can we increase the flamethrower range?

8 yalms for an stand-still aoe is too short

I think this skill has a lot more immediate problems than its range, which I'm pretty fine with tbh, just need to position correctly.

I'd like for starters that they made it useful. Right now it's barely a gain against the AoE rotation, has no interaction with the kit, and is actually counterproductive to gameplay since it doesn't generate heat or anything. It's a gimmick at best.

Flamethrower is the "ill have a cookie now" button during an dungeon pull. Its crazy to me that the only heat related skill in the kit does not produce hit.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I think this skill has a lot more immediate problems than its range, which I'm pretty fine with tbh, just need to position correctly.

I'd like for starters that they made it useful. Right now it's barely a gain against the AoE rotation, has no interaction with the kit, and is actually counterproductive to gameplay since it doesn't generate heat or anything. It's a gimmick at best.

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It is a good DPS gain in AoE but I agree it needs to be better. However, increasing it's range would help a ton as OP says it's slightly too short especially in the latest dungeon with the mobs' giant AoEs.

The FLAMEthrower doesn't generate heat, either

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Originally Posted by Mithron

It is a good DPS gain in AoE but I agree it needs to be better. However, increasing it's range would help a ton as OP says it's slightly too short especially in the latest dungeon with the mobs' giant AoEs.

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I haven't rechecked the actual simulations and data in EW, but in ShB it used to be barely a gain, and mostly on low level amounts of enemies (aka 2 enemies especially). It barely edged out the normal AoE rotation, and I already had a problem with it for reason i'll talk below. Those days in EW with the insane increase in heat generation due to the introduction of scattergun, which also has a bit more potency than spread shot as well, and nothing having changed on the flamethrower side, I somehow doubt that it's still even able to compete, but maybe I missed something. Even on two targets compared to the single target rotation, with the queen buffs and new finisher in EW? Eeeeeh...

The main problem with it is that not only it's a 99% dungeon skill for mob pack AoE, but it's also a skill conflicting with the rest of the kit not only because it meshes badly with the other skills, but also because in said dungeons, especially on the mob packs just before a boss (so one out of two), actually not generating heat lowers the resources you have stored in gauges when starting the boss on solo target just after. I feel that's also a noticeable problem, because MCH gauges are pretty strong stored damage potential.

Flame Thrower needs to be a skill that comes from a deployed turret allowing us to continue our rotation while it's happening. That's the only thing that makes any sense to me if it's not going to generate any gauge and can't be moved once it has started.

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Originally Posted by Valence

since it doesn't generate heat or anything. It's a gimmick at best.

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Flamethrower not generating Heat is indeed a very weird thing lol. , should give you 5 heat every tick.

Literally just let it generate heat per tick. It literally did that in Stormblood when heat management was an actual thing.

I love the powertools but holy shit they didnt need to axe every good idea stormblood had.

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

Literally just let it generate heat per tick. It literally did that in Stormblood when heat management was an actual thing.

I love the powertools but holy shit they didnt need to axe every good idea stormblood had.

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Pretty much. We got nice tools but at what cost? Ammo and rng procs, reloading, pre WF pattern identification, heat management, an actual WF that felt good... And a useful flamethrower, never thought I'd actually praise the ability in SB considering how ping discriminatory it was, but at least it was useful for the kit.

At least it feels intricate and good in pvp.

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Originally Posted by Valence

Pretty much. We got nice tools but at what cost? Ammo and rng procs, reloading, pre WF pattern identification, heat management, an actual WF that felt good... And a useful flamethrower, never thought I'd actually praise the ability in SB considering how ping discriminatory it was, but at least it was useful for the kit.

At least it feels intricate and good in pvp.

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The funny thing is, what made Overheating so shit in terms of how strict the timing was is what they started fixing utilising buff stacks per GCD later on.

"Later on" is an euphemism. Took them what, all of ShB + half of EW?

