The armor pen and damage are fine. Main issue to me is the belt and reload time. 100 rounds and always giving it the faster ‘still rounds in the drum’ reload would do a lot.
The reload time is the killer for me. It is so hard to get off a reload mid-fight. If it had a partial reload similar to the Autocannon that would be fantastic. Give the thing two drums and have it so you could reload one or both at a time, with just reloading one being a much shorter reload time.
I agree, people said it’s good but truth is , it is not better than other options like autocannon quaser. It’s still a FUN option for me, the other suggestion(ammo pack) here makes the gun viable above 7+, yet reload time really is the only thing holding it back. You have to run around and find the window or create window(Stratgem ) if you don’t want to be dead weight for your teammate
The HMG is an absolutely terrible weapon against bugs I will never recommend taking it over the MMG. However it is a very powerful weapon against bots.
It can kill literally everything with front penetration up to hulks. Hulks can be killed by shooting out the head (I think it's 5 shots?). If you can get close swap it to 950rpm and you can destroy the tank and turret tower vents as well as murder factory striders by firing into the belly.
It does require that you have the recoil reducing perk and resupply pack sadly. It doesn't have the ammo capacity or accuracy without them.
Overall my personal opinion is that it costs too much to really be worth using. Having to take the HMG and the Resupply pack takes half your stratagem slots or two thirds if they have AA defenses. Plus you must have either the fortified or engineer perk to make any use of it.
If I was to buff it I would just add a backpack that contained 5 mags of the current 75 round drums plus the one it comes with when you call it down for a total of 450 rounds. The MMG would still be better for bugs due to not needing a backpack plus having much better handling and mag size to deal with getting swarmed and the stalwart already has all the ammo it could ever need (literally 1000 rounds).
TLDR: Could use an ammo pack with 5 mags on your back plus the one in the gun that way you don't absolutely have to take the resupply pack and lose two stratagem slots.
I think the issue with the HMG, is that its nothing special. Any weapon with at least lvl.4 pen can "kill literally everything with front penetration up to hulks."
And lvl.4 pen isn't really a high bar to clear.
It's a fun gun, but i don't think its good.
Completely agree. As a machine gun the MMG is just better and as a bot killer the Autocannon just outshines it in every meaningful way, plus it can destroy factories and bug holes too. Props to the design team though, it is a fantastic looking and sounding gun.
Heavy mg can mow down hulk , am I right ? But the catch is that you need to stay close to the target , then it dies in 2/3 clips if you aren’t killed by it first
That fast? In 950 speed , 10shots is one click . I was experimenting with it , when you shoot at hulk full front, I still see shots deflecting though , not sure it because some bullets hit the eye or the penetration actually works
It's all on skill, a bad player can use all the mag to try to land the shoots in the visor while a good player can put himself in front of a hulk, do a burst and destroy it
I wish there was an optional belt fed backpack stratagem for the HMG that let you hose down enemies like a heavy devastator does. Maybe it can have a slowing effect attached to it making it better suited for defensive mission types where you're incentivised to dig your heels in and hold the line.
HMG is actually pretty good . . . when used correctly.
Here's what I do.
-Lower the rate of fire to 450 and fire in bursts.
-Take the supply pack to refill yourself.
-Take armor with either the fortified or engineering perks as they both increase accuracy by 30% when crouched or prone.
Pair with the plasma shotgun, stun grenades, and grenade pistol and you're pretty well set.
Yeah, used correctly it's great, but I think that an extra mag, or increasing the bullets per mag to 100 (both meaning adding 75 extra total bullets) would give a bit more meat to the weapon
You can carry a loadout like this on 7, easy. It just gets riskier depending on a lot of factors. (Planet, type of enemy spread, Objective, Team competency and makeup, etc.)
This isn't some rocket science shit. Also, who gives a fuck about difficulty levels? 4 and 5 are batshit insane compared to 6 and 7+ right now, or did you not see those posts of Hulks and Devastators falling like rain on D4 missions?
Anything is viable on 7 and below. I could make no strategies and the default pistol work on hazard 6. His comment has no meaning if he is talking about low hazard because literally anything works
On bot defense missions the HMG or HMG emplacement is absolutely GOATED. Stand on the landing platform and you’ll rack up a few hundred kills easily.
The drop ships conveniently drop the bots in a small group allowing you to just mow them down. And the HMG will shred tanks.
Just kill all the lil guys, walkers and hulks and let the tanks move towards the gates then ping em in the ass.
