Armour Penetration Analysis on Bugs! | Helldivers 2 Weapons Guide

In this video I breakdown where the armour is and what type it is on various bugs. Using the AR-23; AR-23P; Breaker and Slugger shotguns to compare and contrast.

#Helldivers2 #Helldiversguide

LINKS:

FAQ/Corrections:

Q1) In some of your tests you miss the enemy with a shot. Is this discounted in your numbers?

A1) Yes, I only count actual hits when breaking down the numbers. The difficulty comes in for shots that look like they hit a certain section or not. For example, the Brood Commander AR-23 test may be 16 hits not 17, which would match the Nursing Spewer headshot test. Even at frame by frame a headshot might wing the body instead but it can be hard to be sure.

Q2) Were you aware that... Pilestedt, the CEO of Arrowhead, stated on Twitter that enemy armor values basically range from 0 to 9. Where 0 means there's no armor, 1, 2 and 3 means it will be Light Armor. Likewise, 4, 5 and 6 are Medium armor and 7, 8 and 9 are Heavy armor. Those same values carry over to Armor Penetration on weapons. If a weapon falls short of the armor value, it doesn't do any damage and deflects right off. If it matches the armor value, it will do 50% damage. If it exceeds the armor value, it does 100% damage. This is why some weapons with Light Armor Penetration can penetrate Light armors better than other weapons with Light Armor Penetration.

A2) I had missed this piece of information and appreciate you highlighting it! I will see if I can confirm this going forward in future videos. This information potentially matches up with my data. Most times I found the damage loss on Light Armour with the AR-23 was about 57-59.8%. Accounting for not knowing the exact damage to kill the target that percentage could be closer to the 50%. It will be interesting to get more information and find out!

Q3) Are you saying the AR-23P is better than the AR-23? Or the Slugger is better than the Breaker?

A3) This is not a tier list type of video. I sticked clear of ranking anything. The tests were also very narrow in their focus. I simply ran tests with armoured enemies to get some raw data to present.

In future with perhaps mods to create a test environment, I may do further videos where I can compare: ammo consumed; time to kill; accuracy at certain distances etc. And maybe have more evidence for weapons that perform better than others in certain situations.

Q4) Is the Breaker footage pre or post March 6 patch?

A4) It is pre the 6 March patch. I had just finished editing the video together on the morning of the 6th, a few hours before the patch landed. I elected to remove all the Railgun tests (I had done tests for each bug mentioned), but decided to leave the Breaker footage as I am analysing damage and shots required. The additional recoil and lower magazine I felt made little impact into the data I was presenting. Other than maybe the Stalker test and hitting the Bile Spewer in the mouth.

0:00 Intro
0:10 Brood Commander
3:24 Hive Guard
4:56 Nursing Spewer
6:27 Bile Spewer
8:30 Stalkers
9:58 Chargers
10:55 Bile Titan

[GamingExistence]

The description has links to my written reference guide for this video. It also has a FAQ and corrections section. Feel free to drop a comment and I may well add it to that section. Thank you for watching and I will see you next time!

[WheelchairBilly]

This guy right here has been appointed as the new Head Weapons Analyst for Super Earth Defense Force. Thank you for your service, Patriot!

[JosephSmith-dcrk]

This will be a huge help to my friend Noah who is stupid.

[MrKickdoh]

This is how you do it. 15 seconds in, and Gaming Existence gets straight to the point of the video. S-tier Youtuber. No fluff or padding, just gets straight to the reason I clicked on the video. I NEVER "like and subscribe" but, dammit, if this the way he does business he's got me.

[JayBirdJay]

The info is as solid as I can find anywhere on the internet, all packaged in a beautifully executed video with very clean presentation. Friggin' bravo! :D

[timothye.]

I think much of the confusion about penetration comes from the translation from the real, behind the scenes numbers, to the descriptions on the weapons. Afaik the devs have confirmed on social media that armor penetration and armor value use a 10 point scale. If AP < AV, you get a 0 damage ricochet. If AP = AV, you get a reduced damage hit (the white marker with ~60% damage reduction). If AP > AV, you get full penetration and full damage. This knowledge is touched on in your FAQ section.

What interests me more than the specifics of partial damage is the specifics of armor and pen numbers. I wonder if enough hit marker feedback could allow us to reverse engineer the numbers for bugs and weapons.

So for example, let's look at the brood commander's head. It has light armor, so somewhere between 1-3. But the Slugger fully penetrates it, meaning it can't have a full 3 points of armor unless the Slugger is secretly a medium penetration gun. My guess is that the Slugger has an AP of 3 and the breaker and liberator are at either 1 or 2.

