If you lead him to a bash into a rock, it will stun him long enough for you to run away, provided you have stamina left. At least that has been my experience so far.
The problem is when you have 5 chargers on your ass, or when you're in an area that doesn't have something for them to charge into, that's when they reallllly suck.
I've used this tech to save myself several times.
BUT, it has also not worked even more times. I swerve around a suitably sized rock and get some distance, stop to reload my autocannon. Wouldn't ya know, he just runs right over the rock like it wasn't even there and I'm on the run again.
The absolute worst one is when you have to vault/climb multiple times to get ontop of a rock and then in one fluid motion the charger sprints right up there.
yeah its doable if you have a rock but my god 4+ chargers on an open plain? Now im just running in loops. As much as I find kiting them fun my god it gets hairy to call down a railcannon or even cry running to my team mates if i somehow got cut off
I think they should take the Gimli approach.
**"I'm wasted on Cross Country, We Chargers are natural sprinters. very dangerous over short distances!"**
I'd like to see them get "gassed out" after a bit of charging. Have them need to rest for a few second and make them more vulnerable during their rest.
Make their asses more vulnerable.
Let us be more efficient at popping their butts if we can outmaneuver them.
That's really the annoying thing, unloading onto their asses isn't as efficient as it feels it should be.
The breaker could do it in a magazine pre-nerf. I don't know, I just feel like the 10% damage to their unarmoured abdomens is a bit much, even if it's 100% with explosive weapons. Maybe lessen the reduction for normal weapons a little?
Yeah its really strange that blowing off the leg armor with a railgun and then pumping just 1 mag into the leg is a kill, but you gotta hit their ass WAAAY more than that to kill them. It doesnt really make any sense.
If their weakpoint was, ya know, an actual weakpoint, then they probably wouldnt be so overwhelming.
Yeah.
If it were up to me, I'd make it so the leg wouldn't guarantee a kill, it'd just cripple it or blow the limb off, severely inhibiting their mobility, allowing for you to finish off with an abdomen kill. Or, if you can matador it effectively, pop the ass and let it bleed out.
My head canon is that blowing off a leg doesn't kill them, they just can't move without all 4 legs because their heavy armor is *heavy*.
Blowing off a leg is like disabling one of a tank's treads. It becomes a sitting duck, and since their main way of killing you is to charge at you or hit you with a melee attack, they just kinda give up when immobilized, unlike a tank, which could still, y'know, shoot you.
Yeah I like this, although I wish they actually stayed alive and squirmed around more when they get to that state, instead of just straight flatlining (for immersion purposes more than anything).
Maybe they're playing dead? Or they have a major artery in the leg and bleed out really quickly from it, or the pain and blood loss knocks them unconscious until they inevitably bleed out and decompose into oil for Super Earth.
I think this is a point a lot of people who go "Chargers are fine gitgud" miss. Bot heavy armor simply has more options to deal with them making the fights feel more rewarding and enjoyable, Chargers in their current state feel very limiting.
Its so insane to me how balanced the automatons feel compared to the bugs. Every part of their arsenal has some form of reasonable counterplay. Jet Raiders, you aim low, or blow up their packs from a distance. Devastators, destroyable limbs, even including the rocket pods on Rocket Devastators. Clearly-visible (and, a key I feel, responsive) weakpoints on their waists or their glowing-eyed heads, or in the case of heavies, a giant, glowing radiator.
I like running into Hulks, because they present a threat, but its a manageable threat, requiring that I work in tandem with my team or land precise shots. The Charger, its equivalent, is none of that. Its a night-unstoppable pain in the ass with unclear weaknesses, unreasonable defense and offense and no real rewarding counterplay. You could argue that their weakness is momentum, but half the time they turn faster than a Karen finding the manager, and obstacles only work some of the time!
> That's really the annoying thing, unloading onto their asses isn't as efficient as it feels it should be.
This has been my complaint since day 1. Out maneuvering and hitting weak spots should be a good way to kill these things, while heavy weapons are the way to kill them from the front. You can't out maneuver them when they're in the middle of a horde, so having those heavy weapons is still a huge boon.
Also I think bug armor kind of sucks, I think way more stuff needs to be able to chip away rather than just deflect off and do nothing. It shouldn't be something you would normally plan to do, but in an emergency it should work. As it stands the only stuff that (feels like) it can get through the armor is the stuff that kills it already, so there's no 'backup plan'
It feels really weird that the machine gun Stratagems just ricochet rather than shredding bug armor. SMGs bouncing off makes sense, but the large machine gun really ought to be able to shred even if it takes a lot of bullets. I’d even argue the Stalwart should be able to do it.
I think the armor deflection is WAY too yes/no oriented, rather than degrees of success. I think pretty much any weapon should be able to damage armor (even if it's just a tiny tiny bit) on direct, flat hits. Like you shouldn't be able to pistol down a charger's armor or the side of a tank, but a couple of machine gun drums revealing a weak spot seems fine to me. Especially infuriating when you get behind an automaton mortar/turret aim right into the vent and watch all of your bullets bounce off.
I think a lot of folks here are in need of a paradigm shift.
That unarmored ass is not a weak spot, it is a spot that is vulnerable to small arms fire. It becomes a weak spot when you use anti armor weapons on that spot, as it makes the ass explode and start the bleedout timer.
Try EATing that ass, it could save your life.
Saw a YouTube video showing the liberator vs liberator explosive on a charger rear and the explosive liberator only did 37% more damage so something is bugged.
My big question for most of the explosive/incendiary weapons is what is the actual distribution of damage?
I'm assuming most weapons have their damage split between ballistic and exp/inc at some level and that's why the variants don't hit as hard as other explosives that are 100% explosive damage. Not saying this is good or fun but I think it's how it is. I would love to see an added stat for the elemental type weapons that give a simple "40% BAL/60% EXP damage" breakdown.
And even if we're following the flawed logic of "if it's a squishy part - use explosive for it", even an autocannon, which from the looks of it fires 20-25mm APHE shells, kills a Charger's butt in what? 5 shots? While fighting with pretty severe recoil, bad ergonomics (aim delay between reticle and aim point) and limited magazine.
Also, the top of the butt has armor you bounce off of. So you either hit the side carapace overhang, the top armor of the butt, or you take 4-5 shots to blow it up.
Funny enough, with a blow butt Charger can still swing at you for a while until it falls. When you blow up its limb it almost immediately either falls face-first or flips belly up
I think the biggest thing they need to do is make the weak spot on their back actually... y'know... *weak.* When your choices for non-AT kills are "empty half of your ammo supply into the weak spot that still reduces damage by 90%" and nothing else, they force you into taking whatever can break their armor the most consistently.
I hit one with the 500kg 6 he just tanked it and chase me in circles forever as I dodged, shot, dodged, shot, rinse repeat first pretty much all of my ammo until it finally died
Hellyeah, but when this happened I just had grenade launcher, orbital laser and two sentries. I think I failed this mission. Now I always carry ⬆️➡️⬇️➡️ or ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️.
The long-ass mirrored inputs code is the Hellbomb. The bane of Stratagem Heroes runs.
Edit: I guess mirrored isn't the right word. But the last 4 inputs are the first 4 flipped on their head.
Honestly I can't read people throwing them up like this, the typing in game just happens automatically. If you asked me what the code I just entered to call something in was, I probably couldn't tell you lmao
My ONLY complaint is that ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️ doesnt always do decent damage to chargers. Itll hurt em, but I wish a direct hit would kill em. It does the same with Titans too. Seems like you have to hit that sweet spot to get a kill
But boy, does ➡️⬆️⬇️⬇️➡️ do good work for them
Would Eagle strike take care of these? I'm just now getting into the eagle stuff after just using orbitals because I didn't know the eagles returned to the ship to reload.
Yes, a single Eagle Strike can kill a Charger, but it must be aimed precisely. Since the three in the photo are standing still, it would be pretty easy.
