Poison Basics
Poison Strength and Poison Length
How does Poison Damage actually work? For some this is an unknown territory. Most of those, who still come to grips with calculating Poison Strength, fail at explanations of Poison Length. As already mentioned, poison is different form all other kinds of damage. It needs time to work.
Here I will discuss Poison Damage from items only while calculating the damage. Later on I'll concentrate upon the necessities for understanding Poison Damage along with skills.
Contrary to other kinds of damage poison has two properties determining its total damage: Poison Length is the duration how long poison continually inflicts damage and Poison Strength is the inflicted damage per time unit. Poison applies constant damage over a certain time. The smallest considered time unit is a frame (1/25 s): Poison Strength decrees the poison damage per frame and Poison Length decrees how many frames that poison is effective. The overall damage - Poison Quantity - being dealt is calculated as
Poison Damage per frame * Poison Length in frames.
There are tow attributes of the attacked enemy influencing the Poison Damage taken. Poison Resistance and Poison Length Reduced (which most PvP guys are missing). The resistance lowers the Poison Strength one suffers and Poison Length Reduction lowers the time of suffering. Both parameters along with players and hirelings have a difficulty penalty of -40% in Nightmare and -100% in Hell. Modelled on resistance the percentages of Poison Length Reduction add together and have a cap at 75% in each difficulty. In order to maximise Poison Length Reduction in Hell a char needs 175%, similar to the other elemental resistances. Monsters only have Poison Resistance. They do not have Poison Length Reduction. So any poisoned mob will always suffer Poison Damage for the full duration, no matter resistances or anything.
The only exception thereof may be the Ancients, if they happen to spawn with items reducing Poison Length.
The char screen display of Poison Damage is actually misleading, because it mostly gives values differing from the real damage. The Poison Damage of all sources is added. The Poison Length isn't taken into account. Example: a toxic Javelin and a small toxic charm of anthrax. The LCS reads 463 damage, but in reality that is 467 damage over 8 s.
In contrast to the LCS the damage reading in the skill tree (menu T) is only imprecise, since it states Poison Length in seconds and not in frames. The reading of the overall damage is correct.
Since 1.11b the LCS (menu A) shows the data readings from the skill tree for the damage of attacks, which don't transmit damage form equipment. At least this is the case for PoisJ and PlJ. Though the Poison Length is omitted.
So the display of the overall damage for the Zons Poison Skills is roughly correct but imprecise, and mind, the Poison Length is omitted.
Calculating Poison Damage
There are basically two methods for transmitting Poison Damage. First there is the transmission by physical attack and secondly the transmission by area impact. The skills Poison Dagger (Nec), Venom ('Sin) and the usual transmission of poison from poison sources of equipment all belong to the first method. The Poison Length of Venom is axiomatically 0,4 s. This can't be changed by Poison Length of other items. Poison Length of Venom cancels out Poison Length of items. Poison Strength of items is added to that of Venom, thus a new Poison Strength is created which is applied over Venoms Poison Length. If Venom is applied together with another Poison Skill via physical attack, things are quite different. Venoms Poison Length will be added to that of the other skill. This may be especially interesting for Daggermancers (Necs with PD). You'll find more info about this by onderduiker in Venom and other poison sources.
The second method includes Poison Explosion and Poison Nova (both Nec), Poison Creeper (Druid), Throwing Potions and our Zon's skills. Druids Rabies is a very special case. The trigger is a physical attack, but the transmission way should be counted within the second group. Another feature of Rabies is that it is effective together with poison. (One mob can be poisoned by normal poison and Rabies at the same time. Therefore Rabies is a second kind of poison, which stacks with the 'regular' poison.)
The first method takes into account all poison sources, the second only the skill damage. Both ways are modified by the below explained modifier as e. g. -xx enemy poison resist.
