Viper Strike and the best way to link it

Hello guys!
I'm levelling up a build based on Viper Strike and a bunch of passive nodes about phys and chaos damage as well as damage over time.
So i've a doubt about Viper Strike: what's the best support gem for Viper Strike between Void Manipulation and Rapid Decay?

Rapid Decay will only improve the poison DoT, while Void Manipulation will improve that (poison counts as chaos) AND the chaos damage of the initial hit. So Void Manipulation should be better in all scenarios.

Here's what I use:

I'll 6L eventually, and will add Void Manipulation next. Void Manipulation might actually be better than faster attacks - still working through options. Void Manipulation only scales the chaos damage, which is only 25% of the total from VS. Faster Attacks scales everything, but it's only an Increased modifier.

Edit: After some testing, replacing Faster Attacks with Void Manipulation, tooltip DPS drops by about 25%, but the poison degen on mobs is much faster.

Replacing Poison with Void Manipulation increases tooltip DPS by about 25%, and the poison degen looks the same as Poison + VM, but the life regen from Bino's is much smaller.

So, it all depends on what gear you are using. With Bino's you want fewer larger poison stacks, as your regen comes from the largest stack. If not using Bino's then you can use lots of small stacks with the same effectiveness.

i would also consider using multistrike either in place of faster attacks or with it. you will spend more mana but do more damage and apply 3 stacks of poison with a single attack/mana expenditure.

was going to suggest splash but mal_function already showed you that. combo of multistrike and splash would be awesome.

if youre trying to clear crowds even faster, you could also use a carcass jack for the increased AOE, or spec into some AOE stuff, but as someone who is using melee splash now, i can say it's probably not necessary unless you want to try to cover the entire screen.

I tried out a generic crit dagger build with some added chaos passives on the tree, but viper strike with splash seems quite underwhelming compared to reave/cyclone. I think that having to use melee splash is still a major hindrance, despite its recent buff. We still loose a more multiplier compared to an attack with a built in AoE.

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ivkoto77777 wrote:

I tried out a generic crit dagger build with some added chaos passives on the tree, but viper strike with splash seems quite underwhelming compared to reave/cyclone. I think that having to use melee splash is still a major hindrance, despite its recent buff. We still loose a more multiplier compared to an attack with a built in AoE.

I actually prefer Reave as a skill with a standard dagger (or other weapon), but with Bino's in particular, you want to make kills with fewer larger poison debuffs, rather than many small ones. They both do the similar overall damage, and Reave spreads over a larger area and kills lots of mobs simultaneously. However, with Bino's, you get your poison spread (maybe) and life regen (definitely) from the biggest poison stack, so a few big hits are better than many small ones.

There is the possibility of losing the melee splash using something else to increase that one poison hit even more, but I prefer to have at least a few poisoned mobs around to keep the regen effect going. I don't know what the Bino's poison radius is, so don't want to rely on it too much!