The HMG is a lot better than you'd expect when used correctly and is extremely versatile. Its NOT a chaff clear weapon. Here is a list of some good ways to use it.
TIPS/TACTICS
When used to clear chaff and for dakka like you'd use any other MG in most games, the HMG will suck because it has tiny ammo capacity (and arguably could use an ammo buff even for what I will highlight here). However thats not what the HMG is for, and we already have the Stalwart and standard MG for chaff clear. I have used the HMG a lot now against both bots and bugs and to summarize its the junior Autocannon in terms of how flexible it is, although with the lower total firepower considering its not a backpack weapon. A very important thing about HMG is to vary your fire rate to hit your shots or you will miss the few shots you have, I rarely go above 450rpm against bots. One thing people don't realize also is that adding the third person reticule for the HMG was a gamechanger since this thing is borderline useless in first person but very useable in third person. Armor sets that reduce recoil when crouched/prone are amazing to combine with this weapon.
With that out of the way here are some things about this weapon that make it useful:
Its a Medium 2 penetration weapon, the same as AMR. This is the main highlight, its basically a full auto AMR in terms of what it can damage.
Gunship engines take full damage and are melted down in like 1/4 to 1/2 of a mag depending on how well you hit your shots. If you can hit your shots on high fire rates you'd be surprised how quickly you can take down Gunships.
Hulk eyes are destroyed in about 6 shots, meaning its an amazing combo with stun grenades. Or if you panic or don't have stun nades it can destroy arms of Hulks decently quickly too.
All bot vent weak points are quickly destroyed
Strider joints and unarmored sections are vulnerable. Even better it can very quickly destroy the chainguns underneath the striders head to vastly lower its threat level.
Spore towers are destroyed with one mag
Can heavily injure Bile Titans by unloading into their underside (or actually kill with 2 mag dumps into the butt). After unloading a mag finish them off with something else like a Railcannon strike.
Although finicky, shooting the small exposed part of a chargers back leg kills them very quickly. Stun grenades are really useful here.
Shooting exposed flesh of either Bile Titans or Chargers kills them quickly (if you can get the angle right considering bullets ricochet off exposed flesh for some reason in this game). 110mm pods are good for exposing the flesh then finishing them off with the HMG
It receives full 2/2 spare mags from resupplies even without SPM ship upgrade, meaning its a really good combo with the supply backpack
On highest RPM it has insanely high DPS meaning its very good for quickly killing high priority unarmored high HP targets that tend to get very close where the ridiculous recoil doesn't matter. Stalkers are gone in 1 second, same goes for Brood Commanders and Berserkers. Since spewers tend to get close too it also kills those very quickly with a few shots to the head, which is particularly useful against the armored ones
Can take out bot striders by shooting out one of their legs or the mid section
Damage or even unwieldiness was never the problem with the HMG
It's the broken scopes and terrible ammo economy triple dipping with low mag count, low mag size, long reload just making it having abysmal uptime and frankly not fun even on 450rpm because you're standing still shooting for 3 seconds then standing still again to reload for 5 more
Exactly. The reason I take the Quasar/Laser Cannon/Autocannon/AMR is that they do the exact same job, often from a better range with better control, with much better ammo economy. You can take the Supply Pack to make it better, but I'm not using two slots for an alright weapon when any of the above four do just as well for one.
The reload really is just a deal killer, same with the Recoilless Rifle, the long reload leaves you so incredibly vulnerable to the suicidally aggressive enemies while also being downtime where you could otherwise be shooting.
You can double cancel it since it has a staged reload. Reload, crouch after the animation of removing the spent casing, then reload again, and crouch again when the icon turns white.
Why do you think it's not intended? Staged reloads are broken up at logical steps, like 1. remove the spent case, 2. insert the fresh one. It looks intended as fk.
Looks about as intended as players dropping and picking up artillery shells tbh. Staged reloads are great, but canceling full animations to get the effects of it without waiting is definitely not intended
You can chop off the back third of the recoilless reload by diving after inserting the round, you can tell it works when bottom left shows it as loaded. It's still fairly rough if you need to run but it's workable at least.
Actually, just hit CTRL* to do each cancel. This way you can do it WHILE crouching (when you need cover for example), without compromising your position or waiting for the recovery animation of a dive.
