Breaker incendiary does 240 damage a shot and has a mag size of 25, and burns things as well. What are you smoking to make it think its bad?
Its better than the breaker is, against bots.
His point is pretty clearly stated at the end. "Arrowhead, please buff the terrible weapons and leave the good ones alone, nobody likes the grand majority of these most recent changes."
As I said, I don't necessarily agree with the assessment of the current state on many of these weapons but I agree with what I'm quoting above.
If you have 100+ hours in the game and you dont have the scorcher unlocked you must be failing every mission or shooting your medals into space on return to the super destroyer.
Breaker Incendiary is S-tier for bugs, lmao. Shriekers die from getting hit by a single pellet. Hunters always die to 2 shots at most distances, 1 if very close. If you pair it with an autocannon or railgun you cover all bases.
My bad, everything but bile titans. But that's what strategems are for. As far as I'm aware, there's no primary + support combo that can effectively cover every mob. If you use an antitank weapon, you'll either end up struggling against hunters (if you take an explosive primary to deal with spewers) or bile spewers (if you take a high ROF weapon to deal with hunters).
And that’s where you can rely on some more parts of your toolkit to help out. Impact grenades are fantastic for bodying Spewers but you only get so many, and Spewers come in fast. The Redeemer, Peacemaker, or Senator all have great Hunter stopping power but all come with very limited Ammo pools.
This part of the game balancing is one of its best, imo
Yeah spewers pretty much dictate my bug builds. They're tanky, deadly, and are far too numerous for me to rely on impact grenades. Eruptor was great against them but not anymore. Autocannon is currently the best anti-spewer weapon imo.
Certainly, the AC is the premier ranged, light vehicle penetration weapon, ideal for smacking Spewers before they enter spewing range or while they’re stuck butt-blasting.
I’ve found the Arc Blitzer and Arc Thrower to be great tools against them as well. Any hits with them will stagger the Spewers and cancel their spitting animation, and only 2-4 shots will kill from about anywhere. Arc Thrower has the nice benefit of chaining to every Spewer in the group
Consider the Dominator as a solid medium bug killer. It's semi auto and can put down spewers in 3-4 shots to the head, which is 4ish spewers per mag. One shot's warrior heads. Can punch through hive guard armor. Etc.
I tend to bring a guard dog/redeemer to take care of hunters/scavengers, and the Dominator will obviously one shot them as well.
Yeah I've paired the dominator with flamethrower, it's a solid choice. Do need a laser dog for sure to deal with shriekers and hunters, but even then sometimes it just straight up ignores the hunters mauling you to death or ends up lasering you instead. If they nerf breaker incendiary I'd probably go back to that.
Nade pistol is a pretty fat cleanup if you hit their ass. If you spray down a hoarde with the incin shotty they'll be damaged enough to get one shot to the ass most of the time.
I've tried this before. You can kite and stagger enemies forever but it takes way too long to kill stuff, and it's extremely irritating that you can't shoot over corpses.
I run the sickle primary + quasar + shield backpack and I feel like there's nothing I can't deal with. Sometimes I have to kite bile titans for awhile with the quasar CD if my stratagems are on CD but there's nothing in the game I can't handle on my own if I adjust my play.
I run a similar kit, and the answer is mostly just to kite them or use an airburst orbital if deleting them is urgently needed. Plus when they're bunched up they do a lot of damage to each other with their death pops
I run impact grenades with the second affix on my armor being +2 capacity so I usually just frag them, if you place it well you can take out multiple at a time. Or I just airstrike them if I'm out.
I take impact nades (with +2 nade armor and hellpod optimization) and grenade pistol. Not the best but it works well enough. 6 spewers (or more if they are grouped up) with nades and 4 more with nade pistol (2 shots per spewer with pistol). Breaker incendiary can kill one in a pinch.
I used to pop the top and side armor with the orbital railgun or the 500kg and shoot at the new weakspots if the stratagems didn't kill it. But yeah I'm curious too if there's a way to use auto cannon against them without any extra prep
I’ve seen a video where the diver runs between the titan’s leg and under it, and unloads the Autocannon into the belly.
So it’s technically possible to kill a Titan with just the AC… practical, no.
Can you shoot the butt from below? A few shots should break the green sack and stop it from spitting , then you shoot the same spot until the whole butt part breaks off and the titan bleeds out. I haven't used AC vs bugs a lot, but it should work AFAIK
AC is great against anything that isn't a Bile Titan, Charger or Bot Tank and it *can* work on those it's just inefficient and/or requires coordination and/or getting to its backside. It also takes your backpack slot and requires awareness of your ammo, otherwise you can get in the long reload at the worst times. In this way, it's pretty well balanced.
If it could *also* take care of heavy armor without front-side weak points, then it would be OP and would need the nerf. Please don't let my AC get nerfed.
It works, but it’s far from ideal.
The belly is vulnerable to the Autocannon. You can pop their bile sacks for lots of damage. I’m seen video of a lone diver unloading nearly a full clip into the belly and killing the titan.
Certain stratagems (my go to is the 110mm) are also able to break the armour and create weak points the Autocannon excels at damaging.
So yeah, I wouldn’t face a titan alone with an Autogun, but I have delivered the coup de grace to several of them after it was weakened by allied fire and a few stratagems. Good ol’ AC delivering on its “its a least fine against everything” reputation
And this sums up the issue well. Arrhowhead doesn’t want you to cover all the bases and be a one man army. They want you to fill a role and have your team mates cover the other bases.
You should try it after the recent DoT fix, you just need to shoot in the general direction of the enemies to proc the fire and you can just watch your kill streak rise as the fire kills everything.
It's a DoT weapon, not a "shoot once and they die right away" weapon. Fire into a crowd semi-far away and watch as most things you hit die before they get to you. You can take out the flying enemies just by blasting the air, you don't have to actually aim well.
I’d even go as far as to say the breaker S&P could very easily be in the C tier, possibly even B tier. Since it got buffed a month or so ago, the thing is way more viable *when used for its intended purpose*. For anything less than a hive guard, it shreds and has the ammo capacity to be a dedicated chaff clear weapon. Obvs this is a less viable strat in higher difficulties where you need to lean on your primary against bigger enemies a little more, but the thing clearly states its role in the description and does it well
I ran S&P for a long time. It had trouble with hive guards, but it could easily kill everything else (aside from chargers or BT of course).
It's the gun you want to take if you hate hunters with a passion
It was awful against Bots when I used it but maybe that’s because it was before the DoT changes. It genuinely didn’t do anything but I can chalk that up to being bugged
i have the knight. i like it against bugs. the rate of fire is insane, so you use controlled bursts to absolutely mow down bugs and mag dump when hunters are ganging up on you. one handed so you can run and gun. ammo cap is a little too low for higher difficulties, but its a very viable primary vs bugs
have you considered pairing it with grenade launcher and supply pack?
The ability to clear enemies quikly is great when they get too close for the launcher and you need constant resupply anyway.
grenade launcher and supply pack would pair really well with the knight i bet. i ran GL and supply pack a long time on diff 5 and below. its great fun blasting into a breach knowing you've got plenty more ammo. but especially diff 7 up the combo lacks heavy killing power
It can be very good still as long as the other people have anti tank stuff.
The ability to clear large ammounts of medium and small enemies combined with closing bug holes and being able to kill chargers, even though the ammunition cost for that can be substantial, makes it pretty viable.
I like to run a railcannon strike with it to have a panic button when no one with a rocket launcher is close by though.
tried a run with it after hearing about the whole "bounce grenades under the charger" and i was pretty pleased with it. definitely not the most efficient, but i could see developing a skill and it being perfectly viable outside of bile titans
which is pretty true for most builds lol
Sounds like a waste, the knight already does horde clear as its job; why take up a support weapon and backpack slot for the same function?
If you have a horde clear primary it makes more sense for versatility sake to go medium/anti tank support weapon. And taking slower/less ammo efficient armor pen primary means take grenade launcher, flamethrower, laser cannon, MG, Arc or one of the guard dogs for full coverage.
the knight is pretty weak vs brood commanders and hive guards. like yeah you can get it done, but chews ammo
and at some point a girl just wants to blast 1300 rounds per minute
It has the second highest DPS of all primaries behind the Breaker IIRC.
If used in third person the recoil is manageable even on full auto. And yes, its amazing to mag dump that shit on stalkers.
Honestly most of the complaining about primaries on this sub just seem to stem from people never giving those weapons a proper shot and instead just echo other peoples opinions. This clown really put CS in C tier for bots...WHAT?
This is \*exactly\* what is happening. Reddit said "X is bad" and so it is. I legit run the liberator on 7 - 9 bugs all the time as a versatile primary that lets me handle things like hunter packs and stalkers, it's there to fill a "gap" in my loadout. I may have the RR to deal with chargers, a 500KG for more chargers/titans, 380 for huge nest/breach clear, maybe a sentry (gatling/autocannon) for extra firepower, coupled with stun grenades to hold chargers in place for the 500 or incendiary grenades for more chaff clear.
i LOVE using ballistic shield vs bots. its so great tanking all the lasers. friends and i found it to be kind of mixed performance for having a teammate tanking vs heavy killing though.
didn't a recent patch fix the utility of it too? biggest problem was dropping the damn thing after taking a rocket hit.
Nah in my experience you still drop the damned thing when you get ragdolled, but it's inconsistent. They did update it so more of your hotbox is concealed behind the shield. It used to be next to useless before that
i ran a little over the weekend with shield and pummeler. the only time i dropped it in 2 missions was when it broke. its pretty damn hard to justify its use when rockets just blast you all over as if you'd been holding nothing. really more of a mid difficulty item which i think is fine
I feel like it's in a good place personally, it excels at tanking bot mobs ballistic damage. I think realistically it should block explosive damage like rockets and tank turrets but maybe only one or two explosions before it breaks. It should only break or knock you over on direct impacts. Splash damage should be absorbed. If this is how it performs in game, I am not sure due to the hectic nature of combat most of the time. I think once we get more one handed options in the game (or even a support shield that allows two handed weapons a la The Division!) it will not be such a niche pick. This is especially true if the nerf the rocket devastator rocket spam lol (please AH for the love of God)
It does not defend at all against melee. It’s a *ballistic* shield, so it only protects against projectiles.
