Fix Burn

You're absolutely right that that point entirely on its own isn't sufficient to support the idea of leaving it alone. I wonder why I only provided one weak point like that.

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

I have a fire/axe tank...

And yes I feel she has inferior defenses, and I don't experience significantly higher damage delivering from its meager power sets.

What I would like it fixed to:

1. Fiery Aura: Provides added protection for knockdown and immobilization
2. Burn: It immobilizes victims within it and applies damage, damage does not have to be great, say moderate or high.

Note that some players use Burn to "scare" mobs away in order to survive mob attacks. Notice that my immobilization suggestion has a dual role; if the player wants to survive, the immob keeps the mob in place while the "hero" breaks off the attack and runs, on the other hand by immobilizing the mobs it supports the tank's aggro management mission.

Fire could use an alternate 9th tier power equivalent to the other defense sets such as "one with the shield", etc.

I'm kinda neutral on this. I did use weapon mastery on my scrapper and caltrops as a way to keep things from running out of burn. But since we now have blaze mastery and fireball. I only use burn when I knock things down with ripper or when im teamed with a controller. The aoe tentacles from dark mastery can be nice to hold things in place for burn as well.

Now I said I'm neutral but I wouldn't be against removing fear from this.

I like the idea of moving the Immob. protection into Plasma Shield. Having it in Burn has never really made sense to me. Although I wouldn't mind the fear in Burn to be lessened, I've also used it as a mitigation tool to send enemies off my fire tank. The taunt going on was high enough they didn't run far before coming back at my tank and into the burn patch, but it did slow down their attacks and helped with survivability.

Burn is currently the Epitome of a situational power. Which would be fine and good if this set was invulerability or stone armor. Firey aura entire gimmick was it is the best offensive set. Not under a blue moon or with the correct team...any given situation. It gives up entirely too much surviability compared to other sets not to be king of the hill in some other regard as it often has pick up several power pools or IOs to fill the gaps properly.

Burn was originally stupidly sick; no one is debating that. I remember watching freaks die to burn and revive only to basically die again with in the same patch. That doesnt need to come back ever. But several factors inheritly changed about the game even if the devs hadnt touched burn directly that nerfed it. You cant slot 6 damage SO. It doesnt burn unlimited mobs in the range of the Area of effect. Tankers and scrappers survivebility greatly fell from issue 4. You d be hard pressed survive 3 dozen mobs attacking you even if you could herd and kill that many without serious buffing. Everything for most part became inheritly weaker across the board.

Burn never would be what it was pre I5 for that alone. So now its this slow damage over time that mobs run away from the majority of them time. They made so mobs run from it unless some one has a way detain them. Not everyone does. Sure fire/ice tankers still can take advantage of the power solo. The rest not so much. My energy/fire tanker doesnt have any good way keep stuff from running aorund of it on his own. Generally its just too slow to really justify the damage it causes as mobs run away soon as they stand back up if I knock em down since burn such a slow animation before it starts taking ticks off mobs.

Needing a specialized member for a power be useful isnt the answer. That would be like suggesting empathy should been stuck with adreline boost with its stun side effect since if you team with anyone who could status protection you it didnt effect you. Its too stiff of a penalty to be regularly useful. Not every team going have a member on it with some sort of AoE means of slowing, immoblizing, or holding foes in place. I often duo with my friend and neither of us will have a power to control mobs.That isnt an acceptable answer in my mind to it. I shouldnt need bring in a certain player just make my power function properly.

For people saying oh its fine way it is, What else about fire makes it better than stone or invul , shield or any other defense choices availible? Why are you so against it being tweaked period? Burn is dead weight for most part, as how many dang situational powers does a set need? This set really needs a kick butt power to it, and burn was what used be. It doesnt need be uber as before, but it needs be made into a functional unit again. Right now burn got beaten so hard its on lifesupport, and has yet make its full recovery.

Theres probably several good answers to how this power can be made better without making it hugely overpowered.

- Front load the damage
- have ticks continue for a few seconds even if they run out.
- Lower the over all damage but just make all mobs hit by the AoE intial effect take damage over time, and remove the fear effect.
- lower the mag of the fear
- speed up the ticks and the animation. (it could stand a cooler pose anyways.)
-knock down or slow the foes the foes when the effect happens making it harder for them to retreat from it.

None of these things would overpower it. They might make people opt to pick it up again though. As it currently stands its not terribly effective and too situational for the typical team. If I have go thru so much set up to make worth while, why bother?

I'll happily accept a change to Burn to make it work better.

My lv50 SS/Fire Brute uses it constantly with only Foot Stomp to help with the running. My lv38 Fire/EM tank uses it often on teams, but then I don't really solo that toon much. My lv30 DM/FA Brute is liking it so far when teamed, but will really get good use of it once I get Midnight Grasp and the patron Immob.

So I suppose I'm saying that I like and use Burn now, but that a buff would be welcome to make up for Fire's rather weak overall survivability. I have plenty of high level melee builds- both resist and defense based- that have far better survivability than my Fire toons.

Burn works great with Tenebrous Tentacles.

I believe the fire protection powers for the tank AT, does need a tune up. I would begin by giving;

1. Fireshield: Knockback Protection MAG 12
2. Plasma Shield: Immobilization Protection
3. Burn: Remove scare, reduce dot damage to medium damage for balance
4. Add: One with the Fire, similar effect with other AT power pools such as One with the shield, etc.

There is a reason I propose for burn's scare effect removal, its not just for cosmetic purposes, it has to do with the developers evolution of the game. Originally all classes could solo very well, and were pretty robust. But then the developers decided to evolve the game in the classic D&D configuration of Fighter, Cleric and Wizard structure, Thus the Tank became the fighter, the Defender the healer cleric, and the Blaster the Mage. While I am not happy with this evolution, its here to stay, so there is little to gain by fretting over it. Now in the case of the fighter/melee types a lot of concessions were given to them in order for them to be the front combatants, thus extremely good resistance to damage, high defenses and resistance to status effects; this was required in order for the melee to their perceived job, while the support caste, were given mediocre resistance to damage, defense and status effect protections and given considerable conditional powers to kinda make up for this sacrifice. Now returning to the Melee class, since the support caste had been made rather weak, in purpose to fit the D&D class architecture concept, the concept of the mellee class being able to hold aggroe to protect the support caste became an accepted doctrine; thus the reason why melee has taunt as part of their own power pools. Now it seems greatly inconsistent with me, that Burn instead of taunting like all other melee powers do, it actually repells mobs which is in direct contradiction of the melee mission of aggroe holding. This why I do want to see scare removed from the power, a taunt be re-incorporated into it, albeit a weak one, and the damage kept to a reasonable level to prevent abuse.

Hugs

Sue