Well of Darkness

How would you make Well of Darkness minimally acceptable in a raid?

Think of a skill split between instanced PvE and PvP/WvW and make a suggestion.

For example, Chilling Darkness now additionally applies 2 seconds of burning when blinding Defiant enemies.

One shots boss if boss misses next 3 attacks? :)Now imagine the LFG fro raids full of 'necro only'

Blind foes in the well, recieve fear on hit.

This would be fun ;)

I'm not sure there would be a point in making well of darkness acceptable in raid. But my solution would be related to dark fields in general.

• Reaper: Chilling nova: Change effect to "your combos in dark fields also chill foes affected"
• Scourge: Demonic lore: Change effect to "your combos in dark fields also torment foes affected. Add a whirl finisher to Desert shroud (whirl finisher proc once per second for each source (scourge and shades))"

Keep those ideas coming. The point of this thread is to imagine how to fix a skill that represents an utter waste of a slot on bosses. How would you buff such a bipolar skill for bosses while not for anything else?

WoD does no damage and leaves an unwanted combo field in boss fights while being a useful defense and area-denial skill in WvW and PvP.

Give Well of Darkness the same damage co as Well of Corruption, thereby taking its place in raids that don't require drastic boon strip (because of lower cd).

@Dadnir.5038 said:

• Life siphon damaging effects now can crit (PvE only)... (Give some interesting synergy in PvE between WoD and vampiric ritual)You know thats not going to happen lol. and it still only makes the gap between the other wells and well of darkness bigger the goal here is to make well of darkness better not make everything better which keeps the gap between viable and unviable if not makes the gap bigger.

• Add a trait that grant life force whenever you blind a foe. / Make WoD grant LF when applying blind.This idea is not bad but it would likely just replace the chill on blind trait further more im not sure in pve that small life force gain would be enough to make it viable.

• Modify the way conditions damage breakbar so that all their damages are done at once when applied instead of over time. (make stacking soft CC better against breakbars)

This is questionable in my opinion. Its a big change for ideally 1 profession idea which is not something really you want to do in a game like this. Breakbars would totally need new rescaling and have to be completely reworked all together as each new instance of blind or cripple... its just not a good imo. The system is fine as is and to change it for this once instance is not a really viable solution.

• Change Chilling darkness ICD in PvE to 1s. (Make WoD a good condi dps skill on reaper)This is probably the only change that makes valid sense.

My suggestion would simply be to have well of darkness apply a condition thats a bit more rare but still deals damage to breakbars. Considering the condition list pool the only conditions that we can really use are "Fear" and "Slow" both are considered Rare ish conditions as about 1 profession applies each generally Chronomancer having slow (which may not fit into chrono's build in a raid situation) and necros have Fear but only in short burst generally with up times that are not considerably great in pve.

The best viable solution would likely be to make it a strong breakbar busting skill. In addition to blind it applies slow and or fear either on initial cast or one of the two (probably slow) with each pulse. That with a cut of its cool down to roughly 25 seconds at a base and the skill might at least be played with if not heavily considered for some use for running a all wells style build at endgame.

Another option to consider along side my previous statement would be giving Well of Darkness and Well of Power (the two utility wells that deal no strike damage) 2 charge count uses.

@ZDragon.3046 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

• Life siphon damaging effects now can crit (PvE only)... (Give some interesting synergy in PvE between WoD and vampiric ritual)You know thats not going to happen lol.

Of course I know! But when giving ideas you have to thoroughly let them flows without shame.

@Dadnir.5038 said:

• Change Chilling darkness ICD in PvE to 1s. (Make WoD a good condi dps skill on reaper)
• ... etc.

Just delete the ICD in PvE. Unfortunately, due to the way ICD's work, a 1 second ICD will only be available for every other pulse of Well of Darkness.

Honestly, the trait could lose the ICD all together and probably be fine. Necro really doesn't have many blinds, so having some properly pulsing chill on all of 2 skills (nobody is standing in Plaguelands once Blind gets added, and if they are, they have bigger issues) is fine. If Condi Reaper starts running Well of Darkness constantly due to this change, great. Now the skill is taking up the slot of a stunbreak, and it's not difficult to leave a Well of Darkness, even when chilled. In the meantime, Well of Darkness is actually run at all.

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

• Change
  Chilling darkness
  ICD in PvE to 1s. (Make WoD a good condi dps skill on reaper)
• ... etc.

I would agree with that.

I am not a PvE player, but for raids: Wouldn't it be just enough to give the well so much damage that it outdamages or at least equals the minion which DPS reapers usually use as 3rd utility in their build?

For PvP the well would be fine, if it on top of the blinds either deals significant damage or would apply an additional condition - I'd like to see "slow" on that well.

I don't think that removing the ICD on chilling darkness would be the best way as the well would still be useless without traiting curses (I don't like such limitations - a skill should always be useful). On the other hand removing that ICD would boost condi/hybrid reapers a bit in terms of bleed stacking (well of darkness + GS4 spam)

@Drarnor Kunoram.5180 said:

@"Dadnir.5038" said:

• Change
  Chilling darkness
  ICD in PvE to 1s. (Make WoD a good condi dps skill on reaper)
• ... etc.

The reason I suggested to just reduce the ICD is because I don't know whether or not ANet would see removing the ICD as a "mechanism change" instead of a "number change".

Make it do damage when the enemy attacks and misses.

@"Rhyse.8179" said:Make it do damage when the enemy attacks and misses.

Which would be impressively useless against a boss who have "defiance" and thus don't "miss" attacks even if blinded. The question is "how to make WoD usefull against bosses" not "how to make WoD more effective against players".