If I don’t have a primary or support weapon that can destroy bug holes, I’m picking this gun as I can’t play without stun grenades.
It’s a bit annoying how limited secondary weapon selection is due to this guy being so much stronger than the others.
Honestly I was running lazer pistol for a long while and then bushwhacker came out. I was apprehensive at first but maybe it’s my laziness or actual love of it but I have not changed it since it came out. Super fun to use
That's almost exactly what I've been using, except instead of the MG I use either RR or spear. Being swarmed by hunters usually ends in me being dead, since the bushwhacker only has 3 rounds, but I also like being able to handle heavies without strictly relying on strategems.
Translation: It's trash unless you really like crossbows and just want to change it up so you can remind yourself its trash in a real fight. Sleeper weapon my ass. The weapon takes on this sub are from difficulty 4 I swear.
Translation: "I only use meta weapons because that's what I'm told to use by YouTubers and I've never actually branched out and tried anything else to see if it's good or not to form my own opinions."
I have 450 hours in this game, played almost solely Bot Helldive for months. All I've used since the patch is the Crossbow/AMR.
For Devastators, Berserkers, and Scout Striders it is just as good as the Eruptor but with 2x the fire rate and 10 more shots. It struggles comparatively against more durable targets (Gunships, Factory Striders, Tank/Turrets), but that's what your support weapon is for.
It can 1-shot a Devastator and Berserker to the head. If you miss it imparts massive stagger, so that you easily have time to line up the next shot. Even on a Heavy Dev and you hit their shield. It can take down a Scout in 2 shots to the pelvis or legs. Not to mention it also has some splash damage so it can crowd-kill some Troopers on occasion.
The update gave it the ability to destroy Fabricators from afar, which previously only the Eruptor could manage as the only primary to do so.
Being able to easily dispatch Devastators and Berserkers plus handle Fabs, means you can take a support weapon that doesn't need to do those things. The support weapon can just focus on those durable heavies which the AMR, HMG, and Laser excel at.
I used to be an AutoCannon main, primarily with the JAR as the primary. I wouldn't call the Crossbow/AMR better than the AutoCannon...but I would call it a sidegrade. I don't think I'm any worse off without the JAR/AC, and I honestly have more fun with the AMR than the AC. And the Crossbow itself is hella fun to use - 1-tapping a Rocket Dev from 50+m away is so satisfying,
So tl;dr, stop shitting on weapons you've obviously never used.
Crossbow + HMG or MG-43 leaves 3 stratagem slots open for anti armor (or just whatever), and let's you run something other than stun grenade + grenade pistol without feeling kneecapped.
If I have to explain to you why that is attractive, my next statement will be "200% less suck".
Yeah, staggers but takes ages to kill, silent which is basically just a gimmick lets not kid ourselves and is terribly at wave clear despite being explosive.
Right now its only usage is killing holes/fabs, its killing power is still way too weak and it has a pretty bad ammo economy to boot.
No reason to take it when the grenade pistol exists, rather take a primary that actually lets you reliably defend yourself even without a support weapon.
It is good for shots on the run, little to no recoil.
kills bile spewers in two good hits
kills stalkers quickly
has a decent rate of fire good range
When you shoot it it draws attention to where it explodes not from were you shot it. (good for solo stealth)
Think of it as an eruptor with twice the rate of fire, good handling and faster reload and very low recoil. Its explosion isn't as big and more of its damage is in the projectile itself so it is a precision weapon.
Its draw back is its mag size 5 shots (6 with tac reload) with 8 reloads so you will want to bring something to take care of hoards
The projectile does 270 damage and has a 150 damage explosion, it has the same armor pen as the Eruptor with faster fire rate and better handling, and the buff to projectile velocity means it flies pretty far and straight now. I preferred when it was a light AOE crowd control weapon, but these days I've been using it as a less cumbersome Eruptor. Honestly as long as you're not doing 8+ dives this game is pretty easy when played with friends who communicate, so everything but the most trash weapons are "viable".
Agree mostly but at mid and lower ranges crossbow can do better bc eruptor shots have that annoying ricochet bounce that will have you wasting whole ass shots. It's absolutely not enough of an advantage to justify crossbow over eruptor most of the time but on maps with low visibility or little openness, it can be at least a viable alternative.
Eruptor has much slower fire rate, worse handling, and also has 2 less reserve mags. it ain't much but it can matter when bull rushing a large nest while being chased by hundreds of bugs.
Except it doesnt quickly kill bug hives like a gl while running through them while kiting bugs. You'll have to loop back through at least once. Crossbow just goes fwip fwip fwip fwip all done
It’s a trade off. They’ve got the same ammo capacity and similar utility in destroying bug holes. Eruptor is a single shot powerhouse that can reliably kill 5-8 chaff enemies in a single shot but it’s bolt action so you need to make the shot count. Crossbow is semi-automatic with lower damage so you can cover a larger area faster, plus being able to stun lock pretty much all non-heavy enemies and push them back.
I have set a new kill record (personal) on bugs with the crossbow and it fries devestators on bots. Try it with the short shoty and just watch the magic happen.
the crossbow now deals medium damage as impact and explosive, before it was just the impact that delt medium dmg, meaning it was lackluster.
it also can close bug holes/bot fabricators from its explosion, havent tested it on objective structures like a spore spewer yet.
the MG43 however is considered my emotional support weapon because I bring that sucker with me everywhere.
it has high ammo capacity, decently controllable recoil, large ammo capacity and can deal with everything upto chargers if you're willing to magdump its ass. it shreds shriekers too since it only needs one bullet to kill them.
unlike the stalwart it also has medium armour pen which for bugs actually gives it more effective firepower since it chews through armoured enemies just as well as unarmoured but unlike the heavy MG which has the same bug armour pen capability (it will hurt the same bug types) it has more ammo, less recoil and is generally more ergonomic.
for example, bile spewers...you aim for the body and chew through their massive HP pool right? nope, a few rounds to the dome and they die like chumps cause their head is only medium armour.
stalker nest. put that sucker on its highest RPM mode and watch them panic as you stagger them to death with high calibre liberty.
bring the HMG for bots though, it kills fucking everything. take a supply back with it though...
It has less pen than HMG though and much less damage, so for mediums its just kinda okay, but its a nice middle ground. With the medium spam on bugs though, it feels like Stalwart has utterly lost the small shred of relevance it had lol.
I've just run two bug missions, one with the stalwart and liberator penetrator. another with the liberator carbine and MG.
its night and day in terms of effectiveness. not only does the MG handle the small bugs much easier since its always dealing 100% dmg to them and often just oneshotting them. its got more stagger, deals with the medium enemies significantly easier and just kills faster leaving you with more space and a slight ammo consumption issue. this is mitigated by the carbine which has two very big pluses for it, its high RPM and high mobility making it a snappy, high burst weapon to pull out as a backup.
comparatively the liberator penetrator lacks the killing power to justify its medium pen when you can use a sickle and get more effectiveness out of its limitless ammo pool.
so yea, the MG is currently top tier for me VS bugs whilst I would rather take practically everything else over the stalwart as they're all more effective IMO.
Yep, I tried running the Stalwart with the new Adjudicator, which is actually pretty decent now, but since a good third or half of the waves are now guards or commanders, having to constantly swap to my primary felt super horrible.
MG feels very good now indeed, I just wish I could remove the silly bipod it has on the front lol.
I feel like the gun should have slightly higher recoil standing up. then kneeling it functions like normal but laying down it should have nearly no recoil, throw in a little animation of the bipod swinging out and it'll look good enough too.
