History YMMV / HelldiversII

* ComplacentGamingSyndrome: Railgun, Shield Backpack, 500kg Bomb, Orbital Gas Strike and EMS Mortar are the five stratagems pretty much anybody runs when doing high level missions. If they're feeling daring, they may switch out the Shield Backpack for a Resupply Pack. For primary weapons, the - appropriately - ''Breaker'' automatic shotgun is generally regarded as the best all-round primary. Grenades are either going to be Impact, or Flashbangs.

** The preview version of the Airburst Rocket Launcher was met with much derision by the playerbase due to how overly sensitive and unreliable the proximity fuse of its rockets are. You essentially ''cannot'' fire the weapon with your teammates ''anywhere'' in your line of sight because there is a high chance of the airburst rocket fusing on them and blowing up your team (and in many cases, yourself as well) instead of the enemy. [[note]] This was, in part, due to glitch that got patched. When first unveiled the rockets would treat ''other Helldivers and friendly structures'' as valid targets. Despite being fixed the massive area of effect that can cause friendly fire is still there.[[/note]] Even when you have a clear lane of fire, the airburst rocket is prone to simply just exploding spontaneously in the air or triggering on random terrain, destructible objects, or a different enemy instead of your intended target. And this comes with the typical drawbacks of low ammo count, long reload, and the requirement for a backpack that are common among all heavy launchers. Most damning of all, however, is that in addition to all of these drawbacks, the airburst rockets simply don't have any armor peircing capabilities, only being effective against basic mooks while heavier enemies would shrug off the damage due to their armor.

** Destroying Gunship Fabricators. It doesn't matter what you throw at it, from two 500kg bombs to an orbital laser to half a dozen blasts from a Quasar Cannon, the only thing that's destroying them is a Hellbomb[[note]] Or, if the lucky stars have aligned, a mini-nuke shell from the SEAF Artillery side objective.[[/note]]. Gunships are already DemonicSpiders, and they are more than capable of destroying a Hellbomb just by glancing at it. Even better? Sometimes ''two'' fabricators spawn next to each other, and you have to call in ''multiple'' Hellbombs to take them out.

