Spine of Malatros Unique Sword is not replacing the spirits from Cthonic Fissure with anything. When equipped, cthonic fissure simply appears and does its standard damage over time, and does not cast flame whips at any point.
Tested with a full skill tree of Cthonic Fissure then despecialized entirely out of the skill with the same result. Also specced out of the witchfire/flame whip/ignite overload passives in the skill tree to no effect.
Testing was casting cthonic fissure as normal on training dummies in arena with Torment staff, then removing staff and casting fissure with no weapon, then equipping the sword and casting fissure. Only with Spine of Malatros equipped does nothing come out of the fissure at all, be it flame whips or spirits or chaos bolts of any kind.
Ah interesting this is true! TIL that dummy is even there and is different.
I guess the flame whips need a target while the chaos bolts/spirits from the normal fissure do not.
Just to follow up, was able to test it in some echoes and the flame whips seem to do a comically low amount of damage to the point where I hope the item is indeed bugged.
I have seen several people saying it is actually bugged, it would be good to have an official answer on that as it was one of the showcased uniques in the reveal. I have a build planned with it and still collecting gear but I am worried about the status of the whips for what I have been hearing.
Yeah, I feel you. 90% of the fissure nodes arenāt working with Spine of Malatros. The spirits effects arenāt inherit on the flame whips, thus making this unique useless for most builds. I donāt know if this is intended neither a bug, but It should at least specify in to the tool tip/weapon description, like some skill nodes do, saying that spirits nodes wont work.
Fun fact, the flame whips wont proc damned/ignite either, almost 0 benefits from anything.
I donāt get the point of this unique if it has almost 0 synergy with the skill + nodesā¦ and it does less dmg than the warlock flame whip talent tree XD
If you hold alt down for the expanded tooltip, it specifically states that only nodes that affects the fissure and initial hit, not the spirits. So itās not bugged, but it has to be built in a different manner than you would usually.
Not sure if this really makes it worth it, but at least it isnāt bugged.
Hey again, donāt know if i want to spill all my secrets yet but since you were interested Iāll let you know how to build around the sword. Also tired of streamers saying spine in the worst thing imaginable. I admit its not great but no bad. still exploring it to its full potential. Gotten 50k crits (per whip hit(inconsistently)) as of Feb 28 low investment
First: stack necro res for free +crit multi. At 500% res you gain +300 to 450 cruit multi (not including itās base 200% crit multi for a total of 500 to 650). More necro res means more damage.
Second: Cap your crit; this is very easy because flame whip can be used to apply Acid Skin now at any distance (even the ones from proccing ignite overload) which give you that sweet sweet +20% base crit for ALL hit skills, bringing flame whip crit base to 25%. Breakpoint to reach is 300% increased crit strike chance to get 100% crit chance, how you do that, Iām sure you can figure out a few ways
Third: Scale damage. The second initial hit node gives you +1 flat damage per 2% ignite chance, which simultaneously give us 1% more spell damage to ignited enemies per 20% global ignite chance from ignite overload
Ideal world: 1000% necro, 400% ignite chance on hit, 600% global ignite chance, 300% inc crit chance.
Flame whip will have 100% crit chance, 1100% crit multi, +200 flat spell damage and 1000% stun chance, 30% MORE fire spell damage to ignited enemies.
(again ideal world not realistic, just trying to show the scaling. This is also before other scaling uniques included and passives so plenty to explore. Could also go ignite route with damage over time, easily apply 150 ignites with my current setup though no significant damage since in not focusing on that rn)
(Secretly hoping no one sees this but then again i aim to inspire and clear misinformation, please please people stop using spirit nodes other than Spirit Release Frequency. Upside is that if the sword is actually and truly bugged then when its fixed ill be an even happier man lmao.
Hope this helps or let me know if itās too much hassle, good luck
Thanks for the sharing, rly appreciate that, Iām going to test it, but in the last Dev stream, the Dev said Spine of Malatros is bugged at some level and will be fixed. We are hopping bug fix will be deployed along with the others on this week.
Im noticing the initial hit bonus isnt applying, and the spirit frequency is applying. Ive got alot of inc fire damage. Im pretty sure the fire whips from the passive skill tree is where im getting my large whip damage numbers. not from the sword.
That seems like intended since it replaces spirits with chaos bolts, not flame whips with chaos bolts.
Iām doing a super scuffed ignite stacker with a fairly good rolled Malatros giving me +7 to skills when itās hitting everything and while I will admit the whips isnāt doing the most damage, the Profane Veil with Infernal Shade explosion is carrying hard.
Very fun item to build around, even though the whips may be bugged.
