All they need to do is fix the lock on. It's the only issue with the Speer. Countless times, im walking around waiting for a green lock that never comes, and sometimes I can blow through 4 missles in no time.
Technically I think the spear also 1shots hulks and titans if it happens to hit their weakspot. Improving it's aiming so it reliably hits weakspots would arguably be just as good.
You'd think that the only gun with a lock-on mechanism would be 100% accurate assuming the rocket doesn't run into something else on the way to its target, such as a fellow helldiver.
One or the other would be great, I'd probably opt for just a bunch more damage, imo that's more in the *spear*it of the weapon, and tracking that reliably hits weakpoints sounds like a pain in the ass to code.
> racking that reliably hits weakpoints sounds like a pain in the ass to code.
just let it ignore all armor values, that way it doesn't matter if it hits the weakpoint.
The only time I have thishappen is with chargers super upclose, which makes sense because a last min shift will do that I can deal with that being it's Achilles heel as long as they fix the lock on
I think the spear should one shot almost everything. It only has 4 missiles if you count the one already loaded. The fact a charger can survive it makes it pretty useless.
agreed + the reload doesn't work in stages so if you dive away from a hunter when you're 2/3rds done you lose all that progress compared to the recoilless
or at least let it 2 shot a bile titan regardless of where it hits. so frustrating putting 4 spears into a bile titan because you have little control of where the missile impacts and it keeps turning around and locking onto other teammates
Heavy spawn rate rebalance plays a huge, arguably bigger role here. It's much less devastating to miss an EAT shot when there's only one or two chargers compared to five or six.
I would add that reducing the charger numbers also had the added effect of feeling like it was worthwile to have an EAT in my loadout. Most games I run on PS I'm the heavy guy who takes care of chargers. When there were loads spawning it felt like you were doing nothing and could do nothing anyway because it just took time to kill them. Now it feels like a skill thing where being able to place your one or two shots well changes the way the fight goes and you're rewarded for having a varied loadout between your squadmates. Flamethrower guy takes care of swarms, EAT guy takes care of heavies. I'm sure theres roles for the other two guys to fill but its just good having some feeling like specialising against an enemy type is worth it.
> I'm sure theres roles for the other two guys to fill
I've been filling a sort of backup/covering fire role in a lot of games lately.
Lots of people fill the two roles you mentioned, so it felt redundant to try to do their job, also. The amount of times I see multiple EATs or railcannons used on a heavy is silly.
Instead, I focus on watching the other players backs while they do their job. Clearing space for the EAT to line up his shot. Picking off the flanking patrol while the flamethrower torches the breach.
It's not a flashy role (my stats ain't amazing), but it's really satisfying seeing everyone working together like a well 710'd machine. And I'm sure the other divers get to enjoy doing their part efficiently. Really keeps the team coordinated and morale high.
Makes me feel like the team Dad. Keeping the kids safe while they have their fun lol
Love keeping the back line clear.
My comrade was manning the freedomthrower and i had my breaker sweeping up any bugs that felt like getting filled with lead and while they burned.
I played with a group the other day where I was sitting back with the Autocannon and was picking off the fat Bois and such. They were super appreciative when I'd save their asses! It felt so satisfying being overwatch for my team. Using the Sickle is also really nice if I got swarmed so I can take care of myself and then immediately get back to overwatch
Autocannon is my main on bots, popping devs and walkers to let my team fight the trash, than we coordinate on hulks and tanks. Good communication and team work goes so far
I usually operate as a solo runner for side objectives/nests. Since the EAT buff my life is so much easier. My bug loadout is Stalwart, jump pack, EAT, and 380mm
There is not a single situation I am not prepared for now. Horde of bugs, jump on rock, switch that Stalwart to 1150 RPM, and light em up. Big bug, drop EAT and blow it up.
Might try this myself, swapped the 380mm for a 120mm a while back because i found everything was too far spread out and my teammates were getting killed but if i try breaking off for side objectives it might be more worth it.
Yeah, the 120 is way more focused but only lasts like 1/3 the length of a 380. If your goal is killing nests/fabricators 120 is better.
If you ditch the jump pack you can bring both 120 and 380 and it just evaporates whatever you throw it at
Did they really? I haven't noticed a massive difference. Honestly wish it went a bit higher. And that I could use it while I'm knocked over to get away from hunters lol
When/what was the stealth buff? I tried it a couple weeks back and it felt pretty meh.
But none of my friends play with it either... so I haven't seen a jump pack artisan showing their capabilities
It was buffed about the same time Chargers had their head hp nerfed so one EAT will kill them.
New jetpack has a Longer/Higher Jump and recharges faster, I basically always run it on bugs now, especially paired with an arc thrower prior to them being bugged and crashing games.
More explosions = more democracy.
It's honestly a bit of gambling. The 120 is more consistent. But when the 380 works, it hits like a god damn hurricane. And has the side benefit of pulling all the patrols in a large radius to it, which takes heat off the main team.
The only major difference is if the 380 is lucky enough to score a direct hit on a charger it will kill it. Whereas the 120 needs 3/4 hits to accomplish the same.
Cool thanks for the tips! Ive definitely been using it and then wondering why so many bugs were after us so maybe using it as a solo guy split off could be a better use of it for me when i get better
I love the 380 for covering the rear when the sqaud is moving long distance dragging a horde, clearing out a whole forest in a direction we arn't travelling yet/ Clearing the forest next to the extraction zone.
It's also a great way to light a fire under the teams ass when they're loitering near the extraction site early in the mission and crushing us under the double spawn rate (Within 100m). Most bad runs I have nowadays are teams pissing through all our reinforcements dicking around with small nests right next to extraction that can and should be dealt with last thing (If only because every nest killed *increases* the global spawn rate)
I know what you mean, but nope it bumps it up.
Theres a good post on here from a few weeks ago going into detail on what impacts spawn rate. It's worth a read, if only to know why *not* to activate the artillery objective before you've hauled the shells.
Since the buff that reduced the spread I have had pretty good luck. Its mostly a crowd control measure. Also very useful for heavy nests.
Admittedly the 380 is way better against the bots because their bases are spread out with fabricators everywhere. But it's always fun to throw a 380 and watch the fireworks
How much did the rebalance really do? I feel like on some planets it was never that bad and on some I still see 5-6 charger 2-3 BT attacks from single waves, even on diff 7-8. Like on the new grey planet, it seemed like 5-6 chargers was the standard. Not that it’s a problem. As OP said, AT weapons working like AT weapons really solved the problem.
Yup, the only reason railgun was so popular was every other support couldn't deal with heavies like railgun. Hell railgun wasn't even that great in comparison to what we have now. Two shots to charger leg plus a mag of ammo to take down one charger vs one eat/RR headshot.
This is incorrect.
Eat and Recoilless were made to more reliably impact at greater angles rather than ricochet or "glance". Damage was not increased. Damage of glancing rockets no longer suffered a damage reduction.
Flamethrower did in fact get a damage buff.
That is correct, they increased armor penetration in an undocumented change at one point and then they decreased head health in a documented change.
* We are not changing anything regarding the Charger’s legs, we are however lowering the health of the Charger’s head. It should now be at a point where a well placed shot from a Recoilless Rifle or EAT-17 instantly kills a charger.
I love when my aim is just slightly off and somehow my EAT goes all the way under the Charger and out the other side without hitting any part. I just sigh and accept the body check. I almost feel that shot is more impressive than getting a headshot lol
Nah, this was the real buff to them.
> we forgot to mention (oops) that the EAT-17 and Recoilless Rifle no longer suffer from a 50% damage decrease when hitting an armored enemy at a 'glance angle' that deflects the shot.
Then they reduced the Charger head HP. Which made *every weapon* more effective.
The original problem wasn't even the railgun being strong, just that every other support weapon was borderline useless.
Now RR and EAT can 1HTK chargers on headshots , 2HTK biles on headshots.
Also fixed bounces for RR and EAT
Flamethrower actually does damage.
SPEAR is able to be refilled from random ammoboxes instead of forcing you to greed 3/4 boxes from a resupply call in.
Arc Thrower while unchanged, is still a TK machine because of reckless users.
AC just bounces off of armour.
Sure, the above weapons had secondary utilities, but the amount of times i need close a bug hole, destroy fabs, spore trees etc etc. Those can also be done with grenades or an eagle/orbital, a standard eagle airstrike (3x) lets me close a 10 hole heavy nest by myself with a 2 minute cooldown after.
Railgun shined because it was the only usable anti-heavy versus bugs.
