Support Weapons Analysis on Heavy Enemies | Chargers & Bile Titans | Helldivers 2 Weapons Guide

In this video I breakdown where the armour is, what type it is and how many shots it takes to kill the Charger and Bile Titan. Using all the heavy support weapons; Railgun; Eat Expendable Anti-Tank; Recoiless; Spear; Flame Thrower; Arc Thrower; Grenade Launcher and Autocannon.

#Helldivers2 #Helldiversguide

LINKS:

FAQ/Corrections:

I forgot to mention! All meaningful tests were performed on difficulty 7, in case of any scaling. I have done tests knocking off the Brood Commanders head with the AR-23P, I found it was the exact same shots on Difficulty 4-7. But right now I’m still doing tests on 7 just in case there are hidden modifiers.

Q0) No laser cannon?

A0) The Dev blog said this was step 1 in updates. Thought I would wait for more before testing it.

Q1) Can you explain your testing methodology please?

A1) I run tests until I have at minimum 4 clean recordings with data (in most situations). Any tests where the target may have taken environmental or other damage are discounted. I ensure the target is at 100% health and only include data where frame by frame I can confirm where the shots hit (Unless stated otherwise with words used like Approx or about).

For example, I must have killed 65-80 Chargers with the Railgun. But many tests are discarded as I accidentally missed the area the specific test, such as hitting the back with a shot instead all of them on the head. Or an annoying Bile Spewer dealt some damage to the Charger, or it ran over some environmental effect that dealt it some damage etc.

Once I have a minimum of 4 clean recordings, I feel fairly confident that is pretty strong data to use. I will also try and confirm outlier data. For example, the 4 head shot kill I mentioned with the Railgun. I tried to recreate this but could not over another 8 or 9 tests, instead only confirming even more the 6-shot kill. I then select the cleanest of the recordings that I have and use that in the video as evidence.

Q2) Any addition data on “Durability Damage”?

A2) It is still quite an unknown but there are multiple theories:

1) The area reduces the damage taken, but “Durability Damage” is dealt at 100%

2) The area reduces all damage until enough “Durability Damage” to the section is dealt, at that point the reduction stops working and 100% damage is dealt.

Q3) Can you explain more about the hidden armour values?

A3) The CEO of Arrowhead said on X (formally Twitter), that there are 10 levels of armour. Enemies will be assigned a value, and weapons have a corresponding penetration value. If the weapon penetration value is the below the armour value, the shots deflect for no damage. If both values are the same, the weapon deals 50% (the white crosshair hit marker). Above the armour value, full damage, (the red crosshair hit marker).

When a weapon states it has “Light Armour” that means the actual value could be 1-3. This is why some weapons which both have Light Armour Penetration may differ when shooting the same bug, one getting a white hit marker whilst the other gets a red hit mark for full damage.

For example, the AR-23 from Data Mining appears to have a value of 2. The Slugger has a value of 3. Presumably the head of a Brood Commander has a value of 2. This is why the AR-23 hits for reduced damage, yet the Slugger still with Light Armour penetration but at a value of 3, beats the armour and deals full damage.

These are the best educated guesses and assumptions right now.

Q4) I would love a spreadsheet with all this data!

A4) As I’m running tests, I am populating a spreadsheet with all this data. I also hope to work with some people in my Discord server to flesh out a lot more data. I will hopefully have a shareable spreadsheet soon!

Q5) Why do you put the word “Three” on the screen in text at various points?

