Thread: Come join my powwow on fire...

Come find a place somewhere near my camp fire and let's talk about the use of Fire to cleanse the world of evils. Ye all know that in the beginning our Fire was like the Inferno that burns worlds but alas, then came the great Balancing and our Fire became weak, costly and difficult to master. Many turns of both moon and stars passed before Fire yet again found its proper place in this world yet what was returned to us was, despite its flaming glory, bursty and requires long repetitious litanies of ridicule to be efficient. Rumors now whisper of changes a-coming to our family of casters. Who amongst our fellow writers in stone are willing to come forth and cast their skills in Vision and Foretelling so that we may see how our Fire can be changed for the betterment of Middle Earth?

You there, young padawan, you look like you have fresh ideas to help feed our hungry souls. Come, do not be affraid to share your thoughts...
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In short : 70% of a fire rotation is spent spamming Fiery Ridicule. This is not fun. In what way would *you* like to see the fire line changed to make it more enjoyable? Please refrain from suggestions that would result in more than 10% increase in the total damage output. Motivate each of your suggestions with why something was bad before and why it has become better now. Please also include changes to Legacies, Traits and trait bonuses.
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Problem : Cleansing Fires DPS output is heavily dependent on the burst output from Improved Essay of Fire (iEoF). The zero-induction form of some skills have force a post-skill delay to be added to prevent exploitive use of those skills. Skill rotation becomes bound to the availability of a single long cooldown skill.

Analysis : The burst DPS from iEoF does not generate good game-play. Rune-Keepers hit iEoF, spam a few Fiery Ridicules (FR), Essence of Flame (EoF), Distracting/Mystifying Flame (MF) or Scathing Mockery (SM). The remaining 55 seconds until iEoF is again off cooldown is spent spamming FR, and some other stray skills. Also, Fellowship Manouvers and need to move may make this short burst unavailable.

Solution : Remove the burst effect from iEoF and replace it with a smaller induction time reduction over a longer time.
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Problem : The current skill set of Cleansing Fires contain one spam skill (FR), one short cooldown skill (WoF), one medium cooldown skill (EoF) and the rest are medium to long cooldowns. For a pure fire rotation there is very little that can be done to change the fact that FR will be used 70% of the time! (The equivalent use if CA in a lightning rotation is about 35%)

Analysis : The distribution of cooldowns in the Wrath of Flame skill set is sub-optimal for varied skill rotations. The problem is accentuated by the burst effect of iEoF. Without the fires set from Orthanc there is no reason to use Writ of Fire more often than every 15 (25) seconds.

Solution : Introduce new skills into fire rotations. These skills do not need to be fire skills as long as there is a good synergy between the skills used.
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Problem : Smouldering Wrath (SW) damage output is too low, making it redundant in skill rotations.

Analysis : The damage component of SW ans mitigation debuff are too weak.

Solution : The skill needs to be buffed somewhat and made more available.
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So how to change Cleansing Fires so that it becomes more varied and fun to play while not making it over-powered or too complex?

Changes to skills

1. Improved Essay of Fire no longer eliminates induction for 5 seconds. Instead it gives reduced knock-back from damage and -20% power cost on all Wrath of Flame skills for 20 seconds. Up-front damage increased +100%.
2. Critical hits from Ceaseless Argument, Scribe's Spark, Essay of Storm, Shocking Words and Sustaining Bolt give -10% skill induction time for Wrath of Flames skills for 20 seconds, can stack up to 3 times.
3. Epic Conclusion resets the cooldowns of iEoF and Smouldering Wrath.
4. Smouldering Wrath DoT reduced by 15% to make room for a post-channel damaging wound (can be potted by creeps), Lingering Wrath. Lingering Wrath tiers up for each tick of SW with 5% of the damage output from SW (maximum is thus tier-8). Each tick renews the Enflamed Runes buff.
5. Lingering Wrath (wound) - Duration 10 seconds. Effects : -15% fire mitigation. On Expiry : Deals fire damage to the target.
6. Casting Essay of Storm or Shocking Words on a target with Lingering Wrath will expire the debuff and increase the fire damage done by +50% damage.
7. Casting Writ of Fire on a target with an active Writ of Cold will give an armour debuff on the target (cracked armour). The magnitude of the debuff depends on the tier of WoC and gives -5%/-10%/-25% armour mitigation for 6 seconds.
8. Casting Writ of Cold on a target with an active Writ of Fire will give a miss-chance debuff (steam impairs vision). Debuff magnitude depends on the tier of the WoF and gives +10%/+20%/+50% miss chance for 6 seconds.

Changes to traits
Linnod of Subtlety removed : Effect is instead implemented as a 4-trait bonus.
Inferno, replaced Linnod of Subtlety : Makes Fiery Ridicule and Essence of Fire into AoE attacks.
Conflagration of Runes : AoE on Fiery Ridicule moved to Inferno.
Scathing Retort : Implements the Lingering Wrath change
Frost-Burn : Also enables the EoF and EoC synergy effects (7) and (8) in addition to reducing WoC cooldown.
Tale of Rage : Also enables the Solitary Thunder synergy effects (2) and (3) in addition to enabling the Enflamed Runes buff.

Changes to trait bonuses
Added 4-trait bonus : Calming Verse duration increased +30 seconds, fire damage increased +10%, fire thread reduced -10%.

Summary
The burst DPS from Improved Essay of Fire is replaced by a smoother induction reduction mechanism obtained by using lightning skills. The benefit from this is two-fold: (1) less dependency on one skill to maximize DPS and (2) it motivates the inclusion of five new skills into a fire rotation! The numbers -10%, 20 seconds and 3 times may need to be adjusted so that the average damage output is about the same as with the current iEoF. Coupling it to critical hits (even a fully fire traited/geared RK should have more than 15% crit chance) gives an interesting trade-off between Finesse and Crit.

Epic Conclusion normaly have a long cooldown (90 seconds) which means that this change is more of a spice rather than a great change. It will, however, make traiting Closing Remarks in a fire build an interesting option. This in turn opens up for different builds depending on situation. The goal here being increased variety rather than performance increase.

I've found that Smouldering Wrath just barely motivates its existance. Most of the time it actually lowers my average DPS! To be honest, I mostly use SW when I need to drink some water or give my hands some rest... The Lingering Wrath debuff (wound) has the nice touch of being a buff while active but you can also use it to deal extra damage, much like the iFA buff Burglars have. Do you use it now or later? This becomes extra interesting in PvMP where creeps can pot the wound and avoid the post-cast damage!

I also included the two synergy effects between Writ of Cold and Writ of Fire to add some utility and DPS increase (up to -25% armour mitigation and +50% miss-chance) and also bring in more motivation to use Writ of Cold.

While I realize that these changes are not Perfect(tm) I do think they would improve the life of Fire loving Rune-Keepers. Ok, I'm now wearing my asbestos clothing and tin-foil hat so fire away!

You've got some good ideas. Making Essence of Fire an AoE would help reduce the need to spam FR, and the Writ combinations sound awesome. Perhaps they could be utilized by healing RKs if a blue trait that made the damage writs become healing-attuned debuffs. However, perhaps the LW debuff from SW should be unremovable, as it could end up being a very tempting reason to take Fire to the Moors.

i would like to see more AOE with Fiery Ridicule 5+ targets bigger AOE area and a lot more single target DPS out of Distracting Flame. SO spam Fiery Ridicule for aoe fights and Distracting Flame for single target.

And just remove the induction from Scathing Mockery.

I did think a bit about lightning as well but that line has a decent rotation/skill set as it is. My suggestion there would be to build synergy between WoC and EoS/SW to get the armour debuff and between WoF and EoS/SW for AoE splash damage. For healing it would be the same as lightning but trigger on Scribe's Spark instead of EoS/SW.

