[5.0 class build] "Keeper" - universalist (ancient/priest of wael)

[thelee]

If you've followed my postings on this forum, you probably know that I play priests a lot, and have been trying to find a way to play basically every priest subclass and multiclass option. Universalist has been really hard for me to square up into a good satisfying option, but I finally had a breakthrough while watching some WarCraft 3 streams. A keeper of the grove!

 

While this build isn't the most powerful or synergistic universalist you could build, I found it to be quite a bit of fun and can really carry you in the early-mid game due to the strength of its summons and buffs (which is also arguably some of the hardest parts of the game). Plus, in the process of building/playing this build, I developed a newfound appreciation for Halt.

Basic build outline: stats

Wood Elf, 12 might/8 con/15 dex/17 perception/18+1 intellect (old vailia)/7 resolve.

Classes: ancient [cat spiritshift] + wael

Skills: Alchemy and History

Level-by-level guide (with free spells in brackets, optional picks with asterisk):

1. [Summon Sporelings] Tanglefoot | Halt [Arcane Veil]
2. Fast Runner
3. Restore
4. [Charm Beasts] Woodskin | Two weapon style [Iconic Projection]
5. Wildstrike - Corrode*
6. One-handed style
7. [Wild Growth] Nature's Balm | Prayer for the Spirit [Mirror Image]
8. Insect Swarm*
9. Combat Focus*
10. [Form of the Delemgan] Moonwell | Devotions for the Faithful* [Llengrath's]
11. Greater Wildstrike - Corrode*
12. Spell Shaping
13. [Wall of Thorns] Nature's Terror* | Litany for the Spirit [Confusion]
14. Champion's Boon
15. Rapid Casting
16. [Venombloom] Rot Skulls | Salvation of Time [Arkemyr's]
17. Tough*
18. Quick Summoning*
19. [Call to the Primordial] Nature's Bounty* | Accurate Empower [Gaze]
20. Lasting Empower

Gear

Weapon slot 1: Weyc's Wand (bound to not-priest)

Weapon slot 2: Eye of Wael

Weapon slot 3 (see below): a hand mortar or club

Armor: Changeling's Mantle or Spider Silk Robe

Other items: Giftbearer's Cloth (will grant you a weapon slot), Mask of the Grotto Deep

How the build plays

Summon Sporelings is a unique ancient summon that gives you two little allies and is available to you at tier 1. However, despite being a tier 1 spell, the sporelings themselves are themselves minimum level 6. That means in the early game, the sporelings are extremely tanky even by PotD standards, and even after the early game (when their offense fails to keep up with enemy scaling) their health/level gain is so significant that they can still soak up a lot of damage. Halt is also an extremely effective spell throughout the game - it has good range and super fast cast, so the trick is to cast it on a melee-only foe as part of the opening moments in combat (or directly out of stealth). You've essentially hard-CC-ed an enemy for a significant amount of time (15s + intellect + PL scaling). Directly out of stealth is preferable - because an attack out of stealth has a -85% recovery time bonus, if your first Halt whiffs you can try again almost instantly.

So early-mid game, the Keeper plays like, well, a Keeper of the Grove from WC3: keep one tough melee enemy out of the fight using Halt, and then tank a bunch of other enemies using Sporelings. Use druid and priest magic to keep everyone alive, resummoning your Sporelings if needed. This is good enough that you can be carried through fights that you might have struggled with before and have no business of winning. For example, the Sealed Fate ambush by Talfor at level 6 on PotD can be rough if you take the violent approach - the enemies are triple-skulled with two dangerous wizard and a priest casting mid-level magic. I was able to clear it without a single knockout using OBS party members, with Wael's challenge enabled, carried solely on the backs of the basic early game toolkit this universalist has.

