What's the point of Heavies?

I don’t want be be mean or anything. But you talk about late game. If I play a game for 15 hours and something is useless at this time period, I don’t call this a good mechanic.
I played xcoms and many game like that. As I can give you best example with gears tactic heavy class. It’s perfect. It has purposes, it does make its jop. It has not ridiculous aim or range penalties. It’s slow to go but fast to fire as it anchors to position.
So after I saw good implementations of the class at other Games, sry but this heavy is very bad. Even fraxis xcom got better heavy. Because he fires as fast as another classes, got enough range and acc with the damage. Are those heavy classes break xcom or gears? A big no. Then why do you fear so badly to normalize heavy class?

As I said, maybe after 30 hours my heavy can have good weapons which I can use. But sry, I don’t want to wait for it. Then make it unique class which comes later.

This game is range based mostly. So you need to fight as far as possible. A heavy with explosives are very nice for it. But not other way. I need them at least usable at midrange. I should use warcry if they get near in time. Heavy is a class for attacking from a point, not to dash forward because we got assault for that or melee ones. I should use bash when something not going well for defensive reasons.

But here we use a heavy slow class to jump battlefield, use debuff and melee them… I ask you with full honesty.
Do you think that logical?

Addition to that, I saw a pincher enemy killed a heavy NY in one turn with 3 strikes. One enemy, one turn, this is your heaviest armor…

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You are correct, stating that heavy armor has some perks but lets not get overboard.

Fire damage is indeed where heavy armor shine, though it is rare and avoidable.

Thing with shotguns and rifles is that theyre not that common in the enemy arsenal. Secondly they will simply not engage heavy, but shoot his friend, who’s standing few squares away.

95 pincer attack does just 10 more damage on assault than on a heavy. Once you get some strength it stops being relevant.

So while 30+ armor is great, in practice people are not swapping assault and sniper armor in favour of heavy. Its the other way around.
Thats because the penalties are way too big and also due to the fact that armor can easily be replaced by health (and you can pump up health with XP but you cant do it with accuracy)

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The point I don’t get that why do you fear that heavy class will break the balance? An assault can kill 30 enemy in one turn, dash map in one turn. A sniper can double shot per turn and harm enemies badly just where he is standing. But when we ask to able to use our big guns properly, you are against it. I just can’t find the reason here. If you want to jump and melee just give jump to melee class.
Heavy weapon bashing with huge damage is absurd. You can’t just hit someone with a huge thing like that for more damage. If it was logical, people would use huge woods rather then swords or axes. Even anime characters don’t do that.
So why do hate or fear from heavy when you are OK with other unbalanced classes?

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I wish I was. I sincerely do. I was just playing it tonight, and seven times, with a Hel II the Heavy MISSED the Triton class mobs, and they were between two to three tiles away. I made sure of it, with the Jump pack.

Seriously, 3 action points for a mobility option that restricts your chance to attack? What’s the point of it again?

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Warcry and proper/logical melee attack should be at a melee and fast class.

At this heavy, designer though that heavy class should have melee option as a brute and bombardier option as long range. Yeah the idea is not bad. But at execution, he did a great and powerful ( i dont say unbalanced because the damage from explosives are funny as you need to throw 5 to kill a weak enemy) grenadier which can shoot 1 rocket+2 grenade at one turn from far but at melee, designer did not want heavy use melee weapons but for a reason, it’s weapon and swing it like an inhuman titan to hit the enemy more then a cannon. To balance it’s safety, he game warcry to class.

BUT here, designer guy totally forgot the normal weapons of heavy. When they tested that, people ask him about those weapon sucks so bad and they looked each other. Whoops… Whoopsy…

Even a guy can swing his heavy weapon and hit like truck or burst explosives in one turn like a ww2 bomber plane, those are totally fine but when we ask a better “heavy weapon” which can shoot before late game, we get a reaction of “OMG! Do you wanna break even destroy the game balance??”

Guys, there are tons of topics about how to make most unbalanced things in game and how people avoid them with their own rules. And balance left the building already. So we want our heavy weapons and heavy classes which can shoot enemies from a bit far away. If you think this will break your balanced game play, please add one more rule to your game play and don’t use those game breaking heavy weapons and continue to bash enemies. Because you are defending something really weird way.

If someone thinks that heavy can work with it’s own weapons at mid and early game weapons via cannon/NY minigun, show me a video which they use those effectively as much as an assault or sniper…or just no… I tried everything and just no… yes, maybe I could not figure out the tricks maybe but I am not alone and math is out there.

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As I worked on Xenonauts X-Division mod (as creator) and openxcom modding. There are always very simple mechanic to balance heavy gear.

