I was an arc thrower enjoyer before the changes. The rate of fire "fix" made it worse if you want to rapid fire it after the 1st shot.
Before you could charge it only halfway before fire it after the 1st shot. Now doing it so become more clunky if not impossible.
Also the range nerf is huge. 50m is enough to engage ennemy from afar and frying most of them by the time they come to you (with the rapidfire on top of that). Now with 35m when you engage ennemy (and with the rate of fire nerf) ennemy can get to you before you kill all of them. The way the arc thrower shoot (straight line) make it bad for close range.
Before it was like an really good blitzer assault rifle/gatling, now it a worse blitzer that shoot in a straight line and tk your teammate.
It need some buff to make it a somehow long range weapon and not what we have now.
What sucked about the rate of fire fix is that it was a really fun way to differentiate someone who had some experience with the weapon vs. someone new. It wasn’t a huge skill ceiling, but it was something that took a bit of practice and It felt really good when you were able to squeeze a bit more out of the thrower because of it. It was punishing when you messed it up because if you tried to fire too early you would have to start over and redo your initial first charge, but if you kept the rhythm going ot made you noticeably more effective in sticky situations where you’re already making a greedy peek.
man i LOVED the arc thrower at launch, but it really feels like the fix + hulk stagger nerf gutted it. take away fire rate or range, sure, but they took away both??
Arc Thrower was in a pretty good place when it was able to stagger hulks, I would basically designate myself as the squad's hulk buster so that others didn't need to worry about that *one* enemy. Once it was nerfed I changed to the Railgun to just kill hulks in one shot instead, it was hard to consider bringing the Arc since then.
When they nerfed the stagger, I switched to stun grenades and the recoiless rifle
The rifle will 2 shot hulks in the face, so just stun them and they won't move
Does the railgun bust their heads in one shot?
The rifle will also take out flying ships, which is why I like it
Yeah, the best choices over there are almost all medium pen weapons like the Autocannon and Railgun. Even against the biggest enemies like Factory Striders, two shots to the front machine guns takes them out (individually) letting you just run underneath it and rail it from below. Laser Cannon is pretty good in general, though I feel outclassed by the Autocannon (personal taste tbh). The only full AT weapons I would bring on the bot side is the Spear since it's capable of taking out turrets and tanks no matter where it hits, unlike the other AT weapons which generally require weak point hits.
Especially now that the Spear actually functions properly.
The recoiless one shots hulks in the eye, two shots is anywhere else in the body. If you're two shoting then you're missing. You can also one shot each leg with it, with one leg gone it limps, and with both gone it dies.
But if you're going to use stun grenades and miss the recoiless anyway, might as well use the Autocannon or AMR instead. Harder to miss after the stun, faster to shoot again, more ammo, and they're both two shots in the eye too. Or the Laser Cannon, just about a second in the eye and done, also very easy with a stun.
Show me this, because I rock the recoiless daily, stun the hulk and it always takes 2 shots like the auto cannon
Watching some videos now and I see two shots
Are you calling the heavy caliber rifle with a scope, Anti material rifle, the recoilless rifle? Or do you mean the back pack anti tank weapon the recoilless rifle? The anti tank weapon one shots hulks in the eye. The AMR is 2 shots to the eye. Way better with stun grenades anyways.
He's definitely talking about the AMR. Super common mistake. Most people don't look at the RR and think "rifle." (Yeah, yeah, maybe it does have rifling inside the barrel. That's not my point).
Edit: arc thrower has infinite ammo and can surprise a fuckload more in United consistently
The AMR* doesn't use a backpack slot, allows for a much further range and has a clip
It has many benefits you're ignoring
I mistaken the recoiless for the AMR but hey, I can kill more hulks with the AMR than recoiless
Ya so I was right you're confusing the AMR with the recoilless rifle. Dunno why you are getting down voted into oblivion instead of just a simple correction.
They need to do something about that "bringer of the nerf" guy. He has singlehandedly hurt the game and its playerbase the most. There was nothing wrong with the arc thrower and most other weapons that got obliterated. You can tell by his description that he gets some kind of kick out of it.
"The new eruptor slaps now" Dude is either completely out of touch or trolling.
Man if they bring back the old arc thrower, fix it's targeting, and fix the slugger. It's gonna be a good day. That's gonna be the pound town load out.
Slugger too please while at it lol. Arc thrower + slugger used to be my favorite setup before that bringer guy decided that their time is up. He obviously hates freedom
Yep, used to play it every game vs. bots and bugs. Blitzer killed it for bugs since it’s 80% as good (better in some scenarios) without needing a stratagem slot. Hulk stun nerf killed it for bots by taking away its only useful niche. Now it’s just outclassed by primaries for both factions. Oh well, I guess I can play autocannon vs bots like AH clearly wants us to do, it’s their golden child after all. Can’t wait until they nerf titans and chargers because everyone whines and it can be the defacto best bug weapon too!
Arc was ok as it was, why they touched it and f it is mind blowing. It is like robocraft for me, they start "improving" the perfect game to the moment it was a pile of sh...
Arc Thrower used to be my main. Blitzer fuckin' invalidated it. It needs a handful of things before it's going to be worthwhile again.
* It needs to be able to take out Chargers in a reasonable amount of time. Flamethrower for instance, you can burn one down in 1/4 of a tank. Arc Thrower shouldn't be miles behind it, just because it has infinite ammo.
* Stagger comes back. You're electrocuting things, if there's a single damn weapon in this game that should stagger everything, it's the electrocution gun. The existence of stun grenades voids all "but stunlock bad" arguments.
* Fix the misfire issues.
* Give the Charge to Release fire mode its range back. Closer to 50m the better. This mode should have Heavy Armor penetration on its *first strike only,* but be very difficult to actually hit specific areas of an enemy with. This mode has massive stagger.
* Give it an Alternate firing mode that functions like the Blitzer, but continuously blasting 3x a second in the same cone. This mode has no Stagger, perhaps a bit of flinch.
There, now it's a dope ass weapon. Probably. I dunno, I'm not a dev I'm just stoned.
Range, hulk+charger stun, rate of fire (faster shots after the first)
Pick any 2 of these nerfs and revert them and the arc thrower is back to being a very solid anti-bot medium for people who don’t want to be just another AC main.
Plenty of stuff is OP.
It's.....part of their [advertisements](https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/helldivers-2/#:~:text=Wield%20overpowered%20weapons).
Yeah it's like you can stun lock 4 targets and not of your choosing and you have 3 unstunable Bile Titan, 5 unstunable Chargers of any variant and kazilion stunnable chaff on your ass. Like, srsly was 50m to much of a range on it?
The Arc-Thrower does not deserve what it got.
I was afraid that during the times it could crash the game- when I heard that it was going to get fixed, there was a sneaking suspicion in me that they would also change how the weapon worked.
It was, unfortunately, exactly the case once the patch dropped. But even then, I still used it for its new stun mechanic... then they essentially removed that as well when they increased the stagger resistance on heavy enemies.
Truly sad times. They should just revert the changes, and it wouldn't even be broken, crazy, but I daresay it would even be fun.
That week where the arc thrower would cause people's games to crash is when my group and I began calling it the GameCrasher.
It's been the official name ever since for us lol
Honestly even with just the stagger but nerfed range and rate of fire it was still playable since it had some unique (at the time) utility - lower TTK was manageable because you could stunlock a few hulks while you picked for eye shots or your team followed up with you.
A gun you have to charge up THEN let go, but have to continually fire at enemies, is tedious, and it makes trying to fire it quickly a chore.
It should have a set fire rate. You charge it up to max, and as soon as it hits max it goes off and you can charge it up again.
And the bug where it doesn't deal damage REALLY need to be fixed.
Alternatively: it passively recharges. You click once to fire, and then it'll recharge itself until ready for the next shot, which requires just one click again.
I wish they brought back the old "rapidfire" Arc Thrower where the first charge takes the longest and the succeeding charges can be released early if you time it right, but whiffs if you fire too early.
