One thing I’ve noticed that separates the Illuminate is that the overseer & pole elite enemies have armor that you actually functions as armor; you must stripped/break it before damaging their main HP. You can use explosives or explosive weapons to bypass the armor as any hitbox in the AoE receives DMG, but this is something we haven’t really seen before. That and their shields having no armor so light pen high rpm weapons shine more than they do on other factions. I’d expect this armor/shield strip faction difference to be the rule when we see more Squid types.
Something to note though, the shot that strips the armor deals full damage to the enemy through it, which is what allows the amr and railgun to one shot them to the head
I've been running the Blitzer+basic Guard Dog. Doggo is surprisingly good at headshots and can keep the kill counter rising even while doing objectives. Blitzer holds everything on screen still for the doggo while generally frying zombies in 1 to 2 shots. Even without the doggo, it's great at the hordes, but TTK is low on the armor dudes. Still not bad though, as you can have 3 of them stun locked easily
Sickle isn’t S? Infinite ammo, possibly the best primary at taking down energy shields. Deals with hordes well and can kill overseers before it overheats. Just burn your spare mags against the horde.
Some thoughts about flame/incendiary weapons: Breaker Incendiary - The way to extend its ammo economy is to give time for your enemies to burn to a crisp, but the close-quarters nature of combat on Calpyso's colonies does not allow this. This means pumping more of your diminishing ammo supply into the burning horde of Voteless to compensate, which is not ideal. The Cookout has less of an issue with this due to its knockback effect. Torcher - While a viable weapon, it feels "neither here nor there" for me. If you want a flame weapon and your loadout allows for it, might as well go all-in with a proper Flamethrower for slightly more range and greater DPS, or, a Crisper for single-handed use. Being one-handed means you can shoot the Crisper behind you while running away from the Voteless; just give them a quick squirt every now and then to give yourself some breathing room for bringing your heavier weapons back into the fight (gas grenades are great for covering a tactical retreat too but I barely get enough of them even with a Supply Backpack).
I found the liberator carbine to be quite good on burst mode. Only switch to auto to take down ship shields and call an airstrike or throw a nade to blow up the spawner.
Ive been using the incendiary breaker alot for illuminate missions, its fantastic at dealing with the horde. One thing about the ammo economy to note is that in the city maps I find there is extra ammo all over the place, around every corner. Way more extra ammo than a lot of the extra maps so against the illuminate specifically I find the ammo issue to not be as bad than other maps where you might have to go out of your way to find some extra ammo
Sickle was my first. choice against the illuminate, when you aim downsights, you have a real monster and the illuminate armor doesn’t matter cause it’s rly easy to get headshots. I think that it should also be in S. Maaan this new faction is soooo good, a lot of capabilites unlike with bugs or bots, which have specific crutches that make only some weapons effective against them.
Eruptor and Dominator are A tier for me. Both can one shot Brutes and the Overseers with a well placed headshot, Eruptor is good with horde clear, both of them deal with shields very well in my experience with the Eruptor taking down harvester shields in one or two shots, and the Dominator doing so in 3 to 4. I don't bother shooting Harvesters themselves with my small arms, I'll delegate that to my trusty Quasar cannon and save my ammo for the targets where it's more efficient. As for the slow handling on both of them, i find using armor with Peak Physique on it and taking the new melee spear to be an excellent combo, since the armor works double time massively increasing your weapon handling and (at the moment) doubling your melee damage with the spear, giving you a very nice and satisfying option of dealing with the zombie hordes and brutes that get too close for comfort.
I know this video is about primaries, but be advised: The autocannon can occasionally glance off of the sloped armor of Overseers, especially the helmet. Try to hit them in the neck or under the rim for headshots.
Pretty good list, the only change I'd probably do is switch the Pummeler with the Lib Concussive. Ive tired the concussive and not only does the abysmal fire rate struggle against the horde, the push back actually hinders your ability to deal with Overseers and especially Elevated Overeseers as it pushes them out of your follow up shots making it incredibly difficult to land shots in the same spot. Whilst the Pummeler at least works with the stun effect and allows you to at the very least lock down a single target to whittle down.
