Helldivers 2 Weapon Tier List: Best Loadouts After Patch 7.2.0

Patch 7.2.0, "Devoid of Liberty: 7.2.0," landed on Helldivers 2 on October 20 with the single biggest primary-weapon balance pass Arrowhead Game Studios has shipped in months. The Sickle laser rifles got their long-requested rework, three light-penetration shotguns picked up real damage, and the PLAS-39 Accelerator Rifle finally stopped punishing players for aiming at weak points. This tier list ranks where every affected primary, sidearm, and support stratagem lands after those changes, based entirely on the numbers Arrowhead published in its own patch notes rather than guesswork.

This is an opinion ranking, not a damage calculator. We're weighing the raw stat changes against how each weapon actually plays on higher difficulties against Automatons and Terminids, so two Helldivers who weight ammo economy differently from time-to-kill could reasonably disagree on an S versus A split. Treat it as a starting point for your own loadout testing on Super Earth's current roster of fronts, not gospel.

01What Changed in Patch 7.2.0

Arrowhead's "Community Feedback Changes" section for 7.2.0 covers four buckets: a full balance pass on the Killzone and Halo Legendary Warbond primaries, a rework of the LAS-16 Sickle and LAS-17 Double-Edge Sickle, buffs to light-penetration shotguns and the SG-22 Bushwhacker sidearm, and a tuning pass on several support stratagems. Outside of weapons, the patch also splits Bile Warriors, Spewers, and Scavengers into their own Game Master-controlled bug strain with a dedicated on-screen indicator, and swaps the PC anti-cheat from nProtect GameGuard to Easy Anti-Cheat.

Every number below comes directly from Arrowhead's official Steam patch notes for 7.2.0, cross-checked against the live Helldivers 2 Steam store page. Where the notes label something as a stated intent rather than a hard confirmation, we've flagged it as unconfirmed below.

02S-Tier: Build Around These

The M90A Shotgun is the clearest winner of the patch. Its base damage jumped from 605 to 726 and its durable damage from 220 to 264, a roughly 20 percent increase on both fronts that pushes it ahead of the SG-225 Breaker for raw stopping power against armored Terminids. Paired with its already-generous magazine size, it's now a strong pick for any bot or bug mission where you want a primary that drops medium targets in one or two blasts.

The StA-52 Assault Rifle also jumps to S-tier. Arrowhead cut its vertical drift from 15 to 7.5, vertical climb from 25 to 12.5, horizontal drift from 10 to 5, and horizontal climb from 6 to 4, while adding a spare magazine. That's a near-total recoil rework on top of an ammo buff, and it turns a previously middling assault rifle into one of the most controllable full-auto primaries in the game at range.

The CQC-20 Breaching Hammer stratagem belongs here too. Going from 7 to 10 spare charges is a 43 percent increase in how often you can call it in during a single mission, which matters more than any damage tweak for a close-range anti-tank weapon whose entire value proposition is uptime against Automaton armor.

03A-Tier: Clear Upgrades

The LAS-16 Sickle and LAS-17 Double-Edge Sickle move up from their long slump into solid A-tier picks. Time to start firing drops from 0.5 to 0.33 seconds, cooldown start time drops from 1.33 to 0.66 seconds, and the standard Sickle also sees less heat build-up per shot (1.15 down to 0.95). Arrowhead's stated intent was to make the Sickle "faster to start to shoot and cooldown," and the numbers back that up — it's a meaningfully snappier weapon, even if it's not quite back to its pre-nerf dominance.

The PLAS-39 Accelerator Rifle is another real winner. Reload time falls from 3.3 to 2.7 seconds and projectile stagger strength drops from 20 to 15, directly addressing the complaint that the first shot would stagger an enemy out of your follow-up shot's weak-point window. If you bounced off the PLAS-39 before, patch 7.2.0 is the moment to give it another look.

Heavy mounted flamethrowers — the EXO-51 Lumberer exosuit arm and the A/FLAM-40 Flame Sentry — jump from a niche pick to a genuinely strong anti-horde option. Damage per flame particle more than doubles, from 3 to 8, closing the gap with handheld flamethrowers that always felt more reliable against swarms.

The M-1000 Maxigun also lands in A-tier on the strength of its mobility fix alone. You now regain movement control immediately after firing instead of waiting half a second, and its stagger force and impulse both roughly double. That combination makes it far less likely to get you killed mid-reload, which was the stratagem's biggest practical weakness.

