Plague of Toads

Plague of Toads is a tier III skill in the Voodoo Skill Tree, which summons a pack of poisonous toads who run into enemies and explode, dealing poison damage.

Background

Diablo III Skill [e]

Plague of Toads Active, 5 ranks
Used by:	Witch Doctor
Skill Description:
Release a handful of toads that deal X-Y poison damage to anybody who steps on them.
Skill Details:
Type:	Direct Damage
Quantity:	Duration
Effect:	Circular AoE
School:	Magical
Mana cost:	9
Cast time:	Unknown
Duration:	None
Cooldown:	Unknown
Synergies:	Unknown
Requires:	N/A
Prereq of:	N/A

The Witch Doctor sends forth toads that hop into enemies, exploding in an acidic blast.

Skill Design

A good skill to cast and forget, switching to other skills to finish off enemies that might have survived. The toads start hopping towards random enemies and explode when they make contact with them. Also, the toad's carcasses deal damage to enemies who stand on them. It works very well against the Dune Dervish, because the toads cannot be reflected back by the dervish's Whirlwind.

Skill Rank Table

(A) = Assumed

Rank: 1/5
- Release a handful of toads that deal 6-9 poison damage to anybody who steps on them.
- Mana Cost: 9 mana
Rank: 2/5
- Release a handful of toads that deal 8-11 poison damage to anybody who steps on them. (A)
- Mana Cost: 9 mana
Rank: 3/5
- Release a handful of toads that deal 10-13 poison damage to anybody who steps on them. (A)
- Mana Cost: 9 mana
Rank: 4/5
- Release a handful of toads that deal 12-15 poison damage to anybody who steps on them. (A)
- Mana Cost: 9 mana
Rank: 5/5
- Release a handful of toads that deal 14-17 poison damage to anybody who steps on them. (A)
- Mana Cost: 9 mana

GO-GO-GADGET TOADS!

Synergies

None known.

Skill Rune Effects

The runes for Plague of Toads were discussed at BlizzCon 2010. Wyatt Cheng narrated a short video of them in action^[1]:

Next up let's look at Plague of Toads on the Witch Doctor . The Crimson Rune makes all of your frogs on fire and then something a little more gameplay oriented, you've got mana reduction (Golden rune) so you can have a lot more frogs and then Alabaster rune will blind monsters which gives you some crowd control ability and then we change the skill completely and make a toad blizzard (Indigo rune) then finally we wanted to have a giant toad (Obsidian rune) but what's he going to do? He's going to eat monsters and he digests them but he doesn't digest the loot.

With that said, the rune effects for plague of toads are as follows:

Crimson: Flaming toads for fire damage.
Obsidian: Large Frog, fairly large, eats enemies.
Alabaster: Blind monsters.
Indigo: Rain of Frogs, spell changes to instead rain frogs onto the enemies, seems to be single target.
Golden: Reduced cost.

Development

Plague of Toads was seen in every Diablo 3 game demo to date, and was moved and visually changed, judging from the latest demo. The old Plague of Toads was in the Plague Skill Tree (which itself, was renamed to Zombie Skill Tree), and the toads were a green/grey-ish color.