Flamethrower

Flamethrower
Regular Patriots
He always had a passion for setting things on fire. Now he can indulge in his habit!
Main Stats
Type	Shotgunner
Rarity	Exclusive
Health 22 Ranged Damage 2 Melee Damage 10
Fire Damage	Equal to ranged damage (fire debuff) 5 (fire pool)
Explosive Damage	75 (on-death explosion)
Crit. Chance	0%
Crit. Damage	5%
Speed	5 (base) 8 (ability)
Prepare Time	25
Courage Cost	30
Behavior Stats
Agility	90
Aggression	100
Detection Range	200
Agility Penalty	50%
Aggression Penalty	50%
Morale Stats
Charisma	300
Valor	600
Charisma Radius	80
Abilities
Perks
Special Ability	Ignores 50% of enemy fire resistance.
Ranged Data
Ammo Capacity	15
Firing Period	6.4s
Reloading Period	2.5s (base) 1.9s (Cap's ability)
Range	70
Bullet Spread	40°
Resistances
Bullet	90%
Poison	100%
Knockback	50%
Unlock Requirements
Price	925 (TMF Pack)
Player Level	Any

Flamethrower is a TMF pyromaniac specializing in all things fire. He is armed with a military-grade flamethrower and is dressed in a black full-body, bulletproof suit, a black gas mask with red lenses, and a black combat helmet.

Montag is Flamethrower's first exclusive skin.

He can be obtained by purchasing the TMF Pack alongside Cap, Soldier and Swat for 925 money.

Overview

Flamethrower is a particle-based Shotgunner. His health and damage are on the low ends for his class, and his courage cost is rather high. However, his preparation time is low for a ranged unit.

Flamethrower's primary attack deals raw fire damage. When firing his weapon, he spews out slow-moving particles. Each particle can randomnly hit a single enemy 1 to 3 times, and has a piercing attribute. They will only dissipate after travelling a set, short distance. The weapon is fired continuously. During sandstorms, the range of Flamethrower's spray is shortened by 50%.

Flamethrower is immune to poison, and has 90% resistance to bullet damage, along with moderate knockback resistance. When killed, Flamethrower does not turn into a zombie. Instead, he explodes immediately, producing an explosion and a fire pool.

Perks and Abilities

Flamethrower's special ability allows his attacks to ignore 50% of an enemy's fire resistance. This effect is multiplicative - A target with 30% fire resistance, for example, will have it effectively halved to 15%.

The ability isn't much by itself considering Flamethrower's overall downsides and the existence of better alternatives, but nevertheless correctly addresses one of his most significant drawbacks and dramatically improves his matchups against threats that he would have been unable to properly fight. It's not the most useful ability to unlock given his limited utility and difficulty of acquisition, but in a late-game context this often yields much more value than it seems.

Gameplay

Main Campaign

Admittedly, Flamethrower is a somewhat niche unit since his weapon deals pure fire damage, and as such, he's usually effective only on missions that generally lack fire-resistant enemies but will be of no use otherwise.

His slow speed is also a serious problem. Though a frail unit would be wise to stay behind, sometimes he can barely contribute to fights. When switching targets above or below him, he may find himself directly facing his enemy and will be unable to deal with it. Because of this, he works well alongside Cap, as Cap's Inspiration perk helps to somewhat negate his slow movement speed issue. Cap will also provide a reload speed bonus to Flamethrower as a part of his SA, decreasing the time considerably. As Flamethrower and Cap are both in the Swat bundle, players shouldn't worry about their accessibility either.

Another one of Flamethrower's major drawbacks is his abysmal health, one of the lowest in the entire game. Due to this, he requires constant support in order not to get easily killed. This can be seen in missions where Insectoid appears. Once Insectoid pounces on Flamethrower, he can be killed rather quickly before being able to properly retaliate. In these situations, other ranged units can help support Flamethrower from a distance, potentially saving him from a quick, painful death as they might be able to kill Insectoid before it could even attack. It's highly recommended to bring the Medkit along in order to help keep Flamethrower alive as he is generally very vulnerable.

All these drawbacks mainly prove to show Flamethrower's lack of versatility, as in reality, he proves to be very powerful in certain other situations. Although his initial damage isn't good, he can benefit greatly from upgrade items that boost his damage by flat values. When supported properly, enemies who aren't resistant to his flames will be torched quickly, even for the towering Crank. Things only get better when his level 13 ability is unlocked, as he will then be able to comfortably take on enemies that he couldn't even scratch.

Missions with Rainy Weather will merely prohibit enemies from suffering burn damage over time. It does not affect Flamethrower's ability to attack and harm enemies directly. Missions hit with a Sandstorm will reduce his range by half, allowing him to target the barricade. However, he isn't useful in sandstorms due to the presence of other, more adequate units that will adapt better.

