Fire has a Problem

I just simply do not see the damage mitigation needed to compete with ICE in the pending T5 level content. And I REALLY REALLY want to be wrong, but im just not seeing it based on the damage im seeing done to people.

I did a run down on my self heals today with 132 skillpoints

Self Healing with 2k of combined DOM + Resto
Stoke Flames: 8 ticks, non crits averaging 180ish per tick, averaging 350ish per crit, with lets say an average of 1 crit per cast = roughly 1.6k in healing

Burning Det: 4 heals, being generous 270 average on non crits, 500 on crits, lets be even more nice and average 1 crit per cast = roughtly 1.3k in healing

Burnout: 1 heal, non crit around 670ish, crits around 1kish

Backdraft: 1 heal, 580ish non crit, 1k crit

Absorb heal: 5 ticks, non crits averaging 175 per tick, crits about 310ish + 3500 def from empowered channeling, and again doing 1 crit per cast on average = roughly 1k in healing

These are our best self healing moves and as you can see none of them are strong enough for the new level of damage we are about to be undertaking.

Before you "Fixed" the self healing we were basically getting almost double these numbers which was right around where I thought we needed to be at. You basically doubled what ICE's shields were able to absorb while leaving fire exactly the same. Ya kris says we got about a 7% healing buff, well you now what that means? even rounding up thats like + 100 to most of our self heals which might as well be zero to be honest.

So basically our only tactic now is to keep our health buffed and hold block hoping the 2 healers can get enough crit heals to keep our squishy butt on the battlefield.

Someone please tell me if I am off base here because I would love to be wrong on this one.

Honestly I never specced Into tank stuff for my fire guy I have always tanked fully dps specced. I know how this sounds but I do it now on the live server I have tanked both prime and dawn like this. On the test server (provided with T5 gear and T4 mods to get my dom high enough) I have also tanked the T5 alerts and completed them just fine. I dont rely on my self heals much except for pvp, when I do pve I focus on basiclly CC and helping the dps kill things quickly.

Maybe this might change for the T5 raids but I have never seen Fire as a pure tank more as a hybrid role that can do both at once. That aside healers with 2500+ resto that can burst heal for well over 6k seems wasted unless they healing a buffed up fire tank. So who knows maybe this was all intended.

Its kind of hard to tell if fire tank is screwed or not until we test out the healing with t5 gear since it "should" boost up the healing. Especially when our tank gear will finally have resto. Also if im not mistaken, I think I read from the devs that resto stats wasnt working correctly, and they fixed that "starting" with T5 gear. But as of right now, I rather block than heal. Block always been better than healing regarding minimizing dmg.

This is truth. Many dont realize with fire tanking that R1 is CRUCIAL.

The problem Soulburn has here is that we will literally be stuck HOLDING that R1 for as long as we possibly can due to our lack of mitigation. The only thing we have that lessens damage is blocking, and no, giving fire shield abilities DO NOT HELP. If fire had reflect - the exact same ability as ice - it'd only be half as effective, because shields take damage AFTER damage mitigation from defense/toughness are accounted for. Absorbing 1000 damage on an ice tank is like mitigating 2000 damage on a fire tank, because of the mitigation bonus.

Shields are useless for fire, as they should be. really, the only way to counteract this is a larger health pool, a larger boost to healing received, or higher healing values for our abilities. Theres nothing else fire tanks can use.

Absorb heat was never that great for heals when i was a fire tank. What are your mods? Are u stacking health and using the healing SC? Back when I used it it gave me around 3000 healing crits.

Re-ignition?

Think about this. 3000 damage healed. Alright.....how long will 3000 damage last in Tier 4? Only a few seconds. With poor timing, you'll have lost 5000 just because of poor timing and not blocking.

The other thing is the fact you're discussing a SUPERCHARGE here. You only have so many of those....

Ive done Gates as a fire tank (t4), and no it wasnt easy. The thing that tanks seem to forget about is their weapon, if you use it to juggle and stun the enemy youre mitigating damage while building up SC and combo meter. That was something I learned while fire tanking. If youre not using the supercharge, then thats probably youre issue.

The focus of the thread is revolving around "fire" specific abilities as a tank.

Bringing your weapon into the conversation isnt too useful if ANY tank (or controller for that matter) can do the same thing.

So you're telling me that we get Re-ignition, that is LESS USEFULL than reflect is for ice, yet reflect isnt even an SC?

Reignition is a fire tanks bread n butter. So are the weapon juggles. Ive been fire and ive been ice, and i can tell you reignition is far from useless, unless its numbers have changed since I was fire. The only problem fire ever had was the magnitude of critical heals it could receive, but that was fixed.

What? Weapon juggle? So fire tanks now need a specific type of weapon? Also: all that time you spend juggling is time not spent on blocking which is fires true bread and butter

And funny you mention weapon juggles...

Last I checked, I prefer flashpoint. Why? I hit everything in a 360 radius and it juggles EVERYTHING. A weapon combo cant do that.

