i dont think its a suprise to say that the flamer is honestly pretty bad cause even its one big selling point of mass horde clear is done just as well if not better by the bolter with less time to take out, more effective damage on all enemies including bosses, and better verstility being able to one shot all things at range like bombers and snipers and gunners cause its shots become stronger the further they fly and flame grenades only real utility right now is making a SEMI safe area for your team to fight but not even that is done that well.
personally the flame grenades are the easier ones to fix and can be summed up by saying to just make them either A) replenish on a chance per elite kill and make them boosted up to like maybe even 6 nades to let you fling em around and give em hell or B) make them replenish by having a percentage meter fill up by maybe like 5% per enemy burning either in it or from the lingering dot meaning you can get not just one but most of your nades back if you hit hordes with em but if you somehow miss, you get nothing back and better hope you hit a good one on your next throw which i like this idea more cause it makes it feel somewhat skill based to get the most out of but in a way thats not opressive and is just about knowing where to throw it that enemies either HAVE to run through it to get you or where they are ABOUT to run through making sure it pops right under em.
as for the flamer itself, its biggest problems are its primary fire, its ADS, and swap time being SO bad to the point that its swap speed AT LEAST needs to be improved by like at least a half a second if not a full second reduction while its other major problem is its primary fire should be changed to be a mini flame grenade thing that doesnt lay down an AoE but bursts for some high enough damage to hit sniper, bomber, and maybe with the dots on a good build, gunner and shotgunner one hit thresholds to make you so comically vulnerable to ANY level of range the second you choose this weapon.
all in all, its a shame that both of these just SUCK like REAL bad right now cause flame weapons in pretty much any game are EASILY my favorite things and i wish i could use them and not feel like i was throwing.
I want to see something for the Fire nades, but not something that just give you more of them.
Apply the same thing that they did from brainburst or Smite, where you have melee attacks have certain effects.
Here by theming it on Executors attachments for weapons.
Increase flame nade damage and remove enemy auto pathing around it. Iirc, it currently ticks for a random amount of damage between 55 to 170ish instead of applying regular burn.
gonna just point out to everyone in this thread, the ONLY thing it has is its straight dps which is good but its horde cleave isnt even unique when the bolter does the same but also has explosive burst AND it deals with flak and carapace. full stop, its just outshined heavily by the bolter and more than that, if you dont have the throwing knives which are one of the strongest blitz abilities in game thats good with anything, it cant deal with ANY level of range and basically kills zealots ability to survive snipers and bombers just end of story…
thats why the only thing i suggested be touched is its primary fire NO ONE USES cause its terrible with the change making it so you CAN deal with the snipers and bombers as well as offering a unique form of attack being a arcing grenade shot that bursts and hits enemies with a flame dot around the area of impace letting you also deal with gunner and shotgunner hordes fairly well making it actually contend with the bolter in a meaningful way.
literally like at zealot has some of the least options in terms of viable ranged weapons if you ask me compared to the bolter weaponry , the revolver, and using some form of braced autogun to do the SAME thing that the bolter and flamer do but arguably only about as well as the bolter does and even than it also still is weaker since the bolter shreds crusher hoards.
The flamer cleaves a whole bunch of targets at puts dot stacks on them which cause them to die
The bolter either kills a few heavy targets or does alot of damage to a boss or cleaves a few trash enemies (I don’t recommend using it for this one) and then needs a reload
The flamer is great at horde clear aoe
The bolter is great at burst damage
They serve 2 distinct roles very well, they don’t invalidate one another.
Flamer doesn’t need to aim, it’s a spray weapon. With infinite cleave. There is no big room for a skill expression with such design. So handling and utility stats like mobility take bigger weight in terms of balance.
People have become so accustomed to the current meta standard that it was only a matter of time before their sense of balance became numb and distorted.
At this point, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if someone started demanding further buffs for DS or Plasma.
By next month, I wouldn’t be shocked to see people insisting that “there’s no need for any delay in stamina or dodge recovery.”
Flamer’s the better horde-clear by a country mile. Magdump into a big enough horde of poxers with a Bolter and while you’ll kill plenty, there’s plenty of them left to mash you like a potato while you’re reloading - Do that with a Flamer and they’ll all be fried more than Popeye’s chicken by the time you’re done.
Also hard disagree on making it’s swap time/deploy time with ADS better. Having be clunky enough to require smarter positioning/committing is a trade-off for the sheer damage it dishes out, that and it’s limited range is what keeps it from completely dominating the other Zealot secondaries.
