Suggestion Pyromancer Firewave Needs Some Changes

[Delfofthebla]

DISCLAIMER: While Firewave is an ability that is shared by both Runeblade as well as Pyromancer, I am strictly speaking from the perspective of a Pyromancer.

Ever since Kainzo "fixed" Firewave, it has become a lackluster and mediocre ability that is rarely used by any Pyromancer.

Prior to the "fix", this ability was insanely powerful. You could unleash a very large amount of damage on one person, or upon several within a teamfight. It was often a tide turner, or even a bomb you left on unexperienced players who focused you without taking the proper precautions.

In typical teamfights, you were able to either a) Completely destroy a single target, or b) Unleash a large amount of damage across several people.

Now, because there is a damage cap of 1 fireball per person, several of the fireballs from firewave are blocked out, and thus, deal 0 damage. This, combined with the fact that Firewave is a warmup with a very short radius makes it unfeasible to deal any sort of substantial damage with the ability.

What was once our most powerful ability, is now our weakest.

Personally, I don't think there was that much of an issue with Firewave before the "fix". I'm betting I'll get a lot of shit for that, but I really think it was put on a pedestal without anyone considering the counters to it.

You could easily counter the old Firewave in several different ways:

1. Knockback abilities (Sprint Attacking/Disgrace/MortalWound/Strike/Fireball/Ect.)

​

Several abilities (and also the vanilla Minecraft Sprint Attack) will knock the Pyro either directly upwards into the air, or back away from the player. This can cause the Pyro to miss several of the fireballs, reducing the amount of burst done to the player. In the case of a sprint + disgrace-esque attack, you would actually even knock the pyro high enough into the air to make every Fireball miss the player.​

2. Silence/Interrupts(High Burst Damage/Bash/Impale/ Kick/Bloodmage Silence)

Silence is another simple counter, and is already well intergrated into the server. When players face classes that have warmups, such as the healer classes' heals, Wizard Bolts, or Dreadknight soul leach/terror, they can use many abilities to prevent the warmup from completing. Bash is a very basic ability that does this, and kick is a more superior alternative. While it's possible for the Pyromancer to re-cast Firewave after being interrupted--he pays the price of time and self sacrifice in order to do so. The case is the same for silence, if done with proper timing.​

3. Just Get The Fuck Away From Him

The Pyromancer is slowed while casting Firewave. Often, you can simply just "move away" from him, escaping from a majority of the firewave fireballs, or even the entire firewave itself. Honestly, this is probably the best counter due to the fact that it places the ability on cooldown, consumes the Pyromancer's mana, places the Pyromancer at a distance from the player, and causes the Pyromancer to waste a second of his time trying to make it all happen.​

One might ask, if there are so many counters, why was this ability a problem at all? Your guess is as good as mine, but quite frankly, I just feel as if nobody ever put any effort into trying to counter it in the first place.

I often fought Pyromancers and Runeblades that attempted to use Firewave against me. As a Pyro (vs. another Pyro/Runeblade), I could simply Fireshield it. As a bard, I had kick, bard speed, melodic binding, accelerando and voidsong to prevent it. As a Dragoon, I could impale, bash, or even jump over it. No matter what I played, I had a counter to stop it.

Now, I've gone a tad off track here, but for good reason. While all of the above counters still exist and are just as effective, with the change to Firewave, there is no longer any need to counter the ability at all--you can simply rush the Pyromancer and destroy him while he channels an ability that does less damage than a single freakin Fireball. (Fireball deals 150 + 50 fire tick, Firewave can do at most 133 damage + 50 fire tick)


Because of this, I think that Firewave is in need of some love. There are several solutions that I think could properly balance the ability.

