Fire Mastery: Bonfire or Char?

[Massinissa]

So I'm a little ways away from this decision on my Energy/Energy (mostly ranged) Blaster, but I'm a little confused: Do most Blasters that take FIre Mastery go with Bonfire or Char, or do a lot of them get both? I'm not quite sure, thats why I'm asking all of you here. I know fire mastery is very popular on Blasters, and it fits my character concept more than Force does, but I really can't tell if most people pick Bonfire or Char first. 

[Psiphon]

Personally I go with both. 

A Lockdown +2 proc in Char and a kb to knock down in bonfire. 

Edited January 26 by Psiphon
Spelling

[Maelwys]

Both are useful.

 

Char probably gets more use since it's part of the regular attack chain; but Bonfire is powerful wide area CC (and if you're mostly ranged and mainly solo then you can forgoe slotting a KB>KD IO in it and instead simply cast it at your own feet to play keepaway indefinitely)

 

That said... Fire Shield and Melt Armor are good too. And even RoTF has its place in certain "the best defence is a good offence/kamikaze" builds (ideally slotted for damage and recharge and with an Overwhelming Force KB>KD IO!)

[Frozen Burn]

3 hours ago, Massinissa said:

So I'm a little ways away from this decision on my Energy/Energy (mostly ranged) Blaster, but I'm a little confused: Do most Blasters that take FIre Mastery go with Bonfire or Char, or do a lot of them get both? I'm not quite sure, thats why I'm asking all of you here. I know fire mastery is very popular on Blasters, and it fits my character concept more than Force does, but I really can't tell if most people pick Bonfire or Char first. 

 

I generally go with both.  A KB2KD proc in Bonfire is a must as not only does it keep foes where they are, but it also allows more damage taken from Bonfire.  

 

If I don't have another hold to stack with Char, sometimes I'll skip it.

[kelika2]

i never have the extra slots to make either useful

bonfire needs acc these days, and its self defeating without kb2kd.  fantasy world i would 5/6 bombardment set and 1 kb2kd

but char can do decently with 1 acc/mez hami in it and thats what i been doing on most blasters nowadays

 

i mostly want fire shield and RoTP

[Uun]

12 hours ago, kelika2 said:

bonfire needs acc these days, and its self defeating without kb2kd.  fantasy world i would 5/6 bombardment set and 1 kb2kd

6 slotting Sudden Acceleration provides pretty good set bonuses if you have the slots. 

[Frozen Burn]

Additionally, yes, slotting a set in Bonfire is ideal for the extra damage, but the primary use for Bonfire is the control, damage mitigation, and survivability it provides for the Blaster.  So a single Overwhelming Force KB2KD IO is just fine if that's all the slotting you can devote to it.  🙂  And I agree with the above in that a single Acc/Mez Hami-O in Char is perfect.  

[Maelwys]

IMO Epic pool Bonfire with a KB>KD IO simply isn't worth it these days for mitigation purposes if you typically solo.
It doesn't bounce enemies sufficiently regularly anymore to be anywhere close to reliable.
(I've lost count of the times an enemy has simply just walked out of it, or even across it without being Knocked Down...)

If you have a reliable means of SLOWING or otherwise keeping the mobs in place (like a teammate with taunt) then over the course of its 45s duration Bonfire will likely kick in several times on each enemy... so with sufficient mob density (AE Farming? ITF?) it can become a useful means of reducing incoming damage a little; and the DoT damage it deals can contribute a smidge too. But what it won't do is reliably keep a particular difficult foe (like a nasty +4 boss) on its back.

There is one exception to this; and that's if you immobilize an enemy within Bonfire's effect radius. Immobilised enemies bypass the "ReduceIfKD" mechanic and get the full 100% chance for a Knockdown every second instead of 20% chance. Tenebrous Tentacles from Dark Blast and Vines from /Plant Manipulation are best at this, but lots of Blaster secondaries have a Single target Immobilise.

FWIW my favourite "AoE mayhem" Blaster is a Fire/Ice/Fire; and they respecced out of Bonfire in favour of Melt Armor after the i27p7 changes.
They're currently slotted like this:


(I still take Bonfire with a KB>KD IO on my Bot/Kin/Fire MM; but they're using it more as an additional Fulcrum-Shift DoT and mule for the Superior Frozen Blast set; any Knockdown it inflicts is a happy bonus. Plus it opens the way to get Fireball...)
 