Given that Smouldering Wrath does about 500-700 per tick you get the after damage to hit for about 250 so I think we might want to buff that after-damage to 25%/tick to give it some more bite (I did the maths at work so I was unsure about the damage level of SW). That's about 1.3k of damage on the Lingering Wrath with a potential of 50% more. We must also remember that SW does about 4k-6k of damage as it is so that's a total of about 5.5k-9k over 10 seconds + any other DoTs that you have running + EoS/SW (1k-1.5k). I still think that the Lingering Wrath debuff should be potable just to give that extra strategic importance. Do I let the debuff linger for +15% fire damage or do I cash in NOW to avoid it being removed?

Originally Posted by ifreborn1

i would like to see more AOE with Fiery Ridicule 5+ targets bigger AOE area and a lot more single target DPS out of Distracting Flame. SO spam Fiery Ridicule for aoe fights and Distracting Flame for single target.

And just remove the induction from Scathing Mockery.

The problem here is that with those kinds of changes we're pushing damage output through the roof. The idea is to make fire more fun, not make it burn everything to cinders with one skill (even though that would be enjoyable ). With -30% induction time you're down to 2 seconds induction which seems bearable to me. Although, the -30% induction time buff may need to be tuned to keep DPS about the same as we have with the current iEoF madness.

I'll restate, the primary goal with these suggestions is to avoid having to spam ONE skill more than 35% of the time to get maximum performance and to introduce more viable fire builds.

Sorry, but I'd rather not have any lightning skills into my fire rotations, thank you.
It's kinda sad, but one of the best things about RKs is that we are almost free of the LI lottery and your changes would change us from the best class in that lottery to the worst (passives AND majors).
Secondly, effects on crits is against everything the fire-line is all about.

FR just needs an alternative, that's all. A single, spammable skill with synergies attached to other fire-skills to force more complex rotations.

Anyways, thanks for bringing this up. It's not good that FR is the only optimal skill for AOE encounters, once you get the Orthanc set. Even without it, fire rotations are too focused on that single skill.

There are slight changes coming, though. But they won't rid this issue, especially not for ST DPS, so we might as well give ZC some ideas.

OP, I categorically disagree with most of the changes you've proposed. However, I do agree with most of the problems you've brought up. Don't worry, I'm not gonna troll you; there is some sound reasoning here. Take a look:

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

Improved Essay of Fire no longer eliminates induction for 5 seconds. Instead it gives reduced knock-back from damage and -20% power cost on all Wrath of Flame skills for 20 seconds. Up-front damage increased +100%.

I kinda like the induction reduction. Sure, it promotes spamming FR, but it also makes it very easy to get Mystifying Flame and Essence of Flame of very quickly. It also makes it easy to get off Scathing Mockery, rather than suffer through that so-not-worth-it induction. It also helps to replace DoT's that have been wiped off by a scripted event, a problem that RK's have been literally battling for years.

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

Critical hits from Ceaseless Argument, Scribe's Spark, Essay of Storm, Shocking Words and Sustaining Bolt give -10% skill induction time for Wrath of Flames skills for 20 seconds, can stack up to 3 times.

Epic Conclusion resets the cooldowns of iEoF and Smouldering Wrath.

Casting Essay of Storm or Shocking Words on a target with Lingering Wrath will expire the debuff and increase the fire damage done by +50% damage.

Never. Fury of Storm skills should not interact Wrath of Flame skills. Call me a purist at heart. I can concede MAYBE ONE interaction between the 2 DPS lines, but on the whole, no way.

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

Smouldering Wrath DoT reduced by 15% to make room for a post-channel damaging wound (can be potted by creeps), Lingering Wrath. Lingering Wrath tiers up for each tick of SW with 5% of the damage output from SW (maximum is thus tier-8). Each tick renews the Enflamed Runes buff.

Lingering Wrath (wound) - Duration 10 seconds. Effects : -15% fire mitigation. On Expiry : Deals fire damage to the target.

No. Why? I have a better idea, and it doesn't involve changing Smouldering Wrath at all. Details below.

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

Casting Writ of Fire on a target with an active Writ of Cold will give an armour debuff on the target (cracked armour). The magnitude of the debuff depends on the tier of WoC and gives -5%/-10%/-25% armour mitigation for 6 seconds.

Casting Writ of Cold on a target with an active Writ of Fire will give a miss-chance debuff (steam impairs vision). Debuff magnitude depends on the tier of the WoF and gives +10%/+20%/+50% miss chance for 6 seconds.

I like where you're going here, but the problem is the way the 2 interact. You seem to be treating them as separate events: Writ of Fire "detecting" Writ of Cold, and WoC "detecting" WoF. That's not how it works. The game engine can only detect one event: When BOTH conditions are on the target. So you should perhaps compress all of the new debuffs you've proposed into 1 simple debuff. I like the name "Cracked Armor," and I like that whole general idea better than the "Steamy Fog" idea. I think maybe adding the total of the tiers of WoF and WoC (total of 6) reduces Tactical Mitigation by 1% per tier, to a total of 6%.

OK. So I've broken your whole idea down to Parade Rest. Lemme build it back up with a couple ideas of my own.

1) Fiery Ridicule spamming is the problem, so changing Fiery Ridicule should be the solution (rather than changing everything else around it). Currently, my FR hits for between 500 - 1000 on the initial hit, and about 200 - 500 for each tick. No wonder people spam it! Solution: Firstly, the initial hit should be the same as the DoT ticks. Secondly, the DoT shouldn't tick for more than 100 damage each. Eliminate the need to stand still. Replace the 1.5s induction with a 1.5s cooldown. This way, you can spam it as much as you want, but it won't hit that hard on its own. Players will need to use other skills to achieve any kind of worthwhile DPS. In the end, FR will resemble a DPS version of Prelude to Hope. Usable on the run, low DPS DoT. Leave Conflagration of Runes alone though; a low-damage AOE DoT would still be useful, especially if Scathing Mockery were useful at all.

2) Not sure how long you've played your RK, but Essence of Flame used to be a DoT. A high-damage, short-duration DoT that did more damage for every Tier of Writ of Fire, on a long cooldown. Now, it's basically a gimpy Epic Conclusion with an induction. Solution: PUT IT BACK! You hear that, Zombie? I want my DoT back, and I'm not the only one! Essence of Flame used to have perfect synergy with Smouldering Wrath. Essence was an 8-second duration DoT, and Smouldering Wrath applied a Fire damage debuff... for 8 seconds. Using Essence of Flame right before channeling SmW was as close as I ever got to a firegasm, especially when T3 Writ of Fire and Mystifying Flame were already ticking. It worked in perfect harmony. And then Zombie messed it up.

Wrath of Flame skills USED to be about juggling DoT's. Now, it's about spamming Fiery Ridicule. Lame. If I wanted to spam something, I'd trait Fury of Storm and faceroll.

Originally Posted by Ruintheliel

Sorry, but I'd rather not have any lightning skills into my fire rotations, thank you.
It's kinda sad, but one of the best things about RKs is that we are almost free of the LI lottery and your changes would change us from the best class in that lottery to the worst (passives AND majors).
Secondly, effects on crits is against everything the fire-line is all about.

FR just needs an alternative, that's all. A single, spammable skill with synergies attached to other fire-skills to force more complex rotations.

Anyways, thanks for bringing this up. It's not good that FR is the only optimal skill for AOE encounters, once you get the Orthanc set. Even without it, fire rotations are too focused on that single skill.

There are slight changes coming, though. But they won't rid this issue, especially not for ST DPS, so we might as well give ZC some ideas.

One of the boundary conditions I imposed on myself was that I couldn't add more skills and I couldn't radically change what they do. Effects, buffs and synergies could be added. It would've been so easy to add a couple of short cooldown fire skills and voilá! A more varied skill rotation but it would still fail to acomplish the primary goal of making fire more enjoyable! Would it have been more fun to have Fiery Ridicule 1, Fiery Ridicule 2, and Fiery Ridicule 3 as buttons, all with 5 second cooldowns compared to one button with no cooldown?

