Searing Bond

change so spell dmg/fire dmg works with it, make it workble with AoE increse, so the beam gets thicker then it will work,

Ok, so to start things off Ive been trying crazy hard to make this skill work. I was planning to make an Incinerate Totem build but thought I'd try something a little unique...

Currently, I'm level 67 with quite possibly the best gear for this skill;





I use a combination of 1-3 Searing Bond totems in conjunction with 1-2 Lightning Warp totems for shock stacks and mob targeting.

The ONLY problem I have with this skill is that it has hardly any way to enhance its damage, even with Elemental Weakness and Flammability the damage is lacking. Burning damage is a nice thought on how the skill should work, but let the Searing Bond also scale with fire and spell damage by dealing X amount of base fire damage(as a non-DoT effect) even if it's only a fraction. That way the gem could be linked with Elemental Proliferation, Chance to Ignite, Fire Penetration, Iron Will, Culling Strike, Life Leech, Etc etc.

Another idea would be to allow a radius increase to the Searing Bond width, allowing compatibility with Increased AoE and Concentrated Effect.

The buff to the skill in the latest patch was nice, but did not address the main issues most people are dealing with the skill, I could go on about those but they've been discussed at length in this thread already. This could be an awesome skill, Ive been having a lot of fun with it. I just don't think it is anywhere near the potential that I, and I imagine GGG envisioned.


Edit: For an interesting mechanic, let Searing Bond "attach" to all friendly totems within range

Been running it on a hybrid Whirling Blades/Searing Bond character and it's going pretty good so far.

Actually deals great damage with Vulnerability/Elemental Equilibrium/Inc. Burn Damage, but I'm only level 50 so that's halfway moot though, anything with that much put into it at that level should be pretty decent.

I leveled up a searing bond totem build. I can say this. Searing bond is currently extremely expensive. It's the most expensive totem skill in the game, and if the build is based around it, it HAS to be cast and be out to be doing damage.

My problem isn't so much the damage, it's how the damage has to be applied. It's very similar to my problems with melee builds. Ranged builds can start doing damage the moment they come in range, melee and searing bonds builds have to run up or lay down the totems in order to even start doing damage. In comparison to a ranged build it just feels so much worse with my searing bond build. The totem cast time and totem mana cost seems too big right now. I've been complementing the searing bond with ele equilibrium lightning warp-prolif-mines but in the end, ONLY using the warp mines generally seems more effective than the searing bond totems do, because of cast speed, mana cost, and positioning speed.

My suggestion. Change searing bond to either be untargetable and invincible and therefore wouldn't require recasting against of the more dangerous mobs where doing damage is actually worth a damn, change it to a support gem that affects totems/mines/traps instead of a totem skill itself, or change it to a target skill that can be cast on other players/totems/summons so there isn't an absolute reliance on a dumb static totem.

I won't lie, searing bond damage seems very viable. However the amount of player input to make it viable is way too much and no where near as easy as other builds that simply spam 1 skill like cleave or freeze pulse all the way through to the end game.

I like how GGG is still apparently ignoring this skill.

10% damage buff, really?

Wow, my DPS went from 790 with lvl 17 searing bond to 890 with lvl 17 searing bond. I'm so glad that it does damage in an area 1 level higher than where it used to be barely viable! (insert sarcasm all over this one).

Would be nice if they would at least make it POSSIBLE to use this as a main damage skill, even if it requires a wacky build or very specific items that wouldn't have much use in other situations (like something with -75% fire damage, +250% burning damage).

Is it intended that Increased item rarity and quantity support gems don't work with searing bond?

It was intended to be a novelty is what it was intended to be.

Having the damage area around the totem itself effected by AOE radius and damage would be interesting, while the possibility of having the beam thicken/thin with AOE's would add a lot of possibilities for added damage. It would be really nice if fire penetration worked with burning damage also.

Playing a whole ton more with this skill I have to say, it sucks absolute ass. The mana cost is stupidly high for what the skill does, the damage is entirely dependant on having all possible forms of increased burning damage and ancestral bond, the positioning required and long cast times means that the skill is only useable against elites/bosses and there's really nothing I can do to improve it.

Fire trap since 11.5 outperforms searing bond in every way. It's only useful to supplement a build that uses fire trap, it isn't the main skill used and I doubt it ever will be in this sorry shape.

Other than what I talked about in the above post with having area of effect and area damage modifiers work with it, this skill desperately needs either a hugely cut down mana cost or cast time, or both.

Does "increased burning damage" in the passive skill tree really increases the damage of searing bond?
I just leveled and after grabing one of the 15% increased burning damage passive nodes it diednt increased the damage in the tool tip.
Before i put more skill points in it it would be great to know which passive nodes actauall increase the damage of searing bond.
Especially, and most important, the "increased burning damage" passive.

thanks a lot in advance! :-)