Scorch advice requested

[ressenmacher]

Hey all, I've purchased the game recently and I've been having a ton of fun with Scorch. However, there are a few things that are giving me trouble.

First, does anybody have any tips for mitigating the risk enemy pilots pose? I tend to be staying close to and behind buildings because I can't compete at long range, and I'm slower than molasses, which is putting me at great risk of being overrun and rodeoed. I've tried the shoot wall and stand in thermite trick, and only ever managed to do a lot of damage to myself in the process, and I often get overwhelmed when I'm being shot at by several people dipping in and out of doorways.

I also have some issues with Thermal Shield. Not in the application, or getting up onto people to start melting, but once I'm actually there I can't see jack because my entire screen is on fire. I had one incredibly embarrassing moment tonight where I pushed a Northstar so out of position they ran into a friendly titan, but then they took off and I was so blind that I mixed up the two and kept roasting my very confused ally while getting pummeled from behind with rockets. Is there some visual setting or something I can turn down to help with this?

Finally, does anybody have some advice regarding when to call in my titan? I've just been holding off if either we have 3+ titans already or the enemy has no titans (because I feel Scorch is a little wasted in my hands vs pilots, for the aforementioned reasons), but is there more nuance to it that I should be aware of?

[Paladin Two-Seven]

Go and pick a fight with a scorch, then copy how it killed you in 3 seconds.

[Pseudo]

The loss of visibility from Flame Shield is just something you're going to have to get used to, against pilots you're mane weapon should be the thermite launcher, the projectile is very large so its easier to hit pilots than you think, and then of course there's flame shield and melee. Practice the trajectory of his launcher as well as his traps so that you can bounce them around corners and onto ledges. Use flame shield defensively, nothing can get past what it covers. If you are being rodeoed by a pilot and you have no smokes, put you're back up against a wall and look up while holding flame shield towards the end of the rodeo, they should die as well as drop the battery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45SD1u3oEsQ

[esturias]

Practice lobbing your canisters, so you can get them into hiding places. It's fun seeing pilots getting thrown out of the windows.

[Artek [General]]

Scorch is objectively the worst titan in the game. Ironically one of the most fun too. But still.
His issue is that he's worthless at any range that's outside of his flame shield range and on any map that doesn't have tight corridors and too many open spaces. Which is most of them. Or he has to camp that ONE part of the map, becoming the local metaphor for folklore creatures.
And i main him. He has the most levels of all of my titans, just because he's that fun when he works.

The only way to counter pilots is to pick enhanced napalm shot, since the extra napalm gives an extra chance to burn them with it, but its worthless if they are flying circles above you where napalm can't touch them anyway. Other than that - you'll have to pray somebody else will kill the parasite for you. Its ridiculous that a single pilot can easily demolish scorch with little to no resistance, because scorch's primary weapon is absolute garbage.
Your best options are:
- spray and pray with your napalm cannon praying to get a direct hit (the retarded option, but not like there are better ones);
- try to get into melee range to either punch the bastard or burn his face off with flame shield;
- if he's inside the building - lob a canister in there and ignite it. Sometimes works;
- the risky option: take a very good anti-pilot loadout and a phase-embark and just disembark to deal with parasites. Obviously useless if there's more than one.

Never had the issues with flameshield of that sorts but i can imagine that happening to me. That's just something you get used to, although wouldnt surprise me if its some graphical setting you have particularly high.

The nuance of titan calling is indeed a strong one, since you risk creating what i call "titan supremacy".
You call the titan in, dominate enemy pilots, but pilots slowly demolish you bit by bit, until you titan is destroyed and their entire team has theirs ready. So now you're back on foot VS 4+ enemy titans roaming the map, quickly reclaiming the score difference you created prior. 6 titans vs 6 pilots is especially painful to watch.
If you're going for first titanfall of the game - its better to at least pick a titan that can exterminate pilots efficiently, like Ion, Ronin or even Tone. But DEFINETELY not scorch. Pilots are scorch's primary weakness and he gets ♥♥♥♥♥♥' demolished by them.
So its better to wait until there's at least 1 enemy titan or better 2 or maximum 3. But if there's 4 or more - maybe you need to wait until an ally gets a titanfall as well, otherwise you risk getting surrounded because you can't exactly run away if cornered.

