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FYI: Poison Damage.
It's long but hey someone asked (in another thread) but I felt this deserves its own.
I'd also like to thank the author of "the Toa of Poison" in helping me get the jist of poison damage. Though I disagree with the calcultions he uses (infact I can't duplicate any of his results with the formuals he gives), the general concept is correct as far as I can tell. Even if his math is better than mine, my system is much simpler and close enough I have found, As you will see poison damage calculating is at best a guessing game once you start throwing in magic and rare poison items.
And grrr look what it did to my nice rows, ouch...Anyone gotta fix?
Poison Skills
The following is a list of all the poison damage spells in the game. In this chart I have listed the information which is most important in deciding how to approach these skills and also as an outline as to what skills will overwrite other skills. A basic run down of how I made this chart is given here:
Duration = the time the spell lasts in seconds in the spell description (my info is from Arreat Summit)
frame duration= Duration*25-
A frame is how many pictures are drawn on the screen per second. For most the time when you are deciding what kind of poison items you want to use this isn't really that necessary, however we need it in an attempt to determine what spells will override other ones, this is how the computer thinks about your poison damage duration, also in practice it appears that duration is rounded down to the nearest second so it you have a duration that is not dividable by 25 round it down to the nearest denominator of 25.
Damage= the listed damage on the skill description
Fully Synergised= the damage of the spell if all the spells that add a synergy bonus are maxed.
DPF= Damage per Frame- This is how much damage your poison will do per frame without synergy bonuses. This figure is arrived at by taking the damage and dividing it by the Frame duration.
DPFS=Damage per Frame Synergised- This is how much damage your poison will do per frame with synergy bonuses.
*The way this is listed is a bit confusing, the part that it lists as duration is how long the weapons will doused with the venom wether in use or not, i.e. recast time. If misread it could easily be interrupted as a level 1 venom would doing 150 damage per second for 120 seconds (or 18000 points of damage), which would truly make for a potent poison.
So here are the results:
Most damage overall damage spells at base (no synergies):
However we playing in a 1.1 environment so lets compare when synergised.
Most Damage Overall full synergies:
So what does this tell us, In practice this information is a little misleading, we can not foresee what the damage would be with items included, but this does tell us that if a group of people in the same game are going to be trying to take down a boss with a poison skill it tells us that those with the skills higher on list should be yielded to by those with the lesser skills. In normal questing most the big poison damage skills have very long durations, thus it's less needed in that seldom will the typical beast be around long enough for the poison to run its full duration. So now lets get to the real nitty gritty.
Damage per frame no synergy
Damage per frame synergised:
Again this only tells us the inherent damage without any extra poison damage. These are the fastest poison killers, remember this with the exception of Poison Creeper which is lowest on all the lists doesn't by any means imply that your poison is weak. Again it just tells us how the spell is best applied. Those spells with a higher frame damage are typically best used on weaker beasts to speed up the killing, those with a longer duration but a lower frame damage rate are better suited for boss killing in that they will typically do more damage. The damage per frame rate is a good indication of who’s poison will be in effect if two different players use their poison damage on the same beast. The enemy in this game will only have one poison in effect on them at one time, the poison with the highest frame rate damage will overwrite all others, even if it's duration is lower than the usually more powerful longer duration poisons. However this is not the only thing to consider. We must also take into consideration any poison damage items that a player has equipt as this will effect some of the poison damage spells, both in Duration and Frame per second damage.
Items:
When figuring out how items effect poison spells it typically works in such away that poison items equipped by players will effect the damage and duration on poison skills that are used against a single target. I admit that I don't have experience in playing all the classes that use poison so I might be a little off on this assumption, but the skills that benefit from also using (i.e. stacking) poison items are Poison Dagger, Venom, Rabies ,and Poison Javelin. The other spells don't gain any benefit from using additional poison items Poison Explosion, Poison Nova, Poison Creeper, and Plague Javelin. If you plan on using Explosion, Nova, Creeper, and Plague Javelin you need not continue reading, your damage is your damage and have fun. But for those of us that plan on using the other skills you should really keep reading.
