The proc on bonefire is beast!!!

Game-breaking != Farm really really fast. If the IO made the character untargetable by critters, they could still theoretically be killed by untargeted AoEs, it would not help them kill any faster, but it would still be game-breaking.

The proc in bonfire appears to be better than the original bugged version of smoke grenade that debuffed tohit -100%. If the IO in bonfire is not broken then neither would a -100% autohitting tohit debuff in smoke grenade be broken. At least that would obey the purple patch.

Considering this is the OP's... OP, yeah.

Grain of salt.

Whifflebat.

It doesn't matter whether it can stand up to a farm Brute. This kind of argument is inherently flawed.

ToHit is balanced around rules for balancing ToHit.
-Recharge is balanced around rules for balancing -Recharge.
+Defense is balanced around rules for balancing +Defense.
-Resistance is balanced around rules for balancing -Resistance.
Knockdown is balanced around rules for balancing Knockdown.

We are having a conversation about balancing Knockdown.

It's now true, nor has it ever been, that if a powerset can show another set outfarms it, can kill AVs faster with it, or generate rewards faster in any capacity, that it can get whatever values it wants in its powers. We cannot stick -1000% ToHit in a power and say, "Well a Brute outfarms it, and you still get hit 5% of the time, so it's fine." That's a very destructive kind of argument that knows no end. It's basically arguing that the value of the thing being argued about isn't even high enough to have rules to balance.

In this case, in the big picture, we're talking about the value of Control itself. If Control itself isn't worth balancing, the Controller AT boards seem like the last place to make that case.

You're right. It's actually been explicitly patched out of a few powers. You would be the one to probably know, but are you aware of any powers that are explicitly immune to the purple patch as a matter of design? I can only think of three: Repel, Repulsion Field, and Whirlwind.*

It's explained in this comment Issue 3 patch notes:

Basically, those three powers are made exceptions to the Purple Patch to prevent what Bonfire does now. All of three of them involve considerably more risk (you have to stand on top of the enemy) and have smaller radiuses than Bonfire.


[*After posting this I thought of a few more. Ice Slick, for example. No matter how much higher you are above the enemy, it never converts to knockback and throws enemies out of the slick. Tested as a level 51 versus level 1 enemies. I think most other knockdown patches (EQ, Liquefy, Sleet, etc) work this way as well.]

After watching the video posted above I have to agree. I don't want to see it changed back to KB only, and the reduced kill speed trade-off means there's plenty of room to balance it as a KD patch... but right now? A patch that's: 100% mitigation, autohit, has no aoe cap and is permable on SO's? No way.

I still wonder how much practical impact it will have though. I mean: solo you can earn xp faster by taking a bit more risk to deal damage faster and teams already stack buffs to godhood and move so fast that a longish recharge patch isn't likely to be game changing. Important enemies in TFs/Trials will have KB protection, so ... we have a clearly broken power that isn't actually going to break much (unless someone figures out an as-yet unanticipated exploit of some kind).

In my opinion the devs should leave it functioning about the same but fix the 'absolute' features (autohit & no aoe cap, specificallly) so that absurd corner cases don't arise later on.

I meant common sense int eh fact that he's well aware that this power isn't a "game breaker".

How in the world would this be better then something that debuffs to hit 100%?? If they cant hit you, you win. As I've sated before, there are enemies that have protection against KD therefor the power is deemed useless...................

Fond memories of PL'ing one of my friends scrappers who took Whirlwind so he could contribute- we'd get the aggro, then he'd zip in and put everyone on their butts while we continued wailing away.


Good times, good times...

if you think the devs won't be smacking this down with a quickness, you're deluded.

I haven't seen any enemies that are immune to it beyond what players said in the Incarnate Trials. But if you by chance know which non incarnate mobs are please tell so I know which radio missions I need to drop or not pickup when using this proc.

But beyond that I yet to see any mobs stuck in the patch fight back. I would consider that worse then 100% hit debuff. Even with hit debuff you have a chance for streak breaker to take effect or mobs run off.

With this mobs have zero choice or chance.

Heck I was using my Vet staff to knock mobs into the patch that didn't get caught in it when it was dropped. Then of course there are those mobs that just "accidentally" ran into it trying to get to us.

It's pretty funny pulling mobs into the patch.

By all means keep it the way it is for the week I have only 4 or 5 toons I would like to level to 50 that are close to 35 to start picking up the patron power pool.

Then they could make it like this never happened for all I care.

And therin lies the difference between an Internet forum and a podium in your bedroom.

LMAO ;-p i'm glad someone here has a since of humor, BONEFIRE all the way!!!!

I know what excuse i'm using to get out of jury duties ;-p

If they remove the proc, you can still do this, but in a somewhat more balanced way.

See, (and this part is definitely not directed at you--I'm just bouncing off your post and addressing no one in particular) Bonfire's autohit nature and ability to disable +20 enemies exists with or without the proc, but requires you to find circumstances to take advantage of it. The main change the proc gives is the ability to use that capability without any kind of set up or strategy. [Note that Ice Slick and Earthquake also do not degrade against +level enemies. This is a standard feature of all knock patches.]

So, the weird conclusion from this (again not quoting anyone in particular) is that Bonfire is "overpowered" with the proc but "useless" without it. That's a level of anti-knockback zealotry I can't put my support behind. The fact that knockback converted to knockdown makes Bonfire "better" is an obvious truth, but only because from the get-go the power was designed to make you seek circumstances to best use it for total lockdown.

