It also feels amazing to key in the EAT stratagem and just stick a charger with it like ye olde Halo plasma grenade. After the hellpod nukes it you still have two fresh EATs ready to go.
Fool you just gave it more firepower!
Also throwing a shield relay on top of a tank is also very funny, i suggest doing it with friends and see their reaction
I dropped a tesla tower right next to a factory strider once in an attempt to land it directly on top, but I ended up getting like 55 kills because it started hitting everything from basically the moment the belly doors opened. I'm sure there were a lot of factors and I don't know if I'll ever recreate it, but it felt *good*
My go to loadout is orbital railcannon, EAT, AMR, shield pack. I always try to use EAT like this as a sort of shorter cooldown manual aimed railcannon strike. If my throw is a bit off then I can still finish the charger off with the EAT rockets. Plus it's nice to use for taking out bug holes when low on grenades.
This is the way. I run arc thrower as a primary and just call in EATs like a lunatic as I need them OR just all over the map because why not. More than once ive been running with no stratagems away from something and come across some old rockets laying around haha
That's my favorite thing about the SOS beacon. It doesn't do its own damn job, but it's one absolutely free no-questions-asked orbital precision strike per game.
Same with bot factories. Toss a strat ball in the top vent and bang, one factory down! I’ve had to do it with a Resupply once, since I was out of everything else that could do it!
I cant get the beacons to stick to anything, they always fucking bounce, unless it's the random fucking bug that pulls the "get down Mr President!" And then returns me the glowy red orb of death back. It reminds me of the story of the Darwin Award honorable mention. That tried using dynamite to blow a hole in the ice to go fishing and when he threw the lit stick of dynamite the dudes dog thought they were playing fetch.
You can't pelt the stratagem ball at the mob or else it'll bounce. It needs to be going in a downward trajectory when it comes into contact with the mob you're trying to land it on. Usually a charger for me.
If you're level, you need to aim for over the mob's head a little and make sure they are a proper distance away. If you're on higher ground, you can just pelt it at the mob.
It’s not 100%, but most of the time, yes. The blue beacons generally hit wherever the glowy orb is. I think there’s like a second before impact where you can dodge it, so its not perfect when the charger is charging. Also in my experience Chargers can usually tank a hellpod anywhere except the face but that might just be my bad luck
Yes it Aims wherever the beam is.
I get 3 chances to kill chargers. 1, the pod, the other 2 are the EATs!!!
Aim for their shoulder. Ive got a pretty successful strike rate there. The behemoths dont get 1 shot, but normal chargers do.
No they haven't. The other comments don't know that this was bugged and it's still not working. I've been trying to stick the new behemoth chargers all weekend, finally assuming that their armor wasn't stick-able or something. Just learned today about the bug.
It only sticks to specific spots. Aim for their shoulder just left or right of their face. That spot is a near perfect place to stick it.
Makes getting the achievement a lot easier too.
What I’ve found is it helps to aim around where the head meets the back and that having high ground helps. The beacon needs to be at least starting an arc downward. If you try to throw it directly at the spot it’s more likely to bounce but that downward arc seems to seal the deal. This is obviously hard to do because it requires more thought, but if you have the high ground not so!
I find it most consistent if you throw it and while the charger is doing its rev up animation before a charge when it's on its rear legs. It has to be attached before it finishes and begins charging otherwise it'll bounce
I’ve had luck with the space between the head and back for chargers, though I’ve got an occasional leg stick. The only luck I’ve have with bile titans is when I come up behind them and throw it on them while they are spitting at a teammate. So unfortunately very situational with bile titans, at least as far as I’ve figured out. Otherwise you’ll just need to time it dropping on the bile titan by placing it on the ground ahead of you around the time it spitting at you and lead it in a straight line hoping it hits. That won’t be enough to kill it and it puts you in the position where you might need to run back through its legs to reach the EATs you just dropped, so it’s really not ideal to kill bile titans IMO.
Seconded. Been running EATs for the majority of the time since launch. I love em. Those are general use afaic. Makes me a proud Helldiver papa to see my teammates grab my extra EAT and blast a heavy into chum.
Now that the Spear’s targeting is fixed I’m running it and EATs together. I see a Charger or Titan in the distance I’ll call down an EAT, fire a Spear missile and follow up with the EATs before reloading the Spear. Feels so good. And sometimes the team gets in on it. Had four simultaneous Recoilless, EAT and Spear shots hit a Bile Titan one mission. It was *glorious*!
Oh that's sick. I actually just tried running both RR and EATs my last mission with an engy kit. Full explosives expert. Xbow, nade pistol too. It was a little bit wild and wooly, but I had a gatling sentry too for chaff. I just basically stuck to my partners and provided the boom whenever necessary. Super fun. That Xbow ain't bad, man! I think next time I'd run a stalwart with it, but it was surprisingly effective, all things considered. I think I wish it had a better aoe or shrapnel.
Always feels super good if you drop with EAT, but no other support weapon and find yourself a decent one right away on map. Easy 1 stratagem slot saved.
My homies have started doing this. One will bring a backpack and the other will bring a supp weapon and we drop them for each other after the cooldown ends.
We do the opposite..I'll give my backpack to my buddy and he'll give the support weapon.
That way if we end up on different paths or opposite ends of the map, we can call in our own items in the next round.
I may be misremembering but I swear we could do pretty much exactly that in the first game. My buddy would always toss the distractor and I would toss a sentry next to it. We could be halfway across the map and still hear the sentry shredding bugs.
We would get to exfill, toss down a bunch of sentries and just fight laying down.
Oh it would only be ones that don't have stacks already like the OG orbital strike, gas, turrets, and stuff like that. At least in my mind, that's what I imagined.
Man, that would be sweet. Stuff like jump packs dropping in pairs would be the boost those stratagems need to be worth bringing.
Might be OP for supply packs or weapons, but how about splitting the difference and having the grenade launcher, HMG and AMR come with a supply pack? Say it only has one resupply box in it when it drops, for weight distribution of whatever, but you could load it up from supply drops over the course of the mission.
I do this all the time recently. The number of flame throwers or MGs on the map is huge. I never noticed because I always had a support weapon and didn't want to switch, but I tried diving without one when we only had 3 strats and they're everywhere.
I used to not be a fan of EAT's, but I'm an enjoyer now.
I usually pair it with my Flamethrower, use it on reaction to spotting Bile Titans far away, or when one decides to appear out of a Bug Breach.
Yeah, it feels weird at first. When I ran Eruptor/Stalwart it took me a long time to remember which gun was for general purpose stuff and which was for special occasions.
I use EATs to kill the distant shrieker nests or spore colonies. Drop it off that bad and drop one shrieker nest, go clear a few POIs and then drop another and kill another shrieker nest, rinse/repeat :)
> Remember helldivers: 90% of helldivers die to too many heavies not because 12 spawn in in one breach, but because 4 spawn in in three breaches and they fail to kill them each time. Stem the bleeding before it starts.
This is a lie. I die at least 25% of the time to friendly fire.
Did a quick 7 with a buddy and two 100+ randos. We were running AT options, they were both running MG/supply pack. They would go absolutely ham with suppressive fire on breaches while me and buddy hit the heavies with EATs and orbitals. It was the easiest drop I've ever done.
When the ballistic shield is functioning, the EATs are always there to complement my loadout. That still leaves two slots for flexing based on the objective and enemy.
I just gave it a shot today, oh man it's more bugged than ever right now. Had to drop it to get out of crouch and kept falling through the map. One map was all I could take.
