-messy spell, the dot doesnt spread immidiately after the 1st spread to mobs
-health reduction to boss is nothing, the bleed,vit,poison damage is relatively small even u take complete 12/12/12 in one line
-fevered rage is self kill spell, 150% total speed to monster is absurd while the damage they taking is nothing…
i know BP is buffed already but it needs buffed more… this were shitty spell right now
Damage-wise yeah. Great at devotion proc and -enemy OA, small confuse chance is nice too. %life dam might be doing some good with big life pool non-boss enemies (those aether obelisks, all hulks, yeti alfas etc).
Mutator is probably pretty useful if your build is tanky enough. Never tried that yet, tho.
But hey, a buff is a buff, right? My Conjurer always could use a bit of extra damage. I’m for it 
P.S — Wasting-> Bloody Pox -> Black Death. My rating of the tree from most useful to least. Black Death suffers the most, cause you get base confusion of 13% chance at 1 point, it doesn’t get better and the rest is just meager poison damage. I’d buff that part for sure.
Fevered rage is OK for leveling, just don’t use it on a boss unless you are running high reflection.
The skill has %HP dmg to keep it from overkill imo. If an enemy gibs he won’t spread pox. It is annoying but I don’t think it can be avoided. It’s a great leveling tool, but afterwards it’s mostly for proc and debuff.
The Bloody Pox is supposed to be a spell that takes its full effect over time. It is supposed to spread and to deal overall massive damage to everybody around affected by the disease.
The problem is that the game is pretty quick and/or that the fanbase appears to be interested into nothing more but instant kill, which may be why they have reduced the ability duration. We have now reached the point where the skill is either useless (deals not enough damage over not enough time in not enough different situations) or overpowered (too much damage done too quickly in all situations).
The Plague in Titan Quest made more sense: it added massive debuffs. The skill was not used for instant kill like regular spells and attacks, but to prepare the battlefield right before your front attack: everybody around lost some health, and had reduced speed, damage and resistances. Just perfect. Exactly what was expected from such ability.
But in Grim Dawn those debuffs have been moved to the Curse of Frailty. If the old plague is no longer about reducing fight stats, what it is good for now exactly? The skill now require up to 3x12 skill points to basically do bleeding that won’t affect the undeads and %health reduction that won’t affect the bosses. And the %chance of confuse is too low to have your build based on it. The flashbang does a better job here. So most players will likely have better ideas where to put those 36 points. Anything doing physical or fire damages for instance will just be easier and more efficient, since nearly nothing in the whole game can really resist those attack types.
I can only see two ways to make this skill more useful:
But since the players won’t be interested into a skill needing more time to reach its full efficiency and the developers won’t be interested into reaping parts of the allmighty curse of frailty to dress a bit better the clown bloody pox, there is probably not much to expect here. Nobody will want that skill to become a serious competitor to the regular attacks if it is about killing, to the curse of frailty if it is about debuffs, and to the flashbang if it is about the confusion effect.
The problem is that the game is pretty quick and/or that the fanbase appears to be interested into nothing more but instant kill
Yeah, that’s why DEE WH is one of the best caster - kills everything instantly.
The Plague in Titan Quest made more sense: it added massive debuffs. The skill was not used for instant kill like regular spells and attacks, but to prepare the battlefield right before your front attack: everybody around lost some health, and had reduced speed, damage and resistances. Just perfect. Exactly what was expected from such ability.
In TQ Plague was one of the very few debuffs that reduced resistances. GD has more options in that regard.
But in Grim Dawn those debuffs have been moved to the Curse of Frailty. If the old plague is no longer about reducing fight stats, what it is good for now exactly? The skill now require up to 3x12 skill points to basically do bleeding that won’t affect the undeads and %health reduction that won’t affect the bosses. And the %chance of confuse is too low to have your build based on it. The flashbang does a better job here. So most players will likely have better ideas where to put those 36 points. Anything doing physical or fire damages for instance will just be easier and more efficient, since nearly nothing in the whole game can really resist those attack types.
Indeed. Remove CoF, integrate it’s effect into Bloody Pox, and suddenly it’s one of the most used skills.
I can only see two ways to make this skill more useful:
- give a duration bonus to one of the skill upgrade:
Wasting: +0.45 second duration per point (making the Bloody Pox active for 10 seconds at level 12).
