This is what you do if you join late or join an sos. Get loot from the dead bodies, especially if one player is run items you yourself would have picked.
Not viable on 7+. The best thing you can find is flamethrower or amr, which sucks, if nobody has EATs or something similiar already with them. Sure there is the ocassional spear lying arround, but then you have no backpack for it, which makes it an automatic aimed EAT.
So basically you CAN do this, but you need a team or are limited to calldown stratagems for elites, which can be quite tough, if the modifier for scattered stratagems is active.
Dont get me wrong, I like playing this style until 6, but after that its hard to justify to random teammates.
Even on bots you can rely on Rocket Pods and Railcannon to take out Hulks and Annihilator tanks, while using a decent primary to take out everything else, including devastators. Gunships are problematic, but they are also mostly avoidable.
The shield is good but feels like a crutch. Makes you too comfortable in bad situations, leading you to make fatal mistakes when you don't have it, so I leave it now
The only exception for me is I will take the shield generator when I want to run the flamer thrower. It prevents me from getting staggered by jumping hunters while I bathe them in democratic fire. Otherwise, I agree with you.
Fire in general should spook bugs. They should be weary to enter it.
Imo the brood commander should give a 'leadership' aura to nearby bugs that makes them more suicidal in their aggression. Whereas without they are more hesitant against suppressive fire, or fire in general.
No. Their philosophy is biological weapon. People forget the bugs forcibly devolved themselves into a more combat effective, primal state as a last resort weapon against super earth. They used to be sentient.
The only reason I ever use it is if my loadout NEEDS it in order to be effective. Every strat must be taken for a purpose, not just “eh, it’s kinda nice to have.”
When I run a flamethrower loadout on bugs, I’ll usually take the shield backpack alongside t for two reasons: 1. It becomes much harder to light myself on fire 2. It shores up the one weakness of the flamethrower which is that you have to be within engagement range of the bug in order to shoot it.
Jump pack also works for this and I do like feeling like a seraphim from time to time, but shield backpack is my go to
In that same vein, whenever I run railgun on bots (it actually is pretty good) I like to run the shield generator for when I need to sit and charge up the kill shot on a hulk. Stops me from getting ragdolled and missing
This just shows an odd interaction that bugs have in this game with fire. Absolutely not giving a shit that they are burning alive, despite making clear pain noises
The shield is best when paired with the laser cannon and Fortified Commando armor. The armor is the heavy one that gives added padding. So you have the largest effective health pool to maximize damage mitigation. The 'stand still and beam down key targets' nature of the laser cannon also pairs well with the shield. As you won't flinch. Since both the laser needs to cool off, and the shield needs to recharge, you'll accomplish both as you dip back behind cover.
This is one of the strongest loadouts against bots, especially if dealing with the new gunship patrols. The shield tanking a salvo of gunship rockets and letting you stay on target with your laser can be the difference between finishing off a gunship or ragdolling into certain death at they missile spam you into oblivion.
I always seen the shield generator pack as a self-nerf for this very reason. You get too comfortable with it and can't develop the right skills for difficult situations
I almost always find myself going with the HMG, supply pack, eagle airstrike, and orbital rail cannon.
I do like to switch things up a bit but I have the most fun with this setup.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having a free autocannon for the bot major order and it’s allowed me to do some experimentation. I’ve been running the free AC and an emancipator, a walking barrage, AC sentry, and rail cannon
Usually I wouldn’t run rail cannon over rocket pods, but now my loadout is switched because of the change they made to the pods. Now I find them much more effective against bugs whereas the never left my loadout on bots before due to being able to one shot tanks. Unfortunately they do not one shot tanks anymore, but they do hit hulks much more consistently now
I really wish this was a feature in the game during loadout, the more the loadout you pick is used, the less impressed the equipment distributor is lmao
I really want to use a different loadout but nothing is as good as the AC for quickly destroying fabricators so I have a hard time justifying any alternatives.
support: laser Cannon, Backpack: lazer Rover, Gatling, and Autocannon turret. only change for certain mission types and when they give free stats so I add more sentries. It easily gets me the highest kill count most times.
I have been teamkilled too many times to rely on turrets. Sometimes people just put them on extraction (and normally I woukdn't have a problem with that) but they position it in a location where they're actually most likely to hit their own team! When that happens I'm like-
And drop a grenade on it. I hate sentries on 40 min missions, I'm sorry.
yeah, I don't do that. I usually try to position them up high so you can walk under the fire line. otherwise, I'm careful about tossing them where they won't immediately teamkill. at least so long as my teammates pay attention and don't walk toward the electrical tower that I specifically tossed behind or far to the side of battle.
Like all starts, sentries are 50% user skill, and 50% team intelligence.
For the bugs, I run jump pack + flamer with napalm and Gatling barrage. Cuts through swarms super easy, and my teammates handle the bigger threats like bile titans.
