Do you remember the first days on Super Earth? Upon first encounters with the Automatons and Terminids, there was total anarchy characterized by mad dashes onto neighboring planets and calls for help. Among the initial wave of novel strategies and weaponry, certain tools were bound to be more widely adopted than others. Others, maybe unjustly or prematurely, faded into oblivion. In live-service games, the meta changes, players choose the best choices, and other alternatives just fade away. But what if a patch note that seems small brings one of these old games back to life, making it a game-changer instead of a dust collector? That’s precisely what’s happening with the most recent update for Helldivers 2. The unlikely hero is a strategy that many thought was lost to history on Super Earth.
The Plan That Time Forgot
What plan are we talking about? To be honest, there were a few people that could have won the “most underused” prize. But the “Incendiary Mines” are the ones that are really having a revival. When Helldivers 2 originally came out, the appeal of explosive weapons, strong airstrikes, and robotic guards sometimes obscured the more subtle area denial given by these fiery traps. People thought they were situational, maybe too slow to be useful in the heat of a bug breach, or maybe they just didn’t have the quick impact that many Helldivers wanted. In our tactical loadouts, the Incendiary Mines accumulated digital dust for a considerable amount of time. You might consider utilizing them again or even equipping them out of curiosity, but after a few unsuccessful deployments, you would return to something that worked better. Alternative techniques allowed us to deal with many threats faster and more effectively, so most people thought they were better. This wasn’t a choice based on luck, like a bet you make playing at a casino online; it was a cold, tactical decision based on what offered a reliable victory. Why risk it when you can order a precision orbital strike? Instead of waiting for your enemy to step into your traps, why not just shoot them?Patch 1.000.XXX: The Change Maker
Weapon balancing and bug improvements were in the patch notes, but “Incendiary Mines: Increased burn duration and damage” jumped out. A shift that didn’t seem significant at first. Additional fire that lasts longer. Not quite breaking news?
Not right. This small change has made the Incendiary Mines far more useful and effective than they were before. The longer burn time now lets the flame fields last for much longer time, making them real zones of denial that foes are afraid to cross. This works especially well against the never-ending swarms of Terminids, which are now slowed down and taking damage all the time as they try to go forward. The damage boost, while not huge, has put the mines in a good location where they can now reliably kill weaker adversaries and make stronger ones much weaker, making them great targets for follow-up strikes.
