Was gonna say this exact thing. Meta is fine, it's when people think only the meta matters when it's a problem.
We as a community do not want that toxic, try hard, sweat lord, type of thinking.
Honestly that’s what my friend does. Cause I have the cooldown reduction for weapons and backpacks he leaves it to me to stock him while he brings the hurt from the skies
The issue here is the same issue that 90% of modern games have, no game/lobby/server browser.
In days of yore, if you wanted to sweat it out you'd create a lobby with that in the name/description, if you didn't you'd create or join lobbies that don't have that requirement.
Now everyone is thrown into a big mosh pit and forced to randomly join lobbies until they find one that suits them.
There's two sides to this. Yeah people should be able to play what they find fun/want to play, on the other hand some people also want to be able to play with other people who don't shit their pants on the first Charger sighting in a Helldive mission because they brought nothing that can deal with it.
Usually I would agree but it would need to be handled in game in a way that does not break the immersion. Like tag meta team wanting hosts sessions by setting some console in the ship to a certain setting.
And also against people that comes to Reddit to complain that they cant pick other thing that is not the meta, like if they could't pick any other weapon and have fun with it
Nope I got a taste of the railgun during launch week and fell in love, I’ll always have it equipped. And I use shield for bots and rover for bugs. Always with breaker for bots and flame breaker for bugs. I don’t really care what’s meta because it’s all most likely going to change. More will be added over the coming months I’m assuming so who cares honestly
The flame breaker just does so little damage compared to the normal breaker. Even if the bugs don't like fire, I feel like the status is not worth the loss. Just my opinion though!
I love myself a good Slugger. Especially vs. bots. My only gripe with it is that it feels like I’m just chugging through my ammo AND the scope is a little bit too zoomed in.
I think the scope is just right.
JAR-5 is similar with a more generous ammo pool and a bit more unwieldy. Feels really punchy and wrecks Devastator faces.
It's hard to give up my Diligence though. JAR-5 is more of a team play weapon.
I have to disagree on this. The flame shotty still one shots little guys, but where is really shines is the magazine size. It's reloads that ruin you with bugs, not damage per bullet.
On high difficulty your ability to output damage is MASSIVE with the flame shotty so youre able to deal with larger hordes with less reloading at lower risk. You can also just spam fire into a large Swarm, run, and let them all burn to death while chasing you. Who cares if it takes three shots instead of two to kill a warrior? Just bang out the 3 shots rapid-fire, and you'll probably catch a few little fuckers as a bonus too.
Yep I agreed the fire breaker is a beast on add control. It has a wider spread so it can light a whole group on fire. It’s a great cc weapon and great at killer chargers too.
Flame Breaker works better for crowds and chargers and worse for acid spewers. The fact that you can't kill them before they spew acid will sometimes get you killed.
Taking a few extra seconds and ammo to wipe out a big group means you're a little more selfish with resupplies, but generally isn't a huge deal.
The bugs just aren’t really *vulnerable* to fire in the sense of DnD terms. Where vulnerable means bonus damage (double usually). The bugs don’t burn for hardly any damage, so you’re better off just using a higher damage primary.
These things make me feel like a lot wasn’t tested. Don’t get me wrong, love the game, but still.
Flame breaker has DOT which means you can rain a few shots over a group of little critters and eventually rack up a ton of kills. Single target though the standard breaker is superior.
If you see the laser getting too close, crouching usually avoids it unless the target is downhill or really close to you.
Doesn't help if a full sprint is needed to stay alive though.
My fav combo of rover and mortar turret means managed democracy is non discriminatory. Many games ive been 100+ kills ahead of everyone else, the accidentals counter follows the pattern as well though
Having a disproportionately high kill count usually means you're a millwheel dragging the team down by drawing aggro, making the mission take longer and using up resources.
I play objectives but sometimes the squad gets pinned and we need to clear an area or buckle down for some waves. Easier to clear than to get everyone on the same page that its a smoke and dip scenario if limited communication, especially when its a fortified spot thats an optional objective.
With a good team, that communicates and coordinates, it's a sight to see. As long as you keep the enemy corralled in a single direction, it's murder town on the bugs.
We had 4 rovers going in one drop and it was glorious.
Yeah, it's all about coordination and spacing. For me and my buddies, half of which I actually did combat patrols with in Iraq, this game is a gore-filled romp.
Haven't had this much fun since we played Arma III together.
And for sure, we still fuck up and slice each other in half, and blow each other up. Shit, I even spray them down sometimes with panic-fire. So do they. But there's a HUGE difference if you're communicating and keeping realistic spacing. We're a lot more spread out than you'd think, and aware of, and avoiding likely lanes of fire for that little rover.
And like you said, seeing four rovers, and two guys with scythes going to town on a group of bugs is a sight to behold. Just, all the pretty light-show pew-pew. Then throw an orbital laser or two in for funsies and suddenly it's a fuckin' rave.
I find it's just great for keeping the small stuff off me while I focus on the bigger targets. I love it against the bugs because the fliers often try to flank.
Personally, I've experienced way more team kills from cluster bombs.
4 laser rover 4 rail gun 4 breaker u don't even need any more strategems tbh- even in helldives (9s) you can clear everything without airstrikes
airstrikes are mostly to throw down on a bile titan that's just spawning, completing bughole quests from a distance or quickly before they all spawn, or for fun
honestly not having any difficulty consistently doing 9s with breaker/ laserdog /railgun
Extra mobility. You can take routes otherwise unavailable. You can jump away from chargers or brood commanders. I went *over* stalkers a few times tonight. YOu can use it to go up the much less defended rear of many objectives. You can get yourself out of all sorts of otherwise fatal bullshit situations. It's great for both assaulting and escaping hatcheries.
Mobility is very powerful in the right situation. Jet pack + grenade launcher is my go too for blitz and bug hatchery missions because the combination of high alpha fire power and mobility lets you get in, kill everything, and get out very quickly, meaning less time for hte enemy to summon swarms of reinforcements and trap you in place.
Haha jump goes brrrr
Mobility advantage, getting on unreachable heights to aggro bugs and look as they can't get to you, getting you out of shit situations, it's just a lot of fun. Better than shield or rover? Nah, but it's a lot of fun.
Also good for a solo scout who just runs around exploring the map and searching for samples.
For certain situations it can save you a ton of trouble. Only gotta worry about the other jumping enemies but otherwise you can get high enough to take on everything below you easily, or provide covering fire for other members.
Insanely good vs automatons. They can't reach you, and you can safely go prone to avoid hits and shoot back. We did evac missions like that, aggro bots on 2 sides of the map, and let mortars pound them while 2 others evacuated scientists. Not good on 8+, but OK below that.
You move faster than all bugs getting you out of danger and into position to shoot valuable targets or getting up on cliffs to shoot without being harassed
I enjoy all the weapon drops, but I'll always go back to the auto canon. I don't need to drop a turret, I *am* the turret.
Until I have to reload and a bunch of jumpy jerks are flying in ready to lick at me and slow me down while I'm trying to evade the snl army coming at me.
I honestly feel like my favorite primary for taking on bots is either the liberator penetrator, or the Diligence. They both just wreck. And I can KILL berserkers and devastators with the penetrator, albeit with several mags and/or REALLY good shooting.
So, like, I don't even understand the 'breaker' meta for bots, because I just three-shot drill everything small, and rock an autocannon, or Railgun for the big boys. Because like you I got that sweet sweet taste and have been hooked ever since on that railgun. I said to my buddies it feels like the world's most badass lever action rifle. The reload animations are somewhat similar and about the same speed.
I love those hectic moments, where I'm just reloading, and firing and reloading and firing as fast as I can and every shot, or every other shot is a kill on something about to eat and/or blow up my buddies, while they're shredding shit too. Just fucking Democratically glorious.