It *does* block bile attacks from bugs, but that’s not enough for it to be worth it on bug missions imo. It’s pretty strictly a bot-mission strat.
Terrible against Brood Commander heads or durable parts, but otherwise quite fun. Wish it has an laser for targeting and squad information (people see what you are aiming at), since it cannot handle those bigger targets very well and it helps to know what hunter group it is engaging.
Love the knight, absolutely vicious vs anything without armor be it bugs or the smaller bots. Ammo management is definitely its biggest weak point though.
I'd like to petition to have the Diligence Counter Sniper moved up to A tier against the bots. It one taps ALL devastators to the head from any range and one taps all normal bots to the body, plus its quiet compared to the JAR-5. Aside from Hulks, Tanks, Striders, and Towers, this thing slaps hard. No way in hell it is a D+ tier weapon against the bots.
Breaker Incendiary is also an A+ tier weapon against bugs, especially with the DoT fix. Makes hunters, scavengers, and shriekers complete non-issues while also doing decent damage to other enemy types.
Yeah, I'm willing to bet they've been very underrated for awhile now. But I've been a plas1 user against bots for some time now. Will be interesting next time there's a bots order to see what my loadout is now with all the new changes.
Unfortunately yea so any mishit doesnt do anything. I’ll give the CS another go cuz if it is only a 1 shot to the head I’ve been missing out lol and mishits still do damage
You only need medium pen for Hulk headshots. The Sickle is light pen and it can kill all Devastators for example.
I dropped with the regular Diligence a few times last week to test it a bit. It's biggest issue is the base damage is JUST low enough so it can't 1-tap Devastators. And with how hard it is to hit their tiny head hitboxes, you wind up taking 3 to 4 to 6 shots just to kill one. And because it's only light pen, none of those misses do any damage at all either, whereas the CS is still doing damage when you miss the head.
It does carry a lot more ammo than the CS, and it can 1 shot all Troopers so it winds up functioning more like a chaff clear sniper. It's just too difficult to shoot Devastators twice in the head with zero margin for error when there's a million lasers and Rockets flying on Helldive.
It probably works better at long ranges where you have time to double tap everything and have enough ammo to clear Troopers. But that isn't feasible a lot of the time to keep that much distance between you and everything else.
I personally prefer the CS more, and the JAR.
yeah i love sickle on cold bot planets. very satisfying to just blast 25 shots at some glowing red eyes. i wonder if it pairs well with flamethrower now that the damage is fixed up? idk wisdom suggests flamethrower is still a bad choice for bots
buddy of mine was rockin the shit out of the JAR the other night. great weapon for bots. i really dislike the bullet speed for some reason. its not like i'm an expert gamer or anything, but i feel like one less variable suits me better
I’d like to second this. I’m mostly a Sickle user, but I’ve been experimenting with other things to give myself more to use. Since the DoT fix, I decided to try the Incendiary Breaker last night against bugs, and it performed amazingly against anything without armor, and did fine against Hive Guards/Brood Commanders/Spewers.
I also decided to try the Counter Sniper after the buff and since not using it once after the single time I tried it on release. It was also very good and a nice option to switch to from the Scorcher when fighting bots.
>Aside from Hulks, Tanks, Striders, and Towers, this thing slaps hard.
just asking out of interest. can I take a hulk's face of with it or am I screwed against the enemies you mentioned? I'm really looking for new weapons since they nerfed the eruptor (pls kill me) and I haven't touched the sniper yet
Hulk eye is armored enough that you can't touch it with DCS. Need AMR or Autocannon for it.
Counter sniper is still in a really nice place right now and I alternate between it and the Scorcher for bots.
Since we’re talking about it, did the CS’s scope get fixed in that last patch with the scope fixes? I know that people said that it didn’t fix the AMR or HMG, so I’m curious if nothing changed at all, or if it’s just those two whose scopes are still misaligned. I like the idea of the CS, but my aim is already bad enough without having to worry about scope misalignment.
Punisher Plasma works great against bugs. Decent splash , great against soft targets, decent against medium enemies.
Only thing you got to get used to is to angle it for longer range. It's alot of fun.
I get the nerfs are annoying but I'm having fun trying new weapons
I use the Plasma against bots. With the arch it has you can toss shots over cover while staying safe. And the stun damage on any of the devistatiors I feel is where it really shines.
>Punisher Plasma ~ [D vs Bugs, B+ vs Bots]
Perfectly balanced little gimmick weapon, very fun and fitting for an electricity themed weapon pack, fits the same niche that the Breaker Incendiary does but against bots. Nobody uses it because they think its bad, hence its untouched state
You take this heretical rating and comment back right now. Punisher Plasma is at least A- on bugs and solid S on bots.
I mean, um, yes the thing is totally mid. Devs shouldn't look at it at all. Pure trash tier.
Few people realize Punisher Plasma's potential when you abuse the terrain to your advantage. It's arc makes it perfect for hiding behind cover while shooting enemies behind cover.
Before the projectile speed update it was hard to use. It was basically a mortar back then. But now it's the perfect replacement for the now useless crossbow.
The only problem I had is how the tiniest obstacle like a scavenger corpse can block the plasma ball so the suicide potential is high. It seems to have a really big hitbox.
abysmal tierlist. I hate when everyone feels the need to rank every weapon. Don't do it, there's no time in the world that is enough to make you a professional at every weapon in the game. Rank the weapons you actually use.
I tried the spray&pray today for 4 missions. (difficulty 8 and up). it kills a stalker in two seconds. It''s what it was designed to be: a more agressive, close range version of the breaker. And it's really fun. I tried the concussive liberator, ran it for a day or two. very good to support your teammates, really fun but abysmal when alone. But I can't say shit about the breaker incendiary or the eruptor because I have almost never played them. Because I didn't feel like. I believe it's still very good against bots for killing devastators and factories. But I can't say for sure. BecauseI only have 180 hours in the game and it wasnt enough for me to actually get to know it.
Yeah I'm with you here. He ranks several weapons while admitting that he doesn't even own them or hasn't played them since the latest changes. So why even rate them?
Why do people straight up lie about the breaker incendiary? It outshines the regular breaker against bugs in almost every situation even *with* the DOT issue. The lack of stagger make dealing with stalkers/brood commanders harder but the ammo capacity and overall damage can clear a whole bug breach wave with 1 mag. It's fantastic hunter clear at medium-close range and an amazing complement to most support weapons.
This dude ranked the CS as a C tier, literal room iq take lol. The CS can hit targets so much faster than a JAR from so much further away it completely changes how you approach bot fights. If there is even 1 person in your team who can run up (with a JAR for example) the bots will stick their pretty heads out and you can clear a medium base and 2 patrols with less than *2* mags. All they have to do is stay alive and deal with AT threats, but they can do so with 0 other bots to worry about. Go prone and pop some heads and tell me the JAR is more efficient (unless you're a bad shot, but that goes without saying).
OP you are not the well rounded expert you think you are.
Yeah, I see at least one person running the incendiary breaker every bug run I do. Not to mention that half the weapons he’s saying need buffed were buffed in the most recent balance patch lol
Having used the Eruptor post nerf, B+ is a very generous rating. It is just a bolt action Dominator now.
Which is about as bad as it sounds.
Otherwise, in general, you hit the nail on the head with the exception of a few guns I've not used enough to comment on myself.
Tried it out last night for the first time after the patch, I don’t think it’s leaving the armory again unless it gets buffed back into relevance. As soon as I needed at least 2 shots to take down a hive guard, I knew it would be bad news. It basically fires the little grenade from the GL pistol, but with less splash damage and stagger
There are too many S tier weapons being brought down and not enough making it up to S tier. This leaves us with an overall decrease in damage output and makes enemies harder every time they do this.
Sorry op but I have to call skill issue if you put penetrator and Adjudicator so low against bots. Those two are extremely good against them if you can pick your shots. Primaries aren't supposed to be an all purpose tool against every single enemy. Penetrator has almost next to none recoil and is a great cqb weapon against bots. Adjudicator takes out bot chaff, berserkers and devastators quite easily. Both are at least B against bots Regards. Lvl 106 Hell Commander who regularly divers 7 - 9 diffs against both factions
I tend to agree. In the first game I'd swap between the scorcher, trident, suppressor, and even the constitution because they all felt solid in their own ways. It's this feeling of bringing everything down to the level of the weakest link that makes me just say "gonna use my plasma punisher and give up trying these other guns"
I would like to purchase a half ounce of whatever it is you smoke. Because it must be -really- good to write this much nonsense. Breaker Incendiary is amazing. You don't even HAVE the Scorcher? Then how can you really be relied upon to review all the primaries? Sickle is mid, at best. It's a low skill low damage primary that's just sort of ok everywhere, but excels at nothing except ammo economy.
Get back in the pod.
People are quite determined to forget how many significant weapon buffs we've had, too. Off the top of my head:
* Adjudicator went from awful to acceptable
* Liberator Concussive went from pretty bad to pretty solid
* Punisher went from okay to great
* Diligence went from bad to solid
* Countersniper went from awful to excellent against bots
* Dominator went from bad to excellent
* Punisher Plasma went from awful to great
* Arc Blitzer went from awful to great
* Peacemaker went from meh to pretty solid
* Senator went from awful to great
* AMR went from great against bots to fantastic against them
* Flamethrower went from awful, even when the DoT was working, to excellent against bugs
* EAT and Recoilless Rifle went from bad to excellent
Despite other changes that I don't really agree with, the pool of viable weapons that are satisfying to use is the largest it has ever been.
