APP Melt Armor - does it need some love?

[Onlyasandwich]

I finally have my shiny new Plant/Fire/Fire up to 50, and am re-evaluating bits of my build before a potential final respec.

 

I initially picked Melt Armor because it seemed at least sort of useful for a low slot investment, and I only have one or two other powers that might fit in functionally with minimal slotting. Besides, who doesn't like aoe resist debuffs?

 

In practice, I'm finding it pretty much useless. Have any of you found a proper use case for this power?

 

In aoe situations, the animation time is generally wasted. My juicy aoes will do a better job of blowing up big groups, and I have a healthy rotation because hey - Fire pool gives me two extra aoes!

 

In hard ST fights, the (even enhanced) very high recharge means I have low up-time on the debuff. It's sort of worth it mathing it out, but pretty borderline. It's not even a great spot for the achilles proc, as the high recharge means up-time for the proc is proportionally low, even if it is firing off 90% of the time.

 

I can appreciate why it shouldn't compare to the majesty of sleet, as Fire APP has some other love going for it in fireball and another good aoe if you want it.

 

However, I really think it would justify one or more of the following:

• Bigger radius.
• More targets! Currently limited to 10 in the APP version.
• Literally like half the recharge.
• Higher -res.
• Maybe instead some interesting extra spice - an extra dose of moderate dot perhaps?

 

What do you think? Am I underestimating this power, or is it as poopy as it feels? As it stands, I'm considering just dropping it for Rise of the Phoenix. Doms do die on occasion, after all. Also - conditional dom nuke! : )

 

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Onlyasandwich

[Hedgefund]

I would broaden the scope of the question to be - does Melt Armor, in any of its forms, need love?  Even within the Thermal Radiation powerset, it has a 40 second duration with a 150 (200 for any of the epic versions) second recharge.  While that may result in a reasonable duration:recharge ratio, in practice 40 seconds is longer than the debuff is needed and a reasonable adjustment that's not even a buff is to half both of those numbers, to give it more spawn-to-spawn usability, at least for Thermal and would be more useful in epics too.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Maybe I'm overvaluing it, but I think it's great.  I stick an Achilles Heel and a lvl 53 Lysosome in there.  On activation, for the next ten seconds everyone does roughly 30% more damage to the targets (the AH should proc at max percentage), then roughly 10% more damage for the next thirty seconds.  10% of the targets will only take roughly 10% more damage for the next forty seconds.  

 

10% more damage may not sound like much, but since you are probably at ED levels on all your damaging attacks, this is essentially a mini Musculature post-ED boost for you and your entire team.  I'm not sure if you can perma it on an APP, but you can certainly keep it active 1/2-3/4 of the time without breaking a sweat.

 

 

[oedipus_tex]

If you happen to look at the code for the Dominator Fire Pool, something that stands out is that the slot for Melt Armor is actually named "Consume." This probably points to how the pool was cloned from the Controller pools that existed at the time and a few power plugged in; Rain of Fire is still called "Fire Blast," which seems to support this.

 

 

In any case, I agree Melt Armor in the APPs is overnerfed. I'd be okay with the lower radius and target cap if the power didn't also take a big hit to its actual debuff values. The "true" version of Melt Armor is a -3 Scale resistance debuff, where the APP version is half that, at -1.5 Scale. Dominator modifiers for -Resistance are actually decent; with unchanged source values, the debuff would be -22.5%, similar to Controller values. I understand why they want to be cautious with this power--if it's too good, the Fire APP becomes the obvious viable pool for Dominators--but with such a small radius I think the full debuff justifies the long recharge more. 

[Onlyasandwich]

34 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

In any case, I agree Melt Armor in the APPs is overnerfed. I'd be okay with the lower radius and target cap if the power didn't also take a big hit to its actual debuff values. The "true" version of Melt Armor is a -3 Scale resistance debuff, where the APP version is half that, at -1.5 Scale. Dominator modifiers for -Resistance are actually decent; with unchanged source values, the debuff would be -22.5%, similar to Controller values. I understand why they want to be cautious with this power--if it's too good, the Fire APP becomes the obvious viable pool for Dominators--but with such a small radius I think the full debuff justifies the long recharge more. 

 

That makes sense. I was a bit surprised to see that it ends up with the same debuff value as the Tanker Pyre version, given the strong Dom modifier as you mentioned. 

 

I'm not sure what the right answer here is for changes! I agree that Fire could easily tip into the "default" Epic (I feel like Ice holds this title now with the power of Sleet), so the balance is a careful one. 

 

I honestly agree with @Hedgefund on the Thermal power as well! When I was evaluating whether I would make a Plants/Thermal controller or Plants/Fiery Dom, I was left wondering what exactly /Thermal has going for it above /Storm or /Cold that justifies Melt Armor being so much weaker than Freezing Rain/Sleet. Don't get me wrong, it's totally worth taking in Thermal, and is much better than the epic version, but it seems to me that the power budget of Thermal is a fair shade short of many other sets if you compare the whole package.

 

@Yomo Kimyata I'm glad you enjoy it! Once you have some recharge going, the on paper uptime is not so bad. However, in an aoe situation I find that the mobs will melt faster if I just used that animation time on a power that does damage, as the -resist duration doesn't really get a lot of time to pay off. If you are lacking in aoe damage otherwise, perhaps this is less true, but just by taking the Fire epic pool you have access to two very solid aoes.

 

This does change on hard targets, and I'm sure it pulls positive including it in the chain against AV's/GMs. However, it feels pretty piddly in practice. I would almost prefer it even to be a stronger debuff that is only single target if this is the use case for it.

