How to play Summer in Crucible

Crucible, Amazon’s new free-to-play third-person team shooter, is now available to download from Steam. 

Summer is one of the first characters players will meet when they load up Crucible for the first time. The hunter is one of three personalities the game offers a player in the tutorial, although there are 10 total characters in the game on launch. 

The flamethrower-wielding character is perfect for those who love to get up close and personal, but she comes with a drawback: Summer players will need to carefully manage their heat gauge to get the most out of her abilities.

Related: All characters and abilities in Crucible

Abilities

Passive: Abilities generate heat. If overheated, abilities shut down for five seconds.

Firepulse Thrusters (L Shift): Jump up and forward. Generates heat.

Magma Spiral (Q): Creates circular pattern of flaming magma below Summer and launches Summer slightly upward. Generates heat.

Ignition Spark (E): Creates a blast that knocks Summer and opponents back. Generates heat.

Fireball (right click): Fires a long-range fireball that explodes on impact. Generates heat.

Managing heat

Summer’s kit heavily revolves around managing heat. Each ability will generate some amount of heat, although some will generate more than others. Summer’s heat indicator shows in the middle of the player’s screen as a half circle, so players will want to make sure to keep their eye on this indicator while plotting out which abilities they will use next.

Even Summer’s basic attacks generate heat, although her flamethrower left-click generates heat much slower than any of her abilities.

Once Summer has generated enough heat, she will “overheat,” meaning she will be unable to use anymore abilities until the heat disperses and the indicator resets to zero. This usually takes a few seconds, leaving players without any form of attack outside of their melee. 

Those who collect enough essence and have reached the level-two upgrade will do bonus damage when the heat gauge is more than half filled. Additionally, the heat gauge will increase at level five and has a shorter cool down at level four. 

Essence upgrades

Level one

Flame Projectors: Flamethrower range increased by 50 percent.

Refinery Blast: Creatures struck by flamethrowers drop essence as they take damage.

Thruster Pounce: Jump while using Firepulse Thrusters to drop on opponents, damaging them and knocking them back.

Level two

Acetylene Torch: Flamethrowers inflict 40 percent plus damage when heat gauge is over 50 percent.

Level three

Incendiary Shot: Fireballs leave behind a burning area for four seconds.

Magma Storm: Magma Spiral crates 50 percent more flame projectiles and increases damage by 20 percent.

Tuned Spark Coils: Ignition Spark knocks back +50 percent and deflects projectiles.

Level four

Cooldown Protocol: Time to recover from overheat is decreased from five to four seconds.

Level five

Goes to Eleven: Maximum heat increased from 225 to 275.

Ready to Rock!: Quick melee delivers two attacks for 40 damage and 40 damage over time when overheated.

Plan of attack

The majority of Summer’s attacks—excluding her Fireball attack—require her to be close to her opponent. Players should use Firepulse Thrusters to engage on a target and use Ignition Spark to escape any tricky situations. If close-range isn’t an option, use Fireball to continue applying pressure on opponents.

Summer’s Magma Spiral should be used to quickly get off the ground and damage any pesky melee hunters who want to be within close range. Be careful not to rely too much on this ability, however—it’s one of Summer’s highest heat-generating abilities.

Collecting essence is important to ensure the extra damage bonus for level two and the increased heat gauge at level four.