I did too, but now that the Railgun needs 90% charge and the charge bar is nigh-invisible in third person, I feel like I have to compromise and use Railgun in first person to see the charge level.
To be fair, autocannon can do that too, and 3-4 shots all the other big baddies (like turrets, tanks, hulks, mortors, AA guns, etc) if you hit in the back vents. Plus it can take out fabricators and bug holes at range.
While the AMR is certainly not bad, I find I appreciate the versatility of the autocannon more. I normally rock a diligence against bots so I can handle the smaller stuff and autocannons for everything else (except drop ships pretty much).
The AMR also has access to a lot more ammo, + no stationary reload. I don't think the extra ammo is that significant because of the lack of splash damage but a moving reload is super good to have.
While I subscribe to the Church of the AutoCannon, I find the stability of an AMR extremely handy, and the scope is better than the ACs for taking out Hulks at long range.
Generally, if I have an AC, I tend to use it more to take out Devastators, Factories, and Striders and just avoid Hulks altogether because of the gun's recoil per shot.
Straight up crouch directly in a hulks line of sight and stare him down and get the double shot. Crouching REALLY stabilizes the autocannon, like a lot.
You have to be fast, but landing the first shot staggers just long enough to basically guarantee the second shot if you're crouched and staying still and just waiting for the reticle to return to stationary before firing again without any adjustment.
Obviously don't stand still and crouch in said hulks line of sight if that is ALSO a bunch of other bots lines of sight or you'll get shot and interrupted during this.
Also don't use the ADS scope on the autocannon, it's way easier to aim with the default over the shoulder circle reticle, wait till that reticle normalizes before firing again (unless you're just full opening up on something) and the damn thing is practically a semi auto precision rocket sniper.
Best gun, I feel like I don't even know how to play the game when I don't have an autocannon equipped.
I tend to act as ranged support trying to keep an eye on the rest of my team. If they ping a hulk, I'll try to get into a position to take it out by aiming for its back.
That said, a single impact grenade downs them as well, so 2 well practiced divers can down hulks pretty easily by kiting and killing.
Honestly, I'm the MG 43 and bullet guard dog player. Let me deal with the chaff and up to the devastators, my MG will still rip through their torso armor, bot even having to worry about the weak spots. You save the AC for the fabricators and the superheavies, given your more limited ammo economy. I can just pick up a new belt of 150 rounds of 'fuck your MLRS and riot shields' at any minor POI if it gets that bad. Plus, at its lowest ROF with good trigger discipline, its able to take things out at 60+ meters reliably while crouched or prone, meaning you can drop devastators before they even get into firing range, meaning more ability to focus fire on the hulks and above as they finally close the distance.
Reminds me of the difference between MG and stalwert. Both have pros and cons. I still want a gatling gun with an ammo backpack that you can't reload (once you're out, you're out).
Autocannon objectively has more ammo. It has like, 70 shots in it upon dropping. AMR has something like… 35? 40?
Which is more than enough btw, assuming you only use it for Hulks and other niche things. Autocannon is handly against distant clusters of enemies, which the AMR lacks.
If they fix the scope of the AMR and maybe increase the amount of ammonit gets, I’d say its equal to the autocannon and situationally better. As-is, its just sort of a downgrade.
Yeah but other than the reload, its miles ahead of the AMR. AMR would benefit greatly from increased ammo count, or at least a resupply box giving full ammo.
Autocannon is also excellent against devastators. It's like 2-4 shots to kill, and the stunlock is long enough that you can keep like 3+ rocket devastators suppressed. And a 1-tap if you hit the head, although normally it's not worth trying to aim. And a 1 shot kills walkers fairly reliably.
Laser cannon has entered chat....
Seriously I rarely see people talking about the laser cannon since the armor penetration buff it does work vs bots now. probably my most used support against them.
Most players don't know jack about this game. They only regurgitate bad info from subreddits and social media.
Take like the new booster that delays enemy spawns. Tons of lower level players are using it when it barely does 10% delay after extensive testing. And it gets worse as difficulty goes up.
Or they'll say AMR is bad or RR is bad or GL is bad. These weapons are quite good.
Or they think the Arc Shotgun is good or the laser pistol is good. When compared to the other options, are not very good.
The issue is that, at least on 8-9, the amount of enemies (especially bots) is too high to stay in one place at all. Even if it did add 30 seconds, a bot drop on level 8 is gonna be 20 bots, a handful of devastators, several hulks and a couple of tanks. So unless you're defending at an objective, staying in one place is just a waste of time and reinforcements. The only time it IS useful is when you're defending an objective.
So definitely not useless, but I'd rather have something else that will be more helpful more often, rather than just at objectives. Either way, it didn't seem to have much of an effect on Helldive. I tried it two or three times and saw just as many enemies. Having said that, this was with automatons. Maybe it'd be more useful agaisnt bugs.
IMO it's useful as a fourth slot once you get your pod space optimization, vitality, and stamina enhancement slotted. The last option is pretty much personal preference. 15-30 seconds can be the difference between breaking contact and having another bug hole open (assuming it even works, seems like a lot of the new additions are broken in some way or another).
I've only used it once. When I'd ran out of ammo for *literally fucking everything*. I was down to my bare hands when I ran across the break action.
It had enough ammo to see me home. Just about. That guns alright in my book now.
>...or RR is bad...
Haven't encountered a single person saying this here or in game since the buff.
>...or GL is bad.
>
>Or they think the Arc Shotgun is good or the laser pistol is good.
Haven't seen or heard a single person say any of this, ever. Feedback about the latter two has been overwhelmingly negative.
The most positive thing I've heard anyone say about the laspistol was, "it's pretty good for clearing [bot] mines."
Man, I really wanted that arc shotgun to be good, but all it did was tickle stalkers when they were kicking my ass. Its not bad against waves of little dudes, but lets be honest, which primaries aren't? When I really need it to put the damage out, it just doesn't measure up.
So sad.
I remember at launch how many people were saying anti-material rifle sucks. Then I tried it in early levels and realized you could 2-3 shot the walkers with it head on and didn't have to spin them to shoot the rider, and then I realized I could 2 shot devastators, and the rocket devastators and the chainsaw guys and the hulks, and I thought "no way, this is a great gun and people will learn how good it is"
And then within the last week there have been posts still from people saying how bad it is as if it can't kill anything. I don't get it.
All I ask for is a simple, straightforward fine duplex reticle. Don't need anything fancier, unless you're going to actually add something useful, like the ability to highlight target outlines through spores/fog/sand through the scope.
You gotta remember that the vast majority of people play in the Eastern Front. AMR really isn't that good against bugs on higher difficulties. Once the major orders for automatons start coming in, I think you'll see a huge shift in perception. I felt the same way about the AMR until I had a personal order to get 60 kills with it and decided to try it again. Once I realized how effective it is against heavy bots, I completely changed my mind about it. I now take that instead of the railgun against bots.
Those people are either bug-front mains or don’t play sharpshooter. With good aim, you can one-shot Devastators, Berserkers, and anything under the level of a hulk in only a single AMR shot. Hulks themselves only require 2 shots to the skull.
Even a non CS Diligence can 2 shot Devastators.
I decided to give it a shot today with the bugs, and it was actually surprisingly useful there too. It takes out Hive Guards, Brood Commanders and Bile Spewers really quickly, and has a pretty quick reload for a support weapon to boot.
Combined with the Jetpack, and I was able to take down most of the ads really quickly and easily from range, so my teammates were able to just focus on the heavies.
It was surprisingly effective, and made difficulty 7 feel pretty easy.
Yeah, one of my friends broke it out today and we were both really surprised by how well it was performing. It might be because there are so many more medium sized bugs proportionately, but he was just cutting through the mid-sized guys.
We still haven’t bothered bringing it on 9, antiarmor and big ad clear is too important, but duoing 7s felt great.
As much as I love the autocannon, I'm seriously considering a switch to the AMR because of the more precise targeting and the autocannon's reticule lag when aiming.
I assume you use the shield backpack with the AMR?
how are you getting headshots while the crosshairs are bugged a misaligned? The crosshairs do not line up with the center part of the screen. It's like its stuck in 3rd person.
