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Has the firebug lost its luster?

You simply dont need to.... what? weaken gorefasts and bloats? If a support is beside you, every shot you use on them is going to waste. (good support of cos) As for comando... he decap bloats once he saw one, and let him drop after a few seconds. And you brun it, that bloat WILL EXPLODE. Gorefasts... after a decap it doesn;t really matter if it is on fire or not.. decap already stun them for a few seconds...

In a map like Biotecs, you are normaly at the end of a long hallway, maximizing the range of the flamethrower will accomplish what I said, also the flamethrower is not a pinpoint accuracy weapon, it is used to ignite groups. So when 30 assorted zeds come around the corner I do not try to ignite them one by one, I ignite the entire group (unless an FP is there), so if a bloat catches fire, oh well. Secondly, at that range, with proper ''tap'' fire control the skrake will be deeply burned before he gets close, I know this for a fact because I have done it a hundred times, I've even killed them with the flame thrower before it could get in range of us.

Sharpshooter instan-kill both bloats and gorefasts. So...

you realy want the SS to waste a bolt on a Bloat or Gorefast? Also, what if your sharpsooter, and the rest of the team for that matter are dealing with 2 FP's? Thats what I mean by ''Judgement call'', team dealing with 2 raging FP's, 20 zeds, including a Skrake come toward us.

Scrake... really? Scrakes seems to be the zeds who will most likely survive long enough for that "deeply burn" animation. And this will resulting in berserker and sharpshoter fail to hit the head. And you are gring him dangerously close to rage without doing enough damage to him. I dont see a reason for FB to burn scrakes, AT ALL. I would say the only time you should flame the scrake is when he is already raged. And at this point you should be continously flaming the scrake. Letting the scrake burn do nothing good for the team.

see 1st, and 2nd reply


Copied this over from the other thread:
Myself I think he is fine as is, maybe a bit more ammo.
Not to brag, but here is an example.
Today, Biotics, HoE. I joined at the beginning of wave 3 as a beserker (L6), end of wave 3 I had 88 kills, other players All L6, (1 SS, 2 Support, 1 Medic, 1 Commando) had between 120-250 each. Switched to FB (L6) at trader, end of round ten, me 678 kills, other players between 350-500 each.

I'm sorry, but I fail to see any problem with the FB.
 
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you realy want the SS to waste a bolt on a Bloat or Gorefast?


Handcannon? M14? LAR? Have you even played ss? Handcannon only decap bloats tough.. What I know since day one of playing kf is try not to make the bloat explode...

But the difference is a zeds with no head walks REALLY SLOW and sometimes randomly walk around. And a burning gorefast still able to charge, burning bloat still able to puke and they will still use the shortest patch to get to you. If the team is denfending a long hallways like you said, decap them with 9mm of sharpshoter already do what you can. (and again, gorefasts can survive of burning, so you are using unnecessary ammo)

If you, a firebug, have to dual with a scrake yourself, something's not right. And if the team is working fine, burning that scrake will only result in screwing up sharpshooter's or berserker's aim while you totally dont need to burn that scrake.


And I never say FB is totally useless. And I never say FB need a hugh buff. I can live with any changes, and I can live without any.
 
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When crap hits the fan, the good old flame wall of death can come in handy when a Fleshpound goes screeching past a Firebug inot the thick of the team. Stops them pesky crawlers and gorefasts running in when everyone is beaten to hell :)

As with all things its all relative. Used properly the Firebug is a powerufl asset to the team, used badly he can be a major hinderance. But same can be said for every perk in the game :)
 
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When crap hits the fan, the good old flame wall of death can come in handy when a Fleshpound goes screeching past a Firebug inot the thick of the team. Stops them pesky crawlers and gorefasts running in when everyone is beaten to hell :)

As with all things its all relative. Used properly the Firebug is a powerufl asset to the team, used badly he can be a major hinderance. But same can be said for every perk in the game :)


Thank you!
 
