Overview
The basics and in-depth mechanics of the game, explained in great detail. Explains the core functions and interactions of different parts of the game as well as the hidden equations and in-depth interactions between statistics and modifiers. The game doesn’t exactly tell you this information, making the learning curve a bit brutal. Hopefully this helps those who are new to the game, as well as being a reference sheet for even veterans.
Developer Summary of Path of Exile
Wraeclast is a dark, brutal continent. Scarred by mysterious catastrophes of the past and inhabited by creatures of nightmare, the very environment challenges exiles who dare explore it.
We’re sick of the recent trend towards bright, cartoony RPGs. The art style we chose for Path of Exile is dark, gritty and realistic. Wraeclast is terrifying, and we’ve tried hard to do it justice.
In Path of Exile, replayability is key. All world areas including outdoors ones are instanced for your party and randomly generated, right down to the magic properties of the monsters that dwell in them and the treasure they guard.
Notes From Me
Grinding Gear Games, the creators of Path of Exile, have the same mindset as valve when it comes to free games.
The game is awesome, in-depth, replayable, and requires only as much time as you want to put into it. Those who decide to spend money supporting the game get cosmetics instead of the overpowered game-breaking items that most “free” games use to earn cash.
Trust me, if you haven’t played PoE, you should.
Also, something to note, the first ~15 levels or so (which doesn’t take long to get to) are rather boring. Don’t let this turn you away. After this point things only get more interesting, trust me. You can’t even imagine the you can do.
So, onto the guide!
Leagues
Challenge Leagues last for 3 to 4 months, when they end your characters and entire stash are transferred to their parent leagues.
The default league to join is the current non-Hardcore 3/4 month league. If you are new, you should join this.
The parent leagues of the challenge leagues are Standard and Hardcore. These leagues are from open beta and years old. If you are new to the game you really shouldn’t join either of these. (unless there are no current leagues to join)
Parties must be made within a league.
Stashes are specific to each league, and are shared across character in that league.
Guilds spread across leagues, but their stashes do not.
Standard and Hardcore Leagues
– The old open beta leagues
– Parent leagues to the challenge leagues.
– If you are new, don’t join these. By playing Standard/Hardcore, you are playing a league with a saturated economy, unbalanced legacy items, and characters that are years old.
– Contains legacy items from all previous leagues to date. These items do not drop, they are only tradable.
– Contains legacy items created from balance patches. These items are only obtainable through trade and are obviously not balanced in the current game.
– If your character dies in Hardcore, it and its inventory are transferred to Standard. (Stash remains)
Race Leagues
– These are temporary leagues that have specific modifiers, specific stashes, and specific goals.
– Completing certain milestones and placings will reward you with points or items (points unlock items).
– Check the site here[www.pathofexile.com]for the race calendar and what the modifiers and rewards are for each race.
– At the end of a Race, the character and its stash is either transferred to Hardcore or Void league.
Void League
– Some races end with the character and its stash being transferred to this league.
– Characters in this league cannot be played in any form. They exist as a trophy if you want them.
– Only action you can take with a character in Void League is deleting it.
<< CHARACTER >>
Classes
There are no class specific skill gems. Every gem is usable by every class. All gear is usable by every class (as long as you meet the attribute requirements)
Each class has the same attribute total, only shifted toward their main attribute(s).
Gain per level
All classes gain the same amount per level
+12 life per level
+4 mana per level
+3 evasion per level
+1 passive skill point per level
Maximum character level is 100.
The Scion must be unlocked by freeing her from her cage at the top of the Scepter of God, or by finishing Normal Difficulty.
Class Specialties
Although any class can do anything, the basic skill points near the starting area of that class leads an important role in determining which classes are typically better at certain things.
Below is a summary of what each class can easily do given the passives in their vicinity.
Please note that the following is just a beginner’s guide to class summaries.
Complicated builds will completely ignore this as they will traverse a large portion of the tree.
Witch
Attribute: Intelligence
Offense: Spell Damage, Elemental Damage, Wands, Minions, Curses
Defense: Energy Shield, Elemental Resistance
Other: Large Mana Pool, High Mana Regen, Inflicts Elemental Status Effects
Shadow
Attributes: Intelligence, Dexterity
Offense: Elemental Damage, Daggers, Claws, Dual Wielding, Traps, Poison
Defense: Energy Shield, Evasion
Other: High Critical Chance/Multiplier, High Attack Speed
Ranger
Attribute: Dexterity
Offense: Bows, Swords
Defense: Evasion, Dodge, Stun Avoidance, Elemental Status Avoidance, Movement Speed
Other: High Critical Chance/Multiplier, High Attack Speed, High Accuracy
Duelist
Attributes: Dexterity, Strength
Offense: Swords, Axes, Bows, Dual Wielding
Defense: Health, Health Regen, Evasion, Armor, Block, Hard to Stun
Other: Life/Mana Leech, High Attack Speed, High Survivability
Marauder
Attribute: Strength
Offense: Maces, Axes, Two-Handed Weapons, Totems
Defense: Health, Armor, Elemental Resistance, Health Regen, Hard to Stun
Other: Life Leech, High Stun, Life Gain on Hit, Blood Magic
Templar
Attributes: Strength, Intelligence
Offense, Maces, Staves, Elemental Damage
Defense: Health, Energy Shield, Armor, Elemental Resistance, Block
Other: Easy Resistance Gain, Powerful Aura Buffs
Scion
Attributes: Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity
Offense: Spell Damage, Melee Damage, Projectile Damage
Defense: Health, Energy Shield, Evasion
Other: Not exactly specialized in anything
Passive Skill Tree
This gives the ability to create incredibly unique builds exactly the way you want them. You gain one skill point every level (and some extra ones from quests).
The skilltree can be viewed here[www.pathofexile.com](official) or here[poeplanner.com](unofficial, great stat summary).
It can be used to plan out your tree offline. Careful planning is incredibly important to a successful character.
Refund points are gained through quests, and can be used to refund and reallocate a point.
Skills
Skill Types
There are two primary types: spells, and attack skills.
Attack skills are based off of your weapon’s stats. Spells are based off of the skill’s stats.
Attack skills
Attack skills are dependent on your weapon and its base stats.
Life gain on hit is only applied to attacks.
Gear that adds x-y of any damage form is only applied to attacks.
Spells
Spells do not draw their damage from your weapon’s base stats in any way.
They are affected by %cast speed, %fire/cold/lightning damage, %spell damage, and critical strikes. Integer damage bonuses on gear are not added to spells unless specified.
Spells have their own base damage, cast speed, and critical chance as if they were the weapon.
Traps & Mines
Traps are considered spells. They are affected by % trap laying speed, cast speed, and relevant damage mods and supportive gems.
Bear traps are not affected by spell damage, the rest are.
Mines need to be manually detonated.
Traps and Mines have 1 life. AoE attacks destroy them.
Leeched life/mana and reflect from traps are directed back to the trap, which no longer exists.
Totems
Totems are spells that perform a certain action separate from you.
Some totems are active skills that perform a specific action (such as life regeneration).
There are also spell and ranged totem support gems, which cast/attack with the supported skill.
For instance: Fire Arrow + Fork + Ranged Attack Totem will create a totem that attacks with forking fire arrows.
Totems do not need mana, they attack anything in range until they expire or are destroyed.
Totems have health, and are affected by life leech and reflect damage.
Damage Effectiveness
Some gems have a specific damage effectiveness. This effects how effective certain support gems and added damage are.
For instance, with 6-10 added cold damage support gem on an ability with 50% damage effectiveness, it will only be gaining 3-5 added cold damage.
Lowered percentages are often used in very rapid hitting attacks to simply prevent them from being overpowered due to static stat support gems.
Life gain on hit and added x damage are most notably affected by damage effectiveness.
Support Gems
Right under the name of the gem it will have descriptors such as Attack, AoE, Projectile… etc. These are very important.
For instance, an “increased area of effect” support gem will only affect AoE skills.
Faster Projectiles gem gives +%projectile speed and +%physical damage. This will only affect projectiles. If linked to a melee skill, it will do nothing (not even the +%phys damage)
Vaal Gems
Vaal gems are active skills that can occasionally be used for a very powerful attack. They can be found in Vaal areas.
These require souls to use. The number of souls required depends on the gem. Higher difficulty increases the required souls. Souls are gained each time an enemy dies near you (you do not need to be the one that lands the killing blow).