As you progress into the game and get more spells than you know what to do with, a secondary focus emerges on poison, spiritshifting, and healing. A high intellect (from prayer and litany of the spirit) will help extend your spiritshift duration, and cat form gives you the best offensive punch thanks to its once/encounter +33% action speed ability. Arcane Veil and Mirror Image are good fast effects to make your spiritshifting a bit safer. Salvation of Time eventually comes along to boost spiritshift and the +33% action speed duration. The poison boost comes in the form of Venombloom (which benefits from +poison PL), Mask of the Deep Grotto, and single-wielding ranged weapons that you can use to deliver poison more effectively. (Single-weapon style doesn't boost poison accuracy, but because poison requires you to land a hit/graze first, it becomes a beneficiary of it. Very similar to how perception/accuracy is very important for a barbarian because Carnage is a dependent event of hitting a target as opposed to an independent event that happens regardless. This is also why you pick up Devotions for the Faithful.) Rot skulls aren't poison per se, but does great damage coupled with single-weapon style to land those initial hits, and interspersing it with spellcasting is a good complement to the build (since the DoTs from rot skulls don't stack).

In the end-game you have several options. Accurate/Lasting Empower exist so that if you want you can take the Least Unstable Coil route and empower Venombloom - each tick of Venombloom will grant you another tier 3 inspiration from Least Unstable Coil, while also triggering Weyc's Wand's +3 PL bonus, all of which you can extend (along with spiritshift and the +33% action speed boost) with Salvation of Time. Sporelings are still effective bullet sponges, but now you can also use Call to the Primordials for a bunch of tanks with a bit more offense (though still subject to PEN/AR issues). A steady diet of poisons combined with various PL boosts (Litany, Mask of the Grotto Deep, Spider Silk Robe) will make you good at fire-and-forgetting foes of various kinds (generally casters, but a couple poisons don't target fortitude and are great for tankier foes). All the while you have the general defensive utility of the priest and druid to keep your entire party alive. Don't neglect Woodskin and Form of the Delemgan as buffs! They can offer serious survival boosts due to their very generous (if specific) AR boosts (remember: many ranged weapons are piercing). Halt is always good, and it'll only get better as your accuracy goes up and PL scaling becomes more generous. Be careful though - some melee enemies have ranged weapons as backup. But in general, the utility of Halt has been so suprisingly good that I now also weight the ranger's similar Binding/Thorny Roots much higher (though modulated by the fact that it comes much later).

Possible party members and notes

If you want to stay in-theme, I recommend picking up a ranger to come along for the fun.

Note - I recently discovered that if you set your party AI to "passive" you won't encounter the consumable AI bug. You have to manually tell your party members to attack, but once they're attacking they'll do scripts and auto-attacks as normal (you only need to explicitly tell them to attack when their target(s) are gone or you have told them to stop doing something). I recommend using this with the keeper or else your constant diet of alchemy/poison can get tedious with flipping the AI on/off.

[Boeroer]

Cool and different. I never used Halt because usually on PotD there are so many enemies and only so few spell uses. If such a single-target CC misses I'll bite into the tabletop.
But maybe I'll give it a try now.  

Since you are mentioning Woodskin and Form of the Delemgan: Did you consider using the Lance of the Midwood Stag (which is obtainable quite early)? As druid it's easy to gain +2 universal Power Level via "Lord of the Forest" reliably, especially if you are planning to use Woodskin and Form of the Delemgan anyway. The universal +2 PL is nice if your most used spells are not beast or plant (where Spine of Thicket Green would be an alternative).

[Ivanfyodorovich]

Love this build. Killer theme and great use of underused spells, with Halt. It's good to hear that Sporelings stay useful as sponges. I always hire an Ancient Druid custom adventurer on Port Maje to get through the digsite on PotD or any Trial of Iron runs for exactly the reasons you are noting (also, Charm Beasts). 

11 hours ago, thelee said:

For example, the Sealed Fate ambush by Talfor at level 6 on PotD can be rough if you take the violent approach - the enemies are triple-skulled with two dangerous wizard and a priest casting mid-level magic. I was able to clear it without a single knockout using OBS party members, with Wael's challenge enabled, carried solely on the backs of the basic early game toolkit this universalist has.

This one hits too close to home. I just pissed away a double ToI run (started the character in PoE1) on Talfor. Immediately upon seeing the skulls I remembered it as one of those fights that stomps new players. 

Any other tips for poison use? I've got a Loremaster Fassina/Howler Konstanten combo build I've been working on that uses +poison PL for her, and I considered alchemy for the synergies. I use Blightheart, so the modal helps tremendously with the initial hit. Where does it fit in your typical casting sequence? Halt > Sporelings/Venombloom > Heals/Poison?

