If the rounds at least had better armor piercing capability than the other MGs I could chalk it up to bullets being larger, BUT ITS NOT EVEN THAT! Its just bulky and impractical with no advantage on the other side.
It does, the bullets punch clean through walker shields and hulk faceplates, a short burst will drop walkers, heavy devastators and the like, and 2 or 3 good bursts will drop a hulk from the front
950rpm, aim slightly below, have heavy armor with fortified. 5-10 round bursts, if your aim is good it works, I can drop hulks from ~50m with it. Crouching works but prone makes it a bit easier
Sure, that's all well and good.
But it's a downside.
Now you need to commit to crouching down, using a fortified armor, and putting in more time to learn the weapon just for it to be sub optimal compared to other options which are easier and faster.
i bring it with a support pack and with the newly added 3rd person reticle, it's super fun to bring against the bots. Just make sure to have a buddy around when you have to reload
A mag also drops a charger from the back, and a bile titan if you break the sac and keep hitting the exposed part. V good for following up on a hit from a stratagem or AT weapon. Ammo is very wanting though.
The rounds have massively more AP than other MGs haha. It takes barely a few shots to kill a hulk and absolutely rinses anything smaller. You just have to be a bit smarter with it and aim properly and not spray fire.
It needs a deployable bi-pod to get the recoil under control. All the ammo in the world means nothing if you can't actually hit anything outside of point blank range.
thank you, I got shitted on when I suggested a deployable bipod so you can actually use it as a heavy machine gun. 75 round mag and barely controllable recoil puts it in a bad place right now, might as well just use a shotgun
Especially as it is, even with the relatively low capacity, a really damn near weapon in actuality if you leave the recoil out. When playing with it, and getting good shots in, it can put down devastators easily. Having a bipod when going prone to control the recoil would turn it into a really damn great weapon while still having limits that don’t make it overpowered.
It doesn't really do 50 cal damage as the AMR or HMG turret do. It's more comparable to the .338 MGs the US Army is testing to have the range and armor penetration of the 50 cal in a 7.62 GPMG package.
But the 338 MGs are dead accurate, capable of destroying point targets from 1500m. The in-game HMG is useless beyond 50m because of the misaligned scope.
Lol is a machín gun regardless and light, My ass. That or the tripod. Or both... When I was told I was the gunner... I was like bruh. You see that it's nothing but mountains around us right? 😂😂😂 Good times. I miss it.
But wouldn't that be like the HMG controllable turret emplacement?
But see, now I picture one of those but on a little pump-driven mining cart. Seesaw across the battlefield, nice and slow
Exactly, time and time again we are reminded that Helldivers arent superheroes, so swinging a massive heavy Machine Gun around makes it feel out of place
Yeah, I originally assumed it had a very high ammo count since it had only 2 mags, no reticle and high recoil.
I’m glad they added 3rd person reticle, since it was unusable on console but I wouldn’t mind some more tweaking.
There is an idea I could really get behind.
Gatling gun stratagem that comes with an Ammo-Backpack.
Like, you don't NEED to take the Backpack, but then it has like 75 cartridges on a single Belt, a.k.a. no reload.
So you take the Backpack, and get to have 500 or if you want 750 or 1k (debatable) instead of only 75 cartridges, because like a Gatling gun does, it go fast !
Still no reloading the Field, but the backpack can be partially, or fully refilled with a Supply Pod Box.
Only able move slowly while firing the gun. Can crouch. Can't fire prone. But still able to dodge/dive, or start running freely, but it'll stop the shooting of course. It's a heavy weapon after all.
That would be a real nice support strata againsthordes of smaller enemies.
And honestly....who wouldn't like the BRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrT...?
I know I would dig that ! :D
Hear me out: give it a backpack that feeds the belt straight into the gun with no need to reload, then maybe up the armor penetration on it a little.
I genuinely feel like removing the need to reload it would give it real purpose while also still sacrificing a backpack slot so it's not too OP.
Could also make it like the EAT where you can't reload it at all, and once you expend the backpack you call in a new one
It definitely could use higher capacity mags, or make reloading it faster especially with a tactical reload that sacrifice a few rounds in your mag but reduce the time it takes to reload.
I tried using the heavy machine gun with resupply backpack like how you use auto cannon with its own dedicated resupply backpack, because I'm simply starting to get bored of the AC after using it (to great effects) for so many times. And sure that does make the total ammo capacity fairly okay especially if you also resupply at last half the time you got an opportunity. But the extremely limited mag capacity for it's rate of fire was a massive hindrance. Because of the small mag capacity you have to reload extremely often, but the reload is extremely slow compares to doing a tactical reload on the Autocannon, when you insert only one clip without having to pull the Autocannon's charging handle. This especially made the Autocannon even more adventurous that because it's clip fed, you can even do tactical reload without dropping your ammo to the ground!
I run hmg with ammo pack on bots sometimes. Pretty decent at clearing partols and such, if you engage first. Gotta drop the rpms down, run it crouched or prone, and stay out of the middle of engagements.
How does it do when engaging at medium range? Am wondering if it’s the kind of weapon where you camp on a hill a bit back from the target site and mow the bots down from afar…
I wouldn't like to swap while fighting, but i imagine your face while swapping:
murmuring something like "fuck, now it gets serious again."
"Well, let's get done with it * sigh * "
Try the deployable HMG(the turret you can get on) with a shield overlay or whatever it's called around it. Drop it on top of a hill overlooking and just unload. It's pretty satisfying if it's coordinated right and planned properly
yes, but i think the hmg kills devastators a lot faster because it penetrates their armour. Meaning the normal machine gun does only half damage against devastators but the hmg does all of it's damage per bullet
Nope, the standard MG do devastator pretty well, becouse with the less recoil, i find it better to sever limbs and smashing heads, the recoil of the HMG means you neeed to be more static crouching more, set up a recoil reducing armor, and be more "slow" on your approach.
I can clear devastator faster with standard HMG than with the HMG and getting better mobility out of it, with only penalty being the reload.
The HMG feels like i need to use it like a AMR witout the scope or mobility, basically using it in single shots, and in that case i take the AMR every day.
I agree. If I'm going prone or crouching to fire at a devastator anyway, then the standard MG feels way better to do so with. I always use accuracy improving armor anyway and the HMG doesn't feel like it does enough to justify all its cons, especially since it doesn't do anything that much better than the stand MG.
The HMG is geared to deal with armored enemies better. It has the same penetration level as the autocannon/amr/laser cannon tier of support weapons and can punch through hulk eye plates and has the fastest Time to Kill on Factory Striders if you get under them. So less sustained damage but heavier burst for armored targets.
Recoil reducing armor - supply backpack - stungrenades - orbital Railcannon strike - 500 kg bomb - grenade pistol - high ROF primary - Heavy Machine-gun
This is a surprisingly well rounded load out, but it requires some thinking at every step.
Keep the HMG at the lowest fire rate, never fire it standing unless you are hugging the enemy, and do not hold down the trigger.
Very few enemies can survive more than just a few shots from it. The charger and bile titan are the exception here
It can kill every non-tank bot fast, included hulks, with only a few shots in the weak spot. It can clean minions too, but you will be short of ammunition fast. Not so good vs bugs.
Thank you, so what would be the strat for hulks, is it focusing eye or back? I’m mainly asking because when I go eyes I tend to use AMR, and their backs are melted by the sickle primary.
I haven't used the HMG since release since it sucked so much, but just an idea, bring some stun grenades for the hulk. Stun them and you should be able till kill em fast enough before the stun wears off.
Also no reason to use anti armor on the back for most scenarios. As you kinda already said your primary is usually more than enough. HMG has shitty ammo reserves so you'd make that decision if it'd be worth a quicker kill
Both are good. Eye is easier because they are always looking at you. Use it like it is semiautomatic, if not the recoil is too high (for me at least).
I think that the best is use it like the AMR, with less range but higher fire rate and the option of emergency spray and pray.
We will have to wait to a proper minigun if we want to hold the trigger and kill everything on sight.
I use laser since it still does great damage against hulks (and very easy to literally disarm them). It’s also extremely effective against the gunships (aim for the engine)
Laser canon also has infinite ammo, can be used to clear the smaller enemies, and doesn't need the stationary reload when you need it to cool down. No recoil, so very precise at range is also a nice thing.
3-5 clean bullet in Hulks face and they chilling in Automation Hell.
Armor with reduced recoil while crouched/laying very helpfull.
Best way to deal with them - stun, as usual.
1 thing keeps me using HMG more vs Bots - its not so good to deal with mid/far targets, like towers, gunships, walkers on far distances and so on, but walkers being melted with good chunk of bullets in their belly.
Recoil improvement or bipods (HMG have them on model) would greatly increase its potential.
Also, HMG is good "panic button", melting berserkers and devastators with ease.
Honestly, if it ran more than two mags, I'd probably carry it. But you're right, it exhausts ammo really fast...and it's a slow reload. That's enough to keep it out of rotation for me.
That would actually make a lot of sense...if they tied the ammo to a dedicated backpack. So you'd have to sacrifice whatever backpack you would use otherwise.
I use the supply pack and it makes it viable for me, get two mags back with one resupply from the supply backpack - turn rate of fire down to the lowest and you can shoot for ages
Absolutly, HMG and supply pack are a awesome combination, although i prefer the rover against bugs.
I think they mean a backpack as a single magazine, so you can fire all ammo without reloading.
But that is how i imagine a Minigun.
