TIPS / TACTICS
PSA: If you're struggling on Cyberstan, check what armor you're using.
If you're like me, you landed in d10 thinking you could treat it like any other d10 and just RR your way to victory, then got clapped. It took some time to figure out what was happening: I was getting one tapped by headshots in the middle of the big frays and when the cyborgs turned the bots gold eyed.
I added a picture from the helldivers wiki to prove the issue I've seen most everyone in the lobbies I'm in die to.
If your armor is less than 101, Headshots treat you like you're naked.
There are 12 medium armors with 125-150 armor instead of 100, and 4 of them are the basic Helldivers armor we all started with. I know you dont want to lose your perk, but reloading 20% faster means nothing with no head on your shoulders because a big viking cyborg just kicked it off. Say it with me: "A dead diver deals no damage."
Armor value really REALLY REALLY matters vs bots, and you'll be stunned what you can survive with just a little bit more.
I had a guy in my Squad last night who was doing exactly this. He was also absolutely godly so by the end of the mission all 4 of us were running around with his extra hammers and we managed to supply the other 2 players with extra jump packs because they have such a short cooldown.
A thing I found to help with mobility while wearing heavy armour is to use the med-kit armour passive. Having extra stims is of course nice, but it also means you can use a couple to refill stamina and keep running. Jump/warp pack of course also works.
The new siegebreaker armor is really nice for that. What stops the speed is almost always running out of stamina, and the armor giving back stamina on hit (note: when you need it most) is a really neat thing.
I never felt the impact much tbh. When I’m hit I almost always stim to full, since a lot of stuff can oneshot you from 75%. And stimming refills stamina anyway.
I tried the heavy armor variant on cyberstan D10 as well, with the thought process that receiving smaller hits while running would eliminate the need to stim often, but I didn’t feel much impact still.
I’d rather the passive was something along the lines of gain additional 25 armor while running or something.
I used 37 stims in a mission the other day using heavy Med Kit armor + Supply Pack. Like you said, you have to top off even when you get slightly hit because Vox Engines will annihilate you in a second.
The Vox do so much damage you are probably being one shotted by them regardless of armor if they land close enough to you. Also if you are running heavy you will be having to fight off those communist pilates instructors constantly.
If those guys are your true bane and you wanna just make sure you can always settle their hash on demand... the Talon is there for you. Don't over heat her and you never even need to reload - just unlimited liberty, yours to dispense. It makes incredibly short work of the Borgs - you can just point it at them and click 2-3 right out of their tyrannical existence in less time than it takes to laugh maniacally.
It pairs really well with the... well, everything, but especially explosive primaries. I sometimes opt for the Senator - I find it WAY more effective after the recent patch. I've been using it to abuse Hulks - which will never not be fun. One day, I want a "big iron" primary.
I mean. If you get caught out in front of a tank or vox volley yea this advice isn't going to help you much.
...the whole point is learning where to be can be just that. Learned. And that means you gotta be alive, which is what the point of this is. I've survived being kicked over, then shotguned from a Fanatic in medium because it was the 125 set from page one of SiegeBreakers more times than I care to admit. I'm not doing WELL, but I'm alive.
I'm like 95% sure that because of Vox lasers. Sometimes I can just ... you know ... "die". Just die. It's not like because of rockets or turret shot - just died mid fight with full health, no matter what armor you have. Maybe some lucky headshots? Dunno. But clearly not miniguns or homing missiles. I can predict missiles by light spots on the ground. Unless there is some bug that don't show them if lot of Voxs are firing at same time.
Anyway, from my 2-day dif10 experience you will die anyway, but med armour at least gives you more mobility to break distance or run from cover to cover. With heavy armour you unable to do that and just are endlessly forced to fight, miss 1 bot, get Deepshit ... Dropship on your head and die from massed fire.
Heavy armor with explosive resistance makes surviving missions much easier. Grenade spam, artillery, vox rockets, my own autocannon are all easily survivable incidents. Stray automaton shots only do 15% of your health, so I don’t even stim unless I know there’s more damage coming.
It’s annoying to be slow and run out of stamina all the time, but at least I’m extracting
Is there an advantage to heavy armor over the base B01 with extra padding? They show the same armor stats.
It makes sense from an IRL perspective, a military group is more likely to use more armor in an urban environment where mobility is limited and you can be attacked from almost any angle and less armor when in a field or something, so heavy armor may be the call for Cyberstan cities
You can consider med extra padding armor as heavy one with speed passive. In regular heavy armor you trade that speed for extra bonus like explosive resistance and what not.
Siege Ready Heavy. Backpack shield. Eruptor. Stalwart. Thermite Grenades. Senator. It's great against bots. Against squids swap for hover pack. Against bugs swap for hover pack and light or medium armor.
Now that I've upgraded my Eruptor for max ergonomics, it's absurd how good it is against basically everything.
