Fix Burn

I recently rerolled my Fire Tanker into a Fire/Fire Scrapper and having ignored the advice of many other players I decided at level 30 to take and test Burn. To sum it up, it sucks. The enemies both high ranking and low leave the burn patch and scatter before 3 ticks of damage making it a worthless attack power unless you have other tools or other players to force the enemies in place.

Fire Aura claims to be the most offensive power set. It appears to sacrifice durability in layered defense, no KB protection and no good Tier 9th power for better damage. But where is this damage ? The only thing I see which other Defense sets do not get is Fiery Embrace which is a weaker form of Build Up unless you are a Fire Melee. Outside of that , it offers nothing more than other sets do not have. The set description is therefore misleading or an outright lie which is why I use the word FIX and not CHANGE.

Burn should be fixed to do what it was destined to do, BE AN ATTACK. The Fear Effect should be removed and the Immobile protection should be moved in Plasma Shield because having Immobile protection in an attack is just strange and would only hinder a player from using Burn offensively since he would need to use it for protection as well. Having Immobile protection in Plasma Shield would also completely end the Fire Aura ATs disadvantage of having to take the Leaping Pool, since currently Combat Jumping is a better alternative for Immobile protection than Burn.

Others may claim that they like Burn the way it is because it makes mobs scatter thus increasing their surviviality. This is not what Burn was made for though and their mitagation will just as well be served or better served if Burn was just an effective attack because enemies would die faster, the philosophy of Fire Aura.

As for farming, the arggo cap has made this change to Burn unjust. Using Burn as a farming exploit is no longer an issue, at least no more then any other AOE oriented ATs.

Fire Armor simply fails to deliver on what it promises. Fiery Embrace alone simply does not suffice. In order for it to be a truely offensive power set, Burn should be changed into a more offense attack by removing the fear effect and placing the Immobile protection elsewhere. If the damage must be front loaded or its recharge be changed slightly then so be it.

The scatter mechanic was added because Burn was too strong without it. I don't see them changing that. How about front loading most of the damage?

I'd argue about the tier9 not being useful - whiel not used constantly, it certainly is. But that's not what the post is about.

Right now, yes, people DO use Burn's scatter for survivability. OTOH, it makes it useless to people like me for the very reasons you mentioned - I play quite a few fire tanks (and one DB/Fire scrapper.) Chasing the mobs away from me like that doesn't help at all.

Personally, I'd rather see it go the "hot feet" path - keep the scatter because of how people DO use it, but add a slow. If that means taking away the immob protection (moving it elsewhere) or something, fine - but keeping the mobs close to me, where my tanks can maintain aggro, is far more important IMHO. Right now, for me, it's a skippable power.

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I agree. It needs fixed or changed.

That said, I use it as a immobilize protection all the time. I also use it on AVs/GMs that don't run from it.

All on my ELM/FIRE Scrapper.

I have a Fire/Fire Tanker, and a Fire/SS Tanker as well, but I haven't played those two since Burn was made to scatter really. Pulled out my Fire/Fire every now and again, but...she's no fun to play really. :/

players have been complaining about how bad burn is as a power for years. I should know, I'm one of them.

However, the devs have declined, for years, to revisit the changes made to fire aura. When they ported Fire Aura to scrapper, the devs didn't spend any time at all thinking about the power set. They just lopped 30% off the tanker values, called it a day, and moved on. Since I5 the devs have looked at everything else but Fire Aura. Even Invulnerability, which really didn't need a rework, got one.

Fire Aura? Still ignored. I honestly don't know what it's going to take to get the developers to sit down and rethink the power set, sort of somebody abducting Posi or Castle next Hero-Con, tying them up in front of a laptop, and not letting them go until they get at least 30 levels on a Fire Aura.

... Let me Stress. That's a BAD IDEA. No. We Shouldn't actually do it.

PUT THOSE ROPES DOWN RIGHT NOW!

While I agree that Burn isn't too useful on a Fire/Fire tanker, it works fairly well on a Fire/Ice tanker with Ice Patch. Not perfect, of course, but in combination with the slows from the attacks and all the slipping and sliding, I've found it to be a pretty potent weapon.

I also have a friend with a Fire/Stone tanker who makes pretty decent use of it in combination with Stalagmites, I believe. They wander around a bit, so it's a little less efficient than Ice Patch, but it works.

The best power in combination with Burn is some kind of area immobilize, and as a scrapper you can get that with Darkness Mastery in Tenebrous Tentacles. Again, it isn't a perfect "just stand there and let me roast you to death" combo, but it comes pretty close.

Get to 47 and try that out. I think you'll find it an effective combination. With proper tactics you should be able to get compact groups and immobilize them with TT, and then drop Burn on them.

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Burn isn't broken.


/endthread

I would certainly not mind Burn being improved, but you have to remember one thing - it pumps out a LOT of damage over an AoE, and does so practically for free. If you prevent enemies from running away, then it becomes, essentially. A LOT of free damage to a LOT of enemies. Yes, it takes a while to burn them, but it's doing so while you're pumping out other attacks.

Personally, I see Burn and Ignite as serious damage dealers if you can keep things in them long enough. Perhaps altering their structure might help, but neither has lost its potential to do serious harm.

Quote:

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.

*facepaws*

Back during the time of pitchforks and torches when they first added the fear effect to Burn; I suggested that the fear effect be kept but that an initial knockdown effect be added. Basically you activate burn and everything in range is knocked to the ground, hit with a fear effect and begins to take damage. You would get a couple more ticks or so of damage as the mobs attempt to get up before running off. I would also add in the fire pulse power effect (sans damage of course) from Combustion to the Burn power animation just for flavor.

Of course you could also lose the burn patch, keep the knockdown effect, keep the animation change suggested above and front load half or all of the damage and rename the power Backdraft.


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ITT: People complain about a team-based power in a team-based game.

Burn does a huge amount of damage if an enemy is Held or Immobilized, only marginally less than Incinerate, and it's an AoE. It only has a 25s recharge, even BEFORE enhancements, but the immobilize protection lasts for 100 seconds.

Additionally it's 100% fire damage, which sits nicely with Fiercy Embrace, which btw is a great power. Enhancements + Fiery Embrace + Build Up = >400% damage. You can almost hit the damage buff cap on your own as a Scrapper which absolutely no other set can do. Additionally Fiery Embrace lasts longer than Build Up, and while it has a longer recharge time, this means +recharge buffs have a much better effect on it. It's a spazzed out version of an already useful power which can stack on that original already useful power.

tl;dr: Both Fiery Embrace and Burn are amazing powers, even if one of them is very situational.