this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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Helldivers 2

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Throughout my 991 hours of playtime ^holy^ ^shit^ ^get^ ^a^ ^life^ I've seen many divers using the HMG at the lowest firerate possible, sometimes at 600RPM when just picking it up from a corpse or something, but people using it at 750RPM has been a VERY rare occurrency, at least as far as I could tell when I wasn't busy surviving.

Obviously if you pick it up because you have no other option you're going to go for the less uncomfortable setting, and if you're trying to shoot down a gunship you won't go Rambo with it, but other than such edge cases...

... what gives?

Why would you choose the ohfuckohshitohfuck stratagem and not use the ohfuckohshitohfuck setting when five hulks are chasing you (A.K.A. the ohfuckohshitohfuck situation)?
As far as I can tell THE appeal of the HMG is its insane DPS.

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[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Too busy not dying!

Then forgetting to change it.

[–] Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I always use the MGs on the highest RPM. I assume most people don't because the recoil can be hard to control when under duress, and you can get into a loop of freaking out, losing control and missing all of your shots, dying, and saying "fuck it" as you lower the RPM. I've been there, but when messing around I found out how truly satisfying it is to mow down entire crowds with any of the MGs on the highest RPM.

Plus, if Sweet Lady Liberty didn't want me to send Freedom inducing lead at 750RPM, 900RPM, or the fabled 1150RPM, then the armourer wouldn't have put that option on the gun

[–] Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 year ago

I guess that makes sense, but in my experience, a lower RPM setting doesn't really increase the "duress accuracy", as I like to call it.
You still miss half the shots with a lower angle difference, but "almost hitting" is the same as "not hitting" and when you finally manage to wrangle the reticle onto the weakpoint you're aiming for you have a lower damage output.

Kudos for being one of us though, maybe one day I'll see you on the front

[–] GhostlyPixel@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Stalwart I keep at the highest RPM, MG and HMG I keep in the middle and only bump it up if I can go prone to control the recoil, otherwise I’m just wasting ammo on the higher setting

Makes me want a bipod system like ARMA

[–] Wahots@pawb.social 0 points 1 year ago

If you can't go prone, the recoil just wastes ammo. Especially if picking off smaller targets. Firing in controlled bursts can be useful!

[–] Butterpaderp@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

I like to think it's a holdover from when the hmg had less ammo. Lots of folks liked to treat it like a marksman rifle. I remember at least one youtube channels that had a 'tip' to slow down the firerate.

Personally, for all the mgs, I always sit at the middle speed for engagements, and bump it up if enemies start to get too close. The accuracy you get from less recoil is good for longer ranges. Except for stalwart, that one's always at max speed, it's just too fun :)

[–] erin@piefed.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 year ago

I use the lowest setting on every machine gun, intentionally. It conserves the most ammo and allows me to use the HMG almost like a DMR that has a ton of ammo. I'm tap firing, only hitting headshots, and clearing hordes way faster than just spraying and sending 50% of shots into the dirt. The only time I switch to high firerate is to delete heavies, which have much larger hitboxes.

[–] FlihpFlorp@piefed.zip 0 points 1 year ago

I use the heavy pen MG on squids as it takes care of so much, harvesters, hordes of votless, air craft

I like the crank up the RPM on voteless. basically tap firing letting recoil kick up from the body, and just letting it rip into a crowd, mmmm amazing

Against overseers and aircraft medium rpm

and against harvesters i find the TTK with my aim roughly the same on all 3 firemodes so i set it to lowest so i can waste less ammo

I feel like people forget you can change the fire mode after mission starts

I love this gun it just packs a punch and the variable fire mode that you can change any time divers lets it flex between precision (for an automatic) and *AHHAHAHAH HAHAHAHAAAA" -Helldiver

But alot of people forget you have 300 bullets between resupplys, and if you tap fire berserker heads, that is a lot of freedom to spread

[–] archonet@lemy.lol 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I miss the ludicrous 1200RPM mode.

No, it wasn't very practical, but was practicality ever the point? Of anything in this game?

[–] Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not sure about impracticality, I wasn't aware the HMG ever had a 1200RPM option but I imagine it would be pretty satisfying to mag-dump an entire HMG into a bile titan in 0.3s and just fuckin' GMod–toolgun–delete it.

[–] archonet@lemy.lol 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It did at launch, then they nerfed it in the dark days of early patches.