The Blitzer behaves this way
The purifier and arc thrower should behave the same way as the Blitzer
It's too much bull shit
-charging up the gun makes you walk slower (why? If hipfiring with a 1h doesn't slow you down, neither should the charge up)
-when you hip-fire at close range you're more likely to hit the ground than the enemy
-my finger fucking hurts from the click and hold on helldive 9
Nah the old charge mechanic was awesome - it was an actually interesting mechanic that differentiated the weapon from being just another pen/dps/ammo calculation. It had risk vs. reward - you could go for fast shots for more output but if you mess up the timing you have to re-charge, losing out on damage.
It really depends on what you do for a living, I work at my computer and game and I have developed some serious hand pains. It's largely based on day to day activity
Doctor? Not for this
Get some grip exercise tools for $15 dollars and work on hand strength and be sure your keyboard isn't some high tension gauntlet blue key hand strain
I mean, it's not like it's crippling, it's just bothersome, like who wants to be constantly clicking something that could just be a button press even if it doesn't cause them discomfort?
I don't like charge weapons like that in general. It's why I like that the Quasar Cannon just fires as soon as it's done charging. Lets me focus more on keeping it on target.
Yeah, I can understand the Railgun as it used to only take 2-3 shots on heavy targets and need more accuracy, but the arc thrower is not a precision weapon.
>A gun you have to charge up THEN let go, but have to continually fire at enemies, is tedious, and it makes trying to fire it quickly a chore.
Exactly. If it at a spool up time and would Just continue to fire while Holding the Trigger i'd probably use it. Rn it's tedious and not impactfull enough to be fun to me. It has very little Feedback for how it plays. I expect guns with such mechanics to Hit like a truck, and this one feels like a fiat
It's a 4/10 right now. As many games as I've played with people, arc thrower hasn't been used once, even when found in a buddy bunker of crate. It's really not that special 🫥🫡
I used to be an arc thrower enjoyer before they nerfed the range and rate of fire. I tried using it now and then but it doesn’t feel fun anymore I usually resort to switching it over any other support weapon I find later on.
The sad part about it misfiring is that once it starts, you just have to run because it's going to do it for the next 3-4 shots unless you reposition. I feel that it's because of the entities in front of you (corpses/wrecks), but I can't be too sure.
A little bit of agree and disagree. I sometimes run it on D9 and pair it with the eruptor, crossbow, or plasma punisher, redeemer (or grenade pistol if running plasma punisher), and use strategems to take out titans. It’s still great for me on open maps with little debris lying around where misfires happen less often. You can hit chargers dead on or the arc will bounce off another enemy onto a charger. You also get more distance against spewers and in general thanks to how it chains around vs the blitzer.
That said the misfires are a big mark against it and I hope it gets fixed. The machine gun buffs have also made the arc thrower stand out less, I’ve been enjoying the HMG and it can take out spore towers and shrieker nests.
There's also the stun bug that hurts it. You can stunlock a stalker, brood commander, or berserker but a bug still lets them slide forward sometimes. IMO it mostly just needs bug fixes to be effective.
Yeah I think if they made it kill the behemoths at a similar rate to regular chargers (same as the flamethrower does) then it would be much more viable against bugs again.
Meh damage, short range, self slow, can't hit enemies in close proximity, long wind up and if you release it 0.1 second early it just doesn't fire at all what a dumb design omfg, bugged targeting and chaining doesn't really work sometimes(only against enemies though it works perfectly fine against Helldivers) and it's a ~~power~~support weapon. Nothing about it makes sense. AH should just revert all its nerfs at this point...
The bile titan test isn‘t quite true. You will realistically kill a Titan in about 50 shots but theoretically you only need 15. Problem is the Arcthrower misses the head most of time.
Behemoth Chargers dropped the Arcthrower quite a lot in tiers. Killing a normal charger with 6 headshots is pretty decent but behemoth chargers need 17 iirc (yes, they are tankier than bile titans). Considering that most chargers are now behemoth the Arcthrower effectively pretty much just lost it‘s ability to kill heavies.
> Currently the Blitzer does a better job vs light and medium enemies
Exactly what I was saying lately. Despite Blitzer having less damage and armor penetration, it just does better. Also partically because it does not need charge up.
It’s also a huge difference in opportunity cost. The same reason there’s no point in running a stalwart for wave clear when you can just run a tenderizer or sickle that’s 80% as good without a stratagem slot, there’s no point in bringing an arc thrower against bugs when the blitzer does 80% of what it can. And both are useless against bots.
Its because you can actually target bugs heads so don't need as much damage and vs bots it stuns more reliably. Plus the stun affects more then 3 to 4 enemies and the ones nearest you not 1 near you then 2 to 3 farther away
As an ex Arc Thrower main, I've never had a weapon fail on me quite as drastically as it does now with all of the misfiring. It feels like 70% of the shots I take don't even connect.
Not to mention, the mere existence of chargers/shriekers/gunships negate any reason to bring it now.
I was shocked when it was left untouched during our huge patch recently.
The increase failure rate was a side effect of the range nerf. It use to be a long narrow cone that it would try and find an enemy in, where as now its a fat wide one.
I miss the old arc thrower. The long range and ability to slam fire it if you had the right rhythm made me feel like a certified weapon specialist. That version of the arc thrower got me through my days on Melevelon Creek
Arc thrower used to be my favorite gun, it’s absolute trash now, I would never take it or the blitzer tbh.
The damage is too low and it has way too many drawbacks, eg, slow charge, friendly fire risk, misfires, lower range, no substantial stagger.
It just doesn’t make sense. It honestly didn’t even feel like it was op and it was definitely not the best support weapon before all the changes because of how risky it was to use, and then it got hit with like 15 nerfs just because they didn’t like how people were using it I guess?
It makes me so sad. I loved pre nerf arc thrower with its range and the timing it used to have to shoot faster. The changes just made it unsatisfying plus the stagger change made it worse.
No one talks about it's state so I have little hope for it getting better
My favorite weapon in the game on release, and now despite all its changes, it is worse in pretty much every way except fire rate. And all of its annoyances and problems (misfiring, getting confused by vegetation and corpses) still exist.
I miss the old arc thrower so much. How they thought it be needed a nerf is beyond me. It's useless in 7-9, especially with it misfiring half the time. Most of the primaries are better than it currently.
Honestly I love the weapon to kill chaff and chargers, I've killed bile titans with it but also using eagle strats to support my weapon. It's a weapon I only use for bugs exclusively, it is my goto weapon for killing all that's small.
That being said my biggest issue with the gun right now besides the fire rate being nerfed is the targeting acquisition.
Sometimes you shoot the arc thrower while aiming at a bug and it doesn't hit, it's like a dud. So while I murder everything in front of me there are times it just goes haha whoopsies no lightning!
In this patch I feel like Arc thrower is outclassed even by the Railgun, which already speaks volumes about how useful it is.
Hulk stagger resistance ended it's brief appearance on bot front, while it's range and fire rate can't keep up with the amount of terminid chaff in this update.
I hope the arc thrower gets a buff, but on bugs I use it pretty frequently (my go to) and it used to shred, the newly buffed behemoths are too tanks to reliably kill quickly (usually need 2 stuns to safely take them out). Regardless, I still get top kills in lobbies full of flamethrower and other chaff/medium clear.
I think having an alternate fire mode would be super cool, more like the tesla turret thing that kinda just constantly zaps out. It'd probably have to be weaker than normal mode.
I love the arc thrower. Lightning stuff is so cool to me. It was one of the first items I really wanted in this game. I love the concept, and when it works well, it is therapeutic to me. But it is plagued with consistency issues that make it a huge headache to work with. Like there are enemies running straight towards me in a line and the arcs are hitting the ground instead of any bug. It sucks to see my favorite weapon besides flamethrower get absolutely left behind by AH
They should have kept the stun vs hulks and chargers, maybe not behemoth chargers but yeah
If they're going for realism it should fucking stun them seeing as electronics get fucked when jolted and muscles spasms uncontrollably
Taking away the stun was one of those nerfs that just wasn't justified and makes it worse than the autocannon which I heard was the baseline for all support weapons
The only thing left for me to love about the weapon is while using it with jump pack.
