Airburst Rocket Launcher is useful for what?

[Gingerbread Man]

"Airburst Rocket Launcher will no longer detonate when shot near stratagems (HMG turret, Sentries, Resupplies) and other Helldivers"

Sounds like they intended it from the getgo to be a team killing weapon. Triggering on even a resupply?!

Everytime I tried to use this gun it resulted in someone dying, or when I shot it above targets 50m away it exploded with a piece of shrapnel that perfectly went back into my face. Do these changes make it useful now, and has anyone actually found a good use for it yet?

[coolman552]

its good for clearing trash, can erease a full 12 man automaton grunt patrol with a single rocket

[Kopejka]

The "Airburst Rocket Launcher will no longer detonate when shot near stratagems (HMG turret, Sentries, Resupplies) and other Helldivers" part really seemed like an oversight.

But to answer your question I only found it to be good when shooting at a spread out light armored patrol of automatons like 50+ meters away from you.

Other than that it's a bit of a gamble

[Wutever]

No, the changes make it worse. It no longer detonates at a reasonable height above bot and bug bases because of the proximity change. You literally need to shoot it inside the bug craters now. Same for hatcheries, I assume.

It can still trigger off of nearby enemies.

What the weapon really needed is a minimum arming distance that can be set in the hold-R menu. There still is no such thing so it's still garbage.

[Balex55]

Originally posted by Wutever:

No, the changes make it worse. It no longer detonates at a reasonable height above bot and bug bases because of the proximity change. You literally need to shoot it inside the bug craters now. Same for hatcheries, I assume.

It can still trigger off of nearby enemies.

What the weapon really needed is a minimum arming distance that can be set in the hold-R menu. There still is no such thing so it's still garbage.

+1

[[SLB]LiverQuiver]

idk i played with it the first time today, was doing lvl7 duo, my friend marked a patrol and i erased it with the airburst. to be fair only played with it on bugs didnt try on bots but im guessing its just as effective. if you only play with randos you might get mad.. but overall its fun. not all games need to be a sweatfest

[Bunuffin]

If you play difficulty 7 and up, just like quasar, the utility of the airburst goes down since the amount of armored enemies is increased...

It doesn't feel consistent, and the value it brings is low since it uses a backpack slot too.

[Shrapnel]

Killing your team

[Danoobiel]

Honestly I don't know how to use this thing correctly.

I nicknamed it the "suicide teamkill launcher" in my head.

[Gingerbread Man]

Originally posted by Shrapnel:

Killing your team

Oh shrapnel you rascal you

[Wutever]

Originally posted by SLBLiverQuiver:

idk i played with it the first time today, was doing lvl7 duo, my friend marked a patrol and i erased it with the airburst. to be fair only played with it on bugs didnt try on bots but im guessing its just as effective. if you only play with randos you might get mad.. but overall its fun. not all games need to be a sweatfest

Cool anecdotal evidence. It's probably how Arrowhead tests tbh.

Now shoot it more. It will fail to kill even half of a patrol a lot of the time. I've shot it right above a bunch of scavengers and about 70% of them lived. Yeah, it can kill a whole dropship full of bot infantry and striders, but so can an Impact grenade. Said impact grenade can also destroy or dismember Devastators. Something the Airburst completely fails at for no reason.

[Shaabhekh]

Used it when it was 'free' and found it to be quite difficult to get to grips with (ie: not killing team or yourself)

Supposedly when we got proper access to it via unlocking it, it was 'better', and i had tried it but i wasnt able to test all that much due to the planet i was fighting on restricting vision too much ( i did get a 42 kill count with one shot though thanks to 2 or 3 patrols spawning on top of each other and just standing there, including some Devastators) When i did shoot it, it did feel slightly different, smaller blast radius perhaps?

Havent tried post-update, but i will give it a shot, see how well it handles for me.

[[SLB]LiverQuiver]

Originally posted by Wutever:

Originally posted by SLBLiverQuiver:

idk i played with it the first time today, was doing lvl7 duo, my friend marked a patrol and i erased it with the airburst. to be fair only played with it on bugs didnt try on bots but im guessing its just as effective. if you only play with randos you might get mad.. but overall its fun. not all games need to be a sweatfest

Cool anecdotal evidence. It's probably how Arrowhead tests tbh.

Now shoot it more. It will fail to kill even half of a patrol a lot of the time. I've shot it right above a bunch of scavengers and about 70% of them lived. Yeah, it can kill a whole dropship full of bot infantry and striders, but so can an Impact grenade. Said impact grenade can also destroy or dismember Devastators. Something the Airburst completely fails at for no reason.

i dont shoot it above anything, i shoot it directly at things and seems to work fine

[Shrapnel]

Originally posted by Gingerbread Man:

Originally posted by Shrapnel:

Killing your team

Oh shrapnel you rascal you

Not intentionally,but like in a tunnel vision “oh man I’m bout to mess them up…oh so that’s how this weapon works” kinda way

[Wutever]

Originally posted by SLBLiverQuiver:

Originally posted by Wutever:

Cool anecdotal evidence. It's probably how Arrowhead tests tbh.

Now shoot it more. It will fail to kill even half of a patrol a lot of the time. I've shot it right above a bunch of scavengers and about 70% of them lived. Yeah, it can kill a whole dropship full of bot infantry and striders, but so can an Impact grenade. Said impact grenade can also destroy or dismember Devastators. Something the Airburst completely fails at for no reason.

i dont shoot it above anything, i shoot it directly at things and seems to work fine

Which is not how you are supposed to use an Airburst weapon. ffs
It's not an RPG. It's supposed to be shot above the target and / or fortifications to rain down death. Except it no longer can.

[Ishan451]

Originally posted by Gingerbread Man:

Airburst Rocket Launcher is useful for what?

Fighting flying enemies. Which, right now, doesn't seem to useful, but we don't know what the Devs have planned for us.

The Illuminates had a lot of flying units in the first game. Could be that the ARL will become tremendously useful in the near future.

Personally i'd have prefered the anti tank mines. Allegedly those don't explode when a helldiver steps on them, but explodes on Factory Striders and the like... but alas the Community wanted yet another missile thrower.