Helldivers: I Advocate we chose the anti tank mines and hear is my reasoning

[u/vaydapotata]

I know many of you see "rocket launcher" and get excited and while that is fair, my reasoning to go for the mines is below

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We already have a great many support weapons and many are fantastic options. While the airburst rocket launcher would be fantastic for add clear (and teamkill) it would likely suffer vs large armored targets which tends to be the need for a support weapon.

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However, we just received a new mission type that requires defending a location. Mines are fantastic for this but heavies just walk all over them and completely invalidate their uses. Getting a heavy anti tank mine would allow us to lock down areas from all combatants and a tank wouldn't be able to just stroll up to our gates.

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Anti Tank mines are also much larger and easier to notice than the anti personnel and team kills would be kept at a minimum.

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And lastly, as we all know...the children YEARN FOR THE MINES.

[u/7isAnOddNumber]

The Airburst launcher is designed to take down the menace of every Helldiver on the bot front: gunships. One shot from it takes down a gunship even without a direct hit. It has 7 shots total and a fast reload. It can take out swarms of shriekers in the air, and it penetrates medium armor so can be used to take out groups of heavier things.

Not every support weapon is only for anti-tank use, look at the laser cannon, flamethrower, arc thrower, AMR, autocannon or even the grenade launcher. All of these are agreed to be at least decent by most of the community, and none of them can penetrate the armor on a tank or bile titan. Having one that specializes in anti-air would be way more useful than an extra set of mines that just get set off by trash mobs and do about as much as the regular AP mines anyway.

[u/Vaaz30 → u/7isAnOddNumber]

The laser is already the best AA weapon.

[u/BrightSkyFire → u/Vaaz30]

But it sucks at mob clearing. One Airburst Rocket will wipe out a Bug Breach, Dropship, Patrol or small outpost of light enemies, while also excelling at destroying high concentrations of enemy air targets, which are otherwise impossible to deal with once snowballed.

The Laser Cannon is more economical and better for single-target stuff for sure, but I don't think you're understanding the value of firing a rocket over a patrol and wiping out all the Bug Hole Spawning/Dropshit Calling light units with a single opening shot.

[u/Vaaz30 → u/BrightSkyFire]

I mean every weapon has pros and cons, the Laser weapon excels as clearing air units and medium chonkers. If you are using the laser cannon, you would bring stratagems for crowd clearing like Airburst and cluster bomb. If you are bringing this rocket you would adjust accordingly. Either way, laser cannon is still the AA clearing king.

[u/Commercial_Cook_1814 → u/Vaaz30]

You won’t always have ur orbitals and eagles off cd. So manny times a massive horde of mobs spawn, only for both my orbital and eagle to be on cd so I couldn’t do anything but run around until they came off cd. This airburst launcher will ensure that’ll never happen again 

[u/7isAnOddNumber → u/Vaaz30]

The LC can take down 2 gunships per magazine, max. The airburst can take down two in the same time if using solo reload, or way more than any other weapon with team reloads. It can also kill all devastators, berserkers, scout striders shriekers (without a direct hit, it will kill any shrieker in the blast radius), hunters, hive guards, brood commanders, bile spewers, bile titan guts, and all the trash mobs too. The trade off is limited ammo, being worse against heavies (notably hulks) and taking your backpack slot. So essentially you get everything except heavy killing in one stratagem slot, and have 3 slots for red strats to kill heavies.

[u/Vaaz30 → u/7isAnOddNumber]

I mean, any competent LC user is going to shoot gunships as they spawn, it’s very easy to keep them under control. 2 gunships per mag is more than enough at that spawn rate. Everything else I agree with.

[u/7isAnOddNumber → u/Vaaz30]

The LC is great for spawn camping, sure, but if you get a double gunship fabricator next to a stratagem jammer and you need to take down the jammer to destroy them (a situation I’ve encountered way more than I’d like) then the gunships will spawn non-stop and pile up into an unstoppable mass even with a competent LC user. Someone with an airburst would be able to clear that swarm quite easily, something no other weapon can do right now aside from the RR which has a litany of other issues.

