I tried to build around the Flamer for the Zealot, focusing on Crits and some stagger, and the odd fact that it does crazy damage to single targets like Bosses. I find it hard to recommend/use.
Has anybody got ideas on how to play the Flamer or what its role is?
In my books, it’s a short-range horde clearing weapon or area denial, and less of a single target, but that’s where it currently excels. Attacking hordes is more of a detriment either the psyker has killed it before I can deploy that thing or I get hit in melee by burning enemies that do not care about being set ablaze.
Depending on your team comp, it’s either a ‘I don’t want anything coming out of this chokepoint’, an accompaniment to your thunder hammer, or just dead weight.
Well they nerfed flamer, so you would use it especially with chastise the wicked, back when there was 1 ulti, now with 3 utlies, again… you need chastise the wicked tree to use it.
as zealot got decent anti horde weaponry and multi role , pretty much the flamer is nice to use , than need to use.
Actually no. I have a feedback topic (two actually, on on the flamer and other weapons that have the issue and another about the interaction FoF with said weapons) about how even this doesn’t hold true as a reason to keep it in this pitiful state.
TL;DR of the posts: The flamer (and several other weapons) does less damage to unarmored and the HP buff to crushers means even though it deals more damage to flak it basically just tickles them. So using FoF to lower armor value by one step actually makes the flamer do worse damage to most elites in the game since most of them have at least partial flak so it takes that and counts them as unarmored.
This is true of: Both types of gunner, both types of shotgunner, scab ragers, maulers (despite carapace head the flamer just considers them flak unless only their head is hit by it), and some some of the fodder enemies that have flak. It is also true of the couple specials that have flak armor.
The flamer needs a rework badly. It has been power-crept by the myriad of enemy buffs the game has seen since it was nerfed into the ground.
To answer the question:
It is a suppression machine if you do not use the stream mode and just primary fire it at enemies to stagger and suppress TF out of them. Works on everything but crushers, works on them too if you get the blessing “Fan the Flames” which makes burning enemies count has having less stagger resist.
What blessings do you run on your Evis? Since I use Savage Sweep (+200% cleave when hitting 3 enemies) it’s such a horde deleter that I would never consider the flamer.
Nobody seem to realize how absurde DMG ticks it gets on Bosses.
Am i miss reading the stats wrong or is this unnoticed by the people?
I tested the Flamer in the Meat Grinder and saw how abysmal teh DMg is against Armor. Maulers are OK but Crushes and Bulwarks do not care about it.
The Range is surprisingly long, about 12-15 Meters i guess which feels massive compared to other games.
The DMG against Hords is still a bit bad. a Psycer with assail has more Clearing potential and a Evisiorator can hold a choke point as well.
Mostly i have the problem if i swipe the flamer into a coming horde that fans out the enemies on the right that get hit first have enough time to reach me and hit be before they burn down and the if i hold down on the right until they are dead the enemies on the left reach me and hit me.
My ideas: A rework would entail a instant stagger for all bruning non-armored enemies or massive Suppression with the stream. - A cap on burn stacks on bosses so it’s not a boss killer but a utility-horde-clearer.
A MK version that creates burning patches that linger like nades or barrels with the steam but deal less DMG on direct hits.
A MK where streaming spreads promethium and fire/explosions/Soul Blaze can set it ablaze. Igniting by 2nd or third sources increases the damage. (Zealot spread promethium, Veteran ignites it with a Fire shot of a Shotgun)
A MK Version with double the fuel but Left click is just a stagger and no Flame(which can reflect Nades and Hounds and such).
A MK Version that does not apply burn but Does massive DMG has no stream but bursts(Basically a Melter) - this is the “Boss-Killer” Variant.
A MK Version with a Large cone(120°) for a stream but short range.
It’s pretty nice to have a Zealot flamer on a team. It relieves a cluster type pressure with its aoe and stagger power, allowing teammates to deal more damage without being punished. But would I run it myself? Nope.
Yeah there’s 2 circumstances where I might pick flamer: 1) assassination mission where your team is short on boss damage, and 2) stealth speedrun where you’re not clearing most enemies and are primarily concerned about controlling/staggering the pain train chasing you around the map
Delet hordes. That’s really it. It’s literally the best thing in the game for that one purpose, the way I use it is whenever I see dudes I’ll pop my flamer into aim mode and swing my mouse left and right back and forth over the crowd super fast, kills everything small with decent ammo efficiency. Also deals okay damage to any flak or other small elites blending into the crowd. If you’re having trouble getting slapped by dudes running through it, you gotta work on your dodge dancing, just left and right intermittently while continuing to flame.
Also helps to run the faster reload on empty magazine blessing. For second blessing I run the one that gives more power the more ammo you drain in one barrage. Also also, throwing knife is a really good compliment to it cause you can use them to pop gunners out of range, you can throw them while the flamer is in aim mode so long as you aren’t firing. People just don’t know how to make good tools work unless they do literally everything for you.
Flamer doge is miserable.
And i think compared to other tools the horde clear is cumbersome and ineffective.
Autogun hipfire, Shotguns, Evicorator, Assail, Staffs, Nades all do a better job at clearing hordes. About ammo efficiency i don’t know but 4 reloads seem really really weak. But Boss damage is crazy high.
I combined my flamer with the perk to gain reload speed on melee kills which really improves it. I went for the Flame nades but i agree the throwing knives are a much better tool for the job.
Dev note: “We wanted to adjust the broad capability of the flamer to deal with pretty much all targets, specifically when combined with the Zealots ability Chastise the Wicked that grants armor penetration after use. By increasing the value of armor for our poor burning enemies while limiting the amount of stagger, we hope to create a clearer use for the Flamer. Since the armor penetration effectively degrades Carapace armor to Flak armor, the removal of high damage vs. Flak helps bring flamer-wielding Zealots into more balanced territory. Combined with a lowered clip size, we hope to move away from a general-purpose purging tool that leaves nothing left alive into a more defined horde-clear role that benefits from some help dealing with heavily armored enemies. It should still leave most things dead, but it might require slightly more diligent purging.”
This was the offical response from Patch Note #7.
Its not am defending their action, yet they nerfed flamer so you use it with the ulti especially, a bad move, and now with 3 new ulties , its even a worse move.
flamer could benefit from extra ammo , in reserve and in magazine.
There is a cap, it is baked into the stats of the weapon 16 is the max burn stacks. All monsters are unyielding which the flamer is only slightly worse at dealing with than flak (it is for some unknown balance reason best at dealing with flak).
Far FAR too many marks there mate. The game is clearly designed around having at most 3 marks per weapon type.
The second requires far too much team-comp related interactions.
The flamer should just innately leave burning patches, if it did that honestly I don’t think the weapon would need any adjustment.
Much of what you are asking for would just be covered my melta or inferno pistol
The ammo is the main reason I don’t use it. Realistically you can get decent ammo efficiency by using the primary fire instead of the continual stream, but there’s just no satisfaction to be had in using it that way.
Absolutely nothing 