With crap for range and crap for accuracy it's supposed to be a mid to mainly close range weapon right?

In a game where any given map is at least 80-90% open field where any other weapon with better range and accuracy can simply shred you before they're even in your range?

Add in the fact that thanks to pitiful per shot damage you're expected to keep a lock on enemies who thanks to horrible movement mechanics can jerk back and forth bouncing off the walls ensuring that you can't even drop their shields as they drop grenades on you?

I always see people saying "Well you have to play defensively!" How exactly? Hide behind that one stack of crates over by the objective? Stick with other players where the slow moving guy that can't fire back yet totally isn't the easy target?

As I've played I haven't seen that many HMG users, I'd always figured it was people shying away from the extra investments needed to unlock heavy armors and weapons, but it's more because anyone that gets tricked into believing there's any actual balance in this game sadly goes back to using an assault rifle build and eats the lost SP isn't it?

ARs and the HMG need to trade range falloffs to be honest. Phased plasma shouldn't be getting more incidental damage than projectile ammunition.

Heavy + HMG :
Pros
- HMG okay Damage output (around 650)
- High HP, around 1500 if equipped with 2 complex shield extender and 3 complex plates).
Cons
-slow suit(easy target)
-big hitbox(easy target)
- HMG dispersion
- Low range
- Bigger scanning profile
- Slow turning speed
- Need a logi repairer, or repair module instead of plates
- Definately can't strafe
- rarely achieve headshot with most bullets
- Can't carry anything
- Can't jump

Assault/Logi + AR :

Pros
- AR and TAR good DPS, 360 DPS and let say around 700 DPS for guy that can click fast enough.
- Medium-High HP, around 800-900 if equipped with 4-5 complex shield extender
- fast
- can Strafe with ease.
- Can carry equipment, which mean nanites, scanners, nanohives, droplink
-medium hit box
-higher headshot bonus
- Can aim (with a sight)
- Long range
- Jump well enough to go over barriers

Cons...
-Less speed than scout
-Less HP than heavy


Help me here,because I have no kitten clue what else. I know i run heavy so my analysis might be a bit wrong, but I don,t mind people adding to this.

lol

*sigh*... people and their judging of weapons in pub games against noobs. This community will NEVER learn. Thanks to CCP's data collecting in pubs, they saw how easy it was too mow down noobs using militia suits running straight at heavies, so they thought a nerf was needed.

People need to think OUTSIDE THE BOX. People don't pub 24/7 against noobs who don't know their arse from their elbow, and it's only when you play against good people you'll see how WEAK the class is.

I personally have always wanted the Heavy class to be a CQC nightmare. I think the Heavy should be a class that has one dominating strength and multiple weaknesses. It should be a juggernaut that excels at close range and destroys everything, but it should be a class that is completely worthless at mid to long range. That would be the trade-off for having such lethal ability at close range. I would also give HMGGÇÖs insane power and burn up. I have always been annoyed that CCP has allowed this pitiful burn up mechanic to exist and it allows any scrub heavy to hold the trigger down to get kills. Heavy should be a skillful class that is a high risk and high reward weapon. Maxing out HMG operation should not mean that you never burn up and in fact the burn up should be incredible to the point that you have to grab level 5 in order to somewhat control it. I also would significantly increase the turning speed of the Heavy because itGÇÖs a joke right now. I have seen rail guns turn faster. Heavy should be a class that you have to strategically place in order for it to be effective and it should require patience from those that use it.

To those that want heavy to be used from a defensive position. Be careful what you wish for because if CCP goes ahead and gives suppression mechanics to heavies then youGÇÖre in for a rude awakening. I come from BF3 and while suppression is great in concept itGÇÖs terrible in practice. Think of the suppression a Mass driver inflicts and multiply it by 10 because that is what a HMG will do if given suppression mechanics. If you think spray and pray was annoying now wait until a HMG kills you because a Heavy is literally holding down the button with 425 bullets of suppression fury.

Even CCP said that Heavy's were meant to be point defense guys.

