Heavies and light weapons... Nerf their ability to use the weapons effectively. Problem solved for FOTM heavy scrubs!
Heavies w/HMG need a role and it is CQC king, no they shouldn't 'auto win' in CQC but they should in a 1v1 if both players are equally skilled and it is a straight up shoot out. Why you might ask? Because we suck in every other situation.
Mini Heavies are an exception to this but that is due to their increased speed and therefore more versatile role, the Gal assault can be seen in the same light, they are more versatile than a Heavy. It would make no sense for the Gal Assault to equal the Heavies CQC ability in certain situations AND still have better speed and equipment.
With the nerfs to all other light weapons the HMG should get a reduced range, still king of CQC but really limiting them to only this role which makes the Heavy very situational since the majority of Public maps are large open ground areas. Yes they usually have a compound but quite often it is off to the side with no focus of action going on there. For the true Heavies ,who have spent the vast majority of their SP on the Heavy w HMG/Forge set up, this is really frustrating to have your class made redundant if you decide to stay true with its original intent.
Referring to the problem with not being able to kill Heavies with one RE.... use 2, that is why you have multiple.
Also if a Heavy is hit by an RE and survives + given 5 minutes to rep with without being shot after capturing the point then that means you set up a really bad defense, it doesn't mean the Heavy is OP.
Don't forget Heavies are also getting the Grenade nerf, add that to having no equipment slots means with out regular resupply from teammates Heavies can't effectively clear out areas of RE's and other equipment like every other suit can.
FYI I'm a long time Heavy w/HMG only vet (only scrubs use RR anyways... Regarless of suit
), we've been screwed by CCP long before any assault / light weapon user was and it is nice to see CCP has finally given us some love after many month AR514/Assault514/Logi514 etc but I agree CCP has shown us a bit too much love with 1.8 but this means balancing things not just the lazy way of outright nerfing, look how that turned out for the MD. Too many people don't bother thinking of how to solve a problem and instead just want to make it go away. This mentality is why after so long playing this game we are still dealing with such basic problems.