I've had ok time with the concussive liberator, for the horde it's just full auto at head level, 1 shot to the head to kill the voteless, with a team shooting center mass into the horde contains them pretty alright for the rest to mow them down, i haven't had many issues with brute overseers either except that it takes a pretty long time to kill. Elevater Overseers are a bigger issue since even when affected by the stun effect they keep shooting.
@mathiasrryba that's the thing, the concussive doesn't actually have a stun effect, it just pushed back and staggers hence their ability to continue shooting. ^^
Personally, I ran Eruptor Redeemer Gas Grenades Then whatever stratagems fit the mission. Emplacements and sentry for defense, HMG/MG + supply pack for standard, etc etc. I found that this combination allowed me to have good horde clear, the ability to shoot down overflyers and observers, while also giving me the speed to quickly take out warp ships with support and primary. Its just what worked for me.
I would disagree a bit with the Dominator, if you're accurate then it's definitely S-tier. Reason being: it penetrates zombies so it can kill up to 3 with one shot so it's better than you'd think at mobbing, it kills all armored guys with a single headshot, and can one-mag harvesters when hitting the joint, plus it takes their shields down in just 6 shots so it can even compliment other support weapons well like the AMR that don't wanna push through the shield first
Finally some love for the diligence counter sniper. Its my go to for bugs and illuminate. Mixed with peak physique you can snap it around and pop killshots on bugs and aliens alike. Then run stalwart for crowd control and a jetpack to keep distance and a thermite for heavies and i no longer use offensive strats. Find myself calling mechs and eats to fill slots now. Go to sidearm is still bushwacker for hordes
Last I was able to play against them (before we won) I was running D8's solo. I'm not great at the game so no D10 for me. My go-to build was Diligence CS, Grenade Pistol, MG, 500KG, Airburst, MG Turret.
My friend that I play HD2 all the time with is a diehard fan of the Dominator and for the other factions I'll agree it's a great gun. But watching him using it against the Illuminate I saw him struggle a lot. He sticks to it though and as long as he's having fun with it, I'm happy. Need to try out some more guns myself. I can't just keep going with the default crossbow all the time.
Yeah dominator is a great gun. Heavily recommend it for bots and it handles itself well with bugs, although not ideal, but i hated using it against illuminate. The slow build up speed on the bullets dont help especially when trying to hit the flying units, and it doesn't take out the brutes as well as i thought it would.
Solid load out! Have you tried the gas strike? Low cool down means it can help with Voteless, and it can take out a Voidship if you place the beacon under the ship.
Major point of view differences, the heavy smg is b tier at best, it's vastly inferior at clearing hordes than any liberator or tenderizer, and it's mediocre against the elites outside of very close range. Not unusable for sure but an akward weapon imo. On the other hand most liberators are b tier, with the pen being a tier because it's very efficient at headshot against elites (which the heavy smg is aweful at). The CC liberator i would put in b tier, not incredible in itself, awesome in combination with a guard dog, awesome in teamplay, it's the kind of weapon you can bring in any difficulty without harming your chances. Cookout and punisher cannot be in different tiers, they achieve very similar results. The incendiary effect doesn't had much, and the punisher is better at taking out the elites (more effective at longer range, more powerful).
Oh and by the way, light pen isn't a problem, there is little armor against these illuminate units except the heads and the harvester. The elite body as ablative armor, so an accurate light pen armor is very good as long as you aim well. Good thing there is plenty of those around.
That's the great thing about the HD2 community, we can all have major differences of opinions but still have conversations full of details and information that we all appreciate
@@chronic6428yeah I'm aware about the armour but I light pen not being a problem but for most of the player base... They just want info on what is good and what isn't. Basically short and simple facts about each weapon.
So far, my favourite is the Spray and pray with Guard dog backpack and Laser cannon. I hate aiming on controller vs the jerpack guys and the guard dog just shoots them and rhe brutes down, 1 taps voteless. The shotty I use to take out shields fast and to deal.with the hoard. Laser cannon is just for blowing off the top and bottom of the harvester head and shooting the eye. That kills it fast.
The breaker is a solid A Tier weapon due to its fire rate and high damage. It deals with the zombies and polearm enemies very effectively in my experience. Plus it's good at taking down shields.
