27 replies to this topic

[1453 R]

So I'm running the new Heavyweight Duels event in one of my favorite heavy 'Mechs - Heckwarmer, an HLF-C configured for rapid close-quarters striker work (and as of this event, done up in lurid Buccaneer camo. The toasty old girl earned it). I use this thing all the time in QP and it's just delightful. I know general consensus is that flamers are absolutely worthless, but I love the ability to mess with the enemy's heat bar and punish the insanely hot Ultra Nova builds that psuh for maximum possible damage throughput and rely on Cool Shots to keep them going.

And yet here I am in the event getting hate mail from the people I'm defeating. Again, I'm in a sixty-ton 'Mech - the smallest, lightest weight point you can run this event in - that needs to face stare at enemies in point blank range to use its 'cheater' weapons. Am I really the bad gal here? I mean, hate mail is all well and good, half my circle thrives on that stuff, but I'm just not used to people throwing it my way. Have to ask: are flamers good, or are flamers bad? I can't imagine I'm getting hate mail because I brought SRMs to a duel, but I've never once seen one single compy player or loadout run flamers.

What's the synopsis, you guys think?

Edited by 1453 R, 02 September 2022 - 06:53 PM.

[sosegado]

Doesn't getting hate mail mean you're doing something right?

Personally I really dislike having flamers used against me but that's only because it's super crafty, and 'damn' I should have known someone would bring them!
They're a legit menace, and absolutely legit to bring.

Edited by Stab Wound, 02 September 2022 - 07:06 PM.

[1453 R]

Had two three five guys commit Heat Seppuku in just the last hour, heeh. Override: it's not free.

Edited by 1453 R, 02 September 2022 - 07:32 PM.

[crazytimes]

I felt bad after doing it a few times. I'm lacking in the skill to win a 1v1, but with flamers I accidentally won a match and that is not the correct order of things.

I'm just there to quickly grind the free mech bay and GSP, apologies to that dude I accidentally beat.

[w0qj]

You would not believe how many players are using flamers in this Solaris Event

On the plus side, there is only one mech chassis that is 100% immune to flamers, and it was hilarious to see flamers deployed against this certain mech! (Hint: External Heat Transfer)

[Saved By The Bell]

Flamers ok sometimes. Better on light with swarm machineguns.

w0qj, on 03 September 2022 - 12:55 AM, said:

You would not believe how many players are using flamers in this Solaris Event

On the plus side, there is only one mech chassis that is 100% immune to flamers, and it was hilarious to see flamers deployed against this certain mech! (Hint: External Heat Transfer)

Didnt know. Its 100% immune? Its Night gyr may be?

[w0qj]

1. Yes!
1a) Night Gyr is -100% External Heat Transfer (immune vs flamers, does not get hot from Terra Therma envir, but does not cool in Polar Highlands either as a drawback).
1b ) Battlemaster BLR-1GHE hero assault mech: -50% External Heat Transfer

2. Above are the only two mechs with -XX External Heat Transfer quirk.
https://mwo.nav-alpha.com/mechs
Search in the Quirk Box on lower left hand corner, "External Heat Transfer".

Saved By The Bell, on 03 September 2022 - 12:58 AM, said:

...Didnt know. Its 100% immune? Its Night gyr may be?

[Hunka Junk]

w0qj, on 03 September 2022 - 03:25 AM, said:

1. Yes!
1a) Night Gyr is -100% External Heat Transfer (immune vs flamers, does not get hot from Terra Therma envir, but does not cool in Polar Highlands either as a drawback).

Holy crabcakes

I wish I'd known that a couple hours ago.

Aren't flamers modified for Solaris?

They are everywhere in this even, but they seem to heat up really fast.

Overall, it's easy peasy to get the reward, but I liked the drop deck event more.

I'll add that what I like about both events is not having map voting to slow down the load process.

I have zero interest in map voting. It's an antiquated concept that was popular about 15 years ago.

[Curccu]

1453 R, on 02 September 2022 - 06:52 PM, said:

Have to ask: are flamers good, or are flamers bad? I can't imagine I'm getting hate mail because I brought SRMs to a duel, but I've never once seen one single compy player or loadout run flamers.

Ex-compy player here...
Flamers are super awesome on clan brawlers specially with few extra energy slots and a ton of free space.
Some of my favorite toaster builds on1-iic-a, acw-a and hmn-c.

[1453 R]

Having spent 'bout three hours shooting robits yesterday before going to bed at one-thirty A.M. (dead gods bless holiday weekends), I can safely say this: it's not the flamers that're giving people gas. It's the flamers being mounted on a 'Mech that can charge you at 128kph that's giving people gas. Nobody in this event is ready for something this fast, and if people don't think speed/mobility matters in one-on-one duels they're wrong.