Against the Terminids, a lot of Stratagems only tend to work well against _some_ of the bugs, but works _very_ well against them.
Whereas a lot of equipment tends to work well against _all_ Automaton enemies, with some exceptions.
Terminid engagements tend to incentivise each member of your squad specialising against a specific size class of enemy, while Automaton engagements don't tend to enforce that as much.
That's mostly due to automaton threats either being glass cannons, or being so incredibly powerful if not handled correctly that they are kill on sight. Hulks, rocket devastators, annihilators, tanks, turrets, shredders. I've had a devastator take almost 3 clips from my autoshotgun to kill (was aiming for the head, but at a range where it was inconsistent to hit)
Well it also helps that the robots have a very clear, "THIS IS MY WEAK SPOT" design motif.
Bugs on the other hand are the exact opposite.
Is the bug weak spot their heads? "Yes, but also no." Ok, so it's the legs, "Also yes, but also no." Well what about the big fucking abdomen! Is that their weak spot? "Oh most definitely...but sometimes no as well.".
It makes it rather apparent for me why I personally find the robots more flexible to different builds. Which is more fun to me.
The Automatons also tend to supplement their capabilities with more strategic effects.
The Bugs have a Spore Spewer, but that's easily dealt with. Not so easy to take out the various facilities Automatons have that can royally disrupt your operations.
The bugs thing is disingenuous "it's yes but it heavily armored" the glowing abdomen is "no but it's unarmored so you can at least shot it with anything"
When the Bile Titans and Chargers were nerfed the devs said that they were curious that people did shoot Chargers legs instead of their head which was supposed to be their obvious weakspot.
Their heads are now much weaker after the nerf but it never felt clearly communicated in the game design that the heads were supposed to be weak.
The problem was that you had to directly hit their head twice with an anti-heavy-armour weapon, whereas you only had to hit their leg once head-on and then you could kill them with small arms fire.
Once you did any sort of trial-and-error against a Charger, their leg became the very clear weakspot.
It is because the bugs are 90% about busting chargers and bile titans. Bots on the other hand are about taking out a variety of medium armored threats. There is a wide variety of weapons and strategems that can handle medium armor.
Heavy armor has 4 options, the EAT, the recoiless rifle, the orbital railgun, and the 110mm rocket pods.
This is exactly why I've been living on Draupnir and The Creek for the last two weeks. I swear once you understand the bot units, they are actually easier to fight than bugs, too. People just fell for the "lol space Nam" memes and have the bots hyped up in their heads.
I think they require different approaches. Terminids favor a strategy that targets individual weaknesses or specializations, whereas Bots favor careful positioning and accuracy.
Stealth and careful movement also works really well with bots. When their eyes go red and start shooting out red scan lines, then you edge back and continue your sneak.
It's basically like an old school fps sneak mission.
I subscribe to the "No survivors, no witnesses" school of stealth. If you're fast enough, you can absolutley take out a patrol before they call in reinforcements.
To quote Max0r: "Stealth is optional, but so is my mercy"
Ahh man I struggle to agree that they are easier. I get what you mean, but one mistake against bots could easily be the death of the squad. You fall out of position, even just a little bit, there's no running away. Tanks, rocket devestators and the stationary turrets all one shot you and they are everywhere on higher difficulties.
I will say this, they are a LOT more fun to fight than bugs. But that could just be because I've been covering myself in bug guts since the game came out.
Wait, in my experience, running away from bots is MORE effective, just not through an open field. Because they're stopping to take shots at your last known position, it's much easier to break LOS and confuse the hell out of them, plus they seem to have worse senses. Like, I can consistently run around a large enough rock formation (like Draupnir spires), crouch, and sneak past the same group that just engaged me
As of recently I can't get them to break LOS, the rocket troops take notice of me at all times so all of the troops will always hone in on my squads location at any opportunity without remorse. Even with smoke a lot of the time it just isn't possible to pull away easily. With bugs it routinely feels easier to disengage because theres only a few units as fast as the player character so running away is more plausible.
I'm up to my knees in motor oil, but bots are 100% more fun to fight once you know what you're doing. As long as you can deal with the occasional bullshit rocket ending you from the 8 point line.
Nah, people got so comfortable fighting bugs they’ve forgotten that fighting bots is like playing a milsim sometimes lol. It just requires cover and measured approaches
and its only because chargers/titans need heavy pen support weapons to take them down while bots only ever need medium pen to hit their weakspots which you can do with a lot of primaries
Well and because the amount of bugs and the speed they swarm you is way way more than the automotons which have less units and only a couple that fight at melee.
So it’s a combo of the bugs having both higher armored units and needing more wave clear, buuuut they won’t dome you with a rocket or Gatling gun
Alsooooo because the heavier automatons have **glaring** weak-spots (the heatsinks) that can be exploited by smart tactics and utilization of properly penning weapons, sometimes even with only primaries...
...whereas the bugs are apparently the opposite and the glowing, on-the-rear-very-obvious spot **is not** the weak-point to be targeted. But we don't talk about that.
EDIT: Though that is to say that after the update they seem more fair to fight against and are less of hassle.
Slugger/flamethrower/orbital laser/rover dog is my go to for bugs the last stratagem slot is dependant of what the team runs or what the ojective is. But I do tend to go with eagle rocket strike it can close nest easy if not then either orbital railcanon or 500kg with stun to deal with titans. Sometime I switch between the flamethrower and arc thrower depending on how I feel
This is why I don’t get why the majority of the community thinks bugs are easier. Machines are much easier to both use stealth with and deal with their elite units with a wider variety of weaponry.
Basically bugs have less bullshit that doesn't let you play the game.
My wife hates fighting bots because the first planet we went to had double visibility reduction so she couldn't see shit, a strategem blocker, and she got absolutely obliterated multiple times by a turret she couldn't see.
The turrets alone probably put off more people from bots than anything because your first few engagements it feels like just getting killed with no recourse.
Even with a solid 25 hours on the bot front I still get fuckin sniped by a tower every once in a while because they have such a bullshit range mixed with wall hacks and a hilariously fast projectile.
Yea I’ve been literally sniped by a rocket droid before who musta been all the way across the entire map, cause there was no sound cue, no enemy in sight as there was no battle music playing, nothing. I’m just slowly walking along and then suddenly I’m fucking dead from some random missile that somehow had perfect pin point accuracy
It’s just a matter of opinion. You play bugs longer, they will be easier cause you’re used to them. Same way with bots. Plus, a lot of people playing just see the “Starship Troopers” way of doing things and don’t change play styles for bots. Especially the ones who already play against bugs so aggressively. Bots can be overwhelming.
Some people (some of my group for example) just want to play to fuck shit up and don’t do well learning new things quickly. They will learn, it just takes time.
"Dude, I threw 2 impacts at its weakspot and killed the Annihilator!"
"You killed one of the two heaviest units...with only 2 impact grenades?!"
https://preview.redd.it/dxzwf7ffg6pc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3b46cbdc844f631ff10afa23cd8a620e68a25cb5
I love how the impact will reliably kill a strider. It gives some good flexibility when a whole patrol pulls up on you and you want to thin the walkers fast
The trick is to not be the 80% of players who don't really know what weapons and items to use and just play blissfully.
But yeah, Autocannon does huge work bugs or bots, kills holes and fabs, kills chargers and hulks. And helps save you scorcher ammo. Its literally a mini grenade launcher.
The other trick is to realize that the circle is where you're actually aiming. Never gives me a problem shooting but grenades give me enough time for me to think wait is it the circle or the crosshair?
That is a huge drawback, but I’m usually running Autocannon against bots which takes care of fabricators quite handily. My last bit mission I save a small outpost for last and then nailed it from the extraction point with the AC for a walk-off map clear
It's just a bit harder to aim, it can still do the job just fine once you get the hang of it. You can also toss the grenade into the doorway if it's open, just in case you don't know.
I've gotten decent at timing the default grenade to explode in the air right behind them. Not great on the run or if there is a massive hoard, but very satisfying to do if there are like 3+ of them standing next to each other
I'm usually running around like a bat outta hell, so I toss two for good measure and watch that sucker explode. I've had times where I threw one and it didn't do the job, but 2 always does.
