Its  because  there  is  no  100%  chance  to  land,  so  you  could  go  0/1000000  on  poisons  if  you  were  really  unlucky...

time  to  find  a  new  poisoner  i  guess

Isn't that Zavia dosen't use its Deadly Catalyst on auto? Heard something like that. I use it in dungeons and she shines.

Hey there

Zavia does not use her poison explode skill on auto against the clan boss which is good as poison explosion is heavily capped.

Zavia does also have lower chances to apply poison (40% on her A1 and up to 75% when booked on her A2) which can lead to a lot of missed poisons, accuracy is of course important, but if the poison won't land in the first place it's true that her damage might not be what you expected.

Fayne is a nice fit for clan boss though, poisons, def. down and weaken, but be aware that fayne has super low defence so she's best used in an unkillable comp.

Cheers, Strangiii

There is no world in which a *booked* Zavia would underperform compared to Kael. Zavia has 5% poison vs Kael's 2.5%, and Zavia applies poisons on both her A1 and A2, vs Kael only on his A3.

Are you comparing a fully booked Kael to an unbooked Zavia? Honestly, even there, there is no way Kael is outdoing Zavia, but at least it would be closer.

How many turns is your fight lasting for? The longer the fight, the more the variance will be smoothed out. If you are only surviving 10-15 turns, sure, Kael might win out, but if you're lasting 40+ turns, there is no chance.

Zavia  is  an  Amazing CB Posion  hero.

You  are  simply  using  Zavia  wrong.

Zavia  needs  200  ACC  for  Nightmare CB  or  250  ACC  for  Ultra-Nightmare  CB

Zavia  Deadly  Cat.  Move  needs  to  be  turned  off  during the  CB  fight.

Zavia  needs  the  Sniper  Mastery  to  improve  her  A1  Posion  by  5%

Zavia  needs  to  be  on  a  Counter  Attack  or  Rally  Attack  team  for  best  output.

Counter  Attack  Lay  Out:

Turn  1:  Your  Move

Zavia  does  3  hits  on  A1

Turn  1:  Boss  Moves

Zavia  Counter  Attacks  with  3  hits  on  A1

Turn  2: Your  Move

Zavia  does  3  hits  on  A1

Turn  2: Boss  Moves

Zavia  Counter  Attacks  with  3  hits  on  A1

Your  looking  at  12  hits  with  45%  success rate  if  you  do  only  A1's

Your  Average  Poison  Land  will  be  around  5.

Rally  Attack  Lay  Out:

Turn  1:  Your  Move

Zavia  does  3  hits  on  A1

+  Rally  Attacks  with  3  hits  on  A1

Turn  1:  Boss  Moves

Zavia  does  0  hits

Turn  2: Your  Move

Zavia  does  3  hits  on  A1

+  Rally  Attacks  with  3  hits  on  A1

Turn  2: Boss  Moves

Zavia  does  0  hits

Your  looking  at  12  hits  with  45%  success rate  if  you  do  only  A1's

Your  Average  Poison  Land  will  be  around  5

Heroes  who  average  4+  Poison  Lands  are  considered main  stream  poison  heroes.

Thus,  Zavia  is  amazing.

Zavia is fully booked - as is Kael.  Fighting Nightmare clan boss -fought with Zavia about 5-6 times - never out did the damage Kael did by any significant amount.  I was under the same thought process as you - but Zavia's poisons just don't fire - if it was resisted it would be one thing - but they don't fire.

WIth Kael's 2.5% poison - for some reason that lands pretty well, but Zavia's three hit A1 doens't land any poisons most of the time with a good hit (1 out of 5-6) it will land two.

Could be the duration like you are indicating - my champs aren't geared well and can only last 20 rounds.

The duration will 100% change your outcome. Zavia's lower chance of landing gets smoothed out over longer runs, but on shorter runs you may just get bad luck. Also, running CA or AA helps hugely, since you get more chances for the A1 to land poisons.

