Poison damage explained

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Poison damage explained

Post by nimrod » Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:19 pm

Poison damage explained

Poison is by far the most complicated damage type in the game (of which there are 6). There have been a lot of questions regarding poison skills in median. In order to decrease the amounts of posts asking about poison skills, I made this post in which I'll try to explain every poison skill in the game. So here we go:

A list of all poison skills in the game:

Amazon:
Curare: item poison damage 1

Assassin:
Black lotus strike: spell poison damage/item poison damage 2
Way of the Spider: item poison damage 1
Scorpion Blade: item poison damage 2

Barbarian:
Snake Stance: item poison damage 1

Druid:
Plague avatar: spell poison damage
Poison flash: spell poison damage
Corruption field: spell poison damage
Acid fiends: minion poison damage

Necromancer:
Tainted blades: minion poison damage

Paladin:
Pwnisher: Spell poison damage
Plague: Item poison damage 1 + minion poison damage

Sorceress: none
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Important poison facts:

Those are all the poison skills in the game. Before we try and figure out what the difference between each type is, let's first understand the similarities:

1. Poison duration does not affect poison damage per second. In other words, if you do 100 damage per second over 10 seconds, your total damage would be 1000. If you add 5 more seconds, your damage per second won't decrease to 66 (1000:15=66). Instead you will do 1500 total damage (100*15=1500). This is a very good thing that many people don't understand so they try to avoid increased duration. The truth is, it can really help if you want to kill an enemy in 1 hit.


2. Poison damage doesn't stack. If you hit an enemy with an attack that does 100 damage per second, twice, you won't do 200 damage per second. What actually happens is that the highest damage per second is applied.
Example:
You cast gamma field that has a duration of 20 seconds, it rolls for the damage 8 times in this order-
100, 250, 70, 400, 200, 100, 68, 365.
The damage that will be applied is 400, because it's the highest damage per second. The total damage would be 400*20=8000. This also includes changes in the monsters resist. If you poison a monster that has 50% poison resist, then decrease the resist to 0, the poison damage will increase by 50%. This also works very nice in uberquests because even if an enemy turns immune, it will still continue to take damage if it was damaged before becoming immune (this strategy is usually used with gamma field).


3. Poison damage is the only element that triggers on kill procs.
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Types of poison damage:

Now that you know the basics of poison damage, we can get into more detail about the types of poison damage.


Spell poison damage:
This type of poison damage is fairly simple.
affected by-
+spell/poison damage
+skills
+poison duration.
not affected by-
+x to poison damage over y seconds
weapon damage multiplier.


Item poison damage 1:
This is the really complicated thing about poison. The reason this is called item poison damage is because it's the same type of damage you'd find on items.
affected by-
+spell/poison skill damage (only in melee, see note)
+skills (if it's a skill and not on an item)
weapon damage multiplier
+x poison damage over y seconds.
not affected by-
+poison duration
+spell/poison skill damage (only with missiles, see note)

Even though it is not affected by poison duration, there still is a way to increase the duration of those skills-
The interesting thing about item poison damage is when there is more than one source of it. What happens then is that the damage per second is added and the duration is added, and then averaged.
Example:
Your snake stance does 100 poison damage per second over 5 seconds.
You have a pair of gloves that do 10 poison damage per second over 9 seconds. First you add the damage per second=100+10=110. Then you add and average the duration = (5+9):2 = 7. Now in order to calculate the total damage, all you need to do is 7*110=770. As you can see, the not so impressive gloves, increased our total poison damage by 54%.

Note: This type of poison damage has different mechanics depending on the type of attack. What happens is that when this poison damage is applied with missiles, it is not affected by +spell/poison damage. But when used in melee, it is affected by +spell/poison damage. Also it's important to understand that the nova on retaliate (or any other nova attack) is considered a missile, aswell as the rocks on shower of rocks, and the spikes on crucify.

Item poison damage 2:
This is probably the weirdest thing about poison. Only 1 skill in the game is using the "item poison damage 2" (yes I made up the name). That skill is scorpion blade. What happens with scorpion blade is simple- you don't average the duration.
Example:
Your scorpion blade does 100 poison damage per second over 5 seconds.
You have a pair of gloves that do 10 poison damage per second over 9 seconds. Like in most cases, you first add the damage per second (=110). But, unlike most cases of item poison damage, you don't average the duration, you just add it. So the total damage would be: 110*14=1540.

I'm not sure about this, but it seems like the game displays snake stance's damage as if it was item poison damage 2, even though it's 1.


