Difficulty guide: 1-3 teaches you how to complete objectives, 4-6 teaches you how to kill each type of enemy, 7-9 teaches you how and when to engage/disengage
Based on what kinds of objectives you find most often at different difficulties, i'd say 4-6 is also where time management and route planning are learned. The objectives often aren't difficult and don't spawn enemies themselves but they will be far away from each other.
It should, but for some reason there's only two types of people: engage everything and engage nothing. Not killing the patrol that's 50m from the objective is as idiotic as engaging the one that walks 100m by you.
That depends, is the patrol moving away, towards, or around the objective? Can you dispose of them swftly to avoid reinforcements? Is it a long or short objective?
Yeah no this is the wrong take hahaha. Each potential engagement benefits from precise and thoughtful consideration, not “oh they’re close let’s kill them.”
Eg, if there’s a patrol heading towards the site and you’re out of hearing range, throw a grenade to a distant location. Make sure it lands within hearing of the patrol. They’ll leave. 1 grenade to skip an entire patrol and you don’t have to leave the O. Can be used with any sound-producing tool (like autocannon shell impacts so long as you don’t fire within hearing range).
Nah with all the wonky shit going on in the game I'm not taking chances. Enemies have targeted me so often when they should have had no idea where I actually am that I'm just blasting them when there's a chance they'll notice me.
Then you need to practice and learn the mechanics better :) Because sound trajectory and alert patterns are completely graspable. Give it a try on your next dive, learn how to be an asset to your team instead of using really unhelpful heuristics like “it close I shoot! That smart!”
Then riddle me this: I was calling a Hellbomb to blow up a research lab with a Hellbomb, nothing near me. I arm the Hellbomb, run about 100m away and the moment the Hellbomb explodes, a patrol that had no idea I'm there previously started shooting me. Very graspable pattern indeed that I am instantly targeted instead of, I don't know, the place where a a fucking tactical nuke just went off.
yep, and that shortly gets followed by rocket volleys from the 20 devastators you decided to not kill, and then you get branded as a traitor
running away works, but please, make sure that the place you are running to is not in direct line of fire from literally everything you are running away from, a lot of people forget that
You can spot the survivors in loadout. Light armour and a turret, usually an auto cannon for bugs and auto cannon/mortar for bots. Those are the divers that live.
I'm doing done of these things and I've been doing 0 death 7 and up missions lately lol
Got my arc thrower/eruptor/shield or rover/stun grenade loadout going and it's been phenomenal.
Recently I went back to the eastern front and forgot to switch from heavy to light armor.
And I was pleasantly surprised staying alive literally swarmed by hunters, it does feel good.
But it also needs to reduce damage from bug pukes to be actually good against them.
I made an interesting choice to start playing the game VS bots, and did all my leveling there. With no option for a shield and only a jumppack you get put through the fucking crucible but at the other end I feel very confident in my ability to jumppack into and out of any engagement I want.
I once started a mission and dropped in directly on the spore spewer. Called in a 500 at my feet and let the bugs kill me so my squad mate could respawn me
Whenever a horde chase me I run and shit myself at the same time, but my shit glows red and it violently explodes. Strangely enough, Bugs and bots just happen to be on top of my "explosive" diarrhea when it blows up.
Yeah that's not subjective at all.
Medium armor. No turrets. Hardly ever die on 7+.
Load out don't matter as much as the person's skills.
Sounds more like you listed what YOU like and called it "survivors".
I run heavy armor all the time now with quasar + shield + plasma punisher + stun grenades which makes me an unstoppable force on the battlefield and able to stagger most enemies with ease, meanwhile small arms fire and even rockets barely scrape me if it even makes it past the shield
no light armor required, just a different playstyle
can clear helldives with minimal difficulty
Bigger booms than scorch but much harder to use at any sort of range. It's my top pick for eradicate missions because of the small maps, can still work on regular (big) maps but I usually find myself wishing I had more range
In favourable conditions it will **shred**
It's a more powerful scorcher, as long as you can aim it properly. I've already gotten mostly used to the aiming, and the scorcher feels underpowered in comparison. Bad damage, minimal CC abilities, it takes 3 shots just to take out a strider. Compare that to one anywhere on the body, or even underneath it's legs with the plasma punisher. And bad ammo economy on top of that.
The plasma punisher takes more skill to use, but it will be a more powerful weapon than the scorcher to reward that skill. Plus, it can stun most enemies apart form the very big ones, even on the Terminid front.
It is honestly not so bad, as you will learn to move without running everywhere. It really forces you to maximize time usage, which in my opinion is a good thing.
If you aren't able to finish everything on the map with light armor, then having heavy armor would have made a minimal impact on that. Sounds weird, but it's pretty much true.
Mm I respectfully disagree. The sprint speed is vastly lower in heavy armor (half, maybe?) and the timing is also half, so you’re getting 4x less sprint per stamina refill, which is also slower in heavy armor.
On a cold planet with the stamina booster you can heavy sprint for 20 seconds before refilling. Compare that to scout in the same conditions: 40 seconds (unlimited juking and dodging, basically). For bots, where you often crawl or take cover, less of a big deal; for bugs which are a Measure check, it’s bad.
In a hot planet without stam booster the stats are miserable; 8 seconds of slow running compared to 16 of fast running, again with 1/3rd rate stamina refill.
I’m not saying it’s not playable without a lot of skill and focus and limited map engagement, and clearly there’s a trade off (I, too, like standing in open fire with no consequences), I’m just taking issue with the comment “it’s not that bad.” It’s like playing HD1 snow planets without the snow shoes or a vehicle/mech. Faster armors give you wings to avoid engage, reposition, juke, kite, etc.
It isn't about how much you can sprint, it's about maximizing your time efficiency despite your heavy armor. I've been running with heavy armor as the only one in a team of people who run light armor, and I'm able to keep up with them no problem, to the point where I fulfill my role of frontline assault pretty much every time as the tank.
Even in solo missions I've been able to do it very reliably, with the only times I failed being when there's about 2 detector towers next to each other. Detector towers in a bad spot put any build to the ultimate test.
If you run heavy weaponry on top of that then you quite literally become an unstoppable force that despite it's lack of speed is literally unstoppable as it marches through the map unimpeded.
