Edit: most of this video is out of date 😭😭 because of the patch talked about here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-vZ_GX73d69U.html You can one shot Chargers in the head with EATs and Recoilless Rifles. Arc thrower even better now as well. An addendum, to include some comments from this video: ru-vid.coml0KHsrgvJbc
You're still going for the legs with the EAT and recoilless in this video. You don't need to do that anymore. Both of these weapons will now one shot a charger if you hit it in the face.
Does this not change with difficulty? I play on 7 & occasionally 8. Probably a skill issue of my own, but for the past couple of weeks I’ve been shooting them in the face (while charging or stationary), but they’ll always tank the shots with EATs & recoilless rifle shots. My only reliable method is to go for the legs unfortunately.
Yea and if there are 4 of them and an entire swarm too I need to take them out quickly, but I also like to use the arc thrower. Looks like theres no option for me...
best part of the EAT-17 (other than its name) is that you can bring whatever mobbing weapon you want, like the arc thrower. call in the EAT, blow up a charger/titan, then just pick up your previous support weapon
@deags8975 as far as I'm aware that doesn't work. The beam will stick to whatever the ball lands on, but the stratagem always lands where the vall first landed
I love how in your demonstration video, the autocannon ricochets so much even when behind the charger. Sums up my frustration with autocannon vs chargers.
Arc thrower tech: after the first charge up shot, the consecutive shots can just be 50% charged and then you can shoot, making your fire rate so much faster. Damage isnt affected by charge level
@@LoneWolf-ty4oj it will only shred leg armor if you are at like a 45 degree angle from the charger and its leg is facing you. the arc always hits center mass i think and only way to hit the leg is if the leg is between you and its center mass.
@@Moto1987the only thing charge level dictates on arc thrower is range fully charged shits have an initial bolt of 50 meters partial charges seem to have around 30 meter initial bolts
so the autocannon being able to take out a charger by hitting the back of the leg is supposedly a bug, something to do with the armor values getting messed up when it stops its' charge animation, and I've heard the devs are working on patching it. but for the mean time, this bug works with all weapons, and the laser cannon is especially good at killing chargers like this
That’s why you use eat on the back leg. The explosiveness hurts the back leg and the butt and that makes him die in 1 shot. Will probably work after the after charge bug is fixed
If the hind legs are lowered to medium armor after this is fixed then it would be great for the autocannon, lowering the health of its ass would be a decent alternative otherwise.
Honestly, pretty bad decision imo from the devs if they patch it. You already risk your life pulling this tactic off by having to bait the charger attack to get behind it (which can be nigh impossible during big swarms of other bugs), while also having to be precise enough in a small time window to get the shot off as well. Honestly, would just be smarter to turn into an actual game mechanic for the AC, rather than just patching it (that, or make the AC have some amount of heavy armor pen to shred armor off a Charger's leg).
You can also throw the EAT or a Resupply onto their front leg (kinda behind the armor it's a weird angle) and it will stick. Then when it lands it will either kill them or strip the armor for you.
To be clear, the fleshy charger butt work the same as the spewer sides and titan sacs. Only explosive weapons do full damage to them, which is why other weapons take forever to put them down.
How does that interact with armor? Are those locations considered armored and do you need an explosive weapons with a degree of armor pen to really hurt them?
Autocannon really is nutty rn, especially if you’re in a squad where you have others running the big boom strategems to deal with more entrenched objectives Mops up swarms and medium armor from a safe distance, deletes bug breaches, is highly efficient and viable to carry and reload solo, and can still deal with a Charger when needed or even a Titan with enough sustained fire Excellent option for spreading Liberty™️
I've seen some comments mentioning the laser cannon against chargers, but I think it's even better for robots. It kills all devastator variants extremely quickly to the head, and shreds hulks (when the beam doesn't ricochet)
The flamethrower/shield combo is the most cinematic and effective way to deal with chargers since the patch. Just focus your flamethrower on one of its legs for a few seconds and thats it. Takes about a third to an half of your mag.
Sorry, right from the beginning, it is a bit inaccurate. You can still 2 shot legs with railgun. It just needs to be really REALLY charged up. To the point where you risk exploding if you hesitate. The problem now is, it takes longer and you need to be careful and watch the charinging while aiming.
