You know the ones. Old faithful, when you aren’t feeling spicy and just want to spread managed democracy as hard as you can.
Bugs
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Incendiary breaker: great impact damage, burns. Kills everything below a charger easily. Perfect for sweeping across waves of chaff and letting them burn.
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Grenade pistol: perfect for closing bug holes alone and from a distance.
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Incendiary impact grenades: closes bug holes, area denial for chaff, good damage against bigger bugs.
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Light armor with + grenades: speed is important for kiting, and can never have too many incendiary grenades against bugs.
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Orbital gas strike: shuts down breaches, low CD, simple as. Used to stan orbital airburst but it doesn’t last as long as the breach.
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Orbital railcannon: sometimes you need a charger dead now. This will do the trick.
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Shield pack: protects from incidental damage and slows from hunters and stalkers. Lets me gamble a bit more on letting bugs burn to death and conserving ammo.
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EAT: slaps everything, low enough CD to stockpile or share. Combined with the orbital rail, you can handle a lot of heavies at once.
Criticisms of my own build: The shield is kind of a crutch, but it really comes in handy when running light armor, saving your ass from incidental stunlock deaths and getting wrecked by an unseen charger. Also saves from friendly fire, especially rovers and turrets. I recently switched from mining orbital airburst to gas for breaches, but I do think airburst is much easier to use for cleaning up massive waves. The incendiary breaker is one of the easiest weapons to team kill with due to the fire and insane spread it has. Running it alongside the grenade pistol basically means I am unable to support allies from a distance without being very likely to murder them. This is very much a “do everything yourself” build and not a team oriented one. I switch it up with friends in comms, but randos get this build.
Bots
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Scorcher: Hits hard, pens medium, explodes. Takes out devastators and walkers alike.
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Redeemer/verdict: Both delightful, depends how I’m feeling. Definitely necessary to run something with high damage output because the scorcher has a small magazine.
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Impact grenade: Tricky to use on fabricators, but takes down walkers and group chaff like a charm.
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Medium armor with explosion resistance: keeps mobiity while preventing you from getting wrecked by a stray rocket.
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Eagle airstrike: Hands down favorite strategem on bots. Hits multiple fabricators, takes out tanks, heavy patrols, can do decent damage to a factory strider if hit right.
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Autocannon: Should need no explanation but I will anyway. Kills fabricators from a distance, 2 shots devastators, cripples hulks, kills static guns/mortars, basically does everything. If there’s already 2 acs in a group, I’ll run the spear instead for more direct murdering of hulks and striders.
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Eagle cluster bomb: Big wave clear.
The last slot is flexible. On lower difficulties I might run orbital gas because it can actually kill fabricators as long as the strategem is on top of or touching the building, and the gas will wipe out a small factory easily. Airburst might do the same but it just occurred to me that I have no idea if it destroys fabricators. On higher difficulties I might take orbital rail, especially if I’m running autocannon because sometimes those hulk face shots are hard to hit.
Criticism: I should probably run stun grenades over impact to deal with hulks, but the instant results of the impact are great. If I have to reload facing down devastators or walkers, impacts clean up quick. This build is more tuned towards larger enemies. The bug build has the advantage of the incendiary breaker being a glorious wave clear weapon, while the scorcher is single target and very low ammo. The eagle cluster sort of helps there, but I rely on secondary weapons fairly often.
Feel free to share your builds, suggestions, and criticisms. I will die on several of these hills.
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I like going with a semi-auto rifle for main and either MG, HMG, or recoilless rifle, depending on expected enemies. For the MGs, I always turn down the fire rate to stretch time between reloads. The recoilless rifle is just satisfying, sure, you can’t take a guard dog but, you can break through some serious armor and I enjoy the reload.
Love me some diligence on bots as well. If a group has enough anti tank I’ll sometimes take that and an AMR and just hang way back.
Yeah. Diligence is my all-around goto. The AMR is great on bots but on higher difficulties, I always end to studying I had the recoilless for tanks and devastators.
I’m super basic. I find it hard to switch away from the sickle, the prospect of infinite ammo is very strong. I want to use other weapons, I hate the look of the sickle, but every time I try I get a little frustrated with managing ammo and my reloading habits in other games make the ‘drop mag mechanic’ particularly punishing. I feel like its exceptionally accurate with (kB+m) and despite the spin up mechanic, I can put down heavier bots with 2-3 controlled headshots. You can kind of semi auto fire it if you tap the mouse. Too versatile for me to swap out.
Love the grenade pistol secondary for clearing our fabricators and bug holes. Comes in handy for displacing scout striders in a pinch.
Quasar cannon is also way too versatile of a weapon for me to leave behind. A fast traveling, hard hitting long range projectile with a straight trajectory? No ammo management? Forget about it. I’ve been playing with MGs more for bug missions, mind you.
I use the light armour set that has a padded bonus because movement speed is addictive.
For 40 minute missions and blitz, I tend to go Eagle airstrike (objective or crowd control), Orbital railcannon (heavy enemies in an emergency), bubble shield (am basic, I told you), and support weapon.