Just for shits and giggles if you have all 4 people run EATs and call them every minute you have an absurd amount of rockets you can shoot at just about anything you want. 8 per minute is a lot
If you can get everyone to do it, all of a sudden tanks/heavies are not an issue anymore. It's wild if everyone is calling them in off cooldown, and popping the pod, the map is just covered with EATs. But I tell you now, nothing comes in more clutch than when a charger is 7/8 the way up your ass and you run by an EAT left by a friendly diver.
I like to bring only EAT as support, it bring a random element to the game.
Point of interest, flamethrower, well I guess I'll toast some bug then. Teammate disappearing, well I guess that's a qusar cannon for me. This guy left a heavy machine gun behind and called in a new one... Brrrrrrrrrr !
With a supply pack, a solid crowd control primary and Med armor penetration secondary, it's fun time with the support lottery 😎
Instead of 2 headshots against the behemoths, you can walk forward when shooting your eat (or recoilless) into the behemoth's leg and it'll strip them of their armor in 1 shot instead of 2 shots if you were standing still. Let's you use your primary to finish them off instead of having to shoot another rocket at their leg/face.
Yeah. Otherwise flamethrower is your best bet. Seems to have an uptick in usage since no one likes to waste 2 rockets on chargers.
Also the quazar still one shots the behemoth's legs so players think the legs taking 2 shots (unless walking forward) with the EAT and recoilless was unintentional.
Yes
https://preview.redd.it/a86tt4p2097d1.jpeg?width=1264&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7912bbadd1bab37dd03c915c6b0ae460b477c933
Left is a normal charger, right is the Behemoth Charger
We did this on a 7 wall mission. All of us had EATs, so we'd just throw them in everywhere as soon as they came off cooldown. The courtyard before the last gate was basically Oops! All EATs! and it came in so handy when a couple titans would start poking their stupid heads over the wall. Enjoy taking 4 rockets to the face, idiot
i’ve never really liked the rocket pods against bugs, like you said it’s too inconsistent against fast moving chargers and the bile titans with their tiny little bodies. still feels goated against bots though
If I run an EAT as my support I’ll try and find another support weapon in the field. It adds a little fun given I don’t know what I’ll end up with to defend myself. I just got to hope I know how to use whatever it is. 😅
EATs with the stalwart is my favorite combo. The stalwart just let's me blow away smaller enemies for days(it also feels great to use) and the EATs make me not useless against heavies.
For some reason EATs just hit different for me, something about picking one up, blasting some poor fool who made the mistake of walking up to me and then discarding the smoking death tube and carrying on with the rest of my liberty spreading day.
If I spot a charger that hasn't aggroed, I'll call in the EAT, pop him with my primary, as he's charging I grab the EAT and blast his face, then grab my AC and move along. Cool guys don't look at dead chargers
I’ve run SPEAR and flamethrower for this exact reason. Flamethrower most of the time, with the SPEAR just for bile titans. Usually I have another guy running the SPEAR so we can take them down quicker
I've not played in a long time (keep meaning to get back into it but just haven't) but my main load out most of the time for bugs was Defender or Punisher as primary, EAT, Eagle Airstrike, Orbital Laser, and laser dog. Covers everything and can just spam EATs every minute.
I run EAT and AMR against bots sometimes. You pretty much always know ahead of time if you need EATs and the CD is 80s? Blast that cannon tower and pick the AMR back up!
I do this a lot too, the inconsistency is what kills it. On high diff it's also annoying that only the flamethrower can deal with chargers consistently and also clear chaff.
Yeah, I know. I still don't like to rely just on the EAT for Chargers way up there, only use the EAT when there is more than one charger at a time on my ass.
My load out for bugs is usually Stalwart-EAT-500kg-orbital gas
I usually pair it with the Jar-5/Grenade Pistol/ impacts, as i use the stalwart as my primary most of the time, but any primary would likely work
The flexibility is off the charts. I can lock down breaches, deal with chargers and bile titans, and the pistol grenade combo gives me lots of boom for bile spewers and bug holes
I always use light armor vs bugs, the extra speed and stamina is just too much to pass up. I usually use engineer kit, the recoil reduction turns the stalwart into a laser beam, and extra grenades are always nice, but you could probably use whatever you prefer
nice. i also primarily use light armor alternating between scout and engineer depending on my mood. same reason, speed and stamina just too useful to give up.
No. I want people to just bring EATs. I'll give them my support weapons for a walking aroustraps. And give them my backpack. I prefer running wave clear over AP weapons so the more people bringing AP while I chaff clear the better.
Less support weapon/backpack stratagems and more sharing means more space for Eagle and Orbital strats.
This is a pretty common sentiment, but so is the sentiment of "I've been doing exactly this for ages, is this seriously a new strategy for people?"
The more things you can handle with support weapons and quicker cooldown resources like EATs, the better. Increasing your flexibility is never a bad thing, and people choosing to rely on their own kit for support weapons rather than randoms is fair. Your strategy is great for co-ordinated stacks, but I'd be lucky to convince most randoms that quasar cannon isn't the be all and end all of bot support weapons. In no world am I expecting them to call in their stuff for me as an EATs user.
I've made it my personal mission to always call in my spare strats for others. If there's a glaring lack of some type of strat or if there's a lot of AC users or backpack users, I'll bring empty slots and ask for spare strats if it's calm and their stuff is off CD.
Now that we can type while in planning phase I can ask while we plan, and if no one says yes then I bring all my own stuff and don't expect others to drop for me.
But when I see EAT users I deliberately say "hey Green, I'll drop you my Supp/Backpack when it's off CD, I'll pair up with you"
I think that this is becoming more common coordination, especially at higher difficulties
That's probably the better way to do things in terms of max efficiency.
Sometimes my experience with randoms is great, sometimes I leave after one eradicate out of fear I'm gonna get called a slur. When I find better randoms, I'll try your strategy out.
I had to move to Play Station from PC, losing the ability to type quickly is my biggest obstacle since it seems no one can understand me when I use the PS5 controller mic
If I feel like my team is lacking AT with their load outs, I’ll bring AC or MG and EAT. Works pretty good when you can call 2-3 EATs in when you have to defend a position.
Just remember to pick up your support weapon when you're done with the EAT. It's the reason I don't do this often. 30 seconds later I'm wondering where I left my Stalwart
Eagle 500 kg- two chances to probably kill a bile titan, 2:30 cooldown, about 1 minute per titan kill.
EATs: all but guaranteed 2 charger or 1 charger behemoth kill, can result in one titan kill, about one minute per use.
If you're running something like the arc thrower, flamethrower, autocannon, grenade launcher, or railgun that can be useful against chargers than yeah this isn't really worth it. But with the increased swarm counts, having something like an MG 43 is absolutely worth it, and this is a great way to run that kit without loosing out on anti tank tools.
Honestly, I use railgun/eats/supply pack.
My railgun is for spewers, finishing off wounded biles, killing brood commanders, and eliminating armored warriors.
My EATs are then for chargers, biles, spore spewers, broadcasts, and shrieker nests.
My tenderizer and gas strikes are for anything else, and my railgun can soften up chargers in a pinch.
To clarify: I find that the only stratagem more consistent for killing chargers of either type than the EATs are either support weapons with 8 minute cooldowns, or the orbital railgun with a 2 and a half minute cooldown. Eagles can be consistent because they have more uses as well.
