This guide will provide an overview of the special weapons in Helldivers 2, the newest category added to the game. Not all weapons were created equal – and this guide will aim to show you the differences. Furthermore, we will try to answer on the question “Can this gun carry me through Super Helldive?”. This article is up-to-date as of the Control Group premium war bond, and we will update it accordingly as the game evolves. For more info on weapons in the game, as well as links to guides for other weapon categories, you can check our Helldivers 2: Weapons Meta article.
FLAM-66 Torcher
-100 fire dmg (100 durable). -125 fuel. -6 canisters. -12.5 seconds of continuous fire. -100 DPS + fire DoT (dmg of both increases with enemy size). Heavy pen.
The FLAM-66 Torcher is the first primary flamethrower ever to make its way into the game, and the reason why the special weapons in helldivers 2 have a category of their own. It deals 2 damage per tick for a total of 100 DPS as advertised. Those are some pretty lame damage numbers for a primary weapon, but in reality it’s a lot stronger than one would expect. For starters, the Torchers flames penetrate heavy armor, and they deal 100% damage to durable body parts. Basically, this lets it bypass just about any form of damage resistance that enemies may have, and ensures that you’re always getting the maximum out of your weapon. And, of course, it’s a flamethrower…so you get to project that damage in an area in front of you while also setting enemies on fire for a bit of extra damage over time. The damage output of both the main flame and the fire DoT scales with enemy size as well.
The flamethrower consumes 10 fuel/s, so you can expect 12.5 seconds of continuous fire before needing to reload. Another powerful feature that often gets overlooked is its ability to set the ground on fire. This way, you can clean up swarms of low tier bugs and the voteless for a low ammo cost, stop an annoying pack of Termininds from chasing you over half the damn map, or create a zone of relative safety to perform stationary reloads. The final result is a unique weapon that can somewhat reasonably deal with just about any low and mid tier enemy out there.
We say, “somewhat reasonably” because it’s not the fastest kill time out there. Small bugs and the voteless will die pretty fast to the combo of DoT and direct damage. Medium bugs and overseers can hang around for a bit in the fire, but they do go down eventually. You can also attack chargers from the front as their armor rating is too low to resist the flames, but it’s going to take a while to burn through their large HP pool. We’ve talked a lot about bugs and the illuminate so far, and you might be wondering what about its performance against the automatons. To which we say; don’t bother. Because the Torcher has a range of approx 20 meters, and you’ll be a pile of giblets surfing the shockwave of a reinforced scout strider missile explosion before you get that close on the super helldive difficulty.
Other downsides are that the weapon basically has no stopping power. Bugs will move through the flames undeterred, the faster ones often getting a hit in before they burn up, and the illumiates will simply keep firing at you even as the flames burn them into a crisp. Contact with the burning bodies is practically guaranteed to set you on fire as well, adding to the frustration. Dodging backwards while using the weapon will also set you on fire by putting your legs into the flamethrowers’ path. Also, keep in mind that in order to fire this weapon properly, you need to ignite the small pilot light at its end. This costs no fuel, but takes a bit of time. Needless to say, exercise extreme caution when using this weapon, especially if teammates are nearby. Using armor with fire resistance or a supply backpack for stim-popping can make the weapon more comfortable, so keep them in mind.
Notes on Weapon Customization: In terms of weapon customization, we have no weapon customization.
Verdict: A reasonably effective anti-swarm weapon, but one that comes with a lot of downsides. Utterly amazing at killing voteless.
Unlocked: Page 2 of the Freedoms Flame premium war bond.
Total Cost: 130 medals (90 medals to page 2 and 40 medals for the gun). Take this info with a grain of salt, as the unlock costs to get to page 2 have been bugged.
JAR-5 Dominator
-275 dmg (90 durable). -15 round mag. -6 mags. -250 RoF. -28,8k total dmg. -1145 DPS. -Medium pen.
