Beating the 'Borgs

Helldivers Tactics & Loadouts
#1

Cyborgs really challenge new players when they start to see butcher gangs, wretch packs and (especially) tank patrols. Pretty quick it’s a cascade of alerts and swarms of bullet absorbent melee attackers backed by armoured behemoths that shrug off anything short of AT weapons - and sometimes those too!

I’ve had great successes with rail guns & heavy AT strikes from orbit, even better with on-the-ball recoilless rifle + Commando multi-launcher team ups. But there are more imaginative ways to democratise the Cyborgs… how do you guys do it?

#2

I’m certainly not the expert when it comes to the Cyborgs, however I have had some success in solo and team missions through designing loadouts keyed to the mission level.
Mission level 5 and below I lean towards firepower. The ability to engage large numbers of enemies is the key. Once level 6 and above is reached, the requirement shifts to the ability to deal with heavily armoured enemies.
While I do deploy red strategems, I prefer to have my weapons at hand, which has the downside that they can be lost, but the upside that they are far more flexible in tactical situations, and noticeably more precise, at least in my play.
Level 5 and below suits the MG, the Obliterator, Minigun turret, APC, Stalwart, and the like. Level 6 and above brings on the Rumbler, Recoilless Rifle, Bastion, and if available, the Camper.
I’m certain that others have their own ideas, for example I think the hands down fave primary is the Trident, and I regularly run into higher level players who rely entirely upon red strategems.
Cyborgs are not my favourite enemy, but they are very challenging, and it’s always best to try a variety of approaches to discover what works best for you.

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#3

You’d be surprised how viable Knight submachine is vs any non-fully armored cyborgs in regular missions. If you’re not so much into challenge and want pure efficiency, try Breaker on full upgrade. The only tradeoff in both cases is ammo management, but i guess the workarounds can be found.

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#4

The Breaker is perhaps the best Cyborg medicine available amongst a pretty sparse number of effective choices for the primary, once the level of play progresses to 7 and above. It has a longer range than any SMG, it has a wide pellet spread, and enough power to quickly neutralize all lesser cyborg enemies. Just watch the ammo, because it goes away quickly.
The Knight, like all SMGs in the game, offers very little in value compared to the Breaker. It is more precise, which makes it an ok choice when the enemy drops right on top of you, and of course, the one handed thing, but it’s stun is insignificant, it’s power uninspiring, and it’s ammo consumption epic.
BTW, I’ve often thought that no soldier worth his salt is going to allow an enemy to drop on his head before engaging them. The borgs should be subject to fire before they drop on the field. Nothing wrong with seeing a few tanks, Hulks, etc descend as flaming wrecks.
I can’t help but think that when facing a swarming overpowering enemy, any and every effort would be made to develop weapons suitable for the task. Yet when it comes to the Cyborgs, I haven’t found anything that can both meet the swarms and offer suitable stopping power. It’s pretty much one or the other. Add to this that a number of stratagem choices have been dumbed down to the point of being ineffective, and you have the reason why I have requested a Minigun capable of meeting both power needs and endless swarms.
My guess is what is happening here is that a small cadre of vocal older players have been boasting about their prowess, and the game is changed because of it. Perhaps we need more vocal lower level players to balance the jaded bombast of that group.
Anyway, the Cyborgs are not my favorite enemy, mostly because there is little choice of effective weaponry in terms of primaries and blue strategems to meet them, and these are what I enjoy playing with the most.

#5

Here’s a list of primary weapons I consider to be top tier against the Cyborgs:

SG-225 Breaker: this pretty much annihilates the borgs and takes care of everything expect warlords and IFVs. Very effective at clearing low to medium level enemies quickly. The downside is the high teamkill potential.

RX-1 Railgun: will make life easy not only for himself but the team too. You can control the battlefield with this, IFVs are the only thing the Railgun can’t handle. While it may not kill units as fast as the Breaker, it is even faster at stopping them. Stun is insanely strong. The downside is you need to be both accurate and fast.

AR-14D Paragon: true steamroller, this thing has accuracy, DPS and fire rate all in one package. Slow poison is extremely good and makes life easy for you and your team. You can use it as a support weapon or as an offensive assault weapon or both. The downside is you need to be able to manage the ammo consumption.

