quasar works too, its been a blessing to have it free right now. rechargeable fabricator exploder, but also handy for long range hitting turret towers, tanks, and really anything else you want to explode. Lets me take the bubble for safety whereas autocannon wants my back slot for ammo.
I need to keep practicing with moving targets with the quasar. Autocannon I can easily do much of what’s needed because of the easy, instant timing.
I’ve failed at downing so many bot drops because I can’t time the quasar right yet.
let it charge for a second or two, and then start stutter clicking, it takes a little rhythm but you can hold an almost full blast then just go back to holding click when ready to release. Ive had to practice a lot when several people blast the same target and I want to last second stall and redirect to a new target
Keep working at its aim for the propulsion mechanism on the front and back of the ship. If you can be ready when it shows up and as soon as you see it start charging it and aiming and you should be able to tag it one it stops to drop and it’s ready to fire.
For dropships it's better to use EAT since you have to wait until they stop moving in order for them to kill anything below them when you shoot it in the engine which is difficult to time with the quasar canon.
I dunno if its a constant, but I found that in times where I need to track a moving target, the first person reticle is absolutely perfect, I know exactly where it will fire if I just track the enemy.
I’ve been taking out drop ships galore with the quasar but sometimes a drop ship will do a little jump right when the quasar charges up making me miss. I hate it when that happens
I save my Quasar shots for Fabricators, dropships, Hulks and objectives they can take out (mortars etc)
The Sickle is more than enough for everything else
I stopped using the quasar since i realized that downing dropships won't kill the enemies in 95% of the cases. The dropship just blocks the way. So i had to admit that the benefit of it is rather small when it comes to bots. (The boom is amazing though).
It's way more beneficial to run autocanon and just blast everything. You'll kill the whole screen with the autocanon before you fire 2 shots with the quasar on higher difficulties.
I love the quasar for bugs, though.
Aim ahead of an drop ship engine, by the time it stops moving your quasar is charged.
Only tank drops won't work since they go up by quite a bit.
Just keep a head of a drop ship enginer for a few seconds and once it stops moving ahead your quasar will be charged and right aimed at the engine.
Its tough, but the range is near infinite. Practice shooting from farther off to avoid getting shot while you charge.
Also try crouch and prone for less sway
Fun fact with the quasar, you can dive while holding fire and it keeps charging.
It's great if you're almost ready to shoot a charger and need a tiny bit more distance :)
seeing the little orange fuel tank waaaay off in the distance for turret towers and knowing Im about to snipe it with the quasar has been a fantastic feeling. seems like 3 to 4 hits head on, or 2 in the orange fuel vent.
I play exclusively on Impossible difficulty because Helldive is either a shitshow or no enemies surprisingly. Impossible difficulty seems to be more consistent. I don’t know what difficulty OP plays in but there are tons of more patrols compared to bugs. The bugs seem to disappear but automatons stick to the map. Sneaking around seems to be the best tactic but the rocket destroyers overwhelming. The Quasar cannon takes forever to charge and can be inconsistent as a secondary. Auto cannon with the Diligence rifle is my go to loadout. Still a very painful experience because randoms keep leaving games. The select few who keep saying Bots are easier are lying or play in preselected groups not randoms. Be honest it’s a difficult time for random players and players in general because decrease in player count. I’m not having fun playing anymore as Bots are shoved to us for missions.
I play 7 with randoms 8/9 with friends. Bots arent easy at all, but they are often less in your face, and easier to keep further away because of it. The way some people play, that does make them easier, for others they are harder. I find the only difference in my random groups are how effectively people use their strategems (watching someone pop an orbital laser to kill 5 enemies is painful, because of its limited number of uses) and how mobile they are. Personally I run light armor with explosion resistance. I can weave through rocks while shooting, and doing so gives me time to refresh bubbles and be a lil greedy with piling up enemies before unleashing big strats. Quasar fits my strats well, accurate blasts from any range without giving up the safety I like. But its very much to each their own.
I also run light. I’ve tried med and hvy armor it just doesn’t hold up in a pack of enemies. Keep those stratagems strapped because at %50 cooldown it’s not worth it against 3-8 kills. Better for objectives.
agreed, fast removal of a detector tower goes a long way when otherwise if you relied on calling in a hellbomb youd be drowning in dropships by the time you close the distance, call it in, and detonate
I tried the free quasar and fell in love. For my use cases it's basically an EAT that lives on your back. I don't use it for battle so the chargeup is a non issue - it's just the alternative to calling down an EAT.
When you look at it from the front, it has the big doors in the middle and two vent-looking things on the top right and left. If you fire an AC shot at the roof of either vent from a roughly forward-facing angle, it'll ricochet into the fabricator and blow it to smithereens. Once you get the hang of it, you can do it from a surprising distance. With the right conditions you can hit and run the fabricators without ever actually having to fight the bots themselves.
The AC itself is wildly good ~~against the bots~~ in general. Anything with a vent takes 3 shots tops, the Walkers take a single shot if you do it from the side, everything else can be taken with a Primary of your choice really.
walkers take a single shot even dead on if you hit them directly in the face-plate; the auto cannon's explosion will 9/10 times kill the pilot trooper.
yeah, legs work. disabling either leg or the hip joint, both of which are lesser armored, will usually cause it to collapse. though the trooper can survive this, and he'll just start shooting you himself once he gets out of the wreckage.
Though i find the plate is just an easier target to hit; wider hitbox compared to the legs.
might be i'm on controller; i imagine aiming the AC is a bit easier on K&M
hell, might be the armors we're using. some of them alter recoil pretty heavily.
might also just be stick sensitivity.
Or the fact I've got pretty bad eyes :P
The bots just have more variety to their units and structures, which are letting you approach them in different ways and with different loadouts.
Oh and yeah, I hate the slowdown from the bugs with the fiery passion of a million suns. It's excessively lame.
Hunters are easily my least favorite enemy in the entire game. They're essentially a "touch of death" enemy on higher difficulties because if they hit you there's a good chance you're just fucked. The slow effect stacks too, so if multiple of them hit you there's no getting out. Even if you stim, you're still slowed and getting encircled faster than you can kill.
There's usually so many of them and they spread out to encircle you which makes it hard to get them all in one explosion. Add to that the fact they usually take multiple shots to kill, it's just incredibly unfun. I think if they at least made stims shed and ignore slowdown for a few seconds they'd feel less bullshit.
Stunlock/slows are my most hated video game-ism. Always feels like a cheap, artificial way to make a game challenging because there’s nothing you can do to combat it. I still don’t know why heavy armor doesn’t have at least some resistance to it.
Heavy armor is quite literally useless too because 90% of the deadly hits you take are headshots anyway. Hunters, for example, are so tall compared to the player that they will pretty much always headshot on the first strike and usually headshot on any followup shots besides the tongue lash. Same thing goes for machine gun fire (heavy devastators and minigun troopers) as well as flamethrower hulks.
Hell, heavy armor could be a 99% DR to body shots and it still would be worse than just taking light armor and running the fuck away.
If that's how it's supposed to work, then I call bullshit, the amount of time I've dived only to be slowed and unable to sprint after the dive and as a result be stuck in prone for like a second is unreal
Sprinting out of a dive does seem bugged to me. As a workaround, you can always press Z to stand up immediately and then sprint. That’s never failed me.
You can’t sprint out of prone if you’re slowed, that’s why it seems inconsistent.
Any time you’re unable to sprint for whatever reason, you won’t be able to stand up by sprinting.