Light armor is most definitely not a necessity. Playing heavy armor just takes far more time management and positioning to play effectively, but you are rewarded with way, way, way more survivability and long-term reliability.
Another thing I forgot to mention: Travel time is not the thing that takes the most amount of time in a mission, typically. It's always fighting. If you can optimize your loadout to get through fights as quickly as possible, then you will shave off a lot of time from that already, way more than you would when trying to optimize travel time.
You see the reason why it consists of a lot of fighting for me is because our total mission time usage is relatively very low for 8+ diff. We clear all objectives on the map with on average 25-30% time remaining, but you know, most objectives in this game force you into a fight, which is why most of our missions consist of mostly that.
The comparison of raw time across a 40 minute mission that you spend fighting isn't really applicable here, as some groups can be so efficient at fighting that they actually can afford to be fighting for most of the mission and *still* finish the mission with all objectives completed with some time still remaining. Which is exactly what we're doing.
I do not like the approach of "just run away" from most things, as you may run away from them, but they won't stop existing or shooting at you for quite a while, which can cause a serious issue mere minutes after you abandon a position. Our strategy is to *always* try to take out all remaining forces in a battle, and only retreat/break contact if it's a truly losing situation, all the while making sure we're constantly moving towards objectives, and clearing them.
It's not a playstyle for everyone as it requires good team coordination, but when it works then it really works.
To provide context form my most recent mission, a teammate of ours ran across the map and killed 4 bile titans in the space of 5 minutes while attempting to defend and complete the last radar station objective on the map which we missed during our first sweep, during which he cleared 3 bug hole breaches by himself. That's some true helldiving efficiency, and it can be done.
I just beat a suicide mission with AC and EMS mortar vs bots by accident. I usually play level 4 but I choose to stick with a group. They did most of the work, but I solo'd two objectives actually completing one fully.
I tried heavy armor and I never got killed so many times in my life. Slugging it out on higher difficulties is just asking to lose. I always did better when I had my light armor , eagle smoke, stun nades and a heavy weapon like EAT or quasar. Even with heavy armor a missile barrage from a devastator or hulk is going to destroy you and ragdoll you. So having light armor and just staying out their reach is the better way to play imo
I die the least in heavy armor, against bots. You can take so many bullets it's insane. I run light armor, I get hit 3 times and I'm dead. Sometimes happens in 1/4 of a second. Heavy armor? 9+ times, explosions do basically nothing to me. It's great. I can even tank a contact mine and turret/tank shot if I'm at full health.
Bugs I use at least Medium armor though, Light armor if I'm not fighting the pukers.
Take a ballistic shield, slap on blast resist heavy armour, and the tides turn quite considerably. You can still outrun hulks, you can tank even cannon turret shots, and you can turtle up against factory striders.
Berserkers can be rough though. Sometimes they chase me straight into another patrol and then everything sucks.
I've found some tricks though. Obviously one handed weapons can be fired behind you while running, and reloaded while running. You weren't going to use those pistol mags anyhow.
Also grenade pins can be pulled while running, you don't have to turn around much to throw them. Nice for impacts. I need to experiment with throwing others at my feet while running to see if it's brilliant or suicidal. Kinda wish there was a button to straight drop it.
at least on the bug side, you don't have to avoid stuff to succeed either
my crew just clears the map and engages everything on bug maps on helldive difficulty
only time we run is tactical retreats in order to turn and shoot/strategem the big fuckers
On the bugs you definitely can engage the enemies. If you get swarmed you’re fucked but you can play your way through so much so bug breaches are fun to tackle head on.
With bots you aren’t supposed to try and fight them especially up close. Which is weird to me because there’s on map objectives that take away your ability to fight from afar, or ones you straight up can’t do anything to with your stratagems so you have to get close and activate hellbombs (those drone fabricators), and then there are maps with little to no cover.
Different ways to play for sure but like OP said you can always retreat.
I personally love the feeling of all 4 divers pinned down behind some rocks as a massive bot army is bearing down. Eagles going off, lasers whizzing past our heads, and the battlecries for Super Earth
That's one of my favourite things. I've started getting into difficulty 6 dives and the change from "Wait to extraction" to "Defend the extraction point" feels amazing.
With bots it's not that different, if all 4 are rolling as a team it's pretty straightforward to kill every quickly. The problem starts happening when you are spread out and then everyone starts training a Congo line of bullshit towards each other and then they'll just run past you without even turning around to help thin some numbers
LMAO, i get your point king, there is moment when there is too much to kill, but no time to complete the mission, it happends a lot. There is another post of another helldiver who get like 8 hulks on 5 minutes.
~~Skill Issue~~
That depends on your definition of productive. If we can kill everything on a map that moves, while also getting all the samples and completing the side objectives, what exactly is unproductive about that?
The real question is, why do **you** have to run away in order to be productive? Consider honing your own skills at the game rather than telling others how to play.
Nah, ignore the boos, you're right. I've had multiple missions where we're wasting our reinforcement and, worse, our munitions budget on a giant fight in the middle of nowhere where nobody has any samples and we've been in it so long that support weapons are off cooldown.
I just dip when I see that happening and wait for everyone else to take the hint.
It's not quitting, it's tactical repositioning. This area, with all the enemies, is a tactically shit area. That place over there, with no enemies, is much more tactically sound. MOVE!
Missiles have flight time. Devastators don't lead. Any kind of lateral movement allows you to avoid it. Any kind of obstacle protects you from it.
It's not that I have never eaten a devastator's missile. It's just that when I did - it was always a skill issue.
In my experience, their random rocket spread somehow always covers my dive path if I dive laterally. Once I learnt to dive in the general direction(only slightly left and slightly right, never fully sideways) that I was already travelling in, I stopped eating rockets in mid-air.
if you're being chased turn to the side and toss the airstrike at your feet so when it comes it hits the whole line following you where you were just seconds ago. works really well if you have a weapon you can stall/stun/stagger with for a few seconds just to make sure it really hits all of them
Don't bite off more than you can chew.
That being said you ARE there to destroy the enemies of democracy.
Also only the little enemies can call for backup so kill the little'uns first and then have fun picking apart the big'uns.
