Forum Discussion

LudoStrom's avatar
8 years ago

Thermal Detonator rework idea

IMO the Thermal detonator debuff has been useless since the game came out and especially since cleansers became so popular.
What i would suggest a rework on its effect.
currently it deals damage based on the toon which applied on the enemy. And then after a specific cooldown it detonates.
I would change to sth lke:
Deals special damage after a specific number of turns ignoring protection and maybe armor as well.

In this case thermal detonators would get the important role to damage enemies health at the begining of the battle when they still have protection.
This would be effective against toons with high protection recharging abilities. Meanwhile the uselessnes against cleansers wouldnt really change.
  • Agreed they need to have a chance to go off when cleansed.

    I like ignoring protection.

    Maybe become an aoe when cleansed for less damage again ignoring protection.
  • TD needs a rework, whatsoever in order to be usable.
    Thanks for the ideas.
    Hope the devs can hear us, like they heared and listened to the players demanding Ewok rework and ewok pass.
    I hope, we hope.
  • "First_but_66_Order;d-118316" wrote:
    Deals special damage after a specific number of turns ignoring protection and maybe armor as well.

    This is partly how they work already. Detonators don't ignore protection, but they ignore defense. Their damage is a percentage of the target's health and it's applied directly to the target. What that percentage is, exactly, varies from Detonator to Detonator. A 1-turn detonation does less of a percentage than a 2- or 3-turn detonation.

    The only change that needs to happen to Detonators is that they need to be dodgeable or resistable, but not both.

    It's also worth pointing out that there are ways to explode Detonators without waiting for them. You're choosing to ignore those abilities, however. Detonators aren't good in Arena, but they're useful basically everywhere else in the game--obviously not fleet, though. You can't base everything off Arena.
  • In other threads I've also supported the idea that TDs should explode on Cleanse - or at least have a large % chance to explode on Cleanse. We've all seen movies or shows where someone *could* defuse a bomb, but they're terrified that they might do it wrong and set it off. %Chance to explode on cleanse would make them useful again. The chance to explode instead of being defused should be at the very, very least 25%. I would prefer 40% - 50%. Individual users of ThermalDetonator attacks might have abilities that make their own TDs more likely to explode on cleanse (e.g. "Unstable Fuse: Zam Wessell's TD's have +25% chance to explode on defuse/cleanse attempts")

    What's more, any explode-on-cleanse chance should cause the cleanser to take the same damage as the original TD target. This means that the damage to the cleanser would be based off of the MaxHealth of the original target, not the MaxHealth of the cleanser. Fortunately for the cleanser, the TD would not ignore the protection and defense of a cleansing character. (Also, it might be appropriate for a cleanser to take 1/4th to 1/2 damage instead of full, but still it would be 1/4 of the damage actually taken by the primary target, not 1/4 of the MaxHealth PERCENTAGE used to calculate damage to the target).

    Combined with the general chance to explode during defuse, this additional damage to the cleanser provides extremely interesting tactical choices. On defense, you might face the choice of using your AoE cleanse to remove multiple stuns or ability blocks...but if multiple TDs exist, there's a possibility for your Cleanser to take damage from many TDs at once. Is the risk worth it? On offense, Vader's Culling Blade or Boba's Execute just became risky if you target the wrong enemy. This doesn't just rescue TDs from irrelevance against cleansing teams (though, yes, Nic is right that TDs are more useful than many credit when used against non-cleansing teams and in encounters where longer battles are more common), but it also creates new and interesting tactical options, even possibly providing a semi-counter against cleanse teams where someone whose debuffs need to stick is paired with an otherwise unusual (or just formerly less-effective) character who attaches TDs to make cleansing dangerous.

    I ***love*** the idea of thermal detonators having potentially unstable fuses and interacting with cleanse abilities in unpredictable ways. I will continue to advocate for this change every time it comes up on these forums.

    Finally, I have also (elsewhere) supported @NicWester 's idea that TDs should be dodge-able OR resistible, but not both. I give my +1 to Nic here.

    In fact, any time an ability has a chance to inflict a negative status effect to a target without doing damage to that target, I believe Dodge should not apply. This should be true even for attacks that can damage one target, but inflict negative status effects without damage to other targets. Old Daka's secondary stun on basic, for example. Dooku's secondary stun on Force Lightning is another.
  • @NicWester
    As far as i know TDs deal damage based on who applied it/detonated it.

    Yup, i am aware of the fact that there are possiblity to detonate TD before the cooldown.

    The problem I wanted to solve is that I feel TDs are aliens in this game.
    TDs should have much important role, as they had in star wars.
    My idea for this reason:
    Tds deal special damage after a cooldown ignoring armor and PROTECTION
    the protection part is emphasized.

    Currently Td applying toons are underused (except some of the jawas)
    Not only in Arena.
    I used Greedo for scoundrel events only as long as i didnt have other alternative.
    I didnt even unlock Nute.
    Not to mention the much harder farm Zam.
    Because even if i detonate a TD earlier currently, i dont really have any effective use of it (damagewise).

    @MasterSeedy
    I think, this is currently going on, all the new toons with no damage abilities (like Bodhi) are irresistable. (and they changed Asajj's buff removal to unavoidable as well).
    It s only question of time they change it on every toon.

    However, i dont really like the detonate on cleanse idea. I dont think it would make any of the TD appliers really useful.

    I would rather add the new buff mentioned above 'Disorganization' to solve the cleanse 'problem'
    Because, be honest we all are farming these cleanse toons as well :)