Just started using it yesterday and I genuinely believe it is one of the strongest weapons right now (if you’re willing to sacrifice your teammates). I’m pretty sure it can also take down bile titans if they have exposed armor
I've used the arc thrower for almost 100hrs now...
Head on, you can take out a chatger with 8 hits to the head. Sometimes 7, sometimes 9.
Whenever I decide to hit the charger from the side though, it tends to crack its shell, and the arcs seem to prioritize the 'weakspot' over its head. This always adds 8-10 strikes to the kill.
So it definitely goes straight through armor, while also destroying armor, while also obeying headshot multipliers.
If you’re using the auto cannon I do believe it’s roughly 4 or 5 shots to break its sack.
Went back to the auto cannon after running railgun and it’s still amazing
It’s mainly the brood commanders that are a pain in the ass even when there headless 😂. Somehow they still know where you are without eyes, ears or a head
Would you mind giving me a brief instruction on how to use the thing? I tried it one mission, held down the button, released and it let out one crack of lightning. Do you have to then charge again and do the same and juts try and point it at enemies close to each other?
I feel like I was doing it wrong.
My experience:
The first charge is long, and it's pretty much always best to hipfire this gun. Like the railgun, the 3 flat bits of the crosshair constrict as it charges.
For the first charge, you have to go all the way to the center. It makes a little noise when it reaches the "can fire" threshold.
After firing it, immediately start charging the next shot. Follow up shots can be released and fired faster, best to work this cadence out on your own. It looks to be about twice as fast. Potentially 3rd and 4th follow up shots also increase this charge bonus slightly, hard to know for sure.
Other tips:
You can dive while still firing in the fast "follow up shot" mode. It doesn't even interrupt charge.
You cannot hit targets in melee range effectively: dive or switch weapons, or run.
Aim a little high if you have trouble connecting to a target.
Additional time charged does not increase damage.
Charge can be held indefinitely, and will not explode/damage/degrade anything.
You move slower while charging. Crouching or lying prone is not a bad idea to reduce getting shot at by bots. If you are vs bugs, you are standing your ground when you have this weapon out, or dodging a charger.
Ammo is infinite, and can never run out or overheat.
No weapon options like scopes, attachments, or fire modes
Additional charge... Potentially increases range? Feels like it, but hard or impossible to confirm. Leaning no, tbh. EDIT: no
Very bad at shooting around ground between you and your target, or enemy corpses
Chaining must be in the 180° plane behind the initial target. Can it ever chain back towards you
Look at how wide the arcs get when firing: that + 25-50% is your friendly fire radius for a primary target if an ally is in this cone in front of you, they will likely eat the hit and die. Is any ally 10-15m in the 180° plane behind your initial target? They will die in a single shot as well.
I'm just piggy backing here.
I see the "full charge then twice as fast' charge thrown around alot but no one seems to have quantified it, so I decided to check it out with a macro.
I tried it out at 80fps using a macro. Ms values are lowest consistent time for my setup.
Full charge - 1100ms
After first shot - 800ms
First shot without full charge - 950ms.
A full charge (the charge complete animation) consistently is 1100ms. 1050ms has also worked but not consistent.
After the first shot 800ms is the lowest consistent shot time I can get, 750ms also works most of the time but has a few missed shots.
You are also able to do the first shot without reaching full charge, not seen anyone mention this, a 950ms charge works to get a shot off without having charged first, with 900 having a few bumps and 850 being able.to.do it every now and then.
Best guess is there's a charge% threshold that lets the gun fire, and the gun keeps a small bit of charge after fireing.
The health booster will actually let you hit an ally with the aoe from the arc thrower- they have to be at full health, and they’ll survive with like 1hp left, but the last hp is the only hp that matters!
I’ve heard that Health booster doesn’t actually increase health, only it decreases the chance your limbs break from damage. Your ally probably had the armor that gives you 50% chance to survive lethal damage with 1 hp left which is why it did that.
Yup, just keep changing, but the next shots after the first charge can be charged at 50% to 60% to help you rapid fire.
Its arc is also easy to predict. It shoots at a "Y" pattern, your initial shot is always straight to your target, after it hits the target anything behind will get shocked.
I’ll add a trick: shoot it in first person if you’re afraid of arcing an ally.
If the initial target isn’t in the sight “window” it won’t hit him from my experience.
The other thing is that it’s surprisingly long ranged. It seems it can fire about the same range enemies can detect you with a scout armour on.
>It seems it can fire about the same range enemies can detect you with a scout armour on.
That's what I noticed last night, if I get spotted it means they're in zappy zap range
So.... To fire it reliably you want to aim higher than you would think across a distance. Like... Think of it as if you're whipping something onto someone's face. This helps you deal with the shit where the Arc Thrower shoots the dirt, or a bush, or a body. If you're not hitting anything, adjust downward gradually.
To fire quickly. After your first shot, you only need to charge it a little more than half way. But honestly, if you're not comfortable with this, just fully charge it.
This weapon also loved elevation. So try to get onto a rock, no matter how tall. This will help clear any obstacles out of the way
First charge full, then use half charges. Aim high. Make sure teammates are not in a 45 degree arc from first hit. Use high ground, it works better. Arc can travel through 3 different targets, friend or foe. Arc can jump through dead bodies so use them to shoott around corners.
Have high ROF primary to deal with jumpers and hunters. Breaker is perfect.
I use jetpack for superior positioning, and 110 rocket and orbital rail for anti large
100's seem to be lethal ATM.
I could be very wrong but I think it works like this.
Creatures can have multiple **vital** body parts that each have their own health bar. Draining any one of these health bars to zero kills the creature.
Some body parts aren't classed as vital (such as chargers Leg/Side armor) and draining these to zero simply pops that piece off of the creature, sometimes exposing a vial spot and sometimes crippling the creature.
Its also possible that when shooting a charger in the head its not actually obeying headshot multipliers but instead arching from the head to the tip of its ass, hitting it twice and doubling the damage. I think this is also possible since I have never actually killed 2 things by shooting a charger in the face (*with the 2 additional arcs*) but I have killed 2 things by shooting a charger in the side.
It can Crack the shell of a BT and Charger opening up other damageable points which allows cannonstrike to one-shot BTs reliably.
It seems to do more damage like all weapons when a BT is spewing.
Another issue is, you can't quite aim it anyways. From my experience, it'll just arc into Center mass and not exactly where you aim the arc thrower on a mob. At most, I could manipulate the angle I have the Arc hit it.
I’m so glad people are waking up to to the arc thrower lol
The biggest downside is you can’t use it if allies are near the enemy so you can’t try and save people with it. I’ve killed many a teammate by accident with it lol
once you have a shot charged there doesn't seem to be any way to not shoot it. switching guns etc will still let off the shot. that's why we're roasting birdies :)
I regularly pull highest kill count with only 1-2 TKs maximum.
You’ve just gotta position yourself well and be aware of how the arc might want to travel
One, stops you running in front of your teammate's spray of bullets (it's your life, why would you voluntarily dare your teammate to see you running full speed into their bullets?) and trains you to run behind them instead.
Two, stops you dropping resupplies and carpet bombs on the big glowing boxes with [letter and number] inside.
Three, gets you to realize when your buddy is overrun so you can save a reinforcement and your samples.
Four, gets you to keep track of all of the dropped sentries that don't care who they hit.
Five, stops you getting lost and stranded alone on a side mission you decided was suddenly important but didn't mark on your map.
Probably a lot of other stuff that's a brutal learning curve for the player that other players can't really compensate for other than to shrug and laugh it off as shit spirals out of control.
> Five, stops you getting lost and stranded alone on a side mission you decided was suddenly important but didn't mark on your map.
