With this change, is the fear effect going to be reduced again or not?
RagManX
"if the market were religion Fulmens would be Moses and you'd be L. Ron Hubbard. " --Nethergoat to eryq2
The economy is not broken. The players are
OK I havent d a chance to test yet, it will take the rest of the night to get the patch. So Ill start simple.
-edit for my misunderstanding.
Been rereading dev responses to the fear effect and having it pointed out the mobs running from burn is not a bug, that they should run because no one would willingly stand around in fire.
So sorry
But then why are they dumb enough to stand around and get shot? Electrocuted, burned with energy or for that matter watch someone fly out of the sky and knock out their boss and stand around and keep fighting. If we are saying the mobs are smart enough to run out of a burn patch then they should be smart enough to:
Only use ranged attacks against scrapers and tankers. The guy only has a sword. Take out his kneecaps.
Get out of line of site blasters. Hes going after you, dive behind the crates.
Spread out for cone attacks. He breaths fire, get on either side of him.
If mobs are too stupid to do any of these basic tactics then yes they should sit in the middle of a fire and say I think I can take him, before my gun melts.
Is burn being turned from an offensive juggernaut into a defensive "panic button?" If so, can the mob AI be changed somewhat so as to keep agro on the tank and not nearby squishy teammates when the mob scatters from the burn patch? I agree with the thoughts behind them running away, but when a tank becomes the biggest liability on a team you have serious problems.
I did some testing on the test server with burn last night and at the present time I feel burn is now a power that I can skip in the Fire Tanker set. The one advantage that burn offers now is the ability to free yourself from immobilization and I can cover that problem with Combat Jumping. I understand why the developers wanted to change burn but I feel now burn is almost useless. My suggestion with burn is to change it to a huge recharge time (say 5 minutes and not effected by hasten) but make it have the power of inferno in the baster set. That way burn will be usefull as an ultimate escape power but cannot be spammed due to the timer length.
What about the fear effect? With these changes it should be gone completely .
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As I haven't tested it yet, I can't speak to the effectiveness/usefulness of this particular change.
I do, however, wish to express my deep appreciation for these "surgical power fixes" as opposed to sweeping, global nerfs that adversely affect those who were already struggling.
No longer matters I guess. I'm tired of reading how the developers have no skill in developing something positive for the game / archetypes and instead can only chop away at something that was genuinely fun. All 15 of the original group of players to which I belonged are now gone...myself included. Both my account and my girlfriend's account end in September.
Way to go "DEVELOPERS." Way to develop a game.
~ Jonathan
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Changes -
Increased the recharge time of Burn. Decreased its damage.
This thread is for you to provide feedback to the Devs on the above issues. You are allowed to post ONCE in this thread. Make it count! If you post more than one time - the extra posts will be removed.
If a dev responds this count will be reset.
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another kick in the balls for my tanker friends......at least its not as bad as the blaster nerfs...where they are disguised as "buffs"....here they just tell you that the are [censored] up your powerset..........i guesss they must think blasters are more sensitive...lol........all you fanboys can start praising the change now....you know you wanna......
Here is the KEY to the Burn changes: Fire Aura goes from being a set with playable offense and substandard durability, to a set with unplayable offense and excellent durability (since all the other tanks are being brought down to Fire's durability level). If the core vision of the powerset is being changed, then Tankers should be given a full AT respec, so I can take a different Primary or Secondary. Changing Burn like this is akin to taking pets completely away from Illusion controllers. My entire SECONDARY power set was picked strictly for its control options, to make it work with Burn. Now, I have Defense and Control, but no way of getting the offense powers I need.
I have to laugh... this was the only power I could bare to take in the Fire Manipulation secondary (being a */Fire Blaster) outside of the (obvious) BuildUp and the (practically useless but mandatory) Ring of Fire.
I guess I now get to respec another power out of my secondary and trade it for a Pool Powe..... Oh wait. NM, they've all been nerfed too.
Perhaps I finally need to respec to a different game. 
Why???
