Blight

So Initial thoughts on blight, i'm running a 81 hierophant with area/spell scaling and ~ 110% cast speed, linked to increased aoe / faster casting / controlled destruction in a spare pair of DoT increase gloves (for the 20% area bonus from hierophant)

the gem level was only level 50 required so i stayed on the beach in merciless act 1 (level 56) to test it out.

First thing is the width is fantastic, but its reach is really quite poor for the amount of area i'm running, this skill would be borderline melee range without area which makes the slow considerably less useful.

Basically to cut it short I think this skill has an identity crisis, it looks on the surface like a reasonable chaos skill to level with instead of ED/Contagion however its mechanics, the 20 max stack the short range and its very respectable base duration actually point towards it being a skill for bosses. A skill to fill the gaps when essence drain is already running but you have some uptime available to spam something - many players currently offhand consuming dark to ramp up poisons from spamming ED so its quite similar to that, except a core move.

It has a role, and if my description fits the designers ideas for what it should be thats all well and good and maybe its me that has the wrong end of the stick but i'd never level with this, its just too short ranged to be viable.

I've not commented on the damage so much as while my character doesn't have any wasted damage nodes for this skill it would clearly scale better with duration than the specific way i've built my guy. It would certainly do more damage than spamming essence drain when the DoT was already up, and i imagine if you say stack wither and ramp up 20 stacks of this the damage would be absolutely ferocious.



Uploaded an image to make the point, the hierophants would be suitable for leveling just about ~ wouldn't be great but pretty decent but he does have 97% radius :/ the shadows is like lightning tendrils but a DoT its just about the worst of both worlds.

So created a witch with sole purpose of using this skill. Will take all chaos dmg nodes and dot nodes I can, CI, Dual curse on tree and Occultist ascnd (the chaos ress, ES defensive path, one before extra curse). If I can get enough ES without shield may dual wield breath of council, for now though just the one. Links in my tabula were Blight, Rapid Decay, Faster Casting, Controlled destruction, Void manipulation, Increased AOE. Gonna throw in a wither totem too and try self cast contagion since ill have one extra socket.

As far as leveling goes, it really sucks. Damage seemed too low and reach sucks. Then again I have not leveled a caster since how long lol so ye, could be because I keep dying as low level lol. Spoke to a guy on global who is higher level says it seems good on higher levels against bosses and what not.

Wanna try get to higher level asap and see how it performs when it is on high level toon. Have all the damage gear and gems i'll need.

I'm trying this skill out too, and am taking a similar approach to Zac89.

Some thoughts:
1) The range of this skill is very small. Although it applies a short-lived hinder, mobs are usually within melee range before dying.
2) Due to the short range, it's a very poor clear speed skill.
3) Damage seems poor, likely due though to the lack of cast speed on my part (still in Normal).
4) Even with lots of cast speed though, you'll need to be within melee range (or nearly so) to actually use this skill. Which means that you'll be moving quite often. Which means that you'll have trouble applying stacks. If this skill could life leech, you'd maybe be able to stay still more often, just dodging one-shot mechanics. As-is though, you'd better move if you're about to be hit.

1-4 above suggest that you'd be much, much better off using Essence Drain + Contagion.

If the Blight dots were also spread by contagion it would be a lot better.

#4 - need to be nearly in melee range - can be solved by going totem. But the clear speed issue remains.

It comes down to this - Essence Drain plus Contagion seems better in every single way (safety, clear speed, damage) than Blight. Blight seems to fill a niche role - use it until you're able to equip the Essence Drain gem.

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hankinsohl wrote:

I'm trying this skill out too, and am taking a similar approach to Zac89.

Some thoughts:
1) The range of this skill is very small. Although it applies a short-lived hinder, mobs are usually within melee range before dying.
2) Due to the short range, it's a very poor clear speed skill.
3) Damage seems poor, likely due though to the lack of cast speed on my part (still in Normal).
4) Even with lots of cast speed though, you'll need to be within melee range (or nearly so) to actually use this skill. Which means that you'll be moving quite often. Which means that you'll have trouble applying stacks. If this skill could life leech, you'd maybe be able to stay still more often, just dodging one-shot mechanics. As-is though, you'd better move if you're about to be hit.

1-4 above suggest that you'd be much, much better off using Essence Drain + Contagion.

