Every Gas Weapon and Stratagem in Helldivers 2, Ranked

Gas in Helldivers 2 plays by completely different rules to every other damage type. Where fire burns and electricity stuns, gas is built almost entirely around confusion, crowd control, and the beautiful chaos that follows when enemies start attacking each other instead of you.

As always, we are big advocates of playing the way you find most fun, and nothing on this list is without its uses. The fact that something ranks last just means there are better tools in the gas department, not that it belongs on the shelf forever.

That said, here is every gas weapon and stratagem in Helldivers 2, ranked.

8. MD-17 Gas Mines

Every mine stratagem in Helldivers 2 shares the same fundamental problem: the game usually moves faster than a static trap can keep up with. Now, the Gas Mines are marginally more forgiving than their explosive cousins since they do not instantly delete a teammate who stumbles through them, but they are still entirely dependent on enemies cooperating with your placement.

That said, if you are running a dedicated defensive setup and have full control over your choke points, the Gas Mines can produce some deeply satisfying results. They just rarely get that opportunity in higher-difficulty missions, where enemy spawns are unpredictable enough to make most mine placements feel like a gamble.

7. P-35 Re-Educator

The Redacted Regiment warbond introduced the Re-Educator as a gas-infused dart pistol, and, at least on paper, the concept is brilliant. A sidearm that can apply the full gas confusion effect to any enemy, including heavies and War Striders, for a few crucial seconds? That is an interesting pitch for a secondary weapon.

In practice, the execution struggles to match the fantasy. It only deals 60 damage on hit with 25 per second from the gas effect, the reload is painfully slow, and it takes more than one dart to reliably trigger confusion. The five-second confusion window is short enough that any gas grenade or stratagem does the same job more efficiently and with considerably less effort.

6. A/GM-17 Gas Mortar Sentry

The Gas Mortar Sentry from the Entrenched Division warbond has taken a while to earn its reputation, but the broader buff to gas effects in patch 6.2.2 (that added a 25% movement slow to confused enemies) has brought it into a much more interesting place. In defensive missions especially, it creates wide zones of permanent confusion that can completely break enemy pathing before they can turn into a threat.

Unlike regular mortar sentries that will reliably take out a teammate at the worst possible moment, the Gas Mortar skips the instant teamkill potential in favor of sustained disruption. Its inconsistency in highly mobile missions and its dependence on smart placement keep it from climbing higher on this list, but in a coordinated squad running a defensive objective, it can be quietly oppressive.

5. TX-41 Sterilizer

The Sterilizer launched with the Chemical Agents warbond in September 2024 and spent a very long time being quietly overlooked by players who expected more outright damage from a support weapon. It was never really about damage, though. As a crowd suppression tool against Terminids and Illuminate, few weapons create the same wall-of-confusion coverage that the Sterilizer can maintain.

Recent buffs have brought it into a meaningfully better place, updating the gas spray's visual effects so you can actually see the range, extending how long the gas lingers, and widening the coverage area. Combined with the new 25% slow effect on confused enemies, the Sterilizer now gives you enough room to disengage, reposition, and control a fight in ways it simply could not before.

4. Orbital Gas Strike

The Orbital Gas Strike remains one of the most effortlessly slottable stratagems in the game. It has a 75-second cooldown (64 seconds with all upgrades), a two-second call-in time, heavy armour penetration, and the ability to destroy bug holes and bot fabricators on a direct hit. Few stratagems of any type offer that much practical value in a single package.

The Gas Strike is also better than almost at creating immediate breathing room. Drop it on a bug breach the moment it opens and you turn a potentially overwhelming push into a cloud of enemies stumbling into each other. Its role is specialized by design, but controlling an area and moving on is a role that comes up in practically every mission you will run.

3. G-4 Gas Grenade

The Gas Grenade is one of the easiest picks to justify in any loadout, especially when the mission you're dropping into involves Terminids or Illuminates. It requires no stratagem slot, no backpack, and no cooldown management. You throw it, a confusion cloud appears instantly, and whatever was charging you is now either fighting its own teammates or wandering in confused circles.

Paired with the gas buffs, the G-4 hits harder as a panic tool than it ever has before. Covering a retreat, disrupting a sudden swarm, neutralizing a push during an objective, the Gas Grenade fits all of those scenarios without asking anything from you in return.

2. AX/TX-13 Dog Breath

The Dog Breath earns its place near the top through one thing above all else: it applies gas confusion automatically while you focus on literally everything else in the mission. Unlike the Sterilizer, which demands your active attention and positioning, the Dog Breath just floats beside you and handles the close-range chaos on its own.

Its synergy with a dedicated gas build is also hard to overstate. Pair it with the Sterilizer or the Speargun and you end up with multiple simultaneous confusion zones covering different ranges, which is as oppressive as it sounds.

1. TX-220 Speargun

The Speargun is not just the best gas weapon in Helldivers 2. It is, by a reasonable argument, one of the best support weapons in the game right now. It fires a high-damage projectile that deals 650 damage on hit with 275 durable damage, anti-tank armor, and the entire gas confusion effect applying to anything it hits or over-penetrates.

The reason it tops this list is versatility in the most complete sense of the word. It destroys bug holes and bot fabricators, staggers large enemies, handles medium and heavy armor, applies the full gas confusion status, and maintains solid ammo economy across a 12-round loadout.

Whether you are running it against Terminids, the Illuminate, or even Automatons in certain scenarios, the Speargun finds a use in nearly every combat situation the game throws at you.

Here is a quick breakdown of every gas option ranked from best to last:

Got a gas loadout that hits different, or think we ranked something too harshly? Feel free to drop your hot takes in the comments below!