For eradicate and defend high value whatever missions, I use the thick armour with the padded bonus (looks like a bulldozer from payday 2), mortar sentry, 380mm orbital barrage, eagle airstrike, maybe a support weapon.
I definitely feel you on the unlimited ammo. I switched to EAT main because dying and being separated from your quasar during heavy fighting is really rough. I’m probably competent enough now to avoid that, so I might try it out again. Also much fewer heavies with the spawn changes.
Sickle is also just… good. You can kill all bots up to the hulks, you can gun down a large amount of small enemies with it. And infinite ammo.
Truly feels too good to pass up on
How do you take out fabricators with the grenade pistol? Through the vents like normal? I can do it with impact grenades reliably but I can’t seem to make the shot with a grenade pistol.
through the vents, yeah. It takes a bit of getting used to, and even then, it can take a couple of attempts. Nice to have the quasar cannon as a backup, as you can just blast a vent with that in a pinch to take it out (or an eagle airstrike if I’m getting impatient).
That said, I find it mega difficult to throw my impact grenades in there lol.
For impacts you stand pretty close and aim at the bottom of the vent
I try that and still manage to fuck up 😅
My bug build was pretty similar to yours, but with the addition of Behemoths, I’ve started experimenting more with Flamethrowers instead of EATs. Which cascades through the rest of the build.
Bugs
Incendiary Breaker: Same reason you mentioned. The Blitzer is really fun too and can one shot Brood Commanders. Its biggest drawback is not damaging Shriekers and eggs, so I only bring it to mix things up occasionally.
Grenade pistol: Sam reason you mentioned. Allows you to solo a heavy nest.
Stun grenade: Best get out of jail free card in the game. Also allows you to easily deal with Chargers and Behemoths.
Light armor with + grenades: Same reason you mentioned, but mostly due to the two extra stuns.
Orbital precision strike: Low cooldown, low call in time, one shots everything. What’s not to love?
Eagle 500kg OR Autocannon Sentry: The single OPS isn’t quite enough to handle all the Bile Titans on higher difficulties. Especially without bringing EATs. So I’ll choose one of these to bring instead.
Shield pack: Same reasons you listed. Occasionally I’ll bring a Rover instead because I like how it “alerts” me to something sneaking up on me that I didn’t notice.
Flamethrower: Absolutely wrecks Behemoths and Chargers. Holding it down on a bug breach and hearing your character cackle is hands down the most satisfying thing in the game.
Primary: Diligence counter sniper for bots, breaker incendiary for bugs. These seem pretty self explanatory.
Secondary: I’ve been using the new Bushwacker for bots as a great close range backup for the marksman rifle. For bugs, it’s the Senator for something that will punch through medium armour.
Grenade: impact grenade for bots and impact incendiary for bugs. No fuse time for faster Democracy.
Armour: mission dependant, but I favour Scout Light armour for bots. Bugs are either Engineer light or one of the Democracy Protects mediums. Heavy armour for defend or eradicate.
Stratagems: these are basically the same for both if I’m not in the mood to experiment.
Eagle Cluster bombs for repeatable wave clear
Orbital Laser for big bases, titans, striders or just as a panic button
Expendable Anti Tank use against big enemies (titans, hulks, tanks, chargers)
And the Autocannon. This is practically my primary on most missions; can reliably take out everything up to a heavy devastator or brood commander, while still being able to take out tight clusters of small enemies or bring down bigger targets if you are accurate enough (Hulks, tanks, chargers, etc). I almost never leave the super destroyer without it.
Booster: usually the radar booster for bots or I spike our stims with the new one for bugs. Sometimes its Ammo if noone else takes that.
No one adjudicator mains? Freaking love it. Short burst or single shots for small things, medium armor pen so it handles anything under a charger. In a pinch can handle heavy devastators. Good ammo, (clip is a little small) and reloads fast. Good range. I never use anything else.
I’m an adjudicator diver also. I’m really surprised that it doesn’t get much love. On bots there isn’t a better main. It handles medium and small threats. I was even plunking at the gunships yesterday. It showed a hit marker but I couldn’t take it down.
On bugs the breaker incendiary is the best. Don’t have to bring a secondary really. Can just use those slots for eagle or orbital.
Yes! The adjudicator is criminally underrated. I honestly thought it was fine as a high fire rate DMR, but with the mag size increase and recoil reduction it’s a beast. Good scope. Manageable hip fire. Two taps devastators to the face, and kills them to the chest if necessary.
I do run it fairly regularly on bots but the only reason it isn’t my main is because the scorcher can handle scout striders.
I don’t run it on bugs because ammo management becomes an issue. It takes about a full mag to kill a single hive guard (last I tried at least) and the comparatively low mag size and recoil make it not great for clearing chaff. Not awful, just not spectacular enough to compete with the breaker incendiary.
My bot build is way different than yours, except for the primary and Airstrike, which are both godly.
Bots
Scorcher: All the reasons you said. It’s just too good. Killing Striders from the front is a must.
Grenade pistol: Reserved solely for killing bot factories.
Stun grenade: Same reason that I run it on bugs. It wrecks Hulks and makes them sit still to snipe them. Also I can’t count the number of times I’ve been saved on a hairy extract just by spamming stun grenades and diving on the Pelican.