[ressenmacher]

Początkowo opublikowane przez esturias:

Practice lobbing your canisters, so you can get them into hiding places. It's fun seeing pilots getting thrown our of the windows.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Artek General:

- if he's inside the building - lob a canister in there and ignite it. Sometimes works

This is not something I had considered; I'll be sure to try it in the future.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Artek General:

The only way to counter pilots is to pick enhanced napalm shot, since the extra napalm gives an extra chance to burn them with it, but its worthless if they are flying circles above you where napalm can't touch them anyway.

Huh. Do you find that the Wildfire Launcher's boost vs pilots is enough to make it competitive with Tempered Plating and Inferno Shield?

[Artek [General]]

Początkowo opublikowane przez ressenmacher:

Początkowo opublikowane przez esturias:

Practice lobbing your canisters, so you can get them into hiding places. It's fun seeing pilots getting thrown our of the windows.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Artek General:

- if he's inside the building - lob a canister in there and ignite it. Sometimes works

This is not something I had considered; I'll be sure to try it in the future.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Artek General:

The only way to counter pilots is to pick enhanced napalm shot, since the extra napalm gives an extra chance to burn them with it, but its worthless if they are flying circles above you where napalm can't touch them anyway.

Huh. Do you find that the Wildfire Launcher's boost vs pilots is enough to make it competitive with Tempered Plating and Inferno Shield?

Enhanced Wilfire Launcher attempts to fix scorch's primary issue - low efficiency at medium-to-long range. I don't know the numbers, but from personal experience titans are indeed hurt a lot more by direct shots and extra napalm spread is noticeble and increases chances of getting pilots kills as well as making it more efficient against grunts and spectres.

Its unironically one of scorch's best kits just for the fact that it enhances his ranged capabilities. None of the other kits do that and instead they just enhance what scorch is already good at - close combat capabilities. I often take this kit if i want to play scorch on a clearly bad map with long-range engagements so that i wouldn't fall behind too hard.
Or when i'm just bored and i want to just casually shoot my cannon, instead of constantly trying to get to get close to the enemy in attempt to use my Flame Shield.

BTW scorch is the only titan who can just take potshots all the time. With infinite ammo and arcing projectile you can just... Shoot it all the time. No visual confirmation or line of sight needed, just pick a direction and shoot it across the map. Maybe some unlucky pilot will get hit by it on the other side.

[esturias]

And, even if you miss, the AoE effect will still cause damage and distraction. So just keep spamming shells in every direction.

[Ray Genesis]

I think there's a post above that addresses this, and it's not limited to Scorch, but when to drop your titan in is key to get good at judging. Sometimes you want to wait till a couple others on the team have dropped down so you spread enemy pilots' attention across multiple titans instead of just you.

More importantly, the worst thing is dropping in when you're outnumbered. Funnily enough, being good with Scorch is to know when to not call it down and helping the team using your anti-titan weapons. A pilot who can help and take down other titans can be more useful than flooding the fight with 1 more titan.

[ressenmacher]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Artek General:

BTW scorch is the only titan who can just take potshots all the time. With infinite ammo and arcing projectile you can just... Shoot it all the time. No visual confirmation or line of sight needed, just pick a direction and shoot it across the map. Maybe some unlucky pilot will get hit by it on the other side.

It seems like a neat idea, but the reload is so damn slow that I try shooting at somebody off in the distance and then boom, MGL in the doorway and I can't do jack about it. Perhaps if I were better at the flame shield cancel trick.

I have found some use in that vs other titans, at least when Ion and Northstar aren't present. I wish the thermite stuck to them more consistently; the damage probably honestly wouldn't even be all that bad if it just attached to them and kept burning every time.

[Artek [General]]

Początkowo opublikowane przez ressenmacher:

I wish the thermite stuck to them more consistently; the damage probably honestly wouldn't even be all that bad if it just attached to them and kept burning every time.