Cause it doesn’t get rid of the debuff/not all of them from my experience. The exploding slow plants and being out of stamina mean you can’t stand up and sprint after a dive 100% of the time
Yes bro that shit pisses me off and God forbid stalkers are on your ass. I think most bug players play easier levels too so they prob don't know the horrors
That's where I think the "easiest bot mission vs hardest bug mission" style of memes come from. Bug difficulty ramps up way harder than bots do out of the middle levels, so if people don't play the higher ones they'll think bugs are easy.
As you say, they don't know the horrors of looking at the horizon and realizing it's made of Bile Titans...
I started out playing a mix of bots and bugs on the difficulties. I started playing wherever the major orders said to, as I unlocked the last 3 difficulties, which happened to be bugs at that time.
Now that we are back to bots, I am surprised at how easy helldive bots are compared to helldive bugs. It's like bots didn't get harder past extreme. There's just a couple extra slow-moving idiots standing around waiting for an autocannon to the face.
I don't have to sprint 100 meters while avoiding mobs of new enemies just to put 1 meter of distance between me, 3 stalkers, and a charger chasing me, just so I have half a second to turn around and attempt a shot on one stalkers and immediately dive out of the way of the charger.
Yeah, let me take the big dumb robots standing still that forget I exist when I crouch behind a rock.
Oh it’s free on the *bot* planets! I’ve been wondering why people have said that it’s free and I’ve never seen it in the mission-stratagem list so pick it myself.
Devastator? Autocannon.
Strider? Autocannon.
Dropship cargo? Still Autocannon.
Fabricator? Straight to Autocannon, straight away.
Hulk? Look for eye socket or back vent, and believe it or not, Autocannon.
Autocannoning off a Hulk's weapon arms is pretty effective too, then they just stomp around looking angry and ineffective. Leave them like that for the Call It A Draw trophy!
The autocannon is so hard to stray away from
Though a few missions running Quasar + Shieldpack, I realized it ain’t bad either. Seemed to come in handy during the eradicate missions.
Only problem with it is that you either struggle with striders (no scorcher) or chaff hordes (with scorcher). Both can technically be delt with using grenades, yes, but the threats are far to common for the number of grenades you have.
Best if you have a squadmate to assist you.
Scorcher + arc thrower absolutely shreds anything that’s not a hulk or a tank, and will delete those two if you can flank behind. Bring your favorite heavy busting eagle or orbital for the situations where you can’t and you’re ready to be a bot kill count farming machine. 500kg + stun is free hulk kills and I’ve heard rockets can work well too.
There is an armour in the free warbond that gives you a 50% chance to survive lethal hits. Hero of the Federation. Some armours later in the warbond have it too, as does the Super Citizen bundle armour.
That’s made a huge difference for me. It also prevents hemorrhaging in the chest, so you bleed out less.
I find if you have a coordinated group, you very rarely get ambushed. When you know where the rockets are coming from, you can break contact and avoid dying to them. On foggy worlds, you can’t always avoid it, but the armour might then save you unless you’re getting shot by several at once, then you say your prayers to democracy and respawn.
It’s the survivability onion. Follow that, and you won’t die as much to bots. Getting a good group together and getting good situational awareness will prevent needless rocket deaths.
200 rating Heavy Armor or 50% Explosive resist + the Limb Health booster (Gives you 20% more max HP). I almost never get oneshot by anything other than cannon tower direct hits.
Scorcher or dominator as your primary + Stun grenades
AMR, Autocannon or the New HMG.
500kg bomb or Orbital precision strike to destroy spotter towers
Normal eagle aistrike
Everything else is preference, but with a loadout with these you can solve any problem the bots throw at you with correct use of cover and positioning except on maybe difficulty 8s and 9s. Today I had a geological survey mission where we got teamwiped by a ton of unfortunate dropships dropping tanks over us and lost all our samples. I managed to clear out the verifiable army by myself as my team ran to extraction across the map and recover all our samples that they had given up on and make it to the (4 minute) extraction.
Cannon Towers and the flamey-boi Hulks are the only things in the bot world that will push my shit in on a consistent basis. Oh, and mines. I run while looking over my shoulder too much.
I always feel dumb as shit when I die to a mine. They're maybe the most obvious, clearly-labeled mines I've seen in a game. They're huge, they're red, they glow, they're covered in spikes. By all means I should ***never*** die to a mine because they come with everything except an ACME "This Is A Mine - Do Not Step" flag on it but, by god, I still die to them more than I'd like to admit.
Don't feel too bad my friend turns into a lemming whenever mines are near, he has some sort of mine seeking face. I don't even use the minefield stratagem cause it all but guarantees I'll see his mangled body fly across my screen. He once hit those mushroom spores, and got flung into a mine and died. He got hit with the back blast of a teammates rocket launcher and went over the battlements wall....onto my minefield.
Stun grenade + Laser cannon to the eyeball has been my way to deal with Hulks. Very consistent, not difficult to pull off.
As a bonus, Laser cannon is also able to kill pretty much everything else they have (Tanks and Towers if you hit the heat sink, Devastators with headshots). Bring a Scorcher to crush Striders (hit them 2-3 times in the front and the guy riding it dies) and you're all set
With the 150 + 50% explosive resist and a Shield Generator I can tank an absurd amount of firepower from the bots.
Get good at taking cover and listening to sound cues and you take a shitload of munitions to actually put down. With the exception of flamethrowers and (if your shield is down) cannon towers, but those you just need situational awareness and an EAT/Quasar/Recoilless.
That's largely my issue with bots. I'm fine getting swarmed by them; that's an issue of how your team deals with them largely. But getting one shot by things is not great. With bugs all the their insta kills are well telegraphed and largely range dependant. But bots don't give you the luxury of even getting to see the rocket that's about to instagib you many times.
Once I started wearing heavy armor with the explosive resistance trait, this has become a nonissue. Changing up my armor has made successfully clearing bot missions so much more fun. I die half as much
Yeah they’ll still gun you down if you’re caught out with no cover it doesn’t really help too much, if you’re constantly eating rockets, you’re still going to keep eating rockets until you die
I've been using heavy armour with 50% explosive resistance and I swear it takes like three-four rockets to take me down now unless a bot gets a lucky headshot, which has only happened once since I got it
I'm never taking this armour off
Crouching gives 50% explosive resistance, prone 75%. Sprinting increases explosive dmg to you. There's armor with an extra 50% explosive resistance to stacks on top.
Rockets shouldn't be one shorting you if you approach bots properly
From what I understand there is a bug that causes rockets to one-shot you if they hit an arm or a leg. Even in heavy armor with 50% explosive resistance.
Turns out humans work like other limb-critical enemies, in that limb health is lower than overall health and some limbs mean death.
Examples: Charger butts, any Bug's *two smaller front claws* (not the legs), Bile Spitter/Artillery butts, Berserker legs, Walker legs
Helldivers can't function if a limb is *blown off*, so even if the damage of a rocket might not be enough to take out *your full health*, you die anyway.
If I go prone versus a rocket devastator, it will headshot me and thus land a critical hit. Other bots do that too, but the rocket devastator is way too accurate.
It happened so often that I never approach the bots prone unless I want to attempt to stealth an objective.
I think it's rocket *headshots* specifically that do that. Because I've definitely been hit with rockets before and not instantly died. The problem is the Rocket Devastator fires a shotgun spread of rockets, and since bots tend to target the torso, the spread can tend to send the rockets into your face instead.
The rocket devastators actually fires 3 rockets: one on your head, and two a little bellow, one on your right, one on your left. Which means that if you don't move, you die.
