Helldivers 2 - Plasma Punisher VS Slugger Shotgun Comparison

so on my last weapons tier list video I raided the new plasma Punisher over the Slugger putting both into a tier only two places apart but of course I received a ton of comments calling this opinion stupid even though they're only two places apart and a bunch of comments in general saying that the plasma Punisher was a bad weapon and that the Slugger belongs up in s tier so me and a friend decided to test these guns against each other in 1 V one on eradicate missions seeing who could get the most kills using these weapons now another thing I want to point out is I'm pretty Prett sure I had one of the first Slugger videos on YouTube calling this gun underrated before they fix the ammo with this gun but on my last video I did still say that the plasma Punisher was the stronger weapon overall out of the two or at least I thought that before making this video and doing this test so let's go ahead and show off both of these guns mobbing capabilities go over some pros and cons of each of these weapons and of course I have some load out tips to go alongside this as well so that you can use both of these guns to their Max potential now in each of these tests we're not using any damage dealing strategy at all we put the eradicate missions on level five or level six because we didn't really want to run into a bunch of biot Titans neither of these guns are really meant to kill bio Titans and on five or six difficulty there's still a massive amount of bug spawn stuffing our faces so if we're only relying on Primary Weapons we figured that five or six difficulty is fine given that enemy HP doesn't change with the difficulty only the types of enemies that spawn and pretty much the amount of Heavies in general Another Thing Worth pointing out is we're both wearing stim armor and we're allowed to call in any resupplies or Supply backpacks for ammo both of these guns have really good ammo pools and overall I don't think ammo is an issue on either of these guns and some of the stuff we're looking at is the ease of use for these weapons how good are these guns against different armor types how good are these guns against swarms in your face how good are the range of each of these guns and a couple other things like that so let's finally show off each of these weapons but right before we get into the testing let's talk about today's sponsor today's sponsor is is blazing boost now blazing boost provides the Gaming Community with Professional Services in Hell divers 2 they offer currency farming War Bon leveling and connecting you with a pro so that you can understand and play the game at a higher level they have over 34,000 reviews on trust pilot and have been in the industry since 2012 and they have Pro players available to play with you instantly you can use code thick 8 to get 8% off of any of your orders and I recommend clicking their Link in the description if you're looking to level up your hell diving so first let's show off the plasma Punisher now the new plasma Punisher from The Cutting Edge war bond is a mini Noob Tube style weapon that shoots plasma rounds with a pretty reasonably sized AOE and before going into this test I already figured I'd be dying a lot given that you don't want to shoot this gun with several hunters in your face chasing you down and when first playing with this gun that definitely happened I was racking up a ton of deaths in some of our earlier games here's one of our earlier games where I got nine deaths compared to Bru 3 however even later on when I was playing with the Slugger he was dying consistently less than me and that's probably just because I like to face tank enemy and also in that earlier game I wasn't wearing the shield bubble now the shield bubble is a solid combo with this gun because if it's active and you shoot an enemy that's close to you it'll block that incoming damage and help you survive at the very least it can block the slow that a hunter puts on you so that way you can run further away before shooting it but in general you definitely want to practice with this gun for a couple Ops before you get used used to the range of the AOE so that you don't end up blowing yourself to bits every time a bug gets in your face whether you're diving away while shooting or aiming just behind enemies so that the splash damage hits them and not you you have to be careful with this gun and kind of learn how to use it a bit better and up close and personal situation now honestly I would just recommend swapping to your secondary in these situations the Redeemer can literally two or three tap Hunters if you can aim for their heads but even if you can't you're still better off swapping and just unloading and getting rid of three or four of them now obviously since we're stress testing this gun we weren't allowed to use any secondaries in any of these missions if Hunters swarmed us and we weren't able to place a good shot to kill them then we die and the Slugger is definitely better in this situation since it doesn't have any AOE I will say that in general the plasma Punisher is a bit harder to use because the bullets Arc just like a Noob Tube but from medium range this is actually amazing because it's not hard to lob these bullets into giant groups and score a bunch of kills and from close range you actually want to aim for a second before shooting because I noticed that sometimes if I would be ragd dolled and stand up and shoot very quickly it would actually be completely inaccurate and it can sometimes just shoot the floor and kill you so I will say that this gun is slightly awkward because it's not necessarily a long range gun but at the same time you can't really use it as a super close-range gun either you want to be at least a couple feet from your enemies but you also can't be too far at least until you learn this gun's arcing pattern and then like I said you can lob these bullets like mortars at Giant groups and score a ton of kills now where I think that the Punisher plasma really stands out and why I rate this gun so highly is because it's actually able to deal with heavy enemies pretty well this gun can literally kill Chargers it's not the fastest way in the game to kill them obviously an eat to their head will be a lot better but on Hell dive difficulty when you have a ton of chargers and multiple biot Titans sometimes you want to save your eats to deal with the Titans instead and you will be able to deal with stray Chargers pretty fast with this gun now if you watched one of crazy Mr