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Onlyasandwich

[oedipus_tex]

3 minutes ago, Onlyasandwich said:

I honestly agree with @Hedgefund on the Thermal power as well! When I was evaluating whether I would make a Plants/Thermal controller or Plants/Fiery Dom, I was left wondering what exactly /Thermal has going for it above Storm or Ice that justifies Melt Armor being so much weaker than Freezing Rain/Sleet. Don't get me wrong, it's totally worth taking in Thermal, and is much better than the epic version, but it seems to me that the power budget of Thermal is a fair shade short of many other sets if you compare the whole package.

 

 

To be fair, I think Thermal Radiation is one of the most underrated sets in the game. It's basically a mix of Empathy, Sonic Resonance, and Cold Domination, picking up some of the best features of those sets while avoiding many of their tradeoffs. It's a great set for someone who wants to play a strong support character that remains relevant into the game's most difficult content. For the most recent challenging task forces specifically I think it may be one of the best sets out there, being able to go offensive or fall back defensively into healing/buffing mode without trading off too much effectiveness.

[Onlyasandwich]

34 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

Thermal Radiation is one of the most underrated sets in the game.

Case in point - me. Fair enough! I do have a bit of that leftover anti-healer energy from being steeped in the Defender forums so long.

 

I can see where healing would be much more valuable in some of the uniquely difficult content being created. This is a good thing, of course - I think the game needs room for all approaches to provide value. In that case, having a set that provides near-empathy levels of healing but with a more offensive mix of tools elsewhere would be quite handy indeed, and resist buffing is harder to come by than defense.

 

Meanwhile, I have dropped Melt Armor and specced into Rise of the Phoenix. It is rather nice having a get up and go button to delete mistakes.

 

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Onlyasandwich

[oedipus_tex]

19 minutes ago, Onlyasandwich said:

Case in point - me. Fair enough! I do have a bit of that leftover anti-healer energy from being steeped in the Defender forums so long.

 

I can see where healing would be much more valuable in some of the uniquely difficult content being created. This is a good thing, of course - I think the game needs room for all approaches to provide value. In that case, having a set that provides near-empathy levels of healing but with a more offensive mix of tools elsewhere would be quite handy indeed, and resist buffing is harder to come by than defense.

 

 

The 40 second duration of Thermal's Melt Armor is interesting in context because 40 seconds is also the duration of its AV-slaying power, Heat Exhaustion. Heat Exhaustion for some reason doesn't seems to get the respect it deserves. It's the same power as Cold Domination's Benumb, with 10 seconds of extra duration (40 total) and no -Special.

 

 

 

Not to knock the -Special in Benumb, because it can be useful, I think the extra 10 seconds on Heat Exhaustion is slept on too often. It's mainly worth noting because even with perfect Accuracy, both of these powers will always have at least a 5% chance to Miss. A Heat Exhaustion that misses a round of applications will have around a 20 second window where the AV is not debuffed, versus 30 seconds for Benumb. Benumb is also hard to perma, and very demanding in the sense that the moment it Recharges you must press it right away to keep the debuff going, while Thermal has some leeway.

 

Neither of these powersets are the only ones with -damage and -regen, of course. But getting them in a set that still has a full aresnal of heals and buffs is what makes Thermal so sweet. If I was headed into new content and had no idea what to expect, its the set I'd have the most confidence in seeing me through. As much as I think Cold, Kinetics, Time, etc are great for certain content, I have less confidence I could leverage them to avoid a fail. They're more like multipliers on top of teams that already would have cleared the content.

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, Onlyasandwich said:

 

That makes sense. I was a bit surprised to see that it ends up with the same debuff value as the Tanker Pyre version, given the strong Dom modifier as you mentioned. 

 

I'm not sure what the right answer here is for changes! I agree that Fire could easily tip into the "default" Epic (I feel like Ice holds this title now with the power of Sleet), so the balance is a careful one. 

 

I honestly agree with @Hedgefund on the Thermal power as well! When I was evaluating whether I would make a Plants/Thermal controller or Plants/Fiery Dom, I was left wondering what exactly /Thermal has going for it above /Storm or /Cold that justifies Melt Armor being so much weaker than Freezing Rain/Sleet. Don't get me wrong, it's totally worth taking in Thermal, and is much better than the epic version, but it seems to me that the power budget of Thermal is a fair shade short of many other sets if you compare the whole package.

 

@Yomo Kimyata I'm glad you enjoy it! Once you have some recharge going, the on paper uptime is not so bad. However, in an aoe situation I find that the mobs will melt faster if I just used that animation time on a power that does damage, as the -resist duration doesn't really get a lot of time to pay off. If you are lacking in aoe damage otherwise, perhaps this is less true, but just by taking the Fire epic pool you have access to two very solid aoes.

 

This does change on hard targets, and I'm sure it pulls positive including it in the chain against AV's/GMs. However, it feels pretty piddly in practice. I would almost prefer it even to be a stronger debuff that is only single target if this is the use case for it.

 

 

I'll be honest, I use it on melee class ATs, so that damage resistance debuff isn't easily added via another easy source.  But yeah, it is most useful on hard targets, but that is the nature of the overpowered beast that is CoH nowadays.  Why debuff something when you can kill it with two attacks anyway?

[oedipus_tex]

There are a couple of powers in the APPs that raise eyebrows. I remember how excited I got when Explosive Blast came to Dominators, only to read its End Cost:

 

 

 

You, too, can expend 1/3rd of your blue bar on an Explosive Blast. 😄

[Onlyasandwich]

17 minutes ago, oedipus_tex said:

You, too, can expend 1/3rd of your blue bar on an Explosive Blast. 😄

Holy cow! That is...wow.