I tested ALL ARMOR TYPES and PASSIVES in HELLDIVERS 2 so you don't have to if you don't want to

[@ManualReplica]

Here is how armor and health actually works: Player base health is 90 HP, the Vitality Enhancer increases player health by 20%, bringing it up to 108 HP (it does nothing else). Limb Health and Limb Injuries have absolutely no relation whatsoever to damage taken, and are entirely separate from your HP. The base damage modifier for Torso is x1.0, Head is x1.5 and Arms and Legs are roughly x0.85 (limb damage modifier wasn't the main scope of our week of testing). Unlike enemies, the player has an Armor Value (AV) of 0, meaning you can be damaged from any source. Instead, players use Damage Resistance (DR) which is a % of damage blocked by incoming damage, and is not represented or conveyed properly at all by the armor "stats". "Armor Rating" (AR) doesn't actually mean anything, it's fake UI element that's purely there to tell you if something has more or less "armor". The actual table for AR translated to DR actually looks like this. AR - DR - BLOCKED - RECIEVED 0 = 0% - x0 - x1.0 50 = 20% - x0.2 - x0.8 75 = 28% - x0.28 - x0.72 100 = 36% - x0.36 - x0.64 125 = 42.4% - x0.424 - x0.576 150 = 48.8% - x.0488 - x0.512 200 = 59.04% - x0.5904 - x0.4096 If you want to calculate damage and health for yourself to compare vs known damage sources, like the MP98 Knight SMG (which does exactly 50 WPN DMG), or to find out how much WPN DMG an enemy attack does you will need to screenshot your HP bar and divide it into 9 segments of 2 blocks each (90 HP total, each block representing 5 HP) for BASE HP. To translate the segmented HP bar into Vitality Enhancement boosted HP, you instead interpret each block as 6 HP (12x9 = 108 HP). You then screenshot your damaged HP bar, overlay it over your segmented bar to get your MISSING HP value (the amount of health LOST) and use it in this formula. MISSING HP / RECIEVED = WPN DMG The RECIEVED value corresponds to how much armor you have, so for the B-27 Fortified Commando, which has 200 AR (59.04% DR) the RECIEVED value will be 0.4096. If you instead already know WPN DMG and want to calculate how much damage it will inflict (ie MISSING HP) value you reverse the formula. WPN DMG x RECIEVED = MISSING HP The JAR-5 Dominator does 200 WPN DMG, so if you shoot a 200 AR player in the Chest you will deal 81.92 damage (MISSING HP). OBSERVE, your Head has 0 AR / 0% DR at all times, you don't have ANY protection on your head and will ALWAYS take 100% damage + Headshot multiplier (x1.5 or higher). Your Cape for that matter also has 0 AR, and no stats of any kind, same as your Helmet. REGARDING CRITS There is no such thing as a "critical hit", not even for explosives. The cause for "crits" is a visual error due to your local game Client having a disagreement with the game Server about the visual for projectiles and animation state for both the Player and the enemy attacking you. What this means is that, on your screen (your Client), it sometimes looks like an enemy shoots or hits you in the Chest for half your HP or more, or as if your character just survived a direct impact from a rocket to the Head, but on the Server side the attack hit elsewhere. The animation state on your Client does not always reflect what the Server sees either, on your end you are looking up or turning around, on the Server end your character is lagging behind and flinching or looking down while reloading or aiming and was just shot in the head. This is also why Bile Spewers and Hulk Scorchers can sometimes instantly vaporize you before their spray/fire even hits you. You can actually recreate this Server-Client disagreement in other ways: 1) Spectating other players while you're dead, which immediately tells you that what you see and other players see is not the same. 2) Piloting a Mech and having another player stand on your mech while you walk around, the pilot will see the surfer float and lag around behind them, but the surfer doesn't. 3) Shoot very precise shots at a stationary player (easier if they do the Hug emote and hold their arms out) right at the edge of their model hitbox, which on the recieving players end visually looks as if they were "hit", with your bullet being stopped and a blood effect playing with no damage taken and on your end looks as if your bullet kept going past them. FORTIFIED/EXPLOSIVE RESISTANCE & DAMAGE Fortified provides 50% Explosive Resistance (x0.5) AFTER your armor DR% has been calculated. Heavy Armor does in fact protect against explosives (but the damage is so high that you often can't tell), but wearing Heavy Armor with Fortified does not give you 98.8% Explosive Resistance. Instead it will first block 48.8% of the damage and then block 50% of the damage NOT blocked by your armor DR%. So if a rocket does 250 WPN DMG (I don't know the exact damage of a rocket), it will deal 122 damage to someone with 150 AR / 48.8% DR, which will kill them. But if they have Fortified, the game then takes that 122 damage and reduces it to 61. Also, rockets and shells have direct impact damage as well (which is not blocked by explosive resistance since it's a non-explosive damage type), which adds to the broad damage variance when being hit with explosives. STAMINA "Stamina Regen" is, just like "Armor Rating" a made up fake stat in the stats UI. Stamina Regen is exactly the same for all armors (3.3 per second), and what it actually means is total Stamina. Stamina Regen is only increased by the Stamina Enhancement booster (by 65%), which also increases your total Stamina by 30%. CLASS - STAMINA - RECHARGE TIME TO FULL Light - 125 - 9s Light-Medium - 115 - 8s Medium - 100 - 7s Medium-Heavy - 75 - 6s Heavy - 50 - 5s Oh yeah also unrelated but brief on weapon AP: Light Armor Penetration = 2 AP Medium Armor Penetration = 3 AP HMG/AMR/Autocannon, etc = 4 AP Recoiless/Quasar, etc = 5 AP Spear = 6 AP Scavenger = 1 AV Warrior = 2 AV Hive Guard/Munitions Cache, etc = 3 AV Scout Strider = 4 AV Charger = 5 AV Fabricator = 6 AV AP < AV - No Damage / Deflection AP = AV - Penetration at x0.5 damage (50%) AP > AV - Penetration at x1 damage (100%) You can deduce the full range of AP/AV values for all enemies and weapons with this, so gg have fun.

[@cashcrop_]

Pinning this comment, but I do have one question. What I'm referring to as crits are for series of attacks where I appear to take slightly more damage than I otherwise would on a bodyshot. A sliver more in damage. This results in taking 5 shots to the body instead of 6, in the case of Medium Armor. I read through what you've provided a couple of times and I don't see a way to account for this. Any thoughts on why this is happening? It's fairly frequent, or rather, the likelihood of taking the maximum number of body shots is very infrequent.

