Dying Pleasantly In A Fire: A basic guide to Hellfire

[Wompy]

Hellfire! What a class! Flamethrowers, a pile of health, fiery death to your enemies.

This guide aims to give you the basics of my favorite RS2 class.

What am I trying to do as a Hellfire?

Hellfire is the tankiest of classes, and aims to help get between the hordes of mutants and your squishy, high damage teammates.
Though not strictly necessary, the Arclite is at the core of playing Hellfire. This weapon squirts your enemies with sticky flames which slow them down and quickly cut thru small mutants.
With your abilities and weapons focusing around fire, you are well suited for taking down biomass. In combat you can wipe out hordes of smaller creatures quickly, saving your bullet wielding allies from wasting their ammo and overwatch time on small stuff.
To be most effective, you will need the help of a medic. You are well suited to soak damage, and should focus your abilities on offensive capabilities to truly shine. The best defense is a good offense. As such healing will make you able to keep your teammates out of harm's way as you burn down hordes and draw the attention of large or fast targets.
Your fire damage will partially ignore shields, allowing you to cook armored targets if you set your heart to it. This can be a high ammunition cost endeavor.

The Arclite: Fire Gods Demand Fire

**Don't aim at/toward/in front of teammates**
Takes 10 mags to reload fully to 200 rounds. 41 mags is your base primary ammo capacity without modifiers.
Spray a narrow medium-range cone of flame. Ignites, damages, and passes thru friends, enemies and interactive items (but not walls) to the full range of your attack. With more ammo usage it leaves the affected area in flames which apply a damaging, slowing, hp regen reducing debuff "Burning" to enemies and teammates. Many Hellfire flame abilities do not hurt teammates, but the Arclite is merciless and kills all life.
Use a flamethrower. Hellfires have lots of primary weapon slots, and only need one more than base to use an Arclite. You'll either choose to use Consumption or a Primary Weapon Extender so you can use your blessed flame. You can use any weapon if you really want to, but c'mon. You're a Hellfire. Fire damage is your game, you have Napalm Systems and Equalizer which buff pretty specifically the Arclite more than any other weapon (and no other classes have either of these).
Other weapons let operators activate overwatch and then just pew-pew-pew their way around. Not the Arclite. Arclites are for bold players willing to manually target and aim the whole match. Friendly fire is ACTIVATED and you will piss off your dead teammates while you become unwelcome in anyone's matches if you choose to use overwatch with the Arclite. But do not fear my friends, your brain works and you're going to use manual aiming for great effect.
Angles are important. You need to think about where you are relative to incoming enemies and teammates. The perk of being out in front of your team is that you can easily aim away from teammates toward incoming mutants. Plus, smaller enemies tend to path together around corners as they approach you in many situations, clustering together perfectly to be burned down while leaving a temporary flame to slow down further enemies.
You can effectively aim either by using shift+left clicking or by single targeting higher valued targets by left clicking. The Arclite easily cuts swathes thru small targets when shift+left clicking to mow down as any enemies as you need. You should be burst firing, as a little flame goes a long way toward killing small enemies. Large enemies may sometimes justify the high ammo cost of burning them down, which does not require burst firing. You will slow your large targets as you cook them with flames.
The Arclite, and especially the Equalizer-boosted "Toxic Flame," are great for cooking biomass. Do not burn it all the way to 0% health, as your flames lingering damage over time will easily finish it off. If you combine this with the Hellfire class's excellent defensive position and throw in just a touch of mobility, you can effectively solo down biomass around the map in early-mid waves on non-nightmare difficulties.
Damage from the Arclite does not count toward rank up requirements to do damage with a primary weapon.

Modules: "Green Abilities"

General:
Having one or zero modules are definitely options. Don't feel like you have to find the slots and energy for two abilities if it doesn't fit well with your build. If your build choices don't leave you with much mobility, I'd recommend taking at least one of these modules.

