Im working on a random ass build that’ll no doubt suck but in the mean time it currently has 440% poison chance on hit, I have a weapon with an open slot for slamming - I could make it 640 or so on hit OR I could add 350% damage over time - which would be more beneficial more stacks or lots of stacks plus dot? I’m not experienced at all with aliment builds - please help 
How much % increased do you have that would affect poison? You’re looking for the biggest incremental change 440% poison chance → 640% is 45% more chance to poison so if you have less than ~770% total % increased damage that is relevant to poison then the 350% increased DoT is better.
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There are many more factors that would decide which one would be better.
How how %inc damage from all other sources do you have (including attributes).
How many stacks of poison do you apply right now already?
Do you have any sources of penetration or resistance reduction on targets?
Poison has an inherent poison resistance shred, which applies for the first 30 stack. So on bosses that would be up to 60% poison resistance shred.
At the end it will always come down to having as many axis of scaling as possible.
For a low/midgame setup I think the %inc damage will be better, but once the rest of your character is more refined and you have tons of other %inc sources the more poison application will be probably better.
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As with any build, that will depend on how much you already have of the stats.
You have 440 poison and you can make it 640. That is 54% increase in damage.
If you have 0% damage over time, 350% will be a 350% increase. If you have 350% already, it would be a 100% increase. If you have 2000% it would be a 17% increase.
It really depends on what you already have and it would be easier to just share your build.
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A 54% increase would be a 677% chance to poison.
Do the math in sheet doc with full calculation, but it’s kinda complicated with dot’s. And one more thing, you cant hit something like 100% uptime, coz you need to dodge some mechanics, cast some other things. So, your poison stack application would be 80% may be, or lower, depends on boss fight.
And poison first 30 stack lower poison resistance, but you already have good amount to reach that cap fast.
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That was a typo. It’s 45%.
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If only someone had already done the maths & stated all of this.
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All 3 of us replied at the same time, I only saw your answers after posting. 
It’s a good thing, though. Means the forum does have plenty of helpful people. 
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Probably someone is named Frozen Sentinel 
(personally never checked about dot and chance tbh)
But all calculations above are w/o asp and some skill nodes, that works as fixed number if ailment stuck per cast/hit
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Holy moly I go away for a few hours and come back to maths central - ok I’m not sure of increase yet as I havent started the char - its going to be flask which has a 600% poison shred node I’m stacking and 400% armor shred node - the weapon is plague bearers staff its got max roll with 220% the tree has another 200% - then I’ve just slammed a nice lowbie lp3 relic for now with 57% increased posion(T7 health and T6 health/regen) going to use at least 1 lp3 posion ring with 38% on it and then was going to slam that with maybe a t7 poison or damage over time + throwing stat. I have a nice Ammy with I think 57% poison (only T5) but a T7 throwing - not sure which ammy to slam onto prob bleeding heart to start with umm armor doesn’t have any poison, slammed elecos for +flask for now but I can stick a poison stat on the helm as I have a lp4 spare peak I am also using health regen on several pieces to mitigate the 3% per second life loss so I’m ok there. Haha hope that helps if not yolo just tell me what sounds cooler to slam and i’ll do it as I have more than 1 staff I’ve had it on imprint all day hoping for an lp2… ;(
Also poison pen on tree and alternatively a neck with 9% poison pen instead of 50ish poison dmg - unsure on that also
I often find that increasing damage over time is more effective than adding more stacks of a DOT …
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I’m not sure if regular pen, like from an amulet affix, affects dots.
resistance penetration works with any damage of that type
Any penetration will work for hits, damage over time and ailments, unless it specificly states otherwise.
This is also true for penetration in skill spec trees. This will affect the skill itself, both hit and damage over time and also ailments that skill applies. Unless the node states otherwise.
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Thanks for the clarifications! That’s good info.
Anyways so what I’m thinking is just slam a few staffs with different things and then test it - Ideal world id get a fricking lp2 or more to drop and double 7/7 it or 7/6.
Tbh I have no idea how this builds gonna go. Flasks are my fav build for fun but in the million versions I’ve done its usually converted to fire for the most dmg or cold + traps thrown, it seems really had to scale actual pure poison flask but ima try with this yolo build because they absolutely fked traps by simply removing 1 mana eff point. Even with t7 reduction in mana costs you run out of mana way to quick. It’s been posted about they know about it, not sure why they gimped the outlier builds and leave the big ones so OP - anyways rambling!
Thanks for the thoughts I’ll check back in case there’s anymore ideas happy to consider as its a very off meta build im still struggling to fit in all the passives I want haha!
Or you could have a look at your character in LE tools & then workout which gives you a bigger (poison chance x poison damage).
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Oh yeah I didnt think about adding the staff with slams on it - ill check that out now thanks x
(I like to run the campaign and tinker as I go since most chars take 2 - 3 hours to complete campaign and i get a feel for the play style as I go, yep I’m weird!)
I also spent ages last night slamming a bunch of lp3 rings and getting mad over fails haha so I have to check out which is going to be better speed, throwing dmg, posion dmg, dot etc - trying to sneak a stack of posion resistance too because knowledge of immunity node is 1% resistance pen per 5% uncapped and there’s no mention of a max on it unlike some other items/stats where it mentioned “up to X percent”