** The Automatons in the sequel. Even the "weakest" types of them are all quite well armored and can tank an obscene amount of damage unless you hit their weakpoints, and unlike the Terminids they have ranged weapons, which they make liberal use of to the point that its rare for any point of an Automaton mission to ''not'' be full of laser fire or explosions. They reward precise shooting, which is difficult when they shoot back and suppress you!
** Automaton Scout Striders. Common automaton infantry and even all three devastator models can be defanged if not relatively easily killed by any small-arms weapon (though the degree of 'easily' will vary on range, type, etc.), but Scout Striders? If you don't have anything with Medium Armour Penetrating or Explosive damage, you ''need'' to flank them. Even then, with just Medium AP you're stuck shooting out their legs before taking out the pilot - because the pilot's plating can shrug off absurd amounts of firepower. Add onto this they have a gun that can casually two-shot all but the heaviest armour and that they will doggedly pursue you across rough terrain whilst easily keeping pace the entire time even if you're sprinting around with a stamina booster, and they're just absolute nuisances that can be incredibly frustrating or resource-consuming to quickly kill. Oh, and your Super Destroyer can consider them a priority target for railcannoning over much more dangerous targets like Hulks, if you're not careful with where you drop the beacon.
** Of particular notoriety are the Devastators. While all Automatons are considerably more durable than the Terminids, Devastators stand out for being ''so'' heavily armored that the only way to reliably damage them is to hit their heads and shoulder joints, which are [[TinyHeadedBehemoth disproportionately small and hard to hit compared to the rest of their massive body]], especially when you're already in the thick of battle with other Automatons firing at you from all angles. And to add insult to injury, they can spawn as early as Easy tier. If you have a pair of Heavy Devastators pinning you down, you can say goodbye to your chances of taking them out first. Worse yet, their standard cannon hits hard enough that even a grazing hit will flinch you out of the vast majority of actions, such as injecting stims or throwing beacons.
** If Devastators were bad, when a Hulk joins the fray, it's a near guarantee someone will die unless your team is well-prepared and/or coordinated. They are heavily armored to the point that nothing short of armor-piercing weapons or stratagems can kill them, are equipped with both rockets and flamethrowers, are deceptively quick despite their large frame, and on higher difficulties, a dropship can spawn up to '''3''' of them. While they do have a weak spot on their backs, they are so aggressive that it's nearly impossible to hit it. Their other weakspot? [[TinyHeadedBehemoth Their tiny little head]], on the front. Good luck hitting ''that'' whilst it's bearing down on you though.
** Chargers from the Terminid faction. They're strictly close-range, unlike the Automatons, but they hit like a train, are outrageously aggressive (it's not unusual for a Charger to pursue its quarry across the entire map) and on harder difficulties can pop up in groups of three or more. They're also covered in armor plate except for their backside, which itself has heavy damage resistance. Their biggest weakness is also unconventional: rather than shooting their backside, you need to blow off the armor on one of their legs, then shoot the exposed leg a few times. Chargers are such a terror that high-level parties have one or two Helldivers kitted out solely to deal with them, which typically involves a Railgun, which can punch through their armor and break the plating off their legs, and a shield backpack to mitigate damage and stagger/slowdown from the armies of lesser bugs that accompany them. An update around the same time as the Railgun nerf mentioned earlier on this page softened them up enough where a well-aimed shot from a recoilless rifle or expendable anti-tank launcher to the head will kill them in one hit, but if the player firing the rocket isn't a good shot or they can't get the shot lined up then Chargers still fit this trope.
** Terminid Stalkers only spawn whenever Helldivers are near a Stalker Lair tactical objective. These freaks of nature are almost [[VisibleInvisibility transparent]] when attempting to take down Helldivers until they're within striking distance. While invisible, they don't show up on the radar, and cannot be pinged. When they do strike, they hit hard and fast, and can launch you several meters with their tongue attack. To top it all off, they have medium armor, on most parts of their body, so you'll usually have trouble punching through with your primary weapon. It's not uncommon for the team to immediately drop whatever they're doing and beeline to the Stalker Nest the moment a single Stalker makes itself known, or when it shows up on the radar from completing a Radar Station side objective.
** Terminid Hunters. These jumpy bastards are GlassCannon and FragileSpeedster in bug form. While they only take a few rounds to put down, they will constantly side step and juke to throw off your aim whenever you begin looking in their direction. They also possess a DeadlyLunge that they can use to quickly close the distance, and then follow up with a tongue attack that slows you down. They're essentially a weaker Stalker, but unlike the Stalker they spawn VERY frequently, independent of a specialized nest. Some would argue that they're more dangerous than Bile Titans, as while Bile Titans can be ran away from, or even manipulated to take out their fellow Terminids, Hunters can't be easily ran away from, and their slowing attack guarantees other bugs can and will catch up to you.
** Automaton Gunships are capable of one-shotting a Helldiver regardless of their armor, cover, and seemingly whether or not they actually hit their mark. Worse, they spawn infinitely from a specific sub-objective on higher difficulties, meaning that if you can't get them down (which is near-impossible to do when you have gunships, heavy devastators, hulks, tanks, and Democracy-knows-what-the-fuck-else swarming your squad) you're going to be using up your entire reinforcement budget in the space of seconds. Even worse: a Hellbomb is ''required'' to get rid of their fabricators, and the gunships can blow them up with one shot.

** Terminid hunters. A single hunter can readily be taken down with a shell or two from a shotgun and has no particular armor to protect itself... if you can ''hit'' the thing. Hunters jump strafe when aimed at, deliberately flank the Helldivers, and despite their fragility, [[GlassCannon pack a nasty hit if they get in range]]. And on higher difficulties, [[ZergRush there's always more of them]]. Their flanking tactics also have a way of scattering them, so they rarely form clumps that can be cleaned out with a grenade or other explosive. Finally, their attacks slow the Helldivers, [[CycleOfHurting making it difficult to escape once they're on you]].
** Terminid Scavengers and their relations are individually the weakest and least dangerous breeds, but their attacks are capable of staggering hapless Helldivers to weaken them for their bigger cousins. There's also never just ''one'' Scav -- they're often found in small packs either scouting the map or guarding mission-critical objectives, and if you alert one before you take them all out, they'll [[EnemySummoner summon a Bug Breach]]. Bile Spitters in particular are especially annoying, as getting hit by one will slow you to a crawl.
** Terminid Shriekers are {{Airborne Mook}}s that fly quickly and hit moderately hard with their swoops, but have low health to compensate. Their main dangers are that they will continuously appear in swarms from any of their nests (which often tend to be clustered together), and worst of all, if they're killed while swooping at a Helldiver, gravity and momentum will turn their [[TakingYouWithMe entire dead body into a high-velocity projectile]] (with a [[HitboxDissonance disproportionately large hitbox]]) that can OneHitKill any Helldiver it hits.
** Automaton Marauders are the most annoying unit you can face. They are equipped with rocket launchers, and while they may go down like any other automaton unit, one hit from their rocket will knock you to the ground, rendering you vulnerable for a few crucial seconds. It gets especially bad when you are already surrounded by other enemies, or preoccupied with doing something else, where they can attack you at a fairly long range.

** Destroying Gunship Fabricators. It doesn't matter what you throw at it, from two 500kg bombs to an orbital laser to half a dozen blasts from a Quasar Cannon, the only thing that's destroying them is a Hellbomb. Gunships are already DemonicSpiders, and they are more than capable of destroying a Hellbomb just by glancing at it. Even better? Sometimes ''two'' fabricators spawn next to each other, and you have to call in ''multiple'' Hellbombs to take them out.

