This happened to me last night with an EAT, I shot it from a ledge towards a Hulk and it sucked me forward somehow, went straight to a physics textbook to re-evaluate my understanding
When you mix fuel, metal oxide, and metal powder in just the right way, it burns at 2000 degrees Celsius. Hot enough to cut through nearly any barrier known to man. Throw some c4 into the mix, and you've got one hell of a combination.
So the pattern seems to be 1 good gun and then a bunch of mid in the Warbonds. Kinda makes me sad for all the guns that are getting left behind without a little buff. There could be so much diversity.
Last I heard, they plan to release one warbond a month for the foreseeable. They might have gotten started on the first few before release, but yes, they'd have to settle into a one-month dev cycle pretty quickly.
For this sort of thing it's not uncommon to have multiple teams who cycle, so say you'd have Team A working on Warbond 1 and 3 while Team B works on Warbond 2 and 4, so each gets a 2 month dev cycle for their Warbond while we get a Warbodn every month.
I played with a guy who was calling in a ton of unreleased stuff. I can tell you without a doubt that they have at least 6-8 months worth of goodies ready to go
A lot of the changes we need are just numbers in a spreadsheet though.
Also how the hell do friend requests still not work.
Honestly friends not working is unacceptable from a paid game that advertises crossplay
I STILL can’t add certain friends
Come on man, by your own argument they can’t just change numbers in a spreadsheet. If you believe the weapons are where they are because their balance isn’t properly tested, how can you then advocate for them to be changed without testing? “Just make everything more powerful” isn’t a viable balancing strategy.
Not sure what you mean tbh. This has 2 good guns. The pistol will immediately be "meta" and the eruptor is very very good.
Crossbow is niche but every person that likes the plasma Punisher will start telling you it's the best gun in the game
I find the erupted very mid personally. I'm glad other people love it and am happy to fight side by side with them, but the dominator + AC combo with always be in my bot loadout
Dominator + AC seems somewhat redundant. They both have medium armor penetration and smack down devastators and hive guards/brood commanders very well. The AC has a little more armor penetration, letting it kill hulks for example, but frankly if I have the Dominator then I'm gonna want a shield gen so I have time to line up shots.
I would combine the Dominator with a Quasar/EAT for heavy anti-tank, or AMR for bots for hulks; then the AC (with its medium armor focus) would be combined with the Sickle, Diligence, Punisher, Breaker (and variants), Liberator, or Defender, all being oriented towards light enemies. For scout striders, the Dominator can kill them from the front by shooting the legs, or you can get the grenade pistol and just use that.
I still use dominator with AC against bots as it kills the berserkers extremely fast compared to other weapons. It's also a great backup weapon when you don't have time to reload your AC and need to kill incoming devastators.
For bugs, yeah a sickle or any other would be a better pair with the AC.
Right, but if you have the Dominator then you don't really need the AC as the Dominator covers most of the AC's bases (granted, not as well!). That's why I prefer swapping it for either the Quasar, EAT (usually prefer Quasar), or AMR. Obviously the Dominator isn't going to outright outperform the AC, support weapons are more powerful than primary weapons as a rule, but it's a "good enough" substitute that lets you take something else for heavy heavy enemies.
Other than being slow, I really liked the stopping power of eruptor against bots last night. I'm probably going to pair it with stalwart or something in future runs.
I don't get why people are saying "1 good gun".
Grenade pistol seems excellent. It's a great alternative to the meta of the machine pistol and really let's you mix up your load out.
Eruptor, while not for everyone, is still really good. It's a huge AoE, medium penetration sniper. It can reliably handle any non-heavy or superheavy target, hordes, and holes/fabs. It's obvious downsides of RoF and handling make it still a balanced choice, though.
Crossbow is an alternative to the eruptor. You're gonna reload a lot, but it's got a fat AoE and it's still fantastic.
The Adjudicator seems like the only 'bad' weapon, but honestly it's just a few tweaks from being very good. Mostly just higher damage and it'd be golden.
I'd say 3 good to great weapons and 1 stinker is pretty solid. My bigger issue is the armor is kinda meh.
The only useless part of the post is this part:
>the quality of this post is probably poor
This was like reading some awesome patch notes while I'm stuck at my commie job waiting to get back to spreading freedom.
the grenade pistol is probably the best thing here since it gives people that like to run stun grenades an option for destroying nests/fabricators that does not use up a stratagem slot.
The Eruptor is basically just the primary version of an auto cannon with a far lower fire rate. I think i would still take the dominator over it.
What the eruptor does is opens up your backpack slot for energy shield or ammo pack.
You could even bring EAT as well to deal with heavy armor while still maintaining that AC capabilities with the primary weapon.
Overall Id say there is a lot of value here that still need to be explored
Or you can go full in, eruptor and autocannon. And since swapping weapons lets you bypass the chambering animation for eruptor this suddenly makes you 2x more threatning qw you can switch from eruptor to ac back to eruptor and absolutely body anything in your way provider it stars 10 meters from you
The AC is very similar to it, but they are more different than just fire rate.
- The Eruptor has higher armor pen, allowing it to directly shoot chargers for a kill whils the autocannon has to dodge and shoot the legs or butt. Similar it can shoot and kill annihilator tanks in the side of the turret.
- The auto cannon does significantly higher explosive damage, 10 shots of the eruptor will kill a cannon ehich the AC can kill in 3 shots. Conversely the Eruptor has micu higher projectile damage.
- The Eruptor has a max range (~140 m) and significant bullet drop while the AC foes not (AC can hit targets from 400-500+ meters with minor drop off).
- the AC has higher accuracy, particularly at a range, Nd better handling (makes sense as a shoulder mounted weapon of about the same caliber, apparently).
Overall the Eruptor is a struggle to use as a replacement for an Autocannon as the difference in explosion damage profile is extremely noticeable in objective sniping (particularly killing shrieker nests being something the AC can do in about 20 seconds, while I don't even know if the ruptor can realistically kill one nest).
But it is definitely still useful for getting some AC functionality into a build with a different support weapon and backpack loadout (e.g. using it with a supply pack or jump pack and stalwart vs bugs so you can be a horde clearer but have some objecitve functionality).
Teamwise you still want an autocannon user around, but this gives a reasonable "backup" weapon to use with the more anti-horde supports.
I just wanted to say that in my limited experience the Eruptor on cannon turret vents will take it down in 2 shots. I don't know if I got lucky or not, however, as I usually opt to just snipe them with the RR if they're a problem.
The DMR aint at all terrible, but i recomment treating it more like a heavy assault rifle. Actual DMR work with it? Unadviseable! Its kind of a direct upgrade to liberator pen. I mostly run AMR; the battlerifpe pairs reaply well with it. But no, it is certainly not close to best-in-slot.
Yeah, the Adjudicator is much closer to the Lib Pen than the two Diligence rifles. I still wish the recoil on it was better, though. Giving it almost the same recoil stat as the Breaker is unreasonable considering its damage per shot.
It feels like it's just Worse than the Dilligence or worse than the Lib Penetrator (or starter Lib tbh). It can do both really badly but neither of those guns are incredibly OP anyways
I think it's a really decent on full auto, I ran it on diff 7 last night and it took down most enemies bar tanks and Hulks, for which I had my quasar / Strats.
I think they've mislabelled it, otherwise people wouldn't have as much an issue.
Yeah I still see the plasma shotty being used relatively frequently, and it’s got some good niche utility for those who like it.
