My overall damage is significantly higher with +500 dex from emeralds. But the poison ticks from Andariels looks the same to me with and without the emeralds. That’s when I’m only looking at the 5s poison ticks after it procs
a) Go do some damage to the training dummies and make a note how much damage.
b) Put a bunch of main stat gems into your gear and do the same test.
c) Compare numbers and you should have your answer.
I ran some tests because I was curious.
Setup with Emeralds: 1950 dex
Without: 1450
When attempting to compare, I removed Bane and did not use Unstable Elixirs.
Two tests:
Top damage tick
Standard damage tick
When going for peak damage, it felt pretty inconclusive. I could get both over 400m ticks but it did kind of feel like I hit that more reliably with dex.
For standard damage I used a basic skill to just apply one stack to see what it did.
69233 with DEX gems
57257 without DEX gems
So final answer: Core stat increases your attack power and simply functions as the damage% affix. It works with Andariel’s.