The five best early Stratagems in Helldivers 2

Strategies are incredibly powerful tools for you and your allies Hell divers 2. They can be used indefinitely, but they are usually allowed to cool for a few minutes between uses. The catch is that you can only equip four at a time when participating in a mission.

These Stratagems can manifest as bombs, airstrikes, turrets and more, and are the key to surviving any mission against the insects and robots that plague Super Earth. In this Hell divers 2 guide, we’ll recommend our five favorite Stratagems that you can unlock and add to your Helldiver.

Orbital precision attack

The Orbital precision attack is the first strategy you start with Hell divers 2 — it’s the one you learn to use in the tutorial. But even after the tutorial, it’s a great tool to keep with you, and worthy of your precious Stratagem slots.

Orbital Precision Strike does a lot of damage as you can hit the target you are aiming for. But what you lose in accuracy, you gain in raw cooldown time. You can use the Orbital Precision Strike every few minutes Hell divers 2making it ideal for taking out a big bad, a small group of enemies, or spawn holes in the hive.

It’s a simple Stratagem, and it may be one of the first you earn, but it’s worth persevering until you’re sure you have four other options you like better.

Anti-personnel minefield

Image: Arrowhead Game Studios

The Anti-personnel minefield Stratagem is a tough recommendation to make here, as bad teammates have screwed me up with it more times than good teammates have saved me with it. But a minefield is just too beautiful to ignore.

By dropping one of these at an entrance to an area you’re trying to defend, you can completely deny a zone to enemies. They either go through and detonate the mines on their abdomen (removing the threat) or they avoid the mines and take a detour. Win, win.

However, you must be extremely careful when placing these mines, as placing them on a panicked target or through a high-traffic area of ​​the map can actually trap your teammates and blow them up. Powerful, but dangerous. I recommend taking on a few missions solo to master the mines, otherwise your friends will hate you.

Recoilless rifle

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The Recoilless rifle is excellent for killing large, armored enemies like Chargers. It comes with a backpack full of ammo that you or a teammate can carry. If you’re accurate, you can use the Recoilless Rifle (which is basically a bazooka with a scope) to punch a hole through the enemy’s armor. It is extremely effective.

Now the Recoilless Rifle isn’t very good at killing enemies if you hit their weak spot. So you’ll actually want to aim for a Charger’s head or leg armor to kill it. Still, the Recoilless Rifle is an excellent tool for dealing with big, nasty bugs in the earlier parts of the game before you have many other options for dealing major damage to a single target.

Gatling sentinel

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The Gatling sentinel is a powerful tool for closing off an area Helldivers 2, and it can chew through enemies faster than almost anything short of an explosion. But just like the mines, the Gatling Sentry can be very dangerous if you’re not careful.

The most common use of a Gatling Sentry is defending the launch pad while trying to escape at the end of the mission or waiting for an objective to be completed. But you can also place him near a nest and watch him go to work mowing through countless insects at once, or take him down while you’re fighting a boss so he can shoot while you chase the monster.

The problem with turrets is that they aren’t smart enough to know if there’s a Helldiver between them and the insect it’s shooting at. So if you get in the way of the turret, or if there’s a bug chasing you and see the turret, it will cut through both of you. So, as with all Stratagems, be careful.

Eagle air strike

Image: Arrowhead Game Studios

The Eagle air strike is one of the best early investments you can make Hell divers 2. It comes with two charges and lets you summon what is essentially just a bombardment. These bombs shoot across the ground and hit a huge area. It can kill tons of insects at once and also close multiple tunnels.

What makes the Eagle Airstrike so good is that after you activate it, it only takes a few seconds for the plane to arrive and drop bombs, making it very easy to react to unexpected insect movements and take out fast targets.

The big caveat here – aside from how easy it is to kill teammates during a bombardment; a running theme in this guide is that once you use the two chargers for Eagle Airstrike, the Stratagem will cool down for an extended period of time. Once the ship is refueled a few minutes later, you can charge twice more. But that downtime can get you in trouble if your Stratagem gets stuck on cooldown when you really need some explosions.

A bonus tip with the Eagle Airstrike is that you can enter a separate Stratagem command to actually reload early if you’ve only used one bomb. So if you’re not going to use the Eagle Airstrike for a few minutes while walking to an objective, send it to resupply so you’re ready for back-to-back airstrikes the next time you need it.