Helldivers 2 - I Tested EVERY NEW CHANGE In The Latest Update!
I tested every new change in the latest update for Helldivers 2. There's a lot of great changes and some... not so great changes.
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═════════ Timestamps ════════
0:00 - Intro
0:46 - New Enemies
1:26 - Arc Thrower
2:21 - Anti Material Rifle Buff
3:22 - Breaker Incendiary
4:08 - Flame Thrower Buff
4:20 - Incendiary Grenades
5:02 - Ballistic Shield Buff
6:05 - Jar-5 Dominator Buff
7:13 - Diligence Counter Sniper
8:00 - Liberator Penetrator
8:38 - Slugger Nerf
10:23 - Heavy Armor is Good
11:33 - Bile Titan Change
11:55 - Bile Spewer Nerf
12:16 - Exosuit Nerf
13:19 - Typing in Chat Change
13:32 - Sand Storms
14:12 - Gunships
15:58 - Quasar Cannon Change
16:07 - Railgun Change
16:23 - Conclusion
17:08 - Outro
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══════════ Official Game Summary ═════════
Helldivers 2 is a third-person shooter developed by Arrowhead Game Studios and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The game is the sequel to 2015's Helldivers, which was a top-down shooter. It released for PlayStation 5 and Windows on 8 February 2024.
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What did you guys think of the latest update? Did you like the changes that they made? Let me know down in the comments if there's any secret changes that snuck in that I didn't cover in this video! ➡Check out one of our latest videos here - kzhead.info/sun/hMZ-gsODsHeldqs/bejne.html ➡Latest Patch Notes - store.steampowered.com/news/app/553850/view/4204746659280937639?l=english ➡Join My Discord - discord.gg/jRV9RJfqDX ➡Follow me on Twitch - www.twitch.tv/swanyplaysgameslive ➡Subscribe to SwanyPlaysGames - www.youtube.com/@SwanyPlaysGames?sub_confirmation=1 ➡Subscribe to SwanyRants (My 2nd Channel) - kzhead.info/tools/PszGeh4gAG2oet_bufYGgQ.html ➡Follow me on Twitter - twitter.com/SwanyPlaysGames ═════════ Timestamps ════════ 0:00 - Intro 0:46 - New Enemies 1:26 - Arc Thrower 2:21 - Anti Material Rifle Buff 3:22 - Breaker Incendiary 4:08 - Flame Thrower Buff 4:20 - Incendiary Grenades 5:02 - Ballistic Shield Buff 6:05 - Jar-5 Dominator Buff 7:13 - Diligence Counter Sniper 8:00 - Liberator Penetrator 8:38 - Slugger Nerf 10:23 - Heavy Armor is Good 11:33 - Bile Titan Change 11:55 - Bile Spewer Nerf 12:16 - Exosuit Nerf 13:19 - Typing in Chat Change 13:32 - Sand Storms 14:12 - Gunships 15:58 - Quasar Cannon Change 16:07 - Railgun Change 16:23 - Conclusion 17:08 - Outro
They finally aligned the AMR sight so the bullet goes where you aim and not to the upper left of the reticle. Massive W patch
I'm so happy with the ballistic shield and anti-material rifle buffs
This balance patch feels really good in general. Dominator feels sooo much better vs Bots. I like that the liberator penetrator got full auto. The burst mode felt weird. Quasar cannon has become my to support weapon for both bugs and bots
You forgot about the fire tick (and gas and smoke) bug that makes it so only one person per lobby is able to apply the damage. Unfortunately there's no way to test who is the network host in each lobby, so the breaker, flamethrower, incindiary grenade, napalm, gas, and smoke stratagems are all only good on 1/4th of your team. The flamethrower and breaker incindiary are effective enough without the fire damage to be an ok pickup. Once they fix the fire tick damage, they will be extremely overpowered.
I'm pissed off and frankly gonna drop the game for a while Death by a thousand nerfs
I think an unwritten change is that the helldiver's return from missions covered in gore instead of in pristine uniforms.
I actually don't care for the change personally, but its fine
Be me: pristine clean because I always engage from the back lol
I still came back clean from a pristine run.😂
It seems kind of bugged though. Like they just apply the maximum amount of blood all over your character (but sometimes they don't) Like it doesn't seem representative of the in game dirt blood or slime at all.
Same, i think the blood is a little extra, especially if you came back from a bug mission and you’re covered in red instead of green.
You survive rockets now not because the armor change, but because they fixed the rockets to just count as 1 where prior they always counted as all 4 hitting you even if only 1 did.
Each limb that took damage would apply the damage to the health pool. So if your torso and leg were in the blast radius it was essentially 2 rockets worth of damage. The more limbs that took the blast the more damage. But considering a minimum of 2-3 limbs were taking damage every time it was essentially always a one hit kill.
@@clintmcbride7830 I bet this is what's happening with fire damage as well. All limbs on fire contrubuting to your HP pool. That's why fire instagibs you the moment you put your toe on a little flame.
ah, so that's why half the time i could eat a rocket to the chin and the rest of the time it'd hit the dirt next to me and instakill
@@clintmcbride7830 this also helped buff the riot shield since rockets were usually your biggest threat. Run it with heavy, explosive resistant armor, and you make for a pretty durable bunker
exactly, heavy armor still not worth using imo
Another huge change that wasnt unlisted with ballistic shield; you no longer drop it if you get knocked by an explosion like a rocket or grenade. Which is HUGE cause its so annoying when you keep dropping it.
It was a bit annoying, but i always saw it as a trade off for its protection, because half the time it saved me from a devastator rocket.
you can still drop it but it only happens a couple times every game
Thats awesome 😍
It seems like it gets "dropped" when it takes too much damage and gets destroyed
Ew a furry 🤮
For any anti-material rifle users like me, you can 4-tap the new gunships if you hit them in the thrusters. Not ideal compared to other support weapons, but the option is there if absolutely needed.
