Mostly agree with the rest of the post, but I feel like a noticeable group of players certainly seemed to enjoy player-made Cataclysm+ stuff from what I could tell. (Didn’t play it myself, but logically the fun in most games comes from satisfying challenges, and so for players who could beat Cata easily it would be boring to only do Cata forever and never die.)
It’s not the elite gunners that i’m talking about, although i understand i didn’t use the correct name. It’s the Dreg stalkers and Scab shooters, that pop out from monster closets and poke to your thoughness and mental sanity from behind a crate.
Braced autogan fast rediness to deploy and generous ammo reserve make it perfect to remove them easly. Not only that, braced agrippina can deal with evry enemy in the game reasonably well, except bulwarks maybe.
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Ah yeah, I usually call em “shooters” or “ranged enemies”. But yeah, Braced and dodge-slides still work okay against those but if you want to really beat them well you’d end up using a Lasgun or similar better weapon against em.
I don’t think Flamer should ever be nerfed so hard it’s bad against those though. The main ways to balance Flamer to me are:
- reduce range, OR
- reduce “ranged cleave” (so the flame stops at 10ish targets, and a blessing would probably be added to let you increase that a bit, very similar to melee +cleave blessings), OR
- dramatically reduce damage against non-horde targets so that things like Maniacs, Maulers, Crushers basically ignore the flames (even with Zealot ability involved).
Personally I suspect the second solution is best. I imagine it’ll still feel great, because of the nature of stagger:
- You’ll flame a horde.
- First 10 enemies will be damaged/staggered
- Because they’re staggered, new enemies will move in front
- This means you damage/stagger 10 new enemies.
- As a result you still apply a crazy amount of control over hordes (via stagger), but you wouldn’t do as much damage to them (since your damage wouldn’t be unlimited, which is what makes Flamer so crazy compared with any other horde-clear option currently)
Ranged blessings across the board need love, but the Flamer ones in particular would do things like
- increase Cleave under a certain condition (sustained fire? Primary fire?)
- possibly increase range too (if both base range and cleave targets are reduced, then it actually makes a lot of sense to add blessings to improve each, and those are things players would care about).
- increase the ability for Burn to affect armored/monstrosity enemies (since I think you should have an option to steer things in that direction, I just think it should definitely come at the cost
To be clear, the problem comes mainly from vastly exceeding the next-best cleave in the game. For example a hypothetical Bull Butcher with +200% cleave is going to hit 26 targets, but I think the current max possible is probably closer to 17 (between only having 80% Cleave Targets, and T4 blessing being super rare), so for baseline Flamer with no blessings to exceed that is the main issue (not to mention the ease of hitting 26 targets with a giant ranged jet compared with a melee attack, even with Ogryn range, means that it’s way more common you’d actually be able to benefit from that many cleave targets)
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I don’t think a Ranged nerf will do anything nor is it the problem here that people are talking about. Also using a Flamer against Ranged Shooter Targets is something that it needs to be able to do.
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They’re annoyed because they don’t get to fight hordes. Well that’s too bad, the weapon was designed specifically to take those out. And this is Warhammer 40K not Vermintide. It is ranged based not melee based.
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They’re annoyed because It kills Elites, Well this may be true. I think they are specifically talking about the Ragers and Maulers, because no matter how hard you try the thing doesn’t work well on Bulworks or Crushers. They still will get to you in Damnation level.
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They’re annoyed because you’ll end up in multi-zealot parties where everyone has a flamer and its annoying because Flamers suck against most Specials and are harder to run against Ranged Combatants.
Nerfing the range will have no effect on either of those or affect them the wrong way.
Multi-Zealot Flamers are a problem, but most Zealots know if they don’t bring one, no one else will and its the only thing they had to keep the squishies from getting overrun because unlike Zealot and Ogryn they can’t survive the whole zone being thrown at you at once in Damnation, which does happen a lot except in Low Intensity. And its those very Veterans and Psychers that go down when it happens.
I don’t really see the flamer as a problem anyway, because more than one in a group leads to problems and can result in a wipe.
BUT… you really need to show RANGED weapons on the Entry screen (At the very least the Text for what ranged weapons they have) for the party rather than the Melee weapons because its SOOOO much more important, otherwise you end up with like 3 flamers and a Purgatus in the group… or like 3 Surge Staves which really causes problems in a group and makes it ineffective.
A Single Flamer has to be used sparingly or it runs out of ammo too quick.
EDIT: If you note, this thing is only used in Heresy and Damnation games… not Malice and Lower… there’s a reason for that.
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At 15m range, Flamer can hit like 40 enemies in its reasonably wide AOE. If you half the range, it cuts the number of targets in half too. So it absolutely would “do something”.
