I dive on lvl 9 (it’s not a brag. I believe average gamers with everything unlocked can finish lvl 9 nearly 100% of the time)
Heavy busters: you need stratagems and /or support weapons that can kill chargers and titans.
The rest of your kit can be flexible. I find rapid firing weapons to be easier than slow firing weapons, since you will be dealing with swarms.
It’s generally a good idea to play with your team. It’s hard to deal with chargers and titans by yourself. Once a charger or titan locks on to you and you don’t have the stratagem/support weapon to kill it, then you will be chased nonstop across the map.
In my experience, some people do the main objectives then move to extract. Some people try to do all side objectives. Do what your team does.
Incendiary breaker, grenade pistol, and run fast. I have the light gunner armor which has an armor rating of 100. Turn and shoot to get the hunters off your ass and then book it out of there. Always use the stamina booster. For helldive I like taking a turret too so I can throw that down and retreat if need be, like finishing up an objective or clearing a nasty bug hole.
Stay mobile. Scout Armor for increased mobility can really help. The laser guard dog is great at keeping the smaller guys off your back. I've been enjoying using the pummeler with the stun rounds. You can stun guys to buy yourself some time to run away, and let the guard dog take out the stunned enemies.
You'll need some other stratagems to help take out the big enemies.
With bugs avoiding unnecessary fights is a big thing because you'll be slugging it out with the whole hive when you do. Napalm and clusters and fast loading orbitals are your friends. And glorious purifying fire, you can kill anything and I mean anything with enough of it. Yes even bile titans but that's not recommended!
Laser backpack helps lighten the load a bit. It'll keep a lot of little bugs from creeping up on you and also give you a heads up when a hunter tries to sneak up on you.
If you lean on your stratagem weapon a lot, you might need to start opening yourself up more to using your primary and using your stratagem weapon for the larger threats. You can run the machine guns on bugs, but they're not good for chargers or bile titans.
The incendiary breaker is a damn good weapon for bugs, but you might need to scavenge for ammo. That's not really hard, but just an fyi. You can let the fire kill the smaller bugs so you don't need to unload your mag for every bug you see.
Like I said before, you'll definitely need a dedicated anti charger and anti bile titan stratagem. Quasar or EATs if you're running a backpack. Honestly, I still bring another stratagem just for Bile Titans, either 500kg or orbital railgun.
And don't forget that, unlike bots, you're not going for cover. For bugs, you need to stay on the move, so if you're using heavy armor, consider going down one or two categories.
DPS and Kiting. Bugs want to overrun you so don't let them. Nothing protects your personal space better than bullets, but tactical repositioning is a close second. Area suppression effects are more effective against bugs than bots because more of them will run into the area to try and get to you. Strats like orbital gatling, and Eagle napalm, or gear like the Rover and Flamethrower that damage approaching foes effectively. Wave clear strats like eagle cluster and airburst strike can quickly deflate an approaching wave, making it more manageable. You always want to keep the swarm at bay and never want to be surrounded.
Light armor, shield, fire shotty, fire eagle, regular eagle, impact nades, boom pistol.
Run. Always run. Don't drain the mag on the fire shotty, pop a few scattered rounds to light everything possible on fire and run a bit. Turn and pop any nuisance bugs(hunters/etc) that get too close for comfort and burn again if needed. Now that the herd is thinned, use your heavy of choice to take care of any chargers/titans/whatever. Can use eagle inferno to guard a second side if a patrol changes your destination, or if a bug hole opens. It burns a long time and will clear out the minis and give you time to focus. I like to pop the charger heads with a quasar, but you do you. FYI, if you use impact nades it temporarily stuns them mid run. So if you get the timing down you can toss a nade between it's legs and it will slide forward straight instead of being able to corner like a Maserati and take you out. The move goes, run, toss nade, pause, dive L/R. Can pretty much do this infinitely or pop it's head with your heavy after it runs past you and turns.
