I must agree with the OP. I also find heavies almost useless. The can not hit a barn for gods sake. And for killing robots, I have three plasma snipers. I find the assault much more useful. I barely use suppression. It is simply faster to kill the enemy or use overwatch and let him get killed the next turn. But I have not tried impossible yet, only normal and iron man.
Playing on classic ironman, i didn't have major success until 1) i ignored the stupid cows advice and used grenades, and 2) used loads of heavy.
They may not have good shooting skills, but with missiles at 90%, you can use them to level them up fast and get that aim up to a good standard. 2x missiles, plus using the shredder for weak units like Thin men, and floaters, and your good to go. I currently have 4 of them in my classic ironman game.
lol yeah
"commander I know blowing up aliens is effective but...."
SHUT UP YOU STUPID WOMAN I DO WHAT I WANT
I think most people think Heavy is the bulk who kills everything with his big mean machinegun. For far distances Heavy dont hit well, and heavys abilities are more for supporting the team instead of killing everything.
Here is some pointers why I think heavy is good. You dont get all benefits always on same heavy, it depends how you built it.
- Good Damage against enemy robotics.
- Good for _protecting_the team, not charging front line.
- Rockets, causing aoe dmg, adding weakness, destroying cover
- Suppression to ease up alien capturing.
Here is just few and I think they are damn good reasons to keep heavy in the squad. Heavy is just bit more aggressive support instead of this PURE killing machine what people like to think.
Grenadier is good if you need to move and want an extra opportunity to destroy cover for ITZ snipers.Originally Posted by sebster
I think heavies ought to have an accuracy buff if they're in cover and haven't moved yet. I imagine an LMG would be pretty accurate if you flipped the tripod down and rested the weapon on top of a crate or a car hood or something.
Right now Heavies just piss me off. It gets worse as your squad levels up because they're accuracy doesn't scale worth a damn compared to the other classes. It feels like I'm wasting a slot after awhile.
I'd rather just use a support with smoke & mirrors, suppression and sentinel. And armed with two alien grenades and an LPR. They can protect your team better than a heavy, can clear cover with nades (which have 100% chance to hit as opposed to 90%) and are much better for overwatch duty because they can actually hit stuff when they shoot.
Use assaults to kill stuff, if they get in trouble you'll have plenty of smoke grenades to get em out of trouble.
Wow, you people sure don't have a clue about RNG.
It doesn't matter if you have 90% chance to hit, YOU WILL MISS.
Holo-Targeting makes that 90% chance a hit, making the difference between someone getting eat on the aliens turn or the mob being dead.
The Heavy Shooting twice with his low chance to hit is never going to make up for the fact your playing Russian roulette and have added in extra bullets because you really want to die.
Flanking, Destroying Cover, Elevation, Holo-Targeting they are all about getting you to 100% chance to hit, because thats the only thing that a sane person would do. Strategy game has chance in them, the way to beat them is to remove chance.
You will never get 100% hit all the time, a 90% chance to hit is really acceptable.
heavies are god like with scopes provided with rapid reaction or heat ammo and bulletswarm. Try it. Ive had SantaClaus, my psionic heavy, reaction fire 22 damage on a sectopod and then my snapshot sniper finish up. they already have rockets so thats the cover destroying item you need unless you want to aggro and level the entire map with granadier. nano fiber only grants +2 health which is not nessesary with titan or psi armor. Rookies only use the arc thrower(expendable) supports only use x3 medkits or arc thrower with the extra distance perk, any other obsolete slot "versatility"? (btw with bulletswarm, they can shoot and kill 1 target and MC another)
Yep. I hate Heavies. Worthless drags whose defining skill costs you money every time you use it.
The only times I've ever wished I had a Heavy is when I'm dealing with a Sectopod (HEAT rounds). But since the Heavy misses just about everything anyway, and I usually have some good weaponry and soldiers by the time Sectopods start popping up, I find that I'm better off without them.
Are you kidding me? Heavies worthless? Heavies and Snipers carry the early game together. Later on? Improved area of effect rockets destroy a whole alien group's worth of cover, leave them low health and let an In The Zone squadsight sniper pop every single one of them.
Two heavies are a staple of my team. One I have now is even a nice and strong psi guy. Generally I prefer holotargeting since if I am in position to fire at the beginning of a turn, that's when I'd probably rather rocket launch.
heavies HIT HARD, they are the lynch pin of my squad, i roll out w/ 2. while they do have problem w/ accuracy, you dont want to shoot w/ them from the same distance as a rifle anyway so better use suppression[pin the enemy + free overwatch shot, whats not to like?] if the target is a bit farther than you would like it to be.
im lovin my col. heavy because they make short work of cyberdiscs & sectopods & the Mayhem ability for the fact that it takes care of pesky drones, thin man conveniently.
