Now that the patch has dropped and the devs are officially working on the next patch and asked for more feedback, I would like to mention that the Wizard’s Firebird set is by far the set with the worst mechanics and playstyle in the whole game.
A few month ago I made a thread about this in the Wizard Forum, but I don’t know if that feedback has reached the devs, so I take my chances again and ask again if the Firebird - the set with the worst mechanics and playstyle in the whole game - can be looked at and eventually get reworked somehow.
I’ll link the thread with the analysis and some suggestion on how the set can be improved (some are mine suggestion, and many others come from other users of the community) down here:
Here is a sneak peek into it:
I hope this goes through to Matthew Cederquist or another dev, since Firebird is really in need of a redesign.
I like it, but I’d like to especially focus on the “bonus damage to all fire skill”, just so there’s no interaction with chantadoo and such, basing its set damage around the highest damaging fire skill.
That way, it wont be used for star pact or archon, giving room for hydra and meteor swarm.
I can’t remember when the last time, or even if there was a time, that I even seen a fire bird wizard in a public game. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen one played by my friends either. How bad is this set lol? I remember trying it years ago and definetly came to a conclusion that I was not playing that build so I never touched it since then. Never seen anyone else play it so I had no interest in trying it again.
This set caused chaos in the Wizard character, and this chaos can be called “the evil of the meteor”.
Problems:
Problem 1 - You have to burn one elite group and not kill and bring this group with you until you find another, because if you lose the 20 accumulation bonus you will die. It is impossible to accumulate 20 monsters in ordinary monsters, as it is a lie the description that the monster burns to death, there is a distance that if you move far enough away from a burning monster it will stop burning. The developers created this distance because players simply burned a group of elites and abandoned them burning to remain forever with the 20 accumulations, but when creating this distance it is virtually impossible to keep the 20 accumulations from normal monsters.
Possible Solution to Problem 1
The distance of the burning enemies was only meant to exist for Elites monsters, normal monsters could burn forever regardless of distance as they have less life than the elites and would eventually die, making it possible to accumulate 20 from normal monsters.
Problem 2 (very serious) - Giving the accumulation damage bonus to any skill causes people to use a non-fire skill such as the Meteor with the Star Pact arcane rune, which is a joke because the Set is Firebird, made to use fire skills. While other sets increase damage by 9000% o Delseres, and 8000% o Tal Rashas, FireBird only increases 4000% with 20 accumulations. To make FireBird workable, 3 meteor items (boot, source, staff) were created that made even those who play Tal Rashas be forced to play Meteor, disabling any other fire skills on Set FireBird and disabling any other abilities. on set Tal Rashas. Even Vyr’s Set uses Meteor on the Bazooka build.
Possible Solution to Problem 2
To enable other skills and diversify builds of both Tal Rashas and FireBird, unfortunately the damage percentage of the legendary Meteor items (boot, source and staff) must be reduced and to compensate for this reduction increase the damage% of the 20 accumulations. FireBird from 4000% to 8000% or another satisfactory percentage, this will allow players to use skills such as Tornado, Fire Rune Arcane Orb, Disintegrate, Blizzard, Hydra, Arcane Torrent, etc. Continuing. To compensate for the reduction in meteor items is also required to increase the damage% of the Tal Rashas set, so both Tal Rashas and FireBird meteor builds will continue to make the rifts they do, but other abilities will also be able to do so such rifts levels.
I think with a legendary item power, Mirror Image can be embed into Firebird’s playstyle without the need of 6-piece bonus. Mocking Demise skillrune of Mirror Image can be changed into fire damage from arcane for instance and a few legendary item can be added to allow Mirror Images to deal higher damage over time stacks or cast Explosive Blast whenever you do, so that opens way of Orb of Infinite Depth to be included.
Yes, the firebird is hilariously bad. What kind of set that it will lose tremendous power and defense once the elite dies after you went to build it up.
At least have those “buff” lasted for 30~60 seconds after the elite dies or something.
The set should just increase the fire damage by flat number instead of being useless “unique” than other set items.
I absolutly agree that Firebirds Finery set is trash. Lame gameplay to get lame power!
I would love to see a tanky Firebird set and a new cold based set for higher damage output…something like this:
Firebirds Finery:
2 Set:
Diamond Skin last forever and if you die (while Diamond Skin is active), you will be revive while automatically activating the rune ‘Diamond Shards’ to deal now 50.000 % weapon damage as fire.
