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« on: April 29, 2026, 03:02:47 pm »
After the 10th year anniversary update, I finally got around to trying a Heavy Guns build, and I've beaten the whole game with both DLCs with it now on Dominating.
I was running with 7 int, 10 con, full heavy metal with Disassemble. I mostly used LMGs and rocket launchers, I never really saw a point where I wanted to use a minigun. Rocket launchers gave me an opportunity to initiate from a distance, but were hardly usable in an actual round of combat with no MP and no ability to reload and shoot on the same round, though I found they could easily one shot a band of lunatics or something, so still had their uses. Beast of Burden with some spec points made it much more manageable.
Essentially, anything in the range of my LMG always died in one burst, even with normal bullets. I've used W2Cs for Tchort and making bursting down a group of exosoldiers more reliable. I had never done Heavy Duty before, so I missed the optional end quest, and I didn't know that the fusion cannon would make rocket launchers completely irrelevant. More damage, less resisted, ammo is more plentiful and weighs nothing. If I had spoiled myself, I would have just let gunslinger die and rushed this right after Depot A. I'm wondering what rocket launchers even add compared to that.
It felt like economy was my main obstacle. Never a hard blocker, but I played with the intent on buying a fully upgraded Devastator and some housing upgrades, so I made sure to use Disassemble to craft as much bullets as possible. With this in mind, a swarm of burrower spawns felt more penalizing for my build than a naga protector.
My open questions are, was I missing something to make the heavy guns experience better? It felt silly that when getting surrounded by enemies that couldn't even damage me, my main option was mostly to spend an entire burst on each of them, or wait for grenade cooldown until they finally go down. The playstyle is built around burst, but the spread angle is hardly customizable, it can only be reduced with upgrades. In addition, the burst can only be done around a visible target, not at arbitrary locations.
It feels like the playstyle could be greatly enhanced with a ground-targetted burst ability, could even be a feat given how little feats you need. This could have a much greater spread angle and reduced precision. This would help bring some diversity in choosing different shooting styles depending on enemy placement. This would also give an option for covering swarms of really weak enemies, where you just want one bullet to land on each. I would also consider using miniguns and its larger bursts for suppressive fire and covering hidden targets.
tl;dr are heavy guns kind of dumb and boring, or skill issue?
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