Freedom's Flame Warbond: Worth It? (NO, IT'S THE NEW WORST ONE)

A review of the newest warbond, Freedom's Flame, from August 8th, 2024.

The Short And Sweet

The question: "Should I buy Freedom's Flame if I have a choice between the other warbonds?"

The answer: Nope. It's the worst one. You will only get 1 weapon you will actually use and a bunch of nice cosmetics. Although out of the two warbonds that give cosmetics, Freedom's Flame has the best looking ones.

You can find my ranking of each and every warbond here.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3248114610

The Good

First, the cookout. It's the breaker incendiary if it were the normal shotgun, instead. Excellent stagger, good damage, but a little weak on armor. It's fun to use, especially since it makes annoying enemies like stalkers and hunters flinch with each hit.



Second, the visuals. Don't be fooled by the armor's inclusion, here. The armor isn't great in practice, and I'll explain why when I get to "The Bad." But this warbond has the most visually appealing designs in the game, armor included.

The Bad

Everything else. Starting with the armors.

This isn't the worst armor effect in the world, giving 75% fire resistance. Plus it actually works, unlike Viper Commando's armor at launch. But getting set on fire doesn't happen often, and is usually due to you making mistakes. The best you can do with it is throw an incendiary grenade at your feet mostly unharmed.

If your team lacks fire damage, the only thing in a bugs mission which can burn you is a barrel exploding, or ignited swamp gas and fire tornadoes on specific planets, and you're definitely not going to use any flamethrower against bots which fight at a distance, making the armor pointless unless you don't know how to counter fire hulks. Obviously, you'd bring a flamethrower if you're bringing fire armor, but this only means your own incompetence will lead to you getting ignited, not some common consequence outside your control you need to constantly deal with.

Even if you are using fire, you would probably prefer to use an armor set which more benefits your playstyle rather than covering for you accidentally burning yourself. Just go prone to put out the flames if you're somehow struggling with getting set on fire, or pre-stim yourself if you need to walk through a fire tornado.



Next, the two other weapons. I'm not going to point out the rework for how flamethrowers work on chargers, but I am going to draw on the fact flamethrowers were nerfed not to pierce enemies at all. This makes flamethrowers bad for hordes on higher difficulties where hunters and commanders are present. Calling the new flamethrowers bad confuses some people on lower difficulties because it spawns less strong enemies and fewer enemies in total, so this isn't as much of an issue.

When they're more commonly mixed into a hoard, hunters tank some focus fire and tend to circle around your ground fire, while commanders can tank an excessive amount of focus fire and ground fire before dying. You will almost always be hit when dealing with a horde of anything tougher than scavengers. But most importantly, if these stronger enemies are leading a charge, you can no longer pierce them to hit the weaker enemies falling in behind it, allowing them to encircle you thanks to this enemy working as a living shield.

The flamethrower sidearm is particularly pathetic, only able to burn for a few seconds before emptying and drawing into its absurdly small ammo pool of just four backup magazines. It's only good for ground fires or killing around two enemies in your face before you need to reload, at which point you'd be better off with one of the two fire grenades or an actual sidearm. Much like the other flamethrowers, it's outclassed by any other weapon which could go in its slot.



Last is the booster. It's an amusing effect on paper, causing fires to explode out of the hellpod when you land with it or call in weapons using it, but it's too situational and has a pathetic range, meaning it doesn't even do its dumb shtick well, causing you to either die again just trying to use it as you'll be landed in the middle of unhurt and very angry enemies, or throw your call-in drops into locations you can't easily reach them.

It has the added bonus of being the only booster in the game with a downside, as standing too close to a landing drop pod will damage you, and if somebody joins mid-match using it, you won't know until you're suddenly engulfed in an explosion. Most importantly, it's going against some heavy hitters, as the most commonly picked boosters by the playerbase assures this one will never be picked over them, especially when they benefit you even without requiring you to die first.

Besides being bad, what makes this "the worst one?"

Practicality and individuality. While this warbond has the best visuals in the entire game, I would assume most players value what new weapons they can use over what color they make their drop pod. For instance, Polar Patriots has more new weapons than Viper Commandos, but Viper Commandos has more guns that are actually useful or fun, coupled with an entirely unique armor bonus, so I consider Viper Commandos better.

I used to consider Polar Patriots the worst, since it only offers two good yet painfully generic weapons, two mediocre weapons, non-unique armor bonuses, and one of the worst boosters in the game. Freedom's Flame offers exactly one (1) good weapon, a unique armor bonus that is too gimmicky and works more as a crutch, and another useless booster.

If you have a choice, pick any other warbond. If this is the only warbond you haven't purchased yet, go ahead, but you're not going to get much mileage out of anything besides pretty cosmetics and a shotgun until they inevitably buff these two horrid weapons, since I doubt the devs would ever touch the armor bonus or booster effect.

[P1gman]

firebomb hellpod my beloved =)

[THETA 🌭 ZERO]

@Alaycıkuş

Steeled Veterans or Democratic Detonation. The former has more practical weapons but the latter has the most unique.

Read more here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3248114610

[Alaycıkuş]

hey man new to the game and just got 1000 sc if you could only unlock one warbond (like my situation right here) and there is no guarantee you can unlock another one which one ypu recommend me to unlock?

[Mercmayhem1321]

Fortune that is true he is wrong

[Aprunkulus]

dont spend money on supercredits youll just speed up the only progression you have you will easily find enough while playing if you save em for the warbonds and dont buy premium armor.i have all warbonds and didnt pay a cent also pretty much every premium armor.10 bucks is just too much for a few guns and cosmetics youll enjoy it a lot more if you play for it.

[The Tree]

I can confirm. The one good and useful thing is the delightful shotgun

[The Tree]

This would have been useful to read before I spent ten bucks on it...

[THETA 🌭 ZERO]

There isn't a single person on earth who thinks flamethrowers are good against spewers.

[Hamburger]

I have used all of the weapons on hell dive difficulty, the are great at clearing low level fodder that is mixed in with the higher level enemies. it also does do good damage against higher level enemies like spewers and allows them to be easily picked of by teammates or by a single grenade. plus the visual aspect is tantalising and mixed in with the fact that polar patriots exist, this war bond is definitely not the worst and the main limitation i would say was the range which allowed spewers to hit me but with good positioning and a shield generator you can easily become a bug frying maniac and it is just genuinely fun to play with. i give this war bond a 10/10 and this post a 2/10. thats just my opinion tho.

[CockAroach™]

This warbond touched me in ways I didn't know I needed. My inner pyrophilia was tickled to my marrow. The sweet release of dopamine that rushed through me was like being young again and kissed; this is what I felt while standing in the pile of burning bugs at my feet. If this is what being nerfed felt like nerf me more daddy. Never was much of a bug player. The incendiary shotgun was cute but unfulfilling. The flamethrower, now there was something that I enjoyed, but sweet Mistress Combustion slapped a touch to hard to enjoy fully.
But now, oh I can waltz once more in her Rough embrace and not have to worry about being a burden to my team when they have to reinforce me for dancing too close. I like the cosmetics so far, having safety orange equipment for bug missions tickles my inner cowboy. This warbond is defiantly not for everyone, but I am enjoying it very much.