Helldivers 2 Update 7.1 Best Support Weapons | 5 Powerful Picks for Automaton Front
Posted: Sep 12, 2026
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According to the official roadmap, after Helldivers 2 Update 8.0 arrives in December, Automatons will become Super Earth's main enemy. These machines have powerful firepower and heavy armor, making them extremely difficult to deal with.
Fortunately, we also have some powerful and interesting weapons to protect our precious freedom and democracy. Some are designed to deal with enemies at long range, while others simply rely on overwhelming firepower. Let's take a look at the strongest support weapons available as of Update 7.1.

Here are the top 5 support weapons:
- AC-8 Autocannon
- EAT-411 Leveller
- RS-422 Railgun
- APW-1 Anti-Materiel Rifle
- GR-8 Recoilless Rifle
AC-8 Autocannon
AC-8 Autocannon has excellent ammunition efficiency. It can carry 60 rounds and fire rapidly while dealing solid damage. It can usually take down Devastators in around two shots, hit a Hulk in the eye to stagger it, and even destroy Gunships from the air.
Autocannon has two programmable ammunition types: Flak and AP rounds. Flak is generally used for crowd control and works well against groups of soldiers and Devastators, allowing you to clear one group quickly before moving on to the next. AP rounds are better suited for tougher heavily armored enemies and their vulnerable body parts.
Autocannon has also received a quality-of-life buff that makes team reloading much easier, as the assisting Helldiver no longer needs to carry the backpack. You only need to move next to the wielder to assist with reloading, increasing the rate of fire while maintaining sustained damage output.
Autocannon's reload speed has also been improved, making it more suitable for solo play as well as team reloads. Overall, Autocannon remains an amazing weapon even after all these years. If you want to have both fun and efficiency on Automaton front, this is definitely a weapon worth trying.
EAT-411 Leveller
EAT-411 Leveller comes from Siege Breakers Warbond, which can be unlocked with Helldivers 2 Super Credits, and the other 4 can be unlocked simply by using Requisition Slips.
EAT-411 Leveller anti-tank weapon can reliably destroy almost every heavy unit in the game with a single shot, including Bile Titans and Factory Striders. If a group of enemies is clustered together, you can also fire into the group and wipe them out.
Leveller has the largest explosion radius of all support weapons. This means that even without a direct hit, its massive blast radius can still deal effective damage to the target or clear out a large group of nearby enemies in one shot, giving it a relatively forgiving margin for error.
Although it is a single-shot weapon that is discarded after firing, you can call down another one as many times as needed. After the relevant Ship Module upgrades, its cooldown can be reduced to around two minutes, meaning you can get another chance to instantly eliminate a heavy unit roughly every two minutes.
RS-422 Railgun
RS-422 Railgun can kill a Hulk with a single shot through its viewing slit, while it can also easily destroy Devastators and Scout Striders.
Against Terminids, it can kill a Brood Commander with a single headshot, while a charged shot can even penetrate the head of an Alpha Commander.
In Safe Mode, you can relatively reliably fire at a Hulk's eye without putting yourself at significant risk, while Unsafe Mode provides much higher damage.
When using Railgun, you should try to use Unsafe Mode whenever possible, otherwise you will lose out on additional damage.
Unsafe Mode is activated by manually switching the firing mode, allowing the weapon to penetrate tank-level armor. However, you should avoid charging it for more than around three seconds, or the weapon will explode, killing you and potentially injuring nearby teammates.
If you do not want to worry about ammunition, bring a Supply Pack. This reduces the need to rely on ammunition Stratagems and makes the loadout more team-oriented while still allowing you to deal respectable damage.

APW-1 Anti-Materiel Rifle
APW-1 Anti-Materiel Rifle is a heavy sniper rifle, and its effectiveness depends heavily on the user's skill.
AMR can kill a Devastator with a single headshot, while two shots to the red eye can destroy a Hulk. It can also effectively target the rear heat sinks of Tanks and the turret of a Factory Strider.
The weapon has a 7+1-round magazine and six spare magazines, allowing a single call-in to deal with multiple targets. Even after running dry, it can be called down again as a support weapon, with a cooldown of around eight minutes.
Despite being a sniper rifle, it has a semi-automatic fire rate of 400 RPM. In an emergency, switching to third-person view and rapidly firing off rounds can be an effective way to defend against close-range threats, although this should be used carefully to conserve ammunition.
However, its bullets have significant drop, so you cannot stay too far away from your target, or you may miss shots that would otherwise be within effective range.
GR-8 Recoilless Rifle
GR-8 Recoilless Rifle has some of the highest single-shot damage in the game. With HEAT rounds, a single shot can take down a Bile Titan with a headshot, an Impaler by hitting its neck weak point, or a Factory Strider.
Against a Hulk, hitting its viewing slit is enough for an instant kill. You can even destroy a Factory Strider by hitting the weak point on its toe with a single shot, something that is difficult for other weapons to accomplish.
Against a Charger Behemoth, shots to the body can cause it to bleed out, while a headshot kills it instantly.
GR-8 requires a backpack slot to carry its ammunition, but when a teammate assists with reloading, you can keep moving while firing at an extremely fast pace. This is why it remains a meta weapon across all three enemy factions.
These support weapons are extremely powerful against Automatons, while they are still effective against enemies from the other factions. If you are struggling to progress, these weapons are well worth trying.
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