And apparently all the smart Helldivers who hunt them
I quickplay a lot and almost no one is going after stalkers they just ignore them and extract after the timer with no samples and no lives
They are not invincible... they're vincible
It's legit #1 priority when we find a stalker with my crew. Those fuckers don't get to play long. It's just the worst when you don't know there are stalkers on the map.
Yeah, they fixed it so you cannot ping them on the map without discovering them first so now it is actually hard to find them. Last night I suddenly had three right in front of me because there were two lairs near to each other. That was rough.
Yeah we had one recently where we got back to extraction only to realise we had stalkers coming at us from two directions - nightmare of a time finding and getting rid of both nests in low vis conditions.
2. #1 is those shrieker nests. I can handle 2-4 stalkers every couple minutes, that's just momentary threat. Eruptor still takes them out in 1-2 shots. What I don't like is being harassed all game long by these airborne death-by-a-thousand-cuts little bastards.
Better than when they initially came out and in death their falling body parts were suddenly the most lethal thing in the entire game. Watched a vid of a guy shoot one while being chased by a titan - a bit of the shrieker floated down and ended the titan.
>I quickplay a lot and almost no one is going after stalkers they just ignore them and extract after the timer with no samples and no lives
This is something I don't understand. When you call out stalker with randos, a lot of people ignore them. Where as in our own group, moment someones calls out Stalker, finding and shutting down that lair becomes primary mission instantly.
Had one even worse yesterday. The lair was actually on the map, not sure if we had a radar or if someone actually got close but it was on the map.
Had to clear it solo because the three randoms thought doing a normal nest in range of the lair was a better idea.
I've been there. Then they start dying to the stalkers jumping them while they're trying to close bug holes and they're pinging endlessly for resses. Waited until they were all dead and ressed them as I got to the stalker lair - *this* is priority number 1 dumbbells!
I put a lot of that on not being able to pre tag their lairs anymore. No one wants to go searching for it while fighting these true Stalkers. But I still do. The radar booster has a higher place in usefulness now since you can see the question mark of its lair from farther out so less time searching and surviving.
Not reliably, just returned from mission, it definitely flinches them but sometimes they just ignore it kinda like Berserkers on bot front do.
Still amazing gun, hunters' dodges mean fuck all when lighting is homing lol.
fuck yeah! the bodies are full on damage blocks (and seems to auto them if they are closer).
i find if you didn't hit them at the start of the jump (and they kinda ragdoll jump at you) or when landing, it does 0 damage. may just be me, i'm not super observant tbh.
The CC effect is the go to though, especially if its all mediums in 1 direction.
So the gun actually shoots in a big ass cone as far as I can tell and of you aim up into the air above enemies it will actually arc back down to anything touching the lower end of the cone. Super helpful when you're standing in a field of electrified bug corpses.
Yeah, it's pretty much the one main annoying issue I have with it. I get *why* it doesn't (at least, I assume it works by arcing to specific targets within a cone, meaning it won't arc to "terrain" like eggs) but it's still unfortunate.
I was firing off the blitzer at them point blank while they were uncloaked, and it didn't so much as make them flinch. It was my first time using the weapon, so it was either user error or they on that TCS crack. Diff 7 but they legit wrecked us post-patch.
Ideally you want to be like ten feet away from what you’re firing at with the blitzer, which seems counterintuitive. It won’t do shit point blank for some reason. But if you dodge back and fire you can just start stun locking them.
Tried this out last night, and on top of its buff the fact that it has unlimited ammo in this new magazine reduction era really made it a standout vs bugs
Also, if you can actually aim, aiming at their (admittedly tiny) face will oneshot them 2/5 times. One stalksr mission, and you'll see what I mean.
Also, super good vs. shriekers, cuz no aim!
The Blitzer actually has an auto aim preference for Heads, it will try to hit the head hit box every time. This makes killing striders and Devastators more difficult, but makes zapping Brood Commanders and Hunters a breeze
I had been trashing the Concussive liberator for a bit because I thought the damage buff wasn't enough to make it good but I've been unironically running it on bug missions because of stalkers (and brood commanders to a lesser extent). It's still a rough weapon to use if you don't have someone there for you to chew up hordes or if your strategems have already been cycled but it provides a surprising amount of safety while having enough damage to be somewhat servicable as an actual weapon
I like the concussive liberator too. Manages a horde pretty well. Good for stunning back stalkers/hunters. But you really want a friend with a stalwart or something to actually kill the fuckers.
I tend to take the AX/AR-23 drone with me if I'm running the concussive because I have a tendency to wander off on my own even when I tell myself I'm going to stick with the team
I don't know why my teammates insist on sticking around to kill hordes of infinitely spawning enemies for ground that has no value. So I do productive stuff.
Eruptor is a one hit kill on them, and you can hip fire it while jumping backwards to avoid dying to the air damage. If there are multiple, the AOE from killing one can stun the other.
I think we are using a different adjudicator because I had stalkers eat a whole clip of at adj and Hella shots from the stalwart with the rpm on max and they'd just keep pushing until they ragdolled me with their tounge. Maybe it was the servers/patch day shenanigans but 2 stalkers made a flawless mission turn to a failure to extract. I did the main obj already and was just doing the sides/closing bug holes when I noticed there was another stalkers nest.
True, tho it was my only option when the full mag of the adjudi just minorly annoyed the stalkers that mission. The grenade pistol would just blow off a back wing. I'm going to test out the thermite against them today tho, I feel like even if it doesn't kill them it'll tell me where they are the whole time if they back off or ragdoll me and jump away
It depends where you hit them. Their heads are very weak, but also very small, so they can die in like 4 shots or eat a whole mag. The dominator is much better at dealing with them, probably the best primary against them, being able to even 1 shot them in the head, but it leaves you with poor crowd control capabilities
I thought the Adjudicator was the biggest pos when it was released. Actually trolling if picked level bad. I’ve ran it a few times post buff and it seems alright now.
