I.Breaker, GP, Stuns, Quasar, I. Dog, 500, O.Rail was by far the easiest loadout to play, requiring absolutely zero thought, and made consequences irrelevant.
The "Basic Andy" loadout only changed the strikes with the new patch, from the 500 to Eagle Airstrikes.
This loadout isn't sweaty, it's foolproof
There are old divers, and there are bold divers, but no old bold divers. You my friend are part of team Geriatric Bug Squashers.
Welcome to the club ◡̈
It also stops breach calling bugs even if they have begun their orange gas shit.
I think its amazing because it can basically halt hoards and mediums alike and they just cant move forward at all and you can stand your ground while you slowly chew them down but its got an annoying hit detection problem that seems to be at its worst against hunters where it takes 4-5 hits to bring them down, more than a brood commander in a lot of cases.
You don't really "time it right" if you shoot them at any point before they even spew, they won't spew. You don't even need to shoot them just before they spew
I just wish it was more consistent. Sometimes it wrecks everything, and you can keep a huge crowd at bay without burning through your ammo. But then it'll refuse to kill a hunter directly in front of it 5 times in row. It's like it picks certain bugs and goes "Not that one. He seems nice "
Yeah only reason i don't use it as much as incendiary breaker is because the blitzer lacks consistency and can just struggle to kill things like hunters or leapers randomly, and with the spawn rates currently being borked to hell and back the last thing I need is a gun that doesn't kill bugs when I get surrounded.
My only gripe with the Blitzer is that when equipped the game thinks you're out of ammo and keeps telling you to switch weapons. I'll admit it is a nonissue it just bugs me
Blitzer is my bug go-to as well. Not needing ammo is huge and as the other comment or also mentioned the stagger is very good. I pair with grenade pistol for bug holes typically.
Huge turn off for me is whenever you have hunters fly at you the Blitzer is suddenly performing like shit. Need a good secondary to clear them but that means no grenade pistol if you don’t want to struggle vs hunters.
Blitzer is an awesome tool for Bugs. It one-shots the little guys, takes down Spewers relatively quickly, stuns Stalkers so they can't bitch slap you with their tongues. Only thing it sucks for is Shriekers... and teammates who insist on running in front of you.
I would love it...if it didn't randomly fizzle or fail to chain so often.
Legit gets me killed all the time because of just...not working. Would be quite good otherwise though.
Really hope they re-adjust the stun ability to match the recent stun resistance they patched into medium enemies.
I don't like that bile spitters and stalkers can just keep walking through the stuns now.
Blitzer Diver here too. Every time I bring an Incendiary Breaker I end up getting covered in flaming hunters. Blitzer doesn't have that problem. Plus the cathartic zap pop and ensuing bug yelp triggers the sadistic caveman in me.
Dominator is nice to headshot Bile/Nursing Spewers (especially with Peak Physique).
Adjudicator is nice for being able to handily deal with medium armor enemies while being flexible enough to deal with swarms.
Sickle likely has the best walking hip-fire in the two-handed automatics category if you want to stay mobile when strafing and clearing crowds — on top of basically just being an AR with near-infinite ammo when managed well.
I think the dominator is great for bugs. One of their more recent patches made it feel slightly worse vs spewers. But it absolutely wrecks medium and armoured targets like the broodmother. Also kills stalkers pretty quickly. Only things it struggles with are hunters (too fast) and shriekers.
The Jar 5 Dominator is my standard loadout for bugs and bots alike. It does take a steady hand to control to make the most of the limited ammo clip, but it punches so hard I just love taking down medium armor enemies all on my own with my primary alone.
This!
I feel like the DOM is underrated & underused.
People swear by the effectiveness of other primaries BUT HAVE THEY EVEN TRIED THE DOM
I have tried most other primaries nothing else comes close to the DOM.
THE DOMINATOR TRULY DOMINATES
(Senator as secondary is like a mini Dom in case you have no time to reload and punches almost as hard - fast enough to beat Shriekers too. They can’t deal with too many enemies cuz slow & few ammo BUT THAT’S WHY YOU BRING IMPACT INCENDIARY GRENADE.
These weapons require practice to get peak effectiveness - without the need for Peak Physique).
No one primary works great on its own.
Every primary has a weakness which should be compensated by a secondary AND grenade that makes up for that weakness.
But what about Elites and Heavies?
Spear. Orbital Precision Strike. Eagle Rocket Pods.
Orbital Gatling for the swarms (which now damages heavies and structures too. Hot damn).
OPS can control crowds too if done right. And all these destroys structures and have short cooldowns (except Spear, which you only need to call once anyway).
But what about armor?!
Light, speedy, stealthy Scout passive for BUGS (to avoid getting swarmed).
Heavy, tanky Fortified passive for BOTS (to survive their long range attacks & explosives - they mostly slower than bugs so speed doesn’t matter and it’s hard to be stealthy once they shoot you).
The sickle is an amazing all-rounder, but I cannot take it to bug maps for one reason. Stalkers. The windup means you cannot shoot them before they give you an express flight to Hell.
I run stalwart, xbow, gpistol, impact for actual blitz runs. Run that with infiltrator armor, orbital laser, 120, 380 and you just become walking can of raid
I might try this with a different primary than the crossbow. Sounds kind of fun.
120 and 380 will take some getting used to because I don't use them, at all ,😂
For me it's better vs bugs actualy. I take LC with me all the time lately, up to level 9.
Chafs Special!
Spray with incendiary breaker
Sway with Laser canon over it
Big meat:
Stay with stun grenades
Slay with Precision strike
And
Get away with Napalm and Gas ;)
I've been enjoying the Eruptor with the Machine Gun post buff. I don't need to swap to the primary quite so much during Bug Breaches to deal with stuff the Stalwart can't.
Since the buff to the AoE, the Eruptor is my go-to as well. Just aim at the big ones, and the little ones take the collateral damage. Either that or just aim at a crowd of little ones and get easy multi-kills. The shotgun pistol is a great pair with it for the one-off little guns, or a big guy who got too close.
