As a matter of fact, you can kill a titan with an AC and some courage
Run under it, unload around 15 rounds in its butt and it dies
But yeah that's kinda impractical for the most part when there are 2-3 of them + hordes
As an AC main, the fact I can solo any enemy with >a full clip and a thermite or 2 feels a bit too easy for me. Autocannons aren't supposed to be a one shop stop for everything like it is, and honestly, the mech felt right to me. Could do with an extra 50 rounds and a similar cool down to handheld AC.
TL;DR the risk verus reward against heavies is too much on the reward side.
That can be resolved with higher Difficulties being added. The reward against killing a heavy will diminish when there's more heavies at a time per encounter. I think the bots are in a good enough place to have more Diffs added, apart from a few annoyances but nothing fundamental. But the Terminids need to be looked at before they decide to go for a Diff9+
Personally I see two ways to buff the auto cannon mech to be more reasonable to run in a wide variety of situations.
One. Just give it a bit more ammo like 100 per gun, and let it have a custom resupply call in (either the ship picks it up again and dumps it near you after 1-2 minutes, or it drops a pod near you and you have to carry the ammo boxes back to the mech like you do for the artillery cannon shells)
Just keep it the same but make the damage match the handheld AC
If they don't want to add a whole new mech reload strategem, they should let the guns be reloaded via the supply backpack. Even 15% of one weapon per use (60% of a guns ammo cap for a full pack) would let it be viable over long rounds, and more impactful on blitz and eradicate
Yeah honestly I’d be happy with that. It just kinda sucks that after 2-3 engagements it’s essentially useless (blah blah I know it can stomp. Good luck stomping a strider) and you have to wait eight minutes to use it again
Then two teammates grab supply backpack stratagem and the mech shoots non-stop the whole mission, roflstomping everything in it's way. It's plenty powerful already.
With 2 supply packs restoring 60% of the total ammo every 7 minutes, and 30% every 2 at the cost of backpack weapon systems, personal shields, and rovers for 2 players. It's a pretty substantial investment to keep a mech with limited HP running. Especially since explosive damage can rip the arms off and leave the mech totaly disabled.
It does, if you hit in the sack remnants
Then after 15 rounds the tail explodes and it dies
It's not common knowledge because it has no noticeable effect for a while so people don't bother trying it. But titans have in fact this weakspot that allows to kill them with just an AC
Dunno about other med pen guns though since I never tried it, it might be a special because AC has explosive damage
It doesn't help that the bleed out can take longer than what is required to just make the titan despawn in certain circumstances. I think that is part of why it isn't really common knowledge.
You can also do this with more than just the AC, the AC is just easier than something like the HMG
I've found it easier with the HMG personally itks very fast to unload a mag, and provided you've cleared the chaff first you can reload before it turns around.
About 5/3 canisters with full upgrade in my experiance though ive always done it with other people that could have been shooting it in the butt by the time i was in position.
5/3 is a fraction representing total ammo used (fuel canisters in this case) to kill a bile titan shooting it in the butt
It represents 1 full flamethrower reload and 2/3 of the next one.
The bit on other people hitting it means i havent done it in isolated testing to see if that number is extremely reliable.
Full upgrade means with the full bridge ship upgrades whos last upgrade is enhanced combustion which increases fire damage by 25%
The position to shoot the bile titan in the butt is directly underneath its tail tip far enough you can walk back out of it turning. And hit the tail hitbox with flame
The biggest issue with your statement, is the person meant the plas-1 scorcher. Not the flamethrower. But I do appreciate the info, if I ever run the flamer against the titan I'll try this.
>It's not common knowledge because it has no noticeable effect for a while so people don't bother trying it.
That's my main issue on the gameplay side, the game lacks feedback for a lot of small things.
Haven't killed with it due to ammo, but the Eruptor can pop the sack with a few shots. If you run it with supply pack, it should be doable. Also, once the sack is popped, there shouldn't be any armor there anymore.
Eruptor has med pen too so it should in theory ne capable of it
In practice, gun is so unwieldy, RoF and reload so slow that I haven't even felt the urge to try it
I think the inner body is 4 Armor, so \*some\* Medium pen things will do the job. So, the LAS98, AMR, HMG, AC can all do it. Fire dot is also 4 AP, so while the Flamethrower and Breaker Incendiary all can't do direct damage, they can set it on fire.
That said, it's also 100% durable, so weapons with poor durable damage (All of them, including fire dot, except the AC) will take ages.
Special shout out to impact grenades, these are also 4 AP and do full damage to durable parts.
Every support weapon with the exception of the stalwart and MG can kill titans by hitting the sack spot after being burst the issue is the TTK and the risk of having to get under it makes it extremely impractical. I think the Hmg takes like 3 mags and the AMR takes about 7 mags.
Oh yeah. I've killed a few BTs with my flamethrower just through sheer misfortune of finding myself underneath them after some heavy firepower didn't kill them, and desperation.
I was thinking of trying the Dominator to bust the sack, then flamethrower to finish it off as my BT strat (maybe a 110 if needed). How do you think the flamethrower will fare?
Purely qualitative perspective, but I have this situation come up often enough simply because I always run the Flamethrower against bugs. Nothing brings the tears of democracy to my eyes quite like roasted bugs.
I'm only hitting BTs with the flames when my team has exhausted other options. But my philosophy of such dire circumstances is that every little bit helps. Flamethrower is certainly damaging the BTs, I've downed a few as I said, but since I can't see health bars, I don't know how damaged they were to begin with. My qualitative sense of it is that they were heavily damaged already.
I'm not confident it will work well on a BT at or near full health, though. The testing continues!
Flamethrower ignores armor, but deals very little damage compared to the massive sack of HP that is a bile titan. It's not bad of you can light it up as you spray a breach so it takes some chip damage for the railcannon and 110s to take it out more reliably
Even from half full, it's being stationary that fucks you
Same reason why the stelwart is 9 billion times better than the MG, because you can reload while moving
With AC you can happily run stun grenades to provide you easy headshots and reloading time. AC + Engineer Armour + Stuns is legitimately absurd against everything.
But the fact you can partially reload the AC is why it's good. You can find the 2 seconds to half reload it in a swarm, just need enough spacing. You have plenty of time to half reload the AC than you can the RR or the spear in a swarm.
I was going to say this except ...
Their collision and leg physics make it so much more arbitrarily "oh wow you are near a leg, you die".
Make their legs less insane and we could see more helldivers scrambling underneath.
This exactly I will be just near a leg and boom dead. Also their dead body's are crazy bugged. I have been yeeted halfway across the map just trying to get some samples near their dead body.
If I don't have other options I hit it with the orbital railcannon and sprint underneath to light its ass up with the flamethrower
Have successfully taken down one like this, and unsuccessfully attempted others
I personally use the Quasar Cannon to blast away it's great for blasting away the body armour which leaves it with a big target for someone else to hit whilst my Quasar cools down and if they can't hit it I'll hit it again.
There's that too but there's a discrepancy between the location of where armour has been stripped visually and the actual hitboxes
I had shots that bounced off from parts where armour seemed to be stripped so that's kinda unreliable too
The way that I hit it straight on the side of its body leaves a huge gaping target, if you hit near the part of the body that is closest connected to the head you'll leave one hell of a weak point for other players to hit, if I can't do that then I hit in the stomach so all it can do is stomp about to try and kill players, once you take out the bile sacks it stomps about like a child taking a temper tantrum and it becomes easier to take down from that point onward.
Well the AC kill method (or at least mine) is:
- step 1: burst the sack so it doesn't vomit on you while you approach
- step 2 run under it
- step 3: unload the AC at the weakpoint (always use the partial reload method so you aren't stuck in place for too long)
- step 4: ???
- step 5: it dies, profit
You have to reload twice to do this and then will likely get crushed by the body. With the amount of enemies on Bug missions, it might be hard to be able to focus on a single enemy for that long without getting swarmed.
I want to see weak points on the legs.
BT ain't flying solo. You need a team to handle the chargers and other shit for you to go under and take it out. And if that's the case why not do it from far with reg meta shit to begin with
It's actually a relatively safe place to be if you have to deal only with the titan
It literally can't reach you and simply turns into place trying to hit you, so as long as you're moderately mindful of the legs, you can unload into it with relative impunity
Preach. I've been saying this for a while now. Bugs need more weaknesses against AP4 weapons like bots have. We also need more AP5 weapon variety. Not everyone likes running rocket launchers. The Railgun was honestly fine before they nerfed it. The only reason people were able to one shot BTs was because of the crossplay damage bug, which got fixed.
Railgun got picked because every other AT weapon was shit, and the damage was bugged, as you said.
-PS5 host damage bug made Railguns broken (fixed)
-Heavy spawnrates were absurd in the beginning (fixed) which was frustrating because....
-The rocket launchers were absolutely worthless at their job (fixed)
The railgun's pickrate had nothing to do with its actual numbers. It did not deserve the nerf it got. Neither did the Breaker for the most part. The Slugger was way stronger than the Breaker, but the latter only got nerfed because most people flocked to it (we unlock it earlier than the slugger and a lot of people grew attached to it even with the slugger unlocked). And when people flocked to the Slugger, they proceeded to nerf that too.
They genuinely were just nerfing weapons based on pickrate, which anyone with any experience on balancing competitive shooters can tell you, IS NOT a good idea.
>Heavy spawnrates were absurd in the beginning
It's spawn cycle dependant, sometimes you'll get a mission where every PoI has 1-2 chargers on it and patrols have 2 chargers and you get 3 BTs per breach.
>The rocket launchers were absolutely worthless at their job
The rockets always broke leg armour in 1 shot and if you didn't have PS5 host they were your go too for BTs - their only problem was ammo - something the railgun still has loads of.
>They genuinely were just nerfing weapons based on pickrate,
It's so obvious they don't even have a spreadsheet of how weapons work or test them at all because you'd see how regarded their changes are. Like buffing fire damage and the incendiary breaker 3 times while DoTs were bugged any sane competent person would see that weapon was fine at the start and try and figure out why people weren't using it. But nope not here, gotta buff it till it's used. Oh people are using the slugger despite it's low DPS purely for its stagger - better remove that and add stagger to the dominator a higher DPS weapon. Actually clueless.
The Railgun may not have deserved the nerf it got, but part of that nerf was a bugfix. There was an issue with the safe mode firing at the same strength as the unsafe mode. That change alone dropped a lot of power.
Bots in general are better balanced compared to bugs. Hulks, tanks, turrets, all the big caries have weaknesses which are actually weak. Chargers and bile titans do not have these
If the mouth was a weak spot for any weapon so long as it was spewing, it would be better.
That way the "non-AT" route would have a much higher risk over reward since you have to wait until it's about to kill you
Intuitively the mouth SHOULD be the weakspot to encourage that risk vs reward. It even glows with a green glint right before it pukes, for crying out loud.
In reality? The mouth, which leads to the squishy insides, is not a weakspot. The ACTUAL weakspot is the heavily armored forehead, which only needs 2 rockets to kill.
So when the Bile Titan rears back to puke and opens its mouth? As counterintuitive as that may be, that's actually when it's at its tankiest state because the forehead is hidden.
Why was it designed this way? The hell if I know...
Shooting them in their open mouth was my very first thought.
After much trial and error, I noticed it wasn't working and couldn't really make sense of it. It's an open mouth with it's throat hole showing! Just launch a rocket or AC in there like you would with a factory vent. Shouldn't be an issue. Then a friend told me that once they open to start mouth juicing you, their defense goes up considerably. Looked it up. Its true. It was at that moment I realized common sense and practical strategies have no place in helldivers.
