Course vocabulary
Standard terminology where the game or community supplies it; a few course conventions where it does not.
Additive total
The single summed figure that all applicable increased modifiers of one kind contribute to, applied as one multiplication. Increased damage has its own additive total; increased attack speed has a separate one. They do not interact. Kept verbally distinct from current damage: the additive total is a percentage, current damage is a number.
The central question of this course is which of a character's additive totals is smallest, since that is where the same modifier buys the most.
Denominator
The 100 + additive total figure an addition is divided by to price it. It only ever grows, which is why identical passive nodes contribute progressively less over a character's life.
Real gain
What a modifier is actually worth, as opposed to its printed number. real gain = added ÷ (100 + current total). A "+50% increased damage" node on a 300% total has a real gain of 12.5%.
The audit loop
The repeatable diagnostic procedure this course builds toward: identify your base source → estimate each total → find the emptiest → ask which slots can supply it → repeat the pass on defence → change one thing and observe. Taught in full in a later lesson.
Game terms
Base damage
The number every multiplier acts on. Its source depends entirely on archetype: attacks take it from the weapon, spells from the skill gem's level plus flat added spell damage, minions from the minion's own base. Identifying this correctly is the first step of every audit.
Added / flat damage
A fixed damage range added to base before multipliers, e.g. "Adds 7 to 13 Physical Damage to Attacks". Because it enlarges the base, it is multiplied by everything downstream. Flat damage printed on a weapon joins that weapon's base and does nothing for spells.
Increased / reduced
Additive modifiers. All sources applicable to a skill sum into one total, then apply as a single multiplier. Subject to the denominator. Mostly from the passive tree and gear affixes.
More / less
Multiplicative modifiers. Each applies as its own separate multiplication and is never diluted by anything you already own. In PoE2 these come mostly from support gems — which is why an empty socket is often worth more than any tree node.
Hit rate
How often you land a hit — attack speed or cast speed. Its own additive total. A real damage multiplier, but with practical ceilings the arithmetic hides: mana sustain, animation locks, and skills whose output is tied to a duration rather than a hit count.
Critical hit chance
The probability a hit crits. Base comes from the weapon for attack skills and from the skill itself for spells; minions have their own, independent of yours. Modifiers to it are mostly percentage-based, so 100% increased crit chance on a 7% base yields 14%, not 107%.
Critical damage bonus
How much extra damage a crit deals. Default is +100% for players and minions — i.e. double damage. PoE1 players know this as "crit multi". It is a multiplier independent of all other damage multipliers, and flat +#% to Critical Damage Bonus on a weapon adds to the +100% base before your increases apply, which makes those weapon mods disproportionately strong.
Penetration
Lets a hit bypass a stated amount of the target's resistance. Tied to the hit itself, applied after debuff-based reductions. Cannot push a monster below 0% resistance.
Exposure
A debuff that lowers a specific resistance on the target, default 20% unless stated otherwise. Persists on the target, so it applies before penetration. Increases to exposure effect stack additively with each other and multiply the final exposure value.
Shock / Wither / Intimidate
Enemy-side damage-taken effects. Shock makes the target take 20% increased damage by default, scaled by magnitude rather than by your damage stats. Wither stacks up to 10 times, each adding 5% chaos damage taken. Intimidate causes 10% increased damage taken. All of these live in the enemy term and are multiplicative with your own scaling.
Conversion
#% of X Converted to Y. Moves a portion of the base from one damage type to another — the source damage is removed. Applies before any increased or more modifier, so it is a layer-one effect.
Converted damage does not retain its original type. If a skill fully converts physical to cold, increases to physical damage no longer reach it; only modifiers to the final type apply. Damage may be converted from any type to any other, with no ordering restriction — unlike PoE1.
Overconversion: where conversion of one type exceeds 100%, it is normalised proportionally. Converting 100% of physical to cold and 50% to fire produces a 67/33 split, not 150%.
Gain (extra damage)
Gain #% of X as Extra Y. Adds new damage of type Y based on a portion of type X, leaving the source intact. This is the distinction from conversion: nothing is moved, damage is added. Also a layer-one effect — it resolves before any multiplier.
Like converted damage, gained damage is scaled only by modifiers to the new type. Gained fire damage reads your increased fire damage, never the increased physical damage that produced it.
Its value is a ratio, not the printed figure:
effective value = gain% × (destination multiplier ÷ source multiplier)
When the destination is scaled equally to the source, a gain modifier behaves exactly like a more multiplier of the same size — which is why the two are often confused. They differ in that a more multiplier is worth its printed value on any character, while a gain modifier is worth its printed value only where the destination type is already invested in. Gain modifiers are commitments, not pickups.
Source term matters. of Physical reads the physical portion; of Damage reads the whole hit. A base of 50 physical and 50 fire, given Gain 20% of Damage as extra Fire, becomes 50 physical and 70 fire — conversion is not recursive, so existing fire feeds the source without compounding.
Two-step resolution, not additive between steps. Skill-inherent gain applies first; items, buffs, supports and passives apply afterwards against the result. A skill converting 80% of 100 physical to fire, plus Gain 50% of Damage as extra Fire, yields 130 fire and 20 physical — the 50% reads the full 100, not the remaining 20.
No ceiling. Overconversion normalisation applies to conversion only; gain removes nothing, so there is no quantity to exhaust.
Minion vs. totem
Minions do not scale with your damage modifiers; they have their own. Totems are not minions — they do scale with your character's damage, plus any totem modifiers. Conflating these is a classic and expensive error.