Talisman and Poison Questions and Answers

How is a Talisman's level determined?

Talismans obtained in the world follow the normal item drop rules. From normal monsters they are the same level as the area, +1 level from magic monsters, and +2 from rares and uniques. Talismans obtained from Stone Circles are an average of the five talismans used, where the the lowest-level talisman is counted once, the highest-level talisman is counted three times, and the middle three talismans are counted twice.

What level are the monsters summoned from the Stone Circle?

They are the same level as the resultant talisman that you should get from using the circle. That means using high-level talismans in a low-level area on a low-level character is ill-advised.

Does the level of the area where I use a Stone Circle matter?

Only if the talismans you are using result in a talisman lower than the level of the area. In this case, the monsters summoned from the stone circle will match the level of the area, rather than the level of the talisman. This does not cause them to drop higher level Talismans than they otherwise would have.

Why is Rigwald so easy?

You are probably doing a low-level version of the fight (the minimum level is 60, based on the talismans you use to summon him). Higher level versions of the fight are harder and have greater rewards.

Some players have found they can block the bridges in his area to make the fight easier than we intended. To combat this, we are giving Rigwald's area wider bridges in 2.1.1.

Why was the damage of some Talisman effects too high when released?

We want there to be scary Talisman mods. These tested OK, but our testers are aware of how they work, and accepted running away as a reasonable counterplay to some of the more dangerous effects.

One of the items we identified in our Challenge League Post-mortem (https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1448424) was that we needed to respond quickly to issues with a new league.

We have rapidly acted to amend the higher damage, and have patched in major reductions to Bonespire Talisman monster effects and Dead Hand Talisman monster effects.

You should show the tier of Talismans! And explain what to do with the stone circles.

OK, you were right, and we were wrong. We thought it was easy to understand, but we already knew how it worked. We will fix this in 2.1.1 and show the tier of Talismans and add some explanatory text to stone circles.

Why can't I control-click my Talismans into Stone Circles?

It was a planned feature that we simply ran out of time for. It's coming though!

Why can't I find any stone circles?

In 2.1.1 we will increase the occurrence of stone circles. In the meantime, some areas are more likely to have stone circles. Outdoors and occulty-looking areas are particularly good locations to look for them. Some indoor areas (such as Solaris and Lunaris Temples) are too modern.

Are talismans affected by my Item Rarity modifiers?

No. Talismans existed long before your item rarity gear could affect them. Map item rarity modifiers, however, DO affect talismans, and powerful monsters tend to be attracted to powerful talismans, so magic, rare and unique monsters are more likely to drop higher rarity talismans. Item Quantity modifiers have no effect on talismans at any point.

Is there any benefit to "feeding" talismans to monsters?

Not directly, although it can help with some specific challenges. Some players have also found interesting utility from some of the modifiers they grant.

What does the Rot Head Talisman do?

I am not familiar with that one. It doesn't seem to be on the list of Talismans I have.

The following questions relate to the new Poison mechanics:

Is "10% of Chaos and Physical damage for 2 seconds" (stackable) the general rule when applying poison from any source (Viper strike, Adder's Touch, Unique items..) or only from Poison support gem?

It's the same for all instances except Viper Strike, at the moment. Viper Strike specifically overrides the poison duration with its own base skill duration.

"..as Chaos Damage Per Second" - does this means that Increased Chaos damage nodes increase produced poison damage?

Poison deals Chaos Damage over Time, so is affected by increases to Chaos Damage, Damage Over Time, and Poison Damage.

Do increased skill effect duration nodes and support gems increase poison duration?

Yes, they do.

Does Poison work with Projectile attacks?

Yes, it'll work with any direct hits of Physical or Chaos Damage.

Is there a limit to number of stacks of poison?

There is no stack limit.

If Poison is linked to a Projectile attack does "increased projectile damage" also increase poison damage?

In this case, the Projectile Damage will also increase the Poison damage, meaning the bonus will apply twice if the poison is applied by a projectile.

If I link an attack gem to Poison, does linking Void Manipulation increases poison damage?

Void manipulation will apply to the poison. If your skill deals chaos damage, it will apply to the hit, and then to the damage of the poison based on that hit.