I found that out, out of pure desperation lol. Mid panic getting overwhelmed. Time to spray and pray, lol.
I was using the hmg and liberator pen. for it uses alot of ammo but can be done
AMR always and forever
@@henrywallace1823 Even far, closer together
Not bad at all considering its a non-explosive weapon. I still haven’t used it due to thinking i wouldn’t be able to take out the big shit with it or destroy fabricators with it. But if the only downside is not being able to do fabricators with it then ill deff start using it now. Ty for the info
They also changed kill missions in general by changing the flat amount of kills with a percentage amount of kills, which basically means 1 big kill equals more progress than 1 small kill. And they also removed a notable rock used to easily camp in a Terminid kill map
This is an underrated change, +1
😂 I was wondering where My rock went. Made it easier to avoid friendly fire but, now we find a corner and sentry up
Nooooooo not my rock! Dang it lol
I was wondering why striders would count as 3
Rip freedom rock, you will be missed
The slugger nerfs are definitely making me hold my scorcher a little tighter 😂
Love it for chargers
I think its gonna be fine with how little ammo it has, its dps per mag lower or how much you can do with 1-3 mags, that makes devs look at it and say I GUESS ITS FINE
The best thing of this update is this fix: “The Helldiver and the Exosuit both had a bug that made them sometimes take explosion damage multiple times making things like automaton rockets be too deadly, this is now fixed.” I personally noticed it while wearing a medium armor with the “Fortified” perk (explosive damage reduced by 50%), I overcharged my railgun and it exploded in my hands but I SURVIVED!!! 😳😳😳
Yeah they fixed less than nothing I can be wandering around a totally empty area and get killed by an explosive blade of grass or something. Hell I even died by sending my helldiver up a 12 inch curb just to be told I was killed by.... Me
Seems like you didn’t mention the fix for automaton rockets doing double damage. Its made a massive change, fortified armor isn’t mandatory any more. The exosuit is now actually usable against automatons, not necessarily good on account of its weapons but usable. The Emancipator variant will probably shred automatons when it releases.
Yeah rockets not 1 shot killing you makes a HUGE difference. Especially with the armor that gives 50% less explosive damage.
Would love some fire resistance armor like the arc armor sets
Might make the flamethrower too broken lol they wouldn't dare give us that thing with not trade offs 😅
I was thinking the exact same thing, like a pyromaniac armor but I imagine it’s either going to look bad ass and edgy or nerdy like a hazmat
Imagine if they resemble racing suits which are fire retardant.
@@FrostyFrodo I mean they could do like a 50% Resistance. It would still kill you quick if you don't take care of it, but it lets you take that little bit more damage.
A 50-70 percent resistance to all damage over time effects from gas strikes and fire damage, and maybe even extreme cold/heat damage from planets. Envriomental protection suit.
As an Arc main, let me clarify the changes. The log about the new charge time is correct. Now it is consistently a 1s charge, first and subsequences charges. Your experience that the 2nd charge is faster may be because you charged too long on the 1st charge. The log is also correct about the stagering power. Against Bots, it can now stun Berserkers and Hulks. Previously, Hulks were too big to stun, and Berserkers were needlessly resilient. Now, they all can be stun-locked by Arc. This is HUGE; Arc Throwers are no longer chased around by chainsaws and circular saws like straw puppies. Also, Arc Thrower loses the demo power to bust containers.
The demo power was the biggest surprise to me. Not a huge deal, but I'm almost always running stun grenades so not having my support weapon bust containers is a bit sad. Oh well
@@nivvy4506 yeah, I ran Arc and stun too, and the demo nerf is a let down.
After the railgun nerf, i started maining the arc thrower. I was heartbroken about the railgun. Now they break my arc thrower too! I dont get it! I kinda understand the railgun it was super OP, but the arc thrower? You had to know how to use it for it to be viable. Its like they want every gun to be trash rather than making all guns good. @tianxiu
I literally found out about the demo nerf a day before this recent patch and I was heartbroken XD I was stoked to realize I didn't need to waste a 'nade or call my friends, but now I gotta reset and go back to that. I do feel like this didn't need to get changed, though. I understand the slugger losing its demo power, but I feel like the arc makes sense, given its extra staggering power.
@@samuelballard3467, at least we gained the stun-locking ability we deserve. Lol, we can solo a Hulk face-to-face now. But for the range nerf, demo nerf, zap speed nerf...I am sad.
In this game, the liberator penetrator, won't cut it with just 30 bullets, make it 36, and we'll have a deal.
You think? The liberator isn't a terrible primary so going from 40 to 30 rounds but going from light to medium penetration seems like a reasonable deal.
@@zoopa9988 it doesn't go from 40, it goes from 45 compared to other weapons, now, the penetration is good, but it's of little used when getting swarmed by warriors and such, that don't need the weapon to have penetration, and you are continuously fighting them, so the constant reloading and the constant need ammo put this gun down in my opinion. I was thinking before this update, what would be a good buff, giving it was burst fire, I didn't thought of a full auto buff, cuz the burst wasn't the problem, it's the ammo capacity, that's why I thought of a couple of bursts more, give it 2 more bursts, 36 bullets, it's still a lower number than other weapons, and makes it balanced with the higher penetration. I don't care about the penetration when I have to keep reloading constantly, I don't think I will be using it, no, I need more bullets, for the enemies are many, I need as much bullets as I can shoot, I can manage the pen loss, but not the bullets lost.
@@martinramirez9647 Oops, thought it had 40, the higher pen makes you do more damage to some targets though, which causes you to need less ammo, but I guess it's not 33% less, which is the amount of fewer rounds in the magazine lol.
@@zoopa9988 it serves a different role from the standard liberator. You need to pick your shots with the penetrator, it has a higher headshot multiplier and a longer range scope. It serves a more meticulous, long range play style, it's good if you use it that way but the standard liberator is better at closer ranges.