[@Gameout50]

@@cashcrop_ bugs can hs. hitbox thing even on the small guys

[@jasper1883]

REGARDING CRITS -> could just call this desyncing issues globally impacting the entire game.

[@cashcrop_]

@@jasper1883 That doesn't make any sense. I can't explain away 1 extra attack 1/4 of the time by desync issues when coupled with a moving healthbar.

[@cashcrop_]

Unpinning until more clarification is provided on a glaring issue that isn't accounted for in this very matter-of-fact explanation.

[@stevebutters306]

The entire point of the electrical defense armor, besides rumors of Illuminate arc weapons, is for when you finally convince one guy in the friend group to get the game, he plays for a while, then you hear "I just unlocked the arc thrower/tesla tower!" over the mic. Then... you put on your electrical defense armor.

[@cashcrop_]

A fellow green-faced individual. I also like that "butters" is in your name. "Electrical defense" as you said is exactly my thought process on this armor. In the past few hours, I've seen some comments regarding the Electrical Conduit passive acting as a "lightning rod." Gonna test it some tonight. Sounds like a good time. "Hey, shoot at these bugs, but be sure to hit me first!" Sounds dumb, silly, and wonderful.

[@stevebutters306]

@cashcrop_ oh wow that's interesting, there's one guy in my main crew who runs arc thrower on any enemy, any difficulty, he's cracked with it. If that shakes out, it changes the game for us.

[@nemosdadmarlin5916]

@@cashcrop_ You can use a teammate to chain lighting, it's a niche tactic but it helped me and my friend out earlier

[@RiversJ]

What it's really for is frying bot circuits by the thousands. We tested them with a group, four arc throwers, everyone in electricity resist armor, every has smoke callins and some even nades. You literally walk through everything like you are the Storm of the Century, End of the Cycle, Zeus incarnate descended to bring his Wrath upon the worlds!

[@Lugghandle]

I feel like at least 10% of my deaths on Mavelon Creek were from Arc Thrower friendly fire.

[@Caleb_Cachagee]

Haven't heard "check the hypotenuse of a square" since HS math

[@cashcrop_]

Geometry wrecks!

[@Alticroo]

"I'll never use the pythogerems theorem!"

[@-Arv]

"I wish I was high on some pot-enuse"

[@squidwardtentacle5]

​@@-Arv (saying it louder) I WISH I WAS HIGH ON POTENUSE.

[@yaronakrayis7291]

​@@squidwardtentacle5hahaha! You're so funny!!

[@billsmith30]

I was doing a bot eradication the other day. I fucked up and wound up directly under a supply pod call in. The thing crushed me, full health wipe out. I stood back up. Democracy Protects indeed.

[@FusterCluck678]

If a fellow helldiver shoots you with an arc based gun while you are wearing an electrical conduit armor, the arc leaps off from you to the nearest enemy. You literally become a conduit that allows the arc to pass through you, extending the arc's range.

[@thorveim1174]

thats ho w arc weapons fnction normally, the sole difference really is that you will survive this :p

[@excaliber3666]

or you can use the democracy protects trait which means you would survive the arc thrower/blitzer/tesla (and all other immediate sources of instant death) maybe once, but ive also noticed that you can survive MULTIPLE times, if luck favors you (i was getting thrown around by half a dozen chargers in a large pit while on essentially 0 health)

[@jota7000]

I feel like it should also weaken the damage done to the next enemy, seeing as you absorbed so much of it before it passed through you.

[@vincentlee7359]

​@@jota7000 nah

[@Xaiclun]

@@jota7000 Well, it is called "electrical conduit armor", which implies you just redirect the energy instead of absorbing it, so non-reduced Damage is fitting for its way of work.

[@OverBlackSands]

I remember the devs talking that they made detection work "as it would in real life" as in the bugs can actually see and somewhat smell you, but the automatons mostly rely on vision as well as sound. They didn't go into specifics, but they made it clear that they had different ways of detecting the Helldivers

[@denzelballestar]

If only line of sight also worked the same on the automatons. I can't see shit in Troost or Draupnir or the Creek but I'll still get oneshot by something i can't see even with an AMR scope or the highest magnifier on the Sickle

[@stevefilms1997]

They can’t smell you, only hear.

[@HolyApplebutter]

It's entirely anecdotal, but I feel I get spotted by bugs a lot more easily than I do with bots. Even with non-scout armor, I can usually pass by a patrol without them noticing me. The bugs on the other hand seem to notice me whenever I get within a 5 mile radius of them.

[@christopherm4739]

Iirc a friend told me Stalkers purely smell you, and thats why they always seem to know where you are when you're near their nest.

[@CharliMorganMusic]

I am loving these very scientific videos. Fuck tier lists. This is the real shit. Gathering data, testing hypothesis, etc. This is good shit. You've earned a subscription.

[@cashcrop_]

Tier lists, to me, are for fun. I like Claysthetics tier list because everything at the top is basically what he likes to use, even if it's not that great. I like digging in to things, and I'm happy that there are others like me. Thanks for the comment. Feels good.

[@tehphoebus]

I want to second this sentiment. Sharing conclusions with data and the testing is excellent. It gives others an opportunity to treat their own ideas or to replicate. 🫡

[@lucafrix66]

100% agree with this. I want to know what effects are happening. These videos are great.

[@gibberishface]

Got my sub for this also

[@danikahicks2210]

Dammit. You're right. I wasn't going to subscribe until I saw your comment and you are so right.

[@blm2295]

joel watching this ready to change every single stat you gave us here lol

[@cashcrop_]

Feels bad.

[@DivineOrange]

Joel isn’t a developer he’s just a game master 💀

[@kyletrout3828]

@@DivineOrange there are no limits to Joel's power.

[@krodmandoon3479]

Who?

[@Ligmaballin]

@@krodmandoon3479 Joel Mama

[@MoeHasubandoAbsolver]

I'm pretty sure the "stamina regen" stat is actually total stamina value, and stamina regens at a base rate. The reason I think so is that stamina regens to full much faster while wearing heavy armor than light armor, and depletes much faster in heavy armor than in light armor.

