Stun grenade. Stun grenade. STUN GRENADE! It works magic against the Automatons. Stops all of them in their tracks. You can save your teammates getting swarmed by berserkers. You can halt Hulks and leave them helpless for a few seconds as you line up a headshot. Makes devastators sitting ducks. Sure, it cannot destroy Fabricators but if just one person packs stun grenades in the squad they can create marvelous breathing room for themselves or the entire team. Autocannon. This is an old drum but we must keep beating it. Autocannon is like the swiss knife against automatons. It can deal with just about anything they can throw at you. Even the new gunships can be whipped out of the air with it. Takes five quick shots. The Scorcher, Dominator and Eruptor are magically good against automatons. They all have some nasty downsides. Ammo hungry beast(Scorcher), projectile to aim with (Dominator) or you really want to avoid close combat at all cost (Eruptor) but they are very formidable. Able to punish anything up Devastators. The Scorcher can take a strider with 3 shots to the faceplate. The Eruptor melts automatons. Their explosive damage makes quick work on devastators and berserkers aswell and they can penetrate Annihilator weakspot. EMS Mortar can be a life saver to carry when getting overwhelmed. But these are just my favorites that I battle tested against them many times. There are soo many more combinations, weapons and loadouts. My buddy loves going face to face with them using heavy armor, ballistic shield and defender. The Quasar is very good aswell, two shot to the tank's turret and they are a goner. But the ultimate lesson: Don't let the automatons swamp you down. Don't wage a battle of attrition as more and more arrives. Break away. Break line of sight. Let the place calm down. Or at least have someone sneaky break away and deal with the nearby objective quietly while the dropships are busy with you.
Most don’t know about that shoot move and communicate 😏 been preaching it to the masses, I don’t mind you taking out a patrol but don’t just stand there Willy nilly and burning time. Against automaton’s you have to stay moving at all times. Just got the scorcher and it’s been great since I take a supply pack as well and I’m about to unlock the dominator (I’ve been slacking on that warbond in the grind for the scorche)
Tip for the factory strider: If you have good aim and some sort of anti vehicle weapon like a quasar, EAT, recoilless rifle etc. and you shoot it in the eye (little circle on the right side (your left, its right) of the face, or anywhere else in the small gap that goes across its face it will not only stagger it but hitting it twice there will drop it
Dominator main here. The best advice that I can give to anyone wanting to get better with my beloved bolt gun is to get very comfortable cycling to your secondary due to its slow reload time, and to do your best to keep your nerves about you. The weapon rewards you for placing your shots consistently, and the stagger means you can take a little bit more time between shots than you would with most other weapons Democracy protects.
I could add LOADS of points to this for every enemy, as about eighty-percent of my hundred-sixteen hours has been about fully removing SkyNet from the galactic consciousness, but this would be a RIDICULOUSLY long comment. But what I will leave here is thank you for the playstyle videos; not only did it make me try out things I didn't consider beforehand (as I had reverted, for a time, to a bad habit called 'taking the opinions of others seriously'; happens when I go into new live-service titles, it's always a temporary lapse of sanity), but it also helped me realize how important your armour can be in missions. I used to just rock whatever I thought looked cool, but ever since I took the 'pay attention to your armour bonus' to heart, I've had LOADS of success where I would have struggled. I'm certain some of that is increased confidence and raw increased experience, but had it not been me stumbling upon this gold-mine of alternative thinking, I may not have gotten to level eight difficulty nearly as quickly. So, thank you, and my apologies for the long-winded nature of the comment.
I'm personally a little less annoyed at the Devastators and more at the Berserkers. Probably because of my love for the autocannon. stagger on the devastators combined with the time between shots is almost a guaranteed 3-tap or 4-tap. yes including shield devastators in my experience. The berserkers get too close too fast for my liking to the point that I've died to my own autocannon more times than I care to count and/or admit
My tips as a Bot main (Admittedly I suck vs bugs so a bug video would actually be appreciated!), Bots are scary but in my opinion have more tricks you can use against them to make things easier. I usually solo dive 5-7 and Dive with friends 7+. 1) Have someone carry a smoke strategem. For those of you familliar with the survivability onion, Don't be seen is the outermost layer, If things get too hairy, pop smoke between you and the bots then as a team run, They'll still TRY and shoot you but provided you and your team is getting out of dodge you'll lose em. When they immediately lose sight of you they'll shoot in that general direction and then try to search around the area they last saw you until they give up and go on patrol I've saved my team countless times because I popped orbital smoke when we were pinned down (Eagle works fine too but I rather Clusters or Airstrikes, depending on my team composition). It can also work to conceal your position if you have to hunker down buying your team some time. It can also work as a flank too! 2) Don't underestimate Beam weaponry vs bots. People love the Sickle and its a fine weapon I understand why its popular, but I think its better vs bugs because of its slight innacuracy thus it can have trouble clicking on bot heads, which is what you REALLY need (Hot take, the sights on the Sickle and Scythe should be swapped, they make more sense in their respective roles). The Dagger is nice for being one handed and quickly kills chaff or finishing off Beserkers, It still is the worst handgun in the game but you can make it work if you want