The Power of Pyromancy

I'll test it, need Chaos Storm anyway.[b]

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Tolvo wrote:Watch out for Iron Round Shields as well. A fully upgraded Fire Iron Round Shield has 86 Fire Blocking.

Also, a Fire Sunlight Shield +10 gets all the way up to 90% fire block, with slightly higher stability than the iron round shield and 1.0 less weight (but has worse deflection of course). My experience has also been that most people think Solaire's shield is worthless and that you're probably a noob if you are using it, so you'll bait a lot more pyromancy and lazy play than you would if you are holding a black knight shield or iron shield.

The lava from the chaos pyromancies is also a good way to eat away the timer on someone's TwoP or buff.

No, I didn't read all the posts, so maybe one of my tips has been already posted:

-Great Fireball: Deals a lot of damage, but you have only 4 casts. Use them well. If your enemy dodges all the time, try to lure him to attack by casting a great fireball. He will try to BS you. When he is close, unlock target, and aim manually to the floor where your enemy is, the AoE should hit him.
-Great Combustion: Deals lots of damage. Low range. Try to use it as a surprise attack. Mix it with your normal attacks. You can try to land a Great Combustion after you BS your opponent. Time it well just at the time he gets up.
-Firestorm/Tempest: Slow, high damaging attack. Best to use it in small places, where your enemies can't run away from range. Good against groups, but hard to use effectively.
-Fire Whip: It's a long (not slow) spell. It casts fast but it's casting lasts a while. It hits 2 times. It has a FREAKING LONG range. But it's very short to the sides, so use it in tight spaces.
-Power Within: This spell raises up all your attacks' damage (including pyromancies, sorceries and miracles). In turn, it lowers your HP gradually until you die or the effect wears off (it's not short, but it's not long, but it lasts last enough to kill you [it drains a % of your life]). Use it with a non-upgraded pyro hand, because every time you upgrade your pyrohand it raises the % of life it takes from you gradually.
-Iron Flesh: Don't use this, it's useless, it raises all your defenses but at the cost of not being able to run, sprint or dodge.You can only walk. It was helpful before the patch, The patch nerfed it a lot. If you use this in PvP you will get Backstabed to death.
-Poison Mist/Toxic Mist: Doesn't help very much, it's slow to cast, and easy to dodge (just get out of the mist).
-Acid Surge: Don't use, it's breaks equipment, but slows as hell, no, wait, slower than that.
-Flash Sweat: This may be helpful against Flamelurker, I MEAN, Queelag. In PvP it reduces fire damage too, but not much. It could be helpful if you have a free slot and nothing to put in it.

This took me a while to do...

The mists and acid surge are great for psychological combat and herding/field control. mixing them with another spell by using them as cover or forcing your opponent to approach from another angle is a great way to surprise them. As a herding tool the mindset "damage causing = avoid at all costs" will have them back off while trying to maintain an eye on you, so you can lead them into a trap elsewhere.

ErrJon's n00b guide to pyromancy.

Fireball and Fire orb: These can do wonders in PvE making quick work of enemies and even some of the early bosses. You can quickly obtain many castings and with an upgraded flame the damage is nearly on par with the larger fireballs. My strategy with this spell is to aim it at the ground directly around me while an opponent is advancing.

Great Fireball: Again great in pve and ok for use in pvp, however you must be very cautious with it. I find if you have an opponent dumb enough to charge strait at you this can work. Also narrow walkways or hallways are an ideal place to cast as long as you don't let yourself clip on the wall.

Chaos Fireball: This has the same uses as fireball with a few extra benefits. The lava can halt progress. If you are fleeing from an opponent you can use the lava to impede their march towards you. It can also be used to direct opponents to where you'd like them to go.

Fire Whips: I personally have found these rather useless in pvp and don't use them in pve. Every time I have cast it I have been bsed.

Undead Rapport: This spell is fun and I imagine with some creativity you could make hosting an interesting experience. I'd love to know if that works.

Combustion and Great Combustion: As a pyromancer you almost have to have at least one of these on you. They are quick, do high damage and can punish bs/parry spammers with ease. There isn't much of a downside to these. Also great on turtles.

Fire Surge: A great spell but I recommend that no one uses it during pvp. I have on multiple occasions had my game frozen while using this spell during co op and pvp. I don't know what the effect on the other person(s) game(s) was but this is an issue. Now when it has worked, its great for pressuring turtles and annoying people who arent agressive.

Acid surge and poison/toxic mist: You're never going to poison or toxic anyone with these, nor will you ever break their equipment. But this can pressure people to do things they wouldn't normally want to do. You can halt people at bridges, block hallways, scare katana users and terrify nude/dragon players.

Iron Flesh: I don't personally use this spell. But for tanks with already high def and poise this could be very useful.

Power Within: Great spell, completely self explanatory. With high vit and health regeneration it is even better.

Flash Sweat: There's only one real way to kill the dragon on the bridge. This helps.

Also should post ways to counter pyromancy in pvp. Would definitely be helpful.

Undead rapport the crap out of bosses.

When it comes to fireballs of any type generally you want to back a little bit if the enemy is a bit too close. Fireballs are great distractions. Iron flesh raises you defense to insane levels great spell just don't use it on any bosses

If you wanna counter pyromancy, your gonna need to lots of footwork. The more used spells are dodgable if you can juke the user. Even combustion if you can backstep twice, even follow the steps with the backstep attack. However if your a bit on the chunky side you'll probably need the DWGR or be two steps ahead of the user.