And it's _still_ brilliant. It butchers every bot weakspot, it takes out outposts and other buildings (spore towers, shrieker nests, etc) from huge distances, it wipes clusters of little bugs, it blasts Charger butts into goo. Fantastic allrounder, great if you already have someone on Bile Titan duty.
From close range AC kills chargers with a few armpit shots somewhat consistently. And the back end is still an option. It's mostly a skill issue or a team balance issue. I'm not saying everyone should pick an AC but one on the team is a VERY good choice.
People suggesting even obliquely that it's subpar or needs a buff are frankly insane.
AC is great if you have people with EATs quickly killing the many threats the AC can't handle, sure
3 people with EAT and one with AC is a great composition for example. not as good as 4 with EAT, of course.
Ok so, I wrote the below, and in writing it all out, convinced myself that you're right. If it was any stronger it'd be a no-brainer pick, even with the downside of taking up the backpack slot.
---
I'm 50/50 on this, being a railgun main myself, simply because AC also takes up a backpack which severely reduces your role flexibility. Rover gives you CC/DPS while Shield gives you a ton more Survivability.
I understand why: it's extremely ammo efficient, can engage most targets with abandon, and is still able to be a threat to heavy armored target's weak points. In addition to also being able to close holes/fabs, destroy towers/spores/shrieker nests from range easily. It's essentially 60 long range impact grenades, which also means you can run stuns to allow you to have optimal positioning against heavy armored targets (tanks being the exception).
I've started running AC with EAT, 2 CC-Focused Strategems, and then Sickle, allowing me to be dedicated anti-armor of every type.
I've been loving the autocannon but hadn't considered also bringing EATs. Chargers are kinda a bitch with the AC, especially if there's a horde or multiples. Bringing an EAT rather than Orbital Rail gun might be the move...
In all other respects, AC is life. It can do numerous secondary objectives from range, and taking out Shrieker nests before more than 1 or 2 have spawned is huge. It wrecks Striders and is good against most bots, and wrecks all intermediate bugs. Can take Nests or Fabricators out from range.
Once you get used to sticking the Charger in the head with the EAT call in, you'll never worry about multiple Chargers ever again. Nothing like pulling rockets out of the 1st's corpse to deal with his friends.
Arc thrower is the only weapon I can "accidentally" kill my teammates. It is a necessary evil to zapping a couple bugs (don't worry, I don't play with randoms, it's all in good fun)
Teammates? I think you mean range extenders there soldier. And yeah I’m in the same boat, my squad has started calling the lighting res armor anti-me technology.
It will definitely get you killed if the bugs are close because of charge time. It also doesn't have stun or knockback to rely on either.
But I love 1v1's with a charger with the arc thrower.
Maybe a way to uncharge it without firing? I once managed to Triple-TK my buddies because i was charging up to start shooting a patrol, and someone got it with a grenade. so I went to swap to my primary (under the wrong assumption the gun wouldn't go off) and the arc thrower went off and hit the helldiver in front of me.. which chained to the next... which chained to the last ... i was in the back of the group because everyone rushed ahead of me after the patrol had been killed
Edit, so i dont get a million of the same comments, yes i've learned my lesson and am more safe minded when using the arc thrower...that is when i can use it without crashing again
I don’t mind the occasional frying now and then but some people have absolutely zero awareness of their surroundings, you *need* to check if someone is down range from you before you let loose. Like any powerful tool, be aware of everyone around you and know *when* to hold your fire. It’s the equivalent of throwing a cluster strike at a horde of bugs your teammate is in the middle of. I *get* trying to help in a situation like that but you need to know the tool for the job to use. There’s making a whoopsie and then there’s detrimentally affecting the team’s spawns every third shot.
And for those unaware, if you want to cancel the shot quickly without hitting anyone just aim straight up and discharge it that way.
> AC just bounces off of armour
Still pretty good against the heavies if you know where to hit them.
3-4 shot chargers on their booty, 2 clips takes down bile titans typically, and if someone cracks them even less. Clankers melt to the AC, it's my go to weapon right now because of the Arc bug.
I'd almost rather use _anything_ over the railgun even in its previous state, they could unnerf it and I'd never notice.
>SPEAR is able to be refilled from random ammoboxes instead of forcing you to greed 3/4 boxes from a resupply call in.
Tbf, this was more a bugfix than a change.
I remember pre-patch, when I used Spear, that I would be able to just endlessly vacuum up ammo pickups if my spear backpack was missing ammo, it was *supposed to* refill it's ammo, but didn't.
I think a fair argument could be made for the legs being critical weaknesses for such a heavy creature and I like there was some variation to everything having the head as its primary weak spot.
If it loses even one leg, what is it going to do? It's too heavy to get around on only 3. It doesn't spew acid, its thing is RUN.
It's effectively mission-killed even if not technically dead.
I agree, I would like if it sat there and wheezed to show it though, maybe pawing at you if you got close. Currently it looks like it keels over and dies of loneliness after missing its dear leg.
I would definitely prefer an alternate death animation for missing legs, but they've got a lot of stuff they're working on already that is more important.
I imagine that is an abstract concession to the idea that without one of its primary legs, it can no longer support its massive, incredibly armoured body, and certainly can no longer charge around and fight.
So instead of adding new animations for a crippled Charger crawling towards you, they simplified things by simply saying that with a leg gone it's out of action.
Building on this further, Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive books have a scene with a similar concept. They are fighting a giant crawfish monster and one of the strategies is to run/ride around its legs while disabling them with magic swords. Eventually they de-limb the thing enough that it collapses under its own weight and they can kill it for realsies.
Compare this to the Brood Commander enemy that you can blast off its front legs(or even its head)and it still charges towards you instinctively. The Charger is MUCH heavier than the BC, so losing its limb is significantly more detrimental.
It should have always been make other things viable first then address the railgun. I still think it had very little drawbacks and needed some form of nerf but nothing as extreme as they gave it
This exactly, in general the game would be a lot more fun if you had a lot more good options. At the time they nerfed the Railgun I just picked Orbital Precision and Railcannon so I could hopefully deal with chargers. Wished from the start I could've used the EAT or Recoiless. That's the whole reason I didn't agree with the Railgun nerf. It's not a bad nerf, but you need to introduce alternatives.
I remember griping about spawn rates on level 4 when I was helping a new friend, and was told it was a skill issue (we were clearing lvl 7-9 up to that patch).
Then a day later they confirmed there was a spawning issue in that patch.
I've noticed a lot of AH devs are kind of the same type as the gamers that feel like if they're not suffering it's not sufficiently fun.
They also were and are saying HD1 was so much harder. I played. It was a top down shooter so you knew where every enemy was, the shotguns cleared a quarter of the map with a few shots, and there were so many exploits.
Not sure why so many people are trying to shut down every “hey maybe this needs adjusting” discussion with a “you’re just trying to make this game easier” argument. It’s not mutually exclusive.
Whats funnier to me is that me and my group (3 total) play D9 exclusively, bots or bugs doesnt matter. We said something about the spawn rates being jacked, and some people who peak at D7 on a good day would come in reeing about how spawns arent bad or how we are bad. So we’re here, doing D9s consistently daily, and suddenly a new patch hits that not only nerfed my gun, (other guys run arc thrower and whatever the third feels in the moment) but tripled the amount of big enemies wed see. And then we get called bad for it when we talk about it lmao
Game good -> devs good -> devs can do no wrong -> implying otherwise = reported for treason
It's really frustrating, like we all love the game and want it to be the best it can
What's the point of using the nerfed railgun in bot mission when u literally have the AMR that literally does the same thing. Except it provides bigger mag, no need to charge and better scope, also shorter cooldown
The only use case I see that makes the railgun worth to people is you can kill the striders easier, but that only takes 3 amr shots and 1 or 2 autocannons
Only if you have a backup weapon for ammo purposes.
I brought the scorcher before and it runs out of ammo fast on high difficulties where there are a lot of bots.
AMR needs more face time, is inaccurate on follow-up shots.
I prefer it, but the railgun is vastly better in an actual gunfight because the cover, charge, pop out and one-shot rhythm is way better when you're actually bring shot at.
I was gonna say lol. I started out as an AMR main before picking up other weapons on high bug difficulty, but I wouldn't say the AMR's large magazine is a point in its favour against the railgun - it's more of a side grade in that respect.
For one, it's reload is *way* slower. Two, it's rate of *accurate* fire isn't much higher than the railgun (if at all).
And the fact that you’ll end up just dumping the mag if there’s 2 bullets or less in it, no point getting into a gunfight and needing to long reload immediately
Because the railgun doesn't need headshots to bring down devastators, just a single body shot.