When using items to add to your power pool you should be aware of the following facts:
1) the damage bonuses from items are cumulative, the durations are averaged.
2) The duration of you spells are added to the average duration of your items.
3) Every item on your person is considered a source even if they are on the same item. for example a dagger with 2 P emeralds would be added to your poison power as such:
100 poison damage @ 6 sec.s and 100 damage @ 6 sec.s, regardless of the listing on the item, in this case 202 over 6 sec.s.
For this reason it is often impossible (unless you get someone to take a hit for you with just that item equipped) to determine what your poison damage really is because magic and rare items that poison damage bonuses from the prefix and suffix are jumbled together on the item listing. Since you don't know where in the range of possiblilites (both in damage and in duration) the prefix and suffix fell, the best you can hope for when using such items is to guess, or like I said find a volunteer to take a hit for you (I play HC so this typically isn't a choice.)
So for an example lets say I'm a Daggermancer (which incidently I am) using a maxed synergy maxed poison dagger for my main attack. I also carry 3 poison damage items (4 sources though, you'll see) I'm wearing Wormskull which features a 80 damage over 8 sec. poison, I carry a magical Kris with 2 sockets each socket has a Perfect emerald (100 damage over 6 seconds)*2 and for the example my wormskull is socketed with a jewel of Blight 50 damage over 2 sec.s. S now I want to figure my Damage per frame.
So lets make a list of my poison sources to help those that might be confused.
Poison Dagger 20.25- 21.78 per frame over 240 frames.(don’t worry Ill concert the other sources for ya in a sec.)
Wormskull 80 damage over 8 seconds
P. Emerald #1 100 damage over 6 seconds
P. Emerald #2 100 damage over 6 seconds
Jewel 50 damage over 2 seconds
First we should find out the duration of the above items per frame, we do this by multiplying each item duration by 25.
Wormskull 80 damage over (8*25)=200 frames
P. Emerald #1 100 damage over (6*25)=150 frames
P. Emerald #2 100 damage over (6*25)=150 frames
Jewel 50 damage over (2*25)=50 frames
Next we need to convert our damage to a rate in frames (DPF). We do this by dividing the damage by the frame rate duration.
Wormskull= (80/200) = 0.4 dPF
P. Emerald #1 (100/150)= 0.67 dPF
P. Emerald #2 (100/150)= 0.67 dPF
Jewel (50/50) = 1 dPF
Poison dagger = 20.25-21.78 dPF
Now lets figure out how much damage all the sources combined come too on a frame by frame basis. This is done by simply adding all the sources up. So our dPF with the poison dagger spell and all our items would come to
Minium DPF
0.40
0.67
0.67
1.00
+ 20.25
--------
22.99 DPF
To figure the max DPF simply replace the 20.25 damage with the 21.78 from poison dagger.
So now we know we are doing at least 22.99 damage per frame...Or to figure out this damage in seconds simply multiply it by 25 or 574.75 a second, but we still aren't done yet, we have to figure out the actual duration of the poison as well. Remember that DPF is cumulative the durations are averaged, this is a very important fact this information will allow you modify your poison damage with items for different situations, but well discuss that in a bit.
So to find the duration of the poison we must add all the items (except the spell durations as you will soon see)then divide by the number of how many of these items we are using.
So here we have:
Wormskull 200 Frames
P. Emerald 150 Frames
P. Emerald 150 Frames
Jewel + 50 Frames
-------------
Total 550 Frames
But we still aren't done...In 1.09 there was bug in that the durations also stacked like the DPF did if you used a ranged weapon to apply the poison. It was fairly easy then to get a bow to kill Hell Baal with one shot, and in fact I made a number of bowmancers that could do just that. Talk about easy run in hit once, and TP out...Once you know how long the poison took to kill him (he always has the same number of HP) you just TP in at the last second to get past the quest. This bug has been fixed in 1.10 and now ranged poison damage applies just as melee does, the way I've described here.
