Skyrim Tips and Tricks » Discussions

On Poison Damage and... not quite poison damage

• Achloryn

  

  Member
   

  November 22, 2015

  So I was working on a build that has a moderate bit of poison damage baked into it (miraak's staff, mora's agony daily power, tentacle explosion from miraak's robes, etc), and I had a very frowny-faced moment when I remembered that undead creatures are immune to poison damage. Well between all the draugr and the entire Dawnguard DLC that effectively eliminates at least half the enemies you encounter in the entire game. But I went digging and poking around to see if there was any way around it and I found something interesting. I do hope you'll forgive me if this is all common knowledge. It was news to me, and I didn't see anything specifically mentioning it already in the T&T.

  Mora's Agony daily power. The tentacles definitely do poison damage (the exact damage is difficult to say because they take it over time, but it's not insignificant), but they will stagger ANYBODY, every time they step into them, even undead. Truth be told, I was disappointed that this power was just one little vomit of a tentacle wall.

  Miraak's Staff will damage undead on direct hits, but the damage is REALLY negligible, so it's hardly worthwhile. The tentacle wall placed by the staff works exactly the same as Mora's Agony. 

  Miraak's Robe: The tentacle explosion is completely untyped, and appears to have a VERY short internal cooldown (about 5s if my estimation was correct). On adept it will do 100 to everything it touches, undead, vampire, critter, whatever. It's listed in the toolkit as a destruction effect, but no potions I could find would increase the damage. I even went so far as to try Marksman potions, but no go. I know it IS common knowledge that this effect is... funny, and will often be set off by the oddest things. Your own spell effects (i've managed to trigger my tentacle explosion with my own runes popping, and using the Ritual stone.)

  Poison Runes, true to their name and surprising no one, work exactly as they seem like they should. Undead are immune to them.

  This may not be the most impressive or useful information, but I figured it might help someone somewhere. Miraak's Robe isn't completely useless after all. 100 damage may not be much (especially since it's 25 on legendary) but it is, for all intents and purposes, a completely free AOE.

  Cheers.

  So I was working on a build that has a moderate bit of poison damage baked into it (miraak's staff, mora's agony daily power, tentacle explosion from miraak's robes, etc), and I had a very frowny-faced moment when I remembered that undead creatures are immune to poison damage. Well between all the draugr and the entire Dawnguard DLC that effectively eliminates at least half the enemies you encounter in the entire game. But I went digging and poking around to see if there was any way around it and I found something interesting. I do hope you'll forgive me if this is all common knowledge. It was news to me, and I didn't see anything specifically mentioning it already in the T&T.

  Mora's Agony daily power. The tentacles definitely do poison damage (the exact damage is difficult to say because they take it over time, but it's not insignificant), but they will stagger ANYBODY, every time they step into them, even undead. Truth be told, I was disappointed that this power was just one little vomit of a tentacle wall.

  Miraak's Staff will damage undead on direct hits, but the damage is REALLY negligible, so it's hardly worthwhile. The tentacle wall placed by the staff works exactly the same as Mora's Agony. 

  Miraak's Robe: The tentacle explosion is completely untyped, and appears to have a VERY short internal cooldown (about 5s if my estimation was correct). On adept it will do 100 to everything it touches, undead, vampire, critter, whatever. It's listed in the toolkit as a destruction effect, but no potions I could find would increase the damage. I even went so far as to try Marksman potions, but no go. I know it IS common knowledge that this effect is... funny, and will often be set off by the oddest things. Your own spell effects (i've managed to trigger my tentacle explosion with my own runes popping, and using the Ritual stone.)

  Poison Runes, true to their name and surprising no one, work exactly as they seem like they should. Undead are immune to them.

  This may not be the most impressive or useful information, but I figured it might help someone somewhere. Miraak's Robe isn't completely useless after all. 100 damage may not be much (especially since it's 25 on legendary) but it is, for all intents and purposes, a completely free AOE.

  Cheers.

• Achloryn

  

  Member
   

  November 22, 2015

  So a quick note here: I said that the staff/lesser power's tentacle walls stagger every creature every time, but that's not entirely true. Giants do get staggered, but it only appears to be about half the time. Dragons seemed like they got staggered even less, but they did still get the "poison-wrapped" effect that happens to everyone else, so they do still take ticking damage from the wall by stepping through it. I would imagine that some of it has to do with the size of their steps and hit boxes. They can step right over one or two plants without issue. Or maybe large creatures are just more stun resistant. Trolls also appear to be at least partly resistant to the stagger effect, but again it may have something to do with step size or hit box. There's really no way I can tell for sure.