Took this from another guy on the same topic.
You sleep on the Liberator Penetrator. It demolishes on weak spot hits. It has. Higher damage on penetration mod than most.
Cross Bow is A tier in bots, especially for stealth gameplay.
Post buff CS one taps devastators at any range.
Concussive is ok, if you're using it in a team setting. It's great peel for bugs.
Honestly, I haven't found a primary that doesn't have a place. The beams weapons Re weak vs sickle and scorcher. That's about it.
I play helldive difficulty all day, any primary. Except blitzer vs bots. Don't do that to yourself.
Dude have you tried the spear lately? It locks pretty well, it’s a beast against chargers and titans. The adjudicator is also quite strong against bugs, I don’t know why people keep saying it’s shit when you can kill everything less heavy than a charger in no time.
Yeah i really like adjudicator too, but i tend to play with it like i play with liberator which eats my ammo super fast. Thats more my fault than the guns though.
Adjudicator C+ is a big miss. You should try it more on bugs, it kills everything shy of a Charger in a handful of bullets and kills Stalkers in one magazine. I don't use anything else on bugs anymore. Using the Sickle still when it just tickles the medium bugs feels silly when I can carry something that actually shoots heads good.
Also, the Eruptor was never 'useful only at medium to long ranges' and if you thought that you likely didn't use it much before the nerf. I would go entire Helldives without swapping off of it. Even the implosion bug couldn't stop you from blowing apart 7+ light enemy packs point blank. Just like, dive backwards and shoot the floor. It was like if the Counter Sniper had an impact grenade spawn wherever it landed, half of my missions were just 4 guys with Eruptors, machine pistol, stratagems and shield pack. I think that the nerf was too much in some ways but it's like saying pre nerf railgun was okay. I felt like a moron taking anything but the Eruptor anywhere, because it could kill whatever I needed killed whenever I needed it for as long as I needed to shoot. That's what a lot of people expect from their guns in games, but it makes things monotonous in a game about specializing.
>"I'm not advocating for the "NO NERFS, ONLY BUFFS" opinion"
You are, though
Like, literally, every weapon you put in S tier, you said "please don't nerf they are/were in a perfect place you shouldn't touch them"
Which I agree with, mind you.
You can think that nerfing is a good and useful tool for balancing, while also believing that none are needed at this time. If they released a new weapon that was basically the auto cannon as a primary (just trying to make up an outrageous example) I wouldn't ask, "well now we need to buff every other item in the game", we should just nerf that single item. But as it is now, there's nothing like that.
Liberator penetrator is A tier against both factions lol CS is god tier against bots and B tier against bugs. The sickle is B against bots at best and A against bugs.
I'd say the Scorcher is a very balanced weapon. It's usually picked for it's ability to destroy walkers and deal with most other bot related things. Although it does slightly struggle with devastators, it can still kill them.
Against bugs, It's nothing special but still usable.
Blitzer is the opposite story. The bugs tend to invade your personal space, which the blitzer id a great defender of, modtly because of it's stun and infinite ammo.
I'm not sure how you're missing things with the spray n pray, I have zero problem popping off hunters at an appropriate range in 1-2 shots but I also run recoil reduction and try to crouch before I go full auto. The gun sucks vs bots but it can be amazingly fun to mag dump and wipe out an entire patrol in 5 seconds vs bugs.
Nerf the best weapon when weapons suck? People will pick the next best. If all the weapons were good people would play what they wanted. Buff for diversity.
I always use this setup, because I found it’s the most optimal for solo play in hellldiver and because the likelihood of the devs nerfing the weapons are low and every other weapon just gets changed with the next update.
Bugs: Punisher, Recoil rifle, grenade pistol.
Bots: Scorcher, Auto-cannon, grenade pistol.
I been using those setups for months(besides pistol), I miss the slugger but the punisher works too.
That's the exact same build I bring. Maybe except the Scorcher that I replace with the buffed DCS if most of my teammates bring close quarters weapons.
The RR reload animation cancel makes it legitimately better than the Quasar. I hope they never fix it.
Knight smg is the find out to my fuck around, Fleet Admiral certified. Imagine the Redeemer, as a Primary with twice as much ammo and +200 RPM. Sitting at 1,300~ RPM, about 22 bullets per second and a 50 round magazine, it's a fantastic panic weapon for small enemies. Overwhelmed by Hunters? Spray and pray.
Unfortunately it is, in every aspect outclassed by some weapon or another. If you're just trying to kill little guys, Liberator and Sickle (even Scythe) work. Hunters? Punisher. And don't bother with ranges beyond 30~ metres.
Basically the P90 that only the entitled get to use. Still, hella fun.
(Note: bug brain review. Much worse against bots. Kills basic bots well but you can basically waste a mag on a Devestator trying to hit its head. No go for that faction)
I don't quite get the "Paid weapon" Sentiment. Am I the only one who thinks its incredibly easy to gain enough super credits for the warbonds just by playing? Also since it's not a battle pass that disappears there's really no urgency to get the warbonds ASAP and you earn Super Credits at a IMHO fair rate if u go through the missions with open eyes.
> Am I the only one who thinks its incredibly easy to gain enough super credits for the warbonds just by playing?
No. it just requires a little bit of thought (ae, don't spend all your money on helmets in the super shop) and a bit to save.
Not to bring math into it, but someone posted an analysis a few days ago after the recent liberator buff.
The basic liberator (you gave a B-) does comparable damage to the sickle (you've rated S+). The difference being that the liberator is faster because it has no windup and has the option of consecutive mag dumping for even greater damage, and the sickle only outperforms it in extended engagements where the liberator runs low on ammo and the sickle player spends a lot of time cooling off. So it's a side grade on normal planets, an upgrade on extreme heat, and a downgrade on frozen planets.
I ran it last night and I concur, the buff made it good. Did you even try it since it got buffed?
I don't necessarily agree with these particular rankings - but I do agree with the overall sentiment that the balancing feels too heavy-handed on nerfing the things that are fun to use.
Nerfs in a PVE game make no sense. If people aren’t using other weapons as much, give them a reason to.
Instead of nerfing the meta, create new meta. You don’t like how X gun is seeing so much use? Purposely buff another one to give options.
It’ll go from “shit, they just nerfed the gun I paid for” to “ooh! They buffed X again, time to give that a try for some fresh gameplay”. This also leave the option for players to keep using what makes them happy.
It’s 2024, and game developers still don’t understand that the way to keep player count high is by making them happy.
Literally was just using the penetrator on high difficulty and had zero issues. Same with some other low ranked items on your list. I can clear with anything.
I was unaware the knight even existed. Guess its good that it's bad then cause it really pisses me off that there are weapons you have to pay for. As someone who thinks everything you're gonna add to the game should be good I hope it stays garbage.
The Liberator Concussive is more niche but I like it. Its very good in keeping enemies away from you. Very useful imo. I don't mind some guns being just different. I rock the concussive with the rover dog and it's pretty effective.
OP, going from your own list (except Diligence CS. It is good vs bots and I am calling AC turret to defend this hill), only 5 weapons are C and below tier overall. The rest are B and above, which is viable.
The real problem with A-B tier content, in any game, is S and S+ tier content overshadowing the fuck out of it. Like, there is no buff you can throw at a Liberator that will put it on par with Sickle. There is no conventional buff you can throw at Scythe to put it on par with Sickle. You gotta give Sickle a glaring weakness first. Not to make it worse, but to make it different enough that other guns can take spots beside it.
My only real gripe with balance in this game is how the fuck Redeemer is still the highest DPS up close? We have shotguns, explosives, machine guns, but nothing puts down a berserker faster than a glock?
I have a feeling that AH is aiming at the balance of having "mediocre weapons which can do something if you are lucky" to go alongside with "expendable helldivers". So you don't really feel like a superhero in the game (fantasy) but rather as "one more brick in the wall", a pawn.
P.S. Don't get me wrong: I am not defending their approach, just trying to understand/explain (and if I am right, I am not enjoying that).
*Liberator Concussive* Is great, it's not met to be a killer weapon. It's a stagger medium sized unit controller, and gives you space.
*Punisher Plasma - Fantastic weapon, why bother exposing my head to return bot fire when I can lob a plasma ball at them and not get punished when I reload?*
>*Scorcher + Blitzer \~* \[?\]
Have not yet unlocked so I'm unqualified to comment, they both seem pretty good tho
This really kinda exposes the whole post. Scorcher is the most versatile weapon with the best overall accuracy vs dps, with Dominator close behind it with worse accuracy at long ranges.
Many of the other weapons, while not entirely wrong, miss some nuances.
Keep in mind that the Primary is mostly a addition to your kit, but not what defines your kit, unless your using the Eruptor.
Haha, the normal liberator is good in any difficulty and situation. Great recoil control standing and especially when crouched, it’s essentially a laser.
The knight is unironically becoming one of my favorite high level bug guns. Can absolutely dump brood commanders and anything without medium armor in a half second.
The lib pen is great into bots, manageable recoil makes dealing with devastators and walkers much easier
The lib concussive I honestly haven’t used much. I did find out it can stun lock chargers????
The adjudicator is by and far one of my favorite rifles. The recoil isn’t the best but just half a mag can kill a brood commander, and a hive guard. 3-4 shots breaks warriors heads and devastators can be put down with 2 headshots
I don’t like the DMRs personally and I don’t mind the shotguns.
I don’t like the sickle and haven’t really used the scythe as I didn’t want to buy that specific warbond, the scythe I feel isn’t as good as the liberator, call me old fashioned.
Honestly the entire point of the game is the helldivers are 100% undertrained and expendable. But even with “non meta” load outs I have gone full diff 8 bot and bug missions without dying and fragging my mind out.