It's not a direct downgrade, but it's pretty weak. Double rate of fire over the Eruptor and a couple extra mags, but in exchange for only slightly better than halved damage and worse effective range. It's improved, since it can destroy base buildings now, but it probably needs more damage to be usable and more AoE to make it not just another Eruptor.
Seems like the crossbow is better against the giant bug nests with its rate of fire while the eruptor is better against bots to take fabricators at range easily.
I'd actually have it have more ammo and rate of fire (or damage) with a tiny AOE, while the eruptor has the larger AOE / shrapnel to differentiate it. If you add more AOE and damage, it becomes much closer to an Eruptor clone.
Also MUCH better handling
Stopping to line up a bug hole shot with the eruptor in the middle of a bug nest is a little spicy, with crossbow you just aim and pew and keep running
I can't stand the crossbow unless I am on a blitz mission and using it just for holes and fabs. If my aim is on point I can take out 5 devs or broods in the time it takes me to fire and reload once with a crossbow. Even then I liked it more pre rework so it is even less interesting to me now. Same with the eruptor.
If they made bug holes and fabricators less janky af to destroy the only thing the cross bow has over the grenade pistol is capacity and reload capacity.
I don't think it's where it was pre-nerf, but it's certainly usable now. The AoE and ammo are still more limited, but it's not a waste of the primary slot anymore, at least.
It is pretty much strictly worse than the Dominator in every way (Accuracy, projectile travel speed, fire rate, stagger, and mag size being the most important downsides) but it can destroy bug holes and factories.
Overall not good enough to justify IMO. If they made it one handed so you could use it with a shield vs bots or while running away vs bugs to compensate for the mag size and fire rate then I think it would be in a very solid niche. But as of right now, very hard to justify when you can just use an actual primary and a grenade pistol instead.
I will say the Crossbow is great for terminid blitz missions and egg-busting missions. Pair it with a Redeemer or Verdict and maybe bring the Stalwart. Crossbow is in a great spot for blowing up bug holes and eggs.
It has been my go to weapon on bugs since the update, witch the Bushwacker as secondary for hunters. Gives you many options for support weapons, I often find that you run out of ammo with the grenade pistol so the crossbow is great and its decent at dealing with medium enemies.
Yep, Crossbow is the non-terrible version of the grenade launcher for bug missions, as a primary. It doesn't do as much work against swarmed enemies, but that will be the point of your support weapon and secondary in this case.
Though I do really like incendiary breaker / rover, grenade pistol, flamethrower for anything shy of bile titans. Hard to beat that combo, or the supply pack instead of rover for infinite stims.
Too niche of a use ngl, especially considering the grenade pistol exists, which makes you just as good at blitz missions without crippling your primary slot.
1. Flamethrower isn't actually good at dealing with hordes. You can manage it, but it kills very slowly and inefficiently.
2. Flamethrower is also not meant to be good at dealing with hordes. It is solidly an anti tank and anti elite, specifically chargers, weapon. Which means you are already overlapping the niche Crossbow is meant to have, at which point it exists purely for bug holes, at which point you might as well just have another primary and use the grenade pistol.
I’ve ran flamethrower on helldive. It is great at killing most bugs. Only the bile titan is the bug it isn’t effective at. And the bile spewers need some caution when using against. Are you using the weapon right? Are you spraying the floor while retreating? Or are you just ramboing headfirst into the hordes and wondering how you keep dying?
>It is great at killing most bugs
No, it really isn't. It has a lot of potential damage, but the actual burst is really low. The reason it is so good at killing elites is because it has incredibly high penetration, but its actual DPS is quite low.
So in practice that means that you actually have bad horde clear, especially vs Bugs because of stuff like Hunters. You will not be able to clear out a bunch of hunters with a flame thrower before they jump on you, and if you try to evade them then you will end up burning yourself.
It is simply, objectively, not a good horde clear weapon.
>Are you spraying the floor while retreating? Or are you just ramboing headfirst into the hordes and wondering how you keep dying?
This right here proves my point: The fact that you had to argue that it was a good horde clear weapon because you could spray while running away.
No, that is proof it is a bad one, because good horde clear weapons just fucking clear the horde before they get near you. I have never once had to retreat from a group of light enemies when using just a regular breaker primary for horde clear. Where as with a Flamethrower you can't even kill a couple hunters before you have to start backing off.
The result is the flamethrower has incredibly bad time to kill hordes. The only way I could see anyone disagreeing with this is if they are simply a shit player who simply doesn't understand how to clear hordes quickly. Case and point: You for example. You don't even play on the highest difficulties, you play on 7s where there are fuck all enemies to kill. Of course a shit horde clear weapon will feel like it can clear hordes when *there are no hordes to speak of* lol.
It seems pretty good but something about the feel of it just isn't satisfying for me. I'm not sure if it's the aiming or the visual feedback or what
It has way more ammo than the grenade pistol though so it's my dedicated bug and fab destroyer sometimes
Treat it like a shitty bolt action rifle that can close bug holes.
1: High damage.
2: Medium penetration.
3: Very minimal splash.
4: Small magazine.
5: Mediocre reserve ammo.
6: Quick reload.
You'll unironically be most afraid of chaff spam running EXPLOSIVE Crossbow. You can fight devastators and brood commanders all day but 20 hunters and troopers will rip you up before you can kill them. So you want either stalwart, Laser Cannon, or medium machine gun aa your 'primary' support weapon depending on build and planet.
I still thing it'd suboptimal to Eruptor, which itself is probably only 70% as strong as release. However it is very responsive and generally very easy to clear bug holes with the fast and narrow bolt.
I have set a new kill record (personal) on bugs with the crossbow and it fries devestators on bots. Try it with the short shoty and just watch the magic happen.
I've hardly ever used it and don't find it particularly strong, though that might be because I prefer the loadout options that destroy base buildings without involving the secondary. Autocannon for bots, Eruptor for bugs, and I only fail to bring Airstrike for normal missions when I'm experimenting with weird loadouts.
I actually think secondary balance is fine, just depends on your loadout. You probably just dont think so since, well, you like stuns. But the grenade pistol is only really a utility pick, and you dont always need it, depending on the loadout. I for one like the Senator and Bushwhacker for their emergency medium killer usage, or just as a trooper killer on bots. And I still see people use the redeemer as an emergency "kill whatever is in front of me" pick
For bugs I need both impact and grenade pistol for how much bug holes I gotta close at the higher difficulties. It’d probably be different if supply packs gave more than 2 pistol grenade ammo.
So true. Why are people sleeping on Plasma Punisher tho? It's the supreme weapon against bots by a significant margin, it just takes a few hours to get used to the plasma ball curves.
It's not like I love the grenade pistol, but it gives us double the grenades and frees up the grenade slot for the typically superior stuns.
This, when the eruptor was good to use as a weapon I would bring it and it would also fill as big closing role but ever since the nerf...bringing it has been pointless when I can just take the pistol for the same job now.
The eruptor is good again since they buffed it. It'll never be as broken as it was, but it's a viable choice again and I've been having fun it once more.
Idk if I'd say it's good, but it is an okay side pick. Dominator and scorcher are miles ahead of it damage and handling side, with the only benefit being to take fabricators. When fabs are oriented just right where you can quickly snipe them, it feels good, but that is a rare case. It's advantage over the crossbow is no drop off at distance, but the crossbow feels better as a mix between plasma punisher and eruptor now.
It takes multiple shots if you don't get a headshot to kill devastators, but at that point you may as well use the diligence counter sniper which has better handling.
Nothing good about it, the TTK on big targets is wayy too long and its too unwieldy and slow for swarms too. Its become kind of a butchered weapon now thats having an identity crisis and they just keep upping its damage hoping that will change anything lol. Until it one shots devs into the head it will never be good, same for bug medium enemies.
