Re-examine Pyro

[Onymus]

I think Pyro spec lacks needed synergy and big numbers that make other classes and specs fun. This is a game after all and we would all like to have more fun playing it. I am not asking for higher dps numbers per se but rather a tweaking of the skill tree.

 

Here are some skills in the tree and a critique of them

 

Sweltering Heat: reduces movement speed by 30% for 2 seconds when CGC is ticking.

I think this skill is very poor in comparison to what other classes have. I think that the slow from CGC should be removed entirely and Mercs should get a root skill similar to what other classes have, a moderate damage ability with a 5 second root that is removed after 2 seconds if damage occurs. After that is added then from a utility standpoint I think that Sweltering Heat should give Flame Thrower a 70% speed reduction for 2 seconds while ticking. This is comparable to the Arsenal tree skill Pinning Fire on Unload. This would mean that the slow would last for 2 seconds from when Flame Thrower ended AND it would be an AOE slow. This could be important for pvp for defending objectives, peeling off of healers and slowing down ball carriers in Huttball. Also the Merc player would have to weigh simply applying the slow or staying in close range for the duration of Flame Thrower. I imagine that a melee enemy might get rooted for 2 seconds because of damage then get close enough for flame thrower, be slowed again then the merc could pop Hydraulic Overrides to get some distance or escape. (more synergy)

 

Pyro Shield:Lashes enemies that hit you while energy shield active.

This is a very cool looking skill but doesn't seem to do very much. We are not tanks so it makes a very poor saber reflect analog. I would link this ability to heat in some fashion such as making it described as venting excess heat causing the flaming shield effect. I would remove the lash damage but instead make the abiltiy rapidly vent heat to a a set level maybe 50% while the shield is active. That would mean that while the shield is working you could spam abilities (according to existing cast timers and alacrity) without going over 50% heat. If you are hitting your shield button then you are in a race to out damage whatever is hitting you so why not be able to deal out a little more damage? (more synergy)

 

Volatile Warhead: reduces heat from Missile Blast by 2 and applies CGC when missile blast hits. Cannot be applies more than once every 6 seconds.

Getting reduced heat on Missile Blast makes that skill more attractive but not much. With the small damage that CGC does and the time it takes to do damage this skill is not very good. I would entirely revamp the skill. I would have this skill instead work with Incendiary Missile. The skill would be a "boost" skill with a 1 minute cooldown (45 seconds with 2 points in skill). It would simply make the next Incendiary missile do its impact and DoT damage all at once. This would add a once per minute (45 second) burst element to Pyro rotation. A merc player could hit an enemy with a normal Incendiary Missile to apply the DoT then hit them with a Rail Shot, pop Volatile Warhead then smack them with the boosted Incendiary Missile for about the damage of 2 railshots. (more synergy)

 

Suit FOE:Cure now reduces all periodic damage on self by 15% for 6 seconds.

Why is this in the Pyro tree? It should be moved to the Bodyguard tree and apply its effect to the whoever is targeted by Cure. Instead Pyro tree should get the Bodyguard skill Powered Insulators and have it apply to CGC being active.

 

Degauss: Chaff Flare removes all movement impairing effects.

This skill is incredibly good for pvp I am glad that it was moved off of Energy Shield.

 

Jet Rebounder: Increases damage from Jet Boost by 15% and taking damage will reduce cooldown of Jet Boost by .5 seconds. Cannot occur more than once every 1.5 seconds.

Remove the damage increase to Jet Boost and give it a chance to apply CGC to all affected targets, the reduced cooldown is already great.

 

Thermal Detonator: Applies damage after a several seconds then does a DoT for 12 seconds. Standard and weak enemies are knocked down.

This is the capstone skill for Pyro it needs to be better than this. Remove the DoT. Instead have it apply a debuff making the next 10 tech damage hits to the enemy do increased damage. When an enemy gets hit by this skill they should think that they need to hit a defensive cooldown or get away from the mercenary because that debuff means the pain is coming.

 

Also I would like to say that all of the timers on DoTs are too long. There needs to be more of a sense of urgency to the Pyro Mercenary and the damage it does. Most fights do not last very long unless it is an operation boss. I think that all the DoTs should keep the same damage but do it in half the time. This would make the numbers ticking off of the enemy look bigger to the Merc giving them more fun and to the enemy player they would feel that the merc was more of a threat. All other timers and cooldowns could remain the same to not unbalance overall dps. I have played a merc pyro for many months and I am sad that with each patch the fun seems to get sliced away more and more.

[Macroeconomics]

Merc Pyro is dead. It need to remain dead (i.e. zero warzone matches on a server) for 3-4 months before BW will notice and attempt to resurrect it. This is what happened with Arsenal.

 

It's not that your comments are off, it's just that a simple comparative analysis would show that Merc Pyro is demonstrably inferior. For example, let's compare Merc Pyro to Lethality Sniper.

 

Sniper gets cover. Merc gets....hmmm. Oh well.

