/Fire users rejoice!
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But imho, Healing Flames wasn't the problem with FA.
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Of the issues with Fiery Aura, the most salient seems to be general lack of damage mitigation. Other problems (lack of native knockback protection, a couple of the powers are real dogs) are significant, but are shared by other sets that are emphatically not gimped (Dark Armor in the first case, Regen in the second).
This change to Healing Flames suddenly makes Fiery Aura much more viable because it is now a resist/heal set, whereas before it was primarily a resist set. Why is that such a big deal? Because reliance on a single type of damage mitigation is a serious weakness, while layering different types of mitigation increases the strength of a defensive set considerably because you get the strengths of both types of mitigation and you diminish the weaknesses of each.
This healing power on top of the resist is considerable. Try it out, I think you might be pleasantly surprised. Does it fix all of people's complaints about Fiery Aura? No, of course not. Does it make Fiery Aura competitive with the other tanker primaries/brute secondaries? I think so.
Scrap
Count me among the happy /fa players as well. My guy is sitting around 45.8, and I was dreading the slog to 50 because he's been so much work and chewed so many insp's thru the past 5 levels that I didn't figure I'd ever want to play him again once I got there.
But this sounds like he'll be able to handle things a little better and won't have to rely on repeated runs to Dr. Forrester to replenish between missions. That makes him a lot more attractive to keep pulling out after I hit 50 with him.
~Wyrm
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
I don't think anyone ever said the Healing Flames buff was going to make /Fire a set that's uber survivable. It just makes us survivable to the point that we feel balanced. If you take /Fire for survivability, you're sort of kicking yourself. /Stone and /Inv will do that better for you. But /Fire offers more than survivability. It's just that with the buff it becomes survivable enough to make the other stuff it offers look good.
But I'd still like KB protection in Plasma Shield.
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I'm Making a SS/Fire or an EM/Fire now. The heal was the only reason i never played fire since i5, well now i;m going to... Rage/firey embrace, will be some serious damage. TY DEVS!!!
well I think you have to remember that /FA is a seconday that is focused on damage, so there are some areas where it doesn't match other sets. What makes it more even is the heal now. I ran around with it on the test server and it is a signifigant change and makes /FA much more survivable.
I look at it like dull pain. For what an /INV can't resist\defend, you can use the heal to take care of that damage. Well HF is now like that. Remember that it was not just a recharge change...but the amount of the healing that is done. I for one am seriously thinking about taking my SS/FA brute out of retirement for this one to see how well he does.
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