Painkiller is the most absurdly powerful Spiritual Blessing in the game

[Limdood]

The spiritual blessings are far, FAR from balanced with each other, but this one isn't just a hidden gem, it's an entire hidden dragon hoard of goodness. No others even come close.

With any elemental weapon - and they're INCREDIBLY common - you can just faceroll the entire run....reincarnation 8, lone wolf 4, 4 players, whatever....the difficulty just doesn't ramp up enough to challenge the sheer power of this spiritual blessing.

Looking to get those speedrun achievements? pop it on reincarnation 1, lone wolf, and take the crown prince with painkiller and smogbound zone. get yourself a fire dragon or porcupine and congrats, you've got like a 16 minute run already solved before you leave the second zone.

Looking to run a max difficulty? same thing....just grab painkiller. Any hero. Ascensions don't matter, gear hardly matters (you'll still need to get and gemini two appropriate weapons for maximum application of elemental effect), most scrolls don't matter.

You might not top the damage boards in a multiplayer game or set any new records solo, but being able to make EVERY non-elite, non-boss enemy completely impotent while their health ticks away is crazy. And for those elites and bosses? anything to apply the effects repeatedly and as often as possible still blasts their health away.

I don't mind a strong spiritual blessing option....but when none of the ascensions matter and the other choices hardly matter...on the hardest difficulty setting possible, well, it feels cheap...

[Eudicots]

As good as painkiller is I don't think its as game breaking as you are making it out to be. Sure with the crown Prince its arguably one of the best builds in game, but that is because smoke grenades have a 100% chance to inflict elemental effect. The same can not be said for other characters. Because other characters do not have such an easy time 100% inflicting elemental affect in a wide range this blessings isn't as powerful as their class specific blessings. This is why I avoided it with almost every other character.

[Limdood]

I ran the same thing with the turtle, taking random or sometimes NO ascensions at all. A decidedly NONelemental character. Crown Prince is just the easiEST character to faceroll with painkiller.

sure, it was a tiny bit less consistent, but fire dragon or porcupine or radiation glove, then element shared with a 40%+ proc chance weapon when you can was still facerollingly easy.

any of those weapons....and many more (an elemental rainbow or really ANY super high RoF or pellet count weapon shared with a 40%+ element proc chance weapon) will reliably, 100% of the time, land manipulation and miasma on any enemy they hit, and with that rate of elemental application, the miasma+explosive procs take elites down just as fast.

your ascensions don't matter, your weapon levels don't matter, your scrolls hardly matter (they actually have the capacity to help at least).....just "how often can you apply ANY elemental effect"

[Rugged Lemmings]

It's strong - and certainly an strong argument can be made that it's Crown Prince's best starter unless you're going for a stun build - and a decent pick-up if for nothing other than its defensive capabilities, but as Eudicots said: plenty of characters have character-specific blessings that benefit them WAY more than Painkiller would.

Like if I'm playing the Pupper Pirate I'll take Weapon Genius over Painkiller every time. Give me All or Nothing for Hitmonbirb, Thunder & Glory or High-Powered Arc for Thunder Cat, Raging Inferno for Mozilla, etc.

[Old Man]

A good nerf would be to decrease elemental proc chance in half, or when applying an element to apply a second element instead of all 3, or have a chance to apply all 3 and only per target, or a more steep cooldown like 6 or 7 seconds, or a combination of the above, either way it needs some balancing, and badly. I haven't seen such a casual ez win button since Red Key in Isaac.

[Intra]

What you're REALLY saying is the confusion and miasma are OP as ♥♥♥♥ and Painkiller activates them. Yeah. That's true. Miasma kills everything and Confusion makes you not take damage. Yep.

[931numbers]

Originally posted by Intra:

What you're REALLY saying is the confusion and miasma are OP as ♥♥♥♥ and Painkiller activates them. Yeah. That's true. Miasma kills everything and Confusion makes you not take damage. Yep.