[@LukeKim197]

I concur; there's a consistent ratio of time spent sprinting vs time spent regenerating. To round to simple numbers, it appears that the stamina bar drains at a rate of 3 per second while sprinting, and regenerates at 10 per second (independent of the actual speed or total distance being covered)

[@MDestron2282]

This is what I've been assuming and how I've been reading it.

[@SariusxX]

Just so you guys know, there's a pinned comment now confirming your theory and explaining a lot more about armor and damage, it's pretty interesting!

[@TruthHunterTeen]

​@@SariusxXit's actually incorrect in places. We have 300 health at base, which myself and a friend tested by accident, then verified. A single headshot from a sickle does 282ishbdepending on range. Without failure that left them with very little health remaining, which also gives us the value roughly for hs increase. Sickle does 55 plus light armor pen, which I presume 100 counts as medium due to the armors themselves. So doing 282 consistently with only very minor differences that we concluded were range based, we have a health of 300, according to the atat screen. Him claiming the devs don't know how their own game works is... More then a little bad. Would be much easier if we had helmets that changed values as well.... But in the meantime this works. So tldr, his math doesn't like up as the base argument is 90 HP, which means the rest of his numbers are also inaccurate

[@SariusxX]

@TruthHunterTeen I'm, of course, taking everything with a grain of salt, which is why I called it interesting and not correct. In the same vein, where are you getting the damage numbers from? He explained a lot of his methodology pretty well, and I don't understand yours quite yet. And yeah, I don't subscribe to his opinions either, but his values seem to make sense.

[@Sovreign071]

On one hand, I kinda hoped the helmets would have their own mini passives. But on the other hand, having all the helmets be entirely aesthetic is probably better. There's no meta build or combination; you just look good!

[@BisexualPlagueDoctor]

I think it'd be cool if they atleast had a visual effect, like better night vision, heat vision, enemy indicator, enemy health indicator, etc

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

All the details I needed on armor, served up. I've been hype for this video. Glad to see it released so I can watch it.

[@cashcrop_]

Dude, same. I'm tired of it. Time to take back my hard drive.

[@FDgamin]

@@cashcrop_ I hear there is a community of individuals that love liberating space. They will goes the ends of super earth to ensure your hard drive is clean and delivered safely. Anyways, discovered you today. I love the scientific analysis approach you take helldivers and how open you are to criticism. It's hard to find people like you out on a space like this and foster such a wonderful community. Keep up the hard work and I can not wait to see the next video.

[@xander7551]

this video was just really good and well executed, and conveyed the info in a digestible way can't make the video get more attention so here's some gratitude

[@cashcrop_]

I really appreciate the kind gesture. There are many times I felt like I picked too broad of a subject and wanted to break it up into separate videos, but that felt like cheating. It was a bit of a slog. Thank you.

[@ddd09ish1]

electrical conduit is most useful in a team LOADED with electrical weapons one arc thrower: not really helpful MAYBE once per mission it will come up, you should have taken another passive 4 arc throwers: you are GOING to be hit by accident at LEAST once per engage ment while you can maintain a fairly regular wall of death, any enemy that closes the distanec will result in someone being zapped. the usefullness is directly proportional to the number of players taking eletrical weapons... which means you probably shouldnt take it in random public games, where you probably arent that coordinated but with friends?? absolutely powerful

[@thorveim1174]

in a random team, it's useful in one sirutation: if you or teammates decide to take a tesla sentry, since these have a hard to define range and are the ont "turret" that will actively target a player that's in range. In that case its a safetu from being instagibbed if you wander too close by mistake

[@ExInfamous]

The usefulness is directly tied to the skill of the handlers. Nobody with a brain should be using it on anything that "crosses the line." That's what your myriad of other weapons are for. Run a breaker and any bugs running amongst your teammates that are less than heavily armored are gone. Sickle handles any bots up to and including the ones in heavy suits with only their heads exposed. There's plenty of ways to kill shit that's close to friendlies without using your arc thrower. Good players can avoid most if not all friendly casualties by maintaining minimal situational awareness.

[@ddd09ish1]

@ExInfamous It's not a good player thing It's an arc behavior thing With a single arc thrower, you're absolutely correct. You should really only ever have a freak accident result in a kill But when there are 4 arc throwers, the opportunity for those freak accidents becomes much more common. A stalker/hunter leaps in when you don't expect it and procs a hit on a teammate Etc

[@VeneficusCubes]

Also - Iluminate have ARC units just For you knowledge

[@Shaabhekh]

@@ExInfamous - This. Ended up getting the Light ARC armour to use last night because so many peopple take it against bugs and seem to be happy to continue using it even when friendlies are going to get hit. Accidentals are fine, lack of common sense and willful ignorance is not.

[@clutchbleach2057]

I love how you used other peoples research to create a more accurate video. You also gave everyone credit. Not to mention, there is absolutely no way i could do the math involved in this video. Overall, it was extremely impressive.

[@alanclack]

• Great numbers-based calculations. • As in-depth in-game testing as possible! • Credits given to other testers • Information cleanly organized • More advanced sheets for in-depth discovery Absolutely solid and amazing work! I hope this comment helps you identify that this content is really valuable and enjoyable. Hopefully Arrowhead expands on the mechanics a bit and you're able to keep up with it and hopefully also don't mind it being integrated into Wikis and/or guides for the community. Regardless I'm looking forward to getting a better idea of how things work and applying this advanced knowledge in the battlefield! As a 🗺GIS person by industry it was also a delight to see QGIS used for some other analysis in another video, major props!!

[@cashcrop_]

Incredibly kind of you for the Super Thanks. I like to be helpful, and unfortunately my Barrages video (QGIS work) didn't turn out as helpful as I'd hoped. It was a fun experiment, nonetheless. QGIS was not what I typically use for work, but it was interesting to learn. Heck, my first gig georeferencing anything was orthorectification of aerials at the USDA-NRCS using Erdas IMAGINE. Different tools, same idea.

[@bluicarys732]

Ive got about 78 hours in, a little over 200 missions, and Democracy Protects has consistently been an absolute life saver, and in my opinion and experience with people calling drops on top of us, one of, if not the most useful boons.

[@overcomemortal2094]

The "critical hits" are not "criticals" they're just headshots. Yes the hit/hurt boxes are that inconsistent and armor (to my testing) does not reduce headshot damage.