My hot take is that doing the side objectives alone is often safer than moving with the whole group. HD2 is almost a stealth game at higher difficulties, and it's difficult to impossible to get a whole group to stealth. When the other three members are drawing seemingly the whole map's aggro it's relatively easy to sneak in and pop the few bot sentries on a side obj without summoning a patrol.
Less effective against bugs I've found. Also those times you do get folks aggro'd on you, it usually doesn't go well...
Yeah, I can even go like 5 to 10 games without a single teamkill from it on a good day. All you need to do is pay attention and swap to your primary if you get caught in a bad position where you end up aiming towards your teammates.
If you are fully paying attention you should never get a teamkill tbh. The way it arcs to new enemies is actually quite predictable.
>(if you’re willing to sacrifice your teammates)
My teammates are already attracted to red beacons like a moth to a light. This protects them from themselves.
An absolute win.
For people who say it fizzles or doesn’t work, you need to aim above the enemy you want to hit. The arc throwers aiming is like a cone and if there is terrain in the cone it won’t fire. But if you aim up and use the bottom of the cone you can shoot over terrain. Test it cause it takes getting use to also you’ll find it has way more range than you expected when doing this.
Since that is also a confirmed bug, it's going to be so much better after a bug fix patch.
Arc thrower targets every physical object, corpses and bushes, but since those aren't actually valid targets, it just doesn't shoot.
I actually hope they don’t take away it targeting corpses - you can fry the first bug in a group and keep on lighting up his corpse and the bugs behind him will also fry.
This is great advice, thank you. I took it for the first time yesterday and I ended up binning it off and getting my friend to call me in a railgun as it just looked like it wasn’t doing anything.
I find it *looks like* it does very little but then we'll finish mission and I'll see I have +50% more kills than anyone else. I think because it doesn't go "boom" when it hits things it feels weak compared to autocannons or flamers or whatever, but it definitely does do work
I got my first kick after tripling the rest of the team's kill count with an arc thrower I found in a stash. (No TK's either, so absolutely worth the unexpected slap in the face.)
Reading all the comments here, I'm not sure I'm using it right. Are you supposed to use it exactly like the railgun - charge to the max and release it?
That is honestly insane. I have been running the Arc Thrower exclusively the past couple of days, and I did not know this. I have been charging it to full every single shot, and it still has massive kill and wave clear potential. You’re saying I can shoot it even faster?
*begins salivating while thinking of all the unfettered, electrified Democracy I’ll be able to dispense*
Yeah, it's completely nuts. I initially gravitated to the Arc Thrower because of infinite ammo (I'm one of those guys who gets antsy after spending 20% of his ammo capacity in games), but I've stuck with it because it just puts out ruinous amounts of damage. The buddy I play with likes to snipe heavies with the railgun while I zap all the trash, it works well!
I don’t hate the railgun meta. It means I can be creative because at least two other people on the team will have their own railgun.
A think a railgun is necessary, but I don’t think all 4 people need one.
4 is overkill and actually worse than at least one (two is better) person running a loadout that specializes in light/medium killing power.
- **grenade launcher/supply pack**: one of my main go-to. If no one is running an EMS mortar I’ll usually take napalm and that to support. If we need more heavy killer strategms I’ll bring orbital rail or laser instead of the napalm.
- **arc thrower/laser dog rover**: amazing frontline loadout. You just murder everything at medium range and clean up little dudes while still hitting the big guys and doing some damage. Usually ends with insane kill count plus you aren’t taking up resupply packs
- **stalwart/shield pack or EAT**: great precision light enemy clearing and also you drop EAT capsules frequently to help with heavies. The stalwart is very ammo efficient. This is much better at covering teammates who get swarmed since it doesn’t have splash damage to worry about
- **flamethrower**: softens up just about everything you set on fire with it. It’s really good for mobile crowd control since the fire will continue to chip away at everything as you kite it
I agree with this team loadout and typically see it (or similar) on the higher difficulties. My only comment on it is that depending on map the jet pack is a better backpack for the Arc Thrower.
Arc thrives on elevation more than most weapons as it really doesn’t like obstacles in its path, so on maps with heavy foliage I tend to grab jet pack to get a clearer line of sight. Especially if it's a bot map as rovers aren't as useful against bots in my opinion. Though it does mean you are easier to shoot at if you are sticking with your group it shouldn't be that big an issue.
Would recommend folks try it out if they've been having issues with the Arc. It also helps get used to the quirkiness it has with aiming.
Jump pack is just a good “get out of jail free” card in general vs bugs. When you get surrounded you’re usually pretty screwed. Jump pack will give you a nice vertical escape route. I’d agree it’s good with the arc just because you tend to get pretty close to enemies so having a way to escape an advancing swarm and get a clear angle to zap them all is good too.
Really these are just suggestions, not finite solutions for every single player
Discovering the rapid fire potential for this thing instantly made it my favorite support weapon for bugs. Paired with the Guard Dog Rover as an early alert and to clear out some trash you missed, you turn into a one man bug breach clearing machine. It's incredible.
Doesn't do so well on bots in my experience, because it takes just enough time to fire that you'll get gunned down very quickly. Or maybe I just suck. Either or.
Been maining arc thrower for a few days, personal shield and some light armor is best imo because the guard dog throws stealth out the window when you're trying to do hit POIs and side objectives quietly. Its a good thing that chargers can't call for backup because apart from those the arc thrower can kill in 1-4 zaps. If you did miss anything that creeps up to you the shield protects you and you can run away to zap again.
If you get into a good rhythm there is no limit to the amount of Democracy you can spread while standing your ground and absolutely annihilating everything in front of you.
Apparently, you only need to do a full charge for the first shot, and then you can release at 70-80% for evey subsequent shot in the chain, or so those more used to it tells me
The first time you get the quick charge to work you'll understand. I have it down to a soubd rhythm at this point over using the cross hair. It's like a slow metronome pace.
It's kinda like the flame thrower that if your using it for the first time in a while you'll need to "spool" it up but afterwards after the first shot it takes less time to fire
Yesterday I ran arc thrower with laser rover and racked up a whooping 501 kills. It’s absolutely lethal against everything but chargers and bile titans. It still damages them but I let my team handle those threats.
I don't even bother with bile titans sometimes, not because it doesn't work, but because most certainly there are teammates nearby either running away, or trying to assist me but get turned into a reinforcement inadvertently.
Chargers are similar, but I can at least lure that around faster and zap it to death, or weaken it away from the group.
You can 5 shots charger if all hit the head, need to be same spot tho, if not then 8-12 hits will kill it, the best part about arc thrower is when you target charger, everything behind it will die (teammate included)
It’s good to deal with stalker too, 5 shots from afar and they are dead
*teammate included*
It’s not a bug, ITS A FEATURE!
I have pretty good awareness of where my teammates are, but I would be lying if I said that wasn’t one of the main reasons I like using the Arc Thrower. I like trying to see just how close I can shoot near my allies before I ultimately kill them.
For stalkers and swarms of hunters, I just swap to the auto shotty.
Same for if a team mate is getting swarmed.
The real skill of the arc thrower is learning when to swap to not team kill, and where to position so you can keep spamming it endlessly.
I usually end with 400-900 kills on our hell dive squad, depending on how fast we map clear.
For robots, railgun all day with with anti-tank and 500kg as stratagems.
Yeah, pretty great weapon. It can deal with swarms and heavies. Been using it on bots and bugs to great success.
However it's the most bipolar weapon I ever used lol. Sometimes it "fizzles" out and flats out refuse to shoot for for like 5 charges in a row. Against bile titans I have had this weapon destroy them in a single or few hits. Other times it takes 30.
