Thinking it over,
I would actually like the recycle time of burn increased *if* we could get the AI changed to be more like AI of old.
You can only use burn every X minutes but when you use it, couple with taunt, they stay in it and take the full damage.
Personally I think that's a better solution than the current one, burn still does conciderable damage but it's mostly useless solo. While playing solo burn was only usefull as a "killing blow", wear my opponents down to mostly dead then burn would finish them before they ran out of it.
When teamed up it can be usefull if your partner(s) have an immobilize but that's still a limited number of ATs (primarily Def and Trollers).
Im at this moment a very very sad Panda! 
This changes are not fun, totally the opisite, should I keep paying for a game that... instead of making things fun each Issue, actually makes it very sad, because we get "fixed"each time (less and less) powerful. Im afraid now to think of things to come. Those "Fixes" really hurt is not balanced im afraid of, is The constat change to powers (to make it less and less and less fun to play). Soon I will have to start using the temporal "Rock" power I got a few months back to feel like a Heroe! 
Darn shame.... sad sad panda
BTW: Sad Pandas dont keep paying for CoH. 
I don't get it.
1 Fire tankers have no damage potential
What offense potential does a fire tanker have.
Is it Blazing Aura??? Is that our offensive potential.
Well guys, six slot BA for damage, its the only damage your primary will be doing.
2 Def + Res is the only true defense
Res alone is NOT a good defense, neither is Def alone. Both HAVE to be together for it to work effectively.
That's why Ice tankers and QR scrappers took tough, and fire tankers took weave.
3 Realizing your dream kills ours
You can freaking realize your dream if you want, straight into a trashcan.
I can see I6 right now. I6 changes:
We've decided to replace all powers with sprint, hover, teleport foe, hurdle, and brawl. Also all of these powers will be inherent and active at all times.
I7 changes:
We've decided to reduce the effectiveness of our service. We've shut down the servers and sent paper and dice versions to each player. To form parties you'll communicate by email. Note: you will still be charged a monthly fee unless you return the dice.
For customer support, the Devs can be contacted at your local McDonalds or Taco bell.
4 Player Scarcity
Haven't you even noticed that on live you can hardly find a team anymore. Maybe it's just me, but my sg cut in half already. Controllers are rare as gold, and all we have are a bunch of lvl 50 fire tankers that are trying to avoid I5 by pling each other. As it stands, no one is playing the actual game anymore. Everyone is pling to avoid the nerf bat. And khelds are freakin everywhere. All to avoid I5. Man, I put my trust in this game. I waded through the constant nerfs to Regen, the constant Across the Board nerfing. IMO, if you nerf anymore there's gonna be no way to play the game. You know what. You need to just scrap the ATs and rework the whole thing, because the vision you have CANNOT be reached by the current powersets, just can't happen.
5 Team needs doesn't determine equality
Teams have to have tanks, they have to have blaster/scrapper, and have to have either a controller or defender. You can't balance the ATs, no way. It's like rock paper scissors, one AT should be able to beat another AT, but be beaten by another. They're NEVER gonna be equal. People are always going to complain, you can't keep sucking up to the people that don't build optimal builds. You cannot rework a powerset because person A over here chose something other than optimal, and realised it wasn't optimal. Certain things will just NOT work together, there's going to be some below par builds, and there's going to be some favorites. That's always going to be that way. Look at any other MMO, you can't make a munchkin a tank. and you can't make a giant a magician. There are reasons for this. There are reasons for optimization. Part of skill is know what the best combination is. You can't expect someone to pick random powers and be on the same level as someone who plans out their character. That's the same thing as telling a college student to pick random classes and expect to come out with 70k a year starting wage, much less end up with a degree.
For example. Dark Melee / Super Reflexes is not an optimal build. It doesn't have the same damage potential because it's a plain out endurance hog. Six slotted stamina and RAs just to keep going. That doesn't mean it's not fun. Ice tankers are hard to play and not optimal. That doesn't mean it's not fun, or not doable. Ice blast / electric melee is not optimal, that doesn't mean it's not fun. Kheld tri-form is not optimal, that does not mean it.. is.. not.. fun.
You're destroying my fun because I happen to like an optimal build.
6 Build up, not tear down
There's no sense in nerfing anymore. If you want an across the board nerf. Make the baddies slightly stronger. DO NOT make it impossible to have the function that you describe. Offensive tanking is impossible with a nerfed burn. You just can't kill quick enough to make up for your lower defense.
And isn't that the tradeoff, kill quick for less defense, kill slow for greater defense. Why is there this common tradeoff, because then ALL TOONS are EQUALLY SURVIVABLE.
7 Equal survivability
That's balance
When all toons are equally survivable, THEN you have balance.
Controllers prevent foes from attacking.
Blasters kill before be killed.
