Machinist needs help.

[Jirah]

Using current numbers:
ACB is 120 PPS.
FT is 100 PPS.
Ricochet every 2 ACB would be 50 PPS.
Spreadshot is 72 PPS and 5 heat.

Assuming ACB would reduce R cooldown by 15s, that would raise ACB potency worth to 145 pps.
FT over 10 seconds is 1000-1100 potency.
ACB+R over 10 seconds would be 1450 potency.
Spreadshot over 10 seconds is 720 potency.

With scattergun on higher potency and generating 10 heat, it's obvious that Flamethrower would die and its only optimal use would be tick fishing or using the downtime to grab a coffee.
Which I wouldn't mind if Flamethrower was truly relegated to the emote state until they rework it.

It's probably the most boring Flamethrower I've ever seen in a video game.

Scattergun spam is hardly something I see Mash mains looking forward to as a aoe, then again they foamed at the mouth for a aoe of all things rather than question why a 90 job stills spammd crap for damage like a Healer. The heat generation kinda trumps flamethrower popular solution to generate heat. Unless it’s potency is increased by a lot It can’t compare to it….but if MCH aoe was reworked in a way perhaps it can work. Another solution is being a heat generator during transitions like Meditate or old Improv, a very awkward one at that. Otherwise what can you do with this?

[MagiusNecros]

Scattergun spam is hardly something I see Mash mains looking forward to as a aoe, then again they foamed at the mouth for a aoe of all things rather than question why a 90 job stills spammd crap for damage like a Healer. The heat generation kinda trumps flamethrower popular solution to generate heat. Unless it’s potency is increased by a lot It can’t compare to it….but if MCH aoe was reworked in a way perhaps it can work. Another solution is being a heat generator during transitions like Meditate or old Improv, a very awkward one at that. Otherwise what can you do with this?

Make flamethrower use up the 100 Heat Gauge as a powerful AoE option that trumps Autocrossbow or change the way Flamethrower works. The whole channeled ability on a mobile class is bad design. If you have to sit in one spot it has to be STRONG. And Flamethrower is weak as shit.

So you either make it weak and generate a resource for your gauge or you make it do big damage over time.

Because like people have said Flamethrower only seems useful when you stack it with Bioblaster or if you are tired and don't want to press buttons for 10 seconds.

Unless Auto can be used it will be more efficient to use SHOTGUN over Flamethrower at any given time.

Media Tour values have potencies with a 20% decrease so let's use the current system with FT being 100 potency with a tick each second for 1000 potency.

And bumping up 150 potency from Shotgun to 180. So across 4 GCDS at a 2.44 recast with that value is 720. But you'd generate 40 heat in the same timeframe.

But the reality is that there isn't many situations where you will get the full 10 seconds of Flamethrower to get full potency and you generate no heat.

So a wide variety of scenarios dictates that a stationary skill that requires 10 seconds for full damage and has very low chance to crit and generates no resource is objectively worse then a skill you can force to direct crit, generate 10 heat per GCD and are completely mobile while doing so.

Media Tour values would place FT at 800 across 10 seconds and 600 across 4 gcds for Scatter. If you can push 5 gcds it would be 700 so one 100 behind Flamethrower but you'd also generate 50 heat so....

TLDR Flamethrower is shit.

[CKNovel]

TLDR Flamethrower is shit.

I think generating resources would be a bad idea.
In order to optimize it you would want to:
-Spend all your heat before downtime to not overcap too much.
-Use flamethrower exactly 10s seconds before uptime.
-Pray for a tick of damage before you get the heat and cancel FT.

I don't think many would try that last line but the first is bothersome.

Flamethrower is supposed to be a Machinist strong action, I mean what do you expect when you get a Flamethrower in any games?
Right now it feels like watering the garden.

Especially when bosses in the game gets a Flamethrower and it looks great.