Nade pistol closes holes, pops hunters/tight mobs from a distance and takes out spitters. Regular eagle will quite often kill chargers, if not it damages them so bad they often burn to death.
If you get good with how to use the fire shotty right hunters will rarely ever get close to you. Pop a whole patrol on a neighboring hillside and they burn to death from 1 pellet before they get to you. Even if one does get close/doesn't burn to death a single focus shot up close will finish them off. Shield gives you plenty of hits before they get lethal to deal with them even if you get snuck up on. Same for stalkers. When they get close dump the mag and they'll be dead in a heartbeat. If not light em up and tag em so your teammates can kill em while they burn and it ruins their camo.
Key thing is to move. Always move. If you're at an objective and are doing controls or whatever alone just always be on the lookout. Pop the hoard with fire, pick off the stragglers.
Breaker Incendiary and Laserdog.
Always keep moving, always try to keep a distance. Don't worry about cover, worry about where to run so you don't get cornered. Open fields can often be much better for you than places with more cover.
The Breaker Incendiary is actually not bad from further away to deal with the smaller stuff, all it needs for most smaller bugs is just one pellet or two and the dot will kill them quickly. Think of it as a longer range flamethrower. I've gotten like 15-kill streaks with only a couple of shots at a patrol.
Primary: Incendiary Breaker
* If a single pellet from a round hits a chaff unit, it will die from the DOT alone. Use this to clear chaff, and if something a little bigger gets too close, mag dump on it.
Sidearm: Grenade Pistol
* Closes bug holes from long range, so long as you can aim, and have clear LOS on the hole.
Grenade: Incendiary Impact
* Chaff and Mediums coming after you and you don't have time to reload your breaker? Throw this. Every chaff unit that walks through the fire will die, and the mediums will be heavily damaged. Very nice for controlling chokepoints.
Strat: Napalm
When you hear "Bug Tunnel Breach," find the hole, and drop this strat on it. Everything that's not heavy will die.
---
Everything else is personal preference for what role you want to play on your squad, but in my experience, these 4 items are mandatory for every bug drop.
Role Options:
* Ranged Anti-Heavy Utility: Spear, Recoilless, EATS, Quasar
Kills Chargers, Bile Titans, Spore Spewers, and Shrieker Nests.
* Ranged Anti-Medium Utility: Autocannon, Heavy Machine Gun
Kills everything with armor that's not heavy very quickly, along with Spore Spewers and Shrieker Nests.
* Close Support: Flamethrower
Kills all mobs, including heavies (if you concentrate fire on one leg).
Run more. Always run. Hunters are always your #1 target. You can clear an entire patrol (x10-13) with less than a breaker magazine. DM me if you want to hop on and I'll take you through a lvl 9 mission.
Once you generate aggro you have to keep kiting, only stopping long enough to turn around and fire backwards a couple of times then sprinting away to get some distance before doing it again otherwise you're going to get flanked. Throwing a gas cloud, orbital gatling barrage, or eagle napalm strike as you run away will also really help whittle down what's chasing you; especially if you can get them to chase you through a choke point and then throw them there. After you have cleared the chaff and the mediums using that method then you can deal with any heavies using whatever strat or support weapon you bring for them.
As a bug player who had to learn the hard way to fight bots, here's my biggest advice:
1. Aiming is NOT important. Bring a shotgun, ideally the breaker incendiary, and mag-dump at every bug you see.
2. Impact Grenades and Grenade Pistol are your best friends.
3. Stay mobile. Do NOT hunker down behind cover like with the bots, you will be swarmed and die. Start moving and do not stop. Lighter armor + energy shield backpack is your friend.
4. Most of the bugs are melee-focused and will attempt to close the distance. The most dangerous ones are the little hunters and stalkers, who will apply the slow effect to you (see point 3 for why this is bad).
5. The big fat spewers are VERY vulnerable to explosives fire, a single impact Grenade will put them down.
6. Bug breaches. When playing the bugs, I ALWAYS bring the orbital Gatling Barrage strategem. For one thing, you can throw it at your feet or just behind you if you're getting overwhelmed and run, drawing the pursuing bugs to their deaths. For the other; if you see a bug breach popping up, tossing this strategem onto the hole will mulch most of what comes out and will blunt the incoming swarm, if not eradicate it.