Tankers absorb the damage.
Scrappers and defenders deal and take damage equally.
8 Teammates fill in weak spots
If this is what the game was like, then it wouldn't matter who you invited next to a team, and together in a variety of ATs for a team, you're power would be multiplied not added. Each of you would fill a weak spot of the other ATs.
TEAM DEFENSE
Defenders would lessen damage, controller would prevent damage, tankers would take damage, and blasters would prevent futher damage.
TEAM OFFENSE
Defenders would increase attack, controllers would divert stop foes from escape allow more attacks, blasters would attack fiercely, and tankers would divert foes to allow more team attacks.
[ QUOTE ]
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.
But then why are they dumb enough to stand around and get shot?
[/ QUOTE ]
The more pointed question is this:
Why do they dislike standing in a Tanker's fire, and not mind so much standing in my Blaster's Lightning Field, or Blazing Aura?
I think it would be helpful for me as a player to have a more consistent standard of MoB reaction to AoE damage.
BB
[ QUOTE ]
For customer support, the Devs can be contacted at your local McDonalds or Taco bell.
[/ QUOTE ]
Now that's what I call a Burn!
can you stop messing fire tanks up..with my current build i need all the power pools to even become tank.while you contiinue to nerf and then un-nerf invul's .to balance.you just nerf away at us.
i dont see why when i need 4 power pools to make me a tank.that because i have a fire patch.that i should be messed with.
you say"no one should ant to stand in a pit of fire.ok..ill agree with that.so why not continue this with other powers.
i.e. storm cloud,earthquake etc
if a big [censored] cloud strikes lightning at me..would i continue to go back closer to it???...NO!
so that should be fear too...but wait!..its not.
this is unfair and unnessary to change..if its to stop powerling..then put a lvl limit on p.i..no need to make me anymore gimp then you have
A suggestion, simple and realistic.
Make Burn's DoT stick to the foe (a-la flamethrower). Anyone who enters the burn patch is set on fire for a short duration. Damage levels and duration can be set at a level that is fair, but the fear effect can still stay in place to aid realism. The damage is done regardless of the villians running willy-nilly around the map and everyone is happy.
The fear effects are consistent -- powers that affect a patch of ground (burn, ice slick, rain of fire, etc.) mobs will attempt to flee and often cannot be taunted back into range. Mobile powers (blazing aura, shutgun, snowstorm, etc.) mobs will occasionally flee but can usually be taunted back into range. Makes sense to me.
Granted, my highest Burn tank is only level 25, but I still find Burn quite useful -- as long as there's a controller or dark defender along to immobilize the crowd once I've gotten them in BA range. I'm fire/fire but I imagine fire/ice tanks can still solo with Burn thanks to Ice Slick.
However, Burn needs to generate more hate than it does. The terror effect makes sense, but a tanker primary power should not direct aggro away from the tank and towards the rest of the team. If the mobs aren't held let them flee, but then have them turn and shoot ME, not the squishies!
The recharge increase needed to happen, but with this and the damage tweak we need immobilization protection somewhere else, to allow for useful non-Burn builds.
now I have a few comments.
this sadly, was needed. as much as everyone hates it: unless you want better AI, and in that case, a LOT MORE RAM in your PC, well..... (go play a game without such intense visuals that has excellent AI, and see how much ram it takes up)
we loved it since release. we ABUSED it since release.
up front, I'm going to state: I honestly bet, at least half of all fire tankers herded, and delibrately slotted eventually for that. guides and missions were used around it. millions of levels earned by is faster than anything else ever, period.
if you want a bandage, gotta take a bullet first
and by the way, the guy who mentioned trip mines.. I honestly f***ing cracked up. I never saw such a retarded comment. 80% of all herding, is done via burn. this is from doing it with people since release and watching. it was always burn. burn burn burn.
hey, ever thought of your secondary being your offense like EVERY OTHER TANKER. fiery aura and the other added features are nice, but it was always supposed to be minor, but nice damage.
and before I kill someone, stop using the "you should have balanced it at release! argument". they tried. and then people began lopsiding uber builds. burn tanks 1-40 in 3 days from release. there were level 40's, the DAY the game hit shelves. because of burn back then. I took a burn tank solo, to level 30, in 2 weeks without teaming. that, is beyond sick. over 2 levels a day, at 30!
it's hard, painful, but needed,. give them time to realize, and actually work out a change. even if burn is dead... well, abuse something too well, and it turns around and hurt ya.
~MS
I've been testing previous to most of my comments as of late and today is no different (well the testing part). Short bout of testing on test shows burn to be about 100% useless now. The recent changes, coupled with the fear don't work IMO. In many situations, the mobs ran well before the patch was even down, taking zero damage (air thorns). Others took so little damage the power is utterly pointless.