Had a fight last night with a SplatDoge rocking hex-ASRM-6 and quadruple flamers - basically me, but with half again the damage throughput and double the heat basting. Seems like a super easy win for SplatDoge, yes? NOPE. Heckwarmer has twenty clicks on a stock Doge by default and nearly fifty when I punch the Initial D button - if I don't want to be in flamer range of something I don't have to be, and if I do want to be in flamer range of something there is crack-all nada anything else in the heavy bracket can do about it. That Doge was not prepared for me to dive into flamer range, realize what I was fighting, then jump right back out of flamer range and invite it to play an edge-of-SRM-range marksmanship duel instead - and I was firing four launchers at once while he was going three by three and having to shoot something MASCing and juking all over the slalom in the middle of Steiner Colosseum. Wrecked that Doge's entire existence, didn't even suffer an armor breach, because it had no way to catch me and force me into the fight it wanted to fight.

Hellfires. They're not nearly as bad as everybody says they are. You should own one, and if I get my way I will single-handedly Win Streak this game into everybody getting HLF-Cs this month. N'yah!

Also yeah, PSA The Second: turn your damn overrides off. I had SO MANY people committing Heat Seppuku last night - one of them, hysterically, a second or so after I accidentally shut down myself trying to get one last blast off to save my own bacon. The Override key is not a replacement for heat management, y'all!

Edited by 1453 R, 03 September 2022 - 06:56 AM.

[Curccu]

1453 R, on 03 September 2022 - 06:55 AM, said:

Also yeah, PSA The Second: turn your damn overrides off. I had SO MANY people committing Heat Seppuku last night - one of them, hysterically, a second or so after I accidentally shut down myself trying to get one last blast off to save my own bacon. The Override key is not a replacement for heat management, y'all!

Well I prefer heat seppuku over shutdown seppuku, both will kill you... 1st option gives you chance to take someone with you.
But yeah override isn't replacement for heat management but it will help you stay alive if you go bit over 100%, you take a little damage instead being shutdown in front of enemy blasting you to smithereens.
Only good shutdown is shutdown you know you will not get shot while you are helpless. For example poptarting from behind hill, shutting down after alpha mid air and staying behind that hill while recovering from that heat.

[1453 R]

Curccu, on 03 September 2022 - 07:22 AM, said:

Well I prefer heat seppuku over shutdown seppuku, both will kill you... 1st option gives you chance to take someone with you.
But yeah override isn't replacement for heat management but it will help you stay alive if you go bit over 100%, you take a little damage instead being shutdown in front of enemy blasting you to smithereens.
Only good shutdown is shutdown you know you will not get shot while you are helpless. For example poptarting from behind hill, shutting down after alpha mid air and staying behind that hill while recovering from that heat.

Heh...counterpoint: fight I just had. Dueling a Cauldron-Born with two Quack-10s and a bunch of SPLs on 'Mech Factory. Dance around a bit, start fighting, he's generally winning the DPS race...but I notice his fully armored structure is starting to take damage. Say to myself "Self: this is a man who's committing Heat Seppuku and hoping to Hell I go down before his innards do." So I lay on the flamers, let them red out and start baking me a bit too, and watch his structure go from yellow, to orange, to "[Bad Guy] has killed [Bad Guy]."

Because I can see you committing Heat Seppuku. In regular quickplay, sure. In duels like this? I honestly think the shutdown is less dangerous than the override. There's no one to pick up your slack when you commit Heat Seppuku, and one target enemy isn't always going to be able to fully capitalize on a short shutdown.

[Tromoskyon Rex]

Flamers can be super annoying and I definitely can see why they're regarded as being cheap. That said, its a 1 v 1, anything goes. Personally I've been getting a kick out of having one flamer on standby to overheat the abusers who ironically aren't using override.

[Alex Morgaine]

legit tactic. like bringing a suicidal dual HGR SHS to make it fit mech XD

[The Captain Dead]

Every time a player uses the flame thrower I beat him, why? Because it takes two subnose shots, 3 lbx10 shots and 3 shots of 3 srm bursts 6.

Start the fight with 70% of his life it’s complicated.

[Nightbird]

1453 R, on 03 September 2022 - 07:50 AM, said:

Heh...counterpoint: fight I just had. Dueling a Cauldron-Born with two Quack-10s and a bunch of SPLs on 'Mech Factory. Dance around a bit, start fighting, he's generally winning the DPS race...but I notice his fully armored structure is starting to take damage. Say to myself "Self: this is a man who's committing Heat Seppuku and hoping to Hell I go down before his innards do." So I lay on the flamers, let them red out and start baking me a bit too, and watch his structure go from yellow, to orange, to "[Bad Guy] has killed [Bad Guy]."

Because I can see you committing Heat Seppuku. In regular quickplay, sure. In duels like this? I honestly think the shutdown is less dangerous than the override. There's no one to pick up your slack when you commit Heat Seppuku, and one target enemy isn't always going to be able to fully capitalize on a short shutdown.

Flamers don't do anything to people over 90% heat. It can take enemies up to 90% heat and that's all.

