Firebug is a perk that has the ability to keep crowd-control of zeds and keep them away, able to kill trash zeds fast, and has a damage over time from its fire weapons. it has a unique mechanic called fire panic, which can be both good and bad at the same time.

The Firebug will truely shine and become the ultimate CC perk, with much better surviviability, yet not the best, at level 20, and this will be explained later on.

It is a perk that can easily get the blame on, and basically can be also used wrong many times,
the bad reputation the firebug made, is just from being used by bad players, and the same thing can happen with any other perk.

Caulk n' burn[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com] : This is basically your starting weapon, most eco friendly weapon when it comes to ammo, and refilling it. it Does decent damage and kills trash fast in almost any wave, and can be used up till wave 10 depending on your loadout. Has average/close range, have to reload from time to time to be prepared for any sudden long fight.

Spitfire / Flare gun[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]: Tier 2 weapon, one of the best, if not the best ranged weapon for firebug when it comes to efficiency, and being eco-friendly to refill as well, Ranged weapon, it is deadly vs trash zeds, and great to use vs gorefast/fiend, especially bloat, so you don't have to be in contact with them using flamer weapons. Has good ammo, and cheap.

Trenchgun / Dragonbreath / 'Reloading'[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]: Tier 2 weapon, Highest damage when all pellets hit, almost similar to spitfire, but best used vs group of zeds coming from one direction at you, or your team, with its penetration it can hit multiple enemies, but it has bad spread, which needs to be used correctly in a good range to avoid losing too many pellets hitting thin air. Low ammo, have to keep reloading, powerful in short range.

Mac-10[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com] : Tier 3 weapon, basically a SMG that shoots fire, it was great before the nerf, now it is almost forgotten, can be used, but won't recommend it, due to lack of ammo, and low damage, you will have to leave gorefast/fiend when using mac-10 and switch to another weapon, C&B, spitfire, etc but not the mac-10. Ranged weapon, not cheap, fast ammo usage, it lacks power vs mid-tier zeds and above.

Flamethrower[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com] : A tier 3 weapon, same as Caulk n' Burn, exception is 2 things, more ammo per mag (fuel tank, clip, bullets, chamber, whatever you want to call it, im not a gun expert) and damage is higher/double. average/close range, alternative to C&B if you want more damage and power, and less reloads in between fights.

Microwave gun/ MWG[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com]: Tier 4 weapon, when it comes to damage it is almost same as flamethrower, in my opinion it is an upgraded or a better version when it comes to use of the flamethrower, what makes it better is alt fire, which can push enemies away, knockdown most zeds, knock down SC with 2 alt fires, kills Edars fast, but lacks of good damage on the ground fire, which is why flamethrower/C&B are superior to MWG when it comes to ground fire. Average range, ammo isn't cheap, good to keep away especially big zeds, but recommend only doing so vs sc, not fp unless it is a must.

Husk cannon / HC / megaman[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com] :
Tier 4 weapon that got buffed in summer 2019, and now it serves its purpose when it comes to damage, fast fire rate, ammo price is way too much, almost rounding 800 dosh for a full refill. there are 2 best ways to use the weapon, fully uncharged fast shots, or half charged shots*
*
( by this i mean there is a charged shot which you need to consume additional ammo for it, but you can do half charged shot - delay of 0.215 secs be4 it consumes +1 ammo).

Molotov / VODKA[wiki.tripwireinteractive.com] : throw it at choke point, turn your back for ultimate badassitude (sorry too much BL2) and hear zeds dying, while watching the feedback showing that you killed 7+ crawlers along with 5 stalkers or 10zillion clots.

It is great bomb to use to be able to keep a choke point of low tier trash zeds to die from the molo fire, while taking care of ur back side, incase things got intense, or you can throw it fast at your teammate choke point incase they needed time to reload or readjust position, it has many different uses depending on situation, but the best one is keeping a choke point safe from any trash passing by.

*Molotovs create residual fire, and benefit from ground fire.

Helios[wiki.killingfloor2.com]: First T5 firebug exclusive weapon, plasma microwave type, fully ranged weapon, has a little bit of big recoil and spread, which can make you go into ADS most of the time for mid-long distances, great damage, it can deal headshot which is a big plus for the weapon, along with a great fire rate. have considerably high weight of 8, and 9 when upgraded.

