Helldivers 2 - Automaton Complete Bestiary Guide (All Variants Included)
2024 ж. 14 Мам.
317 571 Рет қаралды
Spread some more democracy to those automatons boys, we're losing this defense.
Hope this video is useful to you helldivers out there!
If you have any requests, let me know in the comment section below
enjoy!
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:50 Troopers, Raiders, Marauders
1:45 Berserkers
2:32 Gunner Devastator
3:10 Shielded Devastator
4:06 Rocket Devastator
5:40 Striders
6:57 Hulk Bruiser
8:51 Scorcher Hulk
9:29 Hulk Liberator
10:04 Annihilator Tank
12:29 Shredder Tank
13:27 Dropships
14:05 Stationary Cannon Towers
#helldivers #helldivers2 #helldiver
Dropships instantly die to an EAT or Recoilless Rifle round to a thruster; extremely doable for a single diver to wipe out
You gotta hit the engine block though and unless you're running a personal shield/really good you won't always have the opportunity to take them out before they drop their cargo. It's just usually easier to kill the things being dropped instead as a solo/duo group.
@@mongrelshadow14The crashing ship can kill enemies too
@@Opachki69420only when it falls straight down. There’s a bug where it teleports backwards and tends to not wipe out the big guys
@@mongrelshadow14 get the Recoilless or EAT, clear the group that called the dropship, crouch and aim at the flare. Your character will call out "DROPSHIP!" when it arrives, and then just wait til it's hovering steady enough for your personal aim to take the shot. I prefer to shoot them just a little before they enter hover mode as this will ensure nothing drops. And those that do survive will remain on "standby" mode until engaged.
@@Opachki69420this can be buggy. sometime it works or doesnt lol
Fighting bugs makes me feel like an ODST holding back the flood while automatons make me feel like I'm a fucking clone commando taking on 500 battle droids at once
no wonder nids on high diff is such a pain in the ass. its the library on legendary all over again
Goated comments 😂😂😂
Bacta delta heal up
And when the Illuminate drop we will be Terran Marines fighting the Protoss
@@Nevet1987or Pre-Heresy Imperial Army facing Eldar
I know they're not technically enemy units but its still handy to know: The Automatons have (to my knowledge) the following additional buildings to support them. -Detector Towers. High threat level, if they spot you they'll call in a serious shitstorm of Automaton units to deal with you - on top of apparently alerting all nearby patrols of your location. Its got its own garrison but will call in at least 3-4 dropships worth of troops and will keep calling in reinforcements until its silenced. -Anti-Air emplacements. Medium threat, possibly high if they're near evac. You cant call Eagle-1 when you're anywhere near these. I suspect they will also shoot down Pelican-1 if they're too close to the evac point. Always worth taking out, small garrison and no threat to you personally -Mortar emplacements. Medium threat. Not very accurate but can catch you by surprise. Usually between 2-4 mortars, and its own small garrison. Use either a hellbomb to take em out all at once or 2 impact grenades per emplacement. You can track where they come from by looking for their shots. -Stratagem Jammer. High threat. This bloody thing will block all your stratagems from being called in while you're in its radius, and those activated outside will not pop off if you throw them into its radius. A nightmare if its near objectives or any of the other buildings. Always prioritize this thing if its anywhere near where you need to be. -Anti-tank minefield. Small threat. Not really an emplacement by itself, on Extreme+ you can sometimes encounter a minefield by itself with a handful of bots besides it. Unless you are legally blind its not really a threat, and can be easily avoided There is also the Automaton airbases, but as these are primary objectives I dont think they really count. Same applies for the fuel and ammo storage bases. Smoll edit: Unlike the Terminids, the Automatons all seem to be in constant communication with each other. Patrols will be sent to locations that "went black" to check things out - be they bases or other patrols, so never linger in one place too long. The more noise you make, the more attention you'll attract. However, also unlike the terminds, it is entirely possible to completely stealth an Automaton operation without them ever properly knowing you are there (missions like launching the ICBM) until its time for evac. They heavily rely on sight and sound, and you can take them down from behind with a single melee hit for the Troopers (and variants of this. dont attempt it with larger bots) . It counts as a silent takedown, and wont alert the others nearby if they havent spotted you yet.
Damn thats a lot of info, kinda had a feeling the bots were communicating with each other. Hope this info gets around would make doing missions a lot easier.
Ooh, knowing that stealth takedowns are an option is nice.
So the crazy binary they speak isn't just to scare us then.
This is insanely useful, thank you for all these tips.
I always wondered why bot patrols were zeroing in on our positions whenever we went loud for small side objectives. I think we really underestimated them...
The Malevelon Creek boot camp.
For low level players and veterans alike, DON’T sleep on the Anti-materiel rifle for dealing with Automatons of all sizes. You can easily snipe all of the bot types if you know where to aim(mainly the head). You can also use it to take down the tower cannons if you shoot the vents, and it can also kill regular tanks the same way. If you don’t have access to the Railgun yet, the Anti-materiel is a great rifle to use as it allows you to use a backpack. One last thing is that since you can adjust the scope, it allows you to scout far away areas👌
Came here to say that as well. Antimat is super useful handy, 2 headshots will kill most medium armoured bots, 3 shots will down a walker/atst even through its front armour.
The automatons are, after all, made of materiel.
@Val-bx6gn I was able to one shot the striders by hitting their hips.
@@altair6491 Absolutely, they have a bunch of weak spots, but I tried to emphasise shooting through the front armour. Like, sometimes in the heat of the moment you just start blasting because there's no time to aim for the weak spots or they're obstructed by terrain or something. And antimat does alright even in those scenarios. It's one of the best beginner weapons, ime.
