With no Beastiary in the game to properly tell you the best way to dispatch your enemies, I thought it pertinent to tell you the best way to take democracy’s enemies out.
Cause sometimes, its not always about the head.
Terminids (The Bugs)
Сrеdit gоеs to Hijinks!
Terminids that are weak to headshots from light armor penetrating weapons:
- Scavenger
- Warrior
- Hunter
- Spewer
- Brood Commander
In Depth:
All of these bugs can be effectively dispatched using headshots from your standard, light armor penetrating weapons like the Liberator, your sidearm, etc. You dont need to really worry about headshots for the scavengers and spewers, but the hunter and warrior bug can take a beating if you dont put a few directly in the head.
Keep in mind that for the warrior and brood commander bug, it will still attempt to attack even after having its head blown off, so double tap it, give it a melee to knock it back, or strafe to avoid its swan song.
Note: Depending on planet and biome, the colors of the bugs can change! However general rule of thumb is if its the size of mans best friend, the dog, it can be taken down with almost any weapon!
Terminids that are weak to headshots from medium armor penetrating weapons:
- Hive Guard
In Depth:
These bugs can be damaged from behind using light armor penetrating weapons, but in order to effectively kill them from the front you need a medium armor penetrating weapon, like the Jar-5 Dominator or the AR-23P, or a call in stratagem weapon like the machine gun or railgun. These both can punch through the heavier armor of the heads on these bugs. Just like the warrior bug, its head can be destroyed but they will still attempt an attack, so do the same as above as you would the warrior: double tap it, give it a melee to knock it back, or strafe to avoid its swan song.
Special Cases
- Stalker
The Stalker bug is essentially a larger Hunter bug, BUT the trick is that it uses camouflage to mask itself until its right up close to 3 hit combo you. It can be killed using any weapon, but it takes a lot of punishment and when its at half/low on health it’ll jump backwards to retreat, likely reengaging optical camouflage. Press the attack and kill it before it disengages!
- Bile Spewer
The big brother of the smaller Spewers, these guys can be deceiving; you’ve likely been conditioned for years in other games to “shoot the giant glowing bulb.” Do not unless its the only option! This spot is incredibly tanky, and on the armored variant of it, it can’t even be penned by light armor penetrating weapons! Shoot DIRECTLY for the head to take them down fast or else youll get dissolved in acid!
- Charger
This is the bug that is giving all of Super Earth Armed Forces trouble. Heavy armor on pretty much all parts of its body, with only its backside exposed, its a tough beast that seems to spawn very often. The trick to killing these guys is to use a railgun, recoilless rifle, or EAT and hit one of its legs until the armor is off: 2 railgun shots, or 1 rocket will strip off its armor, leaving its fleshy and exposed bits open. Unload into its exposed limb with any gun and it’ll die quickly! If you can’t get a shot off onto its leg, the side with its armor can also be exposed in the same way.
- Bile Titan
The ONLY way to take these guys out is with heavy weapons, like the railgun, recoilless rifle, EAT, or call in stratagems like orbitals or eagle runs and even sentries. Shooting its exposed underside is a good option but I’ve found shooting its head over and over with a railgun will not only stun them, preventing chase, but also stop its bile spewing attack to. Do this over and over until its dead. Alternatively, die and smash a drop pod through.
Important note! If you also read the HELLDIVERS 2 guide with tips, the gameplay will become much more interesting and exciting.
Automatons (The Bots)
Automatons that are weak to light armor penetrating weapons:
- Trooper / Raider / Marauder
- Commissar
In Depth:
When in doubt, just remember that if its around the same height as a human, it can be killed effectively with a headshot from any of your weapons. 1-2 shots to the head will put these bots out of action quickly, but if in a pinch you can put 4-5 into center mass to put them down no fuss as well.
Automatons that are weak to medium armor penetrating weapons:
- Berserker
- Devestator
In Depth:
Standing head and shoulders above the rest of the bots, are the Berserkers and Devestators. The Berserker is armed with dual chainsaws and will chase you down to rip you to shreds, while the Devastators can be armed with miniguns, rocket pods, or even their fists. You can take these guys out with almost a full mag of any weapon to the head, but if you want to truly have a good chance against these guys, bring a medium armor penetrating weapon like the JAR-5 Dominator or AR-23P. You can of course always use a railgun, autocannon, or rocket against them to finish them off in 1-2 shots.
Special Cases
- Scout Strider
While it can be killed easily by headshotting the operator from the back or the side, using a railgun, autocannon or rocket will put these out of commission rather easily.
