So I recently set out to make myself a plague needle 'cause I have a volcanic pepperbox and need the other hipster guns too before the gunnerjupdate comes and makes them all stronk etc
And I remembered the plague needles description:
Knights are divided on whether this gun's bolts pierce and then poison, or poison then pierce. To the unlucky target the distinction is irrelevant.
Think about this - are we divided? Do we know? Have we done tests to see if status is applied before damage?
Also, to the unlucky target it IS in fact relevant - if the poison is applied first then the monster will take an extra percentage of damage from that shot from the poison!
I have a blight needle and am about to try to test this. I'll edit the post with the results as well. Unless someone comes and tells me first.
(I did do a search for if this had been said before, but the front page of google came up with nothing. Therefore I decided to embark on this fascinating journey myself)
EDIT: 4 minutes later and I have tested it. They do in fact pierce, then poison!
Here's a video.
Hopefully the spiral order shall be able to put this debate to sleep, if it had not already done so.
My question - how do we feel about this? Should the plague needle's description be changed? Does the fact that status is applied after damage affect anything other than poison weapons?
It's delightfully trivial and nerdy problem to study. Excelsior.
Every needle inflicts piercing damage. Every needle has a chance to inflict poison. I don't remember the chance, but let's say it's 25% for the sake of argument. Then at least 75% of the time you will pierce before poisoning. Are you saying that even when the first needle poisons, the piercing damage is inflicted first?
The description is official --- it's displayed by the game, when you inspect the item --- and so we should not change it on the wiki. There is a separate question of whether Three Rings should change the description in the game. Don't hold your breath.