Sovera

What lives for 45 seconds though? Nearly nothing will take the full damage. Other than that quibble, yeah, why a 45 second duration? It's not a Caltrop effect and nearly nothing will take that damage. CoH is a fast game and upfront damage is desired.

I see what you mean. I only cast it when the circle lights up which was my faulty thinking that meant it was when I could re-cast it, but it's actually an indicator that the bar is full and a reminder for the player to use it. After retesting with this bit of info your maths seem to be on the spot since I could almost keep it perma for a decent bit but eventually just ran out of bar. You're absolutely correct and I'll go back and edit my posts.

Alright, copied my Sentinel to the PTS since, as mentioned, it already existed there. Same behavior with the bar recovering to full by the time Vulnerability has finished. This time I bring moving pictures. 50G6J2L.mp4

Testing again. Reverting the animation shaving has lowered the ST damage even more. Pylons: 6:10 with Burn 5:54 with Burn. Currently on live: 4 minutes 4:56 4:37 4:55 4:34 Trapdoor test: 5:54 Currently on live: 6 minutes. Previous test on the PTS showed 6 minutes-ish when not using Burn which tells me that with the animation reverted and the damage lowered Burn is no longer an improvement when used for ST but remains an extra AoE that AoE poor sets can use. Two extra minutes in ST is simple brutal but I have no suggestions to make. I'll just present the numbers.

It's possible. The character already existed in the PTS from a previous test so maybe that's what happened. I'll copy it from live again and test once more. Build being used:

No, re-tested. By the time Vulnerability ends and lights up the bar has refilled. I can provide a video if my word is not enough.

I may be mistaken then. I remember testing on a pylon, 3 minute fight, and always having it up. Let me check again so I'm not spreading misinformation.

Not only does it not stack but my own experience is that a single person is enough to keep it up 24/7 on a single target. Tbh not sure -why- it cannot stack from different characters. Not like Sonic Assault from different characters don't stack, or Rad, or Kins, or stuns/holds, or... It could have a diminishing returns flag to it. Like full effect from the first Sentinel, then half from a different Sentinel, etc.

The -regen does not do anything significant on regular +3 bosses. The power of regen is directly tied to the HP pool of the recipient and all mobs (except power related cases) have the same regen rate. Something that regenerates 100 HP over 10 seconds is neglibile over something that regenerates 1000 HP. That's an extra 1000 damage that needs to show up to beat a mob. Regular bosses have small HP pools and that is why -regen barely does anything to do since stopping those 100 HP is negligible (I'm using random numbers but can be tempted into diving into actual in-game numbers). With all of this said I too don't like all these effects being spread to the attacks. It means finding room to take more skills, then the slots for them (though if only taken for their special effect, be it summoning specters or applying -regen, then the slots can be reduced to a skeleton), then, important, the endurance to use them since MMs have an endurance tax. And last but least, the APM since most MMs will have their hands full keeping their idiot children alive (and yes, I may mean the minions or I may mean their team mates) to be using all their skills. I would definitely compromise on this and make all these special secondary effects (raising specters or applying - regen or -res) a stacking effect that any ONE skill can apply. Like that it means MMs can indeed take and slot ONE attack and inbetween healing and buffing and micromanaging pets, they can slip that one shot every once in a while not so much for the damage but for the special effect attached to it. But 'having' to take all three just does not seem to vibe well for the above mentioned reasons. This is my opinion.

While people complain about the devs I look instead at the community. Forum PvP has become a thing with pet peeves between players who snipe at each other whatever is being said, purposefully looking for malice in what is being said, aiming to one upmanship. Others will simply post gloom with petty passive aggressive comments literally adding nothing other than jibes aimed at the devs despite being worded in vague terms. Others yet will spend pages arguing back and forth about their feels and how their feels are important (which, I grant, they are, but time and place) and how numbers don't matter if their feels are not appeased. The inevitable arguing that devs are bad, changes are bad, server is dying because of them, fewer players, bad devs, when it's a fricking 17 year old game that has been back for a couple years. Fuck sake I play a new WoW expansion for 3-6 months and then vamoose to a new game but somehow HC devs bad, HC changes bad, because two years later the game/server does not have the same numbers of when it opened to the public. As much as I do dislike the purging of the feedback threads (and it is not actually purged, the devs can see it and read it, but by being hidden it stops the feels crowd to argue about it) we need not look much further than the last patch, and the patch before, and the one before, where people don't even test the MFing changes and cry out how nerfed they have been, AFTER GLOSSING OVER THE TESTS SHOWING THAT THEY WERE NOT. Pages of it! 20+ pages! Arguing back and forth! Attack type changes? Fie, even the travel power changes with TESTS BEING DONE AND NUMBERS SHOWN are still derided. The devs tried to keep a gentle hand and it did not work out so now we are under more draconian rules. Pleased I am not since as much as feedback talking about the experiences while testing things were important as much as I am above deriding the feels these remain important when driving a character which is testing changes. So yeah. am I happy with the Fire Armor? As the appointed 'fire armor guru', no, no I'm not. Of course Burn was bugged and had more power than it should. So it should be fixed, and now it does less damage as it was always meant to be doing. Or it should not be fixed and instead it has more recharge added to it so that it does biggo damage but more spaced. Instead we get a damage nerf and then on top of it a recharge addition. I don't expect this to go live as is but verily as others said above it smells of planned compromise. Lots of the patch is good. I could hardly point at much I would call bad. Some will definitely need and have tweaks, I've seen enough testing cycles to get a grasp of how things are run. Also, people need to stop confusing donations with payment. Payment is obligatory to have product. Donations are given out of the goodness of one's heart. Don't donate and then dangle it over someone's head, devs or RL people.

I posted this on the power levels thread but it fits here better:

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.