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We all have our favorites. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes, you’ll like something no one around you likes. Oftentimes, you’ll make friends with people who share your likes. The same applies here, a polarizing weapon choice caused divides in the Helldivers 2 community, making players pick sides.
Some Helldivers’ Controversial Weapon of Choice
You may or may not like it, but HMG [Heavy Machine Gun] has some good characteristics. It has its flaws, of course, but a Reddit user, takes_many_sh**s, made a list of reasons why HMG is a very versatile weapon if used correctly. They started by saying that under no circumstance should you use HMG for “clearing chaff”. That is because HGM “has tiny ammo capacity (and arguably could use an ammo buff)”.
As for what makes this weapon great, OP had a lot to share. “It [the HMR] is basically a full auto AMR [the Anti-Materiel Rifle] in terms of what it can damage”. Among possible achievements of HMG, they noted: “Gunship engines take full damage”, “Hulk eyes are destroyed in about 6 shots”, “it can heavily injure Bile Titans by unloading into their underside” and “it can very quickly destroy the chainguns underneath the striders head to vastly lower its threat level”.
Other than those, the OP gushed how: “On highest RPM it has insanely high DPS, meaning it’s very good for quickly killing high priority unarmored high HP targets that tend to get very close where the ridiculous recoil doesn’t matter”.
Community Divides in Search of a Better Weapon
Some fans agreed completely, and most agreed with some of the stated facts. Unfortunately for the OP, the majority went on and pointed out all the shortcomings of the HMR. Saltandpeppr explained: “Damage or even unwieldiness was never the problem with the HMG. It’s the broken scopes and terrible ammo economy, triple dipping with low mag count, low mag size, long reload just making it have abysmal uptime and frankly not fun even on 450rpm because you’re standing still shooting for 3 seconds then standing still again to reload for 5 more”.
Lethenial0874 seconded that opinion wholeheartedly. They added: “I take the Quasar/Laser Cannon/Autocannon/AMR is that they do the exact same job, often from a better range with better control, with much better ammo economy”. Many other players shared the same thoughts. Matterhock confirmed the claims: “It’s fairly interchangeable with the Laser Cannon. They have similar penetration, and HMG has significantly higher DPS but harsher recoil and ammo economy”.
Even though this weapon caused divides in the Helldivers 2 community, players showed respect towards each other. Actually trying to listen and comprehend the other side makes all the difference. Sometimes, trying out the suggestion from the opposing side might surprise you!