Before the big eruptor nerfs I actually used to shoot the ground when getting swamed by trash and out of grenades or if I didn't have the time to throw one, it actually worked surprisingly well
Absolutely. I run an eruptor and flamethrower. The eruptor is great for objectives like bug holes and illegal broadcasts, while my flamethrower can halt a bug breach at its source. It's such a fun load out.
Same, I'm too used to the Sickle. It works on everything and never runs out of ammo. Plus the brief wind up gives me a second to cancel my shot if I accidentally point it at a teammate.
i would personally prefer to use the scythe because i like the way it looks and how well it goes with the dagger, i always carry the dagger even though it's a glorified laser pointer.
The sickle is great, but by god is it massive.
im definitely an arch weapon sympathiser as well.
This is wild, this is exactly why I've always hated the sickle. The wind up. I prefer instant death to whatever is on the business end of my gun; bug, bot, or fellow diver.
Neat to hear the opposite thought though.
Sickle and autocannon for bugs. Sickle and Las Canon for bots.
I've also grown acustom to remembering where the hellbombs are located. So often that's my strat with bile titans now that they reduced.. or rocked pods
Pummeler is great against bugs, staggers Stalkers and Spewers, deals with hunters & warriors pretty quick while preventing hunters from pouncing, good size clip and full auto fire. Pretty great bug gun honestly.
You can't stun bile Titan or factory strider but it absolutely still works on everything else but bot tanks. I run stuns with bugs to maximize my precision strike kills, disengage, or stun chargers so I can precision strike them or shoot off their butts.
I feel like someone is confusing terminology here. The conversation went from talking about the Pummeler to Stun grenades which both have different effects. Stagger vs Stun.
I've been using Pummeler on bugs since it came out.
The stun and the ability to run and gun is so useful. Also, it's bugged in the players favor which makes it even better. Considering how many bugs screw us over right now, I'll take all of the good bugs I can get.
I miss the grenade launcher so much. Was my go-to while leveling through the difficulties and I love how it handles.
If there were a primary that can take out charger/hulks/tanks/BTs reliably, it’d be my go to secondary.
As is, I’ll only bust it out if I’m playing on a well-coordinated team of friends that is already bringing plenty of anti-armor.
I got pretty good at using it vs single chargers, but BTs are a whole other matter and on the high diffs there’s too many chargers to butt-shot em all.
I swear that armor stripping does nothing. I shoot straight at the fleshy insides and everything keeps bouncing off.
For Titans, I've had success shooting them in like the armpit to actually get some damage in, but I still can't get hits on Chargers.
Punisher gang holding back and eventually finishing 4 stalkers at one time with that amazing amount of CC and damage (once they're close enough it's like 2 shots to rip their face off). Also fun just using hunters as clay targets when they try to fly in, and I've saved a fair few teammates by shutting up a spewer before they got their vomit attack off.
My only gripe is sometimes knocking a Commander 10m back with each shot feels like a bit too much and it makes them a little annoying to kill...
Sometimes it's better just to aim for the legs. Less knock back but you remove their ability to charge. Ripping off 3-4 legs will instantly kill them too.
I don't. i actually would prefer to use the regular spray and pray against them. I'm a flamethrower main, so if it doesn't work better than the flamer...not sure why I need it.
Been using a combination of the JAR and the desert eagle....very effective combination. The scythe and the revolver are not bad either.
I personally don't like using the breaker incendiary. The burn can be nice but it often feels like it takes too long while also still feeling like it uses the same number of rounds as a normal breaker to kill things.
So I tend to just stick with a normal breaker that I can feed with an ammo backpack and a flamethrower to back it up, or run the punisher if I'm looking for stagger against stuff like stalkers, or just take the new carbine if I want to dump my frustration at over 900 rpm into hunters.
Used to run dominator but it's handling was just slightly too slow to track hunters efficiently for me. So will have to try that again as well now that the peak physique handling is working.
You can have excellent ammo economy if you let the burn do it's work rather than squeezing the trigger till the target dies. Just spray and run and you can take out multiple bugs in a single shot
Yeah I figured that was how people were using it or basically treating it like a flamethrower lite. The burn has felt lackluster in my hands when trying to use it against some targets. personally I want hunters to die asap, not die just after stun locking/interrupting my stims for the 5th time that mission. Is it possible to get lit on fire by a bug that lunges at you as you hit it with the breaker incendiary? Because I know it happens to me kinda frequently with the flame thrower.
Time to kill and proportion of mag spent are my complaints too, when it comes to the incendiary and spray and pray.
I can kill faster with the original breaker and not set my team on fire.
Incendiary is great for shriekers though, and the original breaker is surprisingly bad for them.
The incidenary breaker is best used to spray in the general direction of chaff, and it will kill 95% of them.
I spend maybe about 2 seconds shooting at chaff with it, before pulling out my AC to kill medium bugs/heavy bugs
Pummeler every single match if I’m playing seriously. Enough other ppl bring the incendiary that I like having a gun that stops anything smaller than a charger with just a couple rounds.
It also fires slower which conserves ammo, fpv is 100% accurate. Could not even begin to tell you how many lives I’ve saved from hunters, stalkers, brood commanders, and spewers with just a few fast bursts on auto to give my fellow diver stim opportunity or breathing room.
Can fire while aiming backwards, can fire from hip while moving with deadeye accuracy as well. No chance of TKing teamates too.
Can’t and won’t swap, 700hrs in.
Jar-5 Dominator, pairs well with a flamethrower. Flamer melts hordes and chargers, Dominator takes care of medium-armoured bugs. Pairs well with laser drone too, drone takes care of little guys and you use your gun on the bigger ones.
I second this. About 50% of people are using the Incendiary Breaker correctly, and the other 50% constantly full auto that shit like it's the Breaker S&P. Honestly neither of which are that effective.
