Firebug's damage types probably need a reworking

[flashn00b]

From my understanding of this game, the Firebug's best weapons are ballistic weapons like the trench gun, Incendiary Rifle and its underslung grenade launcher and the Helios Rifle. This probably suggests that there might be a slight problem with the Fire damage type. Mainly, fire DoT is pretty much worthless against anything stronger than a clot. Perhaps it might be worth changing things up to make the Flamethrower a more viable pick?

Fire
Gorefast: 0.95 (Gorefiend would still be at 0.85)
Siren: 0.75
Scrake: 0.6
Quarter Pound: 0.475

Thinking the slight buff against Gorefasts would help make short controlled bursts more viable against a Wave 1 medium zed, though the Gorefiend would remain unchanged so as to still function as sort of an early game high value target. Thought the Siren could also have her resistance to fire reduced since she's not a fire-based zed like the Husk.

As for Scrakes and Quarter Pounds, this is mostly due to how it's very much possible for these zeds to spawn in earlier waves where players might have to make do with Tier 1 weapons for killing them. Obviously, a firebug by himself and his CnB wouldn't be able to kill QPs and Scrakes, though having their their respective damage vulnerabilities increased should at least help the Firebugs be useful in focus fire tactics.

And the second damage type: Microwave

Microwave
Clot variants: 0.5
Rioter: 1.5
Crawler, Stalker: 0.75

Considering that the design intent for Microwave damage is to deal more damage to zeds wearing metal, shouldn't it deal bonus damage to a clot variant that's covered in it?

Also, I figured the Microwave damage type could have a bit more utility in trash clearing power. Obviously, you'd carry a weaker weapon for trash clearing, though making weaker zeds more vulnerable to Microwave damage could help make the MWG's airblast more useful since fleshpounds usually don't charge at you by themselves. Also, having Microwave weapons do more damage to crawlers is probably a good idea since those zeds are their main targets.

 

[OnionBubs]

From my understanding of this game, the Firebug's best weapons are ballistic weapons like the trench gun, Incendiary Rifle and its underslung grenade launcher and the Helios Rifle.

Yes and no?
Firebug just has a ton of mechanical..."quirks" that make some weapons better than others in the meta, and the problems inherent to Firebug's mechanics coupled with the fact that it's been the most OP class in the game on some occasions probably leave TWI at a bit of a loss as to what to do with it.

Some of Firebug's worst weapons are ballistics. The Trench Gun and Mac-10 are pretty bad compared to other options and TWI seems content with leaving it that way. They're fine at killing trash, but the thing is, there's literally not one weapon on Firebug's list that's bad at killing trash, and the CnB/Flamethrower are still the primo options for killing trash at Firebug's ideal range: close-medium.

The Mac-10 is basically a long-range option for sniping some trash but unfortunately it's been completely supplanted in both role and strength by the HRG M16.
The HRG M16 is better than the Mac-10 but that's damning with faint praise; it's a much better weapon in some regards but I still wouldn't pick it over other options unless I'm messing around. The low clip size and fire DoT on a headshot-oriented weapon cause issues, and the grenades are nice, but really it's a gun that only truly shines in Zed-Time with Pyromaniac. It's still a problematic weapon in precision teams and you're kind of only making life harder for yourself in chaotic perk teams, so it suffers either way.
The Dragonsbreath, on the other hand, is a ballistic weapon that's bad at being a ballistic weapon and has trouble actually efficiently killing anything larger than trash. Low damage on direct pellet shots + the most horrendous shotgun spread in the entire game = bad combo for anything except spraying down hordes of trash.

The other ballistic weapons are better for reasons I'll detail below.

Mainly, fire DoT is pretty much worthless against anything stronger than a clot.

