The railgun has been dethroned. The one-hit support weapon that could cut through enemies of all toughnesses at a steady pace has been pulled back to super earth by the nerfing of penetrating and non-weak damage.

With its power now blanked out, hell-divers across the galaxy are looking for a suitable replacement for load-outs. The best candidate for the job came from an unexpected source.

At the time of its release, the flamethrower in "Helldiver 2" was such a terrible substitute that my friends and I ignored any free ones we found lying around the map. The support weapon took a long time to kill even small bugs and automatons, and had a nasty habit of self-destructing if a burning enemy closed the distance. It was disturbing, but as Reddit user BadassMinh noticed, after the patch the flamethrower evolved into a terminid-melting machine.

"Flamethrowers can now kill chargers pretty fast," the post declared. The attached video was impressive, and since the flamethrower got a damage buff in the patch, I decided to give it a try myself.

Despite being level 26, I still had not unlocked the flamethrower. I jumped into a bug mission on difficulty 5 with some riffraff. No one said anything, but I felt their eyebrows lift as I locked in the fire mad build.

I fell in love at the first barbecue. All previous attempts to make the flamethrower useful had ended in tragedy, but with Flamethrower 2.0 I was cooking swarms of bugs like instant popcorn within seconds. Standard bugs (or teammates) would turn into a pile of ashes when approached within arm's reach.

But the flamethrower's true value was tested by the relentless and deadly chargers of Helldivers 2. Reddit wasn't lying: chargers go down quickly if you keep a steady flame on them. They're slower than the old railguns, but no match for recoilless rifles, and similar to the newly buffed laser cannon. In other words, it is really excellent. Like the railgun, the flamethrower does not require a backpack and can be reloaded on the move.

The best part of the Flamethrower's new power, and the reason it is much more interesting than the old Railgun, is that using it involves significant risk. If you carelessly spread flames, your teammates will die in no time. Grass and bushes can also burn and remain dangerous for several seconds, as Patrik Lasota, Arrowhead's balancing guru, stated in a blog post published today: "It is powerful up close and is inconvenient for enemies who want to catch fire or walk through fire and flames. It should be."

After today's patch, the flamethrower is not only viable, but one of the best support weapons in the game. It is definitely one of the quickest ways to take down a charger, which is reason enough to consider taking one on a bug hunt.