Helldivers 2 Armor Passives: A Comprehensive Guide & Tier List
Helldivers 2 categorizes armor into light, medium, and heavy, impacting mobility and defense. However, the real power lies in armor passives – potent perks significantly altering gameplay. This guide details all passives and provides a tier list to optimize your loadouts.
All Armor Passives and Their Effects
The following table lists all 14 armor passives (as of this writing) and their descriptions. Remember, only body armor grants passives; helmets and capes offer no additional bonuses. Choosing the right passive is crucial for adapting to mission challenges and maximizing effectiveness.
| Armor Passive | Description |
|---|---|
| Acclimated | 50% resistance to acid, electrical, fire, and gas damage. |
| Advanced Filtration | 80% resistance to gas damage. |
| Democracy Protects | 50% chance to survive lethal attacks (e.g., headshots); prevents chest injuries. |
| Electrical Conduit | 95% resistance to lightning arc damage. |
| Engineering Kit | +2 grenade capacity; 30% recoil reduction while crouching or prone. |
| Extra Padding | +50 armor rating. |
| Fortified | 50% resistance to explosive damage; 30% recoil reduction while crouching/prone. |
| Inflammable | 75% resistance to fire damage. |
| Med-Kit | +2 stim capacity; +2 seconds stim duration. |
| Peak Physique | 100% increased melee damage; improved weapon handling. |
| Scout | 30% reduced enemy detection range; map markers trigger radar scans. |
| Servo-Assisted | 30% increased throwing range; 50% additional limb health. |
| Siege-Ready | 30% increased primary weapon reload speed; 30% increased primary weapon ammo. |
| Unflinching | 95% reduced recoil flinching. |
Helldivers 2 Armor Passive Tier List (Version 1.002.003)
This tier list ranks passives based on overall value, utility, and effectiveness across various missions and enemy types.
| Tier | Armor Passive | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| S | Engineering Kit | Extra grenades are invaluable for closing bug holes, destroying fabricators/warp ships, and utilizing Thermites/stun grenades. |
| Med-Kit | Significantly improves survivability, especially when combined with the Experimental Infusion booster, effectively allowing for "cheat deaths." | |
| Siege-Ready | Substantially boosts ammo capacity and reload speed for primary weapons, crucial for handling large enemy groups, particularly with high-ammo-consumption weapons. | |
| A | Democracy Protects | Provides a strong defensive boost, especially early-game, offering survival against lethal damage. |
| Extra Padding | Offers consistent armor rating increase for improved overall damage resistance. | |
| Fortified | Excellent general utility, exceptionally effective against Automatons, enhancing survivability against explosive attacks and improving weapon effectiveness against robotic enemies. | |
| Servo-Assisted | Highly effective against Terminids; increased throwing range allows for safer stratagem deployment and grenade use, while increased limb health mitigates claw attack damage. | |
| B | Peak Physique | Less valuable due to the general avoidance of melee combat; the weapon handling improvement is useful but outweighed by other options. |
| Inflammable | Ideal for fire-based builds and particularly useful in environments with fire tornadoes; provides situational value against Terminids and Illuminate. | |
| Scout | Useful for revealing enemy positions, improving strategic approaches, though its limited scope (no POI/objective highlighting) prevents a higher ranking. | |
| C | Acclimated | Limited value as you rarely face all four elemental damage types (acid, electrical, fire, gas) in a single mission. |
| Advanced Filtration | Only beneficial for gas-focused builds, and even then, the overall impact is relatively minor. | |
| Electrical Conduit | Primarily useful against the Illuminate, but other options generally provide better overall value, unless friendly fire is a major concern. | |
| Unflinching | Minimal impact on combat effectiveness; the reduction in camera shake and recoil is negligible. |