Multiple Vaal gems do NOT each obtain one soul when something dies. One soul will randomly be given to one of your vaal gems.
A red radial will fill as souls are gained. Once a beating heart is on the skill, it is ready for use. Some Vaal gems can hold multiple charges and will show the charges with a number on the skill.
Skill Gem Experience Gain
Gems get experience equal to 10% of the experience you earn. They must be equpped to gain experience.
The number of gems you have equipped has no effect on the rate of XP gain. So having less gems equipped does not cause them to gain XP faster than if you had many gems equipped.
Gems are not affected by the experience penalty when facing enemies below your level, nor do they lose experience when you die.
Gems in your second set of weapons will gain experience as well, even if that set isn’t being used.
All skill gems can be viewed here.[pathofexile.gamepedia.com]
Attributes
Attributes are required to equip gear and skills.
Higher level gear and gems have higher attribute requirements.
The three attributes also grant some passive bonuses:
Strength grants +0.5 life and +0.2% melee physical damage per point
Dexterity grants +2 accuracy and +0.2% evasion per point
Intelligence grants +0.5 mana and +0.2% energy shield per point
Therefore the +10 attribute passive skills effectively grant:
+10 Strength: +5 life, +2% melee physical damage
+10 Dexterity: +20 accuracy, +2% evasion
+10 Intelligence: +5 mana, +2% energy shield
Experience
Level Scaling
Effect of level on experience:
Level affects the amount of XP you gain from killing enemies, based on the relative level of the player and monsters. A penalty is applied if you are too far above or below the monster level.
There is a safe level range where no penalty is applied, which is equal to three, plus one for every sixteen complete player levels. Any additional level difference in excess of this safe range is called the Effective Difference.
The formula then applied is:
((PlayerLevel +5)^1.5) / ((PlayerLevel+5+(EffectiveDifference^2.5))^1.5)
The minimum XP you can gain from an area is 1% of the original.
So a level 24 character has a safe band of 3+1=4 levels.
From Monster level 20 to 28, there is an effective level difference of 0.
At Monster Levels 19 and 29, the Effective level difference is 1.
The Effective Difference matters in either direction.
Life & Mana: Regeneration & Leech
Regeneration
All classes have a base mana regeneration rate of 105% of their maximum mana per minute.
For example, a character with 100 maximum mana will regenerate 105 mana per minute, or 1.75 mana per second.
“Increased Mana regeneration rate” modifiers modify the base rate.
For example, 20% Increased Mana regeneration rate would result in 105 * 1.2 = 126% per minute.
Characters do not begin with any life regeneration, but it is available from gear and passive skills.
Gear most typically provides a static amount of life regeneration. This amount becomes worthless quickly. Passive skills provide regeneration based off of your maximum health. The more health you have, the more you’ll regenerate.
Leech
Leech is now stack based. The base leech rate per stack is 2% of maximum life/mana per second, and combined 20% maximum life/mana per second. If there are enough stacks at one time that the leech would exceed the maximum leech per second, they will be limited to fit the maximum.
What this means:
Let’s say you have 5000 life. At default leech rates, your maximum leech rate is 1000 life/sec and your stack leech rate is 100 life/sec.
And we will say that you have a total of 1% life leech. You hit a single enemy for 1000 damage. You will end up leeching 10 life, but in what time?
Well, you are leeching on one stack which has a rate of 100 life/sec. At this rate, you gain 10 life over 0.1 seconds. Thus, it takes 0.1 seconds to leech all life on that attack.
If you hit 5 enemies for 1000 damage total (200 each), you will be leeching 10 life, or 2 life per stack. 5 stacks combined is 500 life/sec, so this doesn’t exceed the maximum. It takes 0.02 seconds to leech 2 life per stack, and all stacks occur simultaneously, so it will take only 0.02 seconds to leech the 10 life.
If you hit 20 enemies for 1000 damage total (50 each), you will be leeching 10 life, or 0.5 per stack. 20 stacks combined is 2000 life/sec which exceeds the 1000 life/sec limit we have. Stack limit must be pushed down to 50 life/sec to fit within the maximum limit. At this rate, each stack will take 0.01 seconds to leech 0.5 life, for a total of 0.01 seconds to leech 10 life.
As you can see, the more stacks you have, the faster you will leech. Leeching will be slower against single targets.
You will always leech the full amount (unless you can gain no more life/mana).
Most equipment leeches off of physical damage only. Support gems leech off of any damage.
Increases to life leech rate increase the amount of life gained per second and the amount of life gained overall. It is essentially calculated afterward.
So, in the first example, if you were to gain 10 life over 0.1 seconds and you had 50% increased life leech rate, you would actually gain 15 life over 0.1 seconds.
The Vaal Pact keystone passive makes leech instant. It’s downside is that you do not gain the increased life leech rate bonus because you are not leeching over time.
<< GAMEPLAY >>
Difficulty Levels
Later acts have death penalties, causing you to lose experience when you die.
They are 0% for Acts 1-5 (no penalty), 5% for Acts 6-10, and 10% for areas reached through the map device. This is a percentage of the experience needed to gain the next level, not your total experience.
Losing experience in this way cannot cause you to drop down a level. For instance if you have 9% progress to your next level and die in an area that loses you 10% of your experience, your progress will be reset to 0%.
There are also penalties to resistances as you reach certain checkpoints. Upon completion of Act 5, your character’s resistances permanently have a -30% modifier applied. Completing Act 10 gives you another -30%, totalling -60%. This doesn’t reduce your maximum resistance, only the resistance you currently have.
Parties
The maximum party size is 6 players.
Effect on Monsters
Monsters gain 20% extra life for each additional party member after the first.
(40% in cruel, 60% in merciless)
The original life amount is used for the purposes of determining the length of stuns and status ailments from elemental damage – this means monsters will not be harder to stun/ignite/etc when fighting in a party.
Effect on Loot
Each player in a party after the first gives a +10% item quantity modifier and +40% item rarity modifier on drops. Gems and currency items still receive +50% quantity.
Increased Rarity & Quantity modifiers on items are only counted from the player who lands the killing blow.
Map drops are not affected by additional party members (they are affected by other sources of increased item quantity though)
Effect on Experience
Only party members that are nearby (roughly two screens) receive experience from a slain monster.
If one member is in town or too far from the monster they get no XP.
Monsters are still made harder by players elsewhere on the level but outside of XP range.
Effect on Flasks
No longer based on making the killing blow. Flask charges are gained by being near a killed creature.
Areas
All areas in Path of Exile are instanced.
When you enter an area, a new instance is created.
Once you leave the area, the instance will remain in its current state for 8 or 15 minutes – if enough time passes with no players entering the instance, it will be closed.
Entering the same area again will create a new instance with a new randomly generated map if no current instance exists.
Areas with waypoints last 15 minutes, areas without last 8 minutes.
Instances you create are private and cannot be entered by other players unless they join your party.
However, once a player has entered an instance, that instance remains associated with the player even if they leave the party. Because of this, it is possible to share an instance with non-party members in some circumstances.
The exception to this is towns, which are always public, and cut-throat leagues, where all instances are public – meaning anyone can enter your instances at any time.
Some areas have waypoints. Once activated (by clicking on the waypoint), they allow you to travel instantly to any other waypoint you have activated.
Ctrl-clicking on a waypoint destination in the waypoint menu, or an area transition will bring up the instance management screen.
This screen lists all available instances of the area you ctrl-clicked on, and the time remaining until they are closed.
It also allows you to create new instances and enter existing ones.
Using the instance management screen you can have more than once instance of the same area open at one time, and choose which available instance you want to enter.
Vaal Areas
Vaal areas are glowing red dungeons with a beating heart that are randomly found throughout Wraeclast.
Inside you will find a small area that leads up to a very powerful, unique boss. Killing it will let the object at the end be opened, which will give a Vaal gem or other Vaal item.
Vaal areas can not be reset.
Trials of Ascendancy & The Lord’s Labyrinth
Throughout the game, you will encounter Trials of Ascendancy. These are small areas full of traps and monsters. Reaching the end and touching the stone completes the trial. Once all trials are completed, you are able to enter The Lord’s Labyrinth. This is a large, multi-level dungeon with diverging paths and options and powerful bosses. If you die in the Labyrinth, you must start from the beginning again with the area reset. The Labyrinth’s layout changes every 24 hours.
Maps
Maps are the “End-Game” of path of exile.
