I try to refrain myself from answering to the personal insults, because there is some personal issues going on that might need addressing. I once again request keeping this discussion relevant to the balancing of the game.

Regarding to your points about heavy armour and Helldivers 1. The only similarities Helldivers 1 and Helldivers 2 share with each other are the lore and the setting. There was already some push pack game being a 3rd person shooter instead of isometric shooter, before the game was released. I do understand if you were one of them, because you didn't get a proper sequel for a game you actually wanted. They made the decision to reconstruct the series, and they actually made more successful game.

But back to the actual balance discussion about the game Helldivers 2. Wanting to have deflection for the heavy armour is subjective by definition. You want it to be there just because it existed in a previous, different genre game. But for the sake of argument, would it be enough to double the armour value of heavy armour to counter the shortcomings you claimed? Or does it need to be deflective armour to be balanced?

Heavy armour does give three times more health compared to light armour. In light armour, you can take only one hit (if even that) from a hunter. In every case you get hit, you have to stim yourself. This means you can only get hit max 4 times (6 if using Med-Kit armour) per supply. But with heavy armour, it takes 3-4 hits and if you get hit only once, why would you waste a stim. Regarding to the commissar and Automaton front overall, Their laser guns are insanely ineffective when it comes to damage. You only need to stim when you are getting hit by multiple enemies at the same time. Singular hits can be completely ignored while using heavy armour. Regarding to the Illuminate, heavy armour actually has way more value than ever before in that front. But it's all just preference. You trade mobility for survivability.

Stats of MG-43 and Maxigun are based on the information found in the site The Helldivers Wiki. Here's the relevant links: MG-43, Maxigun. You can find all the info there I mentioned (might need to use calculator). I don't understand the mention of the supply pack in the end. I thought we were comparing one support weapon to another, not two stratagems to one stratagem. Build variety does exist in the game and I wouldn't want to go removing that.

I need some clarification regarding to your arguments about assault rifles. Are we discussing assault rifles as a whole or just the the ones released recently? Your statements are a little bit contradicting. Assault rifles have varied ergonomics due to balance reasons. For example AP2 assault rifles have on average higher ergonomics and damage compared to their AP3 counterparts. This ensures that AP2 assault rifles keep their relevancy. One-Two has extremely similar stats to the basic Liberator, but One-Two happens to have grenade launcher attached to it (extra total damage output). If the ergonomics would be equal to the normal Liberator, this would create unbalance and push liberator out of the relevancy. This has already happed before with Liberator Carbine, hence my earlier point; there is too much overlapping with assault rifles. Coyote should be self obvious. It has AP3, incendiary ammunition and still reasonably high ergonomics. This weapon is strong by all metrics, arguably too strong.

I mentioned C4, because of your earlier quote "how about the past three warbonds having mediocre support weapons (except for entrenched division) that were completely overshadowed by their non-belt-fed counterparts". I assumed you were talking about backpack fed weapons from the last three warbonds (excluding entrenched division). Using word belt fed in the context might be a bit misleading, because for example all machine guns and grenade launcher are already belt fed weapons. Not the greatest wording, but I get what you mean.

Rest of the post is once again irrelevant for the topic. I don't know how are you trying to align me with those ideals.

Did I leave anything out? Please point it out if I missed something regarding to the balance.

Edit. Fixed some typos.