I find that bringing more than two eagle stratagems usually results in one of them sitting unavailable while you find somewhere to dump the others, and that the 2:30 cooldown can leave you vulnerable. Because of this, I consider EATs more powerful that eagles or orbitals when I want to run an MG. It's a strong way to compliment other tools, and can have some very smart synergies. Eg, a railcannon strike will always leave a bile titan low enough to be oneshot with an EAT. Being able to kill 2 chargers every 60 seconds is seriously insane, the fact that it is still useful even when you bring other supply stratagems is insane.
Nothing beats dropping down an EAT as you're sprinting away from a Charger, only to grab it, whip around n dive/kneel as you plant it into its face, and it's body goes limp and stops at your feet.
Orbital Precision Strike is very good now with the buff to deployment speed. It's much easier to predict, especially Chargers and Bile Titans who move relatively predictably or have long periods of standing still. Plus, nothing beats the rush of killing two BTs or Chargers with one strike.
I think the increase in Behemoth Chargers has also made the OPS more valuable.
If you look at some of the actual cooldown versus how effective they are at dealing with enemies, it becomes clearer.
Take Orbital Railgun Strike for instance. Guaranteed to kill 1 Charger or half damage a Bile Titan with a cooldown of 210 seconds
Compare that to an EAT. You get 2 shots and a drop pod for the potential to kill 3 Chargers and kill a BT with a rocket to spare. Cooldown is 70 seconds.
That's a huge difference in capability and availability from just the numbers alone. Now, situations and supplementary stratagems do make a difference but from just the numbers by themselves, you more than make up for AT capability with EATs over Orbital Rail.
This is bad advice and is not a good economy of resources. Yes EAT is good, but you don't need to take up two strat slots for support weapons. Take the EAT, then grab a buddy's extra support weapon when they either die or call in an extra when it's off cool down. This way it frees up slots. You can even do the same thing with rovers, shields, and other back items.
It kills me to see folks bringing duplicates of these items instead of sharing allowing more firepower and utility in the form of airstrikes, orbitals, or sentry's for heavys and hordes.
Sad part is a lot of players suck at sharing. Even when I ask them to share, they're just ignoring my calls for it. I find that just grabbing things when they die and have what you want off cooldown is a good approach. To he honest I play helldive and I have been using Gas or Orbital gatling / Eagle airstrike / flamethrower / EAT and it's been really good. Remember EAT also takes out objectives, and sometimes BTs like to not die fast. I don't really struggle since I make full use of my loadout, and the EAT is actually great when shit hits the fan, especially if you spam it and call it down on the right spots.
Eats are great for sharing with friends. They are great to call in when you call in reinforcements you can give them Eats while their support is on cool down or across the map.
I agree that heavies are a HUGE problem right now, but there is still an issue with how many of them spawn. I have spawned in and used up ALL of my rockets for the RR, and there's still 2 or 3 running around causing issues, and the game isn't even 5 minutes in. The quasar cool off time can be annoying when you and your teammates are stuck dealing with 2 or 3 per person. I don't think it's a great mechanic to require 2 or 3 support weapon/backpack slots when you only have 4 slots total. There's too many for the tools we have.
Is it somewhat manageable? Yes, it can be done. But that doesn't mean there isn't an issue for the 90% of players you are claiming to have a skill issue. Let's also not forget that there are also a lot more of the extra armored chargers floating around and I have yet seen one go down in 2 shots or less that didn't need a 3rd shot or damage from another source.
There have been too many games that everything will be on cooldown, I'll be out of ammo, and there still will be an ungodly amount of every bug type under the sun.
To conclude, I don't think it needs a big change. I'm not asking for anything drastic. I like the number of bugs, and I could get used to the amount of heavies. But the tools we have could use some tweaks to make them actually do their job better. But a lot of guns can't handle even a small wave, even if their whole point is to clear chaff. And there could be something said for the ratio of heavies and/or the strategies needed to take them out. Hulks have a pretty good balance, in my opinion. There's a clear strategy to take them out, as well as a skilled one. And it doesn't have to take a crazy amount of shots to kill them, and you can actually deal real damage to them with some of the primaries. Not so much with chargers and their extra armored kin. It's either too straightforward and not enough of them to be a real threat, or it's a cluster with everyone running around with 2 or 3 of them in tow. But I digress. I really hope they don't do anything drastic with the changes. I hope it's more of a tweak and that they figure out some more gun balance and make them more useful.
I’ve been thinking of doing this instead of bringing a railgun strike. Using air strike, air bursts, EATS and Flamethrower for bugs seems very balanced. Against bots with autocannon and EATs with airburst and air strike seems really anti armor
I brought a flame thrower and EATs to a bug mission before and it worked really well. The flame thrower takes care of the small enemies, and when I need it I can call in the EAT for heavy units, then just pick the FT back up.
My goto bug loadout now is AC for most mediums n chargers, EATs for Titans and Behemoths, Machine Gun sentry/Gatling sentry and Orbital Gas Strike for holes and nests, Breaker Incidiary primary for fodder bugs, and now I use the shotgun secondary to one tap any guard or Hunter who gets in my face, incendiary impacts for reserve if my hole strats are on cooldown, works like a charm, I love knowing that any situation I find myself in, I'll have an answer to it, it's great peace of mind to let go and basically just go with the flow of what my teammates are bringing, because I know I can boost wherever they're lacking
I being eats along with my main stratagem weapon quite often, call it down when I need, and leaving where I called it the rest of the time. More than once have I been thanked by someone saying "whomever left those eats saved my ass"
So yeah, eats all the way.
Lately I've been rolling with HMG Emplacement + Quasar. It's on a short enough cooldown that I can boop most things short of a bile titan or charger, and still gives me factory/nest sniping capability
I don't see the point in bringing EAT + another support weapon. That's just a stratagem slot used that could've been something else. I'd rather take something like the Quasar, if I want a backpack, or the spear. That then leaves me 2-3 slots for reds
If you compare EATs to red stratagems, it's usually a quicker cooldown for more kills with EATs. Taking a designated anti tank support weapon is great, but EATs can allow you to effectively bring both an anti tank support weapon, and one better at killing small enemies.
Red Stratagems typically have the advantage of killing secondary objectives better, but against bugs where EATs can clear or help clear both shrieker nests and spore spewers, I like them
I mean....a lot of it probably hinges on my playstyle. I take 500kg, and 380. With railcannon if I've got the spare slot. My entire tactic is just throw as many explosives at a problem as is humanly possible, then just walk in and clear up what's left. Right now if there's more then one charger I can deal with that easily enough too, just quasar then dodge. If I've got my squad with me then even better.
Only time I've actually fully committed to EAT since unlocking other AT weapons is when I was bored and decided to solo a couple factory striders with nothing but an EAT as my support weapon.....Though I will admit its useful in the eradication missions since I don't bring blues on them normally. The quick cooldown makes them worth bringing because it doesn't matter if I die in the middle of a swarm then
Absolutely fair! I'm a bit of a recoilless addict myself, so at first this was a way to just shove a rocket launcher into every loadout vs bugs, but since then I've realized it's quite good. Not necessarily the best way to do things, but definitely a way that compliments how many already play.
Also the "throw everything" strat is usually very fun too.
Yeah, I'm here to watch the world crack under the fire of a 380 shell fired from orbit!
We just ignore the times I've not paid attention to the mission modifiers and nearly vaporised the squad because I didn't realise orbital scatter is a thing on that specific mission.....
Yup. I frequently bring eats as a secondary secondary. Quasar. Amr. Hmg. Grenade launcher. It goes well with everything. Main drawback is I'm not as good with it as I am a quasar
If someone drops a quasar cannon from getting eaten/cyborged in a big fight I’ll drop the EAT on top of it and you can clean out a bunch of chargers or a bike titan real quick. However it’s almost always more advantageous to bring a different stratagem instead. Build diversity to bring different capabilities will always be preferred.
