My guess was that blood boil played similarly to what the nerf was stating, and it's good to know that's what the testing reflects.

I don't think this build impacts the viability of the way I choose to play BB, except that I will now have to move to clear monsters that don't come to me (like the unravelers of the world). I think it's an incredibly gear intensive build as it is, and this doesn't change that. I personally think that at P8, the build requires infinity on the merc and a sunder charm at minimum, and now wonder if the new unique legend sword on an a5 merc is going to be BIS for those who can't yet afford infinity to make sure that at least the physical is sundered. I wasn't an advocate of conviction demons beforehand, because I think the build really benefits from using fanat to get your demon/merc pumping out damage in a meaningful way against bosses and heralds that you can't engorge spam on. Infinity also has a lot of CB, which is another crucial element.

Here's what these reports highlight for me:

It is essential to hit 125% FCR and be prepared to take damage with the blood oath reduction in DR. I think that my view of obsession being the choice over mang song is still the move because of the FHR, resists, and FCR (to go with all the other things I list in my guide for why to choose obsession), as well as using infinity on the merc instead of insight. I do not ever have mana problems while killing, and in the times there is low density and I tp across a whole map, I may have to drink a potion or two. That's not enough to offset what this build needs, which is infinity for conviction to do whatever you can to maximize the damage on the cone you get to.

I'm already putting max hard points into bind demon and demonic mastery by the time I'm 99, this may change my build order. Instead of:

Soft 20 in demonic mastery > soft 20 in bind demon > max blood oath > max bind demon > max demonic mastery

I will likely do:

Max demonic mastery > soft 20 in bind demon > hard 10 in blood oath > max bind demon > max blood oath

This is because I think the demon, defiler, and consumed tainted is the absolute essence of this build, and don't envision a scenario where anything can substitute for it. Defilers will have the impact of being able to extend the range of blood boil beyond the tooltip as it does now. I think that's a crucial change in that if the defilers are continuing to link the damage targets take together, that the spread will still nuke mobs out of range. I need my demon to survive, amp, and deliver my blood boils. With less amp, the +/- fire from consuming the tainted is even more essential. Monsters are going to have to be closer to you to die faster, which means having healthy resists and some DR (hey baalos).

Other than that, my 99 warlock I don't think would have any points assigned differently, which is not something you can say about really any other warlock class with the new demon changes. I think that's a huge plus.

I'd like to get some firm testing on actual blood boil radius now. I'll set up some comparisons by having an urdar stuck on my player and spam as cows approach me, their corpses make a nice ring.

Previous patch / live realms is ~10.3 yard radius, with the listed number being diameter (~20.6). For comparison, sorceress nova is ~8 yard radius. There's some question as to how collision tiles extend the relative distances (checking for overlapping a units collision is like extra range compared to checking XY vs XY distance), but 10.3 radius is about 66% more aoe than nova. Hence, blood boil is pretty generous aoe right now, so the listed nerf numbers would be absolutely crippling
If for some reason its actually ~8 yard radius now, that's workable for sure. If its 4 yard radius its laughable shit. If its 2 yard radius it might not even hit units at all

I think there is more going on with their total incompetence at patching this game than just the numbers they listed
Remember, they said they capped blood boil at 50% even though we already figured out it was using 3+2*blvl instead of 3+2*slvl, and thus capped at 43%, and thus they had no idea wtf they were doing.



Based on this brief test, I'd say whatever the fuck they actually did with radius, it either had no impact or no serious impact, and there's no way in hell it lines up with the numbers they listed in any way I could comprehend
I think the most likely scenario is they edited some displayed parameter without actually changing the parameters used by the game logic and their nerf had no impact at all, because they don't know what parameters to change in this game

Now maybe I'm testing this wrong. I used the same single player file on both, and it listed different blood boil values, and the cursed urdar very clearly failed to cast amp anywhere as frequently on PTR. So I have to assume its the PTR patch, unless there's some truly fruity online vs offline difference.
But it looks like its either exactly the same radius or even slightly larger but I imagine that's just the testing error from distance cows were moving between casts / blocking each other

Man I'm going to feel like an idiot if there was literally no change and my testing was all placebo. Definitely felt smaller to me but it might have been the lack of power from missing Amp+Conviction so things got closer before dying, messing with my perception of the outer range. I should've tested in normal where things got one shot before they could move in.

I wish I had thought to test in cows with a stationary minion, current run of insomnia had me tunnel visioned on a stationary mob and moving the minion closer slowly. Great idea on that one.
There's definitely some hiccups on the ptr, new Lethargy doesn't slow at the very least, so you could be right on this one.

stationary target is what we need
I never tested actual BB numbers on rotw before anyway, we need some real data.
My idea is this:

>hell game, arcane sanctuary p8
>approach a lightning spire from an exactly horizontal axis as close as possible (urdar means both urdar and merc won't move if player doesn't move because it blocks collision)
>find the exact range limit as tile-accurate as possible along the axis
>take a screenshot, note resolution and try to calculate radius from it (no legacy graphics, so best we can do is calculate from how resolution scaled the total tiles on-screen from LoD, since we know it actually increased displayed area)

It'll take me a bit

First attempt I think I stood just 1 tile off the same horizontal line for one of the pics, so they didn't wind up exactly identical when overlaid
I think they are however identical radius and I'm just missing it by 1 tile along a diagonal and it would have lined up exactly 1:1 if I had been a bit more accurate

My assumption is this: The skill actually has ~20 yard radius (scaling with slvl, I cut my slvl so it would show exactly 20 yards but my normal build shows 20.6)
On PTR, they nerfed the displayed value and left the actual value unchanged, because they are morons who failed at wrecking their own game

Good job dude, thanks for testing. Also you've officially made me look bad and I declare you to be a butthole.

I accept the L

This post was edited by Swirl on Apr 15 2026 12:58pm

I dunno I been meaning to test this for a few months and I still fucked up and missed my mark by a tile

I think in the same patch blizzard nerfed a tooltip-only range parameter without changing the functional code while also nerfing a skill by capping its % effect to a maximum value higher than it can ever obtain, again without changing functional code, while failing to fix how the former skill displays your physical normal attack damage instead of its skill damage on the char screen. And in the time it took multibillion dollar blizzard to roll out these changes, Crimson Desert devs put out like 4 major gameplay patches with every QoL and even new content

Thanks guys, thats a wrap. lets not make them do their job on this one before next ladder

Wouldn't be the first mistake. Or the first company. Iirc Concentration affecting hammers was a bug in itself and look how Blizzard handled that. Really not sure why anyone has expectations higher than the limbo bar for Blizzard, especially nowadays.

Still, don't knock your work. Its at the very least more than what we had and a nice visual. I think we can all agree that even if BB needs a range nerf, the 4 yard radius shown by the necro curse is way too small.