Suggestion Pyomancer: Balancing out the flames

[Evanist]

Ok... So as many people know, I have been playing a lot of pyromancer on the test server lately. Some fights went great... others... well... not that much. I been seeing a lot of skills that were completely useless and others that hard extremely hard to aim with. Some of them actually getting on my nerves more then others.

So now... I will be naming skills of the pyromancer and saying what I think about it, Gonna put in spoiler cause it is a lot and some are personal opinions.

Spoiler

ChaosOrb: Ok.... this is the main skill of the pyromancer.... but let's race it... it's range is a real laughing stock. Seriously, your chasing someone away and then you miss them from 1 block cause of the low range while they are running. I know Pyro is suppose to be with low range chaosOrb, but let's face it... Can we please have a 1-2 range boost for the skill, maybe scale range a bit with intellect. Looking at the classes, everyone of them have some kind of escape or chassing skills. Can we just get a basic boost of range on it please?

Maim: Ok... uhm... When I said chassing and such... I never saw much effect on maim.... But seeing as every class as it's own *filler* skill, I won't go on detail on this one. Maim can be useful. That all I can say

Cauterize and Flameshield: I am putting both of them at the same place here, cause they are both skills that can be extremely useful in fights. Keep them that way.

Dragonbreath: Keep it as it is. It is just right.

Darkbolt: Ok... this skill is great.... it is one of the skills that I really like to use... but it's accuricity is horrible and luck base. Remember the old ghast fire balls that mages use to have on Zeal? Well... this is basically the Haven version of fireball with wither. I don't know if it is just me.... but maybe work so the aim would be straigth instead of how it is right now.

Dark blade: Alright... usefull, no need to touch, saves you mana.

Curse: Saves you against persky melee classes. Keep it that way.

ChaoticStrength: Last reserve skill, keep it that way, great way to go all out when out of mana.

Great combustion: Ok... this skill... is a real joke accuricity wise. Here what I saw: 1/6 of the time you use the skill, maybe 1/10 of the time, you miss you hit cause of the horrible aoe and wait time to cast the skill. And lets face it: If someone sees you cast that, they will move to the side quickly to dodge the attack. Si either make it instant cast or a 0.5 second cast time like iron fist from disciple, or up the aoe so it would be easier to hit someone. Right now it is a really risky move to use.

Doomwave (Or like I call it: The wave of uselessness.): Ok... seriously, I think every pyromancer that played and used this skill will agree that Doomwave has nothing to do with doom. You basically teleport around in 2 places, and worst is that usually you come back about the same place you were before. This skill is so useless that I feel like it should be removed completely and replaced.,

So... if you read what I said before, I kinda saw a lot of defects with Pyromancers. Skills that are useless to use. The pyromancer could be so fun to play if it was at least balanced out or something. So here what I would sudgest. You can agree or disagree on this, but this is my personal opinion.

1. Upgrade Chaos orb range by 1-2 blocks, only to keep it a bit more usefull and less *Crap I miss by one block* thing.

2. Darkbolt should try to get to straigth line. Basing a fight with luck mostly for skills for something this important can be a real pain.

3: Great combustion should have a lower cast time or a higher aoe effect to make it that it actually can be use in fights, like against wizards that move around all the time.

4. Replace how doomwave works. Now this is a idea I had: Why not make it that Doomwave would be used against one person. This person would then have the pyromancer teleport to him for 1 second, giving him time to strike once, then teleport a random direction of the guy 1 second later and strike again, before having one last telepot and strike one last time. This way it could be a 3 hit teleportation hit with the pyro's axe, good to chase down people.

This or make that it would be a aoe effect that would make everyone in a area combust into fire and receive a certain amount of damage. Maybe even a small pushback effect on everyone.

These are just idea's for the pyromancer. Feel free to comment on them. Atm I feel like it should be fixed a bitm cause let's face it: People that can kite all day is a pain for anyone that don't have skills to chasse them off.

