Adding a note: the Orbrital Gas Impact can take out fabricators (bot summoning house) and Burrow holes. With its 75s cd, its a really great way of taking out nests and bases while leaving a linger damaging area behind!
I just discovered a love of the Gas Impact but didn't get the chance to test it on fabricators, lol. Had an operation with increased cooldowns so I went with cheap, low cost, and definitely enjoyed using Gas Impact.
Hmm that could be useful but i feel the area is too small to be that useful. Eagle strike can do the same as well as walking barrage which can take a medium nest by itself if aimed correctly.
In a pinch, any hellpod delivered strategem deployed on top or inside will also destroy both. Though with bug holes, there's a chance to lose the contents. This includes reinforcement pods, which again, might be lost if they land directly in the hole.
One thing I've found... The disposable anti-tank rocket is another fast cooldown timer. I litter the map with them, and use the drop pod they arrive in to seal bug holes.
@@confiteor266 I mean, if you cant read the orbital called "MINE" when its deploying, you're already in a bad situation for a game of quick thinking (at 7 and higher)
@@watch.v-dQw4w9WgXcQ good luck registering where the mines even land when you're too busy running from charger-hunter wombo combo waves... telling people mines + smoke is a strat is like handing them a loaded gun and telling them to press it to their heads and pull the trigger. It doesnt even block LOS for the Automatons, esp the tank tower that can snipe you across the map...
@@johncarver357 Do you even play at higher difficulties? half the time there's 4 bio titans backed by bilepukers and chargers, everyones dying if they don't keep moving. if your still in the area with the mines you're already dying anyways, might as well lure them into their possible deaths. most of the randoms I play with actually are able to mentally process it fast, hell I don't even need to speak since they aren't stupid (which is honestly surprising) - only exception is the bots since they spam hulks, tanks, and those damn armored rocket salvo pricks who just do not care about mines.
Well hello there! I imagine a lot of us are burned out from Darktide... I've got a bunch of stuff for it, but without updates and direction, I don't want to waste effort releasing content that is going to be inaccurate to an audience that isn't there.. So here I am widening my portfolio of games :)
Did you know that EMS clouds can kill dropships as they lower to the ground before they release the troops? Always drop an EMS where a flare was just fired or try to predict once the ships start coming in, maybe you can't take out the first dropship, but you can take out the 2 next ones, turning a CC cloud into a killer cloud.
Always wondered if it was powerful, sounded like it was but never had the nerve to take it on our difficulty This is all the justification I need, ontop of the short cooldown, surprising AOE, and that it lasts for 15 seconds Thats enough time to clear any and all hulks/chargers it has caught Usually I think a big explosion is a better and more permanent solution, but this is too useful
@@rambo-cambo3581I agree, usually we just want instant removal or boom to get rid of them, but other times stunning the entire wave 15 seconds, gives all the much longer cooldowns on teh time time to reset or perhaps gives your teammate teh time he needs to punch the code and throw it.
I love it when other Helldivers use support stratagems like these well, It's super satisfying to have someone on the team who is good at crowd control too Especially because I'm like every other idiot; "Find biggest and scariest thing. Apply 500KG!"
As some one who uses orbital gas strike almost religiously I think your under selling it a bit. It deals its damage regardless of armor meaning it can be used to take chunks of hp out of heavy enemies. It's AoE is not very big so its great for tight quarters and anywhere the enemy has to go through. The gas wont set off mines meaning you can stack the gas on top of a mine field for massive damage. Gas is great for clearing smaller bases and disabling nests/fabricators. Its the perfect response for bug breaches and drops. Enemies will only move out of the gas if your close enough for them to respond to. If an enemy does survive the gas they now have significantly less hp and are easier to mop up. And the best part is unlike EMS it actually Kills your opponents. I have used it on chargers, bile spewers, stalkers, devastators and hulks many times to great effect. Its a great opener to a fight as it will kill most of the small enemies and leave the big ones wounded. It also combo's well with the napalm strike and the flame thrower for double dot damage. The Gas strike is easy to use with its respectable range, guaranteed damage against units and really fast cool down. Its no orbital laser but if used right you can really stack up the damage time and time again over the course of a mission. It also saves bullets which is incredibly democratic.
Seeing as its a pretty mean dot you can use almost anything. Machinegun fire works well. Eagle strikes, mortar and sentry fire. The best combos depend on what your trying to kill. I did observe something interesting though. The actual shell can break armor. I just used it several times on a bile titan and got a direct hit and blew some of its armor off. Its going to require some more testing but it makes the stratagem far more useful if it can do that.@@specrtre
This person gases! I wish I knew what the damage was against the tankier targets.. I've sat in front of a stunned charger stuck in my gas and I wonder how effective is it actually. It also didn't die to it.. From your comment, sounds like I'll want to explore more with damage over time stuff! Great comment with lots of nice tips!
Against a single target its enough to kill a brood commander if he gets the full dose of it. Especially if you hit it with the shell. Same with devastators@@rykenxiv The real use for it is crowd control as its damage potential increase with each target caught in the gas. I use the gas as a sort of dps booster against larger targets.
The orbital gas was the first stratagem that I acquired and I've brought it with me on every drop so far. Whilst it's neither as flashy nor immediately effective as many of the other strikes, I just love being secure in the knowledge that anything crawling out of a bug breach will be softened up or outright killed for basically the entire duration of the breach. Plus it's great as a tool for kiting groups of enemies through natural choke points.