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Sigh. Again: FB's ignite groups, not individual targets, and what if the team is dealing with 2 raging FP's, and a group of zeds start comming at us? By the time the FP's are dead the team is at low health, and now we have 20+ zeds, and a Skrake at full health on top of us. As I said; have done it a hundred times, I know it works.


What can rage two fps at the same time? M32, or pipebombs. (I only consider suituations where no stupid one will throw all his nades to them or rage each of them with half a clip of SCAR)

Both M32 and pipe bomb bring them to low health. It is not like you should never burn a scrake, just like you have to flame a fleshpound if he is charging at you. If you only have 9mm left and a fleshpound is charging at you, you HAVE to shoot it.

But under most suituation, firebug who burn a scrake dont end up well. What I mean is, gorefasts and bloats you either flame untill they die, or dont even light them. For scrakes, if you can, and when you NEED TO, of cos you should kill it. Just like I can M14 a full health fleshpound to death without much problem. But if there's a demo in the team, I wont even shoot the fleshpound once.
 
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What Steeps and Salada said is true.
Firebug can do a crapton of damage over a period of time but classes like Demo, Support and Sharpshooter can do the same damage faster.
Also doesn't help that Firebug is basicly useless against Scrakes & FPs now.
Some special burn effects as suggested would be fair for Firebug so that the class is usefull on Waves 6-10.
A lot of the good Firebug's I've seen playing around on Hard/Suicidal servers switch to Support 80% of the time because they wouldn't even get that much money due to the previously said high damage spikes by other classes, sometimes not even having the time to put down a flame on a enemy (actually happens to me a lot, which made me not play Firebug except for perk grinding).
More ammo would also be nice because you can burn trough your ammo (pun intended) quite fast.
 
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What can rage two fps at the same time? M32, or pipebombs. (I only consider suituations where no stupid one will throw all his nades to them or rage each of them with half a clip of SCAR)

Players mindlessly shooting at anything that moves.

Both M32 and pipe bomb bring them to low health. It is not like you should never burn a scrake, just like you have to flame a fleshpound if he is charging at you. If you only have 9mm left and a fleshpound is charging at you, you HAVE to shoot it.

Have not seen many Demo guys on HoE, at least not on the servers I play on.

But under most suituation, firebug who burn a scrake dont end up well. What I mean is, gorefasts and bloats you either flame untill they die, or dont even light them. For scrakes, if you can, and when you NEED TO, of cos you should kill it. Just like I can M14 a full health fleshpound to death without much problem. But if there's a demo in the team, I wont even shoot the fleshpound once.

As I said, if you maximies the range of the flamethrower, and have good fire control they will both die before they get in range (Not the Skrake of course), if not then they are very easy for one of the others to kill, or the FB quick switches to the mac10, kills them, then goes back to the flame thrower.
 
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Oh one note I forget. Yes the Firebug is pants agaisnt the fleshpound, but that is where his balance lies :)

Against Scrakes there is 1 tactic that works well. The crisp up effect.

Take HoE as an example, the Xbow sharpshooter has to hit 2 consecutive headshots to kill Scrake. Now as a Sharpshooter myself I can generally hit both in a row, but every once in a while I miss the second headshot, which is very punishing as the window is very small. This then leaves me rushing a 3rd shot against a very quick moving, very pissed off Scrake :)

Now ignting the Scrake on first sight as the Firebug will slowly cause the Scrake to crisp. Assuming that second headshot is missed by the Sharpshooter the Scrake will charge. However the crisp effect will interupt this charge attack and cause the Scrake to start walking agian. THis means teh Sharpshooter once again has a nice slow target to ensure he makes this second headshot.

This tactic works exactly the same for a Support with the HS + AA12. Ignite it, double shot it, start reloading as it charges then quick swap to the AA-12, crisp effect interupts the charge allowing the Support to deal a nice chunk of damage, and when it charges again swap back to HS and double shot again.

The only thing this doesn't work for is the Berserker, since his stun lock is interupted by the fire damage.

