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Despite being unsuccessful in completing the Major Order that tasked players with taking down 500 million Automatons in exchange for the Orbital Napalm Barrage, Arrowhead recently let the Helldivers 2 community try it out for a limited time. Now, many players are regretting refusing to jump into some bot missions as it turns out that it is one of the best Stratagems that we’ve been given in a long time.
U/SmoothTyler took to the Helldivers 2 sub-Reddit to praise the new Orbital Napalm Barrage Stratagem, stating that it is “everything I could have possibly wanted.” In the post, they detailed their first experience using it, not expecting much from it initially, but being surprised at the results.
“We came across a pretty large group and one of them calls in a breach while hiding behind a rock. Normally this is the exact point I’d get my Orbital Gas Strike ready, but this time I pulled up my Strategem menu and looked for the Napalm Barrage code.” They then “punched it in and threw it because I was just too excited to see it in action. The breach was probably around 25-30m away from where my team and I were all standing.”
“Long story short – I killed the bugs… and my entire team. The Napalm Barrage was not a “strike” on par with the Orbital EMS or Gas Strike – it was a full-on smattering of hellfire in a massive radius. It was like Thanos telling his troops to rain fire despite allied forces being in the blast radius. Everyone had a good laugh and I apologized, but I made damn sure to be more careful from then on.”
After using it throughout the mission, they concluded that “This stratagem is an absolute blast. I enjoyed pairing it up with the 120mm Barrage for larger/mega bases when I ran some D10’s later. It doesn’t feel like it takes too long to recharge, covers a massive area, and most importantly, it’s fun,” before closing the post by saying “Please give us this permanently soon, Arrowhead.”
The overall reception for the Orbital Napalm Barrage has been extremely positive, much more than previous stratagems including the Anti-Tank Mines and Airburst Rocket Launcher, which were both met with a negative reaction from the community. With the Breaker Incendiary Shotgun and Flamethrower both being nerfed in recent weeks, although we hope they will be rebuffed in the September 17th update, having a Stratagem that can create a trail of fire to deal tick damage to the Terminids is great and there seems like there is little reason to choose any of the other Barrage Stratagems over this if you are fighting the Terminids.