Consume

I made this post earlier, but the forums seem to have eaten it. Considering we are getting upcoming changes to this power, I wanted to share my concerns with the difference in how this power works between Fiery Aura and Fire Manipulation.

For a long time I have been clamoring for a lower recharge on Consume. This is mostly due to my experience with my /FM blasters. I ran my Kat/FA scrapper the other day and realized that they have hardly any end issues and also that my FA tanker has always been reasonable on end use. It occurs to me that I have been clamoring for this change across the board, when the only real problem is the blaster version.

Consume for Fire Manipulation is significantly weaker overall when compared to Consume for Fiery Aura. Obviously, this is due to the other powers that each powerset contains since Consume is the same across the board.

I believe I have weighted the below comparisons so that Fire Manipulation has every advantage and yet it still comes out significantly behind on end use.

Fiery Aura running their three toggles and using Healing Flames every 20 seconds will spend 1.56 end/second. Slotted with 42.4% end reduction in each power that drops to 1.1 end/second.

Fire Manipulation, running its two toggles and using FSC every 20 seconds and FS every 10 seconds will spend 3.77 end/second. Slotted with 83.3% end reduction in each power that drops to 2.07 end/second.

Before I wrote these numbers down, I thought that making the end cost of /FM BA be the same as the armored sets would be helpful. Now I realize that it would be negligible (I also still prefer the idea of making /FM BA have a bigger radius).

Maybe this is fair since all of the /FM powers being used directly aid in reward generation whereas only one of the FA powers has that property.

I still think that Consume in /FM should have a shorter recharge.

I whole heartedly agree with StratoNexus. Especially seeing the numbers compared to Fiery Aura like that.

I also feel that if Electric Manipulation can have Power Sink recharge in 1 minute (unslotted) and be auto-hit, some changes can (and should) be made to Fire Manipulation's Consume to have it recharge faster.

Talking about toggles in the sets, Elec Manip only has 1 and is paired with a fast recharge auto-hit power for end recovery (PS); Fire Manip has 2 (and an extremely heavy 2 as StratoNexus mentioned above) and is paired with a slow recharge end-recovery power (Consume) that requires a to-hit check. Why is Fire Manip's Consume getting such a raw deal like this?

The radius on Consume is 20ft compared to PS's 12ft - which is fine! Hot Feet makes makes foes run away from you and the larger radius is fine whereas Lightning Field doesn't make things run away and foes tend to tighten in on you so the shorter range with PS is fine.

FM's Consume needs a faster recharge. Plain and simple.

Consume has a minimal end cost @ 0.52 end, a long recharge but does damage. Energy drain, Power sink, and Energy Absorption all do no damage, recharge faster, have a heavy end cost @ 13 AND drain endurance. Consume isn't considered a utility power like the other 3 but an attack which frankly anyone slotting for actual damage is IMO stupid.

So, I agree. Consume needs a faster recharge. But as it thematically will need to still do damage, then either it should have an increased end cost or remove almost all the damage. But for Pete's sake, increase the recharge!

Well, I think consume in general needs a faster recharge but:

A better comparison would be the attacks from a scrapper primary to the attacks in fire manipulation. Attacks in general are much more costly than toggle powers (there are a handful of toggle powers with obscene end costs, such as hotfeet and disruption field). AoE attacks especially.

I have not played the Fire powerset as extensively as StratoNexus has, so I would tend to agree with his assessment of the state of the power.

To be honest, I have often wondered why it only does Endurance. The basic concept of Fire is that you trade "utility" for "moar damage", but everyone knows that you must have some utility or the character becomes very "one dimensional" For Fire manipulation Hot Feet does pretty decent at filling that "utility" gap, but you have a LONG wait to get it.

The Blaster Consume should (in my estimation) either have the recharge reduced, the damage increased OR... (my personal choice) make it +End/+hps.

I think blasters deserve some kind of healing power. Everyone else does.

Eric:

I believe the reason for starting this thread was to open a discussion about Consume. Specifically the blaster version. Actually I was saying IMO Consume has a longer recharge time because it both does damage and has such a low end cost. Even though it does piddly damage. So what you are saying is you believe the answer is to decrease the range. The Devs have the final say if any changes are made, but I still think end cost will be an issue to lowering the recharge enough to make a real difference.

(Heat Exhaustion does not do team/self +end.)

(edited just to clarify who I was responding to)