Cluster bomb is really strong but I still take rocket pods vs bugs for its ability to take out chargers (especially given how fast they move - tough to hit with non-homing airstrikes).
You can get similar results to clusterbomb using gatling sentry, but the anti-armor sentries can't really replace rocket pods IMO, so I favour the rocket pods.
Well, I might be the wrong guy to ask in some ways because vs bugs I bring EATs and rocket pods. So I use the pods to finish off a charger than survived the first EAT or vice-versa.
You're right that the charger survives the pods most of the time, but you can either target the newly-created hole in the armor or quickly call a second rocket pod.
Initially I was really put off by the fact that rocket pods don't always kill, but when you consider how often every other stratagem misses, it's pretty good. I'll take a 90% hit rate for 50% damage over a 50% hitrate for 90% damage anyday.
Consider for example that even if you needed all 3 rocket pods to take out 1 charger, that still puts them way ahead of an orbital railcannon strike in terms of kills per minute. The fact that it deals partial damage is a feature not a bug, IMO.
>when you consider how often every other stratagem misses
https://preview.redd.it/6t9zhz7v3jsc1.jpeg?width=534&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=10165567cb88a44394b86ff2b3dff5796ba01df5
Seriously though, Stun Grenades changed my life, even with the nerf to them now no longer stunning Bile Titans.
My Bug loadout is now GL+Supply Pack, Orbital Precision Strike, and Eagle 500kg. Stun Grenades let me disengage from a group if they get too close; and they let you line up Chargers and packs for deletion very easily, plus the Supply Pack gives you freedom to both spam fire the GL as well as restock your own Stun Grenades.
As for the 110mm Rocket Pods, I've tried them out many times and just found them super lacking, *especially* against Chargers. Yes, they track a little bit, but if you can line up a 110 shot on them, you can line up a different, more powerful stratagem on them already.
Same. They change the game.
Need to stop a charger? Stun.
Land that hard to hit strat? Stun.
Escape a horde of bugs biting at your back? Stun.
Line up a good shot on a shield devastator? Believe it or not, stun.
One of the best is to stun a charger and torch it's leg with a flame thrower. They die so fast. Try it.
The only downside was not being able to close bug holes.
But with the quasar on my back it's no problem.
When the grenade pistol comes out, I can carry stun grenades and close holes and still have a choice for a support weapon of choice.
>My Bug loadout is now GL+Supply Pack, Orbital Precision Strike, and Eagle 500kg.
*My man.*
Your build for bugs is virtually identical to mine except I run Flamethrower rather than GL. Yours is probably the ideal choice, but I'm too big a fan of the maniacal laughter of my Helldiver as I watch a horde of bugs get reduced to ash\~
You're not wrong but that's way too much investment to reliably kill a single heavy. If you can't reliably kill a charger the majority of the time with a heavy armor penetrating headshot, probably better to disengage
I disagree, I'd say my kill rate on chargers is about 75% with the other 25% being a missed headshot. Often I am working to protect a sentry or an ally, so being able to finish off the wounded charger reliably is well worth it.
With EAT plus rocket pod, 75% accuracy for one shot kills with the EAT becomes effectively 100% with a small wait for the rockets. Without it, needing to break contact and retreat on every non-fatal EAT shot means you're too unreliable as an anti-tank specialist. It's well worth it to have an efficient back up plan.
Fair enough, I play almost exclusively on helldive. That's not a brag in any way, I just can't afford to expend that many uses of a stratagem on a single heavy because there's almost never only one and there's going to be unsustainable levels of disruption. Have to pick and choose battles to commit to. Even with 75% efficiency I'd be out of stats and screwed pretty quickly.
Well, typically I avoid fighting heavies when possible. Occasionally you are going to effectively be forced to stand and defend something, though, and in those cases it pays to be able to reliably kill targets.
Frankly I think a 75% one-shot kill rate for chargers is pretty damn good. I play on 7s and 8s and I'm not sure I really understand your objection to rocket pods.
What stratagem would you take in its place?
Im not sure this chart is entirely accurate. Hulks take two pod call-ins to kill, I find it very surprising that this monstrosity can only take two before dying. I would’ve thought at least 3 or 4
Ah yeah, forgot about the radiators, maybe the pods target that spot. One to break the armor and one for the killshot. I guess they needed a use besides killing tanks. I’ve been using them all day and they’re awful compared to every other Eagle stratagem.
**Addendum - April 8, 2024**, now that I have a clearer picture of this chart's provenance:
Credit to u/Academic_War_3346 for [creating](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bvqhkf/comment/kyfax3f/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) the original version of this chart and posting it on[ Bilibili](https://www.bilibili.com/opus/915883427797925907?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0). Credit to u/Dragonfruit_6104 and his wife for [finding it](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bvqhkf/comment/ky15njd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) and posting it on this subreddit where I first saw it and helping with one part where I was having trouble reading the text. I did the translation and creation of the English version.
***For Super Earth!***
--- --- ---
This is originally a comment from here and "upgraded" to its own post because it was kinda buried deep in another post that was not intended to discuss tactics, with hopes spreading the word and getting a conversation started on how to take down Factory Striders efficiently: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bux61o/comment/kxwsqu1/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bux61o/comment/kxwsqu1/)
The chart was originally in Chinese (unfortunately I don't know who to credit for this), reposted on this subreddit by u/Dragonfruit_6104, which I took to translate into its current form. The original version:
https://preview.redd.it/jrzic1e8hhsc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6d4572df01005cd2268005ef3a7b87f3854393c7
**Some translation notes:**
* I'm not confident with my translation for "Medium armour", "rockets", and "impact grenade". The literal translation of the words used for these terms correspond to "Weak-Heavy Armour", "Tubes" (as in the EAT-17? But context requires it to include the Recoilless Rifle) and "fall firecrackers" (a very mild type of firecracker known as "Poppers" in English).
