this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2024
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Helldivers 2

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[–] Oddbin 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I've seen people claim it's over powered but I'm thinking it's appropriatly set for it's intended target and we've not come up against the reason it's been added.

Also the guy at the map table said something about who is masterminding the Automatons plans. I'm thinking Illuminate are coming and this is for them.

[–] Sylvartas 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

People who say it's OP have never tried the EAT. Or they are salty recoilless enjoyers (I do think the non-disposable recoilless deserves a few buffs. Maybe a little faster self reloads and/or 1 more rocket in the backpack)

Illuminates had no heavy armor at all in HD1, even the faction boss had only medium armor IIRC. The only use I had for my trusty EAT against them was to easily 1shot the obelisks when they started to open up.

[–] Maalus 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

What deserves buffs is the Spear. A recoilless is a long-loading EAT. All it needs is what people have been asking for - the ability to feed someone's recoilless from their own backpack, and it'll be great. The spear has the same downtime the quasar does, with the added caveat that you can't really aim it so it often isn't a 1 shot kill like it should be, very few rockets that replenish one at a time, and a targetting system that is so cursed it probably uses dead orphans with ADHD in there.

[–] Sylvartas 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah the spear is just trash right now unfortunately. At the very least it needs to have more reliable lock on, better homing because how the fuck am I missing more shots with the space javelin than with the dumbfire RRs ? And it wouldn't hurt to get 2 rockets from ammo pickups instead of 1.

Also the recoilless has 1 single advantage over the EAT (aside from the obvious ammo count) in that it can shoot as soon as you equip it, whereas the EAT has some dust cover thingy that needs to be opened (and closed if you stow it)

[–] Maalus 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Recoiless also reloads in 3 phases. You can interrupt the reload and get reloading sooner when you start again. For the spear, the rocket magically reappears in the launcher when interrupted after throwing it out :<

[–] Sylvartas 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Yeah I forgot about that. Mostly because the only way I know to interrupt stationary reloads is to dive, which is a little awkward

[–] Arbiter 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I mean, with someone loading the recoilless it isn’t even long loading, pretty effective AT volume of fire

[–] Maalus 4 points 7 months ago

Yeah, but you'll never get a player to give up their backpack to wear your ammo. Unless you get 2 of them at once (and at that point, why bother with paired reload?), it isn't really feasible. What would need to happen, is an ability to reload someone's weapons from their own backpack instead. It would be a lot more teamwork, and in the event of an armored enemy, would get the person that's chaff oriented to reload the recoilless. Sadly no news on them going that route yet.

[–] Crackhappy 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Fun meme but honestly considering how ridiculously overpowered it is, I'm surprised at how fast it is, with infinite ammo.

[–] ralakus 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I hope if/when they nerf it, they just increase the cool down time or even just add some kind of limited ammo like heatsinks or something and keep all other stats the same. I highly doubt they're gonna leave it alone since it's now become "meta" to a lot of players and it outshines many other anti armor options against bugs except maybe EATs

[–] Maalus 4 points 7 months ago

They could just buff other ATs instead. Lots of them are in a bad spot. Nerfing what's popular won't get you a balanced game, it will get you annoyed players and the sticker that says "no fun allowed"

[–] SpruceBringsteen 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Very strong on extract when you can drop a second and cycle between guns on the ground.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Cycling two quasars at extract is the way.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Oohhh I have tried that yet. That's a good idea!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

It is nice that it doesn't explode in your hands like the railgun!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Yo pitch me why you like the Quasar over, say, Autocannon.

I wanna love every laser and I wanna paint the world in burning light, but I can't seem to get a good feel for the Quasar. In what situations are you using it and where do you think it shines?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I'm not sure if the Quasar will take away my Expendable Anti Tank slot, so I might not be the best one to answer your question. But I can see some advantages over the autocannon.

  • It doesn't take a backpack slot
  • It can one shot a lot of stuff
  • There's no reload time, just a cool down time. So you can switch weapons and continue to fight/run
  • Unlimited ammo is pretty nice

Edit: I realize I didn't quite answer your question since you asked about situations. I also haven't used it enough to get a real good feel for where it shines.

[–] IMongoose 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

The one thing the Quasar is really good at is shooting down dropships. One engine shot and it's down. Does shooting down a dropship actually do anything? Not really, but it's rad as hell.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Not only is it rad as hell, but you can smash the dudes that it just dropped off!

[–] ours 4 points 7 months ago

When I shoot before it manages to drop the bots it does quite a number on them. A couple of Quasars and bot ships drop like flies around the team.

When I see a flare go up, I get on MANPAD duty and eagerly await for the ship.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

I am 100% a Quasar enjoyer, personally I like the cadence of it. You pull it out behind cover, let it spin up, shoulder-peek and delete something, then put it away for 10-15 seconds and it's ready to go all over again. No backpack slot, no ammo concerns, no reload animation, no waiting for a call-in to deal with a heavy. The Quasar projectile has no projectile drop either, making it hands-down the best weapon in the game to snipe bot dropships or distant objectives. I'd be reluctant to "waste" an EAT or RR shot on a Devastator, but the Quasar's infinite ammo means I'll happily zap one on that 15-second cadence if there's nothing bigger to shoot at.

One piece of advice for using the Quasar: don't use Aim-Down-Sights. I use ADS with most guns in this game, but not the Quasar. If you've only used it first-person then you might not realize that the third-person reticle for the Quasar gives way more information. The reticle spins and slowly turns from a square into a circle when it's about to fire, making it easier to time your shot when shoulder-peeking. The reticle turns red while it's on cooldown, white when it's good to go again. The ADS view gives you none of this information visually.