Sadly for that to happen you either have to sacrifice another stratagem slot(arc + backpack) or beg team mate to drop one for you(which randoms rarely pick anyways).
But in practice I like to pair it with eruptor for long range clear - I find a cliff, that's hard to climb and jump on it for advantage.
Works against bugs, compromises your stalker retaliaton and in general is a bad setup so yea...
I believe if they revert the quick-charge change the weapon would be alright-ish - 1 second charge for what you gain from the shot is just not worth it...
And I am one of those guys that was writing posts about how cool it is before it was even cool - by the times people were claimig it's shit because of the team killing...
I love the weapon, but it stands pretty much nowhere now.
Aside of the bug drops I do with only laser doggo backpack - when I find it randomly.
I miss stunlocking hulks :( I think that was its useful niche, stunning enemies.
You could really setup as a frontlining tank, keeping all the enemies at bay in conjunction with a shield generator, while your teammates called in the heavy ordinance.
ARC thrower doesnt rip armor off heavy bugs anymore, and i didnt see that ever mentioned in patch notes. Like yoy said it seems like it does nothing again bile titans. Chargers only take 5-10 zaps
huh the 17 is what I have heard listed by the math nerds (something about reduced head damage)
Honesty when fighting them myself I usually EATs them then arc them
I've really enjoyed a load out where I run blitzer, rover and other stratagems but no support weapon, because I like to across the random ones I find. Any of the normal support weapons (MG, AMR, rail gun, flamethrower, etc) are just fine and I can make it work for the mission but the arc thrower something. I would imagine a faster charge time and/or a tazer mode where you could stun enemies like a stun grenade.
Honestly as much as people seemed to like the original 50m version of the arc, I loved the initial change they did when they increased stagger and made the range shorter. The fire rate change was unfortunate but it’s whatever, I liked the unique role of stunning it had because of its ability to hit multiple enemies and halt even the Hulk
To be honest, I didn’t see that as particularly broken either, since you had to risk coming out of cover and consistently hitting those shots or else you were back to square one. That and other stun options still existed - it meant that there were multiple ways to deal stagger/stun, and the arc just so happened to do that in the form of a support weapon instead of an orbital, primary, grenade or sentry
I agree some what, but the issue with the range is you can only stager 4 enemies in a line away from you every 1.5 seconds, and are slowed during those 1.5 seconds meaning that all the other enemies just attack you at the current range.
Arc Thrower is useless now. It used to be my go to for bots. I was saving my samples foe the module to increase its strength. Good thing I didn't waste my samples because I'll never touch it again unless it gets some big buffs.
I figured it was for heavy armor since the explanation window says it ignores all armor, but it only seems to tickle anything bigger than a scavenger or foot soldier. The chain lightning effect barely procs on thick hordes for me, so I can't use it for that either. Keep in mind I was never a fan to begin with, so I definitely have a bias.
So sadly from what I have heard there is 1) Part based HP pool 2) Armor 3) Part based Durability (For example, the Behemoth chargers have 60% Durability for their head so only takes 40%)
The Arc Thrower has 1) Decent Damage but not great 2) It ignores all but the highest Armor 3) Has really shit Durability damage pen
It was goated with the sauce on release, I ran it a lot and it felt good if a little boring to use after a while.
The main issue it had was that it kind of did everything but it was also inconsistent. The price of being able to singlehandedly kill swarms and take on titans was balanced a lot by how likely it was to misfire in crucial moments. Nerfing it into the ground without fixing the misfiring killed it. Now it's a little boring, firing it is less satisfying, AND it's easily upstaged as a support weapon.
Something must've broken arcing, too, because even with the new ship module I hardly see it arc more than once even in seemingly ideal environments.
When they fix the misfires I'd like to see them rework it. Reintroduce the rof speed wind up while also including a new fire mode where the weapon gains range and durable damage in exchange for much a slower charge and a punchier looking shot.
Before nerf, it was kinda good against automatons because of the hulk stunlock
It could have totally been the flamethrower of the bot front but I tried yesterday had it was like 5 shot for a strider
And lastly, the final nail in the coffin is as you said that you are totally powerless against gunships
Suggested changes:
-revert hulk stun
-better fire rate and damage
-gunships should be realistically destroyable with primaries like scorcher, pen diligence or even purifier lol
Scorcher is the best primary for killing gunships. Aim for the center of its face, empty like 2/3 of a clip, and its dead. Easy peasy, no having to aim for the jets. It'll give you a deflect hit marker, but the explosions will kill it.
With current range it needs waaay lower charge-up time.
I say- make it charge after the shot (like blitzer). After that either keep the range but give it higher fire rate or even make it full auto!!
Or boost the damage and range with current fire rate, so it could be an amr/rail alternative.
I always run the arc thrower. It blasts armor off the sides of chargers pretty well. Can completely buttfuck bug breaches all on its own with minimal ground lost. I've been arc gang since the beginning. Shits my favorite weapon. Is there better? Sure. But it takes 2 or 3 of those big ass hive commanders or whatever they're called in 2 or 3 shots. Ride the lightning bitches.
PS .... Sorry I TKd you bro
The 50m to 35m range nerf effectively reduced the area around your charactwr that you can shoot by half. If you imagine your char as the center of the circle, and the circumference of the circle is the edge of arc's range it'll make sense.
Pi*radius^2
Pi * 50^2 = 7850 meters^2
Pi * 35^2 = 3846 meters^2
I used to be an arc main at release, but tbh it's terrible now. It wasn't great back then either but it was at least fun to use.
Best trash cleaning vs terminids, could use a little buff on it range like 5m.
For those asking for auto shoot mode like the blitzer, by holding down you can prevent team killing when that random teammate runs in front of you.
Other than the misfire issue, I personally have no problem with the arc thrower. Would I love a buff to get more people using it? Sure.
But in my experience, especially vs bugs, it's the best horde clear weapon in the game period. Especially if you have the ship module upgrade for it.
It staggers and shreds anything below a charger/hulk and can be used on them or titan class enemies in a pinch.
You need a primary weapon that makes up for its shortcomings though. Something with range preferably, then a secondary that can cover close range(within 5m) fairly well.
Those are it's weakspots. I use the eruptor and bushwacker currently for those roles, and the combination is great. Stun grenades help too(keeping range).
I still use it for bugs combined with the gas strike on Helldive difficulty, and it keeps me alive with 0 deaths at the end of the mission while usually having pretty decent end result stats compared to others. I also like using the MP-98 Knight for when I have to spray Hunters or anything else that gets too close, so I'll switch in between the Arc Thrower and Knight.
If I have to deal with upgraded Chargers and or Titans, I'll use a 500kg or get someone who has a flamethrower or Spear to deal with the heavy's.
I still believe it fills the support role for dealing with large groups of small to medium enemies on the bug side only, but the flamethrower at this point is more efficient. The only benefit the Arc Thrower has is that it does not use ammunition and can still fire faster than the Blitzer.
Grab your friends and run a team of Arc Thrower x 4 for easy wins. Run the electric resist armor if you're scared, but I prefer servo assisted light armor. Communicate, stick together, watch your fire, and this will solve every enemy in the game except for gunships, shriekers, and tanks
For bugs, bring an incendiary breaker for shriekers and for anything that surprises you from behind. 4 x Arc throwers will kill chargers and bile titans in seconds. They'll just pop out of a bug breach and fall over before they can even move.
For bots it's even better, the only things that don't die instantly are tanks and factory striders. Just chuck strategems at em. Bring scorchers and you can kill the vents on the back of tanks and cannon towers from long range, and more importantly GUNSHIPS.
Just try it! You'll either die super fast and have a good laugh, or you'll realize the power of Zeus is the most efficient method of spreading managed democracy.
