0.7.9 Bone Curse Feedback

First of all i really like the new Bone Curse, especially compared to Mark For Death, which was functional but not very interesting mechanically.

Visually the skills looks cool, but the effect itself is not very prominent sometimes, especially on larger mobs, where it’s barely visible or not visible at all. Either makes the skills effect bigger(and scale with the mob’s size) or give it a overhead effect simialr to MfD.

New Bone Curse fullfills everything old MfD did, but in a more interesting, sepcialised way that require some investment.

I like the Part of the skill spec tree that applies MfD, because it is still very strong, but requires alot of investment(at least 5 points) with even more points required to make MfD last longer than 2 seconds, which is a very good base duration, to not make it to powerfull without the increased duration investment.

Also im comparison with old MfD, the base cast time feels already alot smoother, even without much investment and there is one nodes to boost this even further.

All of the big nodes that change the behaviour are very well thought out.

Overall all of the utility/defensive nodes feel really good.

BUT everything damage related feels underwhelming. Base damage of the skills feels useless and all the damage increasing nodes don’t feel like you should even consider useing them in the current state. Which makes some of the big damage related nodes also underwhelming, while they are generally interesting if the base damage would be high enough.

Depending on how much or if the devs decide to buff the base damage the “Oppressive Gaze” node, which makes the skill singletarget only, needs to be alot stronger, since 30% more damage is not very much compared to some fo the other damage related nodes.

I also would like the “Brittle Bones” Node, which makes Bone Curses damage kill enemies below x%kill threshold, to have 4 or 5 points maximum with less % per node, so that you can invest more into it. 5% per node with 4 points maximum for example.

Bug:The “Misery” Node, which converts the skill’s damage to necrotic does make the visuall effect size shrink to base size(you have to take at least 4 points in conflation anyway, but i havn’t tested if the 5th point changes the size at all). Skills area is still working as intended, just visually off.

TL:DR

  • Interesting Skill + Skill Spec Tree

  • Cast Time feels very smooth even without cast speed node

  • Keep investment requirement for MfD part of the Tree as it is

  • Everything damage related feels underwhelming(base damage and damage related nodes)

  • Give “Brittle Bones” Node 4 or 5 points maximum with less effect to reward investment more

  • Make visual effect more prominent or give it overhead symbol like MfD

  • “Misery” node visually bugged

3 Likes

I am not 100 % sure of the power of the skill (powerfull/underpowered) because I have not enough tested it.

Oppressive Gaze is not good at all. It’s really not polyvalent. Seems a pure boss killer node. This is not very satisfactory to have one skill only made for that I think.

Others ideas :

Bone Eruption

  • Bone Eruption appeared very underpowered for me. Maybe it should synergise with others spells. Marrow Shards? Bone Splittes? Looks like compatible.

Merciless

  • Merciless is very interesting to buff minions. But first, it can ONLY apply on your minions, no more on the ennemis (is that intented or is it a bug?), so ALL nodes but these two nodes (and the +Area of effect node), are worthless (as you can’t target the ennemis anymore).

Bone Prison & Shattered Prison

I like the originality of the skill (shattered prison looks a bit like Bone Wall from Diablo 2), but I’m not sure what a player can do with it.

It’s fun to use, but not interesting even defensively (and as they obstruct the passage, they also hinder the movement of the Minions).

Maybe they will be useful later, for better crowd control in end game?

It seems that this node is a survivor of Mark of Death, and we put it there like that in recycling :slight_smile:

Agreed, maybe they could add something like “if only one bone curse i active at the time” it does X% mroe damage, that way it can be a good boss/rare killer, but as i stated in my OP, generally the damage seems very lackluster to begin with.

Yes, also another damage related note that in theory sounds interesting but seem lackluster in performance. That Skill synergy could be a follow up node maybe? When the explosion occurs it fires a marrow shard in a random direction(or aiming at closest enemy)

The bone prison node itself is cool, but has very few applications, but for example on a summoner build when enemies have the affix that they focus the player you can put it around you or cage the mob.

I ended up removing Bone Curse after a day testing and realising I’ve lost more than 50+ waves of Arena because it is inferior to Marked for Death for me. The main loss for me is the mass Fear that MfD offered that was absolutely integral to my Soul Feast build (which is out of mana most of the time so needed every few waves of enemies running away from me). I’ve switched in Spirit Plague as a substitute and it certainly functions better than Bone Curse in the control role I need, but I’m even more out of mana now and still 50 waves down. This was my favourite build and is now no fun.

So I implore the devs…you said Marked for Death was going to be replaced with something better. In order for that to be true, BC needs a node that gives the mass fear effect that MfD had. Please please please add this.

Except the mass fear, which was vital. For me at least

Hm sad to hear your build is not so fun anymore. I always used Transplants Fear for CC.

But when you talk about losing 50 waves in arena, did you take new arena scaling in consideration?

I don’t wanna say that your build is still intact, just wanna point out that the loss in waves might not be so dramatic. I can’t comment on arena and scaling that much since i don’t enjoy that mode at all and don’t play it.

I think the new scaling kicks in at wave 100? I am not even getting to 100 now, whereas I used to hit 150 - 200 pretty regularly.

@Heavy & @Jojo_fr, have you guys tried out the aura node? Is the damage you take buffed by the various damage nodes?

I tried a build with Illusion of Pain, Crimson Enlightenment and Cursed Limbs hoping that when the 1 hit duration from Illusion of Pain was consumed by a hit that that would trigger Crimson Enlightenment for some glorious Rip Blood auto-cast on hit action followed by the same hit reapplying Bone Curse from Cursed Limbs, but it doesn’t work that way. :frowning: You only get a Crimson Enlightenment proc when the Cursed Limbs duration ends.

