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Helldivers 2's next patch will finally bring back the eruptor's shrapnel, but hopefully without causing an explosion in accidental self-insta kills

Arrowhead is also aiming to return the arc thrower to something resembling its "former glory" with some buffs.

A player wearing some Chemical Agents Warbond armour in Helldivers 2.
Image credit: Arrowhead

Arrowhead added a couple of extra bullet points to the list of changes we know are coming as part of Helldivers 2's big patch tomorrow over the weekend. The big one? The eruptor's finally getting its shrapnel back, and hopefully in a form that should make you less likely to accidentally do yourself in when you fire it.

That's just one of the little snippets of the notes for Patch 01.001.007 Arrowhead's shared, as it continues to build to the update dropping on September 17, followed by the Chemical Agents Warbond just a couple of days later. If you need to catch up, there've already been tweaks revealed for the likes of flamethrowers, the railgun, and rocket-toting enemies.

Arrowhead's latest update note reveals centred around the eruptor and the arc thrower. Starting off with the former, as you might remember, it was all the talk back in late April/early May due to the shrapnel from it being the cause of lots of players accidentally killing themselves. The shrapnel was removed from the gun, but the buffs Arrowhead gave it in an effort to make up for this didn't do the trick in many players' eyes.

Now though, as developers Johan Pilestedt and Niklas Malmborg have explained in another nice little chat, Arrowhead's "finally had time to do it properly when it comes to revamping the eruptor", confirming that "when it was introduced, it actually had the wrong shrapnel", resulting in the ability to do "over 9000" damage.

So, what's Arrowhead done to rectify things? "We have replaced the original shrapnel with the Frag Grenade shrapnel to no longer instantly one-shot Helldivers, with the exception of the occasional unlucky headshot," the studio wrote in its tweet about the changes, adding: "The amount of shrapnel is also increased and explosion radius increased by 33%."

Moving on, the second set of changes Arrowhead revealed concerned the electricity-spitting arc thrower, which Pilestedt and Malmborg acknowledged to be a bit of a Marmite weapon. What'll it do now? Well, Arrowhead wrote: "A moderate stun effect is added that builds up on its targets and the range got an increase from 35 to 55. Durable damage will also be increased from 50 to 100."

Pilestedt summed this all up by referring to the revised thrower as "more volatile, more powerful, [and can] kill your friends".

How do you feel about these upcoming changes to some of Helldivers 2's most infamous weapons? Let us know below and make sure to keep an eue out for us letting you know when the patch has gone live tomorrow, which is September 17!

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