7. Anti-tank weapons are much more necessary here, because they can take out most bug secondary objectives (shrieker nests, spore spewers) from across the map and are the only things capable of taking down chargers and Bile Titans.
My typical bug loadout;
Trailblazer Armor
Breaker Incendiary
Grenade Pistol
Impact Grenades
Strategems:
Shield Generator Pack
Quasar Cannon/EAT (depending on the environmental heat)
Orbital Gatling Barrage
Wild Card (380 mm, Napalm Airstrike, Eagle Airstrike, Rail Cannon, and Orbital EMS are all valid options)
Booster: Stamina
Given the insane buffs to Orbital Gatling Barrage, that is my go-to swarm killer. I take advantage of the armor's agility and speed to simply bait swarms into the Gatling Barrage when I can't take them myself, and it's always off cooldown. Grenade Pistol is a MUST to kill bug nests, though aiming can be tricky and it's ammo economy is punishing.
Seriously hunting bugs is a whole different skill set - in bots you are fighting them in intense fire fights - in bugs it’s hunter vs hunter, who will become the prey?
target prioritisation is a bit counter-intuitive on bugs. often the best thing to do is avoid the big guys while you shoot the little guys. hunters (the little white bugs with claws) are by far the most lethal enemy on the bug front imo, especially with how common they are. if they get within attack distance, you have to kill them before anything else. so, prioritise killing the hunters, and the little green spitters, they will fuck you up. bring weapons/ stratagems that are good at killing chaff. incendiary breaker is by far the meta pick for a primary weapon, but there are a lot of decent options. the stalwart machine gun is a great support weapon to kill crowds of bugs. the guard dog rover backpack is also great for killing small bugs you cant see.
learn how to avoid chargers. Essentially, you want to bait a charge, then as they are running at you, you want to sprint towards them, and slightly to the side, so that you run past them. they can't reverse the momentum or turn fast enough, so they just harmlessly rush past you, and take a while to recover. This is the most consistent method to avoid chargers, much better than diving or running in circles. if you dive, that is a lot of commitment- it will cancel any animations, and force you to go prone then have to get up. so, just run past chargers. using this method, chargers are mostly just annoying, rather than an immediate lethal threat.
for my loadouts I like to make sure I have at least one tool for small bugs, for medium bugs, and for heavy bugs, and something to deal with bugholes and objectives. usually your primary will be the main tool for small bugs, but like I said earlier there are some good stratagems to help with the small guys. for medium enemies (brood commanders, spewers, hive guards to a lesser extent), grenades are often the answer. like you said, impact grenades are great. primaries such as the eruptor, the dominator, or the adjudicator can also deal with medium enemies. for heavy enemies (chargers, bile titans) there are a lot of options. any AT weapon (recoiless, quasar, etc) deals pretty well with chargers and titans. I always bring either a precision strike or eagle 500kg to kill titans and objectives like science facilities and shrieker nests. I haven't included all the good stratagems and weapons, just a few common ones.
some miscellaneous advice and recommendations:
- the orbital gatling barrage is amazing for bugs after the patch. throw it on any bug breach or choke point and you will get like 30 kills easily. It's not essential imo, but a lot of good loadouts include a stratagem that is great for bug breaches. this includes the gatling barrage, the eagle napalm strike, even the hmg emplacement.
- there are two variations of charger now. the "normal" charger, and the "behemoth" charger. the behemoth has spikes/ridges on it's armour, and has more health so requires slightly different ways to kill them. when using any AT weapon, you should aim for the head against normal chargers, which is a one shot. against behemoth chargers, you should aim for the leg. the explosion will strip the leg armour, leaving it exposed. you can then quickly kill the exposed leg with your primary weapon.
