15 replies to this topic

[Kassatsu]

There is literally no reason to use them, and they are also literally the single most worthless weapon in the game. Even machine guns can be useful if you have a ballistic slot or two and don't mind one of them and a ton of ammo on there instead of a heat sink or something slightly more useful.

They're not even a bad gimmick as they are now, they're just utterly worthless.

First off the crit buff (as it is now) can be removed, it's pointless. They also need to fire a single projectile that can hit up to 90 meters, and has the same damage drop off as any other weapon up to 180 meters. Rather than instant damage, they should deal 1-2 points of damage over 4 seconds.

They should also have a much higher critical chance and critical damage versus ammunition of any kind. It should be 100% if the target is above a certain heat threshhold as well, provided of course, the target area is unarmored. There will also be one of two secondary effects that will drop off in the same way, see below:

1) If there are heat sinks on the affected area, reduce one heat sink's efficiency by 100% for the duration of the effect. 50% chance of affecting two heat sinks if the target location is unarmored (and has two or more mounted in that slot). Additional hits can affect more heat sinks, capped at three from a single source (6 if the slot is unarmored).

2) Add X heat over those four seconds. X being some arbitrary number decided through playtesting, let's start it at 10. A second hit from the same source would generate 50% less heat, capping at three simultaneous effects at 10, 5 and 2.5 heat generation over four seconds each. May require a cap on how high a target's heat % can go to prevent 'locking' an enemy mech.

'Source' in this case being a single mech, so boating them is not as effective. Though I'll admit a hunchback 4P with 9 flamers would be pretty hilarious since a mech with a low number of heat sinks probably couldn't even keep itself powered up without overheating in the first suggestion.

Diminishing returns may also be required for either example if multiple sources are involved, or the caps can become "from all sources" (for instance two mechs equipped with flamers hitting the same target). Any numbers given are there for the sake of having some base point to start discussions or testing on, rather than set amounts that I've decided are balanced.

EDIT: Fixed some spelling mistakes and cleaned up the grammar a bit.

Edited by Kassatsu, 26 February 2013 - 12:02 AM.

[blinkin]

most people don't think about flamers the right way.

if you want raw DPS then flamers are horrible, but they were never intended to do damage. they are a tool for reducing the effectiveness of enemy mechs.

i think they could stand to add a little more heat to their targets, but i think on that front they are close to where they need to be.

the reason why people hate them is they cannot be boated effectively.

i personally love them.

i have a jenner "Johnny Cash" it has 2 flamers and 4 medium lasers. it rarely gets any kills, but it probably has one of the highest WL ratios of any of my mechs. it tends to do very low damage per match rarely breaking 100.

now why do i love this build do you ask?

because i can immediately neutralize an assault mech entirely with just my flamer.


how do i do this?

let me respond to that with some other questions. how would you react if all you saw from your cockpit was fire? how do you aim when your entire view is blocked by jets of flame?

all you have to do is fire a burst of flame or two at an enemy mech that is trying to line up an AC20 shot. because i have rendered them blind they will miss their shot. in anger they will turn and focus on the little light mech that has done almost no damage to them and try to kill it. this will be a largely impossible task because every time they look in my direction all they will see is jets of flame.

i weave through and ruin shots for mechs that use large weapons. the flamer as it is, works beautifully for nullifying DPS from most mechs that have high alpha damage. a single light mech with a flamer can tie down 3-4 enemy mechs that are close together effectively removing them from the game until your team is ready to face them.

a brawler with a flamer or two will be much less threatened by most other mechs because they can't see to aim at vital points.

flamers are one of the best support items for a mech. if you want ECM on a mech that can't mount it, then grab a flamer.

and as an added bonus some of your enemies will shut down more often.

Edited by blinkin, 26 February 2013 - 12:24 AM.

[Vechs]

I'll agree with the OP.

Flamers are horrible.

The range is the worst part -- 64 meters? Seriously? That is essentially hugging an enemy mech.

[Deathlike]

TBH, I think flamers should at minimum deal as much heat as it takes to use them. I mean, seriously, the flamer user is overheating more than its target? This does not compute!

Damage and crits are not really an issue. You simply want to incapacitate a readily overheating mech.

[Deathlike]

Let me state this in another way...

If you wanted to keep the heat giving the same level (it needs a buff at minimum IMO), you have to reduce the heat dissipation of the enemy mech by at least 50% (I'm thinking between 66% and 80%, numbers adjustable as needed).

Has anyone wondered if the 9 flamer Hunchy gained any traction? It is probably as hilarious as the 3+ MG light mechs.

[Stormwolf]

Flamers and MG's are anti-infantry weapons......in a game that doesn't have infantry.

[blinkin]

Deathlike, on 26 February 2013 - 01:34 AM, said:

Let me state this in another way...

If you wanted to keep the heat giving the same level (it needs a buff at minimum IMO), you have to reduce the heat dissipation of the enemy mech by at least 50% (I'm thinking between 66% and 80%, numbers adjustable as needed).

Has anyone wondered if the 9 flamer Hunchy gained any traction? It is probably as hilarious as the 3+ MG light mechs.

the 9 flamer hunch will effectively nullify 18 heatsinks on a mech. each flamer produces enough heat to counter act 2 heatsinks. as far as damage putting 6 flamers on a jenner was not enough to do significant damage when i tried, i doubt 3 more would make enough difference.

flamers are very useful if you don't try to treat them like standard weapons (see my previous post).

