MK III Purgation flamer is presumably a weapon designed to be used in close range, given its ability to only deal damage in close range. However, everything about it feels like it’s a long distance artillery.
it slows you to a crawl when you’re using it
it takes a long time to draw
it takes a long time to reload
Don’t these feel too punishing for a weapon that does 0 damage if the opponents 30 meters or further away? At the moment it’s faster and safer for me to keep stabbing with my dagger than to draw a flamer for the hordes, and the dagger doesn’t need reloading.
Honestly I think the flamer is fine in it’s current state. It’s an incredibly powerful weapon with some obvious downsides. It’s slow to swap to, it has limited range, it obscures vision. The upside is it once you get it fired up it kills EVERYTHING (except for bulwarks and crushers).
It’s not a weapon designed to be brought out in a pinch, that’s what the autopistol and shotgun are for. It’s for specific situations where everything needs to die. To use this weapon effectively you need to plan ahead. If you get that down, no heretic will go unpurged.
The big difference between using a flamer and using a close combat weapon against hordes is the suppression it creates.
After a few ticks just about everything inside the flame area will be staggering, and everything just out of range and just near the edges of the stream will be suppressed. Stopping the horde from advancing and giving your team some breathing room to deal with specials that have gotten close
It is cumbersome but if you have decent team cohesion your allies can cover you to ready/reload it
Its fun to use it against one horde but mostly a waste. Where it shines most is when you have multiple hordes and specials and other baddies all coming in from multiple directions, it will completely lock down a large section of the battlefield giving your team less to focus on
I actually love the flamer, and while I wish it would ready up faster, it’s balanced the way it is. The slow ready up, slow movement etc are what keep it from being overpowered. I can’t just pull it out and start flaming immediately, most times I have to have a bunch of room or throw a stumm grenade first. So I think it works as it is.
I have been able to clutch so many matches using that thing to allow teammates to be resurrected, or to suppress a bunch of gunner, clear large hordes etc. I think it’s my favourite weapon in the game, especially ranged wise, most of the guns feel super clunky to me, with a ton of recoil or just ineffective, but the flamer…man do I love to burn all the heretics with it while screaming “For the Emperor!”
I think you’re using a bad flamer or you’re not holding right click when hordes come.
Flamers are straight-up the BEST horde-clearing tool in the game and you can knock enemies back just by flicking your mouse onto them while you’re burning a horde.
Did you take it into one game, do poorly, and then come and write this?