Blight

The skill is pretty underwhelming if they are not major changes to current top tier skills i dont see much use for blight to be honest.

The dmg feels a bit weak for the time you have to stand still. The range is pretty bad and the overall clearspeed is way worse then ED & contagion and its far far away from blade vortex

IMHO it just needs something that grants benefits the longer you channel, its literally the only skill in the game with the channel tag or similiar mechanics that grant no additional benefits the longer you channel.

Just a couple of example what i mean:
Incinerate - More damage/stage, reaching max stacks is rewarding in terms of dps.
Flameblast - Closest one to blight, fixed amount of additional damage per stack (higher ignite damage though) , increased AoE per stage.
Blade flurry - Do i even need to bother? more and more absurd damage with even more additional attacks the longer you channel till the max stacks.
Scorching ray - reduced resists on the target, can be used as a great addition for fire based builds. IMHO most balanced of them all in terms of mechanics.

and now we have blight....
First application slows, additional stacks prevent slow, the damage does not increase the longer you channel, compared to any other channel skill/similiar mechanics (don't even try to argue more stacks are more damage, if you view each single stack as a seperate entity (what they are), than the stack count is a damage cap for additional cast speed), also AoE is to small, but thats just my opinion.

Increase base AoE would greatly help and let it get ANYTHING for longer channel duration, since there is a stack limit make it that each application from blight does something small which ramps up for something good. Let enemies take more damage from blight for each addition stack, let each stack prolong the slow from the initial stack, give them an leech/slow mechanic, let the stacks spread like contagion/ED. Give it ANYTHING at all for longer channel duration, let it also build stacks on yourself which increase the AoE of the skill the longer you channel, so that you can end up with 20 stacks for something like 40% more aoe (honestly speaking it needs way more).
I'm sure there are even better additional mechanics, but anything of those examples would help.
i would prefer base AoE buff and more damage with blight against targets affected with blight for better clear. Not sure how much more/additional damage is needed to make blight a good skill in mid/lategame. Numbers crunching is something for people that have more experience in the highest % of the playerbase.

My concern is the absolute core mechanics. Well enough stuff said, gonna have to go to sleep.

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skuller06451 wrote:

Spoiler

IMHO it just needs something that grants benefits the longer you channel, its literally the only skill in the game with the channel tag or similiar mechanics that grant no additional benefits the longer you channel.

Just a couple of example what i mean:
Incinerate - More damage/stage, reaching max stacks is rewarding in terms of dps.
Flameblast - Closest one to blight, fixed amount of additional damage per stack (higher ignite damage though) , increased AoE per stage.
Blade flurry - Do i even need to bother? more and more absurd damage with even more additional attacks the longer you channel till the max stacks.
Scorching ray - reduced resists on the target, can be used as a great addition for fire based builds. IMHO most balanced of them all in terms of mechanics.

and now we have blight....
First application slows, additional stacks prevent slow, the damage does not increase the longer you channel, compared to any other channel skill/similiar mechanics (don't even try to argue more stacks are more damage, if you view each single stack as a seperate entity (what they are), than the stack count is a damage cap for additional cast speed), also AoE is to small, but thats just my opinion.

Increase base AoE would greatly help and let it get ANYTHING for longer channel duration, since there is a stack limit make it that each application from blight does something small which ramps up for something good. Let enemies take more damage from blight for each addition stack, let each stack prolong the slow from the initial stack, give them an leech/slow mechanic, let the stacks spread like contagion/ED. Give it ANYTHING at all for longer channel duration, let it also build stacks on yourself which increase the AoE of the skill the longer you channel, so that you can end up with 20 stacks for something like 40% more aoe (honestly speaking it needs way more).
I'm sure there are even better additional mechanics, but anything of those examples would help.
i would prefer base AoE buff and more damage with blight against targets affected with blight for better clear. Not sure how much more/additional damage is needed to make blight a good skill in mid/lategame. Numbers crunching is something for people that have more experience in the highest % of the playerbase.

My concern is the absolute core mechanics. Well enough stuff said, gonna have to go to sleep.

I have to agree with this and others above me. It should have some degree of decay built into it, or just remove the stack cap and allow its damage ceiling to naturally reach its limit with duration and cast speed. Just my 2 cents.

Everyone has more or less pointed out what is wrong with this skill.
So I am going to make a few suggestions for what I'd like to see from this skill. With the general idea of this becoming a stand alone alternative to Contagion + Essence Drain rather then a companion skill, as they simply don't need it.