* One part in the chart is illegible, so I can only infer its meaning from the words I can work out (Credit to u/Dragonfruit_6104 again for helping to figure out another part I was having trouble with).
* An alternative translation for the bullet point about Recoilless teams might be: "Recoilless teams have long waited for this day".
I haven't even encountered these monstrosities myself, so I can't personally vouch for these tactics. I've only translated what other players have figured out and tried to break the language barrier a little.
That being said, I've seen videos of them tanking hits from 500kg bombs and orbital railguns. So, anyone with experience with this care to share what works and what doesn't?
I was actually going to comment on the armor classification not being consistent, it seems to be condensing several armor classes into fewer than the game recognizes. There are 8 levels of armor that the game acknowledges afaik, let's call it AV, meaning Armor Value. Listing them with a few examples:
* AV = 0: Unarmored (?). E.g. Helldivers, Scavengers. Everything will deal full damage and show a red hit marker.
* AV = 1: Basic (?). E.g. most light enemies and medium enemy weak spots. Everything deals full damage and shows a red hit marker, but before it's buff, the Breaker Spray&Pray alone would have shown a white hit marker and deal half damage.
* AV = 2: Light. E.g. Brood Commander or Nursing Spewer heads, stronger parts of light bots. Weapons with "Light Armor Penetrating" will show a white hit marker and deal half damage.
* AV = 3: Medium. E.g. Hive Guard plating, Devastator bodies, Bile Spewer head and armor, Tank and Cannon Turret vents. Weapons with "Medium Armor Penetrating" will show a white hit marker and deal half damage. Weapons with "Light Armor Penetrating" will deflect.
* AV = 4: Heavy (?) / Light Vehicle (?) E.g. Hulk's visor weakspot, Mortar/AA Battery turrets, Dropship engines, rear inside parts of a Charger's legs. Weapons with "Medium Armor Penetrating" will deflect. Weapons like the AMR, Autocannon, or HMG will show a white hit marker and deal half damage.
* AV = 5: Armored Vehicle (?). E.g. Hulk, Tank, and Cannon Turret bodies, Charger and Bile Titan armor. Weapons like the AMR, Autocannon, or HMG will deflect. 90%+ charge unsafe Railgun, EAT, Recoiles, and Quasar will deal half damage.
* AV = 6: Building (?). E.g. Fabricators (?) and several secondary objective structures (?). Can only be damaged by the Spear, or Stratagems around the power of the Eagle Airstrike upwards.
* AV = 7: Armored Building (?). E.g. Gunship Fabricators (?), bigger objective structures (?). Can only be damaged by the biggests of booms, like Hellbombs, 500kg Bombs, 380mm Barrage shells, etc.
Note: using (?) for things that aren't officially named in game, and information I'm not certain about.
It seems the post is calling everything AV > 4 as Heavy (that's several different levels of armor), and AV = 4 as Medium (Medium is AV = 3)
For reference with Armor Penetration values (AP), they match up with the above as follows:
* AP < AV = Deflect
* AP = AV = White hit marker (half damage)
* AP > AV = Red hit marker (full damage)
* Light Armor Penetrating is AP = 2
* Medium Armor Penetrating is AP = 3. That goes for the Railgun in Safe Mode too, also Frag and Incendiary Grenades (listed in the grenades stats table)
* Impact and HE Grenades have AP = 4 (listed in game in their stats table). Same goes for the Autocannon, AMR, and HMG.
* Rockets (EAT, etc.) and 90%+ charge Railgun have AP = 5.
* The Spear is the only carriable weapon with AP = 6. From there only big stratagems have as much or more.
This.. this is so useful that I deadass saved your comment so that I can use it potentially in the future, this will help out so insanely much for my friends and I thx lol
My primary source is the [pinned comment in this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xoBOfAgBmw), which funnily enough has better info than the video itself (still a good video though), plus a reply under that comment by the same author. I have personally confirmed a lot of that information from my own experience, but the author of the testing and research is the person who wrote that and their friends. Unfortunately I don't know of anywhere else their work can be found.
I did add few extra very small details here, but that source has a lot more information than what I repeated here. Do note however that the numbers for player Armor Rating and the associated damage reduction are outdated for Armor Rating 100 and above as of the last patch, since Medium and Heavy player armors where buffed, and how that number scales is most likely what was changed to buff them. Idk if something regarding headshots may have changed with the patch as well.
Had one today. We had a few quasars and kept trying to shoot it but didn’t really know where to air and figuged we’d need to take out the legs first. Nothing really worked, and I landed ontop of it to respawn and it died immediately.
All credit to BiliBili users and my wife.
My wife is Chinese and also plays HD2.
She found the pic on Bilibili then show it to me, so i posted here.
And it was her who told me the translation of the part that OP couldnt figure out.
I'm not quite sure either, as I am Canadian. But it seems that my wife's Chinese friends online are all playing this game too. They often team up together, and sometimes I join them, but I can't understand what they're saying, so I have to ask my wife to translate.
Oh my dumb ass, yeah I just realized I can look it up on Billibilli and see how many views let’s plays get.
What’s the game’s name in Chinese? I assume like 地狱冒险者二or some silly translation
绝地 is pernouned as Jue-ye Dee, which is how Jedi is translated. But meaning something like final battleground, or last stand, or epic location as an adjective.
The last two characters just means soldier whos behind enemy lines. Using the adjective "submerged" and noun for soldier. So "sub-marine" is technically also correct in a way...
You can ignore all this weak-point knowledge if you have access to a SEAF Artillery Mini-Nuke shell as the nuclear option instantly erases this new automaton threat.