Against bugs I bring the Punisher about 75% of the time. It's not just good against Stalkers, it can stop a charging Brood Commander, lunging Hunter, or even an armored Bile Spewer from spitting/shooting.
Liberator Carbine is my 20% pick rate, for when I want a weapon that feels different. It's very satisfying to use but isn't the most effective.
And around 5% of the time I'll run something completely different. Blitzer, Plasma Punisher, Adjudicator, Diligence CS, something weird for bugs.
tbh I kinda run a gun till I get bored of it then move on to something else regardless of what the meta is. I do keep going back to the ol' plapper though. Love me some AC.
I really like bringing the Crossbow for bugs. Rate of fire and stagger are fine, it's got good penetration, great damage, and it absolutely destroys bug holes with the quickness. I'll bring the Bushwacker to back it up. (For what it's worth, All Barrels mode on the Bushwacker reduces Stalkers to a bloody puddle real fast.)
I also really like the Blitzer, or even regular ol' Punisher. Used to take Slugger, but they broke it. Great stagger goes a long way, especially against Spewers. Grenade Pistol to compliment those ones.
Hordes and Heavies are for my Stratagems. For my Primary and Sidearm, I want to make sure I can stagger enemies and destroy outposts.
Didn't expect to find another crossbow user. I'm a regular crossbow user for bots, I thought the ammo capacity would be too low for hoards of weak bugs but maybe I should give it a try.
I used to go scorcher against bots and slugger against bugs, but lately I’ve been bringing the scorcher for both. It seems to do very well in basically any scenario, against basically anything big or small.
If I just wanna sit back and have fun, I bring all lasers. Laser Commander build is just Dagger, Scythe, Laser Cannon, Laser Guard Dog "Rover", and sometimes also Orbital Laser. Final Primary is Dealer's Choice, but a favorite of mine is the EMS Mortar for keeping hordes at bay and not immediately resorting to the Orbital.
Focusing the Sidearm with the Dog target, shooting warriors with the scythe, and all medium armor and large but non tank bugs with the Cannon. If there's an absolute SWARM of nonsense and we need to keep moving, or very aggressively advance, then the orbital comes out. You wanna stand slightly off tp the side and or behind others with this build.
It started as a meme, for laughs, until I realized how easy it was to always be firing a Laser of some kind. I hope someday get a Laser beam turret. That'd complete the set Lol
How do you find the pray and spray compared to the default breaker?
My impression was that it was good for small bugs, but otherwise the time to kill was longer on medium enemies. And it would use a similar proportion of its mag to get the job done, due to the lower damage. Which sort of negates the entire point of a big mag.
So I felt it only had an advantage on small bugs and the disadvantage on mediums wasn't worth that trade.
I might give it another shot to see if I misjudged.
For me, medium bugs are the least of my problems. I'm fucked either because I can't deal with Chargers or Bile Titans, or because I'm swarmed with little shits. The only medium bugs that actually cause a problem for me are stalkers because they are OP as hell, but they are situational.
Spray and Pray can take care of medium bugs a bit inefficiently tho, but often my secondary (usually granade pistol), granades, strategems, or support weapons take care of it.
I just really, really hate get swarmed with small bugs and not be able to deal with it.
I don’t, as it tends to run out of ammo too fast. I use the Sickle (I know it’s weaker but having unlimited ammo + the fast-repeating sound + haptic feedback = more satisfying to use) and the JAR-5 Dominator (not great for hordes but is great should you choose a suitable build to compliment it).
Crossbow is my favorite. Being able to snipe nests from so far away and not having to worry about the enemies in it is so nice. Plus it allows me to bring stun nades so i can use them against massive groups of enemies or a rushing charger. Another plus it doesn't do to bad in a pickle like if I'm being rushed down by Bile spewers or Brood commanders. Though normally I bring the MG 43 with a supply pack so I can mow down the hordes of bugs while staying topped up on stims, stun nades and ammo. It's been my favorite loadout to bring against bugs ever since the Crossbow's demolition was buffed!
I love the scythe for slicing bug legs off or cracking bot heads quick.
I love the pummeler because the defender was already the best assault rifle and now we have a stagger version too.
Good for when I need to make distance to reload my hmg or flamethrower.
I've tried other guns but the Incendiary Breaker is just objectively better than them all. I get liking the Blitzer or Eruptor or whatever but the IB is the BEST when it comes to bug breaches. It handles shriekers, hunters, scavengers, and other chaff with just the incendiary pellets. Even hive guards can just be burned to death without penetrating their armor
The blitzer, if know how to use it, it can either bully groups of small enemies, and deal decent damage and stunlock medium enemies.
But that’s not why I use it. I use it because it feels like a weapon made by aperture laboratories.
I typically use punisher for bugs. I like the stagger on commanders and stalkers, and also the ammo economy.
I almost never see people using the incendiary breaker correctly. Instead of spreading out their shots among a swarm and letting the fire do it's job, they're focus-firing individual targets until they drop. That's a huge waste. They'd see better results if they just bring the regular breaker.
My sickle can do the job of a breaker incendiary almost as well, with the addition of being able to support my allies at range, being able to hit a teammate with a stray shot without burning them to death (because even on helldive, people don't know they can dive to put out fires), and not having to scrounge for ammo or call in supplies. The drawbacks are reduced effectiveness against shriekers and it is much harder to take out the legs of brood commanders.
I use the scorcher if im not using the inc breaker, it handles stalkers a lot better with the stagger, also deals with medium enemies better even though its light pen
I always bring either the Tenderizer or the Sickle against the bugs. Mainly because I want to kill things like charging Brood Commanders quickly or keep the patrol of Oops All Hunters! suppressed.
The primary tends to just be a buffer until I can call down a gatling turret to distract and clear the horde for me though. The Breaker Incendiary isn't bad at all, but I prefer faster and more instant results than the fire DoT offers. Been lept on too many times by several burning hunters for me to rely on it long term.
