The best weapons in Helldivers 2

What are the best weapons in Helldivers 2? On your ship, you'll find the armory in the corridor before you reach the bridge, which is where you can equip your various primary and secondary weapons, along with your grenade of choice. For each mission, you can equip one primary, one secondary, and one grenade type, and to begin with, your options are limited. One starter assault rifle and a single shotgun available via the standard warbond on the first page, then a marksman rifle on page two… it's slow going before you can get your hands on some of the best weapons in the game.

However, before too long, you'll be spending hard-earned medals on new weapons, including the premium warbond once you've saved up enough super credits. Here are the best weapons in Helldivers 2 in no particular order.

JAR-5 Dominator

• Cost: 80 medals (Premium Warbond, Page 3)
• Damage: 200
• Capacity: 15
• Recoil: 75
• Fire rate: 250

One thing you'll quickly come to learn in Helldivers 2 is that shotguns are surprisingly powerful. The king of all shotguns is the JAR-5 Dominator, which is also the most expensive gun in the game at the time of writing, as it can be found on the third (and final) page of the Premium Warbond for 80 medals. While it doesn't have the highest damage of all the shotguns, it comes equipped with a scope that means you can take advantage of the impressive range - at least for a shotgun.

SG-225 Breaker

• Cost: 20 medals (Standard Warbond, Page 4)
• Damage: 330
• Capacity: 16
• Recoil: 30
• Fire rate: 300

With a little less range but much more damage, we have the SG-225 Breaker. This is also much easier to acquire as it's in the early stages of the Standard Warbond, so it's ideal for those of you who are still building up your arsenal. Since this is a fully automatic shotgun, you'll ideally pair it with a support weapon such as the Railgun, Machine Gun, or Grenade Launcher, then use this when you're right in the thick of it. Also, we won't give it its own entry since it is so similar, but the incendiary version of this gun is available for 60 medals on the second page of the Premium Warbond, and is also very powerful.

AR-23E Liberator Explosive

• Cost: 20 medals (Premium Warbond, Page 1)
• Damage: 55
• Capacity: 30
• Recoil: 28
• Fire rate: 320

The AR-23E Liberator is the first assault rifle you begin Helldivers 2 with, but once you've got the Premium Warbond, you can pick up the explosive version. It's only very slightly better than the base - no need to rush to this immediately - but when you do get your hands on it, there's no reason to continue using the basic assault rifle. It has the same base damage, slower fire rate, more recoil, and fewer bullets per magazine, but the explosive element goes a long, long way in taking down enemies.

SMG-37 Defender

• Cost: 15 medals (Standard Warbond, Page 3)
• Damage: 70
• Capacity: 45
• Recoil: 10
• Fire rate: 520

There are two SMGs in Helldivers 2, but one of them is only available via the Super Citizen Edition of the game and thankfully, the one you can unlock via medals is better anyway. The SMG-37 Defender is a fast firing gun that is excellent up close and can hold its own at range, but it also doesn't run out of ammo too quickly. On the other hand, the MP-98 Knight (the one that comes with the special edition) fires far quicker and is only useful when you're up close and personal.

P-19 Redeemer

• Cost: 5 medals (Standard Warbond, Page 2)
• Damage: 60
• Capacity: 31
• Recoil: 11
• Fire rate: 1100

Rather than ever using the MP-98 Knight, you should just equip the P-19 Redeemer secondary. This pistol is fully automatic and is, by quite a long way, the best secondary currently available in Helldivers 2. It burns through ammo very quickly and because it's a secondary, you can't carry as much in reserve, but it deals a fair whack of damage to smaller enemies or weak spots on the big baddies. Switch to it when you're in a pinch, ideally paired with an assault rifle but since it's the best secondary in the game, you should run it every time.

R-63 Diligence

• Cost: 8 medals (Standard Warbond, Page 2)
• Damage: 112
• Capacity: 20
• Recoil: 35
• Fire rate: 350

The R-63 Diligence is a semi-automatic marksman rifle that fires as quickly as you can pull the trigger, dealing around double the damage per shot as the AR-23. However, the trade-off is a smaller magazine and more recoil. Helldivers 2 is a game where you can quickly become overran by enemies all around you but if you have a well-oiled squad with communication on the go, you can afford to sit back a little and pick foes off from afar thanks to the amount of damage this deals. We've gone for this over the Counter Sniper version because even though it deals slightly more damage, it has much more recoil and a smaller magazine. Just make sure you hit your shots.

G-16 Impact

• Cost: 20 medals (Standard Warbond, Page 5)
• Damage: 400
• Penetration: 4
• Outer radius: 7
• Fuse time: 0.0s

We couldn't put this list together and not include the best grenade, so here is the G-16 Impact. This is the best grenade in the game right now for one reason: it explodes upon impact. No longer do you have to worry about your frags and high impact grenades rolling from where you've thrown them, or that slight delay when closing bug holes. Instead, chuck this directly at your target and it'll explode upon contact, while dealing a significant amount of damage.

That wraps up this guide on the very best weapons in Helldivers 2. Wondering what the best Helldivers 2 stratagems are? We've got a guide for that too, including all the support weapons we haven't included in this list.