Otherwise however it jsut requires that golden word... teamwork :rolleyes:
 
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When crap hits the fan, the good old flame wall of death can come in handy when a Fleshpound goes screeching past a Firebug inot the thick of the team. Stops them pesky crawlers and gorefasts running in when everyone is beaten to hell :)

As with all things its all relative. Used properly the Firebug is a powerufl asset to the team, used badly he can be a major hinderance. But same can be said for every perk in the game :)

This. Generally I try to avoid scrakes, fp, and husks. If I have room to maneuver I simply dart around them and go heavily on the offensive. I usually keep the offense 'tll the team has killed the scrake, or the scrake has killed the team. The firebug takes a lot of situational thinking to be used effectively.



What can rage two fps at the same time? M32, or pipebombs. (I only consider suituations where no stupid one will throw all his nades to them or rage each of them with half a clip of SCAR)Both M32 and pipe bomb bring them to low health. It is not like you should never burn a scrake, just like you have to flame a fleshpound if he is charging at you. If you only have 9mm left and a fleshpound is charging at you, you HAVE to shoot it.

But under most suituation, firebug who burn a scrake dont end up well. What I mean is, gorefasts and bloats you either flame untill they die, or dont even light them. For scrakes, if you can, and when you NEED TO, of cos you should kill it. Just like I can M14 a full health fleshpound to death without much problem. But if there's a demo in the team, I wont even shoot the fleshpound once.

I think anyone thats played this game can realize and admit that every perk is situational. Sharpshooters are great at headshot damage, but are you going to plink away at a fp's head with a 9mm? Demomen have great offensive output, but are you going to waste a single grenade on one clot?

All classes take situational awareness. How to use a certain weapon, when to use that weapon, and when to bugger off and let someone else handle the situation should be in every killing floor players repertoire. A sharpshooter is waaay more effective than a firebug at taking down a scrake. But what if your sharpshooter is having his face mashed in by a fleshpound and there is a scrake advancing from the other way?

You can be certain that the majority of the team is focused on the fleshpound in most pub groups. There is no wrong way to handle this situation as a firebug because you were placed in a situation that REQUIRES you to step outside of your perks role and act (unless you run and hide in an empty hallway, that is the wrong way).
 
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Firebug is currently the most capable class in a turteling situation with a good bottleneck.

2 firebugs spending all of their money on weapons can have ~6 full flame throwers by wave 9, and enough ammo throughout the game to more-or-less "hold it down" for each entire wave.

It's quite a stable/sound strategy. 2 bugs with enough ammo to stream a whole wave, and virtually nothing makes it past the firestorm.
 
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#30 I'm not expecting the firebug to be good at everything. I just want him to have more of a support role. That's where he excels. If you want to hose down an area that's nice but a commando or support does the job just as well or better. If medic is the defensive support class, firebug should be the offensive support class. I don't him to be able to solo waves or take down every specimen, but do want him to be a viable option to teams once again.

Or maybe people just got bored of him. Either way a new gadget or ability would be nice. :cool:

#31 can't 2 commandos and 2 supports do that as well? Plus the latter can greatly help out at the scrake/fp scenario.
 
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Players mindlessly shooting at anything that moves.

Ha, doing it wrong from the begining to paly with public random team on suicidal and HoE (unless you totally dont care to lose or you want to try taking out 6-man worth zeds).

Have not seen many Demo guys on HoE, at least not on the servers I play on.

Well, not really much good demo out there even know they can kill an fp in 2 seconds.

As I said, if you maximies the range of the flamethrower, and have good fire control they will both die before they get in range (Not the Skrake of course), if not then they are very easy for one of the others to kill, or the FB quick switches to the mac10, kills them, then goes back to the flame thrower.

Which is faster? One head shot? Or continous flaming? I see many firebug trying to hit those gorefasts and bloats end up hitting air because sharpshooters and commandos know they have to shoot them first. Why waste ammo on them? Clots and crawlers will come ENDLESSLY.