When you open a map, you are given 6 portals. Each portal can only be used once.
This means that in a party of 6, once everybody enters, no portals remain. If you are alone, you have the ability to enter 6 times.
Maps most commonly drop from within maps.
3 maps of the same level and type can be used to make a map one level higher.
Giving maps mods by making them magic or rare gives them additional item quantity and item rarity. This quantity effects the drop-rate all items (including maps) when in that map.
Item quantity from gems/items does not apply. Unidentified maps give an additional 30% item quantity (unless unique).
A detailed resource for maps can be found here.[pathofexile.gamepedia.com]
Quests
As you adventure through Wraeclast the locals will often reward your deeds with Skill Gems and Items which shall help you to uncover the continent’s mysteries.
You need to be present in an area for the quest completion to be counted.
If you’re party kills a boss while you are in town, it will not count. If you die when the boss is almost dead, it is best NOT to resurrect.
The quest will still count as completed as long as you are there (even if dead).
This is especially useful on the “Deal with the Bandits” quest, for if you die and resurrect, you are not allowed back inside the bandit camp and will not receive credit for the quest.
Your potential rewards change based on class and difficulty.
Quest rewards can be seen here.[pathofexile.gamepedia.com]
Gems provide the abilities your character uses in combat and some gems’ sole purpose is to support other gems.
Item rewards are typically given unidentified with random mods, sockets, links, and quality.
If you turn in a quest and don’t have inventory space for the reward (or just aren’t sure what to get yet) just close the window. You can go back to an NPC at any time to claim your quest reward.
Skill Books can NOT be transferred to your stash. This is prevent people from giving their character more skill books than what is intended.
Quest items cannot be stored in your stash either.
Deal with the Bandits
The Deal with the Bandits quest is an important role in character development, provided to you in Act 2.
You have 4 choices to make: to help Oak, help Kraityn, help Alira, or to simply kill them all.
Each choice yields a different reward, and these rewards change depending on difficulty.
Normal:
Oak: +40 base life
Alira: +60 base mana
Kraityn: +10% all resistances
Kill All: 1 passive skill point
Cruel:
Oak: +16% physical damage
Alira: +5% cast speed
Kraityn: +8% attack speed
Kill All: 1 passive skill point
Merciless:
Oak: +1 Endurance charge max
Alira: + 1 Power charge max
Kraityn: +1 Frenzy charge max
Kill All: 1 passive skill point
When you meet a bandit lord, you are given the option to kill them or help them.
If you are in a party each of you choose different options, you will be forced to fight any of your party that did not choose the same decision that you did.
Those that chose to help the bandits will have the bandits fighting with them as well. This is the only point in the game that you can attack your own party outside of pvp.
<< ITEMS >>
Items
Most items that drop in the game have one of four rarities.
Normal items have white text and only the base stats and implicit modifier (if the base item has one).
Magical items have blue text and contain 1-2 random modifiers on them.
Rare items have yellow text and contain 3-6 random modifiers on them.
Unique items are… unique. The modifiers they have may be simple or completely game changing.
All items that are not normal need to be identified to see their modifiers and to be able to use them.
This is done by using a scroll of wisdom (right click on the scroll, left click on the item).
The two item types that do not follow rarity colors are gems and currency.
Gems are always a blue-green text, currency is always a tannish color text.
Attribute Requirements
Most gear has attribute requirements that must be met in order to equip the gear.
These requirements come from the base item type and are unaffected by magical modifiers, quality, or number of sockets
A complete list of gear and attribute requirements can be found here: Weapons[pathofexile.gamepedia.com]
Armor[pathofexile.gamepedia.com]
Level Requirements
Most items have a level requirement that must be met in order to equip the item.
There are two factors that affect level requirements:
The level of the base item type.
The level of the magical modifiers.
The level requirement for magical modifiers is equal to 80% of the level of the highest-level magical modifier on the item.
The highest level requirement of the two listed above is the one that appears on the item.
Item Modifiers
Modifiers are split up in to two main groups, prefixes and suffixes. A magic item can have only one prefix and one suffix.
A randomly generated rare item (from a drop or Orb of Alchemy) receives between four and six modifiers randomly, with the following odds:
1/12 chance of 6 mods
4/12 chance of 5 mods
7/12 chance of 4 mods
All modifiers have a level associated with them, and will only appear on items whose item level is greater than or equal to the modifier’s level.
You can see the item level of an item by picking it up (on cursor) and typing “/itemlevel”.
Lists of available magical modifiers are available here:
Prefix Mods[www.pathofexile.com]
Suffix Mods[www.pathofexile.com]
Some modifiers on unique items are not the normal modifiers.
Some give skills, some support gem abilities, and other such unique things.
Unique items have no modifier limit, and are set in their values (or based on a certain value range)
Modifier Stacking
In general, integer modifiers are applied before percentages.
Percentage modifiers using the words “% increased” or “% reduced” stack additively with one another, while “% more” and “% less” modifiers stack multiplicatively.
When dealing with weapons, some modifiers that are listed on the weapon itself are applied locally to the weapon, before mods from other pieces of equipment, skills, and so on. These modifiers are increasing the base stats on the weapon.
This includes increased physical damage, added physical damage added elemental damage, quality, also attack speed, and critical strike chance.
It does not include % elemental damage mods or critical strike multiplier mods. (Those are global)
Similarly, when dealing with armour, evasion, and energy shield on armour, any modifiers affecting those stats that are listed on the piece of armour are applied locally.
This includes quality and any other mods directly affecting armour, evasion, or energy shield amount.
It does not include mods affecting the energy shield recharge delay or regeneration rate, only the amount of energy shield.
Imagine I have 100 life, and two passive skills that increase total life by 15%. The total bonus will be 30%, resulting in 130 life.
Now imagine I am wearing boots that give +40 life, and have a passive skill that grants +20 life. The integer bonuses are applied first, giving me 160 life, then the percentage bonuses are applied to that subtotal, for a final total of 208 life.
Quality behaves differently on armour and flasks than on weapons.
On armour and flasks, it stacks multiplicatively with other modifiers on that piece of equipment.
Quality on weapons stacks additively with other % modifiers on the weapon.
For example:
If you had an armor piece that has a base armour rating of 428. Then the +69 is added to get 497 armour. Then the 9% bonus raises it to 541, and finally +20% quality results in 650 armour.
Another armor example (in-depth):
You have an item with energy shield.
Take Base Energy Shield (amount the item has as a white level item)
100 ES
If it has a +X ES mod, it is then added.
+50 Energy Shield
100 + 50 = 150 ES
If it has a %increased ES mod it is then factored in (this is local)
50% increased Energy Shield
150 * 1.50 = 225 ES
If you add quality, it is then an increased % of that
20% Quality
225 * 1.20 = 270 ES
Then passives and intelligence are factored in
60% increased energy shield from passives and intelligence
270 * 1.60 = 432 ES
If you have Infused Shield (behind CI) it is then multiplied
432 * 1.12 = 485 ES
So that chest piece is giving 485 ES in total.
Another example calculation (weapon):
If you had a sword whose unmodified damage is 10-20, with the following modifiers:
50% increased physical damage on the weapon
20% quality on the weapon
5-10 added physical damage on the weapon
passive skills granting 30% increased sword damage
a skill that does 40% increased damage and 30% less damage
The calculation would look like this:
Base damage: 10-20
Stage 1, on-weapon modifiers: (10-20 + 5-10) x (1 + 0.5 + 0.2) = 25.5-51
Stage 2, all other modifiers: (25.5-51) x (1 + 0.3 + 0.4) x 0.7 = 30-61
Sockets
1. Strength (red)
2. Dexterity (green)
3. Intelligence (blue)
4. Colorless (white)
Sockets appear randomly on most equipable items.
Higher level items can appear with more sockets than lower level items of the same type.
The maximum amount of sockets that can appear on an item also varies by the type of item:
Two handed weapons and body armour can have up to 6 sockets
Wands, shields, and one handed weapons can have a maximum of 3 sockets
Everything else can have a maximum of 4 sockets
One exception to this is the starting weapon that appears on the beach at the start of the game. Its item level is 1 but it always has one socket of each colour.
Items are more likely to receive sockets that match their attribute requirements.
So an item requiring only dexterity is more likely to have green sockets than red or blue sockets.
You can only put a blue (intelligence) gem in a blue socket, red gem in a red socket, etc.
Colorless sockets (white) can appear on unique and corrupted items. Any gem can be socketed into a colorless socket.