I think this is a really accurate tier-list, however it bothers me how devs tried so hard in the past to keep all weapons at a trash level that now even after the "buffs" 63% of the weapons are B, C and D tier, this is 11 weapons that are useful and 19 weapons that are basically just toys.
One thing I’ve noticed that separates the Illuminate is that the overseer & pole elite enemies have armor that you actually functions as armor; you must stripped/break it before damaging their main HP.
You can use explosives or explosive weapons to bypass the armor as any hitbox in the AoE receives DMG, but this is something we haven’t really seen before.
That and their shields having no armor so light pen high rpm weapons shine more than they do on other factions.
I’d expect this armor/shield strip faction difference to be the rule when we see more Squid types.
Chargers
Something to note though, the shot that strips the armor deals full damage to the enemy through it, which is what allows the amr and railgun to one shot them to the head
The only weapon you need is the MG-43 Machine Gun.
I like to take the crossbow for overseers/tight groups and a Stalwart. I love MG-43 but the mobility of Stalwart is just so nice.
mg-43 is so goated against the squids
I've been running the Blitzer+basic Guard Dog.
Doggo is surprisingly good at headshots and can keep the kill counter rising even while doing objectives.
Blitzer holds everything on screen still for the doggo while generally frying zombies in 1 to 2 shots. Even without the doggo, it's great at the hordes, but TTK is low on the armor dudes. Still not bad though, as you can have 3 of them stun locked easily
Sickle isn’t S? Infinite ammo, possibly the best primary at taking down energy shields. Deals with hordes well and can kill overseers before it overheats. Just burn your spare mags against the horde.
Thought nobody heard that at 28:58
Lol
💩 i rate it b tier
Very solid tier list. Will you do one for support weapons and stratagems?
That's going to be my next video. Hopefully it will be out today but I work full time so it will depend on the time I finish work.
Orbital & Eagle Tier List is out now! Enjoy ^_^
@@Geneviesewhat do you do for work bro
Some thoughts about flame/incendiary weapons:
Breaker Incendiary - The way to extend its ammo economy is to give time for your enemies to burn to a crisp, but the close-quarters nature of combat on Calpyso's colonies does not allow this. This means pumping more of your diminishing ammo supply into the burning horde of Voteless to compensate, which is not ideal. The Cookout has less of an issue with this due to its knockback effect.
Torcher - While a viable weapon, it feels "neither here nor there" for me. If you want a flame weapon and your loadout allows for it, might as well go all-in with a proper Flamethrower for slightly more range and greater DPS, or, a Crisper for single-handed use. Being one-handed means you can shoot the Crisper behind you while running away from the Voteless; just give them a quick squirt every now and then to give yourself some breathing room for bringing your heavier weapons back into the fight (gas grenades are great for covering a tactical retreat too but I barely get enough of them even with a Supply Backpack).
Fantastic video, good work 👏🏼 keep it up 👍🏼
The Senator can 1 tap the overseer in the head, really easy if you stun them with the blitzer first
I found the liberator carbine to be quite good on burst mode. Only switch to auto to take down ship shields and call an airstrike or throw a nade to blow up the spawner.
Ive been using the incendiary breaker alot for illuminate missions, its fantastic at dealing with the horde. One thing about the ammo economy to note is that in the city maps I find there is extra ammo all over the place, around every corner. Way more extra ammo than a lot of the extra maps so against the illuminate specifically I find the ammo issue to not be as bad than other maps where you might have to go out of your way to find some extra ammo
Sickle was my first. choice against the illuminate, when you aim downsights, you have a real monster and the illuminate armor doesn’t matter cause it’s rly easy to get headshots. I think that it should also be in S. Maaan this new faction is soooo good, a lot of capabilites unlike with bugs or bots, which have specific crutches that make only some weapons effective against them.
Eruptor and Dominator are A tier for me. Both can one shot Brutes and the Overseers with a well placed headshot, Eruptor is good with horde clear, both of them deal with shields very well in my experience with the Eruptor taking down harvester shields in one or two shots, and the Dominator doing so in 3 to 4. I don't bother shooting Harvesters themselves with my small arms, I'll delegate that to my trusty Quasar cannon and save my ammo for the targets where it's more efficient. As for the slow handling on both of them, i find using armor with Peak Physique on it and taking the new melee spear to be an excellent combo, since the armor works double time massively increasing your weapon handling and (at the moment) doubling your melee damage with the spear, giving you a very nice and satisfying option of dealing with the zombie hordes and brutes that get too close for comfort.