Zavia, fully booked, has 45% chance x3 on A1, and 80% x2 on A2. That means, on average, you'll get 1 poison on A1, with decent chances for two, and low chances for zero or one. For simplicity, we'll just add them up and say you will get, on average, 1.35 poisons from A1.  On A2, you'll get one on average, with decent chances for two and low chances for one. Again, for simplicity, we'll just say you get 1.6 poisons from A2. Since you're turning your A3 off, your rotation will, on average, give you 1.35*2 + 1.6 = 4.3 poisons per 3 turns, on a 1:1 tune.

Kael, fully booked, has 100% on A1 and 55% on A3. Using the same logic as above, you get 2 + 2.2 = 4.2 poisons per 3 turns, on a 1:1 tune - BUT these are weak poisons, so to compare apples to apples, we'll halve that to 2.1 poisons.

tl;dr Zavia will, on average, get TWICE the number of poisons as Kael. I'd suggest you keep track of the actual results to prove it to yourself. Record a full run's worth of data a few times - every single turn - and keep track of exactly how many poisons land after each attack.

ALSO IMPORTANT - the rest of your team. Remember that there are only 10 debuff slots. If you are filling a bunch of the rest of those up with other debuffs (ATK down, DEF down, Weaken, HP burn, etc...), there is less room for poisons - and since Zavia will put more poisons on average than Kael, you run the risk of having some of Zavia's poisons "wasted". That will significantly reduce her value.

Yeah, I figured it could be something like that - not surprised but a bit disappointed.  I essentialy watch the overall damage, then the damage by each champ -Zavia is not performing better than my Kael at this time  - and yes, the rest of the team isn't that strong, this team only puts up 10mm on average on Nightmare - with the high of being 14mm (with Kael)

Debuff slots with Zavia are definitely not getting filled - but can do so with Kael.  They aren't both being run on the same team - it's one or the other as the rest of the team is support for survivability and that Hp Burn exploder guy (forget his name right now) as the main damage dealer.

You may want to consider posting your full roster. If you're only getting 10M dmg per key with Zavia and Geomancer (the HP burn guy I assume you are referring to), then there are likely major ways we can improve your team. With Zavia you should be easily getting 1-key NM. She's one of the best CB poisoner champs in the game.

Another  logical  explanation that  could  explain what  is  happening in  this  thread  is  the  OP  (WhyPlay)  doesn't have  masteries  on  Zavia.

Kael  with  Tier  6  Mastery  can  out  damage  Zavia  with  no  Tier  6  Mastery.

We  have  to  remember the  Clan  Boss  Battle  Report  at  the  end  is  based  on  accumulated  Damage.

Accumulated  Damage  of  a  hero  is:

-  Posion  Damage

-  Pyschical  Damage

-  Mastery  Damage

Here  is  a  plausible  situation:

Zavia  Accumulated  Damage:

4  -  Poison  Damage

0  -  Pyschical  Damage

0  -  Mastery  Damage

Total  Report  will  show  4

Kael  Accumulated  Damage:

2  -  Poison  Damage

1  -  Pyschical  Damage

3  -  Mastery  Damage

Total  Report  will  show  6

You  can  see  from  the  above  scenerio  Zavia  is  doing double  the  poison  vs.  Kael  like  she  is  suppose  to  be  doing,  but  overall  she  is  losing  to  Kael  in  total  damage  due  to  other  factors  non-related  to  poison.

Than  the  OP  unknowningly  begins  assuming  the  reason  Zavia  is  losing  to  Kael  is  due  to  poison,  but  in  reality  she  could  be  losing  due  to  not  having  high  Crit  stats  &  no  Tier  6  mastery.

Yeah,  I  stand  by  what  I  said  before.

The  OP  is  misusing  Zavia.

But why turn off Zavia's 3rd attack? For me its one of her best features, you just have to use it by hand, not on auto in CB. And I'm using her with other poisoners (i.e. Urogrim, Steelskull).

Btw, would be for Clann Boss be better Geomancer or Drexthar (both fully booked and mastered)?

Because poison damage is capped, exploding the poison damage exacerbates the cap. Now, I personally haven't tested this, but I assume you're getting less damage from the explode than from the individual ticks.

To your second question, it'll depend entirely on your team. You should create a new thread though.