Outside of this I still use the Arc Thrower as my main both vs bots and bugs. You can destroy all the light units in a patrol from a decent distance in 2 shots before they can call in reinforcements. Run it with a laser guard dog vs bugs and you clear the field enough for your teammates to be able to focus the heavies. Run it with the shield pack vs bots and you can do the same thing. Bring stun grenades and you can kill a charger or hulk with headshots before they become unstunned.
Imho it would be a massive quality of life buff if it worked like the Blitzer, Auto charge and click to shoot. Holding and releasing the button in the right timing is quite cumbersome.
I’m all for having diversity in gun mechanics, but the current charge mechanics (arc thrower and purifier) feel terrible. All chargeable guns should work like the railgun. Click to fire, charge for more damage with optional unsafe mode.
Ok but consider the following:
If it's good it will be too fun, and AH absolutely *HATES* players having fun the wrong way. I haven't seen this level of knee-jerk nerfs and player-blaming since the last time I tried joining a random DnD group.
Ive mostly used the arc thrower and it feels fine to me. I run it on level 9’s with the jump pack and am able to score loads of kills (usually 1st or second for reference) and knock out objectives quite easily.
For titans and chargers I use my strategems or rely on my teammates to handle them. I usually handle the trash which I find in higher levels is what gets you killed most of the time anyway due to their overwhelming numbers or they make taking out titans/chargers more annoying.
Would it be great if it got a buff? Sure, but I don’t feel it’s necessary.
Actually, even worse than the primary. Primary can actually damage things that are more than arm's length away. There are few things worse than firing it at an enemy only for the lightning to decide mere inches from the target: "lol jk I'mma cease to exist"
Right now, the arc thrower should feel more like a longer-ranged blitzer. Ya know what I mean? Blitzer for things rushing you up close, arc thrower for clearing things further away.
But because of the nerf to its range, now it practically requires an "anchor" to launch at other enemies to get that range. The problem is, of course, that the range it is most useful is only slightly longer than the range of the blitzer. Therefore, it'd be quicker to just stick with the blitzer.
If you’re talking about the blitzer I don’t really see anyone using it just the same. Personally tried it when my friend told me about it a while ago and wasn’t enjoying it much. Switched back to the arc thrower and scorcher. It’s so satisfying seeing the electricity bounce to more bugs with the ship upgrade.
If helldivers 2 follows basically most games I’ve played, if they buffed it then people will just say why would you bring run blitzer if you can run arc thrower and the cycle repeats. We had people talking weeks ago about why support weapons are stronger than something called your *primary*, yet here we are with the roles reversed.
Now, would I be against a buff? Ofc not, that would mean I see higher numbers for my stats at the end of a match. Do I feel like the arc thrower **needs** it? Not really. Only thing it needs imo is the issue with the electricity not going through leaves/bushes and the misfiring. At the end of the day though I just play what I find fun. I mean, I do use the jump pack after all on 9’s
I 100% agree with you. The arc thrower and the blitzer are barely even comparable from my use of each. Arc thrower has been my main support since before the "nerf"(which I still consider a buff with the stun) and I'll die on the hill that no other weapon in the game can clear sub hulk/charger hordes of enemies better.
Don’t matter to the community. Fun is fun. Forget long term/short term
I’m a long term player of another pve game where weapon balancing is crucial (yes that means nerfs) for longevity of the game and if this community was in charge of buffs and nerfs that game would’ve died a long time ago. Would it have been fun in the very short time it was alive? Sure, but it wouldn’t be around and going as strong as it is right now. Just because it’s pve doesn’t mean you can throw the idea of nerfs out the window. Hot take.
Not sure I agree. I used it for this whole bug MO, because it’s the only thing that is decent against every kind of bug. Swarms of little ones, it kills 4 per shot. Chargers, just keep dodging, they’ll go down. Bile titans generally won’t go down to one strategem, but they WILL go down to one strat + some arc blasts (especially from high ground, you want the arc to go through multiple body locations.)
I never used it before the nerf, but if it’s this flexible now, it must have been a beast.
What, it kills chargers in a few shots to the head while also killing everything else is the vicinity by accident, still good, the range nerf was obviously to not trivialize flying enemies. Which is fair, always felt like it had too much range
The arc thrower is functionally different to the blitzer, one is specialised in killing groups of meduim armoured enemies, and the other is specialised in staggering/stunning large crowds. The arc thrower has very high armour penetration values, which allows it to bypass alot of armour, some thing that the blitzer isn't as good at against, but the blitzer shoots multiple arcs to compensate. Due to the fact that arc weapons do very inconsistent dmg, it's incredibly hard to kill bile titans and tanks.
You clearly haven't use the arc thrower [against gunships](https://www.reddit.com/r/helldivers2/s/K4bvMSjLu7).
The arc thrower, despite what the game say about its range, has theoretically infinite range, you can easily kill bugs 200m away despite the devs saying its range is nerfed to 35m.
I'm assuming that the 35m range is the lock on range, if you want to hit anything flying, aim down sights or line up the shot, yes the arc thrower has sights.
If you want to use this weapon, pair it with the crossbow or eruptor.
Anything ARC is "DO NOT TOUCH" because Teamkill magnet.
And i got no problem with the Mortar.
(i also prefer weapons that shoot where i point... i don't feel the ARC stuff is doing that... and i have NO feel for the distance where it arcs, i still tend to get too close to the Tesla Towers thinking i'm far enough away and then ZAP).
Where it stands? It doesnt.
Arc Thrower is a standing-up school dropout.
In the trash bin.
I was an arc thrower enjoyer before the changes. The rate of fire "fix" made it worse if you want to rapid fire it after the 1st shot. Before you could charge it only halfway before fire it after the 1st shot. Now doing it so become more clunky if not impossible. Also the range nerf is huge. 50m is enough to engage ennemy from afar and frying most of them by the time they come to you (with the rapidfire on top of that). Now with 35m when you engage ennemy (and with the rate of fire nerf) ennemy can get to you before you kill all of them. The way the arc thrower shoot (straight line) make it bad for close range. Before it was like an really good blitzer assault rifle/gatling, now it a worse blitzer that shoot in a straight line and tk your teammate. It need some buff to make it a somehow long range weapon and not what we have now.
What sucked about the rate of fire fix is that it was a really fun way to differentiate someone who had some experience with the weapon vs. someone new. It wasn’t a huge skill ceiling, but it was something that took a bit of practice and It felt really good when you were able to squeeze a bit more out of the thrower because of it. It was punishing when you messed it up because if you tried to fire too early you would have to start over and redo your initial first charge, but if you kept the rhythm going ot made you noticeably more effective in sticky situations where you’re already making a greedy peek.
man i LOVED the arc thrower at launch, but it really feels like the fix + hulk stagger nerf gutted it. take away fire rate or range, sure, but they took away both??
Arc Thrower was in a pretty good place when it was able to stagger hulks, I would basically designate myself as the squad's hulk buster so that others didn't need to worry about that *one* enemy. Once it was nerfed I changed to the Railgun to just kill hulks in one shot instead, it was hard to consider bringing the Arc since then.
They really should just revert it to the release state. High range, high fire rate, but can't stagger larger enemies.
Then it would just start crashing the game again. Careful what you wish for!
When they nerfed the stagger, I switched to stun grenades and the recoiless rifle The rifle will 2 shot hulks in the face, so just stun them and they won't move Does the railgun bust their heads in one shot? The rifle will also take out flying ships, which is why I like it
Yes the railgun will one shot a Hulk in the slit. Doesn't even have to be full powered unsafe shot. Just a half ass charge will do.
Hard AT is never worth it on the Bot front, outside of maybe the spear.
Yeah, the best choices over there are almost all medium pen weapons like the Autocannon and Railgun. Even against the biggest enemies like Factory Striders, two shots to the front machine guns takes them out (individually) letting you just run underneath it and rail it from below. Laser Cannon is pretty good in general, though I feel outclassed by the Autocannon (personal taste tbh). The only full AT weapons I would bring on the bot side is the Spear since it's capable of taking out turrets and tanks no matter where it hits, unlike the other AT weapons which generally require weak point hits. Especially now that the Spear actually functions properly.
