Most of the Heavys skills are absolutely rubbish.
His main weapon deals good damage, but he doesn`t hit a barn, when standing next to it. What strategies do you recommend?
Ok you are new 
Combine your heavy with a sniper. Give him a sniperrifle and enjoy burst.
You can use your jetpack in x Situation usefull.
You can Deal much damage.
You have war cry…
You will need him. Just Trust in him.
2 Likes
I’ve just started my first campaign. First few missions my Heavy felt useless because he didn’t hit anything. But then I dual-classed with Sniper and now accuracy is much better, and he can fire twice with the quick aim skill. Also he now carries a laser pistol so he can still shoot after using jetpack, or shoot several times at small stuff like fireworms.
And at close range the Hel Cannon kills most enemies in one shot. I also like to destroy cover, or sometimes kill an enemy behind a wall, that’s pretty cool.
But without the Sniper skills, he’d still feel useless. Maybe this will change later, or I’ve not figured out how to use Heavies correctly. So far it seems to me like you’re expected to dual-class with basically every soldier you have? Or is there a benefit in just having one class?
1 Like
The horrible accuracy early on I’m pretty sure is a balance decision. Sacrifice accuracy for damage. Early on it mostly serves its purpose for wiping out anyone who tries to rush into your squad. You’ll notice his early talents also reinforce this idea. Bash gives you the ability to instantly kill most early targets with 1AP melee and War Cry limits the effectiveness of any enemies near you. These skills both work really well in conjunction with the 3AP jet pack, because you can land next to a vulnerable enemy, or onto a rooftop to disable an entire group of nearby enemies. The armor allows you to withstand a lot of punishment, but you’re not invincible. By default, this is the anti-melee range character. Any shot taken beyond close range is a gamble due to its sheer power and innaccuracy. If you have nothing else to do in a turn but are able to take a long shot, take it since you likely won’t be making a lot of shots in a mission early on - it’s a gamble, but when it hits it makes your mission a lot easier. Otherwise do a short-range overwatch and prevent enemies from closing in on you, if they try - they die.
As the game progresses and everything ramps up in difficulty, I tend to make use of the extra talents and combine them along with as much stats as I can squeeze onto the character to make each random soldier I find useful somehow. Here are some examples:
- Reckless + Heavy Weapons Perk + Grenade Launcher + Boom Blast = A-bomb launcher (cross-class to infiltrator with lvl7 talent and it’s a stealth h-bomb launcher) I consider this a god class - very powerful
- Rage Burst + Sniperist (or cross class to Sniper) + Sniper Rifle = Anti-tank weapon (nearly killing everything you point at)
- Rage Burst + Self Defense Specialist + Reckless + War Cry + Jet Pack = Bruiser/“Picker” (my word for a unit who picks weak enemies off at extremely low cost) who distracts enemies and able to finish off one target when jumping close to enemies without having to expose himself by meleeing. Multiple shots per turn, lots of versatility and more of a support.
- Cautious + Cross to Sniper + Quick Aim + Marksman + Hel Cannon = Anti-personnel weapon ironic, huh? turns cannon into the Farsight from Perfect Dark (two shots for two heavy dmg + stun or kill on two targets per turn) More of a support utilized for disabling enemies or opening lines of sight + still doing damage.
- Quarterback + Boom Blast + Cross to Assault + Ready for Action + Purification Grenades + Odin Grenades + Flamethrower (2AP) = Purifier … rain hell down on them. Works well paired with a vehicle for transport. Mostly throwing grenades, occasionally throwing down a wall of fire when nothing to nade.
I’d argue there are benefits to limiting your talent selections and utilizing those extra skill points in stats instead. The talent choices need to be wise and combined in a way that they create a character that still brings some utility to the team. To have a team of specialists that really work well together by covering each other’s weaknesses, but still hold well on their own in case something goes unexpected.
A heavy with a Sniperist + Rage burst is often only ever used to either shoot at a target once, or rage burst a target once in a turn. Crossing to Sniper with Quick Aim only gives it one extra shot at the cost of no movement + willpower for about 60-65? points. It doesn’t need heavy armor, but can still use it. It doesn’t stand in one spot and fire at targets every turn, but keeps moving along with the team and doesn’t rely on long range. A one trick pony for the most part, but add in a Fury-2 rocket launcher with the heavy armor and all of a sudden a range of utility opens up. I don’t feel the need to cross into Sniper personally and the few times I did it seemed like a waste of skill points.
1 Like
How can I increas accuracy on the Heavy?
- Cautious talent
- Sniper/Technician armor (anyone can wear)
- Sniper - Marksman talent
Tech Helmet + Leg Armour.
