Helldivers 2 - Adjudicator is F Tier & Here's Why

Helldivers 2 - Adjudicator is F Tier & Here's Why
Creator Code: ohdough
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[TooFewSecrets]

The devs have caught on enough to put a poll in the Discord about DMRs.
79% underpowered, 6% balanced, 15% don't know.
Hopefully that's drastic enough to convince them.

[silentsigma]

Its not just markman rifles honestly, the liberator penetrator is in the same situation, in fact i would say we need need a full rebalance to almost all weapon because right now there are too many of them that are just so bad they may as well be removed from the game.

[thewyvernripper]

I'm hoping that the devs add an upgrade system for the guns like they did in Helldivers 1. That has the potential to fix a lot of the problems the guns have and improve them, like maybe an upgrade to increase the reload speed for the senator, increased magazine capacity to marksman rifles, or reduced spread/recoil on rifles. Hell even stuff like adding bayonets to some of the rifles could improve melee combat.

[BackwardsPancake]

There are two issues interacting to make this weapon class bad:

1. The "high-precision" playstyle is too much effort for too little reward:
If you're good, you absolutely can dumpster certain enemies like devastators with precise shots, and the scopes do help you make those shots in theory, but it just isn't anywhere near consistent enough in practice, and there are way simpler and more efficient ways to deal with those enemies.
The way the enemies move, the weapon sway, the aim flinch you take every time you get shot (+ the fact that you have to sit still outside of cover to take these stable shots and thereby risk aim flinch), and the fact that even after all this the best marksman rifle still needs to land several shots on a weakpoint - All make for a profoundly annoying experience.

2. The design intent for armor penetration on primaries and secondaries is incoherent:
Most standard medium-penetration weapons currently in the game follow the formula that you sacrifice magazine capacity and handling in return for the penetration and usually better precision (in the form of a better scope).
The point of improved precision is to hit weak spots - But these are not armored on most enemies.
The medium penetration helps you wear down enemies with body shots - But these weapons do not have the damage and magazine size to make this anywhere close to efficient.
Therefore, the benefits of these weapons are mutually exclusive and have no meaningful synergy.

[RandomUsernameAppearsInChat]

damn the recoil kicks so hard it must be hitting really hard,
the thing suppose to hit really hard:

[derkaiser]

Wild how the best "Marksman Rilfe" in the game is the Dominator right now. It's everything you would want in that category but is classified as "explosive" for.... some reason.

[danielkim]

It feels like the devs sometimes make weapons that would make sense in the modern day world against humans, but itd make more sense for super earth weapon makers to create weapons specifially for terminids or automatons

[Kizaru]

Came into this video already agreeing.
Basically, Marksman primaries have to have much greater power than your average primary, if they don't then it's 2 for 2 of sucking. Marksman weapons aren't supposed to be crowd clearing weapons they should to be for medium-heavies, so if they don't have enough damage to be able to take out tough enemies and are maybe harder to aim, then there's no point in using them. Basically it should operate like the Eruptor (without the explosive damage). The Eruptor kills most things in one shot AND it has a lot of ammo capacity. For the same reasons next to nobody uses ballistic shields vs Bubble Shields; too many disadvantages, too little unique rewards.

In a game where you are constantly SWARMED by enemies, marksman rifles are _completely useless._

[darkehartplays]

Realism is the worst possible argument for some of these weapons behaviour. If you shot a weapon like this in real life and it behaved this way, one: you almost certainly missed, two: your scope probably gave you a black eye, and three: it was *your own damn fault for holding the weapon wrong* and that's all there is to it. The calibers are not high enough, as demonstrated by the shots to kill metrics, for it to be any other way. Even lowest bidder weapons in real life outperform most of this shit.

[RG-PO]

I am not sure the devs play test or maybe they just create weapons based on an Excel spreadsheet. It is impossible that one of the devs used that weapon and said, "yeah this would be a great addition. LETS ADD IT TO THE GAME!"

[gamediverbr]

The best marksmen weapons now are the autocannon and the quasar cannon. High punch and reliabilty against almost EVERYTHING, over ridiculous lenghts...

[JamesTheTurnbull]

Not just marksman rifle, all of the rifles except for the sicke need a rebalance. Especially when rifles got outranged, outmaneuvered and outdamaged at further ranges by freaking shotguns. You know its bad when people prefer the auto cannon as a primary than a rifle.