The Jar-5 Dominator used to be in the explosive category. Now it sits among the special weapons in Helldivers 2…mostly cause that makes sense, seeing as this gun doesn’t actually cause explosions. The Dominator fires jet-propelled ammunition, and is probably the closest thing the game has to a Bolter from WH40k. Its rounds deal an impressive 275 damage, have medium armor penetration, and impart a massive amount of stagger that can be used to stun lock enemies. Interestingly enough, it also deals an above average percentage of durable damage compared to most other weapons: a feature which lets it excel at taking down mid-tier targets.
It does come with some caveats, however. While the projectile is reasonably accurate, it’s also heavily affected by gravity, and it has a sluggish initial velocity of just 180m/s. The weapon also comes with no zoom magnification options, further limiting it to low-mid ranges. It kicks like a mule, handles like a brick, and it has a 3.5 second long full reload animation. It has massive horizontal recoil: ideally, you want to wait for the gun to stabilize before firing the next shot. The recoil is strangely more manageable in first person, so learn to switch modes depending on what you want to shoot. You’ll have to learn to compensate for the projectiles in-flight behavior. Leading targets is especially going to be a pain early on. However, it’s worth taking the time to get good, as the reward is one of the most competent single-target weapons in the game.
It’s high DPS and potent stagger also means you can brute force your way through engagements if there’s no time to aim properly. When it comes to fighting factions, the Dominators high damage output and accuracy, as well as medium armor penetration, make it good at taking on just about any medium-sized enemy the game can throw at it. It was unsurprisingly considered the king of anti-automaton weaponry by many Helldivers at one point. It can do good work against the bugs and illuminates as well, but only bring it if you need a single-target option to round out your loadout. Most notably, its unwieldy nature and small magazine size make it a poor choice for fighting off swarms of small enemies.
Notes on Weapon Customization: It only has access to scopes and the underbarrel categories so the Jar-5 Dominator doesn’t get as much of a boost as we hoped it would. The options do make it a bit more comfortable to use though, which isn’t a bad thing because its ergonomics score is utterly abysmal, as mentioned previously.
Attachment notes:
– Optics: The default option, and probably the best option, is the 1.5x Tube Red Dot Optic because it provides that little bit of magnification that makes aiming in first person mode just a bit easier. The rest of the options are Reflex sights which haven’t managed to tickle our fancy. Iron Sights are an option at lvl 19. This makes aiming in first person an abysmal experience, but the Dominator does get a +5 boost to ergonomics as a result. Depending on how you use the gun, it might be worth it. The final option at lvl 24 is a 4x Combat Scope (25m/75m/150m zoom modes), one of our favorites. However, it comes with a -6 malus to ergonomics, which makes the Dominator feel like you’re dragging a sack of bricks around. Pick your poison.
– Underbarrel: It’s a choice between Vertical foregrip and Angled foregrip. The Angled foregrip might be the play here, in our honest opinion. It gives a +10 buff to ergonomics, which helps in making the Dominator feel less unwieldy. It does noticeably increase the vertical recoil though, but since you usually have to stabilize the gun before firing the next shot, this can be a worthwhile tradeoff. The Vertical foregrip makes the gun feel nicer to use when you have to spam, especially in third person mode.
Verdict: One of the best single-target weapons out there once you get accustomed to its sluggish projectiles. Definitely worth bringing on high difficulties. Before the buffs to other weapons, it used to be the star of the show in an anti-automaton role. While its importance has since diminished, it still remains a powerful option that should not be underestimated.
Unlocked: Page 3 of the Steeled Veterans premium war bond.
Total Cost: 280 medals. (200 medals to page 3 and 80 medals for the gun)
VG-70 Variable
-85 Dmg (20 durable). -49 round mag. -7 mags. -300/550/750 RoF(full-auto mode). -33,3k total dmg. -425/779/1062 DPS (full-auto mode). Light pen.