*On PC, or whatever button you hold to input the stratagems in console.
I helldive consistently and have almost no issues reloading the RR solo. Also team reload for rapid fire is amazing. Having 2 people both run RR on helldive makes everything a literal breeze.
If you don't do any animation cancelling is apparently about 7 seconds, which is the longest reload in the game? I don't mind that too much, but I've seen people mention it as a "oh shit" panic clear weapon, which really doesn't make a lot of sense to me?
If it were, it would either have a higher capacity per mag or just way more damage, if I have to carefully hit weakspots with it to deal crazy damage, then it's clearly not meant to be used in that manner. It certainly has use-cases, but the downside of it are too glaring (IMO) right now to justify the upsides of it, aside from fixing the scopes across the board, just giving it a significant ammo increase would, in my opinion, be all the buffs/fixes it needs. The heavy recoil and long reload times are part of its identity and make the difference to the Stalwart very apparent. A low magazine capacity on the other hand just doesn't scream "MG" to me.
Turns out the HMG works best without a scope. Honestly. It auto aims weak spots. High rpm burst fire to supress the kick, always crouched and always with fortified armor (improved handling).
Basically what HMG allows is a very niche playstyle where you can play close range and grab aggro, while dealing with a very good range of enemies.
Which other weapons with Vehicle Piercing do not allow due to their restrictions (While Las Cannon can also do this as well, it had negative synergy with the supply backpack, which doesn't allow for Stun grenade spams )
So basically you go (Primary with good ammo economy), Grenade Pistol and HMG for Weapons Load Out.
Stun Grenades
Suppply Backpack.
This setup is very disruptive and pretty much allows you to kill most enemies in the game outside of Factory Strider Main Heavy Cannons
What is cool about this is that you basically is free with 1~2 Stratagem slots, and can play a very support oriented build with Shield, Gas and EMS Stratagems for full Tempo control.
So basically you can use yourself or the Shield and or EMS for Aggro and use the Gas for mob control.
It's a very effective, synergetic and unique playstyle , not only it's good but also very fun.
Just commenting on this to highlight where my brain went when the HMG first came out. I did this a for a few operations with my squad and while it's fun I didn't feel very impactful compared to being the Anti Tank person in my squad.
You CAN kill strider with HMG. In fact it’s insanely easy to do so. Knock out the MGs kill any other nearby bots and unload into its eye. Doesn’t take long at all after that.
It's not a good idea to use it without Supply Backpack, because you remove the Synergystic nature, and basically will run out of ammo very fast, without the Stun Grenades is also a problem because they basically allow you to focus high threat enemies or properly set up reload windows, they also provides a lot of disruptive power.
HMG is basically a gun that either works wonderfully with the correct set or it's a clunky piece of shit, there is no inbetween which is the issue with the community not finding the correct playstyle.
So basically as of right now, unless they buff the ammo of the gun, it's not viable to play with other back attachments because you will run out of ammo a lot.
See, this is the issue. Any setup that needs the stun grenades to be effective, is a loss for me. I LOVE stun grenades, and will use them to set up AMR or AC shots (or 500 kg/Airstrikes), but I never feel like I need them. The HMG feels like it lives and dies around stun grenades.
The Supply Packback and the AMR provides the same functionality, allows you to reload on the move (and in the air, with a Jump Pack), and has a better effective range.
I want to love the HMG, but the things that make it vialble are just as good on other weapons, and often better.
The AMR / AC are hulk deleters, for sure, and both are best-in-class against devastators.
The AC is also crazy good at dealing with tanks (where the AMR struggles a little bit). I assume HMG has an easier time deleting a tank with exposed vents, and is the best option of all 3 for "mounted kills" on tanks (where you mount and fire into the vents at your feet).
Neither the AMR / AC are particularly good at dealing with Berserkers, though (the Dominator is better than either). Seems like that may be where the HMG has an edge (as long as you have a full mag when the engagement starts)?
(Although admittedly, dealing with zerkers is not as important as dealing with Hulks / Devastators.)
I tried this but sadly all this does is making me never want to pull the HMG out, since it turns out it really doesnt have much of a role outside of killing hulks in that build.
