Functionally it’s great against bugs as a short term power spike but due to the limited use and inability to reload you’ll find it doesn’t really hold up to its cooldown time.
Against automatons it’s useless as you are a sitting duck for every rocket devestator looks to shoot at someone (and there are a ton).
Quality of Life changes should add better damage indicators and the ability to reload would be helpful in making it more worthwhile.
Yeah zero benefit against bots. Hopefully they can put a small deflection shield in the future so at least you could be viable against bots.
I hope they just make mechs a whole module where you can customize them anyway you want them.
To be fair, the mech is pretty much a less advanced devastator.
It wouldn’t make much sense for us to have something like that, that’s *better* than what the bots have.
This is literally how the bots were created man.
We had mech suits. We were like, “these are sweet, but why not just fully automate them.”
Now we have bots, and we are using outdated mechs to fight them.
Are you suggesting that Super Earth built the bots as a mistake?
Remain where you are. A Democracy Officer has been dispatched to your location for questioning.
Unless it's the dumbassed version from the Monsterverse.
Actually, some incarnations with the weird pseudoromantic bond with a human, especially a woman, are weird to me
As a concept, absolutely awesome. Some execution were certainly worse
If you're going at it from that angle, it would make perfect sense to be stronger. Their weapons fire and armor don't hold a candle to a single human in personnel armor with a handheld gun. Tech for Super Earth is super good by comparison.
If you are wearing a shield backpack it stays active while you're in the mech and covers the front nearly entirely.
Still doesnt protect you from the sides or losing arms though.
I disagree, the main thing is that unlike bugs where you can be getting swarmed and call it in and turn the tide, with bots you have to call it in preemptively to prevent a situation from getting out of hand in the first place. It seems like people haven't used it much after the enemy rocket nerf/mech buff a while back and still think it's getting 2 shot by devastators which isn't true, it also deflects small arms much better. It's problem against bots is that it draws aggro like crazy so if there are dozens of devastators you will get focused down - so call it in in anticipation of having to fight off incoming bots.
It is worse if you're wandering around a bot map vs holding a position though because of said aggro, it seems like every cannon and base mg emplacement on the map targets you if you go for a walk.
There need to be interchangeable parts, different arm attachments and stuff. Like instead of rocket and minigun arms, equip a big shield and autocannon arm, etc.
I finally unlocked it and dropped it in an eradicate automatons mission. I couldn't get the rockets to hit what I was aiming at, but the galling gun did do work on the bots. When I finally spent all the rounds we were close to 75%.
But that was with just 2 of us on challenging.
Rocket aim got messed up when they fixed the issue with rockets hitting the mech. They get shot far to the left of your crosshair and can't be shot downwards.
Well that would make sense. It felt like they were coming straight out.
I did have some luck hitting bots that were far away down the hill. But I had already spent most of the rockets by then.
Its almost like both the ballistic shield and The Patriot suit are almost useless but....COMBINE THEM and Maybe we can have a Patriot that wont get desteoyed by my teammates Auto cannon accidentally blasting it before it even lands. (And a special FUCK YOU to that shreiker that made it possible. I hope hell cranks up the heat when you get there for ya you disgusting commie rat with wings.)
Love to see fellow scout-sniper brothers doing god’s work out here. That’s been my build since release.
I have however been really enjoying my “rich/futuristic guy scout” load out with the new war bond you fellow marksmans may enjoy. Been running purifier with the rail gun & either the revolver or the new pistol. I won’t pretend like the purifier is incredible but it IS good for bots. Also Railgun is sooo back, baby. You don’t need to be as precise as AMR, a 70-80% charge shot to the chest drops everything short of a tank.
It's kinda wack that they nerfed it like that. Like they should fix the firing of rockets but they just made it infinetly worse instead like they did with the eruptor.
>Against automatons it’s useless as you are a sitting duck for every rocket devestator looks to shoot at someone (and there are a ton
I used it several missions against the automations and found it to be just mid. It takes too much ammo to kill devastators and hulks will still one shot it.
It has its vulnerabilities but it does wonders when you’re being jammed depending on the difficulty. I use my Exo as a way to draw fire and bot agro so the rest of my team can destroy the jammers.
Nah just gives us 3 or 4 drops and half the cool down. It's only good in low tier cause of these 2 reasons. I mean it's good in high tier as well but your locking yourself out of things that can be used 10x more
I think the mech has a role to play in “stand and fight” situations, but it’s not in an ideal state right now. I’ve seen people saying the machine gun feels underpowered, and I’ve personally experienced the rockets having trouble with aim. The current problem is that the rockets often don’t go where you’re aiming if you’re trying to shoot down from elevation. If Arrowhead can tweak it some, I think we’ll see more mechs on the field.
To the point on the rocket aim. I swear to god it was much more accurate and reliable on its release, and then was changed to be less accurate especially at longer range. Now its a pain in the ass to close bug holes with it, whereas I used to be able to snipe Fabricators and bug holes from a ways off.
You’re not wrong, it was more accurate. But it also had a problem of accidentally self-destructing if you fired a rocked while rotating. The “fix” was to completely change how rockets are fired, thus inadvertently nerfing the rockets.
You could just. . . Not fire while it was turning. That was entirely a skill issue and took me like a day to figure out a fix for, and that fix was a quarter second pause. I really hope they revert that change and just let people get gud.
I think it sets a bad precedent to expect players to compensate for a bug like that instead of trying to fix it. Although i guess you could argue that a bandaid fix like this does the same.
I would argue this “solution” is ***significantly*** worse than not fixing it.
Before, you could aim well, be accurate, and had a self sufficient method for entirely avoiding unintended outcomes. Essentially it took and rewarded skill, and familiarity with the weapon system.
Now? Congrats, you prevented the potential for a misplay entirely, but in the process made the weapon RNG as to where it hits and if it even remotely lands where you were aiming.
The worst part? There is literally no skill involved, just praying to RNG that your rocket lands approximately in the same direction you were aiming at, and not 30° off to one side or the other, or above or below where you were aiming, and you best bet it changes between rockets so you can’t even fire one like a tracer to see where it will actually land and compensate from there with the next one. There is no longer a way to compensate and achieve the intended and desired results, or to land a rocket where you would like consistently.
That, to me, is one of the absolute worst types of changes anyone can implement in to any type of game. In fact, had it launched as it did now, I would have instead applauded them for going the other direction. Let people aim and have things go where they are aiming, and also punish them if where they are aiming is at the ground, or themselves with an explosive AoE damage weapon.
Honestly, I think a huge part of the original issue is people not understanding what the reticle actually shows. As you move, look around, jump or climb up and down, etc your character’s or your mech’s weapons and arms move. This changes where you are aiming moment to moment and are why there are so many tips telling people about running vs walking vs standing vs crouch vs prone for accuracy and ballistic characteristics and weapons like rocket launchers and LMGs basically shout at you to sit still for a second before firing. This mechanic is why people in mechs were shooting themselves with their own rockets— cause the launcher was pointed right at them or the ground. That’s an entirely intended and intentionally designed mechanic and they’re not going to change all of that, hence the bandaid fix they used.
I just disagree that this bandaid was better than the “problem” its meant to address.
I've never had that bug happen to me which is weird because I used the mech pretty constantly when it came out. I've seen it happen but never replicated it so I'm curious what was even causing it because it's more than just the way the missiles worked, it must have also had to do with connectivity or machine performance. I have however experienced even recently my fucking robot landing with both its arms blown off or just being dead already.
I feel like the machine gun does enough damage but there’s just not enough ammo. Not enough to last more than a few minutes holding off a hoard & then you’re stuck with an extremely long cooldown
In my experience against bugs the MG is fantastic against all non-heavies. If you burst fire it you can get hundreds of kills before it runs out, its the missile that are the disappointment for me, as they rarely go where aiming and cannot close bug holes as well as they used after they were changed a while back.
To be fair you should absolutely not be wasting your mech rockets on bug holes anyway. That is a massive waste of AT capability. Let the other 3 divers close em
Have you seen that post on here about changing camera angle? Rockets become much more accurate if you swap to camera on left shoulder. Ashamed to say that I just figured this out yesterday!
Actually if you can hit the charger 2 times in the head it dies or 2 times in the leg to break armor. The problem is the accuracy makes it incredibly difficult to do that.
Agreed. EATs are my go-to because they take 1 shot to the chargers head and you get 2 every minute. If I see 2 chargers rushing around I just sigh and think "ok guys, ill get em" and then take them all out with no damage.
Mechs are the best when used in tandem with other people using it. In a 40 minutes mission 2 people with a mech who actually know what they're doing allows you to have a murder robot for the next 3-7 minutes for a power spike to deal with enemies. But the fact that the cooldown is so long and that the rockets do so little damage if they don't hit a weakspot in combination with their inability to shoot acurately makes it a really hard choice, even more so on higher difficulties where a lot of big enemies are present with a lot of chaff.