Remember the hypothetical best cleave (Bull Butcher, 100% Cleave Targets (8.7), T4 cleave blessing (+200%) ends up hitting 26 targets so clearly 40 targets is just out of control powerful (especially given Cleaver can’t do good damage against almost every other target type; I’m not downplaying Bull Butcher’s overall power, it’s just definitely a bad weapon against anything that isn’t a horde enemy).
Well if our interest is balance, clearly hitting 54% more targets (40 vs. 26) than the second-best cleave thing isn’t very balanced unless that weapon comes with really severe other drawbacks (and even then, I don’t think it should smash the threat of hordes that badly). The only things that should smash hordes that well should be “rare resource” type things: so Sharpshooter nades or Psyker Ascendent Blaze sort of stuff. (And it’s even pretty hard to get those 40+ target SS nades, though I do think the AOE is big enough for it to happen, especially with the bleed feat making the outer radius lethal too.)
So I’m not “annoyed” I’m focused on the actual reason it’s overpowered: that it’s a weapon that consistently kills hordes far faster than any other dedicated horde clearing weapon. And yeah, my argument barely mentions that it also kills non-horde things too (something that dedicated horde-clear weapons often can’t do well!), but that’s a secondary problem too.
It won’t matter.
The Flamer kills horde mobs way to fast for you to do anything about it.
Secondly, this is not Vermintide… again… this is not Vermintide where you’re meant to melee. It is Warhammer 40K. Unlike Bardin’s Flamer or Sienna’s Staff… where they were negating melee in a melee based game.
This game is a Ranged based one so its irrelevent.
Like ammo consumption?
No, because that’s toxic for teamplay. (And yes, the differences in ammo efficiency that already exist are bad for teamplay. Ammo should get mostly normalized, with only very minor differences.)
Basically imagine how toxic it’d be if any other team resource needed to be consumed a bunch by someone’s loadout choices:
- Ogryn with this feat eat a medkit, gaining +20% damage for 60 secs. (Say bye to team heals.)
- Sharpshooters with this feat have unlimited grenade capacity. (Good luck ever seeing a grenade pickup again.)
No Flamer drawbacks would be things like:
- almost no damage vs. any armor whatsoever
- a heat meter like Plasma Gun
- splash damage to self at very close range
I think the “drawback” version is the least appealing of the possibilities I described, since the other two just directly address the reason Flamer is too good (which is typically what you want to do when balancing). That said, I actually find Plasma Gun’s style of heat (where reloads wipe heat, or you can manually cooldown by paying health) makes it really interesting to use, so even if it’s not on the Flamer I want to see that on more weapons in the future.
Your suggestion, if taken to its logical conclusion, would have all weapons having the exact some functionality, everything being a uniform boring shade of beige.
Weapons need to feel satisfying to use. They need to have one particular scenario where they work really well, and it feels great to pull it out in that scenario and go to town.
Having everything just be sort of okay at doing everything is not going to make the game more fun.
Its the same argument as saying “Thunder Hammer should do less single target damage, but swing faster”. So you’re basically saying it should be an axe. The whole thing that makes thunder-hammer satisfying is that its slow and unwieldy but that when it does connect it absolutely smacks.
The whole identity of Flamer is that it’s strong AoE. The one scenario where it should absolutely pump is scenarios where you’ve funnelled a large number of enemies into a choke, and you can melt them all. If you take that away, where’s its identity? Where’s the fun?
It would make much more sense to look at its range and at its ability to fire continuously. Reduce the range by a third, maybe add a heat/vent mechanic, and it can retain its identity and still be interesting, and not just become a clone of every other weapon just with a different skin.
There’s no reason for any Ranged Nerf.
It is at the range its supposed to be in Warhammer 40K. It does what it’s supposed to at those ranges.
How can any of that seem logical to you? Balancing Starcraft 2 didn’t mean Protoss and Zerg ended up with the exact same functionality.
The Turtolsky and Bull Butcher are horde-clear melee weapons. They kill faster than most other melee. As a result, they sacrifice anti-armor damage (they have awful DPS against basically any non-horde target).
Flamers meanwhile (A) kill horde much much faster, and (B) kill most elites quite fast too.
Power Swords (A) kill horde roughly as fast, and (B) kill most elites quite fast too.
Clearly weapons need balanced tradeoffs. Well you can’t specialize more against horde than “our DPS against literally everything else is garbage”. So that’s the top. That’s the limit to the best horde-clear weapon.
So some Flamer options are:
A. Top tier DPS vs. horde like those horde-clear melee (which is a huge reduction from the current horde DPS), and similarly terrible DPS vs. non-horde like them OR
B. Mid-range DPS vs. horde (worse than horde melee) but also mid-range DPS vs. non-hordes OR
C. Any other combination of strengths/weaknesses that’s balanced with every other weapon.
But it can’t be:
D. Double the DPS of top tier horde weapons against hordes while also doing mid-tier DPS vs. non-horde targets in a huge radius.
