I want to get used to no energy shield

[Vicpool]

Hi there. I'm pretty "tired" of using the energy shield backpack, but whenever I try to put it down and try to play with any other stratagem I feel a bit lost/self-handicapped. I personally enjoy using the jump backpack as an alternative, but I don't really know if it's that "viable" (I think they could "buff" its flying capabilities, but whatever, it's not the point here).

When I play without energy shield against terminids I feel like I die much more, but I manage to complete missions and extract without sweating (I tend to play at difficulty 7, but sometimes go 8 and 9 too); but going without shield against automatons feels annoying as hell to me. Yeah, it may be doable, but I hardly manage to find those games "enjoyable". Overall, I prefer terminids to automatons, as the majority of players, but I can find games against automatons OK as far as I don't get randomly deleted by a rocket cause "no shield to save your ass"... And I try to use cover, pick some "meta" weapons against automatons, play carefully, know when to fall back; but whenever the big action begins, going without shield feels like pure chaos, there's a lot of lethal accident potential without that bubble. And I'm fine with a bit of that, after all it's Helldivers; but sometimes you streak death after death because of random rockets/lasers/whatever they throw at you and jeez...

That said, I'm here to ask for some help or tips to get used to play without shield. Not only "gameplay" tips, maybe I need to change my mindset and accept that I'm going to die a lot more but you gotta deal with it and can still finish your stuff. I actually DON'T LIKE the shield, I'd prefer that it didn't exist, but the problem is I see not going shield as choosing to handicap yourself (which may be fine, I don't know... all I know is that it brings down frustration levels by a lot, makes the game more chill/ASMR, which I enjoy, but I'd prefer to be able to use the jump pack or whatever funnier than a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ energy bubble).

Hope I managed to explain my point, and apologies cause English ain't my mothers tongue. Any tips/suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks a lot and have a nice day!

Edit: Thanks a lot for all the positive and helpful answers <3

[Wally]

you'll get an alternative if they ever add the medigun and the displacement field

[gachi is manly]

Well, against automatons, fortified armor is a must. I got the fortified medium set off the super store and it's really helped survive against rockets. I run the autocannon quite a bit against the bots, so I had to make do without the shield.

[Eagle_of_Fire]

I'm by no mean a bug expect, but I've never used the shield against Terminids to begin with. I usually take the laser rover with me. It clear all the little chaff around me so I can concentrate on the real targets.

Against bots I'd need to change my whole normal loadout not to include the shield. It just save you against a random direct rocket hit and keep my aim stable for several seconds when I need to make sure to land that important shot.

[New To This]

It's not hard.
Light armor 100% required, because you need to run more than with a shield.
Bring a rover, or any other backpack strat, or just wait for your allies to spawn a second shield/rover and take it.

Backpack slot is great, but limits you once filled to a single strat type.

[Jozsefirst]

Well there are two schools of thought in warfare, the "Eastern doctrine" says put as much protection between yourself and the enemy as possible and hope it will be enough.
The "Western" school of thought says the best defense is a good offense. In other words if you're hoping whatever is hitting you wont have catastrophic consequences you've already made a tactical error by not putting all of your effort into making sure you wont get hit at all.

In Helldivers this directly translates into putting as much firepower onto the field in the form of strategems as possible, hence overwhelming the enemy and not giving them a chance to hit you cuz they will be preoccupied dying.

If you want to stop using the shield then you should maybe consider using more offensive tools. You now have a free strategem slot afterall. Turrets and Eagle strikes o plenty, maybe grab the very recently buffed Guard Dog for a more agressive take on a piece of protective gear, so on.

If you want to stick with playing defense and only want to shake up your choice of equipment then I hear smokes can be a game changing against Automatons.

Whatever you do I want you to remember that experimenting with unorthodox tactics and building up your own kit from the ground up is probably the most interesting and fun thing to do in this game so dont be afraid to explore new things and combinations, maybe you think some item is garbage only to realize after giving it a second chance that it's an extremely fun item to use.

Keyword is fun. Functionality can be boring after a while.

[Irier]

Edit: this is for bug advice

The laser watchdog is awesome on bugs, not just for killing it lets you know if an enemy is behind you, and will help kill hunters and smaller enemies that allows you to use different weapons because you get some breathing room.

If you have multiple chargers on you or need to focus on a different target, the second one gets close the laser dogs laser goes off and you can immediately dogde prone and the charger will run right past you so you can keep fighting while you have a warning system.

