weapon, it's very niche, but in that niche it dominates.
I'm thinking about getting it, is it worth it? People suggest putting it in burst mode to save ammo.
@@BillyMayhem2000 I love the thing, but be warned the recoil is insane
@@SilentBlueDragon is it viable challenging difficulty and above?
@@BillyMayhem2000 I've been running it on suicidal difficulty with few issues. I do run out of ammo sometimes, but if you're hitting points of interest you should be fine with ammo pickups between resupply drops.
@@SilentBlueDragon okay cool, thanks man
The slugger is the best vs bugs. It rips off limbs in one shot. If you’re doing anything else, you’re doing it wrong. Clusters and redeemer for trash mobs, slugger for medium and rail for large. As someone with 3 accounts at Skull Admiral I can attest to this being one of if not the best gun in Helldivers 2. If you prefer to stick with your breaker, the Senator can actually deal with medium targets rather well.
You can't look at the damage numbers entirely because weapons have hidden stats. Most notably critical hit multipliers. When you land hits there is color coded "X" damage indicators. White means you are doing 10% of your total damage, and Red means 100%. Also factor in the hidden damage multiplier. So for example the Jar-5 has a 4x damage multiplier. Landing a red x hit means you theoretically could be hitting for 800 damage pershot over the standard 200. Also the explosive trait means you will also do 100% more damage to body parts.
This sounds like bullshit lol
why_ it is true
@@rekrn12345
Do you have a link to the source of that info?
For those who are curious where this comes from, this is actaully some misinformation spread by a bad test on how medium pen works.
Basically someone tested how many shots it took to the head to down a brood commander, which all medium pen weapons took significantly less...
The issue with the research at hand though is that they didn't test anything else and the commander is actaully a phenomenon in basically all enemies creatures. Every single creature other wise does not have a x4 multiplier to weak point shots, but they do have an increased multiplayer of some sort. The only issue is that it's typically just enough more than standard weapons to help them, like the penetrator for instance, down in the same amount of shots to the head for standard creatures.
Hope this helps everyone
@@shoe7393there ya go
The liberator penetrator is super underrated IMO
The scorcher was that magic moment for me. I had an idea of what I thought it would be and worked hard towards it but it turned out to be different, better and just a joy to shoot.
Honestly the JAR-5 Dominator id a favorite of mine to deal with the automatons. Treat the not trademarked bolter like a dmr of sorts and aim carefully snd mostnof the time everhthing goes doen with a single shot. Its horrible agianst thr bugs, but snything short of a hulk for this baby and ot goes down pretty easy
I run the Slugger as my main: here is why I love it against Terminid.
Stunlocking stalkers - on difficulty seven when multiple stalkers start showing up the slugger is able to produce enough stun damage to keep two stalkers stumbling in place rather than retreating.
reload - at one at a time reload you can actual slam fire and be reloading as fast as you are taking shots
warrior/hive guard/feeder/broodcommander - stun/penetrate/bleed
Hunters/scavengers - melee attacks to either stagger or finish off the smaller ones and create room for easy follow up one shot kills.
combined with an ammo back pack/impact grenade this weapon system becomes the apex of fighting medium and smaller sized bugs on close range fast moving horde level.
Played a bunch of helldive missions with the dominator, and it has a pretty big learning curve but it does pay off when you hit your headshots. 1 shot warriors and hunters, 3-4 shots hive guards and brood commanders and is also decent at murdering those stalkers. Also kinda small benefit but it can take down spore shrooms at any range in a bit less then a mag
100% agree!
I just wish they lowered recoil in Dominator. It is supposed to fire jet propelled ammo. Thing is, that kind of ammo actually has very little recoil (look up Gyroget rocket pistol)
I think the biggest issue with it is how long it takes to line up with where you're aiming when you move the reticule. Particularly annoying for those side-hopping hunters.
I've had great success with the scythe vs the bugs, throw some fire, pair it up with the rover and it is incredibly efficient cause you don't overkill anything, it's also not so bad dmg wise if you go for the limbs, which is easier because it's a constant beam. Been running it with Randoms on suicide and winning veeery comfortably. Obvious downside is that the rest of the stratagems are going to have to be heavy/elite killers and you're not gonna have the easiest time closing holes but the dmg vs crowds is really something
Also I pair it with the revolver in case of stalkers and for when I just wanna blast any medium armor dude that's in my way. That or the arc thrower
To me the Slugger and Dominator work pretty similar. While the slugger has worse ammo conservation and requires single reloads, it features a stagger on all fronts, terminid and automatons.
