My case on why Death's Oath needs a rework

I've been a recent fan for Righteous Fire and was actually interested to see if the game had anything similar but of a different kind of flavour to play around with as a potential next league build.

I found Death's Oath and have been fascinated by it. Unfortunately from what I've seen it has been left behind and besides a bug fix, it's last real update was a damage boost back in 3.14.

I like the unique factor of it being a Chaos DoT aura but with it using an Astral Plate base so putting in the effort of getting the majority blue/green sockets an actual task but rewarding nonetheless.

These are just my suggestions but regardless, if it gets taken for a look it's better than anything I say here in the end so here's hoping it gets taken into consideration.

I will be comparing some things with Righteous Fire because I think it's the best suited skill to compare with.


Suggestions:

- Buff the Level 20 Death Aura damage, either by increasing it's level or just changing the numbers.



- Boost the increased Armour percentage

- Boost the Maximum Life



The next three suggestions are rather out there as it adds something to the armour rather than just asking for a boost, I'll give my reasonings and I'll also add what could be taken out to compensate if possible.

- Increased Max Chaos Resistance



- Explode!



- Increased level to socketed gems



Now, I can already sense the comments that will lambast me for suggesting such ideas but again it's just my opinion but I do give this, for every boon there must be a sacrifice.


And so here are the sacrifices that may or may not happen:

- Change from Astral Plate to Glorious Plate



- Remove the +# to all attributes



- Remove the increased attack speed



- Remove the 1% of attack damage leeched as life



- Increase the Chaos damage or increased seconds of current damage taken



- Gore footprints




Well that's my case to at the very least, have another look at the item - especially since this next league has the focus of revamping past and often disused uniques. The lowering of the drop rate would make either farming the divine cards for this or just getting it dropped so much more rewarding!

Whether my suggestions take into account or not is not my concern, I just did this for my own fun and all I really wanted was to get the team to look at it again, maybe in time for 3.19? One can hope.

Thanks,
Cryonyte

I love Death’s Oath and the only issue with it is the lack of working support skills.

Making it just work with three damage support skills is just stupid. They removed Less Duration, Arcane Surge and and Swift Affliction from the supports, Added Chaos Damage never worked as far as I know and the Lifetap interaction is just… well… weird.

I believe that this was just a “look, that streamer is clearing everything with that 200ex build using a Death’s Oath, let’s nerf it disguised as a buff since it’s clearly too powerful” and everyone else got shafted.
GGG being GGG by looking at top tier builds and making adjustments based on them instead of playing the game themselves to see what they can do regularly with the item.

Bottom line, Death’s Oath is fine but Death’s Aura needs working supports.

"

TIGRElaranja wrote:

I love Death’s Oath and the only issue with it is the lack of working support skills.

Making it just work with three damage support skills is just stupid. They removed Less Duration, Arcane Surge and and Swift Affliction from the supports, Added Chaos Damage never worked as far as I know and the Lifetap interaction is just… well… weird.

I believe that this was just a “look, that streamer is clearing everything with that 200ex build using a Death’s Oath, let’s nerf it disguised as a buff since it’s clearly too powerful” and everyone else got shafted.
GGG being GGG by looking at top tier builds and making adjustments based on them instead of playing the game themselves to see what they can do regularly with the item.

Bottom line, Death’s Oath is fine but Death’s Aura needs working supports.

Afaik, Swift Affliction still works but yes it can only work with Lifetap.

But I think overall without just asking for a damage buff like many other threads I've seen, I wanted to give a more nuanced package along with other tidbits I think would improve the armour as a whole package.

Since it's an aura unlike Righteous Fire, I want it's interaction with aura passives and modifiers to better work in tandem in contrast to RF.

Thanks for the reply.

If I may say, the only problem with Death's Oak, IMO, is the fact it is armor base. I mean, by being armor base, it would make perfect sense to be a Occultists and use with it Aegis. Then for single target one's would use Blight or Essence Drain.

But, by doing that, one wouldn't be able to scale those single target skills with a 6l, since the chest will have gems that enhances the aura favor, and so it became pretty meh for bosses.

I am saying that because I use Death's Oak a lot and the only way that I could synergized it is with occultist Caustic Arrow (maybe Toxic Rain would work too). In this way the 6L problem is fixed, since you use a bow, and most of buff from clusters and equipment works to both.

I must say that when you pass 100k tooltip on the aura, you kill basically all mobs content just by walk. Easily and fast. And after 1KK on CA it is enough to do all the bosses beside the new Uber ones. Both number are achievable. I use to get 150k and 2.5kk (tooltip).

So, for me, Deaths Oak is ok as it is, allowing to walk and see thinks to perish around. It Would be better in a Evasion base for this setup (archer), OR if we could do a 6l decent in gloves or Helmet (support by dot gems) to use it with spells instead and then go towards Templar's tree and not Shadows to use the armor base with ES, Aegis and Shield Charge to move (I would love that).

"

If I may say, the only problem with Death's Oak, IMO, is the fact it is armor base. I mean, by being armor base, it would make perfect sense to be a Occultists and use with it Aegis. Then for single target one's would use Blight or Essence Drain.

But, by doing that, one wouldn't be able to scale those single target skills with a 6l, since the chest will have gems that enhances the aura favor, and so it became pretty meh for bosses.

I am saying that because I use Death's Oak a lot and the only way that I could synergized it is with occultist Caustic Arrow (maybe Toxic Rain would work too). In this way the 6L problem is fixed, since you use a bow, and most of buff from clusters and equipment works to both.