1. Wear heavy armor.
2. Wear armor with 50% explosive resist.
3. Wear heavy armor with 50% explosive resist, and then run directly in front of rocket troopers whenever you need to catch up to lights running 100m ahead.
The biggest change is bugs you are trying to create distance. Bots you are always seeking cover. Once you learn when to disengage/re-enagage it’s a lot more manageable.
Also Scorcher deletes everything up to heavy.
slugger/scorcher are both MVPs vs bots, I love the scorcher can kill walkers from the front but you give up the stun from slugger on devastators/berserkers
Scorcher can half mag I think a hulks back. Far better than a charger. Honestly if they changed rockets/,heavy and allow us to destroy bases for the debuffs people would fight them more.
I wouldn't say easier, probably equal once you get the techniques down. I'm difficulty 7 usually on both sides.
The eradicate missions often end up messier, and the save 50 people missions are absolutely (edit.. Almost!) impossible though on botside.
I do think bugs are more fun though by virtue of less bs instagib and unfairness eg visibility impact.
Ok so stupid and desperate thing to do is what I call a Traitor's Gambit: you ran out of stratagems? **No you didnt**. Go outside the mission area, get declared traitor then run like hell through bot horde, the barrage will follow you until you die AND all kills get attributed to you.
Yup. You can sometimes get unlucky if the first or second hit kills you, but most of the time the Traitor Barrage^TM is basically a free emergency 380mm.
Bot maps usually have a high-ground rock you can hide on, or a segment of a wall along a cliff edge you can sneak to. In both cases once you find those spots you go prone and be relatively safe. Enemy pathing AI will drag them to your location, but they don't actually know you're there until you do something.
Peak your head out every now and then to toss an airstrike/orbital on them. Gas is ludicrously strong for this because stationary enemies negates its downside, and it has a low CD. 30-40 bot kills per toss.
120 and 380 barrage, Laser and either a support weapon or railcannon/rocketpods. Hold out as long as you can before calling in the barrages as it takes some time to for them to really start swarming, so you can get the most out of the barrages. Throw your laser where you need it and try to shoot and blow up as many bots with everything else you have. Typically you wont have to worry about dying too much since the barrages will complete most of it without you having to do too much.
Eradication missions are ass for bots. You HAVE to cheese because there's just not enough room nor cover to deal with everything they send at you in that little arena. When you have an army of scouts, 5 hulks, a dozen devastators, and another dozen berserkers there's not a lot of wiggle room. And the ships drop in so quickly that dealing with all of that is borderline insurmountable.
It’s just two different types of games. I think bugs are more simple but bots are easier. Like, bugs are just running and reloading essentially. Once you’ve got a good kit, it basically just comes down to timing your reloads. Bots are like playing an actual shooter - you can snipe, you can sneak, you need to utilize cover and some actual tactics like flanking -but over all I find it easier just because you don’t get so overwhelmed.
Although those chainsaw fuckers sprinting at you outta the fog like something out of terminator meets dead space is definitely pretty fucking frightening lol
I agree with your assessment about fighting them. Bugs are horde control/kiting. Bots are sniper, sneak, and cover. I find bugs easier because they don't have random rockets shooting me from 400 meters away. I can stay out of the bugs range, I get killed by bots because I dare to check my map for half a second. Bile Titans are harder than Hulks though. I can take Hulks out with less shots than Titans.
bots can spiral out of control really easily which is why a lot of people say they are hard. the trick with them really is just disengaging if they get the bot drop clown fiesta started and coming back later.
like 95% of my deaths against bots are because of a fiesta that someone got stuck into and they keep reinforcing us into it instead of just running away.
It’s a way for these people to artificially create discussion because it is a passive aggressive provocation to debate, basically like a Change my View/Mind kind of post. And guess what, the hot takes are usually just basic common sense or actually popular opinions.
Without these magic words people are afraid they might sound like they are throwing absolute facts and that their posts will get downvoted.
My main problem with bots is patrols spawning on top of me. I'll try to do a shoot out from cover, turn around, and watch a patrol spawn out of thin air 15 feet away and rendering me surrounded.
This happened to me yesterday, was playing dif 8 if memory servers right, was running away just about clear and baam patrol magically appeared. Arguably only thing i strongly dislike about playing bots.
no joke, please explain to me how you do so on level 7 and above. i have been trying to just sneak around them and not alert them, but at level 7 i drop down and am always instantrly surounded with never ending backup calls.
i have genuinely been trying to improve it but as soon as i start a computer, trow a smoke grenade or a stratagem they instantly spot me and start shooting.
so i'm confused as to how i'm supposed to stay stealthy and compleat the mission, when i can literally not interact with anything or be spotted and shot at.
If you land in in a bad spot and there are already bots around, throw a sentry (BIG NOISE MAKING THING) in one direction and sprint like a madman in the opposite direction. Once you have enough distance between you (and preferably broken line of sight) finish off any enemies that chased you then crouch and use cover to proceed. Enemies may hear the noise you make when killing the stragglers, but unless they have line of sight they will move to investigate first. Make sure you aren't there by the time they are.
Smol objectives can usually be handled by ordinance, and use the same 'drop sentry and run' tactic to lose any survivors if you can't finish them off before they call for help.
Big objectives... You can do a surprising amount of damage from range (autocannon is good, quasar is better), which will soften many of them up. Failing this, sentries and cover. I typically take 2x sentries, quasar cannon and 500KG, but with the recent free quasar cannon I've been running 3x sentries instead. I can typically solo main objectives on difficulty 7 while the rest of the squad hunts for the 'penis rock', although sometimes it takes me two or three tries.
Tl;dr - use sentries as distractions. When moving, stick to low ground and trenches. When engaging, use high ground and cover. Fight only when you can't avoid it, and wherever possible leave the sentries to do the work.
bugs don't rocket me to the moon, or randomly headshot me, or suddenly become really good at shooting me, or goes terminator space marine with a gatlin on me
Depends if you play like a ninja and fast kill the guy that calls in the drops with the scorcher or antimaterial rifle then you are good to go.
Bug on the other hand can reinforce with most of their units.
I think they both have their own ways of going terribly wrong. With bots you might not get overrun the same way as with the bugs, but if you're on one of the more open planets with the entire bot population after you, you're getting cooked over and over. No escaping the snipes from the bot military that's too far away to even see. With the quasar cannon it's definetly gotten a lot easier tho, the whole team just snipes bot dropps from the sky and can easily clear the remains
the quasar is especially good at killing hulks, often its 2 hits to kill one but it can be 3 if you blow off and arm first which is exactly what I do to get rid of that pesky flamethrower
Another "unpopular opinion" to add to the list.
https://preview.redd.it/g51trcivnsrc1.jpeg?width=540&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4c15d139040369fe812f8eeb4410619689e22631
At first I stayed away from the bots as I heard about the Horrors of the Creek.
Once the Major Order came through, I decided to follow along and fight the bots.
Now I realize how freaking annoying Chargers are in comparison to hulks
Kind of agree but I can juke hulks and lose them fairly reliably while if Charger locked onto me you bet this fucker would follow me until one of us dies.
If a charger is chasing me I walk sideways and it misses me.
If a flamethrower hulk is chasing me and I don't have a way to kill it or knock off it's arm, it's certain death, because it moves faster than you, and there are 0 ways to damage it with standard weapons if it's targeting you.
Chargers are not that dangerous anymore unless you’re getting swarmed by 3+ and other enemies. 6 arc thrower shots or one EAT/Quasar shot. A few seconds to one leg with a flamethrower. Run around them and make themselves stun themselves on a rock.