So now we need to average these out so we take that 550 and divide it by 4 (for the worm skull, tow P emeralds, and the jewel...No I haven't forgot Poison dagger, well get there I swear).
That gives us a duration of 137.5 frames. If we didn't have poison dagger here that would be our duration for those classes that don't have poison skills. To figure out how many seconds that is simply divide by 25 and round down. So the effective duration of just these items is 5.5 seconds rounded down to 5 seconds (and yes you lose that DPS on the lost .5 seconds too).
But wait I'm a daggermancer and need to figure that in as well. And here we see what is truly the most powerful effect of the poison skills that can be modified. THE DURATION OF THE SPELL IS ADDED TO THE AVERAGE DURATION OF THE ITEMS. So now we take that 137.5 and add 240 Frames. This gives us a duration of 377.5 frames, or (divided by 25) 15.1 seconds. Lets to be accurate round that down to 375 frames and 15 seconds. Now as you can see we have by using that poison dagger added 10 seconds to our duration when compared to the 5 without. Big deal you say?!? Even if you didn't use the poison dagger damage and just got the duration bonus with the spell you would have increased the total damage by 3 because the DPF doesn't change over the entire duration. Now lets see what how much damage we do:
Here you simply take our DPF rate (22.99) and multiply it by the duration in frames rounded down to the nearest multiple of 25 (375). or 8,621 (rounded down).
Now you might notice that the jewel in our set up might very well be hindering our overall damage. Luckily for bosses I have another Wormskull with a IAS jewel in it. So lets see what happens when we take away that low duration source.
Total Frames (500/3)=166.67+240= (406.67 gotta round down) 400 duration, and it takes away only 1 point from the DPF so our adjusted DPF is 21.99. If the poison is allowed to run its course it would then do 8,796 over all damage. Might not seem significant in this example, but if I had three more 2 or 3 second items on me the difference would be huge. This effect is also apparent in the charts above, notice that with only a couple exceptions the more total damage of the spell often the lower the damage per frame is.
Armed with this information you can now tweak your damage to better suit your needs in game, For example an assassins toxins when combined with long duration items could very easily out damage all other poisons in the game. An Assassin if they want the biggest damage potential need only get one extra poison item with the longest duration they can find. Even with a level one Venom if coupled with a 8 second item can do 1200 -1600 damage. I should preface this with the fact that I have never played a venom assassin, I am only going on information I have gathered on how it stacks. That one charm would easily make it the most potent of poisons of all the level one poison spells.
Also when doing normal questing it is probably better to have a high DPS to speed up the killing of the common beasts, For the bosses it is usually better to have a higher damage longer lasting toxin.
As you can see the Venom assassin has the ability to overwrite nearly all the other poisons, however if they are working in a group against a boss they should consider not using it in that a properly designed daggermancer most likely has a higher damage poison at the higher levels. Unless of course it's two different groups trying to kill the same boss, the assassin can use venom in such cases to kill steal.
This also tells us that if you wish to pursue a poison javelin zON that you can really stock up on the high DPF items with little regard for duration, the duration of the poison javelin is such that you can hit a target with it, take a restroom break, read your mail, make a sandwich and when done the beast will still be green.
Also note that though the necromancer is the only class of all these that has the ability to lower the resistance of the enemy, which can make them also more powerful than they might appear in the charts listed.
You should also be aware that +poison skill damge will only affect the DPF of the spell, it has no effect on the duration or the items that you might be using.
Druids Rabies has the ability (a bug) to kill another player, in PvP all will others will only reduce the other players to 1.
hp.
I am also aware that there is some debate if poison creeper stacks and to how it works in general, however even if it does stack damage wise I think that the damage is so low at all but the lowest of levels, that the debate is near useless, if however it stacks by adding it's duration to your other poison items them it could be important.
It's long but hey someone asked (in another thread) but I felt this deserves its own.
