Helldivers 2 - Gunship Destruction Testing & Tips for support weapons

Testing what weapons & Stratagems are best for destroying gunships and their factories.
Helldivers 2 - Gunship Factories Destruction Testing & Tips
Creator Code: ohdough
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0:00 Gunship Factory from Narnia
0:08 Scorcher
0:17 Auto Cannon
0:40 Spear
0:50 Laser Cannon
1:20 Quasar Cannon
1:34 Grenade Launcher
1:47 Anti Materiel Rifle
1:52 Recoilless Rifle
2:01 Eat-17 Anti Tank
2:17 Quasar pt.2
2:30 impact Grenades
2:38 Heavy Machine Gun
3:09 Machine Gun
3:37 Arc Thrower
3:51 Railgun
4:00 Patriot Exo Suit
4:24 Gunship Factory
5:16 380MM Barrage
5:28 this shouldn't be here
5:42 Bots are now harder than bugs
6:06 Dodge Gunship Rockets
6:20 Gunship Factory Alarm
6:39 Jar-5
6:54 Slugger
7:03 plasma Punisher
7:09 HMG Emplacement
7:41 Auto cannon Sentry
7:59 Rocket Sentry
8:12 Tier List for Gunship
9:11 hi
9:57 Railgun is worse now
#helldivers2 #helldivers

[@tetranova6]

Looks like Hellbomb is the only answer to shutting down the factory.

[@mawnkey]

I'm actually kinda curious if mini-nuke artillery would work too. Seems to take out everything Hellbombs do.

[@jaywerner8415]

@@mawnkey It SHOULD, in theory.

[@cruzmadrid6611]

Drop in! Drop out! Kabow!

[@NathanFiveFourThree]

It does ​@@mawnkey

[@rad7333]

Just tested it, 3 hellbombs didn’t destroy it

[@Insandom]

Anything that takes a Hellbomb to kill, can be killed by a Mini-Nuke. SEAF Artillery might be worth finding if you encounter these fabricators in a painful spot.

[@MikeTheIke415]

Honestly I haven't seen both SEAF artillery and gunship fabricators in the same mission.

[@blastmole299]

500 kilos should work too, right?

[@Z7Sakari]

Incorrect. My team tested it and two 380mm HE barrages, 1 orbital laser, 2 SEAF mini-nukes, and a few EAT's did NOT kill it. The piece of trash only dies to a hellbomb, and as Dough displayed for us... it usually takes more than one.

[@Skip15pl]

@@MikeTheIke415 I did once but then SEAF was full of EMS, napalm and smoke. No HE, not even saying about nukes...

[@theresnothinghere1745]

The one I'm more interested in is the SEAF Anti-Air, I wonder if it will target the gunships.

[@ShebbyYT]

That lens flare is stupidly huge if that was an intentional design choice then the automatons are truly evil

[@mawnkey]

That or they're just fans of late 90s CGI.

[@TheJamesLykins]

I believe it’s supposed to give the JJ Abrams sci fi look

[@CrazyLikeUhFox]

It’s supposed to feel like a chopper has got its spot light on you I think. It’s intimidating.

[@Untoldaeons000]

​@@CrazyLikeUhFoxYeah it works very well in the fear department, on top of obstructing your view

[@Deadsnake989]

Modern day police helicopters have both nightvision and thermal imaging, but still have a spotlight, it's purpose is to blind and intimidate what ever the helicopter is chasing. The lens flare is there to mimic a helicopter spotlight. It's 100% intentional design on the devs to make it harder for us to accurately hit the gunship weak points with precision weapons.

[@lunarveggie]

7:30 that isn't aim assist, that's intersection indication basically, since the game looks for where your bullets will land (not accounting for spread) to display the circle, and it will jump the circle to where the barrel is pointed if it just starts to get obstructed the HMG turret has sway (oddly enough) so when it sways downwards and is aiming towards the dead Devastator, it will display the circle at said devastator since that's where the gun is technically pointed for TPS games, you cannot make a physical bullet shot from the gun on screen (on the character) track directly towards the same direction as the camera is pointed at, that only really works in FPS games, and even then if you shoot the projectile from the barrel (not the camera) it'll get blocked in a similar way the game tries to point the gun towards where the retacle is, but if there's an object between the gun and where you're pointing at, it will get blocked it's a good thing they display it if anything and for people that still don't understand The line between Camera->Retacle is not the same as Barrel->Retacle The camera sits higher than the character and gun, so the camera can see some things the gun cannot point directly towards

[@campo_grande8460]

I second that its not aim assist as well, although there are a few FPS games that emulate that very well but in those cases its more height over bore like tarkov and arma

[@JaximusDecimus1]

I was ready to comment this myself. This is what's happening, not aim assist.

[@emeraldturtle5523]

Definitely this, came looking for the comment as soon as he said it was aim assist haha

[@KalijahAnderson]

Came to say the same thing.

[@g80gzt]

You just spelt it "retacle"... Twice.