Power Dash (Offense)/ Sprint (Support):
Picking one of these will probably be best as a Hellfire. Most builds will leave you rather slow, and no one wants to get left in the dust when time comes to run. Additionally, Hellfires are well suited to lead the group into battle, and so the speed boosts offered by these modules will help you to pick your positioning when the group is in motion. Sprint takes fewer slots, but you will probably want your support slots for core abilities. Power Dash takes offense slots which works out well as you will likely have plenty of extra space here when making a build.

Thrusters (Support):
Great for mobility and making quick retreats. Allows you to reach higher and lower levels of the terrain quickly which can be a life saver. When you launch, nearby enemies briefly stop chasing you and this can help you to escape overwhelming odds. If you plan to be alone at risky times, this can be great. If you plan to stay stuck to teammates that can't jump, pass on this to free up more slots. As with Sprint, your Support slots are pretty important for a hellfire, which makes this only viable if you plan on leaning in toward defensive or offensive abilities.

Systems: "Blue Abilities"

General:
Hellfires have lots of great abilities and they are core to the class gameplay. I'd almost always recommend going with all four filled. There are more systems available than what I plan to describe here, but many of them feel lackluster compared to the ones I list here. The descriptions don't always make it clear what systems do, so I'm hoping to explain and loosely rate the choices you have to work with.

Defense:
Defense upgrades are important for a hellfire, so don't load up on too many systems here.

Shockwave:
A strong choice. Explode in a fireball, which gets bigger badder quicker and cheaper as you level it up. The flame doesn't do much harm to your team unless you set off environmental explosives by triggering it too close to teammates. Good for slowing enemy entry in a bottleneck, good for wiping out small enemies, good for getting a small pack of mutants off weaker teammates. The area of this ability is much larger than phase reaper, and lasts longer (though the main damage is instant when you first trigger it). More energy use and a longer cooldown than phase reaper.

Stimulants:
An okay choice when beginning without purchased abilities. If you plan to heal yourself thru the match, it's probably not going to be a good time. Don't set yourself up for failure. Offers some healing to yourself and the reload time reduction can be good. But you're probably better off taking a two slot life support and finding a medic to play with.

Guardian:
An okay choice. Taunts everything near you and briefly beefs up your defense pretty heavy to help with all your new "friends." Unlike other taunt abilities available, it doesn't stop your energy regeneration. High activation cost and long cooldown with no damage offered. If you're playing on nightmare this might be a solid choice, but on any lower difficulty you're likely better off with a shorter cooldown and more offense.

Offense:
If your Arclite can't cook it, it's probably someone else's problem. As a hellfire you'll have ample slots here to use. Offense upgrades are mediocre at best for Hellfire, and you have 8 slots to use here. So take those modules and your build will shine!

Phase Reaper:
The best choice. A 360 degree melee of flames. Press your ability key to display a radius circle around your Hellfire, then left click to activate a whirlwind of death. Short cooldown, low activation cost, great damage. Since the damage is fire based, any survivors of the damage will be slowed down quite a lot. Not a lot to say here, this ability kicks ass and works great, if you're not using it try it out and fall in love.

Hellfire Thrusters:
A great early choice. One of the strongest of the base abilities to choose from. Jump sorta slowly to your target, landing with a BOOM! When you touch down, you create a small fireball to damage targets and taunt them onto you. Your defenses are briefly buffed quite a lot, but at the cost of stopping your energy regen for the duration. This ability requires you leading your targets, as they'll keep moving while you slooooowly jump toward them. As a perk, you can use this ability in place of thrusters to go up and down terrain, though with a much slower cooldown. This ability gives both offensive and defensive applications, while using those readily available offense slots!

Napalm Grenades:
An okay choice. Throw a handful of grenades at the designated location, after a moment or two they explode in flames. Unlike the assault ability Grenade, these do not explode immediately so you gotta sort of lead your shot. Unlike most Hellfire fire abilities, you can use these to set off gas pipes. So at least there's that. The damage is pretty decent, and it offers a decent range compared to most of your abilities. I thought I'd be more excited about them, but they feel like an under-performing version of the assault ability and harder to learn how to maximize.