The explanations and calculations are taken from the Tao of Poison. Especially small poison quantities cause huge discrepancies in Poison Quantity and Poison Strength. To minimise this source of error each damage point is divided into 256 parts (bite damage respectively Dam bd). This granularity is of no further relevance for the Zon's Poison Skills. Their high values of damage and length cause the error being small enough to ignore. Since the Zon skills use the second method of transmission there is only one damage source. But I think this approach is appropriate because I want to give you some basics here and further the understanding of poison and thereby the fascination it can inflict. In addition I want to show that poison sources from equipment are not necessary, but indeed trouble. Regularly the Poison Strength from items is lower than skill damage and therefore is cancelled by it. If poison from equipment is stronger an undesirable effect happens: The poison with shorter duration and less quantity is used.
Duration is generally rounded down, since damage is only applied at a full frame. On the other hand Poison Strength is generally rounded up.
If Items have different Sources, e.g. some emeralds and/or Tal-runes and/or jewels 'of Envy' in a socketed weapon, each Source is counted separately. If the example is a weapon with a jewel 'of Envy', two Tal-Runes and three perfect emeralds there are six Sources.
Poison Strength of a Source
StrengthSource = int(damSource * 256 / Dframes + (Dframes - 1) / Dframes)
Poison Damage per frame (bite damage)
dambite = StrengthSource * Dframes
Total Poison Length
T = int(∑Dframes / n)
Total Damage Quantity
dam = ∑StrengthSource * T
The Poison Length of a Source in Frames Dframes = s * 25 n = Number of Sources with poison damage damQuelle: shown poison damage value ∑Dframes: sum of all poison length in frames ∑StrengthSource: sum of all poison strength
Let's assume we have an emerald (100 dam over 7 s) and a Tal rune (75 dam over 5 s) in a weapon, then the emerald has a Poison Strength of 147 and the Tal a Poison Strength of 154, the Poison Length in frames is 175 and 125. The emerald's bite damage is 25725 and the Tal's bite damage is 19250. The total damage would be 44975. But the really done damage is 147 + 154 = 301 over (7 * 25 + 5 * 25)/2 = 150 frames. So the result is a bite damage of 45150, respectively computed back in life points a damage of 45150/256 = 176.
Now one may object the Tal is bad, because the damage of two emeralds would be 200. This is looking the wrong way. The Poison Strength of the sockets is 301. Multiplied with 175 frames this is a damage of 52675 bites or 205 hit points. The Tal thus reduces the Poison Quantity but raises the Poison Strength due to its shorter duration.
Now we take a look at Zon's Poison Skills and compare these with 'small pestilent charms of anthrax', the strongest poison sources available via items.
| Number/castLvl + Syn* | Strength Charm | Strength PoisJ | Strength PlJ |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 / 1 + 1 | 385 | 44 | 113 |
| 2 / 2 + 2 | 768 | 68 | 181 |
| 3 / 3 + 3 | 1,155 | 97 | 258 |
| 4 / 4 + 4 | 1,541 | 130 | 345 |
| 5 / 5 + 5 | 1,926 | 166 | 443 |
| 10 / 10 + 10 | 3,851 | 484 | 1.263 |
| 20 / 20 + 20 | 7,700 | 2,121 | 5,544 |
| 30 / 30 + 20 | 11,550 | 4,420 | 15,144 |
| 40 / 40 + 20 | 15,400 | 7,560 | 29,544 |
* The castLvL and the synergy are the same.
Two important points should be kept clearly in mind with this comparison. The Javelins spread poison over several targets while the charms can damage only on enemy at a time. Secondly one has to acquire such charms first. Achieving this legit will be very difficult. Not to speak of the further efforts needed for other equipment which stuffing the inventory with those charms would cause.
periodically distributed Application of Poison
If poison damage is inflicted upon an enemy while this enemy is still suffering poison damage of a former attack, both Poison Strengths (damage per frame) are compared with each other. If Poison Strength of later applied poison is as high as or higher than the original poison's Poison Strength, the latter will become active and the original will be discarded.
Poison doesn't stack. If two enemies stand behind one another and pierce takes effect, a second cloud develops. Within the overlapping sphere of both clouds only the poison damage of the cloud with the higher Poison Strength takes effect on the enemies. Apart from this, even with 100% pierce, no more than 10% of the Javelins are going to pierce due to failed chance to hit checks.