I have been running the EMS and Gas Combo since launch and it is one of my favorite ways of dealing with tunnels. Thank you for shining light on this particular playstyle! :D
Smoke was actually quite strong in the first game. Most people didn't take the time to figure out how it worked when the devs added it, but you could realistically use it to entirely stealth some of the highest difficulty missions. It seems to work in HD2 just like it did in the first game, but perhaps not to the extent where you could have perpetual stealth. While it is difficult to get feedback on whether or not it's actually working, the point of smoke grenades and the smoke strikes is to break line of sight. Most of the time, especially when moving from objective to objective, your whole squad is probably gonna be getting chased down by a ton of enemies, especially on harder difficulties. These swarms can easily overpower you by the time you reach your next objective. Most people might take turns to fire back at the pursuing enemies as they move up, or burn through their offensive stratagems to handle them. A smoke strike (or even just smoke grenades, which can be unlocked with medals) can have the same effect. Personally I think smoke grenades are incredibly useful, they can be used to break line of sight instantly and allow you to get away from pursuing enemies, or prevent a spawn from even being able to see you. And more often than not, I don't really see people using grenades offensively, only ever to destroy objectives. Which most stratagems can handle to begin with, so why not use those grenades you never touch for escaping combat whenever you want? Or providing entirely non-lethal (and therefore non-casualty causing), adequate cover for your teammates?
I’m tempted to try out smoke, but I’ve established myself as the anti-armor/crowd control guy on my team, running auto-cannon and turrets, and I don’t want a switch up to hurt our runs. Maybe someone else could pick it up, though
The participation trophy of the gas strike that I actually use it for along with napalm is that it deals damage regardless of the enemy's armor. Light, medium, heavy. That is all moot to gas and fire. Sure a gas strike has no hopes of killing a charger, hulk, tank, or bile titan, but they're going to take damage. Damage that my rifle and grenades sure as hell can't deal. And if a gas strike can get them hurting and wipe their groupies out to where it's just a mano-y- bug roboto, then I feel like my chances are a lot better, especially since I usually run the EAT-17 for those kinds of enemies. So don't be too quick to discount the gas. If you had 4 people running it, you could have a consistent cloud of gas (as it lasts for 20 seconds, but recharges in 75.) That'd be quite the defense. Turrets to cover one side and then gas the other corridor.
I am now curious about the difference between eagle smoke screen and orbital smoke screen. Why would anyone choose the latter when eagle is just better
Orbital Smoke Strike: What many don't seem to know, the puffy mushrooms on some planets act the very same way. So if you're running from enemies, don't run around them, run right through them instead.
These strategems will fall off for a reason, mostly because theirs efficient not fast enough (and strong enough) and killing your team even better than creeps, instead using 2 slot combine gas+ems we can just throw cluster bomb to clear small mobs or even 500 kg bomb to wipe them AND the big ones, on 8+ difficulty, especially lv 9 difficult, every tunnel breach will 100% spawn a Charger or Titan (sometimes even 2)
I shall! It's pretty fun to play - though if you plan on getting it, maybe wait until they've improve their server capacity and matchmaking stability more (they've already upgraded server capacity twice and it hitting the cap every time!)
Also there are specific armors that Make you immune to the 500 kg bomb. Just Go inside of its blast radius and lure enemies in. Try it with each armor. You'll find the one.
Gas is also really good at dealing with eggs. instantly destroys every single one in it's AoE range. With a lucky shot you might not even need to go near the nest
Support-type players are, in general, undervalued and underplayed in many titles. It's a role I often gravitate to, as I have historically been the 'commander' in a lot of teamwork centric games. In my opinion, leader type players should be the ultimate supports, boosting their team to greater heights, and I've been definitely feeling that draw with my Helldivers 2 Stratagem preferences, smoke and EMS included.
Been running EMS Strike religiously. I like to take stun grenades, too. Lotta times I'd throw the EMS, then a stun grenade that'll hold everything in place long enough for the EMS Strike to arrive and hold them until their end. Also, i started using the EMS Strike more frequently when I started thinking of it as a *net*. Throw between you and advancing enemies so they get caught, and stop their advance.
Everything in this video except for the EMS Strike is nearly useless when compared to pretty much any Eagle Strike. But, even the EMS Strike really isn't as great as you're making it out to be. If you know how and where to throw your strategem beacons, grouping enemies up really isn't an issue at all. Where you're wasting a strategem slot on EMS Strike, you could benefit a lot by having something else which helps kill stuff over a much larger area. Eagle Strikes cooldown much faster than any orbital strategems. Usually only needing 1 or 2 uses to clear an area. You could use them both while your EMS Strike is on cooldown and still have enough time to use it a 3rd, 4th and even 5th time. They're only really limited by the few minutes it takes for them to rearm once they run out of ammo. Definitely don't go dropping an EMS Strike on an objective and yourself when you're surrounded by enemies. I'm sure this sounds like a great idea when you're playing at lower difficulties on easier missions, but that's just stupid and on harder difficulties you're begging for a Bile Titan to trample you or have an enemy kill you with ranged attacks. That's something you would do to troll somebody. I find it hard to believe you aren't trolling by suggesting it. At best, the smoke could be used to conceal yourself and escape from enemies if you're just trying to farm for samples or something. It's an incredibly niche playstyle and you'd practically have to build into it by carrying smoke grenades and maybe the Eagle Smoke Strike as well. That's the only time smoke would be useful is when your entire build revolves around making use of it to run away from fights, because you're just trying to farm samples, medals or super credits. It's neither an offensive or defensive stratagem. And, I hate to break it to you, but you can throw down a minefield and watch the enemies run right through it without needing smoke. So, that makes smoke extremely niche. You definitely shouldn't be wasting a strat slot on it when playing with other people, unless everyone's goal is to run away from fights and farm collectibles. As for the Gas Strike, it's honestly pathetic and you basically said as much yourself. I can't believe you suggested all but wasting 2 stratagem slots for such a mediocre outcome. You also mentioned how the EMS Strike and Gas Strike have one of the lowest cooldowns in the game. Yeah, for orbitals maybe. But the Eagle Strikes all have multiple uses and cooldown in 10 seconds without any upgrades. Meaning that you could technically throw 7 Eagle Strikes, 8 with upgrades, before you get to use your EMS/Gas Strike combo 2 times. Then, once you've used up your Eagle Strikes, simply use the stratagem to send it back to the ship to rearm. Takes like 3 minutes to rearm without upgrades.
A HUGE key to using the smoke is breaking LOS after you run through the smoke. Much like he did here. If you just smoke and run they will just walk through the smoke and chase after you. Which begs the question, if you need to break los for it to work. why do you need to smoke at all? breaking los is usually enough to have them break off.
