A New Idea for Burn

Before I get started I'm aware of the "standard code rant" but I just had this idea while working and I think its at least not a really bad idea. My idea is to add a short duration aoe immob on to burn to allow it to do some damage. I figure a 2.5 second duration aoe immob should be just enough to allow the power to do damage while still allowing the fear portion of the power to work for those that actually use that effect. In addition the immob should be enhanceable to allow those that want to do more damage with burn to set it up that way. A full 5 seconds in the patch plus the time it takes to run out of it should make the power much more damaging. I think this would allow people who select Fiery Aura to be much more self sufficient while keeping the effects of the power similar to what they were before. I hope this follows the cottage rule enough that it at least wont break that.

With the precedent set by Rain of Fire, a -40% speed debuff might make more sense. It would have an effect similar to the immobilize for keeping the mobs in the patch, but since it's a small patch the net effect would be minor, and therefore not unbalancing.

Note, however, that the same pet appears to be used for NPC burn patches (according to Red Tomax, incendiary grenades and burn patches), so the same effect would happen when NPCs use those powers on us. To avoid that, a new pet would have to be made, and I don't know what the implications of that are.

In all honesty, I am not concerned that mobs flee the burn patch. I have a Fire/Fire tanker and it just doesn't matter to me that they run. In some ways it's a good thing. I also have a Fire/Ice tanker, and Burn combined with Ice Patch is moderately to very effective. Much of the time the knockdown is enough to keep them in the Burn patch for its entire duration.

Some immobilizes have a -KB component. If the Burn patch's immobilize has that, it would not be a welcome change for Fire/Ice tankers.

How does a We already have a fire immob and Controllers get it. If you really want to do something about Burn, add a slight (and I mean SLIGHT) DoT to anyone in the patch. Basically the patch is setting them on fire, and they will burn briefly.

I think letting NPCs use it would be the prefect balance ^_^.

Speed debuf and swap Afraid for Avoid.

I'd rather see a large amount of the dmage front-loaded, the fear still continue for a panic-option when you're health is getting dangerously low and somehow healing flames isn't working.

Disappointed... I actually came in expecting to see a request for Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire to be added to the sound FX... And it burns, burns, burns...

Okay so apparently its damage mitigation must remain unchanged or bettered for people to accept any change to the power, how about instead of an immob it did a 2.5 second enhanceable mag 3 hold (choking, gasping for breath animation) all other effects remain unchanged. This way the mobs still arent attacking those of you who use this power for mitigation and I still get my damage on my blasters and scrappers that like burninating the mobs.

I think the best solution is to make the DoT effect "sticky", like each tick of damage in the burn patch has a diminishing 80% chance for more DoT (not stackable with itself) even if they're not in the patch.

i.e. They leave the burn patch, and there's an 80% chance for an extra tick of damage. If that hits, there's an 80% chance of another tick of damage, etc. up to a max of 10 ticks once they leave the patch. And this would be refreshed if they step back inside the burn patch.

Given that Burn has pretty crappy DPS and very slow damage delivery, on top of its other significant problems with scatter and so forth, I've all but given up on trying to use it as a legitimate attack. Back when Ignite was on, like, a 5-second timer and you could essentially chain it endlessly, that was a fine attack, but at the recharge of Burn, it just isn't useful for damage. AND it can't be slotted for accuracy, perplexity.

As such, I'd be all for a modification to Burn that made it a decent attack. And, yeah, I've seen the arguments about keeping melee out of range. It doesn't. It just makes them back away until their attacks recharge, but they still have ages to come back in, punch you and hurt you before the Avoid effect takes. And even if it didn't, scattering enemies and causing them to run away is not really the appropriate response for an AT that relies on enemies being together and close by.

Personally, I know it's not going to happen, but I'd love to see it altered into a Shield Charge clone, or made to give a constant DoT to anyone in range when it is activated, instead of relying on a ground effect. But then, I'm not a fan of the power, anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.