Directional shield vs Omni shield (or Ballistic)

[Axis of Lint]

Is there any real use for the directional shield outside of exploiting the stim bug on emplacements and mechs?

I understand that theoretically you can have someone next to you firing through the shield as well but I've literally never had this kind of exceptional niche edge case happen in my favour in testing it out and I have no desire to waste a slot for this backpack when I'm dropping.

If there's something I'm missing that makes this particularly useful, please do tell.

Edit - As people have pointed out, the ballistic shield is a better comparison, so please, feel free to compare those also.

[Mosey]

Directional shield doesn't really have a role. Good luck 'protecting' a turret with it, it'll shoot you in the back and gib you. Your team won't stand behind you either, and even if they were inclined to do so you'd be better served by the emplacement shield. It's the worst of the shields by a country mile, followed by emplacement, followed by ballistic, then bubble on top. (My personal ranking obviously, this is not definitive.)

Ballistic shield is actually pretty good now that it absorbs some melee hits. The main downside is if you get staggered you drop it and you can be swarmed from behind. It's pretty good paired with melee, if you want to go that route.

Bubble shield is the 'best' shield as it's only real downside is it only protects against a few hits, but it protects from all angles and you can't accidentally drop it. I suppose you can't be healed by someone with a stim gun, but since just about no one uses a stim gun it's no great loss. (They can stim you with it, they just have to be standing almost inside your player model and angle it just right.)

I guess while I'm talking about shields, I should mention the emplacement shield is actually pretty good minus the obvious fact you can't move it. The big downsides for emplacement is honestly that it straight up doesn't last long enough and you can't actually throw it while using a vehicle, which would actually give it a role as an impromptu vehicle shield. It also fails under heavy fire, but all shields do so that's not unique.

[Adhock]

引用自 Axis of Lint：

I don't think that's really a fair criticism of most players. When you're playing on harder difficulties you can't really just all stand in one place firing at things. You've got things like bile spewers, grenades from illuminate overseers and rocket spam from bots to contend with - it's nigh impossible to keep a coordinated group together at that point and it's honestly much better 99% of the time to be in a looser group to split and cross fire instead.

Considering how powerful a team reload is to cut down on reload time to a fraction of what it is trying to reload by yourself?

Naw I think it's a completely fair criticism since your so called 'loose group enacting cross fire' is EXACTLY what a firing line actually is. Two or more people with interlocking fields of fire to cover multiple sectors.

I've seen what happens when I finally manage to catch a few people and they see for themselves what team assisted reloads are like. You can see the actual change in them like dawning realization when they realize how OP a crewed weapon is.

Hell one time I wasn't running any shields and this level 1 panicked and tried to use me as a living shield to physically block the terminids from getting to him.

Needless to say this did not go well and he ended up shooting me in the back while I fought like a devil down to my last few sidearm magazines.

You're also forgetting that said directional shield player can still MOVE which means the firing line can ALSO move and still be under cover. Which is not possible in a traditional firing line that uses static cover.

"you can't really just all stand in one place firing at things" is a complete fabrication.

[Mosey]

引用自 Adhock：

Considering how powerful a team reload is to cut down on reload time to a fraction of what it is trying to reload by yourself?

Naw I think it's a completely fair criticism since your so called 'loose group enacting cross fire' is EXACTLY what a firing line actually is. Two or more people with interlocking fields of fire to cover multiple sectors.

I'll be totally honest, in over 900 hours I have literally never seen a single player do a two-person reload and the few people who tried were shot for picking up someone's ammo pack.

I also would not trust any quickplay player enough to put my back to them in a firing line.

Needless to say this did not go well and he ended up shooting me in the back while I fought like a devil down to my last few sidearm magazines.

Case in point.

Shots can also go under or over the directional shield so...that's a drawback. If you get hit with a rocket or acid that's at least two players dead instead of one since you are clustered.

If you play in a premade, sure, but you are not going to see this in quickplay. I don't think most people play in premade groups, so your advice is clearly not valid for most players.

[Alfen]

As others have pointed out you're comparing the wrong packs, directional shield should be compared to ballistic shield, not energy shield.

I love the ballistic shield and i .... like the directional shield, it's clearly not as good, the gimmick of protecting other people should be enhanced by having a slightly larger area because as it stands it's just an inferior ballistic shield, the area to protect your allies with is just too small to be practical. (Also some laser weapons do not go through, sometimes, not all the time, it's very inconsistent)

Or move the shield further forward when it is activated so the user is protected from the blast of small rockets without being ragdolled on direct hits, that could be an edge over the ballistic shield.

One (small) thing the directional shield has over ballistic is that in first person you can see your weapon sight, which isn't the most useful thing as smgs aren't accurate weapons, really hoping we're getting a weak (but accurate) one handed DMR one day to go with shields.

