Any Reason for Flamers??

Has anyone here actually experienced a legitimate reason to use flamers? Besides a single flamer used to blind a close opponent, I have never had a mech laden with Flamers cripple me nor have I ever witnessed a successful Flamer focused mech... Has anyone had experience to explain?

I understand that there are so many components that are underpowered or useless due to weight/value (eg: command mod, small laser in 39 out of 40 builds, SPL, single MG, SRM2, most STD heat sinks) However, I have NEVER witnessed a truly effective Flamer...

Please, someone convince me.

Chatt.

 

They provide:
-good sustained damage and crit
-Create a situation for less counter-fire (over-heating opponent)
-blind opponent in the right circumstances

seems pretty useful to me, although I've never seriously taken them in a build yet.

 

I have never been flamed to the point of it interfering with my fire rhytm, apart from being blinded. It may have an effect, I don't know. I run a flamer on a chainsaw Ilya variant but not sure if I ever got someone to heat shutdown. It's a good stress and blind tool but other then that? Not sure.

Stats: 0,7 DPS, 1 heat/s, max range of 90m.

I have yet to see any post that says it has a increased crit chance? I recall reading in a breakdown it would get a buff?

 

I would suggest a simple and reasonable solution to buff the flamers... increase damage to ammo. Doubling (or tripling) damage to ammo would make this thing deadly.

 

Or doubling the enemy heat damage. That'd give it a good niche too- great for scouts to harass, say, PPC boats or lasterboats with- would help lessen the prevalence of Alphastrikes too.

 

I tried to run 1 flamer in my S for something different, but meh. I think it blinded me just as much as the enemy since it fires from below your cockpit and you're usually looking up. After 5 or so games I removed it and picked up +2JJ (might bring an extra ton of ams ammo instead though).

 

Ran a Hunchie with 6 Flamers a while back - Fun to see the reactions, but, only useful when fighting a mech on its own. If you can find a hot mech, you should be able to shut them down or at least minimize their fire rate.

Bottom line, its a support weapon. If you are PUGging, its almost useless. If you are in a team drop, it fulfills a minimal role.

 

I decided to switch out 2 MLas for Flamers in my FS9-H, and while it was a ton of fun to annoy enemy mechs with a constant 2xFlamers + 2xMG, when I checked out my stats, in 5 games, I had done 109 damage with the flamers, compared to over 500 damage with the MGs. I think I managed to shut down 1 or 2 mechs in those 5 games, which was hilarious, but still, the damage was so negligible I've ditched them to go back to a 6x MLas build.

 

Saw a Firestarter harass several mechs in a game yesterday. He targeted laser-heavy assaults, took them to 80% and just danced around them until the rest of his team destroyed the over-heating mech. Was pretty fun to watch how a single light was able to neutralize most of an assaults firepower. Most were smart and only used their ballistic weapons. One had an AC20 though, he hit shut-down no matter what he shot past 1-2 MLas #badbuild

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNt0anp7WK8

 

I ran a flamer in my H, and also noticed I got blinded pretty badly. I was able to get a good amount of components destroyed when used with the 2xMG's, but it wasn't worth blinding myself. Basically I don't think flammers are effective as a weapon at the moment, but more as a tool for reducing the enemies DPS. However, to mount a flammer you are basically also reducing your own DPS since you can;t take an extra medium laser. Personally I would only mount a flammer if I had a heavy or assault mech with an extra energy hard point and a ML doesn't work well with the other weapons I've selected. So it would probably only be useful on 1 out of 100 builds I might try.

 

Flamers are interesting. I researched them and here is what I found out. They aren't very good, but they are even worse if you don't understand how they work.

Flamers generate exponential heat for both you and the enemy.

For you:
If you hold the fire button down longer than 4 seconds, heat rises exponentially. In order to avoid this, if you fire a single flamer for 2 seconds, you must release that flamer for 2 seconds. If you only release it for 1 second, the game will trigger exponential heat gain after 3 seconds.

For your enemy:
Your enemy experiences exponential heat gain the same way you do, but any break in contact with your flamer stream will stop the counter. For extremely more levels of heating efficiency, never miss.

My conclusions:
To heat people up, 6 flamers is ideal. You can alpha for 3 seconds and then fire 3 for 1 second, 3 for another second, etc.
This continuous loop will avoid exponential heat gain for you but potentially give exponential heat gain to your enemy. Also, run the stats and make sure your rate of cooling is superior to the number of flamers you carry.

The Hunchback 4J was my ideal choice for this mech, but don't expect to take on any teams. You are only able to do 1 v 1s, and its much preferable if you have support.



The build was something like this:



Is this competitive? no.
Can it win a 1 v 1 against energy boats? Usually you can if you close the distance.
Is it fun? yes.

 

You can set up one or two weapon groups with chain fire to avoid the exponential heat gain... but still.

 

I blame this thread for making me do this on a Cataphract I am working on mastering.
(12.5% energy range and heat gen quirks)

Getting an enemy Timberwolf to shutdown... priceless.