poison darts and inferno: why splinter?

[msde]

Why does everyone use splinter for a rune? Is the extra 20% damage that important?

It seemed to have a longer animation, making the effective dps lower. Was that my imagination? If not, doesn't flaming dart allow me to cast on the move more effectively?
In inferno, I'm always kiting. Doesn't that make numbing dart best?

[zUkUu]

they simply do the most damage (180%) and you have trice the chance to crit (tho lower).
and they cast as fast as any spell (but look faster / slower since it's split in 3 darts). get 2+ APS and you are a machine gun.

numbind dart and snake are both decent. for slowing / CC you have grasp, wall + slow, medusa spiders, hex, fear etc so you pick splinters for damage.

[RexCogitans]

Why does everyone use splinter for a rune? Is the extra 20% damage that important?

It seemed to have a longer animation, making the effective dps lower. Was that my imagination? If not, doesn't flaming dart allow me to cast on the move more effectively?
In inferno, I'm always kiting. Doesn't that make numbing dart best?

#1 Best dps.
#2 Less wasted damage, if you kill with the first or second dart, the last bit of damage isn't lost.
It does make kiting more challenging, but also improves your skill as a player. I find it fun and challenging.

Numbing dart may be better for kiting a single target, but if you have a chance to stun the first in a champion pack, the next two (or more), will just run past.

[Qvardz]

I really dislike the fact, that splinters are used all the way from level 6 to inferno because there is no good alternative. So much for "build variety"

[Zedy]

I do use the fire one when doing progression in inferno, I'm one of those ppl that cant skip a pack so when I run into Plagued + Extra Health I need something that's not poison damage if I don't want to get stuck for an eternity.

[Aradebil]

me personally only switched back to splinters at lvl 60,. i finished hell (excluding diablo) with firebomb (1st rune-->BOUNCE!), i love it, just 80% dmg is too low for single target

[LNTCarnage]

When you're in Inferno, things get kind of hectic and really tough. You no longer want to kill *multiple enemies* at once with your firebombs, instead you want to focus one enemy down one by one, in order to ensure more ease on yourself in cleaning up the mob.

If you are considering using Splinters, it also goes without saying, you need attack speed. at 2.0+ atk speed, your literally STRAFING the darts nonstop with no correction in animation, literally a strafe of darts, nonstop, WITH a chance of critting. I have about 40k Damage and I can crit 150% ATM, and enemies MELT when they get Grasped and solo targeted, they don't explode anymore, they Melt. Granted the percentage is not 100% or higher, but only 60%, you're still doing NUTT JOB damage.

To put things in perspective, 2.0 Atk speed means two rounds of Splinter Darts. 2 Rounds = 6 darts, Thus 6 darts does 60%x5 = 300% damage in 1 second. My crit chance is also at a 30%. So in 6 Darts 2-3 of them are likely to crit giving me 300-450% more damage. So numerically, and assuming the damage is the same (it isn't I know), the lowest I can do in 1 second is 300% with no crits, but the highest I can do with crits assuming two crits hit is 60 60 60 180 180.

I kinda went too far, but I enjoy my witch doctor so much, I just love hyping splinters. :].

[Zedy]

I might be missing something here..

I agree that splinters are the all around best rune, but the ones that say that it benefits more form crit are just wrong.

Lets assume that we have a new rune that gives 180% on one attack and then we have splinters that do 180 over 3 attacks. Lets assume we have 10% crit with 100% crit damage and 100 base damage for easy math.

The average 180% onehitter would do 180+(0,1*180)=198 damage.
The splinter would do a average of (60+(0,1*60))*3 damage= 198 damage

Now lets try another number what about 30% crit and 300% crit damage:

The average 180 onehitter: 180+(0,3*540)= 342
The average splinter: (60+(0,3*180)*3= 342
.
As I said splinters is the highest dps rune for the blow dart. But it's not because it gets a greater bonus from crit then the others, if we had another that did plain 180% on one attack it would get just as much from crit.

Please correct me if I'm missing something

[kimadactyl]

You're not. I just think people like seeing those big numbers pop up

The only thing you can say for it is the damage is more consistent, I guess. And yes, overall damage is higher than any other rune.

[zUkUu]

I might be missing something here..

I agree that splinters are the all around best rune, but the ones that say that it benefits more form crit are just wrong.

Lets assume that we have a new rune that gives 180% on one attack and then we have splinters that do 180 over 3 attacks. Lets assume we have 10% crit with 100% crit damage and 100 base damage for easy math.

The average 180% onehitter would do 180+(0,1*180)=198 damage.
The splinter would do a average of (60+(0,1*60))*3 damage= 198 damage

Now lets try another number what about 30% crit and 300% crit damage:

The average 180 onehitter: 180+(0,3*540)= 342
The average splinter: (60+(0,3*180)*3= 342
.
As I said splinters is the highest dps rune for the blow dart. But it's not because it gets a greater bonus from crit then the others, if we had another that did plain 180% on one attack it would get just as much from crit.

Please correct me if I'm missing something

you've to see the time factor here.

if you have 10% crit, you'll crit once / 10 attack. that's true for both, splinters and one-hit darts. however, with 2 APS you'll crit every 1,6 seconds for splinters while only once every 5 seconds for firedarts.

in that case, while splinters crit lower, they crit more often within the same time frame, because you have trice the amount of attacks and hence, trice the chance to crit. that's merely for the crit chance tho, damagewise it does not matter as you need 3 crits to compensate for one singledart crit.