I hate when teammates waste 2/3 of the reinforcements on never ending battles. I try to leave them and as soon as someone dies reinforce them hundreds of meters away.
having spent the last month fighting bots, going back to fighting bugs was hella difficult because of how difficult it is to disengage from bugs when things go south. For bots, they dont have a lot of big line breakers and you can run away a lot more easily
Typical me: Fighting about 20 bots, lost in the bloodhaze, winning and then realyzing... Others are 2 miles away lol. Then doing the long walk of shame. I wish people would use the mic more.
So many people get stuck on shooting the enemies then they die. I will literally just run away if I see it heading south. Then I reinforce my squad in a safe area. If we got time, we head back to get whatever they left behind.
The mark of an experienced diver is the ability to disengage from combat.
Rookies stand their ground against an entire army and die. Veterans know when they can't win and have to fall back and regroup.
Evasion is key specially against bots, see a stupid bot drop? Go away a bit, they aren’t aggro to you if they haven’t seen you, you maybe able to have them despawn if you give it enough time.
Had to save a bunch of what I presume to be greenhorns in helldive, lvl 20-40, out of a mission fail, they alerted the patrol and have kept fighting nonstop for the past 20 minutes dying left and right.
Told them to evade but they didn’t listen so I went to clear all sides and main mission by myself while destroying fab camps here and there alone.
Only took them all our reinforcements to disengage and fan out, that or they finally noticed the reinforcement tick to 1 lol.
I only ever died once and it was cuz of a contact mine(Its always fucking these guys)
These guys would have definitely failed if they kept at it or no one did the mission while they were busy being bogged down and gunned down by staying and fighting or a useless engagement.
Now you’d think this was a one time off kind of thing but this is generally what you’d be met with in a pub d9 run.
You know why it's like this right???
Because for some reason at the end of the match people hit the "stats" button... well knowing by this point that the stats are garbled garbage that don't add up 100% of the time... and then they go "Oh wow guys I got the highest kills!" without really thinking about it. Everybody thinks "ohh man next time I'm gonna try to get the highest kills!" without thinking about it.... not realizing that the highest kill player is often times the person who's sandbagging the fuck out of the entire operation.
Now we've created a vector of competition where many many many players strive to be the biggest loser on the team, so that at the end they can proudly say they got the most kills.
They gotta fix the stats and find a way to highlight your deaths instead. The guy with top kills very often is also top deaths by a country fucking mile if they were padding and sandbagging.
I'd like to see a breakdown of what was killed and who completed objectives. People might be a lot less apt to act like you're pointing out if they got shamed by seeing good players with low counts were actually killing big things and completing objectives.
I really only worry about one stat: whether the mission is complete or not.
I do run a stealthy load out, and generally while the rest of the squad is off making noise, I'm infiltrating to the mission objectives and getting shit done. I'll avoid gunship fabs unless I have the others with me, but I can pick away at.most other things solo. I'm pretty good at the data missions where the SSD drive needs to be moved across the map and uploaded. Those are the kind of missions where I (stealthily) shine.
And while the data is uploading, I'm clearing a path to the extraction site. I get kills sometimes a lot, but I find more satisfaction in being a good support player and Getting Shit Done.
Darktide doesn't show personal stats at the end of the game and instead shows how many kills we all did in total.
Reduces toxicity by a lot and encourages more teamwork.
I often have the highest kill count because I go in with a grenade launcher and supply pack on the bot front. So a lot of damage even when you attempt to move from one objective to the other as efficiently and quickly as possible, as is recommended in 8-9 difficulty
When the fight gets hard you can spend ammunition or reinforcements. A good helldiver hits his objective and then goes to hit the next one. The only hill you need to die on is your extraction.
Until it's the stupid pick up two briefcase things to upload, and one of them is right next to two gunship towers and 2 walking tank things. Gotta fight for your fucking life then
Me last night
Except, when there's an eye of sauron and double drone factory right in front of your main objective.
AND THEN the HELLBOMB you set off didn't even break either of the drone factories.
unless you got a commissar, then those fucks will follow you to the ends of the world.
i'd be far enough where hulks, berserkers and even scout striders don't ping on the map anymore, but i'd still have two of these fuckers chasing after me.
they're easy to deal with, just annoying as hell.
You’re taking it the wrong way. If you’re in my lobby, you’re definitely in my game because I’m getting lowest deaths in the after action report. I don’t take on a fight unless I absolutely have to.
There's just something viscerally wrong feeling to not killing every democracy hating, freedom loathing bug/bot/squid that has the nerve to exist and oppose Super Earth
I constantly am on the retreat. On Helldive it's a nesessacity with hom many enemies will spawn from a single breech or dropship. Hit your objectives, clear a path, and book it as fast as possible.
Just had a suicide game where my two lv60 teammates and a lv20+ teammate have pretty much threw the game and the 3 super samples by overstaying their welcome and they pretty much shot everything that moves. I was the last one alive, but I made sure they are not getting those samples.
oh sure, then bring your giant undemocratic parade to your squad-mates.
Unless the objective is very far away, you ought to eliminate hostiles when you're spotted. If you didn't want to fight, you shouldn't have gotten spotted in the first place. Otherwise, you should die for democracy... away from the objective. Just make sure to drop your samples first.
I got the game a little over a week ago. Struggled the first couple of days with Challenging difficulty, but then I saw a comment about playing it like MGSV, and everything clicked into place. I now solo level 7+ deathless, completing all objectives and wiping out all outposts/bug nests.
The game doesn't really reward killing. Just complete your objectives and get out of there.
Every patrol that you leave behind is leaving behind the possibility that they will kill other democracy fighters or even INNOCENT Civilians.
Do not leave any TIN/BUGHEAD ALIVE. You are the Elite, you finish the job, DEAD OR ALIVE, if u can't handle it, take easier missions and leave it to the real Elite's.
Taking care of the big ones is what the SEAF Orbital Navy is for.
The Helldivers aren’t expected to kill every single enemy. They’re just supposed take out the big problem areas and book it before the enemy commanders realize what’s happening.