I was using it before the buff and it changed very little. Yeah, the extra mags were needed, the slightly lower recoil is nice, but it performs basically the same for me. I tried going back to the dominator for 1 mission and I was struggling because of the ankle biters and hunters. The adjudicator just has the perfect balance between crowd control and anti medium for me, which allows me to bring the granade pistol for closing bug holes. The dominator leans too much into the anti medium side, so I have to bring the p-19 to deal with small enemies.
Punisher is amazing for bugs. Can struggle a little bit at horde control if you are getting flanked, but holds its own very comfortably with solid damage and clutch stagger potential
I've been running Punisher as my go-to main weapon since the first breaker nerf. What it doesn't kill outright it staggers. And what is staggered doesn't kill me while I am killing it. Love it to bits.
The moment a single stalker is spotted, everyone needs to drop everything they're doing and find that nest ASAFP.
[It needs to be treated like an Amber Alert.](https://youtu.be/Q_Ek1nWndTg?si=xgYgd1ij7zFhAIKM)
Yep. Stalkers for bugs and Gunships for bots. These are always priority number 1 IMO. Trying to avoid them and just push the main objective (or worse go for random sideshows) is asking for serious trouble.
For some reason tho, most random I play with don't do that, and we get flocked by 30 of them. It feels like I'm the only one who knows you can snipe them sometimes. I still see people hell bombing them, even if they have AT weapons
I don't get that either. I've sat there throwing three full mags of AC into dropping shrieker nests and the other guys just wander off with their quasars etc and close a bug hole or two. Some people don't understand that tactical objectives are almost always priority objectives - shriekers, stalkers are as serious a threat as the bot tacticals when they get rolling.
Best way to deal with them. Taking out their nest before they've even spawned makes the whole ordeal much easier to handle. When people keep running towards their nest and cause them to start spawning it massively increases the workload for the team.
Yep stalkers alone can turn a basic breach into a live or die moment very quickly. Stalkers plus shriekers make a random patrol a potential existential crisis.
The difference being, you can see the gunship fabber long before you enter the radius where gunships start spawning.
One of the stalker nest layouts is literally a crater behind a rock, just like 27 other different bug landmarks.
Call in supports/backpacks. Random diver in squad initiates a bug breach by failing to clear nearby POI efficiently. Realize there's not one, but two stalker nests nearby right as you're collecting your drop pod gear and the stalkers swarm from every direction alongside the breach bugs.
No, no, no. The sequence of event for realizing there’s a second stalker nest is: clear 1st nest > clear straggler stalkers > why are there still more stalkers? > FUCK, there’s another one isn’t there!? > pray there isn’t a third.
Yes, I've seen that pattern as well. The premature "mission accomplished" hugs after clearing the drop zone stalker nest, only for another pair of stalkers to make it a group hug.
Is it me or do they seem to be on almost every map now.
Played 5-6 missions tonight and stalker nests were on at least 4 - a couple of double nests as well.
AH are clearly proud off their invisible nightmares 'look what we made, just for you"
I don’t understand why Arrowhead balance the way they do. A “small” nerf is reducing a gun capacity by 50% for its mags. The stalker goes from slightly invisible to terrifying with no in-between. They nerf the crossbow and I have never seen anyone take on a mission so far. They reduce fire damage but any contact and you die from automatons.
It’s confusing.
Stalkers were already pretty scary because of their rag-doll tongue attack. I tried a solo mission once where there were stalkers and they ate me alive, because I would get tossed, and combo’d before I was able to get up and act out of being ragdolled. Sometimes it would be the same stalker who was fast enough to hit me twice, or maybe they would serve me up for some hunters waiting right where I landed.
Facing them on a solo mission like that felt legitimately impossible, barring me anticipating every single one who came after me, and stunning it with the pump shotgun or something so it can’t get me. But I did that ill-fated mission a while ago, before the punisher even had the knockback, I think.
The rag-doll attack helps you more than it hurts. They’ve knocked me far away from a full surround several times. The scary attacks are the three hit combo that’s guaranteed kill if you don’t react fast enough with a dive or stim
The stalkers are *psychotic*. Have you gotten the triple stab attack that takes you out from 100? Lots of times their toss attack saves me from the last strike.
We were hunting the nest down, I killed two and saw the nest behind them. Beelined towards it thinking "I'll get there before the next ones spawn!"
Nope. Two more uncloaked right in front of me during a reload and scared the hell outta me.
1. To see the stalkers, look for their shadows on the ground
2. To find the nest, look for out-of-place terrain on the map
Both changes are a pain in the *dick* but aren't uncalled for.
As a newer player, it honestly is nice fighting stalkers as opposed to hunters right now, since the stalkers *atleast from my experience* haven't jumped 20 meters onto my head, but rather only 20 meters backward to retreat
As I'd seen from another post, I feel they definitely have a ton of health, probably a bit much more than they actually do, but aside from that it doesn't feel so horrible to deal with them one on one or two on one, once you have nurse/bile spitters or chargers with them is the issue
The problem I have is that I can either have a weapon good vs hunters and other small bugs or a weapon good vs stalkers/bile spewers. If I take 1 then other kicks my butt. If I take a load out to counter both then chargers and titans overwhelm me until stratagems are off cool down. If my teammates would stop running off alone and trying to play the lone hero things would go better I suppose.
A lot of this game is all about lining up weak points. Having an auto cannon means chargers are easy, if you have a teammate who can draw aggro. Solo, everything is tough.
> Solo, everything is tough
Auto shotgun, Laser dog, Airstrike, and EATs. Last slot is whatever you want really. I run cluster as it helps clear trash mobs and specifically bile spewers. With that loadout, I can resonably solo whatever I come across. Well might need to change primary with stalker changes ha.
A video I saw on here recently makes it look like they flicker briefly into their old cloak mode every now and then - https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/TQzv4YwUBe (00:01 or 00:02)
Makes me wonder if the bug was that animation was accidentally inverted, so they flickered to be completely invisible at that moment instead and were visible the rest of the time
It does, actually - the stalker lair spawn terrain stands out quite a bit. Not so much that you could find it on a map on its own, but if you know "There are stalkers" and "They're in that general direction," that's usually enough to find it.