The guard dog really needed that buff, it had no use cause of gaining only 3 mags that ran out quick
did you notice much of a difference? I couldn't so I actually cut that part out of this video for time. I tried testing it out but it still ended up reloading constantly for me.
@@SwanyPlaysGames they also stealth nerfed it. It used to have medium pen, now it does not anymore + it CLEARLY has less ammo then before in its magazines. It feels like it went from 35 bullets to something like 15-20. It runs out vs 1 enemy and eat up the entire backpack near-instant.
Still the worst stratagem in the game.
i tried it and i feel like it still runs out of ammos too quickly, mainly because it seems to target heavy armored enemies, which it does nothing against
@@SwanyPlaysGames wait the change was not that it had more ammos, just that it fully recharged its reserves on resupply
The slugger nerf is rough and I'm curious as to why? I liked it as a stagger machine. It's weaknesses was it felt wasteful against little bugs. Guess they don't want us to use it 🤷♂️
thats the idea, if too many people start using one gun, it becomes meta, and having a meta brings toxicity in the form of "oh you are not using the go to meta weapon/stratagem, get out of my squad" the idea is to entice people to never stick with a particular build/weapon/stratagem so everyone can enjoy the game how they choose.
@@Wolfrich666 And then you get an community that's resentful of Arrowhead and the 99.999% of players which aren't meta bullies being punished for what a tiny part of the community does. If Arrowhead keeps nerfing the most used things in the game, it'll just start becoming less fun and more of a chore since a lot of casual players like to hop on for only an hour or two to have a bit of fun. It's the whole survivorship bias thing, instead of figuring out why people aren't using the other guns/tools in the game, they just nerf the ones everyone gravitates towards then slightly buff the ones people aren't using and that is just a terrible way to balance since it doesn't really address the underlying issues of why no one likes the other guns in the game.
@@ralakus8784 Jesus dude it's a gun in a video game get tf over it, it's still good at what It does
@@ralakus8784 they didnt "slightly buffed" other weapons though, they put them on the level of the meta weapons while nefing the OP weapons and now every weapon is just a choice instead of a tier, you can still use the slugger if you want, but dont expect the weapon to be the only solution for everything anymore.
It made the tougher enemies completely trivial. Being able to completely stun lock devastators and stalkers was actually broken.
The Shield Pack's visual-bubble, actually, has a nice effect of revealing a horizonal-outline during a sandstorm.
My issue with blizzards, sandstorms, and any other visibility-reducing environmental conditions is that they seem to have no effect on the enemy. It should impact the enemy as well, so you're not just taking endless fire from invisible foes that you can't realistically engage with.
This was already a major problem with fog, smoke, bug spores, darkness... basically every environmental effect. So now we have a couple more to add to the list.
Same issue with smokes, that’s why people don’t use them, they only block your vision pretty much. It doesn’t work as it is intended at all
Uhhh they absolutely have an effect on enemies. Walked 5 feet in front of a bot several times when they were looking at me and nothing happened
@@fakename4779 Okay after actually playing on the desert planet I can second this lol enemies become incredibly blind
Same, could do easy smash n grabs on points of interest during a sandstorm They never knew I was there and I walked just ran by
the flying ships actually piss me off so much
I can definitely see how they would be annoying if you weren’t rocking an autocannon or something similar
I’m all for more enemy types.
i got a mission where i had 15 fuking flying ships i didnt even tried to kill them i just closed the game
YOU BETTER GROW SOME WINGS DAMNIT!!
@@naor9792do your part soldier!!!!! 😂😂
I never used the Mech's rockets against crowds, anyway, always saving them for big targets, so it losing armour-pen on splash damage doesn't affect my playstyle at all.
they never were good for crowds, now all they need to do is fix the aiming of rockets on the mech bc is so shit i don't even wanna use it
It just behaves like all the other rockets now, EAT, RR, quasar, spear, all of them do anything unless on direct hit
@@biggreen8025I haven't tried it yet, but you can hotkey shoulder switching. If it works in the mech, it would probably make the rockets much easier to use
@@biggreen8025Bro yes i felt like such a noob trying to close bugholes with the rockets and needing 3+ to get the shot to line up to where i was intending it to go
@@biggreen8025true I don’t like it either I just aim to the right of the target a little bit and it hits it, idk why it shoots like that but it works
isnt the "rockets arent one shotting me anymore" change due to them just fixing rockets in general? they were bugged before
I can't remember where, but I remember hearing the damage was getting multiplied due to a weird bug concerning limbs. So if the explosion did damage to your torso and arm it would essentially count the damage twice and apply it to your health pool. Even worse with the number of limbs that took damage. That's why it was one shooting even heavily armored players with full health.
yea bots easy af now
As i recall yes
Yeah, in the patch notes it said that helldivers and exo suits were receiving basically multiple layers of damage, from the impact of the rocket and then the explosive damage so every rocket was basically hitting you 3 times if count being ragdolled into the closest rock.
@@Koranthus I'm pretty sure the impact damage from hitting terrain was intended though
The slugger nerf is baffling to me. "Slugger too good." Nerf damage and knockback. "Dominator not good enough." Buff it above the slugger's old stats. Bruh. Fine, get rid of the slugger's door breaking ability, but it could have kept its old stats and coexisted with the buffed Dominator since the Dominator is explosive and the Slugger isn't. Still fill different roles.
One is locked behind a premium warbond, the other isn't. At the end of the day it's still about $$$.
@LlonirTS Honestly i was defending them before this but now? They nerf a bunch of free guns and buff their paid counterparts. Same thing with the fire breaker
Why a kinetic slug would do more damage than the same round propelled with a jet engine filled with explosives. Both rounds look the same in size, why would a similar round just without an explosion would do more damage?
