I have heard others complain, and I have complained myself on occasion, that the Heavy tree is rather weak, and not really all that worth it until you've spent an enormous amount of XP to get to the good stuff (145 XP [almost half the cost of a tree] before you can buy Rain of Death and Heavy Hitter [another 45 XP]). I've often seen it unfavorably compared to the Gunner tree from the Ace career, which has 2 ranks of True Aim and 2 ranks of Jury Rigged (1 Advantage Auto-Fire anyone?). This is aside from the Planetary-scale talents like Exhaust Port.

I'll put all my reasoning in the spoiler box down below.

Original Tree:

Burly Barrage Grit Toughened
| | |
Barrage - Brace - Spare Clip Durable
| |
Side Step Burly Heroic Fortitude - Toughened
| | |
Brace - Barrage Rain of Death Heroic Resilience
| |
Burly - Dedication - Armor Master - Heavy Hitter

Custom Tree:

Burly Barrage Grit Toughened
| | |
Barrage - Brace - Spare Clip Durable
| |
Side Step Burly Heroic Fortitude - Toughened
| | |
Read to Rock - Barrage - Rain of Death - Heroic Resilience
| | |
Heavy Hitter - Dedication - Burly - Armor Master

What I eventually settled on (thanks @GameboyAK ):

Burly Barrage Grit Toughened
| | |
Barrage - Brace - Spare Clip Durable
| |
Ready to Rock Burly Heroic Fortitude - Side Step
| | |
Burly - Barrage - Rain of Death Toughened
| | |
Heavy Hitter - Dedication - Armor Master - Heroic Resilience

Ready to Rock (name courtesy GamboyAK): When the character performs a Preparation Maneuver on a wielded weapon, the weapon gains the benefits of that Maneuver until he stops wielding it. This may only reduce a wielded weapon’s Prepare rating by 1, to a minimum of 0, and the GM may spend 1 Threat or a Despair to cause him to lose the effects of the Maneuver until he performs the Maneuver again.

The reasoning behind this is to make weapons like the Z-6 a little bit more useful and to make weapons like the Cip-Quad that have multiple ranks of Prepare a tad less daunting to use.

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I have heard others complain, and I have complained myself on occasion, that the Heavy tree is rather weak, and not really all that worth it until you've spent an enormous amount of XP to get to the good stuff

I personally do not agree with this. The Heavy tree is designed for those guys that love big guns and repeating blasters to dish out pain at medium to long range. While I do agree that it takes a substantial amount of time to get to those exceptionally good perks, in terms of game balance, I've seen how this tree combined with another tree in the Hired Gun career or anything remotely tanky can turn a PC into an absolute monster.

However, I agree it can be made more easily accessible for what PCs want to do.

Brace rarely comes up in my games, so having two ranks of it seems excessive in my opinion. Adding in your talent (I'll call it "Ready to Rock") I feel like would line up to the optional talent.

I would put Heavy Hitter in place of the second Brace, and put Ready to Rock in place of where Heavy Hitter started. As for Rain of Death, leave it where it is, but add a branching path from Barrage alongside it to give easier access.

12 minutes ago, GameboyAK said:

I personally do not agree with this. The Heavy tree is designed for those guys that love big guns and repeating blasters to dish out pain at medium to long range. While I do agree that it takes a substantial amount of time to get to those exceptionally good perks, in terms of game balance, I've seen how this tree combined with another tree in the Hired Gun career or anything remotely tanky can turn a PC into an absolute monster.

However, I agree it can be made more easily accessible for what PCs want to do.

Fair enough. I understand ongoing game balance, but making the whole thing more expensive doesn't change all that much in my opinion given how likely they are to get that stuff anyway. The main issue is how daunting it might be for a player to go into the tree to begin with given how long it takes to get anywhere interesting.

13 minutes ago, GameboyAK said:

Brace rarely comes up in my games, so having two ranks of it seems excessive in my opinion. Adding in your talent (I'll call it "Ready to Rock") I feel like would line up to the optional talent.

I like that name, thanks!

14 minutes ago, GameboyAK said:

I would put Heavy Hitter in place of the second Brace, and put Ready to Rock in place of where Heavy Hitter started. As for Rain of Death, leave it where it is, but add a branching path from Barrage alongside it to give easier access.

Like this?

Burly Barrage Grit Toughened
| | |
Barrage - Brace - Spare Clip Durable
| |
Side Step Burly Heroic Fortitude - Toughened
| | |
Heavy Hitter - Barrage - Rain of Death Heroic Resilience
| |
Burly - Dedication - Armor Master - Ready to Rock

I'm not sure about this, I think it makes Heavy Hitter a little bit too accessible and Ready to Rock not accessible enough. Overall, I think I prefer my original solution, but this is a decent fix. It also serves to spread out the really good talents a bit further so you don't get them in as quick a succession. My progression sensibilities wants to have Armor Master linked to Heroic Resilience as a "durability" side of the tree, but I can't think of a way to do that without it basically being what I originally suggested.

