Poisoning Skill and Offhand Weapon

Discussion in 'Feedback' started by Raven Swiftbow, May 3, 2021.

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  1. Raven Swiftbow

    Raven Swiftbow Bug Hunter

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    I may have submitted a bug report on this long ago, but it still vexes me that I cannot recall any solid resolution. Here's the scenario (and yes, one of my characters has this template):

    I've raised the Poisoning skill.
    I've raised Offhand Weapon skills.
    I do not carry anything in my "primary" hand (i.e. right hand).
    I carry a dagger in my offhand.

    Why can't I apply poison to the offhand weapon?

    IMHO, I should be able to apply Poison to the offhand weapon - particularly if that is all I'm carrying.
    [The character that this pertains to is a 'ninja-pirate' character who uses archery or dagger, depending on the situation.]

    And here's a related situation/question (which I have on another character):

    I've raised the Poisoning skill.
    I've raised Offhand Weapon skills and I carry a dagger in my offhand.
    I carry a wand in my primary hand (counted as a bludgeon weapon) - but I have no skill points in Bludgeon.
    In this situation, I can apply poison, but it is obviously only applying to the wand in my right hand.

    Since I have no points in the Bludgeon skill, does this negatively impact my chances of successfully poisoning my opponent?

    Or does the weapon skill not count at all (whether or not I've trained it) and it's all based on the Poisoning skill?

    If the concern is to keep a "double poisoning" from occurring, could the game "check" to see if only one weapon is being held and, if so, apply the poison to that one weapon? Or perhaps it would be easier to (a) check if 1 or 2 weapons are being carried; then (b) if 1, apply full poison to that; if 2, apply 'half poison' to each weapon?

    Anyway, is it a bug? Or are there good reasons (and there might well be) for it being the way it is? There may have been discussion on this in the past - if so, apologies. I didn't want to input this as a bug, since I think it may have been addressed in the past. This overloaded brain of mine just cannot recall the answer!
     
    Last edited: May 3, 2021
  2. Sorgin Txakal

    Sorgin Txakal Avatar

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    I find this very odd especially since every dagger I can remember seeing has a poison effectiveness bonus. Daggers in general are very hard to justify using, especially now that shields got increased ranged block chance and the attack range on daggers is so low you're lucky to hit anything with them that you aren't actively standing inside the mesh of.

    In general I am pretty underwhelmed by the poison options that are available and lack of the ability to throw a poison or small poison cloud AOE consumable (someone will have to explain to me why arrows aren't made to give a disease effect instead of a poison effect - I don't believe there is a single instance in history of a crossbow delivering poison or any post-broze age culture using poison arrows). I hope someday we'll get creatable & consumable throwable daggers, tomahawks, and javelins for the offhand that can be used to close distance as well as apply poison reliably. I'd gladly spend the equivalent of 1/3 of an iron/copper ingot & 1/3d of a wooden pole and a leather strap per dagger/tomahawk/javelin - it it would allow me to damage flying creatures without swapping decks and gear midbattle.


    Something I think would bring a lot of value to the cooking tree would be if poison making got moved from enchanting to cooking and cooking got some new skills to enhance poison making. This would make poisons make more sense in lore (as you aren't magically brining out the poison effects of items) and very easy skills for the cooking tree would be in enhancing poison effectiveness of poisons created (e.g. concentration/fermentation) and possibly a very small and growing bonus chance for an additional food or poison created (conservation/creativity).


    Perhaps as the devs give some more thought into how stealth based gameplay should work and refine the skills for it, poisons & diseases will get a pass as well.
     
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  3. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

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    Aye, poison won't apply to an offhand weapon (and the poison buff is removed if you remove the weapon you were carrying when it was applied), but its effectiveness is based only on the poison itself, multiplied through any effectiveness bonus on your weapons. This stat stacks from the offhand, even though offhand attack doesn't apply poison to a mob. The skill only affects the duration for which it lasts on the blade. Amusingly, you seem to douse everything but the offhand weapon in poison, as it can also be applied to a mob via body slam.

    My guess would be it's a slightly dated balance decision since poison builds (usually dual daggers) can become powerful. Corpion Poison mixed with a high attack speed and large poison effectiveness bonus adds a lot of DPS as is. Dual daggers add 100% poison effectiveness, taking Corpion Poison to 20-42 damage per hit, or an average of 31 damage per hit.

    A lot of dual wield melee power comes from offhand attack which can land every 0.83 seconds when tactics spec'd, meaning you could get another 37dps out of it with Corpion Poison. Even with the much greater damage available to builds these days, there are a lot of folks for whom that would be an easy 10%+ DPS boost, adding a lot of power to an already incredibly powerful skill.

    I'm guessing a modern dual dagger build could hit burst damage of 750-1000dps without too much trouble (depending how crafting changes go I'll be respecing into one soon), so it would be a much smaller percentage of overall damages these days. Still enough to make corpion worthwhile over festering death on most mobs though, which is the case even for high rate of attack polearms builds, despite poleamrs giving only half the poison effectiveness of daggers.

    And Aether Corpion Poison's a whole other category. That + dual daggers + torpid can be fantastically fun for those inclined to PvP.
     
    Last edited: May 4, 2021
  4. Raven Swiftbow

    Raven Swiftbow Bug Hunter

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    Interesting perspective @Coswald_Dirthmire. I wish they would either clarify how it's working (I think your theory is likely correct, but I would love for them to confirm it), or explain their thinking on it.
     
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  5. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

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    For sure! I would also be glad to hear their comments on it, it's entirely possible I'm off the mark.
     
  6. Vesper

    Vesper Avatar

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    Out of curiosity, what is the rationale behind not using a main hand weapon, and dagger in the offhand?
     
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