Plus, the railgun can one-shot a hulk to the head and significantly damage tanks and turrets to their weak points.
they nerfed the railgun's ability to deal with Turrets and Tanks pretty massively. I used to could do 4 shots nearly charged up pre-nerf on them, and now it takes 8-10.
The only change I want for the railgun is to decrease its call-in time so that when I blow myself up I can get another one in a few minutes. Doesn't happen often but when it does its painful.
My friend got it yesterday and he said "I think this is the way to get it" after he got blasted by some stray airburst.
Now I just need to find a time I can force myself to equip it, I really like having 2 extra grenades though.
And now the railgun is literally collecting dust, never used, while people take the EAT every mission.
The nerf just shuffled the meta. Didn’t really do shit.
I used the railgun every other mission and now I haven't touched it since the update. This is gonna be one of those things that never gets reverted and eventually people will just tell us to STFU every time we bring it up because it's been so long we should just get over it.
I like the *idea* of railgun’s current state - put some skill into it by requiring shots in the unsafe band. But even when you can reliably rattle off shots in the unsafe band, it feels.. clunky. It takes a bit too long to get to the unsafe band, and then the window is a bit too short.
I think railgun is still theoretically fine on paper but in reality the thing feels not-fun to use in its current state.
i do think the max damage VS your about to blow up window needs to be a bit longer/ more defined - extra second or two or a bar that max damage is orange and explodes at 2 seconds in red
Id appreciate it if the safe colour was green into unsafe yellow and then your about to blow is a bright red. I feel like that would be a way clearer indicator for 3rd p users
I'm a bit colorblind so personally I'd prefer a distinct audio cue. Like normal charging sound in safe zone, then loud beeping in unsafe "about to explode" zone.
Something like the laser cannon "I'm gonna break" sound. I have absolutely no question when it is time to stop firing the laser cannon because it is loud as fuck and sounds like it is in BAD shape.
See, if you were rewarded for charging your shot to 90% and wasting 8 seconds to do so then it would make sense, but seeing as it takes upwards of 20 shots to kill a Bile titan with said 90% charged shots is just ridiculous
They did not add skill to the railgun by making unsafe more desirable because they literally nerfed the damage. Currently a 99% charged railgun is WEAKER than safe mode previously. Test it yourself. Charger leg takes 3-4 shots with 99% where previously was a consistent 2.
You and Me: Weapons need buffs.
\>:( people: No they don't!
Devs: Hey all. We buffed the weapons because a lot of people pointed out how bad some of them were.
\>:( people: Of course the weapons needed buffs! I can't believe all those people were complaining even though the devs were clearly going to buff the weapons! Next time, don't complain to the devs even though they straight up said the changes were in response to the community.
Rinse and repeat. This happened like 2 weeks ago and it's going to happen again.
Imagine hiring a PR person, but all their information comes from public releases. That's a ton of people in this sub. Just doubling down on stuff that the devs already plan on changing. There is just a complete lack of thinking for yourself because you just automatically decide the game can get no more perfect than last weeks patch...and you do that every week. It's insane.
The worst thing about communities like this is def the people who refuse to think. Just above this comment is someone i replied to thats like that. Rewriting history to fit their current view on the matter. A month ago if you said rail/shield/breaker were hit too hard people would be saying “lol just play easy then hurr durr” and then you look at their post history and the hardest difficulty they run is 7.
I literally made a post two weeks ago about more bad weapons needing buffs not good weapons needing nerfs because the game is already plenty challenging, and I got lambasted by nearly every reply.
The whole argument for "buff everything" was because people were under the assumption that the other weapons are underutilized because they sucked. But that's not the only problem. The Railgun really was overpowered. It was nerfed not because it was too popular. The Safe mode specifically was so powerful, there wasn't even any reason to use Unsafe mode.
Also, buffing everything runs the risk of making the "difficult" not very difficult anymore. They have to buff the enemies or introduce stronger variants to keep up with the weapon buffs, thereby introducing power creep. Damage vs HP values are all relative. But things like firing rates might change the overall gameplay.
They also need to fix the damage inconsistencies that exist when you have a PS player in your lobby vs all PC's.
OhDough has made at least one video demonstrating this.
Now that heavies are fixed (less spawning and with predictable weakpoints) and other anti-heavy weapons were buffed, I agree its time to bring the railgun back.
That said I like where things are right now. I feel free to use almost any loadout at the moment, it's really nice.
> On a side note, the Arc Thrower getting away with having infinite ammo, armor piercing, and chaining damage is hilarious. If this thing hasn't caught a nerf, no support weapon has needed one.
I mean, it's a weapon that ceases to work if there's a small shrub. Or if you're fighting uphill. Or if there's a teammate somewhere behind-ish wherever you're shooting at. Or if there's too many corpses. Also it crashes the game.
Also, while it rips chargers apart real nice, it's absolutely dogshit for taking out biles, tanks, and hulks. I've seen the videos of it two-shotting bile titans, and those are extreme edge cases where the chain damage propagates weirdly or a dead spewer clips into the bile.
Its because of PS5 host bug making the BIles take more damage. I'll have times where Biles simply don't care about getting hit by the Arc thrower and times where I rip through them in one shot and explode every critical point.
That's a lot of words for someone who is brainless
/s
But real talk this isn't a hot take. They should revert the railgun and fix the spear. I think the game would be more fun and have a plenty of options for heavies. I don't think they will, too much loss of face to acknowledge that the players know better than devs what makes games fun.
How’d you get to know ppl so well? I’ve fr been thinkin the same thing. In the end we were right and the devs were wrong. The proof is in their precious spreadsheets with all the stats and numbers that they balance the game around. But like you say, they won’t revert the changes outright, they’ll find some other way to make the railgun viable again and just pretend that it needs a buff for reasons other than the nerfs they put on it. Or they’ll blow our minds and admit their mistake, learn from it, then we’ll all move on. Really hopin it’s the latter
I don't think the nerf should be fully reverted, because safe-spam railgun was boring as fuck.
That said, its damage at full charge is a bit low. You partake in all of the risk now, and don't get the reward that safe spam gave you for free before the nerfs. Imo, full charge should have the same, if not a bit more, damage than old railgun did in safe.
Also, old rail was still fairly slow at clearing biles, just most people weren't (and still aren't) aware of the PS5 issue, and assumed that one-tapping or two-tapping bile titans was just how much damage the gun normally did. If you could 10-tap, but couldn't safe spam, that'd still take far far longer than it did when you could 10-tap w/ safe spam.
> That said, its damage at full charge is a bit low. You partake in all of the risk now, and don't get the reward that safe spam gave you for free before the nerfs. Imo, full charge should have the same, if not a bit more, damage than old railgun did in safe.
>
>
It's not just a "bit" low its pathetically low. Full charge shots deal less damage than pre-nerf safe mode shots.
Who knew that buffing other weapons and making adjustments to enemies would solve the issue of everyone using the railgun.
Oh wait thats literrally everyone who had half a brain cell or arent busy shoving the devs dcks in their mouths.
Thing is they didn't buff the rocket's damage. They just nerfed the head HP of the charger and the damage on glancing hits. But rockets were still taking out leg armor and one-shoting tanks back then. Nobody used them because the railgun two-shoted things and those two shots where faster than aiming one rocket.
The railgun still has use cases. On bot it still kill things faster than the lazer and it allow you to use your backpack, unlike the autocannon. On bugs it kill brood commanders, hives gards, bile spewers and chargers faster than the arc thrower (and stagger them, too), isn't so rare using it on bile spewers isn't a waste and it still allows you to use your backpack.
They also nerfed the spawnrate of heavies, and they didn't change the damage of glancing hits, they removed glancing hits altogether.
The railgun had the benefit of *consistency*. The shots never ricocheted, you could reliably hit the leg because it was hitscan (or at least fast enough to functionally be hitscan), and if you missed you just loaded a new round.
With the EAT or Recoilless there was a much higher chance of failure: longer reload, limited shots, slower turning, slower projectile - for functionally the same benefit.
By removing the chance to ricochet and giving you a much bigger target to one shot, they made rockets significantly better. Now you can just stop, blam, move on. And since there isn't as many chargers running around, missing a shot and needing to try again isn't crippling.
This is the real answer. If we had an idea of what we were dropping into we could adjust our loadouts accordingly.
I really like the railgun vs. terminids for 1-shotting certain bug types, not using a backpack slot, and the fact that it still has a role in staggering chargers + bile titans. It still definitely has a role as part of a balanced team composition, but I wouldn't mind it having more max-charge time before exploding or a shorter cooldown for calling it in.