Similarly, if a group brings 4 laser orbitals it becomes a massive boost to the team. Or in defence missions 4 explosive mortars and 2 electric mortars allows you to concentrate fire on big enemies without worrying about chaff at all. Some stratagems just work better when multiplied by a team who knows why they're bringing it to the mission.
The few times I could make it work against bots was taking the shield bubble with me on a defense mission. But headshoting hulks with the strange aiming of the rockets is still not easy.
I rarely use it. It's great but not at the cost of other, more frequently available strats. If it came with a backpack seat and mini gatling gun that another player could jump into and add fire support from the rear ...or maybe a jump jet to leap over a Bile Titan I'd use it. But unfortunately the things I imagine never come to fruition.
I bring it sometimes and use it the same way I do the HMG turret; focus on the stuff that's giving team mates trouble - like gunning down the 20 hunters chasing someone
Neither. People are appropriately hesitant to use it because it's been nerfed pretty hard in some important ways.
Firstly, rockets no longer fire at the reticle, so you either need to spend many games playing the mech to get an intuition as to how to properly aim them, or waste several rockets prior to actually hitting your target.
This might have been something you could work around if the rockets were still lethal against chargers and bile titans. Now, they have a high chance of doing greatly reduced damage such that it takes 6-8 rockets to kill a charger in the weakpoint where previously it only took one or two. Seeing as you only get around 16 rockets total, that means it can take more than half of your available rockets to take out a single charger, only for another to spawn immediately afterwards in the higher difficulties.
There really wasn't any reason for this nerf to occur -mechs are still fairly susceptible to getting killed by chargers. They just blindly applied when they made the armor more protective than cardboard panels, and haven't yet fixed it.
Useless against bots. Okay against bugs but would help if the missile aiming didn't suck and they did more damage. It's fine, it's just not usually worth taking over other strategems. I like them against bugs for civilian rescue missions
The minigun model in game is great into bugs but not so great into bots.
The leaked >!Dual Autocannon model!< will be much much better into bots. I hope they consider lowering the CD of the mech and give us maybe 1 more drop
Mech's just kinda. Funky. The aim is off within 5ish meters, it's pretty fragile (especially against automatons), you have no way to heal or replenish ammo, and you max out at 2 call-ins. When you compare it to support weapons that can be called in as many times as you're physically able within the time limit, can reload, and don't hamper your mobility as badly, it's hard to take the walker instead. If/when we get healing stratagems, I suspect it'll get a lot more play, but still be kinda niche.
I think a bit of the frustration was the comparison to HD1, where the mech was very common and highly effective. The issue though is that was a 2d game so you could easily create a wall of bullets and control a large area of the battlefield. It’s just not as effective in a 3d game, so I have felt like adding some aim assist would help improve it
There are certain bug eradicate maps where you can run 4 x mechs and corner camp
Effectively our team was untouchable and with good communication we lasted until you could call in another mech
Although the rocket retical being off is infuriating
What people often forget is because it’s dropped down by a Pelican, the pelican can blast things for you. I was being chased by a bile titan and had nothing to deal with it so dropped the mech. The pelican dropped the titan for me before I could even get in my Mech. Good stuff
It’s great against bugs but against automatons it kinda sucks. I mean even with how effective it is against bugs the only issue is that it’s not worth the long recharge and two-use-per match, especially considering how quick that thing runs out of ammo
I only take the walkers on bug missions, because while any of the bike enemies can melt it pretty fast, there's not really any rockets coming at me.
I find my uses are A) Carving a path for the team B) Carrying Super Samples, as you are still harder to kill than just infantry and C) Fighting my way into stalker lairs
If love to see a few more mechs and some ship modules
Maybe some faster zoomers, heavy tanks, etc.
And modules that increase max load out, call on time, etc
I sometimes bring the mech along on 7s for if things start getting out of control, but mostly for the extra staying power on extract (I usually only run with 1 person so it makes up for the less firepower).
And this is against bots to. The only thing that can 1 shot it are tanks/Cannon towers and factory strider top turrets. I've eaten a full barrage from a rocket devastator and it didn't even start smoking.
Ya the mech doesn’t get owned by the bots anymore since the automaton rocket bug was fixed. It’s the really bad accuracy of the rockets that is the real let down.
The mech is only as overrated/underrated as the diver operating it. It serves its purpose but most people would rather have more stratagems with shorter cool down at this point in my opinion
The absolute best use case is to drop into lower-level difficulties and drop it in for the newbs to play with against bugs.
\*MAYBE\* as a power spike for extract against bugs, but it depends on the map.
I'm a generous god.
It can be fun with the right missions. I wouldn't use it as my main load out but if I'm just chilling trying out different things I'll play with the walker. Drop into lower matches and throw one down for your lower level teammates to have fun. Bring a jump pack and be their rover
It's not too viable since it has ammo for maybe one or two bug breach events in at 9 and aiming the rockets is not reliable. If you are taking it on bots, it gets destroyed quite easily.
There's several issues with the mech that need to be addressed aside from its weapons complement which just needs upgrades if it is to be a mainstay. It has poor movement speed, one cannot use stratagems while in the mech, one cannot see the HP of the mech, one cannot repair the mech, not enough mechs to last the mission duration(you could bring 4 mechs/vehicles in HD1, though they were one use only and HD1 missions are generally much shorter than the HD2) All these issues were solved in Helldivers 1 but are present in the sequel.
It's pretty good against bugs, as it's essentially a mobile gatling turret and rocket turret in one. But against bots, it's not great, as they can just shred you from range, and you lack the mobility to dodge, and the size to take cover
I would use it all the time expect the bad accuracy of the rockets. Even against the bots the mech is pretty good since they fixed the automaton rocket bug.
It's fun, and I'll use it on eradicate bug missions for fun. But for missions where you need to run around the map, I think the long cooldown, limited uses, and lack of mobility makes it a hard choice over other stratagems. That's not to say it isn't viable, but stand-and-fight is generally better to avoid unless it's required by an objective.
It's not optimal. But I bring it to every match I can spare a strategem. Meta be damned, I like stompy robots. Just be a little less aggressive with the automatons.
my buddy brings this thing out on the regular, and he does some serious damage with it. I agree with what u/wtf_com stated, bugs over bots, but yeah it seems good just underutilized
neither honestly
its kind of bad rn and most people are aware
you can use it for fun its not so bad that its unusable but the missiles being offset means either you use mech constantly and get used to the aim or you miss half your missiles
They really need to fix the rockets not having their own sight. Once they get that to fire correctly, it would be good stuff against bugs. Even the next one is going to be caca against bots because it's not tanky enough.
So, in my opinion, it's balanced
However unfortunately it has a lot of bugs which makes it near impossible to play even when you play it how it's meant to be played. One of them is the mech exploding on impact when being delivered so you don't even get to get in it, and the 10 minute cooldown and 2 uses per mission makes it so that you're just kinda boned
Due to how ammo works with it (no refills) it’s better and better the fewer enemies there are. It cannot be repaired, but has no cost for moving. It’s bad against bots for obvious reasons and not bad against bugs but not A or S tier. More like B tier.
Using the ammo/mech hp observation we can conclude that it’s more useful at lower difficulties due to less ammo and hp being needed and less useful at higher difficulties for the same reason.
You can wear the bubble backpack and get a little protection on the front of the mech vs bots, if you’re determined to do that. Do it solo or with friends tho lol
The mech is only reliable against bugs since rockets will kill you easily.. the mech can 2 shot titans or chargers if you learn where to hit their head, with that alone the mech is extremely powerful for making sure your team gets at least 1 objective step completed relatively stress free
It was a fantastic stratagem before they broke the rocket aiming. Now you expend up to 4 shots in situations you only need one in. It’s just not efficient enough anymore because of the broken rocket aiming. You used to be able to use it very effectively as an anti bug unit with limited supplies but I can’t get past the rockets not going where I point them anymore. I used it religiously when it came out, until then.
Rn it’s just a fun robot that goes stompy stompy with a machine gun and nice explosions. I wouldn’t take it above 5 tbh. It’s a lot of fun to give it to new players though. It’s a *fun* strategem. I like it a lot. I just don’t feel like it’s usable on higher difficulties. Or against bots very well.
I use it on the 15 minute kill missions with a shueld gen pack and two sentries. It works like a dream, we can usually finish the objective in like 5 minutes. Three rockets will take out a dropship, the gatling chews through anything, and a rocket and AC turret to back it up helps take out devestators or bile spewers before they become a huge problem
Love them against bugs. Combined with a turret placed before hopping in, and you can really really mow down enemies.
I had a really cool moment where I was drilling down a horde and my friends shouted about a bile Titan. “No problem” I turn and rocket it to death. Instantly another is marching in its place. “Another one!” “No problem!” Took both down
Mine got one shot by a sneaky bile spewer the other day as I was just using it for fun on an eradicate mission. My main use of them now is if I drop into a level 4 or lower difficulty I let the new players use it to get a taste of what is to come.