A5) It has been made aware to me, (often in a nasty way :’( in the comments), that I don’t pronounce words with TH very well, instead making the F sound. For clarity I have started putting the text on screen to be clear on what I am saying. “You get (three) ammo”, instead of what people hear as, “You get (free) ammo”. As a child I had speech ffferapy ;) because I still had not spoken at 4 years of age. This is likely the reason I have not developed a very good TH in my pronunciation. P.S. My Mum sometimes jokes that she wishes I never learned to speak, as I now don’t shut up :)

0:00 Intro
0:10 Charger Info
2:47 Railgun Charger
3:52 Autocannon Charger
4:53 Arc Thrower Charger
5:41 Grenade Launcher Charger
6:24 Flame Thrower Charger
7:08 EAT Charger
7:46 Recoiless Charger
8:37 Spear Charger
10:04 Bile Titan Info
10:53 Railgun Titan
11:23 Hidden Armour Values
12:17 Autocannon + Arc Titan
13:01 Eat and Recoiless 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!

[itisluna]

Be careful what you hear about the Bile Titans. Nobody knows if its intentional or not, but when a PS5 player is in the lobby, Bile Titans are SIGNIFICANTLY weaker.

[andremariaribeirodacunha]

Great vid. No time wasted, just pure information, extremely useful.

On another note: after reading the video description, it blew my mind that some people think you have poor pronunciation. I think you have great speaking skills, you talk with personality, without it feeling obnoxious 'youtube' hype. I have not had a problem with a single word you have said

[melo]

Great video. Just a tip with the arc thrower.
You can make it shoot twice as fast if you half charge your shots after the first firing. It still does the same amount of damage. Think of it like a minigun, where the first shot requires it being revved.

[Hermitstatus]

8:09 This is what I respect the most from Arrowhead, the fact that we can partially reload and finish the process whilst dodging enemies instead of going back to square one every time is truly wonderful.

[TheMonkeydela]

Genuinely helpful video with little to no wasted time. Thanks for re-confirming my obsession with spamming the EAT Launcher all over the map

[Gottaculat]

E-AT is my go-to for chargers, devastators, and bot drop ships.
Charger and devastator both go down to a shot to the face. Drop ships go down with one hit to a thruster nacelle. It can also kill spore towers from across the map with one hit, but be sure to crouch/kneel to steady your shot over long range.

For bile titans, my buddy and I came up with a decent one-two punch; he hits it with a spear to take off the top armor, and then I call in the orbital rail cannon to finish it. We both have fully upgraded hangars, and usually both bring 500KG Eagle bombs, giving us 4 500KGs before our eagles need to resupply. If you distract a bile titan, or hit it with EMS (which my other buddy likes to run), you can stop the titan long enough to one-shot it with a 500KG bomb, as a direct hit tends to kill it outright before even exploding.

For bot Hulks and tanks, we usually call in the orbital rail cannon, and be done with them. However, the E-AT is also pretty good for taking out hulks if you get behind them and hit their vents, and I think the tank has a vent on the back, too, but my experience with these is limited, and usually the hulks draw so much fire by the time I get behind it, that I don't know if the E-AT is a 1-shot, or if it just took a lot of damage.

The E-AT is my favorite, because it has a crazy-fast cool-down, and comes with 2 launchers - a great way to rattle off 3 rockets if you still have one from earlier, or better yet, arm your buddies who are focusing on eagles, orbitals, or sentries. I also run a backpack shield generator, great for blocking smaller bug hits when lining up a charger head shot, as taking a hit without the shield disrupts your aim. One final thing, you can lure a charger into your E-AT stratagem delivery location, and get a free kill as the pod slams through it, giving the E-AT the potential to kill 3 chargers every 70 seconds, or every 63 seconds if you have the 10% reduced heavy weapons stratagems cool-down ship upgrade.

The E-AT, I'd say, is pretty well-balanced. The one-and-done is inconvenient, especially when on planets with stratagem-jamming ion storms, or near bot jammers. However, it's a proper anti-tank warhead, and as such, should be the best at defeating heavy armor, and being able to one-shot a charger is not OP at all, it's what you'd freaking expect to happen if you shot a AT rocket through the head of what's essentially a charging armored African bull elephant.

