Keeping this short and to the point
I have no issue with us fire/* tanks having to take power pools to cap defense or resistance, it is a choice we make. My tanker does fine with the build I have (which does not include hasten).
As a tank my responsibility on a team is not damage output but damage absorption. That said as far as the burn power goes... it is a primary offense for me wile solo, and it works well with ice patch. However, considering burn is DoT, and I have to use burn twice on anything more than an even level minion, and even with ice patch enemies can still attack me, and the fact that on a team more often than not the bad guys are pushed off the ice patch and out of the burn patch it really isn't as usefull a power as it is when I am solo.
Other tankers have powers that offer resistance to immob/hold/sleep/knockback as well as toxic resistance without having to use a power pool to achieve this. This is my biggest complaint about the fiery aura set.
Having read through a lot of the other posts, and listened to other fire/* tanks, were I a dev I might do this. Since Blazing Aura offers higher damage at a lower damage per second rate and lower accuracy than burn, basically making burn a somewhat redundant power. Increase the DPS of blazing aura OR increase it's accuracy. Drop burn as a power entirely. Change burn in the set to another toggle shield (say "Magma shield") that offers the knockback/knockdown/immobilization/slow resistance the power set lacks. It doesn't seem to me that the burn power ever really has been what the devs wanted it to be anyway.
Overall I have liked the game, and I continue to like the game even though I disagree with some of the changes made, I have also liked some of the changes made. Nothing is perfect. I do believe that some of the proposed changes in I5 are far more reactionary to complaints about power levellers or people that feel one type of "toon" is more powerful than they should be. I haven't read the proposed changes for scrappers, but my understanding is that they will do more damage, making them a better blaster than a blaster since they have defense/resistance, and higher hit points, defiance for blasters included. One of the major selling points of CoH for me was the diversity of characters one could create or team with, and the challenges those choices presented. For example, I need to defeat the Psychic Clockwork King, do I find an empathy defender, invulnerable tank, and a */regen scrapper OR do I try to find a dark defender, a stone tanker, and a */dark scrapper. It is exactly these choices that make the game enjoyable.
It seems to me that if the end of the quest to balance the game means that all the characters classes of all at's have the same health, resistance, defense, controlling ability, and damage output then there really is no thought process to the game, no need to strategize, just pick a character any character and play. Really, if I want a mindless game to sit in front of to kill an hour or two I can slap HALO into my xbox and accomplish that.
Just my two cents worth, find another $3.50 and you can buy a cup of stale burnt coffee at your local corner coffee shop.