** On the Terminid front, Spore Spewers reduce visibility to mere inches until they're blown up. Good luck avoiding the chargers you can't see. On top of this, they have a similar visual profile to Shrieker Nests, and if you haven't highlighted them on your map, it can be hard to tell if you're in for flying bugs or a fog of spores. Thankfully, they're not well-armored, and a shot from any explosive weapon will easily take them down.

** The preview version of the Airburst Rocket Launcher was met with much derision by the playerbase due to how overly sensitive and unreliable the proximity fuse of its rockets are. You essentially ''cannot'' fire the weapon with your teammates ''anywhere'' in your line of sight because there is a high chance of the airburst rocket fusing on them and blowing up your team (and in many cases, yourself as well) instead of the enemy. [[note]] This was, in part, due to glitch that got patched. When first unveiled the rockets would treat ''other Helldivers and friendly structures'' as valid targets. Despite being fixed the massive area of effect that can cause friendly fire is still there.[[/note]] Even when you have a clear lane of fire, the airburst rocket is prone to simply just exploding spontaneously in the air or triggering on random terrain, destructible objects, or a different enemy instead of your intended target. And this comes with the typical drawbacks of low ammo count, long reload, and the requirement for a backpack that are common among all heavy launchers. Most damning of all, however, is that in addition to all of these drawbacks, the airburst rockets simply don't do any real damage, only being effective against basic mooks while being useless against anything even vaguely armored, even if you manage to hit their weakspots.

** Fire damage as a whole, whether it be from the flamethrower, Napalm stratagems, or the Breaker Incendiary, is considered borderline useless due to the fact that fire damage doesn't apply a DamageOverTime effect to enemies unless one is the host. It works just fine on other Helldivers, but if you thought a bot or bug would actually burn to death when it's ''on fire'', you have another thing coming. Worse, patch 01.000.200 increased fire damage by 50% both ways... meaning the host's incendiary weapons work great, as do any enemy ones -- but if you're not the host, you're ''still'' screwed. People have been pleading for an armor that resists fire damage, to no avail. Toxic damage is likewise bugged and unreliable at the moment.

** C-01 Perms [[labelnote:Explanation]] An in-universe form that Helldivers are required to fill out before engaging in any activities that could result in children. Their very nature has fans coming up with all sorts of ideas on what they entail, and players will often make jokes about how a failed mission (which can delay the approval of said forms) leads to Helldivers complainig about how they can't have sex. Humorously, one of the people mentioning the forms in-game notes their restrictions despite implicitly being lesbian, which implies Super Earth extends to situations that probably shouldn't cause pregnancies in real life.[[/labelnote]]

** Secondary weapons are okay, but basically all of them have severely limited ammo and, as of the Democratic Demolition Warbond, there are only 5 total options. The achievement "Hold My Primary, I'm Going In", which requires the entire team to go without firing a primary or support weapon for an entire mission on Hard or harder is pushing into ThatOneAchievement territory as a result. Probably the two most popular options are the P-4 Senator, a functional but unremarkable revolver, and the Redeemer, a powerful machine pistol that runs out of ammo very fast due to high fire rate and limited spare magazines. The grenade pistol isn't great in combat, but still has a niche since it's the only secondary that can destroy fabricators/bug holes.

** "Hold My Primary, I'm Going In!" specifies that nobody on your squad can use a use primary weapons ''or'' support weapons, only secondaries and stratagems like turrets or airstrikes on Hard (Difficulty 5) or higher. Hard is where heavily-armored enemies such as gunships, factory striders, and bile titans start showing up ''far'' more often, and unfortunately, out of all 5 secondaries currently in the game, 4 only have light armour penetration and the P-4 Senator only has medium armour penetration.

* {{Anvilicious}}: Unlike the first game, ''Helldivers II'' goes out of its way every few seconds to remind you that Super Earth has a terrible, incompetent government running it and would be an ''awful'' place to actually live, so that there can be absolutely no doubt in the player's mind that they're playing as a VillainProtagonist

* AccidentalAesop: ''Helldivers II'' makes a case for how effective ''actual'' propaganda can be. While audiences (rightfully) laugh at the [[PropagandaMachine over-the-top brainwashing Super Earth commits in-universe]], the pride the real life community takes in symbolic Major Orders such as winning Malevelon Creek (which was already mostly liberated and had minimal strategic advantage) and in culling the generally weaker Terminid faction (despite the Automatons presenting a more pressing territorial threat) demonstrate how easily people can be motivated to rally behind victories that serve a sense of identity or establish superiority.