If Fire Control as a set was really struggling and in dire need of another all the time control power, I would feel differently. IMO the power is truly optional. In another thread Arcanaville summed this up beautifully by saying that a power with some adherents and some detractors is a mark of success and not failure if the set itself functions well with or without the power, like Fire Control does.

What I have to add is really strange to me though, is that a lot of people bring up manipulated circumstances, like Fire farms as examples, then simulataneously neglect to account that manipilated circumstances benefit Bonfire as well. To snake back to my comment above about how you can indeed level a character with Bonfire, consider this: conference map, drag enemies through a door and toss Bonfire. They will not be getting up for the remainder of the fight. It worked beautifully for my Rad/Fire/Fire Blaster and still will when this inevitably gets fixed.

It's also because of the above that I don't want the pulse rate for Bonfire reduced or it turned into a generic ground patch. It does what it does beautifully. If you disagree, it may just not be a power for you. The power has excellent recharge and duration and basically requires one slot. The fact that some people don't like it does not make it useless, and the fact that its in a set like Fire Control means there are powers much more deserving of worry about buffing.


[EDIT: I left the word "not" off the first sentence which changed the meaning and made it sound like I was directing that you, when my point was that I wasn't. Sorry about that if it seemed confusing.]

Off the top of my head, Greater Devoured and Seers (which hover and don't get affected, it seems). Both of which whooped my butt several times on a recent UG. Heck UG has packs of mobs that are *just* Greater Devoureds.

Again, hyperbole aside, in my experience running itrials this isn't really making that much of a difference on my fire/rad. In part because of all the immobs being thrown around (people keep AOE-immobing groups, which nullifies BF). In part because of the mobs that resist it.

Gee OK maybe it is helping ppl level up on blasters or whatever but I'm not seeing that.

And there are Rularuu Overseers which possess enough innate to hit and DE quartz that can quickly buff enough to hit to make that level of debuff irrelevant (as well as circumventing heavy defense buffs). Those groups' ability to deal with enormous debuffs does not make such debuffs balanced, just as knockback immunity in a small group of enemies does not make BF with the knockdown conversion balanced.

This tactic overwhelms the majority of enemies which is all it needs to do to be unbalanced.

unsurprising, if all you're doing is running Itrials.

More than you would think.

Most of them are KB. Repulsion Field, Force Bubble, Repel, Water Spout, Sonic Repulsion, Arctic Breath, Earthquake, Freezing Rain, Sleet, Blizzard, Bonfire, Liquefy, Vine Smash, and Oil Slick's knockback/knockdown are all immune to the purple patch. Singularity's Repel is similarly immune.

Also many chance for KB procs ignore it. Kinetic Combat, Overwhelming Force (the 20%, but it's broken anyway), and Might of the Empire. Tempest's chance for end drain also ignores it.

Then there's some oddball ones that may or may not be intentional.

• Blaster Chilling Embrace's -DMG debuff
• Entropic Aura's -RECH debuff
• Alpha Wolf's Growl's -DMG debuff
• Dimension Shift. The Intangible and Phase explicitly ignore it, though for Phase (true phase, not Untouchable) the purple patch wouldn't really have an effect on it anyway. Interestingly, its Immobilize ignores it as well.
• Warburg Nukes. The damage ignores it, as well as the -END and -Recovery debuffs.
• Ghost Widow as a Signature Summon has Twilight Grasp, except her version has a very short (0.5 second, mag 100) immobilize on the target that ignores the purple patch.
• The fiery orb summoned by the Dominating Grasp ATO has a chance for a short stun that ignores the purple patch.
• Mastermind Painbringer's 1% chance to knock down an ally player when used on them. lolwut? Why does this even exist? I didn't even know about it until now.

and runners up:

• Enforced Morale's Special damage (but it's ally targeted)
• Power of the Phoenix's Untouchable status (but it's ally targeted)

I wonder why Jolting Chain isn't. That's something that always bothered me about that power.

The Confusion in Arctic Air seems like a major candidate for being promoted into ignoring it too, actually, given how that power works.

Anything left is absolutely no threat to the controller at all since they are incapable of moving, much less attacking. I am not sure you really have done killing with a Fire/Kin. Fire/Rad is a bit slower, but a Fire/Kin is much faster than you give them credit for. Fire/Shield is no slouch, but a Fire/Kin has much better AoE damage and the single target is close. People keep harping on the lack of Fire Cages; I don't even have Fire Cages on my Fire/Rad. Flashfire lasts long enough even vs. +3s to polish off the minions and the Lts. are nearly dead. Use single target controls to lock down bosses (avoid Ring of Fire if the KD from Bonfire is still needed, of course) and keep containment on them, kill the bosses while the AoEs tick the Lts to death.

I doubt it. You underestimate the power of Fire control, both in damage and its ability to control (and that is before ludicrous Bonfire).

Melee characters in PvP have +10000% resistance to KB and KU so they aren't affected by any KB/KU.

PvP Ranged characters have somewhere around 41-50 KB protection to resist things like Power thurst and Power Push.

Even if it didn't have suppression, it wouldn't affect anyone. Even if it did, I'd rather KB my target than KD them (Less time on their feet and no AoEs in PvP).

That being said, I'm glad someone actually cared enough to mention it's effects on PvP.

PS Blaster changes, Proc changes, Hybrid Incarnate and basically everything else introduced to the game breaks PvP more and more. Not this proc though!

I noticed this a while back and tried to see if it would actually KD an ally. I couldn't get it to proc (Long recharge, not enough trials).

I figured that maybe since it's PvP tagged that it would only work in a PvP zone, but I didn't get it there either.

I'm still waiting for that day I give someone painbringer, they KD in a PvP zone and die to 5 stalkers.