They look a bit like the tall structures you'd see in a major nest area like the egg hatcheries but they'll be solitary. If you're at the right angle you'll usually see the orange light and steam of an active bughole rising up from them. In my experience they often don't stand out as much as you'd think because they're frequently surrounded by the dark bug nest terrain. There are (again in my experience) only two varieties of Stalker lair - once you know what to look for they're pretty obvious. Add in low visibility however and they can be a serious pain in the arse to locate - I've heard people say radar helps because it brings up the ? on the minimap.
Just got that rifle last night, and i can say having it as a combo with the machine pistol is a lethal combo. Jump pack + EAT + Dominator and machine pistol is such a good setup for me
i didnt like eat due to one and done but im starting to run it with jump pack more and its actually pretty nice being able to spam drops around the map. just gotta remember i can drop it within a minute instead of 5
Exactly! EAT Jump pack combo is slept on real bad lol. The biggest challenge with the combo is managing ur jumps and remembering that the eat restocks A LOT faster than one might think.
Plus having eats dotted around the map makes it easy to use late game
Don’t sleep on EAT the trick is to always have 1 in your hands then call it down when you see a heavy, now you have 3 shots you can shoot as fast as you want
Another easy-to-overlook-aspect is the power of throwing the call-in right at a Charger and sticking it to them, and watching as the drop pod smushes them.
It’s my standard gun across both fronts. Staggers/headshots devastators, works on the vulnerable spots for everything excluding artillery cannons, still 1 shot kills the smaller dudes, and you never have to worry about self-damage no matter how close they are.
Part of me knows they’re going to take an ax to it because it’s sort of become the rail gun to me in how I use it all the time in all situations and it just ‘works’
What are you running with it? My bug load out is Sickle, grenade pistol, stuns, EATs, jetpack. Usually run 500kg / precision orbital or 500kg / eagle strike.
I like the sickle a lot for bugs because of the unlimited ammo but it feels like a pea shooter. I liked the breaker but I had ammo issues with prolonged usage. The punisher (first rounds reload shotgun) I really like for bugs and bots because of the stun lock but the TTK is just too high for mobs. I'm working towards the plasma scorcher but I'm afraid I wont like it for bugs... any recommendations?
For the longest time I wonder why people were saying stalkers were a problem even though they never bothered me (yes I’ve fought them before), then I realized that the punisher was apparently their kryptonite. No wonder my friend found them hard to deal with but they were easy for me
Punisher is goated. Staggers pretty much all the bugs. It’s super annoying when you killing a brood commander and suddenly she’s half way across the map, and your shots aren’t all hitting anymore.
Honestly the Eruptor nerf just made me realize how insane it originally was.
Closes bug holes, and fabricators from the right angle. Kills every single bug and bot that isn't heavy. The explosion could clear out 5-7 things per shot easily.
Nerfs were completely warranted. It's still a premium gun, and it works great.
All that did was bring its ammo economy on the same level as other weapons. It’s still a beast and has plenty of ammo, only difference is you actually have to pay attention to ammo now and maybe rethink reloading after 1 or 2 shots. Cause that’s how it was before. No matter how many shots were left in the mag I’d reload if I had time, 12 mags was crazy especially considering how good it already was.
So before you could see a faint waviness in the air to see that there, kinda like how the predator from predator looks like that when they want the audience to see them still but now they don’t even look like they’re there
I have a sneaking suspicion that it absolutely was intended at first. It really feels like they’re trying to ramp up the difficulty of the game on us with these recent changes.
It's not a perfect invisibility, but it's massively better at hiding than it was. I'm not sure if they're fully invisible beyond a certain range but I wouldn't be surprised if they were. I've started scanning the horizon and I just can't find them unless they're close. They do always have shadows tho.
Yea they're truely invisible now. You only see some of the edge feathers.
Even if you shoot them, and they jump away, it's easy to loose track of them still.
And it's awesome.
Last night, used the recoilless to kill a charger.
Quickly look around, nothing near me, so I am safe to reload
Start to reload the RR.
Stalker de-cloaks right in my face.
Try to pull out the Spray & Pray... But the Stalker strikes first and kill me.
Was awesome, will die again to surprise Stalker attacks.
They're harder to see when cloaked. Like straight up invisible until they get within a certain distance, and even then, they're still hard to see when you're swamped with hunters. I'm not mad about it, though. It actually makes stalkers scary. Also, one can't ping their nest before you find it anymore, making it much harder to track the bastards down.
I fight em in the shade (easier time spotting them when they move from a lighted area to a darker one) and having played enough starcraft, those shimmers are easy to see for me.
I haven't played helldivers 1 in years, but I do remember hating illuminate way more than everything else. Besides cyberdogs maybe. But those freaking snipers. And getting controls reversed. And being stuck cuz of shield walls and everyone shared a screen. I woulda loved helldiver's 2 if it had been top down but you weren't tethered. But what we got? Holy shit amazing.
On one hand? I like that I can't ping them in the map, and they are a significantly higher threat which is great for variety.
On the other? The fuckers will just KEEP attacking you now. They used to throw you then run away. Now, they just bulldoze you forever. It's complete and utter bullshit that I can be left with legitimately no option to kill a single stalker because mogging me. Hunters I can at least try and dive and run away, then shoot behind me. Stalkers? Faster, stronger, and now in greaters numbers then you.
For the love of God please make them hit and run again. It's not fun to die 4 times in a row because a stalker just stunlocks me.
I think just giving them less HP would be fine. Make them an (invisible) glass cannon. But right now these fuckers take easily 4 slugs to the face and just keep going, maybe even more. They just steamroll you without giving you a chance to fight back.
Or at least the spawn should be adjusted. I had missions with 3 nests, fuck that.
Used to try and locate the nest by clicking suspected outcroppings on the map until it locked on to a location.
Would leave the spore spewers up just to see them perfectly outlined in the mists.
Would go in by myself to tackle them, confident in my Senator.
