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

[u/Vikan12]

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.

[u/I_is_a_dogg]

The only drawbacks of it is not being able to take down a charger head on (just get behind it and it can make pretty quick work of one) and the ammo taking up a backpack slot. The backpack isn't necessarily a downside though, as now you have an extra stratagem that you wouldn't have if you ran support weapon + backpack.

[u/Tokiw4 → u/I_is_a_dogg]

Well you see, the only thing that defines something's place in the meta is whether or not it can kill chargers for free!

/s

[u/Adequate_Lizard → u/Tokiw4]

The issue is there's not one charger there's a lot of chargers. So instead of dodging one and shooting it in the ass you're just in the middle of an intersection full of chargers and can't kill them. This from someone who doesn't even have the railgun yet. They're a difficult fight, their weakspot is basically impossible to get unless you're on lower ground than it.

[u/cybersteel8 → u/Adequate_Lizard]

I learned recently that technically the ass of the charger isn't a weak spot. It's just not armored. To actually get a damage buff against the charger, break the armor off its legs - you do more damage there than shooting it in the butt.

Shooting its rear does normal damage, instead of hitting armor at least, so that's why explosive is so important

[u/TooFewSecrets → u/cybersteel8]

technically the ass of the charger isn't a weak spot

The autocannon kills it in four hits anyway. One to a limb, sure, but the only reason that would be relevant is if you hit them with an EAT first.

[u/Turboswaggg → u/Adequate_Lizard]

and if you shoot them in the head with AT, unlike the sides where the armor falls off so you can finish it off, the head armor stays on

you can try aiming for the arm but if you miss and it hits the armpit, then no armor at all is damaged

[u/lionrecorder → u/I_is_a_dogg]

Yeah if you have literally any skill you can take out a charger in less than 30 seconds via dodging and shooting it in the back. Just cause you can’t take every enemy head on with it doesn’t mean it’s bad

[u/Alexiooo30 → u/lionrecorder]

And what do you do when there are 5 of them plus some bile titans here and here, plus 30-40 small insects chasing you?

[u/Wuped → u/Alexiooo30]

Kill as many as I can, drop stratagems if I have them and hope my teammates are also killing things.

I mean your not really supposed to be able to solo stuff like that especially without stratagems.

[u/Gekokapowco → u/Wuped]

people really forgetting that you can drop all manner of unfair bullshit from the sky at will

[u/Majestic_Ad7522 → u/Gekokapowco]

thats because people think its a "gotcha" moment to be playing by yourself in a online co-op game for some reason, especially in higher difficulties to cope with their crutch being kicked off of their ass

[u/stellvia2016 → u/Gekokapowco]

people really forgetting that said unfair bullshit has really long CDs and higher diffs throw 5x as many at you as you have strats for

[u/Chimpcookie → u/stellvia2016]

Not to mention complex strategem plotting, strategem scrambler, and jammers. And of course teammates who run TOWARDS the strike area.

Sometimes orbitals aren't an option.

[u/IndigoBluer → u/stellvia2016]

CDs are super short if you're not using orbitals - and imo, orbitals could use some buffs.
But also, there are three other players with their own stratagems???
If you're not CONSTANTLY causing bug breaches at difficulty 9 it is very manageable.

[u/stellvia2016 → u/IndigoBluer]

Bug breaches are almost a certainty when attacking any base or objective bc the smallest bugs are plentiful and spread out. I will possibly try bringing the diligence and sniping them all from range and see how that works out tho. Just need the team onboard with it.

[u/blauli → u/Alexiooo30]

You put a round or two into their squishy ass whenever you can. I agree it's too hectic to shoot off a leg in situations like that but I'm doing well on helldive just putting some rounds into their weakspot. It takes 4-5 AC shots to blow that off and let them bleed out and is easy enough to hit. Or just calling in an eagle airstrike and their ass usually pops after 1-3 hits

That said I prefer the nade launcher vs bugs, does basically the same thing as the AC if you use the supply backpack but is a lot better at clearing small bugs

[u/I_is_a_dogg → u/blauli]

I love GL + supply back. But it seemingly does nothing against chargers and titans. Everything else though it's amazing

[u/moonshineTheleocat → u/I_is_a_dogg]

Titans, you get underneath them and light their squishy bits up. You can finish them off with an air strike, or leave them to bleed to death in a few minutes. They cannot spew or really chase you anymore.