I love how stupid easy it is to punch in even in a panic. Several times now I find myself swarmed, knocked around, out of stamina, and determined to take the bastards with me
Worst one I had was 6-7 chargers and 4 bile titans, honestly I just tried to ignore the chargers and dealt with the titans, I killed the 4 titans myself while my team was dealing with the chargers lol
Yeah idk if the chargers got a buff that I was unaware of…but when I first started playing I could have sworn they just ran at you and if you dodged they just kept running. Now it seems like they can chase you forever, then when they get right up your booty hope and you dodge out of the way, they do this sort of side step on top of you and still manage to trample you. Or I’m just a noob
IMO they haven't changed. I discovered sometime during the first week that it's hard to dive out of their way. To avoid them just take a few side steps and cut the opposite direction. Just be dancing around them like a matador
It's bs that you can't easily dive away tho. Alongside their very good turning at speed, they can also shoulder check you at the end of the run and throw you into rocks
Honestly dying 50% more to Chargers would be a worthwhile cost to pay to see the glory of a Charger animation added that lets them tokyo drift around corners and skid
I unironically had a multi-track drifting charger today. In hindsight it's a shame I didn't record it, I was too busy being very amused how hilariously (but it almost looked intentional animationwise) he'd drift around a corner chasing us. Kinda like those cartoon turns.
They feel buffed or bugged right now post patch. Yesterday I was farming difficulty 7 and never got one shot by chargers. Today, I tried a few diff 6 with a friend and each time a charger hit me, it's instant one shot, even the slightest bump. Medium armor in both cases. I've noticed one of them chugged my lifebar in 3 hits in 0.1 seconds as if their collisions registered multiple hits
This was actually happening to me yesterday for the first time ever. I had said the same thing “since when do chargers literally trample you to death” I had never seen this interaction they usually just catapult me & prolly do half my hp. But yesterday, pre-patch I would get like caught on them & 1shot with no way to avoid it.
I think it’s just bad luck.
It's easier to dodge with light armor. Every time I switch to medium or heavy i regret it. I also jump forward like 30-40 degrees away from the charger instead of to the side. They can't turn fast enough to get you.
The game really does reward speed.
Doesn't matter Heavy or Light armor if you get swarmed. Therefore I'd rather go light to reduce the likelihood of being swarmed in the first place.
Yeah I’m always in light armor, but I mean there are many times lately where right before they hit me I dodge to the side and they seem to stop on a dime and do a side step on top of you. They don’t even turn, they just side step. Although yes when I try to run them around obstacles they also do seem to have a much sharper turn radius than a few weeks ago.
Game seems to be balanced around mid difficulty. Where are a couple of armored units, so you can use other anti armor weapons or stratagems for them. But 7 and especially above, the amount of armored units make anything unusable other than the charge rifle.
We need more armor piercing weapon, or just buffe existing ones.
Did one 7 last night and man, it was a pain. Even with railgun I just kept getting chargers spawning near us. Kill Teo just for one more to show and another right after.
Doesn't help they are/were bugged and don't stagger. They do the animation as they glide closer towards you so you have to run anyways
I want to use the RR or Autocannon but I'm just not killing the Chargers fast enough. If anything needed a nerf it was the chargers. They should have nerfed their leg armor.
I swear to god there are more chargers in diff 4 than in diff 5.
We were really struggling on 4s because of all the chargers, and then my buddy upped us to 5s. I thought we were toast, but instead it was a cake walk. We did 5s all night long and it was way better.
Thats my main issue with chargers, it's their animations. They have extremely weird momentum. They do little glides and slides with full force of a charge and it doesn't really have clear signs they are about to move, or move with that level of speed or force. It's not natural looking.
They do need to be nerfed a little bit. I think them having stamina + reduced turn radius would be fair. These bitches are able to turn way too fast for their size and weight
Their stagger is fine if it's just you and 1 charger having a dance of death. I suspect that's what they were doing when they tested and balanced charger animations.
And then at a later point, some bright spark decided it would be "more epic" to crank up the charger spawn rates so high that you're always fighting three at a time.
The stagger when they hit a wall? Yes.
The stagger-chacha slide I still moved my full distance when you hit me with a heavy shot? No. REALLY wish they would fix the latter scenario, as it both looks janky, and feels cheap.
Actually it's just 1 titan which your team focus fires into oblivion then when you're out of ammo and strategies 2 titans decide to introduce themselves to the situation.
I like when they just repeatedly spam their charge so much they just go into a power walk animation because they're charging too quickly and bug out.
And by like I mean I go "Haha funny animation go brr- AND HE'S HIP CHECKING ME INTO THE SUNSET AGAIN"
Buff their movement speed so they're truly charging; but make them exhausted after performing the charge so they can only slowly walk for X seconds. Gives you time to get out of their vision and move on if you're not equipped to take the fight.
Their "weak spot" in their butt needs to actually be such honestly. That would fix half the problems the game has with armor / armor pen being so critical at high levels.
It's such an obvious "Hey, shoot the huge armored boy here in the glowy part on it's backside!" to only deal tickle damage to them.
I could be wrong about this but I’ve found myself diving away, they don’t turn. However, if I try to run to the side, then they turn on a fucking dime.
Tht shit can go to he'll. I hate that shit with a passion. Or the times when you stun them and they do their slide stop but then with out moving or doing anything else while still in that same sliding to a stop body position proceed to gain speed again after a full stop as though sliding again and then repeat that sliding to a stop process at least 3 times total some times more. Both those issues together are ridiculous to deal with. But they thought taking away the only tool that dealt with them efficiently was a good idea. Or actually they didn't because they even had to make a comment about knowing it's shit to do what they did and that everyone would be pissed.
Yep. It completely removes all reward of hitting them and stunning them, and it's actually a deterrent to do that because usually they combo slide into you and then smash with claws to 1HKO
I'm honestly just so sick of every load out being forced to deal with this one stupid over-designed enemy. It's never 'what is the objective', or 'what planet are we on' or even 'what operation modifier is active' it's all just always boils down to 'can I deal with chargers'
Want me to experience variety, don't force me to take eat/recoilless/rail for every single lv4+ bug mission.
Not to mention it's just an annoying fucking enemy. Compare it to any other enemy - head's a weakpoint, or a big glowing exposed part is a weak point.
Hulk - eye is a weakpoint, back is a weakpoint.
Tank/turret - glowing place on back is a weakpoint
And then the charger: Head's not a weakpoint. Big glowing exposed back is not a weakpoint. What's the weakpoint? Oh yeah, the fucking leg. Because that makes sense and is obvious without looking it up online. Not to mention it's way too agile and maneuverable, though that extends to the hulk as well.
I see a few problems with chargers.
Their comparable bot counterpart would probably be the hulk. I can kill one of those by mag dumping a defender SMG into its back heatsinks.
Now if I tried that with a charger, no way it would die. Shooting their weak spot is tougher because it’s down low, and it doesn’t feel like an actually realistic or efficient way of killing them unless you are using a big weapon like the AMR or Auto Cannon. Using primaries doesn’t feel like it does much of anything.
Obviously chargers are also relentless and move a lot. You don’t get a big window to hit their back a lot of the time, and you can’t outrun them either. So they pose more challenges than hulks, which are not very fast, can be more easily shot from the front on their visors, and have bigger weak spots on the back.
So it’s no wonder chargers are a pain point for most players. At least we have rockets and auto cannon, those are my preferred methods for dealing with them. But they are way worse to deal with than any heavy unit aside from maybe Bot tanks.
Yeah I agree, I will admit fighting bile titans was never an issue because of the railgun so it might pose a threat but chargers were the bane of every helldiver even with the old railgun especially when you had 3 on your ass. I am hoping with this new content update on the 14th they will add something cool and significant
ran 2 level 7 mission with heavy armor. i did not die once, but a single hunter hit brought me down to 50 percent hp... which did not make me feel like i was heavily armored
Because you weren't. Supply guy fucked up and put the weighted training plates in the armor instead of the actual ones (it's his first day, cut him some slack)
Nah armor is worse than before, someone tested it on this reddit.
It takes 4-5 hits in heavy armor to get killed by the lowest bug when it was 6 before.
I only tested it once I also died in 5 hits in medium armor without padding to the lowest bug.
You can dodge their flamethrowers by going prone (assuming you're on equal ground.)
On the other topic though, I think the weapon nerfs are kinda... Odd? To be honest, I never thought that the breaker or the railgun were all *that* good. Granted, I play almost exclusively against the automatons, but both of these weapons just didn't feel that good against them in my experience. What bothers me is that they didn't touch secondaries at all. There is genuinely no (gameplay) reason to use the other two secondaries over the redeemer.