You literally just described white phosphorous.
Honestly should've been a separate kit or something. Would be very neat indeed.

WAR CRIMES, AHOY!

[Artek [General]]

Also, somewhat trivia side note. Scorch is one of the best titans to give enhanced AI chip kit. He can burn grunts and pilots purely through power of his AOE by spamming it everywhere. Especially good with argon plating, because then he doesn't burn himself on his own termite when he walks all over it and is not as much of a pilot feeder with no critical spots to hit.

[🎃MaximusBlastalot🎃]

Początkowo opublikowane przez ressenmacher:

I've tried the shoot wall and stand in thermite trick, I

You dont want to stand in the thermite you want to have the thermite drip onto your back where the pilot is.Also in gen if your using smokes its better to crouch in it as they jump out thru more smoke and take more dmg (same thign with walking to an edge with the pilot jumping out towards most of the smoke).

Also in gen part of your problem is you think about scorch "wrong". Scorch is good for eating up ai in something like bounty hunt, as a turret, and when paired with certain titans like legion. Scorch also can highly suffer depending on the map.

As far as calling down you titan same thing. You want to in gen if you are trying to "win" snowball so having more titans out is usually a good thing (thought again with scorch being map depdent on a bad map that might not be the best idea). You do not want to call down in gen if you are surrounded as all you will do is feed core/points. Try to get a titan down near another friendly titan or far away and farm ai for core/points (or in rare cases if you can get into a "checky postion" closer however as a newer player you are likely to misjudge that).

In short when placing scorch you have to treat scorch alot more "disposably" then other titans however you have to mitgate that by the fact you dont want to place scorch down and get instantly killed.

Also learn to reload cancel for quicker shots,heres a good guide video as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWwjzrjCF1s

[Hapleous]

The way to get good performance is to fully understand where its shortcomings are. Scorch is very weak at a range, so you're gonna want to play aggressively. Pilots don't pose much of a threat if you can learn to no-scope them (try to memorize the projectile trajectory). As an added bonus, thermal shield completely blocks Archer and Charge Rifle Shots.
What it counters and what counters it are important too. Scorch will absolutely decimate Ronin, and even Legion who get too close to you. Legion with Gun Shield up are your easiest targets. Scorch is just built for close range, rapid damage output.
On the other hand, Scorch can't compete with Northstar, Tone, Legion with LRB, Monarch, even Ion without closing the gap. The biggest thing is learning to close a gap quickly and skillfully.
That's about all I have. Hope this helps!

[Pseudo]

Początkowo opublikowane przez ressenmacher:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Artek General:

BTW scorch is the only titan who can just take potshots all the time. With infinite ammo and arcing projectile you can just... Shoot it all the time. No visual confirmation or line of sight needed, just pick a direction and shoot it across the map. Maybe some unlucky pilot will get hit by it on the other side.

It seems like a neat idea, but the reload is so damn slow that I try shooting at somebody off in the distance and then boom, MGL in the doorway and I can't do jack about it. Perhaps if I were better at the flame shield cancel trick.

I have found some use in that vs other titans, at least when Ion and Northstar aren't present. I wish the thermite stuck to them more consistently; the damage probably honestly wouldn't even be all that bad if it just attached to them and kept burning every time.

Reload cancel with flame shield

[🎃MaximusBlastalot🎃]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Trilby:

Początkowo opublikowane przez ressenmacher:

It seems like a neat idea, but the reload is so damn slow that I try shooting at somebody off in the distance and then boom, MGL in the doorway and I can't do jack about it. Perhaps if I were better at the flame shield cancel trick.

I have found some use in that vs other titans, at least when Ion and Northstar aren't present. I wish the thermite stuck to them more consistently; the damage probably honestly wouldn't even be all that bad if it just attached to them and kept burning every time.

Reload cancel with flame shield

You can also speed up most abilities (including flame shield and thus the reload cancel) by crouching thought it has the most impact on ronin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvUvkELBEP8