How HO works (in general):

HO particularly, is ruled by momentum. As a good HO, you need to understand how to use the terrain to stay moving. This means judicious use of jets, and being very good at skiing. An HO can get across an average map in a very short time period: heavy aromor does not equal slowness. You'll see HO using disk jumps to gain speed (fire a disk near your feet in the opposite direction where you want to go; the explosive force will push you), and always skiing on hilly terrain.

HO is also based heavily on prediction. Being able to shoot a mortar where your target will be is a skill which is learned through practice and lot's of patience.

The goals of HO are quite simple:

1) Get to the enemy base

2) Cause a huge amount of damage

3) Distract or destroy the defense

4) Destroy the enemmy base (not in general games though please, restrict this to clan matches!)

So, this is HO in a nutshell. That's all fine and well, but how does one defend against this?

There are two ways to go about this: Either have a good HD which can mortar incoming HO units, or good LD (light defense) which can keep them away from your base. I'll focus on LD for this post (HD must also be backed up by good LD anyway).

First, understanding that HO relies on staying moving at all times is critical. If you're sitting with a sniper rifle, you're messing up unless the heavy is still VERY far away. A sniper rifle does not have any explosive force, it won't stop a heavy (unless it is low enough on health for a kill), nor will it move it off course. Chances are it will sail by you and continue it's planned attack. The solution requires being good w/ grenades and disks.

Hitting an HO unit with an explosive weapon has the same effect as a disk jump. It pushes the heavy away from the explosion. This can distract or cause the heavy to go off course. Anything which messes up a HO's route is good. If a heavy is skiing, land a shot in front of it. The force will cause the heavy to stop or slow down significantly. This does two things: First, it stalls the heavy's momentum. Second, to get moving again, the HO will need to restart skiing, or use it's jets when it did not plan to. Heavies, with an energy pack or not, have a very high burn rate of their energy (and a slower recharge rate IIRC) when jetting. Stalling a heavy's movement limits its mobility greatly.

The second half to this equation is being effective at using the light's strong points against a heavy: The mobility of light armor makes it very effective in 1 on 1 fighting against a heavy. The mortar requires that the heavy aim where you will be. Use of jets and skiing can keep you out of a mortar's path if you move in an unpredictable manner. While you're in the air above the heavy, keep pelting it with disks. Drop mines where it will be going down-hill, drop grenades on it... Keep screwing with it's path: a heavy cannot ski effectively if it's bouncing around from explosive weapons.

If you do get killed by a mortar and you're near enough to the heavy, chances are, it will have hit itself too. If it's low enough on health, it will be easy to finish off, or it may even destroy itself in the process. When you re-spwan, go back and finish it off.

If you do this as an LD, then you can stop the HO from being effective:

1) You can prevent it from reaching your base by disrupting it's ski route.

2) You can prevent it from destroying base assets by keeping it occupied by fighting you

3) If it's fighting against you, it's not distracting flag defense or destroying your defensive units

4) It doesn't matter if you die as LD, if the HO is prevented from moratar spamming spawn points, and other distractions (like base raping), you've done your job.

This does take practice though, good LD requires as much skill as a good HO. Don't expect to be perfect in every fight, don't complain about an HO player who is obeying the rules of the server, and don't get frustrated... Learn and you'll be a better player all around.

-Originally posted by TomcaT