Sovera

When I took Radiation Melee it was for IR while complaining about the animations and clinging that at least the heal was useful. But IR was why I picked it. With IR nerfed the rest of the set definitely needs a nice do over with some animation shaving. Might as well drop the whole patch thing if it's just the same thing as a regular damage aura but with a different flavor.

I've tried to bind Vulnerability to an attack but no dice. Rolling keybinds or using the auto trick would work though.

I mentioned this in previous posts. May or may not have been purged which makes conversation difficult. Burn is a bonus. So anything we get from Fire Armor is considered an extra. From that point of view it makes sense that it's something dropped just occasionally since an armor should not be bringing attack powers, just buffs and protection. We are meant to have our AoEs from the attack sets. You're preaching to the choir and I predicted months back that Fire Armor does not have the legs to carry on by itself if Burn was nerfed. Fiery Embrace and a damage aura is not enough, not IMO, but at this point it's subjective and Cap Powerhouse will probably bring formulas and math to say his opinion is different. We need more people testing this shit out though. That ST took a brutal hit of something like 30% was already seen, but for doing missions the clear seems about the same so the changes evened out despite the obvious kneejerk reaction to the lessening damage. We need more people bringing numbers and less philosophy.

Hmm... I don't think so. Not sure what you may mean by impact. People will use it when it's up. I ought to use a regular PbAoE to compare so one minute... I return. EM's Whirling Hands is a weak PbAoE but it will serve to compare. So it does 53 Smashing and 73 Energy for a total of 126 damage with a base recharge of 16 seconds. Burn on the PTS and on the same character does 152 Fire upfront and then 13 ticks of 7.6 Fire Damage for a total of 250 damage. We can say that the extra 174 damage warrants the base recharge of 45 seconds. But one (with Hasten up, finished, build, incarnated, etc etc) is up every 4.4 seconds and the other every 13 seconds (previously 8 seconds). For the mythical player that only uses SOs those 13 seconds might be closer to 20.

I agree an added click was a nuisance. But not having enough Opportunity? When I pylon tested I started at full bar and by the time it was over the bar had refilled so I just reapplied it. 3 minute tests and never ran out. I don't know what to say.

We can now pick Hasten lower than level 4?

Oof 😄

Uuuuugh, I hate running that on a squishy 😄 Damn cramped quarters...

As Vanden said. That tooltip ought to have been changed long ago since I ran with the same assumption early on HC and had to be told, and went and double checked, to see that yes, it only adds an extra fire damage to all attacks be them fire based attacks or otherwise. Apparently it does work like the tooltip says in PvP but don't quote me.

It's still 50% of the damage on a Tank, but preach on because I'm with you. I would understand the proc nerfing since it was adding a lot of power, but then give back some of it. Instead we get double nerf. And, okay, sure, at least I got the same numbers for mission clearing (once more reports come in we can see how that actually works out on a bigger spread) but that ST nerf made playing a Tanker unpalatable to me.

RoTP is only up every 90 seconds or so (Hasten, lots of global recharge, etc). It's an explosion, a KB, a heal and an endurance recovery clicky all rolled into it. But it's still a defensive T9 meant for when things go badly. And the 90 seconds-at-best makes using it for damage an outlier. Even Blaster nukes are up every 50 seconds at worst making it once every 2-3 spawns. So the Brute/Tanker using it for damage (assuming that they are slotting RotP for damage instead of a panic button with heals) would happen every.. what, 4-5 groups? Not gonna say it would not happen, but...

You make a good point. Pylons are just an easy test subject. Not sure what we could use instead other than some easy AV in the AE. The -resist not being resisted by +3 enemies should show results straight away. Or not. Which is why we have tests.

While FM has everything is needs to finally have better numbers it just feels... generic. Well, yeah, I love having a KD effect in the attacks, and the -defense will allow to slot much needed procs, and combustion is no longer glacial (but still too long for an attack that still does not even kill Gears). But -defense and KD does not scream Fire Melee in the slightest. It's just.. dunno... kinda generic. Buffing the DoTs or adding some sort of mechanic to the set (Build-up makes DoTs happen 100% of the time, or make them do all their damage in the initial hit so that they can 'stack' or whatever someone more ingenious can think of). I'm a bit shy to nitpick because this is a buff the set sorely needed, but as I said above the -defense (melting armor, sure) and KD don't seem firey. But while not firey they are -useful- and that's why I'm shy about rocking the boat.

Yeah, so far there is only looking at numbers and crowing at the buffs, but the two who have tested and reported say the numbers are the same from live to test server. Lets go easy on the general jubilation until more testing has been done.

Define 'really strong'. It's 100% regen, that's about 10 HPS. Not going to spit on it, but 'really strong'? Build on live has 20 HPS and on the PTS it has 30 HPS. Those near 11 extra HP a second go of Temperature Protection go up to 13 with Consume slotted for heals making the build go up to 40 HPS. The combo of regen from Temperature Protection and Consume slotted for heals will double the regen though, but it's a small thing in my book to have an extra 20 HPS when our HP is 3.1k (assuming Consume slotted for heals).

I'm not super fussed about the level change of powers (I hope the bug I reported earlier was just birthing pangs though). I'm also not worried about 'early level' power creep since I'm solidly on the camp that we should have all our powers when exemped (hey, other games manage this). 'Early power creep' is not something testable anyway. The devs being able to lick the problem of secondaries being forced to take the T1 is the real tour de force here and such a magnificent QoL (or power creep, sure).