Eh, not quite. If this was really the case of just Miasma and Manipulation being OP then something like Dual-Fang + Flowing Light would be just as OP, as it can also activate all of them.

Reason why Dual-Fang + Flowing Light isn't so highly regarded is because not only is it single-target unless you get specific scrolls/inscriptions, but it also requires other specific scrolls/inscriptions to quickly apply everything, otherwise you're forced to be patient.

What Painkiller does is if you apply literally anything, you get everything, even when you normally should receive nothing at all. It gives all that elemental effect power with minimal effort, and you can use many many things to achieve it.

[Intra]

Dual Fang only has a 10% proc rate and only fires corrosion every other shot. Why would you even want to use Dual Fang for Miasma? Even if you get the higher elemental effect chance ones, it's not an optimal Miasma contributor.

Compared to the standard options:
Arc Light + Aura of Venom
Aura of Venom + Flowing Light
Even Pupil + Aura of Venom

Or you get +elemental chance Lightning Glove, or Radioactive Gauntlet

Why would you use Dual Fang and split your options up? DPS is more important than Manipulation, I'm only saying Manipulation is OP in addition to Painkiller giving Miasma.

So I'm really talking about Manipulation as an afterthought. If one party member is causing manipulation and the other 3 DPS, then yeah, it's broken because the normal enemies can't even harm your team.

I don't and won't run Dual Fang as a primary. Either it's the Combustion route or it's the Miasma route, taking Dual Fang is just sacrificing the best of both.

[931numbers]

Originally posted by Intra:

Dual Fang only has a 10% proc rate and only fires corrosion every other shot. Why would you even want to use Dual Fang for Miasma? Even if you get the higher elemental effect chance ones, it's not an optimal Miasma contributor.

Compared to the standard options:
Arc Light + Aura of Venom
Aura of Venom + Flowing Light
Even Pupil + Aura of Venom

Or you get +elemental chance Lightning Glove, or Radioactive Gauntlet

Why would you use Dual Fang and split your options up? DPS is more important than Manipulation, I'm only saying Manipulation is OP in addition to Painkiller giving Miasma.

So I'm really talking about Manipulation as an afterthought. If one party member is causing manipulation and the other 3 DPS, then yeah, it's broken because the normal enemies can't even harm your team.

I don't and won't run Dual Fang as a primary. Either it's the Combustion route or it's the Miasma route, taking Dual Fang is just sacrificing the best of both.

You kinda just proved my point, and disproved your own original one.

Because you personally do not favour using a weapon selection that can get both, since it does so in an inferior manner. So it looks like Miasma and Manipulation is not the OP part, because despite getting them both, you don't find method an optimal choice.

On the other hand, Painkiller lets you get both easily while using superior methods like the alternative weapon selections that you listed, which normally could not do both (which would automatically invalidate them if Miasma + Manipulation was the OP part).

Originally posted by Intra:

What you're REALLY saying is the confusion and miasma are OP as ♥♥♥♥ and Painkiller activates them.

Which makes this untrue. It's not the fusion effects that are OP because they exist, it's Painkiller that's OP because you can easily get the fusion effects using whatever you want.

[Intra]

Originally posted by 931numbers:

Originally posted by Intra:

What you're REALLY saying is the confusion and miasma are OP as ♥♥♥♥ and Painkiller activates them.

Which makes this untrue. It's not the fusion effects that are OP because they exist, it's Painkiller that's OP because you can easily get the fusion effects using whatever you want.

That doesnt't disprove my statement. I was saying Miasma AND Manipulation is OP. Even using Miasma by itself is OP. How do you interpret me saying that Painkiller easily giving both effects is equivalent to saying that Miasma itself is not OP? Painkiller giving the effects is OP, but if Painkiller didn't have the OP effects, then it wouldn't be OP. I am saying Painkiller is OP because the effects are OP. I don't understand what you are nitpicking me about.

If they neutered Miasma to 10% of its current value, Painkiller would not be OP. That's just a fact.