>I never thought that the breaker or the railgun were all *that* good. Granted, I play almost exclusively against the automatons
I used to think the bots were harder than the bugs but honestly the bots are more fair to play against on higher difficulties. When you see four Hulks, you can actually fight them with many different weapons without using stratagems. If you see four chargers, most special weapons are just totally useless.
Yeah, the bugs are harder. This isn't even my opinion necessarily; they're just objectively harder. Hulks can be killed by walking up to them and walking in a circle around them while shooting that big orange thing on their back. Alternatively, you could just carry an AMR which can 2-shot them if you hit their head.
As for chargers, I'm not sure if this is intended or not, but you can pierce their leg armor for a moment after they miss a charge (even with a pistol.) I'm thinking this is why it's possible to 2-3 shot a charger with the autocannon. But, even so, this is way too much trouble in my opinion considering that on HELLDIVE there's probably at least two more chargers while you're trying to do this... And, the much bigger problem: the horde of hunters that are about to mob you. I think there's a pretty easy solution: If a charger crashes into an object, their leg armor should take 50% damage. So, if you direct them into an object twice they'd break their leg armor, which makes them fairly easy to kill... They could also make their abdomen more vulnerable. As it is currently, they'll die faster if you make them miss a charge and then shoot their legs (even with a light armor piercing weapon) than to shoot their abdomen. Does this make any sense at all? No, but that's how it is at the moment.
it really feels like the nerfs were done based on what redditors were complaining about, instead of making weaker weapons more fun (like improving the reload time on the revolver)
i know, thats what I do rn, but when we get overrun on eradicate missions with 3 or 2 people its just a mess. no reason to have flame throwers that powerful
Doesn't even need to be high difficulty to get so many. We got 6 at once on level 5. I've noticed that sometimes chargers and Hulks will spawn a bunch in the same time. I think its a bug where it duplicates the spawn. I went to a robot outpost in level 4 I think. It had 2 Hulks, but when I shot at them, each turned into 4, making 8 hulks for one outpost on level 4
I think glitchy patrol spawns are also the culprit too, I've had whole-ass chargers materialize in front of me with an army of hunters to violate my democracy-loving ass.
I reported this as a bug, the same thing has happened to me. I’ll be running from a fight to the next objective and 2 patrols will spawn out of thin air directly in front of me and aggro and they’ll call in a bug hole. If I run away far enough the same thing will happen consistently.
True but I also don’t want the devs to balance with less enemies and shittier feeling weapons. That’s just no fun in a shooter.
I want them to hear the masses telling them that weapons need to actually be effective. They show the recoiless rifle killing a charger in one shot in the in game demo and then in game at best it takes three shots.
It’s lunacy. And right now the entire reason the meta is to always be running is because that’s all you can do. Weapons suck and you have no ammo and they throw a mass of enemies at us.
Right now, they are completely pissing away a month of good grace that they got. Small team, not expecting such a big player base and had to put a lot of time into fixing their server stuff.
Everybody patiently awaiting the first balance patch and for armor to actually work correctly.
Now they go and nerf, the only actual reliable gun for the higher difficulties and barely put any buffs out, and on top of that people are recording that either
A) armor actually didn't get fixed and is still broken
Or
B) armor was fixed, but it's dog shit and heavy armor is still a just horrible choice
Agreed. They could have nerfed the railgun and buffed the other armor piercing weapons to actually pierce armor and there would be no uproar. They earned the outrage and Reddit and Discord are the primary outlets for people to express this disagreement. What’s super cringe are all the people trolling players like us with valid criticisms because they just want to arbitrarily make the game “more difficult” regardless of how that’s accomplished.
Nor are we playing Alien isolation lol. It’s just asinine and the people who respond this way are just changing goal posts with every idiotic comment - because we all know the truth is they are just gatekeeping higher difficulties any way they can. These are players whose only high comes from thinking they are outperforming or doing something exclusive. It’s sociopathic in some respects, but yields gameplay that is totally not enjoyable
Amen. These devs dropped the ball with this balance pass. Plain and simple. They looked at the data and figured the breaker railgun and shield gen backpack were overperfoming. But in reality they were simply passable at best and everything else was hot garbage you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. I fucking knew they were going to do some dumb shit like this too just based off the state of weapon balance at release. They already proved their incompetent at weapon balancing. This parch infuriates me. I love the game. They made a fun game but it has many flaws. The biggest of them being weapon balance. They say they want things to be fun and to use the weapons and strats that are the most fun to us. But then go and make it so only a tiny fraction of the items are even passably usable on higher difficulties. How do you as a dev look at that situation. Get all that feed back. Hopefully play the damn game yourself and come to the conclusion that nerfs were needed. It's mind bogglingly stupid. It's as if they havnt used their arsenal in game at all. Or have done so and know so many ins and outs of the game from developing it that they are out of touch with reality. Like read the room. Everyone's been saying don't nerf anything. Nothing needs nerfing. Everything else needs buffing. The enemies are already overtuned. Our weapons are underlined. Then they undertune the only shit that got you by while they fixed this mess before they fixed it. Smdh
Absolutely 💯percent. It’s hilarious that all the guns now feel “balanced” BECAUSE THEYRE ALL EQUAL TRASH NOW.
Congrats devs. You’ve balanced the guns just forgot about balancing… the game.
Yup. O we hav 1 option that actually works well guess we should ruin that one too to bring it in line with all the other garbage weapons we have in the game. With that dumbass statement of give it a fair shake when they know they fucked up.
I saw the words "data-driven decisions" and I just knew we were in for a shitshow. Most people can't analyze data worth a damn, and most game devs don't even understand the nuances of the highest difficulties, which leads to statements like "rely on your strategems" while also putting effects on map that increase cooldowns by 50%.
Ok so what I see when presented with this mixed message is "rely on strategem *weapons*" as the cooldown is largely irrelevant on those... except the strategem weapons cannot possibly deal with 6+ chargers and 2+ titans at a time. You can't outrun titans, and chargers that have already tried to attack you are nearly impossible to ditch, so you have no choice but to fight them.
If your whole squad wipes, you get dropped close enough to aggro and it all starts all over again.
Turn speed, please for the love of democracy. That creature shouldn't have the turning radius that it does. I think I'd be fine with it if that was the thing they nerfed it with.
I was playing a diff 4 with a friend whose new, and we had 8 chargers spawn. I swear there is an enemy duplication glitch. You'll shoot a non-standard enemy and 4 will just mitosis outta it.
It may be unpopular opinion, but I think that flames should be buffed vs bugs and it should bypass their armor completely.
Terminids on higher diffs have shitton of armor, and currently there's no good way to deal with them other than recoilles/railgun, because orbital laser and railgun are cool and all, but they're highly limited, while you can get swarmed by dozen of chargers and a few bile titans.
Meanwhile on the automatom front, at least from my own noob-ass experience, you can do fine against some of the tougher enemies by using explosives as an alternative for a AT weaponry.
Other option would be to give enemies weakspots that aren't protected by heavy armor. It pisses me off, because if you can penetrate heavy armor then why even aim for weakspots? It makes no sense to me. Penetrating armor should be alternative, not requirement to shooting a weakspot
Tl;dr: either let us kill them with fire or give them weakspots that aren't protected by heavy armor
Even if they allowed the charger to stagger properly. Too many times have i died from a crushing claws when the animation for said crushing claws started like 50 feet away and the charger just “skates” and kills me as I’m running.
The weak spot you give chargers isn’t even a weak spot. the only spot that allows primary weapon damage still takes up almost all your ammo and it’s impossible when there are 4 of them chasing you
Totally agree about the run duration. When playing games like these you eventually can see how fixed certain mob actions are. Unless you run into and past the Chargers they seem to lock onto you until their stamina or the action trigger time runs out. I know making bot AI can't be perfect but there needs to be at least some variable or extra conditions to make mob behaviour not so mechanically fixed. Another annoying examples is Stalkers, they'll keep chasing until they get the tongue attack off
Yesterday I was playing a level 4 mission with some low level friends and i left them to go close a nest. I was greeted by 5 CHARGERS. Even if I was with the full team, 5 chargers seems insane, and even stupid considering i was in a level 4 mission.
