For the most part I am okay with most of the I5 changes in general. I believe and understand that with CoV coming major balancing is needed to make the entire package fun. I truly believe that is the dev's goal here, to make the CoH and CoV package fun to play together. Nobody is out to get anyone, nobody 'hates us', etc. That's why these major changes to Burn confuse me.
I logged into test with my level 42 Fire/Energy Melee tank to test Burn. I can live with the reduced damage and increased recharge time. While that's a big hit to the core of a Fire tank, it's liveable and I can adapt. What is my major concern is what appears to be an increase in the fear levels. Within a couple of seconds the small, even con mobs I was fighting would disengage from melee, walk back 10 feet and open up on me with ranged attacks. Even when I start with a taunt and blazing aura running (2 taunt SO's) they still run away. This is not how it is on live. Combine this with the new added recharge and inability to reapply the patch and Burn is gutted.
Now if I'm even close to being correct in my first paragraph that a lot of these changes are CoV centric, then the Burn changes confound me. A human controlled player is not going to stand in someone's Burn patch if he can help it. So Burn is mostly a PvE power, so why nerf it to such a degree?
A fire tank has less defense and resistance than other tanks, our niche was faster killing to offset weaker defenses. Okay, I admit we were overpowered, but such a drastic nerf goes to far in the other direction. Reduce the damage and speed, but please, please remove the fear affect as it is on test. If this is absolutly not a possiblity, how about throwing us a bone and including knockback protection in one of our shields. That way we can at least get another offensive power to offset this.
