From bots to bugs and from Helldivers to common samples, the Tesla Tower in Helldivers 2 sees us all the same apparently. The Tesla Tower in Helldivers 2 has been my most confusing and anger-inducing deep dive so far this game. It's riddled with inconsistencies and that I've been spending a lot of time trying to understand.
I'm curious to see what you all think of the Tesla Tower, be it theories, opinions, or experiences! I'd love to read them all so leave a comment!
Like and subscribed if you enjoyed!
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Socials:
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Twitch
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Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:50 Video Structure and Disclaimer
01:39 The Tesla Tower
02:13 Behavior
07:13 Interactions
10:37 Arc-Lightning
11:38 But the Tesla Tower is STRONG
12:54 Gameplay and Uses
18:03 General Tips and Tricks
20:37 Overall Thoughts
Background Music: Left Bank Two by the Noveltones
R.I.P LBP :(
Besides buffing it's damage and stagger potential, I think you could make a neat interaction by having you shoot the arc thrower at the Tesla tower and basically juice it up making its next discharge stronger. (much like in Red Alert 2 you had tesla troopers juice up the tesla tower there)
WOW! Super cool adjustment. I would love to see the arc thrower shoot at the tesla tower and have it interact with it that way. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and checking out the video!
@@Wallbouncing I am interested in its object targeting to extend the range. if it could bounce off a forward drop or turret ect that could be interesting. Best uses i have found for arc is with 2 people. i call it the blue build. arc thrower, tesla, ems strike, ems mortar. stuns. it will destroy landmines tho. they work very well at protecting from patrols since they usually pay them no mind until they get in range and they last a while. mixed with ems mortar they can hold off groups decently. with 2 of them placed near an opening in a defense they ruin most things that try and get through but bodies will end up absorbing charges. The arc throwers stun lock enemies entering the area and the ems strikes and mortar also keep enemies at bay. kind of using them to bodyblock openings while the tesla works. the more tesla towers you get the more useful they are. lining up 4 or 8 in an area can shred pritty much anything. but you might also need to put your body on the line. even 4x of the ems strikes can keep an area perma stun locked.
@@Wallbouncing Give me an Aang vs Osai interaction where a Tesla Tower can shoot me and overcharge the charging Arc Thrower i'm holding, i would be SO down for that. Someone call Pilestedt :D
maybe just increase its chain length and effective diameter with the juicing?
@@Deezul653 could just let you shoot it withthe arc thrower to increase your arc throwers range.
So here's the list of issues: 1. Targeting dead bodies 2. Targeting samples 3. Targeting enemies but not firing 4. Not chaining lightning when enemies are too close (gets it killed instantly) 5. Too slow of a firing rate to be useful on killing anything above a medium sized bug. 6. Too little health.
I'm not so sure it hitting random crap is a bug, i mean it's electricity at the end of the day. I know the Arc Thrower has some consistency but that's because we're physically pointing where the Arc should be going, but if there's anything between you and what you want to hit, it will either fizzle out or hit what's closest. Small edit: I'm not saying it isn't super inconsistent, i just want a reason for it!
and it’ll chain from a bug to a teammate 40 meters away from it killing then instantly
Jesus this game will never get fixed😔
Seriously how TF does something like this bypass quality control
as far as targeting is concerned the arc blitzer is actually a headshot beast it always headshots everything when blind fired which is really the best way to use this weapon. Even the arc thrower won’t do this. Also if a charger has lost all its leg armour (front) and you blind fire the blitzer towards it it will auto target that weak leg. So what i’m saying is that arc based weapons can auto target certain enemy spots and the blitzer in my testing is the best out of all of them hands down
Thankfully got a situation today where the Telsa Tower had about 40 seconds to attack a stuck Charger. After seeing no effect, Arc Thrower still took the same 6 shots to the head to kill the Charger, implying the Telsa Tower did 0 damage the whole time. Unfortunate experience.
I feel like it might be similar to when you shoot the arc thrower and it just... fizzles.
srs, its a cool sentry in the right situation, the problem is, the right situation occurs so infrequently that the tower will sit unused for most of the game
Wow. Every tesla tower I called to try and fight a charger never even got more than 3 zaps before being destroyed. To know that it did little to nothing just goes to show how deep in the tier list this thing is haha. Thanks for sharing your experience (even though it sucked).
maybe the tower only hit the body? idk how arc weapons work with respect to multiple hitboxes
I can confirm too, watched my Tesla Tower shocking a stuck Charger for over 2 minutes with no results. Followed by it taking the normal amount of hits for my Arc Thrower to kill it
There's something I love about the fact that this is like a wild animal and you're trying to understand it's behavior
There's a ton of bugs in this game around object detection and clipping. I reckon a lot of the Spear's problems are also the tesla weapons'.
