On Blair Buff

[Hybernian]

Blair's "Pitmaster" skill has been improved to have a more enhanced effect based on the number of Flame Zones. The duration of the "Blaze Up" skill has been increased, and the MP cost has been reduced. When using the "Extinguish" skill, the "Flame Zone" will no longer be retrieved, instead, the "Taste of Aggression" effect will stack based on the number of "Flame Zones". The damage of the "Burn Taste" skill has been increased, and a skill button input feature has been added to allow canceling the skill mid-use. Additionally, the Max Stacks of the "Incendiary Bomb" Modification Module has been increased, and the performance of the "Deadly Cuisine" skill has been enhanced when the "Classic Chef" Modification Module is equipped.

These are good and all needed changes and I'm happy he'll receive them and glad you listened.
Although, you could've made it Burn Taste aka Flamethrower dealt more damage the longer it hit the same enemy either through duration or stacking burn effect (you could let him stack burn from all skills in general).

However!
The big problem still persists.
The combat design:
His Blaze Up has no range.
He has no defensive abilities.
He doesn't have mobility.

These traits shouldn't be present in one character at the same time. This is nigh paradoxical awful design.
ESPECIALLY when similar characters from the group get:
Range, Mobility and (50% damage reduction) defense - Valby.
Range and (DEF increase) defense - Freyna.

The only way these 3 traits could possibly remain together is if you buff the base radius of Flame Zone to, like, 10 meters.

His Ultimate is still awful, especially for such a long cooldown and especially compared to someone like Viessa, let alone Lepic.

Originally posted by Hybernian:

And for Ultimate Skill, take a look at Lepic's Ultimate. It's burst damage deals 2590% damage which is more than all of Blair's FIreballs' damage combined - 2141%.
And it has continuous damage too. And burn too when used with his second skill.
Sure, Blair gets more crit rate, but even then, Lepic can fire at least 3(!) of them in quick succession and has 2 times less long cooldown. This is just nowhere near comparable.

Heck, look at Viessa. Her Ultimate deals 5800% damage in total. Has twice shorter cooldown. Freezes enemies. And barely costs any MP.
And isn't fire supposed to be more destructive anyway?

To add insult to injury, two of his red mods give him what he always should've had in base, but it also comes with trade-off and you can't have them both.
The least you could do for his clean state Ultimate, Deadly Cuisine, is to give him the 6000% skill modifier that Truly Deadly Cuisine currently has. The current 6900% of Truly Deadly Cuisine isn't much anyway. Increase the current damage on the Truly Deadly Cuisine twice-thrice, reduce cast time, make it fly straight and over long distances and keep the lower cooldown exclusive to it, but give Deadly Cuisine's Giant Fireball 6000%.

Next is Incendiary Bomb.
Removing the max stack penalty is a right move, but keeping the radius penalty isn't.
Look, the radius decrease would've been ok if Blaze up had 10m base radius and it was cut with this module. Even by 50% would've been ok. But not when the radius is 3.5m and you cut it to 2.5m.
I don't know why you insist on not making his base Q ranged, but one of the following must happen:
1) Flame Zones get big radius in base. 10m or so. Then them spawning right under his feet and him lacking any defense and mobility would be at least somewhat justifiable.
2) Blaze Up/Q becomes inherently range, in base. (And Incendiary Bomb should give Blair either an exploding small fireball, that deals both impact damage and leaves Flame Zone; or should have a 2.5m base AOE, but bounce several times like Valby's Q)
3) You remove the radius penalty from Incendiary Bomb (as long as base, unmodded, Deadly Cuisine receives 6000% on giant fireball).

P.S. That 250% max range scaling from 'Hotfix 1.0.5' was more akin to mockery. Using a module slot for ~50% radius increase is somewhat doable during levelling, but once you approach catalyzing your character to maximum, it becomes pointless. It could've been not entirely pointless and more like a little extra if Blair had always been ultra strong and barely needed any mods, so he'd sat there not knowing what to fill the vacant space with. But he is not. And he won't be even with the changes from the patchnote preview. He'll be still starving on modules and module space.
Increasing it to 300% won't help, because of the aforementioned reasons.
Please, unroll the 250% change and give him something real.
P.S. Lepic Ultimate travels straight and over long distances and doesn't fall too, unlike Blair's Ultimate.
UPD. Also, now that we'll be able to cancel the flamethrower at any time, it's time to make it scale with skill duration. It's such a cool ability and the reason why I started playing the game. A shame it currently lasts only 4.5 seconds.