4 Set:
Diamond Skin gain the effect of every rune and each fire damage from you restore 5 % of the life shield. Using the base rune of Hydra or Meteor activate all fire runes from this abilities.
6 Set:
Each Hydra (from you) within 60 yards reduce your damage taken by 10 % (max 6 Hydras) and your damage is increase by 50 % equal to your life shield from Diamond Skin (max 160 % life with Bracers).
Ashnagarrs Blood Bracer:
Increase the potency of your shields and your healing by 75 - 100 %.
Serpents Sparker (1 hand Wand):
You may have one extra Hydra active at the time which deals 400 - 550 % increase damage.
The Might of the Winter Night:
2 Set:
Using the base rune of Ray of Frost or Blizzard activates the effect of all cold runes and Ray of Frost will now pierce through enemies.
4 Set:
Ice Armor get the effect of every rune and Blizzard can now stack up to 3 times.
Ice Armor and Blizzard create one Energy Twister of the same elemental type per second.
6 Set:
While Ice Armor is active your cold abilities deals 12.000 % increase damage and you take 60 % reduce damage from range attacks.
Halo of Arlyse (Ring):
Ice Armor now reduce damage taken from melee attacks by 60 % and automatically cast Frost Nova whenever you take 5 - 10 % of your life in damage.
Ranslors Folly (Bracer):
The damage of Energy Twister and Blizzard is increase by 225 - 300 %. Energy Twisters now cannot leave the area of Blizzard.
Winter Flurry (Source):
Your damage over time effects from cold abilities deals it total damage per second now. You deal 100 - 125 % increase damage to slowed enemies, while this bonus is doubles against frozen enemies.
Honestly, I don’t really think it’s a good idea. Congrats for the effort tho, but I don’t think it’s fitting with the set BG.
We already got enough about “skill” restricting set. A general buff to fire type spells/damage should improve diversity, and suit the set idea of a deity of fire better.
Problem is all about meteor, as mentioned by @Arconte :
Meteor/Arcane Orb are too mandatory as DPS skills (and Archon, but it’s another story) due to the stack of multipliers on items.
Main DPS source should be FIRE only. Simply for avoiding another dumb SP build.
What IMO should be issued with the new FB rework (if this happen)
Get rid of Stacks/Elite mechanic
Get rid of 3 skills for trigger set effect
Then, allow me to develop my idea, and why old set felt better:
More flexibility, since we only need fire damage to ignite
Simple mechanic with almost instant effect
2 Set Bonus: Your fire skills/damage ignite the enemies, dealing X% dmg/sec for Y seconds
Or just stick with the meteor. (Which I personally dislike, since the animation is really slow)
4 set Bonus: Igniting an enemy increase your armor by X% for Y seconds, stacking up to Z times. Igniting a Elite/Boss gives you maximum effect.
For toughness buff, simple and effective. Looks a lot like the Vyr set, but I don’t personally see how to fit something else. I don’t like the idea to force a player using one Armor/Toughness skill.
6 set bonus: Enemies ignited take X% more damage from your fire damage.
Very simple, restricted to fire, but doesn’t give the set an unique flavor IMO. Enemies ignited are burned, and take X% times the damage of ignite. This effect can stack up to 3 times by reigniting the enemy, which then takes Y% more damage from your fire skills
The idea is to play around igniting mobs, like kiting/packing mobs, for having a huge burst seconds later, so the set is not so no brainer.
OR Ignited enemies take X% more damage from your DoT abilities
To bring back tho old flavor of the set, but it limits the usage of skills from it, like Mammoth Hydra/Blizzard/Arcane Orb fire rune. Which doesn’t really bother, since those skills are unused RN.
All of those a personal suggestions, feel free to add some feedback/critic, it could always help
It’s not the worst set cuz Firebird even not could be called a set. It’s some stuck ugly pixels just. Haha. Need a serious buff to become a set. Now it’s just some text and green collor say it’s a set but isn’t lol.
Well, technically, it’s still remains a set. But a badly designed one.
Honestly, I agree they’re kinda lazy, since the new sets are not overwhelming with new gameplay/mechanics. It’s just tossing some multipliers on unused skills.
However, I am still happy to see some new sets/tweaks on builds, since the game is really old.