HRG Incendiary rifle[wiki.killingfloor2.com] : a well balanced rifle fore a firebug, recoil can be maintained fairly, can be upgraded twice, it has an alt fire which shoots incendiary grenades. great CC/crowd (trash) clearing, but may suffer from ammo at the later waves in higher difficulties. good for short and up to mid-long range killing.

Scorcher [wiki.killingfloor2.com]: a powerful weapon that is able to clear horde and kill big zeds, yet it has 1 big weakness, which is ammo. it leaves the player to have a choice between keeping it to CC trash with its alt fire as it works like literally extra molotovs with longer range, and can be adjusted depending on where you aim. or save it for couple of big zeds? which might make it in this case less effective as you will have more big zeds in the higher waves. can be upgraded twice. Also it benefits from groundfire!

Thermite Bore[wiki.killingfloor2.com] : T4 DLC firebug weapon, It launches thermite grenades that pin to enemies and to any surface, works similar to Seal from demo weapons. The thermite has auto detonation after 4 secs, or can be detonated manually using alt fire button. it is an AMAZING CC weapon and it surely shines more while there are more trash enemies around, and shines even more while being in zed time cause you can spam it nonstop, which you can choose to detonate or leave them till after the zedtime, or focus one single target (fp/sc) with the impact damage ( but not recommended really ).

: Increase damage with fire weapons 35%. Does what it says, a must have for every single loadout and skill tree setup

: Increase fuel tank capacity and magazines for all perk weapons 100%. It does NOT increase total ammo. ignore it, not worth to take over the damage.


: Perk weapons’ burn effect lasts 150% longer, increasing damage over time. longer DoT = more damage overall, good for ranged weapons only loadout, it also depend if you have mixed loadout and which is the main weapon, will be explained later.

: Ground fires do massively increased damage and reduce ZED movement speed. does exactly what it says, it is best with flamethrower and C&B, works on MWG but damage is less. and triggered from HC by totally missing/shooting a charged shot on the floor.

UPDATE
*MAC-10 don't benefit from Groundfire skill
*Spitfire and trench gun as well as the molotov now benefit from ground fire

**Molotovs create residual fire, and benefits from ground fire.

Extra info: Ground fire with MWG vs big zeds deal 4 dmg only, so i would recommend direct fire big zeds and not waste alot of ammo on 4 dmg only, if you're doing it for the slow, change to c&b instead of you have it in your loadout.


: Burning ZEDs that make contact with other ZEDs will light them on fire and the burn effect lasts 150% longer. does exactly what it says, example: when a zed is burning, lets say bloat, and another zed not burnt walked near it, touched it, it will be set on fire, and if they kept contact, they keep getting damage over time.

great to use when crowd controlling, or camping a choke point where zeds keep coming over and over in groups. if used wrong it can have bad situations where unaware firebug player sets big zeds on fire causing them to panic, but will need like... 200-300+ damage to cause that.

V1076 update: with the recent update about the big zeds now they are more resistant to fire panic, so it is not bad to use it for the same reasons mentioned above, along with not being afraid of it triggering big zeds on firepanic anymore ( which shouldn't be the case anyways since they need huge amount of direct dmg to fire panic them in the first place )


:

V.1076 update for the perk : Zeds you kill with fire have 30% chance to explode, damaging and stunning nearby zeds. With this recent update, it is safe to say the perk gone from totally bad into a good reliable skill to use vs napalm, and it can compete with it now, due to the fact explosion dmg is 100 50 instead of 10, and this will add alot of dmg burst compared to napalm dealing 1 per tick when zeds are contacting with each other. still 30% RNG based, but it is a good skill to use now. Also big note stun has CD (cooldown) of 7-9 secs


: ZED struck at point blank range with fire will stumble back. This is your ultimate survivability skill, zeds coming towards you, and you are being cornered? won't happen, this skill pushes away zeds when you either shoot, or flame them with flame weapons at point blank making them stumble.

