That goes for melees attacking tanks as well. Keep your eyes open and you will find yourself TKed less often.

More specifically Las cannon lasers and demo tacticals. If I see any of these I just walk away. Not worth getting blown up

Thanks for your feedback. I like HB too but for me soppression is not working atm. I got killed faster than usual. Keep hide and support at mid/long range is better but lag force me to use tactical some days

Good feedback Forgim, and thanks for taking the care to format your thoughts as you have.

My own experiences parallel yours to a noticeable degree:
-Assaults that come roar in up the front and survive.
-Getting sniped for being stationary.
-Death by lag.
-Being late to the party on offense.

Beyond that I have no particular commentary to offer, and wonder how the equivalent Eldar heavy weapons role will feel.

Happy Holidays.

I agree with most your other stuff.

The Bolt Pistol should be the answer to the dilemma of getting into CQC, at least for those times you are in CQC. The design of both the HB weapon and Dev/Hav classes should make the HB ineffective in CQC. That means you should want to change to your Bolt Pistol when you expect to be engaging in CQC. At all other times, your HB should be your go to weapon.

For comparison, Assaults are given ranged weapons so they can fight enemies at range. Sure, they may be ineffective at dealing with long-range fights but that is their intended design; they are supposed to be most effective in close/melee range.

The HB Dev experience is staying at medium/long ranges to make use of the range of the HB. You do not have to go into a place as you can find a good spot outside to kill the enemies trying to move on that location, murdering them before they even reach it and draw you into CQC. Of course, if you do end up in CQC, you should pull out your Bolt Pistol.

So much this. I am totally in favor of the artificial suppression of the HB being reduced/removed in favor of granting it the naturally suppressive power it should have.

Spoiler

I.E.
Tactical Marine: 66.8 Armor, 40 HP.
Devastator: 83.5 Armor, 40 HP.
Bolter damage, firing rate: 13.6, 0.225-sec.
H.Bolter damage, firing rate: 17(Armor)/18.7(HP), 0.2-sec.

After 1.125-sec the Tac has landed 6 shots for 81.6 damage, dropping the Dev's Armor to 1.3.
After 1.2-sec the Dev has landed 7 shots for a total of 125.4 damage, dropping the Tac's Armor/HP to 0.

They removed the wind-up time for the HB...
The wind-up should have been left, while the HB's accuracy should be improved. Higher accuracy weapons are actually less effective in close-quarters because you must be more precise with your shots against a target that is moving comparatively more quickly than if they were further away.

The wind-up would reduce its effectiveness when firing in close/on the move but its accuracy should still allow one to kill an uncovered target quite well. Aiming should brace the Dev/Hav where they are and reduce their recoil to improve their accuracy.

That last part is what the HB needs i think too. HB is my favourite class and due to where it is now i find myself jumping ship to other more effective support classes cough* Apoth cough*. There are far too few areas that the HB seems useful unless you set up. The other thing that would be nice is that they would remove the one or two steps your character takes after you stop moving in any direction. I can think of no other class that affects more then the HB (pssst give the las guys their boltpistol already, after i take out a tank i may as well commit sepukku at this point).

I honestly think Dev/Hav heavy weapons should possess good all-around accuracy(I.E. the Bolter's accuracy changes little/none between hip-firing and aiming), while press/holding the aim key when wielding any heavy weapon would Brace you in place, zooming in and reducing recoil so as to improve accuracy(without directly altering accuracy) but causing you to remain stationary. With that mobility limitation, it should be perfectly fine for BHVR to remove the wind-down/extra-step Dev/Havs are forced to take.

Even without aiming, players(with heavy weapons) should be able to reliably hit targets(I.E. 1 out of 2 shots) even up to ~72-meters away, only really making use of aim against anything further than that(or if going for head shots) so as to soft counter their own mobility limitations.

Of course, when a player is moving their recoil should be increased with standing still being the default recoil, while crouching or firing from cover as well as aiming decrease recoil(crouch or cover + aim = least recoil).

Further, the player's reticle/screen could sway when moving(regardless of class and weapon equipped), with the sway amount based upon their weapon's recoil value(I.E. while a LC should technically have no recoil it should have a recoil value causing screen sway and throwing off player accuracy when moving). The screen sway should also help add to the heavy feel of characters, while classes with less weapon recoil(I.E. Eldar) would have less sway degree(with increased frequency due to their increased move speed) and feel less heavy/more quick.

Hmm interesting. Animation I find has a lot to do with conveying things to players as well and by no means are the current anims bad (it's alpha so durr) Have a lot more to say on the subject but am pressed for time atm. So i'll save it for another post but I like the way this discussion is going.

I've just had a run of very Not-Fun matches that, to me, highlights the high-level problems with the Heavy Bolter implementation as it stands. I present no detailed issues, nor suggestions for improvement at this time. These two has been discussed to death. I just want to restate these issues in compact form, and ask if anyone else is experiencing these same issues.

• I struggled to present a credible threat. At no point was I a deterent to front-on attacks by assaults, or open-ground rushes by anyone. I felt that I was only able to consistently get kills on the unprepared. And once I'd opened up and gotten a kill, everyone else was prepared.
• I required the support of other players in order to achieve anything. If I wasn't with the pack, I felt useless, and liable to get killed. This is more often the case than not when respawning.
• This requirement for support meant that I had to ignore tactically sensible actions in favour of finding buddies. I rarely seriously consider interrupting a capture these days - too dangerous by myself.
• I was fragile. If I was attacked, I died almost every time. It didn't matter a great deal what weapon - Melee, Plasma Cannon, Plasma Rifle, Storm Bolter, Bolter. I would have streaks of getting killed before I found a safe spot with friends, rack up a chain of kills if I was lucky, one or two if I wasn't. Die. Rinse, repeat. It was mainly the series of deaths before getting to do something that made these matches not fun. It was DieDieDie-have-some-fun-DieDie. This may not actually be unique to Devastators.
• The above points combine to the effect of making me feel powerless, and not in control of my game-time.

Really, the main point of this update is that I had sufficient Not-Fun to stop playing for the evening. If that trend continued with a released game, I would stop playing full stop. Having players stop playing due to lack of fun is not a great way to retain them. Whether we win or lose a match, I'd really like the Heavy Bolter to be Fun. The points above, while not always preventing that, do get in the way of it being consistently Fun.