@Hardimanm - Oh i'm not defending it.  I know it's an exploit, and I don't really care, I have no video game moral code that i follow.  The point i'm trying to make is a lot of people exploit in this game (sometimes indirectly just by using a glitched item/hero), but since this is a gold item and not everyone can or will buy it they are freaking out.

@Wesker - No i'm not saying anything is worse.  I'm just saying Pheonix is broken, and using her is exploiting, just like people using firestarter, yet I don't see thread after thread calling people out for using her.  If your going to take the moral high ground and be against exploits, then you should be against all of them, not just pick and choose.

Let me try and steer the conversation back to the rant relevant to this thread (as opposed to the Phoenix ranting) or old school messageboard flame war that seems to be kindling...

I saw this thread when it was created and was on the lookout for this item from that point on. I encountered it maybe 5 total times. Of those, it did the spammy replay thing only once, but the agent had 2x bleed & ravaged, so he was dealing more damage to himself than my whole team. Even without that, it seems like it'd be more of a time waster than a game changer - it wasn't doing too much damage.

For context:

I'm level 195, and this PvP fought as high as at least 224 and as low as 168 (just looking at recent battle report). I finished 73rd overall (0.24%) at 2083 with 266 wins.

It seems like that is a pretty wide net of player levels I cover, skewed toward the better ranked players, with a reasonable sample size of battles. So...

1. Does this item have a bigger impact at higher or lower levels than I, and it's just not of consequence in my range?
2. Did I just get stupid lucky avoiding it as much as I did?
3. Were the couple of people I met wielding it really weak, and in the hands of a stronger agent it is more powerful?

The full Demon Set seemed far more prevalent than anything else.

Lemartes ok I get u. But here is my point

agent, witch, andPhoenix = much easier to deal with and beat regardless of who goes first in the random roulette. 

Now agent with firestarter and the 2 above = if you dont go first u can chaulk it up as a loss or a very very long fight. Becuz if u manage to get the first turn to inflict bleeding, u prey that witch doesnt turn it into heeling or Phoenix doesnt clean it.

So I will say this then Phoenix + firestarter = super op imba

@Brock Lee

No it made no difference at my level either (And I saw all my same oponents make ADA like last season), when both teams had similar stats either team could take a full barrage.  The average hit was very low.  The weapons strength is it's fire/energy boosting effect, and paired with the right heroes I hope it's a worthwhile weapon.  I plan to test it today to see how much increase/decrase it grants.

It only made a difference when one team was outmatched, as I could wipe a much weaker team with ease when using it, but I wipe a weaker team with ease using any combination (as does everyone). 

So basically, it made almost no difference at all.  If you were losing to firestarter, you would have likely lost to whatever else the team would have been using.

The real problem was the added time in the battles.  But even that wasn't as bad as people made out. What people failed to realize is that it effected everyone, so for someone to say they missed ADA because they lost out on an extra 10 battles, well they also got attacked by 10 fewer battles since other people were tied up as well.

Unfortunelately, PD does not seem to care about anything.  Look at IOS and the Armoury hacks.  If the Android ver gets that bad, then the only way to win will be to cheat.

New news to me, and sounds like an interesting read.  Link(s)? 

The opponents that were the most frustrating were the ones who used Firestarter and the ID card, as even with a bleed or two plus ravaged, they could use FS up to 15 times without getting any noticeable damage.  I still managed to win most of the battles, but they took up to 15 minutes. More than once I got up to get a coffee, used the restroom, came back and they were still spamming Firestarter.  In that time while waiting for Firestarter to whittle my team down, I defended and lost on average about 2 matches. 

Again, I'm not blaming anyone for using it, but PD didn't think this one through.  This was a broken item.  While anyone could have bought it and used it, it's still broken and it can give a user an unfair advantage. 

There isn't much you can do to defend against getting nailed 10+ times on a single turn.  It was in some cases enough to wipe Phoenix in a round and make her use her Rebirth power, and reduce the remaining team down to one hit.  There are not many moves that can do this in a single round other than those that give a large penalty for getting multiple turns (Po4, Rook, etc.)

I don't know the specifics of the hack, but a google search will turn up a lot of reports on it.

I've seen people post on this Android forum about it as well, and thats why we never got a facebook link as that opened up the door to this since information was now stored client side.

Endo75 said best. Firestarter could drag your match out so long that u could lose 3-4 matches. Which lemartes is a big deal. Even if u finally wait your turn to attack assuming you dont heal them from attacking a chaos sheild. You taken precious time away from trying to go up hill.  For instance I was wasting 10-15 mins dealing with firestarter users who had 1400 points while im sitting at 1700. So I win 7 points only to have lost 34 I was never able to make ground. If I wasnt dealing with that crap I could made up for those losses or made it to a higher point bracket becuz I wouldnt be losing that many points between fights.

So yes firestarter is worse than Phoenix fire

Ad dont forget the scroll of orichi to reduce damage

Firestarter, Phoenix Fire? Are we really talking about this? Have u ever met Blue QS, Raft Shank and the stuff that people really have a problem with?!