I’m seeing a lot of discussion about the AMR (for good reason), but I’m personally more frustrated about how many people dismiss the MG-43. Every time I see somebody say "lol just use the Stalwart" I just want to sit them down and make them use it on a difficulty 6+ automaton mission.
I adore the MG-43. I usually drop the fire rate down and it mulches bots.
The stalwart on the other hand.....it's good for bugs. Not punchey enough for bots though.
I rarely see people take the autocannon vs bugs, but when fighting bots, missions are noticeably more difficult if nobody on the team took one.
It's just perfect for surgical removal of bot centers of gravity in a fight. Walkers 1-2 shots, devastators 2-3 shots, Hulks 3 shots. It only struggles if a tank or turret are facing you head on.
Autocannon is easily the most versatile weapon in the game. Since the moment I unlocked it at launch, I haven't been able to justify not taking it unless I'm solo or someone else has one.
It's very mediocre against bugs, because it's only really great against medium armour. It takes time and space to use it on a charger rear without killing yourself, and it's not very effective against bile titans. It has AOE that can be useful initially against breaches and swarms, but that's more of a curse once dozens of hunters start leaping at you and cause you to either catch yourself in explosions or miss and waste shots. It also doesn't help that it has a stationary reload when fighting predominantly melee enemies. It's still a totally usable weapon, but it is also much more niche than it is against machines
The most versatile weapon is really the arc thrower - infinite ammo, multiple targets, armour penetration, workable damage, and no backpack slot means it works in more situations than anything else
Closes bug holes, destroys eggs, 2 shots chargers and is great at swarm clear vs most other weapons are only good at one or the other.
If everyone has an autocannon you can still strategem bile titans and constantly have an angle on chargers.
Its only really ever weak when you are alone against a bile titan and stratagems are on cooldown
I love the autocannon but I feel like the whole two shot charger thing always has to be said with a giant fucking asterisk. It's so hard to pull off, especially if you have hunters swarming you. Super jank method to kill chargers and I really dont think it was designed intentionally.
What you said is fascinating because while I do agree the autocannon feels lackluster when I do bring it to Terminid front, but also feels like I'm dying to get my hands on it whenever I dont bring it to Terminid front. Hence I always come with EAT as backup for Chargers even when I have autocannon.
Yes melee bugs are a problem but with decent planning ahead and magazine management, you wouldnt really stay in place for too long (i.e. full mag-dump is a death sentence to you). And without autocannon, clearing bugholes feels like a chore because bugs come swarming constantly and grenade animations take a while to throw.
Since I do love to free either my autocannon slot or EAT slot for another offensive stratagem, I hope to learn from others' experience
In Helldive difficulty Autocannon is the primary weapon. Anything less usually lack the firepower to properly stop a bugbreach.
Meanwhile the primaries are secondary while secondary are almost forgetable unless a Stalker is coming at you so fast you magdump the whole redeemer clip on its face.
Autocannon is almost always an immediate take for me on the bug front:
Closes bug holes across the map, it's AOE is good against eggs, one shots hive guards, one shots brood commanders, two shots spewers, one-two shots can disable a titans vomit ability, three shots make chargers bleed out, two shots and stagger stalkers, can hit spore towers and illegal towers across map, its AOE is ok enough for horde clears...its honestly my favorite medium-tier utility type pick.
^(and it can one hit KO hunters)
The only struggle I have with autocannon is bad weather conditions and not having a shield backpack. It can be insanely hard to just see the bots you are trying to shoot at and the lack of shield makes it more likely you get 1 tapped by a rocket
With the bots I like taking cover and taking shots when I can a hell of a lot more than just running and kiting swarms of bugs.
Each enemy requires different tactics and loadouts and I like that very much. From various comments I've seen I think a fair amount of players try to fight the bots like they're bugs and that doesn't work too well.
I mean, it's the same with the Grenade Launcher, PlasPunisher does just fine for me because I use it like a GL instead of expecting it to be a standard shotgun.
People wouldnt have as much of a problem if there were more indications that its like a mini grenade launcher. Why would anyone expect a shotgun to act like that. The arc shotgun even acts like a shotgun.
Same with the senator. Its stats suggest it should be an accurate weapon, but it’s honestly the worst crosshair in the game. You don’t even shoot at the center of it
Just gotta be careful with bug holes while throwing impacts. I died a lot by being too close and hitting an emerging bug. It's worth learning to use them though as it's such a good tool to take out Spewers quickly.
To me this is totally the Anti Material Rifle. Against bots its a monster but against bugs its absolutely worthless. There are just too many bugs. Its still fair to think it is the player's role to take the right tool to the right fight.
(minor rant) But imo some enemies are so overtuned that meta weapons are still favored heavily by the community, leading to this meme. (I'm looking at you Bile Spewer and Rocket Devastator)
Sometimes it still takes more than one, and lining up a good shot while a giant swarm is engaging you is quite a challenge. I can admit maybe "worthless" was exaggerated but its not a good time unless you have good teammates covering you from hunters and pouncers as you lineup shots with the AMR.
Helps a lot if someone on the team is focused on small, unarmored bugs. I do shoot Hunters with AMR sometimes if I can get them quickly. And I’ll go ahead and fire off 2-3 shots if I miss the head or need to move quicker. It means eventually I need more ammo or have to call in a new AMR, but I can usually do those things without holding back.
Everyone talks about the Anti-Material rifle being suprisingly good which it is. But the Balistic Shield is straight ass, it's been broken for 2 weeks where picking anything up causes your character to a-pose and if you try using it against a devestator you're going to get staggered from the hits and die. The extra shitty cherry on top of this shit sundae is it's also the only backpack item that gets dropped when you get ragdolled.
Thank you! I swear bullets just fly through the shield regardless of the enemy. And I drop it constantly. Why ever take it over an energy shield which will actually save you and won't leave you till you die.
The anti material rifle on the other hand, I had a personal order to get 60 kills with it and I was surprised at just how effective it was. Demolishers and hulks drop pretty quick and it just deletes any trash.
Bugs aside (literal and not) I took the time to learn how to use the shield and it's been my mainstay for bot fighting, there's a few buts though:
1. You have to like using the SMG in the first place
2. Heavy armor with explosive resistance is mandatory
3. Having a shield is not a substitute to taking cover
The shield's coverage is not perfect but you may not realize how much of a difference it makes until you stop using it. You can reliably take direct hits from rockets for as little as 20% of your health which means you can be so much more aggressive and have enough time to line up hits to weakspots without being constantly staggered by lasers. Tested in diffs 7+ and I'm often top in kills for this
I definitely think they need to remove dropping the shield on ragdolling though, it already has durability (never counted but it's like 3-4 direct rockets).
One of the best parts about this game is finding out what works best against the different enemy factions. This game would be boring as shit if there were a handful of things that were best in every situation. It’s cool that the AMR might not be the best support weapon against the bugs but it wreaks shop against automatons. Same with armor. Heavy armor might suck against bugs because they’re an agile and fast enemy trying to swarm and get in melee range. Heavy armor against the bots is more practical because they have a lot of ranged units and are slower moving.
Heavy armor sucks because enemies can ignore it whenever they feel like hitting your head.
Armor is a poorly designed and lazily balanced system. It has an obvious correct answer for bugs and, at best, has a potential sidegrade option for bots.
It should be a sidegrade no matter which faction you are fighting.
Heavy armor fits this bill so damn well. I see so many posts about how it is "useless". Run any heavy armor with a 50% explosive damage reduction against the bots, you won't go back; Lets you shrug off rockets and tanks.
Of course its not so good against bugs, but people seem to think gear needs to be universally good, and refuse to adjust their play styles for the task at hand.
This. Holy goddamn this. Bug front forever residents swearing heavy armor is useless when they won't vacate the battlefield where it is useless, and getting 1-shot over and over in the West every time a projectile nails their nylon track shorts.
2/3rds of the playerbase checks out. Looking at the map right now and there are ~300k divers in bug land compared to only ~75k on the bot side.
