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
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Interesting Skill + Skill Spec Tree
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Cast Time feels very smooth even without cast speed node
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Keep investment requirement for MfD part of the Tree as it is
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Everything damage related feels underwhelming(base damage and damage related nodes)
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Give “Brittle Bones” Node 4 or 5 points maximum with less effect to reward investment more
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Make visual effect more prominent or give it overhead symbol like MfD
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“Misery” node visually bugged