Pip's recent videos like I did you would have learned that the plasmo Punisher can dispatch Chargers with about five shots underneath the little mandibles now this is a bit hard to get the hang of at first and obviously you're going to need a little more practice to do this consistently but basically my best tip is when you see the Crosshair turn red and kind of start triggering damage underneath the charger that's how you know it's damaging him in general this gun is not the easiest to use but if you play with this gun enough and get good with it that's where you'll see It Shine now it's also worth mentioning that this gun will be very effective at shooting the belly of biot Titans now this is a very important mechanic in dealing with Titans effectively since the sacks underneath the biot Titan are a large portion of its HP I estimate it's about half of the biot Titan's HP but I'm not exactly sure now if you can bring stun grenades with you and stun a biot Titan get in closer and shoot at sacks you should be able to take them out with this gun then call in a strategy to finish it off and in the case against bots like Devastators with heavy medium armor you know tanks hulks heat sinks in the backs of robots on General this gun is much stronger than the Slugger because you don't have to land direct hits the explosive plasma damage and the AOE in general is much better against enemy weak points and it is 100% worth noting that that's the main reason I rank this gun so highly even though we're not showing off too much of that in these eradicate Mission since we are mostly dealing with smaller enemies I did want to include this quick clip of me killing a tank with this gun and all I'm really aiming to do with these tank is land these AOE shots right on top of it and let the splash damage kind of deal with the heat sink on the back of it now one strategy I think pairs nicely with this gun is actually the Gatlin Sentry The Gatlin Sentry can deal with swarms of enemies running up to it because it won't shoot Explosive Rounds so if you can deal with the Stray Chargers with the plasma Punisher and then place a Gatlin entry to help you deal with the closest swarms you can actually then hop on top of the The Gatlin Sentry and use that bit of elevation to lob some more shots into other groups of mob and that's what's going to make you have the best time with this gun I think a good support weapon against bugs to pair with this gun will be the flamethrower for nearly the same reason you can pull out the flamethrower light any mobs near you on fire and light the ground on fire around you so that enemies can't get too close to you and set up a little bit of distance between you and the Swarms and then again go to town and definitely pack some stun grenades from The Cutting Edge war bond since that'll help you put distance between you and the closest enemies as well I think the most important factor to using this gun effectively is keeping a little safe Zone around you so that you can get the most Effectiveness out of it and that's another reason to bring the shield bubble backpack so now it's time for the Slugger now like I said I'm pretty sure I was one of the First on YouTube to point out how underrated this gun was tons of people were calling this gun bad when the game first came out but this was literally my favorite weapon at one point once I really started to play with it and I didn't listen to other YouTubers and yes that's that's right even I give bad advice sometimes too all I really do is come on here and share my opinions based on what I've played with and what I think is good or bad so go do your own testing and don't just listen to me either a lot of people have commented on my videos with good tips and tricks that I've used to level up my own gam playay so with that little candid intro out of the way let's talk about the Slugger the first thing I want to say is I am so happy I played with this gun again last night it is so refreshing unloading this gun into bugs shoot pump shoot pump shoot pump it's so satisfying and it one Taps any smaller enemies if you can land the head shot on top of that it can twoot the orange bile spitters if you land the slug around their forehead but this gun does seem like it has a bit of drop off damage at medium range you'll use an extra bullet on enemies sometimes if your shot isn't perfect and the fact that this gun staggers enemies so well is amazing now the plasma Punisher also does have a bit of stagger to it as well but the Stagger on this gun is just so useful and the Slugger is not difficult at all to just pick up and start using now I pretty much never use this gun in the first person mode I always keep it in third person aim mode or I just don't ads at all depending on how close enemies are to me and you mainly just want to click heads with this gun anytime you can and get those clean one Taps on the small guys and two or three tap the medium siiz enemy but when it comes to heavy enemies good luck using this gun against any sort of he heavy enemy at all if a charger or biot Titan comes up to you always swap out of this gun but since we weren't allowed to do that for this test anytime a charger spawned in the eradicate Mission whichever one of us had the Slugger equipped just ignored it and ran away and when it comes to biot Titans you can shoot their sacks with this gun but it's not very effective or very fast at destroying the sacks at all and that's one reason on Hell dive difficulty where tons of bile Titans are spawning I don't think this is a best in slot weapon because because a lot of strategems like the orbital rail Cannon strike won't One Tap them unless you shoot their stomachs out first but at the same time if multiple people on your team have eats equipped or recoiless rifles or even autoc cannon sentries at that point to deal with Titans then that's not going to matter anyway now another thing worth mentioning is I don't think the Slugger is the best gun either for dealing with five hunters in your face swarming you compared to the plasma Punisher like yes it's definitely obvious that you won't deal any self damage compared to the plasma Punisher but you just also won't really be able to kill five Hunters with this gun before they kill you you're probably still better off swapping into the Redeemer and spraying as many as you can and then swapping back to this and finishing them off but it is better at dealing with swarms in your face than the plasma Punisher and when it comes to stalkers since you're going to be able to