Blight Discussion Thread.

Readers;

Hello,

So I am doing a build with blight and i must say so far leveling is a breeze, and the use of this skill is fun and easy, the channeling mechanic seems rather user friendly overall. but i've also heard that blight "end game" (what people class as end game tends to change per person so please specify) isn't so hot, i would just like to know what blight builds and set ups have been thoroughly tested and have been given the go ahead or the no go, i'm currently trying a trickster dual wield scepters, Breath of the council and Singularity, evasion and es based, perhaps low life (i.e. down to 30% with an aura) or ill just have low life in the sense i don't scale it and ill go for es instead. i've also planned to scale massive area for clear. whats the best current gem set up known for blight?

Thank you.

Much Appreciated.

Me

Blight is...bad.

There's really no other way to put it. Any build that Blight works on would be at least five times as efficient with an Essence Drain/Contagion set-up. If you like the channeling aspect of the skill you can even self-cast Wither against tougher targets (which may or may not become a really good idea, depending on what the upcoming "Channeling support gem" is/does).

If you like the general "Channel for great deepz" playstyle of Blight, then Scorching Ray is actually salvageable as a main skill for doing you some mapping. Blade Flurry is amazeballs but also not really the same kind of skill. ED/C builds have been doing cool things since they were introduced, and are very well documented across a wide variety of Ascendancies.

Blight...needs help. And can't really be effectively utilized in endgame scenarios.

There's quite a difference between leveling and end-game. End-game does not change based on perspective or opinion. End-game is maps. There's quite literally nothing else to do; you're either questing, which is the "leveling" or "core" aspect of the game, and then there are maps, which are the "end" game.

The main difference in leveling is between attacks and spells. Spells almost always have greater coverage than attacks, be it melee or ranged. For instance, Lightning Arrow + LMP has great AOE, but relies on a weapon whose damage may or may not be on par with a spell with similar AOE. LA will have weaker coverage, but not AOE.

Blight's problem is that, from what I understand from just reading the tooltip, each stack has a separate duration. This means there is a soft cap of how much degen you can apply to an enemy based on cast speed, and there is a hard cap that renders too much cast speed wasteful. In short, you'd be better off with another spell.

Knowing the cast speed issue, there's then the damage versus resistance problem. Fireball, for instance, can use Penetration to guarantee damage while Blight can't. Fireball can do a one-punch-n-run to let the enemy burn, but Blight requires you to stand still and face the enemy. Inb4 "oh that's not the same, run-n-gun isn't standing still", melee can face an enemy and leech, gain on hit, knockback, and more. Blight does not have the option of leech, gain on hit (as far as I know), and other things a typcial melee would have. And Fortify.

In short, Blight has no direct self-cast purpose. It is a useless skill with mediocre damage, at best, and less than acceptable AOE.

end game isnt just mapping tho is it really, i wouldnt call low tier maps end game as such, considering some of them are easier than dried lake. end game is like tier 10+ i would of thought.

as for blight, surely having wither totem setup would help and the chaos pen in the witch asendancy could help? and increased area gem and nodes do have a noticable effect on blight. but your points are noted do you think they will edit the skill before 2.5?

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The_Feral_Dog wrote:

end game isnt just mapping tho is it really, i wouldnt call low tier maps end game as such, considering some of them are easier than dried lake. end game is like tier 10+ i would of thought.

as for blight, surely having wither totem setup would help and the chaos pen in the witch asendancy could help? and increased area gem and nodes do have a noticable effect on blight. but your points are noted do you think they will edit the skill before 2.5?

Maps are maps. End-game isn't just the end-end-game. End-end-game would be Shaper, Atziri, and other similar "top dog" stuff.

End-game is just the final stage of what you do. For example, Diablo 2's end-game was MF farming. You've done the quests and now you're getting gear for other characters. Not much else to do. In PoE, it's maps. Tier 1 and tier 16 are the same; they are all maps.

Witch has no chaos penetration, though she does have something that lowers enemy chaos resistance. Quite different.

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The_Feral_Dog wrote:

end game isnt just mapping tho is it really, i wouldnt call low tier maps end game as such, considering some of them are easier than dried lake. end game is like tier 10+ i would of thought.

as for blight, surely having wither totem setup would help and the chaos pen in the witch asendancy could help? and increased area gem and nodes do have a noticable effect on blight. but your points are noted do you think they will edit the skill before 2.5?

Again - nothing you can do to improve Blight is something you can't do to improve Essence Drain/Contagion more. Occultist Void Beacon? Works as well for ED/C as it does for Blight, and ED/C is safer and deals a raging shitload more damage. Inc. AoE bonuses? increases the range Contagion can spread the nigh-infinitely more potent Essence Drain over. ED/C is almost like working with a 9-link or 10-link skill - you can put bonus-support gems on Contagion that will often apply when Essence Drain is what kills the thing.

Blight can'd do any of that. Even if its damage was good (and it's not), it's a melee-range channel with bad defensive capabilities that applies DoTs. Just...not worth the hassle, most of the time.

I've been trying to get a Blight based character up and running and just hit lvl68. I'm using dual breath of the councils and carcass jack to increase the duration and AOE of Blight and unfortunately I've come to the conclusion it's just sub-par.
The slow whilst useful only affects movement which means you will still be standing still in the face of any ranged attackers.
The damage comes down to a choice, do you want to stand still slowly building a dot with Blight or do you want to apply the entire dot all at once with Essence Drain or Contagion. Even running Contagion alone is faster than Blight.

Blight was designed as a really low level starting skill that transitions into a support-ish skill for contagion-essence drain. You could put it into a spell totem and use selfcast wither to increase your dps for bosses.

what 80% reduced movement speed means? Reduced movement for monsters afected by blight?

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T1ber1us wrote:

what 80% reduced movement speed means? Reduced movement for monsters afected by blight?

Yes