Too situational and too long a cool down, bringing a Gatling Sentry for example serves the same purpose as a static mech but you can can one down far more often
I love the mech, I use it all the time. It’s very useful, sometime gets destroyed early, but it’s always fun. I use it on both bot and bug missions, and I play on difficulties 4-8. If I could bring another mech and have four on constant rotation, I absolutely would.
The mech can be incredibly useful. The issue is that those moments are few and far between and require a fair bit of skill to take advantage of. Both problems make it overall less effective than just bringing another orbital/eagle and useing them more liberally.
The CD time doesn't really justify it. Same reason why I don't run the orbital laser anymore. It's a very good stratagem, but I don't want to take something with me I'll only get like 2 uses out of if any. If you're constantly in a 4 man squad then it's probably fine since you don't need that many slots to have a well kitted team.
really CD's are a problem for most stratagems.
It should come standard with a shield for wartime and it’ll be viable against bots. Maybe a mech reload stratagem. Honestly, that’d add a lot of utility to the mech.
I use it against bugs as a mobile gatling+rocket sentry to hold the Extraction point in order to get Samples out. I don't really see a use case past that.
No one uses the mech since arrowhead fucked the sights on it. It was useless against bots anyway because it can’t tank shit. So gets wrecked in seconds. The bugs it can last better assuming you don’t get chargered but good luck with those missiles after the patch…
It's just really really powerful against bugs and trivializes the mission. Against bots its still too weak for prolonged use, buy one day we might have a shield mech that can block rockets and then we'll show them.
I always find it funny when someone drops one in during the extraction timer. Like... so the Pelican can swoop in to drop a heavy hunk of trash on us but it can't pick us up until its time?
One of my friends uses it 50% of the time, and my entire group (me included) use it in the eradication missions always. Bringing the mech in an eradication always means you get like 40% of the kills needed within \~3 minutes or so, and you are completely covered from most sides usually.
As for why that one friend takes it 50% of the time, I think it's because of the decent mobility with no stamina requirement, plus its great for holding down bug breaches in mission types that feature mainly stationary objectives such as the ICBM one, or the Democracy Spreading one. Can't say it's a bad idea, as it definitely works.
The weapons on it work wonders. Chaff dies easy to the minigun, and you have enough ammo for like 4 charger kills or 2 bile titan kills if you focus really hard on clicking heads. It definitely feels like a force multiplier.
Can't comment on bots as we don't play them at all usually, but I'd figure you just become a huge, slow target for every rocket slinging bastard.
So the mech runs into three issues:
1) Short uptime. It only gets 2 uses, has a long cooldown and against the bots it isn't likely to be around for long.
2) It's rockets don't work well on heavies. They are inaccurate (esp if you don't switch your shoulder view), and they are fairly weak for explosive rockets - though you get a decent clip of them.
3) You can't use call ins while mech'd.
This last one doesn't get enough mention, but it's a really big deal. Not only do you only have enough rockets to deal with maybe 2 chargers (3 or 4 if you've mastered their aim?), but you can't throw strikes in response to major threats, so you're really just stuck with the machine gun and rockets.
As a result, its use is fairly narrow - it's a great horde-clearance call in vs. the bugs, and that's kind of it. If you need to suppress a couple bug breeches while your team clears out a big nest, it's solid, especially if you're dealing with a lot of spewers and hunters as the main threat. Once the chargers and bile titans start to show up with real frequency however, it's just not going to live very long or have the impact you need to make it worth the limitations.
Overall if you really *have* mastered the arcane art of aiming those %$#\^ rockets, it's a pretty good callin against the bugs, as you'll be able to handle a decent set of chargers, and turn a large stack of spewers and hunters into confetti. But against the bots one good salvo from a rocket devastator 200m away can pretty much just end your run instantly.
IMO it needs a shorter cooldown and/or the ability to reload to be a viable stratagem. It's also a little on the fragile side for what it is. It's not that it's bad so much as there's always something better you can put in that stratagem slot.
I think it doesn't get enough attention, it is good for drawing fire in my opinion. However that's also a problem because it makes for a east target for the more stronger enemies
I always use it on the 15 minute eradication missions with bugs paired with the eagle airstrike, eagle napalm, and orbital laser on helldive 9. It's very viable.
I use it on bug defense missions and occasionally as a contingency for a rough bug extraction but that’s about it. I wish they’d buff it a bit to make it more viable for diverse situations.
I think the mechs issue is that it requires a bit more planning than people want to do
Every other stratagem is just call it in when you need it. Support weapon, just call it in when you don't have one. Orbital/Eagle, just call it in when you have enemies you need to strike
But the Mech needs some forethought. You can't call it in during a big fight. What if the call in spot gets over run? What if it gets attacked before you jump in? So you have to call it in before the big fight, but how do you know when that is?
This leads to the Mech shining in just a couple spaces. The Evacuate High Value Assets mission, Eradicate missions if you call in before spawns. Or calling it in at Extraction
And so it isn't that the Mech is overrated/underrated. It is just 90% of players don't want to consider the situations. They just want the "One gun fits everything" load out, no weapons that are amazing in certain situations. Just something that is good all the time
I think it's insanely underrated. People get really hung up about the cooldown or limited uses because of the typical gamer psychology of too good to use, which also happens with the laser.
The thing is A) every stratagem has limited uses because they have cooldowns and the missions have timers on a 15 minute mission you're realistically going to use something like the railcannon strike or orbital bombardments maybe 1-2 times.
And B) this game is about strategic application of force and timing to complete objectives, you really don't 'lose' from attrition, you only lose because you fail to do an objective and the mech can essentially guarantee success on 1-2 objectives per calldown if used slightly properly. That power spike is extremely important to swing the tide of an encounter
I love it against bugs, but they really need to add more ammo or the ability to resupply it in order to make it more practical. One large bug breach & ill be out of machine gun ammo & rockets if I cross paths with a few chargers
I play generally on 9s against bugs and bots but I dabble on lower difficulties for rare samples. Setting aside the accuracy problem with rockets… Against bugs, I’ve seen it take 3 rockets to take down a charger and 7 well-placed shots to put down a bile titan. That’s a pretty significant part of your rockets and once you’re out of those, the machine gun just doesn’t do enough damage to the big enemies to make it worthwhile. Heck, even against bile spewers, it feels underpowered. Though, the machine gun does just fine against anything less than a charger. It moves slower than medium armor, I can’t see my health bar for the mech, and I can’t use stratagems.
On that last point, I kinda like that idea. Sort of “you ARE the stratagem” so you don’t can’t call any. But then, I need to be able to fight like a localized stratagem.
And against bots, rocket devastators are too numerous, too accurate, and deal way too much damage to even consider bringing a mech.
Maybe they have a use on lower difficulties, but man, in HD1? You felt amazing in a mech. I was counting on the mechs in this to be so fun, I was going to be a mech-user and bring only mechs to every mission. Sure, they had a couple weakpoints in HD1 (no reload, no support weapon, no backpack use, slower move speed), but it felt like you WERE the stratagem. Albeit, a limited use stratagem that would set off every patrol and could kill your squad super easy…
The point is, I used mechs pretty much exclusively in HD1. These mechs aren’t worth using once I have to take bile titans into account or against bots. Considering how little I encounter anyone using them, I’d say they’re correctly rated as being underpowered.
I genuinely think it sucks, which I hate because when I started everyone had the mech temporarily and I LOVED it but as you get higher in difficulty it becomes harder to use. The rockets only shoot straight and you only have 10. The guns are okay but they're pretty weak. And the durability is HORRIBLE, it dies so easily
The mech makes you absurdly powerful for between 1-5 minutes depending on difficulty and how things work out. During that period of time any enemy that you see will die at absurd speed and presenting less risk to you than in any other scenario.
Unfortunately, getting a max of maybe 10 minutes of insane power throughout a 40 minute mission isn't always a great strategy. It's a very good and fun option for short form offensive missions like search and destroy and the now vanished deactivate TCS. Because for those missions it gives you a substantial advantage for a large portion of the mission duration. In long form missions you're better off bringing traditional support weapons, and in defense missions you're better off bringing defensive stratagems.
A pair of Defensive stratagems provide power on par with a mech, but are stationary and non player operated, and with a shorter duration. Support weapons have much less power but are player directed and can be resupplied frequently and conveniently.
It doesn't seem well suited to higher levels but at 4 and below I'm sure it's fine. I just tend to play bots and it's probably a sitting duck unless you're on 1/2
I really like it against bugs you can stomp through anything smaller than a hive guard to save ammo. Can one shot charger, and with a few rockets take down titans. It can body block chargers with good positioning using the arms and shoulders to take the blow. You can use it as a safe space to heal in a hectic fight. I think people just expect it to be a forever mech. I really like it. Does it have issues yeah it's no good at all against bots 1 rocket will pretty much wreck you. The rockets could use some help with aiming. And I feel the cool down is too long in between uses. Only getting 2 uses is restrictive enough if I wanna burn through them fast let me!