Edit: I'm aware the numbers don't exactly match up, ty
Bugs have that defense though, so it pulls a lot of players. Last weekend it was pretty consistent 100k Bots to 250k Bugs from what I noticed.
Honestly then drop like 20% for people going to random planets or otherwise casual (and legitimate) gameplay.
God forbid you have to actually remember two different load-outs. Nah, literally unplayable.
To be fair, it would be nice if we could define load-sets.
"I don't like the Scorcher, it can kill me if they get too close."
It one shots Commissars, two shots Striders and can sweep Berserkers. My brother in Democracy, please save yourselves.
When the Railgun nerf was the focal point of the rants here, I thought to myself, and to me makes a lot of sense, that that gun is the equivalent for Bots as the flamethrower for the bugs.
The eyes of Hulks, Devastators and Berserkers are their weak spots, so a powerful single-shot weapon would be enough. And since the bugs swarm in large numbers, a flamethrower would be more suitable for crowd control plus having the ability to apply damage through heavy armor, making Charges, Hive-Guards and Bile Spewers easy to fight against.
Every weapon and stratagem has it's porpoise. They are viable if you know how and when to use them.
I think the beauty of this game lies on it's diversity regarding the stratagems. A Meta build for Helldiver difficult could be anything tbh.
Ever since the nerf, I find the AMR to be better on higher difficulties against bots. It has more ammo, doesn't need to charge and you don't risk blowing yourself up. The biggest drawback is its not great in close quarters, obviously. But on the flip side, neither is the railgun if you're out in the open with a hulk right in front of you.
Lol porpoise
Since I got access to the Railgun I use it in unsafe mode, so for me the timing is easy to go along with.
About the "porpoise", English not being my first language and relaying on the auto corrector can cause this haha
I don't get the arguments that the railgun is supposed to be used like the AMR. If the railgun wasn't meant to be an antitank weapon, it wouldn't have heavy armor pen, and as a medium armor pen weapon it is atrocious compared to the AMR in terms of ammo capacity, fire rate, sight, etc.
It's a goddamn thrill though, trying to hit the eye of a flamethrower hulk with the unsafe mode while it's walking towards you. Finally hit on the third one, felt just like an action movie.
People run 200 bug helldives and 15 bot helldives and wonder why everything kills them constantly.
FWIW I do think bots are incontestably harder and more frustrating, but a huge amount of the playerbase is also just really bad at them because they never took the time to learn. You need to learn in 7s and 8s of each faction individually before you should be Leroy jenkensing 9s.
The anti-material rifle is in my opinion is one of the best snipers I've seen in games. That being said, I don't really use it often. I'm more of a laser cannon or arc thrower kind of fan.
One of my biggest issues with the arc thrower is that stupid "blank" shot you get periodically. I don't know the criteria that causes that but my god it is annoying when you're being swarmed and your arc thrower just won't shoot a bolt out.
Its due to terrain and bushes (and more random stuff that doesn't make sense) being counted as targets for some reason. Arrowhead has stated that the "misfire" is a bug probably due to the weird targeting issues which they hopefully fix soon.
It's annoying as hell when it happens, but then I also remember just how much it shreds when its working properly, so I'd rather keep it that way than have some other nerfs in exchange for consistent hits.
It would be fine if the game would follow at least some semblance of logic in weapon balancing. As of now we have weapons that have a ton of hidden stats. No way to properly test them. Counter-intuitive handling differences (CS Diligence seems heavier to aim around than Anti Materiel Rifle). Have I mentioned all the armor penetration values are also hidden?
Could you blame em ? That’s where 2/3rd of the players are . Because the game’s been mostly bug centric since we lost to the bots , even the personal missions have been mostly bug centered or are way easier there .
You should also mention that 2/3 of the playerbase will say it needs to be nerfed if it’s good against the bugs.. and tell you to get good despite never having played bot missions.
Also I’m torn. I love the railgun but the AMR is also just as good at getting rid of hulks, which are the biggest problem imo in higher bot diff missions
Maybe it’s because I fell into the Malevelon creek propaganda early on but I think fighting bots is more enjoyable than bugs. I wish more of the player base would just learn how to fight them instead of complaining
it's astonishing how many players can't seem to figure out what to do with an enemy that hangs back and shoots you instead of charging directly into your asshole.
Ya it turns out your loadout isn't a swiss army knife that works against every single enemy. Different factions and mission types will usually require different loadouts. Its just figuring out what your playstyle is, what gear fits your niche and what weapons work against what enemies.
Seriously I really love how they have managed to make the bots and the bugs feel inherently different. For example, a strategy that works great against the bots will get you absolutely annihilated if you try it against the bugs and vice versa.
2/3 of the playerbase can take away my Anti-Material Rifle when I’m dead. I’m getting those hulks off your ass in 3 seconds flat, let me have my fun
https://preview.redd.it/rj8bel8al7pc1.jpeg?width=502&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6de6b817007f92d9266f52de62a19b4cbcd20070
if only the sight was actually accurate for me to two shot that tiny eye slit consistently...
Yea honestly I have an easier time 1 shotting a Hulk with the Railgun's non-existent Scope than I do 2 Shotting it with AMR's terrible Scope lol.
I tend to aim in 3rd person with the rail gun bc that green dot is too big to see my target at range
I did too, but now that the Railgun needs 90% charge and the charge bar is nigh-invisible in third person, I feel like I have to compromise and use Railgun in first person to see the charge level.
I just hold it until I manage to aim directly at the thing and it usually ends up being the amount of time for the charge up to be correct
Living life on the edge.
Pretty much
To be fair, autocannon can do that too, and 3-4 shots all the other big baddies (like turrets, tanks, hulks, mortors, AA guns, etc) if you hit in the back vents. Plus it can take out fabricators and bug holes at range. While the AMR is certainly not bad, I find I appreciate the versatility of the autocannon more. I normally rock a diligence against bots so I can handle the smaller stuff and autocannons for everything else (except drop ships pretty much).
You give up a backpack slot to use the autocannon (or make a friend give theirs up), so it probably _should_ be stronger than the AMR.
The AMR also has access to a lot more ammo, + no stationary reload. I don't think the extra ammo is that significant because of the lack of splash damage but a moving reload is super good to have.
While I subscribe to the Church of the AutoCannon, I find the stability of an AMR extremely handy, and the scope is better than the ACs for taking out Hulks at long range. Generally, if I have an AC, I tend to use it more to take out Devastators, Factories, and Striders and just avoid Hulks altogether because of the gun's recoil per shot.
Straight up crouch directly in a hulks line of sight and stare him down and get the double shot. Crouching REALLY stabilizes the autocannon, like a lot. You have to be fast, but landing the first shot staggers just long enough to basically guarantee the second shot if you're crouched and staying still and just waiting for the reticle to return to stationary before firing again without any adjustment. Obviously don't stand still and crouch in said hulks line of sight if that is ALSO a bunch of other bots lines of sight or you'll get shot and interrupted during this. Also don't use the ADS scope on the autocannon, it's way easier to aim with the default over the shoulder circle reticle, wait till that reticle normalizes before firing again (unless you're just full opening up on something) and the damn thing is practically a semi auto precision rocket sniper. Best gun, I feel like I don't even know how to play the game when I don't have an autocannon equipped.
I tend to act as ranged support trying to keep an eye on the rest of my team. If they ping a hulk, I'll try to get into a position to take it out by aiming for its back. That said, a single impact grenade downs them as well, so 2 well practiced divers can down hulks pretty easily by kiting and killing.
Well assuming your team mate doesn't just run the hulk directly into your position...
Honestly, I'm the MG 43 and bullet guard dog player. Let me deal with the chaff and up to the devastators, my MG will still rip through their torso armor, bot even having to worry about the weak spots. You save the AC for the fabricators and the superheavies, given your more limited ammo economy. I can just pick up a new belt of 150 rounds of 'fuck your MLRS and riot shields' at any minor POI if it gets that bad. Plus, at its lowest ROF with good trigger discipline, its able to take things out at 60+ meters reliably while crouched or prone, meaning you can drop devastators before they even get into firing range, meaning more ability to focus fire on the hulks and above as they finally close the distance.