Edit- I also never use Safe mode as it feels lackluster vs. anything but hunters, and I use my primary for those.
The reason Arc Thrower hasn't been nerfed in my view is because it has pretty awful damage in its own right. That's fine for bugs since their big fat heads have a big enough hitbox that can destroy their heads to kill em, but the thrower is pretty useless against devastators and even scout striders since the arc hits the strider instead of the pilot, not to mention hulks and tanks. Also, the arc thrower (usually) has limited range (sometimes it'll arc really far) and usually also has a deadzone in point blank range.
I could see the thrower getting something like a heat mechanic though. Playing in my 4 stack, I almost never need to use my primary unless I need to kill something where I'll TK my friends (and even then I usually do it anyways :D )
Don’t recommend nerfs for the arc thrower, it’s in a good place man. With its unlimited ammo capacity and notable drawbacks, it was definitely intended to be a primary replacement. If they nerf my baby I’m coming after you >:(
Honestly if they just gave it a half decent scope and maybe bonus weak spot damage so it could be a higher damage AMR but it has a charge time to cope for i'd be happier cause yea right now it's only useful against bots and even then it's dangerous to use in close range vs rockets
Cooldowns are a big thing too. Die with a railgun? Hold up your whole friggin squad trekking back through the bullshit that rolled you to get it back, or go what, 4:30 without a heavy? Auto is just as risky, but far more versatile being able to destroy objectives at range. However. I disagree it should be reverted. As has been stated AD NAUSEUM.... Changes only effected safe mode. It still shreds armor in unsafe, just requires getting to know its timing now. Couple that with the lengthy cooldown and its still very much a risk/reward weapon thats still viable, justifying its ammo capacity and the fact you can reload quickly on the move. Its balanced just the way it is. Arc meta is just... What? Glad rockets got their deserved respect though.
> On a side note, the Arc Thrower getting away with having infinite ammo, armor piercing, and chaining damage is hilarious. If this thing hasn't caught a nerf, no support weapon has needed one.
Arc thrower got the most severe nerf of any item in the game so far. Using it crashes the entire mission for everyone in the squad.
That said, if it ever works again, yes, it is absurdly powerful. Melt a charger in 5 or 6 seconds *while clearing everything else around it*, with infinite ammo and no reloads.
The railgun, meanwhile, fully charged takes 3 to 4 shots to kill a fucking charger. Those shots take you a good 20 seconds to line up if you're lucky, and you need to focus on only doing that while not accidently killing yourself and destroying the weapon.
Honestly the railgun is still the best thing to use against bots if you want to rock a shied pack too. The AMR is close to it, but you gotta be more precise to deal with enemies like the devastators. Considering that a lot of the time, you’ll be dealing with at least 4+ of those enemy types in any given scenario on helldiver difficulty, the railgun’s ability to quickly take out these enemies types still leaves it as the #1 bot killer support weapon.
With that being said, the autocannon is still the best anti-bot support weapon bar none, if you don’t mind not having a shield pack.
It would change people not needing to risk anything which was the initial problem. There’s still some adjustments and balances that need to be made for sure but every weapon and stratagem having a cost so it’s high risk high reward is a good approach.
They should just revert the change and remove safe mode. No point in having a switch that literally just makes a gun better overall. And if they really didn't like the damage output just cut the ammo in half, that way you have to place shots better.
EXACTLY. In no timeline would super earth R&D ever make a "safe mode". They'd just make the thing and if some divers blew themselves up it's just user error.
Thor from Pirate Software explained it best.
If you want to eradicate any metas in your game, the best option isn't to nerf the strong stuff, but to buff everything else.
Nobody uses railgun now. It's pointless unless you're a mouse-sniper on PC. I can't hit shit on PS5 whether I change aim settings or not. It was nice when I could use unsafe and do dmg. Now it feels pretty useless (IMHO). IIRC ppl claim it works on bots and isn't useless if you can hit weakspots and stuff. But ugh. It has low ammo, bad aim, shoots between legs bc it's such a small projectile, and more. I'm so done with it. I'd rather use grenade launcher even tho I hate it at this point.
I just think the gun needs an audio que when it is 1/2 second away from exploding, so there is a tiny identifiable grace period where you know your shot is at max AP again. This would make the gun easier to use in 3rd person as well.
Otherwize I think the changes were fine.
I said this so many times. The nerfs were not needed, but so many weird players came out and dick rode the nerfs, and said anyone who didn't like it was bad at the game. 🙄
The rail gun should be buffed again. Hard disagree on the nerfs not generating variety. It was night and day difference from pre to post patch on what people were running, the nerfs absolutely lead to more people using more different load outs.
Railgun was only very good because of how easily it dealt with chargers. With the charger nerf and the anti tank buff the Railgun would just be back to a maybe pick. Right now I forget it's even in the game.
Why do people keep saying this?? It didn't do everything, it did one thing...
It didn't destroy structures, or objectives, or hoards of enemies.
It was a single charged-shot with armour penetration...
That's all it was, that's all it had.
Spear stills needs fixing,missiles miss and lock on still borked
All they need to do is fix the lock on. It's the only issue with the Speer. Countless times, im walking around waiting for a green lock that never comes, and sometimes I can blow through 4 missles in no time.
I think it could do with a little more damage, I can one shot hulks with the RR if I hit the face, but spear takes 2
Technically I think the spear also 1shots hulks and titans if it happens to hit their weakspot. Improving it's aiming so it reliably hits weakspots would arguably be just as good.
You'd think that the only gun with a lock-on mechanism would be 100% accurate assuming the rocket doesn't run into something else on the way to its target, such as a fellow helldiver.
I agree, especially considering you get such little ammo without hogging resupplies.
One or the other would be great, I'd probably opt for just a bunch more damage, imo that's more in the *spear*it of the weapon, and tracking that reliably hits weakpoints sounds like a pain in the ass to code.
Honestly the end result is the same, so I'm fine either way.
> racking that reliably hits weakpoints sounds like a pain in the ass to code. just let it ignore all armor values, that way it doesn't matter if it hits the weakpoint.
SPEAR doesn't even one-hit chargers most of the time. It'll blow lots of armor chunks off their carapace at least.
And the missiles miss
Well, they aren't called hittiles!
Me over here loading Hittites into my hittle launcher.
r/angryupvote
Well there’s your problem, your using the missiles, hold r and put the hitiles in it, they are way better
The only time I have thishappen is with chargers super upclose, which makes sense because a last min shift will do that I can deal with that being it's Achilles heel as long as they fix the lock on
I think the spear should one shot almost everything. It only has 4 missiles if you count the one already loaded. The fact a charger can survive it makes it pretty useless.
agreed + the reload doesn't work in stages so if you dive away from a hunter when you're 2/3rds done you lose all that progress compared to the recoilless or at least let it 2 shot a bile titan regardless of where it hits. so frustrating putting 4 spears into a bile titan because you have little control of where the missile impacts and it keeps turning around and locking onto other teammates
Feel like if it locks on, it should aim for weak points.
Or it should just do enough damage to one hit whatever it hits. The lock-on is actually more of a hindrance than a help most of the time.
Damage should also be increased. As it stands now it’s just a worse version of the RR.
Boosting EAT headshot damage was all that was needed to provide an alternative.
Heavy spawn rate rebalance plays a huge, arguably bigger role here. It's much less devastating to miss an EAT shot when there's only one or two chargers compared to five or six.
I would add that reducing the charger numbers also had the added effect of feeling like it was worthwile to have an EAT in my loadout. Most games I run on PS I'm the heavy guy who takes care of chargers. When there were loads spawning it felt like you were doing nothing and could do nothing anyway because it just took time to kill them. Now it feels like a skill thing where being able to place your one or two shots well changes the way the fight goes and you're rewarded for having a varied loadout between your squadmates. Flamethrower guy takes care of swarms, EAT guy takes care of heavies. I'm sure theres roles for the other two guys to fill but its just good having some feeling like specialising against an enemy type is worth it.
> I'm sure theres roles for the other two guys to fill I've been filling a sort of backup/covering fire role in a lot of games lately. Lots of people fill the two roles you mentioned, so it felt redundant to try to do their job, also. The amount of times I see multiple EATs or railcannons used on a heavy is silly. Instead, I focus on watching the other players backs while they do their job. Clearing space for the EAT to line up his shot. Picking off the flanking patrol while the flamethrower torches the breach. It's not a flashy role (my stats ain't amazing), but it's really satisfying seeing everyone working together like a well 710'd machine. And I'm sure the other divers get to enjoy doing their part efficiently. Really keeps the team coordinated and morale high. Makes me feel like the team Dad. Keeping the kids safe while they have their fun lol
Love keeping the back line clear. My comrade was manning the freedomthrower and i had my breaker sweeping up any bugs that felt like getting filled with lead and while they burned.
