I had been looking forward to Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 for a long time, so imagine my face when the key for the review arrived at iGamesNews. Luckily I didn’t have to fight over it with any of my colleagues, because I was ready to go to war until the very end. I won’t deny that I was very excited to redeem the key and start playing before early access.
Needless to say, I’ve already put in quite a few hours of play. First I completed the campaign, then I spent quite a few hours in Operations (PVE) and finally I spent a few more hours in the PVP modes. I’ve continued playing since the review was published because I admit that I’m quite hooked on the co-op mode.
I’m not giving up on the Warhammer 40,000 Heavy: Space Marine 2
In Warhammer 40000: Space Marine 2 You have to embrace melee, especially the parry and dodge mechanics. It’s even more important than having good aim or more or less powerful firearms. Five of the six available classes have knives, swords and maces. And I’ve chosen the one that doesn’t have them to level up first.
The Heavy Space Marine is a complex class. He has no melee weapon, but makes up for it with three heavy weapons (primary) and two pistols (secondary), one of each category to choose from. His ability is an energy barrier that stops ranged attacks. He’s very useful in PVP, but a real pain in Operations mode… at least at first.
I’ve been focused on leveling up and improving the Heavy class for days. It’s been much harder than I imagined, but at least I don’t have any problems finding games with repeated classes. You can’t repeat classes in squads. Nobody wants to play it because it requires adopting a very different playstyle than the rest.
I had a hard time understanding that it’s such a specific role that requires unlearning some things and learning others. You can’t just rush into the crowd of enemies, because you don’t have melee weapons for when they surround you… and hitting with your weapon is almost useless. You also can’t rely on executions to regain health, because you must always be as far away from your targets as possible.
Another dilemma is the ammunitionRunning out of ammo with the Heavy is a death sentence in any encounter, especially when you don’t have enough upgrades. Ammo is scarce even on the lowest difficulties, and it doesn’t help that teammates will spend an entire ammo box to replenish two magazines.
First lesson I learned: positioning. The Heavy is much more useful in the rear when fighting and in the vanguard when advancing to the next encounter. The teammates should take care of the small groups while I concentrate fire on the stronger enemies to weaken them so they can finish them off without too much effort. This is not usually the case.
Next, I forced myself to practice hand-to-hand combatI assumed that my offensive capacity was almost non-existent. Heavy attacks kill weak enemies, but they are useless against strong ones. Going against the flow cost me many deaths and bad times, until I understood that the most effective strategy is a defensive one.
The key to surviving with the Heavy when strong enemies get too close is to stay calm, never go on the offensive, and use parry and/or dodge counterattacks to deal damage. I’ve found grenades to be very useful, especially the Plasma Mine. I can detonate it manually and it does insane damage, so I use it to slow down groups when I’m retreating.
As for ammo, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t do anything about it. I manage it pretty well, but even then it’s useless when my teammates are raking in all the crates. I usually just pray that they don’t explore too much or that there’s a big crate with infinite ammo. I’ve tried to communicate with some players during matches, but ironically team play wasn’t part of their plan when they signed up for co-op mode.
I still have a long way to go to master the Heavy, but I think I’ve figured out how to play him in the safest and most practical way possible. I’ve accepted that I can’t control a factor as important as teammates, but I try to make up for it with skill and a lot of strategy. When I get the right people, the game is much easier because I can play my role more effectively. I hope to have it down by the time I reach max level. I’m going to cry with joy when I get melee weapons back when I change classes.
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