Sockets can be linked.
The links are shown as gold bars between the sockets.
Support gems affect any skill gems in sockets that they are linked to.
For example:
If we have 1 strength socket, 1 intelligence socket, and 2 dexterity sockets and every socket is linked to every other socket, we could use:
4 skill gems. You would get access to 4 active skills.
3 skill gems and one support gem. You would get access to 3 active skills, and all three would be improved by the support gem.
2 skill gems, 2 support gems. You get 2 active skills, both are improved by both support gems
1 skill gem, 3 support gems. You get 1 active skill that is boosted by all 3 support gems.
So let’s say you put in:
Cleave skill gem,
Raise Zombie skill gem, and
Added Cold Damage support gem.
You would get a cleave skill that does extra cold damage, and raise zombie skill with zombies that do extra cold damage.
You would not get zombies that have cleave, or raise a zombie every time you use cleave.
If two of the same support gem are linked to the same skill within the same socket group, they do not stack. Only the highest-level gem gives a bonus.
Additionally, two skill gems of the same type can be used in separate socket groups, resulting in more than one usable version of that skill.
Skill Gems are only affected by support gems in the same socket group.
For example, imagine a piece of armour with 5 sockets. The first two sockets are linked in one group, and the remaining three sockets are linked in a separate group.
If you put Cleave and Faster Attacks in the first group, and Cleave, Added Fire Damage, and Added Cold Damage in the second group, you would have two different versions of cleave available – one cleave skill that attacks faster, and another cleave that does bonus fire and cold damage.
Small letters appear over the skill icons for each support gem you have attached to that skill. This allows you to differentiate between the different versions if you have more than one of the same skill gem equipped.
Items that grant active skills will be supported by all support gems in the item, regardless of links. Items that grand supports will apply to all active gems in the item.
Item Level
Each item has a level associated with it that is equal to the monster level of the area it dropped in.
The monster level is shown on the map overlay (TAB key by default).
Magic monsters (blue name) have +1 to their level, and will yield items with an itemlevel one level higher than other monsters in the same area.
Rare (yellow name) and unique (orange name) monsters have +2 to their level, and will yield items with an itemlevel two levels higher than other monsters in the same area.
You can check an item’s level by picking it up on the cursor and typing /itemlevel in the chat box or by holding Alt. This item level determines which modifiers it can receive, and how many sockets it can receive.
Drop Rates
There is a penalty to the chance of currency items (scrolls, orbs, etc.) dropping in areas with a monster level more than two levels lower than your character level.
For each additional level that you have compared to the area’s monster level+2, the chance of a currency item drop is reduced by 2.5%.
Currency item Drops are not decreased in this way when fighting in areas above your level.
For the purposes of this penalty, your level is never considered to be higher than 68. Therefore a level 75 character receives no penalty in a level 66 area.
There are two modifiers that affect drop rates in the game: increased item rarity and increased item quantity.
There are three potential sources of these modifiers:
– the player (skills, passives, gear etc.)
– monsters (such as bosses and champions)
– Party bonuses
Modifiers from the player stack additively with each other, and are subject to diminishing returns.
Modifiers from the party bonus and maps stack additively with each other, and are not subject to diminishing returns.
The total player bonus stacks multiplicatively with the total party & map bonus.
Increased Item Rarity
Increased Item Rarity % modifiers increase the chances of an item being magic, rare, or unique.
For example with a total of +100% increased item rarity, you’d get twice as many magic items, twice as many rares and twice as many uniques from normal enemies.
This modifier has no effect on the number or type of currency items, scrolls, or gems that drop.
When in a party, only the modifier from the player who lands the killing blow on an enemy is counted.
If one of your minions gets a kill, the minion’s IIR is added to yours and the total is used.
Magic, rare, and unique monsters have an Increased item rarity modifier for drops.
Increased Item Quantity
This modifier increases the average number of items that drop from monsters and chests.
It does not affect the type, quality, or rarity of item dropped, only the chance that something will drop.
There is no cap on the usefulness of this modifier, as monsters can drop more than one item at a time.
The base chance for an item to drop from a normal monster is 16%. This varies between monster types, and special monsters have higher drop chances.
When in a party, each player in the party after the first gives a +10% item quantity modifier and a +40% item rarity modifier on drops.
IIQ & IIR modifiers from support gems currently do not work with kills made by damage over time effects, such as the poison from poison arrow. Modifiers from your gear will affect those kills however.
IIQ from items and gems no longer drop.
Item Quality
All weapons, armour, flasks, gems, and maps can randomly receive quality when dropped.
This value can be increased by Whetstones, Armour Shards, Glassblower’s Baubles, Gemcutter’s Prisms, and Cartographer’s Chisels
Quality is capped at 20%.
The effect of quality depends on the item:
Weapons: increased physical damage
Armour: increased armour, evasion, and/or energy shield
Life/Mana Flasks: increased amount recovered
Utility flasks, increased duration
Gems: specific to each gem
Maps: increased item quantity
Each one of these has different effectiveness based on the item’s rarity. You gain +5% quality on white items, +2% quality on magical items, and +1% quality on rare items per use of one currency.
Because of this, it is sometimes more effective to increase quality before increasing rarity.
Economy
Currency exists in the form of orbs and scrolls.
These orbs can be both used and traded.
There is no “gold”.
This mechanic balances the economy.
A currency’s value is inherent simply due to its drop rate and usefulness.
This determines the demand of an item and thus its value in relation to other currency items.
Vendor Recipes
Certain combinations of items, specific items, or items with specific modifiers will return specific currency when sold to a vendor.
You can view vendor recipes here.[pathofexile.gamepedia.com]
Trading
To initiate a trade, you must be in the same instance as a player.
Type “$” to enter trade chat. From there you can list items to sell or buy.
Type “/trade #” to change channels.
Ctrl + Alt click an item to link it in chat.
Microtransactions/RMT
You can purchase cosmetic effects and extra stash pages with real money. Link.[www.pathofexile.com]
These effects are NOT tradable.
Trading in-game currency for someone to buy these effects for you is NOT allowed.
Real Money Trading (RMT) for currency items is NOT allowed. You will be banned.
Currency
Currency items can be found as drops from monsters or chests, bought directly from different vendors in town, or received through the use of the vendor recipe system by trading specific configurations of items to any town vendor. Currency items can be used to purchase items from vendors, craft modifiers onto items at the Master’s crafting benches, expertly craft a weapon yourself, or simply change an item to better suit your needs. Currency items play a large role in the player to player trading system, with rare orbs able to be traded for powerful equipment, or even other types of orbs that a player might need for crafting.
Key:
Description
Notes
Usable on
Identifies an item
Allows you to see the affixes of an item so that it may be equipped or modified.
Unidentified Item
Creates a Portal to town
Portals last until the instance expires. Using your own portal from town will destroy it.
Self
Improves the quality of an armour
Improves AR/EV/ES of an item by a %. White: 5%. Magical: 2%. Rare: 1%. Max: 20%.
Head, Chest, Gloves, Boots, Shield
Improves the quality of a weapon
Improves the Phys Damage by a %. White: 5%. Magical: 2%. Rare: 1%. Max: 20%.
Weapon
Improves the quality of a flask
Improves life/mana or duration (utility) by a %. White: 5%. Magical: 2%. Max: 20%.
Flask
Improves the quality of a map
Improves IIQ within the map by a %. White: 5%. Magical: 2%. Rare: 1%. Max: 20%.
Map
Improves the quality of a gem
Increases quality gem effect by 1%. Effect differs depending on the gem.
Gem
Reforges the colour of sockets on an item
Highest chance of socket colors that match the item’s attribute requirements.
Item with Sockets
Reforges the number of sockets on an item
Randomizes number of sockets and links. Smaller chance of high sockets/links.
Item with Sockets
Reforges the links between sockets on an item
Randomizes number of socket links. Smaller chance for high links.
Item with Sockets
Grants a passive skill refund point
Gives +1 passive skill refund point.
Self
Upgrades a normal item to a magic item
Gives the item 1-2 random affixes.
Normal Item (not Gem)
Enchants a magic item with a new random property
Gives the magic item an additional random affix if it only has one.
Magic Item with 1 affix
Reforges a magic item with new random properties
Randomizes the affixes of a magic item.
Magic Item
Removes all properties from an item
Makes item Normal. Lowers Gem level by one (if sold to a vendor).