Until I had the Autocannon, I used the AntiMat with bots. Very handy with walker - two shots to the hip knocks the leg off and topples them over.
A big part of fighting bots is just keep shooting. They get less accurate as you shoot near them, so getting bullets down range does a lot for survivability.
Yeah definitely! If the whole squad is retreating, kind of do some leap-frogging and have someone in the front stop running and just make some suppressing shots.
basically Helldiver guide video's can be summed up as: Shoot with the railgun shoot with the rail shoot with the rail gun
so true. The other stuff just sucked when compared to railgun. Damn RR or eat17 can't even one shot armoured unit is bullshit, especially in the way the spam them
@@kamingleung3792 Yep, It takes 3 recoilless rockets to the face of a charger to kill it. It's ridiculous. Considering the slow reload, the recoilless rifle should obliterate anything armoured in one shot, with the only exception of bile titans or tanks, since they are supposedly the final "boss" of each enemy faction.
@@mrxanthios7045 either they need to add a smol weak point in the front or make the tail weaker. I don't think bullfighting and dumping 2 mags of shotgun shell to kill one charger make any sense. Or they need to buff the weapons
@@kamingleung3792Make the enemy easier…is that treason I hear helldiver? But in all seriousness stop fighting the chargers like you have a rail gun. It takes a well placed rocket to the legs to strip its armor. After that, depending on the weapon, you’re looking anywhere between .5-1.5 mags on any weapon. The chargers back is not the best part to attack. You can do damage to it, but very little compared to how fast you kill it when doing what I mentioned earlier. Take it from a helldiver who went from struggling to take a single charger on, to soloing any charger so long as you hit your shots on the legs once the armor is stripped. Edit: Never mind after putting lots of hours into the game I realize a games outcome is purely RNG. You can have games where you can one shot a charger with a well placed rocket shot and then have another game where a bile titan with the blessing of Zeus spawns and tanks everything you and your team threw at it. Also the devs broke spawn rates and pathing. I have had multiple games where the enemy AI will magically path to your exact location for no reason. This is after pretty much having a flawless stealth run. I’ve also had enemy patrols spawn right on top of me and drop form the sky to then immediately call backup. Overall devs definitely need to buff weapons and fix the AI. There should be no reason a Rifle, DMR or a 50 caliber is out performed by a pistol caliber in any situation. Especially considering the devs and their military backgrounds.
@@hugorodriguez5521 yea no shit sherlock, wait til you get gangbang by 3 charger at once. you will know war dont fight on paper
Before unlocking the autocanon or the railgun the anti-material rifle is great for taking out the armored targets. I believe 2 shots to the leg will down the scout striders.
Correct, two shots to legs, or three shots to the metal plating… and if you’re lucky, you might get it one shot if you manage to snipe the dude sitting on it from the front😂
If you're already sniping you can see the very top of the driver's head from the front at most distances.
I’ve been running the Marksman rifle and the Anti material rifle against bots, which has been pretty effective. The main gun can snipe normal bots and prevent dropship call-ins, then the anti material for anything from devastators to hulks and tanks. It can 2 shot a hulk with a headshot and about 5 shots to the vent of a tank or tower cannon to destroy those. Also the good ammo count and free backpack slot helps. Then bring other stratagem to cover the other weaknesses
Recoilless Rifle and ANTI Tank Rocket can destroy dropships with 1 shot to the turbine, it is entirely possible to use this strategy to take out enemies before they spawn. My group found this effective for high difficulty defense missions!
It even still works in the small window where it has dropped off the enemies it was carrying but hasn't begun moving yet, as it will come crashing down on top of them and explode, killing most of them.
I've found that waiting for them to start dropping their payload works best. Like once the last one starts dropping from the ship, hit the Thruster and it'll fall onto the group below
The grenade launcher is critical for dealing with striders & all devastator variants. Makes running solos on 4 doable
autocannon is even better if you don't mind using up your backpack slot
@@calbsmoth4866Auto cannon also helps with Cannon turrets.
Scorcher has explosive damage that bypasses the armour on striders
Fun fact All devastators die to one railgun shot at the groin
Either leg works fine too
And I believe the weak spot for the Berzerkers (chainsaw hands) is their stomach, because I can unload a bunch of medium armor piercing bullets to the head and it doesn't take them out quickly, but once I started aiming for the narrow stomach they started to disassemble much faster. I was hoping this beastiary video would of covered this and maybe tested out more spots on all the enemies thoroughly instead of the obvious "aim for the head" suggestion.
@@joemorales4288I made myself a saying for Automatons. “Aim for the head and they’ll be dead. Aim for the waist and they’ll be turned into paste.” Because the waist actually has a slightly higher damage modifier… DO NOT QUOTE ME FOR THIS! I AM NOT 100% SURE! I just find aiming at the waist kills them faster.
"Railgun nerf was too much " Meanwhile in this video all of the suggestion to take down enemys was always the Railgun.
been waiting for this, we all know the automatons are the real war.