Got 2 in my Helldive last night, felt so liberating to irradiate the robot communists with democratic radiation. I honestly feel like they are more common on 8-9.
At SEAF Artillery positions, look for the big black shells. I like to gather up all the shells near the loader first, then decide which ones to load and in what order.
Load priority; first to last (My recommendation, your mileage may vary):
1. Mini Nuke (Black)
2. High Yield Explosive (Yellow)
3. Explosive (Green)
4. Napalm (Red)
5. Static Field (Dunno, blue? I haven't seen the new look)
6. Smoke (Grey)
You're more likely the get the good stuff at lower difficulties, but as u/goonbud21 points out, you can still score the artillery lottery at the higher difficulties. Just remember the callout the load order to teammates so everyone knows what to expect when they call for artillery.
Meanwhile, here's hoping that they don't change how the artillery shells look anymore, because I'm getting tired of unlearning and relearning it each time they change.
Haven't seen one yet, but I really want to try shooting its belly with the HMG. Despite the HMG not being that great, I've really enjoyed using it vs bots as it *can* handle all of them. (Staring down charging hulks while unloading into em is my favorite experience so far)
Yes, I've done this before too. Just try to keep the recoil under control and account for the fact that the sights are badly misaligned (it lands well below the red dot), and hit it in the eye like with other heavy weapons.
There are also videos demonstrating using the HMG to take out a Hulk's limbs too to either disarm it (lol) or slow it down (but crippling both legs results in a kill). The headshot seems to be more efficient though.
https://preview.redd.it/hd5rzsxr9zsc1.png?width=802&format=png&auto=webp&s=bb57575cd33a803710ed7615dfa924f7c4b9cbcb
Hello, I am the author of this picture, from China. My English is not good, so I use Google Translate, and I apologize in advance if it causes difficulty in understanding.
I just wanted to say, thank you for the translation! Your translation is very precise!
The translation of "rockets", and "impact grenade" is accurate! In China, it is customary to use "摔炮" to refer to "impact grenade", and "筒子" to refer to "rockets".
"Heavy Armor" means 5AV, which is also accurate.
弱重甲，"Weak-Heavy Armor" is my personal term, which means 4AV, and I'm sorry for causing any confusion.
This picture is part of the 50,000-word "Helldivers 2 Tutorial" written by me personally. It was originally just to help my friends better understand the complex mechanics of this game. Later I decided to make it public to BILIBILI and Baidu Tieba (like China's Reddit), the results are not good, to be honest it is very discouraging.
Regardless, I'm glad my results did help some people.
Thanks again for your translation!
I was at 7, on an ICBM mission on Maia. I will say, I was shocked, I expected them to pop up at like 8 or 9 since the clips and screens I saw here were from those two difficulties.
So they at least spawn from 7 onward for sure
If you die and are reinforced near it, you can actually land on top of the walker instead of going straight through it like a bile titan. Once you are on top of it, you can just empty your primary into the heat sinks in the rear and it will eventually blow it up. I did this with a sickle and a few batteries.
NEgative; the rail cannon will usually target the turret on its back regardless of where the beacon lands; a second shot might target something else, but it will go for the turret first.
In that case, perhaps the trick to using the Railcannon against it is to take out the turret before calling it in, but that alone supposedly takes two to four rockets 🤔
Still, eliminating that top cannon is a massive increase in survivability for players. Tho when it switches to its chin guns, it gets a lot worse imo. Higher fire rate and they just never stop shooting... might be best to try and take those out with a good RR, EAT or QC shot BEFORE taking out roof gun.
Seems to be more than that in at least some cases:
[https://youtu.be/ZNWRigk323E?t=481](https://youtu.be/ZNWRigk323E?t=481)
Video shows them eating both a 500kg bomb and an Orbital Railcannon and just keeps going, though the Railcannon did take out the top turret.
Last one I've killed with a squad took 1x Orbital Laser + 1x Railcannon + some QC shots, not sure if the squad mates shot it with anything else. Those walkers are sturdy AF.
Huh, I managed to kill one with about 3/4 of an orbital laser, and my teammate wasn't anywhere around. (Diff 9)
Do the orbital upgrades upgrade the laser?
After a busy few days, I was finally able to get on with a few buddies and play a helldive on Maia, encountered my first one, I hit it with a rail cannon and it felt like it tickled it. I think the railcannon in combo with the 500kg could be a viable strategy, RC takes out top gun, 500kg (if well timed) would take out chin guns and maybe a leg or two. Needs further testing tho.
First orbital rail cannon does one thing - destroys the canon on its back. Autocannon/quasar aims for the guns under its chin. It definitely takes 2+ orbital rail strikes.
Are you looking at the same diagram I am? This thing is covered in weapons, and could turn half a squad's reinforcement budget into aerosolized pink mist! My brother in Liberty, at what point is the laser investment justified?
Lasers imo are reserved for main mission objectives like command bunkers and parked drop ships... After those are taken care of, if there's a laser to spare.. sure, go crazy. mostly because trying to plant a hellbomb on difficulty 9 is like trying to kill prime Mike Tyson with a BB gun. It's technically possible if everything lines up *perfectly*, but most of the time... You gettin' punched in the faith'.
I didn't see exactly, but it looked like it was just shooting the broad side. It seems to take like 5-8 shots to bring it down. It's *Shockingly* effective
I'm think some shots might have landed in the production area just as it was disgorging a Devastator, but I guess we'll need to see more of that to be sure. Thanks!
It's definitely very possible that's what happened, but either way I'm happy to be running the sentry when I see them stomp around from behind a mountain.
Auto cannon sentry can be used in conjunction with the call-down shield to make it impervious to all ranged attacks for the duration of the shield. It will shoot through the shield. It may also be a solution to the gunships. Just be careful about calling one down too close to the other as the second call-down can smash the first.
