Improve Pyro

[Onymus]

I have been playing Pyro for a few months now and I enjoy playing a DOT spec in PvP and PvE. I am not asking to make pyro the top dps, I would just like to see a little more single target damage output.

 

Right now I can put out about 1850 dps on a lvl 55 operations dummy in pyro spec and about 2150 dps as arsenal spec. I have a level 66 mainhand, lvl 69 offhand, complete lvl 69 gear except for dread guard armorings for the set bonus and dread guard relics. I don't run into heat problems but I do end up having to put in more rapid shots than I would like to keep my heat down. I admit that my gear needs improvement and I am trying to stack more power due to most black market gear being crit heavy. If other people are finding that their dps is higher with similar gear let me know what your rotation is and I will try it out.

 

Pyro dps has a wind up as you stack DoTs and proc rail shot. It has had its burst damage progressively reduced with each patch. I am fine with the direction that the devs have taken Pyro but now it needs another adjustment to bring up its damage. PvP matches and leaderboards can be misleading because Pyro will put up top numbers because of spreading DoTs all over but our ability to complete the kills we start keeps getting diminished.

 

If Pyro is destined to be a wind up dps then make the following adjustment. Give an additional debuff to targets we get all or most of our DoTs on. Call it "raging inferno" or some other appropriate name and have it make tech damage or DoTs do increased damage. For example it could be set up where if cgc, inferno missile and thermal detonator DoT are on my target then the target gets the debuff "raging inferno" and DoT damage it increased. If cgc, inferno missile or TD DoT ends then "raging inferno" ceases and DoT damage returns to normal. This could really put the hurt on targets below 30% health that have multiple DoTs. No new abilities need to be added to Pyro and existing abilities remain the same just a new wrinkle in rotation and mindfulness to keeping your DoTs on the target will be added. If the debuff needs those 3 DoTs present then it can only be on 1 target at a time due to thermal detonator and it won't make our PvP metrics change that much.

 

Is anyone else unhappy with the numbers that Pyro dps is putting out?

[Cybridwarform]

The last rated team i was watching stream ran a pyro merc.

 

in all 3 matches i saw the merc top dmg with the sniper right on their neck. so no. pyro is fine. If anything i happen to find pyro to be the most visually boring spec on the merc trees.

[Macroeconomics]

I played ranked pvp with my Merc Pyro and usually got top damage score too. Doesn't change the fact that I would have scored 20% higher with a Marauder or Jugg.

 

Bottom line is that Merc Pyro is the worst pvp subclass in the game right now (and no one uses it for pve either). The abilities it has completely lack synergy - in fact they conflict with each other. Consider the ability to mezz an enemy player. PT Pyros lack that ability (Concussion Missile) so it should be an advantage for Merc Pyro to have it, right? Nope, as a DoT class, mezz is worthless since your DoTs will negate your mezz right away. Correspondingly the Rapid/Healing Scan abilities are supposed to be an advantage to Merc Pyro over PT Pyro. But as a (supposedly) mobile class, the Merc Pyro really has a hard time making good use of the abilities. Overall the subclass is just constructed wrong.

 

But BW still considers Merc Pyro overpowered. Which is why it keeps on nerfing it. However we may have reached a tipping point. As I have noted many times, the lower the usage of a subclass by the player base, the better it looks from a meta average perspective to BW - so BW repeatedly nerfs the least popular subclasses. But once usage hits zero (and I mean literally zero - as in zero warzone matches by that subclass per day on a server), then weird things start happening. Just look at Merc Arsenal. It finally got buffed a couple of months after its usage in warzones was effectively at zero. And Merc Pyro is approaching such levels. So maybe by July a buff of Merc Pyro might be possible.

[HexDecimalUK]

its great against most classes if you stack all the dots and unload on someone while the electro net is on them, provided the arent sins or know how to cure the dots :/ worst part of all is it overheats so quickly and the timed TD is just too easy for people to counter, realy that detonator should be triggered by tech damage so its not so easily negated by things like force shroud.

[Onymus]

I know that when you look at the PvP leader boards Pyro puts up high numbers. The reason for that is all the great AOEs that Pyro takes advantage of along with some of those AOEs adding cgc to people. Pyro can spread the damage around. The problem is that the damage is too spread out and the ability to kill that one target you are going after is diminished. I don't care that I do over 500k damage in a match when I have zero one on one kills and a diminishing number of killing blows.

[TheronFett]

Derp. Post removed...didn't realize this was the Merc section.

 

Edited April 28, 2013 by TheronFett