If the Blight dots were also spread by contagion it would be a lot better.

#4 - need to be nearly in melee range - can be solved by going totem. But the clear speed issue remains.

It comes down to this - Essence Drain plus Contagion seems better in every single way (safety, clear speed, damage) than Blight.

Really like the contagion spreading stack Idea. Never used ED or Cont before this, so dunno the difference. You bring up a very good point about it being in melee range though. I though It could leech? Can it not? Have you tried it? Even if it could though you would need to drop a link and get life leech gem (only feasible way I can see of getting leech) and to be honest dropping a dps link would be waste. Would probably be better off going ED CNT like you said at that point.

It can't leech it only applies a DoT

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Zac89 wrote:

You bring up a very good point about it being in melee range though. I though It could leech? Can it not? Have you tried it?

I have not tested whether or not it can leech.

But it's a DOT, so presumably it cannot leech.

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hankinsohl wrote:

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Zac89 wrote:

You bring up a very good point about it being in melee range though. I though It could leech? Can it not? Have you tried it?

I have not tested whether or not it can leech.

But it's a DOT, so presumably it cannot leech.

Riiight OK OK. Like I said first Caster in a long time. In that case then I think the AOE should be greatly increased, by a huge margin. Otherwise what is the point.

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Zac89 wrote:

In that case then I think the AOE should be greatly increased, by a huge margin. Otherwise what is the point.

Agreed.

Blight just seems to be far behind many other skills in terms of AOE, damage and safety to be at all viable outside of Normal.

Moreover, Essence Drain is available at level 12 - once that's available (far before the end of Normal) I see no reason whatsoever to use Blight.

The skill is garbage.

The problem is twofold:

1. Teeny tiny AoE even with tons of increases; and
2. The damage is very, very low.

The AoE is among the worst I've seen for a skill with an area of effect radius. It's a worse AoE ability than Flame Surge. Even with Increased AoE and a ton from the tree, you're still going to have to cuddle right up against the enemies. Clearing packs? Good luck. It will be kill the front 2, move up, kill a few more, move up, kill some more. That's utterly unacceptable in the modern Path of Exile.

As to the second point, the damage just sucks.

Unlike any of the other channeled skills, this one does nothing for actually channeling it. No 'more damage' multipliers, no increased AoE, no 'you unleash an additional strike for each stage reached once the channeling ends.' Just nothing.

Hell, even Incinerate gives you a 50% more damage multiplier for each stage you reach. This one adds literally nothing for standing around like an idiot casting all day. There is no point in making this a channeled skill except it casts fast. Wowee!

The "stacks" of the debuff is nothing except a limit, because it prevents you from stacking cast speed and duration in order to maximize damage.

Your math based on stacks is entirely misleading. The stacks just add together. Just like hits do. But there's no artificial cap on how many hits you can inflict per second for most other spells.

Since we know the duration of the debuff, and we know it's damage per second, we know exactly how much damage each cast of Blight will do. At level 20:
123dps x 2.5 = 307 damage per cast.

Using the base gem, no passives, no supports, we have a DPS off a level 20 gem of 1,023 damage per second.

Compare that with Incinerate:
170 damage per cast x 4 casts per second = 680 dps at stage 0;
1,020 dps at stage 1;
1,360 dps at stage 2; and
1,700 dps at stage 3.

'Well shit,' you say 'Incinerate actually has a ramp up time, that's not a fair comparison' let's compare to Lightning Tendrils (universally regarded as unplayable garbage [and with a bigger AoE]):
242 damage per hit, with 5 hits per second = 1,210 dps.

Levels of the gem? Level 26 Blight only does 71% more damage than level 20. Compare that to 91% more for Lightning Tendrils or 68% for Incinerate. Hmm. It certainly doesn't "scale with levels like it's nobody's business."

Duration? Throw an Increased Duration in for 64% more effective DPS on blight, but it still takes 64% longer to actually kill anything. In any event, that's 503 damage per cast for level 20 Blight, or an effective dps of 1,677.

Let's use Incinerate with Controlled Destruction as a test. Stage 0 = 979dps, Stage 3 = 2448.

Lightning Tendrils? 1742dps with Controlled Destruction.

So less damage than Lightning Tendrils (a skill that everyone in the world hates), and FAR less damage than Incinerate (which no one uses since the last nerf).