If throwables aren't for killing, turn them into control effects

Archive Suggestions - Archive
1

I haven’t been there during the times when molotovs, phosphorus and explosion packs where more powerful, but I sure know that the first two have gone out of fashion entirely.

Now, why is that? They obviously don’t kill anyone, that’s one part.

But the burning effect isn’t effective enough to use these throwables as a control effect.

You may think that burning is weak because the skill tree allows you to put out fire twice as fast. But not only is burning weak: even the “+100% speed of extinguishing fire on a soldier” perk is so unnecessary that it only costs 1 point and can easily be left out entirely to no detriment. That is how much of a non-issue fire currently is.

I don’t want fire to just deal more damage, but it needs to have ANY effect at all. The effect I propose:

While burning, you automatically extinguish fire. This means that actions such as using your weapon or melee are deactivated while burning.

This effect is how fire already works for AI, as of my knowledge. And considering that you can easily put out fire and stay alive, this would give fire a unique function separate from grenades (which only serve to deal damage): Fire would hence allow you to stop a group of foes from their current actions in an instant. It could therefore serve purposes like stopping a squad that’s rushing down a tank with explosives, etc.

I think this change is really important as a first step to giving molotovs and phosphorus grenades any justified use cases again. It’ll be of marginal impact given the small AoE of these grenades, but it distinguishes them from explosives in a meaningful way.

4 Likes
2

yes, the fact that you can still shoot in some cases is weird, even though your accuracy is reduced it’s still possible to kill the flamer, it would be great if molotov forced the self extinguishing animation.

that’s just how people behave when set on fire.

2 Likes
3

They may have “gone out of fashion” but that doesn’t mean they aren’t useful if you know what you are doing. Both are plenty useful for me.

Molotovs got nerfed yes, but they still do their job in ENCLOSED SPACES, as well as can blind tanks and even burn up their engines.
Generally speaking, one molotov by itself is rarely enough to lock down an area, but 2 of them with smart spacing are actually very effective.

This was honestly a necessary balance change as players were far too frequently locking down routes almost indefinitely when it only cost them 1 at a time.

WHITE PHOSPHORUS is also still very useful.
While originally it was added as an area denial weapon, the developers soon realized it was FAR too effective.

It is no longer for that purpose.

Now, its used to flush enemies out of cover, without the need to destroy the cover, and has a fast enough dissipation that it can be used for an effective push option.

4

the stability of the weapon when taking damage is what makes it possible to shoot while on fire, At least the soldiers that I gave that advantage can shoot