Suggestion about two ignite-related mechanics for Runemaster

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Hey there! o/

There are two things I’d like to mention here: first, two nodes from some Runemaster skills, specifically Frost Wall and Glyph of Dominion, that provide ignite scaling; then, another node from Frost Wall and how it behaves when the skill is converted to fire.

  1. Two ignite scaling nodes

The nodes I’d like to mention are the following:

Frost wall - “Brand the Invaders” node

Frost Wall now inflicts Brand of Trespass to enemies inside the wall. This Brand does not stack, but deals a large amount of fire damage over time. Brand of Trespass deals more damage equal to your ignite chance.
Damage Per Ignite Chance: +1%

Glyph of Dominion - “Fan the Inferno” node

The ignite frequency from Burning Symbol is increased by your chance to ignite.
Increased Ignite Frequency Per Ignite Chance: 1%

According to Mike’s answer on Discord, those two nodes only look at global ignite chance for their effects (i.e. the “chance to ignite” stat displayed in the character sheet).

I feel like this is a missed opportunity, given the fact that the Mage has quite a few ways to scale ignite chance with fire skills specifically:

  • The Mage-specific prefix on body armors and helmets grants “X% chance to ignite on fire hit” (up to 210% on body armors and 140% on helmets at T7).
  • The "Ice and Fire" Mage passive grants up to “35% chance to ignite on hit with Fire Skills” at 5 points invested.
  • The “Pyromancer” Sorcerer passive grants up to “40% Fire Skill ignite chance” at 8 points invested.
  • The “Circle of Elements” Runemaster passive grants up to “100% ignite chance with Fire skills” at 10 points invested.
  • The Calamity unique helmet has “(100 to 150)% Chance to Ignite on Hit with Fire Skills” - this isn’t specific to the Mage, but this helmet is often used on ignite-focused builds, and the Mage is no exception.

All of those effects will benefit fire skills that directly ignite on hit, but are currently not taken into account by the Frost Wall and Glyph of Dominion nodes that I mentioned - despite the fact that the nodes in question have fire conversion nodes as prerequisites, making the spells Fire skills.

  1. Frost Wall’s “Chilled Touch” node

The “Chilled Touch” node from Frost Wall does the following:

You deal more damage (multiplicative with other modifiers) to chilled enemies while you have an active Frost Wall.
Damage Buff To Chilled Enemies: +7% per point

According to Mike, the damage buff from this node still requires the enemy to be chilled when Frost Wall is converted to fire. However, Pyroglass, the fire conversion node, does the following (among other effects):

[…] For Frost Wall, chill chance from all sources is converted to Ignite […]

As such, I feel like the global damage buff from Chilled Touch could be changed to require the enemy to be ignited instead of chilled.

Thank you very much for reading, and I hope whoever is reading has a nice day <3

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Don’t forget that the more damage per % chance to XXX is much lower for the fire & cold brands because (according to Mike) ignite is a DPS ailment so you’re getting some additional DPS from the ignites as well as the brand, however I feel that this is a bit awkward since for ignite DPS you want to spam the skill but that would just reset the timer on the brand which is unnecessary.

There’s also the “issue” that the lightning brand can be applied by any 15 mana cost lightning skill while the other 2 brands can only be applied by 1 specific skill which is quite frustrating as well.

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Oh, I thought it was because ignite stacks don’t have a limit, so you’re more incentivized to stack as much ignite chance as you can (though that’s also related to ignite being a source of DPS, as you said), whereas stacks of chill and shock are capped, so getting a lot of chill/shock chance wouldn’t be useful. That’s interesting!

But to come back to your point, while playing my ignite Runemaster, I see the fire Brand as a source of passive DPS I can deal while moving/dodging, which complements the DPS I get from the raw ignite stacks I apply on hit. I feel like it’s the intended identity of the brand.

Yes, I also find it a little disappointing that there is only one way to apply each brand. I wish there were at least two for each brand, or that the existing ways were more permissive - e.g. the lightning brand being applied by any lightning skill, or Flame Wall / Flame Rush applying the brand of whatever element they have (or haven’t) been converted to (though that would probably pose some balancing issues).

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