Now I haven't really played much (Had to play on my friends account), but I used poison dart non-stop. It seemed like one of the better spells, with the only downside being that it was single target.
Am I missing something as to why it's bad? It has decently high damage and can proc the poison passive. It also seems like it would be one of the better spells to spam on a boss, you'd run out of mana using the others.
Am I missing something that I couldn't have seen from the beta? I've never played the previous diablos, is it 100% group battles or something?
I think the main reason you find it missing is that while it is a good single target skill it has no penetration and if the boss has adds in front of him then the dart hits the adds not the boss. That aside it is a solid skill and will probably be used more often once runes become available in the real game play.
Another thing that can be brought up is your build is never set in stone.. so say your build does not use darts at any point you can switch to them and play around with it.
As far as its viability in Inferno.. I think it has its uses one of which could be that since in its static form it has poison damage it could be used as a pin point spell to prevent mob hp regen.
Edit Note: Added spacing, the block of text was unreadable
Well it's not that good for PvE. Since poison debuff can't stack lots of AOE spells will deal more damage to single target than PD, and as chip single target spammable i'd rather use Spirit Barrage (prolly with Golden rune to fill manapull faster).
What i like - is PD with Alabaster Rune. 31% chance to stun for 3 secs imho will be used a lot in PvP.
I agree it can be a slightly boring spell. Bats was indeed a lot more fun, but the range worried me that they might not be very viable on higher difficulties. Poison dart can hit people who aren't even on the screen.
I'll have to check the patch notes when they come out, or bribe my friend to let me try again once the patch actually releases.
This might be a different reason from others, but I find that the skill, even runed, simply doesn't have quite that much aesthetic appeal. Yes, I pick skills that are the best and most efficient for the build, but I do like to have a little bit of style behind my play as well. Sometimes, you just want something to look cool.
For example; the theory behind the Barbarian's play is completely contrary to what I usually do in Diablo. But the way the character plays out in Diablo III is so visceral and cool looking that I'm going to be forced to be spending a lot of time with that class. With the Witch Doctor having so many other visually appealing abilities, poison dart is sort of... blah.
Well watching videos from online, I can only assume that, the skill "Poison Dart" is not "bad" it's just not at it's prime with regards with utility. (Runestones).
When Runestones become available I'm 100% sure that Poison dart will be put into better use in the future.
Specially in PVP and in low-mana situations.
You can see the runestone effects here:
So to answer your question: You're getting as much as everyone else is going to get with regards to how far the usefulness Poison Dart will be (given it is also the first spell and it's spammable people will lose interest quickly in the first couple levels since you cannot utilize it yet). Since you've chosen to use Poison Darts for most of the fights (and RS's have yet to be released) it's only as strong as your weapon chooses it to be, and if you've been hunting around for weapons to increase the effectiveness of your Poison Dart skill it will only APPEAR to be much stronger, given for single target it is very strong, but how Diablo has been laid out for years, single targets rarely appear. Also skills such as: Zombie Charger, Plague of Toads, etc (list of AOE spells go on and on.) A well placed AOE spell is much more effective than a single targeted attack, prob from watching the video's you'll understand now my thoughts are on the topic.
Also I see that there is a cooldown upon changing spells, I just assume that people want to experiment skills and different combinations and just eventually got lazy when it came to going back to certain spells. (Poison dart)
(I have ignored everything that was written in reply by other posters, and went straight to answering the question) Hope I helped.
I think poison darts will gain more consideration as runestone come into play.
Flaming dart has good damage, splinters too (and it's not DoT anymore), Snake to the Face and Numbing Dart are tactital choice while Spined Dart is for resource management.
Unruned version is not so bad either, it deals damage as soon as it hit AND add damage over time (which could lenghten the duration of passives like Bad Medicine).
In the beta I used this spell quite a bit. It is god awful in aoe situations and has no use. But when i come across a single mob, or a really strong one I think it really shines. Using any aoe spell against say skeleton king is so slow in comparison and you will go oom in no time. Dart imo was the BEST single target damage spell. Its just situational and the situations do come up.
I haven't read the other spells or played with builds so perhaps there are better. Even if there are some that sound good in theory it's just theory. There spider jar spell sounds god awful in theory, to me anyways, but proved quite effective (again situational)
As far as i know from watching the Beta-Videos the Dart is kinda slow i doubt anyone will use it as a Mainspell in Inferno or Hell. Im not sure ofc as i havent played the Beta yet but it also seemed like you werent able to move in the 1-1,5 Secs you were shooting wich could cause real problems against both fast Units and huge amounts of Units. Also i dont want to be immobilized when some Boss is about to ram me or something like that.
It's also one of the only spells that has time to run built in, since it does it's damage over 2 seconds. Unruned bats has such a short range that I'm not sure it'll work out well on harder difficulties.
From watching my friend play the beta, there are a lot of guys who are stronger. I think he was finding one every 3-4 packs, and it took a while to take it down even with a single target spell.
The dot doesnt stack, so if you just keep shooting the same target it hits for almost nothing, and if there are multiple enemies, then single targeting them down one at a time is a horrible method to kill them.