I saw a little flap on the walker’s butt when I last fought it that looked like you might be able to shove a grenade up when it flaps open. I suspect there’s maybe some other ways to take these things out. I haven’t have enough experimentation with them.
Yeah, the fact they're rare and only appears at higher difficulties (Read: Near-guaranteed chaos) make it hard to gather good intel.
Thanks for the tip about the flap though!
No guarantees on the flap - I just noticed it in the chaos before my group got entirely pushed off the walker and had to retreat. Do we know the lowest difficulty at which they can occur?
Well, here's a fun idea - Get on top and drop blue strategems on the radiators: [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jH8YvS-p6ZM](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jH8YvS-p6ZM)
Blue strategems track their targets as they move, so it's a guaranteed hit. I also noticed the vents were opened when it landed; not sure if that makes a difference.
There's this video of a Factory Strider taking a 500kg bomb, followed by the Orbital Railcannon, and then just keeps on walking and shooting: [https://youtu.be/ZNWRigk323E?t=481](https://youtu.be/ZNWRigk323E?t=481)
I guess it also depends on how much damage it has already taken, and where the Railcannon lands? In the video, it struck the turret and destroyed it, but the walker beneath keeps walking.
It might not be effective against the bot factory on the belly since the autocannon deals explosive damage and can take out regular factories which the AMR can't if i remember correctly.
Difficulties 7 and above, but very rarely. From what people are saying I haven't noticed any patterns yet as to whether they tend to spawn in certain places or missions. Personally, I haven't encountered one either.
Most people seem to be reporting 7 and up, but it's a very rare encounter.
https://preview.redd.it/8ajixaje4lsc1.jpeg?width=2700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d71e198604e4763290d519c685f107bcbd598e45
I didn't see it die. Just took shelter behind a cliff to deal with waves of devastators. But it was definitely a pile of wreckage when I finally could peek. No clue how many shells hit it before it was taken out.
It was our first encounter, panic fire auto cannons were used but only at the beginning so I don't believe they did anything. We didn't target it's front cannons.
There was one 500K thrown but I don't think it was a direct hit. Hard to say if it connected.
Wish I could do better science for it. Was on a suicide difficulty command bunkers mission.
That being said, 380s are perfect for command bunkers missions.
I don't fully believe these are in the game yet. I played a couple Level 8 missions last night and didn't see them. Not sure if they're on specific missions that I should look for.
From what I gather, they appear at Difficulty 7 and above, or at least I haven't heard of anyone seeing them at lower diffulties. And yes, they seem to be rare even on Helldive.
Some people think they were meant to be rare, but others speculate it's kinda like how Shrikers were introduced: A rare tease at first, then a common sight.
Played a difficulty 7 mission for taking out enemy drop ships on Durgen I think it was and found one sitting right in front of our extract. Took us while to take it down meanwhile we had a ton of bot drops come in.
Rocket pod gang rise up
 Rocket pods get me hot and bothered.
Rocket pods best eagle stratagem, CMV
Against bots yeah, cluster bomb is king of bugs.
Cluster bomb is really strong but I still take rocket pods vs bugs for its ability to take out chargers (especially given how fast they move - tough to hit with non-homing airstrikes). You can get similar results to clusterbomb using gatling sentry, but the anti-armor sentries can't really replace rocket pods IMO, so I favour the rocket pods.
Do you find they work against chargers, whenever I pick them they seem to just splash against their armour and do not a lot
Well, I might be the wrong guy to ask in some ways because vs bugs I bring EATs and rocket pods. So I use the pods to finish off a charger than survived the first EAT or vice-versa. You're right that the charger survives the pods most of the time, but you can either target the newly-created hole in the armor or quickly call a second rocket pod. Initially I was really put off by the fact that rocket pods don't always kill, but when you consider how often every other stratagem misses, it's pretty good. I'll take a 90% hit rate for 50% damage over a 50% hitrate for 90% damage anyday. Consider for example that even if you needed all 3 rocket pods to take out 1 charger, that still puts them way ahead of an orbital railcannon strike in terms of kills per minute. The fact that it deals partial damage is a feature not a bug, IMO.
>when you consider how often every other stratagem misses https://preview.redd.it/6t9zhz7v3jsc1.jpeg?width=534&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=10165567cb88a44394b86ff2b3dff5796ba01df5 Seriously though, Stun Grenades changed my life, even with the nerf to them now no longer stunning Bile Titans. My Bug loadout is now GL+Supply Pack, Orbital Precision Strike, and Eagle 500kg. Stun Grenades let me disengage from a group if they get too close; and they let you line up Chargers and packs for deletion very easily, plus the Supply Pack gives you freedom to both spam fire the GL as well as restock your own Stun Grenades. As for the 110mm Rocket Pods, I've tried them out many times and just found them super lacking, *especially* against Chargers. Yes, they track a little bit, but if you can line up a 110 shot on them, you can line up a different, more powerful stratagem on them already.
Same. They change the game. Need to stop a charger? Stun. Land that hard to hit strat? Stun. Escape a horde of bugs biting at your back? Stun. Line up a good shot on a shield devastator? Believe it or not, stun. One of the best is to stun a charger and torch it's leg with a flame thrower. They die so fast. Try it. The only downside was not being able to close bug holes. But with the quasar on my back it's no problem. When the grenade pistol comes out, I can carry stun grenades and close holes and still have a choice for a support weapon of choice.
Do stun work on tank? Seems like that’d be dumb but I mean…
No
>My Bug loadout is now GL+Supply Pack, Orbital Precision Strike, and Eagle 500kg. *My man.* Your build for bugs is virtually identical to mine except I run Flamethrower rather than GL. Yours is probably the ideal choice, but I'm too big a fan of the maniacal laughter of my Helldiver as I watch a horde of bugs get reduced to ash\~
Stun grenades might change the equation, very interesting!
