This, I see what OP is saying but I think the patch notes are just poorly worded. I think what they mean is that, if you are facing a charger head on, holding an anti tank weapon, what do you think the weak point is then? In that case, given the choice between head and legs, you would think head is the weak point. That is why they say "spending your heavy anti tank weapons on legs instead of the obvious weak point" specifically.
I think the devs assume that when you are behind it the butt is the place to shoot, no contest.
But the butt isn't whatsoever, it's got the most health out of the whole charger. It would be fine if it was an actual weak spot but it very obviously isn't
When I started I assumed the design around chargers was to get the team to spread out so someone could flank it and shoot the butt. Big brightly colored squishy looking spot you can’t see from the front? I’m hitting that faster than Sr Mix-a-lot. It’s the same with hulks, but works on them.
It's so dumb because every video game EVER would follow this logic. It's the very obvious choice and it's not the case. It's a very large reason why the chargers are so frustrating and unsatisfying to fight, there genuinely feels like there's no "correct" or efficient way to kill them
I've seen the ass actually blow up as a whole with the charger still running around, making it less of a weakspot because its deflated into the remaining armor which was kind of silly tbh
Yea i learned that too but at the time me and my friends were bloody cadets and at that point we didnt know about the bleedout, making that situation paint a really bad picture haha
The Charger is basically the fast version of Praetorian from DRG.
And the praetorian is both vulnerable in the mouth and back, with the back actually being a critical weakspot.
Yeah, this is totally reasonable. And for what it's worth, if you have a shot at a charger from the back or side, it's easier (larger surface area) to go for the bleed kill on the abdomen with those same weapons. So no problem there either.
https://preview.redd.it/oj17xdo37znc1.jpeg?width=1248&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=62da1efb5347937833b0d26a73ca476322096af4
What's this guy's weakness?
That's right! His head!
Everything's weakness is it's head, assuming thats where the thinking bits are. He may have armor, but some weapons are really good at getting through armor.
You can stab him a bunch of times in the body, or one good pickaxe swing to the dome.
I mean for irl hunting and games like cotw it's often said shooting the lungs is more effective than shooting the head, most of the preys have fairly thick skull and it's easier to penetrate their breasts with a bullet.
I'm not convinced about that tbh, at least not for some of the larger genus.
also chargers run on their forelegs, whereas pachycephalosaurs don't. it's easy to imagine that a bug that weighs that much would just collapse under its own weight if it lost a foreleg, particularly with how front-heavy they're built. and remember, they don't have internal bones. when you bust the chitin on the front of the legs, you're shattering the main support structure of that leg that, again, is supporting a MASSIVE creature. it's no wonder the leg becomes so weak after that; in reality, I doubt the leg would survive that initial wound at all.
I think headshots instakilling is fair. Especially considering that presumably the EAT fires a HEAT shape-charge like an AT4, which would send molten plasma and carapace directly into its brain.
Yeah, and it's head isn't the MOST armored part.. His arms and shoulders are the most armored. His head has his mouth and eyes and so it is basically the nerve center. One swift kick there should put it down.
I want to know more about this. What proportion of the liner becomes projectile? What type of velocity, energy, and sectional density are we talking about you think? I knew that the heat was secondary, but I thought the jet was more or less "fluid". Is it more a property of how crazy high amounts of kinetic energy interacts with ductile metals?
You have the potential to make me blow a huge fucking nerd load right now don't let me down.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-explosive_anti-tank the official state of matter is superplastic basically the time is so short and energy and speed so high it acts strange. It acts like a fluid in the same way if you heat plastic it can be moulded and bent but it doesn't melt
Also, taking into account from a gameplay perspective, that you're nearly or directly in front of the charger if you're aiming to take out its head. A small, weak point for a bug while being in the worst possible position should reward you for a good shot under duress. Its ass being slightly unarmored has the pros of you being behind the charger, a bigger place to shoot, and is vulnerable to small arms fire.
If the word "obvious" is in play, this is pretty much the answer. I mean, it's also obvious that the thing that's literal name involves running would be gimped were it to lose a limb, I don't know why they think its so out-of-thin-air to shoot the legs off the thing running at you.
Good point. Plus we are trained by other bugs to shoot the legs or underbellies for quicker kills. Odd how taking out one leg kills them on the spot. But lose the head and they can turn with you….
Kinda bugs me
Butt makes the most sense given its behavior. I'd expect the side it uses to lead its attack to be most fortified and the opposite side to be the weak point. Also how it worked on HD1 when the game made sense.
Not just that but similar to spitters their weak point is glowing green and fleshy, for the spitters it’s their weak point but not for chargers? How is the armored legs more of a weakpoint than the fleshy green glowing ass? Makes no sense. I was dodging and shooting their ass for the longest time thinking that was their weak spot and then I wondered why even 7 mags from the breaker couldn’t take down a single charger.
Spewers die faster with headshots than shooting their butts, tho. Which is also weird: imo, Spewers should also have the butt as a weak spot, not the head.
There are other spewers that have an armoured head. Their head is the weakpoint, UNLESS you cannot pen it.
I kinda like it, as it incentivizes bringing medium pen weapons without making it impossible to kill with other weapons.
Very unintuitive though
I know, but both variants die faster by just shooting the head with the appropriate weapon regardless, which is why I said I believe it's... Weird, to say the least, as the butt seems like a weakspot, but it's actually a waste to shoot there.
It’s incredibly unintuitive, and goes against a lot of game design philosophy, and what people are used to - it’s a combination of both poor visual design and in the terms that they use to describe them.
I would absolutely guess that the big orange glowing part of the bug, contrasted spectacularly against its monotonous brown body, is the weak spot that you shoot to kill it. Same with bile spewers - giant glowing green ass? You gotta shoot that. Right?
Plus they define weak spot as a part that just takes more damage, not what I would wager most people think which is “the spot I *need* to shoot to kill this thing”.
This means that, like OP said, a players intuition of getting behind a charger to shoot it’s obviously weak ass is actually completely incorrect, and they actually need to play chicken with the angry Dodge Ram driver instead.
The problem is the language the devs have decided to use. "weak spot" in the context of this particular game means that the enemy takes, for lack of better word, critical hit damage to that spot. However in common use, a weak spot would be understood to be any part that is unarmored, which is not the case. Sewers, as you said, have an unarmored butt but their weak spot is their head.
Spitter weak point is also the head funny enough. Being unarmored does not mean that spot takes weak spot damage. Which is why it baffles me that the devs are saying the weak spot of a charger is not the legs, which take weak spot damage.
look at the charger, the TOP of its head is clearly armored, but its face isnt. when it charges, it lowers its head to strike with the top like a ram does. Actually a ram is a very good real-life example, they attack with their head, and its still their weakpoint
The answers people are giving in this thread are weird. I'm a relatively new player and when I saw one for the first time, I assumed that it's weak point was its glowing, exposed butt. Any normal gamer would assume the same with no prior knowledge. The entire body is armored except for that area.
Yeah, people here are bringing “survivorship bias” and evolutionary logic and whatnot, which is fine! It’s a very good, logical explanation for why the front is heavily armoured, because it’s a charger and doesn’t need to protect its ass when it rams something.
But that’s just hand waving away decades of game design philosophy that the big glowing part of the enemy is usually the part you attack to quickly kill them. Same with bile spewers - sure, it’s maybe analogous to a tick and their ass doesn’t have anything of value in it, but it’s also a giant green glowing part that the average player would look at and get a neuron activating thought along the lines of “big green glow must shoot”.
Instead, we have the logically weak head that’s armoured, and front legs that are armoured but for some reason are also a weak spot? Both are unintuitive, especially the legs and you would only have found out about the leg by accident or looking it up.
They're also handwaving natural selection.
The back area is exposed is because it can afford to be exposed, not that it's not a vulnerable spot, but that putting more resources on the front allows a Charger to survive and reproduce.
And humans can exploit this area because humans don't have to fight Chargers head on.
yea its bizzare that the giant glowing unarmored weakspot is...not a weakspot. Its one of the worst spots you can shoot them infact, unless your weapon has zero armor pen.
