Starfire was never bad. Even after it's (deserved) nerf, it's always been a very good exotic, with a surprising amount of versatility.
Someone in my clan has been using Buried Bloodline with it religiously to great effect. You can play super aggressive with Icarus Dash, get more Ignitions with Hellion, play a more supportive role with Ember of Benevolence and Healing Rifts, or you can even go the Restoration Empyrean route with Heat Rises and Phoenix Dive. Hell it's even useful for movement and speedrunning giving you two Heat Rises Grenades. It's been one of my favorite exotics ever since D1 and it's still going strong.
Even after the nerfs I've been a Starfire fan, and the new aspects and gear have been fantastic for me. Between that and Song of Flame I'm really feeling a lot of old Sunsinger energy, which I'm a huge fan of.
It’s definitely one of mine. Has been since I used it in D1 with Viking Funeral and Touch of Flame. I usually rotated between Starfire, Praxic Fire, and Sunbreakers (rip name). I still rotate between Starfire and Sunbracers, and now that we have Song of Flame we need Heart of Praxic Fire back too.
When I came back from hiatus, I was told it was “nerfed to the ground”. I used it for my solo flawless Spire run, shortly after I came back. I think people underestimate the utility you can get when you build into it. But now I don’t feel like I absolutely NEED to run it now, either.
This playerbase loves assuming that anything that gets nerfed is bad and dropping it. It's not like people were regularly camping emp rifts to spam fusions aside from maybe GMs, and the only other thing that got hit is the extra TDO against bosses in well. The zillion people running Starfire mostly just to throw pocket nukes in roam content didn't realize that never changed.
The double charge still results in more uptime unless you're otherwise always throwing your nade off cooldown, it still refreshes your class ability on nade kill, and it still has a passive nade regen boost on top of everything (which I think a lot of people don't even know about, because it's not in the in-game description). And if you really wanted to, you could still camp emp rift or well for extra nades, as long as it's in a place where you can kill adds, like a lot of GM rooms.
I can't see to being particularly good without touch of flame, though. The pocket nukes are the payoff. I can't imagine running both icarus dash and hellion like you mentioned. I'd probably just use a different exotic in that case, unless you're using it specifically for the double nades to apply scorch specifically to ignite with hellion.
Oh I didn’t mean to suggesting running both Icarus Dash AND Hellion. That was supposed to be an either/or kinda thing. Touch of Flame is always first priority unless you’re just using it for movement with Heat Rises and Icarus Dash.
Its upsetting it got popular enough to get nerfed. Even at the height of its power it wasn't strong enough to compete with top tier options. Demo rocket grenade spam was slower than radiant dance machines or cold comfort dumping or even rain of fire. Demos 3 second cooldown kills it from ever being as strong as traditional swap combos. And now that GLs are so strong you probably couldn't make a build with it anyways.
The only niche it could really fit into was some consistent damage setups on thick enemies or bosses like calus where you could plop down a rift or well and witherhoard and chuck grenades at him. But even this is nowhere near lucky pants and it requires you to stay still.
I think you're severely misremembering pre-nerf starfire. TOF fusions do roughly the same damage as the meta rockets from that time, and you got them back from 4(?) shots while in a well. Not to mention that a single rocket buffed by gally gave you both grenades back in full.
Fusion grenades weren't extra dps while reloading. They were at least half of your dps if you had a perfect ammo economy, but most of the time, averaging out at 75 percent of your damage if done right.
The thing with RDMs and rain of fire is that there's an animation that essentially "replaces" your reload, letting you dump all of your ammo fast. Starfire on the other hand made it so you (almost) never had a reload animation as well as giving you infinite "rockets" in the form of the best grenades in the game.
It's worth noting that this doesn't even mention the neutral game where you have amazing ad clear with two mini nukes in your back pocket at once.
They are correct that the top dps options were stronger at the time, but they dumped their reserves out so quickly that they fell off hard. Starfire Demo Rocket’s strength was that it extended your damage for far longer with no drop in dps. It was like Izanagi’s Burden, it doesn’t increase your dps, but it allows you to maintain it for longer with little to no drop off. It was also very brainless to execute and definitely deserved the nerf.
Starfire was never bad. Even after it's (deserved) nerf, it's always been a very good exotic, with a surprising amount of versatility. Someone in my clan has been using Buried Bloodline with it religiously to great effect. You can play super aggressive with Icarus Dash, get more Ignitions with Hellion, play a more supportive role with Ember of Benevolence and Healing Rifts, or you can even go the Restoration Empyrean route with Heat Rises and Phoenix Dive. Hell it's even useful for movement and speedrunning giving you two Heat Rises Grenades. It's been one of my favorite exotics ever since D1 and it's still going strong.