Running solo ops. Blow up an enemy nest or automaton factory, mess up. Bug breach/bot drop. Now you’re running away. Boom. Smoke screen, minefield, enemies don’t know where you are and you can run away listening to the screams as they walk through an unknown minefield
The EMS strike can stun a bile titan if the EMS cloud is able to cover its face. Normally the titan can just walk over it. If you are able to hit a cliff and get the EMS higher up you can stun it. It's very situational, when it works it works so well.
The gas cloud is great for bot advance, you can lead them in. I do this combo ems/gas all the time. Paired with a walking barrage you can take control of most bot buildings with the combo.
I actually love the gas strike in the correct places. Small and medium sized bugs(that's where I've found it most useful) die if they even just step in it and its great for making chip damage on the bigger guys. I do agree it doesn't decimate large targets like you may want, but I run the rail-gun to make up for it.
The gas strike is so much fun to use against bugs. It needs a buff badly. It needs to deal more damage to the bigger enemies and continue to damage them after they've left the cloud. As if it were burning their lungs and skin.
My kid brother discovered that smoke is fantastic for defense missions. If you lay down a bunch of smoke between the baddies and the civilians, the civilians will still bee-line for the exit, but the hostiles will mill around wondering where everyone is. Smoothest Extract High Value Personnel ever.
Orbital gas is hugely underrated in my opinion. One of my top choices for solo play for easy bug breach clears, even taking care of multiple waves, up to and including Hive Guards and Bile Spitters sometimes. A little less reliable in multiplayer because it can be a bit more difficult to choose your engagements when your allies are doing whatever.
Have not seen an issue with orbital gas at the highest difficulties. I bet in the slightly lower difficulties where people don't do rolling combat as much they'll struggle more.
Did you know: You can figure out the locations of all side missions upon dropping into a map?? Look at the big red blobs on the map overview before dropping in. When you drop in, that usually denotes bug holes and factories. But on the overview, side missions have the same appearance as medium outposts. When you check again after deploying, the tactical objectives blobs will have disappeared, subtly revealing the locations of each one to those that paid attention.
To add onto this, once you drop in, when you look at the map, look for unusually dark spots, there’s usually a side objective there. Also you can see buildings as rectangular light gray, and those usually have samples or other goods nearby.
I haven't used ems much, but gas cloud is definitely been one of my most used. Even without ems i drop it on tunnels and drop ships and most small to mid bugs and bots drop before they can leave the cloud, those that do make it out are either so damaged they all fall from even the smallest bit of damage or are too big in the first place and need heavy ordinance. If you want to spice it up throw an incendiary grenade at the same spot as the gas strike.
Orbital offers more consistency with uptime, whereas Eagle offers you more flexibility since you can them one after another but has a lower uptime since you'll need to rearm (150 seconds). Same strengths and weaknesses, different use cases!
Welcome to the helldivers sir! Glad to have you hashing out liberty! Surprised to see you here as your usually killing in the name of the emperor. See you on the front lines looking forward to more videos from you!
I've comboed rocket turrets and gas. The stagger of the turret is like an ems, but I get damage too (but longer cool down and doesn't stagger big stuff, I think). rail gun for heavy chargers to stagger them in the gas, and a 4th slot for whatever else on bug missions (eagle? Laser orb? Napalm for super dot? Guard dog? Not sure yet). Only issue is you really need to protect turret, hard to do when chaos is happening).
I tried using the EMS + gas thing and it didn't work. It seems like dots do either literally no damage or almost no damage if you're not the network host. How do you know who's the network host? You don't! So you have a 75% chance of your dots just not working. I think that's probably the biggest reason you don't see people taking gas; even if it were amazing on paper it'd still have a 3/4 chance to just do nothing. Game's full of shit like this, I'm amazed they had the balls to call it 1.0 and not EA.
Helldivers 2 is still new and there are more new players than veteran from HD1. Any HD1 players know how useful and powerful EMS strike (static) is. It's basically always in my loadout.
The transport ship is disappointing this time. In HD1, they will simply land on whatever (including chargers and tanks) and squished them. There's even an achievement for this.
I used the gas+ems on mav Creek, with 2 last slots being mines and expendable(if defense) or supply backpack (i was lower level) Did work, but not good enough
EMS NEEDS larger range. Because outright killing everything in about the same radius with any of the dozen strike and bomb type strategems is simply better in almost every situation. It has some useful utility in limited number of situations, and it's on a low cooldown but more range would go a long way to make it a more appealing pick.
The reason why no one uses this is because we are limited to only 4 stratagems. One support weapon, one back pack, one to kill big guys and one as a panic button (turret, eagle bombardment, orbital laser ecc...) Basically I would never use smoke or something that require another stratagem to be usefull.
That why I like bringing these when I can My teammate mostly randoms wonder why and think I’m useless so kick me out for it something But when I use these stratagems holy smoke it is major relief especially in eradication mission where you get surrounded a lot Having a smoke and ems strike to have your back cover while focusing on one part of the map filled with enemies helps focus and organize your team
The problem I have with these support stratagems is they don't really seem worth the slot. Sure they can make other, harder hitting, moves shine brighter but you could also just bring your own airstrikes and accomplish the same thing, while staying versatile. Even the minefield trick in the video, while funny, the targets would have stepped on the mines anyways even without the smoke. I could see the smoke being useful for solo play where you try to keep a low profile. Could use it to ditch agro when you have to do something conspicuous like blowing up hive eggs.
@3:10 In the time it takes to deploy an EMS strike and then deploy lethal gas, you could just use a precision orbital strike or napalm. The EMS works a lot better against robots.
No secrets only mediocre stratagems that need reworks ~ nice video dude. There's just much better stratagems that do effectively the same thing or better, why use Gaz when you can just kill everything light enough with a cluster and in a much bigger zone.
The gas strike is waaay more useful than people think, the bugs don't need to be kept inside the area to be killed, it will do more damage to a charger for example if it stays inside, but anything besides Charger and Bile Titans, once smelled the gas they will die to DoT even outside the gas area, no one will be using the gas for big targets anyways, it's a huge deal if your main problem is the encumbrance of small bugs.