[thelee]

8 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Since you are mentioning Woodskin and Form of the Delemgan: Did you consider using the Lance of the Midwood Stag (which is obtainable quite early)? As druid it's easy to gain +2 universal Power Level via "Lord of the Forest" reliably, especially if you are planning to use Woodskin and Form of the Delemgan anyway. The universal +2 PL is nice if your most used spells are not beast or plant (where Spine of Thicket Green would be an alternative).

I deliberately chose not to pick it up simply because I was trying to go for something different  (i got a little bored of always equipping it on tekehu)

but for those with less desire to be a contrarian, lance of the midwood stag would be extremely good for this build for precisely those reasons. later on you could start with weyc's wand (empower) and then switch to lance of midwood stag for the rest of the fight for a total of +5 PL.

 

6 hours ago, Ivanfyodorovich said:

Any other tips for poison use? I've got a Loremaster Fassina/Howler Konstanten combo build I've been working on that uses +poison PL for her, and I considered alchemy for the synergies. I use Blightheart, so the modal helps tremendously with the initial hit. Where does it fit in your typical casting sequence? Halt > Sporelings/Venombloom > Heals/Poison?

earlier in the game i tend to be pretty aggressive with poison use. later in the game, it's much more targeted and deliberate because of action economy - because of wael's challenge i had to just come up with some vague heuristics on targeting, so i would generally start trying to hit an important caster or two with poison after the initial round of buffs. if i have advance warning for a fight (stealth) i would either load up on an initial poison to do after a halt, or (if there are no good halt targets) i would just start the fight attacking with poison (landing a confuse poison on a healer type can be pretty effective).

 

as reminder note IIRC, poison only gets half your alchemy skill towards its PL scaling. Direct poison bonuses or generic PL scaling are therefore worth 2x (so litany of the spirit is effectively worth +2 alchemy PL, not +1; spider silk is worth a whopping +4). (again i just kinda winged it in-game because of wael's challenge)

 

Edited October 14, 2020 by thelee

[Ivanfyodorovich]

27 minutes ago, thelee said:

earlier in the game i tend to be pretty aggressive with poison use. later in the game, it's much more targeted and deliberate because of action economy - because of wael's challenge i had to just come up with some vague heuristics on targeting, so i would generally start trying to hit an important caster or two with poison after the initial round of buffs. if i have advance warning for a fight (stealth) i would either load up on an initial poison to do after a halt, or (if there are no good halt targets) i would just start the fight attacking with poison (landing a confuse poison on a healer type can be pretty effective).

That's helpful to hear your thought process. I like that Loremaster Fassina build slightly better with Arcana, but I think a Sorcerer build for her with Poison is next on my list to play with. Both make good use of the +1PL from her subclass familiar. Untangling all the PL bonuses for those was one of the first reasons I read your FAQ and forum threads in depth. Fun stuff!

 

[Zera Strife]

Another amazing build by one of the GOATs! Do you think it’s viable for POTD Solo? About to wrap up BG3 EA and have to scratch the crpg itch.

[dgray62]

This looks like a really original build, Thelee. Thank you for sharing it. I was wondering why you took Insect Swarm but not Plague of Insects, which is really a great spell. Was this just due to lack of ability points? There's clearly hard choices to make when multiclassing, since Nature's Terror is a great spell too, especially when shifting. Do you use Community Patch or some other mod? I ask since the vanilla game unfortunately omits the poison keyword from key druid spells that should have it, such as Venombloom.

[Ivanfyodorovich]

20 minutes ago, dgray62 said:

I ask since the vanilla game unfortunately omits the poison keyword from key druid spells that should have it, such as Venombloom.

This is true for the insect spells, but Venombloom actually does benefit from +poison PL. It doesn't have the keyword, but does benefit when I tested back in 2019. The Community Mod didn't add poison to any spells, as far as I remember (maybe I can convince Elric to sneak that into his Polishing Mod). 

[dgray62]

Thanks, Ivanyodorvich, that's good to know.

