Helldivers 2 - The Heavy Machine Gun Deserves Better (Solo, Helldive Difficulty)
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- Rocking the HMG (Heavy Machine Gun) against automatons. For a solo situation, this isnt ideal
Enjoy!
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#helldivers #helldivers2 #helldiver
I really hope they significantly buff the ammo amount or make it backpack fed
It being backpack fed would be nice but I really want them to save it for a mini gun.
They would need to change the t4 ship module just for that
If it had 300 rounds it would have 30600 damage dished out in around 30 seconds
This is per resupply btw
I love the HMG, it's my favorite gun, but IMO it really has to be paired with the Supply Backpack. It has an insatiable hunger for ammo, you have to be continuously feeding it. But, between your supply backpack, ammo on the map, frequently calling resupply, having a primary you can rely on, and a little bit of strategy/restraint on when and were you shoot... you will be fine.
With ammo taken care of, that lets you focus _real_ issue, which is the reload time. Managing the reload is everything. This is mitigated by having a bunch of ammo readily available, but it's always a pain.
The HMG is just not good against Automatons, though. It can't deal with dropships, striders, or Hulks, all the things that make Automatons difficult. It limits your mobility (ideally you're prone or crouching when you shoot). It doesn't destroy fabricators. However, IMO, the HMG handles turrets, tanks, berserkers and devastators reasonably well. I think it compliments a teammate with a Quasar or AMR nicely... but HMG solo is not easy.
The HMG is way better against Termanids. It takes out shrieker nests and spore towers, it vaporizes all the medium armored units, it can handle chargers. Ton of fun.
@@wolfumzthe hmg has similar armor pen to the autocannon and can accomplish the same thing, albeit slower. It's good for automatons in a vacuum.
@wolfumz the HMG can take hulks down. Just a few shots to its tiny head. Which is extremely hard with the way the HMG handles.
To take down a gunship with the Scorcher it takes 1 full mag aiming at the pilot and 1.5 mag at the engines
Get this at the top
came here to say this. one of the many things that makes the scorcher my favorite bot weapon
you can shoot the pilot?
@@gee3591 ehhh they just mean where you would imagine a pilot would sit. they have no pilot, it just takes damage in its "windshield"
@@drb0mb ohh okay. I thought it was like a dropship where you can only hit the engines.
let's just forget the heavy machine gun ever existed and give us the minigun with ammo backpack stratagem
The super machine gun. Only has one mag, uses backpack and support weapon slot good vertical but mid horizontal recoil.
Give us both so we can do the Clone Wars ARC Troopers scene. I’ll keep the HMG, it’s my favorite way to kill Hulks.
I feel like I might use the HMG if we still had the pre-nerf eruptor. They would cover each other's weakness for the most part. Eruptor could destroy factories and take out gun ships.
That being said, the HMG does feel good as part of a whole team when other people's weapons can cover for the HMG's weaknesses.
Moral of the story: The real best loadout is the friends we made along the way.
Would you recommend the ballistic shield generator backpack or the supply pack with the Hmg?
For a solo.
Boo!
@DavidTMSN for funzies ive been running hmg with the machine gun rover it prioritizes headshots and clears small bots pretty fast and can help deal with berzerkers so i can save hmg ammo for hulks. I usually run dominator/grenade pistol or eruptor/redeemer
@@DavidTMSNShield pack at first and once you’ve gotten used to the recoil use the supply pack.
I’d either give it knock down, explosive or more damage. I suppose alternatively it could be back pack fed with no reloads which would still allow the machine gun and stalwart to shine since they don’t need a backpack
Oh man, no or rare reload would be sickkkkkk. Maybe like a bandolier of bullets that feed it.
