Currently have 2 characters, an Elementalist and a Pyromancer, and I am currently trying out Blackwater Cocktail, Thermite Mines, Mortar and Storm Totem to try to complement my Primal Strike Rifle Elementalist and Fire Strike Handgun Pyromancer.
So far I felt that Blackwater Cocktail is just pointless, it does very little, weak debuff which reduce OA by flat number instead of percentage and the AoE is not that great either, not sure if I just don’t know how to use it effectively or I am missing something.
Mortar Trap also isn’t that great either due to the delay for the shot to land unless there is something keeping the enemies stationary, I can work with that.
So far I settle for Thermite Mines and Storm Totem because they are just awesome, would really like someone to help enlighten me how to work with Blackwater Cocktail.
I think to make an effective BWC build you need to facetank enemies so they will stay in the ground burn to take the full damage. Similar to mines I guess. For storm totem, kiting is totally fine.
BWC is an amazing debuff, take the transmuter and you have a radius of 7m, although the amount of OA looks insignificant it is actually pretty damn good especially in Ultimate but on top of that it also reduces enemy resistance and the damage they deal by 25% combine it with GV and most enemies will pretty much never leave the radius.
I don’t see why you have issues with mortar trap it very rarely misses for me even when I’m kiting although it does require you to use pet attack to help it aim while you’re kiting, if you’re really having that much issues then use GV with it
The mortar and cocktails work better for me if you use some of the other cc options in demolitonist like the flashbang which will confuse them and force them to walk back and forth through the fire when they come to. Also if you’re using grenado and it knocks them off their feet that’s the best time to lay down the flames. In the end though I stopped using cocktails but I do enjoy the mortar quite a lot even though it is slow.
On my Sorc I use Sky Shards with the freeze transmuter which works amazing with all the traps, especially if you boost your elemental damage out the wazzo in Arcanist instead of aether.
I don’t like the new way mortar trap attacks. There’s too much of a delay before it strikes. It works well when you target a mob though. Unless you can immobilize the enemy, it will frequently miss the enemy. BWC is a good skill to proc devotion skills, such as fissure.
I checked but to me it seems the enemy will stay burning even after leaving the Blackwater Cokctail radius… Maybe this is new and you no longer have to force them to stay in the fire?
But yeah, it does very little fire damage, not influenced by your weapon damage. On Level 2 I think it does 30-40 damage, while Grenado - which I already have at level 12 - does 320-440!!! That is quite the difference…
I want to build a fire/chaos damage Pyromancer, and as BW does chaos damage of all the bomb skills, I thought I would focus on that, but now - not so sure.
BWC will apply a burn dot to enemies, that will continue to tick even if they don’t stay in the flames. But if they leave the flames they will no longer take the Flat Fire & Chaos Damage.
BWC is more then strong enough to beat the game with. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKmqLNdwrn0
It isn’t the strongest skill in the game, but it does have some decent debuffs. The transmuter makes the debuffs even better.
I hope this is a typo, otherwise this is a very unintelligent comparison. BWT is good for aoe, good for debuffs, and great for devotion triggering. I think you’re expecting the skill to be something it’s not.
I wanted to use it as my main right-click AoE skill while I use guns and fire strike as my main attack. Grenado does the same AoE damage, just with a short cooldown (which BW has too if you add the transmuter). It also has debuffs (knockdown). I only see the difference in damage type it does (physical+fire+lightning for Grenado, Fire+Chaos for BWC). And in that comparison Grenado’s initial damage is ridiculously larger. I am still just level 12, so I have no points in any of BWC’s sub-skills, mind you.
Thanks. Maybe I’ll just use Grenado until I get to a higher level and can add more points into the skill and the sub-skills. I want it as my main AoE damage dealer, and right now Grenado does that better. The debuffs are mostly enemy attack/damage debuffs, and ideally a ranged character wants to avoid the enemy even reaching him…