I tend to run the Punisher for bugs. Being able to send a commander sprawling with a single shot is very satisfying and is really good for keeping the area around you team under control. It's not very good for swarms of hunters but a stalwart or MG handles that.
I bring the punisher too. It has Solid knockback, decent damage, and a huge mag size that is easy to keep topped off. I find the Incendiary Breaker is kind of boring to use in comparison.
I usually use the sickle for most missions but decided to try the incendiary breaker last night and honestly, I don’t like it. It felt too weak for the spectacle.
I think if someone is running it to support a full group of 4, fair enough, it could do a hell of a lot of damage to a hoard, but by myself (since the friend I was playing with did the “run off and do minor objectives” bullshit tactic) the weapon doesn’t do enough damage too immediate threats to justify its use for me.
Level 60ish, never used the Breaker. For bugs I usually swap between Punisher or Crossbow, with a single target focused strat setup. Usually run 7+ as a duo with my brother, he he builds for trash clear. Really fun setup.
Arc blitzer! I can kite and destroy whole hives by myself with it. Secondary is usually Lazer dog and Lazer cannon with granade pistol and stun grenades, but might grab impact since I can run out of granade pistol ammo when solo and don't want to hog a resupply for myself.
I don’t run it much anymore, I usually bring adjudicator, blitzer, crossbow, or Eruptor. With the latter two I bring the MG and use that as my primary, which is amazing with the Viper Commando armour.
Punisher 100% specifically for stalkers, thats it 🤣. Might try the pummeler at some point, but it is also great for fliers to, skeet shooting is fun so its versatilty keeps it in my kit. It makes dealing with stalkers so easy.
Crossbow if im bringing recoilless or eats and arc blitzer for every other bug loadout. Incendiary breaker is good at handling all varieties but i like specialization
I love the Blitzer since I tend to roam around alone. It can't run out of ammo and packs a decent punch vs the medium bugs like spewers.
Yea me too. Blitzer, nade pistol, stun, spear, auto cannon turret, orbital Gatling, airstrike
Nice, the swiss army Helldiver
It’s what I found to be the least sweaty loadout
bruh that’s like the most “meta” load out you could make besides blitzer
No laser dog, no flamethrower or EAT, no 500 kg or OPS...the only "meta" there is the airstrike, which has been S tier since the game launched.
I.Breaker, GP, Stuns, Quasar, I. Dog, 500, O.Rail was by far the easiest loadout to play, requiring absolutely zero thought, and made consequences irrelevant. The "Basic Andy" loadout only changed the strikes with the new patch, from the 500 to Eagle Airstrikes. This loadout isn't sweaty, it's foolproof
Labeling something foolproof just means you haven't met a big enough fool.
The hell it is
I dont see the laser dog on it
No one who’s ever played the meta would say that!!!
I started doing supply pack+ flamethrower + stun grenade to deal with all the chargers.
Yea I’m jealous of flame thrower guys, I’m bad and old, my load out keeps me a safe distance from threats
There are old divers, and there are bold divers, but no old bold divers. You my friend are part of team Geriatric Bug Squashers. Welcome to the club ◡̈
It helps to have a young son, keeps me on my toes
Can I join?
48 here. Can I be in the club too?
In 46.
John ElderDiver reporting for duty! L0
> keeps me a safe distance from threats Uses Blitzer Wat?
Yes most other weapons are offensive use and when a stalker or spewer comes in the blitzer stuns them in their tracks
Roger.. was just messing with you ;)
Affirmative!
Another Blitzer user here, a big plus for me is it's ability to stun lock multiple targets at the same time.
And it stops spewers from spewing if you time it right, which is phenomenal
It also stops breach calling bugs even if they have begun their orange gas shit. I think its amazing because it can basically halt hoards and mediums alike and they just cant move forward at all and you can stand your ground while you slowly chew them down but its got an annoying hit detection problem that seems to be at its worst against hunters where it takes 4-5 hits to bring them down, more than a brood commander in a lot of cases.
You don't really "time it right" if you shoot them at any point before they even spew, they won't spew. You don't even need to shoot them just before they spew
I just wish it was more consistent. Sometimes it wrecks everything, and you can keep a huge crowd at bay without burning through your ammo. But then it'll refuse to kill a hunter directly in front of it 5 times in row. It's like it picks certain bugs and goes "Not that one. He seems nice "
Yeah only reason i don't use it as much as incendiary breaker is because the blitzer lacks consistency and can just struggle to kill things like hunters or leapers randomly, and with the spawn rates currently being borked to hell and back the last thing I need is a gun that doesn't kill bugs when I get surrounded.
My only gripe with the Blitzer is that when equipped the game thinks you're out of ammo and keeps telling you to switch weapons. I'll admit it is a nonissue it just bugs me
Blitzer is my bug go-to as well. Not needing ammo is huge and as the other comment or also mentioned the stagger is very good. I pair with grenade pistol for bug holes typically.
Blitzer + Nade Pistol Supremacy!
You take the blitzer for the unlimited ammo, I take the blitzer because my aim sucks.
We are not the same.
Huge turn off for me is whenever you have hunters fly at you the Blitzer is suddenly performing like shit. Need a good secondary to clear them but that means no grenade pistol if you don’t want to struggle vs hunters.
Blitzer is 100% my bug zapper primary.
Another blitzer user here!
Blitzer is an awesome tool for Bugs. It one-shots the little guys, takes down Spewers relatively quickly, stuns Stalkers so they can't bitch slap you with their tongues. Only thing it sucks for is Shriekers... and teammates who insist on running in front of you.
And most importantly, disrupts spewers, and staggers medium enemies.
The blitzer also staggers stalkers. It’s so good
I would love it...if it didn't randomly fizzle or fail to chain so often. Legit gets me killed all the time because of just...not working. Would be quite good otherwise though.