I agree, I think the tesla tower is suffering from a multitude of issues. One being how confusing and inconsistent arc-lightning is, and the other being how object detection works. I do feel that the tower is locating something but it's criteria for targeting is nonsensical to a a point it's not very useful. Thanks for watching and sharing your thoughts!
I can tell you right now, the 50% reduction to explosions means absolutely fucking nothing. A single rocket will still kill it
most of the new ship upgrades are completely useless. the extra arc is nice, probably the one exception, but fire damage is bugged so nobody is using it, superior packing is bugged, explosive resist turrets is bugged/pointless, orbital scatter basically doesn’t matter. kinda crazy lol
@InvaderTroy im loving the orbital scatter, has turned the 380mm into an absolute beast. 15% reduced spread is a much bigger reduction in area. I didnt find the barrages usable b4, now i prefer them over the laser. Harrier extra bomb is also a huge boost. But i agree that the level of buggyness and dysfunction on the new upgrades is frustrating and pretty extreme
Good luck testing if the extra arcs are bugged.
I remember how in the first game the Tesla tower was an absolute menace, attacking all enemies in it's range at once and staggering them for a moment, allowing it to kill even chargers reliably. Unfortunately the single targeting and especially the much longer ranges at which fights take place in HD 2 already make it unreliable even before taking all the inconsistencies into account :(
For a long time I was and still am big arc thrower fanboy, but the fact this thing refuses to target enemies close to you sometimes drives me absolutely crazy
I feel that. I have a tendency to dive backwards while charging a shot, just to kill a scavenger lol. Usually I just swap to the redeemer to handle those
As a fellow arc-thrower fanboy, I now understand your pains with the tesla tower haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
i like using it against the bugs exclusivly, its great to throw onto a bug breach, and my favourite use is when there are flying bugs you can prone under it and just bait them into getting fried
actually genius. that seems like a great use case.
So an oversized bug zapper for the oversized bugs. Makes sense.
Thanks for the clean summary! I know every stratagem has their pros and cons, but I feel that to name a pro for the tower is at this point very far reaching. Appreciate you taking the time to check out the video!
bro, huge respect for the disclaimer about flashing lights. im not personally sensitive to that, but i have never seen anyone on youtube put a disclaimer for that. thanks for caring!
Of course! I had a hard time looking at my screen while testing the tower so I thought others might not find it so pleasant as well. Thanks for checking out the video!
As a arc thrower user I feel all this pain and more shooting nothing with clear targets to see is so frustrating
I still tense up when the Arc shot fizzles out.
I've seen that so many times and it is above and beyond annoying
Arc based weapons are very inconsistent.
The arc thrower specifically is actually pretty consistent in my experience. The area where the arcs travel past the first target is in a cone in the direction you're aiming at. So you can completely avoid team kills if you just imagine a line (perpendicular to your line of sight) drawn across the enemy, and as long as your teammate is always on the side of the line closer to you, or is directly on the line, you'll never accidentally hit them with it. The only times I get team kills with it are when I'm focusing down a charger because my orbitals are on cooldown, and a teammate runs into that cone of range without me realizing it
arc thrower is incredibly consistent when paired with a jump pack. elevation makes it easy mode. most of my fizzled shots are just due to bad ground geometry because I can shut down whole breaches on diff7 by just taking the high ground and letting loose.
@@MachineElf_Official I noticed the cone thingy after like 4 uses.... im talking about the way it missfires and single bush can stop whole ass chain. How many times hunter was eating my ass and arc couldnt kill it whatssoever...
@@InvaderTroy 100%, I always pair it with the jump pack for that very reason
@moroblizniak4457 if that happens you just have to change position to get a clear shot. It's annoying, but it's pretty manageable imo. It's worth it for the stagger and the ability to hit multiple enemies at the same time. Especially if you unlocked the perk that adds an additional lightning chain.
In HD1 this tower was, tricky, but a Lot more useful once the healing beam was upgraded to repair machines. Basically, it allows us to repair towers from a distance, meaning the tower was much more sustainable.
This thing was great back in the E-710 defense missions. The bugs were so focused on attacking the generators it would almost always survive its entire life and kill a ton of bugs, and it doesn't damage the generators.
We need a dev to see this, maybe it will get a massive bug fix and slight rework in the future!!
You think they don't know? Arc/lightning inherent randomness is it's downfall. I'm sure it's fucking hard to code or something in this build. It appears something is up with the way it targets. Not just the tower, but all arc weapons. Lightning hitting the ground, not hitting weak spots, and fizzing out is just part of the "fun" of learning how to kill with the arc thrower. This tower is dealing with all of that bugginess, with none of the human ability to adapt.
