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Fusion Missile...


Kuronan

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Okay, let's take a look at the ability shall we...

Fusion Missile is a 1.5 second cast time ability that does damage to three enemies, and once every two minutes can be turned into an immediate fire ability. It has a good amount of damage over six seconds, but can be interrupted and works on a thirty second cooldown. The damage and explosion to affect up to two other people besides your target is great, but let's look at other classes for a moment...

 

Corrosive Grenade: Instant Cast, affects up to three people for internal damage over time, Twelve Second Cooldown

Plasma Probe: Instant Cast, affects up to five people in five meters, can be placed strategically to block doors over it's eighteen second duration, deals elemental damage and stuns any target affected by Interrogation Probe. Eighteen Second Cooldown.

Death Field: Can be strategically placed to hit exactly three people at any time, Instant Cast, instant internal damage and can be specialized to leave a debuff increasing damage-over-time effects from the inquisitor. Fifteen Second Cooldown.

Chain Lightning: Hits up to five people withing 8 meters of the target for immediate energy damage. Can be specialized to hit them a second time for 30% of the initial damage on proc. Can also be specialized to be refreshed and made instant cast on proc of Lightning Strike or Force Storm. Six Second Cooldown.

Wither: Deals Kinetic Damage to five targets nearby, decreasing damage by 5% and slowing enemies by 30%. Smart Ability that does not affect incapacitated or sleeping targets. Effects lasts 15 seconds. Seven Point Five Second Cooldown.

Smash: Affects five nearby targets for kinetic damage. Can be specialized to increase damage and reduce cost by 25% for every tick of Force Choke and Force Crush, can be specialized to not have any cost at all, can be specialized to reduce armor of anyone affected, and can be specialized to have an instant guaranteed critical hit after a Force Charge or Obliterate. Fifteen Second Cooldown, which can be specced to be reduced (by one second) EVERY TIME YOU HIT A STRIKE, VICIOUS SLASH, FORCE SCREAM, OR VICIOUS THROW.

 

I see a pattern here: The other classes have a fifteen second or less burst of AoE damage that can hit three or more people (besides the default, which has no cooldown and is not included due to the fact that'd be comparing to Sweeping Blasters)

 

Bioware, do you see a pattern here, I sure do. Let's remedy that.

Fusion Missile should not be instant cast, but it generates a LOT of heat, literally a third of my bar, and has a thirty second cooldown.

How can we fix this you ask? Great question.

Reduce the Heat Generation to 24 and the Cell Cost (for the trooper equivalent Plasma Grenade) to 3.

Reduce Cooldown to fifteen seconds, possibly adding a talent in Pyrotech to proc an instant cast of the ability with no ammo cost that will reset the cooldown.

 

Fusion Missile is a great ability, but I can't use it a lot since it takes half a minute to refresh cooldown and I'd get more burst from shooting an Explosive Dart. It's more of a 'pull all three mobs and hurt them all' ability that keeps them busy while my Explosive Dart prepares to knock them down.

Edited by Kuronan
Adding yet more abilities...
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Ok.

 

But we do have Explosive Dart (3 targets) as a cheap half cost half damage AOE.

 

Now that IS the 15s AOE we have.

 

Not to mention Sweeping Blasters (5 targets, no CD), Flame Thrower (unlimited?, 18s CD) and DFA (5 targets, 60s CD)

 

Missile Blast ofc is a piece of crap.

 

Maybe it's a spec thing.

 

For example, I'm able to put a free Fusion Missile on every probe on the minefield in EC HM as my first attack.

 

I'm sure it sucks more for Arsenal which has a fixed 1.30m CD on TSO but Arsenal gains almost nothing from leaving the holy rotation of Tracer, Unload, HSM and Railshot.

 

In a heavy fight, Pyro can get TSO down into the 30s bracket which makes the cost of FM mostly irrelevant.