[Hybernian]

Submitted to Nexon website as well.

[Busted648]

Originally posted by Hybernian:

Submitted to Nexon website as well.

great post and I agree with the points. maybe in 3 seasons theyll finally balance well

[SolusiRadikal]

We'll see about it on patch date because what i need from Blair right now is the increased duration on fire pudle, and it's in patch notes. Also the upgrade on Classic chef should buff DOT build based, allow his 7 second ultimate skill (by using 3 CD mod ofc) to cover more area while dealing much more consistent damage because extinguish won't remove the puddle anymore.

[Hybernian]

Originally posted by SolusiRadikal:

We'll see about it on patch date because what i need from Blair right now is the increased duration on fire pudle, and it's in patch notes. Also the upgrade on Classic chef should buff DOT build based, allow his 7 second ultimate skill (by using 3 CD mod ofc) to cover more area while dealing much more consistent damage because extinguish won't remove the puddle anymore.

Does classic chef reduce cooldown as well?

[Hybernian]

Originally posted by Nerf Bunny=Save the Game:

Originally posted by Hybernian:

Submitted to Nexon website as well.

great post and I agree with the points. maybe in 3 seasons theyll finally balance well

Thx. I feel like they won't ever touch Blair after this.

[SolusiRadikal]

Originally posted by Hybernian:

Does classic chef reduce cooldown as well?

Nah but it allow you not to invest every slot w critical hit rate just to get 100% skill crit rate
Also those 3 cd mod will give you a total of 80%ish cooldown reduction, while spaming extinguish as part of rotation should return most of the energy spent.

[Hybernian]

Originally posted by SolusiRadikal:

Originally posted by Hybernian:

Does classic chef reduce cooldown as well?

Nah but it allow you not to invest every slot w critical hit rate just to get 100% skill crit rate
Also those 3 cd mod will give you a total of 80%ish cooldown reduction, while spaming extinguish as part of rotation should return most of the energy spent.

How much crit chance 5 flame zones currently give with Classic Chef?

[SolusiRadikal]

Originally posted by Hybernian:

How much crit chance 5 flame zones currently give with Classic Chef?

up to raw 30% crit chance increase at x5 fire puddle

[Hybernian]

Originally posted by SolusiRadikal:

Originally posted by Hybernian:

How much crit chance 5 flame zones currently give with Classic Chef?

up to raw 30% crit chance increase at x5 fire puddle

So, 50% overall?
And 100% with one crit module.
Well, if C will restore MP without retrieving FZ as it says here added on top of reduced MP cost and longer duration, Classic Chef would allow filling huge spaces with fire. His ultimate will still be whack (I'm assuming the Deadly Cuisine improvement for Classic Chef they talk about will be fifth small fireball, which while help with filling the area, won't make it less underwhelming compared to other characters')

[SolusiRadikal]

Originally posted by Hybernian:

So, 50% overall?
And 100% with one crit module.
Well, if C will restore MP without retrieving FZ as it says here added on top of reduced MP cost and longer duration, Classic Chef would allow filling huge spaces with fire. His ultimate will still be whack (I'm assuming the Deadly Cuisine improvement for Classic Chef they talk about will be fifth small fireball, which while help with filling the area, won't make it less underwhelming compared to other characters')

Maxed Blair has one of the highest damage-over-time puddle, Also if you do it the right way Deadly Cuisine with classic chef fireball dmg can reach a total of 1++ milion damage. All of those damage can be further buffed by using Enduring Legacy, which now should be a viable alternative endgame build due to puddle duration itself.

[Hybernian]

Also, now that we'll be able to cancel the flamethrower at any time, it's time to make it scale with skill duration. It's such a cool ability and the reason why I started playing the game. A shame it currently lasts only 4.5 seconds.

[Hybernian]

So, they changed 23% on Taste of Agression to 30% for 5 stacks. So much for the improvement.
It still doesn't affect the existing flame zones' skill modifier, only the newly created ones.
The flamezone duration is also rather unimpressive. For someone with no mobility, defence and a small radius with no range on flame zones.
The flamethrower damage buff is nothing to write home as well. Sure, the burn damage got buffed too, but it hits only once a second, compared to 3.33 time per second from the flamethrower itself. But I guess it's ok.

[XIIIS]

Sounds like your just bad at using blair.

[Hybernian]

Originally posted by XIIIS:

Sounds like your just bad at using blair.

You sound like a kid who likes to spam git gud.

[Hybernian]

Well, at least now Blair can do Valby run without the Classic Chef module.