Black Flame Blade | Elden Ring Wiki

Does the effect stack with spinnjng weapon?

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This would be so much better as a standard weapon buff. It has decent Incant Scaling (0.65) and applies a surprisingly chunky damage over time effect, what kills it is that it only lasts a few seconds and needs to be constantly reapplied, and having a shorter casting time doesn't fix this. At 80 Faith with a +10 Erdtree Seal, Electrify Armament adds 264 Lightning damage to your weapon, whereas Blackflame Blade would add 229 Fire damage + 20 more Fire damage + 20 additional Fire damage per 1000 maximum health of the target, so against players that'd be ~40 extra damage at meta PvP levels assuming that have 60 Vigor and Crimson Amber Medallion +2, totaling 289 Fire damage per swing. Again, the only thing holding this buff back is the crappy duration and constant need to reapply it (which kind of makes it hard to two hand your weapon and have this buff applied simultaneously.)

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It also raise poise damage

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I just found a minor bug with the incantation. Apparently you can apply it to your weapon within the Roundtable Hold, and I have no idea why. Its icon isn’t darkened out like every other weapon, incantation or spell. Not game breaking, but unexpected to say the least

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I think the problem is it's honestly really well balanced, but everyone would prefer it last longer just since it's annoying to reapply anything so often

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Needs its FP cost reduced. Either that or increase its duration.

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Honestly, black flame blade is one of the best spells in pvp against players with high latency. Slap it in a weapon when someone is low and either try to roll catch them and proc the free 60-100 loss of hp per attack for each phantom hit or use a ranged ash of war since those phantom hits also proc the effect. Its pretty satisfying to watch someone die mid roll

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I think they could have made a charged version, where the animation is more alike to prison armament, it not longer. Then it could act more similar to an actual weapon buff

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Casts faster when used in mid air, running, or after a roll/backstep. I myself like to use a backstep to create space to simultaneously cast it faster.

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Lasts a whole 7 seconds. Why even put it in the ****ing game.

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i think they should bump it up to 10 sec so its on par with drawstring grease

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in other word... that’s just a very short and weak buff that look stylish as hell.... using any damaging greases outperform it... and they’re weak aswell

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I find it strange that this doesn’t have a higher damage buff considering the duration is so short. This feels like it’s supposed to be the drawstring grease equivalent of weapon buffs, but it has the same base damage as the other weapon buffs. The black flame damage over time provides some extra damage, but since it doesn’t stack and the buff is so short, it doesn’t really help that much

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With patch 1.09, seems to no longer apply to certain bullet-type ashes, e.g thunderbolt, ice spear.

Shame, I liked using it that way, but I understand the change.

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I found that the duration on this thing isnt that big of a problem, from using this on the guy in caelids basement I found you could easily cast this then use all 3 stages of stormcaller for some heavy blackflame damage.

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This is an excellent supplement to an arcane build that relies on bleed when you're up against a boss that doesn't bleed. Use it with old lord's Talisman on ripple axe or ripple crescent halberd and watch the hp drop.

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Does this work with AoW-Hits? Could it be paired with Black Flame Tornado? The last attack might be too late but the spinning slashes could nicely fit in. Also adding even more Sap-Dot.

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definitely worth the slot for old lords talisman, saves a lot of fp in the long run

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Cast it, get a hit or two in, enjoy the 2% maximum hp drain, fight until an opening, cast it again, rinse, repeat. It's a more powerful weapon buff if you're willing to deal with how tedious it is.

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This thing could really use a duration buff. I get why it doesn't last super long, but seven seconds is kind of madness. Even if it took more fp or something, I just want this to last even a tiny bit longer. Especially when you consider other weapon buffs last wayyy longer, like bloodflame blade for a great example.

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Inappropriate duration to its cast time

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You can cast this near instantly if you crouch and cast it before the crouch animation finishes.
No Radagon Icon necessary

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Incredibly underrated for PvP. not only does it add a significant chunk of fire damage, but the DoT finishes people off much more often than you would think, its like a free fan dagger after every single hit.

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Black Flame Grease when?