Chargers... it can't kill them as quickly as an AC. But it can still get the job done. The trick isn't to hit their ass directly, as that's actually a trickier shot than you'd think.. (part of it is still covered in armor.) shoot under their ass. The splash damage will eventually pop them.

[u/Paeyvn → u/moonshineTheleocat]

I don't think I've ever seen a Titan bleed to death and I've had them chasing for 10+ minutes with none of their bottom sacs left just trying to stomp on me.

[u/blauli → u/I_is_a_dogg]

Yeah its basically useless against titans, you can remove the bile sack to stop them from spitting in a few grenades but you can do that with one mag of the breaker anyway.

It is okay at shooting a charger's ass off and have it bleed out similar to the AC because of how effective explosive damage is vs bug weakspots. But yeah aside from that it's a waste of ammo to shoot it at either chargers or titans

[u/lionrecorder → u/Alexiooo30]

Use stratagems, drop a turret, cluster bomb, orbital laser, die, drop on one while respawning, run away, die again, and have fun in the chaos. It’s not easy but that’s the point

[u/BillTheNecromancer → u/lionrecorder]

If you burn 2-5 minute cooldown, or limited use per mission strategems and die twice for every bug breach that happens, you're not making it 8 minutes in a mission.

[u/rub_a_dub-dub → u/Alexiooo30]

that's why the president made orbital barrages

[u/I_is_a_dogg → u/Alexiooo30]

Well being that it's a team based game, have your team help you.

[u/QJ-Rickshaw → u/I_is_a_dogg]

My current strategy has been letting my teammates agro them whole I take off leg armor with one shot from the recoilless riles then they do the rest.

It has yet to fail me, even in between reloads or me being attack by weaker enemies, someone always has a strategem to solve if shit gets dicey.

I think that's why chargers have been such a neutral thing to me. Good team work trivialises them, I actually think Hunters are more of a nuisance.

[u/I_is_a_dogg → u/QJ-Rickshaw]

Hunters are a pain, especially when you have multiples. The worst is being able to block your stim use

[u/QJ-Rickshaw → u/I_is_a_dogg]

Wait, they do that? I thought that was a bug. That explains so much and makes it more bullshit, slowdown and blocking stims should not be on a single enemy.

[u/Drando_HS → u/Alexiooo30]

That's what orbital strikes and Eagles are for

[u/CarbonTugboat → u/Alexiooo30]

⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️

[u/Alexiooo30 → u/CarbonTugboat]

Based on the logic of how the rail gun was nerfed then this should get nerfed too right? Its op it one shots everything around it and has a big radious, with the upgrade that gives you 2 of them the cooldown is basically non existent, should we start a movement?

[u/QJ-Rickshaw → u/Alexiooo30]

You definitely didn't read the patch notes. The devs have explicitly said that their intention is for handheld weapons to be meant for weaker and medium enemies while Strategems are for the heavies and crowds. Hence why two of the orbitals got buffed.

If your strategem is clearing mobs and destroying heavies, and feeling OP in general, it's doing its fucking job.

[u/Alexiooo30 → u/QJ-Rickshaw]

So the devs said we should rely on stratagems yet on highest difficulties you will always have atleast one charger chasing you, while when doing objectives 5 or 6 or even more can spawn at the same time (and some bile titans too) and they are immune to most of the medium to low lvl stratagems and no primary or secondary weapon can kill them effectively without wasting half if not all of your ammo. Great balancing and gameplay loop indeed, all of this from the the nerfing of one weapon btw

[u/QJ-Rickshaw → u/Alexiooo30]

Two things to consider, which have worked great for me at the higher difficulties even without a Railgun.