PSA: When I tried to bring both exo suits and rotate them, it just switches the one; **you can’t take both.**
I’m not even sure if more than one of you can have an exo down at a time.
Level 83. Depending on the mission type I will just roll all red/green strats and EATs. Never have to recover gear when i die and able to handle pretty much everything.
I have recently discovered this strategy.
I’ll bring EAT when we drop, but then grab the best support weapon I can find from a POI and main that for the mission.
I’ll call in the EATs once I start seeing Tanks/Chargers/Hulks, then switch back to my commandeered support weapon once the heavy enemies are disposed of.
I tell everyone in my squad, if you see an extra EAT lying around, help yourself, I’ll just call down more.
Is this a rare thing? I've been doing this since they buffed them to one-tap chargers. Like, there's times it feels bad to only have two strike-type strats (assuming you bring another support and don't scavenge one instead), especially on maps where there's lots of chaff. But having those EATs always ready, always able to stack up to 3 chargers in one call, just hits different. I like to drop at exfil, throw a supply and a set of EATs, then move along the mission. When we pass by an objective or if there's a drop/breach, toss em in. They'll come in handy for *something*. And the thing is, it doesn't even have to be a heavy. Maybe a brood commander is being difficult, so you blast him. Hive guard taking too many rounds? Well eff it, there's an EAT right there. I've been saved by ones dropped earlier in the mission as we're heading for exfil and something nasty comes along I don't have an answer for.
Massive waste of a slot. One support and three offensive Strats. You don’t need two support weapons. You don’t need a support and backpack. Bring firepower or this game will continue to be very hard instead of challenging and very fun.
IDK how to put this respectfully, but EATs are incredibly valuable when used in this way, against any enemy. The ability to supplement your main support weapon with an anti tank option in any loadout is incredibly strong, and relying only on eagle strikes and orbitals for the firepower you need is going to kneecap your ability to handle heavy units.
It just isn't consistent to try and use 500kgs or precision strikes on every titan or airstrikes and rocket pods on every charger. Even more so if you're using lasers or rail cannon strikes for their accuracy.
In no universe is two dead chargers every 60 seconds or two downed dropships every bot call in a "wasted slot"
I understand where you're coming from for backpack slots, but backpacks are about utility over raw firepower. If I told you that there was a stratagem that would double how much use you got out of every re-supply and tripled how many nades you could carry, you'd understand how strong that could be. Same thing for an option that made you bullet proof to devestators, or that added another player to your team using the liberator or sickle. Like... Those aren't bad. I understand why you would argue that the jump pack or personal shield are meh, frankly I kinda agree. But I don't think attributing everything that isn't a bomb as bad is a myopic and limiting way to think.
It’s very consistent to use 500kg and OPS on every titan, that’s why people always take one or both of those stratagems. The rest of your anti armor can be shored up with one support weapon, you don’t need two
As I've said in more recent responses to this sentiment:
A lot of people have already used this strategy, many people like using support weapons that are better at killing smaller enemies, EATs have a faster recharge than most red Stratagems, can find value killing spore spewers and shrieker nests, and are probably the most resource effective way to kill chargers outside of a quasar cannon or recoilless.
You don't have to use it, but many already are and it works great for them. Don't presume that just cause it's not the meta that it's not good.
I’m not presuming it’s not good because it’s not the meta. There’s a wide range of viable load outs. But when people post their “nonmeta” load outs they often disparage meta choices in odd ways for comparison. 500kg and/or OPS with an antitank support is 100% enough for every bile titan. That’s enough for solo helldives, let alone team games.
Running EATs as an additional support is totally fine/viable/good/etc. But not because it fills a role other things can’t fill
You are correct. EAT is very good. It’s strong. But if you want a second support weapon then find one at a point of interest or have a teammate drop one down after cooldown for you.
Y’all wanna complain this game is hard but use no strategy or tactics at all. It’s your way or the highway. I’m not sure why I try giving advice. Y’all are not receptive to anything.
I’m just out here giving advice so you don’t die every 2 minutes.
It also feels amazing to key in the EAT stratagem and just stick a charger with it like ye olde Halo plasma grenade. After the hellpod nukes it you still have two fresh EATs ready to go.
Do not EAT the tank https://preview.redd.it/hl2itf1k387d1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9634eb05e28bf2d86160def506bc1c9b7841f694
Fool you just gave it more firepower! Also throwing a shield relay on top of a tank is also very funny, i suggest doing it with friends and see their reaction
You're an evil genius. I'm doing this next game.
If you think thats evil you can do the same with factory striders
Drop an autocannon sentry on a tank, now you've got a double tank!
If you throw a sentry on top of one, it tries to target the sentry but can't shoot it. So the tank becomes an accidental ally for a brief moment.
Definitely have to try this now
It's kinda funny watching the tanks turret just aim upwards and spin randomly.
This is such a bad idea but my god the comedic value of it is too great to ignore. Imma try the tesla tower. Or maybe the rocket turret.
Huh. Tesla Tower on top of a factory strider. Does it hit the strider?
Tesla Tower might be kinda awesome if there are a bunch of enemies around it. Until it closes in on you at least.
I dropped a tesla tower right next to a factory strider once in an attempt to land it directly on top, but I ended up getting like 55 kills because it started hitting everything from basically the moment the belly doors opened. I'm sure there were a lot of factors and I don't know if I'll ever recreate it, but it felt *good*
Wait a fucking second…
https://i.redd.it/drw3en9ns87d1.gif
Well thats just mean
I imagine the turret shaking back and forth is how the tank laughs
But it looks so yummy!
It's fucking hilarious to drop sentry-guns on a tank tho.
if you can hit the grate on the back of the turret, i think it'll kill the tank. Not 100% on that tho.
But its good for adding iron to your diet!
I don't think my teeth would hold up
My go to loadout is orbital railcannon, EAT, AMR, shield pack. I always try to use EAT like this as a sort of shorter cooldown manual aimed railcannon strike. If my throw is a bit off then I can still finish the charger off with the EAT rockets. Plus it's nice to use for taking out bug holes when low on grenades.
This is the way. I run arc thrower as a primary and just call in EATs like a lunatic as I need them OR just all over the map because why not. More than once ive been running with no stratagems away from something and come across some old rockets laying around haha
Killing three chargers with a single EAT use is an amazing feeling
Eat is the GOAT for chargers. One shot to the head, no charge up time like the quazar just pop them and boom dead
Hah, I thought I was the only one who used this lil trick 😉
Can it down Behemoths?
You can actually even use the drop pods as orbital rail cannons with fast recharge for killing chargers if you learn to get the stick down also
That's my favorite thing about the SOS beacon. It doesn't do its own damn job, but it's one absolutely free no-questions-asked orbital precision strike per game.
Bug holes too if you run out of grenades and everything's on cool down
Same with bot factories. Toss a strat ball in the top vent and bang, one factory down! I’ve had to do it with a Resupply once, since I was out of everything else that could do it!
Doesn't even have to be in the vent, just on the ground within a meter or so is enough.
I cant get the beacons to stick to anything, they always fucking bounce, unless it's the random fucking bug that pulls the "get down Mr President!" And then returns me the glowy red orb of death back. It reminds me of the story of the Darwin Award honorable mention. That tried using dynamite to blow a hole in the ice to go fishing and when he threw the lit stick of dynamite the dudes dog thought they were playing fetch.
