Ultimate Tips and Tricks Compilation

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Helldivers 2 Guides

All the tips that new and experienced Helldivers need in order to get sweet liberty in Helldivers 2 and come back to the Destroyer in one piece.

Completely Noob Tips

• Press and Hold R to change fire mode for the current weapon
• Tap Q to tag things you are aimed at.
• Tap and Hold Q to get access to quick communication commands for your teammates.
• Press and Hold X/down on D-pad button to drop items. It's possible to drop Support Weapons, Backpack and Samples.
• Middle Mouse Button will change to first-person aim mode. It can help with the recoil a bit.
• Each enemy have their own unique weakness. Aim for the weak spots.
• Reloading wastes the rest of the ammo in the clip
• Changing Voice Chat settings from Open Microphone to Push-To-Talk (PTT) will save teammates from mental trauma if the game is played in noisy environment.

Beginner Tips

• Reassigning Stratagems Call In buttons to the arrows will allow to run and call Stratagems at the same time. It can be done in the Options - Mouse & Keyboard - Change Bindings - Stratagem (in the General Tab). Its essential on the higher difficulties when Helldiver is chased by many enemies.
• If Helldiver is noticed by the Enemy Patrols ant hey are left unattended, they can call for reinforcements causing Bug Breach and Automaton Dropships.
• Weapons that have high recoil are harder to aim. Crouching or going prone will improve the weapon stability.
• When ready for extraction or going to defend some location call support Stratagems like Resupply early. This way it will be possible to use them even if they will be needed later, but cooldown will already be lower.
• When unlocking new Armor in the Warbond go for the body piece first. Its the only armor piece thats different from the default set. Save medals for something more useful than the cosmetics, unless they are absolutely necessary.
• When helldiver attacks enemies they will get hitmarkers that will show how effective their attacks are:
  • Red Hitmarker - Weapons are enough penetration to ignore armor part and deal 100% Weapon Damage.
  • White Hitmarker - Weapons do not have enough penetration to ignore armor part but still deal damage (Dealing 40-50% damage).
  • Shield Deflect Hitmarker - Weapons do not penetrate armor and deflect, dealing very low/no damage (needs testing).
• All Helldivers receive the same rewards, regardless of who is looting them (SC, Medals, Requisition, Samples).
• SC, Medals and Requisition are awarded instantly to the account upon looting.
• Always go for any yellow beams glowing down from the sky. Those are important POIs (Points of Interest).
• On some POIs, you’ll find big metal containers. Blow them up with a grenade and loot whatever is inside.
• Use the mini-map; use the markers to coordinate with your team and plot trajectories to finish the mission as efficiently as possible. Don't slip into aimlessness.
• Use high ground, break line of sight and use rocks or bushes as cover to drastically increase survivability.
• When fighting Automatons, try to kill the Commissars (the ones with flags) before they call reinforcements.
• With single-handed weapons, you can run and shoot backward and carry objective items and still be able to shoot.
• Prioritize destroying Stalker nests.
• If Stalkers are coming from a specific part of the map, look for nests on that side of the map or ping spam the mini-map in that direction until you find them and destroy the stalker nests.
• Stalker can outrun Helldivers even at sprinting speeds.
• You don't need to kill all the bugs you aggroed when you're trying to move to the next objective. Kill enough bugs to be able to start moving and leave the rest to follow you toward the next objective. You can kill the bugs that didn't lose aggro as you keep moving.
• When fighting close to Bug nests or Automaton bases (spawn points) make it your priority to destroy those before getting caught in a prolonged fight for no reason. Units spawned can call in reinforcements and make the fight last even longer.
• When fighting Automatons make sure to have cover to the left of your character, peak out (to the right) and shoot. Because of their weapon placement Automatons are pretty bad at shooting at targets to their right, they tend to hit the cover you’re using.
• When out of options, you can lure Charger to destroy bug holes, Illegal Broadcast Towers or Rogue Research Stations.
• Drop your Samples next to the extraction point so you don't lose them while waiting for the dropship.
• Concentrate all the Samples in one single Sample drop so one person can pick all of them up and extract.

