Fire Aura Needs to be Improved !!!

Fire Aura should be buffed. The set is currently too weak and obsolete with the introduction of Shields which does more damage while providing better damage mitigation. The concept of Fire Aura is less damage mitigation for greater damage but the damage isnt there except for Firey Embrace. Burn causes mobs to scatter, other sets have a toggle like Blazing Aura, Consume's damage is trival and ROTPs damage cannot be factored in because you would have to die everytime to use it. Either the devs should increase its damage significantly or considerably increase its damage/mitigation.

FIXING BURN
Regardless of what path the devs would choose Burn should be made useful again. The fear affect should be taken away from Burn and the immobilize protection should be moved into Plasma Shield. People always caution me that Burn was overpowered before ED but that no longer is relevant to the game because of changes and because of the introduction of SHIELD CHARGE which does Superior Damage. If these people claim Burn should not be turned into a damage power because of balance reasons, then by their same logic Shield Charge is overpowered and deserves a nerf. So I dont want to hear this Burn was overpowered BS. It should do significant damage to rival SC at least. Immobilize protection should be moved to Plasma Shield because having it in Burn will only divide a player on when to use it. Imagine how stupid it would be to have mez protection in Shield Charge. After you imagine that , realize that is the actual case with Fire Aura's Burn.

IMPROVING CONSUME
Consume should be changed into a more reliable endurance power regardless of what path the developers choose. It currently has an ridiculous 180 second recharge and on an SOed toon without Hasten it simply takes an eternity for it to recharge. To point out, Power Sink has only a 60 second recharge and does not require accuracy. Consume's recharge should be decreased and the trival damage should be removed to compensate which would allow players to slot it more for End Mod and Recharge rather than wasting slots on Accuracy. Currently Consume does everything halfassed as it tries to do damage as well as aid endurance management. It doesnt do any of these things well though. I bet if you were to add a small amount of damage to Power Sink and triple its recharge while requiring players to slot it with accuracy, that would and could only be seen as a nerf. This is currently the case with Consume and because the power tries to do damage, players overall do less damage because they have a subpar endurance power that requires accuracy slots and has 3 times the recharge time of Power Sink.

GETTING RID OF ROTP AND ADDING MORE MITIGATION
If the devs want to go the improved damage/mitigation path rather than the all damage path, ROTP should be replaced with a Power Like MOG to be used as a stop gap between Healing Flames and to let Fire Aura ATs take the Alpha strike. Fire Aura currently sucks at taking the Alpha Strike unless you are heavily invested in IOs or have the fighting pool so in this regards it is similar to Regen and like regen it could be given a power to help repair that deficiency. Fire Auras would have 15 seconds to wipe out the mob before being forced to completely rely on Healing Flames as they currently are.

GETTING RID OF ROTP AND ADDING MORE DAMAGE
If the devs want to go the damage path and ROTP is removed for lets say a toggle like Against all Odds or a power like Rage(not as strong though) then this further justifies improving Consume to deal with the extra endurance cost . Fire Aura would need an additional damage attack if the developers want to go the all damage path and stay loyal to the Fire concept because even if Burn is improved , Shields would still rival it in damage. Shields would have AAO and SC and Fire Aura would have FE , Burn ,and to a lesser extend BA, while still having less mitigation than Shields. So I feel an additional damage power is needed to bring it passed Shields in damage and to justify it having piss poor mitigation.

GETTING RID OF TEMPERATURE PROTECTION AS AN ALTERNATIVE
If the developers are so determined to keep ROTP then the alternative is to combine temperature protection with Fire Shield or Plasma Shield and place another power mitigation or damage power in its place. Obviously if this is done, then a Clone of Mog would be out of the question for improving Fire Aura's mitigation. Perhaps a toggle that increases Regeneration would be feasible , like Rise to the Challenge. A damage toggle like AAO would still be fine.

IMPROVING FIERY EMBRACE
I do not have much complaints with this power but many others complain about its usefulness on non-Fire Melee ATs. I feel that it should slightly improve accuracy however with its accuracy buff perhaps being unenhanceable.

No more new sets should even be considered until the developers repair the ones we currently have. For 4 years, Fire Aura has been left in a weakened state. The damage it promises in return for its frality does not exist so what we have is simply a frail set with nothing to offer in return. If you have other ideas on how to improve Fire Aura then please state them.

My point was that your logic on [Burn] is faulty. You are saying that SC is just right, and so Burn should do more damage. I am saying that SC does too much damage considering it is not in an offensive set, and therefore there is no reason to buff Burn.

I have seen un-IOed Fire Tanks do just fine, and have no complaints with the leveling I have done with Fire Aura (though I admit that it wasn't very much). I think your issue is not in the set itself, but in your expectations. AKA, operator error.

Also, you draw a comparison between Regen and Fire with regard to taking the Alpha. How is this comparison valid? When is it the job of a Scrapper to take the Alpha?

