Flamethrower buff is misguided

[Jozsefirst]

I appreciate the recent balance changes, they are definitely a step in the right direction but I find the flamethrower buff problematic.

While overall damage increase is nice and was warranted, 50% feels a bit much, especially considering that the flamethrower's biggest issue wasn't it's direct damage output but the lackluster afterburn damage of the flames themselves.

Flames deal almost non existent damage to enemies. If this was exclusive to robots I'd say fair enough, but bugs tooseem to shred off flame damage like it's nothing. This is the same issue that the napalm airstrike and the rest of the incediary weapons suffer from. They look fancy and do deal *some* damage to the enemy swarms but do they actually devistate these swarms or halt their advance as indicated to be the purpose of these strategems? Absolutely not.

Flames need a buff for the napalm to be viable, and if that buff were received the flamethrower wouldn't need such an insanely high direct damage increase to be effective against swarms and larger enemies.

I think flame/afterburn damage should have been the one getting a 50% increase and direct flamethrower damage could have been increased in much lower quantities ranging anywhere from 5 to 25 %.

[VoiD]

I don't disagree, the actual burning damage is very, very low.

But I don't think the flamethrower needs to deal less damage, I agree it's doing way more than most/all other weapons, but it's a weapon with no range, which often sets the user on fire as well, unlike the railgun it's very high risk, I can't see myself ever picking it (other than trying to troll friend's matches) if there isn't a very high reward attached to it.

[GodMan]

What the flamethrower actually needs is to "throw" the flames forward with more concentrated fire that actual flamethrowers have. For now they work like a Elon Musks flamethrower with attached napalm to it. Looks fancy, but its far from useful in battle.

[John Digger]

They buff direct damage but the burning damage is still poopoo that not how Flamethrower work

[Frostbeast]

Well. We dont know how the burn dmg is calculated. If we hit our selfs with fire, we die in 2 secs. If they increase the dot dmg.......Maybe they can seperate enemy and player dmg. Maybe not.

[Chaos]

I personally think the direct flame damage is overdone.
They should have buff the fire dots instead and maybe a bit more range.
But with balance team like this...I guess I will just take whatever I can get.

[Jozsefirst]

Originally posted by Frostbeast:

Well. We dont know how the burn dmg is calculated. If we hit our selfs with fire, we die in 2 secs. If they increase the dot dmg.......Maybe they can seperate enemy and player dmg. Maybe not.

I would think the player health pool is generally much lower than the enemy AI's.

You can test this in various ways. Check how many shots it takes to kill a grunt compared to a player. Or how much damage you take from automaton emplaced turrets compared to how little you deal to the robots using those same turrets.

It's not really the damage output that's the issue but the player healthpool. That's why self inflicted burn damage seems massive.

But these are based off of observations of gameplay ofc, not the codes.

[Tom]

I would of like a range increase for the flamethrower over damage.

[VoiD]

Originally posted by GodMan:

What the flamethrower actually needs is to "throw" the flames forward with more concentrated fire that actual flamethrowers have. For now they work like a Elon Musks flamethrower with attached napalm to it. Looks fancy, but its far from useful in battle.

It's one of the old myths of gaming, that a flamethrower can't reach over 1m in front of you.

Military flamethrowers had quite a long range, you didn't need to get in melee to use it like you do in HD2.

It's odd they got rid of the spread myth of shotguns, making them work like actual viable ranged weapons, at range, but they didn't do the same for flamers.

[Charlie]

Some CC said that it takes an uninterrupted 8 seconds to kill a charger with the flamethrower

[Le Hatch]

Honestly? I love that they did buff it, but I would've gone with maybe like a 25% direct damage buff, a bit of a range buff, and then a bit of a look into DoT flame effects. Though I presume that adjusting the actual flame damage over time is probably a more in depth system change than simply cranking a number lest we end up in a funny situation where one just immediately burns themselves to death.

Still, its nice to roast chargers a lot more faster now.

[VoiD]

Originally posted by Charlie:

Some CC said that it takes an uninterrupted 8 seconds to kill a charger with the flamethrower

I counted 4s
https://streamable.com/560itn

[Jozsefirst]

necroing this from yesterday cuz it's actually relevant and got lost in the s**t storm of whining children