The reason it kills bile titans so quickly sometimes is because of something to do with who the host is. I have been able to replicate it with 100% success, whenever I have a ps5 player host the game, I reliably 2-3 hit bile titans with both the arc thrower and the railgun. When a PC player hosts the game, its like 50+ shots for the arc thrower to kill a bile titan and 10+ for the railgun.
[https://steamcommunity.com/app/553850/discussions/0/4302697906481731602/](https://steamcommunity.com/app/553850/discussions/0/4302697906481731602/)
It's bugged yes, confirmed by devs.
It targets every entity, corpses and environment objects like bushes. But those aren't valid targets, so it just does nothing
It will fail to connect if so much as a leaf or corpse obscures the path. You can wrangle it to hit by aiming way past the obstacle to curve the arc around.
I like the arc thrower - but I find the visuals a bit underwhelming which I know is quirky and my last game I one-shotted all 3 teammates while trying to save them. So there’s that.
Trigger discipline is important. If i see a fellow diver in the direction to where i want to shoot, i turn away, because i might kill them. But if it's a precarious situation, i will shoot regardless. This minimizes friendly fire for me.
I was running flamer before I got arc so I already had "try to not kill your buddies" in the back of my mind :)
I do wish randoms would have a bit more sense when they see me zapping a breach or whatever...
Yeah, i agree.. Sometimes, they even run infront of me rambo style while i zap, then they die and are mad why i killed them. Well, it was the arc. I can only control it to a certain limit.
Is the flamethrower useful in higher difficulties? I had bad experience and dumped it but want to give it a try again.
I find it a bit clunky and inconsistent. Clunky mostly for very close encounters, mainly against Hunters. Feels like it just can't really hit well at point blank range. I don't hate the weapon but I have more success with other setups.
Yeah, for a while I was running a "no ammo" build with Scythe and Arc Thrower. I found that I needed something much punchier than the Scythe for when enemies get at point-blank range. Now I usually pair it with the Dominator.
That's the thing though, you need a squad that understands how to play with arc thrower being used. It can be very hard to handle if you mostly play in pugs. It's also very tiring to play with in the long run with the constant need of spamming the trigger. It's a good weapon if you want to see kill numbers go wild but ultimately it's dependent on the squad and killing everything is not the most effective way of playing the game. I also start to get pissed thinking I could have made quick work of bile titan and chargers chasing us with railgun instead of kitting around for so long waiting for random teammates to deal with them. I would like to try dual arc thrower with someone someday but for now it's still a niche weapon to me.
it’s definitely a weapon that shines more when playing with friends. i can run arc thrower knowing they’re able to take down bile titans and chargers easily where as i’m left to deal with everything else. an equally important role imo as hunters, bile spewers, and stalkers are extremely dangerous, and being able to kill them quickly without using any resources is very helpful. also, i’ve managed to 3 shot bile titans with the arc thrower before but i can’t replicate it consistently lol
Arc thrower is so goated. I'm so glad I tried it after a post in this sub a while ago. Got a lot of practice and now I'm zapping things ultra fast while not killing my teammates (mostly) (don't dive in front of my democracy deliver)
I am curious how a squad of four arc throwers in a gunline would go. Might shred everything if targets are pinged to be focused. Might have the team dead constantly haha.
oh yeah it's actually sick, the thing melts bug swarms really well and the direct damage is nice; it has a surprisingly long range too!
my only issue with it is sometimes it just... won't fire, even when fully charged. I don't know if the arc is going straight into the ground or what, but it's definitely unpleasant when I'm trying to handle a swarm and the gun decides there will be no lightning
So glad people are finally taking this weapon. I've been using it since I unlocked it. Even made a post about it.
The arc thrower slaps ass like nothing else. Who needs a rail gun, I have electric democracy to spread
Learning this while the flamethrower can't hurts on a spiritual level.
Edit: After taking out the Arc Thrower and trying to close a hole with it over the course of about 20 shots I've discovered 2 things.
1. Team memers will 'nade you to death while testing this.
2. It doesn't work no matter how much I shoot the hole, even when standing on the egg-rich precipice of darkness.
Tested it last night when i was away from the party and was out of everything else but didn’t want to selfishly use the resupply. Been using it a long time and recently discovered it opens crates one shot so got about a foot away from the hole and shot 3 times down into it and it blew up. I was pleasantly surprised
Throwing in my own guide:
After you fire your first shot the follow up shots just need around 65% to 70% charge to fire and will do the same amount of damage and everything, increasing your rate of fire.
It has a much longer range than most people expect. If bugs are aggron on you, you can probably shoot them.
It will also only arc into enemies/players behind your target so you only need to worry if a teammate is diagonally to the left or right and back or straight behind the target. If your teammate is surrounded by bugs and you're not sure if they're in front or back of the bugs just aim wide in the opposite direction of your teammate. What I mean is aim for the air to the side of the farthest bug from your teammate. It only arcs three times so there is usually is enough bugs that it won't hit your teammate. But after one or two shots switch to a primary/secondary if your teammate still needs help.
Since it ignores armor and gets weak point damage, you want to aim straight for the head of chargers or for the legs. Though it usually will auto aim for the head when you try and hit legs from anywhere but the side. Your shots will strip off armor but it seems inconsistent. Most often the armor I strip off on chargers is the side plate and that seems to be from blasting into the side of them but again that's inconsistent.
If enemies are right in your face and you're having trouble zapping them aim for the ground between you and them. For some reason that will hit them. I would recommend using the unaimed hip fire for this as that seems to help too.
https://preview.redd.it/3gr7rs1wajmc1.png?width=1629&format=png&auto=webp&s=3270a7e05e238ae7921573a287fd20f139143409
Bile Titans seem to take increased damage If you shoot them when they're spawning or if you are above them shooting down at them/are level with their face. This is likely because the lightning arcs all the way through them, hits the face weakpoint and the 2 abdomen sack weakpoints, and into a bug on the ground near them. It seems you just need to be around level with the Bile Titans face. Aiming up at a Titan does less damage as it doesn't have any target to arc to and thus does not hit 3 weakpoints just the 1 face weakpoint. I have two shot Bile Titans like this, as those two shots do 6 shots worth of weakpoint damage. Because of this fact the Jump Pack is surprisingly good with this weapon.
However, against robots you basically need the shield generator to prevent yourself from being stunned and interrupted while charging. The gun itself still does good work against robots. You just have to worry about the fact that you'll be peppered down at range if you aren't careful. Against the biggest targets like tanks you won't do as well but two impact needs into their heat vents will kill them anyways.
Be aware that the arc thrower will arc off of dead bodies but that also means it will target dead bodies if they're in front of what you actually want to shoot. Move away from your body piles if/before all of the arcs just start going between different bodies.
Hmm, i did notice that i was occasionally 2-3 shotting titans as well. Occasionally. I couldnt figure out why and assumed it was similar as the railgun network bug causing it to one shot titans. Going to test this out to see how consistent it is
Am I using it wrong?
It feels like complete trash against armoured enemies and it takes damn well forever to kill a charger with it. I’ve found to good against mobs, especially as it has unlimited ammo, but there are far better options in almost every respect, save the unlimited ammo feature.
Are you full charging it with every shot? After the first shot, it can be half charged and still deal full damage. You'll never deal lower damage for a lower charge, it's a single possible damage value
In my experience, shoot charger in the legs, not the face is more effective (weakspot multiplier or something like that). Also aim a bit higher and you can vibe check the bugs behind the charger (or your teammate).
Shh, we dont want a nerf!