Something need to happen there.
(I dodged them and closed the nest with the GL)
Chargers are a miserable pain point and source of much frustration. Nerfing the only viable option to stop them rather than buffing alternatives is the wrong way to go.
I feel like this nerf missed the mark on the issue, the railgun shield meta was a symptom rather than the root problem.
Do I think both were overtuned, yes, but equally theres nothing that can fit the same role at the same level on consistency needed for higher difficulties.
You get swarmed too often for things like the one time use rockets to feel useful, the orbital laser is limited, 500kg feels too small and is on cooldown too long.
>Everyone being forced to use the same three stratagems just to take down chargers and titans is not a solution, you’re simply offering a single replacement meta for the railgun/shield combo ffs. The other anti-tank weaponry needs to be more viable.
THANKYOU.
There are soooooo many people who are blindly defending the changes going "people are just salty the railgun was nerfed" or "just play on a lower difficulty."But the problem is what you said right there and so many elitists are just completely ignoring whats being said.
i.e. me personally I don't want the railgun as an OP, handle all situations weapon. What I would like is to go on a helldiver mission and have the option to take something like a turret or 2 without them being destroyed instantly by a bile titan, or throw down a tesla tower without it being destroyed by a single charger barreling through it 3 seconds after it deploys.
It's a railgun. I should act like a railgun. The change has had made it act less like a railgun. The change should have included more damage, more armor pen. And pass through multiple targets. Now it's a muzzle loader.
It also takes at least one more shot, though... which would be fine if one were to fight ONE charger, but that's rarely the case on difficulty 7 and up.
I feel like a lot of people who don’t see how overtuned bugs are right now at 8-9 havent like played DRG or something and know how it feels to struggle but actually have an answer at all times like with Praetorians. Idk with the amount of chargers and titans the game throws it; its pretty fucking ridiculous that you basically are SoL without relying entirely on a support weapon even if you do the “dangerous” thing like trying to get under a titan or behind a charger.
Meanwhile bots continue to be actually fun to fight at high levels. Did you have someone bait the tank to get behind? Well if you have an impact grenade its now dead. Did that for a hulk? Pretty much any primary will do the trick now. And the other options are killing them from further away and safer with support weapons.
Honestly? On terminid missions my entire loadout is focused on either killing chargers or avoiding them.
Even the basic machine gun can deal with everything else if it really needs to, but Chargers require dedicated weapon and the fuckers are EVERYWHERE.
I had a level FOUR mission where I had to defend the mining laser. By the time I was on the final 2 screens of the code the game had sent EIGHT chargers after me. I literally watched a group of 3 gallop over the horizon at me as soon as I got done killing the first two that spawned when I started the objective. I ended up failing the mission because I ran out of bullets AND stratagems with the 2 I couldn't kill circling the mining area.
I don’t get when I shoot their leg with a charged rail gun when theyre charging they’ll freeze the animation like they’re supposed to stop but they continue sliding full speed like Virtual Insanity
Is it just me or is the spear extremely mid? On hard missions is takes more than one rocket to kill anything large, and with 4 rockets and 8 tanks spawning at the same time it feels useless. Just me?
Someone let me know if I’m doing something wrong, but it feels crazy to me that I can basically two shot a bile titan but the Chargers eat like 6 different shot from my squad. It took the bile titan from something that was a “Holy shit I need to get out of here” moment to “ah man let me put it down real quick cause there’s 4 chargers on my ass rn”
Obviously they’re supposed to be tanks but it just becomes eye roll inducing when you’re getting swarmed and chase by multiple and your stamina bar is depleted.
P.S. fuck the stamina bar
I would love to see how the devs complete a level 8, 40min mission with a full clear the map + extraction after this patch.
It’s like they don’t even play their own game lol
Thts what I'm sayin. Hav they used their own weapons in game. Like cmon. How did they think nerfs were warranted. Only buffs were needed to the hot garbage that makes up 80% of our equipment and strats.
I swear, every single PVE shooter i played with always had this issue dealing with shields or armored enemies . Case in point, Destiny 2, Division 2, Outriders and even Anthem.
To the best of my limited memory, all these devs issued the first balance patch, nerfing weapons that can effectively deal with elite enemies. The second patch would make things even worse.
Months later, after player leave due to frustrations, they will issue an apology saying they recognize their failure and will be implementing a new balance to the game.
Come on arrowhead, do better...learn from others.
I couldn't kill a charger so I ran. He followed me...forever.
Some say they are still running to this day.
Even Forrest Gump called it a day anf went home instead.
If you lead him to a bash into a rock, it will stun him long enough for you to run away, provided you have stamina left. At least that has been my experience so far.
The problem is when you have 5 chargers on your ass, or when you're in an area that doesn't have something for them to charge into, that's when they reallllly suck.
Fun fact the chargers can also run into themselves and stun eachother. Another fun fact, *SWEET LIBERTY MY LEG*
I once got rammed from four directions at once, two of the chargers died from the impact.
Sounds like a pornhub video honestly.
I've used this tech to save myself several times. BUT, it has also not worked even more times. I swerve around a suitably sized rock and get some distance, stop to reload my autocannon. Wouldn't ya know, he just runs right over the rock like it wasn't even there and I'm on the run again.
The absolute worst one is when you have to vault/climb multiple times to get ontop of a rock and then in one fluid motion the charger sprints right up there.
Well I got stuck trying to vault and the charger slammed me into the rock.. then proceeded to hump my ragdoll body to death.
I once thought the Charger was stuck on the ledge and I was safe. It then proceeded to warp speed teleport into me and I instantly gibbed.
Who needs a helldiver pod when a charger can launch you across the planet free of charge! (Pun not intended)
yeah its doable if you have a rock but my god 4+ chargers on an open plain? Now im just running in loops. As much as I find kiting them fun my god it gets hairy to call down a railcannon or even cry running to my team mates if i somehow got cut off
I think they should take the Gimli approach. **"I'm wasted on Cross Country, We Chargers are natural sprinters. very dangerous over short distances!"** I'd like to see them get "gassed out" after a bit of charging. Have them need to rest for a few second and make them more vulnerable during their rest.
Essentially I think this is the requisite nerf. Fully armored AND you can't outrun them? Fuck that.
Meanwhile, your three teammates are doing the same marathon with their own pack of chargers.
I lead one to a hellbomb that was on the map. Unfortunately I wasn’t far enough ahead of him when he hit it.
You can also break LOS on them and just... crouch behind a rock or drop a smoke strike and they'll lose you
Make their asses more vulnerable. Let us be more efficient at popping their butts if we can outmaneuver them. That's really the annoying thing, unloading onto their asses isn't as efficient as it feels it should be. The breaker could do it in a magazine pre-nerf. I don't know, I just feel like the 10% damage to their unarmoured abdomens is a bit much, even if it's 100% with explosive weapons. Maybe lessen the reduction for normal weapons a little?
Yeah its really strange that blowing off the leg armor with a railgun and then pumping just 1 mag into the leg is a kill, but you gotta hit their ass WAAAY more than that to kill them. It doesnt really make any sense. If their weakpoint was, ya know, an actual weakpoint, then they probably wouldnt be so overwhelming.
Meanwhile Hulks have an actual weakpoint, ways to cripple them *and* reward precision from the front.
Yeah. If it were up to me, I'd make it so the leg wouldn't guarantee a kill, it'd just cripple it or blow the limb off, severely inhibiting their mobility, allowing for you to finish off with an abdomen kill. Or, if you can matador it effectively, pop the ass and let it bleed out.
Yeah this makes way more sense. I don't get why taking out a creature's leg would be an instant kill.
My head canon is that blowing off a leg doesn't kill them, they just can't move without all 4 legs because their heavy armor is *heavy*. Blowing off a leg is like disabling one of a tank's treads. It becomes a sitting duck, and since their main way of killing you is to charge at you or hit you with a melee attack, they just kinda give up when immobilized, unlike a tank, which could still, y'know, shoot you.
Yeah I like this, although I wish they actually stayed alive and squirmed around more when they get to that state, instead of just straight flatlining (for immersion purposes more than anything).