More skills does not automatically imply greater variety. In fact, I'm sure that adding sequence based buffs would be equally good for the fire line and give no reason to tie in lightning skills. For instance, Casting WoF after FR gives a short duration -% induction time. If followed by Essence of Fire that buff is increased in potency and also reduces the active cooldown on SmW. Etc and so on. Add synergies betwen skills rather than add new ones.

The LI lottery would not be affected *at all* by this. You'd still use the same old LI you had before. The damage traits tied to lightning skills and the actual damage output would/should be irrelevant compared to the bonus they would give to the fire line. If the buff is good enough it shouldn't matter that you don't have +10% lightning damage and +30% crit multiplier.

I can respect a purist point of view, even though I don't share it myself and it feels to me more like complaining that the view is boring while at the same time refusing to pull your head out of the waste bucket and thinking that a bigger waste bucket would improve the situation. Having a different point of view does not mean that the other pary is wrong!

I can agree that tying it to crit might not have been the best of ideas. A better solution might be to allow all those skills to always give the buff, but reduce the duration somewhat. Hitting one lightning skill every 15 seconds to maintain a -30% induction buff doesn't feel too awful. In fact, you're probably hitting CV once a minute to get +10% damage anyway, this would just be another way to get a buff.

I like your suggestions, although i guess people is too used to have separate damage on Lightning and Fire, and as Ruintheliel has pointed out, we wouldn´t get good LIs this way.

What Fire needs is just to add one or two new skills to the rotation, and change some things. There are multiple options: we can get EoF to be a dot again (maybe with just 2-3 pulses so we still have some burst damage while in Fire), we can change Smouldering Wrath to be useful again, ...

I guess considering Fire is working so well (despite being too boring), ZC will take some time on changing it. Beware, after the changes we might end up having less DPS than now.

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

OP, I categorically disagree with most of the changes you've proposed. However, I do agree with most of the problems you've brought up. Don't worry, I'm not gonna troll you; there is some sound reasoning here. Take a look:

Ok, I'm not going to paste in all that you replied. Please just scroll up to see that post for details

The main problem with the fire line is actually, in my oppinion, FR and iEoF coupled with the fact that there is no other spamable fire skill that even compares to FR. So why is that:

1. The initial damage burst forces tanks to do poor openings. Slap in iEoF + 5xFR and you're sure to get visitors in the near future unless the tank gets block and parry responses to build enough threat. Don't even try it on Wardens
2. It generates stale game play. Fire play becomes too focused on the use of two skills, one with long:ish cooldown and one spam skill. Boring!
3. The magnitude of the burst forces the developers to reduce the potency of other skills, thus making the situation even worse. iEoF+FR becomes the only viable way to go.

Sure, some of the long induction skills become viable but only once a minute.

I don't understand the purist point of view. That doesn't mean it's wrong or bad, I just don't get it. Fire play is boring but hey, I've got these other seven cool skills that could be used to liven up the situation if only there were some way to get synergy between the skills... I still respect your point of view!

You seem quite knowledge about how the lotro game engine works. I'm not privy to any such knowledge but the act of applying a Writ of any kind would cause the caster to somehow interact with the target object, e.g. to check if a tier-1 or tier-2 of WoF should be applied, meaning that also looking for an active WoC at that time should not (note my lack of detailed knowledge on how the actual game engine is implemented) be rocket science. The caster object would then note that a WoC is active and then also apply the debuff.

Reducing FR in the way you propose would make DPS plumet like a rock, you'd need more changes to make it viable, for instance a much longer duration to allow it to stack more. I don't have access to numbers atm but I'm guessing that FR is responsible for the bulk of the damage in fire DPS. The second problem with the change you propose is that there is nothing worthwhile to replace it with in a rotation! You can use WoF, but the initial damage is equal to the tick (unless you're using the ToO fire set). Casting WoF would simply burn power.

I remember the glory days when the MV HoT pulse was something to reckon with. Is that long enough? But I do agree with you that Essence of Flame should be reverted into a DoT. Still does not alter the rotations very much as you've not done anything to change the relationships between cooldowns and cast times. It's still on a 20 second cooldown leaving a big gaping 20 second hole to fill with FR because SmW is on a 60 second cooldown so it can't be used all the time...

I can't see how any of the suggestions you made would improve a fire rotation or make it more varied. We're still stuck with FR as the only spam option. Still stuck with most skills on long cooldowns. Still stuck with DPS that is bursty once every minute.

i agree with your last sentence malf except the part about lightning being a faceroll
there are many cool and interactive ways to use lightning
READ AND LEARN ALL FACEROLLING LIGHTNING RK's!!!!!!

For example, SS does more damage than CA, but CA is harder to resist (+1500 effective finesse), do you need just a little without it being resisted to finish a mob, saving SS for the first blow on the next mob, or do you need to spike it? (potentially over-DPSing) how good is the resist of what you're facing? is it being healed? (therefore in need of spiking) which lightning buffs do you have up currently? (thunderous words and/or harsh debate)
keep in mind that if you use an enamel at the start of the fight you're less likely to have thunderous words and/or harsh debate up for your harder hitting skills like SW SB and EoS not even counting EC.

If you hit SS first it will cooldown quicker giving more uses, also, SS does +2% damage for each level of attunement.

Remember that your SS and CA buffs last 20 seconds each, try to keep them both up if possible rather than button mashing. if they're both up and you're not using another skill, hit the skill that corresponds to the one closest to expiring. you can keep track by either counting the 20 seconds from when it came up or mousing over it. (depends on whether you're a mouse turner or not)

Are you trying to hit shocking words as soon as it's available looking for spike damage, or are you preserving it for it's +7% chance to stun per attunement? also consider, if you have perfect imagery up you may want to use it to blow all your hard hitting skills for the +30% crit chance. Or do you want to save it for an emergency or a prelude to EC?

EoS does +100% damage on a crit and get's +3% to crit per attunement, if your base crit is high enough you can make that a 95% chance to crit with all your buffs up! most people hit it as soon as it's available (which CAN be fine, but usually means they aren't critting.)

There is also a more advanced aspect to EoS, by that I mean the winter storm trait. the ability to AoE as a lightning RK, EXAMPLE: start the fight with WoC hit 2 times then enamel, you now have 6 attunement. hit perfect imagery to stun them and keep them in place, hit EoW, followed by a EoS this will reset your EoW theyre still stunned so hit it again. btw you now have 10 attunement, hit FE. now they're all very dead and very debuffed if they aren't dead, and you still haven't even used SW or EC yet! and thanks to that 15 second buff from PI, you still got time to hit them with them. (those EoW debuffs stack their time on each other btw)

SB should always be hit while charged, just before you hit EC, not pressed just cause it's up. and most rk's hit EC as soon as it's available, without even looking to see what buffs are up, and usually without the PI buff up.

here is the biggest lightning RK mistake i see on a daily basis: multiple mobs..... current mob on 2k get's EC'd for 5-8k.......
What a waste! a good dpser will switch to a second mob and hit their EC then switch back to the first and finish it off with EoS or SW

this is only covering the surface of the nuances to playing lightning to it's full potential, there's far more to it than just what i wrote here. so if you're a faceroller, read what i wrote again, memorize it, apply it, and stop giving lightning a bad name.

~sincerely Kalymnor, Lightning RK of Brandywine.

Originally Posted by Bradegor

... we wouldn´t get good LIs this way.

This I don't understand! Honestly! I truly don't get it! The knee-jerk reaction seems to be "oh gosh, I can't use a lightning skill without maxed damage and crit mult legacies even if the buff I get makes my game play more enjoyable AND increases my overall DPS... I would have to swap stones for this so now I need two 1st-agers. You stupid boy when will you learn to think?". (Or as the WoW kids would say, "hey noob, l2p" followed by vote-kick)

Ok, I admit that coupling the induction reduction buff (which is there to compensate for the removal of the iEoF burst) to critical hits was not awesomesauce. Let's just say that any lightning skill will give you the buff and the duration is 20 seconds. There, you need to use exactly 3 lightning skills every minute and given that each skill takes 1.5 seconds we're using 4.5 seconds every 60 seconds, i.e. 7.5% of the total time. Time where fire DoTs will continue to tick! If the buff you get gives more than a 7.5% increase in DPS we're home free to completely disregard the damage of those 3 lightning skills. -30% skill induction takes FR from 2.4 seconds to 2 second total cast time resulting in a throughput increase of 16.67%...

