Patch 1.0.4 Thoughts, Build Updates and Viper Commando Warbond Review/Priority Order - Helldivers 2

Today we are just going over a bunch of the changes from patch 1.0.4 with build updates and my viper commando warbond review for the new weapons and boosters. This covers the liberator carbine, Bushwacker, Throwing knife, Peak Physique perk and the experimental infusion booster. With my new warbond priority order. I also talk about some of the changes to recoil. The new mission modifier for gunships, shriekers and patrols. With some of the stratagems like gatling barrage and the new charger behemoths.
Build Updates: imgur.com/a/claysthetics-patc...
Stream with reasoning and explanations of every choice: kzbin.infoO5vS97173RE
Warbond testing stream: kzbin.infoOiv6mWKBZXI
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Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:28 New Mission Modifier for Gunships and Shrieker Patrols
1:14 Build updates
1:54 Bugs, Patrols and Broken Mechanics (Negatives)
3:52 Tips to Improve
4:28 New Drill Mission CHeese
5:22 Viper Commando Warbond Review
5:44 Liberator Carbine
6:04 SG 22 BUSHWHACKER
6:33 Throwing Knife
7:18 New Armor Perk Peak Physique
7:53 EXPERIMENTAL INFUSION
8:26 Warbond Priority Order and Review
8:52 Recoil Changes and the HMG Buff
9:31 Orbital Gatling Barrage
10:03 Thoughts About Arrowhead Studios
10:34 Behemoth Chargers

[@ohtheir0ny831]

W video skibbidy toilet rizz le awesome sauce!

[@Claysthetics]

Yes this is the comment we deserved you win the internet

[@insomniac6136]

Just an an FYI: You can strip the armor of behemoth chargers with one rocket launcher shot IF you move forward while shooting. The technical explenation is that every gun has immediate falloff damage and in case of behemoth legs which have the exact amount of HP as the launchers do damage, it makes a breakpoint difference. You can however add that lost damage back by moving forward and thereby adding more momentum to the rocket. I don't like dumb but consistant interactions like this. If it was up to me, rocket launchers shouldn't be affected by damage dropoff at all.

[@Koranthus]

It's nice to hear actual critiques over here instead of the incessant whining on some other videos, those doomtubers really are running with full clickbait, either not understanding how bugs(glitches) work or legitimately thinking that its intended for the aerial patrols modifier to not have an icon or description and that they game is just supposed to look like, there are a ton of bad takes that last few days. You criticizing the bugs while also pointing out all the positives of this patch is a breath of fresh air.

[@vinniecraig5291]

Crossbow sawed off stun, gatling sentry autocannon sentry, supply pack, stalwart,light medic ,experimental stims

[@Claysthetics]

I think this but with the HMG or LMG would be really fun tbh

[@lolersauresrex8837]

@@Claystheticsyeah the gear loadout with the HMG is what I’ve been running, consistently getting most kills. I’ve been taking at least precision and eagle airstrike to answer heavy targets in a pinch. But I bet you could take any 3 stratagems within reason and be really effective.

[@robkay5443]

I loved watching the play video. Lots of good testing and opinions on the patch! Makes me want to start testing my mettle on difficulty 9 instead of just quick playing 6 and 7.

[@Claysthetics]

Try to hop in a stream sometime usually I just play with chat and everyone who has gotten in has upgraded to 9 as their for fun difficulty for the most part. Glad you liked my video a lot of people are in the mindset that this patch sucks when everyone in my sphere thinks its fun lol.

[@robkay5443]

@@Claysthetics Sure thing. I work an overnight shift so if the time comes right I’ll be sure to be there! I’ve got everything unlocked but Cutting Edge and some super store armors so it’d be nice to try some stuff out instead of getting sweaty on lower difficulties!

[@Claysthetics]

@@robkay5443 We never really get sweaty in helldives either it's mostly just a vibe so I look forward to seeing you around sometime brother

[@Verjaeger1]

thank you for the detail patch content! W dubya

[@Claysthetics]

Yessir we are locked in

[@herosupport1606]

All the liberators should have 45 round magazines. the penetrator needs more damage and according to the concussive description the liberator and the carbine should be doing 70 damage per bullet so the penetrator should do 60 damage has it was -10 damage when the game launched.

[@Claysthetics]

Liberators with 45 round magazines would be so fun tbh

[@herosupport1606]

@@Claysthetics I know right instead of full auto for the penetrator the buff it needed badly was a 45 round mag.

[@Mestari1Gaming]

11:00 Yey! Even more bullet-spongy bullet sponge enemies! More please!

[@brandocalrizion14]

Perfect recap as always. Thanks my dude. You gunna spend any time back with Darktide for the update on the 25th? Ive been revisiting the game after about a year and its been good to be back. Either Darktide or Helldivers content your gettin a view and thumbs up from me.

