With the massive success of the first Helldivers 2 balance patch, players are quick to let Arrowhead Studios know what they want to be buffed next. One Diver has their eye on a little-used Stratagem most players get right out of Cryo-stasis—the Machine Gun Sentry.
A March 18 Reddit post by u/themightypipe had everything the player wanted to say about the Machine Gun Sentry right in the title. “The Machine Gun Sentry is completely redundant once you hit level 5,” they wrote, dismissing it for being “the only really useless stratagem” in Helldivers 2. But the player was kind enough to give some advice to the developers: “Give it a cool own of 1 minute so it’s something you can call down often and quickly.”
This claim holds water. The Machine Gun Sentry is the first Sentry Stratagem you can purchase in Helldivers 2. Unfortunately, the level requirement is the only big upside for the gun. It runs out of ammunition pretty fast and dies just as quickly as any other turret. If that wasn’t enough, its armor piercing is low, making it not very useful against Chargers or Bile Titans. This makes it severely outclassed by other Sentries as soon as you can level up, with the Gatling Sentry just being a Machine Gun with more bullets per second.
The Helldivers 2 community flocked, with the post receiving over 700 comments in just over 12 hours. The original poster’s idea of a one-minute sentry was well-liked among the commenters, with some adding additional utility pieces. “Either that or have 2 charges,” one Diver suggested. The utility of two Machine Gun turrets at the same time could make it more interesting for multi-point defense missions, like during the Emergency Evacuation mission type.
Another focused on another aspect of the turret that was lacking: ammunition. “They should give it 3x ammo,” the top commenter on the post wrote. Improving the armor penetration was another big theme, with players wanting it to be an “in-between of the Autocannon Sentry and the Gatling Sentry” in terms of crowd control vs. Hive Guard or Scout Strider killing.
Some players did come to the defense of the starting gun and how it was being compared to its strict upgrade. “The Gatling does not outperform the MG sentry in consistency,” argued one, with another saying the Gatling “blows through ammo too fast.” These players posited that the Machine Gun Sentry was like a safer version of the Gatling rather than a strict downgrade.
These few detractors were among an ocean of responses asking for a new niche for the Cadet’s first automated gun. With devs as community-oriented as Arrowhead is—even turning to its players about what to do about trolls—it’s not impossible to see the Machine Gun Sentry Stratagem ready to get a new coat of paint relatively soon.
