Best Helldivers 2 Armor Passives

In Helldivers 2, armor isn’t just a cosmetic as it gives you important passives as well. This guide will break down the best Armor Passives in Helldivers 2 that you will want on your character.

Best All-around Armor Passives in Helldivers 2

These armor passives were picked as best for their all-around usability and helpfulness.

• Extra Padding
  • Increased armor rating – At launch, the armor rating stat was fairly unimpactful which rendered heavier sets and anything with this perk sub-optimal. Thankfully, those times have changed and heavier armor can now let you survive even multiple rocket attacks. Better yet, get this perk on a medium set and you can get that durability without sacrificing mobility.
• Engineering Kit
  • Reduces recoil while crouching and +2 maximum grenades – A personal favorite, because there are precious few situations not solved by the liberal application of explosives. When using heavier automatic weapons the reduced recoil is also nice, as long as you have enough distance and remember to crouch.
• Scout
  • Reduced detectability and map markers scan for enemies – While the stealth approach isn’t always viable when your team insists on going loud, with some co-ordination or even in solo play this passive is excellent. Consider having your team draw enemies away from an objective while a scout sneaks in to complete it. And even outside of that, being able to get an idea of how many enemies are lurking around from a safe position should massively help your survivability.
• Servo-assisted
  • Increased throwing range and limb health – This one might need some getting used to, but you’ll really feel it after switching to another armor. The increased throwing distance might not seem like much, but the further you throw, the further away you can be when the grenade or airstrike goes off. Additionally, extra limb health means you can save stimpacks until you really need them rather than for fixing a single limb.

Situationally Good Armor Passives in Helldivers 2

Some passives are simply alright, or even useless, normally. But in the right situation or with the right build, they can really shine.

• Electrical Conduit
  • Massive Electricity resistance – Tesla Tower stratagems and Arc Thrower weapons can be lethal to the enemy, but also to your teammates with their unpredictable arcing. This passive reduces their damage to a tickle, which is nice if you want to throw tesla towers everywhere. But you could also just be more careful with them while using another, more useful passive.
• Med Kit
  • +2 max stims and increased stim duration – You could technically run something of a medic build with this, running over to patch up wounded allies. Unfortunately, when everyone can just stim themselves anyway, it’s not really worthwhile, and even as a defensive perk, you’d be better served by something like Extra Padding. An extra 2 seconds of stamina regen is nice, though!
• Democracy Protects
  • 50% to survive lethal damage, prevents bleeding damage from chest injuries. – While a chance to survive death is nice, it’s not reliable like extra armor or a medkit is, the latter of which will cure your chest injury easily enough too.
• Peak Physique
  • Increased melee damage and weapon handling – While a fun concept, you’re ideally gonna want to eliminate bugs before they get to melee range. The extra handling could be really nice for certain more sluggish weapons, though your mileage may vary.
• Fortified
  • Reduced recoil while crouching and explosive damage resistance – The same recoil reduction as from Engineering Kit but with blast damage protection instead of grenades. While it can save your life from a misplaced airstrike or a bouncing grenade, really you can get similar protection from simply going prone.

For more Helldivers 2 content, check out Siliconera’s guides on how to deal with Chargers and the Retrieve Essential Personnel mission.

Helldivers 2 is immediately available on PC and PS5.