[@cashcrop_]

The instances I'm talking about are the differences between 5 bodyshots to kill in Medium Armor versus 6 bodyshots to kill in Medium Armor. Headshots do like half the healthbar. Edit: I think I was talking about Criticals during the section of video where I was testing max headshots. That may have not translated well.

[@ShiningDarknes]

crits are definitely a thing in the game. It is the only thing that could answer the question "why the inconsistencies in relatively controlled testing?" I have done testing of using pods stuck to chargers to kill them, managing to get them stuck and motionless every time and sticking them in the same place, same strat, the pod comes down, hits the same location, sometimes it kills sometimes it doesn't. Crits would account for this discrepancy. The devs/CEO have been fundamentally wrong about information they have told us and several in-game descriptors are lies (like hot and cold effects on heat weapons changing the delay time before cooling, not the trigger time or cooling rate)

[@thomasparker6124]

He goes into headshots in detail from 22:00 onwards.

[@xana3961]

@@cashcrop_ It could be simply that it isn't a critical hit. More like pokemon, its a damage roll where you have a full damage value and the game rolls 1-10. Then reduces the amount of damage that hit does is reduced by 1-10%. So the game automatically does full damage, *then* it rolls how much to reduce the damage by. It is also possible that different parts of the body (such as arm, leg, torso) have different armor values on top of the actual armor value.

[@BackwardsPancake]

@@cashcrop_ I think what's happening here is that the way the game processes damage is just very unusual. My theory is as follows: Basically, for a lot of enemies, every body part has it's own health, and then there are conditions for what happens when you destroy any (combination of) given part(s). Besides that, they also have a "Main health" value, but which actions deal damage to this value is wildly inconsistent. This means that enemies can be killed by both destroying specific parts, or by depleting their main health. Take the Automaton Hulk, for example: You can shoot off its arms, and this will remove it's weapons, but it will never actually kill it. The only way it dies is if you destroy the head, the heat sink on the back, or both the legs at once. Less commonly, you can also wear it down by shooting it in the main body with fully charged railgun shots. For a counter-example, take the Automaton Tank: It does not have any individually destructible components at all - When you deal damage to it (by shooting it anywhere with armor-piercing weapons, or by shooting it in the heat sink with explosives that don't penetrate armor), its heat sink will start to burn and smoke, and eventually the whole tank will explode. Here, seemingly, every instance of damage is done to the main health pool. Or the Automaton Devastators: If you land two shots on the head with the basic pistol, it dies instantly. You can also wear it down by shooting it in the midriff (or the main body, if you have an armor-piercing weapon), until it starts smoking/burning, and then shoot it some more until it dies. Notably, if you bodyshot it until it's burning and then switch to shooting the head, you will still have to land two shots on the head. It's as if the head part only takes damage independently, and does not pass anything on to the main health pool. The weird part comes in when this is applied to the player. Our character also, demonstrably, has individual body parts with individual health pools, and when they're destroyed, we get wounded accordingly. These parts also have individual armor - Your helmet, for example, can even ricochet shots off of it under some circumstances. Obviously, in our case, every bit of damage is also passed on to our main health pool - This is _probably_ what is displayed to us on our UI (But it could also be some really strange average calculation instead). Also, we don't lose our body parts when we take wounds, so unlike a hulk, we _can_ die from just being shot in the arm. I think the weird inconsistencies (like "crits") happen due to the fact that body parts have different multipliers for how they pass on damage to the "main health" pool, and/or enemy hits are registering on several different body parts at once. There may also be weirdness involved with how "destroyed" (wounded) body parts pass on damage to the main health pool. There's also the possibility that maybe the head being destroyed/wounded just instantly kills you, no matter what.

[@kellenlean2076]

The Cavalier of Democracy armor set is my Go-To. That 50% chance of not dying has come in clutch for me an insane amount of times.

[@EvalithFoG]

Great video! The CEO responded to someone on Twitter asking about random crits "It's not a random crit. They hit your head. Look up to avoid getting headshot. Or dodge." Don't think random critical hits are a thing

[@cakeyeater7392]

It's possible that this is a "bugs can't fly" instance, but the ministry of truth says it is true, so it must be

[@Eshtian]

Headshots kind of are random, though. Unless there's a consisent mechanix working behind the scenes but I doubt that.

[@cashcrop_]

The instances I'm talking about are the differences between 5 bodyshots to kill in Medium Armor versus 6 bodyshots to kill in Medium Armor. Headshots do like half the healthbar. I think I was talking about "Criticals" during the section of video where I was testing max headshots. That may have not translated well.

[@aurumone_exe]

@@Eshtianseems like enemies aim for the chest then everything else is accounted for then its like sometimes they aim for the head ive been headshotted by a rocket raider but they mostly whiff past my chest or sometimes even shoot at feet, striders height seems to make it seem like theyre trying to snipe your head

[@EvalithFoG]

@@cashcrop_ Yeah I see what you mean now

[@xx_gamer_xx8315]

I am always running medic armor, when I am not doing a meme full tesla build. The staying power it gives you in a fight is just insane. I almost never run out of stims. The double stim duration is also very good when running away from robots, as it allows you to shrug of small arms fire as you run for cover.

[@Folkeregor]

You are a top tier Helldiver content creator doing the most important work a player could ask for. Keep on keeping on!

[@syncroe591]

Honestly, the info was SUPER helpful, but that narration and the voice got my sub. Hope to see more of your stuff!

[@cashcrop_]

I appreciate it. I get frequent comments about my voice (sometimes borderline disturbing). I've never really given it much thought, as it's pretty standard fare for me. Thank you for providing feedback, for taking the time out of your day to watch my quite long video, and for subscribing. I really appreciate it. Subs mean less for the YT algorithm these days (from my understanding), but I know that I personally look at subs as a data point in determining if a channel is worth my time.

[@syncroe591]

@@cashcrop_ Well, here's hoping the data holds up, papa Crop. Even if you step away from these info vids for HD2, you should deffo do readings or something. Very easy listening!

[@Muekle]

I love how you are willing to go Super in depth on it all!

[@cashcrop_]

Heh. Thank you. I don't know how to break up videos.

[@doommeter]

Having so much information available in the description is amazing!

[@KaiynFallanx]

Damn this breakdown is great. I'm loving the math behind the testing and the hypothesis presented. It as if I'm listening to a research presentation backed by data and testing. Hats off!

