The latest Helldivers 2 build update messed with a lot of weapons. With that being said, two of the weapons that got hit the hardest were the explosive crossbow and the R-36 Eruptor. Those who are fans of the Eruptor have probably noticed that it has a tendency to kill the person shooting it. While the ricochet is not killing people, a bunch of shrapnel is. This was confirmed by community manager Spitzer via the Helldivers 2 Discord server. They said “Shots from the R-36 Eruptor explode and rebound shrapnel at the shooter, which has a high enough damage value to instantly kill the player.
This is not good. Luckily, the “Ministry of Defense” is on the case and working to resolve this issue. As part of a message to all sectors of the Helldivers 2 Discord, Spitzerfx stated, “We’re looking to completely remove the shrapnel effect from the Eruptor but will be increasing its hit damage as a result.” So while the gun will be losing its shrapnel, “it will, overall, be a buff to the weapon.” This is great news for those who enjoy using the Eruptor like we do.

If you have been looking across the Helldivers 2 Reddit page, you may have seen many talking about the ricochet effect that has been happening since the update went live. Spitzerfx’s comment also tackled this as they wrote “this has since been debunked by the community.” They also stated that “rockets and explosives are not ricocheting.”
The community manager went on to say that “with the systems in place, only small arms should be able to ricochet on armor.” Hopefully, this puts everyone’s minds at ease and they can get back to enjoying their bug and bot slaying. There is currently no exact date for when the Eruptor will be updated but we imagine it will be relatively soon.