In Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2), you can boost your damage by equipping weapons with damage modifiers, selecting the right passives, and leveling up your skill gems. Explore the best tips for increasing damage and learn how damage works with the different damage buckets in our comprehensive guide!

How to Increase Damage

Best Ways to Increase Damage
Equip Higher-Tier Weapons Increase Quality of Weapons Reroll for Damage Modifiers Choose Damage Passives Socket Damage Runes Level Up Skill Gems

Equip Higher-Tier Weapons

Equipping high-tier weapons is the most direct way to increase your damage. Weapons can have certain modifiers built into them that target the main mechanics of the class such as Loads An Additional Bolt or Bow Attacks Fire An Additional Arrow. Choosing the right weapon for your build can significantly improve your damage output.

Increase Quality of Weapons

Quality can directly affect the damage of your weapons multiplicatively using a Blacksmith's Whetstone. It is recommended to increase the quality of weapons with flat Added Physical/Elemental Damage modifiers since more damage is applied compared to the increased percent ones.

Try to aim for a 20% Quality Weapon as you progress to maximize the damage you can deal.

How to Get Blacksmith's Whetstone

Reroll for Damage Modifiers

If you find that you are still lacking on damage, you can use Orb of Augmentations and Exalted Orbs to add new modifiers that can help give you even more damage. Keep in mind that you may need to pick up a new weapon if ever you rolled for a bad modifier.

Choose Damage Passives

Investing in Passives is another way of boosting your damage. The passive tree offers various options such as increased Damage with Two-Handed Weapons, Projectile Damage, and many more specific damage passives.

Passive Skill Tree Guide and List of Passives

Socket Damage Runes

Aside from weapons and passives, later in the game you will encounter gear that contains sockets for slotting in Runes. These runes give damage modifiers such as increased Physical Damage and Elemental Damage (Fire, Cold, Lightning) when slotted in weapons.

Level Up Skill Gems

Whenever you pick up Uncut Skill Gems, make sure to use them on your already learned Skills to level up and increase their Attack Damage. You will be needing this as you progress further to maximize your build and prevent any damage fall-offs along the way.

How to Get Uncut Skill Gem

How Does Damage Work?

Base Damage Depends on Your Weapon and Skill Gem

The first factor that determines your total damage is base damage, which differs depending on whether you're using an Attack or a Spell Skill.

An Attack’s base damage is a percentage of your Martial Weapon's damage. Spells, on the other hand, have flat base damage values based on their gem level.

Get Higher Damaging Weapons for More Base Attack Damage

Modifiers on Martial Weapons such as “Adds X to Y Damage” or “X% Increased Physical Damage” directly increase your Attack’s base damage. Added flat damage from gear—like Rings and Gloves—also contributes to your base Attack damage.

However, the “X% Increased Elemental Damage with Attacks” weapon modifier does not affect base weapon damage and, instead, is applied later in the damage calculation.

Get More Gem Levels and Gaint X as Extra for More Base Spell Damage

As a Spell's base damage is based on it Skill Gem's level, mods that increase gem levels directly boost a spell's damage significantly. Additionally, modifiers like “Gain X% of Physical Damage as Extra Fire Damage” take a portion of the base damage and add it as bonus damage of a certain type.

“Increased/Decreased Damage” are Additive Damage Multipliers

Damage multipliers that use the terms “Increased” or “Decreased” are additive with each other. This includes bonuses from the Passive Tree, gear, or jewels. Because they all stack additively, they offer diminishing returns compared to other types of scaling.

“More/Less Damage” are Multiplicative Multipliers

The terms “More” and “Less” are used in Path of Exile to distinguish multiplactive damage multipliers. These are typically found in Support Gems and are extremely powerful. Stacking multiple “More” multipliers is the most effective (yet limited) way to scale damage.

Critical Hits Deal Even More Damage

Critical Strikes deal bonus damage based on your Crit Multiplier and act as a separate damage bucket. However, Critical Strikes are the least reliable damage source and is only recommended with classes or ascendancies that can easily invest into a high enough Critical Hit Chance.

Critical Hits Explained

Attack and Cast Speed Further Increases DPS

Faster attack or cast speed increases how often you can deal damage, effectively increasing your total damage over time (DPS). These effects stack additively with each other.

However, the “Increased Attack Speed” modifier on Martial Weapons directly increases the weapon’s base attack rate, making it stronger than generic speed increases from other sources.

A Spell's base cast time is fixed and is different for each skill. This can be modified with increases (including “More/Less”) effects through the Passive Tree, gear, jewels, or Support Gems.

Debuffs to Enemy Defences Further Increases the Damage They Take

Applying debuffs to enemies—such as lowering their resistances with curses, breaking their armor, or applying the Shock ailment—further increases the damage they take.

Not all builds can have a source of these debuffs, but including some form of reduction to enemy defences is a strong way to significantly improve your overall damage output.

Debuff Explained

Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2) Related Guides

Beginner's Guide

Gameplay Mechanics

Game and Character Progression

Gear and Crafting

Stats and Skills Guides

Settings and Multiplayer