 

If what you really mean is you think Mercs suffer from a lack of aoe abilities then I say you're very wrong. No other class can do as much AOE damage as a Merc.

 

Mercs can also stack AOE on top of AOE... on top of AOE for pack annihilation.

 

e.g. FM, ED plus choice of Flame Thrower, Sweeping Blasters or DFA as the final channel on top.

 

Or hell, even Flame Thrower, DFA and Sweeping Blasters one after the other.

 

By the time that's over you should have ED again :D

Edited by Gyronamics
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I'm pretty sure Flamethrower is actually 15 seconds in cooldown as well, I wasn't really looking at other abilities when I made this. But remember that a player running around you can easily make you waste those three seconds trying to make the flamethrower with the initial cost.

 

Also note that Sweeping Blasters doesn't count. It cancels out Sweeping Slash, Suppressive Fire, and Force Storm because they are all designed in similar fashions.

 

Death From Above is also not mention because A) it's a channel and B) It's cancelled out by Orbital Strike (Castable that lasts 9 seconds, and can be upgraded with gear to last 12. Not to mention can also be specialized as a sniper to have a 45 second cooldown instead of 60. Overall, they cancel each other out due to doing a smiliar amount of damage, orbital strike being elemental and DTA being kinetic.)

 

I'm mostly just annoyed that it costs us a third of the bar and has a thirty second cooldown, and we don't get a proc for it or anything.

Edited by Kuronan
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Merc AoE ability is above average relative to other classes for PvE purposes only. Sorcs are better at it, and even PT/Vanguard is about the same given the poor heat/damage profile of Sweeping Blasters. Still, Mercs are above average AoE dealers for PvE.

 

But in PvP, Merc are definitely below average AoE platforms. The only viable AoE attacks the Merc has in PvP are Explosive Dart and Fusion Missile (when combined with TSO and Power Surge). Everything else is going to be interrupted leaving you with a heat headache and little else. That gives you an AoE attack every 13.3 seconds, with the vast majority of those coming from the very weak Explosive Dart.

 

Compare that to the dozens of Smash Monkeys roaming warzones, who if properly piloted can get off a auto crit Smash every 10 seconds or less. A Smash which does about 4x as much damage as the pathetic Explosive Dart.

 

In a densely packed warzone, a top tier player piloting a Smash Monkey will score damage output about 50% higher than a top tier player using Merc dps. In a warzone featuring mostly 1v1 activity, the Smash Monkey will still output damage about 30% higher than the Merc dps. With better survivability and more team utility.

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I see this happen far too often on MMO boards. You just can't isolate one class ability and compare it to another class' ability. Taken out of context of a class role, resource management, spec, complementary abilities and so on the argument becomes completely meaningless.

 

Now if you want to say you think the merc as a whole is short on AoE that is at least a valid argument (even though I don't agree). The heat cost is certainly high but along with thermal sensor override it does give pretty decent bang for the buck.

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Now if you want to say you think the merc as a whole is short on AoE that is at least a valid argument (even though I don't agree). The heat cost is certainly high but along with thermal sensor override it does give pretty decent bang for the buck.

 

You can't be serious, can you? Explosive Dart costs 16 Heat, which takes 3.2 seconds of recovery time to dissipate. In exchange it does AoE damage to up to 3 enemies. Compare that to Smash. Smash costs 3 rage which takes 2.75 seconds of recovery time (Assault) to generate. In exchange it does AoE damage to up to 5 enemies. And the damage is about 3-4x greater than Explosive Dart. In what imaginary world would the Merc's AoE be considered a "decent bang for the buck"?

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You can't be serious, can you? Explosive Dart costs 16 Heat, which takes 3.2 seconds of recovery time to dissipate. In exchange it does AoE damage to up to 3 enemies. Compare that to Smash. Smash costs 3 rage which takes 2.75 seconds of recovery time (Assault) to generate. In exchange it does AoE damage to up to 5 enemies. And the damage is about 3-4x greater than Explosive Dart. In what imaginary world would the Merc's AoE be considered a "decent bang for the buck"?