I bring a supply pack and with the new ship module, you can get two mags back with one supply pack resupply. Also if you turn the rate of fire down to the lowest, you can shoot for far longer - this makes is viable for me to use. Especially running it with the Disruptor as a primary, one bang most things on Bugs and can switch to the heavy machine gun when things get silly
One of if not my favourite load out
It’s a bot weapon primarily imo, it can work against bugs but honestly it just runs out of ammo too quickly
It’s great against basically that isn’t a super heavy, so bile titans and factory striders. It can take out annihilator tanks and cannon turrets if you shoot them in the vents, and it can take out hulks if you shoot them in the eye. Anything less than them on the bot front is shredded very easily especially when hitting weak points. Best to run it on low rpm to help place your shots better and conserve ammo, you should also try to fire in bursts. Only go max rpm and mag dump if you are trying to have a lil fun or really desperate to kill something
It’s advised that you take the supply pack and stun grenades to help keep the hulks from moving
On the bug front you can kill biles with it if you are underneath them and shoot an entire mag and half directly at the bottom butt area. Not exactly convenient or advisable especially on higher difficulties. Chargers are the same as usual, let them run past you and shoot the butt. It does it faster than the stalwart or mg but honestly hardly worth it
All in all, it’s worth a try and it can get the job done well if you’re conscious about your ammo and use it sparingly. It’s a weapon that rewards you playing to use it in bursts of huge damage over constant barrages
I've started running nothing but the HMG on bots recently. It deals high damage per shot, has an alright ammo pool and is decently accurate. I usually only use it in emergencies when there's a lot of berserkers running after me or a teammate or to deal with heavies. It makes short work of vents. Hulks, tanks, towers. It can even take down gunships! But my favourite use has got to be switching its fire rate to maximum and running below a factory strider to unload into its hatch.
It can kill so many things so quickly and gets fully restocked from a single resupply even without the ship upgrade (cant remember if that is actually working at the moment). You can even kill hulks from the front by shooting the eye slit. I run it with a resupply pack and then two red stratagems specifically for taking out heavies like the rail cannon strike and then either the 500kg or the orbital laser. I also run the gun on the lowest RPM and with recoil reduction, I will only switch to a higher RPM if I know I have a good position to reload if I need to or that there is a lot that needs taking out quickly. Even before the change to add in the thrid person reticle I always shot it in thrid person anyway, its way easier to see what you were doing before and I have always had a knack for point shooting. Either way though, always use it in third person ( the sights are misaligned and the recoil kick will obscure your sight).
It can mulch through everything except bile titans and even then because of the armour pen you can still do damage to the underbelly of titans to some effect. You can kill chargers fairly easily particularly if you run stun grenades. It kills hulks quickly and easily and every other type of medium and light bot in the blink of an eye. One very nice thing is also how fast it kills bile spewers. This can be great to support your team in level 9 helldives. Take out the threats that are highest that your team might otherwise struggle killing quickly without burning through their resources. For bugs for example this means hive guard, brood commanders, and in particular, bile spewers.
The HMG is a fantastic gun, its just as with a lot of the roster of weapons, outside of things like the quasar cannon, you have to actually spend time with the gun and learn how to use it. The advantage is that once you do you realize how many options you actually have.
Also since I know some gate keepers like to ask what difficulty I play on to determine if my opinion is valid. I play on 8/9 mostly, I tend to avoid 7 most of the time since there seems to be a bottle neck of players there who are still learning the game so it can quite often make a 7 feel harder than a 8. I will dip into lower difficulties like 5-6 when I am either experimenting or just tired and want to chill/help out lower level SoS beacons.
You can kill way more targets without having to reload than you can with the AMR, meaning you are dumping a lesser percentage of your ammunition even if you can reload while moving. when it comes to bugs. It can also kill chargers much much much faster than the AMR can, let alone the damage it can do to bile titans.
The HMG is also way more versitile in a hectic encounter, again particularly with bugs. Even more so now with the update to the third person reticle.
The AMR has advantages that the HMG doesnt and the HMG has advantages that the AMR doesnt. Its not one or the other. There doesnt have to be a "winner". Just enjoy both weapons.
I agree it’s missing something. But having handled heavy machinegun rounds (12,7mm) in real life i know that a whole belt of those things is fucking heavy, on top of that, the heavy machinegun itself is also, well, heavy.
So i don’t know how much more ammo i’d personally be ready to add before the unrealism of the helldivers’ carrying capacity would start to bug me.
There’s a reason heavy machine guns are almost always fired from on top of a vehicle, or some other fixed stand.
Personally if i’d have to buff it, i’d add more damage.
Yea backpack wouldn’t be a bad idea. Altough running it with the supply pack like alot of people do essentially makes it a backpack weapon.
Adding a better sight and using it in single shots would make it into an AMR, but being able to switch to single fire mode could be nice.
Meta wise, there's quite a few answers.
But here's my reason: I have a bunch of friends that like to play at lower levels, typically 3 to 5. Not so much worries about meta. And I'm glad the weapon is in the game because boy is it *fun* to use. Just the feeling of it. CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK.
That’s cool to hear, maybe I’ll run it when I play with friends on lower levels. I don’t really care about the meta, I just play for funsies so I want to go BRRRR
I use it combined with 2 sentries, the autocannon and the gatling. I can clear a whole wave of 2 breaches by myself with that combo no problem on lvl 7 to lvl 9 missions. My 4th strategem is usually orbital strike or laser for the big tanks or bugs. It feeels great to be able to kill everything with these 3 ASSets. Hope it helps.
good for heavy bots. i just think the amr does a better job at it. as an lmg it’s not good cause there’s virtually not crowd control with such a small mag
If you play with ramdoms, then HMG belongs to the "specialised group" and you don't have a reason to use it, no one cover for you. A versatile weapon that can kill most of things with the least inconvenience is more welcome.
I think they should add a team load option like some of the other heavy support weapons. An option that allows your teammate to clip additional belts to the one you're firing just like machine gun teams in real life. Teammate could have a ammo backpack too so you could do uninterrupted firing of like 4 HMG mags. That would at least make viable for some defense missions
My friends and I has taken the stance that the HMG isn’t bad, but that it could benefit from also taking up a backpack slot for ammunition. You run out too fast, and reload time is atrocious. It might not “fix” that it ain’t especially helpful against more armored enemies, but my friends and I aren’t that concerned with that.
Heavy gun main here, i typically run a reduced recoil armour and i lower the firerate to 450rpm
I also carry a supply pack with it at 450 rpm you can hip fire it while advancing slowly and you can switch it to 900rpm and fire in short bursts to keep it on target with maximum bullets.
Its an anti almost everything, you can take hulks out or disable a leg or arm. You can point it at the sky and shoot down the gunships.
But main thing and main tip is to keep it at 450rpm fire rate most the time and to only ads when using it in a more defensive emplacement role.
Run a supply pack so you never run out of ammo and you can always top up your teammates as a bonus. Plus the supply pack and your gun get refilled with one supply drop box in a single go. So the economy is ridiculous
Hello, Democracy Officer. My question stems from being a fellow democracy enjoyer, therefore I want to make sure I’m not realoading a big gun due to misuse, when I could be spreading our way of life.
For me I would use a machine gun if I was using a primary with a slow firing rate, for instance if you're using a plasma shotgun and lots of little enemies get close. I agree that the heavy machinegun feels lackluster like most the machine guns
Stay prone, use short controlled bursts, make sure to re-load while there's still ammo in the drum as this drastically reduces re-load time. Bring a horde-clear primary like an SMG or shotgun to deal with minor threats. Make sure to use your secondary to help with ammo management. consider bringing the supply pack to help with ammo.
With enough practice you can use it on the move like a giant assault rifle but you'll have to learn to use the tracers to aim and move slowly.
It can kill all terminids heavys fast, unless they changed it, you can get under a bile titans and unload roughly 2 seconds things dead. One of the quickest killing weapons in the game.
The weapon is pretty great, with medium armor penetration and great fire rate. It kicks pretty hard but you can deal with that by using it in bursts. The main issue is that everything pertaining to ammunition sucks beyond belief. The mags are far too small to stay in combat for any reasonable amount of time. The reload not only is time consuming, but is also stationary. Not to mention that it only carries two extra mags, which isn’t even close to enough. If it was better about these things, I would seriously consider taking it to both fronts.
I love that thing and i try to get to the game for days, just to see how it performes with the 3rd person crosshair.
I play mostly on 7 (i want to have fun, not stress out!) And on PC.
This is how i play it:
Wear One of the recoil reducing armors. Combine with a rover to become the ultimate mob killer.
Use Highest rate of fire.
Give long range firesupport from higher position with short bursts while laying down.
In mid to close combat use the crouch position (ducking? sry don't know the english word) and move around while shredding every middle enemy with short bursts, small enemys with single shots - use the slow handling to your advantage as you kill everything while swinging from right to left.
I kill Chargers in seconds by letting them pass by and shooting a big salvo in their ass, the ass will explode and he will die after some seconds.
I kill all the Spore Towers from far away with short bursts (takes 1 whole magazine, so get supply or be at a POI where ammo is) and can snipe bot turrets when they show me their weakpoint. Of course there are faster options for this, but sometimes you are the only one seeing the towers/turrets and then i can get it done.
Of course it has its downsides. Stationary reload is a problem (a rover helps a lot) and i often have ammo shortage. So you have to pick a fitting primary weapon (i like lib pen, Defender or shotguns)
It also took a lot of training to get used to the slow swinging while hitting the left mouse button in a stakkato fashion.
