Heavy Metal

"Brigs meet Tanks in vehicular mayhem."

— Heavy Metal promotional blurb

Heavy Metal is a week long limited time Crucible match type that was introduced in Episode: Heresy. It has returned several times since.

Overview

Heavy Metal is a 3v3 mode where six players spawn in as either Brigs of the House of Salvation or modified Drake Tanks dictating which side they're on. From there they must destroy the enemies and secure their medals with the first team to reach fifty points winning, or whoever has more by the time the match timer ends. If a certain player on the current leading side is obtaining higher than the average point score of the rest of their team, they are marked as team leader with a buff and a gold glowing aura. This buff doesn't serve the team itself at all, but if the team leader is killed and the enemy secures their token, it counts as three points for them.

Each vehicle cannot jump, but has a directional dash that can be used by pressing the class ability button and recharges three seconds after use. The charge can not only be seen on the bottom left of the hud, but also diegetically by observing the vehicle's back, with Drake's having a large eagle symbol on the back right of the Brig, with the symbol glowing indicating the boost is ready. And Brigs having their back three thrusters begin to have a subtle orange glow and a small flame exhaust from them. They also have a powerful missile launch ability used by holding down the Super button to lock onto a foe and letting go to fire. The missiles take about a half second to lock on. Upon being used, missiles do not recharge on their own and requires either a respawn or picking up a token to refill. Either team's token refills missiles upon pickup.

Points work as follows:

• 1 point: Killing an enemy or securing a token
• 3 points: Securing a team leader's token

Strategy

Team coordination and team fights are key. While duels can end in beneficial outcomes, being caught and destroyed shortly after one or being interrupted by an enemy is commonplace. It is best to work as a team all at once and if possible, regroup upon a fight's conclusion regardless of victor. It's best if one is critically injured to stay back behind teammates to not only soak up more damage, but also in the event one does die, your team can quickly secure your token and not only deny the enemy team the point and a potential missile restock, but allow you to respawn with full health and a missile if it was used before death. A good rule of thumb to follow is a vehicle takes five direct hits to kill, with missiles dealing two hits-worth of damage. Keeping the amounts of hits you and your foes have taken can help influence how you position yourself and if it's better to duel, stay back, or push. A solid strategy is to have one teammate distract two enemies while the remaining two teammates quickly dispatch the third enemy before circling around and having all three teammates finish off the stragglers. If your team has one, the team captain makes for a good distraction as the lull of four total points can often be irresistible.

Proper missile use is also invaluable due to the quick high damage and can often set up a win even before a fight properly begins. Each side's missiles are special in their own way. Brigs fire a single large Solar Annihilation Blast and Drakes firing a cluster of eight Arc homing missiles. Each have their upsides and downsides, with Brigs having faster burst damage and slight splash damage capabilities, but weaker tracking. And Drakes having far superior tracking and more forgiving use by being many small missiles almost guaranteeing at least some will hit instead of one large rocket that will either entirely miss or hit, but can prove to have more inconsistent damage compared to a Brig's missile. While the Brig's missile does have splash damage on contact, the damage is negligible and shouldn't be relied on. Missiles also are always restocked on respawn so if death is inevitable, it's best to fire them off as it is free damage that will instantly be refilled on respawn and will dampen the healing received by your token.

Dashing can be used either to get in or out of fights quicker, but is best used for dodging. This is because changing direction in the vehicles can be slow and depending on how harsh of a change, can even outright halt your vehicle's movement briefly. Dashing instantly changes your vehicle's direction but also gives momentum in that direction to allow one to continue strafing, or hold the opposite direction mid strafe to instantly stop in place after the dash to throw off your enemy's predictions. Dashes can best be used for baiting and dodging missiles as having a missile while an enemy doesn't almost guarantees a win if you can land yours in turn.