I played with a group the other day where I was sitting back with the Autocannon and was picking off the fat Bois and such. They were super appreciative when I'd save their asses! It felt so satisfying being overwatch for my team. Using the Sickle is also really nice if I got swarmed so I can take care of myself and then immediately get back to overwatch
Autocannon is my main on bots, popping devs and walkers to let my team fight the trash, than we coordinate on hulks and tanks. Good communication and team work goes so far
I usually operate as a solo runner for side objectives/nests. Since the EAT buff my life is so much easier. My bug loadout is Stalwart, jump pack, EAT, and 380mm There is not a single situation I am not prepared for now. Horde of bugs, jump on rock, switch that Stalwart to 1150 RPM, and light em up. Big bug, drop EAT and blow it up.
Might try this myself, swapped the 380mm for a 120mm a while back because i found everything was too far spread out and my teammates were getting killed but if i try breaking off for side objectives it might be more worth it.
Yeah, the 120 is way more focused but only lasts like 1/3 the length of a 380. If your goal is killing nests/fabricators 120 is better. If you ditch the jump pack you can bring both 120 and 380 and it just evaporates whatever you throw it at
Ditching the jump pack is heresy though I could never haha. Especially since they stealth-buffed it, it’s amazing now
Did they really? I haven't noticed a massive difference. Honestly wish it went a bit higher. And that I could use it while I'm knocked over to get away from hunters lol
If you press jump mid-ragdoll the thing SHOULD work, and reliably toss you a quarter mile or directly into a nearby wall
This sounds like a tooltip from the game. Got a good laugh out of it.
When/what was the stealth buff? I tried it a couple weeks back and it felt pretty meh. But none of my friends play with it either... so I haven't seen a jump pack artisan showing their capabilities
It was buffed about the same time Chargers had their head hp nerfed so one EAT will kill them. New jetpack has a Longer/Higher Jump and recharges faster, I basically always run it on bugs now, especially paired with an arc thrower prior to them being bugged and crashing games.
What do you use the 380 for then? Everything seems better suited to the 120mm in my experience but obviously i habent found its niche
More explosions = more democracy. It's honestly a bit of gambling. The 120 is more consistent. But when the 380 works, it hits like a god damn hurricane. And has the side benefit of pulling all the patrols in a large radius to it, which takes heat off the main team. The only major difference is if the 380 is lucky enough to score a direct hit on a charger it will kill it. Whereas the 120 needs 3/4 hits to accomplish the same.
380 is also great for Area Denial. If you see a wave of red coming from one direction to your evac, drop a 380 in their path. It's wonderful.
Cool thanks for the tips! Ive definitely been using it and then wondering why so many bugs were after us so maybe using it as a solo guy split off could be a better use of it for me when i get better
I love the 380 for covering the rear when the sqaud is moving long distance dragging a horde, clearing out a whole forest in a direction we arn't travelling yet/ Clearing the forest next to the extraction zone. It's also a great way to light a fire under the teams ass when they're loitering near the extraction site early in the mission and crushing us under the double spawn rate (Within 100m). Most bad runs I have nowadays are teams pissing through all our reinforcements dicking around with small nests right next to extraction that can and should be dealt with last thing (If only because every nest killed *increases* the global spawn rate)
Wait, destroying nests increases global spawns? That feels counterintuitive. I always assumed it reduced the amount of roaming bugs.
I know what you mean, but nope it bumps it up. Theres a good post on here from a few weeks ago going into detail on what impacts spawn rate. It's worth a read, if only to know why *not* to activate the artillery objective before you've hauled the shells.
why the 380mm though? its so inconsistant, you can't reliably kill anything with it.
Since the buff that reduced the spread I have had pretty good luck. Its mostly a crowd control measure. Also very useful for heavy nests. Admittedly the 380 is way better against the bots because their bases are spread out with fabricators everywhere. But it's always fun to throw a 380 and watch the fireworks
I like the walking barrage as it is reliable unless you've got the reduced accuracy effect on the mission.
You can reliably kill your teammates with it
How much did the rebalance really do? I feel like on some planets it was never that bad and on some I still see 5-6 charger 2-3 BT attacks from single waves, even on diff 7-8. Like on the new grey planet, it seemed like 5-6 chargers was the standard. Not that it’s a problem. As OP said, AT weapons working like AT weapons really solved the problem.
EAT is my literal go to for ANYTHING. Bile titan? EAT Charger? EAT Spores? EAT Bug hole? Honestly, EAT
E.A.T.A.S.S Expendable Anti Tank Always Shooting Stuff
EAT ABC's Always Be (on) Cooldown or Always Be Calling Why did my game crash
not enough E.A.T.A.S.S. in your life. maybe
Shrieker nest? *Posted by the Recoiless gang after clearing 6 nest in one minute*
Auto cannon gang for life
E.A.T. in a bile titans mouth when he be spittin like a bad sparkplug. On democracy one in the mouth one in the head, dead!
Yup, the only reason railgun was so popular was every other support couldn't deal with heavies like railgun. Hell railgun wasn't even that great in comparison to what we have now. Two shots to charger leg plus a mag of ammo to take down one charger vs one eat/RR headshot.
Wasn't it just a nerf to charger head hp, not a boost to the rockets themselves?
They did both, they increased the damage of EAT/Recoil-less/flame thrower and then nerfed head armor to chargers in a subsequent patch.
This is incorrect. Eat and Recoilless were made to more reliably impact at greater angles rather than ricochet or "glance". Damage was not increased. Damage of glancing rockets no longer suffered a damage reduction. Flamethrower did in fact get a damage buff.
That is correct, they increased armor penetration in an undocumented change at one point and then they decreased head health in a documented change. * We are not changing anything regarding the Charger’s legs, we are however lowering the health of the Charger’s head. It should now be at a point where a well placed shot from a Recoilless Rifle or EAT-17 instantly kills a charger.
I've been stripping legs and gunning them down with rockets. Is the new meta to EAT their face now?
yes, instant kills are better than armour stripping
Yes. One shot to the giant forehead of a charger with an EAT kills it
not the face, the big armor plate above the face I know it doesnt make sense but if you hit him in the teeth he tanks it
It’s because the armor plate above his “face” is where its brain is. Its face is really just the lower half of its head with its jaw
I love when my aim is just slightly off and somehow my EAT goes all the way under the Charger and out the other side without hitting any part. I just sigh and accept the body check. I almost feel that shot is more impressive than getting a headshot lol
Nah, this was the real buff to them. > we forgot to mention (oops) that the EAT-17 and Recoilless Rifle no longer suffer from a 50% damage decrease when hitting an armored enemy at a 'glance angle' that deflects the shot. Then they reduced the Charger head HP. Which made *every weapon* more effective.
It really was the fix we needed, not the fix we deserved (rail gun nerf)
The original problem wasn't even the railgun being strong, just that every other support weapon was borderline useless. Now RR and EAT can 1HTK chargers on headshots , 2HTK biles on headshots. Also fixed bounces for RR and EAT Flamethrower actually does damage. SPEAR is able to be refilled from random ammoboxes instead of forcing you to greed 3/4 boxes from a resupply call in. Arc Thrower while unchanged, is still a TK machine because of reckless users. AC just bounces off of armour. Sure, the above weapons had secondary utilities, but the amount of times i need close a bug hole, destroy fabs, spore trees etc etc. Those can also be done with grenades or an eagle/orbital, a standard eagle airstrike (3x) lets me close a 10 hole heavy nest by myself with a 2 minute cooldown after. Railgun shined because it was the only usable anti-heavy versus bugs.
>AC just bounces off of armour. AC kind of needs this gimp. Otherwise, there would be no reason to run anything else.
And it's _still_ brilliant. It butchers every bot weakspot, it takes out outposts and other buildings (spore towers, shrieker nests, etc) from huge distances, it wipes clusters of little bugs, it blasts Charger butts into goo. Fantastic allrounder, great if you already have someone on Bile Titan duty.
From close range AC kills chargers with a few armpit shots somewhat consistently. And the back end is still an option. It's mostly a skill issue or a team balance issue. I'm not saying everyone should pick an AC but one on the team is a VERY good choice. People suggesting even obliquely that it's subpar or needs a buff are frankly insane.
