The Rocket Strider is everything I find wrong with the bot front.

[Dokutah]

So I just want to start this off saying that Rocket Striders are not invincible obviously.

They have weaknesses and can in fact be dealt with with a few weapons, gadgets, and stratagems.

I can deal with them and be on my way for better or worse.




That being said however, they're possibly one of the most oppressive, unbalanced, and frustrating unit to fight in this game.

Problems.

Despite having a much larger and bulkier profile than their lighter looking variants, they are somehow even fast than a berserker unit. their guns are as dangerous as the Hulks new Auto Laser gun without the ragdoll effect, and the f*cking ROCKET.

I don't even know where to start with there rockets.

They have no indicator whatsoever that thy're about to be fired, they're incredibly fast, have insane amounts of damage when they explode a couple of feet away from you. and the ragdolling.

Good lord the ragdolling effect it has.

I have had a good few missions where they will shoot a rocket at the wall I'm by while they're on the other side of it, the giant automaton outpost walls that are like 18 to 20 inches thick.

And not only does the rocket strider auto target me through the wall with its rocket, it ragdolls me...

And I'm not even snuggled up to the wall. I'm like a couple inches away and then rocket ragdolled me with so much force it launched me into the cover I was using to fight a group of devestators and it killed me.

Of course it also forced me to drop my stratagem ball to but obviously I'm dead, but of course if the impact didn't kill me then my own airstrike was.


And speaking of the rockets, as many of you are familiar with, the rockets themselves are a weak point for the rocket striders. You shoot it and it blows up and kills the strider.

Yet again there's another big problem here, they sometimes don't explode, and there are two reasons for this (possibly only one reason).



Sometimes when you're shooting the rockets on the side of a rocket strider, they get destroyed but it doesn't explode and the strider doesn't die.

Why is that? Well it turns out that you're sometimes shooting the rack that rockets are loaded onto, and those racks are considered a durable part. So when you destroy it you destroy the rocket or rockets that are attached to it, but they don't explode or do any damage.

So not only did you just waist precious time and ammo to shoot it's weakspot (rocket), it's even closer now and it possibly still has two rockets on it's other side to shoot you with.

AH could've at least coded the rack to be destroyed so that it can't even fire the rockets on it, which would then still allow you to shot those rockets now without being in fear of them being fired at you.

But no, they just completely disappear once the rack is destroyed.


To sum it up rocket striders have high mobility, high damage output, high armor all around its upper body, an insane push radius from the rocket blast that can go through even super thick cover, have one of its two weakpoints that are janked that can actually work against you, and has no telegraphed attacks other than its stomp attack.


And all these problems are ramped up by the fact that between difficulty 8 and 10 they completely replace regular striders, and spawn almost in the same magnitude as devestators and it's just nothing but anger and frustration.



Yes you can shoot the legs and lower body with medium pen weapons or just explosives, bu this also means that you're more than likely near required to run medium pen weapons.

You still run light pen weapons to shoot their rockets, but it's just far more dangerous and less efficient to do so.

And when it comes to bots, if you don't deal with them quick, then the situation can quickly snowball and you'll be at a great disadvantage.





I'm sorry for the long piece, but I really just wanted to explain as much as I can about this units issues. I want to reiterate again that I can deal with them, but that doesn't change the fact the the rocket strider is an incredibly annoying or frustrating unit to deal with in so many ways.

I wanted to make a discussion post on this because I'm not the only one who feels this way.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/qek4IYwaL2

Since this is a discussion post what do y'all think of the rocket strider, and if you do find them to be a problem in general what do you think would be the best way to fix them?

[FromChaosTheory]

It's not that deep.

[Frogpants]

I can agree with most of this in the balancing of the strider for sure making it way more constant. I personally enjoy the strider so far on the bot front as doing lvl 10 missions are too easy right now without them but I agree on needing something to change. imagine them like devastators in how their presence shapes the fight you have with them. a devastator is a armored enemy with very small to niesh weak points. this makes then be something more of a puzzle to solve on the fly on how you wish to fight them. even with light Armour guns ive been able to change and play different with them around, but striders kind of play out the same way no matter what you have with you as they tend to lack those needed weak point consistency that makes them a variable enemy to play. it fits the theme of the bots being a enemy with high Armour and range. I feel like maybe if they had a smaller blast radius with their rockets so that if you do get nailed with one you still fly away like you already do as its fun but it makes it more skill to dodge so that you have more control of the game fight. its that constancy they lack which makes them so hard to fight. its a good idea and currently are what make hard missions hard rn but they are only that due to their inconsistency

[Rand]

They're destroyed if you shoot one of the rockets before they fire them. So there's that.

