Damage

There are currently 5 main types of damage, they are Physical, Fire, Cold, Lightning, and Chaos. Fire, Cold, and Lightning are collectively known as Elemental Damage. Damage reduction only affects physical damage. The other four damage types each have their own resistance value (e.g. "Fire resistance") which is viewable in the character sheet. Resistances reduce damage taken, and are normally capped at 75%. However, there are passives and items that can increase your maximum resistances to allow for values higher than 75%.

If a passive does not specify whether it affects weapon or spell damage, it will affect both.

This page focuses on damage being dealt by the player. For information on how the elements affect you, see Status Ailments and Resistances. For information on skills that deal non-physical damage, see the Chaos, Cold, Fire, and Lightning keywords.

Damage Types

All damage instances consist of exactly one damage type. A hit can be composed of several instances of damages and therefore have several types, but each type of damage has modifiers applied to it seperately from the other types in the same hit. Damage over time effects always consist of exactly one damage type.

Physical Damage

Main article: Physical damage

Physical damage is usually dealt by attacks but can also come from some spells, like Glacial Cascade, Bear Trap, Ethereal Knives and Shockwave Totem. Most sources of life leech and mana leech only apply to physical attack damage when determining how much life or mana is gained. Many passive attack skills only increase physical damage, especially those which apply to a specific weapon type.

Fire Damage

Main article: Fire damage

Dealing a critical strike with fire damage inflicts the Ignite Status Ailment. Fire damage has its own unique term for damage over time called Burning Damage that applies exclusively to fire damage over time effects.

Cold Damage

Main article: Cold damage

Hitting an enemy with cold damage can inflict the Chill Status Ailment, while dealing a critical strike with cold damage can inflict the Freeze Status Ailment.

Lightning Damage

Main article: Lightning damage

Dealing a critical strike with lightning damage can inflict the Shock Status Ailment. Lightning damage has a greater damage range than other damage types---it tends to deal 10-190% of the average damage, instead of 80-120% as with other damage types.

Chaos Damage

Main article: Chaos damage

Chaos damage ignores energy shield, reducing life directly. Notably, while the Poison status ailment is associated with chaos damage it is not inflicted when dealing a critical strike with chaos damage.

Other Categories of Damage

Elemental Damage

Main article: Elemental damage

Elemental Damage Passives affect all types of Elemental Damage (Fire, Cold and Lightning). Chaos damage is not considered elemental.

Spell Damage

Main article: Spell Damage

Spell damage describes any damage done with a spell, regardless of type. It does not include degeneration or other secondary effects caused by spells.

Melee Damage

Main article: Melee damage

Projectile Damage

Main article: Projectile damage

Converted Damage

Main article: Damage conversion

There are many skills, supports, and item mods which will convert one type of damage into another. Converted damage is affected by modifiers from both the type of damage it was converted from, and the type of damage it is converted to.

Reflected Damage

Main article: Damage reflection