Black Flame Covenant's 4-Piece Skill

While I really like the idea of the skill and the set itself is pretty much exactly what I want for my warlock, the sigil needs to be a buff rather than a ground effect. I’ve tested it on a few bosses in-game and in the crucible, and in both the effect is the same: I drop the sigil, get the benefit for maybe 3 seconds, and then I have to run away. And without the sigil, I have huge energy issues since AAR chews through energy like it’s rice at a chinese buffet. But in a boss fight, if I don’t move I’m going to die from a combination of boss punches and ground effects, and in the crucible I have to move to the enemies or I don’t finish before the clock is up.

Is there any chance this could be converted into a personal buff of some sort? Either a constant reserve X energy or as a thing I have to keep casting, I really don’t have an opinion on either.

I think this will tamper with the idea of the buff. I can’t say if it works or not since I only have 2 items from the set yet.

However I think the intention was to make an ability that will greatly boost your defense while allowing you to stand still and fire your Laser :smiley:
So I really like the idea of this, but if you run out of energy before 5 seconds I can see why its a bit counter-intuative.

MAybe you need a bit more tankyness. Running to much with any AAR build is very counterproductive regardless of black covenant set proc.

Pls don’t ! Any more buffs to AAR or the Black Covenant set and the thing will become OP. What I would actually want to know from someone who took the time to test this is if allies within the Conjuration Circle benefit from the buffs ?! My intuition is that they don’t, but I would still like to know for sure.

I already have my top row of resists capped, my bottom row at >50% (except bleed), 10k hp, and as much armor and DA as I can reasonably get on a caster. I don’t know how I can be “more tanky” without just giving up on being a caster entirely.

Half of my problem with it is that it requires me to stand perfectly still in a game where that is patently not feasible. I’ve done 50 waves in crucible and it’s a goddamned nightmare because I move to where two packs are coming in, drop my circle, paste them, and then… oh right, the other baddies are having a fucking tea party on the ass end of nowhere. So I go over to them, kill them, but now I don’t have my circle buff so I’m quaffing potions on CD or standing around with my thumb up my ass waiting to have energy again.

It makes for really boring gameplay and I’d like to see it changed to something less “hurry up and wait”.

Maybe its just me but I don’t feel this game should be balanced around the crucible.
I think its really frustrating generally, only build I have done there is the puppet master since the minions just run around and kill Stragglers everywhere. So there is that :smiley:

So it could be they should improve the AI, maybe its not the Black flame ability thats the issue?

It’s not just the crucible, but it’s most noticeable there since there’s a time limit. It does make doing runs a lot slower when you have to wait for your circle and/or wait for your energy to regen.