[Boeroer]

Keep in mind that if you add poison to spells like Insect Swarm, that spell might become useless against everything that is immune to poison (such as many vessels and spirits but also Coral Nagas etc.). So while it might sound nice to have additional power levels, it can actually hurt the ability.

I experienced this in my second-latest solo run with a DoT based Assassin/Bleak Walker: while I like Toxic Strike a lot there were many, many encounters where I couldn't use it. I used Ring the Bell (one handed version with DoT) and it always works, no immunities. If I didn't had that that would have been quite the bummer for my enjoyment of the build an run.

Now if Insect Swarm, Plague of Insects and Venombloom would all be poison, a beast/plant focused Ancient would be pretty frustrated once meeting some undead etc. I'm happy that he can be happy.

So (rather long) bottomline: I'm actually quite okay with not too many spells having the poison keyword - although it might sound sensible to add it (but it's not 100% clear): Plague of Insects or Insect Swarm - those names do not necessarily mean that it's venomous insects (unless description says otherwise). With stuff like Venombloom and Toxic Strike it's very obvious of course. 

[Ivanfyodorovich]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Keep in mind that if you add poison to spells like Insect Swarm, that spell might become useless against everything that is immune to poison (such as many vessels and spirits but also Coral Nagas etc.). So while it might sound nice to have additional power levels, it can actually hurt the ability.

The sad thing is, anything with the antidote counter is already coded so that it won't affect poison immune. I agree about Insect Swarm staying as is (i.e. no Poison keyword), but Plague of Insects only works on non-poison immune foes, but lacks the keyword to benefit from the bonus. There are a handful of spells like that, iirc. I'd have to dig my notes back up. 

I agree with the rest, though. I think the update I'd want is to look at any antidote counter abilities and add Poison keyword on any that make sense. 

[Elric Galad]

42 minutes ago, Ivanfyodorovich said:

The sad thing is, anything with the antidote counter is already coded so that it won't affect poison immune. I agree about Insect Swarm staying as is (i.e. no Poison keyword), but Plague of Insects only works on non-poison immune foes, but lacks the keyword to benefit from the bonus. There are a handful of spells like that, iirc. I'd have to dig my notes back up. 

That's a good point. If you have a list, I would consider implementing it... one day.

[Boeroer]

I completely agree to that. Poison/Antidote should be used consistently. Stuff like Plague of Insects where you get no bonus from poison PLs but gets blocked by antidote nevertheless is not... good.

[Ivanfyodorovich]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

That's a good point. If you have a list, I would consider implementing it... one day.

Here's that list of spells to add Poison keyword to. Venombloom is funky, in that it's only a display issue, so I'd want to test to make sure it doesn't benefit twice if we gave it the keyword. I'd also love to know what is going on in the code there.  

[Vile Thorns] has counter: Antidote, does not have Poison keyword, confirmed does not benefit from Poison PL

[Plague of Insects] has counter: Antidote, does not have Poison keyword, confirmed does not benefit from Poison PL

[Venombloom] has counter: Antidote, does not have Poison keyword, confirmed DOES benefit from Poison PL

Edge case

[Wall of Thorns] does not have counter: Antidote, does not have Poison keyword, confirmed does not benefit from Poison PL, but description says "Applies a poison that causes a Weakened state." I personally would not make changes to this spell. Poison immune is so common, and Druid already has 3 spells that won't work on them. 

[Elric Galad]

17 minutes ago, Ivanfyodorovich said:

Here's that list of spells to add Poison keyword to. Venombloom is funky, in that it's only a display issue, so I'd want to test to make sure it doesn't benefit twice if we gave it the keyword. I'd also love to know what is going on in the code there.  

[Vile Thorns] has counter: Antidote, does not have Poison keyword, confirmed does not benefit from Poison PL

[Plague of Insects] has counter: Antidote, does not have Poison keyword, confirmed does not benefit from Poison PL

[Venombloom] has counter: Antidote, does not have Poison keyword, confirmed DOES benefit from Poison PL

Edge case

[Wall of Thorns] does not have counter: Antidote, does not have Poison keyword, confirmed does not benefit from Poison PL, but description says "Applies a poison that causes a Weakened state." I personally would not make changes to this spell. Poison immune is so common, and Druid already has 3 spells that won't work on them. 