Nah. Bot reinforcements can be easily stopped and the drop ships blown up. Bugs spawn instantly and sometimes endlessly chasing you across large parts of the map
@@proggz39 Cope
@proggz39 And yet most bugs aren't ranged attackers, and the ones that are don't usually directly shoot you or are incredibly short ranged. Automatons are 100% harder than bugs. Especially if you don't have a shield generator.
wellcome to space age 'nam
Bug swarms are no joke
The auto cannon is a viable way to get rid of most hard targets easily as long as you crouch, have vantage or the gusto to take them head on. It also destroys bug holes and can take out hulks,towers,tanks heat sinks. Recommend because of how much ammo you can carry, but you have to place your shots well to get the explosion under the armour of bug targets.
yea the armors that have the reduced recoil really Carry the autocannon spam
If you hit the vents right the round will ricohet into the factories too
Autocannon Main here, Agreed, I don't enjoy using the rail gun, so I take the Autocannon, its super flexible in what it can do, hitting a vent on the bot fabricator in the right spot can bounce a round inside and blow it up, doing this Iv blown up small bases at near max render range from across maps, the Autocannon is also super useful against pretty much any enemy, Tanks, Hulks, and towers can all be sniped with it at some ridiculous ranges with only 3 rounds to the heat sinks, And it can also one shot illegal broadcast towers by hitting the screens on the top of the tower, As for dropships, dumping autocannon rounds into the ship when it levels out and gets ready to drop bots, can kill many of them before they hit the ground, the plash is enough to kill strider pilots as they spawn in the underbelly. Crouching is a must for allot of shots, as it helps stabilize your recoil and get your reticule back on target faster than if you did it standing, atop of that, the gun itself holds 10 rounds, and the pack holds 50, giving 6 full reloads of 60 rounds that if used properly, can last quite a while, and being crew served, if you have a team mate who doesn't use a backpack, can carry extra ammo for you and buddy load you for some serious rapid fire. Hope this helps anyone using the Autocannon!
@@Chesher777 in the same vein as the broadcast tower it can also kill spore spewer towers with one or two rounds. Between its ability to handle nests/factories/tanks/towers/etc and several of the optionals, plus the insane crowd control potential, I have a hard time NOT running it.
You could not of posted this at any better time I just logged into the servers after an hour thanks for contributing to the war effort
“Could not of” lmfao 🤡
As an autocannon user, both annihilator tank and cannon turret die in 3 quick shots from the back of their turret... For the hulk variants, take them down easily by shooting its legs off by placing 5 shots from an autocannon on each leg.
I actually never though about shooting the hulk's legs, gonna have to try that
The autocannon can also two shot the hulk’s head if you’re accurate enough with it
My group and I have found the best support weapon load vs the bots is to run 2 Autocannons and a Recoiless, and then either a 2nd Recoiless, a SPEAR or a railgun. The canon users can utterly shred all the Berserkers and Devastators you find in droves on the higher difficulties, thanks to the high damage and very large ammo supply of the AC. That leaves the two with the heavier weapons on clearing the regular bots with their primaries until a Hulk or tank shows up, at which point they can promptly remove said heavy enemy. That said, we normally run the double recoiless so we can shoot down pretty much every dropship in a run. One shot to the thruster from a recoiless is enough to instantly destroy them. And having two of them makes Hulks and Tanks a breeze to deal with. I've also seen a lot of discussion on the Autocannon vs Railgun vs the Recoiless. In short: the Autocanon has tons of ammo and shreds berserkers and devastators, and even hulks if you get their rear, but can't deal with tanks and struggles with Hulks headon. The Recoiless is the go to for tanks, Hulks, and oneshotting dropships but the limited ammo means they're pretty much the only things you want to spend rounds on. The railgun is somewhere in between. It has less ammo than the AC, but does more damage, and vs the recoiless it has more ammo than the recoiless but less damage. IE, the Railgun has versatility, while the other two are more specialized for dealing with medium and heavy enemies respectively. In a well coordinated group, I find having different helldivers specializing is the best strategy hence the heavy use of the AC and Recoiless. That said, when playing with Randos, the railgun is going to be far better, as it gives you great mobile versatility.
I definitely find the AC more flexible to use, especially as they *are* capable of dealing with tanks if someone else pulls aggro and lets you see the weak spot. The way it struggles against hulks headon is irritating and reminds me of how you can magdump a charger and it still will trample you. IIRC the man-portable AC is only penetrating medium armor, while the turreted version can pen heavy, which is annoying but makes sense given how broken it would be. Personally I'd actually argue for someone to run a 'nade launcher as well with a supply backpack. It makes short work of all smaller bots including the various devastators, and as takibo mentions they're also a hard counter to the walkers that doesn't require wasting AC rounds or recoilless shots on each one. In addition to support weapons you also get a lot of money out of turrets too, particularly the mortars. Since most bots don't yolo rush like the bugs do you can use them more without having to worry as much about friendly fire, and the EMS launcher especially is amazing for when the drops get out of hand. Really I feel like proper tactics and planning in general is much more helpful against the bots, especially with how they can be suppressed, and are generally slow to push into you as well. Especially those damn rescue missions in particular you benefit a lot from thinking ahead; it's often best to deploy further out and send in one person to escort civvies solo, while the other three keep bot aggro outside the facility. Before I learned to do that those missions were absolute slogs and often failed, not anymore.
im so glad you pronounce Automatons right
Tell me about it man, so many saying Auto-matons 😭
Yeah, but can’t pronounce “melee”
After seeing numerous guides I still have yet to see anyone recommend impact grenades against tanks. They are probably the best to use against them, throw right on top or right next to the top cannon and you would most likely kill it. Saving you a huge amount of time and effort.
Came here to say this. 2× impact grenades is the minimum I've seen for the tanks/turrets
For fellow Anti-Materiel Rifle enjoyers: you can 1-shot Devastators with headshots, which is nice and makes the rifle worthwhile in my opinion. It also deals great damage to the heatsinks. I have not tried it on hulks but would suspect that it does NOT penetrate their hull. It is reasonably effective against Scout Striders - three shots to the front armor takes them out which is not efficient, but easy and reliable.
