52 replies to this topic

[Lily from animove]

FupDup, on 19 March 2015 - 10:27 AM, said:

Speaking of range, why the crap do they get hardcapped at 90m while all other energy weapons have 2x max range?

Shhhh be quite, otherwise they do this and give them 45m range.

[Chagatay]

Increase flamer count for maximum crispiness and charred flavor.

[Dawnstealer]

I wish they'd allow for terrain to be set on fire. Not like trees and buildings, but just when you spray fire all over, the fire should stick around a little. It was a great tactic in TT and I could see it being useful in the game. Light the ground around a mech and run; suddenly the FS might ACTUALLY RUN FLAMERS.

[Hastur Azargo]

Yeah, and it would be even more awesome if flamer flames could stick to mechs, generating heat! Now that would be fun.

[Sorbic]

I decided to put 2 on my PB Locust since the mechs a joke anyway. Have had some success (relatively speaking) but the FT/MG combo lowers my already bad FPS and makes it extremely difficult to see anything. Nerf PB MG flash!

[Aiden Skye]

I would like to see a flamer quirk to set trees and grass on fire. Even buildings. Then when I drop on bog, or rivercity, I could burn down every last tree and building and turn every map into a barren wasteland, where ranged weapons will rule the day. Good bye brawlwarrior online!!

[Satan n stuff]

WILL WORK FOR AMMO, on 18 March 2015 - 06:51 PM, said:

Totally underrated, novas mixing in flamers with lasers and MGs reach massive DPS with the addition of blinding and shutting down entire weapon systems at the cost of range. Unfortunately, some professional dissenting tryhard competitive players do not agree and now I'm on some KOS list or something to the point of TK at round start, as they see flamer builds as trolling (I can only assume that they justify the TK for this reason).

Underrated but not something that will work out until the community's attitude about flamer builds changes.

Edit: Also, it looks pretty.

It's not underrated, it's objectively bad. It has terrible DPS, terrible range, isn't hitscan and has to be on target constantly to even reach it's max DPS, which it almost never does.
It does heat up the target and blind them, but for the amount of effort it takes to get a mech to shutdown you could just kill them instead, and you can blind people just fine with autocannons.

[Gamuray]

12 flamers and a small laser... 1st match.. 300 damages! And as a bonus I had fun in a Nova!

[WILL WORK FOR AMMO]

Satan n stuff, on 19 March 2015 - 03:03 PM, said:

It's not underrated, it's objectively bad. It has terrible DPS, terrible range, isn't hitscan and has to be on target constantly to even reach it's max DPS, which it almost never does.

I thought MGs and flamers were implemented similarly and were, therefore, hitscan (for reference, MGs are hitscan, its just the visual effect that is not). Anyone have a post or source to counter this? If you're unable to keep your flamers on your target, then maybe flamers aren't for you.

Satan n stuff, on 19 March 2015 - 03:03 PM, said:

It does heat up the target and blind them, but for the amount of effort it takes to get a mech to shutdown you could just kill them instead, and you can blind people just fine with autocannons.

You will never make a mech shutdown no matter how much effort you put into it, because heat from flamers caps at 90%. I only ever said that you shut down some of their weapon systems by managing to keep their heat high enough. In addition, you can group 9 flamers and fire them in a particular way as to send a direwolf with 21 or 23 DHS to 90% heat in roughly 13 seconds while generating almost no heat at all yourself. During that time, you can put the mixed in lasers and the MGs to effective use.

The point of saying 'underrated' was not about how effective flamer builds were in comparison to alternatives, but that flamers aren't given as much credit as they should be given. As such, comparisons to suppression by AC2 spam is irrelevant. It is probably true that autocannon spam is superior, but irrelevant.

E: Hopefully the next time I get premium time and free time, I can provide more concrete numbers on how flamethrowers generate heat.

Edited by WILL WORK FOR AMMO, 19 March 2015 - 06:30 PM.

[Gamuray]

Sadly... for every .7 damage there is 1 heat in flamers.... which means they are way worse than a small laser. Which is odd.. Laser more heat efficient than throwing fuel out and igniting it.. who'd of thought? (PGI apparently would have..) Really. They aren't that dangerous if they generated .1 heat and .7 damage..