As far as i know from watching the Beta-Videos the Dart is kinda slow i doubt anyone will use it as a Mainspell in Inferno or Hell. Im not sure ofc as i havent played the Beta yet but it also seemed like you werent able to move in the 1-1,5 Secs you were shooting wich could cause real problems against both fast Units and huge amounts of Units. Also i dont want to be immobilized when some Boss is about to ram me or something like that.
It's also one of the only spells that has time to run built in, since it does it's damage over 2 seconds. Unruned bats has such a short range that I'm not sure it'll work out well on harder difficulties.
From watching my friend play the beta, there are a lot of guys who are stronger. I think he was finding one every 3-4 packs, and it took a while to take it down even with a single target spell.
Who is going to be running around not using runes in higher difficulties? No one, thats who.
Look at fire bats, same cost and yet the runed abilities are far far far superior.
Unless they do something, this skill is totally usless outside of maybe pvp due to (Snake to the face).
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One is never hurt by being given additional choices, only by taking them away. A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
If any of you remember the Blizzcon pvp videos, there were a few witch doctors using poison dart. And they were really really hurting the other players, damage wise (no snakes to the face in the videos).
I think it will be a very useful skill even in PVE, the range is huge and the cost is very low, it'll probably be a downtime skill to use while the pets handle the mobs.
Barring the skill changes incoming I want to clear up the misconception that pets deal damage. The dogs deal extremely low damage but are very useful for maintaining the mobs attention. The Guargantuan will be better off than the dogs in terms of damage due to his runing options but still expect mediocre at best throughput. You take summons for the surviability they offer you, but don't expect them to do any kind of room clearing.
The range of spell when runed is less than that of crimson firebats and does less damage with a projectile, thusly making it inferior in every way excluding that golden dart is exceptional at maintaining throughput in a mana-starved environment.
I had it in my original build simply because i thought it would be a great move against single targets like you suggested. When watching my mate play though i noticed that firebomb was much more effective. sure it does less overall damage but being a bomb it can hit several targets at once. So when your looking at hitting 2 targets at 180% weapon damage you will end up using more mana than casting one firebomb and hitting anything within 8 yards for 155% weapon damage. not sure how the runes would go in these instances but seemed to me a lot of the mobs were generally grouped together. My other thought was that poison dart would be faster than firebomb but if there is a difference between the 2 it didnt affect my mate
I had it in my original build simply because i thought it would be a great move against single targets like you suggested. When watching my mate play though i noticed that firebomb was much more effective. sure it does less overall damage but being a bomb it can hit several targets at once. So when your looking at hitting 2 targets at 180% weapon damage you will end up using more mana than casting one firebomb and hitting anything within 8 yards for 155% weapon damage. not sure how the runes would go in these instances but seemed to me a lot of the mobs were generally grouped together. My other thought was that poison dart would be faster than firebomb but if there is a difference between the 2 it didnt affect my mate
From what I can see now this would have been true with firebomb at 155% but it's now been dropped to 100%.
Although it has also had mana cost dropped as well it looks like firebomb could replace poison dart, as you have stated above it has the AoE rather then the single target, we all know diablo will have the few single target fights but most trash will come in waves and I can just see the AoE being a lot more benifical then the poison dart with DoT.
Now I haven't really played much (Had to play on my friends account), but I used poison dart non-stop. It seemed like one of the better spells, with the only downside being that it was single target.
Am I missing something as to why it's bad? It has decently high damage and can proc the poison passive. It also seems like it would be one of the better spells to spam on a boss, you'd run out of mana using the others.
Am I missing something that I couldn't have seen from the beta? I've never played the previous diablos, is it 100% group battles or something?
now that the rune available in the beta is there i definitely see it finally being viable. it launches 3 darts in a row at 70% dmg a piece so 210% dmg fast and its endlessly spammable. i use it as my left click for champions/bosses or single targets i need to take out.
but leaping spiders is more powerful. 30% per spider attacking twice, so 240% dmg and since they insta jump they make sure they hit all 8 times so its a stronger single target and super accurate exactly like a homing missle BUT literally double the mana so you cant endlessly spam it (yet!). i use spiders most of the time because they act like homing missles so im lazy and dont want to aim so i just chuck some vases in a room and watch them bounce around, its kinda scary. lawl
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
The runed effect would be better for burst damage but u lose the power of the DoT. Does anyone know if the poison damage over time stacks or whether spamming them would restart the poison counter. The spider theory sounds effective however I dont think its my style of gaming.
The runed effect would be better for burst damage but u lose the power of the DoT. Does anyone know if the poison damage over time stacks or whether spamming them would restart the poison counter. The spider theory sounds effective however I dont think its my style of gaming.
no the psn dmg over time does not stack
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"once the pretty hardcore gamers we had testing inferno found it fairly difficult, we then we doubled it" -trolololol jay wilson
The runed effect would be better for burst damage but u lose the power of the DoT. Does anyone know if the poison damage over time stacks or whether spamming them would restart the poison counter. The spider theory sounds effective however I dont think its my style of gaming.
it doesn't stack, but you can weave spells between it while the dot is ticking. It's actually probably the optional use of the spell.