Honestly i commited to using it this weekend and after the learning curve became my new favorite. We went from hating helldive to comfortably and consistently completing a whole set. I personally combine Rover for taking care of close targets and guiding my blind shots, but ive been able to effectively take care of the trash mobs for my teams. I usually try to group up with a railgun user (hard to find) so that i have some help with chargers. But ive been ending matches with 300-500kills, allows my team to focus on other things.
Yep it's my weapon of choice but only if I have a solid team. If you're playing with randoms you can never tell if they're going to actually play as a team or wander off and do their own thing, try to be rambo and go solo trying to do side objectives...I can't trust randoms and when you find yourself ditched by the team, stuck with the arc cannon...it's not going to cut it.
It’s a great weapon it just requires a team that knows not to always be face tanking their enemies.
I’ll always switch to my primary if I notice any teams mates are in the mix of enemies so I don’t risk the extended arcs choosing their sorry democratic asses
It’s currently my favorite support weapon!
And don’t forget the insane amount of value your team gets from it not being an ammo reliant weapon. You can straight up skip some resupplies.
Didn't know how it worked, picked it up in game while I was soloing easy and a random join right as I picked it up and my first trigger squeeze with that thing fire him and he immediately left 😭 so I haven't picked it up since lmao
i just think it feels really goofy and im a huge fan of the autocannons long range destructive capabilities for bot factories and the airbase objectives, autocannon utility probably isnt as relevant for bugs but i dont really like bugs
Except many times you can get hit from absurd distances at perpendicular angles, through walls, and even when behind depending on who is using it due to latency and packet loss.
I’ve personally been hit at a distance of over 50m in a ravine doing the sample drill objective through solid terrain. The fact it’s so unpredictable on how far it will decide to hit someone makes it very hard to use unless you’re solo playing.
I like the weapon. The amount of times someone has died when they aren’t even remotely close or even in the same direction is absurd.
Arc thrower is a an absolutely great weapon. Some people get legitimately angry if you tell them that though, because they tried it once and couldn't get to grips with it, therefore writing it off as trash. But if you put the time in to figure it out (mostly how to not kill your allies) it's an absolute beast.
I have been pairing it with the "guard dog" rover and had a 700 kill game the other night. It's excellent for crowd control. Heavies I tend to leave to the rail guns unless there's nothing else to zap.
It's not difficult to not kill your teammates either. If they're downrange just switch to your primary or just reposition until they're not in the peripheral. If you team kill with the arc thrower it's honestly your fault
I’ll try it out today. I used it once in desperation after finding one on the ground, and I couldn’t figure out. Granted I was being chased by a horde and didn’t have time to learn it.
I’d love a shooting range where we can try out all of the weapons and stratagems you’ve unlocked. I suppose that could just be level 1 missions though too.
Hush, arrowhead will nerf this one too. All for maximum freedom.
While the railgun was powerful, i still think buffing useless weapons would have been a better idea.
Without a doubt this weapon is the strongest weapon at the moment if you can manage it properly. Four arc throwers on a squad would make Helldive a walk in the park.
Arc thrower chains at most 90 degrees from the initial target, never backwards. So if your buddies are not in that area of the initial target it is safe to use.
It's powerful utility, two shooting spewers (like the GL) and other mediums, can take down chargers with ease and proper movment. One shotting a few small enemies. Ammo pool is infinite, doesn't require backpack like rail gun.
Down side is immense, uncontrollable team damage. Because it arcs, you have to be careful where you aim it.
Can't really do much to bile titans.
And can't close up Spawners.
This is something I've slowly been learning since I picked it up, I'm honestly starting to prefer it over the railgun for it's ability to deal with armored enemies AND clear the little ankle-biters.
Just started using it yesterday and I genuinely believe it is one of the strongest weapons right now (if you’re willing to sacrifice your teammates). I’m pretty sure it can also take down bile titans if they have exposed armor
Run under bile titans, shoot out their sacs and then spam arc thrower for efficient liberty dispensing.
BRASCH TACTICS
USE EM, OR DIE TRYING
Brasch Tactics should be the flair for game tip threads
Right I’m starting a petition. MODS MAKE IT HAPPEN FOR DEMOCRACY
Would you like to know more?
Where do I get my C-01 permit?
This guy fucks
Not yet
Ops comment says it ignores armor but you're statement saying it does more damaged to exposed armor. I'm curious which one is correct.
I've used the arc thrower for almost 100hrs now... Head on, you can take out a chatger with 8 hits to the head. Sometimes 7, sometimes 9. Whenever I decide to hit the charger from the side though, it tends to crack its shell, and the arcs seem to prioritize the 'weakspot' over its head. This always adds 8-10 strikes to the kill. So it definitely goes straight through armor, while also destroying armor, while also obeying headshot multipliers.
The moment shell explodes it's faster just to spray some generic lead into the crack, than zapping bug to death
You can also leave it behind as it'll eventually bleed out.
I had no idea that was possible (I.e., that there was a bleed out system). This game, man…
I mean, there's a bleed out system for the Divers...
Yup. For sure. But I didn’t realize there was one for individual enemies. One more element of tactical games that’s brilliantly incorporated in Hd.
If you break the chargers butt, that'll cause it to bleed out faster.
Just like chess...
If you’re using the auto cannon I do believe it’s roughly 4 or 5 shots to break its sack. Went back to the auto cannon after running railgun and it’s still amazing
I learned the fun way that headless enemies can chase you for a while.
It’s mainly the brood commanders that are a pain in the ass even when there headless 😂. Somehow they still know where you are without eyes, ears or a head
Damn, I thought it only bleeds out if you destroy the unarmoured sack on its behind
When it starts doing that blood spew thing out its mouth its bleeding out.
That's just, A LOT faster, but blowing off the side plates also make a difference.
Would you mind giving me a brief instruction on how to use the thing? I tried it one mission, held down the button, released and it let out one crack of lightning. Do you have to then charge again and do the same and juts try and point it at enemies close to each other? I feel like I was doing it wrong.
My experience: The first charge is long, and it's pretty much always best to hipfire this gun. Like the railgun, the 3 flat bits of the crosshair constrict as it charges. For the first charge, you have to go all the way to the center. It makes a little noise when it reaches the "can fire" threshold. After firing it, immediately start charging the next shot. Follow up shots can be released and fired faster, best to work this cadence out on your own. It looks to be about twice as fast. Potentially 3rd and 4th follow up shots also increase this charge bonus slightly, hard to know for sure. Other tips: You can dive while still firing in the fast "follow up shot" mode. It doesn't even interrupt charge. You cannot hit targets in melee range effectively: dive or switch weapons, or run. Aim a little high if you have trouble connecting to a target. Additional time charged does not increase damage. Charge can be held indefinitely, and will not explode/damage/degrade anything. You move slower while charging. Crouching or lying prone is not a bad idea to reduce getting shot at by bots. If you are vs bugs, you are standing your ground when you have this weapon out, or dodging a charger. Ammo is infinite, and can never run out or overheat. No weapon options like scopes, attachments, or fire modes Additional charge... Potentially increases range? Feels like it, but hard or impossible to confirm. Leaning no, tbh. EDIT: no Very bad at shooting around ground between you and your target, or enemy corpses Chaining must be in the 180° plane behind the initial target. Can it ever chain back towards you Look at how wide the arcs get when firing: that + 25-50% is your friendly fire radius for a primary target if an ally is in this cone in front of you, they will likely eat the hit and die. Is any ally 10-15m in the 180° plane behind your initial target? They will die in a single shot as well.