[@cashcrop_]

Very kind of you. I appreciate it.

[@HALO3SC0UT07]

You're doing your part. And with this information I'll do mine. Thank you for the very detailed breakdown.

[@batinimagus]

My man used Pythagoras theorem in the middle of the video to calc distances. Had to pause and sub immediately. Awesome video.

[@garland336]

As a math nerd, you did great work here man. I'm happy to see a dude actually using his brain for once. The stamina stuff was fantastic, really well put together.

[@MrVeps1]

That was really nice work, thanks a lot! Really prefer this to the "Always run these strategems and weapons because META"-type of video, although it's easier to spam out ten of those than one of this quality. You've definitely earned yourself my subscription.

[@DestructoMonkey]

I'm really digging the thoroughness of your methodology, your documentation of it, and how you walk us through it. Even your citation of outside sources along with your original research is pretty on point. Good stuff.

[@Reach4God1]

Democracy Protects has saved my life -- and the run -- far too many times for me to consider anything else worth taking. There are too many "you're dead now" moments that happen and can't be accounted for by the player, especially against bots or with careless teammates. Two extra stims won't heal a pile of gore, extra grenades can't kill the tank/bile titan that the game has decided actually exists on top of you now, and limb health doesn't matter much if the body its attached to is dead.

[@RegularBard]

Question for the pop-in spawns (I assume this is what you're referring to) Have you noticed pop-in spawns on your location while playing solo? With friends? My current understanding is that pop-in spawns are meant to be forbidden within 75m of the player, but when players separate, spawns can drop in on one group.

[@ketherga]

I haven't seen any of these spawns since the update, but I can tell you that it is not a case of players splitting up causing it. I have personally experienced this bug when in a match with only 1 other player and when we were both in the vicinity of the same objective. I believe it was an evacuate priority citizens map.

[@cashcrop_]

Where have you been at? I haven't seen you on Discord in a while man! And yeah, Democracy Protects makes for a fun time. 50% of the time, it works...every time.

[@aircraftcarrierwo-class]

My funniest in-game moment to date was thanks to Democracy Protects. We wound up entering the map on top of a derelict Hellbomb, setting it off via the hellpod landings. Entire squad got wiped out except me, prompting me to shout "DEMOCRACY PROTECTS" in voicechat as I stimmed back my health.

[@thegrunch6448]

I'm too unlucky for that bonus. I ran it for a while because of the drip, but I don't even remember the last time it activated. It probably only activated once or twice and definetly not because I was never dying

[@benandrew9852]

I massively appreciate the work you've put in, and I think you've nailed the important points. Really informative video. One minor nitpick: displaying all your measured numbers with like 8 decimal places has two downsides when doing a data presentation: 1) it makes the number harder to immediately parse because you have to make sense of more of them; despite them essentially being noise for the purposes of analysis 2) it gives undue specificity to something that likely contains an error bar that would dwarf any differences past 1 or 2 decimal places

[@cashcrop_]

I am moving to 2 decimal places in my next video. Mired in data at the moment, but mostly finished with that. I'm a bit lazy when it comes to copy-paste ops, so that's why I have a billion decimal places. I've formatted my current spreadsheet to only have 2, so hopefully my copy-paste will be expedited. Thanks for the feedback and for taking the time to watch. I appreciate it.

[@Gobeldeg00p]

This is your best video yet dude, no question. You should be seriously proud of this.

[@PseudoGuido]

Severely underrated video. I can feel the wrinkles forming in my brain.

[@cammy2point1]

I really apprecicate the depth of analysis and attention to detail you put into this, it must have been a lot of work. Thanks for the info, keep up your great work!

[@cashcrop_]

Thank you for taking the time to watch and comment. I appreciate that.

[@NocLaN_tv]

they smoked a lot. the Recoil = Gun Weight the developer in charge of this deserve a standing ovation. Great video btw.

[@_Quint_]

Absolutely smashing it with the quality of these videos.

[@cashcrop_]

Thank you kindly.

[@Red_94016]

Wow. Can I just say this video has a lot of valuable information! Thank you

[@danielsula4720]

Democracy protects seems to work when drowning, which is both funny AND terrible at the same time. Great video, really appreciate it.

[@cashcrop_]

I need to try this. Thank you.

[@DeusMalleus]

2 days ago, was playing a defensive game against bots on hard. A team mate fell in deep water on the map and his super citizen armor must've stopped the drowning. However, he was physically stuck and frozen in position until the horde of bots killed him. Two of us were dead, so I watched it happen to him and we weren't certain how he glitched out. Unfortunately, I don't have a recording.

[@raspberrian8894]

​@@DeusMalleus it's vitality booster that does it

[@atomiste4312]

had this happen on Troost, thought there was a new mechanic of freezing up in cold water or something cuz i wasn't dead, could spectate and then i got killed by a bot and could finally respawn

[@cashcrop_]

Recently had a teammate stuck under the ice. Bots just standing over him doing nothing. Had to 380 him.

[@DrunkenShellback]

Great video bro. The information was detailed and to the point and your tone with a sprinkle of humor kept me engaged. Dilly dilly.

[@RheaAyase]

"I am not a game designer, I just know what feels bad" - Now that sentence makes you a better game designer than most game designers I met in my lengthy career as a game programmer. Most designers are not even gamers, they don't know what feels good or bad, what's fun or frustrating, etc... It's a bit sad.

[@protonjones54]

You were a programmer? Where did you work? What games did you work on?

[@Only_Joss]

dude please become the number nerd for this game, your testing, presentation, and being very clear and concise when giving information is such a talent for games likes this.

[@Jonesy_Bonez]

Straight forward to the point even tho its 20mins I stuck around for it all good job man! very informative !!

[@cashcrop_]

I must have cut 5 minutes of very peripheral supporting info out of this. I think it turned out well. I really tried to compact it. I also increased my cadence as the video went on to help condense it some.

[@Jonesy_Bonez]

@cashcrop_ honestly it was all great. Most videos try to say to much about the one subject leaving it feeling long, you went in straight in gave the fact, showed the info to back it up, moving on. Love it your work is deffenitly noticed

[@jeffbezos2960]

​​@@cashcrop_ cadance and voice was perfect. id rather pause and rewind then need to slog through slow parts also mic was great and background music was at a great volume

[@cashcrop_]

@@jeffbezos2960 I appreciate that about the background music. It's difficult for me to tell sometimes. I'm partially deaf in my right ear and have tinnitus.