I still don't understand why Dominator is put in the explosive category because it is not an explosive projectile. It has no splash damage. Which is why the Dominator has to be a step up over the slugger. It's basically the same weapon, just the Dominator is a slug propelled by a tiny rocket that literally blows through low armor enemy. It can basically kill 2-3 smaller enemies in a line. Also glad they added stagger to it because that thing is slow moving and the recoil is insane. It worked, they got me using it now. If I wanna go back to a shotty with stagger and high damage, I just use the Punisher. It's really that simple.
@@rikkubeans Having Punisher and Dominator in this example makes the Slugger essentially useless, you do realize that, yes?
The first strider was terrifying. My buddy and i were doing duo missions on Suicide Mission, and were doing an air base mission. We lobbed a 500kg over the wall, and a building proceeded to stand up and shred us. Spawns devestators, has a high power laser cannon, has several rapid fire laser turrets, and its got really small weak spots. Insnae fight.
I didn't know it spawned on 7, that's good to know because the Internet was swearing that difficulty 8 and 9 only, which makes no sense because 7 is part of the difficulty trio.
As a single shot, precision weapon for close/medium range, reducing stagger on the slugger and ALSO decreasing its power is...wow. Like now Devastators just perfectly shoot without any effect, Stalkers just run up on you, Spitters just walk up on you, doesn't make sense since they didn't increase RoF or anything else to balance what the nerfs affected. They coulda increased dmg falloff at range if they didn't want it to snipe, but reducing the stagger is the biggest problem.
They need to go shoot a shotgun slug IRL. They are not sniper rifles, but they hit extremely hard. The slugger should be medium penitration and have a HIGH stagger. Don't use it over 40 meters unless you are playing Rust.
the devs are cheeks at weapon balancing
Yeah dude, it’s a stupid change. At the very least have it so it staggers at point blank to close ranges.
damage nerf wasn't bad, but that stagger nerf I can't forgive. Give me more fire rate at least rn it went from my favorite weapon to just sitting in my inventory taking dust
And the best part? You can still snipe with it.
Also you don't drop the shield anymore when you get knocked down or rag dolled.
This for me is huge!
Saw some people saying it actually still drops, just way less.
@@zoopa9988 In my time with it after the patch I have yet to drop it. Only when I took a direct hit from a tank did I drop it, but in that case The shield itself was destroyed. I did survive however. Was wearing heavy armor with the explosive resist perk.
@@Someguy6571 Full tank, love it, didn't even know it could get destroyed lol. I'll definitely try this.
Have you tried the scorcher? It’s incredible on bot missions, can kill the gunships in one mag pretty quick, and can two tap Scout Striders from the front. Also bodies the shield devastations.
Almost have it unlocked. Can't wait to use it. Edit: I unlocked it, and its amazing. Striders are trivial now. Makes quick work of devastators if you have cover. Not very effective against berserkers though.
Ive been using the plasma punisher as a discount scorcher lol Once you get the aiming down its quite nice if you dont alr have the scorcher, can even kill chargers in a few shots by shooting between their front legs
I LOVE seeing the AMR get some love. It was already a hard hitter but I rarely saw divers using it. Now, I see it a lot more and it hits harder than ever before. Thank you Arrowhead!
the sniper having medium armor penetration is game changing agains automatons, not much agains therminids since those usually need heavy armor penetration, but all the automaton weakspots have medium armor so now you can snipe the eye of hulks or tank turrets which you would previously do 0 damage agains with just light penetration. specially for a primary
For real?! Finally a primary that can take down heavy enemies. This is huge
We still have the liberator penetrator which is usually a better option
@@Samuel-jn2oc nah there are a few others with armor 2 penetration, the lkiberator penetrator for example, this one is just a good precission weapon for bots, essentially a mini anti material rifle
@@Old_Man_Bernard Liberator Penetrator is terribad for Automatons. Just about anything that you'd want medium for (Dev bodies, Strider legs) it cannot do good against. It takes a good mag sometimes more to take out a single Strider leg and its DPS against Devastators is pathetic. Genuinely decent against bugs though.
@@ARTEMISXIXthis is exactly why both the liberator pen / diligence sniper still feel terrible, who cares about armor pen if it does pitiful damage
Great video and breakdown. 👍 When seeing the footage of the sandstorm, my only thing that I find a change to be made is that it should also affect the enemies visibility as well. Unless they're on top of you. Thanks for taking the time to making these great videos. 📹 🙂👍
Another visual one like the typing helldiver is when you come back from a mission successfully, you are grimy and covered in blood. Super cool because you look like you have been through some times! 😂 They need to change the colors on the bugs though to a green and the bots to a different color because it is only red from what I have seen.
Pretty sure the red is your own blood, I don't think the bots bleed.
@@militantfascade9176 oil
@@slush_ii1993 Yeah, I found that out on a mission last night. Just coated in oil at the end. I was too bloody to see it on the other rounds.
The Dominator is great against bugs. You just need to take an anti-horde support or a rover to round it out just like other slow firing, high damage primaries.
It pairs really well with the Stalwart as a kind of role reversal between primary and support.
@@gregsteele806 the dominator kind of is a support with identity issues. Would have been support material if you doubled the magazines and let it full auto.
this is logic every youtuber ignores
Completely agree. Dominator with the lazer bot is my go to for bugs. Target the mediums and let the bot get the trash mobs
This is why the smg sidearm is the best one for sure. Doesn't have a lot of mags but it plows through all the small enemies when you're getting overwhelmed. Running away and blind firing with it is the way to go unless you're in a position to preserve ammo.
You used to drop the ballistic shield if you got rag dolled by rockets or an explosion. Did they remove that? If so, its pretty good now. I always thought the difference between the ballistic shield and energy shield should be picking better, more enduring protection that requires you to pay attention and actively apply the protection (ballistic shield) vs weaker, less enduring protection that is passive but requires less attention (energy shield). Also, the whole one handed weapon thing, but if they removed the shield dropping and gave it better front protection, then i might start using it.
