MCH: Making Flamethrower + Bioblaster more engaging.

Keeping it simple and to the point: Flamethrower is rarely used because its benefits do not compare well to other AoE options. While there are situations where Flamethrower can be useful, this discussion focuses on making it more viable and enjoyable to use.

Suggested Change 1: Flamethrower will now consume all remaining heat. The higher the gauge, the higher the DPS, with a small burst of DPS at the end.

This high risk/reward change will not replace Auto-crossbow. Using Flamethrower requires you to stay still; moving will result in less DPS than using Auto-crossbow. To ensure this, a small burst of Flamethrower's damage will occur at the end.

Need to move? Use Auto-crossbow. Have the chance to stay still and burn? Use Flamethrower.

Suggested Change 2: Flamethrower will detonate Bioblaster. The detonation will be less effective if you let the DoT run its course (see next paragraph for more). Reduce the Bioblaster DoT to 10 seconds to create a (tight) window for using Flamethrower.

The longer the DoT runs, the less damage the detonation does, but more overall damage with the DoT + small detonation at the end. Using Flamethrower at the end will provide a minor DPS increase overall as you want to incentivize people to let the DoT run as long as possible.

Detonating early (such as when a pack is about to go down) will result in a bigger detonation but lower overall DPS than had you let the DoT run the full length then blew it up at the end.

Advantages: This change allows you to Bioblast and detonate on low HP packs so the DoT does not feel wasted. It also makes gameplay more engaging by encouraging the use of the heat gauge for Flamethrower and Bioblaster at optimal times for maximum damage.

For casual players, more fun ways to use both Flamethrower and Bioblaster. For advanced players, optimal timing leads to higher damage making it feel more rewarding when you line up the timing + a good amount on the heat gauge.


If not the above, what changes would you make to these two or just flamethrower?

Your suggestion 1 could be so much easier:
Flamethrower on 60s, consumes X Heat to deal damage in AoE.
Similar to SAM's Hissatsu: Sen'ei / Guren and it would be good, honestly that's what I would do.

Suggestion 2 suffers from the dot mechanic and could lead to another Sb Flamethrower / Anatman / SMN dot reset.
Dots don't tick every 3 seconds, it's the server that checks every 3 seconds if a dot is applied then inflicts damage. You can test it yourself how the tick timing is inconsistent.

Worst part? Flamethrower works on its own timing. So you'll end up not detonating your dots in some cases.
On top of that, Bioblaster has 2 charges and is on 20s, with this flexibility you can already solve the dot wasting problem upstream.

As for my own suggestion:
Flamethrower should be completely reworked to be similar to excavator, something your can freely follow-up on Drill or Bio Blaster and that generates a bit of heat now that the heat management is much more flexible.

MCH has way too few skills being this bloaty. Id argue make Drill a line aoe and remove Bioblaster all together and make it a PVP only skill like Bishop.

Flamethrower should just straight up be a barrel stabilizer lite where after execution, it triggers Hypercharge

Or accumulate heat per tik, it needs to justify its 60s CD after all.

Or or make it a dot similar to old PVP where it gains a stack of Flamethrower every tic making it more vulnerable to MCH personal damage and make it short enough to utilize a skill or two afterwords.

Astounding the devs are so clueless on what to do with it

Flamethrower just feels like an emote. Like let it crit or dhit, I would at least like to see the numbers for once.

Same with Wildfire. It doesn't crit or dhit and it just feels so underwhelming when it goes off. It doesn't need to be an auto crit or dhit but at least let me see big number sometimes!

I never thought of this one but your first solution sounds pretty great to me. I know SE will never have the guts to go for a no recast skill tied to resources because they've been systematically trying to cull down that kind of things all across the board, but I'd still think that having a complete, free agency into how you use FT and when would be a blast. Build heat first, then spend it, at the cost of no mobility.

Either way I could even just settle for a fixed gauge cost and keeping its 60s timer really.

Getting a free hypercharge at the end would be nice as well, but that would become tricky due to the single target rotation suddenly benefiting from it, unless you require a specific amount of ticks to go through perhaps. But then, the frustration when you have to move before getting all your ticks?

Yeah, I've been trying to make more use of it and it is difficult to use it / not get interrupted in DT. Not impossible, not super hard, just harder than most AoEs in game. Perfect for making it high risk / reward. Could be an experiment to see how much players like or dislike an ability like that.

Also, I just don't know why we accumulate heat but can't release it with fire. On the one hand, the fire would heat up the barrel. On the other hand, you could argue you're venting the chamber where the heat gathers. In practice, it would be both.

Maybe Flamethrower could make Wildfire useful for AoE. Flamethrower causes the Wildfire debuff to spread to all nearby enemies and become Backdraft. Backdraft collects damage stacks in the same way as Wildfire on all enemies that continue to be hit by Flamethrower. At the end of the debuff timer, Backdraft explodes for additional damage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Darkstride

Maybe Flamethrower could make Wildfire useful for AoE. Flamethrower causes the Wildfire debuff to spread to all nearby enemies and become Backdraft. Backdraft collects damage stacks in the same way as Wildfire on all enemies that continue to be hit by Flamethrower. At the end of the debuff timer, Backdraft explodes for additional damage.

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O, I like this idea. Give Wildfire an AOE application. Even if it isn't this exact version, using Wildfire + Flamethrower together in some way sounds like a really easy solution that doesn't change much about the job's overall function but does provide Flamethrower and Wildfire with ways they can be used effectively in AOE.

I've always advocated for giving Flamethrower the Phantom Flurry (Suzaku Kick skill for BLU) treatment. Shorten the channel to 5s and give it a finishing move tied to the same button, now its more exciting to use. You could go further, make it synergize with Bio Blaster, making it do more damage either by a flat potency increase, or applying a secondary DoT effect, I feel like this change would greatly increase the skill feedback and it wouldn't even be hard to implement.

MCH AoE is a sore spot for the job, making adjustments to Flamethrower and making Wildfire AoE would go a long way, hell Wildfire is already AoE in PvP, the work is already done and it wouldn't even make MCHs AoE overtuned, what's the excuse here? We also get far more battery than we used to with the addition of Excavator, having Bishop Turret back (doesn't even have to be upgraded) would be a nice addition and once again, its already in PvP, work's already done.