Behead Support

Issues regarding the behead support skill gem.

I have looked through the patch notes quickly, and this issue has not been fixed. This is partially because the support gem is bad for the ascendancy it was themed around, slayer.

First, the skill is not good as it is less effective for the slayer if headsman is aquired. A way to fix this is to have the damage increased while the target is not on low health. It would be the equivalent of 30.625% more damage at lvl 20 for the slayer ascendancy or culling support, and it would not affect the other ascendancies too much either. This would be optimal.
If the gem remains the same, then it will remain as a 18.375% increase at lvl 20, and it would also remain a noob trap. That is terrible.

Another bad thing about this gem is that, unless I have missed a fix on this, ancestral call and tribal fury does not allow the skill to grant the mods from a rare if the summoned ancestors kill the rare enemy. It should not be like this (unless ggg thinks differently) as tribal fury and ancestral call states "Strike Skills target (1-2) additional nearby Enemies", implying that it is the strike skill that targets, not the summoned ancestors. It also seems to be possible for the summoned dudes to steal if the strike skill is linked to melee spash support.

I hope that at least the getting the mod thing gets fixed. If 20% dmg is fine according to ggg's idea of this skill, then that would be fine, but, personally, I cannot recommend it.

The dmg issue has been addressed in reddit before by u/Winkers91. When I search for "reddit behead", his or her post is the first to appear. Although he or she uses a more conversational writing (in case anyone prefers more informal writing), this individual is correct.

Currently trying this support on an Assassin, lvl 52 now with Viper Strike more oriented on the hit with some poison support passives, high phyisical dagger and just Ambush and Assassinate ascendancy nodes for now, which make getting enemies to low life much easier and benefit from the damage of the gem. Once enemies reach low life the gem starts contributing big damage which compensates for the lack of it during first hits.

I'm also using ancestral call and melee splash (no tribal fury) and the stolen buffs are working correctly when I do get the killing blow (sometimes my ice golem or herald of agony does, or sometimes poison dot does so it doesn't proc), since I don't have much crit yet I don't benefit from the culling too often but I can say I get consistently the buffs while leveling so the gem feels great even while leveling.

One thing I wanted to say is that it would be great if the buff icon gives a bit more info on which buff you stole. Sometimes when it's an aura it's more obvious and you also get the aura icon but when not it's just a mystery buff.
Also it doesn't seem to give more than one buff at a time, you can refresh it but you can't get another, new ones replace the older one immediately from what I've seen.

Overall I think it's a good support gem considering you can get some good buffs specially on maps with nemesis rares, but havent got there yet to test it.
It does feel weak on bosses since there's no buff to steal and in many cases you can't really get to the fight fast enough to benefit from the buff extension, many bosses have long pre-fight animations.

It would be nice if the gem also had something like a chance to give a random buff when hitting unique enemies, or that instead of the refresh to help compensate the damage of the full through low-life part of the gem, otherwise it's good for clearing and bad for bosses in most scenarios.

Playing this on Terminus Flicker Strike Assassin crit build.

It makes the lower half of enemy life go real fast due to synergy with Ambush and Assasinate, very useful against enemies with phases and expedition mobs with upgrades on low life. However, some form of quality like %Increased Damage against enemies NOT in low life would have been better (unlike anomalous).

Additionally, may need some form and/or chance of getting a buff from whatever you are hitting. As it stands at the moment it's a bit of a swap gem when boss goes low life or something for the build that needed the damage the most.

I do think a buff of whatever property you stole should be displayed, as currently it only does for some.

Build : heavy strike / ancestral call / melee splash

Level : 50

I've been testing out the support gem throughout the campaign. I eventually switched away from it because other support gems like melee physical damage support would just give me much more damage without the downside of getting the mob to low life. There can only be one stolen modifier too which dosent too strong to me comparative to jewels such as inspired learning.

Overall impressions. it spiced up my leveling experience a bit but not enough to want to switch from a gem that gives me more damage.

It could be potentially very fun combined with inspired learning but ill edit the post when i test it out in end game.

Same as some of the other comments it would be nice if we could see the buffs that were given to us so we can change our gameplay accordingly to the situation.

Build: Zombies/Skeletons/SRS/Reaper/Carrion

Level: 73

Why does Behead support support Skeletons, Zombies, SRS, and Carrion Golem, but not Reaper?

Would be nice if there was more detail on the buff icon. I can't tell which buff I'm getting when I kill rare enemies with this support gem. I know *something* is happening, because I see the icon at the top. But I have no idea half the time what buff I got.

lvl 90 Groundslam char, quick and good aoe.

I think the problem with behead is, that its a support skill which would work very well on cwdt/ Trigger on block- setups.

Since you only get 1 mod and its also limited to only 1 mod it should be easier to use behead as a utility gem.

My suggestion: make Behead "on hit" or give it a 20% more multi alike to maim.

The gem could also have a an integrated cul strike of 20% to fix the problem. Thats my 2 cents on it.

I personally do not think that the limitation of 1 buff from rare monsters make sense because there is no point to waste one gem link just for one mod and +20% ish more dps.

But, I think if you can make a chase unique that has the mod "Nearby enemies are treated as though on low life" or "You and nearby enemies are on low life", it will create some very great synergies.

For example,
1. The "Executioner" node is located in the bottom-left duelist area
2. Axe mastery "10% more damage with hits and ailments against enemies that are on low life"
3. Pain Attunement
4. Punishment curse
5. Behead support
7. The Blood Dance Sharkskin Boots

Just some of my personal thoughts

This gem is too weak to choose it over any other basic support. If this worked for channeling or aoe attacks it could have some utility for clearing, but it's generally just a very weak support gem.

Especially since there's a great deal of other more potent support gems for almost every build.

You can cull or choose any of the ascends or nodes on the passive board that do roughly the same thing as the base boost. On top of that, the secondary passive trait is just ONE RANDOM BOOST from a rare enemy. I don't see the purpose for this other than having a poverty headhunter-esque joke attached to your meme attack.