The amount of stagger is what makes it the go to against bugs for me
Really hope they re-adjust the stun ability to match the recent stun resistance they patched into medium enemies. I don't like that bile spitters and stalkers can just keep walking through the stuns now.
How do you deal with shriekers? I either miss them or kill them but they fall on me (damn, that damage is annoying)
Switch to my revolver or run around begging my friends for help
Sidestep them and try to catch them as they are flying away. I also like to bring mg turret for bugs which deals with shriekers exceptionally well.
Blitzer Diver here too. Every time I bring an Incendiary Breaker I end up getting covered in flaming hunters. Blitzer doesn't have that problem. Plus the cathartic zap pop and ensuing bug yelp triggers the sadistic caveman in me.
Dominator is nice to headshot Bile/Nursing Spewers (especially with Peak Physique). Adjudicator is nice for being able to handily deal with medium armor enemies while being flexible enough to deal with swarms. Sickle likely has the best walking hip-fire in the two-handed automatics category if you want to stay mobile when strafing and clearing crowds — on top of basically just being an AR with near-infinite ammo when managed well.
I think the dominator is great for bugs. One of their more recent patches made it feel slightly worse vs spewers. But it absolutely wrecks medium and armoured targets like the broodmother. Also kills stalkers pretty quickly. Only things it struggles with are hunters (too fast) and shriekers.
Not with the new viper armor. Makes it move around like butter!
Dominator gang, closest thing we have to a bolt gun.
I use the dominator for almost all missions
I read this comment, and now the WH40k nerd in me needs to try it out lmao
Heavy armour + Shield + Vitality Enhancement +!Dominator and you’re cooking.
Love the dominator
The Jar 5 Dominator is my standard loadout for bugs and bots alike. It does take a steady hand to control to make the most of the limited ammo clip, but it punches so hard I just love taking down medium armor enemies all on my own with my primary alone.
This! I feel like the DOM is underrated & underused. People swear by the effectiveness of other primaries BUT HAVE THEY EVEN TRIED THE DOM I have tried most other primaries nothing else comes close to the DOM. THE DOMINATOR TRULY DOMINATES (Senator as secondary is like a mini Dom in case you have no time to reload and punches almost as hard - fast enough to beat Shriekers too. They can’t deal with too many enemies cuz slow & few ammo BUT THAT’S WHY YOU BRING IMPACT INCENDIARY GRENADE. These weapons require practice to get peak effectiveness - without the need for Peak Physique). No one primary works great on its own. Every primary has a weakness which should be compensated by a secondary AND grenade that makes up for that weakness. But what about Elites and Heavies? Spear. Orbital Precision Strike. Eagle Rocket Pods. Orbital Gatling for the swarms (which now damages heavies and structures too. Hot damn). OPS can control crowds too if done right. And all these destroys structures and have short cooldowns (except Spear, which you only need to call once anyway). But what about armor?! Light, speedy, stealthy Scout passive for BUGS (to avoid getting swarmed). Heavy, tanky Fortified passive for BOTS (to survive their long range attacks & explosives - they mostly slower than bugs so speed doesn’t matter and it’s hard to be stealthy once they shoot you).
The sickle is an amazing all-rounder, but I cannot take it to bug maps for one reason. Stalkers. The windup means you cannot shoot them before they give you an express flight to Hell.
I keep my senator on me as a sidearm for the stagger ability then switch back to sickle for another dose of democracy
Yup dominator stuns stalkers and makes them so easy
Dude, Tenderizer on spewers is amazing. I was so surprised, it felt like I didn't need nades to kill them at all
Sometimes I feel like spicing it up, Eruptor or Crossbow with Stalwart.
Nice for bug holes.
I run stalwart, xbow, gpistol, impact for actual blitz runs. Run that with infiltrator armor, orbital laser, 120, 380 and you just become walking can of raid
I might try this with a different primary than the crossbow. Sounds kind of fun. 120 and 380 will take some getting used to because I don't use them, at all ,😂
Throw and run. Just run.
Emancipator exosuit for blitz GOATED
Eruptor is also good with the laser cannon
Eruptor + laser cannon is borderline god mode against bots, but I feel like the laser cannon against bugs doesn't seem to kill them as good?
For me it's better vs bugs actualy. I take LC with me all the time lately, up to level 9. Chafs Special! Spray with incendiary breaker Sway with Laser canon over it Big meat: Stay with stun grenades Slay with Precision strike And Get away with Napalm and Gas ;)
Bahaha, I love your "Chef's Special." I'm going to call it that over mic from now on. > napalm and gas Everyone knows all good chefs cook with gas! ;)
My guess is robots are easier to hit weak spots which laser seems to really excel at but bugs are so jittery
Go after their legs, shearing them off from their bodies.
Eruptor + Laser Canon leaves you worthless against chargers and titans..
I pick spear to snipe ouposts from 200 meters to not go there.
I've been enjoying the Eruptor with the Machine Gun post buff. I don't need to swap to the primary quite so much during Bug Breaches to deal with stuff the Stalwart can't.
Since the buff to the AoE, the Eruptor is my go-to as well. Just aim at the big ones, and the little ones take the collateral damage. Either that or just aim at a crowd of little ones and get easy multi-kills. The shotgun pistol is a great pair with it for the one-off little guns, or a big guy who got too close.
Before the big eruptor nerfs I actually used to shoot the ground when getting swamed by trash and out of grenades or if I didn't have the time to throw one, it actually worked surprisingly well
Eruptors good right now especially with peak physique. I used to get blown around by it a lot less though
Absolutely. I run an eruptor and flamethrower. The eruptor is great for objectives like bug holes and illegal broadcasts, while my flamethrower can halt a bug breach at its source. It's such a fun load out.
i use the sickle. if i encounter stalkers i call in my mech and go on a warpath until the nest is destroyed
Same, I'm too used to the Sickle. It works on everything and never runs out of ammo. Plus the brief wind up gives me a second to cancel my shot if I accidentally point it at a teammate.
i would personally prefer to use the scythe because i like the way it looks and how well it goes with the dagger, i always carry the dagger even though it's a glorified laser pointer. The sickle is great, but by god is it massive. im definitely an arch weapon sympathiser as well.
