The Only Actually Comprehensive Helldivers 2 Solo Stealth Guide [cc] 

"Lockheed Martin PokeBalls" -Cassius 2024

9:00 fun fact: it's been confirmed by the AH CEO that the reason stealth doesn't feel like a fully implemented system, is because it isn't, they just tried to make enemy detection as realistic as they could with the restrictions of code and it naturally resulted in stealth being an option

worth noting that while grenades don't distract patrols, explosive grenade-like weapons (such as the crossbow and plasma punisher) do cause enemies to go investigate the location of the explosion, for some reason. The further the community looks into the inner workings of helldivers the more it becomes obvious this game is built on a mountain of spaghetti code so high it would make bethesda blush.

You and Eravin are the only people covering stealth mechanics in any degree of depth. The multiple types of enemy alert, "sound is an AOE that makes things investigate, not go active", bots going active when they see friendlies get shot, etc. It's like 2 people on the entirety of youtube teaching the mechanics haha.

I take offense to this title :P

"don't let them see you" *video ends*

I regularly go stealth-solo in most missions, and I think more helldivers should know how powerful stealth really is. I appreciate you(And Eravin) for spreading the word. I pray that developers won't foget about this part of the game.

This is extremely useful and took loads of dedication, good work hell diver

Patrol spawning mechanics have been decently well tested and described - there is a massive reddit post and a yt video by one of the theorycrafters - Lex. Crudely speaking - patrols spawn at time intervals in some distance from random player and go in his direction in the time they spawned. If patrol remains passive (won't meet a player or other aggroed units) they should go in a straight line to the edge of the map and despawn. Base time interval depends on difficulty, and is multiplied by circumstances like being close to objectives/bases/dropzone or completing main objective.

Around 6:00 or so you claim that suppressed weapons wouldn’t do much good because the native gunshot noise without a suppressor is already pretty short range in this game. However, there are clips throughout the video where enemies notice you shooting at them from far away. This is because a gun has many more noticeable effects than just the audible report of the gun itself, and suppressors are known for reducing many of these effects, not just the sound of the gun. Here’s a few that I know of, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these are modeled in-game. - Objects that fly through the air make a “whooshing” noise because they push air out of the way. Bullets do this, but they travel way faster than sound does, so the Doppler effect kicks in because those whooshing sound waves stack and combine up on each other repeatedly until the superconbined sound wave reaches the target. Instead of a quiet woosh, this sounds like a very loud and distressing “crack” that is distinct from the gunshot and is a good indication to the target that they are directly being targeted, because the noise isn’t nearly as extreme or audible from a different angle. Suppressed weapons are often loaded with “subsonic” ammunition that travels slower than sound does in order to avoid this giveaway. - firearms have a visible muzzle flash that can give away the shooters position. Suppressors can suppress or cover this visible muzzle flash. - some bullets are “tracer rounds” that are designed to light up in midair to be easy to see. I imagine a stealth-loaded weapon would use subsonic rounds that are designed to be very difficult to see. So, the suppressed weapons could simply greatly reduce your detection risk while firing at robots for the tradeoff of decreased damage and armor penetration. It could also slow down their reactions to you because it’s harder for them to find you even if you nail one of their squad members. This is different than the flat “reduced audible range” most games give you for using a suppressed weapon, but I think it would work well in the gameplay loop of Helldivers 2.

The high command thank you for your research helldiver Thanks to you democracy can spread even further

"avoid extermination mission" tbh if you take the right strategems you can solo those using stealth armor too, not much stealth but a lot of running in circles. Its still stealth if there are no survivors that saw you! The one where you have to protect the generators is impossible for solo, at least on higher difficulties, as they aggro on the generators, and there are just too many to kill quick enough. The bot flare is slow enough, and well enough telegraphed (they glow is hard to miss), along with a few other factors make bots a lot easier for me to stealth, even though theyre harder in general. I have managed to stop a bug pheromone only a few times, and the fact that the hive guard can call in for reinforcements quicker than i think you can kill him with small arms fire doesnt help. everything in the video seems to line up with what ive seen in my experience, and some of the explanations are quite interesting and useful, so thanks!