> Until it one shots devs into the head it will never be good
Well, have I got good news for you:
Devastator Head: 125 HP, 1 Armor, 0% Durable
Eruptor Projectile: 230, 3 Penetration
The issue here is actually landing that headshot.
Yes, it sucks that you can't get a random Devastator kill by letting shrapnel RNG-slaughter the Dev's face or hips from exploding in mere proximity, but that was very dumb to begin with. It's probably not a good idea to base one's expectations and love for a weapon around when it existed in an extremely busted and overpowered state, though.
Extremely difficult to land with the eruptor, and frankly the reward for it being so unwieldy just aint there.
It wasnt extremely busted outside the weird charger one shots, which was the only thing they needed to fix. Right now its bad at killing groups of enemies and very mid at killing medium enemies, whilst having terrible handling and horrid rate of fire.
The weapon is still ass and they clearly have no clue what to do with it.
I can post comparitive damage values as I've done a bunch of times and show everyone it's basically a sack of 30+ extra grenades.
If someone can't figure out how to make that work **IN THE CONTEXT OF THEIR OVERALL LOADOUT**, I think that's a "them" problem.
This expectation that the Eruptor somehow slaughter crowds, mediums, and possibly even heavies "because it's explosive and slow and unwieldy!" completely on its own and in a way other Primaries don't is born of still being stuck thinking about it only relative to how it was when it was broken.
Except it doesnt have even close to the AOE of grenades, nor can you shoot as fast as throwing grenades. There is basically no real reason to take this thing, as its just not good at anything.
The expectation is for a good gun thats actually useful for some niche considering the huge drawbacks. With the addition of the grenade pistol, its one niche is basically gone and we have some weird bastardized JAR dominator that feels like shit to use.
| Projectile/Durable @ AP | Explosion @ AP | Inner / Outer Splash
---|---|----|----
Eruptor | 230/115 @ 3 | 340 @ 3 | 2 / 6
Explosive Xbow | 270/50 @ 3 | 150 @ 3 | 2 / 4
Grenade Pistol | 250/250 @ 3 | 400 @ 3 | 2.25 / 6.5
HE Impact | ---- | 400 @ 4 | 2.5 / 7
I dunno, friend, I think the difference between 2/6 and 2.5/7 isn't so large as to disqualify it from "not even close".
Yes, you can't throw it as fast as grenades, but you can't have 30+ grenades, either. Nor can you put them in precise locations all the way the fuck over there very quickly, because grenades have to be thrown in an arc you "feel out" and are capped at 50-75m (with perk) while the Eruptor shoots in a line (and travels much faster and farther). You can also use the Eruptor as your source of hole-closing, splash-doing weaponry instead of your grenade slot and bring something like Stun Grenades or whatever other utility instead.
So, yeah, look at it in the context of *all* the ups and downs and your overall loadout. Anything less is unhelpfully reductive and you wind up sounding like someone who says "the Lib Concussive is strictly better than the Liberator because it has more knockback" while ignoring its RPM or what knockback can do to your ability to hit sequential shots, or someone who seriously believes making the Emancipator Exo's ACs have the same Durable damage as AC Sentries wouldn't complete a wholly new balance paradigm and see that shit in *every. fucking. game.* x4.
There's more to balance than picking the one number that excites you.
Okay, here is the sitch then, the choice between 30 slightly worse grenades that are a pain to aim with a shit rate of fire and no primary, or a good primary that can take out tons of small to medium targets, is an absolute no brainer of a choice.
Funny you mention how it has no arc, idk why you pretend like thats a good thing, as when dealing with crowds its a thousand times easier to lob a grenade on top, since often its hard to get a good angle to shoot between enemies in an efficient spot that his as many as possible.
Especially on bots it just seriously lacks a niche, as pretty much all the good support weapons can deal with everything, you just dont wanna waste them on chaff, and the eruptor is just terrible at dealing with random spaced out bots.
either give it more AOE or more damage so it oneshots medium enemies and it becomes a viable pick, otherwise its just a gimmick.
Between just having grenades, RR (on Bugs) and Airstrikes, I'm seldom at a loss for taking out holes/factories anyway. But I also run the Engineering Kit.
I use it all the time on bugs and I hate it.
Simply because if you use some automatic primary and some AT support weapon - you HAVE to use this thing or suffer every time you need to close bug holes. The sheer number of bug holes means you need some weapon able to close them. On bot front Fabricators are much lower in numbers and way easier to destroy from distance and with stratagems.
I wish I could bring Verdict on bugs as I do on bots, but damn bug holes.
Yeah, and that is great if you want to use something like the AC or Railgun that *can* still deal with Chargers without the dedicated Anti tank.
It is not enough if you are using something like the Machine Gun. You simply won't have enough power there.
So you have more than four stratagem slots now?
Nevermind the fact that 110 rockets literally can't kill anything since the damage nerf. You need to use two uses of it to kill just *one* regular charger assuming every rocket hits.
The spear BEFORE the patch was technically the best support weapon against Titans. Once you could work with the janky aiming you could very regularly 1shot Titans.
After the patch the aiming is awesome, BUT I've never been able to 1shot Titans anymore. The patch notes issues list does suggest Titan heads aren't receiving the right damage... when that's fixed there's nothing that can top the spear for killing Titans efficiently.
Two shots from EAT to the head. Or Quasar. I get that mostly Bile Titans are dealt with using stratagems, my personal choices are Railcanon + 110mm. But add to this Behemoths and simple Chargers and it often becomes too much for just stratagems to handle, you need support weapons that can help too.
My main gripe is how much less options we have to destroy holes compared to fabricators. Fabricators can be destroyed via: grenade to the vent, explosive shot to the vent, any stratagem like airstrike or 110mm, SPEAR (not now, but planned), Orbital laser (actually aims for them and can sweep whole heavy factory by itself). While with Holes most stratagems are unreliable at closing them, orbital laser won't target them, same with 110mm.
All while Heavy factory will have like 4-5 fabs tops, and heavy nest can have 12 holes.
The Laser Cannon *can* kill a Bile Titan, it's just too slow to be of real value for people absent any other damage source.
The recently-buffed HMG can do it in about a mag and a half, solo. 14 shots spread across the sacs will pop them and deal 1k to the Titan, then you fire 100 more rounds at the underbelly to get rid of the other 2,500 health it has.
114 shots, or ~1.3 magazines with the HMG, no help from anyone else.
Try using a laser drone and the Eruptor. You stay out of reach and kill the big enemies with the Eruptor while the laser drone thins the crowd, and draw your pistol if anything gets by or you just feel like using it. I use the Senator, but I think the Verdict's not all that different for this. And you have a convenient weapon for bugholes, as well as an empty slot for QC or EATs.
I think if they made it possible to close bug nests with regular sustained fire it would improve a lot of things. The Grenade pistol is not bad because it is good at closing them - it is just that other weapons are lacking in basic functionality needed for bug missions.
Something like that, or just make holes more vulnerable to splash explosive damage, so you can close them in groups reliably with airstrikes and grenades. Overall, holes need more ways to close them and require less ammo to do so.
I think if they made it possible to close bug nests with regular sustained fire it would improve a lot of things. The Grenade pistol is not bad because it is good at closing them - it is just that other weapons are lacking in basic functionality needed for bug missions.
I think if they made it possible to close bug nests with regular sustained fire it would improve a lot of things. The Grenade pistol is not bad because it is good at closing them - it is just that other weapons are lacking in basic functionality needed for bug missions.
I usually use the redeemer. Sometimes the senator.