04B-Tier: Solid But Not Spectacular

The SG-8 Punisher and SG-225 Breaker both received the light-penetration shotgun buff — damage up from 405 to 486 and 330 to 396 respectively, with proportional durable damage increases — but they start from a lower baseline than the M90A and still land a tier below it in practice. They're better than they were before 7.2.0, just not best-in-class.

The MA5C Assault Rifle's changes are recoil-only: vertical drift down from 20 to 15, vertical climb from 30 to 20, horizontal climb from 12 to 6, plus a durable damage bump from 16 to 20. Useful quality-of-life, but without a magazine or base damage change it stays a dependable mid-pack option rather than a standout.

The Orbital Airburst Strike gets a tighter explosion cone (down from 35 to 27 degrees) and a shorter cooldown (100 to 90 seconds), which Arrowhead says should make its shrapnel spread "closer together" and the stratagem more available. That's a genuine improvement for area saturation against groups, but the airburst's fundamental randomness against single tough targets keeps it out of the top tiers.

How to Adjust Your Loadout for Patch 7.2.0

1. 1Open the armory and note which primary, sidearm, and support stratagem you're currently running. If none of them appear in the S or A tiers above, you're a prime candidate to test a swap on your next mission.1 min
2. 2If you've been running an Automaton-focused loadout, try the StA-52 Assault Rifle for its reworked recoil, or bring back the LAS-16 Sickle now that its charge-up and cooldown times are both faster.1 mission
3. 3Load the PLAS-39 Accelerator Rifle and aim for exposed weak spots on medium Automatons. With stagger strength down from 20 to 15, your second and third shots should land where you're aiming instead of getting deflected.1 mission
4. 4Bring the M90A Shotgun or SG-225 Breaker alongside the CQC-20 Breaching Hammer. The extra spare charges mean you can lean on the stratagem far more often against armored targets.1 mission
5. 5On Terminid fronts, keep an eye out for the on-screen indicator that now flags when the Bile Warrior, Spewer, and Scavenger strain is active, and have a flamethrower or the Orbital Airburst Strike ready for it.Ongoing
6. 6After a complete mission, check how your new loadout performed against both factions. The right pick after 7.2.0 still depends on whether you're facing bots or bugs that day.5 min

05Sidearms and Stratagems Worth Noting

The SG-22 Bushwhacker sidearm is a sleeper upgrade: damage rises from 450 to 540 and durable damage from 108 to 135, a bigger percentage jump than any of the primary shotguns got. As a sidearm it won't carry a loadout, but it's now a legitimately strong backup weapon against light and medium Automaton units when your primary is reloading.

The StA-11 SMG picks up damage (90 to 100), durable damage (18 to 20), reduced vertical recoil, and an ergonomics increase from 80 to 90. None of these are headline numbers on their own, but stacked together they make the StA-11 noticeably more forgiving to spray with, especially at close range on bug-heavy maps.

Two changes are worth flagging as net neutral or situational rather than straight buffs. The Eagle Airstrike's demolition strength against structures drops from 50 to 40 — Arrowhead's stated reason is that it was unintentionally behaving like an Orbital strike rather than an Eagle, so treat this as a correction, not a nerf to the stratagem's anti-infantry damage. And the balance pass on Killzone and Halo Legendary Warbond primaries (the M90A, MA5C, StA-52, and StA-11 covered above) exists specifically because those weapons can't take weapon customization attachments, so their new base stats are intentionally set higher to compensate for that missing flexibility — worth remembering if you're comparing them directly against a fully kitted-out ballistic weapon from the main roster.

06How the Bile Strain Split Affects Your Loadout

Patch 7.2.0 also pulls Bile Warriors, Spewers, and Scavengers out of the general Terminid spawn pool and into their own Game Master-controlled strain, now shown with the same kind of on-screen warning other scripted strains like Rupture and Spore Burst already get. That's an unconfirmed change in terms of exact spawn frequency — Arrowhead hasn't published spawn-rate numbers — but functionally it means you'll see Bile enemies arrive in a more predictable, telegraphed wave rather than scattered through a mission at random.

For loadout purposes, that pushes anything with strong area denial — the now-buffed heavy flamethrowers, the tighter Orbital Airburst Strike, or a shotgun that one-shots a Bile Spewer's bloated body before it detonates — slightly higher in value against Terminid fronts specifically, since you can now plan a stratagem cooldown around a telegraphed strain activation instead of reacting blind.

07Full Tier List at a Glance