1. Revert the mechanics to the previous Firewave, but rebalance the ability.

With all the counters that exist for this ability, I really don't see why people complain about it's level of damage. PVP in RPG systems is all about combining strategy with the abilities that are given to you. If you know there is a way to stop something, you should do everything in your power to stop it. I do not think there is anything wrong with a Pyromancer one-shotting someone with Firewave if he is directly on top of the player. If you play badly, you should be punished badly.​

​

But should the Pyromancer be able to do this every 18 seconds? No. I do not think that is balanced.​

​

There are innumerable ways to properly balance Firewave, even if it is able to one-shot players who are foolish enough to let it happen.​

1. You could add a cooldown that ranges from 2 to 15 minutes.​

2. You can increase the warmup time.​

3. You could increase the damage but lower the number of fireballs.​

4. You could reduce the damage but increase the number of fireballs.​

5. You could increase the manacost.​

6. You could do any combination the above suggestions.​

​

On #3 and #4: The idea with this one is to maintain the same "maximum damage" capability, while altering how the ability performs at different distances. Honestly, this is more of a mechanic change than a proper rebalancing, so I'm not sure if it's necessarily the best idea here. I'll explain more on this later​

2. Rebalance the current Firewave mechanics.

I honestly don't like the mechanics of the current firewave, but if the community is so strongly against the previous iteration, there are still ways to balance the ability.​

​

The problem with the current ability is that it does not deal any form of substantial damage, and places a great deal of risk to the Pyromancer.​

​

I see only a few real solutions to properly balance the ability with the current mechanics.​

1. You could increase the damage per fireball to that of the standard Pyromancer Fireball.​

2. You could increase the damage but lower the number of fireballs.​

3. You could maintain the current level of damage, and also increase the number of fireballs.​

4. You could increase the distance at which the Fireballs are launched.​

5. You could do any combination of the above suggestions.​

​

To clarify on #2 and #3: With the old Firewave, changing the number of Fireballs does not alter the "maximum" damage" capability via the ability. However, due to the alternate mechanics of the current Firewave, changing the number of fireballs actually does change the maximum damage capability.​

​

If you increase the number of Fireballs with the current Firewave ability, you increase the ability's potential in teamfights. Since no player can be hit by more than one fireball, Increasing the number of Fireballs increases the chances that you will hit multiple targets. While I think this is a good buff, I'm not sure it's enough of a buff to the ability.​

​

If you decrease the number of Fireballs, but also increase the damage, you create a more "controllable" form of damage. Rather than the ability being a large aoe that you throw out when next to someone (or several people), it would become a controllable aimed ability that fires in specific directions. I personally do not like this idea, but I think it is a viable solution.​

​

3. Leave the ability as-is.

I honestly do not think the ability is fine as is, but I suppose some might disagree. Due to the fixing of Chaos Orb teleport and addition of Ender Pearls, some may argue that Pyromancer's do not need another "buff". However, I do not think that certain abilities should be left in the gutter just because the class has other strengths. The Pyromancer as a whole is pretty strong right now, but I personally don't think it's on the same level as other classes.

 

[lumont]

Agreed.

 

[ninjabizkit]

Agreed, good post.

 

[Kainzo]

We wont be reverting the Firewave ability to have all fireballs hit one player at the same time.

 

[Ellron23]

We wont be reverting the Firewave ability to have all fireballs hit one player at the same time.

 

[FuturizeHandgun]

Personally, I agree with giving it "some" love, but for the most part, having firewave before its "fix" or something close to that would make the class a lot easier to play, which I see as a bad thing. There has been countless times where someone specs as Pyro, and expects to get kills by fireball, fire blast fire-wave and run until their cool down is off. With that, after the fix, they all unspeced. Why? Because they can't firewave and substantially nuke thier opponent. If Firewave got a buff, it would be true that a lot of people would spec pyro, but I don't see it as a good revival. There are other skills and mechanisms that can be reworked to help pyro other than just its firewave. The reason I play pyro now is because its balanced for the most part IMO. If you really knew how to play the class, and spent time learning how to play it and understand how to distance yourself, the class can be really fun AND rewarding. Firewave now might need a slight buff, but i enjoy its short cool down. I would rather have it do low damage and low CD, making it less "harmtouch like" and so people would not rely on its huge damage. I will admit, the class is difficult to play due to its lack of a solid rotation, and its "skillshot" skills, but with practice and a proper understanding, the class is REALLY powerful.

 

[MrPapodopolus]

FuturizeHandgun has no problem beating the shit out of people as a pyro, the class is fine as it is atm.