The other stratagem that's awesome is cluster bomb. It's short delay and huge area to clear everything in front of you or behind you giving you more room.

You can pare those two up with any other weapon combo or strats you want and horde will feel less daunting, see a patrol cluster bomb then run in and your bot will kill anyone that survived because it knows what ones are actually dead, and you can kill the same one the bots targeting to help you find all targets faster then you'll stop having breaches spawn on you.

Cluster bombs also work well on shriekers, not the nest though.

I like the new quasar to pair with it, to kill chargers and titans, then personally a longer range support to help teammates out of a bind or dillegnce to go full horde clear mode. But basically you can use whatever is fun if you have watchdog support and you will get better at avoiding it's friendly fire.

[Buntkreuz]

The problem is, that many players try to seek universal answers to both factions and then make the mistake of bringing the same equip over to a different faction that proposes different problems.

The energy shield is worse than other backpacks against Bugs, but overly useful against Bots.
The Drones are overly pointless against Bots, but incredibly OP against Bugs.
500kg or Cluster are absolutely dumb against Bots but incredible against Bugs.
Breaker is incredible against Bugs, but just bad compared to a ton of other options against Bots.

Dont bring the same stuff that works for you into an environment where it does not.
And the same attitude is what brings people on the forums complaining about nerfs and buffs and changes.
They play 99% Bug missions and then dont notice how changes were necessary on the other side of the universe and that certain changes shouldnt affect these players anyway, because the tools are mandatory for Bot missions but not Bugs.

Hence why so few actually complain about the SPEAR needing a lock on fix.
Its a typical Bot weapon.
And people dont play Bot missions because they are harder, as they actually shoot back.

Or why people complained about the Railgun nerf, because the problem wasnt the weapons strength (as it worked flawlessly against Bots still), but the armor differences between factions.
Somehow the Railgun was not great against Bugs anymore, but its still a major weapon against Bots as it does what its supposed to do there, penetrate armor and its the only weapon able to penetrate a Devastator Shield.
Maybe....the Railgun wasnt meant primarily as a Bug weapon or it was too good as a Bug weapon.

But before making claims about balance, consider that both factions play entirely different and a nerf must not even have a negative effect on the other side of the war.
Bots suffer either from far range (Material Rifle can kill anything and is the underdog of the support weapons against Bots) which means snipers and explosives or from close combat (Knight, Arc).
Without a shield, not really a good idea, except you can spam (Autocannon).

[Nihil]

Never thought i will ever be that guy, but sounds like a skill issue.
I only equip energy shields when someone else is dropping me one in the game. But never felt the need to use one. :D

[CopperTear]

Originally posted by Buntkreuz:

Hence why so few actually complain about the SPEAR needing a lock on fix.
Its a typical Bot weapon.
And people dont play Bot missions because they are harder, as they actually shoot back.

The spear was working much better today after the update. Much more reliable locking on. It's still not perfect, but it was much much less finicky.

[GONDAL]

Originally posted by Buntkreuz:

The problem is, that many players try to seek universal answers to both factions and then make the mistake of bringing the same equip over to a different faction that proposes different problems.

The energy shield is worse than other backpacks against Bugs, but overly useful against Bots.
The Drones are overly pointless against Bots, but incredibly OP against Bugs.
500kg or Cluster are absolutely dumb against Bots but incredible against Bugs.
Breaker is incredible against Bugs, but just bad compared to a ton of other options against Bots.

Dont bring the same stuff that works for you into an environment where it does not.
And the same attitude is what brings people on the forums complaining about nerfs and buffs and changes.
They play 99% Bug missions and then dont notice how changes were necessary on the other side of the universe and that certain changes shouldnt affect these players anyway, because the tools are mandatory for Bot missions but not Bugs.

Hence why so few actually complain about the SPEAR needing a lock on fix.
Its a typical Bot weapon.
And people dont play Bot missions because they are harder, as they actually shoot back.

Or why people complained about the Railgun nerf, because the problem wasnt the weapons strength (as it worked flawlessly against Bots still), but the armor differences between factions.
Somehow the Railgun was not great against Bugs anymore, but its still a major weapon against Bots as it does what its supposed to do there, penetrate armor and its the only weapon able to penetrate a Devastator Shield.
Maybe....the Railgun wasnt meant primarily as a Bug weapon or it was too good as a Bug weapon.

