It is sad that FoV does not see much use, but the restrictions on it are there for multiple reasons. For one it is basically a free 5* weapon handed to you just from playing the game since it is a token weapon. Sure you could argue all the bosses have some form of token item so why would FoV be treated any differently, but it's the fact that FoV is 5* outright while the others must be upgraded. I think it is fair from a design perspective that FoV should be interesting but have its own drawbacks too.

FoV also has nearly the strongest charge attack on a sword, falling just 17 damage short of a 5 explosion Acheron charge, but FoV also comes with an extra 350-600 damage from the strong fire it inflicts. I find it odd that you list caliburs needing to get close as the main downside to the weapons, as the biggest reasons caliburs don't get used is their mixture of no elemental line and sporadic knockback patterns due to hitting all around them. FoV doesn't really have these issues since it is elemental and anything (including bosses) hit by the charge attack usually just outright dies due to the high condensed damage it does. In fact, FoV already has some niche use cases due to how consistently it can deal with problems where other weapons cannot (ice palace comes to mind). Not to mention that enemies weak to elemental also tend to be prime targets for FoV charge, with zombies and the entire construct class getting wasted by it. The fear of getting close basically only applies to kats.

With those things in mind, I do agree it should be buffed a bit. It would be nice if its basic attacks were upgraded to brandish levels of damage, since it already has the drawback of slower attack speed. I also agree with the above change that the self-fire should be reduced to moderate so you can eventually become immune to it. Removing the self-fire entirely is getting a bit overzealous. This is essentially turning the weapon into an elemental blitz needle due to how effective and easy its charge attack is to actually land against priority targets. I personally do not think FoV, or any weapon for that matter, should be as viable as a brandish, but that's mostly due to brandishes being overpowered which is a different topic entirely. I would however like to see FoV be in a usable state where I can bring mine out and not feel like I'm being an active detriment to my team for using it, similar in viability to the sealed swords and status flourish lines.

the self-fire is one of the only interesting weapon mechanics this game has to offer and you guys want to remove it or become immune to it

Mechanics directly resulting from the self-fire:

* The self-fire ticks will reset your charge time meter to half, so timing it right can speed up charge time, but timing it wrong can slow you down.

* Fire ticks can be avoided by dashing at the right time.

* Multiple charges in quick succession can overwrite the previous fire timer, resulting in fewer fire ticks per charge. The first tick is unavoidable, the 2nd tick will hit before the charge completes, but the 3rd tick will be replaced by the 2nd charge's self-fire (if it triggers).

* Self-fire can help to prevent the freeze status.

* Damage bonus against monster family (UV/Ability/Perk) is useful to avoid increasing damage from self-inflicted fire.

* Fire damage breakpoints and the previous point that monster family bonus is actually useful allows you to think about how to build your loadout. +6 is basically the minimum required fire resistance and more is always better, but you also want to achieve max damage bonus and preferably monster specific to reduce the damage from the self fire. The main monster families to fight are Undead, Construct and Slimes. Devilites are probably better dealt with using other weapons, but other Fiends make good targets, especially Trojans which are often present in Undead levels. Next are Gremlins, because they are often paired with Constructs. Beasts are the least important type to cover.
- Useful Trinkets: Penta (+6 hp), Somn Totem (+1 MSI), Grand Solstice Ring (+1 fire, +4 hp, +1 freeze), Daybreaker Band (+1 hp, +1 ctr, +1 slime), Soaking Wetstone Pendant (+2 fire), Sword Focus, Slash Module

- Pet perks: Hot-Blooded, Swift Steps, Monster damage bonus
BKC Fire max + BKR Fire max + Grand Solstice Rings gets to +6 fire resist which is the breakpoint to get to 3 fire ticks. Dashing to avoid 1 of the 3 ticks per charge can probably make it work.

- BKC + Vog cub coat Fire max + GSR's = +8 fire. A high monster UV on the FoV can combine with a pet perk to get max damage against 2 monster families.

- Volc demo, volc salamander, volc plate mail, vog cub, fallen set and divine veil with a fire max UV (= +8) can be combined with a BK piece to get to +6, with a fire max on BK it gets to +10.