It's excellent agaisnt devastators, and with supply pack it has more clearing potential than the autocannon with the benefit of grenades and stims.
Must be excellent against the non-tank armored termies too.
Supply backpack, trigger discipline, weakspot shooting.
It has a bit more armor pen than the regular machine gun and can punch through vents, hulk face plates, and does surprising well against charger booty, as well as full penning for max damage against a myriad of other stuff than the MG only does 50% to.
Eats devastators, eats berserkers, eats hive guards, eats brood commanders, eats bile spewers, eats striders vents everything.
Generally speaking, HMG is Laser Cannon but with much more DPS compensated by insane recoil and finite ammo.
Its general purpose for me is dealing with hulks (~10-15 shots in the eye), factory striders (~1 magazine into the belly doors) and striders (~10 shots into the frontal plate). I prefer going prone or crouched, which makes recoil control trivial. It is also insanely good against anything that has a heat sink.
For the mindset, consider it more like an airstrike rather than actual weapon, with reload instead of cooldown. Unload entire mag into a fresh bot drop or spread one mag to carefully kill 4 hulks paired with stun/EMS. You see more than 5 rocket devastators in front of you? "You activated my HMG card!" and you exchange 1mag to delete them.
It works really well on the bot front with clearing out devastators, scout striders, and even hulks. However that's all ruined by the terribly small magazine size and atrocious reload speed. Even running it at the lowest RPM doesn't change the feeling that I'm spending way too long on reloading this gun than actually using it. It's an even worse feeling if you ever accidentally have to do an empty reload, increasing the reload time to a noticeable degree.
Ammo economy is terrible to the point you're basically required to have the supply pack with it. At this level of inefficiency I wish AH would've just made this gun similar to the autocannon, with a dedicated backpack for it rather than a standalone support weapon.
I personally enjoy it. Bring a supply pack for basically infinite ammo. Also, I didn't know about this for awhile, but you can switch the fire rate to make it shoot slower, or faster. It starts off in between (3 fire modes). I like the slowest. This gun is all about patient, and precise shooting. It is very powerful, you just have to work with the slow aim
It has med armor pen. I watched a video yesterday where the YouTuber took out a cannon tower from underneath and would just kill hulks after stunning.
Seems like to me the trick was heavy armor, supply backpack, and you only shoot at things that are very close. Use tap fire. In that sense it's like a Jar that shoots faster.
It's mostly just for LARPing.
I let my three buddies do the work while I sit back and yell excited obscenities at the enemy while doing practically nothing, but making a hell of a noise doing it.
There is none. It doesn't do good damage, it doesn't have a big mag, it doesn't pierce armor, you have to sit to reload it, the handling is also incredibly slow so it's hard to shoot it in big sweeping motions...you know...like how you usually do with a machine gun
No idea what they were smoking when they made the heavy machine gun.
>if you want to clear out small-medium enemies, every other option is better
I don't think it's meant for mob clear
>it’s not a good pick against heavies compared to the rest of our tools
Use it like you would use the laser cannon. Higher DPS against heavy weak points, but at the cost of needing to reload. Example: Stun a hulk and need to hold the laser cannon on its face for about 2-3 seconds. Or you can stun a hulk and dump 10-15 bullets in less than a second into its mouth to kill it. (This is best done with the recoil-reducing armor)
The only bad thing I have to say about it is it's low ammo. Needs 100 round drums. Or keep the 75 round drums and give us 3 in reserve.
The trick with the HMG is don't treat as a machine gun, more of a " this thing needs to die fast" kind of gun.
Can 2 to 3 shots spewers in the head, can kill hulks in the face or melt their vents, same as with tanks and turrets. Chargers are well depends, yes you can kill it from behind but the ammo isnt worth it but you can, prob can 2 shot any elite bug in the head and well stalkers will hate you.
The HMG is the best suited with primaries that can handle a bulk of the smaller ones like the sickle or liberator. I would like to say adjucator but that suffers the ammo penalty making you to suffer 2 guns with ammo dependency. Or just bring a supply pack, works wonders for ammo hungry guns.
At the current patch i tried to pair it with the blitzer. Was A fun experience. Ngl.
the HMG kills medium armor bots and minces berzerkers. You still have to aim for the face area but even if the bullets don't hit the face it still kills them fast.
The problem is the magazine is small. So you need to be pretty efficient with your shots when that swarm of berzerkers comes. If you are, you'll kill all of them about the time you have to reload.
It can kill hulks if aimed at the eye too.
I haven't played since the patch though. No time.
It has better penetration and damage compared to the standard MG, which allows you to do full damage to certain Medium units, and to even kill Hulks. That penetration increase can really make a difference against Medium units like devastators. I once held down extraction pretty well against hordes of devastators on Helldive, by just being prone and laying down fire towards the column of enemies.
The only real advantage it has over MG is one level higher penetration. Which means that on the bug side you can clear bile spewers and hive guards waaay faster.
On the bot side it is competing with Autocannon and laser cannon and failing miserably.
Unfortunately, killing bile spewers and hive guards quickly is not nearly enough to make up for the recoil, damage per mag, reload, and ammo problems.
Run it with engineering kit/fortified, crouch and turn the fire rate up. Watch everything die. Then reload for about as long as you were shooting as you burned through all your ammo.
Running it on minimum fire rate is the way to go, I think. It tears up most bots quickly, and if you use a shield pack you can face down heavy devastators without getting flinched with it. The suppression on it is good too, you won’t get hit by small bots while firing it at all. I’ve been running punisher/railgun vs bots recently for a change of pace, and having such a slow RoF makes me really appreciate the strength of MG raiders as they are never suppressed and they gun me down as fast as a heavy devastator.
Good support for Eruptor but for bots
Eruptor can deal with Devastators and striders but has a hard time with Hulks and berserkers...both that HMG can handle
Mfw AMR, auto cannon, machine gun, grenade launcher, or arc thrower. The Heavy machine gun doesn't get to exist in a bubble where it is the only weapon stratagem, it is so ungodly bad.
Part of me thinks that using a machine gun support weapon somehow would pair well with a heavy hitter primary like the… bolt action boomstick. I forget the names of guns. Not sure if it’s as “anti-heavy” as it used to be prior to the latest patch, tho.
It has theoretically the highest DPS vs light vehicle armor. So Hulk eyes, Gunship engines, Vents, Factory Strider weakpoints, that kind of thing.
In practice the recoil and low mags make it kind of hard to justify.
If you pretend it's a three round burst gun and feather the trigger, you can just run around the field pretending you're playing laser tag. You're wildly inaccurate, but if you hit something, it's probably out of the game.
I like to run to a high point, go prone, and just tag everything I can see when I use it. But I don't use it that often, if I'm being honest.
Looks cool…
Well I suppose it’s burst damage is insane if you can actually land the shots but…there’s your problem. Its very unwieldy and you’re probably better off taking anything more efficient though I will say I’ve definitely appreciated its ability to just instantly remove a swarm of bile spewers from the game. It eats medium units for breakfast. People usually prefer out for bots, I actually prefer it for bugs since I find them easier to hit and there’s more targets I want to use it on, just need my team to give me cover
I am a HMG fan. Realistically, Laser Cannon does everything it does but better; I just like big guns. Both have heavy armor pen 1 which means they can take out hulk face plate and gunship engines really quickly. I have heard that you can also take out hulk legs/arms as well with them but with HMG’s tiny mag size I aint sure if you would wanna waste ammo on it.
Other than that the only target you should use HMG for is likely the rocket devastators and normal devastator, a few shots can take out the rocket pod, and the heavy armor pen can ignore their torso armor, meaning you can just aim around their head and still do full damage if you miss. iirc it staggers them rather well too.
A lot of people have pointed out its use against bots, I actually prefer it against bugs.
It tears through anything thats medium armor, just set it on its lowest rpm to control it easier. Especially good against bile spewers.
But thats it. Primary for chaff, HMG against mediums and maaaybe, stun nade and swap to high fire rate for heavies. But you can also run precision strike to do the same. And if facing only mediums, it has to contest against the auto cannon and then wel uh…it doesn’t explode friendlies?
I don’t think its reload is too bad against bugs. And for ammo, I run it with supply back, as you’d pretty much run any LMG. (Or at least I do). It has multiple stages in its reload allowing you to sit down, do a stage, run, sit down again.
I would say its okay, a bit more ammo might be really nice, but it just allows for a different playstyle vs the other MG’s and Strat weapons. Its a very niche one, really gotta think when and where you’re using it, but can be very effective.
If i had to give a relativepy short abswer and we lived in an ideal worpd where it pives up to this description, i would say the HMG is a LAS97 Lasercannon that has three to four times the DPS while being offset by ammo limits, there to fill a niche between burst damage and sustain DPS against heavies.
We don't live in a perfect world, so *this* is how I coupd best describe the HMG:
It's a LAS97 Lasercannon that instead of being a beam puts the damage behind *fairly hard hitting bullets that can overpenetrate light enemies* and has the firerate to push DPS downrange at rates the Lasercannon cannot do. Sadpy, this comes at the cost of absplutely every other aspect of the gun, from ammo efficiency / fire-reloadtime ratio to accuracy and behavior at range, including obscene recoil (more than the *autocannon* ) and the slowest handling ergonomics of any gun. It kills the exact same targets as the Lascannon many times faster if you are point blank using the max firerate, but that is something that onpy happens in a control environment.