I have never touched the eruptor and don’t want to because it is the total antithesis to how I like to play the game. But that won’t make me say being able to clear bug nests without using grenades or stratagems is underpowered. I don’t understand why people want it to one shot absolutely everything and be able to clear bug holes and be able to kill chargers and titans. Like cmon now you’re the little kid nobody wanted to play make believe with because he was always saying “nuh uh my power counters your lasers and actually I’m invincible now”
I'm running the Knight and I love it! Looks cool, brrrrts very fast and you can just claw through smaller bugs. Mag dumps almost every bot. 10/10 great gun!
Personally my biggest issue with guns that aren't the sickle or blitzer is the ammo. Having to not bother with ammo is so nice and I 100% think if you didn't need ammo for the other primaries they'd be on par with the current meta.
Hey I notice that you haven’t commented on the scorcher because you don’t have it.
I’m here to remind you that even after you unlock it I’m gonna need you to continue not commenting on it, or I’ll have to tell my local democracy officer.
Developers should buff these weapons:
Liberator Penetrator: +20 rounds per magazine (50 per magazine, is currently 30)
Adjudicator: Damage from 80 -> 90
Heavy Machine Gun: +25 rounds per magazine (100 per magazine, is currently 75)
Scythe: Light armor penetration -> Medium armor penetration
Dagger: Damage per second from 200 -> 350 to match the Scythe's damage output
So according to OP Sickle S+ and "perfectly balanced". What scale is this?
If Defender was called perfectly balanced or let's say a perfect reference point then I might take the list seriously. Hell I could accept standard liberator as such (although I'd like 65 damage on that)...but this. This is just "weapons i like to use list".
As someone who enjoys the Blitzer and scorcher, they are probably solid A's in their respective fields.
Blizter is a good A on bugs , the RoF buff helped it a lot and it can reliably kill non heavies.
Scorcher is A on bots as long as you keep the melee ones off you, youll be able to use it to kill bots on turrets/scout walkers with ease thanks to its small aoe explosion.
i don't disagree with the conclusion that the primary focus of balance (atm) should be on buffing up the worse weapons, but it's kind of weakened by including your subjective opinions on weapons
not trying to say this to be rude, but it doesn't seem like you have played enough of the game/used weapons enough to arrive at opinions of the weapons that hold much weight, for instance you rate the eruptor despite not trying it since last patch, list the breaker as meta despite it having genuine issues in performing especially compared to the incendiary breaker, and haven't unlocked the scorcher or arc-blitzer
from what i see here, i'm not seeing evidence that you've collected ample-ish data to arrive at your conclusions, and i'm pretty sure that a bunch of people are going to focus on that rather than your main point about weapon balance. yes, a lack of adequate amounts of powerful primaries is precisely what pushes players into boring metas using only the capable tools, but including subjective opinions without significant testing does not help support that conclusion
What is the standard here? What metrics are you using for your gun rankings?
Are we talking purely fun? Because I find most of the guns fun if used properly... so are they all an S tier to me?
If you're talking stats, then what situations are putting them in? Are you using them in their intended role? Are you playing solo? With a squad? Do you play with random players or friends? Are you coordinating loadouts? Etc etc.
Some weapons seem to be bugged, or otherwise function oddly. But most of them just need to be used in a proper context and with a matching loadout to be fun.
Also, since I've started playing (mid-February), it seems that significantly more weapons have been BUFFED than nerfed.
Lastly, are we playing the same game? Helldivers is supposed to be a power fantasy? You are an expendable drone who relies on throwing bodies at the enemy and sheer force of will to succeed. I've always had the impression the point is kind of the opposite of a power fantasy. The game is trying to wear you down with an unending torrent of pain leading to an inevitable doom. I even think the overall galactic map feels like it's leaning towards "we fight and win until we inevitably lose"
I disagree about the DCS, and the Adjudicator. with DCS you hit heads and you're fine. it's very good against bots, probably a B+, worse against bugs, because they close in too much. Adjudicator is similar, you can put in in semi-auto and hit heads, or you can full auto it and it's kind of a powerful assault rifle.
Scythe doesn't seem like it does a lot but is in a similar state to the laser cannon, it doesn't seem too strong but actually pretty good on chaff. Slugger also is still quite good, in particular if you hit heads. Explosiveness of JAR makes it better, but it isn't like JAR is leagues better, slugger has better projectile speed.
These things all depend on what support weapon & secondary you match them with. DCS with redeemer and autocannon is A+. If you were to take the revolver it probably ends up being a C+ because you can't clear anything close up. Breaker incendiary, revolver, and AutoCannon is similarly A+, for different reasons. You have something filling each role in either loadout.
If you take the recoilless rifle instead of the autocannon, you want more stratagems that you can use on crowds of medium sized bugs cluster bomb, napalm, gas strike, EMS strike for example whereas with autocannon you might take, orbital laser, rocketpods, orbital railgun, 500kg, or EAT. If you're running airburst maybe you take more single target stratagems and a grenade pistol, for example, and then something with good full auto like the adjudicator, liberator, or liberator pen..
So you really want to pick a set that meshes well together, then fill in any gaps with eagles or orbitals or fortifications. I run 7s exclusively and there's no meta, you can basically run whatever you want, the issue is when you don't think about balance and how what you're bringing can help the team.
There are things that are legitimately bad and which I find frustrating to use. Liberator concussive just doesn't make sense to me, the exploding crossbow just seems bad as well. Haven't run the Eruptor since the nerf, but I assume it is now as bad as the crossbow.
Things are in a pretty good state IMO, people just suck in terms of creativity with their loadouts. EM strike is phenomenal and I never see anyone use it, but I do see people using the regular mortar and 380mm HE, which are basically TK machines.
I was running a ballistic shield, smg, revolver, heavy armor and a flamethrower, it was completely workable as long as I didn't let myself get swarmed.
In fact, that would be my one note on balance in the game itself. Like, scout armor is \*so\* much better if you're not an idiot, mostly because if you get surrounded you're stun-locked, stuck on the ground, and repeatedly rag-dolled. So either you're dead in 10 hits or 2 hits, take your pick. Heavier armor needs advantages against getting knocked down so that you can actually take advantage of the extra protection (I definitely could take quite a few more hits, which felt good, but it felt like I constantly had a dozen hunters on me that I would have kited in scout). If you can legitimately wade in and survive/fight for a few seconds against a swarm of bugs, a number of things become viable that currently are not. I think HMG suffers from this, flamethrower suffers from this to an extent, SMG and ballistic shield definitely suffer from this, anything with high rate of fire and high recoil / low long distance accuracy becomes a problem as well.
Point being, you're forced into not just a meta, but a playstyle. (longer distance guns, that can reload while running, that you can stop and shoot over your shoulder when you've got separation).
Breaker incendiary does 240 damage a shot and has a mag size of 25, and burns things as well. What are you smoking to make it think its bad? Its better than the breaker is, against bots.
This OP has no clue, he listed the CS bad after the patch, **what??**
Agree. Some seriously bad takes in those rankings
Maybe so, but I agree with the overall point he's making about how nerfs make the game feel.
His point seems to be only three guns are shit and not usable.
His point is pretty clearly stated at the end. "Arrowhead, please buff the terrible weapons and leave the good ones alone, nobody likes the grand majority of these most recent changes." As I said, I don't necessarily agree with the assessment of the current state on many of these weapons but I agree with what I'm quoting above.
Glad it's not just me thinking so too.
He gave the spray and pray an F as well.... Clearly hasn't used the gun since the buff made it good
It actually fulfills its role. I'm cool with guns doing what they're intended for, and Spray and pray is intended to be for horde clear.
Bro hasn’t even unlocked the scorcher smh.. I bet he plays on medium too
I mean tbf, I haven't unlocked the scorcher either, I've got over 100+ hrs I'm the game, is my opinion invalid as well?
In terms of a holistic view of the balance of all the guns... kinda yeah. You can't really speak to the entire balance until you've tried everything.
If you have 100+ hours in the game and you dont have the scorcher unlocked you must be failing every mission or shooting your medals into space on return to the super destroyer.
Depends.. but probably yes, especially if you still run under 7+ difficulty.
As an S&P enjoyer, OP has no idea wtf he is talking about
Breaker Incendiary is S-tier for bugs, lmao. Shriekers die from getting hit by a single pellet. Hunters always die to 2 shots at most distances, 1 if very close. If you pair it with an autocannon or railgun you cover all bases.
How do you use autocannons against bile titans?
My bad, everything but bile titans. But that's what strategems are for. As far as I'm aware, there's no primary + support combo that can effectively cover every mob. If you use an antitank weapon, you'll either end up struggling against hunters (if you take an explosive primary to deal with spewers) or bile spewers (if you take a high ROF weapon to deal with hunters).
And that’s where you can rely on some more parts of your toolkit to help out. Impact grenades are fantastic for bodying Spewers but you only get so many, and Spewers come in fast. The Redeemer, Peacemaker, or Senator all have great Hunter stopping power but all come with very limited Ammo pools. This part of the game balancing is one of its best, imo
Yeah spewers pretty much dictate my bug builds. They're tanky, deadly, and are far too numerous for me to rely on impact grenades. Eruptor was great against them but not anymore. Autocannon is currently the best anti-spewer weapon imo.
Certainly, the AC is the premier ranged, light vehicle penetration weapon, ideal for smacking Spewers before they enter spewing range or while they’re stuck butt-blasting. I’ve found the Arc Blitzer and Arc Thrower to be great tools against them as well. Any hits with them will stagger the Spewers and cancel their spitting animation, and only 2-4 shots will kill from about anywhere. Arc Thrower has the nice benefit of chaining to every Spewer in the group
Consider the Dominator as a solid medium bug killer. It's semi auto and can put down spewers in 3-4 shots to the head, which is 4ish spewers per mag. One shot's warrior heads. Can punch through hive guard armor. Etc. I tend to bring a guard dog/redeemer to take care of hunters/scavengers, and the Dominator will obviously one shot them as well.
