Focused Feedback: Fiery Melee Revamp

[The Curator]

Fiery Melee

Combustion

• Cast Time lowered from 3 seconds to 2.4 seconds.

Cremate

• Now can knockdown foes.
• Now can be slotted with knockback enhancements and sets.

Breath of Fire

• Increased up-front damage.
• Power now applies a 45s non-stacking DoT.

Fire Sword

• Now does pure fire damage.
• Now grants a small defense debuff.
• Now accepts accurate defense debuff and defense debuff enhancements and sets.

Greater Fire Sword

• Cast Time lowered from 2.33 seconds to 1.37 seconds.
• Now does pure fire damage.
• Now grants a small defense debuff.
• Now accepts accurate defense debuff and defense debuff enhancements and sets.

Fire Sword Circle

• Now does pure fire damage.
• Now grants a small defense debuff.
• Now accepts accurate defense debuff and defense debuff enhancements and sets.

[Silverado]

Breath of Fire makes enemies run away. Could we get that removed from the power? It makes it really useless.

 

Also, can we get the dimensions of the cone changed to  be more in line with other melee set cones? As it is, it's a narrow cone with a long'ish range, which doesn't mesh well with a melee playstyle. Could the angle and range be changed to something similar to, say Frost from Ice Melee?

[Riverdusk]

Very nice, but can we get the quicker combustion for dominator fiery assault too?  It is always a skip on my doms as it stands now, it is so painfully slow and also so slow to tic (which I'd also like to see sped up).

 

Was sad to see doms skipped on the electric blast updates and now this one too. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

Adding "something else" to the slotting possibilities was one thing this set really needed.  Nice.

[LastHumanSoldier]

Can Dominator Fire Assault Combustion please inherit the Cast time reduction?

 

[kelika2]

Are Blasters also getting the Combustion cast time reduction?

[Riverdusk]

1 minute ago, kelika2 said:

Are Blasters also getting the Combustion cast time reduction?

 

Yes, they are mentioned separately near the end of the overall patch notes.  They get it as well.

[kelika2]

4 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

 

Yes, they are mentioned separately near the end of the overall patch notes.  They get it as well.

yay

[Ratch_]

Gonna echo that I would like for Dominators to also be able to get the combustion cast time reduction. Since it's being touched, could there be a shaving for it's DoT duration? Meaning all it's damage could come out faster than the 7.1s that it does currently.

[Xiddo]

Just a question from me really 🙂 

• Spoiler

  • Blaster Manipulation/Fire Manipulation/Burn: 
    • No longer summons multiple burn patches (summon on self only).
    • Power now hits 5 enemies instead of 4.
    • Up-Front damage radius increased to 15ft.
    • Burn patch no longer triggers procs (the up-front damage still does).
    • Burn Flames now inherit the power Accuracy enhancements.
    • Burn patch now inherit AT classes, caps and modifiers.
    • Burn cast time lowered from 2.03s to 1.47s.
    • Recharge changed from 25s to 45s.
  • Blaster Manipulation/Fire Manipulation/Combustion: Cast time lowered from 3s to 2.4s.
     

    Consume

  • Power now grants a small Max HP buff even if no targets are available or hit.
  • Power no longer needs a target to grant End Drain protection. (+End still requires targets)
  • Power no longer claims it is auto-hit.
  • This power now takes Healing sets and enhancements.

   

As blasters are getting this update/buff for Combustion, and there are also changes for Consume in the pipe-line for FA, can we get these changes for Dominator's Fiery Assault (with powers that are shared) also? Some Doms tend to underperform, I appreciate FA much less so, but every little helps.

[Bill Z Bubba]

11 hours ago, DarknessEternal said:

The enemies hitting fire farmers use fire melee.  Fire armor has no defense debuff resistance.  These changes exist to make fire farming harder.

 

And you verified that fire melee critters in AE are now debuffing defense?

[Luminara]

13 hours ago, Silverado said:

Breath of Fire makes enemies run away. Could we get that removed from the power?

 

There's nothing to remove.  No Avoid in the attribs.  It's the AI, not the power.

[KaizenSoze]

12 hours ago, DarknessEternal said:

More fire farming nerfs.

Actually no, if you adjust your mobs. You can get 100% experience mobs with fiery melee and super reflexes. You just have to avoid the sword attacks. Those are the only ones that do -defense. Farmers in existing farms with sword attacks will need to pop 1-2 purples regularly to farm at 4x8.

 

I have updated my existing farm to not use sword attacks and the mobs are still 100% exp.
Live: ID: 50968

Beta ID: 23824

[Sovera]

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.

[Ratch_]

Yeah, nothing about FM itself has really changed much but GFS having a shorter animation time does wonders to me for the general flow of the set. Breath of Fire sticking around as is and only having some long DoT gimmick added is incredibly displeasing to me. 

I am personally cool with the set feeling somewhat generic, it's what I know and love for the most part. Just being able to choose a set that will do what it says on a box and not really have anything else special going on with it is something I'm happy to see retained. There are quite a few with special mechanics now on other sets and having options that just do damage with no complications is still a good option for players to have imo.

[BrandX]

9 minutes ago, Sovera said:

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.

 

I agree.

 

Adding Knockdown to Cremate is nice and I like KD with that animation.

 

I was never bothered by the Lethal component in the Sword attacks, tho when I try to get into Fire Melee, I prefer to skip them, except for FSC.