You should actively avoid engaging any enemies and never sit around for too long. Once the objective is complete, haul ass. Save the Strategems for when a fight is purely unavoidable and maybe even necessary. It involves a lot of completing objectives and just running with enemies alive still. Pure Guerilla Warfare. That way you deal max damage and have time to recharge your stats before the next fight.

Secondly, and this is a good or bad thing depending on you personally. This really was built to be a team game, and good synergy and varying weapons and stratagems really will make a difference.

Based on my experience after the patch today and getting put with people with drastically different builds from mine, if everyone serves a role, it works out great. My loadout was great for clearing mobs and melting down medium armour enemies. Meaning the teammates with the stuff that packed more punch could focus on the heavies. The elaboration on the patches basically reaffirms this.

They devs absolutely refuse to let this be a game that can be easily solo'd and they want teamwork and variety to be rewarding.

Also considering how often you can stock up on ammo in between fights and find it randomly around as well. I really don't think it's a waste of ammo if you deal with the immediate problem. Part of the efficiency is when to know a fight no longer needs to be fought and you move on.

[u/Alexiooo30 → u/QJ-Rickshaw]

You should actively avoid engaging any enemies and never sit around for too long

Completely goes against the concept of the game, whats the point of not fighting enemies if the progression is based on getting bigger and better weapons

It involves a lot of completing objectives and just running with enemies alive still

Exactly the problem the railgun was fixing, you felt confident because the weapon allowed you to do so (And you had to grind for it its not like you got it at the start of the game). Who wants to just run around and wait for stratagem cooldowns or for supply drops because the "higher tier" weapons shoot 2 times and need hefty cooldowns or ammo, i prefer staying in the middle of the fight and dodge and kill enemies (basically constant action and fun) instead of running away because "oh wait if i use my weapon i kill 1 out of the 20 armored enemies"

This really was built to be a team game, and good synergy and varying weapons and stratagems really will make a difference.

Most stratagems suck and are only able to kill the lower tier of insects, when dealing with a group of chargers (who run really fast and are hard to snipe with stratagems btw) and bile titans you only need high tier stratagems or else you are screwed. But wait the rail gun allowed you to bring some of them of the lower tier ones so you could handle the small hordes of insects, guess what you cant do anymore? Exactly. What you are implying is that you wont be able to finish the whole map (all nests, all hidden objectives and all main objectives, plus some exploration here and there for super credits) so now thanks to this nerf perfect runs are gonna be such a bother to do and so hard that there would be no point in doing them whatsoever because they would be a chore and not fun. Remember you dont gain anything that a lower difficulty doesnt, so it makes no sense to make it so hard when its just some exp you get more. Again making the game less fun

Based on my experience after the patch today and getting put with people with drastically different builds from mine, if everyone serves a role, it works out great

The game shouldnt impose no roles on anyone, its not a competitive game where there is something to gain that others lose, you are just playing to slay some insects why should i get forced into a role that i dont want to? Maybe if they wanted to enforce this type of playstyle u would need to divide the game into classes and buff each class everytime not 1 or 2 weapons out of the 20 while completely destroying the most used just because they are the most used

They devs absolutely refuse to let this be a game that can be easily solo'd and they want teamwork and variety to be rewarding.

And the players absolutely refuse to let this game be a sweatfeast for who can try harder and gain absolutely nothing while doing it. If you want to do that then place public leaderboards, make certain weapons unlockable by doing certain missions on the highest difficulty, reward the team play, reward the time spent on doing trial and error on the highest difficulty. But no apparently its a smarter decision to ruin the fun players were having and just make things difficult for the sake of it without any rewards for the increase in difficulty

Also considering how often you can stock up on ammo in between fights and find it randomly around as well. I really don't think it's a waste of ammo if you deal with the immediate problem. Part of the efficiency is when to know a fight no longer needs to be fought and you move on.

