Helldivers 2’s New Patch 01.002.200 Enhances Weapons and Stratagems While Adjusting Enemies for Balanced Gameplay.

Helldivers 2‘s just gotten a fresh patch, and it brings with it a fair amount of balancing tweaks to stuff like weapons, strategems, and even some enemies. Before you freak out, though, things a pretty heavy on the buff side this time.

Given that another planet recently got blown up by the Meridia black hole, it’s no surprise that players look to be welcoming these boosts to their arsenal. After all, getting some cowboy-themed Warbond gear this week wasn’t enough to celebrate.

Into the tweaks we go, then – which are outlined in the notes for Patch 01.002.200. Arrowhead’s also put out a video that sees HD2 design director Niklas Malmborg and gameplay designer Lennart Holmgren go through the changes, which you can watch below, if you’re not one for reading.

The big headlines are a range of buffs to primary weapons and stratagems, with a big range of assault rifles and SMGs like the having had their damage or mag capacity increased. A few guns have gotten more than one tweak, such as the Slugger shotgun having had both its damage boosted and spread decreased, while the Pummeler will now take less shots to inflict stun, and the Eruptor has had its armour penetration upgraded to heavy. That last one in particular seems to be going down well on Reddit.

Strategem-wise, the likes of rocket pods and exosuits have had their number of uses upped, while guns like the Stalwart and HMG have been buffed. Before you worry it’s too easy, though, there are some enemy tweaks that should balance things out. For example, both Illuminate and Automaton dropships should now be tougher to take down, either because they can take more hits, or are more likely to have their shields up.

Arrowhead adds that the bots should now have quicker “reaction speed in large groups”, while it’s also “increased the number of AI calculations the game can perform”, which “primarily impacts scenarios with a high number of spawned enemies, improving their response times in those situations”. Though, that maths tweak will also come with “a slight trade-off in game performance”.

Beyond those major bits, you can read through the notes on Steam to get the full picture in terms of what this patch delivers bug fix-wise.

How do you feel about Patch 01.002.200’s balancing tweaks? Let us know below!