Toxicology Badge

[JayohPlaysThoYT]

why the nerf in the toxicology badge? didnt it give more poison damage while equipped to make up for the gas invulnerability? Now i dont see any point in wearing it if we take damage from BOTH gas and poison that was perfectly fine the way it was i dont get it and its not like its east to get early game unless you play non stop for hours which i cannot do because of work or i would, took me over a week to get into the water lab and grab it

[pcdeltalink]

Problem I have with the nerf is playing on Whoa difficulty my gas mask was good for one (yes, ONE!) stinkbug kill before it needed repairing. And that’s if I avoided its gas cloud during the fight when I could. We either need a buff to gas mask or a higher tier one with more durability.

And the patch to double armor durability doesn’t help much when it’s like “Ok, so now I can kill 2? Wonderful. Thanks.”

[Mrrshan68]

Well i can understand why they did it. The badge made gas masks 100% useless, there was zero reason to ever use one once you got the badge.
I mean i guess you can say the same for firefly helmet and torches but thats kinda more necessary or you cant use bows/2h weapons in the dark at all.
90% protection is still very good, i mean thats probably cancelled out by bandage healing? worst case get a mosquito rapier or a tick macahuatil and you should have zero hp problems with the badge and no mask.

I mean i also liked just yeeting my mask and using the badge but apparently they want more survival elements.

hrmm i am curious tho, does the toxicology badges 90% resist affect how quickly gas masks take durability damage?
cause it seems like mask durability goes down slower in the haze compared to a stinkbug cloud.
Is there some relation between damage mitigated/durability used? if so toxicology badge is probably still good since it would make your gas mask last 10x longer?

[theguru143]

I don't see how it's 90% resistance. I went in to the haze area with red ant armor and this badge and in a minute I was just below 50% hp. I have 1 upgrade to hp with molars AND I was using meat shield mutation as well and I had to go all that way back to my base to make a silly gas mask instead. This badge is useless in it's current state

[Jaggid Edje]

This thread is making me glad that I plugged the haze.
Shame on obsidian for doing this nerf and not properly testing its effects.

[MeGa]

Would it work better if combined with Fresh Defense mutation, that gives 75% gas inmunity?

[GamingWithSilvertail]

Originally posted by pcdeltalink:

Problem I have with the nerf is playing on Whoa difficulty my gas mask was good for one (yes, ONE!) stinkbug kill before it needed repairing. And that’s if I avoided its gas cloud during the fight when I could. We either need a buff to gas mask or a higher tier one with more durability.

And the patch to double armor durability doesn’t help much when it’s like “Ok, so now I can kill 2? Wonderful. Thanks.”

The whole problem is thjat the whole durabillity system is not good on this game. Thats why I turned durabillity off.

And, there's a cheese for stink bugs if you have red and armor, its free loot. Simply pull one of the stunkbugs near the red anthill to the anthill. Will net you lots of red ant parts, as well as sb parts.

[(N☆G) Jackal ★JJ★]

Originally posted by GamingWithSilvertail:

Originally posted by pcdeltalink:

Problem I have with the nerf is playing on Whoa difficulty my gas mask was good for one (yes, ONE!) stinkbug kill before it needed repairing. And that’s if I avoided its gas cloud during the fight when I could. We either need a buff to gas mask or a higher tier one with more durability.

And the patch to double armor durability doesn’t help much when it’s like “Ok, so now I can kill 2? Wonderful. Thanks.”

The whole problem is thjat the whole durabillity system is not good on this game. Thats why I turned durabillity off.

And, there's a cheese for stink bugs if you have red and armor, its free loot. Simply pull one of the stunkbugs near the red anthill to the anthill. Will net you lots of red ant parts, as well as sb parts.

Thats not really a good way to deal with the stinkbugs... a single one will pretty much wipe out the entire ant colony, you have to to help them out with either firing arrows or putting a gasmask on which means the ants will aggro you.

[blackphoenixx]

I don't think i've ever used a gas mask to fight stinkbugs. Or the ants. It's completely unnecessary.

You can kill a stinkbug on medium with 4 thrown pebblet spears if you have javelineer 3 and wear an eyepatch (7 spears without either).
You can throw them fast enough that they don't even get an attack off most of the time, and never more than one.

Even if they do just taking one or two ticks of gas damage as you run out of the cloud won't kill you even without fresh defense, and unless your aim is atrocious it won't get another even on whoa.

It works the same with melee (it just takes longer) - instead of standing in the cloud like a moron just run out of it, the stinkbug will follow you and both of its gas attacks have cooldowns.

I don't feel it's worth wasting an inventory slot on a gas mask when one of the smoothies you're carrying anyway will do to heal up any scratch damage you may take.

[Space Dandy]

Toxicology badge is for stink bugs and dust mites.

Mask is for Haze.

