Poison Stacking is OP | An Analysis

Introduction

I’ve seen/heard quite a few people talk about how stacking poisons is so amazing. I decided to investigate.

This post is aimed at newer players who don’t understand poison and veterans who have never dabbled with poison. I’m sure there are even some poison experts who may learn a thing or two.

There are a few questions I hope to answer:

  1. Which is better? Prioritising Damage or Stacks?
  2. How can I optimise a combination of these?
  3. What is the Theoretical DPS?

Also, please realise this is pure pure damage. No concept of defense or survivability or viability exists in this build.


1. Damage vs Stacks

Overview

In comparing these two variations, I looked at four different areas:

  1. DPS vs 0 Res Enemies (enemies by default have zero resistance… I think this is also Dummy Damage)
  2. DPS vs Level 100 Enemies (enemies have damage reduction up to a max of 87%, according to Tunklab).
  3. DPS vs Resistant Enemies (enemies with the “Resists Poison” tag have 40% poison res, according to RawSuicide).
  4. DPS vs Level 100 Bosses (these take 60% less poison damage).

You may count 4 categories here but only 3 in the actual tables… this is because the numbers got too long to fit in all the categories.

But what about corruption?
From what my research could tell, monsters gain HP per corruption and not damage resistance or reduction.

Increased Damage

Increased damage in this case are sources of:

  • Increased Damage
  • Increased Poison Damage
  • Increased Damage Over Time
  • Increased Damage while Dual Wielding
  • Increased Damage while Transformed
    .
    .
    .
    And so on.
Increased Damage DPS vs Lvl 100 vs Lvl 100 Res Lvl 100 Boss
100% 1.82 1.09 0.73
500% 5.46 3.28 2.18
1,000% 10.01 6.01 4.00
5,000% 46.41 27.85 18.56
10,000% 91.91 55.15 36.76
20,000% 182.91 109.75 73.16

Based on maths I did for a Doom build, I ended up getting something around 20,000% as an upper limit for this. As you can see, damage reduction is quite strong in this game.

Stacks

Comparatively…

Stacks Shred vs Lvl 100 Resistant Lvl 100 Boss
1 -5% 0.91 0.55 0.36
2 -10% 1.91 1.15 0.76
3 -15% 3.01 1.81 1.20
4 -20% 4.21 2.53 1.69
5 -25% 5.53 3.32 2.21
10 -50% 14.12 8.47 5.65
20 -100% 45.99 27.59 18.40
30 -150% 112.37 67.42 44.95
40 -200% 244.05 146.43 97.62
50 -250% 469.92 298.15 198.77
100 -500% 11,396 6,838 4,558
200 -1,000% 2,997,380 1,798,428 1,198,952
300 -1,500% 591,238,993 354,743,393 236,495,597
400 -2,000% 103,664,895,099 62,198,937,059 41,465,958,039
500 -2,500% 17,040,080,125,127 10,224,048,075,076 6,816,032,050,051

Yes, you read that right; 500 stacks! Before I started all the calculations, I truly thought 50 stacks was probably the upper limit… LMTO.

As you can see, stacks are absolutely bonkers!!!

Why? Because the stacks equation is exponential, compared to the linear increased damage equation.


2. Optimisation

Initially, increased damage IS good. It isn’t until about 4.845 stacks that the gains of investing into stacks outweigh the gains of damage. So, if you’re playing a building with an ability than can only get 4-5 stacks on an enemy during the entire duration of the poison (or have an unreliable ability), then increased damage is what you’re after.

This sort of style would only use poison as an additional feature.

However, if you can invest into additional stacks on hit, this is where the damage really pops off. This playstyle could even rely on poison as its main source of damage.


3.1 Gear for Theoretical DPS

Best Class?

Mage is awful with non-elemental ailments. Honestly, don’t play a poison mage.

Sentinel is also trash here. If this were a void ailment, he’d be good.

Primalist can only really work with totems. I think poison companions is alright but I haven’t looked into it - I’ve just seen PerryThePig play it.

Acolyte is the queen if you want to scale the damage. Unfortunately, she kinda sucks with stacks. She’s better with ailments not reliant on stacks (like Doom, where she is even better than Void Knight).