Edited January 26 by Maelwys

[dragonhawk777]

On 1/25/2025 at 9:48 PM, kelika2 said:

i never have the extra slots to make either useful

bonfire needs acc these days, and its self defeating without kb2kd.  fantasy world i would 5/6 bombardment set and 1 kb2kd

but char can do decently with 1 acc/mez hami in it and thats what i been doing on most blasters nowadays

 

i mostly want fire shield and RoTP

I dont consider it self defeating in all builds.  If your primary is Fire or another AoE heavy powerset, then I would agree.  With a set like Elec though which is mostly single target attacks I have found that keeping the knockback intact.  The distance it throws mobs is pretty far and they then have to run back, and CoH programing seems to have mobs stay melee once they get into melee range, even if they are knocked out of melee range.  It has allowed me to use attacks like ball lightning on weaker mobs and then keep the heavier hitters away from me while I take them down with single target attacks.  With a set like Fire or Water though I definitely agree its more self defeating as you can AoE a number of mobs while they try to stand back up.

[roleki]

If a character has access to Bonfire, I take it.  There is no armor in the game that mitigates incoming better than preventing incoming at all, and Bonfire does that for 90% of mobs you'll face.  I usually frankenslot it with D/R & A/D/R pieces from multiple sets, pumped to +5 and rounded off with a KB:KD.  

You'll want a little targeting macro, likea-so 

 

/macro_image FireTrap_Bonfire BONFIR "powexec_name Bonfire$$powexec_location target Bonfire"

[Maelwys]

42 minutes ago, roleki said:

There is no armor in the game that mitigates incoming better than preventing incoming at all, and Bonfire does that for 90% of mobs you'll face.

20% at best unfortunately; at least when slotted with a KB>KD IO.

Look here and note the effect line that lists "120% chance" of inflicting a Mag 6.231 knockback; with the yellow "ReduceIfKD" tag beside it.



This "ReduceIfKD" flag works by taking a flat -100% off the power's KB activation chance whenever a KB>KD conversion IO is slotted within it.
See here and note the line "-100% Power Chance Mod (self only) for 10.25s" with the matching yellow tag to the far right.


 

The upshot is that Bonfire will end up with a 20% chance to inflict KnockDOWN instead of its original 120% (capped at 100%) chance to inflict KnockBACK.

Bonfire has an Activate Period of 1 second; meaning its Knockback/Knockdown effect can get a chance to pulse every 1 second. Cumulative Probability means that even after 10 such pulses you'd still have a >10% likelihood (10.737%) that a particular foe hasn't been knocked down once yet. Unfortunately the Epic pool version of Bonfire only has a 15ft radius; so the chances of a particular foe staying inside it for more than a few seconds are slim-to-none unless you stack other CC (like -MovementSpeed effects) on top of it.

Without slotting a KB>KD IO in Bonfire it works fantastically as mitigation. You can stand inside it and nothing will be able to approach you without getting subjected to a 100% chance for knockback every 1s; which makes it brilliant for ranged toons when soloing. But it's much less useful in teaming situations.
 

Edited February 4 by Maelwys

[tidge]

I greatly prefer an Epic Bonfire over any Epic single-target Hold (e.g. Char).  My reasoning follows:

 

At level 35, a Blaster should pretty much be past the point of wanting to Hold a single target, or rely on something like single-target %damage... an AoE "soft" control is much more useful, especially if the spawn size has been turned up (including on teams). The Bonfire has a nice long duration, who knows how long a single-target hold is going to last (because an enemy critter is defeated, or has protection, or whatever).

 

A very personal build-crafting approach I have is to invest slots into the powers one of my builds will have before level 35. Single-target holds need slots to be able to contribute to utility! They do nothing if they miss, and they won't stack Hold without duration. Again, for Blasters... why are you just not HURTING the thing you are trying to hold? In Fire Mastery, I probably want spare slots for Fire Shield (global pieces or other set bonuses), and I almost certainly want at least two slots in Melt Armor... again, because Blasters really do want to HURT enemies, not HOLD them (apologies to Boy George).

[Maelwys]

10 minutes ago, tidge said:

for Blasters... why are you just not HURTING the thing you are trying to hold?

That's kinda the point of Char for my line of thinking.
It's a hold, yes, but it might be better to think of it as a low-animation-time ranged DoT that happens to take Hold Set Damage Procs.

Here's my Fire/Ice/Fire Blaster's list of attacks:


Note the one with the second highest DPA? And not by a small margin either.

[tidge]

5 minutes ago, Maelwys said:

That's kinda the point of Char for my line of thinking.
It's a hold, yes, but it might be better to think of it as a low-animation-time ranged DoT that happens to take Hold Set Damage Procs.
 