[@TwoTwig]

This is all pretty cool but that hulk fire damage is legitimately the stuff of nightmares now

[@IRMentat]

One puff and you fry, not even a dolphin dive is fast enough to prevent the first tick of damage killing you. Not helped in that the range of those things is way more than you realise given how fast those hulks chase even scout armour.

[@cyriloboco3083]

I think it's cuz they buffed all fire damage.

[@ThomasL12.]

bugs seem like heaven now

[@maiy8786]

I always got one shot by those anyways so I'm wondering now if people used to survive those before the patch. All it took was getting my feet clipped for a split second by the fire and I got insta gibbed.

[@Deadsnake989]

@@maiy8786 Pre patch I survived those things constantly. It was the least scary hulk for me. Now I carry 110 rocket pods on every bot mission specifically to counter hulks. Assuming I'm not using the recoiless or the quasar.

[@JimmyStiffFingers]

The gunship facilities not getting destroyed by arty is pretty insane, tbh.

[@R3GARnator]

They learned from all those people winning bunker destruction missions in under a minute.

[@teeg7078]

Snooze fest comment

[@raghebyared8177]

U need hellbomb

[@JimmyStiffFingers]

@R3GARnator ah, I didn't know that. I think I only ever used arty barrage twice, because I think it's a very boring stratagem.

[@TheCosmicAstro-]

What the hell is arty

[@johnsmith-th9jj]

biggest problem i have is the bots keep destroying the hellbomb

[@spartdo1232]

They wouldn’t let that slide frfr

[@blastmole299]

Easy solution, guard it With your life

[@D3adCl0wn]

@@blastmole299 Or, get this, some sort of force field that shields an area. If only we have those as "useless" stratagem.

[@jaywerner8415]

@@D3adCl0wn I know right.... WHY THE F@#$ DOES NO ONE EVER BRING THE GOD DAME SHIELD GENERATOR?!

[@piercedfreak27]

i had them destroy 6 hell bombs in one game.

[@robbywoolums9071]

I decided to use the railgun last night for just one mission and was having a blast with it. Of course that was the mission I encountered the gunships. Your wonderful testing reflects my experience.

[@Herminus_II]

The Railgun is sitting in a real tough spot with this one. It’s supposed to be a high risk high reward weapon after all… Feels bad when the Heavy MG and AMR can basically do the same thing, without the added risk. To put things into perspective, the Scorcher a PRIMARY WEAPON is more effective at killing Gunships than the Railgun itself. I’m no expert but there’s a problem when quote “the weapon you spawn with” out-preforms a Support Weapon in its field. The Railgun in this case being specifically designed to deal with heavy armour. Not to mention that like other Support Weapons it also takes up a stratagem slot. There’s only two possible explanations for the Railgun underperforming: 1. It’s an oversight/ bug. (AMR can 2 shot a Hulk and 4 shot a Gunship when the RG can 1 shot a Hulk and 9 shot a Gunship.!?) 2. Arrowhead (for whatever reason) has a hate on for the Railgun. Whatever the case there’s better options than the Railgun currently. The Risk just ain’t worth the “Reward.”

[@petercottantail7850]

seeing what kind of communication on discord/blogs, they (who ever keeps talking, could just be one person that sucks at pr) are pretty arrogant, so might be a pride thing they didn't want to admit they over reacted with the nerfs. being slow to fix a bug like rockets doing extra damage than intended means this could take a while if it's a bug. rip spear lock on am i right 😂

[@Link10103]

it will never not amuse me how badly the railgun was dunked in a toilet and then tossed into a locker just to have something like the quasar cannon show up and do better than it even before its nerf.

[@JomnCT]

You sure as hell aren't going to be wasting your 1 shot every 15 seconds from the QC on a Devastator, whereas you can just snap a shot off with the Railgun and still kill the Hulk next to it in that same 15 seconds.

[@66maybe66]

@@JomnCT The Autocannon and AMR can do that too. With better ammo economy, no chargeup, faster followup shots, and no risk of blowing yourself up. The Railgun's previous claim to fame wasn't against bots, that have glaring weak spots for medium pen weapons. It was against bugs. Chargers and Bile Titans actually NEEDED heavy pen to kill quickly, and the Railgun was king of it at that point. It didn't have the stationary reloads, steep ammo economy, and need for a backpack of the Recoilless/Spear. Now the Quasar Cannon fills that niche better than the pre-nerf Railgun ever did.

[@JomnCT]

@@66maybe66 QC has the issue of the 5 second charge up time. This may not seem like a lot, but oftentimes those 5 seconds are all a Charger or Bile Titan needs to be on your ass and force you to abort the QC shot, let alone all the chaff bugs that could fuck your aim up before you can get the shot off. Coupled with the up to 10 second cooldown time, the QC is much poorer as a reactive weapon. In addition, the railgun was just a do everything weapon at that point, and it's very clear the devs never intended it to be anything other than an anti medium armor weapon, when it could do both medium and heavy armor very well. 20 shots and a quick reload meant you could afford to knock out Brood Commanders or Bile Spewers very easily while also handling Chargers and Bile Titans. QC on the other hand is a big waste if you shoot it at a Brood Commander or Hive Guard. This is why the QC is balanced with the other anti-heavy armor support weapons, whereas the Railgun needed to get knocked down a peg. Now does the Railgun deserve to get a few minor buffs? Maybe, I haven't taken it out because I've always been an autocannon girl. But while QC is definitely a strong weapon, it's not as strong as pre-nerf Railgun because pre-nerf Railgun was great at most everything.