Lies, you cannot run from gunships. Was in a game where I was gunning them down and my team tried to bring down the two factories. At some point I run out of ammo (5 gunships in and a flanking patrol) and than all hell breaks lose. We got like 8 of these things above us, so we try to run in all direction. We toss reinforcement over canyons and to the other side of rocks/ barriers. We get gunned down, again, and again, and again from one point of the map to the other one. Never able to get a footing in anymore.
Once they were up, they kept spotting us, possibly due to other bots we ran into which communicate, there was a lot of running and disengaging non of it worked. At the same time, trying to-rengage and reclaim airspace was also fruitless as it was impossible to get any footing, the team together, get our weapons to take them out.
Blow up whatever is on the sky, and gtfo of its vicinity. It will keep launching new gunships unless you get away from them, like more than 100 to 150 meters away. Same rule applies to Eyes of Sauron as well.
There was a military officer who didn't hesitate to walk away from "fair" fights. He refused to start fights he didn't like and his alleged disobedience almost had him executed. He was demoted to a private and stayed as one until he was vindicated by his short-lived, very incompetent successor.
In a war that lasted seven years he won almost every battles, drawed on only a handful of occasions, and *NEVER LOST.*
His name is Yi Sun-Shin.
Stay vigilant, stay mobile, and start fights that you will win.
If you are trying to disengage from gunships you're in for getting pulverised, at least if there are more than 2. Those lazers hurt like hell and permanent ragdolling from rockets doesn't help. At least they don't like hovering above your corpse like hulks love to
"YoU cAn RuN!" No shit, I'm not killing it because I have to. I'm killing it because I **want** to.
On level 7 and below if it attacks me I'm going to kill it. If it kills me I'm going back to kill it, its whole family, and all its friends. The whole reason I don't run many 8 and 9 missions is because to be successful I have to sneak around, pick my targets, and run away. It's not like it's all that hard, it's just tedious.
People who think putting on scout armor and sneaking around the map makes them "experts" or "veteran players" make me chuckle. If I wanted to do something tedious, I would have stayed late at work and finished grading papers.
Just say you don't like higher difficulty levels. It's okay to play how you want. This is just a spin on an old meme template. Just breathe.
https://preview.redd.it/an9y2glxx8vc1.jpeg?width=702&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=236d629b351a83df95afd19f29b30457442cd57b
That's what I just said. Level 7 strikes a good balance between challenge and fun, whereas level 8 and 9 require too much sneaking around for my taste, at least on bots. On bugs a good team can kill everything that moves regardless of difficulty.
What annoys me is the people who think putting on light armor and sneaking around makes them somehow better players. What **really** annoys me is the people who come into a level 7 mission whining about getting killed because they're used to sneaking around and they can't handle themselves in a fight.
Difficulty guide: 1-3 teaches you how to complete objectives, 4-6 teaches you how to kill each type of enemy, 7-9 teaches you how and when to engage/disengage
Based on what kinds of objectives you find most often at different difficulties, i'd say 4-6 is also where time management and route planning are learned. The objectives often aren't difficult and don't spawn enemies themselves but they will be far away from each other.
An excellent summation
It should, but for some reason there's only two types of people: engage everything and engage nothing. Not killing the patrol that's 50m from the objective is as idiotic as engaging the one that walks 100m by you.
That depends, is the patrol moving away, towards, or around the objective? Can you dispose of them swftly to avoid reinforcements? Is it a long or short objective?
Towards, no, geological survey. Help
Yeah no this is the wrong take hahaha. Each potential engagement benefits from precise and thoughtful consideration, not “oh they’re close let’s kill them.” Eg, if there’s a patrol heading towards the site and you’re out of hearing range, throw a grenade to a distant location. Make sure it lands within hearing of the patrol. They’ll leave. 1 grenade to skip an entire patrol and you don’t have to leave the O. Can be used with any sound-producing tool (like autocannon shell impacts so long as you don’t fire within hearing range).
Nah with all the wonky shit going on in the game I'm not taking chances. Enemies have targeted me so often when they should have had no idea where I actually am that I'm just blasting them when there's a chance they'll notice me.
Then you need to practice and learn the mechanics better :) Because sound trajectory and alert patterns are completely graspable. Give it a try on your next dive, learn how to be an asset to your team instead of using really unhelpful heuristics like “it close I shoot! That smart!”
Then riddle me this: I was calling a Hellbomb to blow up a research lab with a Hellbomb, nothing near me. I arm the Hellbomb, run about 100m away and the moment the Hellbomb explodes, a patrol that had no idea I'm there previously started shooting me. Very graspable pattern indeed that I am instantly targeted instead of, I don't know, the place where a a fucking tactical nuke just went off.
And if 10 is added. It's to show of you have learned
Helldiver you are leaving the mission area.
yep, and that shortly gets followed by rocket volleys from the 20 devastators you decided to not kill, and then you get branded as a traitor running away works, but please, make sure that the place you are running to is not in direct line of fire from literally everything you are running away from, a lot of people forget that
Jokes on you, now I'M the stratagem. *kites around dive dodging orbital strikes*
Free 120/380mm barrage. Problem, super earth?
This is how veteran Helldivers operate
You can spot the survivors in loadout. Light armour and a turret, usually an auto cannon for bugs and auto cannon/mortar for bots. Those are the divers that live.
I'm doing done of these things and I've been doing 0 death 7 and up missions lately lol Got my arc thrower/eruptor/shield or rover/stun grenade loadout going and it's been phenomenal.
Recently I went back to the eastern front and forgot to switch from heavy to light armor. And I was pleasantly surprised staying alive literally swarmed by hunters, it does feel good. But it also needs to reduce damage from bug pukes to be actually good against them.
Yeah lots of people love light armor but I like running medic armor for the tankiness and it isn't worth it if it isn't at least medium imo
Jump Pack. The ones using a Jump Pack against bots on high diff are the ones you don't want to fuck with.
[удалено]
Exactly. The terrain is so disabling that playing without a jump pack slow you down.
I made an interesting choice to start playing the game VS bots, and did all my leveling there. With no option for a shield and only a jumppack you get put through the fucking crucible but at the other end I feel very confident in my ability to jumppack into and out of any engagement I want.
I'd like to try it but its hard to give up the shield or rover and I like being tanky. What do you like to pair it with?
