Is the medium armour penetration worth it?

[Honey Badger]

I've got the liberator that has the medium penetration, but all the stats seem to be worse, and its only on burst / semi, I know I can penetrate some enemies (e.g devastators) but it seems to be overall a downgrade to its light armour penetration counterpart?

What I'm really more concerned about is stuff like chargers and the hulks, because those things give us the most trouble (Especially since you usually need to hit specific parts of them that are REALLY hard to reach, especially if there's multiple of them (Chargers) or if they have insane range (Scorcher Hulk))

Just trying to figure out what gun is best to take (I haven't got them all but still), I guess it might depend on the difficulty (Currently around Challenging - Hard because thats just where I'm at) but still it seems like the game loves to revolve around using an autocannon/recoilless rifle/railgun

[Zeromentor]

In short- No.

Long explanation, the Penetrator Liberator does less damage, has less ammunition per magazine and the extra pen only really works against a small collection of enemies, which are easily beaten by a normal Liberator, and it doesn't even pen larger enemies, like Chargers, or any of the Automaton vehicles or larger bots.

The Burst fire control is niche, and for most people it also limits the fire rate of the weapon as well.

In turn, none of the total trade-offs are worth the medium penetration.

[ImHelping]

In theory, it should be. In practice it is often lackluster on anything but support weapons.

For example, the AP assault rifle loses the ability to guarantee a body shot burst fire kill to small robot soldiers (which non AP weapons like the defender shred) in exchange for no longer deflecting off a sniper tower vent... which isn't even smoking after four magazines of ammo, so you resort to a support weapon or strat call in anyways to finish the job before reinforcements show up.

Also, contrary to lying scum. The counter sniper, does not, in fact, have "Secret medium penetration"

[Khloros]

Medium armor pen is ok, but the liberator sucks.
Your best holding off until you can get the penetrator shotgun, amazing medium armor pen. It says light but thats a lie its medium.

The other is the plas 1.

But the penetrator is just a bad weapon.

[Lucky Cat]

In my opinion, its not worth it in most cases. Keep in mind the weaknesses of your enemies like the Automatons, their weaknesses is pretty much a given, their exposed abdomen, heads, (Or the bots themselves on the Scout Striders). Anything that requires Support Weapons for their backs, vents, etc is a naturally given choice to run Support Weapons to begin with and not your Primary Weapons. Same deal with the bugs, except the focus is Explosive Damage, even then, its not worth bringing one as a Primary with what's currently available.

If you want any guarantees, bring Railguns, Grenade Launchers, Autocannons, anything rocket/missile launchers (EATs, Recoiless Rifle, Spear). And use Strategems on top of it to ensure you're covering any additional weaknesses of said Support Weapons.

However, if you still insist on using your favored Primary for such reasons, just keep in mind what your Strategems must be for full effectiveness, alongside what team you're with as well and if they're capable of handling anything Armored.

[Honey Badger]

I had a sad feeling that was the case, I never really fought the bugs (They are outright terrifying and a nightmare to fight against so I avoided them), so when I actually went to do it for the liberation stuff, it genuinely felt like i was doing good against them, but the burst fire REALLY kills it for me, I usually just opted to go to semi and spam the living hell out of it cause that was faster than burst fire.

It really sucks it doesn't even make any damage to the chargers or vehicles though, i couldn't tell half the time if i was actually penetrating the back of them or just hitting its weak spot like normal, guess it was the latter, which really makes me question whats the point of them now if they're barely any better than their other counterparts (and thats being light given you get more recoil, less magazine size, and less damage overall) in fighting specific enemies.

I guess they're leaving the heavy armour penentration for things like the autocannon/railgun and recoilless rifle / spear which I suppose makes some sense cause you don't want to overshadow the support weapons but it still sucks that you're forced to use them essentially when dealing with some enemies that come in abundance (Chargers / Hulks) on higher difficulties, which only adds more problems cause then you've got even more limited ammo for them and in some cases you have to entirely stop to reload or hope someone can load for you (which I imagine on difficulties like 7 and above basically become a nightmare and on helldiver becomes impossible, thats an assumption, i'm just playing on challenging, hard and extreme difficulty)

[Lucky Cat]

Originally posted by Honey Badger:

I had a sad feeling that was the case.