stun them with each shot of this weapon I think this gun is better against stalkers than the plasma Punisher as well and it definitely gets a point over the plasma Punisher when bugs are in your face and when it comes to the range of this gun you can use this gun no matter how close enemies are to you and you can actually use it at pretty long ranges if you have good aim but keep in mind the damage does drop off a bit at range so you'll likely have to land multiple shots and the fact this gun has pretty good range from either close or far and just the ease of use of not having to learn an arcing pattern is pretty nice as well the fact you don't have to spend 10 missions just learning how this gun shoots is definitely one reason I think people rate this gun so highly as s tier I think personally I've just accepted the fact that a lot of the guns in Hell divers require some practice so if first I pick up a gun like the plasma Punisher I didn't expect it to be amazing the first time I picked it up but on the other other hand it is pretty nice with the Slugger it feels pretty strong the first time you use it comparatively and I think that's why people like this gun better in general now as for a strategy to pair with the Slugger I'd say the autoc cannon Sentry the 500 kg bomb or some rail Cannon strikes and a good support weapon for you to use would be some eats or the recoiless rifle this gun has zero business in dealing with heavy enemies and while it's not necessarily the best at dealing with starms you can use this plus your secondary to mostly take them out impact grenades might probably still be the better option for small groups you see rushing up to you as well as just one tapping bile spitters and I think the Slugger is an amazing option for any sort of Hell diving and now with both guns out of the way let's put up the stats from all four games two where I use the plasma Punisher and two where I use the Slugger now we did play more games than this but we these were some of the stats I just happened to save after the session in both of the Slugger games you can see one game where I got a lot more kills and one game where BR got a lot more kills and both cases I had more deaths than him in the two plasma Punisher games you can see the kills were a lot closer to even and in these games I had more deaths than bruh as well and like I said earlier in the video it's worth noting in the one game where I had nine deaths versus his three deaths I wasn't wearing the bubble Shield yet and that definitely gave me massively more deaths than him as I believe I was shooting myself a lot more times in that game as well and in all the games where I used the plasma Punisher I did uh end up shooting myself and dying more than once in most of these games and remember at the same time this isn't a perfect test you know eradicate missions will just be the most extreme stress test we constantly had bugs swarming us meaning that we are more likely to die while using the plasma Punisher but at the end of the day even on the Slugger games I was consistently dying more than brao was he obviously has better spacing to enemies than I do and he doesn't just try to constantly face tank bugs like I do we both talked after these games and agreed that both guns feel equally as powerful and equally good now he did say he does like shooting the Slugger more so at the very end he said he likes that gun better but but at the end of the day I think these guns are honestly equally as powerful and that might not be the answer a lot of you were looking for you probably just wanted me to State one way or the other which one was better but both of these guns have pros and cons in different situations they're going to be better or worse at and I kind of like that at least when it comes to these two guns neither of them are just a cookie cutter answer of one being better than the other it's a lot of pros and cons and what situations you're looking for in your build like if you're getting completely swarmed you probably don't want the Punisher plasma as it has trouble shooting enemies that are close in your face but if there's a massive amount of chargers and biot Titans spawning on Hell dive then the Slugger isn't going to have any use and you're just going to swap off of it and use stratums or your support weapons anyway when it comes to the Punisher plasma you're going to have to practice more with it and get used to its firing pattern but it has a higher ceiling in the fact that it's able to deal with chargers and it deals with biot Titan stomachs a lot better whereas the Slugger is just just a solid gun all around for mobbing and taking out medium armored enemies and you can pick it up and use it with better results in your first couple game now at the very least I don't understand any of the comments just straight up saying the Punisher plasma is a bad gun when it's definitely not I think the Punisher plasma is a bit more useful on higher difficulties where a lot more heavy enemies are spawning and the Slugger is going to be much better on maps where more small bugs are spawning at the end of the day I do still think these Bo these guns are both a tier to me so comment down below which two guns we should face off against each other next and let me know what you thought about this testing do you think there's any way I can improve these testing videos where we pit one gun against the other let me know all that stuff in the comments down below I think on the next video I'm going to be doing sickle versus scorcher because both those assault rifles are s tier but a ton of people are telling me the scorcher just straight up isn't good and again I don't think that's the case at all because I think that's probably the best weapon in the game right now and I definitely want to showcase it a bit more soon so be sure to like And subscribe for More Hell divers content just like this and I'll see you guys in the next one I'm out

Channel: ThiccFilA

Views: 19,914

Keywords: helldivers 2, helldivers game, helldivers 2 tips, helldivers 2 primary weapon, helldivers 2 tierlist, helldivers 2 best weapon, helldivers 2 stratagem, tips and tricks helldivers 2, best helldivers 2, best weapons helldivers 2, best stratagem helldivers, meta helldivers, new update helldivers, arc thrower helldivers 2, blitzer helldivers 2, sickle helldivers 2, plasma punisher helldivers 2, stun grenade helldivers 2, slugger helldivers 2, best loadout

Id: 3iyUb-FfWXI

Length: 16min 3sec (963 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 19 2024