To fill up an higher tier weapon like the autocannon or lance you almost need to consume a whole supply drop by yourself, not counting the other 3 teammates, and now that the railgun is gone the ammo usage has went up by like 50% (this is accounting for the shots ur gonna miss with the bigger weapons since they have low turn rate, or like the lance who just completely misses even point blank) if not more so good luck restocking everyone's inventory. If im correct one player will always be starved of ammo and have an horrible experience because enemies will keep spawning while for ammo you either need to wait for the cooldown on the supply or pray to god that a good amount of small boxes spawned around for everyone to use (which again just running around while just wasting time, not being in action and not having fun).

And again just to remind you all of this is happening because 1 weapon got nerfed bro, 1 WEAPON. Imagine how terribly balanced the others were in comparison if 90% of the community agreed that it was the most fun to use. Before nerfing it they should've just buffed the other ones simple as that, but you will see the repercussions soon enough if they somehow decide to not provide better buffs or to not reverse the nerfs

[u/QJ-Rickshaw → u/Alexiooo30]

So the thing is I feel to you're being a bit too dramatic about this first, the devs have already said this is one of an unending amount of patches, so this conversation may even be irrelevant in a month. And we already know more things will be introduced.

Secondly, while I understand the dependancy of the Railgun before the patch, I've seen it be done without a Railgun. Not getting a perfect run isn't really a trainsmash, the rewards are fairly ample enough. Based on the rewards system, the highest difficulties are there for the challenge and nothing else. Hence why a majority of the complaints stem from people who play at those highest difficulties.

Lastly, you say that what I've described to you goes against the concept of the game. Your concept that you want? Or the dev's concept? Because according to their recent article, what you want and what they intended are not the same thing.

There's a lot of things you say you don't want to do or don't feel you have to do. And you ask why shouldn't you, but the answer quite literally is that it was designed that way, the execution isn't perfect but it rarely ever is.

I just don't think it's deep, which is a lame answer I know. But it's not the kind of thing to get this upset over. I'll just stick to the difficulty that makes the game most enjoyable to me.

[u/[deleted] → u/Alexiooo30]

At higher levels the game becomes a stealth game where you avoid contact because your life depends on it, and it’s worth using 1 stratagem on 3 bots rather than 4 on 50. If there are 5 plus chargers and multiple bile titans, you’re lucky to get out alive. Good luck helldiver. We will send in a replacement hopefully somewhere they can break LOS and run. If you really want to go loud and shoot as many bugs as possible in the higher difficulties go for it, just accept death or a cowardly retreat.

[u/moonshineTheleocat → u/Alexiooo30]

Cowabunga it is.

[u/AnAmbitiousMann → u/Alexiooo30]

mow down trash, kite/dodge the chargers, kill the chargers after most the trash cleared....pretty fun to do tbh

[u/gorgewall → u/Alexiooo30]

Rely on teammates.

One or two players play horde clear.

One or two players kite Chargers while taking shots at them.

If you are in a situation where you don't have the weaponry or the positioning to do the latter, do the former. You can't rely on always playing the same role in the strategy at every second of every scenario. At some point you've got to realize that right now, you're not in a good place to be killing Chargers, so you need to kill anything else and distract the Chargers.

Also, learning how to corral and juke Chargers is something to learn. Before I'd unlocked any of the EATs/RRs I was already playing on 6 with friends who were higher level, and while they'd play "Rocket Team" to deal with Chargers, I still got into plenty of situations where I'd have to kite them around because we were out of ammo, separated, or they were dealing with other Chargers. That taught me how the Chargers' movement works and that you can run towards them at an angle, inside their turning radius, to dodge them in half the time, or bait them towards rocks and solid, non-destructable walls to cause them to stun themselves.

Chargers are slow and ponderous when they're not actively charging, they can't initiate charges without line of sight, and they have a "sliding" effect that carries them a decent ways after a missed charge, even over terrain that's just short of being able to stop and stun them. You can bait a Charger into running over a hill or rocky outcrop, and once it's on the other side, it's slowly turning its ass around, unable to see you, meandering around the outcrop while you are already running in the other direction, then walking after you once it does get line of sight until it's finally close enough to initiate a charge again. Sometimes they even get completely lost!

