Path of Exile's Compendium: ALL Mechanics and Information Compilation

In order to progress to the next difficulty, you must defeat Dominus and pass through the portal that Diala creates after Dominus' death.

Normal has no modifiers.

Cruel lowers your fire, cold, lightning, and chaos resistances by -20% and death removes up to 5% of your earned experience.

Merciless lowers your fire, cold, lightning, and chaos resistances by -20% and death removes up to 10% of your earned experience.

Your level will not lower due to a death. So if you're level 72 with 7% of your XP bar filled, you only lose the 7% in Merciless. If you die again, you lose nothing (unless you got more experience).

All characters start with 38 life, 36 mana, and 53 evasion.

All characters gain 12 life, 4 mana, and 3 evasion per level, this includes level one. This means a level 1 character starts with 50 life, 40 mana, and 53 evasion (before applying attribute bonuses).

To calculate your life:

Your level multiplied by 12. Add 38. Add half of your strength. Add all flat life modifiers from passives and gear. Now multiply that value by the total percentage increased life you have.

Ex: Level 50 character with 100 strength and 105% increased life.

Level * 12 = 600
Base = 38
100 strength / 2 = 50
100% increase = 2.05 (to find this value, divide by 100 and add one. 1.05 would be a 5% increase)
Total life = 1,410.4

To calculate your mana:

Your level multiplied by 4. Add 36. Add half of your intelligence. Add all flat mana modifiers from passives and gear. Now multiply that value by the total percentage increased mana you have.

Ex: Level 50 character with 100 intelligence and 105% increased mana.

Level * 4 = 200
Base = 36
100 intelligence / 2 = 50
100% increase = 2.05
Total mana = 586.3

To calculate energy shield:

Flat ES from gear and passives. Multiply by total increased ES. Intelligence gives 20% of its value as increased ES, so divide your intelligence by 5 to find the value of 20%.

Ex: Character with 250 ES, 123 intelligence, and 105% increased ES.

Base = 250
Intelligence / 5 = 24.6% = 0.246
Increase = 2.05
Total Increase = 2.296
ES Total = 574

CELR refers to "Character Effective Level Range". CELR is equal to three plus one per sixteen acquired character levels. So a level 50 character would have a CELR of 6 (3 base and 3 sets of sixteen). His CELR would be between levels 44-56. Monsters within your CELR give full experience.

CELD refers to "Character Effective Level Difference". This represents the difference between your CELR to a monster's level. A level 43 or 57 monster would have a CELD of 1, since it is one point different from your CELR.

Use this formula to calculate the experience you would earn:
Experience Rate = ?

***I will be adding the experience rate, party experience, and fomulae later.***

Gems gain 10% of the experience you would normally gain, but ignore any penalties. So a gem always gains full experience, even if you gain nothing.

Thus it is possible to level all gems faster by wearing increased experience gain items, like Perandus Signet, Chitus' Apex, or The Supreme Truth. Using these items, there is a maximum of 21% increased experience gain, meaning gems would get 12.1% of normal experience.

It is possible to lower the level of a gem by one. Go to a vendor, place the desired gem and one Orb of Scouring into the sell box. A gem of one level lower will show in the window above.

Aside from this, it is currently impossible for gems to lose experience.

Your skills and gear are your skills and gear.

Totems are totems, not you. Minions are minions, not you. Traps and mines are traps and mines. However, traps, mines, and totems use your skills. This means that your passives apply to the skills totems, traps, and mines use because they are your skills.

So "x% increased physical damage" will increase the damage of your Ethereal Knives totem, but the totem does not gain any other benefits.

Minions, like zombies and skeletons, only benefit from passives that specifically state "minions". No other passives apply to them.

Flat modifiers represent a raw number that can be modified by increased, reduced, more, or less modifiers.

Increased and reduced modifiers always stack additively. This means that all increased and reduced totals apply once. So 100% increased life from passives and 25% increased life from gear will give a single-use 125% increased life. 100 life will be increased to 225.

More and less modifiers always apply multiplicatively to all other modifiers. So this means each separate instance will apply separately.

