At the highest level / difficulty, the only career worth playing is pyromancer. Here is a list of things that I think are holding back the other careers.
The level 25 talents that allow you to vent all overcharge on skill use. The cooldown on pyromancer is only 40 seconds, which allows for unlimited spell casting. Compare to the other two ability cooldowns, which are 2-4 times as long.
The battle wizard and unchained ultimate abilities are much more niche in when they are useful. The Pyromancer ability is always useful, and almost always available when you need it.
The battle wizard passive that grants charge speed isn’t even noticeable.
losing tranquility upon taking damage means it is almost never active (disabled from gas rats, being pushed by elites, leech teleports, etc.)
Those are my main concerns, as well as talents that seem out of place or have no practical use. I love Sienna but there is really only one career right now.
Except that you can cast infinitely without using the talent to vent overcharge. So yea, having that talent is like having no talent at all.
For some reason gfycat decided to speed up the footage, but I can’t really be bothered to reupload it.
Using nothing but left click on a boss from 100-0 and never releasing it, don’t even gain one bar of overcharge. Can do the same with other weapons, but I like beam staff. Beam staff staggers enemies like crasy and you can kill a whole horde before it even gets close to you by just holding down left click. (Yes, even on legend)
Personally I think chucking out flaming heads quicker with cooldown reduction is slightly better in champion. It just seems to clear hordes better and can stagger bosses more reliably.
Infinite beam staff clears hordes much better than cdr on crit, especially after the nerf. Yes, they have shortened the animation of the ultimate significantly but there is still an animation that will let the horde get close. The beam staff staggers enemies and kills them in a couple of ticks, even if they don’t die immediately they can’t move. You can stagger a whole wave by just waving the beam left and right.
For bosses all you need is a conc pot with 50% increased duration trait and you can stagger the boss until it dies. Throw ult, drink pot left+right click with beam staff, throw ult, left click+right click, throw ult, left+right click, throw ult etc.
I have tried both builds and infinite overcharge is a lot better than cdr on crit on champion and legend. On lower difficulties cdr on crit might be better because stuff die so quickly anyway so you would never risk overcharging even if you never crit.
crit beam is good for proccing sh*t and kill hordes but not for the dmg.
I feel beam snipe spam till 3 stacks -> get crit beam for fast ability recharge -> ability and repeat, does the most dmg to bosses and staggeres them often. Just my feeling
I think we just have different opinions on it then. Just find it basically does the same thing but plays better with a team on the higher difficulties.
I think on lower difficulties heat removal is better.
CDR is better on lower difficulties and heat removal is better on higher difficulties. The hordes are smaller and easier to kill on lower difficulties, you don’t need heat removal for them. Wasting time throwing flaming head during a horde on legend can let the horde get close enough to hit you, it’s a risk you should only take if you use the ult to kill a special. Beam staff sienna is the best character to clear hordes, you can hold a chokepoint solo while the others deal with specials and the back. If you waste your time needing to cast flaming head to get rid of overcharge you will eventually let something through.
Yes, I agree that CDR is better for bosses, but bosses are not a problem when you can get the same effect by just using a conc pot you also are not alone and probably have a huntsman or any other boss killer character in your team so you don’t need to build specifically against bosses, it’s better to be able to take care of the hordes.
Using the 30% CDR is a complete waste tho. If you know what you’re doing you can instantly charge you ult anyway, so shaving 10 seconds of doesn’t do a whole lot. Being able to vent heat can be very useful on higher difficulties tho, as you don’t have to waste every single talent on heat reduction and focus your trait on that as well, so you can actually focus on survivability.
Doesn’t even have to be CDR on crit, I am currently running with increased damage against armor-class to melt whatever I fire at even more. If you know how to use your beamstaff against single targets properly, there is absolutely zero need for infinite channeling.
The eventual letting something through hasn’t happened to me yet though, guess I am lucky. I usually just use the skull to help out the others and keep beaming.
As I’ve stated though, I believe CDR is better, but both are highly viable. Nothing wrong with your reasoning or use of heat removal.
I’ve moved away from playing Pyro all together, feel it is just causing me to play poorly.
I forget where but somewhere on these forums a dev said that the infinite overcharge venting on crit is unintentional and will be addressed in time. The entire beam isn’t supposed to be one big mega crit, so they might make it so that each individual damage tick has its own crit chance.