HELLDIVERS™ 2: Support Weapons Analysis on Heavy Bugs

Welcome to my guide, I hope you find it helpful.

If you prefer to watch rather than read, or would like to see the tests in live action, there is a fully animated and voiced video version below:

The Charger has Heavy Armour over the majority of its body. The Autocannon here having shots deflect off the head.

And all of the legs also have heavy armour. But this does not tell the whole story. Through hundreds of tests, I found some shots could break this leg armour.

The Autocannon here getting a a two shot kill once that armour was broken by shooting near the top spike.

The back leg is also interesting. Hitting the right spots can deal damage and even break the armour in some circumstances. The Charger will die if any of its legs take enough damage to destroy them.

And this works with the Machine Gun Support weapon. As the Charger goes past, the back of the leg armour is not Heavy Armour.

You can kill the Charger incredibly quickly by shooting the legs and even the break the armour off to shoot these sections from the front.

Interestingly this is much harder to achieve when the Charger is stationary, and seems to require it to be in motion for this to work.

The Devs are aware of leg weak points on Chargers, they have not changed anything yet. But perhaps enjoy this whilst you can.

When the back of the Charger is blown off it will bleed out and die. I have tested this with many different Support weapons and Primaries, and it always dies after a few seconds.

If you see it bleeding but the back is still there, in most cases it will continue to live. I tested this by leaving a Charger bleeding for over three minutes, and it survived.

The Devs hinted that the fleshy areas of bugs such as the back area of the Charger, take 90% less damage from non-explosive weapons and I wanted to test this.

I used the AR-23 shooting this area. It took about 99 shots to remove it. I then used the Concussive rifle that deals explosive damage. It only took about 62 shots. Interestingly I also tried the AR-23P, and that took about the same amount of shots, 60 to remove this area.

Data miners have found a hidden weapon stat called Durability Damage. And this stat has been alluded to in patch notes.

The current best guess from the mined data is that the AR-23 only deals 5 Durability Damage per shot. The Concussive deals 10 and the AR-23 deals 15.

I think this Durability Damage is likely playing a role in why there is such a damage discrepancy between these weapons.

Unfortunately, there is not enough information to explain how this works. The best guess is that certain enemy sections reduce damage but allow full Durability damage through, or once a section takes enough Durability Damage the damage reduction will stop functioning.

Hopefully more data can be found or the Devs will shed more light on the matter. Either way I thought my results were interesting and should be included.

Pre nerf the Railgun could get a three-shot head kill on a Charger. It could also get a two-shot leg armour strip and then another shot could finish it off.

Now it is on average a six-shot head kill, a doubling of the shots required.

I have managed a four-shot head kill and a five-shot head kill but could replicate these tests. Potentially they took some environmental damage elsewhere or perhaps I got the heat extremely high when releasing the shot.

I did manage to confirm from five clean tests though, that it was six shots to the head.

On average it takes four shots to strip the leg armour now, again five tests confirming this. An additional two hits on the same leg will kill the Charger.

One thing to note is that some shots can appear to miss or deflect off armour. From looking at a fair amount of footage, It would seem that most of the time the shot has actually hit for full damage even though it looks like a miss.

Over 50+ Railgun tests I got a four shot kill on the Charger three times. I identified that this is perhaps being able to hit the front leg and penetrate through to damage both legs with one shot.

Alternatively, it could be that the Charger was very compliant in this test, making it easy to build the heat to almost max before firing. With only two shots fired here to strip the leg armour in this example.

Four clean shots to the back area will destroy it and leave the Charger to bleed out shortly after.

You can get a two-shot leg kill on the back leg and even the front leg, but this is very rare and will often lead to wasting multiple shots to try and achieve this.

Reloading when completely empty takes longer for two reasons, obviously you are putting in two magazines or cartridges, also the first one that goes into an empty chamber needs to be primed.

This takes some additional time, whereas the second cartridge or top up does not require this. You can interrupt the reload after the first cartridge goes in, and then load the second one quicker when in a safer position.

Because of this it is a good idea to track your shots fired. After firing five shots, if it is convenient reload and put a quick top up cartridge in. Or leave at least one shot spare and top up with an additional 5 shots that don’t need to be primed.

