Major concern out Poison Damage?!?!

[talukita]

Alright since Witch Doctor has lots of Poison skills, my question is: Does they stack with each other (since in D2 only Poison with the highest DPS count)? Like if we have multiple WD in the party and all use poison skills, will they stack with each other? Or I use Acid Cloud with Lob Blob Bomb, do multiple slime stack their poison aura with each other or not? And on top of that, does poison dmg crit? I hope that someone who has already played the beta can give me some information about this.

[HardRock]

These question is more about DoT damage in general, not just poison damage, since there are several skills that deal instant poison damage.

I'm not in the beta, but I watched lots of videos, so let me try to answer your questions.


Does they stack with each other (since in D2 only Poison with the highest DPS count)?

Like if we have multiple WD in the party and all use poison skills, will they stack with each other?

DoT effects should stack if the sources are different players, even if they used the same skill, otherwise they will become inferior to instant damage skills in groups. Since the devs really want to encourage group play I think DoTs will stack with each other in parties.


Or I use Acid Cloud with Lob Blob Bomb, do multiple slime stack their poison aura with each other or not?

I doubt it. In some videos I saw WDs using Poison Dart multiple times against a single enemy and the DoT part of the skill didn't seem to stack. Based on that I believe that DoT effects from a particular skill won't stack if it came from one specific player.

Haunt could be an exception though. I think I saw it's damage stacking in one WD video. It would make sense to allow that, since you can only stack 3 Haunts at a time.


And on top of that, does poison dmg crit?

I don't remember seeing any kind of DoT that did critical damage.

I suggest asking these question in this thread (http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8022784) on the beta forums as well.

[Marloe]

My understanding is that they would. "Poisoned" is no longer a status afaik, so poison damage can be either direct (frogs/charger) or DoT (locusts, etc). DoT damage (from multiple skills or AoE skills) OTHER than poison stacked in d2, so I'd imagine it could stack in d3.

[Musashi]

Hi all! I haven't found an answer to this yet either. My WD build would be completely dependent on poison stacking.....But on my own different poison skills stacking....not other players and not even the same skill stacking, but that would be nice to know as well.

Yes, it is actually a DOT stacking issue, but my particular build would be built around the overlapping poison effects of the various poison attacks.

I wanted to do it for thematic reasons.

Here is the build:
Gargantuan-Obsidian (Big Stinker)
Firebats-Obsidian (Plague Bats)
Acid Cloud-Alabaster (Kiss of Death)
Zombie Charger-Obsidian (Leperous Zombie)
Locust Swarm-Alabaster (Diseased Swarm)
Big Bad Voodoo-Golden (Rain Dance)

The idea here is to utilize during tough fights to sit in one spot using Big Bad Voodoo and drop all of these skills in rapid succession around me. I don't need therefore, each skill to stack on top of itself, but for my DIFFERENT attacks poison DOT's to contribute by stacking on top of the rest of the poisons.

Big Stinker for instance causes a cloud of poison to surround (aura like I assume) on the Gargantuan. Zombie Charger leaves behind a cloud of poison, Locust Swarm leaves behind a poison cloud...etc.

Essentially I wanted to have an area so saturated by poison cloud type effects that baddies would essentially melt as they moved toward me. Big Bad Voodoo was critical to ensure enough Mana to hit all of these skills at one time, one after the other and rinse and repeat.

BUT...that means each poison cloud effect has to kick in on the baddies...ie STACK.
Anyone know if this would work, it's by far my favorite build idea!

???

[pcguy]

That sounds really neat for the first two difficulties, but please keep in mind that in later difficulties, you may have to deal with enemies who are immune to poison damage.

I believe there is still a "poisoned" status that will trigger when hitting an enemy with a poisonous weapon. Multiple hits from the same weapon will only refresh the DoT's duration. Multiple hits will not stack the DoT damage.

Similarly, the Poison Dart skill works the same way - multiple darts serve to refresh the poison DoT that the dart adds. I do not know if the Poison Dart DoT and the weapon DoT will stack, but it seems likely.

Please keep in mind the difference between actual poison (burst) damage and poison damage inflicted over time due to the status "poisoned."