What is the flamer for?

Raneman

The flamer is useless against lifeforms, and even more useless against structures.

I tried it against infestation, and infestation will literally die like 10X as fast with a shotgun. And don't even get me started on lifeforms.

Zuriki

So far it seems like it's only useful for skulk suppression when defending ARCs. But it's not <i>critical </i>even in that position and could easily be replaced with Rifle or Shotgun.

The Flamer has never really found it's niché.

Heroman117

In older builds where the only way to fight infestation was the flame thrower since there were no cysts, the flame thrower was important, but now that cysts are so exposed and easy to destroy really a shotgun is much more effective then a flamethrower. In older builds with server and client lag was much more intense, the flame throwers ability to shoot through walls and pretty much be a guaranteed hit on anything in range also made it useful, but now its not really necessary. Now it does such low damage, isn't always a guaranteed hit, and the most annoying part is you move so painstakingly slow with it, in public games your teammates just rush ahead of you, and its harder to properly coordinate a hive rush when a few of your guys are moving at nearly half the speed of the others.

The flame thrower definitely used to have its role, but now its been remedied and unless its damage is buffed or there is some other important task that can only be done with a flame thrower is added, i don't think its going to be used nearly as much as the other weapons.

Kalabalana

Flamethrower is great against Skulks, and also has it's role against Fades.

Soon it will burn away spore apparently, which will give it much more use.

K'joy

Aint flamer suppose to give great cover against cloaked aliens aswell? I dont know how fast you research it, maybe its useless cause its so late in a game it dont matter. But also another idea, there are alot of new things coming that demand Energy from the marine team right? Such as the upcoming nano shield maybe? And Scanning takes quite alot of energy I suppose?

With all the new options that are coming to the marine team, maybe the commander cant afford to scan all the time cause he is saving energy for an ARC attack etc. Wouldnt it be pretty cool if flamer also had some sort of radar attached to it, warning you in some way that a cloaked alien is nearby? It wouldnt reveal anything on the map.

Not revealing the aliens position, but just with a warning sound maybe letting you know that somewhere a cloaked alien is. That way the flamer wouldnt need to hold down attack button just to go 100 yards only to find out the ammo is all gone. It would also helps against the frustration you get when you just wasted 30 res only to die right outside base?. Maybe this idea has come up before.

Oh and just to be clear, the flamer and the FLAMER only would hear this sound not the rest of the team. Also if it is a sound, then it wouldnt give away how many aliens that might be cloaked. This sound wouldnt get more intense when you approach the alien, just serve as a warning signal. Would be quite fair and also possible for aliens to sneak up yes?

Deadzone

Flamer needs to tear through the green infestation like butter. Still need physical ordinance to kill the cysts and stop the regrowth, but flamer would change a slowly-receding infestation that we have now into BAM that link is cut