[BoberJones]

SPREADSHEET OF CURRENT / SUGGESTED POISON / CHARTS

Preface

So while I have not been here long, or long enough to have an extended grasp of the deepest mechanics of the game, I did originally think it was best that I did not try to suggest any changes or comment on any balancing. However, I did talk to Miller and they encouraged me after I pestered Hated about the various mechanical things he knew about the game. My conclusion is that some problems with balancing revolve around some base design choices that have been made.

While Glykin -- and I'll agree there -- are strong because of their immunity to poison, it isn't the race's fault, actually. I can get people arguing for a San scaling immunity etc, but at the bottom line, poison is overtuned. 

Overview
Currently, poison has a 10% max health cap w/ damage depending on the Poison Level.
If average health is 800-900, Poison Level 30 will kill a char that can't get rid of in 10 turns of being poisoned.
It'd take a 1000 health person a bit longer, however.

Now, while normally a good fix to this issue is to cleanse it or lower it, those options aren't readily open to people. Poison can be inflicted as many times as it wants to be inflicted. Poison -- even when reduced or cleansed the turn before -- can be inflicted for its level again the next turn, wasting 3m of people who try to fight back against it.

A hexer will make you unable to get rid of it, increase the damage by 1.5x, and can easily stick the duration of 10 turns. These builds can therefore just delete characters with no immunity, no resistance, or little resistance.

Now, the easiest counter here is: well just build resistance, immunity or status resist.
While that is a simple answer, it isn't as easy as it seems at least on Korvara, which is mostly what I've been playing. Your options for resistance are snakefang materials or the snake amulet. As for status resist, with the norm being a 200 hit meta they are building skill and if they are focusing down poison they are building will, which can, with a talent get their inflict up to upwards of 121~131%.

An issue with this defense is that the answer for a problematic design is to: just deal with it. If you are making a character the choices that you have to make -- if you think about it -- for dealing with poison is to either A: make a glykin, B: somehow manage to build res/immune/status resist, or C: Silence them/Kill them faster

I don't think it is healthy to just force certain things to be options going into characters because it narrows options a lot, lest you want to just concede a fight if you ever fight a poison or evade user. Evade is another subject though, one that I'll probably post about later. 

My suggestion

So my suggestion for changing poison is rather simple and has a list of pros and cons.

Firstly, change Poison and make it deal (Poison LV * 0.2)% max Health per turn. 

Secondly, make it so Poison can't be inflicted or reinflicted 1-2 turns after it has been reduced or cleansed. I suppose Hexer could avoid this, however. (And Bow of the green forest. Probably add a limit to how high green forest can get up to, otherwise, it'd just be really strong)

Pros: 

Given the damage scales off Poison LV and not a % maxHealth, presumably with the max being 36-40, it could only ever do (maxHealth * (LV / 500)) to somebody. Meaning PCs can only reach 7.2-8% maxHealth per turn. But that also means that depending on how Poison LV is limited it can be anywhere from 0.2-100%(1-500).

With Poison being unable to be inflicted again, it will give people a chance to react to it and properly have engagement with the poison being inflicted to them, whilst also making Poison less of a 'i just do this on you as an additional dps' and more of a niche.

This way of doing it doesn't auto kill a mob(w/ no res) in 10 turns.

Cons:

If Poison LV can be stacked it can cause some issues.

It's a big change to a system I assume has been here a while.

Poison deals less damage overall. (but 0.2 per is adjustable)

There's no 'real' limit to the damage poison can do.

i didn't ask people for what the cons would be, and I cant think of any more, but I'm sure people will comment to show them.

Alternative

All in all, it is more of a formula adjustment to tune it, and with a formula change, the tuning can be adjusted rather finely. 0.1 can change to any number, while poison LV can as well, making the flexibility much higher. Currently, poison will always flatline somewhere, and always kill somebody somewhere since there's a hard 10% maxHP limit.

An alternative in the case that this is impossible/unfeasible is to just make the max hp 5%. Would do something kinda similar

Sheets/Math
tbh I made a chart because I figured out you could in sheets and I've used sheets 3 times for anything with forumals.

currentPoison is Poison as it is now. suggestedPoison is what I'm suggesting. chartPoison is Charts.