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So how does this work on a build? Do you stack Faith for higher dmg from the buff or keep a physical build and apply this similarly to golden vow but more frequently?

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Gives a nice health % dot, great against any boss. Step aside Black Flame Friede, I'll show you how the black flame really works

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i wish you could charge it for longer duration

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I wish the scaling of the back flame effect was a little better in PvP, at most you're going to be getting 20 or 30 more damage on another player.

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Why on earth does this last a fraction of the time bloodflame blade does?

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Ahem, this, and spells like catch flame, can be executed during jumps and also while running, its marginally useful.

in pvp its particularly useful when doing fake jump attacks where opponents spam their dodges when they retreat, and you can sneakily cast during a jump before chasing them down if they are being particularly squirrelly with their spams and you cant quite get them, the lingering frames might just get them, ive done it a few times where normal running attacks cant get them, but this does.

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So: Spinning Weapon, BFB, Millicent's Prosthesis, Rot/Regular Winged Insignia, Shard of Alexander/Warrior Jar

Could this see stupid high numbers in pve/pvp? I don't know how many smoothbrains will stand in the blender, but I know a few bosses will.

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its basically just fire drawstring grease with an added super good DoT effect

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Can you combine this with others encantatios like orden blade

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Really valuable in RL1 runs or if your build just sucks against certain bosses. For example you can put this on an unupgraded dagger and melt fire giant's 1st or more likely 2nd phase since he resists so much damage or plasidusax since you can get in lots of attack really easily. Basically if the boss is open to a long chain of attacks this incantation on fast attacking weapons is really good.

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It seems, that not every AoW can trigger the effect. With lightningbolt I was able to trigger the effect, with stormblade or vacuum slice this was not possible.

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what is the point of seals that scale with stats other than faith if every buff/heal incantation only scales off faith

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The psychological effect on my gameplay this spell has...

Seriously, it's like revving up an engine on me playing way too recklessly for my own good.

But God damn is the damage really there. Powerstanced Nagakibas with Rotten Winged Sword/Millicent's can churn out some unbelievable damage with this spell.

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You can make this work great by using an ash of war with multiple hits that tend to chain together ~2-3 seconds apart, and provide some range and/or forward movement. If you hit 2-3 times across 3-4 seconds, you can easily get ~5% of the enemy's health burned away for one ash of war trigger; this in addition to the physical damage of the weapon. I like to equip the talisman which extends effect duration, and try to chain two full ash of war combos together before the buff expires. Melts big-boy bosses big time!

Practical Examples: Guardian Swordspear + Sword Dance, Bloodhound Fang + Bloodhound's Finesse, Nagakiba + Spinning Slash.

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Will every weapon skill take on the DoT characteristics of black flame if this is cast on the weapon before triggering the AoW? I know the darts from golden land do, but I'm not sure about waves of darkness or spectral lance. I don't think I've seen the black flames flickering or the damage on an enemy HP bar still ticking for a few seconds when they are killed by WoD.

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This incantation is wicked bad, with 80 FTH and the right talismans I cast it on a +24 quality Zweihander that has the waves of darkness AoW against Niall at castle sol in NG+ and it absolutely shredded him and his ganks. On the Zweihander the follow up swing waves of darkness allows if needed has very good reach and it did a load of damage to Niall and knocks cleanrot knights onto their arses and an easy kill before they can proc scarlet rot by impaling you on their spears. Also, I have golden land on a +25 crescent moon axe that wrecked Anastasia in her final invasion at consecrated snowfield. The range on the golden darts is mental as soon as you get a lock they will hit your target with the DoT from blackflame blade but the explosion after driving the axe head into the ground also takes on the DoT characteristics not just the golden darts so if you have a good feel for the timing the explosion goes off just as she gets close enough to hit you and again it was knocking her off her feet, it was an easy kill and she can be a handful in her first invasion at Caelid.

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Fires deadly sin can apply the status effect of this.

Youre welcome.

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Meltboss

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This buff can be cast while jumping.

