whats with MCH Flamethrower

[wildvenonat]

SE: “Flamethrower being a glorified emote is totally part of Machinist’s identity we’re doing this to make them fun and unique’

It’s hilarious that they’ve made various channelled abilities through the game’s lifespan and literally not a single one works as intended. Yet they insist on keeping them exactly as they are . Frankly, it’s extremely stupid

Hey, Apokalypsis fulfills an interesting niche. The niche only exists due to the hot mess that is Moon Flute, but it exists.

Flamethrower is simply bad.

[Valence]

Hey, Apokalypsis fulfills an interesting niche. The niche only exists due to the hot mess that is Moon Flute, but it exists.

Flamethrower is simply bad.

That's exactly how SB Flamethrower could be used for AoE: overheat and snapshot FT at the end of the window to let it run through the whole barrel lockout, and it was very powerful (on top of not using any TP). We can whine all we want on how overheat and FT were clunky, they do interacted in interesting ways with the whole kit.

Mao kinda worried. The more Mao keeps readings about MCHs plights the more Mao realizings thems troubles is far FAR worse than whats BLMs goings through rights now. Can anyones tell Mao if SE has recognized MCHs troubles? Is any helps coming?

They haven't since Stormblood. And every time they take a glance at the job, I actually wish they didn't.

[CKNovel]

That's exactly how SB Flamethrower could be used for AoE: overheat and snapshot FT at the end of the window to let it run through the whole barrel lockout, and it was very powerful (on top of not using any TP). We can whine all we want on how overheat and FT were clunky, they do interacted in interesting ways with the whole kit.

There's good interaction and bad interactions.
Flamethrower and Anatman falls in the bad one, there was so many downsides the current one is miles better than the one we had back in SB.

The scenario you describe only used to be in dungeons and you wouldn't feel any feedback.
In single target scenario it was even worse you had to fumble to get the timing right but even then a packet loss resulted in terrible consequences.

In my opinion they could explore better ways by completely reworking Flamethrower and making it the capstone skill it's supposed to be.

[Valence]

There's good interaction and bad interactions.
Flamethrower and Anatman falls in the bad one, there was so many downsides the current one is miles better than the one we had back in SB.

The scenario you describe only used to be in dungeons and you wouldn't feel any feedback.
In single target scenario it was even worse you had to fumble to get the timing right but even then a packet loss resulted in terrible consequences.

In my opinion they could explore better ways by completely reworking Flamethrower and making it the capstone skill it's supposed to be.

Hard disagree.

SB single target flamethrower wouldn't have been that janky for ping had we had overheat stacks back then (I played on NA at 200ms ping in SB, I would know how painful it was). AoE FT was great and that's exactly how Apokapylsis is currently used on BLU as well. It's a great example of how to make a full use of powerful snapshots to cover for a downtime window. The feedback was the damage done and seeing mobs melt. Else I'm not even sure what you even mean by "feedback". Nothing has feedback in this game beyond the damage application and funny numbers. If you mean that FT's damage numbers on screen still show as dot damage in tiny red numbers, then I agree, it sucks.

I don't even see how anatman even compares.

[CKNovel]

Hard disagree.

SB single target flamethrower wouldn't have been that janky for ping had we had overheat stacks back then (I played on NA at 200ms ping in SB, I would know how painful it was). AoE FT was great and that's exactly how Apokapylsis is currently used on BLU as well. It's a great example of how to make a full use of powerful snapshots to cover for a downtime window. The feedback was the damage done and seeing mobs melt. Else I'm not even sure what you even mean by "feedback". Nothing has feedback in this game beyond the damage application and funny numbers. If you mean that FT's damage numbers on screen still show as dot damage in tiny red numbers, then I agree, it sucks.

I don't even see how anatman even compares.

Yes, you don't clearly see the damages as they appear like dots, and they're spread on 11 stacks.
The single target problem was annoying as you pressed Flamethrower for 1 seconds then interrupted it. It was only used to make the jump from 95 heat to 100.
Barely had time to see a spew of fire before you interrupted it.

A button that just makes you jump to overheat mode was exactly the request from the playerbase.

It compares to ShB Anatman how server ping and packet loss affected a resource gauge, can just screw you and be the difference between a powerful opener/reopener or a garbage one.
The current Flamethrower belongs in the garbage bin to build a completely new one.

[Valence]

Give it heat, or make it consume heat for a lot more potency, I don't care, it's not hard to do, it won't ruin SE's precious savage/trial balance, and it will make the skill actually useful and fun to use.

Yes, you don't clearly see the damages as they appear like dots, and they're spread on 11 stacks.
The single target problem was annoying as you pressed Flamethrower for 1 seconds then interrupted it. It was only used to make the jump from 95 heat to 100.
Barely had time to see a spew of fire before you interrupted it.

A button that just makes you jump to overheat mode was exactly the request from the playerbase.

It compares to ShB Anatman how server ping and packet loss affected a resource gauge, can just screw you and be the difference between a powerful opener/reopener or a garbage one.
The current Flamethrower belongs in the garbage bin to build a completely new one.

Firstly depending on the rotation used, you'd do 2 ticks of FT instead of one because you entered overheat from sub 90 heat (I think it was the optimal, standard 3 ammo low latency opener, and one of the 2 ammo rotations had one pre burst proc pattern that required to cooldown and get 2 ticks instead of 1), which rooted you in place for 2s at minimum instead of 1. I do remember being among all of the people that asked for this FT trick to be changed though, and even today I'm not defending the design of that since fucking it up and cutting it too early meant not overheating and literally ruining your burst + delaying your barrel lockout timer after which threw everything up in shamble in terms of drifting after, which wast he real offender. Cutting it too late was painful since it removed one GCD from overheat, but at least it was recoverable after and would have been fixed with the current stacks we have.

The only thing I'm defending is that it actually served as a cast in certain rotations or specific cases after downtime where you'd end up with a lot less heat than planned (for those of you who defend rphys casts), which made the skill useful, core to the rotation, and also introduced variations in how much time you'd have to channel FT depending on the context: instant and no root if just one tick, and a variable channel rooting you in place if more than one tick. What I miss isn't the jank, but the job actually asking the player to identify their current proc state and heat state before burst and input the correct amount of flamethrower to burst.

Also, I was specifically reacting to the mention of AoE FT, which was used way differently than this and ha literally no jank attached to it, much like BLU Apokalypsis currently works.

Note: Anatman was based on server ticks, FT has, thank fuck, never been tied to server ticks but actor ticks (like dots and ground dots, but every 1s instead like Apokalypsis).

Anyway we definitely do agree that current FT has to change.