[Akame]

Mage's Explosion skill needs at least a 2-3 round cooldown to stop the consistent tossing people over cinder tiles for 300+ damage a turn because they can just double tap it in one round. It's just too deadly when used with sear's charge minded cinders, or even regular cinders.

Maybe just cinders themselves need to be looked at? :?:

[Autumn]

I think explosion could make do with diminishing damage at much higher ranges, with a 1 round cooldown to prevent double tap, as it scales super high.

As for cinder abuse strats I just think cinders are too high leveled atm.

[MegaBlues]

It's a problem with start-of-round effects being so much stronger when you're slow. If it was able to be walked away from, it wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue.

[Fern]

I honestly think that the most simple solution is giving Explosion a 1 round cooldown - I'm not leaning too much on the idea of lowering its damage, because pyro mages' entire thing seems to be that, packing destructive power.

Personally, the most brutalizing combo I've seen is CM Sear > Explosion, but that's the only ultra cheese I can think of so far.

Alternatively, making it so the explosion only goes off when it's your turn could work as well.

[Akame]

What if it operated like setting sun? Like, Explosion has a countdown of two rounds, then goes off?

I can see that, a two round cooldown, or nerfed damage + 1 round cooldown.

[Autumn]

What megablues said is true, Explosion is at its strongest when it is used by mages who deliberately build slower than you, which is kind of unfair in the long run of things.

I honestly think that the most simple solution is giving Explosion a 1 round cooldown - I'm not leaning too much on the idea of lowering its damage, because pyro mages' entire thing seems to be that, packing destructive power.

If this were to remain a thing, the above issue would need to be addressed, as most of it power relies on its delayed action, which is completely circumvented by being slower than your opponent (IE: Building tanky)

Having it explode on the user's next turn instead of at round start could likely cause people to at least have some form of counterplay vs the skill, but as it stands it scales insanely hard.


The size of the skill is insanely potent, but that wouldn't matter much if it exploded on the user's next turn, as everyone else would have an action to try to avoid it, which make the skill a zoning tool alongside its damage.

[Chaos]

At this point, I would make Explosion take longer than a round to trigger if the user resized it, and throw on a brief cooldown to prevent double-tapping.

I would also suggest to lower the range where you can place the rune, unless my memory fails me and it's only 2~3 tiles around you.

[Snake]

2 round cooldown.

[Ranylyn]

Alternative option: Make Nerhaven do something else besides push enemies, since that's the issue, here. Burn infliction, perhaps?

(Just throwing ideas out there. Personally, I love setting explosion as a "trap" of sorts, to steer a slower enemy's turn the way I want it to go; make them avoid it to guide them where I do want them to go, or score a free hit if they tank it. Placing a cooldown on it just because of the cinder push interactions would make me sad; the actual "traps" suck, damage-wise, by comparison, and can be 100% avoided with teleport movement.)

Galren/Isendo can get similar kinds of results, but not as eggregiously, and much more dependant on the caster's position. You can get some cross-class synergy with options going if you want to build for it, sure, but changing explosion won't impact those anyways. They also basically require Evoker because cinder tiles aren't the greatest things ever without Charge Mind (Some Blazing Augments are nice, but I'm very dissatisfied with the current state of Hyattr cinders. 50 scaled San, 30 per tick. Fire attack does nothing. For a 6-7 M action that costs that much FP, it's disgustingly lackluster when players and high level enemies alike push 1000+ HP.)

[Lonestar]

Alternative option: Make Nerhaven do something else besides push enemies, since that's the issue, here. Burn infliction, perhaps?

The issue isn't the knockback at all, and Explosion already has burn infliction.