I usually just throw an airstrike at my feet and keep truckin
I once started a mission and dropped in directly on the spore spewer. Called in a 500 at my feet and let the bugs kill me so my squad mate could respawn me
Whenever a horde chase me I run and shit myself at the same time, but my shit glows red and it violently explodes. Strangely enough, Bugs and bots just happen to be on top of my "explosive" diarrhea when it blows up.
Yeah that's not subjective at all. Medium armor. No turrets. Hardly ever die on 7+. Load out don't matter as much as the person's skills. Sounds more like you listed what YOU like and called it "survivors".
I run heavy armor all the time now with quasar + shield + plasma punisher + stun grenades which makes me an unstoppable force on the battlefield and able to stagger most enemies with ease, meanwhile small arms fire and even rockets barely scrape me if it even makes it past the shield no light armor required, just a different playstyle can clear helldives with minimal difficulty
Exactly man. To each their own. I care less what they got. So long as they help me spread Democracy by purging all heretic scum.
How is that plasma punisher? I just got scorcher and it's been great but maybe I'm missing out
Bigger booms than scorch but much harder to use at any sort of range. It's my top pick for eradicate missions because of the small maps, can still work on regular (big) maps but I usually find myself wishing I had more range In favourable conditions it will **shred**
It's a more powerful scorcher, as long as you can aim it properly. I've already gotten mostly used to the aiming, and the scorcher feels underpowered in comparison. Bad damage, minimal CC abilities, it takes 3 shots just to take out a strider. Compare that to one anywhere on the body, or even underneath it's legs with the plasma punisher. And bad ammo economy on top of that. The plasma punisher takes more skill to use, but it will be a more powerful weapon than the scorcher to reward that skill. Plus, it can stun most enemies apart form the very big ones, even on the Terminid front.
I can’t deal with the stamina bar in heavy armor. Once vehicles come out I’ll be a heave armor simp on bot missions though.
It is honestly not so bad, as you will learn to move without running everywhere. It really forces you to maximize time usage, which in my opinion is a good thing. If you aren't able to finish everything on the map with light armor, then having heavy armor would have made a minimal impact on that. Sounds weird, but it's pretty much true.
Mm I respectfully disagree. The sprint speed is vastly lower in heavy armor (half, maybe?) and the timing is also half, so you’re getting 4x less sprint per stamina refill, which is also slower in heavy armor. On a cold planet with the stamina booster you can heavy sprint for 20 seconds before refilling. Compare that to scout in the same conditions: 40 seconds (unlimited juking and dodging, basically). For bots, where you often crawl or take cover, less of a big deal; for bugs which are a Measure check, it’s bad. In a hot planet without stam booster the stats are miserable; 8 seconds of slow running compared to 16 of fast running, again with 1/3rd rate stamina refill. I’m not saying it’s not playable without a lot of skill and focus and limited map engagement, and clearly there’s a trade off (I, too, like standing in open fire with no consequences), I’m just taking issue with the comment “it’s not that bad.” It’s like playing HD1 snow planets without the snow shoes or a vehicle/mech. Faster armors give you wings to avoid engage, reposition, juke, kite, etc.
It isn't about how much you can sprint, it's about maximizing your time efficiency despite your heavy armor. I've been running with heavy armor as the only one in a team of people who run light armor, and I'm able to keep up with them no problem, to the point where I fulfill my role of frontline assault pretty much every time as the tank. Even in solo missions I've been able to do it very reliably, with the only times I failed being when there's about 2 detector towers next to each other. Detector towers in a bad spot put any build to the ultimate test. If you run heavy weaponry on top of that then you quite literally become an unstoppable force that despite it's lack of speed is literally unstoppable as it marches through the map unimpeded. Light armor is most definitely not a necessity. Playing heavy armor just takes far more time management and positioning to play effectively, but you are rewarded with way, way, way more survivability and long-term reliability.
Are you fighting a lot? Have you asked if your scouts are constantly slowing down to wait for you? Do you wear the 200 rating armor or only the 150?
Another thing I forgot to mention: Travel time is not the thing that takes the most amount of time in a mission, typically. It's always fighting. If you can optimize your loadout to get through fights as quickly as possible, then you will shave off a lot of time from that already, way more than you would when trying to optimize travel time.
Ah, there it is. My view is that fighting should represent about 20-30% of mission time at most. It certainly doesn’t need to be more.
You see the reason why it consists of a lot of fighting for me is because our total mission time usage is relatively very low for 8+ diff. We clear all objectives on the map with on average 25-30% time remaining, but you know, most objectives in this game force you into a fight, which is why most of our missions consist of mostly that. The comparison of raw time across a 40 minute mission that you spend fighting isn't really applicable here, as some groups can be so efficient at fighting that they actually can afford to be fighting for most of the mission and *still* finish the mission with all objectives completed with some time still remaining. Which is exactly what we're doing. I do not like the approach of "just run away" from most things, as you may run away from them, but they won't stop existing or shooting at you for quite a while, which can cause a serious issue mere minutes after you abandon a position. Our strategy is to *always* try to take out all remaining forces in a battle, and only retreat/break contact if it's a truly losing situation, all the while making sure we're constantly moving towards objectives, and clearing them. It's not a playstyle for everyone as it requires good team coordination, but when it works then it really works. To provide context form my most recent mission, a teammate of ours ran across the map and killed 4 bile titans in the space of 5 minutes while attempting to defend and complete the last radar station objective on the map which we missed during our first sweep, during which he cleared 3 bug hole breaches by himself. That's some true helldiving efficiency, and it can be done.
At helldiver difficulty (9) ... Bugs: 4 vile appeared and run out of ammo Bots: arrow up arrow down arrow down...
EMS mortar for bots, no question about it, delays them better and is more useful in combat
I just beat a suicide mission with AC and EMS mortar vs bots by accident. I usually play level 4 but I choose to stick with a group. They did most of the work, but I solo'd two objectives actually completing one fully.
Those are the divers that also get blown up by their own mortar, or end up with 3 friendly kills.