Grenade pistol is good utility, but I only use it when neither my primary nor my secondary can kill bug holes. Both the auto cannon and eruptor are easier to kill holes with (just run around the top of the pit shooting into the holes on the other side. Grenade pistol can do this but the shot is harder due to reload and arc.)
I wind up switching pistols constantly, which I think means good balance.
Same here which sucks because I want to run the revolver but before I unlocked this I’d use my secondary basically never. After unlocking it I have used my secondary on every single mission without fail.
Blow up fabricators/bug holes? Boop.
AOE for mobs? Boop.
Having to play bull fighter with a charger and need something that’ll damage it’s butt? Boop.
Just can’t seem to headshot that devastator for some reason and it’s becoming an issue? Boop.
Just feel like hearing “boop”? Boop.
I usually still use the Eruptor, even though it's still not as good as it used to be. When I use that, my secondary is always the Senator. But for any other primary, I always choose the grenade pistol to go with.
I'll run it on the bug front so I have more nades for popping Spewers along with my blitzer stunning them. Then my flamethrower because nothing is more thematic than burning everything in sight. Also no backpack. Get in the exosuit shinji
Bug hole? Pop.
Bug swarm? Pop.
Devastator or Scout walker? Pop.
Treasure cache behind the metal door? Pop.
Not fabricator? Pop.
It's just so versatile and so good.
Yeah but it's reload is annoying for me because you have to let the animation complete or it doesn't reload at all
I also wish you could change the ammo like Thermite Grenade's, acid grenades
What I’ve pearned from this post is that so many more people use the verdict than I thought, one of the few weapons I haven’t unlocked
After I get those throwing knives I know what I’m going for next
It's my only secondary as well. It's great not only for crowd control, bug holes, and bot factories but also taking out certain annoying enemies in two shots or less like bile and nursing spewers and rocket and heavy devastators.
I just wish we got more ammo from ammo boxes. Just one per box is a bit annoying.
Always take for bug holes. On Bots I'm typically using stratagems to take out fabricators (or the Spear in a pinch once they fix the crash issues). I use the Punisher Plasma so really close encounters need something else. I was taking Big Iron but lately the pistol shotgun has been clutch. Also I use stun grenades so that's not an option for fabricators for me.
I live too long and its ammo hungry natures starts to become a serious issue. I’ll sometimes take it on bots as an “in case of no eagle strikes” sort of thing for fabricators.
A solid choice! My equivalent is the Senator 😍. Been loving it since launch but then the speed loader and spinning sealed the deal even more. Now I just need to be able to fan the hammer to unload the cylinder in a stalkers face and I’ll be the happiest camper ever.
I wish I could find a use for it in my playstyle. I use the Punisher on bugs, so I need a Redeemer or Verdict for ranged kills. And there's no point against Bots because Bots never have more than 4 Factories in one area, so my Incendiaries almost always suffice.
Funnily enough, I keep rotating.
If I need to pop holes, it's this. But if I am carrying an eruptor or autocannon, it's the senator for bots or redeemer for bugs
My go-to loadouts include either an autocannon or an Eruptor, so this thing is largely unnecessary. However, whenever I choose to try out a non-explosive primary and support weapon in the same loadout, I immediately swap out my secondary for this bad boy.
Only problem is ammo, doesn't resupply very efficiently.
I've been bringing it and... forgetting to use it. I end up chucking Eagle Airstrikes at bug nests, AC-ing my way through Automatons. I've been using the Blitzer and Sickle a lot and you kinda just forget you got a secondary sometimes with those infinite ammo primaries. I still like bringing Impact Grenades as well.
It's not bad mind you, but it's far from being essential. If you wanna run Stun Grenades and don't like the Eruptor/XBow, then it's a great way to fill that hole.
If I don’t have a primary or support weapon that can destroy bug holes, I’m picking this gun as I can’t play without stun grenades. It’s a bit annoying how limited secondary weapon selection is due to this guy being so much stronger than the others.
Crossbow and a MG43 might change your life
\*stares in Eruptor + MG43 + Bushwhacker\*
Honestly I was running lazer pistol for a long while and then bushwhacker came out. I was apprehensive at first but maybe it’s my laziness or actual love of it but I have not changed it since it came out. Super fun to use
I like the twirl that can randomly happen when you draw the Senator. I was using it before the buff.
If you hold R your helldiver starts spinning the gun
Eruptor+Gpistol+Autocannon+Impacts
My beloved+Stalwart+Bush
Bushwhacker is fun but until more primaries can reliably and rapidly kill Spewers, grenade pistol is the only valid choice.
That's almost exactly what I've been using, except instead of the MG I use either RR or spear. Being swarmed by hunters usually ends in me being dead, since the bushwhacker only has 3 rounds, but I also like being able to handle heavies without strictly relying on strategems.
Has the crossbow gotten better? I never unlocked it in time before the nerf so I don’t really have a good point of comparison.
it's damage and utility is fantastic. Have fun reloading every 1.2 seconds. the crossbow is great, but 5 ammo mag is painful.
Translation: It's trash unless you really like crossbows and just want to change it up so you can remind yourself its trash in a real fight. Sleeper weapon my ass. The weapon takes on this sub are from difficulty 4 I swear.
Translation: "I only use meta weapons because that's what I'm told to use by YouTubers and I've never actually branched out and tried anything else to see if it's good or not to form my own opinions." I have 450 hours in this game, played almost solely Bot Helldive for months. All I've used since the patch is the Crossbow/AMR. For Devastators, Berserkers, and Scout Striders it is just as good as the Eruptor but with 2x the fire rate and 10 more shots. It struggles comparatively against more durable targets (Gunships, Factory Striders, Tank/Turrets), but that's what your support weapon is for. It can 1-shot a Devastator and Berserker to the head. If you miss it imparts massive stagger, so that you easily have time to line up the next shot. Even on a Heavy Dev and you hit their shield. It can take down a Scout in 2 shots to the pelvis or legs. Not to mention it also has some splash damage so it can crowd-kill some Troopers on occasion. The update gave it the ability to destroy Fabricators from afar, which previously only the Eruptor could manage as the only primary to do so. Being able to easily dispatch Devastators and Berserkers plus handle Fabs, means you can take a support weapon that doesn't need to do those things. The support weapon can just focus on those durable heavies which the AMR, HMG, and Laser excel at. I used to be an AutoCannon main, primarily with the JAR as the primary. I wouldn't call the Crossbow/AMR better than the AutoCannon...but I would call it a sidegrade. I don't think I'm any worse off without the JAR/AC, and I honestly have more fun with the AMR than the AC. And the Crossbow itself is hella fun to use - 1-tapping a Rocket Dev from 50+m away is so satisfying, So tl;dr, stop shitting on weapons you've obviously never used.
This game is easy af. Almost every weapon is usable to 7+ difficulty. Variety is the spice of life.
It's a sleeper for sure now. Paired with a dakka dakka it SHINES
How, please tell me how the hell crossbow is in anyway viable?
Crossbow + HMG or MG-43 leaves 3 stratagem slots open for anti armor (or just whatever), and let's you run something other than stun grenade + grenade pistol without feeling kneecapped. If I have to explain to you why that is attractive, my next statement will be "200% less suck".
All it really does is open up the secondary slot, which while nice I guess, hardly sounds good when you are sacrificing a primary instead lol
An explosive, med pen, silent primary that blows up spawners *and* staggers every medium (and below) enemy.
Yeah, staggers but takes ages to kill, silent which is basically just a gimmick lets not kid ourselves and is terribly at wave clear despite being explosive. Right now its only usage is killing holes/fabs, its killing power is still way too weak and it has a pretty bad ammo economy to boot. No reason to take it when the grenade pistol exists, rather take a primary that actually lets you reliably defend yourself even without a support weapon.
