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Eruptor has quickly become the most-used Primary Weapon in Helldivers 2. It almost felt too good, besides the fact that its shrapnel blast was responsible for some friendly fire kills. To reduce that, the devs decided to remove the shrapnel altogether in the latest Patch. The players were not thrilled by that.
In Helldivers 2, your Primary Weapon is mainly used to deal with hordes of light enemies and a couple of tougher ones, depending on the Weapon. When it comes to Mediums and Heavies, you usually use your Support Weapon to deal with those. But, when the Eruptor was introduced, the players had weapons to deal with anything but the heaviest of enemies. It can even close Bug Holes and destroy Bot Fabricators. Almost too good to be true. But, it came with some downsides, like the bolt-action, shot-by-shot firing mode, and you could damage yourself or your teammates with the shrapnel.
The First E-36 Eruptor Nerfs did not Stop Players From Using It
The Eruptor quickly became the staple of many Loadouts in Helldivers 2. With the right positioning and careful shooting, the area damage could easily be avoided. With the ability to one-shot Devastators and Bile Spewers, even the occasional friendly fire was overlooked in favor of the sheer power of the Eruptor.
The Eruptor has only five shots per mag, but you could carry up to 12 mags, to mitigate the small clip size. The devs noticed that the gun was being overused, so they decided to nerf it a little bit. On April 26, Patch 01.000.300 was released which brought a lot of balance changes, but, most important for this topic, halved the number of maximum clips you had for E-36 Eruptor. The problem of weapon magazines is something you can easily solve, either with an ammo pack you find on the ground, or will Supply drops.
The Latest Eruptor Changes Nerfed it a Bit Too Much
For some time, the devs mentioned that they wanted to do something to reduce the shrapnel effect on the Eruptor. The idea is to remove the shrapnel from the explosion but to increase the shot damage. And, on May 7, Patch 01.000.302 was released, which did just that. Shrapnel is removed, but the explosion damage has been increased. That should keep the Eruptor as a medium-armor buster, but reduce its effectiveness in clearing waves of smaller enemies. Players did some testing and, unfortunately, the results are lackluster.
On Reddit, one player named FeistyCurrency2991 reported his findings on the Eruptor changes. He gives a detailed list of all that the Eruptor was able to do, before the nerf. Stuff like one-shotting Brood Commander, those pesky Stalkers, or Spewers. He states that, after doing some testing after the nerf, the explosive damage increase did next to nothing to keep the Eruptor as effective as before. Now, it takes a lot more shots to do any of those things, and pair that with the small clip size and reduced maximum number of magazines and you get an unreliable weapon.
Most players agree, with comments like “I understand why the Eruptor had to be nerfed, but I feel like the nerfs went too far.” and “It’s just not a fun weapon anymore. it’s a shame I allowed me not to main an Autocannon for a while and instead changed my playstyle with a shield or more orbitals or sentries.”
What to do With the Eruptor?
While some may argue that the Eruptor was overpowered (it was pretty good, after all), the recent nerfs may have done their job too well. What they could do is just reduce the area-of-effect for the shrapnel, and/or modify the falloff damage, so that the damage at the explosion center remains the same, but decreases significantly further away.
Shooting near your teammates (or point blank) should still result in friendly fire damage, as that is one of the core aspects of Helldivers 2. More research is required to fully grasp the changes made to the Eruptor, but for now, the community is not pleased. On the other hand, the Polar Patriots Warbond is right around the corner, with some cool weapons in tow. Maybe they will freshen up the current state of Primary Weapons.
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