Like I said, when you go up against organized players there are more than enough areas where you have good LOS + Cover that makes most points brutally hard to take over. In a pug, you can't really expect that kind of teamwork though. That being said I think the game should be balanced more towards teamwork than not.

It's not just metro that does this I did kinda cherry pick it for a reason though since it's a hyper-example of what I'm talking about. Overwatch has some pretty glaring map design/chokepoint problems too. I personally think that most maps are decent as far as cap points go. There are enough sneaky "corner camping" spots and all that.

I don't really have any trouble attacking or defending cap points as a non melee though. Yeah HBs might have trouble if they are part of the entrance door assault squad (they shouldn't be) but they have their place by getting into the sneaky back corners that every cap point has. Same goes for defense.

So what you're saying is, because your teammates suck, you want a class buffed so that it can hard counter anything and everything in every situation because you don't want to not be a devastator. Sorry, doesn't work like that. If 4-5 people don't see a melee guy before he's on you, you're either in a terrible position and should know better, or your allies have such little brain function its a miracle they don't shut down while they're asleep. Either way, the devs can't solve that problem.

I find our capture points to be meatgrinders, but they're more like blenders due to all the spinning blades in a confined space.

No, I don't want to hard counter anything. Nor have I suggested the HB be buffed ( I do think it needs some tweaks, but that's for other reasons). I want more brace points in useful places OR to not have the weapon built around braced fire being so much more effective than unbraced. I'm saying that those terrible positions you mention are often the available brace points. That in order to not be in a terrible position, I'm often hiding in a corner, unbraced and hoping nobody notices me. That in order to not be in a terrible position, I'm engaging in CQC.

I'm saying that the Heavy Bolter is designed around being most effective when braced and engaging targets in the 30-100m range, but that map design pushes us away from those situations and into unbraced CQC due to enforced vulnerability, limited fire zones, and lack of +XP defense bonus. I am suggesting that with two opposing design intents, that one of them should change to work with the other instead of against.

Concur with Forj. No one said anything about a hard counter; I and others were simply stating that death comes too quick from melee, due to exposed positions, and are asking for some changes to postpone it.

I would recommend spending a little time playing as a devastator since you are not seeing at all what we are complaining about. Or, reread my comments about how even WITH a dedicated body guard, who WAS paying attention, there often isn't enough time to counter the melee attack before they take the HB down. We aren't asking for buffs to the class, just a little bit of level redesign to not make cap points such a death trap for non-melee players.

Or, if you do play HB regularly, and don't have the same problems we are discussing, please let us know what you have found that works. We promise not to camp your favorite spots...much...

I don't camp

Either do I as it will get you killed. You seem to have all the answers, but offer nothing more than empty rhetoric. I would be curious to see your hours played or some end of match screen captures from some of your games.

From what we can guess/assume about the design intent, the HB is built for camping. Even its unintended use (CQC ambush) is all about camping.

OK so time to chime in again.

I see what people are saying and I will agree with @Forj and @Leaker. The HB is based around needing to be braced to be the most effective and currently the most effective way to defend a point is to be unbraced. The cap points are all in doors and the rooms are fairly open with most obstacles up against the walls. In theory this should make for a good firing area for ranged, but most melee can cross from an entrance to a defender before being dropped. One hit and the defender stops firing and is now melee fodder for the attacker (even if he uses the RPS system correctly). Most brace points in and around a cap point are railings at the top of ramps which puts you near windows and door ways that even the best teammates can't completely cover.

The argument that the HB should be used to keep people from being able to reach the cap point by being outside and braced is nice in theory, but lets take a look at some of the maps and see where this falls apart. Buckle up boys this could be a long trip.

Blackbolt A:

1. no ground level brace points outside to keep the enemy from reaching the point
2. 1 brace point on the roof outside the windows next to the wall. 2 problems you can't aim down while braced and the enemy can reach the door under you in less then 1 sec.
3. all brace points are railings that are in the room facing the cap point with your back to a window or side to a ramp or door.
4. good brace points for shooting the enemy as they approch are the windows facing towards the ramp further into the base. Problem is once the closest wall door is destroyed you can't see the enemy to stop them. Also the enemy can park a Rhino on the dirt mound that leads straight to you and you can't stop it so your brace point is denied.

Blackbolt B:

1. no brace points in the center road
2. brace points in the courtyard are around the statue making you JPA fodder and you need a full team of 6 HBs to cover every approach. Plus you are outside with no way to see if the enemy has taken one of the many other ways into B to cap it.
3. brace points along the courtyard railing leave your back and side exposed to people coming up the middle or using the lifts.

