6 replies to this topic

[FallenShaw]

Been pokeing around in the testing range and can't really find a viable reason for them. the 90 range and low damage is really bad. Even on the mechs in there i tend to overheat myself rather than them. So are they just a joke weapon in the game or are their actually viable builds?

[Blindbeard the Pirate]

There's a ton of reasons to use them. Even having one or two can cause otherwise hot mechs to shut down in environments like scouting when you're only engaging against small groups, and typically on warm or hot maps. A lot of common brawling mechs have the hardpoints to spare, like the bushies and griffin.



Shenanigans like this are rather possible in actual gameplay, too. Get yourself some heavy small lasers and go to town on a face instead of the nerfed spls. It's actually probably the easiest way to earn the headhunter achievement.

They're not optimal, but people absolutely hate them. I can't think of how many times I've had to preemptively coolshot to scare someone with them off of my face.

[Koniving]

Note that MWO locks the maximum heat that you can bring an enemy to at 90%, this is so that you cannot STUN lock them into overheating or cause them to explode for no effort.

There used to be a problem where players would have say, 4 mechs with flamers and then instantly shutdown stunlock, and cause mechs to explode in a matter of a seconds. It was rather abusive of already poorly game mechanics. So the maximum heat you can push them to is 90% and from there they shut themselves down if they try to fight you. If they have HALF a brain they won't shoot, and let you shut yourself down to easily kill you. So it's a risk/reward weapon.

And not the only weapon you have to boat.

A single flamer is enough, 6 flamers will do it really quick at a pretty high risk. The trick to 6 flamers is you'll bring them up to 90% so quickly that they might not even realize what happened when they foolishly fire at you. Where a single flamer might take a while.

[Koniving]

Before this, flamers only served to blind enemies because of that stun lock issue, in fact it did 0.14 damage and no heat to the enemy for a few years. AT the time though one could overcome the gradual massive heat buildup by flipping between two flamers in chain fire, or 4 in chain fire with two at a time, or etc...

allowing this to happen.
REMEMBER, this footage is no longer how they work.. and is only included for legacy information.

Spoiler

As such, after the big debacle and then having those useless things for years that we just abused to blind people and lag them into oblivion... PGI reworked them into their current form. That took quite some time but the new implementation is reasonable... but it makes you wish that they actually had some documentation about it.

[Daggett]

I love flamers and bring them on any mech with spare energy hardpoints and some heat-management.
At least on clan mechs because 0.5t per flamer is not much of an investment. For IS though it's a bit harder to justify them compared to more ammo or additional lasers.
You don't do this for their nonexistent damage though, it's all about heating the enemy up.

Regarding the low range: Every match resolves into a knife-fight at some point and then you can often get in range, even with slower mechs.

In general flamers are best on either very cool mechs or those with lots of DHS and DPS-focused weapons.
For example here are two builds i use which work very well with flamers:

First a Night Gyr with 3 LBX-10 and 5 Flamers. The LBX create almost no heat and are best used in close combat anyway so you can use those 5 flamers for a very long time to prevent your target from shooting back while you can shoot long enough to kill it.

The other one is a Hellbringer with 6 er-meds and 3 flamers. Here you got 29 DHS which allow you to flame in controlled bursts while still firing your lasers multiple times. On my laser-vomit Marauder-IIC however i would not equip flamers because each alpha generates too much heat and you rather want to shoot again as quickly as possible than to prevent some return fire.

Flamers also get more effective the more you equip because of how their 'heat-bar' works. With only one flamer you quickly reach the exponential heat-builtup zone where the flamer hurts you more than the target. Very often you won't be able to overheat your target quickly enough because of this.

But with 5 or 6 Flamers you get them to 90% while only using 25-50% of your heat-bar, enabling you to keep your target hot much longer, or engage multiple targets in a row. And as Koniving wrote, 6 flamers have a much better chance to surprise the target to provoke a shutdown.

Edit: Since a lot of players use shutdown-override, one of the meanest things i ever did was sneaking behind a laser-vomit MAD-IIC with a 6-Flamer Viper and started to flame right before his second alpha. The poor guy blew his fresh mech up in the process...

Edited by Daggett, 04 December 2017 - 06:43 AM.

[Jet Black Dog]

If I may, as a proponent of flamers from long before they had the " let go" bar, particularly vs clanners in close brawls (contributing to the old IS vs clan tactic, push in, brawl, don't let them cool down from those alphas) - may i add:
* even with the " just stop it" bar, flamers tend to take a bit of finesse and practice to use - then again, many weapons do,, no?- I don't recommend them while still getting the basics down. Like mg's, they tend to encourage people to "stare"- balancing this against defense ( are they just shooting your legs? for example... engaged with another target ? just alpha'd with a clearly hot build? ) - this is a bit much in terms of judgement and situational awareness, to ask if someone isn't a practiced brawler. In general, unless you're comfortable with them, - (but practice by all means , try everything!)- if we're running not-practice, I tend to suggest people unfamiliar with them stick with weapons that don't encourage one to lose sight of snap-shot and 'shield block'.
Second, I'd recommend - don't think of flamers as a way to shut people down - though plenty of people shut down or burn themselves without the help - instead; I recommend you think of flamers as a way to use an energy slot or two that would have otherwise made YOU run hot, to give your enemy a "debuff" : you are in effect saying, " Hi there- would you like to have a fight where you can't use half your weapons? Cos I'd like that! .. by all means, burn up that cool shot".
If you think if it thus, that better pilots aren't going to let you shut them down/ burn them down; and less practiced pilots are likely to do either; then the flamer is damage mitigation and cool shots not going into another alpha.
Even cooler running mechs, such as primarily ballistic-armed mechs can be in trouble with a bit of extra heat on them, but even so, - back to judgement and situational awareness ( got target info?) for knowing what's an ideal target and when.
Sometimes useful to make a "fair" brawl less so, but in a general melee, ask yourself- are you willing to give up doing damage, to mitigate damage?

Edited by Mercie, 11 December 2017 - 06:22 AM.

[Koniving]

FallenShaw, on 04 December 2017 - 01:30 AM, said:

Been pokeing around in the testing range and can't really find a viable reason for them. the 90 range and low damage is really bad. Even on the mechs in there i tend to overheat myself rather than them. So are they just a joke weapon in the game or are their actually viable builds?

It's been a while since we seen you.

Just a heads up: If you log in on the 27th of December, there's two free hero mechs, some MC, and cbills waiting for you.

(Have to play at least one match on top of logging in.)