Enhancing Poison

DoT needs to be reworked in order for this to be good. DoT never ends up balanced, it's either extremely underpowered (in the case of poison and prebuff puncture), or extremely overpowered (in the case of poison arrow and buff puncture).

You're never going to strike a balance unless there are benefits to reducing the duration of the DoT (eg it applies damage faster, or has a special effect when expiring), as well as increasing its duration (eg, adds 'more' total damage based on the increased duration, or applies special effects once they've been affected for a certain amount of time).

If this isn't done it's going to be exactly the same as everything else; as much damage as fast as possible. Everyone is just going to go for high damage, followed by long duration. No one is going to choose long duration for any other reason besides stacking (assuming stacking is still possible), and no one is going to seek lower damage for other effects (eg, choosing a node with stun threshold reduction over higher increased damage, choosing freeze chance instead of just higher increased damage)

Adding nodes to the tree is great, but it's not actually going to fix the problem, especially when we're looking at increasing a conversion, which as is the case with chaos is relatively hard to achieve using just the skill tree (no jewels) as it exists now.

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ihasmario wrote:

DoT needs to be reworked in order for this to be good. DoT never ends up balanced, it's either extremely underpowered (in the case of poison and prebuff puncture), or extremely overpowered (in the case of poison arrow and buff puncture).

You're never going to strike a balance unless there are benefits to reducing the duration of the DoT (eg it applies damage faster, or has a special effect when expiring), as well as increasing its duration (eg, adds 'more' total damage based on the increased duration, or applies special effects once they've been affected for a certain amount of time).

If this isn't done it's going to be exactly the same as everything else; as much damage as fast as possible. Everyone is just going to go for high damage, followed by long duration. No one is going to choose long duration for any other reason besides stacking (assuming stacking is still possible), and no one is going to seek lower damage for other effects (eg, choosing a node with stun threshold reduction over higher increased damage, choosing freeze chance instead of just higher increased damage)

Adding nodes to the tree is great, but it's not actually going to fix the problem, especially when we're looking at increasing a conversion, which as is the case with chaos is relatively hard to achieve using just the skill tree (no jewels) as it exists now.

I seriously fail to see your point... Ummm duh everyone wants the most damage as possible... Who wants to do low damage? Like seriously am I just missing your point or what

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lunaticwoda wrote:

I seriously fail to see your point... Ummm duh everyone wants the most damage as possible... Who wants to do low damage? Like seriously am I just missing your point or what

The point is not just doing a lot of damage but also doing it very quickly. If it's a damage over time mechanic, especially a stacking one, then there is a lot more potential for them to miss a balanced mark and instead get something that's too strong and thus bad for the game or too weak and thus not used at all.

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lunaticwoda wrote:

I seriously fail to see your point... Ummm duh everyone wants the most damage as possible... Who wants to do low damage? Like seriously am I just missing your point or what

I'm always a person who opts for sub-optimal builds because I enjoy making up different things, but DoT as it currently exists in Path of Exile is a major waste of time, particularly when dealing with bleed or poison.

The mechanic as it exists now provides no extra incentive, unless the skill is over-buffed because it's unpopular.

DoT is inherently problematic if it is just adding damage, because it means you have to wait with mobs that you would otherwise just be able to kill instantly.

Every non-burn DoT skill (with the exception of PA, which needs a nerf) needs to be reworked and probably tweaked up. Maybe you could say except viper strike (which could benefit from a buff rather than a rework) - I actually like Viper strike as it exists, because ramping DPS is an interesting mechanic that other builds can't really use, with the exception of wincinerate which is terrible to play.

Even then, viper strike as a main skill sucks because it has no clear speed against smaller targets: ergo, viper strike isn't popular. There's no build, besides a long duration, fast attack viper strike that becomes more deadly the longer the battle. It is stylistically unique in its current form.

Instant damage is always better than delayed damage against enemies that you can kill quickly. And DoT won't stop being unpopular until they make a benefit to using it over direct damage, primarily focused on smaller enemies

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ihasmario wrote:

Every non-burn DoT skill (with the exception of PA, which needs a nerf)

See? DoT isn't pointless as a concept, it just needs to be strong enough, PA and pre-nerf prolif builds prove that.

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Rory wrote:

Poison Arrow will not be changed to use the new mechanics, and will be renamed to avoid confusion.

If you want to give the skill a name that fits perfect and is able to avoid any confusion you should name it: OP-PEWPEW

+3 lvl claw time?

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raics wrote:

See? DoT isn't pointless as a concept, it just needs to be strong enough, PA and pre-nerf prolif builds prove that.

Power doesn't infer purpose.

I like Damage Over Time as a concept, but it is riddled with problems. PA and pre-nerf prolif being an example. GGG knows this - that's why they're making changes. I think they should pull the concept from the game until they get it right, rather than continuously rebalancing with bandaid patches. Or alternatively put all changes into a large patch. Making durations matter would be the first big step they have to take (if they have the same vision as DoT as me).

I'd like to see more negative effects on the passive tree; slower projectiles, reduced skill duration. They would be build enabling: the latter for any DoT if it was made to be duration dependent (eg. making it more potent/fast at the expense of certain benefits)

Change to poison is great, because it has previously been an absolutely terrible mechanic. If they add flat damage poison it will end up like poison arrow, and if it's a percentage of the original hit you'll be better off just doing regular hits with faster skills. The Bino style prolif is good, but I think they can do more to it without invalidating a user designed unique

Uhhh.. Can't wait :D

Venomous Poison !!!


Make a "kiss", active skill gem, so we can love some monsters for those halloween lovers out there.

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ihasmario wrote:

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raics wrote:

See? DoT isn't pointless as a concept, it just needs to be strong enough, PA and pre-nerf prolif builds prove that.

Power doesn't infer purpose.

I like Damage Over Time as a concept, but it is riddled with problems. PA and pre-nerf prolif being an example. GGG knows this - that's why they're making changes. I think they should pull the concept from the game until they get it right, rather than continuously rebalancing with bandaid patches. Or alternatively put all changes into a large patch. Making durations matter would be the first big step they have to take (if they have the same vision as DoT as me).

I'd like to see more negative effects on the passive tree; slower projectiles, reduced skill duration. They would be build enabling: the latter for any DoT if it was made to be duration dependent (eg. making it more potent/fast at the expense of certain benefits)

Change to poison is great, because it has previously been an absolutely terrible mechanic. If they add flat damage poison it will end up like poison arrow, and if it's a percentage of the original hit you'll be better off just doing regular hits with faster skills. The Bino style prolif is good, but I think they can do more to it without invalidating a user designed unique

Oh, I think it's just a matter of hitting the sweet spot between 'OP' and 'not worth the wait', and the target area isn't really all that small.

Tell you honestly, I don't actually dig their poison stacking idea either, it's just giving it a warmup time before it starts to do any substantial amount of damage, which would only exacerbate the waiting issue. Maybe a new type of mods 'poison works % faster' would be interesting because it would multiply dps at the expense of duration like we have for ignite on some uniques.