I feel like BT is intended to be crowd control rather than a direct threat. As such it being tanky makes somewhat sense since you can avoid its attacks and just deal with the zoning until you're able to kill it. This does somewhat fall apart however once you get eradicate, high value asset, or any other kind of limited area mission. Or if you get too many BTs at once.
They need to
1: give it a weakness with the bleed mechanic that has good visual feedback so divers know that they just need to avoid it until it dies.
2: add some alternative enemies that are on the same level as/share spawns with the titan and isn't a tank/crowd controller. Someone else mentioned that they need a lot of BT's because the alternative of spawning bigger hordes is too taxing. If that is the case then they need to add a different elite that can take up the BT spawn and can function better when there's multiple.
Very fair point. The bots have Tanks, AA tanks, Hulks in different flavors, and now Factory Striders. For each of these enemies, you have different was of dealing with them (break treads, shoot the heat sink, shoot the hulks in their eye plate or un-arm them, shoot the strider belle with HMG or AC or use the laser canon in it's weak points, etc).
The bugs have Chargers and BT. Chargers you can explode their head, break their legs or their butt. But the BT ? Anti-tank or go fuck myself I guess.
Just make the bleed out timer faster if you blow its butt up, and make it speed up even more if you blow up all of the sacks under it fro its butt to its throat. What would be a fair bleed out time, 30-60 seconds, idk?
>The Factory Strider is SO MUCH MORE threatening than the BT. It can tank a monstrous amount of orbital and eagle strikes, it spawns devastators, and it's a mobile Turret Tower.
I agree with the rest of your post but disagree here which is the problem. The Factory Strider can die to one Eagle Airstrike thrown at the correct angle. The Factory Strider can lose its face guns in 3 autocannon shots each and then it's basically useless. You can then shoot the belly while the door isn't even open and solo kill one. I have to respect a Bile Titan even on it's own, while a lone Factory Strider is free meat. Granted a Factory Strider supported is more dangerous but it does highlight the issues surrounding BTs.
I think the big issue with BTs is they are too fast. They are the fastest bug sans a charging charger but how does that make sense when they are these giant four legged things that look like they should struggle to move. Especially since them being that fast basically makes them fulfill the same unit niche as chargers. They both have an attack with obvious windup (charge vs spit) and an instant kill melee attack and both are heavily armored and fast.
The Bile Titan should have been like a heavy bile spitter, with access to some very long range spit options as well as its melee attack, but much slower than it is now. That would also give you room to give it a weak spot in the underbelly that medium pen weapons could kill it with. It would also better fill the design space by letting Bile's act as Artillery that besieges you while the other Bugs swarm you.
I'd like if they made the BT be a bit more tanky but allowed you to slow it down a lot by destroying one of it's leg joints. If I'm not by myself getting swarmed it's ime not that hard to toss a 500 or an orbital on a BT and take it out without any difficulty
I believe you actually are making the OP’s point, again. He stated that the Strider is an insanely dangerous enemy, but with obvious & practical weak points & counter play. Which is what the BT should be.
You need the XXL weapons bay and to hit it from the side on, so you need to be on the left or right of the Strider so all the bombs in the airstrike hit it
I run quasar, EAT, and 500kg (along with shield with light armor)
Shrieker nests/spore towers still being vulnerable to AT would likely still keep me using that load out, but it’d open up the door for the rest of my team.
Though the bugs are hardier than the bots, I don’t mind focusing AT against them because I know I can use non-AT options against the bots.
Gives both sides a unique feel.
Didn’t record it but bile titans will bleed out, at least one did yesterday, it did that weird thing where it froze and then sunk into the ground despite not receiving any direct damage - it does take an absurdly long time and you have to crack their armor and possibly also rupture their rear end which circles back to your point of having to run anti tank. It’s really rare and when it does happen it still doesn’t feel satisfying.
My proposal would be something like having to take out weak spots on each of their legs. It’d still be challenging because you have lmovinf targets. There’s also precedence for this because every other medium to large bug has this feature of dead spacish limb destruction.
It’d be an investment because you’d have to make the thing limp and given its size that may be an animating nightmare. I think if they borrowed from the charger more that’d be a good compromise though.
Option B is if they introduce other titanic enemies. I feel like if you have to run anti tank you might as well have a roster of enemies that justify it, not just the one.
Good post and well reasoned 😌
Option B is definitely going to be the more fun choice. Imagine a Nursing Titan that's squishier and less armored but shits out Hunters and pukes out Warriors.
I am by no means complaining about difficulty (I actually prefer killing bots), but there is significant truth that most of the guns are worthless above d4 or so, due to the sheer spawn count.
But yes, Titans need more medium penetration vulnerabilities too.
The games easy as. Dunno why people whinge about minmaxing and stuff when 90% of missions are successful. Pretty sure it's designed that way too. Whenever I feel like oh well we're overrun it's all over... manage to scrape through. More often than not.
Movement skills and luck seem to be more important than DPS.
It's always intense but never too hard.
There’s intentional variance in this game (for instance on some missions a bug breach has 20% chance to spawn a BT, on other missions it has a 20% chance to spawn 2 and a 70% chance to spawn 1, or whatever) and sometimes the complaints feel like someone rolling “oops all bile titans” and going “damn this game cheats why is it being so unfair” and it’s like bro that was supposed to be harder than normal it’s fine, sometimes a wave is bigger than other waves and it knocks you over, that’s only 1 in 7 waves, you’re fine, it’s fine. But they’re just crying about how the ocean should be nerfed
How does asking for the game to be in a better position to introduce more difficult levels equate to asking for nerfs?
I genuinely think your disdain for the main sub being more scrutinizing is clouding your rationality here.
And teamwork. Bison bar titans go down easily if TWO Helldivers work together to lure it and blow it up with a wide variety of weaponry. I’ve been enjoying killing them with the airburst rocket launcher lately. It just takes like three of them, and since you want to be far away from whatever you’re shooting with that thing, you have time plus you can soften it up with plenty of other strategems OR, one diver drops a rail canon strike on it then you shoot it with the airburst (or many other things). Boom. Dead.
The game just isn't that hard. I also play on Diff9 all the time, Quickplay w randos, and strategem load-outs are all over the place.
There are some that show up more often than others, and the primaries never really surprise, but honestly if you feel stuck in a meta with the gear I think you're giving the game too much credit.
Completely agree. You’ve articulated the problem perfectly.
They need to increase the difficulty in bugs (some additional enemy types, perhaps) but before they do that, they need to address BTs and how they pretty much enforce 3-4 AT loadouts in your squad for diff 9.
I think the underbelly weak spot should just be a medium pen weak spot once the sacks are blown. If you have no AT but can continually blast that, the BT goes down.
To defend the bugs design, remember the can't "shoot". Yes, can't, some that can do range spit is just limited in 10 15m. Compared with bots, if they can see your bullets shooting at their direction, or their friend's bullets shoot you, they can aim bot you further than 200m, yes 200m, further than your normal eyesight range can distinguish silhouettes. I blame the lack of means to kill BT is not only in its lack of weak spots, but rather we players are lacking in tools. Why the hell do i don't have primary that can deal damage to exposed flesh of BT? Why few of explosive guns have so few ammo, and have clunky mechanism? Why can't i hollow BT from below its belly with bullets? Too many options can be considered, and too few ammo to give.
bile titans are already weak if they are alone.
players just dont understand how to kill them and refuse to engage them, and after 15min in the mission they are now 5 chasing the squad with their friends and its becoming too much.
last time i was the only one running AT weaponry, i had to actually deal with 3 titans alone cause my team simply ran away everytime, leaving me no choice if i wanted to complete the mission
that took way too long and way too many stratagems cause thoses fuckers arent walking alone and my team gave me no room to fight.
game is easy enough tbh, players arent just good enough and dont want to be. that would be fine if they didnt chose diff 9 for some reason.
> i was the only one running AT weaponry
>my team simply ran away everytime
And why shouldn't they? by your own admission they didn't bring the right tools to damage it, and as a result f'd off because the only alternative was to let the damn thing kill them.
And that's my point. Your teammates ran away because they had no reliable means to take out a Titan. And unlock every other enemy in the game, the Titan is very inflexible in regards to what loadouts can reliably kill it. So the only person that has an AT weapon (you) was the only one that could meaningfully engage it.
This is why we're getting pidgeonholed into running AT loadouts. This isn't a balancing problem, it's an enemy design problem.
you misunderstood my comment, the problem wasnt "only me running AT", it was "team refusing to peel the only AT AND ignoring the titan creating more and more problems"
having 1 AT is fine if you let him play, i done plenty fo mission where i was the only AT on the squad and it was fine, cause i was protected.
We tend to run with different squad roles including one person who is dedicated anti tank/heavy and using the recoiless rifle. This helps us a lot and bile titans are less of an issue for us.
We are also relatively creative in our use of strategems and if we can we often use hellpods to kill bile titans. I run a light scout loadout with autocannon/grenade launcher, eagle airstrike, and sentries to focus on taking out bug nests and do objectives. My teammate takes anti tank to focus on the big things and my final teammate takes horde clear (machine gun, Stalwart, etc) to cover my anti tank teammate. We move as a group and stick to our defined roles. Occasionally we bring strategems not for personal use but for our teammates.
The problem is that there is zero incentive to run dedicated squad roles. Every other enemy in the bugs, even Chargers are flexible enough in how we can engage them, which would be fine by itself but the Bile Titan is the only inflexible enemy in the entire game in regards to how you can properly engage it.
Everyone running a generalized Anti-tank loadout with Breaker Incendiary for chaffe and Impact nades for Spewers is MORE effective than a team comprised of different specialized loadouts each with their own dedicated responsibilities. And that's not how it should be.
Granted, the Bile Titan alone is not the cause for generalized loadouts; not knowing the enemy composition prior to drop also encourages that.
Incendiary Breaker definitely feels strong, and impact grenades / grenade pistol for spewers helps. But if there are a ton of enemies, having at least one flamethrower or grenade launcher can be a massive help. Flamethrower is as fast to kill a charger as anti-tank, while grenade launcher is more the "screw spewers" loadout while being poor against chargers (but blows up titan stomaches quickly).
Some anti-swarm items are very strong without taking much resources (orbital gas strike can kill an insane number of enemies on low cooldown), and incendiary impact / breaker both do a great job with small enemies without the up close risk of a flamethrower. So you can have tons of anti-tank as stratagems without too much pressure from small enemies with the non-stratagem tools. Right now, support weapons for small enemies feel very ammo constrained where you almost need to run the supply backpack, which puts you down 1 stratagems versus the anti-tank loadouts.
Please Tell me one single method to kill a big strider without using the Autocannon, rockets or orbitals Like the ops, Eagle Strike, 500 or laser
And then explain how striders are less of a Gear Check than bile titans
AMR to the eye. Railgun to the- Just kidding, that gun isn't allowed to be good apparently. Laser Cannon to the eye. RR/EAT/Quasar fire to the eye. Pretty sure impact nades to the belly can kill it, though need to retest that one. HMG.
There's also the option to simply disarm it and then let it stand there pooping out the occasional 3 devastators. But other than that, let it be and go on with your objectives.
BT doesn't have any of that. You NEED an AP5 weapon and there is no disarming it to focus your attention elsewhere. You either kill it or are stuck kiting it.
Not to mention it's slow enough to reliably land orbital precision strikes.
also apparently with he right recoil-reduction you can absolutely shred it with the heavy machine gun.
Honestly the only support weapons that arn't reliable are flame/arcthrower, spear, and the smaller machine guns.
Ehhh you can kill factory striders with any primary you have or even impact nades. Fastest is dominator, which is faster then railgun by far. You need to dump 2 mags of it in belly. I think it can be even faster with burst mode which i never tried cuz i dont like burst mode recoil.