This makes so many weird stealth experiences make so much more sense

If they updated the Stealth system i will forgive the increased spawn rate of enemies in solo missions

This is some incredibly good information, I hope they can fix that cone going through walls thing though. triggering enemies 300 meters away is bs

juat letting you know they released a patch today which increases patrol spawn rates a lot more the less players you have in your game :)

Stealth Spear is also very good for soloing even if the locking mechanism keeps edging. Its very rewarding gameplay.

4:22 This happened to me oh so many times. Seeing flares going up 300m away... Whenever I brought this up on discord, it always ended with : L2 stealth noob ... Imagine being a newbie diver with 10h and saying that to a veteran diver with 300+ hours :) 4:37 finally somebody bringing this up, you're the good stuff maybe i'll watch more of your content :)

To add something extra to this, smokes can actually work as temporary line of sight blockers for the purposes of escaping detection, though only if you have over 10m of distance between yourself and the enemies according to Mr King Stealth Eravin? It definitely has its own quirks for sure. Very good to know though that enemies have infinite detection range if you shoot in their general direction; *_THAT_* quirk of stealth has definitely put me in awful situations before.

One thing thats also worth mentioning: rule about bots being attracted to you if you fire at them is also applied to your turrets. For example, if objective spawns a patrol coming towards it i would often run away, spawn a mortar sentry and watch them flock towards it like sheep. And unlike being triggered by you, even if they engage with the mortar they still wont call the dropships. Considering how effective mortar is, killing off stragglers shouldnt be much of a challenge.

Possibly my favourite youtuber atm

0:51 damn boy you ascended

Thanks for all the work but there was a video about this weeks ago😊

Thank you. What a great community.

Shots fired in the title, damn

When the bots make that lock on noise, that doesn’t mean they see you, they are “confirming” a target, you still have a second or so to hide.

about your comment about there being no suppressed weapons, there actually is a suppressed version of the liberator called truth whisperer (iirc) in the files with the suppressed tag on it, though i haven't seen anything about it in a good month and some change also about stopping flares going off on objectives, unless that got changed in the most recent patch, there is a 2 minute cd (2.5 min with localization confusion) on bot drops so baiting a drop away from the objective gives you a window to do it without T-1000 levels of aim and reaction speed

My stratagem balls rarely piss off enemies. But sometimes they do if my position is obstructed. I can stick stratagems to enemies while they face me without going into combat as long as they CAN see me. Placing an obstruction in the way, like a rock (so I know they are being stuck [thanks 3rd person camera]), means now through echolocation I am super visible. Additionally, I would like to note that these rules apply per helldiver as I have lost aggro mid-fight when accompanied by a teammate(s) too many times to count. At no point do I leave line of sight or stop shooting my gun. They just think my friend said slur or something and want them dead in particular. It should also be noted that most helldivers don't understand when enemies are in combat and assume any awareness of the enemy is hostile intent. And also fail to understand when in combat whether the enemies are attacking you specifically or just "at" you. Meaning they are in combat but unaware of where presently are.

Thank you I understand so much more. I tried doing a bunch of solo stealth helldives a week back and after many failures and ragequits I felt I needed a break because I could feel I could do everything right and some how still get screwed over by how bot detection works or ESP. The latter annoys me more. But seeing this video makes more sense. Tbh I’m gonna considering putting on medium armor for planets with not a lot of cover like snow planets. I mainly started on marfark because that was the planet I got used to on the bot front after a while but as much as I try to run and stealth a random rocket can easily still clip me while having just that little bit more armor can allow me to tank an entire barrage of rockets at times. I’ll probably rock trailblazer/ light/ scout armor on forest/jungle planets or places with lots of rocks as I can break line of sight easier. Either way thank you so much I’ll be trying to implement this when I play again maybe I’ll get a solo deathless helldive one day.

