/me jots this issue down as hands on testing required urgent.

2.7mil SP into SS and yes the HMG had insane range. I have never denied that nor have I disputed any claims that it was a bit excessive.

but the range at SS 6 or 7 was realistic, provided viability and made the game fun. Perhaps even fixing the broken percentages where everything rounded up would have resolved this on its own.

instead, lets just make the HMG and the shotgun the same range.

I'm actually fine with the damage nerf... needed? no not at all, but with the HP buff (and in honesty its not much of a buff compared to the shield variant before, its just now SLOWER and has 1 more slot on the right) it creates more imbalance.

the range is what made the heavy fun. was it a little over the top before? sure... and so was the laser, AR and pretty much everything... but their was BALANCE

honestly if they had a sharpshooter skill for heavies that increased range, i would be interested to see where it would max out with the current effective range...

few realize that cause no one in their right mind would skip over at least a couple levels of SS as early as possible

I had mine at SS Prof 3. It was beautiful.

Yea I was on 4. I worked on that before working on HMG Prof. Range was more important to my playstayle than damage.

:( CCP nerfed both lol

I actually put all of my close to 10 mil into the heavy class, even though knowing what had been discussed before this build... and what can I say, after playing several hours, I can't change my class now, Im stuck with the heavy, so I guess I will just... wait for better days? =P

Okay finally got the game to download....

First off, heavies are okay they seem to take a metric tonne of firepower to kill vs other suits. Even the militia fits.

The heavy machine gun however...

I don't know wtf happened between here and fanfest but whoever replaced the HMG with a water hose needs to be sorry.
Overall the range of the gun works still it can engage across the road just like before in chromosome, its just the damage is so badly tuned down its incapable of killing only 2 people pre reload as to opposed to 4-6 people in the previous build. I am not sure about how many people you guys normally down on a reload but I am speaking as a basic HMGer from Chomosome.

To further my belief the game is absolutely broken ran into a sentinel full proto suit and gun 3 yards.
By all accounts I should have died. Not only did I survive but i out-survived him and two of his other buddies trying to kill me. Unfourtunately the HMG vs HMG match had to end with me swapping to SMG and downing his two friends and a grenade. He then came back around the corner with more guys and finished my squad off.

and whoever is bishing about the Plasma Rifle range needs to STFU, they're capable of reaching 50% of some maps and that's decently far.

Recommendations:
Increase Damage to fan fest build levels.
Bring back Fan Fest blap effect
Increase Speed to Accuracy Cap
Add sharpshooter skill (lower dispersion)

started out with great info, then zitro commented and it all went to hell

As an attacker, right now it's too easy to shrug off the hits and close the gap between yourself and the person wielding the HMG

I don't usually play heavy but I put an alt's 1.5m SP into it, focusing on heavy frame, advanced HMG, maxed armor passives.

Other than the SP sink issue which is covered in more detail elsewhere, the main issue is that nobody is intimidated by the HMG anymore. A major part of the HMG user's survivability, in my opinion, was that the HMG scared the kitten out of people. Firing an HMG into a crowd would break up the crowd, making it possible to pick off the individuals. Firing an HMG down a hallway emptied the hallway.

I tear into a crowd of guys with the HMG now (and I don't rambo in, I'm typically a support player and an experienced nova knifer, so I understand the cautious approach) and they respond by murdering me. Hell, I fire at once guy and he'll still have a shot at taking me on with his AR by sprinting out of range (he has time to do this because my gun is awful) and firing at me. Is he backing up faster than I can approach? It seems that I can be quite effectively kited like this.

I've been on both ends of an HMG since Uprising started and there are horrifyingly few situations where the HMG user comes out on top.

That's odd.

Is that 20m as seen from the target intel info on-screen? I double-checked the curves like five minutes ago and they're definitely 30m for optimal range.

I'll investigate further.

Well after the second page here I quit reading all the whining. I've specced into a Heavy with all my skills and yes I have to say Heavies with HMG's aren't the feared beasts they once were, but they can still kick ass.
For example, last time we couldn't get pass a certain point due to a squad of 4 players behind a rock tearing all the non-heavies to shreds. So what did I? I threw a cooked flux grenade, (because every HMG user should carry those to get rid of pesky shields ) made a sprint behind the rocks they hided and just mow them down. It's all about tactics still.
Oh, and the Forge Gun is still doing fine, so maybe try sniping with the forge guns more often? Once you can snipe little dots up on a hill you feel mighty!

Please don't take this as me being snarky, but you guys do know that the HMG dispersion get tighter the longer you fire it, right?

movement speed is down as the "shield" varient is gone and so is their movement bonus.

For tracking consider this a bug report, or that its become more aparent in this build. I played heavy the entire beta, I can not keep my recitle on target.

At range spread forces you to look down the sights, which cant keep on anyone not walking. closer... it seems the fluidity of aiming slows directiion change, and/or causes over shooting.



Dispertion gets tighter... Kick goes up too

So the HMG is a sidearm now

you can't fire while strafe sprinting...

focus guys we have a dev paying attention. try not to get sidetracked and give the man as much info as you can. I need to go to bed. 4am debating balance in DUST. I really am an irredeemable nerd.

Theres more to it than that, its not JUST optimals, or damage, or whatever, its eveything at once. range has effected spread, that has effected dmg, that has effected tracking, that has effected speed, that has effected range...

As a medium frame user, I can attest to the uselessness of the heavy. As the scrambler rifle is days away, I am running only Starter fits and the Dragonfly + Militia AR. I have been able to take down many advanced heavies by easy headshots at what should be their optimal range. With the hard cap on their range, you can just stand there and tease them as they shoot marshmallows at you. While its all fun now, its not fair to the heavy users.