[@petercottantail7850]

​@@JomnCTsniper and auto cannon against bots do everything the rail cannon did prepatch but better

[@JomnCT]

@@petercottantail7850 Hot take, that was always the case. :P Even before the Railgun nerf I preferred the AC more.

[@Karami42]

The HMG and the rock thing, its not aim assist, the game is telling you that the rock will take the shot and it can't hit where you aim at, that's what these things are. Not aim assist, a visualisation of what will be hit

[@albertwesker828]

I love how you keep in the failures/rng deaths in these. Funny af but keeping it real at the same time.

[@IAmNumber4000]

7:27 Ackshually that was not aim assist. The circle is where your shots are expected to hit and it’s jumping because the rock is closer than the background. Your camera is at a different angle compared to the firing line.

[@supercold1171]

That is not aim-assist. That circle is showing you where you're ACTUALLY aiming. It's based on weapon weight, or "wieldieness", recoil and drift. Every weapon has a drift. When the circle was on the rock, it was because of drift. The circle shows you where you are actually gonna hit. It's a more realistic war game in that way. That cod mw bullshit doesnt fly here.

[@ALuckyDonkey]

It’s 10000000% aim assist. Funny how some people couldn’t tell 😂

[@supercold1171]

@@ALuckyDonkey Are you just being a troll, or do you legitimately not understand?

[@koalabro6118]

​​@@ALuckyDonkey Even if it is, why do people care so much? It lowers the barrier to entry, and the game is PVE so it doesn't hurt anyone except the Try-hards that want a game to be so difficult only they can play it and bitch about tier 9 being too easy when the rest of us who have 9 to 5 jobs and are looking to have fun playing a game to relax are more than challenged enough at tier 5.

[@Eternal_Tinsel]

There is the circle that shows where your bullets go, AND that circle has wonky aim assist sometimes. At 7:30, you can see the issue very clearly. It is normal when the circle sways slightly while not moving, but the circle randomly snaps to the rock for no reason.

[@godMach1ne]

​@@koalabro6118facts

[@Nate123318]

Thanks for actually testing things, instead of just reading patch notes over some stock footage. Subbed.

[@Z7Sakari]

They need to fix the Gunship Fabricator. My team tested it and two 380mm HE barrages, one orbital laser, two SEAF mini-nukes, and a few EAT's did NOT kill it. The piece of trash only dies to a hellbomb, and as Dough displayed for us... it usually takes more than one. Completely unacceptable, particularly when on higher difficulties you rarely have time to get a hellbomb to go off because it keeps getting disabled by the enemy.

[@mawnkey]

Ah thanks for the answer on mini-nukes. I was wondering about it in another comment.

[@Skip15pl]

I will add one more think that happened to me twice already - pair it with nearby automatons artillery installation nearby and you're in quite a challenge.

[@66maybe66]

Is an optional objective requiring a hellbomb to destroy really that problematic? Being able to kill Shrieker nests from range is lame. It just incentivizes you to never even let the new enemy type spawn. I'm glad these are so durable that you actually have to take them out as intended. The hellbombs themselves just need to be more reliable.

[@guohongli5727]

@@66maybe66 well the thing is that you can't really arm the hellbomb whilst getting shot in combat, and an unarmed hellbomb just poofs when enemies shoot at it.

[@Velaroz]

@@guohongli5727 Even the player-armed hellbombs poof when they got destroyed, unlike the random hellbombs you can find smoking on the map--which go off from a stray bullet.

[@dicerson9976]

7:40 That's not aim assist, that's Sway. The game has very strong and very pronounced built in weapon sway as one of the balancing mechanisms for most weapons in ***addition*** to recoil and aim lag (the amount of time it takes for a weapon to "move" with your cursor/crosshair in third person / the amount of delay when aiming in first person). The bigger, heavier, more powerful weapons have stronger sway and the HMG emplacement is no exception. Crouch/Prone and Fortified are all things to mitigate that, but there's only so much that can be done about it (Such as on the handheld HMG, for example, which is the least accurate weapon in the entire game by no small margin; even the autocannon is better than the HMG when it comes to persistent firing).

[@jonathanoriley8260]

The HMG Emplacement having sway like that makes zero damn sense. It's an _emplaced/mounted_ weapon; it should be stablized by its supporting structure. The same arguement also goes for the mech's rotary MG; a damn BMP-2 irl (which can fire 30mm shells at a rate of over 500 RPM) has a better stablizer than that thing. Hell, look at the 20mm rotary from an AC-130 as an even better comparison. The excessive "sway" on certain weapons like these are just pure nonsense.

