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If you’re on the lookout for some passive buffs in-game, you might be wondering how to unlock and use the best boosters in Helldivers 2. In a game where alien foes can overwhelm you, it’s good to have some bonuses that can be enabled before diving in. From improving the revive system to letting you sustain more injuries, these have a variety of squad-wide benefits. Read on to know what they are and how to use them.
Best boosters, ranked
We’ve ranked the best boosters in the game so that you know what to use against the Terminids, Automatons, and Illuminate. These are based on our experience so feel free to experiment before settling on a favourite. Also, always communicate with your teammates to prepare the best booster loadout for your squad.
Sprint for longer with this buff. Image captured by VideoGamer.
Travel through rough terrain quickly with this buff. Image captured by VideoGamer.
Resist injuries with this booster. Images captured by VideoGamer.
Use this to drop into matches with more ammo. Image captured by VideoGamer.
Reduce the odds of engaging with enemies with this buff. Image captured by VideoGamer.
Get more revives with this item. Image captured by VideoGamer.
Get a better minimap with this booster. Image captured by VideoGamer.
Use this booster to get more reinforcements quickly. Image captured by VideoGamer.
This booster can net your squad up to 10 extra samples. Captured by VideoGamer
1. Stamina Enhancement
- Cost: 75 Medals in Helldivers Mobilize
- Effect: Increases sprint duration by 30% and stamina regeneration by 23%.
Obtained on page 7 in the Helldivers Mobilize Warbond, this is our top booster pick in Helldivers 2. It increases all Helldivers’ stamina capacity and recovery. Jog for longer and ambush foes better with this booster. With a 30% increase in sprint time and more than a 20% increase in recovery speed, this lets all players sprint more often. It’s a good bonus that lets Light armor players double down on their strength while Medium and Heavy armor players can sprint a bit more than before.
2. Muscle Enhancement
- Cost: 70 Medals in Helldivers Mobilize
- Effect: Makes it harder to get slowed down in difficult terrain, like bushes, thick mud, deep snow, and water.
This booster can be found on page 9 of the Helldivers Mobilize Warbond. It allows Helldivers to traverse difficult terrain without slowing down. This one’s good in most maps where you may slow down due to snow, sand, mud, or other obstacles. While you’ll need 920 Medals to get to page 9, it’s still a good pick for high-level players.
3. Vitality Enhancement
- Cost: 20 Medals in Helldivers Mobilize
- Effect: Your team takes less damage from all sources and become more resistant to limb injuries.
The Vitality Enhancement booster comes at page 4 of the Helldivers Mobilize Warbond. This allows all Helldivers to resist injuries from attacks. Since leg injuries can hamper movement, arm injuries affect reloads and aim, and chest injuries drain health, being resistant to these is a great benefit. This is particularly useful when friendly fire due to stratagems may catch stray Helldivers.
4. Hellpod Space Optimization
- Cost: 15 Medals in Helldivers Mobilize
- Effect: Your team comes out of their Hellpods fully stocked with Ammo, Stims, and Grenades.
This option can be found on page 3 of the Helldivers Mobilize Warbond. With the help of this booster, Helldivers drop in with fully stocked Ammo, Grenades, and Stims. This will let you take your time before calling in Resupply stratagems. Remember that this does not apply to the support weapons that you call in via stratagem codes. While you might be better equipped with this booster, it’s not very valuable as you’re bound to run into ammo during missions.
5. Experimental Infusion
- Cost: 80 Medals in Viper Commandos
- Effect: Gives extra bonus to Stims, letting them boost movement speed and reduce damage taken for a short time.
Included as a part of the Viper Commandos Warbond, this booster enhances your stims. It can be found in page 3 of this rewards pass. These items now provide a small buff to movement speed and damage reduction while causing a trembling effect. It’s a neat bonus that stacks well with Medic armour options that let you bring more stims to a mission. And remember that you can apply these effects to allies as well.
6. Sample Extractor
- Cost: 65 Medals in Borderline Justice
- Effect: Large enemies now have a chance of dropping Samples on death. Capped at 10 drops per mission.
Sample Extractor is found on page 3 of Borderline Justice premium Warbond. Farming for Samples is an important part of the Helldivers 2 gameplay loop. Obviously, a booster that helps you be more efficient and quick about it is very useful. The downside is that you need to take down large enemies to have a chance to reap its benefits. When it works, it’s super strong – but it requires a squad that can take those enemies down in the first place. However, with a bit of luck, you can get your Super Destroyer upgrades much faster with the help of one Sample Extractor in your team.
7. Firebomb Hellpods
- Cost: 60 Medals in Freedom’s Flame
- Effect: Hellpods come with incendiaries that detonate on impact, igniting nearby targets.