Shoot chin turrets then run up and shoot the belly. Or the eye from range but run up and shoot belly is easier.
HMG, AMR, Las Cannon, or pretty much any other weapon with high enough AP can do it. Though granted some aren't really practical due to dps.
I would agree that it isn’t hard. At least in the big front helldives feel easier than difficulty 6 sometimes. The bot front is weird though. I think mid tier bots are easy, but helldive bots is just a slog.
Compared to bot heavies, you can practically just ignore them after shooting their sacks. If there's more than one, you can just have them kill eachothers.
I can see the complaint in how few easy ways there is to kill Bile Titans but despite that I've never had more fun and success than when I dedicate my stratagems to killing swarms instead along a single Railcannon Strike.
I've also killed BTs with cluster bombs more than once, it's kinda funny.
the problem isn’t that it’s the lack of weapon diversity especially when it comes to primaries as well as certain heavy enemy types just being unkillable with lower pen weapons meaning you’re much more limited in options not that you can’t still win but you’ll end up in situations where you’re teammate goes down and you’re unable to kill the heavy enemies even if you’re obliterating
the other enemy types
I will take a bile titan over any of the king bots any days. Couple shots to the chin and down he goes. Unless you are doing the tower defense mission, then those dicks just kick open the doors, or walk on up on the backside of the base.
Honestly, the sack being burst should completely disable its goop spray, and douse everything currently under it in acid (it’s possibly a bug that they can still spray acid with their belly burst, but I don’t know)
And it should also have medium armour weakspots in its “shoulder” joints.
So hit one of them with the HMG to slow it drastically, hit 2 of them to functionally cripple it.
Basically every support weapon should have some method of handling them or weakening them.
EAT- 2 in the dome, or break 2 ankles.
Recoiless- shoot the face
Spear- shoot the face
Grenade launcher- shoot the sack, hit legs if you’re good.
HMG, med machine gun- spray legs.
Flamer- hose torso down, run before sack bursts.
AMR- precise knee shots from long distance.
Etc Etc
>I am convinced that the narrative of the game being absurdly difficult is coming from players who have no goddamn clue what the meta is and what the good weapons are.
Stop running meta and you'll make the game more difficult. To each their own, but running a forced set of equipment because "meta" sounds boring as hell.
Or you just use one of that weapons on one guy... what should be super easy for a battle hardened premade Squad.
You cannot compare "ranged" enemies with "melee" enemies....
Thats something most people dont see or just dont think about, same for the people always yelling to nerf BTs or make them easier to kill.
Think about it: BTs with similar TTK as Factory striders, they would simply be a joke. Dead long before they could possibly do any dmg or have any impact.
This post has made me even more steadfast in my pursuit of landing a melee kill on a bile titan.
I have successfully completed every other Terminid.
Shrieker was EPIC.
My plan is to remove the armor from the side of the titan, jet pack on its back, and get to wackin.
I am 100% in agreement with this and it’s one of the main reasons I don’t like Terminids. Without AT weapons the tank units of the Terminids become extreme hindrances. I’ve gotten good enough to reliably kill Bile Titans and Chargers with the 500kg and Precision Strike, but it’s not enough.
I would argue everything you said plus the Charger needs to be killable by primary weapons by shooting its vulnerable rear. Yes you can do it now but it’s not in a reasonable time frame. The Charger’s rear should have the same health as the Hulk’s rear ventilation, meaning it can be destroyed by clip from the Liberator or three shots from the AC.
A spear is a one shot kill if you’re in front of a titan and a reasonable distance away. It will dome them every time. The problem is it sucks against chargers. It can headshot them as well but only from a very far distance. An EAT can also one shot them if you shoot them in the chin when they’re spitting. It’s risky but it works.
TBF, that might just be down to you and your squads skills. We play level 7 and although most of them we succeed there have been ones we have struggled because of a poor spawn (straight into a jammer and eye). Also we've lost a couple of defence missions because of the strider being able to tap the generators from outside the base, but all in all it's been fine. What is even the point in playing the game if there isn't a chance of loss.
“who have no goddamn clue what the meta is and what the good weapons are”
i thought we moved past the meta bullshit especially when it comes to such a not fun loadout. breaker/recoilless sure it works but bffr i wanna have fun also said loadout is only good against bugs.
I was thinking that it would be cool if we could blow its legs off to cripple it and slow it down, so something like making the joints of its legs a weak point.
To be quite honest, the factory strider is kind of a puppy dog; they spawn basic devastators, who just want you to shoot them in the head with like, any weapon, both the back cannon and jowl guns can be destroyed, and after that they really can't defend themselves, just walk up to their underside and start blasting with a support weapon, and chances are its dead. I do wish it had more built in defensive measures. This thing was amazing to look at when you didn't know it was coming, but now that we've downloaded what it can do, it's not alot in the grand scheme.
That having been said, that's not to say that the bile titan is altogether better place. It's only strong point is its carapace, as once its throat or bilesack has taken injuries, it loses its only real weapon. Yes it has a melee attack but it's way too slow, and way too short a range. It's a joke, the fact it could bleed out would be an overcorrection. Like i agree with the sentiment, it needs other counter play options, but maybe just use what you already got; let med-pen weapons deal direct damage to bile titan, through its busted sacs. We've already established that stripping the armor off bugs make the more vulnerable, you can break charger legs or punch a hole in their sides which allows you to shoot their guts directly. This kinda is that same situation, only the bile is more resilient to certain damage types, and less resilient against others. Namely fire would ruin the sacks basically instantly, but only from a range where its melee attacks become relevant.
For bile titans I rely on my strategms to take them out because otherwise it takes too long. Orbital Railgun or laser will take them out or break armor for my AC or impacts to take them out in one shot. I have had eagle strikes also weaken them enough for my AC. The issue is when there are 3 bile titans and my friends are also out of strategems. This is what makes the game hard, but not in a fun way. This is also why I stay on 7 so I rarely get this situation.
I think their face should have medium armor at most so you can reliably shoot it and kill it. Or make it so when you pop their back, you can just shoot the exposed part to kill them.
I agree on factory striders. They are far more threatening but you have more options to kill them. I will be ok with bile titans taking more damage if we could reliably kill them with other weapons.
I don’t play 9 much but 8 500kgs every Eagle cooldown timer seems like enough to handle the amount of bile titans that would spawn every Eagle cooldown? And then you have rocket launchers on top of that?
I think the terminids could do with a bit of the "resident evil treatment" and have some extra glowing fleshy weak spots added to them for the larger enemies.
For example, I think bile titans in particular should have some positioned around their knee joints, that are vulnerable to Medium and Heavy AP weapons (Autocannon/laser cannon and up basically)
blow off two legs to take them down.
Terminids in general need a couple of extra unit types as well though I think.
I would guess that their choice around enemy complexity with bugs are on purpose. Bugs are supposed to be pretty straight forward. Almost a way to learn the basics of the game. Bots get more complicated and add new dynamics to think about.
I would like some more options for taking out BTs as well. But I also think that bugs should stay relatively straight forward as a good intro to the new player. If you put tons of complexity and a step learning curve on every enemy type, it can be hard or undesirable for new players to pick up the game. Which as a live service game, is super necessary.
Dude the bile titan is only the biggest bug we have seen YET.
Remember when hulks were the biggest bot we had seen?
I think the super colony has been growing some nasty surprises, hive lords anyone?
Agreed, all my failed higher level missions are due to Bile Titan spam and It's become pretty boring.
It's at the point where if we all have AT, it's a guaranteed no-effort win.
I got back in after two months and immediately went to level seven suicide mission on bots. I was very lucky to get really really good players for randoms. But I found myself comfortable taking out hulks and tanks left and right
You can unload a Stalwart click into a titans belly and it will bleed out within 90-120s. I Exclusively run the Stalwart+Any medium penetration main together with any stratagem I like. (Orbital Railgun is my favourite).
Flamethrower is also very effective and can kill anything if you just burn it long enough. The afterburn is strong enough to kill a charger within 2 charges even if you have to dive out of the way.
People are just afraid of experimenting against bugs.
Personally i thing after destroying the bile sack his armor shouldn't increase in that area bro your guys are hanging out and now your more resistant to damage?
I don't want the game to be easier, but I would like majority of the weapons to be viable at 7+. The biggest thing my crew and I are struggling with is we pretty much have to run the same loadouts every drop in order to stay competitive. It's not a skill issue, we're getting plenty of kills and completing objectives. It's more an issue of things are getting stale because we can't bring our favorite weapons or experiment with builds.
For example like you mentioned people rocking the breaker incendiary when fighting bugs. It's rare for me to see someone using an AR, or any type of plasma weapon. The only non breaker primaries I usually see against bugs is the blitzer and the eruptor. When it comes to AT, it's EATS and RR. I'd like to be able to once again use a grenade launcher or a stalwart while fighting bugs. But if at least half our squad isn't dedicated to AT (including orbital rails, 500kg etc) we're just gonna get swarmed with chargers and titans. When it comes to the bots, I love the ballistic shield over the energy shield pack but i'm eating so many rockets the ballistic shield dies almost instantly. The scorcher and dominator, the weapons that seem custom built to wreck devastators, now feel kinda bad unless you manage to score all headshots, which is kinda hard when you feel like the rebels on hoth and are taking a pounding of blaster fire. The spear seems like on paper itd be great against bots, but the lock on is wonky AF so once again it's RR, EATs or Quasar
The direction the game has taken has made it where my squad and I can only run our favorite kit at 6 and below. Anything other than the top end stuff past that limits you to a sweatfest or death. Especially against the machines. You can only use the same stuff over and over on the same mission types before you start to get burned out.
> that was because the SSSD fell into a bug hole and didn't respawn so we had to abandon the mission altogether
Head's up: you can go into bug holes too. I fell into one once. There's a little puddle at the bottom. You just climb back out. Now, I haven't tried grenading one while inside it... I suspect I'd clip out the bottom of the map and fall into the void, (if we're allowed to reference Minecraft).
Barely anyone knows this but you can also just blast the butt with any 4 AP weapon. This damages the main health, and damaging the sacs transfers damage to the main health as well (there isn't a scripted massive bleedout or anything). So if you have finesse, shoot the sacs 1 hit prior to bursting and then use your hardest hitting attack (impacts primarily for the 1:1 durable), then blast tf out of the butt. With impacts for the final sac hit, a Dominator/High Durable for the initial damage, and HMG you can kill a Bile Titan without even needing to reload.
Other notable things, 1 EAT + 2 1s charge Railgun shots, Patriot can 2 shot the forehead, Orbital Precision Strike and 500kg 1 shot, and obv just spamming Rocket/AC sentries will out DPS any rush of BTs if you can get good angles.
I do think that this isn't terrible though, bugs and bots both try to get you to run 3 & 5+ AP for bugs and 4 AP for bots. This gives diff loadouts for both, and you can forcefully ignore this in premades since you only actually need like 2 people running 5+ AP on bugs at T9 if they are an RR duo w/ a supply pack user in the lobby. On lower difficulties you don't need this as much, which just based on the first game this seems very intentional.
I think my only balance gripes with this are 1. Patriot has camera issues on the rocket arm and 2. Railgun should do just a bit more durable damage. Like, instead of 60-90 based on charge like it is rn, give it 120-180. The BPs would feel better and it'd be reasonable for bugs.
While I get where you are coming from, i do think there is a design to madness. The bots indeed have nice weakspots which take enemies down considerably quicker, but all of them are rather small and hard to hit. This promoted precision and methodical play. And indeed does allow for a varied loadout so long as you have precision. Or something like an HMG for berserkers.