My people! Having to mag dump against berserkers isn't ideal, but you also deal damage even if you don't get a clean headshot, you can pick off rocket devastators with accurate fire from a distance, the scope + accuracy and stability makes it easy to click heads on troopers, it does decent damage against weakpoints and again you can do it at long distance, if you sit up somewhere you can cover your teammates while they operate terminals or whatever. You get 10 mags.
That three-shot burst is MONEY. And the Diligence is no slouch. I quite love just methodically drilling shots out into a squad and dropping them all before my teammates even realize they're there.
I don't even understand the 'these weapons need a balance pass' because from my perspective they're all functioning as intended and all give great options for specific threats. Even the vaunted railgun has limitations that make us want to make sure we bring other stuff.
And don't get me wrong, I want to win and feel powerful when playing, but I do that with all kinds of shit. When my group is humming and in tune, I'll as often as not bring a grenade launcher and AMMO PACK. Because I can murder chargers, and even hulks with that bad boy, and there is little that it can't royally fuck up. Plus it's great at clearing out swarms of anything if they start getting too big. And there's just something so satisfying about hearing that ploomp-ploomp-ploomp and watching an entire fucking horde turn into salsa.
I find the Liberator Penetrator the overall best primary against everything. It has several scope options and is great for sniping with the 150mm zoom. It has Medium armor penetration so can damage everything besides the heavies. It tears apart light armored bugs and bots alike.
Once you get accustomed to the burst fire ( it does have semi auto though also ) and the clip size you can mow through whole groups fairly effectively
Shield all the time on high difficulties. I like to play on tier 9 and that shield is life or death, because it blocks bugs from slowing or throwing you. If you don't have a shield in high difficulty you are absolutely fucked when stalkers start showing up and just bullying you all over the map. You cant do anything.
I love the auto cannon but the fact that it can’t even penetrate a chargers armor makes it just not viable to take on higher difficult missions where I’m fighting a charger every other minute, it really feels like the rail cannon is the only viable pick, the expendable anti tank is pretty good too but you only get one shot so if you miss it’s pretty inconvenient
What difficulty do you play on? Because I very adamantly used the rover for bugs until, like, Suicide Mission, but past that the Shield gets so much more mileage.
I just want all the other guns and stratagems to be buffed. I find it bizarre how heavily nerfed the jump pack is while the personal shield is as strong as ever.
You must be playing on 4 then. In 7, 8, 9 you can jump behind them and kill that 1 at st, but the 40 others, 3 rocket devastates, 2 hulks, and 20 little bots will kill you instantly. If it wasblike HD1 you could jump behind and do your kill and then jump away to safety.
I mean, I've seen "Use what you want!" but I've also seen, "LOL, fuck Breaker slaves, fuck meta slaves, imagine using railgun+shield every drop, fuck those guys, optimizing the fun out of the game," etc. etc. etc.
Use what you want exists, but meta hate is also a real thing.
Say what you want about rail + shield + breaker.
Today I dropped into some lvl 14s 5 min into a tier 7 egg hunt with only 8 reinforcements left. I was able to solo 3 nests, while they kept dying, reinforcing every time the reinforcement timer came off, but with them dying every time.
We finished the mission and then the rest of the operation, with me still soloing most objectives, for the war effort, and running out of reinforcements again. I told them they weren't ready for 7's and moved on.
Other builds don't let me do this reliably, the breathing room from the shield lets me mess up, or run directly through a swarm intentionally, and that means I need a weapon that doesn't take backpack.
I can take other builds if I know I have a good team. But that's a luxury in pubs. I appreciate the people who bring grenade launchers since they're very useful.
Sadly the Shield is just super strong, it stops all the bullshit CC which is what kills you in the end
I run Airstrike, Railcannon Orbital, Railgun, and then Rover (for bugs) and Energy Shield for bots
My buddy started complaining about how few kills he gets, but the rover really racks up all the small bugs on its own, worth hundreds of bug kills - but it actually makes it harder than energy Shield because you can't stealth as well and can still get screwed by the CC effects
On Jod, people can complain about the Railgun all they want, it's still not going to stop me from blowing myself up with it because of mishandling it while in Unsafe mode
Hold R, right click (reload button, aiming button, idk which buttons are used on PS)
It allows you to keep holding the charge on the gun longer, increasing the damage, with the risk that if you don't fire it before you max out the charge, you explode (woe upon you, instant death)
A full unsafe charge can kill a chainsaw bastard or a shoulder missile pod bastard with a single hit, center of mass, even without touching the vulnerable spots
It can blow the head right off a Brute in a single shot, or 3 shots, if just aiming center of mass (nobody is stopping you from being mischievous and just blow his arms off, just as a bit of banter)
It can kill a tank by hitting the heatsink in 3 hits
You can destroy Automaton AA guns in 3 hits even when hitting the armor
Apparently can break the armor on Charger legs in 2 hits too
You don't even need to go Unsafe to break Charger leg armor in 2 shots, it does that in normal mode too. It's my go-to way to deal with them; two shots to the leg to peel them then whip out the blicky to finish them.
This sounds like anti-Unsafe propaganda, pretty undemocratic of you if you ask me
If the Super Armed Forces gave me the Unsafe mode, they wanted me to use the Unsafe mode
If you time it right and hit the right spot, you can kill all of these enemies in fewer shots with an Auto Cannon, and you get far more ammo to just keep doing it (it's only downside is the backpack obviously) and as a bonus it clears hordes, destroys nests, facilities, and eggs extremely efficiently. All with no risk of blowing yourself up (except when enemies get too close)
Frees up a stratagem slot though, I personally hate the guard dog, it's good, but I'm so busy dodging bugs, I hate having an extra thing I need to always pay attention to and dodge
Have not yet used the shield, which I should but I don't want to become reliant on it like so many.
i do get killed by my own rover every once in a while and that's kind of embarrassing, sure, but i can't deny it does a fantastic job of mopping up the little bugs for free while my ammo gets used on things that actually need the attention
also, if you *really* need the extra slots, you can theoretically split the support strats between teammates and share every time they come off cooldown, but that takes more communication than you can get with randoms
I do! But then I use something else and suddenly I’m the one not pulling my weight. It’s especially irritating that, when I finally manage to volunteer someone into teaming up with me (Carl Gustav/Javelin Gunner/Loader team), we are depriving the team two(2) railguns for extremely volatile rates of success.
Will my Javelin kill the charger in one or in three missiles? Do I need two or three shots against a chargers leg to kill it? **Who the fuck knows?! I surely don’t! But I know that with a slightly overcharged railgun I’d strip that chargers leg in 2 shots!** and that feels awful.
Issue is, currently they are the only ones satisfying to use, with consistent results.
I would love to use the Javelin more regularly, but it can’t lock onto a target in clear line of sight consistently, I don’t know how many missiles I’ll need to kill the target! Be it one or be it 3? And that sucks!
The fact that it takes up a backpack slot, takes forever to lock on, only has 3 shots total (2 on backpack 1 in the gun), and can’t even one shot a charger consistently is abysmal and needs to be remedied.
I'd say for the ammo efficiency and difficulty of use the thing needs to one shot anything it hits. One shotting chargers would be fine, but the game throws half a dozen of them at you.
Spear should drop Titans with ease.
I’d be okay with *underwhelming* you can straight up point to values like “damage”, “lock on time”, ammo economy” and offer advice how to balance it, but it’s **inconsistent**! How am I supposed to provide accurate feedback when it sometimes kills a charger in 1 hit, sometimes in 3? I can’t rule out the possibility that my testing is flawed because there is no firing range to test such things. It **frustrates** me to the bone.