  1. Heavy weapons could be used without penalty when the user got heavy armor/enough strength.
    This is one of the most logical one. Heavy weapons are powerful weapons and they don’t have debufs like bad acc, slow firing. Miniguns are fast firing weapons and they got good acc at least at a assault rifle level. They got good range too as they got huge barrels so they can be effective at longer then assault rifles. So heavy armors are special to able to handle this heavy weapons. Heavy armors are slow even the carrier got enough str because heavy is heavy. But it’s not about their weapon or how to use them. So when balancing, heavy could not escape from a bad situation and need to get position to fire. So enemy can nuke him easier if they can catch it open. But when a heavy starts firing, you should not be in line of fire. So, DO NOT nerf any weapon based stats if a heavy is using a heavy gun.

  2. Wait for getting position for firing

Another balancing is making heavy lose time at preparing. So heavy should wait for time before starts firing. Here again we talk about the time for the heavy soldier, not the gun. Soldier can be slow but not the weapon. Gears Tactic made it with anchor. This is the perfection. You go somewhere, anchor there and shoot firing fast and very accurate. End of story.

At PP, we just have penalties… They gave so much penalty to heavy, it’s like they try to balance whole game over this class. It’s skills are useless for normal weapons, his armor is weak, slow, somehow huge acc pen without a logical reason (that helm is not from ww1 you know), his weapons got no range, no acc, ultra slow… his “must have” skills are not his own and random (strongman and the acc bonus one)…

There is not a single good thing about those… yeah you can use cannon even end game because you want to use it… you don’t need it… even you got many more ways to use… maybe with lvl 7 rage burst skill… but alone… nop… got good weapons at late game… if you get that tech… if you got enough resources, if if if…when you got terminator assaults and one shot snipers…

My assault sniper got strong man. I am thinking to give this skill to him and give my minigun. I am use that he will able to use that much better then my heavy/sniper… why do i do that? because I want to use that gun!

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The slow and inaccurate heavy weapons are justified, when youre using them in close combat, room clearing duty. Shotguns, rifles, or smgs are much better in such agile enviromnemnt and they should dominate there. In real life we dont see 0.5 cal Browning MG armed soldiers doing room clearing. Thats too cumbersome.

So Id say the class foundation is good.

However out in the field, when a heavy sets up in a good position he should be a mid range (meaning long is for snipers) dps king. This is what we are lacking.

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I like the idea of ‘Set Up’ or ‘Anchor’. If you don’t move and fire, you get X% to accuracy. But if you do, you lose that bonus.

It would make the heavy akin to a weapon emplacement. Where you have to put him in a tactically advantageous position to get the most out of the class. Kinda like a Sniper.

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Well, comparing NJ armors it’s 40 to 24, and those 16 pts are crucial because limbs have 60 HPs each… Without a Heavy Armor if the Pincer hits on an arm, it will be disabled with one hit.

Strength is important for global HPs, but the only way of protecting limbs is with Armor. That’s why Heavy Armor is king with fire, and with explosives and best option with acid.

Actually, I give the Heavy Helmet to my melee fighters. I don’t give the torso armor because only Heavies can use it without a chance for ‘fumble’. Heavy leg armor admittedly don’t make much sense on their own, but as enemies target the body part with least armor, leaving legs unprotected while wearing Heavy Armor elsewhere doesn’t make sense.

I said, I saw a NY heavy with full armor died with 3 hit with the pincher. He died and you say it saves the limbs. So your soldier can die in one turn against a melee with the heaviest armor but his arm was intact. I would expect a heavy armor to be more usefull with those penalties…

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I’m talking about what a single attack with the pincer does. NJ HA is the only armor capable of stopping that attack from disabling a limb with a single hit.

No offense, but you have written like five posts here and elsewhere on the same topic today, I can’t respond to everyone and everything all at once :slightly_smiling_face:

You don’t need to answer at all of course. No offence here too. Just it looks a bit forced to try to defend the class here when people comes with very logical reasons.

I try to say, the soldier who send you infront of enemies with jumpjet and bash them with a huge gun can die with 3 melee attacks. There is nothing to defend here. Because every word is wrong here.

  • A heavy ranged weapon which used for melee for more damage
  • A heavy armor which won’t able to save soldier from some melee attacks even
  • A heavy class who can’t shot his weapon properly because he can’t aim with his armor.
  • A heavy weapon which don’t have range or good damage (compared with assault/sniper and even its own bash damage) and inaccurate, slow.
    So this is basically wrong… and we try to correct that… you try to find some forced good points but… it’s still %80 wrong…
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[quote=“VOLAND, post:44, topic:11322”]
I’m talking about what a single attack with the pincer does. NJ HA is the only armor capable of stopping that attack from disabling a limb with a single hit.
[/quote] An Arthron can strike 3 times.

Just as your arguments look very logical to you and other players, my arguments look very logical to me and to other players. Please a
consider also that Snapshot receives tons of telemetry data on how the game is being played - that’s their primary tool for detecting biases in what tools the players choose to use. The logical assumption here is that the players are not ditching Heavy Armor for Heavies en masse because it’s terrible, horrible, absolutely no good.