Or put it this way, if "enjoyment from a more varied fire rotation" < "enjoyment from having every skill have max performance at any isolated time, but game play is stale" then sure my proposal won't be your cup of tea.

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

I don't understand the purist point of view. That doesn't mean it's wrong or bad, I just don't get it. Fire play is boring but hey, I've got these other seven cool skills that could be used to liven up the situation if only there were some way to get synergy between the skills... I still respect your point of view!

I think the reason I like fire and lightning separate is that they were originally intended for very different gameplay. Fire was intended to be the "highest DPS as long as I don't have to do anything else" line, and lightning was intended to be the "still very good DPS that lets me run and do a few other things to stay alive" line. Wrath of Flame for raids, where there will always be a tank and a healer. Fury of Storm when the RK is always on his/her own, and has to figure out how to DPS and still live. I think that blurring the lines between the 2 play styles would eventually result in there only being one way to play a RK. Everyone would settle on the trait setup/LI setup/gear setup that would maximize DPS and survivability; everyone would play the same way. Having 2 completely separate lines ensures that people will be forced to choose a play style, and that bonuses for one will be detriments to the other. Your ideas for interaction between the 2 lines might initially appear to increase variety, but in the end, everyone would figure out some "optimum" setup, and everyone would play that way, effectively REDUCING variety.

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

You seem quite knowledge about how the lotro game engine works. I'm not privy to any such knowledge but the act of applying a Writ of any kind would cause the caster to somehow interact with the target object, e.g. to check if a tier-1 or tier-2 of WoF should be applied, meaning that also looking for an active WoC at that time should not (note my lack of detailed knowledge on how the actual game engine is implemented) be rocket science. The caster object would then note that a WoC is active and then also apply the debuff.

The short story is that it would completely change how buffs/debuffs interact with each other across all classes, and probably all mobs/creeps too. The programming used to allow 2 buffs/debuffs to interact was implemented across the whole game. It's not financially worth it to rewrite that code just for one class, nor is it worth it to rewrite that code and implement it for the entire game. Especially when the code that is currently in place works pretty well, even though it's not exactly what you are asking for.

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

Reducing FR in the way you propose would make DPS plumet like a rock, you'd need more changes to make it viable, for instance a much longer duration to allow it to stack more. I don't have access to numbers atm but I'm guessing that FR is responsible for the bulk of the damage in fire DPS. The second problem with the change you propose is that there is nothing worthwhile to replace it with in a rotation! You can use WoF, but the initial damage is equal to the tick (unless you're using the ToO fire set). Casting WoF would simply burn power.

Great idea! Make it last longer! My Prelude to Hope lasts something like 75 seconds... why couldn't FR? Of course, stacking it with a longer duration would serve to increase the DPS. And limiting the amount it stacks... say, to 5, would ensure that it wouldn't be TOO spammable. This would open up future modifications such as bonuses that add ticks, that allow higher stacking, and raw DPS increase.


With regard to "replacing" it in a rotation, that's not the idea at all. I don't want to replace FR completely; I just want to make it so that our job is to make sure it stays ticking, rather than spamming it until my finger turns blue. WoF would never replace it, nor would any other DoT. WoF would be ticking WITH FR. Both at the same time. Along with all the other DoT's (MF, a fixed Essence of Flame, Smouldering Wrath). The way I envision it, FR would be used as a way to do moderate DPS, but still leave room for other DoT's to shine. And you could use it while running, so that you don't have to completely stop DPS if you need to, say, move out of a cloud, or kite a particularly nasty mob that is about to kill you.

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

I remember the glory days when the MV HoT pulse was something to reckon with. Is that long enough? But I do agree with you that Essence of Flame should be reverted into a DoT. Still does not alter the rotations very much as you've not done anything to change the relationships between cooldowns and cast times. It's still on a 20 second cooldown leaving a big gaping 20 second hole to fill with FR because SmW is on a 60 second cooldown so it can't be used all the time...

If you mean Mystifying Flame, it's still something to reckon with. Properly set up, mine does 508 - 725 damage every 5 seconds for 30 seconds. Doing the math, that's between 118 and 169 DPS. For 1 skill. And that doesn't even count the Resist Rating bonus, which buffs other DoT's.


This also brings a good point to light: cooldowns. This is another thing that has been utterly butchered by the class dev. Because FR and MF are now spammable (and WoF has a very short cooldown), you end up waiting for other skills to come off cooldown. I agree that the cooldown is too long on Essence and on Smouldering Wrath. BUT... if our DoT's lasted a little longer, and we weren't constantly spamming FR, we wouldn't notice long cooldowns because of how many other things we'd be doing (keeping Calming Verse up, keeping Fall to Flame/Wrath up, Self-Motivation, refreshing other DoT's). I think it might be a good idea to have the cooldown for Essence of Flame and Smouldering Wrath reduced by 5 seconds for each Wrath of Flame DoT; this would definitely encourage DoT juggling rather than spamming one skill. Not sure if that is possible though.

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

I can't see how any of the suggestions you made would improve a fire rotation or make it more varied. We're still stuck with FR as the only spam option. Still stuck with most skills on long cooldowns. Still stuck with DPS that is bursty once every minute.

It would improve the Fire Rotation by making it less dependent on Fiery Ridicule and more focused on keeping everything ticking. Limiting the DPS for FR would reduce the desire to spam it, as would limiting the amount it stacks. This could be compensated by making it a longer DoT. It will do the same amount of damage, just over a longer period of time. Cooldown reductions that depend on the number of DoT's ticking would also encourage DoT juggling. This would discourage spamming and reduce burstiness.


My point is not to make a more varied Fire Rotation. I don't think we need anymore variety, and I don't think I'm alone in that. I DO think we need a shift in tactics (maintaining DoT's vs. spamming 1 skill).

Originally Posted by loki84

i agree with your last sentence malf except the part about lightning being a faceroll
there are many cool and interactive ways to use lightning
READ AND LEARN ALL FACEROLLING LIGHTNING RK's!!!!!!

Yeah, yeah, there are subtleties to Fury of Storm, sure. But you can still faceroll and win doing it. You can't do that with Wrath of Flame.

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

Yeah, yeah, there are subtleties to Fury of Storm, sure. But you can still faceroll and win doing it. You can't do that with Wrath of Flame.

true sadly, at least PRE-RoI, flame was really complex, now i find myself hitting IEoF followed by a spam of fiery ridicule which i can push with my nose. fire should return to pre-RoI days, except, i'd really miss the AoE, but fire absolutely shouldn't have burst dps higher than lightnings.......... it's *ahem* stealing our thunder.

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

... I think that blurring the lines between the 2 play styles would eventually result in there only being one way to play a RK. Everyone would settle on the trait setup/LI setup/gear setup that would maximize DPS and survivability; everyone would play the same way. Having 2 completely separate lines ensures that people will be forced to choose a play style, and that bonuses for one will be detriments to the other.

I agree wholehearetly!

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

Your ideas for interaction between the 2 lines might initially appear to increase variety, but in the end, everyone would figure out some "optimum" setup, and everyone would play that way, effectively REDUCING variety.

I was perhaps unclear and/or ambiguous in my OP. These changes are intended to change Cleansing Fire traited play and not to affect game play when traited for Solitary Thunder. My apologies for being unclear on that! In my mind it was always implied.

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

The short story is that it would completely change how buffs/debuffs interact with each other across all classes, and probably all mobs/creeps too. The programming used to allow 2 buffs/debuffs to interact was implemented across the whole game. It's not financially worth it to rewrite that code just for one class, nor is it worth it to rewrite that code and implement it for the entire game. Especially when the code that is currently in place works pretty well, even though it's not exactly what you are asking for.