Yes, but, it's not terribly useful either way. Or should I say it is about as useful as a Rad toggles. Which seems paradoxical since rad toggles are huge. But they don't get used during regular gameplay because everything melts too fast. What is the point of using Rad toggles (or Opportunity) on anything other than an AV/GM (probably on the Tinpex EBs since they are still decently sturdy)? Even a boss lasts a cant handful of seconds. So now there is one less second if Opportunity was used. Different than Rad toggles glacial 3 second activation times Opportunity's no-cast-time nature will maybe allow it to be bound so it is automatically used while in combat. Something to test. Speaking of testing, I beg the rest of you lot to log your Sentinels and test and then bring back numbers. At least with mine there was no improvement (or slightly worse but that can be RNG. We need more data samples please) in pylon times with Opportunity used religiously. So no need to start making noises about being too good of a buff and maybe nerf it some, eh?

Elec/Bio Sentinel. Pylon test, no -res involved, no incarnate clickies: 3:27 3:08 Previous on Live: 3 minutes. No improvements detected despite the upped scalar even if there is some RNG involved in pylon tests. I never ran out of Opportunity since I could not re-apply it before the effect ended and the bar would refill in the meanwhile, so it can be considered a perma effect on a single target, but the perma 15% -res had no discernible effect compared to previous tests and neither did I notice the sapping happening noticeably faster. It is probably one of those spreadsheet things.

The heck you're talking about? The patch is cosmetics only? Patch does no damage? On a Tanker the initial damage is 143 Fire damage followed by ten ticks of 7.39 of Fire damage over a period of ten seconds for a total of 74 damage. So the 'cosmetic' fire patch does 50% of Burn's damage. On live the patch did 40% of Burn's damage. On a Brute I hit a pylon until the Fury bar was full as it gets then used Burn. The initial hit is 194 Fire damage with ten ticks of 6 Fire damage (these numbers fluctuate due to Fury so don't take them as set in stone like the Tanker's ones) making the patch do 31% of Burn's damage. The difference between Tanker Burn and Brute Burn is 17%. Guys, please, test shit out. I am as annoyed at the single target damage loss as anyone else, and my first reaction was that in AoE Burn became crap. But tests showed the AoE remained the same and claims the patch is cosmetic only does not help this thread. Test shit, bring numbers not gut feels.

Fire Armor/Martial Arts character used. Some pylon tests, no incarnate clickies used, no -res procs: 5:27 with Burn used. 5:12 with Burn used. 5:36 without Burn used. 6:06 without Burn. 6:12 without Burn. Previous times on current live servers under the same conditions: 4 minutes with Burn 4:56 4:37 4:55 4:34 Trapdoor test, bosses enabled, no incarnate clickies used, no -res procs: 6:13 6:07 Previous times on current live servers under the same conditions: 6 minutes. I'm probably skewing things with Dragon Tail's FF proc speeding things. To be honest I'm conflicted. On one hand the AoE clear times remain the same despite the too-large-in-my-opinion extra recharge, but the nerf to single target is pretty darn brutal. I don't see what could be done about it that would not increase the AoE clear times though. Perhaps shaving some recharge off Fiery Embrace. Fire Armor remains a good alternative for attack sets with weak or very late AoE and Burn still adds a nice boost to use instead of the weakest ST skill of a build. All the rest works as advertised with Consume increasing HP from 2551 to 2832. Switching to full Panaceia made the HP go from 2579 to 3134. This is pretty decent and bordering the HP cap, but making Consume the carrier of the HP buff does not make much sense since it is a much needed endurance clickie and it is thus slotted for endurance recovery. Frankenslotting will be a thing for the future if the more logical change to attach the boost to Healing Flames is not made. Now being the time to tune the set I would add my voice to making the endurance part of Consume auto-hit. It is a LONG cooldown just to be hit by the 5% fairy.

Tried to respec in Brainstorm. Consume (level 😎 only became available at level 16 at the same time as Crane Kick (also a level 16 pick) forcing me to choose. This forced to either pick Plasma Shield (normally level 12) or Dragon Tail at level 20. This is a respec, not leveling.

I'll test before saying anything, but Burn carried Fire Armor and if it's not good enough the small bumps FA got won't make the set appetizing for anything other than theme. But, testing first before knee jerking. I'll report on my findings.

Holy guacamole! You magnificent bastards, you did it! You finally did it! Something that stumped devs for so many years but you did it!

The damage is not great but /Fire does help and FF procs in TK and Mass Levitate help Burn returning faster. Mass Levitate is serious CC and the FF proc helps it get back sooner as well. Kind of a pity it tosses mobs around. Not much, but it's not a vertical climb and drop so they start scattering. Seriously though, Mass Levitate is on the level of Shockwave in terms of mitigation and much easier to use than a cone. This plays very well with a both a Brute and Fire Armor's squishyness. The damage turns kinda disappointing though. Weird as it may sound I would not even use Greater Psi Sword to eat Insight since Insight is adding Fury boosted damage anyway and GPS is kinda not worth using outside of having Insight, making it an extra power pick and finding slots for it. Hmm... Now I ponder a Psi/Stone with Fury boosted Brimstone and Insight and the defensive power of Stone with the CC of Mass Levitate. That would definitely fix the squish. But soloing until Mass Levitate would be miserable since the only AoE would be the aura and the small cone.