I’ve been playing the game for a while but never used this skill on a character, now I did and it feels really underwhelming, it seems that it doesn’t get bonus flat damage from any other source and doesn’t proc stuff like the Viper constellation.
Am I missing something?
Attachment: BWC.jpg
By itself the damage is underwhelming, but the key is to use the skill to trigger procs, which BWC does better than any other skill in GD. As you can stack BWC, you can for example blanket the entire screen with aether missiles if you have several …of the arcane blaze items. Good times.
ya its damage is quite poor, especially because other burn sources will be higher from other skills. But the procs and debuffs from it are quite good
It’s primarily a debuff. With the transmuter it’s extremely good.
I can post a vid of my end-game BWC commando with the latest patch if preferred, but look closely at what the skill offers end game.
Large AoE debuff.
Enemies lose OA, Armor and a flat reduction to all resistances. With the transmuter their physical damage is cut as well for 6 seconds.
You can tank substantially well fighting inside your own patch of flames. I personally consider it to be one of the strongest skills in the game. It is good offensive and defensive. With fire reduction bonuses it’s even stronger. In short, yes it starts off poor but can reach great heights.
+1 to duck_king. I use bwc + transmuter primarily as a debuff. I can tank nemeses because of the -25% phys damage and the resist reduction of the modifiers.
Demo debuffs are awesome. Flashbang bwc and mines go a long way towards making your build stronger
Even as a Main Damaging Skill without Transmuter BWC does more then enough damage (Mines around 9K damage per second) Is it the strongest damage skill in the game no, but if it was it be completely broken with the debuffs it grants. People really need to stop complaining about this skill and try and understand what else it does besides damage.
It does feel a tad underwhelming by itself, but once you add the Fissure devotion skill to it, it gets a lot of extra oomph. If you’re going to make a build around it, I feel like you just have to go Arcanist secondary and max out Olexra’s Flash Freeze. Not only does it trap the enemies into the fire, it also does decent damage by itself and will get you a massive ~100% extra Fire Resistance debuff. It makes a HUGE difference.
I guess the reason why people, me included, have a hard time really liking Blackwater Cocktail is that it such an unintuitive skill.
As the only castable fire-based skill without cooldown in all skill trees people are likely to get tricked into thinking that this is your usual spammable main-source-of-damage spell. Sadly, although being a ranged skill, it’s mechanics very much favor melee characters, partly because of it’s slow cast animation and projectile speed and the ridiculousy small impact damage.
Skills like “Stun Jacks” or “Grenado” unfold their damage and crowd control potential immediately on collision with an enemy which makes them excellent in panicked situations where enemies are running towards you and you may not be able to aim precisely.
With Blackwater Cocktail though you are dependent on sources of crowd control for it to be effective, especially on lower skill levels where the affected area will be so small that enemies will often have walked out of it before having taken significant damage from it.
The immense increase in diametre that higher skill levels bring on the other hand is not visually apparent, which might lead to the player not even noticing the effect of the skill in all the fireworks that are likely to go off all the time when playing a Demolitionist with several devotion powers.
Especially as so many skills offer vastly superior clear speed at early levels, levels where you don’t need the debuff potential of BwC and likely wouldn’t even feel it.
All in all I think I would like that skill more if it wouldn’t try to be everything at once. I guess I would rather like to have two two-nodes skills that cater to the individual needs of the appropriate play style than one skill that is only really comfortable to use for one playstyle but on the other hand offers a debuff so valuable in late-game that everyone would wanna have it (like flat resistance reduction in this case).
For those melee demolitionists that could use a bit more survivability an aura or nova that does lingering damage around the character and reduces the OA and armor of surrounding enemies would probably be more nice to have.
And for those ranged caster demolitionists a swift projectile skill with more impact and lingering damage, without the field on the ground but with a chance to do splash damage, would probably be much nicer to have too.
I find nothing wrong with the skill at all, it’s by far my favorite skill in the game. Use it on many different builds of mine. Haven’t been playing the game much lately (especially this character as it’s one of my oldest) so I make many mistakes in the video 
I really hope crate stops buffing it.
Never heard that before. oO
Seems to support my hypothesis. The skill is not weak, it’s just awkward to use, catering to a playstyle that might not be apparent, and doesn’t show it’s strengths until late-game and only if you have invested heavily in it; consequently causing people to complain because they feel that it is so lackluster.
Hence “an unintuitive skill”.
With changes in patch 1.0.0.6 BWS Does around 14.5K burn damage at lvl 22. Not bad at all. With huge radius, procs and Agonizing flames. It’s pretty and effective.
Is that per second or total?