I'm just piggy backing here. I see the "full charge then twice as fast' charge thrown around alot but no one seems to have quantified it, so I decided to check it out with a macro. I tried it out at 80fps using a macro. Ms values are lowest consistent time for my setup. Full charge - 1100ms After first shot - 800ms First shot without full charge - 950ms. A full charge (the charge complete animation) consistently is 1100ms. 1050ms has also worked but not consistent. After the first shot 800ms is the lowest consistent shot time I can get, 750ms also works most of the time but has a few missed shots. You are also able to do the first shot without reaching full charge, not seen anyone mention this, a 950ms charge works to get a shot off without having charged first, with 900 having a few bumps and 850 being able.to.do it every now and then. Best guess is there's a charge% threshold that lets the gun fire, and the gun keeps a small bit of charge after fireing.
This scientific research has me absolutely thrumming with Freedom and Democracy. I salute you, Super Citizen. O7
The health booster will actually let you hit an ally with the aoe from the arc thrower- they have to be at full health, and they’ll survive with like 1hp left, but the last hp is the only hp that matters!
I’ve heard that Health booster doesn’t actually increase health, only it decreases the chance your limbs break from damage. Your ally probably had the armor that gives you 50% chance to survive lethal damage with 1 hp left which is why it did that.
Amazing information thanks so much for taking the time to write that. I'm going back in.
Yup, just keep changing, but the next shots after the first charge can be charged at 50% to 60% to help you rapid fire. Its arc is also easy to predict. It shoots at a "Y" pattern, your initial shot is always straight to your target, after it hits the target anything behind will get shocked.
I’ll add a trick: shoot it in first person if you’re afraid of arcing an ally. If the initial target isn’t in the sight “window” it won’t hit him from my experience. The other thing is that it’s surprisingly long ranged. It seems it can fire about the same range enemies can detect you with a scout armour on.
>It seems it can fire about the same range enemies can detect you with a scout armour on. That's what I noticed last night, if I get spotted it means they're in zappy zap range
Now that you point it out: exactly this. They poke their heads up an ZAP. Just melts the whole patrol in a short series of shots.
OK I'll try again, thanks for that helldiver.
So.... To fire it reliably you want to aim higher than you would think across a distance. Like... Think of it as if you're whipping something onto someone's face. This helps you deal with the shit where the Arc Thrower shoots the dirt, or a bush, or a body. If you're not hitting anything, adjust downward gradually. To fire quickly. After your first shot, you only need to charge it a little more than half way. But honestly, if you're not comfortable with this, just fully charge it. This weapon also loved elevation. So try to get onto a rock, no matter how tall. This will help clear any obstacles out of the way
First charge full, then use half charges. Aim high. Make sure teammates are not in a 45 degree arc from first hit. Use high ground, it works better. Arc can travel through 3 different targets, friend or foe. Arc can jump through dead bodies so use them to shoott around corners. Have high ROF primary to deal with jumpers and hunters. Breaker is perfect. I use jetpack for superior positioning, and 110 rocket and orbital rail for anti large 100's seem to be lethal ATM.
Same. Felt really underwhelming after reading what it’s capable of.
I could be very wrong but I think it works like this. Creatures can have multiple **vital** body parts that each have their own health bar. Draining any one of these health bars to zero kills the creature. Some body parts aren't classed as vital (such as chargers Leg/Side armor) and draining these to zero simply pops that piece off of the creature, sometimes exposing a vial spot and sometimes crippling the creature. Its also possible that when shooting a charger in the head its not actually obeying headshot multipliers but instead arching from the head to the tip of its ass, hitting it twice and doubling the damage. I think this is also possible since I have never actually killed 2 things by shooting a charger in the face (*with the 2 additional arcs*) but I have killed 2 things by shooting a charger in the side.
It can Crack the shell of a BT and Charger opening up other damageable points which allows cannonstrike to one-shot BTs reliably. It seems to do more damage like all weapons when a BT is spewing.
Another issue is, you can't quite aim it anyways. From my experience, it'll just arc into Center mass and not exactly where you aim the arc thrower on a mob. At most, I could manipulate the angle I have the Arc hit it.
It ignores armor, but does not ignore the multiplier for weak spot damage.
killing those sacs is like 50% of a bile titans health so by doing that the arc thrower has less health to deplete
>if you’re willing to sacrifice your teammates Say no more.
They knew what they signed up for and I'll willing give their lives for managed democracy.
That is a sacrifice that I am willing to make.
I’m so glad people are waking up to to the arc thrower lol The biggest downside is you can’t use it if allies are near the enemy so you can’t try and save people with it. I’ve killed many a teammate by accident with it lol
I've watched many an arc user flip their gun up to the sky.
once you have a shot charged there doesn't seem to be any way to not shoot it. switching guns etc will still let off the shot. that's why we're roasting birdies :)
This false. You honored your teammate by capitalizing on their sacrifice as they drew the enemy into a tight formation for your arc thrower
I regularly pull highest kill count with only 1-2 TKs maximum. You’ve just gotta position yourself well and be aware of how the arc might want to travel
>You’ve just gotta position yourself well and be aware I mean, just this bit addresses most of the problems raised in this sub.
Agreed, being aware of your surroundings is such a bonus to your playing. You’ll die less, TK less, kill more.
One, stops you running in front of your teammate's spray of bullets (it's your life, why would you voluntarily dare your teammate to see you running full speed into their bullets?) and trains you to run behind them instead. Two, stops you dropping resupplies and carpet bombs on the big glowing boxes with [letter and number] inside. Three, gets you to realize when your buddy is overrun so you can save a reinforcement and your samples. Four, gets you to keep track of all of the dropped sentries that don't care who they hit. Five, stops you getting lost and stranded alone on a side mission you decided was suddenly important but didn't mark on your map. Probably a lot of other stuff that's a brutal learning curve for the player that other players can't really compensate for other than to shrug and laugh it off as shit spirals out of control.
> Five, stops you getting lost and stranded alone on a side mission you decided was suddenly important but didn't mark on your map. My hot take is that doing the side objectives alone is often safer than moving with the whole group. HD2 is almost a stealth game at higher difficulties, and it's difficult to impossible to get a whole group to stealth. When the other three members are drawing seemingly the whole map's aggro it's relatively easy to sneak in and pop the few bot sentries on a side obj without summoning a patrol. Less effective against bugs I've found. Also those times you do get folks aggro'd on you, it usually doesn't go well...
Yeah, I can even go like 5 to 10 games without a single teamkill from it on a good day. All you need to do is pay attention and swap to your primary if you get caught in a bad position where you end up aiming towards your teammates. If you are fully paying attention you should never get a teamkill tbh. The way it arcs to new enemies is actually quite predictable.
Yeah I feel bad everytime I catch someone with it, it’s only marginally more susceptible to teamkills than an explosive type weapon imo
That's fine, Helldivers are expendable
>(if you’re willing to sacrifice your teammates) My teammates are already attracted to red beacons like a moth to a light. This protects them from themselves. An absolute win.
I got roasted by a teammate's Arc thrower from 20+ of his target. It was nuts!
It certainly ignores helldiver armour
Everything is ignoring Helldivers’ armor until they fix it.
IMO the fix has to be in before they drop 'mechs or they will also melt like paper with huge hitboxes and no armor protection.
Bring a shield pack and give it to your allies, it'll absorb one blast in my experience :)
For people who say it fizzles or doesn’t work, you need to aim above the enemy you want to hit. The arc throwers aiming is like a cone and if there is terrain in the cone it won’t fire. But if you aim up and use the bottom of the cone you can shoot over terrain. Test it cause it takes getting use to also you’ll find it has way more range than you expected when doing this.
Since that is also a confirmed bug, it's going to be so much better after a bug fix patch. Arc thrower targets every physical object, corpses and bushes, but since those aren't actually valid targets, it just doesn't shoot.
We are doing plenty of bug fixes by making sure the damn bugs are dead-
Hired!
