Blixem's Guide to Making Poison - by Blixem Ackbayabberstay (The Rathe)

Poisons are a rogue's toy for death. They come in 16 different flavors.

Berserker Madness - Target bonus STR and AC, does small Direct Damage and good DoT.
Blind - minus to ATK.
Brittle Haste - bonus to ATK Speed, lowers AC and STR.
Contact - Direct Damage.
Dizzy - lowers AGI, lowers AC.
Feeble Mind - Reduces targets Mana.
Flesh Rot - small Direct Damage, Long term DoT (more like a disease).
Injected - small Direct Damage, 30 second DoT.
Liquid Silver - Heavy damage Contact poison for UNDEAD only.
Lower Resist - just what it says, lowers resist except for poison.
Muscle Lock - Slows Movement (snare).
Paralyzing Root - Lowers Attack Speed (like shaman/enchanter slows).
Poison Animal - Heavy damage contact spell, for animal type monsters ONLY.
Poison Summoned - Heavy damage contact spell for summoned ONLY.
System Shock - good Direct Damage, pushes target back, and stuns/interrupts spells.
Weaken - Reduces target strength.

Poisons have an interesting way of deciding how much damage/results you will get with the actual poison you have. First off, is the level of the poison. We will use Contact poisons as an example. Contact Poisons currently have 4 levels of strength. Contact I, II, III, and IV. The amount of damage is decided by the level of player, and the TOP end of that is decided by the poisons level. Below is an example.

Contact I - DD for 5 to 141 damage, Level 35
Contact II - DD for 5 to 177 damage, Level 44
Contact III - DD for 13 to 221 damage, Level 55
Contact IV - DD for 13 to 445 damage, Level 55

The difference? The top end of the poison. Contact one tops out at 141 for a level 35 Rogue. Any level above 35 will still do 141 damage. Now, a Contact II will also do 141 for a level 35 rogue, BUT at level 36 the contact II poison will do more damage. The Contact II poison tops out at level 44, where you will have to use a Contact II to do more damage. Notice that Contact III and IV both top out at level 55. The difference in these two is how much damage they do at what level. At level 35, Contact IV WILL do more damage than Contact II, even though the Rogue has not topped out either poison, this is due to the damage range of the poison.

Books on Poison -

As far as I know (this is a guide not a definitive writing) There are 11 different books on poisons. Most of them are straight forward on how to make the poison but do not hint at how hard they are to make, or what level of poison they will be. (Note: these books are not all written in Common)

Making Poisons -

First and foremost, poison making is not something you do with a few spare plat, because you want to be badass in combat. Poisons will make you more effective, but you MUST realize the penalty for using them. First, Poisons are expensive and time consuming. You WILL blow a lot of money on em even if you make your own vials. Most components are dropped off monsters so you will have to go out and 'farm' if you wanna keep any kind of supply on you. You have to SIT and apply the poison, you must remain seated while it is applying. (this checks your apply poison skill... you rarely fail to apply a poison you can make, but the higher your apply poison skill the faster you can get the poison on your blade and stand back up.) Now if you still aren't shying away from poison making, You are ready to roll.

Tools of the Trade -

To actually make the poison, you will combine 3 (or more) things in a Mortar and Pestle. You can pick one of these up in 3 places. Dagnors Cauldron, Firiona Vie, and West Karanas. You will combine a poison vial (Regular, Lined, or Sealed), a Suspension (Regular, Constrict, Larent, or Ethereal), and finally the actual component that you farmed or bought. The first poison that you should try just to get used to it is known as "Spider Venom" this is a Weaken I type poison, and is fairly useless, but it is cheap to make, easy to farm the items, and helps bring up your apply skill if you haven't used poisons before.

In your Mortar and Pestle, put one suspension, one poison vial, and 2 UNSTACKED spider venom sacs. (gotten off almost any spider larger than a spiderling.) Then press Combine. One of two things will happen. This poison trivials out at 20, so it should be pretty much trivial to you already. If you succeed, then you now have an unstackable poison bottle, if you failed you will be given your vial back, and the rest of the items destroyed.

Applying your poison -

Once you have your poison, to apply your poison to your blade, just right click the poison. Unlike drinking you can also do this from inside bags. You will get either a "you have successfully applied" or "you have failed to apply" message. If you fail, your blade is not poisoned, and your poison is GONE. If you are standing when you try to apply, you will automaticaly sit down and start applying.

IMPORTANT NOTES -

1. Once your poison is applied to your weapon, the poison is gone, you can not retrieve it.
2. Poisoned blades do not last through zoning. (if you zone, the poison on the blade is GONE)
3. Poisons are uninterruptable, and will fire off on the first successful hit, that is not a backstab.
4. The way the game works is to apply the poison to your primary hand slot, you can not poison one blade, move it to secondary and then poison another blade. The game is not actually poisoning the weapon, just the weapon slot. You can prove this by poisoning with a contact poison then removing your weapons.
5. Injected poisons MUST have a piercing weapon to proc.
6. Poisons CAN be resisted, and the resists are based off of the level you are to the monster, and its resist to POISON, even flesh rot is a POISON.

Links contained in this guide are taken from the