This weapon guide for the game will provide an overview of the explosive weapons in Helldivers 2. Not all weapons are equal in the game – and this guide will aim to show you the differences. Furthermore, we will try to answer the question “Can this gun carry me through Helldive?”. This article is up-to-date as of the Borderline Justice premium war bond, and we will update it accordingly as new patches arrive to the game. For more info on weapons in the game, as well as links to guides for other weapon categories, check out our previous Helldivers 2: Weapons Meta article.
CB-9 Exploding Crossbow
When it comes to explosive weapons in Helldivers 2 the CB-9 Exploding Crossbow is a rather interesting one. The crossbow fires bolts that create a 6-meter explosion at the point of impact. The explosion deals its full 350 damage in the first 3 meters of its radius and then falls off. On the other hand, the projectile itself deals 270 damage to enemies. Both the projectile and the explosion are medium armor penetrating, thus making them decent at dealing with mid-sized enemies. In short, the crossbow provides an interesting mix of AoE and single target capabilities.
The bolt is pinpoint accurate, but it’s heavily affected by gravity and has an incredibly slow initial velocity of just 100m/s. As a result, even in relatively close combat, you’ll have to account for gravity or lead the target if it’s moving. So although the bolt can travel quite far, it’s best to stick to close/mid-range with this one. The crossbow holds 5 bolts in its mag and comes with 8 spare mags. In terms of performance, the crossbow is a very powerful weapon that can do both crowd clear and single-target damage. The combo of explosion and direct damage means you can take out a big target while its AoE cleans up everything smaller next to it. Not only that, but it takes only three well-placed shots to pop a Charger’s butt.
Aside from the sluggish projectiles, another downside is its small mag size. You’ll find yourself reloading often, and with a lengthy full reload time of approximately 3.5s, you’ll really feel that downtime. When it comes to combating factions, this is definitively best used against the bugs. Not only do they send more weaker enemies, but their heads are much easier to hit compared to automaton weakpoints. It’s good against the automatons too, but as they engage from longer distance, a lot more skill is required to make the weapon work efficiently.
As yet another bonus, the crossbow has the ability to close bug holes, destroy automaton fabricators and open up containers. Since its inclusion, the crossbow has been labeled as a silent-type weapon. What this actually means in game has been somewhat difficult to test, especially where the wonky enemy AI is concerned, but there does seem to be some truth to it. If the player is concealed behind cover, the explosions can lure enemies away. Firing the crossbow will still see nearby enemies converge on your location, but they usually don’t take any aggressive action until they have seen the player. It’s also a one-handed weapon, meaning it can be used in conjunction with the Ballistic Shield stratagem.
Verdict: A powerful weapon that gives the player impressive utility as well as an answer to a large amount of threats on the battlefield.
Unlocked: Page 3 of the Democratic Detonation premium war bond.
Total Cost: 310 medals. (230 medals to page 3 and 80 medals for the weapon)
R-36 Eruptor
The R-36 Eruptor fires jet assisted shells that explode in a large area on impact. Like with the crossbow, its damage is a mix of direct (projectile) and AoE damage. The explosion deals 225 damage in an impressive 7-meter radius and penetrates medium armor. Similar to the crossbow, the explosion’s damage begins to drop off after 4 meters. The projectile itself deals 230 damage and penetrates heavy armor. The standout feature of this weapon is that upon impact, the shell explodes into a shower of 30x shrapnel, each of which deals 110 (35 durable) damage.
The Eruptor is a Bolt-Action operated weapon, which results in it having the lowest fire rate of any primary at just 25 RPM. Its projectile is pinpoint accurate with some moderate drop off at range and a slow initial velocity of 180m/s. However, this doesn’t mean much, as the projectile self-destructs after flying approx 200 meters. The Eruptor kicks like a mule and handles like a brick. This is once again made irrelevant due to its extremely slow fire rate. It carries 5 shells in its magazine and comes with 6 spare mags. Put simply, the Eruptor is an accurate, slow, but hard-hitting weapon.
Mastering this weapon means mastering the shrapnel mechanic. Well-placed shots can let it focus the shrapnel on a single target, resulting in catastrophic amounts of damage that can instakill just about any low-mid tier enemy (with Alpha Commanders being an exception). In fact, one shot in the right place can pop a Charger’s butt. Two direct projectile hits to the weakpoint can kill hulks, cannon turrets and even tanks. It can kill other large targets as well, but its shrapnel mechanic makes it wildly inconsistent, like the Illuminate harvester taking anywhere from 1 to 4 shots to its leg weakpoint to bring down. The explosion, while it starts losing damage after 4 meters, is still powerful enough to clean small enemies in a significant radius when comboed with the shrapnel.
This can also be used to kill targets during a bug breach, or to instakill low tier and damage medium automatons while they’re still attached to a drop-ship. The Eruptors explosion deals a massive amount of stagger to enemies inside its radius, further increasing its utility. Speaking of utility, it can close bug holes, destroy fabricators and open containers much like the crossbow.
Verdict: A powerful all-round weapon whose interesting mix of utility, crowd clear and medium-sized target removal ensures the player has an answer to most things on the battlefield…even if it is a sluggish answer.
Unlocked: Page 2 of the Democratic Detonation premium war bond.
Total cost: 120 medals (60 medals to page 2 and 60 medals for the gun)
Final thoughts on explosive weapons in Helldivers 2
Much like with the energy-based category after this one, explosive weapons in Helldivers 2 are a pretty heterogeneous category. So far, explosive weapons in Helldivers 2 have been characterized by very low initial velocities on their projectiles, which make hitting weakpoints on distant targets an impressive feat, despite them being near pinpoint accurate. Not only that, but the due to the explosive component present on some of them, it’s important for players to know which body parts to shoot for maximum effectiveness. In short, most are versatile and powerful weapons that demand a certain amount of skill from the user to be wielded effectively. Hopefully this guide on explosive weapons in Helldivers 2 was worth the read.
Image credit: Arrowhead Game Studios.
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