[@AnonymUser]

Really well made and thorough. Well edited too! It very much looks like you put a lot of time and effort into making this video and it shows. Thanks and congrats!

[@cashcrop_]

Thank you!

[@thatothermainprotagonist4956]

Woo, my boi is back at it again!

[@cashcrop_]

o7

[@tylerschofield]

Thank you for this fellow diver! Its a shame that arrowhead refuses to give us actual stats and detailed info on weapons and equipment, but folks like you save the day!

[@HuntShowdownLab]

This is an insane amount of effort. well done.

[@King_Ekolin]

I can't begin to express my awe at the time and effort put into this video. By far the most helpful I've seen on the subjects covered.

[@cashcrop_]

I appreciate it.

[@Alphascrub_77]

Really good points about headshot damage. I guess from datamining sources we know there is a pretty good chance that helmets are getting their own passives eventually. I can only imagine how much more your headshot having armor and effecting headshot damage would skew this. Also I was wondering, does prone and crouched affect normal projectile damage? Melee? Or just explosions? It seems like when I think about it I've survived near soup levels of bullets from going prone but was that just because I was closer to the ground and getting hit less? I also know I've been shot while wearing heavy armor and simply not received damage from bots. Could this be a bug? Maybe lag?

[@cashcrop_]

It could be any number of things. I cut out a lot of grenade testing, and I want to say I could get closer to grenades without dying while prone versus standing. It might just be an explosive thing. Taking no damage as lag wouldn't surprise me. I have some footage of being shot in the crotch by a friend and taking no damage. After blowing myself up, I could see the model had the crotch armor as part of the torso model. Seems odd, but there could be some wonky stuff going on with the armor models and damage zones. I don't know. I guess I could get my friends to shoot me some more.

[@h4xorzist]

​@@cashcrop_ I think they might have programed something in to reward diving / prone for explosions as that would be the thing to do in real life. Many of the devs are conscripts of the Swedish army. But it's not flat dmg mitigation as I've been instant killed from rockets while prone (granted it was likely a headshot without vitality on) This was likely done with grenades, stratagems (500kg) and hellbombs in mind.

[@juandux1424]

I'm glad to have found this video, you can rarely find a KZbinr doing a full on analysis of Helldivers equipment with this level of commitment and clarity of speech. Subbed!

[@TwizzTasty]

The little attention to detail in this game is awesome. Having weather affect weapon performance and how enemies react is awesome

[@cashcrop_]

It is quite cool. All the volume sliders go to 11. Tribute to "This is Spinal Tap" perhaps?

[@that80ssongyoulove84]

I’m glad these videos exist, they seem very helpful for players who are looking to sharpen their skills. I’m not very good at implementing this kind of information, I just play based on how the equipment feels. That said, this is the kind of video, I think, that benefits the community the most as apposed to “what’s the meta?”

[@cashcrop_]

I appreciate that. I "feel it out" as well. I then try to quantify those feelings. Edit: probably introduces bias.

[@diancastillo8289]

great job on the video bro, see you in the front line

[@cashcrop_]

o7

[@spearen]

Man, fantastic. All the other videos just assume I know ever little detail about this game already. You start with the very basics and walk us all the way through. Immediate subscribe

[@julien1er]

You just earned a subscriber. Good work, good format, only pertinent information. I'll see you on the frontlines, Sir.

[@Fr3elancerflorida]

Can confirm mostly because I use Democracy Protects a lot, I spent a lotta mettles to look like a badass Mandalorian so I'mma wear that shit. It doesn't proc on DOTs because the passive prevents you dying from *random 1 shot missile barrage* from bots Or a fatal strike from a lucky hunter or three stalkers you missed blowing up the hole. It's basically BS proofing yourself. I like it, it feels more consistent than some of the other passives, personally I alternate between light and heavy armor largely for the drip. That said, DemoPro, Servo Assisted, extra grenades, and extra stems are good passives to take IMO depending on the mission, enemy, and difficulty type/level

[@cashcrop_]

Battle Master is my favorite drip.

[@ZCid47]

The arc protection also work to become a literal conduit, you get close to the enemy and you allys shoot at you in order to arc to tve enemies

[@cashcrop_]

Sounds like a fun strategy. Hey, let's bring the new guy! He can help us distribute our lightning. For demARCracy!

[@norrecvizharan1177]

I can also say from experience that the inverse is unfortunately true. Kinda once accidentally wiped out a couple nearby teammates because I got too close to a tesla tower with the armor on, and it basically blitzed through me to kill them. It was certainly incredibly hilarious, but also a lesson about there being more than one way to accidentally troll the team.@@cashcrop_

[@flambokuma2299]

I love all the break downs of the data. Very well put together and clear disclosure of all the details. I always run my death protection armor and shield pack on 7-9. Then when chilling in any other difficulty I run Jetpack and recon armor and help lower level players.

[@cashcrop_]

o7 a boon to the community

[@demitreburger707]

I'm not finna check his math, brother is doing democracy's work

[@funkyp6534]

I'm watching this after 252 hours of gameplay as of now and I'm impressed. This is a lot of good straight facts. I can tell a lot of work was put into this from what I see and I respect that. Quality video, keep it up. Earned my sub.

[@squidinc4376]

Babe wake up.. New Cashcrop video..

[@cashcrop_]

Gave me a chuckle. Good to see ya, Squid! You playing HD2?

[@WilkersonWhittle]

IMWIDEAWAKE

[@squidinc4376]

Oh, here and there. Mostly when friends see I'm online and invite me. My friend recently got me addicted to Mechwarrior Online, which is basically crack for obsessive build tweakers like me.. so that's been my Darktide Nicotine patch recently. I'll be back in it when we get some new content. Not burnt out, but feeling a bit stale these days. 1,200 hours in, so I guess it's about that time. @@cashcrop_

[@cashcrop_]

Pretty much there with you on DT. The patches coming out of their lengthy hiatus were very underwhelming. Playing some HD2 and having a good time with it. Perhaps I’ll check out Mechwarrior. I remember the tabletop Battletech from many years ago. It was cool.