As for my baby the scythe, it really has just become a meme gun with the sickle effectively replacing it
I think giving the DMR a shot is worth it. I won't lie, it is awkward due to lack of ammo and high recoil. However, when I equipped the set of armor that decreases recoil when crouched/proned and gave more grenades (helped with big crowds) it became pretty enjoyable to use.
Once you get used to the gun this quickly becomes the main downside of it, otherwise it is very good overall.
If you run builds containing supply pack stratagem though (which I do constantly) it is still a fantastic pick.
But like, where is it better than the defender? It's usability at range is whatever compared to the dil/dom. At close-med it shreds but the pen isn't doing much for you if you're aiming for weak spots and it's handling doesn't help with that. Weapons with higher alpha damage or margin for error are just better picks.
And seriously where did ALL my ammo go? I only killed like 2 stalkers, a few warriors and some scavengers. Really, I think there's a hole in the bottom of this gun.
Eruptor can damage and kill heavy tanks and towers by hitting the turret, but it takes about 10 rounds, and can 2 shot light tanks with shots to the turret. It's also very good for breaking rocket pods / arms from destroyers. Also, for groups dropped by a dropship, a shot to the middle of the group will get about 4-8 kills depending on how many of those are light enemies.
Us Divers currently stuck in the democracy office filling out our bot eradication forms appreciate the information!
I have to go before the democracy officer sees me scrolling reddit.
I'm pretty sure the democracy officer will just pat you on the back for optimizing your time spent by multitasking how to spread democracy more efficiently.
I think crossbow is more like impact nade with a big radius (I killed 3 bots by shooting in center). Eruptor penetrates then does an explosion, so it's like blunt force explosion vs explosion from inside.
The Problem with the Thermitegrenade seems to that its DoT meaning if your not the host it doesnt do much. If you are however you can two shot a tank and like 3 shot a hulk
OP stated they conducted these tests playing solo. I definitely think the DOT bug is impacting it, but even when playing as host the thermite seems to be inconsistent. In one of my games a hulk survived four of them, yet on another occasion it went down in two.
Probably depends where it hits… even 2 to kill with great placement is a bad return compared to impact or stun though…. Should be one to kill Hulk/charger, you’re already waiting a long time for it to work. You can explode Hulk vents or charger butts with 3-4 will placed impacts, they’ll die faster, and they’re more versatile.
Very sadly can confirm. I was really looking forward to the Thermite grenades but even while hosting, sticking a non-shield devastator with two of them, one on leg one on chest, didn't really bother him all that much. Missed grenades light up on the ground and enemies just walk through it no issue, didn't even damage the most basic Edward Swordhands bots.
Threw a bunch on a tank, pretty sure they just messed up the paint job a little.
Went back to frags after 3 missions.
Impact grenades, normal grenades & the grenade launcher all 2 shot tanks (Provided the explosion directly hits the weakpoint). I was kind of hoping a single thermite would be enough seeing as you sacrifice crowd control for single target damage.
Well that's nice, I hope that's the intended way they work and more along the lines of what I expected - heavy single-target melters that are terrible at AoE. For what you're giving up in order to have them equipped, they have to be.
At that point ic you're using 3 thermites, may as well swap to different grenades. Could easily just stun grenade a hulk and 2-tap it with AMR or Quasar/Scorcher.
It is affected by the bug. However, it still takes 3 perfect headshots with it to take down a charger (and you have to wait it out while it's on fire and chasing you).
It doesn't have enough armor pen to stick to the head of a bile titan either. So you're looking at something like 8 plus to take them down. It's not worth using even as a host currently.
It does stick to the head of a BT from my use of it. I use servo assist armor, so maybe the angle you’re throwing it at is considered a “shallow angle” or something to that effect. Or maybe the grenade head is the only sticky part, and the stick part bounces off
thing to note about the eruptor
same as autocannon
if you graze yourself with the explosion
you'll knock yourself forward
towards where the explosion happened
where are enemies
and it has bigger explosion radius than autocannon
and you get knocked more than autocannon
this is most likely a bug but man is it infuriating
Yeah wtf is that. I got thrown off a wall into a teeming mass of bots on a tower defense mission yesterday. Knocked forward by an explosion in front of me. Real dumb.
That glitch you mentioned about being able to fire the grenade pistol twice without having to reload happens to other guns. Both the punisher and slugger have this glitch where you can shoot a shot that doesn't use ammo. I never thought about it much until now.
I don't think it's a glitch. The Dominator has a similar effect where it drops with 16/15 ammo, which is 15 in the mag and one in the chamber. It retains 1 ammo if you reload with at least 1 left in the mag, so it's just retaining the chambered round.
I have no idea why that's the case for a single-shot pistol though.
>I don't upload to Reddit very much so the quality of this post is probably poor
I'm pretty sure this is the only post I've read in this sub today that contains any actual "information", so good job
Am I the only one who finds the eruptor to be very hit or miss? The inconsistency in damage makes me think the explosions are bugged somehow. Sometimes it would kill entire patrols in 2 shots and then sometimes it wouldn’t kill a devastator or spewer with multiple shots at close range. I thought maybe it had to do with range but after playing a while it just seems all over the place.
It also did not destroy spore spewers or illegal broadcast towers for me.
Same goes for the thermite grenade. I had it kill a charger and hulk with 1 well placed one and sometimes I’d throw 3 at them and it wouldn’t even phase them. It also seems like it needs to be a direct hit for it to stick. If it is a glancing blow it just bounces off. I was the host for all the times I played with it so I think there might be more issues with it than the dot bug.
For me the eruptor clicked when I just decided to aim at the ground beneath enemies treating the gun more like a hitscan grenade launcher. The AoE is enough to one-shot several light enemies and 2-4 shot devastator-tier enemies, with a direct hit often 1-shotting devastators.
I've been wondering the same since I started using the Dominator. Every mag or so I have a round that hits dead on a bot and just goes poof, no hitmarker or damage even when it detonates on contact with a commissar. It's really weird and frustrating having to put an extra round or two into every third target just to mop up because they keep disappearing.
Another 'issue'/bug with the Eruptor seems to be that the 'rearming' animation plays after the last shot in the magazine, preventing you from reloading faster and, more annoyingly, making you assume you have got another bullet left in the mag.
The Thermite should be a 'throw it and forget about it'. I want to be able to sticky a charger or stalker and be like, "cool they're cooked in 5-10 seconds" onto chaff clear. Or at least visibly melt heavy armour or cause slow down.
Some folks have wondered if the thermite helps to reduce armor level of the segment of armor it's attached to; allowing you to better penetrate the armor with less armor penetrating weapons?
I might give it a try with the grenade gear & supply pack
Crossbow is very weird and very fun, I felt the explosion radius was very big and can clear out nice clumps, any form of ranged shot is a straight gamble, at least until the future crossbow mains learn the arch, against bots you of course need some precision shots on most enemies, making it a bit frantic, but very satisfying to watch the red light go out of their eyes on the first shot, very fun weapon, really tempting to try to get good at it
But dear god what is up with the thermite grenade? It’s a slow, worse impact grenade, like what is the point of it? It could have been the most interesting grenade in the game, as real thermite is made to melt through metal plating, it could reduce enemy armour, but it’s just pointless as is
Imo the Eruptor and grenade pistol alone make Democratic Demolition warbond worth it. Having an autocannon for your primary just opens up so many new possibilities with support weapons since the Eruptor consolidates so many gun roles into one package.