[@Claysthetics]

Thank you, we will be doing a bolt pistol godroll and go blasting for a bit on darktides patch day for sure

[@gabeschoenfeld317]

Havent tested myself but I heard that walking forward while firing Quasar, EATs, and the Recoiles is what allows you to stip the armor off a behemoths leg in 1 shot as opposed to 2

[@KnottyTulip2713]

With the HMG build, i normally go engineer heavy armour, defender, GP, stun nade, for stratagems: HMG, supply pack, precision strike, then the fourth is a flexible choice depending of the mission

[@Claysthetics]

Defender sounds like a fun primary for it tbh, I think I might do this with the gatling barrage as flex ty for suggestion!

[@Strothix]

My bro over here fighting a song of fire and ice irl. W video.

[@Claysthetics]

LOL W comment, that was the night my power went out on stream

[@insomniac6136]

Base loadout is: Eruptor, pistol of choice, stun grenades and fortified or engineer armor. My HMG builds are: Backpacks: Jumppack, Shield and Supply pack are all decent. Jumppack (more mobility while realoding) is better against bugs ans shield (no aim punch) is better against bots. Rocket pods and either railcannon or precision strike depending on modifiers and faction. Napalm eagle against bugs and 380 barrage for bots (particularly strong against Bunker missions) These are usually brought if I'm playing with someone else bringing any of the backpacks or if I want to help them teamload their weapons.

[@98Timothy]

Heavy armor with engineering perk Blitzr, grenade pistol, incendiary impacts Hmg, supply pack, precision strike/ 500kg, gatling barrage Take the new commando warbond experimental stim buff to get out of sticky situations. Most fun ive had since the defence missions first dropped

[@lolersauresrex8837]

I was using heavy machine gun with crossbow and Bushwhacker with incendiary impacts (on bugs) and it’s very fun. Just take a couple stratagems to answer bile titans and you’ll be effective.

[@Beidlbaum]

Ms for Clay o7. I'm happy about the direction they picked as well. How do you feel about the meta vs terminids now, considering about 70% of the chargers that spawn are behemoths now, I think the fireloadout is goated (flamethrower, napalm). Especially because the leghealth of behemoths and chargers is the same and flamethrower just straight up ignores the armor.

[@Claysthetics]

Depends on solo or team but for both I think the fire load out is top tier but it gets kind of boring and with the buffed spear it's been a dream come true so I'm just kind of having fun building around it now after using it for months in a broken state. The sleeper build has a scorcher in it tho 🤫

[@Beidlbaum]

@@Claysthetics yeah spear finally working has made my games more fun as well

[@ZimmerSquash]

Hey man, what do you think about the Liberator Concussion Rifle?

[@hobbithubby5076]

It’s not the it’s bad, it’s just that the Tendy is so much more effective for an AR.

[@Claysthetics]

It's okay as a support weapon but I don't really enjoy using it atm vs either faction

[@Hamppdur]

Wait, the blitzer got a fix? I gotta try it again

[@Claysthetics]

yea was hidden, arcthrower same treatment if you check my last stream vod towards the end you can see me using them vs bots

[@willieh3296]

Crossbow, Verdict, Stun grenades, Heavy machine gun, Supply backpack, 2 damage calldowns of your choosing. Your heavy machine gun is your primary weapon, verdict is there to save you when you're forced to reload. Crossbow is for closing bug holes or killing bot fabricators. Thoughts?

[@Claysthetics]

Theory is good however I would rather bring the grenade pistol to take the crossbows role and just bring a power primary or something cool that would make the HMG feel better for the moments that you can't reload it.

[@LethalOwl]

HMG as primary weapon seems like a waste of bullets, even with a supply backpack. Better bring grenade pistol for bug holes and a incendiary shotgun for primary. Against bots I guess using HMG as primary is fine, but still would never bring Verdict over the grenade pistol.

[@rangosteel4071]

Throwing some W for the algorithm WWWWWWWW

[@Claysthetics]

Thank you sir W's up

[@rawrxdtonepforme9360]

Now Ive only gotten a few hours with the patch so far, but, for bugs atleast, the game feels a lot better. Bile titans and hunters are nowhere near as annoying. Heavy spawns are nowhere near as frequently as they used to be. Im not getting 2 shotted by hunters with any level of regularity. Hell, I can get completely surrounded by bugs and not instantly die now, its actually possible to get out alive or a teamate to save you. Also, there not being 3 patrols every 2 feet that have 40 hunters in them is nice.