Hoestly, I am more upset with Burn being changed all the time than anything else. If you find it that much of a problem power why even keep it. Dump the power and give fire tanks another offencive DoT, something that will still let us be the more offencive of tanks without making us have another useless power.
Because if you dont we will be seeing the exact same thing againe in issue 6, and 7, and 20. Why bother?
It took you guys long enough to figure out that the problem with Burn was it's obscene damage.
Now fix the whole mob scatter and de-aggro when it's used.
Also either put the immobilize protection in one of the toggles, perhaps Blazing Aura because of the sweep away it does at the feet, or allow burn to be perma with the decreased DPS this change gives it. Give Fire tanks knockback protection while you're at it.
I'll try to be concise.
* Fire is the worst defensive set. Would have been invuln, but you've responded to the issues raised. Why?
- Fire has resists only, and they're not that strong. Effectively, fighting pool becomes mandatory for tanking for groups.
- Fire has no KB protection, so getting to Acrobatics is effectively mandatory if you don't want to get to know the floor real well. Whether that's 1 extra power or 3 depends on your perspective, but it's still a sacrifice
- Where invuln gets unstoppable, stone gets granite armor, and ice gets energy absorption, fire gets to come back from the dead. For that to be useful, well...
- The pool powers that fire must pick up to come up to par are expensive end-wise.
Fire's saving grace was its offense - Burn.
I don't care about the nerf to Burn as the AI stands, because Burn was already useless. Burn would be an afterthought in an I5 world. Tanks would opt for fire sword circle/whirling hands/etc instead.
I want Burn changed so that it is no longer in conflict with the AI. Burn does less damage and recharges more slowly? That's acceptable. Burn was strong enough that it *did* make up for all fire's inadequacy. Fire through the 30s feels like God Mode, I'll admit. However, the answer is not the AI, because burn causing fear wrecks the feel of the set completely, and it was a good feel. Instead:
(1) Reduce damage, reduce recharge. Well done, you've done that. It made sense.
(2) Change the power, or change the AI. This is what needs to happen. If you're uncomfortable with villains standing around in a Burn patch, I can understand that might offend your quest for verisimilitude. Change Burn to read as follows: "You launch a close range burst of flame accelerant around you, dousing any enemies nearby. If there is a source of fire, including fire shield, they catch fire and burn, suffering DoT. Enemies who enter after the burn begins may also suffer damage, but can escape it by fleeing." Problem solved. You douse enemies with accelerant, then set them on fire. They won't bother fleeing because, frankly, it won't help. Or maybe they do flee; it's sort of unimportant so long as they continue to take damage.
If that simply doesn't work for you, I suggest you look at something else entirely for Burn. Maybe you burn some sort of nauseating chemical and have a chance to disorient nearby foes, or you could move Rise of the Phoenix down to the 7th power, move Burn to 9th, and change Burn into a power that was more along the lines of Unstoppable (although I'd think fire should be better, since, frankly, fire is still the weakest set overall).
Of course, I'm really hoping the change to Burn was the first half of the 2 points above, and Burn is being "fixed" on the AI side, but being nerfed because if we were back to I4 or I2 AI, it was still just too good, and I concur; even with the defensive changes, that's just true. But as it stands right at this moment - and I tested my fire tank this morning - you have ruined fire. It isn't quite as bad as the initial changes to invuln, but it is very very bad.
Hi,
With burn and firey embrace scaled back, could ya'll think about giving knock(back / down) resistance to the primary? I understand that the original tradeoff was defense for offense, but with offense greatly scaled back, it'd be nice to have the tradeoff removed.
You could rework Temperature protection to give immobilisation + knock(back / down) resistance. It'd still cost us a power choice to get the protection, but would make burn completely optional and give us more options for travel.
How about leaving the nerf the way it is...
increase recharge rate
decrease damage
keep fear
but make Burn buffable by any buffs including inspirations?
So I am curious, in your (Devs) vision, what role does the fire tanker play? And how should they accomplish that role? Wilth this change as it stands right now we cannot meet our damage resistance cap and cannot deal out effect damage. We also cannot resist hold or immobilizes or knockbacks.