You left me waiting for the secrets. This is literally a guide of the underused stratagems than need to be comboed to be ugh mid. I know its important to play for fun over just winning, but why sell the in game description as a secret?
I love how every youtuber disagrees on which to use (besides the absolute garbage ones) which showes that different playstyles gravitate towards differend gems.
i want to love the gas orbital but the eagle abilities are just so much more universally handy. Sure the napalm/airstrike/cluster may not last as long but they can each do almost the same in a far wider and faster-to-apply area. OFC the issue then is you get x uses per long recast rather than 1 use per shorter cast.
as someone who loves playing support with two others who have no situational awareness of any kind.. the gas/smoke screen and gas/mines seem like a catch 22... lol
I appreciate you coming over here from darktide. If I have to hear another tip video that says "Hold reload to change weapon settings!" I'll drop a 500kg bomb directly on myself
Hahaha - I get what you mean! Fortunately, I think I have some tips that haven't been covered, but I'll need accumulate a handful more for a proper video :3
Id love for the mines to blow off charger armor or least do heavy damage to them. It would also be great if the gas slowed enemies. So you could use it to slow and damage enemies in a choke point
Im a big fan of the gas strike. But also bugs will chase you into smoke. Dropping gas into the smoke is a great way to thin out a big group chasing you.
The proper application of the gas strike is as an area denial. You can also throw incendiary nades in front of it to block enemies that would walk out of the cloud
I have been using the gas strike since I got it. I always just throw it at bug breaches. It kills most stuff as soon as it spawns and basically removes the breach as a problem. It's also good to throw at your feet or just a little behind you to create a wall of gas the enemies have to walk through to get to you. Doesn't do much against chargers or whatever though.
The gas strike is so much fun to use against bugs. It needs a buff badly. It needs to deal more damage to the bigger enemies and continue to damage them after they've left the cloud. As if it were burning their lungs and skin.
Gas is underrated IMO, its great for dropping on tunnel breaches or choke points as is, we had a bile titan spawning on one as my gas went off, by the time it stood up fully and started walking around, it was on super low health and was easily finished off with a railgun in seconds.
You can also run into smoke and then throw a green strat in the perpendicular to where your going to run out of it. It will draw the enemy away from you completely
- HELPFUL TIP -If u press the down arrow ⬇️ and hold it on ps 5 it will bring up a wheel holding your samples 🧪 backpack iteam 🎒 and special weapon 🔫 and u can drop them on the floor for your allies if u hover over the item and release while holding the down arrow ⬇️ 🤝 ( share the love with your homies and randoms )
Heck yeah! All my favorite Darktide content creators are coming over to Helldivers. Let's defend Democracy together while we wait to see if Fat Shark will ever learn a lesson on respecting their players and improve their game
The EMS mortar is better since you get way more bang for buck than the Orbital version. You miss the Orbital, then you're out for 75 seconds, the mortar can hit multiple targets from different directions for much broader CC.
They're good for different situations. The mortar is far better when standing your ground, but the oribtal's short cooldown makes it far better for covering a retreat or small engagements on POIs
Adding a note: the Orbrital Gas Impact can take out fabricators (bot summoning house) and Burrow holes. With its 75s cd, its a really great way of taking out nests and bases while leaving a linger damaging area behind!
I just discovered a love of the Gas Impact but didn't get the chance to test it on fabricators, lol. Had an operation with increased cooldowns so I went with cheap, low cost, and definitely enjoyed using Gas Impact.
Hmm that could be useful but i feel the area is too small to be that useful. Eagle strike can do the same as well as walking barrage which can take a medium nest by itself if aimed correctly.
It also doesn't damage teammates oddly enough! Only the person who threw it!
In a pinch, any hellpod delivered strategem deployed on top or inside will also destroy both. Though with bug holes, there's a chance to lose the contents. This includes reinforcement pods, which again, might be lost if they land directly in the hole.
One thing I've found... The disposable anti-tank rocket is another fast cooldown timer.
I litter the map with them, and use the drop pod they arrive in to seal bug holes.
wow smoke field plus incendiary mines? probably one of the best team kill combos I've seen
the smoke will eventually become a warning signal for your team :p
Feels like an actual troll combo if you're not in a premade group or using vc.
@@confiteor266 I mean, if you cant read the orbital called "MINE" when its deploying, you're already in a bad situation for a game of quick thinking (at 7 and higher)
@@watch.v-dQw4w9WgXcQ good luck registering where the mines even land when you're too busy running from charger-hunter wombo combo waves...
telling people mines + smoke is a strat is like handing them a loaded gun and telling them to press it to their heads and pull the trigger. It doesnt even block LOS for the Automatons, esp the tank tower that can snipe you across the map...
@@johncarver357 Do you even play at higher difficulties? half the time there's 4 bio titans backed by bilepukers and chargers, everyones dying if they don't keep moving. if your still in the area with the mines you're already dying anyways, might as well lure them into their possible deaths.
most of the randoms I play with actually are able to mentally process it fast, hell I don't even need to speak since they aren't stupid (which is honestly surprising) - only exception is the bots since they spam hulks, tanks, and those damn armored rocket salvo pricks who just do not care about mines.
Gas cloud definitely needs to be bigger radius or just more of a carpet bomb effect. No gas attack by air would drop just one. That's the whole point.
the 500kg bomb also needs a much bigger radius
@@3CODKing the damage drop off just needs to be fixed, not making the thing bigger
@@Febreeze419 I'm pretty sure there's a ship module upgrade for the damage drop off
@@brei2670 Yeah but it doesn't do much
@@Febreeze419Yeah I was wrong, actually. The explosion damage dropoff upgrade is only for orbital stratagems, not the Eagle.
i'm not suprised to see you here coming from Darktide
Well hello there!
I imagine a lot of us are burned out from Darktide... I've got a bunch of stuff for it, but without updates and direction, I don't want to waste effort releasing content that is going to be inaccurate to an audience that isn't there..
