SUFFER NOT THE GAS | Helldivers 2

[@EmperorZoron]

Maybe caustic weapons should 'melt' away armor, leaving the enemy vulnerable to basic attacks?

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

That would be a very cool mechanic if added.

[@D3L1COUS]

Ah, yea I had significantly more success using the sterilizer as a quick "stun a group" and swap to another weapon to finish them all of. I don't think gas is supposed to be used as a pure offensive weapon and more a different kind of EMS with minor supplemental DoT. This video kinda feels like "I tried a kit consisting of only EMS and stun weapons and it doesn't kill" which is feels pretty moot.

[@denodagor]

Problem is "just stun" isn't enough of a reason to bring it, that's why people expected it to at least kind of kill stuff. It isn't even good at the crowd control it provides. Completely different from stun grenades or EMS strike.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

If that's the intent I guess it was doomed to fail but at least I understand. A support weapon that stuns is just dead weight and always will be because the support slot is for big threats which it has little effect on.

[@MrKrachachla]

>take crowd control weapon >look inside >no dmg, just crowd control >:O

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

A classic PvE dumpster weapon idea ;(

[@Deltarious]

I've had pretty good results with just about all the gas gear but the critical key point is it *requires* team support to be good. The Sterilizer is the weakest part of kit for sure though as the range is pretty damn short and as others have suggested it really could use a lingering cloud of gas to help with re-applying it. Since the gas doesn't fully blind the bugs you have to have a little distance to really make it 'kick in' right which is hard with the sterilizer, but if you do get it right the bugs will usually attack eachother (and can be *made* to do so with practice) which helps a lot, and given you can do it to chargers I found it pretty fun. The total amount of CC you can bring to bear is extremely high with the gas kit and it has great 'up time'/availability too that I've found pretty useful when playing with a tight knit team as on the hardest difficulties if you don't position perfectly you can often find yourself being pushed without being able to fall back much and being 'squeezed' preventing the team bringing their full fire power to bear, focusing on gas CC allowed me to forcibly create that breathing room for the team which made a noticable impact. In those rare instances where the team's current avalible firepower is too low to stop a very large horde it's worked really well. Of course the question becomes is it better than just dealing massive DPS or a flamethrower? Usually not I don't think, particularly not if you don't have great coordination and the sterilizer is just too anemic to really take as a support weapon but I will say I've found the gas nades but *particularly* the reworked gas strike pretty great since being able to force a disengagement or create space when on the verge of being overwhelmed has been really useful. There *are* situations where the sterilizer has been good for me too, where nothing else could have done the job better, but it's pretty niche, situations where for whatever reason you're facing a lot of heavy enemies in close and couldn't react at all before they were nearly on top of you and/or there's a *very* large horde almost right ontop of you, think of getting jumped by 4+ behemoth chargers from multiple angles as an example, yeah stun nades would work but they'd only hold them for so long and if there's lots of pressure from the little guys too it would not work well whereas making them fight eachother and bog down really forces that space to open back up and did work well. I do think the gear is a little anemic and I did like the ideas people have posted about maybe letting it melt armor. The tough part is that if I knew I was likely to be in a situation where very heavy CC would be needed and couldn't be avoided/solved with DPS the gear would be great, but it's really hard to know that before a mission and even harder to plan arround it with a team that's not super cooperative. Most of my missions I brought it I probably could have solved my issues with DPS instead and that would've likely been more 'optimal' even too but I did feel pretty strongly that there were maybe 20-30% of missions where gas gear saved my team in ways that pretty much only that gear could've managed, stun nades worked the rest of the time, but sometimes we'd get slammed by massive amounts of bugs from a breach and an objective at the same time while people's stuff was on c/d and in those cases it wouldn't matter what else I brought, only the gas would've been enough to stop them and give the team time to react. You can of course argue that 'optimal' play would mean never getting into that situation in the first place, but I'm not going to pretend to be that good ;)

[@Thenicktatorship]

cc seems kinda meaningless when you can just flat out kill with other weapons. This isn't GTFO or vermintide where cc matters as a factor for a weapon.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

This guy is a confirmed concept understander.