Support:
You gotta take either Consumption or a primary extender here to use an Arclite. This is a key decision behind your build. Support choices are very strong for the Hellfire class, and the priorities you make here will guide the way that you build your character.

Consumption:
The choice to use or not use this ability is fundamental to the Hellfire class. Passively adds a primary weapon slot, extending the hellfire bar to fully allow the choice of any weapon (Read: Arclite). You either take this ability or a primary weapon extender. Besides equalizer, this is the Hellfire's other choice of ability to keep up with the primary ammo consumption of cooking down hordes of mutants. Not as strong an ammo choice on barrel heavy maps, but great on maps where you aren't finding many barrels to eat. Turns secondary ammo into progressively more primary ammo (so really wanna use it at 5/5 if you can for full effect). This means that you have to find boxes or drops of secondary ammo to create your ammo, but this can be a lifesaver when RNG just gives you secondary ammo from every basic locker you hit. You will however be depriving your team on secondary ammo, which might make it tough when you want your booms to go off on big enemies and you turned all the secondary ammo into fire. Passively makes your Arclite have a slightly higher capacity, and actively makes you fireproof. These last two features are minor in comparison but perks none the less.

Napalm Systems:
An excellent choice. This is the best passive for a hellfire, and having a passive to put points in is a great thing for such an active-ability heavy class. All your fire abilities and your Arclite will burn longer, you will do more damage and ability damage. If you aren't using this it's probably because you haven't unlocked it yet. You'll get there! It's great, and you should probably use it regardless of which other abilities you select.

Equalizer:
An important choice for many situations. This is the main ammunition ability for Hellfires on maps with plenty of barrels. Allows you to consume a barrel (explosive, poison, nitrogen, etc) on the map to generate ammo (66 ammo at rank 1) and adds 1 or two (at lvl5) magazines of reserve ammo. Puts your current weapon ammo back into your reserve ammunition. If your ammunition is maxed, it will not create ammo on the ground or your inventory (so don't use at 41 mags + full weapon ammo). If you have more than 31 mags, using this ability will discard the extra ammo. If the map doesn't have many barrels, this ability will not help. But this allows you to fill your ammo using barrels and a cooldown instead of having to hunt for basic lockers to keep up with your ammo consumption. This also helps your team by leaving ammo available for bullet using classes to loot. Unlike using Consumption, the barrels you eat are going to have a relatively minor impact on your team's ability to survive. As a further added bonus, all the ammo currently loaded in your Arclite using Equalizer becomes a toxic green flame which does CRAZY damage. To effectively use this ability, dump points in it for early waves where you don't need to pump out ability damage. Once you have full ammo or need to fight, drop down to 0 or 1 points in the skill (keep 1 point if you have less than full ammo and can find a barrel every 30sec or so). A major perk of this ability is the ability to move points away from it when you do not need it to help focus on damage and taunts. Ideally you want either 1 point so it's a choice, or 5 points so you get double mags, but ranks 2-4 help a bit with shorter cooldowns for areas where you find multiple barrels together.

Clinch:
A good choice. Taunt an enemy to you and buff your defense like crazy for a little while. Pretty high cooldown, high activation cost, but solid for tanking seriously big or fast targets. A very defensive choice, strongest when you expect to be part of a well organized team. Much of the Hellfire toolkit focuses on small targets, but this is excellent if you expect to be dealing with the truly hellish mutants out there.
Napalm Wall:
For photo ops. It's super cute to leave a trail of flame which applies the basics of the burn debuff to enemies. Don't waste your points here if you expect to have a fight ahead of you.