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Originally Posted by Valence

Pretty much. We got nice tools but at what cost? Ammo and rng procs, reloading, pre WF pattern identification, heat management, an actual WF that felt good... And a useful flamethrower, never thought I'd actually praise the ability in SB considering how ping discriminatory it was, but at least it was useful for the kit.

At least it feels intricate and good in pvp.

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Unfortunately the design's best aspect, heat management, was aborted in keeping the core of its HW rotation, 'ammo' management and piano bursting. I would have loved if they kept the class as a heat management class where you wanted to exclusively juggle heat. I feel if they focused on heat management, it would be better overall.

That said, I have no love lost for that version of the class. Needing to intentionally overheat the class and wildfire burst and still piano burst while managing ammo and doing that bizarre 323121 rotation that existed back then just wasn't worth the headache. That said, I do actually miss the 323121 ammo burst. That was actually fun.

Machinist as a heat management class could have been so interesting, but instead it's a cooldown class which is...fine, but not the best.

It's boring is what it is, much like GNB. Just press a lot of different long cooldowns on cooldown, else they drift. Whoo.

You could reasonably do what Drill/Bioblaster is.

Make it a Ogcd with shared Air Anchor recast
give it 20 heat
give it a lingering dot

Maybe limit it to one of those dots at a time, or even create a interaction when both are active at the same time.

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Originally Posted by Mithron

It is a good DPS gain in AoE but I agree it needs to be better. However, increasing it's range would help a ton as OP says it's slightly too short especially in the latest dungeon with the mobs' giant AoEs.

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Someone feel free to point out if I'm wrong here... but I'm pretty sure flamethrower is still a DPS loss to use.

In the 10 seconds of Flamethrower you'd miss out on:
4 uses of Scattergun 150 potency each for a total of 600
40 heat gauge, and comparing the DPS per point of heat to Auto Crossbow, that's 560 DPS
Flamethrower stops your auto attacks, which is minimal loss during AOE pulls, but still 4 auto attacks at approximately 50 potency a piece for 200 potency

This brings the total DPS that would be done during the normal skill usage to 1,360

I believe Flamethrower ticks every second, and it hits for 80 potency per hit, bringing the potency total to 880 if I'm right. (10 ticks plus one on hit)

Comparing the two, even if you don't count the potency on the auto attacks, or even if I have the potency wrong (I'm going off someone else's estimate here) it's still 40 potency more to not use Flamethrower at all. So I do think Valence is correct that range isn't the only thing at issue with Flamethrower, and a simple heat generation while you use it would solve that... or just increased potency so it doesn't matter you're not generating heat.

Increase its range to 30y and its duration to 60s
So I can finally truly AFK during dungeons.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

Someone feel free to point out if I'm wrong here... but I'm pretty sure flamethrower is still a DPS loss to use.

In the 10 seconds of Flamethrower you'd miss out on:
4 uses of Spread Shot 140 potency each for a total of 560
20 heat gauge, and comparing the DPS per point of heat to Auto Crossbow, that's 280 DPS
Flamethrower stops your auto attacks, which is minimal loss during AOE pulls, but still 4 auto attacks at approximately 50 potency a piece for 200 potency

This brings the total DPS that would be done during the normal skill usage to 1,040

I believe Flamethrower ticks every second, and it hits for 80 potency per hit, bringing the potency total to 800 if I'm right.

Comparing the two, even if you don't count the potency on the auto attacks, or even if I have the potency wrong (I'm going off someone else's estimate here) it's still 40 potency more to not use Flamethrower at all. So I do think Valence is correct that range isn't the only thing at issue with Flamethrower, and a simple heat generation while you use it would solve that... or just increased potency so it doesn't matter you're not generating heat.

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It's more complicated than this to be modeled, because one needs to take into account a longer curve of using the actual AoE normal rotation of scattergun then hypercharge then scattergun, etc, by taking into account bioblaster segmentation in between that adds some constraints to it all (and potentially Air Anchor at 3 or 4 targets), versus a rotation using flamethrower then scattergun then hypercharge etc until you loop back to flamethrower.