[@justgingy95]

You would actually be shocked at how useful even just one person running CC can be at keeping a team safe and protected, especially if you know what you’re doing, especially against bugs and especially in the higher difficulties. Brood Commanders for example (and whatever the new variants are called again) can be stopped from charging using weapons like the Plasma Punisher, Concussive, Pummeler, etc. You can even use the Bushwacker sidearm to keep them at bay super easily if they push you last second and if you’re quick enough to swap to it. I can’t count how often I’ve saved teammates and more importantly one of our limited lives because I was able to quickly stun and shove back the enemies swarming them with these kinds of weapons. (They also pair great with things like napalm and gas as you can stun/push bugs to keep them trapped in the DOT which is especially nice again for Broods as they tend to tank those more.) Another fun example is the Blitzer for when Stalkers show up, I don’t actually know if all shock weapons have this interaction but you can just run past them into their nests and blow them up with zero effort because zapping them causes them to leap away from you just about every time. Running CC with stratagems is also helpful in the higher difficulties when you need to defend a zone or keep the horde at bay with the EMS/EMS mortar. People also tend to sleep on smokes which is super helpful on Bots which I’ll count here as well since it’s also a non lethal. As for this update, I haven’t had a chance to actually play with anything yet but from what I hear it’s actually super useful when it comes to keeping the bugs out of your position. Most importantly, I’ve heard it can stop hunters from leaping in your face which to me sounds like a damn good deal. Edit: I’ll also add that certain events can be drastically improved when you have one person on CC duty. Remember that one defense mission we had to do on Meridia? I think in the nines at least every group of randoms I did it with we lost horribly. *Until* I had the smart idea to throw on a full CC setup (and some rockets for the heavies ofc) to keep bugs away from us and used the Pummeler to hard defend the objective, stun locking hordes of bugs while the rest of the team helped tear them to shreds. Literally went to single fire mode just to quick tap them in place while saving ammo because there was usually so many. After changing to that strategy, I don’t think we ever lost a single one by the end of the event (not counting the ones where Bile Titans spawned directly on top of it while that bug was a thing)

[@Reach4God1]

The gas grenade seems *fine*. It's an alternative to the stun grenades that trades crowd control for lethality, making it at least a unique option. The support weapon on the other hand definitely doesn't serve much of a purpose. It would probably be okay if it just left a lingering cloud of gas, but as-is it seems to just affect the target you're shooting it with, making it a significantly worse flamethrower.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

Accurate

[@PondsOfChooms]

I think the point here is: why would you take something to stun when you could take something that just kills? Crowd control in this game is a little strange since on higher difficulties you’re constantly pressured by enemies and CCing them is often a less effective option than killing them outright since a lot of enemies can call more enemies. time will tell if the CC niche gets better or worse!

[@AWACS_Snowblind]

It's a support weapon. Making the guard dog variant actually pretty fun, since you can slow down and confuse enemies _and_ shoot them, no team coordination required. And it won't fucking off me without hesitation like the laser guard dog lmao

[@Joseph-mw2rl]

You're not as useful as you think with the steriliser. You'd be better of helping you team KILL stuff

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

On your recommendation I am grinding for the guard dog. Will report back in another video.

[@AWACS_Snowblind]

@@Joseph-mw2rl True. But, if you're capable of doing level 10 without a backpack, why not have a little fun?

[@Joseph-mw2rl]

@@AWACS_Snowblind running around farting on bugs instead of killing them is not fun

[@Epicmonk117]

I think your problem is that you’re trying to pigeonhole gas into a damaging role when its rework on Tuesday made it a CC tool. Yes, gas deals piss-poor damage, but it makes enemies fight each other instead of you, giving you some much-needed breathing room to throw stratagems and/or run away.

[@weir-t7y]

Sure, but additional gas simply resetting the effect instead of adding dps is silly. If you're going to bring the sterilizer, you may as well bring the flamethrower and the brap dog, or gas nades.

[@Epicmonk117]

@@weir-t7y By that same logic, it’s better to bring the throwing knife over the stun grenades because the throwing knife does damage and the stuns only do CC.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

The stuns setup kills much better than the gas does.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

They don't reliably fight one another. They just go insane and attack everything. Sometimes including you. I state in my video that the only value I found was its CC, like an inferior stun grenade. I certainly am not giving up a support slot for that and I already have stuns in the grenade slot. The gas dog looks like it might work because it provides security in an automated manner. But it remains to be seen if its better than laser dog.