2 anti material rifle shots to the head kill Hulks. Its an extremely viable weapon all around. For scout striders, 2 shots to the leg will take one out if you cant hit the pilot.
@@DogInatutu ...are you certain about that? 2 autocannon shots to the head will drop a hulk, but I tried the same with the AMR and could never drop it no matter how many headshots I got
@@lilneoman1 It works, ive done it many times. The recoil might have been throwing off your shots.
I’ve been running the Anti Material for a while and it definitely 2 shots a hulk with a headshot. You just need to wait another split second from the recoil because even when the reticule falls back to the head, there is still half a second before it will actually hit where the reticule is aiming because it’s still in the recoil animation. Also because the ammo count is pretty generous, I’ve found it is good to 3rd person fire it against chainsaw berserkers when they are close, as long as you are good at guessing where the centre of the screen is, plus there is no splash damage to worry about
Bug missions are like pest control but on a galactic scale. In lore, it actually kinda is just that. The robots are an actual organized and very credible military threat that shoots back with just the same, if not even more firepower, depending on the mission. Plus they use tactics and technology to actively hinder and stop your advances. Robot missions truly make you feel like you are diving feet-first into hell. Which is why Super-Earth has decided it is time to unleash the Mechs.
One thing to note about Rocket Devestators; like all Automatons, they are susceptible to supressive fire. As long as you continue to do sustained bullet damage to them, they will not use their missile pods and their primary fire will be less accurate. This can help buy some time, but not too much.
Useful for the little guys with rockets as well, as long as they take some damage before they fire they'll most likely go wide. Although the little guys are probably dead if you hit them but it's still worth knowing
As soon as heavy armor stats actually work I'm willing to bet Automatons won't be nearly as bad to fight.
Eh… I’m still rocking my light armour engineering kit build…
@ninja6245-real If you're doing an engineering build, then all the more reason to want heavy armor that grants more grenades or something. It's the slow as you go approach anyways, so there's no need for the mobility light armor gives.
@@gibster9624 Yeah… It doesn’t give a different amount of grenades… It’s still an extra 2.
@ninja6245-real Not the point. If you're placing a turret you're not moving much so having armor that let's you stay in one place more is pretty important. The extra grenades is usually just a staple of engineer builds.
@@gibster9624 YOU DON’T GET A TURRET WITH THE ENGINEERING KIT BONUS WITH ARMOUR!
Autocannon is excellent at killing everything the bots have. 2 shots in the eye will kill hulks, 2-3 in the heat sink of a tank or tower cannon destroys them, a single hit to the "hips" of striders and it of course makes a mockery of anything smaller than a hulk. You can also bounce shots into fabricators (off the top hatch which reflects AC shots) as long as you're in a 90 degree angle or so of the door of the fab, a shot to the top hatch will bounce and oneshot the building from any range and it is able to destroy AA guns, mortars and other emplacements too. Having at least one AC guy (and preferably 2+) is a huuuuge benefit in bot missions. Railgun works too but it's a LOT slower at the same job. Really feels like railgun is better for bugs especially on higher difficulties where bugs make it impossible to stop moving, bots are a lot more predictable and less rush-ey so AC is fantastic at dealing with their entire roster.
My 2 cents: Headshots - oneshots all trash mobs. So you dont need breaker, most of the time it would perform worse than liberator. You simply have less ammo = less headshots Shield backpack is almost worthless as it extends your hitbox and it just tanks hits that would miss you otherwise. Sniper Riffle stratagem is insanely good as it will oneshots everything in the head exceps hulks, it would 2-shot them in the windshield. And since sniper riffle is insanely spammy - you just dont care and can run it as main weapon.
Give Hulks backshots, got it.
Strategem prep and loaded.
Wait...........
I would add that Striders have a second weakness as well. If you lack any explosives or stratagems to use, but have a weapon that can punch through medium armor, the legs are a good targets when fighting these walkers. That will destroy the walker instantly and make the pilot hop off and attack with a basic rifle. Anti material rifles are also perfect to do this to striders at a distance as well if the pilot is hard to hit. People should remember there is limb damage to this game and it applies to enemies as well.
A second tip I will add is the drop ships have a weakness if you aim a recoilless rocket at their thrusters. One hit kills if you hit one of those.
The AMR can punch through the armor on the front of a scout walker killing the pilot in 2-3 shots. Just aim for the middle instead of the legs.
This man still thinks the chargers weak point is its back
"the bugs prioritize swarming you with numbers, while the automatons prioritize using range attacks... And swarming you with numbers."
"How big is your FOV?" Takibo: "Yes."
A relevant detail about the tanks that you didn't mention, despite it occurring in the video, is that whilst it's possible to climb around on the tanks, both the spikes on the front and touching the tracks will deal massive damage to the player very fast. You can see in this video there him merely brushing up against the front kills him in a single second without taking a shot. So whilst it's possible to get up there, be prepared for that danger.
a clean headshot on hulk with railgun will kill it in one shot. Two clean headshot with anti material rifle will take down a hulk. Armor that have any explosive damage reduction will help you survive against rocket shots.
The Autocannon also is a twoshot on the hulks, if you hit the head. It generally performs best vs. bots for me.
