Is Fire a Bad Attack Set?

[drgantz]

I think that other attack sets can be better on a Def because of stronger secondary abilities which debuff, such as -Res on Sonic or -Def on Rad.  Since Fire only has a DoT as its secondary ability, I'm guessing that it is inferior to other Def attacks.
Does anyone agree or disagree?

[ZorkNemesis]

Depending on who you ask, Fire is considered one of the better blast sets for Defenders because of the damage.  The lack of a secondary effect does mean you won't bring as mucb debuff to a team, but when things are dying faster the lack of debuffs aren't a major drawback.  Now I've never used Fire on a Defender and I personally think it doesn't fit the Defender archetype but I know a lot of people are quite fond of it.

[Carnifax]

It's not just the extra damage Fire does, it's the quick animations. Ice is similarly quick but doesn't get the DoTs and is lacking Fireball and a snipe.

 

Fire Melee also does extra DoT damage but the animations aren't quicker than other sets, so Fire Melee isn't generally counted as "top tier" as Fire blast is.

[DreadShinobi]

Fast animations are a big deal. Blaze even with defender mods is always going to be an amazing DPA attack. Fire blasting requires low slot investment into damage procs to deal good damage, which means you can devote more slots towards set bonuses and defensive procs. This makes fire blasting on a defender a premier choice for Poison, which has low self protection. The high damage of fire is great with the -res debuffs from envenom and VG. The lower requirement on procs allows poison to chase the +def and +regen set bonuses that it loves. My poison/fire defender is one of my absolute favorite characters - it is very competitive in effectiveness. 

[Outrider_01]

Fire's secondary, is extra damage.  Could say its like Sonic that adds -resist, but Fire's is +damage (not a modifier, just straight added)

[Without_Pause]

The biggest con to Fire is how much better it is on a Corr.

[Dahkness]

I love my poison/fire defender! He’s a beast! The dmg and the fast animations on it are solid! 

[Doomguide2005]

      Bad?  No.  Has no debuff built in to take advantage of those sweet defender values.  Correct.  On the otherhand indirectly those animations mean my Empathy/Fire doesn't get tied up watching (like my Emp/Electric might) her 'Short Circuit' animation complete, as an example, while a teammate goes really colorful and collapses.  And of course on a fast moving high level team chewing through mobs as fast as such teams can one could say more buffs/debuffs are pretty much wasted anyway and Fire due to those fast animations is most likely the one making others corpse blast 🤪.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Doomguide2005
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