39 replies to this topic

[Sybreed]

So, it's an accepted consensus that flamers suck. They sucked before, they still suck now.

The problem is that PGI is afraid, and with somewhat good reason, that a flamer heavy mech can stunlock any opponent. Considering that light mechs can easily close in and flame you, it's understandable that we don't want OP flamers.

What if, instead of increasing slowly your heat, it gave you a "debuff" that increases the heat generated by your weapon firing? And said debuff is stackable

For example: 1 flamer flaming you for 1 second = 1 debuff. 1 flamer flaming you for 2 seconds = 2 debuffs. 2 flamers flaming you for 1 second = 2 debuffs. And so on

Each stack of the debuff gives a 15% increase in heat generated when firing.

Does numbers can be changed as needed, but I think that would be a decent way to make flamers a CC weapon (crowd control) without stunlocking anyone.

[101011]

But what about the Firestarter, with its 8 flamers? After five seconds, you would have 40 of these debuffs. Even if it were a 1% increase per stack, that would be 40% extra heat, which would cripple most 'Mech builds that do not rely upon ballistics.

Edited by 101011, 12 May 2014 - 01:40 PM.

[ToxinTractor]

Flamers are not all bad. Having tinkered with them recently ive found they are great for blinding people really. Which is perfect for any mech that gets in close. You have nigh vision on? Nope! Flamers be too bright for your sissy night vision! Have heat vision on? Too bad! Flamers are hot as ****. Your using normal vision? Well i hope you like flames in your face!

While that part of them is pretty neat it does blow they dont have much else in terms of additional effects. Honestly though out side of boosting the damage they do or lowering the heat scaling on them I dont see how you can successfully add a new effect to them that wouldnt make them stupidly OP.

But yea try them on a mech you get close with- i find it helps a lot with keeping your mech a live- you only need about 1-2 of them for the effect to work well. Any more of funny as hell and can really be mean to any one with exposed internals.

[Felio]

ToxinTractor, on 12 May 2014 - 01:55 PM, said:

Having tinkered with them recently ive found they are great for blinding people really.

That's true, but it works both ways. The placement of the hardpoints on the mech can mean flamers blind you just as much as your opponent. A Jenner or Cicada can't really use them, for example.

I do troll with them from time to time just to blind people. Sometimes I get yelled at by my teammates for not bringing lasers instead. I haven't been team killed for it yet, at least.

Being blinded probably isn't much more fun than being stunlocked. I'd rather they nerf the blinding effect and make them do something. Not just buff the crit-seeking, either. Gawd I hate that machine guns pay such a heavy price (pitiful damage and accuracy) for being able to crit more. Have some imagination. Increase weapon recycle times? Cause them to jam like a UAC/5? Or have no imagination at all and just increase the damage. That would be fine, too.

[DONTOR]

The moment you put a single flamer on a firestarter with the intent to blind your enemy, you will immediatly notice they're accuracy goes to hell. It is suprisingly effective and if you havent tried it i suggest you give it a whirl. I personally like to match a MPL with the flamer to mask its firing and for some added damage.

[Bhael Fire]

I think having them increase the target's overall heat is the best idea for them, as long as they can't force the target to shut down. The overall idea is that the flamer should make it harder for the target to return fire without overheating...at least until they can get away from the flames.

All they need to do is make the flamers heat up the target a lot faster than they do now.

[InRev]

Does anyone have a Twitter account with which they can ask Russ what happened to the Flamer buff that was supposed to come with the Firestarter?

I know no one really cares about the damn things, but having at least one more functional weapon would break up the monotony for a bit. Hell, even if they just scrapped the heat transfer idea and buffed the damage to turn them into a machine-gun style energy weapon, I'd be ok with that, as long as they got rid of the exponentially increasing heat buildup.

The blinding could be a secondary utility bonus.

[Clit Beastwood]

FLAMERS ARE AWESOME
http://www.twitch.tv...stetz/c/4119089
http://www.twitch.tv...stetz/c/4119059
http://www.twitch.tv...stetz/c/4118969

I even have a special "FIRE TIME" playlist!



Also, I assumed that everyone was aware but I'm learning otherwise. Don't aim flamers with the visible flame, aim with the crosshairs.. and aim for the legs. When you get too hot, use a single flamer to the enemy cockpit, chain fired, so you can blind them while you cool off. I tend to drop an airstrike while flaming their cockpit so they can't see the red smoke

Edited by Fierostetz, 12 May 2014 - 02:58 PM.

[Pygar]

TBH, Flamers have always been in the game just for the sake of "fluff" (for the sake of having them in the game, just to be there for "anti-infantry" or the occasional fire for effect gimmick) but they have always been kind of useless...in table top they did a couple points of damage and a couple points of extra hit per turn- enough heat to make you consider maybe firing less weapons next turn but not overheating you to the point of meltdown. (unless you pushed yourself almost to melt down and then got shot by a flamer)

I have mixed feelings about them in MWO- I'd love to see them be more than a novelty... but, they are doing a great job at being anti-infantry (Do you see any infantry? I didn't think so...there you go, thank you Flamers, lol) and at the same time, I don't want to see them be the new FOTM/Meta/"Everybody has to have at least one on their mech or they must be an idiot" piece of equipment.