I was actually going to mention this as an undocumented buff. It used to be that if you even took a tiny tumble down a hill because you dove at too steep an angle, you'd drop it. Now you hang onto it through some pretty serious jolts, and the improved coverage makes it much more reliable. I like it a lot now, with the Defender or Knight.
You’re legally allowed to gaslight yourself into using the ballistic shield
Shield dropping still exists, but it is far less common. They also fixed the T-pose glitch, though using a stim will still put the shield onto your back, requiring you to switch weapons to get it back out
Love your videos! Would you think about doing one where you put together builds for specific situations or mission types? That would be super helpful!
2:30 The AMR ALWAYS been good against Automatons. The damage buff just helps it against Cannon Turrets and AA/Mortar Encampments. They likely gave it the buff to also allow it to more effectively deal with Gunships as it takes 4 shots to an engine to down one with it. Also, shoot a Strider in the leg. It one shots the Pilot and if not it one shots the vehicle. It always been able to 1-2 shot Devstators and 2 tap Hulks. But yea, it always been one of the best.
Slugger nerf makes no sense. The dev notes said they made that change because it was too effective as a sniper. They should have just increased the damage fall-off at range.... Slugger opening crates always felt like a bug so its fair to fix that.
Or make the rifles better... the balance team needs to be replaced. They have no idea what they're doing. People thought the railgun changes were bad? Yikes
I was grinding for the slugger, but why bother when the dominator has: - higher bullet damage - better RoF (even more damage) - 1.5x better recoil - same or better stagger - same armor pen
- Worse handling - Recharge all the magazine, not one by one.
ammo one by 1 reload is useless if not stagger bug or automaton might as well use punisher
@@Alsborg Rounds reload has trade-offs vs mags, but yeah has more + than - Don't know about handling since I don't have the gun yet, but is that only firing while moving?
@AlexECX Dominator has atrocious handling stats. When you turn it lags more than any other primary, comparable to the MG. It's listed recoil, while lower than slugger, is harder to control with repeated shots due to the sluggish settling of the crosshair. As someone who mained it at launch, then switched to slugger, I'll still use slug over domi. Accurate players make the slug a headshot machine vs devastors. Dominator is probably better for gut shots on zerkers now though and the high target piercing is nice for collateral kills.
And here come the gamers that can't hit a target with the Dominator. It's not just the new slugger, it's better than pre-nerf Slugger.
Big thank you for the video , cause I for sure didn't wanna test every single change lol. And it is super nice to see a Helldivers KZhead channel that is not just repeating reddit posts
There was a defend mission on one of the snowy bot planets and I witnessed the blizzard and it was awesome. I haven’t experienced the sandstorm however from your footage the blizzard wasn’t as thick as the sandstorm and you could still see somewhat decently through it.
I hope as they add more enemy types, we get missions that focus on air or land. Having to focus on both makes weapon selection so much harder
They will. Its very likely we will get an entirely new faction soon
It would also be nice, if we get some crossfight missions somewhere in the future. Like an all out war :D
"so what do I do with the three slots that aren't a rocket launcher? Hmmm..." -new weapon select
With the arc thrower, the 1 second shot time is a huge nerf, the old rate of fire was insane, you could easily pop off two shots a second. With the rate of fire now being halved the dps is also halved (for people who used it as optimally as possible, for everyone else it it’s negligible as most people never short charged it)
You are exaggerating. It fires slower but not that much slower. The stagger makes up for it, it's now pretty solid against bots. -arc thrower lover
i agree with the factory striders being extremely rare. supposedly they spawn on 7-9 but i've only ever seen one since the update and it was on 9.
For the arc thower, after a couple of test I wouldn't be to mad about the charge rate nerf . . . . *_If they at least fixed the bug where sometimes, despite have target on lock, your fire a blank shot !_* Which is why the timing of early shot ( about 0.6 second before patch ) was a gift : because you could compensate for that freakin' bug. As for the slugger . . . . I'm conflicted. Both by the choice of Arrowhead and by what we had, and now have. Prior, the prime utility of the Slugger was its stagger ability : a CC weapon. Ideal to maintain distance against berserkers and certain devastators.... This was not "nerfed" : it was "ERASED" ! Second point, the Slugger is a weapon with from all I could see, a very accurate weapon... which is accurate to Slug Shotgun designs, they are long range rifles than are shooting cartriges : not spreading, but blasting. Problem is : Arrowhead didn't want this weapon to become a sniper.......... So they got rid of the stagger, while it keeps all its ability to snipe ?! Because i'm telling you : you can still land a headshot a +100m away from your target ! So I don't know : by design now, it _TRUELY_ feels like a decent ranged weapons and not a close combat option, which is NOT what arrowhead wanted from their own words... The Solution ? If shotguns had falloff damage, it would fix a part of the problem ! the closer it is, the stronger the stagger and damage... the further it is, the less !
Same suggestions i thought of, instead of nerfing its overall damage, implement a mechanic where the further the target, the less stagger and damage it does per slug.
EXACTLY!
As new enemy types from factions increase and our arsenal, the devs need to give a list of possible enemies before diving in an area.
As an Arc Thrower fan I tested it after the balance changes and while the range was nerfed I would say that over all the changes are a buff to it. It especially helped at close to medium range where it struggled a bit against Destroyers and Berserkers, the added stagger definitely made it more effective against them.
Thanks for the heads up.
The slugger nerf makes even less sense when it's a page 8 free warbond. But the two good buffs are on one premium bond... kinda bogus that I spent all those medals to get to it, and now it doesn't do what I wanted when I worked to unlock it. Aaaaand, it's a slug from a shotgun. It should stun more than any other non slug primary in the game.