I tested Great Fireball vs Chaos Great Fireball and the damage for Chaos Great Fireball does not increase with humanity nor Chaos Servants Rank level. The damage is the same as Great Fireball, only difference is explosion radius and lava trail. I love it anyways.

Another counter pyromancy tactic for when your dealing in a confined space. If they're planning to use an aoe let them. You can avoid it by rolling up against them continuously. Doing so you waste their cast, take no damage because of I-frames and are in a position to punish them afterwards. Learned this this morning when a ganking fool tried to mimic me on a bridge. Just rolled against him and then incinerated him with a single GC. Do noe this only gives you an 80% chance of surviving it, as you can run out of stamina before it ends and end up in position for a wake up burning.

cloudyeki wrote:Another counter pyromancy tactic for when your dealing in a confined space. If they're planning to use an aoe let them. You can avoid it by rolling up against them continuously. Doing so you waste their cast, take no damage because of I-frames and are in a position to punish them afterwards. Learned this this morning when a ganking fool tried to mimic me on a bridge. Just rolled against him and then incinerated him with a single GC. Do noe this only gives you an 80% chance of surviving it, as you can run out of stamina before it ends and end up in position for a wake up burning.

NO, DON'T DO THIS.

Smart players know you're gonna do that and they un-lock from you before they finish the casting and aim towards to the floor (so they get a direct hit on you!).

Best way to counter Pyromancies is to dodge them, or if you can't for some reason in a certain situation take with you Black Knight Shield +5. It has 95% damage reduction for fire.

You can try to go for a BS also but as I said, smart players tend to aim to the floor and the AoE will hit you if you approach.

One thing I do is pull out my bow, dodge very far away and then start shooting while they cast.

Chiz I'm talking about the firestorm series of spells. I was able to avoid the sprouts even from beneath me by using I frames just like you can do with fireballs. It's smart to move back if you have the room but when you don't then exploit the I frames in the rolls.

cloudyeki wrote:Chiz I'm talking about the firestorm series

Great Fire Balls have huge AoE. And it's the most used pyromancy along with Great Combustion and Fire Tempest/Storm.

Also if a guy is casting that, you either get away, or if you're "hugging them" just go for a quick BS. The casting is long. But don't try it against Dex builds because they have a faster cast speed for every pyromancy than others.

I'm more inclined to make them waste the cast. But bsing them is the safest thing if you're that close to them.

cloudyeki wrote:I'm more inclined to make them waste the cast. But bsing them is the safest thing if you're that close to them.

If you're at long range, run and try to do ranged attacks while they are casting it.

If you're at mid-range, run away, you won't have to time to interrupt it or get away fast enough to do ranged attacks.

If you're close, try to interrupt them by doing a BS, or if you see you're
not gonna reach their back in time, kick them. It interrupts castings.

That's how you beat Firestorms.

Mm... Magics like soul spear are great for catching the pyro casters. I will stand by te fact the wasting the casts is important if you can't kill them quickly. It puts them at a massive disadvantage if the pyro doesn't hit with firestorm.

cloudyeki wrote:Mm... Magics like soul spear are great for catching the pyro casters. I will stand by te fact the wasting the casts is important if you can't kill them quickly. It puts them at a massive disadvantage if the pyro doesn't hit with firestorm.

Soul Spears are strong, but have less range than standard Soul Arrows. I'm not sure if you can hit a guy with a Soul Spear at the distance you need to not get hit by the Firestorm.

Also most people carry Firestorm as a backup, not as a primary weapon. Primary weapons represents easy-to-use high damaging spells. Like Great Fireballs and Great Combustion (<< Most used pyro ever haha). Yes, Firestorm is helpful, and you only have 2 casts (unless you stack up), but dodge one of them doesn't put you in a advantage. They just lost one slow and very situational-dependent spell.

It's possible. That fight where I learned the trick is also where I nearly died from a soul spear. Story time.

2v1, I dragged the fight over to the bridge that leads to the basin and the hydra. Caught the phantom with a tempest that was cut short by a soul spear. It left me with 15 casts so I just fasted again and caught both of them, knocking the phantom into the water and killing him. Host flasks and I use humanity before moving to the fog end of the bridge. Host uses fire surge and I end up pinned. When I rolled through the fire surge without taking damage I started hacking at his life. He cues up his own storm and I know I'll die if it hits, so I rolls against him trying to get to his back. I take no damage and just GC him when it's over and I won.

Tested Chaos Great Fireball with 0 and 16 humanity. I didn't noticed a difference on the number of lava trails it leaves.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this already, but. Dusk's Head Piece, the Dragoncrest Damage ring. Kick plus Q's Flame +5, I've never found a toon that could survive two GC's, which with high dex you can get them with before they recover. As well while kicking them they tack extra damage from your attacks, as it counts as a counter by you since they are staggered.

Fire Tempest does more damage than Chaos Storm, although it doesn't leave lava trails. The damage difference is ~200.

Doing an SL1 run, stuck on 4 Kings. Are they highly resistant to fire or was I just not close enough? I had great combustion with ascended +5 pyro flame and it did almost nothing.

I was hoping fire might be viable since I'm not the best dodger.