[@Scottfree165]

HMG time, nice

[@inyashadog9336]

I think they should have a backpack strategm for all the machine guns then whatever machine gun you pick you can have a backpack feed ammo into it but then you can only take one machine gun

[@inyashadog9336]

And allow us to double the ammo capacity in each magazine we can take half the amount of magazines increase reload time by like a second and a half and handling those down by like 20%

[@Claysthetics]

That's an interesting idea I like that quite a bit

[@Bombsuitsandkilts]

It's funny because everyone has a different idea for how to nerf gunships but everyone agrees they need some type of nerf. I don't mind gunships but I do wish the spawners were easier to kill OR the gunships were easier to kill.

[@kr3stus]

Heavy machine gun is good againts OPmatons it can get through weak spots on Hulks and deal with Gunships but recoil makes it tricky so prone fire only pretty much. Tenderize replaces any Machine gun when it comes to Bugs. Spear is amazing against Bugs. Same with Strafin run Strategen is godlike against bugs. Overall Bugs are easy mod more then ever. Lack of Armor piercing weapons makes OPmatos still BS to play...

[@Claysthetics]

I think bugs got way easier to, people just need to unlock spear technology. And the HMG does feel great vs the bots ive been running it with a supply backpack.

[@derkaiser9881]

W VIDEO

[@Claysthetics]

SURELY

[@Zouna92]

It's such a shame the good part of the patch got overshadowed by the god awful AI, cheating like Yugi from YuGiOh! and the broken spawn rates of breaches/dropships. After the first or second patch(I can't remember which) the heavy spawn rate was busted AF and things feel like they got reverted to that state. They really need to address this ASAP. The game is almost no fun like this... also what's with the rag dolling? I've been flung over mountains, literally.... I personally think the demolition warbond is worth more than the viper one, but I wouldn't recommend both of those anyway.

[@Claysthetics]

The spawns are a lot more fun once you adapt to them. I am use to kill farming so it's lighter than usual for me personally, however I can see why a lot of people are not use to them yet. Again I think the problem is moreso the broken mechanics like spam ragdoll not having icd rather than the spawns themselves.

[@Zouna92]

@@Claysthetics The issue I see here is the "once you adapt to those". The community has voiced their opinion about disliking the amount of heavy units and the necessity to bring anti tank stratagems/support weapons to deal with them, requiring 2/4 or sometimes even 3/4 slots just to deal with heavy units. Want to bring a stalwart? Well you better bring 2 or 3 anti tank stratagems then. Got a SPEAR? Do what ever you want with the remaining slots. This forces people into bringing "meta" support weapons if they don't want to run away like a headless chicken when the fight escalades into 2 striders dropping onto your position and gunships pestering you while you are screaming your safety word, hoping for the BDSM session to end soon. The question is never "can you still finish missions or can you extract with probes", because we always manage that somehow, even with randoms, the question for me is "can you play objectives and still have fun". I know this is a lot of yapping, but I honestly think the game had its best state on launch, even with the server issues. Bots were scary, the screen littered with laser shots, but they didn't hit you as often as they do now, bugs swarmed you but didn't auto-hit-jump-attack you as often. I miss those days, I might just be burned out though, so who knows...

[@Claysthetics]

@@Zouna92 I think this is a good kind of yapp, I understand your frustrations however I see the game in almost a completly different light where I have more options for strats and loadouts than ever. For instance if I wanted to bring the stalwart I would just bring a scorcher or plasma punisher with stun grenades and a supply backpack. Outside of that I would need 1 thing to open bile titans up with the 4th slot being free for whatever I feel like becuase the scorcher can mulch titans when they are opened up and the chargers die in like 8 shots to the bulb so it's not that you don't have the options it's just that those options were viewed as bad or mid for a long time by the majoirty but you can see me using what is considered "meme builds" to win no problem. I suggest that if you are feeling burnt out and still want to enjoy the game to try and catch a stream or watch one of my vods in the live tab to try and gain a new perspective. Alot of people in my sphere love this update becuase of the options and diversity available to them and they learned how to deal with alot of these mechanics last update when we were kill record farming and forcing a massive zerg of enemies on us that was alot more difficult to deal with than anything this update has thrown at us yet. This is a timestamped example of us farming automatons at the extract for kills on this update with an eye up to spawn more enemies. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hZrZZ6CNgKeNjqs

[@Zouna92]

@@Claysthetics Sure thing, if my time zone allows for it, haha. I'll try to catch your stream if I can.

[@SoraTheKobold]

the update has been pretty fun so far honestly, even with some of the issues it does have or didnt address its the first time ive wanted to actually play the game in weeks i already liked gatling barrage pre-buff and now it actually feels great to bring qnd the heavy machine gun has become a favorite of mine, great update and i have big hopes for Pilestadt taking control of the game edit: also i still hate bile titans, not unbeatable but annoying also unrelated but Clay will you try Mordhau again anytime soon?

