For everyone that keeps bringing up the fact that my test footage was on lower difficulties, the reason for that is because I need to test the weapons against individual enemies. It is hard to isolate an individual charger on Helldive or Super Helldive when there are 100+ bugs attacking me. On Difficulty 3-6 there are missions to kill individual chargers. I do this so I can take my time and replicate the same scenario over and over again so I can get accurate test results. If I want to test the new weapons against large hordes of enemies then I bump it up to 8-10. If I want to test against smaller enemies or individual chargers, bile titans, hulks, factory striders etc... then I bump it down to difficulty levels 3-6 so I can face those enemies by themselves. The problem with Super Helldive is that there are too many enemies and not enough ammo to deal with everything, so no primary weapon is going to dominate on Super Helldive unless they start to listen to the community and start to buff some of the weapons.
people really have a misconception about enemies and difficulty. No, enemies are not tougher in higher difficulties, they are exactly the same and people test weapons on lower difficulties to see how they work. The reason people lose in higher difficulties is because they play like trash, not because the weapons are weak.
That's the point. You enjoying the weapon because it FIT for that level. In Lv8, you got to test the REALITY. You satisfied testing on lower difficulty? You are no different than the " _balancing team_ " from Arrow Head.
@@RighthandfrombehindI'd rather just have more variety in the types of missions. Maybe even different game modes. Ever since the game came out I've wanted fully underground missions. Imagine once you've fully captured a planet they give you a final mission, go to the main nest and kill the Queen bug. They give us a massive mission full of interconnected tunnel systems, have multiple squads of 4 split up and try and find the queen, killing hordes of bugs along the way. Then an epic final boss fight where you have like 30 helldivers all battling for their lives against the queen. No reinforcements in the boss fight so if all divers die, the mission fails and the planet goes back to 99% or something. This is all just a rough idea but there's alot of potential here if the dev team is willing and capable.
exosuit has minigun you'll settle for that and you will like it but yeah a backpack fed minigun would be sick or just make a minigun that can fire from a magazine without the backpack
Arrowhead really listened to the community when we asked them to not nerf weapons after a new war bond is released. Now they nerf it before! Absolutely amazing community focused design
Flamethrowers, including Hulk's, were phasing through solid objects. That was a bug and something that needed to be fixed. It just so happens that this same bug is what allowed the flamethrower strat to ignore charger leg armor. If you strip the leg armor first, then you can cook the legs just like you used to be able to do.
@@samuelansin8307 I get that, however the bouncing off armor is stupid, I've suggested several times for them to implement an armor deteriorating/melting mechanic to help us deal with heavies if they're really adamant on reworking fire. Also, what PvE game balances the Player and the bots with the same mechanics? Maybe Warframe spoils me but they have different systems for when enemies apply status effects on you and vice versa
@@Skynet_15 You realize this game is made in an old ass engine that no one uses and is no longer supported by the creator right?. I would bet money they have a lot of technical limitations to work with
@@RuiNDieM1988Manta engine if im not wrong, This engine is legit worse than the infamous Dragon engine these developers are trying too hard to still use this engine.
they already shown that this company has no idea of what they are doing. Had a good hit on hands and now they are to incompetent to not run the game into the ground
I'm not gonna say nerfs are *never* justified, sometimes weapons really are just *too* strong like the Eruptor pre-reowrk. That said, I totally agree that their priority should be bringing underutilized weapons into the limelight, not playing whack-a-mole every time a dominant strategy emerges. The best way to alleviate dominant strategy is to make more strategies worth using.
imagine making a flamethrower that can't reach up to 20m, no chaotic effect when enemies is set on fire, fire bounce off from armor instead of sticking on armor and cook them from the inside. instead of giving us the m1 flamethrower, we got Elon musk lighter
If the crisper has medium armor pen, all flame weapons should. Also, the flame weapons in this game are napalm based, so the fire should be sticking to enemies and not bouncing off. ReALiSm
My first reaction was "napalm definetely sticks to stuff" although I guess I just assumed the flamethrower was napalm based and they decided it wasn't 🤷♂
@@samuelansin8307 flames should be sticking to chargers and cooking them alive inside their own shells tho. Doubley so for spore chargers, as the spores would most likely be highly flammable.
@TheManOfTheHourEveryHour so we don't know what charger armor is made of. Whatever it is made of it can deflect autocannon shells. So it is reasonable to assume that it is thick enough to not really be effected by fire burning on it. It isn't made of metal so we cannot use our most common armor as a comparison.