Yep I used the punisher until I unlocked the slugger and that's been my primary the whole time on both battlefields... Guess I won't be diving for a while. I hope Arrowhead fixes everything soon
@@Thelazybaboon-kn3dcbro…..my guy…….. just use it, it’s still really really good, I didn’t even notice it got nerfed until I saw this video, no need to quit the game
@@samuelbeckley1870 I'm not quitting I'm sure there will be many more balance patches in the future. Just gonna set the game aside for awhile till then
Yeah, people were crying pay to win at launch and i disagreed, but now? Nerfing free to play and buffing paid weapons is questionable
I tried the liberator penetrator and it was struggling to take down medium bots. I want the gun to be good but I don’t think just giving it full auto is gonna cut it.
Needs more ammo in the magazine
I'm hoping with the rumored upgrade system coming up you'll be able to get the 45 round mags like the standard liberator
half the guns are rather garbage i the game... the DMR, counter Sniper and Penetrator all perform best in single shot mode yet they are some of the worst that the AMR now is the actual replacement to even the Slugger
Nah they want you to use the premium weapons now
Mag should be much bigger
Thanks for the quick turn around analysis! It's very helpful when I can't fight the good fight every day. Is there still an issue with fire damage not ticking properly for those who aren't the session host? I thought I remember reading on Reddit that during every drop, someone, and not necessarily the group host, seemed to be randomly assigned as some kind of session host and burn DoT only seemed to work for them, and nobody else. That's kind of a deal-breaker for the incendiary breaker, no?
even though the patch notes say light armor remained unchanged the B-08 Light Gunner which is the set of light armor that has 100 armor received the same buff that normal medium armor did....it felt like i was more survivabal then i was prior to the patch so my friends and i tested it....same damage source to the same part of the body....only difference was one person was wearing medium armor and the other was wearing the light gunner and the damage source consistency left both players at the exact same health value....the damage source was another player shooting the revolver
The Spear is God Tier for Gunships. Call down a Resupply, hand your backpack to a Teammate, send the other two into the Airbase, while you take down any Gunships that spawn, they destroy the Towers. With a Resupply you can take out 12 before you run out of missiles. Add a Supply Backpack and you get 20 Missiles. More than enough time to take out the Airbase.
The slugger nerf was WAY too heavy. Used to be my favorite gun and now I will never use it again.
So now they added another problem to the game might be a topic for them on the discord
I’m still using it cause it’s my play style but hey don’t blame me for not killing things faster
still the coolest looking weapon in the game
Slugger is still my go-to weapon for Terminids. I use it like a short to medium range battle rifle with armor pen. Autocannon sentry is amazing anti air
I love the heavy armor update! Even before the update I used the heavy armor with explosive resistance. It was great against the clankers
Man, I just love this game and this dev team. Everything about it is amazing can’t wait to see what crazy stuff they have planned this April.
Arc thrower lost almost 30% of its range. As someone who mained arc thrower before quasar I can say it feels bad. I can see them making each shot require a full charge since that makes sense but gutting the range like that ruined the weapon.
As a person who never used it before this update, I can safely say its still great, I've used it on impossible bugs and I've been able to hold them off quite well, switch to primary for range, switch to arc for medium and close, its that simple. People are just used to stuff being OP that they are sad and they say it "ruined" the weapon because it ain't broken anymore.
@@Nebojsa1303 see here’s the thing, I don’t care if the weapon is OP or not, in fact I agree with the nerf to charge time, but the range nerf along with all its other quirks makes it now worse than other options. Sure it works, but everything works. Being useable was never the point, you can use just the revolver secondary and beat missions . the point is they nerf weapons to make them worse than others giving you no reason to pick them. Like the incendiary breaker + quasar is just better in literally every way. Flame thrower while good is now even better since its damage has been buffed and arc throwers range was nerfed. See even before they nerfed the arc thrower, people weren’t using it as much. Quasar + shield is better since it takes out heavies and buildings and drop ships. Now with it being nerfed, even less people will use it. That’s the issue, they keep nerfing shit that wasn’t even that OP in the first place, then buff other things to make them even more obsolete.
Ueah but it staggers hulks now. That's awesome right? The 1 second thing didn't bother me as I was using it wrong anyway lol. 35 meter arch still feels good.
railgun 2.0
@@Adam-mo2qw go run up to 35m from a hulk and tell me how that goes. Considering they spot you at 50m, you would need to get spotted, then run 15m towards it before you can start shooting. Against bots it’s completely useless now since range is your friend against bots, against bugs it’s bad because all its other quirks such as being blocked by corpses and bushes plus it being unreliable at really close range. This means you have between like 35-10 to be effective but once you kill something, it’s dead corpse will block all your follow-up shots meaning the enemies have to move past it before your next shot can hit. Oh and like I said, it’s still useable, but there’s no reason to use it. It’s like the liberator, it’s perfectly useable but no reason to ever use it.
Had heard that the rockets for automatons also had a bug fix where they were exploding multiple times from a single projectile, and thats why there was so many OHKs on the automaton front.
Good recap of the latest update. Good job
I never even used the Slugger and even I thought the nerf went overboard. Previously I wasn't a fan of it's slow rate of fire. Breaker and Scorcher killed big stuff faster, meanwhile Sickle killed little stuff faster. Now it's just useless meanwhile Dominator replaced it as a better version of it's previously un-nerfed state lol. Sadly, the Primary Weapon DMRs are still so bad they're not worth using but I guess the Dominator is the new Primary Weapon DMR/Sniper Rifle basically lol. These balance patches really show that Arrowhead is not very good at actually balancing the weapons. The point of balancing is making every weapon good at something, instead they're just over-nerfing and over-buffing so that the best weapon to use just changes, instead of you know, actually balancing the weapons lol.
lmao the slugger is better now unironically. It is much easier to hit heads and one shot devastators from a distance without the stagger moving them so much.