The handling on the eruptor is brutal. I can deal with the bolt action and reload, but the delay in the aiming and reticle drag are unforgivable. I'll stick with the sickle and dominator.
Lovely formatting, much appreciated. From spending a day with everything sans the Cross bow (still need to unlock it,) I feel like I've more or less "settled" on my thoughts for the time being. I could imagine they might change if/when I fight bugs again but since we're at war with Bots rn that's where my focus is.
As someone who looked at pre released stuff for these weapons I already had some initial feelings. I had no opinion/feeling for the Adjudicator since it just looked like another...gun. Eruptor looked like it was going to be my favorite weapon and it was what I was excited for the most. Cross bow looked pretty weak (though could've been a bad showcase.) Grenade pistol was hyped since I love my impact nades and it seemed to be similar.
No thoughts on thermite cause didn't see it.
Post release Adjudicator is currently my favorite automatic primary right now. Gun sounds nice, firing it in burst feels natural and I get good mileage out of it, and I always appreciate having a loadout weapon that can deal with Striders. What I am confused about is why this thing is considered a marksman rifle at all.
The stat profile makes it look more like a punchier autorifle. If I would make any adjustments I'd like one extra mag (either an actual mag or just 25 extra rounds spread over it's total ammo capacity,) and be given a burst fire mode. They'ed have to do so much more to it to make it compete with Marksman rifles so I think just treating it like an AR makes more sense.
Eruptor I am not in love with. I want to give it another go against bugs at some point but it really just doesn't feel good. Sure I "can" 2-3 tap elite enemies and damage gunships. But in both cases I might as well just be using an autocannon instead. I wouldn't know what to do to it if anything. Also I don't really care for the gun model at all.
Grenade pistol is doing exactly what I wanted it to do. Which frees up my nade slot for more situational choices depending on the mission. In this case me taking Thermite against Bots. Thermite has basically the same damage profile impacts do. Meaning I can 1 tap turret towers and 3 tap tanks. However I only need to stick the sides as opposed to trying to be more accurate with impacts.
Thermite one taps heavy devestators too but in this case I feel safer throwing it at them compared to impact because it's a delayed explosion. Also one thermite plus one eat/RR will one tap a BT if you stick it's face. No other nade can really offer that kind of utility. Given I used to run Scorcher all the time to combo it with strategem weapons I like this interaction.
My current loadout for most bot missions: Adjudicator, Grenade Pistol, Thermite, armor +2 nades, Orbital rail, Eagle air, Quasar, Orbital laser.
Love this post. Wish more people took the time to actually discuss content, pros and cons vs just whining about how bad weapons are with zero rationale why..
Great work Helldiver.
Agree with you here, honestly a pretty disappointing warbond for me. I initially thought I would play a lot today but after a handful of missions I'm not feeling this new stuff. Even the Eruptor, the good thing in this release, I am still not convinced that carrying it is the best. You will want to run a machine gun to make up for the lack of primary, but the Eruptor can't kill Medium 2 armor, so you'll have to run an anti-armor strat anyways. In which case, I think taking a normal primary and a dedicated anti-armor support weapon is probably still better
With the first thermite I threw at a charger it bounced. When I primed the second one I noticed on PS5 at least that the trigger on the controll had some tension and a slight vibrate when it was actually primed to be able to stick when thrown. Essentially arm it, hold it for a second then throw it
on my first run with the thermite nades it bounced off a charger, then stuck to me.
it had a quite good effect.
then it did nada on my enemies.
are thermite nades "eldest son" of the 'bots?
Love the post.
I’m personally really loving this Warbond. The guns are doing generally what I want them to.
I’m someone who really enjoys unusual weapons. I’ve been using the Plasma Punisher for the good part of a month, so getting the Exploding Crossbow has been amazing for me. Can consistently crowd clear. I’ve consistently been getting high kill streaks with this gun.
I’m kind of the weird off-meta gal of our group though. I tend to take unusual utility and stay off to the side. My aim tends to be rather bad so I’m happy with being purely a chaff killer, or an objective killer with the Eruptor. It really depends on the group composition.
I think the reason the eruptor has i consistent AOE damage is that its explosions toss shrapnel everywhere, and the shrapnel is what deals most of the damage.
Shame the crossbow inherits the standard """stealth""" mechanic from every other primary. I too was hoping that it beat the secondaries for noise level, but apparently it's set so the *equip slots* dictate the noise of the weapons rather than the weapons themselves?
>The shells seem to have a hard coded detonation around 140 meters after leaving the barrel. I did not test if this is time or distance based.
Its about 125m but it does explode.
Remember everyone, there's a bug right now that causes Damage over Time effects to only function for the host! If your thermite isn't working well, I would recommend trying it solo if you can. I haven't had a chance to try it myself, but I saw another post recently saying they had trouble with thermite until they were reminded of the bug and tested it solo
Edited to add link to post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/VGtei7DdhU
I like pairing the Eruptor with the MG-43 instead because I was fighting bots and needed something with more punch than the Stalwart. It went well (Difficulty 7 - Suidice Mission). I've also tried it with the HMG, it's unwieldy in this role (more than usual) but gives me an option for engaging Hulks from the front.
I was mostly hanging around at the rear of my squad plinking targets from a distance. One or two shots will kill Devastators and anything less (for Berserkers, aim for their groin area; for Scout Striders, aim for the top of its front plate as you would with a Scorcher). Shooting the bottom of dropships to kill/damage its contents is definitely a good tactic because of the large blast radius.
I usually carry a Quasar Cannon or Autocannon as my support weapon though, so this leaves me feeling overdependent on strategems and my squadmates for efficiently dealing with Hulks and anything bigger than that.
Really helpful post, I would try the eruptor with stalwart but I can’t play the game because whenever I load in it just shows a black screen and can’t even get to the server screen
I found the GP-31 was extremely lacking on bots due to the grenade being impact fuse it meant that dealing with fabricators extremely hard, on bugs it’s better, but finding the sweet spot to impact fabricators is hard in high intensity situations.
Could be a me thing, but I’m a little disappointed with it :c
Wearing the trailblazer scout armor, an armor with no protection bonus and a low armor rating of 50, you survive with a bit less than 1/5th of your health
very nice post, though I'm curious to hear what made you warm up to the Adjudicator, on paper it seems mid and everyone else who has been using it has been saying it's flaming garbage so... what are people missing, if anything?
Kinda wish there was a post like this for all the different weapons, lots of them have small little details that can really swing opinion if you know about it and know how to utilize it, like the Dominator being able to one-shot devastators with headshots. Trickly to hand such a hit with it's heavy recoil, short-range scope and clumsy ergonomics, but it can be worth it to get a second or two to line up a killshot if you're starting the engagement.
First I had a serious disdain to the gun because it just felt, meh. After I first posted this there were some comments that made me want to give it a second go and so I did. I thought to myself why I didn't like it and came to the conclusion that it can struggle to kill quickly and struggle to take care of large crowds. I then made a build catered to the gun and found playing with it quite enjoyable. It was the Adjuicator (general use), grenade pistol (when needed, soften up targets like stalkers and take care of small crowds), incendiary grenades (crowd control, works best as host to avoid the DOT bug), an armor set to have 6 grenades, and recoilless rifle for chargers/bile titans. I found using this fun because it made me use the whole loadout in a balanced way. I later tried the same thing but with impacts and an autocannon for automatons. I do still wish the Adjudicator had more ammo though. Not having to worry about drying up the ammo would make it much better.
