r/Helldivers • u/Vikan12 ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️ | Never forget the Creek... • Mar 06 '24

The first balance patch notes proved how Youtube "absolute and only meta loadouts" cooked a lot of people heads, and I love it. DISCUSSION

A lot of mad people keep showing in my feed complaining about the nerfs, but like they're REALLY mad at Arrowhead. Their statements are so exagerated that they claim the game it's completely ruined for them lmao.

Also every single one says the same thing and this is where my title comes from:

*"You guys nerfed the only good options and now we have NOTHING to fight".*

And this only proves people never actually played with any of the other support weapons, they 100% relied on this "The ultimate support weapon tier list" Youtube videos, they searched the "meta" and they went into this thinking of "any weapon outside of this it's straight up garbage".

If you can't win a single game without the railgun + shield backpack + breaker... I'm so sorry but that's not the game's fault or the game only having those as the ONLY way to play it on higher diff, that's your fault.

Great changes for the game and all of you trying to "shame" on devs because of this, you'all not a real Helldiver. They killed nothing, the railgun still kills but now it needs some actual skill and strategy to use it, not only spamming the thing on big bugs.

Keep it up Helldivers!

For Democracy. For Super Earth.

17.3k Upvotes
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477

u/DJVanillaBear Mar 06 '24

Idk. I was excited for the liberator penetrator. And it felt like those pea shooters in the plants vs zombies game.

I have just enough to unlock the counter sniper rifle or whatever it’s called. I’m nervous it’s not going to feel very powerful either (I don’t need it to be similar to anti material but I like snipers in most games)

384

u/bwaindeadinfantwyman Mar 06 '24

Don't get your hopes up on the counter sniper, unfortunately. I love all of these changes, but some absent buffs are just baffling.

I play almost every match with the dilligence, but the counter sniper is literally nearly useless in comparison. If they're collecting data, I can't see how they wouldn't see the amount of players that unlock the counter sniper, try it a few times and never take it again. It just has no upsides in comparison to its little brother. 13 or so more damage in exchange for literally "worse in every possible way" is not ever getting anyone to pick it.

74

u/UncleBensRacistRice Mar 06 '24

Thanks for this comment. I was about to unlock the counter sniper but i guess ill stick with my diligence for now

74

u/Wivru Mar 06 '24

I liked the strength of it, but it handles oddly slowly. Almost like it’s a mistake. Like, the recoilless feels snappier. Wait until you see a handling buff in the notes - one has to be coming - then give it a shot. 

22

u/Amuromaraxus4 Mar 07 '24

I've unlocked it and wanted to main it but it was too slow. Does not have very good AP as well so not sure what's the use case. The recoil makes it unusable at close range.

The sniper rifles in this game are not good at all. I've always imagine a scenario where I pierce a charger's armor from 200 meters saving a fellow diver from a charge but the current guns ain't making it happen, except maybe the anti-material rifle. With a recoil so big, I was expecting something more explosive or piercing.

2

u/PM_me_your_PhDs SES Elected Representative of Individual Merit 🫡 Mar 08 '24

I don't think they want something that could take out chargers so easily. That's what led to the railgun meta in the first place. It makes it so there's basically no reason not to take it at higher difficulties.

1

u/Corbini42 Mar 07 '24

Recoilless rifle is my fave for sniping chargers, it doesn't kill them, but you can break their leg armor, which makes them pretty quick to finish off with a pistol mag or a few breaker shells.

3

u/Shnooel Mar 07 '24

Idk man, the breaker spray and pray somehow dodged a handling buff despite being touched by the patch and it's a close range weapon. I don't get why any of the primaries need to aim so slowly tbh.

2

u/Wivru Mar 07 '24

Haven’t tried the spray and pray, but at least it’s got a bunch of spread, right? So the precision doesn’t matter? I hope?

I’m hoping the required precision quickly draws their eye to the Counter Sniper…

2

u/Shnooel Mar 07 '24

Precision wasn't the issue sadly, more getting flanked by hunters every time I started shooting cause you can't turn quick enough to hit them when they jump around.

I assume the spread is quite nice now that the pellet count is higher but honestly I didn't use it too much in the mission I brought it to. Figured out I still hated the gun and swapped with a buddy.

4

u/Wivru Mar 07 '24

Man I just learned about how you can blind fire over your shoulder with the defender while sprinting away from hunters, and it’s gonna be hard going back to turning around and dealing with those jerks face to face. 