All calcs are done with 0 res in mind, however, if you are math savvy you can just calculate what they'd be with res.

Base Health is 800/900/1000, I asked what a good average was, I was told 800-900.

I've been playing mostly Korvara, so I have that in mind while doing all of this, so keep that in mind.

Multiple common poison levels are in colors.

Math:

0.2% Max Health per Poison Lv

maxHealth * (LV/500)

as for formulas used in the sheets you can just check

SPREADSHEET OF CURRENT / SUGGESTED POISON / CHARTS

tl;dr: read it. look at the sheet or the chart.
change poison, remove % max health limit, lower damage.
make poison unable to be inflicted directly after removal/nerfs

thanks:
Hated for sending me info on common poison levels, things  I didn't know / resistance options, etc
Miller for also assisting in some suggestions in discord and agreeing with me

(notes: i don't know everything about this game, i might be wrong somewhere, but i think my math checks out(?)
i didn't account for hexer 1.5x dmg because it'd make the sheet too large. same for res%, I'm not a real SHEETS gamer, but if its wanted that bad, i can program something with variable inputs to display the information requested.)

[Lolzytripd]

but my bows of the green forest...

[Autumn]

Poison isn't so much the problem as moves that inflict poison while doing damage are, as the damage of poison is slow and not remotely as much damage as some other setups are pushing in more effective ways at equal amounts of range and frustration typically. Hexer's Menov's Fang is a very strong option for poison builds to have but is not very efficient unless you were already in range to do so, as its range is very short you can open yourself up to your opponent's strong options very often enough. (Same issue that Winter's Bite always faced)

Is poison's average damage of 270 damage over 3 turns really as strong as someone hitting you over and over? Not even to mention that level 30 poison isn't all too common sometimes either. The real value of Poison is its consistency, and that is its strength. However adding 270 damage onto something such as Wretched Oil's boatload of scaling or Phase Fang's basic attack with a flat damage mod? That's when poison starts to see its value sky rocket, and I believe those are what need to be targetted more so (Snake Shot as an example has less poison for having up front damage)

I disagree, the status already has so much working against it, having to go through 2 separate RNG checks (Status infliction and evade) in order to be applied. Wretched Oil is a little less burdened by this as only 1 hit needs to go through to work. This status is much less of a bother than most people think it is in my opinion, and its just bias working against it. Its allowed to be a bit strong, especially given its already been nerfed before.

[BoberJones]

Poison isn't so much the problem as moves that inflict poison while doing damage are, as the damage of poison is slow and not remotely as much damage as some other setups are pushing in more effective ways at equal amounts of range and frustration typically. Hexer's Menov's Fang is a very strong option for poison builds to have but is not very efficient unless you were already in range to do so, as its range is very short you can open yourself up to your opponent's strong options very often enough. (Same issue that Winter's Bite always faced)

Tbh, any additional damage dealt ontop of something that essentially will hit you for 10% of your max HP at the end of the turn just seems a little hard to handle in general. I mention hexer here only for clarity's sake, by no means am I trying to nail down on hexer because of that. Poison is a very strong option for any build if you can fit it. It is a free 10% damage ontop of damage applied, and most people won't have res towards it or immunity. Fang opening you up to take big damage is good in that case then, you are left open to deal 1.5x damage and force somebody to take poison for essentially 5 turns.

Another quick note as in terms of the parameters of the testing and what my intent is: super high evade people that are super optimized dodge nearly everything and you rarely have a chance to hit are things I'd consider people in a small minority have. While it might be easy in sig to get there, most people on this game actively talk about how much they don't pvp or want to pvp, and coming from a new player I can tell you that it is easy to be discouraged when you have several hoops to get over in order to even be viable. That's not even being able to contentest people with these super optimized builds. There is a perceived skill curve banking on knowledge, but it isn't very accessible.

In short: it isn't about the damage per se, it is about the flexibility and consistency of poison, along with the little actions you can take against it that make it oppressive. The damage itself is good, I don't think I can consider 10% max health to ever be bad in any world esp when its assumed you can be dealing damage that entire time.

