It would be great if they can rework the Flamestorm Staff completely, like say, similar to the Blightstormer’s AoE (minus the CC), so it’s a proper “storm” staff and not something copied from Bardin’s flamethrower.
Left Click - usual fireball attack, or the usual flamethrower left click. Can stagger enemies.
Hold Right Click - targeting reticule like the one found in Conflagration Staff appears. The longer you hold it, the bigger the AoE, up to a certain size and distance.
Hold Right Click + Hold Left Click (then release right click) - summons a flamestorm at a location that Sienna can control. Sienna can move slowly while channeling the flamestorm via mouse movement.
If the storm casted has a small AoE:
it moves faster
deals less damage than the bigger storm
can stagger infantry and special units. Cannot stagger elites, armored units, and bosses.
If the storm casted has a big AoE:
it moves slower
deals more damage than the smaller storm
can stagger infantry, special, elites and armored units. Cannot stagger bosses.
Both storm variations will cause heat over time while summoned, and they will only last 5s, in which they need to be casted again.
True. The effects from the Flamestorm staff is rather excessive. Not to mention that the damage output is low compared to her other arsenal. It’s also useless VS bosses too.
Wut? It has fine damage and its boss output is fine. It’s just a specialized weapon in that it’s primarily designed to shred unarmoured trash and CC the hell out of things. It has to be spec’d accordingly. Most people who use Flamewave weapons just have no clue what they’re doing with them and don’t contribute much beyond obstructing the sightline of their team.
@OP, BLUF: Flamewave is gd awesome in the right hands and is already entirely different from Drake Gun in terms of both potency and mobility. They’re apples/oranges to one another. Trying to say they’re the same is like calling two totally different guns equal because they both shoot bullets.
Value depends on the class Flamewave’s being used on and what the group needs in order to be rounded out. I run it on BW and it’s extremely effective. Being able to do full-duration blasts with near-instant charge time for next to no overheat is potent af, combined with the facts that you can go balls out stacking power and that you’re always in range for World Aflame.
It’s especially valuable on BW because it’s also the only staff you can spam basically 100% of the time, even without a Heat Sink build, without ever having Overheat issues. BW has heat issues with other staves whereas both Pyro and Unchained can manage any staff with ease in terms of heat control. Similarly, Flamewave kinda sucks on Pyro/Unchained because they have to eat the full-duration charge time, which makes it a lot clunkier than it is on BW. This is especially true when you factor in the weapon deals no extra damage on crit and doesn’t generate enough heat to make Heat Sink worthwhile (so rip Flamewave Pyro), you lose a 25% power multiplier on Pyro/Unchained and an additional 10% modifier while on Unchained, and you sacrifice BW’s mobility (rip Pyro/Unchained). Basically it’s garbage-tier on Pyro/Unchained and god-tier on BW.
As far as obstructing the line of sight goes, I agree in general but it’s typically only an issue when people don’t know how to use the staff and you can’t trust them to keep you safe while you’re wading into a horde you can’t see. Critical to have the spot key assigned to something you can spam while firing and also to be cognizant of how much you’re blocking ppls’ views. Flamewave users can almost always fire into the meat of a horde while leaving 5-10ft of breathing room for melee to engage unmolested by fire. The biggest mistake I see ppl make though is using it exclusively defensively (this is often a side effect of ppl using it on Pyro/Unchained due to the aforementioned charge time and the fact it will take them twice as long to kill things with it compared to BW).
Edit: Final note on potency - BW Flamewave consistently has up to ~250% power thanks to Pyromatic Surge (10%) x Barrage (25%) x Power vs (up to 20%) x Power vs (up to 20%) x World Aflame (up to 25% but pretty much always maxed out in combat when it matters). It is extremely devastating and I’m convinced BW/Flamewave were made for each other, with even the class-specific portraits alluding to it.
That’s really interesting. I’ve tried to make it work with UC quite a few times and like you said it feels pretty garbage compared to other options like fireball or conflagration.
Once I get my tentacle helm I’ll have to try BW some more, thanks.
Edit: To OP, that is a really neato idea. I think I’d love to play around with a staff like that for fun, but I would suggest it be added as a brand new one.