Minion poison damage:
The simplest type of poison damage. Since this is not really your damage, nothing that affects you will affect the damage of your minions. So +poison duration, +x poison damage over y seconds, +spell/poison damage don't affect it. The only things that do affect it are the things that affect your minions. These include synergies/+skills, elemental totem, mark of the wild, acid fiend's aura and so on. The only exception to this are the acid fiends. These gain your characters own poison spell damage.
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That's it; I hope I didn't forget anything and that my explanations aren't wrong. If you have any questions or corrections then feel free to post them here. Hopefully, this will get stickied and we won't have to give the same answer 20 times in two month about the same poison questions.
Last edited by nimrod on Tue Dec 04, 2007 5:15 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Poison damage explained

Post by Skeleon » Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:34 pm

Nice! :)

I didn't even know about that weird poison damage from Scorpion Blade.
I suppose that's why the Boss Killer assassin packs that much of a punch.

EDIT to below: Vipersniper ain't in the sticky. Must've missed it.
EDIT 2: Oh, it's just "Poison Throwsin"... *starts to read*
EDIT 3: LOL, you posted at the same time that I edited that I found it. :P
Last edited by Skeleon on Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:57 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Post by nimrod » Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:40 pm

Thanks!
The scorpion blade skill is described in laz's guide: the vipersniper (which for me sounds like a bow druid using the viper bow, but it's not :lol: ). And snake stance is described in the snake thrower guide, I just compiled (is that the right word?) everything together.

I think I'll edit the descriptions to make it even more clear, so it will be good enough for the stickies. But not today.
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Post by Lillis » Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:54 pm

So... I take it I got it right this time around in my guide (updated the corresponding section the other day)? Anyway, this is a godsend. I'll link to this thread in the guide. :D

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Post by DemonicAngel » Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:56 pm

EDIT to below: Vipersniper ain't in the sticky. Must've missed it.
In the List of Median 2008 character builds and guides sticky? Yeah, it is, it's just listed as Poison Throwsin (Brother Laz). Once you open it, it says build: the vipersniper. ;)

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Post by nimrod » Wed Oct 03, 2007 12:05 am

[quote=Lillis";p="357792"]So... I take it I got it right this time around in my guide (updated the corresponding section the other day)? Anyway, this is a godsend. I'll link to this thread in the guide. :D[/quote]
I'm still not 100% sure, because the character screen shows the damage as if it was item 2, but since both laz and doabli said it's item 1, I guess it really is item 1. So yeah you got it right. :)

Edit: I also edited the first post, because obviously poison doesn't trigger on striking/attack procs. :lol:
Last edited by nimrod on Wed Oct 03, 2007 12:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Poison damage explained

Post by Baerk Konnevala » Wed Oct 03, 2007 12:09 am

Actually all 6 damage types can trigger on death damage. It's just that there isn't enough fire/lightning/cold/magic damage added to weapons for them to be the killing factor by themselves for the most part. Even though poison damage supposedly will always trigger a on death proc that's not always true. Even with a 100% CTC on kill I couldn't get that on kill proc to trigger by killing with just punisher (massive poison spell damage that isn't tied to a weapon).

A more accurate description of how elemental damage would trigger procs is whether it is weapon damage or spell damage. It's just poison skills are often tied to weapon damage (even if in some cases it does seem like spell damage) while the other elements are not (except for physical to magic conversion) which causes the misconception that poison damage will trigger on death procs, but not other non-physical elements.
Last edited by Baerk Konnevala on Wed Oct 03, 2007 12:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by nimrod » Wed Oct 03, 2007 12:16 am

Really? I never heard that before. Interesting.

I still don't understand if blizzard intented all elements to work like poison or if they made a bug with poison that causes it to be more like weapon damage... :-|
I guess I could add that to the explanation.
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Post by TestSubject » Wed Oct 03, 2007 12:27 am

Really? I thought someone had said poison was bugged and always did CtC on Death procs.
Hmmm....hmm.....hmmmm....hmmm?

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Post by nimrod » Wed Oct 03, 2007 8:59 am

Can someone confirm what baerk konnevala said.

Also, I have two questions:
1. Laz explained in his guide what happens with scorpion blade, but he didn't explain why it happens. Is there any reason why this skill is different from other item poison damage types?

2. Black lotus strike. The nova is obviously a spell, but what about the actual hit? The monster you hit takes the poison damage from the skill, plus any item poison damage that you have on your equipment. So my question is, is BLS attacks (not the nova) considered item poison damage? Or is it still considered spell poison damage and it just ignores all other poison sources?
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Post by Brother Laz » Wed Oct 03, 2007 12:24 pm

· More testing would be needed for the elemental damage on weapon attacks. If this is true, it would be a revolution in the world of D2.

However, do use something other than Punisher; poison attacks do an instant damage hit equal to the damage dealt on the first frame, followed by the damage over time effect.

Maybe something different happens if the initial impact kills the target as opposed to the damage over time. (For example, the initial impact kills players! The damage over time merely reduces them to 1) And Punisher is quite likely to kill a weak target instantly on impact.

