Terminid weakpoints are weird.

[HeavyTeemu]

Hi.

Anyone else get the sinking feeling of disbelief after your team dumps their entire ammo reserves to Chargers/Bile Titans backside and that thing still keeps walking? The backside that is clearly glowing with bright colour and is the obvious weakpoint of such creature.

Having played the first Helldivers and against the Automaton faction of the Helldivers 2, you are lead to believe that damaging the weakpoint with just your primary is enough to take the thing down. But then comes the Terminid Charger and for some unexplained reason their weakpoint is more resilient than the parts under their actual armor.

To me this is weird design. Not only does it confuse players but it also feeds into a problem of higher difficulties having way too many armored targets.

I think it only makes sense to reward teamwork in a same way automatons do by giving an option to distract the enemy while other player flanks them and gets them from behind by shooting the weakspot.

So TL;DR Terminid heavies should be killable by focus firing their weakpoints with primary/non-explosive damage. Same as automatons.

EDIT!
I am not asking for strategy. I am being critical of current design of terminid heavies.

[Lost]

Legs, it's always the legs..

Bugs are literally a melee faction, what's the strongest thing melee can have in any game? Armor and Mobility. You can't break armor? Take out the Mobility.

On any higher difficulty you are not aiming to kill but to disable, they move faster than you but at the end they're still organic. Remove a leg or two and they'll bleed out and can never catch you.

Same with cyborgs, you take out the arms that they shoot with, now they can't call reinforcements and will essentially just try to stare you down angrily.

[BEEP!]

Yea this game goes against what games have been basically teaching you for your whole gaming career lol

[Steak]

the sac on both the charger and bile titan are not actually their weak points. The charger's weak point is on their legs once you strip the armor via an anti armor weapon and the titan's weak point is where the green dot is when it's doing it's acid attack, which is still active when it's not doing the attack but it would be just incorrect to say that it's weakpoint is it's head.(you still need anti armor weapons)
Destroying the bile titans sac will prevent it from doing it's acid attack FYI tho

[Polar Test 53]

yeah the sac parts just kinda show where you can damage without AT weapons.
but the head or more often times the legs is where you want to hit for weakspot damage or quick kills.

like the revolver wont usually kill much without all 6 rounds but it can usually shoot out the legs of most smaller bugs in 1-2 shots... killing them instantly most times oddly enough.
i guess since it penetrates it usually cuts of 2 legs leading to the instant death.

[HeavyTeemu]

Originally posted by Lost:

Legs, it's always the legs..

Bugs are literally a melee faction, what's the strongest thing melee can have in any game? Armor and Mobility. You can't break armor? Take out the Mobility.

On any higher difficulty you are not aiming to kill but to disable, they move faster than you but at the end they're still organic. Remove a leg or two and they'll bleed out and can never catch you.

Same with cyborgs, you take out the arms that they shoot with, now they can't call reinforcements and will essentially just try to stare you down angrily.

I am aware of this. I am saying heavy terminid weakpoint design is poor and weird.
They nailed it in Helldivers 1 and I think they should revert to that.

[HeavyTeemu]

Originally posted by Robert_Robusto:

the sac on both the charger and bile titan are not actually their weak points. The charger's weak point is on their legs once you strip the armor via an anti armor weapon and the titan's weak point is where the green dot is when it's doing it's acid attack, which is still active when it's not doing the attack but it would be just incorrect to say that it's weakpoint is it's head.(you still need anti armor weapons)
Destroying the bile titans sac will prevent it from doing it's acid attack FYI tho

I am aware of this and it is exactly what I am criticising.
Their backside should be the real weakpoint and take full dmg to these parts from primary weapons.

[Phishfood]

you're right it is weird the way it's designed, for the player the glowing parts is where they normally should be shooting in nearly all games. I think with the way the game has been designed is that the bugs can go on living even with missing bodyparts but there are certain parts that are crucial and will effectively kill them when destroyed.

[Ase Of Life]

Originally posted by Lost:

Legs, it's always the legs..