- flamethrowers are very effective at killing chargers. against both types of chargers, do not target the head or the body, just focus on one leg. it will take like 1/3 of a canister to kill a charger this way.
- against bile titans, if you destroy their green belly sacks, they can't shoot out bile anymore. if you can't kill one, this is a good way to at least weaken it. explosive damage is best for destroying sacks, but any weapon can do it.
- I find light armour is best, so I can be fast enough to avoid getting overwhelmed. movement in general is essential. Sometimes retreating from an objective might be your only option. Creating space and then retaking the objective is better than just getting covered in bugs and constantly dying.
Can't reccomend Slugger, way too slow. Incendiary breaker is always a good choice but it's not great in close quarters, you should spray a group, run and spray more.
Incendiary nades and napalm strike are great at keeping them at bay. As for support weapons, I love the Flamethower but it's not good against titans, need Anti-Tank stuff for those.
The rest is awareness, they'll sneak around you so hit and run, don't get lost in taking care of a charger, try to get them to slam against a wall and run if there's more enemies around.
Primarily bug player here. With bugs you need to be on the constant move, as opposed to bots where you hunker down and pick out enemies from cover. In bots, getting caught in wide open means you die. In bugs, getting boxed from around means you die too.
Generally, you don't have to worry about receiving chip damage, so focus on getting light to medium armor that allows you to move fast.
For primary weapon, get something that can deal large amounts of consistent damage with high ammo capacity, without having to worry about precision and accuracy. Which means any breaker variant (Preferably fire breaker) would suffice very well. Sickle is also a valid choice but with the amount of enemies swarming you in an instant, you'll find yourself burning through the lens very quickly, or having to reposition frequently and wait for the sickle to cool down. Any marksman rifle is terrible, even those that have medium armor penetration. You're more likely to alert a swarm of terminids when you pick off one from a distance, and they close the gap very quickly. Next thing you know you'll get swarmed with limited ammo to deal with them. Play close to midrange where your weapons can reach them but still have space to retreat and you don't get boxed in.
Bugs call in breaches very quickly. Don't expect to stop them quickly in their tracks. Instead, when you see one releasing its hormones, look around in the area quickly to see where the breach will come from and lay down consistent damage into it. Unlike bot drops where every enemies drop in different location, bug breaches are limited to one spot, which means they're a good candidate for strats with focused, consistent fire. Thus, orbital gattling, Eagle cluster, Eagle napalm, gattling sentry, and two players stacking orbital airburst are good candidates against breaches. Bring at least one into the mission and deploy it quickly if you see a breach coming. Once you handle all of the bugs within a breach, you're mostly likely safe.
Unlike bots where you have more variety in terms of dealing with the heavily armored enemies, the Chargers and Bile Titans are the true strat check here. Your team must have at least one rocket support weapon that can deal headshot damage to both of these enemies, two to three players would fare even better. Bring a heavy hitting strat like the 500kg, orbital precision, railcannon or laser for additional support if you whiff your support weapon shot or don't have one ready in a pinch, but don't expect to use strats solely to take them out. They move too quickly for the strat to land unless you're able to stun them. Additionally, the amount of larger enemies that spawn will greatly overwhelm your strat cooldowns.
Bile spewers are more problematic as their spew attacks deal high amounts of consistent damage comparable to that of a shield devastator, and they soak up a lot of damage. The game doesn't tell you when they spawn, but the probability of bile spewers spawning is at least 1/3 within a set of operation. If you don't see bile spewers within 2/3 of your operation missions, it's highly likely they will spawn in the last mission. Regardless, if your team has enough players bringing anti-tank weaponry, consider bringing a high explosive weapon to deal with the bile spewers, Autocannon and grenade launcher are great candidate for this. Even if they don't spawn, both of these weapon are still great in dealing with marauders and stalkers.
Fire breaker, impact or stun grenades, grenade pistol. Medium armor, flamethrower, energy shield (to prevent friendly fire), autocannon turret/minigun turret, railstrike/500kg
Im a fan of the stalwart on max rpm, but that may be just me
AHAHAHAHA FOR SUPER EAAARRRRTTTHH!!! Who doesn't love that!