Silent shot means you can lure the patrol to the opposite direction (the explosion)
Yeah it's very slow to kill anything other than the basic grunts and it has terrible aoe.
It is good for shots on the run, little to no recoil. kills bile spewers in two good hits kills stalkers quickly has a decent rate of fire good range When you shoot it it draws attention to where it explodes not from were you shot it. (good for solo stealth) Think of it as an eruptor with twice the rate of fire, good handling and faster reload and very low recoil. Its explosion isn't as big and more of its damage is in the projectile itself so it is a precision weapon. Its draw back is its mag size 5 shots (6 with tac reload) with 8 reloads so you will want to bring something to take care of hoards
The projectile does 270 damage and has a 150 damage explosion, it has the same armor pen as the Eruptor with faster fire rate and better handling, and the buff to projectile velocity means it flies pretty far and straight now. I preferred when it was a light AOE crowd control weapon, but these days I've been using it as a less cumbersome Eruptor. Honestly as long as you're not doing 8+ dives this game is pretty easy when played with friends who communicate, so everything but the most trash weapons are "viable".
"Honestly as long as you're not doing 8+" Okay explains as much.
eruptor does everything better
Agree mostly but at mid and lower ranges crossbow can do better bc eruptor shots have that annoying ricochet bounce that will have you wasting whole ass shots. It's absolutely not enough of an advantage to justify crossbow over eruptor most of the time but on maps with low visibility or little openness, it can be at least a viable alternative.
Eruptor has much slower fire rate, worse handling, and also has 2 less reserve mags. it ain't much but it can matter when bull rushing a large nest while being chased by hundreds of bugs.
It does the same things as the Crossbow, much slower, but at a greater distance. Tradeoffs, side grades, whatever ya wanna call it
I fired 5 shots at a bug structure with the Eruptor and nothing, so the range doesn't matter.
Eruptor rounds detonate after 120ish meters, so the crossbow is actually better for sniping at long range if you can account for the drop.
Well hot diggity damn, that's good to know
Except it doesnt quickly kill bug hives like a gl while running through them while kiting bugs. You'll have to loop back through at least once. Crossbow just goes fwip fwip fwip fwip all done
Crossbow is lower damage but consistently hurts things
It’s a trade off. They’ve got the same ammo capacity and similar utility in destroying bug holes. Eruptor is a single shot powerhouse that can reliably kill 5-8 chaff enemies in a single shot but it’s bolt action so you need to make the shot count. Crossbow is semi-automatic with lower damage so you can cover a larger area faster, plus being able to stun lock pretty much all non-heavy enemies and push them back.
Elaborate please, because I disagree.
one of them goes to 11
I have set a new kill record (personal) on bugs with the crossbow and it fries devestators on bots. Try it with the short shoty and just watch the magic happen.
Have you tried the breaker incendiary? I don't see how the crossbow could get anywhere near the same amount of kills.
the crossbow now deals medium damage as impact and explosive, before it was just the impact that delt medium dmg, meaning it was lackluster. it also can close bug holes/bot fabricators from its explosion, havent tested it on objective structures like a spore spewer yet. the MG43 however is considered my emotional support weapon because I bring that sucker with me everywhere. it has high ammo capacity, decently controllable recoil, large ammo capacity and can deal with everything upto chargers if you're willing to magdump its ass. it shreds shriekers too since it only needs one bullet to kill them. unlike the stalwart it also has medium armour pen which for bugs actually gives it more effective firepower since it chews through armoured enemies just as well as unarmoured but unlike the heavy MG which has the same bug armour pen capability (it will hurt the same bug types) it has more ammo, less recoil and is generally more ergonomic. for example, bile spewers...you aim for the body and chew through their massive HP pool right? nope, a few rounds to the dome and they die like chumps cause their head is only medium armour. stalker nest. put that sucker on its highest RPM mode and watch them panic as you stagger them to death with high calibre liberty. bring the HMG for bots though, it kills fucking everything. take a supply back with it though...
It has less pen than HMG though and much less damage, so for mediums its just kinda okay, but its a nice middle ground. With the medium spam on bugs though, it feels like Stalwart has utterly lost the small shred of relevance it had lol.
I've just run two bug missions, one with the stalwart and liberator penetrator. another with the liberator carbine and MG. its night and day in terms of effectiveness. not only does the MG handle the small bugs much easier since its always dealing 100% dmg to them and often just oneshotting them. its got more stagger, deals with the medium enemies significantly easier and just kills faster leaving you with more space and a slight ammo consumption issue. this is mitigated by the carbine which has two very big pluses for it, its high RPM and high mobility making it a snappy, high burst weapon to pull out as a backup. comparatively the liberator penetrator lacks the killing power to justify its medium pen when you can use a sickle and get more effectiveness out of its limitless ammo pool. so yea, the MG is currently top tier for me VS bugs whilst I would rather take practically everything else over the stalwart as they're all more effective IMO.
Yep, I tried running the Stalwart with the new Adjudicator, which is actually pretty decent now, but since a good third or half of the waves are now guards or commanders, having to constantly swap to my primary felt super horrible. MG feels very good now indeed, I just wish I could remove the silly bipod it has on the front lol.
I feel like the gun should have slightly higher recoil standing up. then kneeling it functions like normal but laying down it should have nearly no recoil, throw in a little animation of the bipod swinging out and it'll look good enough too.
It's not a direct downgrade, but it's pretty weak. Double rate of fire over the Eruptor and a couple extra mags, but in exchange for only slightly better than halved damage and worse effective range. It's improved, since it can destroy base buildings now, but it probably needs more damage to be usable and more AoE to make it not just another Eruptor.
Seems like the crossbow is better against the giant bug nests with its rate of fire while the eruptor is better against bots to take fabricators at range easily. I'd actually have it have more ammo and rate of fire (or damage) with a tiny AOE, while the eruptor has the larger AOE / shrapnel to differentiate it. If you add more AOE and damage, it becomes much closer to an Eruptor clone.
Also MUCH better handling Stopping to line up a bug hole shot with the eruptor in the middle of a bug nest is a little spicy, with crossbow you just aim and pew and keep running
Crossbow actually has the highest range in the game. You can shoot straight up and it'll travel like 180 meters
I can't stand the crossbow unless I am on a blitz mission and using it just for holes and fabs. If my aim is on point I can take out 5 devs or broods in the time it takes me to fire and reload once with a crossbow. Even then I liked it more pre rework so it is even less interesting to me now. Same with the eruptor. If they made bug holes and fabricators less janky af to destroy the only thing the cross bow has over the grenade pistol is capacity and reload capacity.
I don't think it's where it was pre-nerf, but it's certainly usable now. The AoE and ammo are still more limited, but it's not a waste of the primary slot anymore, at least.
It is pretty much strictly worse than the Dominator in every way (Accuracy, projectile travel speed, fire rate, stagger, and mag size being the most important downsides) but it can destroy bug holes and factories. Overall not good enough to justify IMO. If they made it one handed so you could use it with a shield vs bots or while running away vs bugs to compensate for the mag size and fire rate then I think it would be in a very solid niche. But as of right now, very hard to justify when you can just use an actual primary and a grenade pistol instead.
I will say the Crossbow is great for terminid blitz missions and egg-busting missions. Pair it with a Redeemer or Verdict and maybe bring the Stalwart. Crossbow is in a great spot for blowing up bug holes and eggs.
It has been my go to weapon on bugs since the update, witch the Bushwacker as secondary for hunters. Gives you many options for support weapons, I often find that you run out of ammo with the grenade pistol so the crossbow is great and its decent at dealing with medium enemies.