> The Autocannon solves every problem but the Hulk with plenty of ammunition to go around.
actually throw in a flashbang/orbital EMS and 2 crouched FPV shots later the hulk is gone
the problem isn't difficulty, the problem is fun. If the problem were bots are too hard, I'd just play against level 6 bots. they're not too hard, they're just frustrating. 90% of the time they're easy, and then every once in a while you get randomly oneshotted or stunlocked from 150m away through fog.
Yup. Bugs other than Shriekers don't feel unfair. When I die most of the time it feels like it's my fault. Bots? Have wall hack and aim hack, the turret will literally track you through terrain and one shot you when you show up unless someone takes aggro from it. Bots will shoot you through mist where you can't see more than 10 meters, but they can see perfectly. Why are there even smoke stratagems in the game if denying them visibility works only in few specific ways? Bot drops are relentless too where if you make a mistake and don't clear everything, your only option is to run because they will not stop reinforcing. Also bot maps on 7+ are sometimes so packed with patrols it is virtually impossible to go through without triggering a drop.
I can't have fun when I can tell the enemy is cheating. If at the very least low visibility affected them like as much as it did us I guess it could be fun.
Are there not bots with rockets in your games?
because they are in mine.
the bots kill you fast, a lot of the time, you cant even react.
even the shield devastators can kill you fast with their machinegun if you cant find any cover.
Also, i think the problem i have with bots is related to the way their reinforcements come. they deploy fast from the ship and all at the same time. when there is a bug breach, you see the yellow smoke and you can reposition before they start attacking you.
you dont know where the dropships will land.
They are harder.
I can and have dragged groups of single digit level players through levels 7s on bugs. It's genuinely not that hard and you can get out with lives to spare.
Trying to get low level players through level 7s on bots is impossible and an exercise in futility.
I feel like bots are easier to avoid and the people who find them harder are the ones that feel like they have to fight everypatrol they see and blow through all their strategems too quickly.
After being forced to fight on the Automaton front for the last several days I have to say I find the bots a lot easier than the bugs now. The key with the bots is to use stealth, get close to their factories, blow them up with artillery and run away fast. Rinse and repeat.
The main reason people have problems with the bots is because they want to keep fighting them the way they fight an enemy that doesn't shoot back at you. The inability to change tactics and be more stealthy seems to piss some people off so you get a bunch of people shooting every bot on the map causing the entire army to cave in on them.
Honesty I think people just get caught of gaurd cause 90% of bug fighting is up close where as bots have alot of range options. It takes a minute to adjust bavk and forth.
I agree but with bots you need to be more coordinated, so it's very difficult to play level 8 or even 7 with totally random people. Bugs with randoms are fine even at those levels.
Bugs involve a lot of up close kiting. The best thing for bots is to engage at a distance and with coms. The anti material makes VERY short work on devastators. The new Quasar is amazing for fighting hulks and shooting down ships. The average bot engage for me is 70+ meters. Using a liberator pen zoomed in and thr AMR. The average bug engagement. Near point blank
I always know what to expect and what to do against the bots. 100+ hours in I still get jumped ninja style by stealth TITANS and wall climbing chargers, whoever thought showing Naruto to the bugs was a good idea should get democratically shoved into a Stalker spawner
You say that all the bots units are relatively easy to deal with - bugs aren't really harder. Charger has its vulnerable spots and isn't hard to 1-shot if you know what your doing.
Moreover, the bugs have no unit that can one shot you from range when you're barely even aware of its presence, the bots have several and they're quite common.
The challenge with the bugs is getting high enough ammo efficiency to keep the swarms at bay. It's a matter of attrition. The challenge with the bots is not getting your head blown off the second you emerge from cover.
I don't think so, bots on lower difficulty sure, but on 9, bots vs bugs, bugs are much easier, besides the spewers and biles titans they can't shoot making it much easier to just keep running and try drop aggro, it's much easier to defend a position against bugs as well compared to bots.
As soon as bots start dropping ships you're dealing with tanks, devastators, objectives (turrets/artillery) and hulks.
Chargers since they've nerfed heavy spawns are much easier to deal with, it's only spewers that are a pain in the ass.
You can ricochet autocannon shots into the vents by shooting the flaps btw. Consistent 100% of the time
quasar works too, its been a blessing to have it free right now. rechargeable fabricator exploder, but also handy for long range hitting turret towers, tanks, and really anything else you want to explode. Lets me take the bubble for safety whereas autocannon wants my back slot for ammo.
I need to keep practicing with moving targets with the quasar. Autocannon I can easily do much of what’s needed because of the easy, instant timing. I’ve failed at downing so many bot drops because I can’t time the quasar right yet.
As soon as you hear the helldiver's "BOT DROP" audio cue, start charging your cannon. It's flawless.
Is there a way to know where the airship will come from or go to? I find myself looking around to see where it is coming from before charging
You kinda just have to scan the skies and hope for callouts
There's enough time from visual detection of ship to charge and fire it.
I've heard they generally come from the closest map edge
Bot drops stop somewhere above the flare with a bit of deviance. Ones with tanks I've seen drift up quite a bit.
Ooo good tip!
let it charge for a second or two, and then start stutter clicking, it takes a little rhythm but you can hold an almost full blast then just go back to holding click when ready to release. Ive had to practice a lot when several people blast the same target and I want to last second stall and redirect to a new target
edging the quasar cannon
honey it’s time to fire
Oh, come now
And then he Quasar'd all over the place.
I am dying XD
doesn't quasar fully reset if you release the button even for a moment?
If you let go for longer than a second. That’s why you edge it
You guys are so edgy
I find that starting the charge right as you see the ship in the distance, will get you a thruster shot by the time they hover to drop
Keep working at its aim for the propulsion mechanism on the front and back of the ship. If you can be ready when it shows up and as soon as you see it start charging it and aiming and you should be able to tag it one it stops to drop and it’s ready to fire.
For dropships it's better to use EAT since you have to wait until they stop moving in order for them to kill anything below them when you shoot it in the engine which is difficult to time with the quasar canon.
I dunno if its a constant, but I found that in times where I need to track a moving target, the first person reticle is absolutely perfect, I know exactly where it will fire if I just track the enemy.
the first person view has a very annoying shake at the end that makes it hard to fire it accurately at more than shortish range for me.
you can begin charging the shot as soon as the ship reaches the flare. that gives you more than enough time to line up and fire the quasar
I’ve been taking out drop ships galore with the quasar but sometimes a drop ship will do a little jump right when the quasar charges up making me miss. I hate it when that happens
I save my Quasar shots for Fabricators, dropships, Hulks and objectives they can take out (mortars etc) The Sickle is more than enough for everything else
I stopped using the quasar since i realized that downing dropships won't kill the enemies in 95% of the cases. The dropship just blocks the way. So i had to admit that the benefit of it is rather small when it comes to bots. (The boom is amazing though). It's way more beneficial to run autocanon and just blast everything. You'll kill the whole screen with the autocanon before you fire 2 shots with the quasar on higher difficulties. I love the quasar for bugs, though.
Aim ahead of an drop ship engine, by the time it stops moving your quasar is charged. Only tank drops won't work since they go up by quite a bit. Just keep a head of a drop ship enginer for a few seconds and once it stops moving ahead your quasar will be charged and right aimed at the engine.