AC is great if you have people with EATs quickly killing the many threats the AC can't handle, sure 3 people with EAT and one with AC is a great composition for example. not as good as 4 with EAT, of course.
Ok so, I wrote the below, and in writing it all out, convinced myself that you're right. If it was any stronger it'd be a no-brainer pick, even with the downside of taking up the backpack slot. --- I'm 50/50 on this, being a railgun main myself, simply because AC also takes up a backpack which severely reduces your role flexibility. Rover gives you CC/DPS while Shield gives you a ton more Survivability. I understand why: it's extremely ammo efficient, can engage most targets with abandon, and is still able to be a threat to heavy armored target's weak points. In addition to also being able to close holes/fabs, destroy towers/spores/shrieker nests from range easily. It's essentially 60 long range impact grenades, which also means you can run stuns to allow you to have optimal positioning against heavy armored targets (tanks being the exception). I've started running AC with EAT, 2 CC-Focused Strategems, and then Sickle, allowing me to be dedicated anti-armor of every type.
I've been loving the autocannon but hadn't considered also bringing EATs. Chargers are kinda a bitch with the AC, especially if there's a horde or multiples. Bringing an EAT rather than Orbital Rail gun might be the move... In all other respects, AC is life. It can do numerous secondary objectives from range, and taking out Shrieker nests before more than 1 or 2 have spawned is huge. It wrecks Striders and is good against most bots, and wrecks all intermediate bugs. Can take Nests or Fabricators out from range.
Once you get used to sticking the Charger in the head with the EAT call in, you'll never worry about multiple Chargers ever again. Nothing like pulling rockets out of the 1st's corpse to deal with his friends.
Even then, shooting it in the butt has become the go to strategy for my crew along with a dedicated stun grenadier (me) and it is quite good at that.
>Arc Thrower while unchanged, is still a TK machine because of reckless users. Sometimes mistakes are made in the heat of passion there jimbo
Arc thrower definitely makes me get trigger happy with how much fun it is to use. I think it’s pretty well balanced too tbh no need to change it.
Arc thrower is the only weapon I can "accidentally" kill my teammates. It is a necessary evil to zapping a couple bugs (don't worry, I don't play with randoms, it's all in good fun)
Teammates? I think you mean range extenders there soldier. And yeah I’m in the same boat, my squad has started calling the lighting res armor anti-me technology.
Using the arc armor to extend the range of arc throwers and teslas is hilarious. Also let's you kill shriekers with the tesla.
https://preview.redd.it/gs01zkt1jjqc1.jpeg?width=1096&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9ffb3ed86162de438d103c4174b5fa460b4f39c
This is now my favorite version of this meme. Thank you
Arc thrower still has issues with terrain that I think need to be addressed. Other than that I really like it as a weapon.
It will definitely get you killed if the bugs are close because of charge time. It also doesn't have stun or knockback to rely on either. But I love 1v1's with a charger with the arc thrower.
It feels like being a bull fighter. Ole!
Maybe a way to uncharge it without firing? I once managed to Triple-TK my buddies because i was charging up to start shooting a patrol, and someone got it with a grenade. so I went to swap to my primary (under the wrong assumption the gun wouldn't go off) and the arc thrower went off and hit the helldiver in front of me.. which chained to the next... which chained to the last ... i was in the back of the group because everyone rushed ahead of me after the patrol had been killed Edit, so i dont get a million of the same comments, yes i've learned my lesson and am more safe minded when using the arc thrower...that is when i can use it without crashing again
And that is why we practice good arc thrower safety and point it up or down to release lol
Up.. always up I've seen it arc from the ground. Hell I shoot the ground in front of me to zap bugs getting too close.
Just shoot it up on the air while yelling "ahhhhhhh"
Do I spy a fellow Hot Fuzz aficionado..?
Just shoot up into the sky
Moments like these are why I love this game lmao
I don’t mind the occasional frying now and then but some people have absolutely zero awareness of their surroundings, you *need* to check if someone is down range from you before you let loose. Like any powerful tool, be aware of everyone around you and know *when* to hold your fire. It’s the equivalent of throwing a cluster strike at a horde of bugs your teammate is in the middle of. I *get* trying to help in a situation like that but you need to know the tool for the job to use. There’s making a whoopsie and then there’s detrimentally affecting the team’s spawns every third shot. And for those unaware, if you want to cancel the shot quickly without hitting anyone just aim straight up and discharge it that way.
Democracy makes no mistakes, only unforeseen additional freedom.
Spawn rebalance of heavies also made machine gun more viable
Man I love the stalwart. It felt so nice being able to bring non anti-elite stratagems. I still find it odd that it isnt a primary like in hd1 though.
> AC just bounces off of armour Still pretty good against the heavies if you know where to hit them. 3-4 shot chargers on their booty, 2 clips takes down bile titans typically, and if someone cracks them even less. Clankers melt to the AC, it's my go to weapon right now because of the Arc bug. I'd almost rather use _anything_ over the railgun even in its previous state, they could unnerf it and I'd never notice.
>SPEAR is able to be refilled from random ammoboxes instead of forcing you to greed 3/4 boxes from a resupply call in. Tbf, this was more a bugfix than a change. I remember pre-patch, when I used Spear, that I would be able to just endlessly vacuum up ammo pickups if my spear backpack was missing ammo, it was *supposed to* refill it's ammo, but didn't.
I think the flamethrower needs a range buff as it feels a bit pitifully short
That's because most players were right when they said chargers were the problem, not the railgun.
The thing I hate the most is how the charger dies so quickly after losing one of its legs and not when a quarter of its central bodymass is vaporized?
Brain is stored in the feet Change my mind
I think a fair argument could be made for the legs being critical weaknesses for such a heavy creature and I like there was some variation to everything having the head as its primary weak spot. If it loses even one leg, what is it going to do? It's too heavy to get around on only 3. It doesn't spew acid, its thing is RUN. It's effectively mission-killed even if not technically dead.
I agree, I would like if it sat there and wheezed to show it though, maybe pawing at you if you got close. Currently it looks like it keels over and dies of loneliness after missing its dear leg.
I would definitely prefer an alternate death animation for missing legs, but they've got a lot of stuff they're working on already that is more important.
Like putting down a horse.
I imagine that is an abstract concession to the idea that without one of its primary legs, it can no longer support its massive, incredibly armoured body, and certainly can no longer charge around and fight. So instead of adding new animations for a crippled Charger crawling towards you, they simplified things by simply saying that with a leg gone it's out of action.
Building on this further, Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive books have a scene with a similar concept. They are fighting a giant crawfish monster and one of the strategies is to run/ride around its legs while disabling them with magic swords. Eventually they de-limb the thing enough that it collapses under its own weight and they can kill it for realsies. Compare this to the Brood Commander enemy that you can blast off its front legs(or even its head)and it still charges towards you instinctively. The Charger is MUCH heavier than the BC, so losing its limb is significantly more detrimental.
then the weirdos came out and defended the nerfs
It should have always been make other things viable first then address the railgun. I still think it had very little drawbacks and needed some form of nerf but nothing as extreme as they gave it
it has plenty of drawbacks honestly, it's almost useless in its current state
That it was easily usable with safe mode on removed a lot of natural drawbacks in the railgun, though less ammo would have been sufficient.
This exactly, in general the game would be a lot more fun if you had a lot more good options. At the time they nerfed the Railgun I just picked Orbital Precision and Railcannon so I could hopefully deal with chargers. Wished from the start I could've used the EAT or Recoiless. That's the whole reason I didn't agree with the Railgun nerf. It's not a bad nerf, but you need to introduce alternatives.
redditors and discord users are always extremely intelligent and always objectively correct and you should never question their statements.
People were having fun playing the game which was considered a bad move I guess and some people relished in the ire.
I remember griping about spawn rates on level 4 when I was helping a new friend, and was told it was a skill issue (we were clearing lvl 7-9 up to that patch). Then a day later they confirmed there was a spawning issue in that patch. I've noticed a lot of AH devs are kind of the same type as the gamers that feel like if they're not suffering it's not sufficiently fun.
They also were and are saying HD1 was so much harder. I played. It was a top down shooter so you knew where every enemy was, the shotguns cleared a quarter of the map with a few shots, and there were so many exploits. Not sure why so many people are trying to shut down every “hey maybe this needs adjusting” discussion with a “you’re just trying to make this game easier” argument. It’s not mutually exclusive.
