BackGround
Incinerate was always an ability that rewarded mages with big dmg for using an ability that needed the player to stand in place for 4-6 seconds and get within melee range of an enemy player. The dmg output of incinerate was nice and nobody wanted it to get nerfed rather, many players wanted it to get a buff. The need for a buff came from how slow it was, it was completely useless in duels against ranged players since it was almost impossible to hit a ranged player who is always trying to kite. This skill required you to be within melee range of a target and since incinerate was so easy to dodge it became pretty much useless against bow, musket, and mage players that all specialized in kiting.
How It Plays Now
Incinerate, to sum up, hits like a wet noodle, with numbers ranging from 2k crits all the way down to 1.2k when it used to do numbers like 4k-6k. I’d get these types of numbers even with the empowering incinerate perk, thwarting strikes for the 11% more dmg while in grit and fully ignited rune glass gems on gear, and a fire dmg ring to maximize incinerate maximum dmg output yet my hardest ever incinerate this patch was 3k and my lowest was 1.2k. Although it casts a lot faster now, the ability to animation cancel it has made it significantly harder to use, by increasing its casting time, theoretically, it would solve the issue of it being useless in duels yes??? NOPE.
Incinerate is still just as hard to hit because before you use it, you have to be absolutely sure that you can land it on the target since you’re not allowed to animation cancel it. If used and the ranged player you are fighting dodges it, they’re free to do dmg to you for up to 3 seconds while you’re still stuck in the incinerate animation. The removal of the animation cancellation wouldn’t have been such a big deal if it still hit hard, but it doesn’t, on top of this, if you use it and the target dodges, this leaves you exposed to not only the player you were trying to incinerate but all the other enemies playing with them leaving you dead 60% of the time.
Usually incinerate would act as a mitigator toward melee or even a pressure reliever since it did large amounts of dmg and pushed back the enemies but now it’s struggling to do even that. Somehow it seems with the lack of dmg it has also lost a lot of its push back and now melee players caught in an incinerate can still keep attacking with no worries because it’ll only hit them for 1.5k and it doesn’t push them back.
AGS Why Did You Nerf An Ability That Needed A Buff Or Was Balanced Already?
AGS I do see what you were going for, lots of people were asking it to have a faster cast time including myself, but if you did increase its case time and left its dmg output the same, it would’ve been too OP. I can see that happening hence the removal of the double hit, although it was a change to answer the community pleads for a buff to incinerate, the dmg was nerfed way too much. I was one of the very very few mages that did run Incinerate competitively in pvp and was having so much fun using it, this change has made it significantly harder to actually be able to compete with the other fire staff users that run Pillar of Fire (which is op and too easy to use) and has ultimately lead to me considering quitting.
I don’t want to quit, I’ve been trying to make this build work as much as possible, trying everything I can to maximize its dmg but it’s not enough. I want to continue having fun running a build and playstyle I’ve been honing for the past year, on multiple occasions I had wanted to quit during the dex meta because bow and musket were just too op (bow still is) but I soldiered on believing it would get better this patch when AGS would buff incinerate but instead I got a fat nerf instead.
Suggestion On Balancing Incinerate
After thinking about all the buffs you could give Incinerate without making it op, I have concluded that Incinerate needs to see a buff to dmg, not as strong as last patches incinerate, just a maybe 10-15% dmg decrease to its dmg from last patch so it’s still able to hit hard but not as hard as last patch due to the cast time buff and either decrease the animation time after incinerate has hit or add back the ability to animation cancel the ability again.
Summary For Those Who Don’t Wanna Read The Whole Thing
Incinerate is severely underpowered seeing numbers as high as 3k and as low as 1.2k, a significant nerf from its dmg last patch which was 4k-6k. Incinerates removal of animation cancel, lack of push back, and lack of dmg have made it not viable in pvp since you can’t animation cancel it if the target dodges out of it early, melees can keep putting pressure on you since they don’t need to fear any big dmg or any push back and the even heavy attacks do more dmg than an incinerate which you need to go into melee range and be locked in animation for 4-5 seconds.
Incinerate should see a buff to its dmg which should be 10-15% lower than last patch, or bring back the double hit so incinerate is able to apply another stack of smolder to make it easier to run and actually make backdraft work because atm, either the person dies before you can build up 5 stacks of smolder, you die before you can build up 5 stacks of smolder or once you do build up 5 stacks of smolder, you only got a 2-4 second window to hit that heavy attack. Incinerate should also have the ability to animation cancel as without it in duels or even in normal pvp, it makes it much harder to hit and very detrimental if missed since you’re exposed to attacks from enemies for 4-5 seconds leading to your death most of the time.
Forum Post On Fire Staff As A Whole: The State of Fire Staff Right Now