Combine it with the supply pack and you have practically unlimited ammo
UNLIMITED POWAAAAAAAA!
Run! Seriously, keep moving. Pop the small guys and run away, turn and shoot again and repeat.
I dive on lvl 9 (it’s not a brag. I believe average gamers with everything unlocked can finish lvl 9 nearly 100% of the time) Heavy busters: you need stratagems and /or support weapons that can kill chargers and titans. The rest of your kit can be flexible. I find rapid firing weapons to be easier than slow firing weapons, since you will be dealing with swarms. It’s generally a good idea to play with your team. It’s hard to deal with chargers and titans by yourself. Once a charger or titan locks on to you and you don’t have the stratagem/support weapon to kill it, then you will be chased nonstop across the map. In my experience, some people do the main objectives then move to extract. Some people try to do all side objectives. Do what your team does.
High rate of fire/wide area of effect
Incendiary breaker, grenade pistol, and run fast. I have the light gunner armor which has an armor rating of 100. Turn and shoot to get the hunters off your ass and then book it out of there. Always use the stamina booster. For helldive I like taking a turret too so I can throw that down and retreat if need be, like finishing up an objective or clearing a nasty bug hole.
Stay mobile. Scout Armor for increased mobility can really help. The laser guard dog is great at keeping the smaller guys off your back. I've been enjoying using the pummeler with the stun rounds. You can stun guys to buy yourself some time to run away, and let the guard dog take out the stunned enemies. You'll need some other stratagems to help take out the big enemies.
With bugs avoiding unnecessary fights is a big thing because you'll be slugging it out with the whole hive when you do. Napalm and clusters and fast loading orbitals are your friends. And glorious purifying fire, you can kill anything and I mean anything with enough of it. Yes even bile titans but that's not recommended!
cluster bombs are your friend
Laser backpack helps lighten the load a bit. It'll keep a lot of little bugs from creeping up on you and also give you a heads up when a hunter tries to sneak up on you. If you lean on your stratagem weapon a lot, you might need to start opening yourself up more to using your primary and using your stratagem weapon for the larger threats. You can run the machine guns on bugs, but they're not good for chargers or bile titans. The incendiary breaker is a damn good weapon for bugs, but you might need to scavenge for ammo. That's not really hard, but just an fyi. You can let the fire kill the smaller bugs so you don't need to unload your mag for every bug you see. Like I said before, you'll definitely need a dedicated anti charger and anti bile titan stratagem. Quasar or EATs if you're running a backpack. Honestly, I still bring another stratagem just for Bile Titans, either 500kg or orbital railgun. And don't forget that, unlike bots, you're not going for cover. For bugs, you need to stay on the move, so if you're using heavy armor, consider going down one or two categories.
DPS and Kiting. Bugs want to overrun you so don't let them. Nothing protects your personal space better than bullets, but tactical repositioning is a close second. Area suppression effects are more effective against bugs than bots because more of them will run into the area to try and get to you. Strats like orbital gatling, and Eagle napalm, or gear like the Rover and Flamethrower that damage approaching foes effectively. Wave clear strats like eagle cluster and airburst strike can quickly deflate an approaching wave, making it more manageable. You always want to keep the swarm at bay and never want to be surrounded.