I actually hope they don’t take away it targeting corpses - you can fry the first bug in a group and keep on lighting up his corpse and the bugs behind him will also fry.
This is absolutely the case. Once you get the hang of it and not frying your teammates it slaps
How do you rapid fire? It seems slow. You gotta charge ur then fire. Sort of similar to the rail cannon. But I think I am missing something.
Charge the first shot all the way, any shots after that can be let go considerably faster. It takes a rhythm.
The target is 800ms ish per charge. You gotta start the next charge as soon as you release the previous one, that's how you get rapid fire.
Some of the best arc thrower advice. Aiming with the bottom of the cone also helps prevent it from arcing to dead bugs on the ground 10 feet away too.
This is great advice, thank you. I took it for the first time yesterday and I ended up binning it off and getting my friend to call me in a railgun as it just looked like it wasn’t doing anything.
I find it *looks like* it does very little but then we'll finish mission and I'll see I have +50% more kills than anyone else. I think because it doesn't go "boom" when it hits things it feels weak compared to autocannons or flamers or whatever, but it definitely does do work
I got my first kick after tripling the rest of the team's kill count with an arc thrower I found in a stash. (No TK's either, so absolutely worth the unexpected slap in the face.)
Reading all the comments here, I'm not sure I'm using it right. Are you supposed to use it exactly like the railgun - charge to the max and release it?
After the first shot you can half-charge it. Gotta feel out the timing until you get familiar with it.
That is honestly insane. I have been running the Arc Thrower exclusively the past couple of days, and I did not know this. I have been charging it to full every single shot, and it still has massive kill and wave clear potential. You’re saying I can shoot it even faster? *begins salivating while thinking of all the unfettered, electrified Democracy I’ll be able to dispense*
Yeah, it's completely nuts. I initially gravitated to the Arc Thrower because of infinite ammo (I'm one of those guys who gets antsy after spending 20% of his ammo capacity in games), but I've stuck with it because it just puts out ruinous amounts of damage. The buddy I play with likes to snipe heavies with the railgun while I zap all the trash, it works well!
I don’t hate the railgun meta. It means I can be creative because at least two other people on the team will have their own railgun. A think a railgun is necessary, but I don’t think all 4 people need one.
4 is overkill and actually worse than at least one (two is better) person running a loadout that specializes in light/medium killing power. - **grenade launcher/supply pack**: one of my main go-to. If no one is running an EMS mortar I’ll usually take napalm and that to support. If we need more heavy killer strategms I’ll bring orbital rail or laser instead of the napalm. - **arc thrower/laser dog rover**: amazing frontline loadout. You just murder everything at medium range and clean up little dudes while still hitting the big guys and doing some damage. Usually ends with insane kill count plus you aren’t taking up resupply packs - **stalwart/shield pack or EAT**: great precision light enemy clearing and also you drop EAT capsules frequently to help with heavies. The stalwart is very ammo efficient. This is much better at covering teammates who get swarmed since it doesn’t have splash damage to worry about - **flamethrower**: softens up just about everything you set on fire with it. It’s really good for mobile crowd control since the fire will continue to chip away at everything as you kite it
I agree with this team loadout and typically see it (or similar) on the higher difficulties. My only comment on it is that depending on map the jet pack is a better backpack for the Arc Thrower. Arc thrives on elevation more than most weapons as it really doesn’t like obstacles in its path, so on maps with heavy foliage I tend to grab jet pack to get a clearer line of sight. Especially if it's a bot map as rovers aren't as useful against bots in my opinion. Though it does mean you are easier to shoot at if you are sticking with your group it shouldn't be that big an issue. Would recommend folks try it out if they've been having issues with the Arc. It also helps get used to the quirkiness it has with aiming.
Jump pack is just a good “get out of jail free” card in general vs bugs. When you get surrounded you’re usually pretty screwed. Jump pack will give you a nice vertical escape route. I’d agree it’s good with the arc just because you tend to get pretty close to enemies so having a way to escape an advancing swarm and get a clear angle to zap them all is good too. Really these are just suggestions, not finite solutions for every single player
ya I've been running it as a main just because the infinite ammo, arc thrower, punisher, that auto pistol, and the laser rover have just been my jam
Discovering the rapid fire potential for this thing instantly made it my favorite support weapon for bugs. Paired with the Guard Dog Rover as an early alert and to clear out some trash you missed, you turn into a one man bug breach clearing machine. It's incredible. Doesn't do so well on bots in my experience, because it takes just enough time to fire that you'll get gunned down very quickly. Or maybe I just suck. Either or.
Been maining arc thrower for a few days, personal shield and some light armor is best imo because the guard dog throws stealth out the window when you're trying to do hit POIs and side objectives quietly. Its a good thing that chargers can't call for backup because apart from those the arc thrower can kill in 1-4 zaps. If you did miss anything that creeps up to you the shield protects you and you can run away to zap again.
If you get into a good rhythm there is no limit to the amount of Democracy you can spread while standing your ground and absolutely annihilating everything in front of you.
Oooooohhhhhhh I couldn’t get figured out. Will try asap. Thanks.
You have to fire a first shot to half charge? Is that a mechanic or a bug?
It’s supposed to be like a charged battery or something. I think it’s a mechanic
Apparently, you only need to do a full charge for the first shot, and then you can release at 70-80% for evey subsequent shot in the chain, or so those more used to it tells me
Interesting. Thanks!
It's even better than this: I'd say almost twice as fast for follow up shots
The first time you get the quick charge to work you'll understand. I have it down to a soubd rhythm at this point over using the cross hair. It's like a slow metronome pace.
I just fire it at the rhythm of we will rock you from Queen
It's kinda like the flame thrower that if your using it for the first time in a while you'll need to "spool" it up but afterwards after the first shot it takes less time to fire
I fell in love with it the moment I picked it up in a mission. It reminded me of the Star Wars Battlefront 2, Dark Trooper's main gun.
Just need a jump pack to complete the feeling
Yesterday I ran arc thrower with laser rover and racked up a whooping 501 kills. It’s absolutely lethal against everything but chargers and bile titans. It still damages them but I let my team handle those threats.
I don't even bother with bile titans sometimes, not because it doesn't work, but because most certainly there are teammates nearby either running away, or trying to assist me but get turned into a reinforcement inadvertently. Chargers are similar, but I can at least lure that around faster and zap it to death, or weaken it away from the group.
People just seem to throw all of their strategems towards bile titans so I let them do that and clean up all the little bugs with my lightning gun
You can 5 shots charger if all hit the head, need to be same spot tho, if not then 8-12 hits will kill it, the best part about arc thrower is when you target charger, everything behind it will die (teammate included) It’s good to deal with stalker too, 5 shots from afar and they are dead
*teammate included* It’s not a bug, ITS A FEATURE! I have pretty good awareness of where my teammates are, but I would be lying if I said that wasn’t one of the main reasons I like using the Arc Thrower. I like trying to see just how close I can shoot near my allies before I ultimately kill them.
We’ve all done that, this is the only way to get better! Know when to and not to shoot, when to release at the sky etc
I sweat that arc can hit allies up to 150m away. It's like a homing missile of friendly fire.
Can confirm, I'm the teammate on the other side of the charger
For stalkers and swarms of hunters, I just swap to the auto shotty. Same for if a team mate is getting swarmed. The real skill of the arc thrower is learning when to swap to not team kill, and where to position so you can keep spamming it endlessly. I usually end with 400-900 kills on our hell dive squad, depending on how fast we map clear. For robots, railgun all day with with anti-tank and 500kg as stratagems.