Again you must have the better knowledge to write as you do. In fact, it sounds like you either are or have been a developer of an MMO (no necessarily lotro). To me, who can only apply basic programming know-how, it is just one actor applying an effect to another actor. Take the Lore-Master skill Lightning Storm as an already existing example. It must (1) collect all nearby monster actors, (2) check which of the collected actors that have Ancient Craft active, (3) apply 3 damage attacks to those that pass (1) and (2). Implementation wise it may be that (1) and (2) are a single pass where AC is just another condition, the other being distance from world coordinate x,y,z, when harvesting actors from the world.

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

Great idea! Make it last longer! My Prelude to Hope lasts something like 75 seconds... why couldn't FR? Of course, stacking it with a longer duration would serve to increase the DPS. And limiting the amount it stacks... say, to 5, would ensure that it wouldn't be TOO spamable. This would open up future modifications such as bonuses that add ticks, that allow higher stacking, and raw DPS increase.

Actually, longer duration do not increase the DPS, it only reduces the need to re-cast the skill. It's stacking that increases the DPS. So if we limit the number of stacks to five but give it a duration that is longer than it takes to cast the skill five times, then we're left with time over for other skills. Herein lies the core of the problem as the fire line do not have enough skills with short/medium cooldowns to fill this hole, besides FR which we just made sure to make less appealing to spam.

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

With regard to "replacing" it in a rotation...

"Replacing" in my reply should not be interpreted as a 100% replacement. Again I'm sorry for being ambiguous. What I'm looking for is a way to reduce the 70% FR use by replacing a portion of those FR with other skills.

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

If you mean Mystifying Flame...

No, I'm talking about when they moved a large chunk of Mending Verse's healing up-front.

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

This also brings a good point to light: cooldowns. This is another thing that has been utterly butchered by the class dev.

You sounded like a dev, being all sure of exactly how the system works but then you suddenly don't...

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

My point is not to make a more varied Fire Rotation. I don't think we need anymore variety, and I don't think I'm alone in that. I DO think we need a shift in tactics (maintaining DoT's vs. spamming 1 skill).

Are those two not the same thing? Spam one skill = not very varied. Shift tactics to not use only one skills = more varied. We just don't agree on how to facilitate a shift in tactics

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

The LI lottery would not be affected *at all* by this. You'd still use the same old LI you had before. The damage traits tied to lightning skills and the actual damage output would/should be irrelevant compared to the bonus they would give to the fire line. If the buff is good enough it shouldn't matter that you don't have +10% lightning damage and +30% crit multiplier.

That argument is naive at best.

If I am using lightning skills in my rotation then the +10% lighting damage legacy will be an improvement over some of the minor legacies currently used on a fire stone. It will not be as big a deal as the +10% fire damage one, obviously, but an improvement nevertheless. And it will definitely not be in the "does not matter" category.

As a consequence stones with four major legacies will be superior to those with three, and the LI lottery is back in full force.

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

This I don't understand! Honestly! I truly don't get it! The knee-jerk reaction seems to be "oh gosh, I can't use a lightning skill without maxed damage and crit mult legacies even if the buff I get makes my game play more enjoyable AND increases my overall DPS... I would have to swap stones for this so now I need two 1st-agers. You stupid boy when will you learn to think?". (Or as the WoW kids would say, "hey noob, l2p" followed by vote-kick)

Ok, I admit that coupling the induction reduction buff (which is there to compensate for the removal of the iEoF burst) to critical hits was not awesomesauce. Let's just say that any lightning skill will give you the buff and the duration is 20 seconds. There, you need to use exactly 3 lightning skills every minute and given that each skill takes 1.5 seconds we're using 4.5 seconds every 60 seconds, i.e. 7.5% of the total time. Time where fire DoTs will continue to tick! If the buff you get gives more than a 7.5% increase in DPS we're home free to completely disregard the damage of those 3 lightning skills. -30% skill induction takes FR from 2.4 seconds to 2 second total cast time resulting in a throughput increase of 16.67%...

Or put it this way, if "enjoyment from a more varied fire rotation" < "enjoyment from having every skill have max performance at any isolated time, but game play is stale" then sure my proposal won't be your cup of tea.

Nowadays, if im using Fire all my skills get all the Fire dmg buffs from both my runestone legacies and satchel. If i add Lightning skills, they would lose the 5% off the satchel, plus as you won´t be able to get rank 9 legacies on all the 4 must have legacies (fire dmg, fire dots, lightning dmg, lightning crit mult). You´re losing firepower compared with what you get right now. Plus, you won´t have the Battle attuned power cost meaning all the skills will be more expensive AND we won´t have no cd Mystifing Flame. So, this proposal means you won´t max your rotation damage, opposite to this Lightning-Fire hybrid (which i like lots in anyways, but not unless some legacies get changed, like doing a Tactical Skills damage instead of Ligthing/Fire damage, which won´t happen).

This doesn´t mean i don´t agree with Fire needing changes to add variety; new skills mostly i´d say, with short CDs -and adding a short CD to FR aswell - so we´re forced to rotate skills.

Or a new skill which wipe all dots and do a big boom, needing to start debuffing again. This could work, i guess.

Sorry, I somehow missed that one when composing my first reply, so you will have to live with a second post from me now.

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

This I don't understand! Honestly! I truly don't get it! The knee-jerk reaction seems to be "oh gosh, I can't use a lightning skill without maxed damage and crit mult legacies even if the buff I get makes my game play more enjoyable AND increases my overall DPS... I would have to swap stones for this so now I need two 1st-agers. You stupid boy when will you learn to think?". (Or as the WoW kids would say, "hey noob, l2p" followed by vote-kick)

You think throwing around some exaggerated WoW cliches will validate your argument?

On to the point:

If lighting skills do add such significant buffs to fire damage as you suggested, then as a result a mixed rotation of both fire and lighting will likely be best. As a further consequence swapping stones will lead to the better DPS that just sticking with your fire only stone and ignoring the fact that the lightning skills not only add buffs but also damage which can be amplified.

No if we assume Turbine tries to balance the DPS classes (some might argue that assumption is not warrantd, but whatever) they will balance against the optimal approach. And if that optimal approach happens to be stone swapping, then that is what they will balance against.

Which means, if you want to pull your weight and keep up with the other classes you will have to get two stones. If you do not care how much damage you do as long as you have enough toys to juggle around then this of course will not affect you.

And what is so knee jerk about that train of thought?

It seems my asbestos pants have just caught fire...

Originally Posted by Sagit

You think throwing around some exaggerated WoW cliches will validate your argument?

I'm saddened to have to inform you that it's not as exaggerated as you'd like to think. The WoW forum is a truly horrible place to be.

But I digress. No my argument is not validated by a cliches, it just shows my frustration in not being able to understand what drives other players. From the replies above, yours and others, I must derive that most people consider the statement "a varied skill rotation with complex interaction is fun to play" to be less valid than the statement "maximum performance of each individual skill at each individual use is what is fun to play".

Go figure.

Originally Posted by Sagit

And what is so knee jerk about that train of thought?

The fact that hard performance seems to be so much more important than the having a complex (as in requiring more skill than what is needed to mash one button 70% of the time) and varied skill rotation, that any suggestion of change from what we currently have immediately degenerates to how it adds more grind for min/max players. No thought is given to the initial goal of the suggestion; make playing the game more fun. I'm saddened by the lack of constructive debate.

It also gives me insight into why the devs don't want to come to these forums and discuss changes. There's simply not enough fire proof asbestos in the world

With that I consider myself beaten and give up. Bring out the fire-oil and flame the suggestion as you wish, it's clear that we don't share a common enough view point to find a working compromise.

I'll add my .02 into the mix.
Fire has essentially become our AoE DPS line, and with that in mind, I feel that some creativity can come into a fire rotation rather than just spamming FR.
Here is a possible current scenario.