 

That's by spending slots on a single target Hold. Sure it can be done, but I think the opportunity cost is way too high for a level 35 single-target "attack" on a Blaster. If the character is being fine-tuned for only/mostly high level content, maybe it makes more sense to rely on single-target damage from an Epic Pool. It isn't a wrong choice, except for me.

[Maelwys]

18 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

That's by spending slots on a single target Hold.

By spending slots on a single-target Attack, and the second-best one available to me by the numbers.
(albeit one which happens to have a hold effect built into it as a oft-inconsequential bonus of opening up additional damage proccing opportunities... 😁 )

Personally I don't think level 35 is hugely long to wait. That means Char is available when exemplaring down as far as Lvl30 (e.g. the vast majority of repeatable content)
Heck, until relatively recently Tankers had to wait until Lv35 just to get their T8 attack let alone their T9.
I do appreciate that some folk like to get everything in early for the likes of DFBs or Positron TFs though.

[tidge]

For me: It's a balancing act. Blasters have an exceptionable amount of access to enhancement sets from many different types (melee, ranged, AoE, PBAoE) that allow them to leverage just about ALL of the best Enhancement set bonuses the game has to offer: ATO, Purples, Winters, PVPs.. and in multiple... that is, they don't get the (understandable) limitation to pick one (for example) single-target ranged damage set to use... they can easily get multiple choices between the ATO, Purples, Winters, whatever... all without having to even consider Pool power picks.

 

Planning to (again, I write) invest slots for Accuracy and %damage into a level 35 single-target attack seems somewhat sub-optimal, especially when the epic pool in question has later powers that more obviously benefit from slots (certainly they benefit in a less random way). Once we're talking end-game... Melt Armor, with an investment in slots, can increase Blaster-level damage across the area of it's AoE... for all teammates... and can of course also take %damage (and %-Resistance) if that's someone's game, but it needs slots that might otherwise be going into Char. As much as I like Melt Armor, I still only find myself with a single spare slot for this level 41 power, and I have it boosted for Accuracy and Recharge (from Analyze Weakness).

 

I'm not going to pick-apart someone else's choices for what kinds of attacks they want to have in an attack chain, and if they value a high DPA single-target attack over a couple of more modest DPA AoE attacks. For me: just looking at the provided "DPA" table, it looks (to me, as it is not my character) like the faster-recharging single-target Blaze is pretty much doing everything you want the slower-recharging Char to do... and while Blaze isn't up, I'd spam some AoE attacks!

 

I'm not trying yo convince anyone that the Maelwys method of power picks is wrong, just that there exists an alternative set of reasoning to make a different set of choices.

[Maelwys]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

For me: just looking at the provided "DPA" table, it looks (to me, as it is not my character) like the faster-recharging single-target Blaze is pretty much doing everything you want the slower-recharging Char to do... and while Blaze isn't up, I'd spam some AoE attacks!

Actually what I want is more attacks that are like Blaze; ideally a sufficient number of them to let me achieve a seamless high-DPA Single Target attack chain!

I imagine part of this might be down to a difference in playstyles and build goals.

One of my main goals with every single toon I make is to work out what their "optimized" seamless (infinitely repeatable) Single target attack chain will be (within the bounds of whatever primary and secondary power pools I happen to have chosen). Often this means that my Epic/Patron Pool choice is dictated by whatever one has the most powerful attack or buff/debuff... although occasionally there'll be a case where theme overrides performance slightly (such as on my Staff Tanker; which intentionally uses the staff attacks only and neglects Pool power and Epic Attacks!).

Obviously AoE powers are important to have too; even whenever you're not constantly teaming. Often a toon will have one or two really strong AoE attacks which will end up forming part of the optimal Single Target chain anyway; but I'll generally try to take at least 2-3 decent AoE abilities (aside from the Judgement Incarnate nuke) one way or another. However I never try to make a seamless attack chain out of them - instead they're there to be situationally substituted into my Single Target attack chain depending on the number of enemies around me and their current location.

Unfortunately usually this approach won't end up producing the highest possible damage output from all of my chosen attack powers... because it's rare that I'll have full leeway to slot damage procs everywhere (I tend to need to use some enhancement slots in my attack powers to achieve specific set bonuses like +Recharge/Resistance/Defense) so there's always a little bit of a balancing act, and that's where the fun (for me!) of repeatedly poking at builds comes in to attain the maximum performance + minimum slotting sacrifices.