[@weir-t7y]

@@Epicmonk117 no, because again, bringing more than one gas item doesn't add anything to your gas effectiveness, at all. You take the gas dog, it at least has some real synergy with any support weapon, without being ammo limited like the grenades or the support weapon

[@0shii]

"...Maybe command was just trying to kill him...." Yes Democracy Officer, that one right there.

[@TheChaos791]

For now I think the Sterilizer work best if you play close to a teammate with a flamethrower or you have the guard dog rover to assist you. On the paper I like the fact it can blind and make enemies crazy but I still do think the weapon should have more dps and a lingering effect with the duration of the debuff increased. The Dog Breath could be good if it doesn't have that major weakness : it spray to death one target at the time. For a backpack designed for crowd control it's a major problem, it should behave like the Hulk Scorcher more incline to spray around you that focusing one target. Finally the dart revolver have a misaligned sight and don't heal that much even if the effect does stack with the medic armor and booster toward healing. Also it's so hard to shoot allies with that thing when you are not point blank without moving and completely impossible if your ally have a shield generator. Too bad ! A Medic field loadout could have been fun ... :( That warbond in general definitely need a good buff to be revelant.

[@turnipslop3822]

I think in conjunction with the Torcher primary, it can be useful. Also a gas grenade or two onto a bug breach really helps contain it while you lay into it with a big stratagem. I think the benefit of it over the stun there is that enemies keep spawning after the blast and get confused after they appear. It basically locks them down while your barrages clear them up. Still, the use case seems too limited to be worth it over another weapon. I was never expecting any of it to be good for bots though.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

I actually think gas strike is still pretty goated. Grenades are niche but could be used, though stuns and thermites are both better.

[@turnipslop3822]

@@Reginald-sc9tk I've actually been having less success with the gas strike lately, it doesn't really get me many kills so it feels like it needs to be taken alongside something that actually drops enemies like the gatling barrage. That's where the grenades came in because they don't take up one of my strat slots. I'm still playing with it and will see how I feel with a bit more time.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

I do agree its best when paired with something else but I'm finding i get kills with gas strike itself. I'll certainly keep fiddling.

[@reptilesarecool9763]

I wish that gas would be distinct from fire by making it longer lasting and easier to cover areas with, but little to no armor piercing instead of just lower damage and confusion. If it was me I would bring back old gas damage, make the gas slow enemies severely, the sterilizer would not have ap4 and would make huge lingering clouds of gas. Maybe could have a density system where the more gas you put in one area the more damage it can cause through more armor? Like an orbital gas would make a denser cloud than a gas grenade and the sterilizer could create high density clouds of toxic death with sustained fire over one area.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

I like this set of suggestions

[@unrelentingduress]

Sorry you had such a bad experience. Try using the sterilizer with a full green strat build. Works exceptionally well keeping everything off of your turrets. You almost never have to worry about them getting plowed over or overwhelmed by anything not even stalkers

[@DrPastah]

I used the gas orbital long time ago when I played the game in conjuction with the EMS (slow static field thing). So they sat in the gas cloud longer. Still didn't do shit though.

[@leolarose2099]

The guard dog needs to sweep the area it only focus one enemy at a time. Its great when it targets a charger, but kinda useless when it targets one small bug in a group of 20, if it sweeped across enemies I would love it

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

awww, i was getting a little hype about it from all the positive comments in this video.

[@scoople6]

Haven't tried it yet but the gas grenades look like good utility for breaches/drops. Usingn it to slow and disorient them as you change positions or line up a good strategem seems nice. The Sterilizer looks a bit weak though.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

I think you're better off with Gas Strike with its infinite ammo and low cooldown, bigger aoe and better damage. Gas grenades just didn't hit.

[@JC101Zero]

I think they have their place, it's not about doing damage but as they said crowd control. It def not support weapon you should always bring but on 9s it was nice for all the adds

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

I ran it on 10s and found it to be just an inferior choice in every situation. I always wished I had something else.