a handgun with zero ammunition dependency to fight back to your primary. The Scythe is a well rounded beam weapon, allowing you to delete anything with a robo skull in less than half a second and the laser cannon is devastating against anything with a weakpoint or without the heaviest armor, killing skulls faster than the scythe with some slightly worse handling and wobbly aim and has the ability to destroy vents and even deal damage through lighter hulk armor, deleting the eye and severing limbs (though the latter can take a few seconds). Dont forget to aim in First person for Maximum precision, get a shield backpack so you can stay out of cover longer and don't forget to manage your heat! I wont say its a "Meta" build and there's better weapons for certain roles but I genuinely think people have been sleeping on these weapons and are more effective than they are given credit for when fighting bots. Beams also immediately detonate any backpack light bots have so commisars and jetpack bots either die or burn to death with a single click. 3) If you don't have a good angle on a hulk, that's when you want to leg or strip a gun off to help your teammates. Legging works like Mechwarrior, one leg down severely reduces a hulk's mobility and Two legs down counts as a kill. With one hillarious exception, the achievement "We'll call that a draw", If you strip off all four limbs but otherwise dont touch the hulk, the achievement doesnt count it as a kill. (It does still count for a kill on objectives where you kill hulks, which is how I got it) 4) For Support weapons I think there's four in particular that are incredible against the bots 1) Stalwart the low recoil and high RPM allows it to chew through not only the light chaff but allows you to click on heads, You can also saw medium bots in half with High RPM if you shoot the abdomen. I find Its the most efficient way I've been able to deal with swarms of Beserkers. It struggles vs armor however so you'll need an answer or a teammate for anything hulk sized or larger. 2) Autocannon: It might actually be the best gun in the game but its especially devastating vs bots, either staggers big guys or deleting heads like an AMR, has a small explosion radius, can destroy fabs and vents, and the backpack reload is the most forgiving in the game provided you can count shots (you reload in 5 round clips, yes actual Lee Einfield-style clips). Nevermind its vast ammo pool. 3) Laser Cannon: Already covered but its a fantastic all rounder option with no backpack dependency, good if you aren't running a support weapon already 4) Grenade launcher. Poor ammo economy aside, its either a cluster bomb in your pocket, deleting anything lighter than a hulk (and even then you can hurt vents!) or a fab buster. Get a supply pack to keep it fed. 5) Ballistic shield + Defender is an incredible base assault loadout and makes YOU the heavy devastator! Pair it with good explosive resistance armor (The Cash shop has light and medium variants) and you can face down devastators and light infantry of any stripe (Defender is two shots to the dome! or you can saw em in half through the midsection if its not a heavy devastator which you are giving them a taste of their own medicine!). Any bullet weaker than a cannon simply gets deleted. This is also the only build I'm aware of where the Peacemaker is any good because it has a laser sight (The Redeemer and Dagger does not and I'm fairly certain the senator doesn't either but I could be mistaken), thus allowing you to aim in first person with the shield up and snipe smaller targets or as an alternative head popper if your SMG is stuck on reload. You also throw grenades behind the shield so you don't even need to worry about bots spawning and shooting you as you chuck a grenade down the hatch. You also reload behind it if you have it up, I recommend non impact explosive grenades for consistent fab kills and letting your friends deal with everyone else (Striders, hulks, tanks). You can also easily disengage because you have two one handed weapons allow you to shoot behind you while running away, pretty much making it a hard counter to any melee unit that's not heavily armored (Flamethrower Hulks but in fairness you are dead before they get in range to use their buzzsaw). Some warnings and quirks about it. Cannon shots destroy ballistic shields, Shields only protect your forward arc, you can still be shot from the flanks or anywhere exposed. You can only use a weapon with the "One handed" attribute (handguns and SMGs), otherwise it will rest on your back (which does still protect you on your back). Also do keep in mind some actions will cause the shield to stick on your back, simply swap to another one handed gun to get it back. You will also drop the shield if you pick up an SSD while holding it, holster your shield first by pulling out a support weapon and THEN pick up the SSD. You also don't drop the shield anymore when rockets hit you which is nice! 6) Dealing with explosions: Explosive damage in this game is modeled as an upside down cone to simulate fragmentation flying up from the ground. Other than explosive resistance armor being mandatory, crouching and lying low reduces explosive damage, Sprinting and diving actually INCREASES explosive damage against you. Most people who die from explosions are running around like it's Call of Duty or trying for dark souls dodges THE BOTS WITH ROCKETS ARE COUNTING ON THIS ON PURPOSE. Learning how to mitigate explosive damage goes a long way to fighting bots well 7) On Eradicate bot missions, Have a 380 to clear the board when your team inevitably gets overwhelmed, It will kill bots as you keep hitting the cycle of respawn-die-repeat and usually does it enough to finish em off or take out enough so that you MIGHT be able to fight your way back. 8) Bot bases are far more vulnerable to strategems than the Bugs. Bot fabricators can die from grenades in the vents, hellpods, Well placed Orbital Precision strikes and anything stronger than that, Spears from any angle (provided it wants to lock on), and Autocannon/Rocket/Eruptors in the vents. Detector towers die from high explosive strategems, and the AA's and Mortars die like normal turrets. Disruptor towers unfortunately only die from hellbombs (and maybe the 500kg but I need to science that) unless you get lucky and one spawns with an ATTACHED fabricator, kill the fabricator and the tower follows. 