@@Xymagei don’t think they ever mentioned whether or not napalm was used for their flame weapons, the manner in which the flame spreads looks nothing like napalm.
I am completely on board with AH just buffing the stratagem flamethrower so it can cook heavy armored bugs, hell even give it a backpack that has to go along with it for their sacred balance
I’m in favour of leaning into something we don’t have: area denial on a weapon. Let it fire long distances and cost the ground in napalm quality burn. Something else can deal with heavies. Or let the fuel be sticky and continue cooking whatever it hits long after the flamethrower itself turned off.
No it doesn’t need some backpack Flamethrower jump pack is a lot of fun Literally all they need to do is revert the fire change both the stats and the visual effects of shooting because they made those look worse as well.
After watching the devstream, I can see why they nerf weapons. They never play above extreme difficulty. They also don't use the stratagems/weapons that they've nerfed
I can understand why they did for the live stream, playing an intense game of helldivers whilst also trying to answer questions for an interview would be hard to do. These are devs not streamers. However, i do agree that they shot themselves in the foot by not showing footage of them playing SHD, the thing they promoted for Escalation.
I had my suspicions but now that I’ve heard how all the new weapons work it’s confirmed for me that every single nerf in the last patch was a response for these new warbond weapons
Incendiary breaker is still objectively better than the cookout for chaf clear which is what you’ll be using it for and the torcher is just a shittier flamethrower, if you want a flame throw the support weopon is far superior but the primary still has a place if you want a flamethrower with another support weopon
@@jerflecroak2524 but the point I’m trying to make is that is that they nerfed the direct competition for these weapons so the new weapons seem at least somewhat viable, except the torcher I think the overall fire nerf was so that a primary weapon is still ineffective against chargers and other armored enemies
@@trevork886 one torcher is viable and also I don’t think primary weapons should be torching chargers, but If that was there intention I think it failed at that as the new weapons would stand on their own feet without the nerfs and would be better recieved
@@trevork886 they "nerfed" them by fixing a bug where flames would phase through solid objects. It's either this or getting killed through rocks and walls by enemies with flame throwers. They weren't intended to be able to shoot through charger armor
If you're gonna take a shotgun to the automatons, take the regular punisher. Its the same thing just an extra 100 raw damage. I dont see why you would use the fire version against bots
I mean.... I guess he just HAD to test it vs the bots for testing sake, even though its the most OBVIOUS THING to NOT BRING. Fire is only good for the Terminids right now. But yeah, normal Punisher or Slugger, preferably Slugger.
But fire doesn't deal less damage against bots. In the end it's just tick damage that occurs as long as the enemies are on fire. The only difference between bugs and bots is that you can't really get close to bots with a flamethrower as you can with bugs. But like a napalmstrike isn't any less effective
I did have a moment where i couldn’t kill a basic bot with one punisher shot at 5 meter range so yeah i run the incendiary version just for those because one pellet will guarantee a kill with the fire damage
The flamethrower (of any sort) not having any sort of stagger feels really bad. If your around any kind of fire, be it a campfire or a house fire, and you get too close, you will try to shield yourself from the flames. The bugs in this game should fear the flame.
If flamethrowers applied stagger, they would be wildly overpowered. You could just stand still and hold the trigger down, and not a single enemy could even approach you. I'm not sure that's such a great idea.
I loved the latest balance update so much that I actually wanted to suggest the below for the next patch - hoping to get a job with the Balance team, thanks Arrowhead! - EAT call in time increased to 69 seconds - Ark Thrower now only chains between Helldivers and kills you all instantly - Grenade Launcher Pistol magazines reduced by 100% - I actually killed something with the Slugger this morning so reduce Slugger damage by 85% and slugs ricochet killing the closest Helldiver in your vicinity - Equipping the Incendiary Breaker instantly sets you ablaze and you lose 10 levels - Stalkers movement speed increased by 600% and they have dual shoulder Rail Cannons that no scope you - All weapons reload times Increased by 500% - Hellpods nuclear detonate the moment you leave them, instantly killing you and your fellow Helldivers - Bile Spewer vomit range increased by 500% and vomit can't be dodged (if you die by vomit - you will spawn in with vomit on you and will die by the vomit again) - 5% of the player base have given the Blitzer praise, so the Blitzer now fires backwards - All bots and bugs are immune to electric damage - Increase Railgun damage by 25% - Reduce Railgun damage by 250% - Equipping Railgun in loading screen automatically bans you and your family - Increase Hunter spawn rate every time you aim down sights - Bug holes now spawn Drop Ships that shoot Bug Holes that spawn more Drop Ships - Chargers can fly - Every Scavenger is now a Charger - My wife left me - Various crash fixes but this has introduced more varied crashes - Arrowhead, please prioritise making the game more fun before the majority of us abandon you for Space Marine 2 in a few weeks
I can understand why it's not that strong. So far, arc damage only comes from other players and, to be honest, the Cutting Edge armour is pretty useless because being almost immune to a damage type that only comes from other players is... redundant, I guess? I mean, unless your whole team is bringing Arc Throwers or Blitzers... Fire damage, on the other hand, comes from Hulks and some environmental hazards and is generally more common. Being almost immune to fire damage like that *would* be a pretty big thing. Even bomb-themed armour only gives 50% resistance to explosives.