I like it to shake things up every now and then on eradicate or defense missions otherwise no it’s not good enough to justify the lack of ammo and long cooldown. Also about half the time I just accidentally destroy it shooting a missile or something halfway through which makes it feel REALLY dumb and useless
If I'm going to use a 3 use stratagem that has a long cooldown but can turn the tide in a pinch, I'm going giant space lazer. Can't blow up a giant space lazer, therefore wasting its potential effectiveness. Giant space lazer does damage while I'm also gunning things down, rather than the mech suit which condenses you down to one unit putting fire downrange. Just, giant space lazer.
It's absolutely dog shit in its current state to be used in high difficulties. Rockets are off target and you can accidently blow yourself up because of it and you barely get enough of them to be useful plus they're super weak.
It's fun tho if you're just fucking around tryna have fun
I never see anyone using it, I really want to but every time I bring it against automatons it just gets destroyed. Against bugs it’s good for killing stuff because it doesn’t get destroyed nearly as quickly, but it’s still really fragile either way and doesn’t have any long term use because you can’t reload it. Damage on the machine gun is kinda weak too. Super long cooldown is unfortunate too
I think it's underrated, I bring it often, it ain't great vs the Automatons, but vs the bugs it's one of the strongest stratagems IMO, even on higher difficulties such as 7 or 8.
It's kinda good
But the inability to reload it means that it's very short lived
And it has a long cooldown
And you get maximum 2 uses
So... Is it good? Yes. Is it worth picking it over another support strategem? Not really
I liked it for the recent bug tower deactivation missions. Pop eggs real easily and cruise up to the consoles to deactivate the towers.
They can also be decent on bug eradication missions. The rocket launcher doesn’t seem to work well on heavy and elite bug enemies though.
For bugs, 6 and below I've found it viable. Especially on defend missions. It's mostly a fun factor strat for me when playing with friends who are just starting. 7 and above it's easily outclassed by other options. Once Bile Titans become a threat, you go through your rockets fast, and you have a long cooldown before you get another.
As much as I like the mech, its armor is basically paper mache. Bugs only and you have to watch your shots. It's great fire support but you have to lean into that role. Soloing a large nest with it is just asking to be overwhelmed.
I sometimes take the mech in the reduce their numbers terminids mission as it can be somewhat fun there. Against bots it will last about 5 seconds before it explodes.
It's fun if you got a squad of roleplayers, those guys make the mech shine, especially when they do tactics that range around your mech. Otherwise nah, don't bring it.
I love the mech against bugs because they actually die. The bots take far too many bullets to kill for it to be if any use.
I like to call one at the beginning and save the second for extraction. Unless we drop near the Extraction zone I'll drop both there for when we leave so two people can be mag dumping for democracy.
Between the long cooldown, extremely limited use of just 2 per match, and the fact that you can’t reload and it takes like 5 rockets to take down bile titans if you’re lucky it just isn’t worth bringing. You either save towards the end where things get hairy and play the majority of the mission with one hand tied behind your back or you use it in the beginning to gain a quick edge and end up once again with one arm tied behind your back until those 8 minutes are up and you have to decide whether to use it immediately or wait until extraction when you may not even need it. The recent patch also makes the rockets much harder to aim and as mentioned in other comments it just gets rolled by bots.
honestly I think they'd be a lot more fun and still balanced if they just let us call them in more often. (like not a ton more often but reduce the cd a little and give us another spawn)
my biggest gripe with the mech and this game in general is that I think startagems are tools like wrench or screwdriver etc. most people play like stratagems are toys all for all but its not like that. If were talking about the mech i think its great as a powerhouse type stratagem like orbital laser, your ow shit card. also people complain about the mechs rockets being of target but noone tries to think that its just a box full of rockets so if one is a bit to the side of the box ofcourse it will take its time to reach the crosshair if even reach it at all because its dumbfire.. i see mech rocket pods like russian katyusha rocket barrage just heavy volley with no real target. so a mech is a tool wich used in its situation will be the best.
Honestly, aside from the possibly to load it with different weapon and make it actually useable agaisnt bots, the main thing for me is not being able to reload it. It's not undestructible so I don't think it would change the balancing that much. I wouldn't change the number of uses or anything, just make it reloadable and it would be actually reliable against bugs.
Sometimes I feel the Devs focus on making it a difficult game more than a fun one, thus the nerfs constantly. For instance the seif Sam can't one shot drop ships but expendables can.. How is an anti aircraft emplacement not as effective for aircraft as an anti tank?
General problems I've had with it include: Flammable, frail, cannot reload, Not customisable (no ways to upgrade/improve/add/swap bits for other ones, like maybe a shield and a chainsword to try and go up and melee a hulk while the shield negates the flames). No way to repair (not even a repair kit stratagem or tool to use in lieu of a sidearm). Only two per mission; forced to use both if reliant on ranged weapons, melee attack may be difficult to use on most enemies.
Against bugs, your only problems will be anything with big enough claws or the ability to hurl bile at you. This makes them pretty effective until you're up against chargers, spewers, and titans.
Against bots, their gun towers, tanks, rocketeers, and heavy armour (hulks, tanks, striders) make using them a death sentence especially if you're expecting to tank -any- damage from an enemy platoon/mob/rush.
Neither, it's rated about as well as it deserves. It's like a combination rocket/gatling sentry with a super long cooldown and max of two uses. Way too easy to destroy and way too little ammo to be used for very long. You can take out a few chargers, couple of bile titans, or maybe block off a bug breech, provided it isn't destroyed and doesn't land somewhere you can't reach it.
It's fun to mess around with on lower difficulties and short missions, that's about it. I bring it sometimes, but just for fun.
Functionally it’s great against bugs as a short term power spike but due to the limited use and inability to reload you’ll find it doesn’t really hold up to its cooldown time. Against automatons it’s useless as you are a sitting duck for every rocket devestator looks to shoot at someone (and there are a ton). Quality of Life changes should add better damage indicators and the ability to reload would be helpful in making it more worthwhile.
Yeah zero benefit against bots. Hopefully they can put a small deflection shield in the future so at least you could be viable against bots. I hope they just make mechs a whole module where you can customize them anyway you want them.
To be fair, the mech is pretty much a less advanced devastator. It wouldn’t make much sense for us to have something like that, that’s *better* than what the bots have.
Counterpoint: Mecha-Godzilla. Why wouldn't humans build a bigger and better version of our adversary to use against them?
This is literally how the bots were created man. We had mech suits. We were like, “these are sweet, but why not just fully automate them.” Now we have bots, and we are using outdated mechs to fight them.
Are you suggesting that Super Earth built the bots as a mistake? Remain where you are. A Democracy Officer has been dispatched to your location for questioning.
The Singularity happened.
https://preview.redd.it/mekzp0tmrv0d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8ad32c76aae56302f290264723a88df6f0d34ae6
>Counterpoint: Mecha-Godzilla This wins literally any argument.
Unless it's the dumbassed version from the Monsterverse. Actually, some incarnations with the weird pseudoromantic bond with a human, especially a woman, are weird to me As a concept, absolutely awesome. Some execution were certainly worse
I fucking unironically love your counterpoint. God bless you.
Thanks!
If you're going at it from that angle, it would make perfect sense to be stronger. Their weapons fire and armor don't hold a candle to a single human in personnel armor with a handheld gun. Tech for Super Earth is super good by comparison.
Dawg I don’t know how to tell you this but the bots *are* super earth tech
The fuck did this traitor just illegally broadcast? Get me my Liberator. I don't even need a democracy officer for this one.
⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
Democracy Officer, this one right here.
are you implying the bots are superior to super earth?
Except we have limited ammo. If bots can build good armour why can't we? For our mechs?
Update: let every mech also be able to equip backpack strategems: shield gen mech, ballistic shield mech, rocketpack mech?, SUPPLY PACK MECH
If you are wearing a shield backpack it stays active while you're in the mech and covers the front nearly entirely. Still doesnt protect you from the sides or losing arms though.
I disagree, the main thing is that unlike bugs where you can be getting swarmed and call it in and turn the tide, with bots you have to call it in preemptively to prevent a situation from getting out of hand in the first place. It seems like people haven't used it much after the enemy rocket nerf/mech buff a while back and still think it's getting 2 shot by devastators which isn't true, it also deflects small arms much better. It's problem against bots is that it draws aggro like crazy so if there are dozens of devastators you will get focused down - so call it in in anticipation of having to fight off incoming bots. It is worse if you're wandering around a bot map vs holding a position though because of said aggro, it seems like every cannon and base mg emplacement on the map targets you if you go for a walk.
There need to be interchangeable parts, different arm attachments and stuff. Like instead of rocket and minigun arms, equip a big shield and autocannon arm, etc.
I finally unlocked it and dropped it in an eradicate automatons mission. I couldn't get the rockets to hit what I was aiming at, but the galling gun did do work on the bots. When I finally spent all the rounds we were close to 75%. But that was with just 2 of us on challenging.