I'd also like to thank the author of "the Toa of Poison" in helping me get the jist of poison damage. Though I disagree with the calcultions he uses (infact I can't duplicate any of his results with the formuals he gives), the general concept is correct as far as I can tell. Even if his math is better than mine, my system is much simpler and close enough I have found, As you will see poison damage calculating is at best a guessing game once you start throwing in magic and rare poison items.
And grrr look what it did to my nice rows, ouch...Anyone gotta fix?
Poison Skills
The following is a list of all the poison damage spells in the game. In this chart I have listed the information which is most important in deciding how to approach these skills and also as an outline as to what skills will overwrite other skills. A basic run down of how I made this chart is given here:
Duration = the time the spell lasts in seconds in the spell description (my info is from Arreat Summit)
frame duration= Duration*25-
A frame is how many pictures are drawn on the screen per second. For most the time when you are deciding what kind of poison items you want to use this isn't really that necessary, however we need it in an attempt to determine what spells will override other ones, this is how the computer thinks about your poison damage duration, also in practice it appears that duration is rounded down to the nearest second so it you have a duration that is not dividable by 25 round it down to the nearest denominator of 25.
Damage= the listed damage on the skill description
Fully Synergised= the damage of the spell if all the spells that add a synergy bonus are maxed.
DPF= Damage per Frame- This is how much damage your poison will do per frame without synergy bonuses. This figure is arrived at by taking the damage and dividing it by the Frame duration.
DPFS=Damage per Frame Synergised- This is how much damage your poison will do per frame with synergy bonuses.
Code:
Amazon:
Poison Javelin Level 1 Level 10 Level 20
Duration 8 sec 26 sec 46 sec
Frame duration: 200 650 1150
Damage 25-37 528-589 2659-2946
Fully Synergised 85-125.8 1795.2- 2002.6 9040.6-10016.4
DPF 0.13-0.19 0.82-0.91 2.31-2.56
DPFS 0.43-0.76 2.76-3.08 7.86-8.71
Plague Javelin Level 1 Level 10 Level 20
Duration: 3 sec. 6.6 sec 10.6
Frame duration: 75 165 265
Damage: 23-37 391-422 1888-1937
Fully Synergised 69-111 1173-1266 5664-5811
DPF 0.31-0.49 2.37-2.56 7.35-7.57
DPFS 0.92-1.48 7.11-7.67 22.13-22.69
Assassin:
Venom Level 1 Level 10 level 20
Duration: 0.4 seconds regardless of level
Frame Duration: 10 10 10
Damage*: 60-80 205-225 425-445
No synergies
DPS 6-8 20.5-22.5 42.5-44.5
Code:
Druid:
Rabies Level 1 Level 10 Level 20
Duration 4 sec. 7.6 sec. 11.6 sec
Frame duration: 100 190 290
Damaged 18-43 261-308 924-996
fully synergised 82.8-197.8 1200.6-1416.8 4250.4- 4581.6
DPF .18-.43 1.37-1.62 3.18-3.43
DPFS .83-1.98 6.32-7.45 14.65-15.8
Poison Creeper Level 1 Level 10 level 20
Duration: 4 cents all levels
Frames duration: 100 frames
Damage 4-6 33-34 84-86
No synergy bonus
DPF .04-.06 .33-.34 .84-.86
Necromancer
Poison Dagger Level 1 Level 10 Level 20
Duration 2 sec 5.6 sec 9.6 sec.
