Analyzing the Ability to Spread Poisons with Bite and Infernal Blast

meeoeoowie · September 2016

What a title!

This post is just what it looks like: a simple reference to the current issues regarding spreading poisons using Rabies (Bite) and Virulent Propagation (Infernal Blast).

We're starting with Infernal Blast:

Infernal Blast - General Observations

Targets chosen for the spread is entirely random, as opposed to proximity-based.
Not being proximity is okay for Infernal Blast, a ranged power, albeit ineffective.
Target cap for the poison spread proc is 3.
Target cap is for balance reasons stated at the bottom of the post, but worth mention.

Infernal Blast - Deadly Poison

Deadly Poison is confirmed to be able to spread.
Deadly Poison is refreshed on the main target, forced by the innate power ability to refresh any poisons.
Deadly Poison can reapply to already poisoned targets via spread, but will not refresh their current stacks. (Perhaps intentional)

Infernal Blast - Debilitating Poison

Debil. Poison is confirmed to be unable to spread.
Debil. Poison is refreshed on the main target, forced by the innate power ability to refresh any poisons.

Infernal Blast - Noxious Poison

Noxi. Poison is confirmed to be somewhat able to spread.
Noxi. Poison seems littered with strange issues involving spreading and refreshing.
It is difficult to understand the issues with this poison, a total mechanical rewrite or review is advised.

Infernal Blast - Festering Poison

Fester. Poison is confirmed to be unable to spread.
Fester. Poison is refreshed on the main target, forced by the innate power ability to refresh any poisons.

Up next is Bite:

Bite - General Observations

Targets chosen for the spread is entirely random, as opposed to proximity-based.
Not being proximity is potentially bothersome for Bite, a melee power, making it very ineffective.
Target cap for the poison spread proc is 5.
Target cap is for balance reasons stated at the bottom of the post, but worth mention.

Bite - Deadly Poison

Deadly Poison is confirmed to be able to spread.
Deadly Poison is refreshed on the main target.
Deadly Poison can reapply to already poisoned targets via spread, but will not refresh their current stacks. (Perhaps intentional)

Bite - Debilitating Poison

Debil. Poison is confirmed to be unable to spread.
Debil. Poison is confirmed to be unable to refresh.

Bite - Noxious Poison

Noxi. Poison is confirmed to be somewhat able to spread.
Noxi. Poison seems littered with strange issues involving spreading and refreshing.
It is difficult to understand the issues with this poison, a total mechanical rewrite or review is advised.

Bite - Festering Poison

Fester. Poison is confirmed to be unable to spread.
Fester. Poison is confirmed to be unable to refresh.

Regarding the target caps
As noted above in this post, Bite can potentially spread poisons to 5 targets, whilst Infernal Blast spreads to 3 targets. this appears to be an intentional move to balance each power, concerning that Infernal Blast is a 100 feet blast attack, whilst Bite is a 10 feet charged attack. As such, I don't regard this so much a bug with the power, but moreso a mechanical difference between the two attacks. It is worth shedding light upon, as the target cap on these procs are entirely hidden, but can influence gameplay visibly. I don't believe that this is in any need of changed, except perhaps considering some added wording to both tooltips/descriptions, at best.

That concludes my analysis. Citation may be needed for some of these notes, but they are based on in-game testing.