Hi, first post here, i think Holo-Targetting is very interesting if you have at least 1-2 other heavies, all with scopes. So one has the Holo-Targetting and always fires first, the others have Bullet Storm, all heavies should have Heat Ammo, so there you go with discs for example.
Heavies are far from useless. With holo targeting they often let you get a shot that you would have missed, and as was said before, their job is to blow up cover so your team can clean up. Cover is the difference between a 35% hit chance and a 75% hit chance, that alone is worth bringing a heavy for.
I like bringing 2 heavies with me for terror missions. They really make a huge difference there, especially when you play on impossible and play carefully, you always end up letting the Chrysallids multiply and they rush you with 9+ of them sometimes (100% chance for civilians to become zombies, and 100% chance for zombies to become a Chrysallid). No way to deal with these kind of situations without heavies. They are like a walking panic button that solves a lot of problems.
in my current game my 2 heavies suddenly hit a lot; not sure if I'm using them better now or that I had some really bad luck in my previous games, however they are not far behind in kill counts on my squadsight snipers suddenly....
they really are invaluable against sectopods / cyberdisks / drones and situationally very usefull to deal with cryssalids..
edit: thinking about it it is mostly the way I use them now; in previous games I often neglected to give 'em higher ground...
Heavies accuracy is just fine. They shoot twice per turn, you can give them scopes and most importantly LMG destroys cover ( so other members of your squad can mop up). and "when you absolutely positively need to waste every single mfcker in the room- accept no substitutes" - rocket launcher!
It's true, and I never thought of it like this, but maybe we should be glad they miss so we can blow covers more often and get easy kills.
Heavies, by design, are defensive, reactive units. Someone's come close, he kills it, cover, he destroys it. But they cant act. They cant secure land, or take over a building, or explore on their own. Doing this will quickly gets them killed. So the Heavy is the actual support unit. And people dont like to play support units. Not to mix with the actual Support class which is a bag full of tricks and is an offensive powerhouse.
Heavy’s are fricking awesome. My second favourite class behind support. Just built hyperwave relay. Doing an extraction mission, 4 thinmen spawn and hide quite close together, BOOM one rocket all dead. Next abduction mission, 3 muton elite aggro and hide around the outside of a building. Shredder rocket, all cover gone, all hurt and shredded. Everyone else one hits them.
shoot shoot, shoot move, move shoot, shoot reload. I think heavy’s can be quite proactive.
Once they get Ghost armour they can. Run 3 Ghosted heavies up the map and watch the carnage when they deghost. Anything left alive gets picked off by In the Zone snipers with Squad Sight. By the end you have enough rockets and enough ghost charges to do that 4 times which is usually way more than you need.
Heavies are what makes imp/im runs possible. They own the early game (as squad sight snipers own the end).
I only say a word: SECTOPOD.
Cause of Sectopod appears and having lost my 3 "heavies" I think I will lose the game. My missions were become a pain without "Heat Ammo, Bullet Swarm and Shredder Rocket". My last three missions were as follows:
Won Terror: 5/6 veterans killed
Lost UFO: 6/6 veterans killed
Canceled UFO: 5/6 medium skill killed
I have now only a veteran and hordes of Sectopod+Cyberdisc to engage... When I had my heavies I launched a Sheredder on first turn takin down drones and making 8 damage, on second turn a Rocket (12 dmg), pair of shoots and maybe an Snipe Shoot and finished Sectopod in 2 turns with only 1 or nobody wounded.
Without "heavies", sectopods becomes infernal things with his 101% aim, his infinite reaction shots and his Infernal Nuke-Ray that blows entire cover and 10 to 15 health. One time I sent a wounded behind a brick wall on FULL COVER and NO LINE OF SIGHT, then sent to heal my medic. Sectopod decided to NUKE the wall killing my two soldiers behind it.
Heavies are one of my favorite classes to talk about because of the counter intuitive way that they work.
The thing is that a colonel heavy with a scope shooting at an enemy in optimal range in low cover has a pathetic 65% chance to hit. Compare that to a support colonel who under the same circumstances will be enjoying a 80% chance of making the same shot. If you go with bulletswarm and spend a full round trying to make the shot you have a 12.25% chance of missing totally a 42.25% chance of hitting twice and a 45.5% chance of tagging them at least once.
Heavies can hit, but only if you take bulletswarm. Their major utility however comes from their explosive tree. If you want damage, get a sniper, they are better than heavies by a mile, even at taking out heavy mechanicals like a sectopod. HEAT ammo is great but the thing is that defense bonuses these units enjoy degrade the damage probabilities so severely that it makes it very streaky. Heavies however can be made very reliable if you focus soley on bombs. Don't bother with supression. Use your heavy to level the map.