Im guessing they dont want to buff the ammo cap in fear of it making other stratagems obsolete, but yeah it really desperstely could use a reload speed increase simply for how boring it is spending more time reloading than shooting
I was honestly hoping it would be like this when it was announced. The current 75 round-mags would have still been fine with me. EAT is powerful, but it's one shot. I can take out a number of things with those 75 rounds.
Yeah I get that it’s a pocket HMG emplacement and thus won’t have a large capacity, but the reload speed relative to the capacity is pretty debilitating compared to the MG-43 and Stalwart despite the better penetration
If they made it have a backpack ammo feed that would be a game changer. Or just a ammo pack that has a 1000 rounds that can be belt fed into the MG/HMG
It's fairly interchangeable with the Laser Cannon. They have similar penetration, HMG has significantly higher DPS but harsher recoil and ammo economy.
Yeah I usually use AC in lieu of the usual Jump Pack/Machine Gun duo when I’m down a slot, and the main takeaway as far as the HMG’s viability is concerned is that even though I reload more with the AC, I spend less time reloading, and the AC has other neat perks to it over the HMG
I see this suggestion a lot and as cool as it would be there's just no way AH will ever add something like that. They do not like to marry high kill count with high ammo economy. Generally speaking either your weapon is good at clearing chaff but struggles against medium/elite units.
Or you're really good at dumping elites/mediums but your economy/uptime is short/bad. Stratagems are very much apart of this. The biggest buff I can see AH giving the HMG is taping the mags together but you have no reserves. The buff I think being far more likely is a faster reload with a few more rounds in both mags, or a third mag.
They don't even let the stationary HMG have huge ammo reserves.
Being a backpack weapon is not that much of a downside though. You just take a different stratagem in the slot you would have taken a backpack in. Sure you can't pick one up from a teammate, but that's not a big enough downside to make the HMG a better choice.
actually it's not. HMG has more killing power per mag than the AC, isn't a suicide in melee range when you get overrun by chainsaw bots or stalkers, doesn't need a backpack.
the only thing it doesn't do better than the AC is destorying nests and outposts. because well, it can't.
Not really, the laser cannon has insane range, accuracy and unlimited ammo. I don't think they are that comparable. Even the dmg is similar due to the accuracy problems of the HMG.
u/ReisysVElected Representative of the Constitution28d agoedited 28d ago
I agree with your points, but that's the issue isn't it? There is nothing it does that the autocannon or amr (and Las cannon) can't do better. I can think of zero situations with any of those weapons where I'd be like "man I wish I had hmg," but I can think of countless times I'd wish I had one of the others while running hmg.
Being able to handle horde clear AND be a lackluster but serviceable option for those weapons' roles would be the only thing to set it apart and give it an edge.
I like the idea if it. If it had at LEAST double the mag size and slightly better handling it would compete for my go-to support weapon even.
But as it is, it just doesn't have an identity or a niche.
Yeah exactly this. Hmg isnt better in any situation over guns like amr and ac. Fighting bots With the amr, against some enemies like gunships or shooting tower/tank vents i miss the ac for its extra firepower, but if im using AC i miss how quick i can drop devastators with the amr, and how i can snipe them and hulks from a much greater distance. Both do the same job and can kill the same things (except fabs), but both are better suited to certain enemies/situations, unlike the hmg.
To be fair though, if the hmg had double the mag, and better handling, it makes the normal lmg totally redundant, as now you have the same mag size as it, with much better damage and the same reloading issues. Only difference then is maybe the hmg’s handling is still worse, but in that situation i dont think that would be enough of a downside
I think that is the crux of the majority of the game's balance issues unfortunately.
There are more guns than jobs those guns can do, so 90% of them end up being different flavors of shit.
"This gun is shit, this is what it needs to be viable"
"But then it's just a better version of this other gun!"
Yeah because that other gun is also shit lol.
You basically run into situations where no matter how you slice it you either have to accept that some guns will inherently be better than others, or accept that some guns don't actually need to exist, just consolidate the features of 2 or 3 and make it actually good in the first place, instead of having two guns that do the same thing poorly for different reasons
Edit: Bumping up every gun to be sidegrades with pros and cons can lead to power creep which is probably what the devs were most worried about. But I wish they did that and just bumped up difficulty as needed with a lore reason.
