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Poisoning gains set to a time delay?

G

Guest

Guest
I was getting so frustrated with the slow gains of poisoning (used trainers to go from 0 to approx. 27, then spent almost 3 kegs of Lesser Poison going from 27 to 30) that I made a whole new character with poisoning as his primary skill and jumped straight to 50.

Now, I've been using normal Poison potions for gains, but I've been having the same experience as before: very sparse gains, and when I do gain it comes a few points at a time. Seriously, every time I do happen to make gains it will be around a total of 0.3-0.5 points within just a few potions regardless of success or failure followed by nearly a keg's worth of potions that give zero gains. Suddenly the idea came to me that the poisoning skill was set to a time-delay for gains, and so I started recording my gains to see if the theory had any fact behind it. Here is what happened:

Starting at 50.9 skill, using Poison potions, began at 12:33 PM

+0.1 gained at 12:33 PM
+0.1 gained at 12:33 PM
+0.1 gained at 12:34 PM

Continued to use potions, there were no more gains for twenty minutes. Then:

+0.1 gained at 12:54 PM
+0.1 gained at 12:55 PM
+0.1 gained at 12:57 PM
+0.1 gained at 12:58 PM
+0.1 gained at 12:58 PM

Finished using 1 keg of Poison potions at 1:06 PM

So, estimating that there was a twenty minute time-delay between gains (from last gain to next gain) based on this experience I waited twenty minutes from the last gain before using any more potions.

Now at 51.7 skill, using Poison potions, began at 1:18PM

+0.1 gained at 1:19 PM
+0.1 gained at 1:20 PM
+0.1 gained at 1:20 PM

I stopped after using a total of 30 Poison potions. Now I'm convinced that there is a definite twenty minute time delay in gains for the Poisoning skill, and I was just wondering whether this was true for other players.
 
G

Guest

Guest
After some more testing I'm even surer that there is a twenty minute time delay in gains, but it's not an absolute rule.

It seems that at the beginning of the timer is it very easy to gain +0.2 skill points in Poisoning. You have a reduce chance to make gains after that. The amount that your chance to gain drops is unknown to me, but it seems pretty significant and accumulates. For instance, it's extremely common (although not guaranteed) to gain +0.3 within twenty minutes, but it's a lot less likely that you'll be able to gain +0.4. The chance seems to use a random modifier so luck also plays a role, as you could see from the second gain set in my example above. (I haven't tested the difference between luck bonus vs. no luck bonus yet, but will do it sometime in the future)

The safest or most cost-effective rate seems to be to gain that "golden" +0.3, or if you're really cheap/poor just use 10-15 potions at a time, and then wait for the twenty minute delay to pass. Rinse and repeat until satisfied. This cuts down the amount of wasted pots by approx. 90% so anybody who's not as rich as God should at least test this out for themselves to see the difference first hand, particularly at higher levels.
 
G

Guest

Guest
So, I used up an entire keg by the "+0.3 every twenty minutes" method, and I gained approx. 5 skill points using regular Poison potions going from the early 50's (52 or 53) into the late 50's.

It takes a lot of hours to use an entire keg this way, especially since I wasn't keeping precise track of when twenty minutes would pass and I would go to do other things during the delay. But, the effectiveness of potion-to-gains ratio is much higher than that of the traditional Popeil-style "set it and forget it" macroing. The downside is that, while you're not technically spending the same amount of time doing poisoning gains, it does take a lot longer overall.

To put it in more concrete terms, comparing delay-gains method to continual-use-gains method listed in the Poisoning carts posted here: using one keg under the delay rule would equal the same gains from using 2.5 to 3 kegs without delay, and you could spend about six kegs' worth of potions under the continuous method in about the same time it would take to use one keg under the delay method. Theoretically, you could gain Poisoning skill twice as fast by continuous use but it will cost you by what appears to be about three times as much in potions. That's at the medium levels, so these ratios might change at high levels. (at high levels, I'm expecting overall time to even out between the two methods with the delay method gaining a distinct advantage in the number of potions being used)
 
C

Calvin

Guest
Even cheaper, just watch your GGS timer and use 1 potion to get your gain and go do something else until the next GGS timer.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Very Good information
.

Keep track of your gains and times as you prgress in skill points. I'm interested to see if the 20 minute timer still works at higher skill levels.

Thanx for keeping track of this information.

Q
 
G

Guest

Guest
Haven't been keeping track of the specific numbers anymore, but I know that I raised Poisoning from lvl60 to lvl70 with about four or five kegs of pure Greater Poison potions. (could have been nearly six kegs, not exactly sure) I hit a bit of a wall as I reached level 60, but it wasn't too serious. Gains were noticeably slower after switching to GP, and I'm just going to chalk that up to the really low success rate (averaging about 1%) when using GP around that level. All of the gains happened during a failed attempt, and most still do even at 70. This seems pretty normal for Poisoning, though.

Even if I were to say that this definitely took me six kegs for the delay-use method, then it's still a lot cheaper than the constant-use method that consumes about fourteen kegs for the same amount of gains during these levels.

It took me two days compared to the one or so days it took the player in the FAQ thread to do the same amount of gains during the same levels. Also, keep in mind that I was very lax in staying on time for each set of gains so more diligent players will easily have faster gains with the delay method than I did over these levels.

All of this is consistent with my belief that constant-use method is twice as fast as the delay-use method, but the time gap appears to be shrinking, and constant-use still consumes about 2.5-3x as many potions.
 
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