@@rndThursday Its not "really really close". You just have to go on some lvl 1 difficulty missions and shoot the RG like 200 times until you get it. Practice in 1st person because the bar in 3rd person often moves inconsistently (it jumps). You cant afford to look at the bar in high pressure scenarios so make sure to memorize the timing
You can attach a strategem ball to the chargers legs. When the item drops, it kills the charger. So with the anti tank, that's a moderately reliable way to get an extra charger kill.
Laser cannon can kill chargers quickly if you shoot the back legs, the laser "bounces off" but still kills them quickly. Try it out if you have the time.
@@rndThursday forgot to mention you need to focus on 1 BACK leg, it works since the laser has armor pen and the leg is a weak spot. if you focus a leg (any) with the flamethrower it kills them faster too which I'm not sure you mentioned within the video.
The laser cannon can kill a charger in about 5 seconds if you can get the beam on its leg, which is easier said than done but still. Yes, it shows the reflection, but a portion of the damage still goes through the armor, and that amount is enough to kill it. The arc thrower will kill a charger in 15 shots to its head, while also arcing to other bugs around it and possibly even killing multiple chargers at the same time, firing approx 1 shot a second so thats a 15 second kill. Bile titans on the other hand take about 50 shots, so unless several people are running it thats not really gonna work. I like to run the rover guard dog with the arc as the laser drone will fry smaller enemies that get too close for the arc to be effective. By far, the most effective means of dealing with chargers and bile titans are the autocannon sentry and the rocket sentry. The autocannon sentry uses a larger autocannon than the player held one, dealing more damage, having a larger explosion, and piercing heavier armor. If the autocannon sentry is left unharrassed (eg not being attacked) it will kill chargers, spewers, and bile titans by itself. If it does get attacked it will die pretty quick, so make sure you protect it, or throw it far enough away from the conflict. The rocket does more damage per shot and prioritizes the larger enemies, but also fires slower, so its a tradeoff between the two.
you wrote all that and still have no idea wtf ur talking about lol ... sentries ? what a dumb way to see " oh look i am dog sht at the game so I gotta use stratas to kill charges " ;lol
Just to clarify the back part of the charger does not count as it’s weak spot it simply just an unarmored area and you will only deal normal damage to it but if manage to break off its armor to expose an orange meaty part that will become its weak point
@@LoneWolf-ty4ojit also can't charge so it can't even do much as long as you keep the distance unlike the broodmother who tries to get you as it dies.
The game really needs to tutorializ that fleshy bits like the chargers butt and spewer sack take normal damage from explosives while 90% reduced damage from everything else. So many videos don't have this info which would greatly expand the knowledge of what works against chargers. Like we went from shooting it because assumed it was the weak spot realizing it didn't work and now avoid but it's shouldn't be 100% avoided all the time as explosives can make quick work of chargers because they can kill them there when otherwise they just bounce off the armor.
it's not guaranteed to 3 or 4 shot a charger leg for example i tested the railgun after it's nerf and i still managed to 2 shot the leg off whereas i've heard others say they 3 shot instead
3:57 if you shoot the back of the leg (in the juncture knee thingy) you can break the leg armor, and then you can shoot the dented leg with the cannon just like the auto cannon
Another point with the EAT, if you throw it well (and be a bit lucky) you can stick the stratagem on the charger's body. Do it right and it will kill the charger as soon as the pod lands on it, or if it doesn't kill, he'll be heavily injured and bleeding from the impact
I've always dealt with chargers with the flamethrower, but I feel like it's not consistent with how long I need to burn the leg. Sometimes it takes a quarter tank, but other times it can take up to almost a full tank. Is there a particular spot on the leg I need to be aiming for?
1. wait til they charged smth or smbd and are staggered for a short moment 2. stand next to it and run around it in a circle, like 0.5m from their legs. this makes the charger turn in a circle trying to land a stomp, not moving at all. 3. drop any pod on it. i prefer the EAT cuz of its short cd. (obviously, u wanna do step 2+3 kinda simultaneous)
Definitely pick the flame thrower imo, it easily kills chargers (note aim for the legs even with the flame thrower you will still do more damage) it’s also great against smaller bugs, super satisfying too
I knew unsafe mode was nerfed but many people claimed it wasn't. Before unsafe with a half or 70% charge could pierce a shield destroyer's shield, now it can't even at 90 - 95%, it just leaves a mark.
idk if people know this but the back legs are weaker and take more damage, i havent been using it but im pretty sure the rail gun and other weapons can take out the back leg a lot faster. if you target the back let and more specifically the back leg joints im pretty sure you can take it out with a laser cannon and other medium pen weapons.