OK, but if my memory serves well, Wall of Thorns is somehow ineffective vs poison immune even if the Antidote KW does not appear !

Rotting skulls is similar I think. Description mentions disease, no antidote KW, but resisted by poison immune.

I remember a comprehensive post about this with nice green color fonts, maybe from @Boeroer (pretty sure he was involved), maybe in the course of Community Patch design. But I can't find it.

I wouldn't mind removing Poison / Antidote from a couple of abilities by the way, especially for druids.

[Boeroer]

I remember that I tested such stuff some time ago with the console - but it's really foggy and I can't remember details or if it was me who posted that. Rymrgand and Ondra have a firm grip on me.

Edited October 15, 2020 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

24 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

I remember that I tested such stuff some time ago with the console - but it's really foggy and I can't remember details of if it was me who poster that. Rymrgand and Ondra have a firm grip on me.

Rymrgand had a good grip on the whole 2020 to be honnest.

Gotcha. Take this, Ondra !
 

 

Edited October 15, 2020 by Elric Galad

[Boeroer]

Ah! So it was me. Hehe.

Though in that post I didn't distinguish between poison and antidote like here. I just checked which Druid spell doesn't work on poison and/or disease immunities. I mixed the keywords a bit. By the time I didn't really pay attention to how the bonuses/immunities might have been implemented. But the results are still valid I guess. 

[Elric Galad]

3 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Ah! So it was me. Hehe.

Though in that post I didn't distinguish between poison and antidote like here. I just checked which Druid spell doesn't work on poison and/or disease immunities. I mixed the keywords a bit. By the time I didn't really pay attention to how the bonuses/immunities might have been implemented. But the results are still valid I guess. 

It just confirms our previous post where exactly 5 druid abilities were identified as poison/disease based.

And what about other classes ?

1st step : identifying the candidates (anything with raw/corrode damages might be suspected) :

Rogue :
Toxic Strike but not Withering/Perishing ?
Pernicious Cloud ?

Wiz :
Noxious Burst
Malignent Cloud
Cobra weapon
Wilting Wind ??

Chanter :
Dank Spore summon abilities
Boil their flesh ??

[thelee]

15 hours ago, dgray62 said:

This looks like a really original build, Thelee. Thank you for sharing it. I was wondering why you took Insect Swarm but not Plague of Insects, which is really a great spell. Was this just due to lack of ability points? There's clearly hard choices to make when multiclassing, since Nature's Terror is a great spell too, especially when shifting. Do you use Community Patch or some other mod? I ask since the vanilla game unfortunately omits the poison keyword from key druid spells that should have it, such as Venombloom.

i almost always play vanilla. as for Insect Swarm, that exist solely to give something to the druid at tier two casting, which is why it's marked optional. Outside of beast fights, at level 7+ you basically have a tier two spell cast that's not used for anything (since aside from hold beasts you only have woodskin which is not exactly something you always need to double-up on). Insect Swarm has good utility (blocking concentration) and benefits from the ancient's +1 PL, so I picked it up.

 

15 hours ago, Zera Strife said:

Another amazing build by one of the GOATs! Do you think it’s viable for POTD Solo? About to wrap up BG3 EA and have to scratch the crpg itch.

To be honest, the only time I've ever played solo is for the ultimate, so I have no idea. I suspect it would be pretty decent, at least early on, simply because sporelings are really good assists and when resting in the wild mare to get +1 tier one casts you get up to 5x summons (three at first, self-empower for two more) which will basically let you facetank most early-mid game fights. I'm not so sure in late game though if there's enough damage or sustain to survive solo, at least until least unstable coil arrives on the scene.

[Ivanfyodorovich]

 

10 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

I wouldn't mind removing Poison / Antidote from a couple of abilities by the way, especially for druids.

I don't think this is the best move. It feels much better to just make the abilities work consistently with +Poison PL. That opens up more build possibilities, and holds closer to developer intent, i.e. if a poison immune creature is immune to the spell, add the Poison keyword to it. As Boeroer showed in that DoT thread you linked, Druid has lots of spells that deal corrode/raw and/or are DoTs that work against poison immune foes. 

