Which one is better Flamethrower or HMG?

[Eldrin]

What are the pros and cons of each weapon?
I cant decide which one to specialize my heavy guy into.

[[WPC] Doc_Holliday]

Why not both, one for close range and one for medium? I prefer HMG myself.

[Iso Koala]

Use both, only perks make difference, but you can still use both good enough!

Although I made my heavy weapons dude also use melee weapons, and noticed that those are better than the flamethrower since you gotta go close anyway...oh well.

[Ichthyic]

flamethrower: massive close range damage in huge AOE. debuff burns cause nice DOT damage, perks can add additional debuffs to hit chance. great against fleshy targets, terrible against machines (except vehicles, with the right perk).

HMG: good range, great single target damage, early perk can pin down enemy units in AOE for less damage, BUT when combined with a leader who can demoralize... you get your full damage back. potentially very powerful in combination with leader. great against anything because of decent penetration and damage.

for build: there ARE some backgrounds and quirks that can add 40% to your flamethrower damage right off the bat. with weird science you can eventually do some absolutely monstrous aoe damage with flamer. main downside is the short range, so buff speed and strength.

no specific background or quirks specific to HMG. can build the same way you would build other automatic gun users. needs less strength and speed than flamer build, but more awareness and conditioning.

both work great. I guess it's a matter of shake or bake? what suits your fancy?

fwiw, early flamers don't feel that powerful, but once you hit level 7 flamers and better, and you have leveled your flamer character up, you will do massive damage.

lastly... because of the gigantic aoe of the flamer, I would suggest turning off friendly fire. otherwise your guys will have to always stay at least 11m away from your flame unit, or stand directly behind it.

not as much of an issue with HMG.

the person who suggested melee as a backup above is correct. because of the small "clip" for the flamer (2 shots, not improvable with mods), having a backup (if not a second flamer) is good, and melee fits well with the stats you need for flamer. also, the flamer debuff to hit chance also fits well, since now you are right in their face for melee.

or, you could spend some points on explosives and use a rocket launcher as your second weapon, and follow up with grenades after you use your flamer a couple of times. there are some quite powerful grenades. That's how I built mine. I open with the rocket launcher, then move into position to use the flamer twice on the next turn, and follow up with a grenade.

[Ghost]

two frontliners, one with a Nitro Launcher, SMG and Mechanics; the other with Flamethrower and Rocket Launcher. keep groups lit up or slowed down while the riflemen work.

[Eldrin]

Originally posted by Creamy:

two frontliners, one with a Nitro Launcher, SMG and Mechanics; the other with Flamethrower and Rocket Launcher. keep groups lit up or slowed down while the riflemen work.

My second frontliner is a shotgun guy with explosives secondary.

[Eldrin]

Originally posted by Creamy:

two frontliners, one with a Nitro Launcher, SMG and Mechanics; the other with Flamethrower and Rocket Launcher. keep groups lit up or slowed down while the riflemen work.

My second frontliner is a shotgun guy with explosives secondary and leader. Third probably some kind of a melee guy.

For the melee guy i am thinking if it is possible to make a sneaky ♥♥♥♥ guy that can melee pick off several enemies assassination/ninja style before a fight even starts. Or 1 kill is max and then the enemies get alerted.

[Ichthyic]

1 kill then alerted, sadly. most people use sniper for that, since it has a lot of perks that amplify the ability to take out a single big target from range. even at low level, you can crit for well over 1k.

[Eldrin]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

1 kill then alerted, sadly. most people use sniper for that, since it has a lot of perks that amplify the ability to take out a single big target from range. even at low level, you can crit for well over 1k.

The sneaky level 10 perk had a melee guy picture on it so i thought one could make a silent assassin picking off people but i guess it was a bit misleading

[Ichthyic]

if you do your skills abilities and perks right, you should have plenty of time to enter a detection circle and stab some guy in the back still.

no reason you cannot do an opener with a melee attack; it's just easier with a sniper because you can do it from range with no immediate retaliation.

