I recently thought that it might be fun to start a shaman/occultist vitality and bleeding damage caster build as I had gathered some nice armor for such a build.
Only after a while though I realized that there was basically nothing else to support that damage mix.
There are loads of bleeding damage bonuses and (even active) skills on gear, relics and components - only that they are specifically made for fighters, using weapon attack animations.
There are next to no caster implements or off-hands, no components, no relics made for dealing bleeding damage through caster skills though; at least according to my search in the Gracefuldusk item database.
Yet there are quite a few “casted” skills that feature bleeding damage - Phantasmal Blades, Devouring Swarm, Grasping Vines, Blade Trap, to name a few.
One could say that, with bleeding damage being a physical and not a magical damage type afterall, it would make sense not to establish it as a core stat for casters.
But then again there obviously are those skills that factually make bleeding damage a caster stat, and that not just in one but even in several masteries.
It’s not that there was no support for any of them - there are caster implements and off-hands that give bonuses to some of these skills, like Boneshivs and Bonespikes for example, who offer a bonus to Devouring Swarm plus a vitality and vitality decay damage bonus.
It’s just that practically none of them are designed to offer bleeding damage bonuses, even where they are designed to boost skills that itself offer bleeding damage; just like the Boneshivs/-spikes.
If you are looking for bleeding damage you are basically forced to use melee or ranged weapons designed for fighters; and even shields offer significantly more options for bleeding damage than caster implements and off-hands.
So why is that?
Is this simply a design choice to express bleeding damage’s standing as a physical damage type or is there a deeper meaning to this, some reason why it has to be like it is?
Are those skills just not worth it anyways for casters, so that devs don’t wanna lure people into using them by providing more support?
Or are they superstrong anyways, so that more bonus damage would make them totally overpowered?
Or are bonuses from devotions so strong that they compensate for the lack of bonuses on items?
Or did I just not look hard enough and there are in fact plenty of caster items with bleeding damage bonuses?
Or is it something else entirely?
For this game, bleeding is thematically associated with physical attacks, that’s why. Though there tend to be more ways to convert attacks that are associated with magic (like chaos or cold) to physical than the other way around for some reason (yet another possible reason why physical builds are stronger in general, perhaps)
Thanks for the answers, guys, but they are not what I was after.
@TiamatRoar: I had already written that I do see that bleeding damage is associated with physical damage - and that on the other hand there are loads of caster skills that offer bleeding damage, skills that often don’t even offer physical or weapon damage at all.
@DeMasked: So you confirm that there are not many off-hands that offer bleeding damage. The question remains - why?
So what about the reasons for this?
I’m asking myself if there should be more bleeding damage bonuses on caster items or if those are missing for a good reason?
Bleeding is the damage over time of Physical damage and is supported by Cunning rather then Spirit which supports the use of a caster item a bit more I would believe.
Plus mixing cunning and spirit damage types can be a bit less effective.
Well, but why go with bleeding damage in skills that otherwise use spirit-based damage types at all?
There are so many skills that throw in a little bit of bleeding damage on top of vitality damage, poison damage, or other magical damage types.
Looking at it this way - if you already miss out on bonus bleeding damage because of casters rather being spirit-based, would that not be even more of a reason to provide more bleeding damage bonuses on caster items?
Or, if this should not be wanted, then why not, say, turn that bleeding damage into vitality decay damage? We are at a near total loss of vitality decay damage anyway.
It could be that the mixture of Cunning and Spirit based damage types are an easier way to limit the power of the skill.
Just a guess.
I still looks possible to acquire something that can cater to both bleed and vitality damage though would be a bit more difficult. There is also the suffix “of the Oracle” that I forgot which has % total damage.
That and you could perhaps try to use an offhand that just caters to vitality damage and other items that would cater to bleeding.
edit: I know that not all itemization will cater perfectly to all builds. My own Mortar/Storm Totem character is pretty much just looking for Monster Infrequent pants/rings that would better cater to my build as not all epic/legendary items give enough support.
Realistically off-hands offer 2 bonuses which have a very low impact on bleeding builds. The 2 bonuses are energy regen and % skill cooldown reduction. Both of which will help early game to some extent but late game they play a very small role for bleed builds.
The idea to “bleed” builds is not to cast the same spell/attack repeatedly. This does absolutely nothing for you. The idea is to cast 4-5 different attacks then sit back and watch. Because of this a focus is just not optimal. It’s much better to dual wield or use a 2-hander for higher initial stacks.
I get what you are asking but the reality is that DoT builds are not designed to be spammed and therefore don’t need the high amounts of energy regen or even %skill cooldown reduction.
It’s the same for legendary head items. Whisperer of Secrets offers you “Aether Resistance”, OA, more bleed damage and % increased duration which are good stats for bleed builds. The caster head item Abyssal Mask gives you some health bonuses and DA, small amounts of bleed a proc which is based on you getting hit. The caster bonuses are borderline negligible making Whisperer of Secrets the better option.
I assume you’re doing something like this?
The main problem with the above build is that the flat bleeding bonuses are only going to be used by your devotions. I’m a little curious to see if it would work. CoF and Devouring Swarm should stack for a huge reduction to bleed resist. Only suggestion would be to max Mogdrogen’s Pact.
I made a build almost exactly like that. Some of the devotions I focused on were falcon swoop, rend, and the wolf one. It had tons of AOE and killed packs pretty fast. Single targets like heroes and bosses was extremely slow though.
I made it to level 66 before I ended up shelving it. It just got to the point that the amount of “wasted” stats was making it extremely inefficient. Everything with + %bleed dmg also had physical dmg and on hit bleeds attached as well. Devotions, gear, and skills were all like this. As a caster type, these were all useless to me but I had to take them in order to get the bleed dmg I needed.
There are some vitality/bleed based devotions and and gear, but it just seemed like all the good ones with bleed were paired with physical dmg.
Using two-handers mostly makes you profit on skills that got weapon damage in them though. If I would go a pure bleeding damage route they might still be worth it because of the chance for high bleeding damage percentages on such gear, but when going vit/bleed they are probably not a good choice.
And yes, my build comes somewhat close to the one you linked to.
Skimming through the item database makes me feel like there is not much support for those caster skills on axes and swords either though as almost always boosted skills on bleeding damage weapons are fighter skills, so it’s already hard to find a weapon with even a little bit of a synergy here.
For now the best item I could find for that build was a Chonag’Ri ; perhaps a lucky Boneblade or Bonescythe may do the trick too.
Hm. Appart from those theoretical issues I can say that the build works for now. I’m at level 44 and I haven’t had much trouble. Yes, bosses do take a while, I can confirm that, in general the clear speed is far from optimal, but on the other hand I’ve been pretty safe with all that life steal.
I just really miss items that cater to that build’s needs a little bit more.
I guess that it’s not even so much the caster gear that I am missing (although, with so many active skills, I can use some energy regeneration), I guess most importantly I’d love to have more suitable skill bonuses and “on attack” procs; well, appart from the damage bonuses…
Perhaps I should consider skilling Fevered Rage and rather go for tankyness to compensate for the increased damage taken?
I’ve got a Fiendscale Jacket, a Touch of Purity, a Touch of the Everliving Grove and a Meatshield waiting for me at level 50 after all; that could probably make my character basically unkillable at that level.
Not sure. You’re right about itemisation, it’s pretty hard to gear up on a bleed build. New Bloodrager’s set doesn’t really suit your build unless you go Savagery and relics don’t offer much for bleed either.
I would normally dismiss the build I just posted but I’m also crazy enough to try and make that work. Maybe the devs will look into something for you. Right now it’s a situation of farm a good green or gtfo.