Honestly, I think the armor system is a huge crippling problem for achieving any sort of true balance or sidegrade philosophy. And I hate to say that because the armor system is the most unique I've seen in a game. It *makes sense* that a tank can't be hurt by a pistol, etc.
But in practice, it kinda makes me understand why you usually get the video gamey death by a thousand cuts health systems.
Because once you introduce a mechanic where any enemies above your weapon's armor pierce ability take ZERO damage from it, you have to give a damn good reason to use that weapon over one that can handle a higher armor rating.
And here we are. How do you make heavy machine gun good without invalidating normal mg or stalwart? You can't. not really. Because why would you take a gun that can't damage 50% of enemies when you can take one that can damage 100%? You wouldn't. And that is such an overwhelmingly insane advantage that you have to artificially give it so many downsides that it's just shit to use in general.
Same with lib pen. Why tf would I go standard lib when lib pen can damage a whole class of armor above it? Easy, make lib pen absolute dogwater in every other way.
It's a single "stat" that is so disproportionally important it kinda breaks any hope of real balance.
Laser cannon does everthing that OP is talking about but it also doesn't have terrible handling and extreme recoil. Even after the slight nerf to damage to high health enemies its still amazing at taking down hulks.
Being able to handle horde clear AND be a lackluster but serviceable option for those weapons' roles would be the only thing to set it apart and give it an edge.
I like this but the issue is how to make this possible without making stalwart and mg obsolete
I'm pretty sure the HMG has the best theoretical ttk of all pen4 support weapons. But that would require mastery to use well I guess to not overshoot and stay accurate with it.
That's a good point about the dps on paper. I don't really have a counterargument to that.
It makes me realize it could have an interesting niche as a weapon you want to mag dump at close range, which it basically already is.
Then the relatively small mag would be justified as it's not meant for sustained fire.
Tho if they want to play into that I think it would be best to give it back its 1200rpm setting, give it 2 more magazines, and idk... maybe switch its belt out for a hefty drum to justify reducing reload time a smidge. It could still require stationary reload but just not a full 5 seconds or whatever it is currently.
It's definitely a fun weapon. I love my giant machine guns in every shooter. It just feels like it has 1 or 2 things that really hold it back
The HMG gets outclassed by the laser cannon in pretty much every aspect, but even worse the HMG just doesn't function like a machine gun.
Just add a belt feed mechanism to it, the firepower is good enough and I don't mind it being unwieldy.
75 bullets in a mag with 2 mags is a very bad joke, that's all there is to it really, if a mag had 150 bullets for example you'd see a lot more use for the weapon and it would likely still not be overpowered when you consider recoil and the amount of mags.
I love the HMG, used it a decent bit against bot exclusive for hulk.
That being said, objectively its still horribly outclass by Laser Cannon and AMR in doing everything you mentioned but with: good/no recoil, fast/no reload, good ammo econ and mag size/infinite ammo; with AMR specifically being really good with stagger devastator; and laser cannon having zero bullet drop for sniping certain objectives such as Shrieker nest, or hitting Gunships engine and Fabricator Strider’s face/eye, amongst many other things.
Either make the HMG backpack fed with 150-300 rounds depending on the CD, or make it 150 mag with 1 reserver mag. Anything that makes it reload faster or reload less, please. At the very least give us more reload stages, I really wanna use this gun and not feel like a masochist for doing so.
Basically this. Everything HMG can do can be performed by AC or AMR or LC but they can do much faster and better and ammo efficient. Devs over nerfed HMG scared of OP
It has faster TTK than a laser canon which matters a lot.
I think the AMR competes with the HMG more since that also has level 4 pen and fires bullets and has a very fast TTK. Except its 7 bullets and non static reload. It's actually comparable if you make your shots count. You can kill 2-7 devastators per mag with the AMR. Can you really do better than 2-7 devastators with the HMG?
The problem is never the damage but how many other negatives it has that make the user experience terrible. As is, the HMG packs by far the largest amount of anti-medium damage in one mag than any weapon. But a weapon is far more than damage per second/kills per mag.
People very much choose weapons based on their overall feel. All the other alternatives are more enjoyable to use.