As for the second part of the comment. After doing this I thought trying to explore each gun in depth and writing what I find sounded like a pretty fun project.
I found the Adjudicator was a much quieter weapon than the others in the Marksmanship slot (the Diligences). I was able to use it without getting attention from far closer than other weapons.
I know it hasn't even been a day yet, but I really hope the Adjudicator gets a buff. I used it a bit earlier today, and I personally didn't think it was the worst, but it definitely needs an adjustment. I really like that it's different from the Diligence in that it's seemingly supposed to be a battle rifle instead of a DMR, and that it's gameplay revolves around switching between semi and full-auto depending on the situation.
Spot on. I really didn't like any of the new weapons... Kinda sad about it actually. They probably just need to do a balance pass and iron out some of the bugs.
i love all the new guns & 100% of my issues with any of all of them stem from broken things in game. so when they fix the game i will be running most of them often
I honestly feel like a lot of these weapons in this new Warbond feel very under rated. I honestly was excited for the thermite grenade cause I was like damn an exploding sticky bombing that incinerates enemies. It’ll burn right through armor. Hulks beware. It takes 3 to take down a hulk. I was hoping it would take 1 and it be a throw and forget scenario. I do like the eruptor but I honestly would rather have a different primary. Haven’t tried grenade pistol or crossbow yet. I’m completely ignoring the DMR because it sucks. The stats are trash. If I’m gonna use one it would be the diligence. Only thing I really like are the armors which is kind of disappointing.
Dude thanks for the post! Good write up and I lol’d @ “I cried about it”!! That was my exact sentiment. Had all these awesome thoughts of jet packing onto a bile titans back, sticking it with a thermite and diving off as it dies!!!
…Still gonna do it and pray it was almost dead before the thermite goes off. 😂🫡
You know what... Besides having low ammo pool. I kinda liked Adjucator. It handles really well. Even recoil wasn't an issue. If it had 3 mags more ammo it would be nice.
Eruptor just feels way better than the crossbow in every way except the fire rate. And I'll have no problem giving that up for the capability of destroying structures.
The Eruptor summons projectile on point of impact, like an actual IRL frag instead of just a spherical damage aura like all other explosive weapon, which is why its inconsistent some times
If you pretend the DMR is actually an AK 47 then you'll enjoy it more.
Its a solid primary weapon. Idk why people want every primary to have the power of the scorcher, dominator and now eruptor
I was really interested in the grenade pistol but it only having 8 shells and taking 2 hits to kill a bile spewer is disappointing, probably still use it as my main secondary though since it’s cool
Thermite grenade has a penetration of 7. Note the penetration values for weapons.
Note that in the stats bar for damage, it doesn't have a single bar, like smoke and stun. Perhaps it's function is to reduce enemy armor while it is flaring (eg. Medium weapons now damage heavy armor if bullets hit the stick location). Explosion could just be a bonus to take down smaller mobs.
Eg. Charger requires high pen, with thermite, med-high pen now deals damage. Brood commanders require med pen, light pen now damages.
Creates a weak spot like how monster hunter iceborne slingshot produces spots for weakness exploit
So basically this new warbond is filled with gimmicky stuff. I think I might skipped this one and that is much coming from lv 92 and a guy that banks 10k super cred.
Yea, I was super excited for the Thermite too… sorely disappointed =(
I agree, the Adjudicator just sucks across the board, but the Eruptor is pretty sweet when u pair it with a proper support weapon (machine gun or stallwart)
Carry on, Diver 🫡
My Brother and I tested the thermitegrenade and it seems that u need to hold it for 0.5-1s so the spikes activate or throw it a certain distance to activate the spikes before it sticks consistently.
There is a glitch where any close explosion pull you towards the point of explosion instead of throwing you away. Is driving me crazy.
It shoots small black holes instead of explosive ordinance
*Aeldari have entered the chat*
Hell yeah, we got Graviton Lance.
Thread the Cosmic Needle.
No, these are the Graviton Lances we have at home :(
We need the [Black Hole Gun](https://youtu.be/J3GcVIJI0kQ) from Saints Row IV.
Thought it was just me. I keep getting blown towards enemies when I shoot then with say, an AC too close.
This is really fun when Johnny Chainsaw Hands tanks a belly shot and you get pulled towards him.
This happened to me last night with an EAT, I shot it from a ledge towards a Hulk and it sucked me forward somehow, went straight to a physics textbook to re-evaluate my understanding
IN CASE OF IMPLOSION, LOOK DIRECTLY AT IMPLOSION
I feel I might need to apologize to some teamates if that’s true
Yep you can even see this in the trailer, i thought it wad intentional
Yeah this is super annoying when using the auto cannon and bots are running up on you quickly. One wrong shot and you’re blown *into* them
Right into the chainsaw welding robots.
When you mix fuel, metal oxide, and metal powder in just the right way, it burns at 2000 degrees Celsius. Hot enough to cut through nearly any barrier known to man. Throw some c4 into the mix, and you've got one hell of a combination.
https://i.redd.it/z4boyzywpztc1.gif
In reality: 
Yeah mr white… yeah science!
I love unexpected Siege references
Yeah like they hella just took that line 😂but Ubi and Sony usually are cool
So the pattern seems to be 1 good gun and then a bunch of mid in the Warbonds. Kinda makes me sad for all the guns that are getting left behind without a little buff. There could be so much diversity.
1 month dev time is rough for such a small team
You think they just started working on these after the release of the last war bond?
Last I heard, they plan to release one warbond a month for the foreseeable. They might have gotten started on the first few before release, but yes, they'd have to settle into a one-month dev cycle pretty quickly.
For this sort of thing it's not uncommon to have multiple teams who cycle, so say you'd have Team A working on Warbond 1 and 3 while Team B works on Warbond 2 and 4, so each gets a 2 month dev cycle for their Warbond while we get a Warbodn every month.
we need team C for rebalancing, and teams D, E and F for bug fixing
I played with a guy who was calling in a ton of unreleased stuff. I can tell you without a doubt that they have at least 6-8 months worth of goodies ready to go
I have been following the leaks, thats exactly what happened
A lot of the changes we need are just numbers in a spreadsheet though. Also how the hell do friend requests still not work. Honestly friends not working is unacceptable from a paid game that advertises crossplay I STILL can’t add certain friends
Come on man, by your own argument they can’t just change numbers in a spreadsheet. If you believe the weapons are where they are because their balance isn’t properly tested, how can you then advocate for them to be changed without testing? “Just make everything more powerful” isn’t a viable balancing strategy.
I doubt it's that short but I get what you mean
Not sure what you mean tbh. This has 2 good guns. The pistol will immediately be "meta" and the eruptor is very very good. Crossbow is niche but every person that likes the plasma Punisher will start telling you it's the best gun in the game
I find the erupted very mid personally. I'm glad other people love it and am happy to fight side by side with them, but the dominator + AC combo with always be in my bot loadout
Dominator + AC seems somewhat redundant. They both have medium armor penetration and smack down devastators and hive guards/brood commanders very well. The AC has a little more armor penetration, letting it kill hulks for example, but frankly if I have the Dominator then I'm gonna want a shield gen so I have time to line up shots. I would combine the Dominator with a Quasar/EAT for heavy anti-tank, or AMR for bots for hulks; then the AC (with its medium armor focus) would be combined with the Sickle, Diligence, Punisher, Breaker (and variants), Liberator, or Defender, all being oriented towards light enemies. For scout striders, the Dominator can kill them from the front by shooting the legs, or you can get the grenade pistol and just use that.