PLAS-1 Scorcher: this makes you wonder where all the borg units you were shooting at suddenly disappeared. The Scorcher packs a lot of power and clears everything below warlords really fast. The downside is you can set yourself on fire if not used carefully.

Many of the other weapons are very useful and effective too, I’m just covering a few of them I consider the strongest. Generally I feel weapon attributes like stun, slow poison, mini stun etc. are underrated. If you can use them correctly, they will to truly shine.

There’s a lot of stratagems that deal with heavy borg units with extreme effectiveness: Commando, EAT-17, Vindicator, Rumbler, Demolisher, Railcannon Strike, Close Air Support, Heavy Airstrike etc. I’m not even mentioning area denial as I don’t like them, you can make the game boring with them.

Build a loadout so it’s able to take care of every unit. For example if you take the Railgun, the Commando compliments it as it takes IFVs out like no other. Add something else for the other enemies, for examples Vindicators or CAS, HSR or SR. Use stun to take advantage of those stratagems.

If the borgs feel too challenging, there’s already a solution to it. Drop down difficulty and try again. Go back up when you feel you’re ready for it.

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#6

I agree with @Mikasa2 and I will not mention the weapons that He already wrote. I will add a few more that are in my consideration the most powerful primary weapons (but not only limited to) against the cyborgs.

AR-20L Justice: an extremely efficient and popular weapon against cyborgs. Unstoppable rounds make it even more deadly than Breaker - killing hordes of enemies in mere seconds, high DPS, and incredible good accuracy. Ammunition is not a problem as well and reloading is very fast. Justice is equipped with the bayonet, which also provides you a melee dodge boosts, making it super deadly in the Veteran’s hands.

DBS-2 Double Freedom: powerful incendiary shotgun, underrated among new ranks, but respected by Veterans and often used in battle as the main weapon. Double Freedom doesn’t belong to the most accurate shotguns so you need to learn the “Hit N’ Run” mechanic. Get close to the enemies shoot them and run away while reloading - repeat this sequence. DF is very efficient against every cyborg expect patrols and Warlords/IFVs. It’s not fast enough to kill a patrol squad before they trigger the alarm. Basically, Double Freedom makes you move all the time making you harder to hit.

P-6 Gunslinger: very often used as a primary weapon, combined with support weapons like Knight or Defender. Very high DPS and accuracy, but low on ammunition. This little beast one shot every low-med armored cyborg enemy and fairly good against heavy armored units like butchers.
Used as an AT weapon, can kill Warlords. The only problem you might have is to not run out of ammo or the hounds will down you and you will not be able to defend yourself.

M2016 Constitution: intended as a liberty day joke weapon is actually one of the most powerful weapons in the entire game. Equipped with deadly bayonet and very powerful single shots. Can easily deal with any threat as long as you don’t forget to reload the gun each shot fired.

LAS-12 Tanto: one-handed laser weapon, if you know how to dodge Warlord/Hulk gun you will most likely kill everything that stands in your way without a problem. Very good weapon once the alarm is triggered but not useful for stealth runs. Bring it when you are sure you will find hordes of enemies. Can melt through Warlord’s metal and murder it in few seconds. Doesn’t require ammunition and the range is greatly limited.

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#7

Good advice, yet every player must find what works for them, because what suits one doesn’t work for another.
Some choices also work better with certain types of support:, and some styles of play match up better with some enemies rather than others. For example, slow fire, small magazine capacity weapons like the Railgun work well when fellow players choose faster firing anti-infantry weapons, such as the ubiquitous Trident. Alone, the Railgun is easily neutralized by sheer numbers of enemies.
Yes, it is possible to switch to the Peacemaker, but the sidearm runs dry pretty quickly when forced into duty as a primary.
Ultimately, in HD, one must get used to running. Escape is often necessary. Capture and activate objectives must be completed quickly, or the enemies just continue to spawn without pause.
While there is some overlap in weapon effectiveness, such tend to be unique to that particular enemy. Thus, the Toxic Avenger is very effective against Bugs, but I’ve never seen it among anyone’s top choices against Cyborgs, and it’s almost entirely useless against Illuminates.
Finally, I’d have to conclude that at the higher levels, 7+, weapon effectiveness gets to be a bit of a headache. It’s not that one can’t find weaponry capable of neutralizing enemies, it’s that tactically they suffer from drawbacks that make choosing them problematic. Most higher level players apparently deal with this via red strategems, and avoiding the problematic weaponry altogether, yet for one who prefers to play with blue strategems, overly long loading times, 120 second cool downs, and tiny magazine capacities serve to keep these weapons in reserve until absolutely necessary.
I haven’t personally arrived at what I find to be a truly effective load out for Cyborgs, although I think I’ve gotten there for the other races. The temporary solution appears to be to join a good team, whenever such is available.

