If you have been banging your head against late-2025 Automaton missions on Super Helldive, you probably know the feeling: chaos in every alley, rockets from every rooftop, and your ammo crates never seem to show up when you need them. That is exactly why I ended up coming back to the LAS-98 Laser Cannon, a weapon I ignored for way too long, and it has quietly become my favourite tool for staying alive on solo runs, especially when you do not feel like grinding forever instead of just picking up cheap helldivers 2 accounts to jump straight into the good stuff.
Why The Laser Cannon Works Solo
The big thing you notice with the Laser Cannon is how it changes your mental load. You are not counting shells or praying for a resupply to land in a safe spot. You are just watching the heat bar. On solo Automaton missions that matters a lot, because you do not have three teammates dropping ammo every few minutes. With the LAS-98, you mess up a pull, fall back behind a rock, vent for a second and you are good again. On cold, snowy maps it feels almost unfair, because the gun barely overheats at all and you can just drag the beam through lines of bots until the entire wave is gone.
Dealing With Priority Targets
What really sold me on the weapon was how it handles specific problem enemies. Gunships used to end my runs; now they are just another chore. You do not have to land a perfect shot, you just sweep the laser across the engines and they drop fast. Hulks turn into a little mini-game: you stun them, line up on the eye slot and hold the beam until they fold. Even Factory Striders can go down if you are willing to belly-crawl under them and cook the weak spots at close range. The catch is that the Laser Cannon does not stagger much, so if a Berserker gets right in your face you will feel it. That is why I usually bring the Sickle as a primary, so I can swap between two "bottomless" lasers and never touch a reload animation.
Stratagems And Armor That Make It Click
The loadout around the LAS-98 matters just as much as the gun itself. I lean heavily into mobility, so Light Scout armor is my default pick; if you stop moving in Automaton cities, you are just giving snipers and rockets an easy job. For utility, the Shield Generator Relay is huge, and I mean the deployable bubble, not the backpack. Drop it when you need a moment of peace to burn down a Hulk or a Devastator pack without getting juggled by explosives. I like pairing that with an Orbital Laser for those "everything has gone wrong" moments and a 500kg Bomb to delete tanks or clustered dropships. Once you get into the rhythm, it turns into a loop of running, stunning, beaming and repositioning before the next wave locks on to you.
Why It Feels Less Stressful Than Other Anti-Armor Options
Compared to Quasar or Recoilless, the Laser Cannon just feels easier on your nerves. Miss a Quasar shot and you are staring at the cooldown while a Hulk lines up a flamethrower blast. Miss with the LAS-98 and it is not really a miss, you just flick your aim back over the weak point and keep the beam on. Over time you start to trust that as long as you manage heat and spacing, you will not run dry in the middle of a push. If you really do not want to spend hours unlocking every toy and would rather jump straight to the point where you are testing different weapons and stratagems, services like u4gm exist for buying game currency or items, but honestly once you get comfortable with heat management and positioning, the LAS-98 alone makes solo Helldives against bots feel way more like a controlled raid and a lot less like a doomed last stand.