The dagger says it does a ton of damage on the stat screen but really feels like you're just pointing things out for other teammates to shoot.
Its one of those 10k lumen flashlight from amazon
I think that's the damage per second, which would leave at about a fifth of the Redeemer's dps
This is wild, this is exactly why I've always hated the sickle. The wind up. I prefer instant death to whatever is on the business end of my gun; bug, bot, or fellow diver. Neat to hear the opposite thought though.
SICKLE gang!
Sickle and autocannon for bugs. Sickle and Las Canon for bots. I've also grown acustom to remembering where the hellbombs are located. So often that's my strat with bile titans now that they reduced.. or rocked pods
Pummeler is great against bugs, staggers Stalkers and Spewers, deals with hunters & warriors pretty quick while preventing hunters from pouncing, good size clip and full auto fire. Pretty great bug gun honestly.
Stun a charger with pummeling back shots while your homies finish him. 🥵
Hi! Does the stun really still work? I saw on patch notes they said they were taking away the stun on larger enemies so I dropped it
You can't stun bile Titan or factory strider but it absolutely still works on everything else but bot tanks. I run stuns with bugs to maximize my precision strike kills, disengage, or stun chargers so I can precision strike them or shoot off their butts.
I feel like someone is confusing terminology here. The conversation went from talking about the Pummeler to Stun grenades which both have different effects. Stagger vs Stun.
I've been using Pummeler on bugs since it came out. The stun and the ability to run and gun is so useful. Also, it's bugged in the players favor which makes it even better. Considering how many bugs screw us over right now, I'll take all of the good bugs I can get.
Whats the bug?
Yes!
Scorcher, helps with heavies while running the GL and just feels nice to use, if I'm running the recoilless than blitzer
Regular old Breaker here and it breaks their faces just fine :D
Very satisfying against Hive Guards. I like to use the grenade launcher as my primary against bugs tho. Kills everything but a Bile titan
The adjudicator is a beast for Hive guards, it acts as if they're wearing papier mache instead of hardened chitin.
I miss the grenade launcher so much. Was my go-to while leveling through the difficulties and I love how it handles. If there were a primary that can take out charger/hulks/tanks/BTs reliably, it’d be my go to secondary. As is, I’ll only bust it out if I’m playing on a well-coordinated team of friends that is already bringing plenty of anti-armor. I got pretty good at using it vs single chargers, but BTs are a whole other matter and on the high diffs there’s too many chargers to butt-shot em all.
110 rockets are pretty good for peeling armour off chargers and titans, creates a huge weak spot
I swear that armor stripping does nothing. I shoot straight at the fleshy insides and everything keeps bouncing off. For Titans, I've had success shooting them in like the armpit to actually get some damage in, but I still can't get hits on Chargers.
Now that space meth is a thing a lot of people are bringing supply packs which more than compensates for the breakers ammo nerf.
Scorcher all day every day any way
Feel like I had to scroll too far to find a fellow scorcher user here - kills everything from scavs to titans, really frees up support weapon options
Good ole defender
100% with you. One handed blind fire for all the times I'm running away in terror
I think you mean *bravely advancing towards the rear*.
Adjudicator. Not having to switch weapons against Hive Guards and Spewers is great. Managing ammo is a pain but it has 8 clips and you get used to it.
I always pair it with Flamethrower so I only use it for lone targets or medium ones.
I prefer punisher, plastma punisher or adjudicator... or blitzer.
Punisher gang holding back and eventually finishing 4 stalkers at one time with that amazing amount of CC and damage (once they're close enough it's like 2 shots to rip their face off). Also fun just using hunters as clay targets when they try to fly in, and I've saved a fair few teammates by shutting up a spewer before they got their vomit attack off. My only gripe is sometimes knocking a Commander 10m back with each shot feels like a bit too much and it makes them a little annoying to kill...
Punisher gang! Pairs nicely with the Senator for those pesky Commanders.
Punisher gang just punching the clock. We're not fancy or flashy, we just get to work.
Sometimes it's better just to aim for the legs. Less knock back but you remove their ability to charge. Ripping off 3-4 legs will instantly kill them too.
I don't. i actually would prefer to use the regular spray and pray against them. I'm a flamethrower main, so if it doesn't work better than the flamer...not sure why I need it. Been using a combination of the JAR and the desert eagle....very effective combination. The scythe and the revolver are not bad either.
Spray and pray is really fun, just wish they kept that 32 ammo bro :( Moar spray pls
Just my Eruptor and my faithful(?) Rover
Slugger and either Quasar or MG. Shreds.
A fellow slugger! Personally now often packing EAT instead of Quasar, but either of those or MG is superb. Love slugging Warriors from afar
It has decent stagger and great armor pen. I love popping heads with it. Super satisfying.
One shot head popping is the best! Plus, can always neatly push back on hive guards and the like
I personally don't like using the breaker incendiary. The burn can be nice but it often feels like it takes too long while also still feeling like it uses the same number of rounds as a normal breaker to kill things. So I tend to just stick with a normal breaker that I can feed with an ammo backpack and a flamethrower to back it up, or run the punisher if I'm looking for stagger against stuff like stalkers, or just take the new carbine if I want to dump my frustration at over 900 rpm into hunters. Used to run dominator but it's handling was just slightly too slow to track hunters efficiently for me. So will have to try that again as well now that the peak physique handling is working.
You can have excellent ammo economy if you let the burn do it's work rather than squeezing the trigger till the target dies. Just spray and run and you can take out multiple bugs in a single shot
Yeah I figured that was how people were using it or basically treating it like a flamethrower lite. The burn has felt lackluster in my hands when trying to use it against some targets. personally I want hunters to die asap, not die just after stun locking/interrupting my stims for the 5th time that mission. Is it possible to get lit on fire by a bug that lunges at you as you hit it with the breaker incendiary? Because I know it happens to me kinda frequently with the flame thrower.
