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• Vazgen

  

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  March 23, 2013 6:58 AM EDT

  For the past few days there was an interesting discussion going on in the comments for Skalvar's The Toxicologist build related to the damage of poisons on Legendary difficulty. I've conducted some tests and want to post the results. The tests were conducted on a Bandit Plunderer with 398 health and only Damage Health effect.

  Sidenote: There was a statement regarding the number of perks needed for poisoner vs crafter. The tests were conducted first for the Alchemy skill 100, Alchemist 5/5, Physician, Poisoner, Concentrated Poison perks (total 8) and second for Smithing 100, Steel Smithing, Elven Smithing, Advanced Armors, Glass Smithing, Dragon Smithing + Overdraw 3/5 perks (total 8). Archery skill was 40 in both cases.

  Poison: Crimson Nirnroot + River Betty = Damage Health (magnitude: 75 damage)

  1. Unenchanted, not improved Long Bow with poison:            Health after one shot 371.79 of 398

  2. Unenchanted, not improved Dragonbone Bow with poison:  Health after one shot 366.14 of 398

  3. Unenchanted, Legendary Dragonbone Bow without poison: Health after one shot 365.59 of 398

  So to kill a Bandit Plunderer with poisoned Long Bow will take about 15 shots - 8 poison vials, to kill him with Legendary Dragonbone Bow without poison will take 13 shots.

  As we can see poisons are quite viable on Legendary.

• James

  

  • 118 posts
   

  March 23, 2013 7:54 AM EDT

  So 15 shots of the strongest poison in the game for one simple bandit is viable to you?
  
  You can only make approx 30 of those poisons every 10 days (after spending a few hours running around blackreach each time) and then have to use 8 of them just to kill a bandit, you'd have to use all 30 on the first dragon you face and it still wouldn't be dead. Fantastically viable.
• RuneRed

  

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  March 23, 2013 8:17 AM EDT

  Those numbers for poison use do not impress me.  Comparing notes two and three, three is only slightly better for damage dealt.  But since poisons need to constantly be replenished, it is better to invest in smithing than alchemy.   I am curious - what is the damage of the non-improved dragonbone bow without poison, so we can get a comparison of the actual poison damage. (It should be c. 19 points mathematically, but that's hypothetical).

  Paralysis and other poison types, now that's a different story...

• Nikolaj Poulsen

  

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  March 23, 2013 8:36 AM EDT

  Fine numbers, but the tests are skewed in favor of smithing.

• RuneRed

  

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  March 23, 2013 8:40 AM EDT

  I think he was trying to use the same number of perks.  The Alchemy and Smithing were both at 100.  The overdraw perks do skew the data a bit.  Perhaps 5 perks for both Alchemy and Smithing (no other perks, eg overdaw) would show a better comparison.

• RuneRed

  

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  March 23, 2013 9:05 AM EDT

  Exactly Ben,  there are more to posions (and alchemy) than just raw damage.  Also it would be necessary to use the exact same bow - to see exactly how much of the damage was from the alchemical additons.  Personally I think both smithing and alchemy are viable (dfficulty really doesn't change this fact, since the difficulty multipliers are across the board). 

• Deleted Member

  
   

  March 23, 2013 9:11 AM EDT

  Exactly. Pop a Fortify Restoration potion, then down your Fortify Archery and Resist X potions after exiting the menu. Poisons are much more useful for getting cheap debuffs like Paralysis and Slow than they are for dealing raw damage. I've never really experimented as much with Weakness to Poison poisons, I feel in the short run getting more damage and debuffs out is the superior choice.

• Nikolaj Poulsen

  

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  March 23, 2013 11:28 AM EDT

  Let's look at this a bit more realistically. A master smith (100 skill, relevant perk) for a master combatant (5/5 combat perk and 100 skill) will increase any weapon by 30 points of damage, or 7.5 points of damage on legendary. This is basically all smithing can do, a flat increase in damage. This also means that smithing is relatively better for worse weapons than better ones.

  With alchemy I can increase weapon damage by ~50%, and if I use anything but a dagger or a bow I can increase it by another ~50% (fortify marksman glitch). Couple this with a poison weakness poison and damage health, lingering damage health etc we get quite a bit of damage. Due to the nature of fortify potions, better weapons recieve a greater boost in damage.

  Let's put it into context, using both an iron dagger, a glass war axe and a dragonbone warhammer. We'll stick with the on damage poison of damage health (75 damage), but realize this is far from the highest damage that can be achieved with alchemy.

