Heavy class is kinda useless

[Pumba]

Anyone else feel like the Heavy class soldiers become obsolete halfway through the game? They have little mobility and poor aim. Most of the time I just have them dashing the entire mission trying to keep up with the rest of the squad, and then only have them shoot like 1 or 2 rockets. Once you get the MECs with kinetic punch, the rockets don't matter because you can pretty much 1 shot anything (I'm on normal difficulty).

[red255]

heavies serve a purpose on the higher difficulties in months 2 and 3 to deal with pods of thin men and floaters. and MECs are expensive. How many mecs do you generate? I normally have the one, maybe 2.

After the first three months your snipers get accuracy. 10 missions with the council medal and some continent bonuses you got 2 snipers with +20 aim, toss on a scope and some adrenal neurosympathy. then your snipers can reliably deal with things the heavies used to and the heavies become obsolete yes.

heavies are mainly for getting thru the first 3 months. they still are useful after the first 3 months, just you don't need to pay for the fragment loss to survive anymore, so your snipers and assaults manage better.

but heavies are still useful after the first 3 months for captures.

a they can carry various rockets and grenades to reduce enemies to capture thresholds without killing them with a critical. which is always frustrating.

[~ Fabulous ~]

yep, mutilate and turn them into mec that is their purpose for late game

[୨ಠ ͜つಠ୧]

late game you can easily win with every strategy you use so imo what is overpowered or undepowered late game is not important

also remember that if you bring a full squad of heavies you should have 1-2 rockets for every pod and late game you don't need many resources so you can blow up some things



anyway i don't like them too cause they are so slow ,if you use them you get your cool equipments later cause they blow up some resources and all you can do with them is : click in the middle of the enemy group to blow up everything ....booooooooooooring
personally i prefer aggressive assaults and snipers cause they are the usual units without hp and with enough damage to oneshot everything ,cause they can be insivible and cause they also have much more damage than kinetic strike mecs (and cause i don't like tanks XD )

[SamBC]

Blaster Launcher makes them more relevant, IME.

And if you convert a heavy to MEC, do it when they're a squaddie - the stat boosts for MECs are better. Other classes should be converted as colonels.

[red255]

yeah get the heavies to LT to turn into MEC to maximize heavy aim and get that sweet sweet body shield bonus.

[baudsp]

If you're playing with Hidden Potential, you can get good aim. Add a scope and they should hit a lot of things. Also since their weapons do a little bit more damage than the rifle, they are useful in firefight. The blaster launcher is very useful to engage a pod you've spotted with someone equiped with a ghost armor.

[Rabbit CoCo]

Differemt player have different strategy.
I've blowed up 7 or 8 enemies with one rocket.

Originally posted by baudsp:

... their weapons do a little bit more damage than the rifle, they are useful in firefight.

Originally posted by red255:

...MECs are expensive.

[red255]

Lets look at heavies shall we,

Originally posted by baudsp:

If you're playing with Hidden Potential, .

Not Created Equally you mean? and lets not. just go with default heavies for default heavies sake.

level 1 Fire rocket. 6 damage rocket, kills anything month 1,2,3 except the slingshot mutons. on impossible thin men have 6 Hp. But lets pretend classic difficulty.
Level 2. Bullet swarm vs holo target. Kinda torn here, +10% chance to hit for everyone else is likely more useful than 2 shots that likely won't hit. buy you could shoot then fire a grenade otherwise. I find myself moving and shooting alot with them so probably holo target.
Level 3 shredder rocket or suppression. Shredder rocket is a 4 damage rocket that if you fire then hit a crystallid with a frag grenade will kill the lid. so its basically a second rocket for the first 3 months.
Level 4. Heat Ammo/Rapid Reaction. heat ammo, because the greandier can't really hit anything reliably so rapid reaction isn't a good choice. Heat ammo also applies to rocket and grenades.
Level 5 Grenadier/Danger zone, grenadier, kicks frag grenades up to 4 damage. and plasma up to 6 damage. and gives you an extra use or two if you are carrying 2 already.

Mayhem/rocketeer. I usually go mayhem. as with the extra grenades I have enough boom. Rocket now does 8 damage making mutons easily stunned.

[Pumba]

Originally posted by red255:

heavies serve a purpose on the higher difficulties in months 2 and 3 to deal with pods of thin men and floaters. and MECs are expensive. How many mecs do you generate? I normally have the one, maybe 2.

I have 1 MEC with the 18 damage punch. I use ghost grenades to sneak up on the stronger enemies and 1 shot them.

Originally posted by ୨ಠ ͜つಠ୧:

personally i prefer aggressive assaults and snipers

Yeah my main squad has 2 assualts with alloy canons and ghost armor.

[Mr. Jizzard The Tentacle Wizard]

In the late game, heavies are great for dealing tons of damage towards mechanical aliens with tons of hp with their abilities and weapons. Holo targeting helps start off a round of firing too.

[red255]

a HEAT mayhem blaster launcher rocket to a cyberdisk is 18 damage yes. the have 16 health on nomal and 20 on classic and up.

[୨ಠ ͜つಠ୧]

i think he/she wasn't speaking about rockets but about normal shots with heath ammo and bullet swarm

[powerpcs2]

sad thing about heavies is that their aoe dannages destroy bodies and the weapon 'parts' that you need to build and researkh new itenns. bunnner.

[Pimp Daddy Gilbert]

This is about late game only.

With heavies you need to go all in with explosives or all in with suppression and shooting abilities. In my opinion if you try to balance between that, you get a more awkward soldier whose role is not clearly defined.

I think the explosive skills are better in the long run, late game you can overall get 4 alien nades 2 blaster launcher rockets and 1 shredder rocket. You don’t have to worry about corpses or weapon fragment because you already have a lot of them. This is mainly useful if you need an powerful AOE attack or just don't have any good shots. Explosives late game can be really useful to support your other classes like combining a nade with the mech’s flamethrower to wipe out a group or having an invisible soldier, spy on a group so the heavy can't launch explosives at them without them knowing your location.

The only exceptions are: if you’re playing with second wave settings like “hidden potential” and “not created equally” or have a dlc troops with good aim like “chilong” or Annette. Who are both heavies and in the case of Annette have psionic abilities.

Overall the heavy character is only good when its supporting over classes but on their own they are just average. I advice using a heavy with mech troopers or any situation that you know you need to stop thinking about civilian casualties and start doing some property damage.

[baudsp]

Originally posted by Odysseus:

or have a dlc troops with good aim like “chilong” or Annette. Who are both heavies and in the case of Annette have psionic abilities.

Annette's class is random, chilong is alway heavy. I remember getting Annette as heavy then losing her on the next mission because I was stupid .