There was a point where it was over powered, but now parts of the nerfs could be reverted and it would feel like it’s in a good spot…
Right now though, it’s slow to equip, low on capacity and can’t deal with carapace.
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Agreed, I was one of those in support of the netfs before, but with everything that has happened since then the flamer has been left behind and I now consider it a “waste of slot” as I already mentioned in a different thread.
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enemy flame units seem to have been buffed some, maybe our flame weapons will receive similar treatment soon
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What? In no world should it be doing anything to carapace.
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Yeah that’s what my Heavy Eviscerator is for 
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Well no world but the real one, but that kind of logic doesn’t belong in this game. I think he meant even when you FoF to lower carapace to flak it still does f-all despite flak being what it is strongest against.
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You can buff flamer all you want but a huge part of its problem is FS is increasingly unwilling to let some melee weapons have bad horde clear and continues to cave and homogenise weapons. Flamer will always be underpowered or massively overpowered unless its niche is to cover a melee weapon that deals with high trash density poorly. If you let it kill elites quick it is basically unbalanceable since it scales infinitely with enemy density. If all my melee options kill lots of squishy things well why would I give up most of my effective range on my ranged slot to kill them a bit faster?
I used to run it decently often with T Hammer and Chaxe but I really don’t feel the need anymore on either of those weapons. I think unless FS rethinks how they’re balancing melee weapons flamer needs a ground up redesign to find a balanced niche in the game.
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The niche I would like to see it fill is anti-gunner. Even the way it is in other respects, if it could suppress with 1-2 light attack blasts I would consider it.
In fact I would trade a lot of its damage for CC!
It needs a redesign at this point. I also tend to agree that simple number tweaks will never give it a niche that is not overpowered.
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If the Flamer would stagger enemies a lot more, it would make up for the fact that it takes 5 seconds to switch to and brace.
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I think flamer’s in a great spot, it can deal with everything except carapace, which is perfectly fine. Remember when you could just ult flame a horde of crushers and insta kill them? Yeah, I’ll pass.
We’re coming to a point where I feel like we’re going to need a comprehensive weapon rebalance sometime next year. The designa of the Thunder Hammer and Flamer don’t fit the game anymore (a couple more weapons pop into mind but those 2 are at the forefront).
Flamer would always be a niche type of weapon and that is fine. I believe there is potential for a middle ground for flamer, and we should proceed with little steps in order to achieve it. I think damage shouldn’t be touched, for starters I would increase it’s stagger, suppression and mobility, this would make it already a more versatile weapon against mixed hordes. And see how it goes from there.
Ahh. That thing got me to my first tier 5 map completion. Then it got a hard nerf a month later, I suspect because that was easier than changing the zealot ult talent at the time.
I’d not used it for about 6 months til a recent game where two other zealots had my usual builds covered off. I was disappointed and regretted it almost immediately.
It’s pretty ‘useless’ now I’d say. I don’t like thunder hammers and that’s the only time I can imagine you’d want to bring a ranged horde clear. Dunno? Tbf I’ve just put it on the shelf so I may be missing a trick.
But as you can clear mixed hordes fairly easily now with most melee weapons, it makes much more sense to bring a gun with an enemy elite or special clearing role in mind. Get a psyker to bring purgatus instead.
I think it’s fine if it does ‘something’ to carapace. Not talking gigaburns. But being locked inside a flaming hot armor should hurt.
It got nerfed by popular demand, @Jonboy. It was the first sign of the looming darkness that is nerfthreads and brigading Fatshark for gameplay changes.
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It’s been a while since I’ve used a flamer, but I would’ve sworn it already staggered/suppressed with one or two light attacks? That’s the purpose I mainly remember using it for, I could cycle through 3 or 4 enemies (more, if they were grouped up) with light attacks so they couldn’t fight back while I approached
Maybe that’s just with the appropriate blessing (I forgot the name) that increases LMB impact and reduces stagger resistance on burning enemies.
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You can increase the stagger strength with one of it’s Blessings, but I’m not sure how important it is to hit the stagger breakpoints.
Ye, Fan the Flames is the one I was thinking of
Primary Attack ignores 30-60% Stagger Resistance on Burning Enemies, as well as dealing +30-45% Impact.
I think I’ve always used it on my builds, so I can’t say for certain if its absence would be the difference in achieving a first hit stagger
i dont like either the purge or the flamer , they just seem like bad designs it doesnt matter how good they are the negatives are just soo big id always rather a team mate was afk than using either of these.
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There’s basically no role for the flamer with the current gameplay.
Every melee weapon worth taking can deal with hordes (and needs to) and a bit of mixed armor.
Ranged weapons are primarily needed for dealing with specials and gunner at range, and may also be on anti-armor duty.
The flamer is redundant with melee weapons and doesn’t fill the ranged slot roles well at all.
Where it could shine is in dealing with sudden mixed horde situations, but it’s so slow to equip and use it hardly feels worth the risk compared to other weapons.
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