Here's another example. You claimed that the Hive Guard's head and forearms have medium armor, but my guess is that it actually has light armor at AV = 3, because the Slugger gets a partial penetration (Slugger likely having an AP value of 3, the highest of light penetration).

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If you do a follow up about penetration, I would love to see a comparison among medium penetration weapons including support weapons, to see if what armor each of them can and can't fully penetrate.

[kylelantan]

The slugger doesn't fire pellets. It literally fires a slug. Hence the name. But I appreciate all the information provided and appreciate that this probably took a lot of your time to do. *Salute*

[HuntShowdownLab]

Thanks for the research!

It's also worth mentioning that soft body areas on bugs recieve reduced damage by standard weapons (the side of spewer for example). If a weapon has the 'explosive' characteristic, it doesn't get that damage reduction.

[attheglaser]

This Video just proves that we REALLY need an Info Station in the game, on our ship, where we can see stats of encountered enemies and more discovered Weakpoints of them. In a game where it's so Important to Hit the Shots, it's also SOO IMPORTANT TO HAVE INFORMATION!!!

EDIT:
No my point to addition is, that there needs to be a system where you maybe have to find the weakpoints of a given enemy. Not to be "spoonfed" with already given information.
1. A new encountered creature will give the Index a slot.
There is now an allround Info about such creature.
2. New Index updates will be proceduraly % given, when hit a weakpoint 'x' amount of times.
3. It is a needed feature for Sci-Fi / Fiction genres to have info about the world.

EDIT 2:
We need to give the devs more time, I am sure they will make this game step by step a better masterpiece.

[wasssupeverybody]

loved this analytical breakdown, hope to see more information in a series about more guns, enemy breakdowns, and maybe even stratagems or overall game tips like how to progress through different mission objectives, how to read your map, etc. Subscribed for sure! Appreciate the hard work and clean editing!

[ethanaarness]

Very helpful! One small note: the slugger has lower pellet spread than other shotguns because, it in fact, does not use pellets, and doesnt spread. Slugger! 😊

[demi_narch]

For this research, you will help out many helldivers out there, so here a little bit for coffee or energy drinks, keep up the work.

[PWNsoldier]

I believe a dev confirmed there are 10 levels of armour. Supposedly, there are multiple levels of "light" "medium" and "heavy" armour penetration. My guess is that 1-3 is light, 4-6 is medium 7-9 is heavy and 10 is some sort of impenetrable armour.

When your armour penetration matches the enemy's armour level (on the spot you hit), you get the grey hit marker and deal very little damage, but you do deal damage. When you have higher armour pen than the enemy's armour level, you deal much more damage but still not full damage (red hit marker). To deal full damage, you need the "explosive" ammo type to hit at weak point AND penetrate the armour (red hit marker). If you have less penetration than the spot you hit, you deal 0 damage, your shot ricocheting.

I am not a dev, but this is my understanding of the armour system and thus far it has proven anecdotally true.

[LMarti]

Can I just say how extremely counterintuitive it is that "light armor penetrating" means that it deals reduced damage against light armor lol

[MegaStephen]

Best advertisement for using the slugger

[pyrizposey]

Best breakdown analysis I've seen so far. Look forward to the support details.

[JustSmeKdd]

This is possibly the best and most straightforward video on Armour Penetration on the whole of Youtube. Thanks for your service, Helldiver. I'll definitely be pulling out the Slugger more often, and I might even stop being so hard on the AR-23P...

[joshuaowens]

I’ve been playing since launch and probably watched every helldivers YouTube video out there and this is the most detailed breakdown I’ve seen yet. Thanks for all your effort. Definitely getting a subscription for this one!

[Sarthetv]

bro you're editting is some of the most impressive stuff I've ever seen! Phenomenal information paired with top tier editing! Hats off

[Wish-and-Hope]

Great video, thank you!
One thought I have about armor and especially the Stalkers is: It's mentioned in a tip (and it's been a pretty big part of Helldivers 1 gunplay) that the angle of a hit is relevant to armor penetration. I assume you're aware, since you made sure to hit enemies head on, but I think it might be the reason for those white hits on the Stalkers. Their body shape is basically angled (light) armor all over, so it makes sense they're likely to only take grazing shots, still penetrating due to low armor, but lowering penetration enough to get the lower damage score. (Especially when combined with the knowledge shared by Pilestedt that you acknowledge in the FAQ. I could easily see how a Stalker has an armor rating of only 1 or 2 in most places, but it gets upped whenever your shots hit at a bad angle.)