I feel that we also have to take into account the DPS that we will add to other classes by the use of our fire skills.
LM? check! make sure they are using their fire debuffing skills.
Hunters? Check! are you using your fire oil?
Weapon of flame on champ or tank for additional fire debuff? Check!

OK tough pull ahead. 1 big baddy, and his 4 little friends so:
Start with a few skills to build attunement such as Master of Writs, WoF, FR, CA.
Now that my attunement is high enough, with my 0 cooldown MF, get a DoT and tactical debuff on all mobs.
This helps everyone with fire damage from the start, and is a setup for great aoe dps.
Attunement is high enough, so Scathing Mockery now puts a WoF DoT on my big bad mob and all of his friends.
NOW, the pieces of the puzzle are in place for a fantastic fireworks show!
Essay of Fire on big bad Boss, Essense of Flame for an immediate burst of damage, 4 FR which burn hotter because all affected mobs have 2 effects on them,
Then an immediate Smouldering Wrath which helps all fire based attacks, makes my fire hotter, and adds an extra effect to all burning FR.

After that huge burst, I then concentrate on keeping up maximum damage on multiple mobs by managing Scathing Mockery cooldown with Writ of Cold and keeping DPS up with FR until my next fireworks show.


After all that, I do feel like we need to bring back the DoT to Essense of Flame, but given the effect our debuffs have and the gift of AoE damage, our DPS would be too high in group settings if many changes were made.

edit:
(and yeah...for single targets it is more boring!)

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

The fact that hard performance seems to be so much more important than the having a complex (as in requiring more skill than what is needed to mash one button 70% of the time) and varied skill rotation, that any suggestion of change from what we currently have immediately degenerates to how it adds more grind for min/max players. No thought is given to the initial goal of the suggestion; make playing the game more fun. I'm saddened by the lack of constructive debate.

Hmm, you must have read more than I wrote here.

In no way, shape or form did I comment on your initial claim that the fire rotation needs to be more complex, either affirmative or in disagreement. All I did was to try and point out that trying to achieve this goal by mixing in lightning skills is in my opinion not a good way to do this. Actually I only did so after you downplayed someone elses claim in that direction with some in my opinion very weak arguments. There are definitely other viable alternatives that do not require an additional grind, so why not stick to those?

And just because you seem to not care about optimizing your performance does not make anyone who does so a lesser being. For some of us our enjoyment of the game is diminished if we get the impression we do not pull our weight.

You want your point being taken seriously? Then take the valid criticism of your suggestions equally serious.

Originally Posted by Sagit

You want your point being taken seriously? Then take the valid criticism of your suggestions equally serious.

Your point is well made and as such also well worth taking to heart even though self-criticism pains the most. What saddened me most was, and I tried to express this in terms and phrases that were poorly chosen, that people did not look at (i.e. comment on) the benefits but rather reacted as all humans do, to put the spotlight on what was found to be bad; the mix-in of lightning skills in a fire build.

I was exposed to a point of view that I found somewhat alien and hence could not quickly enough take to heart. I saw only stubborn objection where I instead should have searched for inspiration. To my own defense I have to note that I did consider using only fire/frost skills but found that this would severely limited my choices due to the existing distribution of cooldowns. Injecting lightning skills felt very much like the "perfect" solution to that dilemma. At this point I, OBVIOUSLY, did not consider how a min/max player would look at having to use a lightning skill when going for an otherwise pure fire build.... My bad.

With 20-20 hindsight it might have been better so simply state that with the changes proposed all and any lightning skills would deal NO damage and that they would instead be used as diversifying triggers in your otherwise fire and frost centered game-play. In fact, that would have opened up a lot of other fun possibilities where DoTs and debuffs from different fire and frost skills could be metamorphosed into other buffs or debuffs using lightning skills.

But I guess that if such suggestion would have been made from the start, someone would have pointed out that it would force them to re-grind their gear/LIs because the proposed changes would make their current set-up sub-optimal and that the suggestion therefore was completely without merit again obviously without commenting on what would have been to upside of the suggestion: the diversifying of a stale skill rotation.

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

But I guess that if such suggestion would have been made from the start, someone would have pointed out that it would force them to re-grind their gear/LIs because the proposed changes would make their current set-up sub-optimal and that the suggestion therefore was completely without merit again obviously without commenting on what would have been to upside of the suggestion: the diversifying of a stale skill rotation.

Maybe, but not very probable. The legacies beneficial to Fire DPS are all very generic in nature (more fire damage, more fire DoT damage, reduced power costs, etc...) and more importantly, there are fewer of them than slots on an LI, so likely all of them have been chosen already, and a switch in the priority list won't change that.

On to the point at hand, and assuming a more complex rotation is the goal. Let's have a look at WoW for a moment. Depending on whom you ask their player base may be lacking in mannerism, but their game mechanics designers despite the frequent moans of the self perceived nerf victims by and large do know what they are doing. That panda issue is another affair.. Plus they have more than seven years of experience under their belt by now.

One of their universal tenets is that any interesting dps rotation should have about four frequently used skills. Usually one spamable filler and three others that need to be applied about every ten to twenty seconds (limited either via cooldown or by being a non-stackable DoT) That is enough to keep things interesting as you'd have to juggle them, but not so bad that your rotation will fall apart due to complexity once you fight something else than a training dummy.

How do we apply this to the current situation?

First I think IEoF likely needs a nerf. Simply so that the DPS reduction caused by this frees up room to maneuver. Why not change it to a skill that applies three stacks of Writ of Fire and say, three points of battle attunement? The PvPers probably will lynch me for that suggestion. If they are not lightning specced anyways.

In turn Essence of Flame can be buffed by either reducing it's cooldown or removing it completely but in turn transform it into a non-stacking DoT that lasts about 12 seconds.

If we want to stick to Fire (and for the above mentioned reasons that seems like a good idea to me) we likely will need at least one new skill, but hey, isn't there a new Expansion on the horizon? So how about introducing a skill that has no cooldown, does a lot of fire damage, but attunes three points towards steady? Meaning it could be spammed at most three times in a row, and then you'd have to rebuild battle attunement. Turn attunement into a ressource.

That is still one short of the ideal four, but combined with the Writ of Flame every twenty seconds and the longer cooldowns also required should make things interesting enough.

So, now it is your turn to find the holes in my logic.

Originally Posted by Sagit

On to the point at hand, and assuming a more complex rotation is the goal. Let's have a look at WoW for a moment. Depending on whom you ask their player base may be lacking in mannerism, but their game mechanics designers despite the frequent moans of the self perceived nerf victims by and large do know what they are doing. That panda issue is another affair.. Plus they have more than seven years of experience under their belt by now.

Lacking is an understatement and it has given their developers thicker skin than Tiger tanks! Kung Fu Panda FTW!

Again, I'm not going to quote in order to keep the post shorter. Just look at the previous post for reference!

You description of an interesting rotation do map very nicely to how lightning works atm and no-one is complaing about that one. I think that a maximum DPS rotation needs to be limited and the number you give feels about right, give or take the odd skill and mechanic.

We're in full agreement that iEoF needs a change! (which reminds me to go test if it's better to use 5xFR compared to 4xFR+EoF) As it is now iEoF gives approximately 3 extra skills every minute. FR spam is 25 skills per minute so that's a 12% increase on the number of skills played (I'm cheating and saying that iEoF ~ FR when it comes to damage). No matter what we do we're looking at a way to increase DPS by about 10%.

Converting a direct damage skill into a DoT skill, given that the total damage delt is the same, will not change the skills DPS contribution unless you make the duration > cooldown and allow it stack OR give the DoT some kind of debuff effect (e.g. FR cast while EoF is up do extra damage). Reducing the cooldown on EoF while nice will not be appreciated in the Moors (if we ever get to see a fire RK there!) as it hits HARD and already have a shorter cooldown than Epic Conclusion. Average DPS should preferably be raising the base damage rather than increasing the amount of high-damage spikes (remember, we're trying to remove the iEoF burst damage).

