New Perk Suggestion - Fire Reduction!

Ok here's my proposal:

A new perk, Fire Reduction [EDITED, for shields only!] , would result in a reduction in the duration of all fire damage (except napalm, more on that later), for example:

Uncommon: 1% fire duration reduction
Rare: 2% fire duration reduction
Epic: 3% fire duration reduction

We can quibble with the percentages later, but I argue that the concept of a fire reduction perk is warranted based on the following facts about the current meta:

1. Yellow boats dominate the top of the ladder, and they ALL run fire damage of some kind, usually grenades or flare gun coupled with blast/explosive cannon. In a 1v1 situation at the end of a game, the sheer dps of these boats (combined with their tesla shields and speed/agility) is utterly overwhelming against shooters, defenders or fixers. So fire in general is nerf-worthy.
2. The boat that would disproportionately benefit from this change is ... DEFENDER! That's right, our big blue boulder will finally get some love by being able to reduce all fire damage by up to 60%!!! Of course, by taking full advantage of this perk, that would mean he'd have to sacrifice additional health, speed, agility, etc.... tough choices!

Possible questions/objections:
Q: Why not just nerf fire weapons directly?
A: By introducing a nerf in the form of a new perk, players have to choose whether to take advantage of the nerf, and decide for themselves whether using this perk is worth the trade off. This makes the game less predictable and therefore more fun. The whole "rock paper scissors with a million choices" aspect of Battle Bay is what makes it fun! Also, nerfs by just straight-up reducing damage or abilities of weapons are demoralizing. When you've invested huge amounts of time and $$$ in your gear, it hurts to see it nerfed.
Q: Why reduce percentage duration instead of seconds duration?
A: That would eliminate all fire damage from grenades, which seems overly punitive to that one weapon.
Q: Wouldn't this exempt Napalm?
A: YES! Napalm should be exempt because right now you can reduce the duration of that weapon to as low as you want by maneuvering out of the way.
Q: Isn't it overkill to allow a full 60% reduction in fire duration? Do we really want Banderas running around in his souped-up defender stomping all over the ladder?
A: Maybe? As I noted above, defender is the red-headed step-child of BB, so it's long overdue for a nerf. That being said, if we're worried about the cumulative impact of running 20 fire reduction perks, then we can add fire reduction as a ship statistic (just like Defense) and cap it, as we do with other ship statistics. Also, a cap would allow the devs more leeway to boost the percentage reduction for each tier of perk (i.e. 2-3-4%).

OK that's enough for now, what do y'all think?

 

Seems good to me

Tho in your first argument you unfairly hated on yellow boats​

 

What items are these for?

 

Shields only, i'll modify the original post accordingly

 

Hahaha no hate intended! But can you tell I play shooter?

 

Sure can and seriously it is not only speeders who are fire users. Enforcers do combine usually granade, flare and bc so it is pretty much the same as speeder with flare+bc but hurts even more. Anyway that seems a good choise and actually I do like it even though I am one of those flare-ec users .

One thing I don't like is the possibility of 60% duration lost (which means 60% of dmg loss too) and that is a lot for one weapon to get nerfed by defence perks. I'd say cap of 25% would be max as it is still reasonable (maxed out flare with all epic duration + crew talents is about 22-23 secs so it makes it then 5,5 secs off and sounds more fair than about 13-14 secs off).

Anyway, this is the most reasonable idea to the game I have heard for a while.

 

I agree. I'm not against the idea of fire reduction but if hating on yellow boats is the reason then it isn't going to help much. I get my bonus damage so long as the enemy is on fire AT ALL. It doesn't matter if it's a low burn or burn from someone else. Taking a few percentage points off my flare wouldn't change anything at all.

In fact, for speeders at least, I'm not entirely convinced weapons matter. It's all about how many salvo's I can make in hit & run attacks before I die. Every salvo is around 2k damage for me. Dropping that to 1800 would change nothing. Me getting better and adding in on or two more salvos would be a dramatic increase in average damage.

 

Reducing burns would still take a large portion of extra damage off of you, making it worth giving up hp or defense perks in their stead. If the goal is to reduce the power of fire+cannon combos, perhaps the perks should also reduce the combo's power.

• Uncommon - 2.0%
• Rare - 3.5%
• Epic - 5.0%

While 20% damage reduction seems overpowered, remember, it's not 20% of total damage reduction from cannons, only 20% reduction of the % increase in damage from fire damage. Example, a blast cannon dealing 1000 damage and 50% bonus burn damage will deal roughly 1500 damage. With 4 of these epic perks, this blast cannon will deal 1300 damage instead, in addition to the burn duration being shortened. A regular blast cannon shot will still deal 1000 damage.

Side note, this would definitely be stronger for defenders, but in terms of who it can help you against, it's balanced. At this point, I see every ship type in the game rocking fire+cannon combos. I'd definitely wanna see a frost buff with this, though, to create a balance between the two. I like the 2-hit idea instead of 1-hit that I saw somewhere on here.

 

That'd be a huge flare weapons nerf. Just too much, even if there were a 25% cap as suggested for @PastelPiku it'd be kind of killing flare gun. It is not only a weapon who gives extra damage, its damage is also relevant.

My flare does 1131 damage points, a 25% reducion would reduce it to 848... I'd switch to blast cannon ASAP

 

I agree the exact numbers and strategy need to be thought about but we can all see the overwhelming power of fire at the end of every match. More specifically I suspect it's the fire & burn perk combo. I think it'd benefit the game if it was somehow toned down. It's possible in my mind that boats like speeders might need some compensating buff but when was the last time you saw a non fire user at the top of the post-game review? I know it's pretty rare for me.

 

I guess it happens for the lack of combos. We have Frost torp/ mortar and fire + cannons, the first combo is a joke, the second is good. If the devs improve frost and maybe create a new combo (like the tesla bolt/ railgun suggested by someone in the forum) we'd have a healthy diversity.

 

I want a perk when shooter misses shots his cooldown should increase by 50%. Stacking is allowed every missed shot means next time cooldown will increase by to 75%. And so on if it keeps missing shooter won't be able to shoot anything at all.

 

That'd be another approach. Honestly, out of all the "house is burning down" issues affecting battle bay, the dominance of fire isn't really on my list. I think that Rovio, in their spare time, might want to take a look at that. I don't think equipping a burn weapon ought to be nearly mandatory for 3 star performances. But it doesn't really make matches difficult or unplayable. It's just a thing. Fire is powerful.

 

This is actually a pretty good addition, since there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that stops fire damage currently in the game. Definitely +1

 

lol

 

Exactly my reaction to fire reduction perks.
lol

 

This is assuming everyone is choosing these perks over the +150 hp ones. These perks don't help at all against any other weapons, which would balance the weapons on the bay. At least it's not a direct nerf to fire, it's an alternative to counter fire in place of a LOT of hp.

In your case, you're only losing about 150 damage when you consider their smaller hp.

 

Lots of shooters and defenders would use it on their standard shields

 

Regardless you lose 150hp+ for each perk you swap out lol. It's not OP, it's a counter. Devs can work the numbers out. As long as it's not as useless as defense perks it'll be a great item.

 

Still don't like the idea, as a flare + explosive user, I think any nerf to this setup would be too much, right now. Except if devs want to take this setup away from some speeders like me that think this combo is not dead, but it could use a little buff. And a fire reduction perk would be a huge nerf to flare on some battles.