But before making claims about balance, consider that both factions play entirely different and a nerf must not even have a negative effect on the other side of the war.
Bots suffer either from far range (Material Rifle can kill anything and is the underdog of the support weapons against Bots) which means snipers and explosives or from close combat (Knight, Arc).
Without a shield, not really a good idea, except you can spam (Autocannon).

Cluster bombs are actually good against bots as they can quickly wipe out the scouts of a large patrol to prevent a bot drop

[RE:Deemer]

Try playing a mission stealthily for a bit. You'll soon get used to not having an energy shield.

(I prefer jetpack.)

[f.]

If you're trying to move away from the shield I'd recommend you take the Rover (laser firing one) as it will help against smaller enemies while they're trying to zerg you. It's also a good idea to have a close range primary like the breaker so you can quickly clear out a horde of bugs in close range if needed.

After that just practice how you take on enemies, learning to run past the Chargers should mean that you take little/no damage from them most of the time and the same with dodging Bile Titan spit/stomps.

Once you're better at dodging damage then you can start moving to different loadouts and weapons which use a backpack slot. I'd also highly recommend the light armour for the extra stam and recovery speed, it's much better to not get hit at all than to have some reduced damage from medium/heavy armour, not to mention just being able to move around the map quicker being amazing and allows you to outrun some packs which will eventually despawn.

[sh3riff]

Never used it, but i am jetpack guy :)

[Jozsefirst]

Originally posted by Buntkreuz:

And people dont play Bot missions because they are harder, as they actually shoot back.

While people like that do exist, it's rather ignorant of bot lovers how they insist on latching onto this theory that anyone who has a bone to pick the Automatons must be suffering from a lack of skill or willingness to play the "actually difficult game".

Maybe if they were less busy burrying their heads in the sand they would allow themselves to recognize that a hefty number of Terminid players have legitimate concerns with the very obvious design flaws that makes bots consequently less interesting, less fun, and often flat out boring to fight compared to their insect counterparts.

[Buntkreuz]

Originally posted by Azure:

Originally posted by Buntkreuz:

The problem is, that many players try to seek universal answers to both factions and then make the mistake of bringing the same equip over to a different faction that proposes different problems.

The energy shield is worse than other backpacks against Bugs, but overly useful against Bots.
The Drones are overly pointless against Bots, but incredibly OP against Bugs.
500kg or Cluster are absolutely dumb against Bots but incredible against Bugs.
Breaker is incredible against Bugs, but just bad compared to a ton of other options against Bots.

Dont bring the same stuff that works for you into an environment where it does not.
And the same attitude is what brings people on the forums complaining about nerfs and buffs and changes.
They play 99% Bug missions and then dont notice how changes were necessary on the other side of the universe and that certain changes shouldnt affect these players anyway, because the tools are mandatory for Bot missions but not Bugs.

Hence why so few actually complain about the SPEAR needing a lock on fix.
Its a typical Bot weapon.
And people dont play Bot missions because they are harder, as they actually shoot back.

Or why people complained about the Railgun nerf, because the problem wasnt the weapons strength (as it worked flawlessly against Bots still), but the armor differences between factions.
Somehow the Railgun was not great against Bugs anymore, but its still a major weapon against Bots as it does what its supposed to do there, penetrate armor and its the only weapon able to penetrate a Devastator Shield.
Maybe....the Railgun wasnt meant primarily as a Bug weapon or it was too good as a Bug weapon.

But before making claims about balance, consider that both factions play entirely different and a nerf must not even have a negative effect on the other side of the war.
Bots suffer either from far range (Material Rifle can kill anything and is the underdog of the support weapons against Bots) which means snipers and explosives or from close combat (Knight, Arc).
Without a shield, not really a good idea, except you can spam (Autocannon).

Cluster bombs are actually good against bots as they can quickly wipe out the scouts of a large patrol to prevent a bot drop

Which you generally dont need and it wastes a Stratagem slot for something actually useful.
Scouts can be headshot or you run around them, for ranged solutions you have several available.
I agree they are a problem, but they also get spawned so frequently, that a Cluster Bomb is a waste.
You dont bring a stratagem to solve a problem that occurs for 10% of the mission, ignoring the other 90%.
I rather have stuff that deals with the actual problems, rather than wasting my material for nuissance is what im saying.