In Helldivers 2, there are two enemy factions that you must deal with while spreading democracy: the Bugs and the Robots. The latter pose a particularly tough challenge in combat, but the Bugs also have some unpleasant characters among their ranks. One of the nastiest Bugs has now received a nerf.
Which opponent is being referred to? The Troopers are among the strongest Bugs you can encounter in Helldivers 2. Although they do not spawn in hundreds, you can inflict no damage to them with normal weapons when shooting them in the face due to their massive armor.
Troopers are large, somewhat resemble armored cockroaches, and attack you with a brutal charge assault. They run at you frontally like wild bulls and try to trample you down.
However, Troopers do not have a ranged attack. Unlike the huge Acid Titans, they cannot spit deadly acid.
Helldivers 2: Patch Notes for Patch 1.000.102
How are the Troopers being nerfed now? The Trooper now takes less damage when shot in the head. A single shot with the recoil-less rifle or the one-time anti-tank weapon can eliminate it already.
Additionally, the spawn rate of Troopers and Acid Titans has been reduced on difficulty levels 7, 8, and 9. However, this does not mean that you will encounter fewer enemies overall. The developers emphasize that they have only adjusted the distribution and not decreased the total number. You could now encounter more Acid Spitters or other Bugs than before the patch.
Before the patch, it was common to shoot anti-tank projectiles at a Trooper’s legs if you wanted to eliminate it. For instance, 2 rockets from the one-time anti-tank weapon would break the armor on the legs, allowing you to inflict damage with normal weapons at the break points afterward. This is still possible, but the head is now also meant to be a worthwhile target.
Besides the changes to the Troopers, the patch only fixed 3 minor bugs, but we want to provide you with the complete patch notes:
Patch Notes for Patch 1.000.102
Balancing:
The amount of heavily armored targets that spawn at higher difficulty levels, especially with Terminids, was a major topic of discussion both online and internally. The intent is for groups to have to bring some kind of anti-tank capabilities, but not to the extent seen before.
- Reduced spawn rate of Troopers and Acid Titans on difficulty level 7 and above.
- Reduced the risk of spawn spikes from Troopers and Acid Titans.
- Note: The distribution of enemy types has been changed, not the difficulty reduced. Instead, expect that other enemy types will appear in larger numbers.
- Using heavy anti-tank weapons on the legs instead of the obvious weak point seems to contradict expectations. Nothing has changed on the legs of the Trooper, but the health of the Trooper’s head has been lowered. A well-placed shot from a recoil-less rifle or a one-time anti-tank weapon can kill a Trooper instantly.
Fixes:
- Missing text on several HUD/UI elements has been fixed.
- Several inconsistencies between subtitles and voices in the news videos have been fixed.
- Various crashes mid-game and during mission deployments have been fixed.
The developers already removed a mission modifier with patch 1.000.100 that swapped the tactical equipment you selected with a randomly determined other equipment.
The team felt that the modifier had not been well explained by them in advance and thus caused mainly frustration among players. This change had been unintentionally forgotten in the last patch notes, which is why Arrowhead has provided it this time.
However, the focus of patch 1.000.100 was on a completely different topic. The developers nerfed the railgun, the breaker, and the shield generator backpack, attracting community discontent: Helldivers 2: Patch Notes – New update nerfs the best weapons and introduces deadly weather events