Damage is fine, all it need is its sight to be alligned properly, mag size to 100 from 75, and 1-2 additional spare mags, and stagger if people needs it, given it fires a big ass round (.338 given the size, highly doubt its .50 cal though, no one can fire it on the move or without deployed and expect it to remain in your hands) with a lot of kinetic energy behind it
An ammo-belt backpack would be sick for the MG-43 and the HMG, Stalwart dosen't really need it because you can reload it while running, it would transfer all your mags' ammo into the backpack for as long as you have it and remove the need for reload
I understand why others hate it, but HMG is my favorite weapon. It’s the jack-of-all-trades, with real uses for different fire rates at all ranges. I like it because it doesn’t trivialize specific enemies, my primaries can deal with infantry and most heavies, and (if you can reach the weak spots) the HMG can rapidly kill every enemy except Bile Titans. It still neuters Bile Titans.
The scope alignment issue was mostly fixed. First shots are now accurate. But if you have mid or high RPM, bursts and full-auto will *slant the gun,* which misaligns the scope and shots. The sheer recoil at those RPMs is too high for a human, so Helldivers are hulking out to keep it *mostly* aligned at full-auto.
Jump Pack is incredibly fun to run with this gun. You can aim while starting a flight if you time it right, and do partial reloads in the air. High ground is the best way to kill Anakins.
Remember to break your reloads into stages if you’re about to be compromised. Keep the HMG in reserve for targets your primaries and stratagems can’t handle right now. Crank the RPM up to delete things up close, mid for most engagements, and low for headshotting Hulks or giving cover fire at distance. The HMG can snipe from afar.
I feel like the HMG is good on the automatons but not as good with the bugs, il just use the flamethrower
The Scorcher is THE pick for loadouts where your support can't take out gunships or heatsinks. The engines are the right place to target, but they each have their own separate health of 400, so you have to try to target one specifically. Explosive damage is either dealt to all parts or directly to the main health on certain things. The gunships have level 4 pen on their main body that ricochets the level 2 projectile of the Scorcher. They also have the explosive-immunity trait on their main body to prevent doubling explosive AOE damage when hit elsewhere. Instead, the AOE passes straight to the overall/inner damage pool of 700, which has level 3 pen that the Scorcher's explosive AOE matches, dealing 50% of it's 100 AOE damage. The engines have level 3 pen, 400 fatal health each separate of the main health pool, and they lack explosive resistance so splashing them when shooting the body hurts both parts.
Been waiting for this, Lord of War.
Next patch:
We heard you guys, Autocannon and AMR nerfed to bring it in line with the HMG
SWEET LIBERTY
The day they nerf the autocannon is the day I uninstall.
Absolutely not.
To nerf the Autocannon and AMR to the level of this thing, you would just need to cut the magazines in half...maybe reduce the damage just in case, or remove the AOE/stagger.
@@cousinzeke4888 amr does not need a nerf, its at the level that most stratgem weapons should be at, but i guess they are balancing all the weapons for like, hard or challenging diffuclty.
The decision to originally forgo the reticle on the hmg shows just how illogical the decisions by the balance team are and foreshadows more of what you could expect in the future. Hopefully the new Pilestedt buff will avert anymore of such.
People say it should get a backpack, but what if we got a backpack that worked universally for all the machine guns? Or give the Supply Pack that functionality. Unique interactions between existing equipment would be fun
Yea this would be sick
Oh yeah, like a belt fed arm where you wouldn't have to reload. That'd be dope.
The sights are indeed misaligned, it shoots below the reticle. It could use a long range scope, some damage, weapon velocity and stagger against devastators would help it a lot.
Aside from that I feel like the shield backpack and shield gen relay would help a lot to avoid getting staggered.
It starts off accurate, but the slant of the barrel changes scope alignment during full-auto cyclic fire (especially on mid or high RPM).
That's one of my favourite armour get ups, fashion-wise.
Thank you for still giving context to your loadouts beforehand! Very entertaining
HMG just needs a slight handling buff, a fix to the terrible scope, a shorter reload, and a semi-auto setting. its damage is absurd if you can land your shots. I feel like HMG is meant to be taken with supply pack so the 2/2 magazine isn't an issue. Edit: my logic is that the HMG needs stun grenades with it to be it's most effective, so you might as well carry supply pack anyway.