[@iprfenix]

It's literally not sway. It's a PERSPECTIVE issue. The game is in third person. The camera is both behind and above the actual HMG. The camera can see above and further than the actual barrel of the gun that is shooting. In many FPS games the bullets actually come out of the camera position not the gun (no really). In this game the bullets are fired from the position of the guns barrel not the camera. The horizontal lines are the cameras perspective and the circle is the LoS/perspective of the gun barrel. The camera simply has a higher and further perspective than the gun barrel.

[@ALuckyDonkey]

Its aim assist. How do you people not realize the reticle actively looking for targets?

[@IRMentat]

@@iprfenix it is absolutely this. Helldivers goes above and beyond to show the ACTUAL hit-location of every (non grenade) projectile fired with that circle. The only “assist factor” to it is telling the difference between the camera that’s 12-15 feet off the ground aim point and the gun barrel that’s being aimed and fired 10-12 feet below. Plus the handling stat and helldive running/standing/crouched/prone status.

[@ninjaskillzyt]

@@ALuckyDonkey u cant be for real

[@phaphachboy]

That's not aim assist, that's height over bore. Your camera can see that angle but your gun barrel can't

[@OhDough]

No, try again

[@SpamRambe]

@OhDough ​???? its really not aim assist its just aim sway combined with the camera being disconnected from where the bullets come from

[@66maybe66]

@@OhDough What is with you and just brazenly writing off people that correct you? Not the first time I've seen it in your comments sections. They're right. The weapon was pointed right at the top of the rock. It would clear it while swaying up and hit it while swaying down. In third person that gives the impression that the aim point is jumping around, but in first person it would make perfect sense.

[@Gaelic-Spirit]

@@OhDough Thanks for the enlightening comment Mr Egotist, maybe try accepting that you're wrong.

[@JackiedudeQQ]

Kind of hard to believe he's unable to see this. With a reply like what he gave you, I'd be pissed. And I am.

[@GrumpySlav]

7:30 That's not an aim assist. it's just your "line of shooting" intersects with boulder therefore bullets will hit it and that's what this circle indicates.

[@D3adCl0wn]

Oddly enough, he's denying it in the comments for some reason.🤣

[@66maybe66]

@@D3adCl0wn He just has an ego about the game for some reason. After the patch that adjusted heavy spawn rate to make non-AT weapons more useful, and let the EAT/Recoilless oneshot chargers, he went off about how Arrowhead were ruining the game and had no idea what the players wanted and it wouldn't actually create build diversity, just make the game less fun, and nobody likes fighting hordes, charger spam was way better. This was literally 11 hours after the patch went live. When I pointed out that he hadn't even experimented with anything new postpatch (ALL of his footage was with the railgun) before making concrete statements about the new meta, he just replied "I can't make this any clearer," and ignored me.

[@TheVivi13]

@@66maybe66 Yeah, not sure why he wants to sabotage his own career by being such an ass to people, but whatever.

[@66maybe66]

@@TheVivi13 And he just made a new video calling everyone correcting him "pigeons", while literally just misrepresenting what we were talking about. His proof was that the red dot is misaligned, which is completely irrelevant to this whole "auto-aim" business he's wrong about.

[@TheVivi13]

@@66maybe66 What a character. Definitely clicking "do not recommend" if his videos pop up again lol

[@Boamere]

Not dying to one rocket is a godsend, also they really need to make the railgun worth bringing again man. Also did you see how they justified nerfing the slugger “it was the best sniper” so instead of buffing the snipers, they nerfed the shotgun part of the slugger lmao! They could have given it crazy damage drop off for all I care but they nerfed the stagger

[@taylorgarrett793]

huh they kinda look like the tech 2 UEF gun ships from surpreme comander forged allience

[@hexPixelStarships]

So does the transport ship

[@quannd]

Facts

[@SoraTheKobold]

didnt even think of this, so true

[@Propersciguy]

Indeed they do. Or supcom 2

[@rasithasenevirathne1604]

Or hunter killers from terminator or most any other “scifi gunship”

[@NF-pk5mo]

The moving cicle reticle is a raycast from your physical gun to in front so itll appear different from where the middle of your screen is based on if it hits an object

[@keith4430]

The devs nerfed the mech missile accuracy in ways that they never directly disclosed. Initially it's aim was true, albeit off to the left side a bit. Then, when they 'fixed' the missiles from causing the mech to explode, they made it's missile aim more RNG (like a shot gun) vs a straight line (proir patch), where you could accurately predict where the missile would land. I think that was their way of ninja balancing the mech, vs an admittedly outright change that would outrage their player base.

[@OhDough]

ye... it felt way off last patch. no idea why they'd do that.

[@ghoulbuster1]

Devs saw how much people hated the railgun nerf so now they just nerf stuff without telling people lmao

[@rasithasenevirathne1604]

Its funny how they nerfed the railgun cos it was “brainless” and then released the Quasar(edge my gun and time my load vs hold down trigger till I blow my load). 😂

[@Arxeon.]

So my take from this is that the scorcher is now due in for a nerf because it works...

[@aaronhumphrey3514]

Frankly after the Slugger nerf it's basically inevitable since the Scorcher is hands down better than the pre-nerf Slugger.

