You should currently avoid a specific loadout in Helldivers 2, as the latest patch introduced a deadly bug into the game.
On April 29, 2024, patch 1.000.300 was released in Helldivers 2 and brought some changes to the weapon balancing. One change that is likely not intended by the developers concerns the SG-8P Plasma Punisher. With this, you can now shoot yourself in the face – whether you want to or not.
With which combination do you shoot yourself in the face? Since the latest patch, you shoot yourself in the face with the Plasma Punisher when you use it while having the Sh-32 Shield Generator Backpack equipped. This creates a yellow shield around your Helldiver, protecting you from enemy attacks.
You can usually shoot through this shield without any issues, but if you shoot with the Plasma Punisher while the Shield Generator Backpack’s shield is active, the fired plasma projectile will be reflected by the shield and hit your Helldiver.
Under normal circumstances, you should survive a shot with the Plasma Punisher on your shield – provided you haven’t lost any health points already. However, two consecutive shots will send your Helldiver to the afterlife. Therefore, you might want to refrain from this combination for now.
A video on Reddit shows what this looks like in practice:
Bug renders a strong combination useless
Is this bug even relevant? Yes! The Plasma Punisher is a variant of the regular Punisher (a shotgun), firing plasma projectiles instead of shotgun shells and is particularly effective against robots. This earned it an S-tier rank in our tier list of the best weapons.
The Shield Generator Backpack, in turn, also has an S-tier rank in our tier list of the best gear and is also effective against robots. The yellow shield of the backpack can indeed save your life when everything in the galactic war is flying around you.
The combination of Plasma Punisher and Shield Generator Backpack is thus a good choice when facing robots in battle – just not currently. And this is despite the fact that it even received a buff with the latest update.
On Reddit, some players are already speculating about what might have caused the bug. One suspicion is that it relates to a change that reflects your bullets when shooting at armored enemies. If you now aim at an annihilator’s torso instead of its head, for example, the bullets will bounce off and hit your Helldiver.
Despite the bug, there are players who believe that the Plasma Punisher could now be the big winner of the patch. Perhaps it will soon be part of the best loadouts of Helldivers 2.