If left in the form it is today I think the best thing to do would be to rename the power to "SCATTER MOB" in the next version of the manual due in 2007. 
Kidding aside, it really is useless. I'm respecing it out.
In all my lvl 39 fire tank is doing great, but given the huge end drain on young fire tanks and the low damage output, it's gonna be really tough to get by. For me though, the respec out of Scatter Mob and the slots recouped from it was great! I wonder now why I never thought of dumping Scatter Mob before? 
EDIT: On a constructive note, since I fight even con mobs for the same XP as before, I can ram thought them even faster. Good change there.
I decided to finally weigh in on one of these Dev Response threads. Since I have a L50 Fire/Fire/Fire tank I think this is a good thread for me to post too. A little background to give my bias for what I post. I have a family. This is my first MMOG. I started playing CoH a few days before the game went live. I initially played an INV/SS tank to lvl 10, switched to a NRG/NRG blaster and a DARK/REG scrapper. I got the scrapper, my solo character, to lvl 32 and my blaster, my SG character, to lvl 39. My SG is made up of people like me. It is nothing for us to pause in the middle of a mission for five or ten minutes while one of our members deals with a real life issue. Completing a TF has taken us as long three weeks. We lost our tank around lvl 35. At lvl 39 it became apparent that we needed a tank, so I switched to my lvl 18 fire/fire tank, since I knew I had the best chance of catching him up to the SG level. I have read various guides and know the ins and outs to create good characters. However, except for my scrapper I have avoided hasten just on principle, I fully understand what it does.
My fire tank has acrobatics, tough and weave. He was pretty boring to play from lvl 40 onward. The only thing that really proved to be any threat was a Malta Sapper which eventually came down to eliminating him first or at 41 when I picked up Char, it becames a binary equation of holding the sapper or not. I didn't really have any problems with keeping mobs in the burn patch using BA, Combustion, BoF and later Fireball. I understand lower level fire tanks may not have been as good due to a weaker punch-voke. I haven't had time to test I5 changes for fire tanks yet though, maybe this weekend. However, the fact that at high lvls I wasn't challenged seemed like a problem to me.
I have read lots of posting of anger, disillusionment, mistrust, etc about the I5 changes and about Statesman's vision comment. I would like to give my perspective on this. My SG has four people that had a Defender as their primary character. Their game experience was significantly different than mine while I was playing my fire tank. Their missions were challenging at heroic or rugged while I consistently played on unyielding/invincible. Statesman has repeatedly stated that defenders were where he wanted them since, well pretty much the start of the game to the best of my recollection. The only defender issue he has mentioned being concerned about was that post 40 defenders weren't getting the same love from the big teams. I5 seems directed at moving all the ATs to a similar game experience as what the defenders have been having. I would be willing to bet that those who have found the I5 changes to be okay on test have been playing at heroic/rugged and are used to fighting white and yellow mobs mostly. I further would be willing to wager that those complaining the most are used to fighting at unyielding/invincible where the average mob is orange/red which provides a sense of having become more powerful. The manual, pdf and shipped version, both still are firm in stating that orange and red mobs are supposed to be very dangerous, which in the current I4 game aren't really after lvl 35. That is the main reason I see for the I5 changes.
Cryptic, and Statesman, have communication issues in the forums with their releases. Using this Burn change as an example. The change was rolled out to test on Friday with a little blurb and nothing else which immediately sends the fire tankers into a frenzy. We get a red name thread, but the chances are slim that any red names will actually post to thread Friday are minimal, in fact there weren't any. The frenzy and frothing will increase over the weekend. Generally, Monday seems to be a catchup day, so the first post from a red name will be on Tuesday. Even if it is an, oops we left the fear/terror effect on by mistake, it will already too late to undo the hysteria that has built up on the forum about it. This doesn't happen everytime, just the majority of the time. I like Statesman having personally talked to him a number of times at various conventions, and he has indicated that he himself plays a fire tanker. I am not sure what process/release constraints they are under that causes these patches/builds to be rolled out on Fridays, but I doubt they want people to lose their minds during this time.
By the same token, the forums are almost as bad as most women I know, sorry ladies, in that they never forget and always bring up past mistakes from long ago. I am quite sure Statesman doesn't usually take hours analyzing what he is going to say before making a post. I know I don't, and except when addressing something indepth I assume he doesn't. Therefore, we sometimes get things that are badly worded, if you were sitting across the table from him when he said something with regards to the vision of CoH it wouldn't be a big deal. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen in a forum. Somebody always remember and feels compelled to whine, wail, scream or vent vile about it. Then the fan boys who believe Cryptic can do no wrong will show up doing the exact opposite.