Over 3 Seconds. Per secons would be like 45 K non crit which would be a bit much for a single DoT:D. Secret to Dot’s is stacking them. Increased burn Duration is very strong with this . Gives you time to stack Burn Dot’s and sneaking a healthy crit in there with them getting big numbers as a result.
Might go beyond 14.5-15k Burn with the new Infernal Knight Set.
What I would like to know in this regard: All of you who like using BwC - are you using it with it’s transmuter?
Because I am really trying to like BwC, made a character just for it, but every time I try using BwC as my main spell I find it to be extremely frustrating to play with.
With this now level 59 Pyromancer I am at a level where it’s debuffs become valuable and I got enough skill points to make BwC strong.
But then there’s this insanely unsatisfying mechanic with it’s slow cast animation and it’s ridiculously slow projectile speed.
I just tested this - standing at the doorsteps of the Devil’s Crossing riftgate, how long does it take a BwC to reach Luther Graves, counted from skill-activation to projectile impact?
It’s roughly about two and a half seconds.
Now this is totally ok with other skills like Grenado or Canister Bomb, but for a spammable spell this delay is just way to high I feel.
If I already have to wait 2.5 seconds, I can just as well take the transmuter and cash in on all the benefits it offers.
I don’t use the transmuter. BWC’s major strength comes from the ability to stack it combined with it’s AoE and extremely high proc rate. The way to use it effectively is you nuke a spot on the ground and allow enemies to walk into it, adapting to their movements and keeping them in the effective radius of the skill. It you throw it strictly based on their current location, then it is going to be underwhelming as one cocktail on it’s own is not very strong. When played right it massacres just about anything. When played incorrectly it’s nearly useless.
Would be nice if people included their fire/chaos/burn damage % when they say it sucks/good/whatever.
On my gunslinger Pyromancer, I have been using it with the transmuter since I also play with fire strike and have another dozen other spells to cast. Maybe 500% fire damage around lvl 35 and close to 1000% around level 50. Lvl 12 Blackwater Cocktail was clearing entire rooms on its own up to level 40 ish maybe, then I invested into some other stuff instead of its follow-up skills, so it was a bit weaker.
Usual rotation at lvl60 ish is > flashbang + backwater cocktail way ahead of me or into a door/whatever > fire strike + fireball > canister bomb (stun) > fs + fb > stun jack (stun) + hellfire mines at my feet > fs + fb > everything dead > if not, Hellhound sacrifice + repeat. Half the legendaries I find are guns/rifle so I’m bit overpowered versus the content, it’s difficult to get a good feel for it, but mobs die in 1-2 seconds, and bosses die in 4-ish.
I don’t think I would use it without the transmuter though, damage over time make poor spammable skills.
Per secons would be like 45 K non crit which would be a bit much for a single DoT.
Welcome to poison builds.
I don’t use the transmuter. BWC’s major strength comes from the ability to stack it combined with it’s AoE and extremely high proc rate. The way to use it effectively is you nuke a spot on the ground and allow enemies to walk into it, adapting to their movements and keeping them in the effective radius of the skill. It you throw it strictly based on their current location, then it is going to be underwhelming as one cocktail on it’s own is not very strong. When played right it massacres just about anything. When played incorrectly it’s nearly useless.
How fast does that kill bosses? I’ve been wanting to make a grenadier build for a while now.
An old vid of the same character back when fire resistant enemies and Ultimate difficulty was rougher.
Another old vid a few builds ago of the same character vs Log
I personally like the transmuter. I’ve got 3 pieces of the new set. Don’t think it’s required to make a BWC build. It helps but the 4 piece Ulzuin set is still very competitive due to the fire debuff proc on the head-piece. I guess I’ll probably change my mind once I get the set.
Man you guys got these new items fast. I only got the Argivix and Aether Ray set foci so far…forgot their names.
Anyway.
@Nine Though i already asked in another thread I’ll ask something here too. What proc do you use?. Because Burn damage from BWC doesn’t for damage, but does it stack for procs? If it does what proc do you use. I imagine Fissure is a beast with this.
@Duck King. Nice video. But Fabius’ innate Fire resist is really hurting these fire builds. Maye a point in thermite mine would help a bit? i am supriesd he does som much damage with you wearing Siegebreaker addingthe OA and Damage debuff from BWC
Would he go down faster without transmuter?
That particular build is incredibly gimmicky. I pretty much picked every fire based devotion available. It’s not really a tank per se. I took a tonne of soldier’s passives though but yeah I think I took a substantial amount of damage. Probably from having my DA continually reduced. Once it’s just Fabius vs You the fight is easily manageable.
Don’t know if he’d go down faster without transmuter. I would assume so. But then you would need a more mana-focused setup.