Lemme know how you like it. I was pretty surprised. I haven’t played it again since I finished my BW 13 legend clears but I actually miss it XD I strongly recommend RLMMR + NB. Since you’re a trash-killing machine, Cauterize Wounds is overkill. Giving up Burning Vigor sucks but really, Stamina +2 Block Cost-60% is already more than enough to ensure nothing ever touches you if you’re turtling anyways so meh.
@Auralee In addition to RLMMR I suggest Power vs Chaos + Infantry on both the weapon and your charm and the Barrage trait to really min:max your role. Flamewave has no problem dealing with Packrats whatsoever as is, shreds Skaven in general, and perma-CCs SV hordes and pretty much everything else so you mostly wanna be able to delete Marauders/Maulers/Champions faster. Boss damage from sustained blasts is decent; you’re still better off horde-clearing during a boss encounter but, once clear, you do deal damage pretty well to the boss.
General rule of thumb for using it: Horde starts -> First blast is fully charged almost instantly (4 ticks) -> move forward while firing -> charge ends -> quickly assess situation -> probably take a few steps back while charging subsequent attacks (7 ticks) -> rinse and repeat. Just be careful when trying to stagger specials mid-attack. They’re pretty resistant to a hit if you didn’t pull the trigger with them in the reticle so while you can stagger them by dragging the flame over them after you’ve started firing it isn’t reliable or safe to do so if they’re, for example, a SV in the middle of his overhead chop animation.
It’s a mixed bag. In terms of serving as a proc for Rechannel it’s superb, much like Blessed Shots on BH. In terms of overheat mitigation, for most staves, it’s pretty bad in general in that it saves very little actual green health in a run compared to not having it. It also doesn’t help with overheat when it actually matters, in combat, so it doesn’t remove the need to vent overheat. That being said, since Flamewave gets so much bang for its buck on BW, Tranquility + Burnout is actually pretty awesome and feels just about right in terms of balance. There are still times where I’ll vent but any good, aggressive Sienna player does a lot of venting in general anyways. I consider NB kinda mandatory for Sienna min:max for that reason, considering she’s the queen of safe temp health generation anyways. I definitely feel like I’m venting way less with BW + Flamewave than I am with any other class/weapon combo though.
Thanks for the insight! They should really buff it, if not outright change it. 8s to 5s would be doable I guess, as 8s’s too long for it to proc during critical moments. A damage increase when you cast your first spell if Tranquility is active would be great too. xD
@avar has written a fantastic usage and build guide on the flamestorm staff, kudos! very worth reading up on, and i really do want to try the BW/FS combo after reading it.
i don’t run it that often, but i find that the basic use for both class flamers (IB and sienna) is valid enough to fit into any run, as the charged attack absolutely fries any infantry buildup, and the light attack stunlocks most units - can even perma stunlock an entire SV patrol in a corridor.
that’s pretty much HALF the game CCed or killed (hordes and elite cc) attributed to just one weapon, which will free up the rest of your party to handle the rest of the threats. I think a lot of people dislike it because it’s so specialised, i think people prefer universally useful weapons more.
most of the time i see it being used improperly though, for example trying to charge attack a group of stormvermin instead of light attack CCing them so the party can engage safely, or not asserting their position to fry an incoming horde.
Tried using the BW + Flamestorm build. At first it was pretty hard lmao. First few Legend runs were a disaster, but the longer I play, the more it made sense lol. Also cool doing a teleport + flamestorm attack to save a mate haha.
Conflagration Staff on BW isn’t half bad either. CC’s most hordes as well with the added functionality that I can snipe some specials mid distance via fireball attack.
i ran the BW flamestorm build over the weekend. it’s fun! i don’t really need to vent that much.
the only problem is… specials were not dying in most of my runs. i hear them spawn, i hear them prancing around, i see them lobbing gas globes or slowly moving into position to fire a gun or plasma, but nobody is killing them, and i get super agitated to the point that i have to pull out my huntsman yet again.
i would very much like to play horde clear and cc characters sometime on legend… but too many people don’t know how to hunt specials before they become a threat