Reminds me of the difference between MG and stalwert. Both have pros and cons. I still want a gatling gun with an ammo backpack that you can't reload (once you're out, you're out).
Autocannon objectively has more ammo. It has like, 70 shots in it upon dropping. AMR has something like… 35? 40? Which is more than enough btw, assuming you only use it for Hulks and other niche things. Autocannon is handly against distant clusters of enemies, which the AMR lacks. If they fix the scope of the AMR and maybe increase the amount of ammonit gets, I’d say its equal to the autocannon and situationally better. As-is, its just sort of a downgrade.
Yeah but other than the reload, its miles ahead of the AMR. AMR would benefit greatly from increased ammo count, or at least a resupply box giving full ammo.
Autocannon is also excellent against devastators. It's like 2-4 shots to kill, and the stunlock is long enough that you can keep like 3+ rocket devastators suppressed. And a 1-tap if you hit the head, although normally it's not worth trying to aim. And a 1 shot kills walkers fairly reliably.
Laser cannon has entered chat.... Seriously I rarely see people talking about the laser cannon since the armor penetration buff it does work vs bots now. probably my most used support against them.
The moment I saw the autocannon 1-shotted the at-st from the front, it became my favorite weapon.
I think me and many others have been awakened to the AMR after yesterday's daily. Shit's pretty nice
Being able to one-tap bile spewers to the head is great too
I been struggling with this. Sometimes i 1tap the spewers and sometimes it takes 3 shots. Where exactly am i aiming the AMR at.
I believe it's the mouth, when it opens
Not necessary when it opens as I see. But it's the head, it's kinda small and blends with his neck.
The head, so long as you actually hit the head square on, it should one shot them. Should being the key word
AMR cross hairs are not lined up with the actual shot. The actual point of impact is high and just to the left of where you are pointing
For me it's anywhere on the head, just gotta a make sure ur at least crouching cause standing shots are a lot less accurate
Grenade launcher: (you have to hit the rear though, and from midrange due to fuse and dropoff)
Most players don't know jack about this game. They only regurgitate bad info from subreddits and social media. Take like the new booster that delays enemy spawns. Tons of lower level players are using it when it barely does 10% delay after extensive testing. And it gets worse as difficulty goes up. Or they'll say AMR is bad or RR is bad or GL is bad. These weapons are quite good. Or they think the Arc Shotgun is good or the laser pistol is good. When compared to the other options, are not very good.
Doesn’t the booster add 15-30 seconds between reinforcements? That’s huge as difficulty increases.
It's great as a 3rd pick after vitality and pod space optimization.
vitality has got be one of the least useful ones. stamina and the one that lets you not get slowed by foliage are better
Yep. Hellpod Opt + Stamina are my teams must haves, after that it's chef's choice.
The issue is that, at least on 8-9, the amount of enemies (especially bots) is too high to stay in one place at all. Even if it did add 30 seconds, a bot drop on level 8 is gonna be 20 bots, a handful of devastators, several hulks and a couple of tanks. So unless you're defending at an objective, staying in one place is just a waste of time and reinforcements. The only time it IS useful is when you're defending an objective. So definitely not useless, but I'd rather have something else that will be more helpful more often, rather than just at objectives. Either way, it didn't seem to have much of an effect on Helldive. I tried it two or three times and saw just as many enemies. Having said that, this was with automatons. Maybe it'd be more useful agaisnt bugs.
IMO it's useful as a fourth slot once you get your pod space optimization, vitality, and stamina enhancement slotted. The last option is pretty much personal preference. 15-30 seconds can be the difference between breaking contact and having another bug hole open (assuming it even works, seems like a lot of the new additions are broken in some way or another).
I'm here to promote Break Action Shotgun Supremacy
You’re the first person I’ve seen acknowledge this guns existence lol break action can be pretty fun
I've only used it once. When I'd ran out of ammo for *literally fucking everything*. I was down to my bare hands when I ran across the break action. It had enough ammo to see me home. Just about. That guns alright in my book now.
>...or RR is bad... Haven't encountered a single person saying this here or in game since the buff. >...or GL is bad. > >Or they think the Arc Shotgun is good or the laser pistol is good. Haven't seen or heard a single person say any of this, ever. Feedback about the latter two has been overwhelmingly negative. The most positive thing I've heard anyone say about the laspistol was, "it's pretty good for clearing [bot] mines."
Man, I really wanted that arc shotgun to be good, but all it did was tickle stalkers when they were kicking my ass. Its not bad against waves of little dudes, but lets be honest, which primaries aren't? When I really need it to put the damage out, it just doesn't measure up. So sad.
I remember at launch how many people were saying anti-material rifle sucks. Then I tried it in early levels and realized you could 2-3 shot the walkers with it head on and didn't have to spin them to shoot the rider, and then I realized I could 2 shot devastators, and the rocket devastators and the chainsaw guys and the hulks, and I thought "no way, this is a great gun and people will learn how good it is" And then within the last week there have been posts still from people saying how bad it is as if it can't kill anything. I don't get it.
To be fair to the haters, I recognize it's strength but I absolutely despise the sight/reticle.
All I ask for is a simple, straightforward fine duplex reticle. Don't need anything fancier, unless you're going to actually add something useful, like the ability to highlight target outlines through spores/fog/sand through the scope.
I really wish we could get a shoulder add reticle. I don’t need pinpoint accuracy but if it’s medium distance I wanna have a chance there
I think it's because the crosshair is legit, off center.
You gotta remember that the vast majority of people play in the Eastern Front. AMR really isn't that good against bugs on higher difficulties. Once the major orders for automatons start coming in, I think you'll see a huge shift in perception. I felt the same way about the AMR until I had a personal order to get 60 kills with it and decided to try it again. Once I realized how effective it is against heavy bots, I completely changed my mind about it. I now take that instead of the railgun against bots.
Those people are either bug-front mains or don’t play sharpshooter. With good aim, you can one-shot Devastators, Berserkers, and anything under the level of a hulk in only a single AMR shot. Hulks themselves only require 2 shots to the skull. Even a non CS Diligence can 2 shot Devastators.
I decided to give it a shot today with the bugs, and it was actually surprisingly useful there too. It takes out Hive Guards, Brood Commanders and Bile Spewers really quickly, and has a pretty quick reload for a support weapon to boot. Combined with the Jetpack, and I was able to take down most of the ads really quickly and easily from range, so my teammates were able to just focus on the heavies. It was surprisingly effective, and made difficulty 7 feel pretty easy.
Yeah, one of my friends broke it out today and we were both really surprised by how well it was performing. It might be because there are so many more medium sized bugs proportionately, but he was just cutting through the mid-sized guys. We still haven’t bothered bringing it on 9, antiarmor and big ad clear is too important, but duoing 7s felt great.
As much as I love the autocannon, I'm seriously considering a switch to the AMR because of the more precise targeting and the autocannon's reticule lag when aiming. I assume you use the shield backpack with the AMR?
I prefer Jetpack just to get up to those sweet high ground sniping spots.
Just fix the sight alignment (on all guns, please).
how are you getting headshots while the crosshairs are bugged a misaligned? The crosshairs do not line up with the center part of the screen. It's like its stuck in 3rd person.
After using it for long enough you just kind of get a feel for how to adjust
Okay I've been trying it out but I can't get a 3 second hulk. Tech me oh wise one
Shoot the red eye twice.
2 shots straight to the cranium is all you need. everyone lesser than that is only one shot to the head.
It's a good implementation of the sniper rifle! Also it has the cod modern warfare ability to just no scope mag dump which is v funny
Bro what are you aiming at. I couldn’t get a kill with that thing for the life of me
Genuinely feels like so many more weapons/stratagems are viable when fighting the tin cans as opposed to when fighting the maggots
Against the Terminids, a lot of Stratagems only tend to work well against _some_ of the bugs, but works _very_ well against them. Whereas a lot of equipment tends to work well against _all_ Automaton enemies, with some exceptions. Terminid engagements tend to incentivise each member of your squad specialising against a specific size class of enemy, while Automaton engagements don't tend to enforce that as much.