1. A damage buff across the board, esp for the first 5 levels. (that is if you have any intention of this being a leveling skill) Perhaps increase the duration of the DOT slightly.

2. I'd like to see the slow be reliable and consistent. Like turning it into a Hinder, and having it stack with DOT stacks for a maximum of 80% slow. Say 10% per stack, or something that scales with level. Another possibility is for the slow to be stronger the closer the enemy is to you, like a Point Blank system. Duration should remain short so they are only slow so long as you are hitting them.

3. It needs something for channeling it longer, AOE would be the best choice. It should gain more, not increased, more AOE the longer you channel it. Say up to 50%, 10% per stage, 5 stages total.
The best time I ever had with this skill was when I had a Massive Shrine buff and actually could hit things. Make this more or less innate, and you'd have a decent skill with unique mechanics.

Maybe make the base AOE slightly longer by default. (be retaining it's width)

I have to disagree with YohSL.

Tying AoE to the channeled bonus is not the right way to go about it. A skill has to immediately kill a pack of enemies for it to be anything close to usable in the current clearspeed.

If you have to channel the spell for a number of seconds before it even reaches the enemies, then the skill is a failure.

Flame Blast is about the limit for how restrictive they can be with the channelling and still have it be used by players. But for Flame Blast, when you release it, it hits the entire pack at full effect. You channel for a second and do nothing, then kill the whole pack.

With the suggestion of tying the AoE radius to channelling time, you would channel for a while doing nothing, then maybe kill the first couple of enemies, then start damaging the rest of the enemies, and later they would die.

The radius needs to be immediately improved. 50% to 100% more than it currently has is probably a good start.

What can we give the spell as a channeling bonus?

"

Flame Blast, Incinerate, and Blade Flurry provide 'more damage' multipliers.

Blade Flurry provides an extra attack per stack gained when released.

Scorching Ray provides reduced enemy resistances.

Wither provides increased enemy damage taken.

So what can we get Blight to do? Just use one of the above? Since it's stacking a debuff on the enemies, rather than a stage on the character, reducing resistances or increasing damage taken are the best bets based on the above.

Should it have a unique mechanic? It stacks on enemies, not the player, so should be related to enemy stats.

What stats do enemies have?
Life;
Resistances;
Damage taken;
Movement speed;
Attack speed;
Damage;
Armour;
Evasion;
Accuracy;
Critical hit chance;
Critical hit modifier.

What else can currently happen to enemies?
They can be converted;
They can explode on death;
They can be raised as Spectres;
They can be culled;
They can be cursed;
They can be affected by elemental status effects;
They can gain charges;
They can be buffed or debuffed, generally;
etc.

Not too much room in stats for something unique. I doubt we can have a debuff that reduces the enemy total life., and the rest of the useful ones are pretty well already taken. If we are looking for something unique, it will have to come from the lower portion. This will require an additional line on the skill gem, and it's already a little busy, so let's move some of the text on the gem around a bit.

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Apply a debuff to enemies in front of you which deals chaos damage over time and XYZ. This effect can stack up to 20 times. Enemies who aren't already debuffed by Blight are also hindered for a shorter secondary duration, slowing their movement.

Deals (1.6-123) Base Chaos Damage per second
XYZ Rule Text
Base duration is 2.5 seconds
Base secondary duration is 0.8 seconds
80% reduced Movement Speed
Modifiers to Spell Damage apply to this skill's Damage Over Time

XYZ possibilities:

"

... and giving them to explode when killed.

Debuffed enemies have a (1-2)% chance to explode when they die, dealing dealing a quarter of their maximum Life as Chaos Damage

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... and giving them a chance to create a caustic cloud when killed.

Debuffed enemies have a (1-2)% chance to create a caustic cloud when they die, dealing 10% of their maximum Life as Chaos Damage per second

"

... and increases the effect of other debuffs on them.

(0.5-1)% increased effect of other debuffs on debuffed enemies

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... and increases the effect of curses on them.

(1-2)% increased effect of curses on debuffed enemies

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... and causes nearby enemies to take damage.

(1-2%) of damage caused by Damage over Time effects spreads to other enemies

The first two options (explode and caustic cloud) both give an option for an entirely different play style. Rather than just maxing stacks across the group and waiting for the group to die, you could focus on a couple of the enemies, and then let their explosion, or caustic cloud take care of the rest. Great options with Occultist/Necromancer/Obliteration/Abyssal Cry/etc.