You end up with longer curves of damage that can also vary depending on the amount of targets. The FT rotation tends to edge out especially in the first 10 seconds for obvious reasons, then peter out until 60s later. During ShB both curves were almost identical, FT rotation edging out by an inch, especially over 2 targets. No idea for EW, I wasn't the author of that calculator, but as said above I don't see how it can even still win out considering that everything else has been buffed for EW but FT (unless they cheated when they lowered physical damage potencies to align them on magical and didn't lower FT as much as it should have, which I doubt).

Also, Flamethrower works like a ground dot but with 1s ticks, so it will tick for a total of 11 ticks (1 tick at activation, then 10s of 10 ticks).

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Originally Posted by Valence

It's more complicated than this to be modeled, because one needs to take into account a longer curve of using the actual AoE normal rotation of scattergun then hypercharge then scattergun, etc, by taking into account bioblaster segmentation in between that adds some constraints to it all (and potentially Air Anchor at 3 or 4 targets), versus a rotation using flamethrower then scattergun then hypercharge etc until you loop back to flamethrower.

You end up with longer curves of damage that can also vary depending on the amount of targets. The FT rotation tends to edge out especially in the first 10 seconds for obvious reasons, then peter out until 60s later. During ShB both curves were almost identical, FT rotation edging out by an inch, especially over 2 targets. No idea for EW, I wasn't the author of that calculator, but as said above I don't see how it can even still win out considering that everything else has been buffed for EW but FT (unless they cheated when they lowered physical damage potencies to align them on magical and didn't lower FT as much as it should have, which I doubt).

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oops I'll edit my post, but that even if Flamethrower gets 11 ticks, there's also another issue where I was going off Spread Shot instead of Scattergun but even then that means that Flamethrower is doing a total potency of 880 while with the additional potency and heat from Scattergun over what I calculated thats still 1320 potency from just using your normal skills.

I guess I'm not seeing how in what you laid out, though, where you're actually getting more damage from using flamethrower when you're actually losing 440 potency if the source I found was correct about the potency on auto attacks, or 240 if you're not counting auto attacks at all.

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Also, Flamethrower works like a ground dot but with 1s ticks, so it will tick for a total of 11 ticks (1 tick at activation, then 10s of 10 ticks).

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Also off topic but wanted to do a correction here... not sure about Salted Earth, but Doton doesn't tick every second, it's still every 3 seconds. Important to know since I've seen several ninjas thinking that Doton does more damage than Raiton. Slipstream is every 3 seconds as well.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

I guess I'm not seeing how in what you laid out, though, where you're actually getting more damage from using flamethrower when you're actually losing 440 potency if the source I found was correct about the potency on auto attacks, or 240 if you're not counting auto attacks at all.

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I never said that the FT AoE rotation was better than the strict auto xbow rotation...

I just said that your methodology is too simplistic to model the problem accurately.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

Also off topic but wanted to do a correction here... not sure about Salted Earth, but Doton doesn't tick every second, it's still every 3 seconds. Important to know since I've seen several ninjas thinking that Doton does more damage than Raiton. Slipstream is every 3 seconds as well.

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I said, quoting: "works like a ground dot BUT with 1s ticks".

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Originally Posted by Valence

I never said that the FT AoE rotation was better than the strict auto xbow rotation...

I just said that your methodology is too simplistic to model the problem accurately.



I said, quoting: "works like a ground dot BUT with 1s ticks".

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Oh thanks for clarifying! :)

And my mistake misreading your comment about ground AOEs

Flamethrower being a "capstone skill" is a joke. There are only a few instances where it has any value. Even in those corner cases where Flamethrower could find a home in a rotation (large trash pull) - you could position yourself near perfectly and still miss mobs because the range is so tiny.

Based on my own math I did a long while ago, Flamethrower is worth using on 4+ target if!
-Bio Blaster isn't coming back in the next 10 seconds
-Chain Saw isn't coming back in the next 10 seconds
-You have a low Heat gauge (0~10)
-You can't ensure a full duration of Hypercharge

If those conditions aren't filled, you're better just spamming Scattergun, especially if you a Reassemble ready for CS/Scattergun.
But remind yourself we're talking about ridiculous gain of potencies that might not even make you gain a second.