Item (not Unique)
Upgrades a normal item to a random rarity
Chance to upgrade to a magic/rare/unique item. About 80% magic, 20% rare, ~0.1% unique.
Normal Item (not Gem)
Upgrades a normal item to rare item
Gives the item 3-6 random affixes.
Normal Item (not Gem, not Flask)
Upgrades a magic item to rare item
Gives the rare item 1 additional random affix.
Magic Item (not Flask)
Reforges a rare item with new random properties
Gives the rare 3-6 new random affixes.
Rare Item
Corrupts an item, modifying it unpredictably
Might change implicit, links, sockets, max quality/level, max modifiers, etc…
Item (not Flask)
Randomizes the numeric values of the implicit properties of an item
Randomizes implicit value.
Item with implicit value that has a range
Randomizes the numeric values of the random properties of an item
Randomizes the values of all affixes. Actual affixes are kept.
Magic Item, Rare Item
Enchants a rare item with a new random property
Adds 1 random affix to a rare.
Rare Item with less than 6 affixes
Creates an imprint of an item for later restoration
Saves exact copy of an item. Can be restored only to the original item.
Item
Creates a mirrored copy of an item
Exact Copy. Cannot use currency items on mirrored copy.
Item (not Unique, not Map)
<< COMBAT / DEFENSE >>
Hit & Damage Calculation Order
There are a number of steps involved in deciding whether an attack hits or not and how much damage is done:
1) Avoiding the hit:
– Evasion check
– Dodge check
2) Avoiding the damage:
– Blocking is checked
3) Mitigating the damage:
– Physical damage reduction and resistances are applied
4) Taking the damage:
– Non-chaos damage is removed from energy shield until it’s depleted.
– Any remaining damage (including all chaos) is removed from life.
Inc/Dec & More/Less & Conversion
This is a very important differentiation to make.
There are two types of % modifiers, increased/decreased and more/less
Increased and Decreased are additive.
More and Less are multiplicative.
Damage conversion is applied first and then affected by increased/decreased & More/Less from both the converted damage type and the source damage type.
Increased/decreased damage is applied first. After that each more/less is multiplied. More/less modifiers are multiplicitive with each other. Due to this, the order in which they occur does not matter.
The best way to explain this is with a few examples.
An item 1000 armour
It has a local modifier (on the item) of 50% increased armor
This is local additive, and the only one of its kind, so it is applied.
You now have 1500 armor. Let’s add 20% quality to it.
Quality is multiplicative of the total armour given up to this point.
You now have 1800 armour.
Calculate like this for each individual item. Let’s say we have our 1800 and a 200 armour item.
That is 2000 base armour.
Now, let’s suppose we have the following passives:
10% increased armour
10% increased armour
30% increased armour
15% increased armour and evasion
These are all additive, so take 10+10+30+15= 65% increased armour
This leaves your armour at 3300
What if we had an item that gave 50% increased armour on low life?
This is additive to the passives, so we now have 115% increased armour on our 2000, giving us
4300 armour
What if we had a skill point that gives 50% more armour? (none exists, simply for the example)
The 50% more would be multiplied after all %increased are applied
so take 4300 +50% more and get 6450 armour
Imagine a sword that does 100 Physical Damage.
You have the following modifiers:
50% of Physical Damage converted to Cold Damage from a skill gem
30% of Physical Damage converted to Fire Damage from gear
30% of Physical Damage converted to Lightning Damage from gear
50% of Cold Damage converted to Fire Damage from a support gem
30% of Physical Damage Added as Fire Damage from a support gem
15% of Physical Damage Added as Cold Damage from a support gem
80% increased Physical Damage with Swords from passive skills
30% increased Melee Physical Damage from Strength and passive skills
20% increased Fire Damage from passive skills
15% increased Cold Damage from passive skills
+30 Cold Damage from a support gem
30% more Physical Damage from a support gem
70% more Weapon Elemental Damage from a support gem
Conversion
There is more than 100% of Physical Damage conversion, so the values are scaled to total 100%.
50% of Physical Damage will become Cold Damage
25% will become Fire Damage
25% will become Lightning Damage.
Cold Damage
50% converted + 15% added = 65% physical as cold (65 Cold Damage)
50% cold converted to fire, so 32.5 Cold Damage
This damage is affected by all Cold and Physical Damage modifiers:
80% + 30% + 15% = 125% increased damage
30% more damage
70% more damage
32.5 * (1 + (0.8 + 0.3 + 0.15)) * 1.3 * 1.7 = 161.6 Cold Damage
There is also 30 Cold Damage added (not converted)
50% of this is converted to Fire Damage
The remaining 15 Cold Damage is affected by all Cold Damage modifiers:
15% increased damage
70% more damage
15 * (1 + 0.15) * 1.7 = 29.3 Cold Damage
Lightning Damage
25% converted = 25% physical as lightning (25 Lightning Damage)
This damage is affected by all Lightning and Physical Damage modifiers:
80% + 30% = 110% increased damage
30% more damage
70% more damage
25 * (1 + 0.8 + 0.3) * 1.3 * 1.7 = 116 Lightning Damage
Fire Damage
25% converted + 30% added = 55% physical as fire (55 Fire Damage)
This damage is affected by all Fire and Physical Damage modifiers:
80% + 30% + 20% = 130% increased damage
30% more damage
70% more damage
25 * (1 + 0.8 + 0.3 + 0.2) * 1.3 * 1.7 = 279.6 Fire Damage
There is also 32.5 Fire Damage that was converted from Cold that was converted from Physical. This damage is affected by all Fire, Cold, and Physical Damage modifiers:
80% + 30% + 20% + 15% = 145% increased damage
30% more damage
70% more damage
25 * (1 + 0.8 + 0.3 + 0.2) * 1.3 * 1.7 = 176 Fire Damage
There is also 15 Fire Damage that was converted from added Cold Damage.
This damage is affected by all Fire and Cold Damage modifiers:
20% + 15% = 35% increased damage
70% more damage
15 * (1 + 0.2 + 0.15) * 1.7 = 34.4 Fire Damage
Final Damage
29.3 Cold Damage (added)
161.6 Cold Damage (converted from Physical)
116 Lightning Damage (converted from Physical)
279.6 Fire Damage (converted from Physical)
176 Fire Damage (converted from Cold, converted from Physical)
34.4 Fire Damage (converted from Cold)
For a total of:
90.9 Cold Damage, 490 Fire Damage, and 116 Lightning Damage
796.9 Total Damage
Armor (Damage Reduction)
Elemental damage and damage-over-time are not affected.
The amount of damage reduction depends on the defender’s armour total, and the attacker’s attack damage:
Reduction = armour / (armour + 12*damage)
It is NOT a flat % of damage reduction.
The amount of reduction is capped, it cannot be more than 90%.
The fact that damage reduction scales with the amount of damage means it is difficult to know exactly how much damage is being reduced.
An easy to remember rule of thumb is that to achieve 50% damage reduction, you will need an armour rating equal to twelve times that of the damage being dealt.
For example, to achieve 50% damage reduction against a 100 damage hit, you’ll need 1200 armour.
Physical Damage Reduction % on the character panel is based off of the average enemy creatures at your level.
Accuracy & Evasion
Accuracy is compared to enemy evasion when determining if an attack hits or misses.
The complete formula is:
Chance to hit = attacker_accuracy / ( attacker_accuracy + ((defender_evasion/4)^0.8))
Chance to hit can never be lower than 5%, nor higher than 95%. (Unless modified by keystone skills or uniques)
Evasion
Evading an attack prevents all damage and other harmful effects from the attack.
Only attacks and attack skills can be evaded. Spells cannot be evaded.
Fully Elemental projectiles from enemies count as spells.
Damage over time is not evadable.
Evasion also gives a chance to avoid critical strikes.
If an incoming critical strike succeeds its hit roll, a second hit roll is performed to determine if the critical is evaded or not.
This second roll is the same as the regular hit roll above (accuracy vs evasion).
If this roll succeeds, a critical strike is scored.
If it fails, the attack still hits, but only for regular damage.
Critical strikes from spells cannot be evaded.
Evasion is entropy based, not exactly random.
Basically meaning that if you have 25% chance to evade, you will evade every 4th attack. Where you start in this sequence is random.
Chance to Evade % on the character panel is based off of the average monster’s accuracy at your level.
Energy Shield
If you have any Energy Shield remaining when you take damage, the damage is subtracted from the Energy Shield first.
