I don't have a thread for you, but IMO the use of the poisoning skill for a mage template has limited uses since it only actually applies to 2 spells (poison / poison field). It has absolutely zero synergy with mystic.
The only real uses I see for a nox mage is if you are helping with large amounts of mobs and you are throwing down poison fields (and the mobs don't all have magery). You are hitting the targets with greater poison which does a decent amount of damage over time. The poison spell when standing next to a target will inflict deadly poison but the problem is that if they have decent resist it takes multiple attempts and if they have magery it gets cured almost instantly.
To me... the return on 100 skill points of poisoning isn't there. To your point you could do mystic or weaving to get more spells/damage from them for the points invested. If it's a longer fight, I'd probably even go scribe over poisoning because you are getting a bump to SDI which would accumulate over time to every single target rather than just the ones who couldn't cure poison.
Just my 2 cents though.
If you are talking PvM then I'd skip the poison and go for an ABC style build (Archery/Bushido/Chiv); mainly because there is only 1 bow (elven comp) that inflicts poison and would benefit from GM poison... that weapon is simply not as good as a regular comp bow though.
At one point there was a build for PvP that had an archer using an elven comp with serpent arrow but I think it might have been a melee skill as their combat skill with the elven comp with Use Best Skill (or maybe the melee weapons for UBWS??). Idea was to hit someone a time or 2 with AI then disarm them and when they went to run swap over to the elven comp to poison and reg comp for moving shot... it was a long time ago though so not sure if this is viable (or even works) anymore.
I guess my questions would be what do you usually fight/kill and why are you looking to use poison skill (mine has been stoned for a few years now)? If you do champ spawns regularly then it could be used to cast poison fields and run along to find more mobs to attract through the fields... outside of that I don't think poison itself inflicts enough consistent damage to use 100 skill points on it.
Sorry Keven, UBWS doesn't work for bows. The property only applies to melee weapons.
If I were theorizing about PVM poison templates they would look like:
Swords or fencing 120
Tact 120
Anat 120
Magery 100 to 120
Healing 100
Poisoning 100
Rest in parry
Spell channeling weapon and shield and use the poison mastery. Can use poison fields.
Myst 120
Focus 120
Mage 100
Poisoning 100
Med 100
Hiding 100
Stealth 80
Hide and throw fields with your RC.
It's not worth it too many monsters immune or have high resistance
Leave it on a stone. Weaving and mystic are much better for a group.
Unless you enjoy watching things die of boredom. That's the current state of poison.
In pvp they worked decently well the last time I tried to compete with the auto target clients.
It's the serpent arrow that's always been subpar. The snake bite seems go off the wrestling and parry of what you're fighting. It's almost comical watching it miss over and over.
It’d be nice to see it as a skill that’ll could bring viable variations to fighter builds used in PvM.
Do we really need to have 900 points on our templates?
Poison works great in NL for PvM. It also did till the 2000s.
When the pet revamp came out everyone used poison on pets that could get it, didn't take long to get bored by seeing the 1 tic, or this creature is immune to poison.
I perk up when I see a post asking for useless skills to be made useful. IMO we have enough skills, we do not need more.
Poison works in NL. Anyone can play NL. You must not have much or you would see it works on those mobs.
On a mage only the poison field spell maximizes poisoning. It’s quite useful against low level stuff with no defense against poisoning that is chasing you. Against middle level stuff, a singe poison spell rarely does enough damage to kill anything. Against higher level stuff, neither poison spell is that useful. There might be exceptions were the poison spell allows you or your mates to do more damage with other spells, or weapons to a poisoned foe. I had it on my mage. I used the poison field spell a lot, but rarely made much use of the direct damage spell because of the limitations on the damage it did. In the end doing PVM, I replaced it with spellweaving. Poisoning just did not do enough damage to justify having it.
Even with corpse skin poison is under powered or evil omen rather
Since most mobs can cure poison at almost any level, imho poison isn’t worth the skills points in a PvM template( unless your specifically fighting mobs that can’t cure). Use of poison is limited to a niche PvP template where you have a dedicated field thrower holding choke points. Having to use sometimes 2, 3, or 4 greater cure potions to remove poison from running through dp fields will cause problems for your opponents. Even with their auto cure scripts, they’ll quickly run out of pots if the fight lasts more then 10mins. Having to leave the battle to restock or die bc they’re to stubborn to leave gives a definite advantage. Those PvPers with high ep will last longer then others but eventually dp fields will also run them out of pots.
