Xul lvl 20 upgrade bugged too?

So, I’ve been noticing a lot of Poison Nova picks recently, and that was fine, until I had a weird interaction in a QM game where Poison Nova was wrecking us. So I saved the replay, and spent a long time looking at it’s interaction. Brought up the ol’ calculator and did some maths. But something isn’t adding up.

So with Andariel’s Visage, it states, “Poison Nova heals for 50% of the damage dealt and its duration is increased by 50%”. When I hover over the ult in the talents tab, it shows it does “1437 damage over 15 seconds” at level 21. A Tracer on our team goes into a 1v1 with Xul, Xul pops poison nova, and it strikes Tracer as she is 1899 health. Now when it hits her, the enemy team is at the very end of level 20, and the ult reads "1381 damage over 15 seconds. The amount of “negative” health that tracers life bar shows is basically all of it. Which indicates it is doing more than 1381. About 5 seconds into the DoT, they reach lvl 21, and the damage increases, and Tracer’s life bar becomes fully “negative”. Xul has no spell power buffs, no enemies are doing DoT to Tracer (nor do any damage her at all) and yet she dies from Poison Nova when she was hit at 1900 health. Now, we also have to take into account that Tracer has health regen, of 12.58 per second at level 22. So over the course of 15 seconds she should be regenerating 188.7 health. which now brings the total damage done by Poison Nova to over 2000. At level 20/21.

Later on in the same game, he pops Poison Nova (at level 21) on a nearly full health Nova, who had 2177 health, had just picked up a health globe, and when the full duration of the Poison Nova expires, it leaves Nova at 359 health. The health globe should have provided her with 288.63 health (9% of 3207 which is Nova’s max health at lvl 23), and she regenerates 6.60 health a second at lvl 23, which would 99 health over the full duration of Poison Nova. Nova roughly had 2564.63 health over this time, and when we subtract her remaining health at the end of Poison Nova, 359, we end with a total damage of 2205.63 dealt to Nova. If Poison Nova was supposed to deal 1437 at level 21, and we take 50% of that damage (718.5) and add it, we get 2155.5 which is nearly equal to the damage dealt.

My assumption is with the change to Poison Nova now lasting 50% longer which was done in the last patch, it has also added 50% more damage. Which is neither reflected in the tooltip nor in the talent description. Is this bugged? Am I doing maths wrong? Or is there a weird way HotS does the math that would justify this HUGE increase in damage?

P.S. I don’t know how to post my replay, but I have it saved if anyone wants it. I can give you time stamps for when these actions occur, so you can see for yourself if necessary.

Andariel’s Visage is a flat 50% damage increase.

The baseline damage for Poison Nova is 63 dps scaling 4% per level (total 630). With the ult upgrade, poison damage is applied over 15 seconds instead of 10 seconds.

But you were right about one thing, it is wrongly worded. It does not spread 630 damage over 10 seconds. The poison itself is applied each second for 10 seconds. There is a difference.

If it only increased the duration over which poison damage is spread, that would be a nerf at level 20 (same damage as without ult upgrade, just applied much slower)! Very few people would pick it for the secondary extra heal.

Therefore if a projectile from upgraded Poison Nova hits Tracer or Nova it will take up Tracer’s full health bar and nearly all of Nova’s health bar. But I seriously doubt Tracer can die from this; If not solely because she has very ample time to Hearthstone back to base before the 15 seconds expire.

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If the post above is confusing:
(Not the real 4% per level adjusted Poison Nova damage, merely an example)
Example: 126 Poison damage per second is applied for 15 seconds (1890 damage)

Example: 126 Poison damage per second is applied for 10 seconds. (1260 damage).

If it only increased the duration over which 1260 damage was applied, it would do 84 damage per second (for 15s).

So yes, the tooltip not correctly wording that you will also take 50% more damage in total, is a fault (and will be painfully learned by players as they play).

Hey there Demongrand!

The problem here is the duration being updated on the tooltip. It is intended that the ability deal more damage. We don’t usually update tooltips when talents are taken, so I could see the confusion in the math since the duration is increasing!

I’ll take a look into that! Thanks for the report!

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