Perhaps the nerf on firestream was a bit too harsh.

[TheCrustacean]

Perhaps the nerf on firestream was a bit too harsh.

Look, I won't say that firestream wasn't maybe a bit overpowered. But the nerf to firestream in 1.07 is so bad that in a pure sign build it does less damage than my melee would. Did I mention I didn't invest anything to melee? That's bad.

I forgot to show my glyphs/rune in the video. I have x3 Greater Veles Runestones (+5% Sign Intensity) on both my steel and silversword along with x7 Greater Glyph of Igni attached to my armor slots.

Lets go for broke and see the difference between standard igni vs firestream against guards:

And for a more realistic comparison, we'll go against a monster the same level as my character. Even in a 1 v 1 situation, firestream is all but useless when compared to standard igni. There's just no point in using firestream ever.

It takes standard igni 8 seconds to kill from the first cast.

It takes firestream 21 seconds to kill from the first cast.

It should be argued that firestream should be the better option against single enemies while standard igni against multiple enemies but it's not. Firestream doesn't even perform better in a 1 v 1 situation.

 

[Exentryk]

The devs made Firestream completely useless now. It does less damage than normal Igni, and is more riskier. Why would anyone use Firestream over normal Igni now? All they had to do was remove the unsheathed damage bug, and leave it at that. But nope, they had to nerf stuff in a single player game.

Likely outcome of this post though = devs read this post and just nerf the normal Igni to below Firestream. >.<

 

[TheCrustacean]

Likely outcome of this post though = devs read this post and just nerf the normal Igni to below Firestream. >.<

I honestly thought of this when I made this post. But you nailed it.

Firestream is riskier and less effective than normal Igni. Looks like I'll respec to save points that I dumped into firestream. No need for it.

 

[iCeDMeTaL]

I finsihed the game on DM with full fire spec and I can say that it is not overpowered in most of the end game. It is very effective against certain enemies, like most humans as you'd expect, animals, downers and hags, and of course trolls. Against the wild hunt or specters it is completely useless. I am really against nerfing things especially in single player games.

 

[Exentryk]

The devs only see the videos where Igni is destroying enemies. They don't see that a person that has a Sign build also has to deal with enemies that don't burn. And that's where the build is balanced. Igni might be good against some enemies, but it is useless against other non-ignitable enemies. People that have a sign build have to put in a lot of points to raise Sign Intensity. The tradeoff is they have very low attack power. It's balanced. It works.

But if they keep nerfing Igni, people just won't have a reason to have a Sign build. Reducing the variety and options in builds is just bad for overall combat experience.

The devs should actually consider having another damage source for Signs. Perhaps change Yrden damage to deal 1% damage of enemy HP for 10 secs (and let it scale with Sign Intensity). Currently with its fixed damage of 200-300, it's not really useful when you are fighting enemies with 25-100K HP.

 

[tfwoods3]

What exactly was changed? I have the spec, and now that you mention it, it does seem weaker. I just chalked it up to the enemy I was fighting being tougher.

 

[lunamoonraker]

Agree with the assessment of Exentryk. Generally a Sign build including igni can be effective but not against all NPCs. The same with Axii.

What the game needs is some form of chance to resist DOT effects like Burn as NPCs become higher level compared to the player.

I had a Ingi/Quen/Axi/Ydren pure Sign build and it worked well for much of the long play through. Primary Igni with burn becomes rather crazy against multiple humans and some other NPCs once Burn is built up. But it's not effective against quite a few other enemies.

This is really highlighted when you get to the three main boss fights towards the end of the game where Signs are all but useless and having a pure Sign build is a real disadvantage; it takes forever to kill them as your melee is not specced at all. You are basically forced to either chip away really slowly as nothing is enhanced with melee or respec to a sword spec.

I did do them all eventually but probably would have respecced against Eredin except for the use of Archgriffen decoction allowing simple strong hits to take 10% health.

It did feel rather unbalanced in those key fights for Sign builds to have no real options for these fights other than utility.

What they should have added to the game was a form of resistance to DOTs so that once an NPC is 1-2-3 levels above you they have a good chance to resist the Burn so it becomes less OP for higher level NPCs. It also means you can use Igni in these situations but are taking an increasingly higher risk that they simply resist the Burn DOT.

In the end I didn't even take the alt Igni because it has a short range and any interruption loses the stamina cost right away. Plus primary Igni gives the AOE effect and Burn to multiple enemies and there was little to no benefit to using the alt form. It needs a some rethink.

I see nothing wrong with it as it stands for lower NPCs where they present less and less of a challenge and seeing Witcher Hunters turn to a crisp never gets boring...

 

[Exentryk]

Higher level enemies do gain higher burn resistance (1.6% per level). Red skull level monsters gain a massive 200% burn resistance on top of the 1.6% increase each level. So, the game works fine in my opinion with restricting the burning of high level enemies.

If I can go on a tangent, there is lost potential here with some abilities. The pyromaniac ability should have stacked on the burn chance beyond 100%. That way, people with a sign build wanting to burn higher level monsters would have a build to do that. Currently, the sign build has no use for pyromaniac ability as its burn chance doesn't stack once you're over 100% burn chance. And since this is a 4th tier ability , sword build or alchemy build would not use this ability either because of sheer amount of skill points needed. It pretty much is a wasted ability.
Same goes for Yrden 4th tier ability with 50 (gasp) points of damage per second. Those 100K HP monsters are gonna take a while. Don't even talk about the 200 damage Aard's 4th tier ability does.

