Here are the changes to some of the Fire powers that are coming in GU39. Let us know how your testing goes. Absorb Heat: Now also applies the new Thermal Absorption effect and also restores power when used against burning enemies. Wildfire: Now always inflicts burning on the target and nearby enemies. Flame Cascade: No longer causes additional damage to Burning, Frostbitten or Electrified enemies. It now inflicts up to three levels of Volatility on Burning enemies. Enemy Volatility levels increase damage. The Thermal Absorption effect causes burning enemies to restore Power. The duration of Burning, Volatility and Thermal Absorption effects are extended. Fireburst: Casting time reduced slightly. Inflicts maximum Volatility on Burning enemies. The Thermal Absorption effect causes burning enemies to restore Power. The duration of Burning, Volatility and Thermal Absorption effects are extended. Mass Detonation: Casting time reduced significantly. Enemy Volatility levels also increase damage. The Thermal Absorption effect causes burning enemies to restore Power. The duration of Burning, Volatility and Thermal Absorption effects are extended. Fiery Weapon: Now also your increases Might. Spontaneous Combustion: Reduced cooldown significantly. No longer inflicts burning. The instant damage has been increased slightly. Now causes increased damage instantly to burning enemies. 07/14/14 Upcoming changes will include: Eternal Flame's supercharge cost is now 50% Stoke Flames can now be used after being countered, has a 12 second cooldown instead of 20 seconds, and the duration of the healing is 6 seconds instead of 4 seconds. Burning Determination can now be used after being countered. Flame Cascade is no longer affected by the Empowered Channeling tactical mod.
Unsure if the power return is working properly. The PI won't stay active on the sparring target in the watchtower in order to test it and when I went to GUS and attacked a Taciturn Mystic I inflicted burning on her, used Absorb Heat to activate the thermal thing and then used several of the related powers and only got one power return in total.
I'm not seeing a whole benefit for this change. Since most powers that are changed are either cast or channeled, you are losing damage while doing it. Sure, you can move, but why bother? The damage of the cast powers especially are WAY lower than a WM finisher hit. I kind of need to see a reason why I should scrap a WM+Quick damage loadout for one that is slow, but minimal damage just because I can move around. Also, absorb heat plants you down, I can't move while using it.
Testing these changes won't very feasible on a dummy, you'll need a real live test like SM or T6 to check. The sparring dummies are known to spontaneously drop PIs so they aren't reliable or accurate for this testing at all.
I like the idea of a power that's played completely from the bar, though I know NOTHING about fire. So, can only test for exactly what is described.
Disappointed doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about this "update" for fire. For starters no work in progress section ahead of time to take in feedback on what should have been looked at. Be it a change to certain dps aspects or something on the tank side, fire users should have been given the official chance to give advanced input on their power. Nothing can be done about that now though so let's move on. The tanking aspect really doesn't need much to make it at par with other tank powers. The self heals work incredibly well and truthfully would be on the verge of being a little OP if they got buffed. The one issue I have with fire as a tank is at level survivability when compared with what other tank powers are capable of. Something as small as a way to buff health beyond it's current limit, either by powers used or from a change in how it's calculated. Nothing as obscene as the near infinite buff Rage can achieve but something to help fire be a little more viable in at level scenarios, you know when it's "need tank must be ice or rage". DPS wise where to begin. I guess there are 2 ways of dpsing to consider now, the Weapon Mastery way and the Awesome Mechanic way. The WM mastery aspect though greatly helped by the change to Spontaneous Combustion is still held back by Inferno, or at least by the lack of a PI applicator that is viable as a dps. When at range Inferno does not get the initial damage from the power cast when used with WM, that just leaves you with the Dots which makes it a drastically under performing high cost move. With Inferno being the best way to set up the burning PI this leaves fire at a fairly sizable disadvantage. Powers like Static Push both apply and make use of the PI, Spontaneous needs to be like this if Inferno is to receive no change. You could use Wildfire to set up the PI but that's where the viable as a dps complaint comes in, super weak DoT and almost zero burst potential, almost useless as a power right now. Outside of a viable way to maintain ranged dps and set up the PI necessary for decent dps at range the WM portion of fire is solid. As far as the new Awesome Mechanic goes.... not really a fan of the paint by numbers approach any of the new mechanics are taking. Personal distaste aside I'm still not a fan of these fire changes. Granted my time was fairly limited with it but it just seemed like the same useless cast powers only now I can run like a nut while throwing them. A little overly simplistic I know but at the core of the mechanic is Fireburst and Mass Det, neither of which seem all that capable of competing with a WM based rotation. That of course could be said about most powers but at least with them you aren't casting a move and doing zero damage while doing so. Stacking DoTs (a la electricity and nature) in between weapon attacks is far far greater than doing no damage at all while you wait for the potential "home run" damage of a Fireburst or Mass Det. It might not be that much an issue if the home run is a guarantee but sadly Fireburst and Mass Det still strike out all too often and produce low damage numbers. TL;DR Fire tanking needs an at level survivability increase to put it on par with the other tank powers. Fire WM dps needs an effective way to apply the burning PI at range while maintaining good dps. Fire AM dps needs Fireburst and Mass Det to hit hard consistently enough to justify the cast time.
