The following is a copy/pasta from a PM I sent @adoomgod:
In my testing, I’ve come to realize that of every single build I’ve ever piloted in buffed/bannered crucible, doom bolt benefits the most from crucible banners/buffs because of its direct strike mechanic.
i.e. the DPS boost you gain from buffs/banners is doubled upon landing a direct strike. And when you factor in the OA/crit boost, it becomes that much more potent.
I’ve recently made a vitality DB spammer capable of clearing 170 in ~6:15 - 6:45
Even though the spec performs this well in 3 + 1, its performance drops to 7:15 in 4 + 0, and hits 13minutes in naked.
To give you a frame of reference, I usually don’t suffer a loss in clear time in 4 + 0 vs 3 + 1 because of how used I am to playing naked crucible. In fact, sometimes I find that the restrictive AoE of the banner slows down my runs.
Though, admittedly, I had to forgo PoT3 for possession in naked crucible while making more defensive changes, which also added to the clear time.
So what I think would really help DB outside of crucible, is for its base damage be increased by 50%, and have direct strikes score maybe a bonus 20% damage instead of its current 100%.
What might also help out non-Crucible DB is to lower the %crit value of the skill, while increasing its base damage proportionately.
While this will result in an overall single target DPS loss, it will serve 3 things:
- it will narrow the gap between buffed/bannered doom bolt and MC DB, thus allowing more players to enjoy its raw power
- Increase its AoE clear (arguably the weakest thing about DB)
- And because of its increased AoE, it’ll help minimize the current casting issues associated with DB