** 500kg Review Bomb/Orbital Dislike[[labelnote:Explanation]] The re-implementation of the previously waived PSN login requirement by Sony was met with overwhelming backlash for the lack of notice, [[NoExportForYou PSN's unavailability in many countries]], and security concerns. This led to a whopping dislike/review bombing campaign of around 200,000 negative reviews on the ''Helldivers II'' Steam page ([and unfortunately other Arrowhead games which had nothing to do with this, including the original ''VideoGame/{{Helldivers}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Magicka}}'') and memes at Sony's expense. Thankfully, the policy implementation's reversal over the weekend led to the following meme.[[/labelnote]]
** '''DEMOCRACY WINS!'''[[labelnote:Explanation]][[invoked]] The reversal of the PSN login requirement was [[SugarWiki/AndTheFandomRejoiced met with far more positivity]], and relief that the login requirement would no longer bar players who could not access the game. Such celebrations included an IronicEcho where Helldivers engaged in ''actual'' democracy by treating the entire debacle as a Major Order.[[/labelnote]]

** 500kg Review Bomb/Orbital Dislike[[labelnote:Explanation]] The re-implementation of the previously waived PSN login requirement by Sony was met with overwhelming backlash for the lack of notice, [[NoExportForYou PSN's unavailability in many countries]], and security concerns. This led to a whopping dislike/review bombing campaign of around 200,000 negative reviews on the ''Helldivers II'' Steam page ([[FanDumb and unfortunately other Arrowhead games which had nothing to do with this]], including the original ''VideoGame/{{Helldivers}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Magicka}}'') and memes at Sony's expense. Thankfully, the policy implementation's reversal over the weekend led to the following meme.[[/labelnote]]

* TookALevelInBadass: While a number of weapons were subsequently nerfed and dethroned from positions of dominance in the meta, it is just as common for other weapons to receive glow-ups as major limiting factors in them are removed with updates. Of particular note is the Diligence Counter Sniper, a weapon that was initially plagued with low damage, only light armor penetration, a small magazine capacity, a poor rate of fire, and poor ergonomics. Virtually every single point of contention with this has been fixed save for the still limiting 15-round magazine, with the grand result being a far more potent weapon with a dedicated niche established for it at last.

** "[[Series/ThatMitchellAndWebbLook Are we the baddies]]?"[[labelnote:Explanation]]Jokingly mentioning out loud your reservations about [[TheEmpire Super Earth's expansionist practices]], [[{{Dystopia}} totalitarian government]] and [[HappinessIsMandatory propaganda machine]]. Said out-loud burst of realization will immediately be followed by the other members of your squad [[TreacheryIsASpecialKindOfEvil promptly emptying all their ammo on you like you deserve]].[[/labelnote]]

** 500kg Review Bomb/Orbital Dislike[[labelnote:Explanation]] The re-implementation of the previously waived PSN login requirement by Sony was met with overwhelming backlash for the lack of notice, [[NoExportForYou PSN's unavailability in many countries]], and security concerns. This led to a whopping dislike/review bombing campaign of around 200,000 negative reviews on the ''Helldivers II'' Steam page ([[FanDumb and unfortunately other Arrowhead Games]]) and memes at Sony's expense. Thankfully, the policy implementation's reversal over the weekend led to the following meme.[[/labelnote]]
** '''DEMOCRACY WINS!'''[[labelnote:Explanation]] The reversal of the PSN login requirement was [[SugarWiki/AndTheFandomRejoiced met with far more positivity]], and relief that the login requirement would no longer bar players who could not access the game. Such celebrations included an IronicEcho where Helldivers engaged in ''actual'' democracy by treating the entire debacle as a Major Order.[[/labelnote]]

%%* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: The announcement that the game would require a Playstation Network account to play even on the PC version, which lacked the requirement beforehand, treating it as optional. This was met with effectively ''open revolt'' by the playerbase with many pointing out Sony's history of being hacked and having personal information on their accounts stolen and were wary about needing to provide that information to them while [[https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cjtvcd/sony_entertainment_are_breaking_eu_law/ effectively violating data protection laws for European players]]. Others simply complained about how ridiculous it was to need a Playstation account even if you weren't playing it on a Playstation. This isn't even for cross-play either, and it was soon discovered after the announcement that Sony [[https://archive.ph/XDd9s had changed the wording]] in their FAQ that previously stated a Playstation account was optional. Making things worse is that out of all the countries where Steam is accessible, roughly 60 of these (eg. The Philippines) are among the over 160 countries that '''do not have access to PSN''', and thus players residing in any of these countries and territories ''can't actually make'' PSN accounts, effectively [[NoExportForYou rendering the game unplayable]], losing their hundreds of hours of playtime with it. When desperate players resorted to using a VPN to create a PSN account in response, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuZncKrViHU&lc most of them were found out and had their account banned]].%%