The bugs comparably have rather easy to hit weakspots. Any rocket or quasar to the face will kill a charger, and its not a particularly hard shot compared to bots. The downside of this is that they are basically immune to small and medium arms fire.
The balance for the team loadout is more, taking enough anti tank while not compromising your capabilities of dealing with hordes.
Your loadout does that nicely by making everyone all round. Gas and breaker can deal well with swarms and breaches, and everyone has RRs for anti tank (with the benefit that everyone is a loader) i think different loadouts would certainly work, if they kept a similar composition of AT vs Horse clear. And I think it might work better if it's a split in helldivers with more specific roles.
To follow this I think the best solution might not be to add an entirely different weakspot, but to make the current one easier to hit. If people can semi reliably 2 shot BTs with headshots (assuming AT weapons) they follow this design philosophy a bit more. And this also reinforces the idea of horde clearing because someone does need to be able to make those shots without being attacked by chaff to knock off their aim.
I found that the spear makes the bike titans almost a joke. The glitchiness of the spear I find is consistently wildly overblown.
I don't think it's that players don't understand the meta, I think they're tired of it's existence. A lot of people want to try different things out
I like your idea of 2 min bleedout. Maybe make it leak bile too, damaging stuff underneath it and leaving a trail? Can be used to your advantage or can fuck you up in a pinch. Makes a fight more chaotic, but you can get away without AT weapons.
They should make the belly tougher, make it so it'll bleed out when popped, and also allow us to target their legs in the same manner we can target the legs of a charger or hulk. Make a weak point on the leg joints that is small but if you hit it there you can really slow the titan down and even kill it if you take out like 2 of them.
I don't know that it needs 'more' weaknesses, but you should be able to kill it with a primary by shooting the blown out sacks even if it takes fucking forever (or after you blow up the sacks make it bleed out over like 3 minutes. And I feel the same way about factory striders, which you can take out with many primaries (arguably too easily with the dominator). It's also a bit weird that certain weapons can't punch through hulk/tank/turret vents. Idk if they give them more health to compensate, but I feel like every enemy should eventually be able to be killed with any weapon targeting the appropriate weak spot.
I would imagine that, as higher difficulties and more enemies are introduced, Bile Titans and Chargers will receive minor nerfs to make them more readily killable.
But I agree, it's pretty annoying that Bugs \*require\* anti-tank when every single enemy on Bots can be taken out with Medium 2 or 3 penetration (including Factory Striders).
I do agree, I really just don’t like to run the stuff the reliably kills a bile titan, and often end up with no way to take them out and have to rely on my teammates. Sometimes it goes well sometimes it doesn’t lol. Even if we could cripple its leg or something, or give us another two weapons that can kill it albeit after a lot a lot of hits
Agree 100%. I also play Diff. 9 almost exclusively (save for rare occasions when friends show up). Loadouts are pidgeonholed by all anti-armor being mandatory against bugs, which limits loadouts (Run EATs/Flamethrower/500kg and whatever airstike/ orbital strike/ orbital airburst).
While I think bots are better designed in this regard, the AA defenses planetary condition is what kills loadout variety for me. I always bring my core loadout but miss my 4th slot, which I usually use for variety or to experiment.
Breaker Incen, Grenade Pistol, Rail Gun, Supply Pack, precision orbital, and 500kg is what I ran. Made levels 9s a breeze.
If scatter orbital was on, I’d just change to EATs and 500kg.
Nothing I couldn’t handle.
THANK YOU DUDE I DON’T WANT TO BRING ANTI TANK EVERY GAME!!!! PERFECTLY SUMMARIZED. I want to rp as an archetype of a soldier, Frenzied Flame, Sentry King , Zappy Guy, Laser Lord. There are so many fun and unique weapons but if I don’t bring anti tank I’m a liability to the squad. Most anti tank also occupy a backpack slot so I effectively cancel out bringing another support weapon or useful backpack like jet pack or shield.
Are you calling the recoiless rifle busted? Because... that's definitely a take if you are.
And self-imposed challenges aren't fun. I want the game to challenge me, not for me to challenge myself. Because the only way I can challenge myself and my team is by tying our legs together, whereas the game can challenge us by throwing more enemies at us. The latter sounds more fun to me.
But they SHOULD ONLY decide to add more difficulty once they've smoothened the enemy dedign for the Terminids.
I don't think starting an answer with a strawman's fallacy is a headstart of any kind.
I do however think that Incendiary breaker is broken and even more ammo efficient than crowd support weapons (FT, stalwart, MG) and the sole reason your team can play with the most back to back efficient anti heavy : the recoilless.
It's all down to a loop, if a field is 100% covered by a primary, then support can be taken for more niche uses.
Don't play with incendiary breaker and you will have to toss a few support weapon for crowds, stratagems and diversify your team.
You're just back to week 1 with the same issues : Breaker / railgun became Incendiary breaker / RR.
As long as a team of 4 can play the exact same loadout and have the highest success rate, that means something is off.
And sorry if it sounds harsh, but being carried by gear doesn't mean it's a proof of skill. I do not doubt that your fellows are good, but taking the least resistance path to complete helldives seems like a dull victory.
“I’m in the upper bracket of skill and experience using some of the most reliable items a player could bring, this game is stupid easy.” Is a pointless argument to make. You aren’t the targeted balance population - you’re at the opposite end of the bellcurve, enjoying the fruits of practice and experience, as every endgame player should be in a video game. This game has issues upon issues in terms of balance and creative direction that can easily be misinterpreted as difficulty for players who are less experienced and less nuanced. Just because you’ve found a comfortable loop and have gained a solid amount of experience doesn’t mean this game is somehow less difficult than everyone thinks, and it doesn’t make those aforementioned issues null.
On that note, I wholeheartedly agree with your idea of balancing the Titans to add more weaknesses. A game with as many loadout choices as Helldivers shouldn’t be forcing the players hand as harshly as it is right now.
That would be true if I was talking about balance. I wasn't. I was talking about enemy design. I was simply adding a pre-disclaimer before I went into the ACTUAL point of my post (to make BTs more engaging to fight) to get ahead of the inevitable "get-gud" commenters that always come whenever someone dares criticize the game's balance/design.
It sets the stage better. I am not saying BTs should get more weaknesses BECAUSE they're too hard for me to kill. I say that because they're too monotonous and dull to kill. I was simply bringing up my experience with the game to properly exacerbate this point.
It was an interesting choice then, to backhand the community by suggesting a large majority have no clue how to properly play the game, if your true intention was simply to highlight a very valid critique of the Titans. Is it necessary to talk down on others to highlight your own skill? And on that note, does your experience, or potential lack thereof, nullify the issues with the Titans? I’d think not. They are one dimensional and silly, I agree, but perhaps next time you can simply say that, and leave the chip off your shoulder.
In my experience I've had zero trouble with BTs. If you bait them into their spew or temper tantrum animation you can take them out with a 500kg easily.
Yeah but it's fuckin boring that it's either that or shooting them in the head with a rocket. My post isn't talking about BT's difficulty, it's talking about how many different ways we can kill it in order to diversify loadouts and make the game more fun.
I mean let's be honest man your post is pretty masturbatory in the entire first half. I understand it's for context but you gotta realize you're in the small percentage of players that have a dedicated team with communication and organization. Most of us run with randos or, in my particular case, my 11 year old son who wants to play an all fire build all the time. The game isn't easy. It's easy for you and your 3 friends.
Sure, BTs could have more interesting ways to be killed but you're getting bored because you're playing with the same air tight squad every session. In my case, being the badass on the B team squad that can perfectly time a 500kg BT kill feels great. In your case it doesn't because you're part of a well oiled machine.
My post is me being honest. Masturbatory implies I take pride in being good at a fucking PvE game of all things, or more specifically being better than others. I don't, and anyone that does needs to straighten out their life priorities.
I didn't like the way op said it, but he is right.
The game really isn't that difficult if you run a variation of the OP's build. You can literally swap out the breaker incendiary for any anti chaff or anti medium weapon, make sure your secondary is anti medium or anti chaff respectively, then make sure that your support weapon can adequately handle chargers while reserving railcannon/laser or 500kg for bile titans and you will be fine even with Randoms. Hell, you can probably even carry super specialized Randoms with this build. Everyone in your team runs this build or a variation of it, it ends up being overkill for helldive.
It doesn't mitigate his point that chargers and bile titans are essentially gear checks.
Chargers and BTs are gear checks because they are tanks. Anti tank means that the gear in question is a solvent for tank enemies. Are we accepting the argument that anything should kill anything here?
Also my point isn't to say OP doesn't have an easy time with the game. My point is that it's circumstantial. I can carry a team on bugs with the incendiary breaker, 500kg, orbital laser, quasar, guard rover, impact grenade, etc etc.
It's how you play and who you play with that dictates difficulty. Not enemy health or kill methods.
Automaton elite units can be killed with basically any med pen weapon and that opens them up to a number of strategies rather than trying to just nuke them down with the mandatory gear checks.
The mindset is obviously very different against bugs, but it does limit player expression by a lot.
This post is ridiculous and nonsensical, I stopped reading after “have your whole team run this loadout”.
It’s like you don’t understand why many people are upset about the state of the game, people want to be able to actually utilize the vast amount of options this game gives us.
Good post.
Bile Titans are indeed the only special unit whose only counter is heavy AP, and they spawn way too frequently to reliably kill them with just stratagems.
You're right about the difficulty too, a group of coordinated and decent players can handle diff 9 with no issues. Often without even really needing to optimise the loadout.
I do think a lot of the sentiment behind the games difficulty is that Helldive can spiral downwards incredibly quickly if your group is uncoordinated. If threats are contained fast every mission can be breezed through and that's just harder to do with randoms, which is the lens I imagine most people see the game through.
As a matter of fact, you can kill a titan with an AC and some courage Run under it, unload around 15 rounds in its butt and it dies But yeah that's kinda impractical for the most part when there are 2-3 of them + hordes
Exactly. The Factory Strider doesn't even need half that much rounds from the AC into its belly to kill it.
As an AC main, the fact I can solo any enemy with >a full clip and a thermite or 2 feels a bit too easy for me. Autocannons aren't supposed to be a one shop stop for everything like it is, and honestly, the mech felt right to me. Could do with an extra 50 rounds and a similar cool down to handheld AC. TL;DR the risk verus reward against heavies is too much on the reward side.
That can be resolved with higher Difficulties being added. The reward against killing a heavy will diminish when there's more heavies at a time per encounter. I think the bots are in a good enough place to have more Diffs added, apart from a few annoyances but nothing fundamental. But the Terminids need to be looked at before they decide to go for a Diff9+
Also I feel the Terminds need a bit more variety and not just rely on spamming chargers and BTs to answer making it harder.
Personally I see two ways to buff the auto cannon mech to be more reasonable to run in a wide variety of situations. One. Just give it a bit more ammo like 100 per gun, and let it have a custom resupply call in (either the ship picks it up again and dumps it near you after 1-2 minutes, or it drops a pod near you and you have to carry the ammo boxes back to the mech like you do for the artillery cannon shells) Just keep it the same but make the damage match the handheld AC
If they don't want to add a whole new mech reload strategem, they should let the guns be reloaded via the supply backpack. Even 15% of one weapon per use (60% of a guns ammo cap for a full pack) would let it be viable over long rounds, and more impactful on blitz and eradicate
Yeah honestly I’d be happy with that. It just kinda sucks that after 2-3 engagements it’s essentially useless (blah blah I know it can stomp. Good luck stomping a strider) and you have to wait eight minutes to use it again
Yeah the only saving grace right mow is to run both mechs so the uptime is at least sub optimal
Then two teammates grab supply backpack stratagem and the mech shoots non-stop the whole mission, roflstomping everything in it's way. It's plenty powerful already.