 

Sniper gets roll. Merc gets HO. Roll is better since it gives you separation faster and allows you to get back into cover while the Merc is still repositioning.

 

Sniper gets Countermeasures. Pyro gets Degauss. Even, right? No. Sniper also gets Evasion which in addition to removing movement impairing effects, it gives you 100% defense to ranged/melee for 3 seconds.

 

Sniper gets two shields, one of which is an awesome AoE shield. Merc Pyro gets one shield. On a CD 2.6x as long as the Snipers. Doh.

 

Sniper knockback has a 5 sec root. Merc knockback does not.

 

Sniper gets dedicated root (Leg Shot). Merc gets no roots.

 

Sniper gets 50% snare for 12 seconds (Sever Tendon). Merc gets 30% snare for 6 seconds (CGC), and the Merc's snare is bugged so it can't be reapplied.

 

Get the picture? I'm not done. Let's look at the damaging attacks, starting with the DoT opener.

 

Merc gets Incendiary Missile. Lethality gets Corrosive Grenade, with 5m extra range, 40% the resource cost of IM, and it's AoE! A. O. E. !!!!! Are you 'effing kidding me?!

 

Secondary DoT - Merc gets CGC. Lethality gets Corrosive Dart. Corrosive Dart does damage more quickly AND has a longer tail. The downside is that Corrosive Dart costs more resources than CGC. Which would matter except Lethality is not a resource constrained platform while Merc Pyro is. Doh.

 

Sniper gets Toxic Regulators. Merc Pyro gets nothing.

 

Merc Pyro gets DFA - small radius, channeled, 1 min CD. Sniper gets Frag Grenade - large radius, instant, 6 sec CD. And it hits as hard as each tick of DFA.

 

I could go on. At every stage, whether defense, attack, burst, cc abilities, etc., Lethality is better than Merc Pyro. Literally, if they made Incendiary Missile an AoE attack that cost half the resources, that still wouldn't put it in the same league as Lethality. That's how big the gap is.

Edited May 3, 2013 by Macroeconomics

[Onymus]

I happen to agree with your thoughts and I also have a Sniper I do both PVE and PVP with so I know about the cool toys that Snipers have. One of the major reasons for the disparity in skills is that Mercs are supposed to use their healing to mitigate and recover from attacks where Snipers have to be able to stop the damage outright. While I may wish for a true "root" ability for Mercenaries our healing will probably be pointed out as a reason not to have it. I don't agree with that idea but that is what I would anticipate.

 

I hope Bioware will take a look at a few of my ideas as well as others in the forums. While I hope that it won't take a year to get Merc Pyro tweaked, I'd like to keep some attention on the issue. My BH was my first character and I still like playing him.

[HexDecimalUK]

If HO actually worked against a sniper's roots i might agree that the healing is a fair trade off to the sniper's shere one-shot-kill DPS as we could actually LOS then and have a chance, since we cant CC in combat then we cant very well heal effectively in a fight not to mention the high heat cost of healing regardless.

 

That said snipers are set up to kill mercs and sorcs, ive got no problem facing them and trying but i don't expect to win and im sure they don't expect to beat sins or ops for the same reason. weird how we can actually fight stealthers despite how much better snipers are supposedly (net-kite-win) cos even in Pyro if they force shroud we can just take the CC or run away with HO and surge-CC THEM as soon as their force shroud or whatever ops have thats equal ends cos force shroud cleanses the dots then we have 8 seconds of free healing as long as vent heat is available.

 

I am putting together a guid for Pyro but i will say now that you wanna try and use theTD/FM/IM together first, then electro not and rail shot/powershot/reset railshot while the dots tick off, then a final IM and unload works wonders because rail shot vents your heat and power shot costs less to.

 

otherwise TD/MB/RS then PS/RS and unload/IM = kiting gold

Edited May 4, 2013 by HexDecimalUK

[KillaDeuce]

Sniper now can get a passive heal when in cover. 2 skill points middle tree tier one.

[mandoforlife]

I literally just posted a reply on a very similar thread in the BH section. I'm just copying and pasting my response here:

 

And constructive criticism I shall give. First off, I'd like to say one thing: I agree with the overall argument of your post that Arsenal is superior to Pyro in almost every way. Which is sad, because I love playing both specs in PvP, but I can't bring myself to switch to Pyro every once in awhile because it just doesn't perform well. You will hear the complaint from both Mercenaries and Powertechs: Pyro has almost no burst anymore, which, as any good PvPer know, is king. I always thought of Pyro as the "chase" spec for mercs, a very Bounty Hunter-centric spec embracing the idea of the hunt. I always felt that, if there was ever to be a functioning OWPvP system, this would be a great spec for a Mercenary in a small group roaming team. So, time for criticism and suggestions.