If we consider that that ability is about doing damage over time, let it do it. Reduce the initial damage and increase the duration.- make the affected targets more vulnerable, by lowering defense or armor or resistances or anything that could make them easier to attack.
The idea here would be to have some sort of complement or alternative to the curse of frailty. You cast that over that group of guys over there before attacking them.
Before I might had picked Pox just for proccing, but now CoF can do it as well…
Right now the closest skill to Pox by concept would be BWC. But BWC is so much better.
BP always was in a weird spot in GD, with mostly only the transmuter being used for reflect builds.
i agree that the skills sorely lacks more debuffs, but like Stupid Dragon says there’s already lot of them in the game AND in the Occ tree so it’s hard not to be redundant (the -OA is a good thing imo).
the only thing i would find easy to change is converting the bleeding damage in Vitality decay, wich would fit the Occ much better. ok the skill is named Bloody Pox but who cares anyway ? 
Black Death should also have a more spectacular effect like a poison/vitality bomb on death or something like that imo
the only thing i would find easy to change is converting the bleeding damage in Vitality decay, wich would fit the Occ much better. ok the skill is named Bloody Pox but who cares anyway ?
It doesn’t matter which damage type it is if the numbers are just low. Bloody Pox is the weakest bleed skill in the game.
E.g. the base skill requires 12 points and does 42 base bleed damage per sec according to Grim Calc.
Devouring swarm requires 16 points, does 50 bleed damage AND 65 vitality AND converts 40% of damage to health AND reduces resistances to both types.
Grasping Vines requires 12 points, does 64 bleed and 64 phys damage, 75% slow AND covers a very large area instantly AND has CD lower than Pox.
For Pox to reach the same base damage potential it has to get Wasting, which is already 24 points. 24 points for something that other skills do better with just 12-16 points. And these aren’t even super strong bleed skills, they are “supports” for decimating trash/proccing devotions as well.
Well, then, okay, maybe 2nd passive is worth something? What’s there? Flat poison. Ok, nevermind that it’s damn hard to find gear with both poison and vitality (pretty much only Dreeg set), and bleed/poison is non-existant IIRC. But it’s only 60 flat dps with 12/12. Non-transmuted (!) DEE does 99.
Super stronk.
EDIT:
out of all underused skills Pox is probably the worst.
EDIT2:
maybe I’m slightly biased because my very first character was a shield witchblade with Pox + Fevered Rage, and it was a miserable experience. Yeah, it’s incredibly powerful against some trash, but certain trash monsters are highly resistant to it, e.g. Undead and Troggs. Back then I wrote a feedback that Pox is too weak (wasn’t the only one, lol, threads like that resurface from time to time). In the end, the only thing that changed since then is -OA added to Wasting and the buff effect of Fevered Rage was weakened a fair bit. Still not willing to give it a second chance as is.
EDIT3:
found the thread: http://www.grimdawn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31851
Well Bloody Pox is about inflicting and spreading a disease, so the bleeding damage makes sense since it mainly affects the living creatures. Vitality affects almost everything in the game so it would turn that ability into another all-around 1-click no-brainer. And make a competitor to the Wendigo Totem, Sigil etc that shine thanks to that feature. Plus vitality damage is supposed to be linked with %damage converted to health, which would make little sense for such ability.
What about damage reduction then?
Wasting could add the following effects:
-1% to all melee attack damages (physical/trauma/piercing/bleeding damages not done by abilities, ranged weapons etc) per level.
And Black Death could add a poison explosion on death as mentioned by MatMB. This really sounds like a good idea.
No, you can’t. Unless your build is entirely based on that skill, you will have to bother about other things, and therefore expect that skill to have its duration lasts to some extend to fully enjoy its effects. Which is why I suggest a duration extension. “Can always recast it” is good for default and some alternatives attacks, and for protection and healing to some extend, but not really for debuffs/setups before the fight. One would expect most debuffs to last long enough to clear at least 50% of the battles in the game. Which is why I think that 5 seconds is a bit too low for something that is supposed to spread.
But with a transmuter on a build fully based on it, no problem. But this is then a different skill. You no longer cast it to exhaust, to mass drain some health, you cast it to kill and to have the enemies rushing at you.
With these ideas of melee damage reduction and explosion on death, the Bloody Pox could become a nice addition to both tanks and casters. But it requires to last a little bit.