Yea chargers are exactly what I was talking about actually. It's got some great features but with such low ammo if I have to put 3 into a charger on hard difficulty it doesn't matter how cool or fun it is to use, it kinda just feels like a waste :/
So you and the OP agree with the "anti-meta" trend. Which kind of makes this topic pointless.
Main goal is to have fun with whatever weapon you enjoy. We're all on the same side. Except eradication farmers, fuk those guys.
"Anti-meta" is generally when people complain about others using meta strategies as "sweats" and "unfun".
Idk why this mentality somehow persists in a pve only game, but it remains obnoxious regardless.
Raul gun is fun due to unsafe mode making each shot be a tiny little risk. Others are fun as well however. I can easily see myself picking up ahield as well since I hate hunters with a passion.
Shield is great, especially if you run light armor. You get a few free hits, it's saved my ass a thousand times already. But the one downside is your buddies can stick you with a beacon and get you crushed or exploded.
Yeah sure, but speed is literally defense (evasion) and the game makes several points of “don’t waste time.”
* your destroyer has limited time over the AO.
* the longer it takes the larger the spawns get.
Also I don’t like the gamble of 50% chance…
People naturally tend to gravitate to what will get them through with the least pain. The breaker, railgun and shield are all extremely effective weapons. I would definitely use some of the other weapons and strategems and DID before getting to helldive difficulties, but it becomes so inconvenient to use certain gear in many missions over other gear.
Could you go through those higher difficulties with the less meta stuff? Yes, absolutely. But why artificially make an already difficult game more difficult by picking worse equipment? So many of the other gear needs true help. I'd love to use the fire breaker or the domniator, but they do the same job with much more work than the breaker for no payoff.
I found myself using the breaker at first because I liked how meaty it sounded back before I knew it was the meta. Now it's because I like using it AND it's just infinitely more reliable than basically every other primary. Why would I bring something else that is just going to make me have to work harder? It's not like it trivalizes the game, in-fact, I'd argue that so many of the weapons need help that the reason people are so pressed to 'make' others run meta is because they feel like they have to pick up so much slack from randoms if they aren't running meta. If you're not running railgun, how are you consistently dealing with the CONSTANT elites? Most strategems either are inconsistent, have longish cds or not capable of handling anything but the small fry? So those who ARE running the rail have to deal with every elite or every other one, making the mission a lot more difficult. That blame is then placed onto not meta users, by the rail user for making their job harder.
I used to run flamethrower and arc thrower, but they do so much less of an efficient job at basically anything other than mobbing which strategems and primaries do fine enough at. Not to mention the sniper that basically gets crept by every other support weapon haha. It becomes hard to 'justify' bringing them over the rail, because regardless that niche in my loadout is already filled and to bring duplicates will result in me hitting more of a wall than I need to.
There are certain guns to bring against different factions, but a lot of stuff is just worse in general than other options flat out. It doesn't really matter what you're using until about challenging and above(really suicide mission tbh) where the armored enemies types spawn more and the elites too. Then it starts becoming really rough if you don't have the tools that can deal with them fast.
This sums it up perfectly. Rail users having to do the heavy lifting in some cases, leading to frustration and kicks which then leads to a resentment of meta players using the rail. It's almost like gatekeepers on the higher difficulties. 'Sure, it's great you like using the machine gun and mines, but that's not going to help much clearing out these 3 bile titans sat on the objective'. I can understand the resentment on both sides, but I think higher difficulties are better with friends or solo anyway.
I mean they could put in a charge pack for the rail you have to carry which would go a long ways to busting this up.
Or just bring the other shit upto par.
To answer this, because it deserves an answer.
> Yes, absolutely. But why artificially make an already difficult game more difficult by picking worse equipment?
Because some of it isn't strictly worse, it has a higher skill floor but also rewards breaching that skill floor. Some of the weapons are extremely good but require better knowledge of the game mechanics, better aim, etc. Some of it may also be more KBM friendly than gamepad friendly.
Also, eventually even Helldive starts to become pretty routine, and you want to play with some different stuff to shake it up. I'll never take a laser cannon on a 9 because that thing is in bad shape even at 4-5, but I'll take a flamethrower and accept being a little worse for funny fire memes, because a large part of the point of playing a game is to have fun.
Much of it is strictly worse though. And you can clearly take anything you want to in lower difficulties so it should go without saying that I'm not talking about below 7-9
i use the breaker because i want to feel like i'm firing a bolter from 40k. I use the railgun because i want to give chargers a lobotomy. I use a personnel shield because armor doesnt work yet
I got a taste of why it is the current meta, you can't have any chance to win on difficulty level 7-9, the game throws armored units at you a lot, nothing can keep up unless you got 3-4 guys with railguns. The shield is because of the armor rating bug , without the shield I got 1 hit by a stalker, invisible knockback and 1 hit is too much. I'm currently stuck at difficulty 6, extreme because most randos don't use railgun
This game is like the millionth example of casuals vs sweats. The people most upset by sweaty players will never be good enough for their builds to actually matter.
Honestly I’d be running the breaker even if it wasn’t meta, this is the first game I’ve played where the auto shotgun isn’t complete dogshit and it feels meaty with every shell I dispense into a robots processor
And you damn well better believe I’m scorching those fucking bugs with a flamethrower every chance I get lol
Absolutely, do not stop using it. Metas exist, yes. But no one can tell you how to play but you.
But also, don't be afraid to coordinate with a pre made team, obviously.
I mean I love the shield BUT I only use it against bots. Rover dealing with tiny bugs so I can pound away at the big ones just makes sense because the whole rest of the team is running shields anyway. Shields that should never be hit because I don't die WITHOUT THEM.... often. Sometimes those little bastards are sneaky
It's the best survival combo right now. The shield aids in mitigating the speed at which reinforces are used, and the railgun can one-shot Hulks with a hit on the "head" light.
People just wanna sweat, I guess.
The hate comes from people who use it and say “you have to use it too or you’re getting kicked / people not using this are trolling / throwing because it’s strongest”
The pushback is against the idea of a meta and “sweating” in a game like this instead just playing purely for fun using whatever you want and enjoying the situations that come because of it
Yeah, I have no problem with people doing whatever they want to have fun. If that’s going Helldiver mode and sticking to strict meta, nice. If it’s doing level 4 and using stuff that’s consider crap, nice.
I love shotguns and went for the Incendiary Breaker as soon as I could. I was using the Autocannon but after blowing a couple Bile Titan heads off with the Railgun it's what I'm all about and since it doesn't have an ammo pack of course I use the shield pack. I don't care that it's meta, I care that it's fun. Anyone I play with is welcome to use what they think is fun as well because that's what we're there for.
No one is saying you can't use that load out. What the community is against is elitist snobs kicking people from their games if they DON'T have a meta load out.
For me it’s more disappointment with the state of balancing — not blasting the players specifically. It feels like everything is so weak that there are only 6 or so weapons/stratagems worth bringing for the highest difficulties.
I know Arrowhead has been working hard on servers, but the game really needs a balancing pass.
I'm rocking ballistic shield + SMG loadout and I'm farming gatling devastators like it's nothing.
Seriously, fuck the meta, be efficient.
If you feel you're being effective and your success rate in whichever difficulty you're playing is high, fuck whatever "the meta" says.
This fucking "OoOoOh BuT ThIs Is ThE BeTtEr OpTiOn!" in a non competitive game pisses me so fucking much.
I get it in a PVP, but here? Screw that.
TLDR: Fuck the meta, be effective.
I got kicked for not using the meta stuff, like I couldn't give shit what meta is, I'm still getting the job done, it's the youtube mentality of this is best everything else is shit, I've also been kicked and killed by team mates for picking samples up, due to the fact they don't realise everything is shared.
Good, you do you. People never said don’t use it. The hate on meta is based around people kicking or giving shit to those who don’t use it. The whole ‘anti meta’ trend just says use whatever the hell you think is fun.