Is poison's average damage of 270 damage over 3 turns really as strong as someone hitting you over and over? Not even to mention that level 30 poison isn't all too common sometimes either. The real value of Poison is its consistency, and that is its strength. However adding 270 damage onto something such as Wretched Oil's boatload of scaling or Phase Fang's basic attack with a flat damage mod? That's when poison starts to see its value sky rocket, and I believe those are what need to be targetted more so (Snake Shot as an example has less poison for having up front damage)

270 damage over 3 turns is as strong as somebody hitting you over and over again, yes, because you can hit somebody over and over again after you inflict poison.
Say in this hypothetical with two average characters. You just spam Wretch Oil ig cause it has 0 cd apparently, then proceed to hit them over the 5 turns and they do the same to you.
Let's just do 110 swa, 70/70 dark earth
The other person with 120~ SWA melee attacker that is just hitting you, with say a 60% chance to crit.

Math here. It'd be very nice to have extra dmg somebody is likely not resisting at any level. May it be 1, 2, 3 or 5, esp if its 10% of their max health.
Anyone could agree that having that extra 10% damage, may it be for 1 turn, 3 turns or 5 turns will be helpful, esp if they are resistant to magic damage.
As for the melee, I'm not too sure what an average is, I took 134, assumed they always hit and had a 60% chance to crit you, but also included if they crit you every time with a base 120% crit mult. Now the numbers could be tweaked, and I think with higher crit mult, actual moves aside from basic attack used and normal average damage(?) the melee might contest the poison.

Me personally I can't see an infliction you can't get rid of that will do 10% of your max health constantly if the person can manage it, whilst the person continues to inflict it. This of course isn't going into action economy, etc. and strictly meant as an average vs average simulation with the data provided. The poison is really good because it is really consistent, I'd even say its too consistent, too sticky, even going to the point of saying so long as you can inflict it, it is impossible to get rid of so long as you can use the move again.

I disagree, the status already has so much working against it, having to go through 2 separate RNG checks (Status infliction and evade) in order to be applied. Wretched Oil is a little less burdened by this as only 1 hit needs to go through to work. This status is much less of a bother than most people think it is in my opinion, and its just bias working against it. Its allowed to be a bit strong, especially given its already been nerfed before.

Given you need 200 hit tax just to function, you are going to have high skill, and under the impression, that you are a mage it will be higher with your will. Most people also don't go status resist to begin with because it comes from faith+san, and people don't typically build san. Even with tanks that build faith for crit evade, if you are aiming to poison them, you more than likely will. This only leaves evaders, and my gripe with evade is something different entirely, however, the only real challenge to any build is evade. Literally, you can use 'well you have to get past evade' to any counter to anything that isn't an autohit, which just further presents how overturned evade is as a mechanic and what it demands of people in order to respect it. The only real thing that poison has to deal with that's a bias against it is status resist, which isn't common and something you'd build if you are going straight poison.

However, my point wasn't just only poison builds. It is the fact poison can be tact onto any build if you really want to with options that let you just do some decent damage on the side and the person has to decide: hm do I waste my turn to force them to inflict it again, which will do damage while I don't move or do damage. Or do I just take the damage and move on.

The interaction isn't very pleasant, there's no real option there, waste 3m to get inflicted again and take %health damage or just say whatever and move on. A race can bite you if they want, some items apply it, etc.

If something has a lot of options, while dealing with something pretty damn good and having a counter of A or B, with B being the objectively worse choice, it is probably overturned.

And again, if something gets nerfed, nerfed and nerfed again but still remains oppressive and problematic, that's probably a design flaw, as is, that is why I suggested a change to the design of it all. Dev can make the per Lv % be higher, add a cap, etc. The suggestion is very flexible and offers action options to facing poison and not a narrow A or B that is favored to one side, or alternatively picking a race just to shut out an entire option.