Flamethrower should be an instant AoE Air Anchor alternative that leaves a puddle of fire DoT on the floor like old Burning Arrow did.

Rechecked the Balanced updated for EW, it seems to be more or less the same old song, even worse:

https://www.thebalanceffxiv.com/img/...heat-vs-ft.png

I see literally no gain using FT in the rotation unless the pack is going to die very fast (can be useful at the end of packs, but not before a boss).

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

Flamethrower should be an instant AoE Air Anchor alternative that leaves a puddle of fire DoT on the floor like old Burning Arrow did.

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no thanks.... after playing summoner last tier, I'm really tired of ground-placed AOEs and would rather they eliminate slipstream, doton, and salted earth rather than expand them out. Tanks regularly pull mobs out of it, and for the first two, bosses tend to move around at the same time as you need to put them out.

I don't see an issue with it being a replacement for air anchor in AOE situations, just would rather that be it's own attack that hits all the enemies hard or maybe even applies pyretic on them for X seconds.

Flamethrower has a cool animation, if it didn't feel like an emote.

Idk I think the numbers should be bigger with a bit more oomph, to feel like it actually is doing something.

I often watch it and wonder if it's actually doing any damage.

Maybe it's the lack of crit. Bioblaster animation, but it feels good because you can actually see the damage numbers and when it crits, it feels satisfying.

There's zero feedback.

Well there is the small orange numbers (like dot ticks) that actually crop up from it, but it's orange small little numbers... over an orange sea of flames. Probably designed by the same guy that designed Phoinix.

I think my previously posted suggestion, wherever it ended up being, was that FT should deal bonus damage to enemies that are suffering the BioBlaster DOT, a sort of 1-2 combo for AOE. I think by making it so FT consumes Bio, and applies a new DOT effect with higher potency, that is refreshed if the enemies stay in the Flamethrower (but you could do it for just one tick and it'd be good damage still). I don't remember the potencies exactly, but I remember making it (accidentally) so that Bio+FT weave was actually more damage even in single target than a regular non-reassembled Drill, so that was a nice side effect. Going from ReassembleDrill, Drill, Drill each minute to Bio+FT, Drill, Drill (and moving Reassemble to the Chainsaw or AA) would be akin to how NIN mixes up it's mudras by having a Suiton once a minute instead of constant Raitons, I guess

edit: found it, not quite the exact same as I just wrote but you get the point hopefully

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I was thinking, what if they reduce Flamethrower to a 5s channel, and make it do double damage when BioBlaster is applied to the enemy? That way, it's a definite gain to use Bio > Flamethrower on 2, and even a gain to do one of your three drills as Bio > FT on one target (it'd be 300 from Bio, plus 160 x 5 ticks from FT, vs flat 600 from Drill). I guess it's kinda similar to how NIN subs out one Raiton out of 3 per 60s loop to do Suiton for Trick

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The idea that crossed my mind for Flamethrower since they don't seem to be willing to integrate it in the solo target rotations, was to also have it interact with Bioblaster in a similar fashion, and the game would also be to keep all the mobs on fire all the time. For example, you use flamethrower on mobs afflicted by bioblaster, the longer you keep it channeled, the more damage the new flaming dot will get. The dot will last 20ish seconds, and every time you re-use bioblaster, you add more fuel to the fire and it refreshes the flaming dot (like old Bane).

In order not to get a bloat of AoE dots, the flaming dot would replace the bioblaster basic dot.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

I think my previously posted suggestion, wherever it ended up being, was that FT should deal bonus damage to enemies that are suffering the BioBlaster DOT

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2 problems with this idea:
Flamethrower by itself, ST and AOE, would remain a boring "don't move for X seconds and let the game plays for you."