Yep, Crossbow is the non-terrible version of the grenade launcher for bug missions, as a primary. It doesn't do as much work against swarmed enemies, but that will be the point of your support weapon and secondary in this case. Though I do really like incendiary breaker / rover, grenade pistol, flamethrower for anything shy of bile titans. Hard to beat that combo, or the supply pack instead of rover for infinite stims.
Too niche of a use ngl, especially considering the grenade pistol exists, which makes you just as good at blitz missions without crippling your primary slot.
1. Flamethrower isn't actually good at dealing with hordes. You can manage it, but it kills very slowly and inefficiently. 2. Flamethrower is also not meant to be good at dealing with hordes. It is solidly an anti tank and anti elite, specifically chargers, weapon. Which means you are already overlapping the niche Crossbow is meant to have, at which point it exists purely for bug holes, at which point you might as well just have another primary and use the grenade pistol.
I’ve ran flamethrower on helldive. It is great at killing most bugs. Only the bile titan is the bug it isn’t effective at. And the bile spewers need some caution when using against. Are you using the weapon right? Are you spraying the floor while retreating? Or are you just ramboing headfirst into the hordes and wondering how you keep dying?
>It is great at killing most bugs No, it really isn't. It has a lot of potential damage, but the actual burst is really low. The reason it is so good at killing elites is because it has incredibly high penetration, but its actual DPS is quite low. So in practice that means that you actually have bad horde clear, especially vs Bugs because of stuff like Hunters. You will not be able to clear out a bunch of hunters with a flame thrower before they jump on you, and if you try to evade them then you will end up burning yourself. It is simply, objectively, not a good horde clear weapon. >Are you spraying the floor while retreating? Or are you just ramboing headfirst into the hordes and wondering how you keep dying? This right here proves my point: The fact that you had to argue that it was a good horde clear weapon because you could spray while running away. No, that is proof it is a bad one, because good horde clear weapons just fucking clear the horde before they get near you. I have never once had to retreat from a group of light enemies when using just a regular breaker primary for horde clear. Where as with a Flamethrower you can't even kill a couple hunters before you have to start backing off. The result is the flamethrower has incredibly bad time to kill hordes. The only way I could see anyone disagreeing with this is if they are simply a shit player who simply doesn't understand how to clear hordes quickly. Case and point: You for example. You don't even play on the highest difficulties, you play on 7s where there are fuck all enemies to kill. Of course a shit horde clear weapon will feel like it can clear hordes when *there are no hordes to speak of* lol.
Idk I’ve been using it for hordes and it fries them lol they don’t die instantly but they slow way down when they catch fire
It can now close bug holes!
It seems pretty good but something about the feel of it just isn't satisfying for me. I'm not sure if it's the aiming or the visual feedback or what It has way more ammo than the grenade pistol though so it's my dedicated bug and fab destroyer sometimes
Treat it like a shitty bolt action rifle that can close bug holes. 1: High damage. 2: Medium penetration. 3: Very minimal splash. 4: Small magazine. 5: Mediocre reserve ammo. 6: Quick reload. You'll unironically be most afraid of chaff spam running EXPLOSIVE Crossbow. You can fight devastators and brood commanders all day but 20 hunters and troopers will rip you up before you can kill them. So you want either stalwart, Laser Cannon, or medium machine gun aa your 'primary' support weapon depending on build and planet. I still thing it'd suboptimal to Eruptor, which itself is probably only 70% as strong as release. However it is very responsive and generally very easy to clear bug holes with the fast and narrow bolt.
I have set a new kill record (personal) on bugs with the crossbow and it fries devestators on bots. Try it with the short shoty and just watch the magic happen.
Crossbow + Stalwart + Jumppack will solve any issue you have. They even do your supertaxes!
After running the Crossbow and a machine gun my Democracy Officer gave 2 extra C-01 forms. It's a good month.
Ahhh a fine vintage for scholars and the genteel. A vagabond like me runs Crossbow + Flamethrower+ Stun grenades. Be both in danger and the danger.
I've hardly ever used it and don't find it particularly strong, though that might be because I prefer the loadout options that destroy base buildings without involving the secondary. Autocannon for bots, Eruptor for bugs, and I only fail to bring Airstrike for normal missions when I'm experimenting with weird loadouts.
I actually think secondary balance is fine, just depends on your loadout. You probably just dont think so since, well, you like stuns. But the grenade pistol is only really a utility pick, and you dont always need it, depending on the loadout. I for one like the Senator and Bushwhacker for their emergency medium killer usage, or just as a trooper killer on bots. And I still see people use the redeemer as an emergency "kill whatever is in front of me" pick
For bugs I need both impact and grenade pistol for how much bug holes I gotta close at the higher difficulties. It’d probably be different if supply packs gave more than 2 pistol grenade ammo.
So true. Why are people sleeping on Plasma Punisher tho? It's the supreme weapon against bots by a significant margin, it just takes a few hours to get used to the plasma ball curves. It's not like I love the grenade pistol, but it gives us double the grenades and frees up the grenade slot for the typically superior stuns.
My go to is the senator
Nade pistol and incendiaries for bugs Senator and stuns for bots
This, when the eruptor was good to use as a weapon I would bring it and it would also fill as big closing role but ever since the nerf...bringing it has been pointless when I can just take the pistol for the same job now.
The eruptor is good again since they buffed it. It'll never be as broken as it was, but it's a viable choice again and I've been having fun it once more.
Idk if I'd say it's good, but it is an okay side pick. Dominator and scorcher are miles ahead of it damage and handling side, with the only benefit being to take fabricators. When fabs are oriented just right where you can quickly snipe them, it feels good, but that is a rare case. It's advantage over the crossbow is no drop off at distance, but the crossbow feels better as a mix between plasma punisher and eruptor now. It takes multiple shots if you don't get a headshot to kill devastators, but at that point you may as well use the diligence counter sniper which has better handling.
Nothing good about it, the TTK on big targets is wayy too long and its too unwieldy and slow for swarms too. Its become kind of a butchered weapon now thats having an identity crisis and they just keep upping its damage hoping that will change anything lol. Until it one shots devs into the head it will never be good, same for bug medium enemies.
> Until it one shots devs into the head it will never be good Well, have I got good news for you: Devastator Head: 125 HP, 1 Armor, 0% Durable Eruptor Projectile: 230, 3 Penetration The issue here is actually landing that headshot. Yes, it sucks that you can't get a random Devastator kill by letting shrapnel RNG-slaughter the Dev's face or hips from exploding in mere proximity, but that was very dumb to begin with. It's probably not a good idea to base one's expectations and love for a weapon around when it existed in an extremely busted and overpowered state, though.
Extremely difficult to land with the eruptor, and frankly the reward for it being so unwieldy just aint there. It wasnt extremely busted outside the weird charger one shots, which was the only thing they needed to fix. Right now its bad at killing groups of enemies and very mid at killing medium enemies, whilst having terrible handling and horrid rate of fire. The weapon is still ass and they clearly have no clue what to do with it.
I can post comparitive damage values as I've done a bunch of times and show everyone it's basically a sack of 30+ extra grenades. If someone can't figure out how to make that work **IN THE CONTEXT OF THEIR OVERALL LOADOUT**, I think that's a "them" problem. This expectation that the Eruptor somehow slaughter crowds, mediums, and possibly even heavies "because it's explosive and slow and unwieldy!" completely on its own and in a way other Primaries don't is born of still being stuck thinking about it only relative to how it was when it was broken.