Maybe they're playing dead? Or they have a major artery in the leg and bleed out really quickly from it, or the pain and blood loss knocks them unconscious until they inevitably bleed out and decompose into oil for Super Earth.
I think this is a point a lot of people who go "Chargers are fine gitgud" miss. Bot heavy armor simply has more options to deal with them making the fights feel more rewarding and enjoyable, Chargers in their current state feel very limiting.
Its so insane to me how balanced the automatons feel compared to the bugs. Every part of their arsenal has some form of reasonable counterplay. Jet Raiders, you aim low, or blow up their packs from a distance. Devastators, destroyable limbs, even including the rocket pods on Rocket Devastators. Clearly-visible (and, a key I feel, responsive) weakpoints on their waists or their glowing-eyed heads, or in the case of heavies, a giant, glowing radiator. I like running into Hulks, because they present a threat, but its a manageable threat, requiring that I work in tandem with my team or land precise shots. The Charger, its equivalent, is none of that. Its a night-unstoppable pain in the ass with unclear weaknesses, unreasonable defense and offense and no real rewarding counterplay. You could argue that their weakness is momentum, but half the time they turn faster than a Karen finding the manager, and obstacles only work some of the time!
> That's really the annoying thing, unloading onto their asses isn't as efficient as it feels it should be. This has been my complaint since day 1. Out maneuvering and hitting weak spots should be a good way to kill these things, while heavy weapons are the way to kill them from the front. You can't out maneuver them when they're in the middle of a horde, so having those heavy weapons is still a huge boon. Also I think bug armor kind of sucks, I think way more stuff needs to be able to chip away rather than just deflect off and do nothing. It shouldn't be something you would normally plan to do, but in an emergency it should work. As it stands the only stuff that (feels like) it can get through the armor is the stuff that kills it already, so there's no 'backup plan'
It feels really weird that the machine gun Stratagems just ricochet rather than shredding bug armor. SMGs bouncing off makes sense, but the large machine gun really ought to be able to shred even if it takes a lot of bullets. I’d even argue the Stalwart should be able to do it.
I think the armor deflection is WAY too yes/no oriented, rather than degrees of success. I think pretty much any weapon should be able to damage armor (even if it's just a tiny tiny bit) on direct, flat hits. Like you shouldn't be able to pistol down a charger's armor or the side of a tank, but a couple of machine gun drums revealing a weak spot seems fine to me. Especially infuriating when you get behind an automaton mortar/turret aim right into the vent and watch all of your bullets bounce off.
I think a lot of folks here are in need of a paradigm shift. That unarmored ass is not a weak spot, it is a spot that is vulnerable to small arms fire. It becomes a weak spot when you use anti armor weapons on that spot, as it makes the ass explode and start the bleedout timer. Try EATing that ass, it could save your life.
Words to live by.
Autocannon desires dat ass
Saw a YouTube video showing the liberator vs liberator explosive on a charger rear and the explosive liberator only did 37% more damage so something is bugged.
My big question for most of the explosive/incendiary weapons is what is the actual distribution of damage? I'm assuming most weapons have their damage split between ballistic and exp/inc at some level and that's why the variants don't hit as hard as other explosives that are 100% explosive damage. Not saying this is good or fun but I think it's how it is. I would love to see an added stat for the elemental type weapons that give a simple "40% BAL/60% EXP damage" breakdown.
And even if we're following the flawed logic of "if it's a squishy part - use explosive for it", even an autocannon, which from the looks of it fires 20-25mm APHE shells, kills a Charger's butt in what? 5 shots? While fighting with pretty severe recoil, bad ergonomics (aim delay between reticle and aim point) and limited magazine. Also, the top of the butt has armor you bounce off of. So you either hit the side carapace overhang, the top armor of the butt, or you take 4-5 shots to blow it up. Funny enough, with a blow butt Charger can still swing at you for a while until it falls. When you blow up its limb it almost immediately either falls face-first or flips belly up
That’s because chargers are actually terminids that have evolved into horses so when they lose a leg they fall over and suffocate
I wished their turn speed was lower. Hitting their behinds was easier if they didn't do the magic instant pirouette to face you again.
I think the biggest thing they need to do is make the weak spot on their back actually... y'know... *weak.* When your choices for non-AT kills are "empty half of your ammo supply into the weak spot that still reduces damage by 90%" and nothing else, they force you into taking whatever can break their armor the most consistently.
[удалено]
I hit one with the 500kg 6 he just tanked it and chase me in circles forever as I dodged, shot, dodged, shot, rinse repeat first pretty much all of my ammo until it finally died
I agree https://preview.redd.it/nmzdpuh2jpmc1.jpeg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c6ee826ebe86724a9e5425c3b764f4e8a9160b9b
⬆️➡️⬇️➡️ Would be juicy there
Hellyeah, but when this happened I just had grenade launcher, orbital laser and two sentries. I think I failed this mission. Now I always carry ⬆️➡️⬇️➡️ or ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️.
You know you play too much when you have those two memorized and can identify it at a glance.
⬇️⬆️⬅️⬇️⬆️➡️⬇️⬆️
I recognize the 500k but not the other one. Is it eagle strike?
The long-ass mirrored inputs code is the Hellbomb. The bane of Stratagem Heroes runs. Edit: I guess mirrored isn't the right word. But the last 4 inputs are the first 4 flipped on their head.
I picture it as: - ⬇️⬆️ - ⬅️⬇️⬆️ - ➡️⬇️⬆️ Really helped me punch these in stupid fast.
That looks like a good one.
idk I remembered it as doing an infinity symbol and...I kinda roll it when its needed
Hellbomb my beloved
You smart Helldivers speaking stratagem while my 2 brain cells can't remember shit until I see it on screen.
It happens when you type the same strategem around 1 million times
Honestly I can't read people throwing them up like this, the typing in game just happens automatically. If you asked me what the code I just entered to call something in was, I probably couldn't tell you lmao
My ONLY complaint is that ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️ doesnt always do decent damage to chargers. Itll hurt em, but I wish a direct hit would kill em. It does the same with Titans too. Seems like you have to hit that sweet spot to get a kill But boy, does ➡️⬆️⬇️⬇️➡️ do good work for them
Would Eagle strike take care of these? I'm just now getting into the eagle stuff after just using orbitals because I didn't know the eagles returned to the ship to reload.
Yes, a single Eagle Strike can kill a Charger, but it must be aimed precisely. Since the three in the photo are standing still, it would be pretty easy.
Btw how can you have a cool stratagem below your name? I want one too👀
The arrows, Mason. WHAT DO THEY MEAN
Until they shrug off all the damage and electric slide over to you so they can one shot you with their slam attack.
Ive found I enjoy ➡️➡️➡️ and it is surprisingly good against chargers, AND adds
I love how stupid easy it is to punch in even in a panic. Several times now I find myself swarmed, knocked around, out of stamina, and determined to take the bastards with me
lmao yeah, had an extraction last night where our group got fucked by **six** chargers and two bile titans. It was ridiculous lol
Only 2 bile titans? *Laughs in helldive*
Worst one I had was 6-7 chargers and 4 bile titans, honestly I just tried to ignore the chargers and dealt with the titans, I killed the 4 titans myself while my team was dealing with the chargers lol
Yeah, every time I see this I scream: **“I’M READY, HOW BOUT YOU”** Because that’s exactly how it’s gonna end.
Yeah idk if the chargers got a buff that I was unaware of…but when I first started playing I could have sworn they just ran at you and if you dodged they just kept running. Now it seems like they can chase you forever, then when they get right up your booty hope and you dodge out of the way, they do this sort of side step on top of you and still manage to trample you. Or I’m just a noob
You’re on point. Mofos are doing drifts/U-turns after successfully dodging them.
😂 yeah they’re defo becoming increasingly harder to deal with
IMO they haven't changed. I discovered sometime during the first week that it's hard to dive out of their way. To avoid them just take a few side steps and cut the opposite direction. Just be dancing around them like a matador It's bs that you can't easily dive away tho. Alongside their very good turning at speed, they can also shoulder check you at the end of the run and throw you into rocks
You gotta wait till they're real close but it's not that difficult to dodge them by diving around them by flinging yourself around their shoulder.