9) Rule of thumb for stratagem killing bases. Assuming no anti-strategem shenanigans (AA/Spread/Ion Storms), Light bases can be eliminated with a Precision strike, Medium bases and Bot installations (Disruptors, AA/Mortars) will either be a normal Airstrike if you can line it up or 120MM barrage, and Heavies will be downed by a 380. Now the latter two still may not down their proper bases but at absolute worst, you dealt damage and severely degraded the defenders inside allowing your team to easily mop the rest up. You can also use an orbital laser to help soften up heavy bases and it will lock on to and demolish command bunkers pretty reliably! Due to their limited use however I recommend only pulling it out vs objectives. 10) The other reason to take explosive resistance armor is the accuracy bonus you get, it stacks with your crouching/prone accuracy bonus (which you should be using anyway to help ward against explosions and click on heads easier!). Seriously that armor is basically the "I'm designed to be a bot's worst nightmare" armor! 11) My hottest take vs bots is Taking down dropships is overrated, sure dropships die and take down some of their crew but the bots need a second to get their surroundings, The dropship acts as free cover for the survivors giving them that time and its usually only the lightest chaff that dies and they don't even call down reinforcements! Meaning their most dangerous ability doesnt even exist. Just kill em on the dropship if possible (Autocannon is wonderful for this) or immediately when they land. 12) Any AOE is your best bet vs striders, Eruptors are one shot crotch shots, Scorchers are about 2-4 shots, Autocannon is 1-2 shots, Impacts are insta kills. Otherwise run around with a one handed and style on em! SES Spear of Midnight out
All great advice, and I'd like to supplement for the ballistic shield at the time of writing: if it's glitched on your back, you can also tap your stratagem button, which should also let you put it back in your hand. Not only that, but using your emote is currently a consistent way to glitch if on your back, should you want it there, but lack a 2-handed weapon. You can effectively use your stratagem key and emote key as a "draw/sheathe" function for the shield for the time being.
My niche bot stratagem is bringing the EAT as an additional anti-fabricator precision strike. Calling it on (within 2m of) a fabricator will kill it with the hellpod without giving away your location (as it is a blue beam), or call it from afar and either destroy devastators or use on a dropship above the targeted fabricator. I love killing 2 bots with one *shton*
My go to for bots is a Sickle and Quasar Cannon. While I am not beyond hitting devastators with a Queso Cannon shot, I've found that the volume of fire I can get with the Sickle can get a headshot fairly well. If you have a piece of right peek cover, you can get an angle on their head before they get an angle on you, so if you pie the corner, they're not that hard. I also tend to hit Rocket Devastators in the shoulders when doing this because I find it faster to kill them when I don't have to keep peeking in and out to avoide rockets. Given the spread that the Sickle has for its shots, I find it quicker to kill Rocket Devs by removing rockets so I can hold still and get headshots. Aside from rockets, all devastators have weapons on the right side. If you can get a right peek on them, they're easy pickings.
Kit building is what's important for bots and theirs two methods in play, precision support weapon with more defensive stratagems or area deletion that favors speed and distance or something that can clear hordes which you need to build with some hulk buster stratagems as those tend to shrug off any horde clear support weapons. The GL is surprisingly effective against bots as they like to stand together and sing kumbaya, two tapping any devastator or 5 tapping a tank. Machine guns while sitting in horde clear, need that precision to work but you can sweep to delete any chaff except the heavy version. That thing is a priority killer and not a sweeper meaning you need to rely on your primary to handle the small threats.
Despite its Inconsistencies, the SPEAR is a solid niche pickup on higher Bot difficulties. Not covered here are the Cannon Turrets found across the map and at random POIs on higher difficulties. These are an annihilator Tank's turret on a mount, and are deadly accurate to 150 meters. While they share the same weaknesses as a Tank, getting impact grenades to hit the right spots can be tough because of their height and angle. Additionally, because of the distance involved in an optimal engagement, getting around to the heat sink can be tough under fire, or when it turns too quickly to get the last necessary shot off with your Light Vehicle penetrating weapon. They're also nails tough from the front and it will take 3 EAT/Recoil/Quasar shots to take down. Enter, the SPEAR. While it can sometimes struggle mightily to hit inactive towers, it is still fairly capable of locking onto and hitting these Cannon Turrets from up to 300 meters away. Any cannon turret that has been aggro-ed will also become much more susceptible to being locked onto, although beware that the spear really hates locking onto the turret from right on it, you actually want to be at range with it. However, if you can get the Windows XP operating device in your Spear to lock, it will One shot these turrets every single time, except in the extremely rare case that the rocket hits the Cannon barrel. This, combined with the ability to destroy Bot fabricators from any angle (Even when approached from behind), and the capacity to consistently and cleanly One-shot Gunships with no need to aim (Buff to their strafing ability today? The SPEAR doesn't even care) makes the SPEAR a very valid, if niche, option for teamplay on higher difficulties. If you treat her right, whisper words of encouragement, and take the advice of Obi-Wan, your Team will never have to worry about a Gunship or Cannon Turret ever again.