So from just a bit of initial messing around with the new PI's. I'm really not seeing the comparable damage to WM. I've been trying to play exclusively from the bar and it seems I can just blast Flame Cascade onto an enemy endlessly with Burning set-up. As far as Power efficiency goes this is awesome. Now again, I'm not the biggest expert on Fire so I'll let other people have a bigger crack at this. Just some initial thoughts.
Has anyone noticed the Blue fire? I have been testing and noticed that a rotations would be something like: Absorb Heat needs to be mobile. The change to Wildfire Makes you actually want to drop inferno now because you can't fill It hard for me to Track the numbers but after doing Flame Cascade I notice a larger amount of ticks in Fireburst than normal along with the Blue fire explosion. WM -> Wildfire XX Fiery Weapon-> Flame Cascade -> Fire Burst/Mass D -> Absorb Heat As for the Blue fire effect: It is a cool idea but can all of our fire turn Blue to let us know if we have achieved successful PI application? It's Distracting to See red, blue ,and orange all at once. I don't know if it is more effective but it is fun to use at least.
Looking at Fireburst, it's the only power in the trees that benefits from Burning, Electrified, and Frostbitten PIs. Remander, Max Volt, and I tested quickly and found that the damage increases w/ each PI. It's not either/or. Rotation tested = Fireball, Absorb Heat, Fireburst x5, finish with melee tap (to note in combat log) On Burning target: 18,956 dmg over 29sec Burning + Electrified: 21,865 dmg over 29sec Burning + Electrified + Frostbitten: 24,910 dmg over 29sec
Rem pointed that out to me while testing. Looks really good. There's also a blue splash for Volatile.
Well I feel the changes seem on point for dps. The only thing Fire really lacked compared to other powersets was a ranged burst AoE, and now Spontaneous Combustion fills that role nicely. Fiery Weapon is now arguably the best might buff in the game granting 10% crit damage, 7% crit chance, 15% more might, and a 45% modifier. Just as a basic build you can have your weapon buff, two dots in the form of inferno and overheat, a burst AoE, and robot sidekick going quite easily. That's the basis for a solid dps spec these days though I admit it feels very vanilla by now. I don't quite get how to use the new awesome mechanics yet. Is it really as simple as "(1) inflict burning PI, (2) use cast time power" or is there some other way to get more damage out of it? At this point I don't see it competing with WM combo spam but I guess nothing really does.
Powers that use Thermal Absorption are the ones that return power to you. You can literally spam that quick power indefinitely.
Provide detailed, specific feedback with reasoning as to what is broken and how it should be fixed. It's the only way to have a real voice.
It's inflict Burning then apply thermal Absorption, then use Flame Cascade then use cast power. Now you can spam powers all day.
Here is a video of me trying it out the new AM; Load-out used: Absorb Heat, Flame Cascade, Firey Weapon, Inferno, Fireburst & Mass Detonation. Absorb Heat needs to be mobile to match the flow of the AM, but I like once I get the Thermal Absorption effect up I get power back to the point I won't even be using power and can keep spamming powers. Also I can't tell if the test dummy's resets the PI's or if they wear off over time and you then will have to reapply the PI's. Mass Detonation's Volatility applier of one doesn't seem to stack up to three like Flame Cascade, is this intended?
Wish I could tell you. I really don't know how fire should work. Gimme a WM/burst loadout/rotation, and I'll do a test for you.