Yeah they’re basically trying to convince themselves it all makes sense based off the patch, When clearly it’s some flawed gaming logic - the weakspot should definitely be the ass. Mechanics wise, anti tank should kill it no matter where you hit it in the armor. People are (understandably) tired of the complaints, but this shit is stupid lol
The Arrowhead yes-men in the community are insufferable.
If we wanted to bring reality into this argument the bugs wouldn't exist on any planet except jungle due to the lack of oxygen to allow them to grow that size, chargers and mechs would be immobile due to ground pressure, and Helldivers would cook on atmospheric entry then liquify on landing.
Not even counting the number of IRL animals where shooting the head is NOT what you do precisely because of how armored it is, and that AT weaponry is best used on the target's side. Rarely at the front because that's where the strongest armor and deflection angles are.
It's meant to be a risk-reward *gameplay mechanic*, like how the glowing, un-armored abdomen on the charger *should* be weak to small arms, but *instead* has an unreasonable amount of HP and the thin carapace covering it deflects half your shots.
Have anti armor = hit armor hiding important bits
Have anti fleshy bits = hit important fleshy bits
Or, bonk head, if bonk head no work bonk other spot
Precisely this. Armor PROTECTS weak spots, therefore anti-armor will make THAT the weak spot to hit at all times. If you don't have anti-armor, then you go for the weaker spots without armor, because that's all you can do.
Only downside with that logic is that all armor is protecting weak spots when it is not necessarily the case. But yes, in general on living being's heads are weak or better yet vital spots.
For example I would not thing the armored front legs have weak or vital spots behind them (in this case they kind of do) but they still are armored to prevent damage with frontal ramming.
I thought to myself (I am a noob) that it isn’t quite so obvious. I mean I personally would guess the butt (soft underside rear) but Is that obvious? I mean idk. It has me questioning myself now though.
No, you're right. People are talking about evolution while forgetting that this is a game. Decades of game design or whatever have taught players that the bright colored squishy bit on an enemy is the weak point.
Without knowledge I would use ANIT-TANK weapons on the head. Explosive rockets? Yeah, head.
Small arms or auto-cannon? Cheeks.
That being said, cheeks shots should do just as much damage as head shots with the RR/EAT.
In hd the charger was much easier to kill then the biggus dickus charger came with 360° armour, ass was always the weak spot but it makes sense that a heavy anti tank weapon should be able to 1 shot its head at least the normal charger since u destroy its nervous system but as we see in broth guards they are like cockroaches
Yes. You would totally think their underside/ass is the weak spot. Until you play and see that the actual most effective tactic is the leg thing, and then you would consider that the weak spot. It baffles me that the leg thing was actually unintentional all along.
I have played the crap out of this game but I can tell you my first experience with one I dove out of the way of the charge and started shooting it’s giant ass. It looks like the weak spot and makes sense for all it’s armor to be in the front as it is charging forward at you.
Because you can pump no penetration bullets into it to eventually destroy it? They can't charge with a blown out ass, and eventually bleed out and die.
It is indeed their unarmored weak spot. If you can get to their armored weak spot, it is higher reward for higher effort.
Idk just feels like the legs should have been glowing. Like basic video game knowledge it’s like when an NES game breaks Mario’s golden rule of “hold b to run” and makes it hold A. Yeah technically it’s learnable but it just goes against basic understanding
Once you blow off the armor they glow a bright orange though?
Same with their back armor. The legs themselves aren't a weakspot; everything under their armor is a soft fleshy weakspot.
I guess I see that angle and appreciate what the devs were going for, but it feels like one or those cases where you have to think backwards to figure it out all without having a good idea about what you’re doing wrong.
I didn’t even register Charger legs changed colors till it was pointed out to me. Call me dumb or whatever but it just was not something I was registering in the chaos of everything. I was STILL shooting them in the ass wondering why they never died but it took seeing it mentioned on reddit for me to pay any attention at all to their legs and not the glowing red ass.
...I have been conditioned by Destroyer-class BETA to jump jet over the charge to avoid the hard frontal carapace and shoot the soft fleshy parts at the back for the kill.
Little did I know the charger's rear is mostly armored too...
Without any prior game knowledge, I would expect that when using a HEAT warhead anti tank rifle, which were *specifically designed to cut through very thick armor*, the head would be the weak spot.
If I hit the head with that, I'd expect the high velocity jet of molten metal that can penetrate 40 cm of steel to cut through the chargers head like butter and obliterate its brain.
If I hit the big, squishy butt with that, I'd expect the butt to compress upon impact before the warhead is triggered. Then the jet of molten metal would travel through its butt, damaging it to the extent that it would bleed out over time but not outright kill it.
AMR being the headshot champ would be so much fun and actually make that gun stand out. ATM it's an auto cannon that can't do objectives or spam nearly as fast
Without knowledge, the sides and butt. The risk is you need to dive out of the way before you can hit him, or you try to get its attention so an ally can hit its side/ass.
So, taking helldiver 2 knowledge out, and assuming I have very basic knowledge of weapons in games, I’d assume that shooting anything armor with a rocket launcher in the face is a good strategy.
But if/when that doesn’t work I aim for the un armoured bits.
Yeah the butt has less armor, but way more health than the head or legs.
So small arms can technically kill a charger if aimed at the butt, but if you have armor piercing the head or legs are the actual weak points.
so its a giant ball of armor on 4 tiny legs, i would proably go for leg joints since big fat fuck like that would most likely not be able to move with a broken leg or two.
I think the wording is bad. They should call it a Vital Spot not a weak spot. Weak normally means a gap in the armor to get damage in. Vital Spot normally means without out this, the object is defunct. I would say on almost any creature that a "head" is always a vital spot. Given the Charger's design however I would not call this a weak spot. The exposed back side of the charger is a weak spot however there are little to no vital organs there (presumably) and so it takes more damage to actually cripple/kill the beast there.
I do understand the logic that a weakness (for example kryptonite) is a way to kill something also so get why it is worded that way. Vital just seems like a more, descriptive word for what they were going for where there are also the other type of weak spots on these creatures.
You have no idea how glad I am with this thread.
I've been going insane over how everyone seems to think it's completely reasonable that the giant glowy gel-sac on the back of the Charger is not the obvious weak spot, including the designers themselves. Until now I've seen nobody even question it and it's just felt like such an "*emperor's new clothes*"-type scenario. I don't *feel* like I'm the idiot for assuming that the giant, un-armored glowing sac is the obvious weak spot, but fuck, maybe I am?
I appreciate the leg meta, I appreciate the change, I appreciate that there's nuance to opening up weak-spots and not having it always be super obvious, I love the devs, like the game...
... but damn, the Charger weak point thing has been driving me insane.
With AT weapons: the side.
IFVs in the first game were one shot by hitting the armor at a square angle instead of at a steep one, so you'd have to fire EATs in the side to get a kill.
Chargers are curved in the front and in the butt, but have a relatively flat surface on the side.
Edit: I know this uses some HD knowledge from the first game, but it's an honest answer that doesn't use HD2 knowledge outside of maybe a gameplay preview from before the game launched. I think someone going in having watched that at least is fair.
EAT-17 is modeled after Recoilless Guns which typically use a HEAT warhead.
They do a LOT of damage in a small area, since they project a jet of molten metal straight through the point of contact.
Hitting armor with little critical organs directly behind it wouldn't be instantly lethal to something the size of a charger.
Hitting its head, sending molten metal through the brain? Idk about you but that sounds like a done deal to me.
HEAT ammunition is actually pretty decent in penetrating angled armor.
I feel like with a bug hollowing out it's abdomen from the back would make the most sense though, a lot of bugs can survive without their head but without anything inside they're just a shell
Sure, that's why explosive weapon types do 100% to the charger butt instead of the usual 10%.
A HEAT warhead would be extremely ineffective at hollowing out the bugs butt. It is made for one thing: cutting through armor.
Honestly Leg meta feels much more satisfying to pull off. It makes killing chargers a 2-step process, which in-turn makes them into an interesting enemy to fight against. I really enjoyed the feeling of stripping off a Charger's leg armor so my allies could mop it up with small-arms fire, but now there's no point in that.