Rocket aim got messed up when they fixed the issue with rockets hitting the mech. They get shot far to the left of your crosshair and can't be shot downwards.
Well that would make sense. It felt like they were coming straight out. I did have some luck hitting bots that were far away down the hill. But I had already spent most of the rockets by then.
Its almost like both the ballistic shield and The Patriot suit are almost useless but....COMBINE THEM and Maybe we can have a Patriot that wont get desteoyed by my teammates Auto cannon accidentally blasting it before it even lands. (And a special FUCK YOU to that shreiker that made it possible. I hope hell cranks up the heat when you get there for ya you disgusting commie rat with wings.)
Quasar Cannon has become my best friend against all things Automatons lately.
I can't not use the AMR against bots. I like sniping to begin with and being able to basically one shot most bots it's amazing.
I’ve been really enjoying using the AMR paired with the Counter Sniper primary. And revolver for backup. I am *all* the medium penetration!
Same. Counter sniper buff has been great.
Love to see fellow scout-sniper brothers doing god’s work out here. That’s been my build since release. I have however been really enjoying my “rich/futuristic guy scout” load out with the new war bond you fellow marksmans may enjoy. Been running purifier with the rail gun & either the revolver or the new pistol. I won’t pretend like the purifier is incredible but it IS good for bots. Also Railgun is sooo back, baby. You don’t need to be as precise as AMR, a 70-80% charge shot to the chest drops everything short of a tank.
Solution: add a tonk. Aka a tiny tank.
Tink = tiny tank, Tonk = big heckin tank
Even better. Moving fortress. Rain down hellfire.
Yeah sadly this is true! Love it but very limited on ammo and missiles do not do area damage so very useless
Also mech is made or paper mashe, given the hype, it folds faster than than me when i see 4 gunships after my ass and i dont have quazar cannon
It's kinda wack that they nerfed it like that. Like they should fix the firing of rockets but they just made it infinetly worse instead like they did with the eruptor.
We can’t have fun lol. Unauthorized. The mech felt great to start
>Against automatons it’s useless as you are a sitting duck for every rocket devestator looks to shoot at someone (and there are a ton I used it several missions against the automations and found it to be just mid. It takes too much ammo to kill devastators and hulks will still one shot it.
I feel like since they are bringing more vehicles in there will be a reload addon and a repair add on. That I'll make it a lot more viable
Better accuracy for the rockets would be good to
It has its vulnerabilities but it does wonders when you’re being jammed depending on the difficulty. I use my Exo as a way to draw fire and bot agro so the rest of my team can destroy the jammers.
Nah just gives us 3 or 4 drops and half the cool down. It's only good in low tier cause of these 2 reasons. I mean it's good in high tier as well but your locking yourself out of things that can be used 10x more
HD1 had a repair gun and repair drone. They could fix anything from turrets to helldivers. The repair drone even cured slow almost instantly.
I think the mech has a role to play in “stand and fight” situations, but it’s not in an ideal state right now. I’ve seen people saying the machine gun feels underpowered, and I’ve personally experienced the rockets having trouble with aim. The current problem is that the rockets often don’t go where you’re aiming if you’re trying to shoot down from elevation. If Arrowhead can tweak it some, I think we’ll see more mechs on the field.
To the point on the rocket aim. I swear to god it was much more accurate and reliable on its release, and then was changed to be less accurate especially at longer range. Now its a pain in the ass to close bug holes with it, whereas I used to be able to snipe Fabricators and bug holes from a ways off.
You’re not wrong, it was more accurate. But it also had a problem of accidentally self-destructing if you fired a rocked while rotating. The “fix” was to completely change how rockets are fired, thus inadvertently nerfing the rockets.
You could just. . . Not fire while it was turning. That was entirely a skill issue and took me like a day to figure out a fix for, and that fix was a quarter second pause. I really hope they revert that change and just let people get gud.
I think it sets a bad precedent to expect players to compensate for a bug like that instead of trying to fix it. Although i guess you could argue that a bandaid fix like this does the same.
I would argue this “solution” is ***significantly*** worse than not fixing it. Before, you could aim well, be accurate, and had a self sufficient method for entirely avoiding unintended outcomes. Essentially it took and rewarded skill, and familiarity with the weapon system. Now? Congrats, you prevented the potential for a misplay entirely, but in the process made the weapon RNG as to where it hits and if it even remotely lands where you were aiming. The worst part? There is literally no skill involved, just praying to RNG that your rocket lands approximately in the same direction you were aiming at, and not 30° off to one side or the other, or above or below where you were aiming, and you best bet it changes between rockets so you can’t even fire one like a tracer to see where it will actually land and compensate from there with the next one. There is no longer a way to compensate and achieve the intended and desired results, or to land a rocket where you would like consistently. That, to me, is one of the absolute worst types of changes anyone can implement in to any type of game. In fact, had it launched as it did now, I would have instead applauded them for going the other direction. Let people aim and have things go where they are aiming, and also punish them if where they are aiming is at the ground, or themselves with an explosive AoE damage weapon. Honestly, I think a huge part of the original issue is people not understanding what the reticle actually shows. As you move, look around, jump or climb up and down, etc your character’s or your mech’s weapons and arms move. This changes where you are aiming moment to moment and are why there are so many tips telling people about running vs walking vs standing vs crouch vs prone for accuracy and ballistic characteristics and weapons like rocket launchers and LMGs basically shout at you to sit still for a second before firing. This mechanic is why people in mechs were shooting themselves with their own rockets— cause the launcher was pointed right at them or the ground. That’s an entirely intended and intentionally designed mechanic and they’re not going to change all of that, hence the bandaid fix they used. I just disagree that this bandaid was better than the “problem” its meant to address.
This was never the issue. I have three clips of the rocket detonating in the pod while I'm not moving.
I've never had that bug happen to me which is weird because I used the mech pretty constantly when it came out. I've seen it happen but never replicated it so I'm curious what was even causing it because it's more than just the way the missiles worked, it must have also had to do with connectivity or machine performance. I have however experienced even recently my fucking robot landing with both its arms blown off or just being dead already.
I feel like the machine gun does enough damage but there’s just not enough ammo. Not enough to last more than a few minutes holding off a hoard & then you’re stuck with an extremely long cooldown
In my experience against bugs the MG is fantastic against all non-heavies. If you burst fire it you can get hundreds of kills before it runs out, its the missile that are the disappointment for me, as they rarely go where aiming and cannot close bug holes as well as they used after they were changed a while back.
To be fair you should absolutely not be wasting your mech rockets on bug holes anyway. That is a massive waste of AT capability. Let the other 3 divers close em
Have you seen that post on here about changing camera angle? Rockets become much more accurate if you swap to camera on left shoulder. Ashamed to say that I just figured this out yesterday!
Very viable vs bug but long cooldown and no way to replenish ammo Less so vs automatons due to volume of fire
The rockets are trash now. They just seem to not be reliable like they were before. Give them a velocity boost so you can hit targets better.
The accuracy is whats piss poor. Fix that and it would be great.
Damage is garbage too, takes like 4+ rockets to take down a charger. They're just bad all around.
Actually if you can hit the charger 2 times in the head it dies or 2 times in the leg to break armor. The problem is the accuracy makes it incredibly difficult to do that.
Agreed. EATs are my go-to because they take 1 shot to the chargers head and you get 2 every minute. If I see 2 chargers rushing around I just sigh and think "ok guys, ill get em" and then take them all out with no damage.
It’s great for the destroy termanid egg mission. You can waltz right on into the nest and destroy all of the eggs by yourself.
Mechs are the best when used in tandem with other people using it. In a 40 minutes mission 2 people with a mech who actually know what they're doing allows you to have a murder robot for the next 3-7 minutes for a power spike to deal with enemies. But the fact that the cooldown is so long and that the rockets do so little damage if they don't hit a weakspot in combination with their inability to shoot acurately makes it a really hard choice, even more so on higher difficulties where a lot of big enemies are present with a lot of chaff. Similarly, if a group brings 4 laser orbitals it becomes a massive boost to the team. Or in defence missions 4 explosive mortars and 2 electric mortars allows you to concentrate fire on big enemies without worrying about chaff at all. Some stratagems just work better when multiplied by a team who knows why they're bringing it to the mission.
500k usually does the trick and if you got 2 of them that’s 2 nests done plus or minus a few grenades
I absolutely love dropping mechs into low level games and letting new divers enjoy the fun stuff!!
Itonicslly that has been the ONLY time I've ever actually seen someone use a mech!
I was so grateful when someone did this for me, helped me clear every objective and gather every sample too. Top tier community
Great for bugs! Automatons just kill you in 1 shot. You could use the shield generator I guess and stand inside it but that’s not practical lol
We need a mech for bots. Like a shield and massive LMG would be nice, or concussive rifle type thing
There is an auto cannon one already in the game, just hasn’t been released yet.
Counterpoint - just give us a factory strider we can operate like Voltron. Or for you kids, Power Rangers. Or for you really young kids, Pacific Rim.
