Helldivers 2: Controls, Leveling and Farming

You may need advice and tips for making mechanically effective choices in Helldivers2. This guide covers general advice, control suggestions, gear, tactics, purchase order, and leveling and farming thoughts and suggestions.

Controls, Loadouts, Leveling and Farming

It covers general advice, control suggestions, loadouts, stratagems, purchase order, and leveling and farming thoughts and suggestions.

Advice

Prepare

“War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose.”

Know the mission and tailor your strategy, tactics, and loadout to it.

There are nearly all-purpose builds but the “Rescue Essential Personnel” mission proves the need to adapt and overcome.

Maintain Situational Awareness

“Seconds are jewels beyond price in combat.”

Know where cover is if a threat like a charger appears.

Maintain your equipment.

When walking (so your stamina doesn’t run out), check:

• Ammunition
• Health
• Map (Locations of you and your teammates)
• Teammate status (health & ammo, etc.)

Become familiar with the animation lengths required to reload each weapon or resupply yourself from your supply pack.

Communicate

“Any group is weaker than a man alone unless they are perfectly trained to work together.”

Discuss and assign tasks during the loading screen.

Until you and your team mesh perfectly, keep comms clear and concise during fights on higher difficulties, e.g. “Calling Airstrike, east,” along with a mark.

Conduct an “after-action” debrief after mission success or failure, if only (silently) to yourself, to see what you did well and where you could improve.

Mouse and Keyboard Bindings

“The real genius in the design is that you don’t have to control the suit; you just wear it, like your clothes, like skin.”

These settings may not work for everyone, but consider changes if your after-action reveals that a key assignment is awkward for you.

General — Movement

• Crouch — Press Left Ctrl
• Prone — Press X
• Climb — Press Caps Lock
• Dive — Press Spacebar

General — Stratagem

• Open Strategem List — NumPad Enter
• Stratagem Up — Numpad 8
• Stratagem Down — Numpad 2
• Stratagem Left — Numpad 4
• Stratagem Right — Numpad 6

Combat

• Interact — Press Left Alt
• Change Equipment (Long) — Press Q
• Quick Grenade — Middle Mouse Button
• Quick Stim — Press Z
• Switch Aim Button — Forward Mouse Button (Back Mouse Button defaults to switch camera side)
• Open Drop Wheel — Press G

Communication

• Voice Activation (PTT/PTM) — Hold V
• Mark — Tap C
• Open Comms Wheel — Long Press C

Loadouts

“There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men.”

Armory:

• Default — Light Scout Armor
• (e.g. SC-34 Infiltrator)

• Defense Missions — Weight matters less.
• Med-Kit (+2 stims and stim duration, e.g. TR-117 Alpha Commander – twitch armor drop) and
• Engineering Kit (+2 grenades, e.g. CE-35 Trench Engineer)
• are both useful.

• Farming — Light Armor.
• Prioritize Speed and Stamina Regen (e.g. SC-37 Legionnaire).

Weaponry:

• Primary — SG-225 Breaker
• Use the AR-23 Liberator until you unlock this full-auto shotgun.

• Secondary — P-19 Redeemer
• Use the P-2 Peacemaker until you unlock this full-auto pistol.

Grenade —

• G-12 High Explosive (missions with vents)
• G-16 Impact
• G-3 Smoke with training

HE grenades are much easier to throw into vents.

Automatons

Stratagems:

1. Shield Generator Pack — Counters rockets.
2. Railgun — Learn its unsafe mode (long press R).
3. Orbital Laser — Used as a reset/panic button.
4. Eagle 500kg Bomb (alternatives: Eagle Airstrike) — 500kg if you’re comfortable with it, airstrike if preferred.

Termanids

Stratagems:

1. Shield Generator Pack — Counters stalkers ragdolling you.
2. Railgun — Learn its unsafe mode (long press R).
3. Eagle Cluster Bomb (alternatives: Eagle Airstrike, Eagle 500kg Bomb) — For light and medium bugs.
4. Orbital Railcannon Strike — For heavy armored bugs.

Support

Stratagems:

1. Supply Pack
2. Expendable Anti-Tank — Remember that everyone can carry these even with a backpack, so call them down for teammates who have a free support slot.
3. Railgun vs bots, Grenade Launcher vs bugs
4. Eagle Airstrike

Retrieve Essential Personnel

Smoke grenades help clump bots for cluster bombs.

Stratagems:

1. EMS Mortar Sentry
2. Orbital Laser
3. Eagle Cluster Bomb
4. Recoiless Rifle, Railgun, and Autocannon (split between team)

Character Appearance

Different colored capes (e.g. orange Tideturner) and helmets (e.g. CE-35 Trench Engineer) can increase the visibility of your team.

Booster Priority

1. Stamina Enhancement
2. Muscle Enhancement
3. Hellpod Space Optimization
4. Vitality Enhancement
5. UAV Recon Booster
6. Increased Reinforcement Budget
7. Flexible Reinforcement Budget

The ability to move is paramount.

Stratagem Ratings and Purchase Order

“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.”