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The true potential of this buff isnt in raw ability but in what you can mix it up with. The cast time is short BUT if you know what weapons to put this on, it doesmt need more than 7 secs to straight ruin someones day....pair this with golden land on a heavy greats stars and you apply DOT with the orbs AND heal per hit, which is like 5-6% if each orb hits. On a weapon with waves of darkness, you can apply DOT to entire trash mobs. This is a really good buff if its used right in certain situations.dont expect much on its own with a basic weapon /AOW

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Halberd + Spinning Strikes + Black Flame Blade = Budget Black Flame Tornado...

I don't even know why would you use this combo lol.

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compared to other buffs 7 seconds is really wimpy, but it's still pretty fast to cast so it's not that hard to set up before an opening. it's about as long as a heavy attack

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"This burning effect does not scale or stack, but is refreshed with each hit." Hitting again while it is active will not only cut off the damage from climbing from the initial hit, but also gives it an effective time of 3.5 seconds for max damage output. Might seem good on things with Repeating Thrusts, but the damage build up is less than it rightfully should be due to it not overlapping and stacking.

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Similar to the Old Hunter's Bone.....actually pretty strong but the super short duration makes it difficult to use. For my money, the best weapon to pair this with is Rogier's sword, alongside another rapier in the left hand after you cast the spell

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This melts the Big dragon in Caelid absurdly fast, you dont even need minimun stats, just the wondrous flask that gives +10 faith

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Goes to 9sec buff duration with Old Lords Charm Talisman... I'd say worth the Slot when combo with Golden Vow , FGmS and certain other Body/Aura Buffs. ( This means you deal extra 1 or 2 Hits before the Black Flame Buff duration is finished.... Basically making it Easier melting Bosses ). The Flames Grant Me Strength doesn't do anything with the initial Stack or Scaling from the DoT damage... You only gain increased 20% Fire damage from FGmS with your weapon's Mixed AR. ( This also applies to Bloodflame Weapon aswell you dont gain any special increased Bleed Stacking or Damage Scale within the Proc'd Hits and DoT triggers ). The Fire Base Power however is increased with FGmS , Fire Scorpion and Fire Crystal Flask Physique... FGmS increases both Physical AR of your weapon and the Fire-based Increase from the Incantation Scaling within Black Flame and Bloodflame weapon buffs mainly. Not the overall property of the Build-up Percentage damage in Black Flame or the Bleed Procs from BFW.

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I know this is OP in PVE but 7 seconds? Come on mang...

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absolutely melts bosses

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This Blackflame Weapon incantation gets really useful in NG+ cycles and Higher.... Cuz of the increased HP enemies and Bosses get , this'll regardless deal roughly 2% Max HP damage towards Bosses with a single hit from that same Proc DoT. ( Rendering it almost too OP specialy with Natural Katana or Bleed weapons ontop ). The 7sec Buff is Balanced due to how quickly you cast and buff your weapons with this Bad Boy... Just remember this doesn't stack with Blackflame Ball spell the DoT damage is the same just the initial damage would be different depending on your Faith instead of your Dex/STR + Faith with Blackflame Weapon.

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Has anyone tested how much faster this is applied with low DEX vs high DEX?

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This applies to ashes of war.

This includes the darts on Golden Land and lava from Eruption. Combine with Great Stars or Butchering Knife for a healing effect as well!

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Secret Technique:
Erdsteel Dagger is the only weapon that scales naturally with faith that you can change the Ash of War.
Slap Blackflame Blade on it.
Scale stats for Heavy & Faith.
Combine it with Storm Stomp or Hoarfrost Stomp.
A frost that burns away health or a wind that burns away enemies. Combine it with any physick or talismans that due boost to flame damage. Congrats you melt people.

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i wish black flame in general did a little more flat damage, would make it much better for pvp

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Some people say that this buff would be too op in pve if it lasted longer... Meanwhile black flame tornado, godslayer's greatsword, bleed builds, comet azure, meteorite spells, ancient dragon lightning bolts and death lighting, moonveil, envoys long horn bubble skill, scarlet rot, pest threads, clean rot knight scythe disks, blasphemous blade, and many more: boss health goes brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
There is already a lot of op stuff in elden ring that just melts pve, adding longer duration black flame buff won't change that...