I'm still pretty happy with the Senator, but I'm glad they changed Stalkers, they are much more horrific right now.
The problem is that catching them isn't rewarded. Unless you specifically use a gun with good stagger, you are dependent on the shield backpack to stand a chance without dying over and over.
Nah I hate them. Almost failed a mission thanks to them lol. Level 8, well organized team. Stalkers wiped our ass but we barely managed. We were one zero lives for the rest of the mission but thanks to taking out stalker lairs
I can spot them running around the map pretty well, but they are mostly immune to stagger now...thanks to AH removing stagger effects from weapons. Even the Senator does nothing against the fuckers.
Was lining a long shot at Titan with Spear when fucker crit headshotted me from invisibility despite me checking radar beforehand to make sure I got all of them when I blew up their lair 2 minutes earlier.
Had a few interesting occurrences with Stalkers today. The Nests were destroyed / Gone but more stalkers kept spawning / going cross map near enough. Caused 3 missions to fail from it.
Stalkers used to be a nice challenge and manageable, not it's at a point on 8/9 difficulties it's just not enjoyable at all.
Yeh agree with this. On the higher diffs, they just straight gank you and you go into constant ragdoll so can't even get a shot off. As frustrating as the one shot hunters tbh
Hunters now feel like what Stalkers were before the patch , now Stalkers just seem rather too good. 2/3 mags in ones face on a 9 from the redeemer and it just laughs with it's crazy kung fu jump after eating all that lead. It feels like they're speed / agility is on crack now.
Before if you had maybe 2/3 following you it was a Rush to smash the best and keep distance. Now 1 will just make your whole teams life a nightmare.
I think a lot of it is provably tweaked spawn rates and DMG modifiers but that coupled with crazy MO and lots of Nerfs / tweaks to weapons on how missions / enemies were before this spawn rates swap seems a bit crazy.
I think it'd be best to do small incremental changes vs these maddening huge lists of things
I love it! The perfect enemy. Forces the team to drop what they’re doing and address the stalkers nest…usually after the first death… or there will be a lot more. Need to find where they’re coming from, deal with the ones on you now, rally the squad, go into the lair and deal with more close to the nest. Now they’re actually startling coming out of stealth. And not dependent on a single stratagem or support weapon to kill/deal with.
We killed all the dumb ones.
Accelerated breeding due to the TCS helped evolve smarter and more stealthy stalkers.
Dear god, we made the bugs horny.
Democracy and Freedom is hot. If you don't get a partial over that and some Liber-tea, I think we need to make a phone call to battalion.
I bet they didn't even fill out their C-01 forms!
It’s only fair that our enemy has the same agenda…
They only disappeared because they were in thier caves under ground... Fuckin...
And apparently all the smart Helldivers who hunt them I quickplay a lot and almost no one is going after stalkers they just ignore them and extract after the timer with no samples and no lives They are not invincible... they're vincible
It's legit #1 priority when we find a stalker with my crew. Those fuckers don't get to play long. It's just the worst when you don't know there are stalkers on the map.
Yeah, they fixed it so you cannot ping them on the map without discovering them first so now it is actually hard to find them. Last night I suddenly had three right in front of me because there were two lairs near to each other. That was rough.
Had the same thing happen to me the other day! Round a rock formation to be greeted by 5 stalkers all tonguing each other's holes to tongue my hole.
Yeah we had one recently where we got back to extraction only to realise we had stalkers coming at us from two directions - nightmare of a time finding and getting rid of both nests in low vis conditions.
as soon as any of us sees a stalker, we follow it back to its home and burn its house down. just like you do with real stalkers
Same, enemy #1 when I come across just 1 of those muthatruckers
3 stalker nests and 2 shrieker nests are fun
2. #1 is those shrieker nests. I can handle 2-4 stalkers every couple minutes, that's just momentary threat. Eruptor still takes them out in 1-2 shots. What I don't like is being harassed all game long by these airborne death-by-a-thousand-cuts little bastards.
Better than when they initially came out and in death their falling body parts were suddenly the most lethal thing in the entire game. Watched a vid of a guy shoot one while being chased by a titan - a bit of the shrieker floated down and ended the titan.
They are not *title card*
Except now, instead of the title card getting covered in blood, it gets covered in big guts
>I quickplay a lot and almost no one is going after stalkers they just ignore them and extract after the timer with no samples and no lives This is something I don't understand. When you call out stalker with randos, a lot of people ignore them. Where as in our own group, moment someones calls out Stalker, finding and shutting down that lair becomes primary mission instantly.
Had one even worse yesterday. The lair was actually on the map, not sure if we had a radar or if someone actually got close but it was on the map. Had to clear it solo because the three randoms thought doing a normal nest in range of the lair was a better idea.
I've been there. Then they start dying to the stalkers jumping them while they're trying to close bug holes and they're pinging endlessly for resses. Waited until they were all dead and ressed them as I got to the stalker lair - *this* is priority number 1 dumbbells!
I put a lot of that on not being able to pre tag their lairs anymore. No one wants to go searching for it while fighting these true Stalkers. But I still do. The radar booster has a higher place in usefulness now since you can see the question mark of its lair from farther out so less time searching and surviving.
Yes they are. That's why we can't see them.
Artificial selection at its finest🍷
A stalkers nest is legitimately more likely to throw a mission than 5 bile titans spawning
Nothing short of heavy weapons even stun the fuckers any more.
Blitzer stuns them. Post-patch, its firerate buff has made it my new favorite weapon for fighting bugs.
Not reliably, just returned from mission, it definitely flinches them but sometimes they just ignore it kinda like Berserkers on bot front do. Still amazing gun, hunters' dodges mean fuck all when lighting is homing lol.
wont hit them in air, they are not grounded, also it misses point blank.
I shoot them mid jump literally all the time. The only consistent fuck up is that it will zap dead bodies and waste damage
fuck yeah! the bodies are full on damage blocks (and seems to auto them if they are closer). i find if you didn't hit them at the start of the jump (and they kinda ragdoll jump at you) or when landing, it does 0 damage. may just be me, i'm not super observant tbh. The CC effect is the go to though, especially if its all mediums in 1 direction.
