Struggling Against Automatons? USE THIS NOW | Helldivers 2 Heavy Machine Gun 

I never realized how good the HMG could be til watching this video, the ability to shred the gunships alone has me sold

Yeah I’ve been using this gun nonstop since it came out for automaton, it’s fucking strong glad to see the word getting out

In the hands of a player that knows how to aim & has good fire discipline, this weapon is S-tier. Skill ceiling should be a factor, especially with this game. Many don’t know how to use certain weapons and many also lack situational awareness in combat.

I've been using this gun religiously since the patch. It's been amazing, and you change the rate of fire depending on the situation. It kills everything!

I find it funny how much hate the HMG has been receiving from youtubers, because they couldn't figure out how to use it. It has allways been very good. And now after the buffs, it's amazing.

they should just make this weapon come with its own backpack like the recoilless rifle, but instead of having to reload, all the rounds come directly from the backpack. so give it like 450 rounds in total with the backpack but with no extra to reload, and reduce its cooldown time by 25% or so, and make it so you can't refresh it by picking up extra ammo in the field or from resupply. it would be far more fun to use. right now its still one of my favorite strategems, but the ridiculously small magazine and the fact that you only get three mags total means that taking it without a supply pack just makes it worthless unless you want to resort to the tedious playstyle of switching back and forth from your primary weapon, using it exclusively to fire two or three rounds when you are up against the heavier enemies. its recoil and slow aim speed are both enough of a drawback already. it doesn't need to have such a tiny magazine. I hardly see anyone using this without a supply pack because of this.

Make a MG supply pack with 4 mags worth of ammy in a ammo belt format. Downside being that you can only resupply them througha new supply pack and not from ammo pickups. It would also not resuply other weapons. You have less total overall ammo than with a regular supplypack and starting ammo, but you can fire without reloading. That would be 300 rounds for the heavy MG, 600 for the MG 43 and 1000 for the stalwart.

I do think you need to use your grenades and normal gun more. That way you have to use your suply backpack less. I use the fire shotgun against the bots, ussfull when there are a lot of them (one shot to kill a normal bot) and strong against the beserkers.

Great video and thumbnail. I had no idea how powerful the heavy machine gun is against bots.

Hard to explain but when i tried to bring supply pack for AMR or HMG i always was never use it. I always switch primary/secondary/support weapons during the fights and manage my ammo economy. There are so much ammo/grenade/stim crates on the map. Also resupply stratagem is always available when team need it. At some situations yeah i go out of ammo, but those so rare that it not worth it. I rather take some sentry or specific stratagem for the map (smoke, shield, barrage)

I feel like the recoil and handling require Peak Physique or Fortified to get the most out of it. I feel like sustained fire just isn't likely when a mob of Shield Devastators and Annihilator tanks are after you. I'll probably give this loadout a whirl this weekend. But my Helldive loadout is still going to be Punisher Plasma + Autocannon + EMS Sentry.

Nice, I was wondering what kind of build i should have with that weapon, guess this video answers the question i was looking for. thank you.

It's the second best support gun for bots rewards active use of its RPMS and smart positions like are you able to crouch or better yet go prone if not this it's a bad spot also with the new amour passive handling is smooth as hell

I'd suggest just running auto cannon. Also bring stun grenades primarily for hulks. Throw a stun to get them to sit still, 2 auto cannon shots to the "face" and their done. Everything else is 2 or 3 shots wherever PLUS shots on things like a devastator that don't kill it will at least stun it and stop it shooting at you and your squad.

I also use HMG Emplacement ALOT. Obviously, the lack of mobility sucks, but with the sheild, it's pretty nice. Both shred through anything, and you can diable all the weapons on striders from far away.

I was not expecting my go-to HMG loadout to be recommended to me, but I'm still pleasantly surprised to see a likeminded dealer of destruction

Thats the exact build I've been running. I run the dominator as a primary.

