Deathstinger should override your poison resistance

[friendo,,,]

It’s annoying to try out the poison build in late game just to find out you have to undo your poison resist celestial pills just to make deathstinger actually do something. It should just ignore your poison resistance and poison you anyway since that’s the reason you’re using it in the first place

[friendo,,,]

Well I just lowered my poison resistance and tried out the build, and the attack bonus from being poisoned is not even close to being worth the damage taken. So this is kind of a moot point I guess.

[Xengre]

Originally posted by friendo,,,:

Well I just lowered my poison resistance and tried out the build, and the attack bonus from being poisoned is not even close to being worth the damage taken. So this is kind of a moot point I guess.

For anyone wondering, and friendo, I think you need to do more testing (if even relevant at this point, maybe you already finished the game and got better gear...).

The bonus is actually pretty huge. Really, I'd consider it among the best armors until maybe chapter 6 or NG+, with only Pilgrim competing with it (both normal and fully upgraded OP pilgrim being very good).

Here are my stats I tested with:
Spider Celestial Staff
Spirit Father of Stones (superior dmg boost over Non-Able due to no mana penalty)

Smash Stance fully upgraded and any perks that work with it. Will use 3 charge focus attacks for all tests. Spellweaver also fully upgraded.

Without Centipede/Venemous Set Poison bonus:

Normal form:
Attack - 97
Crit Damage - 159%

Non-crit damage: 1,335
Critical damage: 1,915


Spellweaver form:
Attack - 162
Crit Damage - 159%

Non-crit damage: 1989
Critical damage: 3,129

With Centipede/Venemous Set Poison bonus:

Normal form:
Attack - 97 (poison buff makes it 140)
Crit Damage - 159%

Non-crit damage: 1,676
Critical damage: 2,244


Spellweaver form:
Attack - 162 (poison buff makes it 219)
Crit Damage - 159%

Non-crit damage: 2,693
Critical damage: 4,265 - 4,576


Note that damage can fluctuate, often within ~100 dmg range typically, but sometimes more for higher hits so this is mostly an approximation of comparison and not a precise Monte Carlo test with normalized results. You can see that in the final crit test result I did a few times just because the value increase was so high I wanted to be sure. The crit dmg lower range matched up with the prior non-poisoned spellweaver crit values and the attack dmg percent difference.

As you can see, the dmg is quite a big buff but it really only shines in a crit oriented Spellweaver build and you want a gourd that emphasizes good healing like the starting goard and monkey brew for this configuration.

Further, and this may be partially why you noted it as bad... There are two caveats to be aware of.
1. Poison dmg boosting skills / equipment do not boost the dmg even with the spider staves because they're not doing poison dmg. They merely inflict poison bane build-up. Further, if you are testing with poison boosting skills/curious it will actually boost the DoT from the poison on not only the enemy but yourself as well.
2. This particular staff is very powerful even without the poison application bonus, but it is also worth pointing the bonus doesn't even work properly. Either too many enemies are excessively resistant to it in the game (at least from when you get it until when I tested end of chapter 5 I only saw it proc a few times and never on any bosses... and the mobs it did would die almost instantly after from the huge dmg of the poison buffed 3 focus attack anyways rendering it pointless). Or it simply doesn't apply the buff properly consistently / wears off too fast. Either way, it is pretty much worthless. The healing bonus adds up though, despite being so small, if you are good at the game and using heavies (particularly charging attacks).

Overall, the staff is still a top pick despite the passive poison issue but not knowing the above facts can make the poison build appear worse due to killing you dramatically faster while not really doing squat to the enemy (not boosting staff dmg, nor applying the poison dot reliably to boost that). However, the dmg boost from the Centipede/Venemous set, alone, (with any staff, preferably a crit oriented staff) is pretty insane.


Fun fact:I also attempted to test using Loong Balm with the poison build and it does not work correctly with this build, at least not in the way you might think so if you aren't aware of the mechanics (or bug if not intended) you will not see proper benefit / results from it. For those wondering, it is a brew that "considerably increases the damage of the next attack" after sipping it. However, charging counts as an attack in the game... Thus it, literally, cannot be used with a charge attack. However, if you are willing to prep the focus from basic attacks (or pocket it by charging and then perfect dodge from the skill tree to keep the focus) you can then sip and use a powerful heavy attack. Further, it has NO synergy with Pilgrim armor's attack boon as you can sip while running with that armor and the mythical armor (final upgrade) builds focus points that do not count as attacks unlike charging focus via holding heavy attack. Sounds good initially until you test it and realize... it doesn't boost dmg. In fact, this brew actually glitches when coupled with Spellweaver + Red Eyes attack bonus passive on killing mobs while also getting the buff from Pilgrim running and then using this brew. It can result in attack reaching well over 400... but dmg does NOT increase at all.

(side note: I just want to say I am the fortunate lotto winner of two Thunderflame Seals in a row on the first two tests of this LOL)

[Xengre]

Additional testing and Spider Celestial Staff is more bugged then I originally thought. It isn't that the build-up is bad, but that the build-up glitches most of the time (even with the Celestial Birthstone Fragment which ignores enemy bane resistance). It simply caps and refuses to go higher than 20% build-up no matter how many 3 focus charged attacks you perform back to back (even shoving down instant focus pills to prevent delay for testing). Sometimes it doesn't glitch, but most of the time it simply does not build-up properly.

Still, considering the staff is among the best for such a long period if you go crit build I can't complain too much even ignoring that part of the passive.