The best thing they could do to the HMG would be to have it mounted on a mechanical arm like the M56 Smartgun from Alien and give it a belt-fed ammo backpack. It would look cool, feel cool, and make it fulfill the role of a dedicated horde clearer and anti-medium armor weapon. It would essentially also fulfill the craving of people who are clamoring for a man-operated mini-gun with a backpack.
you can kill gunships with the scorcher if you shoot the engines but it takes about 1 mag
nvm just got to the part where he realizes that
The mgs need DOUBLE magazine size. Except the stalwart
It’s subpar in the hands of a great player now imagine the average joes
gunships are the bane of this game, makes it frustrating specially when you have 3 factories right next to each other
Gunship factory covered by a jammer is pure pain.
@@cousinzeke4888 what kind of abomination is that. luckily ive never encountered it (at least didnt recognize it)
@@BuGGyBoBerlI had to run my ass off to get far enough to call in my autocannon, my team being ripped into the whole time, only to run back and go on AA duty, firing basically as fast as I could load until I about ran out of ammo. It was awesome.
@@cousinzeke4888 amazing. sounds like a lot of fun :D
Great run solo. 👏
Regardless of not finishing, you did amazing. 👍👍
Great try and insights on the use of the heavy machine gun.🔫👍
Thanks for making and sharing the video. 😏
I bring the HMG with ballistic shield quite often and it’s pretty fun, shield covers your heavy dev weakness and since you’re using the pummeler for most things it helps cover the ammo economy, rocket devs are still a pain though, usually don’t bring it for solo runs due to gunships
Lets goooo!
HMG would be so goated if it just deployed with an ammo backpack and it was belt fed.
At that point I feel like it should be a different stratagem entirely. That and I honestly prefer the ability to use it with other backpacks as well
I love the HMG, but it would be cool if there was a backpack belt-fed minigun support weapon
I like your content a lot. You feel like a friend. Thanks for always being wholesome!
How is nobody mentioning the INVISIBLE HULK at 7:39??
I saw a comment that suggested giving the HMG a dedicated ammo pack, imagine an ammo count of 300 with no reload, glorious.
Way too many people suggest the hmg should have a backpack. They want to add a backpack fed gatling gun, which woukd make taking a backpack fed hmg obsolete. So no, a backpack for the hmg is not the answer, but a larger box mag is.
Solo run on 9 with 3 stratagems *chefs kiss beautiful
Takibo... I'm surprised you are shooting the chickens in the front armour plate with the scorcher... They go down way faster by shooting the area just below the front armour plate. Usually 2-3 shots instead 5-6. Also a clip and half of scorcher to the nose of the gunships will take them out easily :)
My cat decides to do that when I get on voice chat with friends.
I've seen some recommendations say to give the HMG 125 mag rounds, 100 still would be rather low due to the very long reload time.
Now, the HMG does have some of the best TTK with highest RPM at basically point blank.
But you don't bring the HMG for crowd control and it kinda feels like a waste of ammo to use it even against medium enemies.
Great Video!
From what noticed, you gotta use it at the highest RPM and fire in bursts unless you have complete range and terrain advantage, 950 = burst or very close, 450 = far and continuous. Always prone or at least crouch for the extra recoil reduction, unlike the AC the HMG doesn't have the risk of self damage.
Supply pack is the unofficial mandatory pack, much like the AC. HMG when compared to AC and AMR has: higher damage per mag divided in lower dmg bullets, higher dps. For no explosive or AoE.
Main enemy counter on Automaton front is the Cannon tank and tower, gotta hit in the back and thats difficult to happen most of the time. So either strats or nades for those! Or explosive primary ofc!
My cat doesn't go bananas over flies, but my cat is a leopard gecko. So it only goes bananas over bugs in it's tank :V
I completely agree the heavy machine gun needs help. However, it is a support weapon. Meaning you use it to lay down covering fire to support your teammates (in real life anyway). I think the real question is if it does a good enough job to earn a spot on the squad or not.
The HMG _requires_ precision to work. Extremely difficult with the scope and recoil of this gun. I believe the devs balanced this weapon against enemy weakspots. Of course, they only matter if the gun hits. I count 6 shots per engine to take out a gunship. I often get more gunship kills than my quasar packing teammates. Devastators are my bread and butter enemy that I take out with this gun. Striders are my most hated enemy because of how much ammo they make me chew through to take them out. If I can use my primary on them, it goes better for me. Supply pack and stun grenades really help dealing with Devastators and Hulks. That's just my technique, though.