You could argue that it would be "too op in pvp" due to how status effects and lingering effects are coded (as fire damage is factually worst damage type for pvp) , but blood flame bleed, electrify weapon sheer damage, madness, sleep, and miriad other op stuff already exist in pvp. Buffing black flame blade duration at most will just make shield turtles life more difficult, but it wouldn't change elden ring high damage meta...

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Killed the Godskin Apostle at divine tower with it. Level 46 and a +4 estoc, That percentage damage is cracked

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Not gonna get buffed duration cause peor terrified it would be op in pvp... when as is, it's practically worthless... ya let's keep something nonviable cause someone might actually start using it in pvp

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I've found this to be a great go-to against very high health bosses/enemies. Between the enemy health% damage which ignores resistances and its low FP cost, it gives you a considerable boost in situations where your swings aren't doing very large amounts of damage to the boss. This comes up during a few bosses in NG (Fire Giant and Elden Beast), but this is also very helpful for either NG+ or challenge runs (the very low faith requirement might also apply here), where your dps might otherwise be struggling against many bosses. The other blackflame incantations run into the problem of being slow and dodgeable against more agile opponents, as well as hogging more of your FP.

Also, and I cannot overstate this, it looks very cool, and the fact you can apply it while leaping at your opponent is just the best.

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Does the 2% damage apply to every tick in prelates charge? If so, then my god it would slay elden beast faster than gideon the all malding

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I really wasted about 40+ mins getting this, just to learn you cant use it on great swords.

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This got mentioned down below, but remember that applying this buff after rolling, while jumping, after back-stepping or entering stealth (short window after entering stealth) reduces the cast time and recovery time by around 50%.
This makes this spell much more viable as a combat spell.
For high health enemies like Malenia, one hit will chip 360 true damage + the fire damage bonus (it ain't much but still adds around 100 damage after mitigation).

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Is the duration affected by Old Lord's talisman?

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Wish the duration was longer. The only reason I'll ever use this over Bloodflame Blade or Black Flame (the fire ball) is for style points. Black Flame does more damage after scaling and using the right seal AND has range. Bloodflame Blade stacks and if you apply it enough your enemy can hemorrhage once a second for 10% health.

Really, they could increase the duration to 60 seconds and it still wouldn't do more damage than Bloodflame Blade for a player who knows how to use both to peak efficiency.

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I feel like too many people sleep on this incant because it doesn’t take chunks out of bosses hp and/or the duration is too short. Also think people don’t realize how broken it would be in pve if it lasted as long as the other buffs.

This incant can SHRED bosses, especially slow ones. It’s a boss killing incant. You won’t see see the results instantly but it’s apparent in like a minute into the fight. When I was doing early game coops with it, it would shred Godrick’s first phase a little over 30 secs.

But I think the learning curve for it is too high for casual players because of it’s short duration. Maybe make it last 30 secs with a high fp cost or just leave it the way it is and just add another 7-13 secs to the duration.

I’ve been running a frost and black flame int/dex build rn and it’s hands down one of the funnest play throughs I’ve had.

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Just so you know, this is NOT enhanced by the Godslayer's Seal. I just tested, and there was no difference in damage between clawmark and godslayer's as of patch 1.05.

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This this is busted for daggers/twinblades or anything that can land a lot of hits, couldn't have defeated fire giant ng+6 without it. Even a 10second duration will break the game. Still it's utterly useless for anything slower than a greatsword.

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I'd prefer a version of this spell that last like as long as other weapon buffs, if it would be too strong, maybe make it less fp-efficient than now, but this is such a waste of an amazing incantation...

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would be a shame if this did as much damage as poison armament does with the full poison proc in the same time as it takes to proc the poison... oh wait. I almost forgot that the most effective way to use poison in Elden ring is on yourself...

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great boss shredder, plus tons of style points

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i feel like adding even just 3 extra seconds for a nice 10 could make this so much more useful. on a separate note, i haven’t seen very many people mention that you can cast this in the air

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Very niche incantation, but damn if it isn't fun to watch it deal thousands of damage to high-health bosses. As a casual PvE player, I love using this in tandem with Double Slash -- it creates a rewarding minigame of finding big openings to quickly buff & get big damage in.

