Honestly go for Laser Rifle or Mass Driver (lvl 1 minimum)

Also although Hyper Expensive, get that shield control up. Type II's are seven times better with Lvl 5 Shield Control (Factor of better'ness not verified)

Feeling somewhat noob-ish for asking, what would the point of LR or MD on a Heavy be? :x

The following is what I have currently. Not too sure what would be most beneficial to me at the time being; was personally thinking shield control IV or shield boost systems V. Any suggestions?

V; field mechanics, weaponry, circuitry
IV; combat engineering, shield boost systems
III; dropsuit command, shield control, shield enhancements, HMG operation, armor repair systems
II; amarr heavy dropsuit, profile dampening, sensor upgrades, heavy weapon rapid reload, heavy weapon sharpshooter, sidearm sharpshooter, forge gun operation, armor upgrades
I; grenadier, heavy weapon capacity, heavy weapon upgrade

To be different and use something unused then make it look good. And Heavy LR are actually pretty decent set up.

I stumbled across a long shadowed secret of Scouts with Armor plates...I KNOW....armor tanking a scout? But I discovered that some of the more counter intuitive or unused fittings work wonders but just go against mainstream thought. Give the oddball fittings a try. You might become the first to make Mass Driver Heavy look good.

WELL if we're just gonna go crazy then you could also get a bunch of ranks in assault rifles and swarm launchers!

I'll post my current fit in, for some food for thought. I'm not much more advanced than you, hell I might be a bit worse, but I thought we could exchange tips and fittings.

EDIT: These are only the skills relevant to my fits.

Level 5s : Circuitry, HMG Operation, Weaponry, Field Mechanics.
L4s: Shield Enhancements, Shield Boost systems
L3s: Armor Repair Systems, Shield Control, HMG Proficiency,DS command
L2s: Heavy DS, combat engineering, Heavy Sharpshooter.

In addition, I'll post my three main fits:

(Cheap) Tank.
Heavy Type II
2x Complex Shield extenders
1x Enhanced Armor rep
Toxin SMG
Militia Locus
Regular HMG.

Avereges at 45k per fit, a nice decent fit.

2. Expensive tank.
Virtually the same, replace HMG with boundless. 150k per fit.

3. DPS
Type II
2x Complex Heavy Damage mod
1x Basic CPU upgrade
Six Kin Burst HMG
Toxin SMG
Militia Locus.

This bad boy racks up 1300 DPS within the burst, allowing you to kick ass and chew bubblegum. However, she doesn't have any rep and weak shields, so make sure your token Logi is holding your hand when you use it. 208k per fit.

(Note, I was stretching the limit of the Type II's fitting here. I like a sidearm when using the burst, because it burns through ammo. As a result, I picked up CPU upgrades I for 12k SP to put a basic CPU on it.)

My plans for SP:
Heavy DS levels 3 and 4
Grenadier
Shield Control 4 and 5
Armor Repair systems 4 and 5

Heavies aren't very PG dependant, so comb engin. Can wait for a little bit. All grenades, ect will have to wait for me a bit, because even at circuitry 5 I can't fit much more on this type 2. Granted I could go HW upgrade but it seems more beneficial to just get the better suit, having more overall power and the extra low slot.

Really good call on the cheap suit. For whatever reasoning I never thought of running the same setup but with a basic HMG because lately I've been straining a bit on money in case of multiple mad games in a row. The others are virtually the same as what I have set up with the only exception being I run a MH-82 in place via my lack of HMG V and I don't have access to Complex Shield Extenders yet, either.

If you also run forge guns on occasion like I do (Manus Peak exclusively, really) I stick with the same stuff but throw on a Assault Forge Gun and play very cautiously unless they're being overly defensive.