Ailment Void Knight feels terrible

[TheRobin]

I’m personally a huge enjoyer of DoT type builds so I wanted to try a Void Knight with all the Void Ailments. Unfortunately the result has been one where damage is quite lacking and it feels like a whole mod or two are missing to scale the damage appropriately. In PoE (after years) they added a simple DoT Multiplier stat which helped DoT builds compete with Crit/Hit builds. This (or something similar) seems to be entirely missing in LE.

The Factors of Base damage and Crit damage which we can use to scale Hit builds (and where mods are fairly abundant on gear) aren’t available. The best I could find was some specific Penetration for Void Rot or DoT in general, but nowhere near the values needed to compete. Also the fact that I have only limited attack speed scaling by virtue of all the ailments having a max stack means that scaling is strictly worse for DoTs

I apply Time Rot, Doom, Future Strike AND Abyssal Decay. Yet even at max stacks it’s not even quite as high a damage tick as my Runemaster’s simple Fireball crit (of which I shoot 4 in succession anyway, thus having 4 times the damage). So not only is there less damage but because mobs are alive longer (due to it being a DoT) I also need more defenses on top.

My general rule for good DoT design is usually something like “Half the dps, double the damage per application”. That nicely seperates Hit builds and DoT builds when it comes to play-styles. DoTs are meant to deal more damage overall, because the downside is their lower dps (i…e longer time to deal said damage). If they’d only deal less damage AND have less dps, there’d be no point to ever play DoTs (see D4 lol).

Anyway, am I missing something or are ailment based builds simply not meant to be playable in LE?

(And yes I know how skill scaling affects the ailments. I didn’t specifically mention it since it’s the exact same for hit builds, so that part at least is not worse)

[Airowird]

I think Void DoT is actually the exception.

Virtually all other types stack indefinitely for their basic DoT. (Ignite, Electrify, Poison, Bleed …)

As for damage scaling beyond “Increased Damage Over Time / Void Damage”…

Doom does massive damage (7-8x your Time Rot or Future Strike), but scales melee hit damage.
Future Strike scales with Attack Speed (like other DoT builds do) and is uncapped.
Abyssal Decay scales with Vitality (through Spell Damage)
Time Rot … yeah, that one needs a buff or be uncapped. There is too much application chance throughout VK for them to be an effective choice.

If I were to build a DoT VK, I’ld probably mix in some Ignite as well, take Void cleave & Decay combo and Ignite on those, dip into Paladin for the Divine Bolt to proc more Future Strikes,…
It’s definitely the hardest damage type to build DoTs around, though.

PS: If you apply an Ailment with a skill, you also apply that skill’s “more” modifiers to the DoT, as long as it’s generic an not “more hit damage”. Being able to scale dots through those nodes can help immensely

[TheRobin]

Yeah as I said I’m using all of those. But it doesn’t work regardless. Most seem to rather scale melee hit damage or stuns (lol?) and the DoT damage itself is just an afterthought or something.
I can’t scale abyssal with Vitality and at the same time scale Doom/Time Rot/Future strike with Strength. I also don’t see how I could add ignite (which scales with Fire and not void) to do anything here.

Future Strike being able to be applied indefinitely is nice for sure, but again: Base damage 60 and no ability to crit or scale in any way that gets it remotely close to hit damage.

If we look at it that way, applying both Time Rot and Future Strike in one hit, would be base damage of 105, which is still terrible compared to hit, because it takes 2-4 seconds for the damage to even manifest fully. Compare that to a fireball which is (with gear) over 100 base hit, but also has another 3x-4x more damage because it actually crits AND the damage is instant, meaning the damage PER SECOND is 2-4 times higher because it doesn’t take 2-4 seconds for the damage to manifest.

Doom is great, but at 4 stacks and limited to only a couple of uniques it still doesn’t do enough. If he uniques gave me close to 100% doom chance it might be a lot better, but with two rings equipped I’m at roughly 35% and I can’t afford the boots cause I also need some defenses somewhere because being DoT means you’re more vulnerable.

You’d need time rot and future strike to deal about 3 times the damage they currently deal to be worth applying for damage, which is crazy.

Basically regardless what you try, you’re lacking a huge separate scaling factor to invest in and/or the base damage of the ailments is just too low

[Airowird]

Only Doom scales melee hit damage, but at 4x400 dmg vs 60 per Future Strike, it balances out.