[Gamuray]

So... Apparently in testing grounds at least.. flamers have some.. interesting.. heat mechanics. If you start from completely cooled off and fire 3 you'll see what I mean. Starts off not increasing your heat at all, but then slowly creeps a percent, then from there it very quickly gets stupidly hot fast. -.-' PGI... your heat system is messing up again.

Edit: Tested in Tourmaline

Edited by Gamuray, 19 March 2015 - 06:59 PM.

[Zordicron]

Only viable use is for blinding and heat, as part of a team's strategy. Even if the team is a pug.

I ran one of very very few grouped matches with my brother, in what was then the trial spider (we both ran it) with flamer arms(stock trials....yeah thats a while ago now)

basically, as this was a pug match(before group/solo cues) we stuck together. Most memorable was on forest colony. We ran out ahead of our fuzzball, basically painting targets for utter destruction by locating the fringe enemy mechs or loners. Then, we circled with blinding overheating flames, cutting an enemy out of the pack, and our doomsquad would be around shortly to focus down the enemy that basically couldnt return fire or even see where to do so. At the cost of two spiders from our pug teams roster. We singled out 7 mechs this way, catching them from behind, basically the lighter scouts first, then the LRM boats, and by that point the enemy was pretty outnumbered and we just picked whatever looked most dangerous to remove from battle.

We did this for a few matches because it was hilarious, yet oddly effective.

I can not imagine it being AS effective in solo cue now, as the odds of dropping with another one( I dont think a solo harrasser could pull it off) would be next to nil, and group cue focus fire and laser metas etc of the current game I just dont see anything outside of "camp, focus your 50 point laser alpha" being effective more than once in a blue moon. it could still potentially work if someone is dedictated and learns the little movment and target selection nuances required.

In general, flamers, along with most all other weapons, I default to "Mech warrior 3 got it right, just copy them". Some tweaks to numbers would obviously be needed because of the way mechs are built etc in MWO, but function wise, MW3 did pretty much everything right IMO for a battletech game. (off topic, DEM PULSE LASERS hrhrhrghgrhgrhgrhg)

Edited by Eldagore, 19 March 2015 - 08:05 PM.

[SgtDoss]

I run Cataphract,with 2 ER PCC on weapon set 1. Flametrower x2 + pulse med laser on set 2 and AMS. Max armor on everything but arms(or legs) that have about 48.Dual heat sink and big engine.Max speed on that Heavy CTF is a bit over 68mph.

Variant is a CTF 1X. I'm good at leading target so can snipe at 1.2k km(low dmg ppc at that range tho) even better at 800/1k meters.

When getting brawler mode on the same build just press backspace to manage heat on first set. Your second set dmg+ overheat the target while first set on "salvo" mode and great dual heat sink allow you to dish out at least 4 shot of ER ppc's while shooting your second set.

Often you'll see the target overheat(cuz of flames) allowing you to regain some heat/evade or keep trowing all you got at him if he's close to death.
Also once he end up over heating and you managed it well.You just keep shooting all you got, he'll overheat first take alot of dmg then, your turn to overheat, but once you get back up he's just as good as dead if he haven't fled. If you have someone with you it's even better.

Now...If you're alone vs 2-3 you prolly can manage to scare one with your ER ppc's(a bit of flames to blind him if neccessary) and focus on second weapon set for a target number 2. Which will blind him and most prolly overheat him cuz he'll be trying to take you down thinking he ain't alone, thus shooting more and getting more heat from ya flames(he shoot=heat, he takes flame he heat, all at same time).

This wil allow you to evade/retreat to safety/run to teammate at 68+ mph(kph ain't sure) ON A HEAVY.

P.S. I know this ain't a nova build but yes Flames worth it.English ain't my native language. So i'm sorry for bad grammar, if there is...

Lastly thx to google i'm looking for cataphract related stuff and end up here. Make what i think is a nice post, to find out it's about nova afterward...

Edited by SgtDoss, 01 December 2015 - 11:26 AM.