Honestly I wish the HMG was a backpack support weapon like with the autocannon or recoilless, it just makes sense to have something so heavy have a metric fuckton of ammo with it at the cost of storage space imo

the peak physique armor passive makes the HMG handle like the MG43

I love it in support of my squad. Those with the single shot heavy hitters and the Heavy Machine gun on cleanup of heavy target damage

Honestly I think supply pack is great but isn't that mandatory. At least coming from someone who likes to visit minor places of interest on the way, so i tend to have plenty of ammo. Plus even if you spend all of your ammo, you can still have a primary weapon which in most cases can carry it's weight in almost any situation.

My only gripe with the automatons is how utterly ineffective anything but a headshot/weak spot is to devastators, and somewhat for berserkers as well. It's hard to be pinpoint accurate with the weapons in this game given the low projectile velocity making you lead your shots from as close as 10m, the tiny heads and hitboxes, their movement patterns, crappy crosshairs and crappy first-person crosshairs, and how utterly particular the hitboxes are that if you're a few cm off then forget about it. Add to it that you can get staggered which will completely throw off your aim needing you to re-steady again. The devastators are such a chore to fight against if you're not using a light pen weapon with ample ammo (sickle) that can just spray over their head area and take them out sorta well. Now comes medium pen weapons, they are so underwhelming and would be nearly pointless if not for them being great for bile spewers (the armored ones).

You can one shot devastators with diligence counter sniper. By far most powerful weapon against bots. People rarely use so it’s weird. Get good at aiming and ranging your sniper. You can carry a spear for factories and hulls and tanks. Pair this with medium tier recon armor and watch how you will almost never die and easily get over 300 kills. Trust me.

Since the big patch, my squad and I always bring one HMG no matter what. Usually a commando too, but ALWAYS a HMG.

Half mag burst on the belly takes care of Factory Striders in less than 6 seconds

“It has became” that’s all I can think about. Great video.

Hmg has always been pretty decent for me. Now its really good. Just gota know how to build around it.

Was using it against bugs yesterday, felt so much quicker than the MG-43.

i’ve used it since launch but i need to exclusively use recoil improving armor to get the most out of the 750 and 900 rpm. I think the only thing I dislike is the insane height over bore when aiming in so if you want to hit a small point (hulk face) within 30 meters you gotta be in 3rd person

Really great game play at the end to go with such an informative video!

Gonna try this build tonight, thanks bud

Oribtal failcannon is a pretty poor stratagem to bring. Its impact on the mission per cooldown is too small. You're much better off with something like eagle strike, 500kg, or even eagle rockets.

I think we need an MG with a backpack belt-fed. the ammo capacity of the heavy MG is woeful

I use a similar loadout to this. Instead of railcannon and PStrike, i use the airstrike and rocket pods. So much fun.

Peak physique not a must but highly recommended

Can Confirm all that was said, I just used it over the weekend with out seeing this video and Supply pack defiantly a must for good support its almost like this Gun and pack were made for each other lol

See, much as I love the HMG, I think that for most missions against Bots the Commando is the way to go. I can kill anything from Devastators on down with my Plasma Punisher, and the Commando is so good at blowing up fabs from across the map, to say nothing of it's ability to kill Hulks, Tanks, and even Striders. On the other hand, the HMG is my default weapon against Bugs. You can massacre everything from Bile Spewers on down. Stun Grenades will let you HMG Chargers in the butt, and that leaves you a couple of strat spots for your favorite Titan killing strats. So I'd reverse your rankings. The HMG is A tier against Bots...held back by not helping against Fabs...and S Tier against Bugs.

Pair the HMG with the Diligence if you really want to become an oil spilling demon.

When it came out, it was all I used. Miss the old RPMs...

autocannon is still the best chioce,but this is a good optional one

It's really great after the buff but you gotta have that ammo pack

All I want is to see this weapon get an extra 25 rounds per mag and an extra mag in reserve. Then it would be perfect and on par with the other good bot weapons.