[Axis of Lint]

引用自 Adhock：

引用自 Axis of Lint：

I don't think that's really a fair criticism of most players. When you're playing on harder difficulties you can't really just all stand in one place firing at things. You've got things like bile spewers, grenades from illuminate overseers and rocket spam from bots to contend with - it's nigh impossible to keep a coordinated group together at that point and it's honestly much better 99% of the time to be in a looser group to split and cross fire instead.

Considering how powerful a team reload is to cut down on reload time to a fraction of what it is trying to reload by yourself?

Except you're losing 25% of your squad power to gain a reload boost. The team reloadable weapons are spear, RR, autocannon, WASP and airburst. In all of those cases you'd be better off just bringing another one of the same weapon.

引用自 Adhock：

Naw I think it's a completely fair criticism since your so called 'loose group enacting cross fire' is EXACTLY what a firing line actually is. Two or more people with interlocking fields of fire to cover multiple sectors.

I've seen what happens when I finally manage to catch a few people and they see for themselves what team assisted reloads are like. You can see the actual change in them like dawning realization when they realize how OP a crewed weapon is.

Hell one time I wasn't running any shields and this level 1 panicked and tried to use me as a living shield to physically block the terminids from getting to him.

Needless to say this did not go well and he ended up shooting me in the back while I fought like a devil down to my last few sidearm magazines.

You're also forgetting that said directional shield player can still MOVE which means the firing line can ALSO move and still be under cover. Which is not possible in a traditional firing line that uses static cover.

"you can't really just all stand in one place firing at things" is a complete fabrication.

Most of this isn't relevant to the directional shield so I don't know what you're getting at here.

Teamwork = good? We can all agree on that, which is why I play with regular people.

The directional shield though sacrifices mobility (for the other people using it as a shield since they have to rely on the person with the shield moving in exactly the way they plan to, or standing still, nullifying any mobility) and doesn't provide enough of a cohesive benefit (especially since you can only use 1 handed weapons with it, none of which are particularly impressive outside of the crossbow).

[Random Person]

引用自 Adhock：

引用自 Axis of Lint：

I understand that theoretically you can have someone next to you firing through the shield as well but I've literally never had this kind of exceptional niche edge case happen in my favour in testing it out and I have no desire to waste a slot for this backpack when I'm dropping.

That's pretty much it. The point of the directional shield is for you to act as the anchor and protection for a firing line for your fellow helldivers to line up on and throw out devastating hail of lead down range while protecting them from return fire.

This really only makes it good against bots as a faction while overseers are the only Illuminate it protects against, Jetpack overseers in particular.

It doesn't protect in melee so it's useless against the bugs.

For coordinated squads, it's a force multiplier that can turn the tides of a conflict as little can survive a solid firing line.

But since everyone has 'main character syndrome' and refuses to actually rely on others or actually cooperate (see people constantly running away instead of team reloading), the stratgem feels useless because it requires cooperative play that was planned but doesn't actually exist.

So long as people act in a selfish 'main character' manner and refuse to cooperate, the personal shield pack will be considered the 'gold standard'.

Fitting really.

I think its less so main character syndrome, and more so that there just isn't that much of need to put that much of an effort into cooperation currently. In Helldivers 1, its pretty common for people to use the team reload mechanic, because the highest difficulty levels in Helldivers 1 will pretty often spawn a dozen or more heavies at a time right next to you, and the only way the recoiless rifle is going to work against that is if you reload each others weapons.

Helldivers 2 by contrast does not present this issue. You can gun down a whole bot drop by just having two players with recoiless rifles reloading their own weapons, so team reloading isn't really urgently needed even if it has its use case here.

Even ignoring the flaws with using the direction energy shield as its clearly intended to be in its current state, why would players bother with doing this when you can just have two guys a bit spread out vaguely covering each other with gunfire and occasionally reinforcing each other works good enough for the team's overall survivability. Most people simply are only going to put as much effort into cooperative play as they think they need.

[Adhock]

引用自 Axis of Lint：

The directional shield though sacrifices mobility (for the other people using it as a shield since they have to rely on the person with the shield moving in exactly the way they plan to, or standing still, nullifying any mobility) and doesn't provide enough of a cohesive benefit (especially since you can only use 1 handed weapons with it, none of which are particularly impressive outside of the crossbow).

引用自 Mosey：

If you play in a premade, sure, but you are not going to see this in quickplay. I don't think most people play in premade groups, so your advice is clearly not valid for most players.

Which is my entire point that both of you are trying to use against me and I have already acknowledged.

引用自 Adhock：

For coordinated squads, it's a force multiplier that can turn the tides of a conflict as little can survive a solid firing line.

But since everyone has 'main character syndrome' and refuses to actually rely on others or actually cooperate (see people constantly running away instead of team reloading), the stratgem feels useless because it requires cooperative play that was planned but doesn't actually exist.