The Dominator has a laser designator, which might keep your mates froom running through your LOF (wishful thinking, i know XD ), the reload is quicker and it rocks more ammo, but has no stagger.
Both guns can 1 hit kill HS automatons, where only the dominator can HS Hulks.
Pair both with the use of melee vs. terminids and you rock. Got trouble with small 'Nids swarming? Bring a flamethrower, gatling turret or napalm strikes.
One bad thing on the dominator however is the more unresponsive aim, being floaty like an autocannon. Makes sense as it is a pocket AC.
So, did you know you can snap reload a round between slugger shots without losing any RoF right? It's a little APM intensive, but defacto means infinite magazine capacity.
Sometimes i can get the senator to get into this animation loop, where I'm reloading, but able to shoot between reloads. I'll be reloading, fire a shot, and go back to reloading, and it looks like I'm Speeding shooting. Senator is the reason I'm dying for a reload speed armor perk
It actually fires rather fast that way I wasn't sure if I was the only one who does this. Also does it with the shotguns
@@kenthage5710 I can't always get it to work, though. Any idea how to force it into that loop?
The guard dog rover paired with the IE makes it feel so great. Rover just gets that last tick of damage you usually need. I also find spreading out my shots is much better than spamming it like the regular breaker.
Something I’ve had a lot of fun with is giving myself RP inspired challenges. My favorite so far is what I like to call “frontline general” where I run scorcher/slugger, senator, and the DP-11 armor with botslayer cape. Use the senator for everything smaller than stalker/hulk and your primary for everything else. And make sure you put on your best Sgt. Johnson voice while you do it.
I discovered today that the liberator explosive can close bug holes albeit w about a full clip. I imagine the JAR can as well bc of the explosive rounds but I don’t have it unlocked yet.
automatons do actually get less accurate when you fire at them with the breaker incindiary, but thats because the more you fire at them with anything, the more they are suppressed, and the breaker incindiary isnt likely to take them out, meaning you fire way more. its not a plus, but a light side effect of a minus.
Alright, only 2 cents I have to add on the P-4 Senator. It's shots don't trigger as much of an alert on each shot, so its a great sidearm for stealth, such as scouting. It also penetrates a fair level of termanid armor, and can crack charger legs.
It cracks charger legs? What?
I disagree about the Slugger when it comes to terminids. The fact that it knocks enemies back with each shot is really great considering a lot of things are trying to rush you. Against Stalkers it has saved me and my friends for the fact that I can simply stop them attacking and moving.
You can also target the limbs of different types of enemies and remove them in a single shot. Very satisfying.
I think the armor penetrating is broken rn like the armor stats. The higher penetration should be better than higher damage but it doesn’t do that yet.
The most annoying thing for me of the dominator is the handling is awful and the smoke comeout of the barrel when you shoot block all the vision
the slugger IS good vs terminids.
2-shots stalkers, hive guards, broodlords.
1-shots the smaller stuff but it does do it pretty slow for a swarm enemy, especially if you're terrible at aiming.
I really like the slugger against the terminids. While it’s not good at dealing with the trash bugs due to the low ammo capacity, it can blow the heads off brood commanders with two shots and drop stalkers with one shot to the face; coupled with the fact that it staggers them both to make follow up shots easier. I’ve been pairing it with an arc thrower or a rover drone to deal with some of the trash and clearing helldive difficulty without too much trouble. It also appears to blow clean through bugs and let you get collaterals, much like the rail gun. The slugger has to be my current favourite gun in the game, even if it’s not statistically the best
The diligence is underrated. its not just a sniper you can spam it and just wipe out whole hordes.
Only bring slugger shot gun against termanids if i have wave clear weapons like machine gun or grenade launcher does pretty with that combo, but also did not mention if you shoot hulk in back weak point you can also stagger lock them, 5 shots will kill and they cant turn attack or do anything but die very funny.