Also.....as i previously mentioned, weapon combos can be used by ANY tank. The issue with this thread is the differences of performance with FIRE tanks and ICE tanks. Since both ice and fire tanks can use any weapons, and therefore "weapon juggle".....the point you're trying to make is.....moot.

Encircling throw in the DW tree push back in a full 360 so more or less works just like flashpoint.
Just wanted to point that out.

In the raids and the alerts, fire does fine in T5 content as a tank. I've tanked all the content on Test and the only thing I really noticed was that Ice's shields give them a bigger margin of error in the 4-man operations but not so much in the raids. Most people die due to one-shots, and I can honestly say that in the raids most of the times I've died have been to these mechanics and the ice tank was hit just as hard and was killed instantly too.

Damage in that content relies almost 100% on the healers to heal or mitigate. There's not much mitigation happening as Ice or Earth and there's not much healing happening as fire - that's why the stat increases are so high on healer gear over the previous tiers. Most people who pay attention won't be killed by pure damage where one tank will survive it over another, but instead from mechanics designed to kill anyone they hit (and they do so much damage that it's obvious the attacks aren't meant to be taken regardless of gear. Something hitting for 55k through Reflect and blocking won't be something you can shrug off even in Tier 6,7,8 etc. gear.)

In short, in the raids, there is no "fire tanking/earth tanking/ice tanking." The main focus of the tank is going to be keeping the attention of things away from the squishies, grabbing it back, while being mobile and avoiding as much damage as possible. That doesn't mean sit there and eat it, it means having to avoid it by moving completely. You won't be planting your feet in to make a stand or you'll be dead in the blink of an eye no matter what type of tank you are. The tanks just have slightly different powers to accomplish this, but the method they use to increase their survivability is almost a moot point.

Now, people less familiar with the fire powerset are going to have more problems than ice in the 4 man ops but this has always been the case and doesn't necessarily mean there's a problem with the powerset itself.

I haven't figured out exactly what my loadout will be in there but it's fairly strange because of the various situations that pop up. I don't run a supercharge in my builds anymore because I'd rather use Amazon Deflection - it mitigates far more damage for longer than Reignition heals.

My loadout that's working in the T5 raids on Test and the ones I've completed the content has been Burnout, Burning Determination, Mesmerizing Lasso/Low Pressure (depending on the fight) Detonate/Flashpoint, Absorb Heat/Backdraft, Amazon Deflection. There's virtually no self healing in that loadout, because there are so many different situations where I as a fire tank have to respond to instantly, and that means my loadout is extremely different.

I swap those powers out depending on the fight, or if I'm the main tank or the off tank in the raid. There will be no catch-all solution loadout, while every ice tank I've seen complete the content has had to have all 3 shields and usually run with Hard Light Shield as well, limiting other loadout options and what they're able to do in the content. Not a big deal for a skilled player, but unless you can think outside the box you're going to be more pidgeonholed as ice than as fire.

Gunny, Downward Smash in the Staff tree is a 360 degree juggle.

Thats how it should be. Most tank just sit there and block not understand that as a tank you are the leader of the pack. A tank needs to control and adjust to the situation more so than any other role, also needs to compensate for teammates mistakes. I hated that about most Ice tanks because of there shields its always been a sit there and take it attitude leaving the group to do there own thing. With fire using flashpoint and backdraft you pretty much control the fight as needed. Also since fire cant really sit there and take it you have to be smarter about the fight and actually pay attention to whats going on around you. This creates oppertunities like moving a mob away from a teammate so they can be revived or making sure that the boss is turned away from group so what hits you dont hit them also. For me all you really need for a fire tank in enflame, flashpoint, burnout, and backdraft. Everything else is pretty much optional and situational.

Question, so as a fire tank would you suggest Amazon over Hard light Shield? If I had both would they stack? What about the Base Mod Shield that comes up, does it stack with Hard Light and or Amazon?

I don't know if Kris has any hard Data to show Deflection is actually reducing damage. I tested it out for about 15 - 20 min over at Strykers on the Gang Leaders and Grod Projections and noticed no difference between using Deflection and just normal blocking as far as pure damage in numbers.

HL shield is for fire waste of 1pp and time to cast.

I read some of this thread and to say fire has its strengthes with white sockets and a tank based spec and loadout it should be enough, ill say with fire tank having huge health buff and a base of 80% buff in healing recived used with critical heal in chest... additional 10% healing recived, fortified blocking, channeling power for an uninteruptable self heal with a good defence buff, so being said fire has an advantage in reciving heals, i have recived heals for 10k plus and self healed for 6k plus, it is quit impressive espically in pvp,

btw sheild for fire in my opinion is useless. remember i said in my opinion

Well, Deflection also stuns, so...

If shield for fire, it must be special for fire, something like fire wall which deflect incoming attacks and heals himself or just ignor incoming dmg. But devs are to lazzy, so fire is and will be still same bad. Btw for dps spec. you need 16pp +2 for iconic, really fair.