 

1) Your idea about Unload and Powershot being usable on the move: while it may seem like a good and simple idea, this mechanic isn't present anywhere in the game (casting on the move), so I don't think it is a very practical change. If anything, I'd say just add this to the skill Power Barrels: "reduces the activation time of Powershot by 1.5 seconds and Unload channels and ticks twice as fast.". This would make Powershot instant cast, and allow Pyro Mercs to get all the damage from Unload in. As of right now, unless you are freecasting, many mercs will cut off Unload once its procced Railshot, which is a loss in damage but a boost in mobility. Making Unload channel and tick twice as fast would allow us to pack in the damage while keeping chase on the enemy. Yes, I stole that skill from Marksmanship snipers.

 

2) Your thought on the fact that Velocity gets heat dissipation while CGC doesn't: without it, Arsenal would overheat like crazy. Even though Pyro requires the most resource management out if any class in 2.1 (imo), it doesn't need that skill. If anything, I'd say just reduce the heat cost of IM and add a talent reducing the heat cost of ED. About IM: Austin (class balance dev) said their goal was to make it easier for all classes to spread out DoTs. While i highly discourage tab dotting the enemy with IM, agents and other DoT class got their DoT's costs reduced while Pyros didn't. Not too fair. And secondly, on ED: for those that have been here since launch like I have, you'll remember how TD and ED used to share a CD. Well, this was changed later on to help PTs with damage after their range nerf, and inadvertently helped Mercs (woo!). But, in doing so, they added even more heat to our optimal burst rotation. So, I'd just suggest adding a talent to reduce the heat cost of ED. Both of those small reductions would help tremendously with heat management in my opinion.

 

3) All your thoughts on Thermal Det: I agree. 110%. The change to TD was the nail in to coffin for this spec in PvP. That was the bread and butter for our burst set up (along with RS of course). Before 2.0, I would consistently have TD hit for 4.5k on a crit, and lucky 5k's on Sages. On the PTS for 2.0 before the TD change (*cough*burstnerf*cough*), it was hitting for 7k on a crit. And that was in non-augmented PvE gear. Now on live, it hits for about the sane amount of damage as Powershot on a crit (3k-3.5k range) with a DoT that, quite frankly, is weak. I'd simply say, change TD back to its original form. That's all I can think of to help TD- they could add some sort of debuff after the initial explosion to increase DoT damage or something to help PvE, but who knows.

 

4) I don't think you mentioned this, but it needs to be brought up: the CGC nerf. I had CGC hitting for 1k on a crit on a player below 30%. This helped immensely with taking down those pesky runners. When they increased the application rate of CGC to 50%, they halved the damage. This was bad change for two reasons:

 

- This makes the Missile Salvo 100% application of CGC talent completely and utterly pointless (an ability and talent they hyped up on the PTS). Why does it make it pointless you ask? Because I can basically get a guaranteed application through Rapid Shots, with 0 heat to boot.

 

- Halving the damage took away from our sustained, burst, and takedown power. It just... Grr. It speaks for itself.

 

So, I'd say just reduce the application chance to its previous amount, and restore its previous damage range.

 

There's my long post about Pyro. Let me know what you think.

[Gyronamics]

I'd say PS crits for more like 5.5k

 

It does ~200% damage on a crit due to 30% multi talent which if chained with 30% crit boost from 2x2 bonus is an extremely aggressive spam cast which is sustainable for quite a long time if laced with the RS procs.

[mandoforlife]

I'd say PS crits for more like 5.5k

 

It does ~200% damage on a crit due to 30% multi talent which if chained with 30% crit boost from 2x2 bonus is an extremely aggressive spam cast which is sustainable for quite a long time if laced with the RS procs.

 

Could be true. I was at Starbucks, it was loud. Blenders blending. But I don't recall seeing the 2.0 TD hitting over 4k on a crit so far.

[Gyronamics]

Yeah well they shafted it.

 

It WAS a 6k+ crit for most of PTS and now its about 4k crit and another 2k burn which goes on forever.

Edited May 19, 2013 by Gyronamics

[Kameki]

Some suggesitons:

 

Of course, not all should be implemented at the same time. I dont play Powertech, so some might not apply to them.

 

-40% of the damage by Thermal Detonator is now added as AoE damage, 5m radius.

-Thermal Detonator now also does damage equal to 6 seconds of Incendiary Missile if present on the target and increases the duration by IM by 6 seconds.

-When Thermal Detonator is used on a target with IM, it will now spread IM to 3-5 nearby targets.

-Fusion Missile will affect 1-2 additional targets.

-Instead of lashing attackers, Pyro Shields will make Energy Shield do constant AoE damage near the user each second for the duration.

-Pyro Shields will make the Energy Shield explode when it has run out, dealing high amount of AoE damage near the merc or knocking nearby enemies down.

-Flame Thrower deals an additional 15-25% damage for each DoT by the merc on the target. (CGC, IM and TD, FM)

 

These suggestions make Pyrotech more viable for AoE, allowing it to fill a niche not filled by Arnesal.

 

Also, for some reason, Power Shot doesnt seem like the right filler for Pyrotech in my opinion. What I would like to see is somethign along the lines of making Missle Blast the filler and making Power Shot some form of execute mechanic (Pyrotech only).

Edited May 24, 2013 by Kameki