flame thrower...does really throw flames very far...

[Sin1328]

It's the most disgraceful weapon I've ever used in a game...second only to the adjudicator in this game.
Has the range of a blow torch you can buy from wish dot com, and is about as effective as a mild breeze while the enemy lunges at you setting you on fire at the same time...

I know I should just get good but man that weapon is a pile of crap.

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

It's actually extremely good, get good applies here. It feels to me like the range is rather significant. It can be difficult to tell at a distance because you can't really SEE enemies that are mostly obscured by your own flame, but the range is definitely good.

See the visual flames from the side while somebody else uses it. Visually at least, the thing is really long. The damage is really good, especially with the burn boost module on the ship upgrades (it has good enough damage even before you get the upgrade because flames were buffed a couple patches ago.) You're also supposed to get the placement/spacing edge on enemies when using it, so you're not really expected to be able to toast a group of hunters before they can jump through your flames and hit you. This is the part where XP and skill comes into play. Lots of enemies can be controlled with it, but you need to backup, choose the correct number of enemies to engage at once, sometimes even using your primary instead to kill hunters, then switching to flames when things become less scary.

There's also a bug right now that prevents DoT effects from working sometimes for people that aren't the host. So unless you see it lying around on the map and you have no support weapon, I'd leave it alone if I weren't hosting.

Also don't use it against bots. They will die to fire, but it's just not great against them. Most wont rush you, so having to be in close to things that have guns is a real pain.

[Ordon]

Flamethrower is a disgrace at the moment. I haven't tried it with the 25% more flame damage perk yet, but from my experience I can tell you its absolutely useless against bots starting from difficulty level 3 and stops being useful against bugs at around level 6, which is a shame honestly

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

Originally posted by Ryan Gosling:

Flamethrower is a disgrace at the moment. I haven't tried it with the 25% more flame damage perk yet, but from my experience I can tell you its absolutely useless against bots starting from difficulty level 3 and stops being useful against bugs at around level 6, which is a shame honestly

I've used flamethrower plenty on level 7 bug missions. It just melts chargers, which is always useful on that difficulty because there are so many. It deals with them just about as well as a quasar does, but is also great at controlling hordes and medium enemies. Just make the charger run into a rock and you can focus its leg down in 3-4 seconds. Boom, instant BBQ.

The ammo is also very generous. 1 resupply fills all 4 canisters, even without (non-functioning) support ammo ship module upgrade. A regular ammo box will refill half. You have to try pretty hard to run out of ammo for it.

[Sin1328]

Originally posted by Hand's Hermit Permit:

It's actually extremely good, get good applies here. It feels to me like the range is rather significant. It can be difficult to tell at a distance because you can't really SEE enemies that are mostly obscured by your own flame, but the range is definitely good.

See the visual flames from the side while somebody else uses it. Visually at least, the thing is really long. The damage is really good, especially with the burn boost module on the ship upgrades (it has good enough damage even before you get the upgrade because flames were buffed a couple patches ago.) You're also supposed to get the placement/spacing edge on enemies when using it, so you're not really expected to be able to toast a group of hunters before they can jump through your flames and hit you. This is the part where XP and skill comes into play. Lots of enemies can be controlled with it, but you need to backup, choose the correct number of enemies to engage at once, sometimes even using your primary instead to kill hunters, then switching to flames when things become less scary.

There's also a bug right now that prevents DoT effects from working sometimes for people that aren't the host. So unless you see it lying around on the map and you have no support weapon, I'd leave it alone if I weren't hosting.

Also don't use it against bots. They will die to fire, but it's just not great against them. Most wont rush you, so having to be in close to things that have guns is a real pain.

That's the thing I was just using it and bugs less than 10 feet away weren't affected by it at all.

as to chargers..they aren't a problem and I wouldn't take a flame thrower for those, they have a squishy part that the jar 5 can utilise without having to use a junker like the flame thrower that is more of a hindrance than a help.

It killed me nearly as often as it killed the enemies.

[Voldo]

I love flamer, but it would be good if
- it would not set yourself on fire so easily (fire bounces back from every surface/ randomly sets ground under you on flames)
- flamer would stun small/medium enemies, for example hunters
- longer reach
- using flamer to set ground on fire, bigger (smarter?..) enemies would try find other way, so flamer could be area denial weapon and block hordes

currently short reach + self immolation (usually deadly) + flaming enemies ignore damage and hug you (usually deadly), more cons than pros honestly

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

Originally posted by Sin1328:

Originally posted by Hand's Hermit Permit:

It's actually extremely good, get good applies here. It feels to me like the range is rather significant. It can be difficult to tell at a distance because you can't really SEE enemies that are mostly obscured by your own flame, but the range is definitely good.

See the visual flames from the side while somebody else uses it. Visually at least, the thing is really long. The damage is really good, especially with the burn boost module on the ship upgrades (it has good enough damage even before you get the upgrade because flames were buffed a couple patches ago.) You're also supposed to get the placement/spacing edge on enemies when using it, so you're not really expected to be able to toast a group of hunters before they can jump through your flames and hit you. This is the part where XP and skill comes into play. Lots of enemies can be controlled with it, but you need to backup, choose the correct number of enemies to engage at once, sometimes even using your primary instead to kill hunters, then switching to flames when things become less scary.

