Poisonous Concoction

"The projectiles from Poisonous Concoction is ground-targeted and cannot pierce, fork, split or chain, only the explosion does damage."

I think it would be really nice if we could get a threshold gem that allowed the grenade to bounce with chains.

The skill would vastly benefit from a slight rework, all shotgunning should be removed and instead receive a 430% more dmg buff (the equivalent of losing gmp and greater volley), it will not only look and play way better, it will be able to benefit from the 300% dmg on first poison mastery, benefit from alchemist mark (which at the very least theme wise would fit perfectly) and it will create a much more fun and visually pleasing skill which it currently isnt. People are complaining that its dmg falls off hard in the late game, this will both help with clear (in terms of better prolif) AND especially in terms of single target which it needs the most from alchemists mark. Its a win win win situation.

Dragged out the back and shot like old yeller, not sure what it did to deserve this.

With heavy investment, and especially getting Resolute Technique on a good Sanctified Relic, Poisonous Concoction became really awesome for my Pathfinder.

The big thing with the change... is that it still requires GMP and Greater Volley and a high attack speed to do damage at endgame. At which point, it sucks down all of your Life Flask charges faster than a Pathfinder can manage. (Nobody else would even try.)

So realistically, almost no one using this skill will find it worthwhile to carry a Life Flask as it's always going to be empty. You can recapture some of the damage with a good utility flask, but you now have to find a way to replace life recovery.

I can get behind the case that the flask charge cost was seen as not high enough. I rarely wound up running dry on my Life Flask in 3.20, except perhaps in the hardest Maven Invitations. I could almost always use a Life Flask whenever needed.

So I can see a rebalance necessary. This seems a bit much, especially since the Flavor Text of the skill gem still operates under the assumption that players will have a Life Flask. When I just don't see a case where you would.

This feedback pertains non-pathfinder Pconc builds.
While searching for a skill to play in the Sanctum Gauntlet I stumbled upon Poisonous Concoction. I found it very enjoyable to play. An investment of couple flask nodes was required to not run dry on life flasks, which was a fair trade-off. I took it very far in gauntlet - https://www.twitch.tv/seeraxbot/clip/LachrymoseUninterestedSandwichEagleEye-IzXcvoCXg5zDCpIP

And a day later - https://www.twitch.tv/seeraxbot/clip/GenerousDeadCarabeefSSSsss-5UgZ6qchok9lweLv?filter=clips&range=all&sort=time

While my Pconc build on Ascendant got hit from multiple sides (removal of mana on hit from claw mastery, poison duration, lack of weapon to benefit from crucible), I decided to give it a try in 3.22 anyway.
A couple problems that I had to overcome while transitioning into 3.22:
- Fix mana cost
- Make sure life flasks can be sustained (necessity for me since I play on HC)

Previously I was sustaining the cost of Pconc from roughly lvl 30, without a clarity. Now I had to run clarity up till I got to roughly lvl ~80 where you get 5l and can sustain mana cost via leech. Fixed, albeit that slowed me down quite a bit.

Due to the nature of shotgunning, an increase of projectiles is the only way to play this skill which means you cannot really reduce the amount of projectiles and therefore the charges used to reduce the dependancy on various flask charge increases / charges reduction. That was the main objective to overcome.

First I looked at Alchemist's Mark. To say the least, this is lackluster for Pconc. A simple 1 flask recharge node already provides the same bonus. The dps gained by Alchemist Mark is negligible since with Pconc we are all about inflicting few dozens poisons rather than just 1. It feels really bad using Alchemist's Mark over Temp Chains or Despair so that wasn't an option.

I invested a bit more into flask charges gained to 8 charges per 3sec with 43% increased charges gained (in Sanctum I just needed 4 charges per 3sec with 25% increased charges gained). Even then this is still not enough. I went for Careful Conservationist annoint, that is better but still not enough. Switching from increased charges on belt to reduced charges used works better and now it's ok but still not safe enough to sustain life flasks which feels really bad, especially on HC. I even decided to roll with 2 life flasks to increase the pool of charges and basicaly double the recharge rate - still not enough.

In sanctum this skill was awesome to play - you couldn't just roll with it you had to invest a bit into flask charges generation which felt rewarding. In 3.21 even with heavy investment into flask charges/reduction and 2 life flasks it feels impossible to sustain life flasks (keep in mind I'm not running with some crazy headhunter Attack Speed to cause issues - just standard, a bit more defensive HC build). As it stands right now, Pconc only feels okayish to play on Pathfinder (due to 50% chance to not consume charges) which doesn't feel great if skill is barely viable only due to an ascendancy. If the change had instead been - Pconc uses 1 charge for every 2 additional projectiles shot (a total of 4.5 with GMP and Gvolley) - that would have been fine and with the investment I had made, a viable build could have been achieved. The change seems a bit too heavy handed and the usage of Pconc has dropped significantly since it's just not fun to play while constantly running dry on life flasks despite heavy investment.