@@Lildoc911 i honestly believe they don't
I like to think they are aware of it. When they were fixing the crash issues related to the arc-thrower I'm sure they found a lot of other relevant issues (hopefully). Thanks for watching and for your comment!
Tesla towers where extremely useful on that first bug generator defense missions. 1. It didn't shoot generators 2. EMS cannons were also great in that mission
Here is a tip for the bugs; if you throw it next to one of the many large rocks that has a bit of rock jutting out above where you threw it, the Tesla Tower will land on the rock. This keeps Chargers away from it and only Spewers and Titans can do any real damage to it. A bonus is that Chargers will stand at the base of the rock looking at it forever allowing you to kill them with ease.
Very thorough job. I'd assume Arrowhead is aware of the issues but is focused on fixing crashes and disconnects as a priority. Hopefully they get to it eventually. My take way was only use it if you can get on top of it and lay down to protect it 😁. (PS thanks again for not using colorful language). Keep it up man!
Thanks for checking out my video! I'm sure they know at length the extent of issues revolving around the arc-lightning in this game and yeah I'm just hoping they are able to address it soon! Always looking to keep my videos clean too! Appreciate you taking the time to check out the video!
There is one place that I love the TT. Bug exterminates with spewers. While yes, chargers and BTs will murder it, it also draws aggro from a ton of bile spewers and annihilates them. I toss one across the area from me and I can usually get at least 30 kills off of one unless a BT or charger pops up underneath them. Even if it does get wrecked by a charger or BT, it draws aggro from spewers from a huge range and it just wrecks them. One-shots spewers all day. I have seen one completely surrounded by spewer corpses and still hitting other bugs just fine, even arcing off of corpses to do it, and every one around the tower is one that isn't bothering you while you are reloading or lining up a shot on a heavy. Placement is important though. You want to put it somewhere open that the bugs have to path through but that limits avenues of attack. Next to walls is terrible since the walls tend to confuse the targeting (like with the other arc weapons). Probably the best example of a spot is the ramp down toward the center on the pit to the left of the sample pool. Put it in the open area at the top of that ramp and it catches three spawn locations, and the surrounding terrain keeps chargers and BTs from killing it instantly. Easy throw from the upper platform too. You will notice a massive drop in trash mobs, hunters, and spewers as long as it is up. Chargers often have to get close to actually charge there too and get a bit confused by the pathing, so I have seen one manage a charger kill from that spot a few times. Its like the arc thrower there though; shots to kill is both location and rng dependent. Both weapons seem to have a range of damage they deal based on nothing concrete I can identify. I have killed fresh chargers in seven clean shots with the arc thrower and also with 20 clean shots. I do think that if it arcs to another target it does more damage to that first hit, but its so damn random its hard to prove.
I find that the Tesla tower acts more like a minefield than a turret since it's more of a stationary AoE than an aimed unit.
It really shines when hunter swarms spawn, cause its mostly consistent against them, or if you can get it to deploy on a rock where chargers can't ram it.
I see it shine in taking down those hunter swarms, but it's harder in those higher difficulties when those bug breaches almost always includes a charger or a bile titan if the mission progresses further. Thanks for checking out the video and for leaving a comment!
Funny enough I beat Helldive campaign (SOLO) against the bugs using the flame thrower and Tesla tower, it was pretty fun creating a hazard field. But sadly I think arc and lighting builds need more love from the devs after changes. It was a challenge but I had so many kills.
Thanks for sharing. That hazard field sounds super good. I’ve tried creating something similar in those defense missions with even the orbital gas strike and it choke points so well. Thanks for again for checking out the video and commenting!
Cap
Great video Bro - your research is commendable. Understanding all these different Stratagems and how they usually work might just make the difference on the battlefield.
Appreciate your kind words! I like to think every stratagem has its uses and want to find as many possibilities as I can and make an argument for why it’s viable or not. Glad you appreciate my content and thanks for commenting!
Nice video dude, I enjoy listening to your investigations. I also appreciate the flash warning at the beginning, it's rare to see! 😊
Appreciate your kinds words! Means a lot! During my testing I was having some slight eye pain watching so much tesla towers, so I had a feeling a lot of people may find it unpleasant. Thanks for taking the time to watch the video!
Im thinking, it has to do with being an entity with physics properties. Things that have no physics like exploding flowers, eggs, untouched samples are all do have physics properties ingame. But i think shooting samples kinda transforms them into another entity type, but weapons on the ground arent affected, also the shield meant to interact with projectiles in the game world, so it makes sense, that is shares a tag with the other items. So i would guess its a gameobject tag that tells the tower wether it can be hit or not and the devs simply haven't thought it completely through with all the possibilities.
weapons and grenades probably share their own separate tag
Impressively thorough. I just recently picked up the tesla tower and was pretty confused how to work with it. Thanks for saving me a ton of time and frustration.
