I'm going to say some controversial things in my post, I know many of you won't agree with them and that is fine. The heavy as it is sucks, it has no purpose, it can be out Ehped by other classes which is fricking ridiculous, the HMG can be out dpsed at close range by other guns, yeah I know paper stats it is the best, until you factor in that other guns get 2xto 3x the amount of headshots that the HMG will ever be able to deliver. Along with the fact that the HMG has a spin up time which really isn't supposed to be there if you read the description of the weapon, least on some of them. The heavy is pathetic in close quarters combat, medium combat, and especially long range combat, except for the forge gun, which every heavy is starting to use now even those that wish they could keep to the HMG. All this being said I will now bullet point my suggestions.

-All heavy suits should get at least a 25% increase in shield and armor, at advanced-proto level it should take 2 hits from a forge gun to kill a heavy (How stuipid is it that a milita gun, can kill a fully decked out proto heavy in 1 hit, that is literally saying a gun costing less then 1k of isk can smash a proto costing more then 400k in one hit consistenly)

-All heavies should have their speed reduced by 25-30%, this is a lumbering suit of death it isn't made to be fast, it is made to be a terrifying beast of war, that can "take on tanks"

-Small weapon damage, should do 10-20% less damage to heavies

-Explosive weapons, should do 20% less damage

-HMG's should do 2x the damage they currently do and have 10m additional range from what they have currently, spread keeps the same as it is to avoid being to powerful. HMG should also take up both weapon slots, from how powerful and heavy it is. As in real life, movies, etc, this needs to be a terrifying gun that people run away from that can mow down entire groups of people who are stuipid enough to frontal assault this weapon. With how slow the heavy is, this should easily be able to be countered with speed and good tactics, the HMG would become a crowd control gun and objective defense.

-repair tools do 15-25% extra to heavy suits, this is so that the repair tool can do the intended focus it was made for and allow for true tanking by shield or armor.

This is all for now please comment as you see fit.

^this guy gets it. i'm not even a heavy and this is exactly how they should work.

more defense vs small arms fire but in the same vein it doesnt make sense to have them with solid movement. I think the scouts should be speed up a tad and heavies slowed down just a little.

On second thought maybe make it hard for them to speed up...biotics that make movement faster should only have a 25% effect on them. Some heavies will be faster (minmatar, gallente) but not fast per se.

give the HMG a damage buff inside 15m too. thats their killbox

if ur that close to a heavy ur doing it wrong.

They donGÇÖt need a damage buff, they need a damage application buff.

Reduce the spread and more bullets will hit = damage buff without changing damage on paper.

Add the same Sharp Shooter Skill that SMG has. It reduces spread, which extends itGÇÖs optimal range in a manner of speaking, but does not actually increase the theoretical range of the weapon.

Essentially this would buff the HMGGÇÖs applied damage at ranges beyond 5m without any damage increase being mentioned in the patch notes, so the AR users would not get riled up.

Hopefully they look at heavies again. SoTa said that scouts will be getting attention before heavies. That's cool, but why can't both classes get attention at the same time? Both are in a pretty bad spot

Hey Fox/Himiko,

I am the global head of FP&A at CCP, currently based in Iceland, and relocating with my family to Shanghai in January to help our efforts on Dust 514, joining CCP Rouge and the team there.

Given that I am also a fanatic player, you might call me a true believer in Dust 514 and its potential.

Well closed beta heavy compared to what we have now would be godly.

I quit the HMG heavy build and went AR assault months ago. I am still on strike and do not see myself going back. I was a heavy since beta and I cant believe the A** ream CCP gave us. Give up, move on and spec into something else. Just not scouts because they are CCP's 2nd b**** behind the heavy. I am angry beyond words over 3 Million into one build, I want my SP back. I have had bad luck when it comes to this game. Spec into heavy/hmg then its nerfed, spec into Cal Logi before the QQ and it was nerfed, went sniper got distant rendering and hit detection issues, now I went AR and Gal assault and now I am reading AR is soon to be nerfed. I am a basic rifle or HMG person I do not like ScR, Laser rifle not willing to go there just yet, shotgun has problems like HMG, not much more peaks my interest.