[Deathlike]

blinkin, on 26 February 2013 - 01:48 AM, said:

the 9 flamer hunch will effectively nullify 18 heatsinks on a mech. each flamer produces enough heat to counter act 2 heatsinks. as far as damage putting 6 flamers on a jenner was not enough to do significant damage when i tried, i doubt 3 more would make enough difference.

flamers are very useful if you don't try to treat them like standard weapons (see my previous post).

18 SHS or 18 DHS? Context matters.

[blinkin]

Deathlike, on 26 February 2013 - 01:51 AM, said:

18 SHS or 18 DHS? Context matters.

i do all of my counts in single heatsinks because double heatsinks make for confusing measurements in the current system.

each single heatsink dissipates 0.1 heat per second. each flamer adds 0.2 heat per second.

Edited by blinkin, 26 February 2013 - 01:54 AM.

[Deathlike]

blinkin, on 26 February 2013 - 01:53 AM, said:

i do all of my counts in single heatsinks because double heatsinks make for confusing measurements in the current system.

Ok, so what you're saying is that it only does enough heat dissipation to counteract a natural 250 engine with DHS?

If that is what you're saying... WTF?!?!?!?!?!

[Vechs]

That is pretty grim for flamers then.

If you boat 9 flamers, dedicating your entire build around it, at short stupidly short range (64m) and you can barely deal any real damage, and all you can do is counter 90% of a 250 engine using DHS, then that is... well, that's just really bad. (Not to mention doing this will overheat you pretty fast.)

[blinkin]

Deathlike, on 26 February 2013 - 01:54 AM, said:

Ok, so what you're saying is that it only does enough heat dissipation to counteract a natural 250 engine with DHS?

If that is what you're saying... WTF?!?!?!?!?!

actually it will not be enough to counter engine double heatsinks entirely, but losing 9 out of 10 engine heatsinks is likely to cause problems for most builds.

but like i said in my first post boating flamers is a bad idea. flamers are useful because of the massive blinding jet of fire.

in my opinion 9 flamers is probably a bad idea, but 1-2 flamers can easily blind an enemy making them much easier to fight.

Vechs, on 26 February 2013 - 01:59 AM, said:

That is pretty grim for flamers then.

If you boat 9 flamers, dedicating your entire build around it, at short stupidly short range (64m) and you can barely deal any real damage, and all you can do is counter 90% of a 250 engine using DHS, then that is... well, that's just really bad. (Not to mention doing this will overheat you pretty fast.)

you are still thinking about them like they are standard weapons.

i say they are a low grade ECM that anybody can equip as long as they have an energy weapons slot.

ignore the stats and look at the frigging huge jet of flame graphic that they use. they are the only weapon in game that can completely blind an enemy.

Edited by blinkin, 26 February 2013 - 02:03 AM.

[Deathlike]

Well, the flamer part of blinding your target is the only real benefit that I can see..

I wonder if you simply double the rate of fire... in the same way machine guns work (10 bullets per second if the math is right) and not change much else, it may just work. So if the flamer simply hits twice every second (heat per second would have to remain unchanged though), this might actually work better, if my math is correct.

Between 2x to 3x the rate of fire could work...

Edited by Deathlike, 26 February 2013 - 02:05 AM.

[Kmieciu]

If 2 flamers were enough to keep an overheated enemy shut down for a couple of seconds longer, it would add more flavor to the gameplay....

[Vechs]

blinkin, on 26 February 2013 - 02:00 AM, said:

actually it will not be enough to counter engine double heatsinks entirely, but losing 9 out of 10 engine heatsinks is likely to cause problems for most builds.

but like i said in my first post boating flamers is a bad idea. flamers are useful because of the massive blinding jet of fire.

in my opinion 9 flamers is probably a bad idea, but 1-2 flamers can easily blind an enemy making them much easier to fight.

you are still thinking about them like they are standard weapons.

i say they are a low grade ECM that anybody can equip as long as they have an energy weapons slot.

ignore the stats and look at the frigging huge jet of flame graphic that they use. they are the only weapon in game that can completely blind an enemy.

Well, using blinding weapons is against the Ares Conventions and the Honors of War, so from a roleplaying perspective I think the blinding effect of flamers needs to be removed.

Unless you are playing as the Word of Blake, at which point everything goes out the window, and you can use whatever you want.

[Stringburka]

blinkin, on 26 February 2013 - 01:48 AM, said:

the 9 flamer hunch will effectively nullify 18 heatsinks on a mech. each flamer produces enough heat to counter act 2 heatsinks. as far as damage putting 6 flamers on a jenner was not enough to do significant damage when i tried, i doubt 3 more would make enough difference.

The issue is that they cause enough heat to nullify 54 heat sinks on your 'mech.

Of course, boating should not be the goal, but making heat caused = heat gained shouldn't make them overpowered at all. I'd actually still consider them pretty weak on most 'mechs, but potentially useful on low-heat 'mechs as a backup defensive measure.

Edited by Stringburka, 26 February 2013 - 03:59 AM.