Apply Poisons is not applying to trash mobs

[Skavies]

You cannot set off a Toxic Death poison chain reaction by hitting green worms, or rats, or any thing else that you do too much damage to, but you can use them in a chain reaction if you hit something with enough health to poison then kill it so it spreads. This means that Apply Poison is the problem, and Toxic Death not triggering is what is giving it away.

Example. I lead around a green worm mass so it multiplies up to 5, then lead it to a boss. I stab a green worm mass killing it, and about half the time, I see a salmon colored +deadly poison flash over it with the damage done, but it will not use Toxic Death to spread the poison.

I know you can use green worm masses to proliferate Toxic Death if you use a wolf, bear, troll, or something big that you can poison to start the chain reaction. If you poison one of those with 1 dose of poison (or more, but use 1 for the example) it will use Toxic Death to spread that one dose to all the worms in range, which all instantly die, and they set off Toxic Death and spread that 1 dose each to the boss, combined with the original dose from the high hit point creature, the boss is now taking 6 doses of poison. (maxed out poison damage).

I also know that I have killed hundreds of green masses with daggers, and seen that they do register that they were poisoned usually about half the time. I get apply poisons to 4/5 by level 3 and leave it there. They do not ever explode in the green mist that shows that they are spreading Toxic Death from being hit with daggers. They have to get the poison from Toxic Death of another creature to spread their own Toxic Death.

I believe what is happening is the ignoring of damage after a mob takes enough damage to die is interfering with Apply Poison. Ex. I hit something with 1000 hp for 35 physical, 17 Light, 23 Nature, 6 Fire, (big long string of different sources) giving a total of 120 damage. This shows up in the log. I hit a green worm mass, with that same attack and it shows 35 physical (total 35) and does not bother to resolve the rest of the damage since the target is dead. This seems like a good thing (reduced computing operation), but sometimes you want to see the full damage (testing new weapons before you get the training room...) and you definitely want Toxic Death to have a chance to proliferate, but it can't if Apply Poisons is being dropped along with the excess damage.

I am not advocating that using flurry on a worm mass should give 6 chances to apply poison. But each time a weapon hits a living mob, apply poisons should be resolved so Toxic Death will trigger, if the poison was applied. If the mob dies from the first hit of a flurry, it should get 1 chance to apply poison, even if it had 1 HP. If it took 4 of the 6 blows to kill, it should get 4 chances. I believe as it is now, if it takes 4 hits, it's only getting 3 chances to apply poisons. Foxes are taking 2 hits of the 6 to kill and are procing Toxic Death about half the time, and always for 1 dose of poison. If the second hit was registering, I should see them Toxic Death about 2/3 of the time, and occasionally with 2 doses of poison. On bears, I've seen it dose to the max level with 1 flurry cause bears tend to eat all 6 hits and still be alive-also seen them eat a flurry with no poisoning, so that's apparently working as intended.

[Number43]

Problem is, to trigger the toxic death they need to have the poison status effect when they die, but you can't inflict status on something when it's dead, or with the same hit that killed it.

[Skavies]

Problem is, to trigger the toxic death they need to have the poison status effect when they die, but you can't inflict status on something when it's dead, or with the same hit that killed it.

so reorder the code so it checks and applies the poison status after the to hit check, but before the damage roll for that attack, so the poison status would be there on death?

[Number43]

This isn't the only talent where this matters. It perhaps matters more for demonologists trying to get demonseeds out of enemies, as it can't work if the demon seed talent kills them in one hit.

[HousePet]

so reorder the code so it checks and applies the poison status after the to hit check, but before the damage roll for that attack, so the poison status would be there on death?

I don't think that can be done without a major adjustment to the combat code, and pretty much every talent that uses a weapon attack.

[jenx]

so reorder the code so it checks and applies the poison status after the to hit check, but before the damage roll for that attack, so the poison status would be there on death?

I don't think that can be done without a major adjustment to the combat code, and pretty much every talent that uses a weapon attack.

Yes, I think HousePet is right, as this would be a major conceptual change to the combat code, which is spread over many locations. There might be however a neat workaround that DG comes up with