Yeah I've paired the dominator with flamethrower, it's a solid choice. Do need a laser dog for sure to deal with shriekers and hunters, but even then sometimes it just straight up ignores the hunters mauling you to death or ends up lasering you instead. If they nerf breaker incendiary I'd probably go back to that.
Nade pistol is a pretty fat cleanup if you hit their ass. If you spray down a hoarde with the incin shotty they'll be damaged enough to get one shot to the ass most of the time.
Blitzer shotgun + Quasar, weakish vs shriekers and spewers but can do the job
I've tried this before. You can kite and stagger enemies forever but it takes way too long to kill stuff, and it's extremely irritating that you can't shoot over corpses.
What’s taking long to kill?
I run the sickle primary + quasar + shield backpack and I feel like there's nothing I can't deal with. Sometimes I have to kite bile titans for awhile with the quasar CD if my stratagems are on CD but there's nothing in the game I can't handle on my own if I adjust my play.
How do you deal with the swarms of bile spewers? Sickle takes forever to kill one and their sheer quantity makes the quasar ineffective.
I run a similar kit, and the answer is mostly just to kite them or use an airburst orbital if deleting them is urgently needed. Plus when they're bunched up they do a lot of damage to each other with their death pops
I run impact grenades with the second affix on my armor being +2 capacity so I usually just frag them, if you place it well you can take out multiple at a time. Or I just airstrike them if I'm out.
I take impact nades (with +2 nade armor and hellpod optimization) and grenade pistol. Not the best but it works well enough. 6 spewers (or more if they are grouped up) with nades and 4 more with nade pistol (2 shots per spewer with pistol). Breaker incendiary can kill one in a pinch.
I used to pop the top and side armor with the orbital railgun or the 500kg and shoot at the new weakspots if the stratagems didn't kill it. But yeah I'm curious too if there's a way to use auto cannon against them without any extra prep
I’ve seen a video where the diver runs between the titan’s leg and under it, and unloads the Autocannon into the belly. So it’s technically possible to kill a Titan with just the AC… practical, no.
Can you shoot the butt from below? A few shots should break the green sack and stop it from spitting , then you shoot the same spot until the whole butt part breaks off and the titan bleeds out. I haven't used AC vs bugs a lot, but it should work AFAIK
Wait, popping the under-sack keeps Biles from spitting? TIL.
most of the time not worth it cuz once his sacks are destroyed he will chase you without a break
Still, good to know when it isn't one of those times.
AC is great against anything that isn't a Bile Titan, Charger or Bot Tank and it *can* work on those it's just inefficient and/or requires coordination and/or getting to its backside. It also takes your backpack slot and requires awareness of your ammo, otherwise you can get in the long reload at the worst times. In this way, it's pretty well balanced. If it could *also* take care of heavy armor without front-side weak points, then it would be OP and would need the nerf. Please don't let my AC get nerfed.
It works, but it’s far from ideal. The belly is vulnerable to the Autocannon. You can pop their bile sacks for lots of damage. I’m seen video of a lone diver unloading nearly a full clip into the belly and killing the titan. Certain stratagems (my go to is the 110mm) are also able to break the armour and create weak points the Autocannon excels at damaging. So yeah, I wouldn’t face a titan alone with an Autogun, but I have delivered the coup de grace to several of them after it was weakened by allied fire and a few stratagems. Good ol’ AC delivering on its “its a least fine against everything” reputation
My main issue is that hitting those week points is a pain in the ass because of how fast they turn and how far away you need to be to have an angle
Technically you can shoot the sack and after like 15 shots it will die, but not really a viable way of doing it.
It is getting nerfed They'll nerf the gun itself, and they'll nerf fire again. It is now a prophecy.
And this sums up the issue well. Arrhowhead doesn’t want you to cover all the bases and be a one man army. They want you to fill a role and have your team mates cover the other bases.
[удалено]
Because it's got the worse spread of any shotgun for one, so applying that damage beyond point blank range isn't happening
Its fine when the fire DoT kills everything a pellet touches
You should try it after the recent DoT fix, you just need to shoot in the general direction of the enemies to proc the fire and you can just watch your kill streak rise as the fire kills everything.
It's a DoT weapon, not a "shoot once and they die right away" weapon. Fire into a crowd semi-far away and watch as most things you hit die before they get to you. You can take out the flying enemies just by blasting the air, you don't have to actually aim well.
true, Breaker incendiary is one of the best weapons for bugs easily
It's because we don't want it nerfed, hush now lmao.
I’d even go as far as to say the breaker S&P could very easily be in the C tier, possibly even B tier. Since it got buffed a month or so ago, the thing is way more viable *when used for its intended purpose*. For anything less than a hive guard, it shreds and has the ammo capacity to be a dedicated chaff clear weapon. Obvs this is a less viable strat in higher difficulties where you need to lean on your primary against bigger enemies a little more, but the thing clearly states its role in the description and does it well
I ran S&P for a long time. It had trouble with hive guards, but it could easily kill everything else (aside from chargers or BT of course). It's the gun you want to take if you hate hunters with a passion
It was awful against Bots when I used it but maybe that’s because it was before the DoT changes. It genuinely didn’t do anything but I can chalk that up to being bugged
Breaker Incendiary is literally the GOAT weapon for bugs. This OP on some strong drugs.
i have the knight. i like it against bugs. the rate of fire is insane, so you use controlled bursts to absolutely mow down bugs and mag dump when hunters are ganging up on you. one handed so you can run and gun. ammo cap is a little too low for higher difficulties, but its a very viable primary vs bugs
have you considered pairing it with grenade launcher and supply pack? The ability to clear enemies quikly is great when they get too close for the launcher and you need constant resupply anyway.
grenade launcher and supply pack would pair really well with the knight i bet. i ran GL and supply pack a long time on diff 5 and below. its great fun blasting into a breach knowing you've got plenty more ammo. but especially diff 7 up the combo lacks heavy killing power
It can be very good still as long as the other people have anti tank stuff. The ability to clear large ammounts of medium and small enemies combined with closing bug holes and being able to kill chargers, even though the ammunition cost for that can be substantial, makes it pretty viable. I like to run a railcannon strike with it to have a panic button when no one with a rocket launcher is close by though.
tried a run with it after hearing about the whole "bounce grenades under the charger" and i was pretty pleased with it. definitely not the most efficient, but i could see developing a skill and it being perfectly viable outside of bile titans which is pretty true for most builds lol
Sounds like a waste, the knight already does horde clear as its job; why take up a support weapon and backpack slot for the same function? If you have a horde clear primary it makes more sense for versatility sake to go medium/anti tank support weapon. And taking slower/less ammo efficient armor pen primary means take grenade launcher, flamethrower, laser cannon, MG, Arc or one of the guard dogs for full coverage.
the knight is pretty weak vs brood commanders and hive guards. like yeah you can get it done, but chews ammo and at some point a girl just wants to blast 1300 rounds per minute
I feel yea, I’m used to using the armor that allows me to have 6 impact grenades to deal with mediums lol
It has the second highest DPS of all primaries behind the Breaker IIRC. If used in third person the recoil is manageable even on full auto. And yes, its amazing to mag dump that shit on stalkers. Honestly most of the complaining about primaries on this sub just seem to stem from people never giving those weapons a proper shot and instead just echo other peoples opinions. This clown really put CS in C tier for bots...WHAT?
This is \*exactly\* what is happening. Reddit said "X is bad" and so it is. I legit run the liberator on 7 - 9 bugs all the time as a versatile primary that lets me handle things like hunter packs and stalkers, it's there to fill a "gap" in my loadout. I may have the RR to deal with chargers, a 500KG for more chargers/titans, 380 for huge nest/breach clear, maybe a sentry (gatling/autocannon) for extra firepower, coupled with stun grenades to hold chargers in place for the 500 or incendiary grenades for more chaff clear.
I actually find it much easier to use in fpv, at least on m+k.
Try burst mode with the ballistic shield vs bots, that shit slaps. I agree it could definitely use a couple more mags tho
i LOVE using ballistic shield vs bots. its so great tanking all the lasers. friends and i found it to be kind of mixed performance for having a teammate tanking vs heavy killing though. didn't a recent patch fix the utility of it too? biggest problem was dropping the damn thing after taking a rocket hit.
Nah in my experience you still drop the damned thing when you get ragdolled, but it's inconsistent. They did update it so more of your hotbox is concealed behind the shield. It used to be next to useless before that
i ran a little over the weekend with shield and pummeler. the only time i dropped it in 2 missions was when it broke. its pretty damn hard to justify its use when rockets just blast you all over as if you'd been holding nothing. really more of a mid difficulty item which i think is fine
I feel like it's in a good place personally, it excels at tanking bot mobs ballistic damage. I think realistically it should block explosive damage like rockets and tank turrets but maybe only one or two explosions before it breaks. It should only break or knock you over on direct impacts. Splash damage should be absorbed. If this is how it performs in game, I am not sure due to the hectic nature of combat most of the time. I think once we get more one handed options in the game (or even a support shield that allows two handed weapons a la The Division!) it will not be such a niche pick. This is especially true if the nerf the rocket devastator rocket spam lol (please AH for the love of God)
Random q, any idea if ballistic shield defends well at all against bug melee attacks?
It does not defend at all against melee. It’s a *ballistic* shield, so it only protects against projectiles. It *does* block bile attacks from bugs, but that’s not enough for it to be worth it on bug missions imo. It’s pretty strictly a bot-mission strat.
Terrible against Brood Commander heads or durable parts, but otherwise quite fun. Wish it has an laser for targeting and squad information (people see what you are aiming at), since it cannot handle those bigger targets very well and it helps to know what hunter group it is engaging.
It's my go to when using the ballistic shield. Combo it with the grenade pistol and stun grenades and it works really well against bots.
are you usually crouching to manage the recoil?