I like this content.

i often do level 6 eradicates on my own (barely) by hiding on a rock, waiting for bots to build up, and either nuking or barraging the group. can usually get a good 10-30% of the objective with each attack (since there's an enemy limit). this is way easier against bots, since they have plateaus to stick to and bugs just have weird spires (plus bile titans and mortar spewers).

Helldive defence missions are totally doable solo, but its full on cheese mode ofc. When respawning find a pillar to camp on. I like to bring mortar, orbital laser and either mines or bombarments. Then its all a matter of managing to camp out on a pillar or some hard to reach spot while chucking stratas at well timed moments and places. You can kill some stuff with primaries and grenades, but you can kill enough stuff with just mortar + laser (as long as the mortar gets to shoot untill empty rather than get cut down. Three barrages + laser can also get the job done but its a lot more rng dependant.

I do the defense missions solo with a few simple tricks. EMS + Mortars and becoming a traitor tactically. With the Eradicator armor and constantly diving you can get like 25% of the kill quota or more if you're lucky. In fact the way I full clear whole operations on 7-9 is starting with the eradicate / defense missions as those are the ones I consider run killers.

Lockheed Martin PokeBalls sounds like something TheFatElectrician or Habitual Linecrosser would come up with, and I love their videos. So please consider this high praise for your comedy

I notice sometimes large bots (devastators, AT-AT, etc.) can go out of bound and shoot through terrains. I guess that's when the obstacle detection fails so they got ESP and instantly know where you are.

.. Not kill bots? That's a literal definition of a TREASON!

Usually i hate stealth but for some reason i enjoy it in hell divers 2 its real strange

Yeh, i Mid vape when you said 'Mecah tank jujutsu' 😂

The devs did say that they never planned on actually having stealth gameplay though

How to stealth: avoid enemies like they want you to pay your taxes and stare at your radar like a teen with their phone. Or Kill everyone before they can report you. Splinter Cell told me it still counts as ghosting a mission if everyone that knew you were there is dead.

I thought a fair amount of this was known, but I've also gone to trivial to really test what i could get away with. I'm pretty sure you can bait with grenades, and from my experience the artillery will fire one shot when you get in range and then remember it doesn't know where you are. Also from my experience, sometimes i can fire a single shot at a bot bunker, assassinate the one on the turret, and the ones nearby will look around. But if i need a second shot for the turret guy, they'll fire in my direction. Almost like the first shot cause them to look in the direction of the sound, and the second shot allows them to pinpoint the angle of attack. But "marksmen rigles suck" When people complain about so many heavies i keep telling them it's largely their fault for aggroing everything around, but they don't get it. Either kill everything or retreat, don't constantly run while shooting...

True scholarship

Apparently they are planning on adding suppressed weapons, and possibly weapon attachments such as suppressors and many other things.

Since the new patch I’ve been running the Localisation Confusion Booster on my solo Helldives and they are quite manageable. I tend to find bot missions much easier to stealth tbh.

The amount of TIMES i have not been in combat for minutes, only to see a Bot Flare 200 meters away get called by a bot who has no idea I'm there, and his buddies have no idea I'm there. It's definitely broken, because this never happens to the Bugs. The Bugs have to see you and be a certain distance away to call their buddies from what I've gathered, but it seems the bots have no such restriction. Also, I have managed to bait the Bots with grenades, but it is so unbelievably finicky that I don't think it's intended. 90% of the time they see it as an attack and get aggro'd, 10% of the time they investigate there the grenade exploded.