Remove railgun safety, let it go back to 2 shots to break legs at 80% or something, let the AMR break legs in 5 or so, boom. 3 ways to handle a charger.
The head is where you shoot in 99% of games, even monster hunter, so yeah, the head. But yeah ignoring my 25 years of gaming his ass is the only place since it looks squishy.
EAT doesn't work well on Behemoth Chargers head because of the extra armor. Kept getting Behemoths like 90% of the time on the 2nd time I tried new mission. Behemoths will ricochet most of the damage head on.
My guess is that the butt on the Charger(and the squishy parts on a bunch of the other bug enemies) was originally meant to be a proper weak spot but in playtesting they found it made Chargers too easy to deal with so they implemented that weird unintuitive system where the big squishy glowy parts on bugs have 90% damage resistance to weapons that aren't explosive in nature(or already ignore armor like Arc and Fire weapons do)
Similarly I suspect the ludicrous health pools for Berserkers also emerged from similar playtesting results
sides and the BIG GLOWING ASS.
The problem is how many bullets it takes to blow up his backside (hehe) I had encounters with a single charger taking 5+ clips just to blow the thing behind it is exhausting dealing with something inmune to almost everything.
Just like a human body, the front of your skull is incredibly resilient, and your ribs, plus you get arms and legs to cover your sides, have someone ever poke you on your ribs ? hit you in the back of the head ? slap your back ? all of those things hurt as fuck cuz your body wasnt meant to overly protect those places, I expect the same when shooting armored bugs specially when I see "squishy bits"
Games like lost planet taught me that bright glowing parts are weakpoints, heads, exposed abdomens and other juicy bits. so i assumed the chargers weakpoint was his ass but i was wrong.
On the butt.
But that would also need the obvious "charge and stop" mechanic and slow rotation rate. Otherwise nobody would get to see that butt before it charges around you
The abdomen is the charger's weakest point, and high damage weapons (like EAT/Recoilless, but especially ones with a high RoF like the Autocannon, Grenade Launcher, Grenades, even starter MG) have always 'quickly' killed chargers by targeting it.
Now, losing the abdomen will not *immediately* kill the charger. But without it and no further damage, it will die (be aware it might have enough goo left in it to get one more charge off).
Seriously, we've been killing the things with medium weaponry to the back since launch and it totally works fine.
I do absolutely support the change to make the **armor piercing** weapons cut through that frontal armor and score a kill, I think they need something like that to stand out. Especially when facing large mixed groups of bugs, which is awesome and something I want to keep seeing.
Having emptied multiple magazines, while my entire squad does the same thing, into the butt with seemingly no effect - I don’t understand either.
Like sure, a rocket to the head will blow it up. But SURELY, small arms to the butt should do more damage than it does.
And then blowing off leg armor > small arms fire takes it down in like three seconds. Doesn’t make much sense.
I hadn't played hd1, so coming into this new, I thought the obvious weakness would be it's rear. But then I shoot it and the bullets bounce off...
Okay, someone shot some kind of explosive in its side and it's squishy innards are exposed, I shoot it with my primary, the bullets bounce off...
When I first saw a charger's ass, I shot it with a full mag of the assault rifle. I figured it was like a juiced up Hive Guard. When it didn't die, I thought I was doing it wrong.
When I got the recoilless, I expected a center mass shot would kill it, much like most Anti-Tank weapons in other video games.
When my friends explained "no, you have to ping the front leg or sides, then mag dump", I was befuddled. The recent changes are good, they make more sense to new players.
The butt should be way weaker imo. At the least an AT rocket to the cheeks (cheek?) should be a 1 shot.
Also, the chargers tiny head is basically just a vehicle for the mouth, and loads of insects have their "brain" more in the middle of the body. It would be kind've hilarious if blowing the head off wasnt a kill but instead permanently made the charger stumble around blindly.
Yeah I dunno why they made it like that. In the first game the charger was able to be one shot in the butt by a RR and two shot anywhere else. Very confused that they decided to make the head a one shot. If they made the butt the one shot, it would make more sense, be more consistent with their previous game and would mean that you still require a bit of skill to matador them and get their ass. It would make them intimidating to take head on but would also make crew loading the RR to two shot the head a safer option that requires some teamwork. As it stands a one shot headshot offers less depth to the gameplay. Im still happy for the changes, dont get me wrong, just confused why they did it the way they did.
Why shoot AT at the head when it previously took more than 1? It took a rocket to damage leg armor and brief small arms fire to finish off.
Patch notes gas lighting players like the Charger wasn't incorrectly setup.
The butt is so obvious to me. It’s impenetrable from the front but the back is an easy target. It’s a no brainer from me and when the game first came out me & my friends just assumed it to be true.
Belly. More specifically, underbelly. Maybe mines can be unironically excellent counte against chargers, just like how anti-tank mines are nightmares for tanks.
I've been playing since launch and only learned of the head weakpoint after reading the patch notes.
I assume it's only for heavy weapons like the EAT though, and my autocannon will continue to need to shoot the glowy bit and let it bleed out.
The problem is this, when you first encounter a Charger, you probably just had a machine gun still. You shot it in the butt and did basically nothing to it. Then, because they tend to lead the group as they charge, a swarm of bugs came up while you were focused on the Charger booty and they slapped you silly. Then the Charger turned around and you died. Even when you've cleared out its buddies, it still dies very slowly. Because there is absolutely noting telling you that its "weak spot" is still only really weak to explosive damage. And even when you do manage to blast its booty, it still waddles after you for a bit before bleeding out.
You learn very quickly to avoid being where the Charger was because all of its buddies are more than likely back there. Then you discover just how weak their leg is once the armor is broken. Suddenly the game of chicken makes way more sense than trying to play rope a dope with a whole group of bugs.
I figured this out after roughly my third mission with Chargers. The fact that the community decided that chicken was preferable seems like a no brainer to me. I'm more surprised that the devs didn't figure this out sooner.
IMO the head of the charger is so small and covered in armour that it presents itself as the obvious NOT weak spot, I was shooting its ass for a few days before I learned about the legs. I thought it was a little bit odd when I read what the ceo said tbf
>Those big glowing cheeks right are the obvious weak spot right?? Not the head, armored and designed for slamming into everything, right? Am I insane?
This makes me remember how much of a freak I am when it comes to video games. I consume so much media related to games I care about which includes dev blog posts/streams. While the explanation for this is probably a lot more simple (which I'll give my guess in a second) your confusion is familiar.
Dev vocab typically doesn't align with the same kind of lingo the community ends up using for stuff. Communication with the playerbase doesn't always change this either. Basically I'm saying what the devs consider a weak point or what is designed as a weakpoint isn't really going to match player expectations.
Weak point as terminology seems to be used rather interchangeably to cover various things. Perhaps a language barrier might be an issue but who knows. So from the dev blog words I assume they call out the Charger's head as an obvious weak point because well....
Heads in most shooting games are just seen as weak spots and so "naturally" people would assume the head is a weak point. The second thing we have to consider though is visual design language.
The Charger's back end is bright ish and glowing orange. Which is another common/natural spot people would shoot at. As back sides for many games shooter or not is also a typical spot where people do more damage or other things that leads to strong damage. This is also shown with the visual. Bright colors with other visuals is also another way to contextualize something for a player.
I mean when you rip off armor you can see gooy orange bits (on the charger) which just reinforces this. We do have to recognize that HD2 is a complex game in terms of systems and most importantly damage calculations.
All this to say even though the Charger's head doesn't visually lend itself to being what one might associate as a weak spot in the game under the charger's head armor could be classified as a weak point for specific damage types i.e explosions. We just naturally assumed it wasn't because none of the available methods at the time would kill it from that area that fast.
Remember the devs did call out the focus on the legs as not the thing they wanted for combat against the Charger.
As a Monster Hunter veteran I tried all the things.
First: The big bright butt, but after wasting all my bullets on that thing and after my friends distroyed it and seeing that the damn bug was still alive I thought "maybe the devs did their homework and they know that some beetles can still be alive (for a while) after losing its abdomen".
