Heavies should not be entering one on one battles with lighter suits since chances are you'll lose every time unless you get the drop on a poor fool from behind and hit them before they know what's happening.

Heavies, depending on their role, need to be supported by Assaults and logi's to ensure they are around to provide that extra bit of quick fire needed in a gun fight.

To be fair, I haven't played an HMG build this time round, instead concentrating on a Forge Gun anti-vehicle/battery character, and even though I carry an SMG, and can take down enemies with it, I more often lose, if I don't have support to get me out of trouble, just like I can get tanks to roll off objectives for the quicker members to get in there and take it.

The problem is that it's is such a one dimensional class right now - and sort of a swiss army knife since if you put your skills that you would normally put into HMG into SMG you come out ahead. The Boundless breach SMG was only slightly less deadly at mid to close ranges than the Boundless HMG in the last build and now it out classes it by a mile - especially after the slight hipfire buff.

The "brute force" nerf was for the swarm which everyone agreed was broken. The HMG nerf was supposed to be till they could adjust the turn speed on the heavy, which they seemed to do anyway since they turn about 20% slower than other classes.
Honestly the HMG wasn't that overpowered. If they would have just did the overheat nerf and kept the damage the same it would have been sufficient.
As it stands the gun misses about 40% of its shots even at closer ranges making the 33% reduction seem like 66%.

Maybe it's just me, but I actually have the most trouble with HMG equipped heavies. Granted, I've only really engaged them at practically point-blank range, but more often than not I get dismembered by them. Only time I've ever walked away is when I had backup on hand.

So maybe the best solution is one that increases accuracy when engaging from range? It seems to me they don't need any additional firepower up close. Granted I've never played with that setup, so I'm not intimate with the strengths and weaknesses.

I rolled a heavy by randomly choosing race and class and stuff. So I got a rocket launcher and a crappy pistol to start. I found that rather bad and looked around the market.
Bam! A minigun. That, I said to myself, is going to fit perfectly for my heavy suit. A few skillpoints later I was a happy owner of a minigun which I found out doesn't even need a charge-up to shoot. Sweet! - So I thought.
After a much disappointing try to get any kills from range, I figured it's more of a close-quarters ambush facemelting gun. Nope. I still got owned by assault rifles more often than not.
So I tried attacking tanks. Still no luck. Even at medium range this gun cannot reliably hit a damn tank with its accuracy.

By now I've tried multiple heavy guns like the forge, mass, rockets, and so far I'm disappointed. Nothing can match the versatility of ARs.

The movement speed of heavy suits I don't mind. I have enough hitpoints to be happy to move slower. I do mind that no heavy gun is actually good at killing people. Swarms are excellent at swatting down silly militia dropships, but the HMG is meh at shooting people from more than 10 inches away.


My random idea to fix the gun:
If the overheating was too slow and accuracy too good before, why not combine both drawbacks and let player skill balance it out?
Leave the overheating as is, but change the accuracy to increase with temperature. (Instead of counter-weights kicking in to stabilise, say that the alloy expands at higher temperatures and the design is made to operate most efficiently at moderate temperatures.)
What this would mean is HMG accuracy gets a penalty of X if the gun completely cold and a penalty of X again if the gun is almost overheating. With probably the middle-ish temperature range giving players no penalty.
This solves the problem of burst fire in HMG being completely useless and inaccurate.

I personally think it's fine as is.

I do use an AR with a heavy drop suit so might be biased but I also often use an AR with assault drop suit as well because of it's speed and equipment slot for drop uplinks. Both suits have their pro's and cons regardless of the weapon you use. As far as HMG's being under-powered, I don't completely agree. I will admit they might be able to use a very slight boost to damage but honestly any time I face a HMG in CQC I have to fall back or die if they know how to use it. They should suck at range so I think that is fine.

/$0.02

its not a class.... its a suit.... thank you....

so glad this post is here, good work Darky. HMG is broken no doubt, i quite like the increased accuracy with heat up idea mentioned earlier as I feel the over-heating is a fair nerf although a little too quick. It's not just the gun that has me tearing my hair out though, how is it that my 1100 HP's are taken down in 1-2 seconds by a gun (AR) that starts at around 30 HP a hit? We are slow and cumbersome, to kill us should take teamwork and attrition not half a clip! If you see me coming, run away and get your mates, I should not be easy meat one on one and if you run away, I cant kill you! Granted when we can fight with our corp mates (please implement that soon ccp!) we can adopt our more specific roles with support from squad which will help but i do hope we are suitably unnerfed before then.......oh and sort the flippin' AR's out! lol

This is the 4th thread I've seen on this same subject. Yes, it is underpowered or needs to remove the easy overheating. I'd go into a longer explanation but already did so in two other threads.