Searing Bond

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PopeJo wrote:

- it benefits from DoT nodes from the tree, but does not have a "duration" tag
- it does not benefit from spell damage, but has the "spell" tag

Tags of a gem are not an indication of what supports or benefits the skill. The only mechanical purpose of tags is to group gems by types for modifiers such as "+2 to level of socketed projectile gems" and such [1].

Only the actual properties and mechanics of what the skill does matter for deciding what affects it. Searing Bond deals Damage over Time, thus it is affected by DoT modifiers. It does not deal any Spell Damage, thus it is not affected by modifiers to Spell Damage.

Damage over Time fundamentally can not be Spell Damage, these two are different damage sources. Some skills have a stat that explicitly makes Spell Damage affect their Damage over Time component (e.g. Scorching Ray or Righteous Fire); but Searing Bond does not have this modifier.

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- it benefits from some DoT support gems (efficacy), but not from others (swift affliction).

Efficacy says "Supports any skill that deals damage or has a duration". Searing Bond deals damage, thus it is supported by Efficacy.

Swift Affliction says "Supports any skill that has a duration, or can hit enemies to inflict ailments on them". Searing Bond never hits anything, all of its damage is Damage over Time. Thus the second condition does not apply.

But Searing Bond does not have a duration either. The skill is active for as long as the totem that is using it is alive. This was recently changed in patch 3.3: Skill Duration modifiers no longer affect the lifetime of a totem [2]. Thus Searing Bond does not have any duration component anymore. So neither of the two condition applies, and Swift Affliction does not support Searing Bond.

The descriptions of support gems are the only piece of information that describes which support gems support what, and they are very specific.

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- it does not seem to trigger "patient reaper", although only the last line of that ascendency node mentions "killed an enemy affected by your damage over time". I will test this some more, once I leveled further (maybe my life recovery rate is still too low to notice), but nontheless:
searing bond also gives the player a small burning effect, so technically, when the totem is behind and the player runs into a pack of mobs, it is the player's DoT that kills monsters. I guess the source of the players damage is still the searing bond totem, so that's why it doesn't trigger "patient reapers" last line. it makes sense that way, but again, is difficult to puzzle out, what exactly works with searing bond.

Are you looking at your character screen or watching how fast you gain life? Life Regeneration and Life Recovery are two different stats that do different things. Your character sheet only shows the value of Life Regeneration. Patient Reaper increases your Life Recovery Rate, which is not displayed anywhere. But it should indeed make you gain life faster from any over-time source.

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all in all, still a nice skill, but could need a rework on its tags, so it becomes clear what DoT support will affect it and which won't.

Again, that is not what the tags of a skill gem are for, and you will get the wrong answers if you interpret them in that way.



[1] Mark_GGG, Some Mechanics questions answered by Mark
[2] Bex_GGG, Path of Exile: Incursion (Content Update 3.3.0) Patch Notes