Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2is a pretty straightforward third-person shooter with simple mechanics. However, that doesn’t mean the game is necessarily easy. Once you start playing on the higher levels of difficulty, Space Marine 2 becomes downright brutal, and you’ll need to use every trick in the book to survive the seemingly endless waves of xenos and heretics.
Space Marine 2: 10 Secrets and Easter Eggs Warhammer 40k Fans Will Recognize
A true love letter to Warhammer 40K fans.
After pouring well over 100 hours into the game since launch, we learned a great deal about exploiting each enemy’s weaknesses and playing each class as efficiently as possible. In this article, we’re going to share what we’ve learned with you fine folks, so you can better serve the beneficent Emperor while playing Space Marine 2.
1Synaptic Conduits
Always Go For the Big Ones First
Tyranid Warriors are conduits for the Hive Mind, but they also serve as conduits themselves. Just like the Hive Mind exerts its influence over an entire swarm, Warriors and other large Tyranids have a certain level of control over smaller creatures such asTermagantsandHormagaunts. This synaptic link is both a strength and a weakness of the Tyranids that players can exploit on the battlefield.
Killing a synaptic conduit such as aTyranid Warrior (Twin Swords)will have a devastating effect on nearby Tyranids.Upon death, the Warrior sends a psychic pulse that incapacitates and, in some cases, even kills gaunts. When you’re facing off against huge waves of Tyranids attempt to take down the conduits and the rest of the brood will soon follow. Tyranid Warriors are the most obvious conduits, but killing other large specimens like aLictororRavenerswill have the same effect.
2Barbed Pods
Getting Rid of These is Easier Than You Think
Tyranid Warriors come in several variants, each more annoying than the last. But arguably the most infuriating variant is theTyranid Warrior (Barbed Strangler). These creatures fire pods that spawn barbed vines where they land. These vines spread quickly and inflict poison damage on Space Marines that are unlucky enough to be in their vicinity. Spend too much time near the vines and you’ll be inflicted by a debuff that slows your movement speed and limits your vision.
Generally speaking, you’ll want to attempt to avoid the vines altogether, but there are instances when that won’t be possible. In those cases, it’s worth keeping in mind that you can destroy the pods to get rid of the vines. The pods are difficult to see once they sprout, but look closely and you’ll find a yellow fleshy sphere in the middle of the vines.Make sure to shoot the pod rather than try to destroy it with a melee weaponto avoid taking damage.
3Bulwark Blocking and Parrying
Not Very Intuitive
TheBulwark’s playstyle is pretty unique compared to those of other classes. While other classes are designed to provide damage or support, the Bulwark is primarily a tank that uses his shield and banner to keep himself and his allies alive. The Bulwark relies heavily on blocks and parries. However, neither of these actions is particularly intuitive at first glance.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2: How to Ace Every Bulwark Class Trial
Follow these tips & tricks to get gold on every Bulwark class Trial.
Unlike other classes,Bulwarks have to double-tap the parry button to perform a successful parry, as pressing the button only once will perform a block instead. Furthermore, players have to hold down the block button to keep their shields up. Blocking will mitigate most ranged damage and light melee attacks, but won’t help against heavy ones. Despite wielding a massive shield, Bulwarks still have to parry blue attacks and dodge orange ones just like everyone else.
Sprinting automatically raises your shield and lowers it once you stop.
4The Defense Stat
This Badly Needs a Rework
Defense is one of the most confusing stats in Space Marine 2. The stat only appears on melee weapons and doesn’t provide any passive defensive bonuses as you might expect. Instead, the stat dictates how good the weapon is at parrying. Each melee weapon comes with one of three affinities:
Every melee weapon starts off as Balanced, but you’ll be able to choose one of the other two affinities once you unlock additional variants. Fencing weapons almost always have worse stats but are better at parrying while Block weapons are the exact opposite. Perfect Parrying is a key mechanic in Space Marine 2, so it makes little sense to go with a Block weapon in most cases regardless of their stats.Unless you’re already relying on dodging and are actively trying to avoid parrying, you should always pick a Balanced or Fencing weapon.
5Heavy Stance and Stomp Attack
Try to Avoid Firing From the Hip
TheHeavyis the guy you call when you need some serious firepower. This class gets access to some truly devastating weapons, such as theHeavy Bolteror theMulti-Melta, but using them effectively involves more than simply holding down the trigger. To get the most out of the big guns, you’ll first need to activate Heavy stance by entering into ADS mode.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2: How to Ace Every Heavy Class Trial
Follow these tips & tricks to get gold on every Heavy class Trial.