Stagger’s a factor too, so it’s certainly possible to imagine the version of the Flamer that’s beyond those horde-clear melee weapons in DPS vs. Horde, but it lacks the current stagger effect (and does basically nothing to non-horde). There are a lot of viable options here.
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You were comparing a melee weapon to a ranged weapon. One of them consumes ammo, the other doesn’t.
Anyway, main reason to nerf flamers would be to reduce population of bad zealot players on high difficulty. I can get behind that but it is a kinda toxic goal.
You’re comparing a ranged weapon that consumes ammo, has a long draw/setup time and very long reload time, to a melee weapon which has none of the above constraints, and which can block/push for defence.
Plasma Gun hits harder than Knife. Gee, I wonder why that is?
Moreover, a heavy-sword or other horde-clear-melee can be paired with a complimentary ranged weapon to deal with long-range threats. Flamer cannot.
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I said it… I play mainly a zealot and used, for testing, the flamer during the past 2 weeks. And I continue to use it (yesterday I used it in my games) cause it is a too good weapon…
Clearly, the flamer is too strong. As Axehilt said there are plenty of ways to correct this:
- remove the possibility to stagger anything except groaners and poxwalkers (i don’t like it tbh)
- increase reloading time
- introduce an overheat mecanism (my favorite as it would permit to use it without abusing it)
- reduce the range (correct for a 80% modifier flamer, but… for a flamer with a 15% modifier it will be harsh)
- reduce the burning stacks from flamer on all enemies except groaners and poxwalkers
- change the way burning stacks work (totally against this, cause infernus weapons could be logically be affected)
- reduce the duration of the burning with one fuel canister (don’t think it can change anything cause the reload is pretty fast)
- reduce the width of the burning cloud (a solution I really like)
What is not a solution:
- reduces ammunitions that the flamer get… enough of these weapons where you don’t have ammo and bring problems in team
- buff the weapon… lol
We have to be cautious with nerf. The line between a too strong weapon and a bad weapon is tiny. The flamer is not a god weapon, but a too strong weapon. So it needs a slight nerf (as power sword needs it).
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Sure, but I was explaining why we shouldn’t want any ranged weapon to have unusually bad ammo efficiency. Additionally, the requirement of ammo (which is a downside to weapons) affords you the advantage of being ranged (an advantage).
Ammo is what allows a weapon to work at all. It’s not like it becomes a melee weapon on 0 ammo, it just stops working. The negative and the positive are separate that’s what I’m saying.
I don’t agree with nerfing the flamer because IMO it is not that great on a Zealot. It would be a fantastic weapon for an Ogryn, but it holds the Zealot back a bit. Just like a bolter is okay-ish on a Vet but is fantastic on a Zealot.
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I have the exact opposite opinion there to be honest. Flamer is pretty bonkers, boltgun on Zealot is certainly good enough but nothing crazy. At least I think it’s significantly less desirable for him than Vet as long as the ranged Ult interaction stays around. He doesn’t really need to pick a specific gun to counter Carapace, he can make any gun do that.
I thought the Flamer was meh too until I started trying to use it more seriously on Heresy and Damnation. I kinda wish we had a scoreboard because I think it would become apparent very quickly what an incredible amount of damage a flamer actually does across a run when used halfway competently. I really recommend putting some more hours into it because I think it’s hard not to come to the same conclusion once you get fully used to it.
Not really? Ult only lasts this much, there’s just a handful of guns that can kill a single crusher during that time. Also only a bolter can knock away bulwark’s shield.
Zealot is my most played class. I played that character for at least 1/3rd of my total ~500 hours in game.
I mean, a Zealot can kill anything else quickly and rather safely anyway, so why bother?
That’s true about bulwarks, bolter certainly is the least annoying way to deal with them (if you don’t have crusher or thunder hammer as melee, those both dump on them very fine on their own). Equally though they’re not much threat after flamer has cleared everything around them.
Well they can but certainly not as quickly, easily, or safely as flamer. Wiping a lot of threats very quickly also makes the job of carrying dead weight team mates much easier. Hard for them to die when you’re wiping any group of significant density so quickly.
Seems everyone here forgets that flamer is super bad against specials and it’s a pretty big downside since they are the biggest cause of wipes.
This are my 2 cents on the flamer:
The biggest problem of flamer is that is that good without any investment.
This makes it a very popular choice in this horrible RNG system.
I’m fine in how it performs right now but i would like it to require crafting investment for doing so. I think a 20% overall DPS decrease would be good, then one can choose invest in what they prefer it being more specialised at, But absolutely remove the locks on crafting!!!
20% lower DPS translate technically in 20% lower ammo so maybe ammo reserve could be adjusted up to 10% max if it’s stealing too much ammo for the team.
Anyway important to clarify that is up to the player being conservative with the ammo if weapons have low ammo reserve, low ammo capacity is not an excuse to hog all the ammo on the map nor is justified to not nerf ammo reserves because then is the teammates that stuffer.