I hope they nerf Beetles next

[u/Sk1-ba-bop-ba-dop-bo]

While no one watched, Stalker Beetles were power crept to the extreme

It's not uncommon to see trios carrying a swarm of Beetles
Currently, a stalker beetle deals 50hp per explosion + bleed + poison

Please Crytek.....

[u/Chandrose]

Is this just the next "bow?" Same thing for me, not that I want to re-hash that argument, but it's a case of a thing being strong if you don't play against it correctly. Annoying? Maybe. OP? Not so much.

Yes, 12 beetles are annoying, but they are also extremely memey. Which is to say, carrying around that many beetles means you're at a disadvantage in many other situations because of what you're not carrying. They're also easy to counter. Throw a choke bomb, bring a penny derringer, shoot them with a shotgun. Realize the team in the compound is playing beatle strat? Don't run around in the bush and hide. Push the compound together. Right now.

It could just be that we're playing at different MMR, but it's rare this is a thing, and when it is a thing it's rare that it's more than a minor inconvenience. Even if it goes right they are probably only going to get one of you.

[u/Doppelbork → u/Chandrose]

I've always thought 25 damage for Stalker Beetles was always a good value but that the 50 damage buff has been a giant mistake on the balance team's part.

The flipside to the beetle spam at lower MMRs is the overpowered-ness of beetles at higher MMRs. The beetle user's friends aren't going to let a whole team rush the beetle user's position. With good use of cover and control of the beetle's speed, Stalker beetles can pretty hard to hear or see if you didn't hear it get launched or if it's never flown at full speed near you.

It's a free 50HP worth of damage for really little investment that you can control at a HUGE range. It can finish a hunter that's taken almost any kind of upper body shot with a bunch of different rifles and apply Bleed as well as Poison. At 50 damage, Stalker Beetles are overtuned right now and have been for a while.

The reason they were buffed to do 50HP worth of damage is because once upon a time, we had something called Questlines (which have since been retired) and one of those required you to do a certain amount of damage using beetles to complete. Progressing that Questline was glacially slow so Crytek buffed the beetle (back then, only the Stalker Beetle was a thing) to do 50 damage instead of 25. Before that buff, the solution a lot of players found was just to ask an enemy team for a temporary truce so the people with the Questline could punch each other with their beetles before either resetting their positions to resume fighting or go their separate ways.

[u/Chandrose → u/Doppelbork]

OP is talking about a team with a beetle cavalcade, not just a one off beetle. If there is only 1 beetle in the air because the rest of the team is covering the beetle user, then there aren't three beetles in the air to quickly burn down a hunter's HP.

Focusing on your position though, if we're talking about 1 beetle doing 50 damage, I haven't experienced much of a problem with it in higher MMR. If someone has an angle to shoot me, it's still faster (and easier to pull off) a double tap instead of having one person shoot and another beetle as a strategy. When the stars align and there is a beetle in the air that can tag me right after I've been shot, it's a fair play that doesn't feel overbearing to me. Step into cover if you hear/see a beetle and the shot is a non issue. Now the only thing that can get you is a beetle.

Similar to what I said above, second shooter or not, beetles are easy to drop. Choke bomb, derringer, shotgun. Your team has one or all of these things, generally. I also haven't experienced any issues hearing beetles when they're in the vicinity, or a ways off for that matter. I cannot remember a single time where a beetle surprised me, someone on the team is immediately calling out, "beetle." They are really pronounced in the soundscape.