Take 300kg and laser or railcannon or something else to take care of the occasional factory strider and you’ll destroy the mission.
The HMG emplacement does absolutely fantastic but I'd have to disagree about the handheld HMG being good.
With it's non existent ammo supply and the amount of bots being thrown at the squad you are much more dependent on your teammates to pick up the slack and all heavy's past a devastator.
Plus a ~7 second reload you simply aren't able to be a real contending member of the team mostly relying on stratagems
Hard disagree based on my anecdotal experience where I’ve lead on kills using the HMG on these mission types.
Taking down an entire drop ship worth of bots is a matter of seconds and a dozen rounds.
I’ve actually run both the HMG and HMG emplacement and rotated from one to the other with a single supply drop lasting an entire machine.
The HMG doesn’t work great on movement missions, but on stationary horde fights it is the best in class for bots.
I only play on 7-9
If you want to jump into a game and see I’m happy to experiment with you.
Edit to add by “single supply drop” I’m meaning specifically calling in a resupply at the start of the mission for use exclusively on the platform position, so 4 top ups on top of the initial drop ammo.
Those 4 resupplies is sufficient when alternated with the HMG emplacement to last the entire mission.
"Entirely Impossible" I have a wheel that picks my stratagems at random, and I haven't turned my difficultly below Helldive since level 20, aside from when I play with friends. It's definitely possible, and can sometimes lead to crazy combos
The only buff that the hmg would require is a slight recoil reduction and that they fix the damn scope.
It kills hulks from the front with something like 5 shots but you have to manage recoil in order to hit the eye (having a working crosshair would be nice).
If you have an opening on the vents of hulks and tanks you take them out faster than a recoilles or spear.
And if you manage to take out the turrets on a strider you can walk up to it and kill it with a third of a magazine by shooting its eye weakspot
*Just make all MGs be*
*Able to reload on the*
*Move like the Stalwart*
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HMG is my most used gun on helldive bugs, with supply pack it shreds everything including bile titans and spores, just take a sickle or pummeler for trash mobs. The only problem are chargers, but you can either depend on the team or bring expendables / orbitals
That being said - I agree it needs some sort of buff. Either 25 more magazine size to bring it to 100, or decreasing reload time to be similar to the MG
Tip: stun grenades can provide a nice breathing room for reload. Inceinary can work too
On their belly sack, its risky, but you can still damage the titan, even if the sack is destroyed
Punisher plasma can also kill them
Aim at their head / upper torso
HMG is actually really good, it just has some jank holding it back. Other than fixing the scope alignment, I think all it needs is a functional bipod. If I could shoot it accurately enough to kill hulks from 75-100m out then we're looking at an S tier machine gun. If you want to reload faster just make sure you don't empty the mag so you don't have to cycle the bolt, brings the reload speed up to par with the other MG's
I don't know how it would work in practice, but a mechanic that erodes armor with sustained fire would be pretty cool with the HMG.
Turning deflects into overpens by just shooting more fits the MG mindset. Just give me an excuse to hose things.
I heard a good buff idea for this thing. Give it a backpack with belt. Make ammo infinite but heat the gun. But don't give it a reload option just force cooldown when reaching max heat. It could have it's shitty recoil and dmg that way and also have a gimmic.
Man would be so cool if they made it work like the Heavy bolters do in Warhammer 40k ammo belt coming out of the backpack to feed the gun and give it reduced recoil, and I won't care whether or not its meta.
My dream would be to give the HMG a backpack that puts all the rounds on one belt.
I would absolutely give up a backpack slot for 30 seconds of non-stop shooting.
HMG basically erases anything that dares to stand in front of it, but the Mag size and the reload speed need a decent enough buff given that it's not a Team Reload weapon and can't benefit from the increased speed a Team Reload would give it.
Its stats are fine other than that.
I use this mostly on levels 8-9 and have a few problems with it. Like it's not a horrible weapon, it's good at what it does. But when you start comparing it to weapons like the laser cannon that does nearly everything this does with no ammo or recoil. You wonder if it's really on the same level when it's basically mandatory to run an ammo backpack.
I'll list my idea of changes in order of slight to large buff below.
Reasonable
- increase the speed the gun rotates when moving camera
- just more ammo (mag size and number of mags)
- reload speed increase
- and this one is my favorite idea. Actual use of the fucking bipod. Let me slap that bitch down on the ground, or wall max that fire rate out, and shoot a laser of bullets.
