Helldivers 2 Balance Patch Nerfs Railgun, Buffs Flamethrower and More

Helldivers 2 has received its first balance patch after it was launched in February. This patch not only adds new features such as planet weather hazards like fire tornados and meteor showers, but certain weapons and Strategems have also been adjusted, with weapons like the Railgun getting nerfed, the Flamethrowing getting buffed, and fixes to armor properties, just to name a few.

Upon testing, the Railgun was given a heavy nerf as using the Support Weapon on heavily armored enemies like the Charger will no longer work as each Railgun shot now bounces off their armored parts.

The Railgun is considered the go-to weapon in higher difficulties as it was able to handle almost all enemy types. Looks like that’s already about to change when progressing through Helldive difficulty.

Another change worth noting is Eradication Missions, the preferred content for mission farmers as the time it takes to finish this type of mission has been increased, making it twice as long to complete.

The LAS-98 Laser Cannon was given a big buff as initial testing shows it is rather effective to armored targets, making it a more viable option in higher difficulties.

Here are the full patch notes and changes.

Helldivers 2 Patch 1.000.1

Major Updates

Planetary Hazards active

• Many planets now have additional environmental challenges that will appear at random while you are deployed, from fire tornadoes to meteor showers and many more.

Balancing

Eradicate Missions

• Eradicate missions now require more kills and enemies spawn more often. The time to complete the mission was previously shorter than intended and should now usually take twice as long to complete.

Primary, Secondary, & Support Weapons

Balancing adjustments made to the following:

• SG-225 Breaker - Decreased magazine capacity from 16 to 13, increased recoil from 30 to 55.

• SG-8 Punisher - Increased total ammo capacity from 40 to 60, increased stagger force, increased damage from 40 per bullet to 45 per bullet.

• SG-225SP Breaker Spray & Pray - Increased armor penetration, increased fire rate from 300 to 330, increased number of pellets from 12 to 16 per shot, decreased magazine size from to 32 to 26.

• RS-422 Railgun - Decreased armor penetration, and decreased damage against durable enemy parts.

• FLAM-40 Flamethrower - Increased damage per second by 50%

• LAS-98 Laser Cannon - Increased damage against durable enemy parts, increased armor penetration, improved ergonomics.

Stratagems

Balancing adjustments have been made to:

• Shield Generator Pack - Increased delay before recharging.

• Orbital 120MM HE Barrage - Increased duration of the bombardment, decreased spread.

• Orbital 380MM HE Barrage - Increased duration of the bombardment, decreased spread.

Fixes

• Fixed armor rating values not reducing damage as intended.

• Fixed certain Bug Holes (including Stalker Nests) that were unnecessarily hard to destroy.

• Fixed anti-aliasing toggle not working on PS5.

• Balanced lighting across all planets to solve cases where the game was too dark.

• Improved flashlight efficacy.

• Increased visibility during “sand rain” weather on Erata Prime.

• Updated tutorial materials and lighting.

• Improved cases where some materials could look blurry if "Lighting" graphic setting was set to "Low".

• Fixed timing issues that could occur in the “Extract E-710” primary objective.

• Changed button interaction behavior for buttons in bunker POIs. Helldivers will now let go of the button after holding it for a few seconds.

• Fixed some cases of large assets floating if the ground beneath them was blown up.

• Helldivers standing next to ICBMs during launch will get properly toasty with a chance of not-so-spontaneous combustion.

• Fixed unthrowable snowballs after ragdolling.

• Fixed being able to use grenades after drowning.

• Camera no longer locked on the player's own corpse and blocking spectator mode.

• Helldivers now take damage from fire, gas etc. generated by other players.

• Armor no longer stretches when dismembered.

Known Issues

These are issues that were either introduced by this patch and are being worked on, or are from a previous version and have not yet been fixed.

• Picking up items from caches may cause characters to freeze in place for an extended period of time.

• Picking up items from bunkers and caches in quick succession may render one of the items unpickable.

• Players cannot unfriend other players befriended via friend code.

• Players may be unable to select loadout or return to ship when joining a multiplayer game session via PS5 Activity Card.

• Occasionally mission reward multiplier may not be applied.

• Mission objective HUD displays different numbers for client and host during some missions.

• Default armor is always shown while viewing the warbond, regardless of the armor that player has equipped.

• Text chat box display is obstructed by the cinematic letterboxing during extraction.

• Some text in the HUD/UI is missing or not displaying correctly.

• Players may experience issues when many players attempt to login and/or play at the same time:

• Login rate limiting

• Players may become disconnected during play

• Various UI issues may appear when the game interacts with servers

• Some games may not be joinable by others for a short period of time

The devs are ramping up support for the game as this patch comes right after Arrowhead Games teased that mechs are coming to the game “soon”.

This patch is now available to those on PC, with it launching on PS5 soon after.

Helldivers 2 is now available on PS5 and PC.

---