Helldivers 2 received a new update on April 29. In total, 24 weapons and stratagems have been either nerfed or buffed. MeinMMO shows you what is changing.
The developers of Helldivers 2 regularly provide the co-op shooter with new updates. There are new war bonds that bring new weapons and armors in the form of a battle pass, and there are regular patches that fix bugs and revise weapons as well as equipment.
Arrowhead likes to make broad balancing adjustments in the patches. Even the first major balance patch of Helldivers 2 sparked major discussions in the community. Now with patch 01.000.300, there is once again a comprehensive revision of many weapons.
How big is the update? On Steam, the patch is nearly 822 MB in size.
Patch 01.000.300 – Numerous buffs and nerfs for weapons and equipment
What changes with the patch regarding weapons? Arrowhead has made a lot of changes to the various weapons and equipment, including buffs and nerfs. However, especially the current meta weapons have been nerfed – including the Quasar Cannon and the Sickle.
Here you can see a selection of the most interesting changes to weapons and stratagems:
- LAS-16-Sickle – Nerf
- Reduction of magazines (3 instead of 6)
- LAS-99-Quasar Cannon – Nerf
- Charge time increased by 5 seconds
- R-36-Eruptor – Nerf
- Reduction of magazines (6 instead of 12)
- Explosion damage decreases somewhat faster
- Dominator – Nerf
- Damage reduced (275 instead of 300)
- Laser Cannon – Buff
- Somewhat increased damage
- Slightly reduced damage against “large volume bodies”
- ARC-12 Blitzer – Buff
- Increased rate of fire per minute (46 instead of 30)
- Railgun – Buff
- Armor penetration increased (both in safe and unsafe mode)
- Tesla Tower – Buff
- Now has 33% more health
- Senator – Buff
- Increased damage (175 instead of 150)
- There is now a speedloader that significantly speeds up reloading when the drum is completely empty
Additionally, the issues with the new air detonation rocket launcher have been fixed. It should now lead to fewer team kills, as the explosion is no longer triggered by nearby trees, rocks, or Helldivers.
Which nerfs stand out in particular? The Quasar Cannon has been hit particularly hard. It was currently a fixed part of the best loadouts and a really strong weapon against both bugs and robots.
The increased charge time of 5 seconds is therefore a very significant nerf, especially since the Quasar Cannon is now less flexible to use.
Additionally, the Sickle, which is one of the best all-rounders, has been nerfed. The laser assault rifle that came with the war bond “Cutting Edge” now has 3 fewer rounds. The rounds are consumed similarly to magazines, but only if you shoot for too long with the weapon and it overheats. If you pay attention to the temperature of the weapon while shooting, the nerf should be barely noticeable.
Patch 01.000.300 – Changes to bugs and robots
How have the enemies been changed? Some changes have also been made to the enemies of the Helldiver. Both the robots and the bugs have been partially reworked. Especially the gunships of the automatons should now pose an even more annoying threat.
Here is a selection of the most interesting changes:
- Acid Spitter – Nerf
- are now somewhat slower
- Hulk (Flamethrower) – Nerf
- direct flamethrower damage reduced by 20%
- Devastator (Standard) – Buff
- Rate of fire slightly increased
- Gunships – Buff
- Sideways movement slightly increased
- Gunship Spawners – Buff
- much lower cap for the number of gunships they can have active at the same time
- Patrol Spawn – Buff
- Patrols now spawn more often when there are fewer than 4 Helldivers in the mission.
- For 4-player missions, there is no change.
- The biggest difference is expected to be for solo players on high difficulty levels
- Ricochet of shots – Buff
- Shots that ricochet off heavily armored enemies now hit the Helldiver who fired them.
You should now avoid carelessly shooting at armored enemies like Hulks or Stalkers with your assault rifle or shotgun.
Here you can find the complete patch notes for patch 01.000.300:
Patch Notes for Patch 01.000.300 (English)
General
Armors with an 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.)
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
- 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
- Scythe
- Increased damage from 300 to 350
- Decreased max number of mags from 6 down to 4
- Railgun
- Increased armor penetration in both safe mode and unsafe mode
- Stagger force slightly reduced
- MG-101 Heavy Machine Gun
- Third person crosshair enabled
- Diligence Counter Sniper
- Damage increased from 128 to 140
- Ergonomics improved
- Diligence
- Damage increased from 112 to 125
- P-19 Redeemer
- Slight increase in recoil
- Peacemaker
- Increased damage from 60 to 75
- Senator
- Increased damage from 150 to 175
- Speedloader added when reloading on an empty cylinder–speeds up reload on empty considerably
- Dagger
- Increased damage from 150 to 200
- Liberator
- Damage increased from 55 to 60
- Liberator Concussive
- Damage increased from 55 to 65
- Dominator
- Damage decreased from 300 to 275
- Guard Dog Rover
- Decreased damage by 30%
- Guard Dog
- Slight increase in damage
- Burning damage reduced by 15%
Stratagems
- Machinegun Sentry
- Increased health to match other sentries
- Tesla Tower
- Increased health by 33%
- 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
Enemies
- Balancing adjustments have been made to
- 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 gunships they can have active at the same time.