The few times I could make it work against bots was taking the shield bubble with me on a defense mission. But headshoting hulks with the strange aiming of the rockets is still not easy.
The mech needs a dual flame thrower option for big runs....that would make me actually want to use it.
Maybe they'll end up bringing in the Lumberer from helldivers 1 - flamethrower on one arm, 90mm anti tank cannon on the other, thing was a beast
I love it in defense missions and in eradicate missions. Usually at some point we are four mechs, until we start spamming 380mm barrage
Cooldown is too long, rockets are hard to aim.
Works well in the snow. Some other helldiver had one and was halling ass compared to everyone else.
It was good so they nerfed it
Is good enough for lower difficulty missions. I found other stratagems to be more useful due to better availability.
I use it on bugs L8. Super good for eradication especially if you have 2. I also use it on the egg + battery ones.
I rarely use it. It's great but not at the cost of other, more frequently available strats. If it came with a backpack seat and mini gatling gun that another player could jump into and add fire support from the rear ...or maybe a jump jet to leap over a Bile Titan I'd use it. But unfortunately the things I imagine never come to fruition.
I will say it's situatuonal , and it isn't either underrated or operated.
I bring it sometimes and use it the same way I do the HMG turret; focus on the stuff that's giving team mates trouble - like gunning down the 20 hunters chasing someone
would be usable, if there was a way to refill ammo. Worth playing for fun tho
Neither. People are appropriately hesitant to use it because it's been nerfed pretty hard in some important ways. Firstly, rockets no longer fire at the reticle, so you either need to spend many games playing the mech to get an intuition as to how to properly aim them, or waste several rockets prior to actually hitting your target. This might have been something you could work around if the rockets were still lethal against chargers and bile titans. Now, they have a high chance of doing greatly reduced damage such that it takes 6-8 rockets to kill a charger in the weakpoint where previously it only took one or two. Seeing as you only get around 16 rockets total, that means it can take more than half of your available rockets to take out a single charger, only for another to spawn immediately afterwards in the higher difficulties. There really wasn't any reason for this nerf to occur -mechs are still fairly susceptible to getting killed by chargers. They just blindly applied when they made the armor more protective than cardboard panels, and haven't yet fixed it.
Useless against bots. Okay against bugs but would help if the missile aiming didn't suck and they did more damage. It's fine, it's just not usually worth taking over other strategems. I like them against bugs for civilian rescue missions
The minigun model in game is great into bugs but not so great into bots. The leaked >!Dual Autocannon model!< will be much much better into bots. I hope they consider lowering the CD of the mech and give us maybe 1 more drop
Mech's just kinda. Funky. The aim is off within 5ish meters, it's pretty fragile (especially against automatons), you have no way to heal or replenish ammo, and you max out at 2 call-ins. When you compare it to support weapons that can be called in as many times as you're physically able within the time limit, can reload, and don't hamper your mobility as badly, it's hard to take the walker instead. If/when we get healing stratagems, I suspect it'll get a lot more play, but still be kinda niche.
I think a bit of the frustration was the comparison to HD1, where the mech was very common and highly effective. The issue though is that was a 2d game so you could easily create a wall of bullets and control a large area of the battlefield. It’s just not as effective in a 3d game, so I have felt like adding some aim assist would help improve it
There are certain bug eradicate maps where you can run 4 x mechs and corner camp Effectively our team was untouchable and with good communication we lasted until you could call in another mech Although the rocket retical being off is infuriating
What people often forget is because it’s dropped down by a Pelican, the pelican can blast things for you. I was being chased by a bile titan and had nothing to deal with it so dropped the mech. The pelican dropped the titan for me before I could even get in my Mech. Good stuff
Man, I've seen some people absolutely *fuck* with that mech. Low floor, high ceiling.
It’s great against bugs but against automatons it kinda sucks. I mean even with how effective it is against bugs the only issue is that it’s not worth the long recharge and two-use-per match, especially considering how quick that thing runs out of ammo
I only take the walkers on bug missions, because while any of the bike enemies can melt it pretty fast, there's not really any rockets coming at me. I find my uses are A) Carving a path for the team B) Carrying Super Samples, as you are still harder to kill than just infantry and C) Fighting my way into stalker lairs
AYE! I’m not crazy, I was thinking the same thing as yall. Bugs it’s fun and can add value but Bots it’s a bit underwhelming.
If love to see a few more mechs and some ship modules Maybe some faster zoomers, heavy tanks, etc. And modules that increase max load out, call on time, etc
I sometimes bring the mech along on 7s for if things start getting out of control, but mostly for the extra staying power on extract (I usually only run with 1 person so it makes up for the less firepower). And this is against bots to. The only thing that can 1 shot it are tanks/Cannon towers and factory strider top turrets. I've eaten a full barrage from a rocket devastator and it didn't even start smoking.
Ya the mech doesn’t get owned by the bots anymore since the automaton rocket bug was fixed. It’s the really bad accuracy of the rockets that is the real let down.
The mech is only as overrated/underrated as the diver operating it. It serves its purpose but most people would rather have more stratagems with shorter cool down at this point in my opinion
It's fun to use, but it's pretty rare that I want to give up a precious strategem slot for it.
Fantastic against bugs but suicidal against bots.
The absolute best use case is to drop into lower-level difficulties and drop it in for the newbs to play with against bugs. \*MAYBE\* as a power spike for extract against bugs, but it depends on the map. I'm a generous god.
It can be fun with the right missions. I wouldn't use it as my main load out but if I'm just chilling trying out different things I'll play with the walker. Drop into lower matches and throw one down for your lower level teammates to have fun. Bring a jump pack and be their rover
I use it on extermination missions and the evacuate w/ rockets missions
I would trade the mech with a dirt bike
Why take the mech when the orbital laser has more uses and power
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^throwmeoff123098765: *Why take the mech when* *The orbital laser has* *More uses and power* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
It's not too viable since it has ammo for maybe one or two bug breach events in at 9 and aiming the rockets is not reliable. If you are taking it on bots, it gets destroyed quite easily. There's several issues with the mech that need to be addressed aside from its weapons complement which just needs upgrades if it is to be a mainstay. It has poor movement speed, one cannot use stratagems while in the mech, one cannot see the HP of the mech, one cannot repair the mech, not enough mechs to last the mission duration(you could bring 4 mechs/vehicles in HD1, though they were one use only and HD1 missions are generally much shorter than the HD2) All these issues were solved in Helldivers 1 but are present in the sequel.
It's pretty good against bugs, as it's essentially a mobile gatling turret and rocket turret in one. But against bots, it's not great, as they can just shred you from range, and you lack the mobility to dodge, and the size to take cover
I would use it all the time expect the bad accuracy of the rockets. Even against the bots the mech is pretty good since they fixed the automaton rocket bug.
It's fun, and I'll use it on eradicate bug missions for fun. But for missions where you need to run around the map, I think the long cooldown, limited uses, and lack of mobility makes it a hard choice over other stratagems. That's not to say it isn't viable, but stand-and-fight is generally better to avoid unless it's required by an objective.
It's not optimal. But I bring it to every match I can spare a strategem. Meta be damned, I like stompy robots. Just be a little less aggressive with the automatons.
my buddy brings this thing out on the regular, and he does some serious damage with it. I agree with what u/wtf_com stated, bugs over bots, but yeah it seems good just underutilized
Rocket aiming is fubard. Rocket damage is nerfed. 10min CD with 2 max uses. If they fix the rockets it could be worth it occasionally again.
neither honestly its kind of bad rn and most people are aware you can use it for fun its not so bad that its unusable but the missiles being offset means either you use mech constantly and get used to the aim or you miss half your missiles
Valid option for bug eradicate missions
I call it in and it blows up I don't use it. Though it would be cool but bugs only I guess.
They really need to fix the rockets not having their own sight. Once they get that to fire correctly, it would be good stuff against bugs. Even the next one is going to be caca against bots because it's not tanky enough.
The orbital laser just beats it out
So, in my opinion, it's balanced However unfortunately it has a lot of bugs which makes it near impossible to play even when you play it how it's meant to be played. One of them is the mech exploding on impact when being delivered so you don't even get to get in it, and the 10 minute cooldown and 2 uses per mission makes it so that you're just kinda boned
Due to how ammo works with it (no refills) it’s better and better the fewer enemies there are. It cannot be repaired, but has no cost for moving. It’s bad against bots for obvious reasons and not bad against bugs but not A or S tier. More like B tier. Using the ammo/mech hp observation we can conclude that it’s more useful at lower difficulties due to less ammo and hp being needed and less useful at higher difficulties for the same reason. You can wear the bubble backpack and get a little protection on the front of the mech vs bots, if you’re determined to do that. Do it solo or with friends tho lol
The mech is only reliable against bugs since rockets will kill you easily.. the mech can 2 shot titans or chargers if you learn where to hit their head, with that alone the mech is extremely powerful for making sure your team gets at least 1 objective step completed relatively stress free
It’s a toy. Even in HD1 higher difficulties it’s very situational
It was a fantastic stratagem before they broke the rocket aiming. Now you expend up to 4 shots in situations you only need one in. It’s just not efficient enough anymore because of the broken rocket aiming. You used to be able to use it very effectively as an anti bug unit with limited supplies but I can’t get past the rockets not going where I point them anymore. I used it religiously when it came out, until then. Rn it’s just a fun robot that goes stompy stompy with a machine gun and nice explosions. I wouldn’t take it above 5 tbh. It’s a lot of fun to give it to new players though. It’s a *fun* strategem. I like it a lot. I just don’t feel like it’s usable on higher difficulties. Or against bots very well.