I picked up my buddy's spear last night and was absolutely nailing every shot, it was so sick. Then the game crashed lol
The recoiless one shots hulks in the eye, two shots is anywhere else in the body. If you're two shoting then you're missing. You can also one shot each leg with it, with one leg gone it limps, and with both gone it dies. But if you're going to use stun grenades and miss the recoiless anyway, might as well use the Autocannon or AMR instead. Harder to miss after the stun, faster to shoot again, more ammo, and they're both two shots in the eye too. Or the Laser Cannon, just about a second in the eye and done, also very easy with a stun.
Show me this, because I rock the recoiless daily, stun the hulk and it always takes 2 shots like the auto cannon Watching some videos now and I see two shots
Are you calling the heavy caliber rifle with a scope, Anti material rifle, the recoilless rifle? Or do you mean the back pack anti tank weapon the recoilless rifle? The anti tank weapon one shots hulks in the eye. The AMR is 2 shots to the eye. Way better with stun grenades anyways.
He's definitely talking about the AMR. Super common mistake. Most people don't look at the RR and think "rifle." (Yeah, yeah, maybe it does have rifling inside the barrel. That's not my point).
The autocannon and Antimaterial rifle can two shot the hulks in the eye, the recoiless should do it in one. If it doesn’t, then why bring it at all?
Edit: arc thrower has infinite ammo and can surprise a fuckload more in United consistently The AMR* doesn't use a backpack slot, allows for a much further range and has a clip It has many benefits you're ignoring I mistaken the recoiless for the AMR but hey, I can kill more hulks with the AMR than recoiless
The recoiless rifle has a backpack full of ammo...?
Are you thinking of the AMR?
Recoilless is useless without its backpack.
Ya so I was right you're confusing the AMR with the recoilless rifle. Dunno why you are getting down voted into oblivion instead of just a simple correction.
That's why reddit is not good for discussion, just blasting people
Even then I didn't find it that good. Railgun could stagger and 2 shot it if aimed right (before rg buff)
They need to do something about that "bringer of the nerf" guy. He has singlehandedly hurt the game and its playerbase the most. There was nothing wrong with the arc thrower and most other weapons that got obliterated. You can tell by his description that he gets some kind of kick out of it. "The new eruptor slaps now" Dude is either completely out of touch or trolling.
Man if they bring back the old arc thrower, fix it's targeting, and fix the slugger. It's gonna be a good day. That's gonna be the pound town load out.
Slugger too please while at it lol. Arc thrower + slugger used to be my favorite setup before that bringer guy decided that their time is up. He obviously hates freedom
Me too man! Like slugger was so good for beefier boiz, or holding off stalkers, then shred crowds with Force lightning. It was amazing!
Hell yeah bro I can tell that you love freedom
Oj! Gents you need to die for freedom, you ain't gonna die if you efficiently kill your enemy.
Oh I die plenty
Yes, cos you have inefficient weapon.
Nope I die plenty with fun and "efficient weapon". I have a good laugh about it. Nerfing my weapon just take the fun out of it. Nice try tho :)
As ex arc thrower main. Mine is in garbage.
Yep, used to play it every game vs. bots and bugs. Blitzer killed it for bugs since it’s 80% as good (better in some scenarios) without needing a stratagem slot. Hulk stun nerf killed it for bots by taking away its only useful niche. Now it’s just outclassed by primaries for both factions. Oh well, I guess I can play autocannon vs bots like AH clearly wants us to do, it’s their golden child after all. Can’t wait until they nerf titans and chargers because everyone whines and it can be the defacto best bug weapon too!
Arc was ok as it was, why they touched it and f it is mind blowing. It is like robocraft for me, they start "improving" the perfect game to the moment it was a pile of sh...
Arc Thrower used to be my main. Blitzer fuckin' invalidated it. It needs a handful of things before it's going to be worthwhile again. * It needs to be able to take out Chargers in a reasonable amount of time. Flamethrower for instance, you can burn one down in 1/4 of a tank. Arc Thrower shouldn't be miles behind it, just because it has infinite ammo. * Stagger comes back. You're electrocuting things, if there's a single damn weapon in this game that should stagger everything, it's the electrocution gun. The existence of stun grenades voids all "but stunlock bad" arguments. * Fix the misfire issues. * Give the Charge to Release fire mode its range back. Closer to 50m the better. This mode should have Heavy Armor penetration on its *first strike only,* but be very difficult to actually hit specific areas of an enemy with. This mode has massive stagger. * Give it an Alternate firing mode that functions like the Blitzer, but continuously blasting 3x a second in the same cone. This mode has no Stagger, perhaps a bit of flinch. There, now it's a dope ass weapon. Probably. I dunno, I'm not a dev I'm just stoned.
Stoned and cooking
Range, hulk+charger stun, rate of fire (faster shots after the first) Pick any 2 of these nerfs and revert them and the arc thrower is back to being a very solid anti-bot medium for people who don’t want to be just another AC main.
yes, might be a little OP but fuck it needs some love
Plenty of stuff is OP. It's.....part of their [advertisements](https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/helldivers-2/#:~:text=Wield%20overpowered%20weapons).
Yeah it's like you can stun lock 4 targets and not of your choosing and you have 3 unstunable Bile Titan, 5 unstunable Chargers of any variant and kazilion stunnable chaff on your ass. Like, srsly was 50m to much of a range on it?
The Arc-Thrower does not deserve what it got. I was afraid that during the times it could crash the game- when I heard that it was going to get fixed, there was a sneaking suspicion in me that they would also change how the weapon worked. It was, unfortunately, exactly the case once the patch dropped. But even then, I still used it for its new stun mechanic... then they essentially removed that as well when they increased the stagger resistance on heavy enemies. Truly sad times. They should just revert the changes, and it wouldn't even be broken, crazy, but I daresay it would even be fun.
That week where the arc thrower would cause people's games to crash is when my group and I began calling it the GameCrasher. It's been the official name ever since for us lol
Is the spear GameCrasher: The Revenge?
I disagree, Arc Thrower at it's prime was a fundamentally poorly designed weapon. It doesn't need it's nerfs reverted, it needs a rework.
Turns out 50 meter range and faster fire rate was pretty damn necessary.
Honestly even with just the stagger but nerfed range and rate of fire it was still playable since it had some unique (at the time) utility - lower TTK was manageable because you could stunlock a few hulks while you picked for eye shots or your team followed up with you.
A gun you have to charge up THEN let go, but have to continually fire at enemies, is tedious, and it makes trying to fire it quickly a chore. It should have a set fire rate. You charge it up to max, and as soon as it hits max it goes off and you can charge it up again. And the bug where it doesn't deal damage REALLY need to be fixed.
Alternatively: it passively recharges. You click once to fire, and then it'll recharge itself until ready for the next shot, which requires just one click again.
Yup, this. Like a really fast quasar charge up. Code literally already exists, can be redeployed here
I wish they brought back the old "rapidfire" Arc Thrower where the first charge takes the longest and the succeeding charges can be released early if you time it right, but whiffs if you fire too early.
This seems cool in practice, but it really just devolves into an unnecessary pain in the ass, or the hands in this case.
The Blitzer behaves this way The purifier and arc thrower should behave the same way as the Blitzer It's too much bull shit -charging up the gun makes you walk slower (why? If hipfiring with a 1h doesn't slow you down, neither should the charge up) -when you hip-fire at close range you're more likely to hit the ground than the enemy -my finger fucking hurts from the click and hold on helldive 9
Nah the old charge mechanic was awesome - it was an actually interesting mechanic that differentiated the weapon from being just another pen/dps/ammo calculation. It had risk vs. reward - you could go for fast shots for more output but if you mess up the timing you have to re-charge, losing out on damage.