I can only imagine what its like when these same heavies go against someone who has a built suit and a good AR. I agree with what most people are saying.. keep the range numbers where they are now, buff the damage and adjust the kick/spread so they arent constantly working against each other.

Is this the case in all weapons? because the laser rifle lost alot of damage as well and gained a faster heat build and larger feedback with the crappiest sights I have ever seen. Drop the iron sights and get us a new targeting system. No reason for a laser to have the sights of a WW1 weapon. Should be integrated into the suit or something with how much feedback damage it does to us.

Understood, but it seems that the issue is that the kick and spread are working against each other here. That as the spread tightens, the kick increases. I may be wrong here as Im not a HMG user (others can confirm).

I think that there needs to be a balance to the HMG. Either it starts off solid and gets wilder as you spray or the opposite. All I know is that I shouldnt be able to easily take down an ADV Heavy/HMG with a Militia BPO and no skills in AR in a stand-up fight. I agree with CCP in that we need more specialization to make this game shine but the HMG is too specialized right now and is only viable in very unique situations.

I'm ready to hear from someone who has tried the heavy with a good laser. I was thinking that may be a good way to be the point defense man. Camp objective woth laser and smg and grenades

Yeah... right now only the Amarr heavy frame model is complete. In Uprising we've started pushing all the suits more into specific race profiles, but of course when you're missing 75% of the other frame options you're bound to have some balance holes. The Caldari, Minmatar and Gallente heavy frames are coming, but not as soon as we'd all like.

To that point though, how would you guys like us to approach that? Would you want Type-IIs and more sidegrade variants to tide you over until the other suits come online? (Even knowing that we'll probably retire them once the others arrive?)

Master J I respect that to the fullest but right now there is no real heavy

lol, real heavies are broke SoB's


as i don't intend to throw my money away on a broken PoS, i am now using my skinweave heavy with basic **** till something is done to improve said heavies

We are forgetting the most important part here, is that the HMG is not fixed, we need the HMG to be able to perform our job, be it as a defender or as an attacker.

We need the HMG restored to Chromosome stats, that was really balanced

try heavy AR. its pretty beasty, use the toxin on pesty scouts. i dont even bother aiming. fire a full clip reload. repeat til ur outta ammo. uprising blows

You actually have to go a little a head of them, just a tad, if they're moving. Otherwise if they're not mostly in your circle your going to miss a lot.

yeea. It's a dance with L1 cuz DOOM mode sucks. It slows down the turn speed too much, so it's a constant battle between ADS and not ADS. Annoying when there's multiple targets.

I did some test for range a week ago and tested this too. I noticed that (when the enemy isn't moving at all), if you aim dead center, you will hit pretty good, even though you can notice some misses.

If the center of the reticle is just outside of the target, but he is still completely inside the reticle. You get way less hit. about 20-30%, but I really can't say, since it was a corp mate. I would need to try it with FF to get better results, like recording fire duration until death. All due to our great dispersion of bullet.

I thought this thread died, look like not .

I am the only one thinking they haven't fix much? HMG got a 5% buff to dmg and 5% reduction to dispersion. Something else is wrong. I guess it's range....oh yeah, that is the first thing we pointed out...

I also notice that our HMG is now more................ accurate ? In fact, I noticed it ever since the start of Uprising. While our reticle is still a one big ass circle as ever, our bullets aren't spreading that much, especially if you hold the trigger for awhile. Our storm of bullet is deadly accurate. They go right at center of our screen except........we don't have a proper reticle there. This sound like a good thing but I can see a newbie struggling with it and The OPness in the hand of veteran. So I'm not quite sure if this is for the good of the weapon itself. I do prefer my bullets to spread out evenly all over my reticle to limited its usage over long range rather than an artificial range limit we currently have. But I will leave it to CCP decision.

suppression heavy weapon

holy wall of text batman, it's still alive?!?!

Yeah, and every scrub in the game will go heavy too (not trying to say you are a scrub). The game will go from AR514 to HeavyScrubPackingAGLU/DTAR514. Heavies should be deathspitting bollards of Doom, not bulky Assault suits.

you think i dnt know how to play heavy? i have 5 million SP put into heavies and heavy gear. i use everything from the standard to the proto gear. i use cover, i use tactics, i work with my squad. but in all the areas my heavy is supposed to excel here comes a logi or assault that can do it better. im asking for buffs to balance the suit.

exactly my point. and all though the HMG can sustain fire longer it over heats and has an 8 sec reload (which of course would balance it , if the weapon itself didnt already suck so hard)

smg has a 2.5-3sec reload, with an 80 round clip and does way more damage per shot.


ranage is what makes the HMG better than the SMG, but its slight because the range was nerfed hard. nonetheless, a secondary should never be superior to a primary.


and no one, can reasonably say that a SMG should have more damage per shot than an HMG. the SMG is suposed to be the pocket sized version of the hmg.

As you've just said, this appears to be the place to ask about the HMG...

I've started messing around with some MLT Hvy HMG in Ambush and OMS, at least until they release the remaining suits.
Mostly using the Asslt version for that bit more range (not killing many people, but I am racking up the Assists)

I understand there's a "spin up" time on the HMG when dispersion is higher. Do any of you more experienced Hvys have numbers or a feeling of how long this actually takes?
I'm trying to get out of the habit of bursting weapons to keep the dispersion/spread down so it's a bit counterintuitive. Just wondering if I shouldn't be firing less than a second (for example), if I want to actually get some "accurate" fire.