I agree. Other ranged weapons have received buffs since those days, like the plasma gun, revolver, autoguns, etc. The flamer is horribly outclassed now, so buffs would be pretty reasonable. At the very least it and the bolter should really have their reload timers buffed up quite a bit. As my friend says, if you want to play a flamer just play a Psyker with the Purgatus staff instead, sadly.
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If there are no melee weapons that are bad enough at horde clear to justify running flamer, then the flamer just won’t matter. And when it comes to horde clear, Fatshark seems to think that there is a floor beneath which a melee weapon must not fall. At least that’s what the post-patch 13 changes read like to me (and not just for the zealot). It’s bland weapon design, which in turn leads to bland gameplay because it squeezes out any weapons whose design don’t fit that mold.
For the short term, I think significantly lowering the equip time of the flamer would help. It can’t really be justified anymore anyway, and it would help the flamer compete on a class that generally benefits a lot from fast weapon swapping. But for the long term … yeah, we’re probably talking about a redesign of some sort. If you want something off the top of my brain, I think some kind of overheat mode where it burns a ton of ammo real fast. But that’s just me spitballing.
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I would totally be up for melee weapons that are inefficient at horde clear. Doesn’t need to be useless, but 10% less on a mk3 knife or TH or some of the psyker melee weapons would already turn it into an inconvenience.
Basically, bad enough that you don’t have to , but you want a different weapon.
Thing is, if you then want to use a ranged weapon to cover that weakness, it needs to be quick to switch to.
The Purgatus Staff fits that bill, the current flamer most definitely does not.
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The Flamer has exactly one niche: when you want to be absolutely certain that a particular choke point will be absolute death to anything non-Crusher/Mauler that gets inside it.
It needs more power, I agree, because it’s job is overshadowed by melee options.
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It needed to be nerfed. 8 months ago. When the game was completely different.
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So true, flamer in its current state is so terrible that I run the kantreal shotgun instead to proc fire dots because in one shot I get more fire DPS then a flamer hosing a target. I think the flamer needs to be at least ok at clearing flak armor targets, groaners, pox walkers and maybe start to drop off against maniacs and carapace so crushers and dreg ragers are still a regular threat to address in melee.
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if they brought that time down a lot it would help
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Thats why it does matter, it paired so well with the thunderhammer in the past…
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Fan the flame does just that Frish. Its a Blessing that shuts down ranged to a certain degree.
It shouldnt deal with carapace but it should deal with flak and i really feel like the stagger debuff and damage nerf could safely be reverted in current tide. Also the magazine size nerf. Not necessarily the total carry capacity though. I mean SMITE exists.
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We tried to warn them brother, they didnt listen.
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I honestly thing the wat to balance it is to leave tank size (25-35) but only give it 50-70 reserve (so only one reload just like plasma). Increase the damage from 9-11 to 15-20 and flame intensity from 0.41-0.29 to 0.30-0.18. Max burn stacks from 8-16 to 12-20 and stack rate from 0.44-0.31to 0.39-0.26.
This way it gets a big boost to damage but you have to actually manage your ammo consumption better. This also would make the primary fire mode better since it could more easily apply burn stacks.
The other option is to make it a suppression weapon and not tough the damage at all but instead buff the stagger and suppression values by 50% and call it a day.
Yeah I’d kinda like to see mobility and responsiveness (draw and right click ready time reduction) experimented with as a place to start. I think even with its current damage numbers and stagger it would at least be fun to use if you could zip around with it more and swap between melee and ranged faster.
I use a Helbore Lasgun, you’re preaching to the choir there 
Honestly part of me doesn’t want them to touch it incase they “improve” it directly into a trash can.
I would like it to be buffed but I also have an ok niche now with fan the flames and overpressure on a single target stealth build.
FS has not had a great track record lately with fire and buffs (see fire damage this most recent update)
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It isn’t supposed to. We had this discussion post the nerf, the flamer is still strong in its niche. Also Fury of the Faitful’s bug, now apparently a feature, still lowers the armour type of enemies during its duration.
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If they just reduce the equip and brace times by 0.66 / 0.33 seconds (so one total) and ever so slightly increased its damage, it would already be a solid base to see the effect, and where it might need to go.
Ideally, Fatshark should touch DoTs as little as possible, and the stack limit seems to be universal and thus should probably stay, but the weapon could clearly be less clunky.
Looking at how the Psyker can get more or less the same, just with fast switch time, less ammo issues and an alternative long ranged option with BB/Assail, I think there is clear room for improvement without veering into potential OP territory.
A blessing that increased burn stack duration would also be nice.
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It’s already in the trashcan. I never see anyone use it anymore unless they are playing it for the flavor or just unaware of how bad it’s become. But they aren’t playing it to do top damage.
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Or, they could put real hordes back into the game. So that horde-clear weapons are actually valuable?
I don’t particularly like how they’ve changed the spawn-rates to reduce hordes and increase special spam. The game now is 100% about managing specials, which the Flamer sucks at. Purgatus also suffers in the same way. Dedicated anti-horde weapons are just not necessary right now. You could completely revert Flamer back to its 2022 state, and it’d still be pretty meh in the current environment, because everyone’s top priority is dealing with dogs/trappers and bombers/flamers. Killing a horde 20% faster than you can with just a Devils-Claw isn’t worth much.
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To be fair, if you were in full plate armor, a flamethrower would still prbly cook you. Or at least make you so uncomfortable that you wish you were dead.
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