 

[northeaster345]

2. Rebalance the current Firewave mechanics.

I honestly don't like the mechanics of the current firewave, but if the community is so strongly against the previous iteration, there are still ways to balance the ability.​

​

The problem with the current ability is that it does not deal any form of substantial damage, and places a great deal of risk to the Pyromancer.​

​

I see only a few real solutions to properly balance the ability with the current mechanics.​

1. You could increase the damage per fireball to that of the standard Pyromancer Fireball.​

2. You could increase the damage but lower the number of fireballs.​

3. You could maintain the current level of damage, and also increase the number of fireballs.​

4. You could increase the distance at which the Fireballs are launched.​

5. You could do any combination of the above suggestions.​

​

To clarify on #2 and #3: With the old Firewave, changing the number of Fireballs does not alter the "maximum" damage" capability via the ability. However, due to the alternate mechanics of the current Firewave, changing the number of fireballs actually does change the maximum damage capability.​

​

If you increase the number of Fireballs with the current Firewave ability, you increase the ability's potential in teamfights. Since no player can be hit by more than one fireball, Increasing the number of Fireballs increases the chances that you will hit multiple targets. While I think this is a good buff, I'm not sure it's enough of a buff to the ability.​

​

If you decrease the number of Fireballs, but also increase the damage, you create a more "controllable" form of damage. Rather than the ability being a large aoe that you throw out when next to someone (or several people), it would become a controllable aimed ability that fires in specific directions. I personally do not like this idea, but I think it is a viable solution.​

​

Disclaimer:
I think pyromancer is a heavily underrated class, and doesn't need too much of a buff.

They have a powerful axe attack (89 dmg as compared to 91 of samurai sword), putting pyro in the top 4 of melee damage dealers. Pyro isn't the fastest class, but has chaos orb to help close the gap a bit (though slow). Pyro has dots in the form of wither, fireball and fireblast for ranged burst. Blaze is comparable to pulse as an aoe. Overall, pyro is a bit of an all around class, decent at range (better than samurai, ninja and runeblade at mid-long range) and good up close against squishy classes (kick + axe), they lack cc and speed boosts.

Also I don't think pyros are utilizing the damage of chaos orb quite enough, it might be hard to hit, but 210+ magic damage is nothing to scoff at (150 + 60 from lvls + fire ticks, I think), on a 10 second cd, that closes the gap and only costs 10 mana...

They definitely don't need a one shot kill skill, that negates any skill from the other player. If we're trying to increase the utility of firewave as an aoe in the midst of a fight, I can see increasing the damage of the fireballs in firewave, as long as they aren't able to hit more than one fireball per target.

 

[FuturizeHandgun]

​

Disclaimer:

I think pyromancer is a heavily underrated class, and doesn't need too much of a buff. They have a powerful axe attack (89 dmg as compared to 91 of samurai sword), putting pyro in the top 4 of melee damage dealers. Pyro isn't the fastest class, but has chaos orb to help close the gap a bit (though slow). Pyro has dots in the form of wither, fireball and fireblast for ranged burst. Blaze is comparable to pulse as an aoe. Overall, pyro is a bit of an all around class, decent at range (better than samurai, ninja and runeblade at mid-long range) and good up close against squishy classes (kick + axe), they lack cc and speed boosts.

Also I don't think pyros are utilizing the damage of chaos orb quite enough, it might be hard to hit, but 210+ magic damage is nothing to scoff at (150 + 60 from lvls + fire ticks, I think), on a 10 second cd, that closes the gap and only costs 10 mana...

They definitely don't need a one shot kill skill, that negates any skill from the other player. If we're trying to increase the utility of firewave as an aoe in the midst of a fight, I can see increasing the damage of the fireballs in firewave, as long as they aren't able to hit more than one fireball per target.

OMG, you complete me northeaster <3
besides that, yeah 101% agree

 

[Delfofthebla]

We wont be reverting the Firewave ability to have all fireballs hit one player at the same time.

I figured that is what you were going to say, which is why I listed several other possible changes. After reading my post, do you not agree with any of my proposed changes?

