Helldivers 2 - Slugger vs Breaker Direct Comparison (Helldiver Difficulty, Solo Tips)

Do you guys prefer the Slugger or the Breaker?

enjoy!

Timestamps:

#helldivers #helldivers2 #helldiver

[the_takibo]

"better at dealing with automatons at long ranges"

also me taking 10 seconds to kill 2 berserkers: 3:32

_who put that gameplay in there?_

[phyllmedusa]

This is the type of content I want to see. No shitty tier-lists, no clickbaits, pure information, with consideration for different gameplay against different enemies. Hope to see more of that

[jake]

to me the biggest weakness of the pump shotguns is the ammo count, 40 extra shells is simply not enough
(these issues have been fixed)

[Drbeattles]

The issue is your heavy weapon. taking the rail gun with the slugger doesn't give you the ability to clear hoards wile with the slugger you already have something that will punch through most enemies, take a stratagem to deal with thick boys and an MG or the GL and leave the rail at home. the machine pistol is a great choice for the secondary slot as its great for clearing trash away from you if they get too close for the GL. overall I think some of these guns are held by by players just changing one gun and not their kit to work around the guns abilities. people love the rail because it works great with the breaker, it can kill thick targets easily wile the breaker can handle hoards better.

[TheDoomlord]

Slugger is also one of the only weapons that can shoot open containers which can make gathering super credits/medals/credits quicker and save grenades. Not a huge deal but a nice thing to know about.

[Bubbabbread]

There is pretty substantial thing about the Slugger (that was overlooked in this video) that can make a BIG difference and makes me take it over the breaker nowadays (because I am also bored of using breaker lol), and that is STAGGER. This is actually substantial for Terminid's and makes it much more useable than you would think. I will say, it is definitely worse than the breaker at dealing with small Terminid targets, AND THUS THE BREAKER IS PROBABLY STILL THE BETTER OPTION BECAUSE OF THIS, but medium Terminid targets I believe the Slugger will excel against more.

A few examples:
You can be UNLOADING your breaker into a hive commander (big guys that like to get going without a head) with the breaker, and it will still keep going; the only time its stopping is when you shoot its legs off or when it is 100% dead from bleeding out or dumping more bullets into it. It will also not stop charging even when you are blasting into its head.
Alternatively, slugger shots interrupt them. Hitting them in the head will stop them mid-charge, and another shot to their head pops it off, staggering it back again. This is very convenient because by the time it is recovered from its staggered state, its already halfway bled out and will die before it gets to you, no need to shoot off some additional legs. This is better than you would think, because once you've shot the head off it you know you can immediately move on to the next target without worrying about shooting off legs and such.

Hive Guard isn't too threatening, but can be annoying to deal with when using the breaker. Usually my go-to is forego the breaker entirely and use a single rail gun shot again these enemies instead. It can take too long trying to go prone and shoot its under-flesh with breaker when there are other enemies rushing towards you.
Slugger demolishes this enemy. Not only does a slugger shot stagger it, making it expose its flesh more (which helps your teammates using other weapons), it will also straight up just go through the armor (medium armor-pen weapon) and 2 shot it aiming at the head. Very convenient against this not so dangerous but sorta annoying enemy.

Finally, and this is definitely the one of the BEST uses of Sluggers stagger, is against all three types of bile spewers. Breaker isn't bad against these enemies, it can kill them pretty quick when aiming at their head (for the nursing bile spewer and unarmored bile spewer only, its much harder for breaker to kill the armored variant on higher difficulties), but its usually not fast enough when they have already raised their head to start spewing or when you are reloading a mag.
And how does the Slugger perform? A single slugger shot to their head will interrupt the bile spewers spitting attack, very similar to using a rail gun on a bile titan during its wind-up spit attack. This can help tremendously; you will end up saving yourself, your teammates, and your turrets because of this property. It definitely does not kill them as fast as breaker does. HOWEVER, since the Slugger is medium armor pen, it is actually much much better at killing the armored bile spewer variant that shows up on higher difficulties compared to breaker. Definitely makes these enemies much less of a threat when you know you have the tools to stop them from using their spit attack.

Stalkers get ate up by breaker, but it lacks the range to kill them efficiently. You will be wasting bullets when shooting at range and shooting them too late can result in them getting a few hits off. Slugger solves this issue because it will just stagger them and leave them lined up for free follow up shots.


There's more that Slugger's stagger can do and I implore you to experiment, so take what you will about stagger and maybe think about it against automatons and on other weapons :). I definitely love using Slugger against them a lot more than bugs.

SOME OTHER THOUGHTS:
I don't understand why you painted the sluggers reload speed as being pitiful. Since it is rounds reload, you can actually reload and shoot at the same time. There is essentially no limit to how long you can fire aside from your entire magazines reserves. If you are dumping all your rounds, waiting 5.6 seconds to reload, and then shooting again, you are using this gun wrong. You will never have downtime killing enemies as long as you reload AND shoot.

I KNOW SLUGGER GETS SHIT AMMO, But you are never wasting bullets with the Slugger compared to Breaker. Breaker is mag fed and Slugger is not. Very often you will either be reloading Breaker when its completely empty (MUCH LONGER RELOAD THAT YOU SHOULD AVOID), or doing it when it before that and throwing away a few bullets. Every shot counts with Slugger and those 40+16 shells in reserve are equal to 40+16 shots in reserve, as opposed to 7+1 mags equal to 100+ shells NOT being equal to 100+ shots, because some of those bullets will go waste in the heat of battle. (also including the shots that come preloaded in the mag with these comparisons; Slugger gets more like 56 shots, not 40).