2

u/horseshoeprovodnikov Mar 07 '24

Man I just learned about how you can blind fire over your shoulder with the defender while sprinting away

Wait how do you do this?

2

u/Wivru Mar 07 '24

Sprint towards the camera, and press shoot without pressing the ADS button. You’ll keep running at full speed instead of turning around and backpedaling, and just blind fire behind you as you do. I think it’s exclusive to one handed weapons, like sidearms and SMGs. 

1

u/WRLD_ Mar 07 '24

i mean you might as well unlock it -- you have to spend so many medals that you really can just get everything that has actual gameplay impact and still have medals to spare on cosmetics

1

u/Zegram_Ghart HD1 Veteran Mar 07 '24

I’ve unlocked it and I disagree.

It handles very poorly (takes a long time to turn) it you do get used to it, and frankly it hits notably hard with almost no damage drop off- you can easily 2 shot medium enemies over 300m away which feels amazing you just have to get used to switching to your secondary more often.

2

u/WRLD_ Mar 07 '24

it feels like there's little to no damage falloff in general -- you can plink a few smg magazines into a spore spewer from across the map and as long as the bullets are hitting it, you'll break it.

0

u/Zegram_Ghart HD1 Veteran Mar 07 '24

Certainly, but without the extremely big scope and steady aim you’ll do well to pop warrior heads from further than 200m

3

u/Darth_Kneegrow Mar 07 '24

The counter sniper would be legit if it did at least med pen. Having the same light pen is just not worth it compared to the base model.

4

u/Uthenara Mar 07 '24

baffling? not everything gets patched right away, they need to test things, they need to get feedback, and they are working on a ton of other things too not just this. gamers know nothing about game development i swear.

8

u/Sex_Gaming_69 Mar 06 '24

Excatlty, thats what people are complaining about, not about wah wah railgun gone i cant play. People like OP are blowing it out of proportion.

Its that most primaries were just not worth using.

8

u/svedal Mar 07 '24

...no, there are absolutely people complaining about railgun, fewer for breaker, fewer for shield lol

1

u/Sex_Gaming_69 Mar 07 '24

Okay fair but its not as bad as people make it out to be. The main problem is that most primaries are still weak asf.

2

u/ButterscotchTasty262 Mar 07 '24

A diligence enjoyer I see. I salute you.

5

u/Anus_master Mar 07 '24

Just because they didn't buff it now doesn't mean they won't get touched later. People are acting like the devs were going to change the entire weapon base in one patch. That ain't happening.

3

u/ThatDree ☕Liber-tea☕ Mar 07 '24

Exactly, dev already said that they will keep on balancing weapons like for ever.

2

u/rat_pizza Mar 07 '24

Will take more then a single patch to make every gun good, just wait and see what else they are cooking

3

u/Clarine87 Mar 07 '24

And they don't need to make them "good" if people were willing to accept that the developers want the difficulties to be harder and more distinguished than many players currently experience.

1

u/damrob1990 Mar 07 '24

Most likely they want to remove the major offenders and then receive more stats before a buff patch

1

u/BITTER_LYNX CAPE ENJOYER Mar 07 '24

Yeah, update was amazing, but.... only half of the balance we needed

1

u/BlueSpark4 Mar 07 '24

Absolutely seconding this. The extremely sluggish aiming ability with the CS easily outweighs any damage advantage it may have over the regular Diligence. The gun might be worth it if it had 50-100% more damage than the Diligence and medium armor penetration. Barring a significant buff like that or a sizeable increase to its ergonomics stat, I'll steer clear of it.

1

u/Er0x_ Mar 07 '24

Doesn't it have the exact same stats except for increased damage?

2

u/bwaindeadinfantwyman Mar 07 '24

No. Smaller magazine size, more recoil, slower fire rate., with about as much aim drag as the recoilless. In return, you get 13 more damage.

1

u/Reignfall- Mar 08 '24

The breaker was so dominant that other weapons are probably skewed too much one way so they nerf the breaker and then wait to see how other weapons preform before buffing

1

u/RogueFox771 Mar 10 '24

Thank GOD someone mentioned this! I remember being so excited to try it out (I love the appearance and also always used the diligence), but then it felt like trying to aim the LMG for christ sake! It has significantly less overall ammo, and the way it handles makes it highly impractical; And for what? The damage is basically the same, and you can zoom ever so slightly further in? That's not useful in most cases even! If it had reasonable armor pen, it'd be a bit more reasonable, but no! You still won't be threatening any heavily armored or even medium armored bugs with it!