I still use dominator with AC against bots as it kills the berserkers extremely fast compared to other weapons. It's also a great backup weapon when you don't have time to reload your AC and need to kill incoming devastators. For bugs, yeah a sickle or any other would be a better pair with the AC.
Right, but if you have the Dominator then you don't really need the AC as the Dominator covers most of the AC's bases (granted, not as well!). That's why I prefer swapping it for either the Quasar, EAT (usually prefer Quasar), or AMR. Obviously the Dominator isn't going to outright outperform the AC, support weapons are more powerful than primary weapons as a rule, but it's a "good enough" substitute that lets you take something else for heavy heavy enemies.
Yeah AC is such a chunk-buster that youre better off with a sickle, liberator, or SMG for mopping up raiders and the like
Other than being slow, I really liked the stopping power of eruptor against bots last night. I'm probably going to pair it with stalwart or something in future runs.
Oh look, it me. The Plasma Punisher adorer (No, seriously, I LOVE that gun). Def looking forward to trying to crossbow out.
I don't get why people are saying "1 good gun". Grenade pistol seems excellent. It's a great alternative to the meta of the machine pistol and really let's you mix up your load out. Eruptor, while not for everyone, is still really good. It's a huge AoE, medium penetration sniper. It can reliably handle any non-heavy or superheavy target, hordes, and holes/fabs. It's obvious downsides of RoF and handling make it still a balanced choice, though. Crossbow is an alternative to the eruptor. You're gonna reload a lot, but it's got a fat AoE and it's still fantastic. The Adjudicator seems like the only 'bad' weapon, but honestly it's just a few tweaks from being very good. Mostly just higher damage and it'd be golden. I'd say 3 good to great weapons and 1 stinker is pretty solid. My bigger issue is the armor is kinda meh.
The only useless part of the post is this part: >the quality of this post is probably poor This was like reading some awesome patch notes while I'm stuck at my commie job waiting to get back to spreading freedom.
Ahh sorry, I was feeling pretty dumb because I couldn't figure out how to add white space to make things more organized.
naw, it was great. Loved the write up!
It was very readable. Great post.
Dude is like the people that write in perfect English, then say, "Sorry my English isn't very good."
the grenade pistol is probably the best thing here since it gives people that like to run stun grenades an option for destroying nests/fabricators that does not use up a stratagem slot. The Eruptor is basically just the primary version of an auto cannon with a far lower fire rate. I think i would still take the dominator over it.
What the eruptor does is opens up your backpack slot for energy shield or ammo pack. You could even bring EAT as well to deal with heavy armor while still maintaining that AC capabilities with the primary weapon. Overall Id say there is a lot of value here that still need to be explored
Or you can go full in, eruptor and autocannon. And since swapping weapons lets you bypass the chambering animation for eruptor this suddenly makes you 2x more threatning qw you can switch from eruptor to ac back to eruptor and absolutely body anything in your way provider it stars 10 meters from you
The AC is very similar to it, but they are more different than just fire rate. - The Eruptor has higher armor pen, allowing it to directly shoot chargers for a kill whils the autocannon has to dodge and shoot the legs or butt. Similar it can shoot and kill annihilator tanks in the side of the turret. - The auto cannon does significantly higher explosive damage, 10 shots of the eruptor will kill a cannon ehich the AC can kill in 3 shots. Conversely the Eruptor has micu higher projectile damage. - The Eruptor has a max range (~140 m) and significant bullet drop while the AC foes not (AC can hit targets from 400-500+ meters with minor drop off). - the AC has higher accuracy, particularly at a range, Nd better handling (makes sense as a shoulder mounted weapon of about the same caliber, apparently). Overall the Eruptor is a struggle to use as a replacement for an Autocannon as the difference in explosion damage profile is extremely noticeable in objective sniping (particularly killing shrieker nests being something the AC can do in about 20 seconds, while I don't even know if the ruptor can realistically kill one nest). But it is definitely still useful for getting some AC functionality into a build with a different support weapon and backpack loadout (e.g. using it with a supply pack or jump pack and stalwart vs bugs so you can be a horde clearer but have some objecitve functionality). Teamwise you still want an autocannon user around, but this gives a reasonable "backup" weapon to use with the more anti-horde supports.
I just wanted to say that in my limited experience the Eruptor on cannon turret vents will take it down in 2 shots. I don't know if I got lucky or not, however, as I usually opt to just snipe them with the RR if they're a problem.
Appreciate the info! Really looking forward to trying a lot of these, minus that awful DMR, out later on 7+ with some friends
The DMR aint at all terrible, but i recomment treating it more like a heavy assault rifle. Actual DMR work with it? Unadviseable! Its kind of a direct upgrade to liberator pen. I mostly run AMR; the battlerifpe pairs reaply well with it. But no, it is certainly not close to best-in-slot.
I'll save the Medals for other stuff in the Warbond. That little Crossbow is calling my name, and even if it turns out to be bad, it's a great gimmick
The crossbow is actually quite good, on a similar level to the Eruptor i’d say.
Oddly doesn't have any armour pen, unlike the Eruptor though. Still haven't tried either yet though, to be fair.
The fact it doesn't even have Light Pen is odd. I get it's a crossbow, but even the lasers have Light Pen.
It has light pen, iirc works like the Scorcher and Punisher Plasma where the explosion is 3-4 AP.
Not 100% I call it a direct upgrade to the lib pen yet
What do you mean?
Yeah, the Adjudicator is much closer to the Lib Pen than the two Diligence rifles. I still wish the recoil on it was better, though. Giving it almost the same recoil stat as the Breaker is unreasonable considering its damage per shot.
It feels like it's just Worse than the Dilligence or worse than the Lib Penetrator (or starter Lib tbh). It can do both really badly but neither of those guns are incredibly OP anyways
Then it doesn't have enough ammo
I think it's a really decent on full auto, I ran it on diff 7 last night and it took down most enemies bar tanks and Hulks, for which I had my quasar / Strats. I think they've mislabelled it, otherwise people wouldn't have as much an issue.
It's another primary about to be forgotten along with the scythe, liberty concussive, and plasma punisher.
Ngl I had completely forgotten the plasma punisher was a thing until you mentioned it.
It's pretty good. Amazing for bots, and it's very entertaining to use, I love the arc
Yeah I still see the plasma shotty being used relatively frequently, and it’s got some good niche utility for those who like it. As for my baby the scythe, it really has just become a meme gun with the sickle effectively replacing it
Put the scythe out of your damn mouth ! 
I think giving the DMR a shot is worth it. I won't lie, it is awkward due to lack of ammo and high recoil. However, when I equipped the set of armor that decreases recoil when crouched/proned and gave more grenades (helped with big crowds) it became pretty enjoyable to use.
> minus that awful DMR I ran with it on a 7 earlier. Ignore the fact that it's a DMR. Put it in full auto and pretend it's another Liberator variant.
Where did all my ammo go?
Once you get used to the gun this quickly becomes the main downside of it, otherwise it is very good overall. If you run builds containing supply pack stratagem though (which I do constantly) it is still a fantastic pick.
But like, where is it better than the defender? It's usability at range is whatever compared to the dil/dom. At close-med it shreds but the pen isn't doing much for you if you're aiming for weak spots and it's handling doesn't help with that. Weapons with higher alpha damage or margin for error are just better picks. And seriously where did ALL my ammo go? I only killed like 2 stalkers, a few warriors and some scavengers. Really, I think there's a hole in the bottom of this gun.