  ETA: On a hunch I tried using the tentacle explosion after a Marked For Death word. I made sure to use it on a very high health creature, but it still seems to do only 100 damage. Sadly, there doesn't appear to be ANY way to increase that. 

  So a quick note here: I said that the staff/lesser power's tentacle walls stagger every creature every time, but that's not entirely true. Giants do get staggered, but it only appears to be about half the time. Dragons seemed like they got staggered even less, but they did still get the "poison-wrapped" effect that happens to everyone else, so they do still take ticking damage from the wall by stepping through it. I would imagine that some of it has to do with the size of their steps and hit boxes. They can step right over one or two plants without issue. Or maybe large creatures are just more stun resistant. Trolls also appear to be at least partly resistant to the stagger effect, but again it may have something to do with step size or hit box. There's really no way I can tell for sure.

  ETA: On a hunch I tried using the tentacle explosion after a Marked For Death word. I made sure to use it on a very high health creature, but it still seems to do only 100 damage. Sadly, there doesn't appear to be ANY way to increase that. 

• Noetha

  

  Member
   

  November 23, 2015

  Did any of you try out if a Weakness to Poison or Weakness to Magic Poison increases the damage of 

  a) The Poison Rune

  b) The tentacle explosion ?

  I would like to try it myself, but I do not know how to read the damage values from the concole and guessing at lifebars is kinda... unreliable.

  Thanks for the information on Miraaks Robes though.

  Did any of you try out if a Weakness to Poison or Weakness to Magic Poison increases the damage of 

  a) The Poison Rune

  b) The tentacle explosion ?

  I would like to try it myself, but I do not know how to read the damage values from the concole and guessing at lifebars is kinda... unreliable.

  Thanks for the information on Miraaks Robes though.

• Achloryn

  

  Member
   

  November 23, 2015

  Hrm. I haven't tried that actually. I should give that a go.

  Anyway, if you want to read health values, bring up the console command screen, then click on the target and type "getav health". Sometimes clicking the person is finnicky so if you don't get a value keep trying to click on him. I'm assuming the weakness to poison will affect the poison rune damage, but not the robe's tentacle explosion, since for all I can tell it doesn't do actual poison damage. 

  Hrm. I haven't tried that actually. I should give that a go.

  Anyway, if you want to read health values, bring up the console command screen, then click on the target and type "getav health". Sometimes clicking the person is finnicky so if you don't get a value keep trying to click on him. I'm assuming the weakness to poison will affect the poison rune damage, but not the robe's tentacle explosion, since for all I can tell it doesn't do actual poison damage. 

• Noetha

  

  Member
   

  November 23, 2015

  Thank you for the console commands. 

  I just tested it on the Dawnstar sanctuary torture victims.

  I used a non-charged Blade of Woe to apply the poisons. I am a vampire with necromage perk but unofficial patches installed.

  From my testing it seems that Weakness to Magic Poisons increase the damage of Tentacle Explosion aswell as Poison Rune. I can't tell if the damage increase from Poison Rune is flat or an increase in duration.

  Suprisingly in my tests the Weakness to Poison - Poison didn't affect neither of Poison rune or Tentacle Explosion.

  Anyways, I think it would be good, if you could confirm those results because the Tentacle Explosion also did not deal anywhere near to 100 dmg (Adept difficulty), My torture victim was a Nord and I used frenzy rune to trigger the explosion. On some other victims, I couldn't make it hit them at all. Since it seems to work just fine in normal encounters I believe this might be an issue with the torture victims rather than the explosion itself.

  Thank you for the console commands. 

  I just tested it on the Dawnstar sanctuary torture victims.

  I used a non-charged Blade of Woe to apply the poisons. I am a vampire with necromage perk but unofficial patches installed.

  From my testing it seems that Weakness to Magic Poisons increase the damage of Tentacle Explosion aswell as Poison Rune. I can't tell if the damage increase from Poison Rune is flat or an increase in duration.

  Suprisingly in my tests the Weakness to Poison - Poison didn't affect neither of Poison rune or Tentacle Explosion.