Haven't tried any of them yet, but they all look pretty good. Everyone is hung up on the breaker incendiary. Most people weren't even using the DoT aspect, so they might as well just use the spray and pray.
@@LaserTractor More of the rectangular barrel end and its unique outline. Just because you don't care for details doesn't mean someone else can't appreciate it.
It really shouldn't look like a bunch of colored wind, there should be a drop to it, a stream of fire; But instead we get some kind of crummy particle effect.
Remember when people complained about nerfs and the devs responded with, "Get gud?" And everyone called them based and laughed at the people complaining? Are we still laughing?
I think the community would have been totally fine with the fire changes as long the flamethrower could burn through armor still (add thermite to that list). It's clear that the devs weren't using their brains at all when they made this change. No reason to use the proper flamethrower over the primary when the only major difference is effective range and maybe ttk. Also the flame effect looks awful now, so much for AH's "realism." Overall it's a decent warbond but way less useful against bots
That's what I was thinking. Like it makes sense for the new main weapons, but now the flamethrower doesn't feel nearly as good or fun to use to the point where I'd rather take something else
I'd like it for the support flamer to stagger medium targets and the primary to stagger light targets. I love the Flam-66 and how good it can be but flying hunter spam is atrocious when you can't shove them away in packs. If it staggered light enemies like warriors and hunters, I'd be overjoyed rn.
Pretty sure yall aren’t the ones who aren’t using their brains. The flamethrower killed every bug but the bile titan in seconds. Either yall are too brain dead to realize the charger is a heavy unit not a medium yet the flamethrower killed them like they were medium units. I’m starting to thing that yall are so bad at bugs yall couldn’t win with anything else which is sad when bugs are the easiest to fight with and without fire. Stop crying and can’t to the game like everybody else
The fact they nerfed fire right before a releasing a fire based warbond makes me lose alot of hope for this game it feels like every time i buy a warbond they nerf the warbond and i end up not using a single thing of the warbond i just bought, im not gonna bomb review the game but i will not be buying this warbond or any future warbonds until they bring back the fun to this game
The nerfing is a bit ridiculous yes, but so is killing a charger with one mag of your side arm, removing all kind of competition for using a stratagem weapon. They panic nerfed the fire dmg before the warbond. They should've kept the flamethrower as it was, and releases these warbond weapons like they are now.
You should definitely adjust your review. Devs won't listen unless it impacts them. We had 1 patch that was a step into the right direction and it took a month. Now they seem to have gotten comfortable and are nerfing shit again.
They didn't nerf fire, they fixed all flamethrowers, including the enemy ones on hulks, because they were shooting through solid objects. This is what allowed the flamethrower to kill chargers without stripping the leg armor first.
@@samuelansin8307 They nerfed fire by making fire behave poorly. It was realistic before. Flamethrowers are anti-armor weapons. They will cook a tank or bunker, it is literally what they are built for.
@@Mare_Man flamethrower where never anti armor weapons they where breaching weapons and anti infantry weapons, they worked on bunkers cause they had massive holes to shoot into. a well designed tank could be shot by a flamethrower and keep on rolling like it was nothing.
Please compare ALL of the flamethrower weapons, especially ttk on armored enemies. How the flame support weapon stacks against the primary is vital research for the spread of democracy.
i really think they don't play test or play their game... drop pods might be good if your team uses EATs, but dropping your supplies in the wave probably not a good idea but you also can't drop it on team as well...