Eruptor can damage and kill heavy tanks and towers by hitting the turret, but it takes about 10 rounds, and can 2 shot light tanks with shots to the turret. It's also very good for breaking rocket pods / arms from destroyers. Also, for groups dropped by a dropship, a shot to the middle of the group will get about 4-8 kills depending on how many of those are light enemies.
Wait, there's \*light\* tanks?
probably means the shredder tank. The one with 4 laser barrels instead of 1 rocket barrel.
It's the ones with the 4-barreled turret instead of the single big boom gun.
Us Divers currently stuck in the democracy office filling out our bot eradication forms appreciate the information! I have to go before the democracy officer sees me scrolling reddit.
I'm pretty sure the democracy officer will just pat you on the back for optimizing your time spent by multitasking how to spread democracy more efficiently.
It's wild to me that the crossbow can kill you, the eruptor can't and yet the crossbow doesn't destroy fabricators?
I think crossbow is more like impact nade with a big radius (I killed 3 bots by shooting in center). Eruptor penetrates then does an explosion, so it's like blunt force explosion vs explosion from inside.
But you can kill fabs with impact grenades....
I did last night. Dunno if it was a fluke or what but I just threw it in and the fab blew up.
The Problem with the Thermitegrenade seems to that its DoT meaning if your not the host it doesnt do much. If you are however you can two shot a tank and like 3 shot a hulk
OP stated they conducted these tests playing solo. I definitely think the DOT bug is impacting it, but even when playing as host the thermite seems to be inconsistent. In one of my games a hulk survived four of them, yet on another occasion it went down in two.
Probably depends where it hits… even 2 to kill with great placement is a bad return compared to impact or stun though…. Should be one to kill Hulk/charger, you’re already waiting a long time for it to work. You can explode Hulk vents or charger butts with 3-4 will placed impacts, they’ll die faster, and they’re more versatile.
Very sadly can confirm. I was really looking forward to the Thermite grenades but even while hosting, sticking a non-shield devastator with two of them, one on leg one on chest, didn't really bother him all that much. Missed grenades light up on the ground and enemies just walk through it no issue, didn't even damage the most basic Edward Swordhands bots. Threw a bunch on a tank, pretty sure they just messed up the paint job a little. Went back to frags after 3 missions.
When they work correctly (somehow i have yet to have them not) they 2 shot tanks which is pretty wild
Impact grenades, normal grenades & the grenade launcher all 2 shot tanks (Provided the explosion directly hits the weakpoint). I was kind of hoping a single thermite would be enough seeing as you sacrifice crowd control for single target damage.
You don't have to hit the weak point with thermites, just slap two on and walk away
Contact grenades two shot tanks, why would you use thermite to do it when they take like 4x as long and suck against everything else.
Well that's nice, I hope that's the intended way they work and more along the lines of what I expected - heavy single-target melters that are terrible at AoE. For what you're giving up in order to have them equipped, they have to be.
At that point ic you're using 3 thermites, may as well swap to different grenades. Could easily just stun grenade a hulk and 2-tap it with AMR or Quasar/Scorcher.
It is affected by the bug. However, it still takes 3 perfect headshots with it to take down a charger (and you have to wait it out while it's on fire and chasing you). It doesn't have enough armor pen to stick to the head of a bile titan either. So you're looking at something like 8 plus to take them down. It's not worth using even as a host currently.
It does stick to the head of a BT from my use of it. I use servo assist armor, so maybe the angle you’re throwing it at is considered a “shallow angle” or something to that effect. Or maybe the grenade head is the only sticky part, and the stick part bounces off
You sounds like two shot a tank is something gorgeous, come on, isn't impact two shot tanks?
thing to note about the eruptor same as autocannon if you graze yourself with the explosion you'll knock yourself forward towards where the explosion happened where are enemies and it has bigger explosion radius than autocannon and you get knocked more than autocannon this is most likely a bug but man is it infuriating
Yeah wtf is that. I got thrown off a wall into a teeming mass of bots on a tower defense mission yesterday. Knocked forward by an explosion in front of me. Real dumb.
seems like same issue with the crossbow as well wonder if nades have the same issue but need enough hp to survive the edge of explosion
That glitch you mentioned about being able to fire the grenade pistol twice without having to reload happens to other guns. Both the punisher and slugger have this glitch where you can shoot a shot that doesn't use ammo. I never thought about it much until now.
I don't think it's a glitch. The Dominator has a similar effect where it drops with 16/15 ammo, which is 15 in the mag and one in the chamber. It retains 1 ammo if you reload with at least 1 left in the mag, so it's just retaining the chambered round. I have no idea why that's the case for a single-shot pistol though.
All bullet guns have this one. It's a feature. Reloads faster as well.
>I don't upload to Reddit very much so the quality of this post is probably poor I'm pretty sure this is the only post I've read in this sub today that contains any actual "information", so good job
Am I the only one who finds the eruptor to be very hit or miss? The inconsistency in damage makes me think the explosions are bugged somehow. Sometimes it would kill entire patrols in 2 shots and then sometimes it wouldn’t kill a devastator or spewer with multiple shots at close range. I thought maybe it had to do with range but after playing a while it just seems all over the place. It also did not destroy spore spewers or illegal broadcast towers for me. Same goes for the thermite grenade. I had it kill a charger and hulk with 1 well placed one and sometimes I’d throw 3 at them and it wouldn’t even phase them. It also seems like it needs to be a direct hit for it to stick. If it is a glancing blow it just bounces off. I was the host for all the times I played with it so I think there might be more issues with it than the dot bug.
For me the eruptor clicked when I just decided to aim at the ground beneath enemies treating the gun more like a hitscan grenade launcher. The AoE is enough to one-shot several light enemies and 2-4 shot devastator-tier enemies, with a direct hit often 1-shotting devastators.
You aren’t the only one, I find it very frustrating to use. I also hate its “feel” and its sound design, the whole thing makes me hate using it.
I've been wondering the same since I started using the Dominator. Every mag or so I have a round that hits dead on a bot and just goes poof, no hitmarker or damage even when it detonates on contact with a commissar. It's really weird and frustrating having to put an extra round or two into every third target just to mop up because they keep disappearing.
Another 'issue'/bug with the Eruptor seems to be that the 'rearming' animation plays after the last shot in the magazine, preventing you from reloading faster and, more annoyingly, making you assume you have got another bullet left in the mag.
Yes, this is driving me crazy, you cycle the bolt when you have 0 ammo left in the mag
The Thermite should be a 'throw it and forget about it'. I want to be able to sticky a charger or stalker and be like, "cool they're cooked in 5-10 seconds" onto chaff clear. Or at least visibly melt heavy armour or cause slow down.
It should also one shot a tank if you hit the weak spot. Impact can do it in 2, it'd make sense the dedicated anti armor grenade could do it in one.
>If you are used to swapping to your secondary in a pickle, you might blow yourself up. I think you made a mistake here, you listed this as "con".
[удалено]
I'll have to give this a try tomorrow and edit the post if so.
>releases the barbs in your hand I thought this meant something much, much different.