Anyways; as a quick example: here's the current ST-damage attack chain for my Fire/Ice/Fire blaster; which corresponds to the DPA power listing I gave earlier:



Note that Fireball, Fireblast and Firebreath are nowhere to be seen here because they simply do not provide any benefit to my Single Target DPA. However in practice, I'll almost always end up weaving Fireball and Firebreath and Rain of Fire etc. into my attacks providing that I'm fighting more than one enemy. 

If I need to hang back out of Melee Range (and so can't reliably use Frozen Aura or Ice Sword!) then Fireball and Fireblast start getting more use:



It's certainly possible to start off with AoE attacks and plug the gaps with ST attacks instead of keeping the AoEs in reserve and using them situationally. I imagine that someone who approaches things that way likely won't need to bother slotting up as many attacks; but will be a smidge slower when fighting AVs/GMs/etc and may end up with an insufficient number of filler attacks to utilise whenever they're exemplaring. I simply place higher value on having a "more optimal" single target attack chain to spam on GMs/AVs/Pylons/etc. whenever the need arises.

(And this post is intended to be an explanation of sorts rather than a slight against Tidge's playstyle!) 😉

[Jacke]

8 hours ago, tidge said:

That's by spending slots on a single target Hold. Sure it can be done, but I think the opportunity cost is way too high for a level 35 single-target "attack" on a Blaster. If the character is being fine-tuned for only/mostly high level content, maybe it makes more sense to rely on single-target damage from an Epic Pool. It isn't a wrong choice, except for me.

 

Further to what @tidge is saying, there will be a problem with Char whether to slot it for Hold or Damage.  With a full slotting, can do both, but that will sacrifice going for a 5 or 6-IO set.

 

I'd say for Blaster, especially with an Epic Hold which are hard or impossible to stack, go for slotting Char for Damage and think of the Hold as interrupting the mob's actions, maybe.

 

 

[roleki]

On 2/4/2025 at 9:11 AM, Maelwys said:

20% at best unfortunately; at least when slotted with a KB>KD IO.

Look here and note the effect line that lists "120% chance" of inflicting a Mag 6.231 knockback; with the yellow "ReduceIfKD" tag beside it.



This "ReduceIfKD" flag works by taking a flat -100% off the power's KB activation chance whenever a KB>KD conversion IO is slotted within it.
See here and note the line "-100% Power Chance Mod (self only) for 10.25s" with the matching yellow tag to the far right.


 

The upshot is that Bonfire will end up with a 20% chance to inflict KnockDOWN instead of its original 120% (capped at 100%) chance to inflict KnockBACK.

Bonfire has an Activate Period of 1 second; meaning its Knockback/Knockdown effect can get a chance to pulse every 1 second. Cumulative Probability means that even after 10 such pulses you'd still have a >10% likelihood (10.737%) that a particular foe hasn't been knocked down once yet. Unfortunately the Epic pool version of Bonfire only has a 15ft radius; so the chances of a particular foe staying inside it for more than a few seconds are slim-to-none unless you stack other CC (like -MovementSpeed effects) on top of it.

Without slotting a KB>KD IO in Bonfire it works fantastically as mitigation. You can stand inside it and nothing will be able to approach you without getting subjected to a 100% chance for knockback every 1s; which makes it brilliant for ranged toons when soloing. But it's much less useful in teaming situations.
 

That's all well and good, but, I'm a blaster.  I really only need one pulse to mitigate 90% of incoming damage.  Whatever is left standing after that, soon isn't. 

 

ETA: I'm not saying math is bad or wrong or whatever, just, sometimes there is a difference between what it says on a spreadsheet, and what it says when you're actually rolling through your attack chain.  On a blaster, I just need alpha mitigation; my remaining defense is great offense.  

Edited February 5 by roleki

[Maelwys]

1 hour ago, roleki said:

That's all well and good, but, I'm a blaster.  I really only need one pulse to mitigate 90% of incoming damage.  Whatever is left standing after that, soon isn't. 

 

ETA: I'm not saying math is bad or wrong or whatever, just, sometimes there is a difference between what it says on a spreadsheet, and what it says when you're actually rolling through your attack chain.  On a blaster, I just need alpha mitigation; my remaining defense is great offense.  

I'm a Blaster too. And I'm not just going off a spreadsheet.
I extensively used epic pool Bonfire with a KB>KD IO before the nerf on multiple toons, and I was heavily involved in testing the proposed changes on Brainstorm.
I didn't get the powers that be to stop all of the negative changes, but I did get them to acknowledge and revert the duration nerf.

Until recently I still used Epic Pool Bonfire on my Fire Blaster, and I currently still use it on one of my Masterminds.