“The only* good X is a dead X” is rough to hear for some folks with families that went through that. You seem like a friendly dude, and like you’d wanna know.
I'm gonna talk about a build I like. I call it 40mm primary. It's the grenade luancher with supply pack. You can use it for stealth solo or be the chaff sweeper on group missions. Get pretty good with it on 2 and 3 and it will take you to 7. Past that I don't know yet. Also not great for berserkers. But you have other options there.
I’ve found the redeemer to be a great tool for dealing with beserkers, just shoot over your shoulder as you move out of their reach. They’re usually close by enough to not waste much damage. Facing off against heavy devastators with a defender and a ballistic shield is funny too because you can and will outperform them at their own party trick. Just take care not to let yourself get ragdolled by explosions; you might still walk away but it’s a bit of a PITA.
a tip to actually not insta die to a scorcher hulk is to dive right before it starts shooting its flamethrower, which shouldn't be a problem because its very obvious when the hulk starts spitting fire. I did this and I kited it around for about 2 minutes until my friend was able to make his way over to me and shoot its heat sink
Worth noting, the AT-AT has vulnerabilities on its back. If you end up on it and have medium penetration, destroying the four vents that pop up will kill it faster than it’s underbelly. You can also get lucky with eagle hitting those vents.
Punisher plasma is good against bots, has a safer aoe than the crossbow, fast ish reload animation, tons of ammo so you don't have to fret about throwing away half a mag. Bullies and staggers groups of medium enemies.
I believe I have found a way to at least somewhat help kill those factory strider's. Ok so you know how past a certain distance if you shoot one of those sentinel cannon things they won't shoot back, I forget what they're actually called anyway, past a certain point you can shoot them and not get shot back. Well the cannon on top of a factory strider works the same way so my solution is the almighty quasar cannon. You can shoot as far as you can see and at those distances even if the strider agro's you can inflict enough damage by the time it reaches you to make it almost combat ineffective. Other than that the only solution is as always more high explosive ordinance after all a extra 500kg never hurt anything.
I honestly have an easier time with bots because I am a light armor loving stealth player. Don’t really have to deal with bots drops if they have no idea where I am or if the base is destroyed and I’m long gone by the time they’re dropping. Stratagem blockers aren’t that big a deal when you realize they come in two flavors. One comes with a fabricator attached to it. If you target and destroy the fabricators like any other fabricator, it takes the stratagem blocker out with it in the explosion. You can usually brute force these with a well placed grenade or explosive shot in the door or vent. Then, there’s the more problematic version with no built in fabricator. These you should ideally sneak past the bots to disable the blocker through the console and destroy with a hellbomb. If there’s bots staring at the only way in or console itself you may have to distract them by making them inspect the sound of a grenade going off somewhere else if they’re heavy and cannot be sneak melee’d to death. If it’s a light unit staring at the console, sneak up to it and beat its ankles with melee. It usually only takes two or 3 swings and shouldn’t alert anything else if they don’t get a shot off. Remember, stealth is key for bots and your team will appreciate a saboteur in their ranks for those anti stratagem towers which is the only thing preventing your team from raining managed democracy down upon our enemies.
I guess you forgot cannon turret which I typically approach by not aggroing it if possible before getting a rear angle and crouching with the autocannon and giving it a swift three in the booty. If it is aggrod I will run strategically towards it in a zig zag like manner while removing line of site when possible and then tossing the impact or autocannon rounds up close.
u can kill fac striders (atat's) w the autocannon p easily aim for their eye hole and it should die in 10-17 shots can destroy their gatling guns w it too in 2 shots per gun can just dodge the cannon or get close enough after destroying gatling guns and it cant aim at you
I use the AMR so devastators are literally no problem for me. AMR 1 shot headshots them or 2 shot bodyshots them no problem. Meanwhile I get absolutely destroyed by berserkers
I have had good results with consistent dick shots from the Eruptor completely Bisecting anything short of a hulk. For hulks I switch to my arc thrower, ping the hulk, request Broken Arrow, and try to dump 5 full charged shots at the Clanker in question. 🙃 But I NEED to bring impact nades for shield devistators. And if you can get the Elevation required, one Eruptor shot will down a gunship (further tinkering is required) Super Earth's Blazing Sun, SES PRIDE OF PRIDE, Over and Out! 🫡
The las-98 laser cannon deletes gunships and devastators. It also surgically removes hulks arms rendering them harmless.
It surgically removes hulk legs too!
@@AeciusthePhilosopher The same as his eye!
Laser cannon is underrated.
This did not age well
Stun grenade. Stun grenade. STUN GRENADE! It works magic against the Automatons. Stops all of them in their tracks. You can save your teammates getting swarmed by berserkers. You can halt Hulks and leave them helpless for a few seconds as you line up a headshot. Makes devastators sitting ducks. Sure, it cannot destroy Fabricators but if just one person packs stun grenades in the squad they can create marvelous breathing room for themselves or the entire team.
Autocannon. This is an old drum but we must keep beating it. Autocannon is like the swiss knife against automatons. It can deal with just about anything they can throw at you. Even the new gunships can be whipped out of the air with it. Takes five quick shots.
