Bonfire / Heat Mastery

[You]

I understand why most build chooses Mace for Power Boost. I am levelling a Poison MM at the moment and Power Boost offers relatively few benefits. 

 

Bonfire with KB->KD offers the soft control I need for survival. And so far I like it. 

 

But it is it a good power/Mastery to go forward with? And comment or advice?

 

Thanks!

[Frosticus]

I went with heat for my demon/storm during leveling and was pretty happy with it. Between bonefire and freezing rain I could make popcorn anywhere and i like fireball.

 

However, you lose an epic shield which can be a big boost to survivability. 

[Zumberge]

This is purely anecdotal, but after being underwhelmed by Poison Trap I swapped it out for Bonfire after hearing about what Fire Controllers did with it and the Knockback to Knockdown IOs.  In exchange for a longer cooldown and oh no it doesn't debuff recovery and give enemies -10% endurance, you get persistent AoE control and damage that can be used at range, as opposed to that thing everyone does with traps where they run forward and deploy it directly under the enemy's feet.  You miss out on a shield, true, but you still get a hold, Fireball is better than Mace Beam Volley, and if you team a lot you might be able to swing not having it.

[Pale_Enchantress]

How exactly would one slot bonfire for this?

[You]

Overwhelming Force proc

[Coyote]

1 Overwhelming Force, 1 Force Feedback, 1 Recharge

[kelly Rocket]

Sudden Acceleration, not Overwhelming Force. Bonfire is auto-hit and 100% chance of knockback. There's literally no need whatsoever for Overwhelming Force's chance of knockdown, and that could in fact potentially cause the "stacking knockdowns" problem and cause occasional knockbacks instead of knockdowns.

 

Stick with Sudden Acceleration unless there's an actual need for the chance for knockdown proc. Overwhelming Force should be reserved for powers that don't do knockback/knockdown on their own, or maybe powers that only have a very small chance of knockdown/knockback.

[Mr. Vee]

2 hours ago, kelly Rocket said:

Sudden Acceleration, not Overwhelming Force. Bonfire is auto-hit and 100% chance of knockback. There's literally no need whatsoever for Overwhelming Force's chance of knockdown, and that could in fact potentially cause the "stacking knockdowns" problem and cause occasional knockbacks instead of knockdowns.

 

Stick with Sudden Acceleration unless there's an actual need for the chance for knockdown proc. Overwhelming Force should be reserved for powers that don't do knockback/knockdown on their own, or maybe powers that only have a very small chance of knockdown/knockback.

Um, no.

[Sovera]

53 minutes ago, Veelectric Boogaloo said:

Um, no.

?

 

Elaborate, my TL;DR fellow.

[Mr. Vee]

Sigh, elaboration's so distasteful 😛 Overwhelming force proc will add damage and convert bonfire's grief-yourself-knockback to knockdown. It will absolutely not compound knockback mag. Sudden acceleration will do the same kb to kd but without the damage. Overwhelming force is fine used as a chance to kd proc in a different power but it's perfect for bonfire as a converter.

 

Also of note (i completely forgot this til the other day myself) is that bonfire can be used around corners so you can cripple mobs without them being able to alpha you.

[Sovera]

From all I have heard Overwhelming only has a *chance* to turn a KB to a KD.  Have you actually experimented this in game or were you just assuming it will act like this?

[Mr. Vee]

I was using it today a ton on my blaster and i have it on my fire/kin and another blaster as well. No knockback, It made bonfire so broken on live they had to adjust the power. I remember before they adjusted it having 3 x8 mobs all bouncing at once on a mid 30s dom and not even having to bother with my other controls.

[Sovera]

Well, that's good to know. It goes against what I have read, but if you have tested it then alright.

[Mr. Vee]

Just went and checked the difference using an unslotter. I can't tell any difference between how overwhelming works and sudden acceleration other than the added damage in the former. I even checked on -1's which would have been more likely to knockback if it were only doing a chance to convert.

[kelly Rocket]

There absolutely is a known problem with Overwhelming Force not always working properly and sometimes causing knockbacks. It happened to me when slotted on my Assault Bot, and on my Battle Drones both. I had to just unslot it entirely and use Sudden Acceleration instead. There's a bug report on it in the bug reports subforum with several other people having had the same experiences, with a whole slew of powers.

 

I haven't tested it on Bonfire specifically, but at this point I simply won't bother trying it on anything that already does knockback.

 

If it works in Bonfire that's great, but I'd still probably put it in something else, to get knockdown out of a power that doesn't have any.

 

You can only slot Overwhelming Force in your build once, where Sudden Acceleration can be slotted in every knockback power you have. So you want to be picky about where you put Overwhelming Force. It's sort of a waste to put it in a power that already does knockback or knockdown IMO.

 

With Heat Mastery, I'd put it in Fireball instead, personally. Unless I was going to put the Ragnarok proc in that. Though it might be worth slotting both, but I'd want to test on the beta server to make sure they don't stack to a knockback ever.

 

 

Edited August 9, 2019 by kelly Rocket

[Mr. Vee]

There may very well be a known problem, but it's not happening in bonfire, shockwave, or explosive arrow. I've used it extensively in those and it works perfectly. (I have it in gremlins on my elec/storm troller but with all the insanity of hurricane/tornado/lightning storm I'd never notice if it weren't working correctly.) Only time I've come across a proc adding knockback problem is when I briefly had the avalanche one slotted in burn and it would kb sometimes. Pine told me it was due to the proc going off on the initial damage hit and then again on the pseudopet patch part in that case.

[kelly Rocket]

Good to know. At this point though, since I don't have an exhaustive list of what it does and doesn't cause problems with, and since I consider knockback to be the literal devil on most of my toons, I just avoid Overwhelming Force in knockback powers. Sudden Acceleration is cheaper anyway.

[Mr. Vee]

True that. And it's great that we have a non-unique for kb crazy sets. Now if we could just get a -repel IO so my stormy could mindlessly run hurricane without griefing my endurance drain aura.

[VanguardXL]

[50caltech]

do you get this heat mastery at level 34 or 35?   even numbers  =power updates,    odd numbers = slots...?

[Mr. Vee]

3 hours ago, 50caltech said:

do you get this heat mastery at level 34 or 35?   even numbers  =power updates,    odd numbers = slots...?

35. after 32 it no longer alternates slots/powers and you get 3 slots instead of 2. new powers are at 35, 38, 41, 44, 47, 49.

[50caltech]

kool thanks