Personally, I agree with giving it "some" love, but for the most part, having firewave before its "fix" or something close to that would make the class a lot easier to play, which I see as a bad thing. There has been countless times where someone specs as Pyro, and expects to get kills by fireball, fire blast fire-wave and run until their cool down is off. With that, after the fix, they all unspeced. Why? Because they can't firewave and substantially nuke thier opponent. If Firewave got a buff, it would be true that a lot of people would spec pyro, but I don't see it as a good revival. There are other skills and mechanisms that can be reworked to help pyro other than just its firewave. The reason I play pyro now is because its balanced for the most part IMO. If you really knew how to play the class, and spent time learning how to play it and understand how to distance yourself, the class can be really fun AND rewarding. Firewave now might need a slight buff, but i enjoy its short cool down. I would rather have it do low damage and low CD, making it less "harmtouch like" and so people would not rely on its huge damage. I will admit, the class is difficult to play due to its lack of a solid rotation, and its "skillshot" skills, but with practice and a proper understanding, the class is REALLY powerful.

The last thing I want Firewave to be is the "end all be all" for Pyromancer, and I don't want that to be the way that people play the class. Half of my post was describing how freaking easy it is to counter firewave. A bad pyromancer that relies on nothing other than firewave to win fights is not going to be able to hold their own against any half decent player.

FuturizeHandgun has no problem beating the shit out of people as a pyro, the class is fine as it is atm.

I don't think you fully read my post MrPap. To quote myself,

Due to the fixing of Chaos Orb teleport and addition of Ender Pearls, some may argue that Pyromancer's do not need another "buff". However, I do not think that certain abilities should be left in the gutter just because the class has other strengths.

If Pyromancer would be "too strong" with a balanced Firewave, then other abilities should be nerfed to compensate this fact. To leave Firewave "as is" simply because you lose to futurize is bullshit, and to use such an example as defense against the argument is the laziest display of class balance I've ever seen. All class abilities should be viable and available to use as necessary. Especially when it's supposed to be the most powerful one a class gets.

Disclaimer:
I think pyromancer is a heavily underrated class, and doesn't need too much of a buff.

They have a powerful axe attack (89 dmg as compared to 91 of samurai sword), putting pyro in the top 4 of melee damage dealers.

Pyro isn't the fastest class, but has chaos orb to help close the gap a bit (though slow).

Chaos orb absolutely cannot close any sort of gap. It is not a mobility skill. The only sort of mobility one can hope to achieve with Chaos Orb is to jump up a small ledge, or perhaps fall down one.

If a Pyro is charging a player and tries to chaos orb, he will actually run so fast that he runs into his own chaos orb. This will cause the Pyro's character to "pause" for a second, actually hindering their mobility.

Chaos orb is a very powerful ability. It has an insane level of damage and many interesting uses, but one thing it cannot do is provide mobility to the Pyro.

Pyro has dots in the form of wither, fireball and fireblast for ranged burst. Blaze is comparable to pulse as an aoe. Overall, pyro is a bit of an all around class, decent at range (better than samurai, ninja and runeblade at mid-long range) and good up close against squishy classes (kick + axe), they lack cc and speed boosts.

Yes, the Pyromancer has dots. Two, to be exact. Fire tick, and Wither. These are very powerful dots, especially when the Pyromancer can apply them from a distance and at rapid succession. When kiting players, I find them to be a very powerful asset.

However, earlier you mentioned the Pyromancer's Axe damage being one of the highest in the game. Did you know that when a player is on fire, he has several "ticks" of immunity to all left click damage? The same applies to Wither--except wither ticks faster than the actual cooldown for this "immunity" to left click damage. While a player is "withered", he is about 90% immune to left click damage. Due to wither ticking so fast, almost none of the Pyromancer's left click attacks will connect with the player, making wither a pure ranged kiting ability. It is not feasible to use Wither on a target that you plan to melee.

Also I don't think pyros are utilizing the damage of chaos orb quite enough, it might be hard to hit, but 210+ magic damage is nothing to scoff at (150 + 60 from lvls + fire ticks, I think), on a 10 second cd, that closes the gap and only costs 10 mana...

Yes, Chaos orb has a very high amount of damage. Higher than harm touch, actually. But I think you're overestimating the teleport aspect. The projectile speed and projectile distance are both insanely retarded. It travels about 4 blocks over the course of around 1.5 seconds. Whereas Fireball can travel around 100ish blocks in the same amount of time.