[Space Dandy]

Originally posted by GamingWithSilvertail:

Originally posted by pcdeltalink:

Problem I have with the nerf is playing on Whoa difficulty my gas mask was good for one (yes, ONE!) stinkbug kill before it needed repairing. And that’s if I avoided its gas cloud during the fight when I could. We either need a buff to gas mask or a higher tier one with more durability.

And the patch to double armor durability doesn’t help much when it’s like “Ok, so now I can kill 2? Wonderful. Thanks.”

The whole problem is thjat the whole durabillity system is not good on this game. Thats why I turned durabillity off.

And, there's a cheese for stink bugs if you have red and armor, its free loot. Simply pull one of the stunkbugs near the red anthill to the anthill. Will net you lots of red ant parts, as well as sb parts.

Durability was doubled for almost all items.

[Jaggid Edje]

I think they really screwed up by nerfing this badge. If their reason was so that the gas mask still serves a purpose, they should have just moved the badge so you don't get it so early.

The only time I ever used the badge was for the haze. As someone already said above, you don't need a badge OR a gas mask for stink bugs. The only time other than the haze that I equipped the badge was my first time into the wood pile, until I made the termite chest piece.

[Xuhybrid]

I think Toxicology needs to stack with Fresh Defense. That way you're committing a mutation slot and your accessory slot. Plus you need a T2 hammer to even get Fresh Defense. This seems like a reasonable balance change but apparently they don't stack right now.

[JayohPlaysThoYT]

Originally posted by pcdeltalink:

Problem I have with the nerf is playing on Whoa difficulty my gas mask was good for one (yes, ONE!) stinkbug kill before it needed repairing. And that’s if I avoided its gas cloud during the fight when I could. We either need a buff to gas mask or a higher tier one with more durability.

And the patch to double armor durability doesn’t help much when it’s like “Ok, so now I can kill 2? Wonderful. Thanks.”

I play on whoa mode as well but im solo so its even harder for me at times especially when im learning everything about the new update since full release. I work full time and have 5 kids so the little bit of time i get to game i cherish but my point is i dont have the time to grind like i wish i could thats why that badge helped me out when it came to getting stuff like infected parts from infected bugs without dying before i could obtain the proper gear.

[pcdeltalink]

Ok, I did some testing with how haze and stinkbug clouds work with this update and the changes to the toxicology badge. Whoa! difficulty (if that matters for environmental hazards) Also, I have 3 health upgrades so far so that's +65 health (I think?) over base health. These times would be shorter for someone just starting with the base health.

It was also somewhat difficult to get exact times on some of these numbers so those will be listed as approximately (approx).

Haze zone survival times (just standing in haze cloud)
31 seconds without badge
41 seconds with badge
41 seconds with Fresh Defense lvl 3, no badge
41 seconds with Fresh Defense lvl 3 AND badge

Stinkbug cloud
10 seconds with nothing equipped
22 seconds with fresh defense lvl 3
75 seconds with badge
75 seconds with fresh defense lvl 3 and badge equipped
165 secs (approx) with badge, bandage healing active (healing is maxed at 175%)

Gas Mask durability testing (just standing in Stinkbug cloud)
60 secs (approx) Gas Mask, not upgraded
70 seconds (approx) Gas Mask lvl 5

Stinkbug Kills
Using Ant Club lvl 5 as that is a reasonable weapon to have when first dealing with these things, combat mutations disabled

2 kills with non upgraded mask (will break during 3rd)
3 kills with lvl 5 mask (will break during 4th)

Fresh Defense mutation and/or badge did NOT improve durability of gas mask.

Conclusion
For defense against haze itself, the badge is worthless, barely extending survival time by any meaningful amount. It also does NOT stack with Fresh Defense in any fashion to reduce damage from gas.

Stinkbug clouds are difficult to test accurately as they have 2 clouds: the belly flop cloud and the slower windup and release cloud. The slower cloud does more durability damage to your gas mask than the belly flop cloud. If you back off when you see the slower windup cloud being started your mask will last a bit longer (maybe enough for one extra kill). I could not see a difference in health damage compared to the two clouds.

Badge does significantly extend survival time against Stinkbug clouds, easily supplemented with healing and is still decent to take them out with. I don't have any Green Stinkbugs around at the moment so I could not test those. Am also unsure if their gas does more damage compared to normal Stinkbugs.

[Xuhybrid]

Originally posted by pcdeltalink:

Ok, I did some testing with how haze and stinkbug clouds work with this update and the changes to the toxicology badge. Whoa! difficulty (if that matters for environmental hazards) Also, I have 3 health upgrades so far so that's +65 health (I think?) over base health. These times would be shorter for someone just starting with the base health.

-snip-

Kinda depressing and unusual that a level 5 gas doesn't add time equivalent to the durability increase. That makes no sense. Also, the badge barely working on Haze is laughable what even is that? 31 to 41 second? Looks like this change to 90% unearthed some untested and buggy mechanics with Gas Resist.