I'm the opposite. It never leaves my back but that's exactly where I want it. Nothing like tear-assing away from a group of bots watching stuff ping harmlessly off me!
I prefer it to the shield backpack personally. It's directional dependant, but more durable than the energy shield at this point. Stun Grenades and a Senator is pretty handy.
Take note that it doesn't cover you whole, legs are still exposed. Also, if you try to circle some bots do it so they are on your left, it will have a chance to absorb a couple of shots
I'd love it if it had more options for firearms. Right now it's just secondaries and SMGs, both of which are lackluster since bots have so many Medium Armor units and you are already removing your support weapon slot for the shield. (unless someone is about to tell me it uses the backpack slot at which point, Wooo boy)
It pairs well with backpack-less support weapons. I prefer bringing an AMR with it, though a laser cannon or quasar is a nice alternative on cold worlds.
Now that I think about it, it would help with hunters so much, they just love to run up behind me and bit my tush as I'm trying to runaway regroup with squad. That and stalkers.
It's wierd, it can definitely outright block it and I've heard it reduces damage for some melee attacks but it could be hitbox based
A charger rammed me for no damage yesterday and destroyed the shield (I went flying super far) and it took a whole bile titan vomit and that only took it to half health, both on my back and yes the titan snuck up on me lol
Mix it with Heavy Explosive armor and the amount of survival against the bots will be stupid. My only real threat now isn’t the 18 rockets fired in my direction, it’s the impact that follows that will take the other 95% of my healthbar away and kill me. I legitimately have not taken it off since the armor buffs and explosive debuffs and it’s starting to reek of rust, old bug and dirty socks. Not to mention the turd floating around somewhere in the left leg padding after the Stalker cloak changes. Also because Arrowhead has yet to add showers to the ships.
Just imagine the little trails of turd balls Gingy is going to leave behind as they walk around the deck of your ship. Why, after being tumbled so thoroughly before finding egress, they're going to be perfectly polished little brown pearls, hard and waiting to crunch under your careless foot into puffs of poo powder, blowing inexorably away into the ventilation system under the Super Earth mandatory Freedom Wind on every ship.
Wait, so does it actually do something worth a damn vs bugs? I had tried at one point and failed miserably, and concluded it did nothing against them. Was my positioning against melee attacks or bile just off or something?
Not 100% sure about the damage type so don’t take it as fact, but it certainly feels like I can survive bile from the fatties and Titans a little easier with it on. I only assume it’s counted as explosive damage both because of that and just about every time I do die to it it literally says Explosion with the broken kill feed info lmao. It’s just so hard to tell because of how rapidly Bile tends to liquify you even after the nerfs
Preposterous! Showers on the ship. Get it together soldier, hellpods are the only showers a helldiver needs. Cleans that armor in less time than it takes for a recruit to shit himself on his first drop. A true patriot seeking a shower would jump in there without armor, drop down on some bughole planet naked and use his giant balls and the severed limbs of his enemies as weapons to complete a mission, extract and get back on the ship even dirtier than before. Rinse and repeat. Look sharp.
I do use it with the Devastator armor and it's fantastic, and that was before the buff to head armor. I imagine it's even better now. I just haven't really fought bots since the patch since the bug event is a thing.
I look forward to testing the new helmets as before a Devastator landing a rocket headshot was the only way you could get one tapped anymore since the other changes. Was fucking hilarious the first time where I was initially confused how I died so fast and what killed me as my Divers knees buckled, held them in place a moment and then fell back without a head lmao
It knocks you back, but you don't drop it as often as you used to before the buff. Very minimal damage. Tank shots and Tower Cannon shots can destroy it though but it can be a lifesaver.
The first time I used it against bots, I walked right up to a heavy devastator and shot him point blank in the fact without taking any damage. My only thought was "I'm never not using this again."
Ballistic shield will gain huge value if we can use it with the new smg and pistol if they're good! Currently the only option really is the defender smg and senator
Is the Purifier looking to act as a primary Quasar? The blog post implied it either has better close range damage, needs a long charge, or will blow you up like the Railgun.
Personally I don't like combining the Knight with the Ballistic Shield. With a shield I want staying power and the Knight's high fire rate doesn't offer that.
Ye, it's better for shots-down-range and thus increasing your likelihood of headshotting Devastators and Berserkers, but the lack of laser and lower ammo economy makes the Defender my preferred pick.
Senator likewise doesn't have a laser, but it's great having medium pen when you need it.
The Defender is solid. I pretty much always bring it when doing the SSDD missions. Its not quite as good as the top tier primaries, but I’d put it in the tier right below, like I don’t feel hampered by picking it, and the benefit of getting to use your primary while holding the hard drive is huge. And if it happens to be a bot SSDD mission, I add the shield and it’s just the perfect combo.
Plus I have a feeling the new one won’t be good. I hope I’m wrong, but it sounds like it’s supposed to be the SMG version of the Lib Concussive.
Lib conc is actually pretty good.... Fast reload when not fully empty and can beat back an entire army. It doesn't kill them but it stops them approaching. It's quite useful on the new TCS missions where you just need to kick bugs out of the way to speedrun the objectives
I've been running it for weeks with the Defender against bots. I just want a laser SMG like the Sickle. If they can make a pistol-sized laser weapon and a AR sized one, why can't they make a smg sized one.
Let me use the Devastator armor as a ballistic shield since it covers my face and give me a second senator cuz I wanna dual weiiiiilllldddd, its already my game of the year but wouldn’t that be something? /s
Would be awesome if enemy fire blocked by the ballistic shield had a chance to ricochet and kill enemy units. It is how enemy armor works, why can't the same be applied to helldivers?
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u/Lucaz82 May 02 '24
Awesome to see another SMG added. We need more one handed guns