Firestorm

"

AmenAnthem wrote:

Imo what keeps Firestorm a bit back is the fear portion of the ignite status.
Trying to hit fleeing mobs is impossible, so I suggest changing the fear to something which is useful to all firebuilds (i.e. something like burning enemies have 10% less stun treshold).

That's the problem with the whole Burning mechanic, in addition of being useless 99% of the time (since most fire skills deal small damage in rapid succession and Burning doesn't stack), it's more often actually harmful than helpful to the player as seen with the fleeing mechanic.

My Firestorm build goes 2 points away from Resolute Technique, and I'm seriously contemplating on picking it up solemnly because it'd mean Firestorm never crits, never Ignites and never makes anything flee. That's how bad the situation is.

So, will Firestorm AoE scaling be fixed?

As far as I remember, increasing AoE just increases the area the fireballs can land on, but the actual number of fireballs per sec remains the same, which results in more and more of them missing targets, making the skill worse. Quality does not help much.

The amount of fireballs per sec should scale with area of effect, so that a number of fireballs per second per square meter would remain the same all the time (plus the bonus from quality).

the size of the bolts increases too, not just the spread. and they already addressed the spread issue long ago by shrinking the spread's AoE long time ago but shortly before open beta.

if a player actually uses AoE size boosts, they will see a difference for both how many things are hitting (size of bolts), how many bolts hit one thing (again size of bolts but vs spread of them), and the spread of the bolts.

the spread will still be somewhat large but the bolts catch up a bit unlike in the distant past. my ratio i gave long ago is still same on average bolt hit count on single foe, but more constistant.

"

soul4hdwn wrote:

the size of the bolts increases too, not just the spread. and they already addressed the spread issue long ago by shrinking the spread's AoE long time ago but shortly before open beta.

if a player actually uses AoE size boosts, they will see a difference for both how many things are hitting (size of bolts), how many bolts hit one thing (again size of bolts but vs spread of them), and the spread of the bolts.

the spread will still be somewhat large but the bolts catch up a bit unlike in the distant past. my ratio i gave long ago is still same on average bolt hit count on single foe, but more constistant.

I don't think you are correct.

Skill gem description clearly states:
One fireball falls every 0.15 seconds

And the speed scales only with gem quality.

It means that with increased AoE we get less fireballs per square meter per second.
Even though fireball explosion radius increases also, that doesn't address the main problem.

I already tested this and can confirm that increased AoE without concentrated effect makes fireballs miss much more often, since they can land on a larger area.

Without concentrated effect this skill is largely useless when you have many increrased AoE nodes.

I wonder is it worth to take both Concentrated effect gem and increased area of effect nodes. Logically it may seem counter-productive. Anyone tested this?

"

zamraii wrote:

I wonder is it worth to take both Concentrated effect gem and increased area of effect nodes. Logically it may seem counter-productive. Anyone tested this?

I'd say it really depends on how you use the skill. If you use it as a single target skill against bosses, then taking the Increased Area of Effect nodes or gem is indeed pretty useless.

I for example use it both as an AoE and single target purposes, in a way that I make my character tanky, surround myself by bunch of monsters and cast it on top of myself repeatedly. I take both Templar and Witch AoE Notables, and 4 smaller passive nodes to get there, which is not all that big investment as my build goes around those areas regardless. It makes my firestorm just the right size, enough to cover the area around me but not too big to make boss killing a chore.

"

Alhoon wrote:

"

zamraii wrote:

I wonder is it worth to take both Concentrated effect gem and increased area of effect nodes. Logically it may seem counter-productive. Anyone tested this?

I'd say it really depends on how you use the skill. If you use it as a single target skill against bosses, then taking the Increased Area of Effect nodes or gem is indeed pretty useless.

I for example use it both as an AoE and single target purposes, in a way that I make my character tanky, surround myself by bunch of monsters and cast it on top of myself repeatedly. I take both Templar and Witch AoE Notables, and 4 smaller passive nodes to get there, which is not all that big investment as my build goes around those areas regardless. It makes my firestorm just the right size, enough to cover the area around me but not too big to make boss killing a chore.

Thanks for an answer.

My problem with concentrated effect gem is it's great for bosses but then area becomes too small to cover many mobs, especially if they are running. Going with faster cast speed+increased skill duration+life leech seems a reasonable compromise, decent both for boss and mobs but not particularly good for any of these.

It would be nice if increased area nodes made more fireballs falling instead of spreading them more within larger area.

"

Alhoon wrote:

"

AmenAnthem wrote:

Imo what keeps Firestorm a bit back is the fear portion of the ignite status.
Trying to hit fleeing mobs is impossible, so I suggest changing the fear to something which is useful to all firebuilds (i.e. something like burning enemies have 10% less stun treshold).

That's the problem with the whole Burning mechanic, in addition of being useless 99% of the time (since most fire skills deal small damage in rapid succession and Burning doesn't stack), it's more often actually harmful than helpful to the player as seen with the fleeing mechanic.

My Firestorm build goes 2 points away from Resolute Technique, and I'm seriously contemplating on picking it up solemnly because it'd mean Firestorm never crits, never Ignites and never makes anything flee. That's how bad the situation is.

Ugh. That sucks to hear.

Burning really, really needs to be fixed. A crit effect that that ranges from utterly useless to actively harmful for half the fire skills is not something that can be suffered to stick around. Straight up stacking would be way too powerful, but some sort of diminishing returns stacking could make Firestorm much better while not requiring nerfs to burning that would hurt Fireball and Firetrap.

"

aimlessgun wrote:

A crit effect that that ranges from utterly useless to actively harmful for half the fire skills is not something that can be suffered to stick around.

Problem is, it's actively awesome for a small number of fire skills.

Burning damage works best when you deal a single, powerful hit.
Ideally a crit.

Firestrom does the oposite, tremendously reducing your single hit damage.
So unless the whole burning mechanic changes, which is not going to happen, it will continue to be useless for Firestorm.

Conc. effect + increased radius work, but you are left with 60% damage increase for 2 gems.

This is not a good investment by any comparison, especially comparead to what you can link to a Fireball gem.

Right now, Fireball beats firestorm in all situations.

For bosses, use a sinle hit fireball to proc insane burning damage.
Fireball + Crit dmg + Conc effect + Increased Burn Dmg + Faster Cast
Although if you add ele proliferation, it will also work agnst mob packs.

For clearing, use Fireball + GMP + Con effect + Faster Cast + Crit damage or something like that.