Blackflame Covenant feedback
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Blackflame Covenant is a Keystone, which I wanted to play right when I saw it.
I started out playing around with it a little as a Chronomancer, and then I played more as a Lich. My Lich is effortlessly zooming through the early Waystones and I began "looking under the hood" of BC, to see how much I can squeeze out of it. I was about to post a bug report (on that later), but it eventually turned into this feedback-review. The Good Part 1. It is an immediate "Whoa, so cool!" Keystone. You pick it up and suddenly everything is purple! .WwWwWwW. Absolutely brilliant! 2. It is a massive expansion of Skill options for Chaos Spells. From 5 to 12! (without item Spells, which also work) Now Chaos feels like an actual casting archetype! Direct Damage Spells, Channeled Spells, even Infusions! 2.1. This is also a great preview of how cool the game will be once the Skill Tree has all sides filled and everyone will have more options! EXCITING! 3. It is a lot of extra Damage - when combined with other Chaos Spells. Seriously, probably even too much Damage. Even with the disappointing Ignite interaction (on that later). I don't know if it is pure numbers, or ability to cover build weaknesses (thanks to more options). The Bad Part 1. I suspect it is difficult to play BC without other Chaos Spells. Fire Spells are now balanced around the Elemental Infusions and interactions with other Elemental Spells, but scaling Elemental Damage means not scaling Chaos Damage and vice versa. I don't think there are enough alternate ways to scale Damage on INT side of the Skill Tree (yet?) to justify Chaos-Elemental playstyle. Simple "Chaos Fire Spells only" build could work, but just seems the weakest of the three. 2. Hexblast is looking worse than usual. Now I can get high amounts of Chaos Hit Damage without having to dance around Increased/Reduced skill duration. This might just be my personal issue, but it is there. I was planning on using Fire Spells + Hexblast, but ended up using the Chaos DoT Spells and Fire Spells. 3. A lot of us players (I have seen other bug reports and feedback posts) thought that the BC Ignite modification would make it work with Chaos damage over time Debuff synergies. This not being the case was something very frustrating to discover, because it is not obvious from reading the description. I started writing a bug report on it myself. I tried to describe the problem mechanically and here is what it comes down to:
Spoiler
" At first glance, this reads to the player as: "Fire Spells are now Chaos Spells and Ignites they inflict are Chaos damage over time Debuffs". Fire Spells still being Fire Spells is easy to figure out from the description. Damage Conversion is also a familiar mechanic. I can see new players having some troubles with this part, but it is easy to explain or figure out through the in-game descriptions. However, the wording on the Ignite transformation is a separate case. Keystones usually change game rules rather drastically, but I didn't think they could break them without explicitly stating so. Relevant game rules: - Ignite: "Ignite is a an Ailment that deals Fire damage over time (...)" - Ailments: "Ailments are a family of common Debuffs (...)" - Conversion: "(...) Damage over time can't be Converted." - Chaos dot Debuff interaction with other Skills (Contagion and Dark Effigy) The Blackflame Covenant description explicitly states that only Ignites from Fire Spells deal Chaos Damage. I will call these Ignites "ChIgnites". Now, let me try to explain why the lack of "ChIgnite + Chaos dot Debuff interaction" is such a conundrum. Here are all the interpretations of the current description and effect I came up with: 0) ChIgnite is not an Ailment. Hidden breaking of game rules (Ignite). It wouldn't be Ignite, a lot of new code would have to be added. Very unlikely to be the problem. 1) ChIgnite is an Ailment that is not a Debuff. Hidden breaking of game rules (Ailments). I am guessing that would be even more work. Again, very unlikely to be the problem. 2) ChIgnite is a Fire dot Debuff, which had its Damage Converted to Chaos. Hidden breaking of game rules (Conversion). This is what I believe actually happens and the reason why it doesn't interact with other Skills. Feels like the simplest implementation. 3) ChIgnite is a Chaos dot Debuff, but it doesn't interact with other Skills. Hidden breaking of game rules (no interaction). It is practically the same as 2, but I suspect it is harder to implement than Conversion. 3A) The "I forgor" option 1: Skill interactions with Chaos dot Debuffs are not based on tags, but specific named effects. And ChIgnite was just not added. 3B) The "I forgor" option 2: Skill interactions with Chaos dot Debuffs are based on tags. And ChIgnite didn't get it's tags changed. 3C) The "This is the way." option: Interactions specifically removed. 4) ChIgnite is a Chaos dot Debuff and interacts with other Skills as such. No hidden rule breaks. This is what many of us expected. I understand that this was too powerful to put in the game. But this is the only interpretation without hidden rule breaks I could come up with. I think that option 3 should be used, but explicitly stating the lack of interactions in the description. TL;DR BC Ignite probably just Converts damage over time (against game rules), without explicitly stating it does so. It doesn't take much thinking, to realize that adding another Chaos DoT Debuff to the current toolkit would be absurdly overpowered. I don't think this should be changed, but the description should! After all, you are here to make the rules. We are here to take advantage of them! -- Overall, it is a very powerful and interesting Keystone. Keystones changing not only the mechanics, but also the (audio?)visuals, is an absolute banger of an idea. Thank you, GGG, for adding something so transformative to the game! Please, more like this! Dernier bump le 16 sept. 2025 à 07:05:11
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Tried this keystone today as well since I managed to find myself with a spare skill slot to fill after dropping hexblast.