 

[mikehk]

pyro isnt bad. its damage is high, and it has a disable. greatcombustion sucks in lag, but otherwise is fairly simple to hit with unless you're not resourceful and use it on someone running away from you, then you have like a 0% chance obvs with it's 4/5 block range. doomwave is currently broken on test (idk about live, never see pyros/hardly pvp nowadays) and only has 2 projectiles, that's why it's so useless. before, it would spray like 30+ and it was indeed a luck based skill, but it was useful most of the time.

 

[Jrr_]

If you are running after someone use dark bolt. And I agree with doom wave it sucks. I have been pyro quiet a bit myself and never use it.

 

[Jrr_]

http://herocraftonline.com/main/threads/scrap-doomwave.49482/

From a while back.

 

[Evanist]

Like I said before: Kiting is what really cause trouble. And greatcombustion is still a hard skill to hit with cause it is very conditional. I think you guy's know how much lag been there lately... And this does not help. If I compare it to divine stun, which as a 0.5 second warmup and 2 second stun, it is lot harder to play with. It is just that pyromancer does not have that many choices to try to chase someone down when they are kitting. Yes darkbolt can be used for this, but it does not slow down people that are running away. Maybe adding that effect would help.

Well, the only skills that would need work would be greatcombustion and doomwave. Those are the 2 skills that need work mainly. I was just pointing out everything that I was thinking about when I wrote that thing yesterday, but it is mainly those 2 skills that need work in my opinion

 

[agedbear]

Might also shuffle when you get skills a bit too. Chaos orb I think would be better off later down the line rather than right off the bat. Get Maim first, then Dragonsbreath(?), Cauterize, Chaos Orb, , Flame shield, etc.

 

[JupiterRome]

Your Argument on kiting is that valid (sorry) kiting is op in general

 

[Ahrall]

As one of the few Pyromancers that actually play on haven I can agree with most of your statements. I'll throw in my two cents because I do agree that pyro needs a bit of tuning

Chaos Orb: If this skill was buffed pyro would be fine. Simply put, this skill is meant to be our "gap closer" but the gap that it closes is pathetic. Max range I've been able to chuck this thing on standard terrain is 9 blocks. Usually it goes about 6, so it's functionality as a "gap closer" is laughable. My suggestion as well it to buff the range to the typical 10ish blocks that you see on other similar skills (Goon jump, wizard blink etc) or alternatively give it scaling with intellect. Again like jump, blink, back flip, etc etc

Maim: fine as is

Cauterize/Flame Shield: fine as is

Dragonsbreath: fine

Darkbolt: personally I've never had a problem landing this skill, you just have to understand that it will automatically detonate after about 15ish blocks.

Darkblade: fine

Curse: fine skill, maybe a range buff so we can use it against rangers but that's wishful thinking

Chaotic Strength: this one irks me, I know that it is a skill that is still in development (at least I think I saw that somewhere) but I don't think its worth your stamina to cast it.

Great Combustion: It's a good skill, it's not intended to be a long range stun so I think the range is fine as is. You just have to wait for your target to bust an escape cooldown before you use it. The only problems I have with it is the cooldown. On paper the cooldown looks balanced for a good damage AOE stun, but in practice it's absolutely not. The AOE is so small it is almost impossible to get two players to stand close enough to stun more than one.

Doomwave: Why would I waste mana, time, and stamina casting this ability? In it's current state the ability is mediocre at best. There's a lot to talk about this ability so I'll comment on the dedicated doomwave thread.
http://herocraftonline.com/main/threads/scrap-doomwave.49482/


Overall pyro needs some help in the sticking-to-your-targets department. We don't have the range of a wizard or ranger, we don't have the gap closer of a goon or a disciple, and we don't have the agility or stealth of a ninja.

 

[Egorh]

Imo Great Combustion should not be easier to hit unless it is nerfed. It is a two second stun (I think) and does a good chunk of damage. Reduce the warmup-reduce the stun duration.

 

[Ahrall]

Base stun duration of great combustion (with no charisma outside of base) is 1.6 seconds

 

[Evanist]

Well... ya....