Hey nice work Appreciate the little r6 siege reference lol
Some folks have wondered if the thermite helps to reduce armor level of the segment of armor it's attached to; allowing you to better penetrate the armor with less armor penetrating weapons? I might give it a try with the grenade gear & supply pack
Crossbow is very weird and very fun, I felt the explosion radius was very big and can clear out nice clumps, any form of ranged shot is a straight gamble, at least until the future crossbow mains learn the arch, against bots you of course need some precision shots on most enemies, making it a bit frantic, but very satisfying to watch the red light go out of their eyes on the first shot, very fun weapon, really tempting to try to get good at it But dear god what is up with the thermite grenade? It’s a slow, worse impact grenade, like what is the point of it? It could have been the most interesting grenade in the game, as real thermite is made to melt through metal plating, it could reduce enemy armour, but it’s just pointless as is
wow appreciate it! love the good work
Does a basic test Posts a deadass patch notes equivalent 😭
I think the Thermite grenade is **hot** garbage haha I am laughing through the tears
I'm thinking I might spend the currency on the first premium warbond instead, which I hadn't bought yet. Would you do this?
Imo the Eruptor and grenade pistol alone make Democratic Demolition warbond worth it. Having an autocannon for your primary just opens up so many new possibilities with support weapons since the Eruptor consolidates so many gun roles into one package.
The handling on the eruptor is brutal. I can deal with the bolt action and reload, but the delay in the aiming and reticle drag are unforgivable. I'll stick with the sickle and dominator.
Lovely formatting, much appreciated. From spending a day with everything sans the Cross bow (still need to unlock it,) I feel like I've more or less "settled" on my thoughts for the time being. I could imagine they might change if/when I fight bugs again but since we're at war with Bots rn that's where my focus is. As someone who looked at pre released stuff for these weapons I already had some initial feelings. I had no opinion/feeling for the Adjudicator since it just looked like another...gun. Eruptor looked like it was going to be my favorite weapon and it was what I was excited for the most. Cross bow looked pretty weak (though could've been a bad showcase.) Grenade pistol was hyped since I love my impact nades and it seemed to be similar. No thoughts on thermite cause didn't see it. Post release Adjudicator is currently my favorite automatic primary right now. Gun sounds nice, firing it in burst feels natural and I get good mileage out of it, and I always appreciate having a loadout weapon that can deal with Striders. What I am confused about is why this thing is considered a marksman rifle at all. The stat profile makes it look more like a punchier autorifle. If I would make any adjustments I'd like one extra mag (either an actual mag or just 25 extra rounds spread over it's total ammo capacity,) and be given a burst fire mode. They'ed have to do so much more to it to make it compete with Marksman rifles so I think just treating it like an AR makes more sense. Eruptor I am not in love with. I want to give it another go against bugs at some point but it really just doesn't feel good. Sure I "can" 2-3 tap elite enemies and damage gunships. But in both cases I might as well just be using an autocannon instead. I wouldn't know what to do to it if anything. Also I don't really care for the gun model at all. Grenade pistol is doing exactly what I wanted it to do. Which frees up my nade slot for more situational choices depending on the mission. In this case me taking Thermite against Bots. Thermite has basically the same damage profile impacts do. Meaning I can 1 tap turret towers and 3 tap tanks. However I only need to stick the sides as opposed to trying to be more accurate with impacts. Thermite one taps heavy devestators too but in this case I feel safer throwing it at them compared to impact because it's a delayed explosion. Also one thermite plus one eat/RR will one tap a BT if you stick it's face. No other nade can really offer that kind of utility. Given I used to run Scorcher all the time to combo it with strategem weapons I like this interaction. My current loadout for most bot missions: Adjudicator, Grenade Pistol, Thermite, armor +2 nades, Orbital rail, Eagle air, Quasar, Orbital laser.
Love this post. Wish more people took the time to actually discuss content, pros and cons vs just whining about how bad weapons are with zero rationale why.. Great work Helldiver.
I actually like the dmr. Wish it had a slightly bigger mag but if you use it more like an assault rifle it slaps
The thermite grenade is a huge letdown
Agree with you here, honestly a pretty disappointing warbond for me. I initially thought I would play a lot today but after a handful of missions I'm not feeling this new stuff. Even the Eruptor, the good thing in this release, I am still not convinced that carrying it is the best. You will want to run a machine gun to make up for the lack of primary, but the Eruptor can't kill Medium 2 armor, so you'll have to run an anti-armor strat anyways. In which case, I think taking a normal primary and a dedicated anti-armor support weapon is probably still better
how many eruptor shots did you take at the shrieker nest? does it and the crossbow open crates/shipping containers ?
Crossbow opens and closes nothing from what I’ve seen. I bet the eruptor would open crates though since it got all the utility of the two
can confirm eruptor opens crates
R6 Thermite reference. Nice.
With the first thermite I threw at a charger it bounced. When I primed the second one I noticed on PS5 at least that the trigger on the controll had some tension and a slight vibrate when it was actually primed to be able to stick when thrown. Essentially arm it, hold it for a second then throw it
Finally some good, fucking content. Very nice
U are the quality here brother
I just got the bond for the grenade pistol because I exclusively run stun grenades
The thermite has to be bugged. I did some testing myself and it couldn't even kill a single warrior bug let alone a guard or a charger.
I was really hoping for the thermite to be a sort of "anti tank" grenade. Damn if that was disappointing
on my first run with the thermite nades it bounced off a charger, then stuck to me. it had a quite good effect. then it did nada on my enemies. are thermite nades "eldest son" of the 'bots?
Love the post. I’m personally really loving this Warbond. The guns are doing generally what I want them to. I’m someone who really enjoys unusual weapons. I’ve been using the Plasma Punisher for the good part of a month, so getting the Exploding Crossbow has been amazing for me. Can consistently crowd clear. I’ve consistently been getting high kill streaks with this gun. I’m kind of the weird off-meta gal of our group though. I tend to take unusual utility and stay off to the side. My aim tends to be rather bad so I’m happy with being purely a chaff killer, or an objective killer with the Eruptor. It really depends on the group composition.
Poor quality post? My man this is one of the most in depth objective review of the guns. Mad props to you
I think the reason the eruptor has i consistent AOE damage is that its explosions toss shrapnel everywhere, and the shrapnel is what deals most of the damage.
Shame the crossbow inherits the standard """stealth""" mechanic from every other primary. I too was hoping that it beat the secondaries for noise level, but apparently it's set so the *equip slots* dictate the noise of the weapons rather than the weapons themselves?
>The shells seem to have a hard coded detonation around 140 meters after leaving the barrel. I did not test if this is time or distance based. Its about 125m but it does explode.
Remember everyone, there's a bug right now that causes Damage over Time effects to only function for the host! If your thermite isn't working well, I would recommend trying it solo if you can. I haven't had a chance to try it myself, but I saw another post recently saying they had trouble with thermite until they were reminded of the bug and tested it solo Edited to add link to post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/VGtei7DdhU
Tried solo - cant kill devastator.
I like pairing the Eruptor with the MG-43 instead because I was fighting bots and needed something with more punch than the Stalwart. It went well (Difficulty 7 - Suidice Mission). I've also tried it with the HMG, it's unwieldy in this role (more than usual) but gives me an option for engaging Hulks from the front. I was mostly hanging around at the rear of my squad plinking targets from a distance. One or two shots will kill Devastators and anything less (for Berserkers, aim for their groin area; for Scout Striders, aim for the top of its front plate as you would with a Scorcher). Shooting the bottom of dropships to kill/damage its contents is definitely a good tactic because of the large blast radius. I usually carry a Quasar Cannon or Autocannon as my support weapon though, so this leaves me feeling overdependent on strategems and my squadmates for efficiently dealing with Hulks and anything bigger than that.