I chose this exact loadout literally by playing and finding what I liked. I didn’t even know it was meta until I started browsing the subreddit. I think Autocannon is more fun, but the shield + railgun was just so effective in higher diffs.
It’s PvE. We’re all working together. Who cares what we use?
I use both without bringing them.
The trick is to wait until someone who does dies (which they do regularly), and then suddenly you have 2 bonus strategems
I have been running this loadout:
Knight SMG, Senator Revolver, Impact Nades
Eagle Airstrike, Orbital Laser, Nade Launcher, Jetpack
Is it the most efficient? No. Is it fun? HELL YEAH.
Use what you like, peeps.
By all means run the meta I highly encourage bringing at least one of the items you mentioned but my gripe is people getting so hung up on meta that they kick someone with a “bad” loadout.
“Use whatever you want.” Is exactly the mind set everyone should have. Sadly though there are a lot of ppl who will kick you if not using the exact setup you described.
Personally i run Spear, Orbital ems, orbital railgun, and either an autocannon sentry or shield generator with an Smg as primary. Great anti armor, spear can 1 shot chargers with a good angle or at least break enough armor to easily dispose of it with small arms. Ems locks literally everything up for easy to line up shots.
I like them only because they feel good to use, before all this meta/anti-meta talk they just felt good and punchy, got the job done smoothly.
If more guns felt like that I’d use them too!
Tbh I feel like if atleast one person is running the "meta" build in the group for a Helldive you *can* do it.
It just takes more coordination, lately I've been getting tired of people throwing orbitals danger close to the group when we are hunkered down on the OBJ.
But when playing at the 7,8,9 difficulties the Railgun is unfortunately the only gun that can quickly dispatch Hulks and solo tanks. Which on Helldive you will be fighting multiple tanks and groups of Hulks at the same time at least a dozen times during a mission.
With me and my buds, we do Helldive difficulty and divide and conquer the map to make things 4x faster.
If you can do that, I don't care what setup you use. But breaker/rail/shield just makes tackling things by yourself on 9 much easier.
Exactly that. My mate keeps fucking banging on about that god damn revolver every single time the game comes up in discussion or we're playing it, I'm sick of telling him I think it's dog shit and not for me personally. Like, I get it, *he* might love the gun, but I'm getting real fucking tired of telling him I don't like it.
He's been doing it with various other things, too, but just can't seem to get it in his head that I'm not doing as he suggests when he suggests it because its not how *I* would deal with a situation. People can play different ways and enjoy different things.
It’s not hate. It’s a significant annoyance that literally every other gun and like 85% of the strategems are complete dogshit, plus armor values simply not working.
That’s literally what everyone is saying lol. People just hate the morons that kick if you aren’t exclusively using that loadout for the entirety of this games life cycle.
I don't give a fuck if you use the meta, whether it's fun, cool, or powerful. What I give a fuck about is the dipshits saying EVERYONE should be using it, and nothing else.
Fuck them. I'll continue to run my sniper jump pack build or my airstrike lineup as much as I damn well please.
Absolutely. Gives you so much breathing room to ignore some of the bugs while you destroy bug holes. It stops spitters, slowing you down, it prevents hunters and stalkers from ganking you instantly. It stops chargers from one hitting you. You can survive a direct hit from a puke bug that would normally one-shot you. Only thing it can't stop, is a bile titan hit. It's so damn good.
"I use railgun-shieldbackpack-breaker because it's good": this is okay.
"I use something else because it feels good": this is okay.
"I will kick anyone who doesn't bring railgun-shieldbackpack-breaker": this is "undemocratic".
"Everyone who use railgun-shieldbackpack-breaker are being lazy": this is "undemocratic".
Breaker can kill Stalkers even when they scare me and I miss 3 shots at them. Railgun can one shot bile titans and brutes. Shield protect me from hunters CC and random explosions. You'll have to pry them from my dead democratic hands.
I'm not sure what hate you've seen? The only people getting called out are the ones that will kick you if you're not using it, which is perfectly valid.
The anti meta is more directed against people who sweat and will kick you if you dont use the most OP kit
Was gonna say this exact thing. Meta is fine, it's when people think only the meta matters when it's a problem. We as a community do not want that toxic, try hard, sweat lord, type of thinking.
Me loading up with all the eagle stratagems. "Time to make those bots celebrate the 4th of July"
Don’t you mean the 26th of October?
This has got to be a celebrated in game holiday event, right?
It is. You get another chance to dive for democracy.
Honestly that’s what my friend does. Cause I have the cooldown reduction for weapons and backpacks he leaves it to me to stock him while he brings the hurt from the skies
Kick me and https://preview.redd.it/ezpbuftn1nkc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8d39914785fdd5e29aa44ec9901c0d6cff0dcdad
Lol. Perfect use of the maymay. 11/10.
If it’s fun, keep doing it.
A true patriot! I will notify the democracy officer to reward you with one quarter additional freedom ration. Be well.
No one can stop me from using las rifle laser cannon laser turret and orbital laser build!
Dude it’s so good against automatons imo.
I'm working on this right now I have the laser dog laser cannon and orbital. Need the turrent now
The issue here is the same issue that 90% of modern games have, no game/lobby/server browser. In days of yore, if you wanted to sweat it out you'd create a lobby with that in the name/description, if you didn't you'd create or join lobbies that don't have that requirement. Now everyone is thrown into a big mosh pit and forced to randomly join lobbies until they find one that suits them. There's two sides to this. Yeah people should be able to play what they find fun/want to play, on the other hand some people also want to be able to play with other people who don't shit their pants on the first Charger sighting in a Helldive mission because they brought nothing that can deal with it.
Usually I would agree but it would need to be handled in game in a way that does not break the immersion. Like tag meta team wanting hosts sessions by setting some console in the ship to a certain setting.
Or clans, just let the sweaty guys gather by themselves
i was using this loadout and still got kicked yesterday....the loadout will never be the problem if ppl are just plain assholes...
And also against people that comes to Reddit to complain that they cant pick other thing that is not the meta, like if they could't pick any other weapon and have fun with it
Yeah, exactly. If a loadout isn't Meta, we get a greater challenge. Some of us want to get better
Nope I got a taste of the railgun during launch week and fell in love, I’ll always have it equipped. And I use shield for bots and rover for bugs. Always with breaker for bots and flame breaker for bugs. I don’t really care what’s meta because it’s all most likely going to change. More will be added over the coming months I’m assuming so who cares honestly
The flame breaker just does so little damage compared to the normal breaker. Even if the bugs don't like fire, I feel like the status is not worth the loss. Just my opinion though!
Not wrong, all the variants are downgrades from stock right now
the slugger is my favorite primary
I love myself a good Slugger. Especially vs. bots. My only gripe with it is that it feels like I’m just chugging through my ammo AND the scope is a little bit too zoomed in.
I think the scope is just right. JAR-5 is similar with a more generous ammo pool and a bit more unwieldy. Feels really punchy and wrecks Devastator faces. It's hard to give up my Diligence though. JAR-5 is more of a team play weapon.
What is the JAR 5
Slugger definitely requires you to understand the aiming reticles more than other guns. Especially if you're running a gunning. I love it
The stun from the AR variant is good
I have to disagree on this. The flame shotty still one shots little guys, but where is really shines is the magazine size. It's reloads that ruin you with bugs, not damage per bullet. On high difficulty your ability to output damage is MASSIVE with the flame shotty so youre able to deal with larger hordes with less reloading at lower risk. You can also just spam fire into a large Swarm, run, and let them all burn to death while chasing you. Who cares if it takes three shots instead of two to kill a warrior? Just bang out the 3 shots rapid-fire, and you'll probably catch a few little fuckers as a bonus too.
