I hope small changes means:

1. Reduced bullet spread / staggering. I mean, compare it to "40KSpaceMarine". THERE it worked beautifully.
2. Increased dmg.

So, let me clarify since it seems I was a little ambiguous in my post. When I said HB wasn't supposed to have to worry about melee, I didn't mean they weren't supposed to be able to melee, just that they were supposed to be able to gun people down before getting into melee, provided they were in their proper position (braced, burst firing, behind the main line, ect ect). Byebye summed it up with "Assaults are melee focused therefor weak at range and Heavy Weapons are supposed to excel at range and be weak at melee."

Concur with Forj that melee have plenty of survival options at 25m. Unless I have perfect aim (or an aimbot), they can jink and move, even in the wide open, enough to be survivable. If they choose not to play our range game, they options that are sometimes successful to avoid it. Once in melee though, the HB has no option to disengage, and must play the melee game. Since we play it very poorly (by game design), the outcome is predictable.

I won't pick on Forj's gunnery skills (much). His videos show highlights, which are usually those "Oh F--K me!" moments. In those cases, I myself revert to mag dumping dumping because, well, F--k me. In most other cases he is quite the careful and meticulous gunner, which means when he says he can't hit stuff, I certainly believe him.

Concur on the idea of making the HB, or probably the Devastator work differently in melee (Eventually, let's not add to the dev's plate with out of scope requests). Reason being, we already work differently with the brace mechanic, and no dodge roll and climb ability. Yet we are still in the same RPS system where speed and maneuverability is key. To me, it sounds more like we are crippled as opposed to a disadvantage. Concur on making sure the HB doesn't turn into the super melee class though; that's been my standard caveat when complaining about melee.

I wanted to pick this out as an excellent summary of my point in this regard.

Also this one.

And yeah, usually if I'm mag-dumping it's because I've gone "Ah, fuck it..."

All right guys it's tips and tricks time.

I've been noticing a habit that we the HB community have been getting into lately (myself included) and I wanted to bring it to our attention along with some suggestions to help us avoid the problem it causes.

I have been seeing quite a few HB players falling into the trap of advancing on a target that we either had or currently have under fire and it's getting us killed. Forj's latest video (great vid by the way man keep them coming) has a perfect example of what I mean. In it he opens up on a JPA who then quickly boosts behind a pillar on the wall. Forj then proceeds to slowly move around the pillar to hopefully catch the jumper by surprise and finish him off, all the while keeping his HB in aim mode for quicker firing. All in all a sound plan and something I might have done, and have done, myself on occasion. While watching it a strange thing happened. The armchair coach part of my brain started screaming "run dude, run away he's going to kill you" and sure enough the JPA boosts out from behind the pillar and hacks him to death. And all I could think was why didn't he run? He had to know he was putting himself into melee range.

Fear not Forj you aren't the only one to do it. In another example I was playing as a SS defending D on Olipsis by myself. A MoN came in and tried to cap. I snuck up on him and took him out. While executing him I noticed another person come in to help his teammate (a HB player). He opened fire just as the execution finished and I dove behind the capture console for cover. The HB player stayed by the door firing short bursts at both sides of the console keeping me suppressed and pinned in place. The problem came about 1-2 minutes later. Either out of impatiences or nervousness he started advancing on the console while still bursting one side then the other. As he drew closer it started taking longer and longer for him to switch from one side to the other. Eventually (around the 15m mark) I thought to myself big mistake and I jumped out of cover on the opposite side from where he was firing and struck him down.

And these aren't the only times I have seen this lately. So I thought I would bring it to our attention with some helpful thoughts so that maybe just maybe we as a community can learn from our mistakes.

So here are my thoughts.

1. If you miss killing a target due to cover and you are inside melee range run for help or cover or both. Your target is probably healing up giving you the necessary time you need to put space between you and him. You may not get the kill then, but you survived to maybe get it later.
2. If your target ducks out of sight and you are close to melee range, but not quite in it. Slowly back away while keeping your weapon up and ready to fire. This way when he pops out of cover to try and charge you you have put some more distance between you and him. Hopefully it will be enough to down him before he reaches you.
3. If your target goes to cover and you are outside of melee range. Keep him under fire and use the macros to call for backup. Make sure you move yourself away from any openings where you might get flanked if they somehow manage to sneak away, but try and keep their hiding spot in view and keep them pinned down. Most players (especially those that play a lot of Assaults, kidding guys I love our assault players too) don't have the patients to wait you out and will get board/frustrated and charge out of cover to try and take you down. Of course they will never make it, but it's fun to watch them try.

So those are my thoughts and tips. What do you guys think? Do you already do these or do you catch yourself advancing on the enemy only to find yourself getting whacked in the head? Have you been seeing other mistakes that a majority of HB players have been making that you want to help us avoid? Let the community know so that we can all become better heavy support players.

Yeah...I had a part of my brain yelling exactly that as I was fucking doing that... I need to listen to it more often.

An excellent post, good advice! It's something I do all the time, so thank you for bringing it to my attention.

the heavy boltor and auto cannon both are my favorite havok weapons. this ALL ofthis is such awesome advice, i dont usualy do well with the heavy boltor but i think with this in mind and some practice i might just earn more then a trade for trade thanks all!

All good advice. Concur with Forj that the rational brain says one thing, like back away and seek a position of protection, but, well, The Nails...

Point #3 is an excellent and interesting example though. We've lamented before that one person can shut down our entire operation by forcing us to focus on them. We keep them in cover, and suppressed, but we can't kill them. Tunnel vision sets in, usually followed by chainsword dentistry from a flank shortly thereafter.

However, it highlights that critical teamwork aspect again, either from an organized team, or from folks realizing there is an easy and cornered prey to take care of. Also, the situational awareness required of the HB to know where you are vulnerable and where adversaries can come from.

My tip would be to not scoff the mini-map. We have limited field of view, so keeping an eye on the minimap can help you see around corners, plan ambushes, or warn you of an impending flank attack. Once we get direction indicators on the MM (just a simple "N" indicator would be great!), the MM will become even more useful for directing people to cover a braced HB's weak points. "I'm braced, Burnboy420, cover the West door behind me".

I would change the suppress mechanic to even slow down people (as in Dawn of War 2) that would make it atleast more deadly i guess..

Well, the suppression mechanic has been written about a lot in previous pages of this and other threads. It's an interesting mechanic, but there is a lot of debate about it, and some strong feelings from some folks regarding it.

Yes, a snare or root on the Heavy Bolter has been discussed, it was a bit controversial, if brief. The general feeling was the it would be difficult to balance it so that it wasn't OP. I like the idea at first pass, but I think it's a bit late in the game to go adding mechanics, and there are other knobs to the turn on the tuning front.