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7 seconds? 7 SECONDS?!? It’ll take me longer to walk up to the boss while i’m in the same room

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Variable duration buffs have been a thing since at least DS3 with the pine resin and pine resin bundle etc. You can either take longer to apply the buff and have a longer duration or shorter application and shorter effect. This incantation is the same thing. I'm using it with my faith character and it's great.

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Probably the most reliable DOT effectagainst bosses, however really hard to use properly. It is obviously better than poison, which deals an enormous 4% of target boss hp over 30 seconds (sarcasm), in theory dealing the same damage 7 times faster. It has to be recasted, that is a downside, but the cast is pretty fast on itself, even without Radagon's or huge investments in Dex. Blackflame is in general less effective than Scarlet Rot, but there are bosses with huge healthpools that are immune to being rot; mostly Elden Beast and Malenia. Also, to inflict red plague you have to build it up by hitting either with dedicated weapons or with arrows, both being extremely easy to dodge by agiles like Maliketh or hell, even Morgott. But everything up till this point is overshadowed by a single statement here, that may cause heavy arguing: it has the best looking cast animation out of every single buff in the entire series

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In addition to running and rolling, you can increase the speed of the spell by Running, Jumping, Backstepping, and Crouching!

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if u gave it to the prisioner guy at the round table, follow this link and itll show you where hes went if hes not where he once was. thought i was just screwed cuz he was gone but nah he just moves https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Brother+Corhyn

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Why does this page say the duration is refreshed and it doesn't stack the DoT? Doesn't it stack with Black Flame Ritual/Tornado?

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imagine if arcane increased the damage tick

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Black Flame Blade + Nagakiba + Sword Dance = PvP monster.

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They either need to extend the duration or make the spellcast a quick attack as well while buffing to make this viable.

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Attention, wayward spirit looking for earnest advice on the internet: ignore more than half of the other comments on this page. You only need to know two things: (1) does a boss/enemy have a gigantic health pool that you'd like to see cut down like so much chaff? Congrats, this is the tool, now get to work on making it fit (finding the right weapon might be tricky. Recommend anything you can one-hand that is either FAST or has LONG RANGE, both is best). (2) Does the boss/enemy NOT have a gigantic health bar? Look elsewhere, you'll likely find a better alternative soon enough. Please trust me, whoever you are, this is all true. [Seriously. Trying to make a level 60 build, was freaking STRUGGLING with that damn Deathbird. Nothing was working, not surprising since I'm generally a mid-tier player, and then thank GOD: this freaking incantation paired w/ a random ass Pest's Glaive (range/weight issue, don't ask), then cut to my confused face slowly transitioning into one of sudden realization. The percentage it shaves off is REAL, respect it).

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What this thing needs is a better scaling to damage ratio. It exists to be the incantation equivalent of drawstring greases, which are the shorter duration, more powerful variants of the standard. However, black flame blade's damage is weaker than it's counterparts(except for blood flame blade, but hemorrhage makes up for it).
If the damage was, say, 0.85/0.95 or even 1.0 multiplied by the seal scaling, it might have a niche. As is, the only good thing about it is looks.

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there is currently a bug with this spell where doing the jumping cast has about a 25% chance to cost double the FP it normally would. I believe this has something to do with landing on your feet before you finished the first cast, the game will assume you want to cast it again, and register another cast immediately when you land. hopefully gets patched sometime soon as the jumping buff not only covers the most distance, but looks really cool!

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I know the chances of Elden Ring dev teams checking Fextralife for balance update ideas is probably 1%, but here is my proposed change for Blackflame Blade. Make it cost about 30 FP, but what it does is create 5 or so temporary items (similar to how invading generates 3 phantom fingers, so I know coding for this could exist in the game at least). These items would essentially be like the pine bundles/drawstring grease, but a black flame version. You could also set a permanent quickslot in your inventory for when you create more via the spell. They have the exact same duration and effect as normal, and rest inside your inventory untill you die or use them all, which it needs to be recasted to create more.