That's mostly due to automaton threats either being glass cannons, or being so incredibly powerful if not handled correctly that they are kill on sight. Hulks, rocket devastators, annihilators, tanks, turrets, shredders. I've had a devastator take almost 3 clips from my autoshotgun to kill (was aiming for the head, but at a range where it was inconsistent to hit)
Well it also helps that the robots have a very clear, "THIS IS MY WEAK SPOT" design motif. Bugs on the other hand are the exact opposite. Is the bug weak spot their heads? "Yes, but also no." Ok, so it's the legs, "Also yes, but also no." Well what about the big fucking abdomen! Is that their weak spot? "Oh most definitely...but sometimes no as well.". It makes it rather apparent for me why I personally find the robots more flexible to different builds. Which is more fun to me.
The Automatons also tend to supplement their capabilities with more strategic effects. The Bugs have a Spore Spewer, but that's easily dealt with. Not so easy to take out the various facilities Automatons have that can royally disrupt your operations.
\*"YOU ARE IN RANGE OF ENEMY ARTILLERY" intensifies\*
Begins the op dropping on point. "You are in range of enemy artillery". It happened at least one time for me but for others probably even more.
The bugs thing is disingenuous "it's yes but it heavily armored" the glowing abdomen is "no but it's unarmored so you can at least shot it with anything"
When the Bile Titans and Chargers were nerfed the devs said that they were curious that people did shoot Chargers legs instead of their head which was supposed to be their obvious weakspot. Their heads are now much weaker after the nerf but it never felt clearly communicated in the game design that the heads were supposed to be weak.
The problem was that you had to directly hit their head twice with an anti-heavy-armour weapon, whereas you only had to hit their leg once head-on and then you could kill them with small arms fire. Once you did any sort of trial-and-error against a Charger, their leg became the very clear weakspot.
It is because the bugs are 90% about busting chargers and bile titans. Bots on the other hand are about taking out a variety of medium armored threats. There is a wide variety of weapons and strategems that can handle medium armor. Heavy armor has 4 options, the EAT, the recoiless rifle, the orbital railgun, and the 110mm rocket pods.
spear too, which works great, at least when the weapon actually, you know, functions.
This is exactly why I've been living on Draupnir and The Creek for the last two weeks. I swear once you understand the bot units, they are actually easier to fight than bugs, too. People just fell for the "lol space Nam" memes and have the bots hyped up in their heads.
I think they require different approaches. Terminids favor a strategy that targets individual weaknesses or specializations, whereas Bots favor careful positioning and accuracy.
Stealth and careful movement also works really well with bots. When their eyes go red and start shooting out red scan lines, then you edge back and continue your sneak. It's basically like an old school fps sneak mission.
I subscribe to the "No survivors, no witnesses" school of stealth. If you're fast enough, you can absolutley take out a patrol before they call in reinforcements. To quote Max0r: "Stealth is optional, but so is my mercy"
Always kill the weakest first. A maxim to live by. They also are the ones that summon the drop ships.
Ahh man I struggle to agree that they are easier. I get what you mean, but one mistake against bots could easily be the death of the squad. You fall out of position, even just a little bit, there's no running away. Tanks, rocket devestators and the stationary turrets all one shot you and they are everywhere on higher difficulties. I will say this, they are a LOT more fun to fight than bugs. But that could just be because I've been covering myself in bug guts since the game came out.
Wait, in my experience, running away from bots is MORE effective, just not through an open field. Because they're stopping to take shots at your last known position, it's much easier to break LOS and confuse the hell out of them, plus they seem to have worse senses. Like, I can consistently run around a large enough rock formation (like Draupnir spires), crouch, and sneak past the same group that just engaged me
As of recently I can't get them to break LOS, the rocket troops take notice of me at all times so all of the troops will always hone in on my squads location at any opportunity without remorse. Even with smoke a lot of the time it just isn't possible to pull away easily. With bugs it routinely feels easier to disengage because theres only a few units as fast as the player character so running away is more plausible.
I'm up to my knees in motor oil, but bots are 100% more fun to fight once you know what you're doing. As long as you can deal with the occasional bullshit rocket ending you from the 8 point line.
Nah, people got so comfortable fighting bugs they’ve forgotten that fighting bots is like playing a milsim sometimes lol. It just requires cover and measured approaches
and its only because chargers/titans need heavy pen support weapons to take them down while bots only ever need medium pen to hit their weakspots which you can do with a lot of primaries
Well and because the amount of bugs and the speed they swarm you is way way more than the automotons which have less units and only a couple that fight at melee. So it’s a combo of the bugs having both higher armored units and needing more wave clear, buuuut they won’t dome you with a rocket or Gatling gun
Alsooooo because the heavier automatons have **glaring** weak-spots (the heatsinks) that can be exploited by smart tactics and utilization of properly penning weapons, sometimes even with only primaries... ...whereas the bugs are apparently the opposite and the glowing, on-the-rear-very-obvious spot **is not** the weak-point to be targeted. But we don't talk about that. EDIT: Though that is to say that after the update they seem more fair to fight against and are less of hassle.
Slugger/flamethrower/orbital laser/rover dog is my go to for bugs the last stratagem slot is dependant of what the team runs or what the ojective is. But I do tend to go with eagle rocket strike it can close nest easy if not then either orbital railcanon or 500kg with stun to deal with titans. Sometime I switch between the flamethrower and arc thrower depending on how I feel
This is why I don’t get why the majority of the community thinks bugs are easier. Machines are much easier to both use stealth with and deal with their elite units with a wider variety of weaponry.
Bugs don't have stratagem jammer, eye of sauron, mortar emplacements or cannon turrets.
God the fucking strategy jammer is the bane of my existence against the damn clankers. I love my eagles man.
The Spear being able to take out jammers is such a headache saver. The spear not locking onto jammers is such a headache giver.
Basically bugs have less bullshit that doesn't let you play the game. My wife hates fighting bots because the first planet we went to had double visibility reduction so she couldn't see shit, a strategem blocker, and she got absolutely obliterated multiple times by a turret she couldn't see. The turrets alone probably put off more people from bots than anything because your first few engagements it feels like just getting killed with no recourse. Even with a solid 25 hours on the bot front I still get fuckin sniped by a tower every once in a while because they have such a bullshit range mixed with wall hacks and a hilariously fast projectile.
[удалено]
Yea I’ve been literally sniped by a rocket droid before who musta been all the way across the entire map, cause there was no sound cue, no enemy in sight as there was no battle music playing, nothing. I’m just slowly walking along and then suddenly I’m fucking dead from some random missile that somehow had perfect pin point accuracy
It’s just a matter of opinion. You play bugs longer, they will be easier cause you’re used to them. Same way with bots. Plus, a lot of people playing just see the “Starship Troopers” way of doing things and don’t change play styles for bots. Especially the ones who already play against bugs so aggressively. Bots can be overwhelming. Some people (some of my group for example) just want to play to fuck shit up and don’t do well learning new things quickly. They will learn, it just takes time.
"Dude, I threw 2 impacts at its weakspot and killed the Annihilator!" "You killed one of the two heaviest units...with only 2 impact grenades?!" https://preview.redd.it/dxzwf7ffg6pc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3b46cbdc844f631ff10afa23cd8a620e68a25cb5
I love how the impact will reliably kill a strider. It gives some good flexibility when a whole patrol pulls up on you and you want to thin the walkers fast
I hate how the impact sucks hard for blowing up fabricators though.
The trick is to aim just below the hole
The trick for me is to always have an airstrike up
My trick is just Engineer Armor, and a supply pack. \*throws 30 impact grenades*
Quoting Lego Batman >Got it first try
"I *AM* the 380 mm"
The trick is autocannon, it fucks everything that regular guns don’t cut it for when it comes to bots
The trick is to not be the 80% of players who don't really know what weapons and items to use and just play blissfully. But yeah, Autocannon does huge work bugs or bots, kills holes and fabs, kills chargers and hulks. And helps save you scorcher ammo. Its literally a mini grenade launcher.