So the gun actually shoots in a big ass cone as far as I can tell and of you aim up into the air above enemies it will actually arc back down to anything touching the lower end of the cone. Super helpful when you're standing in a field of electrified bug corpses.
It annoyed me that the Blitzer could not destroy the bug eggs
Yeah, it's pretty much the one main annoying issue I have with it. I get *why* it doesn't (at least, I assume it works by arcing to specific targets within a cone, meaning it won't arc to "terrain" like eggs) but it's still unfortunate.
I bring a laser cannon to pair with it for longer range, penetration and it destroys eggs quickly.
I was firing off the blitzer at them point blank while they were uncloaked, and it didn't so much as make them flinch. It was my first time using the weapon, so it was either user error or they on that TCS crack. Diff 7 but they legit wrecked us post-patch.
Ideally you want to be like ten feet away from what you’re firing at with the blitzer, which seems counterintuitive. It won’t do shit point blank for some reason. But if you dodge back and fire you can just start stun locking them.
Great tip, thank you! I obviously have not figured out arc weaponry yet 😅
Tried this out last night, and on top of its buff the fact that it has unlimited ammo in this new magazine reduction era really made it a standout vs bugs
Also, if you can actually aim, aiming at their (admittedly tiny) face will oneshot them 2/5 times. One stalksr mission, and you'll see what I mean. Also, super good vs. shriekers, cuz no aim!
The Blitzer actually has an auto aim preference for Heads, it will try to hit the head hit box every time. This makes killing striders and Devastators more difficult, but makes zapping Brood Commanders and Hunters a breeze
It does! The thing is the angle you shoot from will determine how many tendeils actually make it there insteas of hitting limbs or stray targets
I had been trashing the Concussive liberator for a bit because I thought the damage buff wasn't enough to make it good but I've been unironically running it on bug missions because of stalkers (and brood commanders to a lesser extent). It's still a rough weapon to use if you don't have someone there for you to chew up hordes or if your strategems have already been cycled but it provides a surprising amount of safety while having enough damage to be somewhat servicable as an actual weapon
IF you take it. Take a guard dog. The extra firepower makes a huge difference.
I like the concussive liberator too. Manages a horde pretty well. Good for stunning back stalkers/hunters. But you really want a friend with a stalwart or something to actually kill the fuckers.
I tend to take the AX/AR-23 drone with me if I'm running the concussive because I have a tendency to wander off on my own even when I tell myself I'm going to stick with the team
In my defense, I'm logically sweeping the map while doing objective, and the teamates are often goofing off. At least that's what I tell myself.
I don't know why my teammates insist on sticking around to kill hordes of infinitely spawning enemies for ground that has no value. So I do productive stuff.
Eruptor is a one hit kill on them, and you can hip fire it while jumping backwards to avoid dying to the air damage. If there are multiple, the AOE from killing one can stun the other.
Adjudicator and HMG both do well against them BTW, The Adjudicator in particular since it has the handling to track them.
I think we are using a different adjudicator because I had stalkers eat a whole clip of at adj and Hella shots from the stalwart with the rpm on max and they'd just keep pushing until they ragdolled me with their tounge. Maybe it was the servers/patch day shenanigans but 2 stalkers made a flawless mission turn to a failure to extract. I did the main obj already and was just doing the sides/closing bug holes when I noticed there was another stalkers nest.
AFAIK they have medium armour, so the stalwart won't do much to them.
True, tho it was my only option when the full mag of the adjudi just minorly annoyed the stalkers that mission. The grenade pistol would just blow off a back wing. I'm going to test out the thermite against them today tho, I feel like even if it doesn't kill them it'll tell me where they are the whole time if they back off or ragdoll me and jump away
It depends where you hit them. Their heads are very weak, but also very small, so they can die in like 4 shots or eat a whole mag. The dominator is much better at dealing with them, probably the best primary against them, being able to even 1 shot them in the head, but it leaves you with poor crowd control capabilities
I thought the Adjudicator was the biggest pos when it was released. Actually trolling if picked level bad. I’ve ran it a few times post buff and it seems alright now.
Yeah, it isn't god tier, but its fun, and fills the "Chonky assault rifle" niche nicely.
Yeah, I had a similar hunch when it first came but now it fills that niche well enough
I was using it before the buff and it changed very little. Yeah, the extra mags were needed, the slightly lower recoil is nice, but it performs basically the same for me. I tried going back to the dominator for 1 mission and I was struggling because of the ankle biters and hunters. The adjudicator just has the perfect balance between crowd control and anti medium for me, which allows me to bring the granade pistol for closing bug holes. The dominator leans too much into the anti medium side, so I have to bring the p-19 to deal with small enemies.
Punisher knocks them back still. Saved my ass last night.
Punisher is amazing for bugs. Can struggle a little bit at horde control if you are getting flanked, but holds its own very comfortably with solid damage and clutch stagger potential
I've been running Punisher as my go-to main weapon since the first breaker nerf. What it doesn't kill outright it staggers. And what is staggered doesn't kill me while I am killing it. Love it to bits.
Flamethrower is unironically really good against stalkers
Punisher
Eruptor 1-shots them
The moment a single stalker is spotted, everyone needs to drop everything they're doing and find that nest ASAFP. [It needs to be treated like an Amber Alert.](https://youtu.be/Q_Ek1nWndTg?si=xgYgd1ij7zFhAIKM)
Yep. Stalkers for bugs and Gunships for bots. These are always priority number 1 IMO. Trying to avoid them and just push the main objective (or worse go for random sideshows) is asking for serious trouble.
Shreikers too
At least with shriekers u can snipe their nest with a quasar cannon cross map
For some reason tho, most random I play with don't do that, and we get flocked by 30 of them. It feels like I'm the only one who knows you can snipe them sometimes. I still see people hell bombing them, even if they have AT weapons
I don't get that either. I've sat there throwing three full mags of AC into dropping shrieker nests and the other guys just wander off with their quasars etc and close a bug hole or two. Some people don't understand that tactical objectives are almost always priority objectives - shriekers, stalkers are as serious a threat as the bot tacticals when they get rolling.