Absolutely love the senator, I'm definitely one of its biggest shills, premium warbond was worth it just for my chunky revolver, although the cape on page three was pretty snazzy as well
Great video man, truly. I hate that the HD2 community is putting so much emphasis into the "meta." Every gun has it's pros/cons, and although I can agree the Breaker is the easiest to use, it's no where near the best imo.
Some added notes I've found:
- Liberator Penetrator: Good against bugs, the armor penetration is very noticable, but I'm not sure the extra damage is. Outclassed by the counter sniper and defender imo because you have to build around it. That being said I'd take this over the Diligence (right now), Diligence needs an armor penetrating buff.
- Defender: RIDICULOUSLY under used and underrated. If you prefer full auto weapons and/or like to run away, this is best in slot.
- Punisher: think of this as a harder hitting breaker, it's better imo because you can one shot most things the Breaker can't, stun lock any bug/bot without heavy armor (charger, bile, hulk, tank), and you can mow through ads without blowing through 100rnds/second lol. Personally, even though 40rnds is wildly too low, I end up getting much more utility out of the pump shotguns compared to the breakers.
- Dominator: Honestly, I think this is the best weapon overall. One shots damn near everything, decent ammo economy, flashlight and laser makes it extremely ubiquitous, and the armor penetration helps this go toe to toe with way more enemies than you'd think. It's a refined slugger in a way, with a mag reload and burst capabilities.
- And the Slugger: my personal go to in almost any scenario. There isn't a non heavy enemy this thing doesn't one shot. 15rnds in the barrel tends to = 10-15 kills, whereas the same cannot be said about the breaker. The drawbacks for me, no light/laser, which makes hip firing a bit more difficult, and I've had teammates run in my path of fire and die (happens WAY less often when your teammates see your laser), low ammo economy, but I prefer it to the breaker/dom/scorcher, where I'm reloading every 3 kills and end up wasting ammo, and the zoom leaves a bit to be desired.
An added bonus though, the slugger can blow through bunker doors that you usually have to throw a grenade at. Not super noteworthy, but it's nice if you're farming and running
Again, great breakdown and insight Reaper, thanks!
Devs have released that armor pen is on a scale of 1-10. If your gun has less armor pen than the enemies armor value the bullets bounce off. If it has equal values it deals 50% of the damage it should. If it has more armor pen to enemy armor it deals 100%. Sorry, if this was in the comments already, I don't want to read through them all.
A little clarification about Armor Pen. The CEO actually talked about it, but said it wasn't his department so he's not 100% sure about values. But basically Armor is rated 0-10, if your gun has *less* Armor Pen then the Armor you bounce and do nothing, if *equal* to the Armor you do *half damage* , and if your Armor Pen is higher you do full damage. He said he believed that 'light armor penetration' was any value between 0 and 2 but this is the part he was less sure of. I expect guns like the Slugger, Senator, and Diligence have values on the higher end of 'light', probably 2 or 3 (if he was off about the value range), that's why some guns with lower raw damage seem to work better on certain enemies.
On a related note Bugs are weak vs Explosive damage, so that might be affecting your results with certain guns.
JAR 5 Dominator has been a great gun for me to use as a primary but learning how the projectiles fly has been tricky yet beneficial. I've even been using it for the Termanids as well and I do agree it's not really a great choice for them but in a group of people who all have Breaker/Railguns I like it because I can focus those Front Armored Medium Bugs and rip through them saving my teammates those precious Railgun shots for bigger bugs, just make sure to have a Pistol/Uzi at the ready with a high capacity mag for small bugs. Otherwise I'd recommend a Arc Thrower with this combo (my buddies having the Breaker/Railgun Combo still) as it helps make you into a Crowd Controller for the small bugs and jumpers. Even the invisible Stalkers can't resist the Arc shots leaping to them through bugs. No joke it's satisfying watching a jumper try to get me only to shoot it with the Arc and watch the bolt hit the 2 leapers behind that one and they all die mid air or the one you shoot mid air becomes a Conduit to leap the jolt further into more of them. If you use the Arc Thrower vs bugs it's just happy times as the Warriors and Commanders do lots of body blocking for regular bullets but for the Arc it's no problem, especially with no heads they are still a conduit to send it through to more bugs. (Also if the Arc thrower isn't sending a bolt out for some reason then going first person helps, I have no idea why)
Ahh The 'Senator' is more of an Automaton weapon than Termanids, the medium penetration helps if you just ran out of ammo and need to drop those 'chainsaw warriors' from their bloodthirsty charge as it can drop them to the head or chop them in half at the waist. One thing is for sure I'd love to have a Speed loader it is a must but probably should only work if the weapon has all rounds spent otherwise it will single load to save rounds.