It's due to this low distance and low projectile speed that it's so hard to land in combat. I dunno about Futurize, but I personally can only truly land a Chaos Orb when the player is either standing still, or running straight at me. In any real fight, it's highly unlikely I can land a chaos orb on anyone other than a melee that is charging straight for me.


All of you are missing the point entirely. I did not create this thread to debate about how strong Pyromancer is. The fact of the matter is, Firewave is a weak ability. It does less damage than Fireball, and has about the same range as pulse. Additionally, it can be countered in several ways, by a wide range of classes. This is stupid.

They definitely don't need a one shot kill skill, that negates any skill from the other player. If we're trying to increase the utility of firewave as an aoe in the midst of a fight, I can see increasing the damage of the fireballs in firewave, as long as they aren't able to hit more than one fireball per target.

Thank you for agreeing with at least this. This was one of the suggestions I made in my original post, and that is really all I am asking. If the community refuses to stand for the old Firewave, then the current firewave should be buffed to compensate. If players think that Pyromancer is too strong with a balanced firewave, then nerf something else.

 

[northeaster345]

All of you are missing the point entirely. I did not create this thread to debate about how strong Pyromancer is. The fact of the matter is, Firewave is a weak ability. It does less damage than Fireball, and has about the same range as pulse. Additionally, it can be countered in several ways, by a wide range of classes. This is stupid.

Shock is a weak ability it does about the same damage as pulse, but that doesn't mean wizard needs to have it buffed.
Envenom is a weak ability on Bard and ninja, it doesn't necessarily have to be buffed to make the two classes balanced.

It is important to look at the role the skill was meant to play, and whether buffing it would screw with balance,

However, earlier you mentioned the Pyromancer's Axe damage being one of the highest in the game. Did you know that when a player is on fire, he has several "ticks" of immunity to all left click damage? The same applies to Wither--except wither ticks faster than the actual cooldown for this "immunity" to left click damage. While a player is "withered", he is about 90% immune to left click damage. Due to wither ticking so fast, almost none of the Pyromancer's left click attacks will connect with the player, making wither a pure ranged kiting ability. It is not feasible to use Wither on a target that you plan to melee.

Have you tested whether someone is actually immune to damage, since your axe should do more damage than the wither, thus overriding it. I'm not entirely sure how immunity interacts with hero skill damage, so that may be true.

 

[PCmonkey11]

I'm strictly speaking from the prospective of a samurai.
I got one hit K.O.

 

[FuturizeHandgun]

I agree that the ticks with Wither make it impossible for you to swing your axe and actually do damage, but there are chances in which you actually get a genuine hit on the withered target. I don't really have a problem with the fire tick, as its very unlikely for you to swing the second the fire tick goes off.

Chaos orb is by far one of my most favorite skills. I agree, its quite hard to land, but after practice it is second nature. Your account on its mobility is partly false from my experiences. I find it low in mobility, but a secret aspect in which many pyros ignore. That is, to PURPOSEFULLY miss your target. Pretty much the #1 killer is people being stupid and realizing, that where my CO lands, is where I go. So I pretty much use that to my advantage, giving me slight mobility, and great deals of confusion. Also, its great for running away, as I can just run one way, toss it up in the air, and keep on running, while the hordes of people chase me. I've gotten several accounts of people claiming I "GTPed like a pussy" or that I lagged behind them. Pretty much from what you're telling me, you haven't fucked with that enough yet.

If Pyromancer would be "too strong" with a balanced Firewave, then other abilities should be nerfed to compensate this fact. To leave Firewave "as is" simply because you lose to futurize is bullshit, and to use such an example as defense against the argument is the laziest display of class balance I've ever seen. All class abilities should be viable and available to use as necessary. Especially when it's supposed to be the most powerful one a class gets.

