Help me understand Fire Manipulation

Actually, I don't find soloing a Fire/Fire Blaster to be quite that bad. In fact, after I dropped Blazing Aura and Hot Feet and am no longer hamstrung into playing in melee, it's been going quite well.

Unfortunately, I overdid this Blaster for the moment, and I've switched to a Brute with dark blue fire for the moment. I gotta' say, I miss both the damage and the AoE.

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I've been closely following this thread as I'm working on a fire/fire blaster who I have up to lvl 32 now. I really don't find it difficult to solo with. Sure there are some situations where I can't run in guns blazing, a little strategy and pulling is in order. Most of the time I can walk in and knock everything down before they even get a chance to hit back.

I dropped blazing aura, did piddly damage and the range is terrible. My MOA is to start with firebreath, fireball, blaze at LT/boss then run in and fire off FSC and finish with fire sword (if it's even needed). With build up and aim running I usually don't even need FSC.

I think I'm going to skip burn because of lack of radius. I'm looking at the cold mastery pool for epic, gives that sorely needed mitigation, a great heal HP boost, and I'm planning on using hibernate as another quasi-heal.

I'm loving this build. As you say Sam you don't *need* to enter melee to do well. BUT if you're on a team with a good tank you can get into melee and really unleash the hurt. Just let the tank grab aggro and start firebreath/FSC and dropping fireballs at your feet I plan on taking hot feet and slotting it for damage for this very situation.

Excellent thread you started, I've gotten some great information out of it. Thank you.

Samuel -- thanks SO much for making this thread. I've currently got my /fire manipulation up to twenty-five, and it's been a chaotic journey with a lot of stumbling blocks. The advice in this thread has given me a lot of think about.

I'm glad you've found a playstyle that works for you, even skipping several of the powers you asked about. For the same of acedmic theorizing though, I wanted to suggest an answer to your initial questions that I haven't seen yet:

Every set can be played solo or on teams, and with a variety of different primaries. Only a few of its powers will be optimized for ideal performance in the particular conditions you're playing in. Therefore, I want to take a stab at answering some of the questions by explaining not what it's good for to a solo fire/fire but to blasters in general.

Fire Sword Circle, Combustion: Let me just say that it's natural that these powers are less valuable to a Fire/Fire than they might be otherwise. Fire Blast is a set that has three good ranged AoEs available by level eight. I still think one of these might supplement your strategy well, but whenever I've looked at Fire/Fire in Mid's, I assume I would take only one or the other.

Not all primaries are equally blessed. My blaster is Energy/Fire. The knockback can make it awkward to take full advantage of the fire sets melees and auras, and I have some concern that it won't quite come together at level fifty. However, both Fire Sword Circle and Combustion have been godsends. Energy has ONE AoE, Torrent, until level twenty-six, and that's the much-maligned Explosive Blast. Being able, from the mid-teens, to take out a spawn with Torrent into a corner, Combustion while they get up, wait for them to close with me and FSC was very gratifying.

Elec Blast has a PBAoE instead of a cone, so the fire PBAoEs would fit right in. Ice Blast has only one conventional AoE, plus a rain, but additional AoEs from fir ewould surely be welcome. Radiation uses PBAoE as well. And Psychic, god help it, has NO AoE until EIGHTEEN.

Blazing Aura, Hot Feet: You've said you don't have Stamina, which naturally makes the endurance cost on these accutely painful. My Energy/Fire doesn't have stamina either, but what he does have is better: A Kin/ Defender with whom he almost always duos. He has buckets of endurance dumped on him all the time, which means your fascinating DPE tables are totally irrelevant. What does matter is DPA, which for blazing aura is effectively infinite. Running it costs me nothing I care about, and every little tick helps. Now, because I have Energy as a primary, I found enemies rarely got close enough to me to take damage, so I respecced out of Blazing aura into Assault. But I'm sure a Rad, Sonic, or Archer with a pocket kineticist would get good use out of it. And obviously teaming with a tank or controller would make ti easier to damage things with it.

Well, I'm coming late to the party here, but first of all let me comment on Blazing Aura. Electricity Manipulation has Lightning Field, Ice Manipulation has Chilling Embrace, and Mental Manipulation has World of Confusion. The latter two have defensive capabilities, instead of dealing damage, but they still draw aggro, and are limit you to melee range for them to have an effect. So it's not like this is unique.

Hot Feet I find to be very useful because of its slow capability. It's a situational power, I don't use it all the time, but if I've got too many foes trying to get into melee with me, it is quite useful to slow them down so I can get away. And more than once I've used it to hold an EB or AV still to keep them off a teammate that's even squishier than me. It's not like I build my Blaster for melee, but I am built around the concept that I can survive a few seconds, get off a Fire Sword, and then back off. That few seconds might be all an ally needs to regroup and get off the final shot.

I don't think there's any reason to get both Fire Sword Circle and Combustion, though, unless you plan to specialize in AoEs. Fire Sword Circle does more damage, and more damage up front, while Combustion covers a greater area. There's a reason why Dominators don't get the same choice. I prefer Fire Sword Circle, personally, but again it means I've got to get into melee.

I think that most of the Fire Manipulation powers are made for a team, where you have someone drawing aggro. Energy, Ice, and Mental have better control options, and even Electric has End drain. Which is pretty much why I don't bother with the Secondary, I got the Fire Sword for concept, and Consume is useful, as is obviously Build Up. Honestly, though, that I can come up with a reason to take 6 out of 9 powers, even if just "Yeah, why not?", I don't think that's too bad.

My first 50 was fire/fire/flame, and he's still a blast (no pun intended) to play. I can soften my enemies at range with my primary attacks, or leap into a mob with hot-feet running, hit them with FSC and Fire-Ball, and sometimes throw consume into the mix. Or I can mix it up and hit them with fire-breath before leaping in and doing the above.

It is extremely rewarding to just watch the mobs fall down burning. However as others have pointed out, its all about what playstyle fits you best. For me, I swing between both ranged and melee with my fire toon, and he's deadly either way.