Be cool if we could swap ammo to make it a bit more viable, if it was 'explosive' for the damage to carry through a target better when compared to the other sidearm options. Having Weapon Modifications we could pick and choose what to use on a per mission basis, that would be cool. Compensator for control or Silencer for sneaky? Red Dot or Scope? Big Magazine with more sway/heavier motion or smaller mags with more of them with better Ergonomics?
I do also agree...we need a Lever Action at least in .45-70 or bigger....with Depleted Uranium Incendiary Explosive Rounds that can penetrate Heavy Armor 😄Too much to ask for? 🤣
I honestly prefer the I-breaker over the normal breaker for bugs, mostly because of it's bigger mag. As long as you have something to compliment it that can take care of things that are bigger than a hunter, combined with the redeemer for getting stalkers out of your face, it can do it's job very effectively. It's not a workhorse weapon, and if you rely on it for all of your damage you'll be disappointed, but its great for spraying into groups and getting hunters out of your face.
the Diligence CS controls like the anti-material. While lacking the pen and stopping power to body shot.
The P-9 Senators main use is the single reloading, it makes it so u don’t waste bullets with it unless u miss ur shot, the slow reload can be a bit faster but other than that it’s perfect just the way it is 🔥😮💨
The dominator fire's gyro-jet HEAT rounds so it should work well against the bugs since they are weak to explosive damage. As for the Bile spitter's the sack takes more damage from explosives. Last weapons that can pen armor you are shooting deal FULL damage this was stated from the devs in an interview
I love the slugger against bugs, doesn't take more then 3 headshots to kill anything smaller then a charger
The Diligence DMR is brilliant against the bots. It's accurate and packs a decent punch. As those overgrown Toasters keep their distance more often, having a DMR rifle really makes it easier.
I didn’t use the breaker until the incendiary version. Punisher is king imo. Unlocked slugger recently and it’s been a beast imo. Only downside is hitting hunters is harder with a slug than a buck shot but trade off is substantial.
The slugger is absolutely fine against the bugs. Stalkers get flinch locked if not out right 1-2 shot and everything else can die in similar conditions. Well placed shots drop bugs. Only thing I will say is that chargers and titans are its counter and maybe spewers if you have trouble landing headshots
If you have a red hit marker, you are doing 100% damage. If you have a white hit marker, you are still dealing damage, but it's reduced in the ballpark of ~60% which means the Jar-5 would go from 200 damage per shot to 80. I don't know why the designed it this way, but if you are hitting a "fleshy weak spot" such as the sacks on a Spewer or Bile Titan, or the butt of a Charger, you'll only deal 10% damage, unless your weapon is classified as Explosive (so the Jar-5 Dominator or the Plas-1 Scorcher), in which case you actually deal 100% damage. Something like the Defender SMG is doing 7 damage per shot against a Charger butt, but the Jar-5 Dominator is doing 200 damage per shot.
You have the option of either shooting the head of a Spewer for 80 damage or shooting the butt for 200 damage. But since different body parts seem to have different health totals, I'm not sure which is better because I haven't personally unlocked the Jar-5 yet to test it out.
Can't wait to unlock all those cool and quirky weapons.
I love energy-based weapons in any game, so that's hype!
Dominator is a fantastic weapon, just not when used improperly. if you are taking the Dominator against nids, I recommend pairing it with the rover backpack and either the grenade launcher OR railgun depending on you want to focus on crowd control or big game hunting. Dont waste ammo against anything not armored if possible, that usually means scavengers, warriors and hunters/pouncers. you can 1 or 2 shot most of these enemies with the dominator but I would only recommend that if you are getting swarmed. instead let your rover focus on the smaller enemies while you use the Dominator against guardians, brood commanders, stalkers, spewers, pretty much anything thats not a charger or bile titan. the dominator can kill those medium and heavy armored enemies in half a magazine if you know what your doing and maintain fire control. by far the best weapon for elites that arent super heavy armored.
