Entirely likely. I find that the experience of shooting at someone, and being shot at by someone, are often contradictory.
As Leaker always says, Concur. Like most balance/gameplay quirks I assume experiences on both sides of issues tend to be a mixture of a bunch of different things coming together. That's why I'll never understand balance discussions when players try to present over simplified solutions for complex problems. I'll never get it e.e
I'll need to wait until tonight to check, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. Nathan did say that they had their eye on the HB, accuracy was the biggest complaint, and increasing spread was one of the solutions supported by several on this thread.
spread increase is minimal. damage decrease to front and side of vehicles is more of concern currently and feels varanted. I like where it is now.
Instead of downright nerfing hb they can give devastators access to pistols...they do use a pistol when they execute
Keep in mind, what kept Heavy Bolters balanced in the Space Marine game was that when they were not in their "braced" stance (cuz there was none of this bracing on balconies crap), their rate of fire was WAY down. Like you were weaker than a bolter when on the move. You could still kind of defend yourself, but you couldn't spray like you currently can. It made sense and felt good too as you wouldn't be able to control the gun without bracing yourself (planting your feet) and taking a forward stance to compensate for the recoil. It worked well because you were strong when you were ready for the oncoming team or had time to set up, but weaker when you were caught off guard. You could still defend yourself but it was likely you weren't going to win if the other guy knew what he was doing. But at least you had some chance to defend yourself. In this game you're just flat out dead if someone gets close to you. D-Bash does nothing for HB and equivalent classes as the spin up time is just too long and we don't have secondary weapons. However, at the same time, we're way too strong at a range. Though I will have to see what they changed today in the new patch. :|
So the Heavy Bolter right now is... underwhelming, 300 rounds, reduced accuracy braced and unbraced, and it overheats in no time... I could live with the reduced range while braced, I actually always hated the idea of bracing as a Space marine, you're supposed to be with the squad moving as the SAW, not some mobile turret. But the overheating, man you struggle to do your job now...
Bullet point feedback for brevity. We'll see how that goes... I've only fought Chaos so far, so no idea how the HB performs against Eldar or Orks. This feels much the same as Patch 23 Doesn't feel like it has more spread than Patch 23. Perhaps a bit more than earlier, as evidenced by slightly longer to kill a moving target. Still able to kill at what I feel is a good, long range, so long as I'm braced. Still have many areas of maps not well set up for bracing, limiting us to close quarters and/or unbraced fire. The inability to depress on thick cover makes this even worse in some cases, making for dead zones right where I need to be covering an approach. Having some fun duels with melee. Still 100% loss rate, but they gotta work for it. Usually they dbash and stun me to finish me off because I'm a FA noob. I'm able to shoot down melee at a reasonable distance for both of us, imho, at a reasonable rate of success. Damage vs vehicles has been nerfed hard, especially to the front. Even the rear is going to take a loong time to work down. I haven't bee left alone to have some quiet time with one yet, but it feels like it's just about right. Rhinos are now effective counters to HBs, and actually make a good armoured weapons platform if you position it right. Had fun with that one. Overheat is punishing. You really have to play just right, and even then you're only good for (guessing on gut feel here) about 10 bursts. Suppression fire can be waited out, if they're patient. They're mostly not. The 300 round ammo runs out a lot faster than I'm used to, but I still rarely need to reload before I die. It makes the ammo pack even more worthwhile, and reigns in a lone HB on extended duty out of reach of an ammo crate. If an Autocannon starts firing first, I'm dead. If it gets it's first shot off before I'm properly trained onto it, I'm dead. It's a pretty decent counter to the HB. Overall, I still think the HB is in good shape for release, and in fact the vehicle change has made it much more balanced by giving enemies a means of advancing under heavy long range fire.