I think my biggest disappointment with MWO flamers is that they don't actually light things on fire.

[Thunder Child]

I'm quite fond of the damned thing, but I have to run them in pairs, or the heat kills me (dirty flamer secret number 42: If you chain fire them, they don't build heat. They just don't let you cooldown as quickly). To be honest, I would be quite happy if they locked the firer at 90%, as well as the target. That way, as long as you have a low/no heat weapon, you could mash flamers all day while chipping away at the target. And the target would have to limit their fire, or use a similar low/no heat weapon. The Flamer would become a control tool for teams, without actually stunlocking.

[Clit Beastwood]

Pygar, on 12 May 2014 - 03:06 PM, said:

TBH, Flamers have always been in the game just for the sake of "fluff" (for the sake of having them in the game, just to be there for "anti-infantry" or the occasional fire for effect gimmick) but they have always been kind of useless...in table top they did a couple points of damage and a couple points of extra hit per turn- enough heat to make you consider maybe firing less weapons next turn but not overheating you to the point of meltdown. (unless you pushed yourself almost to melt down and then got shot by a flamer)

I have mixed feelings about them in MWO- I'd love to see them be more than a novelty... but, they are doing a great job at being anti-infantry (Do you see any infantry? I didn't think so...there you go, thank you Flamers, lol) and at the same time, I don't want to see them be the new FOTM/Meta/"Everybody has to have at least one on their mech or they must be an idiot" piece of equipment.

I think my biggest disappointment with MWO flamers is that they don't actually light things on fire.

But they're not fluff! They really do work! I like to use them to annoy meta mechs while my team pounds them. Most people will chase a squirrel. Most people will chase a shiny. Almost everyone will chase a shiny squirrel

[East Indy]

Weird. I was thinking about this yesterday.

Sybreed, on 12 May 2014 - 01:35 PM, said:

Each stack of the debuff gives a 15% increase in heat generated when firing.

Instead of heat generated, since that really only punishes energy, what about heat per second?

Maybe set it up like this:

1. For every 1.0 seconds of contact, one flamer adds one debuff stack.

2. Each stack increases weapons' heat-per-second by 0.1.

3. Debuff stack limit is 10.

4. Debuff decrement by one stack every 1.5 seconds.

As a result:

1. Four flamers apply 10 stacks of the debuff in 2.5 seconds.

2. Under 10 stacks, an ER PPC generates 19 heat per shot and an AC/5 generates 2.672 heat per shot.

3. Once free of flamers, 10 stacks will fall off completely in 15 seconds.

[Alcom Isst]

DONTOR, on 12 May 2014 - 02:50 PM, said:

The moment you put a single flamer on a firestarter with the intent to blind your enemy, you will immediatly notice they're accuracy goes to hell. It is suprisingly effective and if you havent tried it i suggest you give it a whirl. I personally like to match a MPL with the flamer to mask its firing and for some added damage.

My problem with this strategy is that to continously blind a player, you have to either hold still or accelerate and accelerate across the front of the flamed mech. In either method and as a Firestarter, if you stay in one place you will be shot dead either by the mech you are flaming or one of his 10 allies (there was one disconnect). If you don't stay in one place you can blind an enemy mech for a second or two at most, and then evade away, performing a distraction that is far more useful than your flaming.

[Clit Beastwood]

Alcom Isst, on 12 May 2014 - 03:28 PM, said:

My problem with this strategy is that to continously blind a player, you have to either hold still or accelerate and accelerate across the front of the flamed mech. In either method and as a Firestarter, if you stay in one place you will be shot dead either by the mech you are flaming or one of his 10 allies (there was one disconnect). If you don't stay in one place you can blind an enemy mech for a second or two at most, and then evade away, performing a distraction that is far more useful than your flaming.

Watch my linked videos. It's fine.

[verybad]

if only there were AI infantry and burnable objects...the screams...

[wanderer]

Honestly, flamers need to go from continual fire to being the alt-mode guns they are in TT.

There's the cloud-of-plasma "heat gun" mode and the focused "damage" mode- in TT, flamers either do one or the other, not both at once and not as some continual blast of heat source. Unlike MG's that don't care about heat, the exponential overheat on flamers is....well, not all that appealing.

Give it a bit of critseeking ala the MG in damage mode but make it a "fireball" rather than a continual blast of flame, let it simply generate 2 heat on a single hit in heat mode and simply spit out a cloud of flaming plasma at the target that deals no actual damage. Slow down it's fire rate to medium-laser levels or so rather than the constant shake-and-bake it has now and apply ghost heat for 2+ so rapidfiring for heatlock still causes the same "you cook faster than they do" problem.

Edited by wanderer, 12 May 2014 - 03:37 PM.

[Pjwned]

If flamers were to apply some sort of debuff I would rather see a static cap to the effect no matter how many flamers you have, and having more flamers would just make it actually practical (by being faster) to hit that cap.

So basically, if you have 1 flamer you could eventually hit the the effect's limit with extremely judicious application on the enemy mech, but having say 4 flamers would get you there a lot faster.

[verybad]

Just make it 75% max enemy's heat. max. Could be very useful, but best with teamwork.

Edited by verybad, 12 May 2014 - 03:42 PM.

[FupDup]

WTB viable Flamers.

[Clit Beastwood]

L2F

LEARN 2 FLAME