Please - accept the guy's helpful advice

Can one of the people yelping about "its a defensive weapon" explain what the fundamental difference between attacking and defending is. If i can't put people down while attacking how do i suddenly gain the ability to kill them if the objective near me is blue. If an enemy can strafe step around me while im attacking what changes when im defending. Is the hit deyection different around base you have captured? Is there a damage bonus? We have the largest radar sig so if we are defending we will show up earlier then any other suit so its not like we can suprise the enemy.
Also i have only seen the devs talk about how the sentinel suit was designed for a defensive role can some one provide a link to where the devs say the hmg is a defensive weapon.
Lastly if the weapon isn't leathal how can it be used as a supressive weapon, as some people say it is supposed to be. If tue enemy isnt n danger of dying they will just ignore and or kill you.

You misread. I put the "intended" in there intentionally. They were always meant for a defensive role.

@Billy

In a defensive situation, you get to control exactly where you fight. The enemy don't. They come to you instead of you going to them. If you're a heavy, you dictate exactly where you meet the assaults. If you're smart, that would be in CQC. Also, when playing defensively, you don't run across 20m of open ground.

defensive

And you're wrong again. The removal of sharpshooter forced the HMG into a defensive role. Before it was a versatile suit / class. Able to attack and defend, which EVERY class should be able to do, as that is a very basic aspect of a FPS.

But people with your mentality are happy to force a class into 1 role and call that a day. The range nerf to all weapons hurt the HMG the most cuz without it, heavies are stuck camping. That's fun for people? Camping a room?

Plus this defensive role you speak of, it's also followed by another one I laugh at... the "support role". Support and defend what exactly? A 10-15m radius? lol

Forcing roles into a class is a sure way to see people move away from it... like many have done already.

Kay, let's see. High HP, check. Low speed, check. What does that equal? A low mobility heavy weapons platform. That's its description, no? Its anti-personnel main weapon of choice is short range. No one can argue with that. Coupled with the low mobility, this means that it needs the enemy to come to it. Is there any fault with that logic? This automatically means defensive role. I can't see how you can't think that through. I'm not forcing the heavy suit into a role, that IS its role. Give it an AR and it still won't be able to keep up with an assault suit, simply because the assault suit is more mobile, and can trick the heavy user when running around cover (e.g. a shipping container-type thing) to pop round behind him.

Sure, you can play your heavy like that, but that's not his best role. Just like a scout's best role is not to take out tanks. Or an assault's best role is not to support the team.

It's really quite simple - the heavy's best role, the role it exceeds at, is defensive play. You CAN play it offensively, but you're much better off playing assault for that. You CAN use it to snipe, but it's a waste of the suit. You CAN use it with a shotgun, but it's effectively useless like that.

Again, I'm not forcing the suit into a role, I'm simply stating THAT'S WHAT'S IT'S BEST AT.

I see a flaw and experienced players stop me if it's incorrect. If a heavy's sole purpose is to defend, do they wait for their team to take an objective until they can actually perform their jobs? If so, that means that all heavy specialized players should just wait in the MCC until they have an objective to defend. The problem becomes noticed if the team is unable to take an objective and must attack the for the duration of match. I suppose that it's accepted that since the heavy cannot help you attack, they can freely sit in the MCC until the team does grab that objective or gets redlined, in which case, the heavy we never need to leave the MCC. CCP claims the heavy is only for defending as well so that implies CCP expects the heavy soldier to remain in the spawn point if there is no objective to defend. That seems logical to me.

If you are a heavy, you do this; sit in the MCC until you are able to defend something. If someone complains, you tell them you're job is not to attack, it is to defend.


CCP caters to all classes but not the heavy. They gave the assault and logistics drop suits that can mass up to or more than1k total armor and shield to match the heavy. I have a corp mate that has 600 shield, 400 armor and a GLU TAC because the minmatar assault has 5 high slots and 4 low slots. He can do the defensive job of a heavy much better as he has only 100 less hp than I do and he can actually kill other players while still keeping much better mobility than my heavy. The assault really can do the job of a heavy better.


They gave snipers plenty of open spaces and a redline close to the action so they cannot be flanked nearly as easily and a buff to sniper rifles dmg.

They only took from the heavy. I don't know anything they actually gave the heavy suit. Thanks CCP!

Realistically. the HMG should have the stats it had in Replication.