 

The extra damage procs that can be slotted don't seem to be that big a deal.  Melee attacks can already slot 3, just for being melee attacks.  So, slot in a -Resist now.

 

The set could likely use more DoT on attacks to increase it's damage and up the damage of the set.  Only damage increase I see is faster animation on Combustion (Tankers only right?) and GFS.

[TygerDarkstorm]

I don't have much to add here, but from my brief bit of testing on a level 29 Fire/Rad Scrapper kitted with basic IO's:

• Thank you for giving this powerset some love. This character has been shelved for a while because it just felt dismal to play even though I liked the concept.
• Attacks certainly have a bit more crunch/char to them and feel like I'm doing much closer to proper scrapper damage
• Can't comment to the defense debuffs yet since I don't really have the slots available to mess with them yet, but hope to soon
• Something still seems a tad off. I feel like the previously mentioned suggestions of speeding up the dots might help this. I feel this will improve the flow of the set (at least at the mid-lower levels) as well as leave out less risk of you trying to determine if you should expend end on another attack or not or if the mob will die from a DoT.

[...]

Yet another post respectfully requesting the combustion cast time reduction for dominators. 

[Gobbledigook]

Maybe swap Incinerate for Cremate for Tankers so they have access to the knockup power also or attach it to another power.

[Digirium]

Tested critters in AE that use FIery Melee and Fire Sword - +4x8 fire farm, spine/fire brute with 45% fire defence, 90% fire resistance and 60 hp/sec health regeneration, 2,200 health max. The 45% fire defence was quickly decimated by the critters in melee range using fire sword. Defences on the brute were driven in to the red, no defence debuff resistance available to mitigate the cascade - brute went to hospital within 20 seconds.

 

I think it is too much really to give all three sword attacks in Fiery Melee a defence debuff, something these attacks never had before.

 

RIP fire farms.

[KaizenSoze]

10 minutes ago, Digirium said:

Tested critters in AE that use FIery Melee and Fire Sword - +4x8 fire farm, spine/fire brute with 45% fire defence, 90% fire resistance and 60 hp/sec health regeneration, 2,200 health max. The 45% fire defence was quickly decimated by the critters in melee range using fire sword. Defences on the brute were driven in to the red, no defence debuff resistance available to mitigate the cascade - brute went to hospital within 20 seconds.

 

I think it is too much really to give all three sword attacks in Fiery Melee a defence debuff, something these attacks never had before.

 

RIP fire farms.

Read up the thread. Folks have adjusted the farm mobs to not use sword attacks and still get 100% exp.

[Digirium]

Thanks, testing on the map 23824 in AE (critters adjusted to be without sword attacks) and RIP farm farms.

 

After adjustment XP/Inf seemed to be 100% on critter minions and Lts, Bosses slightly under although no big deal.

[KaizenSoze]

9 minutes ago, Digirium said:

Thanks, testing on the map 23824 in AE (critters adjusted to be without sword attacks) and RIP farm farms.

 

After adjustment XP/Inf seemed to be 100% on critter minions and Lts, Bosses slightly under although no big deal.

Interesting. What minions and lt exp are you getting? I double checked the mob powers and they show 100% at level 50.

[Sanguinesun]

51 minutes ago, KaizenSoze said:

Read up the thread. Folks have adjusted the farm mobs to not use sword attacks and still get 100% exp.

 

 

50 minutes ago, Digirium said:

Thanks, testing on the map 23824 in AE (critters adjusted to be without sword attacks) and RIP farm farms.

 

After adjustment XP/Inf seemed to be 100% on critter minions and Lts, Bosses slightly under although no big deal.

 

On the mission maker right this second.

 

It can be set to 100% for Bosses and EB's too without taking any sword attacks but you're going to need to take aim/buildups on both prim/sec to get there.

 

[Sanguinesun]

On 10/5/2022 at 6:37 AM, The Curator said:

Fiery Melee

 

Breath of Fire

• Increased up-front damage.
• Power now applies a 45s non-stacking DoT.

 

 

 

 

1.  AE lists the DoT as 46 not 45 ticks.

2.  An Elite Boss at 50 for this power does according to AE:

 

Average damage:  205.83

Damage per activation time:  77.09

Damage per cast cycle:   26.84

 

 

To give this more perspective, the T9 in the melee set(Greater Fire Sword) which is a single target does:

 

Average damage: 104.22

Damage per activation time: 76.08

Damage per cast cycle: 14.14

 

 

So my question is why is Breath of Fire doing damage on par with a T9 Nuke.?  It seems way too excessive.  And I said this in another thread which was disputed but its true:  Multiple mobs using this power mean that the 45(46 again according to AE) do their ticks in tandem with each other (let's call that a stacking).  That's a rather excessive amount of damage for a pretty commonly used power from not just AE mobs but for lots of mob sets in game.

 

The change to this power seems that someone wants to make this like a Caltrops power with the excessive amount of ticks.  Difference is that caltrops is an area on the ground effect that a player can move out and doesnt have a front loaded damage to the attack either.   Once hit with Breath of Fire, you're essentially guaranteed to take the full 46 ticks and that front loaded damage too.

 

My recommendation:  revert it to what it was before. 

 

There's no need for this to be so high damage at its tier and be a cone aoe.  Its completely imbalanced. While sure players would love to have it for their own purposes to use in game, Seeing players on teams taking literally a constant ticks of damage as they move from mob groups(cot's would be a good example) to mob group perpetually is again, excessive.   

 

 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Sanguinesun