Qutoe from my other post:
FB dont have huge disavantage, however adding some kind of bonus has nothing wrong too. Its just make sense that a burning living thing will take more damage from bullets or melee because their skin is soften up. This is just a change that promotes teamwork and will not be game-breaking. This kind of change can also avoid a team with too many players using the same perk. because one firebug can give you damage bonus, and two firebugs cannot provide damage bonus to each other.


In that case a burning gorefast could potentially die from a single head shot from commando of sharpshooter using 9mm. And xbow sharp can decap a fleshpound with only 3 head shots even you only gives 5-10% bonus to burning zeds.
 
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Players mindlessly shooting at anything that moves.

Ha, doing it wrong from the begining to paly with public random team on suicidal and HoE (unless you totally dont care to lose or you want to try taking out 6-man worth zeds).

Yes, some do it wrong, however, sometimes 2 players shoot at the same zed in front of the FP, the first one to shoot kills the zed, the 2nd player fires a half second later and inadvertantly hits the FP.

Have not seen many Demo guys on HoE, at least not on the servers I play on.

Well, not really much good demo out there even know they can kill an fp in 2 seconds.

With the exception of a pipe bomb, or 2, how can a Demo kill a FP on HoE in 2 seconds???

As I said, if you maximies the range of the flamethrower, and have good fire control they will both die before they get in range (Not the Skrake of course), if not then they are very easy for one of the others to kill, or the FB quick switches to the mac10, kills them, then goes back to the flame thrower.

Which is faster? One head shot? Or continous flaming? I see many firebug trying to hit those gorefasts and bloats end up hitting air because sharpshooters and commandos know they have to shoot them first. Why waste ammo on them? Clots and crawlers will come ENDLESSLY.

Once again, hopefully for the last time: FB's ignite GROUPS, NOT SINGLE TARGETS.

As I said in the other post: It seems that you have not played with any good FB's. I play on 3 servers (HoE), and in CQC maps people always ask me to switch to FB after wave 6.


Qutoe from my other post:
FB dont have huge disavantage, however adding some kind of bonus has nothing wrong too. Its just make sense that a burning living thing will take more damage from bullets or melee because their skin is soften up. This is just a change that promotes teamwork and will not be game-breaking. This kind of change can also avoid a team with too many players using the same perk. because one firebug can give you damage bonus, and two firebugs cannot provide damage bonus to each other.


In that case a burning gorefast could potentially die from a single head shot from commando of sharpshooter using 9mm. And xbow sharp can decap a fleshpound with only 3 head shots even you only gives 5-10% bonus to burning zeds.

Seems to me that we are doing nothing more than reiteraiting the same points over and over, therefore I think this exchange has become pointless, and see no reason to continue with it.
 
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I wish more pub Demo's would do this. :rolleyes:

The average pub Demoman is a drooling idiot who just likes seeing things explode. It's a pretty amazing, albeit situational class in the right hands. IMO, it can do largely the same thing Firebug can. And that's Firebug's current problem.

Firebug is basically lower damage but constant AoE class that can do it's work at close-to-point-blank range without an issue...but has issue with bigger specimens.

Demo is the opposite. Big bursts of damage with a fairly long reload time. Can't work at point-blank at all, but can absolutely nuke some of the bigger specimens that Firebug is useless against (FPs).

The trouble is that Demo becomes more useful than Firebug most of the time. They can nuke FPs easily, they stun approaching groups that they don't kill outright. And they can quickly deal with Husks at longer range. Firebug can't really do that. Couple the fact that Demo can have a good bit of customization (2 Launchers to choose from, neither of which takes up more than 1/2 your loadout and the 1kg Pipe bombs) than the Firebug (Flamethrower takes up 2/3 of your loadout immediately and if you want the MAC10, you're basically full).

Firebug isn't useless. But they're not exceptionally useful compared to alternatives right now. Commandos and Demos can sweep the trash as well as they can, while having other uses.
 
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