If you want to solo you can actually find as much if not more success with the servo arm passive, you can complete most bot outposts without ever needing to get within visual range with stratagems or with a spear/explosive weapon from a vantage point. Eagles are preferable due to rearming time being small and you can spam 100k or 500k bombs pretty quick to finish a job fast enough you can bale without attracting too much attention even if they drop a flair. This goes for secondary/primary objectives too since if you use eagles or a quick to rearm orbital in the case of AA you can destroy a majority of light enemies making it easier to mop up the rest before they call for backup. If they do run like hell or pray your stratagems are back in time to mop up the mess. Loadouts that work with this set up need work best with an autocannon with a multitool weapon like the ARs of las weapons as a primary and whatever secondary you run the most comfortably. but a quasar, eat-its, recoilless or spear can work but you might need to bring something like the scorch or eruptor to deal with the devastators as they are the biggest threat to your continued living immediately. But kinda leaves you ‘defenseless’ against the chaf that can call for reinforcements since ammo can be pretty scarce after multiple engagements. Biggest downside I see is less stealthy and slower due to no light servo option being available. Also less range to detect enemies so I would honestly recommend the reduced encounters buff if you have it. Otherwise just buckle up and be ready to join the wall of martyrs because it’s not gonna be easy.

So that time I sneaked up to a base and sniped a machine gun guard and the guy behind him sends a flare up and starts shooting into the wall, is that because he saw his buddy die or is technically downrange of my shot? Even if he can't see me.

I'd say probably the best way to prevent a bot drop on an objective is to try and provoke a bot drop from a different group like 100 Meters away, then sprint away without fighting them, and tear into the enemies on the objective while the game is in its cooldown state where more bot drops can't be called

This video, more than demystifying stealth mechanics, perfectly encapsulates (1) the community's fundamental misunderstanding of the objective of the game and (2) the cognitive bias inherent to human beings that makes the unwilling to change their minds based on first impressions. The idea that not shooting everything in sight is "anti fun" is a "them problem" is a hilarious quote. The Starship Toopers association gave everyone the wrong idea. They all think they're SEAF (Super Earth Armed Forces aka the regular military). We are Helldivers. We're Seal Team 6, Task Force 141, Pathfinders, etc etc... Kills are just a side effect of us doing our jobs, and IMO calling a 200 kill count after a 20 minute mission a "side effect" is significantly cooler, more badass, and more fun than being SEAF.

I genuinely feel bad for the developers of this game, they made an awesome and fun foundation on an engine dropped by its developer (rip stingray) where theyre the only ones on earth using it to this capacity… if not the only ones using stingray period

0:17 The community is fucking aggravating in general. The reddit is a god damn cesspool. I feel bad for the devs and community managers who have to put up with the most ignorant shit talk all day.

I've been able to complete difficulty 7 defense missions solo. Its extremely hard and you will probably lose 50% of them but if you are lucky enough to get a drop onto a pillar where its hard to be shot from, you can fairly easily drop mortar sentries and spam airstrikes. The hardest part is getting onto and staying on the pillar since you need to either die at least once or get lucky during the initial drop. Staying on it is difficult because there is always at least one angle you can be shot from, or staggered by explosives and knocked off.

Love your avatar

Hell yea

Obviously it isnt optimal, but I had some success doing stealth solo play with heavy armour. You have to be more careful with vision, but you get a lot more durability when things go wrong. Especially the reduced explosive damage, meaning fewer automatons can just one shot you

So what I'm hearing is sometimes the best way to stealth is to murder everyone so there's no witnesses left "Sir, this was a stealth mission. Why did you need (checks notes) 24 danger-close airstrikes?" "To maintain stealth"

If you use smoke to break line of sight, the bots will stop and just shoot at where you were. Orbital EMS and smoke can let you get away from huge mobs. Orbital barrages WILL NEVER HIT THE BEACON!!’!’ You can drop the 380mm barrage beacon immediately in front of you, then dive/crawl on top of it. Stay lying down and you will survive without damage. 😁

holy crap 😳

Ngl if not for the Xcom sigil, I would've skipped this one Cheers, commander

I don’t a few solo missions using stealth. It’s fun. a lot of thing this video says is true