*Keep in mind that gorefast/fiend may ignore this effect, due to high resistance to fire, they will stumble first time, 2nd attempt to stumble them immediately it will be ignored, and they will keep attacking, so keep some distance, for 3 secs at least then attempt to stumble again, as for big zeds the CD is 7 secs.

: Increase range of perk weapons. just ignore it, plain and simple.


: During ZED Time, you attack with perk weapons in close to real time and never run out of ammo. Best used in every loadout/skill tree. infinite ammo, and shooting in near real time. what else would you wish for?

: During ZED Time, any ZEDs hit with fire are slowed 30% and take 50% more burning damage. Even though not the best vs pyromaniac, can be used, but i won't recommend it at all, very very situation. you may not benefit from it at all most of the time.

There are different types of firebugs out there with different setups for skill tree and loadouts, I will only mention the ones that could work with different setups and explain why.

will refer to a skill by L or R depending on their placement on skill tree, example:

LRLLL = left right left left Left, on skill tree will be bring the heat, ground fire, napalm, heatwave pyromaniac.


Loadout will be as follows:

Ranged weapons ( for new added weapons loadout ) skill tree LLRLL or RLRLL

Helios + HRG incendiary rifle + medic pistol(1)
Helios + HRG incendiary rifle(1)
Great ranged setup, first one includes medic pistol for supporting other players, other one is just firebug only weapons, both have overall good damage and sustainability to clear trash, and some big zeds, but it is best to be more focused on trash zeds to have ammo lasting the entire run. powerful zed time dmg with helios

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Dual spitfire(3) + HRG incendiary rifle + medic pistol(1)
Dual spitfire(3) + HRG incendiary rifle(1)
Dual spitfire(1) + HRG incendiary rifle(2) + medic pistol(1)

Another good ranged only setup provided with powerful spitfire, it may lack ammo compared to the setup above, but will handle trash easily, and will be much powerful during zed time with dual spitfire.

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mac-10 + HRG incendiary rifle + dual spitfire(1) + medic pistol(1)
probably the ultimate trash killing ranged only setup, high ammo reserve, flexible, support. i would personally recommend it since it can survive long waves without facing ammo issue, or lack of power.

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HRG incendiary rifle + HRG Scorcher + dual spitfire(1) + medic pistol(1) []

due to spitfire and Scorcher both benefiting from ground fire as well as HRG grenades, it is wise to use it with that, this setup will allow for more CC, scorcher best used for its alt fire, will melt any trash zed group in no time, consider it an improved molotov. ammo sustainability is good.

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Mac-10 + HRG Scorcher(2) + dual spitfire(1) + medic pistol(1) RRRLL / LRRLL

mediocre setup, but does its job against trash zeds if you are looking for CC, not recommended at all to engage big zeds unless the situation needs to be, but even then, it is going to be with scorcher, which already lacks ammo to deal with more than 7-10 big zeds overall, and dual spitfire would be recommended to deal with QP if needed.

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HRG Incendiary + trench gun + spitfire (single) RRRLL / LRRLL

average setup, can upgrade either of the 3 weapons to your liking, it is also precision only, not meant for big zeds kills, maybe interference with sc/fp with trench gun if they were already raged and attacking someone. both trenchgun and spitfire will benefit greatly from zed time as well, covering a lot of ground with both ground fire and residual fire, more groundfire from trench as it grants it 100%, due to the amount of spam you can do with spitfire it can pretty much cover an entire room with flames with its high rate of fire ( macro if you wish )

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Thermite bore + c&b + single spitfire (2) LRRLL

Basically CC loadout for trash-mid zeds, nothing around big zeds such as fp/sc, can sort of deal with QP though, has a lot of ammo, and great for both single and multiple targets.

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Thermite Bore + trench gun + single spitfire + medic pistol LRRLL

CC, good damage, can deal easily up to QP, all of the weapons benefiting from groundfire as well. really high output while in zedtime.

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Thermite Bore + Mac 10 + Dual spitfire (1) LRRLL
Thermite Bore + HRG incendiary + single spitfire (1) LRRLL

Both loadouts are good for CC, average damage, mostly coming from dual spitfire, mac-10 / HRG incendiary can provide more easy precision than spitfire if targeting was an issue, or the recoil from spitfire, ammo is good enough to sustain killing trash mobs, not recommended to engage big zeds at all, unless for saving someone else.