The Dominator is also really, REALLY good against bots, easily able to 2-4 shot anything not a tank or hulk. you can kill devastators, berzerkers, rocket devastators and heavy devastators in about 3-5 shots if you are good at aiming for heads/backpacks. especially if you are low or out of railgun ammo to use. obviously the railgun is superior for killing anything bot, but if its not available or you are out of ammo the dominator can easily kill the heavier units easily. and while it cant directly kill the atst walkers, you can dive or flank them and kill them and all other infantry in 1-2 shots.
The dominator is hampered by the fact that it only has 15 rounds and 6 magazines, but if you properly utilize it, it will tear through most enemies in the game in really short order. but if you are using it against everything or dont have trigger control, you will burn through ammo quick. The Dominator has pretty damn good range, and the medium armor pen+explosive ammo does a lot of damage to most things, its just not a rifle to be used in every situation unless you have your own ammo supplies. But if you can control your fire and learn the weapon, you can take advantage of the Burst fire mode really well against chonky enemies where aiming isn't that difficult (like spewers, berzerkers) then you can really clear house effectively.
One weird quirk of the Senator is you hardly EVER overkill trash with it. Redeemer is easy to end up using all of your ammo on 2-4 targets because it shoots so fast and has no burst mode, the Senator you switch to one tap whatever you need to get rid of and go back to reloading your primary with a few shots left.
Also interesting about the Counter Sniper, it has a higher zoom available compared to the regular Diligence making it lean more into being a long range weapon. Sadly the handling just makes it awful for anything that's not shooting single targets while prone.
I actually use the diligence pretty religiously against bots when playing normal non-defense missions, it's hard to beat the ability to single tap all the normal bots at distance and even cutting the chainsaw dudes in half in 4 shots pretty reliably.
The problem is ease of use, all around, high ttk. There is a reason why "meta" setups exist. whereas a lot of these other weapons become niche. The average player isn't going to experiment if their first time with a weapon isn't fun and let's be honest, there's a lot of "Experiment, put in some hours, etc." with something like the Jar-5 to start getting that fun factor out of it and knowing when to use it. That's why weapons like the Breaker, Defender, Railgun, etc. will always see way more play than any other weapon and why most people would consider any other weapon that doesn't perform around it's level as trash. Jar-5 is sluggish, not every situation is going to allow you to use it effectively, where the breaker has good range, highest base damage, and will kill it either faster or slightly slower than every other weapon making it the go to for the majority. it doesn't have the same setbacks as other weapons outside of not piercing medium armor. I'm just using these few as an example. However a lot of weapons do need a buff (buffs don't always mean just up damage: Spray and Pray tho... different story lol) to perform well enough for the average joe to actually try experimenting and using other weapons. Breaker as it stands has viability in every situation where most other weapons do not, even against armor because of enemy weak points, grenades, and stratagems.
I'm in defense of experimenting with other weapons, but just calling it like it is and using a team to make up for the weakness of a weapon isn't exactly a method everyone can use and should never be the baseline for said weapon.
7:06 That effect actually has nothing to do with the breaker specifically. The bots have a suppression mechanic were they'll become less accurate and stop shooting if they are under fire
I LOVE the slugger for low level bot killing. And I can’t WAIT to see how they integrate Mechs into out battleships.
Jar 5 is one of the best guns in the game IMO. It’s actually wild when paired with the laser cannon.
The incendiary is pretty good imo when completed with the revolver and railgun it clears adds with ease and the bigger threats take 5 or 6 shots with the breaker and 2 or 3 revolver shots
As someone who came from 40k, the Jar-5 Dominator is my go-to. It's the closest i can get to a boltgun. Now, granted, the Jar-5 is rocket propelled like the boltgun, it is not the size of a redbull can.
I main the Dominator and Senator against everything, and it's my support slot that varies depending on enemy.
For Terminids, it's Autocannon time for the AoE explosive hits. For Automatons it's normally Railgun or Anti-Material, because I can run those with the energy shield. Can't put damage down range if the slightest hit can kill.
Slugger can be useful against the bugs if you take it to compliment a crowd clearing support weapon. I take it if I'm using a flamethrower so I can take care of more armored bugs and not waste my flamer on them. It can also stunlock stalkers, which you failed to mention.