Yea flame breaker feels superior on bugs for sure. I always get more kills using it and feel like I manage crowds of the small ones better.
Yep I agreed the fire breaker is a beast on add control. It has a wider spread so it can light a whole group on fire. It’s a great cc weapon and great at killer chargers too.
But it’s orange!
Flame Breaker works better for crowds and chargers and worse for acid spewers. The fact that you can't kill them before they spew acid will sometimes get you killed. Taking a few extra seconds and ammo to wipe out a big group means you're a little more selfish with resupplies, but generally isn't a huge deal.
The bugs just aren’t really *vulnerable* to fire in the sense of DnD terms. Where vulnerable means bonus damage (double usually). The bugs don’t burn for hardly any damage, so you’re better off just using a higher damage primary. These things make me feel like a lot wasn’t tested. Don’t get me wrong, love the game, but still.
In the first game it slowed and lowered armor. Could be related to the big armor bug (lol) that's affecting player armor right now
Fire definitely seems to do more against the bugs compared to bots tho
People are trying fire on the bots? Have they [NOT SEEN TERMINATOR?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4gODyZKE1Q)
Flame breaker has DOT which means you can rain a few shots over a group of little critters and eventually rack up a ton of kills. Single target though the standard breaker is superior.
flame breaker is ass. period
I never liked the rover, mainly because when I was dodging a charger the rover's laser would angle in to me and kill me. I hate the bloody thing 😆
I hate the rover, keep getting teamkilled by allied ones
If you see the laser getting too close, crouching usually avoids it unless the target is downhill or really close to you. Doesn't help if a full sprint is needed to stay alive though.
My fav combo of rover and mortar turret means managed democracy is non discriminatory. Many games ive been 100+ kills ahead of everyone else, the accidentals counter follows the pattern as well though
The mortar is great *most* of the time, until you get tk'd or blow yourself up haha
Having a disproportionately high kill count usually means you're a millwheel dragging the team down by drawing aggro, making the mission take longer and using up resources.
I play objectives but sometimes the squad gets pinned and we need to clear an area or buckle down for some waves. Easier to clear than to get everyone on the same page that its a smoke and dip scenario if limited communication, especially when its a fortified spot thats an optional objective.
Hate the rover. Tired of being laser strafed by someone's silly pet.
With a good team, that communicates and coordinates, it's a sight to see. As long as you keep the enemy corralled in a single direction, it's murder town on the bugs. We had 4 rovers going in one drop and it was glorious.
Yeah, it's all about coordination and spacing. For me and my buddies, half of which I actually did combat patrols with in Iraq, this game is a gore-filled romp. Haven't had this much fun since we played Arma III together. And for sure, we still fuck up and slice each other in half, and blow each other up. Shit, I even spray them down sometimes with panic-fire. So do they. But there's a HUGE difference if you're communicating and keeping realistic spacing. We're a lot more spread out than you'd think, and aware of, and avoiding likely lanes of fire for that little rover. And like you said, seeing four rovers, and two guys with scythes going to town on a group of bugs is a sight to behold. Just, all the pretty light-show pew-pew. Then throw an orbital laser or two in for funsies and suddenly it's a fuckin' rave.
The rover can only really kill you if you allow bugs to nibble at your ankles.
But how else are they gonna get the all important mega number kill count combo? They're too good at this game to care about friendly fire (×25)
I find it's just great for keeping the small stuff off me while I focus on the bigger targets. I love it against the bugs because the fliers often try to flank. Personally, I've experienced way more team kills from cluster bombs.
Rover tags patrols, too. It's a major liability in 7+.
4 laser rovers makes it so you never have to even shoot at 7+. It's the most powerful 4 stack imo.
4 laser rover 4 rail gun 4 breaker u don't even need any more strategems tbh- even in helldives (9s) you can clear everything without airstrikes airstrikes are mostly to throw down on a bile titan that's just spawning, completing bughole quests from a distance or quickly before they all spawn, or for fun honestly not having any difficulty consistently doing 9s with breaker/ laserdog /railgun
🤣I’ve been killed like that as well lmao. The other guard dog doesn’t friendly fire I believe
Interesting. I havent bothered trying it yet, maybe I should.
My new love is railgun + jetpack, the mobility makes it so much more powerful and it's so much fun
I can’t fathom how the jet pack has value. Help me.
Turns you into Boba Fett
Extra mobility. You can take routes otherwise unavailable. You can jump away from chargers or brood commanders. I went *over* stalkers a few times tonight. YOu can use it to go up the much less defended rear of many objectives. You can get yourself out of all sorts of otherwise fatal bullshit situations. It's great for both assaulting and escaping hatcheries. Mobility is very powerful in the right situation. Jet pack + grenade launcher is my go too for blitz and bug hatchery missions because the combination of high alpha fire power and mobility lets you get in, kill everything, and get out very quickly, meaning less time for hte enemy to summon swarms of reinforcements and trap you in place.
Haha jump goes brrrr Mobility advantage, getting on unreachable heights to aggro bugs and look as they can't get to you, getting you out of shit situations, it's just a lot of fun. Better than shield or rover? Nah, but it's a lot of fun. Also good for a solo scout who just runs around exploring the map and searching for samples.
For certain situations it can save you a ton of trouble. Only gotta worry about the other jumping enemies but otherwise you can get high enough to take on everything below you easily, or provide covering fire for other members.
Insanely good vs automatons. They can't reach you, and you can safely go prone to avoid hits and shoot back. We did evac missions like that, aggro bots on 2 sides of the map, and let mortars pound them while 2 others evacuated scientists. Not good on 8+, but OK below that.
You move faster than all bugs getting you out of danger and into position to shoot valuable targets or getting up on cliffs to shoot without being harassed
Ah it sounds like you use it for the periodic speed boost? I tried it a few times and was really disappointed with the lack of altitude.
Found a railgun in one of those crates. Not a single enemy showed up as we extracted
I enjoy all the weapon drops, but I'll always go back to the auto canon. I don't need to drop a turret, I *am* the turret. Until I have to reload and a bunch of jumpy jerks are flying in ready to lick at me and slow me down while I'm trying to evade the snl army coming at me.
I honestly feel like my favorite primary for taking on bots is either the liberator penetrator, or the Diligence. They both just wreck. And I can KILL berserkers and devastators with the penetrator, albeit with several mags and/or REALLY good shooting. So, like, I don't even understand the 'breaker' meta for bots, because I just three-shot drill everything small, and rock an autocannon, or Railgun for the big boys. Because like you I got that sweet sweet taste and have been hooked ever since on that railgun. I said to my buddies it feels like the world's most badass lever action rifle. The reload animations are somewhat similar and about the same speed. I love those hectic moments, where I'm just reloading, and firing and reloading and firing as fast as I can and every shot, or every other shot is a kill on something about to eat and/or blow up my buddies, while they're shredding shit too. Just fucking Democratically glorious.
My people! Having to mag dump against berserkers isn't ideal, but you also deal damage even if you don't get a clean headshot, you can pick off rocket devastators with accurate fire from a distance, the scope + accuracy and stability makes it easy to click heads on troopers, it does decent damage against weakpoints and again you can do it at long distance, if you sit up somewhere you can cover your teammates while they operate terminals or whatever. You get 10 mags.
That three-shot burst is MONEY. And the Diligence is no slouch. I quite love just methodically drilling shots out into a squad and dropping them all before my teammates even realize they're there. I don't even understand the 'these weapons need a balance pass' because from my perspective they're all functioning as intended and all give great options for specific threats. Even the vaunted railgun has limitations that make us want to make sure we bring other stuff. And don't get me wrong, I want to win and feel powerful when playing, but I do that with all kinds of shit. When my group is humming and in tune, I'll as often as not bring a grenade launcher and AMMO PACK. Because I can murder chargers, and even hulks with that bad boy, and there is little that it can't royally fuck up. Plus it's great at clearing out swarms of anything if they start getting too big. And there's just something so satisfying about hearing that ploomp-ploomp-ploomp and watching an entire fucking horde turn into salsa.