It would also make this work more consistently, as all of the wizard poison spells have the keyword and work as expected with poison immune foes. (Nannasin's Cobra Strike is the exception here, but summoned weapons work weird with PL, anyway).

I also wouldn't mess with any of the disease flagged spells. There's no special powerlevel mechanics for them, and the descriptions of the abilities usually are clear enough. If desired, you could add clarifying language on spells that don't mention disease. 

6 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

And what about other classes ?

1st step : identifying the candidates (anything with raw/corrode damages might be suspected) :

Rogue :
Toxic Strike but not Withering/Perishing ?
Pernicious Cloud ?

Wiz :
Noxious Burst
Malignent Cloud
Cobra weapon
Wilting Wind ??

Chanter :
Dank Spore summon abilities
Boil their flesh ??

Chanter

White Worms invocation and it's upgrade do not work against disease/poison immune enemies. Description doesn't mention either disease or poison, so perhaps this could be changed to work against those enemies. If we don't want to change it, I think it makes the most sense as a disease ability, i.e. doesn't need any keywords added. 

What Rua Noka Found . . . (Dank Spore) summon regular attacks work against poison/disease immune and are not keyworded poison or antidote. The Spore Cloud charm attack is keyworded poison/antidote, and does not work on poison immune enemies. I would not make any changes here, seems to be working correctly. 

Boil Their Flesh From Skin to Bone does damage poison/disease immune enemies, and is not keyworded poison/antidote. Seems to be working correctly. 

Wizard

All abilities with Poison keyword work as expected and have antidote counter (Malignant Cloud, Noxious Burst). The others are not keyworded Poison and work fine against poison immune enemies. 

Rogue

Pernicious Cloud works against poison immune and is not antidote or poison keyworded. 

Toxic Strike does not work against poison immune. It does not have the Poison keyword or the Antidote counter. Note that Withering Strike DOES work against poison immune enemies. Note: it does not seem like Poison PL is affecting the ability, but because it's a weapon attack based one, it's hard to see exactly. Someone with better testing skills might be able to answer more definitively. 

Edited October 15, 2020 by Ivanfyodorovich
updating ability list

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, Ivanfyodorovich said:

 

I don't think this is the best move. It feels much better to just make the abilities work consistently with +Poison PL. That opens up more build possibilities, and holds closer to developer intent, i.e. if a poison immune creature is immune to the spell, add the Poison keyword to it. As Boeroer showed in that DoT thread you linked, Druid has lots of spells that deal corrode/raw and/or are DoTs that work against poison immune foes. 

It would also make this work more consistently, as all of the wizard poison spells have the keyword and work as expected with poison immune foes. (Nannasin's Cobra Strike is the exception here, but summoned weapons work weird with PL, anyway).

I also wouldn't mess with any of the disease flagged spells. There's no special powerlevel mechanics for them, and the descriptions of the abilities usually are clear enough. If desired, you could add clarifying language on spells that don't mention disease. 

Chanter

White Worms invocation and it's upgrade do not work against disease/poison immune enemies. Description doesn't mention either disease or poison, so perhaps this could be changed to work against those enemies. If we don't want to change it, I think it makes the most sense as a disease ability, i.e. doesn't need any keywords added. 

What Rua Noka Found . . . (Dank Spore) summon regular attacks work against poison/disease immune and are not keyworded poison or antidote. The Spore Cloud charm attack is keyworded poison/antidote, and does not work on poison immune enemies. I would not make any changes here, seems to be working correctly. 

Boil Their Flesh From Skin to Bone does damage poison/disease immune enemies, and is not keyworded poison/antidote. Seems to be working correctly. 

Wizard

All abilities with Poison keyword work as expected and have antidote counter (Malignant Cloud, Noxious Burst). The others are not keyworded Poison and work fine against poison immune enemies. 

Rogue

Pernicious Cloud works against poison immune and is not antidote or poison keyworded. 

Toxic Strike does not work against poison immune. It does not have the Poison keyword or the Antidote counter. Note that Withering Strike DOES work against poison immune enemies. 