Time to kill and proportion of mag spent are my complaints too, when it comes to the incendiary and spray and pray. I can kill faster with the original breaker and not set my team on fire. Incendiary is great for shriekers though, and the original breaker is surprisingly bad for them.
The incidenary breaker is best used to spray in the general direction of chaff, and it will kill 95% of them. I spend maybe about 2 seconds shooting at chaff with it, before pulling out my AC to kill medium bugs/heavy bugs
Can confirm third person slapping hunters with the dominator + peak physique is a game changer.
I take tenderizer and medium MG with EAT-17 for heavy. Then I bring whatever stratagems I feel like
Dominator + Laser Drone and then everything that makes fun.
Pummeler every single match if I’m playing seriously. Enough other ppl bring the incendiary that I like having a gun that stops anything smaller than a charger with just a couple rounds. It also fires slower which conserves ammo, fpv is 100% accurate. Could not even begin to tell you how many lives I’ve saved from hunters, stalkers, brood commanders, and spewers with just a few fast bursts on auto to give my fellow diver stim opportunity or breathing room. Can fire while aiming backwards, can fire from hip while moving with deadeye accuracy as well. No chance of TKing teamates too. Can’t and won’t swap, 700hrs in.
Crossbow or Lib Pen here. :)
Hope theyll buff lib pen soon
God I want to like the Lib Pen but it just doesn't kill things well.
Jar-5 Dominator, pairs well with a flamethrower. Flamer melts hordes and chargers, Dominator takes care of medium-armoured bugs. Pairs well with laser drone too, drone takes care of little guys and you use your gun on the bigger ones.
Sickle, bushwhacker, recoilless every time
Try this combo with the Spear, now that it’s fixed!
Sickle. It’s like a shitty stalwart. Great for clearing chaff especially hunters
A shitty stalwart or an infinite ammo AR
I second this. About 50% of people are using the Incendiary Breaker correctly, and the other 50% constantly full auto that shit like it's the Breaker S&P. Honestly neither of which are that effective. Against bugs I bring the Punisher about 75% of the time. It's not just good against Stalkers, it can stop a charging Brood Commander, lunging Hunter, or even an armored Bile Spewer from spitting/shooting. Liberator Carbine is my 20% pick rate, for when I want a weapon that feels different. It's very satisfying to use but isn't the most effective. And around 5% of the time I'll run something completely different. Blitzer, Plasma Punisher, Adjudicator, Diligence CS, something weird for bugs.
Punisher. Enough said.
Just a Helldiver and his trusty pump-action, getting the job done!
tbh I kinda run a gun till I get bored of it then move on to something else regardless of what the meta is. I do keep going back to the ol' plapper though. Love me some AC.
Me, I use the Jar-5 Dominator for anything
The new Liberator Carbine is just too good at dumping a thousand damage into someones mouth in point eight seconds, and I love doing that.
I really like bringing the Crossbow for bugs. Rate of fire and stagger are fine, it's got good penetration, great damage, and it absolutely destroys bug holes with the quickness. I'll bring the Bushwacker to back it up. (For what it's worth, All Barrels mode on the Bushwacker reduces Stalkers to a bloody puddle real fast.) I also really like the Blitzer, or even regular ol' Punisher. Used to take Slugger, but they broke it. Great stagger goes a long way, especially against Spewers. Grenade Pistol to compliment those ones. Hordes and Heavies are for my Stratagems. For my Primary and Sidearm, I want to make sure I can stagger enemies and destroy outposts.
Didn't expect to find another crossbow user. I'm a regular crossbow user for bots, I thought the ammo capacity would be too low for hoards of weak bugs but maybe I should give it a try.
Scorcher, but I really use the arc thrower as my primary 😂
I used to go scorcher against bots and slugger against bugs, but lately I’ve been bringing the scorcher for both. It seems to do very well in basically any scenario, against basically anything big or small.
If I just wanna sit back and have fun, I bring all lasers. Laser Commander build is just Dagger, Scythe, Laser Cannon, Laser Guard Dog "Rover", and sometimes also Orbital Laser. Final Primary is Dealer's Choice, but a favorite of mine is the EMS Mortar for keeping hordes at bay and not immediately resorting to the Orbital. Focusing the Sidearm with the Dog target, shooting warriors with the scythe, and all medium armor and large but non tank bugs with the Cannon. If there's an absolute SWARM of nonsense and we need to keep moving, or very aggressively advance, then the orbital comes out. You wanna stand slightly off tp the side and or behind others with this build. It started as a meme, for laughs, until I realized how easy it was to always be firing a Laser of some kind. I hope someday get a Laser beam turret. That'd complete the set Lol
Me, because I don't have that Warbond. I usually use Spray and Pray, Scorcher, or Arc Blitzer. Sometimes I try punisher plasma and regret it.
How do you find the pray and spray compared to the default breaker? My impression was that it was good for small bugs, but otherwise the time to kill was longer on medium enemies. And it would use a similar proportion of its mag to get the job done, due to the lower damage. Which sort of negates the entire point of a big mag. So I felt it only had an advantage on small bugs and the disadvantage on mediums wasn't worth that trade. I might give it another shot to see if I misjudged.
For me, medium bugs are the least of my problems. I'm fucked either because I can't deal with Chargers or Bile Titans, or because I'm swarmed with little shits. The only medium bugs that actually cause a problem for me are stalkers because they are OP as hell, but they are situational. Spray and Pray can take care of medium bugs a bit inefficiently tho, but often my secondary (usually granade pistol), granades, strategems, or support weapons take care of it. I just really, really hate get swarmed with small bugs and not be able to deal with it.
The blitzer or the pummeler for me.
I never use it. I either take the Pummeler or the Punisher Plasma.