Blackbolt C:

1. 4 brace points around C itself are all blocked by terrain or C itself
2. barricades on the stairs don't let you aim down and are to close to the stairs to keep you out of melee
3. railing brace points are all blocked by railings and columns

Olipsis A:

1. outside railings don't face enemy they face B
2. Pipes and other terrain allow melee to get within striking range without ever becoming a target
3. windows are all easily approached by routs that the HB can't cover or don't have brace points

Olipsis B:

1. brace points on the upper gantry all face 2 large buildings making the time the enemy spends in the open to short to react to let alone do significant damage to them so they don't pose a threat.
2. brace point on the outside wall leaves your side exposed to the enemy spawn

Olipsis C:

1. This is about the only good one, but due to the design you can't cover enough area to keep the enemy from approaching as the oil derrick blocks half your LOS as does the catwalk and hill. Basically the enemy doesn't have to spend enough time in the open for you to be able to stop them and once they are in you are useless.

Torias A:

1. limited brace area facing B
2. giant balls block LOS to the front
3. few brace points covering the approach from the enemy spawn and all can be skirted without the enemy ever being a target

Torias B:

1. no immediate outside brace points other then boxes. You can't aim down while braced on one and if stacked they block half your LOS
2. Brace points in the 2 buildings are undefenceable

Torias C:

1. enemy can be in and out of LOS before you can take a shot
2. easily countered by any assault

Maggon A:

1. This one is good. Lots of brace points facing out. Enemy has a lot of ground to cross with limited cover, but still enough that if they are smart they can do it. And a good team using their resources wisely can still break through without it being to much of a meat grinder

Maggon B:

1. outside railings that are highly exposed if the enemy uses vehicles. Basically they can park right next to you and be in melee before you can unbrace
2. surrounding building with brace points leaves you exposed and unable to see anything happening around the cap point

Maggon C:

1. A few windows that face out, but tanks and ramps keep enemy from being exposed
2. all other defensive points require you to be unbraced

That's 4 maps that all suffer from the same problems. Either there isn't enough open ground to make the brace point useful or the brace point leaves you exposed to enemies parking a tank on your head. With the future maps that the Dev team spoke of on the twitch being more open I think we will get to see if the HB will be able to keep the enemy from approaching, but since it is designed for players to use more tanks I believe that it will just mean that the enemy will drive up and dump melee onto the defenders en mass. Let's face it we have backslidden into the HB being better when unbraced again. Until we get more open maps bracing will be reserved for fortress maps alone.

Man, I'm a freaking Tac main, I don't even use the HB that much anymore because I'm too busy trying every angle to make my class work...but damn. I can't like this post enough. This analysis doesn't just go for heavies, it goes for literally any ranged class. We're constantly either stuffed into melee, or given firing positions that just beg for us to be flanked, and it isn't even like flanking us is hard. If we were a real military, we'd be laughed right out of the building for the kind of shit we're forced into doing here.

Heavies are basically supposed to be walking turrets from what the developers seem to be balancing them as. At the very least they are supposed to be the "squad machine-gunners". Last I checked, you put your machine gunners in a nest, or a pillbox, or literally anything where they are protected on almost all sides, with an opening towards the enemy to sling lead at. What you definitely don't do, is put them into high traffic, very contestable, easily flankable, cqc situations. It literally defies military logic. Hell even in the RTS games they say "put your Devastators in cover" like 100 times.

The problem with ranged combat is that the maps are completely designed around letting melee get anywhere, at any time, with a bunch of cover for gap closing, and small rooms for capture points. There are literally no good places for machine gun nests, firing lines, kill lanes, or anything of that nature because anywhere you COULD set yourself up there's about 5 different ways a melee player could completely get around without taking a single point of damage. Then you also have to add in that every map has countless LOS breakers that interrupt your fire, shooting over a ledge with standard weapons is questionably useful at best, the long TTK time against infantry means they can literally charge through your fire, weapon dropoff ranges are usually short, accuracy and bloom of ranged weapons is overexaggerated, hitreg is constantly shit, we are completely useless in melee, and everyone and their mom can take a completely durable loadout while also holding higher lethality weapons (like plasma guns/power swords).

I mean, as a Tactical, literally every battle forces me to be "not tactical". Literally everything I do is against everything a Tactical is supposed to do and stand for. They'd never throw themselves into disadvantaged situations unless it was a do or die moment.

Yes, this isn't reality, and we're in a universe where we strapped jump-packs onto power armored super humans who believe in a god/man/dude. Even still, we're given weapons that take long to kill, made useless in melee (even Tacs are as useless as a Dev), shoved into maps that don't favor us, forced into even more confined spaces to win, then pitted against enemies that can completely slaughter us but take half our clip to kill. If we were real Space Marines/Eldar/Chaos Space Marines (Orkz I could at least see doing this kind of shit), we'd be like the WORST soldiers of our faction.

@ByeBye , nice summary. I don't think we should fix every single one of those issues, as there needs to be ways to flank an emplaced position. It's the sheer number of the issues you list that is the problem.

@BaronXIII I couldn't have put it better.

To add one more example, how's this for a counter-intuitive brace point. Because the wall is "thick", this is the lowest I can depress my aim. What exactly am I covering here?



This used to be my favourite first fall back position.