Update 29’s new prefix/suffix format offers some improvements for a poison master–if she can find the weapons.
I’m still tooling about with Ryncletica, a Drow that leverages all kinds of Poison damage with Ninja Poison to DoT the hell out of many enemies.
With Update 29, a curious addition has arrived to weapon prefixes that has almost caused me to forget that I still need a Shard to build an Epic Envenomed Blade for Ryn.
That’s the Venomous prefix. These are adding 1d6, 2d6, 3d6, 4d6, 5d6, even 6d6 Poison damage to weapons. That’s a lot of Poison for the 100% Poison debuff caused by Ninja Poison to amplify, far more than the Poison damage that any other weapon adds. In contrast, my two preferred weapons are the Tiefling Assassin’s Blade and the Envenomed Blade, which give only 1 to 6 Poison, with occasional bursts of additional Poison in the latter. I just found a level 28 blade of Critical Piercing for extra damage.
So these new weapons give more consistent Poison damage that should stack and amplify. I said should as I had yet to test it until recently.
While the Venomous prefix was rather common, it took me some time to find a couple of shortswords (shown above) with Venomous, never mind an idea set with of Wounding or Doublestrike. I even found a Venomous returning shuriken before these two shortswords. That’s the first Poison throwing star I’ve ever seen, and I hope to watch Sting of the Ninja boost its DoT effects.
So, at level 24, Ryn’s test needed to find a boss that (1) Wasn’t a devil, elemental or undead, (2) Was respectfully high rank, at least CR 28 so I can watch the DoT build-up, and (3) had a simple end-fight with no respawns to complicate my observations.
Frelga, the night hag awaiting at the end of “The Riddle” on Heroic Elite, qualified for the job.
The result: As expected, these weapons get sizable boosts of Poison damage that get magnified with Ninja Poison. This build also adds the Venomed Blades Drow enhancement to go with all that. Don’t have a Quiver of Poison yet, which would complete this build’s power.
It would be nice to also find an Red augment slot. Sadly, there are no Poison rubies we can add to weapons. That would be nice to see.
The weapons themselves also have a strong base damage, which is welcome.
You may notice other purple damage amidst all the purple poison haze. That’s the Touch of Despair finisher debuff that magnifies negative energy damage. I do have the 500-point zapping Touch of Death on hand, but wasn’t using it here so I could observe the new Poison.
The Poison Master is a somewhat limited build to be sure, especially with Update 28 and 29’s additional raids and quests that build up to a new invasion by the devils of Shavarath and other outsiders that are completely immune to Poison. Good against Drow and humans and many others.
But when that one HP-heavy boss shows up that isn’t a devil but is resistant to many other attacks, Ryncletica will be up to the job.
The Order of Syncletica 
Jan 11, 2016 @ 19:00:53
Venomous of critical piercing is insanely good! With Risia around the corner, don’t forget that you can add Icy Burst and reduce the minimum level by 4. That is too good to pass up, one of the nice things with Lootgen.
Jan 11, 2016 @ 23:59:55
Good idea!
Jan 11, 2016 @ 22:06:16
Wait how you reduce the min level?
Jan 14, 2016 @ 11:37:27
Adding Icy Burst to lootgen items via the Risia festival drops the minimum level by a few.
Jan 30, 2016 @ 16:16:57
actually, it turns out that it does not reduce the minimum level on the new lootgen. Oh well.
Jan 30, 2016 @ 16:40:21
D’awww.. But good to know!
Jan 12, 2016 @ 00:40:16
Reblogged this on DDOCentral.
Jan 14, 2016 @ 16:59:53
Since you took SWF, I think the way to go on this build is to take Tier 5 Henshin and then the ninja capstone! Then, with PSWF, you can get vorpals on a 19-20 which means every 3 seconds you hit Void Strike for a 10% chance of an instakill on ANYTHING (no save) except bosses. On bosses, stack poison. This makes it a nice dual strategy.
In the meantime, SCEWL will give free heals on the death of the mob you are attacking (assuming Fists of Darkness).
Jan 14, 2016 @ 17:42:13
Ryn’s actually a TWF but not the full feats; helps with the high dosage (Kiri’s the SWF). So I’d like to improve Ryn’s sustained doublestrike and her weapon’s secondary damage. Risia will do that very nicely, perhaps a little Force Critical. Might train up one Divine destiny for Holy Strike, then Perfect Two Weapon Fighting for 5% Doublestrike and 10% DS to offhand.Maybe Embodiment of Law for level 29 or Embodiment of Chaos to help when she’s attaining poison-immune Lawful Evil (devils). Who knows for the Legendary Feat? Scion of the Ethereal Plane for permablur, extra Sneak Attack damage (very high since the bonus is based on my Hide score) or Astral Plane for more Doublestrike and Doubleshot (4% more being Centered) as well as more Dodge and cap to 34%. Scion of Arborea gives +30 Melee and Ranged Power. She does need to improve general damage when she can’t poison.
Jan 14, 2016 @ 17:45:03
That seems like a good strategy.
Also, if you like the idea of SWF, she can always do an Epic reincarnate and try the SWF. The fact that Void strike takes out everything–undead, elementals, you name it, means within 30 seconds on even the most powerful mob, it is gone. POOF! I tried it once before reincarnating and it worked really well.
Jan 14, 2016 @ 20:54:11
It’s a build I would consider, ever since we lost the use of the special Void finishers. The Ninja Spy one charmed enemies. I was just getting good at it when Void Strike was nerfed.