The EAT come with the added bonus to take out one charger if you manage to stick it on his back, and you're left with 2 munitions for two more charger (Plus the cool factor of killing a heavy with high speed democracy dispensed from orbit) or a Bile Titan. Anything big that isn't coming running at you will be dealt with an eagle strike anyway, but prepare an EAT drop just in case, as EAT is great for when you need it and will one shot kill anything that isn't a charger anyway, so if the big one is out of the picture, save yourself some troubles and take out a medium off the pack. The rest of the time use another support weapon of your liking, one that can preferably wave clear. If you're knee deep in shit because of heavies swarming you and trying to go to extract, backtrack, you most likely left tons of EAT lying around. Another added benefit, since you can drop them often, and patrols beeline to drops, you can use them as decoy to lure patrols away. When i'm diving alone, this is my go to anti heavy stratagem slot, one well used drop is 3 chargers or one Titan. I'll take a grenade launcher and eagle strike. Then whatever fit the mission best. When we dive as a squad, we always have one team member with EAT just in case we need more firepower, and one carry the recoilless rifle, just because it's infinitly more reliable than the spear and can also take out a small variety of objectives from afar (as the EAT do), but mostly to always have a rocket ready in the tube. And when all fail, call the Walker. Play like you want, just sharing what worked best for me/us
Why is nobody mentioning that you can oneshot a charger, if you hit them straight in the face with the recoilless rifle. Does not always work but at least 75% of the time it worked for my squad
That’s the comment I was looking for! I discovered this method on my own. It works both with the recoilless and anti tank, but to do that you will need some practice. After like 10 missions you will be able to oneshot chargers consistently. My advice is to aim for the top pike of their head because in my practice the rocket goes a little lower. If you aim at their “forehead”, the rocket will go for their “nose”
Another leg up for the EAT. The drop lod is part of the perks my friends. Charger rushes past and you toss the strategem and stick him in the middle when that pod drops he is open wide like a Christmas turkeu to deal with leaving the other two rockets to deal with other ones. Ill run this with another support weapon and just swap out when time to clean up chargers. Cluster the chaff, EAT, then pick up your original supp weapon. It also one shots titans on lower difficulties in that same right-of-mouth spot you were hitting woth the railgun.
If there is 2 players in your team running EAT, you are pretty much set on dealing with chargers and bile titans. 1 legshot on charger + primary fire. 2 headshot on bile titan.
3 autocannon shots to its little butt usually takes care of it quickly. dive to the side as it charges you and while prone land 3 shots you're done. even better if your armor reduces recoil while prone.
Mr Thursday what is your opinion on the 500kg? To me it’s aoe is laughable. The amount of times a charger just walks out of the explosion or a Titian just keeps coming at you because the 500kg was 0.07mm off from being a suppository seems… bad.
laser cannon will take the tail off of the rear of the charger with about 5-10 seconds of constant hold time. This can be difficult to do with a lot of ankle biters around you but once you take care of those all you need to do is loop the charger and its usually pretty easy. Bio titans can be rough, and the laser cannon is usually useless. 500k bomb is pretty much the best way for titans.
The new Eruptor Rifle explosive damage will basically one shot a charger weak spot assuming you can hit it. I think it will chip away armor but theres time in-between shots so it can be difficult if hes really on the move.
The Laser can kill the charger after dodging only one charge from it. You have to shoot one back leg. Sometimes the hitbox is weird other times you can kill it while shooting the front leg... for some reason. What you do is just kinda beam across its body to figure out which part of the charger is "bugged" out and get full dmg from the laser. It's very rare that it's fully immune. edit: yu can tell ur dealing dmg to it when you see a green particle effect coming out.
