ketch

Both of these powers are subject to accuracy checks meaning you will miss some of the mob. In fact, with a 95% chance to hit any individual member of a mob there's only a roughly 50% chance that you will hit every member of the spawn. Bonfire is auto-hit. That also dismisses the lack of magnitude needed to lock down bosses in the case of controllers and dominators without domination.

At perma-hasten levels of recharge with a recharge boosting alpha , the most you'll be use Cinders to help with a second mob is once a minute. Flashfire could be cast thrice within that minute. Bonfire, at the same level of recharge, can be cast 4 times in that minute.

Auto-hit, affects all ranks, does not scale with level (as effective against +5s or +20s as even conning enemies). This is only a little more control?

See Arcana's example of how effective this is against +20 mobs. That's a hole that needs to be corrected.

I agree that it is not Bonfire that is broken. Changes should at the proc rather than changing a long standing power. Tweaking the amount of negative knockback in the proc could work, but it would also make the proc work inconsistently across many powers. For example, tweaking this for Bonfire would mean that it would no longer convert knockback to knockdown for Telekinetic Thrust, Quasar, or Sonic's Shockwave which have equal or greater knockback.

MMO players don't restrain themselves for the sake of balance. The path of least resistance to rewards is the most sought after, if not traveled. I imagine you'd have as much luck asking a hungry wild dog to not eat an unattended steak.

Perhaps, it is because we're well aware of how this stacks up against other control powers. It's mitigation surpasses similar effects in Ice Slick and Earthquake easily and beats out both in recharge and duration. On top of this is Fire's position on the high end of control sets. Of course, if this change was made to a power in Ice control I personally would still be against it.

As for Tornado, it has a far smaller area of effect (a 7 feet radius or 154 square feet area vs. Bonfires 25 feet radius and 1963 square feet area) and a much smaller target cap (5 vs. 16). That prevents it from locking down entire spawns the way that Bonfire can with this proc. Also, to second what Yogi has stated, I always take and often recommend Tornado as a damage tool for controllers as most AoE immobilizes negate most detrimental knockback.

I agree that Jolting Chain would be a fine candidate for such a tweak. It's particularly irritating when you've gained a level shift, but fight level 50 mobs.

And there are Rularuu Overseers which possess enough innate to hit and DE quartz that can quickly buff enough to hit to make that level of debuff irrelevant (as well as circumventing heavy defense buffs). Those groups' ability to deal with enormous debuffs does not make such debuffs balanced, just as knockback immunity in a small group of enemies does not make BF with the knockdown conversion balanced.

This tactic overwhelms the majority of enemies which is all it needs to do to be unbalanced.

Allowing one power in one control set to provide more control than any other against +6, +7, +8... conning enemies is common sense how?

Wormhole unfortunately can't receive this enhancement because it does no damage.

I can't agree with this. Illusion certainly beats it in some metrics, against an AV for example, but a Fire controller is going to lock down far more mobs with KD Bonfire. A high recharge build could get the recharge of Bonfire down to 16-20 seconds, allowing it to be triple cast. You could easily lock down two full x8 spawns. PA would certainly have trouble holding all that aggro.

As for Plant, it could dish out control just as quickly but it's also subject to misses and a lack of magnitude for bosses. KD Bonfire is dealing with bosses much more efficiently.

First I question how you can be safer (other than when facing knockback resistant mobs) than the mitigation this provides. The mobs are literally unable to fight back. Secondly, your melee characters may be safe and sound, but are they making it safe for the rest of the team? This is negating damage for everyone. Finally, this is a ridiculous amount of mitigation provided by a single enhancement. I don't think I've ever seen such a drastic leap in performance even when comparing an SO build to a fully IOed build.

Personally, I don't think Tornado warrants the same tweaking for this enhancement as Bonfire. It's certainly better with the enhancement, but it's not shutting down entire mobs. For a controller spamming an immobilize with -kb, there's little change in performance except a few stray tosses are prevented.

26 for Doms and Controllers.

Not that it matters. There's no other power that offers as much control at any tier.

You're correct. In fact, since it's a pseudo-pet it doesn't even use different numbers; it's the same -30% resistance as defenders.

Dark is a very good set though I would have to say it takes second place to Time. Dark provides better -regen and a few nice resistances, but Time offers up -def and -res.

The problem with this is that it lowers the viability of Bonfire without the proc, basically a nerf for a power that was previously difficult to leverage making the enhancement even more desirable. That's hardly the direction the change should go, in my opinion. If any change is to be made, it needs to be made to the enhancement itself.

I am hesitant to label this an exploit given how painfully obvious the scenario was before the enhancement even hit Test. As soon as it was announced people were speculating how it would work in Bonfire. If this is not WAI the devs only have themselves and an incredible lack of foresight to blame.

Well, to clarify a bit, my stance is no to a nerf to Fire Control, particularly if it's spurred on by this enhancement. If I had my druthers this enhancement wouldn't be limited to this set (and subsequently the powers that take it) and certainly not unique. I'd like to see a generic knockback to knockdown enhancement. Ideally it would be its own category of IO, separate from knockback enhancement, so that it could be targeted at specific powers.

Also, I most definitely agree letting us convert knockback to knockdown in Wormhole isn't going to overpower Wormhole in any shape or form.

I agree with this to some degree. It definitely shifts the high end performance for Fire Control; even if you spam Fire Cages on top of Bonfire this makes it so much less unruly. I don't, however, see it as a direct buff to Fire control because it's only a buff for some. After the event ends I expect the prices on this particular enhancement will compete with some purple and pvp IOs. It will be a buff for some... but I expect far from the majority. With that in mind, I don't think this should lead to any kind of nerf for Fire. Balance should be centered around a set's average performance rather than an outlier caused by a single enhancement, especially if that enhancement isn't readily available throughout the year. More directly, a nerf for Fire isn't necessary, but perhaps one for this enhancement is.

Secondly, I do think this demonstrates a lack of forethought on the devs' part. If knockback and, as a result, ease of use are balance concerns it's foolish to put an enhancement of this play altering magnitude into such a broad category. It's a broad stroke for something that should have been finely targeted.

Can you illustrate how the experience is cheapened? In what ways has your play experience been made less enjoyable?

Can you cite any actual example of "pay to win"? I know many games that are "pay to save yourself several hours of grinding" and "pay to reduce the challenge", but can you provide even a single example of a game in which one pays to win? What even constitutes winning in this game? Is it reaching some goal post (level 50, unlocking incarnate slots, IOing a build) or is it simply not dying? Something that decreases the likelihood of defeat and expedites progress in terms of leveling and loot acquisition certainly seems like it's nudging as close as CoH can to "pay to win".