Let's be honest, everyone expected the FG to be nerfed, and to be frank, I think I was one of the few people to hear it first in the DUST chat that was up. CPM Nova mentioned it will be nerfed against infantry months before it did. I got into a little argument about it because they're taking away the heavy's ability to engage at range, but he said CCP won't do it till heavies get a weapon to compensate for it (paraphrasing).
So here we are. 2 nerfs to the FG. Against infantry and against vehicles, and not a single buff to the heavy class other than that joke of an HP buff which tbh could have been 10 HP because in reality, that's as much as that 150 HP is worth on a battlefield.
The CauseHeavies not having a viable weapon to engage targets at range. I'm not talking about the rooftop campers, I'm talking about the many heavies that switched to FGs because they found the HMG utter trash. People started to run around with the FG like a shotgun, and some found success, some found high ground, and some found rooftops with dropships.
So because of the weakness of the HMG, and lack of ANY viable heavy weapon to engage targets at range, FGs got overused against infantry.
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EffectHaving received 2 nerfs to their ranged weapon, and not getting a single buff that means anything, heavies are now switching to using their suit with an AR / Scr. Whether this class is good or not is up for debate, and completely besides the point anyway. Heavies skilled into the suit to use heavy weapons, which ironically and funny enough, there's only been 2 such weapons for nearly 2 years now.
By doing this I've seen a couple threads pop up with people complaining about heavies using ARs. People called for the nerf on FGs but now complaining about heavies using an AR to try and get range?
I hope people see that CCP caused this nerf on the class. They gave the HMG really poor dmg output (reasons could be due to lost dispersion via a pixel to aim with), and a shockingly short range for a weapon that's suppose to be "crowd control" and a "suppression" weapon. Heavies that wanted range to their game by using another heavy weapon used the FG, people complained, and it got nerfed... just like the HMG got nerfed from Chromosome to Uprising.
What's next for the heavy class? I'm really curious as to how this class can get any worse.
TL;DR: HMG is poop > people used the FG for power > people complained > FG got a double nerf > lolheavies