The increased effect of other debuffs will allow for some interesting shenanigans with things like Wither, Essence Drain, poison, hinder, curses, etc. It doesn't apply to itself, otherwise it would be recursive...

The increased effect of curses is more specific than debuffs generally, so it's maybe a little less interesting, but could still have some combinations with things like Vulnerability, Temp Chains, aura bots, Occultist, etc.

The last proposal, the damage proliferation, is a rapidly stacking, nonlinear increase in damage across groups. 20 stacks on 2 enemies means they each take 40% of the damage caused on the other. Across 5 or 10 enemies, and it really ramps up. It's basically elemental proliferation for all DoTs. I like the concept, having played Prolif/Emberwake builds to great success in the past. It also increases the effective range of the spell, by letting enemies actually hit by the spell damage the enemies further away from the player.

this spell is just bad in any possible way, its damage is very low and its aoe is too small
considering aoe being so small damage should be rewarding but the damage is so low
that makes this skill not even playable . i consider this to be the weakest skill/spell in game.

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Iyacthu wrote:

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Melpheos wrote:

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Iyacthu wrote:

Read that its a terrible leveling skill.
Tried it myself with a fresh Shadow, with no skill point allocated 'till lvl 15.
Fastest act 1 clear i've ever done on a caster, by far (faster than pre nerf spark and such things)

According to numbers, Blight deals high damage later on aswell. With a Wither Totem, it's actually the strongest non crit spell damage wise, numerically, by quite a big margin.

Blight isn't meant to be a screen cleaner (even though you could with high investment in AoE increase). It provides an additionnal single target damage output when needed. And it's super strong at that.
ED/Contagion clears faster against squishy white mobs (general clear speed) but struggles against higher HP mobs (and Decay bows will probably disappear hopefully). That's where Blight shines.

You usually use ED with poison and with enough cast speed you can melt uniques in a few seconds

Poison adds less than 3% ED's base DoT damage per stack on average, which means you need more than 30 casts to double its damage (impossible with a 2 second poison base duration).
With 100% increased cast speed (quite a lot for a ED/Contagion build), you're looking at less than 3 casts per second. With 100% increased skill effect duration (unlikely, once again), that's 12 casts over 4 seconds, being a 36% More modifier, at the very best. On average, that's rather a measly 10/15% modifier.

Sorry but this is partialy wrong.
First poison support is based of 8% of the dealt chaos damage + the gem alone add 38% to that so you have already 11% of the dealt damage (not DOT) and the original hit damageof ED is quite big already (not to mention you can crit)
On top of that poison double dips with all the gems linked to ED and the chaos/poison on you have on the tree.
As a result ED+Poison+Void manipulation and 50% chaos damage on the tree would end up already at 21% of the base damage for 2 second => 42%
And this also get increased by wither as well.
I dont know anyone not using poison on ED (or having a way for ED to poison on hit)
That would be a total waste of DPS in particular against boss

Ok this is getting off topic but why are people still mentioning poison on ED?

Lets give poison the biggest possible chance, for example: you have no increased dot nodes, only increased damage and chaos damage or any damage that ONLY double dips, and let's be very generous.

Say you have exactly 500% increased damage (all generic, increased damage, that double dips).

So this way it is easy to calculate, and the double dip multiplier is exact same as the regular multiplier.

ED impact damage at level 20 on average is (233+349)/2 = 291 chaos damage.
While the DOT is 809/s

Hell lets be even more generous: lets give you level 21 support gems just to round off the multipliers even higher.

With 500% increased damage, void manipulation, slower projectiles, pierce, (only these support gems double dip)

The damage is multiplied by 6*1.4*1.2*1.3 = 13.104 damage multiplier.
So now

ED impact damage at level 20 on average is (233+349)/2 *13.104 = 3813.264 chaos damage.
While the DOT is 10601.136 chaos damage/s (forgot to add: 809*13.104 = 10601.136)
As a base, Poison is going to do: (0.08*13.104)*3813.264 = 3997.521 chaos dot per stack.

3997.521/10601.136 = approximately 37.7% more damage.

So if you have 500% increased generic damage and level 21 gems poison then one stack of poison gives 37.7% more damage compared to the essence drain regular dot

It is a pretty sizable sum, and it only increases as you get more damage But the truth is 500% increased damage is about all you can get that will double dip. On the tree you can get about 400% increased damage (about 200% chaos and 200% projectile) if you get ALL the damage, and you can wield like a Breath of the council for another 70%, and the last 30% probably from jewels.