Except it doesnt have even close to the AOE of grenades, nor can you shoot as fast as throwing grenades. There is basically no real reason to take this thing, as its just not good at anything. The expectation is for a good gun thats actually useful for some niche considering the huge drawbacks. With the addition of the grenade pistol, its one niche is basically gone and we have some weird bastardized JAR dominator that feels like shit to use.
| Projectile/Durable @ AP | Explosion @ AP | Inner / Outer Splash ---|---|----|---- Eruptor | 230/115 @ 3 | 340 @ 3 | 2 / 6 Explosive Xbow | 270/50 @ 3 | 150 @ 3 | 2 / 4 Grenade Pistol | 250/250 @ 3 | 400 @ 3 | 2.25 / 6.5 HE Impact | ---- | 400 @ 4 | 2.5 / 7 I dunno, friend, I think the difference between 2/6 and 2.5/7 isn't so large as to disqualify it from "not even close". Yes, you can't throw it as fast as grenades, but you can't have 30+ grenades, either. Nor can you put them in precise locations all the way the fuck over there very quickly, because grenades have to be thrown in an arc you "feel out" and are capped at 50-75m (with perk) while the Eruptor shoots in a line (and travels much faster and farther). You can also use the Eruptor as your source of hole-closing, splash-doing weaponry instead of your grenade slot and bring something like Stun Grenades or whatever other utility instead. So, yeah, look at it in the context of *all* the ups and downs and your overall loadout. Anything less is unhelpfully reductive and you wind up sounding like someone who says "the Lib Concussive is strictly better than the Liberator because it has more knockback" while ignoring its RPM or what knockback can do to your ability to hit sequential shots, or someone who seriously believes making the Emancipator Exo's ACs have the same Durable damage as AC Sentries wouldn't complete a wholly new balance paradigm and see that shit in *every. fucking. game.* x4. There's more to balance than picking the one number that excites you.
Okay, here is the sitch then, the choice between 30 slightly worse grenades that are a pain to aim with a shit rate of fire and no primary, or a good primary that can take out tons of small to medium targets, is an absolute no brainer of a choice. Funny you mention how it has no arc, idk why you pretend like thats a good thing, as when dealing with crowds its a thousand times easier to lob a grenade on top, since often its hard to get a good angle to shoot between enemies in an efficient spot that his as many as possible. Especially on bots it just seriously lacks a niche, as pretty much all the good support weapons can deal with everything, you just dont wanna waste them on chaff, and the eruptor is just terrible at dealing with random spaced out bots. either give it more AOE or more damage so it oneshots medium enemies and it becomes a viable pick, otherwise its just a gimmick.
I very briefly changed it to the bushwhacker but had to go back
Bushwhacker is so good vs stalkers and devastators But yeah, objectives are more important
It's goated against berserkers
Between just having grenades, RR (on Bugs) and Airstrikes, I'm seldom at a loss for taking out holes/factories anyway. But I also run the Engineering Kit.
The GP is pretty damn effective against Devastators even the shielded ones. Two shots anywhere staggers kills them. Saved me too many times.
Woah that’s a strange looking senator, they release a new variant for me not to use? because the senator is the best secondary.
It’s just to fun to switch away from
I use it all the time on bugs and I hate it. Simply because if you use some automatic primary and some AT support weapon - you HAVE to use this thing or suffer every time you need to close bug holes. The sheer number of bug holes means you need some weapon able to close them. On bot front Fabricators are much lower in numbers and way easier to destroy from distance and with stratagems. I wish I could bring Verdict on bugs as I do on bots, but damn bug holes.
Use verdict but take crossbow to the primary slot. Take something that can have sustained fire as your support weapon and you’re golden.
No, you aren't golden, you are fucked because you can't deal with Chargers and Titans properly.
One of the biggest strengths with EATs is that you can run a different support weapon while having an on demand anti armor option on standby
But only 2 chargers every 70 seconds.
To be fair, for the average player, dealing with more than 2 chargers is a challenge even if you’re running a dedicated anti armor weapon.
3 Chargers, if you run the jump pack. Stick it on their back while boosting over them.
Yeah, and that is great if you want to use something like the AC or Railgun that *can* still deal with Chargers without the dedicated Anti tank. It is not enough if you are using something like the Machine Gun. You simply won't have enough power there.
OPS + stun grenade sort that shit out
Cool. A second Charger or Titan Spawned. You are fucked.
Are you playing solo? Take 500kgs as well then.
XXL Weapons Bay. The second charger or titan is ded.
*laughs in 110 rockets and airstrikes* Oh.... .... you're serious
So you have more than four stratagem slots now? Nevermind the fact that 110 rockets literally can't kill anything since the damage nerf. You need to use two uses of it to kill just *one* regular charger assuming every rocket hits.
What exactly can I take as support weapon capable of sustained fire that will let me deal with Bile Titans?
There is no support weapon that lets you deal with bile titans reliably. That’s what OPS and 500kgs are for
The spear BEFORE the patch was technically the best support weapon against Titans. Once you could work with the janky aiming you could very regularly 1shot Titans. After the patch the aiming is awesome, BUT I've never been able to 1shot Titans anymore. The patch notes issues list does suggest Titan heads aren't receiving the right damage... when that's fixed there's nothing that can top the spear for killing Titans efficiently.
I’ve found that shooting a BT head on from an elevated spot can lead to 1 shooting it.
Two shots from EAT to the head. Or Quasar. I get that mostly Bile Titans are dealt with using stratagems, my personal choices are Railcanon + 110mm. But add to this Behemoths and simple Chargers and it often becomes too much for just stratagems to handle, you need support weapons that can help too. My main gripe is how much less options we have to destroy holes compared to fabricators. Fabricators can be destroyed via: grenade to the vent, explosive shot to the vent, any stratagem like airstrike or 110mm, SPEAR (not now, but planned), Orbital laser (actually aims for them and can sweep whole heavy factory by itself). While with Holes most stratagems are unreliable at closing them, orbital laser won't target them, same with 110mm. All while Heavy factory will have like 4-5 fabs tops, and heavy nest can have 12 holes.
Spear can destroy both bugholes and fabricators since the latest patch. However, it's also causing crashes, so probably not the best weapon choice.
The Laser Cannon *can* kill a Bile Titan, it's just too slow to be of real value for people absent any other damage source. The recently-buffed HMG can do it in about a mag and a half, solo. 14 shots spread across the sacs will pop them and deal 1k to the Titan, then you fire 100 more rounds at the underbelly to get rid of the other 2,500 health it has. 114 shots, or ~1.3 magazines with the HMG, no help from anyone else.
The million dollar question is why though, this is basically sacrificing a primary slot to gain your secondary slot for basically no good reason.
Emancipator is so broken for closing bug holes. Its basically all i use anymore.
Closing holes at 250m while the bugs freak out is peak gameplay
Try using a laser drone and the Eruptor. You stay out of reach and kill the big enemies with the Eruptor while the laser drone thins the crowd, and draw your pistol if anything gets by or you just feel like using it. I use the Senator, but I think the Verdict's not all that different for this. And you have a convenient weapon for bugholes, as well as an empty slot for QC or EATs.
I think if they made it possible to close bug nests with regular sustained fire it would improve a lot of things. The Grenade pistol is not bad because it is good at closing them - it is just that other weapons are lacking in basic functionality needed for bug missions.
Something like that, or just make holes more vulnerable to splash explosive damage, so you can close them in groups reliably with airstrikes and grenades. Overall, holes need more ways to close them and require less ammo to do so.
I think if they made it possible to close bug nests with regular sustained fire it would improve a lot of things. The Grenade pistol is not bad because it is good at closing them - it is just that other weapons are lacking in basic functionality needed for bug missions.