[@vizualwarrior129]

I stg if the scorcher gets nerfed ima be so mad (it prolly will be too) the crazy part is that both the pre patch slugger and the scorcher were/are balanced. Scorchers ammo economy is what keeps it balanced

[@AnInsaneOstrich]

I can confirm: These Factories can spawn on Difficulty 5, I'm assuming that 5 is the lowest difficulty they can spawn on as their insect counterparts do not spawn on Difficulty 4 (unlike some of the other harder side objectives like Stalker Lairs, Stratagem Jammers, Spore Spewers and Detector Towers.) If you wanna fight these things but not want to deal with too much other stuff then I believe 5 is the lowest you can go, though it doesn't have that great chances at spawning as there are a bunch of other side objectives competing for the 3 side obj slots.

[@t900HAWK]

My thing about the rail gun nerf is I feel like precision weapons like that are meant to target specific weakspots but the weakspots are also limbs so the nerf made the gun not useable for its purpose

[@IRMentat]

Yep. This. The devs NEED to rethink their heavy pen system as IMO gas, fire and explosive attacks should destroy/degrade armour so the squishy bits underneath am be hit by any weapon. But currently even with “the leg meta” most enemies are functionally immune to damage on most of their armoured parts (if you can’t reload then you are basically out of AV) but they will get one spot where the AV/anti-heavy will simply delete them from the map. There’s a lack of middle ground where you can weaken a tough enemy then take it out with your other available weapons. They have likewise started to translate this into the damned sub-objectives (gunships n shrieker nests) in that LONG cool-down strats are basically useless (more useless, you can call in 2-3 precision/500kg/strikes in the time a 380/120/walking/deathray gets to miss half the things you wanted dead) and they are forcing us up close on objectives that spam enemies that are generally annoying as hell (dead shrieker corpses 1-shotting full hp and shielded helldivers, or now the lens flare gunships covered in med/heavy armour are as tough as a hulk individually and spamming rockets n Walker weapons from the air). The devs are doing a lot right but I can feel their lack of FPS experience vs their clearly well planned out and supported overall roadmap and storytelling of this first campaign.

[@Lilitha11]

The ships don't seem like a major threat as long as you are paying attention and don't let too many spawn. That said, I was playing in a game where our team used 8 hell bombs before the buildings were actually destroyed.

[@AlejandroKirkisObese]

ridiculous

[@Kye9842]

they are a major threat and wtf are you talking about with 8 hellbombs

[@Lilitha11]

@@Kye9842 I don't know if it was bad placement, or if it was bugged or what(It was my teammates placing them, not me). I saw them each explode though and it seriously took 8 before it blew up.

[@Reverae]

@@Lilitha11 bad placement I think. From my testing, its better to just blow it up one by one instead of placing one in the center hoping for it to kill both.

[@AlejandroKirkisObese]

@@Reverae bad placement shouldnt be a thing for a "hellbomb"... might as well replace hellbombs with 380mm barrages since hellbombs are b*tch made

[@thebarcon]

7:26 that's not aim assist that's weapon sway and the reticule showing point of impact.

[@DuraheLL]

Heavy machinegun is a disgrace. They need to fix the optics of it. It's TINY, it's like aiming through a straw. At least they could have the decency to give us a reticle when you're in 3rd person but no. Huge newbie mistake from arrowhead

[@TheCosmicAstro-]

Its a bad gun and it has no QoL while using it. Yeah.. needs some love. Reducing the RPM was the last thing they should have even considered lol

[@mawnkey]

I think the point was to make it more of a ranged support weapon hence the lack of a third person reticle, but then they give us no zoom so everything at the range we're supposed to be shooting at appears to be the size of a mosquito's dick. I think giving it 0-50-100 zoom might work if they insist on not having third person available.

[@DuraheLL]

I think it's because they want "realism" and it's not supposed to be used in 3rd person (they go on about if adding a gatling gun they would have to simulate "massive recoil" etc) I think it was just a mistake on their part, adding the tiny optics for such a weapon like that. Having a headache for aiming is counter productive lol@@mawnkey

[@slip7ongue897]

​@@DuraheLLI was gonna by that logic the HMG encampment shouldn't have a 3rd person reticle. Then remembered it is completely stationary and not mobile hence it's capability to have minimal recoil despite the fact it and the HMG have roughly the same round size being fired

[@napowolf]

Just asking, what is rail gun even good for at this point? It can't kill objectives like eggs, bug holes and fabricators, you can't pen armor without potentially blowing yourself up, and it can't crowd control.

[@IRMentat]

It should be a semi-sniper with heavy pen. For sone reason the devs decided to lock in armour pen and armour shred/removal as a single stat. Railgun should poke a single clear hole in EVERYTHING. Gas/acid/explosive damage should rattle, break and melt the armour grade of various things away so other weapons can lay some pain instead of bounce. Instead the devs made the railgun the point n click (no backpack required) ultra efficient armour shredder then backtracked like crazy (a rail gun SHOULD be the optimal anti gunship engine weapon, or weak point deleter or Walker driver killer) while leaving only 2-3 ways to deal with heavy armour otherwise (eat, RR, the bugged to hell and back spear and later the quaso) when what we REALLY need at this point are more options, not less. the higher you go the less “fun” weapons you can bring as the only reliable AV/anti-heavy is a support weapon, everything else has way to long a cool-down or worse, it can miss AND have a 4+ minute cool-down. Area kill OTOH has many viable options Gatling/cluster/primaries/grenades/SEAF/gas/mines and more.