There is a minor exception, which doesn't concern Amazon players, it's the Druid's Poison Creeper. For further info see here and here.
Usage of the Poison Skills
The Amazon throws her Javelin. This Javelin drags a pullulating poison cloud in its trail. At impingement PlJ triggers an additional pullulating cloud, which spreads over quite a large area. Both clouds consist of several single clouds. Strictly speaking we are dealing with two poison missiles. The thrown javelin and its clouds. The javelin belongs to transmission by physical attack. The clouds belong to transmission by area impact. If the javelin actually hits, it applies skill damage, the physical damage of the throw and all other kinds of damage from equipment. As soon as the javelin meets with an obstacle or reaches the end of its trajectory, it releases its secondary poison missiles, the clouds. The javelin's skill damage is transferred onto the clouds. With both Poison Skills the clouds are generally more important, since they can damage several enemies and need no cth-check. Because of this I consider those skills to belong to transmission by area impact.
Preferably the Javelin should be thrown without hitting an obstacle or an enemy. It should fly as far as possible. Additionally it should be thrown with the goal to bring as much opponents as possible into the pullulating cloud.
The two values, Poison Length and range of Poison Strength, are determined at the moment in which each missile is created. This means firstly the moment when the Amazon throws and secondly the moment when the clouds are triggered. The throw and the release of the clouds are timed so close together that this is rarely used. After the clouds are triggered it is impossible to alter their poison length or poison strength. Therefore the Zon may do something different after throwing, and she may change weapon slots. The skill level of both skills is only important at the instant of throwing. Afterwards a change to another skill level doesn't change poison length or poison strength of the javelin and the subsequently released clouds.
The damage of both skills grows exponentially with higher cast level. Breakpoints are at cast level 9, 17, 23 and 29.
Without modifications the following applies:
Poison Javelin (PoisJ)
- Cast Delay = 0.6 s
- Mana Cost = 3.75 + 0.25 * castLvl
- Poison Length = 6 s + 2 s * castLvl
- Damage: castLvl 1 = 25 to 37, castLvl 29 = 7300 to 7825
- Synergy: + 12% Poison Damage with every hard point in PlJ
Minimal damage rises faster than maximal damage. At skill level 36 minimal damage and maximal damage reach the same values. From level 37 onwards minimal damage is higher than maximum damage. Contrary to calculations of weapon damage the maximal damage isn't enhanced by higher minimal damage. Instead minimal and maximal damage just change their places. The LCS shows the damage at skill level 37 including max synergy as 51,421 to 51,101, while the game counts this as 51,101 to 51,421.
Plague Javelin (PlJ)
- Cast Delay = 4 s
- Mana Cost = 6.5 + 0.5 * castLvl
- Poison Length = 2.6 s + 0.4 s * castLvl
- Damage: castLvl 1 = 23 to 37, castLvl 29 = 6301 to 6367
- Synergy: + 10% Poison Damage with every hard point in PoisJ
boosting Poison damage
Besides + skills there are three other possibilities of boosting poison damage:
- lowering enemy resistances via the curse Lower Resist (LR)
- enhancing skill damage via items
- lowering enemy resistance and enemy poison length via items
Tub and Balkoth from the German indiablo forum have tested those ways of boosting poison damage. Their tests confirmed my much simpler ones with LR and TO-Gloves. onderduiker has made some further tests recently.
The best known and probably easiest way of enhancement is the curse Lower Resist (LR). Lucky ones who have a Nec in party who knows how to curse. All others have to rely on items with LR. LR reduces the elemental resistances of cursed enemies by a percentage, depending on the LR level. The enemies must be cursed before they get hit by elemental damage. LR charges with level 1 to 3 are possible on Daggers, Wands, and Throwing knives. A Zone can't wear Nec shields, sorc-staffs are twohanders and may only spawn with level one charges. Daggers, Wands, and Throwing knives are shopable at the local vendors with chars above level 36. Another possibility to get ones hands on LR is the unique crossbow Pus Spitter with its 4% chance to cast level 1 LR on striking. Charges are faster and easier, but more expensive in the long run. A knife needs only two inventory spaces. LR reduces the resistances by 32% at sLvL 1, by 37% at sLvL 2 and by 41% at sLvL 3. Contrary to other enhancements LR has the potential to negate immunity.