How about giving HMG "heavy armour piercing" akin to stratagem HMG emplacement? If it could hurt and strip armour off but not necessarily deal tons of damage, it would at least have its own specialization. Backpack-fed ammunition would be fine too, but Stalwart and MG already do bullet-hosing nicely.
Personally I prefer the new SMG, the scikle or the incendiary breaker with the HMG. It deal with mediums extremly quickly but don't really has the ammo capacity to deal with light too. I prefer to use stun grenads for hulks, so I use the grenade pistol. I also tend to keep it at 950 RPM and fire in short burst to not have acccuracy problems.
For gunships, shooting toward the pilot work with the scorcher. The pilot has armor 4, the scorcher can't damage it, but with the wiggle you hit the engines. That's also the problem you've faced with the HMG, you where hitting the pilot a lot, you should have seen red hits on the engines. Taking into account the relatively low projectile speed, the HMG can deal with gunships quickly, at 950 RPM it's theoretically .8 seconds to kill one, but personally I have to go for 3 4-round burst, in roughly 2 seconds.
Overall, I think what the HMG bring is raw DPS. It's got the highest DPS of medium piercing weapons (unless you count a full auto AMR) and a fairly good DPS against hard parts. It come useful against emplacements, factory striders, BTs (probably not for solo play, but if you get 2 openings to unload a mag in its abdomen, you can kill a BT in less than 15 seconds), bug buildings and bile spewers.
I agree with a lot of comments and sentiment. It has the same armour pen as the AMR...pretty crazy. Just give it an additional 30 bullets. I think then it would feel pretty much solid. I don't mind the recoil or reload time. Taking down Gunships with this weapon is tough given the distance and them moving about. It can be done...just damn tricky and ammo intensive. Which I think is also fine. Every gun should not be able to deal with everything effectively.
hey takibo! you can destroy gunships with the scorcher, gotta hit the whole mag near or on one of the engines. certainly saved my life sometimes
Yes, the scope is misaligned on the HMG, bullets go under the reticle.
Hey takibo can I recommend either using the ballistic shield with an SMG/Peacmaker/Verdict with the HMG? (I like using DCS/eruptor too) allows you to deal with chaff and devastators leaving the HMG only for gunships, hulks and tanks, mitigating its awful ammo economy
ever since it was buffed Ive been loving the Hmg with shield gen pack, mortar sentry, eagle 110, exp crossbow, and the laser pistol
either a thermite and grenade armor or stuns and Peak physique
(I honestly think it needs to be backpack fed like that one Russian dude with the pkm but 25 more bullets is close enough for me to be happy for now lol)
I would 100% run the HMG if it had 4-5 drums and a slightly shorter reload, or a two step reload like the Recoilless. Make it take up a backpack slot to compensate for the buffs and I think it would be an amazing support weapon.
HMG pretty much requires using the supply pack. They need to double the mags you can carry.
They need to give us a mini gun cause that’s what everyone expects out of the heavy machine gun
You can shoot gunships with the scorcher to kill them in a pinch. Just aim for the pilot, not the engines. Also, shooting the chicken walkers in the hip joints or grundle drops them a lot quicker than shooting the front plate armor.
“HMG is absolutely goated!!!”
(If you take stun grenade and supply pack. If you don’t run into too many rocket/shield devastators or gunships. If you have half an hour to reload.)
Why would you bother with HMG? There’s just too many “ifs”. And it does nothing better than AC/AMR.
It's a compromise between the MG and the autocannon without much benefit of either. At least the emplacement version has better pierce/damage.
I kinda like it versus bile spewers (a clip can easily dispatch like three or more) but that's about it. Recoil reducing armor and a supply pack is a must tho.
If a weapon forces me to wear specific armor and I need an ammo backpack to make it useable, it's not worth it, imo. The weapon should stand on it's own.