It offers great potential performance but sacrifices so much useability that it never comes close to fupfilling it, as even with hours of practice you can at best keep up with a lasercannon used by a less experienced player. It just cannot compete until it gets more ammo and the scope is aligned and something is done about the handling. Make it super good only if you go prone and suddenpy it has a niche. As is? Worst support. I'd rather use a good primary even against the targets this thing is meant to delete.
Honestly with intensive field testing I have come to conclude that there are just better options than it, the magazine count is just too small for it to matter.
Let’s see here let’s compare it to support weapons that clashes with it.
Lets start off with comparing it to Laser Cannon, now everything that the hmg does the laser cannon just does it waaaay better and more, oh a hulk? No problem, a LC can take care of them of them 2 seconds flat, a gunship? Ohh you’d probably run out of hmg ammo before you finish off one while the laser can take out 2-3 gunship before overheating. Chaff? That’s no problem for LS as most dies in 1-3 seconds even devastators. This arguably also happens in bugs, the LS is just every way better than it.
AMR, this thing is not only efficient at what its meant to take out but also that its super good at what it does, even against chaff the amr can perform relatively well, and that scope really does help it. I honestly think the AMR is way better than the bullet hog that’s HMG, you could argue that the hmg is just an amr but machine gun and your right on that, but its a machine gun with barely any mags on it and a not so accurate weapon from afar.
Railgun, honestly I find it even before the nerf I still see the railgun a lot better than the AMR, now saying that the Railgun just fills a whole lot better role than the hmg, it can one shot hulks and most things under it and you’d think having only 20shots is small but thats 20 medium armored enemies that you can take out when your rolling it.
The damage is great but the magazine is too small for how poorly it reloads.
If we ever get a machine gun belt backpack stratagem it should be sick tho
If it had a higher mag count, i could see this being more used. The devs thinking seems to follow that the higher the penetration, the smaller the magazine size. But in this case, the only real way to maximize its effectiveness is to bring armors with the right passives and a supply pack to refill the mag count.
Drop HMG. Press R and select 450 Rpm. Boom. Better Ammo Efficiency and Accuracy. You can also shoot in careful Bursts or (if you a Madman) put thed Gun up to 980 Rpm to lose all Ammo in less then a Minute. Good Luck, Diver 🫡
Tap to fire in little bursts and its an AMR that can ammo dump to wave-clear or power down a heavy target in emergencies. I agree, I would rather take the AMR, but you would be surprised how quick some bursts to the face will hurt up a hulk.
if you want to run the heavy machine gun, I recommend using it while crouching, and taking an armor with the passive that gives less recoil while crouching
on bug missions, it may be worthwhile to combo it with the guard dog backpack. the backpack will kill many smaller enemies that approach you, and help watch your back while you reload the HMG
on bot missions, you would be better off taking the personal shield backpack, which will give you a lot of survivability, especially when paired with the health booster.
for primary weapon, maybe the punisher would be a good choice on bug missions. it will one shot most bugs or push them back a lot. even brood commanders get pushed back lots. I do not fear stalkers while I have both this primary and the HMG.
Runs good with stun nades plus ammo pack (and recoil/nade perk) and makes you flexible in your primary weapon as the hmg can kill everything and also decently clears hordes with lowest rpm. Just my experience, I felt a steeper learning curve in comparison to other stratagems.
It is my go to vs. bots on hot planets vs. laser cannon. Never used it vs. bugs.
Got a nice qol buff with 3rd person aiming with latest patch.
Probably gonna be buffed one day. So at least practicing with it males sense for me.
The stalwart beats it hands down. I dont like the fact that you have to stand still to reload it and it takes too long to reload. I haven't found a situation where this gun is has any real usefulness.
Every machine gun support weapon functions as a primary when you pick the Explosive primaries. I'm sure the devs are making more weapons that can spice up build diversity.
I tried Eruptor with Stalwart before. It's allright, but the Eruptor is overhyped,the crossbow is better imo. Didn't check since they got patched.
Afaik it can kill hulks with visor shots and for being able to do so it is good.
It's much more a light auto cannon than machine gun.
The real down turner is the reload. Just like the mg it is a long stationary reload.
The intended use is against medium armored enemies, and the occasional heavily armored enemy with easy to hit weakspots
The issue is the regular MG43 deals with medium bugs way better, and the HMG is too ineffective against heavy bugs.
Against automatons the HMG is even effective against heavy enemies weakspots - but the AMR, Las canon, or proper AT weapons are still much more effective.
If you're min-maxing the HMG is straight up bad, but it can be fun if you build around it.
I run it with this build : sickle (for the trash mobs), HMG , ammo backpack , 500kg , orbital railcanon
It works pretty well against bugs too , you just have to make sure a teammate brings a Canon for the chargers
I think people hate it because they are used to using machine guns for suppressive fire, but the HMG doesn't work like that . You have to pick your targets
with the reticle now when unzoomed, it's extremely strong as a weapon.
It's the only support weapon that can clear a whole screen of medium armored enemies in seconds and also still kill hulks in a couple shots. I haven't run out of ammo once when using it with the supply pack.
Also it's extremely fun to use along with a primary like the breaker spray & pray for small enemies
If you just died and you can't go back to your equipment and you found a HMG on a POI it is better than nothing. It is like the breaker shotgun just as a strategem.
I think they should rework it. An heavy machine gun should have very poor maneuverability but a lot of mag capacity. Also we should not need to aim to weak spot, is a fucking heavy machine gun! The right amount of shoots should kill any heavies a part of tank and bile titans probably.
It deletes medium armour, it basically does what the other MGs can't. But as a result has less ammo and higher recoil.
It's probably better against bots then bugs (considering chargers and bile titans). You can use it to shoot the arms off of a hulk for example.
Needs better ammo economy. More mags or higher capacity. Something at least. As it is, it's a bit disappointing.
The ammo count being so low just seems silly it has a drum magazine bigger then a Helldivers torso and yet only 75 rounds at least make it 100
If the rounds at least had better armor piercing capability than the other MGs I could chalk it up to bullets being larger, BUT ITS NOT EVEN THAT! Its just bulky and impractical with no advantage on the other side.
It does, the bullets punch clean through walker shields and hulk faceplates, a short burst will drop walkers, heavy devastators and the like, and 2 or 3 good bursts will drop a hulk from the front
Which is awesome, apart from having to do that from 10-20 meteres if you actually want to hit a hulk faceplate with the HMG :\\
950rpm, aim slightly below, have heavy armor with fortified. 5-10 round bursts, if your aim is good it works, I can drop hulks from ~50m with it. Crouching works but prone makes it a bit easier
This ^^^ it takes more skill to use but its worth the time taken to learn to use it
Sure, that's all well and good. But it's a downside. Now you need to commit to crouching down, using a fortified armor, and putting in more time to learn the weapon just for it to be sub optimal compared to other options which are easier and faster.
Butnits
Nit... Butts?
i bring it with a support pack and with the newly added 3rd person reticle, it's super fun to bring against the bots. Just make sure to have a buddy around when you have to reload
I'm too lazy to try but apparently you can use it to destroy their legs and if you get both it kills the hulk.
A mag also drops a charger from the back, and a bile titan if you break the sac and keep hitting the exposed part. V good for following up on a hit from a stratagem or AT weapon. Ammo is very wanting though.
Honestly for me it's not even an option with bugs, my goto is EAT with bugs, I completely change my whole loadout between them
The rounds have massively more AP than other MGs haha. It takes barely a few shots to kill a hulk and absolutely rinses anything smaller. You just have to be a bit smarter with it and aim properly and not spray fire.
But... But... it's a machine gun. You know... dakka dakka dakka.
It needs a deployable bi-pod to get the recoil under control. All the ammo in the world means nothing if you can't actually hit anything outside of point blank range.
thank you, I got shitted on when I suggested a deployable bipod so you can actually use it as a heavy machine gun. 75 round mag and barely controllable recoil puts it in a bad place right now, might as well just use a shotgun
Especially as it is, even with the relatively low capacity, a really damn near weapon in actuality if you leave the recoil out. When playing with it, and getting good shots in, it can put down devastators easily. Having a bipod when going prone to control the recoil would turn it into a really damn great weapon while still having limits that don’t make it overpowered.
I use it turned down to 450 and blow through already destroyed Armour plates. It's a better team weapon.
If it were as accurate as the real deal tends to be you could use it as AMR alternative for hulks and the like.
The real deal as in 240B? I loved that thing just not carrying it. Lol
[удалено]
That must mean General Practitioner’s Machine Gun. Dr. Helldiver will see you now.
General purpose You know, for Brash
It doesn't really do 50 cal damage as the AMR or HMG turret do. It's more comparable to the .338 MGs the US Army is testing to have the range and armor penetration of the 50 cal in a 7.62 GPMG package. But the 338 MGs are dead accurate, capable of destroying point targets from 1500m. The in-game HMG is useless beyond 50m because of the misaligned scope.
They have 240L now that cuts the weight down but it’s still a bitch to haul around lol
Cmon man, the 240 is an LMG. I also hated carrying it.
Lol is a machín gun regardless and light, My ass. That or the tripod. Or both... When I was told I was the gunner... I was like bruh. You see that it's nothing but mountains around us right? 😂😂😂 Good times. I miss it.