If you take the Vit scaling on Smite, you could scale that way, on top of its 250% more damage. You already scale with Vit on Decay and Void Cleave, and Rive/Vengeance/Multistrike have way to scale through extra hits, like Echoes or the Iron Blade. You don’t have a lot of Strength in passives anyway (8 in Sentinel, 8 in Void Knight) so you don’t need it as much as you would in games like Diablo, where it’s the best scaling stat.

If we’re going the Void Cleave route, the node in VC converts increased Void damage for the Ignite it applies (on top of still scaling with Increased Fire & DoT damage), it was mostly about going for an overall DoT build.

You don’t need to have 100% Doom chance, that’s a) what the stack cap is for, and b) a loss of ring slots that could better be used to run increased dot/void dmg, some defensives,…

As for Fireball, … it doesn’t always crit though. You need heavy investment to gain crit, which you can use to invest in DoT damage and Vit instead, for example.

But what I disagree with is that DoTs need to do 2-4x damage per application. That would make them instant boss melters and make EHG cap all Ailments to prevent that. I think your post proves how it wouldn’t feel fun to everyone.

Like I said, you basically picked the hardest class to build a DoT build in. That doesn’t make Ailments inherently terrible. I have 2 Runemaster in Legacy that do just fine with one being a Frostbite build and the other a crit Runebolt one. VK just happens to be more inherently hybrid due to being the only Void class. Even its mastery skill is a melee/spell hybrid!

[TheRobin]

If you go the smite route you lose 50% time rot application though. Also Void Cleave has a 4 second cooldown. Also Smite doesn’t appear to do any AoE, making it single target only. This doesn’t seem viable in any way, since you’re giving up on speed scaling with slow hitting attacks. But if you can show me a video of the build or something I’m happy to check it out.

Atm I can use Warpath with the node that gets 100% more damage per second which can end up in a huge 300-400% more multi while also applying 2-3 stacks per second. I doubt Void Cleave/Smite would even be close to comparable (and it’s still not enough by a mile that’s how bad those ailments are).

As for fireball not always Critting. I only played one Runemaster (first char ever) and it does easily go to 100% crit chance and about 350% crit multi (with unoptimizied gear, since first char ever etc.) so I don’t know where you get that idea from, but similarly I COULD say attacking doesn’t always give me an ailment and then we’re back on square one (both problems are solved with gear anyway)

If you disagree about damage numbers just show you me your void rot dot build then please. What you say sounds highly theoretical and not well mathed out even in theory. Like I don’t think it should be the case I literally deal one quarter the damage of a mediocre hit build despite stacking all the stuff that makes sense and all the multipliers

Saying I picked the “hardest class” when the reality is that those dots are literally impossible to make work the way they are now is kinda weird. I’ve also not found ANY builds that do this so I’m guessing it’s not me it’s simply a design oversight.

I’m also not saying EVERY ailments needs 2-4x the damage, but Time Rot and Future strike are certainly underwhelming by that factor and WOULD indeed need about that kinda scaling to be competitive (and no, they still would deal less DPS regardless, they’d just have more damage per application, which still doesn’t go over an upper cap because of LIMITED application per enemy anyway).

Also as for melting bosses. you’ve seen falconers, yeah? The only builds actually melting bosses are hit builds atm (which is fine, I mean there has to be some cool stuff to do with enough gear), making time rot and future strike 4x the damage would literally just put the build on par with a mediocre hit build at best anyway

Also your math on Doom vs future strike. Doom isn’t 4x400, it’s 0.n x 400, where n is whatever application chance you have and same with future strike. If you have 100% chance for FS and 25% for Doom then Doom is on average 100 damage per hit and future strike 60. But remember, that’s damage OVER THE WHOLE DURATION compared to hit skills damage that happens instantly. So the DPS wold only be 25 and 15 for each (while you get hit by still alive enemies, requiring more investment in defenses too, remember)

Again, I doubt it’s a problem of it being difficult to do, it’s just designed to not work numbers wise atm because we’re missing scaling factors for limited application dots and the base damage is way too low.

But again, if someone can show me an actual build using those ailments that deals damage primarily with those ailments I’m happy to see it.

[Airowird]

I unfortunately don’t have the old character anymore, had to make room for Cycle characters.