I guess what I am trying to say in a long winded way is that for the majority of ATs the post 32 game play was broken. Red and Purples aren't much of a threat and when they are, it is a binary sort of threat. You are either perfectly safe or defeated without much middle ground when playing at that level. If solo fighting at those levels have been giving you a more heroic feel, then I think you are going to ultimately be disappointed with I5, since the direction seems to be towards what is in the manual that they should only be taken on in a team setting. Be aware that Cryptic isn't going to respond over the weekend most likely, hey they have families/live outside of the game too. Post reasoned beefs with burn. If what I have read about mobs fleeing the changed burn patches is true, then say that. I am sure lots of reasoned posts will have much more impact than hysterical ones. While the upcoming power changes may be personal to you, the devs aren't doing it to personally screw you.
I'll close by saying, we're DOOOMED! DOOMED, I tell you. 8^)
This is my take.
You have simply ruined the power. you have changed it to the point where it is not usable. Not because of lowering the damage. Not because you have increased the recharge time. Because the fear affect overrides everything. The fear affect that it has on love is just fine. Some guys run. Some guys stay.
I dont know whether this new fear effect is a bug or not. I suspect it isnt. Basically you have taken a melee range power and character and made a power that simply scatters the mob.
I remember just 4-5 months ago when you were going to nerf burn and turned it back because fire tanks had less resistance and you the devs stated that fire tanks do more damage to make up for the fact they have less resistance.
Then you added the fear affect with OVERRIDES Taunt, Punchvoke, and the taunts we can put in our powers.
Issue 4 burn is workable. Issue 5 burn is TOTALLY useless.
And I am speaking as a level 30 fire/fire tank who actually USES and slots his secondary. But the new Burn moves them so far out of melee range NONE of my other powers reaches them effectively. I must now run around to attack. And in all honesty I feel the recharge is a wee bit too long so I guess ANOTHER character will be forced to take Hasten now.
I have to use TWO power pools just so I dont get knocked on my can all the time AND so I can get some decent defense. Now one of the mainstays of the character is being gutted to the point where it is TOTALLY FREAKIN USELESS ????!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Plain and Simple. This goes live. I quit. Period. After nerfing my Grav Controller, My Inv Tank, Fire Tank, and affecting my Storm Defender, Rad Defender and Blaster and my SR scrapper got WORSE not BETTER I simply state that I have been fooled, hoodwinked and bamboozled long enough.
And you know what I used to actually think you guys cared.
I realize now that either you dont care or you dont have a clue.
Sadly it just might be both.
The hard things I can do--- The impossible just take a little bit longer.
If numbers are so much more important than a teammate who is fun to play with, forget about the game altogether and go play with a calculator instead. -Claws and Effect-
You won't find fanbois here praising this change, Cuppa. They all hang out on the General boards. Thanks for the continued nerfs. This is gonna be sooooo easy to cancel this game now.
I am reminded of a movie with Ben stiller, a movie where only one hero had any real powers(could it be statesman sorry states had to though that jibe in) and everyone else was a wanna be. I fi could just remember the name of the movie
[ QUOTE ]
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.
[/ QUOTE ]
.....wow.......
Do you even realize what you said? You are mad that the developers made your only attack (maybe you have one or two from your secondary, like another AoE to keep aggro) less of an attack and more a status heal for immob?
Let me ask you something.... What is the damage move for Invulnerability?... Stone Armor? Surely you can't say Mudpots is a powerhouse move...
Guess what, fire tankers? You know that Fiery Aura that gives you all your power? IT...IS...A...PROTECTION...SET. It is a TANKER PRIMARY SET. It is to give you status resistances, damage resistance and/or defense, heals, more HP, etc. It is NOT a tanker secondary (also known as a MELEE DAMAGE power set). You should NOT have your strongest move in your armor set. Your damaging moves are meant to be part of your attack set, or secondary. Get some of those and you can fight... all you need to do is fix your current build with a regular respec. Get some attacks if you feel you can't do damage anymore.
Most of all... do NOT say Fiery Aura now has "unplayable offense and excellent durability." Yes, it now has survivability comparable to other tanker sets, but it is still the only one with TWO, count them, TWO area effect damaging moves (some don't even have one). Did any of you fire tankers ever READ your powers' descriptions? There is a power in your Fiery Aura power set that "boosts the damage of ALL of the user's fire attacks"...... NO OTHER TANKER SET HAS THAT! And even more so, it encourages you to actually GET your secondary set's attacks if you are Fire/Fire. Fire tankers are now one of the BEST tanker sets in the game because they still have the most damage, they have an endurance heal, and only two toggles needed for resistance to almost every damage type (one for smash/lethal, the other for energy/neg. energy/fire/cold). Stone Armor has 6 (smash/lethal, fire/cold, energy/neg. energy, psionics, one for status effects/end drain/health regen but it adds a severe slow and anti -jump/-fly/-superspeed/-sprint, followed by granite armor).... and Stone Armor doesn't get an endurance heal like Fiery Aura! Six toggles and no boost to secondary set damage is far worse by comparison, but i don't feel a need to complain that my tankers suck.
