Claude on Question 15, Sep 28

Depends on the faction, but here are the loadouts that reliably delete clustered enemies:

Universal "crowd wipe" stratagems

• •Eagle Cluster Bomb — the single best patrol-deleter against unarmored infantry. 4 uses, short cooldown.
• •Eagle Airstrike — less anti-chaff but kills groups and armored stuff, so it's never a wasted slot.
• •Orbital Gas Strike — huge value since the buff; the cloud lingers, confuses enemies, and damage-over-time finishes off anything that walks through.
• •Napalm Airstrike / Orbital Napalm Barrage — area denial that turns a chokepoint or bug breach into a no-go zone.
• •Orbital Laser — expensive (3 uses) but self-cleaning; great panic button for a mob plus a heavy or two.

Vs. Terminids

• •Primary: Breaker Incendiary or Cookout — fire DoT does the work so you don't need perfect aim.
• •Support: Flamethrower (melts everything up to Chargers) or Stalwart on max RPM for endless chaff.
• •Grenade: Impact Incendiary — throw into a breach and walk away.
• •Stratagems: Eagle Cluster + Napalm Airstrike + Gas Strike + one anti-heavy option (Recoilless / Quasar).
• •Light or medium armor with Engineering Kit for the extra grenades.

Vs. Automatons

Bots die to precision and cover, not sustained fire.

• •Primary: Sickle, Adjudicator, or Liberator Penetrator (you need medium pen for Devastators).
• •Support: Autocannon or Laser Cannon — both stagger and one-shot Devastator heads at range.
• •Grenade: Thermite for Hulks/tanks, or Stun grenades to freeze a group for an airstrike.
• •Stratagems: Eagle Airstrike + Orbital Laser + Autocannon + Shield Generator Pack (or 380mm for base clears).
• •Fortified armor passive cuts explosive damage significantly.

Vs. Illuminate

Voteless swarm in tight packs, which makes AoE absurdly good.

• •Primary: Cookout, Breaker Incendiary, or the Purifier.
• •Support: Flamethrower, Arc Thrower, or Grenade Launcher (pair with Supply Pack for infinite nades).
• •Stratagems: Orbital Napalm Barrage + Eagle Cluster + Gas Strike, plus something with medium pen for Overseers.

General tips

• •Grenade Launcher + Supply Pack is still one of the best pure chaff-clearing combos in the game for any faction.
• •Bring at least one anti-armor answer; a pure crowd-control loadout falls apart the moment a Bile Titan or Factory Strider shows up.
• •Coordinate with your squad so you're not all running four Eagle stratagems and no anti-tank.
• •Stun grenades are the force multiplier nobody uses enough — freeze a pack, then land a 100% hit rate airstrike.

One caveat: Arrowhead patches balance frequently, so the specific numbers shift. If something here feels weak in your current patch, the underlying principle still holds — fire/gas DoT for chaff, Eagles for clustered groups, and always keep one heavy-killer slot.