So assume that you have 100% increased life, 25% more life, 50% more life, and 100% more life with 100 base life. You'll end up with 750 life.

In percentages: 100 * 200% * 125% * 150% * 200%
Numerical form: 100 * 2 * 1.25 * 1.5 * 2

Optimizing your values means that you want as much as you can get in flat and more values, while increased is not as valuable.

Incinerate shows that it gives "100% more damage per stage". This is a single value that is updated as you reach each different stage. So Incinerate's more modifier will apply only once.

In the passive skill tree, there is a total of:
38% reduced mana reserved
66% increased effect of auras you cast
26% increased effect of buffs on you

Increased aura effect applies to auras you cast and reserve. This will increase the aura's general effect, giving a bonus to all of those that it affects. Heralds are not auras, so aura effect does not apply to them.

Increased buff effect states "ON YOU", so all buffs that apply to you are increased. This can increase aura effect, but also applies to Righteous Fire's degeneration. Heralds are buffs, so buff effect does affect them.

Note: aura and buff effect add together. So 66% aura effect and 26% buff effect will give you a total increase of 92% effect of auras on you. If an aura gives 100 evasion, it will grant 192 evasion.

Reduced mana reserved reduces the reservation amount of any skill that reserves. So auras and heralds will reserve less.

Reduced Mana support gem does not say "x% reduced mana". Being a support gem, it applies its MM (Mana multiplier) to costs and reservations. Being a multiplier, it acts as a "more/less" modifier and stacks multiplicatively with other modifiers. This gem's quality is "reduced mana cost", so it only affects costs, not reservations or drains.

Reduced mana cost passives and modifiers are "reduced" modifiers, and specifically apply only to mana costs. These modifiers only apply to the skills that you cast, and that only have costs. They will not apply to reservations or drains.

All of the above modifiers will apply to life cost as well. This is because there are only two methods to consume life instead of mana:

1. Blood Magic (keystone). This removes mana and causes skills to cost life instead of mana.

2. Blood Magic (support gem). This causes a skill to cost mana, but does not affect mana or life in any other way.

3. Blood Magic (keystone effect from items). This grants a mod that applies the keystone effect to your entire character. The only difference is that you do not need to allocate or refund the keystone in the passive tree.

"

Mark_GGG wrote:

All buffs can be identified by having a visual icon with the "buff" green border around it. Anything with that is a buff, anything without that is not a buff. Similar for Debuffs with the red border.

Buffs have a green border.

Debuffs have a red border.

The order of gems goes from the top left to the bottom right, and it follows the flow of the socket links.

Ancestral Bond prevents you from dealing direct damage. You must use minions, totems, traps, or mines in order to deal damage. CWDT and CWS setups will not deal damage. This means that you cannot leech, since you deal no damage. But life gain on hit, Cast on Critical Strike, and other "on hit" effects will still apply.

Blood Magic removes mana and life is used in place of mana. No mana does not mean low mana.

Chaos Inoculation sets life to 1, but status effects (stun, chill, freeze, and shock) are based on your total life. This uses the value of your life before it is set to 1. It is impossible to be on low-life with CI and you cannot reserve any amount of 1/1 life.

Conduit specifically states "Share Endurance, Frenzy, and Power charges with nearby party members." This means that only five people can benefit from this, and these are people in your party. Minions, totems, traps, and mines do not count as "party members".

Eldritch Battery converts energy shield into mana. ES and mana increases will apply to this, so you can effectively "double dip".

Elemental Equilibrium penalizes elemental damage you don't deal but strengthens elemental damage you deal. If you deal fire and cold damage in the same hit, the enemy will gain +25% resistance to fire and cold, while also getting -50% to lightning. If you deal fire, cold, and lightning damage in the same hit, they gain +25% to all three resistances.

Ghost Reaver converts life leech into energy shield leech. This means you cannot leech life anymore. This has no effect on life gain on hit or flasks.

Iron Grip applies your strength damage modifier to projectile attacks as well. Strength gives increased physical damage.

Iron Reflexes converts all of your evasion into armor and you lose your dexterity bonus to evasion. However, all builds have an inherent 5% chance to evade even with this allocated. This synergizes well with Unwavering Stance.