 

You did it wrong again.

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You can't be serious, can you? Explosive Dart costs 16 Heat, which takes 3.2 seconds of recovery time to dissipate. In exchange it does AoE damage to up to 3 enemies. Compare that to Smash. Smash costs 3 rage which takes 2.75 seconds of recovery time (Assault) to generate. In exchange it does AoE damage to up to 5 enemies. And the damage is about 3-4x greater than Explosive Dart. In what imaginary world would the Merc's AoE be considered a "decent bang for the buck"?

 

I think you're missing all relevant points.

 

Would you bring warriors to an ops over mercs because of the warriors AOE damage.

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Please don't even mention the words Explosive Dart or Missile Blast. Next you'll be telling me to add Shoulder Slam into my rotation....

 

Explosive Dart is only an AoE by definition, its not an actual viable AoE. It shares a cooldown with Thermal Detonator and does significantly less damage. Why spread Thermal out between three people? Why not just Thermal one guy...

 

Fusion Missile is also not a viable AoE. It does so little splash damage that you could actually argue that it would be better as a single target so it doesn't break CCs.

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Please don't even mention the words Explosive Dart or Missile Blast. Next you'll be telling me to add Shoulder Slam into my rotation....

 

Explosive Dart is only an AoE by definition, its not an actual viable AoE. It shares a cooldown with Thermal Detonator and does significantly less damage. Why spread Thermal out between three people? Why not just Thermal one guy...

 

Fusion Missile is also not a viable AoE. It does so little splash damage that you could actually argue that it would be better as a single target so it doesn't break CCs.

 

Read the thread again and find the point where anyone supports using Missile Blast for anything.

 

1) Explosive Dart does not share a cooldown with Thermal Detonator

 

2) Mercs do not have DFA ready for every single pack, you have to know how to use your AOE

 

e.g. Kephess EC

DFA on one pack

Explosive Dart + Flamethrower the next pack

Fusion Missile + Sweeping Blasters the third (I get a damage bonus on that last one as I'm Pyro)

 

Clearly you must be doing something else since you don't want to use Explosive Dart, what DO you do?

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Would you bring warriors to an ops over mercs because of the warriors AOE damage.

 

I would bring warriors to an ops over mercs because they do more damage. However in certain ops at least there are mechanics that incentivize not having 4 melee dps and no ranged/mercs. No such incentives exist in PvP. For PvP there is one rule: Never use a Merc dps. They are the worst subclass in the game for PvP.

 

Clearly you must be doing something else since you don't want to use Explosive Dart, what DO you do?

 

I do use Explosive Dart. A lot actually. But this gets right back to the point in my first reply. Merc dps is stuck using an inferior AoE - costs more resources, affects fewer enemies, does less damage per enemy and has delayed damage effect. It's perfectly fine for other classes to have abilities that do all those things better than Merc dps does. But according to the devs, Merc dps needs to get DFA nerfed, because Mercs are too powerful! LOL.

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I would bring warriors to an ops over mercs because they do more damage. However in certain ops at least there are mechanics that incentivize not having 4 melee dps and no ranged/mercs. No such incentives exist in PvP. For PvP there is one rule: Never use a Merc dps. They are the worst subclass in the game for PvP.

 

More what damage?

 

I said AOE because, well, this is your AOE thread.

 

I do use Explosive Dart. A lot actually. But this gets right back to the point in my first reply. Merc dps is stuck using an inferior AoE - costs more resources, affects fewer enemies, does less damage per enemy and has delayed damage effect. It's perfectly fine for other classes to have abilities that do all those things better than Merc dps does. But according to the devs, Merc dps needs to get DFA nerfed, because Mercs are too powerful! LOL.

 

I was replying to DarthBloodloss who doesn't consider ED an AOE.