This leaves Rogue. Like wtf she’s a goddess.

Idols

We can fit in 4 2x2 Cobra’s Idols, which each give us 35% chance to poison per dagger as the prefix (thus a total of 280% poison chance). Best suffix is Of Dagger Mastery giving us 43% increased damage (total of 172%).

This means we can then have 4 1x1 idols with 10% DoT and 8% Poison (thus 72% damage).

Items

Note: I did test other items, and even looked into Marksman and Lich items and abilities, but a melee/throwing Blandedancer ended up best

We spec into Dual Wielding for 2 Chitin Daggers with Tier 7 Poison Chance (120% each)

Venom Phile as our relic gives +22%.

Viper Tail as our belt gives 70%.

2 x Tongue of the Aberrant gives us +2 to all poison spell skills. Also helps with our Dex. It gives 80% poison damage and 80% chance to poison on spell hit.

Any helmet will do, so long as it has Tier 7 Of The Cobra for 85% chance to poison per dagger (so 170%) and Tier 7 Of Rancor for 100% poison damage.

Stymied Fate with 128% DoT will do as our boots.

Serpent’s Milk as our amulet for 75% poison damage.

Finally Liraka’s Claws as our gloves as it gives us poison chance on throwing skill.

Blessings

Grand Taste of Venom with 85%.

Passives

8 Points in Swift Assassin for +24% Attack Speed (faster attacks = more stacks).

1 Point in Twin Blade for Dual Wielding.

8 Points in Steady Hand because we need to put a point somewhere and it gives Dex.

5 Points in Lethal Cadence for 100% increased damage every third attack.

8 Points in Poisoned Tip for 80% Poison Chance with a Dagger.

8 Points in Duellist for 32% Damage because we need points somewhere.

8 Points in Cloak of Shadows for Dex and because we need a dump and we only use 2 abilities so can’t go Flow.

10 Points in Blood Serpent’s Blades, given us 50% DoT and 100% Poison Chance.

1 Point of Shroud of Dusk to access 5 Points in Veil of Night for 15% AS.

8 Points in Flash of Steel for 40% Damage to access 5 Points in Weapons of Choice which gives 160% poison chance with 2 daggers.

5 Points in Spell Breaker as we do kinda need to mana regen.

6 Points Asuvon’s Pact for 90% Damage.

5 Points in Perfection for 100% Damage.

1 Point in Confidence to get to 5 Points in Exuberance for 50% Damage.

3.2 Abilities for Theoretical DPS

Went through all the abilities. By far the two best for Bladedancer are:

  • Flurry (super fast attacks for many stacks).

  • Umbral Blades (spinny for stacks).

Flurry

We take:

3 Points in Alacrity for speed.

1 in Boundless Blows for speed.

1 in Accelerating Impact for 15% damage after 5 seconds.

2 in Relentless for speed.

4 in Vile Tactics for 40% chance.

3 in Lethal Vector for 30% DoT.

3 in Compounding Toxin for 30% Damage.


With all our Attack Speed, this gives us:

6 Hits per Second (minimum).

We also have 75% damage on poison if this skill inflicts one (due to all our dex).

Umbral Blades

4 Points in Dusk Shroud to give us 4 Points in Edge of Obscurity for 8% damage.

1 in Sword Thrower for 250% damage.

1 in Cacophony of Steel for spinnies (gives us 6 Hits per second).

5 in Cut and Leave for 50% Bleed.

1 in Emerald Cutlass to convert all Bleed sources into Poison.

Rest of points can go anywhere.


We also have 529% damage on poison if this skill inflicts one (due to all our dex).

Also hits 6 times a second and counts as a throwing skill.

3.3 Calculation for Theoretical DPS

Based on all this, we get 20 stacks per hit (20.22 stacks to be exact).

Umbral Blades hits 6 times a second and has 529% increased damage.

This gives us 323 poison damage per stack.