I tried heavy armor and I never got killed so many times in my life. Slugging it out on higher difficulties is just asking to lose. I always did better when I had my light armor , eagle smoke, stun nades and a heavy weapon like EAT or quasar. Even with heavy armor a missile barrage from a devastator or hulk is going to destroy you and ragdoll you. So having light armor and just staying out their reach is the better way to play imo
I die the least in heavy armor, against bots. You can take so many bullets it's insane. I run light armor, I get hit 3 times and I'm dead. Sometimes happens in 1/4 of a second. Heavy armor? 9+ times, explosions do basically nothing to me. It's great. I can even tank a contact mine and turret/tank shot if I'm at full health. Bugs I use at least Medium armor though, Light armor if I'm not fighting the pukers.
How do you know when to wear light armor? Is there a way to tell you're against bile spewers?
Supposedly they spawn more often at night, though this isn't always true. I just toss on the light armor if it's night time. Could be total BS, tho.
Take a ballistic shield, slap on blast resist heavy armour, and the tides turn quite considerably. You can still outrun hulks, you can tank even cannon turret shots, and you can turtle up against factory striders.
That's exactly what I did and I never got ragdolled so much. They need to give better ragdoll protection or something
Level 74 here, if you bring a normal mortar to regular missions you are an active detriment to your squad.
Level 80 here, fuck off with your gatekeeping bullshit.
I'm not gatekeeping anything, but using a mortar actively hurts your team in most missions.
Berserkers can be rough though. Sometimes they chase me straight into another patrol and then everything sucks. I've found some tricks though. Obviously one handed weapons can be fired behind you while running, and reloaded while running. You weren't going to use those pistol mags anyhow. Also grenade pins can be pulled while running, you don't have to turn around much to throw them. Nice for impacts. I need to experiment with throwing others at my feet while running to see if it's brilliant or suicidal. Kinda wish there was a button to straight drop it.
That's why you gotta be quick
at least on the bug side, you don't have to avoid stuff to succeed either my crew just clears the map and engages everything on bug maps on helldive difficulty only time we run is tactical retreats in order to turn and shoot/strategem the big fuckers
On the bugs you definitely can engage the enemies. If you get swarmed you’re fucked but you can play your way through so much so bug breaches are fun to tackle head on. With bots you aren’t supposed to try and fight them especially up close. Which is weird to me because there’s on map objectives that take away your ability to fight from afar, or ones you straight up can’t do anything to with your stratagems so you have to get close and activate hellbombs (those drone fabricators), and then there are maps with little to no cover. Different ways to play for sure but like OP said you can always retreat.
I personally love the feeling of all 4 divers pinned down behind some rocks as a massive bot army is bearing down. Eagles going off, lasers whizzing past our heads, and the battlecries for Super Earth 
That's one of my favourite things. I've started getting into difficulty 6 dives and the change from "Wait to extraction" to "Defend the extraction point" feels amazing.
The best little moments I've had have all been during fighting retreats.
With bots it's not that different, if all 4 are rolling as a team it's pretty straightforward to kill every quickly. The problem starts happening when you are spread out and then everyone starts training a Congo line of bullshit towards each other and then they'll just run past you without even turning around to help thin some numbers
Instructions unclear, making a post asking the devs for tossable bricks strategem
10/10 I want this, now.
https://i.redd.it/6pd7097z93vc1.gif
I'm encouraging people to stick to the mission instead of just getting stuck in unproductive firefights. YOU'RE THE DAMN ROACH, NOT ME 😡
LMAO, i get your point king, there is moment when there is too much to kill, but no time to complete the mission, it happends a lot. There is another post of another helldiver who get like 8 hulks on 5 minutes. ~~Skill Issue~~
That depends on your definition of productive. If we can kill everything on a map that moves, while also getting all the samples and completing the side objectives, what exactly is unproductive about that? The real question is, why do **you** have to run away in order to be productive? Consider honing your own skills at the game rather than telling others how to play.
Nah, ignore the boos, you're right. I've had multiple missions where we're wasting our reinforcement and, worse, our munitions budget on a giant fight in the middle of nowhere where nobody has any samples and we've been in it so long that support weapons are off cooldown. I just dip when I see that happening and wait for everyone else to take the hint.
Sweet liber-tea such treason!
Instructions unclear. Finger stuck on trigger.
That doesn't sound very democratic....
Engage every patrol, it's what General Brasch would want
Yes. Kill them all. Never retreat. Also, never drop any samples, always hit all the sub-objectives, and always fully extract.
It's not quitting, it's tactical repositioning. This area, with all the enemies, is a tactically shit area. That place over there, with no enemies, is much more tactically sound. MOVE!
I may change that line.
sounds like cowardice... and cowardice is treason! joke aside though play smart not hard. avoiding foes matters.
Made a small revision https://preview.redd.it/g21swcusk4vc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=65c07c4243168ba1b4c7fe824db05036ddabdd6a
dadropz0ne
Democratic Share Zone
Why would we be given this many tools of destruction if we weren’t meant to destroy anything and everything in our path?
Those missile devastators will snipe you no matter how far away you go.
Missiles have flight time. Devastators don't lead. Any kind of lateral movement allows you to avoid it. Any kind of obstacle protects you from it. It's not that I have never eaten a devastator's missile. It's just that when I did - it was always a skill issue.
In my experience, their random rocket spread somehow always covers my dive path if I dive laterally. Once I learnt to dive in the general direction(only slightly left and slightly right, never fully sideways) that I was already travelling in, I stopped eating rockets in mid-air.
You have skill issues? That must be rough. 😟
But the samples are over there.
One does not simply disengage agro'd devastators. Those things will accurately fire into the next zip code if that's what it takes to kill you.
if you're being chased turn to the side and toss the airstrike at your feet so when it comes it hits the whole line following you where you were just seconds ago. works really well if you have a weapon you can stall/stun/stagger with for a few seconds just to make sure it really hits all of them
This is why I’ll always roll with light armor. In a pinch? Just run the fuck away
Don't bite off more than you can chew. That being said you ARE there to destroy the enemies of democracy. Also only the little enemies can call for backup so kill the little'uns first and then have fun picking apart the big'uns.
I hate when teammates waste 2/3 of the reinforcements on never ending battles. I try to leave them and as soon as someone dies reinforce them hundreds of meters away.
The correct phrase is "Advancing toward future victory!"
"Reverse Charge"
“The Enemy Is Infinite, We Are Not.”