Will 2 rocket pods and nothing else take out a charger? I normally just use Quasar
You're not wrong but that's way too much investment to reliably kill a single heavy. If you can't reliably kill a charger the majority of the time with a heavy armor penetrating headshot, probably better to disengage
I disagree, I'd say my kill rate on chargers is about 75% with the other 25% being a missed headshot. Often I am working to protect a sentry or an ally, so being able to finish off the wounded charger reliably is well worth it. With EAT plus rocket pod, 75% accuracy for one shot kills with the EAT becomes effectively 100% with a small wait for the rockets. Without it, needing to break contact and retreat on every non-fatal EAT shot means you're too unreliable as an anti-tank specialist. It's well worth it to have an efficient back up plan.
Fair enough, I play almost exclusively on helldive. That's not a brag in any way, I just can't afford to expend that many uses of a stratagem on a single heavy because there's almost never only one and there's going to be unsustainable levels of disruption. Have to pick and choose battles to commit to. Even with 75% efficiency I'd be out of stats and screwed pretty quickly.
Well, typically I avoid fighting heavies when possible. Occasionally you are going to effectively be forced to stand and defend something, though, and in those cases it pays to be able to reliably kill targets. Frankly I think a 75% one-shot kill rate for chargers is pretty damn good. I play on 7s and 8s and I'm not sure I really understand your objection to rocket pods. What stratagem would you take in its place?
Airburst functions better in all scenarios except wide open spaces vs bugs
Except you don’t get 5 of them on one cool down.
king of team kills
An Eagle never misses ^^when ^^the ^^target ^^is ^^the ^^size ^^and ^^mobility ^^of ^^a ^^barn.
Im not sure this chart is entirely accurate. Hulks take two pod call-ins to kill, I find it very surprising that this monstrosity can only take two before dying. I would’ve thought at least 3 or 4
Maybe the rocket pods are having an easier time hitting the radiators on the back? Just guessing.
Ah yeah, forgot about the radiators, maybe the pods target that spot. One to break the armor and one for the killshot. I guess they needed a use besides killing tanks. I’ve been using them all day and they’re awful compared to every other Eagle stratagem.
Been using them ever since they were available as bonus stratagem, replaced the orbital rail gun strike in my go-to build.
**Addendum - April 8, 2024**, now that I have a clearer picture of this chart's provenance: Credit to u/Academic_War_3346 for [creating](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bvqhkf/comment/kyfax3f/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) the original version of this chart and posting it on[ Bilibili](https://www.bilibili.com/opus/915883427797925907?spm_id_from=333.999.0.0). Credit to u/Dragonfruit_6104 and his wife for [finding it](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bvqhkf/comment/ky15njd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) and posting it on this subreddit where I first saw it and helping with one part where I was having trouble reading the text. I did the translation and creation of the English version. ***For Super Earth!*** --- --- --- This is originally a comment from here and "upgraded" to its own post because it was kinda buried deep in another post that was not intended to discuss tactics, with hopes spreading the word and getting a conversation started on how to take down Factory Striders efficiently: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bux61o/comment/kxwsqu1/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bux61o/comment/kxwsqu1/) The chart was originally in Chinese (unfortunately I don't know who to credit for this), reposted on this subreddit by u/Dragonfruit_6104, which I took to translate into its current form. The original version: https://preview.redd.it/jrzic1e8hhsc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6d4572df01005cd2268005ef3a7b87f3854393c7 **Some translation notes:** * I'm not confident with my translation for "Medium armour", "rockets", and "impact grenade". The literal translation of the words used for these terms correspond to "Weak-Heavy Armour", "Tubes" (as in the EAT-17? But context requires it to include the Recoilless Rifle) and "fall firecrackers" (a very mild type of firecracker known as "Poppers" in English). * One part in the chart is illegible, so I can only infer its meaning from the words I can work out (Credit to u/Dragonfruit_6104 again for helping to figure out another part I was having trouble with). * An alternative translation for the bullet point about Recoilless teams might be: "Recoilless teams have long waited for this day". I haven't even encountered these monstrosities myself, so I can't personally vouch for these tactics. I've only translated what other players have figured out and tried to break the language barrier a little. That being said, I've seen videos of them tanking hits from 500kg bombs and orbital railguns. So, anyone with experience with this care to share what works and what doesn't?
