Help me understand Hot Feet...

[biostem]

So I rolled up a fire/cold controller recently, and have been steadily leveling them up.  I've played controllers before, but one thing that perplexes me is Hot Feet.  Is it meant to be a sort of "area denial" power, keeping enemies from entering melee range?  Is there some other use for this power that I'm not aware of?  Thank you for your insight!

Edited September 29, 2022 by biostem

[Riverdusk]

22 minutes ago, biostem said:

So I rolled up a fire/cold controller recently, and have been steadily leveling them up.  I've played controllers before, but one thing that perplexes me is Hot Feet.  Is it meant to be a sort of "area denial" power, keeping enemies from entering melee range?  Is there some other use for this power that I'm not aware of?  Thank you for your insight!

 

You can use it that way, but I think most eventually try to use it for damage.  It does pretty good aoe damage when combined with fire cages to keep them contained and cooking.  Assuming you can survive being in melee of course.  /cold might be a bit tougher of a combo.  The classic fire/rad had choking cloud working in synergy, even fire/kinetics had spamming the heal to help survive.  I've heard fire/dark is just a flat out tank so it can do it. 

 

But with the right IO build /cold is probably doable.  Bonfire (with kb to kd IO) can potentially help later as well and add even more damage.   

[Uun]

I've got a Fire/Nature and run Hot Feet together with Entangling Aura. Anything that comes into melee range gets held and cooked.

[Doomguide2005]

/Cold would have slow movement to keep them tight, though not quite as tight as immobilized or held.  Plus Avoid  in Sleet and Afraid in Hotfeet leaving them to try in slo-mo to run away as they get burnt to a crisp (Sleet, Snow Storm and Heat Loss).  Slotting that I've seen used back on Live was Microfilament Exposure HOs to max the slow and endred.  Then cap the damage (all in potentially 4 slots) with lvl 53 HOs and +5 boosting these days (and/or Armageddon IOs)

[WindDemon21]

On 9/28/2022 at 10:35 PM, biostem said:

So I rolled up a fire/cold controller recently, and have been steadily leveling them up.  I've played controllers before, but one thing that perplexes me is Hot Feet.  Is it meant to be a sort of "area denial" power, keeping enemies from entering melee range?  Is there some other use for this power that I'm not aware of?  Thank you for your insight!

Keep in mind too, that it's only mag 3 fear. Really wish (like caltrops but toggle) it was at least mag 4 fear so you could more effectivley use it as the denial power, especially on blasters.

 

But on a controller, you have flashfire anyway to keep min/lts contained so the denail mostly means nothing on a controller/dom.

[WindDemon21]

As the denial power too, it's slow could/should really get a boost to at least altrops level slow as well.

[Doomguide2005]

And remember unlike Blasters you've got 3 crazed fire monkeys chewing on things too (or will).

Edited September 30, 2022 by Doomguide2005

[Sarah Bellum]

On 9/28/2022 at 10:04 PM, Riverdusk said:

I've heard fire/dark is just a flat out tank so it can do it. 

 

Can confirm. Fire/Dark is the closest I've ever felt to being a tank-mage.

[WindDemon21]

8 hours ago, Doomguide2005 said:

And remember unlike Blasters you've got 3 crazed fire monkeys chewing on things too (or will).

They really end up doing extremely little. They're flimsy as hell, and really need to be given a 2nd attack.

 

Overall,  I LOVED when you could have 20 of them, but since the change I find them to actually be one of the worst pets overall now with just scorch only in their attacks.

 

It was also a lot different when you could reduce their recharge, but now yeah...

[Uun]

40 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

It was also a lot different when you could reduce their recharge, but now yeah...

You can't reduce the recharge on their attacks, but you can absolutely reduce the recharge on the resummon. They work better with a secondary that allows you to heal and/or buff them.

[WindDemon21]

1 hour ago, Uun said:

You can't reduce the recharge on their attacks, but you can absolutely reduce the recharge on the resummon. They work better with a secondary that allows you to heal and/or buff them.

Oh I know how to use and heal/buff them, debuff the mobs etc. Just saying with them only having scorch as an attack and being lower level than other pets means they actually kinda suck. The other pets all get some form of a control, better resists/more hp, and more attacks in general which usually means they can actually do more damage than the imps combined, and they get flung all over super easy as well.

