Fuel stream diffuser Is good. Really good.

[Torres, The Devourer]

When it comes to overlooked OCs, what do you think of?
RJ250?
Turret EM discharge?
Thermal liquid coolant?
Quickfire ejector?
One OC stands out to me as being woefully underrated, and I'm not making another overturned feed mechanism thread, I'm talking about Fuel Stream Diffuser.

You know, every once and a while I see people say the Fuel stream diffuser is bad or is just ok. Hell, I'm willing to bet that many of you forgot about it!

In fact, what if I told you that it is a straight upgrade to the base flamethrower? What if I told you that you could reach a range of a whopping 20 meters with this OC? What if I told you I'm dragging out this introduction in a vain attempt at comedy?

Anyways, something that many people don't know about is that RoF only affects damage. It doesn't affect heat, sticky flames, or even heat radiance. So you are making your flamethrower more efficient. So I then realized I could use max range CRSPR with triple filters fuel to light up hordes of enemies walking up to me. By quickly lighting them on fire, I can use DoT to finish them off and set up fire combos for weapons that benefit from them.

I run a build of 22231. This way I can:
Attack enemies from longer ranges.
Light big groups of grunts fast with the long range.
Abuse heat spreading and heat radiance.
And have a lot of fun doing it!

I experimented with some secondary builds, but I don't think you can really go wrong with this build. Though, fire combos (T5 A subata and T5 C cooker) come to mind as being very good.

[Fryskar]

Imo its ok. I don't really need it and don't lile FM, so i run more ammo.

[Frisky]

it's okay I guess, I wouldn't call it a straight upgrade though personally

one thing that annoys me though is due to the slower RoF (which yes is nice for heat builds) firing while airborn makes the flamethrower jittery and I don't like that

slower RoF doing more good for the flamer than bad though in the long run probably helps explain why I hate face melter with every single fiber of my being

it's fun having a sniper flamer but I prefer my high ammo + damage build

also RJ250 is less overlooked than it used to be but it still doesn't get enough love, easily one of the most useful OCs on the PGL alongside hyper propellant

EM discharge is also alright though I don't have much experience using it because I avoid using the stubby as much as possible, kinda annoying when an engineer spams it in CQC preventing everyone's shields from charging though

if were talking about OCs I forgot though what is quickfire ejector? coulda swore that was a mod upgrade not an OC, do you mean crossbow quickfire OC?

[Chibbity]

Yes, FSD is great for Industrial Sabotage; or Rival Incursions.

Besides, having an absurdly long ranged flame thrower is just fun lol.

That said, I prefer Sticky flames for most mission types; but FSD is a solid alternative with a different playstyle.

[Torres, The Devourer]

Originally posted by Fryskar:

Imo its ok. I don't really need it and don't lile FM, so i run more ammo.

I don't like facemelter either.
... I just remembered something. During my early days as both a green beard I had this impression that i just HAD to get face melter, and that Ice storm was plain ol' bad.
Now? Ice storm is one of my favorite OCs, and I can't stand face melter. Funny how that works!

Originally posted by Frisky:

it's okay I guess, I wouldn't call it a straight upgrade though personally

one thing that annoys me though is due to the slower RoF (which yes is nice for heat builds) firing while airborn makes the flamethrower jittery and I don't like that

slower RoF doing more good for the flamer than bad though in the long run probably helps explain why I hate face melter with every single fiber of my being

if were talking about OCs I forgot though what is quickfire ejector? coulda swore that was a mod upgrade not an OC, do you mean crossbow quickfire OC?

3 things.
1. I'd still call it a straight upgrade in my book.
2. I also can not stand face melter. To me, it has 3 really annoying downsides. One of them being the RoF boost.
3. Yes I meant to say quickfire OC, oops! I think both clean OCs for the crossbow are pretty overlooked at times. Though I can't say for sure because I see a decent amount of specialist users.

Originally posted by Chibbity:

Yes, FSD is great for Industrial Sabotage; or Rival Incursions.

Besides, having an absurdly long ranged flame thrower is just fun lol.

That said, I prefer Sticky flames for most mission types; but FSD is a solid alternative with a different playstyle.

Sticky flames are really good. Though, I'd really like to give sticky additive another shot. I doubt it'll do much, but it would be nice to revisit.