Frame Duration 50 140 240
Damage 7-15 129-153 540-581
Fully synergised 63-135 1161-1377 4860-5229
DPF 0.14- 0.3 0.68- 1,1 2.25- 2.43
DPFS 1.26- 2.7 8.29- 9.8 20.25- 21.78
Poison Explosion Level 1 Level 10 Level 20
Duration 2sec. 5.6sec 9.6 sec
Frame duration 50 140 240
Damage 28-86 301-462 1345-1620
Damage Synergised 196-602 2107-3234 9415-11340
DPF 0.56-1.72 2.15- 3.3 5.05-6.75
DPFS 3.92-12.04 15.5- 23.1 39.23-47.25
Poison Nova Level 1 Level 10 Level 20
Duration 2 seconds regardless of level
Frame duration 50
Damage 52-93 194-236 427-468
Fully synergised 260-456 970-1180 2135-2340
Damage per frame 1.04-1.86 3.94-4.72 8.54-9.36
DPF Synergised 5.2-9.12 19.4-23.6 42.7-46.8Most damage overall damage spells at base (no synergies):
Code:
Level 1 Level 10 Level 20
1)Poison Nova (Nec) Poison Javelin (Zon) Poison Javelin (Zon)
2)Poison Explosion (NEC) Poison Explosion(NEC) Plague Javelin (ZON)
3)Venom (Asn) Plague Javelin (zON) Poison Explosion (NEC)
4)Rabies (Drd) Rabies (Drd) Rabies (Drd)
5)Poison Javelin(ZON) Poison Nova (nEC) Poison Dagger (NEC)
Plague Javelin(zON)
6)--------- Venom (Asn) Poison Nova (nEC)
7)Poison Dagger (nEC) Poison dagger (nEC) Venom (asn)
8)Poison creeper (drd) Poison Creeper(drd) poison Creeper(drd)Most Damage Overall full synergies:
Code:
Level 1 Level 10 Level 20
1)Poison Explosion (NEC) Poison Explosion (nEC) Poison Explosion (nEC)
2)Poison Nova (NEC) Poison Javelin (ZON) Poison Javelin (ZON)
3)Rabies (Drd) Rabies (Drd) Plague Javelin (ZON)
4)Poison Dagger (nEC) Poison Dagger (NEC) Poison Dagger (NEC)
5)Poison Javelin (ZON) Plague Javelin (ZON) Rabies (Drd)
6)Plague Javelin (ZON) Poison Nova (NEC) Poison Nova (NEC)
7)Venom (Asn) Venom (Asn) Venom (Asn)
8)Poison Creeper (Drd) Poison Creeper(Drd) Poison Creeper (Drd)Damage per frame no synergy
Code:
Level 1 Level 10 Level 20
1)Venom (asn) Venom (Asn) Venom (Asn)
2)Poison Nova(NEC) Poison Nova (NEC) Poison Nova (nEC)
3)Poison Explosion (nEC) Poison Explosion (NEC) Plague Javelin (zON)
4)Plague Javelin (ZON) Plague Javelin (ZON) Poison Explosion (nEC)
5)Rabies (Drd) Rabies (Drd) Rabies (drd)
6)Poison Dagger(NEC) Poison Dagger (NEC) Poison Javelin (ZON)
7)Poison Javelin (ZON) Poison Javelin (ZON) Poison Dagger (NEC)
8)Poison Creeper (Drd) Poison Creeper (Drd) Poison Creeper (drd)
Code:
Level 1 Level 10 Level 20
1)Poison Explosion (nEC) Poison Nova (NEC) Poison Explosion(NEC)
2)Poison Nova (nEC) Poison Explosion (NEC) Poison Nova (NEC)
3)Venom (asn) Venom (Asn) Venom (Asn)
4)Poison Dagger (nEC) Poison Dagger (nEC) Plague Javelin (ZON)
5)Rabies (drd) Rabies (Drd) Poison Dagger (NEC)
6)Plague Javelin (zON) Plague Javelin (zON) Rabies (Drd)
7)Poison Javelin (zON) Poison Javelin (zON) Poison Javelin (ZON)
8)Poison Creeper (drd) Poison Creeper (Drd) Poison Creeper (Drd)Items:
When figuring out how items effect poison spells it typically works in such away that poison items equipped by players will effect the damage and duration on poison skills that are used against a single target. I admit that I don't have experience in playing all the classes that use poison so I might be a little off on this assumption, but the skills that benefit from also using (i.e. stacking) poison items are Poison Dagger, Venom, Rabies ,and Poison Javelin. The other spells don't gain any benefit from using additional poison items Poison Explosion, Poison Nova, Poison Creeper, and Plague Javelin. If you plan on using Explosion, Nova, Creeper, and Plague Javelin you need not continue reading, your damage is your damage and have fun. But for those of us that plan on using the other skills you should really keep reading.