If you're facing someone using flamers, as long as you chainfire your weapons between 90-100 heat, you can ignore the flamers and do normal DPS.

[1453 R]

Nightbird, on 03 September 2022 - 06:01 PM, said:

Flamers don't do anything to people over 90% heat. It can take enemies up to 90% heat and that's all.

If you're facing someone using flamers, as long as you chainfire your weapons between 90-100 heat, you can ignore the flamers and do normal DPS.

To be fair, you don't get your "normal" DPS. You only get your heat-neutral DPS, and that only if your weapons can fire between 90 and 100 without overheating. Energy builds often can't, and if they can their rate of fire is drastically slower. Yeah, one can play around flamers, they're not a magic bullet. Which is good, really. You should be able to play around them. Some matches are basically freebies for me because the enemy's a heavy beam burn 'Mech and flamers just kinna turn off their weapons while I'm actively broasting them, and some fights the flamers do me no good at all.

Honestly that's been the case more and more as the event's progressed, I've been running into less heat-intensive burner builds and more heat-neutral stuff that doesn't particularly care if it's being broasted or not. People're abandoning their laser spike 'Mechs and moving to cannons, missiles, and bringing their own torches.Heh, what I've discovered is that my lovely Hellfire is pretty vulnerable to enemy flamers. I can chainfire the SRMs but my damage throughput is sharply reduced and it needs a whole lot more facetime than usual, puts me at a definite disadvantage. That's part of playing around the weapons though, and even if it wasn't - those who live by the blowtorch will die by the blowtorch. Heh.

EDIT: besides. Everybody knows the real degenerates in this event are the Feeties Shooters. If you're running around legging everything you see in every match you get no complaints at all about flamer 'Mechs. Heh.

Edited by 1453 R, 03 September 2022 - 06:51 PM.

[Nightbird]

1453 R, on 03 September 2022 - 06:44 PM, said:

To be fair, you don't get your "normal" DPS. You only get your heat-neutral DPS, and that only if your weapons can fire between 90 and 100 without overheating. Energy builds often can't, and if they can their rate of fire is drastically slower. Yeah, one can play around flamers, they're not a magic bullet. Which is good, really. You should be able to play around them. Some matches are basically freebies for me because the enemy's a heavy beam burn 'Mech and flamers just kinna turn off their weapons while I'm actively broasting them, and some fights the flamers do me no good at all.

Honestly that's been the case more and more as the event's progressed, I've been running into less heat-intensive burner builds and more heat-neutral stuff that doesn't particularly care if it's being broasted or not. People're abandoning their laser spike 'Mechs and moving to cannons, missiles, and bringing their own torches.Heh, what I've discovered is that my lovely Hellfire is pretty vulnerable to enemy flamers. I can chainfire the SRMs but my damage throughput is sharply reduced and it needs a whole lot more facetime than usual, puts me at a definite disadvantage. That's part of playing around the weapons though, and even if it wasn't - those who live by the blowtorch will die by the blowtorch. Heh.

EDIT: besides. Everybody knows the real degenerates in this event are the Feeties Shooters. If you're running around legging everything you see in every match you get no complaints at all about flamer 'Mechs. Heh.

If someone is taking no heat efficient weapons to a 1v1, they're just bad to start with. You don't even need flamers to kill them. I'm just explaining why few take them. People will just blast away to 90% heat before you get within flamer range, and then use their heat efficient weapons which they would have been forced to do anyways. In this scenario, only the attacker using the flamers is actually gaining heat from the weapons, not the defender.

[Maj Destruction]

This conversation got me interested in flamers again. I'd tried them briefly when I first started. When I realized they do no direct damage and just run up heat, I ditched 'em.

I gave up the small lasers on my Flea to load a couple flamers, just to try it again. My damage score is down considerably (got to where I'd been pulling 400+ pretty easily with the Flea), but the gameplay has been interesting. I realized the flamer might be useful in the Flea when I found myself doing a lot of sneak-and-backstab. I'm often able to nip at a big mech's heels and not even take damage. Anyways, I must say I'm seeing a lot more shutdown mechs. In fact, I'd say if I can get an enemy mech to the point of shutdown while there is also a team mate or two around, it's almost a guarantee kill (usually not MY kill, but who cares?).

Not great for my score, but good for the team, and really quite fun. It does force me to use a little more heat discipline myself.

Matt

[An6ryMan69]

People get angry with flamers because they are basically a scammer weapon, particularly in 1v1 play.

There, I said it.

They're in the game, but seriously...

Most players out there simply have no answer to massed flamers being all over them - at least in quickplay people can be saved by team members, but in 1v1, its game over most of the time once the flamers light up. And the solaris type maps are small and generally ambush friendly, so that only makes things worse.

So people get frustrated as they feel, mostly rightly, that they never really had a chance.

No surprises there.

Edited by An6ryMan69, 06 September 2022 - 09:07 AM.