[【Flint Eastwood】]

I dont like them at all- most of the time if u try to shoot the rockets it richochets , theyr rocket explosion is absurdly high compared to all other

[VIRUSOID]

dont like rocket striders? play on 7

[Hero Unit]

They were a bad addition to the game. They failed a simple check that should have stopped them from being added:

Will the player have more fun or less fun if we add an Armor Rating 3 enemy that is a common spawn and has instant kill rockets and annoying ragdoll effects to the game?

Very obvious the answer is the player will have less fun. So what was the purpose of adding it? Intentionally to make the game less fun?

[Lyrdian]

Originally posted by Dokutah:

Too long to quote, so im snipping it

I fully agree with most of this. I do find that they are WAY too common to be 100% medium armor pen all around other than rockets, which are ridiculously hard to aim at while being ragdolled by the 3-9 rocket striders, stagger from the 2-6 heavy devs and rocket devs (WHY DO HEAVY DEV MACHINE GUNS NOT HAVE A SMALL COOLDOWN PERIOD OMG). I feel like the rockets on them are extremely inconsistent when damaged. i have shot the side of the strider with the expcrossbow and had the rockets just POOF so many more times than they have exploded.

[SushiJaguar]

Impact nade sinks 'em in one. Gun run sinks 'em in one. AMR puts them down in two shots to the balls. Autocannon, Machine Gun, Crossbow, Grenade Launcher, HMG, Diligence CS, JAR-5, all the turrets, both kinds of Exosuit.

Oh, and running away. That works too. I do agree on the ragdolling instakill ♥♥♥♥ though, the one in twenty times it happens to me I get pissed.

[Chaos]

I don't personally mind how strong they are, IF they aren't so common.

But alas AH just ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up once again.

[Dokutah]

Originally posted by SushiJaguar:

Impact nade sinks 'em in one. Gun run sinks 'em in one. AMR puts them down in two shots to the balls. Autocannon, Machine Gun, Crossbow, Grenade Launcher, HMG, Diligence CS, JAR-5, all the turrets, both kinds of Exosuit.

Oh, and running away. That works too. I do agree on the ragdolling instakill ♥♥♥♥ though, the one in twenty times it happens to me I get pissed.

I'm not saying that not a lot of weapons aren't effective, but that there frequency and effect they have on the field if they aren't dealt with quick enough can be one of the most frustrating situations to face in the game when it comes to enemy encounters.

And considering they're a core enemy on the bot front with how they work and the issues that come with them can end up shutting down your ways of dealing with them especially considering they're alongside a multitude of other enemy units.

[Dokutah]

Originally posted by VIRUSOID:

dont like rocket striders? play on 7

Yes, great contribution to the discussion, we've got a proud Helldivers redditor here folks.

Here's your cookie. 🍪

[ZeddTakashi]

Originally posted by VIRUSOID:

dont like rocket striders? play on 7

Agreed, cant handle certain enemies, play on difficulties suited to your skill.

[VIRUSOID]

Originally posted by Dokutah:

Originally posted by VIRUSOID:

dont like rocket striders? play on 7

Yes, great contribution to the discussion, we've got a proud Helldivers redditor here folks.

Here's your cookie. 🍪

I know, right?
All I want to say is that if you struggle with the enemy that is exclusive for higher difficulties then that means you dont belong there
Or didn't learned how to deal with them yet
Try blaming yourself, not "bad design" or something else

[Husker_85]

Robotic enemies absolutely SHOULD get harder as time goes on. That's how engineering works; you keep improving over past iterations of things. We just got a huge buff to all our weapons so I don't think it's necessary to complain. Bring more boom-boom

[Dokutah]

Originally posted by 小笼包:

Originally posted by VIRUSOID:

dont like rocket striders? play on 7

Agreed, cant handle certain enemies, play on difficulties suited to your skill.

Why is it when any criticism is applied it's met with 'skill issue' or something to that effect instead of actual counter points?

If there isn't genuinely any rhetoric to whats been pointed out then does that mean all the points above are true?