Helldivers 2recently introduced a new premium Warbond, including new armor sets, weapons, and cosmetic customizations. Among all the new gear included inHelldivers 2’s Truth Enforcers Warbond, the PLAS-15 Loyalist sidearm is turning out to be a surprisingly powerful weapon that players should consider adding to their loadouts.
Overall, this new sidearm inHelldivers 2is extremely versatile, thanks to its splash damage and medium armor penetration capable of dealing impressive amounts of damage. One of the only downsides of this new weapon is its relatively low ammo reserves, but considering that nearly every sidearm has this problem, the PLAS-15 Loyalist arguably outperforms the current meta for sidearms as well as certain primary weapons.
Helldivers 2’s New PLAS-15 Loyalist Raises the Bar for Secondary Weapons
The PLAS-15 Loyalist is a sidearm variant of thePLAS-101 Purifierprimary weapon. This sidearm comes with about half the ammo capacity of its counterpart, although it still packs the majority of the firepower behind thepopular primary weapon. The PLAS-15 Loyalist holds 7 shots, and it will consume one unit of ammo every shot, whether players fire an uncharged or fully charged shot. Since charging shots will increase their damage, charging every shot before firing is the best way to use the PLAS-15 Loyalist. However, rapidly firing uncharged shots can still be useful in desperate situations.
Despite being listed as an explosive weapon, the PLAS-15 Loyalist doesn’t have the firepower to destroy enemy structures like Terminid bug holes and Automaton bot factories like other explosive weapons, at least not with a reasonable amount of ammo. Instead, the explosive capabilities of this weapon refer to the splash damage inflicted when charging this weapon before firing. So, while it may not provide the utility of theGP-31 Grenade Pistol, the PLAS-15 Loyalist is still a top-tier add-clear weapon.
How Helldivers 2’s New PLAS-15 Loyalist Compares to the Current Meta for Sidearms
Overall, the PLAS-15 Loyalist is one of the most versatile sidearms since it can be useful in bothTerminid and Automaton loadouts inHelldivers 2. Terminids have a habit of grouping in small clusters, which means the splash damage of the PLAS-15 Loyalist’s charged shots is perfect for taking out these enemies while conserving ammo, which is crucial when using secondary weapons.
For the most part,secondary weapons inHelldivers 2tend to have relatively low ammo reserves, which is understandable, considering that the PLAS-15 Loyalist’s damage output could arguably compete with some of the primary weapons inHelldivers 2if it only had a larger pool of ammo reserves. Otherwise, the PLAS-15 Loyalist can generally outperform most of the available sidearms inHelldivers 2with its current ammo capacity.
Ammo resupply packs and theB-1 Supply PackStratagem backpack will completely refill the PLAS-15 Loyalist’s reserves with one use. Single ammo packs found in POIs will only refill half the PLAS-15 loyalist reserves.
In addition to splash damage, both the uncharged and charged shots from the PLAS-15 Loyalist also have medium armor penetration, which is currently a rarity among sidearms. This weapon’s medium armor penetration is generally more useful when fighting Automatons, since several Automaton units have medium armor, whereas Terminids tend to have more units with either light or heavy armor.
This medium armor penetration, combined with its splash damage, makes the PLAS-15 loyalist one of the most versatile secondary weapons in the game, with one of its only weaknesses being its low ammo reserves. Although considering that nearly every sidearm has this problem, the PLAS-15 Loyalist can generally outperform other secondary weapons, arguably establishing anew meta inHelldivers 2. So, for players who haven’t given this new weapon a chance yet, the PLAS-15 Loyalist is highly recommended, especially for players who already like the PLAS-101 Purifier primary weapon.
Helldivers 2
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