I miss one shotting gunships with the eruptor
8:30 I just realised automatons guns have bullet drop, but why ? They're laser weapons so they're not supposed to have any bullet drop at all, no ?
Honestly it's just not a solo player weapon. Not fast enough to cover all angles. It's definitely a lot more fun and easier to use with other players.
It almost fills the same niche that the flamethrower does in bug games. They take out their respective heavy (hulks/chargers) quickly in their weak spot (eye/foreleg) and shred anything smaller that gets close, but other team members need to focus bigger targets. HMG just needs a bigger mag and/or faster reload IMO.
The modifier is not planet wide just per campaign
Okay okay just imagine, gyrojet assisted, plasma and laser machinegun support weapon
I like the hmg as a full auto amr replacement. Stun grenades, grenade pistol, dominator to go with it. Strats vary with mission, and I use light sway reducing plus grenades armor.
It might be counterintuitive, but maybe reducing recoil could make it more viable, especially against bots. Being able to accurately hit weak points could put that damage and armor pen to good use
u can push the hmg to 900 rounds and run under the belly of the factory strider, look up and fire the magazin in nearly 1 second into it ^^
heyooo, i wanna do silly stuff when i get on the game and i wanna do that with MGs, which one should i use by ur recommendation :>?
I like how this video actually shows what a ragdoll fest automatons are. Such a shitty mechanic, it tooks all the fun out of the game for me.
Video remake when?
You can’t run hmg without the supply pack. If you got three slots, then you got an eagle airstrike lmao. Most of us don’t play solo and don’t get all the supply drops. Just an fyi for those wanting to try this in a normal lobby. Plus supply pack is OP.
Best way to fix it IMO would be to give it an ammo backpack, buff its mag size up to the MG standard and allow for autocannon-style team reloading (make it reloadable in half clips). That would make a good trade off with the mg.
Even that isn't enough. It needs way more damage and or way more ammo than the MG if they don't reduce recoil.
The fact that it's designed like a low-mid range CQC weapon but handles worse than anything else in the game combined with its insane recoil and slow-moving projectile makes no sense. The entire profile of this tool is fighting itself. It doesn't know what it's trying to be.
The solution? Delete this weapon, give its penetration level to the MG43.
The MG43 should be a bipod-based, med-long range suppression weapon that can shred most targets except maybe tanks, biles, and chargers from head-on (it is perfectly acceptable for it to be able to damage weak points, though). It already has the reload that locks you down, which supports the longer-ranged, suppression style of the weapon. It just doesn't have enough potency as is to justify bringing it. By simply moving the penetration of Heavy onto MG43, you fix both problems at once.
hmg needs a backpack that directly belt feeds it ammo and gives it a 1000 round magazine or two
My only issue with HMG is the speed debuff, I move like 30% carrying one
Weapons have no bearing on movement speed
If weapons get a handling boost when crouched and prone the HMG would be a lot better as well. Give it an actual scope, too. I can forgive the poor handling but its ammo economy blows (actually the MG had similar issues too). Regardless all ballistic weapons need a buff.
If you can shoot gunships with the scorcher... Would it be viable a railgun scorcher build?
Scorcher will always be meta as it costs you 1200 medals just to reach its page, and theres no way anyone takes HMG over a laser cannon or AMR.
I actually prefer it on bugs, if I had to chose. It eats up everything that isnt a charger or titan. The charger is an easy kill, with some finesse.
So I take the Incend breaker for all the trash and the HMG on lowest RPM. 2-3 rounds kills all the armored bugs. have to take the supply pack though.
I think they need to rethink armor as a system as a whole. I do think the gunships are over armored, I am fine with them being mildly tanky, but all real world air craft can be brought down with hand held weapons, so it would make sense that the gunships should be able to be damaged by most weapons, if not all weapons.
