Sorry for double posting this here and the "short questions" thread, but I wasn't sure where it would be more appropriate, and it seemed like it would be relevant to this build's use of scorpion blade:
After searching through various threads on these forums, I'm not sure about certain aspects of scorpion blade mechanics and how to build around them, so here goes:
1. The new patch (1.3) states that "Poison clouds stack, so increasing projectiles adds both aoe and single target damage". Does this mean that there will be stacking instances of poison? I didn't think there would be, as I thought the base diablo II engine allowed only a instance of poison on a monster at one point in time.
2. If multiple instances of poison are stacked by stacking poison clouds, how do stacking poison clouds translate to stacking poison? Is it one instance of poison per cloud? One instance applied per cloud per second? Something else? What is the next delay per cloud?
3. If multiple instances of poison are not allowed per different cloud stacks, what advantage does the cloud provide for poison damage? Is it just that multiple clouds increase the likelihood of getting the max poison range active at any point in time(e.g. cloud 1 inflicts poison of 5dps and cloud 2 inflicts poison of 7dps, so the monster get a poison of 7dps versus 5dps were there to only be cloud 1).
4. Do the stacking clouds inflict weapon damage, or is weapon damage only inflicted by the initial knife hit and not the cloud? I saw this question asked earlier, and was answered both "yes" and "no".
5. If the answer to question 4 is "yes", then what is the next delay of poison cloud weapon damage per cloud? And would each cloud have it's own separate next delay?
6. If the answer to 4 and 5 are "yes" and the answer to 1 is "no", would it make sense to stack weapon damage (both higher physical damage on the weapon and +elemental damage) and procs, keep scorpion blade at 1 point, and max mkv and fire and lightning ways to increase weapon damage?
7. I have +8 life on attack on my throwing knife and am not noticing any life gain on hitting an enemy with scorpion blade (and I'm pretty sure I'm directly hitting the enemy and not just a wall behind him). Is there a reason life on attack wouldn't work with scorpion blade? (it's a ranged attack, it counts as a spell, etc?)
8. Would +life on striking work for either the poison clouds or the initial knife hit? Would +life on striking benefit from stacking clouds?
9. If the answer to question 1, 4, and 5 are all "no" (i.e. stacked poison clouds don't inflict additional poison instances and don't do separate instances of weapon damage), then what is the benefit of poison clouds stacking for scorpion blade?
Sorry for this being a rather long question but the answer to each question above would fairly significantly change the way I'd build the character.
Thank you very much for any and all help.