No, poison does VERY little against 75% resists/75% reduction. Many duelers will have more than 75% res. You can still use Bramble to prebuff if you use enigma or nats. This negates the "poison damage being applied twice" argument, since it will only be applied once more than with nats/enigma.
In many situations, 15/-15 nats adds more poison damage than bramble. For example, if you are dueling an opponent who has 95% poison resist, but no stacked resists, the -15% resist will increase your poison damage by 300% as opposed to the 50% on bramble.
I built my latest ww asn to be able to wear enigma or bramble vs melee. Looking back, I should have built her for only enigma, since beating melee character is very easy anyway. I still wear the bramble sometimes to hit 90 fhr against wind druids though, I don't really need tele to beat them since they need to get close to hit anyway.
You’re just flat out wrong on those points.
VERY few duelers sport both max psn res and psn length reduction. Further, they don’t know to wear PLR unless you make an issue about your leet poison skill.
That said, let’s assume you are right and there’s some dude out there with both.
So, our target has 75% psn res and 75% PLR. Let’s look at a few cases.
CASE 1:
We do the monster pre-buff. That is, bramble, trangs, +3 shadow claws with 2x facets, +3 shadow helm with 2x facets, +3 shadow ammy, arachnid, 2x SOJs, Shadow dancers (for +2), anni, battle cry, and 10x shadow GCs with whatever mods. Also, level 20 base venom.
So, what’s our pre-buff poison damage with all this stuff?
Total venom level = 20 + 10 + 6 + 3 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 1 +1 = 49
Average base venom damage = 1400 over .4 sec
Venom damage with 45% (bramble – taking liberty with the higher end) + 25% (trangs) + 30% (facets) = 2800 over .4 sec
Venom damage after -100% poison length penalty in hell = 5600 over .8 sec.
That’s raw pre-buff. Now, assume we switch to our standard gear and keep on the bramble and trangs.
Re-application bug from poison damage for bramble and trangs = 9520 over .8 seconds
Subject to PvP penalty = 1587 over .8 seconds.
However, your target has 75% PLR, so we go back a couple steps:
-100% poison length penalty becomes -25% yielding 3500 over .8 seconds
Re-application of this amount yields 5950 over .8 seconds
Subject to PvP penalty = 992 over .8 sec.
Subject to 75% res = 248 over .8 seconds.
SO, our venom is inflicting 248 damage per application (assuming at least .8 sec between kicks actually connecting due to blocking, chance-to-hit, etc.). How does that compare to physical damage?
Let’s assume a BIG physical kick damage range of 2000 - 1200.
Average physical kick damage = 1600
After PvP penalty = 266
Assume, say, 40 DR = 160
So, 248 vs. 160. Venom wins. Even if you want to talk overlapping applications, your statement about venom doing VERY LITTLE is incorrect.
CASE 2:
But, to be fair, let’s assume that you only pre-buff with the equipment you are wearing. This is the “standard†dueler, right?
So what equipment do we have? +3 shadow claws on switch with 2x facets each, +2 shako, +2 mara, +2 dancers, +1 anni, +10 shadow charms, +2 enigma. We’ll even assume no bramble. Venom base level = 20.
Total skill points = 45.
Base venom damage at level 45 = 1260
Venom with 25% trangs + 30% facets = 1953
Venom after -100 poison length penalty and 75% PLR on target = 2441 over .8 sec
Venom after re-application of external % (trangs only) = 3051
After PvP penalty = 508
After 75% res = 127
So psn damage = 127 in this case and our physical damage from before was 160. Poison, even after 75% res and 75% PLR on the target is 80% of our 2000 – 1200 kick physical damage!!!
So you see, poison is ALWAYS critical and usually more than the physical. VERY FEW duelers run around with as much physical damage as I have outlined. VERY MANY can get this second case venom damage. If they wear bramble, it’s even more.
As to your comments regarding nats vs. bramble, you’re also incorrect.
First, I have never encountered anyone who loaded on 95% psn res against my kicker. Ever. That’s not a valid case. If they use 95% res, ok, sure, your psn damage will be small. And against the one or two people roaming bnet with 95% psn res to throw at you you can't rely on venom, that much.
Second, if they go to the trouble of getting 95% psn res, they probably have a enough stacked to render the -15% res from the facets in nats to be usless.
Third, I’m just not in the mood to run the damage numbers on bramble vs. nats. Bramble is more. If you want to make the claim that nats is more, then show your numbers. Also, take into account the first two points. If you want to run extreme cases, also show standard cases. The 40% to 50% from bramble with the re-application bug will always trump 2 skill levels and 15% from facets. It just will.
Quick thumbnail calc...
venom level 40 = 1085
venom level 42 = 1155
Difference = 70
Are you claiming that the 70 damage increase from 2 skill points + 15% from facets to the base trumps 40 to 50% from bramble to the base? Don’t forget the re-application bug. Bramble is more.
All that said, I do agree that enigma is a great armor for a kicker. As long as it’s an anti-caster build.
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