[@niskanen19]

Servo assisted looks sick and is underrated Cant count the times ive sniped titans or chargers from 60-90m away with a thermite lmao + being able to lob 380mm way before teammates arrive at the obj is very satisfying for a tryhard like me

[@TheWileSpice]

Thanks for the dive into the armour! Learnt quite a bit here.

[@cashcrop_]

Thanks, Spice!

[@DacianGradaMusic]

thanks for this! with how bad the devs are with changelogs and "stealth buffs/nerfs" we need more field testing. I totally believe the arc resistance is in preparation for the Illuminates, but could also just be that more arc weapons are coming too.

[@cashcrop_]

I came from WH40K: Darktide and it was rampant with stealth buffs/nerfs. I'm hoping Arrowhead provides over-the-top patch notes as we move forward.

[@TalberNalliso]

Cashcrop: "I'm not the best at math..." *Is pretty fckn best at math.

[@necroph1866]

Super nice video, loving the details he goes into, but holy moly I love the scene of the timelapse at 12:15

[@natures_guardians]

Bro definitely did not skip math class

[@HelenoPaiva]

This video is about armor types and passives in the game HELLDIVERS 2. The speaker goes through all the armor types and passives and explains what they do. Here is a summary of the video: There are three types of armor: light, medium, and heavy. Light armor sacrifices durability for mobility, heavy armor sacrifices mobility for durability, and medium armor is a middle ground. There are eight armor passives: Democracy protects, Electrical conduit, Engineering kit, Extra padding, Fortified, Medkit, Scout, and Servo assisted. Democracy protects has a 50% chance to negate lethal damage. Electrical conduit provides 95% resistance to arc damage. Engineering kit reduces recoil by 30% when crouching or prone and increases initial inventory and holding capacity of grenades by two. Extra padding provides 50 more armor rating. Fortified reduces recoil by 30% when crouching or prone and provides 50% resistance to explosive damage. Medkit increases initial inventory and holding capacity of stems by two and increases stem effect duration by 2.0 seconds. Scout reduces the range at which enemies can detect the wearer by 30%. Servo assisted increases throwing range by 30% and provides 50% more limb health. The speaker also talks about speed, stamina, and armor rating. They were not able to make sense of stamina regen as it applies to their collected data. They also found that head shots deal triple damage or are hardcoded to do half of your maximum base health in damage.

[@IndieDenma]

The intro with the beat matching the words sounds like a song intro that sadly didn't turn into a full song. ^^

[@cashcrop_]

Lol, sorry to disappoint. Maybe next time I'll keep going.

[@morgant474]

The servo-assisted part I feel like I need to add to. I have been using the servo-assisted light armor for a while and it has quickly become my favorite armor in the game. I have been able to, consistently and accurately, throw strategems 80 (+/- 10 based on elevation) meters. My friends have seen me ping a location, walk to 80m, and throw exactly on target every time.

[@cashcrop_]

Makes me wish I could hand my grenades to teammates.

[@aleco3075]

Dude, this video is nuts. The amount of data you provided is insane. If you ever need a hand in obtaining more data, I would be happy to help.

[@cashcrop_]

discord.gg/hjyKnhKG

[@frijolitodr]

Earned a sub, love this mathematical data driven videos, I'm a huge RPG and stats is one of the main things you always look at when tweaking to take advantage of either abilities, skills, cool downs, passives and actives, etc, etc, etc.

[@cashcrop_]

Thank you.

[@atticlion7648]

I really need them to add a max speed democracy protects light armor.

[@cashcrop_]

GOATed

[@Marauder623]

I picked mine out of cosmetics

[@AyoitsGhosty]

Using the blinking light beacon of those pods to show potential recoil is genius, very nice work

[@seangallagher9435]

Id have to assume that the fortified perk only affects the damage from the aoe, and that the damage from a direct hit rocket or cannon is a different type of damage and isn’t halved.

[@cashcrop_]

I assume the same.

[@To0t]

i think, direct hit counts as a bullet so if it doesnt hit your head it goes through the armor reduction process and the fortified perk affects the aoe like you said. my conclusion at the end was that it is more likely then not to survive a direct rocket hit wearing heavy-fortified than not. About only 1/4 direct rocket hits kills me in one shot.

[@stalwartzagreus]

I can't live without the servo-assisted perk anymore. Once you get used to throwing 500kgs in automaton outposts from afar, not needing to engage with them at all to destroy their fabricator, it's just impossible to live without. Works great with impact grenades as well.

[@guufiplays2681]

5:46 mans is out here replicating Unit 731 experiments on himself.

[@Molandria]

It is so refreshing seeing someone explain the numbers they use, why, how they were arrived at.....

[@BrassicaPrime]

videos like this are highly appreciated

[@timuch38]

Great writing and editing, great music, usefull knowledge, outstanding research. 10/10

[@andrewpeli9019]

I run the extra grenades super light armor against everything. Impact nades are pretty much problem eraser. Having 6 instead of 4 is better than anything else offered. Reduced recoil is a decent extra perk. It's better to not get hit than to take less damage when hit.

[@Zetsuei13]

As someone who loves numbers, I appreciate the effort you have put into this. Thank you.

[@gabzsy4924]

Instead of removing headshots, perhaps they could give you an invulnerability against other crits for a window of time after you got hit by one and they could also extend the armor rating of your currently equipped armor to your helmet aswell. This way we would have better defined armor roles and better resilience against crits in succession without removing them altogether.

[@cashcrop_]

I'm all for health management and hits that will take your breath away. I think some form of cooldown period, like you're saying, where you can't get the ol 2 tap but you still can't just run around with half health because you know all the damage you take will be of the same value would be good. Dunno. It'll be complicated. I want the game to be challenging and be unforgiving at times. Gotta wait and see, I guess.

[@Inxx89]

This is shaping up to be the best community of any video game! Thank you for your great work!

[@Memealytis]

Science teachers if they were good:

[@cashcrop_]

Aw, man, leave science teachers alone. Funny comment, though.

[@thememingoflife5452]

I loved my science teacher, she was great. Yet I still found this comment amusing.

[@philliphart6327]

Very impressive findings. The recoil reduction while standing is huge. Thank you for doing the work.

[@Snazzy_Pantz]

Really good and informative video. One thing tho, what everybody seems to get wrong: The vitality enhancement booster DOES NOT give you or your team mate more hp or anything. It only reduces the chances of getting injured while taking damage. Still super usefull obviously, but it works purely by chance.