[Levatt]

I tend to make my HMG and Flamethrower different guys personally. Especially if custom as I would want different Quirks and Backgrounds to take advantage, although it's perfectly acceptable to specialize in one but carry the second when the first isn't useful.

Flamethrower is a very tank based weapon, with the ability to disable vehicles, and cause mass detriment to enemy accuracy. With it's high accuracy and ability to hit enemies behind cover with ease this character can position anywhere. It doesn't need awareness as extra +hit isn't necessary. This character would be high strength and high speed for health and dodge, heavy armor and debuffing, while taking down % health from enemies and doing pretty good damage. Does well paired with explosives rockets to deal with crowds and mechanical enemies that fire is bad for, or just with a secondary HMG that is ammo efficient (7.62 rounds rather than 50 cal) just to help finish off when enemies are already debuffed. Can also pair well with charisma (I add later, I don't care about XP bonus) because the positioning can make the Cone STRIKE ability very powerful. You don't need a ton of Coordination on this as setting them on fire is your goal, extra attacks is a waste of ammo from flamer. As a result skills that give extra abilties are pretty good. Makes a good secondary leader character (for the abilities not for the leadership bonuses), give your points to the rest of team with Rally and debuff enemy to hit and to crit with demoralize.

HMG on the other hand needs to be at a relative distance for damage, but it also benefits more from Awareness. As an HMG (as with SMG) it is very hard to get 95% to hit but that's because it does so much damage without even hitting every shot. The more shots you can land the more damage you can put out, plus ranged damage makes it a lot more consistent. This character should be strong and hardy but not nearly as much as a Pyro. This is a DPS class. You want ranged damage, accuracy and crit (int) all of that is of very little use to pyro, it doesn't need to dodge as much as it will sit back in cover, but not all the way back so it can't avoid health like Sniper.

A side note on Pyro, a Blade user gets an ability called "Bleeding Strike" Which does +100% extra damage to burning enemies. For HMG's, Suppression Fire fires twice as many bullets at an enemy for 50% of normal damage each, but against a demoralized enemy it does full damage with twice as many bullets. Keep those combos in mind when you decide, you may find that one benefits your party and guides your decision.

[Cebola -]

both

[Carl Brutananadilewski]

Originally posted by Eldrin:

Originally posted by Creamy:

two frontliners, one with a Nitro Launcher, SMG and Mechanics; the other with Flamethrower and Rocket Launcher. keep groups lit up or slowed down while the riflemen work.

My second frontliner is a shotgun guy with explosives secondary.

Am I missing something with shotguns? They just don't seem to really hit very hard at all when I use them and a certain drunk friend of mine really likes his shotgun and I really don't want to just have him using pistols if there's just something I've missed. They've felt weak the whole time I've played (in the middle of Denver stuff now) and just... I dunno, is it an armor thing?

[Scourge]

Originally posted by Ichthyic:

1 kill then alerted, sadly. most people use sniper for that, since it has a lot of perks that amplify the ability to take out a single big target from range. even at low level, you can crit for well over 1k.

Siper with explosives is just right~ Massive AOE take out. Guarenteed crit. Massive sneak damage.

[Incunabulum]

Originally posted by Eldrin:

What are the pros and cons of each weapon?
I cant decide which one to specialize my heavy guy into.

Flamethrowers require you to get close in. Which is hard to do. You'll probably end up losing a turn or two trying to get your guy into position.

In addition, it suffers from the same problem as shotguns do - enemies and friendlies crowd your Rangers and its hard to get a shot in where you're not also shooting another Ranger or companions.

Its good to have as a secondary weapon for your heavy gunner but I'd keep an MG or equivalent as your primary weapon.

[Devils-Advocate]

Personally I think flamethrowers are garbage. Especially if friendly damage is turned on. Seeing as they require moving in close, you may as well go for melee instead