I've done a full playthrough doing a Blackflame Blade build, and even used it in PVP a lot, and this would change 99% of my problems with this spell while keeping the core mechanic of it intact:

1: efficient FP to damage/usefulness to compete with the other buffs, as long as you think tactically about when to apply and attack
2: it still keeps it's niche of being a short-lived but extremely efficient debuff to large HP targets, needing to be applied at just the right time to counterattack or apply pressure to players, as the burn can catch them even if they roll
3: buff builds in general tend to be almost entirely focused on actual melee combat, so having to invest so much mind (i found 20 to be a decent sweetspot personally, but it's still quite a lot) is counter-intuitive. this change would greatly benefit that playstyle without compromising what Fromsoft intended with this spell as explained above

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Combine black flame with highland axe, beasts roar & fire damage increases to insane effect. Just beat Mohg the Omen at level 25

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Wish it had a longer duration. About 20 seconds would be totally fine. It looks damn awesome but I personally don't like how you have to use it. It has it's niche. But this niche is sadly quite small.

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How well would this work combined with double slash on a knights greatsword?

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I use this in conjunction with a scarlet rot+poison set for a DoT build. Apply scarlet rot and poison first, then swap to a weapon to enchant with this incantation and just watch their hp melt. I personally use the Pike to enchant with black flame for the long reach poke.

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Not super effective solo unless you're abusing a really tanky summon or Bloodhound step to keep up aggression.

However, really good in coop where bosses have a massive health buff and can split aggro. Stab a boss in the ass with a quick weapon while they're preoccupied with someone else and you can possibly do more with this than a big heavy fully buffed weapon thanks to percentile damage.

...will probably still be inferior to bleed and frost spam.

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Not super effective solo unless you're abusing a really tanky summon or Bloodhound step to keep up aggression.

However, really good in coop where bosses have a massive health buff and can split aggro. Stab a boss in the ass with a quick weapon while they're preoccupied with someone else and you can possibly do more with this than a big heavy fully buffed weapon thanks to percentile damage.

...will probably still be inferior to bleed and frost spam.

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Not super effective solo unless you're abusing a really tanky summon or Bloodhound step to keep up aggression.

However, really good in coop where bosses have a massive health buff and can split aggro. Stab a boss in the ass with a quick weapon while they're preoccupied with someone else and you can possibly do more with this than a big heavy fully buffed weapon thanks to percentile damage.

...will probably still be inferior to bleed and frost spam.

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Niche incantation. It won't work very well if you don't have the patience to reapply it and/or like using a big bonk weapon, but it really shines in conjunction with faster weapons. I run a hybrid dex/faith build and this thing alongside the godskin stitcher SLAPS. I can often land three hits in quick succession, sometimes even more, and it just melts bosses.

Pros: Low FP cost, grows in effectiveness the more HP the enemy has (especially useful against runebears, I can kill them twice as fast as usual with this).

Cons: You have to reapply often, which means if you don't fight alongside spirits you'll need to be careful with it. Constant recasts mean you'll run out of FP quickly if you alternate between incantations (which I don't recommend).

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You can crouch for the quick cast of this buff.

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Why do spells like vyke's dragonbolt exist? To kick this further into the mud?

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extremely useful if you know the openings for bosses. this thing can quickly apply in a second after a roll and, in my experience with a default longsword without any enchantments, can increase a 5 hit combo by up to 2000 damage depending on the max hp of the boss. without a doubt one of the best of the buffs that you can apply to your weapon

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The fact this incantation only 7s is a real shame. Should be raised to 20s.

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Surprisingly fun in pvp. The DoT will still apply if its dodged but the hitboxes connect, so its a good picking tool instead of the usual boring fan dagger pick. There really are no advantages over using a regular buff aside from this but I prefer the playstyle of it, managing fp for bursts of aggression, slipping casts into fights, to be perfectly honest I'm mostly using this to get good at it so if it gets buffed I can make good use of it. It really needs more duration, I have to sacrifice a talisman slot just to get it to 9 seconds instead of 7 but I'm willing to do it just because of how fun it is. Also make the Godslayer seal actually boost it, its literally a godslayer incantation, make it do more power or increase the DoT or something.

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