- Hulk
The scorcher hulk and the bruiser hulk are both heavily armored from almost every angle; the key to killing these behemoth bots is to flank it and hit the glowing red heatsink on its back. Any weapon can harm them if this is hit, but to quickly put them down, use a rocket, railgun, autocannon, etc. If that is not an option, you can aim center mass with those same options until it goes down, or to slowly make it combat ineffective, shoot off its limbs, it even has an achievement!
- Tank
The traditional cannon tank has a massive heatsink on the back of the turret, making for an easy way to put these armored vehicles down. Luckily, the rotation speed of the tank is slow, making this easy if the tank is without infantry support. If that isnt any option, laying into it with grenades, stratagem strikes, railgun, autocannon, or rockets will do the trick. The anti-air tank however (noticeable from its quad mount flak guns) is a tougher beast: the same rules apply of hammering it with heavy weapons and stratagems until its dead, but getting close enough to hit its weakspot may be a problem from the suppression it can give out.
- Dropship
You’ve likely noticed these when the Bots patrols call in reinforcements. They appear to be nigh unkillable, but did you know if you hit any of the 4 engines on it with a rocket, it’ll lose control and crash? Great way to stop enemy reinforcements and give yourself some breathing room!
Automatons also have a Mortar Turret tower not mentioned here
Should be noted that Shield Devastators become relatively harmless if you shoot their minigun arm off, though if they get in close and melee you, they will ragdoll you if you don’t die.
Bile spewers get two shot by well placed grenade launcher shots
Watched a SAM site blew up a few bot drop ships, was cool. Doesn’t always kill before the troops jump down though, think it’s dependent on distance.
love the guide and appreciate the effort. however commissars are not the only bot rank and file to call in drop ships, in fact all rank and file are capable of calling in drop ships. sorry for the correction, again thank you for the guide.
I would like to add on to the Hulk weapons, the anti-material rifle will kill a hulk in two headshots. Place your shots well and you’re golden
A few things
Not sure it’s been mentioned yet but the squishy/sack parts on most bugs ARE WEAKSPOTS, but only to weapons that deal explosive damage like the autocannon, scorcher, grenades, and so on. They only take around 10% damage from other sources apparently! So, if you are rocking an explosive weapon you /can/ kill bile spewers relatively fast with explosive weapons shooting the squishy part, and you can also take down chargers with mundane weapons decently quickly without peeling armor!
Another way to deal with chargers with the autocannon is to evade their charge and hit their back legs 2-3 times. That will usually kill them outright.
learning that the meta to killing chargers is railgunning one of their legs twice then shooting the exposed leg with your primary has saved me countless times
Rocket Devastator
You can also shoot their rocket pods on top their shoulders. they are lightly armored and will blow up. Hurting the bot and anything around it. Making it also FAR less dangerous to deal with.
You should add to the stalkers description that they always try to flank players and attack them from behind, and that the stalker lairs that spawn them are easy to locate by finding out what direction the stalkers are coming from.
Destroying the green stuff underneath the Bile Titian will stop it from spewing & can be done with Light AP weapons, but that bile can also kill their own if you have a mass group following you.
Auto-cannon 2 shots bile spewers if you fire at the green/orange bulb, which makes them explode dealing damage to nearby enemies, the machine-gun does a good job too.
Absolutely the bile spewer need a bit of rework. It doesn’t make any sense that the green belly is the armored part and the armor is the weak spot (especially in lower difficutlies. After, it changes) . Also they spawn too often, in groups, even 4 or more, they run like hell, they can oneshot with one spray and they are almost in every nest. Yes, they die with 1 or 2 granades and heavy weapons mow them down but in a big nest with 4 holes and 4 or 5 spewers and a Hive Guard active at all times is a garanteed 15 minute kiting bonanza if the matchmaking fails and you get in there solo.
I hate bile spewers & really hate the bile from it in general, unlike the bile titan I seem to get hit (sprinting to the left or right) with it without it actuality touching me then die & sometimes even when I dive from it.
The bile titan however even though it misses me I seem get slowed down all the time while sprinting to the left or right & sometimes as I dive just before it starts to spew.
If anyone says what armour do I have on only the lightest as I know heavy armours (AR) isn’t working.