Of course, you can adjust numbers and copy the spreadsheet and make a graph to represent what you'd consider an average is, but I can attest my firm point in a sort of tl;dr, again.
10% max HP per turn is great.
poison has few options to react to it outside of a race choice or minmaxing and knowing ur enemy's build and or swapping gear for poison res
poison as it just so happens to be a design flaw, its implementation is problematic and will continue to be
every build or op thing (outside of auto hits) has to deal with evade just like poison
status resist isn't commonly built, because ppl don't tend to go san, and sometimes go faith.
a straight mage poisoner will have high enough inflict to get past your resist due to the heavy skill/will investment

[Tana]

At the ranges you can typically apply poison, you can instead just basic someone for 400-800 damage. Over and over.

A thing people forget is, most PVP fights are over in under 4 rounds. I've personally been seeing these tanky poison-oriented high-def mages get absolutely stomped in under 3 rounds by some nerd with an axe. Over and over.

Your math is also incredibly weirdly biased vs. basic hitters - Somehow only assuming one swing a turn, when any basic hitter is going to be hitting you 3 times a turn, and with far higher than base crit mod - Typically they'll be closer to 150-170% crit mod, and stacking clarets, and possibly even other damage boosts; 120 SWA is semi-low for a basic attacker. 'Momentum economy' is that they're getting half a basic swing in per turn with 2 actions via poison vs. someone with a full 3 actions per turn, as an example.

Flat math like this also doesn't take into account the way basic hitters have to reduce damage on top of it all. Say, a wraithguard eating a chunk of their incoming that the theoretical hexer won't have.

[BoberJones]

At the ranges you can typically apply poison, you can instead just basic someone for 400-800 damage. Over and over.

A thing people forget is, most PVP fights are over in under 4 rounds. I've personally been seeing these tanky poison-oriented high-def mages get absolutely stomped in under 3 rounds by some nerd with an axe. Over and over.

Your math is also incredibly weirdly biased vs. basic hitters - Somehow only assuming one swing a turn, when any basic hitter is going to be hitting you 3 times a turn, and with far higher than base crit mod - Typically they'll be closer to 150-170% crit mod, and stacking clarets, and possibly even other damage boosts; 120 SWA is semi-low for a basic attacker. 'Momentum economy' is that they're getting half a basic swing in per turn with 2 actions via poison vs. someone with a full 3 actions per turn, as an example.

Flat math like this also doesn't take into account the way basic hitters have to reduce damage on top of it all. Say, a wraithguard eating a chunk of their incoming that the theoretical hexer won't have.

well, this is why i said i was using flat numbers and averages to point it out. i don't have the information of 2 optimized builds vs each other, nor did I claim the math would be that. I'm certain there are melee classes that exist outside of the duelist main, so 3 turns wouldn't apply, nor would they focus crit heavy if they didn't have fluer.

when variables change, the math will too, and you can do the same thing as I did, I wasn't going to account for it all because A: lack of information and B: too niche, and assumed 'optimized' meaning this is 2 chars in best-slotted gear with everything maxed out, etc. which, while it may not seem like it atm that's not common. (I'm playing korvara, but I am aware that balance applies to both, however, most people don't pvp or strive for super optimized builds((I think)))
with flat math you can see that essentially ( i did include flat res ) poison has an edge basically as a free damage, for the sake of argument you can consider that they can only act once, if both acted twice their damage would double, aside from the poison, so on and so forth.
more importantly, there are just more options to react to flat damage from a melee strike than poison, which is the entire point. dr options, armor, building a stack, items, etc.
poison has few options and they aren't real options because it can just be reapplied. however if you want to do all the math involved in making 2 optimized builds, getting their 2 average hits, what the actions would play out like etc, then you are free too. for me, showing numbers in a vacuum displays the inherent flaw of how poison functions. 

i can't argue an entirely different data set would produce different results. i can argue that poison still has little to no options vs the other damage being proposed (melee), it is a free 10% max health damage and is oppressive in its manner of sticking to a target.

also on a side note, the sheet is there, you can copy and apply the dr there and show the math if you want, plus plugin the numbers you want to in order to alter the data presented and have it be 1:1 in format as my own. you can even * the damage per turn values by 2 to showcase 2 attacks, then get the calculation for damage per turn w/ the 3 turn thing in mind(idk how exactly you'd do this one). i think its much more easy to show visual data than to toss hypotheticals back and forth, and frankly, the thing you proposed isn't what I'm arguing per see.

