How do flamers work?

[ChompyRiley]

What determines if/how they hit? Is it ballistics? Do they just auto-hit? Do I need perception? I'm planning on doing a hardcore fire-build, but I'm not entirely sure how to make flamers, if not effective, at least usable y'know what I mean?

[ChompyRiley]

bump

[xelakerley]

afaik it's the same as any other shooting, could be wrong tho

[DexGames]

It is Ballistic as far I know. Though for Damage it's actually Willpower for a specific reason
I've tried it, I've made my Argenta a monster flamer, because she's actually kinda prebuilt for it.

Imo, you need to be a "Ministorum Priest" like she is because, you / she gets a Talent, way down in the bottom, called : "Something Faith".
("Foi Dépossédante" in my language, sry I don't know the translation)

This talent is crazy good for Flamers, (it is built for it after all), You have to take it.
Where it makes your attacks with a Flamer scale with Willpower (and gets boosted in the process)

Though to "Touch / Hit" your Target, you WILL need Ballistic Skill.
So to resume :
- Ministorum Priest / Argenta is mandatory, in my opinion.
- Get the skill "Foi Dépossédante".
- Build Ballistic Skill and Willpower (n°1 priority), then add some Agility (n°2 priority)
For Initiative so you can burn a maximum of target right from the get go of battle, and so that enemies gets reduced chances of dodging your attacks.

(Agility AND Perception gives "Dodge Reduction)

Hope that helps, the most important part is that one skill imo, and Willpower scaling as you level up. Then anything that revolves around Flamer, like expert in flame weapons, heavy weapons (as there are Heavy Flamethrowers in the game), etc.

EDIT : as for Perception... Past level 30+, you would have maxed out your ability to pick Ballistic, Willpower and Agility. So, might aswell add some Perception as your n°3 priority, can only help.

(or Weapon Skill if you wanna go for Flaming a maximum of targets 1st hit, and then Melee + Bolter as your second set of one-hand weapons, or Melee + Hand Flamer.
Ignore this if want a Pure Flamer only build)

[Zhein]

It's half bugged and frustrating. One in three flamer shot doesn't land at all (no roll requires, it apparently just dissipates into space)

Line of sight and cone are terribly implemented. You can't hit certain tiles in your own range with the line flame. for no reason, apparently you can't draw a line that is two tiles up and one tile left. and sometime you can.

Playing with height is even worth, you can somehow, with a flamer, shoot someone on stairs and not hit the guy in front of him on the same stairs because he's not on the same height.

So it's clearly not usable in this state.

Contrary to the previous poster say, also, WP is useless. Flensing Faith doesn't work properly. Tooltip say one thing, damage shown on the tooltip say another, real damage dealt say a third thing. Also it doesn't apply where it should, for exemple, on Rykad Minoris when you're face with chaos spawns, so obviously chaos-y thingies, flensing faith doesn't work on them.

Also, it's perception, not agility, it's not a melee weapon.

Now, flamers are plenty bad, but the perk make them acceptable as a backup weapon : It's a 0 ap backup weapon. And when you get the exploder or whatever it's name in... ACT 3 ? It's actually fun to have a low range flamer that makes people explode, but it's really really subpar. That's really the only thing good about flamers : the fact that they cost 0 ap, so with a officer's heroic you can empty your fuel at xenos, without bothering about AP cost.

[DexGames]

Might be bugged as Zhein said, can't argue if true or not.
That said, in a "perfect world" where everything is fixed and working properly :
- Still think my build is the way to go ^^

But yeah, maybe you just "can't" play it right now
(even though I found my Flamer Argenta be awesome, I play on Unfair only)

Up to you ! Wait for patch maybe and play something else !

[hydrit]

Originally posted by Zhein:

It's half bugged and frustrating. One in three flamer shot doesn't land at all (no roll requires, it apparently just dissipates into space)

Line of sight and cone are terribly implemented. You can't hit certain tiles in your own range with the line flame. for no reason, apparently you can't draw a line that is two tiles up and one tile left. and sometime you can.

Playing with height is even worth, you can somehow, with a flamer, shoot someone on stairs and not hit the guy in front of him on the same stairs because he's not on the same height.

