History Main / VideogameFlamethrowersSuck

* ''{{Bioshock}}'' has a "chemical thrower". It's not to be used all the time, since it guzzles ammo and takes a while to reload, but when you can [[TooAwesomeToUse justify actually using it]] few things clear a room of Splicers as fast. With the "reduced consumption" upgrade and a full load of electric gel, you can stunlock a [[LightningBruiser Big Daddy]] to death. But then, you can also do that with the infamously overpowered electrobolt plasmid without having to jump through hoops getting upgrades and special ammo.

* In the 2009 ''AlienVsPredator'' game the marine's flamethrower is beyond useless: It makes the xenomorphs angry. Eventually they start crawling. Then they explode in an attack that will instantly kill you, but won't even annoy the other aliens around it. Oh, and when crawling they can grab your leg before exploding. So when you set one on fire, all you're doing is giving it a useful one-hit kill against you. Doesn't help that the flamethrower eats through its ammo in no time, and has all the range of the average loogie.

* ''AlienVsPredator'' 2010 is also a sort of aversion; almost every aspect of the description is played straight, making it almost useless on its own (and very fiddly at times), however, an ignited Alien enters a crippled state (where it can only crawl and is nearly-harmless) a few seconds after being set alight; this ends up making it very efficient for saving ammo when combined with another weapon (such as the infinite ammo pistol) to finish enemies off. Or would be if crippled Aliens couldn't grab you by the leg and kill you instantly by exploding.

* UFO: Aftermath features a flamethrower that does 3900 damage per hit (comparatively, a direct hit from an RPG does 550), but has an effective range of 5 metres and weighs more than a pregnant rhinoceros.

* In UFOAlieninvasion, the Flamethrower can be more effective than conventional ballistic firearms against the aliens, because their armor is less effective against fire damage. Of course, it also has ''much'' less range than most of the firearms.

* In the 2009 ''AlienVsPredator'' game the marine's flamethrower is beyond useless: It makes the xenomorphs angry. Eventually they start crawling. Then they explode in an attack that will instantly kill you, but won't even annoy the other aliens around it. Oh, and when crawling they can grab your leg before exploding. So when you set one on fire, all you're doing is giving it a useful one-hit kill against you. Doesn't help that the flamethrower eats through its ammo in no time, and has all the range of the average loogie.

*** Starcraft 2 is similar with Hellions (and Firebats in the campaign), which completely destroy certain early units but tend to not hold up to stronger stuff (or certain upgrades coming into play).

** The Pyro has firmly ensconced itself at the bottom of the class tier in ''TeamFortress2'' as well. Its flamethrower's DPS is relatively pathetic (the Medic's syringe gun is actually more powerful). There are approximately half a dozen different ways to counter its afterburn effect, and the bleeding effect recently introduced on new Sniper and Engineer secondary weapons means that the Pyro's afterburn ability is not only no longer unique but actually inferior. All of the Pyro's supposed specialties (such as ambushing, close combat, and damage over time) are now done better by other classes, and success in these roles as the Pyro usually requires a fair amount of luck or exceptionally unskilled opponents, leaving the Pyro as little more than an irritation to the enemy and a support/utility asset to his teammates. Many players now see focusing on the flamethrower's secondary compression air blast ability (triggered by the right mouse button) as the "proper" way of playing the Pyro, and this belief is encouraged by recent patches which have made the air blast more powerful even as actual flame damage has been nerfed.
*** ''YourMileageMayVary''. There are often complaints, even after nerfing that pyros are in fact *overpowered*. Flamethrower flames are not lag compensated, so to use them really requires you to lead your target. If you are able to do so, a sustained burn will take out virtually anyone short of heavies and overhealed soldiers/demomen/other pyros in short order before they can react. Mechanically the flamethrower may be weak but there are a lot of other factors that contribute to its deadliness. Flames almost universally cause people to panic when struck with them and they then search for ways to counter the burn, making them an open target. The flamethrower also never needs reloading, and has a generous capacity to boot. Combined with the previous factor, a burning target often wastes ammunition due to panic or obscured vision, and when they reload they're an open target. Lastly, the airblast can be used to hamper enemy movement, making them yet again an open target. A flamethrower in skilled hands can often dominate entire matches. Also, two more things: the flamethrower can fire around corners (extremely useful for attacking entrenched engineers), and is the single best tool in the game to uncover enemy spies (which are often even more annoying and devastating than pyros can be).
*** One last fact that a lot of people forget--while the flamethrower's DPS is a relatively 'meh' 150-ish or so per second, that's still over half the other classes dead in a second of exposure, and everything but overhealed Heavies dead in two. Finally, the flamethrower is still unique in one particularly important attribute--''it pierces targets.'' This is most obvious with an Engineer and his SentryGun, where if the Engie is hiding behind his gun repairing it constantly, it takes a coordinated assault to break through, and an Ubercharge focuses on damaging the gun. The Pyro, though, can burn the gun, the Engineer, and usually his dispenser to the ground with the same stream of fire. It is thus far the only weapon that can apply its damage to multiple targets with one damage particle (shotguns and the miniguns fire multiple pellets, but each one can only strike a single target). While definitely not the fire-spewing monster it was during its class update, bear in mind the Pyro, by Valve's own tracked stats, is still the third-highest scoring and [[BuffySpeak second most-killingest]] class in the game.