This class benefits from bonus accuracy and RPM whenever you’re firing from Heavy stance.While Heavy weapons can also be fired from the hip, they are significantly more ineffective. Firing from the hip can get you out of some hot water when you’re surrounded by small groups of weak enemies, but should be avoided otherwise. Same goes for the light melee attack, which is ridiculously slow. The heavy melee stomp, on the other hand, is quite powerful and capable of dealing a good amount of AoE damage.
6Gun Strikes Pros and Cons
These Have Some Serious Drawbacks
Gun Strikes are a very useful mechanic that allows players to finish off weakened opponents and restore some armor at the same time. You can activate a Gun Strike after a successful dodge or after performing certain melee combos, but it’s not always a good idea to do so. While Gun Strikes have some obvious benefits, they also come with some drawbacks.
Unlike Executions,Gun Strikes don’t give you any invincibility frames while the animation plays out. That’s not a major issue when you’re fighting one or two opponents, but the disadvantages of using a Gun Strike quickly become obvious when you’re fully surrounded. In those cases, you’re likely to end up taking more damage to your health and/or armor than you can recover with the Gun Strike. In addition to potentially leaving you vulnerable, Gun Strikes can also be interrupted by nearby enemies, so there’s no guarantee that the animation will play out at all.
7Contested Health
Be Quick or Be Dead
In Space Marine 2, Contested Health is represented by the white portion of your Health bar that occasionally appears during combat. you may use this mechanic to heal your character, but you’ll need to be fast because Contested Health fades quickly. There are certain perks that allow players to get more out of Contested Health, such as the Bulwark’sAdvanced Conditioningor theTactical’sTranshuman Physiology, but this is still a tricky mechanic that requires lots of practice to master.
The amount of Contested Health you get back as regular Health depends on the damage you inflict. More often than not, you won’t be able to get the full amount because the bar fades too quickly, but there are a couple of exceptions.Landing a headshot with a powerful weaponlike theLas Fusilor performing a Gun Strike or an Executionwill instantly recover all Contested Health.
The Bulwark’sInvigorating Iconperk restores maximum Contested Health for all squad members. When properly timed, this perk can bring your entire squad back to full Health.
8More Ammo
Every Little Bit Counts
Ammo is relatively scarce in Space Marine 2, especially on higher levels of difficulty where it feels like there’s never enough of it to go around. Unfortunately, there are no special tricks or exploits you may use to get unlimited reserves, but you can easily get a bit of extra ammo if you know where to look. For starters, most weapons have perks that increase ammo reserves by a good amount, and you can get even more spare ammo by picking weapon variants that come with increased magazine capacity.
As far as finding it out in the field is concerned,you can often find small ammo boxes along with armor boosters by breaking crates. The number of boxes that drop depends on the level of difficulty. Another great way of replenishing ammo is to interact with Drop Pods. Drop Pods are normally used to change weapon loadouts, but they also fully replenish your ammo. It’s always worth interacting with a Drop Pod even if you’re not planning on changing your loadout.
9Flashbangs
Blind Your Opponents
This tip is specifically for PvP, so feel free to skip it if you’re not playing Eternal War because it won’t apply to the other modes. But if you do like a bit of PvP action here and there, you may have noticed that some players have the ability to blind others using grenades. And you probably also noticed that there are no flashbangs in the game. It’s tempting to assume that those players are using some sort of special ability, but that’s actually not the case.
While you won’t find any traditional flashbangs in Space Marine 2, you can use a Shock Grenade to achieve the same result. The game doesn’t mention this anywhere, but Shock Grenades double as flashbangs and can blind enemies while also inflicting a small amount of continuous damage to anyone in the area. You won’t have access to Shock Grenades right off the bat in PvP, but once you reach the level requirement, you’ll instantly unlock them for all classes. Just don’t forget to equip them before starting a new match.
10Explosive Touch
One Touch, One Kill
Space Marines are living tanks that can withstand heavy punishment, smash their way through obstacles, and obliterate enemies with one punch. Just imagine what one of them could do to a regular human. You may have missed this in the thick of battle, but in Space Marine 2it’s possible to kill human cultists without lifting a finger simply by running through them. Even a light touch is enough to send their souls to the Warp while their bodies explode into a thousand pieces.
It’s not necessarily a good idea to run around the map stomping cultists, but if they’re nearby, you might as well run through them instead of using regular attacks. In addition to being highly entertaining (in a grisly way), doing so can also help you conserve some ammo. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work with other small enemies and you’ll still need to use your guns to get rid of cultist snipers since they tend to keep their distance.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II
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