What's the best curse to pair with searing bond?

I've been using vulnerability, but flammability and elemental weakness look viable as well.

Ok, let's see...

Searing Bond does continuous fire damage classed as "Damage over Time" (DoT).

As such it can be affected by things that increase Fire Damage/lower Fire Resistances and things that increased DoT on the target. (you may already know this, I'm merely pooling all the facts together).

Vulnerability increases your DoT by a flat 33% regardless of level and quality of the gem. Levelling the gem only affects physical damage and radius while quality only ads to physical damage.

Flammability decreases target's Fire Resistance by 20 to 39% depending on level, quality only increases the curse duration. In addition Flammability adds a Chance to Ignite of between 10 and 14% depending on level.

Elemental Weakness decreases target's Fire Resistance by 20 to 39% depending on level, quality on this skill can decrease the Fire Resistance by a further 8% to a maximum of 47% at level 20.

Let's assume then that (the chicken is a sphere) we're doing 100 Searing Bond dps to a mob with 0 Fire resistance.

--Vulnerability will increase that damage to 133dps.
--Flammability increases it to 139dps.
--Elemental Weakness will increase damage to 147dps.

** It is important to note that the increased "Chance to Ignite" does not apply to DoT such as dealt by Searing Bond. Ignite is a status ailment only applied on "hits" (either critical or modified by chance to ignite).

I think the answer you're looking for is obvious then. I also recommend checking out the relevant Wiki pages for Vulnerability, Flammability, Elemental Weakness, Searing Bond and Ignite

Nice post!

Also, Elemental Weakness enhances party play with other elements

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eluec5 wrote:

Let's assume then that (the chicken is a sphere) we're doing 100 Searing Bond dps to a mob with 0 Fire resistance.

--Vulnerability will increase that damage to 133dps.
--Flammability increases it to 139dps.
--Elemental Weakness will increase damage to 147dps.

Your exemple is bad, Vulnerability is by far worse, it get lost in the middle of others increased damage effects. If you get a quality elemental weakness it's the way to go, without quality flammability/elemental weakness are the same but elemental weakness works better at parties, they not only act like a damage multiplier but make a huge impact when the target has positive resistances.

Some real exemple.

Your searing bond have a base damage of 2000, and you got Holy Fire at your passive tree, +75% increased burning damage, and is using increased burning damage gem (level 11) for +50% damage. Vulnerability would add to that 33% increased damage.

Against a 0 resistence trash you would do: 2000 * (1 + 0.75 + 0.50 + 0.33) = 5160 damage.
Against the same trash with Elemental Weakness (level 11, 30%): 2000 * (1 + 0.75 + 0.50) = 4500, but since the trash resistence is -30%: 4500 * (1.3) = 5850 damage.

If the monster has a positive resistance the gap is even higher. In the same scenario but against a 50% resistance monster, Vulnerability would do 2580 damage, and Elemental Weakness 3600. That's why wise people use Penetration gems even if the tooltip don't show dps gain. Fire Penetration gem dos not work with Searing Bond though.

Peonso is correct.

If you want to run late game (mid to high 70 maps) searing bond you will want both ele weakness and flammability as well as EE. Without all three you will really hit some walls versus resistant packs and map bosses.

One drawback of Ele Weakness is its 151 INT requirement for level 20 (vs 95 for Flammability).

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peonso wrote:

"

eluec5 wrote:

Let's assume then that (the chicken is a sphere) we're doing 100 Searing Bond dps to a mob with 0 Fire resistance.

--Vulnerability will increase that damage to 133dps.
--Flammability increases it to 139dps.
--Elemental Weakness will increase damage to 147dps.

Your exemple is bad, Vulnerability is by far worse, it get lost in the middle of others increased damage effects. If you get a quality elemental weakness it's the way to go, without quality flammability/elemental weakness are the same but elemental weakness works better at parties, they not only act like a damage multiplier but make a huge impact when the target has positive resistances.

Some real exemple.

Your searing bond have a base damage of 2000, and you got Holy Fire at your passive tree, +75% increased burning damage, and is using increased burning damage gem (level 11) for +50% damage. Vulnerability would add to that 33% increased damage.

Against a 0 resistence trash you would do: 2000 * (1 + 0.75 + 0.50 + 0.33) = 5160 damage.
Against the same trash with Elemental Weakness (level 11, 30%): 2000 * (1 + 0.75 + 0.50) = 4500, but since the trash resistence is -30%: 4500 * (1.3) = 5850 damage.

If the monster has a positive resistance the gap is even higher. In the same scenario but against a 50% resistance monster, Vulnerability would do 2580 damage, and Elemental Weakness 3600. That's why wise people use Penetration gems even if the tooltip don't show dps gain. Fire Penetration gem dos not work with Searing Bond though.

I don't mean to necro, but the information here about vulnerability is wrong, while the wording contains "increased" it is an increase to "damage taken" not "damage dealt". Since I'm typing this from my phone it's hard to link the source, but this effectively makes it a multiplier, as stated by Mark_GGG. The case where it is additive is Shock status's 50% increased damage taken, this would add to that multiplier for a total of 1.8 multiplier instead of 1.95 multiplier if they were separate.

Well Depends. I used vulnerability with mine BECAUSE:
Along w/ Searing Bond, I also used a Claw. A Claw w/ Life on Hit.
I used Cyclone as my secondary attack to constantly regen HP and keep mobs close
I used Herald of Ice Aura to get Ice Damage to Proc Elemental Equilibrium for more DMG.
The Vulnerability increased both my physical and Searing Bond damage.