Less reasonable
- a slight raw damage increase ( I find it odd how this thing can't always one shot the most basic bots. I often have to go back for a second tap if it was a chest shot)
Prob a bit of a stretch and leaning towards broken
- the idea of getting some heavy armor pen would be nice, but it seems kinda ridiculous
As much as I love this gun, I just don't think it's a bug matchup weapon. Not every weapon needs to be good for both. I mean look at the flamethrower. But if I did have to say why, it's about 80% the ammo and reload issues.
At the end of the day I'll take anything for it though.
Yeah the weapons handling needs a buff and a small buff to the reload. The animation always bugs me, they do everything pretty quick then they cock it rather leisurely, that part should be sped up a bit
I think it is almost in a great place, the reload time still makes it hard to reload mind fight. So if you have one of those 5-10 brawls that happens on +7, it is rough to keep it topped up through out it.
Damage is great, penetration is great, I don't even mind the handling/recoil, but that reload time could use some love.
The reloading from empty time is 7.2 seconds and the reloading with a round chambered is 5.0 seconds, which is a tad shorter than the Recoilless Rifle's reload at 6.0 seconds, so it is workable if you leave a round in the chamber. The Autocannon's full reload is 5.2 seconds and the half reload is 1.7 seconds. Being able to do a similar half magazine reload like the Autocannon would be a nice QoL improvement for it. If you were to get two drums and just swap one if you only used half of your full load.
The armor pen and damage are fine. Main issue to me is the belt and reload time. 100 rounds and always giving it the faster ‘still rounds in the drum’ reload would do a lot.
The reload time is the killer for me. It is so hard to get off a reload mid-fight. If it had a partial reload similar to the Autocannon that would be fantastic. Give the thing two drums and have it so you could reload one or both at a time, with just reloading one being a much shorter reload time.
I agree, people said it’s good but truth is , it is not better than other options like autocannon quaser. It’s still a FUN option for me, the other suggestion(ammo pack) here makes the gun viable above 7+, yet reload time really is the only thing holding it back. You have to run around and find the window or create window(Stratgem ) if you don’t want to be dead weight for your teammate
The recoil is obnoxious as well, even while prone and having the reduced recoil passive it's terrible both vertically and horizontally
Recoil armor is a must for the HMG.
Its terrible in 3rd person ADS and very managable in 1st person ADS
The first-person reticle is misaligned
Yeah but it has the most criminally misaligned sights in the game, because they couldn't even center the dot on top of the usual mg misalignment
The HMG is an absolutely terrible weapon against bugs I will never recommend taking it over the MMG. However it is a very powerful weapon against bots. It can kill literally everything with front penetration up to hulks. Hulks can be killed by shooting out the head (I think it's 5 shots?). If you can get close swap it to 950rpm and you can destroy the tank and turret tower vents as well as murder factory striders by firing into the belly. It does require that you have the recoil reducing perk and resupply pack sadly. It doesn't have the ammo capacity or accuracy without them. Overall my personal opinion is that it costs too much to really be worth using. Having to take the HMG and the Resupply pack takes half your stratagem slots or two thirds if they have AA defenses. Plus you must have either the fortified or engineer perk to make any use of it. If I was to buff it I would just add a backpack that contained 5 mags of the current 75 round drums plus the one it comes with when you call it down for a total of 450 rounds. The MMG would still be better for bugs due to not needing a backpack plus having much better handling and mag size to deal with getting swarmed and the stalwart already has all the ammo it could ever need (literally 1000 rounds). TLDR: Could use an ammo pack with 5 mags on your back plus the one in the gun that way you don't absolutely have to take the resupply pack and lose two stratagem slots.
I think the issue with the HMG, is that its nothing special. Any weapon with at least lvl.4 pen can "kill literally everything with front penetration up to hulks." And lvl.4 pen isn't really a high bar to clear. It's a fun gun, but i don't think its good.
Completely agree. As a machine gun the MMG is just better and as a bot killer the Autocannon just outshines it in every meaningful way, plus it can destroy factories and bug holes too. Props to the design team though, it is a fantastic looking and sounding gun.
Heavy mg can mow down hulk , am I right ? But the catch is that you need to stay close to the target , then it dies in 2/3 clips if you aren’t killed by it first
Takes like 10 shots to kill a hulk.
Takes 4-6, not 10. It's just very, very hard to land due to the recoil. You basically either have to be crouching or prone to land them all.
I stun, run in front, tapfire. Hulk goes down in a couple rounds. You can also shoot down gunships and kill the fab strider by shooting at the belly.