[kestrel]

i definitely wouldnt be calling rj250 or EM discharge overlooked lol
theyre some of the best scaling OCs for modded difficulties

[Plumber]

facemelter is nice exclusively for Sabotage and that's all I've liked taking it for; ceiling/zipline c4, run down to burn the tentacles and throw axes at the eye, repeat
But that's about it, sticky flames is my fav way to play crispr otherwise

[Torres, The Devourer]

Originally posted by kestrel:

i definitely wouldnt be calling rj250 or EM discharge overlooked lol
theyre some of the best scaling OCs for modded difficulties

really? I hardly ever see EM discharge used in my games despite it being really good, but then again that is anecdotal evidence and should be taken with a grain of salt.

Though I have seen more RJ250 users recently and more frequently and that makes me happy.

[Metameat]

em discharge really shines against the caretaker, put turrets on plat castle at the top of the caretaker, and each discharge hits every weakpoints.

I usually run it with fatboi so that I can damage the core from any angle in phase 2

[Hi, I'm Ari.]

How is FSD overrated? It's probably the most ran CRSPR OC.

[kestrel]

Originally posted by Mark, The Devourer:

really? I hardly ever see EM discharge used in my games despite it being really good, but then again that is anecdotal evidence and should be taken with a grain of salt.

maybe not so much in vanilla but it's a very strong pick for modded difficulties due to how cheap and spammable it is. it's godtier on haz6x2 due to the sheer number of enemy spawns, you need something to chew through those waves
combined with incendiary PGL (and maybe breach cutter too, not sure, i dont play 6x2 very often due to how rare servers are) it makes engie probably the best waveclear class in the game, even moreso than driller

Though I have seen more RJ250 users recently and more frequently and that makes me happy.

probably people realising it is good because lazymaybe shilled it hard

[Sokaku]

My "fun" build for Defensive Engie is EM Discharge. The blast radius is considerable, it doesn't require turret ammo, and works on any engineer's turrets. For Salvage or Refinery, you can use platforms to build out over objectives and leave turrets next to the walls on either side. Anything trying to reach you gets a double-dose. The key to using it well is figuring out the spacing for repellent platforms, which is actually a fair bit wider than you might think.

4 Engies running Gemini /w a mix of EM Discharge, Turret Arc, and Turret Whip, doing Salvage to the theme of 1812...

[Aimee]

Fuel Stream Diffuser certainly is .. a thing.
Its nice that you get an increase in range, realy realy nice actualy. But the decrease in flowrate make it painful on hazard 5 imho. Because it realy reduces the DPM, so you are mandatory running Tier 3.1 Oversized Valves to keep up with the dpm to kill things.
I still like it though, just wished the downside was not that bad. I dont think its fair to gain 5m range and give up 1.2 flowrate. Since that means you just change the flamethrower parameters slightly, but not gain an actual buff. Unlike most OC's that give a straigt up benefit to a weapon and make it stronger.

You gain 33% increase in range (assuming 15m) and have to give up 20% of your DPS. Thats a bit much imho, you can always fire slower and in bursts. But once a weapon is downgraded you cant do anything once you do need more dps.

[Bogan]

its good for sabotage and mactera swarm thats about it

[JeanneOskoure]

FSD is good for what it aims to achieve (long range heating weapon), but outside of this niche, the decrease in DPS really hurts. Sure, it is technically more efficient because you heat enemies as much for less fuel, but let's be honest: outside of robots or a temp shock wave cooker, the range isn't worth the DPS loss.
If you want to use the CRSPS as your primary, it really cripples your ability to kill things, and honestly I've found that heat radiance is already good enough to set things on fire, so I'd rather kill grunts and praetorians quicker instead of gaining a tiny bit of ammo efficiency against robots.

[Fryskar]

Originally posted by Sokaku:

My "fun" build for Defensive Engie is EM Discharge. The blast radius is considerable, it doesn't require turret ammo, and works on any engineer's turrets. For Salvage or Refinery, you can use platforms to build out over objectives and leave turrets next to the walls on either side. Anything trying to reach you gets a double-dose. The key to using it well is figuring out the spacing for repellent platforms, which is actually a fair bit wider than you might think.

4 Engies running Gemini /w a mix of EM Discharge, Turret Arc, and Turret Whip, doing Salvage to the theme of 1812...

Imo discharge is fairly powerful, but its too reactive and dependant on chokes/positioning of the turrets.
I used it to great effect on STE, 200 cap.
Arc is just worse. Too much work, too restrictive for too few effect.