As you can see, Igni is the only real damage dealer for Sign builds. And nerfing that is basically saying go play as a sword build.

 

[zetsumeisama]

Higher level enemies do gain higher burn resistance (1.6% per level). Red skull level monsters gain a massive 200% burn resistance on top of the 1.6% increase each level. So, the game works fine in my opinion with restricting the burning of high level enemies.

If I can go on a tangent, there is lost potential here with some abilities. The pyromaniac ability should have stacked on the burn chance beyond 100%. That way, people with a sign build wanting to burn higher level monsters would have a build to do that. Currently, the sign build has no use for pyromaniac ability as its burn chance doesn't stack once you're over 100% burn chance. And since this is a 4th tier ability , sword build or alchemy build would not use this ability either because of sheer amount of skill points needed. It pretty much is a wasted ability.
Same goes for Yrden 4th tier ability with 50 (gasp) points of damage per second. Those 100K HP monsters are gonna take a while. Don't even talk about the 200 damage Aard's 4th tier ability does.

As you can see, Igni is the only real damage dealer for Sign builds. And nerfing that is basically saying go play as a sword build.

I'm not a huge fan of offensive signs like Igni or Aard but I do want other people to be able to play how they want to play. The Witcher 3 is a single player game, I don't want this to ruin other peoples experience with this game, I don't want them to feel restricted to using only the sword build. Now I'll probably never get the chance to play as these other builds if they've been nerfed to hell, a shame really. Experimenting with the game is always fun.

 

[felismenari]

And here I thought CDPR could do no wrong after how fantastic TW2 was for me. It just keeps getting better and better...smh.

 

[ZeroAffex]

I am surprised it took so long for them to nerf igni as it was apparent like day 1 it was OP. I am all for it personally, running around melting everything contradicts the Geralt we know. Hes not a sorcerer haha! Igni is good to ignite opponents weak to fire and beat the crud out of them with the appropriate blade. The devs did right by me personally. Unfortunately, if anything needed to be addressed in W3 as far as gameplay mechanics, Igni wasn't it. The alchemy system is bogus as of now and totally kills the immersion and is strangely OP in some aspects and incredibly weak in others, not to mention.. it makes no damn sense to refill formulae with alcohol. Igni was bad, but the alchemy is awful. I am praying it gets addressed at some point because its pretty bad as it is, not mention it doesn't allow for us to gather ingredients shortly after starting the game. A real shame. Thats my take though. Thanks for reading. Have a nice day! Farewell.

-Zero

 

[SgtThundercok]

This isn't Warcraft. Not a good idea to nerf popular skills in a single-player game. Pointless actually.

 

[DNMR2K5]

This isn't Warcraft. Not a good idea to nerf popular skills in a single-player game. Pointless actually.

Pretty much defeating your own purpose...It's circular logic, like mandating a sword as the only thing to kill an enemy, yet you have to kill that same enemy in order to get it!

*HCRGamers live by this creed which is why their voices are the loudest for this style of gameplay in hopes that the ghost of Ayn Rand herself will rise up and bless them herself...

*= "HardCoreRand Gamers"

 

[Mr.White.427]

Man and here I was thinking it was a bug, came here looking to ask and I see its an intentional nerf, very disappointing. Igni is very much useless now as a dmg dealer to single enemies, I barely get 300-400 dmg on a good try.
Plus it seems my base igni dmg, with 206% sign intensity is only about 309-ish. Was it always like that?....

 

[braindancer12]

i didnt notice the nerf yet, cause i am running an alchemy setup right now

 

[Fandey]

Yes, they definitely nerfed it, earlier burning caused 2-3k damage, now it's only 400-500 (Sign intensity 224%). Well I guess it's time to use that potion of clearance then.

 

[zeypheruk]

Firestream had to be fixed as the problem was the dots themselves were applying new dots and they kept on stacking and this kept going on. Basically you cannot put multiple dots of the same type on a person and have them stack.

Beides with fire stream one could kill anything in seconds so something was definitely wrong and do remember witchers are not mages. Signs and alchemy are meant to support his melee abilities NOT replace them.

The whole purpose of fire-stream is that it has consistent damage and allows you to apply the burning dot on multiple people without wasting the entire stamina bar. But the burning dots were never supposed to stack with each other.

 

[PapaVeNeti]

Still it is awsome to use. Plus shielded enemies drop their shields and... ... ... IT IS A FUCKING FLAMETHROWER.

 

[Goodmongo]

If they wanted to nerf damage that would be fine IF, repeat IF they changed it to a type of crowd control. In other words set a person on fire where they do nothing for 5 seconds or so. They don't have to burn to death but at least give the stream something like giving a guaranteed fire effect.

 

[ebevan91]

Yeah it's kinda useless now. Oh well. Guess I'm gonna drop 1000 crowns on a potion of clearance to get those 2 points back so I can get to the next level of skills in melee.