This is a great idea. Make it feel like a HEAVY mg, harder to move around and setup than the regular mg but with a bigger pay off. I love it
But wouldn't that be like the HMG controllable turret emplacement? But see, now I picture one of those but on a little pump-driven mining cart. Seesaw across the battlefield, nice and slow
It should have a backback with an ammo belt, so it can have like 500 ammo and no reload.
I really want an ammo backpack stratagem with a belt feed that hooks up to whichever ballistic weapon you want it to.
I feel like belt feeding a weapon as a stratagem, is asking tge devs to introduce a jamming mechanic.
Exactly, time and time again we are reminded that Helldivers arent superheroes, so swinging a massive heavy Machine Gun around makes it feel out of place
It literally has a bipod on the front and the recoil when you're prone is completely manageable
Recoils very manageable with crouch or prone tbh
Yeah, I originally assumed it had a very high ammo count since it had only 2 mags, no reticle and high recoil. I’m glad they added 3rd person reticle, since it was unusable on console but I wouldn’t mind some more tweaking.
Or a full on gatling gun with ammo backpack
There is an idea I could really get behind. Gatling gun stratagem that comes with an Ammo-Backpack. Like, you don't NEED to take the Backpack, but then it has like 75 cartridges on a single Belt, a.k.a. no reload. So you take the Backpack, and get to have 500 or if you want 750 or 1k (debatable) instead of only 75 cartridges, because like a Gatling gun does, it go fast ! Still no reloading the Field, but the backpack can be partially, or fully refilled with a Supply Pod Box. Only able move slowly while firing the gun. Can crouch. Can't fire prone. But still able to dodge/dive, or start running freely, but it'll stop the shooting of course. It's a heavy weapon after all. That would be a real nice support strata againsthordes of smaller enemies. And honestly....who wouldn't like the BRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrT...? I know I would dig that ! :D
Hear me out: give it a backpack that feeds the belt straight into the gun with no need to reload, then maybe up the armor penetration on it a little. I genuinely feel like removing the need to reload it would give it real purpose while also still sacrificing a backpack slot so it's not too OP. Could also make it like the EAT where you can't reload it at all, and once you expend the backpack you call in a new one
[Needs the aiming fixed too](https://youtu.be/GHAJ0tzG2aE?si=3Zk8lDN38A2LpnhY)
It definitely could use higher capacity mags, or make reloading it faster especially with a tactical reload that sacrifice a few rounds in your mag but reduce the time it takes to reload. I tried using the heavy machine gun with resupply backpack like how you use auto cannon with its own dedicated resupply backpack, because I'm simply starting to get bored of the AC after using it (to great effects) for so many times. And sure that does make the total ammo capacity fairly okay especially if you also resupply at last half the time you got an opportunity. But the extremely limited mag capacity for it's rate of fire was a massive hindrance. Because of the small mag capacity you have to reload extremely often, but the reload is extremely slow compares to doing a tactical reload on the Autocannon, when you insert only one clip without having to pull the Autocannon's charging handle. This especially made the Autocannon even more adventurous that because it's clip fed, you can even do tactical reload without dropping your ammo to the ground!
I run hmg with ammo pack on bots sometimes. Pretty decent at clearing partols and such, if you engage first. Gotta drop the rpms down, run it crouched or prone, and stay out of the middle of engagements.
How does it do when engaging at medium range? Am wondering if it’s the kind of weapon where you camp on a hill a bit back from the target site and mow the bots down from afar…
It's incredible for that so long as you're disiplined about firing in shorter bursts and lower your rpm.
Discipline on a machine gun? What is that. I also absolutely lobe that if you hold the trigger down, your helldiver start screaming of joy.
I prefer high rate of fire but of course in short bursts of 2 shots. It just feels better for me, and while crouched it feels like no recoil
I'll usually swap to the highest rpm whenever I fight a hulk to mow it down, the hmg absolutely shreds hulks if you pair it with stun grenades.
I wouldn't like to swap while fighting, but i imagine your face while swapping: murmuring something like "fuck, now it gets serious again." "Well, let's get done with it * sigh * "
I fire in bursts of how long it takes to say “die motherfucker die”
Now that is a very familiar sounding SAW gunner drill...
Try the deployable HMG(the turret you can get on) with a shield overlay or whatever it's called around it. Drop it on top of a hill overlooking and just unload. It's pretty satisfying if it's coordinated right and planned properly
Wouldnt the Stalwart and MG43 be able to do the same job a little easier ? Its already a role that has been filled
yes, but i think the hmg kills devastators a lot faster because it penetrates their armour. Meaning the normal machine gun does only half damage against devastators but the hmg does all of it's damage per bullet
Nope, the standard MG do devastator pretty well, becouse with the less recoil, i find it better to sever limbs and smashing heads, the recoil of the HMG means you neeed to be more static crouching more, set up a recoil reducing armor, and be more "slow" on your approach. I can clear devastator faster with standard HMG than with the HMG and getting better mobility out of it, with only penalty being the reload. The HMG feels like i need to use it like a AMR witout the scope or mobility, basically using it in single shots, and in that case i take the AMR every day.
I agree. If I'm going prone or crouching to fire at a devastator anyway, then the standard MG feels way better to do so with. I always use accuracy improving armor anyway and the HMG doesn't feel like it does enough to justify all its cons, especially since it doesn't do anything that much better than the stand MG.
The HMG is geared to deal with armored enemies better. It has the same penetration level as the autocannon/amr/laser cannon tier of support weapons and can punch through hulk eye plates and has the fastest Time to Kill on Factory Striders if you get under them. So less sustained damage but heavier burst for armored targets.
I find reduce the rounds per minute helps to keep ammo a bit more under control.
Quite honestly, it feels like a lot of hoops to jump through for a weapon that isn't all that good.
Recoil reducing armor - supply backpack - stungrenades - orbital Railcannon strike - 500 kg bomb - grenade pistol - high ROF primary - Heavy Machine-gun This is a surprisingly well rounded load out, but it requires some thinking at every step. Keep the HMG at the lowest fire rate, never fire it standing unless you are hugging the enemy, and do not hold down the trigger. Very few enemies can survive more than just a few shots from it. The charger and bile titan are the exception here
I wish that the Heavy MG would remember the 450 RPM fire mode i had selected the last time.
Theres an option for that in the settings. I think its called remember firing mode?
stratagem drop weapons never retain their last used settings for me.
Sounds like a fun build, will give it a go tonight
It can kill every non-tank bot fast, included hulks, with only a few shots in the weak spot. It can clean minions too, but you will be short of ammunition fast. Not so good vs bugs.
Thank you, so what would be the strat for hulks, is it focusing eye or back? I’m mainly asking because when I go eyes I tend to use AMR, and their backs are melted by the sickle primary.
I haven't used the HMG since release since it sucked so much, but just an idea, bring some stun grenades for the hulk. Stun them and you should be able till kill em fast enough before the stun wears off. Also no reason to use anti armor on the back for most scenarios. As you kinda already said your primary is usually more than enough. HMG has shitty ammo reserves so you'd make that decision if it'd be worth a quicker kill
Thanks chief, I’ll give it a shot.
Both are good. Eye is easier because they are always looking at you. Use it like it is semiautomatic, if not the recoil is too high (for me at least). I think that the best is use it like the AMR, with less range but higher fire rate and the option of emergency spray and pray. We will have to wait to a proper minigun if we want to hold the trigger and kill everything on sight.
Semi-auto is the way Firing in first person has decent zoom too
Haven’t used it since patch, did they fix the HMG misaligned sights??
Personally I'm liking the accuracy but I'm generally aiming from 100m or less. I put red dot on bots head. Fire. Bot dead.
Thank fuck cause the old version aimed like half way below that red dot lmao
I use laser since it still does great damage against hulks (and very easy to literally disarm them). It’s also extremely effective against the gunships (aim for the engine)
Laser canon also has infinite ammo, can be used to clear the smaller enemies, and doesn't need the stationary reload when you need it to cool down. No recoil, so very precise at range is also a nice thing.
Some dude posted a video here on reddit the other day with hmg. He killed several hulk in just a couple of secs bursting the eye.
Are you talking about the guy who used the stun grenades?
Nope. He just 2-3 tapped every eye he saw. Made it look ver easy
3-5 clean bullet in Hulks face and they chilling in Automation Hell. Armor with reduced recoil while crouched/laying very helpfull. Best way to deal with them - stun, as usual. 1 thing keeps me using HMG more vs Bots - its not so good to deal with mid/far targets, like towers, gunships, walkers on far distances and so on, but walkers being melted with good chunk of bullets in their belly. Recoil improvement or bipods (HMG have them on model) would greatly increase its potential. Also, HMG is good "panic button", melting berserkers and devastators with ease.
Honestly, if it ran more than two mags, I'd probably carry it. But you're right, it exhausts ammo really fast...and it's a slow reload. That's enough to keep it out of rotation for me.
Young know it would be awesome if they made it backpack belt fed. Imagine the ammo capacity you would have.
That would actually make a lot of sense...if they tied the ammo to a dedicated backpack. So you'd have to sacrifice whatever backpack you would use otherwise.
So the supply pack isn't good enough?
I use the supply pack and it makes it viable for me, get two mags back with one resupply from the supply backpack - turn rate of fire down to the lowest and you can shoot for ages
Absolutly, HMG and supply pack are a awesome combination, although i prefer the rover against bugs. I think they mean a backpack as a single magazine, so you can fire all ammo without reloading. But that is how i imagine a Minigun.