Using a different weapon also means you need to play differently. You won't necessarily always need a rail gun when you have something that can now deal with the medium sized targets for example. The rover becomes a great backpack slot for the slugger as it can fulfill the ability of taking at trash mobs which the breaker is great at and slugger is mid at. You won't always need to use a rail gun with slugger, GL is a good choice because slugger can handle medium targets easily and GL demolishes trash. Really, when comparing breaker and slugger, remember these are like different tools for different jobs.

The ammo economy of the slugger does suck a lot. IMO There are a couple guns that have issues with ammo economy that I really feel like should be rectified in a balance patch; these weapons being both pump shotguns, the spear, and less so but still noticeable for the anti-material rifle.

[demonicgrub]

I know you're looking for a weapon for automatons, but I just want to put it out there, the incendiary breaker is slept on hard for bugs. if you're running the railgun you'll already have a weapon for the bigger targets, and the incendiary really shreds through hoards. It's wide spread means you can basically aim at 20 enemies and do decent damage to all of them per shot. 3-4 shots later you can have 10+ kills on things hunter size and down. It does struggle with single target damage a bit more, you need to put more shots into the medium bugs to kill them, but if you're willing to whip out the railgun more frequently to deal with medium bugs every now and then when you need to kill them quick, its a really solid setup.

[MaxxxboxDGSCE]

oh you didn't talk about the stagger effect the slugger does, on stalker for example.
But until we get a balance patch were the rest of the arsenal is buff, the breaker will stay king

[drunkbunny]

The slugger (and punisher) can reload a shell inbetween each shot as you can double up on the actions of pumping and reloading.
So you dont really need to worry about reload speed or sustained DPS when comparing the 2.

Also the slug vs pellets is huge because even the bugs die faster to having all the damage hit 1 place means you break limbs/heads which kills faster than RAW damage spread all over the target.

The main drawback to the Slugger (and punisher) is their total ammo, for some reason they only get 40 shells reserve (breaker gets 100+) and resupplies only give 24 shells not the full amount (again breaker gets all 100+).

[Thailerr]

I see the slugger as a fantastic secondary weapons for teams. If your team is coordinated enough, multiple weapon types is very advantageous. The slugger mostly for armored target, the breaker for widespread dmg, etc. Having a well balanced and coordinated team makes it SO much easier.

[karremania]

When a 'anti sniper rifle' is worse then a shotgun at range.. Sometimes i wonder why they even put like 15 guns in the game, if clearly only a handfull are actualy solid.

[XxLouisTKSxX]

it is definitely a high skill weapon, I personally always use it on automaton missions, In a swarm situation I use my sidearm to clear the squishy light ones and whip it out against anything bigger( berserkers, devastators etc). the high dmg one shots automatons in the head but either the scope is off or there is slight bullet drop at like 10+m because you have to aim slightly above the head in order to score the weakspot hit. The stagger against berserkers/devastators have saved me and my team mates multiple times though, if I missed the head I at least buy myself a couple seconds to land a shot again or pivot to the others and stun them instead. Personally I say it's decent CQB because the automaton heads are that much closer to click, also if you want to keep constant fire up always spam reload at any opportunity, the upside to these tube loaded guns cater to our FPS reload habits, kill one, reload....peek out of cover fire, back in cover reload.... I do agree ammo is an issue at times... and in high pressure situations it has failed me a couple, but mostly due to misplay or unfortunate rocket spam/cannon turret sniping me from across the map.

[SleepyMatt-zzz]

Early on I just picked this gun out of curiosity, now I can't stop using it. It's really nice with a Redeemer as a side arm. Being able to reload between shots is a nice trade off with having full clips too.

[sentinelvortex]

The DMR is underrated for Automatons, but the flinch and inconsistency make me use the breaker more

[rudesthazard]

I think it's great against terminids. If you're running Ammo Backpack + Grenade Launcher, the slugger is like a pseudo-railgun against medium armor you don't want to waste a grenade on. Penetrates bile spewer heads too. It will also stun lock Stalkers.

[nip]

Reload immediately after firing. This will cancel the animation and give the slugger a bottomless mag

[climax]

Using slower guns like the slugger and dominator that are designed for those moderately armored targets is when I usually run the lazer guard dog, those things to serious work clearing out the little bugs so you don't have to, they'll even clear hunters and warriors if you can give them half a second to beam it.

[Mr_Big_Head]

Your review is flawed your comparing the slugger to the breaker to replace what the breaker does.
For mobs the slugger is not the best but if your support weapon accomplishes this the slugger shines because it can bypass armor and it stun lock stalkers, brood commanders, devastators and wrecks chainsaw guys.
For example I bring the slugger when I run nade launcher, stalwart, flamethrower, arc thrower

Breaker is better with railgun, recoiless, spear

Different gun for different builds

[gabzsy]

I recently went back to the Liberator....honestly, it's a very good allrounder weapon that people just discout automatically for being the one you start with, but to me it has all pros that I'm looking for in a weapon without any majoy flaw, plus it has the most customization you can have both for the scope and the shooting itself. I personally like the burst mode with a medium sight.

[TheCorgies]

It's not for shooting little mobs, it's for medium armor mobs. You can't use shield generator if you wanna use slugger effectively, you need guard dog to kill small mobs. Reload time is not an issue with 1 shot 1 reload technique. Spam R and shoot, a bit lower fire rate but way better. For me, Slugger is best main weapon against Automatons. One thing you didn't notice is that it has a STOPPING POWER. Devastator and Berserker will get stunned a bit, it's very powerful to deal with them with Slugger.