The Scorcher, Dominator and Eruptor are magically good against automatons. They all have some nasty downsides. Ammo hungry beast(Scorcher), projectile to aim with (Dominator) or you really want to avoid close combat at all cost (Eruptor) but they are very formidable. Able to punish anything up Devastators. The Scorcher can take a strider with 3 shots to the faceplate. The Eruptor melts automatons. Their explosive damage makes quick work on devastators and berserkers aswell and they can penetrate Annihilator weakspot.
EMS Mortar can be a life saver to carry when getting overwhelmed.
But these are just my favorites that I battle tested against them many times. There are soo many more combinations, weapons and loadouts. My buddy loves going face to face with them using heavy armor, ballistic shield and defender. The Quasar is very good aswell, two shot to the tank's turret and they are a goner.
But the ultimate lesson: Don't let the automatons swamp you down. Don't wage a battle of attrition as more and more arrives. Break away. Break line of sight. Let the place calm down. Or at least have someone sneaky break away and deal with the nearby objective quietly while the dropships are busy with you.
Most don’t know about that shoot move and communicate 😏 been preaching it to the masses, I don’t mind you taking out a patrol but don’t just stand there Willy nilly and burning time. Against automaton’s you have to stay moving at all times.
Just got the scorcher and it’s been great since I take a supply pack as well and I’m about to unlock the dominator (I’ve been slacking on that warbond in the grind for the scorche)
Two shots from the AC to the same Gunship thruster drops them quicker and more rapidly than anything else
Tip for the factory strider: If you have good aim and some sort of anti vehicle weapon like a quasar, EAT, recoilless rifle etc. and you shoot it in the eye (little circle on the right side (your left, its right) of the face, or anywhere else in the small gap that goes across its face it will not only stagger it but hitting it twice there will drop it
Dominator main here. The best advice that I can give to anyone wanting to get better with my beloved bolt gun is to get very comfortable cycling to your secondary due to its slow reload time, and to do your best to keep your nerves about you. The weapon rewards you for placing your shots consistently, and the stagger means you can take a little bit more time between shots than you would with most other weapons
Democracy protects.
I could add LOADS of points to this for every enemy, as about eighty-percent of my hundred-sixteen hours has been about fully removing SkyNet from the galactic consciousness, but this would be a RIDICULOUSLY long comment.
But what I will leave here is thank you for the playstyle videos; not only did it make me try out things I didn't consider beforehand (as I had reverted, for a time, to a bad habit called 'taking the opinions of others seriously'; happens when I go into new live-service titles, it's always a temporary lapse of sanity), but it also helped me realize how important your armour can be in missions. I used to just rock whatever I thought looked cool, but ever since I took the 'pay attention to your armour bonus' to heart, I've had LOADS of success where I would have struggled. I'm certain some of that is increased confidence and raw increased experience, but had it not been me stumbling upon this gold-mine of alternative thinking, I may not have gotten to level eight difficulty nearly as quickly.
So, thank you, and my apologies for the long-winded nature of the comment.
No apologies needed. Glad I could help.
I'm personally a little less annoyed at the Devastators and more at the Berserkers. Probably because of my love for the autocannon. stagger on the devastators combined with the time between shots is almost a guaranteed 3-tap or 4-tap. yes including shield devastators in my experience. The berserkers get too close too fast for my liking to the point that I've died to my own autocannon more times than I care to count and/or admit
My tips as a Bot main (Admittedly I suck vs bugs so a bug video would actually be appreciated!), Bots are scary but in my opinion have more tricks you can use against them to make things easier. I usually solo dive 5-7 and Dive with friends 7+.
1) Have someone carry a smoke strategem. For those of you familliar with the survivability onion, Don't be seen is the outermost layer, If things get too hairy, pop smoke between you and the bots then as a team run, They'll still TRY and shoot you but provided you and your team is getting out of dodge you'll lose em. When they immediately lose sight of you they'll shoot in that general direction and then try to search around the area they last saw you until they give up and go on patrol I've saved my team countless times because I popped orbital smoke when we were pinned down (Eagle works fine too but I rather Clusters or Airstrikes, depending on my team composition). It can also work to conceal your position if you have to hunker down buying your team some time. It can also work as a flank too!
2) Don't underestimate Beam weaponry vs bots. People love the Sickle and its a fine weapon I understand why its popular, but I think its better vs bugs because of its slight innacuracy thus it can have trouble clicking on bot heads, which is what you REALLY need (Hot take, the sights on the Sickle and Scythe should be swapped, they make more sense in their respective roles). The Dagger is nice for being one handed and quickly kills chaff or finishing off Beserkers, It still is the worst handgun in the game but you can make it work if you want a handgun with zero ammunition dependency to fight back to your primary. The Scythe is a well rounded beam weapon, allowing you to delete anything with a robo skull in less than half a second and the laser cannon is devastating against anything with a weakpoint or without the heaviest armor, killing skulls faster than the scythe with some slightly worse handling and wobbly aim and has the ability to destroy vents and even deal damage through lighter hulk armor, deleting the eye and severing limbs (though the latter can take a few seconds). Dont forget to aim in First person for Maximum precision, get a shield backpack so you can stay out of cover longer and don't forget to manage your heat! I wont say its a "Meta" build and there's better weapons for certain roles but I genuinely think people have been sleeping on these weapons and are more effective than they are given credit for when fighting bots. Beams also immediately detonate any backpack light bots have so commisars and jetpack bots either die or burn to death with a single click.