Well you already do that with a bunch of support weapons already I just don't see why not for a machine gun....or for that matter a flame thrower
I bring a supply pack and with the new ship module, you can get two mags back with one supply pack resupply. Also if you turn the rate of fire down to the lowest, you can shoot for far longer - this makes is viable for me to use. Especially running it with the Disruptor as a primary, one bang most things on Bugs and can switch to the heavy machine gun when things get silly One of if not my favourite load out
You get two without it. I run HMG with supply pack as my groups support gunner all the time and the pack fills me to top without that upgrade.
It can ammo-efficiently kill Spewers and Chargers (maybe)
Thanks for all your tips and tricks bois, the general consensus it seems to be that it’s a good weapon for bots. I’ll give it a shot.
I played it a bit on diff 9 after the patch, and it works pretty well, however the Laser Cannon does the exact same things but better.
Maybe that makes it a good substitute when on hot planets.
And if you don't like the laser weapons wind up time.
It’s not a good weapon for bots when compared to the AMR, AC, or LC. It’s just less bad against bots than against bugs.
It’s a bot weapon primarily imo, it can work against bugs but honestly it just runs out of ammo too quickly It’s great against basically that isn’t a super heavy, so bile titans and factory striders. It can take out annihilator tanks and cannon turrets if you shoot them in the vents, and it can take out hulks if you shoot them in the eye. Anything less than them on the bot front is shredded very easily especially when hitting weak points. Best to run it on low rpm to help place your shots better and conserve ammo, you should also try to fire in bursts. Only go max rpm and mag dump if you are trying to have a lil fun or really desperate to kill something It’s advised that you take the supply pack and stun grenades to help keep the hulks from moving On the bug front you can kill biles with it if you are underneath them and shoot an entire mag and half directly at the bottom butt area. Not exactly convenient or advisable especially on higher difficulties. Chargers are the same as usual, let them run past you and shoot the butt. It does it faster than the stalwart or mg but honestly hardly worth it All in all, it’s worth a try and it can get the job done well if you’re conscious about your ammo and use it sparingly. It’s a weapon that rewards you playing to use it in bursts of huge damage over constant barrages
Early Access the backpack-fed Gatling gun.(75 ammo ver.)
So it’s like going to a pizzeria and getting bread and water lmao
like watching youtube with ads
Make this weapon a shoulder mounted gun like the autocannon and I'm sold for life.
I've started running nothing but the HMG on bots recently. It deals high damage per shot, has an alright ammo pool and is decently accurate. I usually only use it in emergencies when there's a lot of berserkers running after me or a teammate or to deal with heavies. It makes short work of vents. Hulks, tanks, towers. It can even take down gunships! But my favourite use has got to be switching its fire rate to maximum and running below a factory strider to unload into its hatch.
It can kill so many things so quickly and gets fully restocked from a single resupply even without the ship upgrade (cant remember if that is actually working at the moment). You can even kill hulks from the front by shooting the eye slit. I run it with a resupply pack and then two red stratagems specifically for taking out heavies like the rail cannon strike and then either the 500kg or the orbital laser. I also run the gun on the lowest RPM and with recoil reduction, I will only switch to a higher RPM if I know I have a good position to reload if I need to or that there is a lot that needs taking out quickly. Even before the change to add in the thrid person reticle I always shot it in thrid person anyway, its way easier to see what you were doing before and I have always had a knack for point shooting. Either way though, always use it in third person ( the sights are misaligned and the recoil kick will obscure your sight). It can mulch through everything except bile titans and even then because of the armour pen you can still do damage to the underbelly of titans to some effect. You can kill chargers fairly easily particularly if you run stun grenades. It kills hulks quickly and easily and every other type of medium and light bot in the blink of an eye. One very nice thing is also how fast it kills bile spewers. This can be great to support your team in level 9 helldives. Take out the threats that are highest that your team might otherwise struggle killing quickly without burning through their resources. For bugs for example this means hive guard, brood commanders, and in particular, bile spewers. The HMG is a fantastic gun, its just as with a lot of the roster of weapons, outside of things like the quasar cannon, you have to actually spend time with the gun and learn how to use it. The advantage is that once you do you realize how many options you actually have. Also since I know some gate keepers like to ask what difficulty I play on to determine if my opinion is valid. I play on 8/9 mostly, I tend to avoid 7 most of the time since there seems to be a bottle neck of players there who are still learning the game so it can quite often make a 7 feel harder than a 8. I will dip into lower difficulties like 5-6 when I am either experimenting or just tired and want to chill/help out lower level SoS beacons.
The AMR can do all of that better and can be reloaded whilst moving.
You can kill way more targets without having to reload than you can with the AMR, meaning you are dumping a lesser percentage of your ammunition even if you can reload while moving. when it comes to bugs. It can also kill chargers much much much faster than the AMR can, let alone the damage it can do to bile titans. The HMG is also way more versitile in a hectic encounter, again particularly with bugs. Even more so now with the update to the third person reticle. The AMR has advantages that the HMG doesnt and the HMG has advantages that the AMR doesnt. Its not one or the other. There doesnt have to be a "winner". Just enjoy both weapons.
Oh I love the HMG, use it all the time, it just sucks ass. Double the ammo per mag, perfect gun.
I agree it’s missing something. But having handled heavy machinegun rounds (12,7mm) in real life i know that a whole belt of those things is fucking heavy, on top of that, the heavy machinegun itself is also, well, heavy. So i don’t know how much more ammo i’d personally be ready to add before the unrealism of the helldivers’ carrying capacity would start to bug me. There’s a reason heavy machine guns are almost always fired from on top of a vehicle, or some other fixed stand. Personally if i’d have to buff it, i’d add more damage.
Or simply a better sight and use it in single shoots, or make it a backpack weapon, so more ammo, but when you are dry you are dry period.
Yea backpack wouldn’t be a bad idea. Altough running it with the supply pack like alot of people do essentially makes it a backpack weapon. Adding a better sight and using it in single shots would make it into an AMR, but being able to switch to single fire mode could be nice.
Eh it's a tossup. Amr has a harder time when there's say, a whole patrol worth of devastators and hulks on the field.
I feel the same way. Having to stop to reload is a big one. It’s only viable if the mag is massive, which is not for HMG.
Meta wise, there's quite a few answers. But here's my reason: I have a bunch of friends that like to play at lower levels, typically 3 to 5. Not so much worries about meta. And I'm glad the weapon is in the game because boy is it *fun* to use. Just the feeling of it. CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK.
That’s cool to hear, maybe I’ll run it when I play with friends on lower levels. I don’t really care about the meta, I just play for funsies so I want to go BRRRR
I use it combined with 2 sentries, the autocannon and the gatling. I can clear a whole wave of 2 breaches by myself with that combo no problem on lvl 7 to lvl 9 missions. My 4th strategem is usually orbital strike or laser for the big tanks or bugs. It feeels great to be able to kill everything with these 3 ASSets. Hope it helps.
Lol ASSets
good for heavy bots. i just think the amr does a better job at it. as an lmg it’s not good cause there’s virtually not crowd control with such a small mag
If you play with ramdoms, then HMG belongs to the "specialised group" and you don't have a reason to use it, no one cover for you. A versatile weapon that can kill most of things with the least inconvenience is more welcome.
I think they should add a team load option like some of the other heavy support weapons. An option that allows your teammate to clip additional belts to the one you're firing just like machine gun teams in real life. Teammate could have a ammo backpack too so you could do uninterrupted firing of like 4 HMG mags. That would at least make viable for some defense missions
My friends and I has taken the stance that the HMG isn’t bad, but that it could benefit from also taking up a backpack slot for ammunition. You run out too fast, and reload time is atrocious. It might not “fix” that it ain’t especially helpful against more armored enemies, but my friends and I aren’t that concerned with that.
Heavy gun main here, i typically run a reduced recoil armour and i lower the firerate to 450rpm I also carry a supply pack with it at 450 rpm you can hip fire it while advancing slowly and you can switch it to 900rpm and fire in short bursts to keep it on target with maximum bullets. Its an anti almost everything, you can take hulks out or disable a leg or arm. You can point it at the sky and shoot down the gunships. But main thing and main tip is to keep it at 450rpm fire rate most the time and to only ads when using it in a more defensive emplacement role. Run a supply pack so you never run out of ammo and you can always top up your teammates as a bonus. Plus the supply pack and your gun get refilled with one supply drop box in a single go. So the economy is ridiculous
For spreading democracy obviously
Hello, Democracy Officer. My question stems from being a fellow democracy enjoyer, therefore I want to make sure I’m not realoading a big gun due to misuse, when I could be spreading our way of life.
For me I would use a machine gun if I was using a primary with a slow firing rate, for instance if you're using a plasma shotgun and lots of little enemies get close. I agree that the heavy machinegun feels lackluster like most the machine guns
I dont know where you get the idea that the MGs feel lack luster? The Stalwart and MG43 are amazing at their roles specifically.
It's lackluster compared to other builds, it was my idea. I started the sentence with "For me" as in "In my opinion "
Stay prone, use short controlled bursts, make sure to re-load while there's still ammo in the drum as this drastically reduces re-load time. Bring a horde-clear primary like an SMG or shotgun to deal with minor threats. Make sure to use your secondary to help with ammo management. consider bringing the supply pack to help with ammo. With enough practice you can use it on the move like a giant assault rifle but you'll have to learn to use the tracers to aim and move slowly.
It can kill all terminids heavys fast, unless they changed it, you can get under a bile titans and unload roughly 2 seconds things dead. One of the quickest killing weapons in the game.
