Aura of Decay uses poison stats at time of activation

[Vanelan]

The Acolyte skill Aura of Decay applies 25% of your Poison chance on hit to its own hits (and I think the Poison Bolt node also applies “on hit” effects). However, the skill currently uses your poison chance at time of activation, instead of at the time of each hit. This is also true for increased poison damage. Presumably this is because the skill is classified as “damage over time”.

For example, I experimented with the Vile Ghast + Symbiotic Apparition + 4/4 Lingering Doom nodes of Dread Shade to add 110% Poison Chance.

Here I turned on Aura of Decay and then cast Dread Shade. Note the poison chance and damage. I stabilize around 30 stacks of poison doing around 800 damage per tick:

https://imgur.com/a/4qbvfIO

Then I turn Aura of Decay off, and back on while the Dread Shade is still active. Then wait for Dread Shade to fall off. Now my poison stacks stabilize around 40 and are doing 900+ damage per tick, even though my character stats show no extra poison chance and lower damage:

https://imgur.com/a/mEsfxtO

This behavior disincentivizes investing in temporary poison skill nodes when using Aura of Decay (e.g. I really want to use Bone Golem - Infected Remains, but I will never actually get to take advantage of it).

It’s also exploitable as I can put on a full suit of poison damage gear, Rotmind, etc… activate the aura, then change gear and skills but maintain the damage bonuses.

[Vanelan]

Note that Aura of Decay also snapshots your Healing Effectiveness for the Absence of Life specialization node.

This allows you to put on enough healing gear to get a full heal every second, activate the aura, then change back to other gear.

Also since auras don’t need to be on your skill bar after activation, literally the only cost is a specialization slot.

Demo’d here: LE Decay Heal Exploit - YouTube