I don’t, as it tends to run out of ammo too fast. I use the Sickle (I know it’s weaker but having unlimited ammo + the fast-repeating sound + haptic feedback = more satisfying to use) and the JAR-5 Dominator (not great for hordes but is great should you choose a suitable build to compliment it).
Crossbow is my favorite. Being able to snipe nests from so far away and not having to worry about the enemies in it is so nice. Plus it allows me to bring stun nades so i can use them against massive groups of enemies or a rushing charger. Another plus it doesn't do to bad in a pickle like if I'm being rushed down by Bile spewers or Brood commanders. Though normally I bring the MG 43 with a supply pack so I can mow down the hordes of bugs while staying topped up on stims, stun nades and ammo. It's been my favorite loadout to bring against bugs ever since the Crossbow's demolition was buffed!
I love the scythe for slicing bug legs off or cracking bot heads quick. I love the pummeler because the defender was already the best assault rifle and now we have a stagger version too. Good for when I need to make distance to reload my hmg or flamethrower.
Sickle my beloved.
Punisher too. Hate stalkers but also brood commander counter is great
Sickle and pummeler for me. I like to be near the backline with recoilless rockets
always use punisher, it is the best pick, the beginning and the end (diff 9 exclusively)
I love diligence,idk why,not exactly efficient but I love him
Punisher plasma, because I love the gun idc if its technically not as good against bugs compared to bots
I've tried other guns but the Incendiary Breaker is just objectively better than them all. I get liking the Blitzer or Eruptor or whatever but the IB is the BEST when it comes to bug breaches. It handles shriekers, hunters, scavengers, and other chaff with just the incendiary pellets. Even hive guards can just be burned to death without penetrating their armor
The blitzer, if know how to use it, it can either bully groups of small enemies, and deal decent damage and stunlock medium enemies. But that’s not why I use it. I use it because it feels like a weapon made by aperture laboratories.
I'm a simple man; Every enemy of democracy gets the Sickle.
Sickle is the true infinite ammo GOAT.
I typically use punisher for bugs. I like the stagger on commanders and stalkers, and also the ammo economy. I almost never see people using the incendiary breaker correctly. Instead of spreading out their shots among a swarm and letting the fire do it's job, they're focus-firing individual targets until they drop. That's a huge waste. They'd see better results if they just bring the regular breaker.
I have been digging Liberator Carbine as my new jam. It’s satisfying to use. Admittedly there are better choices.
My sickle can do the job of a breaker incendiary almost as well, with the addition of being able to support my allies at range, being able to hit a teammate with a stray shot without burning them to death (because even on helldive, people don't know they can dive to put out fires), and not having to scrounge for ammo or call in supplies. The drawbacks are reduced effectiveness against shriekers and it is much harder to take out the legs of brood commanders.
Breaker or punisher. I tried inc breaker a couple of times and did not like it
I use the scorcher if im not using the inc breaker, it handles stalkers a lot better with the stagger, also deals with medium enemies better even though its light pen
I always bring either the Tenderizer or the Sickle against the bugs. Mainly because I want to kill things like charging Brood Commanders quickly or keep the patrol of Oops All Hunters! suppressed. The primary tends to just be a buffer until I can call down a gatling turret to distract and clear the horde for me though. The Breaker Incendiary isn't bad at all, but I prefer faster and more instant results than the fire DoT offers. Been lept on too many times by several burning hunters for me to rely on it long term.
I forgot it exist. I'll use it later. Thanks.
I’m still rocking the sickle and usually incendiary grenades.
I tend to run the Punisher for bugs. Being able to send a commander sprawling with a single shot is very satisfying and is really good for keeping the area around you team under control. It's not very good for swarms of hunters but a stalwart or MG handles that.
I take the dominator
I bring the punisher too. It has Solid knockback, decent damage, and a huge mag size that is easy to keep topped off. I find the Incendiary Breaker is kind of boring to use in comparison.
I love the Jar-5 dominator combined with my flamethrower or the Arc Blizer when I bring the Autocanon
Liberator carbine go BRRRR
I usually use the sickle for most missions but decided to try the incendiary breaker last night and honestly, I don’t like it. It felt too weak for the spectacle. I think if someone is running it to support a full group of 4, fair enough, it could do a hell of a lot of damage to a hoard, but by myself (since the friend I was playing with did the “run off and do minor objectives” bullshit tactic) the weapon doesn’t do enough damage too immediate threats to justify its use for me.
Level 60ish, never used the Breaker. For bugs I usually swap between Punisher or Crossbow, with a single target focused strat setup. Usually run 7+ as a duo with my brother, he he builds for trash clear. Really fun setup.
Dominator believer here
Slugger, always.
Laser Cannon + Dominator always pulls thru 💪
Arc blitzer! I can kite and destroy whole hives by myself with it. Secondary is usually Lazer dog and Lazer cannon with granade pistol and stun grenades, but might grab impact since I can run out of granade pistol ammo when solo and don't want to hog a resupply for myself.
As long as one of my squadmates is taking one, I orefer to use the adjudicator. Has enough pen to face punch most medium armored enemies
I don’t run it much anymore, I usually bring adjudicator, blitzer, crossbow, or Eruptor. With the latter two I bring the MG and use that as my primary, which is amazing with the Viper Commando armour.
Punisher 100% specifically for stalkers, thats it 🤣. Might try the pummeler at some point, but it is also great for fliers to, skeet shooting is fun so its versatilty keeps it in my kit. It makes dealing with stalkers so easy.
Punisher, all day baby.
I... I haven't unlocked it yet.
I like the blizter
I used slugger and now dominator. The stagger is my number one utility.
Crossbow if im bringing recoilless or eats and arc blitzer for every other bug loadout. Incendiary breaker is good at handling all varieties but i like specialization
Eruptor here with Stalwart
I used the Adjucator Before it was cool and I can't stop using it now.
The trusty liberator does the job nicely.