Also really should’ve mentioned the bots with jet packs. The packs explode when they die, which is an easy oneshot on a player if they’re next to you - which they try to always be, using the packs to fly straight for you when in combat. You also can shoot the pack to destroy it and they won’t explode when killed, but it’s generally better to just kill the bot from a safe distance
A few additional tips I’ve learned soloing on lvl 9s; 1. Detector towers can be dealt with easily with a 500kg bomb or an orbital laser. If you use the laser, make sure to throw it directly on the tower, because the tower itself won’t be seen as a target, but will be destroyed instantly if the laser hits it. 2. Jammers will often (maybe 70% of the time) have a fabricator nearby the main building. Destroying the fabricator with a grenade, or even better, with a grenade launcher from outside the base itself, will instantly destroy the Jammer. 3. Orbital laser is the best single stratagem, hands down. It will almost always fully destroy anti air and mortar emplacements on its own, it will take out the majority of heavy outposts, and can eliminate multiple hulks, tanks, and cannon towers with a single use. 4. When you have to fight, ALWAYS focus Commissars first, they’re the small bots with one blade and one pistol, as they will instantly call reinforcements. The rocket grunts can also call reinforcements, but it’s extremely rare. 5. Don’t be afraid to run. On high levels, bot drops are absolutely insane, and I recommend avoiding fights when possible. Killing enemies does nothing for you unless you’re at an objective, and unlike bugs, most bots can be easily outrun. By running and looping back around, you can bait an otherwise unmanageable horde away from your objective and effectively get rid of them with no effort.
raiders: grenade/shoot the ones pointing pistols at the air to prevent the bots from getting dropship reinforcements, and focus rocket troopers when possible berserkers: shoot the hip, it's the biggest area on the unit that's vulnerable to light armor piercing weapons, though going for headshots works against them as well if you have good aim devestators: shoot their head sheild devestators: throw an impact grenade at them or aim for their head (top left), you can also use stratagems to bypass it's sheild (ie autocannon, grenade launcher, etc) rocket devestators: shoot the rocket pods then aim for the head walkers: grenade them like you would the rest of the infantry, or shoot them in the hip with anything bigger than a grenade launcher (autocannon supremacy) hulk(s): shoot them though the red visor on their faceplate with 2 autocannon shells/safe railgun rounds, one unsafe railgun round, or single target stratagems. tank: ambush the tank and shoot the heatsink in the back with anything bigger than a grenade launcher, or use single target stratagems (personal recommendation is the 110 rocket pods) AA tank: same as above just don't bother trying to hit it's heatsink Dropships: 1 recoilless rifle/expendable anti tank round to the thruster to cause it to spin out and die with it's payload cannon tower: close the distance, hug the wall, and shoot the heatsink in the back with anything bigger than a grenade launcher
A Star Wars themed enemy’s biggest weakness is the high ground, brilliant.
Miscellaneous tips: - Note that the small humanoids die in one body shot from the DMR. I take the DMR on bot missions for this very reason. Soon as I unlock the Lib-Penetrator I'm gonna start taking that instead. - If you can flank the shield Devastator, their ammo pack is a weakpoint, and explodes if damaged sufficiently, just like the rocket pods on rocket Devastators. I actually recommend shooting out the rocket pods as well, for the same reason that you should blow off the shield Devastator's main gun: it dramatically reduces their threat level and lets you focus on other things for a bit. - Striders can be killed head-on with a couple different weapons: the GL will kill the pilot through the armor, and if you're a sharp enough shot you can hit the pilot over the top of the armor (his head peeks out a bit). This is good to know if you don't have the Railgun. - Mag-dumping the machine pistol into a Berserker's center mass will kill it. This has saved my life on more than one occasion. - A single Disposable AT Launcher or Recoilless Rifle shot to the engine will take out a dropship. Both of these weapons also penetrate heavy armor to some degree, so they're still useful against other targets as well.
Autocannon is a good choice for almost the entire bot faction, it's a really good tank, hulk and devastator killer, and can handle anything below that. The anti-material rifle is a good low level option, being able to handle rocket devastators and (if you're accurate) can 2-3 shot hulks in their face plate just like a railgun does. Definitely move on to better weapons when you can though, anything above a hulk, like tanks or cannon turrets, it struggles with. Where as i feel like the bugs are a lot more dependent on your loadout, i find the bots to be a lot more focused on your skill. If you bring the wrong strategems to bugs, you will get your ass kicked, but even if you just dropped out of your pod with the liberator you can still handle most bots if you aim good enough. Can't say the same for a bile titan or a charger, really.
The threat with tanks is that they're never alone. You can't really just turn your back to it as the cannon is a one-shot, but tanks are usually dropped alongside things like rocket devastators and half a platoon of chaff you also have to worry about. The bots feel like they have decent combined arms doctrine, at high levels it is very difficult to keep track of all the potential threats they could be throwing at you (rocket devastators, hulks, tanks, mortars, etc.) it's so invigorating to be fighting an npc faction like this.
The problem with tanks is that, while not hard to take down, there are always multiple of them from different angles laying down pinning fire to your entire squad. Combine that with the mandatory 2 hulks on higher difficulties (7-9) along with 2 dozen devastators and you get the reason why machines are much more disliked than bugs to fight against.
Can’t forget those cannon towers either.. if you’re in the open, you’re not safe. Simple as.
Another really good tool for dealing with Striders is the Scorcher when you unlock it! 2-3 shots to the face-plate of one will kill the pilot behind it because of the splash damage.
Just be wary of the jetpack ones as they explode if you hit em with explosive or direct hit their jetpack with any weapon. They also rush you just like the hunters so getting away from them is really difficult especially when you are forced to shoot at them at close range with the risk of that explosion. I don’t know their exact name if you had mentioned it but didn’t see any screen recording of it so thought I’d mention it.