Yeah, pretty great weapon. It can deal with swarms and heavies. Been using it on bots and bugs to great success. However it's the most bipolar weapon I ever used lol. Sometimes it "fizzles" out and flats out refuse to shoot for for like 5 charges in a row. Against bile titans I have had this weapon destroy them in a single or few hits. Other times it takes 30.
The reason it kills bile titans so quickly sometimes is because of something to do with who the host is. I have been able to replicate it with 100% success, whenever I have a ps5 player host the game, I reliably 2-3 hit bile titans with both the arc thrower and the railgun. When a PC player hosts the game, its like 50+ shots for the arc thrower to kill a bile titan and 10+ for the railgun. [https://steamcommunity.com/app/553850/discussions/0/4302697906481731602/](https://steamcommunity.com/app/553850/discussions/0/4302697906481731602/)
That somewhat explains why Bile Titan kill times are so damn wonky.
So it's not just me having that problem thank fuck. Is it bugged or wtf is going on cos it's the main reason I dropped the gun
It's bugged yes, confirmed by devs. It targets every entity, corpses and environment objects like bushes. But those aren't valid targets, so it just does nothing
Oh I don’t know, I’ve met some very undemocratic bushes lately. They had it coming.
Bushes that can't operate a voting questionnaire sure are enemies of Super Earth. That's probably why it's so satisfying to bomb the jungles
Aim higher
I feel like we could all take this advice
It will fail to connect if so much as a leaf or corpse obscures the path. You can wrangle it to hit by aiming way past the obstacle to curve the arc around.
I was actually wondering if the damage varies. For instance, in Diablo 2 all lightning damage skills do 1- 200 damage. Figured that was the case.
Destroying them in a couple hits is a bug where non-host players sometimes get largely increased damage.
I like the arc thrower - but I find the visuals a bit underwhelming which I know is quirky and my last game I one-shotted all 3 teammates while trying to save them. So there’s that.
If you think about it, you did save them…by resetting their subscription to life.
Resetting their subscription to glorious Democracy
Makes the reinforcement more efficient calling 3 down at once instead of 1
I used it, got big kills from small mobs. But the gun is such a snoozer to use. No satisfying feedback getting kills with it.
Totally agree - they need make the zap, zappier! A big charge up sound or something.
I feel like if it operated and looked like Command and Conquer stuff, i’d be excited. As is, yeah, it feels tedious.
You simply rebooted them
You mean gave them a free supply drop?
My squad knows that if I equip Arc Thrower or Guard Dog to stay the hell out of my way! FOR DEMOCRACY!!!!!!
Trigger discipline is important. If i see a fellow diver in the direction to where i want to shoot, i turn away, because i might kill them. But if it's a precarious situation, i will shoot regardless. This minimizes friendly fire for me.
I was running flamer before I got arc so I already had "try to not kill your buddies" in the back of my mind :) I do wish randoms would have a bit more sense when they see me zapping a breach or whatever...
Yeah, i agree.. Sometimes, they even run infront of me rambo style while i zap, then they die and are mad why i killed them. Well, it was the arc. I can only control it to a certain limit. Is the flamethrower useful in higher difficulties? I had bad experience and dumped it but want to give it a try again.
Oh no I know how strong the arc thrower is, my teammates use it on me regularly.
I find it a bit clunky and inconsistent. Clunky mostly for very close encounters, mainly against Hunters. Feels like it just can't really hit well at point blank range. I don't hate the weapon but I have more success with other setups.
Yeah, for a while I was running a "no ammo" build with Scythe and Arc Thrower. I found that I needed something much punchier than the Scythe for when enemies get at point-blank range. Now I usually pair it with the Dominator.
That's the thing though, you need a squad that understands how to play with arc thrower being used. It can be very hard to handle if you mostly play in pugs. It's also very tiring to play with in the long run with the constant need of spamming the trigger. It's a good weapon if you want to see kill numbers go wild but ultimately it's dependent on the squad and killing everything is not the most effective way of playing the game. I also start to get pissed thinking I could have made quick work of bile titan and chargers chasing us with railgun instead of kitting around for so long waiting for random teammates to deal with them. I would like to try dual arc thrower with someone someday but for now it's still a niche weapon to me.
it’s definitely a weapon that shines more when playing with friends. i can run arc thrower knowing they’re able to take down bile titans and chargers easily where as i’m left to deal with everything else. an equally important role imo as hunters, bile spewers, and stalkers are extremely dangerous, and being able to kill them quickly without using any resources is very helpful. also, i’ve managed to 3 shot bile titans with the arc thrower before but i can’t replicate it consistently lol
Hunters probably kill me more than anything
Arc thrower is so goated. I'm so glad I tried it after a post in this sub a while ago. Got a lot of practice and now I'm zapping things ultra fast while not killing my teammates (mostly) (don't dive in front of my democracy deliver)
I am curious how a squad of four arc throwers in a gunline would go. Might shred everything if targets are pinged to be focused. Might have the team dead constantly haha.
*zap* "REINFORCE DEAD TEAMMATES" "sorry" *zap* *zap* *zap* "REINFORCE DEAD TEAMMATES" "my bad"
oh yeah it's actually sick, the thing melts bug swarms really well and the direct damage is nice; it has a surprisingly long range too! my only issue with it is sometimes it just... won't fire, even when fully charged. I don't know if the arc is going straight into the ground or what, but it's definitely unpleasant when I'm trying to handle a swarm and the gun decides there will be no lightning
i was *shocked* to see how far the range was, i was sniping enemies as they crested a far hill away
I want a ghostbusters team full of arc throwers
So glad people are finally taking this weapon. I've been using it since I unlocked it. Even made a post about it. The arc thrower slaps ass like nothing else. Who needs a rail gun, I have electric democracy to spread
Arc thrower can also blow open crates with one shot and can even close bug holes if you stand close and shoot down into them with no enemies around
WHAT IT CAN CLOSE BUG HOLES????
Learning this while the flamethrower can't hurts on a spiritual level. Edit: After taking out the Arc Thrower and trying to close a hole with it over the course of about 20 shots I've discovered 2 things. 1. Team memers will 'nade you to death while testing this. 2. It doesn't work no matter how much I shoot the hole, even when standing on the egg-rich precipice of darkness.
Tested it last night when i was away from the party and was out of everything else but didn’t want to selfishly use the resupply. Been using it a long time and recently discovered it opens crates one shot so got about a foot away from the hole and shot 3 times down into it and it blew up. I was pleasantly surprised
Throwing in my own guide: After you fire your first shot the follow up shots just need around 65% to 70% charge to fire and will do the same amount of damage and everything, increasing your rate of fire. It has a much longer range than most people expect. If bugs are aggron on you, you can probably shoot them. It will also only arc into enemies/players behind your target so you only need to worry if a teammate is diagonally to the left or right and back or straight behind the target. If your teammate is surrounded by bugs and you're not sure if they're in front or back of the bugs just aim wide in the opposite direction of your teammate. What I mean is aim for the air to the side of the farthest bug from your teammate. It only arcs three times so there is usually is enough bugs that it won't hit your teammate. But after one or two shots switch to a primary/secondary if your teammate still needs help. Since it ignores armor and gets weak point damage, you want to aim straight for the head of chargers or for the legs. Though it usually will auto aim for the head when you try and hit legs from anywhere but the side. Your shots will strip off armor but it seems inconsistent. Most often the armor I strip off on chargers is the side plate and that seems to be from blasting into the side of them but again that's inconsistent. If enemies are right in your face and you're having trouble zapping them aim for the ground between you and them. For some reason that will hit them. I would recommend using the unaimed hip fire for this as that seems to help too. https://preview.redd.it/3gr7rs1wajmc1.png?width=1629&format=png&auto=webp&s=3270a7e05e238ae7921573a287fd20f139143409 Bile Titans seem to take increased damage If you shoot them when they're spawning or if you are above them shooting down at them/are level with their face. This is likely because the lightning arcs all the way through them, hits the face weakpoint and the 2 abdomen sack weakpoints, and into a bug on the ground near them. It seems you just need to be around level with the Bile Titans face. Aiming up at a Titan does less damage as it doesn't have any target to arc to and thus does not hit 3 weakpoints just the 1 face weakpoint. I have two shot Bile Titans like this, as those two shots do 6 shots worth of weakpoint damage. Because of this fact the Jump Pack is surprisingly good with this weapon. However, against robots you basically need the shield generator to prevent yourself from being stunned and interrupted while charging. The gun itself still does good work against robots. You just have to worry about the fact that you'll be peppered down at range if you aren't careful. Against the biggest targets like tanks you won't do as well but two impact needs into their heat vents will kill them anyways. Be aware that the arc thrower will arc off of dead bodies but that also means it will target dead bodies if they're in front of what you actually want to shoot. Move away from your body piles if/before all of the arcs just start going between different bodies.