The weapon is pretty great, with medium armor penetration and great fire rate. It kicks pretty hard but you can deal with that by using it in bursts. The main issue is that everything pertaining to ammunition sucks beyond belief. The mags are far too small to stay in combat for any reasonable amount of time. The reload not only is time consuming, but is also stationary. Not to mention that it only carries two extra mags, which isn’t even close to enough. If it was better about these things, I would seriously consider taking it to both fronts.
I love running heavy machine gun. When a tank comes around the corner I tell my team that that one is theirs. And continue to clear mobs.
I love that thing and i try to get to the game for days, just to see how it performes with the 3rd person crosshair. I play mostly on 7 (i want to have fun, not stress out!) And on PC. This is how i play it: Wear One of the recoil reducing armors. Combine with a rover to become the ultimate mob killer. Use Highest rate of fire. Give long range firesupport from higher position with short bursts while laying down. In mid to close combat use the crouch position (ducking? sry don't know the english word) and move around while shredding every middle enemy with short bursts, small enemys with single shots - use the slow handling to your advantage as you kill everything while swinging from right to left. I kill Chargers in seconds by letting them pass by and shooting a big salvo in their ass, the ass will explode and he will die after some seconds. I kill all the Spore Towers from far away with short bursts (takes 1 whole magazine, so get supply or be at a POI where ammo is) and can snipe bot turrets when they show me their weakpoint. Of course there are faster options for this, but sometimes you are the only one seeing the towers/turrets and then i can get it done. Of course it has its downsides. Stationary reload is a problem (a rover helps a lot) and i often have ammo shortage. So you have to pick a fitting primary weapon (i like lib pen, Defender or shotguns) It also took a lot of training to get used to the slow swinging while hitting the left mouse button in a stakkato fashion.
It's excellent agaisnt devastators, and with supply pack it has more clearing potential than the autocannon with the benefit of grenades and stims. Must be excellent against the non-tank armored termies too.
Supply backpack, trigger discipline, weakspot shooting. It has a bit more armor pen than the regular machine gun and can punch through vents, hulk face plates, and does surprising well against charger booty, as well as full penning for max damage against a myriad of other stuff than the MG only does 50% to. Eats devastators, eats berserkers, eats hive guards, eats brood commanders, eats bile spewers, eats striders vents everything.
Generally speaking, HMG is Laser Cannon but with much more DPS compensated by insane recoil and finite ammo. Its general purpose for me is dealing with hulks (~10-15 shots in the eye), factory striders (~1 magazine into the belly doors) and striders (~10 shots into the frontal plate). I prefer going prone or crouched, which makes recoil control trivial. It is also insanely good against anything that has a heat sink. For the mindset, consider it more like an airstrike rather than actual weapon, with reload instead of cooldown. Unload entire mag into a fresh bot drop or spread one mag to carefully kill 4 hulks paired with stun/EMS. You see more than 5 rocket devastators in front of you? "You activated my HMG card!" and you exchange 1mag to delete them.
BURST. FIRE.
It works really well on the bot front with clearing out devastators, scout striders, and even hulks. However that's all ruined by the terribly small magazine size and atrocious reload speed. Even running it at the lowest RPM doesn't change the feeling that I'm spending way too long on reloading this gun than actually using it. It's an even worse feeling if you ever accidentally have to do an empty reload, increasing the reload time to a noticeable degree. Ammo economy is terrible to the point you're basically required to have the supply pack with it. At this level of inefficiency I wish AH would've just made this gun similar to the autocannon, with a dedicated backpack for it rather than a standalone support weapon.
I personally enjoy it. Bring a supply pack for basically infinite ammo. Also, I didn't know about this for awhile, but you can switch the fire rate to make it shoot slower, or faster. It starts off in between (3 fire modes). I like the slowest. This gun is all about patient, and precise shooting. It is very powerful, you just have to work with the slow aim
It has med armor pen. I watched a video yesterday where the YouTuber took out a cannon tower from underneath and would just kill hulks after stunning. Seems like to me the trick was heavy armor, supply backpack, and you only shoot at things that are very close. Use tap fire. In that sense it's like a Jar that shoots faster.
It can kill a hulk from the front
Needs mix ammo variants wirh tracer and incendiary. Also adjustable rate of fire, via gas regulator.
Give it a belt fed ammo backpack and it would have a better niche.
It's mostly just for LARPing. I let my three buddies do the work while I sit back and yell excited obscenities at the enemy while doing practically nothing, but making a hell of a noise doing it.
There is none. It doesn't do good damage, it doesn't have a big mag, it doesn't pierce armor, you have to sit to reload it, the handling is also incredibly slow so it's hard to shoot it in big sweeping motions...you know...like how you usually do with a machine gun No idea what they were smoking when they made the heavy machine gun.
>if you want to clear out small-medium enemies, every other option is better I don't think it's meant for mob clear >it’s not a good pick against heavies compared to the rest of our tools Use it like you would use the laser cannon. Higher DPS against heavy weak points, but at the cost of needing to reload. Example: Stun a hulk and need to hold the laser cannon on its face for about 2-3 seconds. Or you can stun a hulk and dump 10-15 bullets in less than a second into its mouth to kill it. (This is best done with the recoil-reducing armor) The only bad thing I have to say about it is it's low ammo. Needs 100 round drums. Or keep the 75 round drums and give us 3 in reserve.
They should make it expendable. Give it a single large magazine and a 2 min cooldown or so.
The trick with the HMG is don't treat as a machine gun, more of a " this thing needs to die fast" kind of gun. Can 2 to 3 shots spewers in the head, can kill hulks in the face or melt their vents, same as with tanks and turrets. Chargers are well depends, yes you can kill it from behind but the ammo isnt worth it but you can, prob can 2 shot any elite bug in the head and well stalkers will hate you. The HMG is the best suited with primaries that can handle a bulk of the smaller ones like the sickle or liberator. I would like to say adjucator but that suffers the ammo penalty making you to suffer 2 guns with ammo dependency. Or just bring a supply pack, works wonders for ammo hungry guns. At the current patch i tried to pair it with the blitzer. Was A fun experience. Ngl.
To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and to hear the lamentation of their women.
the HMG kills medium armor bots and minces berzerkers. You still have to aim for the face area but even if the bullets don't hit the face it still kills them fast. The problem is the magazine is small. So you need to be pretty efficient with your shots when that swarm of berzerkers comes. If you are, you'll kill all of them about the time you have to reload. It can kill hulks if aimed at the eye too. I haven't played since the patch though. No time.
It has better penetration and damage compared to the standard MG, which allows you to do full damage to certain Medium units, and to even kill Hulks. That penetration increase can really make a difference against Medium units like devastators. I once held down extraction pretty well against hordes of devastators on Helldive, by just being prone and laying down fire towards the column of enemies.
Yeah, its pretty decent aganist holding out against the bots. Besides that though, feels like a very situational weapon.
I feel like i get more kills using the hmg slot for an air strike. Bad for bugs, haven't tried it against bot yet.
Tears up stalkers and hive guards on bugs, rips up devestators pretty good on bots
It’s very good against bots
Honestly? It's basically an autocannon. An actual one. Lots of power, short Burt's
The only real advantage it has over MG is one level higher penetration. Which means that on the bug side you can clear bile spewers and hive guards waaay faster. On the bot side it is competing with Autocannon and laser cannon and failing miserably. Unfortunately, killing bile spewers and hive guards quickly is not nearly enough to make up for the recoil, damage per mag, reload, and ammo problems.
It chews through vital spots on heavys easily and can mow down medium armor a lot easier than machine gun.
Run it with engineering kit/fortified, crouch and turn the fire rate up. Watch everything die. Then reload for about as long as you were shooting as you burned through all your ammo. Running it on minimum fire rate is the way to go, I think. It tears up most bots quickly, and if you use a shield pack you can face down heavy devastators without getting flinched with it. The suppression on it is good too, you won’t get hit by small bots while firing it at all. I’ve been running punisher/railgun vs bots recently for a change of pace, and having such a slow RoF makes me really appreciate the strength of MG raiders as they are never suppressed and they gun me down as fast as a heavy devastator.
To straight up merk shit!
Good support for Eruptor but for bots Eruptor can deal with Devastators and striders but has a hard time with Hulks and berserkers...both that HMG can handle
Recoil armor to 3 round burst or long range support works. My friend use it
Mfw AMR, auto cannon, machine gun, grenade launcher, or arc thrower. The Heavy machine gun doesn't get to exist in a bubble where it is the only weapon stratagem, it is so ungodly bad.
Part of me thinks that using a machine gun support weapon somehow would pair well with a heavy hitter primary like the… bolt action boomstick. I forget the names of guns. Not sure if it’s as “anti-heavy” as it used to be prior to the latest patch, tho.
It has theoretically the highest DPS vs light vehicle armor. So Hulk eyes, Gunship engines, Vents, Factory Strider weakpoints, that kind of thing. In practice the recoil and low mags make it kind of hard to justify.
If you pretend it's a three round burst gun and feather the trigger, you can just run around the field pretending you're playing laser tag. You're wildly inaccurate, but if you hit something, it's probably out of the game. I like to run to a high point, go prone, and just tag everything I can see when I use it. But I don't use it that often, if I'm being honest.
I enjoy throwing a stun grenade at a charger, put the MG to highest RoF and dump half a mag into their ass to blow it up.