@@bigmilkonhiship35 that is just flat out wrong. The stagger is what saved it from its slow fire rate. Not to mention being able to stun berserkers was invaluable. Now you easily get overrun and if range is your argument then you'd be much better off using one of the dmrs as the moa isn't atrocious like the slugger.
Isn't the slugger one of the earliest weapons everyone gets? Because it's so easy to acquire it makes sense that it isn't a top tier weapon. That's how most live service games balance
The factory striders shouldn't have a massive spawn rate, they should just be tanky as hell and punish a squad that doesn't work together to bring it down, or a solo player should really have to plan out a kite strategy, but nah - I don't want 10 of these things in a match.
I played quite a few lvl 7 missions last night and only ran into one. Found out the hard way that it'll shred your health in an instant if it fires its frontal guns at you
Same! I tried running underneath to look for a weak spot and got mowed down!
Playing with the dominator, to me it feels like it almost does bonus damage the farther the projectile travels. Try testing that out if you like. I was dropping dominators up close with like 3-4 rounds, but at range I was consistently dropping them with 1-2 shots. Its a rocket propelled round, so it could in theory continue to build up speed after it leaves the barrel.
Breaker incen has been my main since launch man I love that gun im so glad my weapons got brought up
I don't usually comment on videos but this one stood out and it's only because of the thumbnail,which had literally,almost,all the information you would need. Didn't even watch the video,just left that shit to run on mute so homie can get paid and i went to do something else. 10/10
I know some people are upset over the buff to the anti-material rifle, saying it makes the railgun useless. As I see it, the anti-material rifle is finally able to do its job now. It easily destroys medium-armored enemies with a few shots, but cannot penetrate heavy armor. The railgun is the odd one out, the weapon without a role. From an engineering standpoint, the railgun is a single-shot super-high-penetration gun. From a gameplay perspective though, that means it competes with the various rocket launchers and stratagems for taking out the heavy armored opponents. Give the railgun enough damage per hit to compete with rockets and stratagems, and it de-values the AMR, Dominator, and other medium-penetrating guns. But without that level of damage output, it just cannot compete with the Quasar cannon and other rocket launchers against the larger threats. The devs had to choose between the railgun and a bunch of other unique weapons, and I think they made the right choice.
If AH gives a small buff to the railgun like faster charge up on unsafe mode or some shit, it will be on par with all the other support weapons and then you have a TON of options to choose from. AMR and AT/EAT are already really good, maybe the Spear needs to have its lock on sped up a bit
I mean in my opinion the railgun is EASILY better than the quasar from a better rof and similar damage if using unsafe mode and charging to 90%+
the railgun and AMR are akin to the Stalwart and MG , the benefit of stalwart and the Railgun is you can reload quickly while mobile. There are enemies that should die easier to the railgun and that is it's own issue as they should give rail some kind of buff and just take away some of the ammo reserve maybe putting it from 20 shots down to 15/12 or something and make it the powerhouse that it should be.
I love the arc thrower. The range you can feel before you could snipe with it when it fires and the stagger is very strong. It’s still a very good weapon to bring
If you can't get the factory striders to spawn, drop on the evac point. Chances are there's an autonomton Strider there alongside an outpost. My last two Helldives where we spawned on the evac to fortify it with supplies and weapons, there's been a strider there.
The breaker and slugger didn’t need nerfed. The AR’s still need buffed. All hail the anti material rifle
People are still sleeping on the Defender I see. It's ammo and damage per second, while still having decent range with trigger control, make it a beast at clearing out small targets fast and easy. But maybe that's just because my Autocannon can take care of pretty much everything else. To be fair they DID over nerf the slugger. One of its changes would've been acceptable but both just make it hilariously sub par.
Striders only show up in 8-9 level difficulties I believe
I tried that but couldn't get a single one.
@@SwanyPlaysGameson certain planets as well
@@SwanyPlaysGames maybe it’s a similar situation to how they introduced the flying bug nests
They can spawn in difficulty 7 as well but are quite rare, ran into one guarding a POI by itself. Kinda wish it very rarely spawned on 5-6 as well since it was pretty fun to fight on its own. Seems the gunships only spawn on 5+ similar to shriekers as well.
I had it appear on a 7 command bunker mission on Tibit as part of a bot drop responding to an outpost getting hit. Same planet also had me encounter the new gunships a couple times in the same night (last night).
@13:40 - Yes there is, go check out Vandalon 5 in the Trigon Sector. (Automatons side) Completed mission but couldnt extract around 7am this morning due to blizzard slowing us. =]
6:42 is that… a Mysterio cosplay? Nice one bro 👍 😎
as someone who mained arc thower, this hit hard, Its a major nerf. you can really feel the lower dps and reduced range.
You can feel it because it's currently apparently bugged
I'm still using the slugger and it's still pretty good. Being able to stunlock everything that wasn't a heavy was pretty broken. It now just requires you to care about cover more.
Except the dominator does that exact thing now, so clearly that's not it. They just wanted a weapon behind the premium bond to do it instead.
I don't use the Jar 5 but I've heard it's handling is bad I wanted ask if that's true.
Also the argument between the slugger and jar 5 is silly. The slugger was better before but now the jar 5 is better. The problem I want to focus on is the fact that one weapon outclasses 80% of the arsenal. The slugger is still good it hasn't been nerfed into the ground but there are plenty of other cool weapons like the scythe, blitzer, dagger or even the punisher plasma that feel nearly unusable at higher difficulties because their damage or fire rate is too low. Or in the case of the plasma the drop is really wonky making hard to hit anything.
Anyway as a side note what if they added a mechanic to energy weapons like the scythe where they deal damage to you if the heat builds past like 75%. This would give you a reason to reload before overheating which is a thing you can currently do even if there isn't much reason to. This would also allow them to buff those weapons in some other way making them a bit better and more dynamic.