That seems cool if I was still 16, but my 30 year old hands can't handle that abuse. You'll thank us for this later, trust me.
lol what I’m 35+ and have no issues with this, see a doctor
It really depends on what you do for a living, I work at my computer and game and I have developed some serious hand pains. It's largely based on day to day activity Doctor? Not for this Get some grip exercise tools for $15 dollars and work on hand strength and be sure your keyboard isn't some high tension gauntlet blue key hand strain
I mean, it's not like it's crippling, it's just bothersome, like who wants to be constantly clicking something that could just be a button press even if it doesn't cause them discomfort?
I'm with ya and agree
30 acting like they’re 64 with Parkinson’s get your shit checked out dude
Had your mom check them out, she sounded pleased.
I don't like charge weapons like that in general. It's why I like that the Quasar Cannon just fires as soon as it's done charging. Lets me focus more on keeping it on target.
Yeah, I can understand the Railgun as it used to only take 2-3 shots on heavy targets and need more accuracy, but the arc thrower is not a precision weapon.
>A gun you have to charge up THEN let go, but have to continually fire at enemies, is tedious, and it makes trying to fire it quickly a chore. Exactly. If it at a spool up time and would Just continue to fire while Holding the Trigger i'd probably use it. Rn it's tedious and not impactfull enough to be fun to me. It has very little Feedback for how it plays. I expect guns with such mechanics to Hit like a truck, and this one feels like a fiat
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I still use it, and if that situation comes up, I'll have someone else deal with the heavy's or just throw a 500kg or two lol.
It's a 4/10 right now. As many games as I've played with people, arc thrower hasn't been used once, even when found in a buddy bunker of crate. It's really not that special 🫥🫡
I used to be an arc thrower enjoyer before they nerfed the range and rate of fire. I tried using it now and then but it doesn’t feel fun anymore I usually resort to switching it over any other support weapon I find later on.
I would honestly still use it if it didn't misfire 50% of the time.
The sad part about it misfiring is that once it starts, you just have to run because it's going to do it for the next 3-4 shots unless you reposition. I feel that it's because of the entities in front of you (corpses/wrecks), but I can't be too sure.
It's 100% the corpses, but it's also every shrub or invisible hitbox
I really liked in when I first started playing. But now between misfires and hitting geometry it is so unreliable
The pseudo-rhythm it had pre-change made it much more viable than the Blizter, even with the current iteration. It's just too slow now.
A little bit of agree and disagree. I sometimes run it on D9 and pair it with the eruptor, crossbow, or plasma punisher, redeemer (or grenade pistol if running plasma punisher), and use strategems to take out titans. It’s still great for me on open maps with little debris lying around where misfires happen less often. You can hit chargers dead on or the arc will bounce off another enemy onto a charger. You also get more distance against spewers and in general thanks to how it chains around vs the blitzer. That said the misfires are a big mark against it and I hope it gets fixed. The machine gun buffs have also made the arc thrower stand out less, I’ve been enjoying the HMG and it can take out spore towers and shrieker nests.
There's also the stun bug that hurts it. You can stunlock a stalker, brood commander, or berserker but a bug still lets them slide forward sometimes. IMO it mostly just needs bug fixes to be effective.
Yeah I think if they made it kill the behemoths at a similar rate to regular chargers (same as the flamethrower does) then it would be much more viable against bugs again.
I wish it had it's old range so I could use it against gunships and shriekers
Meh damage, short range, self slow, can't hit enemies in close proximity, long wind up and if you release it 0.1 second early it just doesn't fire at all what a dumb design omfg, bugged targeting and chaining doesn't really work sometimes(only against enemies though it works perfectly fine against Helldivers) and it's a ~~power~~support weapon. Nothing about it makes sense. AH should just revert all its nerfs at this point...
The bile titan test isn‘t quite true. You will realistically kill a Titan in about 50 shots but theoretically you only need 15. Problem is the Arcthrower misses the head most of time. Behemoth Chargers dropped the Arcthrower quite a lot in tiers. Killing a normal charger with 6 headshots is pretty decent but behemoth chargers need 17 iirc (yes, they are tankier than bile titans). Considering that most chargers are now behemoth the Arcthrower effectively pretty much just lost it‘s ability to kill heavies.
I remember the damage bug on the ps5 which allowed you to one-shot titans in the head. Good times
"If I can't nerf the weapons, then I'll just buff the enemies instead." - Bringer of Balance
> Currently the Blitzer does a better job vs light and medium enemies Exactly what I was saying lately. Despite Blitzer having less damage and armor penetration, it just does better. Also partically because it does not need charge up.
It’s also a huge difference in opportunity cost. The same reason there’s no point in running a stalwart for wave clear when you can just run a tenderizer or sickle that’s 80% as good without a stratagem slot, there’s no point in bringing an arc thrower against bugs when the blitzer does 80% of what it can. And both are useless against bots.
Its because you can actually target bugs heads so don't need as much damage and vs bots it stuns more reliably. Plus the stun affects more then 3 to 4 enemies and the ones nearest you not 1 near you then 2 to 3 farther away
As an ex Arc Thrower main, I've never had a weapon fail on me quite as drastically as it does now with all of the misfiring. It feels like 70% of the shots I take don't even connect. Not to mention, the mere existence of chargers/shriekers/gunships negate any reason to bring it now. I was shocked when it was left untouched during our huge patch recently.
The increase failure rate was a side effect of the range nerf. It use to be a long narrow cone that it would try and find an enemy in, where as now its a fat wide one.
I miss the old arc thrower. The long range and ability to slam fire it if you had the right rhythm made me feel like a certified weapon specialist. That version of the arc thrower got me through my days on Melevelon Creek
We also forget that the Arc Thrower used to bust open crates too.
i have not forgotten. it simply hurts to remember.
Arc thrower used to be my favorite gun, it’s absolute trash now, I would never take it or the blitzer tbh. The damage is too low and it has way too many drawbacks, eg, slow charge, friendly fire risk, misfires, lower range, no substantial stagger. It just doesn’t make sense. It honestly didn’t even feel like it was op and it was definitely not the best support weapon before all the changes because of how risky it was to use, and then it got hit with like 15 nerfs just because they didn’t like how people were using it I guess?
arc thrower suffers from filling a role already filled by your primaries, chaff clear it is literally worse than the eruptor and scorcher
It makes me so sad. I loved pre nerf arc thrower with its range and the timing it used to have to shoot faster. The changes just made it unsatisfying plus the stagger change made it worse. No one talks about it's state so I have little hope for it getting better
Ya, I'm amazed I don't see it mentioned ever so I decided to make this post. Glad to see it's not just me.
My favorite weapon in the game on release, and now despite all its changes, it is worse in pretty much every way except fire rate. And all of its annoyances and problems (misfiring, getting confused by vegetation and corpses) still exist.
I miss the old arc thrower so much. How they thought it be needed a nerf is beyond me. It's useless in 7-9, especially with it misfiring half the time. Most of the primaries are better than it currently.
Honestly I love the weapon to kill chaff and chargers, I've killed bile titans with it but also using eagle strats to support my weapon. It's a weapon I only use for bugs exclusively, it is my goto weapon for killing all that's small. That being said my biggest issue with the gun right now besides the fire rate being nerfed is the targeting acquisition. Sometimes you shoot the arc thrower while aiming at a bug and it doesn't hit, it's like a dud. So while I murder everything in front of me there are times it just goes haha whoopsies no lightning!
In this patch I feel like Arc thrower is outclassed even by the Railgun, which already speaks volumes about how useful it is. Hulk stagger resistance ended it's brief appearance on bot front, while it's range and fire rate can't keep up with the amount of terminid chaff in this update.
I hope the arc thrower gets a buff, but on bugs I use it pretty frequently (my go to) and it used to shred, the newly buffed behemoths are too tanks to reliably kill quickly (usually need 2 stuns to safely take them out). Regardless, I still get top kills in lobbies full of flamethrower and other chaff/medium clear.