But here is the build planner I remade without Ignite:
Basic Rive/Sigil version: Void Knight, level 100 (Release / 1.0.1) - Last Epoch Build Planner
Multi-Smite variation: Void Knight, level 100 (Release / 1.0.1) - Last Epoch Build Planner (maybe different base item on relic here)

The Abyssal Decay proc feeds back into Cleave, giving it 80% more damage on top of what it has every time. Anomaly helps with the DoT cap on bosses, adding damage but at the same time helping you to not overcap. If I had the extra points for Anomaly, I’ld swap Emission out for Exacerbate & Mark of Rot.

I’m tempted to drop the CD reduction in Void Cleave and sync it with Anomaly (Cleave/Abyssal, then hit them with the Quicksand / Cycle of Decay nodes), but uncertain if the extra points in Shred or Time Rot won’t overcap me.

I left in the Divine Bolt passive nodes, to proc more Doom & trigger Abyssal Decay, but you can take those out for Rot Grip or Dread in the VK tree if you prefer.

Of all the gear, the weapon is the hardest piece to get, as a Rare drop from Rahyeh, but you can do without and just grab a Hollow Blade with increased dot/void prefixes and shared pen, frailty, all attributes or any suffix like that. Obviously, don’t need the Ignite node in Void Cleave until you get the weapon.

None of the gear is Exalted or LP, so this is the bare minimum from normal Monoliths. I specifically didn’t take any +Level affixes either.

Even at Average damage, you’re over 1100% increased Void DoT dmg. And that’s without taking any Void DoT affixes on helm or chest. Between the passives, Anomaly & Abyssal Decay you’re also on 60% attack speed. That’s 2.6 Attacks / second, each with a 10-30% chance(and the Ring is so common, 25%+ shouldn’t be too hard) to do atleast a 6k Void DoT. Multiply that with all the “more” stuff, that’s a lot of damage per swing.

That’s also not including the Echoes, that are already on 30% chance x triple damage. This then gets boosted by Rive a lot. Multistrike/Smite gets less benefit, but has more AoE capabilities to compensate and feeds stronger into void Cleave.

I used to play the Rive version, initially with the set, but too much Time Rot chance there constantly had me capped and throttled me getting past 250-300 corruption.

I do wonna point out again, that as long as DoTs stack, you can’t just say “oh, it’s 60 over 3s, that’s just 20 DPS!” because in those 3s, you can swing again and stack more stacks. Or just walk away and let them die off on their own, no need to stand next to them to wait for 5 Gold.

[TheRobin]

Thanks for sharing, but I have a hard time how the DoTs deal any real damage in your build.

I mean, taking your 8k doom, that’s just 1k after DR at lvl 100, meaning 250 per tick. And Time Rot would be 90, so 22.5 per tick, which is basically nothing. I have a hard time seeing how this cleared any lvl 100 area in any way remotely smoothly from the DoTs alone.
I guess if you add the skill scaling then we’re at probably twice that much roughly though.

edit: hmm actually confused now, I loaded my runemaster into the build planner and got about 4k for my fireball per hit, which in reality is around 500-1200 per hit. And around 7k on a training dummy. I guess the planner really isn’t that good a predictor of what damage is idk.
I mean my dummy time rot is ticking for 170 in it’s weakest tick and without buffs, so that seems sorta accurate when looking at my planner sheet damage.

Also for comparison my Time Rot deal about 37-40 per tick (in game, not tooltip, which would be about 600 atm, but with over 100% application chance, and warpath that increases it by 200-400% on top of applying it quickly) and my doom around 3000, so I don’t think I built it badly, and I’m dealing way less damage than hit builds AND there’s no good scaling other than throwing even more inc damage% at the wall, which is already hitting huge diminishing returns anyway

I’m guessing Abyssal Decay did a lot of the heavy lifting in your build perhaps?

For comparison, my current build, Void Knight, level 87 (Release / 1.0.1) - Last Epoch Build Planner that is kinda meh at farming EMs (had to swap out damage idols for survivability as well)

[Airowird]

So, if I may make some remarks (gonna to anyway! )

• Between World Eater and 1 Siphon, I feel you’re on enough Leech and are only getting some Doom dmg and move speed out of a second one.
• The set feels very aimed toward hybrid build. Yes, you get 75% pen on Time Rot (which is capped) and overall Void dmg, but the weapon is mostly hit stats and the neck gives you some crit stats besides the Time rot chance (again, cap) and the Void Rift that won’t help a lot.
• In Abyssal Decay, Crumbling grants only “increased” damage, not “more”. The T4 affix on your Relic gives you more dmg increase than the essentially 5 points you take to go there. I’ld also fill out the Spell damage node first until you got the set sword or a scepter, it’s basically doing similar total damage as the duration, but over longer time.
• I think your issue is compounded in using Warrior’s Fury, you only get the higher dot dmg at the end, which means you’re waiting an additional 4s to peak out on dmg before running out of mana. Why are you not going for Abyssal Tempest instead to be more consistent?