3) If you don't have a good angle on a hulk, that's when you want to leg or strip a gun off to help your teammates. Legging works like Mechwarrior, one leg down severely reduces a hulk's mobility and Two legs down counts as a kill. With one hillarious exception, the achievement "We'll call that a draw", If you strip off all four limbs but otherwise dont touch the hulk, the achievement doesnt count it as a kill. (It does still count for a kill on objectives where you kill hulks, which is how I got it)
4) For Support weapons I think there's four in particular that are incredible against the bots 1) Stalwart the low recoil and high RPM allows it to chew through not only the light chaff but allows you to click on heads, You can also saw medium bots in half with High RPM if you shoot the abdomen. I find Its the most efficient way I've been able to deal with swarms of Beserkers. It struggles vs armor however so you'll need an answer or a teammate for anything hulk sized or larger. 2) Autocannon: It might actually be the best gun in the game but its especially devastating vs bots, either staggers big guys or deleting heads like an AMR, has a small explosion radius, can destroy fabs and vents, and the backpack reload is the most forgiving in the game provided you can count shots (you reload in 5 round clips, yes actual Lee Einfield-style clips). Nevermind its vast ammo pool. 3) Laser Cannon: Already covered but its a fantastic all rounder option with no backpack dependency, good if you aren't running a support weapon already 4) Grenade launcher. Poor ammo economy aside, its either a cluster bomb in your pocket, deleting anything lighter than a hulk (and even then you can hurt vents!) or a fab buster. Get a supply pack to keep it fed.
5) Ballistic shield + Defender is an incredible base assault loadout and makes YOU the heavy devastator! Pair it with good explosive resistance armor (The Cash shop has light and medium variants) and you can face down devastators and light infantry of any stripe (Defender is two shots to the dome! or you can saw em in half through the midsection if its not a heavy devastator which you are giving them a taste of their own medicine!). Any bullet weaker than a cannon simply gets deleted. This is also the only build I'm aware of where the Peacemaker is any good because it has a laser sight (The Redeemer and Dagger does not and I'm fairly certain the senator doesn't either but I could be mistaken), thus allowing you to aim in first person with the shield up and snipe smaller targets or as an alternative head popper if your SMG is stuck on reload. You also throw grenades behind the shield so you don't even need to worry about bots spawning and shooting you as you chuck a grenade down the hatch. You also reload behind it if you have it up, I recommend non impact explosive grenades for consistent fab kills and letting your friends deal with everyone else (Striders, hulks, tanks). You can also easily disengage because you have two one handed weapons allow you to shoot behind you while running away, pretty much making it a hard counter to any melee unit that's not heavily armored (Flamethrower Hulks but in fairness you are dead before they get in range to use their buzzsaw). Some warnings and quirks about it. Cannon shots destroy ballistic shields, Shields only protect your forward arc, you can still be shot from the flanks or anywhere exposed. You can only use a weapon with the "One handed" attribute (handguns and SMGs), otherwise it will rest on your back (which does still protect you on your back). Also do keep in mind some actions will cause the shield to stick on your back, simply swap to another one handed gun to get it back. You will also drop the shield if you pick up an SSD while holding it, holster your shield first by pulling out a support weapon and THEN pick up the SSD. You also don't drop the shield anymore when rockets hit you which is nice!
6) Dealing with explosions: Explosive damage in this game is modeled as an upside down cone to simulate fragmentation flying up from the ground. Other than explosive resistance armor being mandatory, crouching and lying low reduces explosive damage, Sprinting and diving actually INCREASES explosive damage against you. Most people who die from explosions are running around like it's Call of Duty or trying for dark souls dodges THE BOTS WITH ROCKETS ARE COUNTING ON THIS ON PURPOSE. Learning how to mitigate explosive damage goes a long way to fighting bots well
7) On Eradicate bot missions, Have a 380 to clear the board when your team inevitably gets overwhelmed, It will kill bots as you keep hitting the cycle of respawn-die-repeat and usually does it enough to finish em off or take out enough so that you MIGHT be able to fight your way back.
8) Bot bases are far more vulnerable to strategems than the Bugs. Bot fabricators can die from grenades in the vents, hellpods, Well placed Orbital Precision strikes and anything stronger than that, Spears from any angle (provided it wants to lock on), and Autocannon/Rocket/Eruptors in the vents. Detector towers die from high explosive strategems, and the AA's and Mortars die like normal turrets. Disruptor towers unfortunately only die from hellbombs (and maybe the 500kg but I need to science that) unless you get lucky and one spawns with an ATTACHED fabricator, kill the fabricator and the tower follows.