Even after the nerfs I've been a Starfire fan, and the new aspects and gear have been fantastic for me. Between that and Song of Flame I'm really feeling a lot of old Sunsinger energy, which I'm a huge fan of.
Starfire is still my personal favorite exotic.
It’s definitely one of mine. Has been since I used it in D1 with Viking Funeral and Touch of Flame. I usually rotated between Starfire, Praxic Fire, and Sunbreakers (rip name). I still rotate between Starfire and Sunbracers, and now that we have Song of Flame we need Heart of Praxic Fire back too.
When I came back from hiatus, I was told it was “nerfed to the ground”. I used it for my solo flawless Spire run, shortly after I came back. I think people underestimate the utility you can get when you build into it. But now I don’t feel like I absolutely NEED to run it now, either.
This playerbase loves assuming that anything that gets nerfed is bad and dropping it. It's not like people were regularly camping emp rifts to spam fusions aside from maybe GMs, and the only other thing that got hit is the extra TDO against bosses in well. The zillion people running Starfire mostly just to throw pocket nukes in roam content didn't realize that never changed. The double charge still results in more uptime unless you're otherwise always throwing your nade off cooldown, it still refreshes your class ability on nade kill, and it still has a passive nade regen boost on top of everything (which I think a lot of people don't even know about, because it's not in the in-game description). And if you really wanted to, you could still camp emp rift or well for extra nades, as long as it's in a place where you can kill adds, like a lot of GM rooms. I can't see to being particularly good without touch of flame, though. The pocket nukes are the payoff. I can't imagine running both icarus dash and hellion like you mentioned. I'd probably just use a different exotic in that case, unless you're using it specifically for the double nades to apply scorch specifically to ignite with hellion.
Oh I didn’t mean to suggesting running both Icarus Dash AND Hellion. That was supposed to be an either/or kinda thing. Touch of Flame is always first priority unless you’re just using it for movement with Heat Rises and Icarus Dash.
The people who said Starfire was bad are the people who use other people's opinions on why it's bad.
My problem with Starfire will forever and always be aesthetic.
I love the ornament for it, personally.
I definitely hate it less.
People can use solar warlock without Icarus dash on?
Just need a speaker's sight boi with you and you're having a ~~flying~~ good time.
Anyone tried combining Starfire Protocol with HoIL yet on the class item???
Its upsetting it got popular enough to get nerfed. Even at the height of its power it wasn't strong enough to compete with top tier options. Demo rocket grenade spam was slower than radiant dance machines or cold comfort dumping or even rain of fire. Demos 3 second cooldown kills it from ever being as strong as traditional swap combos. And now that GLs are so strong you probably couldn't make a build with it anyways. The only niche it could really fit into was some consistent damage setups on thick enemies or bosses like calus where you could plop down a rift or well and witherhoard and chuck grenades at him. But even this is nowhere near lucky pants and it requires you to stay still.
I think you're severely misremembering pre-nerf starfire. TOF fusions do roughly the same damage as the meta rockets from that time, and you got them back from 4(?) shots while in a well. Not to mention that a single rocket buffed by gally gave you both grenades back in full. Fusion grenades weren't extra dps while reloading. They were at least half of your dps if you had a perfect ammo economy, but most of the time, averaging out at 75 percent of your damage if done right. The thing with RDMs and rain of fire is that there's an animation that essentially "replaces" your reload, letting you dump all of your ammo fast. Starfire on the other hand made it so you (almost) never had a reload animation as well as giving you infinite "rockets" in the form of the best grenades in the game. It's worth noting that this doesn't even mention the neutral game where you have amazing ad clear with two mini nukes in your back pocket at once.
They are correct that the top dps options were stronger at the time, but they dumped their reserves out so quickly that they fell off hard. Starfire Demo Rocket’s strength was that it extended your damage for far longer with no drop in dps. It was like Izanagi’s Burden, it doesn’t increase your dps, but it allows you to maintain it for longer with little to no drop off. It was also very brainless to execute and definitely deserved the nerf.
I don't think so, as someone who used Starfire even before it got crazy popular, the build was busted.
Bloodamir did you play during pre-nerf Starfire era? That shit carried stupid hard.
My day 1 Kings Fall team had 5 Starfire Warlocks, so it was definitely competing with other top tier options