I must say that when you pass 100k tooltip on the aura, you kill basically all mobs content just by walk. Easily and fast. And after 1KK on CA it is enough to do all the bosses beside the new Uber ones. Both number are achievable. I use to get 150k and 2.5kk (tooltip).

So, for me, Deaths Oak is ok as it is, allowing to walk and see thinks to perish around. It Would be better in a Evasion base for this setup (archer), OR if we could do a 6l decent in gloves or Helmet (support by dot gems) to use it with spells instead and then go towards Templar's tree and not Shadows to use the armor base with ES, Aegis and Shield Charge to move (I would love that).

Well I think that's part of the sacrifice people have to make for wanting to make a unique chest piece like Death's Oath as part of their build.

The issue is that no one but the very, very few would run it because as it is right now, it's no where near good enough to do what it's set out to do.

I want the armour to be something that peaks interest because of the potential it can be built to; with a buffed damage, a few more tweaks and changes and I think it would be able to get there.

But as it is right now? You are better off with just going with a Righteous Fire build.

"

Cryonyte wrote:

I've been a recent fan for Righteous Fire and was actually interested to see if the game had anything similar but of a different kind of flavour to play around with as a potential next league build.

I found Death's Oath and have been fascinated by it. Unfortunately from what I've seen it has been left behind and besides a bug fix, it's last real update was a damage boost back in 3.14.

I like the unique factor of it being a Chaos DoT aura but with it using an Astral Plate base so putting in the effort of getting the majority blue/green sockets an actual task but rewarding nonetheless.

I dont think so tbh.

DO is one the cheapest and easiest to acquire 7links in this game. Get the chest, 6 socket it and use Harvest to color it. Dont use chromes, thats way too expensive.
It doesnt get much easier than that, which is why it has to have downsides.

DO´s clearspeed as Occ is hard to beat on this budget, since Profane Bloom will simply explode everything inside the Blasphemy AoE and those are free because Impresence exists. Meaning you can still reserve all your mana for defensive stuff if you wanted to and even run 2 curses on Blasphemy, once you got the uber uber elder Impresence equipped and those are pretty cheap for what they do.


Get a Maraketh bow with Movespeed implicit for even faster clearspeed, roll generic DoT multi, Chaos Dot multi, +2 Support gems and +1 socketed gems to buff Empower as much as possible and then use Caustic Arrow for singletarget.

The dmg is definitely available but you cant get RF level of tankiness, which doesnt matter because you can speedfarm pretty much everything (except bosses past T16) on a budget to fund whatever you want to play next.

Thats what DO is. A budget speedfarmer / walking simulator with limited bossing potential and a great leaguestarter.

I think everyone can agree that socket management needs to go. Getting the colors right on deaths oath is asinine.

I think the way players currently use it with like life trap is unintended. The item has wacky stats as is though. Hopefully they make this niche item easier to build around and use.

Instead of all the shenanigans, why not make it so that Deaths Oath takes any RF skill gem, and makes it deal chaos damage instead, both to enemies and you?

Problem solved.

"

Cryonyte wrote:

Well I think that's part of the sacrifice people have to make for wanting to make a unique chest piece like Death's Oath as part of their build.

The issue is that no one but the very, very few would run it because as it is right now, it's no where near good enough to do what it's set out to do.

I want the armour to be something that peaks interest because of the potential it can be built to; with a buffed damage, a few more tweaks and changes and I think it would be able to get there.

But as it is right now? You are better off with just going with a Righteous Fire build.

TBH I think you don't clear understand DO or GGG* yet. Because if you want to just by walking be able to kill even uber bosses you are in the wrong game. And as far as I know this does not happen with RF either, you need a single target skill. Moreover, even if you can, RF does not work with some maps affixes, Death's Oak is just alc and go, just like that.

Beside all that, most of your claims are nerf, not a buff. So please, play with this for a couple of weeks, then, you dare to "rework" it, ok?


*ok, it sometimes seems that neither GGG understands GGG.

"

Orbaal wrote:

The dmg is definitely available but you cant get RF level of tankiness, which doesnt matter because you can speedfarm pretty much everything (except bosses past T16) on a budget to fund whatever you want to play next.

Thats what DO is. A budget speedfarmer / walking simulator with limited bossing potential and a great leaguestarter.

Just want to point that even guardians, shaper and Maven are easily doable, but yes, I did way pass 100 divines + mageblood investment.

"

ZionHalcyon wrote:

Instead of all the shenanigans, why not make it so that Deaths Oath takes any RF skill gem, and makes it deal chaos damage instead, both to enemies and you?

Problem solved.

Actually quite a good idea, but quite impossible to balance, I am afraid. Either it would became very very powerful or worse than it is.

the only thing i dislike about death oath is the item being Ilv 62, i just hate building for something i cant use until maps.

"

ZionHalcyon wrote:

Instead of all the shenanigans, why not make it so that Deaths Oath takes any RF skill gem, and makes it deal chaos damage instead, both to enemies and you?

Problem solved.

may be for a new unique

shared pain lv 20 unique armor
-chaos resistance has no maximum cap.
-chaos resistance does not reduce chaos damage taken. instead every 1% chaos ress will increace maximum life by 1%
-take 5% of maximum life as chaos damage per second
-Trigger Level 1 shared pain Aura when Equipped


shared pain Aura: enemys affected by this aura will take chaos damage over time equal to 150% of the damage taken by the player. modifiers to auras (range and effect) will aplly to shared pain aura