If you don’t feel happy with the DoTs, you could go for more of the hybrid build, using Time Rot stacks and Doom to scale your hit (and crit) damage. It’s certainly an alternative for Void Knight and if you already have 2/3 of the set, isn’t that much of a change. It would also allow you to take e.g .Armor Shred in Abyssal Decay as a utility tool rather than pure damage.

[TheRobin]

Thanks for the feedback I guess I could try one fewer Siphon for sure. I don’t think having only like 15% doom chance is nearly enough though, but definitely don’t need more leech.

Yeah the Weapon is mostly hit stats, but the main prefixes are void damage and attack speed, both scale nicely (attack speed also gives good ramp, which is important with anomaly “consuming” all the dots very quickly, else it takes a long time ramping up damage again).

Crumbling is increased damage TAKEN though, it is multiplicative, despite not using the words “more” (similar to PoE which I guess) because it’s a separate modifier on the enemy and not an increase in damage on my character (and I tested it, it does indeed work that way)

I don’t understand the point about Warrior’s Fury tbh. Yes it’s ramping up, but compared to just being low all the time, this seems a lot better. I didn’t want to go for tempest, because I don’t see myself whirling for 5 seconds straight, because by that time I’m already maxxed on all ailments probably and I’d pause to cast anomaly to reset give me the 2x more damage on the enemy. For Clear having more area works quite nicely, I can channel for about 2-3 seconds (before mana becomes painful) and hit more enemies while also dealing more damage than I otherwise would).

I guess maybe I just actually have to farm the set and the gloves first and see how it feels then idk. I saw the sword had a very low drop rate and since EMs didn’t go as smoothly I was heavily demotivated from trying to farm that, since I think you get a lot less special rewards on non-empowered Monos (right?)
(guess I should also look out for prophecies and other stuff perhaps idk).

Maybe I misunderstand when exactly I should start doing EMs to begin with? If you were at that stage of the build, would you rather do EMs or farm regular monos a bit more? (I’m still missing a better relic and the Atrophy gloves would be nice too)

[Airowird]

As long as you tested the Crumbling, I guess it’s decent. I have been playing too long, I see “Increased”, I think additive.

As for Warrior’s Fury, the rest of your tree doesn’t have any scaling, so the first seconds you’re not doing strong dot applications (they snapshot btw)

Personally, if I get issues, I just farm the monoliths I don’t have the ‘right’ Blessings in yet. That sets up my later build already, while getting better rares / exalts. Taking a shot at the gloves could work, just don’t farm it as sole purpose, if it’s the only upgrade, you should be able to get into Empowereds

[TheRobin]

I see. maybe I misunderstood how blessings work then, I thought you get stronger versions later in EMs and need to refarm them anyway. Is that not how it works?

For Warrior’s Fury. I don’t see any other damage nodes though other than Whirling steel, and literally doubling my damage after one second and then ramping up even further seems just too good to pass up, precisely because it snapshots, so if I land high damage Doom hit after 2-3 seconds it’s gonna be really high damage while I don’t need to keep spending mana to keep the damage up at that point.

[Airowird]

Yes, Empowered gives better blessings (“Grand” versions), but 40% res is better than 0, even if 75% is what you’re going for.

Also, Warpath has 40% less Ailment chance, so you’re needing to compensate that as well.

[TheRobin]

Oh I had no idea about Warpath and ailment chance, dang. Does it say that somewhere in the game? And yeah, that explains maybe also why some damage feels lacking I guess

[Airowird]

I think it’s actually in the tooltip description

[TheRobin]

Ah I see. thanks! I think that’s probably the BIGGEST thing I missed then and why maybe the damage feels a lot worse than it should be on paper haha. So glad to finally make sense of that! Thanks for the help!

Anyway, I’m off for about a week and away from my PC anyway. When I’m back I guess I’m going back to farming maybe Normal monoliths until I get at least some decent pair of Atrophy Gloves with some LP or something and then try again with EMs (Also gotta try and use only Rive for Single Target perhaps and see if my DPS improves since that one at least applies ailments all the time then despite the lower damage multiplier)

[Airowird]

Don’t worry, I initially forgot about it as well