Helldivers 2 Boosters – All Boosters Ranked and Explained

Helldivers 2 is filled with all kinds of ways to personalize your Helldivers before setting down to a planet, but only one way in which your loadout can directly impact your entire team: Boosters. By making use of this add-ons, you are able to stack up to 4 different effects on every single mission. But which should you take, and how do you unlock each booster in Helldivers 2? Allow us to explain.

What Are Boosters

Unlike in most games, Boosters are not one-time use consumables that you burn after using them for a mission. Instead, they are unlockable upgrades that each Helldiver on a mission can equip one of, which provide a boost to the entire squad. That is to say, so long as one Helldivers has a booster equipped, every member of the squad receives its benefits, allowing you to stack up to 4 of these powerful enhancements.

There are currently 10 Boosters in Helldivers 2, and all of them are acquired through Warbonds, by spending the medals required to unlock their page on an accessed Warbond, and then spending medals to unlock them themselves. They are equipped as you select your stratagems and loadout before dropping into a mission, and each Helldivers can bring any Booster they have unlocked, though any boost can only be taken once.

Helldivers 2 All Boosters and Unlocks

Below is the full list of every booster in the game, their effect (on all members of a squad), and what Warbond they are unlocked through:

Icon	Name	Effect	Unlock
	Expert Extraction Booster	Lowers the time it takes for the extraction shuttle to reach the extraction beacon.	Democractic Detonation (pg. 2)
	Flexible Reinforcement Budget	Reduces time until new reinforcements are granted once they’ve been depleted.	Steeled Veterans, pg. 3
	Hellpod Space Optimization	Helldivers come out of the Hellpod fully stocked on Ammo, Grenades and Stims.	Helldivers Mobilize, pg. 3
	Increased Reinforcement Budget	Increases the number of available reinforcements.	Helldivers Mobilize, pg. 10
	Localization Confusion	Increases the time between enemy encounters.	Cutting Edge, pg. 1
	Motivational Shocks	Allows all Helldivers to recover faster after being flowed by an attack, such as acid. Does not mitigate “area effects,” such as EMS strikes.	Polar Patriots, pg. 1
	Muscle Enhancement	Allows Helldivers to traverse difficult terrain with ease.	Helldivers Mobilize, pg. 9
	Stamina Enhancement	Increase all Helldivers’ stamina capacity and recovery.	Helldivers Mobilize, pg.7
	UAV Recon Booster	Increases all Helldivers’ effective radar range.	Helldivers Mobilize, pg. 6
	Vitality Enhancement	Allows all helldivers to resist injury.	Helldivers Mobilize, pg. 4

Rankings of Each Booster

While essentially every booster has a use, especially for the right loadout, some Boosters are more useful than others, and should be included in nearly every squad due to this use. Conversely, there are some boosters that are extremely situational, or even borderline useless. As such, this list of rankings should be thought of as suggestions when deciding what Boosters to bring on any given mission, with those higher on the list being more generally useful on the average mission for the average team composition.

Without further ado, the rankings for the Boosters of Helldivers 2 are as follows:

1. Hellpod Space Optimization: A must-have, starting every single life (from your first to your last) with a full compliment of ammo, stims, and grenades is a godsend, and is practically a necessary addition for high-level games with a full team of 4 players.
2. Stamina Enhancement: Most games see your squad trekking across the map a lot, and also trying to outrun the enemy at least a bit. And so, naturally, the booster that generally enhances your stamina is a no-brainer.
3. Localization Confusion: One of the most difficult things to deal with — especially against bugs — is when the spawn rate of the enemy becomes overwhleming. And so, especially on the highest difficulties, Localization confusion is extremely useful.
4. Vitality Enhancement: Reducing injury to your limbs is not all this enhancement does, it also slightly increases your health generally. And, in a game as lethal as Helldivers 2, every little bit matters.
5. UAV Recon Booster: Being able to locate enemy patrols from farther away can make or break a mission, allowing you to much more easily avoid threats and keep the mission going, instead of becoming bogged down by enemy patrols.
6. Flexible Reinforcement Budget: Others insist that this boost is worthless. Those people have never barely scraped by on a Solo Helldive mission by waiting out the timer until they get reinforcements. A godsend for Solo divers looking to really challenge themselves.
7. Muscle Enhancement: Situationally ranges from extremely useful to basically worthless, depending on the planet. On planets with heavy foliage, deep snow, or very mountainous terrain, Muscle Enhancement will save your life. On flatter, more barren planets? Take something else.
8. Motivational Shocks: Underwhelming in their effect, Motivational Shocks are hypothetically fantastic to prevent the most annoying bugs (hunters) from stunlocking you until you die. However, the reduction to slow time is pretty minimal so, while it will keep you alive occasionally, it won’t usually be worth.
9. Expert Extraction Pilot: If you can’t survive 2 minutes to wait for extraction, you can’t survive 1 minute and 42 seconds to wait for extraction. While there is some utility to this on missions with increased stratagem calldown times, it is useless in all other respects, and even only debatable in that situation.
10. Increased Reinforcement Budget: There is almost no need to ever take this Booster. Having more Helldivers at your disposal for truly challenging missions sounds nice, but you’d be better off taking any of the stratagems that help you stay alive, instead of one that makes your deaths matter less.

And so, now you are truly fully informed of how best to serve your team, what Boosters are the best, and how to unlock each. With that in mind, you should know that the best way to help your team is to get back out there, Helldiver! The enemies of humanity are waiting!