Flamethrower can be considered as an offensive version of Dr. Norman. Both are ranged units with penetrating attacks and low speed. While Dr. Norman's ranged attack ignores all kinds of resistance/immunity with slowing effects, Flamethrower's DPS is considerably higher against viable targets. Dr. Norman has fire resist and much more health, while Flamethrower's poison and bullet resist combine with his death explosion to nullify associated threats. In missions where enemies generally lack enough fire resistance, Flamethrower may be recommended over Dr. Norman as his attacks can finish enemies quickly.

Skirmish

In League, Flamethrower, on paper, proves to be a lot of enemy melee units' worst nightmare, particularly Turbo, the only unit that possesses full bullet resistance. His death explosion also usually guarantees whoever does manage to kill him in melee range get taken down with him. However, his slow speed and very low health proves to be his biggest disadvantage and makes him a rather easy target when dealing with enemy ranged units despite his bullet resistance. His short weapon range can also prove to be a detriment as he may sometimes fire his weapon just shy of hitting his opponent, giving enemy ranged units fortunate enough to encounter this situation all the time needed to slowly shoot Flamethrower down, assuming everyone else on his team has been eliminated. Rarely, should two Flamethrowers encounter each other, they may find themselves in a permanent stalemate, firing at each other just outside of one another's reach until the player decides to quit the match and heavily reconsider using another unit. Given Flamethrower's high courage cost, which could hinder team composition, it may be best to consider other less situational units.

Item Sets

Flamethrower benefits most from the Military set, as it allows him to get at least some form of a major damage buff without being handicapped by his short range. Firefighter set acts as a more consistent alternative to Military, providing roughly the same total damage output, but lacking the highroll potential.

It's worth mentioning that Hunter is not completely useless on Flamethrower, despite his short attack range. It's still guaranteed to provide him with an average buff of ~25%, and can achieve 35% to 40% increase at the highest point, especially with buffs to range. However, it's still a risky option, especially against fast moving enemies, and acts more as a gimmick. In comparison, the Firefighter item set benefits him more with a much more consistent damage boost of 30%. Its situational activation is irrelevant, as Flamethrower will always burn anything he touches.

The most important stats on Flamethrower are his health and ranged damage, with flat buffs to both being the most preferable. Buffing his range is also highly recommended, since it can help him stay at a safe distance away from enemies. +% Health books are the most reasonable choice, although going for crit. builds is also viable, albeit riskier and more resource demanding.

Skins and Synergies

Flamethrower is a part of the following team: TMF and Patriots.

Name	Flamethrower	Montag
Skin
Unlock Req.	-	300 money
Team	TMF	Patriots

In TMF, Flamethrower is a subpar option, yet despite his glaring flaws, he is actually able to get the full use of the 2/2 power. Having a 50% chance to avoid explosions is highly beneficial, greatly increasing his survivability in the late game, as well as in Skirmish. This is particularly noticeable when he is put against Putrids, and an enemy Grenadier's grenade, as Flamethrower's range is too low for him to avoid threats and his fragility issue is easily resolved against them. The 3/3 and 5/5 powers, however, are largely inefficient due to the former activating only once per mission, and the latter's inefficiency is largely caused by bad unit rotations in the team, both of which he can't do much about.

In Patriots, Flamethrower benefits greatly from the 3/3 Power, effectively gaining double damage for all his attacks. While he is too expensive to be used as filler for the 2/2 and the 5/5 only marginally boosts his damage, they don't hinder him meaningfully.

Trivia

• According to Flamethrower's deleted backstory:
  • His name is Murdock, which is a reference to character H. M. "Howling Mad" Murdock from the action-adventure TV series "The A-Team."
  • Flamethrower is a part of the A-Team along with Cap and Soldier.
  • Both Flamethrower and Soldier hate each other, according to Soldier's backstory.
• Like the rest of the TMF Squad members, Flamethrower was once available for purchase with coins.
  • Flamethrower's requirement was level 10 and his price was 7,500 coins.
• In Dead Ahead: Quarantine, Flamethrower was the only TMF unit in the game and used to cost 12,500 coins.
• Prior to 3.8.8 update, Flamethrower used to have the second lowest health among all units in the entire game, only being slightly healthier than Welder.
• Flamethrower and Specops are the only units to be negatively affected by a sandstorm in ways other than unit movement speed decrease.
• Flamethrower's Patriots skin 'Montag' references Farenheit 451 and its protagonist, Guy Montag, who, as with all other firemen, utilize flamethrowers to torch books.