The Rupture Strain is one of the most frustrating enemy types in Helldivers 2. They stay hidden underground as they crawl closer, only emerging to attack. While the Rupture Warrior, Rupture Spewer, and Rupture Charger all share this ability, it’s the Rupture Warrior that’s been causing players the biggest headache.
The Problem
Warriors are generally not lethal and are often seen as cannon fodder, lightly armored, easy to kill, and only dangerous when they swarm you in large numbers or surround you. They’re too slow to catch up and dodging their melee attacks is simple.
Hive Guards, like regular Warriors, are rarely lethal. Their medium armor makes them a bit more annoying to deal with, but they’re still primarily distractions, serving as fodder while larger threats like the Charger, Impaler, or Stalker take you down. Hive Guards are not fast, they often go into a stationary defensive position, their attacks are easy to dodge.
Even special variants like the Bile Warrior, which explode in acid upon death, aren’t much of a threat. Their explosive deaths can even work to your advantage, triggering chain reactions that clear out other bile bugs in the vicinity.
However, all Warrior variants can kill quickly if they manage to hit you, usually taking only 2-3 hits depending on your armor.
The imbalance comes with the Rupture Warrior. These enemies remain burrowed until they’re close enough to attack, and dodging their surprise popup attack is nearly impossible. Once they’ve surfaced, their head, claws, and front legs are covered in medium armor. Unlike Hive Guards, you can’t easily flank them, shoot through armor gaps, or dodge their attacks, and they don’t ever assume a stationary defensive position.
The only counterplay is forcing them to surface early by shooting the ground with explosive weapons like the Exploding Crossbow or Eruptor. Rupture Warriors typically travel in groups of 2-3, making it hard to neutralize them all in time. If you encounter a Rupture Warrior heading your way, you’re almost guaranteed to use a stim. These enemies are more about resource management, accepting the cost of using stims, than presenting an actual combat challenge.
The Update
Related Article: Broken audio issues, faded colors on Xbox, Rupture variant desync, and more have been fixed in the new technical patch for Helldivers 2.
In patch 1.400.002, Rupture Warriors received an update:
“Rupture Warriors now track moving clients accurately, leveling the difficulty level of attacks between client and host”
Desync between the host and client players caused the Rupture Warriors to aim at where clients were, giving skilled players a chance to dodge the attack.
Before the update, host players faced the Rupture Warriors as intended, with their attacks tracking targets with surgical precision. After the update, all four players in a squad got to experience that same level of unfair precision.
Arrowhead announces they will disable the Rupture Strain.
“Greetings, Helldivers!
– Baskinator, Community Manager @ Arrowhead Game Studios via Helldivers 2 Official Discord
Our patch yesterday combined with other issues regarding the balance of the Rupture Strain have made them function in a way we did not intend.
We’re going to take the Rupture Strain offline at 6pm today CEST.
No other units will be affected.
The improved Rupture Strain will be back online in 5 weeks.
Thank you for diving.”
Arrowhead has made the decision to disable the Rupture Strain until a new and improved version can be released. They estimate 5 weeks before the new version is back online.