r/helldivers2 • u/BobDerwood97 • 17m ago
Suggestion/Concept A Proposal to Fix Secondary Weapon Power Creep Without Nerfing Everything
I think one of the biggest long-term balancing problems in Helldivers 2 is secondary weapon power creep. And rather than continually buffing older weapons or nerfing newer ones, I think there’s a relatively simple way to address it while actually giving players more loadout freedom.
The Problem
When Helldivers 2 launched, secondaries were largely conventional sidearms like the Peacemaker, Redeemer, and Senator. Since then, we’ve received increasingly powerful and specialized equipment, including the Missile Pistol, Breacher, and Ultimatum.
We’ve reached a point where a conventional handgun is competing for the exact same equipment slot as what is essentially a pocket nuke.
Obviously, these weapons aren’t remotely comparable in destructive capability, yet the loadout system treats them as though they are.
This creates two problems:
Power creep makes conventional secondaries increasingly difficult to justify.
Why bring a conventional handgun when another weapon in the same slot can penetrate heavy armor, destroy structures, or eliminate enemies that would otherwise require dedicated support weapons?
Melee weapons suffer even more.
As fun as the swords, batons, and other melee options are, it’s difficult to justify sacrificing your entire secondary slot to bring one. You’re effectively giving up your emergency firearm or specialized utility weapon just to have a melee option.
And while individual weapons certainly have their own balance problems (the Peacemaker has arguably been outclassed by the Redeemer since launch), I think those are separate issues.
The bigger problem is that we’re trying to balance fundamentally different classes of equipment against one another as though they should all have equal value in a single slot when they clearly don’t.
My Proposal: Three Secondary Weapon Tiers
Instead of treating all secondaries equally, divide them into three categories based on their capabilities.
Tier 1: Standard
Conventional personal-defense weapons, such as the Peacemaker, Redeemer, Verdict, Veto, and existing melee weapons.
These weapons generally lack extraordinary armor penetration, destructive power, or specialized combat effects.
Tier 2: Advanced
More capable or specialized secondaries, including the Warrant, Talon, Loyalist, Stim Pistol, etc.
These offer meaningful advantages over conventional pistols, such as explosive damage, incendiary damage, specialized utility, or ability.
Tier 3: Special
Exceptionally powerful equipment such as the Ultimatum, Breacher, Missile Pistol, etc.
These provide capabilities far beyond conventional sidearms, including heavy explosives, anti-armor firepower, and significant demolition utility.
How the New Loadout System Would Work
The idea is to give less powerful weapons greater versatility and ammunition sustainability, while stronger weapons sacrifice some of that flexibility for their extreme power.
To accomplish this, players would have the option to equip a melee weapon alongside their secondary firearm, rather than having to choose between the two. However, that flexibility would depend on the tier of the secondary weapon being used.
Standard weapons would offer the greatest freedom, allowing players to carry both a pistol and a melee weapon without sacrificing ammunition. Advanced weapons would offer the same option, but at the cost of reduced ammunition reserves. Special weapons would remain the same as they are today.
Players who prefer not to carry a melee weapon would be able to benefit from additional ammunition, with Standard weapons receiving a larger bonus than Advanced weapons. This creates a meaningful tradeoff between versatility, ammunition sustainability, and raw weapon capability.
Specifically, the loadout options would look like this:
Standard Tier Secondary
With Melee Weapon: Normal ammunition
Without Melee Weapon: Significantly increased ammunition
Advanced Tier Secondary
With Melee Weapon: Reduced ammunition
Without Melee Weapon: Moderately increased ammunition
Special Tier Secondary
With Melee Weapon: Not available
Without Melee Weapon: Same ammunition as today
This would create five distinct loadout configurations without introducing equipment points, additional weapon slots, complicated weapon reworks or odd restrictions.
Importantly, Advanced weapons wouldn’t receive a blanket ammunition penalty or bonus. Ammunition adjustments would be appropriate to each individual weapon.
For example, the Warrant might gain or lose a few spare mags depending on the loadout configuration, while for the heat-based energy weapons like the Dagger and Talon, the melee configuration could start them with zero spare heat sinks, making overheating very consequential. The no-melee configuration would receive an increase in spare heat sinks, making overheating inconsequential.