[@CrixAcguy]

try looking at the data instead of saying this. The description of several mechanics in game are false

[@FireFauxes]

This is the best Helldivers 2 video I've seen so far. Amazing work on the testing and the stuff you said at the end perfectly sums up how i feel about the games armor atm. I love this game but damn they have GOT to fix the damage values.

[@nickrackel7949]

Good video and a ton of work put into it. Definitely bookmarked for future calculations

[@rofuo09]

Great work coming up with this video. I know it took a long while to come up with all of these values. You deserve more views.

[@SecretTechniqueGuy]

Thank goodness we have heroes like you doing the hard work of all this testing and analysis so that the rest of us can benefit.

[@cashcrop_]

Kind of you to say. I'm working on something right now that has me amped up, and it isn't a follow-up to Boosters or Armor.

[@SecretTechniqueGuy]

@@cashcrop_ sounds very interesting! Can we get a hint?

[@cashcrop_]

Yes. It’s a unique perspective.

[@wulfrayne849]

19:34 oh hi there this is a very well edited and informative video, thanks for taking the time to test all the passives in depth! :) but yes, damage testing can be inconsistent because of the sudden headshot/chest hits you can take, I usually step away after one hit to guarantee a consistent limb hit. and as other comments have already mentioned, headshots at the moment ignore your AR and there can sometimes be desync with visuals between server/client that can make it look like you weren't hit in the head and still take the damage of a headshot.

[@cashcrop_]

Hola! I'll start by saying thanks for shedding light on armor damage being the same across Armor Types early on. Made my armor choice easy back then. =P I didn't know what is proper YT protocol for tagging others outside of collaboration, so I didn't tag anyone that I referenced. What you're saying makes sense, but there's times I'm not a headshot (not enough damage), but it's more than a regular body shot. There is a pinned comment on this video that may contain some further clarification. I haven't tested any of it, but it seems to align with my initial observation that lead me to ask, "why am I taking slightly more damage and dying to 5 hits instead of 6?" By the way, I like the thumbnail of your back turned to the viewer and it reads, "Everyone is so mean 2 me" - it made me smile.

[@wulfrayne849]

@@cashcrop_ Glad to hear I've been of help, all I wanted was to raise awareness of the issue and I'm glad the devs caught it soon enough so they could fix it, while also saving everyone from the experience of wearing heavy armor just to be an easier target with no benefits in the meantime hahaha it does seem like sometimes you seem to take a little more damage with no explanation at times, I experienced it when trying out the inbetween AR values (75 and 125), it lead to a lot of inconsistencies when testing those, but not enough to change the hits to go down with the more rounded values, it's very odd I've also read through the pinned comment, it's very informative and lines up with what my suspicions are after testing armor, I was under the impression player armor values to be very low but it seems it's just 0 with damage reduction slapped on top (which is disappointing considering how more in depth the armor system enemies have is, especially when the heavy armor in the first game uses the same system they do), but from messages from one of the community managers in the official discord it seems they're having internal discussions about rebalancing armor entirely so I'm expecting all my tests to become outdated eventually I'm also glad to hear I could get a smile out of people with the silly thumbnails, I should do more of those :)

[@cashcrop_]

"...I was under the impression player armor values to be very low but it seems it's just 0 with damage reduction slapped on top (which is disappointing considering how more in depth the armor system enemies have is..." - 100% - I'll probably attempt to replicate the method from the pinned post for when armor gets changed. It seems mind-numbing to perform, thus leading to small sample sizes. More data that is aligned is more better. =D

[@wulfrayne849]

@@cashcrop_ Mind-numbing, but it does seem to give much more clear data If armor will eventually get updated to work like it does for enemies / how it was in the first game I will have to find different ways to showcase it since I assume scavengers would no longer be able to harm you x) little comparison with HD1 also: your base armor would go from 0 to 35, and heavy armor would go from 15 to 100, which is a rather big difference compared to our current 100 to 150 AR anyway, thank you again for the in depth video and google sheets!

[@cashcrop_]

My pleasure. I watched both of your HD1 armor vids. Was helpful, as I didn't play that game for very long. Someone in the comments was asking about the differences, and I pointed them to your more recent video on it.

[@SuwinTzi]

Guard behavior for bugs and bots are different too. Bugs will try to get a visual look at you before calling a breach. Bots will call a drop within a few seconds of detecting you or noticing you shot their buddy.

[@cashcrop_]

That's a good point. I recall Claysthetics talking about the LOS mechanic for bugs in one of his streams.

[@tobiasrex8052]

I believe that in order for players to even THINK about using Heavy Armor, they need to give it perks to offset the terrible run speed & max stamina. Give it perks like being able to carry 2 primary weapons instead of a secondary. Being the only armor able to run while shooting without it slowing you down (you're already slow enough). Get rid of the obnoxious headshot damage along with the hit stun/weapon sway when hit with addition to an increase in total body hits needed to kill by a couple. All 3 would definitely make Heavy armor more appealing.

[@ScottieWP09]

Great video! Learned a ton. On improvement is we don't need to see the figures to 5-6 decimal points. Using one or two would be totally sufficient for this and clean up the screen.

[@cashcrop_]

Agreed. It implies precision, but I do get a little lazy with the copy/paste. =D

[@MrYdoineedthis]

Always enjoy some quality data. Your efforts are appreciated sir! 🧐

[@cashcrop_]

Thank you.

[@keiththeantihero7960]

PLEASE make more helldivers in depth content. As someone who mainly plays fighting games they have documentation for every single FRAME of the game. Helldivers doesnt have anything. ESPECIALLY on the wikis. Your the only person I've seen actually trying to solve the mystery the game has with damage calculation along with stats.

[@Vorper]

For all the work and time you put in to this, i've subbed, nice work mate.

[@cashcrop_]

Thank you very much.

[@waxitron9181]

This is absolutely incredible work. I understand that you can only obtain the research data for this kind of video by playing the absolute shit out of the game, and then sifting through that all to understand the footage, and THEN make a video scientifically detail8ng the data you have found. This is SO MUCH work, and thank you for doing this all for the community. Holy shit.

[@cashcrop_]

Well, yeah that’s about it. Heh. It’s interesting and fun (mostly). But being done, reading through comments…that’s the best.