I’m a sucker for damage over time as a concept and the game already has some support for that, like the focus on status applied or +% burn dmg enchants, but bleed is very situational and doesn’t have ways to scale or activate its damage and applying more then one status feels clunky and not rewarding.
For the support to build identity a ring dedicated to generic status build up/damage and some more specific enchants like “+% build up of statuses if one is already active” or “Bleed ticks x% faster on moving enemies“ and more could be easy fixes, but I wanted to pitch an idea of a class dedicated to Statuses appliance and synergies:
“Torturer” class based on Whips + Cloth/Leather armor
Some traits ideas:
- Practiced pain: Bleed and Burn applied with weapons scale with a small portion of the weapon damage.
- Prolonged Agony: Attacks and focus attacks deal less damage, but statuses last much longer.
- Sadism: Being near an afflicted enemy gives you Attack speed and Stamina efficiency of attacks.
- Efficient coatings: Using weapon oils don’t change or augment the damage, but adds the respective status build up to the weapons. Weapon oils last much longer.
- Suffocating penalties: A small part of statuses damage contribute to enemies stagger meters
- Masochist: You have more resistance to statuses damage, having a status on yourself gives you Hp regen or some small source of sustain.
- (Big Final or stronger trait of the class) Festering Wounds: Bleed get a portion of his damage as plague damage (Slighty contributing to plague status build up), plagued enemies always count as moving.
The class identity I think is solid and unique, it opens synergies with other classes, like fire and plague based ones, some traits could be used in completely different build concepts for utility or to synergize with teammates builds and more importantly a lot of unique items could born for some unique playstyles (unique weapons with double infusions / that reflect the status you dealt to yourself/ convert burn/bleed to another element / ecc..)
Plus it indirectly buffs bleed as a less situational status if invested in by having a way to “aggravate“ the status, in a similar way to PoE2, without a need to rework it and maintaining his differences from burn.
Let me known your opinion!