I still prefer running the AMR or AC over HMG. AMR is by far my favorite simply because of the different scope options allowing you to hit those devastators from miles away. Also true for gunships where you can 4 shot them by focusing on a single engine. For Hulks it's 2 shots in the eye, and one for devastators just like the AC. The weapon also has a better ammo economy than the HMG and it's the only one of the three that can reload while moving. If you pair it with a supply pack and heavy hitting stratagems like a 500kg, OPS and stuff like that, you can pretty much deal with every single ennemy on the bot front. Though i prefer bringing Eagle airstrike over the 500kg since it can handle hords of ennemies as well as Factory striders for example (albeit not as well for the latter). I still use AC from time to time, simply because the massive stagger and AoE damage it has is a good tradeoff for the lack of good scope, backpack slot and poor handling in certain situations imo (i'm always running Engineering kit anyway). I mostly use it in defense missions, but AMR + supply pack is my go-to for other types. When you get good at aiming, this thing is a beast.

Pretty good gun but a bit of a learning curve to get use to handling and bullet drop. Definitely best with viper armour. Trying it out for the next few missions.

Plasma, sup pack and HMG/AMR. bot grape all day

I'm going to try this. However instead of the OPS I will use the 110 rocket pods

It needs more ammo to be viable without being tied to the supply pack at the hip.

this just seems like autocannon with extra steps. takes up 2 stratagem slots instead of 1, doesn't do area damage and takes longer to reload

I use the same set up, but with the armor the has the better aim while crouching & explosive damage reduction. I can't survive against the bots without the explosive damage reduction lol

HMG best support weapon now. At least against bots.

Old Painless is waiting..

I can never consider anything that requires a 2nd strategem to be effective S Tier.

hello, it's one of my favorite weapon, but i think that the speed of the projectils need to be buffed. I waste lot of ammo to down gunships when they are far, the latency between when you shoot and when it touch is too long. For the rest it's nice like that. I dont understed what is the " durable ", someone can explain me this or tell where to find the explaination. When i search they talk about the game replayable etc.. not about a feature in the game. thx.

I hate that the hmg needs a supply pack because it means the supply pack isn't ever properly used as a support role without hurting the user. Just give it a proper backpack already.

I like the heavy machine gun, but even with recoil reducing armor, the recoil is *rough*

I’m gonna try this as soon I get home again.

HMG can clear all promblem but need to find the weak

don't tell arrowhead or they'll take it away.

Don't get me wrong this is brilliant (HMG + Supply pack)....but I like this (Machine Gun + Eruptor)

One shot in the head i think one shot from anything wit htake down a destroyer

been running this gun constantly for like 2 weeks, it kicks so much ass

you forgot when it came out it has no reticule

How does the supply pack work? I honestly never used it before. Is it automatic or can other people get ammo from my pack?

With the gunships are you trying to hit the vertical thruster thingies same as the dropships?

used it the other night with peak physique and the scope was horrendously misaligned. Had to aim up and right to get bullets to hit what i was aiming at. Ridiculous. No more HD2 until i hear this baseline stuff has been fixed.

Devs: Must nerf HMG.....

How does it fair in comparison with the autocannon against Bots?

After five drops on multiple difficulties, I can safely say if I wanted to struggle with Automatons: *I'd use this loadout*

Best tip, get good

I tried to take out the dropships and gunships with the heavy machine gun but I wasn’t able to penetrate the engines????

The only primary weapon that can take down gunships is Scorcher?

How do I fix lag on the bit front? I believe it’s not because of graphics because it is better on the bugs

If there is no gunship patrols in the area, why should I use HMG if I have railgun?

Yeah about that heavy gunner actually weight go slower running not recomended

Bro you need to prone

Ergonomics or recoil for hmg ?

the sights are misaligned

I wish people would stop begging for money and clicks and crap.

I swear all it needs is 100 rounds be way better