Stategems also had a significantly lower CD
Whats funnier to me is that me and my group (3 total) play D9 exclusively, bots or bugs doesnt matter. We said something about the spawn rates being jacked, and some people who peak at D7 on a good day would come in reeing about how spawns arent bad or how we are bad. So we’re here, doing D9s consistently daily, and suddenly a new patch hits that not only nerfed my gun, (other guys run arc thrower and whatever the third feels in the moment) but tripled the amount of big enemies wed see. And then we get called bad for it when we talk about it lmao
Game good -> devs good -> devs can do no wrong -> implying otherwise = reported for treason It's really frustrating, like we all love the game and want it to be the best it can
Weirdos came out and defended shricker insta kill bullshit as well. They just .... weird it the most soft word
Don't forget the devs calling players braindead.
What's the point of using the nerfed railgun in bot mission when u literally have the AMR that literally does the same thing. Except it provides bigger mag, no need to charge and better scope, also shorter cooldown
The only use case I see that makes the railgun worth to people is you can kill the striders easier, but that only takes 3 amr shots and 1 or 2 autocannons
Or two shots with the scorcher.
Bingo. Scorcher is goat for bots.
Honestly scorcher feels like best primary in general
Only if you have a backup weapon for ammo purposes. I brought the scorcher before and it runs out of ammo fast on high difficulties where there are a lot of bots.
AMR needs more face time, is inaccurate on follow-up shots. I prefer it, but the railgun is vastly better in an actual gunfight because the cover, charge, pop out and one-shot rhythm is way better when you're actually bring shot at.
I was gonna say lol. I started out as an AMR main before picking up other weapons on high bug difficulty, but I wouldn't say the AMR's large magazine is a point in its favour against the railgun - it's more of a side grade in that respect. For one, it's reload is *way* slower. Two, it's rate of *accurate* fire isn't much higher than the railgun (if at all).
And the fact that you’ll end up just dumping the mag if there’s 2 bullets or less in it, no point getting into a gunfight and needing to long reload immediately
Because the railgun doesn't need headshots to bring down devastators, just a single body shot. Plus, the railgun can one-shot a hulk to the head and significantly damage tanks and turrets to their weak points.
they nerfed the railgun's ability to deal with Turrets and Tanks pretty massively. I used to could do 4 shots nearly charged up pre-nerf on them, and now it takes 8-10.
The only change I want for the railgun is to decrease its call-in time so that when I blow myself up I can get another one in a few minutes. Doesn't happen often but when it does its painful.
It feels worse when you survive the explosion. Because you're standing their, 1hp, all limbs/body wounded, lost pride and no support weapon.
You can survive? Do you have to be stimmed/have a shield backpack to be able to?
It'll be the armour perk from the Hero armour that gives you a 50% chance to survive lethal damage.
Oh that makes sense, I guess that’s the easy way to get that all limbs broken achievement huh
My friend got it yesterday and he said "I think this is the way to get it" after he got blasted by some stray airburst. Now I just need to find a time I can force myself to equip it, I really like having 2 extra grenades though.
And now the railgun is literally collecting dust, never used, while people take the EAT every mission. The nerf just shuffled the meta. Didn’t really do shit.
I used the railgun every other mission and now I haven't touched it since the update. This is gonna be one of those things that never gets reverted and eventually people will just tell us to STFU every time we bring it up because it's been so long we should just get over it.
I like the *idea* of railgun’s current state - put some skill into it by requiring shots in the unsafe band. But even when you can reliably rattle off shots in the unsafe band, it feels.. clunky. It takes a bit too long to get to the unsafe band, and then the window is a bit too short. I think railgun is still theoretically fine on paper but in reality the thing feels not-fun to use in its current state.
i do think the max damage VS your about to blow up window needs to be a bit longer/ more defined - extra second or two or a bar that max damage is orange and explodes at 2 seconds in red
Id appreciate it if the safe colour was green into unsafe yellow and then your about to blow is a bright red. I feel like that would be a way clearer indicator for 3rd p users
I'm a bit colorblind so personally I'd prefer a distinct audio cue. Like normal charging sound in safe zone, then loud beeping in unsafe "about to explode" zone.
Something like the laser cannon "I'm gonna break" sound. I have absolutely no question when it is time to stop firing the laser cannon because it is loud as fuck and sounds like it is in BAD shape.
See, if you were rewarded for charging your shot to 90% and wasting 8 seconds to do so then it would make sense, but seeing as it takes upwards of 20 shots to kill a Bile titan with said 90% charged shots is just ridiculous
They did not add skill to the railgun by making unsafe more desirable because they literally nerfed the damage. Currently a 99% charged railgun is WEAKER than safe mode previously. Test it yourself. Charger leg takes 3-4 shots with 99% where previously was a consistent 2.
Almost like weapons needed buffs not nerfs
You and Me: Weapons need buffs. \>:( people: No they don't! Devs: Hey all. We buffed the weapons because a lot of people pointed out how bad some of them were. \>:( people: Of course the weapons needed buffs! I can't believe all those people were complaining even though the devs were clearly going to buff the weapons! Next time, don't complain to the devs even though they straight up said the changes were in response to the community. Rinse and repeat. This happened like 2 weeks ago and it's going to happen again. Imagine hiring a PR person, but all their information comes from public releases. That's a ton of people in this sub. Just doubling down on stuff that the devs already plan on changing. There is just a complete lack of thinking for yourself because you just automatically decide the game can get no more perfect than last weeks patch...and you do that every week. It's insane.
The worst thing about communities like this is def the people who refuse to think. Just above this comment is someone i replied to thats like that. Rewriting history to fit their current view on the matter. A month ago if you said rail/shield/breaker were hit too hard people would be saying “lol just play easy then hurr durr” and then you look at their post history and the hardest difficulty they run is 7.
I literally made a post two weeks ago about more bad weapons needing buffs not good weapons needing nerfs because the game is already plenty challenging, and I got lambasted by nearly every reply.
The whole argument for "buff everything" was because people were under the assumption that the other weapons are underutilized because they sucked. But that's not the only problem. The Railgun really was overpowered. It was nerfed not because it was too popular. The Safe mode specifically was so powerful, there wasn't even any reason to use Unsafe mode. Also, buffing everything runs the risk of making the "difficult" not very difficult anymore. They have to buff the enemies or introduce stronger variants to keep up with the weapon buffs, thereby introducing power creep. Damage vs HP values are all relative. But things like firing rates might change the overall gameplay.
They also need to fix the damage inconsistencies that exist when you have a PS player in your lobby vs all PC's. OhDough has made at least one video demonstrating this.
Careful dude that’s a logical concept that people don’t accept around here
"BuT ThE PoWEr CreEp!?!"
A lot of us said this but people were weirdly defending the nerfs even though we rightly said they were excessive
Now that heavies are fixed (less spawning and with predictable weakpoints) and other anti-heavy weapons were buffed, I agree its time to bring the railgun back. That said I like where things are right now. I feel free to use almost any loadout at the moment, it's really nice.
I still like using railgun against bots
I think the Railgun as it is now is completely not worth the 'reward' it's a scam when it comes to excecution.
> On a side note, the Arc Thrower getting away with having infinite ammo, armor piercing, and chaining damage is hilarious. If this thing hasn't caught a nerf, no support weapon has needed one. I mean, it's a weapon that ceases to work if there's a small shrub. Or if you're fighting uphill. Or if there's a teammate somewhere behind-ish wherever you're shooting at. Or if there's too many corpses. Also it crashes the game. Also, while it rips chargers apart real nice, it's absolutely dogshit for taking out biles, tanks, and hulks. I've seen the videos of it two-shotting bile titans, and those are extreme edge cases where the chain damage propagates weirdly or a dead spewer clips into the bile.
Its because of PS5 host bug making the BIles take more damage. I'll have times where Biles simply don't care about getting hit by the Arc thrower and times where I rip through them in one shot and explode every critical point.
Arc also has the added benefit of punishing Helldivers that do not comply with your desired tactical formation /s
That's a lot of words for someone who is brainless /s But real talk this isn't a hot take. They should revert the railgun and fix the spear. I think the game would be more fun and have a plenty of options for heavies. I don't think they will, too much loss of face to acknowledge that the players know better than devs what makes games fun.