[@ClonedGamer001]

1:20 Apparently pinging a target gives it priority for the Spear's lock-on, which should in theory prevent situations like this. I don't know if that's actually a thing or not though.

[@ZedDiDragon]

Also make sure to throw salt over your shoulders and don't walk under any ladders, I hear that helps too.

[@azyrennvd4814]

@@ZedDiDragonyou should also be making sure that the astral projections are aligning and that it’s low tides.

[@Omni0404]

​@@azyrennvd4814 You all actually think that stuff works? My technique is to wear my lucky underwear and perform a tarot reading.

[@darkseed6514]

And make sure the village people and ancestors are on your side before aiming

[@devinnewman2397]

Bring a goat as proper tribute.

[@MagosPudding]

Autocannon sentry will target them, but its easier when they are farther out and not shooting at other bots on the ground.

[@agps4418]

7:25 bro that's not aim assist, that's just the actual weapon crosshair (not mouse crosshair) phasing between the far ground and the rock because you point it at the rock while the camera is in 3rd person

[@nekomakhea9440]

If only the dropship engines were weak to anti-medium weapons too. And SPEAR _really_ needs a laser guided manual targeting mode that just makes the missile go wherever you're aiming at, the lock on is hot garbage. Also, the whole point of heavy arty is to demolish buildings, its wild that the spawner is immune to that.

[@Tetragramix]

The commando has what you want (laser guided manual target). The spear will never get it because the devs made another weapon just for that gimmick.

[@unknownbenefactor8029]

Bug : ha.... Shrieker.... Just a big mosquito... Ignore the shrieker and destroy their nest. Bot : uhh.... Jeff... Why do those drop ships look like they have guns..... Oh... A helldriver's remain inside a smoking crater. Aka Yamcha's pose.

[@NeocrimsonX]

Lol my yesterday with 4 coming at me

[@R3GARnator]

The original laser cannon is so good at killing shriekers too.

[@Cuthawolf]

Thanks for the testing. Haven't encountered these yet, but I like to be a little prepared.

[@brunoks6951]

Shield Gen + HMG Emplacement from a safe distance. Give cover to a friend while he places a Hellbomb. I was doing that and it was working well.

[@siberianhusky2763]

I appreciate the time and effort that goes into testing all of these. Thanks, Dough

[@B1ackxUnicornx]

a no brainer but SEAF SAM site also will focus on shooting them down! Had one nearby on a mission and it was just spawn killing the gunships

[@thaddeusii2142]

Love this video man super helpful

[@Polaris5664]

Its unfortunate that the plasma punisher doesn't hit the gunships at all, its been my go-to against bots because it can stagger multiple devastators really easily and can kill scout striders. not to mention you can hit enemies from behind cover so the enemies cannot shoot you!

[@77rockcity]

As it shouldn't. Working as intended

[@mysss29]

wow! I had no idea so many things were so effective!

[@RonJeremy514]

7:22 It's called height over bore and perspective of the camera with an objet (rocks) in the way in a vertical position/point of view of the camera, which is in third person. A good example of that, horizontally speaking because of the barrels' convergence, is immediately after with a bot coming to the right at 7:33. Notice how despite the point of aim being correct, the barrels fail to hit it, so there is a shift to the point of impact.

[@Lunageldia]

You're talking about the right things but while it's *technically* height-over-bore, that's not really the best term for this. It's just the difference in Line of Sight intersection between the character/turret and camera.

[@KayTurner]

thanks for all the testing you do.

[@thomasp506]

That's not aim assist. It's a combination of the fact that the camera is above your character and that the crosshair is projected from the gun barrel, not the camera. As the gun sways down over the nearer object, the crosshair "jumps" as its not aiming at something way in the background anymore. If you could look directly down the barrel, you wouldn't see it jump. Also, why would it be aim-assisting against a rock?

[@josh6499]

Great video. Efficient and thorough. Thanks for respecting my time.

[@krom4773]

Great video, keep em coming man.

[@robalberto1583]

"oh god no" when he sees the turret turning to him haha I've been there.

[@MrRolnicek]

I was also someone who swore that there's aim-assist on KB+M in this game. But after some testing we pretty much all agreed that it is JUST parallax. Sometimes the parallax will go crazy, usually when there's the skybox behind your target (since the sky is very far away) I have some video evidence of this if you want.

[@cadderli]

Thank you! Super helpful!

[@muhammadnorhanif]

HEY MAN LOVE YOUR VIDS STRAIGHT TO THE POINT

[@samuelalonso8334]

Autocannon, my beloved... What can't you do?

[@petercottantail7850]

it literally can't get nerfed. too much dev bias in the way

[@cattysplat]

Be ran without a backpack slot. Unless you enslave a teammate to carry and reload for you.

