poison damage details

[Miruko]

Hi, i'm wondering how does poison damage exactly works, for example if i have 10 poison damage, do i deal that 10 damage directly or over time? does it stacks?

[Frumple]

You'd deal the ten damage over time, yes, and it does stack, sorta'. It's more like concurrent applications than actual stacking.

From what I understand, it's kind of a rolling stack -- ferex, your 10 damage would deal its damage over X turns. If you hit again, the next 10 damage would also be X turns, but the last 10 would now be at X-1. So there's an absolute max on the amount that will stack (simply due to duration), but you'll never 'lose' damage because of it.

[Aquillion]

I've been meaning to ask...

So this means, basically, that for most people, point-for-point poison is weaker than every other ego in the game (since the others all deal their damage all at once, and there's no advantage at all to delaying it)?

I'm not sure I like that, especially since there's no real indication to the player that this is the case -- I can see players forced to choose between a fire ego and a poison one saying 'well, the poison does damage AND inflicts a status effect, so it must be better!' without realizing that poison damage is actually much worse than all other types.

(And that's on top of the fact that poison has to contend with both nature resistance and poison immunity, while other damage types only have to worry about resistance.)

Perhaps the default ego-inflicted poison should carry some other penalty while it's in effect?

[tiger_eye]

Poison stacks just fine. If you do 10 poison damage 10 times in a row, then 100 damage will (eventually) be done. The basic poisoned effect actually merges (so an enemy isn't afflicted by 10 different poison effects), the duration is averaged, and the total damage stacks. For example, if two poisons are applied on the same turn--40 damage over 4 turns and 80 damage over 8 turns--then the combined effect will do 120 damage over 6 turns.

[greycat]

The basic poisoned effect actually merges (so an enemy isn't afflicted by 10 different poison effects)

Damn it! Never get marauders mumble mumble grumble rogue mumble stupid.

[edge2054]

I've been meaning to ask...

So this means, basically, that for most people, point-for-point poison is weaker than every other ego in the game (since the others all deal their damage all at once, and there's no advantage at all to delaying it)?

This is taken into consideration generally.

Code: Select all

newEntity{
	power_source = {arcane=true},
	name = "shocking ", prefix=true, instant_resolve=true,
	level_range = {1, 50},
	rarity = 5,
	combat = {
		melee_project={[DamageType.LIGHTNING] = resolvers.mbonus_material(25, 4)},
	},
}

Code: Select all

newEntity{
	power_source = {nature=true},
	name = "poisonous ", prefix=true, instant_resolve=true,
	level_range = {1, 50},
	rarity = 5,
	combat = {
		melee_project={[DamageType.POISON] = resolvers.mbonus_material(45, 6)},
	},
}

Much higher damage on the poisonous ego to account for it being damage over time

[Aquillion]

Much higher damage on the poisonous ego to account for it being damage over time

I figured it'd be that. But here's the problem: From a player's perspective, there's no obvious indicator that +1 poison damage is worth less than +1 fire damage which is worth less than +1 ice damage (the latter you'll probably notice fast, but the weakness of poison damage is not at all obvious.)

So if I'm a typical player forced to choose between an axe that does +6 poison damage, one that does +6 fire damage, one that does +6 ice damage, and (hell, if I don't know) one that does +6 slime damage, I'm likely to choose the poison damage one, even though the fire damage one is better and the slime damage one is ridiculously better. This is bad; the game should try and make choices like that more clear.

Similarly, if I have to choose between an axe that does +7 poison damage and one that does +6 fire damage, the poison damage one will seem clearly superior, even though it isn't really so clear at all.

[Tom]

Do monsters never use Wild Infusions or talents to get rid of their poisons?

There is a talent that deliver more damage the more poisons a monster is affected of.
So if every poison was delivered at once, this talent would not be as powerful as it is now.

Tom

[Sradac]

sometimes i just dont think poison stacks the way you guys described. Example is Ruined Cut. I was using that and phase door to kite prox on a ghoul cursed last night. First application does 7 dmg per tick. In theory when I hit him again with it since it has such a long duration and short cooldown it should be doing 14 per tick. However, it wasnt. After the second application it was only doing 12 per hit. I also noticed this on weaker trolls earlier in trollmire when my ruined cut was only at rank 1, doing 5 dmg per tick, 2nd application it was only doing 8 dmg per tick. Is there something special about ruined cut making it do that?

[Tirear]

sometimes i just dont think poison stacks the way you guys described. Example is Ruined Cut. I was using that and phase door to kite prox on a ghoul cursed last night. First application does 7 dmg per tick. In theory when I hit him again with it since it has such a long duration and short cooldown it should be doing 14 per tick. However, it wasnt. After the second application it was only doing 12 per hit. I also noticed this on weaker trolls earlier in trollmire when my ruined cut was only at rank 1, doing 5 dmg per tick, 2nd application it was only doing 8 dmg per tick. Is there something special about ruined cut making it do that?

The duration of the new poison effect is rounded up, so the damage per turn will often be slightly smaller. The only thing I can find odd about ruined cut is that it has power = damage / duration while poison damage has duration 5 and power = damage/6, but the time stuff is too complicated for me to figure out which is wrong.

Do monsters never use Wild Infusions or talents to get rid of their poisons?

There is a talent that deliver more damage the more poisons a monster is affected of.
So if every poison was delivered at once, this talent would not be as powerful as it is now.

Tom

That talent is checking the number of types of poison - for example, an insidious poison infusing applies a debuff that deals nature damage and reduces healing. This is a different debuff from regular poison, so they will not merge and a wild infusion can only remove 1 of the effects per use. Thus, in order to get lots of damage from that talent, you have to use the different types of poisons rogues get rather then flurrying with a venomous weapon once.