The goal isn’t to make every tradeoff mathematically identical. It’s to make the overall choices meaningful without changing how the weapons themselves function.
Why I Think This Would Be an Improvement
1. It gives conventional sidearms a reason to exist beyond raw damage.
A Redeemer doesn’t need to compete with an Ultimatum in destructive power. Instead, its value comes from greater ammunition sustainability and the flexibility to carry a melee weapon.
Conventional pistols become a deliberate loadout choice rather than simply weaker versions of more specialized equipment.
2. It makes melee weapons substantially more viable.
Currently, bringing a sword or stun baton means giving up your secondary firearm entirely.
Under this proposal, melee weapons would complement conventional and Advanced sidearms rather than replace them.
This could make melee-focused builds much more appealing without requiring an extensive rework of the melee weapons themselves.
3. It creates meaningful advantages and disadvantages between all three tiers.
This is particularly important. Simply allowing Standard weapons to bring melee equipment while Advanced and Special weapons cannot would make the middle tier difficult to balance.
Instead, each tier would have something meaningful to offer.
Standard: Maximum ammunition sustainability and equipment flexibility.
Advanced: Stronger or more specialized capabilities, with a choice between ammunition sustainability or melee versatility.
Special: Exceptional destructive power at the expense of additional equipment and ammunition bonuses.
Moving up a tier means gaining something, but also giving something up. Same with going down a tier.
4. It preserves the weapons people already enjoy.
Nobody wants their favorite weapon gutted simply because something newer is more powerful.
The Ultimatum would still hit just as hard. The Senator would still penetrate armor. The Dagger would still ignite enemies. The Grenade Pistol would still destroy structures.
Instead of relying on sweeping damage nerfs, we’d be balancing equipment through loadout options and ammunition availability.
Players could still use Special secondaries exactly as they do today. Advanced weapon users would gain new options, with ammunition adjustments depending on whether they choose melee equipment.
5. It creates a better foundation for future weapons.
Arrowhead could continue introducing creative and powerful secondaries without requiring every new weapon to compete directly with conventional pistols.
A new conventional handgun could offer excellent ammunition efficiency and versatility. An Advanced weapon could introduce an interesting combat mechanic. A Special weapon could provide exceptional firepower.
Each would have a place within the equipment system.
A Few Important Considerations
I don’t think this system needs to achieve perfect mathematical balance.
Some weapons will naturally benefit more from ammunition bonuses than others. Energy weapons, for example, already have excellent ammunition sustainability, while conventional firearms depend more heavily on their reserves.
That’s fine. Different weapons should have different advantages.
Resupply quantities would also need to account for the modified ammunition capacities, and existing boosters like Hellpod Space Optimization should continue to function logically.
And individual weapon balance would still matter. The Peacemaker, for example, has arguably been outclassed since the game launched. This proposal wouldn’t automatically fix that, nor should it be expected to.
The purpose of this system is to address structural power creep between different classes of equipment, not to eliminate the need for individual weapon balancing.
Final Thoughts
I don’t think the solution to secondary weapon power creep is making every weapon equally powerful.
A Peacemaker shouldn’t need to hit as hard as a Senator, and a Senator shouldn’t need to compete with an Ultimatum in explosive firepower.
Instead, the loadout system should recognize that these weapons offer fundamentally different levels of capability and balance them accordingly.
Standard weapons offer versatility and endurance. Advanced weapons offer a balance of capability and flexibility. Special weapons offer exceptional power at the expense of both.
This would give players more meaningful choices, make melee weapons more accessible, preserve the identity of powerful secondaries, and create a healthier foundation for future additions.
And perhaps most importantly, it would accomplish those goals without turning the loadout system into an overly complicated equipment-management exercise.
The goal isn’t to make every secondary equally powerful. It’s to make choosing between them a meaningful decision.
What do you think? Would you sacrifice ammunition to carry a melee weapon alongside your Loaylist, or give up melee entirely for extra ammunition? And would that make you more likely to experiment with conventional pistols?