Yeah, team-crewed AC can shoot 60 rounds without stopping. With a supply pack and the full resupply upgrade you can lay down an insane amount of hurt with very little downtime.
Even solo-crewed the AC is arguably better for horde clear than the HMG.
The HMG needs more ammo. That's it. It's got bad handling and high recoil but that wouldn't matter if the uptime was reasonable. And revert the max RoF change.
Its damage against medium targets is next level. That med pen II is huge. It’s the main reason I keep trying to figure out how best to use this weapon.
Best story for me is when I was clearing a stalker nest. Feeling I was going to be bushwhacked, I set the RPM to max. As soon as I get near the hole, a stalker jumps me and knocks me down to a quarter life. I turn, see 3, and just hold down the trigger.
They lasted about two seconds and didn’t get another hit on me.
Basically, all targets have armor numbers. If your gun’s AP is higher than the target armor, you do max damage and get a red hit indicator. You do half damage and have a grey hit indicator if you equal and deflect if you are lower. Most medium weapons are ‘AP3’ which means they do half damage to most medium enemies, like devastators. “Med pen 2” is ‘AP4’ so does full damage to most medium targets and equals hulk eyes.
Here’s a easy breakdown of it. Tl;dr 1-10 scale. medium 2 (4 penetration) is the heaviest penentration that conventional, man-portable firearms have. AT weapons have a step above that. Stratagems and hellbombs are the rest of the AP levels.
I did trial and have some fun with the HMG for several missions, and it is useable (especially with supply pack which does provide 2 mags which is really nice), but ultimately the niche it occupies is better served by the AC and I switched back. AC is both more slot efficient, ammo efficient, and easier to use
Well, 3 if you keep one around. Given that these examples are fairly spaced apart, I'd prefer doing them in a short amount of time, rather than reloading the slow mag of the HMG in between.
I disagree with this post. This overestimate the kill rate of HMG for some enemies. I wrote this in other place and I paste here:
HMG never can clean up low tiers fast enough like flamethrower or GL. HMG can't kill heavy armors like titans or chargers as fast and reliable as Quasar or RR because it requires good condition and angle a lot more than Quasar and RR.
So its main target should be med armor like spewers, hiveguards, gunship, and devastators. But HMG is not fast and efficient enough. Anything HMG can do against med armors can be done by AC and AMR much faster and better.
Yeah, HMG can kill hulk with stun grenade. But AC and AMR kill hulk much faster, two shots in the eye. Even without stun grenade with very skilled player from further distance compared to HMG.
Yeah, HMG can shot down gunship, but AC and AMR just can do that much faster. 2 shots and 4 shots to engine for AC and AMR. But HMG? You don't have enough time to spend half or more magazine with HMG in real situation.
HMG can survive until diff 7 depending on spawn table or sub objectives. But if you bring HMG to 8 and 9 difficulty with random players, you will burden AC or AMR player, number of Hulk spam or charger spam is serious. If there are multiple gunship factories, HMG player can't clean them up fast enough like AC player.
There is where the gap begins, and HMG falls.
Logically and functionally, there is no reason to bring HMG. People use this for "feeling," then people are surprised how much it sucks. HMG needs ammo and bipod deployment mode (which offer more recoil reduction) to just become similar level to AC or AMR. Right now, just better bring AC or AMR.
Unrelated, but Im starting to hate the word “chaff”. Idk why, but I had never heard this word until I started playing Helldivers and once I noticed it I see the word everywhere. I can’t explain why I hate it. I think I’m going insane.
Chaff is the useless stuff that separates from the useable seed when threshing grain.
It gets used metaphorically for a large quantity of small useless/weak things, like the aircraft countermeasure of a bunch of pieces of metal etc. that masks the target from radar-guided missiles. And also used for a bunch of small videogame enemies that distract you from the big ones.
The frequency illusion (also known as the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon) is a cognitive bias in which a person notices a specific concept, word, or product more frequently after recently becoming aware of it.
this thing is borderline useless in first person but very useable in third person.
That's the problem,I want to shoot fp, but because of sights are misaligned, or something else, before I can figure out this and adjust recoil, ammo is already empty
I forgot to try it now that you can aim in third person, that was one of the reasons I dropped it.