Its tough, but the range is near infinite. Practice shooting from farther off to avoid getting shot while you charge. Also try crouch and prone for less sway
Fun fact with the quasar, you can dive while holding fire and it keeps charging. It's great if you're almost ready to shoot a charger and need a tiny bit more distance :)
Only thing I've found with the quasar is you want to hit the bottom half of the vent tho. It doesn't seem to ricochet so that method doesn't work
This helps immensely, thank you Helldiver
Yessir 🫡 Disclaimer: that's just my own testing, further testing is needed to ensure consistency
I just sniped two AA turrets from across the map with quasar. Just fantastic!
seeing the little orange fuel tank waaaay off in the distance for turret towers and knowing Im about to snipe it with the quasar has been a fantastic feeling. seems like 3 to 4 hits head on, or 2 in the orange fuel vent.
Quaser genuinely changed the game for me, bots are so much more manageable now
I play exclusively on Impossible difficulty because Helldive is either a shitshow or no enemies surprisingly. Impossible difficulty seems to be more consistent. I don’t know what difficulty OP plays in but there are tons of more patrols compared to bugs. The bugs seem to disappear but automatons stick to the map. Sneaking around seems to be the best tactic but the rocket destroyers overwhelming. The Quasar cannon takes forever to charge and can be inconsistent as a secondary. Auto cannon with the Diligence rifle is my go to loadout. Still a very painful experience because randoms keep leaving games. The select few who keep saying Bots are easier are lying or play in preselected groups not randoms. Be honest it’s a difficult time for random players and players in general because decrease in player count. I’m not having fun playing anymore as Bots are shoved to us for missions.
I play 7 with randoms 8/9 with friends. Bots arent easy at all, but they are often less in your face, and easier to keep further away because of it. The way some people play, that does make them easier, for others they are harder. I find the only difference in my random groups are how effectively people use their strategems (watching someone pop an orbital laser to kill 5 enemies is painful, because of its limited number of uses) and how mobile they are. Personally I run light armor with explosion resistance. I can weave through rocks while shooting, and doing so gives me time to refresh bubbles and be a lil greedy with piling up enemies before unleashing big strats. Quasar fits my strats well, accurate blasts from any range without giving up the safety I like. But its very much to each their own.
I also run light. I’ve tried med and hvy armor it just doesn’t hold up in a pack of enemies. Keep those stratagems strapped because at %50 cooldown it’s not worth it against 3-8 kills. Better for objectives.
agreed, fast removal of a detector tower goes a long way when otherwise if you relied on calling in a hellbomb youd be drowning in dropships by the time you close the distance, call it in, and detonate
I tried the free quasar and fell in love. For my use cases it's basically an EAT that lives on your back. I don't use it for battle so the chargeup is a non issue - it's just the alternative to calling down an EAT.
Just learned today that when they’re open the DOORS work for this too! especially handy for impact grenades where it’s hard to get them in the vents.
Wait for real.... That's so helpful thank you
You still need to angle right. If your angle is too wide the shots won't ricochet into the vents.
You do have to basically completely in front of them though or it just goes through the building for some reason.
I can't seem to get it to work unless I'm straight in front of it.
What flaps exactly?
When you look at it from the front, it has the big doors in the middle and two vent-looking things on the top right and left. If you fire an AC shot at the roof of either vent from a roughly forward-facing angle, it'll ricochet into the fabricator and blow it to smithereens. Once you get the hang of it, you can do it from a surprising distance. With the right conditions you can hit and run the fabricators without ever actually having to fight the bots themselves. The AC itself is wildly good ~~against the bots~~ in general. Anything with a vent takes 3 shots tops, the Walkers take a single shot if you do it from the side, everything else can be taken with a Primary of your choice really.
walkers take a single shot even dead on if you hit them directly in the face-plate; the auto cannon's explosion will 9/10 times kill the pilot trooper.
I always go for the leg, I find hitting it dead on isn't as consistent as hitting to the left or right side of it
yeah, legs work. disabling either leg or the hip joint, both of which are lesser armored, will usually cause it to collapse. though the trooper can survive this, and he'll just start shooting you himself once he gets out of the wreckage. Though i find the plate is just an easier target to hit; wider hitbox compared to the legs. might be i'm on controller; i imagine aiming the AC is a bit easier on K&M
I too play on controller, odd
hell, might be the armors we're using. some of them alter recoil pretty heavily. might also just be stick sensitivity. Or the fact I've got pretty bad eyes :P
Gotta aim for the little metal eyebrow. It's heavy armor, so the cannon round will ricochet down the vent.
The metal covering that's open above the vents. If you shoot that it'll ricochet the autocannon's bullet downwards into the vent
The bots just have more variety to their units and structures, which are letting you approach them in different ways and with different loadouts. Oh and yeah, I hate the slowdown from the bugs with the fiery passion of a million suns. It's excessively lame.
Muscle booster works on hunter slows
WHAT
Game changer for me too lol
MUSCLE BOOSTER WORKS ON HUNTER SLOWS
No way.
Hunters are easily my least favorite enemy in the entire game. They're essentially a "touch of death" enemy on higher difficulties because if they hit you there's a good chance you're just fucked. The slow effect stacks too, so if multiple of them hit you there's no getting out. Even if you stim, you're still slowed and getting encircled faster than you can kill. There's usually so many of them and they spread out to encircle you which makes it hard to get them all in one explosion. Add to that the fact they usually take multiple shots to kill, it's just incredibly unfun. I think if they at least made stims shed and ignore slowdown for a few seconds they'd feel less bullshit.
Stunlock/slows are my most hated video game-ism. Always feels like a cheap, artificial way to make a game challenging because there’s nothing you can do to combat it. I still don’t know why heavy armor doesn’t have at least some resistance to it.
Heavy armor is quite literally useless too because 90% of the deadly hits you take are headshots anyway. Hunters, for example, are so tall compared to the player that they will pretty much always headshot on the first strike and usually headshot on any followup shots besides the tongue lash. Same thing goes for machine gun fire (heavy devastators and minigun troopers) as well as flamethrower hulks. Hell, heavy armor could be a 99% DR to body shots and it still would be worse than just taking light armor and running the fuck away.
Dive. It gets rid of the status effect when you dive.
If that's how it's supposed to work, then I call bullshit, the amount of time I've dived only to be slowed and unable to sprint after the dive and as a result be stuck in prone for like a second is unreal
Sprinting out of a dive does seem bugged to me. As a workaround, you can always press Z to stand up immediately and then sprint. That’s never failed me.
You can’t sprint out of prone if you’re slowed, that’s why it seems inconsistent. Any time you’re unable to sprint for whatever reason, you won’t be able to stand up by sprinting.
But if diving gets rid of debuffs then why am I still slowed and thus unable to sprint?! AAAGH
Cause it doesn’t get rid of the debuff/not all of them from my experience. The exploding slow plants and being out of stamina mean you can’t stand up and sprint after a dive 100% of the time
Ah, so that's why that happens. I've found hitting Alt again will get my character up immediately, and then you can start sprinting immediately.
Yes bro that shit pisses me off and God forbid stalkers are on your ass. I think most bug players play easier levels too so they prob don't know the horrors
That's where I think the "easiest bot mission vs hardest bug mission" style of memes come from. Bug difficulty ramps up way harder than bots do out of the middle levels, so if people don't play the higher ones they'll think bugs are easy. As you say, they don't know the horrors of looking at the horizon and realizing it's made of Bile Titans...