After testing a bit more without too much lag, I actually saw that darkbolt is acceptable and a good skill, so I can remove my statement with this.
For great combustion, a 1 second stun with reduce warmup would actually make it a rather balanced and decent skill, cause it would let you have time to actually do your combo without having too much *oh I am escaping your skill* thing. So ya.... Maybe make it that it a bit like dragonbreath for the aoe type, but at a rather smaller radius and cone and hit only 1 person. Just a idea like that.

 

[mikehk]

greatcombustion is supposed to stun one person in the radius, but deal damage to all in the radius. pyro's fine as is IMO as it's semi-squishy with good damage. once you land the stun you can drop a person about 450-600 hp during the stun duration if you were smart and waited for your stamina to regen. if it gets kited, it just has to wait or use an EP to get to the enemy. if an enemy is kiting you and u have no chance to catch it, think outside the box, stop chasing it so hard and try a new tactic.

EDIT: it seems I may be biased towards spellblades... anywho, think about da numbers too!

 

[Evanist]

Ok... I have been testing out a bit more, and I have seen another problem with pyromancer: Darkblade.

Seriously, seeing this, you use stamina AND mana to attack the target, dealing 40 + str damage and then gaining mana, but let's face it, Pyromancer keep getting mana problems, and looking at every other mage class (wizard as replenish, beguiler clarity, necromancer DarkRitual), Pyromancer is the only one that actually have no clear way to get mana back.

My sudgestion to this: Remove the mana cost completely from darkblade and make it give the same amount of mana, with same stamina cost, or if that is not liked, up the mana steal so you would gain at least 50 mana when you cast it, cause atm, you only gain 20 mana by using this skill, which is a real joke for the stamina cost that is has.

 

[mikehk]

Ok... I have been testing out a bit more, and I have seen another problem with pyromancer: Darkblade.

Seriously, seeing this, you use stamina AND mana to attack the target, dealing 40 + str damage and then gaining mana, but let's face it, Pyromancer keep getting mana problems, and looking at every other mage class (wizard as replenish, beguiler clarity, necromancer battery), Pyromancer is the only one that actually have no clear way to get mana back.

My sudgestion to this: Remove the mana cost completely from darkblade and make it give the same amount of mana, with same stamina cost, or if that is not liked, up the mana steal so you would gain at least 50 mana when you cast it, cause atm, you only gain 20 mana by using this skill, which is a real joke for the stamina cost that is has.

I can agree with upping the mana return, however not the steal.

 

[LordZelkova]

(necromancer battery), Pyromancer is the only one that actually have no clear way to get mana back.

Battery doesn't give the necro mana, it gives mana to another player.

 

[Evanist]

Battery doesn't give the necro mana, it gives mana to another player.

Excuse me... wrong skill...
Darkritual. Gonna edit last post

 

[mikehk]

new skill for pyros! requires a small bit of coding! this skill would remove darkblade.

ManaSpike:
stamina: 450
mana: 0
cooldown: 25
The pyromancer gains 50% of the target's missing mana pool as mana (IE target is missing 300 mana, you gain 150 mana) and is dealt 25% of the mana stolen as damage, with a max cap of (so of the 150 damage dealt, they take 37.5 damage).
however, against a spammy wizard, who has 900 mana missing, you gain 450 mana, and deal 112.5 damage.

but honestly, by the time the wizard is down 900 mana, you're almost dead, so it's more of a group fight skill/last resort kinda thing.

 

[agedbear]

One drawback @mikehk , if you target doesn't use mana or is not missing any mana, then the pyro gains nothing and deals no damage. A better version of that would be to deal a %of your missing mana pool as physical damage and gain a smaller % back as mana replenishment. This would also give a diminishing return to the skill to prevent spamming it. For example:

Pyro is missing 500 mana from their pool they deal 50% as damage (250) and gain 50% of the damage as mana return (125)

*edited for spelling*

 

[Evanist]

((Uhm, nvm, readed wrong))
I feels like that could work if... Your not fighting someone with armor...

 

[LordZelkova]

Irrelevant now. I was incorrect with my numbers.