* In ''CallOfDuty: World at War'' the flamethrower has poor range but is an instant kill. The thing that sucks about it is the flames seem to move inexplicably slow towards their target allowing the enemy to shoot you a few dozen times before they burn to death.

<<|GunsAndGunplayTropes|>>)

*** ''YourMileageMayVary''. There are often complaints, even after nerfing that pyros are in fact *overpowered*. Flamethrower flames are not lag compensated, so to use them really requires you to lead your target. If you are able to do so, a sustained burn will take out virtually anyone short of heavies and overhealed soldiers/demomen/other pyros in short order before the can react. Mechanically the flamethrower may be weak but there are a lot of other factors that contribute to its deadliness. Flames almost universally cause people to panic when struck with them and they then search for ways to counter the burn, making them an open target. The flamethrower also never needs reloading, and has a generous capacity to boot. Combined with the previous factor, a burning target often wastes ammunition due to panic or obscured vision, and when they reload they're an open target. Lastly, the airblast can be used to hamper enemy movement, making them yet again an open target. A flamethrower in skilled hands can often dominate entire matches. Also, two more things: the flamethrower can fire around corners (extremely useful for attacking entrenched engineers), and is the single best tool in the game to uncover enemy spies.

** The Pyro has firmly ensconced itself at the bottom of the class tier in ''TeamFortress2'' as well. Its flamethrower's DPS is relatively pathetic (the Medic's syringe gun is actually more powerful). There are approximately half a dozen different ways to counter its afterburn effect, and the bleeding effect recently introduced on new Sniper and Engineer secondary weapons means that the Pyro's afterburn ability is not only no longer unique but actually inferior. All of the Pyro's supposed specialties (such as ambushing, close combat, and damage over time) are now done better by other classes, and success in these roles as the Pyro usually requires a fair amount of luck or exceptionally unskilled opponents, leaving the Pyro as little more than an irritation to the enemy and a support/utility asset to his teammates. Many players now see focusing on the flamethrower's secondary compression air blast ability (triggered by the right mouse button) as the "proper" way of playing the Pyro, and this belief is encouraged by recent patches which have made the air blast more powerful even as actual flame damage has been nerfed.

* CombatMission also has potent but very hard to use flamethrowers : if you do manage to get them in range of an enemy tank, trench or garrisoned building, they'll make short work of them. Good luck getting to that point though : flamer teams are slow moving, they're usually only two man strong so suppressing or even destroying them outright is quasi effortless, and they can't safely fire from buildings or forests which makes ambush tactics hard to pull off. Now, flame throwing ''tanks'' on the other hand are lovely, if expensive.

** That's because it was modified to fire ''jet fuel''. The Russians you run into just before you meet The Fury also weild flamethrowers, though theirs are just normal. Still, they can do alot of damage.

** It should be noted that the "flamethrower" is called a blowtorch (Explaining the tiny range), and is pretty much one
** Worms: Armageddon features an actual flamethrower that squirts napalm over a short-medium range. It's highly effective in torturing worms cornered in tight spaces, less so in windy circumstances.
of the best tools for digging yourself a hidey-hole. Yannow, if you're that sort of player.

** It should be noted that the "flamethrower" is called a blowtorch (Explaining the tiny range), and is pretty much one of the best tools for digging yourself a hidey-hole. Yannow, if you're that sort of player.

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* Thumper's signature weapon in Twisted Metal 2 is a flamethrower, and the strongest special in the game. Even the final boss takes huge amounts of damage from it.
* The secret transformation in [[BanjoKazooie Banjo-Tooie]] is Dragon Kazooie, which transforms your awesome bird buddy into an [[InstantAwesomeJustAddDragons even more awesome dragon]], replacing your nearly useless standing peck attack with a constant stream of fire. You can't run around while blowing flame, but you can rotate and fry anything within range of the attack. It can kill pretty much any [[{{Mooks}} minor baddie]] flawlessly, as they'll generally charge at you mindlessly, right into the fire. Of course, most minor enemies in the game aren't much of a threat to begin with, but it's fun to set a bunch of monsters on fire and [[VideogameCrueltyPotential watch as they run around screaming and flailing their arms while on fire]].