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Thermite Bore + Helios LRRLL

You can kill big zeds, and trash, but when it comes to ammo, you may suffer a bit if you will use helios to kill big zeds + mid tier zeds, sirens and bloats.

Final note about thermite loadouts, it is great if used correctly at choke points and timing it due to low ammo pool, it isn't good for open areas, as you will waste ammo on scattered enemies, that may not even be close to each other, unless you lured them together, which may not be the case in most HoE games, unless it became a kiting game where zeds are coming over and over, which then can be utilized according to the situation.

Solo on the Decent, i believe before the upgrade system implementation, but shows some mechanics being used in a good way, from fire panic, to molo appropriate spots to throw while taking care of other area/choke point.

P.S: had the most tilted boos fight ever.


This is before upgrade system, still valid till this update, and as i mentiond before in this guide, upgrading is worthless in flamers, but if you wish to do so, feel free.

How to take down fp with trench and freezethrower

how to take down fp/sc with freezethrower and flareguns

Gameplay with flares and freezethrower in pub game

Fleshpound takedown with Helios ( Beta 2 update )

HC uncharged shot vs FP
HC uncharged shot vs QP
HC semi charged 1 ammo shot vs FP/QP ( ammo efficient + best/highest damage wise of the weapon )

Winter bite off-perk with helios fp takedown

Winter bite off-perk with helios sc takedown (multiple ways -2 ways- )

Winter bite off-perk with HC fp takedown ( half charged 1 shot )


FP Delay - Credit TheBlindReaper
*P.S: this method only be used in 2 situations:
1- to get ur team ( demo ) to rpg /m32 the fp while you're defending your lane, giving chance for other players to dumb their power on incoming fp(s)
2- if you had to solo it

HVT Body Block - Credit TheBlindReaper

Killing Floor 2 FP takedown using Scorcher+2


Killing Floor 2 - FP takedown using Scorcher +2 ( long animation )


Killing Floor 2 QP takedown using Scorcher+2


Killing Floor 2 SC takedown using Scorcher+2


Killing Floor 2 QP takedown using HRG Incendiary rifle+2


Show casing how great the Thermite bore is even when not try harding.


P.S off perking with freezethrower has been done in different pub games and they work, as long as your team has enough braincells to understand what are you doing with freezethrower vs big zeds, and for you on how to use it and apply different tactics, and how to handle the situation, you may have to tell them, but even then, they may not get it.

https://imgur.com/a/QMzTHzG

Red X means either a ceiling that will break and spawn crawlers, clots, or Sewer, or a wall that opens a path for zeds like in black forest pic.

Green/ red circles are where you can stand ( This can be for firebug or any other perk, ranged perk, or ranged firebugs will just have to take few steps back if the located camping spot where you need to hold out is too close to the spawn. )

Red lines mean where the zeds are coming from.

Blue cyan door ( only one ) which is in Farm map, this one you need to weld, and no zeds will be coming from there, as long as nobody is near it, or standing next to it.

- Overall the firebug is not as bad as people see it, it is just bad players using it in a wrong way. The perk in the right hands can keep away many zeds, and it won't have to worry about ammo, except in rare situation.

- Be sure to take a choke point where no other perk than medic/demo and maybe zerk is standing at, other perks prefer not to have firebug in most games

- Awareness is your best friend, be aware of big zeds coming from your side, you can hear their footsteps, or chainsaw when they are nearby, request help in chat to get your teammate attention so they kill the big zeds and carry on again.

- Feel free to add your thoughts and input, your love, your hate, your whatever in the comment section.



EDIT: With the addition of new ranged weapons, there is more options to have for ranged only setups without the need for close ranged weapons such as c&b, flamethrower, MWG in the fb arsenal to be more effective, or to sustain their ammo.

There are now much wider weapons and setup to keep the fb viable with ranged only setup to keep his job at max performance and eliminating the issue of "fire obstructing other people view" and other similar or common issues the firebug had before.


Take care!