We recently put together a more gimmicky guide for the Specialist in Star Wars: Battlefront II, but this week we've got something a bit more practical with a guide to raining fire down onto your enemies with the Heavy.
There are some pretty straightforward ways to play the Heavy class in SWBF2. Most players unlock the TL-50 Imperial Repeater, put their Improved Combat Shield up, and rake in the kills. You might pop your sentry ability out occasionally, too. But that's really all there is to it. Now, that's all good fun, but I like to lay down a hose of fire whenever I play support (machine gun) type classes in the Battlefield games, so I sought out a way to accomplish this in SWBF2.
CLASS: Heavy
Obviously, you'll be playing the Heavy since this is where the "machine guns" of the game are found. You're going to want to pick up the DC15LE and equip the Reduced Recoil and Explosive Shot attachments for this build.
STAR CARDS
EXPERT WEAPONS HANDLING:
This Star Card is pretty great for most classes, but I generally don't like it for the Heavy outside of this build. Expert Weapons Handling extends the duration of the gold reloads, which provide you with a period of time where your blaster generates zero heat. This is really powerful on the Specialist if you like shooting at ships or vehicles, since it allows you to chew through armor with up to 10 seconds of unlimited fire time.
However, on the Heavy, it's generally less useful than you'd think. The reason for this is that it takes a really long time to get down to the gold area of the reload meter when you're reloading a blaster on the Heavy. You'd think that since these blasters tend to have a high rate of fire and overheat quickly, that being able to extend the duration of a gold reload this way would make intuitive sense, but in practice, I've found it better to finish the quick reload and keep going. That is, unless you're running with the DC15LE w/ Explosive Shot.
Explosive Shot adds some splash damage to your rounds, with the tradeoff being that the blaster will overheat faster. The thing is when you reload the DC15LE while this attachment is on, your reload state is actually more similar to an Assault's blaster. You can get down to the gold area much more quickly and you will have opportunities to stay in the unlimited fire state more often since the Explosive Shot attachment makes the blaster overheat faster. Running this card with Explosive Shot on the DC15LE will allow you to rain fire down on your enemies almost infinitely.
IMPROVED COMBAT SHIELD:
This card is a no brainer for most Heavy players, but it's even more necessary for the Explosive Shot Heavy. You're going to be a huge target constantly firing your blaster down through hallways or onto a point, so the extra mitigation offered by Improved Combat Shield is critical to your survival.
CHOICE:
The third slot is a bit more flexible. I tend to run Resourceful since the Heavy relies upon its cooldowns quite a bit. Being able to have your Impact Grenade, Improved Combat Shield, and even Sentry up that much quicker is really helpful. One other option that I really like is taking Bodyguard. Bodyguard is a great card for almost any Heavy build. Running Combat Shield or even using Sentry makes you less mobile than all the other classes in the game and with how explosive happy SWBF2 tends to be, having that extra mitigation vs. explosives can be a real life saver.
If you don't want to take either of these more utility focused cards, you can opt for one of the Sentry upgrades, though I find Sentry a bit redundant in this build. With Explosive Shot on the DC15LE, it's like having Sentry going all the time. With that said, Supercharged Sentry is generally the best version of the ability to take. It offers some of the explosive splash damage found in Explosive Sentry, but doesn't lock you down in place. I like it, but I actually think Explosive Sentry is a great fit for the class. Players tend to hide behind cover when a Heavy gets into Sentry mode, so the increased splash damage will allow you to get some kills you wouldn't otherwise be able to with the Explosive Shot or Supercharged Sentry splash.
STRATEGY:
There's not a whole lot of nuance to this build. Just put the load out together, pop your Improved Combat Shield, and lay down fire on a point and watch your enemies scramble for cover. If you've got Explosive Sentry loaded, activate it once they've ducked into cover and show them no spot is safe from your arsenal. Experienced players will also shoot at your feet when you're in Combat Shield, so it's a good idea to crouch down to deny them the opportunity.
Got any build tips of your own? Share ‘em with us in the comments below!
