Flameblast

Well, I liked your idea on bigger stacks, I just didn't like the idea of forcing it on dabbers. I'm not trying to nerf dabbing into the ground and I believe my suggestion doesn't do that. What it does is give non-dabbers an option to build around a max-stacks playstyle.

(For anyone not familiar, 'dab' means 0stack, or just the base flameblast skill damage at 0.3s base casting time.)

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Well, I liked your idea on bigger stacks, I just didn't like the idea of forcing it on dabbers. I'm not trying to nerf dabbing into the ground and I believe my suggestion doesn't do that. What it does is give non-dabbers an option to build around a max-stacks playstyle.

Short of making the 1stack do .01 base damage and the fullstack do 50 base damage, dabbers will always exist.

The reason why is because crit gives them spiky damage and because burn loves that shit. If you can dab 5 times in the time it takes to full charge and you have a 30% chance to crit, you're almost certainly going to get better burns by just dab-until-crit then move on.

Burn prolif is obviously related to this (for aoe reasons, as you stated), so I'm wary to suggest anything "new" until I hear/see prolif planned changes from GGG. In the current world at least, crit dab is certainly faster/cheaper/safer than any amount of non-crit or non-dab flameblasting, and managing the 0stack v. full-stack lever is already in the game.

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pneuma wrote:

Short of making the 1stack do .01 base damage and the fullstack do 50 base damage, dabbers will always exist.

The reason why is because crit gives them spiky damage and because burn loves that shit. If you can dab 5 times in the time it takes to full charge and you have a 30% chance to crit, you're almost certainly going to get better burns by just dab-until-crit then move on.

I'm familiar. I am not of the opinion that the crit dab build should be nerfed into oblivion. That's why I'm so big on the AoE nerf; it allows a skilled dabber to continue to function (still using Prolif as main AoE) but makes the build much harder to play. I feel this elegantly balances with the difficulties of playing max stacks; one is trading aiming issues for kiting issues.

Since those issues are internal to Flameblast I feel rather confident about them, regardless of any pending Prolif changes.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I'm familiar. I am not of the opinion that the crit dab build should be nerfed into oblivion.

Did... do you really mean that a 20% less damage at 0stack is "nerfed to oblivion" (including not changing full-stack damage)?

This forum has enough hyperbole as is, man.

Besides, you suggest a 10% reduction yourself anyway.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

That's why I'm so big on the AoE nerf; it allows a skilled dabber to continue to function (still using Prolif as main AoE) but makes the build much harder to play. I feel this elegantly balances with the difficulties of playing max stacks; one is trading aiming issues for kiting issues.

Since those issues are internal to Flameblast I feel rather confident about them, regardless of any pending Prolif changes.

I'm starting to agree more with managing the AoE rather than the damage, but damage is already currently coded on the skill gem. It's a matter of tuning numbers without any recoding.

After the 20% nerf it already got, there's no point in using it. Other skills do what I wanted out of it with less risk.

Why stand still to full channel when that means I could potentially get peppered with spells, perforated by arrows, and gang-banged by melee (still speaking nothing of CC or desync from charge/leap mobs)? Other spells let me run, cast, run, cast, run until everything is kited to death, and I barely have to see them on screen for it to work.

Also, reshaping the curve to penalize short casts is a nerf, even if the full channel damage is unchanged. This gem doesn't need to be nerfed more when it's already an undesirable pick outside of leveling.