So here I am widening my portfolio of games :)
@@rykenxivI couldn't agree more darktide unfortunately is unfulfilled potential incarnate where helldiver's is just straight up amazing.
@@rykenxivbet you’re excited about the recent announcement for lots more Darktide content on the way!
@@Pyromaniac77777 Im not sure a bomber reskin and an achievement point battle pass qualifies as 'lots more'
@@ExValeFor well yes, that’s not “lots more”. That’s just one of the things they are adding
Teammates that gets lost on the smoked minefield will just shout *"sweet liberty my legs!"*
If you can hear them still shouting then they're fine..
Their last shout you mean lol
Did you know that EMS clouds can kill dropships as they lower to the ground before they release the troops?
Always drop an EMS where a flare was just fired or try to predict once the ships start coming in, maybe you can't take out the first dropship, but you can take out the 2 next ones, turning a CC cloud into a killer cloud.
Bro what
💪😎👍
Always wondered if it was powerful, sounded like it was but never had the nerve to take it on our difficulty
This is all the justification I need, ontop of the short cooldown, surprising AOE, and that it lasts for 15 seconds
Thats enough time to clear any and all hulks/chargers it has caught
Usually I think a big explosion is a better and more permanent solution, but this is too useful
@@rambo-cambo3581I agree, usually we just want instant removal or boom to get rid of them, but other times stunning the entire wave 15 seconds, gives all the much longer cooldowns on teh time time to reset or perhaps gives your teammate teh time he needs to punch the code and throw it.
I love it when other Helldivers use support stratagems like these well, It's super satisfying to have someone on the team who is good at crowd control too
Especially because I'm like every other idiot; "Find biggest and scariest thing. Apply 500KG!"
As some one who uses orbital gas strike almost religiously I think your under selling it a bit. It deals its damage regardless of armor meaning it can be used to take chunks of hp out of heavy enemies. It's AoE is not very big so its great for tight quarters and anywhere the enemy has to go through. The gas wont set off mines meaning you can stack the gas on top of a mine field for massive damage. Gas is great for clearing smaller bases and disabling nests/fabricators. Its the perfect response for bug breaches and drops. Enemies will only move out of the gas if your close enough for them to respond to. If an enemy does survive the gas they now have significantly less hp and are easier to mop up. And the best part is unlike EMS it actually Kills your opponents. I have used it on chargers, bile spewers, stalkers, devastators and hulks many times to great effect. Its a great opener to a fight as it will kill most of the small enemies and leave the big ones wounded. It also combo's well with the napalm strike and the flame thrower for double dot damage. The Gas strike is easy to use with its respectable range, guaranteed damage against units and really fast cool down. Its no orbital laser but if used right you can really stack up the damage time and time again over the course of a mission. It also saves bullets which is incredibly democratic.
What else do you like to combo it with?
Seeing as its a pretty mean dot you can use almost anything. Machinegun fire works well. Eagle strikes, mortar and sentry fire. The best combos depend on what your trying to kill. I did observe something interesting though. The actual shell can break armor. I just used it several times on a bile titan and got a direct hit and blew some of its armor off. Its going to require some more testing but it makes the stratagem far more useful if it can do that.@@specrtre
This person gases!
I wish I knew what the damage was against the tankier targets.. I've sat in front of a stunned charger stuck in my gas and I wonder how effective is it actually. It also didn't die to it..
From your comment, sounds like I'll want to explore more with damage over time stuff!
Great comment with lots of nice tips!
Against a single target its enough to kill a brood commander if he gets the full dose of it. Especially if you hit it with the shell. Same with devastators@@rykenxiv The real use for it is crowd control as its damage potential increase with each target caught in the gas. I use the gas as a sort of dps booster against larger targets.
Yeah like the Gas too because it feel like a free Grenade every 68sec
The orbital gas was the first stratagem that I acquired and I've brought it with me on every drop so far. Whilst it's neither as flashy nor immediately effective as many of the other strikes, I just love being secure in the knowledge that anything crawling out of a bug breach will be softened up or outright killed for basically the entire duration of the breach. Plus it's great as a tool for kiting groups of enemies through natural choke points.
How long does that gas actually last?
Not long enough for harder difficulties and gets outmatched by most other area denial strats.@@turtl3h3rm1t
@@turtl3h3rm1t 20 seconds.
@@turtl3h3rm1t he said it in the video. 20 sec
I have been running the EMS and Gas Combo since launch and it is one of my favorite ways of dealing with tunnels. Thank you for shining light on this particular playstyle! :D
Smoke was actually quite strong in the first game. Most people didn't take the time to figure out how it worked when the devs added it, but you could realistically use it to entirely stealth some of the highest difficulty missions.
It seems to work in HD2 just like it did in the first game, but perhaps not to the extent where you could have perpetual stealth. While it is difficult to get feedback on whether or not it's actually working, the point of smoke grenades and the smoke strikes is to break line of sight.
Most of the time, especially when moving from objective to objective, your whole squad is probably gonna be getting chased down by a ton of enemies, especially on harder difficulties. These swarms can easily overpower you by the time you reach your next objective. Most people might take turns to fire back at the pursuing enemies as they move up, or burn through their offensive stratagems to handle them.
A smoke strike (or even just smoke grenades, which can be unlocked with medals) can have the same effect. Personally I think smoke grenades are incredibly useful, they can be used to break line of sight instantly and allow you to get away from pursuing enemies, or prevent a spawn from even being able to see you. And more often than not, I don't really see people using grenades offensively, only ever to destroy objectives. Which most stratagems can handle to begin with, so why not use those grenades you never touch for escaping combat whenever you want? Or providing entirely non-lethal (and therefore non-casualty causing), adequate cover for your teammates?
I use impact to 1 Shot groups of spewer.
I’m tempted to try out smoke, but I’ve established myself as the anti-armor/crowd control guy on my team, running auto-cannon and turrets, and I don’t want a switch up to hurt our runs. Maybe someone else could pick it up, though
I do. My record is 15 bugs with one fire grenade.
ive been addicted to this game, happy to see you're making content on it
It's a great game on its own - but it won't replace Darktide for me (just need Fatshark to do something)
I use smoke drops on evacuation missions. Great for getting the civs out.