Yes we can meet the damage cap if we take the fighting pool (which has been nerfed) and yes we can get combat jumping and acrobatics. However I was under the belief that the pool powers were put there to round out our characters and give them variety. Except now we are designed to that if we want to be able to perform out job efectively we must 2 if not 3 of the powerpools. If we do not take them who will want to group with a fire tankt that can't deal out damage or be a meat shield?
I can understand lowering our damage IF your raise our resistance. I can understand keeping our ressitance the same if we do more damage. However have us be able to neither puts in a class all it's own, I like to call it the Bystander AT. 
I believe that for any hero to be effective they should not have to go to powerpool set. Everything shuld be available in the primary and secondary abilities to make a goodsuperhero.
Now please tell me if you disagree and why. I want to understand I really do.
Also, Why change both damage and recharge? Why not just change one of them? Changing both seems a bit extreme doesn't it?
Victory
Bonfire Fire / Fire Blaster
Anarchy Annie Invul / SS Tanker
Jago Mar EM / ES Brute
Draigas Ninja / Ninjitsu Stalker
Lynchpin Stone / Stone Tank
Freedom
Ambrosial Fire / Ice Tanker
KnightAssassin Spines / DA Scrapper
Aegis Mar Invul / BA Tanker
Vendetta Tears D3
Wow, you guys just don't quit, do you?
With the new fear effect that already made Burn next to useless (other than immobilization resist), now you add insult to injury by these changes.
If (I hope it's "when", not "if") you return the fear effect to I4 conditions, then this change may have some validity. Otherwise, Burn has no usefulness.
Spend 2-3 seconds animation time to get 1 or 2 tics of single digit damage before they all run away (and can't be taunted back in), all the while taking incoming fire..... I don't see any use for that.
To make this change valid, return the fear effect to I4 levels.
The Fear component of Burn combined with the capping of it's mobs it can effect, the recharge time increase, and the reduced damage makes Burn go from very powerful to a very poor perfomer. If the AI is fixed, it will be weaker, but at least would still be useful. Until the AI is modified, Burn is not even worth taking.
So Burn was overpowered. Not a secret. So it needs to be fixed. I suppose that's reasonable.
But if we're to believe that different Tanker primaries are meant to have different flavours, this is the kind of change that serves to hamper that.
I hope once the fear aspect is fixed (you ARE fixing that, aren't you?), that Burn becomes a useful power, but not the raison d'être of the whole primary.
We will be sure to let you know if it is not.
As well, consider that the flavour of each primary is one of the main reasons a person might choose it. If changes made to it radically alter this flavour, that is very, very bad. If I were concerned with simply being impervious to damage, I might take Stone. If I wished to create a character that is solid defensively and has bonus damage, I would likely take Fire.
If changes go too far and dramatically shift the mechanics and intent of a set, then you're going to disenfranchise players of that set.
Be careful where you tread.
I have a 44 fire/ice tank. He is built around Burn, because quite frankly there's nothing else to build him around.
For solo play the proposed changes won't make much of a difference. I'll just have to use Burn an additional time to finish off the mobs I've got bouncing on the ice patch.
In teams (where my tank spends most of his time) I don't think this will have much of an impact. The short term damage output of my team mates is already so much greater than Burn, or they're knocking everying out of burn *long* before the fear effect is an issue, that the changes won't affect that much either.
So I guess my opinion is, why change Burn at all? 
Well, going from Live to Test on my Level 40 Fire/Ice Tank. I went from doing ticks of -11 to +1 minions to doing ticks of -7 to +1 minions on Test. As far as recharge, I used Herostats and on Live the recharge was roughly 8 seconds per burn patch with all damage enhancements in it and roughly 26 seconds on Test with all damage enhancements in burn. This nets us a 31% increase in recharge and a 36%?? reduction in damage. WOW, what's the point in taking burn now????
I haven't tested this yet. Here are my thoughts though:
1. As a tanker, it already takes FOREVER, even WITH Burn, to kill stuff (versus blaster/scrapper), but I'm a fairly patient person, so soloing is still fun IMO.