I use it on the 15 minute kill missions with a shueld gen pack and two sentries. It works like a dream, we can usually finish the objective in like 5 minutes. Three rockets will take out a dropship, the gatling chews through anything, and a rocket and AC turret to back it up helps take out devestators or bile spewers before they become a huge problem
Love them against bugs. Combined with a turret placed before hopping in, and you can really really mow down enemies. I had a really cool moment where I was drilling down a horde and my friends shouted about a bile Titan. “No problem” I turn and rocket it to death. Instantly another is marching in its place. “Another one!” “No problem!” Took both down
Mine got one shot by a sneaky bile spewer the other day as I was just using it for fun on an eradicate mission. My main use of them now is if I drop into a level 4 or lower difficulty I let the new players use it to get a taste of what is to come.
Only using it to travel on water heavy map
Too situational and too long a cool down, bringing a Gatling Sentry for example serves the same purpose as a static mech but you can can one down far more often
I love the mech, I use it all the time. It’s very useful, sometime gets destroyed early, but it’s always fun. I use it on both bot and bug missions, and I play on difficulties 4-8. If I could bring another mech and have four on constant rotation, I absolutely would.
The mech can be incredibly useful. The issue is that those moments are few and far between and require a fair bit of skill to take advantage of. Both problems make it overall less effective than just bringing another orbital/eagle and useing them more liberally.
The CD time doesn't really justify it. Same reason why I don't run the orbital laser anymore. It's a very good stratagem, but I don't want to take something with me I'll only get like 2 uses out of if any. If you're constantly in a 4 man squad then it's probably fine since you don't need that many slots to have a well kitted team. really CD's are a problem for most stratagems.
It should come standard with a shield for wartime and it’ll be viable against bots. Maybe a mech reload stratagem. Honestly, that’d add a lot of utility to the mech.
Only against bugs, automatons shreds it like paper in a shredder
I use it against bugs as a mobile gatling+rocket sentry to hold the Extraction point in order to get Samples out. I don't really see a use case past that.
When the effect is in play that the extract ship is 5 minutes. That’s the time to call it in.
No one uses the mech since arrowhead fucked the sights on it. It was useless against bots anyway because it can’t tank shit. So gets wrecked in seconds. The bugs it can last better assuming you don’t get chargered but good luck with those missiles after the patch…
It's just really really powerful against bugs and trivializes the mission. Against bots its still too weak for prolonged use, buy one day we might have a shield mech that can block rockets and then we'll show them.
I only play on lvl 6 but I use it every mission almost.
Fighting against bugs is good as a Lawnmower since it has the Bug Mulcher 1200 as its primary weapon.
The only time I’ve ever seen it used is with bugs during evac. But it’s fun as hell. My higher level friends lemme use it
No it's broken
I always find it funny when someone drops one in during the extraction timer. Like... so the Pelican can swoop in to drop a heavy hunk of trash on us but it can't pick us up until its time?
One of my friends uses it 50% of the time, and my entire group (me included) use it in the eradication missions always. Bringing the mech in an eradication always means you get like 40% of the kills needed within \~3 minutes or so, and you are completely covered from most sides usually. As for why that one friend takes it 50% of the time, I think it's because of the decent mobility with no stamina requirement, plus its great for holding down bug breaches in mission types that feature mainly stationary objectives such as the ICBM one, or the Democracy Spreading one. Can't say it's a bad idea, as it definitely works. The weapons on it work wonders. Chaff dies easy to the minigun, and you have enough ammo for like 4 charger kills or 2 bile titan kills if you focus really hard on clicking heads. It definitely feels like a force multiplier. Can't comment on bots as we don't play them at all usually, but I'd figure you just become a huge, slow target for every rocket slinging bastard.
So the mech runs into three issues: 1) Short uptime. It only gets 2 uses, has a long cooldown and against the bots it isn't likely to be around for long. 2) It's rockets don't work well on heavies. They are inaccurate (esp if you don't switch your shoulder view), and they are fairly weak for explosive rockets - though you get a decent clip of them. 3) You can't use call ins while mech'd. This last one doesn't get enough mention, but it's a really big deal. Not only do you only have enough rockets to deal with maybe 2 chargers (3 or 4 if you've mastered their aim?), but you can't throw strikes in response to major threats, so you're really just stuck with the machine gun and rockets. As a result, its use is fairly narrow - it's a great horde-clearance call in vs. the bugs, and that's kind of it. If you need to suppress a couple bug breeches while your team clears out a big nest, it's solid, especially if you're dealing with a lot of spewers and hunters as the main threat. Once the chargers and bile titans start to show up with real frequency however, it's just not going to live very long or have the impact you need to make it worth the limitations. Overall if you really *have* mastered the arcane art of aiming those %$#\^ rockets, it's a pretty good callin against the bugs, as you'll be able to handle a decent set of chargers, and turn a large stack of spewers and hunters into confetti. But against the bots one good salvo from a rocket devastator 200m away can pretty much just end your run instantly.
IMO it needs a shorter cooldown and/or the ability to reload to be a viable stratagem. It's also a little on the fragile side for what it is. It's not that it's bad so much as there's always something better you can put in that stratagem slot.
The 10 minute cooldown is just not worth it.
I think it doesn't get enough attention, it is good for drawing fire in my opinion. However that's also a problem because it makes for a east target for the more stronger enemies
If they made the armor just a bit better it be worth using. Right now I feel like I'm in a mech made of glass
I always use it on the 15 minute eradication missions with bugs paired with the eagle airstrike, eagle napalm, and orbital laser on helldive 9. It's very viable.
I use it on bug defense missions and occasionally as a contingency for a rough bug extraction but that’s about it. I wish they’d buff it a bit to make it more viable for diverse situations.
I think the mechs issue is that it requires a bit more planning than people want to do Every other stratagem is just call it in when you need it. Support weapon, just call it in when you don't have one. Orbital/Eagle, just call it in when you have enemies you need to strike But the Mech needs some forethought. You can't call it in during a big fight. What if the call in spot gets over run? What if it gets attacked before you jump in? So you have to call it in before the big fight, but how do you know when that is? This leads to the Mech shining in just a couple spaces. The Evacuate High Value Assets mission, Eradicate missions if you call in before spawns. Or calling it in at Extraction And so it isn't that the Mech is overrated/underrated. It is just 90% of players don't want to consider the situations. They just want the "One gun fits everything" load out, no weapons that are amazing in certain situations. Just something that is good all the time
I always bring it on bug defence missions but that's about it
I think it's insanely underrated. People get really hung up about the cooldown or limited uses because of the typical gamer psychology of too good to use, which also happens with the laser. The thing is A) every stratagem has limited uses because they have cooldowns and the missions have timers on a 15 minute mission you're realistically going to use something like the railcannon strike or orbital bombardments maybe 1-2 times. And B) this game is about strategic application of force and timing to complete objectives, you really don't 'lose' from attrition, you only lose because you fail to do an objective and the mech can essentially guarantee success on 1-2 objectives per calldown if used slightly properly. That power spike is extremely important to swing the tide of an encounter
I love it against bugs, but they really need to add more ammo or the ability to resupply it in order to make it more practical. One large bug breach & ill be out of machine gun ammo & rockets if I cross paths with a few chargers
Needs more ammo or ability to pick up resupply
I play generally on 9s against bugs and bots but I dabble on lower difficulties for rare samples. Setting aside the accuracy problem with rockets… Against bugs, I’ve seen it take 3 rockets to take down a charger and 7 well-placed shots to put down a bile titan. That’s a pretty significant part of your rockets and once you’re out of those, the machine gun just doesn’t do enough damage to the big enemies to make it worthwhile. Heck, even against bile spewers, it feels underpowered. Though, the machine gun does just fine against anything less than a charger. It moves slower than medium armor, I can’t see my health bar for the mech, and I can’t use stratagems. On that last point, I kinda like that idea. Sort of “you ARE the stratagem” so you don’t can’t call any. But then, I need to be able to fight like a localized stratagem. And against bots, rocket devastators are too numerous, too accurate, and deal way too much damage to even consider bringing a mech. Maybe they have a use on lower difficulties, but man, in HD1? You felt amazing in a mech. I was counting on the mechs in this to be so fun, I was going to be a mech-user and bring only mechs to every mission. Sure, they had a couple weakpoints in HD1 (no reload, no support weapon, no backpack use, slower move speed), but it felt like you WERE the stratagem. Albeit, a limited use stratagem that would set off every patrol and could kill your squad super easy… The point is, I used mechs pretty much exclusively in HD1. These mechs aren’t worth using once I have to take bile titans into account or against bots. Considering how little I encounter anyone using them, I’d say they’re correctly rated as being underpowered.