[@luxaly9510]

thy should make it that u can destroy them with quasar/EAT/RR and other stuff ... hellbomb only is a pain in the ass ... or make hellbomb that u call explode on impact... (with a 20-30 second call in)

[@Ninjat126]

My first gunship encounter, I happened to be running the Autocannon. After asking my team what the hell was happening, I decided to take a close look at the thing. Fired a couple of shots at one of the engines on a whim, and was surprised to see the thing go down. AC does a great job but my #1 choice is still the Lascannon. Zero projectile travel time means you can swat gunships out of the air at up to ~250m away, even under pressure, no need to reload. Theoretically you can kill them as fast as they spawn, forever, until your team can put down a Hellbomb. Gunships are also uniquely vulnerable to the Spear, since there's usually less stuff to block the lock-on up in the sky.

[@thedude291]

Thanks for the tips

[@Italiano7211]

this would've been a great opportunity to make the arty strikes a powerful options for those fabricators but nah, devs have more important plans i guess

[@IRMentat]

Indeed for such long cool-down “powerful” abilities they are massively out-done by a damned fighter-bomber with multiple uses on a way shorter cool-down and by a single simple aimed shot from a smaller gun. I generally take the eagle strike and maybe a walking/380 (for softening up secondary targets while I do an objective) solo. Or when in a group or clusters with the precision as if I need something gone I don’t want to wait 4 minutes between shots and the strike can hit multiple targets 2-3 times in a lower overall cool-down than the 120/380/walking/deathray can do a single sub par salvo that doesn’t hit half the things in its area. There’s ZERO reason for the 120, 380 or even the generally reliable walking barrage NOT to turn these shipping-crate factories into scrap. Same for the 500kg tbh. Hell, I rate the Gatling and AC/ems turrets well above the bigger or AoE orbitals (gas/frag/barrage) because they let me do with one grenade and sonn now flanking fire what a 4 minute cool-down can’t on it’s own.

[@gary0044187]

great video, really wondering about what kills the facilities though, I really hate having to patiently wait for a hellbomb to drop only for it to either be destroyed without exploding by the bots or not do anything...

[@conchadeconchos]

He’ll bomb getting destroyed is the worst, never ending battle sometimes to get it off

[@marmuhardestboss9197]

First time I saw these I couldn’t find any sessions for some reason and went solo. This was certainly a shock since I didn’t know they were added

[@GooiYingChyi]

Wow, now I need the scorcher

[@daethbane]

Good stuff Dough!

[@TheMMObro]

I spent all night trying to make an amr video, and hadn't run into any of these. I barely ran into hulks lol. I was on level 7 Good to see my beloved amr shredding them

[@shitongoogle1132]

7:29 that's not aim assist with the HMG, that circle is jumping because the camera and the gun barrel are not looking at the target from the same place. The camera is looking straight out of the screen towards the dot crosshair. The circle shows what your gun barrel is looking at, and its origin point is much lower than the camera view. When you look at that slope, there is an angle you can point the camera down behind it that the gun barrel CAN'T see, so it looks like it jumps between the parts it CAN see. 7:40 Sentries face the way you were facing when you threw the beacon, so of course it's not facing the gunships.

[@RonJeremy514]

To make it even more simple: Point of Aim vs Point of Impact. One has to acknowledge those two definitions.

[@Lunageldia]

at 7:30 that's not Aim Assist, that's the LOS of your character being different to your camera. The circle reticle extends directly from your character and will be interrupted by anything that actually blocks their line, even if you can see over it with the camera.

[@Jameston]

I swear the instant death Hulk Scorcher deaths are because of headshot damage, the “killed by unknown” part is what makes me think that. It’s been around for a long while, it’s not new to the current update. I don’t believe I’ve seen it under the known bugs section as with this game it can be hard to tell what’s intentional. I was having a similar problem with instant deaths to singular rockets even with explosion resist. That was just fixed as explosions were counting multiple times. Scorcher damage could be similar

[@mrhappytroll]

thanks ohdingo

[@thoughtgaming492]

If you don’t like the railgun it’s just a skill issue. -dev meat riders

[@sayankar5367]

A fight between the factory striders and the mechs will be epics

[@neochong3123]

This is invaluable information. Democracy thanks you.

[@SilentSpeak]

U sir r doing super earth gods work

[@aff66]

Thanks!

[@KnudAutlermann]

Yes more vids like this pls!!

[@Mo__fauna]

Ye I had the same thing happen with the hell bombs! I called in, it went off and didn’t blow up either one despite being right next to it

[@zaniatnik]

Spear is amazing against gunships. Locks are very consistent unlike with ground targets and missile oneshots them.

[@cesaritox09]

Is there gonna be video tips&testing against the factory strider??? I think that's the name of the titan from automatons. Nice vid as always to the point.

[@TheVergile]

i really dont understand the railgun nerf. if they really felt that it was too OP then why introduce the quasar? in the first place the only reason the railgun felt OP is because almost anything else we had sucked at dealing with armor. and the few options that didnt were unusable due to lock on issues, hilariously bad ammo economy or were gated behind way too long of a grind.

