Enemies (Helldivers)/Detailed Statistics

Health and Constitution
Health is the value you see to the right of a health bar; Constitution is to the left. This behavior is at work for other units as well, even though they do not display a bar.

A positive Decay value indicates a loss of points. A negative value indicates a regenerative effect.

In general, once a unit's Health reaches zero, it will be considered dead or dying. In the case of a Helldiver or Survivor, losing enough health means getting downed, at which point bleeding (Constitution decay) kicks in, and the Helldiver or Survivor will otherwise die if left alone. The same idea applies to something like a damaged player vehicle. Once its Health is depleted, it catches fire, losing Constitution until it explodes.


 * This effect can be seen at work in certain enemies as well, such as a Bug Warrior or Elite bleeding to death. In contrast, the Brood Commander will charge but does not bleed to death.
 * Alternatively, consider killing a Warlord. It is considered dead (health depleted) once it slumps over and catches fire. The burning until it explodes is its Constitution decaying. Depending on how much damage is done on/before the killing blow, it can even explode immediately. If instead it had a Constitution decay of zero, upon dying the Warlord would slump over, lifeless, and not explode until sufficiently damaged.
 * For the vast majority of enemies, Constitution does not appear to affect gameplay. (Some exceptions were mentioned above.) Though in some instances an enemy appears to have a Constitution of zero with a non-zero decay value, once its Health is depleted, it's considered dead and its actions suspended.

Shields
Armor and Shields are considered separate. A Shield (or "bubble shield", like the SH-20 Shield Generator Pack is the separate entity projected around a unit which effectively serves as an extra source of Health. This is because the Shield must first be depleted before the unit within can take damage. Though they can be depleted, Shields can also regenerate after a delay. If the regeneration (points per second) effect is interrupted by new damage, the delay begins anew before the Shield regeneration starts again. Keep in mind, however, that some damage sources, like the Shredder, will ignore Shields.
 * Though a Hulk carries a physical shield, it serves as armor for whichever location it blocks. Only The Illuminate and the Helldiver corps have access to the regenerating "bubble"-type energy shields.
 * Shields have both a health and an armor value. However, the only enemy in the game that has armored shields is the Illuminate Obelisk.
 * Note that while there are minimum and maximum armor values specified for shields, these are always identical (in the game's current state). That means it does not matter which angle a shield is hit at, or whether it is hit near its center or its edge.
 * The Illuminate Watcher's Shield is not conventionally used, as it will drop the Shield (if not already removed by damage) and cloak after raising an alarm. The Watcher's Shield will be activated again when it attempts to sound another alarm.

Armor Locations and Damage Calculation
Armor can be defined for a unit as a base ("default") value, or specifically for a certain element or area. Here, this aspect is denoted simply as the direction (e.g., "front") or property (e.g., "closed"). When a unit has more than one armor definition, the value exhibited will depend on the hit location. Keep in mind that this is a simplified representation. Not all properties are equally defined, if at all, in size or area.

As a general rule of thumb: "Shoot the target in the middle; make the hit as perpendicular as possible."


 * Most enemies only have a single ('default') hit location. Enemies with a weak spot will have more than one, usually the front (Bug Impaler) or rear (Bug Tank).
 * Regular melee attacks are always applied to surface at the same angle (zero), meaning the armor is at its minimum.
 * Weapons generally have two damage values defined: 'base' and 'crit' power values, and will use both depending on the hit angle of the shot, the target, and hit location.


 * Armor reduces the damage done by the specified value. If the target has 50 armor, an attack that deals 70 damage will be reduced to 20 points.
 * AP-capable guns reduce the target unit's armor by 15. This calculation has a minimum of zero, so it's not possible to have negative armor. If a weapon hit deals less damage per hit than the final armor value of the hit location that it impacted, then the hit will not do any actual damage to the target.


 * Shotgun values reflect the damage done by each pellet/fragment/ray, assuming any of the pellets/fragments/rays hit a target. They are still subject to armor/angle considerations, like normal shots.


 * An Arc weapon blast, if it connects with a target, will always ignore the actual angle of incidence, and will instead count the hit to be to the front of the target unit. This can be demonstrated by shooting an upgraded HAV or a blocking Hulk.
 * Damage which varies by time, such as (but not limited to) Arc and continuous-beam Laser weapons, can see different maximum effects.