[fluffrier]

I haven't watched a single second of this video and I already agree.

[jaywerner]

Regarding that VOTE on the Discord, id say that is correct. DON'T GET ME WRONG, the 2 Diligence rifles WORK but are not "overall good". The Diligence and Counter Sniper reward precision shooting, which is what a MARKSMEN RIFLE should do. But that does involve Kneel firing, and IDEALLY wearing Recoil reduction armor (cus then the rifle never MOVES).

The Adjudicator Even WITH Recoil armor and Crouching the Gun still Ladder steps Left and Right with EACH SHOT you fire in rapid succession. And it deals less damage then other 2 Marksmen rifles.

[monsoonthagoon]

It's great to see the whole community come together on this, and it's been building for a while.
The patch where they nerfed the Slugger already feels like a month ago, I really hope AH puts more into bug fixes and rebalancing over more content.
Especially if they never intend to have a weapon upgrade/modification system implemented.
There's too many weapons that need some love to just leave them the way they are.

[mrorlov]

Guns don't kick like that IRL to be honest. Unless you are maybe shooting some high cal weapon on full auto. Right now they don't feel like marksman rifles but rather like gimped ARs

[TheReykjavik]

Arrowhead has made some questionable balance decisions. They saw that the rail gun was the only viable support weapon to the point that people were kicking anyone who wasn't running it on high levels. That is toxic behavior for sure, don't do that, but it is a symptom of the other weapons not keeping up. They nerfed the rail gun pretty hard, and for a couple days we just didn't have any good options for killing chargers. Then they nerfed chargers so EATs and RR, an later Quasar could one shot them, and now we have lots of good options for fighting them. Nerfing the rail gun didn't fix the problem, it made it worse, going from one good option to zero. Then they fixed it by making anti-armor weapons actually work so now we have 3 good charger killing support weapons to choose from.

Then they saw that the slugger was the only viable DMR type weapon despite being a shotgun, and instead of buffing other DMRs to be viable, they nerfed the stagger on the slugger, which isn't even relevant to its DMR capability.

What I think they should do is buff all DMRs, maybe give them bonus to crit damage alongside an overall damage buff. Bring back the slugger stagger, but make it have damage falloff, or make it less accurate at range. Revert (or mostly revert) the rail gun nerf, the rail gun is a cool and fun gun, but just so severely outclassed that I never see it get played anymore. And while they are at it, let the slugger and explosive crossbow open loot containers.

[daviddavidson]

Dunno what you mean about nobody using the sights.
I almost always use them. As does pretty much everyone else I see playing the game at medium to long range.

However the sights need a rework in that they look like MS paint scifi stuff using late 20th or early 21st century tech.

We're already well on our way to every military firearm sight having a ballistic computer built in. At least for DMRs, bare minimum.

I would expect to see at least 2 things on 22nd century sights:

1) A rangefinder
2) A point of impact indicator
And
3) IFF warnings. So if you're aiming at a friendly sights turn from green to red, though that would detract from gameplay.

1&2 would make perfect sense on DMRs.

[arczer]

Fixing scopes and improving handling would be very good place to start.
when AMR handles better we start to have issues and Anti Material Rifle/AT Rifle aren't even Sniper Rifle, they have inherent inaccuracy due to design.

Also Medium Pen 1 should be standard on DMR's as they use same full power cartridge as MG (as to opposed to more controllable intermediate cartridge that AR's use), not because it would help against medium's since they don't have raw damage or stagger to capitalize on it, but to remove 50% damage reduction on light armor that many smaller bugs and bots have which cause them to take more shoots.

Then weapons could be adjusted across damage thresholds, like Diligence should take 2 shoots against devastator head, while Counter Sniper only should always take 1 (currently headshots can "deflect" and deal 50% damage denying kill)
While Vindicator would work like Battle Rifle (with appears to be what Devs aimed for), aka Assault Rifle with full power ammunition, higher recoil (through current is overkill) but DMR like damage

[KendoSonic]

I just say this because if they rework the battle rifles, I don't want them all to be just another DMR. I don't mind this rifle kicking; but I want it to melt stuff that is in my face with full auto, and get good semi-auto shots at a distance. Just like the real thing.