Another Soulforge Embers Complaint Thread

Classes Hunter
1

So, we all know soulforge is the only legendary in town for BM (the other legendries being terrible is another topic all together)…

Issues:

  1. Bosses that are immune to CC are often immune to soulforge embers
  2. Mobs that walk into a tartrap /flare combo are immune to soulforge until flare comes off cooldown
  3. accidentally using flare before tar trap does not trigger the DOT
  4. The DOT uptime is too low and does not effect enough targets

Facts:

  1. Tar Trap has a 30 second cooldown (no longer made shorter by autoattack since we do not have the bow from last expansion)
  2. Flare has a 20 second cooldown
  3. Things move during encounters so there is an awkward 10 seconds of not being able to place a new tar trap

Typical Fight Overview:
Encounter Pulled -> Toss Trap -> Wait for Trap Travel Time -> Trap Triggers -> Wait for Tar Trap Aura to apply (if you cast flare right when the trap triggers on the floor, the DoT will not apply if the Tar Aura isn’t on the mobs) -> the good lord above chooses 5 of the mobs to get the dot -> DoT Applies for 12 seconds -> raid encounter continues and the boss has likely relocated to a new area (Sire Dinathrius, Sludgefist, Shriekwing, Hunstman, Sunking adds) and now you have an awkward 15 seconds where you cannot re-apply the DoT

Recommendations:

  1. When equipping this legendary, make the radius of tar trap much larger (like in Torgahst)
  2. Have tar trap apply a permanent debuff to the target for being “tarred” that can allow flare to reactivate the 12 second DoT when flare is applied
  3. Just have Flare apply the DoT.
  4. Uncap the number of mobs that can get the DoT
  5. Increase the duration of the DoT to 24-30 seconds to reduce the awkwardness for the use
  6. Allow Tar Trap and flare to be cast in either order to apply the DoT
  7. Allow the debuff to apply to mobs that normally cannot be CC’d (some bosses, for example)

Bottom Line
It’s a cool mechanic and I am glad blizzard is thinking outside box with new abilities and unique flavor for legendaries, but it needs attention. Fights with heavy cleave that require adds to die quickly (Sire Dinathrius and Sun King come to mind) have adds that spawn in random locations that will not fit in one tar trap.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk, and if this is a Wendy’s I’ll have a 4pc nuggies and a choco frostie.

4 Likes
2

Hey there! I agree with the fact that the legendary needs some work! Check out my post about it here and let me know what you think: Soulforge Embers needs work, let's discuss!

1 Like
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I posted this a while back myself:

Preferable option:

Change the base design of it to no longer include Flare. To something like below.

Soulforge Embers

Burning embers are added to your Tar Trap. When the trap is triggered, the embers ignite the tar left on the ground, causing it to burn for the next 20 seconds. Any enemy caught in the burning tar suffer (40% of Attack Power) Fire Damage every 2 seconds.

If the enemy moves out of the burning tar, they continue to burn for (240% of Attack Power) Fire Damage over 12 seconds.

Also add a proper animation to this ability. Something that actually shows that the tar is burning. It doesn’t need to be a blazing inferno. But at least make it visual.

Some clarifications to the above:

  • The tar on the ground will remain for the same amount of time as it currently does with Tar Trap. The change is that it will now burn for the first 20 seconds of it’s duration.

  • The idea behind the residual DoT-effect is to compensate for the loss of that second Flare which we are currently able to fire into the tar. In short, if the enemy doesn’t move out of the tar, they take equal damage per second as with the current design(just that it lasts 20 seconds + 12).
    If they move out, they will take less damage in total, but will still be affected by the residual DoT. Basically: “Don’t(Please do…) stand in the fire”.

3 Likes
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Great points.

2 Likes
5

It could certainly be made more forgiving.

But it could also just be replaced with a Flaming Pitch ability that shares cooldown with both tar trap and flare. Lob a glob of flaming pitch at the target, which splatters on up to 5 nearby enemies to apply the dot.

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Remove tar trap from it entirely. Simply make flare apply the dot

You know, like burning embers fall from the sky and set the mob on fire for the duration

It still has the “look, we’re so smart we are making an extremely niche skill useful” cache so the devs can pat themselves on the back

It’s so simple.

1 Like
7

Yeah, there are literally no “bad” ideas in this thread so far. It’s sad that a small collection of people can generate solutions so quickly and yet we’re probably saddled with this clunky jalopy for a long time.

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That would make Flare useless in so many circumstances though. Flaring an area to expose enemies for the tank to pick up would suddenly be an agro generating move. Flaring an area to expose stealthers in pvp would break nearby CC. The list goes on and on.

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I think SFE is just poorly designed. The biggest issue with it being our most powerful legendary(and not even powerful at that) is so many Hunters chose it to craft. If they buff the other legendary effects(unlikely), there will be so many Hunters upset they got stuck with this crappy effect.

I think Blizzard just needs to rethink all the BM Hunter Legendary effects and give us the option to refund the ones we already created. The drastic difference between BM effects and the effects of Marks, Survival and other classes is beyond ridiculous.