So it's clearly not usable in this state.

Contrary to the previous poster say, also, WP is useless. Flensing Faith doesn't work properly. Tooltip say one thing, damage shown on the tooltip say another, real damage dealt say a third thing. Also it doesn't apply where it should, for exemple, on Rykad Minoris when you're face with chaos spawns, so obviously chaos-y thingies, flensing faith doesn't work on them.

Also, it's perception, not agility, it's not a melee weapon.

Now, flamers are plenty bad, but the perk make them acceptable as a backup weapon : It's a 0 ap backup weapon. And when you get the exploder or whatever it's name in... ACT 3 ? It's actually fun to have a low range flamer that makes people explode, but it's really really subpar. That's really the only thing good about flamers : the fact that they cost 0 ap, so with a officer's heroic you can empty your fuel at xenos, without bothering about AP cost.

Dunno about the damage calculations but Flensing Faith works on Daemons and Psykers, and at half power on Xenos. Chaos Spawn are despite their horrid looks just mutated humans (or other races), doesnt work on them.

And if you mean the Flamer common perk, it makes attacks 1AP cheaper but to a minimum of 1AP. So no 0AP from that one, just cheaper aoe.

[Sloul Des Tucs]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J585k0vdIuI

[Morgian]

Flamers seem to work off ballistic skill. When I point a flamer at someone I can see the chance of hitting the target.
There are a couple talents that bolster flamers, but they are mostly second rate weapons. There are two things about flamers which are bad:
- short range that cannot be changed; if it says 6 aquares, it is 6 squares; with a gun you can shoot a bit farther at half chance, but not with flamers
- the damage sucks, unless you are specced for it, and even then I never got past 110 damage
- there is a bug - or maybe dodge works differently for NPCs - when you flame a group and none of them are singed (and don't move away like we do)

I gave always the best flamer I had to Argenta (has already the skill), since she can get use out of it. She needs a second weapon for more versatility anyway, it can be used to clean up mooks, and if she spends 3-4 attacks per round on it she can do 400 damage over a close area. She has also access to Flensing Faith, making fire more effective against a couple of enemies, which happen to be the majority.

Edit: flamers can used to assist pyro psykers, if you are into that.

[wei270]

there are system for when you shot single, there are system for when you shot burst, and then there are system for when you shot aoe.

flamer use Aoe mechiism so it is a alittle wierd when it hits or doesn't hit.
i don't know how aoe mechaism works but i do know there is partical damage system where they enemy dodges but not complete, so with aoe and flamer by extenstion you can do partial damage on hit.

also if you notice some time you character would move during dodge, that only occurs when enemy is using aoe attacks on you.

[Zhein]

Originally posted by hydrit:

And if you mean the Flamer common perk, it makes attacks 1AP cheaper but to a minimum of 1AP. So no 0AP from that one, just cheaper aoe.

Nope. Tooltip lies, it's 0 AP. I know I've used flamers for 200 hours with Argenta. I know full well how they work or not. The fact that you don't know that tells me that you've never used flamers :D And it works with the officer giving MP action, so you can use your flamer with 0AP with your move action (and stack versatility with that.)


Also : Chaos Spawn should by all means be a demon. Or you'll be arguing that a deamonhost isn't a demon because it used to be a human ?

It's clearly not in the spirit of the ability.

Originally posted by Morgian:

- there is a bug - or maybe dodge works differently for NPCs - when you flame a group and none of them are singed (and don't move away like we do)

No no, it's a bug, you'll notice that there are no rolls of any kind in the console when that happens, no dodge nor anything.

I think that it has something to do with cover and/or side steping. My best guess is that flamers are supposed to maybe not work behind cover, or when the target is behind cover, so if you aim at a tile that is "behind cover" it completly cancels the AOE.

[Chapter_Brother]

From my own experience Flamers are extremly good when builded properly.

Master Militiant and Soldier are obvious picks, origin doesn't matter honestly.

Now, all area of effect weapon damage scale off Inteligence, or when picking Demolition Engineer, from a Demolition stat, we should always pick that up.