Damage is only applied to life once all Energy Shield is depleted.
The exception to this is Chaos Damage, which ignores Energy Shield.
As long as you have greater than 0 Energy Shield, you have a 50% chance to avoid stun.
Energy Shield will recharge if you do not take any damage for a certain period of time.
The default delay is 2 seconds.
This time can be reduced with increased energy shield cooldown recovery modifiers from passive skills.
It takes 3(?) seconds for energy shield to fully recharge.
This time can be reduced with increased energy shield recovery rate modifiers from passive skills.
The formula for the recharge delay is:
200 / (100 + increased recovery)
so 100% increased recovery is halving the delay, not removing it entirely.
Stuns
Whenever a player or monster takes damage, there is a chance they will be stunned.
A stun interrupts whatever that creature/character was doing while a brief animation is played.
The default length of stuns is 350ms.
The duration of stuns can be altered by increased block and stun recovery, increased stun duration, and similar modifiers.
For increased block and stun recovery modifiers, the formula used is:
350 * (100 / ( 100 + increased recovery) )
The formula used for determining whether or not a stun occurs is:
stun_chance = 200 * damage / defender_effective_max_life
Where defender_effective_max_life is the maximum life of the creature being hit.
Increases to monster life from a party of more than one player do not affect defender_effective_max_life.
For a player with Chaos Inoculation, their defender_effective_max_life is whatever their max life would be if they did not have Chaos Inoculation.
Reduced stun threshold modifiers reduce the value of defender_effective_max_life.
For example, 25% stun threshold reduction means you treat their maximum life as only 75% as much as it actually is, meaning you stun them easier.
There are diminishing returns affecting stun threshold reduction of over 75%.
When calculating Stun with Stun Threshold Reduction of over 75%, the Stun Threshold Reduction is treated as being:
75 + ( Stun Threshold Reduction – 75) * 25 / ( Stun Threshold Reduction -50 )
If the stun chance would be less than or equal to 25%, it’s ignored, so you need to deal more than 12.5% of effective maximum life to have a chance to stun.
Chill will increase stun duration due to how chill essentially increases animation time.
Blocking
All damage and status ailments are ignored. On hit affects such as Viper Strike are still applied (since a hit was still taken)
Chance to block is capped at 75%.
When an attack is blocked, the game first calculates if the attack would have caused a stun were it not blocked.
If it would have caused a stun, the blocking animation is played, stunning you briefly.
If it would not have caused a stun, then you get a “free” block with no stun.
Faster Block and Stun Recovery and Increased Block Recovery modifiers reduce the length of the stun caused when blocking.
Dodge
Dodge is a chance to avoid a hit (just like evasion, this includes all incoming damage and negative effects) that is rolled after the Evasion check and before the Block check.
The ability to dodge is provided exclusively from the Acrobatics keystone, its subsequent Acrobatics Improvement nodes, and certain uniques.
The chance to dodge is a pseudo-random roll made per attack, not entropy-based like evasion.
If an enemy has a 100% chance to hit (applies to PvP only, obtainable through Resolute Technique and certain uniques), dodge (as well as evasion) are ignored.
Critical Strikes
Critical Strikes are rolled on a per-action basis, not per-monster.
So each time you use a skill, the Critical Strike roll is made once and only once.
If you roll a Critical Strike, you will deal Critical damage to all enemies hit by the skill.
For instance, if you use the skill Split Arrow supported by Chain, every single arrow and all chained arrows will land criticals in that attack.
Additional Critical Strike Chance (caused by Assassins Mark) will flatly increase the critical chance by that mount. If you have a 20% chance to crit, and an enemy cursed with Assassins Mark gives an additional 10% chance, you have a 30% chance to critical that enemy. As stated though, criticals are rolled per action, not per creature, so how does this work?
Well, it is based off of the critical roll. If say you have a 20% critical chance, you need to roll in the top 20 of 100 (81-100) to critical. If you roll a 75 will will critical nothing. If a creature has Assassins Mark it has a 30% chance to take a critical, lowering the range to the top 30 (71-100). You are in that range, so you will critical the cursed enemy. Due to how this works, if half a group is cursed with Assassins Mark, you will either critical none of the group, critical the entire group, or critical all cursed enemies.
Critical Strikes do more damage than normal, based on your Critical Strike Damage Multiplier.
All characters have a base Critical Strike multiplier of 150%, meaning a critical strike does 150% of normal damage.
This multiplier can be increased with various skills and modifiers on items.
For instance, with a multiplier of 250%, if you deal a Critical Strike with attack that normally does 100 damage, you will instead deal 250 damage.
The chance to deal a critical strike is taken from the weapon used to perform an attack or attack skill, and in the case of spells, each spell has its own critical strike chance, which is listed in the skill gem’s description.
This value can be increased by increased critical strike chance modifiers from spells and gear.
For example, if you are using a weapon with 5% chance to crit, and you have 50% increased critical strike chance, you will have a 7.5% chance to score a critical strike.
Critical chance cannot be less than 5% nor more than 95%.
Critical Strike Chance and Critical Strike Damage Multiplier are calculated separately for each spell and weapon attack.
All weapons and damage-dealing spells have a base Critical Strike chance listed on them.
This only affects your chance to critical for attacks made with that weapon or spell.
For instance the base critical strike chance on a wand does not affect your chance to critical with a spell.
However, global modifiers that appear on weapons (or anywhere else) can and will affect your chance to crit with any attack or skill.
They will stack additively with other mods of the same type, such as those found in the passive skill tree.
Local Critical Strike Chance modifiers (ones on the weapon itself) affect the base critical strike chance of the weapon – the weapon’s modified crit chance will be shown in blue on the weapon’s description. This makes Critical Strike Chance modifiers that appear on weapons more valuable than other sources on a point-for-point basis.
Non-spell critical strikes can be evaded. See the evasion section above for details.
Damage Types
Fire, Cold, and Lightning are collectively known as Elemental Damage.
Damage reduction from armour only affects physical damage.
Some skills and gear can convert one type of damage to another.
Fire Damage
If you land a critical strike with an attack or spell that deals fire damage, the enemy begins Burning.
Burning causes damage over time. Humanoids, Monkeys and Sea Witches will flee while burning.
Burning lasts 4 seconds, and the amount of damage over time is 1/3 of the fire damage dealt per second. So a total of 4/3 of the original damage, over 4 seconds.
Multiple instances of burning can be applied at the same time, however the damage from them does not stack. Only the highest-damage burning effect of each type that is on a creature at any one time will deal damage.
The different types of burning are ignite, ground, and misc sources. They can stack, but only one of each type.
Burning Ground causes you to take damage over time based on the level of the area for as long as you remain on it.
Cold Damage
Hitting an enemy with cold damage can cause the enemy to be Chilled.
Critical hits with cold damage can also cause the target to be Frozen.
Chilled enemies move, attack, and cast 30% slower, while frozen creatures cannot perform any action except drink flasks.
Frozen creatures can still block, dodge and evade while frozen.
Enemies are chilled for 300ms when their freeze ends.
Chilled Ground causes you to be chilled for as long as you remain on it.
Lightning Damage
If you land a critical strike with an attack or spell that deals lightning damage, the enemy becomes Shocked.
This can be stacked up to three times on one target.
In this state, monsters or players take 30% additional damage per instance of Shock.
Shock stacks additively with itself, for a maximum of 90% with a stack of three.
The damage multiplier itself applies multiplicatively with your final damage, since it is increasing the damage the enemy takes, rather than the damage you deal.
Shocking Ground causes you to be shocked for as long as you remain on it.
Lightning damage has a very large damage range.
For example, where physical, cold, and fire would have a damage range of say 75-125, lightning damage would have a range of 5-200.
The average is about the same, but the damage is much more random.
Chaos Damage
Chaos damage ignores energy shield, reducing life directly.
Chaos damage is not considered to be “elemental damage”.
Desecrated Ground you to take damage over time based on the level of the area as long as you remain on it.
Resistances
Fire, Cold, Lightning, and Chaos damage each has its own resistance value which is viewable in the character sheet.
Resistances reduce damage taken (or increase damage if they are negative), and are capped at a maximum of 75% by default.
This maximum can be modified by certain skills and uniques.
There are penalties to resistances in higher difficulty levels.
In Cruel difficulty, there is a -20% penalty to player resistances, and this increases to -60% in Merciless.