Advanced Tips

• When going on the Purge Hatcheries Mission one team member can equip with Jump Pack and Grenade Launcher in order to swiftly and safely get rid of the eggs. Jump on the rock that surrounds the hatchery and bombard the enemies from the safe height.
• Currently Armor seems to be a little weak, so pick armor body piece based on the mobility or Armor Passives
• Massive Squishy parts like Charger or Bile Spewer butt will take 100% damage from explosive damage Weapons. Other guns will only do 10% dmg against those parts.
• Use reinforcement drop pods to reach higher ground or kill bosses.
• You can cook the grenades. By delaying the throw you can time it for explosion on the impact.
• You can throw back Automaton grenades (interact button).
• Higher difficulty means more enemies and more of the harder ones spawning, they are not harder to kill and do not deal more damage.
• Armor rating doesn’t affect headshot damage. This makes heavy armor way less viable than it seems because even the small and insignificant Terminid or Automaton will headshot you consistently.
• If you're a higher lvl player try equipping one of the boosters you’ve unlocked last, so that others (lower lvl players) can use the ones that are unlocked quicker.
• Eradicate missions are the best for Medals, Requisition Chips, XP and common Samples farm.
• Daytime missions take place between 6 am and 6 pm, and nighttime missions between 6 pm to 6 am. Consider the starting time of a mission because the day/night cycle can change during the mission.
• If you get stuck somewhere, just ask one of your teammates to quick melee you. This will unstuck you most of the time.
• The extraction shuttle will always land facing South.
• Under Change Bindings, you can set a keybinding for Switch Camera Side that will allow you to change the camera shoulder perspective.
• Localization Confusion Booster increases the cooldown for enemy reinforcements by 15 to 30%.
• Automatons are susceptible to suppressive fire. They shoot less or less accurately when taking any amount of DMG from the Helldivers.
• You can make snowballs by sitting prone in the snow for a while.
• Common Samples cap at 500.
• Rare Samples cap at 250.
• Super Samples cap at 100.
• Medals cap at 250.
• Requisition Chips cap at 50000.

Enemy Weak Spot Tips

• Blow up Automaton Dropships by shooting one of the engines using rockets.
• Tanks have vent weak spots.
• Canon towers have vent weak spots.
• Charger can be killed extremely quickly by breaking one of the front legs armor (with DAT, Recoilless or Railgun) and after that, shooting your primary at that leg.
• If a Charger's back side is destroyed/popped with an Autocannon or other weapons, the charger will no longer be able to charge and it will die on its own after a few seconds.
• Most Terminid units die in a few seconds after you blow up their head, there's no need to waste ammo.
• Kill the Warriors and the Brood Commanders by shooting the legs.
• Kill the Hive Guards either by using a Railgun, Rockets or by shooting with your main weapon at the neck area, in between the armored leg and head.
• Hit the Nursing Spewer in the face, dive to the side to evade attacks.
• Hit Bile Spewer in the face with anti-armor weapons such as a Railgun or kill them with a grenade or Grenade Launcher (two shots), otherwise, aim for the side of the bile sack.
• Kill the Stalker by shooting them in the face quickly before they cover it.
• Hit Bile Titan in the mouth for max damage with the Railgun, more precisely on the side of the mouth. This will also stagger them. (forehead weak spot it’s also viable and easier, the side of the mouth is for PROs)
• Hit the Bile Titan in the belly if you don't have any other way of dealing with it such as stratagems that can damage it, a Railgun or Rockets.
• You can break the green pouch of the Bile Titan to stop it from spitting. Destroying the two belly sacks will reduce its HP by about 50%.
• Shoot the Shriekers in the head for maximum damage. Sprint sideways to dodge the attacks.

Objective Tips

• When interacting with Terminals on objectives, you can press the interact button right after you finish inputting the required commands without needing to wait for the objective to complete.
• SEAF Artillery Objective, do not interact with the Terminal. Find and stack 5 missiles at the Loader before using the Terminal. Interacting with the Terminal will spawn a swarm of enemies that you don't need to fight with.
• SEAF Artillery Objective, keep pressing the interact button when carrying rockets to move them faster.
• Shoot at the Spore Trees in the distance so you can get rid of the fog.
• Illegal Broadcasting/Rogue Research Stations, straight up destroy the tower/building without accessing the Terminal.

When rotating the satellite dish, you have an audio cue that tells you when to stop rotating.

• Spore Trees and Illegal Broadcast Towers can be destroyed by the Autocannon, Railgun and Rockets.
• Shrieker Nests can be efficiently destroyed by two Rockets, nine Autocannon shots or Orbital 380MM HE.