Question on the flamethrower in this game. Is the burning damage significant ie burst of flame and let charger burn, or should I be full on flaming it until it dies? And is the grenade launcher not good at all? It's not on your list
So I have no idea what happened, but sometime yesterday I ended up killing a newly spawned charger with a strafing run and a gas strike, when I only meant to kill the things around it and maybe lower it’s health, I still have no idea how it died to that
After this update an EAT-17 or recoilless rifle do it instantly on a head shot. After finding this out I swapped the auto cannon for the recoilless in my bug loadout
For me, the ARC is always the dominator. 6-7 shots to the head of the charger for it to die. The titan, however, it might take a while for it to go down.. sometimes you can takedown a titan in 1-3 shots with the arc if you're in an elevated position to the titan.
tips to know about the arc thrower, after a fully charged first shot, every repeated shot in succession can be fired at half charge. you don’t need to go all the way after your first shot. also you do need to pay attention to where your arcs are hitting on chargers and bile titans. it takes 8 headshots to kill a charger, but if you hit a charger 5 times in the head and 3 times in one leg, it’ll still be alive. idk the number with the bile titan, but it’s the same concept. goodluck my new arc thrower main, may you spread democracy to the enemy just as you spread lightning to your squadmates! o7
It has nothing to do with the "back" of the legs. It has to do with the animation the charger is in. After he charged at you and is in his "turn around"-animation you can hit the legs from every angle, with every weapon (even with pistols). Seems to be a bug.
fyi you can partial chrage the arc thrower after you full charge the first shot, which is never told to you and shows no indication it can do it, which is pretty stupid but hey. After you hear the sound on the first shot, you can fire the arc thrower on repeat for about half the time it takes for the 1st one, effectively doubling its dps, there is no bar for you to see it so you kinda have to learn the timing by trial, but if you nail it, its one of the most effecrive weapon agaisnt bugs imo. Infinite ammo, clear out chaffs as well as downing charger at around 9 to 11 shots. incredile range. Extra tips, be careful when aiming this when your fellow helldivers are on a straight line or close to the bugs, since it WILL ONESHOT THEM, SOMETIMES THROUGH THE SHIELD. Also try to hit the charger on the head consistently, as I found this is the most reliable way to take them out in the shortest amount of time. hitting the leg will be faster but its hard to get the arc to hit it there. Also aim it a little higher than whatever you want it to hit, since terrain can make this thing whiff and the arc can curve down over stuff to hit the bugs by itself. and when the bugs gets right up in your face, the arc thrower just never connects, so try and keep some distance.
I know you said to avoid the "butt" of the charger but if you hit the charger with 3 shots with an autocannon it will rip its "butt" off and the charger will bleed to death in 3-5 seconds.
with special weapons, i think the butt is good (explosive damage does bonus damage against fleshly parts aka weak spots) but dont try it with your regular primary
Cool vid. I see one problem with almost all content creators talking about “ways to easily kill a charger” like aiming precisely at the back of the legs with an autocannon, or stuff like that; it’s just not viable in a real Helldive difficulty mission. There are 3-5 charges, 20 hunters spamming you and a titan trying to melt you. Even IF you manage to hit all the precisely aimed shots to kill one charger, now you have to reload and you’re dead. They need to make the legs not “immune” but “resistant” to other damage as well, so you can at least try to chip it down with a primary when your heavy gun needs a reload.
you can actually do the back-of-the-leg strat with a sufficient primary (idk i only tested it on punisher). it actually kills them fairly fast if you do it right and aren't getting swarmed like crazy and the angles align. i often find myself trying to do it on arc thrower a lot.
Regarding Auto-cannon. Did some testing after not knowing what else to bring on a bug mission and just got off all bot missions. If you want a slightly easier charger kill, DO aim for the "weak" butt. You can gore it in about three shots and it will bleed out. This will continue to work after the leg armor bug is fixed!
Forget the autocannon, in the heat of combat, it is nigh impossible to get a proper shot with it. The exact time and place to hit the legs is way too small. And on t7 or higher, where you will fight 3 to 5 at the same time, you cannot micro aim that much.
The autocannon is really effective when used to shoot chargers in the tail now. Previously it just didnt seem to work, but not, half a magazine or so tends to destroy the tail then they die shortly after. you also have arguably the best weapon at dealing with mid to high level trash mobs too. It's pretty terrible for soloing chargers though as you really need to be behind it.
The Laser Cannon. From what I could experience, it works pretty good against that "Weak" Spot of the Charger. Since it doesn't need ammunition, so long as you keep an eye on the heatmeter, you can fire it willy nilly. Then again I'm still just a cadet. So what the hell do I know. Btw. I wish Turrets had a lesser cooldown. It takes forever. Or give the Ship module that decreases the cooldown a slight buff. Even if I carry only Turrets with me, in some cases I still can't deploy any in a critical situation. Though I did quickly learn why you should always deploy them far away from you.