Status Ailments
Burning, Chilled, Frozen, and Shocked are collectively known as Status Ailments.
The duration of the chilled, frozen, and shocked statuses is related to the amount of cold/lightning damage dealt:
Shocked: 276ms per 1% max life dealt as lightning
Chilled: 138ms per 1% max life dealt as cold
Frozen: 100ms per 1% max life dealt as cold
All three are capped at considering 1/3 of max life – if you deal more than 1/3 max life as that element, the status ailment occurs as though you did exactly 1/3.
The maximum unmodified durations are therefore:
Shock: 9.2 seconds
Chill: 4.6 seconds
Freeze: 3.33 seconds
If the duration would be less that 300ms, it’s ignored entirely (the effect is not applied).
For characters using Chaos Inoculation, these durations are calculated based on what the character’s maximum life would be if they did not have Chaos Inoculation.
When playing in a party, a monster’s max life is treated as being the same as it would be in a single player game for the purposes of calculating these durations.
Health Degeneration
Health degeneration is a category of damage that drains health. It cannot be evaded, blocked, dodged, leeched or reflected.
Health degeneration can only be reduced with resistances.
Bleed
If a target is punctured, they take a % of damage per second based on the damage of the hit that punctured.
Moving while bleeding will cause you to take substantially more damage (still based on % based on the hit that punctured).
Armor will reduce the damage taken originally, thus making puncture less effective. Evasion is also a defense against puncture, if the puncturing hit is evaded.
Burning
Burning damage, which is caused by fire traps, creatures, map mods, and searing bond is a health degeneration effect that deals fire damage.
Fire resistance will reduce the damage taken.
Increased burning damage will increase the damage dealt.
Fire penetration will not affect burning damage due to it being degeneration and not a hit.
Elemental proliferation will not affect burning damage due to it not being a status ailment.
Poison
Poison comes in three popular forms.
All poison is considered chaos damage and can thus be resisted by chaos resistance.
One is the form of a poison cloud. This can be created by poison arrow, desecrated ground, or certain enemies.
When in the cloud, your health is degenerated constantly.
Another form of poison is Viper Strike.
They act like charges visually, and are seen spinning around your character as such.
Each stack gives Chaos damage over time.
If hit by Viper Strike before the previous ones expire, the entire stack will not be refreshed.
Lastly is poisonous hit. It can be gained on some uniques and through the skill tree.
It acts as ignite does, it will stack, but only the highest damage stack will be taken at a time.
Degeneration Auras
Some creatures and bosses have degen auras.
This is simply a chaos damage over time aura that injures you if you are in the vicinity of the creature.
It can be reduced with chaos resistance.
Skills
Some skills cause self-inflicted health degeneration.
Blood rage deals a percentage of maximum health as physical damage.
This can be reduced with physical damage reduction.
Righteous Fire deals a percentage of maximum health and energy shield as fire damage to both you and enemies around you.
Damage dealt to enemies around you cannot be leeched from.
The damage taken from this ability can be lessened with fire resistance.
Dual Wielding
The attack speed bonus is applied multiplicatively with other attack speed modifiers.
The default attack and most skills will alternate between each weapon, striking with each hand in turn.
Some skills (such as Cleave and Dual Strike) attack with both weapons at once, while others only use the main-hand weapon.
Charges
Each charge lasts a short duration before it disappears.
Gaining a charge resets the duration of all accumulated charges. (even if you are already at your maximum charges)
Endurance Charges
Endurance charges are related to the strength attribute and grant +4% physical damage reduction, and +4% to elemental resistances (fire, cold, and lightning) per charge.
The physical damage reduction stacks with the damage reduction from armour, so that they are both applied at the same time.
For example, if a monster deals 100 damage, and you have 10% DR from two endurance charges, and enough armour to prevent 30 of the 100 damage, the incoming damage would be reduced by 40.
Frenzy Charges
Frenzy charges are related to the dexterity attribute and grant +4% attack speed, +4% cast speed, and 4% more damage per charge.
Power Charges
Power charges are related to the intelligence attribute and grant +50% critical strike chance per charge.
By default characters can have a maximum number of 3 active charges of each type at one time.
This maximum can be increased by certain passive skills and from completing specific bandit quests. Some uniques increase maximum charges as well.
The skill tree can grant 3 additional charges of each attribute.
Every class (except scion) has an additional charge point for its one or two main attributes.
The class with the primary attribute for that charge will add an additional stat for the charge.
Endurance: 0.2% life regen / charge
Frenzy: 4% increased evasion / charge
Power: 3% increased spell damage / charge
The bandit quest can give an additional charge of a specific type.
Certain uniques can further increases charges and change how they act.
Flasks
Life, Mana, and Hybrid flasks
These flasks cause you to regenerate life and/or mana when used.
The amount recovered is shown on the flask as Life Recovery and Mana Recovery.
The time it takes to recover the full amount is shown on the flask as Recovery Time.
If you reach your maximum life and/or mana amount before the end of the recovery time, the flask effect will end prematurely.
Flasks can have magic modifiers that provide bonuses while the flask effect is active, for example increased movement speed or resistances.
These bonuses end when the life/mana recovery effect ends.
When multiple flasks are used at the same time, the effects are queued.
The effect with the highest regeneration rate is always applied first.
Utility Flasks
These flasks give a temporary bonus for a set duration.
Unlike the other flasks, the effects are not queued, each effect has its own timer that can overlap with other effects.
The default effects of the flasks will not stack.
Flask Charges
Drinking a flask consumes flask charges.
Each flask shows how many charges are used per drink in its description, and each flask has a maximum number of charges it can hold.
Whenever you, one of your minions, or a party member kills an enemy, all of your flasks gain charges.
By default regular monsters grant 1 charge each. Magical, rare, and unique monsters grant additional charges.
Belts can increase flask charges gained.
Flask modifiers can affect charges with increased max charges, increased charges gained, charge on critical or charges on critical taken.
<< MISC >>
Shortcuts & Commands
Keyboard Shortcuts
Ctrl clicking an item moves it from your inventory to your stash, or from your stash to your inventory.
Shift clicking a stack of currency is used to split the stack.
Enter by default, opens up chat.
TAB by default, opens your map.
Ctrl + Alt clicking an item links it in chat (if chat is open).
Pressing Ctrl while hovered over a linked item in chat will show its itemlevel.
Chat Channels
Press any of these keys to automatically be put in that channel
@ (whisper)
# (global)
$ (trade)
% (party)
^ (twitch)
& (guild)
Chat Commands
To switch global or trade channels, type “/global X” or “/trade X” (with X being the channel number)
The channel number limit is somewhere over 1000, but players are automatically entered into the first ~15 channels.
/pvp will show your pvp stats
/remaining will show the remaining number of creatures in your current instance
/age will show how long it has been since the character was created
/played will show your total playtime on that character
/deaths will display your total death count
/itemlevel will display the itemlevel of an item on cursor (not to be confused with required level)
/oos forces a resync
/dnd enables Do Not Disturb mode (no chat, no whispers)
/claim_crafting_benches claims all crafting benches to your hideout stash without requiring the master to ever be present. The proper master level is required.
Abbreviations
This game has a lot of players that have been playing for quite some time.
Abbreviations and shorthand have of course been developed to make communicating easier.