I am going to save my SP and hope that a weapon comes that is balanced and will not be nerfed by CCP. Still holding my breath

If you want to be successful, skill into the weakest class and wait for the buff.

Great derail without adressing anything.
You got the right skills for Dust 514, I'll give you that.

Guess you can't say anything about heavy dropsuits either, figured.

Sometimes you guys are a real joke.
Be glad that you're working in the game industry; at this standard.

Add the Carthum Scrambler to the list of rifles that out damage the Boundless HMG within it's optimal range. Had it happen twice in the same corridor in the same match. Duvolles and GEKs I've known about for a while. And I know all of you AR users will just see this as Heavy QQing which is fine. See it however you like. When things are tipped in your favor, it's just human nature to defend that status quo. Most of you have never touched the Heavy or HMG so it's not your problem, so long as you continue to get your kills. You just know that it's fine, and we need to stop complaining about it. So I understand that I'm not going to convince you of anything. That is not my intent. I do hope however that CCP will take this and other feedback into consideration and at least attempt to address this issue that affects many in their player base.

I also understand now why this is sometimes referred to as AR 514. I didn't before. It was frustrating losing confrontations that I thought I should have won simply because my opponent danced around a little bit, or jumped, still landing pinpoint accurate shots, or sometimes just simply stood there and out damaged me (like in the corridor mentioned above), or somehow because hits just stopped registering for some reason. I chalked it up to just needing to skill up more, but no, it still happens with proto gear, complex mods, complex armor and the like. Rifles in this game just seem to out class a very broken HMG in situations that the HMG was supposedly made for.

As I've said in other posts, I've had some success with the HMG, but there are some situations where things seem very off kilter... very unbalanced.

lol...

Oh you mean the POTENTIAL DPS.

Guess you haven't fired an HMG huh? If you did you would have noticed the huge amount of bullet spread making the numbers game useless. The DPS on your screen is accurate if every bullet hits, and lol at every bullet from the HMG hitting.

The AR / SR has a better representation of their DPS as they're accurate weapons.

The more you know

^^^^ LOLL Are u kidding?
My heavy suit has over 1600 hp .. add a duvolle assault or tac ... no medium in the world has a shot ~
Us heavies want a laser hmg , a plasma hmg ... or something close to that
We need more variety asap

Yes, I have. And there are people who troll with those things. It's called a HEAVY machine gun. Of course, it's not gonna be easy to use. Big guns never really are, no matter how unrealistic the developers make them.

Just because your weapon should be better at cqc engagements on paper does not mean a whole lot if you cannot hit your intended target, ive got a friend who is extremely bad at FPS games, he gets extremely frustrated each time an opponent strafes and dances around evading his gunfire and to him, everyone should just stand still so he can kill them....

Ive had on multiple occasions because of multiple long engagements overheated my SCR like a scrub, Heavy ambushes me, i jump, get stuck in a rock unable to move, served like a Proto Pinata ona silver platter...heavy unleaches everything he has on me ...for a whole 5 seconds...while i am superheated, overheat ends and the heavy dies, he did not even manage to hit me in those 5 seconds and i was like right there unable to move....

I mean ....how bad can you get ? And while there are good heavies, most heavies are very bad players thinking the extra armor and HMG can save them from people who have 90%+ Accuracy Ratings...

Not gonna happen...

Heavies definitely need love, but that's a bit over the top
Your list:
+25% eHP
+10-20% DR
+15-25% Healing from repair tool
HMG - 2x damage +10m effective

So they have massively more health and they gain an additional 12.5 to 25 equivalent of go by damage resist. This takes them to 1.375 - 1.5 current standings meaning they could easily have over 2k ehp and since the HMG is now massively effective due to enhanced range and close proximity people would die almost instantly. But that's ok they still can use effective line of sight with explosives nope damage nerfed, ok how bout head shots with a sniper rifle? Nope it'll take steady three shots with a charged sniper rifle or four otherwise.

Which won't work at all if he has a rep.

Ok so now the only counter for Hmg heavies are FG heavies. Too much.