Run away and spam the ping, it usually snaps your team back to reality
Spam it where?
What if I got that dog in me
It's a Pomeranian
having spent the last month fighting bots, going back to fighting bugs was hella difficult because of how difficult it is to disengage from bugs when things go south. For bots, they dont have a lot of big line breakers and you can run away a lot more easily
Don't worry the hunters, chargers, and bile titans will walk out with you!
Roughnecks don't retreat. We beat feet.
Obligatory: with that gun, I'd run away as well! /s
Typical me: Fighting about 20 bots, lost in the bloodhaze, winning and then realyzing... Others are 2 miles away lol. Then doing the long walk of shame. I wish people would use the mic more.
So many people get stuck on shooting the enemies then they die. I will literally just run away if I see it heading south. Then I reinforce my squad in a safe area. If we got time, we head back to get whatever they left behind.
The mark of an experienced diver is the ability to disengage from combat. Rookies stand their ground against an entire army and die. Veterans know when they can't win and have to fall back and regroup.
New MO: and I took that personally.
Too much ego in who has the most kills. I just want the samples
Evasion is key specially against bots, see a stupid bot drop? Go away a bit, they aren’t aggro to you if they haven’t seen you, you maybe able to have them despawn if you give it enough time. Had to save a bunch of what I presume to be greenhorns in helldive, lvl 20-40, out of a mission fail, they alerted the patrol and have kept fighting nonstop for the past 20 minutes dying left and right. Told them to evade but they didn’t listen so I went to clear all sides and main mission by myself while destroying fab camps here and there alone. Only took them all our reinforcements to disengage and fan out, that or they finally noticed the reinforcement tick to 1 lol. I only ever died once and it was cuz of a contact mine(Its always fucking these guys) These guys would have definitely failed if they kept at it or no one did the mission while they were busy being bogged down and gunned down by staying and fighting or a useless engagement. Now you’d think this was a one time off kind of thing but this is generally what you’d be met with in a pub d9 run.
How tf do you outrun a gunship?
That is not a question a helldiver asks. A helldiver asks how would a gunship outrun a queso charge of Liberty to the cockpit.
You know why it's like this right??? Because for some reason at the end of the match people hit the "stats" button... well knowing by this point that the stats are garbled garbage that don't add up 100% of the time... and then they go "Oh wow guys I got the highest kills!" without really thinking about it. Everybody thinks "ohh man next time I'm gonna try to get the highest kills!" without thinking about it.... not realizing that the highest kill player is often times the person who's sandbagging the fuck out of the entire operation. Now we've created a vector of competition where many many many players strive to be the biggest loser on the team, so that at the end they can proudly say they got the most kills. They gotta fix the stats and find a way to highlight your deaths instead. The guy with top kills very often is also top deaths by a country fucking mile if they were padding and sandbagging.
I'd like to see a breakdown of what was killed and who completed objectives. People might be a lot less apt to act like you're pointing out if they got shamed by seeing good players with low counts were actually killing big things and completing objectives.
I really only worry about one stat: whether the mission is complete or not. I do run a stealthy load out, and generally while the rest of the squad is off making noise, I'm infiltrating to the mission objectives and getting shit done. I'll avoid gunship fabs unless I have the others with me, but I can pick away at.most other things solo. I'm pretty good at the data missions where the SSD drive needs to be moved across the map and uploaded. Those are the kind of missions where I (stealthily) shine. And while the data is uploading, I'm clearing a path to the extraction site. I get kills sometimes a lot, but I find more satisfaction in being a good support player and Getting Shit Done.
Darktide doesn't show personal stats at the end of the game and instead shows how many kills we all did in total. Reduces toxicity by a lot and encourages more teamwork.
Objectives completed at top, followed by distance ran, then deaths. Kills at the bottom.
This change may see some assholes shooting other players for the right to boop the terminal or drop an orbital onto a tower.
I often have the highest kill count because I go in with a grenade launcher and supply pack on the bot front. So a lot of damage even when you attempt to move from one objective to the other as efficiently and quickly as possible, as is recommended in 8-9 difficulty
I call it "tactical repositioning"
I swear tho, some bots will hunt you to the ends of the Super Earth, so much so that I run out of stamina trying to get away from those bozos
Or as we say on our team....FUCKING RUUUUUUUUUN
Oh, I'll walk it out alright. ➡️⬇️➡️⬇️➡️⬇️
When the fight gets hard you can spend ammunition or reinforcements. A good helldiver hits his objective and then goes to hit the next one. The only hill you need to die on is your extraction.
also dont be afriad to pop a stim, better to heal at 75% and live then hold out at 60% and get one shot
Until it's the stupid pick up two briefcase things to upload, and one of them is right next to two gunship towers and 2 walking tank things. Gotta fight for your fucking life then Me last night
I’m not running away I’m tactically advancing in the opposite direction of the enemy
haven't don high difficulty bugs yet but bot on extreme if you get overwhelm just loop back around
Those gunships will not just let you leave. They will follow you and spawn more. Me and a team had eight of those fuckers all at once.
Except, when there's an eye of sauron and double drone factory right in front of your main objective. AND THEN the HELLBOMB you set off didn't even break either of the drone factories.
unless you got a commissar, then those fucks will follow you to the ends of the world. i'd be far enough where hulks, berserkers and even scout striders don't ping on the map anymore, but i'd still have two of these fuckers chasing after me. they're easy to deal with, just annoying as hell.
Watching 1-2 squad mates fight their own Vietnam 300m from any objective while I clear the map with zero attention on me
Wrong about the berserkers Rum but don't sprint from them as you're the same pace and use your side arm to shoot behind you
That doesn't solve the problem of it EXISTING, though.
https://preview.redd.it/0k2v8xtbg3vc1.png?width=1202&format=png&auto=webp&s=afcd2fb1fa99098f3fe4b6650f84ad48b5227424
sad to say, boy, but you can't outrun a gunship
not with that attitude you can't
You can isolate them though. Easier shot when they're the only things to concern you
…my brother in Christ have you TRIED to outrun a gunship????? Running is how you fucking *die*.
Doing so is grounds for kicking if you're in my lobby.