[@JC101Zero]

@@Reginald-sc9tk did 3 10s earlier and the nades and gas stratagem were nice enough for me

[@sirslyles2583]

Im pickin up what your puttin down and I gotta say your probably usin it kinda wrong. This support weapon takes the word crowd control and uses it quite literally, slowing and disorienting almost all enemies. makes them swing around in the air and stuff. I personally like to pair it with the flam 66 for maximum dot damage.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

I did work that out, and I appreciate you suggesting a way to use it, but my issue is that it's far worse than an EMP grenade. Both the grenade and the Sterilizer. So they both end up being bad at damage and bad at crowd management if not downright dangerous at times. The sterilizer offends by taking a stratagem slot for a close range cat spray bottle.

[@wood8595]

Sterilizer as a primary? Thoughts?

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

Would still not be worth it I think. I'm interested in how to make gas better but its not yet good for sure.

[@wolffkran5799]

Missed your helldiver videos, hope you're enjoying the new patch at least even if the warbond is a bit of a dud. I don't have much hope for the stim gun.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

I think the stim gun needed to be like Ana's rifle from Overwatch to be good. For all I know it is. Maybe the gas rover is good, some say it is. I'm loving the patch overall. Its pretty much what I suggested in a lot of ways.

[@HibHab69]

I'm seeing a lot of, "It's supposed to crowd control, not kill!", in these discussions. It's a shame, because "just killing them" is just as if not more effective than shooting the funny gas at people. Sidenote, I hope armors can swap abilities sometime soon. I was looking at the AF-91 Field Chemist set, it looks AMAZING, but I do not care for gas resistance.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

I'm with you. The cosmetics in this warbond are absolutely top tier. Crowd control that cannot kill in a reasonable time is just an ankle weight for the team that has to clean up your mess and fill in for your missing DPS. Thats the reality of PvE games in most cases. CC in darktide is by far the most powerful I've ever seen and people hate it for that reason still, and also turning off the enemies. CC is at its best as a situational counter to spam not a constant ability.

[@acfangaming]

Lotta cope in the comments from people saying that the weapon that doesn’t do damage is good crowd control when we have limited stratagem and support weapon slots.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

I don't mind people disagreeing with me but I'm seeing some seriously unhinged glazing.

[@chaffychaffinch]

That's a disappointment, I was wondering if I should spend my hard-earned super creds or god forbid my own money on this new warbond considering these were actually new stratagems instead of just new primary weapons for a change. I'll hold off for now, I still need to get freedom's flame and now that fire is back to being fun and awesome I'll probably just work on getting that one first.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

I'll let ya know on the other two weapons when I get time to unlock them. For now the verdict is cosmetics cool, gear bad.

[@superspecky4eyes]

SMELL DIVERS TO SMELLPODS!! REPEAT!! SMELLDIVERS TO SMELLPODS!!

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

This guy caught wind of what was going on

[@bretts6127]

The orbital gas is all you need

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

Too true

[@Saxa2013]

Btw even cc is fucked on gas nades and sterilizer. Sometimes bug will just head for you anyways even if they are fully intoxicated with gas and just seem to not care and kill you anyways. So even as a support weapon its weak. Overall disappointed.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

Seems i was not alone in that discovery. Feels bad. My presumption is they tend to just attack at random or maybe whatever is closest which can be you.

[@Xhaleon]

They will never be able to release something new not pre-nerfed. It is law in their part of Sweden.

[@theroguenob]

I cant even play the game on initial drop the game hard crashes. Im guessing its some memory leak issue but the normal troubleshooting doesn't work considering the game worked fine 2 weeks ago its wild that this new update broke it moreb

[@JC101Zero]

Happend to a bud ever since they added the new enemy type, no resolve found yet for him sadly

[@kuba102b7]

Hans get ze gasenwerfer ❤

[@NOTTHISCATJACK]

This obsession with the word support has gone too far. It's maddening how people use cope to justify mediocrity. Support is literally your own cope when you have NO real solutions to a problem. You are SUPPORTING the other players who go on to actually solve that problem. It's like those construction workers that just sit around, while the real construction specialists do their job. I believe Regi is trying to say and what most of you don't seem to understand is that he's asking a simple question, which is: why would I rely on inferior "support" weapons when I can just pull out the real destructive firepower and wipe the battlefield clean? Which btw automatically gives me and my squad, more breathing room, more time to deploy stratas and provides actual usefulness to the real support equipment.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

Killing enemies is always the best form of crowd control unless the CC is incredibly outsized in effect vs effort.

