Question/Help on PvE Poison build please

[LLoyd Christmas]

I am trying a a poison build and got up to getting 2x Mytha’s bent blade on my first game and saw some people also use Poison mist and Toxic mist in some situations.

What is the difference between the two spells, and also, does it matter which Pyromancy flame I use and/or upgrades to increase the poison buildup or damage?

Wanted to know before deciding to upgrade them or what not.

Thank you

[JellyPuff]

Toxic Mist inflicts Toxic instead of poison. It's poison, but stronger. Mytha's Bent Blade also inflicts Toxic, instead of poison. AFAIK there are no other spells or weapons, that can inflict toxic.

You stats or what level your Pyro Flame is at makes no difference in how strong Poison/Toxic Mist are. Well, i guess having more ATTN gives more casts, but that's true for pretty much all spells.

Dark Fog is also worth a look. It's a hex, but it's like Poison Mist with range. It shoots out a projectile, that creates a poison cloud when it hits something. You can aim it with Binoculars for ranged-cheese. You can use Simpleton's Spice & Sceptic Spice at Magerold (the Iron Keep merchant) to make it's requirements as low as 10INT+10FTH if you don't want to level those stats. Stats don't matter for that spell either.

Having a backup for when you fight poison-resistant enemies wouldn't be a bad idea either. Try the Manslayer. It still fits your theme/build. It has very good scaling and base damage, even if you infuse it with poison. It even retains most of the dmg bonus from Ring of Blades. IMO it's a top-tier weapon, because it's still a 150 counter-damage katana.

[Decimus Maxentius]

Also worth to mention that Toxic and Poison stack together. For example you can inflict Toxic status on enemy and then inflict Poison status as well, and the enemy's HP will go down twice faster and more.

[RUNZZZON]

the difference between the two is that toxic mist drains the enemy's health faster than poison mist.

from what i can gather, using a poison weapon alongside poison mist builds up the enemy's poison meter faster, but the same can be done with toxic mist if your weapon deals toxic buildup. it's supposedly also possible to afflict an enemy with both poison and toxic at the same time. since you're using mytha's blade, which deals both toxic and poison buildup at the same time, you can either try applying both statuses to the enemy using both spells or just use toxic mist and forget about poison mist.

and it doesn't matter which pyromancy flame you use for the mist spells and upgrading the pyromancy flame won't affect them; upgrading either pyromancy flame just increases its scaling and fire damage and that's it.

you can't infuse mytha's blade with anything so might aswell just upgrade it like you normally would to increase the weapon's poison stat.

[Crypto Gamer]

The mist+Dark fog spell afaik does not scale with the casting tool upgrade lvls.
Use the Fastest casting tool.


Very few things can apply toxic and more things can apply poison.

Mytha’s bent blade is the only source that can apply both at once.

The poison attack bonus only increases the build-up(speed) of the status effect it does not increase the total dmg.

But poison will deal around 1080 dmg while Toxic around 1485 dmg under 20 seconds.
Both deal 15 dmg per "tick".

A foe can be under both status effects.

Weak foes are not worth poisoning.

You can also buy unlimited poison arrows for 60 souls each.
They are good even with a +0 bow.

At 25 dex with no poison bonus gear, I could poison a Giant with 4 poison arrows on NG.

Most bosses during phase transition animation. Eg. Smelter Demon going into Phase 3 take vastly reduced dmg from the usual dmg types.

But there is no reduction for status build up and they deal the same damage even during those animations.

Some phase transitions can last for like 3-4 seconds during that time you can easily proc status effects on them as they stand still.

Some enemies are very resistant or downright immune to poison.
All Skeleton types are immune to poison.

So make sure to have backup weapons.

Manslayer is nice damage even with poison infusion.

If you have good dex Katanas or curved swords are good too as a backup againts poison immune enemies.

[NightmareGats]

Don't forget the rat covenant ring and those gloves, they add poison damage build up.
A good weapon for poison, is poison manslayer, poison spotted whip and poison Chanellers trident.
Ahh nvm, it's for pve

[RUNZZZON]

Originally posted by NightmareGats:

Don't forget the rat covenant ring and those gloves, they add poison damage build up.

you mean the sanctum soldier gauntlets right? although those gauntlets are in a dlc location and the enemies that drop them are immune to poison so OP will have to use a different damage source to kill them. i recommend using the stone ring against them to make farming them easier

[LLoyd Christmas]

Sorry for the late reply but thank you all for your replies, very detailed.

I found the dual Mytha’s were fun, but also wanted to try something else as well or respec.

Is the Sanctum mace pretty good for PvE? I heard a lot of good things. I know it poisons you as well, but with armor/poison resist rings I hear it can kind of shred.

[JellyPuff]

Originally posted by LLoyd Christmas:

Is the Sanctum mace pretty good for PvE?

Yes, very much so. It's a big bonk stick with good AR that deals strike damage, which is always good in PvE, because most enemies are neutral or very weak to strike-damage.

The poison is more of a gimmick though and you will rarely see it proc outside of bosses that can be poisoned, because most enemies will just die from all the bonking.
It's got a fun 2H moveset though which can help apply poison, since it has some lance-moves if 2-handed, like the "paintrain" multi-hit attack (it still deals strike-type damage). It'd be cool if it also had a 1H-paintrain like lances, because it has much less recovery but imo it's still fun.