  Anyways, I think it would be good, if you could confirm those results because the Tentacle Explosion also did not deal anywhere near to 100 dmg (Adept difficulty), My torture victim was a Nord and I used frenzy rune to trigger the explosion. On some other victims, I couldn't make it hit them at all. Since it seems to work just fine in normal encounters I believe this might be an issue with the torture victims rather than the explosion itself.

• Achloryn

  

  Member
   

  November 23, 2015

  Hmmmm. Try spawning bandits and draugr and things like that and toggle god mode and just let them swing at you. Draugr wights and stuff like that have a lot more health so put them in so you can monitor the damage. I definitely saw with multiple enemies and LOTS of explosions from the robe that it does 100 damage, so i'm not sure what could be causing it to do less for you. Strange. I'm working on some other stuff for my build but i'll definitely give it some more testing soon.

  Hmmmm. Try spawning bandits and draugr and things like that and toggle god mode and just let them swing at you. Draugr wights and stuff like that have a lot more health so put them in so you can monitor the damage. I definitely saw with multiple enemies and LOTS of explosions from the robe that it does 100 damage, so i'm not sure what could be causing it to do less for you. Strange. I'm working on some other stuff for my build but i'll definitely give it some more testing soon.

• Achloryn

  

  Member
   

  November 23, 2015

  Alright. Finally following up on this. Neither Weakness to magic nor Weakness to Poison appear to affect the damage from the tentacle explosion. Several different tests (5 for each poison) on several varied types of mobs all reflected the same damage, 100 on adept difficulty.

  Alright. Finally following up on this. Neither Weakness to magic nor Weakness to Poison appear to affect the damage from the tentacle explosion. Several different tests (5 for each poison) on several varied types of mobs all reflected the same damage, 100 on adept difficulty.

• Noetha

  

  Member
   

  November 23, 2015

  Okay, I did some further testing, this is what I learned/confirmed:

  1) The tentacle-animation for the explosion is triggered everytime I get hit by about anything, when it is off cooldown (much like you said about 5 seconds).

  However there is only a chance that the explosion deals actual damage. This chance seems to be something like 95%, so it's more of a slight chance to NOT deal any damage. It deals 100 damage, when it triggers.

  I hope this is the same for everybody else and not one of my mods screwing things up.

  2) The damage is increased by Weakness to Magic and not by Weakness to Poison. And I could confirm again, this is also true for the Poison Rune.

  3) The torture victims in the Dawnstar sanctuary do not take any damage from the explosion at all, but they DO take damage from frenzy runes, which can be amplified with using Weaknss to Magic - Poisons. xD

  [edit] I trust your results more than mine, because apparantly you have more experience with testing.

  Okay, I did some further testing, this is what I learned/confirmed:

  1) The tentacle-animation for the explosion is triggered everytime I get hit by about anything, when it is off cooldown (much like you said about 5 seconds).

  However there is only a chance that the explosion deals actual damage. This chance seems to be something like 95%, so it's more of a slight chance to NOT deal any damage. It deals 100 damage, when it triggers.

  I hope this is the same for everybody else and not one of my mods screwing things up.

  2) The damage is increased by Weakness to Magic and not by Weakness to Poison. And I could confirm again, this is also true for the Poison Rune.

  3) The torture victims in the Dawnstar sanctuary do not take any damage from the explosion at all, but they DO take damage from frenzy runes, which can be amplified with using Weaknss to Magic - Poisons. xD

  [edit] I trust your results more than mine, because apparantly you have more experience with testing.

• Noetha

  

  Member
   

  November 23, 2015

  Sorry, I don't want to annoy you, but after learning about godmode and placing stuff at me and so on, I am 100% positive that Weakness to Magic increases the damage taken from the tentacles, unless of course the enemy is immune to poisons (like undead). 

  Sorry, I don't want to annoy you, but after learning about godmode and placing stuff at me and so on, I am 100% positive that Weakness to Magic increases the damage taken from the tentacles, unless of course the enemy is immune to poisons (like undead). 

• Achloryn

  

  Member
   

  November 23, 2015

  *facepalm* You're absolutely right. I was testing the poison on draugr, because I am smart. Weakness to Magic does indeed increase damage from the explosion. Thanks for pointing that out to me.

  *facepalm* You're absolutely right. I was testing the poison on draugr, because I am smart. Weakness to Magic does indeed increase damage from the explosion. Thanks for pointing that out to me.