Nice ! Some testing that I won't have to do myself  

1) Disease vs Poison : If I remember well, disease and poison do have the same keyword in the gamedata files (KW does not appear in the "ability object", that's why it does not show on the description, but in the attack and status). If this the case, I think adding Poison tag to the ability as well would make the whole stuff more consistent. They are close enough concept and ennemies are immune to both anyway. Poison tag would help identifying the ability that could be resisted.
If they are different KW, I might put the disease KW to the ability and sees what happens

2) I just realized that Pernicious Cloud and Toxic Strike do not have Acid KW in spit of doing Corrode damages. I should add it to them. (Toxic Strike would be Acid, Poison then, as Noxious Burst).

3) Cobra should get the Poison KW. I added Acid KW to Blackbow to align it with Firebrand which was tagged fire. No reason not to add it.

4) About removing Poison tag : the only cases where I think it would be a matter of debate are White Worms and Rot Skulls.
- White Worms because it is not even hinted in the description and it causes Crush damages. I suspect the Poison could be only on the sickened component (which still prevents the whole attack from working against poison immune). The Sicken effect is vs Will, which doesn't sound too much Poison/Disease to me. Are you sure the unupgraded version has also the Poison KW ? The spell is a bit meh compared to Thrice she was wronged anyway and might use a little buff.
- Rot Skull because 2 Poison-based spell on the same Tier is a bit too much (and Venombloom is too much Venom to be changed...)

Hey, so Perishing Strike might be more reliable, nay ? Good point for it (Boeroer should be triggered by this one)

[Ivanfyodorovich]

2 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

1) Disease vs Poison : If I remember well, disease and poison do have the same keyword in the gamedata files (KW does not appear in the "ability object", that's why it does not show on the description, but in the attack and status). If this the case, I think adding Poison tag to the ability as well would make the whole stuff more consistent. They are close enough concept and ennemies are immune to both anyway. Poison tag would help identifying the ability that could be resisted.
If they are different KW, I might put the disease KW to the ability and sees what happens

They do work independently somehow. There are 5 disease immune, but not poison immune enemies (various forms of bats), and there are several poison immune and not disease immune enemies (skeletons, naga). 

White Worms works on poison immune only and does not work on disease immune only. Same for Rot Skulls. 

Noxious Burst works on disease immune only, and not on poison immune only, etc. 

Based on that, and the fact that no abilities are flagged as both, I wouldn't want to add the Poison keyword to any disease abilities. If we want to create a disease keyword, just to make it clear how those abilities interact with immunity, that seems fine. It would also allow future modders to create gear or abilities that take advantage of that keyword. 

2 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

2) I just realized that Pernicious Cloud and Toxic Strike do not have Acid KW in spit of doing Corrode damages. I should add it to them. (Toxic Strike would be Acid, Poison then, as Noxious Burst).

This seems great.  

2 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

4) About removing Poison tag : the only cases where I think it would be a matter of debate are White Worms and Rot Skulls.
- White Worms because it is not even hinted in the description and it causes Crush damages. I suspect the Poison could be only on the sickened component (which still prevents the whole attack from working against poison immune). The Sicken effect is vs Will, which doesn't sound too much Poison/Disease to me. Are you sure the unupgraded version has also the Poison KW ? The spell is a bit meh compared to Thrice she was wronged anyway and might use a little buff.
- Rot Skull because 2 Poison-based spell on the same Tier is a bit too much (and Venombloom is too much Venom to be changed...)

I wouldn't remove anything from the disease flagged abilities. Their flavor is suitably disease-y (corpse explosion, rotting skull tossing, etc.). I'd suggest instead that you add a keyword, or at least update the descriptions. A Disease Keyword has no mechanical interaction currently, but it does clearly indicate what's happening with the ability. It also opens room for future mods w/ gear or abilities. That would affect these abilities (That I'm aware of). 

Druid

Spreading Plague

Rot Skulls

Chanter

White Worms & Upgrade (I can confirm that they both are flagged internally as disease. 

 

[Elric Galad]

OK, no change to Disease KW then. I will simply update the description of White Worms.
White Worms need a buff, I think, so I seize the opportunity to change the description on the way.

[Boeroer]

White Worms is very good? The only thing that's stupid about it is that it fails to work every now and then because it seems you have to succeed at a hidden hit roll against the corpse(?).