Helldivers 2 players have become walking matchsticks following recent fire buff

Helldivers 2 players have been feeling a little hot under the collar lately. Following update 01.000.200, divers have been reporting that deaths due to burning have increased dramatically. The patch included a buff to fire tick rate, and Helldivers 2 players are turning to ash before they can react.

The recent update brought many new changes to the table. Weapons got rebalanced, enemy behavior was tweaked, and fixes were addressed. Nestled in the list of weapon changes was this particular line: Fire damage per tick increased by 50% (from all sources). For those who wanted the flamethrower to do more to Chargers (like me!), the fire buff in Helldivers 2 looks like good news.

But when it comes to damage, the door swings both ways.

Fire damage buff is turning Helldivers 2 players into burnt toast

Helldivers 2 players on social media channels like Reddit say that the fire buff makes it almost impossible to save themselves the second their democratic cape feels the hot embers of injustice. Enemies like the Scorcher Hulk have become even more terrifying, with divers erupting into flames as if their suits were doused with (opens up Google) chlorine trifluoride. Yeah, science.

If alone, the fire damage increase following the recent patch would be harsh enough. But when combined with the rebalance patch, things get even more rough. Last month, the infamous weapon rebalance patch also increased the damage per second (DPS) of the Flamethrower by 50%. I haven’t been hit by a fellow Helldiver with a Flamethrower yet, but I imagine that now it probably looks like being Thanos-snapped during a typhoon.

I do, however, have some experience with the updated fire damage. Earlier this week, I took the fight to the Automatons. In the images below, you can see the burning body of a destroyed bot fly past my diver. The fire spread to me, and it only took a second (I checked) for my diver to fall over dead to burning damage.

Normally, you can snuff the flames by diving to the ground. I may be getting slower in my old age, but one second is simply not enough time to react. Using a Stim also can’t help, since it takes longer than a second for the animation to complete.

There’s also speculation that developer Arrowhead Games may have increased the damage due to the misinterpretation of data. There are videos of fire damage only affecting enemies when you’re the host of a match. The footage has led some to ponder that Arrowhead may believe fire damage wasn’t doing enough and buffed it in response, but the issue may be tied to a bug instead.

Regardless, the fire buff in Helldivers 2 certainly makes the damage feel overtuned. Perhaps it’ll get tweaked again in the near future. Or maybe we’ll eventually get armor with extreme fire resistance? Hey, it happened with arc damage, after all.