S-Tier

1. Orbital Precision Strike — The starting stratagem is great. Low-cooldown fast damage. Noticeably improves with the Exploding Shrapnel ship module. Replaced by laser and railcannon at levels 15 & 20.
2. Shield Generator Pack — Superior vs bots, great vs bugs.
3. Railgun — Anti-armor, stuns bile titans with headshots.
4. Orbital Railcannon Strike — Great vs bots and bugs.
5. Orbital Laser — Great vs all bots, great vs bugs except bile titans.
6. Eagle Cluster Bomb — Excellent ease-of-use and multikill value. Great vs bugs.
7. Supply Pack — Nearly always useful, begins being replaced by the shield generator at level 20.
8. Autocannon — High damage, versatile (can close holes), takes a backpack slot.
9. Recoilless Rifle — Great anti-armor, takes a backpack slot.
10. Expendable Anti-Tank — One shot anti-armor, doesn’t take a backpack slot.
11. EMS Mortar Sentry — Superior value with “Retrieve Essential Personnel” missions. Pairs well with mortar sentry.
12. Autocannon Sentry — Superior value with superior positioning.

A-Tier

1. Eagle 500kg Bomb — Feels inconsistent until mastered. Great vs bots.
2. Eagle Airstrike — Destroys buildings, holes, and enemies. Great vs bots.
3. Anti-Material Rifle — Better with fast and accurate aim, otherwise B-tier. Great vs bots, during leveling, and if you don’t have a railgun.
4. Mortar Sentry — Extremely good on defense and extermination maps, or with teams that know how to work around it.
5. Gatling Sentry — Great vs bugs, good vs bots with excellent positioning as they can more easily destroy it.
6. ”Guard Dog” Rover — Great vs bugs, good vs bots. Good team positioning is required to avoid friendly fire.
7. Grenade Launcher — Great vs bugs.
8. Arc Thrower — Great vs bugs with a shielded team.
9. Jump Pack — Niche choice, but surprisingly great in the right hands on the right map.

B-Tier

1. Stalwart — Good early game weapon due to ease of use. Weak vs armor.
2. Machine Gun — Solid through midgame, static reloading and lack of power keep it from high difficulties.
3. Eagle Smoke Strike — Smoke can be great, but someone who is good with smoke likely has smoke grenades instead and uses their stratagem slot on something more useful.
4. Orbital Smoke Strike — See above.
5. Eagle Napalm Airstrike — Fire damage needs a buff.
6. Orbital Walking Barrage — Decent vs bots. Long cooldown.
7. Eagle 110mm Rocket Pods — Needs more accuracy and damage on some targets.
8. Rocket Sentry — Autocannons solve the same problems, but this can still be good.
9. Orbital EMS Strike — Better with coordination.

C-Tier

1. Eagle Strafing Run — Accurate, fast but soon replaced by the airstrike and cluster bomb.
2. Orbital Airburst Strike — Mediocre, but better than the gatling barrage.
3. Orbital Gas Strike — Outperformed by Eagle Napalm Strike.
4. Flamethrower — Requires excellent positioning for mediocre damage. Fire damage needs a buff.
5. ”Guard Dog” — Ammo-hunger leads to mediocrity.
6. HMG Emplacement — Decent at best. Doesn’t improve with upgrades.
7. Anti-Personnel Minefield — Best value with coordinated teams who will likely choose better options.
8. Incendiary Mines — Best value with coordinated teams who will likely choose better options. Fire damage needs a buff.
9. Laser Cannon — Best vs early-game bugs, lacks armor penetration.
10. Tesla Tower — Mediocre even with perfect positioning.
11. Ballistic Shield Backpack — Could be good, except bot rockets still ragdoll and it limits your gun usage. Most will simply use cover instead.

D-Tier

1. Orbital Gatling Barrage — Low area of effect and damage.
2. Machine Gun Sentry — Low ammunition. Good value only during early game and to learn positioning.
3. Orbital 380mm HE Barrage — More hits than the 120mm but with the same inconsistent placement, lacks effectiveness. Don’t gamble.
4. Orbital 120mm HE Barrage — Relatively few hits, inconsistent placement, lacks effectiveness. Don’t gamble.
5. Spear — Lock-on targeting issues. Recoilless outperforms it.
6. Shield Generator Relay — Low damage absorbed, low duration. Only good vs low-level bots, and by the time you’ve unlocked this, you’re past that.

Ship Module Purchase Order

“To permit irresponsible authority is to sell disaster.”

1. Donation Access License
2. Exploding Shrapnel
3. Liquid-Ventilated Cockpit
4. Pit Crew Hazard Pay
5. Expanded Weapons Bay
6. More Guns
7. Zero-G Breech Loading
8. Streamlined Request Process
9. Hand Carts
10. Targeting Software Upgrade
11. Nuclear Radar
12. Dynamic Tracking
13. Shock Absorption Gel
14. High-Quality Lubricant
15. Synthetic Supplementation
16. Advanced Construction
17. Rapid Launch System
18. Power Steering

Leveling and Farming

For experience, requisition, medals, super credits, and common (green) samples:

1 – Trivial difficulty, high visibility planets with fast missions, e.g. “Eliminate Brood Commander”.

It’s always better to farm with at least one other person, if only to open two-person doors.

Extracting with a team of four increases the experience and requisition rewards for everyone.

Farm together (it’s more efficient and more fun).

For rare (orange) and super uranium (light pink) samples, simply farm the lowest difficulties that those samples appear, such as 4 – Challenging for rare samples.