heavy bolter any good? Minor spoiler.

[Tok]

I thought id give the Sister of Battle a heavy bolter, but after seeing one from a trader, i think the damage is abit low, do they get any better later in game, or is a regular bolter superior?

[Gundalf]

You take both the normal for single shots and the heavy for burst fire.

[Tok]

Ah, nice. Sounds good.
Noob question, can you change weapon during combat?

[Lur Nen Rue]

max rep void give you decent bolter, drusians max also give you armor to go with it

decent as in, it get rate of fire the more you kill with it

[Sotanaht]

Heavy bolter is superior to a regular bolter. You can get a lot of extra flat damage, at which point the higher ROF bursts just do WAY more. Also Heavy weapons in general have several extra perks which make them stronger than equivalent non-heavy weapons.

HOWEVER, Heavy Bolters specifically are FAR from the strongest high ROF weapons available. You should probably look into using one of the heavy Drukhari weapons or a (calibrated) heavy stubber instead. Not sure what act 4 has but I'm sure there's something.

[Mack]

Yes. It's one of the best weapon sets in the game with Soldier + Arch Militant.

Concentrated Fire, Bolter Spec, Rapid Fire (w/ Unfaltering Fire) and other skills like Revel In Slaughter, Devastating Attack, combined with talents for heavy weapons (Heavy Gunner, Broad Expertise, Rack & Ruin, Muzzle Velocity, Fired Up, Overpower, Breaking Point.

Equipment you want to look out for includes:
* Blessed Bolter Case (makes her ultimate disgustingly powerful, shooting at least 8 auto hitting heavy bolter shots you can clear the board of low health enemies or put a huge amount of damage into a single enemy)
* Long Range Aim Lens (range attack distance increase)
* Commissar Hat (improves critical hit chance)
* Tactical Backpack (adds 1 more shot to the heavy bolter, it's a reputation item)
* Recoil Gloves or Recoil Warboots (you only need one, so when you get boots you can change to a +1 ROF gloves).

There's even better equipment beyond those.

Set her up right and she can walk in front of the hardest target in a combat and pour 16 to 20 shots right into their face, then follow up with an ultimate of 10 more single shots that auto-hit.

[ElConvict]

If you go arch militant and spec toward area attack buffs and crit damage buffs, she can quickly build versatility and start critting every hit or every other hit in bursts with 50+dmg a shot easily

[dustin1280]

Heavy bolter is INSANE, any high ROF weapon is awesome, the more bullets the better.

But what makes the heavy bolter good is that many of its shots penetrate.

Build Argenta around a heavy bolter and she will be one of your strongest characters.

[Nox]

The heavy weapons are the mainstay of the archmil.

The main value of the heavy bolter and sluggers are the high rate of fire, the low damage gets boosted by flat damage modifiers.

Until you're working up the last half of archmil you're probably better off with a sniper rifle.

The key is officer turns, flashfire and soldier bonuses. At around level 40 each single round in the burst is doing 200-300 damage. Then on top of it you add "each time you do damage" talents and you are literally melting bosses.

you have to survive long enough for your archmil to warm up - they take 3-4 turns of continusously shooting to build up the stacking bonuses. A very well set up vanguard is necessary to give cover, as is a good strategist who will pop the "everyone standing in this corner is a low priority target" upgrade to zones.

[「SHAORUNE」]

H.Bolter burst is good because there is a skills that give each shot in a burst dmg equal to the weapon rate of fire, and argenta soldier class work really well with burst, ofc single fire gonna be shjt but doesnt matter you can shoot 20 time anyway LOL. My favorite is using a melta and poping my Heroic act that give 30% fire rate,dry that up, then switch to a Heavy Bolter and just spray away.

[Tok]

Thanks ppl, sounds like a good weapon.

[Nox]

On its own it's not a good weapon really - the very high recoil means that without high weapon skill the second + shots in the burst will miss.

there are lots of items that dovetail into this like gloves that give 50% more damage to heavy weapons if you haven't moved, optics that give range, a backpack of +1 rate of fire.

Basically this is an interlocking set of synergies that is grossly overpowered. Even worse and I haven't heard anyone mention it there's an "improved heavy bolter" that gets +1 rate of fire for every kill. If that's until end of combat that is so insane that it's game breaking. Even if it's end of turn, that is nuts.

without bonuses it's not an effective weapon but it builds up to being one of the best.

[Polupostage]

I prefer the gunslinger helmet for Argenta, you get it in Chapter 3.
And as said, the more RoF, the better. Heavy calibrated stubber have the additionnal advantage of a very big magazine (156, meaning 13 burst fire. Most fights are over way before that).

[Nox]

The calibrated stubber is not hard to get either - that's 35 profit rating and 7 relations with kasballica

[Sotanaht]

Originally posted by Polupostage:

I prefer the gunslinger helmet for Argenta, you get it in Chapter 3.
And as said, the more RoF, the better. Heavy calibrated stubber have the additionnal advantage of a very big magazine (156, meaning 13 burst fire. Most fights are over way before that).

If you have the Soldier perk to reduce reload costs and the accessory from the tech priest faction, you can get your reload AP to 0. Master Tacticians have a talent that grants +2 stacks every time someone reloads, so you reload between every attack for free in order to grant additional stacks to every tactician.

Extra stacks matters. It's not just 1+1 extra damage from Inspire per tactician per turn (assuming 5 reloads), it's also additional resolve via Lynchpin, which builds even more stacks even faster feeding back into itself.

[NekoLord]

Originally posted by Sotanaht:

Heavy bolter is superior to a regular bolter. You can get a lot of extra flat damage, at which point the higher ROF bursts just do WAY more. Also Heavy weapons in general have several extra perks which make them stronger than equivalent non-heavy weapons.

HOWEVER, Heavy Bolters specifically are FAR from the strongest high ROF weapons available. You should probably look into using one of the heavy Drukhari weapons or a (calibrated) heavy stubber instead. Not sure what act 4 has but I'm sure there's something.

There is a heretical heavy bolter that is slightly better than drukhari machine guns. Also with those guns does not work heavy gun prof perk(str reduce) so it is very likely that other heavy gun perks do not work either.