All I want fire tankers to understand is that their powers are still some of the best in the game, especially with the nerfs, DESPITE the possible need to respec in some attacks. You are, after all, a TANKER. Not a scrapper. Before I5, tankers tanked, scrappers scrapped, and fire tankers could do more damage than a scrapper to more enemies in less time with less challenge than a scrapper ever could, and could still take more hits than a scrapper before hittin the floor. You never should complain that now you are still as good at tanking when others were weakened and you should not complain that you can't be the primary damage dealer. You aren't supposed to be a damage dealer. Get over it.
As for the pet comment, taking the effortless divininity that was Burn away from fire tankers is NOT like taking pets away from an Illusion controller. Illusion control has one pet that does real damage, the last one. Phantom Army will cause the enemy to heal about 90% of the initial damage, making them about as strong as Blind (the single-foe hold). They are more like the opposite of Dull Pain on other tanker/scrapper sets. Instead of boosting your max HP, these pets are a constant debuff to the enemies' current HP, keeping it low while they are out but never doing significant damage, just as Dull Pain keeps your max HP up, while providing a boost to the percentage of the bar that was full before you used it. Though Illusion control has two different types of pets that can be summoned, only one is a true damaging pet, and they get very little status effects; one hold, an AoE hold, and a drop fear caster (though a pet, it is more a drop fear effect, just as Auto Turret is more of a drop damage). Other controller sets get more status effects, like sleep, disorient, immobilize, and many get AoEs of these effects too. This makes Illusion control require on more defender-like buffs, and a blaster-like first move that is now actually worth getting with I5.
Know your powers and others before wasting the devs' times with whines about nerfs. You fire tankers were nerfed the least of all the sets that were nerfed. A thank you would be much more appropriate.
With every new major update, the devs have tried to get rid of some problem that makes a certain build uber. Early on those "I want to beat the game easy with the least effort and with the strongest/most invincible character" people found Invulnerabilty. It was the best set to keep from dying. It was flawless, and at the same time, required no thought during combat. Turn on toggles, i have my autos, use Invincible, can't die. That was a problem, so they nerfed it to bring it to the same level as other sets. Then those people who just wanted an easy character were wondering "what do i do next?" So they find another set. "Hey look, fire has the strongest AoE in the game and enemies don't even run" along with "hey look, i can use hasten and recharge slotting to have tons of pets forever, and never get aggro because they are always out doing the damage." The reason these needed nerfed now is because they didn't become a problem until they were widespread, and they took time to become popular because it took the "Game Acer" types a little while to find a new ultimate build. It's only a matter of time before the next one, fire tanks, so just sit back and relax until a new uber set is found and popularized to the point of becoming a balance issue.
I do like the idea someone mentioned that burn should be an AoE severe damage move like a blaster final move with a long, unshrinkable recharge time, but still, you are not a blaster. The power is not ruined; it is changed. Change with it. You could, i don't know, actually strategize like Assault Rifle blasters. They have a ranged drop that is like burn, so they use it like caltrops to block off the path to the squishies.... hmm.... that sounds kind of like... defending the team... like a tanker should be doing...
As for the universal I5 complaints, does anyone remember the Winter Lord? (There is some relevance here, I'll get to it) Remember how for weeks, people did nothing but lvl up sometimes even multiple times in no time? Once the Winter Lord left, the city was vacant of most heroes. Know why? People were dissapointed that they couldn't level that fast anymore and had to go back to *gasps* playing the game normally. Many got bored and left... but you know what? The only ones left were the ones you really wanted to team with. They actually knew what they were doing, they weren't being PLd, they weren't complaining. They were having fun and adapting to the situation. Those are the people that are worth playing with, and if you hate or don't understand I5 enough to leave, the people that are worth playing with and make the game fun will still be here.
I've heard mention that the people who love I5 are PLing now while they still can. HAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, you were serious? Well, I'll have you know that I have never known anyone on my 3 servers with any of my 17 characters on any of my friends lists, global or otherwise, who has helped someone or has been helped by someone with a PL, and the ones that I see are terrible at the game because they never played with their characters to learn their moves, strategies, other characters' moves, or anything else about the game really. They are TERRIBLE on teams and with the new nerfs that make teams desirable instead constant soloing, they are kind of out of luck, and I say good ridance. That statement I heard about I5 lovers PLing while they still can is baseless and is just some kid trying to find someone else to point the finger at to say the update is making everyone mad, when it is not. The PLers are most likely people who have PLd before and now want to finish all their characters before it's too late.