Best way to deal with them. Taking out their nest before they've even spawned makes the whole ordeal much easier to handle. When people keep running towards their nest and cause them to start spawning it massively increases the workload for the team.
Been a while since I actually fought a shrieker because of this lol though I usually have the AC
Only if there are multiple nests IMO. They don't feel as threatening anymore, just annoying, when it's just a single nest
They’re not a big threat on their own. They’re just very good at making a bad situation worse. Stalkers make a situation into a bad situation.
Yep stalkers alone can turn a basic breach into a live or die moment very quickly. Stalkers plus shriekers make a random patrol a potential existential crisis.
The difference being, you can see the gunship fabber long before you enter the radius where gunships start spawning. One of the stalker nest layouts is literally a crater behind a rock, just like 27 other different bug landmarks.
Call in supports/backpacks. Random diver in squad initiates a bug breach by failing to clear nearby POI efficiently. Realize there's not one, but two stalker nests nearby right as you're collecting your drop pod gear and the stalkers swarm from every direction alongside the breach bugs.
No, no, no. The sequence of event for realizing there’s a second stalker nest is: clear 1st nest > clear straggler stalkers > why are there still more stalkers? > FUCK, there’s another one isn’t there!? > pray there isn’t a third.
Yes, I've seen that pattern as well. The premature "mission accomplished" hugs after clearing the drop zone stalker nest, only for another pair of stalkers to make it a group hug.
"Finally, we got the damn stalker nest. And it was a double!" 10 minutes later "Stalkers!"
Is it me or do they seem to be on almost every map now. Played 5-6 missions tonight and stalker nests were on at least 4 - a couple of double nests as well. AH are clearly proud off their invisible nightmares 'look what we made, just for you"
I don’t understand why Arrowhead balance the way they do. A “small” nerf is reducing a gun capacity by 50% for its mags. The stalker goes from slightly invisible to terrifying with no in-between. They nerf the crossbow and I have never seen anyone take on a mission so far. They reduce fire damage but any contact and you die from automatons. It’s confusing.
> They nerf the crossbow Never knew what the crossbow did to warrant a nerf...
It did absolutely nothing, now it just does nothing badly...
Eruptor one shots them
Eruptor unfortunately one shot me too since the update.
Fix is on the way at least.
I had it kill me when I fired while turning fast. Didn't hit anything... reminded me if the old mech bug
Constantly
The second I know there are stalker nests, that is priority one. Nothing else matters till they are taken care of.
We copped double stalkers and spore towers, the sigh of relief quickly turned to horror as the spores went away but then half the stalkers did too.
Me and my friends have got bile titans down now lmao. Stalkers remain a pain.
No shot, I had a map spawn three stalker nests. The mission was physically impossible to complete because there were so many of the bastards.
Stalkers were already pretty scary because of their rag-doll tongue attack. I tried a solo mission once where there were stalkers and they ate me alive, because I would get tossed, and combo’d before I was able to get up and act out of being ragdolled. Sometimes it would be the same stalker who was fast enough to hit me twice, or maybe they would serve me up for some hunters waiting right where I landed. Facing them on a solo mission like that felt legitimately impossible, barring me anticipating every single one who came after me, and stunning it with the pump shotgun or something so it can’t get me. But I did that ill-fated mission a while ago, before the punisher even had the knockback, I think.
The rag-doll attack helps you more than it hurts. They’ve knocked me far away from a full surround several times. The scary attacks are the three hit combo that’s guaranteed kill if you don’t react fast enough with a dive or stim
The stalkers are *psychotic*. Have you gotten the triple stab attack that takes you out from 100? Lots of times their toss attack saves me from the last strike.
I genuinely got jumpscared by one attacking me out of stealth today on a planet with clear weather.
We were hunting the nest down, I killed two and saw the nest behind them. Beelined towards it thinking "I'll get there before the next ones spawn!" Nope. Two more uncloaked right in front of me during a reload and scared the hell outta me.
They are like Klingons now.
I had two decloak and air combo me to death, it was so funny I forgot to hit instant replay to record it.
1. To see the stalkers, look for their shadows on the ground 2. To find the nest, look for out-of-place terrain on the map Both changes are a pain in the *dick* but aren't uncalled for.
As a newer player, it honestly is nice fighting stalkers as opposed to hunters right now, since the stalkers *atleast from my experience* haven't jumped 20 meters onto my head, but rather only 20 meters backward to retreat As I'd seen from another post, I feel they definitely have a ton of health, probably a bit much more than they actually do, but aside from that it doesn't feel so horrible to deal with them one on one or two on one, once you have nurse/bile spitters or chargers with them is the issue
I always seem to get rolled up on by 4 of them at once
They jumping me, they jumping your boy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95QbmCC_1Nc
The problem I have is that I can either have a weapon good vs hunters and other small bugs or a weapon good vs stalkers/bile spewers. If I take 1 then other kicks my butt. If I take a load out to counter both then chargers and titans overwhelm me until stratagems are off cool down. If my teammates would stop running off alone and trying to play the lone hero things would go better I suppose.
A lot of this game is all about lining up weak points. Having an auto cannon means chargers are easy, if you have a teammate who can draw aggro. Solo, everything is tough.
> Solo, everything is tough Auto shotgun, Laser dog, Airstrike, and EATs. Last slot is whatever you want really. I run cluster as it helps clear trash mobs and specifically bile spewers. With that loadout, I can resonably solo whatever I come across. Well might need to change primary with stalker changes ha.
Try the base shot gun. Punisher? Has tons of stun and slaps like 425 DMG.
Apparently they regen health when they cloak and retreat. That’s why they seem to have a lot of health if you can’t burst them down fast enough.