Bugs are literally a melee faction, what's the strongest thing melee can have in any game? Armor and Mobility. You can't break armor? Take out the Mobility.

On any higher difficulty you are not aiming to kill but to disable, they move faster than you but at the end they're still organic. Remove a leg or two and they'll bleed out and can never catch you.

Same with cyborgs, you take out the arms that they shoot with, now they can't call reinforcements and will essentially just try to stare you down angrily.

sounds nice and logical, but it doesn't work with Chargers - there legs as armored as everything else aside there rear. The whole thing with all of this "Charger topics" is if you have AT and shoot in leg - it dies in 5 sec. If not - waste like 5-6 mags in his ass to finally kill one of them but every wave bring like 2-5 of them.

As funy as it is but Bots much better made at this point. Don't confuse it with their "1 shot roket from somewhere", there are some questions about their 1 shot damage abilities, but armor and weak points design is really good.

I told it in another topic but still... Just compare Hulk and Charger in armor designe.
Hulk have the whole big spine weakspot for any weapon and if flanking him is problematic, he still have haed that can be cracked with mid-penetration weapons. Yes, this head is tiny and wiggling constanty and everything BUT it is there. And with some aim or cooperation you can deal with him without AT at all. Yea, it will be harder, require more skill but you can do it. This is a good designe as for me.
Charger armor designe on other side just straight stupid - everything in heavy armor. Head, mouth, front legs, back legs, joints, body, sides, back - litterally everything. And the only "weakspot" (which is not weak at all) it is not even their ass, but under-ass area. You don't even rewarded if you managed to make him crush into something solid - he will just sit on his ass and cover his only "weakspot" complitly. He desn't even have some mid-penetration spots at all, even on joints.

As result - you are absolutly stuck with AT weapon in Terminid missions (wich is you will be more expecting vs robots with all this tanks and everything). Hell, even actual Bot's tanks can be killed without AT weapns. Once more - it is hard, it require some skilles and/or cooperation, but absolutly managable. Now let's look at Bug's Titans - it is you have some AT or stratagem ready... or you just running circles waiting cooldown of your rail orbital.
And THIS is a bad armor and weakpoints design. Just my opinion.

[Sotanaht]

You can kill a Charger by unloading approximately one full Breaker mag into it's butt. However, you need to be up close and accurate, the charger will almost definitely be trying to turn around by the time you've hit 3 or 4 shots so it will probably take multiple passes to hit that many times.

The problem is that every part of the bug has a separate health pool, and you need to break a part fully to kill the bug. If you put 14 rounds into the butt, the head and legs will all still be at full HP if you or a teammate try to kill it that way instead.

By the way, Eagle Rockets are very effective against bile titans. Not so much against chargers unfortunately. They do about the same damage to a Titan that a railcannon would.

[Ethanol]

I just cut off their legs, especially against Stalkers and Brood Commanders, it's quite ironic that heads are not the main weakpoint as they can still chase you with their heads gone, so always go for the legs.

[HeavyTeemu]

Originally posted by Ase Of Life:

Originally posted by Lost:

Legs, it's always the legs..

Bugs are literally a melee faction, what's the strongest thing melee can have in any game? Armor and Mobility. You can't break armor? Take out the Mobility.

On any higher difficulty you are not aiming to kill but to disable, they move faster than you but at the end they're still organic. Remove a leg or two and they'll bleed out and can never catch you.

Same with cyborgs, you take out the arms that they shoot with, now they can't call reinforcements and will essentially just try to stare you down angrily.

sounds nice and logical, but it doesn't work with Chargers - there legs as armored as everything else aside there rear. The whole thing with all of this "Charger topics" is if you have AT and shoot in leg - it dies in 5 sec. If not - waste like 5-6 mags in his ass to finally kill one of them but every wave bring like 2-5 of them.

As funy as it is but Bots much better made at this point. Don't confuse it with their "1 shot roket from somewhere", there are some questions about their 1 shot damage abilities, but armor and weak points design is really good.