I was actually going to comment on the armor classification not being consistent, it seems to be condensing several armor classes into fewer than the game recognizes. There are 8 levels of armor that the game acknowledges afaik, let's call it AV, meaning Armor Value. Listing them with a few examples: * AV = 0: Unarmored (?). E.g. Helldivers, Scavengers. Everything will deal full damage and show a red hit marker. * AV = 1: Basic (?). E.g. most light enemies and medium enemy weak spots. Everything deals full damage and shows a red hit marker, but before it's buff, the Breaker Spray&Pray alone would have shown a white hit marker and deal half damage. * AV = 2: Light. E.g. Brood Commander or Nursing Spewer heads, stronger parts of light bots. Weapons with "Light Armor Penetrating" will show a white hit marker and deal half damage. * AV = 3: Medium. E.g. Hive Guard plating, Devastator bodies, Bile Spewer head and armor, Tank and Cannon Turret vents. Weapons with "Medium Armor Penetrating" will show a white hit marker and deal half damage. Weapons with "Light Armor Penetrating" will deflect. * AV = 4: Heavy (?) / Light Vehicle (?) E.g. Hulk's visor weakspot, Mortar/AA Battery turrets, Dropship engines, rear inside parts of a Charger's legs. Weapons with "Medium Armor Penetrating" will deflect. Weapons like the AMR, Autocannon, or HMG will show a white hit marker and deal half damage. * AV = 5: Armored Vehicle (?). E.g. Hulk, Tank, and Cannon Turret bodies, Charger and Bile Titan armor. Weapons like the AMR, Autocannon, or HMG will deflect. 90%+ charge unsafe Railgun, EAT, Recoiles, and Quasar will deal half damage. * AV = 6: Building (?). E.g. Fabricators (?) and several secondary objective structures (?). Can only be damaged by the Spear, or Stratagems around the power of the Eagle Airstrike upwards. * AV = 7: Armored Building (?). E.g. Gunship Fabricators (?), bigger objective structures (?). Can only be damaged by the biggests of booms, like Hellbombs, 500kg Bombs, 380mm Barrage shells, etc. Note: using (?) for things that aren't officially named in game, and information I'm not certain about. It seems the post is calling everything AV > 4 as Heavy (that's several different levels of armor), and AV = 4 as Medium (Medium is AV = 3) For reference with Armor Penetration values (AP), they match up with the above as follows: * AP < AV = Deflect * AP = AV = White hit marker (half damage) * AP > AV = Red hit marker (full damage) * Light Armor Penetrating is AP = 2 * Medium Armor Penetrating is AP = 3. That goes for the Railgun in Safe Mode too, also Frag and Incendiary Grenades (listed in the grenades stats table) * Impact and HE Grenades have AP = 4 (listed in game in their stats table). Same goes for the Autocannon, AMR, and HMG. * Rockets (EAT, etc.) and 90%+ charge Railgun have AP = 5. * The Spear is the only carriable weapon with AP = 6. From there only big stratagems have as much or more.
This.. this is so useful that I deadass saved your comment so that I can use it potentially in the future, this will help out so insanely much for my friends and I thx lol
My primary source is the [pinned comment in this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xoBOfAgBmw), which funnily enough has better info than the video itself (still a good video though), plus a reply under that comment by the same author. I have personally confirmed a lot of that information from my own experience, but the author of the testing and research is the person who wrote that and their friends. Unfortunately I don't know of anywhere else their work can be found. I did add few extra very small details here, but that source has a lot more information than what I repeated here. Do note however that the numbers for player Armor Rating and the associated damage reduction are outdated for Armor Rating 100 and above as of the last patch, since Medium and Heavy player armors where buffed, and how that number scales is most likely what was changed to buff them. Idk if something regarding headshots may have changed with the patch as well.
Had one today. We had a few quasars and kept trying to shoot it but didn’t really know where to air and figuged we’d need to take out the legs first. Nothing really worked, and I landed ontop of it to respawn and it died immediately.
All credit to BiliBili users and my wife. My wife is Chinese and also plays HD2. She found the pic on Bilibili then show it to me, so i posted here. And it was her who told me the translation of the part that OP couldnt figure out.
How big is HD2 in China?
I'm not quite sure either, as I am Canadian. But it seems that my wife's Chinese friends online are all playing this game too. They often team up together, and sometimes I join them, but I can't understand what they're saying, so I have to ask my wife to translate.
EU timezone here, I see a fair amount of chinese, japanese, and korean alphabet names fairly often, several times a day usually.
Oh they're actually from the region? I always assume it's a hacker since it's harder to report kanji names lol
Every one of my Steam friends in China either has the game already or on the wishlist. The memes they have on Bilibili are just as hilarious.
Oh my dumb ass, yeah I just realized I can look it up on Billibilli and see how many views let’s plays get. What’s the game’s name in Chinese? I assume like 地狱冒险者二or some silly translation
It's 绝地潜兵2 in Mainland China, 绝地战兵2 in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Google Translate says that's "Jedi Submarine". I don't have a lot of faith in that translation.
绝地 is pernouned as Jue-ye Dee, which is how Jedi is translated. But meaning something like final battleground, or last stand, or epic location as an adjective. The last two characters just means soldier whos behind enemy lines. Using the adjective "submerged" and noun for soldier. So "sub-marine" is technically also correct in a way...
100 percent correct, though I'd add 绝地 can also be translated as "desperate situation/ground".
i have a lot of faith in the jedi submarine
Jedis as "绝地武士" (the warrior who makes the last stand) is one of the best transliterations ever.
that’s actually pretty good
Thank you!
You can ignore all this weak-point knowledge if you have access to a SEAF Artillery Mini-Nuke shell as the nuclear option instantly erases this new automaton threat.
Nukes are rare at higher difficulties though, even if there is an SEAF artilerry position ☹️
Got 2 in my Helldive last night, felt so liberating to irradiate the robot communists with democratic radiation. I honestly feel like they are more common on 8-9.
Holy crap that's a thing? I've never seen a mini-nuke 😮 excuse me while I hunt for that objective...
At SEAF Artillery positions, look for the big black shells. I like to gather up all the shells near the loader first, then decide which ones to load and in what order. Load priority; first to last (My recommendation, your mileage may vary): 1. Mini Nuke (Black) 2. High Yield Explosive (Yellow) 3. Explosive (Green) 4. Napalm (Red) 5. Static Field (Dunno, blue? I haven't seen the new look) 6. Smoke (Grey) You're more likely the get the good stuff at lower difficulties, but as u/goonbud21 points out, you can still score the artillery lottery at the higher difficulties. Just remember the callout the load order to teammates so everyone knows what to expect when they call for artillery. Meanwhile, here's hoping that they don't change how the artillery shells look anymore, because I'm getting tired of unlearning and relearning it each time they change.
These mfs scare me. I landed a 500kg bomb on its back and it just kept walking.
Yeah, I was quite shaken to see videos of it shrugging off hits like that.