This booster can be found on page 3 of Freedom’s Flame Warbond. It infuses your reinforcement Hellpods with incendiaries that detonate when your team lands or reinforces, spreading a fiery area of damage around it. Paired with the pod’s impact damage, this booster can turn your reinforcements into an offensive tool.
8. Dead Sprint
- Cost: 35 Medals in Truth Enforcers
- Effect: Allows Helldivers to keep sprinting even when they are out of stamina, draining their health instead.
This booster is a part of the Truth Enforcers Warbond, found on page 1. With it, you can keep sprinting even when your stamina’s completely gone, at the price of your HP. Note that you lose a small amount each second while sprinting, at approximately 3.5% health per second. This can help your team get out of sticky situations, but be sure you don’t die of exhaustion – so keep a Stim on hand. Luckily, this booster won’t let you die, instead making you stop sprinting when you reach 5% health left.
9. Armed Resupply Pods
- Cost: 55 Medals in Urban Legends
- Effect: Mounts a modified AR-23 Liberator to all resupply pods, allowing them to double as automatic turrets.
Found on page 2 of Urban Legends Warbond, this booster turns your Hellpods into veritable turret emplacements. This can be useful during missions where you expect to die a lot or when playing solo or duo. But with how often friendly fire results in casualties, you may have to get reinforcements because of the turret more often than you want to.
10. Localization Confusion
- Cost: 18 Medals in Cutting Edge
- Effect: Increases the cooldown for Bug Breaches and Bot Drops by 10%.
The Localization Confusion Booster is on page 1 of the Cutting Edge Warbond. While it reduces enemy encounters, it’s not as helpful as some of the other boosters on this list. And since it’s a part of a Premium Warbond, you’ll need to dish out Super Credits to unlock it in the first place.
11. Increased Reinforcement Budget
- Cost: 150 Medals in Helldivers Mobilize
- Effect: Provides one extra reinforcement per player.
This booster is a part of page 10 in the free Helldivers Mobilize Warbond. It increases the number of available Reinforcements by one per player, increasing the total from 20 to 24. This one’s a godsend on higher difficulties. I might have ranked it higher had it not been on page 10 of the reward pass. This would require players to earn 1350 Medals before even unlocking this booster.
12. UAV Recon
- Cost: 40 Medals in Helldivers Mobilize
- Effect: Increases all players’ effective radar range by 50%.
The UAV Recon booster is a part of page 6 in the Helldivers Mobilize Warbond. It increases all Helldivers’ radar range. This lets you spot threats and points of interest (POI) easily as the default 72m range is boosted to 110m. Your team can earn XP and rare resources faster with this booster but it’s still not as valuable as some of the others on this list.
13. Flexible Reinforcement Budget
- Cost: 75 Medals in Steeled Veterans
- Effect: Reduces the replenishment time for reinforcements by 25%.
This booster can be found on page 3 of the Steeled Veterans Warbond. It reduces the time until new reinforcements are granted once they’ve been depleted. This helps with tougher difficulties but it’s certainly not worth spending Super Credits on a premium Warbond. Despite cutting down 30 seconds from the recovery time, there are better boosters out there.
14. Expert Extraction Pilot
- Cost: 55 Medals in Democratic Detonation
- Effect: Reduces the extraction time by 30%.
This booster reduces the extraction timer for quicker escapes. Extractions are rarely the hardest part of missions in Helldivers 2. Even if this booster provided a significant difference, other options have a more meaningful impact on your gameplay before extraction even comes up.
15. Motivational Shocks
- Cost: 15 Medals in Polar Patriots
- Effect: Negates the slow-down effect inflicted by enemies.
This booster is an interesting option for a getaway. It negates any slowdown effect caused by enemy attacks, letting you sprint towards an objective or the extraction point. However, while it sounds useful, you’re better off trying any more helpful options.
How to get boosters
Use Medals earned from completing operations to unlock boosters that can be purchased from Warbonds. These are powerful buffs that can be equipped before going into a mission that add a passive effect across your whole team. However, you can only use one of them at a time each. This means that four boosters can be active at a time. Try to equip different boosters since their squad-based effects do not stack. If an ally picks a booster before you, you cannot pick it for that operation.
How to use a booster
Equip a booster by going into the Armory section of your Destroyer ship and heading to the Boosters section. These are purchased in the Acquisition Centre (press R while on the ship on PC). Right before dropping into a mission via the Galactic console, you’ll get to finalize your loadout. Here, you can swap between boosters you own by pressing the yellow hexagon icon to the right of your mission Stratagems. Keep your team’s strategy in mind to make the most of the booster’s benefits.
Before settling on your team’s boosters, make sure to pick out the best weapons for the job. Interestingly, the Chemical Agents Warbond didn’t come with any new boosters.
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