lets assume somebody has 170% crit mod, 141 swa since 120 is low, I imagine 141 is enough?

this also accounts for 2 hits a turn from each. the melee crits everytime, assuming that for, whatever reason its 100%
you barely beat poison. with res you just don't beat it, poison has special resistance so its not commonly resisted unless you preemptively planned for it. so poison is just generally still doing more damage, and this isn't even accounting for the person being a ghost and prob having 100-300 more hp + the extra 5% from the poison being applied, which would just increase the poison damage. i also kept the mage chars stats the same

[Kameron8]

I feel as though the enormous amount of text and graphs have made it ironically more difficult to follow your reasoning, and that's coming from someone who's a fan of equations.  Between how much damage a proper melee build (crit or otherwise) can actually produce, the fact that you seemingly account for poison damage the turn it was first applied, and how much FP it would cost to sit still and spam Wretched Oil (100 FP a turn, pre-reductions), it feels as though pretty much all of the data presented means next to nothing.

That said, I do feel like there is a very simple point to make that I agree with.  Attacks that scale roughly as well as everything else, but apply free poison, are extremely efficient -- overly so, even. 

I'm not so sure I agree with your assessment of how back-breaking the status itself is, though.  In fact, I would wager that it's unlikely the outcome of a fight would be determined by Poison's damage, in almost all cases besides two tanks bashing against each other.

[BoberJones]

I feel as though the enormous amount of text and graphs have made it ironically more difficult to follow your reasoning, and that's coming from someone who's a fan of equations.  Between how much damage a proper melee build (crit or otherwise) can actually produce, the fact that you seemingly account for poison damage the turn it was first applied, and how much FP it would cost to sit still and spam Wretched Oil (100 FP a turn, pre-reductions), it feels as though pretty much all of the data presented means next to nothing.

That said, I do feel like there is a very simple point to make that I agree with.  Attacks that scale roughly as well as everything else, but apply free poison, are extremely efficient -- overly so, even. 

I'm not so sure I agree with your assessment of how back-breaking the status itself is, though.  In fact, I would wager that it's unlikely the outcome of a fight would be determined by Poison's damage, in almost all cases besides two tanks bashing against each other.

the only way for me to ever appease these very specific parameters would be for me to either make an entire program that runs an actual simulation of sl2 combat, essentially replicating the combat itself, or for me to get on the test server. If I ever get approved to be on it, I can do a test with every single thing accounted for to show the extreme, the average, the not average etc. 
I can't possibly counter all of these very specific things, because as I already said, I'm showing numbers and data in a hypothetical where things are assumed. If you want to account for everything then you can and show me so I can go: hm yeah, then I was wrong, but the more I tac on things the more things seem to keep needing to be added in order for this example or the numbers to work.
my entire point is that 10% max HP dmg, w/ a cap of Poison Lv * 3 can be adjusted to Poison Lv * 0.02% max HP (or any % number you feel, this can make 40 poison be 10%, 20%, 15%, etc) for the later is capable of being tuned if needed.
the next point is that you shouldn't be able to rapidly inflict poison on somebody if they just cleansed or reduced it outside of special cases.
the point that 10% max hp is strong to have as an added bonus to whatever you might do in a turn is something I think is strong. idk if making the text end of turn 1 would mitigate this focus on the assumed poison working at turn start, but at the end of the day you are dealing an extra 70-90 damage to somebody per turn with something that's not as easy to reduce as say melee or other elements. and to top it off you can't really get rid of it, regardless if they are hexer or not, any class can reapply it if you cleanse it

as I said 3 times the numbers are in a vacuum with w/e data I had on hand when I asked. I'm not going to make a replication of dev's combat system in order to make a perfect system that replicates it 1:1 to show exactly in a very specific scenario this will work. from what I can see poison can do a lot of dmg, but I'm more caring about it never being able to be removed. and the only reason I made the first graph was to show that an extra 10% maxHP*round ends damage was pretty damn nice in general