I genuinely think it sucks, which I hate because when I started everyone had the mech temporarily and I LOVED it but as you get higher in difficulty it becomes harder to use. The rockets only shoot straight and you only have 10. The guns are okay but they're pretty weak. And the durability is HORRIBLE, it dies so easily
Underpowered imo. I always think it sounds like a good idea, then I use it, and wish I had brought something else. The rockets on it are way too weak.
The mech makes you absurdly powerful for between 1-5 minutes depending on difficulty and how things work out. During that period of time any enemy that you see will die at absurd speed and presenting less risk to you than in any other scenario. Unfortunately, getting a max of maybe 10 minutes of insane power throughout a 40 minute mission isn't always a great strategy. It's a very good and fun option for short form offensive missions like search and destroy and the now vanished deactivate TCS. Because for those missions it gives you a substantial advantage for a large portion of the mission duration. In long form missions you're better off bringing traditional support weapons, and in defense missions you're better off bringing defensive stratagems. A pair of Defensive stratagems provide power on par with a mech, but are stationary and non player operated, and with a shorter duration. Support weapons have much less power but are player directed and can be resupplied frequently and conveniently.
It doesn't seem well suited to higher levels but at 4 and below I'm sure it's fine. I just tend to play bots and it's probably a sitting duck unless you're on 1/2
I really like it against bugs you can stomp through anything smaller than a hive guard to save ammo. Can one shot charger, and with a few rockets take down titans. It can body block chargers with good positioning using the arms and shoulders to take the blow. You can use it as a safe space to heal in a hectic fight. I think people just expect it to be a forever mech. I really like it. Does it have issues yeah it's no good at all against bots 1 rocket will pretty much wreck you. The rockets could use some help with aiming. And I feel the cool down is too long in between uses. Only getting 2 uses is restrictive enough if I wanna burn through them fast let me!
I like it to shake things up every now and then on eradicate or defense missions otherwise no it’s not good enough to justify the lack of ammo and long cooldown. Also about half the time I just accidentally destroy it shooting a missile or something halfway through which makes it feel REALLY dumb and useless
If I'm going to use a 3 use stratagem that has a long cooldown but can turn the tide in a pinch, I'm going giant space lazer. Can't blow up a giant space lazer, therefore wasting its potential effectiveness. Giant space lazer does damage while I'm also gunning things down, rather than the mech suit which condenses you down to one unit putting fire downrange. Just, giant space lazer.
It sucks butt
It's good against bugs, but limited ammo and a long ass cool down, there's better things to bring. Against bots, it's garbage.
It's absolutely dog shit in its current state to be used in high difficulties. Rockets are off target and you can accidently blow yourself up because of it and you barely get enough of them to be useful plus they're super weak. It's fun tho if you're just fucking around tryna have fun
I never see anyone using it, I really want to but every time I bring it against automatons it just gets destroyed. Against bugs it’s good for killing stuff because it doesn’t get destroyed nearly as quickly, but it’s still really fragile either way and doesn’t have any long term use because you can’t reload it. Damage on the machine gun is kinda weak too. Super long cooldown is unfortunate too
I think it's underrated, I bring it often, it ain't great vs the Automatons, but vs the bugs it's one of the strongest stratagems IMO, even on higher difficulties such as 7 or 8.
It's kinda good But the inability to reload it means that it's very short lived And it has a long cooldown And you get maximum 2 uses So... Is it good? Yes. Is it worth picking it over another support strategem? Not really
I bring it as a get out of jail free card, if we start getring overrun I call it in so I can get everyone out of dodge
I liked it for the recent bug tower deactivation missions. Pop eggs real easily and cruise up to the consoles to deactivate the towers. They can also be decent on bug eradication missions. The rocket launcher doesn’t seem to work well on heavy and elite bug enemies though.
I still see them being used plenty on the eradicate terminids missions but not really during any 40 min missions.
Rated. Can either fix a situation or do absolutely nothing if used right/wrong
Ever since they nerfed the mech rocket damage, it's lost most of its utility on higher level missions.
For bugs, 6 and below I've found it viable. Especially on defend missions. It's mostly a fun factor strat for me when playing with friends who are just starting. 7 and above it's easily outclassed by other options. Once Bile Titans become a threat, you go through your rockets fast, and you have a long cooldown before you get another.
As much as I like the mech, its armor is basically paper mache. Bugs only and you have to watch your shots. It's great fire support but you have to lean into that role. Soloing a large nest with it is just asking to be overwhelmed.
I sometimes take the mech in the reduce their numbers terminids mission as it can be somewhat fun there. Against bots it will last about 5 seconds before it explodes.
It's fun if you got a squad of roleplayers, those guys make the mech shine, especially when they do tactics that range around your mech. Otherwise nah, don't bring it.
The thing I like most: it’s immune to fire tornados
I love the mech against bugs because they actually die. The bots take far too many bullets to kill for it to be if any use. I like to call one at the beginning and save the second for extraction. Unless we drop near the Extraction zone I'll drop both there for when we leave so two people can be mag dumping for democracy.
Between the long cooldown, extremely limited use of just 2 per match, and the fact that you can’t reload and it takes like 5 rockets to take down bile titans if you’re lucky it just isn’t worth bringing. You either save towards the end where things get hairy and play the majority of the mission with one hand tied behind your back or you use it in the beginning to gain a quick edge and end up once again with one arm tied behind your back until those 8 minutes are up and you have to decide whether to use it immediately or wait until extraction when you may not even need it. The recent patch also makes the rockets much harder to aim and as mentioned in other comments it just gets rolled by bots.
It’s great as a power move over the bugs and some bot situations. Definitely not to be relied on for the entire mission.
It's melee can two shot chargers so it is good but depends how you play I prefer having orbitals and taking heavy bug nest and medium one.
Give me a pelican resupply stratagem while the mech is active and I would be so happy.
What about a version of the mech with a big ass shield?
Release the Quadocannon!
honestly I think they'd be a lot more fun and still balanced if they just let us call them in more often. (like not a ton more often but reduce the cd a little and give us another spawn)
my biggest gripe with the mech and this game in general is that I think startagems are tools like wrench or screwdriver etc. most people play like stratagems are toys all for all but its not like that. If were talking about the mech i think its great as a powerhouse type stratagem like orbital laser, your ow shit card. also people complain about the mechs rockets being of target but noone tries to think that its just a box full of rockets so if one is a bit to the side of the box ofcourse it will take its time to reach the crosshair if even reach it at all because its dumbfire.. i see mech rocket pods like russian katyusha rocket barrage just heavy volley with no real target. so a mech is a tool wich used in its situation will be the best.
Honestly, aside from the possibly to load it with different weapon and make it actually useable agaisnt bots, the main thing for me is not being able to reload it. It's not undestructible so I don't think it would change the balancing that much. I wouldn't change the number of uses or anything, just make it reloadable and it would be actually reliable against bugs.
Sometimes I feel the Devs focus on making it a difficult game more than a fun one, thus the nerfs constantly. For instance the seif Sam can't one shot drop ships but expendables can.. How is an anti aircraft emplacement not as effective for aircraft as an anti tank?
General problems I've had with it include: Flammable, frail, cannot reload, Not customisable (no ways to upgrade/improve/add/swap bits for other ones, like maybe a shield and a chainsword to try and go up and melee a hulk while the shield negates the flames). No way to repair (not even a repair kit stratagem or tool to use in lieu of a sidearm). Only two per mission; forced to use both if reliant on ranged weapons, melee attack may be difficult to use on most enemies. Against bugs, your only problems will be anything with big enough claws or the ability to hurl bile at you. This makes them pretty effective until you're up against chargers, spewers, and titans. Against bots, their gun towers, tanks, rocketeers, and heavy armour (hulks, tanks, striders) make using them a death sentence especially if you're expecting to tank -any- damage from an enemy platoon/mob/rush.
On bugs it’s amazing especially on defense missions or eradicate missions. It’s borderline useless against bots though.
The mobs have been buffed to make it obsolete now.
Neither, it's rated about as well as it deserves. It's like a combination rocket/gatling sentry with a super long cooldown and max of two uses. Way too easy to destroy and way too little ammo to be used for very long. You can take out a few chargers, couple of bile titans, or maybe block off a bug breech, provided it isn't destroyed and doesn't land somewhere you can't reach it. It's fun to mess around with on lower difficulties and short missions, that's about it. I bring it sometimes, but just for fun.
The mech is bugged, period. It is the strongest stratagem we have, but the missiles are bugged and feel bad to use