There are a ton of buffs you can get via your equipment in Helldivers 2, but Extra Padding is one of the more confusing ones. That’s why we’ve crafted this guide on how to get Extra Padding, what it does for your character, and more.
How to Get Armor With Extra Padding in Helldivers 2
Let’s start with the easy part: You can get Extra Padding by equipping almost any standard medium armor in Helldivers 2.
It’s basically a starter buff, and is tied to all of the game’s generic armor sets. As such, you can get the buff right off the bat without even changing your gear. It’s tied to some of the more standard gear you unlock early on too, so you can change your fit without losing the benefits of the special stat bonus.
What Does Extra Padding Do in Helldivers 2? Explained
Before you run off and make this your go-to armor buff though, it’s worth knowing what Extra Padding actually does.
As the description reads, this buff gives you a higher Armor Rating. On paper, this is a great way to improve your survivability early on and ensure you don’t die to an enemy’s attacks as quickly.
However, it’s best to take this bonus with some healthy skepticism. The buff doesn’t provide your character with any visible bonuses to their armor rating score. Likewise, other armors without the buff provide the same amount of protection.
On top of all of that, it’s also the buff assigned to all of the game’s standard-issue armor. This makes the bonus all the more suspect when you consider that Helldivers are canonically the most disposable fighters within Super Earth’s army, and soldiers are encouraged to face their enemies with a mindset of self-sacrifice and doing one’s part for Democracy.
Given all of this, it’s at least possible that the Extra Padding buff is a joke being made by developer Arrowhead Game Studios. It would line up with the satirical nature of the game and plays perfectly into the fact that the government of Super Earth wants its soldiers to believe they’re diving headfirst into danger with the protection of a higher calling.
This is just speculation though, and we won’t know for sure whether it’s true or not until the player base has done a bit more testing with the buff.
Is Extra Padding Worth it?
For now though, we can safely say you don’t need to prioritize Extra Padding in Helldivers 2.
While it might be a useful buff at first, the abilities and bonuses offered by other armors are just as good if not better. The Democracy Protects buff has emerged as a frontrunner among armor perks thanks to its chance to prevent lethal attacks outright, and other bonuses like Servo-Assisted can help you maximize the usefulness of specific builds.
Heavy Armor also provides more armor overall if you’re dead set on getting the best possible Armor Rating, so there are plenty of ways to get the same bonuses offered by gear with the buff.
Keep all of this in mind, and consider whether or not you really want to stake so much on this specific bonus to your character.
And with that, you’re all caught up on how to get Extra Padding in Helldivers 2 and what it does. For more on the game, check out our other guides down below. They can help you figure out how to heal other players, what the best stratagems are, and much more.