Light armor with servo assist: Throwing stratagems like John Elway is the best. I used to run this on bugs too until I stopped bringing stratagems that needed the range, but I feel like it’s still clutch on bots.
Eagle Airstrike: Same reason as you. God tier.
Quasar Cannon: Kills everything. Sniping drop ships in one shot is the best.
Shield backpack: Too many explosions on bots to run anything else. Also keeps the survivability high when running light armor.
Orbital Precision Strike: I’m still experimenting with this on bots. I also love Orbital Railstrike or Autocannon Sentry depending on how I’m feeling.
- Diligence Counter Sniper for bots, Breaker Incendiary for bugs
- Grenade pistol never leaves my side
- Frag grenades for bots/incendiary impact for bugs
- Haven’t really found a good nade for bots, still working towards getting stun, I use frag for the shorter fuse time than the default HEs
- Alpha Commander 117 medic armor, the extra stims and stim time are too good to give up
Stratagems:
- Bots: Quasar/POS/Eagle Strike/Shield or Mortar
- Bugs: Flamethrower/POS/Eagle Strike/Laser Guard Dog
I’ll probably go back to quasar for bugs when they nerf flamethrowers against chargers, right now it’s just too good to pass up.
I recently switched from rail cannon to POS for both enemy types because the buff was amazing
Shield lets me get in a few extra headshots at devastators before they hurt me
Laser guard dog makes cleaning up the lower tier bugs a non-issue so I can focus on bigger threats, it is annoying to get killed by it or for it to accidentally kill teammates, but I still think it’s worth it
Jetpack for bugs.
Balistic shield and SMG for bots.
Quasar / EAT / orbital precision, senator, impact, +2 stim armour.
Maybe shield generator or auto cannon sentry.
I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting with builds recently. Been enjoying the blitzer electric shotgun for the bugs. Great chaff clear, kills anything smaller than a charger, or stun-locks it so it can’t move. Grenade pistol as you said. Usually stun grenades for charger control or keeping all the gribley inside an aoe. Depending on what my squad has either the flamethrower or anti tank. I usually end up running the anti tank so spear or recoilless. I’ve been enjoying the spear recently love the fire and forget but I do find it doesn’t reliably take down much in 1 shot unless you get it really well lined up. I always love a cluster bomb. Been enjoying the airburst and napalm for area denial/ breaches. Guard dog laser if I’m not taking a backpack.
Heard good things about the blitzer but have not personally tried it since the buff. I’ll give it a shot next time I dive.
Sickle + autocannon against automatons.
Breaker + eat against bugs.
Light scout armor.And usually eagle strike + whatever I feel like.
Bots:
Pummeler, that one heavy pistol that isn’t the senator, stun grenades, heavy Armor with extra grenades or peak physique, AMR, ballistic shield, stun mortar, OPS
Bugs:
Pummeler, grenade pistol, stun grenades, light or heavy Armor with extra nades, flamethrower, Gatling turret, OPS, eagle airstrike.
Against bots, pummeler and ballistic shield makes you basically invincible. Against bugs, I’ve found heavy Armor to drastically outperform light Armor. You don’t need speed if nothing really damages you.
- Bots: Tenderizer, Senator, Impact Grenades, Eagle Airstrike, Airburst Orbital Strike, Railgun, HMG Implacement Sentry
- Bugs: Breaker Incendiary, Uzi (Forget it’s actual name), Incendiary Impact Grenades, Napalm Airstrike, Orbital Gas Strike, Recoiless Rifle, Gatling Sentry
- Both: Steel Trooper Armor (Servo ftw)
Stock B armor
Liberator penetrator Machine pistol He grenade
Autocannon Autocannon turret Gatling Turret ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
Bugs is pretty generic,
- breaker spray and pray for ad clear
- redeemer for backup ad clear
- light stim armor because im a fucking addict
- stalwart for more ad clear
- shield backpack to reduce chip damage and make me more tanky
- eagle airstrike
- railcannon strike to deal with the occasional bile titan and charger
Its very much an anti swarm build, blending hordes of hunters into beautiful E-710
But ive been getting more into bots these days and there im running
- punisher plasma for ad clear and desvastator stunning
- verdict
- medium stim armor because i will KILL FOR A STIM
- AMR god i love this thing, the sound it makes is so nutty i might take it over one beautiful, gorgeous, euphoric stim, also it fucks devastators like no tomorrow
- shield backpack to reduce chip damage and make me more tanky
- eagle 500kg i dont know how to get impact grenades from my hand into a fabricator, also to deal with hulks
- 380mm to clear out fellow helldivers
Bugs Incendiary Breaker or Arc Blitzer, Redeemer, Impact grenades, Grenade Launcher, Orbital Laser, Eagle Airstrike, Gatling Turret
Bots JAR5 or Sickle, Redeemer, Impact grenades, Grenade Launcher, Orbital Laser, Eagle Airstrike, Gatling Turret
I never seem to see videos of people using the grenade launcher but it can take out good amount of swarms, walkers, and even heavy turrets and tanks if you can get someone to kite it and keep the heat sink facing you.