As shown on the pictures the mob is still poisoned after LR expires. Strength and Length of the poisoning are determined at the moment of poisoning. Therefore the Poison Quantity should be as large as possible. The Poison Quantity of PoisJ is far bigger than the Quantity of PlJ. Thus one uses against enemies with broken immunities PoisJ. You'll find a full picture series at an outsourced site (approximately 180 kB) so that the reading and bandwidth won't take too much strain.
Poison damage is calculated at the moment of poisoning. Therefore LR should be used before poisoning.
Another possibility of enhancing poison damage is wearing items with + poison skill damage. Similar to a mastery, e.g. the Sorcs fire mastery, + poison skill damage enhances all corresponding elemental damage from skills. Only in melee it enhances additionally all corresponding elemental damage (from weapon, equipment and skills) which is transferred by a successful physical attack.
So + poison skill damage affects the Poison Strength of the Amazon Skills' missiles at the time those missiles are created. There is no effect on Poison Length. Therefore + poison skill damage affects the javelin when thrown, and the clouds when released. A change to equipment with more + poison skill damage after throwing will not change the Poison Strength of the javelin. Only if that change is completed before the clouds are released, the Poison Strength of the clouds will be enhanced.
Besides Facets the Amazon can only equip two items which enhance skill damage: the TrangOul Gloves and the armour rune word Bramble / RalOhmSurEth. The TO-Gloves increase poison skill damage by 25%. At high cast levels (see table below) the damage increase with TO gloves is more efficient than with magical +3 spearskill gloves.
The RW Bramble increases poison skill damage by 25 to 50%. This is more than a +2 skills armour or a Viperskin armour may reach. Nevertheless the bang-per-buck aka the ratio of cost and performance along with Bramble is abyssimal.
The '+ poison skill damage' mod increases the poison quantity per frame. It affects while wearing that items and raises the poison strength of the cloud.
| +skills | total dam | total dam | duration | duration | dam/s | dam/s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| +3Java | TO | +3Java | TO | +3Java | TO | |
| +skills without the gloves counting | ||||||
| 6 | 19,003 | 16,414 | 14.2 | 13.0 | 1,338.2 | 1,262.6 |
| 9 | 27,106 | 23,754 | 15.4 | 14.2 | 1,760.1 | 1,672.8 |
| 10 | 30,032 | 33,883 | 15.8 | 15.4 | 1,900.8 | 2,200.2 |
| 11 | 33,070 | 37,540 | 16.2 | 15.8 | 2,041.4 | 2,375.9 |
| 12 | 36,222 | 41,338 | 16.6 | 16.2 | 2,182.0 | 2,551.7 |
| 15 | 46,349 | 45,277 | 17.8 | 16.6 | 2,603.9 | 2,727.5 |
| 16 | 49,950 | 57,936 | 18.2 | 17.8 | 2,744.5 | 3,254.8 |
| 17 | 53,664 | 62,438 | 18.6 | 18.2 | 2,885.1 | 3,430.6 |
| 18 | 57,490 | 67,079 | 19.0 | 18.6 | 3,025.8 | 3,606.4 |
| 21 | 69,642 | 71,862 | 20.2 | 19.0 | 3,447.6 | 3,782.2 |
| +skills | total dam | total dam | duration | duration | dam/s | dam/s |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| +3Java | TO | +3Java | TO | +3Java | TO | |
| +skills without the gloves counting | ||||||
| 3 | 19,022 | 17,046 | 58 | 52 | 328.0 | 327.8 |
| 4 | 20,997 | 19,181 | 60 | 54 | 350.0 | 355.2 |
| 5 | 23,053 | 21,427 | 62 | 56 | 371.8 | 382.6 |
| 6 | 25,709 | 23,778 | 64 | 58 | 401.7 | 410.0 |
| 9 | 34,395 | 32,136 | 70 | 64 | 491.4 | 502.1 |
| 12 | 44,156 | 42,993 | 76 | 70 | 581.0 | 614.2 |
| 13 | 47,653 | 46,911 | 78 | 72 | 610.9 | 651.5 |
| 14 | 51,264 | 50,978 | 80 | 74 | 640.8 | 688.9 |
| 15 | 54,993 | 55,195 | 82 | 76 | 670.6 | 726.3 |