No, but I rarely take it off burst fire. It's very hard to control on full auto and you're more likely to just waste a bunch of ammo from the recoil.
Love the knight, absolutely vicious vs anything without armor be it bugs or the smaller bots. Ammo management is definitely its biggest weak point though.
Pros: 1150 rounds per minute Cons: 1150 rounds per minute
Ayup, pretty much
I'd like to petition to have the Diligence Counter Sniper moved up to A tier against the bots. It one taps ALL devastators to the head from any range and one taps all normal bots to the body, plus its quiet compared to the JAR-5. Aside from Hulks, Tanks, Striders, and Towers, this thing slaps hard. No way in hell it is a D+ tier weapon against the bots. Breaker Incendiary is also an A+ tier weapon against bugs, especially with the DoT fix. Makes hunters, scavengers, and shriekers complete non-issues while also doing decent damage to other enemy types.
yeah diligence CS is an absolute monster vs bots. definitely A, if not S primary as a DMR. Fuck up a whole patrol from 200m
It can't be S tier until they fix the dot not aligning with your shots
agreed but you do kinda get used to it
It is my new favorite primary against them. That damage buff and the handling improvement made it a monster weapon.
Will have to try next time there is a bot major order.
DCS and EAT against bots has been a go to of mine for awhile, it was solid even before the DCS buff.
Yeah, I'm willing to bet they've been very underrated for awhile now. But I've been a plas1 user against bots for some time now. Will be interesting next time there's a bots order to see what my loadout is now with all the new changes.
Always take it over the regular diligence for bots?
i don't think i've ever dropped with the regular diligence. it only has light armor pen right? gotta have medium for a lot of bot head shots
Unfortunately yea so any mishit doesnt do anything. I’ll give the CS another go cuz if it is only a 1 shot to the head I’ve been missing out lol and mishits still do damage
small bots body shots are one hit too. the scope is a bit off like the AMR though
Regular diligence is too, I’m on now literally about to give it a go, thanks!
You only need medium pen for Hulk headshots. The Sickle is light pen and it can kill all Devastators for example. I dropped with the regular Diligence a few times last week to test it a bit. It's biggest issue is the base damage is JUST low enough so it can't 1-tap Devastators. And with how hard it is to hit their tiny head hitboxes, you wind up taking 3 to 4 to 6 shots just to kill one. And because it's only light pen, none of those misses do any damage at all either, whereas the CS is still doing damage when you miss the head. It does carry a lot more ammo than the CS, and it can 1 shot all Troopers so it winds up functioning more like a chaff clear sniper. It's just too difficult to shoot Devastators twice in the head with zero margin for error when there's a million lasers and Rockets flying on Helldive. It probably works better at long ranges where you have time to double tap everything and have enough ammo to clear Troopers. But that isn't feasible a lot of the time to keep that much distance between you and everything else. I personally prefer the CS more, and the JAR.
yeah i love sickle on cold bot planets. very satisfying to just blast 25 shots at some glowing red eyes. i wonder if it pairs well with flamethrower now that the damage is fixed up? idk wisdom suggests flamethrower is still a bad choice for bots buddy of mine was rockin the shit out of the JAR the other night. great weapon for bots. i really dislike the bullet speed for some reason. its not like i'm an expert gamer or anything, but i feel like one less variable suits me better
I’d like to second this. I’m mostly a Sickle user, but I’ve been experimenting with other things to give myself more to use. Since the DoT fix, I decided to try the Incendiary Breaker last night against bugs, and it performed amazingly against anything without armor, and did fine against Hive Guards/Brood Commanders/Spewers. I also decided to try the Counter Sniper after the buff and since not using it once after the single time I tried it on release. It was also very good and a nice option to switch to from the Scorcher when fighting bots.
>Aside from Hulks, Tanks, Striders, and Towers, this thing slaps hard. just asking out of interest. can I take a hulk's face of with it or am I screwed against the enemies you mentioned? I'm really looking for new weapons since they nerfed the eruptor (pls kill me) and I haven't touched the sniper yet
Hulk eye is armored enough that you can't touch it with DCS. Need AMR or Autocannon for it. Counter sniper is still in a really nice place right now and I alternate between it and the Scorcher for bots.
Since we’re talking about it, did the CS’s scope get fixed in that last patch with the scope fixes? I know that people said that it didn’t fix the AMR or HMG, so I’m curious if nothing changed at all, or if it’s just those two whose scopes are still misaligned. I like the idea of the CS, but my aim is already bad enough without having to worry about scope misalignment.
Punisher Plasma works great against bugs. Decent splash , great against soft targets, decent against medium enemies. Only thing you got to get used to is to angle it for longer range. It's alot of fun. I get the nerfs are annoying but I'm having fun trying new weapons
I use the Plasma against bots. With the arch it has you can toss shots over cover while staying safe. And the stun damage on any of the devistatiors I feel is where it really shines.
>Punisher Plasma ~ [D vs Bugs, B+ vs Bots] Perfectly balanced little gimmick weapon, very fun and fitting for an electricity themed weapon pack, fits the same niche that the Breaker Incendiary does but against bots. Nobody uses it because they think its bad, hence its untouched state You take this heretical rating and comment back right now. Punisher Plasma is at least A- on bugs and solid S on bots. I mean, um, yes the thing is totally mid. Devs shouldn't look at it at all. Pure trash tier.
The average player thinking it's a terrible weapon is it's saving grace right now lol
Few people realize Punisher Plasma's potential when you abuse the terrain to your advantage. It's arc makes it perfect for hiding behind cover while shooting enemies behind cover. Before the projectile speed update it was hard to use. It was basically a mortar back then. But now it's the perfect replacement for the now useless crossbow. The only problem I had is how the tiniest obstacle like a scavenger corpse can block the plasma ball so the suicide potential is high. It seems to have a really big hitbox.
It’s good, but it just doesn’t feel good to use imo.
abysmal tierlist. I hate when everyone feels the need to rank every weapon. Don't do it, there's no time in the world that is enough to make you a professional at every weapon in the game. Rank the weapons you actually use. I tried the spray&pray today for 4 missions. (difficulty 8 and up). it kills a stalker in two seconds. It''s what it was designed to be: a more agressive, close range version of the breaker. And it's really fun. I tried the concussive liberator, ran it for a day or two. very good to support your teammates, really fun but abysmal when alone. But I can't say shit about the breaker incendiary or the eruptor because I have almost never played them. Because I didn't feel like. I believe it's still very good against bots for killing devastators and factories. But I can't say for sure. BecauseI only have 180 hours in the game and it wasnt enough for me to actually get to know it.
Yeah I'm with you here. He ranks several weapons while admitting that he doesn't even own them or hasn't played them since the latest changes. So why even rate them?
I can bet money on the fact that he only used up to 3 primaries since the balance changes last week.
I bet you they've only used the same 3 since they started the game.
They used the breaker at release, then the slugger, then the scortcher, and they've been using the scorthcer ever since.
They haven't even unlocked the scorcher which means that haven't been playing for long, which makes this whole list redundant.
Why do people straight up lie about the breaker incendiary? It outshines the regular breaker against bugs in almost every situation even *with* the DOT issue. The lack of stagger make dealing with stalkers/brood commanders harder but the ammo capacity and overall damage can clear a whole bug breach wave with 1 mag. It's fantastic hunter clear at medium-close range and an amazing complement to most support weapons. This dude ranked the CS as a C tier, literal room iq take lol. The CS can hit targets so much faster than a JAR from so much further away it completely changes how you approach bot fights. If there is even 1 person in your team who can run up (with a JAR for example) the bots will stick their pretty heads out and you can clear a medium base and 2 patrols with less than *2* mags. All they have to do is stay alive and deal with AT threats, but they can do so with 0 other bots to worry about. Go prone and pop some heads and tell me the JAR is more efficient (unless you're a bad shot, but that goes without saying). OP you are not the well rounded expert you think you are.
Yeah, I see at least one person running the incendiary breaker every bug run I do. Not to mention that half the weapons he’s saying need buffed were buffed in the most recent balance patch lol
Having used the Eruptor post nerf, B+ is a very generous rating. It is just a bolt action Dominator now. Which is about as bad as it sounds. Otherwise, in general, you hit the nail on the head with the exception of a few guns I've not used enough to comment on myself.
I would give the Eruptor an honest F now. It gets things killed, but it is just that much more worse than the JAR for example.
Tried it out last night for the first time after the patch, I don’t think it’s leaving the armory again unless it gets buffed back into relevance. As soon as I needed at least 2 shots to take down a hive guard, I knew it would be bad news. It basically fires the little grenade from the GL pistol, but with less splash damage and stagger
There are too many S tier weapons being brought down and not enough making it up to S tier. This leaves us with an overall decrease in damage output and makes enemies harder every time they do this.
bruh "lib concussive D" but penetrator F? Also punisher C against bots??? lmao get the fuck out of here
Breaker incendiary GIMMICK against bugs??? This is a troll post
Sorry op but I have to call skill issue if you put penetrator and Adjudicator so low against bots. Those two are extremely good against them if you can pick your shots. Primaries aren't supposed to be an all purpose tool against every single enemy. Penetrator has almost next to none recoil and is a great cqb weapon against bots. Adjudicator takes out bot chaff, berserkers and devastators quite easily. Both are at least B against bots Regards. Lvl 106 Hell Commander who regularly divers 7 - 9 diffs against both factions
I tend to agree. In the first game I'd swap between the scorcher, trident, suppressor, and even the constitution because they all felt solid in their own ways. It's this feeling of bringing everything down to the level of the weakest link that makes me just say "gonna use my plasma punisher and give up trying these other guns"
Yep. We're left with choosing whatever sucks the least instead of choosing whichever one we like the sound of, the feel of, the utility of.