If you are new (or simply forgot some) you can view the majority of them here.[pathofexile.gamepedia.com]
Forums
Want to discuss, put items up for sale, or make a suggestion? The forums are here.[www.pathofexile.com]
Changelog
10/23/13
Guide Created
10/24/13
Updated Quest section – added Bandit quest reward info and mechanics
Added Changelog section
Added Health Degeneration section
10/25/13
Updated Shortcuts & Commands section – more shortcuts/commands
Added Currency section – looks awesome! 😀
Renamed Currency/Vendor/Trading section to Economy
Updated Economy section – basics on trading with players
Updated Closure section – additional info, link to my steam page
Updated Quest section – getting credit, quest rewards
10/27/13
Updated Charges section – more info
10/29/13
Updated Skills section – traps and totems additional info
10/31/13
Updated Classes section – basic class specialties
Edited Economy section – rewording, fixed typos
11/4/13
Edited Leagues section – fixed typos
Edited Classes section – fixed typos
Edited Passive Skill Tree section – fixed typos
Edited Skills section – rewording, fixed typos
Edited Quest section – fixed typos
Edited Item Modifiers section – fixed typos
Edited Sockets section – fixed typos
Edited Item Quality section – fixed typos
Edited Economy section – fixed typos
Edited Currency section – fixed typos
Edited Hit & Damage Calculation Order section – fixed typos
Edited Critical Strikes section – fixed typos
Edited Damage Types section – fixed typos
Edited Health Degeneration section – fixed typos
Edited Dual Wielding section – fixed typos
Edited Charges section – fixed typos
Edited Changelog section – bolded dates
11/5/13
Updated Item Modifiers section – rewording, additional info, additional example
Added Inc/Dec & More/Less & Conversion section – math overload
Updated Leagues section – full league descriptions, race info
11/16/13
Updated Parties section – monster hp gain (1.0.1)
Updated Quests section – bandit quest reward change possible (1.0.1)
12/4/13
Updated Classes section – how to obtain scion
Edited Health Degeneration section – rewording
1/6/14
Added Dodge section
Updated Shortcuts & Commands section – additional commands
Updated Changelog section – added year as part of date entries
Updated Health Degeneration section – rewording, additional info
Edited Hit & Damage Calculation Order section – rewording
Updated Block section – rewording, additional info
Updated Stun section – additional info
Moved Flasks section – to bottom of Combat / Defense main section
Updated Flasks section – additional info
Edited Armor (Damage Reduction) section – formatting
Edited Notes From Me section – rewording, added video links
Edited Skills section – rewording
Updated Passive Skill Tree section – added useful link
Updated Skills section – updated link
Edited Dual Wielding section – rewording
Edited Changelog section – fixed some descriptors, added more specific information in past cases
Edited Charges section – fixed typos that caused misinformation
1/9/14
Edited Guide Tags – added additional relevant tags
Edited Currency section – new Exalted Orb art (1.0.5)
1/17/14
Updated Economy section – added Microtransaction Link to PoE site
2/25/14
Updated Leagues section – updated league information (Domination and Nemesis have ended)
Updated Items section – added item rarity information, item types, and info on how to identify items.
2/27/14
Edited Notes From Me section – added header image
Edited Difficulty Levels section – added header image
2/28/14
Edited Notes From Me section – fixed typos
Edited Leagues section – fixed typos
Edited Items section – fixed typos
Edited Item Modifiers section – fixed typos
Edited Economy section – rewording
Edited Inc/Dec & More/Less & Conversion section – fixed typos
Edited Critical Strikes section – fixed typos
Edited Health Degeneration section – rewording
Edited Charges section – fixed typos
Edited Shortcuts & Commands section – fixed typos, rewording
3/10/14
Updated Leagues section – added Ambush and Invasion league information
3/11/14
Edited Leagues section – shortened Ambush description, fixed typos
3/23/14
Edited Leagues section – fixed formatting issues caused by newly visible external links
Edited Passive Skill Tree section – fixed formatting issues caused by newly visible external links
Edited Skills section – fixed formatting issues caused by newly visible external links
Edited Areas section – fixed formatting issues caused by newly visible external links
Edited Quests section – fixed formatting issues caused by newly visible external links
Edited Items section – fixed formatting issues caused by newly visible external links
Edited Economy section – fixed formatting issues caused by newly visible external links
Edited Abbreviations section – fixed formatting issues caused by newly visible external links
Edited Closure section – fixed formatting issues caused by newly visible external links
3/24/14
Updated Skills section – added Vaal Gems information
Updated Areas section – added Vaal Areas information
Updated Currency section – added Vaal Orb
3/28/14
Updated Leagues section – added additional Ambush information
Updated Skills section – updated Trap & Mine information
1/12/15
Updated Leages section – added outdated information warning
2/13/15
Updated Leagues section – removed warning along with 4 month leage specifics
6/8/15
Updated Classes section – updated life gain per level (1.2.0)
Updated Dual Wielding section – added physical damage multiplier (1.1.4)
6/15/15
Edited Leagues section – edited for clarity
Edited Skills section – fixed typos
Updated Sockets section – added colorless socket information
6/21/15
Edited Leagues section – fixed typos
Edited Quests section – edited for clarity
Edited Sockets section – fixed typos
8/5/15
Updated Passive Skill Tree section – updated outdated external skilltree link
Edited Skills section – edited for clarity
Updated Skills section – updated link to skill list, edited for new spell damage modifier (2.0.0)
Updated Experience section – added minimum XP gain information
Edited Life & Mana Regeneration/Leech section – title changed
Updated Life & Mana: Regeneration & Leech section – updated entire leech section (2.0.0)
Edited Difficulty levels – rewording
Edited Parties section – rewording
Updated Parties section – updated effect on monsters, loot, and flasks, added map information
Edited Areas section – edited for clarity, changed resource link to wiki
Updated Areas section – updated for new rarity info (2.0.0), updated map upgrade information
Updated Areas section – added unidentified map quantity bonus, changed resource link to wiki
Edited Quests section – fixed typos, edited for clarity
Updated Quests section – updated deal with the bandits (2.0.0), added pvp note
Edited Item Modifiers section – fixed typos, rewording
Updated Item Modifiers section – updated multiple pieces of outdated information
Updated Sockets section – added information on granted skills and supports
Updated Item Level section – added information on pressing the Alt key to view itemlevel (2.0.0)
Edited Drop Rates section – rewording
Updated Drop Rates section – updated multiple pieces of outdated information
Edited Item Quality section – fixed typos, edited for clarity, reformatted
Edited Economy section – edited for clarity, rewording
Edited Currency section – rewording
Updated Currency section – additional information added, Eternal Orb no longer drops (2.0.0)
Changelog Continued
8/14/15
Edited: Life & Mana: Regeneration & Leech – rewording
Updated: Life & Mana: Regeneration & Leech – added increased leech rate information
Edited: Inc/Dec & More/Less & Conversion – rewording, edited for clarity
Updated: Inc/Dec & More/Less & Conversion – added information on calculation order
Edited: Accuracy & Evasion – rewording
Updated: Energy Shield – recharge delay lowered from 6 to 2 (2.0.0), equation updated
Edited: Block – edited for clarity, rewording animation to stun
Updated: Critical Strikes – added section on additional critical chance (assassins mark)
Edited: Damage Types – rewording
Updated: Damage Types – added info on different burning sources, added ground element info
Edited: Health Degeneration – rewording
Updated: Health Degeneration – added third common chaos damage type (poison)
Updated: Health Degeneration – added desecrated ground to cloud poison list
Updated: Health Degeneration – viper strike stacks without limit, but isn’t refreshed on hit (1.2.0)
Updated: Health Degeneration – righteous fire burns energy shield (1.0.0)
Updated: Health Degeneration – blood rage does physical damage degeneration (2.0.0)
Updated: Charges – frenzy charges now give +4% attack/cast speed and 4% more damage (2.0.0)
Updated: Flasks – updated for party changes
Updated: Shortcuts & Commands – added claim_crafting_benches command
Added: Changelog Continued – changelog section hit it’s limit
9/20/15
Edited: Currency – reworded my confusing descriptions
Edited: Dual Wielding – reworded ‘physical damage multiplier’ to ‘more physical damage’
7/2/17
Edited: Leagues – stash sharing reworded for clarity
Updated: Classes – updated general specializations to fit with the current skill tree
Edited: Skills – reworded and added a few clarifications on gem experience gain
Edited: Experience – removed a redundancy on experience minimum. The minimum is 1%
11/27/17
Updated: Difficulty Levels – updated experience and resistance penalties (3.0.0)
Updated: Parties – marked missing information (3.0.0)
Updated: Areas – added Trials of Ascendancy & The Lord’s Labyrinth section (2.2.0)
Updated: Areas – updated information related to difficulty levels (3.0.0)
7/19/18
Updated: Classes – updated class summaries to fit current game design
Edit: Passive Skill Tree – replaced unofficial skill tree link with the current best
Closure
Some of the mechanics explanations were written by Malice in an outdated mechanics thread.
I made major revisions, and updated what he left to fit the current version of the game.
Some data was gathered form the wiki.[pathofexile.gamepedia.com]
Notes
There are still some topics I have yet to add.
I will also be keeping this updated with new patches.
Comments/Suggestions
If there are any errors please comment here and I will fix it.
Suggestions for additions and other changes? Comment here.
Still need help?
Just add me on steam and I’ll chat with you as soon as I can.
I’ve played this game enough to be able to answer probably any question you’d have.
I enjoy being helpful! 🙂
Thanks for reading!