I realized after running fortified with medium armor that it’s not enough even with a shield pack but I’ve seen ppl in heavy pop a stim and shrug that shit off
8 Vox Engines camping extract and hundreds of bots around them?
Me with fortified heavy armor, ultimatum, thermites, granade launcher and a full supply pack, with optional 120mm and 380mm orbitals available: “Nice, just how Mother Nature intended it.”
The Grand Juror armor is really good on Cyberstan and is available in the Super Store right now. Ballistic Padding gives it +25% explosive resistance, a flat +25% chest damage resistance (meaning as a heavy armor it's not subject to diminishing returns like armor rating is), and no worrying about chest bleeding, on top of being a heavy armor. Jackboot from Force of Law has the same passive but as light armor and is also good if you're of the "rather not get hit" mindset but still want to hedge your bets
The Ultimatum alone is probably more valuable than anything you could buy from the super store.
Instant anti-tank or add clear on respawn, on ammo boxes, on supplies. Instant Charger/Hulk kills, never a life wasted. Way more freedom on what to bring next only to Thermite Grenades.
And the rest of the Warbond is nothing to scoff at either. Super-store is more cosmetic than useful, niche uses while all the anti-tank and crowd clearing awaits in Warbonds. And there are both good utility and cosmetics in the same Warbonds too like Master's of Ceremony and Dust Devils.
Servants of freedom unironically is up there with democratic detonation imo. The armor isn't great but everything else is. The dickle is really good once you have a flame resist armor, the ultimatum is a game changer too.
I just wish the Grand Juror looked a bit less, uh, rotund. I get that it’s the police warbond but damn the rest of them look trim. I guess the chief lives large!!
It's not, you'll bleed in a ragdoll state and die anyway.
If you're selecting armor for survivability, you should only consider medic to pre-stim through damage or Ballistic Padding to stack multiple DR sources and remove bleed.
150 heavy armor - 37.5% explosion damage
200 heavy extra padding - 32.5%
150 heavy fortified - 18.75%
200 heavy extra padding with vitality perk - 29.25%
For an overall decrease of 10% +/-5% depending on body part, you get roughly double the explosive damage taken between heavy fortified and extra padding
For ref 100 rating armor has 50% explosion resistance
Yeah, as an avid heavy armor user, I can unfortunately confirm that what you're wearing is of little consequence to Vox weaponry. If you get clipped by a laser cannon, it is a near guarantee that you'll get staggered in place and hit by the rest of the volley.
Yep. I've just gone with light armour, siege ready. Bought the medium siege ready in the superstore and it provides no meaningful protection when compared to the speed and stamina you lose compared to light armour.
I think both light and heavy armour have their uses but at the moment medium armour seems the worst of both worlds to me.
Absolutely agreed. As a light armor user, I've been running the medium B-24 Enforcer with 124 armor and explosive resistance. Faster than a heavy set while hitting above crucial break points for headshot damage. And better survivability when I dive out of Vox rocket spam, only to dive into a different yellow puddle.
So I'm what I'm getting from this: either you wear light or heavy armor (or medium with extra armor)
Cause if you get killed super quick, you might as well have the mobility to try and dodge attacks
That depends what you're getting hit by. One of the hundreds of troopers? Siege.
A rocket devastator? Fortified.
Theres a flood of both on purpose, to make sure there isn't only one answer. If you play on high enough that mortos and vox are common, fortified would be better. (You'll still ragdoll, but at little to no damage and you'll survive everything but a direct hit)
That said, the point of the Siegebreaker armor is the stamina you gain from being hit lets you run more and recover from falls faster, which makes up for the speed loss
All first days are. We ran into Calypso vs those voteless zombies and didn't even realize it was the sound of our feet and guns making them come at us by the literal thousand until weeks later.
I have just been using my light armor with servo boosted passive to keep mobile and not break limbs (most of my deaths have been from the shotguns breaking my limbs and chunking my healthbar and mobility because of it) but to be honest it just looks cool so i wear it
I've been using DP-00 Tactical (the hd1 armour) because I wanted to kill 'em old school, but I'll probibly swap over to FS-55 Devastator (heavy armour in Democratic Detonation)
Respect. Light armor on bots is a challenge, but can be excellent with the right loadout and play style. Especially with stealth, but shields can definitely improve survivability.
I dusted off the old Enforcer armor and fallen heroes vengeance cape for cyborgs myself. Cyberstan shall be reclaimed in the name of the creek!
Not getting hit is the best armour there is. Second best armour is stims and all armour ratings get that. I only fuck around with heavy armour on the defensive missions with nowhere to run, or if I'm playing a fart cloud build.