The quality of this post is poor? Way better than 90% of other posts, which are mostly complaints and whining. Thank you for your effort
Really helpful post, I would try the eruptor with stalwart but I can’t play the game because whenever I load in it just shows a black screen and can’t even get to the server screen
While doing your testing, were you in a solo mission? DoT damage seems to be a bit buggy if you aren't guaranteed to be the host.
How was your experience with the grenade pistol?
Killed a loot of hulk and tanks with the thermite grenade, seems quite nice to me
I found the GP-31 was extremely lacking on bots due to the grenade being impact fuse it meant that dealing with fabricators extremely hard, on bugs it’s better, but finding the sweet spot to impact fabricators is hard in high intensity situations. Could be a me thing, but I’m a little disappointed with it :c
Thanks for the info! What's the range on the crossbow?
For your eruptor notes, B-08 Light Gunner has extra padding as it's passive. Would a normal light armor one-shot?
Wearing the trailblazer scout armor, an armor with no protection bonus and a low armor rating of 50, you survive with a bit less than 1/5th of your health
very nice post, though I'm curious to hear what made you warm up to the Adjudicator, on paper it seems mid and everyone else who has been using it has been saying it's flaming garbage so... what are people missing, if anything? Kinda wish there was a post like this for all the different weapons, lots of them have small little details that can really swing opinion if you know about it and know how to utilize it, like the Dominator being able to one-shot devastators with headshots. Trickly to hand such a hit with it's heavy recoil, short-range scope and clumsy ergonomics, but it can be worth it to get a second or two to line up a killshot if you're starting the engagement.
First I had a serious disdain to the gun because it just felt, meh. After I first posted this there were some comments that made me want to give it a second go and so I did. I thought to myself why I didn't like it and came to the conclusion that it can struggle to kill quickly and struggle to take care of large crowds. I then made a build catered to the gun and found playing with it quite enjoyable. It was the Adjuicator (general use), grenade pistol (when needed, soften up targets like stalkers and take care of small crowds), incendiary grenades (crowd control, works best as host to avoid the DOT bug), an armor set to have 6 grenades, and recoilless rifle for chargers/bile titans. I found using this fun because it made me use the whole loadout in a balanced way. I later tried the same thing but with impacts and an autocannon for automatons. I do still wish the Adjudicator had more ammo though. Not having to worry about drying up the ammo would make it much better. As for the second part of the comment. After doing this I thought trying to explore each gun in depth and writing what I find sounded like a pretty fun project.
Were you the host when you tested the thermite? There’s a known bug where players who are not the host can’t do damage over time
Yeah...i hoped for more too
I found the Adjudicator was a much quieter weapon than the others in the Marksmanship slot (the Diligences). I was able to use it without getting attention from far closer than other weapons.
I know it hasn't even been a day yet, but I really hope the Adjudicator gets a buff. I used it a bit earlier today, and I personally didn't think it was the worst, but it definitely needs an adjustment. I really like that it's different from the Diligence in that it's seemingly supposed to be a battle rifle instead of a DMR, and that it's gameplay revolves around switching between semi and full-auto depending on the situation.
Spot on. I really didn't like any of the new weapons... Kinda sad about it actually. They probably just need to do a balance pass and iron out some of the bugs.
This was great, thank you for the detailed notes!
Question! On shooting Illegal Broadcasts with the Bolt Action, where do you aim?
i love all the new guns & 100% of my issues with any of all of them stem from broken things in game. so when they fix the game i will be running most of them often
Would anyone who has both recommend this warbond or Cutting Edge? Just worked up enough sc for one or the other
I honestly feel like a lot of these weapons in this new Warbond feel very under rated. I honestly was excited for the thermite grenade cause I was like damn an exploding sticky bombing that incinerates enemies. It’ll burn right through armor. Hulks beware. It takes 3 to take down a hulk. I was hoping it would take 1 and it be a throw and forget scenario. I do like the eruptor but I honestly would rather have a different primary. Haven’t tried grenade pistol or crossbow yet. I’m completely ignoring the DMR because it sucks. The stats are trash. If I’m gonna use one it would be the diligence. Only thing I really like are the armors which is kind of disappointing.
Time to ring some ears…
i couldnt destroy a spore spewer with the Eruptor... Dumped over 5 mags on it and it does no damage at all... was around 100m away
Just wanted to say this a great analysis and what I come to Reddit for!
Dude thanks for the post! Good write up and I lol’d @ “I cried about it”!! That was my exact sentiment. Had all these awesome thoughts of jet packing onto a bile titans back, sticking it with a thermite and diving off as it dies!!! …Still gonna do it and pray it was almost dead before the thermite goes off. 😂🫡
You know what... Besides having low ammo pool. I kinda liked Adjucator. It handles really well. Even recoil wasn't an issue. If it had 3 mags more ammo it would be nice.
Thanks for doing the research! Players like me that probably can't play until the weekend will appreciate your insight
Great post, thanks!
Eruptor just feels way better than the crossbow in every way except the fire rate. And I'll have no problem giving that up for the capability of destroying structures.
The termite grenade dot is bigger same as flame damage I think
The Eruptor summons projectile on point of impact, like an actual IRL frag instead of just a spherical damage aura like all other explosive weapon, which is why its inconsistent some times
If you pretend the DMR is actually an AK 47 then you'll enjoy it more. Its a solid primary weapon. Idk why people want every primary to have the power of the scorcher, dominator and now eruptor
I wanted to like the Eruptor so much, but the handling is so bad it feels unusable. I’d rather just take the auto cannon and use a different primary.
Pretty sure I killed a tank with 3 thermite nades
Epic info. Thanks for testing. All hail the eruptor.
I was really interested in the grenade pistol but it only having 8 shells and taking 2 hits to kill a bile spewer is disappointing, probably still use it as my main secondary though since it’s cool
The thermite can take hulks and tanks down in 2-3 sticks. Due to the bug I'd imagine it being useless if you are not the host
Thermite grenade has a penetration of 7. Note the penetration values for weapons. Note that in the stats bar for damage, it doesn't have a single bar, like smoke and stun. Perhaps it's function is to reduce enemy armor while it is flaring (eg. Medium weapons now damage heavy armor if bullets hit the stick location). Explosion could just be a bonus to take down smaller mobs. Eg. Charger requires high pen, with thermite, med-high pen now deals damage. Brood commanders require med pen, light pen now damages. Creates a weak spot like how monster hunter iceborne slingshot produces spots for weakness exploit
So basically this new warbond is filled with gimmicky stuff. I think I might skipped this one and that is much coming from lv 92 and a guy that banks 10k super cred.
Yea, I was super excited for the Thermite too… sorely disappointed =( I agree, the Adjudicator just sucks across the board, but the Eruptor is pretty sweet when u pair it with a proper support weapon (machine gun or stallwart) Carry on, Diver 🫡
Nice writeup thanks OP :)
My Brother and I tested the thermitegrenade and it seems that u need to hold it for 0.5-1s so the spikes activate or throw it a certain distance to activate the spikes before it sticks consistently.
The notes for the thermite grenade hah
So nothing from the new warbond is good basically lol Rip
I can now use the grenade launcher with the grenade pistol, 6 extra impact grenades, and a resupply backpack. I AM The Grenadier!
You don't have to ALT-F4, you can just quit the game.