We need to have a talk about the heavy bolter.

[Judge Lazar]

Right off the jump, I am speaking in the context of operations. I don't play PvP, I'm bad at PvP, I know nothing about PvP. That said....

It's complete garbage. Complete, total, utter, objectively, indisputably, garbage. Inaccurate, too weak, too slow, not versatile at all. The only thing it does good is killing trash mobs at short range and it's not even that good at that. There's essentially no reason to use it when the multi melta exists. These are the ways that it can be fixed IMO, either one or multiple of these buffs:

Get rid of overheat: by the time you spin up to full rate of fire it's half over heated and you get maybe 5 seconds of effective fire before you're swarmed by trash or come up against a warrior/Rubric who just laugh at you while you impotently dump rounds on them with no effect.

Get rid of spin up: Makes no sense, that's not how machine guns work and it doesn't even have a rotating barrel. At least then controlled burst fire would be an option.

Give it more stagger/armor penn. against heavier enemies: Self explanatory.

Make the cool down MUCH faster: No delay between when you stop firing and the heat starts bleeding off.

Make it MUCH more accurate when braced: You can't kill ♥♥♥♥ at any reasonable distance effectively which results in getting swarmed and having to dodge roll around like an idiot getting off one or two shots in between.

It's just not fun to use at all and that is a shame.

/rant

[endsequence]

I feel it needs to have some sort of penetration at least so it those sword hunters cannot blocked 99% of your attacks.

[Judge Lazar]

Originally posted by endsequence:

I feel it needs to have some sort of penetration at least so it those sword hunters cannot blocked 99% of your attacks.

Yeah being called the "heavy" bolter, it sure is bad at dealing with heavy enemies.

[Draescan]

Weighing in here with a grain of salt being offered first. I don't play heavy much, I only have it at level 10 and all three primaries at green rarity. Someone I play with mains it though and she has been decimating with it just fine. She actually PREFERS the heavy bolter. Yes the Melta is insane. It's the only weapon that scales well on higher difficulties, but I suspect this is less a gun issue and more of an HP pool issue with the enemies. It seems like they have 100% MORE health on difficulty 3, vs difficulty 2. I don't know the stats, but when a damage 11 chainsword takes upwards of 12 light attacks to bring a majoris to execution range, there's an HP pool issue XD

[Druark]

It should have penetration by default at a bare minimum in addition to the other expected effects and way less crosshair bloom if youre aiming.

[Draescan]

Also almost all weapons have penetration. There's literally a penetration stat on them in the UI :P

You're not supposed to shoot blocking enemies. Just stop doing it, despite what that sniper perk would have you think it's never worth it.

[Evoc]

I have a maxed heavy with a maxed heavy bolter, the heavy bolter is insane. Idk why you think its bad. (edit: i only play on max difficulty ruthless)

[The Grand Mugwump]

Like everything else in this game with bolt or bolter in its name, the heavy bolter performs best when it scores a lot of head shots. Aim for those instead of the body.

[Judge Lazar]

Originally posted by Draescan:

Also almost all weapons have penetration. There's literally a penetration stat on them in the UI :P

You're not supposed to shoot blocking enemies. Just stop doing it, despite what that sniper perk would have you think it's never worth it.

Yeah uh, pretty hard to avoid when there's 6 warriors mixed in the trash hordes, just soaking up your rounds.

[Evoc]

Originally posted by Judge Lazar:

Originally posted by Draescan:

Also almost all weapons have penetration. There's literally a penetration stat on them in the UI :P

You're not supposed to shoot blocking enemies. Just stop doing it, despite what that sniper perk would have you think it's never worth it.

Yeah uh, pretty hard to avoid when there's 6 warriors mixed in the trash hordes, just soaking up your rounds.

Just wait for them to get close and parry. Then go back to poppin noggins. I know the melta is meta, but i find the heavy bolter more fun. I have no problems using it on ruthless

[Targaryen22]

Most of my success with players playing with the heavy bolter (i primarily play Assault.) appears to be the opposite. The way I try and coordinate with my heavy bolter heavy player is to keep the mobs off him while he hopefully uses his heavy bolter to set up executions on majoris or bigger for me while i'm knee deep in melee. the heavy bolter, even when the AI is controlling it seems to do great at setting up big enemies for executions. eventually I'll try heavy myself, and there's every chance my opinion will change. But that's just been the experience I've noticed with them while playing other classes

[Judge Lazar]

Originally posted by Evoc:

I have a maxed heavy with a maxed heavy bolter, the heavy bolter is insane. Idk why you think its bad. (edit: i only play on max difficulty ruthless)

Because it just doesn't have enough kill power on anything but trash.

[Draescan]

Originally posted by Judge Lazar:

Originally posted by Draescan:

Also almost all weapons have penetration. There's literally a penetration stat on them in the UI :P

You're not supposed to shoot blocking enemies. Just stop doing it, despite what that sniper perk would have you think it's never worth it.

Yeah uh, pretty hard to avoid when there's 6 warriors mixed in the trash hordes, just soaking up your rounds.

Our group manages just fine ^_^

Spend some more time with it and you'll figure it out. That or play a different class and don't worry about it. I don't play heavy because I try to be everywhere at once, not a good match for that class. Hence why I play bulwark. I can keep everyone safe and let them do their jobs to their fullest.

[Evoc]

Originally posted by Judge Lazar:

Originally posted by Evoc:

I have a maxed heavy with a maxed heavy bolter, the heavy bolter is insane. Idk why you think its bad. (edit: i only play on max difficulty ruthless)

Because it just doesn't have enough kill power on anything but trash.

I have no problems trashing on majoris enemies, hit your headshots, I have my heavy bolter setup as a laser beam and can hit all headshots from quite the distance. It melts, can kill a majoris on max difficulty before i hit halfway overheat

[cc deville]

Somehow the heavy bolter in SM1 had so much more oomph. You could feel the power using that cannon. The heavy in SM2 is like it's little brother.

[Midnight_Q]

Every weapon in this game that isn't melee is hot garbage.