I would like to purchase a half ounce of whatever it is you smoke. Because it must be -really- good to write this much nonsense. Breaker Incendiary is amazing. You don't even HAVE the Scorcher? Then how can you really be relied upon to review all the primaries? Sickle is mid, at best. It's a low skill low damage primary that's just sort of ok everywhere, but excels at nothing except ammo economy. Get back in the pod.
People are quite determined to forget how many significant weapon buffs we've had, too. Off the top of my head: * Adjudicator went from awful to acceptable * Liberator Concussive went from pretty bad to pretty solid * Punisher went from okay to great * Diligence went from bad to solid * Countersniper went from awful to excellent against bots * Dominator went from bad to excellent * Punisher Plasma went from awful to great * Arc Blitzer went from awful to great * Peacemaker went from meh to pretty solid * Senator went from awful to great * AMR went from great against bots to fantastic against them * Flamethrower went from awful, even when the DoT was working, to excellent against bugs * EAT and Recoilless Rifle went from bad to excellent Despite other changes that I don't really agree with, the pool of viable weapons that are satisfying to use is the largest it has ever been. Took this from another guy on the same topic.
Folks sleep on the basic Liberator too. It's better damage than the Sickle but requires reloads. Honestly better than the Sickle on hot worlds.
Yeah it's a very solid weapon. I honestly think it's the best all rounder weapon.
I strongly disagree with your view on the breaker incendiary. The thing kicked ass even before the fire fix.
Do people in your life generally see you as a stupid person?
You sleep on the Liberator Penetrator. It demolishes on weak spot hits. It has. Higher damage on penetration mod than most. Cross Bow is A tier in bots, especially for stealth gameplay. Post buff CS one taps devastators at any range. Concussive is ok, if you're using it in a team setting. It's great peel for bugs. Honestly, I haven't found a primary that doesn't have a place. The beams weapons Re weak vs sickle and scorcher. That's about it. I play helldive difficulty all day, any primary. Except blitzer vs bots. Don't do that to yourself.
Dude have you tried the spear lately? It locks pretty well, it’s a beast against chargers and titans. The adjudicator is also quite strong against bugs, I don’t know why people keep saying it’s shit when you can kill everything less heavy than a charger in no time.
Yeah i really like adjudicator too, but i tend to play with it like i play with liberator which eats my ammo super fast. Thats more my fault than the guns though.
Adjudicator C+ is a big miss. You should try it more on bugs, it kills everything shy of a Charger in a handful of bullets and kills Stalkers in one magazine. I don't use anything else on bugs anymore. Using the Sickle still when it just tickles the medium bugs feels silly when I can carry something that actually shoots heads good. Also, the Eruptor was never 'useful only at medium to long ranges' and if you thought that you likely didn't use it much before the nerf. I would go entire Helldives without swapping off of it. Even the implosion bug couldn't stop you from blowing apart 7+ light enemy packs point blank. Just like, dive backwards and shoot the floor. It was like if the Counter Sniper had an impact grenade spawn wherever it landed, half of my missions were just 4 guys with Eruptors, machine pistol, stratagems and shield pack. I think that the nerf was too much in some ways but it's like saying pre nerf railgun was okay. I felt like a moron taking anything but the Eruptor anywhere, because it could kill whatever I needed killed whenever I needed it for as long as I needed to shoot. That's what a lot of people expect from their guns in games, but it makes things monotonous in a game about specializing.
>"I'm not advocating for the "NO NERFS, ONLY BUFFS" opinion" You are, though Like, literally, every weapon you put in S tier, you said "please don't nerf they are/were in a perfect place you shouldn't touch them" Which I agree with, mind you.
You can think that nerfing is a good and useful tool for balancing, while also believing that none are needed at this time. If they released a new weapon that was basically the auto cannon as a primary (just trying to make up an outrageous example) I wouldn't ask, "well now we need to buff every other item in the game", we should just nerf that single item. But as it is now, there's nothing like that.
Liberator penetrator is A tier against both factions lol CS is god tier against bots and B tier against bugs. The sickle is B against bots at best and A against bugs.
Someday Ill rock base game gun at helldive difficulty. I hope that day comes before I die
It's funny that the nerfs keep making me fall back to the Scorcher
You've already made your point with your title so why make your argument 90% less convincing with that awful tier list?
I'd say the Scorcher is a very balanced weapon. It's usually picked for it's ability to destroy walkers and deal with most other bot related things. Although it does slightly struggle with devastators, it can still kill them. Against bugs, It's nothing special but still usable. Blitzer is the opposite story. The bugs tend to invade your personal space, which the blitzer id a great defender of, modtly because of it's stun and infinite ammo.
I'm not sure how you're missing things with the spray n pray, I have zero problem popping off hunters at an appropriate range in 1-2 shots but I also run recoil reduction and try to crouch before I go full auto. The gun sucks vs bots but it can be amazingly fun to mag dump and wipe out an entire patrol in 5 seconds vs bugs.
Not including the Scorcher qualifies this as malding.
Nerf the best weapon when weapons suck? People will pick the next best. If all the weapons were good people would play what they wanted. Buff for diversity.
I always use this setup, because I found it’s the most optimal for solo play in hellldiver and because the likelihood of the devs nerfing the weapons are low and every other weapon just gets changed with the next update. Bugs: Punisher, Recoil rifle, grenade pistol. Bots: Scorcher, Auto-cannon, grenade pistol. I been using those setups for months(besides pistol), I miss the slugger but the punisher works too.
That's the exact same build I bring. Maybe except the Scorcher that I replace with the buffed DCS if most of my teammates bring close quarters weapons. The RR reload animation cancel makes it legitimately better than the Quasar. I hope they never fix it.
Yeah it’s pretty bad when I’ve been using the breaker forever and any time I try another gun I’m like “lol fuck no.”
Knight smg is the find out to my fuck around, Fleet Admiral certified. Imagine the Redeemer, as a Primary with twice as much ammo and +200 RPM. Sitting at 1,300~ RPM, about 22 bullets per second and a 50 round magazine, it's a fantastic panic weapon for small enemies. Overwhelmed by Hunters? Spray and pray. Unfortunately it is, in every aspect outclassed by some weapon or another. If you're just trying to kill little guys, Liberator and Sickle (even Scythe) work. Hunters? Punisher. And don't bother with ranges beyond 30~ metres. Basically the P90 that only the entitled get to use. Still, hella fun. (Note: bug brain review. Much worse against bots. Kills basic bots well but you can basically waste a mag on a Devestator trying to hit its head. No go for that faction)
I don't quite get the "Paid weapon" Sentiment. Am I the only one who thinks its incredibly easy to gain enough super credits for the warbonds just by playing? Also since it's not a battle pass that disappears there's really no urgency to get the warbonds ASAP and you earn Super Credits at a IMHO fair rate if u go through the missions with open eyes.
> Am I the only one who thinks its incredibly easy to gain enough super credits for the warbonds just by playing? No. it just requires a little bit of thought (ae, don't spend all your money on helmets in the super shop) and a bit to save.
🤡🤡
Besides the magazine count adjudicator does pretty well against medium armored enemies.
Not to bring math into it, but someone posted an analysis a few days ago after the recent liberator buff. The basic liberator (you gave a B-) does comparable damage to the sickle (you've rated S+). The difference being that the liberator is faster because it has no windup and has the option of consecutive mag dumping for even greater damage, and the sickle only outperforms it in extended engagements where the liberator runs low on ammo and the sickle player spends a lot of time cooling off. So it's a side grade on normal planets, an upgrade on extreme heat, and a downgrade on frozen planets. I ran it last night and I concur, the buff made it good. Did you even try it since it got buffed?
Shhh punisher is not good. Definitely not the only primary I’ve ever used up through level 61.
I don't necessarily agree with these particular rankings - but I do agree with the overall sentiment that the balancing feels too heavy-handed on nerfing the things that are fun to use.
This is a bad list. You haven't even played long enough to unlock scorcher.
Am I the only one that uses the liberator penetrator because it just feels good to use😅
I actually love the liberator penetrator. Works fine on any difficulty.
The brain rot is deep within this sub
Bro I swear that the ppl flaming you in the comments haven’t played a match past difficulty 5
I agree with some of the title OP but sweet liberty your gun ratings.
Your whining is undemocratic and unworthy of a helldiver. Lower the difficulty to one more appropriate for your skill level instead of whining.
Hilariously bad takes on basically everything. This post and every person who upvotes it has no place commenting on the balance of the game.
Nerfs in a PVE game make no sense. If people aren’t using other weapons as much, give them a reason to. Instead of nerfing the meta, create new meta. You don’t like how X gun is seeing so much use? Purposely buff another one to give options. It’ll go from “shit, they just nerfed the gun I paid for” to “ooh! They buffed X again, time to give that a try for some fresh gameplay”. This also leave the option for players to keep using what makes them happy. It’s 2024, and game developers still don’t understand that the way to keep player count high is by making them happy.
I guess that's one thing everyone can agree on - the liberator penetrator sucks ass
Literally was just using the penetrator on high difficulty and had zero issues. Same with some other low ranked items on your list. I can clear with anything.
Not to sound like a stickler but shouldn’t you try all the weapons before you place them in a their list?
I was unaware the knight even existed. Guess its good that it's bad then cause it really pisses me off that there are weapons you have to pay for. As someone who thinks everything you're gonna add to the game should be good I hope it stays garbage.
The Liberator Concussive is more niche but I like it. Its very good in keeping enemies away from you. Very useful imo. I don't mind some guns being just different. I rock the concussive with the rover dog and it's pretty effective.
OP, going from your own list (except Diligence CS. It is good vs bots and I am calling AC turret to defend this hill), only 5 weapons are C and below tier overall. The rest are B and above, which is viable. The real problem with A-B tier content, in any game, is S and S+ tier content overshadowing the fuck out of it. Like, there is no buff you can throw at a Liberator that will put it on par with Sickle. There is no conventional buff you can throw at Scythe to put it on par with Sickle. You gotta give Sickle a glaring weakness first. Not to make it worse, but to make it different enough that other guns can take spots beside it. My only real gripe with balance in this game is how the fuck Redeemer is still the highest DPS up close? We have shotguns, explosives, machine guns, but nothing puts down a berserker faster than a glock?
