Does anyone use the HMG anymore?
CCP Rattati chimes in his own experience with the interesting Heavy HMG discussion going on with the players. Does anyone use the HMG anymore, apparently some do! :P

Thats right CCP, just because you designed the suit for a certain play style it shouldnt be that way and you need to cater to guys who want to kick in doors with 1k + ehp and kill from 60 meters away


Seriously though thats what its designed for, not everyone gets to be in the spear head and if you want to go assaulting guys then maybe wear an assault suit while you do it
Agree that scouts need some love though, Im thinking pump up their stamina since they travel light and rework hack speeds on suits so logis get the fastest hacks, scouts second, assaults 3rd and heavies last
Not talking huge gaps though, a heavy shouldnt take 60 seconds to hack something that a logi spends ten seconds on, more like 15 to a logis 10

For Eve Online some of the issues they've put off can be measured in years. Not that any acknowledgement would matter. They've already recognized that scout performance was dropping and would look into it. That was over two months ago with no forum updates.

On my main I play a heavy and the current position is to chill until 2.0 drops. The Devs have so much on their plates I'll be happy so long as they don't screw up the Forge Guns in a patch.

IKR

Unless that Dev is playing a suit that hasn't been released to us he's playing a basic or Sentinel.
THAT specific racial line of heavy suit(s) may be geared towards a defensive role, that doesn't
mean the other (long overdue) racial heavies need to be shoehorned into that role as well.

Amarr heavies are defensive... Fine.
Why do the other racial heavy suits have to be as well?
Honest question. Seriously, if a logi can out assault an assault and everyone is fine with it
why can't a heavy go offensive?

Once again just facts here, Im not ready to wade in!

But all suits currently at least have the same variations!

ALL lights will have pilot and scout
ALL mediums have assault and logi
ALL Heavies have sentinel and commando

But that doesn't mean you can't mod them!

Then wade in I shall!



Assults specialisation much to a lot of peoples suprise is meant to be its versatility! An assault can be a chopshopped version of any other suit. It can run a decent scout, but not as good as a scout, it can be a brick tank heavy but not as good as a heavy!!

Logi units need a slight change, which ccp are apparently working on but having trouble with, they plan to lower pg/cpu on the suits but give bonuses to eq fitting costs, that way they can't out tank! But once again logistics is a diverse roll. As are they all!

A sentinel is designed for defence apparently, but what is a defensive role?
Is it guard a null cannon?
Is it tail end charlie?
Maybe its area denial and suppression?

The heavy is what you make lf it, but it should not be alone wolf gear, no suit should be!

It just so happens that the suit lends itself to places with good cover! When bubble sheilds are released and triage repair tools aremore useful, heavies will see more time on the frontline!

What if you got a little health boost and a speed drop on the sentinel?
Prehaps a few more module slots?

Also consider this is the amarian suit, which has always been about slow heavy tanking, the minmatar for example will find it much easier to move tactically across open ground! While gallante will be forced to stay in cities more often!

Hmg is a minmatar weapon, in dust at least minmatar is known for short range breaching or long distance suppression/area denial! I believe the hmg needs a much longer effective to fit this bill somewhere along the lines of 80-100m effective, enough to really scare an enemy into hunkering down! But as I said this an amarr suit which are always better for longer ranges, which a minmatar weapon doesn't allow!

Its not an ideal situation at the moment, but when they are released I imagine suits will complement their weapons better!
Saying that I have seen interesting and effective heavy squads before!

One use a dropship dropped dirrectly onto the point and locked it down was pure genius, and ill never forget my teamates response as a heavy landed 30 cm from him!

Bo***ks

only 10 kills? in a pub? if I don't get 20+ with 2-3 deaths I had a bad game.

Giving advice to people that know how to play their role means nothing when the role is **** in a competitive environment.

you are simply doing it wrong.

-a brick tanked logi is as slow as a heavy, so whatever you think the problem with your movement is, the amarr and gallente logis have the same issue.
-a heavy can move right in your face in a LAV on all maps
-a heavy does not even have to get an LAV in certain complexes

My 2nd suit is a Gallente, and i don't have the same problems as I do with my heavy suit. i can jump higher than 2 inches for starters. My hitbox isn't the size of an LAV, and my head isn't a magnet for every AR on the map. My suit doesn't need an LAV to get everywhere on some maps. I run slower yes, but let's be real, nothing's as slow as a heavy.

chrome chrome chrome. Let me have a little debate with you friend. You claim that heavies shouldn't or "are not" meant to be in a defensive role. Ok. That's fine so let me counter argue that by saying that the "can" be defensive, and also go over a way or two how they could also be offensive.

1.) you've obviously have never received my nanohive love before. At 70+ HP/s and 140+ if overlapping, my proto triage hives can keep any heavy alive for almost any amount of time. The only real counter to this is overwhelming numbers, or Grenades. Both of which can be handled if you make the enemy fight on your terms, and have superior positioning to them. (grenades cant kill you if there isn't a proper angle, and numbers don't count for sh*t if your fighting in the hot gates).

2.) Now..... only one race of heavies is available right now and that's the amar version. If it follows what the assault suit does, this version should be a balance between shields and armor. Though I would lean towards armor with damage mods personally. The suit in itself is probably going to be slower then most of the other racial heavies. Slower means its less able to get around the battlefield which means you naturally want it to play defensively. Your too slow to out maneuver enemies so place yourself in a position where they out maneuver themselves! (if you get what I mean).

3.) if you want an "offensive" heavy, or more accurately a "shock troop" then I wouldn't hold your breath. That's probably not going to happen until the minmatar or caldari heavies come out. HOWEVER, if your interested in going offensive anyway, I would turn your eyes towards the kinetic catalyzers. If properly fitted you can bring the current amar heavies sprinting speed up to over 7 meters a second (which if you consider the amount of gallente/amar suits these days) is actually faster then most suits out there! This makes the heavy much more maneuverable and would probably assist in your playstyle.

Now I don't know if you wanted this type of response or not, but its the way I think about it when I consider the amar heavies right now. I mean..... heavies in general are 1/4th as flexible as the assault/logistics suits so naturally your going to have limitations in what they can do.

Why I quit being a heavy. Back in Beta a Heavy took the lead and the led the charge. Now the heavy is a joke compared to its former self. I refuse to be a heavy and want a SP respec, two roles I have speced into and both were gimped by CCP. I was a heavy first and CCP nerfed the role. So I spec into Cal Logi not for the flavor of the month but to see what it is like to run a shield build and it got nerfed. Now I am specing into another role and I am told there is a good chance it is going to be nerfed or changed as well. I am now on the please can I have a respec bandwagon.

Exile AR is stronger than Boundless HMG, at least in my hands (both on a heavy)

Someone said my name?

OP, I just described my personal playstyle with the heavy, obviously it's a naturally slower, more armoured dropsuit than the assault. Therefore one of its roles can be circling the point rather than head on assault.

I can envision so many battle tactics using them though that I don't think we have shoehorned the heavy into a single role.

I have seen 2 LLAVS with 3 heavies blast past footslogging old me, with me showing on the point 30 seconds after a brutal slaughter and heavies roaming the perimeter, similar to assault terminators from W40k. The commando is definitely a role that we want to expand on in that regard.

Similarly with dropships deployment, maybe even remote repping the heavies.

Then we have the missing racials, I play Gallente Assault and it's much different from Caldari. I can only presume that the heavy differences will be similar.

It can be done. Just change the L slot into an H slot on the Assault Suits, fiddle with heavy weapons stats a bit, spreadsheet the Heavy DS SP back, and we're set. It would save game development resources and the seemingly impossible suit balance issues.