Appreciate your kind words! Glad I was able to help you out! Thanks for checking out the video!
Have been using the tesla on bug defence mission and it does manage to get a really nice amount of kills when its thrown at a bug breach. Really helps with getting rid of smaller bugs from one side and letting you focus on the other side.
I love bringing the Tesla into Rocket Defense missions. It's wonderful kicking back and watching things try while Mortars and EMortars do work. The only thing I need to worry about is heavy enemies, which is what the 4th slot is for.
You would think bugs touching it would get insta-killed 🤣 That would be a fun use case to bait chargers to take them out with it.
I use with my mates in the Arc Bro configuration. All with Electricity resistant armor, all with tesla, all with arc thrower. It's a zapping nightmare for enemy. But yes... probably the only real situation where is strong.
When I first saw the arc res armor, I immediately thought of the possibilities for a full squad with it + arc thrower and tesla towers wreaking havoc. But also that that'd be the only time to even consider using it. At least until the new faction shows up. :)
If everyone was running that arc-resistant armor and using the tesla tower it really can be no mans land haha. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
Thank you and great testing, Helldiver. What I want to start seeing from people doing these tests are full team strategem effectiveness. A lot of the tests everyone conducts are from a personal loadout standpoint, which is understandable. But what I want to know is: what is the effectiveness of an entire team called down 4 Tesla Towers together at the same time. 4 120/380 Orbitals at the same time. 4 Gas Strikes at the same time (once DoT is fixed). That's what I'm interested in.
Thanks for your kind words and I agree with your point. In this video (and in my other ones) I mainly cover how these stratagems affect the individual, and in my future videos I'll be sure to include how multiple uses of it with the team can have different outcomes. Thanks for checking out the video!
I still like it against bugs. Even on higher difficulties. It's super common for you to have a breach you don't want to stick around for, and if you throw one of these, the way it plays out, a charger will spawn, pay 100% attention to it, charge it, then stop. A bile titan will actually go through an entire spew animation. Everything else dies. This gives you plenty of time to just run away if you need to- and it has upside in killing the chargers (and unfortunately not the titans) if you can find a good spot for it. Even better it means you can bait a breach with it to put enemy breaches on cooldown, then just run away with zero consequence. That's an insane amount of breathing room. It's a really common fallacy to think less of something just because it doesn't itself get optimized. If the mine deployment killed chargers/titans with a single mine, it would be stupidly strong and still some part of your lizard brain would think "yeah, but all the mines didn't get used".
You need to place it on elevated ramps and use its range. It can reach very far down, and kill things that walk under it.
I personally like the tesla tower against bugs, the uptime is over 100% so on exterminate bug missions you can often just place one of these on one side of the map and just completely shut off that side of the map permanently unlike anything else can. Now, as soon as you go above hard difficulty and the charger and bile titan spawns start getting crazy on that mission type it becomes useless.... which means the tower is only good on lower difficulties where everything works. The problem is the uptime is the biggest draw of this tower and as soon as enemies spawn that can kill the tower it becomes useless and that's just a fundamental flaw. The arc tower also doesn't work as a panic tool like the gatling sentry does.
On the new equipment extraction mission throw it around 30-40 meters to the side of the door and use the ark gun to support it, for some reason the enemies wont aggro to it 80% of the time and they will try to smash in the doors.
Wow! You did quite the in depth review on this. Well done! This must have taken a lot of time!
Appreciate your kind words. Yeah, it took a lot longer than I expected. I try to make my videos more bite-sized but with how inconsistent the tower was there was a lot of different case situations I just had to test out. Thanks for watching!
I use the tower on bug breaches. Ultimate crowd control for bugs… unit a biotitan pops. They just stomp it. 😅 Note: Biotitans can’t be stunned, but the EMS Mortar Sentry will slow them WAY down.
Thanks for your tip and for the comment! Appreciate you taking the time to watch the video!
So much testing and detailed information. Thank you for your effort and great content.
Thank you for your kind words. Appreciate you taking the time to comment and for checking out the video!
Regarding targeting the samples. There was a patch or two early on where they worked on samples not just hanging in the air after changes in landscape (from explosions) If you pay attention to samples after 'removing the ground' you will see that they suddenly become able to move, so they dont hang in the air, out of reach of helldivers. I think @TacoEric is spot on with it being a different entity, I think the devs had to change what the sample is in order to let it fall to the ground. Maybe they gave the original entity 1hp and then changed its propperties when its 'dead' I believe its related to the patch because this type of hackfix is prone to strange unforseen interactions, like being targeted by the tesla tower.
It only really seems effective at area denial if you're teammates also stack Tesla towers around it but they'll still have the issue of falling apart as soon as armoured units can smell them
Your testing is incredible. You've put in a lot of work to give us this insight. I hope the devs see this and give it a buff.
Thanks for your kind words. I appreciate this game a lot and am curious about all the interactions there is between these stratagems. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
Good video bro. Hope u making more of these. About the tesla tower, I think to make it "feel good to use" it's gotta be reconsidered from the ground up. But knowing Arrowhead only has 100 people working on everything new AND fixing gamebreaking bugs. I can't ever think they can even spare a single head to address this.
Thanks for your kind words. I know that Arrowhead isn't a big team, and I'm not calling for this to be an immediate priority for them given how much they have on their plate. I'm sure they got a lot of fun stuff in the works, but just hoping the tower gets some attention too because it is a really unique sentry in this game and I want it to work at least somewhat haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
What about thinking about tesla tower not as a standalone automated stratagem that kills everything around that - but a supplementary stratagem that increase your personal and your teams ability to stand against the crowd of enemies (bugs in particular)? Where tesla tower is not really a defensive object to cover you and your team but the opposite - object to defend while it’s enhancing your kill potential. So for example: there is an overwhelming amount of bugs approaching your destination and you throw tesla tower between your team and the horde, while shredding the crowd with a machine gun or taking care of Chargers/Titans with heavier weaponry
eagle strikes
@@Alticroo yes, if that’s what you enjoy the most, but game itself offers more then one option to deal with hordes of enemies. Tesla tower has essentially endless uptime in comparison to airstrikes. If the fix all the bugs and make tesla tower hit more precise, then this thing can be quite valid in the group of 4
Thank you for making this video!!
Thanks for taking the time to check out the video. Appreciate your comment!
Arc Blitzer doesn't damage the Tesla Tower either. You are correct that the TT baits you into building around it, until your weapons, armor, grenades, and most your strats are chosen specifically to make this one piece of cool looking jank work. And when you do it you're incredibly good at trash clearing, but so's anyone with a Liberator.
Thanks for the tip about the arc blitzer. Oversight on my end to think the arc thrower was the only electric weapon. Yeah, if the tesla tower was to "work" in a situation, I also knew that a lot more efficient options could've gotten the job done as well. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
The tesla tower is designed to be paired with the EMS strike. You drop both at the same time on a bug breach and since everything is slowed it has a chance to function. Ive gotten a 38 killstreak with it. It also helps to put them up on rock formations so they cant be attacked
A single gattling turret does the same job, but better, without using two stratagem slots. It is far more versatile, too. I got a 51 kill streak by sticking a gattling next to a bug breach last night.
IDK how, but my experience varies wildly from your in terms of Tesla Tower's survivability. Haven't tried using it against bots, but versus bugs it never went down to ANYTHING other than heavies and friendly fire, meaning if you somehow manage to protect it from titans and chargers, it completely stops large groups and bullies breaches.
I love the tesla tower so to hear positive experiences about it is always welcomed to my ears (eyes?). I agree that placement is the biggest factor in overall effectiveness, and I'm still trying to figure out how to do it well. Thanks for sharing your insight and appreciate you taking the time to check out the video!
loving all these helldiver dives of the gear
Thanks for your kind words! I have more in the work so stay tuned! Hoping to give a lot of meaningful value with each video. Thanks for watching!
Thank you for your hard work! Didnt know about the priming stage of the tower. I love using the tesla. As soon as i throw it down i just distance myself and cover other areas instead so i dont know much about its mechanics
Appreciate the kind words. Glad to hear there are some people who are having positive experiences with the tower! Thanks for checking out the video!
Bro, you put in WORK! Great job man, i appreciate caite i all!
I appreciate that! Thanks for checking out the video and commenting your kind words! Always looking to make more videos like this so stay tuned!
Ngl the idea of the tesla intercepting a projectile like jaeger's gadget would be op but cool
Beyond that, being to intercept the rockets from devastators would make this instant S-tier haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
Took one minute to realize how good this video was and how nice was to listen to you talking (I'm tired of the many content creators that can barely put two words together). Instantly subscribed.
... together 😅
@@lukeguest300 now that you corrected a minor spelling mistake, the world is a much better place. Thank you, luke.
Ha you don't see the irony about putting words together?
@@lukeguest300 I do, but It's not like I've murdered the english language. Thanks for the correction anyways, I don't want to sound rude or anything.
Super kind words and that means a lot to me! I knew this video was longer than my other reviews, but wanted to make sure I'm relaying all the information I think is meaningful. Thanks for your comment and thanks for taking the time to check out the video!
Love the Tesla tower, also the 50% less damage for explosions is entirely useless cause one rocket kills all turrets regardless.
Step 1) Wait until the other hell-divers aren't looking Step 2) Deploy the tesla behind them.
Leftbanktwo being used as the bgm made me flashback to playing LBP2 as a child and now im crying
I use leftbanktwo as the bgm in a lot of my videos and a lot of people share the same sentiment you do. It makes me glad to know a lot of you also have the same type of nostalgia for the game as I do. Thanks for checking out the video!
I usually use the TT to guard my EMS mortar. I throw them next time each other and the enemy will agro the mortar and the tower will kill them. If I see it being overwhelmed I’ll throw so arcs to it to help it out. That’s the best use case I’ve seen
Thanks for your comment and sharing your experience. I can see how that can be helpful and have tried it a couple of times. In those time a lone charger would come around and just destroy my little sentry nest which sucked haha. Appreciate you checking out the video!
Huh this is weird, i've had almost the opposite results that you have had. I really do appreciate this amount of testing, it's fantastic. I use the tesla tower in combination with the gatling barrage and quasar, I use it to destroy patrols or anything I pull from hives, in my experience it easily mulches anything that isn't a charger (it can still kill them, it's that they charge into it before they can get hit enough) or bile titan. I've pulled multiple patrols through the same tesla tower getting a lot of use out of it, I think where it really falls flat is with team play, where you are likely to throw the thing it's likely to get an airstrike on top of it. Splitting off from the group is my usual role in the squad, I will clear half the map while the others clear the rest and this thing has been an absolute joy to watch gore bugs, I didn't know it suffered from the same issues that the arc thrower did with targeting but the only time i'd notice it getting destroyed was if multiple bile spewers were on it or the previous 2 threats came along.
Even though I had some negative experiences with the Tesla Tower, I'm sure there are some people who have had nothing but success. I'm not the best player so hearing these experiences will help me improve and be better in using it so thanks for your insight and appreciate you commenting and checking out the video!
Your research is admirable. Such a weird stratagem. It's been responsible for some crazy kill streaks, but its behavior is super inconsistent.
Thanks for your kind words and I agree, the tesla tower is multikill central, but it has a lot of things going against it that makes it hard to use well in my opinion. Thanks for checking out the video!
Speaking about defensive stratagems, the mine fields are great for those "waves" mission.
The mine fields are great and I love taking both versions in those defense missions. Thanks for checking out the video!
The one buff I'd love to see is 100% arc damage armor. Then, YOU BECOME THE TESLA TOWER CONDUCTOR! Imagine, running around the tower, aiming its lightning through your body!
I'd take it all the time if that was the case. I wouldn't even care if it hit me haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
Honestly, make it 150% resist -- make the lightning heal you. The inconsistency of targeting and timing would still keep it in check, but it would be funny
What a well made video! I learned so much. I know that there are a ton of other stratagems to use other than the tesla tower haha
Thanks for your kinds words. Means a lot to me! Appreciate you checking out the video!
My 3rd favourite team killing stratagem after 380mm and antipersonnel mines 😂
They should just rework it. Make it a deploy a static field that slowly damages and stuns the enemy. enemies and any enemy that is gets caught in it will create an arc that chains enemies and also applies the same effect. And if helldivers prone before the time limit let's say 2.5 seconds, then they are not effected. This is good because its the only offensive sentry that you can survive from if you get caught in it. Autocanoon, mortar, sentry, machine gun all are lethal if your careful, but with this purposed change, you have leeway to escape
It excels in the missions where yoy meed to defend generators, great for cheesing eradications, and its super good for placing by the door of the pelican
I found it somewhat useful on mission to just clear bug Numbers in area those 12 min mission where lost of small mobs just spawn alot around, it can hold it own side, piles and chargers just destroys them too easily. Tip. You can trow it otherside of walls and it can shoot enemies trough it no matter of los, if there is enemies on it range. Fun idea could be that on destoyed it could exlode to damage or stuns enemies around it
I've had some success pairing the Tesla Tower with the Arc Thrower on Terminds. Place the tower between myself and an incoming horde. I run back and fire away, the enemies attack the Tower it drops and I try to fire at bugs that are attacking the tower. I've had good success with this on the smaller bugs on Helldive! But just one charger or Bile Titan will break it and ruin everything still
Here for the LBP music in the background
Outstanding work!
Thank you kindly! Appreciate you checking out the video!
Since the tower always targets, but doesn't damage the sentry weapons. I wonder if we'll get an energy weapon turret that this can charge up to extend its battery life. Maybe quasar cannon turret with increased fire rate, or a juiced up rover/scythe beam.
One thing i noticed, is that enemies only target the battery part at the bottom. So if you where to put it behind a small rock, any bots or maybe a bile titan will try to aim for the battery but since the rock is in the way, they instead hit the rock. Unless you are behind it, in which case they aim towards you and destroy it. The only issue with bots is that usually they just stand there, just outside the range of the tesla tower. So they dont really get zapped. But i guess if you are followed by a huge squad of enemies, its a good distraction?
Super cool insight. In my testing I never paid attention as to where they are exactly shooting the tesla tower. Would need to test that out and see if it could make it survive a little longer. Thanks for your comment and thanks for checking out the video!
Thoughts for Tower improvement: fire at all targets nearby not just one (maybe in a smaller aoe than the bolt), multiple towers can chain to each other, stun effect on hit
You can use the arc body armor -95% arc damage so that way the teslas dont do damage to you so you can stand next to it and wont do that much damage
The 'Gameplay and Uses' Section really answered a lot of questions I had about this thing! I always like Lightning Weapons in Game, shame that this seems kind of half baked.
Glad to know my testing answered some of your questions! I'm also a fan of the lightning in this game and hope it could get a little tweaked to be more predictable/consistent. Thanks for watching!
Brother, that is some high-quality science. Good stuff.
Thank you brother! Appreciate your kind words and for taking the time to watch the video!
Great Video , very good information.
Glad it was helpful! Always looking to share what I believe to be helpful information with the community. Thanks for checking out the video!
Plottwist: Tesla Tower is more effective on players (PVP Foreshadowing)
Shocking information! What an electrifying experience!
Appreciate your comment! Thanks for checking out the video!
Exact same issues with the Arc thrower. I charge it and hear it chirp, literally nothing but empty space (Visually) between me and the target and the arc just does not fire or goes else were. you see the ionization cloud track to what got targeted, but you don't see the bolt
Honestly love the tesla tower, arc thrower, and just about everything from the cutting edge warbond. I think the tower has the same issues as the blitzer, it doesn't really know how to pick targets consistently.
I am a huge fan of the arc weapons and everything about the lightning in this game, except for the firing inconsistencies haha. Thanks for checking out the video!
My feeling exactly, it is cool but niche and under performs atm, zaps you if you are prone near it when it shoots at an enemie, found that the hard way, hope it gets some love in the future.
I remember trying out Tesla during a Defense mission because I thought that'd be where it'd shine, since it'd have plenty of enemies to chain to. Not only did it get destroyed, immediately, almost constantly. I don't think I even got more than maybe one or two kills on some bot troopers during that whole mission. Tesla has to be bugged or just grossly underpowered. I'd hope that one day they jack the firing rate of it way up and give it a damage bump (at least enough to one shot all varieties of bot troopers, and up to warrior type bugs) AND give it vastly more HP so that it can do its job as a mob zapper that's fantastic at dealing with smaller infantry. Tesla tower just needs help, because otherwise it's more of a hinderance than a help, and a waste of a stratagem slot, it's genuinely more dangerous to you and your team than it ever was to the enemy.
Appreciate you sharing your thoughts and I agree with your points. Given it's design and its purpose, I can see potential, but it is in desperate need of adjustments to help it perform its job better, let alone live longer. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
Excellent video. Informative and depressing. Could you use the invisible wall to access previously unreachable high ground?
Thanks for your kind words! In theory, yes you can so long as you have something to give you that height like a jump pack or if the top of the invisible wall is something close by that you can mantle/dive to. I don't see much use cases for it but it is something that could be done. Thanks for checking out the video!
I think another thing that needs to be tested is how the tesla tower performs when there's two to four covering an area. As sucky as it is for them to target each other; I still want to see what it would be like for four towers to hide behind a corner and ambush targets. Maybe the 3 second delay could be countered when there's already three other towers priming? I think some of the ways the tower needs to be buffed to be viable is to allow it to do heavier stuns and resist a little more damage.
There's a lot of potential with the tesla tower, and I feel that given it's current state any form of adjustment would be happily accepted by the community. Thanks for checking out the video and sharing your thoughts!
The Tesla tower should get its Armor piercing increased to at least 5 or higher. The fact that it currently does zero damage to chargers makes it pretty lackluster in higher level bug missions.
I came to this video to see if I could learn tips and tricks for using the Tesla Tower. I learned two things: One, the Tesla Tower is even more confusing than I thought it was. Two, I can punch-block automaton grenades?! XD
Thanks for checking out the video and glad that you were able to at least get some takeaways from this haha! Appreciate the comment
Very thorough review
Thanks for your kind words! Always looking to make detailed and informative videos to help out our fellow divers! Thanks for watching!
good info, thanks. think i still haven't used this since i unlocked it. that's unlikely to change
Thanks for your kind words. I haven't used the tesla tower much since I posted it, only using it every other defense mission and my opinions about it still stands even now, so yeah, just waiting on some updates to it hopefully. Thanks for watching!
