(The skill states that this ability only applies to 3 specific skills, that are each a chance on default attack to activate: Belgothians Shears, Amarastas Quick Cut, and Whirling Death.)
What im concerned with is the +8% Acid/Poison damage part.
So as far as the mechanics for this ability go
Do you always have a Global passive +8% buff to Acid/Poison damage just for putting points in this ability?
Do you only have a Global passive +8% buff to Acid/Poison damage when one of the 3 listed skills (ie: Whirling Death) it applies to gets activated?
Is the +8% Acid/Poison buff NOT global, and something that ONLY buffs those 3 skills acid/poison damage?
3a. If #3 is true, then why didnt they just factor the %acid/poison bonus into the listed base acid/poison damage? Out of all 4 abilities, only Hidden Hand actually has acid/poison damage, and happens to be the one also with the +% acid/poison buff. (ignore this question if #3 is false.)
thanks ahead of time, and if im completely off here, feel free to set me on the correct path
It applies as a global bonus specificly to those skills. Effectively, if you have 1000% acid damage for instance, and you proc one of those 3 skills, for the damage of the entire attack, including the weapon damage, you have 1008% acid damage.
Since none of those 3 attacks actually DO acid/poison damage, im not sure i really understand how this would even benefit you then.
+8% of 0, is still 0.
Which goes to my question #3a. The only acid/poison damage comes from the ability itself (in this case 3 acid, 3 poison and rank 1). 8% of 3, is less than 1. So IF they round up, that would mean at rank 1, you would hit for 4 acid and 4 poison damage. Why not simply display it as 4 and 4, rather than 3 and 3 with an 8% bonus?
It still feels like im missing something important here.
8% bonus is for every other source of acid/poison damage you have. As mentioned in the tooltip, Nidallas modifies your wps, which all use your attack damage for their base damages.
It also converts 33% of pierce damage into acid, and all those 3 skills do inflict pierce damage.
It’s also kinda obvious, that you want Nidalla’s Hidden hand only if you focus on poison/acid damage. If you dont, you better just skip it - cause conversion into acid will decrease your damage.
Since +% damage on skill modifiers will happen BEFORE conversion on skill modifier, it means the +% of NHH will NOT work with the 33% converted to acid damage. Overall it’s a pretty bad skill to take unless you specialize in poison and acid, and not in piercing.
The damage +% on the skill modifier hence pretty much can be ignored unless you couple it with things such as acid-based daggers, or acid damage added to weapons on Dreeg’s blood for example.