Hey swany just wanna say you were one of my favorite HD2 RU-vid channels, very informative and such solid quality gaming content. But I'm not interested in the warbond or even the illuminate anymore until ah fixes the game and balances the weapons and enemies better. It might be another 6 months or a year before AH realizes they've made a massive mistake this update. It's been real and thanks for all the content and game help, but the emperor needs me. Hope to see you doing space marine 2 content id love to watch all my fav HD RU-vidrs play another wild horde coop game
It's very ass backwards that they needed to change the fundamental way fire works in the game because they wanted to add new fire weapons. They really should have went back to the drawing board and tried tweaking things to work in conjunction with the Inc Breaker and Flamethrower instead of knocking them down a peg. Make the new fire weapons use more fuel to cook a charger, boom, fixed. Also who cares if you melt a charger in 2-3 seconds? The risk is that you gotta get in hugging distance to really do anything.
@@sirhcx to second this comment, think about how many chargers can end up on screen at the same in any higher difficulty mission. Hell I was helping my friend on a level 6 last night and 4 chargers ending up after us at one point. We need a quick handheld option to take them down other the anti tanks. Just give us what we had and leave it be for goodness sake
This change was also because Hulks could shoot you with their flamethrowers through walls, rocks and other things that should be able to block it. It isn't only due to player weapons!
@@humblelootfarmer Even on lower level difficulties it can get incredibly annoying. I got a shit spawn for the "Kill Bile Titans' level 4 miasion for then Personal Order the other day and probably ran into 20 of them scattered through excessive patrols, POIs, and nests. So I wasted most of my time running in circles just waiting for Orbital Precision Strike to cool down.
The new primary flamer feels awful to use. Poor range + poor damage + you hurt yourself more than the enemy + no stagger or knockback force = they just push into your face. The new shotgun felt "ok-ish" but nothing special compared to the Inc-Breaker.
THANK YOU for the part about setting the ground on fire. Not being a flamethrower main, I didn't know much about how that worked, but I've been playing several videos on and off in the hopes of someone addressing the issue. You are the first one I saw who did. Maybe it's old hat for flamethrower mains, but a lot of us aren't and now it's extra relevant info. As for testing on lower difficulties, as long as you're up front and not over-representing there's no reason to throw shade, my group plays on 7 (and it's messy, messy there right now) and good luck getting just "one" Charger to test against.
Unlocked all weapons, use it once or twice in level 10. Never use it again and back to my normal loadout. Cant kill the bugs that fast enough unless you are the only one using this warbond. While others use other weapon, you are stuck trying to fire kill a charger.
Having fun is ok on difficulty 6 brother, but everything in this warbond needs a major buff. Itself ridiculous that only really like 3 weapons are actually viable on 8/9/10 difficulty
Bots scorcher, plasma punisher, sythe, sickle, liberator concussive (stunlocks devastators if hit in face), both counter snipers too. Bugs: any shotgun sickle, torcher, liberator concusive (blasts back bugs up to the new alpha brood commander). I have 150 hrs in the game specifically playing on level 9 and now since difficulty 10 I have not even gone to a lower difficulty
@@pressy-fb1hs Thank you for being a voice of sanity among the bizarre tidal wave of voices saying "there are no good guns!". There are lots of good guns.
Been loving the Cookout so far and it's probably already my new main against bugs. Also tried using the Crisper in combination with the Crossbow against bugs which was a surprising amount of fun
Well, the only Pistols from Helldivers 1 that are missing in Helldivers 2 now are the Plasma Pistol and something like a M93R to emulate the Upgraded Peacemaker from Helldivers 1. Edit: and yes, all they need to due is buff the Support Weapon Flamer and PROBLEM SOLVED.
They should add types of hellpod perks, like one that's a primary, and secondary perk to make use of more fun perks. Like the "OP" ones being the primary, and the secondary being like the fire hellpod being a supportive perk.
The P72 CRISPR is fantastic for spraying the ground and then swapping to an assault rifle or SMG and magdumping into the crowd. REALLY good with the pummeler for its stagger force as well. I'm not opposed to things being nerfed if they are genuinely too strong, (like pre rework eruptor) but the problem is that only a handful of primary weapons are viable on higher difficulties, people don't exactly have much choice. Instead of bringing things up to that level, they stomp out dominant strategy which doesn't fix the root cause of *why* it became dominant strategy in the first place. The players will move to the next-best pick, and the cycle continues.
