If you need to take down big enemies, there is nothing more powerful in Warcraft Rumble than poison.
Poison is a damage-over-time effect. Each stack of poison deals 4 Elemental damage every 0.5 seconds for 5 seconds, for a total of 40 damage.
Every new application of Poison refreshes all poison stacks on the target. The damage of each poison stack scales based on the level of the mini that applied it. The maximum number of poison stacks on a target is 99.
Therefore, the maximum dps you can get from poison stacks is 792. (At level 1, where value comparisons are typically made in Rumble because everything scales evenly.)
How does this compare to other sources of damage? Here are the best DPS minis in the game:
- Angry Chickens: 450 dps (9x50)
- Harpies: 350 dps (3x116.6)
- Dire Batlings: 240 dps (6x40)
- Mountaineer: 182.4 dps (Bear+Dwarf)
- Grommash Hellscream: 169.2 dps
- General Drakkisath: 166.7 dps
- Worgen: 162.5 dps
- Darkspear Troll: 158.3 dps
Poison has the potential to deal more damage than anything else in the game.
There are several sources of poison in the game, but for rapidly building up poison stacks on a target, you’re typically looking for a specific set of minis, especially:
- Anub’arak’s Scarab Beetles apply 1 stack of poison per hit
- Chimaera applies 2 stacks of poison per hit
- Chimaera with Corrosive Breath talent applies 4 stacks of poison per hit
- Darkspear Troll with Serpent Sting talent applies 1 stack of poison per hit
- Harpies with Infectious Swipes talent apply 1 stack of poison per hit
- Plague Farmer applies 4 stacks of poison per hit
- Spiderlings apply 1 stack of poison
- Spiderlings with Envenom talent apply 2 stacks of poison
But which minis build up poison stacks the fastest? If we take into account their attack speed, we can find out the fastest poison minis in the game:
- A squad of Spiderlings applies 5 poison stacks per second (10 with Envenom talent)
- A squad of Harpies applies 2.5 poison stacks per second
- Chimaera with Corrosive Breath talent applies 2 poison stacks per second (1 without)
- Plague Farmer applies 1.74 poison stacks per second (3.04 at max Fury with Sylvanas)
- Darkspear Troll applies 0.83 poison stacks per second (1.46 at max Fury with Sylvanas)
- Anub’arak’s Scarab Beetles apply 0.77 poison stacks per second (9.23 for a full swarm of 12)
Another consideration is survivability. Spiderlings are a ground unit and also vulnerable, so they are hard to keep alive. Harpies are flying, but they have to get into melee range to attack, making them easier to deal with than something that lobs poison at a target from far away. There is a good reason why Harpies and Quilboar have been used by many players to clear heroic missions: an Unbound tank provides survivability while poison Harpies deliver damage in abundance.
Taking survivability into account, it is easy to see why Chimaera and Plague Farmer are such strong poison minis. Plague Farmer also only costs 2 gold, making it even stronger as you can more easily cycle into multiple copies.
Anub’arak also remains a premium poison provider, although as a Leader with a very specific playstyle, it cannot easily be integrated into any strategy, and only works for its Beast/Undead family pair for heroics.
Also, if you can solve the question of Spiderlings’ survivability, you may complete the Manhattan Project of Warcraft Rumble.
You can find many more details like this about Warcraft Rumble in our Advanced Rulebook!