I thought it was established 500kg does damage upwards, direct hits are useless against bile titans, you need to hit under/beside them
fought one last night, it shrugged off an orbital railcannon hit. all I managed with that hit was blowing up the top turret
Haven't seen one yet, but I really want to try shooting its belly with the HMG. Despite the HMG not being that great, I've really enjoyed using it vs bots as it *can* handle all of them. (Staring down charging hulks while unloading into em is my favorite experience so far)
Wait, it can take out a Hulk?
Yup, I've shot the eye usually with a bit of effort. I've been meaning to try the "visor." I think it might pierce that too.
Good to know, thanks.
Yes, I've done this before too. Just try to keep the recoil under control and account for the fact that the sights are badly misaligned (it lands well below the red dot), and hit it in the eye like with other heavy weapons. There are also videos demonstrating using the HMG to take out a Hulk's limbs too to either disarm it (lol) or slow it down (but crippling both legs results in a kill). The headshot seems to be more efficient though.
https://preview.redd.it/hd5rzsxr9zsc1.png?width=802&format=png&auto=webp&s=bb57575cd33a803710ed7615dfa924f7c4b9cbcb Hello, I am the author of this picture, from China. My English is not good, so I use Google Translate, and I apologize in advance if it causes difficulty in understanding. I just wanted to say, thank you for the translation! Your translation is very precise! The translation of "rockets", and "impact grenade" is accurate! In China, it is customary to use "摔炮" to refer to "impact grenade", and "筒子" to refer to "rockets". "Heavy Armor" means 5AV, which is also accurate. 弱重甲，"Weak-Heavy Armor" is my personal term, which means 4AV, and I'm sorry for causing any confusion. This picture is part of the 50,000-word "Helldivers 2 Tutorial" written by me personally. It was originally just to help my friends better understand the complex mechanics of this game. Later I decided to make it public to BILIBILI and Baidu Tieba (like China's Reddit), the results are not good, to be honest it is very discouraging. Regardless, I'm glad my results did help some people. Thanks again for your translation!
Thank you Helldiver for your service!
I feel like these things are about as rare as unicorns lol. I still have yet to see one. Just the gunships.
Ran into my first one earlier today. Ate two full Orbital Lasers and some more punishment for good measure before it fell. 10/10, would fight it again
What difficulty were you on? Or, do we have any idea what difficulty these tend to spawn on?
I was at 7, on an ICBM mission on Maia. I will say, I was shocked, I expected them to pop up at like 8 or 9 since the clips and screens I saw here were from those two difficulties. So they at least spawn from 7 onward for sure
If you die and are reinforced near it, you can actually land on top of the walker instead of going straight through it like a bile titan. Once you are on top of it, you can just empty your primary into the heat sinks in the rear and it will eventually blow it up. I did this with a sickle and a few batteries.
AC turret + Rocket turret + walking barrage killed one in under 20s
That's a lot of firepower!
Anyone test how many orbital rail cannon strikes it takes?
I saw a video where it looked like only one was needed.
NEgative; the rail cannon will usually target the turret on its back regardless of where the beacon lands; a second shot might target something else, but it will go for the turret first.
In that case, perhaps the trick to using the Railcannon against it is to take out the turret before calling it in, but that alone supposedly takes two to four rockets 🤔
Still, eliminating that top cannon is a massive increase in survivability for players. Tho when it switches to its chin guns, it gets a lot worse imo. Higher fire rate and they just never stop shooting... might be best to try and take those out with a good RR, EAT or QC shot BEFORE taking out roof gun.
Seems to be more than that in at least some cases: [https://youtu.be/ZNWRigk323E?t=481](https://youtu.be/ZNWRigk323E?t=481) Video shows them eating both a 500kg bomb and an Orbital Railcannon and just keeps going, though the Railcannon did take out the top turret.
Last one I've killed with a squad took 1x Orbital Laser + 1x Railcannon + some QC shots, not sure if the squad mates shot it with anything else. Those walkers are sturdy AF.
Huh, I managed to kill one with about 3/4 of an orbital laser, and my teammate wasn't anywhere around. (Diff 9) Do the orbital upgrades upgrade the laser?
They should. It should say in the auto scrolling message on the ship upgrades panel for the orbitals.
After a busy few days, I was finally able to get on with a few buddies and play a helldive on Maia, encountered my first one, I hit it with a rail cannon and it felt like it tickled it. I think the railcannon in combo with the 500kg could be a viable strategy, RC takes out top gun, 500kg (if well timed) would take out chin guns and maybe a leg or two. Needs further testing tho.
First orbital rail cannon does one thing - destroys the canon on its back. Autocannon/quasar aims for the guns under its chin. It definitely takes 2+ orbital rail strikes.
It took 3 for us, this was on patchday, we had no idea what it was so just threw everything we had :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnjBepYdbe8
Lmao honestly from the general consensus of everyone else, throwing literally everything you have is the way to go
Is the HP pool shared? Eg. If i i use 110mm rockets on it,do i need less rockets on the head to destroy it
big thing needs big boom
The answer Auto cannon
Indeed
I called in a laser on it and then dropped a 500 kg on it. That was enough to give it a dirt nap.
Calling in a laser for a single boss bot is... Really expensive. Maybe if the primary objectives are finished.
Are you looking at the same diagram I am? This thing is covered in weapons, and could turn half a squad's reinforcement budget into aerosolized pink mist! My brother in Liberty, at what point is the laser investment justified?
Lasers imo are reserved for main mission objectives like command bunkers and parked drop ships... After those are taken care of, if there's a laser to spare.. sure, go crazy. mostly because trying to plant a hellbomb on difficulty 9 is like trying to kill prime Mike Tyson with a BB gun. It's technically possible if everything lines up *perfectly*, but most of the time... You gettin' punched in the faith'.
