Helldivers 2 YouTuber spends 10 hours balancing the game

Helldivers 2 is in a bad state right now. The Escalation of Freedom update was intended to bring about many positive changes to the game and set it on the right path for Arc 2. Unfortunately, it was largely met with backlash from the community and now the developers have laid out a 60-day plan to fix many of the issues and make long-term improvements to prevent this from happening again in the future. With confidence in Arrowhead Game Studios at an all-time low, some have taken it upon themselves to figure out how to fix the game.

Helldivers 2 YouTuber ThiccFilA recently spent close to 10 hours during a live stream going over every primary and secondary weapon, as well as Grenade and Stratagems, and extensively rebalancing them in a way that would make sense and create the intended meta. All of this has been documented in a Google Doc file which you can read here. The intended methodology behind the balancing is that primary and secondary weapons are intended to deal with light and medium armor enemies, while support Stratagems are supposed to take out heavy armored foes.

According to the YouTuber, this is how Arrowhead Game Studios intended for the weapons in Helldivers 2 to operate, but “Currently every weapon breakpoint is just below optimal and sub-optimal time-to-kill,” as detailed in his recent video regarding the Autocannon and Cookout Shotgun being the potentially best loadout in the game right now.

To begin the balancing, ThiccFilA states that all guns should receive “+1 damage to counteract fall-off damage rounding down and ruining every breakpoint,” while saying that Arrowhead should “remove headshot damage from enemies. Headshot damage was increased in the same patch that you changed headshot damage based on armor value.”

Enemy Balancing

When it comes to enemy balancing, here are all of the nerfs that ThiccFilA has claimed should be changed.

• “Devastator – combine chest with pelvis/keep armor on chest, 425 total
• Behemoth chargers – remove from the game.
• Impaler legs – 600 hp armor
• Tanks – Lower Cannon Turret top to 625 Health so AT 1 shots. Railgun will feel alright, it will still be bad at striders. 
• Barrager Tank – 1000 health for spear 1 shot. 2 shots from other AT
• Ballistic Missile – 625 hp
• Hulk – Nerf to 1000 damage to meet spear breakpoint.”

Weapon Status Changes

Recent changes to mechanics such as fire have led to backlash from the Helldivers 2 community, so much that it has caused Arrowhead Game Studios to lay out a 60-day roadmap to fix the game following the Escalation of Freedom update.

Helldivers 2 currently features three different weapon status types, fire, Arc, and Laser. Fire and Arc weapons are most effective against the Terminids, while Lasers are a great choice against the Automatons. ThiccFilA believes that all three currently need a buff to them, with fire status needing to be 100% durable, slow down enemies, and Flamethrowers should be able to burn bug holes.

Arc should be able to deal damage through dead bodies and receive a +1 chain. Finally, Lasers should receive increased armor penetration, as well as +10% damage.

Primary Weapon Changes

For primary weapons, ThiccFilA claims that many of them need to be buffed, with only a few exceptions such as the Pummeler being fine as is, he currently classes it as a S+ tier weapon and one of the four best weapons in the game along with the Counter Sniper, Dominator, and Plasma Punisher. I won’t detail each of the changes that he suggests that Arrowhead makes, due to the balance document possibly changing over time, and I highly recommend you read the full document yourself as well as watch any of his videos relating to it. But, some notable changes include,

• Breaker Incendiary – Return the spare mags, swap dmg with spray and pray.
• Eruptor – Give shrapnel and revert to its original damage that applies bleed effect over time.
• Tenderizer – Increase mag capacity from 30-35, increase spare mags from 7-8.
• Liberator – 70 dmg base.

Secondary Weapon Changes

For all secondary weapons, ThiccFilA suggests buffing the damage range fall-off, as well as adding reflex sights instead of iron sights. Again, I highly recommend that you read the full document, but some notable changes include,

• Redeemer – Remove recoil.
• Grenade Pistol – Increase the amount of Grenades that can be carried.

Frag Changes

Across the board, ThiccFilA suggests adding shrapnel damage back to Frag weapons, as well as making changes to numerous Grenades including,

• High Explosive – Double radius and stagger.
• Incendiary – Double radius.
• Incendiary Impact – Fire buff.
• Thermite – 360 dmg.
• Smoke – Double grenade count.
• Stun – Fix issues where enemies don’t stun.
• Throwing Knife – 400 impact /400 durable AP4, as well as 2x damage to unalerted enemies.

Supply Stratagem Changes

Finally, there are the Stratagems, which are categorized into three groups in-game, Supply, Offensive, and Defensive. As with previous sections, I won’t note every proposed change, but here are some highlights.

• Team Reload – should be able to use 1 handed weapons and toss grenades. Press reload to reload.
• Stalwart – Concussive rounds. Otherwise make it a primary without reducing the mag.
• EAT – Remove fall off damage.
• Recoilless Rifle – Remove fall off damage.
• Flamethrower – remove linear damage scaling, or scale it better, give it old fire animation.
• Autocannon – Reticle is bad, weapon blocks ⅓ of the screen.
• Railgun – +Stagger, add charge meter to 3rd person.
• Ballistic Shield – add more 1 handed weapons, lower cooldown.
• Shield Generator Pack – regen out of combat.

Offensive Stratagem Changes

• 120mm – first hit lands on marker
• 380mm – first hit lands on marker
• Walking Barrage – decrease spread.
• Orbital Laser – Double damage, move faster, larger size.
• Orbital Railcannon Strike – Triple burst fire, like the new Factory Strider’s turrets. 

Defensive Stratagem Changes

• Anti-Tank Mines – Add neon lighting, put a marker on the map where mines are called, the dispenser aggros all enemies, so they walk into the field, one mine shouldn’t set off a chain reaction for all mines, lower cooldown, auto explode after cooldown is over.
• Machine Gun Sentry – Target priority ship module, AP4, aim for head
• Gatling Sentry – Target priority ship module, AP4, aim for head

Although these are just one person’s opinions, many of these changes make sense and would help to better balance the game, giving each weapon type a use case, from primary and secondary weapons taking down smaller enemies while Stratagems are used for heavier enemies. This was the original intention of the Helldivers 2 developers and it seems that they have unintentionally strayed away from this.

With the 60-day roadmap in effect, it will be interesting to see how Arrowhead Game Studios deals with the recent backlash and whether these sorts of changes are made, as well as whether they will stay true in the long term. But for now, all we can do is try to enjoy the game in the state it is in and optimize our load-outs to spread as much democracy as possible to the Automatons and Terminids. To help with this, I highly recommend checking out our Helldivers 2 best weapons guide and best armor guide.