In terms of how I would redesign armor, I think that armor should have a condition modifier, where armor can get weaker when hit, even if the round isn't particularly effective against that type of armor, and so it could have the ability to crack armor, leaving it in a weakened state that players could take advantage of. So while I do not think a heavy machine gun should be able to quickly take down Hulks unless you hit it in the weak points, it could have the ability to create new weak points in armor if it was hit enough in a particular location. I will admit there are places where this idea might be finessed a bit, maybe having to rely on explosive and or fire damage etc, to case stress fractures etc, and the armor penetration modifier might be something to play with there, giving that a higher value increasing the chances of armor breaking, etc.
Yea that weapon needs a major buff or rework in general.
You probably gain a lot more than you lose (a tiny bit pen) by bringing the mg43 instead.
Which also doesn't take 3 full life times to reload like the Hmg.
Never had a problem with its ammo I max the fire rate but micro pulse the trigger to Eye burst Hulks and it obliterates gunships better than even my favorite laser cannon.
The HMG should definitely do more damage against unarmored foes.
I don't believe you, most divers are not recommending the HMG for anything. Also, I think the loadout is a bit unrealistic, most people want an option to deal with factories/holes/containers without dropping an eagle on it. And yeah, HMG sights are hugely off, the dot is far higher than where the bullets actually go.
You should have dumped the the 500kg for supply pack in that loadout, it's just not gna cut it without the supply pack
the scrorcher shows it ricochets' off but the explosive damage is whats doing damage. shoot anywhere.
Gunships and their towers really need to be adjusted. The fact that a single map with two toweres beside each other can easily lead to a wipe and mission failure just shouldn't happen.
exactly, it deserves better, better ammo capacity and economy
Scorcher takes down gunships!
I'd like to see better scopes and optics for some of the weapons.
Anti material rifle being one.
I point to the front pilot seat (black thing in the front)
This .
The gun really slaps. But the clip size is just frustrating
I've always aimed at the source of the red scanner with the scorcher, but I'm no expert.
I like the HMG but what I really wanted was a backpack fed minigun :(
Idk how you got the recoil to be so low, I've used it with the same armour and it can only fire 2 shots before completely leaving the target
I think maybe my armour perk isn't working to reduce the recoil because I definitely don't get the benefits like you can see in the video
I don’t mind the long reload if they give us a true lmg clip. Doesn’t make sense to have such a small clip on it
@Takibo what are your PC specs?
Wasting ammo on every enemy and then saying it needs a buff is kind of disingenuous. If you’re using the weapon in a way that economizes ammo, it can kill every single bot in the game much easier than all weapons. Only thing I think it should have is another magazine. Autocannon’s issue is that it takes up a backpack slot and struggles more against tanks and takes usually 3 shots on a devastator. You also have to be pretty precise against hulks. The AMR has you reloading pretty often and the precision needed for hulks makes it harder to land when they’re walking towards you.
I feel like all the mg's are so underpowered and it's really depressing that there's basically a dozen weapons that are just completely unused because of how useless they are. I wish they would make it possible for all back weapons to destroy heavy tank enemies somehow. Maybe make the HMG destroy the gunships with 50 - 75 bullets. I get it's not a rocket launcher but what's the point of bringing a third weapon that isn't a rocket if you're defenseless against most enemies?
Hmg can destroy gunships in a reasonable amount of bullets. But i do agree machine guns in general are in a bad place. Hopefully they buff ballistic weapons in the next big patch in a meaningful way.
Have you done a grenade launcher run. more of a challenge run. ok against bugs.
maybe I deaf but I heard no cat. 😅
It would be cool if they added tracer rounds that did fire damage
The hmg would he so much better if it had a belt feeding backpack so you could just mouse 1 all the ammo away at the cost of the backpack slot
Scorcher deals damage when hitting the thrusters on the gunships.
This thing needs to have one big mag with 350 bullets. Or three mags with 100-150 each
1 nivel of armor penetration (optional) and 1 of this 2
More damage or more quick reload
or make it single mag call-in like MGX in Helldivers 1
I really like those type of call in because you don't have to worry about it after you die
Seems pretty weird that there are only EAT
I see takibo video, I click
They should reduce recoil when crouched and lying. And maybe more armor penetration.
More Ammo. Maybe combined with a backpack
They do have lower recoil on crouch or prone.
if it had more ammo and more mags, it would feel a lot better