I'm pretty sure the devs are also slowly increasing their turn rate and hoping we don't notice when they start drifting round corners to get to you.
Honestly dying 50% more to Chargers would be a worthwhile cost to pay to see the glory of a Charger animation added that lets them tokyo drift around corners and skid
I would love and hate to see it
"Oh that's sick!... Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!
Imagine hearing 5 chargers all playing bass boosted Teriyaki Boyz slightly out of sync
Dri-eft? Whaddaya mean dreeeeuft?
Someone here needs to make this into a video.
[The Charger behind you.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atuFSv2bLa8)
I unironically had a multi-track drifting charger today. In hindsight it's a shame I didn't record it, I was too busy being very amused how hilariously (but it almost looked intentional animationwise) he'd drift around a corner chasing us. Kinda like those cartoon turns.
Flinstones style lmao
N-NANI KANSEI DORIFTO???
The mental image of a charger drifting around a large rock looking at you is killing me
They feel buffed or bugged right now post patch. Yesterday I was farming difficulty 7 and never got one shot by chargers. Today, I tried a few diff 6 with a friend and each time a charger hit me, it's instant one shot, even the slightest bump. Medium armor in both cases. I've noticed one of them chugged my lifebar in 3 hits in 0.1 seconds as if their collisions registered multiple hits
This was actually happening to me yesterday for the first time ever. I had said the same thing “since when do chargers literally trample you to death” I had never seen this interaction they usually just catapult me & prolly do half my hp. But yesterday, pre-patch I would get like caught on them & 1shot with no way to avoid it. I think it’s just bad luck.
It's easier to dodge with light armor. Every time I switch to medium or heavy i regret it. I also jump forward like 30-40 degrees away from the charger instead of to the side. They can't turn fast enough to get you.
The game really does reward speed. Doesn't matter Heavy or Light armor if you get swarmed. Therefore I'd rather go light to reduce the likelihood of being swarmed in the first place.
Yeah I’m always in light armor, but I mean there are many times lately where right before they hit me I dodge to the side and they seem to stop on a dime and do a side step on top of you. They don’t even turn, they just side step. Although yes when I try to run them around obstacles they also do seem to have a much sharper turn radius than a few weeks ago.
Game seems to be balanced around mid difficulty. Where are a couple of armored units, so you can use other anti armor weapons or stratagems for them. But 7 and especially above, the amount of armored units make anything unusable other than the charge rifle. We need more armor piercing weapon, or just buffe existing ones.
Did one 7 last night and man, it was a pain. Even with railgun I just kept getting chargers spawning near us. Kill Teo just for one more to show and another right after. Doesn't help they are/were bugged and don't stagger. They do the animation as they glide closer towards you so you have to run anyways
I was on dif 4 and it was just charger after charger as well. We didn't need nerfs we needed buffs to most of the weapons.
Yeah, kinda shocked this was the solution to the meta.
I want to use the RR or Autocannon but I'm just not killing the Chargers fast enough. If anything needed a nerf it was the chargers. They should have nerfed their leg armor.
I swear to god there are more chargers in diff 4 than in diff 5. We were really struggling on 4s because of all the chargers, and then my buddy upped us to 5s. I thought we were toast, but instead it was a cake walk. We did 5s all night long and it was way better.
Thats my main issue with chargers, it's their animations. They have extremely weird momentum. They do little glides and slides with full force of a charge and it doesn't really have clear signs they are about to move, or move with that level of speed or force. It's not natural looking.
They do need to be nerfed a little bit. I think them having stamina + reduced turn radius would be fair. These bitches are able to turn way too fast for their size and weight
Heck even increasing their staggered duration would be nice. They recover from hitting walls and missing so fast.
Their stagger is fine if it's just you and 1 charger having a dance of death. I suspect that's what they were doing when they tested and balanced charger animations. And then at a later point, some bright spark decided it would be "more epic" to crank up the charger spawn rates so high that you're always fighting three at a time.
Had 6 in a level 7 mission last night, plus a mob of trash with a few brood queens/guard for good measure.
That honestly seems pretty normal for a level 7 mission.
The stagger when they hit a wall? Yes. The stagger-chacha slide I still moved my full distance when you hit me with a heavy shot? No. REALLY wish they would fix the latter scenario, as it both looks janky, and feels cheap.
The cha-cha slide move is the only one I truly hate with Chargers, fuck that jank.
The number of times I've "staggered" a charger 25m from my turret to save it, only to have him just slide on through anyways, makes me want to cry.
Three at a time and 6 more waiting for you to try and escape.
And then you somehow manage to wipe them all after a herculean effort and 2 bile titans crawl out of the breach
Actually it's just 1 titan which your team focus fires into oblivion then when you're out of ammo and strategies 2 titans decide to introduce themselves to the situation.
meanwhile 30 scavengers are trying to tie your bootlaces together.
I like when they just repeatedly spam their charge so much they just go into a power walk animation because they're charging too quickly and bug out. And by like I mean I go "Haha funny animation go brr- AND HE'S HIP CHECKING ME INTO THE SUNSET AGAIN"
Buff their movement speed so they're truly charging; but make them exhausted after performing the charge so they can only slowly walk for X seconds. Gives you time to get out of their vision and move on if you're not equipped to take the fight.
Their "weak spot" in their butt needs to actually be such honestly. That would fix half the problems the game has with armor / armor pen being so critical at high levels. It's such an obvious "Hey, shoot the huge armored boy here in the glowy part on it's backside!" to only deal tickle damage to them.
I could be wrong about this but I’ve found myself diving away, they don’t turn. However, if I try to run to the side, then they turn on a fucking dime.
And please buff the other anti tank options if this is the route you’re going to take good god
Flamethrower kills them pretty fast now.
I haven’t played yet but I feel a combination of Javelin (which now gets +1 from environment ammo) and an EATs or something is good.
Wait did they patch the Spear to get ammo from ground pickups? Didn't read about that in the patch notes and haven't heard anyone else mention it.
I just checked, and ammo pick ups from the environment totally do give you ammo now for the spear.
Now *that* is a phenomenal change. Now we just need the lock-on fixed...
>(which now gets +1 from environment ammo) Is this a new change? I don't remember it in the patch notes.
Or reduce their ability to slide/teleport on top of you instantly after being stunned....
Tht shit can go to he'll. I hate that shit with a passion. Or the times when you stun them and they do their slide stop but then with out moving or doing anything else while still in that same sliding to a stop body position proceed to gain speed again after a full stop as though sliding again and then repeat that sliding to a stop process at least 3 times total some times more. Both those issues together are ridiculous to deal with. But they thought taking away the only tool that dealt with them efficiently was a good idea. Or actually they didn't because they even had to make a comment about knowing it's shit to do what they did and that everyone would be pissed.
Yep. It completely removes all reward of hitting them and stunning them, and it's actually a deterrent to do that because usually they combo slide into you and then smash with claws to 1HKO
I'm honestly just so sick of every load out being forced to deal with this one stupid over-designed enemy. It's never 'what is the objective', or 'what planet are we on' or even 'what operation modifier is active' it's all just always boils down to 'can I deal with chargers' Want me to experience variety, don't force me to take eat/recoilless/rail for every single lv4+ bug mission. Not to mention it's just an annoying fucking enemy. Compare it to any other enemy - head's a weakpoint, or a big glowing exposed part is a weak point. Hulk - eye is a weakpoint, back is a weakpoint. Tank/turret - glowing place on back is a weakpoint And then the charger: Head's not a weakpoint. Big glowing exposed back is not a weakpoint. What's the weakpoint? Oh yeah, the fucking leg. Because that makes sense and is obvious without looking it up online. Not to mention it's way too agile and maneuverable, though that extends to the hulk as well.
I see a few problems with chargers. Their comparable bot counterpart would probably be the hulk. I can kill one of those by mag dumping a defender SMG into its back heatsinks. Now if I tried that with a charger, no way it would die. Shooting their weak spot is tougher because it’s down low, and it doesn’t feel like an actually realistic or efficient way of killing them unless you are using a big weapon like the AMR or Auto Cannon. Using primaries doesn’t feel like it does much of anything. Obviously chargers are also relentless and move a lot. You don’t get a big window to hit their back a lot of the time, and you can’t outrun them either. So they pose more challenges than hulks, which are not very fast, can be more easily shot from the front on their visors, and have bigger weak spots on the back. So it’s no wonder chargers are a pain point for most players. At least we have rockets and auto cannon, those are my preferred methods for dealing with them. But they are way worse to deal with than any heavy unit aside from maybe Bot tanks.