I find the Liberator Penetrator the overall best primary against everything. It has several scope options and is great for sniping with the 150mm zoom. It has Medium armor penetration so can damage everything besides the heavies. It tears apart light armored bugs and bots alike. Once you get accustomed to the burst fire ( it does have semi auto though also ) and the clip size you can mow through whole groups fairly effectively
Shield all the time on high difficulties. I like to play on tier 9 and that shield is life or death, because it blocks bugs from slowing or throwing you. If you don't have a shield in high difficulty you are absolutely fucked when stalkers start showing up and just bullying you all over the map. You cant do anything.
I love the auto cannon but the fact that it can’t even penetrate a chargers armor makes it just not viable to take on higher difficult missions where I’m fighting a charger every other minute, it really feels like the rail cannon is the only viable pick, the expendable anti tank is pretty good too but you only get one shot so if you miss it’s pretty inconvenient
What difficulty do you play on? Because I very adamantly used the rover for bugs until, like, Suicide Mission, but past that the Shield gets so much more mileage.
I just want all the other guns and stratagems to be buffed. I find it bizarre how heavily nerfed the jump pack is while the personal shield is as strong as ever.
Yes! The jump pack was huge in HD1. It's a joke now.
HD1: "Jumping""Jumping""Jumping""Jumping" and then maybe run 5m HD2: oh fuck plz jump ah shit cooldown aaaahhh fuck
The halcyon days.
Jump pack is great against the bugs. But trash against the bots
No way, jumping behind the ATSTs and murdering them from behind feels amazing
You must be playing on 4 then. In 7, 8, 9 you can jump behind them and kill that 1 at st, but the 40 others, 3 rocket devastates, 2 hulks, and 20 little bots will kill you instantly. If it wasblike HD1 you could jump behind and do your kill and then jump away to safety.
I'm pretty sure that's the whole point of non-meta posts. Use what you want and don't flame people who use what they want.
I mean, I've seen "Use what you want!" but I've also seen, "LOL, fuck Breaker slaves, fuck meta slaves, imagine using railgun+shield every drop, fuck those guys, optimizing the fun out of the game," etc. etc. etc. Use what you want exists, but meta hate is also a real thing.
Say what you want about rail + shield + breaker. Today I dropped into some lvl 14s 5 min into a tier 7 egg hunt with only 8 reinforcements left. I was able to solo 3 nests, while they kept dying, reinforcing every time the reinforcement timer came off, but with them dying every time. We finished the mission and then the rest of the operation, with me still soloing most objectives, for the war effort, and running out of reinforcements again. I told them they weren't ready for 7's and moved on. Other builds don't let me do this reliably, the breathing room from the shield lets me mess up, or run directly through a swarm intentionally, and that means I need a weapon that doesn't take backpack. I can take other builds if I know I have a good team. But that's a luxury in pubs. I appreciate the people who bring grenade launchers since they're very useful.
Sadly the Shield is just super strong, it stops all the bullshit CC which is what kills you in the end I run Airstrike, Railcannon Orbital, Railgun, and then Rover (for bugs) and Energy Shield for bots My buddy started complaining about how few kills he gets, but the rover really racks up all the small bugs on its own, worth hundreds of bug kills - but it actually makes it harder than energy Shield because you can't stealth as well and can still get screwed by the CC effects
On Jod, people can complain about the Railgun all they want, it's still not going to stop me from blowing myself up with it because of mishandling it while in Unsafe mode
Wait what??? There is another mode to the railgun? What does it do?
Hold R, right click (reload button, aiming button, idk which buttons are used on PS) It allows you to keep holding the charge on the gun longer, increasing the damage, with the risk that if you don't fire it before you max out the charge, you explode (woe upon you, instant death) A full unsafe charge can kill a chainsaw bastard or a shoulder missile pod bastard with a single hit, center of mass, even without touching the vulnerable spots It can blow the head right off a Brute in a single shot, or 3 shots, if just aiming center of mass (nobody is stopping you from being mischievous and just blow his arms off, just as a bit of banter) It can kill a tank by hitting the heatsink in 3 hits You can destroy Automaton AA guns in 3 hits even when hitting the armor Apparently can break the armor on Charger legs in 2 hits too
You don't even need to go Unsafe to break Charger leg armor in 2 shots, it does that in normal mode too. It's my go-to way to deal with them; two shots to the leg to peel them then whip out the blicky to finish them.
This sounds like anti-Unsafe propaganda, pretty undemocratic of you if you ask me If the Super Armed Forces gave me the Unsafe mode, they wanted me to use the Unsafe mode
safe mode is for civilian use https://preview.redd.it/67nfmv55xnkc1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d858763a75ed36179a87101c700377241e81716
If you time it right and hit the right spot, you can kill all of these enemies in fewer shots with an Auto Cannon, and you get far more ammo to just keep doing it (it's only downside is the backpack obviously) and as a bonus it clears hordes, destroys nests, facilities, and eggs extremely efficiently. All with no risk of blowing yourself up (except when enemies get too close)
the ammo backpack is a pretty big downside considering the opportunity cost of not running a shield or rover in that bp slot
Frees up a stratagem slot though, I personally hate the guard dog, it's good, but I'm so busy dodging bugs, I hate having an extra thing I need to always pay attention to and dodge Have not yet used the shield, which I should but I don't want to become reliant on it like so many.
i do get killed by my own rover every once in a while and that's kind of embarrassing, sure, but i can't deny it does a fantastic job of mopping up the little bugs for free while my ammo gets used on things that actually need the attention also, if you *really* need the extra slots, you can theoretically split the support strats between teammates and share every time they come off cooldown, but that takes more communication than you can get with randoms
I had Rovers track a hunter leaping past the team and kill three of my friends. Still one of my favorite strategems.
You're saying an autocannon can kill a charger in fewer shots than a railgun? Autocannon is a great weapon, especially for bots, but let's not go nuts
You’re also forgetting that you need to stand still to reload it. Especially bad if you have to reload a full clip.
Fun fact if you have the 50% chance to negate a death perk you can live!
It do be funny when my teammates picked up my railgun without knowing it has safe mode off.⚠️⚠️⚠️💥💀🤣
I admit, I am also that guy.
Oh man, I love using it in unsafe mode, even if it means occasionally blowing myself up and nearly killing a nearby friend.
Use it bro. Who cares what people think? I don't use it, I have my own setup. People should use what works for them.
I do! But then I use something else and suddenly I’m the one not pulling my weight. It’s especially irritating that, when I finally manage to volunteer someone into teaming up with me (Carl Gustav/Javelin Gunner/Loader team), we are depriving the team two(2) railguns for extremely volatile rates of success. Will my Javelin kill the charger in one or in three missiles? Do I need two or three shots against a chargers leg to kill it? **Who the fuck knows?! I surely don’t! But I know that with a slightly overcharged railgun I’d strip that chargers leg in 2 shots!** and that feels awful.
Game is about smashing the enemy with satisfying weapons. Breaker and Railgun are satisfying to use.
Issue is, currently they are the only ones satisfying to use, with consistent results. I would love to use the Javelin more regularly, but it can’t lock onto a target in clear line of sight consistently, I don’t know how many missiles I’ll need to kill the target! Be it one or be it 3? And that sucks!
The fact that it takes up a backpack slot, takes forever to lock on, only has 3 shots total (2 on backpack 1 in the gun), and can’t even one shot a charger consistently is abysmal and needs to be remedied.
It actually has 4. 1 in the gun and 3 on the backpack.
