HIVE LORD
Helldiver. You face a Hive Lord. Liberty guide you.
TACTICAL BRIEF
• The Hive Lord has the largest Main health pool in the game by a significant margin, at 150,000. But all body parts are 0% durable so it takes full standard damage from all sources. Due to its extremely large health pool and wide sweeping lethal attacks, it is advised that the entire squad either avoids the Hive Lord entirely, or coordinates to take it down.
• The Hive Lord's body is completely encased in Tank I armor, with the exception being Tank II armor on the head and it's Light armored open mouth. Its body armor can be broken with sustained anti-tank fire, revealing the Light-armored flesh beneath. When a plate of armor is close to being destroyed, it will visibly show cracks and breaks. The inner flesh is completely immune to explosion damage, so explosive weapons like the MS-11 Solo Silo should be avoided.
• Most of the toughness of the Hive Lord's plate armor comes from its massive, non-decaying bleedout pool. It behaves as extra health, for a total of 50,000 effective health per section.
• Helldivers who wish to take down a Hive Lord should consider bringing as much Anti-Tank I firepower as possible in the form of Stratagems and Support Weapons. Eagle Strafing Run and Orbital Gatling Barrage are both highly effective against the Hive Lord, as they can damage multiple spinal armor plates due to the Hive Lord's massive size.
• The GR-8 Recoilless Rifle, FAF-14 Spear, and EAT-17 Expendable Anti-Tank allow for focusing on breaking armor plates between orbital and Eagle cooldowns.
• The EXO-45 Patriot Exosuit is one of the most effective tools against a Hive Lord. Its missile arm can help strip an armor plate with rockets, dealing up to a total of 17,500 damage to an armor plate, allowing it's Gatling arm to quickly inflict massive damage upon the stripped section. With a full magazine, the chaingun can deal up to 121,500 damage in this manner. However, due to their limited mobility and large frame, Exosuits are vulnerable to the Hive Lord's large attacks.
• The Bastion is likewise effective against a Hive Lord due to its high HP pool allowing it to withstand multiple bile attacks and its large cannon and HMG ammo reserves can destroy a plate and deal enough damage to take out the Hive Lord with ease. However, the driver must manuever the tank away from burrowing Hive Lords to prevent the Hive Lord from flipping the tank.
• The B-100 Portable Hellbomb can inflict an extreme amount of damage if Helldivers can position it correctly. The best time to use it is typically when the Hive Lord attempts to spew bile, as this attack does not hit at point-blank range and keeps it in place long enough for the Hellbomb's countdown to finish.
• Once the armor is broken, high DPS weapons can be used to shred its main health pool by firing into the exposed Light armored flesh. Weapons such as the AR-61 Tenderizer, M-105 Stalwart, and M-1000 Maxigun perform well at this. The LIFT-850 Jump Pack or LIFT-182 Warp Pack can be used to avoid the Hive L…