I feel like it's kinda unplayable on that mission without smoke 😅
The participation trophy of the gas strike that I actually use it for along with napalm is that it deals damage regardless of the enemy's armor. Light, medium, heavy. That is all moot to gas and fire. Sure a gas strike has no hopes of killing a charger, hulk, tank, or bile titan, but they're going to take damage. Damage that my rifle and grenades sure as hell can't deal. And if a gas strike can get them hurting and wipe their groupies out to where it's just a mano-y- bug roboto, then I feel like my chances are a lot better, especially since I usually run the EAT-17 for those kinds of enemies. So don't be too quick to discount the gas. If you had 4 people running it, you could have a consistent cloud of gas (as it lasts for 20 seconds, but recharges in 75.) That'd be quite the defense. Turrets to cover one side and then gas the other corridor.
I am now curious about the difference between eagle smoke screen and orbital smoke screen. Why would anyone choose the latter when eagle is just better
I just started but the gas strike is my favorite. I laugh to tears everytime i see my teammates walk into the green cloud instead of around it
Orbital Smoke Strike: What many don't seem to know, the puffy mushrooms on some planets act the very same way. So if you're running from enemies, don't run around them, run right through them instead.
Against bugs, yes. Against bots, 50/50 big risk. 1 stray bullet and you’re airborne.
These strategems will fall off for a reason, mostly because theirs efficient not fast enough (and strong enough) and killing your team even better than creeps, instead using 2 slot combine gas+ems we can just throw cluster bomb to clear small mobs or even 500 kg bomb to wipe them AND the big ones, on 8+ difficulty, especially lv 9 difficult, every tunnel breach will 100% spawn a Charger or Titan (sometimes even 2)
The Gas strike has hidden feature if you wear specific armors, you're immune to it, so you can go inside the gas and lure enemies in
What armor perk do you use to mitigate the corrosive damage?
this is a bug as far as I'm aware, as the gas strike will do damage to the person who deployed it, but not any teammates
I shall! It's pretty fun to play - though if you plan on getting it, maybe wait until they've improve their server capacity and matchmaking stability more (they've already upgraded server capacity twice and it hitting the cap every time!)
Elaborate
Also there are specific armors that Make you immune to the 500 kg bomb. Just Go inside of its blast radius and lure enemies in.
Try it with each armor. You'll find the one.
Gas is also really good at dealing with eggs. instantly destroys every single one in it's AoE range. With a lucky shot you might not even need to go near the nest
Support-type players are, in general, undervalued and underplayed in many titles. It's a role I often gravitate to, as I have historically been the 'commander' in a lot of teamwork centric games. In my opinion, leader type players should be the ultimate supports, boosting their team to greater heights, and I've been definitely feeling that draw with my Helldivers 2 Stratagem preferences, smoke and EMS included.
Been running EMS Strike religiously. I like to take stun grenades, too. Lotta times I'd throw the EMS, then a stun grenade that'll hold everything in place long enough for the EMS Strike to arrive and hold them until their end.
Also, i started using the EMS Strike more frequently when I started thinking of it as a *net*. Throw between you and advancing enemies so they get caught, and stop their advance.
Everything in this video except for the EMS Strike is nearly useless when compared to pretty much any Eagle Strike. But, even the EMS Strike really isn't as great as you're making it out to be. If you know how and where to throw your strategem beacons, grouping enemies up really isn't an issue at all. Where you're wasting a strategem slot on EMS Strike, you could benefit a lot by having something else which helps kill stuff over a much larger area. Eagle Strikes cooldown much faster than any orbital strategems. Usually only needing 1 or 2 uses to clear an area. You could use them both while your EMS Strike is on cooldown and still have enough time to use it a 3rd, 4th and even 5th time. They're only really limited by the few minutes it takes for them to rearm once they run out of ammo.
Definitely don't go dropping an EMS Strike on an objective and yourself when you're surrounded by enemies. I'm sure this sounds like a great idea when you're playing at lower difficulties on easier missions, but that's just stupid and on harder difficulties you're begging for a Bile Titan to trample you or have an enemy kill you with ranged attacks. That's something you would do to troll somebody. I find it hard to believe you aren't trolling by suggesting it.
At best, the smoke could be used to conceal yourself and escape from enemies if you're just trying to farm for samples or something. It's an incredibly niche playstyle and you'd practically have to build into it by carrying smoke grenades and maybe the Eagle Smoke Strike as well. That's the only time smoke would be useful is when your entire build revolves around making use of it to run away from fights, because you're just trying to farm samples, medals or super credits. It's neither an offensive or defensive stratagem. And, I hate to break it to you, but you can throw down a minefield and watch the enemies run right through it without needing smoke. So, that makes smoke extremely niche. You definitely shouldn't be wasting a strat slot on it when playing with other people, unless everyone's goal is to run away from fights and farm collectibles.
As for the Gas Strike, it's honestly pathetic and you basically said as much yourself. I can't believe you suggested all but wasting 2 stratagem slots for such a mediocre outcome. You also mentioned how the EMS Strike and Gas Strike have one of the lowest cooldowns in the game. Yeah, for orbitals maybe. But the Eagle Strikes all have multiple uses and cooldown in 10 seconds without any upgrades. Meaning that you could technically throw 7 Eagle Strikes, 8 with upgrades, before you get to use your EMS/Gas Strike combo 2 times. Then, once you've used up your Eagle Strikes, simply use the stratagem to send it back to the ship to rearm. Takes like 3 minutes to rearm without upgrades.
A HUGE key to using the smoke is breaking LOS after you run through the smoke. Much like he did here. If you just smoke and run they will just walk through the smoke and chase after you. Which begs the question, if you need to break los for it to work. why do you need to smoke at all? breaking los is usually enough to have them break off.
Running solo ops. Blow up an enemy nest or automaton factory, mess up. Bug breach/bot drop. Now you’re running away. Boom. Smoke screen, minefield, enemies don’t know where you are and you can run away listening to the screams as they walk through an unknown minefield
The EMS strike can stun a bile titan if the EMS cloud is able to cover its face. Normally the titan can just walk over it. If you are able to hit a cliff and get the EMS higher up you can stun it. It's very situational, when it works it works so well.