Hm. Based on what I'm seeing here: Cookout = you can spread the burn to hunters/warriors, though less quickly than the breaker incendiary. You do, however, get a stun will stop stalkers and brood commanders from rushing you down. Better all-around weapon than the breaker incendiary, which is focused solely on clearing light trash. Torcher = you're right in that it's better for creating fire patches than aiming at mobs, which is true even for the flamethrower. picking this leaves you free to pick a support weapon that can kill mobs (machine guns) or crack armor (rockets; lasers.) imo, it's better paired with the stalwart or mg-3. spray one section of dirt to cover a couple of flanks, then blow away the main horde with your machine gun. Crisper = like the torcher, but even better since it helps with a fighting retreat. because it's one handed, you can jog while spraying the ground behind you. bring a primary to kill light bugs, a support to kill medium-armored bugs, and then use this squirt-gun to add a little extra burning ground when being swarmed from multiple directions.
I thought Pilestedt said in a reply, that he agrees that they overdid it with the nerfs and that Fun should be above all else, and how he'll talk to the team, yadda yadda. I see he kept his word after going back to developing, himself, actively joining the team. Not. Seriously, what is it with Devs nerfing a PvE game of all things, as if it's a PvP game?? This isn't Destiny's Trials of Osiris, where 1 Weapon heavily outclasses the roster and sits atop the kill leader board! Buff the weapons that people don't like/not use as frequently, instead of nerfing those that are, or ENTIRE MECHANICS! The Armor Penetrating Flamethrowers were fine! You still had to put in work on Diff 7+, or do the Devs think we just pranced around with the Stratagem Flamer and killed even Bile Titans with ease, as 60-80 bugs descended upon us? The new change makes zero sense. Now if you look at Deep Rock's CRSPR you understand what a fun Flamethrower is, without being utterly broken!
Can't wait to NOT get the new nerfed weapons from the new Warbond that I will not buy because there's no point. Everything that is in there is just doing a bit worst than anything else that I already have ... GG Devs, rly nailed this one. The only way I will touch this warbond is if the fire can strip armor again, otherwise, as it's plainly to see, nothing is worth buying.
imma be honest, I've been getting excessive use of the cookout on automatons its purely because it gets those hordes of berserkers off me. also, I dont really find the breaker incin nerfs that bad, it still does a ton of damage. The flamethrower nerf was annoying, but I understand why it happened. Its probably because it and the new weapons share the same fire due to some engine constraint, meaning if it wasn't changed then we would have a secondary shredding chargers.
Gotta say, with your review of EoF, I thought for sure this was going to be a rough review. But you seem at least satisfied. I appreciate that. I genuinely wasn’t going to get the warbond until changes were made, but now I might. Thanks for running through all that!
i enjoyed your vids since HD2 released. i completely lost interest after the constant nerfs and trash warbonds. i will not be playing ever again im done and thank you for all the great content it was a great run
Just saying adjudicator goes hard against bugs used it in around 4-5 difficulty 10 missions and find it viable as long as you have anti bile, and impaler weopons/stratagems
The tenderizer, adjudicator and sickle are all viable. Haven’t used them on difficulty 10 yet, but I’ve had great success with them in 9s before many times.
I saw how he was using the Torcher in some of those clips. Don't give enemies space to flank you like that, at least like, have a rock between you that they have to walk around in single file.
IMO the cookout is just horrible compared to the incendiary breaker even in its nerfed state. The reload is just terrible compared to other options, so bad that I would find myself constantly being overwhelmed and not being able to manage crowds. The damage against larger enemies is not great either having to pump close to 6-10 shots into a alpha commander. the knock back is nice but why would I use this gun if other options feel better.
If you're gonna take a shotgun to the automatons, take the regular punisher. Its the same thing just an extra 100 raw damage. Reserve the fire version for the bugs
- Firebomb Hellpods: GREAT IDEA, but sadly too weak. Needs adjustments already. - SG-451 Cookout: A lot of "meh". Up-front damage SHOULD do more, but doesn't seem to. Takes many a shot to kill semi-basic things. Fire damage is almost non-existent to me. - FLAM-66 Torcher: FUN! However the fire nerfs mess with it too much, and you do have to focus-fire to get anywhere. Spray-n-pray approach doesn't work here, like it should. - P-72 Crisper: Again, "meh", but that's okay cause it's a literal pocket-flamer. You can add it to any loadout. So that's nice at least. Once they revert or change the fire nerf, both flamers will probably be pretty good. Something's wrong with the Cookout, though. It's "trying" but it feel kinda weak - at least in my testing on both bugs and bots on levels 6 - 9. Almost as if it wasn't programmed correctly, which isn't the first time that's happened in this game. And again, the fire damage of this weapon might as well not exist.
