‘Such a democratic weapon it makes me cry’: Helldivers 2 players salute the Quasar Cannon, Super Earth’s new heavy armor god gun
It seems like just yesterday I complained that Helldivers 2 didn't have enough guns against automatons. Apparently Arrowhead heard my pleas, because in a surprise update this morning, two new secondary weapons arrived in the Super Earth arsenal: the MG-101 heavy machine gun, and the true talk of the town, the LAS-99 Quasar cannon.
The quasar cannon has amazing effects. Its boxy, imposing body rests on the shoulder, similar to its distant cousin the laser cannon. But unlike laser beam The weapon, the Quasar Cannon, fires one large blast at a time. Mid-charge, the cannon's reticle rotates as its internal mechanisms whir with anticipation. A concentrated ball of energy collects at the end of the barrel, then is released with a light snap followed immediately by a bassy impact. It's a mean machine, and I'm glad it's on our side.
Unlocked at level 18 for 7,500 requests, Quasar does not have to reload, but has a larger cooldown between shots. Not that everything you hit will stand still – early testing shows that a single quasar blast is as powerful as an anti-tank rocket, but it has some major advantages:
- unlimited ammo: Quasar cannon can't overheat, so it doesn't need a heat sink
- Cooldown while moving: You can consider its long cooldown a “reload”, but unlike a recoilless rifle, you don't have to stand still to do it.
- Velocity: Rockets travel fast, but lasers are even faster. A well-aimed quasar blast is essentially a hitscan
- No backpack required: This goes hand-in-hand with unlimited ammo, but it's worth celebrating a support weapon that leaves the slot behind you free for an ammo pack or personal shield.
The Helldivers 2 community is welcoming the Quasar Cannon with open arms and closed fists. Far and wide, players are sharing their early impressions of the support weapon, and pointing to its one-shot-kill capability against Hulks, Chargers, Fabricators, and even Automaton Dropships. A top-upvoted post on the Helldiverse subreddit by user The_Bored_Goat Quasar can't stop loving:
He wrote, “The best weapon in the game. It's an EAT with infinite ammo, it performs just as good as an EAT in terms of damage, it doesn't have a reload animation, and it has infinite range.” “It's such a democratic weapon it makes me want to cry.”
While the hyperbole is premature, the Quasar Cannon fits nicely into a small club of weapons that can challenge Helldivers 2's strongest threats. Its raw damage and armor-piercing ability reminds me of pre-Nerf railguns that could cut through the cores of Chargers and Hulks with one hit. What makes the Quasar so good against bots, in particular, is its accuracy – as demonstrated by user carbo-hydrates-0417, the cannon can hit fabricators, bug holes, and other destructible structures with pinpoint accuracy from any distance. Can cut shape.
First time testing the Quasar Cannon against a Fabricator, this thing might get sniped from r/Helldivers
But, quasar also has some disadvantages. Its tall The charge up time of three to four seconds means you have to know exactly what you want to shoot ahead of time. It's not a case of “fire and forget” like the Expendable Anti-Tank, and if you're used to turning off the charger a few seconds before it catches you, the Quasar may let you down. Unlimited ammo is nice, but the cooldown between shots is almost the same, if not more, than a recoilless rifle reload. You could also view the Quasar's lack of a backpack as a weakness – a recoilless rifle or autocannon with a tag-team reload can fire faster than the Quasar.
Quasar explosions don't do much damage – despite sharing a form factor with a rocket launcher, it's more accurate to think of it as a precision rifle.
I love the Laser-99 Quasar Cannon! From r/Helldivers
I'll leave you with some useful quasar cannon test data collected by user emptynez to give you an idea of how useful it can be for not only killing stuff, but completing objectives:
- Requirement: 7.5k req and Lv18
- Unlimited ammo and infinite range
- Charging time to shoot is 3s, unaffected by hot/cold environment
- Cooldown is affected by hot/cold environments (cold ~6s / hot and no modifiers ~10s) – more testing needed
- It can shoot down bot dropships on thrusters like a recoilless rifle
- Railgun PlayStation OneShot bug also applies to Quasar Cannon
- 2 bullets in the bile titan's head
- 1 bullet hit Charger's head
- 1 shot Hulk on the balcony
- 2 shot cannon tower
- 2 shot annihilator tank on vent
- 1 shot at the shredder tank vent and 2 shots at the front or side (not tested but should be)
- 1 shot mortar placement
- 2 Shot Shriekers Nest
- It seems that all small and medium enemies are well shot at once.
- Stratagem cannot destroy jammer and detector towers
- Can destroy bugholes, fabricators, spore spewers, illegal transmissions
