Split damage types are cool until one of the types is poison

[Dousiq]

The Jotun Bane axe will never be as good for general use as the Blackmetal axe because poison is so commonly resisted or negated. Only two enemies are vulnerable to poison and they're both in the mountain caves. Axe lovers are really going to be let down by this one - and it's not even useful for looking good while chopping down trees because it has lower slash than a blackmetal, unless the poison damage somehow contributes to the "chop" damage dealt to trees.

Also what's with the lack of a new 1h mace in the mistlands? You're telling me that the place with the most dwarves conspicuously lacks a 1h hammer-type weapon?

[Nascarman]

Originally posted by The Archivist:

The Jotun Bane axe will never be as good for general use as the Blackmetal axe because poison is so commonly resisted or negated. Only two enemies are vulnerable to poison and they're both in the mountain caves. Axe lovers are really going to be let down by this one - and it's not even useful for looking good while chopping down trees because it has lower slash than a blackmetal, unless the poison damage somehow contributes to the "chop" damage dealt to trees.

Also what's with the lack of a new 1h mace in the mistlands? You're telling me that the place with the most dwarves conspicuously lacks a 1h hammer-type weapon?

The jotun bane seems to be at least as strong at chopping trees as the blackmetal axe, and it might even be slightly stronger (chop damage is separate from slash damage). The damage counts are variable, but based on testing I’m certain it isn’t worse than the blackmetal axe at chopping trees, and might even be stronger.

[Bravely Bold Sir Robin]

All fulings take poison damage. Lox take poison damage. Wolves take poison damage, so do drakes (tested with draugr fang). It's only really swamp creatures that don't take poison damage, and that makes perfect sense (they take spirit damage to compensate). I haven't tested on mistlands creatures yet, but if seekers are all immune to poison, I doubt dvergr are, and ashlands creatures almost certainly won't be.

[M'Hael]

Eventually I will learn that the only weapon ever worth making is the 1h sword of each tier.

[Rhapsody]

Originally posted by The Archivist:

Also what's with the lack of a new 1h mace in the mistlands? You're telling me that the place with the most dwarves conspicuously lacks a 1h hammer-type weapon?

They've been present in every previous tier, it's okay to skip one, especially since Frostner is so effective even with its lower damage output.

Poison damage isn't that different from spirit damage. I haven't made jotun bane yet, but I think it's fine enough choice, fits the theme and it's a good choice for poison melee weapon since axe have their utility use too.

[Sprocket66]

Still seeing people using Frostner in the mistlands for the slow effect.

[M'Hael]

Originally posted by Sprocket66:

Still seeing people using Frostner in the mistlands for the slow effect.

Better off just using the black metal sword for the death effect.

[Dousiq]

Originally posted by Bravely Bold Sir Robin:

All fulings take poison damage. Lox take poison damage. Wolves take poison damage, so do drakes (tested with draugr fang). It's only really swamp creatures that don't take poison damage, and that makes perfect sense (they take spirit damage to compensate). I haven't tested on mistlands creatures yet, but if seekers are all immune to poison, I doubt dvergr are, and ashlands creatures almost certainly won't be.

IDK about the mistlands enemies, but 8 enemies are resistant (half damage?) to poison, 13 enemies are immune, and 3 bosses are immune. Also, damage over time will always be worse than up-front damage because you have to wait several seconds for the full effect and it's often wasted because you just hit them again before it'd run its course, killing the enemy.

[Bravely Bold Sir Robin]

Originally posted by The Archivist:

Originally posted by Bravely Bold Sir Robin:

All fulings take poison damage. Lox take poison damage. Wolves take poison damage, so do drakes (tested with draugr fang). It's only really swamp creatures that don't take poison damage, and that makes perfect sense (they take spirit damage to compensate). I haven't tested on mistlands creatures yet, but if seekers are all immune to poison, I doubt dvergr are, and ashlands creatures almost certainly won't be.

IDK about the mistlands enemies, but 8 enemies are resistant (half damage?) to poison, 13 enemies are immune, and 3 bosses are immune. Also, damage over time will always be worse than up-front damage because you have to wait several seconds for the full effect and it's often wasted because you just hit them again before it'd run its course, killing the enemy.

