With Space Marine 2 being over a month old builds for the six classes are being set in stone with the Heavy class being a fan favorite for his heavy weapons and high damage. This guide is here to show off 10 strong Heavy builds for both PvP and PvE and how to play them.
6. PvP basic Heavy
- Weapon: Heavy Bolter
- Secondary: Bolt Pistol
- Grenade: Frag Grenade
The basic Heavy loadout for PvP that everyone gets doesn’t seem like a build, that is true unless you know how to use your weapons. Newer Heavys will look at the Iron Halo shield and Heavy Bolter and just run forward into the enemy team and while that might get them some kills more experienced players will out-maneuver them every time. So, how do you play the basic PvP Heavy? The answer is you play with your team as a supporting gun.
The Heavy Bolter is fast-firing but has a bad turn radius at a certain point and doesn’t do massive burst damage meaning Assaults and Vanguards can flank and kill you quickly. And while the Iron Halo can stop bullets, grenades are still an issue especially if you brace the Heavy Bolter.
Staying with a Tactical or another Heavy can mitigate these issues because the Heavy Bolter is a mid-range menace making any ranged 1v1 turn into a win for your team the second you show up and the Iron Halo shield can act as extra cover to an injured teammate. Don’t forget the Bolt Pistol as a quick finisher and the frag grenade for crowd control.
5. PvP Plasma Blaster Heavy
- Weapon: Heavy Plasma Incinerator
- Secondary: Plasma Pistol
- Grenade: Shock Grenade
This PvP Heavy build focuses on the Heavy Plasma Incinerator and the Shock Grenade to get the jump on other classes. The Heavy Plasma Incinerator can do massive burst damage but needs to be charged in order to do so, which changes the Heavy’s game plan of firing down a lane to charging behind corners and cover to one-shot an enemy. The Shock Grenade helps extremely with this by blinding and slowing down enemies cause in its blast allowing the Heavy to get that charge off.
The Iron Halo serves a similar purpose as before as cover for yourself and teammates. And finally, the Plasma Pistol serves as a quick swap when you get caught out of position and need a quick-firing weapon or as another charge shot when the Incinerator overheats. The heat mechanic is going to be a big factor in this build since two charged shots will overheat the Incinerator so being ready to quickly swap to the Plasma Pistol is a necessity.
4. PvP Melta Heavy
- Weapon: Multi-Melta
- Secondary: Plasma Pistol
- Grenade: Krak Grenade
This PvP Heavy build uses his bulk in order to close the distance and use the powerful Multi-Melta to 2-shot every class in the game. The Multi-Melta while powerful is very short-range range so the tactics that the Plasma Heavy uses work here as well with holding corners and most importantly never taking an engagement in a long corridor or open arena. The Multi-Melta also shuts down melee classes who think they can get the jump on you or sometimes an entire team that wants to push an objective.
The Iron Halo acts as a great gap closer between you and your opponent since any class with a bolter can quickly shut you down from a decent range so the shield acts as both an offensive and defensive tool and learning how to choose your fights is important with this build. The Plasma Pistol and Krak Grenade acts as the two long-range options for the build with both being able to burst down an enemy from medium to long range. Knowing when to put the Multi-Melta aside and shoot charge shots with the Plasma Pistol from behind cover or the shield will be important, especially from classes who think they can stay away from you.
3. PvE Blaster Heavy
- Core: Auxiliary Ammunition/Thermal Boost/Versatility
- Team: Encompassing Aegis
- Gear: Consecutive Execution/Obdurate Bastion/Brute Force
- Signature: Conversion Field
- Primary Weapon: Heavy Plasma Incinerator (Gathalamor Crusade-Beta)
- Standard: Common Cooling
- Master-Crafted: Rapid Cooling/Heavy Velocity/Plasma Collection/Efficient Charge
- Artificer: Adamant Restoration/Heavy Fire/Supercharged Shot/Supercharged Shot
- Relic: Retaliation
- Secondary Weapon: Plasma Pistol Ophelian Liberation (Magazine Variant)
- Standard: Fast Venting
- Master-Crafted: Rampage/Supercharged Shot
- Artificer: Great Might/Plasma Collection/Efficient Charge
- Relic: Retaliation/Fast Venting
This PvE Heavy Build uses both plasma weapons to do massive splash damage from range. This build takes a while to get going as early-game Incinerators don’t have much ammo and doing charged shots takes a hefty chunk of it. Even at end-game, the charged shots will quickly overheat the Incinerator forcing you to switch to the Plasma Pistol which is intended for the build.
With the “Rapid Cooling” weapon perk making the second charged shot free if 10 enemies die to the first one and the “Thermal Boost” core skill giving half overheated weapons a 15 percent damage boost you can clear groups of enemies before overheating with ease. However, if you do overheat the “Versatility” core skill gives the Plasma Pistol a 20 percent damage boost until you swap back to the Incinerator.
