If Heavy Weapons Guy is so cool and destructive, why do only Demomen and Soldiers take first places in the server rank? Perhaps, because they don’t rely on close combat with enemies, as, for example, Pyro and Spy do. That’s why they are able to bombard their enemies with projectiles (which are quite mass and destructive, I should say). Besides they may quickly retreat from the battlefield by shooting or detonating a bomb under their feet. Heavy’s orientation is mid-range. The biggest amount of hit points and turtle speed make him resembling a tank. A strange opinion appeared out of nowhere that “heavy-rush” is the way to success. Yes, many beginners may think like this: “Wow, 300 HP + a gun with a lot of ammo!” But what does prevent you from stopping this “rush” with a Spy invasion, Demoman or Soldier bombardment, or with a serried squad of Snipers? Absolutely nothing! If the majority of Heavies plays like so, it doesn’t mean that they do a right thing. When was the last time you saw a Heavy, destroying ALL the server with ease? I saw it 4 times at the most.

A little set of rules for a right Heavy gameplay:

1. Always look around you; don’t stand in one place, be mobile. If Heavy stands in one place for more than 2 seconds he whether gets a backstab, or a sniper rifle shot, or he gets kicked for being afk. Always. Even if all the enemies within a radius of 1 km are dead.
2. Did your and Sniper’s eyes met? Dodge. Never stand near the cart while spinning your minigun (if it isn’t the finish line), because you make a good target for Demomen and Snipers. Leave it to more mobile classes.
3. Boxer Gloves + Tomislav. Yeah, there are very few guys like that on servers, and besides the tactics isn’t the easiest one: kill an enemy with the gloves, then grab a minigun and penetrate your enemies with critical bullets. You may take a special shotgun (Family Business), but there’s a risk of being left without any healing. It’s your choice.
4. Watch the corners: you are the fattest, the slowest and, consequently, you are the class which is very likely to be killed. Perhaps, an ambush of sticky bombs is waiting for you round the corner. Quick scout may have just run through this without even noticing it.
5. Do ambush attacks and catch your enemies off guard with the minigun, spinned preemptively. As a matter of fact form a habit of always spin it preemptively behind covers and corner, as in the open field you may fail to have enough time for this “preparation”.
6. Always have a sandwich with you: if a medic happens to be far from you, you’ll easily regain full health. But it’s better not to picnic in front of enemy sentry – find a quiet place, where nobody will find you. Try to stand with your back to the wall, so enemy Spy wouldn’t pierce you.
7. Be cunning: pretend to have few HP left (while yelling “Medic!!!”, get behind the corner, simply retreat), then face your greedy enemy with a spinned minigun and give him hell.
8. I prefer wearing Steel Gloves as they remarkably reduce damage from shooting + many few people actually pay attention to this, which lets deal with Scout and Snipers very easily.

I don’t consider Heavy as the hardest class (Demoman with his grenade launcher bears the palm, in my opinion), but I can’t regard him as one of the easiest one, because it really depends on the game style and behaviour. I don’t like ranking classes according to mastery level. I don’t like people saying: “Spin the wheel and yell out loud”, as the same thing may be said about Sniper: “your only concern is to headshot with a safe position” or about Engineer: “Put teleport, a sentry and go make you a cup of tea”.
I said nothing new, just collected some facts, but I hope that some people would pick up some new information for them.