Perhaps swap Heavy Hitter (D1) with Burly (E1) and add a line between Heroic Resilience and Ready to Rock?

4 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I've often seen it unfavorably compared to the Gunner tree from the Ace career

Here's a side-by-side comparison of what they get over the other:

Heavy:
Burly 3, Barrage 3, Heroic Resilience, Side Step 1, Armor Master, and finally the signature talents: Rain of Death and Heavy Hitter.
Gunner:
Gains Discipline as a career skill.
Durable 1, Enduring 2, True Aim 2, Jury Rigged 2, and finally the Planetary-scale talents: Overwhelm Defenses 2, Debilitating Shot, Exhaust Port.

Armor Master and one rank of Enduring cancel out for all intents and purposes.
Enduring can give Heroic Resilience a pretty good run for its money, given the latter's requiring of a DP, so I'll say those cancel out.
We can ignore the Planetary-scale talents if we're just comparing the two Specializations on the terms of ground combat (as Heavy isn't intended for space combat).
True Aim 2 provides 2 Upgrades (for much less XP, I might add) and adds a Boost, while Rain of Death decreases the difficulty by one. They both cost a Maneuver, and True Aim 2 often would add the equivalent of a Proficiency die (not to mention a Boost die), so I'll say those cancel out (though True Aim is probably better since it increases your symbol potential).

Here's what that leaves us with:

Heavy:
Burly 3, Barrage 3, Side Step 1, and Heavy Hitter.
Gunner:
Gains Discipline as a career skill.
Durable 1, Enduring 1, Jury Rigged 2.

Just based on a one-to-one comparison of the trees, they don't look too unbalanced. Gunner specializes more in the Planetary-scale side of things, whereas Heavy gets Burly and Barrage. That should balance it out right? Well, here's the issue. Barrage is good at Long and Extreme range , rather rare ranges for personal combat, and only if you hit . That's a base difficulty of Hard, and if you use Auto-Fire, Daunting.
As for Heavy Hitter, you can ignore all Soak on a target with a Triumph (or one point of armor on a Vehicle). The issue here is that it requires a Triumph, and is only situationally useful. If you are using a non-Auto-Fire weapon, it's utility increases dramatically. If you are using a weapon against a vehicle, it's utility increases even more dramatically. Jury Rigged, on the other hand, can give you twice as many hits with an Auto-Fire weapon by reducing the Advantage cost to hit, so let's call it even on that front.
Now, since we've established that Rain of Death and 2 ranks of True Aim more-or-less cancel out, and Jury Rigged is a fair trade off with Heavy Hitter, what are the XP costs associated with the different paths?

Heavy:
190 XP
Gunner:
105 XP. If you want to grab Dedication, 130 XP. You also get Spare Clip without having to duck off to the side for an additional 10 XP.

With my solution, it comes out to 140 XP for Heavy to also get Dedication, 115 XP without Dedication.

If anything, the problem is that Gunner has too many talents aimed at making a strong personal-scale combatant. Enduring, Spare Clip, and Jury Rigged have very little to do with vehicular combat (and that is supposed to be the core of Gunner), and Brace isn't all that great for a Y-wing GIB either.

2 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

If anything, the problem is that Gunner has too many talents aimed at making a strong personal-scale combatant. Enduring, Spare Clip, and Jury Rigged have very little to do with vehicular combat (and that is supposed to be the core of Gunner), and Brace isn't all that great for a Y-wing GIB either.

Based on the art associated with the Gunner on the page for the Ace career, I would extrapolate that it is intended to be suitable for a ground-based heavy weapons operator with a focus towards anti-vehicle ordnance. Important to note that the AoR CRB had no other heavy weapons spec. Did the Heavy spec from DC even exist back then?

2 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Based on the art associated with the Gunner on the page for the Ace career, I would extrapolate that it is intended to be suitable for a ground-based heavy weapons operator with a focus towards anti-vehicle ordnance. Important to note that the AoR CRB had no other heavy weapons spec. Did the Heavy spec from DC even exist back then?

Dangerous Covenants was out before AoR Core. And the art doesn't show any of the Aces in vehicles, so that's a pretty crap way of determining what they are supposed to do.

29 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

Dangerous Covenants was out before AoR Core. And the art doesn't show any of the Aces in vehicles, so that's a pretty crap way of determining what they are supposed to do.

Well it showed one not in a flight suit, holding a Missile Tube. That seems to be an indication that that was intended for Gunners.

7 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Perhaps swap Heavy Hitter (D1) with Burly (E1) and add a line between Heroic Resilience and Ready to Rock?