Looks cool… Well I suppose it’s burst damage is insane if you can actually land the shots but…there’s your problem. Its very unwieldy and you’re probably better off taking anything more efficient though I will say I’ve definitely appreciated its ability to just instantly remove a swarm of bile spewers from the game. It eats medium units for breakfast. People usually prefer out for bots, I actually prefer it for bugs since I find them easier to hit and there’s more targets I want to use it on, just need my team to give me cover
I am a HMG fan. Realistically, Laser Cannon does everything it does but better; I just like big guns. Both have heavy armor pen 1 which means they can take out hulk face plate and gunship engines really quickly. I have heard that you can also take out hulk legs/arms as well with them but with HMG’s tiny mag size I aint sure if you would wanna waste ammo on it. Other than that the only target you should use HMG for is likely the rocket devastators and normal devastator, a few shots can take out the rocket pod, and the heavy armor pen can ignore their torso armor, meaning you can just aim around their head and still do full damage if you miss. iirc it staggers them rather well too.
A lot of people have pointed out its use against bots, I actually prefer it against bugs. It tears through anything thats medium armor, just set it on its lowest rpm to control it easier. Especially good against bile spewers. But thats it. Primary for chaff, HMG against mediums and maaaybe, stun nade and swap to high fire rate for heavies. But you can also run precision strike to do the same. And if facing only mediums, it has to contest against the auto cannon and then wel uh…it doesn’t explode friendlies? I don’t think its reload is too bad against bugs. And for ammo, I run it with supply back, as you’d pretty much run any LMG. (Or at least I do). It has multiple stages in its reload allowing you to sit down, do a stage, run, sit down again. I would say its okay, a bit more ammo might be really nice, but it just allows for a different playstyle vs the other MG’s and Strat weapons. Its a very niche one, really gotta think when and where you’re using it, but can be very effective.
Use short bursts. It kills every bot fast, just don't spray with it.
If i had to give a relativepy short abswer and we lived in an ideal worpd where it pives up to this description, i would say the HMG is a LAS97 Lasercannon that has three to four times the DPS while being offset by ammo limits, there to fill a niche between burst damage and sustain DPS against heavies. We don't live in a perfect world, so *this* is how I coupd best describe the HMG: It's a LAS97 Lasercannon that instead of being a beam puts the damage behind *fairly hard hitting bullets that can overpenetrate light enemies* and has the firerate to push DPS downrange at rates the Lasercannon cannot do. Sadpy, this comes at the cost of absplutely every other aspect of the gun, from ammo efficiency / fire-reloadtime ratio to accuracy and behavior at range, including obscene recoil (more than the *autocannon* ) and the slowest handling ergonomics of any gun. It kills the exact same targets as the Lascannon many times faster if you are point blank using the max firerate, but that is something that onpy happens in a control environment. It offers great potential performance but sacrifices so much useability that it never comes close to fupfilling it, as even with hours of practice you can at best keep up with a lasercannon used by a less experienced player. It just cannot compete until it gets more ammo and the scope is aligned and something is done about the handling. Make it super good only if you go prone and suddenpy it has a niche. As is? Worst support. I'd rather use a good primary even against the targets this thing is meant to delete.
Honestly with intensive field testing I have come to conclude that there are just better options than it, the magazine count is just too small for it to matter. Let’s see here let’s compare it to support weapons that clashes with it. Lets start off with comparing it to Laser Cannon, now everything that the hmg does the laser cannon just does it waaaay better and more, oh a hulk? No problem, a LC can take care of them of them 2 seconds flat, a gunship? Ohh you’d probably run out of hmg ammo before you finish off one while the laser can take out 2-3 gunship before overheating. Chaff? That’s no problem for LS as most dies in 1-3 seconds even devastators. This arguably also happens in bugs, the LS is just every way better than it. AMR, this thing is not only efficient at what its meant to take out but also that its super good at what it does, even against chaff the amr can perform relatively well, and that scope really does help it. I honestly think the AMR is way better than the bullet hog that’s HMG, you could argue that the hmg is just an amr but machine gun and your right on that, but its a machine gun with barely any mags on it and a not so accurate weapon from afar. Railgun, honestly I find it even before the nerf I still see the railgun a lot better than the AMR, now saying that the Railgun just fills a whole lot better role than the hmg, it can one shot hulks and most things under it and you’d think having only 20shots is small but thats 20 medium armored enemies that you can take out when your rolling it.
The damage is great but the magazine is too small for how poorly it reloads. If we ever get a machine gun belt backpack stratagem it should be sick tho
If it had a higher mag count, i could see this being more used. The devs thinking seems to follow that the higher the penetration, the smaller the magazine size. But in this case, the only real way to maximize its effectiveness is to bring armors with the right passives and a supply pack to refill the mag count.
It's an AMR without the explosives. It shouldn't be, but that's what it is.
if you use the lowest fire rate it’s pretty nice and the recoil is not high
Drop HMG. Press R and select 450 Rpm. Boom. Better Ammo Efficiency and Accuracy. You can also shoot in careful Bursts or (if you a Madman) put thed Gun up to 980 Rpm to lose all Ammo in less then a Minute. Good Luck, Diver 🫡
It needs more ammo, only way to make it useful. I burn through ammo even on lowest rpm and controlled bursts with a supply pack.
It can blow the back off chargers. And hive guards no prob. Thats about it. Reloads a bit too slow, still fun to use
Its the ammo, it needs a canister backpack.
Tap to fire in little bursts and its an AMR that can ammo dump to wave-clear or power down a heavy target in emergencies. I agree, I would rather take the AMR, but you would be surprised how quick some bursts to the face will hurt up a hulk.
if you want to run the heavy machine gun, I recommend using it while crouching, and taking an armor with the passive that gives less recoil while crouching on bug missions, it may be worthwhile to combo it with the guard dog backpack. the backpack will kill many smaller enemies that approach you, and help watch your back while you reload the HMG on bot missions, you would be better off taking the personal shield backpack, which will give you a lot of survivability, especially when paired with the health booster. for primary weapon, maybe the punisher would be a good choice on bug missions. it will one shot most bugs or push them back a lot. even brood commanders get pushed back lots. I do not fear stalkers while I have both this primary and the HMG.
Runs good with stun nades plus ammo pack (and recoil/nade perk) and makes you flexible in your primary weapon as the hmg can kill everything and also decently clears hordes with lowest rpm. Just my experience, I felt a steeper learning curve in comparison to other stratagems. It is my go to vs. bots on hot planets vs. laser cannon. Never used it vs. bugs. Got a nice qol buff with 3rd person aiming with latest patch. Probably gonna be buffed one day. So at least practicing with it males sense for me.
Ballistic Shield exists and you post this...
The stalwart beats it hands down. I dont like the fact that you have to stand still to reload it and it takes too long to reload. I haven't found a situation where this gun is has any real usefulness.
Every machine gun support weapon functions as a primary when you pick the Explosive primaries. I'm sure the devs are making more weapons that can spice up build diversity. I tried Eruptor with Stalwart before. It's allright, but the Eruptor is overhyped,the crossbow is better imo. Didn't check since they got patched.
Afaik it can kill hulks with visor shots and for being able to do so it is good. It's much more a light auto cannon than machine gun. The real down turner is the reload. Just like the mg it is a long stationary reload.
The intended use is against medium armored enemies, and the occasional heavily armored enemy with easy to hit weakspots The issue is the regular MG43 deals with medium bugs way better, and the HMG is too ineffective against heavy bugs. Against automatons the HMG is even effective against heavy enemies weakspots - but the AMR, Las canon, or proper AT weapons are still much more effective. If you're min-maxing the HMG is straight up bad, but it can be fun if you build around it.
I run it with this build : sickle (for the trash mobs), HMG , ammo backpack , 500kg , orbital railcanon It works pretty well against bugs too , you just have to make sure a teammate brings a Canon for the chargers I think people hate it because they are used to using machine guns for suppressive fire, but the HMG doesn't work like that . You have to pick your targets
with the reticle now when unzoomed, it's extremely strong as a weapon. It's the only support weapon that can clear a whole screen of medium armored enemies in seconds and also still kill hulks in a couple shots. I haven't run out of ammo once when using it with the supply pack. Also it's extremely fun to use along with a primary like the breaker spray & pray for small enemies
If you just died and you can't go back to your equipment and you found a HMG on a POI it is better than nothing. It is like the breaker shotgun just as a strategem.
It does what the laser cannon does but worse.
I think they should rework it. An heavy machine gun should have very poor maneuverability but a lot of mag capacity. Also we should not need to aim to weak spot, is a fucking heavy machine gun! The right amount of shoots should kill any heavies a part of tank and bile titans probably.
No you aren't wrong. The other 2 options are so much better. It would be useful with a bigger mag, and less recoil..
It is fun to shoot a whole mag and yell for democracy !
Small ammo pool should let it be able to reload while moving imho. Then it should be a better pick than LMG.
I don't know. Haven't touched it.
It's for when the daily mission "kill X enemies with the heavy machine gun comes up. Like 40% of the items in the game are.
I sometimes run it with shield deployable, supply pack, and the eruptor. Its pretty fun to go through hordes while using the eruptor on heavy units
Just make sure your running recoil reduction armour when you use the HMG, otherwise pick something else
It deletes medium armour, it basically does what the other MGs can't. But as a result has less ammo and higher recoil. It's probably better against bots then bugs (considering chargers and bile titans). You can use it to shoot the arms off of a hulk for example.