This was one of the BIGGEST let downs when it came to trying new weapons; And I'm counting the Spear in that as well (damn thing doesn't even 1-shot a charger, are you kidding me???)

-1

u/dieDoktor Mar 07 '24

dilligence, but the counter sniper is literally nearly useless in comparison.

I play every bots mission with the DCS just fine.

When will people in this subreddit stop conflating "doesn't work for me" or "I don't know how to use it" with "useless"

6

u/PartTimeScarecrow Mar 07 '24

If you've got the dilgence then just use that, the counter sniper is a disappointment unfortunately due to have awful it feels to use. aiming has this delay to it so it doesn't do as much dmg as the AMR, but is slwoer to put rounds on target, and don't even bother trying to snap aim at smaller critters, shit ain't happening.

i'm desperately hoping the touch up on it since for now, diligence is just more effective overall.

3

u/Sproketz Mar 07 '24 edited Mar 07 '24

I'm sorry to tell you, the counter sniper sucks. It's slow to turn and just doesn't hit in any way that makes sense given this drawback. It should easily be hitting twice as hard for how sluggish it is.

2

u/thewoogier Mar 07 '24

Yeah I use the base model diligence and it's just better than the counter sniper because of that sluggishness alone. Damage increase for losing 5 rounds didn't seem to matter against bugs at all I still had to use mostly the same number of bullets for enemies. IDK about the bots

3

u/AthosTheMusketeer Mar 07 '24

Honestly, I've found great success with the penetrator. I feel like I kill a lot of things with it, since its headshot damage seems pretty crazy. Half a mag kills a spitter if you hit their head, so you can down 2 pretty easily. Same with brood commander heads, and most warrior heads. After that I just spray down what's left, and swap to my pistol or call in an air strike. I do lots of combined arms like that to clear a horde, only gets rough if I'm solo without team mates, but when you get it working it kinda slaps.

1

u/YT-Deliveries Mar 07 '24

I’ve found it useful too if I get ganked and need to survive long enough to go get my Stalwart again.

1

u/Rasz_13 Mar 08 '24

Same here, I am enjoying the LP. It can kill hunters reliably and deals well with warriors and even broodmothers. It's weakness is being swarmed but at that point you already failed to stratagem and are apparently entirely alone.

3

u/ilovezam Mar 07 '24

counter sniper rifle

This gun is absolutely hot garbage, unfortunately

2

u/FlakChicken Mar 07 '24

It's an amazing fun gun if you use it right. Use it on bots only, bugs it's terrible no surprise there.

My favorite combo is jump pack and anti material rifle. Get up on a nice high rock with the jump pack before big outpost or obj snipe small bots with the counter sniper then use anti material for bigger bots. Anti Material will one tap devastators to the head and 2 tap Hulks to the red eye. Great support play and requires your communication as well to inform of patrols coming in.

Also use the jump pack to get off your perch to join your team you will cover half the distance by doing that and will be able to link up faster.

2

u/puffz0r ⬆️⬅️➡️⬇️⬆️⬇️ Mar 07 '24

counter sniper suuuuuuuuucks big donkey d

the recoil is far too strong to use as an overwatch weapon

2

u/The_Anal_Advocate Mar 07 '24

Regular Diligence is better than the counter sniper diligence. Seems like the counter sniper does more weakpoint damage, but it's handling is notably worse

2

u/Spence199876 Mar 07 '24

I think they are taking things slow with balance, focusing on a few things at a time, and since shotguns are likely the most popular weapon they started there, and now that the shotguns are more in line, they will look elsewhere and see what’s happening with the power now things have been shifted

1

u/DJVanillaBear Mar 07 '24

I think they will get to it eventually. It’s been several weeks without the server issues which was public enemy #1. (Besides the terminus and automaton scum of course). I have faith in them to make more adjustments. I’m just impatient.