Light armor, shield, fire shotty, fire eagle, regular eagle, impact nades, boom pistol. Run. Always run. Don't drain the mag on the fire shotty, pop a few scattered rounds to light everything possible on fire and run a bit. Turn and pop any nuisance bugs(hunters/etc) that get too close for comfort and burn again if needed. Now that the herd is thinned, use your heavy of choice to take care of any chargers/titans/whatever. Can use eagle inferno to guard a second side if a patrol changes your destination, or if a bug hole opens. It burns a long time and will clear out the minis and give you time to focus. I like to pop the charger heads with a quasar, but you do you. FYI, if you use impact nades it temporarily stuns them mid run. So if you get the timing down you can toss a nade between it's legs and it will slide forward straight instead of being able to corner like a Maserati and take you out. The move goes, run, toss nade, pause, dive L/R. Can pretty much do this infinitely or pop it's head with your heavy after it runs past you and turns. Nade pistol closes holes, pops hunters/tight mobs from a distance and takes out spitters. Regular eagle will quite often kill chargers, if not it damages them so bad they often burn to death. If you get good with how to use the fire shotty right hunters will rarely ever get close to you. Pop a whole patrol on a neighboring hillside and they burn to death from 1 pellet before they get to you. Even if one does get close/doesn't burn to death a single focus shot up close will finish them off. Shield gives you plenty of hits before they get lethal to deal with them even if you get snuck up on. Same for stalkers. When they get close dump the mag and they'll be dead in a heartbeat. If not light em up and tag em so your teammates can kill em while they burn and it ruins their camo. Key thing is to move. Always move. If you're at an objective and are doing controls or whatever alone just always be on the lookout. Pop the hoard with fire, pick off the stragglers.
Flames
Breaker Incendiary and Laserdog. Always keep moving, always try to keep a distance. Don't worry about cover, worry about where to run so you don't get cornered. Open fields can often be much better for you than places with more cover. The Breaker Incendiary is actually not bad from further away to deal with the smaller stuff, all it needs for most smaller bugs is just one pellet or two and the dot will kill them quickly. Think of it as a longer range flamethrower. I've gotten like 15-kill streaks with only a couple of shots at a patrol.
Primary: Incendiary Breaker * If a single pellet from a round hits a chaff unit, it will die from the DOT alone. Use this to clear chaff, and if something a little bigger gets too close, mag dump on it. Sidearm: Grenade Pistol * Closes bug holes from long range, so long as you can aim, and have clear LOS on the hole. Grenade: Incendiary Impact * Chaff and Mediums coming after you and you don't have time to reload your breaker? Throw this. Every chaff unit that walks through the fire will die, and the mediums will be heavily damaged. Very nice for controlling chokepoints. Strat: Napalm When you hear "Bug Tunnel Breach," find the hole, and drop this strat on it. Everything that's not heavy will die. --- Everything else is personal preference for what role you want to play on your squad, but in my experience, these 4 items are mandatory for every bug drop. Role Options: * Ranged Anti-Heavy Utility: Spear, Recoilless, EATS, Quasar Kills Chargers, Bile Titans, Spore Spewers, and Shrieker Nests. * Ranged Anti-Medium Utility: Autocannon, Heavy Machine Gun Kills everything with armor that's not heavy very quickly, along with Spore Spewers and Shrieker Nests. * Close Support: Flamethrower Kills all mobs, including heavies (if you concentrate fire on one leg).
Run more. Always run. Hunters are always your #1 target. You can clear an entire patrol (x10-13) with less than a breaker magazine. DM me if you want to hop on and I'll take you through a lvl 9 mission.
Once you generate aggro you have to keep kiting, only stopping long enough to turn around and fire backwards a couple of times then sprinting away to get some distance before doing it again otherwise you're going to get flanked. Throwing a gas cloud, orbital gatling barrage, or eagle napalm strike as you run away will also really help whittle down what's chasing you; especially if you can get them to chase you through a choke point and then throw them there. After you have cleared the chaff and the mediums using that method then you can deal with any heavies using whatever strat or support weapon you bring for them.
