For the last several leagues, abilities that use damage over time mechanics such as Poison and Ignite have been present in a large majority of end game builds. These mechanics proved to be some of the most efficient sources of damage.
This is because the base damage for Ignite, Poison and Bleeding is the damage that was taken by an enemy from the hit. So if a hit dealt Fire Damage and caused an Ignite, any modifiers to Fire Damage would apply to the damage of the hit, as well as to the Ignite. Because the hit dealing more damage meant the Ignite had more base damage to scale, this meant such modifiers applying to the hit had a cumulative effect on the Ignite's base damage, in addition to applying normally to the Ignite's Fire Damage value. Similarly, the enemy's Fire Resistance applying to the hit meant the Ignite would have lower base damage, and since the Ignite deals fire damage, it would also then lower the damage taken from the Ignite. This was commonly referred to as "double dipping". Builds that focused on the damage type of the Poison, Bleed or Ignite they caused were capable of receiving a significantly larger increase to their damage from certain passives and skills than builds that didn't use these mechanics.
We've decided to make some changes to this system for a few reasons. Firstly, builds that didn't use Poison or Ignite required significantly more investment to reach the same damage values, and we'd like to level the playing field to bring more builds to a closer power level and progression. Secondly, when balancing the power of items and modifiers, we always had to take the potential for double dipping into account. We had to reduce the power of core passives and common items that are effective for Ignite and Poison builds to the point where they're not worth the investment for other builds. Lastly, Ignite and Poison had to be reduced in power so they were at a desired damage level after heavy investment in effects that "double dipped", making them virtually worthless for builds that didn't take advantage of these systems, creating another trap for players to fall into if they weren't aware of the minutia of the game mechanics.
In the Beta for The Fall of Oriath, we're going to be trying out a new damage over time system. Skills will calculate their Ignite, Poison or Bleed values as a separate damage value, taken straight from the base and added damage of the skill. This will give skills that deal fire damage a minimum and maximum Ignite Damage per Second value that will be rolled on Ignites that the skill causes. Poison, Bleed and Ignite damage values will be based on the base damage of the skill, and then affected by appropriate damage modifiers. Some damage modifiers will affect both the hit and the Ignite, Poison or Bleed, while some may only affect one.
As an example, Ignite can be modified by modifiers to Burning Damage, Fire Damage, Damage Over Time, general damage modifiers, and resistances. This means that Increased Spell, Attack, or Weapon Damage will no longer influence your Ignite, Poison or Bleed damage at all. It also means that while modifiers to Fire Damage will still apply both to a hit and to the Ignite it causes, since the Ignite’s base damage is the same as the hit’s, rather than being the damage the enemy took from the hit, there is no cumulative effect - the modifier applying to the hit has no effect at all on the Ignite - the two are entirely separate.
To compensate for the loss of damage from the removal of "double dipping", the damage of player Ignites, Poisons, and Bleeding have been doubled. Increases to these effects on the passive tree have been boosted as well, and additional Poison and Bleeding bonuses have been added to some weapon clusters, on top of their existing stats.
Bleeding is also being changed for players so that it does more damage while the target is stationary, making it a more versatile source of damage. Previously it dealt only one sixth its damage while the target was stationary, but will now deal half damage instead. The ratio will remain unchanged for Bleeding caused by monsters, so will still be able to stand still to mitigate the majority of monster Bleeding damage, but monsters you inflict Bleeding on won't be so lucky.
We'll be testing this new system out in the Beta. The goal for Poison and Bleeding is to create an additional mechanic that can be invested in as an optional way to boost your damage with a damage over time component. We intend that if you take Poison or Bleed bonuses in the passive tree and equip items with powerful new ailment damage increases, it will be a reliable way to boost your damage on high health or mobile targets.
The goal for Ignite is to have it be a far more reliable ailment for Fire Damage characters without heavy investment resistance reduction and double dipping mechanics, while still allowing for a focussed Ignite damage build.
We're going to be changing a few existing support gems. An example of this is the Increased Burning Damage Support, which will now grant a multiplicative bonus. We'll be talking about others in future. We'll also be adding new support gems to further let characters improve damage, give new sources of chances to cause Bleeding, Poison and Ignite, and adding new ways to interact with these effects.
In a subsequent post early next week, we're going to go into some more specifics, like how this change will affect monsters, changes to make Poison and Bleed count as "Ailments", and how these ailments will interact with critical strike damage bonuses, and a new keystone.
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