When using items to add to your power pool you should be aware of the following facts:
1) the damage bonuses from items are cumulative, the durations are averaged.
2) The duration of you spells are added to the average duration of your items.
3) Every item on your person is considered a source even if they are on the same item. for example a dagger with 2 P emeralds would be added to your poison power as such:
100 poison damage @ 6 sec.s and 100 damage @ 6 sec.s, regardless of the listing on the item, in this case 202 over 6 sec.s.
For this reason it is often impossible (unless you get someone to take a hit for you with just that item equipped) to determine what your poison damage really is because magic and rare items that poison damage bonuses from the prefix and suffix are jumbled together on the item listing. Since you don't know where in the range of possiblilites (both in damage and in duration) the prefix and suffix fell, the best you can hope for when using such items is to guess, or like I said find a volunteer to take a hit for you (I play HC so this typically isn't a choice.)
So for an example lets say I'm a Daggermancer (which incidently I am) using a maxed synergy maxed poison dagger for my main attack. I also carry 3 poison damage items (4 sources though, you'll see) I'm wearing Wormskull which features a 80 damage over 8 sec. poison, I carry a magical Kris with 2 sockets each socket has a Perfect emerald (100 damage over 6 seconds)*2 and for the example my wormskull is socketed with a jewel of Blight 50 damage over 2 sec.s. S now I want to figure my Damage per frame.
So lets make a list of my poison sources to help those that might be confused.
Poison Dagger 20.25- 21.78 per frame over 240 frames.(don’t worry Ill concert the other sources for ya in a sec.)
Wormskull 80 damage over 8 seconds
P. Emerald #1 100 damage over 6 seconds
P. Emerald #2 100 damage over 6 seconds
Jewel 50 damage over 2 seconds
First we should find out the duration of the above items per frame, we do this by multiplying each item duration by 25.
Wormskull 80 damage over (8*25)=200 frames
P. Emerald #1 100 damage over (6*25)=150 frames
P. Emerald #2 100 damage over (6*25)=150 frames
Jewel 50 damage over (2*25)=50 frames
Next we need to convert our damage to a rate in frames (DPF). We do this by dividing the damage by the frame rate duration.
Wormskull= (80/200) = 0.4 dPF
P. Emerald #1 (100/150)= 0.67 dPF
P. Emerald #2 (100/150)= 0.67 dPF
Jewel (50/50) = 1 dPF
Poison dagger = 20.25-21.78 dPF
Now lets figure out how much damage all the sources combined come too on a frame by frame basis. This is done by simply adding all the sources up. So our dPF with the poison dagger spell and all our items would come to
Minium DPF
0.40
0.67
0.67
1.00
+ 20.25
--------
22.99 DPF
To figure the max DPF simply replace the 20.25 damage with the 21.78 from poison dagger.
So now we know we are doing at least 22.99 damage per frame...Or to figure out this damage in seconds simply multiply it by 25 or 574.75 a second, but we still aren't done yet, we have to figure out the actual duration of the poison as well. Remember that DPF is cumulative the durations are averaged, this is a very important fact this information will allow you modify your poison damage with items for different situations, but well discuss that in a bit.
So to find the duration of the poison we must add all the items (except the spell durations as you will soon see)then divide by the number of how many of these items we are using.
So here we have:
Wormskull 200 Frames
P. Emerald 150 Frames
P. Emerald 150 Frames
Jewel + 50 Frames
-------------
Total 550 Frames
But we still aren't done...In 1.09 there was bug in that the durations also stacked like the DPF did if you used a ranged weapon to apply the poison. It was fairly easy then to get a bow to kill Hell Baal with one shot, and in fact I made a number of bowmancers that could do just that. Talk about easy run in hit once, and TP out...Once you know how long the poison took to kill him (he always has the same number of HP) you just TP in at the last second to get past the quest. This bug has been fixed in 1.10 and now ranged poison damage applies just as melee does, the way I've described here.