#8

Oh, man. Commando launcher! I finally get it. If in doubt, look up some how-to material on that weapon, it’s tricky but very efficient at killing Cyborg tanks, hulks & warlords with ammo to spare for groups of smaller stuff now & then. Awesome system once you know how it really works.

This bloke explains it really well

#9

Kinda new (and late) here, but I just wanted to share my setup.

Primary:
Justice or Breaker (occasional Trident if I run a full offensive strategem setup solo on maps with tons of mine clearing objectives)

Strategems:

  1. Ammo + Commando + Static Field Conductors + other (usually Lumberer EXO suit to take out AA guns quickly and easily)

  2. Ammo + Rumbler + Static Field Conductors + Shield

  3. AT mines + Airstrike x2 + Static Field Conductors

Explanation:
(1) is used when playing with a party, since I’ll (hopefully) have another player using Commando/Recoilless to reload each other, or at the very least someone is there to cover me when I’m manually reloading.

(2) is more for solo play since the Shield prevents dogs from charging and possibly knocking me down constantly. However, having the Shield also means I can’t bring any AT weapon which requires a backpack slot for reloading, and I don’t really like using one-off strategems like Demolisher/EAT, which leaves Rumbler as the only available weapon that can take out IFVs without a cooldown time.

(3) is the full offensive strategem setup that I was talking about. Since you’ll be carrying the Sniffer with you while searching for mines, an AT weapon cannot be carried. Therefore, you’ll have to rely on strategems to take out those enemies that can’t be killed with small arms fire. Throw AT mines at where most enemies will be expected to come from, just not too close to the area of operations to prevent blowing yourself up. Airstrike with or without Static Field to take down groups of butchers and/or Warlords/Hulks depending on the situation.

As for why I bring Static Field Conductors, it’s to combat those Butcher gangs. When you see them start dropping down, immediately throw the strat a few feet in front of where they’re headed (towards you if you’re soloing) so that It stops most, if not all, of them in their tracks. You can then either ignore them or shoot the hell out of them, and with the unstoppable rounds from Justice/Breaker, it doesn’t take long for them to die.
This strategem is also useful if you ever need to reload your AT weapon on solo missions, but enemies are already on your tail. Just throw it to slow those enemies down, then get behind cover and reload. Of course this doesn’t slow IFVs, but they’re slow as heck around corners anyway so as long as you’re reloading behind cover as mentioned, they shouldn’t be a problem regardless.
Important thing to note though, is that placement is key. Try not to use this strategem in awkward spots that will hinder your party mates or yourself, unless the situation really calls for it. There’s really no way to teach this and you can only learn from experience. I absolutely hate it when party mates throw this strat randomly into the already small play area, when there are no enemies whatsoever.

Wew just realised how long this post was, but hopefully it helps someone out.

#10

Good use of the Static Field Conductors. I seldom use those, but that’s a great use case.

If you haven’t already (I can’t tell from what you put up - you did say you’re a bit new) experiment with the Railgun when in a group vs Borg. It’s pretty tough to survive with solo… but in a group it’s sheer utility overcomes the tiny ammo capacity. For example, a shield-down Hulk can be made vulnerable with a shot to his gun arm - he’ll be Stunned and open up to frontal fire again - and the ease of stopping Hulks, Warlords, Butcher mobs or even just mobs of Grotesques can save team mates repeatedly, even when they’re getting swarmed and there isn’t time/space for a Static Field to help.

I’ll warn you now though to bring plenty of ammo. Railguns can go through it fast! You might consider ammo drop AND ammo pack, which will let you control the battle’s pace as well as instantly make friends when they run flat on ammo. Just keep topping it up with ammo - and be greedy, take anyone’s ammo drops, knowing they’ll resup off you later and you get a double whack of ammo each time.

Obviously you’ll still want a tank killing strat. Railcannon, dive bomb, demo packs… up to you there.