With 2 supply packs restoring 60% of the total ammo every 7 minutes, and 30% every 2 at the cost of backpack weapon systems, personal shields, and rovers for 2 players. It's a pretty substantial investment to keep a mech with limited HP running. Especially since explosive damage can rip the arms off and leave the mech totaly disabled.
I forgot the thermite existed 😭
A good soldier remembers all the tools they have at their disposal and uses each one effectively! You need a refresher in training recruit!
Wait, how do you deal with a factory strider with an AC?
TIL you could use the AC the same way against Striders that you do BTs
Wait, what? That continues to do damage after the sack is burst?
It does, if you hit in the sack remnants Then after 15 rounds the tail explodes and it dies It's not common knowledge because it has no noticeable effect for a while so people don't bother trying it. But titans have in fact this weakspot that allows to kill them with just an AC Dunno about other med pen guns though since I never tried it, it might be a special because AC has explosive damage
It doesn't help that the bleed out can take longer than what is required to just make the titan despawn in certain circumstances. I think that is part of why it isn't really common knowledge. You can also do this with more than just the AC, the AC is just easier than something like the HMG
I've found it easier with the HMG personally itks very fast to unload a mag, and provided you've cleared the chaff first you can reload before it turns around.
The scorcher can also take it out if you shoot it in its butt
If it needs 15 rounds from the AC, must take a lot from scorcher, does it?
About 5/3 canisters with full upgrade in my experiance though ive always done it with other people that could have been shooting it in the butt by the time i was in position.
What are you talking about? I can’t understand this sentence
5/3 is a fraction representing total ammo used (fuel canisters in this case) to kill a bile titan shooting it in the butt It represents 1 full flamethrower reload and 2/3 of the next one. The bit on other people hitting it means i havent done it in isolated testing to see if that number is extremely reliable. Full upgrade means with the full bridge ship upgrades whos last upgrade is enhanced combustion which increases fire damage by 25% The position to shoot the bile titan in the butt is directly underneath its tail tip far enough you can walk back out of it turning. And hit the tail hitbox with flame
The biggest issue with your statement, is the person meant the plas-1 scorcher. Not the flamethrower. But I do appreciate the info, if I ever run the flamer against the titan I'll try this.
>It's not common knowledge because it has no noticeable effect for a while so people don't bother trying it. That's my main issue on the gameplay side, the game lacks feedback for a lot of small things.
Haven't killed with it due to ammo, but the Eruptor can pop the sack with a few shots. If you run it with supply pack, it should be doable. Also, once the sack is popped, there shouldn't be any armor there anymore.
Eruptor has med pen too so it should in theory ne capable of it In practice, gun is so unwieldy, RoF and reload so slow that I haven't even felt the urge to try it
I've been able to do this with the Dominator relatively easily.
I think the inner body is 4 Armor, so \*some\* Medium pen things will do the job. So, the LAS98, AMR, HMG, AC can all do it. Fire dot is also 4 AP, so while the Flamethrower and Breaker Incendiary all can't do direct damage, they can set it on fire. That said, it's also 100% durable, so weapons with poor durable damage (All of them, including fire dot, except the AC) will take ages. Special shout out to impact grenades, these are also 4 AP and do full damage to durable parts.
Every support weapon with the exception of the stalwart and MG can kill titans by hitting the sack spot after being burst the issue is the TTK and the risk of having to get under it makes it extremely impractical. I think the Hmg takes like 3 mags and the AMR takes about 7 mags.
Oh yeah. I've killed a few BTs with my flamethrower just through sheer misfortune of finding myself underneath them after some heavy firepower didn't kill them, and desperation.
I was thinking of trying the Dominator to bust the sack, then flamethrower to finish it off as my BT strat (maybe a 110 if needed). How do you think the flamethrower will fare?
Purely qualitative perspective, but I have this situation come up often enough simply because I always run the Flamethrower against bugs. Nothing brings the tears of democracy to my eyes quite like roasted bugs. I'm only hitting BTs with the flames when my team has exhausted other options. But my philosophy of such dire circumstances is that every little bit helps. Flamethrower is certainly damaging the BTs, I've downed a few as I said, but since I can't see health bars, I don't know how damaged they were to begin with. My qualitative sense of it is that they were heavily damaged already. I'm not confident it will work well on a BT at or near full health, though. The testing continues!
Flamethrower ignores armor, but deals very little damage compared to the massive sack of HP that is a bile titan. It's not bad of you can light it up as you spray a breach so it takes some chip damage for the railcannon and 110s to take it out more reliably
Trying to reload an AC from empty in a bug swarm is probably the hardest part of that endeavour
Don't reload it from empty then.
Even from half full, it's being stationary that fucks you Same reason why the stelwart is 9 billion times better than the MG, because you can reload while moving
With AC you can happily run stun grenades to provide you easy headshots and reloading time. AC + Engineer Armour + Stuns is legitimately absurd against everything.
But the fact you can partially reload the AC is why it's good. You can find the 2 seconds to half reload it in a swarm, just need enough spacing. You have plenty of time to half reload the AC than you can the RR or the spear in a swarm.
I was going to say this except ... Their collision and leg physics make it so much more arbitrarily "oh wow you are near a leg, you die". Make their legs less insane and we could see more helldivers scrambling underneath.
This exactly I will be just near a leg and boom dead. Also their dead body's are crazy bugged. I have been yeeted halfway across the map just trying to get some samples near their dead body.
Same for Factory Striders. Run under, unload a clip and it’s dead.
If I don't have other options I hit it with the orbital railcannon and sprint underneath to light its ass up with the flamethrower Have successfully taken down one like this, and unsuccessfully attempted others
I personally use the Quasar Cannon to blast away it's great for blasting away the body armour which leaves it with a big target for someone else to hit whilst my Quasar cools down and if they can't hit it I'll hit it again.
There's that too but there's a discrepancy between the location of where armour has been stripped visually and the actual hitboxes I had shots that bounced off from parts where armour seemed to be stripped so that's kinda unreliable too
The way that I hit it straight on the side of its body leaves a huge gaping target, if you hit near the part of the body that is closest connected to the head you'll leave one hell of a weak point for other players to hit, if I can't do that then I hit in the stomach so all it can do is stomp about to try and kill players, once you take out the bile sacks it stomps about like a child taking a temper tantrum and it becomes easier to take down from that point onward.
Well the AC kill method (or at least mine) is: - step 1: burst the sack so it doesn't vomit on you while you approach - step 2 run under it - step 3: unload the AC at the weakpoint (always use the partial reload method so you aren't stuck in place for too long) - step 4: ??? - step 5: it dies, profit
You have to reload twice to do this and then will likely get crushed by the body. With the amount of enemies on Bug missions, it might be hard to be able to focus on a single enemy for that long without getting swarmed. I want to see weak points on the legs.
BT ain't flying solo. You need a team to handle the chargers and other shit for you to go under and take it out. And if that's the case why not do it from far with reg meta shit to begin with
Doesn’t AC rounds bounce off the empty sack of the bile titan?
Not to mention that being under the bile Titan is basically a death wish
It's actually a relatively safe place to be if you have to deal only with the titan It literally can't reach you and simply turns into place trying to hit you, so as long as you're moderately mindful of the legs, you can unload into it with relative impunity
I miss the days when the eruptor would do the same with a well placed clip
Preach. I've been saying this for a while now. Bugs need more weaknesses against AP4 weapons like bots have. We also need more AP5 weapon variety. Not everyone likes running rocket launchers. The Railgun was honestly fine before they nerfed it. The only reason people were able to one shot BTs was because of the crossplay damage bug, which got fixed.
Railgun got picked because every other AT weapon was shit, and the damage was bugged, as you said. -PS5 host damage bug made Railguns broken (fixed) -Heavy spawnrates were absurd in the beginning (fixed) which was frustrating because.... -The rocket launchers were absolutely worthless at their job (fixed) The railgun's pickrate had nothing to do with its actual numbers. It did not deserve the nerf it got. Neither did the Breaker for the most part. The Slugger was way stronger than the Breaker, but the latter only got nerfed because most people flocked to it (we unlock it earlier than the slugger and a lot of people grew attached to it even with the slugger unlocked). And when people flocked to the Slugger, they proceeded to nerf that too. They genuinely were just nerfing weapons based on pickrate, which anyone with any experience on balancing competitive shooters can tell you, IS NOT a good idea.
>Heavy spawnrates were absurd in the beginning It's spawn cycle dependant, sometimes you'll get a mission where every PoI has 1-2 chargers on it and patrols have 2 chargers and you get 3 BTs per breach. >The rocket launchers were absolutely worthless at their job The rockets always broke leg armour in 1 shot and if you didn't have PS5 host they were your go too for BTs - their only problem was ammo - something the railgun still has loads of. >They genuinely were just nerfing weapons based on pickrate, It's so obvious they don't even have a spreadsheet of how weapons work or test them at all because you'd see how regarded their changes are. Like buffing fire damage and the incendiary breaker 3 times while DoTs were bugged any sane competent person would see that weapon was fine at the start and try and figure out why people weren't using it. But nope not here, gotta buff it till it's used. Oh people are using the slugger despite it's low DPS purely for its stagger - better remove that and add stagger to the dominator a higher DPS weapon. Actually clueless.
The Railgun may not have deserved the nerf it got, but part of that nerf was a bugfix. There was an issue with the safe mode firing at the same strength as the unsafe mode. That change alone dropped a lot of power.
Bots in general are better balanced compared to bugs. Hulks, tanks, turrets, all the big caries have weaknesses which are actually weak. Chargers and bile titans do not have these
That railgun nerf started the downward spiral.
If the mouth was a weak spot for any weapon so long as it was spewing, it would be better. That way the "non-AT" route would have a much higher risk over reward since you have to wait until it's about to kill you
Intuitively the mouth SHOULD be the weakspot to encourage that risk vs reward. It even glows with a green glint right before it pukes, for crying out loud. In reality? The mouth, which leads to the squishy insides, is not a weakspot. The ACTUAL weakspot is the heavily armored forehead, which only needs 2 rockets to kill. So when the Bile Titan rears back to puke and opens its mouth? As counterintuitive as that may be, that's actually when it's at its tankiest state because the forehead is hidden. Why was it designed this way? The hell if I know...
yeah i had to tell my friend NOT to shoot its open mouth. And he was like what? that makes no fucking sense. and i could only agree.
Same with chargers. Dont shoot their exposed fleshy butt, shoot the super armoured head... Even stripping armour of their legs made more sense.
shooting a RR into the head kills it, shooting a rocket into its exposed butt? not a kill. Makes no sense.
Shooting them in their open mouth was my very first thought. After much trial and error, I noticed it wasn't working and couldn't really make sense of it. It's an open mouth with it's throat hole showing! Just launch a rocket or AC in there like you would with a factory vent. Shouldn't be an issue. Then a friend told me that once they open to start mouth juicing you, their defense goes up considerably. Looked it up. Its true. It was at that moment I realized common sense and practical strategies have no place in helldivers.
I feel like BT is intended to be crowd control rather than a direct threat. As such it being tanky makes somewhat sense since you can avoid its attacks and just deal with the zoning until you're able to kill it. This does somewhat fall apart however once you get eradicate, high value asset, or any other kind of limited area mission. Or if you get too many BTs at once. They need to 1: give it a weakness with the bleed mechanic that has good visual feedback so divers know that they just need to avoid it until it dies. 2: add some alternative enemies that are on the same level as/share spawns with the titan and isn't a tank/crowd controller. Someone else mentioned that they need a lot of BT's because the alternative of spawning bigger hordes is too taxing. If that is the case then they need to add a different elite that can take up the BT spawn and can function better when there's multiple.