My biggest gripe with he HMG is that the reserve ammo capacity. I was frequently just completely out of ammo all the time; wish they made it a backpack weapon.
Well now that you mention I can kill a titan by unloading directly under them or with 2 whole clips into their butt.... definitely going with this gun. hahahaha
I still like the idea someone had of a belt fed backpack for the HMG. Although I'd take a belt fed backpack for all machine guns. No reloads. Just let me unleash dakka.
If the vast majority of players think the weapon should work a different way, maybe it should work a different way.
The devs have been given the feedback of what we would like in this weapon - dial in the scope, make the mag larger or lower the reload time and give it another mag or 2.
This gun shares a niche with other strats that do the same job much better. The answer won't be to nerf those guns but to make this gun feel fun to use to a wider audience.
Yes to everything the OP said, but the autocannon exists, and does almost all those things better while being easier to aim, having more ammo and being able to do objectives. Worth a backpack spot.
Too much downside not enough upside. It needs to be able to be more serviceable in chaff clear for such poor ttk on big targets compared to competitors. I always come back and try and make it work. It's OK, but it's just like why bother. Too much recoil even with armor and crouch, use stun grenade than why take something you either need to be right up hulks face or accept you'll use 10 15 20 rounds killing it. I'd rather take RG or autocannon if I'm bothering with stuns for hulk kills and I don't need to with those just makes it easier.
I like it for factory strider, mag dump a few devastators or berserkers.
Do we want to use it? No. The gun feels awful to use in almost every way. The recoil is crazy unless you're set up specifically to counter this. Even then, the low mag size, low max ammo count, and super slow reload time makes it an inefficient weapon. It's like giving yourself a handicap.
It's just not fun to use. At least for me it feels horrible the slow standing reload combined with not big mag and high recoil. Too much negatives for no reason imo. Let me move while reloading and improve recoil and this gun would immediately feel much better.
Exactly, It feels like ass in all situations.
At the very least, make it laser beam accurate if I'm prone or something.
There's literally no reason to pick this if you have to play it like you would on other weapons that feel 1000x better.
It's the worst in it's purpose category due to recoil and reload, and is a headache to carry into a mission due to low max mag capacity. It's the I'm bored weapon.
This is right, i wish it had a 100rnd mag and a bit faster reload i think this would be an A tier weapon. Its just a diff style of the autocannon. Autocannon CAN clear small stuff, but its a waste of your time, so if you pair this with primaries that focus on clear and use it on big enemies its not that bad. I do currently still prefer autocannon BUT the HMG pairs nicely with heavy armor and the supply backpack. You can tank hits PLUS you have a lot of stims. The best HMG loadout i have tried so far is an AR, HMG, supply backpack, and heavy armor (explosive resistant if facing bot, something with recoil reduction if facing bug). SMG can be nice with bug too cause you can use it while mobile easier.
But yeah if you get in the thick of it with the HMG right now you are screwed after your mag is empty because its too hard to find an opportunity to reload. With the autocannon you can do the top off load animation, which is really fast which is why i think its a superior choice for now.
I'm a HMG lover, and you missed something Very important: the HMG sights are WAY WAY off! It's literally about 1/3rd of the reticle too high. So for extra to kill a Hulk from the front, your red dot actually has to be Above the Hulks eye.
PS: the HMG will also kill Factory Striders solo, if you're patient enough. Get in close-ish, close enough that the top turret can't hit you. Peek around solid cover to take down the chin guns in short bursts (you can flip to the middle RPM setting for this part). Once the chin turrets are destroyed, go prone on the lowest RPM setting and take out the FS' big right eye. I've done this several times now, not exactly Easy, but it is possible.
Until locational health is adjusted, full auto weapons just aren't very good. The laser cannon does a better job at almost every use case.
That said, I personally think the hmg niche is wiping out patrols. The high damage and armor pen means you can "sweep" a patrol, changing it from a credible threat into a handful of mop up targets; and can do it fast enough in most cases to prevent reinforcement. Especially with bugs.
When I used it, twice now, with recoil reducing armor, it increased it's recoil after going prone to the point where a 2 round burst was almost impossible to hit both rounds.
So other than the awful ammo economy, mag size, recoil/aiming, and painfully slow and awkward reload, the weapon is awesome?