But this still has several implications:

You need to use a link for poison, or use cospri's will, or use a consuming dark.
But In order to get 500% increased damage you will either have approximately no life or have to go CI, in which case you can get about 210% increased ES and an ok bit of evasion. Alternatively consuming dark means you can't use breath of the council means you wont be doing 37.7% more damage, more around the range of 32%.

Consuming dark + breath of council is OK but it is almost same as cospri's will:

Cospri's Will has 0 energy shield, so you really need a premium hat and shield, though not too bad for trickster who has a 250 es node. (typo)

The last option is to go berserker and let the 40% more damage node push the double dip over the limit! (My abyssal cry poison character uses this node, but he has a total of about 230% increased effective double dip damage on tree + 1 breath of council for about 250% total increased and he doesn't use poison on essence drain, but i use abyssal cry as a primary so part of my damage, also comes from 50% increased area damage on tree)

Anyways most players will not have 500 or even 470% increased damage, and a lot of the time they will also grab spell damage nodes as well to justify their pathing so part of their total increased damage will not even double dip to apply on poison. At 300% increased double dip damage you can expect poison to do about 25% chaos dot per stack as a portion of ED's dot, and even 300% is quite a lot of double dip damage.

You may also argue that 'but you can apply multiple stacks of poison!' well yes you may, but essence drain playstyle becomes very inefficient when you try this, and basically only applies to boss fights, and in reality sometimes in a mechanically heavy bossfight you find yourself dodging so much you won't even have 100% uptime on regular essence drain DoT, and bosses can move and you end up missing.

And lastly, probably the most important reason why poison sucks on essence drain, is that IT DOESN'T EVEN CONTAGION LOL

Sorry for the very long post and not even about Blight. Well if i have to say something, THANK YOU GGG for making this a channeled DOT, even if it ruins the utility aspect of it in a sense (cannot hit, despite that juicy 80% reduced speed). Essence drain was also well done but why even give it impact damage? Even though realistically it will never be great, but as i demonstrate mathematically the exponential damage scaling on double dip means...

PS:
To put into perspective double dip, and berserker's 40% more damage, you can expect an increase of 40% more damage on ED dot -> about 14k dot, and the poison increases by 1.4*1.4 = 1.96 = almost DOUBLES from 37.7% -> 75% more damage. (edit: I mean the poison damage doubles, but it doesn't double as a proportion to essence drain. as a proportion to essence drain it multiplies by 1.4 since the top and bottom multiplier cancel out, so the new value proportion is 37.7*1.4 ~= about ~53% eyeballing)

As I have always said: balancing these exponential should only be done in 1 way: by artificially limiting the availability of double dipping modifiers. The fact that players can use THREE double dipping multiplier supports, get 400% increased double dipping damage on tree is so stupid... While melee can get a total of about 110% if you include the area damage nodes. Only way melee can double dip poison effectively is enter shadow tree which has 'pseudo double dip nodes' and use AOE skills that can be conc effected.

edit: fix some typos

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Melpheos wrote:

As a result ED+Poison+Void manipulation and 50% chaos damage on the tree would end up already at 21% of the base damage for 2 second => 42%

Ok sorry I didn't read before but you can check my math too and that in a way explains where your mistake is,

Where you are getting this one Melpheoes is that you said it applied for 2 seconds => allegedly 42%. Now I didn't check your math, but I know you are wrong already because you said it applied for 2 seconds.

When we are comparing DoT we don't need to know how long it lasts, because essence drain is also a dot. You can only check how much the poison does per second in comparison to ED's damage, per second,

you basically saying for example, essence drain does 10,000 damage per second and poison does 4000 damage over 2 seconds, therefore poison is a bonus 40% of ED's damage. This would only be true if ED dot lasts 1 second and you on average only apply 1 essence drain per 2 seconds. Or any linear combination or something of the sort (ex, ED last 0.5 seconds, you apply once every second)

the time when duration is relevant is when we want to see theoretical max damage on a sandbag target, were we can attack continuously for t -> infinity so any damage 'ramp up' times where we are not at max 'stacks of any sort' are irrelevant. In such a case max stack = duration divided by attack or cast period. In real battle the ramp up is always relevant and you are always dodging.