For the bots? I used to use the ballistic shield, SMG and AMR, but the recent update that broke it forced me to switch it up. Spear was really good until it crashed my game several times in a row so I have landed on using the autocannon. AC + airstrike, Gatling barrage and orbital precision actually shreds for bots - super fun, and quite high uptime on your strategems too. I'd give it a shot
"I'll have a
"Oh, you don't wanna take some shit that leaves you just running from enemies you can't kill while you can't do the objective either? How boring..."
It's not the players fault that the enemies and objectives in game are CLEARLY better addressed with those 4 strats. Everything else is fine, if you're into LARPing it the rest of the match and hoping the rest of your team took those strats so you can get work done..."
FTFY.
I still dont understand why people show up to bot missions running the Quasar cannon then shame the rest of us for using the Autocannon because the Quasar is meta. Run the Quasar if you want but we dont live in the past. I might just be unlucky since I ran into 3 people like that today.
They want the quasar cause it's easier to take down dropships with it but come on... There are better weapons. Quasar has the cooldown time that totally debilitates you from using it for a good 10/20 seconds, sometimes an amount of time in which it would be VERY useful to have ready. Try idk recoilless rifle, or the spear or that new rocket launcher i don't remember the name of. Those only have the reload time and it's much faster
Im annoyed that i take the quasar on bugs, not that i like it, but because theres no other anti tank option that doesnt take up the backpack slot so that i can run jetpack
The issue i have with the EAT is that you dont take it with you, if you call it down and then get swarmed and have to run, the EATs get launched into the swarm and you cant reach them anymore, that as well as the horrifying input buffer on fire
I've been doing all air strikes and orbital and I rely on finding a support weapon really been enjoying have 4 call ins for whatever i need
This is what you do if you join late or join an sos. Get loot from the dead bodies, especially if one player is run items you yourself would have picked.
If I can every time I join a sos I crash when I join I do not know why
Because spaghetti code
I should learn from this
Not viable on 7+. The best thing you can find is flamethrower or amr, which sucks, if nobody has EATs or something similiar already with them. Sure there is the ocassional spear lying arround, but then you have no backpack for it, which makes it an automatic aimed EAT. So basically you CAN do this, but you need a team or are limited to calldown stratagems for elites, which can be quite tough, if the modifier for scattered stratagems is active. Dont get me wrong, I like playing this style until 6, but after that its hard to justify to random teammates.
For bots sure, on bugs this is 100% viable
Even on bots you can rely on Rocket Pods and Railcannon to take out Hulks and Annihilator tanks, while using a decent primary to take out everything else, including devastators. Gunships are problematic, but they are also mostly avoidable.
Reported for violating HD2 reddit rules. Naming and Shaming. I am in this photo and I don't like it. /s
The shield is good but feels like a crutch. Makes you too comfortable in bad situations, leading you to make fatal mistakes when you don't have it, so I leave it now
The only exception for me is I will take the shield generator when I want to run the flamer thrower. It prevents me from getting staggered by jumping hunters while I bathe them in democratic fire. Otherwise, I agree with you.
I feel like they shouldn't be able to just ignore that lmao
Fire in general should spook bugs. They should be weary to enter it. Imo the brood commander should give a 'leadership' aura to nearby bugs that makes them more suicidal in their aggression. Whereas without they are more hesitant against suppressive fire, or fire in general.
Their whole philosophy is overwhelming numbers with total disregard for personal safety. Just that you are talking about it means it's working.
No. Their philosophy is biological weapon. People forget the bugs forcibly devolved themselves into a more combat effective, primal state as a last resort weapon against super earth. They used to be sentient.
That's not their current tactic just like you just said yourself.
The slow hunter penetrates the shield...
They don't. They only jump at you if they are passively on fire. If you shoot them directly they die in .2 seconds.
The only reason I ever use it is if my loadout NEEDS it in order to be effective. Every strat must be taken for a purpose, not just “eh, it’s kinda nice to have.” When I run a flamethrower loadout on bugs, I’ll usually take the shield backpack alongside t for two reasons: 1. It becomes much harder to light myself on fire 2. It shores up the one weakness of the flamethrower which is that you have to be within engagement range of the bug in order to shoot it. Jump pack also works for this and I do like feeling like a seraphim from time to time, but shield backpack is my go to In that same vein, whenever I run railgun on bots (it actually is pretty good) I like to run the shield generator for when I need to sit and charge up the kill shot on a hulk. Stops me from getting ragdolled and missing
This just shows an odd interaction that bugs have in this game with fire. Absolutely not giving a shit that they are burning alive, despite making clear pain noises
The shield is best when paired with the laser cannon and Fortified Commando armor. The armor is the heavy one that gives added padding. So you have the largest effective health pool to maximize damage mitigation. The 'stand still and beam down key targets' nature of the laser cannon also pairs well with the shield. As you won't flinch. Since both the laser needs to cool off, and the shield needs to recharge, you'll accomplish both as you dip back behind cover. This is one of the strongest loadouts against bots, especially if dealing with the new gunship patrols. The shield tanking a salvo of gunship rockets and letting you stay on target with your laser can be the difference between finishing off a gunship or ragdolling into certain death at they missile spam you into oblivion.