I know this video is about primaries, but be advised: The autocannon can occasionally glance off of the sloped armor of Overseers, especially the helmet. Try to hit them in the neck or under the rim for headshots.
Pretty good list, the only change I'd probably do is switch the Pummeler with the Lib Concussive. Ive tired the concussive and not only does the abysmal fire rate struggle against the horde, the push back actually hinders your ability to deal with Overseers and especially Elevated Overeseers as it pushes them out of your follow up shots making it incredibly difficult to land shots in the same spot. Whilst the Pummeler at least works with the stun effect and allows you to at the very least lock down a single target to whittle down.
I've had ok time with the concussive liberator, for the horde it's just full auto at head level, 1 shot to the head to kill the voteless, with a team shooting center mass into the horde contains them pretty alright for the rest to mow them down, i haven't had many issues with brute overseers either except that it takes a pretty long time to kill. Elevater Overseers are a bigger issue since even when affected by the stun effect they keep shooting.
@mathiasrryba that's the thing, the concussive doesn't actually have a stun effect, it just pushed back and staggers hence their ability to continue shooting. ^^
Your volume is really low bud
Lower your phone volume if it's to loud for you then don't leave a useless comment that achieves nothing
@keetonyingling7839 lmao why would I lower the volume if hes too low already. You mad there boy?
@keetonyingling7839 and there you posted a useless comment, and a dumb one at the same time
I could hear him fine tbh, are you listening with ear buds?
His Vlvolume can't be low if your personal volume is raised to the level of Mach: Deaf.
Personally, I ran
Eruptor
Redeemer
Gas Grenades
Then whatever stratagems fit the mission. Emplacements and sentry for defense, HMG/MG + supply pack for standard, etc etc.
I found that this combination allowed me to have good horde clear, the ability to shoot down overflyers and observers, while also giving me the speed to quickly take out warp ships with support and primary. Its just what worked for me.
the Senator one-shot - headshots all of the elite enemies.
I would disagree a bit with the Dominator, if you're accurate then it's definitely S-tier. Reason being: it penetrates zombies so it can kill up to 3 with one shot so it's better than you'd think at mobbing, it kills all armored guys with a single headshot, and can one-mag harvesters when hitting the joint, plus it takes their shields down in just 6 shots so it can even compliment other support weapons well like the AMR that don't wanna push through the shield first
Finally some love for the diligence counter sniper. Its my go to for bugs and illuminate. Mixed with peak physique you can snap it around and pop killshots on bugs and aliens alike. Then run stalwart for crowd control and a jetpack to keep distance and a thermite for heavies and i no longer use offensive strats. Find myself calling mechs and eats to fill slots now. Go to sidearm is still bushwacker for hordes
Very good solid tier list - It's time to zap and cook some squids!! I'll turn them into calamari!! xD
Completely agree with your tier list. Tried all weapons aswell and came to the same conclusions 👍🏻
Great minds think alike
Last I was able to play against them (before we won) I was running D8's solo. I'm not great at the game so no D10 for me. My go-to build was Diligence CS, Grenade Pistol, MG, 500KG, Airburst, MG Turret.
My friend that I play HD2 all the time with is a diehard fan of the Dominator and for the other factions I'll agree it's a great gun.
But watching him using it against the Illuminate I saw him struggle a lot. He sticks to it though and as long as he's having fun with it, I'm happy.
Need to try out some more guns myself. I can't just keep going with the default crossbow all the time.
Yeah dominator is a great gun. Heavily recommend it for bots and it handles itself well with bugs, although not ideal, but i hated using it against illuminate. The slow build up speed on the bullets dont help especially when trying to hit the flying units, and it doesn't take out the brutes as well as i thought it would.