Also, I don’t suppose either of you (or any one else) has tried the interaction between Illusion of Pain (1 hit duration, always crits, 150% more damage) and Oppressive Gaze (unlimited duration, single target)? The tooltip don’t say they won’t work together (unlike Signet of Anguish).

I havn’t tried any of your suggested combinations. After my initial testing right after the patch release, i personally found Bone Curse absolutley useless for any valuable dps increase in my kind of build. I use it for a pure utility setup applying MfD and Bone Armor and for the extremely valauble 18% kill threshold.

Never used bone curse on any other build yet, but wanted to give it another shot when Warlock is added at some point.

"Merciless

  • Merciless is very interesting to buff minions. But first, it can ONLY apply on your minions, no more on the ennemis (is that intented or is it a bug?), so ALL nodes but these two nodes (and the +Area of effect node), are worthless (as you can’t target the ennemis anymore)."

I came here to ask this question too. If it’s a bug, a fix would be nice. If it’s not a bug, then there needs to be 20 points worth of minion buffs.

I’ve just tried Oppressive Gaze/Lingering Pain and while the initial cast of Bone Curse may last indefinitely, it drops off after 1 hit. :frowning:

1 Like

Bone Curse damage is actually the most broken thing in the tree aside from the taunt on bone prison. If you take Illusion of Pain (more damage, auto crit, only lasts for one hit) and Cursed Limbs (apply Bone Curse on hit) you can literally destroy everything. Take rip blood with splatters. Transplant detonations and transplant casts rip blood. Everything outside of arenas gets destroyed instantly. It’s WAY WAY WAY too strong right now using that combination.

2 Likes

Ehh… Yup…

That’s the direction I’m heading in & it feels a bit disappointing that the other options are … lacking.

For example, if Crimson Enlightenment proc’d after Illusion of Pain’s single hit was consumed but before Cursed Limbs/Cursed Ground reapplied Bone Curse, that might make for an interesting mechanic with Rip blood.

Signet of Agony could probably do with some tweaking to make it more appealing, especially for a Harvest Reaper.

It’s possible that the auto crit node just has too much damage put onto it in addition to the crit. This interaction is very strong. Might be good to tone the crit node down a bit and bring the base damage up.

Your suggested combination might be very good, but i doubt that every build could make full use of that, you generally need high attack speed for that.

My initial feedback was more related to the base damage itself. The dmg value is tripled if you do the damage yourself, but that makes the damage still underwhelming for my particular buidls i tried it on.

All of the nodes you suggested require heavy investment, basically almost all skill spec points, which is fair if that is strong.

But for me everything without either “acute infliction” (last 4 hits) or “illusion of pain” (last 1 hit but crits) in combination with either “cursed limbs” (curse on hit) or “signet of agony” (aura) seems underwhelming still.

All summoner builds or builds with insane attack speed could probably make use of it.
But for builds thathave medicore attack speed/hits it doesn’t pay of.

Also my biggest critque is the “Oppresive Gaze”, which is an insanely cool node, but pretty much worthless, because the mana cost/cast time is so low, the unlimited duration is negligible and the “only” 30% more damage is way to low for the big downside

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Probably, but the other “big” nodes could do with some love as well. And Oppressive Gaze.

Edit: Maybe Oppressive Gaze should automatically re-apply Bone Curse to the 1 target 0.1-0.5s after it was hit. Thereby allowing you to take some other nodes (like Illusion of Pain or Crimson Enlightenment but without making the DPS go through the roof for minion builds.

1 Like

That would be a bit more creative mechanically, but i would be statisfied with anything that just increases it’s % damage by a much much more meaningful amount, like 100% or 150% more damage probably.

EDIT: Maybe they could also add something to Oppresive Gaze like “self triggered bone curse damage is quintupled” or something like that, to make at least one big node very attractrive for self triggering builds.

I’m not sure about that, since it would give the player massive damage, especially if you have a high attack/cast speed & Illusion of Pain, several big “more” multipliers would make it do too much damage.

They could also tweak Signet of Agony so it doesn’t reapply Bone Curse as frequently which would effectively allow it to interact with Crimson Enlightenment if you take Swift Release.

To be fair, the the fewer hits but deal more damage node are the nodes you take if you want to make it do damage. They’re very strong. If you want to use the other utility stuff the damage won’t be as high. Imo it’s okay for the damage on it to not be super strong if you’re using it for utility or not taking the strongest damage nodes.

I’m not against the base damage being increased to make it feel more impactful for a variety of builds, but if that does happen the Illusion of Pain node needs to be nerfed to compensate. It should be nerfed even in the current state of bone curse.

Here’s a quick level 100 monolith example with using just bone curse and transplant (which casts rip blood). You can do this with no gear outside a level relevant wand/sceptre/staff and some dodge. Easily clear all timelines and 150+ waves.

Gif: https://imgur.com/1QKqdDZ

Yeah was just a quick not thought through idea. Maybe they could add something like "Bone-Curse can only be triggered every X seconds, but deals MASSIVE amounts more damage. I talking maybe in a 200-500% margin here, not sure how good my number suggestions are though >.<

I just really wish that this node becomes remotely interesting, since it is not interesting at all for none of my builds.
Especially for my best build atm, i barely use Bone Curse for trash anyway, because i kill that so fast anyway, with an considerable buff to that Node Bone Curse as a “Single Target Tool” would be soooo cool and impactful.