Like northeaster said, its not supposed to be the most damage dealing skill. Its supposed to be the most powerful. Like shock, its supposed to act as an AOE damage, but with fireballs that deals slight damage over a certain area of effect. And to your statement about people avoiding it must be different from my accounts. I like to pop it in the most awkward time possible. I did have experience with people bashing, or silencing me, but for the most part, I run away from them, pop I and turn around. If they do kick of bash, I'm ready to DOT them up, and raise hell. Thats my way of saying "Fuck me? No, Fuck You." One thing I think you don't understand is that all the skills we have a balanced perfectly. We have gone through a series of 3-4 nerfs/buffs. As you would know, all our skills are unique in damage and skill shot/direct damage. They are all situation based skills/ No exact rotation of skills. There is never a skill I consider a MUST cast skill whenever I have the chance. By "buffing" firewave, you then offset the delicate balance of our skills. I honestly would hate to have my skills fucked with, whether it was its damage, or mana cost, because each skill has a perfect use, and by reducing that, it requires me to change entire play style to compensate for the potential burst damage of firewave. I used the basic skills ALOT more than FW and Chaosorb, which taught me to control my damage that I output. I rather not have my most used skills reduced just so I can do 1-2 more hearts of damage with a firewave. Overall, I feel more comfortable having its damage OR aoe tweaked by almost 1/10th of a turn, with the loss of mana cost. I say this because, with its 20 second cd is not to short that you can spam it, and not too long that you can effectively use it again in a fight. I find mana to be no problem at all, so increasing damage/mana wouldn't hurt, but drastic changes would break the class and all its goodness. (155dmg per/ 50-55)
P.S. I don't find the wither dot really mess with melee because I use that time to run in/back out with a bit of fireball and chaosorb too. Saying that, it doesnt hurt to try to punch them if they run away, or are backing up yet in punching distance. Fixing it would be nice, but it fucks with the tick reset :/

 

[Dsawemd]

Firewave should spread fire DoT tick damage in an AOE circle.

No skill should heal or hurt for more than half total health, imo, exceptions for strong healing skills only, like FullHeal and LayHands.

 

[Kainzo]

While I agree, I think retuning it slightly isn't a bad idea - but a massive change or buff probably won't happen.

The skill itself does exactly what it was coded to do - it may need to have a higher cd and higher damag, or lesser cooldown and more mana. Not sure.

 

[Keache]

While I agree, I think retuning it slightly isn't a bad idea - but a massive change or buff probably won't happen.

The skill itself does exactly what it was coded to do - it may need to have a higher cd and higher damag, or lesser cooldown and more mana. Not sure.

I'd say increase the damage or increase the number of fireballs you can be hit by to like 2 or 3 at the most

 

[Delfofthebla]

While I agree, I think retuning it slightly isn't a bad idea - but a massive change or buff probably won't happen.

The skill itself does exactly what it was coded to do - it may need to have a higher cd and higher damag, or lesser cooldown and more mana. Not sure.

That would be fine with me. As long as it is altered in some way, I'd be happy.

 

[Kwong050]

I think that the amount of fire balls should be increased because it would give Pyros great but not too strong team fighting presence while keeping the same 1v1 power that they have.

 

[Scycor]

Hmm, a few interesting points. I don't believe that Firewave needs much of a buff tbh, it's really useful in team fights especially with the combo of Blaze. You also stated that it is not on the same level as other casters, but that is not true... Pyromancer has it's strengths, has some more armor and does some awesome fire damage... I guess to new players firing lightning bolts and forcing people to ride pigs is more appealing.

"I do not think there is anything wrong with a Pyromancer one-shotting someone with Firewave if he is directly on top of the player. If you play badly, you should be punished badly" - No skill should have the power to one shot another class, that is just wrong.

If you ask me, no it should NOT be reverted back to itself, from what I remember.. Last map during the 5th PvP tournament if you pay attention in this video you will see that 3 of SG's members have been 1 shot by Firewave. At the end of the fight and during the fight you will see that some people said that it was OP. (Haxnn was the Geomancer, sorry if I put you on the spot <3)

While I do like and enjoy how well thought out this thread is, I do not believe that it needs TOO much of a buff... I think that longer range or more fireballs would suffice.

 

[FuturizeHandgun]

Yeah I agree with you kainzo, increase the amount of snowballs and increasing mana would be perfect, the reason increasing cd would be bad is because pyros as is are time managing and extra cd would make it a bit harder to manage. I feel a 50-55 MP would be reasonable from 30 MP.