This would be Stormblood all over again and the tick fishing will be back.
Remember being at 90/95 heat during Stormblood, using Flamethrower but not getting a tick and failing to enter Overheat for your burst window?
We could also have possible jank about the dot not refreshing correctly or missing a dot tick.
Even if SQEX keeps the Flamethrower on GCD we're going to suffer tick fishing again.

In short, the inherent problems to Flamethrower would remain and would possibly add one because of how Flamethrower and the dots are weirdly coded.

Okay, then have Bioblaster's DOT be replaced by a stronger Flamethrower burning DOT on the first tick that FT hits a mob (which should be instant if FT is considered to be a 'ground effect', Collective Unconscious for AST works that way and is also a channel), and just don't refresh the DOT when enemies stay in the FT range, just deal 'damage over time' to them as it works now. For example numbers:

Bioblaster: 50, plus 5 ticks of 50 for total of 300
Flamethrower (oGCD, immediately weaved after Bioblaster): 200, plus (converting the Bio DOT into FT burn DOT) 5 ticks of 100 for total of 700
Enemies standing in the Flamethrower AOE continue to suffer an additional 100 potency per second they're in it, total duration of 5s if you fully channel it.

This still isn't high enough to make 'channel FT' worth it on single target, doubly so because it doesn't generate resources. But it does make it worth it to Bioblaster in singletarget, and weave FT right after to amplify the DOT effect. It doesn't have to be coded as a 'FT has to be channeled to do it's bonus damage to the Bio'd enemy', and we know the game can have skills do certain things based on if a DOT is present or not, as Iron Jaws does it. So instead of 'check if DOT is there, if so take it down and replace with a new instance of the same DOT', we can have 'check if DOT is there, if so take it down and replace with this other, stronger DOT'

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

2 problems with this idea:
Flamethrower by itself, ST and AOE, would remain a boring "don't move for X seconds and let the game plays for you."

This would be Stormblood all over again and the tick fishing will be back.
Remember being at 90/95 heat during Stormblood, using Flamethrower but not getting a tick and failing to enter Overheat for your burst window?
We could also have possible jank about the dot not refreshing correctly or missing a dot tick.
Even if SQEX keeps the Flamethrower on GCD we're going to suffer tick fishing again.

In short, the inherent problems to Flamethrower would remain and would possibly add one because of how Flamethrower and the dots are weirdly coded.

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Easy solution is to not have it tick up heat, but dump 50 heat at the end of its duration. Which would also require you to not interrupt it early.
But SE seems allergic to risk:reward situations like that.

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Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe

Okay, then have Bioblaster's DOT be replaced by a stronger Flamethrower burning DOT on the first tick that FT hits a mob (which should be instant if FT is considered to be a 'ground effect', Collective Unconscious for AST works that way and is also a channel), and just don't refresh the DOT when enemies stay in the FT range, just deal 'damage over time' to them as it works now.

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Even in your example, you could still miss a tick.
You could miss the 2nd or 3rd tick even. It would also be punishing for players with lags.
Dots are suspicious sometimes, since you mention Iron Jaws, have you ever experienced dot dropping but being reapplied by Iron Jaws?

If you absolutely wants to keep your idea, you can simply have FT applies a second dot if Bio Blaster dot is present.
Even then we remain with a boring Flamethrower, problem 1 isn't solved.

One actual improvement you could get to make FT viable would be to allow the use of Reassemble on it. Main issues being:

- Mechanical: except for the two charges initially, once you're past the opener on AoE packs, you're left with having to choose between Chainsaw and FT, which kinda defeats the purpose.
- Systemic: FT doesn't CDHit. They'd need to review the code, and we all know how they like reviewing the spaghetti in there.

If I had a say, I'd rework flamethrower to be like Phantom Flurry (Suzaku's kick) on Blue Mage, 5s long conal channel, but with a finisher attached. Fiddle the potency around a little, make it a definitive gain in AoE situations. Maybe tie a bit of heat gain to the finisher and give it synergy with Bio Blaster with increased potency or an extra DoT application. There's a lot of neat things they could do with Flamethrower, but don't.