Venom Sucks




Slight exaggeration. Venom is a useful skill, giving a good source of poison damage that works with all attacks. However, it's also one of the most overrated skills in Diablo II.

It is a widespread myth that the majority Whirlwind Assassin's damage comes from Venom and that physical damage is lesser and secondary. In fact, the opposite is true.

I'm going to compare 1-point Venom to 20-point Venom to show that maxing it is generally a waste of 19 skill points.
For the purpose of this comparison, I'm going to assume several things:

• +25 skills from gear that raise Venom
• Trang Oul's gloves are the only source of +% poison skill damage, proving +25% total
• We are using an Assassin competent at tri-whirling
• Our opponent has 75% poison resist
• Our opponent has 0% poison length reduction. Since poison length reduction suffers a -100 penalty in hell, poison duration will be doubled

With 1 point in Venom, we will have level 26 Venom to cast.
Level 26 Venom: 595 - 615 poison damage
The +25% poison skill damage bonus is applied twice: 929.7 - 960.9
Take into account 17% PvP penalty: 158.0 - 163.4
Opponent has 75% poison resist: 39.5 - 40.8
Double duration in hell: 79.0 - 81.7
Average damage: 80.4 poison damage

With 20 points in Venom we will have level 45 Venom to cast.
Level 45 Venom: 1250 - 1270 poison damage
The +25% poison skill damage bonus is applied twice: 1953.1 - 1984.4
Take into account 17% PvP penalty: 332.0 - 337.3
Opponent has 75% poison resist: 83.0 - 84.3
Double duration in hell: 166.0 - 168.7
Average damage: 167.3



Average damage at Venom level 26: 80.4
Average damage at Venom level 45: 167.3
Difference: 86.9

So, for 19 skill points, you gain 86.9 damage per hit. That's 4.6 additional damage per skill point.


However, it's worse than that.

First, if your opponent has more than 75% poison resist, the poison damage will (of course) be further reduced. If, for example, someone uses 85% poison resist, the additional 19 points in Venom will yield a 52.1 damage increase (down from 86.9).

Second, your opponent might use poison length reduction. Many GM rule-sets don't put any cap on poison length reduction, and, as such, someone might use up to 175%, reducing your poison damage to an eighth of what it was. Even less extreme amounts of poison length reduction can significantly reduce Venom's damage.

Third and most significantly, if you do good tri-whirls, you will hit hit most characters far more frequently than once every 0.8 seconds (which is Venom's duration). Whirlwind has the potential to hit with both claws every 4 frames (0.16 seconds). This has several implications. If both claws hit on the same frame, Venom still does the same damage, so effectively, you're dealing half the damage per hit that you could potentially do. However, even if both claws do not hit on the same frame, it is completely possible (likely in many circumstances) that you will hit again within the next 0.8 seconds, thus re-applying Venom before it can deal all it's damage.


Conclusion:
Build your Assassin around fucking physical damage. Venom sucks.

This post was edited by drt1245 on Jul 11 2010 01:35pm

tl;dr

ty 4 rate

/thread

Seriously though, 86.9 average damage is superb against ES sorcs.

This post was edited by Synonym on Jul 11 2010 01:27pm

Average damage at Venom level 26: 80.4
Average damage at Venom level 45: 167.3
Difference: 86.9

which is more than the double lol..

anyway wwsins should always max venom, it's rather a weakness for your opponent to get psn res

about time someone else agrees with me. i havent maxed venom on any of my sins (other than ghosts) in a long time. i much prefer max mindblast

One thing you might want to do if you feel up to it... compare maxing venom compared to maxing claw mastery. I have tested maxing one instead of the other and barely noticed a serious difference... but never did the math to see if it is because of a sins gameplay that the dmg difference is significant. Add that section or just pm me what you think

edit: max venom is a nice boost but i am saying that it isnt as necessary as people make it seem.

This post was edited by Soccergoal10 on Jul 11 2010 01:29pm

That's kinda my point. Double of a small amount is still a small amount.
That's about four damage per point.

And yes, ghosts should max it, since they've got plenty of points.




I've thought about it, but claw mastery makes things much more complicated. There's the AR bonus, for example. And if you want to take AR into account, you have to take defense into account as well, which depends on who you're dueling.




Yes, of course it's nice to have. But 19 points is a lot, especially on something like a hybrid. 4.6 damage per point is pathetic.

This post was edited by drt1245 on Jul 11 2010 01:33pm

you got the stat points for wwsin anyways

you might forget that a necro is one of the hardest enemies for a sin
maxing venom is more useful than maxing cm for e.g a hybsin