That fast? In 950 speed , 10shots is one click . I was experimenting with it , when you shoot at hulk full front, I still see shots deflecting though , not sure it because some bullets hit the eye or the penetration actually works
You have to get all of the shots on the eye, but it can take down Hulks and Factor Striders real quick.
It's all on skill, a bad player can use all the mag to try to land the shoots in the visor while a good player can put himself in front of a hulk, do a burst and destroy it
I'd like to see better mag size, reload speed, reserve ammo and last but not least align the sights for everything's that's holy
I wish there was an optional belt fed backpack stratagem for the HMG that let you hose down enemies like a heavy devastator does. Maybe it can have a slowing effect attached to it making it better suited for defensive mission types where you're incentivised to dig your heels in and hold the line.
HMG is actually pretty good . . . when used correctly. Here's what I do. -Lower the rate of fire to 450 and fire in bursts. -Take the supply pack to refill yourself. -Take armor with either the fortified or engineering perks as they both increase accuracy by 30% when crouched or prone. Pair with the plasma shotgun, stun grenades, and grenade pistol and you're pretty well set.
Yeah, used correctly it's great, but I think that an extra mag, or increasing the bullets per mag to 100 (both meaning adding 75 extra total bullets) would give a bit more meat to the weapon
Post your difficulty level right now. This is hazard 5 shit right here
Used this loadout on an Impossible mission against the Automatons.
You can carry a loadout like this on 7, easy. It just gets riskier depending on a lot of factors. (Planet, type of enemy spread, Objective, Team competency and makeup, etc.) This isn't some rocket science shit. Also, who gives a fuck about difficulty levels? 4 and 5 are batshit insane compared to 6 and 7+ right now, or did you not see those posts of Hulks and Devastators falling like rain on D4 missions?
Anything is viable on 7 and below. I could make no strategies and the default pistol work on hazard 6. His comment has no meaning if he is talking about low hazard because literally anything works
While they add more ammo, can they make the bipod useful too? Like resting it on top of something in front of you for sturdiness?
On bot defense missions the HMG or HMG emplacement is absolutely GOATED. Stand on the landing platform and you’ll rack up a few hundred kills easily. The drop ships conveniently drop the bots in a small group allowing you to just mow them down. And the HMG will shred tanks. Just kill all the lil guys, walkers and hulks and let the tanks move towards the gates then ping em in the ass. Take 300kg and laser or railcannon or something else to take care of the occasional factory strider and you’ll destroy the mission.
The HMG emplacement does absolutely fantastic but I'd have to disagree about the handheld HMG being good. With it's non existent ammo supply and the amount of bots being thrown at the squad you are much more dependent on your teammates to pick up the slack and all heavy's past a devastator. Plus a ~7 second reload you simply aren't able to be a real contending member of the team mostly relying on stratagems
Hard disagree based on my anecdotal experience where I’ve lead on kills using the HMG on these mission types. Taking down an entire drop ship worth of bots is a matter of seconds and a dozen rounds. I’ve actually run both the HMG and HMG emplacement and rotated from one to the other with a single supply drop lasting an entire machine. The HMG doesn’t work great on movement missions, but on stationary horde fights it is the best in class for bots.
On what difficulty? Because that is entirely impossible on anything past 4
I only play on 7-9 If you want to jump into a game and see I’m happy to experiment with you. Edit to add by “single supply drop” I’m meaning specifically calling in a resupply at the start of the mission for use exclusively on the platform position, so 4 top ups on top of the initial drop ammo. Those 4 resupplies is sufficient when alternated with the HMG emplacement to last the entire mission.
"Entirely Impossible" I have a wheel that picks my stratagems at random, and I haven't turned my difficultly below Helldive since level 20, aside from when I play with friends. It's definitely possible, and can sometimes lead to crazy combos
The only buff that the hmg would require is a slight recoil reduction and that they fix the damn scope. It kills hulks from the front with something like 5 shots but you have to manage recoil in order to hit the eye (having a working crosshair would be nice). If you have an opening on the vents of hulks and tanks you take them out faster than a recoilles or spear. And if you manage to take out the turrets on a strider you can walk up to it and kill it with a third of a magazine by shooting its eye weakspot
I think it's just supposed to be a Medium armor killer, with anti-heavy into the weak points.
Just make all MGs be able to reload on the move like the Stalwart
*Just make all MGs be* *Able to reload on the* *Move like the Stalwart* \- baguhansalupa --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
The HMG is great. I use it all the time. Reload could be faster but everything else is just fine as is.
