30 replies to this topic

[Mad Strike]

Using the ember with 4 flamers and 4 machineguns.

Numbers say one thing "OP"......practice....not that much lol

One vs one i shutdown mechs in 3 seconds.....make it 6 when against balistic boat (damm ebon jag)....when they powerup again pilot has already learned and control his shots , it still overheats but this time it took like 10/12 seconds for that so by that moment i've already lost one arm and a lot of armor.

Against a balistic rifleman.....the guy took a while to shutdown too but in the end both laser boats and balistic boats regardless of shutingdown times ..... they both still deal damage and able to kill a flamer equiped mech.

We are speaking a below 100 meters range flamer which is 99 IF you put a module on it.

It depends how smart your oponent is and his capacity to react on every situation that will define if his mech is ****** or still have some time to kill you.
............

So what happens next ?

I stick with other mechs that have damage dealing weapons and not a single utility one , that gave me diferent escenarios where to effectively use the flamers:

- Keep small laser boats away like artich cheetas for example.
-Stunlocking the big ones during a push
-Stunlocking everything you see (yeah , true trolling mech lol)

Now due to the nature of the utility weapon things will allways be one on one.

.........

Finally the biggest weakness of current flamer equiped mechs......SRMs + fast mech....any mech fast enought for sneak attacks fire and forget tactics is perfect to deal against flamer mechs like the firestarter. Streaks ? That works too.

Now is the second day and still don't see more than 2 mechs using this so called "OP buffed weapon" because the damm ******* still asks you to face one on one mechs below 100 meters which is too risky.

NARCs , TAG....now flamers....weapons that are not "weapons" but serves a support role.

[Dimento Graven]

So... In short, in your opinion is the flamer "good" where it's at now, yes or no?

[Lily from animove]

point is in a 12 vs 12 situation 2 light mechs can storm into the opponent ranks and quickly heat up various mechs, which drains a laod of firepower from one team. kinda some nice possible gameplay. but as always thsi cna be used to an unreasonable amont leading to exploit like teambehavior.

[Averen]

Lily from animove, on 17 February 2016 - 09:28 AM, said:

point is in a 12 vs 12 situation 2 light mechs can storm into the opponent ranks and quickly heat up various mechs, which drains a laod of firepower from one team. kinda some nice possible gameplay. but as always thsi cna be used to an unreasonable amont leading to exploit like teambehavior.

In my experience, 2 lights charging into the enemy lines are dead meat. :^)

[Cyborne Elemental]

The funny part is, its not even a surprise.

It was almost expected that Flamers would be OP, and not by a little bit, but on the edge of stupidly OP.

Now we will have to deal with it until the data gets collected, and the Mountain of whine threads will pile up so great, that it will be most likely nerfed back into oblivion and we'll be sorry we even asked..

Paul just can't figure out.. small changes are the best changes, but common sense is like trying to find a Unicorn.

Edited by Mister D, 17 February 2016 - 10:58 AM.

[Exard3k]

there is no such thing as a stunlock. Flamer stops at 90%, so you can move wherever you want and also fire anything <10%heat. stunlock would mean shutdown and you can only do this by yourself, so it's up to you whether you get "stunned"/shutdown or not.

Flamers are a tool to limit firepower on the enemy, nothing more, nothing less. Full flamer builds are ********, they aren't a weapon replacement.

Edited by Exard3k, 17 February 2016 - 09:42 AM.

[Clit Beastwood]

Mister D, on 17 February 2016 - 09:33 AM, said:

The funny part is, its not even a surprise.

It was almost expected that Flamers would be OP, and not by a little bit, but on the edge of stupidly OP.

Now we will have to deal with it until the data gets collected, and the Mountain of whine threads will pile up so great, that it will be most likely nerfed back into oblivion and we'll be sorry we even asked..

Paul just can't figure out.. small changes are the best changes, and common sense is like trying to find a Unicorn.

Eh, just means its time to take a break again - gotta avoid BURNout somehow.

[Mad Strike]

Dimento Graven, on 17 February 2016 - 09:25 AM, said:

So... In short, in your opinion is the flamer "good" where it's at now, yes or no?

I tell you the experience , the opinion is personal.

[Dimento Graven]

Mad Strike, on 17 February 2016 - 09:37 AM, said:

I tell you the experience , the opinion is personal.

Fair enough.

[MeiSooHaityu]

Averen, on 17 February 2016 - 09:32 AM, said:

In my experience, 2 lights charging into the enemy lines are dead meat. :^)

That was my experience last night on HPG. Flamer ACH and Firestarter decided to mix it up. It took about 2 min for the enemy team to be down 2 light mechs.

[RockmachinE]

I put 3 flamers and an srm4 on my 160+kph Commando. I killed several mechs solo including a king crab a direwolf, various lights and assorted mediums so far. I just go around back once they overheat and unload the srms.

When my group collides with enemies I rush in and overheat the critical ones. Its about 50/50, I either do extremely well and just shut people out of combat or they get a nice shot on and kill me.

I believe it kills any sensible gameplay. I don't like it, but I will stick to it until something changes. A weapon that shuts out most mechs after 3 seconds should not exist. In fact some people just give up once you start doing it. I've had 2 guys just stop playing once they see whats going on.

Edited by Louis Brofist, 17 February 2016 - 10:07 AM.

[Alistair Winter]

Mister D, on 17 February 2016 - 09:33 AM, said:

Paul just can't figure out.. small changes are the best changes, and common sense is like trying to find a Unicorn.