2. You now make it come back less (and WITH perma-Hasten, it barely overlaps as it is), AND do less damage. ... will now take EVEN LONGER to kill stuff. Some of us have to work and tend to things in real life ... I hope it won't take me longer to do the same amount of leveling I'm used to now (and I am NOT a power-leveler ... I still enjoy exploring the content even after 10 months of playing), because that may cause me to rethink my CoH subscription ... you have to keep people interested, and while adding new powersets is great, forcing them to level slower with their existing toons by nerfing things is not so great ...
3. To build a viable Fire tanker, the Primary defense powers (as compared to other tank types) are so laughable, we're forced to dip into ancillary pools to strengthen our defense ... which are also being nerfed (thanks).
4. So not only are we having to rely almost strictly on Fire's reduced defense ... you're also hurting our offense (and Burn just happens to be my favorite, which is why I haven't picked any of the Secondary Fire powers).
5. I'm not big on herding anyway so I don't care much about the Taunt target reduction, but please don't FORCE me to team up so I can play at a fairly acceptable speed.
Long story short -- it'll take me EVEN LONGER to kill stuff ... while you reduce my defense ... y'all wanna just bore me to pieces here? It's not like having to hunt 40 Crey/Nemesis/Rikti in Crey's Folly over and over isn't already redundant enough ...
Just my 2 cents worth ... my Fire/Fire tank is now lvl 33 by the way ... and it took me until about 28 or so to even make it FEEL like she's a tank (instead of a way nerfed scrapper).
Burn was FUN ... gave me a feeling of contributing to the carnage even in a team setting ...
I understand that balancing the game between gobs of ATs with their different power combinations is tough ... but sometimes, y'all just need to leave well enough alone.
Once again, I haven't tested my Fire/Fire tank on Test yet (things get buggy if I copy toons over) so these are just my first impressions, and may be unsubstantiated ...
On another note, I think one of the CoH selling points (versus other games) is that people have the choice of building a toon specifically for a team setting, or for strictly soloing, or somewhere in between. If you remove these choices by trying to making things "even" and applying cookie-cutter solutions, y'all are only hurting yourselves ... and the game we all love so much, because it GIVES us so many choices.
Who cares if a regen scrapper can solo an AV? Let them! It's their choice, and even if it takes forever, it's their time, not yours. Who cares if a Controller can solo better at higher levels than blasters? Let them! The blasters leveled faster, sooner. There's still a balance there. People decide upon the drawbacks and advantages of an AT before they build their toon. It's part of the challenge and fun of the game. If players don't think before they build ... you can't fix that ... which is why Delete and Respec exist ...
Burn is the cornerstone of the Fire primary set. It's the reason everyone makes a Fire/* tanker. And now making that cornerstone completely and utterly useless is very disheartening.
I find myself scratching my head at all the changes this game goes through. I'm wondering if these "Developers" are just learning as they go. Are they getting real life training while I'm paying $15 a month? I sincerely hope not.
I'm not going to feel very 'Super' once these changes take affect. So may I suggest one more change in I5. Let's rename City of Heroes.
How about something like 'City of gimpy, worthless, weak wannabe SuperHeroes.' That is more fitting to what this game is becoming.
Something obviously needed to be done with the power, anyone denying that is kidding themselves.
This one power as of I4, made the entire Tanker secondary "extra/unnecessary". That should never happen.
However, I will agree that the fear AI problem coupled with these changes make the power near-useless solo. I would suggest adding an effect after the villian leaves the burn patch...perhaps he catches fire and recieves a minor/moderate quick DoT.
I do not have a problem with mobs running out of the burn patch in general. Perhaps the point is that this power is most useful when you have someone laying an immobolization/hold down to keep people from fleeing.
Changes -
Increased the recharge time of Burn. Decreased its damage.
This thread is for you to provide feedback to the Devs on the above issues. You are allowed to post ONCE in this thread. Make it count! If you post more than one time - the extra posts will be removed.
If a dev responds this count will be reset.