| 18 | 66,911 | 68,741 | 88 | 82 | 760.3 | 838.3 |
| 21 | 79,895 | 83,638 | 94 | 88 | 849.9 | 950.4 |
This table only compares TO-Gloves vs. +3 Skill gloves and doesn't consider any other enhancing equipment. If Bramble or Facet Jewels come into play, things may look quite different. Poison Facets, Bramble and TO reduce each others damage increase. Example: With a perfect 50% Bramble the TO gloves boost ones damage only by 16,67 %. In such instances one would need a cast level 48 PlJ before the total damage boost from TO outshine the total damage boost from a +3 Javelin Skills magic gloves. To put it in SSoG's words:
(100% + A%p + B%p) / (100% + A%p)
A%p = '+ xx% poison skill damage' from already equipped gear B%p = '+ xx% poison skill damage' from the item you are considering to equip
The third possibility to enhance the damage are items with the mod -xx% enemy poison resistance. They enhance poison length (this is not displayed) and lower at the same time the resistance of nonimmune enemies. -xx% enemy poison resistance applies negative poison resistance and negative poison length reduce. Regularly a mob won't have poison length reduce, therefore the applied poison length will be extended by the stated percentage. E.g. a -100 % enemy poison resistance will extend poison length by 100% and thus double it.
The mod -xx% enemy poison resistance can not negate immunity, this is only achievable along with LR. The mod is available on Poison Facets (-3 to -5%), the unique Death Web (-40 to -50%) as well as on the RW Grief / EthTirLoMalRal (-20 to -25%) and the Set Bonus on the TrangOul Shield (-25%). The TO-shield is for Necs only and Grief's Lo is too expensive for its offerings to the Poisonzon. Death Web on the other hand is really interesting, since it has more -resist than 6 Facets. According to Balkoth's testing the mod '-xx% enemy poison resistance' is taken into account at the time of being poisoned. This means the mod is not calculated until the enemies are actually poisoned. How much '-xx% enemy poison resistance' one has at the time of casting PlJ or PoisJ is irrelevant. Important is how much '-xx% enemy poison resistance' you have at the time of poisoning.
Thus builds specially designed for poison gain the possibility to tremendously enhance the effectiveness of their poison damage. The Javelin flies some time and the cloud needs some time to spread. Subsequently the clouds stay for a few seconds, so that mobs are within the cloud for a while and more mobs may move into the area which the cloud is covering. This leaves enough time to change weapon slots after casting PlJ or PoisJ. Such a char would have a first slot for + skills and second slot for -xx enemy poison resistance.
According to Tub a Facet roughly equals a skill. Depending on the other equipment this is more or less correct. As estimate this approach is quite adequate. If you want to be certain whether a + Skill item or a Facet is better with the rest of your items, you'll have to calculate this yourself.
Any additional poison damage on the weapon or equipment affects only the physically hit enemies, not the poison cloud. Therefore Poison Charms and such are about the most needless items possible. The Poison Skills already do their work without hitting. If a mob is hit anyhow, the poison skill damage outclasses offhand the tiny amount one may get via items. Furthermore, while using ranged attacks, Facets don't enhance the poison damage from items.
Let's have a closer look at our Fairy's Toxic skills at the next page.
For questions, suggestions or criticism about this topic you may reach me anytime via E-Mail.