I told it in another topic but still... Just compare Hulk and Charger in armor designe.
Hulk have the whole big spine weakspot for any weapon and if flanking him is problematic, he still have haed that can be cracked with mid-penetration weapons. Yes, this head is tiny and wiggling constanty and everything BUT it is there. And with some aim or cooperation you can deal with him without AT at all. Yea, it will be harder, require more skill but you can do it. This is a good designe as for me.
Charger armor designe on other side just straight stupid - everything in heavy armor. Head, mouth, front legs, back legs, joints, body, sides, back - litterally everything. And the only "weakspot" (which is not weak at all) it is not even their ass, but under-ass area. You don't even rewarded if you managed to make him crush into something solid - he will just sit on his ass and cover his only "weakspot" complitly. He desn't even have some mid-penetration spots at all, even on joints. As result - you are absolutly stuck with AT weapon in Terminid missions (wich is you will be more expecting vs robots with all this tanks and everything). Hell, even actual Bot's tanks can be killed without AT weapns. Once more - it is hard, it require some skilles and/or cooperation, but absolutly managable. Now let's look at Bug's Titans - it is you have some AT or stratagem ready... or you just running circles waiting cooldown of your rail orbital.
And THIS is a bad armor and weakpoints design. Just my opinion.

Great comment.

They nailed it in Helldivers 1 where primaries took down chargers if fired at their weakpoint. They were still formidable but much more managable.

In my honest opinion they should revert back to that version and add rarer fully armored version of charger.

[Spudbar]

Yeah it's a big reason I don't like fighting bugs compared to bots. Bots have reliable weakpoints and aside from a couple units, they don't require AP/explosive weapons and reward you either for being precise or having a teammate flank them. If you're careful you can do a lot with just a few bullets out of a primary. Plus I think their reinforcement mechanic is easier to spot and counter. Think it's dumb that a decapitated bug can scream for 0.5 seconds and summon a wave with a bile titan. More weapons, strategies and playstyles feel viable as a result.

Bugs I feel like limit your options way more because of chargers and titans. First encounter with a charger, I thought it was insane how many bullets it took the only visible "weak spot", plus having to wait for bleedout. Nothing else you can do other than land explosives directly below it which is way harder to figure out than using AP. Busting their legs is the only thing that's gonna kill them in decent time so that's at least 2 people instant locked to railgun. Arc thrower is great in general but isn't gonna deal with the constant swarm of titans you have on higher difficulties. Not many "good" options for those and with how much HP the charger has, I haven't even tried gunning down the bile titan because it seems like a waste of time that I don't have while everything else swarms us.

Bugs in general can feel a little spongy but the charger really takes the cake in that regard. Bots give you options if you don't have the right tools available, everything after chargers basically demand you use a meta counter or you can't fight them.

[ImHelping]

If I wanted scumbag tabletop GM logic for "It IS a weakspot! You just want to play a power fantasy and don't appreciate deep encounter design!" with bait and switch design. I could stick to tabletop games.

No wonder people brag about "Stealth meta", because while stealth itself IS very useful, in a lot of cases it is code for "Aw ♥♥♥♥ we shot the third bile titan spawncamping the extraction with seven different things and it is merely maimed, not dead. Welp run away for cooldowns and pretend that is pro strats." *Spear player betrayed once more with their final missile*

[Iron Breaker]

Originally posted by Lost:

Legs, it's always the legs..

Bugs are literally a melee faction, what's the strongest thing melee can have in any game? Armor and Mobility. You can't break armor? Take out the Mobility.

On any higher difficulty you are not aiming to kill but to disable, they move faster than you but at the end they're still organic. Remove a leg or two and they'll bleed out and can never catch you.

Same with cyborgs, you take out the arms that they shoot with, now they can't call reinforcements and will essentially just try to stare you down angrily.

even when you can break armor go for the legs, 1 hit for recoiless breaks charger legs wich then like 2 shotgun shots to said leg their dead and same system more shots for titans

[Rilgar55]

Yeah , most of them are weak to legshots for some reason, its specially funny how breaking the charger's leg armor allows you to kill them with one auto pistol mag, while shooting them in the shoft spot in their back takes years even with antitank weapons.