The Arc Thrower can get a six shot head kill on the Charger. Not bad for a weapon that does not consume ammo. But this is very inconsistent though as the shots can hit random zones.

This is very noticeable when shooting at the legs. It only takes five shots to strip the leg armour. Most likely though it will take you more than this as shots hit other zones instead of where the cross-hair is.

When shooting the back area of the Charger it took between 16 and 19 shots to remove this section. A huge amount of time and not worth the effort.

Some people are under the impression that it does not matter where the Arc Thrower hits the target, that the damage is done internally.

I tested this theory shooting randomly over the entire body. It took 27 hits to bring it down, quite a big difference from only 6 direct head shots to kill it.

The Grenade Launcher does not penetrate the Heavy Armour on the Charger and the AOE damage on these areas deals no damage.

You can fire under the Charger though, dealing the AOE damage to the back area and removing that section for a kill.

I also found it very inconsistent in how many shots it takes to kill the Charger. This is likely due to the AOE damage based on where you hit the target.

I have multiple clips of a two-shot kill, three-shot kill, four-shot kill and somewhere five or more are required.

Perhaps hitting the back area and both legs helps explain this variance. It could be something to this Durability Damage or Explosive damage on the back area.

I examined over 20 clips and could not find anything that seemed obvious to help to explain the variance in shots required.

Overall, I will say I was surprised how well it performed on Chargers in general.

Shooting the back area of the Charger is quite easy to do with the Flame Thrower and brings the target down fairly quickly. Using about half a tank of ammo.

Where it starts to get crazy though is against the legs. Killing the Charger in seconds and with very little ammo consumed, it’s quite mad when you see this happen to a target known as being bullet spongy.

Especially when comparing this to shooting at the head. The armour appears to deflect the direct flames away, presumably for no damage.

Shooting under the Charger will it set on fire. This consumes a huge amount of time and ammo and I’m not convinced any direct damage is being dealt, perhaps only the damage over time from the burn effect.

When comparing this to a leg kill it is night and day in the difference.

With the buffs to this weapon, it can quite easily and consistently get a one head shot kill on the Charger.

It will only take one leg shot to strip the armour there. Allowing you to finish it off with a Primary weapon.

Two back shots will remove that area, killing the Charger.

The least efficient way is to hit different zones of the target. In this clip one shot hits the back, one on the leg, and one on each side finally brings it down.

It will strip the armour in the locations it hits, making this a powerful weapon even if you don’t get that head shot kill.

The Recoiless appears to function the same as the Expendable Anti-Tank support weapon, but it can be reloaded and has a backpack that holds five additional shots for a total of six shots.

Ammo boxes found in mission only replenish one missile at a time. Resupply drops will replenish two missiles at a time.

The reload animation is in three steps, first unloading the used missile, loading a new one, and finally twisting this top part. You can interrupt this after each stage, allowing to partially reload, relocate and continue reload.

It has quite a good range, being able to take a Spore Spewer Tower down at 325 metres.

The missile will drop in the air and aiming a little bit higher is required at longer ranges.

It takes up a backpack slot for you or a teammate. And you will have a Support Weapon that is only good for Heavy Targets so keep this in mind.

The Spear is an auto-locking version of the Recoiless. It’s backpack only holds three misses for a total of four shots. Each resupply or ammo box found will only replenish one shot.

The locking on feature is awkward to put it nicely. You can use it in first person mode, but I found third person was easier. Either way you will likely find it frustrating at times.

You would think first person mode might give some better control over aiming, but it appears to make little difference. This is a big issue for a weapon that can now get a one-shot head kill with a well-placed hit.

It does not perform at all well at close range, enemies within 25 metres will have the missile fly over them. This is a huge issue when you have a Charger or multiples of them aggroed on you.

Unlike the Recoiless that reloads in three steps. The Spear is one long animation to reload, if interrupted it starts over again. Making reloads tough in pressure situations and a bit amusing that you unload the same missile over and over again.

It won’t fire unless it has lock on a target. As it does not lock onto Bug Holes the option to close them with it is removed, whereas the Expendable and Recoiless can close them.

It can target and destroy Spewer Towers. Although even this can cause issues and not work at times with seemingly no reason why.