Sometimes 10 poison damage can be the difference. Countless times draugr fang poison would kill the drake after 2 arrows, instead of waiting for a 3rd. Also considering how people keep complaining about how tough late-game enemies are, a hit-n-run strategy using poison can be useful. Combat doesn't have to be parry-> Combo -> parry -> Combo, you can hit once, retreat, hit again, and let poison carry you against tougher enemes.

[Dousiq]

Originally posted by Bravely Bold Sir Robin:

Originally posted by The Archivist:

IDK about the mistlands enemies, but 8 enemies are resistant (half damage?) to poison, 13 enemies are immune, and 3 bosses are immune. Also, damage over time will always be worse than up-front damage because you have to wait several seconds for the full effect and it's often wasted because you just hit them again before it'd run its course, killing the enemy.

Sometimes 10 poison damage can be the difference. Countless times draugr fang poison would kill the drake after 2 arrows, instead of waiting for a 3rd. Also considering how people keep complaining about how tough late-game enemies are, a hit-n-run strategy using poison can be useful. Combat doesn't have to be parry-> Combo -> parry -> Combo, you can hit once, retreat, hit again, and let poison carry you against tougher enemes.

Killing flying enemies with poison is a no-brainer because they often flit off at speed (especially drakes) that makes it hard to do a followup hit, so yeah no crap it's useful there. But using hit and run tactics with melee on a seeker soldier for example is going to take an incredibly long time. They have an absurd amount of health and I'm pretty sure they resist slashing damage. That ~40 poison damage and subsequent damage over time is not going to make much of a difference when you could be parrying and comboing with the Frostner for like 80-100+ damage per hit and you have enough time to safely hit twice after parrying.

[Rhapsody]

Originally posted by Bravely Bold Sir Robin:

Sometimes 10 poison damage can be the difference. Countless times draugr fang poison would kill the drake after 2 arrows, instead of waiting for a 3rd.

That's a bit of an illusion, since the poison damage is part of the total weapon damage anyway, it's not an extra added damage or effect. For example, Draugr fang deals 56 pierce and 20 poison damage (by default, average skill) at max upgrade, Spine Snap deals 76 pierce damage plus 10 spirit damage at max. If we're looking at arrows, poison arrows deal more total damage over needle arrows, but the poisoning doesn't stack, so if you need to take two shots anyway, the poison won't make a difference there; some of its damage potential may even be wasted in case you need to take the target down fast instead of being able to wait for poison to take effect. Other than that, it just boils down to damage type resistances and minute effects like staggering (carapace and needle arrows cause vastly more staggering, but the effect is negligible or nonexistent against powerful foes).

So poison damage (and to lesser extent, spirit damage) is useful if you're going to make one attack at a time and then wait for the poison to run its course. You'll be wasting the weapons damage potential if you refresh the duration, since poison doesn't stack in duration or intensity AFAIK. With the jotun bane this would be accomplished by parrying an enemy, and using the secondary attack on them for maximal damage, then defending or recuperating. But there exists a lot of different combat situations. You may not have enough time (or stamina) to execute the stronger secondary attacks or wait for the enemy to die from poison, so the end results are again dependent on enemy resistances to damage type and the type of engagement in general. But, since most enemies, especially stronger, numerous enemies in the later biomes, are organic and not resistant to poison, and the total damage of jotun bane axe is like 10-15% higher than black metal axe, while using alternate materials (iron is rather plentiful in mistlands, black metal is not, but players may have large reserves of both), and both weapons have same durability, it may be worthwhile to switch to jotun bane even if its stamina use is slightly higher and you already have black metal axe. You can still use the previous axe as backup or give it to a friend who is still progressing. It may also be valuable at future stages of the game, and should make for a useful primary weapon against seekers thanks to high share of the elemental damage type, especially if you don't want to give up on the utility wood chopping ability of axes, although personally I prefer mistwalker sword while working in mistlands.

Poison can also be effective in revealing enemies through fog or mist since the green cloud effect is very visible even in adverse visibility conditions. Draugr fang and especially poison arrows can be very useful against gjall, and jotun bane might be more useful against soldier seekers than regular swarmers.