  Iron dagger - Not affected by fortify one-handed potions, but are affected by fortify marksman (all weapons are)
  Base damage: 4
  Legendary smithing damage: 14

  Alchemy damage: 6
  Alch. w/ poison: 81

  Master damage: 12

  Legendary smithing damage: 42

  Alchemy damage: 18
  Alch. w/ poison: 93

  Glass war axe - Affected by both fortify one-handed and marksman
  Base damage: 13
  Legendary smithing damage: 23

  Alchemy damage: 19.5
  Alch. w/ poison: 94.5

  +marksman: 29.25
  +marksman w/ poison: 104.25

  Master damage: 39
  Legendary smithing damage: 69

  Alchemy damage: 58.5
  Alch. w/ poison: 133.5

  +marksman: 87.75
  +marksman w/ poison: 162.75

  Dragonbone warhammer - Affected by both fortify one-handed and marksman
  Base damage: 28
  Legendary smithing damage: 38

  Alchemy damage: 29.5
  Alch. w/ poison: 104.5

  +marksman: 44.25
  +marksman w/ poison: 119.25

  Master damage: 84
  Legendary smithing damage: 114

  Alchemy damage: 126
  Alch. w/ poison: 201

  +marksman: 189
  +marksman w/ poison: 264

  These are just some basic numbers. We can further increase our damage by drinking a fortify restoration potion, using weakness poisons. Alchemy can also help boost playstyles like spellswords much more than smithing can. I still maintain alchemy is very viable, you just have to stop limiting yourself to using one poison and use the full spectrum of alchemy.

  And just to clarify, the most damage in the game comes from alchemy (without exploits) by the use of Jarrin root. Although this poison can only be applied a maximum of 4 times it still is the single most damaging thing in the game.

• Vazgen

  

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  March 23, 2013 11:53 AM EDT

  You're right that was the idea. In the comments on The Toxicologist there was an opinion that you need to spend more perks without the alchemy to do the same amount of damage. I tried to show that it's not the case. What is good with alchemy is that you can do almost the same amount of damage as a Legendary Dragonbone Bow with simple non-smithed Long Bow. By the way I used Iron Arrows during the tests. 

• Vazgen

  

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  March 23, 2013 11:55 AM EDT

  That's only a simple Damage Health poison. Lingering Damage Health does more damage in the end, plus you can add Weakness to Poison. Not to mention paralysis and slow effects. You can also further boost your damage with potions.

• Vazgen

  

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  March 23, 2013 11:58 AM EDT

  I agree Ben, there are many ways to further boost your damage with alchemy. In this post I just tried to show how much damage you can do instantly with one shot. Also ravage effects are great but I don't think they will do much difference on Legendary because the most powerful Ravage Health poison only decreases Health by 30 points. Since on legendary you do 1/4 of your damage it'll be mere 7 points.

• Vazgen

  

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  March 23, 2013 12:41 PM EDT

  Nikolaj I'm sorry but can you explain some of these numbers for me? I don't get what's the Master damage, Alchemy damage and Alchemy w/ poison lines? I assume Alchemy w/ poison is Alchemy damage + 75 from poison but what's the Alchemy damage then? 

• Imyo Gonzalez

  

  • 2 posts
   

  March 23, 2013 1:19 PM EDT

  Isnt about alchemy is about poisons only.

  And i keep saying the same, poisons can maybe improve your damage a little bit... but lets guess:

  U have Enchanted gear (used for crafting weapons or in this case poisons), then u do all possible stuf (NO CHEATING OR EXPLOIT) to make your poisons do the highest damage that can be done, u get a poison with i guess its about (if i remember right) 150 instant dmg and 31 for 10 secs, thats 460 dmg (on legendary i think its 1/4 of that) then u had to collect the best ingredients (not easy at all) to do less than 150 dmg to enemys with 20 times that hp or even more, tested it on my lvl 50 archer poison assassin, against a leveled guard, doing only 1/10 of his hp. And its only lvl 50, if u keep leveling your alchemy ll keep the same dmg, and maybe at lategame you will barely move the HP bar from the oponent.

  Assuming we want to roleplay a poisoner assassin maybe we can put other trees on hold to not get more than 30 levels (booooring) and even with that mechanic the poisons do not fill the role for the assassin, at all.

  I said poisons are horrible to roleplay an assassin, didnt say "poisons suck, period" u can play like a falmer with a shield and sword with poisons, ok maybe y can do a bit more dmg with that, amazing, not even a lot of dmg, but helps, BUT u cant use poisons for assassinations, the game dont give you the possibility to craft better poisons even if you are forced to serch for ingredients for a long time, your best poisons ll allways be the river betty ones and the crimson nirnroot ones (jarrin root is just 1 in the entire game).

  That being said, i think my point is valid, poisons can help you with dmg early levels, after 50 60, you ll be doing majority of your dmg with another source.