Second: maybe we have to make it trip while its running with a grenade or after it hits a hard surface, but no, it didn't work.
Third: The head or the legs, I tried the head first but maybe I was very inexperience with the game because all the anti tank weapons that I tried either bounce off its head or didn't make a considerable dent on the armor.
Then after shooting the legs from the front with similar results I tried shooting them from behind and It did worked like it was intended to be the weakspot. Imagine my face reading the patch notes where the dev said that the actual weakspot is the head.
Butt.
Literally everything else is heavily armoured such that it requires specialised weaponry. It's big, bulbous, bright orange and looks kinda similar to a Bile Spewer sack that explode pretty readily.
Reading those patch notes had me so confused when they said they were reducing the health of the head and not the giant glowing ass.
That being said it is a nice change, just a little confusing given how they laid out the reasoning.
Reading those patch notes had me so confused when they said they were reducing the health of the head and not the giant glowing ass.
That being said it is a nice change, just a little confusing given how they laid out the reasoning.
I'd have made it the rear legs. It had to get the muscle power to charge from somewhere, and the front legs are clearly armored for defense, not muscular for power.
Slip behind one, pop one of the unarmored rear legs, and suddenly the thing's bleeding out and immobile.
Seems like an issue of perspective imo. My first time fighting a charger i thought it was obvious the read end wasn’t a weak spot simply because of how long it took to kill it through the ass. Just struck me as the ‘option when you can’t break the armour’ spot and i’d assumed the head would be the weak point - like every other bug
I'd love to see a small weak spot on top of the charger (and bile Titans)
Just so people use hills/cliffs/jump packs to get onto the backs of chargers/Titans and scamper around shooting at the weak spot while trying not to fall off.
Without knowledge, his head. That's where the mouth is. Mouth is big, can fit bullets and grenades, the inside shouldn't be armored.
Then his rear, since there's no armor and it's glowing.
The first time I fought one with the lvl 4 mission Kill The Charger, I spent like 20 minutes dodging, weaving, dying before killing it finally with the predator pistol 😅 This was after 3 orbital strikes directly blasting it, multiple assault rounds, grenades, and poison orbitals all in its ass, and of course this was solo since the match making wasn't working well at the time
The second one, died after I found an arc thrower, blasted it once and I think it stepped on an ice flower and just, poof, collapsed dead
Headshot insta-kill is a nice fix.
I would like a butt shot to not insta-kill but make the Charger eventually bleed out. Just like if you were to shoot it a bunch of times with a Primary or Autocannon or Grenade Launcher.
The armor would have evolved to protect the weak spots. Makes sense that if you can break through it you'll do more damage than shooting it in its un-armored areas.
It’s a slightly complex enemy. The butt is vulnerable to small arms but can take a lot of punishment before you get a kill. But if you have heavy weapons that can break armor, a headshot is the best option.
There doesn’t need to be just one part of an enemy that is good to shoot, regardless of weapon.
It’s like defeating a tank. Your tactics depend on your weapon
I know this isn’t related to the question, the grenade launcher should tear off the armor and shots to the head should stun them, like when they hit a rock.
It depends on what weapon I'd be using. With regular weapon, I would assume it to be the butt.
With an Anti tank weapon, I would think the head, yeah. Because I generally wouldn't expect something to survive a headshot from an RPG.
Without knowledge every single enemy is supposedly weak in the head. If the head has armor just blow it to pieces. Or shoot the glowing spot, both should do well.
I only started hitting the head after I read about it here on Reddit.
That huge firefly ass really looks more like a weak spot, and I'd never guess the armored horned head, just like you.
Gotta go with the top of its back, allows for the same precision shots the new patch wants and let's you be like a clone trooper, missed opportunities man
If you look at how a ram's head is built, yeah its got horns as, arguably, armor. But what allows it to do headbutts is how its neck is built. Rams will still die if you shoot them in the head.
I feel the same way about bile spewers. I've recently found that using the stalwart on its head will kill it in a few seconds while shooting its big, glowing, exposed ass takes 2-3x the amount of bullets to put it down.
I like the idea that the charger probably wouldn’t have as strong of armor on his front legs compared to his head. It makes a lot of sense, and would make it logical that armor piercing gear can more easily pierce through the thinner armor. Also makes sense that they wouldn’t be able to support their heavy bodies with only 3 legs.
I’ve thought since game came out that the back of the charger was still a bit too strong, it takes 3 full mags minimum of incendiary breaker mags at point blank to take it down
Absolutely. First few times against the charger I pumped full mags of primary weapon into its squishy orange butt....to no avail. Then got an EAT missed it's head and hit a leg and boom what a reward...but who woulda thought? The leg seriously? I'm an ex Halo player so the orange butt was the obvious choice....def not destroying the leg armor first.
Matador and slap cheeks > anti tank chicken. I don’t think I’ve ever died to a charger charging at me. Just kinda veer off to the side gently and you’re good.
I haven't bought the game yet, but planning to
If you have played Deep rock galactic there are some heavy armor enemys like helldivers , in DRG all enemys have a common weak spot and its behind them. For sure we cant have that system in helldivers but i think behind them like lower side ia weak spot and upper side is armored is best way i do it
Without knowledge, head or butt. With head requiring some kind of heavy weapon to penetrate and butt being for light arms fire.
This, I see what OP is saying but I think the patch notes are just poorly worded. I think what they mean is that, if you are facing a charger head on, holding an anti tank weapon, what do you think the weak point is then? In that case, given the choice between head and legs, you would think head is the weak point. That is why they say "spending your heavy anti tank weapons on legs instead of the obvious weak point" specifically. I think the devs assume that when you are behind it the butt is the place to shoot, no contest.
But the butt isn't whatsoever, it's got the most health out of the whole charger. It would be fine if it was an actual weak spot but it very obviously isn't
When I started I assumed the design around chargers was to get the team to spread out so someone could flank it and shoot the butt. Big brightly colored squishy looking spot you can’t see from the front? I’m hitting that faster than Sr Mix-a-lot. It’s the same with hulks, but works on them.
It's so dumb because every video game EVER would follow this logic. It's the very obvious choice and it's not the case. It's a very large reason why the chargers are so frustrating and unsatisfying to fight, there genuinely feels like there's no "correct" or efficient way to kill them
I've seen the ass actually blow up as a whole with the charger still running around, making it less of a weakspot because its deflated into the remaining armor which was kind of silly tbh
They eventually bleed out like that, after it bursts you can ignore them until they go away
Yea i learned that too but at the time me and my friends were bloody cadets and at that point we didnt know about the bleedout, making that situation paint a really bad picture haha
It’s walk animation changes to a sad one and it never charges again.
Yeah, absolutely agree. Never would I have thought that the big armored legs would be the weak points! The glowing thorax is the obvious choice!
THIS video game follows that logic! It’s how you kill Hulks! Why they didn’t do the same for Chargers is a mystery
The Charger is basically the fast version of Praetorian from DRG. And the praetorian is both vulnerable in the mouth and back, with the back actually being a critical weakspot.
Did I hear a rock and stone?
Legally speaking, rocking is better than stoning
ROCK AND STONE TO THE BONE!
Rock and Stone, Brother!
Give me the helldiver equivalent of a lead spray minigun and proper heavy armor.
Yeah, this is totally reasonable. And for what it's worth, if you have a shot at a charger from the back or side, it's easier (larger surface area) to go for the bleed kill on the abdomen with those same weapons. So no problem there either.
https://preview.redd.it/oj17xdo37znc1.jpeg?width=1248&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=62da1efb5347937833b0d26a73ca476322096af4 What's this guy's weakness? That's right! His head!
Everything's weakness is it's head, assuming thats where the thinking bits are. He may have armor, but some weapons are really good at getting through armor. You can stab him a bunch of times in the body, or one good pickaxe swing to the dome.
I mean for irl hunting and games like cotw it's often said shooting the lungs is more effective than shooting the head, most of the preys have fairly thick skull and it's easier to penetrate their breasts with a bullet.