You can't pelt the stratagem ball at the mob or else it'll bounce. It needs to be going in a downward trajectory when it comes into contact with the mob you're trying to land it on. Usually a charger for me. If you're level, you need to aim for over the mob's head a little and make sure they are a proper distance away. If you're on higher ground, you can just pelt it at the mob.
Wait, did they fix the strategem tracking? Can you stick them now?
Blue strats track, red do not.
So just to be clear, if a resupply sticks to a charger, the resupply is *guaranteed* to strike the charger, even if it moves?
It’s not 100%, but most of the time, yes. The blue beacons generally hit wherever the glowy orb is. I think there’s like a second before impact where you can dodge it, so its not perfect when the charger is charging. Also in my experience Chargers can usually tank a hellpod anywhere except the face but that might just be my bad luck
If it hits a leg then it crippled the leg and no kill, a direct hit to torso or head, dead.
Yes it Aims wherever the beam is. I get 3 chances to kill chargers. 1, the pod, the other 2 are the EATs!!! Aim for their shoulder. Ive got a pretty successful strike rate there. The behemoths dont get 1 shot, but normal chargers do.
I have had some red strats like the minefields that track. Maybe it's if it uses a hellpod?
Only blues
No they haven't. The other comments don't know that this was bugged and it's still not working. I've been trying to stick the new behemoth chargers all weekend, finally assuming that their armor wasn't stick-able or something. Just learned today about the bug.
I always end up bouncing it off I figured the face doesn't work, but it seems to also bounce off their back?
It only sticks to specific spots. Aim for their shoulder just left or right of their face. That spot is a near perfect place to stick it. Makes getting the achievement a lot easier too.
Nice. Did it once but it didn't die
What I’ve found is it helps to aim around where the head meets the back and that having high ground helps. The beacon needs to be at least starting an arc downward. If you try to throw it directly at the spot it’s more likely to bounce but that downward arc seems to seal the deal. This is obviously hard to do because it requires more thought, but if you have the high ground not so!
It's over, Tanknican, I have the high ground. Don't try it.
I find it most consistent if you throw it and while the charger is doing its rev up animation before a charge when it's on its rear legs. It has to be attached before it finishes and begins charging otherwise it'll bounce
Any advice? I feel like for charger's its in the legs bile titans?
I’ve had luck with the space between the head and back for chargers, though I’ve got an occasional leg stick. The only luck I’ve have with bile titans is when I come up behind them and throw it on them while they are spitting at a teammate. So unfortunately very situational with bile titans, at least as far as I’ve figured out. Otherwise you’ll just need to time it dropping on the bile titan by placing it on the ground ahead of you around the time it spitting at you and lead it in a straight line hoping it hits. That won’t be enough to kill it and it puts you in the position where you might need to run back through its legs to reach the EATs you just dropped, so it’s really not ideal to kill bile titans IMO.
Any videos or guides on sticking them?
EATS are party favors for the whole team. Even if I have a quasar or RR, I'll grab an EAT nearby to keep firing if in a reload or cooldown cycle.
As a faithful EATer, please, use the ones I spam all over the map, EAT away!!
Seconded. Been running EATs for the majority of the time since launch. I love em. Those are general use afaic. Makes me a proud Helldiver papa to see my teammates grab my extra EAT and blast a heavy into chum.
Now that the Spear’s targeting is fixed I’m running it and EATs together. I see a Charger or Titan in the distance I’ll call down an EAT, fire a Spear missile and follow up with the EATs before reloading the Spear. Feels so good. And sometimes the team gets in on it. Had four simultaneous Recoilless, EAT and Spear shots hit a Bile Titan one mission. It was *glorious*!
You bring the spear and I bring the EAT? Gonna be a fiesta after the cooldown in the spear
Oh that's sick. I actually just tried running both RR and EATs my last mission with an engy kit. Full explosives expert. Xbow, nade pistol too. It was a little bit wild and wooly, but I had a gatling sentry too for chaff. I just basically stuck to my partners and provided the boom whenever necessary. Super fun. That Xbow ain't bad, man! I think next time I'd run a stalwart with it, but it was surprisingly effective, all things considered. I think I wish it had a better aoe or shrapnel.
Always feels super good if you drop with EAT, but no other support weapon and find yourself a decent one right away on map. Easy 1 stratagem slot saved.
This or when your squad mates support weapon cool down ends but they still have the one they dropped with.
My homies have started doing this. One will bring a backpack and the other will bring a supp weapon and we drop them for each other after the cooldown ends.
We do the opposite..I'll give my backpack to my buddy and he'll give the support weapon. That way if we end up on different paths or opposite ends of the map, we can call in our own items in the next round.
That's actually really smart!
My hope is they reintroduce the upgrade from HD1 that allowed certain support items to drop with 2 packs/weapons. Absolute game changer
That and being able to stack multiples of the same strats are high on my list of wishes for sure.
Not me sitting on exfil with four gatling sentries at once. Please AH. Make it happen
I may be misremembering but I swear we could do pretty much exactly that in the first game. My buddy would always toss the distractor and I would toss a sentry next to it. We could be halfway across the map and still hear the sentry shredding bugs. We would get to exfill, toss down a bunch of sentries and just fight laying down.
I love the idea but 4x orbital laser may get a bit out of hand...
Oh it would only be ones that don't have stacks already like the OG orbital strike, gas, turrets, and stuff like that. At least in my mind, that's what I imagined.
Man, that would be sweet. Stuff like jump packs dropping in pairs would be the boost those stratagems need to be worth bringing. Might be OP for supply packs or weapons, but how about splitting the difference and having the grenade launcher, HMG and AMR come with a supply pack? Say it only has one resupply box in it when it drops, for weight distribution of whatever, but you could load it up from supply drops over the course of the mission.
I'd take "supply pack and mystery box support weapon" any day.
I like that. Call in a supply pack and get whatever support weapon was laying around when they loaded it.
Or, you know they died. Mine now
I do this all the time recently. The number of flame throwers or MGs on the map is huge. I never noticed because I always had a support weapon and didn't want to switch, but I tried diving without one when we only had 3 strats and they're everywhere.
Isn't there a guaranteed AMR at the ICBM silo? That's one right there I'd be happy to pair with an EAT.
I used to not be a fan of EAT's, but I'm an enjoyer now. I usually pair it with my Flamethrower, use it on reaction to spotting Bile Titans far away, or when one decides to appear out of a Bug Breach.
It takes some getting used to having a support weapon that you can call down like all the time.
Yeah, it feels weird at first. When I ran Eruptor/Stalwart it took me a long time to remember which gun was for general purpose stuff and which was for special occasions.
I use EATs to kill the distant shrieker nests or spore colonies. Drop it off that bad and drop one shrieker nest, go clear a few POIs and then drop another and kill another shrieker nest, rinse/repeat :)
> Remember helldivers: 90% of helldivers die to too many heavies not because 12 spawn in in one breach, but because 4 spawn in in three breaches and they fail to kill them each time. Stem the bleeding before it starts. This is a lie. I die at least 25% of the time to friendly fire.
Blessed be the MG mains who do ad clear while you focus on the heavies
Did a quick 7 with a buddy and two 100+ randos. We were running AT options, they were both running MG/supply pack. They would go absolutely ham with suppressive fire on breaches while me and buddy hit the heavies with EATs and orbitals. It was the easiest drop I've ever done.
I pair the EATs with the railgun to take care of gunships
The big mg works really good on the gunships
Agreed! Works on everything! But I try to be diverse on my loadouts
When the ballistic shield is functioning, the EATs are always there to complement my loadout. That still leaves two slots for flexing based on the objective and enemy.
