What are medals actually for, and why do they matter?

Medals are mainly used to unlock items in Warbonds. Warbonds contain weapons, armor, boosters, grenades, capes, and cosmetics. Some items are optional, but others can directly improve your mission success rate, especially boosters and strong weapons.

Medals matter because they control your progression pace. You can level up and unlock stratagems with requisition quickly, but Warbond progression is a slower path. That means medals often become your “real” bottleneck for building an effective loadout.

How do you earn medals efficiently during missions?

In practice, most medals come from three places:

Mission completion rewards

Major Orders and Personal Orders

Medal pickups found in the mission

If you want better medal income, your focus should be consistency rather than chasing rare pickups.

What mission behavior earns the most medals over time?

The best medal strategy is simple:

Complete missions fast

Extract reliably

Chain operations without failing

A clean mission streak on a difficulty you can comfortably handle will beat struggling on higher difficulty. Players often overestimate how many extra medals they’re getting by jumping difficulty tiers. The real loss comes from failed missions, slow clears, and broken squads.

A squad that finishes three medium-length missions smoothly will usually out-earn a squad that wipes once and drags through long fights on a harder difficulty.

Should you farm points of interest for medal pickups?

Yes, but only in a controlled way.

Medals can appear in bunkers, containers, and points of interest. But POI farming becomes inefficient if your squad starts wandering too far off the mission route.

A good rule most experienced players follow is:

Clear POIs that are naturally on the way to objectives

Only detour if the map is safe and the squad is coordinated

If your squad is already fighting heavy patrols or reinforcement loops, chasing POIs becomes a waste. You’ll spend time and ammo, risk deaths, and possibly lose the extract. That trade usually isn’t worth a few extra medals.

What’s the biggest mistake players make with medals?

The most common mistake is spending medals too early on items that sound useful but don’t change mission performance.

This includes:

Armor bought purely for looks

Weapons that are outclassed by default tools

Sidegrades you unlock before you even understand what role you like playing

A lot of players buy the first weapon they can afford just because it’s available. Then later they realize they prefer a different playstyle and they’re stuck grinding again.

Medals should be treated like long-term investment currency, not something to spend the moment you get it.

What should you unlock first if you want the most value?

If your goal is winning missions more consistently, prioritize unlocks in this order:

1. Boosters

Boosters affect the entire team. They’re the most cost-effective medal purchases in the game because they apply every mission, regardless of faction or difficulty.

Even if you don’t personally notice the impact at first, a good booster often saves the squad from a wipe or makes the mission smoother.

2. Reliable primary weapons

Not every primary weapon is worth rushing. The ones that matter are the ones that:

Handle common enemy types efficiently

Work without perfect aim

Don’t require constant ammo resupply

Good general-purpose primaries reduce how often you need to rely on stratagem cooldowns.

3. Utility grenades

Grenades can solve problems stratagems can’t solve quickly, like clearing a tight choke point or controlling bugs in close range.

4. Armor perks that match your role

Armor perks matter more than armor rating in many situations. Once you know whether you play aggressive, support, or objective-focused, armor becomes a better medal purchase.

5. Cosmetics (only when you’re stable)

Capes and helmets are fine to unlock once your combat loadout is already strong. They are usually where medals go to die early.

How do you decide if a Warbond item is actually worth medals?

A good way to judge an item is to ask one simple question:

“Will this change how often I succeed in missions?”

If the answer is no, it’s probably not a priority unlock.

Some weapons look interesting but don’t improve your win rate because they’re too specialized. In Helldivers 2, consistency matters more than novelty. A weapon that works in 80% of missions is usually better than a weapon that dominates in 20% and struggles in the rest.

In real squad play, the best gear is the gear that prevents problems, not the gear that creates highlight moments.

Should you complete an entire Warbond page, or skip around?

You usually can’t skip freely, because Warbond progression requires unlocking items in order and spending enough medals to reach deeper pages.

This is where medal efficiency becomes important: sometimes you have to buy filler items to reach the good ones.

When that happens, the best approach is:

Buy the cheapest filler items that you know you won’t regret

Avoid expensive cosmetics early unless they’re required

If a page has both cheap cosmetics and expensive cosmetics, buy the cheap ones to progress. Don’t waste medals on high-cost items unless you actually want them.

Are medals better spent on weapons or boosters?

In almost every case, boosters first.

Weapons help you. Boosters help the whole team and apply to every mission. If you play public matchmaking, boosters are even more valuable because you can’t rely on random teammates to bring the right support tools.

A strong booster can compensate for weak team coordination. A strong weapon usually cannot.

That’s why veteran players tend to rush boosters early and experiment with weapons later.

How do experienced players avoid “wasting” medals?

Most experienced players follow a basic pattern:

They unlock a few strong general tools early.

They avoid buying everything.

They wait until they understand the meta and mission needs.

They also keep a medal buffer instead of spending down to zero. This matters because Helldivers 2 updates often add new gear, and some of it is immediately useful. If you always spend medals instantly, you’re forced into grinding when new content drops.

Some players also look for cheap helldivers 2 medals online, but in normal gameplay terms, the real savings comes from avoiding wasteful unlocks and sticking to mission routines that give consistent rewards.

What mission types give the best medal value per time?

Medal farming depends a lot on mission speed.

In general, missions that are:

Straightforward objectives

Short travel distances

Low chance of reinforcement spirals

…tend to give better medal value per minute.

Long missions with constant combat can feel productive, but they often reduce extraction success and increase downtime. If your goal is medals, you want missions that end cleanly.

The best squads also avoid overfighting. Killing enemies is sometimes necessary, but many squads lose efficiency by treating every patrol like a required fight.

In practice, moving fast and keeping noise low earns more medals than trying to wipe every enemy group on the map.

How do you balance medals vs samples and other resources?

A common mistake is trying to maximize everything at once.

If you want medals, you should prioritize:

Mission completion

POIs that are along your route

Clean extraction

If you want samples, you may need more map exploration and risk-taking.

Trying to fully clear every map for every resource usually slows down medal progress. Veteran players often split goals: some sessions focus on medals and speed, other sessions focus on sample hunting.

When is it worth saving medals instead of spending them?

Save medals when:

You already have a loadout that clears your current difficulty reliably

You’re close to unlocking a high-value item on the next Warbond page

A patch or Warbond update is likely soon

You’re unsure what role you want to specialize in

Medals are more valuable when you spend them with a purpose. If you don’t know what you need, saving is usually the correct move.

What’s the simplest medal strategy that works for most players?

If you want a practical plan that avoids regret, do this:

Play difficulties you can win consistently.

Always complete Personal Orders.

Don’t chase POIs unless they’re convenient.

Unlock boosters early.

Only buy weapons that fill a real gap in your kit.

Keep some medals saved for future unlocks.

That approach won’t make you progress the fastest in one evening, but it will keep your account growing in a way that actually improves mission performance. Over time, that’s what gets the most value out of medals.