[@NOTTHISCATJACK]

​​@@Reginald-sc9tk absolutely, but look at half the comments. I honestly blame sensitivity culture for this total lack of awareness and accountability

[@GroBoiD7777]

i just unistalled this and continiue to play DT. DT was same no content on reaslese but fatsharks do not wasted more then half a year to destroy and partially fix their game, they always fixed their game.

[@Luke31531]

Zamn

[@Yougosha1]

I uninstalled the game when they first nerfed the slugger. It was the only primary that felt "right" to me. Im really curious why they continue to sabotage their game and player base beyond repair. Whats next, the unarmed run and hide game mode?

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

Horror genre resurgence here we come?

[@suss6067]

Yea there is no point to those weapons right now. Oh well.

[@SteveMorris-c2r]

Im going to be frank for a second. You picked up a weapon you knew nothing about. Made several assumptions about the weapons function. Then got upset because the weapon did not work the way you wanted. Then instead of correcting your mistake and learning about the weapon, you decided to remain ignorant and post a hastily constructed hit piece chock full of childish blame , misinformation and misplaced rage. This last part is speculation on my part but I bet it was all in a vain attempt for attention. This video was most likely posted to get sympathy from others who made the same mistake. The best part is its ok. People make mistakes. Since the weapon has a high kill time but a low CC time you should pair it with one of the drones or turrets. Preferably both for maximum dps The gas looks like it will be a boon for slower primaries as well. Gas and fire make a nice combo. The breaker incendiary or one of the lasers come to mind as the combo of gun damage, gas dot and fire dot should bring things down fast. Since mechs are immune to gas they can take advantage of the gas cc to stomp enemies to death. Any time you can save ammo by stomping a charger to death is a win in my book. So the argument is why crowd control when you can just kill right? So if it takes 5 seconds to kill an enemy and only 2 seconds to crowd control an enemy, which effectively removes them and all their threat from the fight, then its effectively faster to CC than it is to kill. Enemies respawn, the only thing that killing does over CC is give the satisfaction of having a number go up. There is also the factor of noise. Killing things is loud and can often draw additional combatants into a fight. Killing is not the goal. Completing the objective is the goal. Crowd control buys time because some times your not going to be able to kill enemies fast enough. Crowd control also makes targets easier to kill saving ammo, stims and other supplies. CC is also the best option for use in emergency situations like getting flanked or surrounded. CC tends to be faster and tends to linger allowing its effects stay for longer than just simple damage. Crowd control also allows enemies like chargers and hulks to be killed with primaries rather than needing a dedicated anti tank weapon. So to say crowd control is useless is silly. Many in the just kill it camp have been saved by crowd control countless times with out even realizing it.

[@Reginald-sc9tk]

Lol, what a litany of accusations and assumptions you made nothing but assumptions yourself in. There's nothing hasty about more than 4 hours of hands on time over 9 succesful difficulty 10 missions and a 2 hour video production time. I worked out that the only value the weapon has is CC, I said as much in this 3 minute video. Then I said it sucks because its inconsistent even at that. I could list more reasons but the final assertion you make is the most agregious. You set up a strawman of a 5 second TTK vs a 2 second time to CC. But thats not what it is. Its more like a 0.5s TTK vs a 0.5s TTCC. Except the CC has near CQB range and limited ammo and takes up two limited stratagem slots or a grenade slot making your gear incredibly inflexible to almost no advantage.

[@sturmmagnunstein1008]

Damn did AH pay for this post? Or do you toil for free

[@Yougosha1]

You were frank for way more than a second. Also if you want to convince others to see your point of view, you should avoid being rude.

[@Acesahn]

Arrowhead is just doubling and tripping down on underperforming weapons. I wasn't surprised in the slightest by this video.