For heavy to fill its roll I would recommend a modest 10-15% eHP buff and a 20% reduction in dispersion which by itself would give the HMG a decent range. Done.

If stagger was introduced I'd be ok with a compromise of dispersion/maximum distance increase but it should not have the same effective range as an AR, especially if you factor in a "shake" or jarring effect

Alright, a 10-15% eHP buff would be effective, the main reason behind the Hit point buff I suggested is so that heavies can survive 1 Forge gun blast, 2nd forge gun blast is death. While listing in my reasons I also suggested a massive reduction in movement speed, making it so that the heavy if out in the open or not using any cover at all is going to have problems, very slow, very lumbering. Also, your information about the HMG is incorrect about the range values, even if it was buffed up 10m the HMG would not have the same firing range or capacity as a AR, an AR can effectively kill people from over 100 yards away, reference the Duoville Assault Rifle.

The whole point in the build of the heavy I am suggesting is that it does in fact take 2-3 or perhaphs 4 people to kill the heavy, however, the heavy can't move fast, it can't chase and if it is in a bad position it is dead. The whole purpose of such a unit would be crowd control and objective guarding or a heavy push to an objective. Without support these units will die to scouts as they currently do, especially if the scouts are using RE's or shotguns. Also, a heavy machine gun is something in real life that is capable of killing tanks, I am not suggesting that this be a cheap suit, I would actually be insisting on a price increase.

Other counters to the heavy build is, gernades (can't move out of the way), mass drivers (can't move out of the way, can arch shots), sniper rifles (easy head shots), tanks, plasma cannon, Asault Rifle at a distance. The reason the assault rifle would still be better at a distance is because of the included dispersion factor that is left in the HMG, a heavy is basically like a minature tank that can walk, it is even made to look that way.

25%-30% move decrease as the standard, this is a great equalizer, especially when if you are to add additional armor, it's going to get to be hugely slow even if you are spriting someone could walk away from you and be faster then you.

SO MUCH TEXT

Slowing down the heavy anymore will nullify the HP buff. Why bother increasing the HP by only 10-15% when you move slower?

So instead of 1 nade killing you, it'll take 2 nades? Heavies are the ones that suffer most from general spam in this game. Anything that's being spammed, heavies can't dodge. So buffing HP by so little and slowing them down more = the same thing we have now.

2 steps fwd, 2 steps bck.

if you're suggesting heavies need 2-4 to kill, then the HP has to increase by 50-100% AT LEAST. At that kind of HP buff then I can see slower movement speed needed for balance.

Why not just give heavies a passive damage resistance to explosives? say 50-60% still wouldn't stop a remote mine but it'll take nades

Gotta love the lack of care for the heavy coming from CCP. Seriously, just take the class out of the game. Like the dropships and Marauder tanks, just take it out til it's actually useful.

It's pathetic that after a year and a half the heavy class still only has 1 anti infantry weapon specific to its class. DUST is about diversity I was told... LOL! Only diversity in this game is who can spam proto nades the best.

This game is about medium suits + Assault rifles.

Everyone is a slayer. Scout is almost useless, and heavies defending is laughable because they're a proto hipster glorified camper now.

I say it again, heavies will soon become a dinosaur. Extinct and a distant memory. What a joke. From being a feared, and well respected class to being a joke in DUST

Well done.

Yes, I have. And there are people who troll with those things. It's called a HEAVY machine gun. Of course, it's not gonna be easy to use. Big guns never really are, no matter how unrealistic the developers make them.

Absolutely, you have to almost double tab the crouch button but it makes at least playing the heavy viable in many games.

There are many ways to fix some of the issues you mention, heavy being more resistant to small arms fire, or the heavy armor shields better from headshots, etc. I'll leave that to the designers but I assure you, we are always listening (and measuring) to what works in PC and what doesn't, so keep the feedback flowing.

2 posts were not included on this topic, scroll up and read, what I had originally suggested was 25% more armor and shields, along with damage resistance and to balance this a speed decrease. This was also paired up with a power upgrade and range upgrade to the HMG. The topic that is being refernced to is a followup, where a modest 10-15% Ehp buff was suggested and various reasons for disagreement with what I had said.