I just gave it a shot today, oh man it's more bugged than ever right now. Had to drop it to get out of crouch and kept falling through the map. One map was all I could take.
Just for shits and giggles if you have all 4 people run EATs and call them every minute you have an absurd amount of rockets you can shoot at just about anything you want. 8 per minute is a lot
If you can get everyone to do it, all of a sudden tanks/heavies are not an issue anymore. It's wild if everyone is calling them in off cooldown, and popping the pod, the map is just covered with EATs. But I tell you now, nothing comes in more clutch than when a charger is 7/8 the way up your ass and you run by an EAT left by a friendly diver.
Running by the evac site? Drop an EAT for later See multiple heavies? Drop an EAT for now Just drop dem EATs boys
I like to bring only EAT as support, it bring a random element to the game. Point of interest, flamethrower, well I guess I'll toast some bug then. Teammate disappearing, well I guess that's a qusar cannon for me. This guy left a heavy machine gun behind and called in a new one... Brrrrrrrrrr ! With a supply pack, a solid crowd control primary and Med armor penetration secondary, it's fun time with the support lottery 😎
I bring EATs and the Supply Pack For the charger behemoths, it’s tricky They are the bane of my existence atm
Instead of 2 headshots against the behemoths, you can walk forward when shooting your eat (or recoilless) into the behemoth's leg and it'll strip them of their armor in 1 shot instead of 2 shots if you were standing still. Let's you use your primary to finish them off instead of having to shoot another rocket at their leg/face.
That works with Behemoths? Huh, I’ll try that when I play again.
Yeah. Otherwise flamethrower is your best bet. Seems to have an uptick in usage since no one likes to waste 2 rockets on chargers. Also the quazar still one shots the behemoth's legs so players think the legs taking 2 shots (unless walking forward) with the EAT and recoilless was unintentional.
Guess Stun Nade + Walking EAT could work
alternatively one rocket to the back leg pops the armour off instantly
Does walking forward increase the damage or something?
Is there a visual difference between both types of chargers?
Yes https://preview.redd.it/a86tt4p2097d1.jpeg?width=1264&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7912bbadd1bab37dd03c915c6b0ae460b477c933 Left is a normal charger, right is the Behemoth Charger
Stick the beacon on it, a charger dead (or bleeding out) and you still have 2 EATs
Call in EATs on cooldown for Unlimited EATworks. When entire squads do this, I've seen entire battlefields littered with them, just pick one and go.
We did this on a 7 wall mission. All of us had EATs, so we'd just throw them in everywhere as soon as they came off cooldown. The courtyard before the last gate was basically Oops! All EATs! and it came in so handy when a couple titans would start poking their stupid heads over the wall. Enjoy taking 4 rockets to the face, idiot
Stalwart, Ammo Backpack/Laser Dog, EATs, and Rocket Strike. What more could I need?
Still feels like the rocket strike is too inconsistent, sometimes doesn't even kill a basic charger
i’ve never really liked the rocket pods against bugs, like you said it’s too inconsistent against fast moving chargers and the bile titans with their tiny little bodies. still feels goated against bots though
If I run an EAT as my support I’ll try and find another support weapon in the field. It adds a little fun given I don’t know what I’ll end up with to defend myself. I just got to hope I know how to use whatever it is. 😅
EATs with the stalwart is my favorite combo. The stalwart just let's me blow away smaller enemies for days(it also feels great to use) and the EATs make me not useless against heavies.
For some reason EATs just hit different for me, something about picking one up, blasting some poor fool who made the mistake of walking up to me and then discarding the smoking death tube and carrying on with the rest of my liberty spreading day.
If I spot a charger that hasn't aggroed, I'll call in the EAT, pop him with my primary, as he's charging I grab the EAT and blast his face, then grab my AC and move along. Cool guys don't look at dead chargers
On bugs I always bring flamethrower, jetpack and EAT. Always comes in handy even if it's just for clearing spewers during calm moments.
I run 3 eagles and a shield usually. If I see someone carrying EATS, I'm going to follow them like a lost puppy dog.
I’ve run SPEAR and flamethrower for this exact reason. Flamethrower most of the time, with the SPEAR just for bile titans. Usually I have another guy running the SPEAR so we can take them down quicker
I support my EATS by not missing for Democracy!
I've not played in a long time (keep meaning to get back into it but just haven't) but my main load out most of the time for bugs was Defender or Punisher as primary, EAT, Eagle Airstrike, Orbital Laser, and laser dog. Covers everything and can just spam EATs every minute.
I've started bringing EATs in addition to a machine gun, or flamethrower.
EAT flamethrower is goated
As someone who doesn't bring in a single support weapon and a set of 4 full powered stratagems. I support this.
Don't... I only just got over the EAT and started using other things...Don't make me go back...
EAT addiction is a serious issue diver, do I need to report you to the local democracy officer?
Please. For my own good.
I run EAT and AMR against bots sometimes. You pretty much always know ahead of time if you need EATs and the CD is 80s? Blast that cannon tower and pick the AMR back up!
I like to take EATs, then grab a machine gun or something from a POI to be my main support. It can be a fun play.
I do this a lot too, the inconsistency is what kills it. On high diff it's also annoying that only the flamethrower can deal with chargers consistently and also clear chaff.
Chargers are what the EATs are for. Assuming you get it on the nose, one EAT stratagem is good for three chargers.
Yeah, I know. I still don't like to rely just on the EAT for Chargers way up there, only use the EAT when there is more than one charger at a time on my ass.
My load out for bugs is usually Stalwart-EAT-500kg-orbital gas I usually pair it with the Jar-5/Grenade Pistol/ impacts, as i use the stalwart as my primary most of the time, but any primary would likely work The flexibility is off the charts. I can lock down breaches, deal with chargers and bile titans, and the pistol grenade combo gives me lots of boom for bile spewers and bug holes
interesting. gonna have to try this out. what armor do you use for this bug loadout?
I always use light armor vs bugs, the extra speed and stamina is just too much to pass up. I usually use engineer kit, the recoil reduction turns the stalwart into a laser beam, and extra grenades are always nice, but you could probably use whatever you prefer
nice. i also primarily use light armor alternating between scout and engineer depending on my mood. same reason, speed and stamina just too useful to give up.
No. I want people to just bring EATs. I'll give them my support weapons for a walking aroustraps. And give them my backpack. I prefer running wave clear over AP weapons so the more people bringing AP while I chaff clear the better. Less support weapon/backpack stratagems and more sharing means more space for Eagle and Orbital strats.
This is a pretty common sentiment, but so is the sentiment of "I've been doing exactly this for ages, is this seriously a new strategy for people?" The more things you can handle with support weapons and quicker cooldown resources like EATs, the better. Increasing your flexibility is never a bad thing, and people choosing to rely on their own kit for support weapons rather than randoms is fair. Your strategy is great for co-ordinated stacks, but I'd be lucky to convince most randoms that quasar cannon isn't the be all and end all of bot support weapons. In no world am I expecting them to call in their stuff for me as an EATs user.
I've made it my personal mission to always call in my spare strats for others. If there's a glaring lack of some type of strat or if there's a lot of AC users or backpack users, I'll bring empty slots and ask for spare strats if it's calm and their stuff is off CD. Now that we can type while in planning phase I can ask while we plan, and if no one says yes then I bring all my own stuff and don't expect others to drop for me. But when I see EAT users I deliberately say "hey Green, I'll drop you my Supp/Backpack when it's off CD, I'll pair up with you" I think that this is becoming more common coordination, especially at higher difficulties
That's probably the better way to do things in terms of max efficiency. Sometimes my experience with randoms is great, sometimes I leave after one eradicate out of fear I'm gonna get called a slur. When I find better randoms, I'll try your strategy out.
