Point of Poison Darts?

[:1]I was just wondering what the main use of this ability is. Considering that the Witch Doctor has a lot of area-damage spells, my first guess would be that it deals more damage than his other spells, but only to a single target.

That would seem to be the only justification for taking this skill over his other, more showy ones; but I can't help but feel that it looks a little underwhelming as a skill to take down high-priority single targets (all I really have to go on is the b-roll video).

If any of you guys have had experience using this skill at BlizzCon, what are your thoughts?|||O.o To put snakes on a face...why else?





Really though, it's no different than a throw barb, or Fury sin.

He doesn't mix melee with ranged like those two can, but functionally, it's another ranged attack that he can apply buffs to.



I'm sure the darts can have more poison than the locust's DoT, maybe even some slow effects. I think the snakes slowed, but can't be sure.|||Quote:








I think the snakes slowed, but can't be sure.




If I recall correctly, the snakes stunned for a while; and yeah - putting snakes onto faces is a pretty good reason. Much more so if it works on Diablo himself. :]

Yeah, the fact that the Witch Doctor isn't a predominantly melee class with this bonus ranged attack is what throws me off a bit.

Maybe it's just there to help finish off weakened enemies, where casting a Plague of Toads would be overkill (although Skull of Flame and Locust Swarm still look like they're in the relatively low-mana spammable range).

Small aside: what would the Giant Toad rune for Plague of Toads do if it goes up against a boss? It can't one-shot it like it can with lesser minions.|||Well, their source of poison on darts is a very potent, even hallucinogenic, poison from dart frogs in the jungle.

I can easily see this out damaging their "usual" DoT, but it'd be a single target thing. If playing on hallucinations, perhaps a small radius or single-target horror / confuse effect.|||with just lvl 2 multishot rune it became a 4 dart machine gun, and in the early going 2 darts was enough to kill anything sub boss. Lots of other skills were better for crowds, but with a high level rune and some complimentry traits, Poison Dart would be an awesome boss killer.|||Quote:








Small aside: what would the Giant Toad rune for Plague of Toads do if it goes up against a boss? It can't one-shot it like it can with lesser minions.




It just does a large amount of damage to the boss/champion monster Blizzard already told us this.|||I guess death animations are event triggered. For example, a frog would over ride it and "eat" the monster. Siegebreaker over rides it and bites the player, etc.



Kinda makes me wonder how other things will change it.|||Does it have a low mana cost? If so, that might be a good reason to take the skill as well.

How does the Witch Doctor's mana play anyway?|||I, for one, welcome our new snakes on a face overlords...

And yes, if the dart wastes few resources, it is useful after you already run out of mana...|||I think the devs said that giant toads can eat champion monsters as well.