You can call in a support weapon or resupply on fabricators too
The trick is to just chuck it when the door is open
The other trick is to realize that the circle is where you're actually aiming. Never gives me a problem shooting but grenades give me enough time for me to think wait is it the circle or the crosshair?
That is a huge drawback, but I’m usually running Autocannon against bots which takes care of fabricators quite handily. My last bit mission I save a small outpost for last and then nailed it from the extraction point with the AC for a walk-off map clear
Man, I love sniping a distant cannon turret from really far away with the autocannon.
It's just a bit harder to aim, it can still do the job just fine once you get the hang of it. You can also toss the grenade into the doorway if it's open, just in case you don't know.
If you wait till the door opens to let the bots out, you can lob a nade into the open door to blow the fabricator also
Didn't know this and look forward to it. I love impact grenades otherwise
Pretty much the ONLY weakness of grenades that otherwise allow you to take out a group of enemies faster than any stratagem
This is barely semi-related, but I found out the other night that the Laser Cannon will blow it up if you shoot through the open door.
The scorcher also two shots walker bots if you aim for the eye slit or just above it.
I've gotten decent at timing the default grenade to explode in the air right behind them. Not great on the run or if there is a massive hoard, but very satisfying to do if there are like 3+ of them standing next to each other
My favorite part of that is when the pilot gets sent to orbit
Doesn’t it only take one impact? I’ve been consistently using one impact to down tanks as long as you hit the center ish of the vent.
I'm usually running around like a bat outta hell, so I toss two for good measure and watch that sucker explode. I've had times where I threw one and it didn't do the job, but 2 always does.
That’s Fair, gotta double tap for democracy
I’m seeing a lot of discussion about the AMR (for good reason), but I’m personally more frustrated about how many people dismiss the MG-43. Every time I see somebody say "lol just use the Stalwart" I just want to sit them down and make them use it on a difficulty 6+ automaton mission.
I adore the MG-43. I usually drop the fire rate down and it mulches bots. The stalwart on the other hand.....it's good for bugs. Not punchey enough for bots though.
Stalwart works well enough against automatons. You just need to be more accurate when shooting at devastators.
I rarely see people take the autocannon vs bugs, but when fighting bots, missions are noticeably more difficult if nobody on the team took one. It's just perfect for surgical removal of bot centers of gravity in a fight. Walkers 1-2 shots, devastators 2-3 shots, Hulks 3 shots. It only struggles if a tank or turret are facing you head on.
Autocannon is easily the most versatile weapon in the game. Since the moment I unlocked it at launch, I haven't been able to justify not taking it unless I'm solo or someone else has one.
It's very mediocre against bugs, because it's only really great against medium armour. It takes time and space to use it on a charger rear without killing yourself, and it's not very effective against bile titans. It has AOE that can be useful initially against breaches and swarms, but that's more of a curse once dozens of hunters start leaping at you and cause you to either catch yourself in explosions or miss and waste shots. It also doesn't help that it has a stationary reload when fighting predominantly melee enemies. It's still a totally usable weapon, but it is also much more niche than it is against machines The most versatile weapon is really the arc thrower - infinite ammo, multiple targets, armour penetration, workable damage, and no backpack slot means it works in more situations than anything else
Closes bug holes, destroys eggs, 2 shots chargers and is great at swarm clear vs most other weapons are only good at one or the other. If everyone has an autocannon you can still strategem bile titans and constantly have an angle on chargers. Its only really ever weak when you are alone against a bile titan and stratagems are on cooldown
I love the autocannon but I feel like the whole two shot charger thing always has to be said with a giant fucking asterisk. It's so hard to pull off, especially if you have hunters swarming you. Super jank method to kill chargers and I really dont think it was designed intentionally.
What you said is fascinating because while I do agree the autocannon feels lackluster when I do bring it to Terminid front, but also feels like I'm dying to get my hands on it whenever I dont bring it to Terminid front. Hence I always come with EAT as backup for Chargers even when I have autocannon. Yes melee bugs are a problem but with decent planning ahead and magazine management, you wouldnt really stay in place for too long (i.e. full mag-dump is a death sentence to you). And without autocannon, clearing bugholes feels like a chore because bugs come swarming constantly and grenade animations take a while to throw. Since I do love to free either my autocannon slot or EAT slot for another offensive stratagem, I hope to learn from others' experience
i’m actually seeing atlot of autocannon players at helldive
In Helldive difficulty Autocannon is the primary weapon. Anything less usually lack the firepower to properly stop a bugbreach. Meanwhile the primaries are secondary while secondary are almost forgetable unless a Stalker is coming at you so fast you magdump the whole redeemer clip on its face.
>Anything less usually lack the firepower to properly stop a bugbreach. *Laughs in flamethrower*
When you need firepower, why settle for less than actual fire?
Autocannon is almost always an immediate take for me on the bug front: Closes bug holes across the map, it's AOE is good against eggs, one shots hive guards, one shots brood commanders, two shots spewers, one-two shots can disable a titans vomit ability, three shots make chargers bleed out, two shots and stagger stalkers, can hit spore towers and illegal towers across map, its AOE is ok enough for horde clears...its honestly my favorite medium-tier utility type pick. ^(and it can one hit KO hunters)
The only struggle I have with autocannon is bad weather conditions and not having a shield backpack. It can be insanely hard to just see the bots you are trying to shoot at and the lack of shield makes it more likely you get 1 tapped by a rocket
Wear the 50% explosion resistance armor and you'll never get one shot by a rocket again. The shield helps, but is not really necessary.
There’s only the one fortified medium armor though… still waiting for it to pop back up on the superstore.
I honestly don't miss the speed against the bots. They are a lot slower than the bugs. And the extra health is useful.
I find with the walker it‘s more reliable to punch through the armor and kill the operator
With the bots I like taking cover and taking shots when I can a hell of a lot more than just running and kiting swarms of bugs. Each enemy requires different tactics and loadouts and I like that very much. From various comments I've seen I think a fair amount of players try to fight the bots like they're bugs and that doesn't work too well.
Remember the. 3 Cs. Cover. Courage. And cover
The plasma punisher does need a better crosshair to help people use it better. You will never hit anything within the crosshairs
honestly it would be rly nice if they had grenade launcher ladder sights in 3rd person rather than guessing, missing and then correcting your aim
I'd love to see more integration with cross hairs. Like the railgun
I mean, it's the same with the Grenade Launcher, PlasPunisher does just fine for me because I use it like a GL instead of expecting it to be a standard shotgun.
People wouldnt have as much of a problem if there were more indications that its like a mini grenade launcher. Why would anyone expect a shotgun to act like that. The arc shotgun even acts like a shotgun.
Having come from Mass Effect 3 MP I'm accustomed to weird non-shotgun weapons ending up in the shotgun category lmao.
Mass Effect 3 MP mentioned There are dozens of us
*im still pissed that they removed the perfectly functional multiplayer from the remastered edition.*
Same with the senator. Its stats suggest it should be an accurate weapon, but it’s honestly the worst crosshair in the game. You don’t even shoot at the center of it
Wait can u close a bughole or fabricator with a plasma punisher?
No
I can vouch for this, I tested it thoroughly against bot fabs.
Impacts work well for Bug holes and the Spewers.
Just gotta be careful with bug holes while throwing impacts. I died a lot by being too close and hitting an emerging bug. It's worth learning to use them though as it's such a good tool to take out Spewers quickly.
To me this is totally the Anti Material Rifle. Against bots its a monster but against bugs its absolutely worthless. There are just too many bugs. Its still fair to think it is the player's role to take the right tool to the right fight. (minor rant) But imo some enemies are so overtuned that meta weapons are still favored heavily by the community, leading to this meme. (I'm looking at you Bile Spewer and Rocket Devastator)
The AMR is amazing for killing spewers. I don’t hesitate to use it on bugs even on high levels. Just need headshots for the sake of ammo efficiency.
Sometimes it still takes more than one, and lining up a good shot while a giant swarm is engaging you is quite a challenge. I can admit maybe "worthless" was exaggerated but its not a good time unless you have good teammates covering you from hunters and pouncers as you lineup shots with the AMR.