If you care to check it I posted a guide on the wiki that goes into more detail.
http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?t...Guide_(EU2012)
I had a Heavy solo a Sectopod with Supression, Danger Zone, HEAT and Mayhem.
Yep, rockets are for making sure you survive those tight spots.Heavies are what makes imp/im runs possible. They own the early game (as squad sight snipers own the end).
Heavies are fine. Their job is not necessarily to kill the enemy; they make it easier for your guys to make the kills. Also, once you get the fusion launcher....heavies become even more awesome. With the right perk selection, you can have up to 3 rockets to fire (this includes shredder rockets). 3 Rockets that are self guided and don't require line of sight....that's at least 9 guaranteed damage. That makes a huge difference late game.
Bullet Storm HEAT Heavies with Scopes are quite strong and can rack up kills quickly being able to fire at two different units per turn. Treat them like close range snipers (full action fire), get them into position, and unload bullets TF2 style. I can't say how many times I've annihilated Cyberdisks and mutons with them, and I look forward to point-blank hosing Sectopods.
I hardly use rockets.. half the time the game says I've used it already.
you need 2 AP to fire a rocket...I hardly use rockets.. half the time the game says I've used it already.
Reaction fire is.. done wrong. I seriously think that a unit leaving cover retains the cover bonus when triggering reaction fire. On top of the reaction fire penalty itself, a unit moving out of cover is, by and large, significantly immune. I would never invest in any reaction-fire based abilities for a heavy for this very reason,it's just waste compared to HEAT.
The fake RNG makes testing impossible, unfortunately.
Heavies have the bullet swarm ability, suppression, and the ability to fire multiple rockets. Not every enemy goes down to explosives so it's a great opening or finishing move for groups of anything, really. Bullet swarm can be used to either fire/move or fire/fire which gives the ability for the heavy to deal some damage and then suppress something powerful, like a sectopod. Combine suppression with danger zone and your heavy can suppress whole groups of targets.
The HEAT ammo perk is a great way to take down tough robotic enemies if your squad is heavy on heavies. I find it less useful than double reaction fire since heavies have such a high penalty to aim compared to the other classes.
Pretty much every perk that a heavy can have is pretty freaking awesome.
I dont find anytype of unit useless. Equip them with the right perks, weapons and equipment (usually SCOPES) any unit can be a god like unit. For instance, all my supports have the revive perk exept for 1 who has rifle suppression. All my supports have sentinel covering fire. they can reaction fire on overwatch to any attacking or moving unit in their LOF. All my assaults who have shotgun variants have close combat specialist. Alll heavies must have 1) SCOPE 2) bulletswarm 3) heat ammo. The rest is your personal preference i guess
It's just one extra grenade, on a guy who's already toting one, two or three rockets.
And giving Heavies a grenade is a bad idea anyway, when a Scope will improve their chances of hitting, or Chitin will, along with Titan Armour and Will to Survive, make them brilliant damage soaks.
There's also the issue that the alternative skill, Danger Zone, makes heavies great. It means you can suppress/holotarget multiple enemies, or have rockets trash a whole lot of enemies.
To be perfectly honest, you're doing it wrong. My bullet storm heavy is leading my kill count (lost it for a little while when my sniper got to double tap, but got it back again when I got blaster bombs
First up, dedicate your heavy either to suppression or to killing. If he's for suppression then give him holotargeting, this helps all your guys but especially helps another heavy. If the heavy is for killing, then give him bullet storm, and a scope.
Between all that stuff he'll be taking shots at +10 for the scope, +10 for holotargeting from the other heavy, and he'll be shooting twice a turn. It's a powerful combination.
Love heavy, man. At top lever, they shot twice when overwatch or normaly, can carry 2 rockets and 2 grenades, take less damage behind cover.
Alloy SHIV is good when it come to psy, take half damage, suppression got no cooldown or extra bullet cost, passively +20 def = light cover, long distance travel, can acted as a light cover.
My opinion is one better at offending (heavy) and another better at defending and supporting ( alloy shiv ). Both are good for def (camping) though
Last edited by southernob; 10-24-2012 at 01:53 AM. Reason: tipo
Who cares about nano fiber? Just leave that and wait until you've killed some Crysalids, giving you Chitin.
4 extra points of armour on top of Titan armour and will to survive is a powerful combination.
I think suppression on a heavy is not carrying it's weight.
I get more mileage from Supports with Rifle Suppression.
I think rockets and HEAT are the saving graces of the Heavy.
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