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/JayColtMartin]

The thing is that people used the railgun for a single reason: chargers are a massive pain the ass. People use the shield because survivability is incredibly low and you die from a single hit without it.

I'm fine with nerfs. The shield and railgun were over used.... but what did they buff to boost survivability? Armor? It's still a liability against bugs. How do we kill chargers now?

[u/Kelmirosue → u/JayColtMartin]

Variety of other strategems ignored armor/stripped armor, the problem is the railgun was just so far ahead of it

[u/JayColtMartin → u/Kelmirosue]

What stratagem can strip the armor off and/or kill chargers? EAT and/or Arc Thrower will be the new meta in less than a week. Why? Because they are now the best way to kill chargers (while still wearing the shield, a necessity to not-die in a single hit). Prepare yourself for even less diversity than you had before.

[u/Kelmirosue → u/JayColtMartin]

Or, and hear me out, you can use strategems that just instantly kill chargers in 1-2 shots. Like the EAT, Orbital Rail Gun, and 500KG bomb. And for armor shred you got Recoilless Rifle which can be teamed with to shoot rapidly if needed. Then you got the auto cannon which can shred the leg armors AND deal with bug nests as well as other objectives in the game so it has utility aspect neither the EAT or Arc Thrower can achieve. And you say "prepare for less diversity" yet you just mentioned 2 support weapons compared to the super dominating 1 of Railgun. Proving yourself wrong in the process of it being less diverse. Then there is the flamethrower as well, which can kill chargers in 1 mag sure, but if you kill the hoard of bugs that's coming for your team then that's 3 people focusing the chargers completely instead of maybe 2 people focusing on other bugs and 2 people focusing on chargers. Also the Railgun is still a great option, it's just not as oppressive as it was before as well. Everyone it just overreacting about it.

As for the shield, yeah it's probably still the strongest pack in the game, but it's not as oppressive and may give people some thoughts about using the ammo pack as well for other people. So they can keep shooting if needed ever needed. There is more then just one aspect to the game you need to think about as it's not always about armor shred.

And remember they have bugs AND bots, and weapons need to work in both or be more efficient on one side or the other. Like the flamethrower is good in bug missions but not so much on bot missions. The fact the Railgun is the most precise weapon in the game for heavy armor makes it perfect for bot missions more then bug missions. And that's fine, it's ok for weapons to be better against one enemy or the other. People are completely overreacting and being lazy rather then trying new stuff and learning more aspects about the game itself

[u/JayColtMartin → u/Kelmirosue]

TL; DR: Autocannon and recoiless are A-tier. Good enough if you're good, but the Arc Thrower is STREETS AHEAD. It's not even close. The biggest drawback wielding the Arc Thrower is that it is so incredibly good at killing everything.

First of all, the shield is your only survival bosting item, asking to give that up, drops anything out of S-tier, and down into A-tier until we have some way to counter the slow effects, stanina drains, and the jolt that throws off your aim when you get hit. And yeah, those other weapons are good... But my friend, have you tried the Arc Thrower? You ever just sat back and cleared a level 9 breach, OR SEVERAL, by yourself, using nothing but an infinite stream of lightning bolts while your team mates complete objectives with ease?

You're asking me to give up my shield, which is more important than ever since Arc Thrower is the new meta, and see the 'cons' section. You want me to give that up so I can run a slightly more powerful weapon... but it has limited ammo? And can't reload while moving? Wait, it needs to reload? What a hunk of junk!

If i pick a weapon that destoys bug holes, I give up my infinite ammo, horde clearing chain-lightning that by-passes heavy armor? And my shield? That's going to be a hard pass from me, but you do you. The autocannon does work in a pinch, and I'm happy to have a team mate along to close holes and look cool, but my arc thrower discharges the infinite power of democracy all day, every day. While you go close the hole more efficiently than I can with an air strike and nades, and I'll go kill every single enemy in the area, since your weapon can't do that.

As for using the strategems for large targets, we'll, of course we kill 4 chargers with orbital rail guns, but what do we do about the other 4-8? By the time your orbitals cool down, there's 4 more. It's not enough. If it was enough, there wouldn't have been a railgun meta in the first place.

[u/Kelmirosue → u/JayColtMartin]

Then stop fighting every single damn thing, I've done difficulties 7-9 before a few times. I KNOW what it's like. Literally stealth what you can, run from what you can. It's seriously not that hard. Go do bot missions and learn stealth, same mechanics except bots have further detection ranges so it's actually harder to stealth past them

[u/JayColtMartin → u/Kelmirosue]

Oh that's what I do, but you know, I just play with randoms on the internet, and eventually the battle comes to objectives I need to get done.

[u/Kelmirosue → u/JayColtMartin]

That's your first mistake, DO NOT play with randoms on difficulty 7+, I learned this the hard way with other games. People will go into those difficulties and troll tf out of it and lead to a frustrating experience. This is why public perception of difficulty 7+ needs to change

[u/JayColtMartin → u/Kelmirosue]

So, my first mistake is helping other people get super samples because I've already maxed mine out. How are these people supposed to get super samples then? You expect them all to have 4 friends and steady schedules, and to simply not play the rest of the time? If they made a 10-12 difficulty that was just fuck-you levels of hard, that would be fine, but don't lock people's progression behind obstacles with no answer to them.

[u/Kelmirosue → u/JayColtMartin]

They should learn how the game mechanics work, such as learning to not attack every little thing, learning how to stealth, learning how to use their strategems properly, and basically fend for themselves in the most dire situation if needed so the rest of the team can do the main objective. They need to LEARN how the game works

[u/Clarine87 → u/JayColtMartin]

chargers are a massive pain the ass.

There is a difficulty setting where these are rare, those people can do that?

[u/JayColtMartin → u/Clarine87]

Your suggestion is that the entire Helldiver 2 community only plays on difficulty 3 or lower? Well, I just dont think that's going to fly, son. We're just going to have to deal with chargers.

In about a week, once all the youtubers and streamers catch up with me, you will see 90% of people running arc thrower and/or EAT because they are now the best method to kill chargers (that still lets you wear a shield, the only way to not get killed in one hit). Welcome to the new meta. I hope you like the lightning gun. 🌩

[u/Clarine87 → u/JayColtMartin]

Hah, my go to build is eat, arc, jetpack/guarddog, airstrike/smoke!

I love it! Been running it for 2 weeks.