So now we need to average these out so we take that 550 and divide it by 4 (for the worm skull, tow P emeralds, and the jewel...No I haven't forgot Poison dagger, well get there I swear).
That gives us a duration of 137.5 frames. If we didn't have poison dagger here that would be our duration for those classes that don't have poison skills. To figure out how many seconds that is simply divide by 25 and round down. So the effective duration of just these items is 5.5 seconds rounded down to 5 seconds (and yes you lose that DPS on the lost .5 seconds too).
But wait I'm a daggermancer and need to figure that in as well. And here we see what is truly the most powerful effect of the poison skills that can be modified. THE DURATION OF THE SPELL IS ADDED TO THE AVERAGE DURATION OF THE ITEMS. So now we take that 137.5 and add 240 Frames. This gives us a duration of 377.5 frames, or (divided by 25) 15.1 seconds. Lets to be accurate round that down to 375 frames and 15 seconds. Now as you can see we have by using that poison dagger added 10 seconds to our duration when compared to the 5 without. Big deal you say?!? Even if you didn't use the poison dagger damage and just got the duration bonus with the spell you would have increased the total damage by 3 because the DPF doesn't change over the entire duration. Now lets see what how much damage we do:
Here you simply take our DPF rate (22.99) and multiply it by the duration in frames rounded down to the nearest multiple of 25 (375). or 8,621 (rounded down).
Now you might notice that the jewel in our set up might very well be hindering our overall damage. Luckily for bosses I have another Wormskull with a IAS jewel in it. So lets see what happens when we take away that low duration source.
Total Frames (500/3)=166.67+240= (406.67 gotta round down) 400 duration, and it takes away only 1 point from the DPF so our adjusted DPF is 21.99. If the poison is allowed to run its course it would then do 8,796 over all damage. Might not seem significant in this example, but if I had three more 2 or 3 second items on me the difference would be huge. This effect is also apparent in the charts above, notice that with only a couple exceptions the more total damage of the spell often the lower the damage per frame is.
Armed with this information you can now tweak your damage to better suit your needs in game, For example an assassins toxins when combined with long duration items could very easily out damage all other poisons in the game. An Assassin if they want the biggest damage potential need only get one extra poison item with the longest duration they can find. Even with a level one Venom if coupled with a 8 second item can do 1200 -1600 damage. I should preface this with the fact that I have never played a venom assassin, I am only going on information I have gathered on how it stacks. That one charm would easily make it the most potent of poisons of all the level one poison spells.
Also when doing normal questing it is probably better to have a high DPS to speed up the killing of the common beasts, For the bosses it is usually better to have a higher damage longer lasting toxin.
As you can see the Venom assassin has the ability to overwrite nearly all the other poisons, however if they are working in a group against a boss they should consider not using it in that a properly designed daggermancer most likely has a higher damage poison at the higher levels. Unless of course it's two different groups trying to kill the same boss, the assassin can use venom in such cases to kill steal.
This also tells us that if you wish to pursue a poison javelin zON that you can really stock up on the high DPF items with little regard for duration, the duration of the poison javelin is such that you can hit a target with it, take a restroom break, read your mail, make a sandwich and when done the beast will still be green.
Also note that though the necromancer is the only class of all these that has the ability to lower the resistance of the enemy, which can make them also more powerful than they might appear in the charts listed.
You should also be aware that +poison skill damge will only affect the DPF of the spell, it has no effect on the duration or the items that you might be using.
Druids Rabies has the ability (a bug) to kill another player, in PvP all will others will only reduce the other players to 1.
hp.
I am also aware that there is some debate if poison creeper stacks and to how it works in general, however even if it does stack damage wise I think that the damage is so low at all but the lowest of levels, that the debate is near useless, if however it stacks by adding it's duration to your other poison items them it could be important.