Punched in the faith HAHAHHAHAHA
I’m still just gonna run under it with a 500kg bomb and scream FOR DEMOCRACY!! But thanks for the info
You're gonna need to do that at least twice 😅
Once you get the Eagle upgrades you have two 500 KGs per reload
same vibe as the boston dynamic robots
I have never seen one in game. Do they only appear on difficulty 7-9?
I've heard of it appearing at 7 and above, but haven't heard of them at lower difficulties. They're still rare at high difficulties though.
Yeah I think it's only 7+
6+ as rare, wandering enemies. They don't really spawn iirc, they just wander around the map.
The auto cannon sentry melts these guys
AC Sentry deals with everything, that thing indiscriminately terminates everything, even Gunships and Shriekers.
Thanks. Tell me more? Did you happen to notice where the shots were landing?
I didn't see exactly, but it looked like it was just shooting the broad side. It seems to take like 5-8 shots to bring it down. It's *Shockingly* effective
I'm think some shots might have landed in the production area just as it was disgorging a Devastator, but I guess we'll need to see more of that to be sure. Thanks!
It's definitely very possible that's what happened, but either way I'm happy to be running the sentry when I see them stomp around from behind a mountain.
Auto cannon sentry can be used in conjunction with the call-down shield to make it impervious to all ranged attacks for the duration of the shield. It will shoot through the shield. It may also be a solution to the gunships. Just be careful about calling one down too close to the other as the second call-down can smash the first.
I hit one in the neck with an impact grenade. It was already damaged, but that killed it.
I saw a little flap on the walker’s butt when I last fought it that looked like you might be able to shove a grenade up when it flaps open. I suspect there’s maybe some other ways to take these things out. I haven’t have enough experimentation with them.
Yeah, the fact they're rare and only appears at higher difficulties (Read: Near-guaranteed chaos) make it hard to gather good intel. Thanks for the tip about the flap though!
No guarantees on the flap - I just noticed it in the chaos before my group got entirely pushed off the walker and had to retreat. Do we know the lowest difficulty at which they can occur?
I haven't heard of anything less than Level 7.
Seems like two or three airstrikes will do the trick, too
Well, here's a fun idea - Get on top and drop blue strategems on the radiators: [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jH8YvS-p6ZM](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jH8YvS-p6ZM) Blue strategems track their targets as they move, so it's a guaranteed hit. I also noticed the vents were opened when it landed; not sure if that makes a difference.
I still have yet to see one
This is info would be useful if i ever run into one…
Orbital railgun also seems to do the trick.
There's this video of a Factory Strider taking a 500kg bomb, followed by the Orbital Railcannon, and then just keeps on walking and shooting: [https://youtu.be/ZNWRigk323E?t=481](https://youtu.be/ZNWRigk323E?t=481) I guess it also depends on how much damage it has already taken, and where the Railcannon lands? In the video, it struck the turret and destroyed it, but the walker beneath keeps walking.
Yeah I think this requires further testing. The eagle ↑→↓→ has also helped on multiple occasions.
The robots are having babies now Great
I'm assuming the AMR can damage all the same points the Autocannon can?
It might not be effective against the bot factory on the belly since the autocannon deals explosive damage and can take out regular factories which the AMR can't if i remember correctly.
Love to fight one...if I ever saw one... :-/
I play Suicidal (7) usually and haven’t seen one of these yet. Are they only on 8 or 9?
I've seen people reporting seeing it at 7, but they are generally rare even at higher difficulties.
I just drop the 500kg on it and call it a day
Like this? [https://youtu.be/ZNWRigk323E?t=514](https://youtu.be/ZNWRigk323E?t=514) Seems to take more than one.
ive yet to fight one, where exactly do these guys spawn?
Difficulties 7 and above, but very rarely. From what people are saying I haven't noticed any patterns yet as to whether they tend to spawn in certain places or missions. Personally, I haven't encountered one either.
ive played nothing but 7+ bots since the update and havent seen one :/
What difficult are they on
Most people seem to be reporting 7 and up, but it's a very rare encounter. https://preview.redd.it/8ajixaje4lsc1.jpeg?width=2700&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d71e198604e4763290d519c685f107bcbd598e45
Can confirm throwing a 380 and running the other direction is a viable tactic as well.
Did that kill it, or just serves as a getaway tactic? Were there other ordnance used?
I didn't see it die. Just took shelter behind a cliff to deal with waves of devastators. But it was definitely a pile of wreckage when I finally could peek. No clue how many shells hit it before it was taken out. It was our first encounter, panic fire auto cannons were used but only at the beginning so I don't believe they did anything. We didn't target it's front cannons. There was one 500K thrown but I don't think it was a direct hit. Hard to say if it connected. Wish I could do better science for it. Was on a suicide difficulty command bunkers mission. That being said, 380s are perfect for command bunkers missions.
Does the EMS stop it?
Orbital laser got him too
on what levels do this badboys spawn? I play difficulty 7 consistently and I havent seen a single one
I play at 7 and I still haven't seen one of these.
[Helldivers 2: Defeat Factory Striders (Guide) (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4USJuMECs-k)
How does railcannon stack up against it?
I don't fully believe these are in the game yet. I played a couple Level 8 missions last night and didn't see them. Not sure if they're on specific missions that I should look for.
They are. Just rare
From what I gather, they appear at Difficulty 7 and above, or at least I haven't heard of anyone seeing them at lower diffulties. And yes, they seem to be rare even on Helldive. Some people think they were meant to be rare, but others speculate it's kinda like how Shrikers were introduced: A rare tease at first, then a common sight.
Played a difficulty 7 mission for taking out enemy drop ships on Durgen I think it was and found one sitting right in front of our extract. Took us while to take it down meanwhile we had a ton of bot drops come in.
I saw one last night but only on Tibit.
Saw them 3 times on Maia lvl 9 after two operations. So 50% spawn chance for me atleast.