Everything largely overlaps with my observations. "Infinite range bug" I think bots simply do not have a range limit and that you are describing always happens on an open field. They simply still see you or fire at your last known position. Also, I'm quite sure the view cone of the enemy changes / is ignored depending on state as enemies in combat will reacquire you on los immediately at any distance and turn immediately. Bots only notice low sounds really close to them, you can test this by walking up to a bot from behind (not sneaking) they will turn. I'm quite sure this is what can alert bots to gunfire that is not hitting them. Equally they will hear melee in about 2-3m range (or it's melee taking you out of sneaking). You can bate many bots to go after loud sounds but there is a catch: You cannot have any los with any bot or they will know. This might not work with grenades as I have no experience and would never waste a stun for such nonsense. The most important thing I want to say is the following: If you make sure no bot but your target or targets you can kill within 1-2s have line of sight to you (doesn't matter if they are facing you or not assume 360° vision) and if there are no other bots seeing them (same rules), you can engage and still be in complete stealth afterwards. In practice this means that you can throw as stratagem without causing a bot drop. The leftover bots will get alerted by the blasts and go looking (for example the blown fab). If you dmged a bot but didn't kill it, it seems to magically know your position (bad). If they see you shooting a bot they will be in a state that causes immediate bot drops but are not able to shoot at you without los. They are probably in combat but this does not matter if you don't engage. The same goes for bot drops btw, they will drop in combat but if you deny los they will not be able to do anything and eventually patrol off. For now, the best way to avoid bot drops is to shoot a random bot 200m away to get them to drop in a useless place (for now, because I suggested to add gunships to bot drops, which would mean this would be very badge). TLDR: The most "abusable mechanic" is line of sight. If you never establish it bots cannot do anything. I think the stealth in bot missions it rather well done.

The bugs should have audible chain alert. The bots should have a group alert. The bots can use wireless communication right?

makes me wonder what the scout perk gives you. are you more quiet, are sight ranges turned down, or is their view cone for detecting you in particular turned down, a combination of the before mentioned, or maybe something else entirely?

I think they should boost sound for all standard weapons and introduce stealth weapons that have higher crit damage but less penetration and overall damage

mecha tengo jutsu XD subscribing just because of that

If they love their sim feel to the game, patrols shouldn't spawn, they should arrive by ship or exit from fabricators, it won't be a bot drop in your head, just a ship arriving to leave the patrol bots, that way you'll at least know from which direction a potential fight could come

This morning 8 manged to call in an SOS to bait some enemies and a near by patrol on ny location as i made it away to safety

They just nerfed the sole missions. More patrols while playing with less than 4 players.

9:52 so far it's been the exact opposite from my experience since the patrol spawn patch. everyone is now saying you are bad at the game for trying to fight all the enemies and should just run from everything or lower the difficulty, and I'm like why not just admit the game is probably in a worse state if every difficulty feels exactly like the same grind and everyone going to normal diff for a solution should be a redflag. the contempt for people thinking everyone would just pay easy instead of see what's going on when they themselves didn't even play solo cause that's actually more challenging most of the time than having 20 lives and 4x the resources. when i was new to the game i had trouble getting past diff 5 so me and my friends resorted to stealth and got to hell dive pretty quickly. it was a skill issue to not be able to fight everything. plain and simple. obviously picking a battle if you don't have time is a strategy. i learned how to fight the higher tier enemies and solo dived non meta stuff and had fun.(seriously there are some equipment that trivializes this game) and usually what the ones spouting skill issue are using when other people get their less op stuff nerfed. no i don't think you are bad at the game for doing stealth or running. but it's just the ego of certain people thinking they are better than everyone cause they just hold sprint at the first sign of danger. its the new gatekeeping for people genuinely wanting the game they had 3 days ago back that they enjoyed for 3 months, all taken away by an arbitrary change in patrol spawns that was only made cause that's not what the drawing board said it should be.