- Snarbolax, Skolver, Virulisk, Silvermail, Deadshot can be used when they have a fire max UV.

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The above is basically a copypaste from a page I made on wiki at: https://wiki.spiralknights.com/User:Waterbeat/Fang_of_vog.
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I understand when all you know is black kat + combuster, the FoV seems like a bad weapon, but that's because combuster is stupidly simple to use and black kat is overpowered (mostly the MSI part). Your argument that Combuster outclasses FoV really doesn't make sense. Name a sword that Combuster doesn't outclass. In fact the only swords that are somewhat a match for Brandishes are Warmaster Rocket Hammer and... Fang of Vog. Combuster is just always a good choice and even if against certain enemies/environments WRH or FoV may be stronger, its range and safety make it better as a general purpose sword (e.g. WRH has difficulty competing for DPS when floor traps prevent you from getting close to zombies, while combuster can spam a few charges at them to clean up). Calibur/Cutter/Sealed Sword/Troika/Flourish are a lot worse against most enemies.

What you should really be arguing for is a nerf to brandishes. But given how unlikely that is to be well-received by the community (the majority of which are brandish users), perhaps if you wanted to buff anything about FoV it would be to bring the regular attack speed up to brandish attack speed. That way it would feel better to use and help to balance out the charge/regular attacks on FoV.

Then use Leviathan blade, the damage isn't that bad.

I use FoV in Vanaduke runs myself and I am quite experienced with the weapon, so I'd like to post my own arguments here too, mostly to add up or contradict some of the arguments made by Zinc.
In case somebody wants to know what gear I use so they know what I talk about:
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Perfect mask of Seerus
Vog Cub Coat (Fire resistance medium UV)
SSB for shield
DMG Bonus on swords trinket
CTR Bonus on swords trinket
and for weapons
FoV with ASI H UV
Plague Needle with ASI M UV
Electron Vortex with CTR M UV
Triglav with CTR M UV
all leveled up to level 10 of course
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1. Self fire resets your charge to half metter and *technically* makes it charge faster, however, for chain charging (using the charge over and over again non-stop), it is actually slower, due the second tick of fire taking too long for it to actually be faster than chaincharging a Combuster, and too short for you to be able to charge before an other tick happens, unless you have CTR MAX which is not that easy to achive while having some DMG bonuses. It can be useful if you have a weapon with a very slow charge time that can actually use that speed up process, but the only weapon that comes to mind for me is Gran Faust, and unless you have a deathwish, you don't wanna use it's charge attack.

2. Yep! Dashing can evade one single tick of fire damage, which is useful, but you are using something that has 8 seconds of cooldown for something that deals about 2 hearts of damage (with max fire resistance that is), when you can save it to instead evade certain attacks that can hurt much more than that or reposition yourself. Of course, you can always pull out the argument of "don't get hit lol", but lets be real, that isn't really a good argument, because nobody can dodge enemies forever in scenarios like SL, D&N or FSC (unless you are a bot or something idk), specially considering that this weapon makes you be up-close and personal to the enemies.

3. Charges in quick succession overriting the other fire ticks and avoiding freeze status with fire are honestly balid arguments, I guess the only thing I can say about this is that it's also playable to enemies, which you can use in your adventage in one way or the other I guess.

4. Most of the builds you present are slightly unpractical due the need of UVs, which can cost a ton of money (specially MAX ones), and they are not as versatile and cheap as Chaos set + Combuster + Blitz, which is what most people will use because meta exists.

5. This is more like a recomendation: Since I see that you seem to like the idea to embrace the self fire mechanic, why don't be fully embrace it by giving FoV a faster charge? Similar to Dread Venom Striker. I think this would increase it's DPS slightly without having to change the damage values themselves and it would kinda justify the slower attack speed on it's basic attacks.

6. "What you should really be arguing for is a nerf to brandishes.". Well... Yes and no. Yes because Brandishes are sometimes too reliable for their own sake, and no because nerfing something is almost always disapointing for players, unless the nerf actually reworks the weapon to be more fun to use. My recomendation is to buff the weapons that are outclassed by this one instead of nerfing it, because this would make less of an inpact on the players and more on the game's balance. (I hope I explained myself properly there).

Sorry for bad grammar btw.