I run with the Scorcher, Lazer cannon, and guard dog. You just melt illuminate enemies, even took down a harvester with my Lazer cannon
Very nice to see almost all weapons in B or higher
The counter sniper marksman is my go to primary since I tend to avoid large firefights and use stealth armour
Just one man's opinion, but that you should put the weapon to the side and discuss it before placing it, for clarity.
What i run, focus on speed:
-urban scout
-Counter sniper (Adjuticator alternative)
-Grenade pistol
-frag
-AM riffle (or Spear)
-Eagle strafe
-gatling
- laser
Solid load out! Have you tried the gas strike? Low cool down means it can help with Voteless, and it can take out a Voidship if you place the beacon under the ship.
Not sure what is so great about medium armor penetrating weapons. It doesn't seem to make any difference on the Squids.
I tried slugger, it's soooo bad compared to other medium pen rifles.
Secondary would have been nice but here’s my top 3 I’ve used. Plasma pistol senator and grenade pistol.
19:54 yes yes its proximity trigger. So it’s very good against jet packs. If you can aim that is
Try to fix your mic settings, your about as loud on max volume that other stuff is at half
Eruptor 1 shots harvester shields and stun locks them. Havent tried on joints yet
Major point of view differences, the heavy smg is b tier at best, it's vastly inferior at clearing hordes than any liberator or tenderizer, and it's mediocre against the elites outside of very close range. Not unusable for sure but an akward weapon imo. On the other hand most liberators are b tier, with the pen being a tier because it's very efficient at headshot against elites (which the heavy smg is aweful at). The CC liberator i would put in b tier, not incredible in itself, awesome in combination with a guard dog, awesome in teamplay, it's the kind of weapon you can bring in any difficulty without harming your chances. Cookout and punisher cannot be in different tiers, they achieve very similar results. The incendiary effect doesn't had much, and the punisher is better at taking out the elites (more effective at longer range, more powerful).
Oh and by the way, light pen isn't a problem, there is little armor against these illuminate units except the heads and the harvester. The elite body as ablative armor, so an accurate light pen armor is very good as long as you aim well. Good thing there is plenty of those around.
That's the great thing about the HD2 community, we can all have major differences of opinions but still have conversations full of details and information that we all appreciate
@@chronic6428yeah I'm aware about the armour but I light pen not being a problem but for most of the player base... They just want info on what is good and what isn't. Basically short and simple facts about each weapon.
@@Geneviese I have no problem with short and simple, but i have had a fairly different feedback based on my experience fighting the illuminates.
I tried the scorcher against harvester joints and it did nothing, I think its bugged but it still lowers it alot imo
Whoever reads this please try the plasma punisher shotgun. I been having so much fun vs squids with it
So far, my favourite is the Spray and pray with Guard dog backpack and Laser cannon. I hate aiming on controller vs the jerpack guys and the guard dog just shoots them and rhe brutes down, 1 taps voteless. The shotty I use to take out shields fast and to deal.with the hoard. Laser cannon is just for blowing off the top and bottom of the harvester head and shooting the eye. That kills it fast.
Lib carbine is excellent for taking squid or ufo shield
Nice, helpful!!
I do not agree with the breaker man that thing does not kill the overseers it felt so weak
The breaker is a solid A Tier weapon due to its fire rate and high damage. It deals with the zombies and polearm enemies very effectively in my experience. Plus it's good at taking down shields.
I think this is a really accurate tier-list, however it bothers me how devs tried so hard in the past to keep all weapons at a trash level that now even after the "buffs" 63% of the weapons are B, C and D tier, this is 11 weapons that are useful and 19 weapons that are basically just toys.
Being B tier doesn't make them bad. B tier has never been bad in any tier list - it just means they are middle of the road
Could be worse. Could just have defective or malfunctioning weapons like irl.
i get 700 plus kills on lvl 10 with no support weapon with the lib penetrator . can even down the tripod in 1 to 2 mags .
The lib pen is a solid weapon and great in the hands of an experienced player
Makes you think they're holding back some higher difficulty enemies for the full invasion doesnt it
@@Gridpipe well they do, right now we basically got the equivalent of troopers, two types of devastators and a hulk
That's insane. I started with the lib pen but latetly I ended up switching to the adju which I found better against squids
Dominator is excellent for illuminates