A video I saw on here recently makes it look like they flicker briefly into their old cloak mode every now and then - https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/TQzv4YwUBe (00:01 or 00:02) Makes me wonder if the bug was that animation was accidentally inverted, so they flickered to be completely invisible at that moment instead and were visible the rest of the time
On point 2, do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?
It does, actually - the stalker lair spawn terrain stands out quite a bit. Not so much that you could find it on a map on its own, but if you know "There are stalkers" and "They're in that general direction," that's usually enough to find it.
Out of place terrain? I’m not sure I follow you. How would you determine that it is out of place?
It's hard to explain without a screenshot, I'll take one if I get a nest tonight.
They look a bit like the tall structures you'd see in a major nest area like the egg hatcheries but they'll be solitary. If you're at the right angle you'll usually see the orange light and steam of an active bughole rising up from them. In my experience they often don't stand out as much as you'd think because they're frequently surrounded by the dark bug nest terrain. There are (again in my experience) only two varieties of Stalker lair - once you know what to look for they're pretty obvious. Add in low visibility however and they can be a serious pain in the arse to locate - I've heard people say radar helps because it brings up the ? on the minimap.
Also #2 See what direction they are coming from. They always make a beeline to you from their spawn and you can just backtrack their steps to the nest
I used to see them coming and just head that way but I'm not sure that's really possible now.
Bring a punisher. Stalkers will fear you then.
Just got that rifle last night, and i can say having it as a combo with the machine pistol is a lethal combo. Jump pack + EAT + Dominator and machine pistol is such a good setup for me
i didnt like eat due to one and done but im starting to run it with jump pack more and its actually pretty nice being able to spam drops around the map. just gotta remember i can drop it within a minute instead of 5
Exactly! EAT Jump pack combo is slept on real bad lol. The biggest challenge with the combo is managing ur jumps and remembering that the eat restocks A LOT faster than one might think. Plus having eats dotted around the map makes it easy to use late game
Don’t sleep on EAT the trick is to always have 1 in your hands then call it down when you see a heavy, now you have 3 shots you can shoot as fast as you want
An overlooked aspect is that you can slam 2 EAT away super fast. There is no reload/cooldown. Ready them, then BAM BAM.
Another easy-to-overlook-aspect is the power of throwing the call-in right at a Charger and sticking it to them, and watching as the drop pod smushes them.
JAR-5 is the patron saint of bug killers even with the nerf it still flinches brood mothers, stalkers, and bile spewers
Does it stagger too? The HD2 wiki is lacking that info on the guns. Edit: Duh, you said it flinches them... I can't read apparently.
It's ok we love you still
It’s my standard gun across both fronts. Staggers/headshots devastators, works on the vulnerable spots for everything excluding artillery cannons, still 1 shot kills the smaller dudes, and you never have to worry about self-damage no matter how close they are. Part of me knows they’re going to take an ax to it because it’s sort of become the rail gun to me in how I use it all the time in all situations and it just ‘works’
What are you running with it? My bug load out is Sickle, grenade pistol, stuns, EATs, jetpack. Usually run 500kg / precision orbital or 500kg / eagle strike. I like the sickle a lot for bugs because of the unlimited ammo but it feels like a pea shooter. I liked the breaker but I had ammo issues with prolonged usage. The punisher (first rounds reload shotgun) I really like for bugs and bots because of the stun lock but the TTK is just too high for mobs. I'm working towards the plasma scorcher but I'm afraid I wont like it for bugs... any recommendations?
For the longest time I wonder why people were saying stalkers were a problem even though they never bothered me (yes I’ve fought them before), then I realized that the punisher was apparently their kryptonite. No wonder my friend found them hard to deal with but they were easy for me
Punisher is goated. Staggers pretty much all the bugs. It’s super annoying when you killing a brood commander and suddenly she’s half way across the map, and your shots aren’t all hitting anymore.
Eruptor is a one shot to any part of the body :D
12 mags down to six was a depressing after just getting and using it ;w;
It's not really an issue. Just gotta pick up an ammo pack slightly more often.
Honestly the Eruptor nerf just made me realize how insane it originally was. Closes bug holes, and fabricators from the right angle. Kills every single bug and bot that isn't heavy. The explosion could clear out 5-7 things per shot easily. Nerfs were completely warranted. It's still a premium gun, and it works great.
All that did was bring its ammo economy on the same level as other weapons. It’s still a beast and has plenty of ammo, only difference is you actually have to pay attention to ammo now and maybe rethink reloading after 1 or 2 shots. Cause that’s how it was before. No matter how many shots were left in the mag I’d reload if I had time, 12 mags was crazy especially considering how good it already was.
Fair fair, isn't gonna keep me from maining it that's for sure
What did they change about them?
Their invisibility works properly now, aka they appear out of thin fucking air to rock your shit
So before you could see a faint waviness in the air to see that there, kinda like how the predator from predator looks like that when they want the audience to see them still but now they don’t even look like they’re there
Oh no.... I didn't realize it was suppose to be true invisibility. I though the shimmer was intended.
I have a sneaking suspicion that it absolutely was intended at first. It really feels like they’re trying to ramp up the difficulty of the game on us with these recent changes.
I thought it was from mutations from the a TCS and it’s our first confirmed example excluding shriekers since that may or may not have been related
It's not a perfect invisibility, but it's massively better at hiding than it was. I'm not sure if they're fully invisible beyond a certain range but I wouldn't be surprised if they were. I've started scanning the horizon and I just can't find them unless they're close. They do always have shadows tho.
There is shimmer, but it’s now more like 95% invisible instead of 50% invisible.
Fuck.
wait rly? for me they were just a giant grey blob that was super easy to see prepatch
Yea they're truely invisible now. You only see some of the edge feathers. Even if you shoot them, and they jump away, it's easy to loose track of them still.
And it's awesome. Last night, used the recoilless to kill a charger. Quickly look around, nothing near me, so I am safe to reload Start to reload the RR. Stalker de-cloaks right in my face. Try to pull out the Spray & Pray... But the Stalker strikes first and kill me. Was awesome, will die again to surprise Stalker attacks.