Unwavering Stance removes your chance to evade but prevents you from being stunned. This synergizes well with Iron Reflexes.

Mind Over Matter causes 30% of all damage to be taken from mana before life. Note that this states life and not energy shield. If you have no mana to take damage with, it will then take from life.

Minion Instability causes minions to explode when they are brought to 35% life or less. Minions that are killed in a single hit do not explode. Exploding minions deal 33% of their damage. Minion Instability deals secondary damage, which cannot be blocked, dodged, or avoided.

Necromantic Aegis applies your shield and it's attributes to your minions. If your shield gives +100 life, then your minions gain +100 life.

Ondar's Guile doubles your evasion chance against projectile attacks. So if you have 2,500 evasion and have a 35% chance to evade, you have 2,500 evasion and a 70% chance to evade projectiles. Evasion is capped at 95%.

Pain Attunement gives 30% more spell damage while on low-life. Low-life is 35% or less.

Point Blank gives up to 50% more damage to projectile attacks. 0-10 gives 50% more. 10-35 gives 50%-0% more. 35-120 gives 0-100% less.

***Clarification on fork/gmp/chain etc***

Resolute Technique removes all critical strike chance but also removes accuracy. This means it also removes enemy chance to evade. But attacks can still be dodged or blocked.

Vaal Pact causes life leech (of any form) to apply instantly. It also reduces the amount of leech by 60%. It does not grant leech.

Zealot's Oath causes life regeneration to convert into energy shield regeneration. This means you cannot regenerate life anymore. This has no effect on leech, life gain on hit, or flasks.

Attack damage comes from any non-spell source. These base their damage from weapons and flat elemental damage that apply to them. Attacks can be evaded, dodged, blocked, and mitigated.

Spell damage comes from any spell. They have no accuracy and cannot be dodged. Spell damage can be dodged, blocked, or mitigated. Examples include Fireball, Freezing Pulse, and Fire Trap's initial hit.

Degeneration is an effect from any attack or spell. In some cases, this is ignored, evaded, dodged, or blocked if the causing hit is ignored or avoided. Degeneration itself cannot be evaded, dodged, or blocked. It can be mitigated. Examples of degeneration include Puncture's bleed, Poison Arrow's poison cloud, Fire Trap's burning ground, and Righteous Fire's burning.

Secondary damage is an effect that can come from many sources. It cannot be evaded, dodged, or blocked. It can be mitigated. Minion Instability, Detonate Dead, Explosive Arrow's explosion, Infernal Blow's explosion, Bear Trap, Herald of Ice, and Herald of Lightning all deal secondary damage.

There are five types of damage: physical, fire, cold, lightning, and chaos.

Physical damage is found on all weapons, the Ethereal Knives spell, Glacial Cascade spell, Shockwave Totem, and Bear Trap. It is mitigated by armor, endurance charges, Immortal Call, and the Soul of Steel passive.

Fire damage is most commonly found on spells, like Fireball, Firestorm, and Molten Shell. It is mitigated by fire resistance and Arctic Armor. Fire can ignite enemies, causing them to burn for 20% of the initial hit per second, and lasts for four seconds.

Cold damage is most commonly found on spells, like Freezing Pulse, Ice Nova, and Ice Spear. It is mitigated by cold resistance. Cold can chill or freeze enemies. Chill slows enemies by 30%.

Lightning damage is most commonly found on spells, like Arc, Ball Lightning, and Shock Nova. It is mitigated by lightning resistance. Lightning can shock enemies, causing them to take 50% increased damage.

Chaos damage bypasses energy shield, but is uncommon both as damage and resistance. Shavronne's Wrappings chestpiece and Solaris Lorica chestpiece prevent chaos damage from bypassing energy shield. Although it doesn't have a status effect per se, Poison is effectively its status effect. Poison deals 10% of the total hit as damage per second, for two seconds. There are other forms of poison from various sources that have various durations and damage rates.

The attack or spell is coming in.



You have evaded the attack and have not been hit. Nothing happens.

Or

You have not evaded the attack.



