Teach me how to use Scorch Order

[drspendlove]

Scorch order is an engineer talent that applies a debuff to a 3x3 group without missing. It lowers fire resist and dodge. It has limited uses and costs 6 heat and 1 AP.

I'm going to give it a shot with a flame tank engineer to use before firing one or more times in a turn as I tend to have pretty low accuracy with my engineer. However, my engineer values his heat capacity. He cannot use the ever-valuable Power Field once I cross the first heat barrier to overheated. Additionally, there are many turns where I won't be able to use this because I need to use a 3 AP action and then fire my weapon (using the remaining 2 AP.) So I'm struggling to see where I can get the most value here.

There are three primary sources of fire damage the templars can put forward. 1) Hydras, 2) Flame Tank Engineers, 3) Pyro Turrets.
I don't want to stay with my flame turrets to make use of this debuff with them, as my engineer is usually needed on the offense to capture more TPs. #2 I've addressed above and I'll give it a shot. #1 sounds great but you'd have to be running both Hydras and FT Engineers, which seems like a lot of dependency on fire damage, and I've never had trouble hitting/destroying foes with my Hydras without a buff to assist them.

Two questions: 1) What is the best way to use this talent? 2) Does lowering fire resist do anything to a foe with no fire resist?

[Brutus Aurelius]

1) If you are worried about Heat, give the Engineer the Cyclone Reactor relic. +75 Max Heat is amazing.

2) Lowering resists into the negatives increases elemental damage, IIRC

[drspendlove]

The Cyclone Reactor only gives +60 max heat (and +1 MP) these days. I use it; it is glorious.

If that's how resist lowering into negatives works, this could be really valuable. Direct shot scales VERY poorly with accuracy and poorly with damage. So investing the first point into Scorch Order effectively gives +2 accuracy (standard dice though, I think?) and +4 damage, which is WAY better than +3 damage as given by rank 2 of Direct shot. And the bonus damage is fire damage, so as you scale that ability up, you're increasing the minimum damage by 1/3 as well! This is ignoring the synergy with their turrets, any Hydras you may have, environmental fire, and other ranged attacks against foes.

[fallen]

Confirmed, every point of negative resistance is a positive point of damage. Negative Armor is a -2:1 ratio, so special damage negative res is superior.

[drspendlove]

It's a -2:1 ratio? So it takes 2 points of negative resist to count as one point of damage?

[fallen]

Feb 21, 2018 13:54:42 GMT -5 drspendlove said:

It's a -2:1 ratio? So it takes 2 points of negative resist to count as one point of damage?

Negative armor is -2:1. Yes, -2 Armor = 1 point of damage.

Negative special damage (plasma, fire, etc) is a -1:1 ratio.

[drspendlove]

Ooooh. I'l have to add that to the wiki somewhere. So not only is the minimum damage increasing with negative special damage, but the maximum (and thus average) is also increasing better than typical negative armor!

[fallen]

Absolutely superior to negative armor. Except special damage is harder to find than normal damage

[Brutus Aurelius]

Feb 21, 2018 12:38:00 GMT -5 drspendlove said:

The Cyclone Reactor only gives +60 max heat (and +1 MP) these days. I use it; it is glorious.

If that's how resist lowering into negatives works, this could be really valuable. Direct shot scales VERY poorly with accuracy and poorly with damage. So investing the first point into Scorch Order effectively gives +2 accuracy (standard dice though, I think?) and +4 damage, which is WAY better than +3 damage as given by rank 2 of Direct shot. And the bonus damage is fire damage, so as you scale that ability up, you're increasing the minimum damage by 1/3 as well! This is ignoring the synergy with their turrets, any Hydras you may have, environmental fire, and other ranged attacks against foes.

Ah, thanks for the correction on that.