Originally Posted by Sagit

... So how about introducing a skill that has no cooldown, does a lot of fire damage, but attunes three points towards steady? Meaning it could be spammed at most three times in a row, and then you'd have to rebuild battle attunement. Turn attunement into a ressource.

This I like a lot (hence the quote) but I think there will be problems with that implementation.

(1) We want to avoid burst damage in favor of a steady stream of numbers. The build/consume mechanic needs to be offset so that the skill does more damage when more attuned and less when nearer to neutral. Why? Well, Build to 9 using fast skills/iEoF/whatever then whack 3xNew-skill for maximum burst rinse and repeat. Not much skill needed and we're back at a burst-cycle style of play.

(2) If a 2nd application have less payback we end up with repeat of { new-skill + WoF+FR+WoF } inject EoF whenever it's off CD. Again not much skill needed although the number of times we hit FR is less.

I'm not saying that the build/consume mechanics is bad only that with how attunement works atm it needs be be locked to situational skills or carry some further restriction/penalty. Perhaps the use of new-skill prevents attunement to be raised for a short duration.

For example, use it once and you're locked at current-3 for 5 seconds, use it again and be locked at current-6 for 10 seconds and 3 times give 1 attunement max for 15 seconds. Yes, we can get some lovely burst for a finishing kill (or to burn away that healing bubble) but we're gimping our DPS for some time.

As long as the burst and gimp balance out about equally (slight + to damage) it should work very nicely. Couple this with a buff if used in conjuction with some meduim cooldown skill (EoF comes to mind) to cajole players to use new-skill then we may have something nice brewing!

So while I do see some minor flaws in your logic they're clearly smaller than those in mine.

If you look at my original suggestion, and we gloss over the use of lightning skills, we see that bullets (1), (2) and (3) are about how to remove iEoF burst and compensate the 10% with 10% gain by reducing cooldowns and inductions. (You have to admit that shorter inductions in a fire rotation would feel nice!) Points (4), (5), and (6) tries to address the underperformance of SmW and add some choice/variety: Do I want the buff or do I want burst damage. (7) and (8) is about adding utility to a DPS rotation that do not go outside doing damaging skills.

Let's say we add a new fire skill that works as the triggers (2), (3), and (6). It would be spammable as FR but do less damage. How would the suggestion feel then now that we've eliminated the lightning skills?

[scene 2/5]

::ZC sits at a judges bench with a far too elaborately powdered white wig::

Improved Essay of Flame, you stand accused of taking all the fun out of burning foes to death with words. Why, even saying that out loud sounds absurd, how could such an activity ever not be fun? Well, you've done it.

::ZC garbed as a southern gentleman clears his throat and stands, a monocle on both eyes::

Why, I object your honor. Fire was right horrible, and Essay of Flame made it more fun the a monkeys on nitrus. Any nerfs to such an important skill would destroy the gains this poor, wrenched trait-line has achieved recently. Think of the children!

::ZC smashes his gavel down in a rage::

You myopic fool! Defending a degenerate skill on such grounds misses the point of playing video-games! A fire Rune-keeper who uses a wider variety of skills while maintaining the potency the Improvement to Essay of Flame brought is a far greater good. I rule in favor of the prosecution. Improved Essay of Flame will be drawn and quartered. May Tolkeen have mercy on its soul.

::ZC, dressed in his sexy but self reliant Single Female Lawyer outfit (go google it), gives a cheer and stands up::

Thank you judge, you've made the right decision. The incredible burst damage IEoF provided was uncharacteristic for the line and generally led to monotonous gameplay. I move that we only vaguely allude to the specific changes we've prepared so as to annoy as many people as possible.

::Judge ZC nods sagely::

Your self reliance in an all male world has moved me. No spoilers! Case dismissed!



















Smouldering Wrath damage increased, duration reduced to 6s.
Scathing Retort re-worked, grants bonuses based on what DoT's are burning on the foe.
Mystifying Flame an instant cast with a shorter duration/cooldown and higher damage.
Improved Essay of Flame makes a single skill induction-less.
And more!

Haha very good one ZC. Looks like you´re in a funny mood.


So, iEoF will be nerfed so it won´t be as important on Fire rotations, but it will be compensated by other ways. I really hope you (ZC) realize that there are some raiding fights where ranged DPSers need to, apart from DPS hard on boss, kill fast some adds ( yes, im talking about Shadow and elhudans ). Nowadays, it could be done only thanks to iEoF. If this skills is going to be toned down, will you give Fire some kind of burst damage so it will be balanced out?

Thanks in anyways.

Originally Posted by Zombie_Columbus

Improved Essay of Flame makes a single skill induction-less.

And about the other changes, theyr decent but basically taking away all burst damage from Fire RKs has just pretty much killed the class for me.. there are just so many fights and situations where burst damage is needed and IoEF was the only burst the Fire RKs had. Dots are cool but the only place theyr useful is when the mobs dont die in under a minute.. Burst damage is needed and if the only skill that Fire RKs had burst damage with is taken away just tell me why the hell would anyone take a RK over Champ/Hunter/Burg over to theyr fellowship? Hell, I woulndt.

Tbh, all this sounds like were just going back to the time of pre-Isengard when almost nooned used Fire line as an RK simply because it sucked, then you made it decent and people started using it, now it the biggest skill change to Fire line will get nerfed to Pre-Isengard state (Almost.. cmon 1 induction free for 1min cooldown skill is a joke). So now while were at it, can you reset lightning line back to pre-Isengard state too?

But maybe the changes are enough good so RKs dps wont change much overall, we will see, its impossible to decide it without the actual numbers yet, but I cant wait to try it out myself.

Originally Posted by Zombie_Columbus

You myopic fool! Defending a degenerate skill on such grounds misses the point of playing video-games! A fire Rune-keeper who uses a wider variety of skills while maintaining the potency the Improvement to Essay of Flame brought is a far greater good.

And really, this is all that matters. The constant whining people have been doing that IEoF being changed can only mean nerf and that it's worth keeping a repetitive and stagnant fire line because it's not worth making the line more fun if it means less DPS is as ridiculous a thing as anything I've ever heard. Pushing a single button repeatedly 90% of the time was never fun for me. There's a reason I stopped playing a hunter all those years ago, and it had nothing to do with wanting to play a class that's even more boring. If the changes you're making to fire can retain the current potency of the line while adding greater variety and interest it will be the single best thing that's happened to the class in quite a while, and I'm all for it.

I full expect posts full of arguments that this is impossible, so I'm just saying now that I'm going to ignore them. There is not enough information in this post to fully judge the impact of what he's doing, so it's not possible at the moment to do anything other than say "1 inductionless skill=nerf=cr@p fire line=ZC HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO US" etc.

EDIT: Ninja'd by just such a post before I could even finish. Totally not surprised. Have fun angsting people, I'll have fun completely ignoring you.

Originally Posted by Anoir

/signed

I truly hope that fire line will get some usefull additions if IEoF will be nerfed

I hope to be wrong but i´m afraid Fire is going to lose its only burst skill. Flames in 3, 2, 1...

Now seriously, let´s wait until all the changes are up. Maybe (maybe) the heavy iEoF nerf will be balanced out with other skills.

I'm always amazed by how narrow-minded people can be. They see one change they don't like and then all must be doom and gloom! "iEoF is being changed, replace all fire RK's with matchboxes as they'll do equivalent damage! We're soooo nerfed because one skill was changed!" Well... I saw some other changes at the bottom too, but I guess the D'n'G crew did get that far in the post

What if... There is more than one change? Shock and horror! "But I have to *think* about how stuff align up and with iEoF it was so easy... Once a minute I hit one skill, then I hit another skill four times followed by a third skill. Then I hit the 2nd skill a lot until that 1st skill was off cooldown. Do I have to adapt now? Nooo my brain hurts! We cannot DPS end-game content because of this!"