Now, to be precise, my argument is that Heavy in Heavy Armor using Heavy Weapons is a viable choice. I can also say that within my particular play style I find it one of the best classes. However, if we are talking about optimised play styles, there is no room there for Heavy Armor at all. If we are talking about OP holes that allow Assaults to clear half or entire maps using Rapid Clearance, forget about Heavies in HA. Or Infiltrators that do double damage with everything, including explosives. If the argument is “why can’t the Heavy be as good as that?”, my response is “the other classes need to be nerfed until they are not so good.”

Yes, it’s definitely a terrible strategy. It would make some sense if you jumped and then WCed a bunch of them (IME melee enemies under WC usually waste their remaining APs).

Jumping in front of an evolved melee Arthon to bash it is suicidal.

Things that make sense to do with Heavies and fast moving, advanced melee enemies: set OW with a HW at very short distance. Also using the Dante on them, if they are close enough. When you have assaults around and the enemy has a shield deployed it, it does make sense to shoot at it with a Hel 2 Cannon, especially with distance under 10 tiles. The advantage of the Cannon is that it doesn’t matter as much where it hits - it will blow away the shield, possible daze the Arthon and the assault can finish it off.

If you invest in the build, yes. It also damages the weapon though. There is an ongoing discussion among players about melee vs bash, and tbh I don’t have a firm opinion on it. I wish that one day melee combat could be more involved with stuff like “engaged” status and “attack of opportunity”, etc., which would add some advantages to melee weapons vs bash.

However, bashing being better than shooting is only true if you are looking at the Heavy as the sole damage dealer, without taking into account synergies from using combined tactics. For example, if I have a Heavy and an Assault facing a Siren, I might use the Heavy to break the armor of Siren’s tail with the Hel 2 Cannon or Deceptor, and then finish her with the Assault. Or if I have a Heavy with a Deceptor and a Sniper with Mark for Death.

Also, whether I want to close the distance with
an enemy, or not is always situational.

If you put yourself in a position where your operative can be hit 3 times by a Pincer and has under 200 HPs (assuming all hits land on the least protected body part, the head, which has 33 armor = 95 - 33 + 95 - 32 + 95 - 31 + 10 [for bleeding next turn]) I’m sorry, but that’s on you :slightly_smiling_face:. Was there any armor in any X-Com or XCom game that could protect you from 3 melee attacks of an elite enemy?

As I said, it’s a trade off - if you want accuracy, lose the protection offered by the armor. If you want the armor, lose the accuracy. I’m not saying there can’t be minor adjustments here and there, but the general approach looks sound to me.

I’m not sure how you are making those comparisons. SRs have the lowest damage per AP and don’t shred armor, but have the advantage of high accuracy and high damage per projectile. ARs do the highest damage per AP and some shred, but have low damage per projectile. Hel 2 Cannon has the highest damage per projectile in the game, high shred and shock damage, but low accuracy. Deceptor has the highest damage per AP, good shred, but low accuracy.

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Thank you for your time. This conversation can go forever, because you like to use your heavy a bit weird then it used at this genre. For those reasons, you like it.
Your examples are mostly you are outnumbered the enemy which is not at my case. After you jump to the enemy, you can’t know there is more out of your WC range and even “1” hit cripple your soldier very badly at heavy armor so I don’t know how you survive. If you just jump on when there is not much enemy left, it’s just another story.
I would like to see your game style somehow because I just can’t imagine it.

It’s not about my idea only, I talk with other game examples too. This heavy is “not heavy”. It’s a brute melee class which uses big melee weapons… but it’s so strange that i can’t classify exactly but not “heavy”… this is the problem.

You want to nerf all of them until they are not fun (i dont say they don’t need re-balance) to play. Probably you are a hardcore player who likes to enjoy most limited/hard games. This is an option and I totally respect but it’s not fun for most of the players. As you are the only one here who just defends the class so badly with everything.

So there is no need to discuss with you as our taste are different. But I don’t talk about a special game style, I talk about a heavy class at this type of games. We don’t enjoy our heavy as it is, so limited and weird…

That’s my opinion too.
And this.

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Yeah, I have to kinda agree. The problem is tinkering with the Heavy Weapons themselves is counterproductive because if you increase their accuracy, they will be even better for snipers. Also, if you remove the penalty to accuracy from HA I think you would be making it too good.

What I would suggest is that the HA legs should have a “stability stance” ability, like the Chirons. So you can enter and leave it for 1AP and it increases accuracy by 50%.

Thoughts?

Edit: while in stability stance you cannot move, as is the case now with Chirons

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Does this mean covers do not count?
An enemy is hiding behind full or partial cover? - don’t bother, shoot through it.

That solution seems reasonable for believability and game mechanics.

Hey, my pleasure :slightly_smiling_face:

Hang on, how do you know what is “fun” for “most” players? Where is your data?

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