[removed]
Once every persistent detrimental AoE has the same level of fear as Burn will I accept that Burn causes fear.
Oil Slick Arrow, Ignited Oil Slick Arrow, Ice Patch, Ice Slick, Darkest Night, Radiation Infection, Earthquake, Tar Patch, Volcanic Gasses, Lightning Field, Blazing Aura, Death Shroud, Orbiting Death, Icicles, Mud Pots, Quicksand, Enervating Field, Choking Cloud, Disruption Field, Hurricane, Lightning Storm, Voltaic Sentinel, Time Bomb, Auto Turret, Bonfire, Liquefy, Quills, Oppressive Gloom, Inky Aspect and whatever other powers I may have forgotten.
All of them are bad to be affected by, all of them can be avoided like the Rains/Burn/Ignite, but none of them cause the same kind of AI reaction.
Once every one of those other AoEs cause a similar level of "I don't want to be here" as Burn, Ignite or the Rain powers will I accept it.
Your choice as to whether these powers should all cause the same level of fear as Burn & company does now or if not a single one of these powers should cause Taunt breaking fear.
I'll chime in here a bit.
I'm all for the reduced damage and increased recharge. I personally would have liked to see it balanced more by giving it an endurance cost commiserate with the amount of damage it did, but overall lower damage is fine as well.
Scattering mobs is not fine, however. A mob scatter may make sense from a logical perspective, but it most certainl,.y does not make sense from a gameplay perspective. They run from fire on the ground, but not from Burning Aura? Huh? Not to mention the many other damage powers that should, by rights, cause enemies to flee.
My wife and I made a fun fire/fire tank, fire/fire blaster duo. Now, I've got quite a bit more experience at this game than she does. I can adapt quickly to power changes. She can't. I have lots of other fun chars to play besides my fire tank. She doesn't have much she enjoys other than her blaster.
Now, I don't know. She's really looking forward to the archery sets. Perhaps they'll keep her interested. Perhaps not. She doesn't post on the boards. She doesn't care about the intimate details of what's in testing right now. She'll be very frustrated if our duo has to be remade as something else, and I know that there are thousands of players like her.
I know this is going to upset a lot of tankers, but something like this was needed. I've been in too many groups where as a controller I was asked NOT to control because it interrupted the fire tanker. The whole sequence of play was watch the fire tanker burn and everyone else deal with whatever else might go wrong, or heal the fire tanker if s/he needed it. Boring. A tanker's role should be agro management and damage absorption. A fire tanker is an offensive tanker role, so it should be a build that trades some damage absorption for damage dealing ability, but not to the point that it makes the rest of the group superfluous.
I will make one concession, however, and that is that if the damage and recharge is being reduced, the devs may need to look at removing the fear element. That would only be fair.
I ran the last few Freaklympics missions on Live last night and thought I would do them on Test, too.
My build (in no particular order):
Level 31 Fire/Ice Tank
Blazing Aura: 2 Accuracy, 4 Taunt
Fire Shield: 6 Damage Resist
Healing Flames: 1 Heal
Consume: 1 Accuracy, 1 Endurance Recovery
Plasma Shield: 6 Damage Resist
Burn: 6 Damage
Frozen Fists: 1 Acc
Taunt: 1 Range Increase
Ice Patch: 1 Recharge Reduction
Boxing: 1 Accuracy
Hurdle: 1 Jump
Health: 1 Heal
Stamina: 6 Endurance Recovery
Hasten: 6 Recharge Reduction
Combat Jumping: 1 Defense
Superjump: 1 Jump
Acrobatics: 1 Endurance Reduction
This is my build on Live, so I haven't made any changes yet.
All of the missions were set on Invincible and were taken on solo. Unfortunately, this is an older arc so everything spawned at even level or +1. I'm used to fighting +2's and +3's in my missions, so this isn't typical of my average missions.
Was it a challenge on Live?
Of course not. Fire/Ice is God Mode. Herd, Ice Patch, Burn, Level, Repeat. I'm out of practice herding-wise, so I was only grabbing a room or two at a time.
Was it a challenge on Test?
Mmmmm, not so much. The change to Burn is a pain, but nothing that I can't get over. I was still never in danger of dying and only hit Healing Flames once or twice in the 4 or 5 missions I did. Whereas on Live I could only grab a room or two at a time because of the maps I was in and my own rustiness, on Test it was a practical decision. Even with Ice Patch down, the fliers were getting out of Burn range every chance they could get, so having too many runners was a real pain since Burn was taking so long to come back. Whereas on Live I would just grab a runner and smack a Burn patch down on him, on Test I was still waiting for it to come back. Since I'm only really working with 2 non-burn attacks and they don't have any damage in them, it kinda sucks when you have 6 or so guys running around with half their health.