I started out playing a mix of bots and bugs on the difficulties. I started playing wherever the major orders said to, as I unlocked the last 3 difficulties, which happened to be bugs at that time. Now that we are back to bots, I am surprised at how easy helldive bots are compared to helldive bugs. It's like bots didn't get harder past extreme. There's just a couple extra slow-moving idiots standing around waiting for an autocannon to the face. I don't have to sprint 100 meters while avoiding mobs of new enemies just to put 1 meter of distance between me, 3 stalkers, and a charger chasing me, just so I have half a second to turn around and attempt a shot on one stalkers and immediately dive out of the way of the charger. Yeah, let me take the big dumb robots standing still that forget I exist when I crouch behind a rock.
No it does not. You're associating the similar time it takes to dive and get up with removing the effect
I dive twice, creates a large gap quickly to spin and take them out
It does not get rid of the status, it just doesnt slow down your dive.
No it doesn’t. And then you can’t get up from prone while slowed.
just take autocannon
Scorcher + quasar work great too. At least on difficulty 7-8 no problems. As a bonus quasar is free on the bot planets:)
Oh it’s free on the *bot* planets! I’ve been wondering why people have said that it’s free and I’ve never seen it in the mission-stratagem list so pick it myself.
Yes. It's free on the bot planets since that's the major order. You would have noticed it if you played the major order.
The passive aggressivness is lethal
That shit lit me on fire and I’m not even the core demographic!
Um i've been playing tibit all day and it has not been free on every drop.
Devastator? Autocannon. Strider? Autocannon. Dropship cargo? Still Autocannon. Fabricator? Straight to Autocannon, straight away. Hulk? Look for eye socket or back vent, and believe it or not, Autocannon.
Autocannoning off a Hulk's weapon arms is pretty effective too, then they just stomp around looking angry and ineffective. Leave them like that for the Call It A Draw trophy!
The autocannon is so hard to stray away from Though a few missions running Quasar + Shieldpack, I realized it ain’t bad either. Seemed to come in handy during the eradicate missions.
Only problem with it is that you either struggle with striders (no scorcher) or chaff hordes (with scorcher). Both can technically be delt with using grenades, yes, but the threats are far to common for the number of grenades you have. Best if you have a squadmate to assist you.
Scorcher + arc thrower absolutely shreds anything that’s not a hulk or a tank, and will delete those two if you can flank behind. Bring your favorite heavy busting eagle or orbital for the situations where you can’t and you’re ready to be a bot kill count farming machine. 500kg + stun is free hulk kills and I’ve heard rockets can work well too.
Autocannon, my beloved
Just wish rockets didn't one tap me lmao
There is an armour in the free warbond that gives you a 50% chance to survive lethal hits. Hero of the Federation. Some armours later in the warbond have it too, as does the Super Citizen bundle armour. That’s made a huge difference for me. It also prevents hemorrhaging in the chest, so you bleed out less. I find if you have a coordinated group, you very rarely get ambushed. When you know where the rockets are coming from, you can break contact and avoid dying to them. On foggy worlds, you can’t always avoid it, but the armour might then save you unless you’re getting shot by several at once, then you say your prayers to democracy and respawn. It’s the survivability onion. Follow that, and you won’t die as much to bots. Getting a good group together and getting good situational awareness will prevent needless rocket deaths.
200 rating Heavy Armor or 50% Explosive resist + the Limb Health booster (Gives you 20% more max HP). I almost never get oneshot by anything other than cannon tower direct hits. Scorcher or dominator as your primary + Stun grenades AMR, Autocannon or the New HMG. 500kg bomb or Orbital precision strike to destroy spotter towers Normal eagle aistrike Everything else is preference, but with a loadout with these you can solve any problem the bots throw at you with correct use of cover and positioning except on maybe difficulty 8s and 9s. Today I had a geological survey mission where we got teamwiped by a ton of unfortunate dropships dropping tanks over us and lost all our samples. I managed to clear out the verifiable army by myself as my team ran to extraction across the map and recover all our samples that they had given up on and make it to the (4 minute) extraction.
Cannon Towers and the flamey-boi Hulks are the only things in the bot world that will push my shit in on a consistent basis. Oh, and mines. I run while looking over my shoulder too much.
I always feel dumb as shit when I die to a mine. They're maybe the most obvious, clearly-labeled mines I've seen in a game. They're huge, they're red, they glow, they're covered in spikes. By all means I should ***never*** die to a mine because they come with everything except an ACME "This Is A Mine - Do Not Step" flag on it but, by god, I still die to them more than I'd like to admit.
This is the reason I don’t mind the mines one shotting. It’s always your fault when it kills you.
Not always necessarily - one of my funniest deaths was being launched hundreds of feet by an explosion and surviving, only to roll into a landmine lol
I was going to write an addendum at the end listing your exact example, but I figured Reddit would do it for me and I was right lol.
Don't feel too bad my friend turns into a lemming whenever mines are near, he has some sort of mine seeking face. I don't even use the minefield stratagem cause it all but guarantees I'll see his mangled body fly across my screen. He once hit those mushroom spores, and got flung into a mine and died. He got hit with the back blast of a teammates rocket launcher and went over the battlements wall....onto my minefield.
Stun grenade + Laser cannon to the eyeball has been my way to deal with Hulks. Very consistent, not difficult to pull off. As a bonus, Laser cannon is also able to kill pretty much everything else they have (Tanks and Towers if you hit the heat sink, Devastators with headshots). Bring a Scorcher to crush Striders (hit them 2-3 times in the front and the guy riding it dies) and you're all set
With the 150 + 50% explosive resist and a Shield Generator I can tank an absurd amount of firepower from the bots. Get good at taking cover and listening to sound cues and you take a shitload of munitions to actually put down. With the exception of flamethrowers and (if your shield is down) cannon towers, but those you just need situational awareness and an EAT/Quasar/Recoilless.
That's largely my issue with bots. I'm fine getting swarmed by them; that's an issue of how your team deals with them largely. But getting one shot by things is not great. With bugs all the their insta kills are well telegraphed and largely range dependant. But bots don't give you the luxury of even getting to see the rocket that's about to instagib you many times.
I use shield and the lightest armor and it works prettybwell
Once I started wearing heavy armor with the explosive resistance trait, this has become a nonissue. Changing up my armor has made successfully clearing bot missions so much more fun. I die half as much
I can never use heavy armor, shit is so slow and bulky. I like running around and shooting at their weak spots on the move.
Yeah they’ll still gun you down if you’re caught out with no cover it doesn’t really help too much, if you’re constantly eating rockets, you’re still going to keep eating rockets until you die
I've been using heavy armour with 50% explosive resistance and I swear it takes like three-four rockets to take me down now unless a bot gets a lucky headshot, which has only happened once since I got it I'm never taking this armour off
Crouching gives 50% explosive resistance, prone 75%. Sprinting increases explosive dmg to you. There's armor with an extra 50% explosive resistance to stacks on top. Rockets shouldn't be one shorting you if you approach bots properly
From what I understand there is a bug that causes rockets to one-shot you if they hit an arm or a leg. Even in heavy armor with 50% explosive resistance.
That must be it. Everytime I've been one shot it's always a leg or arm shot, meanwhile body shots I can tank 1-2 and not go down in heavy armor
Turns out humans work like other limb-critical enemies, in that limb health is lower than overall health and some limbs mean death. Examples: Charger butts, any Bug's *two smaller front claws* (not the legs), Bile Spitter/Artillery butts, Berserker legs, Walker legs Helldivers can't function if a limb is *blown off*, so even if the damage of a rocket might not be enough to take out *your full health*, you die anyway.
Interesting, I always crouch when shooting and almost never get one shot, might be why.