I have to say that this looks easy enough but when I play I never see chargers by themselves like this. Shooting it in the leg cleanly a few times sounds good until when you are getting swarmed from all sides it seems like the Orbital Laser is your only friend. I just unlocked the railgun and I feel like the charger just eats those shots. Good video
The EAT is underrated. The drop pod itself takes out a charger and the 2 shots takes out a charger leg armor each. Thats 3 chargers for one stratagem with a short cooldown.
Don't even need to mess with leg armore with autocannon. When a charger comes at you, you run toward it at a 30 degree angle and you slide out of its way and wheel around quickly. If your aim is quick enough, you can pop off 2-3 autocannon shots right into it's ass. It only takes about 2-3 passes to take him down.
You can do the same thing you did with autocannon by using slugger aswell, they are both med pen and slugger can pen back of charger legs too, takes like 4 5 shots I believe. Also EAT is literally in top 3 support weapon without a doubt for dealing heavy armor
The Railgun can still do the same damage as before, however you now need to charge it all the way up to 100% (it stays there for a moment). Risky, but that's what it was there for because honestly it didn't feel "unsafe" at all before
EAT missiles are good for the short cooldown, the stratagem itself is like a stupid thicc rail cannon shot if you stick it to the charger’s back. All support stratagems can do this of course, but not on a 70s cooldown.
tips you can make the EAT dropod kill a bile or a charger also sometimes you can make the becon stick to the charger and it will chase the charger and kill it
another autocannon tip - try to never run yourself out of a clip. The single mag reload is faster than the first mag of the double, and you don't waste any ammo (you can't reload it if you would).
Use the EAT beacon (bacon) to kill the charger. It will stick and then smash the charger. If you are lucky, the pod will not be destroyed, and you get 2 EATs to deal with the others that are coming.
Honnestly grenade laucher is slept on, shoot the ground underneath the charger, doesnt matter if you're infront or behind it, its an easy kill regardless
Simple play EAT and never worry about chargers again. Even if you are using another support weapon, put EAT in your build anyways and call it in when you need it.
As much as the guide say "Shoot the leg" the Goddamn fog that blocked vision beyond 2 meters is making it way harder to shoot any of the charger body when the only time you could see it is when it's 1 second away from ramming you, it took me 4 EAT to kill one since I keep shooting rock because of the damn fog on some planet
where the hell is the quasar canon?.. i loved auto cannon against bots but soon felt its clip wasnt big enough for bugs.. quasar deals with charger no problem?
I can't attest to anything past level 5. However, I watched a dude with recoilless blow charger heads off multiple times. I'm pretty sure it was one shot. Going to try tonight.
this got outdated (devs released a patch the next day ;-;) you can one shot chargers now if you shoot their heads new video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jPRF3j-dbzk.html
I still think the auto cannon should be buffed to at LEAST strip armor off chargers, it firex explosive salvo come on, half the time when you shoot the legs from the back they just bounce off
Hard to deal with chargers when the game throws 30 of them at you at higher difficulties. Had 8 bile titans and MULTIPLE, MULTIPLE chargers in a game the other night. 2 bile titans appeared at the extract. All 4 of us were screaming bloody murder at the screen.
I still think the expendable anti-tank is a better choice for killing a Charger. You only need one shot to break the armor with a fast cooldown, and you can throw stratagems at the Charger for a one-shot kill.
Ok but why not the railgun? The railgun paired with the backpack is still very strong and if you’re able to get the charge up to 2.5-2.99 seconds then it can still 3 shot a chargers leg. Obviously it would have to be in unsafe mode but I think this and the auto cannon are on the same level of damage and one doesn’t require a backpack slot. Please don’t hate on me for standing up for the railgun, I just like to use it lol it feels super scifi
Does anyone know if a charger has a single unified health bar or tons of independent ones like if shoot it’s butt then shoot a leg or a flesh piece revealed from some exploded armour am I taking away health from it or do I start over whenever I switch spots to shoot it
good video, but i love that you favour the autocannon, which is incredibly inconsistent when you fire at the back of the charger's legs, and you showed a clip of it being inconsistent its a good "general-purpose" weapon, but vs. chargers and bile titans its potential drops off significantly, while it is arguably the best general-purpose weapon against the automatons
Arc thrower can take them out in 6-10 shots to the head. It somehow is really inconsistent, but really good. The only downside is, that when we ran 4 arc throwers, we killed each other more than enemies :D