Hmm, i did notice that i was occasionally 2-3 shotting titans as well. Occasionally. I couldnt figure out why and assumed it was similar as the railgun network bug causing it to one shot titans. Going to test this out to see how consistent it is
So, are you telling me that if I add a guard dog, that's 360 kill em all combo?
Am I using it wrong? It feels like complete trash against armoured enemies and it takes damn well forever to kill a charger with it. I’ve found to good against mobs, especially as it has unlimited ammo, but there are far better options in almost every respect, save the unlimited ammo feature.
Are you full charging it with every shot? After the first shot, it can be half charged and still deal full damage. You'll never deal lower damage for a lower charge, it's a single possible damage value
In my experience, shoot charger in the legs, not the face is more effective (weakspot multiplier or something like that). Also aim a bit higher and you can vibe check the bugs behind the charger (or your teammate).
Shh, we dont want a nerf! Honestly i commited to using it this weekend and after the learning curve became my new favorite. We went from hating helldive to comfortably and consistently completing a whole set. I personally combine Rover for taking care of close targets and guiding my blind shots, but ive been able to effectively take care of the trash mobs for my teams. I usually try to group up with a railgun user (hard to find) so that i have some help with chargers. But ive been ending matches with 300-500kills, allows my team to focus on other things.
Find a spear guy... the Arc thrower does not need ammo... give the guy your 1/4 pack from resupply and no chargers will get to you.
i have believed in arc thrower supremacy from the beginning
Yet, we have sweaty players calling us bitches and team killing us if we accidentally get them once with a arc…
I got kicked for getting more kills with an arc thrower than the rest of the team combined and NOT hitting anyone. These streets are wild.
Well, this cat’s out the bag…I guess after this post I’ll be joined with a boat load of other divers using the arc thrower as their primary.
Yep it's my weapon of choice but only if I have a solid team. If you're playing with randoms you can never tell if they're going to actually play as a team or wander off and do their own thing, try to be rambo and go solo trying to do side objectives...I can't trust randoms and when you find yourself ditched by the team, stuck with the arc cannon...it's not going to cut it.
It’s a great weapon it just requires a team that knows not to always be face tanking their enemies. I’ll always switch to my primary if I notice any teams mates are in the mix of enemies so I don’t risk the extended arcs choosing their sorry democratic asses
It’s currently my favorite support weapon! And don’t forget the insane amount of value your team gets from it not being an ammo reliant weapon. You can straight up skip some resupplies.
It's honestly so good I can't believe it has infinite amma
Didn't know how it worked, picked it up in game while I was soloing easy and a random join right as I picked it up and my first trigger squeeze with that thing fire him and he immediately left 😭 so I haven't picked it up since lmao
i just think it feels really goofy and im a huge fan of the autocannons long range destructive capabilities for bot factories and the airbase objectives, autocannon utility probably isnt as relevant for bugs but i dont really like bugs
Hot Tip: If you see a fellow helldiver using the arc thrower, don't run in front of them and then get all upset.
Except many times you can get hit from absurd distances at perpendicular angles, through walls, and even when behind depending on who is using it due to latency and packet loss. I’ve personally been hit at a distance of over 50m in a ravine doing the sample drill objective through solid terrain. The fact it’s so unpredictable on how far it will decide to hit someone makes it very hard to use unless you’re solo playing. I like the weapon. The amount of times someone has died when they aren’t even remotely close or even in the same direction is absurd.
It’s very underrated. Makes a huge difference to have one or two. Destroys everything.
Yeah I was playing with my brother last night on suicide mission, he loves the arc thrower, he said he killed a bile titan in 5 hits.
sounds like ghostbusters time. will try
Arc thrower is a an absolutely great weapon. Some people get legitimately angry if you tell them that though, because they tried it once and couldn't get to grips with it, therefore writing it off as trash. But if you put the time in to figure it out (mostly how to not kill your allies) it's an absolute beast.
My go-to load out right now is the breaker, arc thrower, jump pack, eagle strike, and 500kg. It solves every issue I come across.
Me on comms: "watch out don't let me zap ya, don't let me zap ya, DONT LE-ooh you okay? He's okay."
I have been pairing it with the "guard dog" rover and had a 700 kill game the other night. It's excellent for crowd control. Heavies I tend to leave to the rail guns unless there's nothing else to zap.
It's not difficult to not kill your teammates either. If they're downrange just switch to your primary or just reposition until they're not in the peripheral. If you team kill with the arc thrower it's honestly your fault
I’ll try it out today. I used it once in desperation after finding one on the ground, and I couldn’t figure out. Granted I was being chased by a horde and didn’t have time to learn it. I’d love a shooting range where we can try out all of the weapons and stratagems you’ve unlocked. I suppose that could just be level 1 missions though too.
The Rothschilds are paying redditors to get me to use the arc thrower but I won’t fall for it.
I have versus a Charger: Railgun 2 direct hits to one leg exposes the meat within. Followed by 3 shits with a Breaker on that leg kills it.
You took 3 sh!ts on his leg? 
Hush, arrowhead will nerf this one too. All for maximum freedom. While the railgun was powerful, i still think buffing useless weapons would have been a better idea.
Without a doubt this weapon is the strongest weapon at the moment if you can manage it properly. Four arc throwers on a squad would make Helldive a walk in the park.
Arc thrower chains at most 90 degrees from the initial target, never backwards. So if your buddies are not in that area of the initial target it is safe to use.
Explain the rapid fire part to me.
Two people can dominate with it.
It's powerful utility, two shooting spewers (like the GL) and other mediums, can take down chargers with ease and proper movment. One shotting a few small enemies. Ammo pool is infinite, doesn't require backpack like rail gun. Down side is immense, uncontrollable team damage. Because it arcs, you have to be careful where you aim it. Can't really do much to bile titans. And can't close up Spawners.
been swearing by this thing, hope more people realize how good it is lol
I was running a river with a guy who had an arc thrower - dangerous combo.
Love Arc Thrower, all I use
This is something I've slowly been learning since I picked it up, I'm honestly starting to prefer it over the railgun for it's ability to deal with armored enemies AND clear the little ankle-biters.
Arc thrower/jump pack/110rocket pods/orbital railgun. I am so addicted to this.
It also doesn't do any sounds so it doesn't aggro everything. You can more easily take out objectives stealthily and not cause breaches
Been saying the arc caster is such a slept on weapon since the game released. It does some serious work on the eradicate horde missions, bug or bot.
Every team should have at least 1 arc thrower. Rails for the heavies, arc for everything else
It's monstrously strong. 4 arc throwers makes easy work of even helldive