At least in early game I like to use shotgun, so flamer was just an upgrade considering how much we can juice it up with right perks in solder tree.

I think we should ignore the Willpower scaling perk since we want high Balistics, Perception and Agility (that also boost Demolition) to deal with high dodge Xeno enemies. Though it's nice little bonus vs Xenos in entire game I guess.

The reason why flamers are insanelly good is how many AoE % damage perks we can stack on each other. In late game those perks are all that matters for nuking anything, even bosses. I've had situations when I could auto crit armoured bosses for 300-450 and with Cassia help I could just spam that till the boss was nothing but a dust.

I've builded Ulfar around flamers (especially the last one with up to 90 base damage) and he was soloing entire encounters with it. Like seriously just give him the necklace that allows him for 0AP to Dash Twice and Run and Gun them in to oblivion.

There is a helmet that makes his fire DoT hit twice as hard, but since Ulfar was oneshotting anything, or killing though enemies in single turn there is hardly a use of that, but it's better than nothing.

People complain about the range, but honestly with how spamable heroics are I can just run circles around the battlefield and burn anything that happens to block the path. I think Ulfar is much better pick for that since he has more HP and higher stats in general compared to Argenta that is ussualy a glass cannon till she gets her hands on power armour... that is kind of meh. The only problem with Ulfar is that u need quite high level to repair the mess in his build (or just play mod to level up him properly).

That being said I think that Flamer is one of 3 best ranged weapons in the entire game, with Plasma being a little more convinient to use and build and Sniper Rifle to rule them all.

[serek heterogenizowany♿]

Originally posted by Chapter_Brother:

Now, all area of effect weapon damage scale off Inteligence, or when picking Demolition Engineer, from a Demolition stat, we should always pick that up.

To be precise, only non burst area weapon damage = plasma, melta, fire

[Revan619]

Just an FYI. Flensing Faith applies to ALL weapons vs Xenos.

[Big E]

Originally posted by DexGames:

It is Ballistic as far I know. Though for Damage it's actually Willpower for a specific reason
I've tried it, I've made my Argenta a monster flamer, because she's actually kinda prebuilt for it.

Imo, you need to be a "Ministorum Priest" like she is because, you / she gets a Talent, way down in the bottom, called : "Something Faith".
("Foi Dépossédante" in my language, sry I don't know the translation)

This talent is crazy good for Flamers, (it is built for it after all), You have to take it.
Where it makes your attacks with a Flamer scale with Willpower (and gets boosted in the process)

Though to "Touch / Hit" your Target, you WILL need Ballistic Skill.
So to resume :
- Ministorum Priest / Argenta is mandatory, in my opinion.
- Get the skill "Foi Dépossédante".
- Build Ballistic Skill and Willpower (n°1 priority), then add some Agility (n°2 priority)
For Initiative so you can burn a maximum of target right from the get go of battle, and so that enemies gets reduced chances of dodging your attacks.

(Agility AND Perception gives "Dodge Reduction)

Hope that helps, the most important part is that one skill imo, and Willpower scaling as you level up. Then anything that revolves around Flamer, like expert in flame weapons, heavy weapons (as there are Heavy Flamethrowers in the game), etc.

EDIT : as for Perception... Past level 30+, you would have maxed out your ability to pick Ballistic, Willpower and Agility. So, might aswell add some Perception as your n°3 priority, can only help.

(or Weapon Skill if you wanna go for Flaming a maximum of targets 1st hit, and then Melee + Bolter as your second set of one-hand weapons, or Melee + Hand Flamer.
Ignore this if want a Pure Flamer only build)

Woah, woah, woah. Are you saying Flensing Faith is bugged and adds the WP bonus to damage... against all enemies?
That's huge.

Soldier Stat clarification:
Ballistic Skill -- Hit/Crit, modifies soldier talents
Agility -- Is a defensive stat, modifies talents
Perception -- Reduces enemy dodge
Intelligence -- Unless talented(Demolition Engineer) -- Determines AREA damage

Initiative rolls are mostly a mystery.

[WuTaNiSt]

14 month necro so it could be doing anything by now