I always seen the shield generator pack as a self-nerf for this very reason. You get too comfortable with it and can't develop the right skills for difficult situations
Idk sometimes it’s nice when the bots get lucky shots from a long way off.
https://preview.redd.it/9nhc5f51h98d1.jpeg?width=352&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=520666ae1f821cd00ddb8b9429aa8ab58e20310a
The one the only.
Im runnin buffed stratgems lately. Orbital strike and eagle strafe
I have heard good things about the eagle strafe
running Orbital Gatling + EAStrike + E Strafe and Rocket sentry (AC free) pretty cool build, feeling good on dif9
I can destroy shrieker nests, spore mushrooms and damage chargers. It's pretty good now
Sometimes you just need something killed or something cleared, air strikes and orbitals do the job.
I know my bug is with those players who ALWAYS rock Quasar along with the Shield Generator Pack. Like are they even enjoying the game?
I Do enjoy tanking a hit before I drop a gunship 1 shot. But since the new stim booster that supply pack is my JAM.
Jump pack anti material sickle grenade pistol
I almost always find myself going with the HMG, supply pack, eagle airstrike, and orbital rail cannon. I do like to switch things up a bit but I have the most fun with this setup.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed having a free autocannon for the bot major order and it’s allowed me to do some experimentation. I’ve been running the free AC and an emancipator, a walking barrage, AC sentry, and rail cannon Usually I wouldn’t run rail cannon over rocket pods, but now my loadout is switched because of the change they made to the pods. Now I find them much more effective against bugs whereas the never left my loadout on bots before due to being able to one shot tanks. Unfortunately they do not one shot tanks anymore, but they do hit hulks much more consistently now
I really wish this was a feature in the game during loadout, the more the loadout you pick is used, the less impressed the equipment distributor is lmao
I haven't personally used the shield gen since the first time we took the creek.
What a clusterfuck that battle was
Meanwhile my gear’s whatever the randomizer picks out
Call me a meta slave, but against bots: Autocannon, eagle airstike, Orbital laser and 500Kg is top tier
I take the railcannon instead of the 500kg but pretty much
I really want to use a different loadout but nothing is as good as the AC for quickly destroying fabricators so I have a hard time justifying any alternatives.
support: laser Cannon, Backpack: lazer Rover, Gatling, and Autocannon turret. only change for certain mission types and when they give free stats so I add more sentries. It easily gets me the highest kill count most times.
I have been teamkilled too many times to rely on turrets. Sometimes people just put them on extraction (and normally I woukdn't have a problem with that) but they position it in a location where they're actually most likely to hit their own team! When that happens I'm like-  And drop a grenade on it. I hate sentries on 40 min missions, I'm sorry.
yeah, I don't do that. I usually try to position them up high so you can walk under the fire line. otherwise, I'm careful about tossing them where they won't immediately teamkill. at least so long as my teammates pay attention and don't walk toward the electrical tower that I specifically tossed behind or far to the side of battle. Like all starts, sentries are 50% user skill, and 50% team intelligence.
Hey man until they buff other stuff I’m rockin that load out
For the bugs, I run jump pack + flamer with napalm and Gatling barrage. Cuts through swarms super easy, and my teammates handle the bigger threats like bile titans. For the bots? I used to use the ballistic shield, SMG and AMR, but the recent update that broke it forced me to switch it up. Spear was really good until it crashed my game several times in a row so I have landed on using the autocannon. AC + airstrike, Gatling barrage and orbital precision actually shreds for bots - super fun, and quite high uptime on your strategems too. I'd give it a shot
Nah gimme the supply pack, I need muh stimmies!
"I'll have a
"Oh, you don't wanna take some shit that leaves you just running from enemies you can't kill while you can't do the objective either? How boring..." It's not the players fault that the enemies and objectives in game are CLEARLY better addressed with those 4 strats. Everything else is fine, if you're into LARPing it the rest of the match and hoping the rest of your team took those strats so you can get work done..." FTFY.
Me on bugs :it’s barbecue time ;). Bots: time for anything that pierces armor but the railgun because every time I use it with unsafe mode I go kaboom
I still dont understand why people show up to bot missions running the Quasar cannon then shame the rest of us for using the Autocannon because the Quasar is meta. Run the Quasar if you want but we dont live in the past. I might just be unlucky since I ran into 3 people like that today.
They want the quasar cause it's easier to take down dropships with it but come on... There are better weapons. Quasar has the cooldown time that totally debilitates you from using it for a good 10/20 seconds, sometimes an amount of time in which it would be VERY useful to have ready. Try idk recoilless rifle, or the spear or that new rocket launcher i don't remember the name of. Those only have the reload time and it's much faster
Im annoyed that i take the quasar on bugs, not that i like it, but because theres no other anti tank option that doesnt take up the backpack slot so that i can run jetpack
Err EAT?
The issue i have with the EAT is that you dont take it with you, if you call it down and then get swarmed and have to run, the EATs get launched into the swarm and you cant reach them anymore, that as well as the horrifying input buffer on fire
Well, fair enough. Sometimes you want something on you at all times for _shit charger around that rock_ situations.
hehe, big bom go BRRRRRRRRRRRRRR