I feel that would be acceptable. The only reason I added the line to Rain of Death was to cut down on the XP investment to reach the flavor ability that could otherwise be ignored.

Just now, GameboyAK said:

I feel that would be acceptable. The only reason I added the line to Rain of Death was to cut down on the XP investment to reach the flavor ability that could otherwise be ignored.

By "flavor ability" are you referring to Ready to Rock? It seems to me to be more than just a flavor ability given its utility (though its utility is restricted to certain weapons, if that's what you meant).

Like this?

Burly Barrage Grit Toughened
| | |
Barrage - Brace - Spare Clip Durable
| |
Side Step Burly Heroic Fortitude - Toughened
| | |
Burly - Barrage - Rain of Death Heroic Resilience
| | |
Heavy Hitter - Dedication - Armor Master - Ready to Rock

I'm still not sure. I like the idea of Ready to Rock being a bit cheaper and easier to access, but I also really like this layout and I don't see any that it would make sense to swap it with. Except possibly Side Step?

Maybe put Ready to Rock in Side Step's spot. While that would make it tier 3, you still have to go around to get to it, making it more expensive. Then maybe Side Step in the second Toughened's spot (C4) and push Toughened and Heroic Resilience up?

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Maybe put Ready to Rock in Side Step's spot. While that would make it tier 3, you still have to go around to get to it, making it more expensive. Then maybe Side Step in the second Toughened's spot (C4) and push Toughened and Heroic Resilience up?

I think that's a good compromise

I had a Heavy in a group I ran a few years back. He was the most broken character in a star wars game to date. The Heavy tree is fine as is.

9 hours ago, GameboyAK said:

I think that's a good compromise

Okay, I think this is the final layout, unless anyone has any better ideas:

Burly Barrage Grit Toughened
| | |
Barrage - Brace - Spare Clip Durable
| |
Ready to Rock Burly Heroic Fortitude - Side Step
| | |
Burly - Barrage - Rain of Death Toughened
| | |
Heavy Hitter - Dedication - Armor Master - Heroic Resilience

Unless... If we removed the line between Rain of Death and Armor Master, it makes it something of a trade-off between the durability route (having to go all the way around) or the heavy gunner route. What do you think?

3 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

If we removed the line between Rain of Death and Armor Master, it makes it something of a trade-off between the durability route (having to go all the way around) or the heavy gunner route.

Honestly, I don't think it would make that much of a difference. You can find Armor Master earlier on in other trees, so taking away the link from RoD just seems like artificially increasing the cost for talent that already can be accessed elsewhere. If it was a unique talent, maybe, but a durability talent in my games isn't exactly one to worry over in terms of power. I would personally leave as is.

Just now, GameboyAK said:

Honestly, I don't think it would make that much of a difference. You can find Armor Master earlier on in other trees, so taking away the link from RoD just seems like artificially increasing the cost for talent that already can be accessed elsewhere. If it was a unique talent, maybe, but a durability talent in my games isn't exactly one to worry over in terms of power. I would personally leave as is.

That is an interesting point. It wasn't what I meant, my point was to make it so you couldn't go durability-Rain of Death, but I hadn't thought about it from the other direction. Thanks!

On 4/3/2020 at 7:57 AM, kaosoe said:

I had a Heavy in a group I ran a few years back. He was the most broken character in a star wars game to date. The Heavy tree is fine as is.

I've seen a Hired Gun (Bodyguard/Heavy) that made good use of the doubled-up access to Barrage. It's not a popular talent, but if the guy managed to graze you at Long or Extreme range, the hit did an extra +4 Damage. He also had enough Brace to ignore just about any single condition for a maneuver. The only thing he didn't like about Heavy was that he found Burly to be of limited use, especially beyond the first rank since he had Brawn 4 to begin with and could easily use attachments on weapons to make them easier to handle.

2 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

I've seen a Hired Gun (Bodyguard/Heavy) that made good use of the doubled-up access to Barrage. It's not a popular talent, but if the guy managed to graze you at Long or Extreme range, the hit did an extra +4 Damage. He also had enough Brace to ignore just about any single condition for a maneuver. The only thing he didn't like about Heavy was that he found Burly to be of limited use, especially beyond the first rank since he had Brawn 4 to begin with and could easily use attachments on weapons to make them easier to handle.

I actually like Burly from a mechanical perspective as it can allow you to basically gain an HP or two from not having to mount a weapon sling or harness and it allows you to mount heavier secondary weapons on the already big guns (missile launcher, for example). If you've got the whole Heavy tree, you can wield something with Cumbersome 7 with only a Brawn of 4 and no HP required. Plus, the extra encumbrance is nice.

This sounds pretty cool! I haven't gotten the chance to try the Heavy out yet but it defiantly caught my eye. If I do get the chance I'll bring this up to my DM and see if they would be down for the modification.