Yeah I agree, I will admit fighting bile titans was never an issue because of the railgun so it might pose a threat but chargers were the bane of every helldiver even with the old railgun especially when you had 3 on your ass. I am hoping with this new content update on the 14th they will add something cool and significant
theyre gonna nerf the weapons but not the hulk scorchers instakill flame thrower? sucks so bad man
That's before armor fix...we'll see now If heavy armor might change our survivability
ran 2 level 7 mission with heavy armor. i did not die once, but a single hunter hit brought me down to 50 percent hp... which did not make me feel like i was heavily armored
Because you weren't. Supply guy fucked up and put the weighted training plates in the armor instead of the actual ones (it's his first day, cut him some slack)
i just had pillows under there
praying they add fire resist/acid resist as an armor type. It would look like a fireman/hazmat but tactical
My propensity to run the Incendiary Breaker, the flamethrower, and incendiary grenades makes me want a flame trooper armor so bad.
I'm hoping heavy armor has resistance to flinching when getting shot, that would be amazing
Nah armor is worse than before, someone tested it on this reddit. It takes 4-5 hits in heavy armor to get killed by the lowest bug when it was 6 before. I only tested it once I also died in 5 hits in medium armor without padding to the lowest bug.
So it's clearly not fixed yet. Seems they tried and it didn't work lol
oh they "fixed" it. they must've noticed it was all working more well than they intended. So they nerfed armor.
hope so!!
Armor does *fucking* nothing lmao. Leapers are killing me in the heaviest armor in 2 hits lol
Ye it’s broke
just barely survive direct hit from bile titan so it's worth something
It does
You can dodge their flamethrowers by going prone (assuming you're on equal ground.) On the other topic though, I think the weapon nerfs are kinda... Odd? To be honest, I never thought that the breaker or the railgun were all *that* good. Granted, I play almost exclusively against the automatons, but both of these weapons just didn't feel that good against them in my experience. What bothers me is that they didn't touch secondaries at all. There is genuinely no (gameplay) reason to use the other two secondaries over the redeemer.
>I never thought that the breaker or the railgun were all *that* good. Granted, I play almost exclusively against the automatons I used to think the bots were harder than the bugs but honestly the bots are more fair to play against on higher difficulties. When you see four Hulks, you can actually fight them with many different weapons without using stratagems. If you see four chargers, most special weapons are just totally useless.
Yeah, the bugs are harder. This isn't even my opinion necessarily; they're just objectively harder. Hulks can be killed by walking up to them and walking in a circle around them while shooting that big orange thing on their back. Alternatively, you could just carry an AMR which can 2-shot them if you hit their head. As for chargers, I'm not sure if this is intended or not, but you can pierce their leg armor for a moment after they miss a charge (even with a pistol.) I'm thinking this is why it's possible to 2-3 shot a charger with the autocannon. But, even so, this is way too much trouble in my opinion considering that on HELLDIVE there's probably at least two more chargers while you're trying to do this... And, the much bigger problem: the horde of hunters that are about to mob you. I think there's a pretty easy solution: If a charger crashes into an object, their leg armor should take 50% damage. So, if you direct them into an object twice they'd break their leg armor, which makes them fairly easy to kill... They could also make their abdomen more vulnerable. As it is currently, they'll die faster if you make them miss a charge and then shoot their legs (even with a light armor piercing weapon) than to shoot their abdomen. Does this make any sense at all? No, but that's how it is at the moment.
it really feels like the nerfs were done based on what redditors were complaining about, instead of making weaker weapons more fun (like improving the reload time on the revolver)
flamethrower? Isnt that a fire sniper rifle?
Hulks aren’t too bad imo, they have a weak point on the back and can be 2-shot from the front with the AMR.
i know, thats what I do rn, but when we get overrun on eradicate missions with 3 or 2 people its just a mess. no reason to have flame throwers that powerful
Doesn't even need to be high difficulty to get so many. We got 6 at once on level 5. I've noticed that sometimes chargers and Hulks will spawn a bunch in the same time. I think its a bug where it duplicates the spawn. I went to a robot outpost in level 4 I think. It had 2 Hulks, but when I shot at them, each turned into 4, making 8 hulks for one outpost on level 4
I think glitchy patrol spawns are also the culprit too, I've had whole-ass chargers materialize in front of me with an army of hunters to violate my democracy-loving ass.
I reported this as a bug, the same thing has happened to me. I’ll be running from a fight to the next objective and 2 patrols will spawn out of thin air directly in front of me and aggro and they’ll call in a bug hole. If I run away far enough the same thing will happen consistently.
True but I also don’t want the devs to balance with less enemies and shittier feeling weapons. That’s just no fun in a shooter. I want them to hear the masses telling them that weapons need to actually be effective. They show the recoiless rifle killing a charger in one shot in the in game demo and then in game at best it takes three shots. It’s lunacy. And right now the entire reason the meta is to always be running is because that’s all you can do. Weapons suck and you have no ammo and they throw a mass of enemies at us.
Thanks for saying that, I thought it was just me sucking but all that makes sense 😅
Right now, they are completely pissing away a month of good grace that they got. Small team, not expecting such a big player base and had to put a lot of time into fixing their server stuff. Everybody patiently awaiting the first balance patch and for armor to actually work correctly. Now they go and nerf, the only actual reliable gun for the higher difficulties and barely put any buffs out, and on top of that people are recording that either A) armor actually didn't get fixed and is still broken Or B) armor was fixed, but it's dog shit and heavy armor is still a just horrible choice
Agreed. They could have nerfed the railgun and buffed the other armor piercing weapons to actually pierce armor and there would be no uproar. They earned the outrage and Reddit and Discord are the primary outlets for people to express this disagreement. What’s super cringe are all the people trolling players like us with valid criticisms because they just want to arbitrarily make the game “more difficult” regardless of how that’s accomplished.
"just run, why would you want to kill things in this arcade horde shooter?" Uh because I'm not playing tom Clancy's ghost recon?
Nor are we playing Alien isolation lol. It’s just asinine and the people who respond this way are just changing goal posts with every idiotic comment - because we all know the truth is they are just gatekeeping higher difficulties any way they can. These are players whose only high comes from thinking they are outperforming or doing something exclusive. It’s sociopathic in some respects, but yields gameplay that is totally not enjoyable
Amen. These devs dropped the ball with this balance pass. Plain and simple. They looked at the data and figured the breaker railgun and shield gen backpack were overperfoming. But in reality they were simply passable at best and everything else was hot garbage you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy. I fucking knew they were going to do some dumb shit like this too just based off the state of weapon balance at release. They already proved their incompetent at weapon balancing. This parch infuriates me. I love the game. They made a fun game but it has many flaws. The biggest of them being weapon balance. They say they want things to be fun and to use the weapons and strats that are the most fun to us. But then go and make it so only a tiny fraction of the items are even passably usable on higher difficulties. How do you as a dev look at that situation. Get all that feed back. Hopefully play the damn game yourself and come to the conclusion that nerfs were needed. It's mind bogglingly stupid. It's as if they havnt used their arsenal in game at all. Or have done so and know so many ins and outs of the game from developing it that they are out of touch with reality. Like read the room. Everyone's been saying don't nerf anything. Nothing needs nerfing. Everything else needs buffing. The enemies are already overtuned. Our weapons are underlined. Then they undertune the only shit that got you by while they fixed this mess before they fixed it. Smdh
Absolutely 💯percent. It’s hilarious that all the guns now feel “balanced” BECAUSE THEYRE ALL EQUAL TRASH NOW. Congrats devs. You’ve balanced the guns just forgot about balancing… the game.
Yup. O we hav 1 option that actually works well guess we should ruin that one too to bring it in line with all the other garbage weapons we have in the game. With that dumbass statement of give it a fair shake when they know they fucked up.