Its also noted that there's a weapon balance patch being looked into. So these could VERY much change the field of how we play. How much it'll change? We'll see once that patch goes live and we have no idea when either because right now, its always the Breaker, Defender, Railgun/Autocannon along with anything high damaging Strategems for the toughest of enemies and not everyone wants to play that way or be shoehorned into it and I wholeheartedly agree. I just want to use my Las weaponry like how it behaves in Helldivers 1, which in this game, does not in the slightest.

[LanceEteryu]

Originally posted by Honey Badger:

I've got the liberator that has the medium penetration, but all the stats seem to be worse, and its only on burst / semi, I know I can penetrate some enemies (e.g devastators) but it seems to be overall a downgrade to its light armour penetration counterpart?

What I'm really more concerned about is stuff like chargers and the hulks, because those things give us the most trouble (Especially since you usually need to hit specific parts of them that are REALLY hard to reach, especially if there's multiple of them (Chargers) or if they have insane range (Scorcher Hulk))

Just trying to figure out what gun is best to take (I haven't got them all but still), I guess it might depend on the difficulty (Currently around Challenging - Hard because thats just where I'm at) but still it seems like the game loves to revolve around using an autocannon/recoilless rifle/railgun

You're better off looking towards the Slugger for medium penetration. it's mislabeled, it can penetrate medium.

[ImHelping]

I am thankful I like the pay2win knight SMG because the odds they will nerf the super citizen only primary are about equal to them making the sway and recoil of bothering to zoom in an assault rifle scope not garbage,

[Honey Badger]

Originally posted by Lucky Cat:

Originally posted by Honey Badger:

I had a sad feeling that was the case.

Its also noted that there's a weapon balance patch being looked into. So these could VERY much change the field of how we play. How much it'll change? We'll see once that patch goes live and we have no idea when either because right now, its always the Breaker, Defender, Railgun/Autocannon along with anything high damaging Strategems for the toughest of enemies and not everyone wants to play that way or be shoehorned into it and I wholeheartedly agree. I just want to use my Las weaponry like how it behaves in Helldivers 1, which in this game, does not in the slightest.

Well I'm feeling hopeful/optimistic in that regard, I've never touched HD1 (Heck, never heard of the series until the second one came out) but its been so much fun, it just sucks this specific part of the game seems to fall short somewhat. Its still fun!

And I agree that I don't want to be funnelled into using the railgun/autocannon all the time, same with things like the guard dog backpacks, they're great but they so feel essential (Especially the rover/laser one since that just never runs out of ammo it seems) that you basically need to take them, I can only imagine it gets worse at higher levels when you're playing with others (Especially in the teamkilling regard)

[LunaticMethod]

Originally posted by Shendun:

Both players and the game devs know that armour values are bugged and need fixing.

Bro, they're talking about weapons, not Helldiver armor.

[whitefox3954]

I do hope they rebalance things because taking down Chargers is an absolute nightmare. I'd like to use something other than a shotgun too.

[Wulfen]

Liberator Penetrator needs to either have it's damage or ammo capacity increased to be on par with the default Liberator. Having less damage and ammo is such a significant debuff for an effect that doesn't seem all that worth it.

I enjoy this game a lot, but some of the weapons need another pass on balancing. Looking forward to the balance tweaks in the pipeline

[Wulfen]

Originally posted by whitefox3954:

I do hope they rebalance things because taking down Chargers is an absolute nightmare. I'd like to use something other than a shotgun too.

They stated that there is a weapon balance pass in the works

[Dracon]

The problem is, theres usually better weapons or easier weakpoints
For bots, like Devestators, the med armor pen can go through their armor, but you can also just shoot the heads and kill them easy fast
For the bugs, the Incendiary shotguns shred them to pieces regardless of armor
Anything heavier, the med armor pen wont work
Soooo yeah.... Its kinda niche, It works but you could be using better.

[Steak]

Not really, tho the few targets it does help with it helps a lot. But that's what your support weapon slot is for tbh