If more people actually cooperated and coordinated, the directional shield would be 'better'.

Because they DON'T do that, it's considered 'garbage' tier.

Something both of you have acknowledged above.

[Axis of Lint]

引用自 Random Person：

Most people simply are only going to put as much effort into cooperative play as they think they need.

This.

I've played other games that I needed to be much more focused on teamwork with (probably because I'm terrible at them), like Vermintide 2 or Alien Swarm, but Helldivers 2 only requires that you're not a complete gonk and that you can work together in basic ways.

引用自 Adhock：

If more people actually cooperated and coordinated, the directional shield would be 'better'.

Because they DON'T do that, it's considered 'garbage' tier.

Something both of you have acknowledged above.

I understand your point. There's just no need to do what you say to beat the missions and if you do what you say, you're giving up potentially something more worthwhile (a resupply backpack or a gun drone for example) for a shield that (I think) has no real value.

[Mosey]

引用自 Random Person：

In Helldivers 1, its pretty common for people to use the team reload mechanic, because the highest difficulty levels in Helldivers 1 will pretty often spawn a dozen or more heavies at a time right next to you, and the only way the recoiless rifle is going to work against that is if you reload each others weapons.

The big reason we did it in Helldivers is because we were tethered to each other, so waiting on a guy to reload by themselves could kill the whole team by locking them in a bad place.

Here, we can just leave them behind for whatever reason. Your ammo carrier can be on the other side of the map, which doesn't help you at all. That was simply impossible in HD1. The person carrying your ammo literally could not leave your side.

[Random Person]

引用自 Mosey：

引用自 Random Person：

I think its less so main character syndrome, and more so that there just isn't that much of need to put that much of an effort into cooperation currently. In Helldivers 1, its pretty common for people to use the team reload mechanic, because the highest difficulty levels in Helldivers 1 will pretty often spawn a dozen or more heavies at a time right next to you, and the only way the recoiless rifle is going to work against that is if you reload each others weapons.

The big reason we did it in Helldivers is because we were literally tethered to each other, so waiting on a guy to reload by themselves could kill the whole team by locking them in a bad place.

Here, we can just leave them behind for whatever reason. Your ammo carrier can be on the other side of the map, which doesn't help you at all. That was simply impossible in HD1.

That is also true, everyone does share the same screen in that game, so I suppose I can't down play that part. But still, I think people would be much more inclined to sticking together and using team reloading on the recoiless if hulk scorchers were spawning in waves of a dozen strong 30 meters away from you on the routine. Not saying they should actually do that, but still you get my point.

[Axis of Lint]

引用自 Random Person：

引用自 Mosey：

The big reason we did it in Helldivers is because we were literally tethered to each other, so waiting on a guy to reload by themselves could kill the whole team by locking them in a bad place.

Here, we can just leave them behind for whatever reason. Your ammo carrier can be on the other side of the map, which doesn't help you at all. That was simply impossible in HD1.

That is also true, everyone does share the same screen in that game, so I suppose I can't down play that part. But still, I think people would be much more inclined to sticking together and using team reloading on the recoiless if hulk scorchers were spawning in waves of a dozen strong 30 meters away from you on the routine. Not saying they actually do that, but still.

That's very valid and if heavies spawned considerably more often and were more of a threat that would absolutely be the case but as it is, the groups I usually play with can keep up by and large with a couple of dedicated AT people and thermites for the most part (and the odd stratagem).

Just to clarify - I also don't think this means AT has trivialised heavies like that one thread, I think the spawn rates are about as good as you're going to get and make the game fun but challenging for the most part, ymmv.

[Doom Squid]

引用自 Axis of Lint：

Is there any real use for the directional shield outside of exploiting the stim bug on emplacements and mechs?

I understand that theoretically you can have someone next to you firing through the shield as well but I've literally never had this kind of exceptional niche edge case happen in my favour in testing it out and I have no desire to waste a slot for this backpack when I'm dropping.

If there's something I'm missing that makes this particularly useful, please do tell.

Edit - As people have pointed out, the ballistic shield is a better comparison, so please, feel free to compare those also.

In my experience, the shield backpack biggest downside is it has a larger hit box as it's a bubble, and so gets damaged/popped by attacks more. The shield backpack does not always protect you from melee attacks, and those it does block quickly pops it. It also seems to be less durable in general than the other two, and is slow to recharge.

The directional shield has its purpose and performs it. But like with the recoilless rifle or autocannon, people don't want to co-op in the co-op game. Not useless, just not being used like its supposed to. (I don't remember if it recharges quicker than the backpack does.)

The ballistic shield only covers your silhouette, is more durable as a defensive support item than the shield backpack, has a shorter cooldown than the shield backpack (5min vs 8min) and now blocks melee attacks, which makes it the best in terms of utility in my opinion.