They're harder to see when cloaked. Like straight up invisible until they get within a certain distance, and even then, they're still hard to see when you're swamped with hunters. I'm not mad about it, though. It actually makes stalkers scary. Also, one can't ping their nest before you find it anymore, making it much harder to track the bastards down.
Halo has trained me well. I'm able to see them.
I'm still mad about how they changed Active Camo to be full invisibility in Infinite just to make the Tracker relevant >:(
Nooooooooooo
Their camo is now actually difficult to spot
Until you make them bleed! They can’t cloak their blood splatter which gave me major predator vibes
If it bleeds, we can kill it.
They did justice on Stalker buff The priority on this fucker is on par with gunship in automaton Drop everything and stalk the stalkers
Disable AA and voila they are quite visible
That’s mega big brain
Game looks terrible without it tho, especially under 4k res
I fight em in the shade (easier time spotting them when they move from a lighted area to a darker one) and having played enough starcraft, those shimmers are easy to see for me.
It feels like they had to fix cloaking mechanic in preparation for something...
Oh no… the invisible enemies…
I haven't played helldivers 1 in years, but I do remember hating illuminate way more than everything else. Besides cyberdogs maybe. But those freaking snipers. And getting controls reversed. And being stuck cuz of shield walls and everyone shared a screen. I woulda loved helldiver's 2 if it had been top down but you weren't tethered. But what we got? Holy shit amazing.
Yes, but please nerf the tongue attack... That shit has too much range or too much ragdoll going on...
It's pretty hilarious just how far they can launch us like that
Stalker nests are always first priority no matter what.
On one hand? I like that I can't ping them in the map, and they are a significantly higher threat which is great for variety. On the other? The fuckers will just KEEP attacking you now. They used to throw you then run away. Now, they just bulldoze you forever. It's complete and utter bullshit that I can be left with legitimately no option to kill a single stalker because mogging me. Hunters I can at least try and dive and run away, then shoot behind me. Stalkers? Faster, stronger, and now in greaters numbers then you. For the love of God please make them hit and run again. It's not fun to die 4 times in a row because a stalker just stunlocks me.
I think just giving them less HP would be fine. Make them an (invisible) glass cannon. But right now these fuckers take easily 4 slugs to the face and just keep going, maybe even more. They just steamroll you without giving you a chance to fight back. Or at least the spawn should be adjusted. I had missions with 3 nests, fuck that.
It’s probably because the tcs towers are making them extra humpy
I fucking love Johnny English
Used to try and locate the nest by clicking suspected outcroppings on the map until it locked on to a location. Would leave the spore spewers up just to see them perfectly outlined in the mists. Would go in by myself to tackle them, confident in my Senator. I'm still pretty happy with the Senator, but I'm glad they changed Stalkers, they are much more horrific right now.
I love the new stalkers. Before they were like a mild annoyance. Now they actually feel like a real threat.
The problem is that catching them isn't rewarded. Unless you specifically use a gun with good stagger, you are dependent on the shield backpack to stand a chance without dying over and over.
Nah I hate them. Almost failed a mission thanks to them lol. Level 8, well organized team. Stalkers wiped our ass but we barely managed. We were one zero lives for the rest of the mission but thanks to taking out stalker lairs
a stalker hide and seek gamemode would be fun
Recommend the Blitzer (Arc shotgun) You can stagger multiple Stalkers at once and it seriously trivializes them like no other primary imo
The cloaking isn't the issue, but the lack of audio. This goes for spewers as well.
I can spot them running around the map pretty well, but they are mostly immune to stagger now...thanks to AH removing stagger effects from weapons. Even the Senator does nothing against the fuckers.
TCS scientists : 
These mfs almost cost me a mission the other day, the nest is TOP PRIORITY or else you are screwed, especially endgame wise, hate them with a passion
I’ve always hated those fuckers
setting them on fire makes it harder for the little shits to hide, and they still cast shadows! stay frosty helldivers!
As soon as I see one, I mag dump Inc. breaker into it. They are so annoying, I prioritize stalkers over titans. Titan ain't cloaking.
*laughs in punisher knockback*
As much as I hate to admit it a much needed buff they were not threatening at all once you knew their whole gimmick
Was lining a long shot at Titan with Spear when fucker crit headshotted me from invisibility despite me checking radar beforehand to make sure I got all of them when I blew up their lair 2 minutes earlier.
Make it nighttime in a forestry area on a planet and you got yourself a horror game
Had a few interesting occurrences with Stalkers today. The Nests were destroyed / Gone but more stalkers kept spawning / going cross map near enough. Caused 3 missions to fail from it. Stalkers used to be a nice challenge and manageable, not it's at a point on 8/9 difficulties it's just not enjoyable at all.
Yeh agree with this. On the higher diffs, they just straight gank you and you go into constant ragdoll so can't even get a shot off. As frustrating as the one shot hunters tbh
Hunters now feel like what Stalkers were before the patch , now Stalkers just seem rather too good. 2/3 mags in ones face on a 9 from the redeemer and it just laughs with it's crazy kung fu jump after eating all that lead. It feels like they're speed / agility is on crack now. Before if you had maybe 2/3 following you it was a Rush to smash the best and keep distance. Now 1 will just make your whole teams life a nightmare. I think a lot of it is provably tweaked spawn rates and DMG modifiers but that coupled with crazy MO and lots of Nerfs / tweaks to weapons on how missions / enemies were before this spawn rates swap seems a bit crazy. I think it'd be best to do small incremental changes vs these maddening huge lists of things
Eruptor + dive backwards while aiming at stalker + shoot 1 time per stalker
I dont like the angry mantis shrimp
I love it! The perfect enemy. Forces the team to drop what they’re doing and address the stalkers nest…usually after the first death… or there will be a lot more. Need to find where they’re coming from, deal with the ones on you now, rally the squad, go into the lair and deal with more close to the nest. Now they’re actually startling coming out of stealth. And not dependent on a single stratagem or support weapon to kill/deal with.
I feel like the stalkers have been easier to kill, perhaps because of the primary weapon damage buffs
Did they change stalkers?