Assault Raiders: Bot that I hate.
God, yes. I've been bodied so many times by those jetpack guys exploding when they die, it's not even funny
might be worth mentioning that some of the lower ranked Bots can throw a grenade, and you can toss it right back at them if you're quick/it lands right on your position. It isn't like when you throw your own grenade, don't rely on it being too useful, but it can beat having to dive away from your cover.
The striders are closer to ATRTs than ATSTs. STs and RTs are basically the same thing except the RTs are single person and about the same size as the striders
Do note that you can nade the tank's hest sink, this is especially effective with the impact grenade. The dropships can also go down with one shot of the recoilless or EAT to one of it's four thrusters.
I believe you missed Chargers, little bastards that jetpack towards you with the only mission to die near you so their explosion-on-death kills you
I would not, under 99% of circumstances, bring a Spear. It’s slow to lock, slow to reload, and slow to kill any enemy it can be used against. Only on max difficulty civilian defense have I considered bringing the Spear, lol. Definitely needs a buff.
The spear is definitely more of a friendly option for dealing with bot dropships or tanks. But in both scenarios you're likely with other players when you'd consider this. I definitely wouldn't take it in solo instances or even duo.
@@mongrelshadow14The dropships I find get targeted in the middle with the Spear, making it very ineffective unfortunately. Maybe an appropriate tweak to the Spear targeting could prioritize weakspots.
@@Dustraumaif you have a Sam site up it can be great for taking them out.
@@Dustrauma More so referring to situations where multiple drop ships are coming in than dealing with drop ships in general.
I've found the opposite to be true mostly. While the lock can be slow, it's a better weapon overall for solo play when dealing with the heaviest of targets. It takes a lot of time and exposure to take a tank out from the front solo with a railgun and the tank has the longest aggro/engagement range of all other bot types. Rather than try and pound a tank from the front with 10 shots from a railgun or blow a strat on one, I can usually take one out with a single spear shot. This gets more important where there's multiple heavy targets and the strats auto targeting gets wonky and decides a devestator or a scout is the bigger threat rather than the tank or hulk. I often am wary of using the auto-targeting strategems because they can have the tendency to NOT target the biggest and most dangerous thing in a group which gets annoying.
I highly recommend using heavier armor with the 50 percent EXPLOSION resistance armor passive whenever fighting the Automatons. Use medium armor minimum and if you have heavy armor with the right passive use it, it will literally save your life. Even the dangerous Rocket Devastator cannot one shot you if you have the explosive resistance.
Currently there is no point to using heavy armor as all the armor performs the same, I thought so too but it was just a placebo. No matter if ur using heavy, medium, or light, currently everything kills you in the same amount of shots. Best to take light armor just so you have better speed and stamina. If there is a light armor with the explosive resistance perk than that’s probably the best choice but somehow u doubt that that exists
for those who come after, i believe armor was fixed.
Hey mate, nice vid and very useful ! Could you make a video about your PC hardware/specs and the graphic settings you're using and FPS you get ? 'Cause wow... Best visual quality I've seen anywhere and smooth AF O_O
A couple little things I'd add. Jetpack raiders also blow up slightly after dying. Watch out for that, particularly if you happen to shoot them down while they were jumping at you as they like to do since then they are basically a missile. The pelvic bit of a strider is a lower-end medium armor and sometimes a decent way to eliminate them if you have some kind of medium armor penetration weapon and don't have elevation, can't afford grenades, and need to down them in a pinch without flanking. I find the action economy and opportunity cost math ends up working in favor of this solution most often if you are running an AMR or some kind of medium armor penetrating primary. It's almost never the way to go otherwise. If you want to shoot down the dropship then make sure to get it down before it spawns units in. It is tempting to wait for those engines to mostly stop in order to get an easy EAT or recoilless rifle hit, but there is only a tiny window of time before that means you took too long and you are just wasting ammo and time shooting something that is now off to harmlessly despawn anyway.
Maybe it was a less known fact a month ago, but the factories are units too. They react by releasing 3 robots if you come within 50 meters of them and are prioritized by the railgun and orbital lazer.
They are also prioritized by the 110mm rocket pods I noticed
I haven't seen anyone talk about this but for Annihilator Tanks, specifically for the single barrel variant one shot into the barrel can instantly kill it.
Gas orbital is great dealing with regular bots and striders, and I believe it weakens some of the other types. Has a nice 70 second cooldown without upgrades, and it can take out fabricators if you land the strike directly on them.
Tip for the railgun. if you hold R, you can turn the railgun to unsafe and allow it to overcharge and one shot hulks
6:27 the walkers will actually swap targets if there are other divers nearby and they can't hit you, so if you run a ballistic shield and stare them down, you can wait for them to turn. Another tac pack option his the jump pack. If you can get up to it it you can jump over it and shoot it before it can reach you as it turns. With regular devastators you can actually basically walk up on them with a shield and get good shots on their faces. When fighting bots the only enemies I have issues with when running the shield are rocket variants, hulks, and anything that has anti armor capacity. That said, I did survive a shot from the huge turret once because I just stim-ed and it hit the shield on my back, breaking the shield instantly.
The EAT is my favorite weapon. It comes back in 70 seconds and lands in 5 seconds. Each rocket is devastating to armored units, and you can take down drop ships with a well-placed thruster shot.