Cool info, I love to play more suportive and strategic builds, could you test the effectiveness between smoke grenades, airstrikes and orbital?
The gas cloud is great for bot advance, you can lead them in. I do this combo ems/gas all the time. Paired with a walking barrage you can take control of most bot buildings with the combo.
I actually love the gas strike in the correct places. Small and medium sized bugs(that's where I've found it most useful) die if they even just step in it and its great for making chip damage on the bigger guys. I do agree it doesn't decimate large targets like you may want, but I run the rail-gun to make up for it.
The Gas Strike definitely need a bigger Strike area, also why is it sure death for us bug not everything else lmao.
The gas strike is so much fun to use against bugs. It needs a buff badly. It needs to deal more damage to the bigger enemies and continue to damage them after they've left the cloud. As if it were burning their lungs and skin.
The shield emplacement kills bile titans by bouncing their bile back in their face
Thanks for the info. The smoke one wouldve been useful for some insane difficulty missions ive been on lately. Specially that tip against breeches.
My kid brother discovered that smoke is fantastic for defense missions.
If you lay down a bunch of smoke between the baddies and the civilians, the civilians will still bee-line for the exit, but the hostiles will mill around wondering where everyone is.
Smoothest Extract High Value Personnel ever.
Nice
Orbital gas is hugely underrated in my opinion. One of my top choices for solo play for easy bug breach clears, even taking care of multiple waves, up to and including Hive Guards and Bile Spitters sometimes. A little less reliable in multiplayer because it can be a bit more difficult to choose your engagements when your allies are doing whatever.
Have not seen an issue with orbital gas at the highest difficulties. I bet in the slightly lower difficulties where people don't do rolling combat as much they'll struggle more.
Did you know:
You can figure out the locations of all side missions upon dropping into a map??
Look at the big red blobs on the map overview before dropping in.
When you drop in, that usually denotes bug holes and factories.
But on the overview, side missions have the same appearance as medium outposts.
When you check again after deploying, the tactical objectives blobs will have disappeared, subtly revealing the locations of each one to those that paid attention.
To add onto this, once you drop in, when you look at the map, look for unusually dark spots, there’s usually a side objective there. Also you can see buildings as rectangular light gray, and those usually have samples or other goods nearby.
ooo good to know! Thanks! I shall pay attention to this!
I haven't used ems much, but gas cloud is definitely been one of my most used. Even without ems i drop it on tunnels and drop ships and most small to mid bugs and bots drop before they can leave the cloud, those that do make it out are either so damaged they all fall from even the smallest bit of damage or are too big in the first place and need heavy ordinance. If you want to spice it up throw an incendiary grenade at the same spot as the gas strike.
Thank you for providing this information. Very helpful!
Any thoughts on orbital smoke vs eagle smoke?
Orbital offers more consistency with uptime, whereas Eagle offers you more flexibility since you can them one after another but has a lower uptime since you'll need to rearm (150 seconds). Same strengths and weaknesses, different use cases!
Welcome to the helldivers sir! Glad to have you hashing out liberty! Surprised to see you here as your usually killing in the name of the emperor.
See you on the front lines looking forward to more videos from you!
I've comboed rocket turrets and gas. The stagger of the turret is like an ems, but I get damage too (but longer cool down and doesn't stagger big stuff, I think). rail gun for heavy chargers to stagger them in the gas, and a 4th slot for whatever else on bug missions (eagle? Laser orb? Napalm for super dot? Guard dog? Not sure yet). Only issue is you really need to protect turret, hard to do when chaos is happening).
I tried using the EMS + gas thing and it didn't work. It seems like dots do either literally no damage or almost no damage if you're not the network host. How do you know who's the network host? You don't! So you have a 75% chance of your dots just not working. I think that's probably the biggest reason you don't see people taking gas; even if it were amazing on paper it'd still have a 3/4 chance to just do nothing. Game's full of shit like this, I'm amazed they had the balls to call it 1.0 and not EA.
Helldivers 2 is still new and there are more new players than veteran from HD1. Any HD1 players know how useful and powerful EMS strike (static) is. It's basically always in my loadout.
The transport ship is disappointing this time. In HD1, they will simply land on whatever (including chargers and tanks) and squished them. There's even an achievement for this.
I use gas strike every mission haz 7 and up against the bugs. I always throw it on breaches. I get 50x kill streaks constantly from it.
Me, using EMS Strike, air strike, rocket pods and spear....
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!
Gas strike and EMS bombardment for small enemies, or the 500kg bomb and eagle bombing run for every enemy type? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm? 🤔
Really hard decision.
I used the gas+ems on mav Creek, with 2 last slots being mines and expendable(if defense) or supply backpack (i was lower level)
Did work, but not good enough
EMS NEEDS larger range. Because outright killing everything in about the same radius with any of the dozen strike and bomb type strategems is simply better in almost every situation. It has some useful utility in limited number of situations, and it's on a low cooldown but more range would go a long way to make it a more appealing pick.
The reason why no one uses this is because we are limited to only 4 stratagems.
One support weapon, one back pack, one to kill big guys and one as a panic button (turret, eagle bombardment, orbital laser ecc...)
Basically I would never use smoke or something that require another stratagem to be usefull.
Cool video, man. I don't think I ever realized how quick the EMP strike recharges. I may add it into my rotation to play around with it.
That why I like bringing these when I can
My teammate mostly randoms wonder why and think I’m useless so kick me out for it something
But when I use these stratagems holy smoke it is major relief especially in eradication mission where you get surrounded a lot
Having a smoke and ems strike to have your back cover while focusing on one part of the map filled with enemies helps focus and organize your team
That pelican in the end acting like a loitering CAS....dear devs...Pelican Strategems pls...
The problem I have with these support stratagems is they don't really seem worth the slot. Sure they can make other, harder hitting, moves shine brighter but you could also just bring your own airstrikes and accomplish the same thing, while staying versatile. Even the minefield trick in the video, while funny, the targets would have stepped on the mines anyways even without the smoke.