See, this isn't strictly true. Sometimes, PGI makes extremely small changes over long periods of time. MGs for example. They went from useless to OP and back to useless in a short period of time, and then Paul decided to buff them by increasing DPS 0.1% every time Jupiter ascends and is in opposition to Saturn. A similar approach has been taken for the Summoner and a number of sub-par mechs, and also for a number of other sub-par weapons, such as the AC2. The AC2 is an ok weapon for almost the first time since 2012 (it was ok for a short period once before). "Oh, you think the Summoner is terribly underpowered? How does a 2% MG range bonus sound?"

And other times, Paul starts his day with a double Espresso and screams "BUFF ALL THE THINGS!" (or the opposite) and then the game is turned upside down in a single patch.

There's no clear pattern in that sense. They just make weird decisions.

[Mad Strike]

Alistair Winter, on 17 February 2016 - 10:21 AM, said:

See, this isn't strictly true. Sometimes, PGI makes extremely small changes over long periods of time. MGs for example. They went from useless to OP and back to useless in a short period of time, and then Paul decided to buff them by increasing DPS 0.1% every time Jupiter ascends and is in opposition to Saturn. A similar approach has been taken for the Summoner and a number of sub-par mechs, and also for a number of other sub-par weapons, such as the AC2. The AC2 is an ok weapon for almost the first time since 2012 (it was ok for a short period once before). "Oh, you think the Summoner is terribly underpowered? How does a 2% MG range bonus sound?"

And other times, Paul starts his day with a double Espresso and screams "BUFF ALL THE THINGS!" (or the opposite) and then the game is turned upside down in a single patch.

There's no clear pattern in that sense. They just make weird decisions.

Well this was a fun weird decision.

[RockmachinE]

Alistair Winter, on 17 February 2016 - 10:21 AM, said:

then Paul decided to buff them by increasing DPS 0.1% every time Jupiter ascends and is in opposition to Saturn.

"Oh, you think the Summoner is terribly underpowered? How does a 2% MG range bonus sound?"

And other times, Paul starts his day with a double Espresso and screams "BUFF ALL THE THINGS!" (or the opposite) and then the game is turned upside down in a single patch.

You should quit your dayjob !

[Chuck Jager]

I had about the same luck as the OP, with ACH and Firestarters.

I could be out in the middle of nowhere looking for bad players who are not a threat to anyone but themselves, or I could try to help the team and it is about a 50/50 chance something good happens.

The best damage I got was having 3ermlas on the ACh and using those from distance and only using them 1-2 times if I shut someone down with the flamers. This is with having two flamers and a macro. You do not gain heat, but you also do not dissipate it. I do not think I broke 200 damage with about 6 games played. If your team is supporting you, do not expect them to close the gap and help position. They just shoot at you and the shut down mech. Either the team gets the kill or the mech suicides to just give up.

The most common enemy I found alone was dual gauss jagers. This is not good, and a regular light build would usually feed them their lunch.

In a team setting where utility and winning is better than pure damage, this could be a good troll move. I imagine 12 man teams with reduced drop weight putting max speed attack group swarms with a couple of flamer mechs for the new kids (the enlisted). I have seen units do this with lrms and other combos in reg group Q, but they still bring the meta to comp play.

I am for anything that reduces folks sitting in the back scamming damage while at 90%+. Flamer mechs will make their life real uncomfortable.

[Thunder Child]

Just adding my (brief) experience of them last night after work.

I found that any mech I ran with Flamers mounted on it tended to die horribly with a very low damage (and payout) at the end of the match. Any LIGHT that I ran with Flamers tended to spontaneously combust within seconds of enemy contact.
I believe the primary reason for this was a mental one. MUST GET IN RANGE AND SHUT THEM DOWN!!!! And so, I am suddenly exposed to half the enemy team, only one of which I can "stun-lock" with my steadily rising heat (because even macroed, the flamers massively reduce dissipation) before I die.

In short, I think Flamers could be an interesting addition to the game as an LRM type weapon. Something that fills a utility role, but doesn't affect the match overly much against skilled players.

But really, all the Flamer seems to be to me is yet ANOTHER nerf for the PPC.

[Roadkill]

Mad Strike, on 17 February 2016 - 09:22 AM, said:

Using the ember with 4 flamers and 4 machineguns.

Not the best testbed. That Mech can't really deal any damage on its own, so can't take advantage of the fact that its target shuts down.

Test using an FS9-A with 6 SPL and 2 Flamers. (Or 4 and 4 if you want.)

Now when the target shuts down you can actually do enough damage to kill it (or at least cripple it) before it starts back up.

[Averen]

I put 2 flamers into my atlas' ct. Not gonna meta, but fun has been had.

Funnily enough, this makes zombies mechs also much more dangerous. Really liked that time when I flamerfought at nova after losing all other weapons and winning.

Edited by Averen, 17 February 2016 - 11:25 AM.

[Chuck Jager]

Roadkill, on 17 February 2016 - 11:17 AM, said:

Not the best testbed. That Mech can't really deal any damage on its own, so can't take advantage of the fact that its target shuts down.

Test using an FS9-A with 6 SPL and 2 Flamers. (Or 4 and 4 if you want.)

Now when the target shuts down you can actually do enough damage to kill it (or at least cripple it) before it starts back up.

I tried the 6+2 build and found that I still did better in the arctic cheetah with 3 cermlas. I just shot them coming and going.

[Mole]

Only thing this flamer change means for me is that flamers might find their way into my mechs when I have a couple extra energy hardpoints, dont want to go for ghost heat, and would have otherwise just stuck a small laser in there instead.