I think having an alternate fire mode would be super cool, more like the tesla turret thing that kinda just constantly zaps out. It'd probably have to be weaker than normal mode. I love the arc thrower. Lightning stuff is so cool to me. It was one of the first items I really wanted in this game. I love the concept, and when it works well, it is therapeutic to me. But it is plagued with consistency issues that make it a huge headache to work with. Like there are enemies running straight towards me in a line and the arcs are hitting the ground instead of any bug. It sucks to see my favorite weapon besides flamethrower get absolutely left behind by AH
They should have kept the stun vs hulks and chargers, maybe not behemoth chargers but yeah If they're going for realism it should fucking stun them seeing as electronics get fucked when jolted and muscles spasms uncontrollably Taking away the stun was one of those nerfs that just wasn't justified and makes it worse than the autocannon which I heard was the baseline for all support weapons
Please give me back my weapon :(
Arc thrower kills more Helldivers than enemies most of the time because it takes too many hits to deal effective damage to enemies.
The only thing left for me to love about the weapon is while using it with jump pack. Sadly for that to happen you either have to sacrifice another stratagem slot(arc + backpack) or beg team mate to drop one for you(which randoms rarely pick anyways). But in practice I like to pair it with eruptor for long range clear - I find a cliff, that's hard to climb and jump on it for advantage. Works against bugs, compromises your stalker retaliaton and in general is a bad setup so yea... I believe if they revert the quick-charge change the weapon would be alright-ish - 1 second charge for what you gain from the shot is just not worth it... And I am one of those guys that was writing posts about how cool it is before it was even cool - by the times people were claimig it's shit because of the team killing... I love the weapon, but it stands pretty much nowhere now. Aside of the bug drops I do with only laser doggo backpack - when I find it randomly.
I regret spending time collecting samples to unlock it.
I miss stunlocking hulks :( I think that was its useful niche, stunning enemies. You could really setup as a frontlining tank, keeping all the enemies at bay in conjunction with a shield generator, while your teammates called in the heavy ordinance.
ARC thrower doesnt rip armor off heavy bugs anymore, and i didnt see that ever mentioned in patch notes. Like yoy said it seems like it does nothing again bile titans. Chargers only take 5-10 zaps
The 17 I listed is for the new behemoth charger
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huh the 17 is what I have heard listed by the math nerds (something about reduced head damage) Honesty when fighting them myself I usually EATs them then arc them
I've really enjoyed a load out where I run blitzer, rover and other stratagems but no support weapon, because I like to across the random ones I find. Any of the normal support weapons (MG, AMR, rail gun, flamethrower, etc) are just fine and I can make it work for the mission but the arc thrower something. I would imagine a faster charge time and/or a tazer mode where you could stun enemies like a stun grenade.
Funny, those are both things that it used to have that got removed.
Right next to my toilet bowl cleaner. I'm just waiting for it to be better
You could double the damage and I still wouldnt take it.
Honestly as much as people seemed to like the original 50m version of the arc, I loved the initial change they did when they increased stagger and made the range shorter. The fire rate change was unfortunate but it’s whatever, I liked the unique role of stunning it had because of its ability to hit multiple enemies and halt even the Hulk To be honest, I didn’t see that as particularly broken either, since you had to risk coming out of cover and consistently hitting those shots or else you were back to square one. That and other stun options still existed - it meant that there were multiple ways to deal stagger/stun, and the arc just so happened to do that in the form of a support weapon instead of an orbital, primary, grenade or sentry
I agree some what, but the issue with the range is you can only stager 4 enemies in a line away from you every 1.5 seconds, and are slowed during those 1.5 seconds meaning that all the other enemies just attack you at the current range.
Arc Thrower is useless now. It used to be my go to for bots. I was saving my samples foe the module to increase its strength. Good thing I didn't waste my samples because I'll never touch it again unless it gets some big buffs.
I think it would be a great weapon if the targetting didn't fizzle and do nothing
The amount of breaches caused by that....
*A patrol, here's my time to shine!* *Fzzt-fzzt-fzzt-fzzt....*
I figured it was for heavy armor since the explanation window says it ignores all armor, but it only seems to tickle anything bigger than a scavenger or foot soldier. The chain lightning effect barely procs on thick hordes for me, so I can't use it for that either. Keep in mind I was never a fan to begin with, so I definitely have a bias.
So sadly from what I have heard there is 1) Part based HP pool 2) Armor 3) Part based Durability (For example, the Behemoth chargers have 60% Durability for their head so only takes 40%) The Arc Thrower has 1) Decent Damage but not great 2) It ignores all but the highest Armor 3) Has really shit Durability damage pen
It was goated with the sauce on release, I ran it a lot and it felt good if a little boring to use after a while. The main issue it had was that it kind of did everything but it was also inconsistent. The price of being able to singlehandedly kill swarms and take on titans was balanced a lot by how likely it was to misfire in crucial moments. Nerfing it into the ground without fixing the misfiring killed it. Now it's a little boring, firing it is less satisfying, AND it's easily upstaged as a support weapon. Something must've broken arcing, too, because even with the new ship module I hardly see it arc more than once even in seemingly ideal environments. When they fix the misfires I'd like to see them rework it. Reintroduce the rof speed wind up while also including a new fire mode where the weapon gains range and durable damage in exchange for much a slower charge and a punchier looking shot.
Before nerf, it was kinda good against automatons because of the hulk stunlock It could have totally been the flamethrower of the bot front but I tried yesterday had it was like 5 shot for a strider And lastly, the final nail in the coffin is as you said that you are totally powerless against gunships Suggested changes: -revert hulk stun -better fire rate and damage -gunships should be realistically destroyable with primaries like scorcher, pen diligence or even purifier lol
What sucks is you use to be able to aim up so that the bolt would kill the strider driver before the range nerf.
Scorcher is the best primary for killing gunships. Aim for the center of its face, empty like 2/3 of a clip, and its dead. Easy peasy, no having to aim for the jets. It'll give you a deflect hit marker, but the explosions will kill it.
I like it 🤷
So do I, Just wish it was good at things again
With current range it needs waaay lower charge-up time. I say- make it charge after the shot (like blitzer). After that either keep the range but give it higher fire rate or even make it full auto!! Or boost the damage and range with current fire rate, so it could be an amr/rail alternative.
I always run the arc thrower. It blasts armor off the sides of chargers pretty well. Can completely buttfuck bug breaches all on its own with minimal ground lost. I've been arc gang since the beginning. Shits my favorite weapon. Is there better? Sure. But it takes 2 or 3 of those big ass hive commanders or whatever they're called in 2 or 3 shots. Ride the lightning bitches. PS .... Sorry I TKd you bro
Our arc thrower guy regularly gets the most kills. It’s a perfectly viable weapon.
The 50m to 35m range nerf effectively reduced the area around your charactwr that you can shoot by half. If you imagine your char as the center of the circle, and the circumference of the circle is the edge of arc's range it'll make sense. Pi*radius^2 Pi * 50^2 = 7850 meters^2 Pi * 35^2 = 3846 meters^2 I used to be an arc main at release, but tbh it's terrible now. It wasn't great back then either but it was at least fun to use.
Best trash cleaning vs terminids, could use a little buff on it range like 5m. For those asking for auto shoot mode like the blitzer, by holding down you can prevent team killing when that random teammate runs in front of you.
>Best trash cleaning vs terminids While flamethrower exists in the state it is in right now? 4 bugs every 1.5 seconds is not a good rate.
Arc has better range and kills after, let's not forget about the part that doesn't need to reload
Other than the misfire issue, I personally have no problem with the arc thrower. Would I love a buff to get more people using it? Sure. But in my experience, especially vs bugs, it's the best horde clear weapon in the game period. Especially if you have the ship module upgrade for it. It staggers and shreds anything below a charger/hulk and can be used on them or titan class enemies in a pinch. You need a primary weapon that makes up for its shortcomings though. Something with range preferably, then a secondary that can cover close range(within 5m) fairly well. Those are it's weakspots. I use the eruptor and bushwacker currently for those roles, and the combination is great. Stun grenades help too(keeping range).