Therefore

Seconds Stacks vs Lvl 100 vs Bosses
1 121.32 631,891 252,756
2 242.64 47,0282,202 188,112,881
3 363.96 201,926,000,000 105,001,500,000

The last ones have zeroes at the end because that was the point my calculator started giving me 1.050015E+11.

Likewise with Flurry, we do 6 hits per second. This has less poison chance because it isn’t a throwing skill, at “only” 18.92 stacks per hit. We also only do 232.2 damage per stack.

Seconds Stacks vs Lvl 100 vs Bosses
1 113.52 290,513 116,205
2 227.04 147,776,423 59,110,569
3 340.56 56,377,500,000 22,550,990,000

Now, if we fight, say, Orobyss and throw down 3 Umbral Blades at and then spam Flurry, then repeat whenever UB goes down to maintain max stacks:

Stacks vs Lvl 100 vs Bosses
704.52 7,223,910,000,000,000,000 2,889,570,000,000,000,000

This is just bonkers. Looks like with this stack damage, we increase our damage a thousandfold for every 100 stacks.

If numbers aren’t your strong suit, this is almost 2.9 quintillion poison damage per second.


Hopefully this was a fun and educational read :3


Also, EHG, can I just say that as a mathematician

+5% Negative Poison Resistance

just hurts to read. Why not just “-5%”?


Final note: this took me 7 hours. If you find a mistake anywhere, please tell me and I’ll delete the post, cry myself to sleep and question my will to live :slight_smile:

I think I can safely crown you the current Queen of LE Maths…

@Llama8 & @Heavy you have been relegated to Peon status…

:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

More on topic - Excellent post for those crazy enough to be interested in this kind of thing - especially those like myself who simply do not have the skill (or inclination) to put in this kind of investigation… I have seen 13 million poison damage tick with a Rogue Flurry build so somewhere between 200-300 stacks of poison is definitely practically possible and would “fit” your findings.

Has to be said tho… Poison is so much stronger than any other ailment that its likely to be nerfed… or possibly stack capped… :frowning:

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Impressive work!

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This DR is ubiquitous and un-shredable so IMO it’s not worth thinking about since it’s unavoidable. It’s only worth thinking about if you want to work out the actual number you’d see when hitting a mob compared to hitting the dummy. Bosses also get this 87% in addition to their 60% less resist shred.

Bosses take 60% less resist shred, not 60% less damage.

Your shred figures for the “normal” mobs are wrong, a normal mob with 1 stack of poison will always take 5% more poison damage due to the shred than if it had 0 stacks (though I know that’s a bizarre statement). The mob’s inherent DR affects the damage not the shred.

I might be being stupid here, but isn’t 60% of 5 3 not 3.6?

4.85 stacks is only about 1-2 stacks per sec which is very easily obtainable ever for a slow hitting build, if you’ve got something like channelled Flurry (which is being fixed due to bugs) however and something like 10+ stacks per hit… However, it feels like your assertions (“This playstyle could even rely on poison as its main source of damage” and “This sort of style would only use poison as an additional feature”) while correct are assuming that increased damage (prefixes) and chance to poison (suffix) conflict for spots.

Primalist can also do well with poison companions, I’m sure I saw @boardman21 kill the dummy with a poison pet build back in the day.

Rogue, yes, poison is one of her raison d’être along with attack speed/hits per sec & crit. Tongue of the Aberant Seer isn’t good for a Rogue since she has no spells, a crafted/exalted ring with poison & DoT damage (both 120% @ t7) would be better as the +1 poison spells & poison on spell hit do nothing for a Rogue. Similarly for the amulet slot, unless you’re going for a pet build, a rare/exalted amulet would be better especially with the DoT & poison prefixes (140% at t7), even just 1 of them would be comparable in benefit to a Serpent’s Milk (75%) plus allow you to get some defences. While Liraka’s Claws is good for throwing skills, Flurry is always going to be your go-to skill for poison application on a Rogue due to the hits/sec.

If you’re going channelled Flurry, you kinda need to go up to Sap Willpower for the mana on hit.

Sorry about that.

Nooooooooh… That was a fun exercise even if Dad found some things to fix… and he always does…

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That’s still impressive.
Geniouses can do wonders even with wrong bases.

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