It seems to me that absorbent is absolutely terrible. I have even heard some people calling it worse than plain armor .
Btw. Who's idea was it to nerf the nfhr? It may just be my fps disturbing the possibility of getting accurate results, but I along with some other people that I have asked have noticed that the heavy rifle fires slower. Why the heavy rifle, of all rifleman weapons?
To be fair, if I got shot in the stomach point blank, not even Shamwow could save me, Germans and their "good stuff" be damned. But yeah, it's pretty weak.
It has been slowed down, I think from .18 to .25 seconds (don't quote me on this). However, it's buffed in every other respect.
It has actually been nerfed in most other respects. Only falloff, clip size were improved. I'm not sure if it suffered more than the other rifles (they were all hit), but it is still less than the weapon it was.
The problem with the NF heavy rifle is that, with a low ping, its the deadliest weapon ingame. However with a high ping its useless. 2.25 made it so only people with very low ping can compete with the nfhr against other rifleman.