In theme with my other suggestion for Explosive Concoction I wanted to suggest a slight rework to how Poisonous Concoction works.

Poisonous Concoction will take flasks charges from life flasks as before but can also take from hybrid flasks.

When taking a charge from a hybrid flask, Poisonous Concoction deals % more damage (based on flask tier) on unpoisoned enemies.

Alternatively another option could be to make the first poison applied to an enemy deal 60% of combined damage instead of the standard 30% when consuming a charge.

As a final suggestion in tandem with the above, Poisonous Concoction should be able to take charges from upto 3 flasks simultaneously (1 hybrid and 2 distinct life flasks). The second life flasks could perform the same function as the first or have an entirely different benefit when used.

This would be to facilitate and support the actual concept of "one poison" application that exists but as of yet feels highly unviable despite efforts. It would also help give more scaleable options for Poisonous Concoction than it's previous plain effect of overlap hit stacking (that was heavily nerfed).

As much as I would love to play Pconc, I just get sad whenever I look at the Flask Charges change that was introduced couple patches ago. I think a Transfigured versions are great opportunity to bring back some love to Pconc. While it makes sense that Poison is related to Life Flask, I think Amethyst Flask also fits the theme of Pconc. Here are my couple ideas.



Poisonous Concoction of Contamination
(changed) (26-598) to (39-895) Added Chaos Damage
(changed) 60% chance to Poison on Hit
(unchanged) +6% to Critical Strike Chance
(unchanged) Base radius is 1.8 metres
(removed) Consumes 1 Charge per Projectile Fired from 1 Life Flask, if possible
(removed)Added Chaos Damage equal to (3-11)% of Flask's Recovery Amount if Charges were consumed from a Life Flask
(new) Consumes 1 charge per 3 projectiles fired from 1 amethyst flask, if possible
(new) Added Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier equal to Chaos Resistances granted by Amethyst flasks (affixes included) if Charges were consumed from Amethyst Flask


(Additional Effects from 1-20% quality)
(unchanged) (1-20)% chance to inflict Withered for 2 seconds on Hit



Poisonous Concoction of Miasma
(changed) Throws a bottle that explodes to deal unarmed attack damage in an area and leaves Pool of Miasma. Can consume charges from a Amethyst flask to increase Damage and Area of Effect of Pool of Miasma. Pool of Miasma doesn't stack, instead subsequent Poisonous Concoction explosions in range increases the Area of Effect per explosion until it runs its course. Requires an empty main hand, and no off-hand weapon.


(changed) Attack Speed: 95% of base
(Changed) (39-1295) Added Chaos Damage
(removed) 40% chance to Poison on Hit
(removed) +6% to Critical Strike Chance
(changed) Base radius is (1.4-1.8) metres
(removed) Consumes 1 Charge per Projectile Fired from 1 Life Flask, if possible
(removed)Added Chaos Damage equal to (3-11)% of Flask's Recovery Amount if Charges were consumed from a Life Flask
(new) Poisonous Concoction cannot Poison and cannot apply Withered
(new) Poisonous Concoction leaves Pool of Miasma, dealing Chaos Damage over Time equal to 100% of combined Physical and Chaos damage
(new) Pool of Miasma gains temporary (3-6)% increased Area of Effect per Poisonous Concoction explosion in its range
(new) Consumes up to 5 charge from 1 amethyst flask, if possible
(new) Pool of Miasma gains temporary (2-6)% Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier and each second has (3-10)% chance to apply Withered per consumed charge from Amethyst flask

(Additional Effects from 1-20% quality)
(changed) Consumes (0.1-2) additional charge from 1 Amethyst Flask

Absolutely enjoying PCONC of Bouncing this league, however could you please address the sound issue. When you have high attack speed, constantly attacking, each chaining 11+ times, my ears. My bloody ears, it hurts, it's so noisy, it's all I can hear! This is a video I uploaded, POBs in the description, I can barely hear the boss sounds over the constant sound of a hundred vials eploding.
https://youtu.be/SpTSU5TcYdQ?si=zBEajO7nEYrabg_b

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Jixa87 wrote:

Absolutely enjoying PCONC of Bouncing this league, however could you please address the sound issue. When you have high attack speed, constantly attacking, each chaining 11+ times, my ears. My bloody ears, it hurts, it's so noisy, it's all I can hear! This is a video I uploaded, POBs in the description, I can barely hear the boss sounds over the constant sound of a hundred vials eploding.
https://youtu.be/SpTSU5TcYdQ?si=zBEajO7nEYrabg_b

I second that!