Endurance was a big issue since I normally only use Taunt and Burn once I have a group together. Frozen Fists and Boxing are for bosses, supplemental damage when I'm being impatient, or to keep agro on someone who is trying to get out of my little ring of death. Now, I have to take at least 1/4 of an even level LT's health with my melee attacks. Some of this will be solved once I get to level 38 and pick up Greater Ice Sword. At 32 I'm taking Tough, but at 33 I'll be slotting Consume. I didn't encounter anything that I couldn't handle and only used one CaB in the missions, but I got pretty low a few times and expect things to get a lot hairier in a mission that actually spawns at Invincible.
Will I be changing my build?
I'm not sure yet. I may be moving some of those Taunts out of Blazing Aura for some damage. Depending on how many Recharge Reductions it takes to make a real difference, I might throw one or two in Burn. I'll wait for someone more mathematically inclined to crunch the numbers on the DPS there. I still have no use for most of the powers in my secondary. I still feel I need Tough and Weave for some defense. With their reduced effectiveness, I'll be watching for some numbers on that too, though.
Was it fun on Live?
As fun as anything that's not challenging can be. There weren't enough enemies of high enough level to really start making things interesting because of the level the storyarc is set at. Freakshow are probably my favorite enemies, so I had a good time in what is probably my favorite storyarc.
Was it fun on Test?
Hmmmm. This is a tough question. The changes to Burn were more tedious than anything else. I could still kill an even level minion with one application if they didn't throw off their Dull Pain, but LT's required 2 and will continue to until I get to level 38.
The boss at the end just about took out all of my End before he went down. Again, I'm looking forward to someone doing some DPS calculations on replacing some Damage with Recharge Reductions in Burn to see if trading that damage pays off with being able to fire it off more often. One nice thing about the timing is that as soon as Burn is about to come back up, I know that Ice Patch is about to go down. With careful planning it was actually a little easier to keep everyone in the circle of death than on Live since I had an easy visual cue for Ice Patch.
It was more difficult and I did have to pay more attention, but I would pay an extra $5 a month to reduce the recharge on Burn a little. The change in damage didn't bother me too much (though it was certainly noticeable), but the change in recharge put me through three distinct stages: First I was annoyed, then I was accepting, then I started thinking up how to change my slotting around to deal with it. I'm not wild about it since the whole idea behind Fire Tanks is that they're not as strong defensively since they have damage built in. Can I live with it? Yeah. Will I be deleting this toon? I certainly don't plan on it.
Risk vs. Reward:
I gained about 200K Influence and about 5 bars of XP in my total time online last night. This included the Freakshow missions and a few Sky Raider missions that also concluded a storyarc. I didn't feel like doing the Sky Raider missions again (or ever again - I hate those guys with a melee character) and didn't think to write down all the numbers, so I have to estimate the difference in rewards. Three and a half bars or so of that came from the missions that I also did on Test.
On test I gained about 175K or so Influence and about 4 bars of XP from the Freakshow missions. The difference wasn't all that noticeable on each individual baddie, but I noticed a nice difference overall. Mission bonuses were unchanged (as were the 500XP/Influence glowies in the final mission).
So in the end, I'll just say that I think the devs have overdone it a bit, but the sky hasn't fallen just yet.
--edit--
I just read the other posts in this thread and I'm amazed at how many people threw away their one post to say "u sukk, Stat3s." Some people have had some honest to goodness problems supported with ::gasp:: information from their testing, but the rest of you need to step back a second. Is it any wonder that the devs "don't listen" when you're not saying anything?
Also, if Ice wasn't my secondary I would be screwed. The Fear effect on the few mobs that I tried Burn on outside of my Ice Patch ran as soon as they had one or two tics of damage on them and didn't come back. Something definitely needs to be toned down. Either reduce the recharge, remove the Fear effect, or change the way the damage is done (DoT even after they leave).
Its the only thing Fire Tanks have! We already have next-to-no defenses and are the weakest of all the tanks. Now your taking our MAIN defense power (which is an offensive power) and nerfing it? Come on guys! Youre taking each one of my lvl 50s and turning them into slightly more powerful citizens.
I understand your "vision, but your vision isnt turning out to be much "fun". Which is why we all play this game. I waited years for this game to come out and have played religiously for over a year. This update is smashing all my hopes and dreams for this game. This nerf is the absolute worst yet....
When it comes right down to it, a fire tanks most defensive power WAS burn. Our best defense was a strong offense! Now we're just going to be squishy tanks if this change goes through unchanged.
Decrease the damage if you must, but by all means leave the recharge alone. Fire tanks have it hard enough as it is seeing as how our whole set is more of a Scranker (scrapper-tank) than a real Tank. Fire/ primary heroes are really an AT in themselves and that uniqueness added to the versatility of the game. But your vision seems to be promoting an unrealistic balance where nobody can solo anything. I seem to remember Statesman saying may back in beta "People should not be forced to team up, (or be forced to play a certain way) but encouraged to"... With the changes you keep making your not just encouraging, youre forcing.