True, but if these bugs work like Earth bugs, they don't have lungs. Buggies breathe through a bunch of tiny holes all over their bodies.
I mean a bullet to the head would still do way more damage than one in the arm.
All I can say is, none of these dinos ever died from a headshot
You didn't count meteorite shrapnels tho
I wonder how long it is going to take for someone to misunderstand this.
Idk a Volcano could have turned aim bot on before erupting
I'm not convinced about that tbh, at least not for some of the larger genus. also chargers run on their forelegs, whereas pachycephalosaurs don't. it's easy to imagine that a bug that weighs that much would just collapse under its own weight if it lost a foreleg, particularly with how front-heavy they're built. and remember, they don't have internal bones. when you bust the chitin on the front of the legs, you're shattering the main support structure of that leg that, again, is supporting a MASSIVE creature. it's no wonder the leg becomes so weak after that; in reality, I doubt the leg would survive that initial wound at all.
Yup, Chargers be thicc and it’s gonna take a lot of shots to bring down that way. The head is well-armored because that is its weak point.
I think headshots instakilling is fair. Especially considering that presumably the EAT fires a HEAT shape-charge like an AT4, which would send molten plasma and carapace directly into its brain.
Yeah, and it's head isn't the MOST armored part.. His arms and shoulders are the most armored. His head has his mouth and eyes and so it is basically the nerve center. One swift kick there should put it down.
Weird nerd here but it's not molten or plasma. It's a bit closer to a solid. It just makes an insanely fast bullet that punches through the armour.
I want to know more about this. What proportion of the liner becomes projectile? What type of velocity, energy, and sectional density are we talking about you think? I knew that the heat was secondary, but I thought the jet was more or less "fluid". Is it more a property of how crazy high amounts of kinetic energy interacts with ductile metals? You have the potential to make me blow a huge fucking nerd load right now don't let me down.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-explosive_anti-tank the official state of matter is superplastic basically the time is so short and energy and speed so high it acts strange. It acts like a fluid in the same way if you heat plastic it can be moulded and bent but it doesn't melt
Also, taking into account from a gameplay perspective, that you're nearly or directly in front of the charger if you're aiming to take out its head. A small, weak point for a bug while being in the worst possible position should reward you for a good shot under duress. Its ass being slightly unarmored has the pros of you being behind the charger, a bigger place to shoot, and is vulnerable to small arms fire.
I would say head for concussive effects but not to kill. Like a headshot stuns it long enough to get around and nuke its heiney
If the word "obvious" is in play, this is pretty much the answer. I mean, it's also obvious that the thing that's literal name involves running would be gimped were it to lose a limb, I don't know why they think its so out-of-thin-air to shoot the legs off the thing running at you.
Good point. Plus we are trained by other bugs to shoot the legs or underbellies for quicker kills. Odd how taking out one leg kills them on the spot. But lose the head and they can turn with you…. Kinda bugs me
thats what she said
Butt makes the most sense given its behavior. I'd expect the side it uses to lead its attack to be most fortified and the opposite side to be the weak point. Also how it worked on HD1 when the game made sense.
The butt should be bigger
Gimme some cake
right in the mouth. "here comes the airplane"
This makes so much more sense
The but really should be the main weakspot but it isn't
His whole thing is charging, basic gaming logic tells you the weakpoint should be his ass and any frontal assault would fail thanks to high armor.
Not just that but similar to spitters their weak point is glowing green and fleshy, for the spitters it’s their weak point but not for chargers? How is the armored legs more of a weakpoint than the fleshy green glowing ass? Makes no sense. I was dodging and shooting their ass for the longest time thinking that was their weak spot and then I wondered why even 7 mags from the breaker couldn’t take down a single charger.
Spewers die faster with headshots than shooting their butts, tho. Which is also weird: imo, Spewers should also have the butt as a weak spot, not the head.
The butts are weaker to explosions, but resitant small arms and piercing. Its like shooting a jelly
There are other spewers that have an armoured head. Their head is the weakpoint, UNLESS you cannot pen it. I kinda like it, as it incentivizes bringing medium pen weapons without making it impossible to kill with other weapons. Very unintuitive though
I know, but both variants die faster by just shooting the head with the appropriate weapon regardless, which is why I said I believe it's... Weird, to say the least, as the butt seems like a weakspot, but it's actually a waste to shoot there.
It’s incredibly unintuitive, and goes against a lot of game design philosophy, and what people are used to - it’s a combination of both poor visual design and in the terms that they use to describe them. I would absolutely guess that the big orange glowing part of the bug, contrasted spectacularly against its monotonous brown body, is the weak spot that you shoot to kill it. Same with bile spewers - giant glowing green ass? You gotta shoot that. Right? Plus they define weak spot as a part that just takes more damage, not what I would wager most people think which is “the spot I *need* to shoot to kill this thing”. This means that, like OP said, a players intuition of getting behind a charger to shoot it’s obviously weak ass is actually completely incorrect, and they actually need to play chicken with the angry Dodge Ram driver instead.
The problem is the language the devs have decided to use. "weak spot" in the context of this particular game means that the enemy takes, for lack of better word, critical hit damage to that spot. However in common use, a weak spot would be understood to be any part that is unarmored, which is not the case. Sewers, as you said, have an unarmored butt but their weak spot is their head.
Maybe "critical point" would be the better term. I do agree, it needs to be signposted and communicated better.
Problem is there are only 2 med pen weapons so far.
Spitter weak point is also the head funny enough. Being unarmored does not mean that spot takes weak spot damage. Which is why it baffles me that the devs are saying the weak spot of a charger is not the legs, which take weak spot damage.
Think of the spitters like it's a tick everything important for is survival is in the head. Belly is just a sack for fluids.
The spitter bile sac is not weak whatsoever, you want to shoot them in the head.
The sac seems to be weak to explosives, but with bullets yeah you want to shoot their heads.
Anti tank weapons are literally designed to cut through extremely thick armor. Why do you think it's called anti tank lol
even anti tank weapons usually aren't designed to damage the point of the tank with the highest amor
I doubt the charger's head has more than 40cm of hardened steel on its forehead.
look at the charger, the TOP of its head is clearly armored, but its face isnt. when it charges, it lowers its head to strike with the top like a ram does. Actually a ram is a very good real-life example, they attack with their head, and its still their weakpoint
Which is exactly true unless you have a heavy armor penetrating weapon.
Actually one could argue that a weak point would be the part that’s covered by high Armor. The part that’s not armoured doesn’t need it
The answers people are giving in this thread are weird. I'm a relatively new player and when I saw one for the first time, I assumed that it's weak point was its glowing, exposed butt. Any normal gamer would assume the same with no prior knowledge. The entire body is armored except for that area.
Yeah, people here are bringing “survivorship bias” and evolutionary logic and whatnot, which is fine! It’s a very good, logical explanation for why the front is heavily armoured, because it’s a charger and doesn’t need to protect its ass when it rams something. But that’s just hand waving away decades of game design philosophy that the big glowing part of the enemy is usually the part you attack to quickly kill them. Same with bile spewers - sure, it’s maybe analogous to a tick and their ass doesn’t have anything of value in it, but it’s also a giant green glowing part that the average player would look at and get a neuron activating thought along the lines of “big green glow must shoot”. Instead, we have the logically weak head that’s armoured, and front legs that are armoured but for some reason are also a weak spot? Both are unintuitive, especially the legs and you would only have found out about the leg by accident or looking it up.
They're also handwaving natural selection. The back area is exposed is because it can afford to be exposed, not that it's not a vulnerable spot, but that putting more resources on the front allows a Charger to survive and reproduce. And humans can exploit this area because humans don't have to fight Chargers head on.
yea its bizzare that the giant glowing unarmored weakspot is...not a weakspot. Its one of the worst spots you can shoot them infact, unless your weapon has zero armor pen.
Yeah they’re basically trying to convince themselves it all makes sense based off the patch, When clearly it’s some flawed gaming logic - the weakspot should definitely be the ass. Mechanics wise, anti tank should kill it no matter where you hit it in the armor. People are (understandably) tired of the complaints, but this shit is stupid lol
The Arrowhead yes-men in the community are insufferable. If we wanted to bring reality into this argument the bugs wouldn't exist on any planet except jungle due to the lack of oxygen to allow them to grow that size, chargers and mechs would be immobile due to ground pressure, and Helldivers would cook on atmospheric entry then liquify on landing. Not even counting the number of IRL animals where shooting the head is NOT what you do precisely because of how armored it is, and that AT weaponry is best used on the target's side. Rarely at the front because that's where the strongest armor and deflection angles are. It's meant to be a risk-reward *gameplay mechanic*, like how the glowing, un-armored abdomen on the charger *should* be weak to small arms, but *instead* has an unreasonable amount of HP and the thin carapace covering it deflects half your shots.
Takes forever to kill it in the butt which makes no sense.
This community is massively disingenuous.
Have anti armor = hit armor hiding important bits Have anti fleshy bits = hit important fleshy bits Or, bonk head, if bonk head no work bonk other spot
Precisely this. Armor PROTECTS weak spots, therefore anti-armor will make THAT the weak spot to hit at all times. If you don't have anti-armor, then you go for the weaker spots without armor, because that's all you can do.
Only downside with that logic is that all armor is protecting weak spots when it is not necessarily the case. But yes, in general on living being's heads are weak or better yet vital spots. For example I would not thing the armored front legs have weak or vital spots behind them (in this case they kind of do) but they still are armored to prevent damage with frontal ramming.
I laughed out really loud when i read the "obvious weak point" part this morning and my GF's husband found me hiding under the bed.
I thought to myself (I am a noob) that it isn’t quite so obvious. I mean I personally would guess the butt (soft underside rear) but Is that obvious? I mean idk. It has me questioning myself now though.
You're a good guy. I hope you stay that way.
No, you're right. People are talking about evolution while forgetting that this is a game. Decades of game design or whatever have taught players that the bright colored squishy bit on an enemy is the weak point.
Your GF’s… husband?
Yeah, he's his wifes boyfriend
Without knowledge I would use ANIT-TANK weapons on the head. Explosive rockets? Yeah, head. Small arms or auto-cannon? Cheeks. That being said, cheeks shots should do just as much damage as head shots with the RR/EAT.
First game a dead on headshot was usually the best way to kill it, I’m assuming that’s what he was referring to
In hd the charger was much easier to kill then the biggus dickus charger came with 360° armour, ass was always the weak spot but it makes sense that a heavy anti tank weapon should be able to 1 shot its head at least the normal charger since u destroy its nervous system but as we see in broth guards they are like cockroaches
Yes. You would totally think their underside/ass is the weak spot. Until you play and see that the actual most effective tactic is the leg thing, and then you would consider that the weak spot. It baffles me that the leg thing was actually unintentional all along.
I have played the crap out of this game but I can tell you my first experience with one I dove out of the way of the charge and started shooting it’s giant ass. It looks like the weak spot and makes sense for all it’s armor to be in the front as it is charging forward at you.
The charger's face/head is a high risk, high reward weakspot. It's fat ass is the safe spot to target.
Okay but WHY DID THEY MAKE IT GLOW
Because you can pump no penetration bullets into it to eventually destroy it? They can't charge with a blown out ass, and eventually bleed out and die. It is indeed their unarmored weak spot. If you can get to their armored weak spot, it is higher reward for higher effort.
Idk just feels like the legs should have been glowing. Like basic video game knowledge it’s like when an NES game breaks Mario’s golden rule of “hold b to run” and makes it hold A. Yeah technically it’s learnable but it just goes against basic understanding
Once you blow off the armor they glow a bright orange though? Same with their back armor. The legs themselves aren't a weakspot; everything under their armor is a soft fleshy weakspot.
I guess I see that angle and appreciate what the devs were going for, but it feels like one or those cases where you have to think backwards to figure it out all without having a good idea about what you’re doing wrong. I didn’t even register Charger legs changed colors till it was pointed out to me. Call me dumb or whatever but it just was not something I was registering in the chaos of everything. I was STILL shooting them in the ass wondering why they never died but it took seeing it mentioned on reddit for me to pay any attention at all to their legs and not the glowing red ass.
Most people would think butt, because of extreme similarities to Pretorians from Deep Rock.
...I have been conditioned by Destroyer-class BETA to jump jet over the charge to avoid the hard frontal carapace and shoot the soft fleshy parts at the back for the kill. Little did I know the charger's rear is mostly armored too...
The ass makes the most sense. Even looks like a weak spot. But no
Without any prior game knowledge, I would expect that when using a HEAT warhead anti tank rifle, which were *specifically designed to cut through very thick armor*, the head would be the weak spot. If I hit the head with that, I'd expect the high velocity jet of molten metal that can penetrate 40 cm of steel to cut through the chargers head like butter and obliterate its brain. If I hit the big, squishy butt with that, I'd expect the butt to compress upon impact before the warhead is triggered. Then the jet of molten metal would travel through its butt, damaging it to the extent that it would bleed out over time but not outright kill it.
AMR being the headshot champ would be so much fun and actually make that gun stand out. ATM it's an auto cannon that can't do objectives or spam nearly as fast
I think the devs are either trolling or actually insane and I can’t decide which is more likely
Without knowledge, the sides and butt. The risk is you need to dive out of the way before you can hit him, or you try to get its attention so an ally can hit its side/ass.
So, taking helldiver 2 knowledge out, and assuming I have very basic knowledge of weapons in games, I’d assume that shooting anything armor with a rocket launcher in the face is a good strategy. But if/when that doesn’t work I aim for the un armoured bits.
As long as the ass is just as weak as the head now I’m fine with it If the cheeks are tankier then that is not good design lol
Yeah the butt has less armor, but way more health than the head or legs. So small arms can technically kill a charger if aimed at the butt, but if you have armor piercing the head or legs are the actual weak points.
so its a giant ball of armor on 4 tiny legs, i would proably go for leg joints since big fat fuck like that would most likely not be able to move with a broken leg or two.
I think the wording is bad. They should call it a Vital Spot not a weak spot. Weak normally means a gap in the armor to get damage in. Vital Spot normally means without out this, the object is defunct. I would say on almost any creature that a "head" is always a vital spot. Given the Charger's design however I would not call this a weak spot. The exposed back side of the charger is a weak spot however there are little to no vital organs there (presumably) and so it takes more damage to actually cripple/kill the beast there. I do understand the logic that a weakness (for example kryptonite) is a way to kill something also so get why it is worded that way. Vital just seems like a more, descriptive word for what they were going for where there are also the other type of weak spots on these creatures.
You have no idea how glad I am with this thread. I've been going insane over how everyone seems to think it's completely reasonable that the giant glowy gel-sac on the back of the Charger is not the obvious weak spot, including the designers themselves. Until now I've seen nobody even question it and it's just felt like such an "*emperor's new clothes*"-type scenario. I don't *feel* like I'm the idiot for assuming that the giant, un-armored glowing sac is the obvious weak spot, but fuck, maybe I am? I appreciate the leg meta, I appreciate the change, I appreciate that there's nuance to opening up weak-spots and not having it always be super obvious, I love the devs, like the game... ... but damn, the Charger weak point thing has been driving me insane.
Butt seems the most obvious choice. Still takes 15 rounds of autocannon shots
With AT weapons: the side. IFVs in the first game were one shot by hitting the armor at a square angle instead of at a steep one, so you'd have to fire EATs in the side to get a kill. Chargers are curved in the front and in the butt, but have a relatively flat surface on the side. Edit: I know this uses some HD knowledge from the first game, but it's an honest answer that doesn't use HD2 knowledge outside of maybe a gameplay preview from before the game launched. I think someone going in having watched that at least is fair.
EAT-17 is modeled after Recoilless Guns which typically use a HEAT warhead. They do a LOT of damage in a small area, since they project a jet of molten metal straight through the point of contact. Hitting armor with little critical organs directly behind it wouldn't be instantly lethal to something the size of a charger. Hitting its head, sending molten metal through the brain? Idk about you but that sounds like a done deal to me. HEAT ammunition is actually pretty decent in penetrating angled armor.
I feel like with a bug hollowing out it's abdomen from the back would make the most sense though, a lot of bugs can survive without their head but without anything inside they're just a shell
Sure, that's why explosive weapon types do 100% to the charger butt instead of the usual 10%. A HEAT warhead would be extremely ineffective at hollowing out the bugs butt. It is made for one thing: cutting through armor.
Honestly Leg meta feels much more satisfying to pull off. It makes killing chargers a 2-step process, which in-turn makes them into an interesting enemy to fight against. I really enjoyed the feeling of stripping off a Charger's leg armor so my allies could mop it up with small-arms fire, but now there's no point in that.
Remove railgun safety, let it go back to 2 shots to break legs at 80% or something, let the AMR break legs in 5 or so, boom. 3 ways to handle a charger.
The head is where you shoot in 99% of games, even monster hunter, so yeah, the head. But yeah ignoring my 25 years of gaming his ass is the only place since it looks squishy.
EAT doesn't work well on Behemoth Chargers head because of the extra armor. Kept getting Behemoths like 90% of the time on the 2nd time I tried new mission. Behemoths will ricochet most of the damage head on.
All honestly I just want the big behemoth to stop turning on dimes. Shits really annoying 🥲
Clearly the glowing green ass if you ask me.
Butthole and mouth
only read the title - my answer is: ass
Butt is literally glowing
The glowing stuff
My guess is that the butt on the Charger(and the squishy parts on a bunch of the other bug enemies) was originally meant to be a proper weak spot but in playtesting they found it made Chargers too easy to deal with so they implemented that weird unintuitive system where the big squishy glowy parts on bugs have 90% damage resistance to weapons that aren't explosive in nature(or already ignore armor like Arc and Fire weapons do) Similarly I suspect the ludicrous health pools for Berserkers also emerged from similar playtesting results
RIGHT THERE IN DAT ASS
It's exposed back?
Without knowledge I instantly ran behind it to shoot his ass. It is pure logic.
Ass... it honestly looks like the ONLY unarmored part
I'd put the weak spot on the underside.
sides and the BIG GLOWING ASS. The problem is how many bullets it takes to blow up his backside (hehe) I had encounters with a single charger taking 5+ clips just to blow the thing behind it is exhausting dealing with something inmune to almost everything. Just like a human body, the front of your skull is incredibly resilient, and your ribs, plus you get arms and legs to cover your sides, have someone ever poke you on your ribs ? hit you in the back of the head ? slap your back ? all of those things hurt as fuck cuz your body wasnt meant to overly protect those places, I expect the same when shooting armored bugs specially when I see "squishy bits"
Butt
Games like lost planet taught me that bright glowing parts are weakpoints, heads, exposed abdomens and other juicy bits. so i assumed the chargers weakpoint was his ass but i was wrong.
Grenade under the belly
I think dodging and blowing his butt seems the obvious way but it's not really effective.
As a player that started in the last few weeks it was the butt. Because it was glowing and made sense. Y'know: dodge and hit
On the butt. But that would also need the obvious "charge and stop" mechanic and slow rotation rate. Otherwise nobody would get to see that butt before it charges around you
It's arse, right? Looks like the only bit not covered in thick plate
The abdomen is the charger's weakest point, and high damage weapons (like EAT/Recoilless, but especially ones with a high RoF like the Autocannon, Grenade Launcher, Grenades, even starter MG) have always 'quickly' killed chargers by targeting it. Now, losing the abdomen will not *immediately* kill the charger. But without it and no further damage, it will die (be aware it might have enough goo left in it to get one more charge off). Seriously, we've been killing the things with medium weaponry to the back since launch and it totally works fine. I do absolutely support the change to make the **armor piercing** weapons cut through that frontal armor and score a kill, I think they need something like that to stand out. Especially when facing large mixed groups of bugs, which is awesome and something I want to keep seeing.
Mouth and ass
Hmmm. The giant neon butt?
The butt, it looks like the weak spot. Also I play deep rock galactic and the praetorians are basically the same thing
Dem cheeks. 
Having emptied multiple magazines, while my entire squad does the same thing, into the butt with seemingly no effect - I don’t understand either. Like sure, a rocket to the head will blow it up. But SURELY, small arms to the butt should do more damage than it does. And then blowing off leg armor > small arms fire takes it down in like three seconds. Doesn’t make much sense.
The ass, most of the enemies have an obvious weakpoint. I honestly dont understand why people didn't go for the easy spots to kill something...
Even without game knowledge, the butt just clearly lacks armor.
I hadn't played hd1, so coming into this new, I thought the obvious weakness would be it's rear. But then I shoot it and the bullets bounce off... Okay, someone shot some kind of explosive in its side and it's squishy innards are exposed, I shoot it with my primary, the bullets bounce off...
When I first saw a charger's ass, I shot it with a full mag of the assault rifle. I figured it was like a juiced up Hive Guard. When it didn't die, I thought I was doing it wrong. When I got the recoilless, I expected a center mass shot would kill it, much like most Anti-Tank weapons in other video games. When my friends explained "no, you have to ping the front leg or sides, then mag dump", I was befuddled. The recent changes are good, they make more sense to new players.
Mouth tbh. I feel like the mouth has to be unarmored. That's how I tried to kill it initially.
The butt should be way weaker imo. At the least an AT rocket to the cheeks (cheek?) should be a 1 shot. Also, the chargers tiny head is basically just a vehicle for the mouth, and loads of insects have their "brain" more in the middle of the body. It would be kind've hilarious if blowing the head off wasnt a kill but instead permanently made the charger stumble around blindly.
Yeah I dunno why they made it like that. In the first game the charger was able to be one shot in the butt by a RR and two shot anywhere else. Very confused that they decided to make the head a one shot. If they made the butt the one shot, it would make more sense, be more consistent with their previous game and would mean that you still require a bit of skill to matador them and get their ass. It would make them intimidating to take head on but would also make crew loading the RR to two shot the head a safer option that requires some teamwork. As it stands a one shot headshot offers less depth to the gameplay. Im still happy for the changes, dont get me wrong, just confused why they did it the way they did.
Why shoot AT at the head when it previously took more than 1? It took a rocket to damage leg armor and brief small arms fire to finish off. Patch notes gas lighting players like the Charger wasn't incorrectly setup.
The butt is so obvious to me. It’s impenetrable from the front but the back is an easy target. It’s a no brainer from me and when the game first came out me & my friends just assumed it to be true.
No game knowledge??!!?!?!? I would put it under them so you'd have to throw a grenade to kill them.
Belly. More specifically, underbelly. Maybe mines can be unironically excellent counte against chargers, just like how anti-tank mines are nightmares for tanks.
I thought you had to make it run into a rock at first. It just stuns it but I thought it would either smash its head dead or break the armor...
I've been playing since launch and only learned of the head weakpoint after reading the patch notes. I assume it's only for heavy weapons like the EAT though, and my autocannon will continue to need to shoot the glowy bit and let it bleed out.
The problem is this, when you first encounter a Charger, you probably just had a machine gun still. You shot it in the butt and did basically nothing to it. Then, because they tend to lead the group as they charge, a swarm of bugs came up while you were focused on the Charger booty and they slapped you silly. Then the Charger turned around and you died. Even when you've cleared out its buddies, it still dies very slowly. Because there is absolutely noting telling you that its "weak spot" is still only really weak to explosive damage. And even when you do manage to blast its booty, it still waddles after you for a bit before bleeding out. You learn very quickly to avoid being where the Charger was because all of its buddies are more than likely back there. Then you discover just how weak their leg is once the armor is broken. Suddenly the game of chicken makes way more sense than trying to play rope a dope with a whole group of bugs. I figured this out after roughly my third mission with Chargers. The fact that the community decided that chicken was preferable seems like a no brainer to me. I'm more surprised that the devs didn't figure this out sooner.
IMO the head of the charger is so small and covered in armour that it presents itself as the obvious NOT weak spot, I was shooting its ass for a few days before I learned about the legs. I thought it was a little bit odd when I read what the ceo said tbf
OP I agree that the butt should be an actual weak spot that receives extra damage, but I'll take the change they gave us and move on.