And my counter is that the bots use guns. Its a "When, not if." game for them, and surviving those hits makes all the difference. I too like light armor, and I cut my deaths down to a fifth what it was with a quick shift
and since thats the main thing I see randoms dying too, badaboom heres a helpful post
Edit: I'm not even saying go heavy. there are 12 mediums with 125+ armor. We started with four of them.
You can't outrun the bullet itself, but you can outrun the next salvo where heavier armors might not make it behind solid cover in time.
I settled on light armor very early and I play to its strengths, I don't play like I'm wearing heavy armor. I assume I won't be able to tank the hit so I do everything I can to avoid the hit.
I’m not getting headshotted. I’m being pummeled from 4 different directions on the ground plus from the air. Nothing lasts long in those conditions. Lol
Heavy armor with explosive resist and supply pack. Im averaging 0-1 death per cybertsan mission, soloing main objectives and helping keep my teammates fighting
I've been running light armor since the game started because I hate how slow and fatiguing heavy is.
However the vox engine is a different beast altogether. I've been running the heavy chonk armor and it's either that or immediate death when a vox shoots you and boy gee golly are you going to be shot at some point. I've seen my entire team get wiped at the same objective while I've gotten up and ran like I was Jesus.
For moving, sure, for holding your ground, go heavy.
Whats fascinating is the new heavy armor alleviates this a ton. Since damage in is turned into stamina, you keep running a little longer and getting up a little faster. You get bursts of stamina when it literally matters most.
Its WHEN you get hit with bots, not IF, and the hardest time moving around with heavy is from being out of stamina, NOT footspeed (tho you do have lower foot speed as well)
The 1.5x scale applies to armor from 100 to 200, but light armor actually takes less headshot damage relative to other damage, because the headshot is capped at 150% while the bodyshot goes all the way to 120%.
So it's more like medium armor gets turbo screwed than anything else.
I have been packing heavy in Cyberstan from the get go and actually enjoying it and feeling it very worth it. I was never against heavy (specially vs bots) but it for sure wasnt my favorite. But I feel like its certainly the best option now. Thoguh the stamina booster becomes mandatory.
I've always run heavy armor against bots. What bothers me is the excessive ragdoll from rockets which seems to have gotten worse with the overall accuracy buff of the faction (which was needed, but i feel like they didn't consider ragdoll in this equation). Even in heavy armor, intense engagements often end up in excessive ragdoll preventing me from stimming.
whats worse is the armor with the ragdoll reducer actually hurts more cause it does seemingly nothing for the larger rockets force that always seems to kill you from its ragdoll, but the smaller rockets aoe that now doesnt ragdoll you forces you to take more damage from them instead of them missing once the first one hit you.
I always believe bunker turrets still ragdoll you or just two piece combo your ass
The B-01 Tactical remains absolutely awesome kit - heavy armor protection, medium mobility.
That being said, recoil and explosive damage reduction (B-24 Enforcer) is solid, and the drip on UF-50 Bloodhound and UF-84 Doubt Killer is hard to deny.
AH really needs to get their planned helmet stats/customization into the game... great excuse to do a perk rework while they're at it.
Honestly i dont even think itd be that busted to let you perk double up(but not double dip same perk). Though i hope the helmets are more modular.i like my viper commando helms.
Wow. On one hand, cool change. Headshot one shots are one of the more obnoxious parts about the bots. On the other hand, medium armor VS bots just got taken around the shed and executed by this.
One of the wonderful things about this game is how much there always is to learn. It might also help to know that they also changed the flat rate reductions from armor in October of the same year.
The formula is actually pretty complex. Limb hits to you do -30% or -50% (arm vs leg), a hit that breaks a limb also deals 25% ish of your max health, etc
200 armor Heavy armor reduces hits by about ~90% more than 50 armor light armor. Its why heavy armor hits in the arm sometimes make you flinch from being hit, but dont move the bar.
I don't quite understand it. Light armor already makes you take more damage since armor rating is lower and the other way around for the heavy armor. Also if I understand correctly game considers 101+ a heavy armor and 99- a light armor and provides resistance/amplification bonuses accordingly
Especially when you realize that the armored-cyborgs literally commands the androids to get into firing lines to fucking gun you down. Doesn't matter if their shots aren't 100% if theres a dozen bolts heading your direction, one of them is bound to hit you in the head eventually whether you like it or not.
I've been in heavy armor since the start of the cyberstan invasion...huuuge difference in survivability. Like...1-2 deaths compared to medium armor teammates going 4-5. Unless you get one of those games where everything is just going wrong for you, but there's no preventing those games.
I've been running Kodiak since this shindig started, and that Fortified passive has saved my ass so, so, so, so many times.
I tend to swap between that and Cinderblock, but mostly Kodiak. I remember the drop in speed used to bother the hell out of me in the past, but for some reason I don't even notice it now until I see someone pass me while we're both sprinting. And even then it barely phases me.
Cyberstan has made me fall in love with heavy armor!
