Let’s talk about potions: Throwing Potions to be exact

You know, those potions that constantly drop way too often in cow games. Have 3 different tiers of fire and poison damage they can do. While you could do something with them in normal mode, as a Barb player my brain always went “Why can’t my Barbarian really make use of these?”

It seems like he should be able to right? He’s got

Throwing Mastery, and you can throw those potions for fire or poison AoE. Question that then needs to be asked is - if a barb could really make use of these potions, how would it work with

Throwing Mastery? Should the damage of these potions scale with the amount of points into

Throwing Mastery? Could their damaged be increased by items that grant +fire or +poison damage? And, should they be able to work with

Double Throw? (I wish it did).

Seeing the changes the barb got to throwing in 2.4 made me wish something would change about these throwing potions too. While I have made Throw Potion barbs in the past, they were always confined to normal mode at best due to the lack of damage output from the potions themselves.

What do you guys think? Would implementing those potions somehow into

Throwing Mastery be worth it? Or would the build simply be too niche for most people to care about.

never used the potions much but i was told that they do scale with

Throwing Mastery. is it not true?

Udyret wrote: 2 years ago

never used the potions much but i was told that they do scale with

Throwing Mastery. is it not true?

It isn’t. They don’t scale with any skill or +fire / +poison modifiers.

This leads me to believe whatever ideas the original D2 team had for these potions went unfinished and were just simply left in the games code due to time constraints. At least, I want to believe that’s the case anyway.

But no, as of right now they’re kind of just a pointless drop in the loot table and it makes me sad they can’t be used to make a really interesting barb build

"Its effect applies to all thrown categories, including potions and

Double Throw." - Diablo Wiki

Udyret wrote: 2 years ago

"Its effect applies to all thrown categories, including potions and

Double Throw." - Diablo Wiki

Huh… just read about it. That’s news to me. Could’ve swore that it never used to work in the past or maybe I’m misremembering. Regardless - I still wish the potions were effective enough to be used late game

LuckyAce wrote: 2 years ago

Huh… just read about it. That’s news to me. Could’ve swore that it never used to work in the past or maybe I’m misremembering. Regardless - I still wish the potions were effective enough to be used late game

agree. i think it would be cool if you got synergy from

Find Potion. and chance to find some stronger potions when you use the

Find Potion skill.

That would be great! I’ve always liked the idea of a Barbarian chucking gas potions to the point where the screen is just covered in a toxic green cloud. Pair that with 2.4’s

Grim Ward and it would work surprisingly well I think

Imagine getting some magic, rare or unique potions to create something entirely new and unusual.

Oh how I wish - I’m actually in game right now (Hell) throwing potions at monsters in Act 1. It’s actually killing them … just very slowly.

Surprisingly, the changes to

Throwing Mastery, “the replenish quantity on critical strike” and “chance to not consume quantity” is actually applying to the potions too, despite the description saying “improves throwing weapon skill”. I wonder if this wasn’t intentional. Either way, I can infinitely throw gas potions and I’m having a blast right now, even if I’m not killing things super fast haha.

LuckyAce wrote: 2 years ago

Surprisingly, the changes to

Throwing Mastery, “the replenish quantity on critical strike” and “chance to not consume quantity” is actually applying to the potions too, despite the description saying “improves throwing weapon skill”. I wonder if this wasn’t intentional. Either way, I can infinitely throw gas potions and I’m having a blast right now, even if I’m not killing things super fast haha.

that sounds pretty cool. wonder how it's like to do a potion barb play-through. added the info to

Throwing Mastery in the database.

wonder how it's like to do a potion barb play-through.

I’d imagine it would a fairly good challenge if anything! I would think most of Normal would be doable, with the exception of some monsters and bosses.

added the info to

Throwing Mastery in the database.

Glad to have been able to contribute something barb related here!

Another thought I just had was - would items like Trang Oul's gloves, Bramble, and a Poison Facet increase the damage done with the potions while using

Double Throw? Since they add raw poison damage. Or would any piece of gear that has +poison / + fire damage do the same for the potions?

Sadly I only have the Poison Facet to test this with and no other + poison / +fire damage gear. But, when I get some I'll come back to this thread and post any other discoveries I make.
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Update:

would items like Trang Oul's gloves, Bramble, and a Poison Facet increase the damage done with the potions while using

Double Throw?

The answer to this is sadly no. On a run of the Swampy Pit, I found

Lava Gout gloves and decided to try them with the Oil Potions. Despite the +fire damage on it, there was no increase to the damage of the potions. This means the damage on them is fixed and adding raw fire damage (or poison for the gas potions) won't increase it.

I then wondered if I could increase the damage done with the oil potions while using

Double Throw if I enchanted myself. I had

Demon Limb on-hand which has lvl 23

Enchant, so I enchanted myself. The answer to this is also a resounding nope.

This confirms the damage of these potions is 100% fixed damage. A shame really, I wish they would allow them to scale with +fire or +poison damage since they work with

Double Throw.

That's a shame. but maybe the % To Poison Skill Damage and % To Enemy Poison Resistance from

Trang-Oul's Claws, Bramble, and

Rainbow Facet: Poison Death work. i guess it's unlikely. hopefully more changes from blizz can bring this fun build to be hell viable.

Udyret wrote: 2 years ago

That's a shame. but maybe the % To Poison Skill Damage and % To Enemy Poison Resistance from

Trang-Oul's Claws, Bramble, and

Rainbow Facet: Poison Death work. i guess it's unlikely. hopefully more changes from blizz can bring this fun build to be hell viable.

If I can get

Trang-Oul's Claws and make Bramble I'll let everyone here know.

What I can say is, the potions (Oil and Rancid Gas) can totally clear Normal. For fun, I killed Diablo with gas potions, and it was probably the most fun I'd had with something so silly in quite some time. It didn't take too long either haha

But I agree, Blizzard should fix this (at some point). It's never a bad thing to give a class more build options. Barb doesn't really have an "elemental" build of any kind, and letting him do that with the oil and gas potions would probably end up becoming my favorite build in the game.

-% resist should work for both potion types, and +% skill damage is ignored. I don't recall

Throwing Mastery ever increasing damage.

That said,

Amplify Damage increases the physical damage on exploding pots. Now that'd be humorous to see.

That said,

Amplify Damage increases the physical damage on exploding pots. Now that'd be humorous to see.

So what you're saying is, I need to get

Atma's Scarab and throw oil potions like the Wind?