Posted 17 April 2014 - 06:07 AM
Flamers are not necessarily a joke, however using them properly is an art form. The current mechanics of an exponential scaling heat mechanics (for you and your target) pose a retinue of problems that make it very difficult to wield effectively.
You cannot take the displayed flamer stats to heart, as they don't apply directly. Yes, they do .7DPS. However, their heat mechanics starts at 0 (for you and the enemy) and accelerates over time. This rate of acceleration stacks exponentially across flamers (because you're adding rates of acceleration, which, mathematically, is an exponential increase over time). One of the reasons people gripe that it does no heat damage for a target is that, once you break your stream of contact, the heat scale seems to instantly reset for your target but not for you. This also leads to how people state that a Flamer does more heat generation to you than it does for your target.
There are several things you can do, which take a good bit of practice, to improve your effectiveness with flamers:
1. Use flamers in shorter bursts, and/or only while you have solid contact with your target. This prevents the target's heat scale from resetting, needlessly, while yours stays in tact. It also optimizes the heat you build on targets.
2. High heat builds are your prey of choice. Even if you're not doing direct heat damage, flamers mitigate heat sink effectiveness, so high heat generating builds will not be cooling off while under the punishment of flamers.
3. Retain "cool off" or other low heat weapons on your build. This is why I love my Ember, because I can maintain 4 flamers and 4 machine guns. The zero heat machine guns give me a weapon that can be fired while cooling off, as well as while burning a target.
4. Flamers are not meant to be used with other weapons. A build like the Ember bypasses this, but for others, (like my TDR-5SS, which has two flamers in the shoulder) the Flamers are meant to harass, blind, and prevent enemy cooling in your target while you're trying to punish them at short range. You let go of your flamers to fire your weapons, and then open up with the Flamers again. However, you'll need to lay off the flamers so you don't overheat yourself, at some point. This tactic is best used in bursts, after which you return to cover.
5. Gather support. Flamers are a support weapon, period. With the harassment and hindrance you are able to get on your targets, you need people to capitalize upon your obnoxiousness. With PUG groups that means sticking with the main body or stirring up the hornets nest so they actually advance into the fray. In premade groups it means picking targets with your group either to support them, or to mitigate the threat of a high heat target while your group focuses down a separate threat.
Hopefully the flamer re-engineering comes soon. I hope you found this stuff helpful, in the mean time. If you also feel up for it, I have a rather detailed flamer breakdown article as my signature. Feel free to read it. Considering we got a Firestarter not long after a moderator responded to the thread, hopefully they took it into consideration with this flamer reengineering, as well.