9) Rule of thumb for stratagem killing bases. Assuming no anti-strategem shenanigans (AA/Spread/Ion Storms), Light bases can be eliminated with a Precision strike, Medium bases and Bot installations (Disruptors, AA/Mortars) will either be a normal Airstrike if you can line it up or 120MM barrage, and Heavies will be downed by a 380. Now the latter two still may not down their proper bases but at absolute worst, you dealt damage and severely degraded the defenders inside allowing your team to easily mop the rest up. You can also use an orbital laser to help soften up heavy bases and it will lock on to and demolish command bunkers pretty reliably! Due to their limited use however I recommend only pulling it out vs objectives.
10) The other reason to take explosive resistance armor is the accuracy bonus you get, it stacks with your crouching/prone accuracy bonus (which you should be using anyway to help ward against explosions and click on heads easier!). Seriously that armor is basically the "I'm designed to be a bot's worst nightmare" armor!
11) My hottest take vs bots is Taking down dropships is overrated, sure dropships die and take down some of their crew but the bots need a second to get their surroundings, The dropship acts as free cover for the survivors giving them that time and its usually only the lightest chaff that dies and they don't even call down reinforcements! Meaning their most dangerous ability doesnt even exist. Just kill em on the dropship if possible (Autocannon is wonderful for this) or immediately when they land.
12) Any AOE is your best bet vs striders, Eruptors are one shot crotch shots, Scorchers are about 2-4 shots, Autocannon is 1-2 shots, Impacts are insta kills. Otherwise run around with a one handed and style on em!
SES Spear of Midnight out
All great advice, and I'd like to supplement for the ballistic shield at the time of writing: if it's glitched on your back, you can also tap your stratagem button, which should also let you put it back in your hand. Not only that, but using your emote is currently a consistent way to glitch if on your back, should you want it there, but lack a 2-handed weapon. You can effectively use your stratagem key and emote key as a "draw/sheathe" function for the shield for the time being.
My niche bot stratagem is bringing the EAT as an additional anti-fabricator precision strike. Calling it on (within 2m of) a fabricator will kill it with the hellpod without giving away your location (as it is a blue beam), or call it from afar and either destroy devastators or use on a dropship above the targeted fabricator. I love killing 2 bots with one *shton*
Fun fact about the AT-ATs, if you land on them when respawning you can stand and walk around on its back
My go to for bots is a Sickle and Quasar Cannon. While I am not beyond hitting devastators with a Queso Cannon shot, I've found that the volume of fire I can get with the Sickle can get a headshot fairly well. If you have a piece of right peek cover, you can get an angle on their head before they get an angle on you, so if you pie the corner, they're not that hard. I also tend to hit Rocket Devastators in the shoulders when doing this because I find it faster to kill them when I don't have to keep peeking in and out to avoide rockets. Given the spread that the Sickle has for its shots, I find it quicker to kill Rocket Devs by removing rockets so I can hold still and get headshots.
Aside from rockets, all devastators have weapons on the right side. If you can get a right peek on them, they're easy pickings.
Kit building is what's important for bots and theirs two methods in play, precision support weapon with more defensive stratagems or area deletion that favors speed and distance or something that can clear hordes which you need to build with some hulk buster stratagems as those tend to shrug off any horde clear support weapons. The GL is surprisingly effective against bots as they like to stand together and sing kumbaya, two tapping any devastator or 5 tapping a tank. Machine guns while sitting in horde clear, need that precision to work but you can sweep to delete any chaff except the heavy version. That thing is a priority killer and not a sweeper meaning you need to rely on your primary to handle the small threats.
Despite its Inconsistencies, the SPEAR is a solid niche pickup on higher Bot difficulties.
Not covered here are the Cannon Turrets found across the map and at random POIs on higher difficulties. These are an annihilator Tank's turret on a mount, and are deadly accurate to 150 meters. While they share the same weaknesses as a Tank, getting impact grenades to hit the right spots can be tough because of their height and angle. Additionally, because of the distance involved in an optimal engagement, getting around to the heat sink can be tough under fire, or when it turns too quickly to get the last necessary shot off with your Light Vehicle penetrating weapon. They're also nails tough from the front and it will take 3 EAT/Recoil/Quasar shots to take down.
Enter, the SPEAR. While it can sometimes struggle mightily to hit inactive towers, it is still fairly capable of locking onto and hitting these Cannon Turrets from up to 300 meters away. Any cannon turret that has been aggro-ed will also become much more susceptible to being locked onto, although beware that the spear really hates locking onto the turret from right on it, you actually want to be at range with it. However, if you can get the Windows XP operating device in your Spear to lock, it will One shot these turrets every single time, except in the extremely rare case that the rocket hits the Cannon barrel.
This, combined with the ability to destroy Bot fabricators from any angle (Even when approached from behind), and the capacity to consistently and cleanly One-shot Gunships with no need to aim (Buff to their strafing ability today? The SPEAR doesn't even care) makes the SPEAR a very valid, if niche, option for teamplay on higher difficulties. If you treat her right, whisper words of encouragement, and take the advice of Obi-Wan, your Team will never have to worry about a Gunship or Cannon Turret ever again.
If you can keep the ground-forces cleared, an autocannon turret can keep gunships falling form the sky.
“The only* good X is a dead X” is rough to hear for some folks with families that went through that. You seem like a friendly dude, and like you’d wanna know.
My apologies if you had taken it that way. I would like to remind you that I am talking about genocidal robots.
