Where Base Comes From

Carried forward

From lesson 2: a hit is base × increased × more × speed × crit × enemy. Base is layer one — the seed every other layer multiplies.

Which means: a modifier that doesn't reach your base, or doesn't reach the layer it claims to, contributes nothing at all. Not a little. Nothing. That's the subject of this lesson.

The question you ask first

There are three answers, and they send you to completely different parts of your character sheet.

Source: Maxroll — Damage Scaling. Most attacks scale from weapon damage; spells and a handful of attacks scale from gem level instead. Spells generally gain flat damage per level, while attacks gain better scaling with your weapon.

How you actually tell

Read the skill's tags. They're printed on the gem and they are not decoration — they're the game telling you which rules apply.

The first three decide where your base comes from. The rest tell you which increased totals your skill can draw from — a skill tagged Fire is fed by increased fire damage; one without that tag isn't, no matter how much of it you've stacked.

Local and global modifiers

Identifying the archetype is not sufficient on its own. Two modifiers may read almost identically and behave entirely differently.

A is local. It increases that weapon's own damage number — it modifies the base itself, before anything else happens. It does nothing for spells.

B is global. It joins your shared increased total and applies to attacks and spells alike.

The word Global is the entire difference, and A's number is four times bigger precisely because it's doing a narrower job. For an attack build, local weapon damage is usually the stronger of the two — it grows the seed rather than joining a crowded total. For a spell build, A is worth exactly zero.

Conversion and gain

Two mechanics alter the base before any multiplier runs, and both change which modifiers reach the resulting damage. They are the same question as local-and-global, asked about damage type rather than about scope.

Both are documented on the wiki's Damage conversion page: "Regular conversion removes the damage from the source type, while gain conversion leaves it intact." Gain conversion "occurs before any increased or more modifiers" — which places both in layer one.

3.1 Scaling follows the destination type only

Physical damage converted to fire no longer scales with increased Physical Damage. It scales with increased Fire Damage. The same holds for gained damage, and for modifiers to minimum or maximum damage.

3.2 What a gain modifier is actually worth

Because gain produces a second base scaled by a different additive total, its value is not the printed figure. It is the printed figure adjusted by the ratio between the two totals.

A character with base damage of 100 physical and an additive total of 300% deals 400. Adding Gain 50% of Physical as Extra Fire creates 50 fire base — worth entirely different amounts depending on fire investment:

The middle row is the case worth recognising: when the destination is scaled equally to the source, a gain modifier behaves exactly like a more multiplier of the same size. That coincidence is why they are often mistaken for one. They are not — a more multiplier is worth its printed value on any character, whereas a gain modifier is worth its printed value only on a character that has already invested in the destination type.

Gain modifiers are therefore commitments rather than pickups. Taking one is a decision to also build the destination type; without that follow-through it quietly delivers a fraction of what it advertises.

3.3 Reading the source term

The quantity a gain modifier reads is stated in the modifier and is easy to skim past:

• Gain #% of Physical as Extra Fire — reads the physical portion only.
• Gain #% of Damage as Extra Fire — reads the entire hit, of every type.

On a single-type character these coincide. On a mixed or converted one they diverge sharply. The wiki's worked case: a base of 50 physical and 50 fire, with Gain 20% of Damage as extra Fire Damage, becomes 50 physical and 70 fire — the 20 is a fifth of the whole hit, and conversion is not recursive, so the existing fire contributes to the source without compounding.

3.4 Order of resolution

Gain resolves in two steps which are not additive with each other. Skill-inherent gain applies first; every other source — items, buffs, support gems, passives — applies afterwards, computed against the result.

The consequence is that a of Damage gain modifier on a converted build reads a considerably larger pool than the remaining source type would suggest.

3.5 Conversion has a ceiling; gain does not

Where conversion of a single type exceeds 100%, it is normalised back down proportionally — converting 100% of physical to cold and 50% to fire yields a 67/33 split, not 150% of anything.

Gain is not subject to this. The wiki's normalisation example counts only the conversion modifiers on an item and disregards its gain modifiers entirely. Since gain removes nothing, there is no quantity to run out of.

Worked diagnostic

Edge cases

• Totems are not minions. They scale with your character's damage, plus any totem modifiers. Treating them like minions gets it backwards.
• Conversion and gain are covered in their own section above; both alter the base and both redirect which modifiers reach the result.
• Some attacks don't use your weapon. A handful scale from gem level, and some use their own weapon entirely. The tags and the skill's own text override the general rule.
• Tags gate the totals too. Increased fire damage only feeds skills tagged Fire. This is the same "does it reach me" question, one layer up.

What to carry out of this

• Ask what generates the base before evaluating anything. Attack → weapon. Spell → gem level and flat spell damage. Minion → the minion's own base.
• Tags are the signal. Read them.
• Global is not a filler word. Without it, a weapon modifier is local to that weapon.
• An inert modifier contributes nothing — not a small amount. It never enters the multiplication.
• Gem level is a base modifier for spells and minions, which makes +levels a damage modifier that doesn't look like one.