Oedipus_Tex

I'm stealing someone else's suggestion, but based on how this proc works, putting a Mag 1 unenhanceable knockback in Bonfire would theoretically fix the proc in this power, without radically changing the power.


For a long time I've suspected Volcanic Gasses got missed during the global AoE hold nerf, and has the values it does more out of luck than because it was planned. I'm not advocating nerfing it, but based on the massive reduction in capacity other AoE holds got, the 60 second duration stands out as weird.

Sort of, yeah. Bonfire is just a pet with Repulsion Field + damage.

Another way to think of it is like if the pseudo pet were using an "activated" power like Fault or Repulsion Bomb over and over and over. The enemies all fall to the ground at the same time, just the like when they all get hit by the same AoE knock.

Yes, sort of. Have you ever been in a group where there are 3 or 4 Slicks or Quakes going on at once and the enemies just seem to "bounce" in place? It
It looks similar to that, except if a new enemy walks onto the patch, it hesitates very briefly and then falls.

It has occurred to me that I might be able to exploit this to find out the exact duration of the knockdown animation and the size of the vulnerability window. Unless someone happens to know already. I've asked a lot over the years but no one has coughed up numbers.

Interesting. I don't seem to have that issue with Ice Slick. The enemies are content to run across it even with Rain of Fire pouring down over it. I mainly mention the strategy because I often see people getting frustrated because they want to include the whole mob under the slick, when its properties (big slow and highish chance for knockdown) often work best just tagging a few enemies near the front.

It's a bit different on teams, of course.

I don't think the developers would go for it. But it's interesting to ponder because it puts Bonfire into perspective. To theorycraft for a second, I think Ice Slick and Earthquake would still be less powerful than Bonfire given the treatment you describe, assuming they still had shorter durations and longer recharges than that power. There's a small catch to this though.

We'll use Ice Slick in the example because it is the patch with the highest chance to knock an enemy. It currently knocks at a rate of 8% percent chance every 0.2 seconds--that's about the same as 10 times per 2 seconds, or 10 times as fast as Bonfire. If we were up that to 100% chance every 0.2 seconds it would seem to do more, at first glance.

The catch is that in terms of mitigation knockdown has a set animation time and a period during which the enemy is immune to another knock. Knocking at a rate of 10 times per 2 seconds is mostly meaningless if most of the re-knocks fire while the enemy is still on its butt. As long as the next knock is applied during the period when the enemy is disabled but vulnerable to the next knock, then its good enough for perma knockdown. Bonfire demonstrates that it can reapply at this rate. So, effectively, a 100% knock every 2 seconds is close to the same in power as a knock 10 times every 2 seconds.

Like I said there is a (possibly minor, possibly not) exception. At a rate of 10 ticks per second with 100% chance, any new enemy that enters the area would fall over almost immediately. With Bonfire, it could possibly take up to 2 seconds for the enemy to fall, depending on when the knock last pulse happened. Most of us have experienced this with Bonfire in the past with enemies who sometimes seem able to race across it before being knocked back.

The comment below refers to the current version of Ice Slick with the 8% chance to knock, not the theorized 100% version
Note that it is technically possible, but not likely, to get very slightly better performance out of the current Ice Slick. Than the buffed Bonfire. However,this is a very limited situation. I present only so we can see how patch powers typically work.

Here's the stipulation: if an enemy that wasn't on the slick previously moves onto it, there is a chance it will fall within 0.2 seconds. With Bonfire, it could taken up to 2 seconds for knock to to happen.

This isn't a full win for Ice Slick though. Note that any enemy that is vulnerable to knock absolutely WILL fall at the 2 second mark in Bonfire, while there is just slightly more than half that chance of that happening by the 2 second mark with Ice Slick. Track the average number of knocks for just 10 seconds, and Ice Slick is dismally behind Bonfire.



(Strategy note if you want something practical to take into the game: Everything described above is why, with the current version of Ice Slick, its ideal to wait about 2 seconds after casting from behind an obstacle to emerge and attack. On the first tick of Ice Slick, you knockdown about 8% of the mob. But as the power keeps ticking, it knocks more and more enemies down. It finally reaches a saturation point when the enemies have been under the effects of the power approximately for the duration of the knockdown animation. I use this to estimate that during its peak period Ice Slick will disable approximately 57% of a mob, although at specific moments that value will vary.

Bonfire achieves saturation of 100% immediately after it lands. Other than the fact that it casts and travels slower than Ice Slick, by the time enemies are aware of it they are caught.


Strategy note 2: if being really crafty, cast so the power only hits the guys at the front. They get slowed and have an escalating chance to fall. Everyone else runs in behind them, hits the patch, and end up stuck behind the people who fell in front of them. This works with the new Bonfire to an extent as well, and will cause some enemy groups to gather up very tightly as the unhindered baddies clump up against the ones you disabled.)

I like you Todd and don't want to seem like I'm picking on you, but I am particularly un-fond of this argument.

My feeling is that a set that is individually rescued from the balance considerations of other sets pleases the crowd only in the extreme short term. Over time it does more harm to the AT and to the game than good.

If Controllers/Dominators are grossly out performed by melees like you suggest, they are far better off if most of their sets are reasonably close to each other in power. Allowing one or two to grossly outperform the others does a major disservice. It means the ATs themselves cannot be buffed, because the power differential is all over the place.