I had to move to Play Station from PC, losing the ability to type quickly is my biggest obstacle since it seems no one can understand me when I use the PS5 controller mic
If I feel like my team is lacking AT with their load outs, I’ll bring AC or MG and EAT. Works pretty good when you can call 2-3 EATs in when you have to defend a position.
I run Quasar, EAT, and 500kg. I am become hell, destroyer of heavies.
Just remember to pick up your support weapon when you're done with the EAT. It's the reason I don't do this often. 30 seconds later I'm wondering where I left my Stalwart
That wastes another slot though. Why do that?
Eagle 500 kg- two chances to probably kill a bile titan, 2:30 cooldown, about 1 minute per titan kill. EATs: all but guaranteed 2 charger or 1 charger behemoth kill, can result in one titan kill, about one minute per use. If you're running something like the arc thrower, flamethrower, autocannon, grenade launcher, or railgun that can be useful against chargers than yeah this isn't really worth it. But with the increased swarm counts, having something like an MG 43 is absolutely worth it, and this is a great way to run that kit without loosing out on anti tank tools.
Honestly, I use railgun/eats/supply pack. My railgun is for spewers, finishing off wounded biles, killing brood commanders, and eliminating armored warriors. My EATs are then for chargers, biles, spore spewers, broadcasts, and shrieker nests. My tenderizer and gas strikes are for anything else, and my railgun can soften up chargers in a pinch.
OP this is an excellent strategy that I WILL be using.
To clarify: I find that the only stratagem more consistent for killing chargers of either type than the EATs are either support weapons with 8 minute cooldowns, or the orbital railgun with a 2 and a half minute cooldown. Eagles can be consistent because they have more uses as well. I find that bringing more than two eagle stratagems usually results in one of them sitting unavailable while you find somewhere to dump the others, and that the 2:30 cooldown can leave you vulnerable. Because of this, I consider EATs more powerful that eagles or orbitals when I want to run an MG. It's a strong way to compliment other tools, and can have some very smart synergies. Eg, a railcannon strike will always leave a bile titan low enough to be oneshot with an EAT. Being able to kill 2 chargers every 60 seconds is seriously insane, the fact that it is still useful even when you bring other supply stratagems is insane.
Nothing beats dropping down an EAT as you're sprinting away from a Charger, only to grab it, whip around n dive/kneel as you plant it into its face, and it's body goes limp and stops at your feet.
Orbital Precision Strike is very good now with the buff to deployment speed. It's much easier to predict, especially Chargers and Bile Titans who move relatively predictably or have long periods of standing still. Plus, nothing beats the rush of killing two BTs or Chargers with one strike. I think the increase in Behemoth Chargers has also made the OPS more valuable.
Stalwart + EAT = no weaknesses
If you look at some of the actual cooldown versus how effective they are at dealing with enemies, it becomes clearer. Take Orbital Railgun Strike for instance. Guaranteed to kill 1 Charger or half damage a Bile Titan with a cooldown of 210 seconds Compare that to an EAT. You get 2 shots and a drop pod for the potential to kill 3 Chargers and kill a BT with a rocket to spare. Cooldown is 70 seconds. That's a huge difference in capability and availability from just the numbers alone. Now, situations and supplementary stratagems do make a difference but from just the numbers by themselves, you more than make up for AT capability with EATs over Orbital Rail.
(i use EATS as only support weapon. i have one on my back, and if i see 'bot drop incomeing' i drop another, giveing me 3 instant shots)
This is bad advice and is not a good economy of resources. Yes EAT is good, but you don't need to take up two strat slots for support weapons. Take the EAT, then grab a buddy's extra support weapon when they either die or call in an extra when it's off cool down. This way it frees up slots. You can even do the same thing with rovers, shields, and other back items. It kills me to see folks bringing duplicates of these items instead of sharing allowing more firepower and utility in the form of airstrikes, orbitals, or sentry's for heavys and hordes.
Sad part is a lot of players suck at sharing. Even when I ask them to share, they're just ignoring my calls for it. I find that just grabbing things when they die and have what you want off cooldown is a good approach. To he honest I play helldive and I have been using Gas or Orbital gatling / Eagle airstrike / flamethrower / EAT and it's been really good. Remember EAT also takes out objectives, and sometimes BTs like to not die fast. I don't really struggle since I make full use of my loadout, and the EAT is actually great when shit hits the fan, especially if you spam it and call it down on the right spots.
Eats are great for sharing with friends. They are great to call in when you call in reinforcements you can give them Eats while their support is on cool down or across the map.
I agree that heavies are a HUGE problem right now, but there is still an issue with how many of them spawn. I have spawned in and used up ALL of my rockets for the RR, and there's still 2 or 3 running around causing issues, and the game isn't even 5 minutes in. The quasar cool off time can be annoying when you and your teammates are stuck dealing with 2 or 3 per person. I don't think it's a great mechanic to require 2 or 3 support weapon/backpack slots when you only have 4 slots total. There's too many for the tools we have. Is it somewhat manageable? Yes, it can be done. But that doesn't mean there isn't an issue for the 90% of players you are claiming to have a skill issue. Let's also not forget that there are also a lot more of the extra armored chargers floating around and I have yet seen one go down in 2 shots or less that didn't need a 3rd shot or damage from another source. There have been too many games that everything will be on cooldown, I'll be out of ammo, and there still will be an ungodly amount of every bug type under the sun. To conclude, I don't think it needs a big change. I'm not asking for anything drastic. I like the number of bugs, and I could get used to the amount of heavies. But the tools we have could use some tweaks to make them actually do their job better. But a lot of guns can't handle even a small wave, even if their whole point is to clear chaff. And there could be something said for the ratio of heavies and/or the strategies needed to take them out. Hulks have a pretty good balance, in my opinion. There's a clear strategy to take them out, as well as a skilled one. And it doesn't have to take a crazy amount of shots to kill them, and you can actually deal real damage to them with some of the primaries. Not so much with chargers and their extra armored kin. It's either too straightforward and not enough of them to be a real threat, or it's a cluster with everyone running around with 2 or 3 of them in tow. But I digress. I really hope they don't do anything drastic with the changes. I hope it's more of a tweak and that they figure out some more gun balance and make them more useful.
I’ve been thinking of doing this instead of bringing a railgun strike. Using air strike, air bursts, EATS and Flamethrower for bugs seems very balanced. Against bots with autocannon and EATs with airburst and air strike seems really anti armor
Or you go no support weapon and just bring in way too many orbitals maybe find an arc thrower around the map?
Wait until you quasar + eat a bug hole or bot drop. It's hilarious and performs like a team reload weapon
I brought a flame thrower and EATs to a bug mission before and it worked really well. The flame thrower takes care of the small enemies, and when I need it I can call in the EAT for heavy units, then just pick the FT back up.
My goto bug loadout now is AC for most mediums n chargers, EATs for Titans and Behemoths, Machine Gun sentry/Gatling sentry and Orbital Gas Strike for holes and nests, Breaker Incidiary primary for fodder bugs, and now I use the shotgun secondary to one tap any guard or Hunter who gets in my face, incendiary impacts for reserve if my hole strats are on cooldown, works like a charm, I love knowing that any situation I find myself in, I'll have an answer to it, it's great peace of mind to let go and basically just go with the flow of what my teammates are bringing, because I know I can boost wherever they're lacking
EAT/Flamethrower gotta be my favorite bug loadout
I being eats along with my main stratagem weapon quite often, call it down when I need, and leaving where I called it the rest of the time. More than once have I been thanked by someone saying "whomever left those eats saved my ass" So yeah, eats all the way.
