MCH: How to fix flamethrower

[Dyvid]

Well first you need to up the potency because it's weaker than Shattershot in it's current state.

But a true fix would make Flamethrower your Heat Gauge and make Auto Crossbow into an AoE Turret for Energy gauge.

As far as channeled casting, it's fine if you make it risk worth reward. Take DNC's Improv for example. Is it really worth eating an AoE for a Max Barrier and Regen buff? Same with Flamethrower. I would be nice if FT applied some kind of stacking Defense Debuff to the targets where is a stack would be a 2.5% with a max of 4 stacks.

But this is SE and everything is fine so back to wishful thinking.

[Shurrikhan]

But a true fix would make Flamethrower your Heat Gauge and make Auto Crossbow into an AoE Turret for Energy gauge.

I would love to see this, but as a disgustingly powerful limited-mobility mode like Ley Lines. The Auto-Crossbow (or, Auto-Ballista) would fire automatically, but would be reloaded by GCDs from the player, requiring that they be within 3 yalms of said Auto-Ballista. Naturally, once put down, the button for Auto-Ballista swaps to that GCD option. Hits like a truck. And is AoE.

And, yeah, stick Flamethrower hastened-GCDs on the Overheated/Hypercharged GCDs. I'd just add that (A) it should have a longer animation than is typical (seeming to take up the full 1.5s) and, if necessary, there should technically be two forms, by the same name and tooltip, with the latter form's animation mirrored such that it switches swing direction each time (so back-to-back uses look fluid).