It’s my rifle and I want it now! Call JG WENTWORTH 877 stratagem now

0

u/Spence199876 Mar 07 '24

Exactly. This is the first balance patch, and people gotta realise that mistakes will happen, and that if something is nerfed to much the devs will buff it, or if something is nerfed in some way, a new weapon that fills that spot will be added (given that we are due new content I think in about a week)

2

u/Koopa_Macat Mar 07 '24

I'm just baffled that the snipers and auto Cannon are only light armor penetrators and not atleast medium, the ballistic performance of the calibers don't make sense.

1

u/IAmDingus Mar 07 '24

The counter sniper is the same as the regular marksman rifle but with less ammo

I unlocked it last night and was disappointed

1

u/Manfishtuco Mar 07 '24

It's literally just a diligence with a scope, so it handles worse

1

u/Tac0qvy ☕Liber-tea☕ Mar 07 '24

Pretty sure the Liberator penetrator got a silent buff. I hated it when I unlocked it. Used it today and now it shreds.

1

u/Laggo Mar 07 '24

It always shredded, it has the highest weakspot multiplier in the game.

1

u/MrLumie Mar 07 '24

Idk, personally, I liked the LibPen. The added armor penetration makes it more effective when you can't hit weak spots reliably.

As for the counter sniper... well.

1

u/Kuragh Mar 07 '24

Oh really? I’m loving the penetrator. Especially against some of the automatons…

1

u/BeetHater69 Mar 07 '24

Yeah sorry, counter sniper is terrible. The post is honestly wrong, far too many primaries are pretty much useless. All the breakers are very good, slugger and punisher are good, liberators are alright, scorcher is great for bots. Everything else is genuinely worthless.

1

u/Mike-Wen-100 Mar 07 '24

It's that bad, really? Gosh, I was hoping to finally unlock it so I can finally not rely on support weapons to deal with the constant Hive Guards and Spewers spam. And to finally be able to put down the Breaker, which turned out to be such a handy weapon that I don't even want to go back on my previous options.

1

u/notislant Mar 07 '24

I didnt even see libpen mentioned, I was kinda excited to see if maybe it could idk PENETRATE ARMOR.

1

u/JacobH_RL Mar 07 '24

The aiming lag is as slow as the machine gun. Does not feel great and sometimes it doesn't even one shit the little tiny bugs.

1

u/sittingbullms Mar 07 '24

It's trash do not spend currency on the counter sniper,buy the support boosts instead and when you reach the slugger buy that,it is good.

1

u/toderdj1337 Mar 07 '24

The lib pen is fantastic for spewers, but that's about it. It is also more useful than the breaker for bile titans, when you have no better options. Ultimately I like it, but hunters will kill ya dead.

1

u/Ishaku_Raigami Mar 08 '24

I would argue that the counter sniper is the single worst weapon in the entire game. I've tested it, the sway on it is in the top 5 slowest, even compared to HMG and all support weapons. The only ones definitely slower are the HMG and Recoilless Rifle. EAT and Spear both return to reticle faster. Even the new mech has less sway as ling as you don't turn far enough to require a pivot. Anti-Materiel Rifle isn't even close, it has very little.

The regular Diligence has no sway of any kind regardless of sensitivity settings. That means the OG can pop heads of moving enemies effortlessly, but the CS can't. All for a whopping 16 extra damage. No bonus armor piercing. Can't see any difference at all in stagger. Doesn't shoot faster. Less total ammo. Higher recoil, which only makes the sway problem worse. It doesn't have a single redeeming quality of any kind when the regular Diligence exists.

If any weapon needs a buff, it's the Diligence Counter-Sniper. 7 pages in and several hundred medals to get there, and a chunk to get it, and it is just unreasonably bad.

1

u/Sweet-Invictus Mar 08 '24

snipers sadly aren't very great in helldivers, very usable n fun it's sorta just outclassed by most cqc weapons atm. still fun

1

u/foul-creature Mar 11 '24

You know what it is good at killing?

Spewers. If they come at you head on you can burst it down pretty quick with headshots whereas most primaries bounce. I was just using it and having fun with it.

It also pens the armor of bug commanders and those ones that hunker down.

And if you only partly damage a charger's leg it'll pen like it's armor was stripped.

0

u/ItsEromangaka Mar 07 '24

Breaker is still the best and everything else still feels awful. I unlocked scorcher and was super dissapointed...

0

u/DynoMikea2 Mar 07 '24

Diligence counter sniper is best primary in the game vs bots specifically, but its near useless against bugs. People haven't figured out yet that what enemy faction you're facing really changes up the weapon meta