Might be time for us all to respec which game we're playing?
Or respec to Update 3?
The game was much more fun back then...
Burn damage was too high. A tanker primary shouldn't have a single attack that was slotted in prefernce to attacks in the secondaries. NOW, maybe, with the reduced damage and increased recharge, they can drop the unworkable fear effects from it, and let it be a good, but not godlike, power. Burn's effectiveness was the reason for all the bad ideas that have come from the DEV team regarding burn and fire tanks in general. I for one wish they had simply nerfed the damage long ago, and now that they have, I hope they completely remove the fear effect, or go back to allowing punchvoke/taunt to override fear.
The way it stands right now, burn is the next thing to be respecced out. My blaster already ditched Nova and Explosive Blast because the powers were so situational, they became essentially worthless. Hope that doesn't happen to burn too.
119088 - Outcasts Overcharged. Heroic.
I have been thinking about this for a long time and it just occurred to me why my fire tanker doesn't need Burn.
It has been said before a thousand times: Your experience of this game will reflect your play style.
I never wanted a Burn tanker. I wanted a Super Strength tanker and Fiery Aura just looked cool. After leveling my new chracter to 22nd level I realized that for min/max purposes I should have played Invulnerability (shouldn't everyone?). I had Burn and didn't need more than one attack from my secondary (Knockout Punch). After Six levels of this I shelved the character. I could go through Invincible missions without a scratch and Taunt/Burn/Burn was getting stale.
After reading the I5 release notes I started to realize that the Devs wanted to encourage people not to rely so heavily on their one Uber power. So I respected out of burn slotted up Blazing Aura and went to town (in this case I.P.) The character is now so much fun I have cleared two more levels this last week. Super strength is as I hoped it would be: a lot of people flying all over the place (including pre-acrobatics me). It really looked like a comic book fight, instead of a bunch of guys standing around literally melting in my presence. Can I take a +4 Boss? Yup. Is it worth it? Nope takes too long. Can I tank for my team? Yup. So far
Now I5 hasn't hit yet so my changes and impressions are premature. But as to getting by without Burn it is not only possible it has made my character more fun to play.
So here is a Balance Solution that States and the guys might want to consider: Give us more options on how to build our characters. Even these less challenging builds can be toned down if the player wants more of a challenge or even a different play style.
All this must be taken in the context of - I don't herd and burn. I don't find it fun.
Raising a toast to my favorite game ever,
Phoenix Fatale
Avatars of Justice
Virtue
[ QUOTE ]
actuallly you dont run when you burn, you stop, drop and roll
[/ QUOTE ]
I was thinking the same thing. It would be great if villain AI allowed for a stop, drop and roll maneuver. Then you could just smack them on the ground.
Larry Jablonski
Infinity Server
Arc Name: Old Folks Home
Arc ID: 261041
Synopsis: The Octogenician can control minds, but only of people over 80. He's taken an old folks home hostage. Beat up old folks screaming about the good ol' days to defeat the Octogenician!
My 32 fire/ice went and tested in crey's folley for a bit and here is what I found:
Oh yeah a bit about my build i have CJ,Acrobatics, the fire toggles and the fighting toggles running with pretty much full +3 enhancements.
In general my burn was up ten seconds down ten seconds. I have permahasten (who on test doesn't) and 3 35SO recharge rates in it. It took longer to recharge than my ice patch which has only one rechrate in it.
The damage has taken a significant hit, not as much as the rechrate but definently significant.
Here is what I fought (with comentary)-
First group 2 35 freak tanks and 3 minions killed the minions slowly and was able to stay at full health with ice patch and healing flames. Would have taken 30 minutes to kill bosses.
Then I took the tanks with me to a group of about 10 34 lts and minions. Threw down ice patch about 4-6 mobs were either on their butts or falling at any one time, this left the rest to wail on my reduced resistances. It didn't take long for me to realize I was in trouble. I was almost dead in less than a minute.
tried a few other groups of even cons with different nuymbers and compositions.
The bottom line is that without ice patch I cant take on groups of more than 5, with it i can only handle 10 or so minions. throw in a boss and it really reduces my effectivness.
I dont know what to say here except that as a tank I shouldn't have to rely on my secondary power set for defense. Ice patch did more for me than the combined resistance/def of my primary powers and my tough/weave/cj. AND IT COULD ONLY EFFECT LIKE 5 PEOPLE AT A TIME.
Devs you are changing a lot of things at once here, and while it may seem like a good idea as you look at each individually; when combined they can be very destructive to an entire powerset.
I feel for the fire tankers who didn't take ice as a secondary.