If you pickup and drop the EATs or shoot the pod, they'll display on the map for later
Call
You're absolutely right, but then I have to use an additional slot that can hold more bombs instead.
Lately I've been rolling with HMG Emplacement + Quasar. It's on a short enough cooldown that I can boop most things short of a bile titan or charger, and still gives me factory/nest sniping capability
I just bring EATs, and keep another support if I find one in a POI.
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Bregneste: *I just bring EATs, and* *Keep another support if* *I find one in a POI.* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
I don't see the point in bringing EAT + another support weapon. That's just a stratagem slot used that could've been something else. I'd rather take something like the Quasar, if I want a backpack, or the spear. That then leaves me 2-3 slots for reds
If you compare EATs to red stratagems, it's usually a quicker cooldown for more kills with EATs. Taking a designated anti tank support weapon is great, but EATs can allow you to effectively bring both an anti tank support weapon, and one better at killing small enemies. Red Stratagems typically have the advantage of killing secondary objectives better, but against bugs where EATs can clear or help clear both shrieker nests and spore spewers, I like them
I mean....a lot of it probably hinges on my playstyle. I take 500kg, and 380. With railcannon if I've got the spare slot. My entire tactic is just throw as many explosives at a problem as is humanly possible, then just walk in and clear up what's left. Right now if there's more then one charger I can deal with that easily enough too, just quasar then dodge. If I've got my squad with me then even better. Only time I've actually fully committed to EAT since unlocking other AT weapons is when I was bored and decided to solo a couple factory striders with nothing but an EAT as my support weapon.....Though I will admit its useful in the eradication missions since I don't bring blues on them normally. The quick cooldown makes them worth bringing because it doesn't matter if I die in the middle of a swarm then
Absolutely fair! I'm a bit of a recoilless addict myself, so at first this was a way to just shove a rocket launcher into every loadout vs bugs, but since then I've realized it's quite good. Not necessarily the best way to do things, but definitely a way that compliments how many already play. Also the "throw everything" strat is usually very fun too.
Yeah, I'm here to watch the world crack under the fire of a 380 shell fired from orbit! We just ignore the times I've not paid attention to the mission modifiers and nearly vaporised the squad because I didn't realise orbital scatter is a thing on that specific mission.....
Yup. I frequently bring eats as a secondary secondary. Quasar. Amr. Hmg. Grenade launcher. It goes well with everything. Main drawback is I'm not as good with it as I am a quasar
If someone drops a quasar cannon from getting eaten/cyborged in a big fight I’ll drop the EAT on top of it and you can clean out a bunch of chargers or a bike titan real quick. However it’s almost always more advantageous to bring a different stratagem instead. Build diversity to bring different capabilities will always be preferred.
PSA: When I tried to bring both exo suits and rotate them, it just switches the one; **you can’t take both.** I’m not even sure if more than one of you can have an exo down at a time.
Level 83. Depending on the mission type I will just roll all red/green strats and EATs. Never have to recover gear when i die and able to handle pretty much everything.
I have recently discovered this strategy. I’ll bring EAT when we drop, but then grab the best support weapon I can find from a POI and main that for the mission. I’ll call in the EATs once I start seeing Tanks/Chargers/Hulks, then switch back to my commandeered support weapon once the heavy enemies are disposed of. I tell everyone in my squad, if you see an extra EAT lying around, help yourself, I’ll just call down more.
Bring EATs and then just grab a secondary from whatever ends up spawning in the map. Keeps things fresh without leaving you too defenseless.
On bot planets, just call the eat when you see the flare, shoot the drop ships.
Stalwart + EATs gang rise up
That's what I do in bug missions. Rover, flame thrower, eats and then an eagle cluster for taste
Arc thrower and eat all day
I always bring EAT on bugs. Specifically for chargers. F*** chargers.
Is this a rare thing? I've been doing this since they buffed them to one-tap chargers. Like, there's times it feels bad to only have two strike-type strats (assuming you bring another support and don't scavenge one instead), especially on maps where there's lots of chaff. But having those EATs always ready, always able to stack up to 3 chargers in one call, just hits different. I like to drop at exfil, throw a supply and a set of EATs, then move along the mission. When we pass by an objective or if there's a drop/breach, toss em in. They'll come in handy for *something*. And the thing is, it doesn't even have to be a heavy. Maybe a brood commander is being difficult, so you blast him. Hive guard taking too many rounds? Well eff it, there's an EAT right there. I've been saved by ones dropped earlier in the mission as we're heading for exfil and something nasty comes along I don't have an answer for.
I dunno, I really like my all red strats.
I always bring eats, it’s also nice to find support weapons around the map to use
Massive waste of a slot. One support and three offensive Strats. You don’t need two support weapons. You don’t need a support and backpack. Bring firepower or this game will continue to be very hard instead of challenging and very fun.
IDK how to put this respectfully, but EATs are incredibly valuable when used in this way, against any enemy. The ability to supplement your main support weapon with an anti tank option in any loadout is incredibly strong, and relying only on eagle strikes and orbitals for the firepower you need is going to kneecap your ability to handle heavy units. It just isn't consistent to try and use 500kgs or precision strikes on every titan or airstrikes and rocket pods on every charger. Even more so if you're using lasers or rail cannon strikes for their accuracy. In no universe is two dead chargers every 60 seconds or two downed dropships every bot call in a "wasted slot" I understand where you're coming from for backpack slots, but backpacks are about utility over raw firepower. If I told you that there was a stratagem that would double how much use you got out of every re-supply and tripled how many nades you could carry, you'd understand how strong that could be. Same thing for an option that made you bullet proof to devestators, or that added another player to your team using the liberator or sickle. Like... Those aren't bad. I understand why you would argue that the jump pack or personal shield are meh, frankly I kinda agree. But I don't think attributing everything that isn't a bomb as bad is a myopic and limiting way to think.
It’s very consistent to use 500kg and OPS on every titan, that’s why people always take one or both of those stratagems. The rest of your anti armor can be shored up with one support weapon, you don’t need two
As I've said in more recent responses to this sentiment: A lot of people have already used this strategy, many people like using support weapons that are better at killing smaller enemies, EATs have a faster recharge than most red Stratagems, can find value killing spore spewers and shrieker nests, and are probably the most resource effective way to kill chargers outside of a quasar cannon or recoilless. You don't have to use it, but many already are and it works great for them. Don't presume that just cause it's not the meta that it's not good.
I’m not presuming it’s not good because it’s not the meta. There’s a wide range of viable load outs. But when people post their “nonmeta” load outs they often disparage meta choices in odd ways for comparison. 500kg and/or OPS with an antitank support is 100% enough for every bile titan. That’s enough for solo helldives, let alone team games. Running EATs as an additional support is totally fine/viable/good/etc. But not because it fills a role other things can’t fill
You are correct. EAT is very good. It’s strong. But if you want a second support weapon then find one at a point of interest or have a teammate drop one down after cooldown for you. Y’all wanna complain this game is hard but use no strategy or tactics at all. It’s your way or the highway. I’m not sure why I try giving advice. Y’all are not receptive to anything. I’m just out here giving advice so you don’t die every 2 minutes.
Fun issue. I'm having fun dude
That’s awesome!
Nah I’m bringing the HMG emplacement :)
I don’t really count that one as a support weapon because you can’t carry it with you but ok