Helldivers 2's most recent update has made some significant changes to the Stalkers, turning the troublesome bugs into an enormous threat that the community is desperately trying to stay on top of.
The latest Helldivers 2 balance patch rolled out earlier this week, complete with nerfs for the beloved Quasar Cannon and Guard Dog amongst many others. It wasn't just weapons and Stratagems that were changed, with alterations to some of the enemies, too – it now takes even more force to stagger Hulks, for example. However, the changes to the Stalkers are apparently the result of a fix, after an issue rendered them "very visible in fog" despite the fact that they're supposed to have camouflage abilities.
Those abilities definitely work now, with numerous players reporting the bugs appearing out of thin air to attack them, rather than having a constant glow which arguably made them stand out even more than they should have. On top of that, it appears that a bug that allowed players to discover Stalker nests on the map by tagging locations before actually visiting them has been removed. This means we now have to manually search for the critters, which, you guessed it, is also a lot harder when they're so difficult to spot in the first place. "Welp, it's official. Bots are now easier than bugs," one player on Reddit succinctly concludes.
Stalkers are genuinely cloaked now from r/Helldivers
These changes have sent the community into a frenzy trying to keep in control of the situation on the Terminid-occupied planets. "With the recent changes to Stalkers, they now have improved cloaking abilities, together with the removal of marking objectives before discovered, rendering Stalkers extremely dangerous. Therefore I would like to address the differences between their lairs so that you are aware of their threat level based on the lair structure," one Reddit user writes, reminding players that on Helldive difficulty, nests with two large holes can spawn four Stalkers at a time. "If you see four Stalkers coming at you, you know things are about to get real," they add.
Generally speaking, fighting bugs has always been considered the easier and more popular option for Helldivers 2 players, but these changes might well have an impact on that. For now though, there's no time to complain, as the current Major Order tasks Helldivers with deactivating the Terminid Control System we worked so hard to get up and running on three bug-occupied planets. As such, we can expect to deal with plenty of invisible bugs for at least the next few days.
If you need to upgrade your firepower to deal with the Stalkers, be sure to check out our guide to the best weapons in Helldivers 2.
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