Do I know you?

i personally dont care about the sprint speed as much as i do the turn speed. i dont see why slow overall movement has to effect how quickly we can change the direction we are facing, tbh.

sick to death of every weapon doing more dmg than the hmg. boundless does 19.8 (thats the proto HMG for those of u that didnt know) while submachine guns do what, 22? but with no dispersion.

honestly, with the duvolle doing 77dmg (not QQ about AR dmg as much as im QQing about HMG dmg here) why in the hell is the hmg dmg so low?
balance? thats not balance. thats crippling a gun (and user) from doing his intended role. minimum range and crazy bullet spread, so that 2000rps really doesnt mean too much, does it?

the range from the last build (i dont remember wut the dmg was, so i wont comment on that) was ideal for our role, even with the slow turn speed.

some of u ppl are worried about the heavy being a game dominator or some ish. well, lemme tell ya...if u cant figure out how to kill a walking heavy, then u need to get killed by its HMG.
point defender, area denial, CQC, frontal assault support......those are the roles of heavies. thats wut we are supposed to b good at.
not even barely adequate, tbh. and its not the suit (although i would love having a equipment slot so i can carry uplinks. yaknow, being a point defender and all. jus sayin) its the effin gun. our options are limited as is, so make the HMG what it should be.

/rant

I think the heavy should be at a significant advantage in a CQB, I don't think the game should simply give them the kill on a silver platter.

Some of the buffs you guys are proposing would do exactly that.

here are the problems with a HMG Heavy as I see it
It takes an hour to punch through shields...seriously why?
Assaults and Logis can stack mods to get Armor/Shields really close to a Heavy if not any higher. That is just unacceptable. They are essentially a Heavy without the trade offs of one.
Heavy has no "High risk high reward" feeling to it. Heavies should be fearded CQB fighters in the heat of the battle but instead they made Heavy stuff so expensive that you prefer to sit back and do point defense. Before you tell me "ZOMG DAT IS HEVY'S ROOLE ONLY DEFEND1!1!! HTFU STAHP QQ'ING" I thought CCP wanted us to be able to have a ton of customization options, no? that seems to be the case with every suit...well except Heavies. I'm actually fine if Heavy+HMG is meant to be a primarily CQB point defense thing but If HMG is indeed a weapon that excels at short-mid range than why make turn speed on Heavies so slow? did CCP forget that we need to track our targets?
Why the dps of ARs is very similar to the dps of HMG in HMG's optimal range?! when are we going to have optimal ranges on weapons? I'm not talking about the stupid "hard cap" range, I'm talking about a mechanic that allows us to do more damage close up. I don't know how to explain it, but HMG needs to be more effective than an ordinary AR or SMG in CQB.

Balancing on range is CCPs core problem with the weapons. That we're talking about the range of projectile weapons and saying things like "20m" or "30m" is patently ridiculous....but people forget and get blinders on. I had them on for a while too.

What you say is correct. These weapons should all have the same total range. There is no damage falloff needed, as weapon handling should be the mitigating factor (an HMG kicking like a mule will prevent the weapon from being highly effective at range).

Attempting to balance on range throws every other attribute of all weapons off.

here are the problems with a HMG Heavy as I see it
It takes an hour to punch through shields...seriously why?
Assaults and Logis can stack mods to get Armor/Shields really close to a Heavy if not any higher. That is just unacceptable. They are essentially a Heavy without the trade offs of one.
Heavy has no "High risk high reward" feeling to it. Heavies should be fearded CQB fighters in the heat of the battle but instead they made Heavy stuff so expensive that you prefer to sit back and do point defense. Before you tell me "ZOMG DAT IS HEVY'S ROOLE ONLY DEFEND1!1!! HTFU STAHP QQ'ING" I thought CCP wanted us to be able to have a ton of customization options, no? that seems to be the case with every suit...well except Heavies. I'm actually fine if Heavy+HMG is meant to be a primarily CQB point defense thing but If HMG is indeed a weapon that excels at short-mid range than why make turn speed on Heavies so slow? did CCP forget that we need to track our targets?
Why the dps of ARs is very similar to the dps of HMG in HMG's optimal range?! when are we going to have optimal ranges on weapons? I'm not talking about the stupid "hard cap" range, I'm talking about a mechanic that allows us to do more damage close up. I don't know how to explain it, but HMG needs to be more effective than an ordinary AR or SMG in CQB.