Not quite.
Fire puffs won't always kill things directly but that's where Heat Wave and Ground Fire come into play: you're supposed to use Firebug like an alternate-universe Berserker where you use knockback combined with direct damage + DoT + Ground Fire to eliminate trash. That combination will let you tackle pretty much anything that isn't a Husk, Scrake, or Fleshpound. Combo that with Bring the Heat + all the other passives and buffs Firebug gets and you should be able to eliminate everything pretty efficiently.

Rioters, Gorefiends, etc. can be effectively stunlocked to death as they burn. No, they won't die from a single puff of flame, but you can easily kill them without receiving damage in return if you know how to handle the mechanics. Buffing them to kill directly would take a LOT of weapon power, and you have to be careful when buffing stream weapons and DoT attacks to stop them from being too effective while also being too mechanically easy to use. I'll touch back on that theme later on because it's important to Firebug's balance and ultimate role in the roster.

Now, it IS true that fire is bad against Husks, Scrakes, and Fleshpounds. The Husk, well, that seems fair from both a flavor and mechanical standpoint: it IS made of fire. It still dies fairly quickly to direct damage if you can headshot or hit the tank.
Scrakes and Fleshpounds are different: They are intentionally designed to be a counter-force to Firebug. In fact, the rage mechanics are designed to dissuade players from spamming weak damage at HVTs, which Firebug happens to be the literal avatar of said weak stream damage. So Firebug really shouldn't be focus-firing these things in the first place with the Caulk n Burn; the idea is that you get your teammates that aren't dedicated trash-slayers to help you out instead.

Considering that the design intent for Microwave damage is to deal more damage to zeds wearing metal, shouldn't it deal bonus damage to a clot variant that's covered in it?

No disagreements here. I know they probably copied the vulnerability code from Clots or something like that, but Rioters take enough punishment to classify as a medium enemy (as well as moving slower than the other trash Zeds, like a medium enemy), so having Microwave weakness would make sense from a flavor and mechanical perspective.

As for the rest of it...

Also, I figured the Microwave damage type could have a bit more utility in trash clearing power.

The entire design principle behind Microwave damage was from the start of the game, where the MWG was supposed to be used as the anti-HVT weapon rather than a trash sweeper. Problem is, the MWG was far too strong for how easy to use it was against both trash and HVTs, and they redid the entire class to not be quite so ridiculous. Part of that was nerfing the MWG altogether.

The Helios Rifle was a much better attempt at giving Firebug a HVT-killing weapon given that it has drawbacks, but I still don't agree that it was inherently a good idea to let Firebug have that. That's another story for another thread, though.

Buffing these presents an issue: having two interchangeable weapon damage types that are capable of killing trash while one of those weapon types is also capable of killing HVTs (read: the Helios Rifle) is excessive. There wouldn't be a reason to run anything other than (Helios + MWG) if you could handle everything with just direct Microwave damage.

Remember that over the course of the game's lifetime, Microwave weapons have been given the ability to create Ground Fire and inflict fire DoT; those weren't there in EA. So if you buff MWG vulnerability too much, you effectively replace the remaining roster of weapons because instant damage that kills instantly > non-instant damage that kills non-instantly; it just has the same burn mechanics as icing on the cake.

 

[OnionBubs]

I forgot to add:

Perhaps it might be worth changing things up to make the Flamethrower a more viable pick?

Flamethrower + Helios Rifle is probably Firebug's best all-purpose loadout right now.

The Flamethrower butchers trash up to and including Gorefiends.

The Helios Rifle lets you kill Husks, Sirens from a distance, EDARs, and (sort of) Scrakes and Fleshpounds. Scrakes are a more delicate matter because it's literally impossible to kill them before the DoT kicks in and they start raging, but Fleshpounds can be headtraced nicely.

 

[ChotaH]

Need to agree with the replies here. FB is the easiest and most overpowered perk in the game. I also ussualy go with Flamethrower + Helios, as it is most universal. Caulk n Burn i think is btw also the best T1 wep in the game which can be used also in 10/10 HoE as a spare for ammo.
Once you understand it and get the mechanics, you will get shy for this thread, but no offense, you will get it.