Sniper Leg Armour increases accuracy at the cost of vulnerability to the legs.
Cross class into sniper, give him a Synedrion sniper helmet and a Hel cannon and he can blast things from across the map. I wouldn’t be caught dead without my heavy.
Huh, I can use SP to increase stats? Totally missed that, if it’s even explained in the game. And I was wondering why I have so many SP available with so few abilities to pick from… I mostly just picked all the abilities just to spend the SP.
I guess you never wondered what the big [+] buttons and SP costs next to the stats were for? They’re not instant game-changers like the talents/perks/abilities your soldiers can learn, but can help a lot as you buff them up - mostly Speed and Willpower, Strength only affects melee damage and carry weight so I only put a few points into it on my Heavies so they can carry a secondary weapon and potentially shoulder weapons.
The game definitely lacks a tutorial explaining a lot, so I suppose that’s fair.
Yeah I also haven’t really played more than 3 hours yet, still much to learn. So far I find it difficult to really get into the game so I play just 1-2 missions at a time. To be honest I didn’t pay any attention to the stats because I just assumed they are static.
also total soldier hit points (so resistance to paralyzis and stun) and grenades throwing range
2 Likes
Right. Grenade throwing range is pretty secondary/tertiary, but I did forget about the soldier HP. Although generally I find that if my soldiers are getting hammered such that exactly how much HP they have beyond normal is relevant, they would probably be dead no matter how much incrementally more HP they had. Usually my soldiers died because they were completely and entirely overwhelmed, rather than barely clinging to life and then slipping away or just barely going over their remaining HP.
Since WP both influences Mind Control resistance and action/perk usage, it’s the most important imo. And Speed is second mostly for being able to reposition with more freedom.
Heavy mostly shines against BIG opponents. I just laughed when he always missed his shots on measly 1 tile wide enemies, but he can do crowd control. I mean DAZE opponents with his HEL Cannon. Which is good against sirens or anyone close. I replaced armor parts with sniper things, did not improve much, so use the cannon to disable enemies close, nuke big enemies and their armor at almost any range.
Later on add grenade launcher from NJ to the mix. And late game add the missile mount which literally shreds big groups of enemies down into sizeable chunks. He can shoot the missile, then launch a grenade. Even more with specific perks. He can’t see anything small, just like a rhino, but will be indispensable later on.
Adding a sniper rifle to a hevy soldier is like giving a 20 inch dick to a supermodel woman.
- I give my heavies only strength. Then I jetpack and bash the opposition. If you have a Heavy with reckless and melee damage increase you can do close to 300 damage per bash.
- throw in a war cry to limit opposition to 2AP and the enemy can’t retaliate much.
- more hitpoints means you can take a lot before falling
- give him a pistol or PDW for cases where he can’t get into melee range (or it is enough for the kill) even better if he has the relevant perk.
- With the “Strongman” perk, use Goliath to great effect.
- Mounted weapons perk for Fury
- Rage burst big enemies with Deceptor.
- Bombard Chiron is not as lethal when you’re in heavy armor (still don’t let it live too long).
- Dual class to Berserker if you’re afraid about mind-control.
- Add a technician to the team for the armor boost, potentially repairing limbs, dealing with Mindfraggers and Worms
Oh, and a complete team armed with Goliath and Fury can handle a lot.
Having fun with a full NJ campaign.
Oppa N.J. style !!!
2 Likes
But then you’re just playing him like a sniper. So, again, what is a heavy good for? That doesn’t really address the OP’s message that the Heavy class has no identity if everyone just plays him like a sniper with a jet pack…
Heavy is great with sniper but agree that his kit needs to be tweaked a bit from the default heavily armored big weapon guy.
When playing the “default” heavy config i find its hard to actually get him into combat. Usually he putters around and launches a grenade every round since he’s too slow to get close enough to use his machine gun.
Alternatively you can jet pack him in close, maybe get a bash attack, and/or hopefully hide well enough to last a round in the midst of the baddies (hopefully with war cry) but it is FAR weaker than just a heavy sniper config.
I think giving the heavy some attack options that have lower AP costs or movement side effects would really help. I would love to see some options like possibly having a more expensive will cost Jet Pack action which included an attack (attack from above?) or possibly having a dash style move and attack (or possibly cheaper AP cost attack after increased move) Suppressive fire?
This game is still full of balance problems. heavies counterproductive armor (not the jetpack) being one of them, along with the snipers “overly” useful kit…causing it to be stapled on top of pretty much any other class.
I’ll see what it will look like in a couple of patches.
Throw a grenade launcher onto a heavy, enjoy blowing everything up in one attack.
Forget about Sniper secondary cheese-dom.
1 Like