Finding a Niche for Perfect Agony Bleed
At time of writing, 70% of builds using the reworked Perfect Agony are poison-focused, with 75% of them playing Viper Strike of the Mamba. This builds takes advantage of a few different factors that I won't get into here, suffice it to say that these aren't available to other builds that might be interested in Perfect Agony such as Ignite and Bleed.
As part of the melee changes for this league, Puncture was split into a separate transfigured gem for melee builds: Puncture of Shanking. It's `120% increased critical strike chance against bleeding enemies` and `causes bleeding` effects suggest that the skill is intended for use in a Perfect Agony bleed build. However, even though it only has 25% bleed chance and no particular synergy with crits, Lacerate of Haemorrhage's massive `175% more damage with bleeding` vastly outweighs Puncture's higher base damage effectiveness. (All other things being equal, Lacerate does about 45% more damage with bleeding compared to Puncture.) Puncture is a strike skill, so it makes sense that it should have higher damage effectiveness compared to an area skill like Lacerate. But even for single target, that `more` multiplier just carries so much damage, that there's basically no reason you would ever go for something like Puncture for single target, when that would therefore also require another skill like Reave or the use of melee splash for clearing. Some solutions could include just giving Puncture a higher `more damage with bleeding` to match Lacerate, but that doesn't seem as interesting. If Puncture is meant to be suited for Perfect Agony, let's really lean into that: Puncture of Shanking * (170-460)% damage effect * Base duration is (5-8) seconds * (60-120)% increased crit chance vs bleeding enemies * (30-50)% more damage with bleeding * Causes bleeding * +(60-100)% to crit multi vs bleeding enemies * Quality gives +2% crit multi vs bleeding enemies I dunno, maybe it's a pipe dream, but I would like to see bleed and Perfect Agony see more build variety and support. Last edited by Spooky_Noodle on Sep 19, 2024, 11:15:58 AM Last bumped on Sep 24, 2024, 2:41:06 PM
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