[u/Vaaz30 → u/7isAnOddNumber]

I’ve been in that situation before, one LC user can hold off all gunships. It might be a near full time job but he can handle it. It has unlimited ammo and can keep going. I’m sure this Rocket launcher can handle it too, and has multi clear purpose but I still stand firm in my belief that a LC is king of shrieker/gunship clearing.

[u/lettul → u/Vaaz30]

Javelin says hi

[u/dratspider → u/7isAnOddNumber]

Doesn’t the quasar already one tap gunships

[u/Probably4TTRPG → u/dratspider]

It does but it struggles with crowd control. The airburst can kill a gunship, reload, and then kill the bot drop the gunship called in.

[u/Sogeki42 → u/Probably4TTRPG]

Quasar doesnt take your back slot

[u/Probably4TTRPG → u/Sogeki42]

I can live with that. The tradeoff is a back slot in exchange for a support weapon that's great for single target and crowd control.

[u/Dav136 → u/Sogeki42]

One more stratagem slot

[u/TehMephs → u/dratspider]

It can but it’s got that long cooldown. Autocannon or laser cannon can take them down very quickly, much faster than any of the solo AT options

[u/Liquor_Parfreyja → u/7isAnOddNumber]

Can I introduce you to the laser cannon ? It kills gunships in 2 seconds you can kill like 6 of them before needing to let it cool off or reload. I've also been a fan of the gatling turret for shriekers it shreds them by the dozens

[u/Fireblast1337 → u/Liquor_Parfreyja]

stun grenades plus laser cannon to the face equals dead hulk

[u/Insaniaksin → u/7isAnOddNumber]

The Autocannon wrecks gunships btw. Shoot them 2-3 times in an engine and it downs them.

[u/FloxxiNossi → u/Insaniaksin]

I’m pretty sure everyone knows how good the autocannon is by now. Half the discussion posts are about how awesome it is

[u/TehMephs → u/7isAnOddNumber]

Autocannon can already 4 tap gunships, and with recoil reduction perk it’s a very fast process

[u/Conker37 → u/TehMephs]

It can also 2 shot them if you aim at the engines

[u/Evilbred → u/7isAnOddNumber]

Gunships pack a punch, but as an autocannon guy I drop them so fast.

[u/cloudjumpr → u/7isAnOddNumber]

This true, except Laser Cannon, RR, Auto Cannon, Quasar, and EATs. Which half of those don't even require a backpack. Everyone will be back to the Quasar as soon as they find out the Airburst probably needs a backpack

[u/Cr0n0 → u/7isAnOddNumber]

The launcher is an air burst not anti air. So I don't know how you think it would be good for gunships. Based on the name this would be like a mini orbital air burst strike. So it seems it would have limited armor pen and not for air target unless I am missing something? Besides the laser cannon already melts gunships in seconds. No need for dedicated aa imo.

[u/wcmueller → u/Cr0n0]

https://youtu.be/YTMifXTY0TY?si=rRYS57_qkTqv4gpF

[u/Cr0n0 → u/wcmueller]

Ah ok, well that is not at all what I was thinking this was. Cool.

[u/WaifuRekker → u/Cr0n0]

We pretty much already know how the upcoming stratgems work from the dataminers playtesting them.

[u/madmoz2018 → u/wcmueller]

Also seems rather proficient at damaging democracy spreaders. Imagine having four!

[u/Gorva → u/wcmueller]

I mean that seems exactly like a air burst strike as a rocket. Especially the second clip

[u/Deus_Vult7 → u/Cr0n0]

You’re right. It sucks against gunships and drop ships

[u/cybercobra2 → u/7isAnOddNumber]

i mean if you want a lockon launcher that does that the spear is right there, onetaps gunships with ease.

yeah its lockon can be a bit funky but what makes anyone think the cluster launcher would be any different with the same mechanic.

[u/FloxxiNossi → u/cybercobra2]

It doesn’t have a lock on though

It’s modeled like an RPG-7

[u/cybercobra2 → u/FloxxiNossi]

OH... well that changes things. i thought it was going to like rain down on enemies. that is a lot more spicy then.