Balance Flamethrower Guy

[des1206]

I've ran a few tests on the Flamethrower. It turns out that amongst all regular Soviet attack infantries, the flamethrower does almost the least damage vs. building exteriors (5. Kapitan 4. Flamethrower, 3. Nader/Volk, 2. Shock, 1. RPG trooper), as well as vs. MCTs (4. Kapitan, 3. Flamethrower, 2. Starshina, 1. Shock ). Tip: Flamethrower vs MCT does the same damage as RPG vs. building exterior.

 

 

I feel the Flamerthrower is eclipsed by every other Soviet infantry these days. The guy just doesn't have his battlefield niche. When infantry rushing a building, we pick Starshina for the higher health, lower $, faster speed, great secondary, easy kill vs engin, and higher dmg vs. MCT. If Tanyas come, it's starshinas on defense as well. In the field, Kapitans have higher health and better range (outrange pillboxes too). RPG trooper are great vs vehicles and building exteriors (also outranges pillboxes). Grenadiers are when you want to outrange all allied defenses, kill mechs, or siege bases for points. But when do we use the flame guy other than infantry-only-maps?

 

 

C&C Flame guys are always slow, exploding on death, mediocre vs. vehicles, but excellent vs infantry and buildings. The APB one is all those except the last part. (Sometimes they have high health too like the Nod Blackhands). I can see his current unique role as "Can not damage MCT nearly as fast Starshina (~9 sec difference killing bar), but does not have to choose between fighting off defenders vs. damaging the building". While this is true, the flamer's current dmg. vs building is too low to worth bring him onto a rush team in a game that rewards quick building destruction.

 

 

Therefore, can we give him more damage vs. building exterior to be close to or equal to RS damage, but no change vs MCT? This way, any infantry rush will always bring along a flamer to defend against attackers while not sacrificing killing the building. He will also not overshadow any other infantry this way. Starshina is still better vs. MCT and killing single engin/tanya, Nader's got range, Officer has health and range, RS still anti tank/air/building, Shock still best at almost everything.

Edited September 21, 2016 by des1206

[Pushwall]

TD flamethrower troopers actually had the highest infantry speed (tied with commandos and grenadiers). Makes sense from a gameplay standpoint (clearly an attempt to compensate for their range which was horrible compared to RA flamethrowers) but totally not from a realism standpoint

 

Taking a look at my DPS sheet here, yikes, yeah flamethrowers are way too weak vs exteriors (but not defenses). It's on par with volkovs who are supposed to be the worst at that out of the non-small-arms users.

[Pushwall]

It probably won't get as much of an increase as you want though because you'll be able to buy them right off the bat next version and use them in supply truck rushes instead of starshinas (at the cost of not being able to get a vehicle first dump if you do so).

[des1206]

It probably won't get as much of an increase as you want though because you'll be able to buy them right off the bat next version and use them in supply truck rushes instead of starshinas (at the cost of not being able to get a vehicle first dump if you do so).

Even so, I wonder if that's enough for people to start choosing them instead of Starshinas.

 

Quick thought, is it possible to make set on fire for a few seconds the places flamers hit? If so it would make interesting strategies in terms of area of denial.

[Pushwall]

Nope.

[Alstar]

And that would probably ban them from Fissure for being too broken. Not like they are already.

[FRAYDO]

I don't use the flamethrower on Fissure because I have self-respect.

[SarahNautili]

Well after this latest patch, you'd be about the only one.

 

 

First 10 seconds of fissure earlier was about 10x BURN BABY BURN

[harvester]

I prefer rushing with the riflemen. Would be nice to see a gang of angry regular guys led by 1 kapitan wrecking havoc.