You are so wrong it's comical.

Judging from my experience actual accuracy only effects CQC. If you care to go back a couple pages and read my posts you will see why HMGs are not meant for CQC. HMGs should be the absolute best area denial weapon in the game.

As i stated earlier the HMG values for maximum and effective range need to be increased to 20% more than the AR. Our damage should be increased to somewhere between the SMG and AR. It should probably stay closer to the SMG maybe 1 point more. I'll also add that the time it takes to spin up should be slightly reduced. As it stands now we are 1/4 of the way through 1 reload by the time we have enough accuracy to be effective. By this time 1/3 of our HP is usually gone and we haven't killed anyone yet.

At least that usually my experience.

@ Sofa
I have only played 1 PC battle, and it was way to laggy to judge HMG performance. I don't feel like this totally disqualified me from judging what the HMG really needs as long as I remain humble about it, and try to apply some (un)common sense.

I do see your point though. Pubs are full of randoms running around haphazardly like this is a twitch shooter.

Hmg is fine it need that hard stop dmg to increase and the turn speed is a lil to slow thats it dmg and everythibgis good

This thread says your drunk

https://forums.dust514.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=40886&find=unread

Duvolle Assault Rifle
Max Range: 71m (-16)
Optimal Range: 1 - 42m (+3)
Meta: 8

Boundless HMG
Max Range: 54m (-11)
Optimal Range: 1-33m (-5)
Meta: 8

Flux grenades work really, really nice with HMG. Especially if you have 2-3 reds clustered together.

Just a friendly tip.

So you are a master with it even though you havent specced it? Obviously its not easiest thing in the game to use or everyone would be using it. And what do kills have to do with my comment? pretty sure I never said anything about kills, I do just fine. You must have been on the business end one too many times and are butthurt about it.

Heavy Machine Guns are not CQC weapons. Thats what SMGs are for.

Heavy machine gun definition: The heavy machine gun or HMG is a larger class of machine gun generally recognized to refer to two separate stages of machine gun development. The term was originally used to refer to the generation of machine guns which came into widespread use in World War I. These fired standard rifle cartridges such as the 7.92 Mauser, .303 British or 7.62+ù54mmR, but featured heavy construction, elaborate mountings, and water-cooling mechanisms that enabled long-range sustained automatic fire with excellent accuracy.

SubMachinegun Definition: A submachine gun (SMG) is an automatic carbine, designed to fire pistol cartridges.[1] It combines the automatic fire of a machine gun with the cartridge of a pistol and have poor accuracy past 50m.

"hey this the future don't compare Dust to modern day"... Unless we aren't using english in DUST it applies. These are definitions not comparisons. This is what it is to be in these category of weapon. As it stands the HMG is just a SMG with a big clip...

Also you're not your (of course this could mean you don't understand english...in which case quit skipping summer school to play)

Im shotgunner, never see something more easy than killing an AR fatty, the one who killing me more than anything is a good HMG user,

With what numbers? What numbers could I possibly use? Should I change how much damage you say it does from in game just to prove no point? What's wrong about your math is your idea of dispersion. How much damage does an HMG actually do when you turn a corner and someones there turning that corner too? You're turning a situational weapon into a do - all. That's wrong.

You're a bad heavy wanting to OP us - stop it. It's because people cried like this pre-chromosome that we got buffed finally in chromosome then got nerfed to hell in uprising when too many people could no skill destroy with it.

And NONE of the good heavies have agreed with you - only randoms I've never heard of. The only thing consistent with agreement with you are range buffs and turn speed.

I'd pwn every heavy in this thread btw. ;)

HMG does not need a damage buff - period.

So, look. Your heart is in the right place. But your solution:



Does not do anything for "suppression" whatsoever. All it does is make the HMG stupidly overpowered in CQC, which it is already good at.

You are overly focused on damage, and not on DPS. More than that, you're focused on raw damage, and not damage at range. HMG already murders at optimal. It already kills crowds at optimal. What it needs is to sting at 30-40m, instead of doing laughable damage at that range. Then you'll have the suppression we are all looking for.

In any case, tomorrow should be interesting. I have a feeling this thread is going to grow by another 5-10 pages over the next week, given 1.2's changes to range...