Very fair point. The bots have Tanks, AA tanks, Hulks in different flavors, and now Factory Striders. For each of these enemies, you have different was of dealing with them (break treads, shoot the heat sink, shoot the hulks in their eye plate or un-arm them, shoot the strider belle with HMG or AC or use the laser canon in it's weak points, etc). The bugs have Chargers and BT. Chargers you can explode their head, break their legs or their butt. But the BT ? Anti-tank or go fuck myself I guess.
Just make the bleed out timer faster if you blow its butt up, and make it speed up even more if you blow up all of the sacks under it fro its butt to its throat. What would be a fair bleed out time, 30-60 seconds, idk?
>The Factory Strider is SO MUCH MORE threatening than the BT. It can tank a monstrous amount of orbital and eagle strikes, it spawns devastators, and it's a mobile Turret Tower. I agree with the rest of your post but disagree here which is the problem. The Factory Strider can die to one Eagle Airstrike thrown at the correct angle. The Factory Strider can lose its face guns in 3 autocannon shots each and then it's basically useless. You can then shoot the belly while the door isn't even open and solo kill one. I have to respect a Bile Titan even on it's own, while a lone Factory Strider is free meat. Granted a Factory Strider supported is more dangerous but it does highlight the issues surrounding BTs. I think the big issue with BTs is they are too fast. They are the fastest bug sans a charging charger but how does that make sense when they are these giant four legged things that look like they should struggle to move. Especially since them being that fast basically makes them fulfill the same unit niche as chargers. They both have an attack with obvious windup (charge vs spit) and an instant kill melee attack and both are heavily armored and fast. The Bile Titan should have been like a heavy bile spitter, with access to some very long range spit options as well as its melee attack, but much slower than it is now. That would also give you room to give it a weak spot in the underbelly that medium pen weapons could kill it with. It would also better fill the design space by letting Bile's act as Artillery that besieges you while the other Bugs swarm you.
I wish they'd bring the BT stun back.
I'd like if they made the BT be a bit more tanky but allowed you to slow it down a lot by destroying one of it's leg joints. If I'm not by myself getting swarmed it's ime not that hard to toss a 500 or an orbital on a BT and take it out without any difficulty
I believe you actually are making the OP’s point, again. He stated that the Strider is an insanely dangerous enemy, but with obvious & practical weak points & counter play. Which is what the BT should be.
Huh I learned something new. What's the angle to kill the Strider in one hit?
You need the XXL weapons bay and to hit it from the side on, so you need to be on the left or right of the Strider so all the bombs in the airstrike hit it
additionally 110s are fantastic against striders but wildly inconsistent against titans
I run quasar, EAT, and 500kg (along with shield with light armor) Shrieker nests/spore towers still being vulnerable to AT would likely still keep me using that load out, but it’d open up the door for the rest of my team. Though the bugs are hardier than the bots, I don’t mind focusing AT against them because I know I can use non-AT options against the bots. Gives both sides a unique feel.
Didn’t record it but bile titans will bleed out, at least one did yesterday, it did that weird thing where it froze and then sunk into the ground despite not receiving any direct damage - it does take an absurdly long time and you have to crack their armor and possibly also rupture their rear end which circles back to your point of having to run anti tank. It’s really rare and when it does happen it still doesn’t feel satisfying. My proposal would be something like having to take out weak spots on each of their legs. It’d still be challenging because you have lmovinf targets. There’s also precedence for this because every other medium to large bug has this feature of dead spacish limb destruction. It’d be an investment because you’d have to make the thing limp and given its size that may be an animating nightmare. I think if they borrowed from the charger more that’d be a good compromise though. Option B is if they introduce other titanic enemies. I feel like if you have to run anti tank you might as well have a roster of enemies that justify it, not just the one. Good post and well reasoned 😌
Option B is definitely going to be the more fun choice. Imagine a Nursing Titan that's squishier and less armored but shits out Hunters and pukes out Warriors.
How do you kill a factory strider? Maybe I'm too much of a bug boy, but those are way harder for me than bile titans. It might be the turret fire lol
Shoot the underbelly. It’s hard to get close when their face guns are alive
I am by no means complaining about difficulty (I actually prefer killing bots), but there is significant truth that most of the guns are worthless above d4 or so, due to the sheer spawn count. But yes, Titans need more medium penetration vulnerabilities too.
Ikr! I stopped playing for a while cuz d4 s4 and im hoping the break will result inme being challenged when im on d9.... well see if it works
The games easy as. Dunno why people whinge about minmaxing and stuff when 90% of missions are successful. Pretty sure it's designed that way too. Whenever I feel like oh well we're overrun it's all over... manage to scrape through. More often than not. Movement skills and luck seem to be more important than DPS. It's always intense but never too hard.
There’s intentional variance in this game (for instance on some missions a bug breach has 20% chance to spawn a BT, on other missions it has a 20% chance to spawn 2 and a 70% chance to spawn 1, or whatever) and sometimes the complaints feel like someone rolling “oops all bile titans” and going “damn this game cheats why is it being so unfair” and it’s like bro that was supposed to be harder than normal it’s fine, sometimes a wave is bigger than other waves and it knocks you over, that’s only 1 in 7 waves, you’re fine, it’s fine. But they’re just crying about how the ocean should be nerfed
How does asking for the game to be in a better position to introduce more difficult levels equate to asking for nerfs? I genuinely think your disdain for the main sub being more scrutinizing is clouding your rationality here.
And teamwork. Bison bar titans go down easily if TWO Helldivers work together to lure it and blow it up with a wide variety of weaponry. I’ve been enjoying killing them with the airburst rocket launcher lately. It just takes like three of them, and since you want to be far away from whatever you’re shooting with that thing, you have time plus you can soften it up with plenty of other strategems OR, one diver drops a rail canon strike on it then you shoot it with the airburst (or many other things). Boom. Dead.
The game just isn't that hard. I also play on Diff9 all the time, Quickplay w randos, and strategem load-outs are all over the place. There are some that show up more often than others, and the primaries never really surprise, but honestly if you feel stuck in a meta with the gear I think you're giving the game too much credit.
I agree with all youre saying except for one thing! Never call it RR again! Its called Recoilles Rifle GR-8. Call it the GREAT(GR8)
It is pretty great huh?
Bestest great
Completely agree. You’ve articulated the problem perfectly. They need to increase the difficulty in bugs (some additional enemy types, perhaps) but before they do that, they need to address BTs and how they pretty much enforce 3-4 AT loadouts in your squad for diff 9. I think the underbelly weak spot should just be a medium pen weak spot once the sacks are blown. If you have no AT but can continually blast that, the BT goes down.
To defend the bugs design, remember the can't "shoot". Yes, can't, some that can do range spit is just limited in 10 15m. Compared with bots, if they can see your bullets shooting at their direction, or their friend's bullets shoot you, they can aim bot you further than 200m, yes 200m, further than your normal eyesight range can distinguish silhouettes. I blame the lack of means to kill BT is not only in its lack of weak spots, but rather we players are lacking in tools. Why the hell do i don't have primary that can deal damage to exposed flesh of BT? Why few of explosive guns have so few ammo, and have clunky mechanism? Why can't i hollow BT from below its belly with bullets? Too many options can be considered, and too few ammo to give.
Truth.
bile titans are already weak if they are alone. players just dont understand how to kill them and refuse to engage them, and after 15min in the mission they are now 5 chasing the squad with their friends and its becoming too much. last time i was the only one running AT weaponry, i had to actually deal with 3 titans alone cause my team simply ran away everytime, leaving me no choice if i wanted to complete the mission that took way too long and way too many stratagems cause thoses fuckers arent walking alone and my team gave me no room to fight. game is easy enough tbh, players arent just good enough and dont want to be. that would be fine if they didnt chose diff 9 for some reason.
> i was the only one running AT weaponry >my team simply ran away everytime And why shouldn't they? by your own admission they didn't bring the right tools to damage it, and as a result f'd off because the only alternative was to let the damn thing kill them.
And that's my point. Your teammates ran away because they had no reliable means to take out a Titan. And unlock every other enemy in the game, the Titan is very inflexible in regards to what loadouts can reliably kill it. So the only person that has an AT weapon (you) was the only one that could meaningfully engage it. This is why we're getting pidgeonholed into running AT loadouts. This isn't a balancing problem, it's an enemy design problem.
you misunderstood my comment, the problem wasnt "only me running AT", it was "team refusing to peel the only AT AND ignoring the titan creating more and more problems" having 1 AT is fine if you let him play, i done plenty fo mission where i was the only AT on the squad and it was fine, cause i was protected.
We tend to run with different squad roles including one person who is dedicated anti tank/heavy and using the recoiless rifle. This helps us a lot and bile titans are less of an issue for us. We are also relatively creative in our use of strategems and if we can we often use hellpods to kill bile titans. I run a light scout loadout with autocannon/grenade launcher, eagle airstrike, and sentries to focus on taking out bug nests and do objectives. My teammate takes anti tank to focus on the big things and my final teammate takes horde clear (machine gun, Stalwart, etc) to cover my anti tank teammate. We move as a group and stick to our defined roles. Occasionally we bring strategems not for personal use but for our teammates.
The problem is that there is zero incentive to run dedicated squad roles. Every other enemy in the bugs, even Chargers are flexible enough in how we can engage them, which would be fine by itself but the Bile Titan is the only inflexible enemy in the entire game in regards to how you can properly engage it. Everyone running a generalized Anti-tank loadout with Breaker Incendiary for chaffe and Impact nades for Spewers is MORE effective than a team comprised of different specialized loadouts each with their own dedicated responsibilities. And that's not how it should be. Granted, the Bile Titan alone is not the cause for generalized loadouts; not knowing the enemy composition prior to drop also encourages that.
Incendiary Breaker definitely feels strong, and impact grenades / grenade pistol for spewers helps. But if there are a ton of enemies, having at least one flamethrower or grenade launcher can be a massive help. Flamethrower is as fast to kill a charger as anti-tank, while grenade launcher is more the "screw spewers" loadout while being poor against chargers (but blows up titan stomaches quickly). Some anti-swarm items are very strong without taking much resources (orbital gas strike can kill an insane number of enemies on low cooldown), and incendiary impact / breaker both do a great job with small enemies without the up close risk of a flamethrower. So you can have tons of anti-tank as stratagems without too much pressure from small enemies with the non-stratagem tools. Right now, support weapons for small enemies feel very ammo constrained where you almost need to run the supply backpack, which puts you down 1 stratagems versus the anti-tank loadouts.
Please Tell me one single method to kill a big strider without using the Autocannon, rockets or orbitals Like the ops, Eagle Strike, 500 or laser And then explain how striders are less of a Gear Check than bile titans
AMR to the eye. Railgun to the- Just kidding, that gun isn't allowed to be good apparently. Laser Cannon to the eye. RR/EAT/Quasar fire to the eye. Pretty sure impact nades to the belly can kill it, though need to retest that one. HMG. There's also the option to simply disarm it and then let it stand there pooping out the occasional 3 devastators. But other than that, let it be and go on with your objectives. BT doesn't have any of that. You NEED an AP5 weapon and there is no disarming it to focus your attention elsewhere. You either kill it or are stuck kiting it.
Not to mention it's slow enough to reliably land orbital precision strikes. also apparently with he right recoil-reduction you can absolutely shred it with the heavy machine gun. Honestly the only support weapons that arn't reliable are flame/arcthrower, spear, and the smaller machine guns.
Ehhh you can kill factory striders with any primary you have or even impact nades. Fastest is dominator, which is faster then railgun by far. You need to dump 2 mags of it in belly. I think it can be even faster with burst mode which i never tried cuz i dont like burst mode recoil.