If this is the direction where AH is heading with these guns, special weapons in helldivers 2 are on the track to become our favorite category. The VG-70 Variable is what happens when you throw an assault rifle, a marksman rifle and a shotgun into a blender. The result is a slightly above average weapon, if we’re to be honest, but some of the most fun we’ve had in the game in quite a while. As the name would imply, the gimmick with this weapon is its ability to adapt on the fly to battlefield conditions by changing its fire modes. Those would be:
– Full auto: Self-explanatory: you’ll use this gun as a generic assault rifle. This is the mode you’ll most likely use to mop up swarms of low tier enemies or burst into weakpoints too small to be reliably hit by the other modes. Recoil is relatively light so we have no idea why would anyone set their fire rate to a measly 300 rounds per minute. Accuracy is decent. There’s some noticeable horizontal recoil at play, which limits the gun to lower medium ranges max: which is just good enough not to make it obsolete on the automaton front.
– Volley: This mode fires a single bullet from each of its 7 barrels at the same time. The VG-70 Variable behaves like a cross between a shotgun and a marksman rifle in this setting. You don’t get a shogun-like blast that sends bullets flying everywhere. Instead, the projectile is a large, tightly-packed agglomeration of 7 bullets. This projectile is bizarrely accurate, so you’ll actually have to aim well to hit your targets, hence the marksman rifle comparison. Despite the accuracy, its damage drops off fast at range; that’s the shotgun part of the equation here. All in all, this is the mode you’ll use to get rid of medium-tier targets and other things that need to go away quickly.
– Total: This is the meme-mode that instantly fires every single bullet left in your magazine. In true Helldiver fashion, there’s no kill like overkill, so a full mag will dump 4,165 damage into whatever made the mistake of pissing you off that day. In all honesty, there aren’t that many targets out there where you can reasonably use this mode. You can instantly pop charger butts, instakill Impalers and Harvesters, two shot Bile titans and Illuminate meatballs. Firing in this mode if you have more than 23 bullets left in the mag will send you flying back and deal a small amount of self damage. Do this several times and it will literally break your arm. You need to go prone to fire this gun safely.
The fun part: You can actually use this insane recoil as a mobility tool. If you dive backwards and then fire the gun into the ground, you can send yourself flying a decent distance. You can literally use this to jump over base walls, launch yourself away from danger and reach better firing positions on top of rocks, for instance. If you’re wearing light armor, chances are the fall will kill you, so do yourself a favor and pop a stim before doing any TF2 soldier impressions.
Stopping this gun from being truly great are its low bullet velocity, godawful ergonomics, and a slow reload speed of 3.5 seconds. It’s worth noting that for all the damage you can do with this weapon, it will always be light pen regardless of firing mode. That massive 4k damage dump can be blocked entirely by medium armor, and it will bounce off without so much as staggering the target.
Notes on Weapon Customization: Only optics this time around. The default 2x Tube Red Dot sight is the best one by far. The Reflex sights will boost the gun’s ergonomics score by 3, which is negligible. And there’s a 4x Combat scope at lvl 23 which feels like overkill on this weapon. Nothing too thrilling here, as per special weapons tradition.
Verdict: A decent weapon which we do recommend for Super Helldive, but mostly for because of the utility it brings to the table, rather than raw performance.
Unlocked: Page 1 of the Control Group premium war bond.
Total cost: 35 medals.
Closing thoughts on Special Weapons in Helldivers 2
Similar to the Energy weapons category, special weapons in Helldivers 2 are a heterogeneous group of guns with little unifying features. It’s basically a category where the devs threw in the fancier stuff that wouldn’t fit in any other category. As a result, there’s not much to say about it, other than this category is doing fine at the moment, since all guns are quite competent at their job. Here’s hoping we get a primary chemical thrower one day, like a mini ToX Avenger from the first game. One can hope.
Image Credit: Arrowhead Game Studios.
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