How to get armor piercing rounds in Helldivers 2

The more you play Helldivers 2, the more you’ll need to utilize armor piercing rounds to take down a variety of tank-like enemies. All guns have some level of armor piercing, but if you really want to take on the biggest bugs and robots, you’ll need some heavy-duty tools.

In this Helldivers 2 guide, we’ll explain what armor piercing rounds are and tell you how to get them.

What are armor piercing rounds in Helldivers 2?

Image: Arrowhead Game Studios via Polygon

As you increase your difficulty in Helldivers 2, you’ll encounter Chargers, Bile Titans, Hulks, and more heavily armored enemies. You can defeat these enemies with standard weapons by targeting their weak spot (typically on their back). But the most efficient use of your time is to tag these enemies with weapons that can deal heavy damage to their armor.

If you shoot weapons without heavy armor piercing rounds at armored targets, you’ll get a ricochet symbol on your screen, telling you that those shots didn’t do any damage. If you want to shoot the target head-on, you’ll need a weapon that has “vehicle armor” in its description in order to blast through the plate.

This system exists to make enemies like Chargers much more threatening and to stop you from just burning your Stratagems on smaller enemies.

Helldivers 2 armor piercing rounds weapons list

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Image: Arrowhead Game Studios via Polygon

There are three tiers of armor piercing to match the three tiers of armor: light, medium, and heavy. Primary weapons — the kinds you can take in with you without the use of Stratagems — can only deal with light and medium armor.

Here is a list of the primary weapons with light armor penetrating, meaning they are only capable of dealing full damage to targets with light armor:

• SG-Punisher (Helldivers Mobilize)
• R-63 Diligence (Helldivers Mobilize)
• P-19 Redeemer (Helldivers Mobilize)
• SMG-37 Defender (Helldivers Mobilize)
• SG-225 Breaker (Helldivers Mobilize)
• LAS-5 Scythe (Helldivers Mobilize)
• R-63CS Diligence Counter Sniper (Helldivers Mobilize)
• SG-8S Slugger (Helldivers Mobilize)
• SG-225SP Breaker Spray&Pray (Helldivers Mobilize)
• PLAS-1 Scorcher (Helldivers Mobilize)
• AR-23E Liberator Explosive (Steeled Veterans)
• P-4 Senator (Steeled Veterans)
• SG-225IE Breaker Incendiary (Steeled Veterans)

Here is a list of primary weapons with medium armor penetrating, meaning they can deal with enemies that have light or medium armor:

• AR-23P Liberator Penetrator (Helldivers Mobilize)
• JAR-5 Dominator (Steeled Veterans)

Note: The MG-43 Machine Gun Support Weapon also offers Medium armor piercing rounds, and is a great choice for the early game.

How to get armor piercing rounds for heavy armor in Helldivers 2

Image: Arrowhead Game Studios via Polygon

All of your heavy armor piercing tools are going to come in the form of Support Weapons or Stratagems.

If you want to end an enemy with heavy armor, your best bet is to blow it to smithereens with an Eagle Airstrike or the Orbital Laser. However, these upgrades are either difficult to aim on moving targets or take a long time to unlock on your character.

Even if you’re capable of blowing up heavily armored targets, you’ll also want to make sure you can call in a Support Weapon that’s capable of dealing with their armor on-demand. These weapons typically have limited ammo, but you can replenish them with a Resupply Stratagem or by calling another weapon into the field.

Here is a list of Support Weapons that can punch through heavy armor:

• Railgun (Patriotic Administration Center)
• Spear (Patriotic Administration Center)
• Expendable Anti-Tank (Patriotic Administration Center)
• GR-8 Recoilless Rifle (Patriotic Administration Center)

There are other Support Weapons that seem to do damage to these big targets, but these four specifically call out vehicle armor, which is what you’re looking for if you want to take down a Charger or a Hulk.