I'm on an Energy weapon playthrough right now, and I've grown curious about Incinerator/Flamer-class weapons. I've never used those before, so their effectiveness is something of a mystery to me.

They're heavy. Their displayed damage doesn't look like much compared to other weapons in the same tier, even WITH Pyromaniac. And they're apparently ballistic weapons that need to be fired in an arc. But do they actually have some kind of virtues?

I am in possession of an Incinerator, taken out of the cold dead fingers of the Convict leader from Bison Steve in Primm. I'm 2 ST points short of its requirements, however. I've repaired it to full conditon and experimented a bit in Goodsprings on Victor, Young Bighorners and locals. And... it seems to svck compared to the Plasma Pistol?!? Sure, it's nice to see flaming Bighorners run around, but they won't go down from that fire, and they only have what, 60HP?

Is there some kind of tactic that makes Incinerators effective?

It's really, really good if you have the stats for it.

Well for me it is.

Agreed, level up a little bit and see how it handles then, imo one of the better weapons in the game if you can keep enough ammo for it.

I'd say its better for splitting up groups, for example Legionary assassins, whop out your incinerator and open fire, not only will they split it also does damage, so as their burning to a crisp you can pull out whichever weapon you feel like and bring an end to their miserable lives