My group runs 8s if we feel like pushing ourselves, 7s if we want a less frantic pace. At those difficulties there are a lot of heavies to deal with, and the Quasar feels like the most flexible tool for dealing with them. The RR can shoot faster with a team reload, but that requires coordination that can be hard to manage under pressure. The EAT can give you two quick shots per call-in, but then you're left with a minute-long dry spell before the destroyer can give you any more rocket goodness.

The Autocannon will tend to struggle against Tanks and Hulks. That said, if you enjoy the AC then go with what you like! One of the regulars in my group usually brings an AC, and I'm happy to have them there because it can deal with other targets for which the Quasar isn't suited. Against bots the AC shreds walkers, against bugs it pops spewers, and against both its splash damage will clear chafe packs quickly. I wouldn't want a full team of ACs on a 7 or 8, but one or two are always welcome in the mix.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Well said. My only complaint is that it you die holding it, recovering your weapon is an absolute must (unless it's off CD). That can be a bit tricky, because if you die to a tank or a group of heavies, it can be tough to recover.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They added a wee little bar under the scope on the quasar showing charge, so it is much easier to edge the shot now

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Yeah that was much needed, as otherwise 3rd-person view actually gave way more information than 1st-person.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

You can one-shot drop ships out of the sky, causing it to drop on top of the bots that were just delivered: I get 10-13 kill streaks with one shot. It smokes a hulk in one shot to the face, and 2 shots to the front of a tank turrent.

On bugs, you can blow a chargers head off in one shot, kill shrieker nests in 2 shots, and blow the head off a titan in 2.

It's an absolute monster weapon that borders on OP, which makes me think Joel is about to shaft us with way tougher enemies soon.

[–] Sylvartas 3 points 7 months ago

It's an infinite recoilless with long charge up time. That's it. If you are generally positioning away from fights, have trouble finding the right moment to reload the recoilless or have bad aiming, it's good/better than them. If you are generally frontlining, the charge up time will get you killed in situations where a recoilless, which is instantly ready to shoot, or the EAT that readies up in less than 1 sec (and you can do it while running) will outshine it.

It's not in the same category as the AC at all. But if you want to vary things up, as a fellow autocannon enjoyer, I would recommend the arc thrower. It kinda fills the same niche of anti-medium/anti-hordes. It's much better at anti horde duty than the AC but a little worse at dealing with medium armor, and has less range. Which it trades for better multi-target damages and zero reloads/ammo management. Also positioning is more important than with the AC to set up good arc chains/not kill your friends/avoid the arc getting blocked by terrain, dead bodies or bushes. Also it will still deal some damage against hard targets where the AC just bounces off. For example I find it easier to kill chargers with it than the AC because you just have to arc them in the face 5-6 times.

[–] Maalus 1 points 7 months ago

No backpack for one. A shield gen is great for survivability, a jump pack is godlike for getting into places where nothing can get you. Shuttle defenses become a breeze with quasar + jump pack, since you don't need to restock its ammo (you can't drop stuff on mountains and cliffs, it bounces off). Three people with quasars can reliably shut down a bot drop by shooting dropship engines, you can kinda do it in two, but sometimes there is like 5 or 7 drop ships and you need to grab some air, or someone misses. Also tanks get dropped and always survive the drop even if you frag the dropship, so someone needs to fire a shot or two at them. One hit on the charger, easily takes out bile titans, tanks and the dreadnought-looking enemies (with a possible one shot to the battery or the tiny head on the front). You can use it on annoying enemies of "lower" threat level too, since yaknow infinite ammo. The downside takes a tiny bit of getting used to, but after using it for a day or two, you are just as effective with it as with EAT's, but you don't only get two shots.

Plenty to like about this weapon when running AT.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

They ought to revert the railgun nerf. Current quasar is way better then old railgun ever was

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Not quite, railgun had superior rate of fire and pierce, so it could clear entire waves if properly kited. Quasar does a lot of damage but it can't even oneshot a berserker.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Not really, you had to manage its 20 rounds of spare ammo, which goes by real quick if you need to help finish off something like a bile titan.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I feel like railgun was OP until they gave us other buffs like an EAT being able to one-shot a Charger.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Wait they didn't before? What were they good for?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

They would strip off the leg armor in one shot so you could then shoot the exposed leg with your primary weapon. The devs called it the "leg meta" and agreed that it didn't really make sense for that to be a better strategy than just shooting it in the head.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

What REALLY doesn’t make sense is how shooting their exposed butt does basically nothing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's 3 shots with the auto cannon in the tail and they bleed out. Same thing can be done with a lot of the primary weapons, it just takes a good amount of shots. Even the sickle can do it after changing heat sinks a couple times, you just have to matador them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Explosives are the only way that is remotely ammo efficient. Half your primary ammo isn’t what I would call effective.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I can take one down with a sickle without needing to change a heat sync once, you just have to patient.

The new quasar cannon kills them in one shot to the face.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That’s not exactly feasible when you have to deal with all the other bugs that normally come with them.

[–] Maalus 1 points 7 months ago

And by other bugs you mean 4 other chargers and 3 bile titans. Playing on higher difficulties, effective anti tank is a must. We used to run 2x EAT, now we run 3x quasar since it has unlimited ammo and isn't a pain to drop it all the time

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The butt is an explosive weak point. Non explosive weapons do 10% damage when striking it, where explosive type weapons do full damage. Charger butt, bile variant side sacks and the titan belly are all examples of these weak point and why most primary weapons struggle to kill these enemies.

[–] Maalus 1 points 7 months ago

When you actually try it in game, it comes out to be like 30% extra dmg. It's not good.

[–] ExfilBravo 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What is the cool down to re-shoot after you've shot it? the game only tells you the cool-down for the stratagem.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Like 10 seconds or so. You can switch to your primary weapon during the cool down so it's not bad at all.