Helldivers 2 Update Rebalances a Ton of Weapons, Makes Game Harder for Less than 4 Players

Helldivers 2 has dropped its latest update, and while it mostly focuses on balance changes, there are a lot of balance changes to talk about. Well over half the weapons in the game have received changes, with some, like the LAS-99 Quasar Cannon and R-36 Eruptor, getting pretty significant nerfs.

Another major change is that more enemies will now spawn for those playing solo or running squads of less than four players. Arrowhead explains this is actually how they originally intended to the game to be, as previously the game was actually easier with fewer players. Now, for instance, if you’re playing solo, you’ll have 1/4 the enemy spawns as you would with a full 4-person team, whereas before you had 1/6 the spawns. I’m sure there will still be some grumbling about the change, but it makes sense.

You can check out the changes included in Helldivers 2 update 01.000.300 below…

General

• Armors with armor rating above 100 now also reduce damage on headshots.
• Victory poses will now only play for the extracted. (No stolen valor on my ship.)
• Burning damage reduced by 15%

Primary, Secondary & Support Weapons

CB-9 Exploding Crossbow

• Slightly smaller explosion
• Increased stagger
• Decreased number of maximum mags from 12 to 8
• Increased number of magazines received from resupply from 6 to 8
• Slight reduction in ergonomics
• Muzzle velocity increased

LAS-99 Quasar Cannon

• Increased recharge time by 5 seconds

BR-14 Adjudicator

• Full auto is now the default fire mode
• Reduced recoil
• Increased maximum mags from 6 to 8
• Increased number of magazines received from resupply from 6 to 8
• Now placed amongst assault rifles

LAS-98 Laser Cannon

• Slightly increased damage
• Slightly reduced damage versus large volume bodies

SG-8P Punisher Plasma

• Decreased maximum mags from 12 to 8
• Increased amount of magazines received from resupply from 6 to 8
• Increased projectile speed, but will still keep a similar range
• Decreased damage falloff on the explosion
• Now placed in the energy weapons category

ARC-12 Blitzer

• Increased shots per minute from 30 to 45
• Now placed in the energy weapons category

R-36 Eruptor

• Decreased number of maximum mags from 12 to 6
• Explosion damage drops off slightly faster

LAS-16 Sickle

• Decreased amount of magazines from 6 down to 3

LAS-5 Scythe

• Increased damage from 300 to 350
• Decreased max number of mags from 6 down to 4

RS-422 Railgun

• Increased armor penetration in both safe mode and unsafe mode
• Stagger force slightly reduced

MG-101 Heavy Machine Gun

• Third person crosshair enabled

63CS Diligence Counter Sniper

• Damage increased from 128 to 140
• Ergonomics improved

R-63 Diligence

• Damage increased from 112 to 125

P-19 Redeemer

• Slight increase in recoil

P-2 Peacemaker

• Increased damage from 60 to 75

P-8 Senator

• Increased damage from 150 to 175
• Speedloader added when reloading on an empty cylinder–speeds up reload on empty considerably

LAS-7 Dagger

• Increased damage from 150 to 200

AR-19 Liberator

• Damage increased from 55 to 60

AR-23C Liberator Concussive

• Damage increased from 55 to 65

JAR-5 Dominator

• Damage decreased from 300 to 275

AX/AR-23 Guard Dog

• Decreased damage by 30%

RL-77 Airburst Rocket Launcher

• Airburst Rocket Launcher will no longer detonate when shot near stratagems (HMG turret, Sentries, Resupplies) and other Helldivers
• Reduced proximity radius

Stratagems

A/MG-43 Machinegun Sentry

• Increased health to match other Sentries

A/ARC-3 Tesla Tower

• Increased health by 33%

FAF-14 Spear

• Added reload stage reload after the spent missile had been discarded

RL-77 Airburst Rocket Launcher

• Details pending

Enemies

• Bile Spewer and Nursing Spewers movespeed slightly reduced
• Hulks: Force required for them to stagger slightly increased
• Hulk Scorcher direct flamethrower damage reduced by 20%
• Devastator fire rate slightly increased (only the standard devastator)
• Gunships sideways movement slightly increased
• Scout strider Riders now less vulnerable to explosions
• Fog Generators health and armor increased
• Gunship spawners now have a much lower cap on how many they can have active at the same time

Enemy Patrols

• Patrol spawning has been increased when there are fewer than 4 players. The fewer the players the bigger the change. For 4 player missions there will be no change compared to before. The biggest noticeable change will be for solo players at higher difficulties

Gameplay

• Made minor level generation improvements to how we distribute locations throughout the mission map. This should improve variation in distance between objectives, and objectives will likely not spawn as far away from each other as often as before.
• Added setting in the options menu gameplay section to disable automatic climbing and vaulting while sprinting.
• The Spread Democracy mission otherwise known as “raise the flag” can now be enjoyed on higher difficulties for maximum freedom spreading.
• When readying up, Helldivers now salute to ensure maximum democratic readiness.
• Added ambience to the Tremor planetary hazard to underline the severity so Helldivers can react accordingly
• Shots that ricochet from heavy armored enemies will now properly hit the Helldiver who fired them. Trigger discipline is highly recommended.

Of course, the latest Helldivers 2 update also includes a wide array of bug fixes as well. If you want to know about all of those, you can check out the full, unabridged patch notes here.

Helldivers 2 can be played on PC and PS5. The new patch should be available to download now.

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