Fire Melee should Splash Fire

[Makobolite]

Combustion is in it's own right a good AoE, but I think they did that so that Brutes/Scrappers wouldn't have as many, though I do thing some effect similarly to how the Headsplitter/Cleaves can go through enemies would be a good thing to add onto GFS, 

[Galaxy Brain]

Making GFS into a sort of Shatter-Clone would be amazing. That and making Fire Breath wider overall. 

 

Actually, lets compare it directly to Frost with Scrapper values.

 

Fire Breath =

108.4 base damage, 2.67 cast time, 10s rech, 10.19 end cost

30* Arc, 15ft base range = 2.66 area factor

 

Frost =

110.1 base damage, 2.27 cast time, 11s rech, 11.02 end cost

90* Arc, 10ft base range = 28.54 area factor

 

 

The two are nearly identical in the damage and rech/end cost departments, but Frost animates notably faster and has nearly 10x the area coverage if my math is right! The area covered is a huge factor in having foes actually hit by the power and lets Frost more effectively leverage it's damage output over Fire Breath. 

 

If we want to keep the ratios the same where Fire Breath is 50% longer but narrower, the Arc should instead be 67.5* to cover the same area as Frost overall. 

 

[Leogunner]

12 hours ago, Galaxy Brain said:

Making GFS into a sort of Shatter-Clone would be amazing. That and making Fire Breath wider overall. 

 

Actually, lets compare it directly to Frost with Scrapper values.

 

Fire Breath =

108.4 base damage, 2.67 cast time, 10s rech, 10.19 end cost

30* Arc, 15ft base range = 2.66 area factor

 

Frost =

110.1 base damage, 2.27 cast time, 11s rech, 11.02 end cost

90* Arc, 10ft base range = 28.54 area factor

 

 

The two are nearly identical in the damage and rech/end cost departments, but Frost animates notably faster and has nearly 10x the area coverage if my math is right! The area covered is a huge factor in having foes actually hit by the power and lets Frost more effectively leverage it's damage output over Fire Breath. 

 

If we want to keep the ratios the same where Fire Breath is 50% longer but narrower, the Arc should instead be 67.5* to cover the same area as Frost overall. 

 

Curious how ranged slotting affects these differences. I know, once I have it frankenslotted for max acc, DMG, end and range, it can get to around 23ft long... Not amazing but at that range, it practically hits whatever is "right over there 👉". If the target manages to move colder before I can use it is when it sux. 

[Galaxy Brain]

The range helps, but the vast difference between 30* and 90* is not going to be accounted for.

[Caulderone]

I wonder how much it would help if the several powers with DoT didn't have the cancel-on-miss function, they just happened.

[Makobolite]

Having some mechanism for Fire to be able to perform on top of itself would be nice though, since it's claim to fame is more damage through the additional burn, but, when it comes to Fire Melee specifically, it seems like it underperforms a lot compared to other sets, seemingly because the base damages seem to be set up not in their favor. 

Fire Blast, which doesn't really have this issue, finds itself with essentially the same base damage across the board as every other set, but with the added bonus of having a DoT afterwards.

 

Because thematically, it'd be kind of nice having a Fire attack set a target ablaze, and that target would catch fire to other enemy groups. While this may not necessarily be the most "heroic" thing to do, it is something that might be nice to have a mechanic where you can set an enemy ablaze, where things leading into it would be either the fire damage DoT stacking, or extending as long as the target is on fire.

[Gobbledygook]

Why not replace Fire Breath with Combustion. I've never taken it on any of my 3 Fm toons, and even on teams where I have seen it on builds, I rarely see it used. But good lord, do I love me some Combustion. Just not as big of a fan of Tanks as I am of the other melee ATs.

 

That's all I have to add. I'm not really a numbers guy.

[Galaxy Brain]

3 hours ago, Gobbledygook said:

Why not replace Fire Breath with Combustion. I've never taken it on any of my 3 Fm toons, and even on teams where I have seen it on builds, I rarely see it used. But good lord, do I love me some Combustion. Just not as big of a fan of Tanks as I am of the other melee ATs.

 

That's all I have to add. I'm not really a numbers guy.

What would fire melee on tanks get? They have both powers.

[Gobbledygook]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

What would fire melee on tanks get? They have both powers.

 

Honestly did not think of that. I admit my perspective is skewed by only playing Brutes and Scrappers.

Like, exclusively.

Haven't played a tank since EM was nerfed, I think. Of course my only other one was the FM tank, so I don't actually remember what, if anything, the set needed. 

[MunkiLord]

1 hour ago, Galaxy Brain said:

What would fire melee on tanks get? They have both powers.

With their additional targets and bigger AoE and cones, do they need anything? I've never made a fire tank, so I have no idea. 

[Galaxy Brain]

19 minutes ago, MunkiLord said:

With their additional targets and bigger AoE and cones, do they need anything? I've never made a fire tank, so I have no idea. 

Fire Breath is actually it's best on tanks now due to their changes, but it's still bad.

 

I think making Fire Breath not 30* and faster animating (at least match frost) would be a start, then making GFS a cone as well could go a long way immediately. 

[KelvinKole]

I agree that Fire Melee needs something. It's always been one of my heart's favorite sets, but as underperformed and left me disappointed. 

 

Thematically, the current chance for fire DoT makes but I wonder how well the set would do if that damage was just rolled into the initial burst. For all the times that it doesn't happen, or the damage is cut short by target death or you have to fire off another attack because the DoT didn't tick enough times to kill the target, it would be nice just to do direct damage instead.

[Leo_G]

Just thinking about fire damage in general, it's seen as the most damaging of dangerous. 

 

In another thread, people were talking about oilslick arrow and methods to light it in archery. 

 

Linking some of those trains of thought, what if more effects of other sets were altered in a fashion to benefit fire (and cold) damage, moreso the powersets that focus on those types? Like certain explosive powers could set open a window where fire attacks can cause secondary explosions or some oil/chemical based debuffs have additional debuffs to fire or even add specific effects that are aimed to benifit or enhance fire based attacks (there's an effect in final fantasy called oil that increases damage from fire spells and skills, for example). 

[Enamel_32]

Fire's always been serviceable, but perhaps not "top tier", which is kind of strange since it's supposed to trade extra effects for more damage. Unexpectedly, it's one of the better sets in terms of damage per endurance.

 

The cool thing here, when considering possible buffs, is that there's already a delivery vector: the fire DoT. Much like rad's contamination, or psi's boggled, you could sneak in more conditional effects when the enemy is already burning, such as dealing extra damage up-front, lowering fire resistance, reducing regen, or adding a small fiery explosion (though that bit may step on rad melee's toes a bit).