Firebug: Zed Shrapnel vs. Zed Napalm

[Ryno5660]

For me it's not arguing realism but it's more the opposite of infntnub's post. I like throwing flame and Shrapnel puts me off, I simply prefer the stream of fire and the wailing crowds to just gibbing everything. Maybe it's just me but I prefer the vast majority of my kills remain intact, gibbing just takes that away from me!

Hell, I got to wave 7 of 10 on Hell on Earth Solo without Shrapnel or MWG and even Heatwave for a while. Was doing fine really, was C4 that ended it!

I just want to be able to pick an option that doesn't gib all my kills but doesn't cause problems for my team because I've picked a weak gimping option. Shrapnel makes throwing flame less fun for me though.

I personally think it should change to a blast with a lot more fire and a lot less pressure - no gibbing, just a forceful blast of flame erupting from inside the zed and torching everything nearby. Like Combustion but no gibs and a more flamey blast.

Of course I suggest this alongside the burning being enough to kill what it hits (trash wise) so that you essentially get the same effect but it spreads fire instead of being a giant HX25 pellet.

 

[hal-]

I like herding zeds into chokepoints and watching them explode, personally.

Why worry about nerfing perks when there are so many that need buffs? I'd like to see more balance before we talk about taking away any of my toys.

 

[Zerginfestor]

Zed Napalm, even if it did work, should be majorly buffed in order to compete with the ridiculous AoE Damage that Zed Shrapnel does. Not only that, but the damage is actually pretty damn GOOD, and with a good proc rate, you can easily set off wombo-combos on the Zeds and clear out an entire horde without much effort. I can somewhat see it on a Microwave gun in a sci-fi horror shooter, but on a Flamethrower? No. It just looks bad, honestly.

Zed Napalm should have a new effect on the Flame weapons, a little splash decal (to show, at least for the Flamethrower, the thick, flaming jelly splattering about on impact against Zeds), a higher burn damage over time, and a slowing effect on the burning Zeds, causing them to go to a crawl as they burn, with the movements being random and sporadic as well, to have those awesome moments when the Gorefast or scrake flails around and into the train of zeds, setting off a large scale CC effect as well as supporting the team by killing them off with DoT and slows, IMO. Right now the speed the Zeds get makes Firebug main damage source useless, relying on a cheaply broken perk.

 

[Frost Spectre]

Zed Napalm, even if it did work, should be majorly buffed in order to compete with the ridiculous AoE Damage that Zed Shrapnel does. Not only that, but the damage is actually pretty damn GOOD, and with a good proc rate, you can easily set off wombo-combos on the Zeds and clear out an entire horde without much effort. I can somewhat see it on a Microwave gun in a sci-fi horror shooter, but on a Flamethrower? No. It just looks bad, honestly.

Zed Napalm should have a new effect on the Flame weapons, a little splash decal (to show, at least for the Flamethrower, the thick, flaming jelly splattering about on impact against Zeds), a higher burn damage over time, and a slowing effect on the burning Zeds, causing them to go to a crawl as they burn, with the movements being random and sporadic as well, to have those awesome moments when the Gorefast or scrake flails around and into the train of zeds, setting off a large scale CC effect as well as supporting the team by killing them off with DoT and slows, IMO. Right now the speed the Zeds get makes Firebug main damage source useless, relying on a cheaply broken perk.

I've also thought that Zed Napalm should create fire fields, either by zed dying from flame weapon (probably most viable one though), zed movement leaves trail of napalm that damages and sets zeds on fire (might be hard on lower end computers) or all residual fires inflicted on map surfaces by flame weapons will damage and set zeds on fire (this could also work).

 

[Zerginfestor]

I've also thought that Zed Napalm should create fire fields, either by zed dying from flame weapon (probably most viable one though), zed movement leaves trail of napalm that damages and sets zeds on fire (might be hard on lower end computers) or all residual fires inflicted on map surfaces by flame weapons will damage and set zeds on fire (this could also work).

That's an awesome idea, in fact, people were talking of something like that for the Firebug's Flame-spewing weapons with the ability to create 'firewalls', a passageway of flames that the Zeds must either choose to crawl through and most likely die from the slowing, agonizing pain of the fire, or take the long way around and buy people time. It could seriously help in making the Flamethrower a competitive choice when compared to the Microwave Gun. Either go with pure damage with the Microwave Gun, or go with awesome utility with the Flamethrower and start slowing hordes down and buying the people time and ammo.

 

[FoolishNinja]

it would just annoy people even more when you block their vision with more flames

 

[Ryno5660]

it would just annoy people even more when you block their vision with more flames

That's a common sense thing though, I've heard this complaint since KF1 and most of the time (ingame that is) it's some sharpie or mando trying to kill the same trash I am.

It's going to die without you buddy, I'm torching it! Focus on something that's not about to die anyway!

As Zerg said I would like to see the Flamethrower be a competitive endgame option; if it can't be damaging like MWG it should provide something useful enough to stay, even on boss wave!

 

[Lorkenpeist]

As Zerg said I would like to see the Flamethrower be a competitive endgame option; if it can't be damaging like MWG it should provide something useful enough to stay, even on boss wave!