I can assure you that Bonfire works in practice just as I've detailed above. The links to CoDv2 I posted above are simply there to clearly highlight the numbers and back this up.

Bonfire has a target cap of 10 targets. That means with a KB>KD IO on average if you use it in a target saturated environment then it'll bounce just 2 foes (20%) in its initial "tick"; and spawn distribution being what it is those foes will often end up being minions. That is not anywhere close to "mitigating 90% of incoming damage".

In practice whenever you pop Bonfire on a spawn without layering on any additional CC; most of that spawn will just turn around and shoot you, then run (at full speed!) out of Bonfire's 15ft radius and proceed to eat your face. So that 3.3s will almost always be better spent focus-firing on a few of the more problematic targets instead of casting Bonfire. It is still possible to leverage Bonfire for survivability: don't slot a KB>KD IO and then just stand inside it. Or alternatively, team with someone who has an AoE immobilize. 
 

[tidge]

[roleki]

1 hour ago, Maelwys said:

I'm a Blaster too. And I'm not just going off a spreadsheet.
I extensively used epic pool Bonfire with a KB>KD IO before the nerf on multiple toons, and I was heavily involved in testing the proposed changes on Brainstorm.
I didn't get the powers that be to stop all of the negative changes, but I did get them to acknowledge and revert the duration nerf.

Until recently I still used Epic Pool Bonfire on my Fire Blaster, and I currently still use it on one of my Masterminds.

I can assure you that Bonfire works in practice just as I've detailed above. The links to CoDv2 I posted above are simply there to clearly highlight the numbers and back this up.

Bonfire has a target cap of 10 targets. That means with a KB>KD IO on average if you use it in a target saturated environment then it'll bounce just 2 foes (20%) in its initial "tick"; and spawn distribution being what it is those foes will often end up being minions. That is not anywhere close to "mitigating 90% of incoming damage".

In practice whenever you pop Bonfire on a spawn without layering on any additional CC; most of that spawn will just turn around and shoot you, then run (at full speed!) out of Bonfire's 15ft radius and proceed to eat your face. So that 3.3s will almost always be better spent focus-firing on a few of the more problematic targets instead of casting Bonfire. It is still possible to leverage Bonfire for survivability: don't slot a KB>KD IO and then just stand inside it. Or alternatively, team with someone who has an AoE immobilize. 
 

And I appreciate your slavish attention to detail.  When "fly over the mob, aim, bonfire, inferno" stops working for me, you'll be the first person I call.

[arcane]

Char and it’s not close. All of my blasters get Char and Melt Armor and skip the rest.

 

Only exception is my /Nin blaster that went with another epic entirely because Choking Powder is literally just a better version of Char.

[Maelwys]

1 minute ago, roleki said:

And I appreciate your slavish attention to detail.  When "fly over the mob, aim, bonfire, inferno" stops working for me, you'll be the first person I call.

You're welcome.

And whilst you're waiting for Inferno to recharge... try copying your character onto Brainstorm and try moving the Overwhelming Force Proc into Fireball instead.
Call it humouring an overly-pedantic forumite.

(Spoiler alert:)

Spoiler

With 0% local recharge slotting, an OF proc will give Fireball a 25.1% chance to inflict knockdown. Fireball has the same radius as Bonfire; but a 60% higher target cap and 1/3rd of the animation time, never mind its decent up-front damage hit and a recharge rate that's not measured in minutes. If you slot a Ragnarok proc in it instead that'd give 35.1% chance for knockdown. And with both those procs combined? The likelihood works out at more than 51%. To my mind bouncing eight foes on their rears instead of two via a power that you're going to be using anyway is a no-brainer...)

  

20 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

The alt text for that one rocks.

(Admittedly sometimes I really struggle to recognise when someone is just wilfully doubling-down on Cunningham's Law...)

[Onlyasandwich]

I do tend to avoid Bonfire with the KD proc in epics these days as well.

 

Beyond the lower chances, the fact that it is no longer a one-slot wonder (requires accuracy!) makes it even harder to fit in.

 

I do have a blaster who is all-in on ranged attacks and ranged defense who enjoys it though! As @Maelwys suggests, I don't use the KD proc for this guy. I just stand in it. It's really great in this context! I wouldn't go dropping it on a mob in a team, but a really great solo tool, and useful situationally on teams. There are even clever scenarios that come up with the geometry where you can constantly keep an entire mob squished against a wall or corner with it. You don't have the careful positioning tools to force this, but can capitalize on it when things line up.