“If there was a lever action gun in this game even if it sucked, I would love that gun” I felt that lmao
Really wish the senator was higher damage per shot. I want to go full dirty Harry. Maybe get the full 6 shots into the 1200-1400 range.
I think the Diligence counter sniper has one of those hidden mechanics the CEO talked about, and that for this gun one of those is a higher head shot bonus than any other gun except for maybe the anti-material rifle.
Breaker has 1.5x critical hit multiplier and more often than not requires an entire mag to drop even warriors lest you face the armored ones and most of your shots bounce. Jar-5 has medium armor pen and a 4x critical hit multiplier. One shot will blow off the head of a warrior bug and easily pierce the armor of armored ones. It will also shoot through hive guards and brood commanders. It still needs a mag capacity increase or more extra mags. Jar-5 is for people trying to be accurate over the point at enemy and mag dump breaker.
The senator has a hidden perk that cuts through armor. Use it on Brood Commanders, The Armor Bugs, and the Legs of the Chargers and it'll take them out fast. If you take the armor off a Charger's leg you can kill it with all 6 shots
I think the senator would have a better place if it had medium armor penetration
11:40
@@scorpion563 yup, responded to early
I love using the slugger. It will two shot stalkers so long as you follow the first stunning shot with a shot to the face. The only bugs I struggle with the slugger are chargers. Sometimes, I can penetrate the legs most of the time I can't.
The laser rifle is really good at head hunting bots, it can very quickly pop off devastator heads.
JAR-5 its top tier. The p-19 on single for double tap the small ones and the jar for the rest. For bugs its so good. And the scorcher on automatons its top tier, bye bye to walkers and the rest without using ur railgun on them. I say to every random who ask me advide (im lvl 50 and sometime run lvl4 diff to help randoms) that the breaker its the easiest gun to use but not the best. On the strategement with good teammates variaty win against 4 railgun w shield backpack. Once a guy rock the recoiless and only eagles and laser. He always took down reinforcements while another had supply with machinegun and me and other pushing with meta (railgun and shield backpack) and bro was soooo easy. We could literaly clear any horde of automatons.
There are some things that cant be replaced. The Difference between 531 and 544 speed its noticible on bugs. On bugs 544 speed its the go to and I cant see myself using other thing than the CE-74 Breaker armor (544 speed, 2 more nades) and against automatons u dont need that superior speed so there I can use anything but the Trench Paramedic (531 speed, 2 more stims, 2+ secs of stim effect duration) its so op that rn I dont even need the backpack shield. Maybe when armor rating works we will see changes but for now a team of 4 MED-KIT armors and scorchers and smg Defenders and breakers and each gun targeting the enemys where it shines... oh boy people wont know this until some youtubers start making those kind of videos
Slugger takes out those Medium sized bugs you talked about with ease if you have good aim. Two shots in the head to kill stalkers. 3 shots through the armor for the hive guards.
I enjoy the dominator against the terminids. Decent at range. It kills the medium size bugs easily. I pull out the uzi if hunters get close. It's great to have a gun that staggers the bugs. The slugger is great too.
LOL the breaker is a good all-rounder, that's it. The Jar-5 killing power and ammo efficiency is S tier, It shreds bugs. It's balanced by its sluggish handling. It takes some getting used to but once you've mastered it you'll never go back to the B their breaker. It's the meta weapon for bugs. Also, the jar-5 kills spewers in 4-6 headshots. 2-3 headshots for brood commanders, you can drop three brood commanders and 4 warriors with one mag. (all headshots of course) It is liberation incarnate. I love this game because each weapon has a skill cap to get the most out of it. The only reason everyone thinks the breaker and railgun gun are S-teir is because they are so brainless, neither excels in any area. The meta weapon for Bots for example is the Anti-material rifle. you can drop hulks in two headshots, and drop devastators in one headshot, Striders in three shots. It kills quicker than the rail gun and is more ammo efficient.
I like the AMR on robots, I just wish I could change its scope, it's filled with too much useless gribble.
Yeah, all the sights in this game are pretty cluttered I'm hoping they will let us alter them at some point.@@teecee1827
I actually like the marksman rifles, the ballistic shield, and the uzi like one against the bots. When I have the rifle the shield is on my back and protecting me from some of the incoming fire as I retreat to gain some distance to use the rifle against them, and if I can't run and have to face them, I can use the shield and the uzi like gun in close quarters against most of them. Obviously biggest downfall is much larger enemies and explosives, but certain stratagems handles that.