I think if they made it possible to close bug nests with regular sustained fire it would improve a lot of things. The Grenade pistol is not bad because it is good at closing them - it is just that other weapons are lacking in basic functionality needed for bug missions.
Kid named airstrike?
I usually use the redeemer. Sometimes the senator. Grenade pistol is good utility, but I only use it when neither my primary nor my secondary can kill bug holes. Both the auto cannon and eruptor are easier to kill holes with (just run around the top of the pit shooting into the holes on the other side. Grenade pistol can do this but the shot is harder due to reload and arc.) I wind up switching pistols constantly, which I think means good balance.
Same here which sucks because I want to run the revolver but before I unlocked this I’d use my secondary basically never. After unlocking it I have used my secondary on every single mission without fail. Blow up fabricators/bug holes? Boop. AOE for mobs? Boop. Having to play bull fighter with a charger and need something that’ll damage it’s butt? Boop. Just can’t seem to headshot that devastator for some reason and it’s becoming an issue? Boop. Just feel like hearing “boop”? Boop.
The verdict just feels so good tho I'd rather just bring impact nades than lose it Edit especially on free autocannon day
Ol 'The bug hole closer. Free's up the grenade slot for stuns or incendiaries. Can't think of any reason not to use it.
Because the P-19 redeemer exists.
I usually still use the Eruptor, even though it's still not as good as it used to be. When I use that, my secondary is always the Senator. But for any other primary, I always choose the grenade pistol to go with.
The only sidearm you can damage yourself with, which means you can use it for stiming while full health.
I'll run it on the bug front so I have more nades for popping Spewers along with my blitzer stunning them. Then my flamethrower because nothing is more thematic than burning everything in sight. Also no backpack. Get in the exosuit shinji
Burning everything on sight you say? Nice to meet another pyro diver
Average napalm enjoyer
I eat napalm for breakfast
I just wish it was better at taking out bot factories. Maybe I just suck at it.
Since last patch I switched it with crossbow and second slot shotgun for bugs.
The new sawed off shotgun is actually a competitor to this IMO. If my primary or support weapon can blow up holes I'll bring the sawed off.
I've been liking the crossbow as an alternative. Senator lets me kill stuff that gets too close without killing myself too
Finally unlucky DD warbond and now I can join the cool kids club
This and the Blitzer + Fire Grenade is my fav bug loadout.
Bug hole? Pop. Bug swarm? Pop. Devastator or Scout walker? Pop. Treasure cache behind the metal door? Pop. Not fabricator? Pop. It's just so versatile and so good.
Thanks you jerk now they will nerf it
This on bugs with a slugger for a primary. Eruptor and bushwhacker for the bot front through
I know the Grenade pistol is really good, but I am just too stubborn to stop using the Senator.
I cannot for the life of my blow up fabs with that thing. I want to love it....
Incorrect. Only big iron.
Thanks for getting this nerfed, OP.
Right it was the last good thing from that set! We need to protect it at all cost!
Just have the damm purple bug it has...
Verdict 4 life
I just wish it was better at taking out bot factories. Maybe I just suck at it.
I just wish it was better at taking out bot factories. Maybe I just suck at it.
I just wish it was better at taking out bot factories. Maybe I just suck at it.
Yeah but it's reload is annoying for me because you have to let the animation complete or it doesn't reload at all I also wish you could change the ammo like Thermite Grenade's, acid grenades
Bug hole buster right there. Makes clearing big bug nests a lot more manageable if you’re packing the war crime loadout.
What I’ve pearned from this post is that so many more people use the verdict than I thought, one of the few weapons I haven’t unlocked After I get those throwing knives I know what I’m going for next
It's my only secondary as well. It's great not only for crowd control, bug holes, and bot factories but also taking out certain annoying enemies in two shots or less like bile and nursing spewers and rocket and heavy devastators. I just wish we got more ammo from ammo boxes. Just one per box is a bit annoying.
The new shotgun has amazing stagger
This is me. But with Senator.
Always take for bug holes. On Bots I'm typically using stratagems to take out fabricators (or the Spear in a pinch once they fix the crash issues). I use the Punisher Plasma so really close encounters need something else. I was taking Big Iron but lately the pistol shotgun has been clutch. Also I use stun grenades so that's not an option for fabricators for me.
yeah after this was added i run only stun+grenade pistol now. i love stun grenades but i need to close bug holes.
I have never used it yet, I also never used stun grenades, so I am fine throwing my impacts are holes and fabricators
Imagine not running the big iron
It bounced off a bile spewer and hit my friend. Not like this.
I live too long and its ammo hungry natures starts to become a serious issue. I’ll sometimes take it on bots as an “in case of no eagle strikes” sort of thing for fabricators.
True. I've only recently semi retired it because the Eruptor was buffed and I needed a semi auto secondary.
Grenade pistol + stun grenades = dead enemies
Used to be my bug hole cleaner. Now I run Flamer, E-Bow, and Bushwacker because the Bushwacker is just so fun.
Grenade pistol users when they see a fabricator attached to the stratagem jammer 
A solid choice! My equivalent is the Senator 😍. Been loving it since launch but then the speed loader and spinning sealed the deal even more. Now I just need to be able to fan the hammer to unload the cylinder in a stalkers face and I’ll be the happiest camper ever.
Great at bug holes. Struggles a bit at fabs.
True, you have to angle it right to take put fabricators, if you climb on something to get s little more elevation its easier
I have been using it since the eruptor nerf. really good.
same! its so handy
I like stun grenades too much so the grenade pistol is basically always on and its a great pocket answer to mediums especially scout striders
We should be able to call in hellbombs for nests
I like the Desert Eagly. Its the right amount of Power, Quick to Use and ease to reload. But i do switch to the Grenade-Baby for certain loadouts.
The shotgun seems legit
I wish I could find a use for it in my playstyle. I use the Punisher on bugs, so I need a Redeemer or Verdict for ranged kills. And there's no point against Bots because Bots never have more than 4 Factories in one area, so my Incendiaries almost always suffice.
Personally my secondary is the revolver always has been always will be
Yup I use it whenever I'm not using my Eruptor
I just hate shooting a bile spewer and it goes right through them 😅.
Suddenly... I have an intense desire for Deagle knockoff.
Funnily enough, I keep rotating. If I need to pop holes, it's this. But if I am carrying an eruptor or autocannon, it's the senator for bots or redeemer for bugs
The grenade pistol can't hit the broad side of a barn. The P-4 Senator is where it's at.
This, the sawed off and the revolver are all pretty fun but this is just the easiest solution
I just can't not have my Big Iron Senator tho.
I hate how it has 8 ammo and only gets 2 refills per ammo pickup.
My go-to loadouts include either an autocannon or an Eruptor, so this thing is largely unnecessary. However, whenever I choose to try out a non-explosive primary and support weapon in the same loadout, I immediately swap out my secondary for this bad boy. Only problem is ammo, doesn't resupply very efficiently.
Such a useful gun, saved me so many times
Bushwhacker supremacy
Just let me attach it to the underside picatiny rail on my BR-14 and I'll be REAL happy
Same
And it one shots nursing spewers because it's explosive, so it pairs well with non-explosive guns too!
Same for me with the P-113 Verdict
I've been bringing it and... forgetting to use it. I end up chucking Eagle Airstrikes at bug nests, AC-ing my way through Automatons. I've been using the Blitzer and Sickle a lot and you kinda just forget you got a secondary sometimes with those infinite ammo primaries. I still like bringing Impact Grenades as well. It's not bad mind you, but it's far from being essential. If you wanna run Stun Grenades and don't like the Eruptor/XBow, then it's a great way to fill that hole.
I never use it and now i'm a Launcher grenade main so is useless