You have dodged the attack or spell. Nothing happens.

Or

You have been hit. On hit effects (life gain on hit, Cast on Critical Strike, etc) apply now.



The attack has been blocked and you take no damage. On hit effects still apply.

Or

The attack has not been evaded, dodged, or blocked, and now deals damage. The spell has not been dodged or blocked, and now deals damage.



You have taken the mitigated damage.

***Arctic Armor, Lightning Coil, Cloak of Flame, Cloak of Defiance, Taste of Hate, Rat's Nest, Bramblejack, and Incandescent Heart. Are there any others?***

Items that interact with charges will be discussed below in the sections that concern them.

Charges last for 10 seconds.

All characters have 3 inherent charges of each of the three types, giving you a base maximum of nine charges. Three e-charges, three f-charges, and three p-charges.

In the passive skill tree, there are two nodes that each give 18% increased endurance, frenzy, or power charge duration. This means each charge type can have a duration of up to 13.6 seconds.

E-charges give 4% flat physical damage reduction and 4% elemental resistance. This makes them equally effective against all non-chaos damage.

The physical damage reduction from e-charges are calculated simultaneously yet separately from armor. If you are hit for 100 damage, have armor to mitigate 50 damage, and have one e-charge, you will mitigate 54 damage.

Enduring Cry will generate e-charges based on how many enemies are around you.

Warlord's Mark has a chance of granting an e-charge when you kill an enemy with this curse.

Endurance Charge on Melee Stun grants an e-charge when you stun an enemy with a supported melee attack.

Immortal Call consumes all e-charges to grant temporary physical immunity.

Vaal Immortal Call consumes all e-charges to grant temporary immortality, preventing you from dying.

Discharge consumes all charges to deal damage of their elemental type; e-charges deal fire damage being strength aligned.

Ambu's Charge grants an e-charge when an enemy scores a critical strike on you and shares e-charges with nearby allies.

Kaom's Sign grants +1 max e-charge.

Bringer of Rain grants a 20% chance to gain an e-charge when you block.

Voll's Devotion reduces e-charge and p-charge duration by 30%, but grants an e-charge whenever a p-charge is consumed or expires.

Daresso's Defiance grants an e-charge when you kill, removes all e-charges when you're hit, and grants Onslaught for one second per e-charge when you are hit.

Deodre's Elixir grants one e-charge, f-charge, and p-charge on use.

F-charges grant 5% increased attack and cast speed per charge.

Frenzy generates one f-charge when you hit a target and gains a further 5% increased attack speed for each f-charge you have active. This means you get 10% attack speed for each f-charge combined. It also gains increased physical damage for each f-charge you have active.

Blood Rage generates a f-charge whenever you kill an enemy.

Poacher's Mark has a chance of generating a f-charge when you kill an enemy under this curse's effect.

Flicker Strike functions similarly to Frenzy, in that it gains additional bonuses for each active f-charge. It can consume a f-charge to bypass its cooldown.

Deodre's Elixir grants one e-charge, f-charge, and p-charge on use.

Discharge consumes all charges to deal damage. F-charges deal cold damage with this spell.

Darkray Vectors grant +1 maximum f-charge.

The Blood Dance grant a 20-30% chance to gain a f-charge on kill, 2% increased movement per f-charge, 3% reduced attack/cast speed per f-charge, and 1% life regen per f-charge.

Victario's Acuity grants a 10% chance to gain a f-charge or p-charge on kill, and 5% increased projectile damage per f-charge.

Snakebite give 2% increased attack speed and 6% accuracy per f-charge. When at your maximum f-charges, all attacks poison enemies.

Shackles of the Wretched grant 4-6 f-charges to all nearby allies (not party members, which means it grants it to all party members, minions, and totems) when you die.

Hyaon's Fury gives 12% increased lightning damage per f-charge, but increases damage you take by 3% per f-charge. It also gives 20 life on kill per f-charge.

Oro's Sacrifice grants a f-charge when you ignite an enemy with an attack.

Terminus Est gives a f-charge when you score a critical strike.

***Does Terminus Est grant a charge on any crit or only crits with attacks from that weapon?***