For better or for worse, not much changes often inHelldivers 2. It’s never too long betweenHelldivers 2’s Premium Warbonds, and Major Orders repopulate soon after another is won or lost to occupy players further, yet metas don’t drastically shift in one way or another at the same frequency. Of course, ‘metas’ in the case ofHelldivers 2,as a live-service PvE game, don’t mean everything, but it’s interesting to see what content is considered valuable or versatile enough to replace other weapons and stratagems in players’ loadouts between missions.
A lot might go into whether someone has one primary weapon they prefer over another, such as if they can kill as many different enemy types with it as they’d like or if it will perform a specific, contextual job that they need it to on a particular mission, and player builds inHelldivers 2can be extraordinarily diverse as a result. However, while different weapons do serve better functions than others in general, there is one primary weapon that seems wholly overpowered, and it’ll hopefully stay that way for the foreseeable future. Anyone who’s been around the game for a while will know it intimately: theR-36 Eruptor Rifle.
It won’t be news to anyone familiar with it, but the Eruptor is one ofHelldivers 2’s best primary weapons. There’s virtually nothing wrong with the Eruptor that players can’t be conscious of and avoid reliably; in fact, the lone downside that the Eruptor has is its intense self-damage and knockback properties when something or someone even remotely in the wielder’s vicinity is hit.
The obvious solution, then, is to equip a secondary weapon, such as theP-4 Senator, or supply stratagem permit, such as theM-105 Stalwart, that players can swap to in a pinch and fend off lesser mobs. Nonetheless,Helldivers 2’s Eruptoris perfect for players who wish to simply punch holes into almost any enemy they come across. The R-36 Eruptor’s weaponry menu description reads:
R-36 Eruptor
“This bolt-action rifle fires jet-assisted shells that explode shrapnel in all directions upon impact. Not recommended for close-quarters use.”
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Weapon Traits
The Eruptor doesn’t even need to be used exclusively as a hard-hitting sniper with dedicated accuracy. The Eruptor takes little consideration of aim due to its explosive ammunition packing a decently sized wallop anyhow, and shots can be fired purposefully to ricochet explosions against surfaces and have the blast behave like an AoE that strikes nearby enemies. That’s not all, either; the Eruptor’s shots can close Bug Holes, cut down Shrieker Nests, topple ‘Terminate Illegal Broadcast’ towers,destroy Illuminate Warp Ships, and so on.
There simply isn’t a better primary that players can settle on if they want a weapon of mass destruction at their disposal, rivaling any of the offensive stratagem permits in their arsenal, and a nerf smiting it from its pedestal would probably be for the best so that it wasn’t so overpowered. But, with secondary weapons, throwables, and stratagem permits players can supplement their playstyle with, the argument stands that the Eruptor, or any overpowered weapon or tool, should not be touched for the sake ofHelldivers 2’s bombastic, cinematic fun factor and fan service.
As forHelldivers 2’s primary weapon customizations, the Eruptor’s Optics customization improves the Ergonomics stat to a high of 33 with the iron sight attachment, but players miss out on excellent scope capabilities. Meanwhile, the best Ergonomics attachment for its Underbarrel customization is the angled foregrip at 35, which is worth neglecting for the laser sight angled foregrip attachment at only two Ergonomics points lower, and the best Vertical Recoil stat attachment is unsurprisingly associated with the vertical foregrip, though players sacrifice Ergonomics at 25 points.
