Helldivers 2 currently has a major issue where primary weapons feel unusable and need a buff to be relevant.
Helldivers 2 is quite diverse when it comes to a variety of weapons and Stratagems. However, if the viability of these weapons is to be questioned, there is a massive gap between the usable and terrible ones.
As it happens, primary weapons are in a rough spot in Helldivers 2. These weapons deal very little damage and have a small ammo capacity. This means you need to reload your weapon multiple times even when engaging against a single enemy.
Primary weapons might feel usable if you play at lower difficulty settings. As the difficulty level goes higher, primaries start feeling terrible and you shouldn’t use them. The biggest issue with some of these primary weapons is armor penetration, which reduces the damage output even further.
For instance, a weapon with medium armor penetration has a 40% damage reduction. This imbalance has made primary weapons a detriment and that is unsuitable. Several weapons such as the Liberator, Penetrator, Jar-5, and Eruptor are fun to use. However, the experience could’ve been better if these weapons were usable in high-difficulty content as well.
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With primaries being terrible, the entire meta revolves around Stratagem cooldowns, and that’s a problem. Players use their Stratagems, disengage, and then run around until their Orbital Laser is back from cooldown.
This issue is so prevalent that several players in the community shared their dissatisfaction on Reddit. Some players feel many weapons are “borderline unusable” as they are frustrated with their current state.
Helldivers 2 might be a PvE game but there is no one way to walk around a meta. Some weapons will always prove to be stronger than others. However, in the current state, the game revolves mostly around Stratagems and that is something that needs to change.