[THEUrinalCake]

Good to see this testing. Lots of [eople were saying "Oh railgun is still just as good, you just gotta get good with unsafe mode" but to me it felt about half as effective as it used to be and your testing bore that out.

[Destructaconn]

Invaluable information about the chargers with the flamethrower, thanks so much man. You deserve all the engagement <3

[NinjaGingaStubbs]

Cant believe my favorite DRG tester is now my favorite HD2 tester! Keep up the great work!!

[ThatTravGuy]

The editing and work here is fantastic. Great video, very informative, and very engaging.

[sasharudyy]

A few points that I'd like to add:
- Spear can 1 shot headshot bile titans. In my experience, it's also pretty easy to do. You just need to have them facing you when you shoot them, and I recommend pointing the spear above the lock point so that it's more likely to hit the forehead. This tecnique also works with chargers, but you have to aim below the lock point to reduce the minimum distance at which you can get a headshot.
- There is an armor level between medium and heavy probably called "light vehicle armor", according to the description of the guns that it applies to. For the moment, it seems to apply to the AMR, the Autocannon and probably the safe mode railgun (haven't tested that). Enemies that have this armor level are bot striders (you can't damage the cockpit from the front with the MG43, but can with these guns, for example), and Hulks (their face). This doesn't mean that these guns aren't useful againt bugs, since they deal full damage to medium armor parts like bile spewer heads or hive guard heads, giving you the ability to oneshot them.
- this granularity of armor levels going from 1 to 10 doesn't seem to apply in practice. Enemies either have no armor, light armor, medium armor, light vehicle armor or heavy armor, so 5 levels total. Every weapon that gets white hit markers on certain enemy parts, does so in all the same spots. There is no practical difference in penetration between the MG-43, Slugger, Senator, AR-23P and Dominator. They will get red, white and bounce hitmarkers in all the same places. It's likely the the Slugger and Senator are just mislabeled

Edit: I also just tested it, and you can get very consistent 3 shot kills on chargers with the Railgun if you hit them in the head with above 90% charge shots. You can tell it's above 90% when you can see the last longer horizontal black line.

[brayan]

Great video, no annoying intro, no bullshit, direct to the point and very high quality content.

[Dr.Boring]

there's an additional benefit to the expendable anti tank, as it is very easy to stick the call down to a chargers head and have it kill them as it lands, so on average I find I can kill three chargers per EAT which given its extremely short cooldown, is incredible

[CrossKnight]

Amazing video, thanks for all the hard work!

*Cries in Laser Cannon*

[ShadwRavn]

That flamethrower tip is really nice. Thanks.
Love the high quality videos.

[taraskywalker]

Thank you for taking the time to produce this! I have nominated you for a Democracy Award for your brave knowledge collecting endeavours!

[EspressoInSpace]

I remember watching your DRG videos and being in awe of how well tested and put together they are. Now watching you do the same thing for Helldivers is super helpful. Some of the highest quality content for each game. Keep it up!

[KaigaKarasuma]

When talking about the Autocannon reload, he calls them "Cartridges" and this is probably the first time I've ever had to say this, but It's Clips, not cartridges (or magazines). The rounds are 'clipped' together by a piece of metal that is ejected from the gun once the rounds are pushed into the magazine. You can see it fly up into the air.

Pedantry aside, this is a really good video. Great job on the breakdowns!

[ivanfranebijelic]

A valuable extra note, with certain weapons, it's possible to significantly reduce the shots to kill by first blowing up the Bile Titan's bile sacks. This also significantly empowers certain strategems, with the orbital railcannon being a guaranteed kill if the sacks are gone, and making the 110mm Rocket Pods much more likely to oneshot as well. This makes having a primary that can destroy the sacks quickly very valuable.

Side note, technically speaking I believe the new Plasma Punisher shotgun primary can kill a Charger through its armor with roughly a full mag to the head, so it should be able to eventually kill Titans too, not worth it but better than having no way at all to damage it when you respawn