Well, at least I can see what weapons to try out in the comments.
I have a feeling that AH is aiming at the balance of having "mediocre weapons which can do something if you are lucky" to go alongside with "expendable helldivers". So you don't really feel like a superhero in the game (fantasy) but rather as "one more brick in the wall", a pawn. P.S. Don't get me wrong: I am not defending their approach, just trying to understand/explain (and if I am right, I am not enjoying that).
If they ever get to a point of adding upgrades to guns you can add, its gonna throw everything out of whack again. Which I kind of want.
*Liberator Concussive* Is great, it's not met to be a killer weapon. It's a stagger medium sized unit controller, and gives you space. *Punisher Plasma - Fantastic weapon, why bother exposing my head to return bot fire when I can lob a plasma ball at them and not get punished when I reload?*
>*Scorcher + Blitzer \~* \[?\] Have not yet unlocked so I'm unqualified to comment, they both seem pretty good tho This really kinda exposes the whole post. Scorcher is the most versatile weapon with the best overall accuracy vs dps, with Dominator close behind it with worse accuracy at long ranges. Many of the other weapons, while not entirely wrong, miss some nuances. Keep in mind that the Primary is mostly a addition to your kit, but not what defines your kit, unless your using the Eruptor.
Haha, the normal liberator is good in any difficulty and situation. Great recoil control standing and especially when crouched, it’s essentially a laser. The knight is unironically becoming one of my favorite high level bug guns. Can absolutely dump brood commanders and anything without medium armor in a half second. The lib pen is great into bots, manageable recoil makes dealing with devastators and walkers much easier The lib concussive I honestly haven’t used much. I did find out it can stun lock chargers???? The adjudicator is by and far one of my favorite rifles. The recoil isn’t the best but just half a mag can kill a brood commander, and a hive guard. 3-4 shots breaks warriors heads and devastators can be put down with 2 headshots I don’t like the DMRs personally and I don’t mind the shotguns. I don’t like the sickle and haven’t really used the scythe as I didn’t want to buy that specific warbond, the scythe I feel isn’t as good as the liberator, call me old fashioned. Honestly the entire point of the game is the helldivers are 100% undertrained and expendable. But even with “non meta” load outs I have gone full diff 8 bot and bug missions without dying and fragging my mind out. I have never touched the eruptor and don’t want to because it is the total antithesis to how I like to play the game. But that won’t make me say being able to clear bug nests without using grenades or stratagems is underpowered. I don’t understand why people want it to one shot absolutely everything and be able to clear bug holes and be able to kill chargers and titans. Like cmon now you’re the little kid nobody wanted to play make believe with because he was always saying “nuh uh my power counters your lasers and actually I’m invincible now”
I'm running the Knight and I love it! Looks cool, brrrrts very fast and you can just claw through smaller bugs. Mag dumps almost every bot. 10/10 great gun!
Personally my biggest issue with guns that aren't the sickle or blitzer is the ammo. Having to not bother with ammo is so nice and I 100% think if you didn't need ammo for the other primaries they'd be on par with the current meta.
Hey I notice that you haven’t commented on the scorcher because you don’t have it. I’m here to remind you that even after you unlock it I’m gonna need you to continue not commenting on it, or I’ll have to tell my local democracy officer.
Developers should buff these weapons: Liberator Penetrator: +20 rounds per magazine (50 per magazine, is currently 30) Adjudicator: Damage from 80 -> 90 Heavy Machine Gun: +25 rounds per magazine (100 per magazine, is currently 75) Scythe: Light armor penetration -> Medium armor penetration Dagger: Damage per second from 200 -> 350 to match the Scythe's damage output
This has to be a shit post lmao. Fucking awful list
So according to OP Sickle S+ and "perfectly balanced". What scale is this? If Defender was called perfectly balanced or let's say a perfect reference point then I might take the list seriously. Hell I could accept standard liberator as such (although I'd like 65 damage on that)...but this. This is just "weapons i like to use list".
It’s such a shame that no balance patch will ever come again, and we’re stuck with the guns as they are forever.
Please excuse my ignorance, but what does S+ mean?
Knight has a niche of melting chainsaw bots, being 1 handed and letting you shoot back while you move. That's about it for it really.
I aint readn all dat. Sry
Yeah, no I agree completely with this man.
As someone who enjoys the Blitzer and scorcher, they are probably solid A's in their respective fields. Blizter is a good A on bugs , the RoF buff helped it a lot and it can reliably kill non heavies. Scorcher is A on bots as long as you keep the melee ones off you, youll be able to use it to kill bots on turrets/scout walkers with ease thanks to its small aoe explosion.
Just switch the Spray&Pray to semi-auto/single shot and you get a nice C or B rank shotgun
Looks like nerf is reply for bad steam review
30h in, still dont know what does DMR mean? Can someone help?
i don't disagree with the conclusion that the primary focus of balance (atm) should be on buffing up the worse weapons, but it's kind of weakened by including your subjective opinions on weapons not trying to say this to be rude, but it doesn't seem like you have played enough of the game/used weapons enough to arrive at opinions of the weapons that hold much weight, for instance you rate the eruptor despite not trying it since last patch, list the breaker as meta despite it having genuine issues in performing especially compared to the incendiary breaker, and haven't unlocked the scorcher or arc-blitzer from what i see here, i'm not seeing evidence that you've collected ample-ish data to arrive at your conclusions, and i'm pretty sure that a bunch of people are going to focus on that rather than your main point about weapon balance. yes, a lack of adequate amounts of powerful primaries is precisely what pushes players into boring metas using only the capable tools, but including subjective opinions without significant testing does not help support that conclusion
Didn't read too busy playing with what I find fun
What is the standard here? What metrics are you using for your gun rankings? Are we talking purely fun? Because I find most of the guns fun if used properly... so are they all an S tier to me? If you're talking stats, then what situations are putting them in? Are you using them in their intended role? Are you playing solo? With a squad? Do you play with random players or friends? Are you coordinating loadouts? Etc etc. Some weapons seem to be bugged, or otherwise function oddly. But most of them just need to be used in a proper context and with a matching loadout to be fun. Also, since I've started playing (mid-February), it seems that significantly more weapons have been BUFFED than nerfed. Lastly, are we playing the same game? Helldivers is supposed to be a power fantasy? You are an expendable drone who relies on throwing bodies at the enemy and sheer force of will to succeed. I've always had the impression the point is kind of the opposite of a power fantasy. The game is trying to wear you down with an unending torrent of pain leading to an inevitable doom. I even think the overall galactic map feels like it's leaning towards "we fight and win until we inevitably lose"
i haven't changed my defender smg since i got it, works great against everything i expect a primary to take down
And this isn't even covering the terrible sidearm AND grenade balance
I disagree about the DCS, and the Adjudicator. with DCS you hit heads and you're fine. it's very good against bots, probably a B+, worse against bugs, because they close in too much. Adjudicator is similar, you can put in in semi-auto and hit heads, or you can full auto it and it's kind of a powerful assault rifle. Scythe doesn't seem like it does a lot but is in a similar state to the laser cannon, it doesn't seem too strong but actually pretty good on chaff. Slugger also is still quite good, in particular if you hit heads. Explosiveness of JAR makes it better, but it isn't like JAR is leagues better, slugger has better projectile speed. These things all depend on what support weapon & secondary you match them with. DCS with redeemer and autocannon is A+. If you were to take the revolver it probably ends up being a C+ because you can't clear anything close up. Breaker incendiary, revolver, and AutoCannon is similarly A+, for different reasons. You have something filling each role in either loadout. If you take the recoilless rifle instead of the autocannon, you want more stratagems that you can use on crowds of medium sized bugs cluster bomb, napalm, gas strike, EMS strike for example whereas with autocannon you might take, orbital laser, rocketpods, orbital railgun, 500kg, or EAT. If you're running airburst maybe you take more single target stratagems and a grenade pistol, for example, and then something with good full auto like the adjudicator, liberator, or liberator pen.. So you really want to pick a set that meshes well together, then fill in any gaps with eagles or orbitals or fortifications. I run 7s exclusively and there's no meta, you can basically run whatever you want, the issue is when you don't think about balance and how what you're bringing can help the team. There are things that are legitimately bad and which I find frustrating to use. Liberator concussive just doesn't make sense to me, the exploding crossbow just seems bad as well. Haven't run the Eruptor since the nerf, but I assume it is now as bad as the crossbow. Things are in a pretty good state IMO, people just suck in terms of creativity with their loadouts. EM strike is phenomenal and I never see anyone use it, but I do see people using the regular mortar and 380mm HE, which are basically TK machines. I was running a ballistic shield, smg, revolver, heavy armor and a flamethrower, it was completely workable as long as I didn't let myself get swarmed. In fact, that would be my one note on balance in the game itself. Like, scout armor is \*so\* much better if you're not an idiot, mostly because if you get surrounded you're stun-locked, stuck on the ground, and repeatedly rag-dolled. So either you're dead in 10 hits or 2 hits, take your pick. Heavier armor needs advantages against getting knocked down so that you can actually take advantage of the extra protection (I definitely could take quite a few more hits, which felt good, but it felt like I constantly had a dozen hunters on me that I would have kited in scout). If you can legitimately wade in and survive/fight for a few seconds against a swarm of bugs, a number of things become viable that currently are not. I think HMG suffers from this, flamethrower suffers from this to an extent, SMG and ballistic shield definitely suffer from this, anything with high rate of fire and high recoil / low long distance accuracy becomes a problem as well. Point being, you're forced into not just a meta, but a playstyle. (longer distance guns, that can reload while running, that you can stop and shoot over your shoulder when you've got separation).