It can get a one-shot kill on a Charger. More often than not though, it will require two-shots to bring a Charger down. The missile tends to hit the Charger quite central at the top.

This makes trying to strip leg armour or getting a head kill very hard to achieve due to the random nature of where the missile will hit.

If the Charger is coming at you this is exacerbated further with it likely going up in the air and hitting the central top area, requiring two shots most of the time.

The Bile Titan has Heavy Armour over the majority of its body. The exception to this is the belly that every weapon I have tested so far can damage.

When all the green belly area is removed it will lose the ability to use its Bile Spray Attack. Leaving it to run and try to stomp attack.

Some people have implied there is a weak spot under its chin. I found no evidence of this through my testing.

The body appears to have a central health pool and is not split. I tested the Recoiless with two shots on each side and then a third shot to the same side and it died.

I then tried the Recoiless with four shots to the same side and it took an eventual fifth shot to bring down.

Grenades can deal damage to the Titan. If it has taken a lot of damage already and all your Stratagems are on cool-down, this can be a valid way to finish it off.

Pre-nerf the Railgun could get a 10 headshot kill on the Bile Titan, yes this took a lot of time but could be done. When combined with a Railcannon strike, it was closer to 5-6 to finish it off.

Now the Railgun takes over double this. The best test I managed was 21 headshots. But I also had a 27 shot test, 30 33 and two 34 shot tests.

This is likely due to the Railgun having its Armour Penetration reduced, only increasing in value at a higher heat values.

The CEO of Arrowhead said on X (formally Twitter), that there are 10 levels of armour. Enemies will be assigned a value, and weapons have a corresponding penetration value.

It is presumed to be that Light Armour and Penetration has values one to three. Medium four to six, and Heavy seven to nine, with zero being no armour.

If the weapon penetration value is the below the armour value, the shots deflect for no damage.

If both values are the same, the weapon deals 50% (the white cross-hair hit marker).

Above the armour value, full damage, (the red crosshair hit marker).

The Railgun at lower heat levels now bounces off the Bile Titan and is obviously below a value of 7 Heavy Armour penetration.

As the heat increases, the penetration value increases, at some point matching whatever the Bile Titans Heavy Armour value is, likely dealing 50% damage.

Perhaps at max heat it even beats the Bile Armour for full damage. But based on the number of shots required to bring it down in my tests, I doubt that.

The Autocannon can’t penetrate the armour on the Titan. It is quite good at stripping the belly away though. And The Grenade Launcher is the same.

The Arc Thrower can deal damage to the Titan. I never actually managed to kill one entirely with the Arc Thrower though as it takes a huge amount of time. Bringing in multiple bug breeches and reinforcements along the way.

In a test I hit it 39 times with most of them appearing to hit the head. It survived all those hits before I eventually lost all my reinforcements.

I would only use the Arc if it has taken a huge amount of damage already and you have nothing left to throw at it.

The Expendable Anti-tank and the Recoiless can both two shot the Titan if they hit the head. An impressive display in speed and efficiency in dealing with these troublesome and high health enemies.

Both can also strip the side armour of the target, although this will take a second shot to strip it.

The Recoiless when shooting at the sides will take five shots to kill the target. It is much better ammo wise and potentially time wise when considering all the reloads, to relocate and ensure two head hits instead.

I only did limited testing with the Spear because I believe it will get many patches. I killed two Titans with it, both tests required three shots.

Presumably two head shots would also kill it but good luck trying to do that.

The Expendable Anti-Tank and Recoiless have become extremely powerful at dealing with both the Charger and Titan in patch 102 and 103.

The speed at which you bring down enemies that heavily disrupt your team is very important and they are now second to none.

They both come with some drawbacks of course. The Recoiless taking a backpack slot for yourself or a teammate. A very long self-reload and a bit of an ammo hog to replenish shots.

The Expendable requires a Stratagem slot and needing to be called in and picked up. But with an extremely short cool-down, dropping in with its own ammo and being able to take out two Chargers or a Bile Titan with just one Stratagem. The benefits seem to outweigh the downsides.

Thank you for taking the time to read my guide, I hope it was useful.

A reminder that the video is below and to hit the thumbs up for this guide if you learnt something new, thank you 🙂