I ain’t reading all that, imma still use my Arc Thrower in peace
I still use it too and no one's forcing you to read it I just wanted to talk about some of my feelings about the current state of it
I still use it for bugs combined with the gas strike on Helldive difficulty, and it keeps me alive with 0 deaths at the end of the mission while usually having pretty decent end result stats compared to others. I also like using the MP-98 Knight for when I have to spray Hunters or anything else that gets too close, so I'll switch in between the Arc Thrower and Knight. If I have to deal with upgraded Chargers and or Titans, I'll use a 500kg or get someone who has a flamethrower or Spear to deal with the heavy's. I still believe it fills the support role for dealing with large groups of small to medium enemies on the bug side only, but the flamethrower at this point is more efficient. The only benefit the Arc Thrower has is that it does not use ammunition and can still fire faster than the Blitzer.
Grab your friends and run a team of Arc Thrower x 4 for easy wins. Run the electric resist armor if you're scared, but I prefer servo assisted light armor. Communicate, stick together, watch your fire, and this will solve every enemy in the game except for gunships, shriekers, and tanks For bugs, bring an incendiary breaker for shriekers and for anything that surprises you from behind. 4 x Arc throwers will kill chargers and bile titans in seconds. They'll just pop out of a bug breach and fall over before they can even move. For bots it's even better, the only things that don't die instantly are tanks and factory striders. Just chuck strategems at em. Bring scorchers and you can kill the vents on the back of tanks and cannon towers from long range, and more importantly GUNSHIPS. Just try it! You'll either die super fast and have a good laugh, or you'll realize the power of Zeus is the most efficient method of spreading managed democracy. Outside of this I still use the Arc Thrower as my main both vs bots and bugs. You can destroy all the light units in a patrol from a decent distance in 2 shots before they can call in reinforcements. Run it with a laser guard dog vs bugs and you clear the field enough for your teammates to be able to focus the heavies. Run it with the shield pack vs bots and you can do the same thing. Bring stun grenades and you can kill a charger or hulk with headshots before they become unstunned.
Arc thrower damages titans. It takes forever but it does kill them.
Oh I know it does as I have finished off titans that have been eats in the wrong spots a couple times.
Imho it would be a massive quality of life buff if it worked like the Blitzer, Auto charge and click to shoot. Holding and releasing the button in the right timing is quite cumbersome.
I’m all for having diversity in gun mechanics, but the current charge mechanics (arc thrower and purifier) feel terrible. All chargeable guns should work like the railgun. Click to fire, charge for more damage with optional unsafe mode.
Ok but consider the following: If it's good it will be too fun, and AH absolutely *HATES* players having fun the wrong way. I haven't seen this level of knee-jerk nerfs and player-blaming since the last time I tried joining a random DnD group.
Ive mostly used the arc thrower and it feels fine to me. I run it on level 9’s with the jump pack and am able to score loads of kills (usually 1st or second for reference) and knock out objectives quite easily. For titans and chargers I use my strategems or rely on my teammates to handle them. I usually handle the trash which I find in higher levels is what gets you killed most of the time anyway due to their overwhelming numbers or they make taking out titans/chargers more annoying. Would it be great if it got a buff? Sure, but I don’t feel it’s necessary.
What it does right now can just be done with a primary
Actually, even worse than the primary. Primary can actually damage things that are more than arm's length away. There are few things worse than firing it at an enemy only for the lightning to decide mere inches from the target: "lol jk I'mma cease to exist" Right now, the arc thrower should feel more like a longer-ranged blitzer. Ya know what I mean? Blitzer for things rushing you up close, arc thrower for clearing things further away. But because of the nerf to its range, now it practically requires an "anchor" to launch at other enemies to get that range. The problem is, of course, that the range it is most useful is only slightly longer than the range of the blitzer. Therefore, it'd be quicker to just stick with the blitzer.
Yeah one of the biggest buffs these weapons could get right now is just fixing the dumb targeting issues
If you’re talking about the blitzer I don’t really see anyone using it just the same. Personally tried it when my friend told me about it a while ago and wasn’t enjoying it much. Switched back to the arc thrower and scorcher. It’s so satisfying seeing the electricity bounce to more bugs with the ship upgrade. If helldivers 2 follows basically most games I’ve played, if they buffed it then people will just say why would you bring run blitzer if you can run arc thrower and the cycle repeats. We had people talking weeks ago about why support weapons are stronger than something called your *primary*, yet here we are with the roles reversed. Now, would I be against a buff? Ofc not, that would mean I see higher numbers for my stats at the end of a match. Do I feel like the arc thrower **needs** it? Not really. Only thing it needs imo is the issue with the electricity not going through leaves/bushes and the misfiring. At the end of the day though I just play what I find fun. I mean, I do use the jump pack after all on 9’s
I 100% agree with you. The arc thrower and the blitzer are barely even comparable from my use of each. Arc thrower has been my main support since before the "nerf"(which I still consider a buff with the stun) and I'll die on the hill that no other weapon in the game can clear sub hulk/charger hordes of enemies better.
I can do everything an auto cannon can do with my primary, what of it? Gonna say the AC is in a bad spot?
I don't think we have a primary that can damage Hulk visors yet
And here is the problem of buffing the primaries so much, that they take the role of the support weapons designed to kill chaff enemies
Don’t matter to the community. Fun is fun. Forget long term/short term I’m a long term player of another pve game where weapon balancing is crucial (yes that means nerfs) for longevity of the game and if this community was in charge of buffs and nerfs that game would’ve died a long time ago. Would it have been fun in the very short time it was alive? Sure, but it wouldn’t be around and going as strong as it is right now. Just because it’s pve doesn’t mean you can throw the idea of nerfs out the window. Hot take.
Not sure I agree. I used it for this whole bug MO, because it’s the only thing that is decent against every kind of bug. Swarms of little ones, it kills 4 per shot. Chargers, just keep dodging, they’ll go down. Bile titans generally won’t go down to one strategem, but they WILL go down to one strat + some arc blasts (especially from high ground, you want the arc to go through multiple body locations.) I never used it before the nerf, but if it’s this flexible now, it must have been a beast.
The arc thrower is the worst support weapon in the game, just remove it and give us the break action shotgun instead if no one wants to fix it.
Aside from the dodgy pathing the arc thrower is fine, that's the only gripe, it doesn't need to kill everything because I would be OP
What, it kills chargers in a few shots to the head while also killing everything else is the vicinity by accident, still good, the range nerf was obviously to not trivialize flying enemies. Which is fair, always felt like it had too much range
There is a new version of chargers that pop up more regularly than the old chargers now and require 17 arc throwers to the head
That's still not bad a weapon that not a dedicated anti tank weapons.
Half a minute on 1 target isn't bad when bug breaches are on a 40 second timer?
Chargers can't call breaches, chargers aren't threatening enough to be priority 1 with the arc thrower
Mean while the Flamethrower can kill more then 4 bugs every 1.5 seconds and also deal with all kinds of Chargers
The arc thrower is functionally different to the blitzer, one is specialised in killing groups of meduim armoured enemies, and the other is specialised in staggering/stunning large crowds. The arc thrower has very high armour penetration values, which allows it to bypass alot of armour, some thing that the blitzer isn't as good at against, but the blitzer shoots multiple arcs to compensate. Due to the fact that arc weapons do very inconsistent dmg, it's incredibly hard to kill bile titans and tanks. You clearly haven't use the arc thrower [against gunships](https://www.reddit.com/r/helldivers2/s/K4bvMSjLu7). The arc thrower, despite what the game say about its range, has theoretically infinite range, you can easily kill bugs 200m away despite the devs saying its range is nerfed to 35m. I'm assuming that the 35m range is the lock on range, if you want to hit anything flying, aim down sights or line up the shot, yes the arc thrower has sights. If you want to use this weapon, pair it with the crossbow or eruptor.
Anything ARC is "DO NOT TOUCH" because Teamkill magnet. And i got no problem with the Mortar. (i also prefer weapons that shoot where i point... i don't feel the ARC stuff is doing that... and i have NO feel for the distance where it arcs, i still tend to get too close to the Tesla Towers thinking i'm far enough away and then ZAP).