I’ve personally done I think level 5 eradicate missions but there extremely difficult and I’ve yet to try a level 6 one on my own but I think a level 7 is just barely possible in time for myself if I abuse mortars and mines

Genuinely, at the higher levels stealth matters a lot more to the point that I've used a lot of these tactics and have seen in the higher difficulties (7 and above) randos regularly use it and try to *not* engage every patrol on the way since it makes sure we aren't drowning in a sea of Hulks and Devestators.

yeah based on my experience stealthing this tracks i did stealth when i was new to the game and i just got by not shooting and running and avoiding patrols with the radar upgrade and hellpod thing i entered combat, map open run away until no one is close to me go back stealthing was my go to for so many hours of this game but now that im skilled enough to combat i dropped it

While I agree that patrols don’t share information, I have run into numerous occasions where killing a straggler that got stuck on a rock 100m behind the rest of the patrol instantly alerts the rest of said patrol. Not sure why this happens, as literally nothing else seems to cause this. If the straggler sees you, the rest are oblivious. If you shoot the straggler, still nothing. The instant you kill it, though, all of a sudden there’s a hail of bullets coming at you from the ass end of nowhere. I don’t get it.

Make more helldiver videos. Democracy demands it!

I heard all pistols are quieter then primaries and won't activate the searching state as easily, melee straight up makes no sound and if aimed correctly can one tap the smaller guys and not make a single sound

I'm curious why Walking Barrage instead of 120MM? Also Gunships seem to not give a shit and detect you always. They can briefly search but will instantly spot you. The Key to Stealth and I never seen someone make a guide for it is to actually toss a 380MM at a base that you DO NOT INTEND to fight at to call the dropship there so you can fight peacefully at the Stratagem Jammer objective.

i mean if your main strategy in an action shooter game is just to avoid combat all together then why would you play an action shooter game then?

I've baited with grenades.

you didnt mention if enemies react to dead bodies, do they?

I will tell you the only technique you need to know in helldivers 2 personal shield generator flamethrower stun grenade there you win

where's the ss13 video, cassius?

you just made sarge stronger

RIP solos

In my experience...

"Makes the game not fun"? Look I'm a scout, even with a party. My job is to destroy fabs, holes, and heavy enemies from a distance. That's very fun for me, getting into a fire fight with everything on the map is not. Throwing an airstrike on a small base and alerting the neighborhood to our location is less than fun.

How to play this game, step one equip laser, profit

why video so bright

7

An yes doing eliminate horde solo PAIN arrowhead please when we go in solo PLEASE SLOW DOWN HTE BOT DROPS

LOL

Well after the increase in enemy patrols in the new patch this style is gone...sad face

Oh man you think the stealth is bad solo? Try multiplayer with loud people. I've had bots decide "Fuck this particular guy." From across the fucking map because they were in combat with an ally despite me never getting into combat. For this reason and due to many other bugs, my kit has to also be able to demolish the Bots. AMR kits include: Full-auto primaries: Defender or Sickle GP pistol Stun Grenades Laser Cannon Kits include: Either Diligence or Eruptor GP pistol Stun grenades. Stratagems other than the support weapons are: Eagle Airstrike Orbital Strike (Low cooldown objective deleter (Think detection tower or illegal lab building)) Orbital Laser (if their is 4 slots) Since the AMR is great at deleting Devestators, usually I pick something good at destroying chaff enemies. AMR's weakness is having a harder time killing the Gunships The strength is being better at killing Hulks and Devs faster. Laser Cannon is great for dealing with small enemies and can be used in third person to pop heads from behind cover in third person. Weakness is the TTK on Devs and Hulks along with range Strength is absolutely deleting those pesky gunships Both weapons can kill all enemies on bot side, unfortunately requiring hitting a weakpoint, but their sheer versatility make them great for a build not using the Autocannon. Now if only a suppressed weapon would release already....

Editing this comment, the game is extremely buggy, I'm sorry, I've experienced so many bugs on this game after leaving the original comment, one time I literally could not be reinforced no matter what

What is it with anime pfp dudes and stealth? Lolol

Most information is based on i think and in my experience(proceeds to say i think and in my experience for 16 minutes)

Bro, for knocking people for not stating facts you sure say "I think" "I suspect" a whole lot in this vid, just saying

Clickbait title. Your content is great, you don't need to resort to stupid methods to get views from our community.

Fuckin’ speaking Polish… really?