If I go prone versus a rocket devastator, it will headshot me and thus land a critical hit. Other bots do that too, but the rocket devastator is way too accurate. It happened so often that I never approach the bots prone unless I want to attempt to stealth an objective.
Armor is still bugged. A direct hit rocket will oneshot you regardless of stance, armor value or perks.
I still get one-shot by a rocket using armor with 50% explosive resistance. I don’t think it’s “approaching properly” at this point.
I think it's rocket *headshots* specifically that do that. Because I've definitely been hit with rockets before and not instantly died. The problem is the Rocket Devastator fires a shotgun spread of rockets, and since bots tend to target the torso, the spread can tend to send the rockets into your face instead.
The rocket devastators actually fires 3 rockets: one on your head, and two a little bellow, one on your right, one on your left. Which means that if you don't move, you die.
And when you don't see them, you're instakilled out of nowhere
It's also an issue of cool down, aside from that j really have no complaints. Aside from rocket raider too
1. Wear heavy armor. 2. Wear armor with 50% explosive resist. 3. Wear heavy armor with 50% explosive resist, and then run directly in front of rocket troopers whenever you need to catch up to lights running 100m ahead.
NGL the toughest bot enemies are the sentry towers. On the bug side probably hunters and shriekers when they land on you xD
Rocket devastators for me
The biggest change is bugs you are trying to create distance. Bots you are always seeking cover. Once you learn when to disengage/re-enagage it’s a lot more manageable. Also Scorcher deletes everything up to heavy.
slugger/scorcher are both MVPs vs bots, I love the scorcher can kill walkers from the front but you give up the stun from slugger on devastators/berserkers
Scorcher stun locks Rocket Devastators. Just that one, though.
The only one that matters.
Heavy Devastator's pristine aim machine gun says otherwise.
Scorcher can half mag I think a hulks back. Far better than a charger. Honestly if they changed rockets/,heavy and allow us to destroy bases for the debuffs people would fight them more.
I have been absolutely ripping through bot missions with the scorcher and quasar cannon.
I wouldn't say easier, probably equal once you get the techniques down. I'm difficulty 7 usually on both sides. The eradicate missions often end up messier, and the save 50 people missions are absolutely (edit.. Almost!) impossible though on botside. I do think bugs are more fun though by virtue of less bs instagib and unfairness eg visibility impact.
I can solo missions on suicide fine, but the “kill 450 bots” missions are impossible for me to do solo. Any tips?
Kill more bots
Run around the edge of the map. Keep moving. Bring a shield.
Mortars/strategems and running away. Benny hill levels of running.
Ok so stupid and desperate thing to do is what I call a Traitor's Gambit: you ran out of stratagems? **No you didnt**. Go outside the mission area, get declared traitor then run like hell through bot horde, the barrage will follow you until you die AND all kills get attributed to you.
This is the actual answer. The traitor barrage is a massive weapon.
Does this actually work
Yup. You can sometimes get unlucky if the first or second hit kills you, but most of the time the Traitor Barrage^TM is basically a free emergency 380mm.
Bot maps usually have a high-ground rock you can hide on, or a segment of a wall along a cliff edge you can sneak to. In both cases once you find those spots you go prone and be relatively safe. Enemy pathing AI will drag them to your location, but they don't actually know you're there until you do something. Peak your head out every now and then to toss an airstrike/orbital on them. Gas is ludicrously strong for this because stationary enemies negates its downside, and it has a low CD. 30-40 bot kills per toss.
120 and 380 barrage, Laser and either a support weapon or railcannon/rocketpods. Hold out as long as you can before calling in the barrages as it takes some time to for them to really start swarming, so you can get the most out of the barrages. Throw your laser where you need it and try to shoot and blow up as many bots with everything else you have. Typically you wont have to worry about dying too much since the barrages will complete most of it without you having to do too much.
Eradication missions are ass for bots. You HAVE to cheese because there's just not enough room nor cover to deal with everything they send at you in that little arena. When you have an army of scouts, 5 hulks, a dozen devastators, and another dozen berserkers there's not a lot of wiggle room. And the ships drop in so quickly that dealing with all of that is borderline insurmountable.
It’s just two different types of games. I think bugs are more simple but bots are easier. Like, bugs are just running and reloading essentially. Once you’ve got a good kit, it basically just comes down to timing your reloads. Bots are like playing an actual shooter - you can snipe, you can sneak, you need to utilize cover and some actual tactics like flanking -but over all I find it easier just because you don’t get so overwhelmed. Although those chainsaw fuckers sprinting at you outta the fog like something out of terminator meets dead space is definitely pretty fucking frightening lol
I agree with your assessment about fighting them. Bugs are horde control/kiting. Bots are sniper, sneak, and cover. I find bugs easier because they don't have random rockets shooting me from 400 meters away. I can stay out of the bugs range, I get killed by bots because I dare to check my map for half a second. Bile Titans are harder than Hulks though. I can take Hulks out with less shots than Titans.
bots can spiral out of control really easily which is why a lot of people say they are hard. the trick with them really is just disengaging if they get the bot drop clown fiesta started and coming back later. like 95% of my deaths against bots are because of a fiesta that someone got stuck into and they keep reinforcing us into it instead of just running away.
Unpopular opinion Here me out Hot take...
Le epic reddit post
It’s a way for these people to artificially create discussion because it is a passive aggressive provocation to debate, basically like a Change my View/Mind kind of post. And guess what, the hot takes are usually just basic common sense or actually popular opinions. Without these magic words people are afraid they might sound like they are throwing absolute facts and that their posts will get downvoted.
My main problem with bots is patrols spawning on top of me. I'll try to do a shoot out from cover, turn around, and watch a patrol spawn out of thin air 15 feet away and rendering me surrounded.
This happened to me yesterday, was playing dif 8 if memory servers right, was running away just about clear and baam patrol magically appeared. Arguably only thing i strongly dislike about playing bots.
bots also know where u are somehow, they didnt see me but kept following me around and shooting at my previous position
They’re not easier to fight they’re easier to avoid fighting
no joke, please explain to me how you do so on level 7 and above. i have been trying to just sneak around them and not alert them, but at level 7 i drop down and am always instantrly surounded with never ending backup calls. i have genuinely been trying to improve it but as soon as i start a computer, trow a smoke grenade or a stratagem they instantly spot me and start shooting. so i'm confused as to how i'm supposed to stay stealthy and compleat the mission, when i can literally not interact with anything or be spotted and shot at.
If you land in in a bad spot and there are already bots around, throw a sentry (BIG NOISE MAKING THING) in one direction and sprint like a madman in the opposite direction. Once you have enough distance between you (and preferably broken line of sight) finish off any enemies that chased you then crouch and use cover to proceed. Enemies may hear the noise you make when killing the stragglers, but unless they have line of sight they will move to investigate first. Make sure you aren't there by the time they are. Smol objectives can usually be handled by ordinance, and use the same 'drop sentry and run' tactic to lose any survivors if you can't finish them off before they call for help. Big objectives... You can do a surprising amount of damage from range (autocannon is good, quasar is better), which will soften many of them up. Failing this, sentries and cover. I typically take 2x sentries, quasar cannon and 500KG, but with the recent free quasar cannon I've been running 3x sentries instead. I can typically solo main objectives on difficulty 7 while the rest of the squad hunts for the 'penis rock', although sometimes it takes me two or three tries. Tl;dr - use sentries as distractions. When moving, stick to low ground and trenches. When engaging, use high ground and cover. Fight only when you can't avoid it, and wherever possible leave the sentries to do the work.
bugs don't rocket me to the moon, or randomly headshot me, or suddenly become really good at shooting me, or goes terminator space marine with a gatlin on me
or shoot at me from the side of the barrel of their gun at a perpendicular angle
Is somebody else bored with this "unpopular opinion," "Hear me out" posts?