I could see the smoke being useful for solo play where you try to keep a low profile. Could use it to ditch agro when you have to do something conspicuous like blowing up hive eggs.
@3:10 In the time it takes to deploy an EMS strike and then deploy lethal gas, you could just use a precision orbital strike or napalm.
The EMS works a lot better against robots.
I find patrol. I kill everything in two seconds. tunnel breach occures anyway. I think its BS when people say you can stop them
No secrets only mediocre stratagems that need reworks ~ nice video dude. There's just much better stratagems that do effectively the same thing or better, why use Gaz when you can just kill everything light enough with a cluster and in a much bigger zone.
The gas strike is waaay more useful than people think, the bugs don't need to be kept inside the area to be killed, it will do more damage to a charger for example if it stays inside, but anything besides Charger and Bile Titans, once smelled the gas they will die to DoT even outside the gas area, no one will be using the gas for big targets anyways, it's a huge deal if your main problem is the encumbrance of small bugs.
You left me waiting for the secrets. This is literally a guide of the underused stratagems than need to be comboed to be ugh mid. I know its important to play for fun over just winning, but why sell the in game description as a secret?
I love how every youtuber disagrees on which to use (besides the absolute garbage ones) which showes that different playstyles gravitate towards differend gems.
i want to love the gas orbital but the eagle abilities are just so much more universally handy.
Sure the napalm/airstrike/cluster may not last as long but they can each do almost the same in a far wider and faster-to-apply area.
OFC the issue then is you get x uses per long recast rather than 1 use per shorter cast.
as someone who loves playing support with two others who have no situational awareness of any kind.. the gas/smoke screen and gas/mines seem like a catch 22... lol
If anything the mines are under used because goofy goobers go play in them and drain the extra lives lol. They are not marked for allies.
Napalm (with this ridiculous fire damage) is my weapon of choice to bug breaches
I appreciate you coming over here from darktide. If I have to hear another tip video that says "Hold reload to change weapon settings!" I'll drop a 500kg bomb directly on myself
Hahaha - I get what you mean! Fortunately, I think I have some tips that haven't been covered, but I'll need accumulate a handful more for a proper video :3
We've got to team up! I was actually looking for this info, I couldn't find it in the UI and it was democratically bothering me.
Meh. EMS plus gas is two strategems and definitely not worth it unless you have 3 better teammates strategems.
Id love for the mines to blow off charger armor or least do heavy damage to them. It would also be great if the gas slowed enemies. So you could use it to slow and damage enemies in a choke point
Im a big fan of the gas strike. But also bugs will chase you into smoke. Dropping gas into the smoke is a great way to thin out a big group chasing you.
The EMS does stun Bile titans, its very tricky but I pulled it off last night.
The proper application of the gas strike is as an area denial. You can also throw incendiary nades in front of it to block enemies that would walk out of the cloud
We were fighting for space imperialism a week ago, and now we are fighting for space democracy; how wide!
lol at the end. the extract ship isn't concern with landing on you and your team, but the bugs.. oh no pita be damned!
I have been using the gas strike since I got it. I always just throw it at bug breaches. It kills most stuff as soon as it spawns and basically removes the breach as a problem. It's also good to throw at your feet or just a little behind you to create a wall of gas the enemies have to walk through to get to you. Doesn't do much against chargers or whatever though.
The gas strike is so much fun to use against bugs. It needs a buff badly. It needs to deal more damage to the bigger enemies and continue to damage them after they've left the cloud. As if it were burning their lungs and skin.
Gas is underrated IMO, its great for dropping on tunnel breaches or choke points as is, we had a bile titan spawning on one as my gas went off, by the time it stood up fully and started walking around, it was on super low health and was easily finished off with a railgun in seconds.
5:30 I love this idea, when or if they add the stun mines this will be a go to for sure. certified banger in my books.
I wish there was an eagle version of the EMS and gas strikes like how there’s an eagle version of the smoke orbital
You can also run into smoke and then throw a green strat in the perpendicular to where your going to run out of it. It will draw the enemy away from you completely
Electric Smoke (borrowed) from Titan Fall 2 would be real nice
Must have spend a thicc amount of time studying all of this. Good stuff man
I use the gas all the time, however I've been putting it aside recently since I have the hangar fully upgraded
- HELPFUL TIP -If u press the down arrow ⬇️ and hold it on ps 5 it will bring up a wheel holding your samples 🧪 backpack iteam 🎒 and special weapon 🔫 and u can drop them on the floor for your allies if u hover over the item and release while holding the down arrow ⬇️ 🤝 ( share the love with your homies and randoms )
ANOTHER TACTIC:
just use ems motor aswell
EMS + Gas sounds amazing for the new defense mission we have now as a general order!
They need to fix napalm so the fire kills show on the kill tracker -_-
surprisingly good video. i did not think those strategems are any good.
Heck yeah! All my favorite Darktide content creators are coming over to Helldivers. Let's defend Democracy together while we wait to see if Fat Shark will ever learn a lesson on respecting their players and improve their game
I always use ems with 500kg and flamethrower
I think it would be cool if either or both the gas and smoke were flammable
EMS and airburst as a fuck you to any bug breaches lol
I normally run EMS and Laser, but I will try gas now
Make gas cloud corrode armor, lowering total AP
The EMS mortar is better since you get way more bang for buck than the Orbital version. You miss the Orbital, then you're out for 75 seconds, the mortar can hit multiple targets from different directions for much broader CC.
They're good for different situations. The mortar is far better when standing your ground, but the oribtal's short cooldown makes it far better for covering a retreat or small engagements on POIs
finally someone agrees with me on EMS orbital
But but Sergeant ? I want my orbital things to go Boom 🔥💥
I would love an ems grenade even if its half the size
The cooldowns are to dang long smh 🤦♂️
The EMS doesn't affect bile titans?! Shit, I've been doing it all wrong.
I tried to figure out if it worked on tank. I learned very quickly it did not..
Bipteen second duration is a long time
Smoke is really a life saver againt bot