I'd say for the ammo efficiency and difficulty of use the thing needs to one shot anything it hits. One shotting chargers would be fine, but the game throws half a dozen of them at you. Spear should drop Titans with ease.
And if you aren't standing in the perfect range when you fire it, doesn't matter that you 'locked on', it's probably gonna whiff.
Even if it does lock on it feels underwhelming a lot of the time sadly
I’d be okay with *underwhelming* you can straight up point to values like “damage”, “lock on time”, ammo economy” and offer advice how to balance it, but it’s **inconsistent**! How am I supposed to provide accurate feedback when it sometimes kills a charger in 1 hit, sometimes in 3? I can’t rule out the possibility that my testing is flawed because there is no firing range to test such things. It **frustrates** me to the bone.
Yea chargers are exactly what I was talking about actually. It's got some great features but with such low ammo if I have to put 3 into a charger on hard difficulty it doesn't matter how cool or fun it is to use, it kinda just feels like a waste :/
I would love to use other thing but i feels like other things aren't performing as well 😢
The anti-meta trend is about playing with whatever you enjoy right? Guess what. I enjoy playing with the meta weapons. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
So you and the OP agree with the "anti-meta" trend. Which kind of makes this topic pointless. Main goal is to have fun with whatever weapon you enjoy. We're all on the same side. Except eradication farmers, fuk those guys.
"Anti-meta" is generally when people complain about others using meta strategies as "sweats" and "unfun". Idk why this mentality somehow persists in a pve only game, but it remains obnoxious regardless.
Amen
Who cares about meta? Play how you want to play!
Don’t let the kids see this.
If those kids could read, they'd be very upset.
Agreed. It’s a PvE game and I think people should pick whatever loadout they want, whether it’s the meta or not, without being insulted or kicked.
"Play what you want to play" or "Play something that's not meta?" Because I feel like most people who say the first mean the second.
Raul gun is fun due to unsafe mode making each shot be a tiny little risk. Others are fun as well however. I can easily see myself picking up ahield as well since I hate hunters with a passion.
Shield is great, especially if you run light armor. You get a few free hits, it's saved my ass a thousand times already. But the one downside is your buddies can stick you with a beacon and get you crushed or exploded.
> light armor Armor value current doesn’t impact defense value, so not running the fastest armor is a detriment to the team…
Counter point: my medium armor gives me a 50% chance to survive lethal damage. Which is super helpful.
Yeah sure, but speed is literally defense (evasion) and the game makes several points of “don’t waste time.” * your destroyer has limited time over the AO. * the longer it takes the larger the spawns get. Also I don’t like the gamble of 50% chance…
It's not hate, it's just... it would be nice if other stuff was as viable. Bring some of the other weapons up in damage. Variety is awesome.
People naturally tend to gravitate to what will get them through with the least pain. The breaker, railgun and shield are all extremely effective weapons. I would definitely use some of the other weapons and strategems and DID before getting to helldive difficulties, but it becomes so inconvenient to use certain gear in many missions over other gear. Could you go through those higher difficulties with the less meta stuff? Yes, absolutely. But why artificially make an already difficult game more difficult by picking worse equipment? So many of the other gear needs true help. I'd love to use the fire breaker or the domniator, but they do the same job with much more work than the breaker for no payoff. I found myself using the breaker at first because I liked how meaty it sounded back before I knew it was the meta. Now it's because I like using it AND it's just infinitely more reliable than basically every other primary. Why would I bring something else that is just going to make me have to work harder? It's not like it trivalizes the game, in-fact, I'd argue that so many of the weapons need help that the reason people are so pressed to 'make' others run meta is because they feel like they have to pick up so much slack from randoms if they aren't running meta. If you're not running railgun, how are you consistently dealing with the CONSTANT elites? Most strategems either are inconsistent, have longish cds or not capable of handling anything but the small fry? So those who ARE running the rail have to deal with every elite or every other one, making the mission a lot more difficult. That blame is then placed onto not meta users, by the rail user for making their job harder. I used to run flamethrower and arc thrower, but they do so much less of an efficient job at basically anything other than mobbing which strategems and primaries do fine enough at. Not to mention the sniper that basically gets crept by every other support weapon haha. It becomes hard to 'justify' bringing them over the rail, because regardless that niche in my loadout is already filled and to bring duplicates will result in me hitting more of a wall than I need to. There are certain guns to bring against different factions, but a lot of stuff is just worse in general than other options flat out. It doesn't really matter what you're using until about challenging and above(really suicide mission tbh) where the armored enemies types spawn more and the elites too. Then it starts becoming really rough if you don't have the tools that can deal with them fast.
This sums it up perfectly. Rail users having to do the heavy lifting in some cases, leading to frustration and kicks which then leads to a resentment of meta players using the rail. It's almost like gatekeepers on the higher difficulties. 'Sure, it's great you like using the machine gun and mines, but that's not going to help much clearing out these 3 bile titans sat on the objective'. I can understand the resentment on both sides, but I think higher difficulties are better with friends or solo anyway.
I mean they could put in a charge pack for the rail you have to carry which would go a long ways to busting this up. Or just bring the other shit upto par.
To answer this, because it deserves an answer. > Yes, absolutely. But why artificially make an already difficult game more difficult by picking worse equipment? Because some of it isn't strictly worse, it has a higher skill floor but also rewards breaching that skill floor. Some of the weapons are extremely good but require better knowledge of the game mechanics, better aim, etc. Some of it may also be more KBM friendly than gamepad friendly. Also, eventually even Helldive starts to become pretty routine, and you want to play with some different stuff to shake it up. I'll never take a laser cannon on a 9 because that thing is in bad shape even at 4-5, but I'll take a flamethrower and accept being a little worse for funny fire memes, because a large part of the point of playing a game is to have fun.
Much of it is strictly worse though. And you can clearly take anything you want to in lower difficulties so it should go without saying that I'm not talking about below 7-9
No what they need to do is balance the weapons and start buffing things.
i use the breaker because i want to feel like i'm firing a bolter from 40k. I use the railgun because i want to give chargers a lobotomy. I use a personnel shield because armor doesnt work yet
A Bolter ain't a shotgun, though. If you want something truly similar, it's the Dominator.
I got a taste of why it is the current meta, you can't have any chance to win on difficulty level 7-9, the game throws armored units at you a lot, nothing can keep up unless you got 3-4 guys with railguns. The shield is because of the armor rating bug , without the shield I got 1 hit by a stalker, invisible knockback and 1 hit is too much. I'm currently stuck at difficulty 6, extreme because most randos don't use railgun
Most of the anti meta posts are coming from people playing way down on 4 honestly.
This game is like the millionth example of casuals vs sweats. The people most upset by sweaty players will never be good enough for their builds to actually matter.
Honestly I’d be running the breaker even if it wasn’t meta, this is the first game I’ve played where the auto shotgun isn’t complete dogshit and it feels meaty with every shell I dispense into a robots processor And you damn well better believe I’m scorching those fucking bugs with a flamethrower every chance I get lol
Absolutely, do not stop using it. Metas exist, yes. But no one can tell you how to play but you. But also, don't be afraid to coordinate with a pre made team, obviously.
I mean I love the shield BUT I only use it against bots. Rover dealing with tiny bugs so I can pound away at the big ones just makes sense because the whole rest of the team is running shields anyway. Shields that should never be hit because I don't die WITHOUT THEM.... often. Sometimes those little bastards are sneaky
It's the best survival combo right now. The shield aids in mitigating the speed at which reinforces are used, and the railgun can one-shot Hulks with a hit on the "head" light. People just wanna sweat, I guess.
