Flamer strengths?

[Drewskie]

So I got a flamer for my Zealot, and despite the initial awe, it's difficult to tell if it's truly effective. Against hordes of enemies, it's hard to tell when to take my finger off the fire button, and the lack of a true ranged weapon makes snipers a greater threat. The primary fire-basic blast doesn't seem to do much either. Is flamer a bit of a miss? Or am I using it improperly. Even against the bigger bads it seems to take quite a lot of pepper to bring something down.

[BFT9000]

Flamers to me seem to great for hordes and that's about it. There are blessings that will debuff enemies that are on fire.

[Void]

It takes about 2-3 seconds to kill any poxwalkers in your AOE on Malice, depending on the damage of your flamer. It says it has low damage but it's based on ticks, and there are a lot of ticks. Any enemy that catches on fire should be stunned for a second which is very useful to a team, but not being able to hit snipers/gunners is a difficult trade-off.

It's a really good gun, and I would say either go Thunder Hammer+Flamer, or Eviscerator+Bolter.

[Dou B Jin]

The primary fire is only good if you're fighting large targets and you want to reserve ammo. It does more damage over time for less charges.

Flamer doesnt do huge direct damage rather apply a burn effect that hits harder the longer its in contact with an enemy.

It's a crowd control weapon which helps the team greatly if you're team from being overwhelmed. It's not huge single target damage but it will delete anything not a crusher no matter how many there are. It also has a suppression effect preventing enemy hit from firing at you which is great stopping enemies from shooting at you.

With the exception of crushers (which takes reduced burn and bleed damage) doesn't matter how many of them as long as they're clumped together you can hold down alt fire and burn until they're dead.

Of course like you said they're weak against snipers, bomber due to their range but its also the best gun for dealing large numbers of enemies up close. It's also particularly bad against those exploding units because it takes a second for the dot to kill it and its usually already close enough to blow up when it happens.

[robert.s_a]

Kills hordes nicely enough, but thats about it. If you take the flamer its smart to take a melee weapon that's good for hitting single, heavy targets.

The flamers in vermintide 2 worked the same way. Truth be told, I've always felt its more a fun weapon than an actually practical one. The increased reliance on your team can be a pain too.

That being said, its a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ flamethrower. That definitely earns it some usability points.

[Spooky]

Ive seen flamers melt hordes and specialists, probably just depends on the right perks.

but yeah the primary attack is useless, from my experience to even hit with it you need to be pinpoint accurate to hit with it.

[Kattsylt]

I had issues with the flamer aswell at first. Now i use it all the time.
The vision can be a bit disturbing, especially if it has blessings that benefits from firing for a long time. I usually just stop for a short bit so i can get some vision again, the staggering stoppingpower of the flamer is great so they wont reach you anyway. If they do, you can still dodge while flaming. So practice to dodge around while using it and they will never hit you. The snipers and bursters and such isnt the zealots job, thats mainly for the Vetaran and Psyker to deal with. Just try to mark them for them when you can. Snipers are also quite easy to dodge once you get a hang of that.

When you play on Heresy and Damnation it will shine a bit more than on other difficulties where you have bigger and badder hordes coming your way.

[Losobal]

After running my psyker with flamer staff, I was pleased when my zealot got levelled to the point where it could use flamer, and then was disappointed. I think its the ready time and reload times that make it a 'no-go' for me. Kind of like how the bolter seems nice on the zealot, and can be, but without something like veterans 'reload when you trigger your ability', its 6+ second reload is brutal...plus that rack the bolt every time you switch to it.

So in a sense it goes counter to zealot stuff, since you'l' usually be in melee range, and those long setup times mean you will probably eat some hits.

[Jubblator]

Just use secondary attack and melt bosses within seconds, the way to get the under 20 sec kill achievement.

[EisenhowerShower]

the primary shot can be used to initiate into melee since it can reliably stun shooters to keep them from ripping you apart with gun fire, I'm pretty sure it also guarantees a burn proc.
The actual flamethrower part melts hordes, and with a long enough burst you can still melt some specials and human elites.

[Chrystal]

It's a CC weapon, great for hordes and removing lesser enemies from priority targets.

It attacks fast and that can work well with martydom stacks...if I read the skills correctly.

[doto]

as a flamer zealot player, its a horde clearing weapon and also helps against crowds of gun wielding enemies as it easily suppresses people around you.

you can also just use the standard lmb to stop specials from moving with it's stun. and while its ammo consuming, you can deal a consistent stream of damage on bosses to help down them quicker. it also doesnt get blocked by ogryns and other players.

1 grenade and a flamer can quickly trivialize even a high intensity horde.

it's also just really damn fun.

[s0laris]

Its insanely good on Damnation, assuming the rest of the team will make up for the lack of range and can kill stuff like snipers.

[Eagle_I_am | .tv/eagle_i_am]

Flamer burns everything with burn stacks. Demon of nurgle die with one canister of fuel wit hdecent flamer with ~high burn stat. Crushers die fast too.
Thats why you need no heavy melee weapon, just swift to deal with single targets.

And yes. You need to gather horde in nice ball to burn it quickly. And need good mates, who will target far specials.
Thats why flamer work best with premade team and awful with randoms. Especially with bad playing randoms.
While zealot has great potential to for clutches, flamer reduces it a lot.