My takeaway from this video is how OP the tesla tower is lol. 3 minutes? That’s insane. Why take an eagle to get like 7 kills when this thing can get as many kills as an eagle within the first 10 seconds? It’s a turret and you can’t just throw it directly into the enemy. I think this is great when you’re swarmed. Just throw it behind you, prone, and kill everything as long as there is no charger. How I would use this is by placing it somewhere I can retreat to if things get hairy and use it as additional support.
The fact that it can do those large multikills for the entire 3 minutes made me think of the potential for this thing. In my testing, I have yet to find the most optimal placement. I've tried high ground, far away, hidden in some nook, clouded in smoke. It just got destroyed way too fast. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and taking the time to check out the video!
Another important thing about the tesla tower is IT CAN HEADSHOT
This adds to the damage potential of it, which is why it has the chance to even 1 shot a hulk. Thanks for checking out the video!
Kinda my experience with sentries in general. I hail Mary it across the map and the moment it spawns a charger or titan agros on it despite me shooting at them. Boom gone. Agro to towers should be reduced or something. Right now 7/10 times they get mowed over before being effective.
I miss the Tesla from the first game, one ems and it would hold down an area forever 😩
I say: smoke shouldn't counter it = tesla + smoke strike to make things get in range and die before they kill it
rly informative and good video
Thanks! Appreciate it!
Been loving the Arch Thrower. Such a great fun weapon. Even started using the Arch Blitzer on Bug missions only. Very surprised by its effectiveness. I gotta completely agree with you on the Tesla Tower. Been using it on Defense mission with Bots and Bugs and it almost immediately dies every time. I even have the new upgrade for explosive resistance and I can’t tell the difference. Seen one rocket take it down. The devs need to take a good look at it. It needs love.
Appreciate you sharing your own personal thoughts on the Tesla tower and for checking out my video!
I don't know if this is just my experience, but have you noticed whether the ems field negates the arc chain sometimes? I use the arc thrower quite often, and I've seen the ems field from mortars block my arc shots sometimes. Maybe this might help determine if the tower arcs and the arc thrower arcs are different engine/code-wise.
Very interesting insight. I've been doing a lot of testing with the arc thrower recently and although WE are deciding where to shoot the lightning, it's logic for selecting targets where you "shoot" it tends to follow the same rules as the tesla tower. Still trying to figure things out but I've seen the arc thrower also hit dead bodies, sentries, and even samples, but will continue to run it through a lot of tests! Thanks for checking out the video!
- The range is ridiculously high and hostile - Bugs & bots target and destroy the tower fast - It keeps killing YOU and your team You can’t use it defensively… you can’t use it offensively… WHY USE IT. It’s a good idea conceptually. But what’s the point if it’s gets destroyed fast or kills you… fast.
Give it arc thrower stagger and consist targeting & I feel like this thing would be a monster. Maybe even shoot in multiple directions at once per shot to make up for that prime effect.
I agree. Being able to stagger would increase its survivability a lot and will let it be able to send out more shots. Thanks for checking out the video and for commenting!
Tesla tower would probably be a bit better if it just did pulses of area damage with consistent range and no arcing.
About the unpriming, I'm not sure if it works as well as a client because I have been zapped while prone. When it comes to its performance though, I have had the most success on bug High Value Asset Extraction by placing it on top of stairs next to a gate, and using napalm strikes to burn the access to the stairs, all while being posted up at the gate behind. It can do a lot of work IF you cover it and "tower defense strategy" so that the enemies need to walk quite a bit to get in melee range. Chargers would not reach it or prioritize it, but any bile titan would ruin the fun. But really though, Napalm strike + Tesla Tower is an amazing combo against hordes defensively. It works because you are close enough to draw aggro, it's elevated so it takes longer for bugs to reach it all while it's able to damage them, and you also cover its back. I think it needs more health AND/OR be less prioritized in terms of aggro compared to players or other sentries, more range with a priority system to prioritize enemies for gameplay/fun reasons OR a higher fire rate, stagger because look at the lightning on that thing, an audio cue for when you are targeted, like a buzzing static noise like when thunder is about to hit you, and, most importantly, they need to fix arc weapons so that they arc properly.
Thanks for the comment and sharing your insight. I've tried placing it on leveled platforms in that new defense mission but it would misfire a lot, hitting some random thing I wasn't expecting before drawing aggro and getting destroyed. Appreciate you checking out the video!
According to thos being prone stops the helldiver from 'waking up' amd priming, not protecting the helldiver from damage or targeting.
the only meta use ive seen for the tesla tower in my 150 hours is when the Silo event was goin from the major order a month ago, i remember it was good area denial with a decent cooldown
Oh yes. I wish the TCS mission was back so I can test its potential there. Thanks for your comment and for checking out the video!
Can’t wait till we’re in a Tesla Tower meta. Thank you for this testing.
You and me both! Appreciate your kind words and thanks for checking out the video!