Enemy Patrols
- Balancing adjustment to patrol spawning.
- 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.
Fixes
- Fixed crash that could occur when host abandoned mission with squad.
- Fixed crash that could occur if a player tried to enter an occupied EXO-45 Patriot Suit.
- Fixed crash that could occur for all players after or during mission results screen.
- Fixed crash that could occur after shooting from the EXO-45 Patriot Suit’s rocket launcher.
- Fixed crash that could occur for all players apart from the one that rejoined the ongoing mission with different armor and got reinforced.
- Fixed Superior Packing Methodology ship module not working properly.
- Fixed Blast Absorption ship module so that it correctly increases sentries’ resistance to explosions.
- Fixed issue where players could not navigate to the search results in the Social Menu.
- Fixed some issues where items equipped in a Warbond were not actually equipped.
- Fixed an exploit that allowed overly eager Helldivers to use grenades excessively.
- Fixed issue where kills from orbital barrage did not progress Indirect Fire Exercise order.
- Fixed issue that allowed traitors to try to sabotage the extraction shuttle by deploying sentry stratagems below it.
- Fixed issue where ion storms incorrectly prevented extraction beacon from deploying.
- Fixed some stratagem beams using incorrect color-coding.
- Fixed issue where the left stick on a controller could not be used to navigate the Social menu.
- Fixed some issues where various UI elements were cut off, off-centered or too close to the edge of the screen on ultrawide displays.
- Fixed Anti-Materiel Rifle facing away from the Helldiver after deploying it.
- Fixed bug where player could duplicate rounds by canceling the reload of Anti-Materiel Rifle at a
- specific time.
- Fixed bug where Anti-Materiel Rifle would consume an extra magazine after a canceled reload.
- Fixed bug where Recoilless Rifle would consume an extra shell from the backpack if the reload was canceled just after a shell was i* inserted, but before the reload was completed.
- Fixed issue where the Sickle and Quasar Cannon could not shoot through foliage.
- Fixed several issues where weapon thumbnails would disappear when scrolling through Armory.
- Fixed issues where Automaton Gunships sometimes could not see the player.
- Fixed incorrect collision being left over after destroying Automaton bunkers or detector towers with
- hellbombs.
- Fixed issue where Hellbombs would not deploy on certain missions
- Fixed certain issues that resulted in Helldivers drowning in deep water upon landing.
- Fixed issue where Hellpod Space Optimization made ammo go above capacity.
- Fixed issue where Stalkers became very visible in fog
- Mines are now pingable for better coordination with your team.
- Receiving friend requests now gives the player a pop up.
- Improved readability of prompts and hints displayed in the tutorial and onboarding.
- Total experience is now visible in the career tab.
- Added better support for ultrawide monitors by fixing the aspect ratio of menus to 16:9 and adding a setting to control the width of the HUD.
- Keybinds bound to numpad will no longer reset upon restart.
- Fixed inconsistent audio when headphones are plugged into the Dual Sense controller while playing on PC.
- Playing Rock, Paper, Scissors in front of the ship no longer causes player to fall out into space.
- APW-1 Anti-Material Rifle and MG-206 Heavy Machine Gun now trigger hitmarkers while scoped in.
- Secondary weapon no longer remains in the Ballistic Shield ADS position after using a stim with the Ballistic Shield Backpack equipped.
- “Open Text Chat” is now rebindable.
- Explosive weapons such as R-36 Eruptor, CB-9 Exploding Crossbow. GP-31 Grenade Pistol no longer pulls players inward from the blast.
- Disabled the squad invites during the tutorial which caused an overlap in the UI.
- Fixed Primary and Secondary weapons overlapping on the character model in the armory.
- Fixed UI elements during first boot are cut off on a 21:9 aspect ratio monitor.
- Report and block player is now visible in the squad menu.
- Dead Scavengers now stop screaming for help if killed while calling in reinforcements.
- Fixed Anti Air cannons showing up as “Stratagem Scramblers” in danger warnings.
- Added reload stage for the Spear reload after the spent missile had been discarded.
Patch fixes problem with new rocket launcher
What’s the problem with the new rocket launcher? Players had the chance to decide which new equipment they receive by executing a general order. Depending on which planet the players liberated first, the Helldivers were supposed to receive either anti-tank mines or an air detonation rocket launcher.
Ultimately, players received the air detonation rocket launcher, but shortly after the rocket launcher was unlocked, dissatisfaction spread on Reddit.
The air detonation rocket launcher fires rockets that explode in the air and then scatter explosive projectiles in all directions. However, this new support weapon had the critical problem that the projectiles were triggered by nearby objects such as trees or rocks, as well as Helldivers and their equipment, leading to numerous team kills.
After the patch, the air detonation rocket launcher should no longer detonate when fired near equipment and other Helldivers. In general, the action radius of the rockets has been reduced.
The ship modules did not receive a nerf in Helldivers 2. Therefore, feel free to check on MeinMMO which ones you should upgrade first: Helldivers 2: Best ship modules