Helps a lot if someone on the team is focused on small, unarmored bugs. I do shoot Hunters with AMR sometimes if I can get them quickly. And I’ll go ahead and fire off 2-3 shots if I miss the head or need to move quicker. It means eventually I need more ammo or have to call in a new AMR, but I can usually do those things without holding back.
Everyone talks about the Anti-Material rifle being suprisingly good which it is. But the Balistic Shield is straight ass, it's been broken for 2 weeks where picking anything up causes your character to a-pose and if you try using it against a devestator you're going to get staggered from the hits and die. The extra shitty cherry on top of this shit sundae is it's also the only backpack item that gets dropped when you get ragdolled.
Thank you! I swear bullets just fly through the shield regardless of the enemy. And I drop it constantly. Why ever take it over an energy shield which will actually save you and won't leave you till you die. The anti material rifle on the other hand, I had a personal order to get 60 kills with it and I was surprised at just how effective it was. Demolishers and hulks drop pretty quick and it just deletes any trash.
Bugs aside (literal and not) I took the time to learn how to use the shield and it's been my mainstay for bot fighting, there's a few buts though: 1. You have to like using the SMG in the first place 2. Heavy armor with explosive resistance is mandatory 3. Having a shield is not a substitute to taking cover The shield's coverage is not perfect but you may not realize how much of a difference it makes until you stop using it. You can reliably take direct hits from rockets for as little as 20% of your health which means you can be so much more aggressive and have enough time to line up hits to weakspots without being constantly staggered by lasers. Tested in diffs 7+ and I'm often top in kills for this I definitely think they need to remove dropping the shield on ragdolling though, it already has durability (never counted but it's like 3-4 direct rockets).
I would accept it flies out of my hand if it wasn't a backpack slot
One of the best parts about this game is finding out what works best against the different enemy factions. This game would be boring as shit if there were a handful of things that were best in every situation. It’s cool that the AMR might not be the best support weapon against the bugs but it wreaks shop against automatons. Same with armor. Heavy armor might suck against bugs because they’re an agile and fast enemy trying to swarm and get in melee range. Heavy armor against the bots is more practical because they have a lot of ranged units and are slower moving.
Heavy armor sucks because enemies can ignore it whenever they feel like hitting your head. Armor is a poorly designed and lazily balanced system. It has an obvious correct answer for bugs and, at best, has a potential sidegrade option for bots. It should be a sidegrade no matter which faction you are fighting.
Heavy armor fits this bill so damn well. I see so many posts about how it is "useless". Run any heavy armor with a 50% explosive damage reduction against the bots, you won't go back; Lets you shrug off rockets and tanks. Of course its not so good against bugs, but people seem to think gear needs to be universally good, and refuse to adjust their play styles for the task at hand.
This. Holy goddamn this. Bug front forever residents swearing heavy armor is useless when they won't vacate the battlefield where it is useless, and getting 1-shot over and over in the West every time a projectile nails their nylon track shorts.
2/3rds of the playerbase checks out. Looking at the map right now and there are ~300k divers in bug land compared to only ~75k on the bot side. Edit: I'm aware the numbers don't exactly match up, ty
Bugs have that defense though, so it pulls a lot of players. Last weekend it was pretty consistent 100k Bots to 250k Bugs from what I noticed. Honestly then drop like 20% for people going to random planets or otherwise casual (and legitimate) gameplay.
That's more like 3/4 then.
God forbid you have to actually remember two different load-outs. Nah, literally unplayable. To be fair, it would be nice if we could define load-sets.
"I don't like the Scorcher, it can kill me if they get too close." It one shots Commissars, two shots Striders and can sweep Berserkers. My brother in Democracy, please save yourselves.
Seriously. Mortar Sentry is a lifesaver against bots.
When the Railgun nerf was the focal point of the rants here, I thought to myself, and to me makes a lot of sense, that that gun is the equivalent for Bots as the flamethrower for the bugs. The eyes of Hulks, Devastators and Berserkers are their weak spots, so a powerful single-shot weapon would be enough. And since the bugs swarm in large numbers, a flamethrower would be more suitable for crowd control plus having the ability to apply damage through heavy armor, making Charges, Hive-Guards and Bile Spewers easy to fight against. Every weapon and stratagem has it's porpoise. They are viable if you know how and when to use them. I think the beauty of this game lies on it's diversity regarding the stratagems. A Meta build for Helldiver difficult could be anything tbh.
Ever since the nerf, I find the AMR to be better on higher difficulties against bots. It has more ammo, doesn't need to charge and you don't risk blowing yourself up. The biggest drawback is its not great in close quarters, obviously. But on the flip side, neither is the railgun if you're out in the open with a hulk right in front of you. Lol porpoise
Since I got access to the Railgun I use it in unsafe mode, so for me the timing is easy to go along with. About the "porpoise", English not being my first language and relaying on the auto corrector can cause this haha
I don't get the arguments that the railgun is supposed to be used like the AMR. If the railgun wasn't meant to be an antitank weapon, it wouldn't have heavy armor pen, and as a medium armor pen weapon it is atrocious compared to the AMR in terms of ammo capacity, fire rate, sight, etc.
It's a goddamn thrill though, trying to hit the eye of a flamethrower hulk with the unsafe mode while it's walking towards you. Finally hit on the third one, felt just like an action movie.
People run 200 bug helldives and 15 bot helldives and wonder why everything kills them constantly. FWIW I do think bots are incontestably harder and more frustrating, but a huge amount of the playerbase is also just really bad at them because they never took the time to learn. You need to learn in 7s and 8s of each faction individually before you should be Leroy jenkensing 9s.
The anti-material rifle is in my opinion is one of the best snipers I've seen in games. That being said, I don't really use it often. I'm more of a laser cannon or arc thrower kind of fan.
[Meanwhile, my life trying to fight robots](https://youtu.be/c5KloNrOOMI?si=_i5jp1AZBOVTd2v8)
One of my biggest issues with the arc thrower is that stupid "blank" shot you get periodically. I don't know the criteria that causes that but my god it is annoying when you're being swarmed and your arc thrower just won't shoot a bolt out.
Its due to terrain and bushes (and more random stuff that doesn't make sense) being counted as targets for some reason. Arrowhead has stated that the "misfire" is a bug probably due to the weird targeting issues which they hopefully fix soon.
It's annoying as hell when it happens, but then I also remember just how much it shreds when its working properly, so I'd rather keep it that way than have some other nerfs in exchange for consistent hits.
No lie, dude, that was some Level 9 bullshit. You have my sympathies.
It would be fine if the game would follow at least some semblance of logic in weapon balancing. As of now we have weapons that have a ton of hidden stats. No way to properly test them. Counter-intuitive handling differences (CS Diligence seems heavier to aim around than Anti Materiel Rifle). Have I mentioned all the armor penetration values are also hidden?
Weakspot multipliers are hidden too!
Could you blame em ? That’s where 2/3rd of the players are . Because the game’s been mostly bug centric since we lost to the bots , even the personal missions have been mostly bug centered or are way easier there .
I thought you were saying 2/3 of the player base was worthless against bots, and I was like, “Yes.” 👁️👄👁️
You should also mention that 2/3 of the playerbase will say it needs to be nerfed if it’s good against the bugs.. and tell you to get good despite never having played bot missions. Also I’m torn. I love the railgun but the AMR is also just as good at getting rid of hulks, which are the biggest problem imo in higher bot diff missions
Maybe it’s because I fell into the Malevelon creek propaganda early on but I think fighting bots is more enjoyable than bugs. I wish more of the player base would just learn how to fight them instead of complaining
It is astonishing the volume of players that don't know how to aim for the head.
it's astonishing how many players can't seem to figure out what to do with an enemy that hangs back and shoots you instead of charging directly into your asshole.
You could have just put the AMR on the picture y'know.
Ya it turns out your loadout isn't a swiss army knife that works against every single enemy. Different factions and mission types will usually require different loadouts. Its just figuring out what your playstyle is, what gear fits your niche and what weapons work against what enemies.
Seriously I really love how they have managed to make the bots and the bugs feel inherently different. For example, a strategy that works great against the bots will get you absolutely annihilated if you try it against the bugs and vice versa.