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Was wondering what the best load outs were for the various tau battle suits. Got a bunch of new tau but not sure how to gear them up, and which suits I should magnetize.

The best loadout is magnets.

SJ

Are their any weapons I shouldn't bother with? Flamers don't seem that useful on crisis suits for example.

Flamers are useful against melee oriented hordes (green tide, gaunt swarm, blob guard, etc.) as the wall of death in overwatch gets nasty when you have 6+ flamers going at once. Outside of the overwatch, they are pretty superfluous now that AFBs are available to everyone, since AFBs straight up do the job better (same strength and AP, both ignore cover, easier positioning, barrage). I have seen and had some success with DSing lone suits or pairs with dual flamers into the backfield to eliminate enemy troops holding home objectives, but outside of that and Supporting Fire support Flamers are kinda meh.

My general advice is to usually load either two of a kind, or pair up weapons with similar purposes and range bands. Flamers, as you've noticed, are pretty niche - other than overwatch, AFPs do the job mostly better, but flamers are dirt-cheap. Overwatch is exactly what you want them for, when you want them at all.

Burst cannons aren't bad, but you have lots of options to get that shooting profile (Stealths, Fire Warriors, Pathfinders, Piranhas). The cyclic ion blaster is the new hotness - enough volume to threaten infantry, enough strength to threaten vehicles. True, you won't be exploding anything that's not open-topped, but that mostly doesn't matter. Fusion blasters are good for everything melta weapons have ever been good for, but remember that a Crisis squad can bring more shots than most others. This makes them a solid anti-MC/GC choice also.

Plasma is there for taking out MEQ and TEQ, with a secondary role against light vehicles. It should pair with either a second plasma rifle or a fusion blaster, depending on your meta, but either way, once you pick plasma, dealing with 2+ saves is that squad's first and most important role. Missiles pair best with... more missiles. They have lots of range, and enough power to take on most targets. The rate of fire isn't bad either, but as with burst cannons, consider if something else isn't already doing the job better, namely Broadsides.

When you're not taking two of a kind, the best pairings seem to be: plasma/fusion (anti-tank/anti-TEQ), fusion/ion (anti-tank with a secondary role against MCs) and maybe burst/ion (anti-infantry with secondary anti-tank). Missiles should go only with missiles, flamers should be an "oh, that also" bolt-on.

Twin-linking is seldom worth the points tax, IMHO, but if you're running singleton suits (monats), it might be useful there to be less dependent on markerlights. Remember that the CIB and AFP cannot be twin-linked (but you can take two). I really have no idea why, honestly - I think this was strictly for the crunch effects, because there's no fluff reason for it.

Doubles of either Plasmas, Fusions, or CIBs. Double guns are great when you have any markerlight support and still are decent without. TL is only good for 1 gun that isn't really getting much marker support. A single fusion crisis suit might take a TL fusion and a standard fusion to fill its 3 system hard points.

Plasmas are your bread and butter AP2 infantry killer gun with good volume of fire and decent strength shooting. AP2 volume of fire shooting is always in demand.

Fusion crisis are your best anti vehicle damage source (outside of a stormsurge's d missiles) and the ability to cheaply deep strike longer range melta guns is hard to pass up.

Cyclic Ion Blaster (CIB) is the new kid on the block and its basically the love child between a burst cannon and a missile pod. The volume of high strength fire outclasses both the missile pod and burst cannon as it takes the strength of both with a limitation that isn't all that problematic for a deepstrike unit with thrust move.

Airburst Fragmentation Projector (AFP) is an honorable mention as a real horde killer that really outclasses the flamer and burst cannon. A bit too narrow in its role when compared to the more versatile plasmas and CIB but if you know your fighting Orks, Guard, Swarm Nids, ete then this is an incredibly potent weapon that can leave a lot of light armor infantry feeling very defenseless.

There pretty much isnt a bad loadout as long as you dont mix n match odd weapons (burst + MP or fusion + flamer) but you should always, always ALWAYS magnetize the weapons. Crisis suits change weapons so often you really cant have static weapons equipped or youre going to hate yourself later.