Upgrades: "White Abilities"

I focus on defense and (if possible) support slots here.
Defense upgrades are the best upgrades you can get for the role as a front lines tank and short range fighter with low speed. Try and leave yourself as much energy and as many slots available in your build for defense upgrades as seems conceivable.
Most builds are going to use too many of the Support slots for Modules to allow for agility, but take it if you can. Speed is always great, but playing a Hellfire you probably don't expect to be going top speed. You gotta stand and fight, which fortunately you are uniquely prepared for.
The arclite does great damage, you're not overwatching, and spread isn't really a thing. If you have extra offense slots just put power cores on them. Offense slots are for bullet users, you don't need bullets. You need flames. The fire gods demand it.

Defense:
Armor vs Health:
Health is usually king. Defense can potentially be better if you're supported by multiple or high caliber Medics. Without a top tier team this will not reliably be the case. Using multiple armor upgrades offers less and less for your Hellfire. Health upgrades suffer no such downside. Ideally you want the 3-slot Nanoplate which offers a whopping 15% Kinetic (melee) resistance. This takes a lot of slots, but very little suit energy, a reduction in energy regeneration, to offer a huge boost in damage reduction. The low suit energy cost helps it to pair well with maximizing your Life Support to boost your health as much as you can fit. If this isn't a choice, take the single largest armor upgrade you can and then stack your health. Depending how much suit energy and space you have after selecting modules, pump you health as hard as you can. Health gives you more time to take damage, more time to regenerate, more time to jump, dash or fight over to your healer.

Catch Me Out On Mars

Come play a match sometime! If you're playing RS2 you're probably having a blast. This surprisingly deep, low cost, fun game offers a fabulous multiplayer with a lot of control over difficulty to find an experience that's fun for you. Games go for a while, but not so long that you feel shackled to the experience. Lots of international players, be nice to each other and have fun fighting with all the humans of earth to protect the future of Mars XD
With attribution to Wompy feel free to use this guide as a part of any larger guide.

-Wompy

[Kill with Fire]

You should probably just make this a guide.

Imo Napalm System is actually the weakest of the Arclite buffs you can get, with Consumption being near the top. Napalm only increases damage and causes fire to last longer. Consumption gives you 40% more ammo efficiency at max rank, up to 50% more efficiency if you take the Cadet medal too.

Equalizer imo is more of a "Neat if you get it, good if you don't" in relation to barrels, since while the toxic damage bonus and change is nice, it is not a major change in comparison to the reload boost. I also believe that it gives 1/3 of a reload in toxic flames at level 1, 2/3 at level 3, and max at level 5, but I'm not sure on it.

[Wompy]

Excellent advice, thanks! I'll see how I do with the guide format too.

[Katitoff]

Originally posted by Kill with Fire:

You should probably just make this a guide.

Imo Napalm System is actually the weakest of the Arclite buffs you can get, with Consumption being near the top. Napalm only increases damage and causes fire to last longer. Consumption gives you 40% more ammo efficiency at max rank, up to 50% more efficiency if you take the Cadet medal too.

Equalizer imo is more of a "Neat if you get it, good if you don't" in relation to barrels, since while the toxic damage bonus and change is nice, it is not a major change in comparison to the reload boost. I also believe that it gives 1/3 of a reload in toxic flames at level 1, 2/3 at level 3, and max at level 5, but I'm not sure on it.

Actually, Napalm System can be used instead of Consumption if you build HF with other weapon then Arclite, it will increase its damage too.

[Wompy]

Originally posted by Katitoff:

Actually, Napalm System can be used instead of Consumption if you build HF with other weapon then Arclite, it will increase its damage too.

How intriguing. I'm seeing on the discord there are lots of silly HF builds which don't base themselves around the Arclite, but that is as of yet beyond my experience. Napalm Sys does add generally to primary damage, the Arclite just makes use of the burning buffs as well. I'm sure this can work out interestingly if used correctly.

I updated this post into a guide on Hellfire per KWF's advice. I'll try to work your feedback into the guide!

[Kill with Fire]

Arclite builds are just the easiest and most visible method to use it, since they're pretty closely linked and everyone loves a flamethrower.