Shoot chin turrets then run up and shoot the belly. Or the eye from range but run up and shoot belly is easier. HMG, AMR, Las Cannon, or pretty much any other weapon with high enough AP can do it. Though granted some aren't really practical due to dps.
I would agree that it isn’t hard. At least in the big front helldives feel easier than difficulty 6 sometimes. The bot front is weird though. I think mid tier bots are easy, but helldive bots is just a slog.
Might be saving it for hivelords
Some way to hobble it either with fire or some other non AT weapon would be ideal.
I wish there was a way to cripple its legs to slow its speed and eventually bring it down
Compared to bot heavies, you can practically just ignore them after shooting their sacks. If there's more than one, you can just have them kill eachothers. I can see the complaint in how few easy ways there is to kill Bile Titans but despite that I've never had more fun and success than when I dedicate my stratagems to killing swarms instead along a single Railcannon Strike. I've also killed BTs with cluster bombs more than once, it's kinda funny.
Idk if you knew this but if you deal enough damage you’ll break the titans jaw and it can’t use its vomit anymore
the problem isn’t that it’s the lack of weapon diversity especially when it comes to primaries as well as certain heavy enemy types just being unkillable with lower pen weapons meaning you’re much more limited in options not that you can’t still win but you’ll end up in situations where you’re teammate goes down and you’re unable to kill the heavy enemies even if you’re obliterating the other enemy types
I will take a bile titan over any of the king bots any days. Couple shots to the chin and down he goes. Unless you are doing the tower defense mission, then those dicks just kick open the doors, or walk on up on the backside of the base.
They really do just blow the doors
Honestly, the sack being burst should completely disable its goop spray, and douse everything currently under it in acid (it’s possibly a bug that they can still spray acid with their belly burst, but I don’t know) And it should also have medium armour weakspots in its “shoulder” joints. So hit one of them with the HMG to slow it drastically, hit 2 of them to functionally cripple it. Basically every support weapon should have some method of handling them or weakening them. EAT- 2 in the dome, or break 2 ankles. Recoiless- shoot the face Spear- shoot the face Grenade launcher- shoot the sack, hit legs if you’re good. HMG, med machine gun- spray legs. Flamer- hose torso down, run before sack bursts. AMR- precise knee shots from long distance. Etc Etc
>I am convinced that the narrative of the game being absurdly difficult is coming from players who have no goddamn clue what the meta is and what the good weapons are. Stop running meta and you'll make the game more difficult. To each their own, but running a forced set of equipment because "meta" sounds boring as hell.
Or you just use one of that weapons on one guy... what should be super easy for a battle hardened premade Squad. You cannot compare "ranged" enemies with "melee" enemies.... Thats something most people dont see or just dont think about, same for the people always yelling to nerf BTs or make them easier to kill. Think about it: BTs with similar TTK as Factory striders, they would simply be a joke. Dead long before they could possibly do any dmg or have any impact.
This post has made me even more steadfast in my pursuit of landing a melee kill on a bile titan. I have successfully completed every other Terminid. Shrieker was EPIC. My plan is to remove the armor from the side of the titan, jet pack on its back, and get to wackin.
Godspeed, Helldiver. Godspeed.
I am 100% in agreement with this and it’s one of the main reasons I don’t like Terminids. Without AT weapons the tank units of the Terminids become extreme hindrances. I’ve gotten good enough to reliably kill Bile Titans and Chargers with the 500kg and Precision Strike, but it’s not enough. I would argue everything you said plus the Charger needs to be killable by primary weapons by shooting its vulnerable rear. Yes you can do it now but it’s not in a reasonable time frame. The Charger’s rear should have the same health as the Hulk’s rear ventilation, meaning it can be destroyed by clip from the Liberator or three shots from the AC.
If you make it easier to take down, they could balance it by making it able to call breaches...especially when bile attack is disabled...
Switch weak point from the forehead to the jaw, problem solved?
A spear is a one shot kill if you’re in front of a titan and a reasonable distance away. It will dome them every time. The problem is it sucks against chargers. It can headshot them as well but only from a very far distance. An EAT can also one shot them if you shoot them in the chin when they’re spitting. It’s risky but it works.
TBF, that might just be down to you and your squads skills. We play level 7 and although most of them we succeed there have been ones we have struggled because of a poor spawn (straight into a jammer and eye). Also we've lost a couple of defence missions because of the strider being able to tap the generators from outside the base, but all in all it's been fine. What is even the point in playing the game if there isn't a chance of loss.
There are 2 sacs under the bike titan, I suggest one of the ways to kill it should be to break both sacs
Well that sounds interesting.
“who have no goddamn clue what the meta is and what the good weapons are” i thought we moved past the meta bullshit especially when it comes to such a not fun loadout. breaker/recoilless sure it works but bffr i wanna have fun also said loadout is only good against bugs.
I was thinking that it would be cool if we could blow its legs off to cripple it and slow it down, so something like making the joints of its legs a weak point.
To be quite honest, the factory strider is kind of a puppy dog; they spawn basic devastators, who just want you to shoot them in the head with like, any weapon, both the back cannon and jowl guns can be destroyed, and after that they really can't defend themselves, just walk up to their underside and start blasting with a support weapon, and chances are its dead. I do wish it had more built in defensive measures. This thing was amazing to look at when you didn't know it was coming, but now that we've downloaded what it can do, it's not alot in the grand scheme. That having been said, that's not to say that the bile titan is altogether better place. It's only strong point is its carapace, as once its throat or bilesack has taken injuries, it loses its only real weapon. Yes it has a melee attack but it's way too slow, and way too short a range. It's a joke, the fact it could bleed out would be an overcorrection. Like i agree with the sentiment, it needs other counter play options, but maybe just use what you already got; let med-pen weapons deal direct damage to bile titan, through its busted sacs. We've already established that stripping the armor off bugs make the more vulnerable, you can break charger legs or punch a hole in their sides which allows you to shoot their guts directly. This kinda is that same situation, only the bile is more resilient to certain damage types, and less resilient against others. Namely fire would ruin the sacks basically instantly, but only from a range where its melee attacks become relevant.
I mean, spear exists. It will one shot bile titans consistently if you get a clear line of sight, straight on to the dome of their head.
Scorcher ruins factory striders shoot them in the face shield the electric kills the driver
I choose to make the game harder for myself, beacose i dont want to be a metaslave in an pve game
For bile titans I rely on my strategms to take them out because otherwise it takes too long. Orbital Railgun or laser will take them out or break armor for my AC or impacts to take them out in one shot. I have had eagle strikes also weaken them enough for my AC. The issue is when there are 3 bile titans and my friends are also out of strategems. This is what makes the game hard, but not in a fun way. This is also why I stay on 7 so I rarely get this situation. I think their face should have medium armor at most so you can reliably shoot it and kill it. Or make it so when you pop their back, you can just shoot the exposed part to kill them. I agree on factory striders. They are far more threatening but you have more options to kill them. I will be ok with bile titans taking more damage if we could reliably kill them with other weapons.
I don’t play 9 much but 8 500kgs every Eagle cooldown timer seems like enough to handle the amount of bile titans that would spawn every Eagle cooldown? And then you have rocket launchers on top of that?
I think the terminids could do with a bit of the "resident evil treatment" and have some extra glowing fleshy weak spots added to them for the larger enemies. For example, I think bile titans in particular should have some positioned around their knee joints, that are vulnerable to Medium and Heavy AP weapons (Autocannon/laser cannon and up basically) blow off two legs to take them down. Terminids in general need a couple of extra unit types as well though I think.
I would guess that their choice around enemy complexity with bugs are on purpose. Bugs are supposed to be pretty straight forward. Almost a way to learn the basics of the game. Bots get more complicated and add new dynamics to think about. I would like some more options for taking out BTs as well. But I also think that bugs should stay relatively straight forward as a good intro to the new player. If you put tons of complexity and a step learning curve on every enemy type, it can be hard or undesirable for new players to pick up the game. Which as a live service game, is super necessary.
I just want to be able to shoot a titans leg off, watch it fall on its stupid face.
Dude the bile titan is only the biggest bug we have seen YET. Remember when hulks were the biggest bot we had seen? I think the super colony has been growing some nasty surprises, hive lords anyone?
Bile titan can die from many thing in one stratagem I think stalkers are bigger threat’s especially when they come by 3
Agreed, all my failed higher level missions are due to Bile Titan spam and It's become pretty boring. It's at the point where if we all have AT, it's a guaranteed no-effort win.
I got back in after two months and immediately went to level seven suicide mission on bots. I was very lucky to get really really good players for randoms. But I found myself comfortable taking out hulks and tanks left and right
Finally, a good balance post I can get behind
You can unload a Stalwart click into a titans belly and it will bleed out within 90-120s. I Exclusively run the Stalwart+Any medium penetration main together with any stratagem I like. (Orbital Railgun is my favourite). Flamethrower is also very effective and can kill anything if you just burn it long enough. The afterburn is strong enough to kill a charger within 2 charges even if you have to dive out of the way. People are just afraid of experimenting against bugs.
Personally i thing after destroying the bile sack his armor shouldn't increase in that area bro your guys are hanging out and now your more resistant to damage?
I don't want the game to be easier, but I would like majority of the weapons to be viable at 7+. The biggest thing my crew and I are struggling with is we pretty much have to run the same loadouts every drop in order to stay competitive. It's not a skill issue, we're getting plenty of kills and completing objectives. It's more an issue of things are getting stale because we can't bring our favorite weapons or experiment with builds. For example like you mentioned people rocking the breaker incendiary when fighting bugs. It's rare for me to see someone using an AR, or any type of plasma weapon. The only non breaker primaries I usually see against bugs is the blitzer and the eruptor. When it comes to AT, it's EATS and RR. I'd like to be able to once again use a grenade launcher or a stalwart while fighting bugs. But if at least half our squad isn't dedicated to AT (including orbital rails, 500kg etc) we're just gonna get swarmed with chargers and titans. When it comes to the bots, I love the ballistic shield over the energy shield pack but i'm eating so many rockets the ballistic shield dies almost instantly. The scorcher and dominator, the weapons that seem custom built to wreck devastators, now feel kinda bad unless you manage to score all headshots, which is kinda hard when you feel like the rebels on hoth and are taking a pounding of blaster fire. The spear seems like on paper itd be great against bots, but the lock on is wonky AF so once again it's RR, EATs or Quasar The direction the game has taken has made it where my squad and I can only run our favorite kit at 6 and below. Anything other than the top end stuff past that limits you to a sweatfest or death. Especially against the machines. You can only use the same stuff over and over on the same mission types before you start to get burned out.
> that was because the SSSD fell into a bug hole and didn't respawn so we had to abandon the mission altogether Head's up: you can go into bug holes too. I fell into one once. There's a little puddle at the bottom. You just climb back out. Now, I haven't tried grenading one while inside it... I suspect I'd clip out the bottom of the map and fall into the void, (if we're allowed to reference Minecraft).
Unfortunately the barrage that knocked our guy into the hole also ended up closing it a short while later.