I always loved the breaker incendiary against bugs. Great to hear it’s even better now.
I was and still am an arc thrower main. It's quite a bit slower, you used to be able to get s rhythm going where you're popping off like 4 or 5 shots every 2 sec. The range is significantly & noticeably buffed as well. I have to ping enemies constantly to get a read on their range (35m) before shooting. I used to shoot basically anything i could see before & hit it. The stagger is really nice & slays against the bots. You can 1v1 a hulk & stun lock it from the front.
Slugger nerf was absolutely crippling, on to Infection Free Zone and Manor Lords. Year has been too good for games to stick to Helldivers as close as I was anyway. Props to them for such an amazing game but this patch has curbed my interests.
I just don't get the nerfs. I already never use the exo suit because it's not that great. And so many of the primarys are just terrible. People liked the slugger because it acted like how marksmen rife should feel. The problem wasn't that the slugger was so crazy powerful the problem was all the marksman rifles were terrible. Theres just too many weapons right now and so many are so niche or just can't keep up. Experimenting with different weapons feels like a punishment.
Ive encountered the factor strider, but it was at the very beginning when we dropped into an enemy base. I ran, way too many other enemies to deal with. Someone did throw a 500kg at it as we were running and it still kept on going.
the striders you can 1shot by hitting the hip joint with the AMR now. Feels so good!
Which joint? The "hip" joint, "knee", or "ankle"? AMR was my go to against bots, but I've been having too much fun with the riot shield to test it out
@greatbrandini3967 the hip joint, top part of the leg where it meets the body. If you get one shot onto it, the whole strider falls over. That 30% damage boost is a gamechanger in my book.
Breaker incendiary was already OP.
Agreed. Always used it for bugs
nah, it was inferior to normal breaker, now every time i do termids i go full incendiary build
It was already insanely good, I barely noticed a difference tbh. People just didn’t give it much attention before.
Only for the host as far as I know.
@@haveproblemz545 Pre-incendiary buff (the first one) it sucked pretty badly, but not as bad as the Spray and Pray. Post-Second Buff it's pretty dangerous for the enemy.
My go to weapon in the scythe from the cutting edge pack, infinite ammo is great and the burning out is a great con
I saw the atat thing at a distance a few days ago but was so overwhelm I didnt even though of going out of my way to destroy it
I'm a big fan of the massive strider being a rare sight. For how powerful it is. It's something that when it shows up becomes the "must kill this thing now!" and it's awesome. I wonder if the Hive Lords will be similar.
For the Gunships I use the Autocannon Sentry, and the Rocket sentry, works great
i find that the anti material rifle or autocannon are best to vs gunships. Both very versatile weapons in general & lots of ammo
Breaker incendiary has been my main weapon for terminids since launch highly slept on. Even before the buff it was great. Now I’d imagine it’s even better. I haven’t had a chance to use it, it’s been oil spilling time on the other front.
I've ran the dominator for a while before and now it's even better I was happy with it to begin with but now just rips through everything
I also noticed that after extraction now, your character keeps the blood and guts that got on them from deployment which I thought was a nice touch
I stopped using the arc thrower after the update. The charge timing seems less consistent on top of it taking noticeably longer to charge than before the change. I also frequently have misfires where the gun is charged but doesn’t fire. Also the gun refuses to hit enemies right in front of the player. The arc thrower feels broken.
Autocannon makes quick work of gunships as well. Its really great against all automatons in general
I was shredding the gunships with the laser cannon. Works best with heavy armor and the shield generator, though, since it'll let you take a shot or two while beaming them down. That said, the effective range on the laser is insane, so I was able to cut then down from a distance.
something to note about the arc thrower, with the increase to stagger force, it's able to effectively stunlock hulks.
The AMR was busted op before the patch already vs bots. It 3 shot the walkers and 2 tapped medium enemies including hulks in the eye. Now it 2 tapps literally everything besides tanks which it needs 5-6 shots for (same for tower cannons). I was using it since the original railgun nerfs and never looked back. If you dont have the aim for it the autocannon does the exact same job but takes a back slot.
10:50 they also fixed a bug that was causing some explosion damage to hit you more than once, which is why automaton rockets used to be an insta-gib. I can tank a rocket splash in light armor now...before that would have ended me.
I been using the dominator and the sniper since drop. I use the dominator as a special weapon and use the arc as main. The sniper been the best gun for bots since drop as well. There are play styles in this game. Everyone doesn’t have to be clones down to the weapon and fit. Gun changes 1st came because ppl would kick you for not being a clone of them.
I already played the anti material rifle and the incendiary and i was a little surprised they buffed both. The arc thrower otherwise is just crap now, i got sooo used to the rate of fire that i just tap to fast and get swarmed instantly
Recoiless got buffed too. More ammo and imo reload speed. Im able to get a second shot ready before a second dropship appears.
Oh dang missed the note about the ballistic shield. Now that it's usable I'd have to give it a try against bots eventually. Might be a good stratagem to use when supporting a team.
5:47 Funny thing is, it's not even the gunfire that killed you but the treads. They deal continuous damage to whatever they touch, it's even damaged me while it was already destroyed.
My homies and me played 2 bug missions and 1 bot mission to close the night. Whole mission was a regular mission until we asked for extraction, then these strider factory popped and it was awesome and terrifying at the same time, they are slow, but they have 1-shot cannons and every 20-30 seconds they spawn enemies. Holy FUK, I was hyperventilating of excitement, can't wait for the 3rd race
The new HMG is still not good for all the reasons you mentioned in your video about the new weapons, but it is actually very effective against the gunships. It only takes a short burst to one of their engines to bring them down.
Glad you like the update, I’d like it too if I could play without crashing/losing network connection
The autocannon is also great for the ships, 3 shots to the thruster
I had several blizzards last night on the automaton side. They are like sandstorms but in white. Little to no vision and a hard hit to speed and stamina!