Since most trash are resistant to microwaves, I have found that the flamethrower is excellent in later waves to keep all the trash at bay while the heavy hitters take care of the sc/fp. When a sc/fp shows up, I'll throw down a flaratov on one entrance and focus my flamethrower on another, so the heavy hitters can be relatively undistracted in their endeavors. That being said, I will go microwave instead if we don't have enough scrake killers on the team, but I find flamethrower to be the best trash killer ever, and great for a supporting role when we have enough heavy hitters already. Plus, it means I don't have to put my fragile self too close to the fleshpound, because they always murder me when I do.

As for boss wave, I don't think there's any reason why a T3 ought to be competitive vs the T4, for any perk. For firebug, the top 2 weapons are designed for either massive trash clear, or massive single-target damage, and that's a tradeoff you should think about in the later waves, depending on team composition. But on the boss wave you should be thinking entirely about single target damage, and for any given perk there will always be one weapon that does that the best.

TLDR: I think flamethrower already IS competitive vs microwave in later waves, and doesn't need to be in the boss wave.

 

[Ryno5660]

Fair points, and I'd agree that is how they go in function. I can leave FT being needed in a boss wave and forego it for MWG. Not my taste but it does make sense! If it wasn't for that i'd forget that FB even had a T4!

EDIT: That being said, I'd have to see this new incap system first but it would be good to see a comboing effect, maybe as a perk skill or perk passive or hell, even a side effect of flame weapons in general; Assuming no trash is around or you already have a trash-strong team, I think blasting flame on a big'un and having it on fire/incapped should allow extra damage from all sources. Firstly this is a counter to people complaining about not being able to headshot panicked enemies. I reckon if it amps damage from all sources, someone who wanted to kill that panicking trash wouldn't have to headshot as their bullets do extra damage during the panic and drop the enemy just as quick as a headshot could. That's big'un/boss level utility without stepping on the toes of DPS! Even if it's not that much extra damage, I think it'd cancel out those issues with FB teamwork and allow flame weapons general utility in all situations!

 

[Zerginfestor]

it would just annoy people even more when you block their vision with more flames

Hardly. The Flames in KF2 are nothing compared to the pure white-hot flames of KF1, and most of the lame arguments were from people just trying to nab a kill a Firebug was already torching. In fact, you would have more issues with the Demo's M32 and 'Demo Spammers', as they could fill the entire hallway with smoke, since fire could never reach that ridiculous size.

 

[Reptilian]

Hardly. The Flames in KF2 are nothing compared to the pure white-hot flames of KF1, and most of the lame arguments were from people just trying to nab a kill a Firebug was already torching. In fact, you would have more issues with the Demo's M32 and 'Demo Spammers', as they could fill the entire hallway with smoke, since fire could never reach that ridiculous size.

Firebugs wildly firing their flamethrower in kf1 was less a visibility problem more a "stop blowing our grenades up" problem.

 

[ormalash]

i think the new in cap system will make zed napalm and the other skill like fuse and rangemore usefull like this you could set on fire a full pack and enjoy the show of panic
because more zed burning mean more incap soooo insta panic with a few zed packed i think

 

[Zerginfestor]

Firebugs wildly firing their flamethrower in kf1 was less a visibility problem more a "stop blowing our grenades up" problem.

Oh yeah, forgot about that issue.

 

[Ryno5660]

Funnily enough fuse/bbq does have a bit of an effect, on current build it seems clot variants and crawlers/stalkers die more reliably from afterburn when it is equipped. Panic may be lasting longer too but can't confirm that.

Heatwave is too vital to survival though, panic isn't enough to survive as some things (like gorefasts for example) can tank through it and are less likely to actually succumb to fire panic. Without it you are as good as dead.

Also I've read simplecat's and kf2wiki's spreadsheets; apparently napalm actually modifies afterburn damage? If I'm reading it correctly flamethrower's afterburn damage is x0.6 of the impact damage (25) but napalm would make all firebug weapons have x1.5 dot multiplier, with 0.250 "burn power" added per tick?

Not sure what that means but is it actually in effect at all? I have been speaking about barbecue and such but I also noticed afterburn deaths happen with heatwave/pyre too, so maybe they don't do anything still.

Quite annoying being forces to pick certain skills, the rest having no purpose. I really, really hope a firebug rework is handled well.

 

[simplecat]

About the Napalm - i might pick up better wording.

On contact with burning ZED, ZED #2 takes initial damage of 10 and then start buring with x1.5 i.e. 15 points of damage per second.

Also, i'm not quite sure, but it looks like this skill has not been fixed. http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=114935
I could be wrong though, gotta check it later.

 

[Ryno5660]

Odd that it only applies to dot from another burning zed. Things like that should apply to all your DoTs.

Dunno if it helps hut I have actually seen fire spread in this update - cyst grabbed me and a flaming slasher approached i did nothing and waited to see if it spread, sure enough it did.

I think the problem is it just wants to spread from originator to 1 other enemy. I don't think that enemy can spread it and so on. For a skill like this to be worth taking the DoT needs to be more powerful for every DoT you make and the zed contact needs to be able to spread infinitely, even constantly restacking/stacking if a zed is constantly surrounded by other burning zeds. Even then, simple effect of spreading fire is useless even if it did work as the weapons themselves have no trouble spreading fire themselves.

I feel I may regret saying that and flamethrowers won't be able to do that as well in the next patch...