After fooling around with it a while, most of the fire spells did seem to be overly reliant on infusions. Of course, there's flameblast, which just feels bad to use with the 15 second (!?) cooldown. It maybe fits into a fire build, but not BC. There were two notable exceptions though which really resonated with me. Ember Fusillade + Sione's Temper. It seems like it has a lot of potential. Though Contagion + ED really isn't lacking in clear, it does lack variety. And it also works for single target, which is nice. Incinerate though... Ho-lee... It just fits so well into the chaos DoT playstyle, especially vs bosses and tanky rares? No longer waiting and dodging while damage numbers tick up, but having something to actively do which is to melt faces until the ED debuff expires is just fantastic. Incinerate seems to be unable to reliably apply poison, maybe even at all, feel like it's worth mentioning. That might extend to other fire spells as well with this keystone active. Looking forward to more interactions and spells to use this keystone with as the skills are updated and added to. And this works with item spells too? Damn cool! I simply love this keystone as well. +1 to more of these types of nodes, please! Dernière édition par xonike#5639, le 15 sept. 2025 à 13:54:48
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" This indeed seems like a good choice. I'm planning to extend my ED/C build with BC and I'm certainly going to try that. " Don't know about that. The big advantage of ED/C is that you can apply the debuff and then spend the time dodging the boss mechanics until you have to re-cast while it's doing its dirty work. Of course there are a couple of bosses where you could use it, but there are some where I certainly want to avoid standing still for more than a second to cast incinerate. |
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" I've been playing chaos fire only for a while now. You just put a bit of spell and chaos damage, then add some flat to fusillade and the rest is crit/blood mage doing the heavy lifting It melts anything in the game. Infusion is only really useful for clearing with fireball Dernière édition par iHiems#0168, le 16 sept. 2025 à 04:16:13
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" Absolutely the case for a few bosses, I should have been more specific. Having a riskier option to really ramp up the DPS between the looping of casts is nice though. I may be a little biased towards the purple flames of doom at this point, it is a cool skill effect. :D A few things don't work as expected however, as poison doesn't apply, and Chaotic Freeze doesn't interact with Incinerate which is an oversight (it's a hit, according to Sustained tag, and it deals chaos damage, so it should work?). It seems The damage conversion isn't happening at the right step for these effects to apply. That should be corrected in time, though. :) |
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" incinerate doesnt hit, in fact it does no damage at all, it ignites as though it deals X damage | |
" Suddenly it makes a lot more sense! The gem tag "sustained", having a crit chance, allowing it to socket "on hit" effects such as knockback/poison, and showing ignite damage as a separate line conspired to confuse me deeply on how this skill works under the hood. Tested it with knockback to verify, and indeed it does not hit. Thank you! |
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Was really looking forward to using this on Acolyte of Chayula.
In the end I've had to pick up Original Sin to get my attack damage to Chaos which makes BC a wasted node.... Buuuuut I took it anyway just because I wanted the purple aesthetic XD Using it with Ember Fusillade on my Elemental Invocation and the new wildshard support and a weapon swap. It hits like a freaking truck and is super easy to get all 10 casts. |
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