ailment % bleed psn shock and burn % dmg increases and ailment stacks (can have up to 30). anything that is just % dmg.

remember you can proc all ailments on targets if you have the skills for it. for example my fireball procs burn and shock while my turrets proc bleed and poison. you need to mess with the dmg types you are dealing to achieve this but it is possible. im dealing 25k + per ailment on a target atm with none of the core 'ailment' uniques or affixes on gear. lvl 51 atm.

sorry for shit formatting on phone atm :)

Wait, so straight up %elemental or spell dmg etc...wont buff ailments at all???

And if I've been using the lighting rune on fireball I am still proccing fire burn ailment then?? I thought you had to use a different skill for each ailment you want to inflict.

Of course not, that would be double dipping etc. Things like -direct dmg but +ailment dmg would be redundant and things like 12% spell dmg 12% ailment dmg would be op and double dip.

You can inflict as many ailments with a single skill as you have +1 ailment stacks applied (see Grievous Afflictions). This means at base you can only apply a single ailment with a single skill. With the passive Grievous Afflictions you can apply two. Meaning your fireball can proc burning dmg and if you have lightning dmg to spells as an example, can also proc shock. You can obtain items that give you more, so if you have shadow dmg to spells as well you can then also inflict all 3 ailments with a single fireball (each has a seperate chance to be applied)

The amount of base dmg only matters when discussing the priority of ailments applied. So if you deal fire, shadow and rend damage, but can only apply two ailments in a single hit with a single skill, then it will take the two highest dmgs of the tree types you deal in order to decide which ailment is applied.

OK so wait then, I am getting more confused now but not really...

So when you look at a gem, they have affixes such as "adds 9-12 toxic damage to spells" - So this will not buff ailment dmg at all then? Or just the spell portion you cast, if it's even worth it when you start taking +ailment/-direct dmg skills?
Because other than that on gems I just see +ailment chance but not even an option for ailment dmg, which makes gems seem almost worthless.

Also, I have rarely seen any items/weapons that have +burn or +ailment dmg on them. It's all +spell dmg or +specific element dmg or adds 9-12 dmg of one type to spells.

When going through the skill tree you have to take some nodes along the path that gives you flat +15 spell dmg overall so these wont buff ailments either? Just the direct dmg portion of any spell you cast I guess, which will be weak anyways after taking +ailment/-direct dmg?

I get what you're saying about double dipping but melee has +melee dmg and +weapon dmg too so something doesn't seem right. There is only one tree dedicated to caster ailments and all the other ones have all kinds of +spell dmg or +specific dmg. Or +toxin/+poison dmg in Plaugebearer tree.

I'm pretty sure that ele damage is boosting elemental ailments damage.
In weapon you have games that buffs certain ailments damage and supports buffs certain element damage.

I'm using burn + shock 30 stacks.

Shock in my setup is doing 19k and burn 16k so 35k damage in total.

Ya I'm confused now what is true especially since whenever I take +ailment passives from the Gate it does not update my dot damage on my character sheet.

Is there any chance you could send a screen shot of you passive tree and what abilities you use?

Has your ailment damage stayed the same since the beginning? it should be increasing with % increased ailment dmg. As far as the other damage like Toxic vs Poison, toxic is hit damage, if you increase it or add it to your spell then youll hit more as Toxic damage. The ailment, poison, is scaled off stacks and direct ailment. This is what I have observed.

I'm pretty sure that %Materialdmg increases the poisonstack dmg aswell. Just equipped 4 items with Materialdmg and the stackdamage was consistently higher. I think the sheet dmg is bugged. It shows 20-400 poison damage. It doesn't change even if i unequip my staff with 39%poisonailmentdmg. Spell and Attackdmg dont increase ailment dmg, but i think elemental/material/occult do.

I'm also struggling to understand how the ailment damage works. How does toniezlek0 know what damage each ailment does? I'm following Vulkan's Plague Lord build but without understanding how the gear attributes correspond to the ailment I'm struggling to gear my character.

Ok. I just tested it, and +#% elemental damage is 100% working on ailments.
How did I test it?
1) I've reseted my passive talents tree.
2) I've bought blue ring with +22% ele dmg and nothing else.
3) 1 stack of my burning dot with this ring ticks for 59dmg, without it 57 dmg (on same mobs)

UPD.
1) +#% spell damage doesn't work on burning dots. Same 57dmg per tick.
2) +#% damage does work.
3) #-# added type damage to spells doesn't work.
4) +15% fire dmg node on passive tree does work.

Short conclusion: stack +#% fire dmg, +#% damage, +#% ele dmg and +#% ailment dmg on your burn dot builds.

This seems to be correct.

The game's mechanics and stat sheet can be confusing at first and people tend to make mistakes sometimes when explaining things. This is more true for a new game on release as well when people are figuring it all out.

I thought perhaps spell dmg at first affecting ailments as there are sometimes nodes close by it etc...

I'm in the middle of respeccing again now trying to figure out best/how many ailments to take and what gems to put in sockets.
I'm not the best math person so I don't know what is best route to go; +(specific) dmg to spells (for more different ailments) or go all +8-10% (specific) ailment dmg on weapons.

Also, for anyone else wondering, out of the 9 different dmg types in games they are divided into 3 categories. They all apply a different ailment but only 4 of them do actual dmg with one amplifying dmg.
I'll try to break it down in a chart-like fashion below for anyone getting lost here.

MATERIAL * Physical [stun] * Rend [bleed - dmg] * Toxic [poison - dmg]

ELEMENTAL * Fire [burn - dmg] * Frost [freeze] * Lightning [shock - dmg]

OCCULT * Shadow [curse - amplifies all dmg taken by enemies] * Aether [slow] * Sacred [weaken - attenuates enemy dmg]

So if your gear or passive has +% Material dmg that is a global modifier that affects all physical, rend and toxic dmg of that type since there is no specific affix indicating it's for spell or attack.
You might see some passives, gear stats or gems that give a higher amount of dmg to one type as well, which is a global modifier too.

If something says "adds X dmg to spells or attacks that will only affect the direct dmg not the ailment dmg as that is considered something separate.
The opposites to that are gear/gems/passives that have +ailment dmg or +burn/shock/bleed/poison affixes which will not affect the direct dmg from the spell or attack.

This was a bit confusing too me at first because a couple of the nodes in the beginning Scholar tree that has both +ailment and +spell dmg listed in one passive. But just close by there is a flat +dmg node, which I guess is intended for warriors/rogues passing through the mage tree so it's not a total waste for them.

Very useful information here. Thanks everyone.

I have a question about an attribute though.
On one of my item, there is an attribute : "+50% Damage per bleed effect"

Will this increase all my damage (direct and ailment for all spells and attacks) if the target is bleeding ?
Or will this increase only the damage done using this item ? (attacks for a gun for example)

If we referring to Snowpocalypse information.
The +50% Damage per bleed effect" will increase only when ailment has been applied on Mob.

" + XX Ailement damage " It's will increase on Ailment Dot Damage (4 Type)
Because 4 ailment type from 9 ailment type has the damage, other 5 ailment is Special status.