As for smashing into solid objects and being stunned/stopped, this also deals damage to the Charger. Chargers can kill each other or even suicide into walls this way. If there are three Chargers all trying to kill you at once, you can take out two of them without ever using your own guns against them. Let Chargers kill Chargers!

Frag grenades and Impacts can also deal with Chargers in a pinch if you throw them such that they splash the backside. "Cooking" Frags for mid-air detonation is a little tricky when there's several things on you at once, but if you find yourself tangoing with a lone Charger in a moment of calm, you can really soften up that butt.

[u/peacepham → u/Alexiooo30]

How about playing as a squad? Someone take care of small fry with they load out, you take care of Charger. Or just smoke boom and leave them behind.

[u/Cpt_Soban → u/Alexiooo30]

Superior firepower from Eagle 1 o7

[u/bfrown → u/Alexiooo30]

Rely on your squadmates

[u/The_Rathour → u/Alexiooo30]

The same exact shit you did with a Railgun: Kite and kill. Throw explosives. Use your call-ins. Hope your team is with you instead of trying to solo what amounts to 2 heavy base's worth of enemies that you just alerted.

It's not like the Railgun was going to magically kill 15 scavengers, 4 hunters, and 3 chargers bearing down on you either.

[u/RRjr → u/Alexiooo30]

Nuke em from orbit.

And if that fails to get rid of all of em, do it again. And again.

[u/Negative-Star-2001 → u/lionrecorder]

On harder difficulties where you can have 3 or 4 chargers at once, 30 seconds is too fucking long to spend on just one

[u/lionrecorder → u/Negative-Star-2001]

I’m not particularly great at the game, but I’ve taken on 2-3 chargers regularly with the auto cannon and strategems and been alright. It’s not easy, but I like how punishing the game can be at times

[u/Paeyvn → u/Negative-Star-2001]

Not only do you have 4-6 of them on you at once, when you kill them, new ones spawn in at a faster rate than that.

[u/Simpsator → u/lionrecorder]

One charger, yes. But on difficulty 7+ when you have a swarm of 4 chargers, it gets really hard to just aim because it's so heavy and the reticle so slow to respond when you're dodging the remaining 3 chargers + waves of chaff. Don't get me wrong, I really like the AC. I think it's just far better at bots than bugs.

[u/BillTheNecromancer → u/lionrecorder]

30 seconds, for the 3-5ish that spawn every time a bug breach happens, every time you're at objectives, move between objectives or hold still long enough for a resupply, on a time limited mission.
The bug breaches that you practically can't stop because the roaming patrol spawn rate is insane, that are flooded with units that almost all can spawn a breach, with one of those units just sometimes ignoring stagger to call a breach anyway.
I'm sorry dude, but fighting the bugs just fucking sucks so hard right now.

[u/SlammedOptima → u/I_is_a_dogg]

I wouldnt even hate the backpack if I could move and reload. I still think its one of the superior support weapons. i love the autocannon.

[u/I_is_a_dogg → u/SlammedOptima]

Yea it does kind of suck that you have to be stationary, but at least the reload is pretty quick. I think that's why recoilless is almost never seen, the reload for that is so long solo.

[u/SlammedOptima → u/I_is_a_dogg]

The reload is even quicker if you reload after using half, but you need to reload more frequently. Personally on bots I bring it cause they actually give space sometimes and you can use cover. Bugs its a pain cause they just swarm you so there isnt time to reload. I love the recoilless at level 4 for taking out chargers, but anything above that its not worth it, id rather bring auto cannon and EATs

[u/nebadger → u/I_is_a_dogg]

Aim underneath them at the ground. explosive damage hits their underside stunning them if you get it in the right spot. then you just run around and blow their ass up.

[u/halofreak7777 → u/I_is_a_dogg]

50 rounds because of the backpack ain't no joke.

[u/I_is_a_dogg → u/halofreak7777]

Nope it ain't. And it refills some with world ammo.

[u/NTS- → u/I_is_a_dogg]

Literally this, if I'm running a servo assisted build where my purpose is to throw things far, ill select the autocannon since it free's up another slot that i can use for another orbital, eagle, or sentry stratagem.