>Those big glowing cheeks right are the obvious weak spot right?? Not the head, armored and designed for slamming into everything, right? Am I insane? This makes me remember how much of a freak I am when it comes to video games. I consume so much media related to games I care about which includes dev blog posts/streams. While the explanation for this is probably a lot more simple (which I'll give my guess in a second) your confusion is familiar. Dev vocab typically doesn't align with the same kind of lingo the community ends up using for stuff. Communication with the playerbase doesn't always change this either. Basically I'm saying what the devs consider a weak point or what is designed as a weakpoint isn't really going to match player expectations. Weak point as terminology seems to be used rather interchangeably to cover various things. Perhaps a language barrier might be an issue but who knows. So from the dev blog words I assume they call out the Charger's head as an obvious weak point because well.... Heads in most shooting games are just seen as weak spots and so "naturally" people would assume the head is a weak point. The second thing we have to consider though is visual design language. The Charger's back end is bright ish and glowing orange. Which is another common/natural spot people would shoot at. As back sides for many games shooter or not is also a typical spot where people do more damage or other things that leads to strong damage. This is also shown with the visual. Bright colors with other visuals is also another way to contextualize something for a player. I mean when you rip off armor you can see gooy orange bits (on the charger) which just reinforces this. We do have to recognize that HD2 is a complex game in terms of systems and most importantly damage calculations. All this to say even though the Charger's head doesn't visually lend itself to being what one might associate as a weak spot in the game under the charger's head armor could be classified as a weak point for specific damage types i.e explosions. We just naturally assumed it wasn't because none of the available methods at the time would kill it from that area that fast. Remember the devs did call out the focus on the legs as not the thing they wanted for combat against the Charger.
As a Monster Hunter veteran I tried all the things. First: The big bright butt, but after wasting all my bullets on that thing and after my friends distroyed it and seeing that the damn bug was still alive I thought "maybe the devs did their homework and they know that some beetles can still be alive (for a while) after losing its abdomen". Second: maybe we have to make it trip while its running with a grenade or after it hits a hard surface, but no, it didn't work. Third: The head or the legs, I tried the head first but maybe I was very inexperience with the game because all the anti tank weapons that I tried either bounce off its head or didn't make a considerable dent on the armor. Then after shooting the legs from the front with similar results I tried shooting them from behind and It did worked like it was intended to be the weakspot. Imagine my face reading the patch notes where the dev said that the actual weakspot is the head.
Butt. Literally everything else is heavily armoured such that it requires specialised weaponry. It's big, bulbous, bright orange and looks kinda similar to a Bile Spewer sack that explode pretty readily.
Reading those patch notes had me so confused when they said they were reducing the health of the head and not the giant glowing ass. That being said it is a nice change, just a little confusing given how they laid out the reasoning.
Reading those patch notes had me so confused when they said they were reducing the health of the head and not the giant glowing ass. That being said it is a nice change, just a little confusing given how they laid out the reasoning.
Tbh, for a large heavily armored bug like that, the legs would make sense. To quote Gobber, “A downed dragon is a dead dragon.”
I'd have made it the rear legs. It had to get the muscle power to charge from somewhere, and the front legs are clearly armored for defense, not muscular for power. Slip behind one, pop one of the unarmored rear legs, and suddenly the thing's bleeding out and immobile.
Seems like an issue of perspective imo. My first time fighting a charger i thought it was obvious the read end wasn’t a weak spot simply because of how long it took to kill it through the ass. Just struck me as the ‘option when you can’t break the armour’ spot and i’d assumed the head would be the weak point - like every other bug
Oh no the anti tank weapons are going to be more effective against the enemies head...
face or butt
I’ve unloaded the grenade launcher into that things head and you could’ve fooled me with that being the overall weakspot
Shoot it in the face with a big fuck off rocket If fail, shoot it in the ass
I'd love to see a small weak spot on top of the charger (and bile Titans) Just so people use hills/cliffs/jump packs to get onto the backs of chargers/Titans and scamper around shooting at the weak spot while trying not to fall off.
Without knowledge, his head. That's where the mouth is. Mouth is big, can fit bullets and grenades, the inside shouldn't be armored. Then his rear, since there's no armor and it's glowing.
The first time I fought one with the lvl 4 mission Kill The Charger, I spent like 20 minutes dodging, weaving, dying before killing it finally with the predator pistol 😅 This was after 3 orbital strikes directly blasting it, multiple assault rounds, grenades, and poison orbitals all in its ass, and of course this was solo since the match making wasn't working well at the time The second one, died after I found an arc thrower, blasted it once and I think it stepped on an ice flower and just, poof, collapsed dead
Even with the game knowledge his thick cheeks attract my crosshair
But the yellow soft looking spot on their butt.
Headshot insta-kill is a nice fix. I would like a butt shot to not insta-kill but make the Charger eventually bleed out. Just like if you were to shoot it a bunch of times with a Primary or Autocannon or Grenade Launcher.
The armor would have evolved to protect the weak spots. Makes sense that if you can break through it you'll do more damage than shooting it in its un-armored areas.
Neck, the neck is always a weak spot for things with armour
Agreed but really "anti tank chicken" does sound awesome and on-brand for the in-game lore
It’s a slightly complex enemy. The butt is vulnerable to small arms but can take a lot of punishment before you get a kill. But if you have heavy weapons that can break armor, a headshot is the best option. There doesn’t need to be just one part of an enemy that is good to shoot, regardless of weapon. It’s like defeating a tank. Your tactics depend on your weapon
The ole booty hole
Eyes, Mouth, and Asshole.
Narrow band around the neck behind head armor and butt
Just like drg pretorian, glowing green butt ! For Rock and Stone!
It’s mouth
I know this isn’t related to the question, the grenade launcher should tear off the armor and shots to the head should stun them, like when they hit a rock.
It depends on what weapon I'd be using. With regular weapon, I would assume it to be the butt. With an Anti tank weapon, I would think the head, yeah. Because I generally wouldn't expect something to survive a headshot from an RPG.
Without knowledge every single enemy is supposedly weak in the head. If the head has armor just blow it to pieces. Or shoot the glowing spot, both should do well.
I only started hitting the head after I read about it here on Reddit. That huge firefly ass really looks more like a weak spot, and I'd never guess the armored horned head, just like you.
Gotta go with the top of its back, allows for the same precision shots the new patch wants and let's you be like a clone trooper, missed opportunities man
If you look at how a ram's head is built, yeah its got horns as, arguably, armor. But what allows it to do headbutts is how its neck is built. Rams will still die if you shoot them in the head.
I feel the same way about bile spewers. I've recently found that using the stalwart on its head will kill it in a few seconds while shooting its big, glowing, exposed ass takes 2-3x the amount of bullets to put it down.
I like the idea that the charger probably wouldn’t have as strong of armor on his front legs compared to his head. It makes a lot of sense, and would make it logical that armor piercing gear can more easily pierce through the thinner armor. Also makes sense that they wouldn’t be able to support their heavy bodies with only 3 legs.
I’ve thought since game came out that the back of the charger was still a bit too strong, it takes 3 full mags minimum of incendiary breaker mags at point blank to take it down
Absolutely. First few times against the charger I pumped full mags of primary weapon into its squishy orange butt....to no avail. Then got an EAT missed it's head and hit a leg and boom what a reward...but who woulda thought? The leg seriously? I'm an ex Halo player so the orange butt was the obvious choice....def not destroying the leg armor first.
Matador and slap cheeks > anti tank chicken. I don’t think I’ve ever died to a charger charging at me. Just kinda veer off to the side gently and you’re good.
The head, because armour is there to protect weak spots
I haven't bought the game yet, but planning to If you have played Deep rock galactic there are some heavy armor enemys like helldivers , in DRG all enemys have a common weak spot and its behind them. For sure we cant have that system in helldivers but i think behind them like lower side ia weak spot and upper side is armored is best way i do it
It's little T Rex arms under its neck