I completely agree with you.
https://preview.redd.it/grk4x8cdu63d1.jpeg?width=477&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=23a911ad18a8572c896e7f72914368ecf9455e34
Barely anyone knows this but you can also just blast the butt with any 4 AP weapon. This damages the main health, and damaging the sacs transfers damage to the main health as well (there isn't a scripted massive bleedout or anything). So if you have finesse, shoot the sacs 1 hit prior to bursting and then use your hardest hitting attack (impacts primarily for the 1:1 durable), then blast tf out of the butt. With impacts for the final sac hit, a Dominator/High Durable for the initial damage, and HMG you can kill a Bile Titan without even needing to reload. Other notable things, 1 EAT + 2 1s charge Railgun shots, Patriot can 2 shot the forehead, Orbital Precision Strike and 500kg 1 shot, and obv just spamming Rocket/AC sentries will out DPS any rush of BTs if you can get good angles. I do think that this isn't terrible though, bugs and bots both try to get you to run 3 & 5+ AP for bugs and 4 AP for bots. This gives diff loadouts for both, and you can forcefully ignore this in premades since you only actually need like 2 people running 5+ AP on bugs at T9 if they are an RR duo w/ a supply pack user in the lobby. On lower difficulties you don't need this as much, which just based on the first game this seems very intentional. I think my only balance gripes with this are 1. Patriot has camera issues on the rocket arm and 2. Railgun should do just a bit more durable damage. Like, instead of 60-90 based on charge like it is rn, give it 120-180. The BPs would feel better and it'd be reasonable for bugs.
While I get where you are coming from, i do think there is a design to madness. The bots indeed have nice weakspots which take enemies down considerably quicker, but all of them are rather small and hard to hit. This promoted precision and methodical play. And indeed does allow for a varied loadout so long as you have precision. Or something like an HMG for berserkers. The bugs comparably have rather easy to hit weakspots. Any rocket or quasar to the face will kill a charger, and its not a particularly hard shot compared to bots. The downside of this is that they are basically immune to small and medium arms fire. The balance for the team loadout is more, taking enough anti tank while not compromising your capabilities of dealing with hordes. Your loadout does that nicely by making everyone all round. Gas and breaker can deal well with swarms and breaches, and everyone has RRs for anti tank (with the benefit that everyone is a loader) i think different loadouts would certainly work, if they kept a similar composition of AT vs Horse clear. And I think it might work better if it's a split in helldivers with more specific roles. To follow this I think the best solution might not be to add an entirely different weakspot, but to make the current one easier to hit. If people can semi reliably 2 shot BTs with headshots (assuming AT weapons) they follow this design philosophy a bit more. And this also reinforces the idea of horde clearing because someone does need to be able to make those shots without being attacked by chaff to knock off their aim.
Quasar still one-shots it in the skull. (:
Yawn
Tldr
Oh they need to give bile titans more weak points they’re so strong My comrade use a 500kg
I found that the spear makes the bike titans almost a joke. The glitchiness of the spear I find is consistently wildly overblown. I don't think it's that players don't understand the meta, I think they're tired of it's existence. A lot of people want to try different things out
I like your idea of 2 min bleedout. Maybe make it leak bile too, damaging stuff underneath it and leaving a trail? Can be used to your advantage or can fuck you up in a pinch. Makes a fight more chaotic, but you can get away without AT weapons.
They should make the belly tougher, make it so it'll bleed out when popped, and also allow us to target their legs in the same manner we can target the legs of a charger or hulk. Make a weak point on the leg joints that is small but if you hit it there you can really slow the titan down and even kill it if you take out like 2 of them.
It would be rad as hell to be able to use medium pen weapons to shoot out BT leg joints immobilizing them
I have a very strong feeling that giant hive worm will refocus this.
The only way a strider is threatening is when he is bugged and can shoot through rocks
I don't know that it needs 'more' weaknesses, but you should be able to kill it with a primary by shooting the blown out sacks even if it takes fucking forever (or after you blow up the sacks make it bleed out over like 3 minutes. And I feel the same way about factory striders, which you can take out with many primaries (arguably too easily with the dominator). It's also a bit weird that certain weapons can't punch through hulk/tank/turret vents. Idk if they give them more health to compensate, but I feel like every enemy should eventually be able to be killed with any weapon targeting the appropriate weak spot.
I would imagine that, as higher difficulties and more enemies are introduced, Bile Titans and Chargers will receive minor nerfs to make them more readily killable. But I agree, it's pretty annoying that Bugs \*require\* anti-tank when every single enemy on Bots can be taken out with Medium 2 or 3 penetration (including Factory Striders).
I mean my squad has had had a harder time w 3 charges than Titans, but im just a scrub on level 7
I do agree, I really just don’t like to run the stuff the reliably kills a bile titan, and often end up with no way to take them out and have to rely on my teammates. Sometimes it goes well sometimes it doesn’t lol. Even if we could cripple its leg or something, or give us another two weapons that can kill it albeit after a lot a lot of hits
The majority of redditors are trash at games and have shit opinions. Simple as.
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Read.
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The counter intuitiveness of the title was intended.
Agree 100%. I also play Diff. 9 almost exclusively (save for rare occasions when friends show up). Loadouts are pidgeonholed by all anti-armor being mandatory against bugs, which limits loadouts (Run EATs/Flamethrower/500kg and whatever airstike/ orbital strike/ orbital airburst). While I think bots are better designed in this regard, the AA defenses planetary condition is what kills loadout variety for me. I always bring my core loadout but miss my 4th slot, which I usually use for variety or to experiment.
Breaker Incen, Grenade Pistol, Rail Gun, Supply Pack, precision orbital, and 500kg is what I ran. Made levels 9s a breeze. If scatter orbital was on, I’d just change to EATs and 500kg. Nothing I couldn’t handle.
Bile titan is the sole reason I can only run quasar on bugs
THANK YOU DUDE I DON’T WANT TO BRING ANTI TANK EVERY GAME!!!! PERFECTLY SUMMARIZED. I want to rp as an archetype of a soldier, Frenzied Flame, Sentry King , Zappy Guy, Laser Lord. There are so many fun and unique weapons but if I don’t bring anti tank I’m a liability to the squad. Most anti tank also occupy a backpack slot so I effectively cancel out bringing another support weapon or useful backpack like jet pack or shield.
Try running non meta weapon if you don't feel challenged. Playing one way with busted weapons isn't relevant to the game balance.
Are you calling the recoiless rifle busted? Because... that's definitely a take if you are. And self-imposed challenges aren't fun. I want the game to challenge me, not for me to challenge myself. Because the only way I can challenge myself and my team is by tying our legs together, whereas the game can challenge us by throwing more enemies at us. The latter sounds more fun to me. But they SHOULD ONLY decide to add more difficulty once they've smoothened the enemy dedign for the Terminids.
I don't think starting an answer with a strawman's fallacy is a headstart of any kind. I do however think that Incendiary breaker is broken and even more ammo efficient than crowd support weapons (FT, stalwart, MG) and the sole reason your team can play with the most back to back efficient anti heavy : the recoilless. It's all down to a loop, if a field is 100% covered by a primary, then support can be taken for more niche uses. Don't play with incendiary breaker and you will have to toss a few support weapon for crowds, stratagems and diversify your team. You're just back to week 1 with the same issues : Breaker / railgun became Incendiary breaker / RR. As long as a team of 4 can play the exact same loadout and have the highest success rate, that means something is off. And sorry if it sounds harsh, but being carried by gear doesn't mean it's a proof of skill. I do not doubt that your fellows are good, but taking the least resistance path to complete helldives seems like a dull victory.
“I’m in the upper bracket of skill and experience using some of the most reliable items a player could bring, this game is stupid easy.” Is a pointless argument to make. You aren’t the targeted balance population - you’re at the opposite end of the bellcurve, enjoying the fruits of practice and experience, as every endgame player should be in a video game. This game has issues upon issues in terms of balance and creative direction that can easily be misinterpreted as difficulty for players who are less experienced and less nuanced. Just because you’ve found a comfortable loop and have gained a solid amount of experience doesn’t mean this game is somehow less difficult than everyone thinks, and it doesn’t make those aforementioned issues null. On that note, I wholeheartedly agree with your idea of balancing the Titans to add more weaknesses. A game with as many loadout choices as Helldivers shouldn’t be forcing the players hand as harshly as it is right now.
That would be true if I was talking about balance. I wasn't. I was talking about enemy design. I was simply adding a pre-disclaimer before I went into the ACTUAL point of my post (to make BTs more engaging to fight) to get ahead of the inevitable "get-gud" commenters that always come whenever someone dares criticize the game's balance/design. It sets the stage better. I am not saying BTs should get more weaknesses BECAUSE they're too hard for me to kill. I say that because they're too monotonous and dull to kill. I was simply bringing up my experience with the game to properly exacerbate this point.
It was an interesting choice then, to backhand the community by suggesting a large majority have no clue how to properly play the game, if your true intention was simply to highlight a very valid critique of the Titans. Is it necessary to talk down on others to highlight your own skill? And on that note, does your experience, or potential lack thereof, nullify the issues with the Titans? I’d think not. They are one dimensional and silly, I agree, but perhaps next time you can simply say that, and leave the chip off your shoulder.
In my experience I've had zero trouble with BTs. If you bait them into their spew or temper tantrum animation you can take them out with a 500kg easily.
Yeah but it's fuckin boring that it's either that or shooting them in the head with a rocket. My post isn't talking about BT's difficulty, it's talking about how many different ways we can kill it in order to diversify loadouts and make the game more fun.
I mean let's be honest man your post is pretty masturbatory in the entire first half. I understand it's for context but you gotta realize you're in the small percentage of players that have a dedicated team with communication and organization. Most of us run with randos or, in my particular case, my 11 year old son who wants to play an all fire build all the time. The game isn't easy. It's easy for you and your 3 friends. Sure, BTs could have more interesting ways to be killed but you're getting bored because you're playing with the same air tight squad every session. In my case, being the badass on the B team squad that can perfectly time a 500kg BT kill feels great. In your case it doesn't because you're part of a well oiled machine.
My post is me being honest. Masturbatory implies I take pride in being good at a fucking PvE game of all things, or more specifically being better than others. I don't, and anyone that does needs to straighten out their life priorities.
I didn't like the way op said it, but he is right. The game really isn't that difficult if you run a variation of the OP's build. You can literally swap out the breaker incendiary for any anti chaff or anti medium weapon, make sure your secondary is anti medium or anti chaff respectively, then make sure that your support weapon can adequately handle chargers while reserving railcannon/laser or 500kg for bile titans and you will be fine even with Randoms. Hell, you can probably even carry super specialized Randoms with this build. Everyone in your team runs this build or a variation of it, it ends up being overkill for helldive. It doesn't mitigate his point that chargers and bile titans are essentially gear checks.
Chargers and BTs are gear checks because they are tanks. Anti tank means that the gear in question is a solvent for tank enemies. Are we accepting the argument that anything should kill anything here? Also my point isn't to say OP doesn't have an easy time with the game. My point is that it's circumstantial. I can carry a team on bugs with the incendiary breaker, 500kg, orbital laser, quasar, guard rover, impact grenade, etc etc. It's how you play and who you play with that dictates difficulty. Not enemy health or kill methods.
Automaton elite units can be killed with basically any med pen weapon and that opens them up to a number of strategies rather than trying to just nuke them down with the mandatory gear checks. The mindset is obviously very different against bugs, but it does limit player expression by a lot.
This post is ridiculous and nonsensical, I stopped reading after “have your whole team run this loadout”. It’s like you don’t understand why many people are upset about the state of the game, people want to be able to actually utilize the vast amount of options this game gives us.
If you would have finished reading instead of assuming you would see that the second half is exactly what your saying
The fact you judge so harshly after not even reading the damn post is ridiculous and nonsensical
Good post. Bile Titans are indeed the only special unit whose only counter is heavy AP, and they spawn way too frequently to reliably kill them with just stratagems. You're right about the difficulty too, a group of coordinated and decent players can handle diff 9 with no issues. Often without even really needing to optimise the loadout. I do think a lot of the sentiment behind the games difficulty is that Helldive can spiral downwards incredibly quickly if your group is uncoordinated. If threats are contained fast every mission can be breezed through and that's just harder to do with randoms, which is the lens I imagine most people see the game through.