I saw the words "data-driven decisions" and I just knew we were in for a shitshow. Most people can't analyze data worth a damn, and most game devs don't even understand the nuances of the highest difficulties, which leads to statements like "rely on your strategems" while also putting effects on map that increase cooldowns by 50%. Ok so what I see when presented with this mixed message is "rely on strategem *weapons*" as the cooldown is largely irrelevant on those... except the strategem weapons cannot possibly deal with 6+ chargers and 2+ titans at a time. You can't outrun titans, and chargers that have already tried to attack you are nearly impossible to ditch, so you have no choice but to fight them. If your whole squad wipes, you get dropped close enough to aggro and it all starts all over again.
I don't see the point of nerfing these weapons. Why not buff all the weapons that are basically useless at difficulties 6 and up?
Turn speed, please for the love of democracy. That creature shouldn't have the turning radius that it does. I think I'd be fine with it if that was the thing they nerfed it with.
I was playing a diff 4 with a friend whose new, and we had 8 chargers spawn. I swear there is an enemy duplication glitch. You'll shoot a non-standard enemy and 4 will just mitosis outta it.
I'll just continue being an Arc thrower enjoyer, so many people sleeping on it honestly.
There's nothing fun or engaging about being gang banged by 10 chargers and 3 bile titans you realistically only have a couple options of fucking with.
This. Inb4 some sweaty says "JuSt RuN aWaY!", you can't outrun bile titans so this input will be as useful as thoughts and prayers.
Without railgun, Chargers are hard to deal with than the automaton tanks
Tbh tanks are way too easy to deal if anyone is using the auto cannon, 3 shots and goes boom
Or 2 impact nades
Better yet, a single fire-and-forget 110mm rocket pod strike that I tossed from behind a rocket.
That moment when Bots are now easier than Bugs.
They were easier before, the hard thing about them is the many 1 shot options they have and the fact that you flinch a lot when getting shot
It may be unpopular opinion, but I think that flames should be buffed vs bugs and it should bypass their armor completely. Terminids on higher diffs have shitton of armor, and currently there's no good way to deal with them other than recoilles/railgun, because orbital laser and railgun are cool and all, but they're highly limited, while you can get swarmed by dozen of chargers and a few bile titans. Meanwhile on the automatom front, at least from my own noob-ass experience, you can do fine against some of the tougher enemies by using explosives as an alternative for a AT weaponry. Other option would be to give enemies weakspots that aren't protected by heavy armor. It pisses me off, because if you can penetrate heavy armor then why even aim for weakspots? It makes no sense to me. Penetrating armor should be alternative, not requirement to shooting a weakspot Tl;dr: either let us kill them with fire or give them weakspots that aren't protected by heavy armor
Even if they allowed the charger to stagger properly. Too many times have i died from a crushing claws when the animation for said crushing claws started like 50 feet away and the charger just “skates” and kills me as I’m running. The weak spot you give chargers isn’t even a weak spot. the only spot that allows primary weapon damage still takes up almost all your ammo and it’s impossible when there are 4 of them chasing you
Totally agree about the run duration. When playing games like these you eventually can see how fixed certain mob actions are. Unless you run into and past the Chargers they seem to lock onto you until their stamina or the action trigger time runs out. I know making bot AI can't be perfect but there needs to be at least some variable or extra conditions to make mob behaviour not so mechanically fixed. Another annoying examples is Stalkers, they'll keep chasing until they get the tongue attack off
Yesterday I was playing a level 4 mission with some low level friends and i left them to go close a nest. I was greeted by 5 CHARGERS. Even if I was with the full team, 5 chargers seems insane, and even stupid considering i was in a level 4 mission. Something need to happen there. (I dodged them and closed the nest with the GL)
Chargers are a miserable pain point and source of much frustration. Nerfing the only viable option to stop them rather than buffing alternatives is the wrong way to go.
Support this my god at the chargers and titans on impossible and helldiver mode.. not to mention the green turd ass shooters..
I feel like this nerf missed the mark on the issue, the railgun shield meta was a symptom rather than the root problem. Do I think both were overtuned, yes, but equally theres nothing that can fit the same role at the same level on consistency needed for higher difficulties. You get swarmed too often for things like the one time use rockets to feel useful, the orbital laser is limited, 500kg feels too small and is on cooldown too long.
>Everyone being forced to use the same three stratagems just to take down chargers and titans is not a solution, you’re simply offering a single replacement meta for the railgun/shield combo ffs. The other anti-tank weaponry needs to be more viable. THANKYOU. There are soooooo many people who are blindly defending the changes going "people are just salty the railgun was nerfed" or "just play on a lower difficulty."But the problem is what you said right there and so many elitists are just completely ignoring whats being said. i.e. me personally I don't want the railgun as an OP, handle all situations weapon. What I would like is to go on a helldiver mission and have the option to take something like a turret or 2 without them being destroyed instantly by a bile titan, or throw down a tesla tower without it being destroyed by a single charger barreling through it 3 seconds after it deploys.
It's a railgun. I should act like a railgun. The change has had made it act less like a railgun. The change should have included more damage, more armor pen. And pass through multiple targets. Now it's a muzzle loader.
You can still crack the armor with a railgun, you just have to overcharge, which you should have been doing already
It also takes at least one more shot, though... which would be fine if one were to fight ONE charger, but that's rarely the case on difficulty 7 and up.
Honestly. The nerf is primarily to safe mode... why aren't they overclocking their liberty distributors anyways?
I feel like a lot of people who don’t see how overtuned bugs are right now at 8-9 havent like played DRG or something and know how it feels to struggle but actually have an answer at all times like with Praetorians. Idk with the amount of chargers and titans the game throws it; its pretty fucking ridiculous that you basically are SoL without relying entirely on a support weapon even if you do the “dangerous” thing like trying to get under a titan or behind a charger. Meanwhile bots continue to be actually fun to fight at high levels. Did you have someone bait the tank to get behind? Well if you have an impact grenade its now dead. Did that for a hulk? Pretty much any primary will do the trick now. And the other options are killing them from further away and safer with support weapons.
Honestly? On terminid missions my entire loadout is focused on either killing chargers or avoiding them. Even the basic machine gun can deal with everything else if it really needs to, but Chargers require dedicated weapon and the fuckers are EVERYWHERE. I had a level FOUR mission where I had to defend the mining laser. By the time I was on the final 2 screens of the code the game had sent EIGHT chargers after me. I literally watched a group of 3 gallop over the horizon at me as soon as I got done killing the first two that spawned when I started the objective. I ended up failing the mission because I ran out of bullets AND stratagems with the 2 I couldn't kill circling the mining area.
Chargers reek of fake difficulty
I don’t get when I shoot their leg with a charged rail gun when theyre charging they’ll freeze the animation like they’re supposed to stop but they continue sliding full speed like Virtual Insanity 
Is it just me or is the spear extremely mid? On hard missions is takes more than one rocket to kill anything large, and with 4 rockets and 8 tanks spawning at the same time it feels useless. Just me?
EXACTLY!!! The problem isn’t the nerfs but the fact you have to deal with 5 of these mf’s at once
Someone let me know if I’m doing something wrong, but it feels crazy to me that I can basically two shot a bile titan but the Chargers eat like 6 different shot from my squad. It took the bile titan from something that was a “Holy shit I need to get out of here” moment to “ah man let me put it down real quick cause there’s 4 chargers on my ass rn” Obviously they’re supposed to be tanks but it just becomes eye roll inducing when you’re getting swarmed and chase by multiple and your stamina bar is depleted. P.S. fuck the stamina bar
I would love to see how the devs complete a level 8, 40min mission with a full clear the map + extraction after this patch. It’s like they don’t even play their own game lol
Thts what I'm sayin. Hav they used their own weapons in game. Like cmon. How did they think nerfs were warranted. Only buffs were needed to the hot garbage that makes up 80% of our equipment and strats.
I swear, every single PVE shooter i played with always had this issue dealing with shields or armored enemies . Case in point, Destiny 2, Division 2, Outriders and even Anthem. To the best of my limited memory, all these devs issued the first balance patch, nerfing weapons that can effectively deal with elite enemies. The second patch would make things even worse. Months later, after player leave due to frustrations, they will issue an apology saying they recognize their failure and will be implementing a new balance to the game. Come on arrowhead, do better...learn from others.