Finally, the thing that bugs me the most about your tl;dr-inspiring post is that it comes off like a mean-spirited rant founded on entitlement. If you really want to affect change in this set that you apparently dislike, then try removing all opinion and conjecture from your post. Perhaps then it will at least feign persuasive ability.

Shield Charge does entirely too much damage considering it is a secondary power. I'm not entirely sure what kind of numbers it would need to be at unenhanced and buffed but I'd guess at least a reduction of 1/4 the current damage out put.

Personally, I still feel that FA is one of the best secondaries for PvE melee. From time to time I still farm with my Fire/Fire/Fire tank and my SS/Fire/Mace Brute. The scattering effect of Burn can be easily fixed:

- On a Brute by getting an AoE Immobilize from a patron.

- On a Scrapper or Tank by teaming with someone with an AoE Immobilize.

This is a multi-player game based around teaming, isn't it?

Let me get this straight....


Your upset because the only way Fire Aura can compete with Shield Defense in terms of DPS is to take Burn which causes critters to run away from you for 2 seconds then back to you?

If your not happy with Burn because of the scatter, don't take it. Worried about loosing your immobilization protection by not having burn; take combat jumping like fire tanks have been doing since the dawn of time. But don't tell me that if I light a bonfire under your ***, your going stand there.

Why would fire cause critters to slow?

If I set you on fire would you crawl to a pool of water or try and get there as fast as possible?

Bonfire, Rain of Fire and Burn all have this effect. It's not like the Fiery Aura set got singled out here. It's Fire counterparts in the blaster, corruptor, dominator and controller AT's got stung with this little feat of developer thinking aswell.


Personally I don't think there is a balance issue in the FA set. Like the people above, I feel that if you really have to point fingers, point them at SD. But then again, I think the SD set is fine the way it is and comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges. Sure they're both fruit, but my gawd do they taste different.

But at least you caught on to one thing I was trying to point out: Don't take it if you don't like it.

Honestly, If you were only concerned about balance.. you would have picked an underpowered set to pick holes in.

I'm off to play my strong and pretty.

Wow, I don't think I've ever seen so much backlash on something that's come up many times before. I agree that Fiery Aura is ok as it is. I also agree that it's near or at the bottom when comparing it to all the other sets for survivability. I've got 90+ levels in Fiery Aura across all three ATs, including one 50 (Brute).

1) You're looking at Burn wrong, it works just fine right now as damage mitigation + damage + immob protection.

2) Consume absolutely needs buffed. Recharge needs dropped, and damage either needs buffed or removed completely.

3) Fiery Embrace also needs its recharge dropped. Twice Build Up's recharge should be more balanced than 3x Build Up. (I'm not sure on numbers, if it *is* 2x build up, it should be 1.5) Also, if I remember my numbers correctly, it is equal to Build Up for non-fire types, and Build Up + for fire types. This sounds just fine to me.

4) Adding slow protection to Temp Protection helped a little, but it still needs a little bit more.

So let me get this straight...

Your complaining Fiery Aura needs to be retooled because it's overall damage in 5 Offensive Powers compared to Shield Defense's 1 Offensive Power, right? I think Your totally wrong.

If you really take a look at FA, you would notice that the Powers build upon one another. Blazing Aura starts things off followed by popping Burn and then Consume. Heck, in the higher levels I can see chaining Fiery Embrace, Burn, Consume as a solid work.

You also said you can't take RotP into consideration. You have to because it is a tactically important power. Yes, you have to get gacked to use it. Oh Boo Hoo, you get some debt. Sheesh. If I die so I can let loose a nuke-style PBAoE damage and Rez at the same time, I'd do it. Considering you could then pop Healing Flames, and then the FE/Burn/Consume after that.

Also your trying to compare a mainly Resistive Set (FA) to a mainly Defensive, with some Resistive, Set (SD). That in of itself is a hard thing to look at. FA mixes some offensive Damage and Damage Resistance for it's mitigation. SD focuses on Defense through the shield and a "strength in numbers" approach for mitigation.

Now I have a couple of FA Scrappers (Katana/Fire & Electric/Fire) and a Fire/Ice Tank. Personally, I don't find FA lacking in any respect. Granted the END in the early levels is a PitA, but that's true of any "Armor" Set. FA, along with Dark Armor, are good Sets, they just do things differently from the more DEF-minded sets.

Thank you for the time...

@Travlr (Main) / @Tymers Realm (Test)

Burn's damage should be front loaded.

With this, the first post, saying "I don't want to hear facts that are inconvenient to me," and the third post, with "I know it is weak and I know those that think it should not be improved are simply flat out wrong," the OP obviously doesn't want a discussion. "I'm right, if you disagree with me you're stupid" is not a strong argument for anything.

So with his list:
No to dropping ROTP for anything. The devs won't do it anyway because they won't change the basic design of a power, a rez will always be a rez. An armor will always be an armor.
Yes to getting Burn looked at again.
Consume might use a tweak, but it's not broken.
Fiery Embrace is OK as is.