 

But again you insist on comparing one of the weaker AOE attacks that mercs have to Smash, the best AOE that warriors have.

 

Yes, DFA is a channeled attack and can be interrupted.

 

Just like much of the rest of the damage a Merc does...

 

There is no like for like here, the only similarity between the two attacks you want to compare is the CD.

Edited by Gyronamics
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Ok lemem dip my toe in so it can be ripped off.

 

Warriors don't do more damage in Ops than Mercs. If they do, your mercs are doing it wrong. Pyro does more AoE and Arsenal does more single target. Atleast in the raids I'm in. =)

 

Several times I've had the opportunity to hit FM+Firestorm grenade from cybertech+DFA+sweeping blasters and watched 5 people burn and die while nobody knew where the damage came from. Its rarely used as an arguement, but our AoEs are RANGED. Meaning we don't have to be directly in the fight to use them. That is both a positive and a negative in PvP btw.

 

Although i agree we don't have anything quite as powerful as smash for PvP. Giving us an ability that is will not solve any problems either, it will just make matches faster with insane tons of AoE damage. What we could use is a talent that reduces AoE damage or better yet REFLECTS it back at the attacker.

 

Think about that a second. If Mercs had a shield/skill that didn't stop us recieving the damage of an AoE attack, but REFLECTED it back at the attacker then guess what? Rage spec warriors will start thinking twice about spamming smash since they are gunna kill themselves as well.

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I said AOE because, well, this is your AOE thread..

 

Not my thread. But w.r.t. the AoE, read on below...

 

But again you insist on comparing one of the weaker AOE attacks that mercs have to Smash, the best AOE that warriors have. Yes, DFA is a channeled attack and can be interrupted. Just like much of the rest of the damage a Merc does

 

We are comparing Explosive Dart to Smash because that is what the Merc will commonly use to generate assured damage against a pack of enemy players. DFA can be used only 1/6th as often as Smash and will typically generate only 1/3rd to 1/4th the damage output of Smash. And it is significantly worse from an energy mangement standpoint. Frankly it is ludicrious that anyone is even attempting to argue that Merc dps can compete with Jugg/Sent Rage specs as an AoE platform. There isn't a single high rated ranked wz team that would even consider replacing their Smash Monkeys with a Merc. Merc dps sucks. It sucks at survivability, it sucks at burst damage, it sucks at overall damage and it sucks at utility. And yes, even at AoE damage it sucks compared to other AoE classes. If you want to argue that Merc dps does better AoE damage than a Carnage Mara, then yeah, I'll give you that. Doesn't change the FACT that Merc dps is the worst subclass in the game for PvP.

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Corrosive Grenade: Speced into lethality tree...slowly ticking dot

 

Plasma Probe: 31 points required in engineering tree

 

Death Field: Speced into madness tree

 

Chain Lightning: Lightning tree

 

Wither: 31 points required in darkness tree

 

Smash: You are telling me a spec that focuses on aoe damage is better than fusion missile? That sounds ridiculous

 

 

Honestly you can't compare fusion missile with attacks that take skill points to get and a skill tree that revolves around AoE damage.

 

Although I do agree a slightly lowered heat cost would be fantastic.

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I'm not hearing an answer.

 

I'm hearing someone flapping about.

 

You're rubbishing my moves, describe yours.

 

Sorry for rubbishing your moves. I just feel that any mob worthy of an AoE is a trash mob anyways. I don't find it worth it to map attacks to my hotkeys just for use on trash mobs. Sweeping Blasters is more than enough IMO.

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I see this happen far too often on MMO boards. You just can't isolate one class ability and compare it to another class' ability. Taken out of context of a class role, resource management, spec, complementary abilities and so on the argument becomes completely meaningless.

 

Marauder normal attack? Assault, 4 meter range.

Mercenary normal attack? Power Shots, 30 meter range.

 

Solution: Buff Marauders, needs more Power Shots.

 

 

Power Shots.

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