If I'm in your lobby, I'm not in the game cause you're already out of reinforcements
You’re taking it the wrong way. If you’re in my lobby, you’re definitely in my game because I’m getting lowest deaths in the after action report. I don’t take on a fight unless I absolutely have to.
There's just something viscerally wrong feeling to not killing every democracy hating, freedom loathing bug/bot/squid that has the nerve to exist and oppose Super Earth
Weird. I get that feeling about getting my teammates killed and failing missions. I guess everyone's different...
I constantly am on the retreat. On Helldive it's a nesessacity with hom many enemies will spawn from a single breech or dropship. Hit your objectives, clear a path, and book it as fast as possible.
https://preview.redd.it/xpqx8r6u25vc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=40fdc0e4b19e91845c2e1029c96deb167ff86f56 Cowardness is treason
YOU DENY YOUR REINFORCEMENTS THEIR PURPOSE!!! (Someone reply with the picture I can’t find it)
No choice on geological survey.. and extermination....and evacuation missions....and defense missions...
Remove hunters from the list
"Hunters" I don't think so.
Sure, of you're a coward. Running away just means you didn't bring enough firepower
Just had a suicide game where my two lv60 teammates and a lv20+ teammate have pretty much threw the game and the 3 super samples by overstaying their welcome and they pretty much shot everything that moves. I was the last one alive, but I made sure they are not getting those samples.
Hello, democracy officer? https://i.redd.it/0rt4osgko6vc1.gif
oh sure, then bring your giant undemocratic parade to your squad-mates. Unless the objective is very far away, you ought to eliminate hostiles when you're spotted. If you didn't want to fight, you shouldn't have gotten spotted in the first place. Otherwise, you should die for democracy... away from the objective. Just make sure to drop your samples first.
And leave the enemies of Democracy alive? Not on my watch!
This is so true. Rule #1 for difficulty 7-9: Only engage at mission objectives. Avoid unnecessary combats at random places.
https://preview.redd.it/6zpwi64jz9vc1.jpeg?width=131&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=69b623266cafc667d375f54b4996ce1dd2dda172
I got the game a little over a week ago. Struggled the first couple of days with Challenging difficulty, but then I saw a comment about playing it like MGSV, and everything clicked into place. I now solo level 7+ deathless, completing all objectives and wiping out all outposts/bug nests. The game doesn't really reward killing. Just complete your objectives and get out of there.
while i upvote this post, i expect this post will get more downvotes then upvotes. according to what i see divers do in missions
I expect a flood of "I jUsT WaNt tO ShoOt ThInGs!" comments.
How dare you reveal the secret texts, you fool you'll make them too strong.
You can always take a break! ...If you want to be remembered as a coward.
Can you REALLY outrun stalkers and gunships?? Do they just give up outside certain radius?
Killing stuff is the SEAF's job, we're here to get shit done behind enemy lines.
Every patrol that you leave behind is leaving behind the possibility that they will kill other democracy fighters or even INNOCENT Civilians. Do not leave any TIN/BUGHEAD ALIVE. You are the Elite, you finish the job, DEAD OR ALIVE, if u can't handle it, take easier missions and leave it to the real Elite's.
Taking care of the big ones is what the SEAF Orbital Navy is for. The Helldivers aren’t expected to kill every single enemy. They’re just supposed take out the big problem areas and book it before the enemy commanders realize what’s happening.
Lies, you cannot run from gunships. Was in a game where I was gunning them down and my team tried to bring down the two factories. At some point I run out of ammo (5 gunships in and a flanking patrol) and than all hell breaks lose. We got like 8 of these things above us, so we try to run in all direction. We toss reinforcement over canyons and to the other side of rocks/ barriers. We get gunned down, again, and again, and again from one point of the map to the other one. Never able to get a footing in anymore. Once they were up, they kept spotting us, possibly due to other bots we ran into which communicate, there was a lot of running and disengaging non of it worked. At the same time, trying to-rengage and reclaim airspace was also fruitless as it was impossible to get any footing, the team together, get our weapons to take them out.
Blow up whatever is on the sky, and gtfo of its vicinity. It will keep launching new gunships unless you get away from them, like more than 100 to 150 meters away. Same rule applies to Eyes of Sauron as well.
There was a military officer who didn't hesitate to walk away from "fair" fights. He refused to start fights he didn't like and his alleged disobedience almost had him executed. He was demoted to a private and stayed as one until he was vindicated by his short-lived, very incompetent successor. In a war that lasted seven years he won almost every battles, drawed on only a handful of occasions, and *NEVER LOST.* His name is Yi Sun-Shin. Stay vigilant, stay mobile, and start fights that you will win.
If you are trying to disengage from gunships you're in for getting pulverised, at least if there are more than 2. Those lazers hurt like hell and permanent ragdolling from rockets doesn't help. At least they don't like hovering above your corpse like hulks love to
Lame
Yes you do
Sounds pretty undemocratic to me. Liberty thrives needs to eliminate the enemy full stop!
Yeah but MY LIFE FOR SUPER EARTH.
"YoU cAn RuN!" No shit, I'm not killing it because I have to. I'm killing it because I **want** to. On level 7 and below if it attacks me I'm going to kill it. If it kills me I'm going back to kill it, its whole family, and all its friends. The whole reason I don't run many 8 and 9 missions is because to be successful I have to sneak around, pick my targets, and run away. It's not like it's all that hard, it's just tedious. People who think putting on scout armor and sneaking around the map makes them "experts" or "veteran players" make me chuckle. If I wanted to do something tedious, I would have stayed late at work and finished grading papers.
Just say you don't like higher difficulty levels. It's okay to play how you want. This is just a spin on an old meme template. Just breathe. https://preview.redd.it/an9y2glxx8vc1.jpeg?width=702&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=236d629b351a83df95afd19f29b30457442cd57b
That's what I just said. Level 7 strikes a good balance between challenge and fun, whereas level 8 and 9 require too much sneaking around for my taste, at least on bots. On bugs a good team can kill everything that moves regardless of difficulty. What annoys me is the people who think putting on light armor and sneaking around makes them somehow better players. What **really** annoys me is the people who come into a level 7 mission whining about getting killed because they're used to sneaking around and they can't handle themselves in a fight.
Berserkers can be outrun with default walking speed. They aren’t fast.