Slugger shot gun 2 taps brood guys in the head, and if your good enough, 1 taps stalkers in the head. If you miss the head on the stalker, you can at least stunlock it.
We need more sidearms. I need to go full flame trooper as a meme build. Is it effective? Kind of, but not where it's important. But it's fun.
I believe you forgot to mention the Scorcher.... hands down the best gun not named the breaker (and I honestly believe it is the best gun period when you pair it with a shield and the machine pistol.) It is better at the bots than even the Breaker but falls behind with terminids (you will likely blow yourself up with the weapon once or twice (but hey you can 5-7 tap a spore tower across the map.))
The scorcher gets its own video lol
I just grabbed the liberator penetrator and I like how it feels. I’m looking forward to trying the dominator and the scorcher
I stopped using Breaker when on occasion it was disappearing during mission (as in completely, couldn't pick one from a body, if respawned primary would also be missing), leaving me without Primary. But I could pick different primaries from dead so I just started using Jar-5 Dominator and it's doing quite well.
You honestly should give the slugger an other try, its so much quicker in taking out bigger threat, 2 shots the stalkers in the head, 3 shots the armored guys THROUGH the head armor (light armor penetrating??? hello?) 1 shots warriors and everything bellow, 3 shots brood commanders in the head, 3 shots a charger leg after armor is stripped.
Seriously if I'm playing in a team and the others take care of the small bugs and i can focus on the bigger ones, its such a great weapon, I've been loving it ever since i unlocked it for about the last 25-30 hours of my gametime
The senator was made to one-tap little buggers with one hit, no matter where you hit em. With the other pistol you need to touble tap em. And with the full auto pistol, good luck trying to take out 6 small bugs with one magazine.
The slugger vs the termanids in combination with the rover is insanlly good. It deals with everything except chargers and BT:s easily.
Bro your voice is so soothing, please record for some audiobooks!
The Incendiary Breaker melts armor on the terminids. That's kind of useful.
I use the slugger for terminid since i like its stun lock and damage on the mid teir stuff like hive guards and stalkers. To make up in small enemies i use the redeemer sub or pistol as they are perfect for killing small enemies quickly
The rover fixes a lot of the dominator's downsides. Trash mobs can't get near me while I'm sniping heavies.
love the Jar makes me feel like im shooting a Bolter
Diligence is my go to weapon. especially with a squad that runs all breakers
You can one shot stalkers with the Slugger every now and again. Plus with the knockback, you can sweep 2-3 out from under you in a hurry. I use it exclusively now having switched completely off the Breaker in all instances.
Im a P4 lover. If they want to buff it, just give it more punsh. Long reload is a part of the senator experience.
I'm the opposite, Jar-5 destroys level 8-9 on Terminids for me.Since Bile Spewers and Hive Guard both have medium armor, the Jar-5 actually comes cluch in killing these for me.
The bullet velocity and handling on the Jar-5 makes it way too unweildy to go for headshots against automatons,and it can't even kill Berserkers quick enough before they get close. If you are going for headshots, the Diligence is where it's at. Or if you want something that packs a punc and has better handling AND has a blast radius, use the scorcher.
I think the slugger has a fair bit of damage drop off at range, at close range against a brood comander, you can three shot them, if you land all your shots on the head, and were the head used to be. But at range, even hitting head shots, its typically 5+ rounds. Iits still effective when comlimenting your squads CC capability, you focus medium and medium/large threats, and you squad takes care of the little guys.
Subscribed just because of this video!! Wow, just wow. Keep it up!!!!
P4 has saved me so many times, it has that hidden medium armor pen. I will swear by the Senator every time. its been my perm side arm when i unlocked it
"Maybe you're just looking for a break from the Breaker." Yeah... Once you get the Breaker and the Redeemer, your main loadout is pretty much set.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the skorcher. Been having a lot of fun with that one.
The Senator isnt a meme weapon, it is just alot more situational.
Its the only pistol that can shoot through medium armor like the Hive Guard terminids.
It also 1 shot hunters if you can aim.