Helldivers 2 player wants to see this change made to Orbital strikes

Stratagems play a very important role in Helldivers 2, from spawning weapons such as the Quasar Cannon to making rockets and explosives rain from the sky onto your enemies. When it comes to the rockets, there are two different types, Eagles and Orbitals, with each serving a different purpose and having different stats. There has been talks recently to bring them more in line with each other, but a Reddit user has some different thoughts and they make a lot of sense.

U/Hikatokage shared some thoughts on Reddit regarding the Orbital Strikes. There has been some talk within the community over the past week regarding these and how they could be buffed. The general consensus among the community is that the cooldown is too long when compared to the Eagles. Instead, the Reddit user suggests a damage buff, and their reasoning makes a lot of sense. They said,

“Recently, there have been many posts complaining about how weak the orbitals are compared to the eagle strategems, and I agree. But in many posts, you see the suggestion to reduce the CD (cooldown) of the orbitals. There, I disagree. I have the opinion that the orbitals and the eagle should fulfil two different roles, and just reducing the cooldown of the orbitals makes them more similar, thus competing for the same usage in your loadout. In my opinion, the eagle should have fast, medium strength effects that are very useful against small groups of infantry and small outposts. In contrast, the orbitals should have a much higher cooldown but are really good against objectives and large groups of infantry. Eagles should be usable whenever you want to use them, and orbitals should kill all/ destroy all, but you really have to pick the right moment to use it.”

This is a very logical counter to the discussions that have been taken place recently. While it made sense to have the cooldown reduced, they will just become like the Eagles, which wouldn’t set them apart. However, right now the damage is far too weak for the cooldown length, with some Eagle strikes being stronger and faster than some of the weaker Orbitals. The Reddit user continues by saying,

“So, for example, the 380MM Barrage should have a high call in time of 20-30 seconds but then completely annihilate a large area in a short time (10-20 seconds), give it a 5 minute cooldown. With this change every 5 minutes, you can destroy reliable a large outpost, but because of the high call-in time, it is bad against bug breaches or patrols (for those, the eagle should be your choice). Because of this, I also think the new orbital ship module goes into the wrong direction because it makes them a bit more reliable at the cost of a smaller destruction radius. Another example would be the airburst or the gatling barrage. Give it a short call-in time and a high fire frequency but also a high cooldown. This way, you can reliably deny a bug breach but only every 4-5 minutes. The eagle, on the other hand, would only kill one wave but is way more flexible to use, giving you more freedom when and where to use it, at the cost of destructive power. Finally, as many proposed, the orbital railcannon should one-shot bile titans and destructible mission objectives. In contrast to the 500kg bomb, it is more reliable through its high damage but is less flexible to use.”

I think the 20-30 second call in would be too long, especially as calling a stratagem will alert any of the enemies near where you threw it. So while some of the larger Orbitals, such as the 380mm, will destroy the buildings and outposts, the enemies will have likely left the area. However, if the call in time was kept the same then this logic would give the Orbitals their place in the Helldivers 2 weaponry.

Creating the perfect loadout can be a difficult task, with it often changing depending on the mission type, as well as how many people are in your party and what they are carrying. This means that you need to know what is the best and also understand the use cases of each of them. To help with this, we recommend checking out our Helldivers 2 best weapons guide and best armor guide so you can create the perfect loadout to take out the Automatons and Terminids.