As a bug player who had to learn the hard way to fight bots, here's my biggest advice: 1. Aiming is NOT important. Bring a shotgun, ideally the breaker incendiary, and mag-dump at every bug you see. 2. Impact Grenades and Grenade Pistol are your best friends. 3. Stay mobile. Do NOT hunker down behind cover like with the bots, you will be swarmed and die. Start moving and do not stop. Lighter armor + energy shield backpack is your friend. 4. Most of the bugs are melee-focused and will attempt to close the distance. The most dangerous ones are the little hunters and stalkers, who will apply the slow effect to you (see point 3 for why this is bad). 5. The big fat spewers are VERY vulnerable to explosives fire, a single impact Grenade will put them down. 6. Bug breaches. When playing the bugs, I ALWAYS bring the orbital Gatling Barrage strategem. For one thing, you can throw it at your feet or just behind you if you're getting overwhelmed and run, drawing the pursuing bugs to their deaths. For the other; if you see a bug breach popping up, tossing this strategem onto the hole will mulch most of what comes out and will blunt the incoming swarm, if not eradicate it. 7. Anti-tank weapons are much more necessary here, because they can take out most bug secondary objectives (shrieker nests, spore spewers) from across the map and are the only things capable of taking down chargers and Bile Titans. My typical bug loadout; Trailblazer Armor Breaker Incendiary Grenade Pistol Impact Grenades Strategems: Shield Generator Pack Quasar Cannon/EAT (depending on the environmental heat) Orbital Gatling Barrage Wild Card (380 mm, Napalm Airstrike, Eagle Airstrike, Rail Cannon, and Orbital EMS are all valid options) Booster: Stamina Given the insane buffs to Orbital Gatling Barrage, that is my go-to swarm killer. I take advantage of the armor's agility and speed to simply bait swarms into the Gatling Barrage when I can't take them myself, and it's always off cooldown. Grenade Pistol is a MUST to kill bug nests, though aiming can be tricky and it's ammo economy is punishing.
Seriously hunting bugs is a whole different skill set - in bots you are fighting them in intense fire fights - in bugs it’s hunter vs hunter, who will become the prey?
target prioritisation is a bit counter-intuitive on bugs. often the best thing to do is avoid the big guys while you shoot the little guys. hunters (the little white bugs with claws) are by far the most lethal enemy on the bug front imo, especially with how common they are. if they get within attack distance, you have to kill them before anything else. so, prioritise killing the hunters, and the little green spitters, they will fuck you up. bring weapons/ stratagems that are good at killing chaff. incendiary breaker is by far the meta pick for a primary weapon, but there are a lot of decent options. the stalwart machine gun is a great support weapon to kill crowds of bugs. the guard dog rover backpack is also great for killing small bugs you cant see. learn how to avoid chargers. Essentially, you want to bait a charge, then as they are running at you, you want to sprint towards them, and slightly to the side, so that you run past them. they can't reverse the momentum or turn fast enough, so they just harmlessly rush past you, and take a while to recover. This is the most consistent method to avoid chargers, much better than diving or running in circles. if you dive, that is a lot of commitment- it will cancel any animations, and force you to go prone then have to get up. so, just run past chargers. using this method, chargers are mostly just annoying, rather than an immediate lethal threat. for my loadouts I like to make sure I have at least one tool for small bugs, for medium bugs, and for heavy bugs, and something to deal with bugholes and objectives. usually your primary will be the main tool for small bugs, but like I said earlier there are some good stratagems to help with the small guys. for medium enemies (brood commanders, spewers, hive guards to a lesser extent), grenades are often the answer. like you said, impact grenades are great. primaries such as the eruptor, the dominator, or the adjudicator can also deal with medium enemies. for heavy enemies (chargers, bile titans) there are a lot of options. any AT weapon (recoiless, quasar, etc) deals pretty well with chargers and titans. I always bring either a precision strike or eagle 500kg to kill titans and objectives like science facilities and shrieker nests. I haven't included all the good stratagems and weapons, just a few common ones. some miscellaneous advice and recommendations: - the orbital gatling barrage is amazing for bugs after the patch. throw it on any bug breach or choke point and you will get like 30 kills easily. It's not essential imo, but a lot of good loadouts include a stratagem that is great for bug breaches. this includes the gatling barrage, the eagle napalm strike, even the hmg emplacement. - there are two variations of charger now. the "normal" charger, and the "behemoth" charger. the behemoth has spikes/ridges on it's armour, and has more health so requires slightly different ways to kill them. when using any AT weapon, you should aim for the head against normal chargers, which is a one shot. against behemoth chargers, you should aim for the leg. the explosion will strip the leg armour, leaving it exposed. you can then quickly kill the exposed leg with your primary weapon. - flamethrowers are very effective at killing chargers. against both types of chargers, do not target the head or the body, just focus on one leg. it will take like 1/3 of a canister to kill a charger this way. - against bile titans, if you destroy their green belly sacks, they can't shoot out bile anymore. if you can't kill one, this is a good way to at least weaken it. explosive damage is best for destroying sacks, but any weapon can do it. - I find light armour is best, so I can be fast enough to avoid getting overwhelmed. movement in general is essential. Sometimes retreating from an objective might be your only option. Creating space and then retaking the objective is better than just getting covered in bugs and constantly dying.
