Pestilent Strike

https://youtu.be/ZvFlnBGQU6Y

All I saw was a terrible clear speed and an uncomfortable skill. And there is no compensation for solo targets..

I completely dissagree with the clearspeed..
Ancestrall call and melee splash make this quite nice with good poison dmg! My pestilent striker is quite ok. And faster than the one in the movie, or at least feels like it.

But for bossing i switch to viper + melee phys + multistrike

I might be wrong but I have the feeling the debuff even stacks?

So anc call hitting 3 enemies, killing them with remaining poiaon, all applying the debuff to the other enemies, stacking on the same. But unsure about this.


Other than that, it's not completely supposed to be single target as the debuff works a bit like proliferation?

So, the worst of the 3 'new' poison/chaos skills.

I finally gave it a shot and - as expected - it is 'fine' to some extent but once you take few steps back and compare to alternatives it is simply a bad choice.

lvl 80something, mid-tier gear, nothing special but should be good enough for endgame with minor adjustments. the same tree everyone uses (diversity.. yay!)



Mechanics:
Highly confusing and 'worth it' only for a very specific span of damage vs mobs' health ratio. If you deal too much damage: mobs are dead anyway, if you dont deal enough damage: mobs wont notice the pestilence explosion.

During the levelling and equipping end game gear there were periods of time when the skill felt 'just right' but few levels/maps/upgrades latter i outgrown the content and viper strike and pestilent strike again performed in a similar way.

The murky waters of POE's mechanics are in play again. Nowhere you can find info (confirmed info!) if poison explosion poisons or not. Nor you can find info about ways of scaling it that actually work. Like with most DoT skill in this game - it is playing by instinct. PoB numbers (even with identity's fork) are highly dubious and dont match the ingame performance.

That makes the experience.. unrewarding. You do something, stuff dies, you dont really get to know why and how to improve it besides mindless stacking of 'damage multipliers' there and there.

One thing is important tho: the most important stat is AOE. not Duration (my helm enchant is to be replaced with AOE one). Duration matters only in very rare cases of bosses having ads so you can spread the poison. For clear - it matters not, everything dies in .01sec anyway.

But AOE changes everything. Once i replaced my 6th gem with Melee Splash the build got new life. It is better than Ancestral Call (of i assume Tribal Fury or +1 strike - the build is UN?PLAYABLE without a source of extra strike hits, targeting in this game is garbage)


The visuals:

typical POE: something happens, lots of visual noise. one of the weakest areas of POE design (besides bosses and making melee junk) is clearness of its visual design. everything is distorted to the point of illegibility, with same-on-same-color scheme used EVERYWHERE. current Pestilent Strike visuals cannot be used to judge range/radius. they are impossible to read on anything but desert tileset.


The performance/gameplay:

facetank for 3 seconds to ramp up the poison (die if not careful because facetanking is a bad idea) run away and wait for boss to die. engaging.. not. there is very strong disconnect between player's actions and the outcome. most POE's DoT skills suffer the same thing. stuff just happens and noone REALLY knows why.

There are just two ways of playing poison nowadays: Bino's or Pathfinder. Most poison builds (ive tried Cobra/Venom Gyre as well) are 10x times better with one of the above. Pestilent Strike without poison prolif almost makes no sense at all. Diversity :) when pretty much all builds share the same skill tree, crafting approach and gem links.


All in all:

- poor visuals
- very rigid build. you follow it or suck
- no support gem variety
- 'strike melee'. the worst of POE in two words

- satisfying when in sweet spot of mob health/your damage.
- very cheap to start, level and gear for maps. 2x Wasp Nests, no mandatory enchant, damage coming from gem levels in huge lumps, cheap awakened supports
- easy swap for Viper Strike, much stronger single target skill. luckily uses exactly the same tree, gear and gems but has good Threshold Jewel to propel your damage skyhigh if needed
- easy end-game crafting (metallic, corroded, aberrant in 3socket resonator -> spam it on claw base of your choice, youll get good enough weapon in ~5 tries)

Final verdict:
would not play it again

update:

got to 93+, killed everything A8, Kurgal etc

for people poised on playing 'strike melee' and for some reason unwilling to get THE weapon (saviour) this might be a good choice.

Clear speed: if you use +strikes and melee splash (awakened ofc is nice) - YES

Single target: STRICTLY worse than Viper Strike. so you either waste time swapping gems or waste time killing slower. Damage is 'ok' with 'good' gear.

Very important: 'poison deals damage faster' is INCREDIBLY important, it does wonders to both single and multi-target

Surprisingly bad for Blights. why? because hitting these very small, gray-on-gray mobs rushing towards your Pump with a strike skill is garbage experience. Youll get EXTREMELY satisfying multiline clears only to get your pump murdered by some small spiderlings youve missed for some reason seconds later.

All in all this skill offers some 'oh wow' moments when you hit just right. BUT i cannot name a single thing this skill does better than Venom Gyre/Cobra Lash (with poison prolif ofc - you just DONT play poison without poison prolif) and trees for these skills are like 90% identical, the gearing is 95% identical so why play the subpar option?

Still one of the nicest 'strike' skills as all you need is +strikes and no melee splays for this thing to work. Splash makes clearing amazing but is NOT required.

Imagine playing heavy strike without splash..

9/10 in Stike Skills category
3/10 in 'General' skills category

Hello there,

I have an suggestion for "Pestilent Strike".

1: I like that skill, but there are some thing wich are not as good feeling in the gem.

1: clear with this skill is good, but it has not mutch melee range "standing so close is really dangerous".

1.1: how about improve the melee hitrange or a special move for more aoe? "thx"

2: boss fight possibilities feel bad, (If a debuffed enemy dies while poisoned, Pestilent Strike inflicts a secondary chaos damage over time debuff) doesnt work on bosses without minions around them.

2.2: how about to change it that the second debuff works like "Infernal Blow" or "Explosive Arrow" (with a timer or stacks or something so we can fight single target easier.)

3: please make it, that the skill not just enhance Chaos/Poison Damage, rather also some other sort of damage so it also is more effective against CI Characters.

kind regards
JeckNoTree

Viper strike can use swords but pestilent strike can't. Huhu.

t would be nice if we can use swords on pestilent strike. <3

Also I realise this is controversial, but being able to use either Viper Strike or Pestilent Strike with a higher variety of weapons/unarmed would be really beneficial - if only to allow some sort of access to chaos conversion. There's not many ways to convert to chaos to begin with that (even looking at elder/shaper/corruptions) other than your standard Voltaxic Rift and Consuming Dark (both of which were gutted ages ago anyway). Removing the restriction would go along way in opening up additional playstyles.