· Scorpion Blade is a weapon attack with added poison damage, as opposed to a weapon attack followed by a poison damage hit. Blizzard put in separate rules for the former case, to make sure skills (ie. PD) could never be 'weakened' in terms of total damage by short duration poison items.

· It seems BLS is bugged in that the poison damage is applied to the target just before the nova goes off. (Which would imply that DB deals its fire damage to the target twice. Interesting) If so, then this component would be similar to Scorpion Blade.
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Post by nimrod » Wed Oct 03, 2007 1:08 pm

Ok thanks, I'll update the first post with this new information.
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Post by Doabli » Wed Oct 03, 2007 1:44 pm

Brother Laz" wrote:[· It seems BLS is bugged in that the poison damage is applied to the target just before the nova goes off. (Which would imply that DB deals its fire damage to the target twice. Interesting) If so, then this component would be similar to Scorpion Blade.
I don't think it is a bug. Charged Strike does the same thing, and Lemures & Blood Thorns deal their elemental damage even though Arcane Strike isn't in effect. So I rather think it's a feature.
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Post by enkephalin07 » Wed Oct 03, 2007 8:56 pm

Alright, so all this +poison spell % I've affixed to my weapon is completely useless for scorp blade? Would it be useful for shadow blade? As if that matters, since I only use that against poison immunes....
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Post by nimrod » Wed Oct 03, 2007 9:04 pm

Although scorpion blade is not a spell, it is affected by +poison spell damage%, so it's not completely useless.
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Post by enkephalin07 » Wed Oct 03, 2007 10:38 pm

I don't really understand the formula here. What I do understand is that for the cost of an emerald and reg shards, my scorp blade dam value increased by 2k, and that set my mind at ease.
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Re: Poison damage explained

Post by Baerk Konnevala » Wed Oct 03, 2007 11:02 pm

Actually by using a feeble weapon to cause weak physical damage and then tacking on an uber damage kraken stance I have triggered on death procs. And I mean physical damage so weak that it hardly dings the enemy's bar without kraken stance and then with kraken stance it's a one shot kill.

Also I did use a punisher on a not so weak enemy that would resist dieing so fast I could watch the bar drain out albeit very quickly (which wouldn't be instant death). That death by punisher alone failed to trigger on death procs when I tested in diablo patch 1.11b.

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Post by Brother Laz » Thu Oct 04, 2007 12:04 am

[quote=enkephalin07";p="357940"]Alright, so all this +poison spell % I've affixed to my weapon is completely useless for scorp blade? Would it be useful for shadow blade? As if that matters, since I only use that against poison immunes....[/quote]

Thanks to Blizzard's confusing nomenclature, +% poison spell damage means all poison damage sources except minions. Seriously...
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Post by enkephalin07 » Thu Oct 04, 2007 12:28 am

Good to hear, but that's not confusing enough yet. Try this: +phys/mag dam % modifiers of the same value has no effect on scorp dam rating.

Huh? It's either one or the other or both, isn't it?
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Post by DemonicAngel » Thu Oct 04, 2007 12:30 am

Good to hear, but that's not confusing enough yet. Try this: +phys/mag dam % modifiers of the same value has no effect on scorp dam rating.
Scorpion blade does poison damage, not magic or physical damage.

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Post by Skivverus » Thu Oct 04, 2007 12:32 am

Er... no. The physical/magic term refers to the physical and magic elemental types - and Scorpion Blade deals poison. Vessel of Judgement, Wrath, and Starburst are examples of spells that are affected by physical/magic spell damage.

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Post by enkephalin07 » Thu Oct 04, 2007 12:35 am

Alright, so correct me if I'm wrong, +phys/mag is applied to all weapons and spells. From what I'm reading, scorp blade involves both. I can guess that the weapon's dam value is increased with this %, but not the poison, because that's neither weapon nor spell? That just turns everything else I've heard on it's head.
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Post by DemonicAngel » Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:19 am

Sorry, double posted. :roll:
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Post by DemonicAngel » Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:20 am

[quote=enkephalin07";p="357969"]Alright, so correct me if I'm wrong, +phys/mag is applied to all weapons and spells. From what I'm reading, scorp blade involves both. I can guess that the weapon's dam value is increased with this %, but not the poison, because that's neither weapon nor spell? That just turns everything else I've heard on it's head.[/quote]

No, that's wrong. Physical and magic damage are seperate damage types, along with fire, cold, poison, and lightning. A spell is not necessarily magic damage. Scorpion Blade does poison damage, which is increased by +% poison damage, and not +% physical/magic spell damage. Understand? :-|

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Post by TestSubject » Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:25 am

And physical damage will not increase the damage of a weapon spell, just things like VoJ and the like.
Hmmm....hmm.....hmmmm....hmmm?

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