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Am I missing something as to why it's bad? It has decently high damage and can proc the poison passive. It also seems like it would be one of the better spells to spam on a boss, you'd run out of mana using the others.
Am I missing something that I couldn't have seen from the beta? I've never played the previous diablos, is it 100% group battles or something?
Another thing that can be brought up is your build is never set in stone.. so say your build does not use darts at any point you can switch to them and play around with it.
As far as its viability in Inferno.. I think it has its uses one of which could be that since in its static form it has poison damage it could be used as a pin point spell to prevent mob hp regen.
Edit Note: Added spacing, the block of text was unreadable
What i like - is PD with Alabaster Rune. 31% chance to stun for 3 secs imho will be used a lot in PvP.
I will probably use it with the fire glyph, making it a super high DPS nuke.
What other alternatives are there for single target dps?
I'll have to check the patch notes when they come out, or bribe my friend to let me try again once the patch actually releases.
For example; the theory behind the Barbarian's play is completely contrary to what I usually do in Diablo. But the way the character plays out in Diablo III is so visceral and cool looking that I'm going to be forced to be spending a lot of time with that class. With the Witch Doctor having so many other visually appealing abilities, poison dart is sort of... blah.
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Due to that I see poison dart becoming viable in the hell and inferno difficulties but seeing very little use before that point.
When Runestones become available I'm 100% sure that Poison dart will be put into better use in the future.
Specially in PVP and in low-mana situations.
You can see the runestone effects here:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/class/witch-doctor/active/poison-dart
So to answer your question: You're getting as much as everyone else is going to get with regards to how far the usefulness Poison Dart will be (given it is also the first spell and it's spammable people will lose interest quickly in the first couple levels since you cannot utilize it yet). Since you've chosen to use Poison Darts for most of the fights (and RS's have yet to be released) it's only as strong as your weapon chooses it to be, and if you've been hunting around for weapons to increase the effectiveness of your Poison Dart skill it will only APPEAR to be much stronger, given for single target it is very strong, but how Diablo has been laid out for years, single targets rarely appear. Also skills such as: Zombie Charger, Plague of Toads, etc (list of AOE spells go on and on.) A well placed AOE spell is much more effective than a single targeted attack, prob from watching the video's you'll understand now my thoughts are on the topic.
Also I see that there is a cooldown upon changing spells, I just assume that people want to experiment skills and different combinations and just eventually got lazy when it came to going back to certain spells. (Poison dart)
(I have ignored everything that was written in reply by other posters, and went straight to answering the question) Hope I helped.
Flaming dart has good damage, splinters too (and it's not DoT anymore), Snake to the Face and Numbing Dart are tactital choice while Spined Dart is for resource management.
Unruned version is not so bad either, it deals damage as soon as it hit AND add damage over time (which could lenghten the duration of passives like Bad Medicine).
I haven't read the other spells or played with builds so perhaps there are better. Even if there are some that sound good in theory it's just theory. There spider jar spell sounds god awful in theory, to me anyways, but proved quite effective (again situational)
From watching my friend play the beta, there are a lot of guys who are stronger. I think he was finding one every 3-4 packs, and it took a while to take it down even with a single target spell.
The dot doesnt stack, so if you just keep shooting the same target it hits for almost nothing, and if there are multiple enemies, then single targeting them down one at a time is a horrible method to kill them.
Who is going to be running around not using runes in higher difficulties? No one, thats who.
Look at fire bats, same cost and yet the runed abilities are far far far superior.
Unless they do something, this skill is totally usless outside of maybe pvp due to (Snake to the face).
A QUADRILLION MAGIC FIND is worthless if you can't kill shit!
Barring the skill changes incoming I want to clear up the misconception that pets deal damage. The dogs deal extremely low damage but are very useful for maintaining the mobs attention. The Guargantuan will be better off than the dogs in terms of damage due to his runing options but still expect mediocre at best throughput. You take summons for the surviability they offer you, but don't expect them to do any kind of room clearing.
The range of spell when runed is less than that of crimson firebats and does less damage with a projectile, thusly making it inferior in every way excluding that golden dart is exceptional at maintaining throughput in a mana-starved environment.
Although it has also had mana cost dropped as well it looks like firebomb could replace poison dart, as you have stated above it has the AoE rather then the single target, we all know diablo will have the few single target fights but most trash will come in waves and I can just see the AoE being a lot more benifical then the poison dart with DoT.
now that the rune available in the beta is there i definitely see it finally being viable. it launches 3 darts in a row at 70% dmg a piece so 210% dmg fast and its endlessly spammable. i use it as my left click for champions/bosses or single targets i need to take out.
but leaping spiders is more powerful. 30% per spider attacking twice, so 240% dmg and since they insta jump they make sure they hit all 8 times so its a stronger single target and super accurate exactly like a homing missle BUT literally double the mana so you cant endlessly spam it (yet!). i use spiders most of the time because they act like homing missles so im lazy and dont want to aim so i just chuck some vases in a room and watch them bounce around, its kinda scary. lawl
no the psn dmg over time does not stack