Sooo railgun is the answer to everything? Got it. As a side note as someone who has found a new love for the rocket launchers, taking both the spear and the recoilless can be surprisingly effective. Spear (despite its lock on jank) can target and destroy most bot threats in one well placed shot (usually) the rocket launchers and there mileage can vary massively depending on where you shoot them. Firstly, this is what the spear can lock onto: Strider Hulk Tank Tower Bot factories Dropships (both landed and call in) Anything not listed can't be locked onto. Hulks need a direct face shot from the spear or from behind, tanks its usually one shot. Towers are usually one Spear is a nice reliable choice at mid to long range. RR is versatile and can snipe alot of objectives like: AA batteries Mortars Towers (2/3 shots) Factories (directly inside the exhaust vents, tho how many shots is inconsistent but usually one; the building itself will bounce any RR shots so be careful). Can also 2 shot a tank usually (they cant be oneshot even from the vent). Rockets are very under used but when used in a team are very effective against any enemy for general destruction of objectives or supporting your teammates with long range firepower.
Fun fact: if you find a flamethrower, you can use it to burn the striders if you flame their cabin.
Additional options for killing striders and hulks: anti material rifle. Two shots to a leg or a single well placed shot to the midsection connecting the legs to the frame will destroy a strider but the pilot will survive. Two shots to the head of a hulk with the rifle will kill them outright. Its a very small hit box so good aim is required, not a bad idea to switch to a higher zoom to make it easier. Overall as a low level helldiver ive found the anti material rifle to be extremely efficient at handling all bots if you know where to hit them. Its also not always necessary to aim for headshots. There are many areas that have thin armor such as the joints that can be abused.
Good job!
Shielded devastators are no joke. Those fuckers have a fast fire rate and if you don’t get rid of that arm immediately they will snipe you with high damage and high rate of fire from a long distance. This will in turn make it way more difficult to shoot them back. They are a high priority target.
My go-to solo loadout for automatons on helldive: Ballistic shield + Defender for trash and devastators, shoot their gun arm and ignore (+survivability). Grenade pistol for walkers as COM 1shots them and you can wipe most bot drops in one shot. Laser cannon (+ stun grenades) for hulks, gunships, factory striders, and *many* side objectives. *If you can't stand still to go for the eye, laser cannon can destroy a hulk leg to slow them down. **Also an okay-ish option for cannon towers and tanks (take out their tracks). Otherwise airstrike + 500kg for these (do NOT waste them on factory striders). *In a pinch, 3-4 grenades into the top from the front takes out both tank variants. Switching heavy and light as I can never decide if I prefer tankiness or mobility. ALWAYS Fortified! Weaknesses of this loadout: VERY ammo-hungry so use those resupply drops zealously and remember, they destroy fabricators. Laser cannon can't destroy dropships (except the grounded mission variant). Sawbots can be annoying as you have no efficient non-stratagem way of killing them fast. *Quickest way is grouping them together, shooting one grenade and finishing with laser cannon. Might waste a grenade here and there if you can't get the proper angle to shoot fabricator vents.
So fun facts about the tanks, 1. you can kill them with one impact grenade to the back turret vent. 2. they have a second weak point on the back of the chassis. Its like the vent on the back of the turret but it does not glow, this can be penned by the autocannon or laz cannon for an easy kill.
couple things missed that i didnt see. light tanks can be taken down easily with two impact nades to the turret from any direction, you can also cook two regular nades and airburst them for the same result. also when talking abt automatons the antimaterial rifle should be included in the discussion. for bugs it's a serviceable ad clear but against bots it really shines. it has a larger ammo capacity, higher dps, than the railgun, is useable from much longer ranges, and is capable of taking down any enemy in two shots. two headshots from the front kills a bruiser, and even better 3 shots to the vents will kill. its only major weak point is walkers, head on it will take 3 shots to the upper plating or 2 to the legs, but since there are so many ways to counter them it's rarely an issue. where it shines is devastators. it will two shot any devastator to the upper torso and 1 shot to the head, and unlike the railgun you can shoot 8 shots before needing to reload with no charge time before a shot, and it has a scope so handling those two rocket devastators across the map can easily be done in 3 shots, which is a game changer as we've already established they are the most lethal enemy in the game. you can take out patrols with one mag before they get a flare off. i've soloed level 7+ and in most situations i favor the sniper and with a team that's all running rails it's even more effective because they cover your weak points.
also someone mentioned this but disposable rockets and recoilless will one tap dropships if aimed at a thruster.
Rocket devastators have one glaring weakness : Supressive fire as lang as they are taking hits they wont be able to fire so long/medium range weapons with big magazines (so any kind of machine gun) will help deal with them edit : ''just railgun everything'' is not going to be a solid strategy in the long run take Rocket devastators for example they can and will punish players for using slow rate of fire weapons even if you can reliably one shot them they are almost never alone
The HMG emplacement can get a lot of use against bots. It's fairly easy to use against everything they field excluding the tanks. I often use it to snipe out the face of hulks while shredding the berserker and strider columns.
For those that don't have the railgun... the Anti Material Rifle is wildly effective against bots. And the AOE explosive can drop groups with good shots
Against the stryder, the auto cannon are one hit wonders against them due to explosive armor penetration. Plus with the autocannons rate of fire, good aiming can clean a small army of these fast. Plus the gun can be efficient with ammo usage.
When in doubt, give the Hulk backshots Helldivers!
Fun fact: The foot soldiers seem to be piloting most of the larger automatons. Thats why their weakpoints always seem to kill them in one or two shots since thats usually where the head is, and thats how many shots it takes to kill the foot soldiers on a headshot.
Super helpful thanks
its kind of cheesy, but you can destroy the stationary cannon towers with your drop pod if you manage to land on top of it. only really try for it if you're in a pinch though. works the same with tanks, but get away from it as soon as possible unless you want to be sent flying halfway across the map via its death explosion.