 

They easily need another attack. Flares would make the most sense and finally give them a ranged attack, but I can imagine fire/kin being annoyed. But one combo versus being better for all.. is fine.

[kelika2]

I slotted my fire controller for damage, cages, char, bonfire, etc.  hot feet is just another DoT to me.  if you dont plan on dealing damage hot feet might not be for you

[Doomguide2005]

     True the little monkies are fragile and more than a touch of "shiney!" in their attention spans.  But 1) Cold can buff them with their shields (and Fog, IOs and/or Maneuvers), in short the can have substantial defense and 2) many of the same things helping the character (Avoid, slows and recharge debuffs) also help keep them upright a tad longer.

[WindDemon21]

15 minutes ago, Doomguide2005 said:

     True the little monkies are fragile and more than a touch of "shiney!" in their attention spans.  But 1) Cold can buff them with their shields (and Fog, IOs and/or Maneuvers), in short the can have substantial defense and 2) many of the same things helping the character (Avoid, slows and recharge debuffs) also help keep them upright a tad longer.

Again, note the context,. It's not about, what set you pair with, that would help other pets too. The issue in question IS their base stability, and their lower damage due to their level issue, and only having scorch as their attack. Other pets do FAR more than imps including help controlling, slowing, debuffing etc, and in most cases do more damage too, and are sturdier, better resists/defense, and even mez protection on some.. Ever since what issue 5 when pets could only be one at a time, they've been needing a rework to compensate. Starting with ALL pets in game, should be even level (god esp MMs, but not going there in this thread lol).

 

Since ALL imps do is damage, no control, no debuff, they should at least do more of it, and that just isn't the case in most situations, especailly when all of these are factored in.

Edited September 30, 2022 by WindDemon21

[Doomguide2005]

10 minutes ago, WindDemon21 said:

Again, note the context,. It's not about, what set you pair with, that would help other pets too. The issue in question IS their base stability, and their lower damage due to their level issue, and only having scorch as their attack. Other pets do FAR more than imps including help controlling, slowing, debuffing etc, and in most cases do more damage too, and are sturdier, better resists/defense, and even mez protection on some.. Ever since what issue 5 when pets could only be one at a time, they've been needing a rework to compensate. Starting with ALL pets in game, should be even level (god esp MMs, but not going there in this thread lol).

 

Since ALL imps do is damage, no control, no debuff, they should at least do more of it, and that just isn't the case in most situations, especailly when all of these are factored in.

👍

     We're (I'm) talking about different things.  Buffing the pets and the merits of doing so is separate from understanding Hot Feet and how that might play out paired with Cold.

     Been a long time since I ran a Fire Controller.  Last one was a Fire/Sonic, part of a static team with friends of all Fire/Sonics ~issue 16-ish but /Cold should be a very strong with respect to Imp survival, probably as strong if not stronger than Force Fields due to the Avoid and debuffs as well as boosting their damage potential through resistance debuffs.  And yes all that would help Rocky just as much and he hits like a truck freight train but to truly compare you'd have to account for Fire damage vs Smashing and 3 Imps vs 1 Rocky damage output all else equal.  Been too long for me to know how lopsided that comparison would be personally.

[Zep]

On my Fire/Storm controller I use Hotfeet for either area denial or good damage as needed.

 

Flashfire/fire cage/thunder clap stuns the group and holds them in place while tornado and lightning storm help with the cooking.

 

Keep in mind hotfeet accepts slow enhancements -- it wont stop a mob from running up and hitting you but it will take them a min to get to you then they turn around and run away because their feet hurt. Any kind of slow from /cold should get mobs to their min speed. Many groups are 1/2 to 3/4 cooked before the stuns from flashfire/thunderclap run out though. Containment is only 75% instead of 100% unless that got fixed at some point.

 

On live I had a fire/fire blaster (a true debt magnet) with hotfeet and it helped a lot with keeping mobs away from melee range.

Edited October 31, 2022 by Zep

[roleki]

In my experience, Ice Mistral's Torment in Hot Feet has been rather transformative; HF is basically just another damage aura, this one with some slow attached.  But if you enhance damage AND slow, now you've got something.  Doesn't hurt that the set bonuses are really decent, either.

[WindDemon21]

One of the big dumb issues imo is that it's fear isn't at least mag 4 to make bosses run too. Anything else is easily held by flashfire/cinders, so would be nice if all versions were upped to mag 4.