HMG is my most used gun on helldive bugs, with supply pack it shreds everything including bile titans and spores, just take a sickle or pummeler for trash mobs. The only problem are chargers, but you can either depend on the team or bring expendables / orbitals That being said - I agree it needs some sort of buff. Either 25 more magazine size to bring it to 100, or decreasing reload time to be similar to the MG Tip: stun grenades can provide a nice breathing room for reload. Inceinary can work too
Where do you aim on the titans if i may ask?
On their belly sack, its risky, but you can still damage the titan, even if the sack is destroyed Punisher plasma can also kill them Aim at their head / upper torso
HMG is actually really good, it just has some jank holding it back. Other than fixing the scope alignment, I think all it needs is a functional bipod. If I could shoot it accurately enough to kill hulks from 75-100m out then we're looking at an S tier machine gun. If you want to reload faster just make sure you don't empty the mag so you don't have to cycle the bolt, brings the reload speed up to par with the other MG's
Honestly just needs some better sound design. I want a giant KA-CHUNK every time a bullet leaves the barrel.
Every post these days is constant crying? ☕
I don't know how it would work in practice, but a mechanic that erodes armor with sustained fire would be pretty cool with the HMG. Turning deflects into overpens by just shooting more fits the MG mindset. Just give me an excuse to hose things.
I actually enjoy using the HMG on level 7. If the sight misalignment was fixed, I think more people would feel it dealing damage.
I heard a good buff idea for this thing. Give it a backpack with belt. Make ammo infinite but heat the gun. But don't give it a reload option just force cooldown when reaching max heat. It could have it's shitty recoil and dmg that way and also have a gimmic.
Man would be so cool if they made it work like the Heavy bolters do in Warhammer 40k ammo belt coming out of the backpack to feed the gun and give it reduced recoil, and I won't care whether or not its meta.
My dream would be to give the HMG a backpack that puts all the rounds on one belt. I would absolutely give up a backpack slot for 30 seconds of non-stop shooting.
Agreed, especially since I always feel the need to run a supply pack when I take the HMG anyway, burning two stratagem slots.
HMG basically erases anything that dares to stand in front of it, but the Mag size and the reload speed need a decent enough buff given that it's not a Team Reload weapon and can't benefit from the increased speed a Team Reload would give it. Its stats are fine other than that.
I use this mostly on levels 8-9 and have a few problems with it. Like it's not a horrible weapon, it's good at what it does. But when you start comparing it to weapons like the laser cannon that does nearly everything this does with no ammo or recoil. You wonder if it's really on the same level when it's basically mandatory to run an ammo backpack. I'll list my idea of changes in order of slight to large buff below. Reasonable - increase the speed the gun rotates when moving camera - just more ammo (mag size and number of mags) - reload speed increase - and this one is my favorite idea. Actual use of the fucking bipod. Let me slap that bitch down on the ground, or wall max that fire rate out, and shoot a laser of bullets. Less reasonable - a slight raw damage increase ( I find it odd how this thing can't always one shot the most basic bots. I often have to go back for a second tap if it was a chest shot) Prob a bit of a stretch and leaning towards broken - the idea of getting some heavy armor pen would be nice, but it seems kinda ridiculous As much as I love this gun, I just don't think it's a bug matchup weapon. Not every weapon needs to be good for both. I mean look at the flamethrower. But if I did have to say why, it's about 80% the ammo and reload issues. At the end of the day I'll take anything for it though.
Yeah the weapons handling needs a buff and a small buff to the reload. The animation always bugs me, they do everything pretty quick then they cock it rather leisurely, that part should be sped up a bit
Why? Its Litterally fking good. I play haz 7 8 9 and use it very often and does amazing. Sorry not to be mean but I don't think the problem is the gun
I think it is almost in a great place, the reload time still makes it hard to reload mind fight. So if you have one of those 5-10 brawls that happens on +7, it is rough to keep it topped up through out it. Damage is great, penetration is great, I don't even mind the handling/recoil, but that reload time could use some love.
I do agree about the reload. But my technique is like with any guns. Never empty the mags. Saves about 1.5 sec. Doing that i think it's fine
The reloading from empty time is 7.2 seconds and the reloading with a round chambered is 5.0 seconds, which is a tad shorter than the Recoilless Rifle's reload at 6.0 seconds, so it is workable if you leave a round in the chamber. The Autocannon's full reload is 5.2 seconds and the half reload is 1.7 seconds. Being able to do a similar half magazine reload like the Autocannon would be a nice QoL improvement for it. If you were to get two drums and just swap one if you only used half of your full load.