@@JebblesJunior oh man homie, do I ever know it. Call them CLANKERS 😉
Thanks for responding to a random 💗
I'm gonna talk about a build I like. I call it 40mm primary. It's the grenade luancher with supply pack. You can use it for stealth solo or be the chaff sweeper on group missions. Get pretty good with it on 2 and 3 and it will take you to 7. Past that I don't know yet. Also not great for berserkers. But you have other options there.
I’ve found the redeemer to be a great tool for dealing with beserkers, just shoot over your shoulder as you move out of their reach. They’re usually close by enough to not waste much damage.
Facing off against heavy devastators with a defender and a ballistic shield is funny too because you can and will outperform them at their own party trick. Just take care not to let yourself get ragdolled by explosions; you might still walk away but it’s a bit of a PITA.
a tip to actually not insta die to a scorcher hulk is to dive right before it starts shooting its flamethrower, which shouldn't be a problem because its very obvious when the hulk starts spitting fire. I did this and I kited it around for about 2 minutes until my friend was able to make his way over to me and shoot its heat sink
Worth noting, the AT-AT has vulnerabilities on its back. If you end up on it and have medium penetration, destroying the four vents that pop up will kill it faster than it’s underbelly. You can also get lucky with eagle hitting those vents.
The walkers were intimidating for me. I was just dropping two orbitals on them and walking away before now.
Tip: One impact grenade will decommission a Heavy (shield) Devastator. Also one Eruptor round to the "back back" does the trick.
I live for these videos bro! ☺️
It was an honor to have fought and died by your side🤘
You did well.
Punisher plasma is good against bots, has a safer aoe than the crossbow, fast ish reload animation, tons of ammo so you don't have to fret about throwing away half a mag.
Bullies and staggers groups of medium enemies.
Total Clanker Death
a weapon I'll say is underrated for bots is the arc thrower, even with the changes it's still great for stun locking lines of hulks to death
Bro dropped the hard r on clanker bruh be pc say clanka. 😂
Are you suggesting that we give even an iota of respect to those socialist toasters? Sounds like treason to me
The first time I fought a factory strider my squad hit it with 3 rail strikes and it still didn't die
I believe I have found a way to at least somewhat help kill those factory strider's. Ok so you know how past a certain distance if you shoot one of those sentinel cannon things they won't shoot back, I forget what they're actually called anyway, past a certain point you can shoot them and not get shot back. Well the cannon on top of a factory strider works the same way so my solution is the almighty quasar cannon. You can shoot as far as you can see and at those distances even if the strider agro's you can inflict enough damage by the time it reaches you to make it almost combat ineffective. Other than that the only solution is as always more high explosive ordinance after all a extra 500kg never hurt anything.
The impact grenade really messes up the shield guys
I honestly have an easier time with bots because I am a light armor loving stealth player.
Don’t really have to deal with bots drops if they have no idea where I am or if the base is destroyed and I’m long gone by the time they’re dropping.
Stratagem blockers aren’t that big a deal when you realize they come in two flavors. One comes with a fabricator attached to it. If you target and destroy the fabricators like any other fabricator, it takes the stratagem blocker out with it in the explosion. You can usually brute force these with a well placed grenade or explosive shot in the door or vent.
Then, there’s the more problematic version with no built in fabricator. These you should ideally sneak past the bots to disable the blocker through the console and destroy with a hellbomb. If there’s bots staring at the only way in or console itself you may have to distract them by making them inspect the sound of a grenade going off somewhere else if they’re heavy and cannot be sneak melee’d to death. If it’s a light unit staring at the console, sneak up to it and beat its ankles with melee. It usually only takes two or 3 swings and shouldn’t alert anything else if they don’t get a shot off.
Remember, stealth is key for bots and your team will appreciate a saboteur in their ranks for those anti stratagem towers which is the only thing preventing your team from raining managed democracy down upon our enemies.
I guess you forgot cannon turret which I typically approach by not aggroing it if possible before getting a rear angle and crouching with the autocannon and giving it a swift three in the booty. If it is aggrod I will run strategically towards it in a zig zag like manner while removing line of site when possible and then tossing the impact or autocannon rounds up close.
I considered cannon turret factored in with tanks because it's just an annihilator that had a growth spurt.
u can kill fac striders (atat's) w the autocannon p easily
aim for their eye hole and it should die in 10-17 shots
can destroy their gatling guns w it too in 2 shots per gun
can just dodge the cannon or get close enough after destroying gatling guns and it cant aim at you
I use the AMR so devastators are literally no problem for me. AMR 1 shot headshots them or 2 shot bodyshots them no problem. Meanwhile I get absolutely destroyed by berserkers
🤖
You can’t just say the C word with the hard r, bro
I have had good results with consistent dick shots from the Eruptor completely Bisecting anything short of a hulk. For hulks I switch to my arc thrower, ping the hulk, request Broken Arrow, and try to dump 5 full charged shots at the Clanker in question.
🙃 But I NEED to bring impact nades for shield devistators.
And if you can get the Elevation required, one Eruptor shot will down a gunship (further tinkering is required)
Super Earth's Blazing Sun, SES PRIDE OF PRIDE, Over and Out!
🫡