It should be understood that only about 1/3rd of the complaints about low powered sets probably require uptweaks. The second 1/3rd would disappear if overperformers had been kept in check in the first place. The final 1/3rd would be fixable if overperformers weren't locked into their overperformance, preventing the entire AT from being buffed because the best sets benefit most from it.

But if we're going to get mechanics like this, I propose a -Recharge to -Resist converter and maybe an IO that procs damage on the enemy each time your pet's AI causes it to suicide.

It should be noted that the comment on preserving resistance normally works in the opposite sense with the way enemies are actually designed. It means things like Clockwork and Rikti Monkeys fly further because they are vulnerable to knockback. Very few enemies that are Resistant to knockback are not also Protected, at least if my hands on experience trying to game the system (and mostly failing) with Repulsion Field indicate anything, so even though in theory an enemy with 999% Kb resist would fall over rather than fly backward when hit by Repulsion Field, I've never actually seen it happen.

[Sidenote: It's the developer's lucky day that Whirlwind doesn't happen to take damage IOs. Even with this flag, the IO might work and it would be hilariously obvoius how OP this ability is. Not any more OPed than Bonfire is, mind you, just more obvious because anyone could do it instead of just Fire Control characters and Blasters/Masterminds who take that APP.]

Not necessarily, especially if you already have a character who can take advantage of this. Mainly, that would be Blasters or Masterminds, because they get Bonfire in their APPs. My Rad/Fire/Fire has Bonfire and I plan to abuse it for what its worth. I feel like I've done my duty to inform them here and in the beta.

I have no idea if they are going to do anything about it. I actually don't think very many people even know about the flag on Repel and Repulsion Field. I only found out about it when I got curious about whether I could disable +6s by standing on top of them with a Force Fielder, and found out that enemies always fly the same distance with that power.

But Bonfire can...

Weird fact of the day: according to patch notes, long ago, RF and Repel (in Kinetics) were nerfed specifically to make them immune to the purple patch, in order to prevent the power from converting to knockdown. Both of those powersare specifically prevented from ever having knockdown, which Bonfire now has (and is IMO ridiculously overpowered with). But if that decision stands, at the very least Repel and Repulsion Field should be unflagged (and a few other powers, like Wormhole, IMO need an option to convert as well).

I didn't know this. I'm actually not sure I've ever done Mortimer Kal.

I talked about this in the Controller thread which you were part of, but Repel and Repulsion Fiekd in Force Field used to be capable of bouncing enemies in place if an enemy exceeded you in level. They were both specifically flagged by the developers as exceptions to the purple patch to prevent this from happening. This makes the situation with Bonfire becoming the premier knockdown patch (100% chance every 2 seconds as opposed to roughly 57% in Ice Slick and 51% in Earthquake as explained in that thread) really intriguing, if "did you test this?" is a synonym for "intriguing."

The IO's interaction with Bonfire frankly makes the long discussions and give-and-take in the recent Gravity feedback thread farcical. Like I said over in the Controller thread, the devs have a hard job and I respect them, but all the time spent balancing powersets seems realy pointless to me if they are just going to go "whatever" when creating IOs.

I understand and respect your point. By "nerf" I mainly mean removing this capaility from this power.

A very similar ability actually used to exist in two powers that are cousins of Bonfire: Repel (in Kinetics) and Repulsion Field (Force Field). These powers used to be affected by the purple patch so that if enemies were sufficiently high level above you, the power converted to knockdown and you could bounce them in place. This capability was intentionally edited out of the game by flagging these powers to always cause knockback because this was deemed too powerful.

Overall I agree with your contention that they are painting with too broad a brush. If Bonfire stays, there are several other powers that deserve such a massive and arbitrary increase in power. Overall, my feeling is that if something is so powerful they would never intentionally give it to us in a power, than achieving it just because "it's an IO" (my paraphrase) is not justifiable. Can you imagine if Repulsion Field caused knockdown? That's what Bonfire is, but with a bigger radius and damage. We're left with the impression that if only Repulsion Field caused a minor amount of damage (ie been better than it is), it would have benefitted from this change. For such a huge boost in power, I find that to be a frustrating outcome.

One weird thing about this proc is slotting it in Jolting Chain probably fixes it so low level enemies don't end up scattering.

But again, I think we all have to remember Bonfire on Controller's is the weakest case. It's on Masterminds and Blasters, who have no Containment needs or need to spam Fire Cages for damage, where this is likely extremely overpowered. My lone lvl 50 Blaster has Bonfire so I plan to find out.

IMO if they are going to keep it they should at least put damage in Wormhole so that it can slot the set as well. Being stuck with knockback there while Fire Control, of all things, gets a huge buff just kind of makes me feel like we wasted our time commenting on Gravity. I'm not ungrateful for the work the developers do, but if this doesnt finally get the nerf bat to swing at Fire Control in earnest I'm not sure what it would take. From the beta they were pretty adamant about Wormhole being stuck with its knockback so I really dont know what to think of this.

It still a drawback, because you still have to stick to Teleport and can't just jump. The only difference versus the way it currently works is the dropping of a pool power. It's less of a drawback compared to now, for sure, but not a free ride.