Poisonous vapours


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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Friday, 6th October 2017, 13:35

Poisonous vapours

Can someone explain the benefits of the (apparently) new spell Poisonous Vapours to me? I learned it as a Gnoll, and started it out with full spell power, so it should be as good as it gets, but for all I can see it does not seem to do much more good than Sting, except that it is smite targeted. Am I missing anything? I was hoping that it would kill spiders in a blink, but they still keep hopping around for enough turns to do harm. Should I learn Mephitic Cloud instead?
Maɟaŋ

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Friday, 6th October 2017, 14:42

Re: Poisonous vapours

Smite targeted, full los range, doesn't check EV, places a cloud. I don't use high powered sting enough to know how they compare at high power. Poisonous vapours feels a lot better than sting at the power I'd typically have on a level 2 venom mage that isn't a gnoll and I suspect that power doesn't matter a whole lot for poisonous vapours. I'd hope to have something better castable by the time I'm doing Spider.

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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Friday, 6th October 2017, 14:59

Re: Poisonous vapours

I never do any poison magic, but a Gnoll gives you lots of opportunities to try things out. You are right, LOS and smite targeting are definite plusses. The cloud, though, is almost non-existent, even at full power.
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Friday, 6th October 2017, 15:12

Re: Poisonous vapours

PV is a smite-targeted killing machine through Lair. It often kills orcs directly, that is, you don't need to kite poisoned orcs because they're already dead. Adders are almost always dead in two strikes. Since it is LOS smite, you can kill orc priests behind their buddies, and you can poison two-headed ogres and orc warriors two or three times as they approach before you have to start kiting. You don't need to skill oddly to strengthen it, because you're already training Poison and Air for Mephitic anyway. Indeed, and this is probably bad play, but I find I rarely need Mephitic before Lair, and PV is much quieter. I mainly save Mephitic for orc wizards and uniques. And because you don't NEED Mephitic as much, you can afford to spend your XP on other things that will help you with rPois foes.

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 6th October 2017, 15:34

Re: Poisonous vapours

It is just better all around (It always poisons, instead of just sometimes, it doesn't miss, it's smite targeted, it does more total damage per cast)

That being said, S branches are a little late to expect a whole lot of productivity from your level 1/2 spells.

You can also use it to "encourage" monsters who are hovering outside an otherwise-hostile cloud (meph or conjure flame for example) to step into one. While it usually dissipates before your next action, monster AI doesn't know how long the cloud they are standing in will last. If a monster is standing in a hostile cloud, and they can get closer to you, they will walk into another hostile cloud to do so even if they wouldn't do so while standing in open ground.
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MainiacJoe

Cocytus Succeeder

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Post Friday, 6th October 2017, 16:36

Re: Poisonous vapours

Yeah especially conjure flames was indirectly buffed by poison vapor
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 8th October 2017, 16:10

Re: Poisonous vapours

It is an enormous amount of smite-targeted direct damage, but you have to kite with it unless you have some way to set up a turkey shoot, like killing monsters across deep water or carting around a hostile rat. The cloud will spend one turn heavily poisoning your target and then disappear, so you just have to walk backwards until you get your damage. It doesn't work very well against blink frogs, fast monsters, or ranged monsters because those can hurt you when you're walking away, but it kills every non-rPois basic melee brute with the same speed as you no matter how allegedly dangerous it is.
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Sunday, 8th October 2017, 17:14

Re: Poisonous vapours

It ignores ev, so it's good against high ev monsters. Adders and bees come to mind. You can use it to hit priests without opening up to pain and then leave their los. Also probably useful against eels, if the environment is right. Good against Robin and Eustachio. I guess it works fine with allies in general.
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Halls Hopper

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Post Wednesday, 11th October 2017, 12:51

Re: Poisonous vapours

Vapors is a smite-targeted skill that deals pretty heavy damage early. It's used for taking out dangerous early monsters. It's also a lot more reliable than Sting.

Also; it's Poison/Air. Meph Cloud; which is basically the reason for being a VM; is Poison/Air/Conj. So you're leveling Air anyway for Meph.

There's really no reason to not learn it early as a Venom Mage.

Think of it as a Baby Airstrike.
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Blades Runner

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Post Friday, 13th October 2017, 00:54

Re: Poisonous vapours

Yeah, it would be a great spell if your level 4 spell in the same book didn't do the same thing way better.

I guess there might be some circumstances where you want to save 2 spell points.

Cocytus Succeeder

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Post Friday, 13th October 2017, 07:38

Re: Poisonous vapours

My chars usually can cast lv.2 spell on D:1 on xl2 while cannot lv.4 spell.

I guess some very strong race can skip poisonous vapor but considering how it is good and how sting sucks I can't think a lot of combo where I'd suggest that (except stupid things like TrVm)
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Spider Stomper

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Post Friday, 13th October 2017, 14:20

Re: Poisonous vapours

Poisonous vapours is great. It seems to do at least twice the damage of sting for twice the magic cost, and smite targetting is just so useful. It's a bit odd that you can't target invisible monsters with it, and you'll likely get mephetic cloud anyways. It's the spell that makes VM survivable enough to get to mephetic cloud, since sting is so bad. I find it much more useful than OTR by comparison.

Mines Malingerer

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Post Friday, 13th October 2017, 14:30

Re: Poisonous vapours

Spamming poisonous vapours on ogres have gotten me more ogre-deaths than stinging, the poison it inflicts helps a lot early on.
OTR still beats it when it comes to fighting more than one monster tho because it doesn't last long.

Dungeon Master

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Post Thursday, 19th October 2017, 14:30

Re: Poisonous vapours

For what it's worth, just about every poison spell can adds up to 1 level of poison per hit, up to a maximum of 4 levels -- Poisonous Cloud (rip), Poisonous Vapours, OTR, Sting, Venom Bolt. Sting and Venom Bolt have a 2/3rds chance of applying 1 level of poison on a non-resisting target if they hit and deal damage; OTR and poisonous clouds of all sorts always add exactly one level of poison to a non-resisting target. Thus, it will generally take 4 turns of OTR/vapors/successful Sting hits that pass the 2/3rds check to get a target to max poison level. It only takes about two poisoned needles with average rolls at ~8 skill (IIRC) to get the same result.

Poison Arrow is another matter; it adds 4 levels of poison on an unresisting target or 2 on a resisting target.

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