They’re dead, they’re all dead. The Updated bestiary is as follows: Go kill the bugs, there’s no more robots, and there never will be again. God bless super earth 💪
You can also shoot the side of the annihilator tank with an antitank cannon very useful!
Recoiless rifle takes dropships out in one hit to the engine, spear is a one-shot for hulks and tanks ( ammo is the downside but its just a beast to get rid of them that fast ) Antimaterial rifle kills hulks in 3 shots to the eye ( tested it ) so if you are a decent shot, its a realy cheap and effective way to deal with them
With the shield devastators you can also tear off their legs through the shield with a railgun. It seems to overpenatrate enough to still deal damage to what is behind it.
I spent a lot of time trying to snipe the QRF dropships with the expendable rocket launcher. Overall it isn't very reliable because the ship has to stop before you can get a clean shot in, and by the time the rocket hits, the ship will already have dropped off its passengers. I've found it's much more reliable to just pull out a grenade launcher and plunk away at the bots on the ship, or as they land.
One impact grenade takes out any tank if you hit it directly on the heat sync!
For the tanks and turrets on the bases the eagle 110mm rocket pods one shot and you don't even really need to aim it. Plus if you have it upgraded you can call it in 3 times with a pretty low cooldown.
The rocket pod eagle stratagem also one shots tanks. It can one shot a cannon turret depending upon which way it is facing compared to the eagle’s direction but it is hard to get the eagle to target it.
Slight correction on tanks - two impact grenades can take out any tank as long as you hit the turret. It doesn't even have to hit the heat sinks.
The recoiled rifle or the EAT can also disable the arms of a hulk, it’s handy to make them less a threat so you can figure out how to fully take them out
ballistic shield, defender smg and explosive resist armor make a great combo, make sure to bring a hulk destroyer as well (railgun or what i like to use a laser cannon) with the recent buff to the ballistic shield you are almost invulnerable. Make sure to take out rocket shooter as the first target
Also, for hulks, the auto cannon can two shot them on their heads, so if you don’t have rail gun but do have auto cannon then try to hit the head
THE CREEK FELL ONCE, NEVER TWICE
I've found looking straight up and throwing ANY Stratagem onto the tower is super easy once you get a handle on how far it moves to land in front of you ... Just make sure you don't call down Ammo or something like that, you likely won't be able to get it.
Shooting the cylinder might loosen the gear, much like how the terminds plow through them. I haven’t tried this yet but it might work.. 🤔
You left out the best stratagem to use against bots: the orbital laser. The laser melts everything the bots throw at you and when there aren't Hulks or Tanks in a base for it to kill, it prioritizes budlings. That means it destroys fabricators, cannon towers and even the mortar guns. Throw an orbital laser down on a large base and it'll take half of it out for you. At times, I throw an orbital laser into a medium base and run to my next objective cause I know it'll destroy it for me.
Expendable AT or Recoilless work as alternatives to Railguns and can kill a Hulk in 2 or 3 to the front and kill tanks and turrets in 1 shot to the heat sink. And dropships die to 1 rocket from the recoilless or expendable AT as long as you hit the engine.
You take reduced explosive damage as long as you are prone, learning how to transition between standing and prone efficiently will make rpg units easier to deal with. Just don’t get caught in the dirt by melee units, pretty sure they get bonus melee damage against prone divers. Or they default to their heavy attack. Not sure which but both hurt.
I wish to add that the Shielded Devastator have a HUGE weakpoint, they have a backpack, if you destroy the backpack, they instantly die, the backpack doesn't have a lot of HP and can be hit infront with some luck.
Quick note with the Devastators; using the Railgun against them, you can aim for their heads. However, I found more success taking out a leg or going for their pelvis. Go for a low blow, and it is a quick one-shot - even for the Heavy Devastators (shield bois).
Very useful and well put. It's just missing the jet pack kamikaze that can just teleport in your face out of nowhere and explode themselves, 1 shoting you. They have been, for me, the most deadly and infuriating ennemies.
If you don't have the railgun yet, you can also use the anti materiel rifle against hulks. Two shots in the red spot in the face kills them.
You can kill a hulk with an anti material rifle in a similar fashion to a rail cannon albeit with more shots required. Note though with this that ricochet is a factor with the AMR so you want to aim anywhere that you can get a solid penetration.if you have high ground a head shot is possible but I found the best success aiming for the small plate under the head. Can down one in about 3-6 shots with it.
2:36 bro began to breakdance
Another tactic for tanks is that theyre climbable so mount them dive off the turret and auto cannon them in the heat sink (lil tip for my
A really fun strat to kill the at-st bots is just run right up to them, then dive beside/behind them, aim up and shoot em! They move so slow, turn slow and their shots arnt super accurate, ive done it even when swarmed and its just so effective. Breaker is best of course.
7:54 around this time he mentioned that the hulks weak spot was on its back “like the charger” but technically the charger weak spot is not its back. It’s weak spot is its front legs, as once the armor is blow off it is a critical spot whereas the back is a normal spot, albeit unarmored
Fun tip, if you want to relax on a level 5 exterminate mission, get your group to run mortar sentries, pop them IMMEDIATELY (before calling down support weapons), and watch the fireworks. All you have to do is keep straglers away from you as you party on the evac pad.
Worth noting: two shots to the visor with an Anti-Materiel Rifle will also down a Hulk. You DO have to hit the visor though, and it can be very difficult due to how the Hulks tend to move.