Poison Dart

Poison Dart is a Witch Doctor skill unlocked at level 10. It's a ranged attack in which the Witch Doctor blows a poisoned dart at the enemy, dealing initial poison damage and damage over-time.

Background

Diablo III Active Skill [e]
Poison Dart
Used by:	Witch Doctor
Enabled at:	Clvl 10
Skill Description
Fires a deadly dart that deals poison damage and additional damage over time.
Type:	Direct Damage/DoT
Resource Use:	Costs Mana
Skill Rune Effects
Alabaster rune:	Snakes on a face
Crimson rune:	Adds Fire damage
Golden rune:	Recovers Mana
Indigo rune:	Fires multiple darts
Obsidian rune:	Slows enemies

The Witch Doctor uses a blowpipe to fire a poison dart.

Skill Design

This low-level direct damage skill first appeared in 2010. The casting animation is fairly slow, but the projectile itself is very fast and accurate.

Skill Rank Table

Blowing darts.

• Rank 1: Fires a deadly poison dart that deals X-X poison damage and an additional X-X poison damage over X seconds.

Synergies

• No synergies with any of the passive skills are yet known.

Skill Rune Effects

The rune effects for Poison Dart were revealed at BlizzCon 2010 by Wyatt Cheng in the gameplay panel.

• Alabaster rune: A snake is fired out to glom onto the face of an enemy. It wriggles around in ecstasy as it slowly poisons its target.
• Crimson rune: Substantial fire damage is added to the dart.
• Golden rune: Mana is recovered with dart hits.
• Indigo rune: Grants machine gun darts, allowing four (or more) to be fired in very rapid succession.
• Obsidian rune: Darted enemies are slowed.

Development

Poison Dart was revealed as a Witch Doctor skill in early August, 2010. A fan in the official forums proposed a dart gun weapon for the Witch Doctor, and got more than he bargained for in the reply:

Bashiok: Wow, pretty good guess. We have a new witch doctor skill called Poison Dart. Pretty much this.

It was first seen in Blizzcon 2010 and skill runes were also shown at this moment. It was one of the Witch Doctor's starting skills, and Flux obligingly wrote about it:[1]

The main attack skill that the WD started with, this one was also disappointing while un-runed. It’s pretty much what you’d think; a tiny green projectile that deals impact damage and some DoT to the target. The dart moves quickly through the air so it’s got good accuracy, but the casting (blowing) animation is very slow. Lift the pipe, squat down into the shooting stance, fire, stand back up again, repeat. This results in a poor DPS, even though the actual dart isn’t terrible.

Skill tiers were removed for the July 2011 Press Event, and Poison Dart became a level 10 skill.

Media

Poison Dart can be seen in action on video here:

• Video: Blizzcon 2010 Rune Effects

You can find pictures in the Diablo III screenshot and picture gallery:

• Diablo III screenshots and pictures
• Poison Dart specific gallery contents

References

• BlizzCon 2010 Witch Doctor Hands-on Report
• JudgeHype.com July 2011 Press Event Coverage - The Witch Doctor (Translated by Zediono)