Shesh! No wonder the devs never come here... I for one will enjoy using other skills than Fiery Ridicule while fire-specced. I'll just have to wait like everyone else and hope that we get to try it out on BR with enough time to give feedback. Before that, before I've seen ... you know ... facts and numbers ... before that I won't call the class dead. However, if the facts and numbers do indicate failure, then I'll be there with the rest of you with a torch in one hand (probably a Minstrel one) and a pitchfork (Burglar one) in the other!

Oh... And with my Rune-Keeper skills of foretelling I hereby forsee Doom and Gloom when/if any changes to healing and lightning are be announced: Any change to EftA will be dismissed as a nerf of our most important heal. Any change to Mending Verse will be seen as a death blow to the class. There's probably a mandatory power cost increase in there (been one in every update since mirk...). Epic Conclusion will be nerfed (due to excessive creep QQ, of course)! In fact, lightning DPS will become so anemic (because EC was nerfed, and we know how important one skill if for an entire trait line) that it'll clasify as a low energy light source suitable for battery powered applications.

In fact... any change made to any skill in any direction will be used as axiomatic proof that not only is ZC in secret league with Hunters, Minstrels and Champions he's also aiming to uttely destroy the Rune-Keeper class.

P.s. I had just enough time to fetch new popcorn between episodes 1 and 2... Don't let us wait too long for part 3

P.p.s. If you can't recognize irony when you see it, then stop posting on Internet forums!

I was going to write a long post about the differences between Burst DPS and Overall DPS but honestly, I simply cant be bothered

So lets keep it short,
Will our Overall dps be changed? Not by much, I hope atleast.
Will our Burst dps be changed? If theres no new burst skill coming to fire line, yes it will.

Burst dps is needed in short fights, overall dps is needed in long fights. If we have no burst dps it will simply suck, we can have a great overall dps but if something has to die fast we will have to kill it fast, without burst dps we cant do it making us less useful DPS then other dps classes.

Taking a break from forums to avoid the war of "I'm right" vs "No, I'm right!" discussion to be followed..

Originally Posted by Anoir

.

Ahh dude Hogans Heroes is the BOMB

I'm of the opinion that the fire line should never have been given a 'good' way to do burst DPS anyways. Fire should parse consistently high and its benefits should grow the longer the fight is with better damage per power and aggro management. Lightning should always be better if you need to drop something fast and are willing to use the extra power to do it.

Originally Posted by Anoir

I was going to write a long post about the differences between Burst DPS and Overall DPS but honestly, I simply cant be bothered

So lets keep it short,
Will our Overall dps be changed? Not by much, I hope atleast.
Will our Burst dps be changed? If theres no new burst skill coming to fire line, yes it will.

Burst dps is needed in short fights, overall dps is needed in long fights. If we have no burst dps it will simply suck, we can have a great overall dps but if something has to die fast we will have to kill it fast, without burst dps we cant do it making us less useful DPS then other dps classes.

Taking a break from forums to avoid the war of "I'm right" vs "No, I'm right!" discussion to be followed..

Burst DPS is also needed in certain long fights. That´s one problem. If it wasn´t by, let´s say, fights like Shadow T2 (elhudans killing), then i´d agree with you. But there are fights designed as "Long" (for Fire) which need some burst damage in certain moments. iEoF took perfectly such spot; if there is no replacement for it, well, then there will be something more the RKs won´t be able to do. Even if some skills are added to bring some (desired and asked for) variety and keep the DPS in same numbers, the lack of burst will hurt the RKs in such fights. I can say also Acid T2 is a good example but it´s not as exemplar as Shadow T2.

The situation: in Shadow T2 you need a very good burst of ranged DPS (from 1-3 players indeed, if not 4) for killing fast some certain mobs; and for fast i mean in few seconds. If you don´t so, the fight will be harder and the CM is probably lost. Right now a RK can cover that spot despite a hunter has way better burst DPS than RKs - even with iEoF- thanks to iEoF. Without it, and other burst skill, RKs won´t probably be able to do enough DPS to kill those elhudans in time, so they will be replaced by hunters (LMs and minstrels will do better burst DPS but not as good sustained DPS as RKs or hunters, which is really needed aswell).

Probably there will be other options, to use different setups but this fight will be very hard, maybe not possible, without burst DPS ranged classes. Same about acid T2. And i´m sure future raids will add some fights where burst DPS is needed.

So it´s not just a Moors issue (most Moors RKs will use Lightning in anyways) or even a soloing one. It affects raiding aswell.

In anyways, let´s wait and see before we know all the picture and how things are staying.

Originally Posted by Ellery01

I'm of the opinion that the fire line should never have been given a 'good' way to do burst DPS anyways. Fire should parse consistently high and its benefits should grow the longer the fight is with better damage per power and aggro management. Lightning should always be better if you need to drop something fast and are willing to use the extra power to do it.

Great. And then, if Fire has no way of bursting, then why there are raids where burst DPS is needed? I´d agree if there is not such a raid. But that´s not the case. And considering Lightning is better usually for soloing, for trash unless you can get many and AOE -which doesnt happen always, at all, and for Moors ... what´s left for Fire? Raids was the point. But again, if you need burst there ....

Difference about Fire and Lightning isn´t just "steady versus burst". It´s mobility versus ... well, staying quiet. iEoF burst is what has made Fire working since RoI, and has given such tool to Fire RKs which was lacking before, and without burst, probably will be inferior to Lightning even for raiding.

I will be very sorry to see the Burst nature of FR gone unless it is replaced with some other form of Burst damage. As others have posted, it is very usefull in raids when things need to die fast. I will hold judgement until changes are made and tested.

However, if the changes turn out to be a nerf then it serves people right for saying the trait line was boring. The only reason fire would be boring "as is" is that people are too lazy to think beyond the Easy Buttons.

Originally Posted by Zombie_Columbus

Smouldering Wrath damage increased, duration reduced to 6s.
Scathing Retort re-worked, grants bonuses based on what DoT's are burning on the foe.
Mystifying Flame an instant cast with a shorter duration/cooldown and higher damage.
Improved Essay of Flame makes a single skill induction-less.
And more!

Sweet. This pretty much puts every DoT to around the 5s - 15s, and makes operating a Fire RK about maintaining DoT's again, rather than spamming FR. Kudos. You'll need to make sure you take a look at the Myst. Flame Cooldown legacy and... well... adjust it appropriately. I can't even really think of how to modify it. But a-30s cooldown legacy on a skill with a cooldown less than 30s already would probably break stuff. You'd end up with some weirdness like a negative cooldown. Spooky action at a distance indeed! Gonna +1 ya.

Originally Posted by Bradegor

Haha very good one ZC. Looks like you´re in a funny mood.


So, iEoF will be nerfed so it won´t be as important on Fire rotations, but it will be compensated by other ways. I really hope you (ZC) realize that there are some raiding fights where ranged DPSers need to, apart from DPS hard on boss, kill fast some adds ( yes, im talking about Shadow and elhudans ). Nowadays, it could be done only thanks to iEoF. If this skills is going to be toned down, will you give Fire some kind of burst damage so it will be balanced out?

Thanks in anyways.

No. Do Not Give Fire Burst DPS. If you want burst DPS, trait lightning. It's really that simple. That's what the lightning trait line is for. It is absurd, on an intense level, to ignore a burst DPS trait line and then complain that there's no burst DPS. If you trait for continuous-stream DPS, expect continuous-stream DPS. If you want burst DPS, trait for burst DPS. That's what it's there for. I don't understand what is so confusing about this.

Would you buy a Smart Car and then try to haul a boat around on a trailer? No. You would buy a large truck that is designed to be able to haul a boat around on a trailer. If you DID buy a Smart Car, would you complain that you couldn't haul a boat around on a trailer? Possibly, but no one would take you seriously because it's absurd. And I, for one, don't take you seriously when you want burst DPS when traited for Fire. It doesn't make sense to me, when there is a perfectly good lightning trait line tailor-made JUST FOR BURST DPS.