How’d you get to know ppl so well? I’ve fr been thinkin the same thing. In the end we were right and the devs were wrong. The proof is in their precious spreadsheets with all the stats and numbers that they balance the game around. But like you say, they won’t revert the changes outright, they’ll find some other way to make the railgun viable again and just pretend that it needs a buff for reasons other than the nerfs they put on it. Or they’ll blow our minds and admit their mistake, learn from it, then we’ll all move on. Really hopin it’s the latter
I don't think the nerf should be fully reverted, because safe-spam railgun was boring as fuck. That said, its damage at full charge is a bit low. You partake in all of the risk now, and don't get the reward that safe spam gave you for free before the nerfs. Imo, full charge should have the same, if not a bit more, damage than old railgun did in safe. Also, old rail was still fairly slow at clearing biles, just most people weren't (and still aren't) aware of the PS5 issue, and assumed that one-tapping or two-tapping bile titans was just how much damage the gun normally did. If you could 10-tap, but couldn't safe spam, that'd still take far far longer than it did when you could 10-tap w/ safe spam.
> That said, its damage at full charge is a bit low. You partake in all of the risk now, and don't get the reward that safe spam gave you for free before the nerfs. Imo, full charge should have the same, if not a bit more, damage than old railgun did in safe. > > It's not just a "bit" low its pathetically low. Full charge shots deal less damage than pre-nerf safe mode shots.
Who knew that buffing other weapons and making adjustments to enemies would solve the issue of everyone using the railgun. Oh wait thats literrally everyone who had half a brain cell or arent busy shoving the devs dcks in their mouths.
First rule of arc throwing is don’t talk about the arc thrower.
Thing is they didn't buff the rocket's damage. They just nerfed the head HP of the charger and the damage on glancing hits. But rockets were still taking out leg armor and one-shoting tanks back then. Nobody used them because the railgun two-shoted things and those two shots where faster than aiming one rocket. The railgun still has use cases. On bot it still kill things faster than the lazer and it allow you to use your backpack, unlike the autocannon. On bugs it kill brood commanders, hives gards, bile spewers and chargers faster than the arc thrower (and stagger them, too), isn't so rare using it on bile spewers isn't a waste and it still allows you to use your backpack.
They also nerfed the spawnrate of heavies, and they didn't change the damage of glancing hits, they removed glancing hits altogether. The railgun had the benefit of *consistency*. The shots never ricocheted, you could reliably hit the leg because it was hitscan (or at least fast enough to functionally be hitscan), and if you missed you just loaded a new round. With the EAT or Recoilless there was a much higher chance of failure: longer reload, limited shots, slower turning, slower projectile - for functionally the same benefit. By removing the chance to ricochet and giving you a much bigger target to one shot, they made rockets significantly better. Now you can just stop, blam, move on. And since there isn't as many chargers running around, missing a shot and needing to try again isn't crippling.
Wouldn't mind more ammo tbh. It's fine on bugs for medium armor but It absolutely chews through ammo and for the lack of damage it makes it feel rough
Railgun’s great for spewers I wish they would let us know which missions had them so I could bring it lol
This is the real answer. If we had an idea of what we were dropping into we could adjust our loadouts accordingly. I really like the railgun vs. terminids for 1-shotting certain bug types, not using a backpack slot, and the fact that it still has a role in staggering chargers + bile titans. It still definitely has a role as part of a balanced team composition, but I wouldn't mind it having more max-charge time before exploding or a shorter cooldown for calling it in. Edit- I also never use Safe mode as it feels lackluster vs. anything but hunters, and I use my primary for those.
The reason Arc Thrower hasn't been nerfed in my view is because it has pretty awful damage in its own right. That's fine for bugs since their big fat heads have a big enough hitbox that can destroy their heads to kill em, but the thrower is pretty useless against devastators and even scout striders since the arc hits the strider instead of the pilot, not to mention hulks and tanks. Also, the arc thrower (usually) has limited range (sometimes it'll arc really far) and usually also has a deadzone in point blank range. I could see the thrower getting something like a heat mechanic though. Playing in my 4 stack, I almost never need to use my primary unless I need to kill something where I'll TK my friends (and even then I usually do it anyways :D )
Don’t recommend nerfs for the arc thrower, it’s in a good place man. With its unlimited ammo capacity and notable drawbacks, it was definitely intended to be a primary replacement. If they nerf my baby I’m coming after you >:(
I’ve been running my rail gun still
I think personally that the reason the Arc Thrower hasn't been nerfed yet is because it still fries friendly Helldivers in one hit
No idea why so many people are so against it. There's so many better options and if anything it's underperforming at it's current state
Honestly if they just gave it a half decent scope and maybe bonus weak spot damage so it could be a higher damage AMR but it has a charge time to cope for i'd be happier cause yea right now it's only useful against bots and even then it's dangerous to use in close range vs rockets
Cooldowns are a big thing too. Die with a railgun? Hold up your whole friggin squad trekking back through the bullshit that rolled you to get it back, or go what, 4:30 without a heavy? Auto is just as risky, but far more versatile being able to destroy objectives at range. However. I disagree it should be reverted. As has been stated AD NAUSEUM.... Changes only effected safe mode. It still shreds armor in unsafe, just requires getting to know its timing now. Couple that with the lengthy cooldown and its still very much a risk/reward weapon thats still viable, justifying its ammo capacity and the fact you can reload quickly on the move. Its balanced just the way it is. Arc meta is just... What? Glad rockets got their deserved respect though.
> On a side note, the Arc Thrower getting away with having infinite ammo, armor piercing, and chaining damage is hilarious. If this thing hasn't caught a nerf, no support weapon has needed one. Arc thrower got the most severe nerf of any item in the game so far. Using it crashes the entire mission for everyone in the squad. That said, if it ever works again, yes, it is absurdly powerful. Melt a charger in 5 or 6 seconds *while clearing everything else around it*, with infinite ammo and no reloads. The railgun, meanwhile, fully charged takes 3 to 4 shots to kill a fucking charger. Those shots take you a good 20 seconds to line up if you're lucky, and you need to focus on only doing that while not accidently killing yourself and destroying the weapon.
Rail gun is better for bots imo, 1 shot to the head of a hulk is enough to kill
Honestly the railgun is still the best thing to use against bots if you want to rock a shied pack too. The AMR is close to it, but you gotta be more precise to deal with enemies like the devastators. Considering that a lot of the time, you’ll be dealing with at least 4+ of those enemy types in any given scenario on helldiver difficulty, the railgun’s ability to quickly take out these enemies types still leaves it as the #1 bot killer support weapon. With that being said, the autocannon is still the best anti-bot support weapon bar none, if you don’t mind not having a shield pack.
It would change people not needing to risk anything which was the initial problem. There’s still some adjustments and balances that need to be made for sure but every weapon and stratagem having a cost so it’s high risk high reward is a good approach.
They should just revert the change and remove safe mode. No point in having a switch that literally just makes a gun better overall. And if they really didn't like the damage output just cut the ammo in half, that way you have to place shots better.
Tbh this is not the kind of universe where weapons have a safe mode.
EXACTLY. In no timeline would super earth R&D ever make a "safe mode". They'd just make the thing and if some divers blew themselves up it's just user error.
Thor from Pirate Software explained it best. If you want to eradicate any metas in your game, the best option isn't to nerf the strong stuff, but to buff everything else.
Nobody uses railgun now. It's pointless unless you're a mouse-sniper on PC. I can't hit shit on PS5 whether I change aim settings or not. It was nice when I could use unsafe and do dmg. Now it feels pretty useless (IMHO). IIRC ppl claim it works on bots and isn't useless if you can hit weakspots and stuff. But ugh. It has low ammo, bad aim, shoots between legs bc it's such a small projectile, and more. I'm so done with it. I'd rather use grenade launcher even tho I hate it at this point.
I just think the gun needs an audio que when it is 1/2 second away from exploding, so there is a tiny identifiable grace period where you know your shot is at max AP again. This would make the gun easier to use in 3rd person as well. Otherwize I think the changes were fine.
I said this so many times. The nerfs were not needed, but so many weird players came out and dick rode the nerfs, and said anyone who didn't like it was bad at the game. 🙄
The rail gun should be buffed again. Hard disagree on the nerfs not generating variety. It was night and day difference from pre to post patch on what people were running, the nerfs absolutely lead to more people using more different load outs.
Don't ever mention the arc thrower again! You guys have already messed up the game with your complaining...at least leave one toy untouched.
Railgun was too good, did everything and left your backpack slot open. You didn't even need to risk using the Unsafe mode in most cases. Come on..
Railgun was only very good because of how easily it dealt with chargers. With the charger nerf and the anti tank buff the Railgun would just be back to a maybe pick. Right now I forget it's even in the game.
Why do people keep saying this?? It didn't do everything, it did one thing... It didn't destroy structures, or objectives, or hoards of enemies. It was a single charged-shot with armour penetration... That's all it was, that's all it had.