The cooperative shooter Helldivers 2 prides itself on being a tough game. It’s got enemies that love to overwhelm players, and the higher the difficulty of the mission, the more heavily armored and massive they are. The recent Escalation of Freedom update has upped the ante with a fresh crop of nightmares to face off against, and there may be none worse than the brutally unfair Rocket Tanks the Automatons have started busting out.
Tanks are nothing new for the Automatons, who have used them to brutalize players in the past, but they’ve typically fired lasers and otherwise shown some signs of weakness. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this new variant might follow in the footsteps (or tread tracks) of the tanks that came before it. You’d be wrong! The Automatons have rolled out a new and improved model that’s bound to give folks a hard time, but fear not, they can be taken out with some ease as long as you can keep your head.
How to find Rocket Tanks
You might first spot one of these bad boys from afar. They can most easily be found on the highest difficulties and I first spotted one beginning on level 8. The Rocket Tanks are basically capable of long-range and short-range combat, making them a pain in the ass to deal with. From a ways away, they tend to point their launcher up into the air and fire rockets almost like a mortar. When you get up close and personal, the tank’s launcher is capable of clipping through its own armor, letting it zero in on you and blow you to bits.
As far as appearance, there are two things to note. The first is the obvious rocket launcher. As opposed to a single barrel, the Rocket Tank has horizontal rows of barrels from which it can fire a volley of missiles. The second is that the Rocket Tank does not have an easily identifiable vent to shoot on the back of the turret. That means that you shouldn’t get up close looking for one unless you want to be ripped to pieces by the tank or the guards it usually has around it.
How to take out Rocket Tanks
As I’ve already mentioned, the newest tank eschews some of the traditional designs. In the past, tank variants have featured a heat-sink vent on the back of the turrets that was easily identified by its orange glow and could be shot at in order to get a quick kill on them. Light and medium penetration weapons could do the job well enough, as well as a few grenades, but something like an expendable anti-tank rocket launcher or Autocannon could also finish it off pretty fast. While some of those tactics still hold up, the new Rocket Tanks obscure things quite a bit.
Instead of an orange-colored vent, you’re going to want to target the lower back of the Rocket Tanks with weapons with light to medium penetration. It doesn’t bring attention to itself by glowing, but it is still susceptible to weapons with light and medium penetrating ammo.
As far as stratagems, support weapons like the Autocannon seem to come in handy. Something nimble and hard-hitting that can punch through armor is the surefire way to go as you’re not going to want to stand around these things for too long. Funnily enough, those anti-tank mines that Arrowhead Studios has been trying to push on players for months aren’t all that effective. Who would’ve thunk?
If you’re lining up those shots from up close, just be sure to pack heavy armor that can withstand ballistic and explosive damage. Otherwise, I’d stress maintaining some distance and calling in an Orbital Precision Strike. As sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, an Orbital Precision Strike stratagem will eliminate the Rocket Tank, proving why it’s still one of the most versatile stratagems in the game.
Now that you know the key to taking out these new tanks, help me! These things are whooping me terribly, and I fear that not enough people are wise to how to take them out on these higher difficulty missions, meaning we’re eating shit. For the sake of spreading democracy, help a brother out down here.