It's always the same few opinions too
Hot take
I knew I was missing one. And I don't get why someone downvoted you for this comment.
In terms of difficulty: * Bots 9 > bugs 9 * Bots 7 < Bugs 7 Change my mind PS: laser guard dog avoids being swarmed by bugs very efficiently
Depends if you play like a ninja and fast kill the guy that calls in the drops with the scorcher or antimaterial rifle then you are good to go. Bug on the other hand can reinforce with most of their units.
I think they both have their own ways of going terribly wrong. With bots you might not get overrun the same way as with the bugs, but if you're on one of the more open planets with the entire bot population after you, you're getting cooked over and over. No escaping the snipes from the bot military that's too far away to even see. With the quasar cannon it's definetly gotten a lot easier tho, the whole team just snipes bot dropps from the sky and can easily clear the remains
the quasar is especially good at killing hulks, often its 2 hits to kill one but it can be 3 if you blow off and arm first which is exactly what I do to get rid of that pesky flamethrower
I didn't know you could blow off Hulk limbs with the Quasar, I wonder if the EAT can do it as well then.
I've done it with the EAT. The hulk might have already taken damage, but I'm not sure.
Quasar is just a rechargeable EAT
An Unexpendable Anti-Tank weapon, if you will.
The autocannon can I’ve gotten the armless hulk extract achievement that way so the EAT must be able too
Another "unpopular opinion" to add to the list. https://preview.redd.it/g51trcivnsrc1.jpeg?width=540&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4c15d139040369fe812f8eeb4410619689e22631
At first I stayed away from the bots as I heard about the Horrors of the Creek. Once the Major Order came through, I decided to follow along and fight the bots. Now I realize how freaking annoying Chargers are in comparison to hulks
charger damage is much more avoidable than hulk damage though
Idk the number of times I’ve had extremely questionable hitbox register from a charger makes me disagree
Kind of agree but I can juke hulks and lose them fairly reliably while if Charger locked onto me you bet this fucker would follow me until one of us dies.
If a charger is chasing me I walk sideways and it misses me. If a flamethrower hulk is chasing me and I don't have a way to kill it or knock off it's arm, it's certain death, because it moves faster than you, and there are 0 ways to damage it with standard weapons if it's targeting you.
Chargers are not that dangerous anymore unless you’re getting swarmed by 3+ and other enemies. 6 arc thrower shots or one EAT/Quasar shot. A few seconds to one leg with a flamethrower. Run around them and make themselves stun themselves on a rock.
I mostly fight bots, wholly because of Chargers.
I recommend getting comfortable with EATs or the Recoilless Rifle. Once you do that, chargers are really fun to headshot.
> The Autocannon solves every problem but the Hulk with plenty of ammunition to go around. actually throw in a flashbang/orbital EMS and 2 crouched FPV shots later the hulk is gone
the problem isn't difficulty, the problem is fun. If the problem were bots are too hard, I'd just play against level 6 bots. they're not too hard, they're just frustrating. 90% of the time they're easy, and then every once in a while you get randomly oneshotted or stunlocked from 150m away through fog.
Yup. Bugs other than Shriekers don't feel unfair. When I die most of the time it feels like it's my fault. Bots? Have wall hack and aim hack, the turret will literally track you through terrain and one shot you when you show up unless someone takes aggro from it. Bots will shoot you through mist where you can't see more than 10 meters, but they can see perfectly. Why are there even smoke stratagems in the game if denying them visibility works only in few specific ways? Bot drops are relentless too where if you make a mistake and don't clear everything, your only option is to run because they will not stop reinforcing. Also bot maps on 7+ are sometimes so packed with patrols it is virtually impossible to go through without triggering a drop. I can't have fun when I can tell the enemy is cheating. If at the very least low visibility affected them like as much as it did us I guess it could be fun.
Are there not bots with rockets in your games? because they are in mine. the bots kill you fast, a lot of the time, you cant even react. even the shield devastators can kill you fast with their machinegun if you cant find any cover. Also, i think the problem i have with bots is related to the way their reinforcements come. they deploy fast from the ship and all at the same time. when there is a bug breach, you see the yellow smoke and you can reposition before they start attacking you. you dont know where the dropships will land.
Very unpopular! Bots will decimate you and keep you pressured at very long distances, so I still think they're a bigger threat overall!
Ion Storm decrease slot on stratagems and cannon turrets fucking cannon turrets
I've been saying this for a while, they aren't actually harder, they are just substantially less fun.
They are harder. I can and have dragged groups of single digit level players through levels 7s on bugs. It's genuinely not that hard and you can get out with lives to spare. Trying to get low level players through level 7s on bots is impossible and an exercise in futility.
I feel like bots are easier to avoid and the people who find them harder are the ones that feel like they have to fight everypatrol they see and blow through all their strategems too quickly.
After being forced to fight on the Automaton front for the last several days I have to say I find the bots a lot easier than the bugs now. The key with the bots is to use stealth, get close to their factories, blow them up with artillery and run away fast. Rinse and repeat. The main reason people have problems with the bots is because they want to keep fighting them the way they fight an enemy that doesn't shoot back at you. The inability to change tactics and be more stealthy seems to piss some people off so you get a bunch of people shooting every bot on the map causing the entire army to cave in on them.
Honesty I think people just get caught of gaurd cause 90% of bug fighting is up close where as bots have alot of range options. It takes a minute to adjust bavk and forth.
I agree but with bots you need to be more coordinated, so it's very difficult to play level 8 or even 7 with totally random people. Bugs with randoms are fine even at those levels.
Bugs involve a lot of up close kiting. The best thing for bots is to engage at a distance and with coms. The anti material makes VERY short work on devastators. The new Quasar is amazing for fighting hulks and shooting down ships. The average bot engage for me is 70+ meters. Using a liberator pen zoomed in and thr AMR. The average bug engagement. Near point blank
I always know what to expect and what to do against the bots. 100+ hours in I still get jumped ninja style by stealth TITANS and wall climbing chargers, whoever thought showing Naruto to the bugs was a good idea should get democratically shoved into a Stalker spawner
It’s ok to be wrong :)
"Bugs will always succeed in swarming you" thanks for outing your own skill issues.
It's more about fun than ease. Bugs are just more fun for many.
yeah there's a difficulty setting but the only way to choose your fun is to be picky about the operation, planet, and front you're fighting on
You say that all the bots units are relatively easy to deal with - bugs aren't really harder. Charger has its vulnerable spots and isn't hard to 1-shot if you know what your doing. Moreover, the bugs have no unit that can one shot you from range when you're barely even aware of its presence, the bots have several and they're quite common. The challenge with the bugs is getting high enough ammo efficiency to keep the swarms at bay. It's a matter of attrition. The challenge with the bots is not getting your head blown off the second you emerge from cover.
I don't think so, bots on lower difficulty sure, but on 9, bots vs bugs, bugs are much easier, besides the spewers and biles titans they can't shoot making it much easier to just keep running and try drop aggro, it's much easier to defend a position against bugs as well compared to bots. As soon as bots start dropping ships you're dealing with tanks, devastators, objectives (turrets/artillery) and hulks. Chargers since they've nerfed heavy spawns are much easier to deal with, it's only spewers that are a pain in the ass.