The charger on a laptop sending feedback for patches meme has never been more accurate than now for this patch. Playing on 9 and 10 is insanely tedious with no fast ways to deal with dozens of them at a time. It's so tedious.
Great vid, much appreciated. I was holding off ob ny judgment of the flamethrower nerf to see how the warbond my change the landscape of the game in practice, but after watching this I am a bit puzzled by the decision. The only thing I can think is the nerf was about the fire damage itself and not actually about the strategem version. The stratagem version could've remained powerful and these new weapons could've been the nerfed lightweight versions of that. Now they seem too similar.
This warbond is like the others since the explosive focused one : one nice thing but the rest is sh*t. And the guy who had the idea of the booster needs to be fired ASAP. This thing is applied to ALL hellpods, making it a very good teamkiller.
No one should lose their job over trying something new also it needs to go through alot more people then just one dude for it to go through into the game don't ask to fire your devs or there won't be able to fix the game it's the basic sang of don't bite the hand that feeds you
@@jacktheripper7935 okay sorry I'm bad at telling if someone is serious but I agree I love the hell out of this game but dam I wish it had some good updates
I think the main benefit for the firebomb hellpod is if you're dropping into a horde it gives you a small bit of breathing room so you don't immediately get torn to shreds.
It makes sense that the support flamethrower would do more dmg than the primary one, but AH didn’t need to nerf all fire dmg to achieve this. That is so lazy
They didn’t nerf all fire. Fire does the same exact damage as it did pre patch. The bug fix was to prevent fire from going through objects. This has the side effect of not going directly through enemies and hitting enemies behind them or ignoring all armor. It’s why the flamethrower still shreds chargers butts, but doesn’t kill through the leg. The damage is the same.
The only weapon people like from thw warbond is the cookout, so you know the devs will watch all the positive reviews and say "Hey lets nerf that next!"
@@logibleek5549 feel free. I’m just giving my opinion. Maybe it would have been better if the studio didn’t nerf fire damage 2 days before a fire war-bond came out.
@@SJG31they did that so we couldn't kill chargers in 3 seconds with Amy of them like we could with the flamethrower. Admittedly they did it poorly since instead of making it not penetrate heavy like they should have, they made it not penetrate. So now it can't even kill swarms which makes them suck, hope they rework it better soon.
Dope video. I completely agree with you and I am honestly going to use these weapons to give me a flamethrower feel until the flamethrower is buffed again🫡
The "nerf" is because all flamethrowers, including the hulk's, were shooting through solid objects like walls, buildings, rocks, ect. Which they were never meant to. This is the reason the Charger leg armor now blocks the flamethrower's flame. If the Charger didn't have stripable leg armor with the fleshy leg underneath having a separate health pool then the flamethrower never would have been able to kill them the old way.
The pods should have the ability to press and hold a button while aiming to activate the special explosions otherwise it lands normally so your teammates aren’t cooked
Honestly the flame punisher is a little underwhelming, I think they should take a note from the punisher plasma and make something unique. Like idk, make it shoot sticky thermite/incendiary grenades that explode, just something to make it more unique, cause rn idk why I’d grind the super credits for it when I’ve had 0 issues with the regular punisher, slugger or plasma versions which all kick ass. For me I don’t need weapons to all-round powerhouses, but I’d prefer we get more unique, purposefully designed weapons, which I guess would take more time but I thought that was kinda why they were reducing the warbond release schedule. But I suppose that’s just the direction I would take it if it were me.
The Cookout is a fun concept, but the issue with it is that it massively nerfs the impact damage (by about 25%) for a meagre couple seconds of fire damage. Usually if something dies to the Cookouts fire damage, if you'd be using the Punisher it would be dead on impact. Where I feel its nice is firing from a medium distance, especially into a crowd of enemies. That way the impact damage is negligible, but the fire is applied. The issue with that, however, is that the Breaker Incend is just better for that task since its spread covers so much more area, thus setting way more bugs on fire at once. I feel like the Cookout still needs some time in the oven, at least to get it more reasons to use it over the punisher than just the fire damage
There is one simple fix they could do so the primary and secondary flamethrowers can’t take out heavies, make it so the support flamethrower has heavy armor penetration. Would allow it to function as before but prevents the primary and secondary versions from being too powerful.
the cookout has really good stagger. I was putting shots down at around 40 meters and still got the stagger. It completely fotterizes mid level enemies and has really good crowd control potential