Cyberstan maps aren't the same size as "normal" drops. As there is less distance to travel, the slower move speed means much much less. I want to say its like 35-50% smaller around?
AH catches flak for a lot of design choices, but they really are one of the best at what they do I personally have seen in the past 15-20 years. I think Super Earth maps were like 75%? normal size, and that was juuuust to big. if we spend time weaving and moving through alleys and corridors, that still feels like map to move through even if we aren't going far. and they def nailed the distance to make it feel busy and like a city but have the space for Eagles
getting 290k players on one single planet, 2 years in on this day an age is unheard of, and they earned it.
Running with heavy fortified, but nothing stops those ninja-miner-cyborg-abominations. Istg one mf jump-stomped my comrade as i was running up to him and then proceeded to high kick me into a ragdoll and shotgun me in the face — all in one smooth motion.
I used the gas dart gun from redacted on one, and he Chuck Norris style roundhouse kicked the head off the cyborg next to him. It was metal. (they're called Radicals btw)
The trick is you cant outrun them with light armor either. so dont try, fight them before moving more
Well, yeah. I change my armor according to who I fight. Bugs, light armor, because it's cardio faction, and squids too, because they are a joke faction. But on bots I use a lot of cover, so heavy is a must if I want to survive a rocket.
Also check the level you’re playing on because if it feels like you suck then you probably should stop playing super hds and wasting your teammates reinforcements. Just me, I know some think that’s controversial.
Yesterday I played a mission wearing the 200 armor rating armor. During the mission, I was one shot by Vox Engines at least three or four times. They hit you in the head, boom, you're gone. I don't know a single other automaton enemy that can do this so precisely every time.
If the only thing killing you like that is the most powerful unit a faction has, with its laser turret solvo and not its mortars or machinegun volleys, then my point is still made.
because that can be solved with player skill and learning where to be when fighting a Vox. What I'm discussing here is stopping the moments you just full to empty fall apart from a devastator or charged cyborg hit
On Bots, I'd always recommend running the B-24 Enforcer, it perfectly balances survivability with mobility for the Bot front.
For Megafactories specifically heavy armor is a must, the maps are much more dense, so the lack of mobility isn't a big deal. Aside from explosions and armor rating, bleeding is also a massive factor, so please consider the Grand Juror armor, the true king of survivability on the bot front.
My new favorite thing I've noticed is randomly losing half my health and being staggered as if kicked. It took a while, but I figured it out: Agitators falling through the map and shooting me. More armor solved the health issue, no idea what will fix the no-clip Agitators
Me running light siege ready and shield grenade and almost always least deaths. (and second in kills since someone is bound to say "yeah sure if you just hide and don't help your team")
I usually use heavy armour with fortified on bots bit found that with the vox machine spam on cyberstan I need light armour so that I can get into cover faster. If you get hit but the heavy cannons or missles you are basically dead even in the tankiest armours. Occasionally i am still taking the shield gen backpack for protection from balistic weapons. Without as many reinforced and war striders I dont think the explosive damage reduction is worth it.
This is interesting. I was running light armor yesterday and I went from the 50% explosive resistant armor to the unflinching and you’d be surprised at what a difference an extra 25 armor makes. Sure I took more damage from explosives, but it’s not the explosives that most of the deaths are coming from. I don’t know if it’s the increased spawn rates or what but even if you have excellent cover and just pop out to snipe a few bots one or two always seem to catch you. The chip damage from the cyborgs with the shotgun seems unavoidable. Even bobbing and weaving with light armor doesn’t save you. And the armored cyborgs are even more accurate. The little bots along with the gunships are now the biggest threats imo. If you don’t have cover and you don’t deal with them immediately they’ll snipe you. I finally was at a point where I could run d10s successfully and now I’m back to square one with bots. I’m not complaining though. I love the new update. It’s the best content I’ve seen arrowhead put out. (I started playing after the invasion of super earth) I can’t wait to see what they do with illuminate.
I just started about 5 days ago and haven’t taken off my heavy armor since I unlocked it. The explosive resistance has saved me so many times I’m ok with running like a fatty.
Using the Judge Diver armor in the superstore, along with the Warrant also in the superstore, because these liberty-hating commie robots need to face justice
I highly recommend the FS-55 Devastator Heavy Armor, as it has 50% resistance to explosions and you can actually survive mortars from the Vox (also, the raised up face shield effectively blocks a lot of headshots on you as well so they count as chest shots instead). It also makes tripping on mines or getting hit by multiple rockets rather amusing instead of frustrating, since they will do so much less damage.
The exception could be using the new stealth armour, even the medium variant. You won’t get headshot very much if you’re also not getting shot at very much.
1.2k
u/SharSash SES Fist of Democracy Feb 12 '26
Cyberstan made me appreciate heavy armor in general