Bakragore's Taints are Special Conditions during which the character will suffer from one to four penalties while inside any of the Rotten Blood Quest areas.
While progressing through the quest from scratch, a party will obtain the taints similarly to the Soul War Quest, with each boss kill applying one extra taint to the whole party. But when farming bosses, mixing up teams in different days, or when intentionally trying to keep low amount of taints, the taint mechanics behave differently than in Soul War and boss fights can result in mixed taint gains between different members.
Each taint enhances the experience and loot from monsters in the area, taking the party member with the lowest number of taints as reference for the party. They will raise the chance to drop a Bag You Covet from Bakragore's four children, and also gives the chance to loot Tainted Hearts and Darklight Hearts from regular monsters in Rotten Blood.
Bakragore's Taints[]
Players will receive a taint after defeating each of the children of Bakragore. Killing the same boss repeatedly will not add a new taint, so to receive all of them you must kill all four bosses. The four regular taints are:
Melee monsters have a 6% chance to swap positions with a player within a certain radius. It will be indicated two seconds before it takes place by an effect on the field the targeted player is standing on.
If a monster dies, there's a 6.25% chance a Bloodjaw may immediately rise from its corpse. During boss fights, an extra Elder Bloodjaw will spawn in the room.
Creatures may root characters with at least three taints and also attack them with a fourth element depending on the hunting ground: Death (Jaded Roots), Earth (Putrefactory), Energy (Gloom Pillars), or Fire (Darklight Core).- Characters with four taints receive 14% increased damage from all sources in Rotten Blood.
How it works[]
The taint level of a party will be set based on the character with less taints in it, similar to how the Hazard System works and different from Goshnar's Taints. When fighting one of the bosses with a party in which the characters have different individual taint levels, in order to gain a taint the players have to: match this lowest amount of taints, do not have a taint from that boss yet, and deal damage to the boss. Examples:
- If five members in a party have no taints, and they kill Ichgahal but Player A never hits the boss, the four players who contributed in the fight will get one taint from Ichgahal, and Player A will continue to have no taints because he did not contribute to the kill.
- If four members in a party have four taints but Player A has none, the party will have no taints throughout the whole access and boss fight. If they all contribute and defeat Ichgahal, Player A will then get one taint from Ichgahal because they matched all criteria.
- If four members in a party have two taints from Murcion and Vemiath, but Player A has none, the party will have no taints throughout the whole access and boss fight. If they all contribute and defeat Ichgahal, Player A will get one taint from Ichgahal as they matched all criteria. All other players will get no taint even though they do not have Ichgahal's yet, because they did not match the lowest amount of taints in the fight.
The order in which the taints are obtained is always the same, regardless of which boss is killed.
Bakragore's Final Taint[]
By killing Bakragore, his final taint 
will be received. The final taint enhances experience (+4.5%) and loot like a regular taint, but without giving players any penalty by itself. The bonuses only apply to the individual characters having it, not influencing the taint level of the party. This means that special hunting rewards from the final taint are only applied to monster loot if a player with final taint is considered the killer, but it also means that a group of players with only the final taint can drop special rewards from regular monsters in the area without having to face them with any penalties.
Additionally, the final taint gives the chance to loot essences from Bakragore's progeny: Murcion, Ichgahal, Chagorz, and Vemiath. Each boss has its own essence which can only be obtained from that particular boss. The more taints players have in addition to the final taint, the higher the chance to loot the essence of a boss. However, for boss fights, the whole party needs to have the final taint for it to take effect in the boss room.
Players should be careful, however, when adding regular taints on top of having the final one, as it noticeably increases their effects:
- The chance for monsters swapping positions with players increases to 9%.
- Bloodjaws will rise from the slain more often, with 9.375% chance. Moreover, three additional Elder Bloodjaw will appear in boss fights (one from regular taint, two from final taint, up to a maximum of five).
- Monsters may now afflict players with the fear of Bakragore.
- The damage received is increased further and characters receive 21% increased damage from all sources in Rotten Blood.
For example, if character A has 3 taints, B has 3 taints plus the final taint, C has 3 taints plus the final taint, and D has 4 taints, the taint level of the party is 3. Char B and C bear the final taint, which increases the impact of both taints on them: their kills have higher chance to spawn Bloodjaws, monsters swap more often with them, monsters may cast fear on them, and their loot and XP is enhanced as if they had one additional taint.
How to get rid of Bakragore's Taints[]
There are a few ways to get rid of taints:
- When players successfully defeat Bakragore, their regular taints will be reset
- Failing in the battle against Bakragore will erase the last two taints from the whole team and also reset the progress of two random bosses. The erased progress will be the same for the whole team
- After 68 hours of getting a taint, players are able to reset them by talking to A Bloodshade
- A player who has regular taints plus the final taint can choose to reset all of them or just the regular ones
Taint bonuses[]
Each taint grants an 7.8% chance for a second loot roll. The bonus of additional taints is additive, not multiplicative, so each taint will increase the chance linearly: 7.8% > 15.6% > 23.4% > 31.2% > 39%.
Taints also improve the experience of monsters in the Rotten Blood areas. However, the percentages were not publicly revealed during test server, so the information is yet to be determined.
| Harmful | |
|---|---|
| Negative | |
| Positive | |
| Neutral | |
| Taints |
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