Blight

So after making it to level 80 with an occultist blighter, I found the skill still underwhelming until I got key pieces of gear. I have 2 divinarius and a 5L carcass jack in the new league;but, the skills AOE with the passive tree and AOE increasing items is very underwhelming that in a lot of scenarios, I was better off using essence drain and contagion. The situation is better with the proper gear (2 divinarius/carcassjack), but it took 3 item slots to remedy the AOE and it's still only a middle ranged skill. The damage gets better towards end game, but, even so it could use a bit more damage. Getting the stacks all applied is difficult as well especially in cases where mobs overwhelm you with huge life pools (AKA breaches or immortal aura). I just ended up using contagion and essence drain and it was WAY easier. I prefer blight as a skill because it lets you play a different style, but, I had to throw so much resources into just making the skill borderline usable (passive tree/gear) and the damage is still not quite there either. It's heading in the right direction with the recent changes but it still needs some serious attention. I understand quality adds AOE but it should add damage instead and each level should add 1% increased AOE or something along those lines just like how EK has increased projectile speed per level. Or, if the AOE width was lessened a bit but had an extended reach. I would be fine with that because the cone as it is has a very wide but horrible reach. Also, secondary slow effect is useless as well. Does not help in the slightest.

So I made my Ascendent now lvl 84 with intentions of using Blight .. then switched over to essence drain/Blight -cast when channeling- contagion + totem wither
I intend on switching over to Totems for wither & blight once i get my uber lab done.

Regarding Blight:

AOE:
Good Width - no need to make smaller nor larger
Reach - terrible. I have every single node for AOE and Inc AOE gem and im still not satisfied. I skipped Divinarius & Carcass because it's not worth it.
I started using Blight from the first opportunity in A1 and good lord is the reach terrible.
I personally think literally doubling the number is ideal for an enjoyable play time - I know double seems excessive but good god is the reach terrible .. try it and imagine how much more worthwhile the gem would be.

Damage:
Terrible
No, absolutely no point in using Blight over essence drain. I'm over 12k DPS on essence drain and this crap gets nothing close .. its just a tiny fraction.
Not to mention Essence Drain gets a cascading effect with Contagion ...
This skill would need triple its damage to keep up with essence drain + contagion in a map clear race.
Even in this situation it would also depend on the player's movespeed.

Utility:
Very good cast speed - very short, I love using it for the slow & cast while channeling.
Movement slow is good, very good slow.
Problem is .. its ONLY movement - it does absolutely Nothing to attack speed .. Why?
At least slow attack speed by a small number .. if even 20%.
It's the most awkward thing ever to see a snail move up to you and then slam away like normal.



How do I imagine it getting balanced?
All cases: Larger AOE (in reach, the width is good, it feels just where it should be - no wider, no thinner)
IF GGG's intention is damage: Triple the damage, test it & compare to other skills
If Utility: Provide attack speed slow & Some life regeneration/reduced damage received/blind/secondary Wither (inc chaos damage taken or something)


So far the only way I have argued myself in keeping this trash is by using it to cast while channeling contagion because contagion cast time is quite long and cumbersome.
I didn't like casting ED → Contagion → Blight, Too many steps for a slow caster.
Now I just ED → Blight + CwC contagion.

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SpanishMonarch wrote:

Does blight stack by source output? In other words, if I have a spell totem channeling blight, and I cast blight myself, does the monster receive a total of 40 stacks? Or more creatively, if i had 5 totems, would each totem be able to stack 20, making for 100 possible stacks?

ty

I would like to know this as well. Nobody seems to have answered that one yet. :(

Would The Consuming Dark work with Blight?

A lot of what I'm going to say seems to have already been stated, but GGG, I think that in itself is telling as the same problems are seen by most people who've tried to give Blight its fair shot.

First, compared with other active channeling gems (SR, Blade Flurry), this skill is woefully underwhelming in the damage department. Blight shouldn't be a primary active channeling gem because unless SR and BF, it can't be used as your primary damage source. It is truly more suited for a secondary supporting role.

Second, I've yet to understand how someone can tell this aspect of the gem:

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Debuff can have up to 20 layers of Damage
Modifiers to Spell Damage apply to this skill's Damage Over Time

With skills like Viper Strike, you can visibly see the number of stacks. Same with Wither. How do you "see" how many layers of Damage a target is affected by? You could do something like the mobs affected start pulsing an aura, the faster the pulses the more stacks they have. When I think of Blight conceptually, what comes to mind is an image where someone deteriorates faster the longer they are under the influence. You could do something like make chaos chains drag behind the affected mobs, the longer the chains the more layers they are affected. Or chaos stakes being driven through the mobs, the more layers, the more stakes. Something visual that you can see. The issue with the visual is that it can't blend in with all the other chaos spells that are being used, i.e. contagion, ED, wither, desecrate, etc.

Lastly, the mechanic doesn't seem to fit. For example, I would see instead of doing direct damage:

"

Apply a debuff to enemies in front of you which deals chaos damage over time.

I could see it just applying a stacking debuff which enhances other chaos damage, for example, something similar in nature to the synergy between Vortex and Ice Nova. Blight is essentially a hybrid between wither and contagion. Why not make it so you can either choose the mobility option and use wither+contagion to debuff an enemy have have it so on death they spread that debuff to nearby mobs, that just using Blight would allow for it to apply a debuff which then takes current damage over time effects and spreads them to surrounding mobs based on the number of layers a mob has. For example, if a rare has 10 layers of the debuff, each time it passes on death to another mob it loses 2 layers. You can refresh those layers by continuing to channel.

tl:dr, you've got some reworking to do as Blight is just that underwhelming and confusing.

So after more playing around and making it to level 86, I made it to breach lords and tier 10+ maps. DPS is still underwhelming so the fight took awhile but it can be done. Problem is mobbing (pertains more to the damage aspect) and the terrible secondary effect is not very useful in those boss fights. Needs to have some sort of enfeeblish secondary effect to help remedy the fact the skill is a channel skill that does not life steal. I only died twice despite fighting them for the first time and finding out what kind of mechanics they use.

Reach is very bad even with aoe investments and Gem. Damage wise its ok but perhaps 10 layers instead of 20 would make it feel better

Blight is almost good.

It's a unique skill and is fun to play.

The meta, however, is clear speed and high damage.

Clear speed - Blight is terrible - small AOE cripples the skill.

Damage - Blight could use a bit of a buff or a companion skill to augment damage. For me, I reach max Blight stacks fairly rapidly and then have nothing particularly useful to do. Increase stack limit to say 30 or 40 or maybe more. That would definitely help.

GGG - Blight is almost a viable skill. Please address the AOE and damage problems; make the skill at least 80% or so as good as top tier skills. If you do this, many more players will take up the skill.

Otherwise, you've spent a bunch of development effort on a skill that very few players will use.

Blight is a decent skill to play with but the lower levels need a buff and the skill needs both an increase of AoE as it levels (like almost all other aoe skills get) and a longer duration I feel.

15 or even 10 stacks would be fine if the damage, aoe and duration were much better.

If you increased the base aoe by 30% it'd be much easier to use from the start as well as mid-late game.

You also can't leech or regen hp from it (like you can with Essence Drain's debuff) so it's hard to use as an end game skill but I'm trying anyway