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.

As for the forge gun... It desperately needs its old reticle back, and the screen shake when charging/charged needs to be more meaningful. It used to be tricky to aim this thing at longer ranges, and now it is far, far, too easy to nail a target spot on. The old shake used to make you miss and the imprecise nature of the reticle prevented you from sniping. Now, I can snipe with this thing all day long. The reduced splash doesn't even matter because I can hit someone 300m away directly in the chest.

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.

As for the forge gun... It desperately needs its old reticle back, and the screen shake when charging/charged needs to be more meaningful. It used to be tricky to aim this thing at longer ranges, and now it is far, far, too easy to nail a target spot on. The old shake used to make you miss and the imprecise nature of the reticle prevented you from sniping. Now, I can snipe with this thing all day long. The reduced splash doesn't even matter because I can hit someone 300m away directly in the chest.

I tried and I could not find you on K/D ratio & Kill list, so you need to have less then 950 kills and 3.12 ratio so whatever you do all day is not a killing.

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

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.

.

They did say in the E3 build change notes that it was a brute force on the nerf and over time they will tweak things etc.

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.

Explain to me why 60.000 years in the future, people need to have a problem with "screen shake" ? "The reduced splash doesn't even matter because I can hit someone 300m away directly in the" ..from the roof at least 20m above him.
I tried and I could not find you on K/D ratio & Kill list, so you need to have less then 950 kills and 3.12 ratio so whatever you do all day is not a killing.

My take on things:

]I extensively played the Heavy and the Scout suit last build (Over 10 million SP just for Heavy Dropsuit and HMG usage, not counting other skills for other things), this build however...

• The nerf to the militia suit is needed, as the Heavy is too much of a critical item to allow it to be that powerful for free.
• The new map naturally is anti-heavy due to the open feel of it, and how powerful ARs are now which will decimate any heavy due to how slow they are (Communication and Biomass had natural hunting ground for heavies that they could stick to).
• The HMG is one of the worst weapons now, if not the worst.

Why the heavy will naturally be at a disadvantage with this build, all of the following is acceptable:

• The open map causes the Heavy to be constantly in the "crossing in the open" syndrome, which means it is an easy target due to the large profile and slow speed.
• The HMG is garbage in an open map, and rightfully so.

My issues with the HMG that need to be addressed:

• The HMG can only be used on the suit with a X8 skill and with a high natural base ISK cost. It also has a 50% higher SP cost for related skills compared to standard weapons. It also has a higher base ISK cost. This means it should be inherently more powerful on a weapon per weapon basis due to requiring a higher investment.
• An HMG is supposed to be able to be used for suppression fire or fully automatic fire, historically and in literally every war and literally every video game, and HMG is not an Assault Rifle nor an SMG.... Period. The current HMG does not act like it should.
• The current HMG needs to be firing for extended periods of time for the reticule to close. Currently however this is not feasible as by the time the aiming reticule closes you are about to overheat and must stop firing. Before it was balanced by you using an excessive amount of ammo to "tighten" your aim in the past build, this current build though you are forced to burst fire with an HMG (which... Is beyond painfully stupid, I'm sorry that I can't word this last point in a polite fashion).
• Your Breach Assault Rifle can fire longer then your Heavy Machine Gun in an extended period of fire... Something is wrong with this. No assault rifle should ever, under any circumstances, be able to sustain automatic fire longer then a heavy machine gun as conceptually this defeats the very purpose of a Machine Gun. This is a major issue.
• It is more viable to use an Assault Rifle with a heavy then it is to use an HMG for anti-personnel purposes and even anti-vehicular due to increased Damage per minute (HMG's superior DPS is not important when you consider how fast it overheats as well as the 8 second reload, mainly the super fast overheat), accuracy and range (Why does the HMG have horrible range?).
• If the HMG is meant to be super-inaccurate then why is the range on it so bad? It should be able to fire just as far as an assault rifle if the reticule is massive as that means either A.) the majority of your shots will miss due to a big reticule or B.) you have to waste an insane amount of ammo (and time which is critical in a firefight which means free shots for the enemy) to tighten your reticule to where you can hit the enemy a decent portion of the time. The old HMG could do medium range combat if it wasted a lot of ammo tightening up, the new HMG can't do this anymore (mainly due to overheating so fast). Regardless range seems a bit short. This is a very minor issue in my opinion, but I figure I should mention everything major and minor.
• Having twice the rate of fire on an assault rifle is worthless when you literally have half of the damage... this means that the HMG will do exactly the same damage as an assault rifle... Why? Also a reminder that it has an 8 second reload and costs more ISK and costs 50% more SP and overheats causing it to do LESS PRACTICAL DPS then an assault rifle, and when counting in the horrible default reticule (even the tight reticule is crap compared) means there is literally no situation that an HMG performs better. Ever. This is a major issue.

I am extremely disappointed that the only point of using a heavy is to use a forge gun now, and that the HMG is useless (literally outperformed in every situation by SMGs and ARs). Heavies should be king in short range and die at long range. Last build the issue was the Militia spam of heavy suits (which your nerf to militia heavies fixed, good job), the HMG was not a real issue as they usually died rather well in the open to ARs or in super close range to Scouts.

I personally suggest an increase in DPS for the HMG to where it outperforms every other weapon in close range while remaining very bad at long range (due to the reticule having to close) and lackluster at medium. Unless the HMG is king at close range, it does not have a purpose in your game. For clarification, the shotgun will still have a purpose as it is better in super-close range due to being able to be mounted on fast, maneuverable suits and costing less SP to use.

I know you're probably new here, but Nova Knife probably has near the most hours of any beta tester in the game, and the most dedicated to testing everything, not just one or two classes.