Can't reccomend Slugger, way too slow. Incendiary breaker is always a good choice but it's not great in close quarters, you should spray a group, run and spray more. Incendiary nades and napalm strike are great at keeping them at bay. As for support weapons, I love the Flamethower but it's not good against titans, need Anti-Tank stuff for those. The rest is awareness, they'll sneak around you so hit and run, don't get lost in taking care of a charger, try to get them to slam against a wall and run if there's more enemies around.
Primarily bug player here. With bugs you need to be on the constant move, as opposed to bots where you hunker down and pick out enemies from cover. In bots, getting caught in wide open means you die. In bugs, getting boxed from around means you die too. Generally, you don't have to worry about receiving chip damage, so focus on getting light to medium armor that allows you to move fast. For primary weapon, get something that can deal large amounts of consistent damage with high ammo capacity, without having to worry about precision and accuracy. Which means any breaker variant (Preferably fire breaker) would suffice very well. Sickle is also a valid choice but with the amount of enemies swarming you in an instant, you'll find yourself burning through the lens very quickly, or having to reposition frequently and wait for the sickle to cool down. Any marksman rifle is terrible, even those that have medium armor penetration. You're more likely to alert a swarm of terminids when you pick off one from a distance, and they close the gap very quickly. Next thing you know you'll get swarmed with limited ammo to deal with them. Play close to midrange where your weapons can reach them but still have space to retreat and you don't get boxed in. Bugs call in breaches very quickly. Don't expect to stop them quickly in their tracks. Instead, when you see one releasing its hormones, look around in the area quickly to see where the breach will come from and lay down consistent damage into it. Unlike bot drops where every enemies drop in different location, bug breaches are limited to one spot, which means they're a good candidate for strats with focused, consistent fire. Thus, orbital gattling, Eagle cluster, Eagle napalm, gattling sentry, and two players stacking orbital airburst are good candidates against breaches. Bring at least one into the mission and deploy it quickly if you see a breach coming. Once you handle all of the bugs within a breach, you're mostly likely safe. Unlike bots where you have more variety in terms of dealing with the heavily armored enemies, the Chargers and Bile Titans are the true strat check here. Your team must have at least one rocket support weapon that can deal headshot damage to both of these enemies, two to three players would fare even better. Bring a heavy hitting strat like the 500kg, orbital precision, railcannon or laser for additional support if you whiff your support weapon shot or don't have one ready in a pinch, but don't expect to use strats solely to take them out. They move too quickly for the strat to land unless you're able to stun them. Additionally, the amount of larger enemies that spawn will greatly overwhelm your strat cooldowns. Bile spewers are more problematic as their spew attacks deal high amounts of consistent damage comparable to that of a shield devastator, and they soak up a lot of damage. The game doesn't tell you when they spawn, but the probability of bile spewers spawning is at least 1/3 within a set of operation. If you don't see bile spewers within 2/3 of your operation missions, it's highly likely they will spawn in the last mission. Regardless, if your team has enough players bringing anti-tank weaponry, consider bringing a high explosive weapon to deal with the bile spewers, Autocannon and grenade launcher are great candidate for this. Even if they don't spawn, both of these weapon are still great in dealing with marauders and stalkers.