[@xerox782]

At 6:01 how did you get out? It happened to me yesterday, and I got stuck there the whole mission until my crew flew away in Pelican. I could not kill my self, as I did not have any nades. Did you solve it by killing your self? Or is there some other way to get out?

[@DatCheese]

4:50 was that the shield gen smothering the blast? If so, can we shoot the gen before running away and hope the hellbomb is not destroyed during brief exposed?

[@samarkand1585]

With how many dubious Helldivers 2 content creators there are lately, I'm proud to say I stuck around watching you after finding out you actually wrote anti-materiEl rifle

[@liamseven1604]

the spear works well if you ping what your trying to lock on to, pinged things have priority.

[@taprackmiss4613]

7:30 I believe that the shift of the aiming circle is not aim assist. It is instead showing point of impact. It is more sensitive on the turret because of a much higher "height over bore" with the camera being higher and centered. For normal guns in 3rd person, the height is more in line, but the paralax is more horizontal and less extreme overall.

[@IRMentat]

That “aim assist” is the absolute hit location of your weapon when used in third person (to a “fixed” distance unless it intersects with terrain/objects). It bounces around when using the AC because the AC is bouncing around. It’s sluggish traversing with the machine gun, counter sniper, RR and flamer because those guns handling are utter ass. It’s clipping rocks and walls when you were on the HMG because the barrels are trying to aim at a point in the distance that your floating camera can see but the barrels themselves cannot (periscope/bore-axis issue with third person above the character aiming). It’s “aim assist” only in that it’s an absolute representation of what the held weapon WILL HIT. Many other games either spoof the projectile paths (the FX come from the gun but the actual projectiles come from the camera) or give their weapons de facto unlimited punch through on “cover” being used by the player.

[@zaiz6018]

the amount of gunships it can spawn is actually horrific though me and a friend lost a dive on a nearby facility sending no fewer than *8* of these after us

[@dustinjones7458]

Thanks for the tips. *Flamer hulk walks in off screen and it one shots*

[@blastmole299]

This would be the perfect enemy to be killed with the Spear, such wasted potential

[@HenryTitor]

Its semi-trash mob, you don’t get enough spear to be anti air

[@petercottantail7850]

even if it locked on consistently, you would have to use all your ammo on them infinity spawning as you slowly crawled to their spawn point, the time it takes to down one, another shows up as you reload. there is nothing you can do with the spear if there is a second ship already. instant death from rockets is the icing on top. bring it for objective sniping from across the map, that's it's role whether the devs themselves know it or not.

[@Double303]

Hulk Bruiser's flamethrower, sometimes it 1shots you, sometimes it lights you on fire, and you can heal. I don't care whether it's one or the other, but I wish it was consistent.

[@CrazyLikeUhFox]

My favorite thing about these videos is that all the random deaths are left in lmao

[@pantheracheaxb747]

What suppose to look like as an Anti-Tank missile launcher only seem to work ever-so-well on Anti-Air... Hmmm...

[@riisky2411]

How did he not realize he was shooting a rock point blank with the mechs rockets. On a positive note the mech survived 4 point blank rocket explosions before dying

[@crypt0z]

The circle floating around your crosshair dot is not aim assist. It's actually the true location of where your round will hit, based on where the barrel is pointing. I've noticed it tons when you move quickly spinning around to fire a shot, you have to line up the circle with the target or you will miss, even with the crosshair dead on target. I think they added this as a extra level of realism because in war you don't have a crosshair floating in mid air and there is always some deviance from your perfect aim.

[@Kingsleyrulz]

Its not aim assist, your perspective is such that you physically cannot fire somewhere that you can see in third person. The circle is showing what you come in contact with.

[@i_am_AcTive]

The grenade launcher was stealth nerfed. Used to 2-shot bile spitters now it's 3.

[@CaptWhiskeyTango]

First, thank you for the in-depth testing, OhDough. I learn more from your videos than any creator. This is an odd request, but can you test enemy lethality between a PC host and PS5? What I am saying is that I believe there are more differences between platforms than the Bile Titan/Railgun match-up. It “appears” to me when I watch PC player’s videos that divers take hits that I know would mulch me. One example is Spewers: I die instantly if my boot gets goo on it, while PC players seem to take damage but stay in the fight after a complete or partial coating of slime. Anyway, you're an awesome creator, and it may not be worth your time, but thanks.

[@vitasartemiev]

7:39 It's not aim assist. The barrel is not aligned with your point of view. The circle shows real point of impact, because the point you are looking at is obstructed by debris from the point of view of the barrel.

[@jeffpadilla9891]

It’s like being in a Terminator future with these gunships!

[@NicoBlackXIV]

This isn't the video we deserved but it's exactly what we needed.

[@emufarm29]

PSA: After using the quasar nonstop since it dropped i went back to laser cannon tonight and man it rules. Generally kills anything in less time than it takes to shoot the quasar. Lot of devastators on these bot missions and laser makes quick work of them. Laser ftw bbbzzzyyyyoooommmm

[@diswazzi1683]

Idk what they did, but they did something to the exosuit's missles, they used to hit dead on the reticle and now they're waaay too far left