[Chaos]

Since we're in the swing of scrutinizing skills that benefit tank builds, I think it's appropriate to take a look at one of Hexer's offensive spells: Black Bubble.

Much like pre-nerf Wretched Oil, this spell scales up to 70%/70% on what is considered defensive stats. (VIT and RES, respectively) Beyond the fact that it scales off of a core defensive stat (VIT), it also provides the following:
-AoE on the level of pre-Spell Overhaul Sear
-Silence infliction (backed by Hexer's status infliction support)
-Field effect that completely drains FAI

No other infliction spell in Hexer's arsenal can boast its scalings and two solid secondary effects. It is not the inescapable stream of damage that pre-nerf WO was, but Black Bubble serves as one of Hexer's greatest utilities, while packing as much damage as the other (see: not WO) infliction spells. For this, I believe that Black Bubble's elemental scaling should be reduced; not to WO levels, but to (30% + 5% per Rank).

In other words, the elemental scaling would go from this:

50/50 -> 55/55 -> 60/60 -> 65/65 -> 70/70

...to this:

35/35 -> 40/40 -> 45/45 -> 50/50 -> 55/55

[MegaBlues]

I honestly think that it could use even less than that given the potency of its secondary effects, but small steps are for the best I think.

I would also like to see Black Water get a level attached that it would reduce Faith by or for it to only reduce Faith by half. Also its Circle size could use a -1 reduction.

[Autumn]

I'd like it a lot if black water wasn't the delete -all- FAI button, I agree.

And I also agree with Chaos' post as well since water resistance isn't as common as you'd think.

[Kameron8]

It may be worth also changing the order in which Black Bubble resolves its effects. Right now it drops down the dark water tiles, then calculates infliction vs. resistance with the victims' Faith being treated as zero. If this was swapped around to inflict first, then drop tiles, it'd also be far less potent.

[Lolzytripd]

I sort of feel dark water tiles might also be a bit too strong, perhaps if it dropped faith by rank*5 instead. That way it still crushes anyone who didn't invest in faith down to 0 faith but leaves those with heavy faith investiture some of their assets.

[Snake]

I agree with Chaos, the damage is a lil' bit too high for a spell that does way more than just silence.

I also agree with Lolzy, Dark Water should scale from Spell Rank.

[Neus]

Rather than mess with the scaling for now, since we have some other changes that might affect this on the way, I changed the order of its effects to create Black Water after it deals the damage and checks for Silence. We'll see if it needs further adjustment later.

[Lolzytripd]

alright