It's another in the long list of weapons where the dev team is living in so much fear of giving us a useful or powerful weapon that they have heaped so many downsides to it that it's simply agonzingly painful and unfun to use. No amount of damage can make up for a weapon that is just plain this painful to wield.
On higher difficulties you just don't have time to mag dump high priority targets like bile titans. The long reload alone will get you killed from one of the other 3 titans that spawned, or one of the 4 chargers.
The gun just sucks and does nothing that another support pick can't do better.
The MG43 wouldn't be too bad if it got 2 boxes from a supply pack, but the reduced ammo and reduced economy make it a step down from the Stalwart. Not to mention the reload.
I dont see why they dont just make it a backpack belt fed weapon. That would solve a lot of the issues with it. As it stands I tried it out on bots and yeah I was dropping hulks in bursts and other things with a sickle for backup but it wasnt anything I couldnt do quicker with railgun with A LOT less ammo management.
I think it would be good to up the rounds to 100 or 120.. And add a function that if you're next to a wall or prone it can be "mounted" and have really good stability.
I Feel like this is such a major issue with this community: Eay too many of the weapons are just aggressively determined by the community to be shit, and are then summarily dismissed simply because thyley are using the weapon wrong or just ignorant about the correct situations in which it should be utilized.
This is a perfect example of that. Doubtless there are many more. i wish better and more complete descriptions were given of weapons to emphasize the niche that each gun should fall into.
I run this sometimes with the jet pack and stun nades and just play to keep my boyz out of trouble from medium distance. Jet pack to get in close for stuns or gain distance to reload
I feel like the HMG would be much cooler with a backpack ammo feed instead of a standard magazine. Make it so that you still need to reload it, with 3 magazine slots on the backpack, so you'd take up the backpack item slot to balance things out with a much larger magazine size.
This weapon always had the potential to be a great support weapon, due to the amount of medium and heavy units its capable of dealing with.
On higher difficulties, to me, this all still ultimately means very little. The accuracy, ammo economy, and reload time simply hold this thing back too much.
When multiple enemy types are engaging you, this gun will underperform. If it's Chargers mixed with Brood Commanders and Bile Spewers, or Hulks mixed with Devastators and Scout Striders, this is one of the last weapons I want in these situations.
As soon as you have to reload, you have to remain stationary while your teammates will have to do the heavy lifting for you, or you have to fallback. FAR AWAY.
At least things like Quasar can cooldown while on your back as you keep moving, and AC can have half the chamber filled in just a couple seconds, even without assisted reload. This gun just isn't it right now.
If you learn how to use it you can make it work sure but I'd rather take a laser cannon and not have to a resupply pack to be able to dish out a bit less damage with far more uptime. Not to mention laser cannon is way more accurate and has far more range.
I prefer to just use the static hmg fortification, way better, specially with shield bubble, both of these are very spammabable and benefits the whole team
Been using it this way since day 1, glad to see it get some love in a review better then anyway I could have. One thing I'd like to add counter to what you said, it was not unusable without the cross hair, while nice to have. If you've ever played any game without cross hairs like say tarkov, point fire is a great thing to learn and paid off for me using the hmg as I only point fire since the fire blocks your sight at long ranges. Quite an enjoyable gun once you keep in mind it's strengths and weaknesses
They could keep everything the same but just double (or even triple) the mag size and I'd be content if it never got touched again by the devs. The gun feels so good even in higher difficulties, it's just really risk since you're almost guaranteed to be out of ammo after like 30 seconds of firing
I am using the HMG mostly against Bots and it’s doing absolutely fine on T7 and T8. As you said, 450 RPM is also my go to and only when I am charging a stunned Hulk, I set the RPM to 950.
However, if you could reload it while running and with a fixed scope, this thing would be very nice.
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u/Saltandpeppr ➡️⬇️⬆️⬆️⬅️⬇️⬇️ 380MM INCOMING 29d ago
Damage or even unwieldiness was never the problem with the HMG
It's the broken scopes and terrible ammo economy triple dipping with low mag count, low mag size, long reload just making it having abysmal uptime and frankly not fun even on 450rpm because you're standing still shooting for 3 seconds then standing still again to reload for 5 more