[@Claysthetics]

I think the gatling barrage is just the most fun strat in the game now. But yes we can do mordhau some night I meant to play again but ran out of time

[@EZEarle]

Butchered it in March?

[@skal-tel8077]

I just want to play the game. I cant open any menus w/o crashing.

[@blakefenslerjr4858]

That's your computer not the game

[@I39393I]

just give us a sleight of hand booster for better raload and fix the crashes then game is goated

[@aldyrinc6870]

@Claysthetics You speak like you're sprinting, and for non-US viewers/accent, it's hard to follow. Varying speed and cadence of your voice, would help immensely. Nothing but love for your channel.

[@9unslin9er]

You put Polar Patriots third?!

[@Claysthetics]

Yea for me it's more worth it to get the other two first, I know the tenderizer is super good but I would rather just have the fire shotgun and dominator atm.

[@9unslin9er]

@@Claysthetics 😑I see what you did there... *I meant for me PP is the WORST warbond. There's nothing on there, game changing. The Tenderizer is pretty far from "super good" dude. It only got even viable since the last patch. The fact you put Dem-Det last is questionable though, as Eruptor is still awesome and Grenade Pistol is Meta. Also, Experimental Infusion from Viper Commando is easily a staple booster now.

[@Koranthus]

@@9unslin9er He said as of this patch, so obviously the tenderizer being one of the best primaries(much higher damage and stagger make it far better than viable) makes the warbond worth more than before. Eruptor is too slow and is only good for clearing chaff in a game full of better ways to clear chaff and grenade pistol is situational, if you aren't running a single explosive strat or good support weapon, then yes if you need to blow a hole its superior to the other pistols although that's basically the only reason to bring it.

[@9unslin9er]

@@Koranthus It's not the only reason to bring it. It's a phenomenal finisher for armorered enemies. For example, I run Punisher Plasma for bots. Let's say I've got 4 rounds in the mag, and I run into a Heavy Devastator, which typically takes 5 shots to put down. I can switch to the Grenade Pistol and finish it off quickly, without risking it losing stagger when I'm reloading. Eruptor is also great for closing bug holes, and it excellent for Nursing/Bile Spewers from distance.

[@Koranthus]

@@9unslin9er Or you could shoot it twice in the head with the bot killing good primaries? Same for spewers honestly, both are medium armor heads and im pretty sure they are 2 shot with the DMRs or a few more shots from another medium pen gun(you could bring the HMG and kill all the bots), though now that spewers don't randomly 1 shot you, you can clip them down really quick with most guns.

[@RottenFilmProduction]

The new "your buddy uses a stim and you stop running bug" is an interesting one...something that you'd think would be picked up by TESTING! I am starting to wonder if malicious incompetence is a thing on AH part. The whole "its too hard to add the shrapnel back to the erupter" Why?! Sis you stick it on a floppy drive and yeet it out the window for funzee's?! But could be true due to the game being a mess of spaghetti code that no one tests properly : / Been banned from the Steam forums over a dozens times now for incitement and inflammatory statements, when all i've said is AH need to up their game, use a bloody test server and (ironically) stop banning people for opinions and criticism.

[@Claysthetics]

I think it's similar to the fatshark situation where the game engine is so borked every time they make 1 change it makes 20 unintended ones lmao

[@FEWGEE1]

The spawns are borked dude. They're worse than they've ever been.

[@Claysthetics]

The spawns are way more fun than they ever have been and everyone i've talked to in my community thinks the new spawns and helldive difficulty is more fun. The broken mechanics of enemies cause the problems.

[@LethalOwl]

Spawnrate seems just fine to me. Can still clear Helldives with randoms just fine (if they’re bringing useful strats).

[@HotelTwoFive-Sev]

Yeah u obviously dont play enough to notice the small details, or dont play solo often. They doubled the amount of enemies in the spawns and patrols and the "near obj" spawns are mental cause the patrols get triggered more often also. Once the main mission is complete, the patrols AND spawns are just as wrecked as they were before. The game isnt really any harder, its just less fun and more frustrating now. The increase in chaff enemies in the breach/drop spawn and the initial Poi spawns is fine, but the increase is across the board in breaches, drops, patrols, obj triggered spawns etc. THAT is the problem...

[@LethalOwl]

@@HotelTwoFive-Sev There's a few YT channels dedicated to soloing level 9s and they're doing so just fine as far I saw. Why you'd go out of your way to play the game on level 9 solo aside from showing off, I've no idea.

[@Dominicmesh000316]

Bro slow down. Good content and info but you sound like the wish micro machines guy