There's also a bug right now that prevents DoT effects from working sometimes for people that aren't the host. So unless you see it lying around on the map and you have no support weapon, I'd leave it alone if I weren't hosting.

Also don't use it against bots. They will die to fire, but it's just not great against them. Most wont rush you, so having to be in close to things that have guns is a real pain.

That's the thing I was just using it and bugs less than 10 feet away weren't affected by it at all.

as to chargers..they aren't a problem and I wouldn't take a flame thrower for those, they have a squishy part that the jar 5 can utilise without having to use a junker like the flame thrower that is more of a hindrance than a help.

It killed me nearly as often as it killed the enemies.

We can agree it's not for you, but burning yourself to death that frequently with it is 100% a skill issue.

[Urmanin]

Fire damage doesn't work if you're hosting, and direct damage on it is really bad. It's definitely one of the worst feeling flamethrowers in any game. Hell, just casting 5x fire in Magicka feels way better.

[Korrex]

The flamethrower is one of the best weapons in the game vs the bugs. It's not to be used against the bots due to range issues, which is as it should be.

[Korrex]

Originally posted by Urmanin:

Fire damage doesn't work if you're hosting, and direct damage on it is really bad. It's definitely one of the worst feeling flamethrowers in any game. Hell, just casting 5x fire in Magicka feels way better.

You got it backwards, the bug is that DoTs (including gas) may only work IF you're the host.

[Sin1328]

Originally posted by Hand's Hermit Permit:

Originally posted by Sin1328:

That's the thing I was just using it and bugs less than 10 feet away weren't affected by it at all.

as to chargers..they aren't a problem and I wouldn't take a flame thrower for those, they have a squishy part that the jar 5 can utilise without having to use a junker like the flame thrower that is more of a hindrance than a help.

It killed me nearly as often as it killed the enemies.

We can agree it's not for you, but burning yourself to death that frequently with it is 100% a skill issue.

I said that already in my original post....I wasn't hiding from that.

[Doko]

My main gripe with the flamer, is that even if you try aiming it up to shoot flame further away, it is still in fact spreading fire below your feet (because the game likes to sim fire spreading), which often times than not can cause me or another team mate besides me to quickly burn up.

Also doesn't help that this game likes to turn realism up a notch by having wind simulation, so if you decide you want to take on a medium sized mob of bugs, well you better start checking in that panicked state on what direction the wind is blowing, lest you get quickly smothered by your own flames.

It's not even a "git gud" scenario. The game appeals to casuals and hardcore alike, and both don't seem to constantly mention the important factor that is wind direction, and this is a game where you're attacking on the move/running away, meaning barely anyone has the time of day to go "geee I wonder which way the digital coded wind is blowing in this arcadey shooter".

Also doesn't help that there's the flame dot bug going on atm, which makes anyone else but the host semi useless with their flamer (again, not a "git gud" scenario, just a bug that those parroting that line are too dense to admit exists).

Imo, I think the flamer would do dandy without wind simulation being a part of the game (it barely matters for everything else but the flamer), and the bug being fixed, and for the flames not to spread right at your feet, despite raising the flamer to a higher angle.

[pi73r]

idk, feels pretty strong to me vs bugs. It kills chargers in few seconds

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

I will also say that it's extremely unbalanced how fast flames burn helldivers. It's like we're made of tissue paper ever since flames were buffed. If you don't react within 1 second most, if not all of your HP can just disappear from even a tiny invisible flame particle. That part really needs to get fixed. No game I can think of makes you burn to death this fast.

[Mepho]

I tried the flamethrower before the latest buffs, I found its range to be so short, the damage so unclear (do I keep flaming or let them cook?) and the ammo so little that I didn't touch it again.

Now I don't see many using it, but when they do I hate it.
I have to be carefull about the dude hugging all the hordes.
I have to try and see stuff behind the big ball of flames.
I have to watch out for any stray fire or burning ground as it could instakill me.
Sometimes they just die lighting themselves on fire apparently for no reason.

Sure, they kill chargers very well if they know what they are doing.
Saves me or someone else a quasar shot, I guess.

I wouldn't reccomend using it to anyone, even with the extra 25% damage from ship upgrades, unless it's for the lulz.

I really hope they change fire damage as well, it's super retarded how fast it kills you and it's super annoying to waste a stim for stepping on aesthestically fine ground which the game considers on fire (fire tornadoes do this all the time for instance).

[DarkMagic]

Your just using it wrong, I usually rack up 500+ kills on the bugs. You gotta know how to use it, sure it doesn't shoot very far but you make up for that with skill. Spray back and forth and set the ground on fire, it does less damage but for most of the bugs it will kill them since fire burn 50% faster and with the upgrade the flamethrower does 25% more fire damage, weather that effects the ground fire or not idk but what I do know is if you shoot flames on a charger you can kill one in about 4 seconds, do not use on bile titan since they are too tanky and fire seems to do nothing to them. Everything else tho can burn in holy hell fire. When a bug hole pops up I rush in and set as much of the area on fire as I can and let them run into me while I back up just rotating like a sprinkler and when/if a bile titan shows up you leave and let someone else take care of them which at least 1 team member should be built to take them out, the flamethrower is built for literally everything else.

P.S. Don't use on the robots obviously.