chris PLEASE stop making me want to commit sudoku

After levelling with the skill and using it until now in Breach my feelings are mixed, and the mix is heavily skewed towards bad.

The first obvious thing about this skill is that your ass is up for nipping when you use it so the big idea was to shield it with some minions and it worked, up to a point. And that point were lategame ice breaches, their frost blades bounce off your minions so they're ultimately doing more harm than good. So scrap that, respec points and we go alone, can't recommend meatshield in Breach (also, if it isn't a really good meatshield it will get rekt before you say 'meatloaf').

So, we could say my levelling experience was hampered by that half summoner spec I dragged along so the skill would probably be better if I went the lonesome trail from the start. Still, even if I allow for the handicap the skill fails in levelling role and that's because it needs a lot of work before it gets usable, both AoE clusters are the bare minimum and the gem doesn't really start scaling well before late cruel. Actually, slotting a decent spell alongside it with cast on channel will significantly boost your clear speed even in a 4 link, which is a good sign the skill is indeed underpowered.

Speaking of scaling, the skill can ramp up stacks very high, however, it's a short range skill and in close combat you need to do a lot of damage and you need to do it fast. Therefore, I'd agree that the skill needs better base and lower stack scaling, like scorching ray.

Its damage output is further hampered by the need to build yourself extra sturdy and that takes a lot of your build real estate fast, slow effect is a nice extra but no selling point. So, the need to survive in front and its damage profile nudges you very strongly towards Occultist which I count as another drawback, one ascendancy skills are among the least favorite on my list.

Minor issues aside, the biggest problem is probably the lack of any major selling points, everything this skill can do ED-Contagion can do better except break barrels. It isn't even particularly impressive on the visual side, it has about as much impact on the crowd as a ballroom fart, nobody notices anything until people start dropping.

But, to be entirely fair, the skill isn't entirely without its charms. One good thing about it the combo with Abyssal Cry, which makes up for its lack of AoE. Inserting Abyssal in ED-Cont combo is both cumbersome and redundant but it feels pretty good with Blight, so the devs were right when they said Blight is an assist skill, just not for ED. The investment overlaps too, chaos, AoE, they fit like a glove. Another small advantage is that the skill costs almost no mana so regen MoM would be a viable defensive option.

So, the verdict is - usable but unimpressive.

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Gongoosus wrote:

- (Might be OP but throwing it out there anyway) Release a pulse of Chaos every X seconds while channeling at 5 stacks that reduces enemy Chaos resistance by X% over X seconds, the time it takes to trigger a pulse can be reduced by cast speed

This would be fun and flavorful. Something like every 5 ticks of the spell it instantly deals X% of the dps of the total stacks on the mob(s) and reduces their chaos resistance by 4%. I'm still levling up my blight character, but I'm under the impression that consuming darks + Incinerate is a better Blight than Blight is right now.

Try it with CWC and your choice of complementary spell. I've found pairing it with bladefall and a poison support is nice, (although blade flurry would probably be better for this in every possible measure). Something neat about blight is how low of a mana cost it has, never need to worry about mana regen or leech to sustain constant damage. It's nice that you can cast for very short periods before moving, without investing a ton into cast/attack speed.

Not a good skill, but I personally enjoy making a worse skill seem useful.