  Now, this can work if you get poisoned perk, then u just put 20 30 vials into a boss pocket, and you maybe kill him, i think its just boring and dont fit the roleplay, and that only works on a few enemys that can be pickpocketed.

  The last thing i wanna say, maybe killing all with just a few poisons isnt the idea neither, ll be overpowered like a stealth high level bow atack, just 1 shot and GG, BUT u can see, at early levels u can find 50 dmg poisons, or 75 dmg poisons, a few in the world, but before lvl 10 those are really helpfull, thats how i thinkg that must be lategame, just the possibility to have a few powerfull poisons to roleplay your assassin, not jarrin root ones, but at least 1/5 powerfull than those.

  This is the BEST damage poison you can craft in the game with FULL enchanting and useing the helmet BUG http://i.stack.imgur.com/j6eGL.jpg (took this one frmo other site, i dont know if i can post the link to the site itself)

  NOTE: and i say again, alchemy is super overpowered, but we talk about only poisons.

• Vazgen

  

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  March 23, 2013 1:27 PM EDT

  You go with bow use but what if someone just poisons his iron dagger and run in the bandit camp. With such powerful poison he will be able to just slice through them in a minute and it'll be overpowered. As you can see from numbers you can make even a low level Long Bow with Iron Arrows do almost as much damage per shot as the Legendary Dragonbone Bow. Add to that Lingering Damage Health, Weakness to Poison effects maybe Fortify Marksman potion and you'll be able to kill enemies quick enough without feeling overpowered. You can always buy the ingredients you need, and with Green Thumb perk it's even easier. You'll almost never run out of ingredients to craft your poisons. What's important is that you must not just stick to the Damage Health poisons, you have to use other effects as well.

• Nikolaj Poulsen

  

  • 88 posts
   

  March 23, 2013 1:40 PM EDT

  Master damage is damage dealt by a master combatant (5/5 overdraw/armsman/barbarian) and 100 skill.

  Alchemy means damage after a fortify one-handed/two-handed potion.

• Nikolaj Poulsen

  

  • 88 posts
   

  March 23, 2013 1:42 PM EDT

  You can craft a poison dealing more than 2000 damage, without exploits.

• Nikolaj Poulsen

  

  • 88 posts
   

  March 23, 2013 1:43 PM EDT

  That's the proper way to do science!

• Vazgen

  

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  March 23, 2013 1:45 PM EDT

  Ah, OK now I understand. Never too late, huh...  Very interesting numbers and they definitely show the viability of alchemy! 

• Vazgen

  

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  March 23, 2013 1:47 PM EDT

  Too bad you can have maximum 2 of them. If only Redguard DLC added harvestable Jarrin Root...

• Imyo Gonzalez

  

  • 2 posts
   

  March 23, 2013 1:50 PM EDT

  How? just with jarrin root...

• Teccam

  

  • 189 posts
   

  March 23, 2013 2:21 PM EDT

  Interesting idea, I've not seen anyone try it before.  I don't think it's classified as a quest item, but I don't think it can be dropped (I'm fairly certain it doesn't have an overworld sprite, though I could be wrong).  I don't know enough about the duplication glitches to know whether that would affect its "eligibility" for them...  But I think that rules out the companion picking it up glitch.  And since it's not a weapon/armor, I don't think it would work with the mannequin glitch either.  And since it was never originally in any NPC's inventory, I'm fairly certain you couldn't use the resurrection glitch either.  Again I've never actually used any of them, just read about them, so I'm only guessing here...

  What probably WOULD work though, is to make a poison with the jarrin root, give THAT to your companion, and then try the companion dupe method.

• Vazgen

  

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  March 23, 2013 2:27 PM EDT

  You have only one Jarrin Root and as far as I know it's not a quest item after the quest To Kill an Empire and can be dropped (I can be wrong though). Like EasilyRemember said mannequin and ritual stone glitches will not help in this case. I never managed to get the follower pickup method to work but if it does it may work. Jarrin Root indeed has an outer world model (tested by spawning with console and dropping).

• Teccam

  

  • 189 posts
   

  March 23, 2013 2:29 PM EDT

  In case you replied before I submitted my edit: I think it's almost surely going to work if you try to duplicate the poison itself, rather than the root.  So even if you can't duplicate the root with a companion, you should be able to get effectively infinite jarrin root super poisons.

• Vazgen

  

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  March 23, 2013 2:32 PM EDT

  I suggest mixing Blisterwort and Human Heart with it. The poison will have five effects! Damage Health + Damage Magicka + Damage Magicka Regen + Damage Stamina + Frenzy

• Vazgen

  

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  March 23, 2013 2:44 PM EDT

  Just how were you able to make it work? I keep trying and it never works!