I hate the bile spewer playing on difficulty 3, forced to be solo, and 7 bile spewers repeatedly spawn and are almost impervious to damage and to put the cherry on top they instakill
there’s a lot of great context missing here. In higher difficulties, the bile spewers will have an armored head so shooting them in the head with light armor pen weapons is no longer viable. I found the best way to insta kill them are grenade, specifically contact grenades. The best way to take out cannon turrets are orbital rail-cannon strikes as it DOES lock on to them. You can go around the scout strider and just shoot the bot manning it. The shredder anti tank will always die to 2 contact grenades to the top/back of the turret and the regular tank takes 3-4.
side note for bile spewers i found they die to like 1 or 2 shots from the grenade launcher to their green belly
One addendum: Berserkers and other such bots will still kick/stomp you to death without their arms. And the Striders will try to step on you. They’re not harmless.
i didnt see mentioned that the devastators can also spawn with shields, from my testing, it might be able to shrug off rockets that hit it shield but this requires further testing.
also noting for the bugs, when they huddle up and try to block your shots by shielding themselves with their arms, you can aim slightly to the left or right and hit their side profile/legs with a bit of aim and this will damage them. Similarly, shooting off legs after the head of a guard also immediately stops their little chicken run.
Also some good weapons to mention. the Laser cannon does a really solid job at melting medium armor plating off entirely. The only thing it cant penetrate is Charger armor and the armor on the bigger walkers for the robot faction. Overall its a really solid weapon for clearing out a lot of enemies and no ammo cap either if you manage your heat right.
Just to add to the Berserker/Devastator effectiveness, I’ve found that its insanely easy to hit their head if you simply follow aim basics and turn burst fire on when its available. If you prefer running smg’s, then dumping a mag at a Berserker’s waist seems to take them out oddly fast.
The Hive Guards weakness is its limbs, you can blow them off extremely easy and they’ll die way faster.
Also, for the Devastators, a single shot with a revolver to the head instantly kills them.
Stalkers’ heads are their weak point, but they are incredibly small/thin. <Half of a machine pistol to their head will put them down.
For spewers I’ve found that 2 grenade launcher shots will kill them, and you can chain kills pretty effectively if they’re grouped up. For bile spewers, that goes up to 3 grenade launcher shots. You do need to be slightly careful, as they’ll bounce off the armor if it hits at a bad angle from too close, but otherwise I find it to be a very effective way to clear them without having to be too accurate. Particularly when you’re on the move and just want to thin the horde chasing you.
For berserkers and devastators i noticed that their waist seems to be a weakspot too. If you shoot there they break in two halfs and are instant dead
Oh, Grenade Launcher also gets Scouts very easily, even maybe getting a collateral on a squad of them, the AoE will almost always kill the pilot easily.
Regarding the Bile Titans, they go down with a rocket to the mouth when they’re spewing bile. The easiest way I’ve been able to get this done is when it’s aggro’d on a sentry.
one grenade from the launcher or a rocket you the green bulbous part of the bile spewer is a one hit kill usually, its worked for me so far.
I’d like to add one very important tactical point which has been confirmed by devs: explosive damage deals a lot more to fleshy bits. I use impact nades on spewers and they die instantly. Autocannon shots and explosive liberator works the same way. So shooting spewer sacks works, but only with explosives. Otherwise go for the head.
Hulks are also weak to head shots. A fully charged railgun shot to the face will drop a Hulk in a single hit. 2-3 from an Autocannon will do the same.
Grenades are also a really good way to take out the scout striders
a good note as well for the bots, aside from the hulks they are especially weak to hits to the connection between torso and legs, and can be bisected in minimal hits
There is an orange version of the bile bug, maybe that’s the armored version you’re talking about. I seem to run into the orange one more than the green version. I find that the orange bile bug is pretty easily dispatched with a couple of shot from the grenade launcher. Friendly fire is an issue, but typically you don’t want to be that close to those bugs anyway.
Great bestiary, though! I was sure you could take down the bot drop ships, but now I know for sure! Thank you for this!
Pretty good and accurate for the most part with good info, but a few things I would add or change. I think you missed a bug and confused the brood commander for the slightly smaller one that hunkers down with armor? It’s hard to tell with no encyclopedia. All them mfs look the same. Beyond that..
The devastator and zerks don’t really need a full mag to the head to kill, just 200 or so damage total which is about 1-5 shots depending on weapon.
Aside from that the hulks can be taken down with headshots very easily. Autocannon (3 or so shots), AMR (3 or so shots), railgun (1 shot,). Their legs are also a weakspot, and you take out both they will die so you can just hit a leg each with recoiless/EAT they’re done-zo.
SPEAR launcher will kill Titans/Chargers in 2 hits, hulks and tanks in 1 hit.
Taking both legs off of a brood commander will stop it from charging you like it does when you blow it’s head off and will pretty much always kill it.