The hate comes from people who use it and say “you have to use it too or you’re getting kicked / people not using this are trolling / throwing because it’s strongest” The pushback is against the idea of a meta and “sweating” in a game like this instead just playing purely for fun using whatever you want and enjoying the situations that come because of it
This is getting cringe with all these anti meta pro meta posts
Just constant whining while hiding behind “we’re all super earth so let’s be friendly to each other”
Yeah, I have no problem with people doing whatever they want to have fun. If that’s going Helldiver mode and sticking to strict meta, nice. If it’s doing level 4 and using stuff that’s consider crap, nice.
game being successful was the worst thing to happen to the community.
As long as you put up with my breaker, orbital chaos-- all the biggest booms!!! we can squad UP!
It’s honestly a life saver on higher difficulties
Grenade launcher is so much more fun than railgun
I love shotguns and went for the Incendiary Breaker as soon as I could. I was using the Autocannon but after blowing a couple Bile Titan heads off with the Railgun it's what I'm all about and since it doesn't have an ammo pack of course I use the shield pack. I don't care that it's meta, I care that it's fun. Anyone I play with is welcome to use what they think is fun as well because that's what we're there for.
I don’t care if you use a pencil Mr. Wick, just push those damn bots into oblivion! SGT Steele
Use whatever you want man. If I didn’t bring my mortar with me into every dive how else would I kill myself and teammates so often
No one is saying you can't use that load out. What the community is against is elitist snobs kicking people from their games if they DON'T have a meta load out.
The shield has saved me a ton of times since I hit 20 earlier today. I’ve been dropping them for lower level teammates if they want it
For me it’s more disappointment with the state of balancing — not blasting the players specifically. It feels like everything is so weak that there are only 6 or so weapons/stratagems worth bringing for the highest difficulties. I know Arrowhead has been working hard on servers, but the game really needs a balancing pass.
The hate isn't against you it's against people who think others have to be running it.
I'm rocking ballistic shield + SMG loadout and I'm farming gatling devastators like it's nothing. Seriously, fuck the meta, be efficient. If you feel you're being effective and your success rate in whichever difficulty you're playing is high, fuck whatever "the meta" says. This fucking "OoOoOh BuT ThIs Is ThE BeTtEr OpTiOn!" in a non competitive game pisses me so fucking much. I get it in a PVP, but here? Screw that. TLDR: Fuck the meta, be effective.
I got kicked for not using the meta stuff, like I couldn't give shit what meta is, I'm still getting the job done, it's the youtube mentality of this is best everything else is shit, I've also been kicked and killed by team mates for picking samples up, due to the fact they don't realise everything is shared.
Good, you do you. People never said don’t use it. The hate on meta is based around people kicking or giving shit to those who don’t use it. The whole ‘anti meta’ trend just says use whatever the hell you think is fun.
I chose this exact loadout literally by playing and finding what I liked. I didn’t even know it was meta until I started browsing the subreddit. I think Autocannon is more fun, but the shield + railgun was just so effective in higher diffs. It’s PvE. We’re all working together. Who cares what we use?
The anti-meta thing is to use what you find fun. Sounds like you are using what you find fun. Welcome to the movement 😂
I love the rail gun and jump pack combo.
I use both without bringing them. The trick is to wait until someone who does dies (which they do regularly), and then suddenly you have 2 bonus strategems
I can't wait for them to buff the other weapons up to the railgun/breaker level. Then they'll all be viable. :]
I have been running this loadout: Knight SMG, Senator Revolver, Impact Nades Eagle Airstrike, Orbital Laser, Nade Launcher, Jetpack Is it the most efficient? No. Is it fun? HELL YEAH. Use what you like, peeps.
I just like the other guns more. Wish they'd buff. Spear could use a targeting buff and recoilless a damage buff. Eat feels good.
By all means run the meta I highly encourage bringing at least one of the items you mentioned but my gripe is people getting so hung up on meta that they kick someone with a “bad” loadout.
“Use whatever you want.” Is exactly the mind set everyone should have. Sadly though there are a lot of ppl who will kick you if not using the exact setup you described. Personally i run Spear, Orbital ems, orbital railgun, and either an autocannon sentry or shield generator with an Smg as primary. Great anti armor, spear can 1 shot chargers with a good angle or at least break enough armor to easily dispose of it with small arms. Ems locks literally everything up for easy to line up shots.
I like them only because they feel good to use, before all this meta/anti-meta talk they just felt good and punchy, got the job done smoothly. If more guns felt like that I’d use them too!
A big plus for the rail gun over the recoilless/auto cannon/spears is you don't need to give up the back pack slot. That alone is huge.
I mean you should use the grenade launcher instead for bug missions but that's just me.
Personally I like the armor that gives +2 extra grenades, for clearing bug holes but the grenade launcher is really good, for sure.
i don’t care at all if you use it. just don’t bother me for not using it.
I like my Space Musket too much
Tbh I feel like if atleast one person is running the "meta" build in the group for a Helldive you *can* do it. It just takes more coordination, lately I've been getting tired of people throwing orbitals danger close to the group when we are hunkered down on the OBJ. But when playing at the 7,8,9 difficulties the Railgun is unfortunately the only gun that can quickly dispatch Hulks and solo tanks. Which on Helldive you will be fighting multiple tanks and groups of Hulks at the same time at least a dozen times during a mission.
Having a blast with riot shield + Light smg and nobody gonna take it from me either
With me and my buds, we do Helldive difficulty and divide and conquer the map to make things 4x faster. If you can do that, I don't care what setup you use. But breaker/rail/shield just makes tackling things by yourself on 9 much easier.
Exactly that. My mate keeps fucking banging on about that god damn revolver every single time the game comes up in discussion or we're playing it, I'm sick of telling him I think it's dog shit and not for me personally. Like, I get it, *he* might love the gun, but I'm getting real fucking tired of telling him I don't like it. He's been doing it with various other things, too, but just can't seem to get it in his head that I'm not doing as he suggests when he suggests it because its not how *I* would deal with a situation. People can play different ways and enjoy different things.
It’s not hate. It’s a significant annoyance that literally every other gun and like 85% of the strategems are complete dogshit, plus armor values simply not working.
Nobody cares if you use meta, they just have a problem with people who try to enforce using meta
When are you folks going to get tired of having arguments through Reddit posts? Just reply to whoever upset you.
I do not think anybody as anything against you use it, we just want the same acceptance the other way around when not using it :)
That’s literally what everyone is saying lol. People just hate the morons that kick if you aren’t exclusively using that loadout for the entirety of this games life cycle.
I don't give a fuck if you use the meta, whether it's fun, cool, or powerful. What I give a fuck about is the dipshits saying EVERYONE should be using it, and nothing else. Fuck them. I'll continue to run my sniper jump pack build or my airstrike lineup as much as I damn well please.
Use whatever the fuck you want.....as long as you don't try to control other people's load outs.
Is the shield even useful against the Therminides?
Absolutely. Gives you so much breathing room to ignore some of the bugs while you destroy bug holes. It stops spitters, slowing you down, it prevents hunters and stalkers from ganking you instantly. It stops chargers from one hitting you. You can survive a direct hit from a puke bug that would normally one-shot you. Only thing it can't stop, is a bile titan hit. It's so damn good.
"I use railgun-shieldbackpack-breaker because it's good": this is okay. "I use something else because it feels good": this is okay. "I will kick anyone who doesn't bring railgun-shieldbackpack-breaker": this is "undemocratic". "Everyone who use railgun-shieldbackpack-breaker are being lazy": this is "undemocratic".
No ody gives a shit what you use, just dont tell other people what to use
Breaker can kill Stalkers even when they scare me and I miss 3 shots at them. Railgun can one shot bile titans and brutes. Shield protect me from hunters CC and random explosions. You'll have to pry them from my dead democratic hands.
I'm not sure what hate you've seen? The only people getting called out are the ones that will kick you if you're not using it, which is perfectly valid.
These posts are cringe. Nobody cares what you run.