All About Poisons

[Henzukaya]

Although this is titled All About Poison, ironically, I did absolutely no testing with the Pink Rathian 3 piece bonus: Poison Duration up. Reason for this is that I highly doubt it's worthwhile to sacrifice 3 valuable armor slots for one measly, near useless buff. The reason I label it as measly and near useless is the following.

Poison damage kinda sucks.

Ok, now for an actual explanation and some in depth analysis. Poison damage, like the other status effects, builds up over time before inflicting the debuff. I did various testing to conclude the following:

There is nothing that will buff the damage of the poison induced. Venom skill, Critical Status bonus, Apothecary Mantle, these will all increase the rate at which it will build up, required to poison the target, but do nothing for neither the duration nor the damage of the debuff itself. It is for this reason, I deduce that Apothecary Mantle purely for poison is a massive waste of a valuable mantle slot. The damage itself, however, is interesting. Poison damages a total of 10 times (or ticks) over the course of roughly 25 seconds. Again, the duration never changes, aside from with Pink Rathian Poison Duration Up, so the 25 seconds and 10 ticks, rarely changes. More on that later.

Now, nothing increases the damage, but the level of vulnerability to poison itself may lower the damage. Monsters with a 3 star rating will 20 damage every tick, and will take few strikes to become poisoned. 2 star rating will take 16 damage every tick, with a little more oomph required to poison them. 1 star is the hardest to poison, and takes 10 damage every tick. And an X, obviously, indicates they are immune to poison. That being said, only Zorah Magdaros is immune to poison.

I've tested against Low Rank, High Rank, and Tempered variances for different results. Only Low Rank monsters showed any difference. The poison damage inflicted on a Low Rank monster is halved. 10, 8, and 5 respectively over 10 ticks. Tempered will still take 20, 16, and 10 over the duration.

Now, there's one interesting case when it comes to poison. Xeno'jiiva. The newborn Elder Dragon has a 3 star vulnerability to poison (must have missed it's vaccinations), but with an interesting kick. All other monsters will take X damage over 10 ticks, inflicting X damage every 2 seconds, give or take. Xeno'jiiva takes 20 damage every 3 seconds for 2 minutes straight. That's 40 ticks, give or take. This makes poison against Xeno'jiiva sit in an interesting spot. More on that later.



Nerdy stuff aside, poison is situational, even glossing over the vulnerability ratings. First off, its damage is fixed, even in multiplayer. This means poison is best used for solo play, as the health bar is not affected in solo. Next is that while the target is poisoned, all that poison damage on your weapon becomes useless until they can be poisoned again. This makes it ideal as a support weapon type, to kick in some extra damage while you keep allies topped up.

Melee weapons aren't the only method of poisoning, but they're the best method, because their weapon doesn't wear out of poison. Light Bowgun, Heavy Bowgun, and the Bow can sometimes use poison, but as expendable ammunition. Due to the incredibly puny duration of poison on monsters, I do not recommend using poison ammo or coatings. It's just a waste, and still requires quite a few hits to actually kick it off. Paralysis and Sleep are so much more useful.

However, one last source of poison buildup exists in the game. The Poison Smoke Bomb. Think of it as angry Tranquilizer Bombs. You can go right up to any part of a monster and splash around some Poison Smoke like an Irritable Bowel Syndrome patient at Taco Bell. Usually 2 or 3 are required, depending on the resistance. Anyone can use Poison Smoke Bombs, and they will never wake up a sleeping target. They will draw aggro if used on a non hostile monster, even if you use the Ghillie Mantle.


Now, for the final verdict with poison; if you haven't guessed already, Poison Smoke Bombs against Xeno'jiiva are FANTASTIC. With the 40 ticks, at the cost of needing 4-6 Poison Smoke Bombs, its basically 800 free damage. Equipping Poison on your Palico can make this proc a little bit faster. Including Smoke Nuts and Toadstool you can carry on you for a total of 15 Poison Smoke Bombs, that's roughly 3 times you can poison Xeno'jiiva. 2400 free damage, at no cost of your weapons element or elementless buff. For ammunition based Poison (LBG, HBG, Bow), Xeno'jiiva is the only time I can advise using poison coatings and ammo against. In most other cases, poison is a rather weak affliction. Capcom might wanna look into giving it a buff, all things considered.

Hope you've enjoyed, or learned something. Hell, it'd be even better if you could contribute with something.

[Jethro]

TL:DR poison sucks, no matter how you look at it.