I really really despise the weapon options. First off, I don’t think anyone is arguing they are “good” if not “broken” at face value, but they create a lot of issues in quick play games and do some things I really dislike.
I think they promote poor play. A lot of people get hooked on IB (to a lesser extent sienna) and just torch everything, it has high stagger and the recent damage buff made it capable of deleting most man sized enemies, its also pretty flammable, most people using these weapons in games feel no need, or have no idea how to block / dodge / melee, because why bother when you are a walking steam tank.
They are useless against most specials ( a skilled player can make it work but…) I always feel like im baby sitting when I see someone using one of these.
They deny a lot of bonuses hordes provide for other team members, white HP, ammo sustain ect.
They trivialize a game mechanic (horde are already fairly trivial anyway however…) boss + horde is “generally” the big team wipe, but you can pretty much solo a horde while your team deals with the boss, I think its silly a tank spec (IB) is capable of doing this, patrols are also a big “wipe” issue but you can perma stagger, even kill them all with a flame torrent + a strength pot.
TL:DR, after their buffs flame weapons are dumb, people either use them to ignore mechanics and try to play legend when they aren’t really ready or 2, a really good player abuses them and trivializes everything but specials. Personally I would love to see them just flat out removed, but lets look at alternative options to maybe change them up a bit.
My biggest issues with the flamethrowers is all the friendly fire you have to endure, which is more annoying for some classes than others, like IB. Also I kinda messes up your view, since all you see is fire, not the mobs running at you…
I guess they could balance it by having the secondary attack shootable only once and a half or so and increase the dissipation rate somewhat to compensate, just enough to be able handle a single horde and some stray rats. IIRC, you get around 3 bursts of the charged flame.
Let the stagger as it is or increase the damage. Being cooked alive should be bad no matter if your armor clad or not.
My 2 cents.
It’s more of a pub match problem than the weapon itself. As you said, it’s useless against 90% of the specials, so it’s working as intended, being effective in a role while not very strong. I virtually never use it, and I do find it annoying (less annoying than drakefire spam though).
I don’t think it being annoying deserves changing however. Just my opinion ofc.
It’s a pretty useless and trolly weapon, forsure. I almost want to team up with someone on Quickplay with them using Flamestaff and me using Bardin’s Flamethrower, just to see how quick the other 2 people leave the game lmao.
I usually play BW with Flamestaff, or before 1.3 Pyro.
I honestly don’t know why they buffed it.
Ok, it could have used a tiny boost versus Armoured or smth, but they overdid it. And then they reverted a small part of it, resulting in the weird artifact of endless burns damaging everything but CW, but CW are the only enemies with an endless flame gfx.
Regarding gimmick: Against hordes, it’s no more annoying to have than an overaggressive Slayer. Barely more range, too. Is it too strong? Maybe. But you know what else can stop a horde so the rest of the team can do whatever: Nearly every class in the game. I don’t see the Friendly fire issue, either, a Sienna can just shoot over her teammates heads, excepting Salty, and a quick burst does 1 damage, maybe.
It is a challenge to play in a way that keeps teammates awake, though, so I agree it could use a change.
To throw in something weird: Maybe less stagger against burning enemies?
What if they just changed it so you had a marker like with the Conflag staff, and it acts like a real flamethrower, shooting in a high arc as long as you hold down the mouse button? This would avoid the FF issue, and be more realistic (I know, people hate this word in the fantasy universe lol). They could keep the burst as is, and this would avoid the majority of friend fire damage.
It’s not the flamethrower that’s a problem. It’s the game. Just took 1h hammer IB (no specialized build, just took one from my shelf of 4 1h hammer duplicate reds, 5% crit, 2 stamina I think it was, forgot to take 5% crit chance trinket, insted had +30% stamina regen ) with drakefire pistols for a legend run with bots. Tried full book, but 1 bot managed to go somewhere and die and drop gimoire, I don’t know how, but that’s it. No issues whatsoever. Horde was so easy to eliminate, specials were non issue. Damn I even took WHC bot insted of Zealot one and he survived just fine.
We shouldn’t be angry at drakegun. Horde is simply hilariously easy to eliminate even with bots thanks to all these 1h hammers, maces and stuff slaughtering poor ratties left and right.
Well, pre 1.3 enemies followed you all the time, blocking was actually required to survive etc.
Hordes were always easy, but it was a mix of horde and all kinds of deadly stuff that made the game kind of difficult.
So complaining about flamethrower is pointless. Flamethrower is not making the game worse. The game itself just needs some serious maintenance.
bruh that shits autistic, it makes the game worse for me, im fine with that being a matter of opinion, but its really the only thing that pisses me off in the game.
They are useless against specials out of your range, they can decimate any special in your range, which most have to approach you. Still a very annoying weapon.
TL;DR: The Flamethrowers’ flaws are quite fundamental to the weapon’s nature, and cannot be simply fixed. It can still be a useful and very effective weapon.
I see two significant problems with the flamethrowers. First, the annoyance factor (which really isn’t that big for me, but seems to be a major issue for many others), i. e. its visual effects hindering perception, tendency to FF, “stealing” Temp Health etc. Parts of that certainly can be cut down by tweaking the weapon, but only parts, as a lot of the stuff is also innate to its style. Another problem (and the significant one for me) is that while effective and at least occasionally fun weapon, the niche it hits (short-range ranged weapon, specialized in horde-slaying) isn’t that useful, giving up a significant advantage (actual range) and fulfilling a spot for which melee is usually at least as good (and somewhat safer, as you’re pretty much defenseless when flaming). Unfortunately, that part is very much innate to the weapon style, and cannot be helped without changing something about the weapon quite fundamentally.
They’re one-trick ponies that have a potential to hugely annoy other players, and number-tweaking won’t change that. In other words, even if the weapon can be very effective and even fun to use, its fundamental idea doesn’t work well.
And as such, I’ve no real idea what could be done to rectify all this. I guess the range problem could be mitigated for IB by giving him a special Trollhammer Torpedo ammo (single shot, and probably only one shot to be carried) to be used when absolutely needed, but that does nothing for the other stuff and doesn’t really fit Sienna’s version. The visual effects could be tweaked to reduce the annoyance factor (both the blinding effect and FF tendencies), but that still leaves the other problems.
yeah, and I think the perma elite stagger is maybe unintended, but it should be addressed, thats really what the OP or broken aspect of the weapon is anyway, the horde killing portion is kinda useless, but perma staggering entire FoW waves is borked.
I’ve put hundreds of hours into IB and I could go into exhaustive detail, but the TLDR summary is flamethrowers are fine as long as you don’t get two in the same party. The problems you point out are why they get a bad rap, but none of those things have anything to do with the weapon itself, its all about how people use it.
I don’t think that flamethrowers have become any different.
They were absolutely useless before, they are somewhat viable now.
Won’t touch them cause there’re always better options.
) with drakefire pistols for a legend run with bots. Tried full book, but 1 bot managed to go somewhere and die and drop gimoire, I don’t know how, but that’s it. No issues whatsoever. Horde was so easy to eliminate, specials were non issue. Damn I even took WHC bot insted of Zealot one and he survived just fine.