Weapon Tips

• You reload faster when on red and not completely empty.
• Use the unsafe/unlocked mode on the Railgun to greatly increase armor penetration and damage.
• Reloading after every shot when using Slugger, Punisher or Senator will give you instant reloading without any downtime.
• Anti-Materiel Rifle, when reloading, swap to a different weapon exactly when the magazine counter changes and then back to the AMR and reload again. This way you'll have double the ammo in one magazine because you reloaded twice.
• Some scopes such as for the Anti-Materiel Rifle, are misaligned in first person view. If you want to shoot accurately AIM with the top right corner of the reticle for maximum precision.
• Autocannon kills the chargers in two shots, when a charger runs at you, avoid its attack and shoot the back of one of its legs when it stops. You will see sparks and weakened armor on that leg. From any angle, one more shot to the same leg will take the charger down.
• When using the Autocannon make sure to reload after 5 shots for the quick reload animation (you reload only a single magazine). This way you maximize your DPS and uptime.
• Shoot the Autocannon or Rockets directly into the bug holes to destroy them even at longer ranges. The same can be done for Automaton factories (you may need to shoot the top vents).

Stratagems Tips

• Exosuits have a stomp melee attack that can two-hit kill a Charger (in the leg). It’s a viable strategy when out of ammo. It also works great in combination with any EMS.
• Exosuits can go through water that would normally down players.
• Exosuits are immune to EMS and fire.
• Exosuits, always move forward or backward with or without strafing for optimal speed. Just strafing is slower (moving from side to side).
• The Shield Generator Pack gives your Exosuit some extra protection.
• You can stim while inside Exosuits.
• Using the Jump Pack, sit on top of Exosuits to provide cover fire.
• When going down slopes use the Jump Pack to travel more distance.
• While in mid-air (using Jump Pack), you throw stratagems and grenades much further.
• You can also execute stationary reloads or normal reloads mid-air.
• The Shield Generator Pack protects you from melee attacks, slows and staggers as long as it's up.
• The Shield Generator Pack can protect you from the 500kg bomb's explosion (if you’re not on top of it). You can also protect another teammate by hugging him.
• If multiple players are looting the Resupply while having equipped the same Supply Backpack you can multiply the ammo supply threefold.

Movement Tips

• Crouch or prone to reduce recoil.
• Going prone regenerates stamina faster.
• Going prone greatly reduces damage taken from explosions.
• When on fire, dolphin diving stops your character from burning.
• To go up hills/cliffs that are too steep, hold sprint and dolphin dive constantly towards the peak of the hill/cliff.
• You can use the spores to propel you to safety by shooting them.
• The jetpack allows you to reload every gun mid-air, even stationary reload guns.
• Dive before you pop a stim (against Automatons).
• When slowed by EMS or Terminid attacks you can dolphin dive repeatedly to cover more ground faster.
• Dive backwards while shooting.
• Take a bit of damage to be able to stim when your stamina is depleted.
• Jump Pack, you can throw grenades or stratagems accurately while being in mid-air if you also are holding the AIM button.
• Stop dying to the Tesla Towers by going prone when next to them. You will not get zapped.

Stealth Tips

• Stealthing is a surprisingly viable strategy.
• You can use blue stratagems or grenades to distract enemy patrols without alerting them, enabling you to evade them by not risking a pointless fight.
• Red stratagems will alert enemies and they’ll come straight for you.
• You can use turrets to clear enemy patrols and locations without triggering an alarm (reinforcements).
• Never engage patrols. If you have to, kill the pack in 3-4 seconds.
• Calling in Hellpods right at the beginning of the mission will attract enemy patrols.
• Melee is completely silent.
• Some Weapons have unique sound profiles that make enemies react significantly less: PLAS-1 Scorcher, The LAS-5 Scythe, all sidearms and Redeemer (on semi-auto).
• Enemies have a cone of vision at no more than 180°.
• You have a sound profile and enemies can hear you.
• According to developers: when in very close proximity, Terminids can "smell you" even if you are behind them (Stalkers for example).
• The scout armor perk affects stealth only when standing/sprinting. It also makes you quieter.
• You can shoot out lights to reduce enemies’ ability to spot you.
• For Autocannon, enemies will explore the sound of where the shells hit the ground so you can use that to trick them stealthily.

References and Contributors:
@hirens from official Helldivers Discord

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