Now actually playing the build is a different story, with the Heavy Bolter needing consistent headshot accuracy and the Multi-Melta being a close-range sweeper the Incinerator is closest to a grenade launcher and because of that you just need to hit the enemy so aiming for heads does nothing. This also applies to the Plasma Pistol since while it can headshot the headshot multiplier is 1x meaning it does the same damage as a body shot so like the Incinerator headshots don’t matter only body shots.
For Tyranids, this is rather easy with ranged warriors being easy pickings for the Pistol and the melee warriors being good Incinerator food with the gaunts dying to splash damage. Thousand Sons though can teleport and don’t have a lot of chaff to benefit from the splash damage. The Incinerator is a good boss killer but you have to be careful with both the charge time and slow projectile since a missed charged shot can really hurt.
2. PvE Bolter Heavy
- Core: Restoration/Thermal Boost/Versatility
- Team: Encompassing Aegis
- Gear: Consecutive Execution/Obdurate Bastion/Brute Force
- Signature: Conversion Field
- Primary Weapon: Heavy Bolter (Gathalamor Crusade-Alpha)
- Standard: Perpetual Cooling
- Master-Crafted: Contingency Plan/Headhunter/Increased Capacity
- Artificer: Adamant Restoration/Heavy Might/Heavy Might
- Relic: Discipline/Fast Venting/Increased Capacity/Great Might
- Secondary Weapon: Plasma Pistol Ophelian Liberation (Magazine Variant)
- Standard: Fast Venting
- Master-Crafted: Rampage/Supercharged Shot
- Artificer: Great Might/Plasma Collection/Efficient Charge
- Relic: Retaliation/Fast Venting
This PvE Heavy build focuses on the Heavy Bolter and precision though it might not look like it at first glance. The Heavy Bolter is a powerful horde-clearing weapon but takes a dip in damage when it comes to elites and above when compared to the Incinerator and Multi-Melta. Its consistent damage just can’t compare to the burst that the other two primaries provide but what it can do is consistently headshot. This is why we took the Alpha variant of the Relic tier Heavy Bolter because the Alpha variant has a higher accuracy rating allowing for less spread.
This makes the Heavy Bolter less of a click-on-heads gun and more of a hold-on-heads gun. Enemies will move out of the way and try to shoot back at you and this is where both your accuracy and the gear perks come into play. “Obdurate Bastion” giving the Iron Halo Shield 20 percent more health lets you counter ranged threats and the “Brute Force” perks gives the Heavy a 15 percent ranged damage boost when Iron Halo is on cooldown. This is where Iron Halo management begins, with the ability to turn the ability off early and mitigate the cooldown this lets the Heavy choose when to have the damage buff and when to shield hits.
The Plasma Pistol acts as our burst damage option and switching to it when you don’t have the time to rev up the Heavy Bolter is important to keep damage high. This also acts as a good follow-up for gun strikes with the Plasma Pistol doing a high enough burst to get elites to their execute breakpoint. Bosses follow the same principle of elites for the Heavy Bolter with you needing to keep on their heads for good damage which can be tricky, especially for the Carnifex and the Hellbrute so swapping to the Plasma Pistol for those two may be better.
1. PvE Multi-Melta Heavy
- Core: Multi-kill/Fortitude/Versatility
- Team: Encompassing Aegis
- Gear: Consecutive Execution/Obdurate Bastion/Brute Force
- Signature: Conversion Field
- Primary Weapon: Multi-Melta (Gathalamor Crusade)
- Standard: Increased Capacity
- Master-Crafted: Elite Restoration/Heavy Fire/Heavy Immunity
- Artificer: Executioner’s Fire/HeavyMight/Heavy Might
- Relic: Death Strike/Increased Capacity/Tyranid Eliminator
- Secondary Weapon: Plasma Pistol Ophelian Liberation (Magazine Variant)
- Standard: Fast Venting
- Master-Crafted: Rampage/Supercharged Shot
- Artificer: Great Might/Plasma Collection/Efficient Charge
- Relic: Retaliation/Fast Venting
The close-range build for Heavy the Multi-Melta follows similar rules to the PvP build. Powerful burst damage and great crowd control over a short distance. And like the PvP build some enemies will stay out of your range and shoot you from a distance which is where the Iron Halo and Plasma Pistol come in. Like before using the shield and pistol combo will take care of those ranged threats but with the added “Brute Force” skill you can turn off the shield after a charged shot and use that damage boost for a chunky Multi-Melta hit since a charged shot staggers most elites.
For weapon perks, the “Heavy Immunity” perks lets you not get hit out of heavy stance from big attacks allowing you to fire the Multi-Melta at point-blank range to deal with melee elites. The biggest threat to the Multi-Melta Heavy are extremis and boss enemies because without a melee weapon, the Heavy relies on the Multi-Melta to attack in between dodging and parrying. For parrying purposes, all of the primary weapons the Heavy carries have a balanced parry window so learning to dodge and parry is paramount to this build if you want to survive with this build.
For similar articles check out.
https://www.gamersdecide.com/articles/space-marine-2-best-tactical-builds
https://www.gamersdecide.com/articles/space-marine-2-best-vanguard-builds
