Help with scaling damage

So, I researched a lot and, after seeing people constantly talking about millions of dps (which is mind-boggling when you look at the game with rational eyes), found out that there are more than 3 layers of damage scaling in this game, which make no sense when it comes to intuition, but here we are. If I understand correctly, all the layers are multiplicative. You have flat damage, increased, more, extra, crit. I initially thought that there's only flat, increased and crit, which shows that I only follow my intuition and don't bother to research in-depth. So, I covered only flat and increased with my melee character, since I'm not interested in the crit layer. But how would I raise the other two layers, that I knew nothing about until now? Specifically the "more" and "extra" and even others, if they're out there? I've searched through the passive tree and couldn't find any "more" and "extra" skills, to boost multiplicatively my large "increased" phys dmg bonus. Any pointers, please?

EDIT: I see that all the support gems I used already have "more" damage applied to my melee attacks, but the dps on my skill bar still shows 90k dmg for heavy strike, so does it display the total dps correctly? Because I rarely feel in-game that I don't deal damage. Only some bosses and 1 or 2 rare enemies, with high life and regen, seem very hard to drain, but otherwise normal and magic enemies die in 1 to 4 hits. I have only 2 tier 16 maps to finish and I've completed the atlas. So, there must be something wrong somewhere, maybe the final dps isn't displayed correctly.

EDIT: What about scaling life or attack speed, do they have a similar system of multiplicative layers?

Mh, that's a very broad question.

#1 source of reference would be, make urself known with the wiki.

specifically in ur case: https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Stat#Flat.2C_additive_and_multiplicative_stats

There u get a general overview of how stats and numbers scale in PoE.

#2 get used to Path of Building, import ur character and set the correct parameters for ur build. That's obviously a bit advanced when ur kinda new to build crafting, but it's worth it.
The damage number that ur tooltip ingame shows is wrong. Same goes for defenses like physical damage reduction and chance to evade(to a lesser degree) btw. PoB will be able to show u the correct damage numbers if set up correctly.

Life doesn't have as many multiplicative layers, it's only flat, increased and more. Same goes for attack speed, but with an exception of action speed. "Flat" attack speed is obviously the base attack speed of ur weapon. The only thing u should know about that is, that there are local and global affixes, when talking about weapons mostly. Increased attack speed or physical damage on a weapon is local and behaves differently than other sources of those explicits.

Btw. another layer of multiplicative damage increase is "enemy takes % increased damage" or a reduction in the enemies' resistances for elemental damage.

Yeah, those are just some pointers, but like I said the topic is pretty huge.

edit: There are alot of sources for more damage. The most, as u already said, is coming from support gems. U'll get more damage from alot of ascendencies, Frenzy Charges give 4% more damage per charge, alot of Auras have more multipliers or increased damage taken, like Pride. Unique items can have more damage, certain influenced rares or some Keystones like Pain Attunement. Those are only some tho, pretty sure I forgot alot.

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Hitman473107#7521 wrote:

If I understand correctly, all the layers are multiplicative.

Kind of yes usually.

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Hitman473107#7521 wrote:

You have flat damage, increased, more, extra, crit.

'more' isnt a single layer. Every 'more' is its own layer, they all multiply with each other.
And then there are enemy side layers like resists and %increased damage taken.

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Hitman473107#7521 wrote:

EDIT: What about scaling life or attack speed, do they have a similar system of multiplicative layers?

Kind of yes. Like weapon attackspeed multiplies with "increased attack speed" and potentially multiplies with player "action speed".

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#2 get used to Path of Building, import ur character and set the correct parameters for ur build.

Thanks. Is there an online version?

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Hitman473107#7521 wrote:

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#2 get used to Path of Building, import ur character and set the correct parameters for ur build.

Thanks. Is there an online version?

Not that I know of.

https://github.com/PathOfBuildingCommunity/PathOfBuilding/releases/tag/v2.55.4

That's the official Github of the PoB dev team. It's open source aswell.

I found a tool. I added my unique mace (Callinelus Malleus), heavy strike with its supports, my skill tree and I still end up below 90k (because I didn't add all my equipment). It says 531% Increased and 107% More bonuses. So, it seems that the tooltip is pretty right. Thus, where would you get even more "More" bonuses, since the tree doesn't have them and since I took every relevant "Increased" bonus from the tree, so I can reach at least 1 million dps? Because I really have no idea. And there are people saying 20 million dps min is needed and even some that claim to have reached 240 million dps. I'd settle for a meagre 1 million, with the right pointers to get there.

Scaling your dmg will almost guaranteed require a far better weapon, a better skill and then some shenanigens on top.

That mace is roughly a 350 pPDS weapon, which isnt anywhere near good enough.
At this point you should have something like a 500+ pPDS weapon, which would cost some 80-100c on trade. This in itself is already a massive increase.


Next is groundslam.
It just doesnt scale all that well.

Earthquake would be better cuz it has a builtin 180% more dmg with hits/ailments modifier. You can simply check it out by adding Earthquake in PoB to your current groundslam setup and switch to that skill.

Another easy source for dmg would be something like bloodrage and then tick "Do you use frenzy charges" in the config.

Next would be a 6l chest, which again is dirtcheap on trade.
I simply added a 20/20 Pulversise to simulate it.


If you did just those 4 things (weapon, skill, 6l chest plus bloodrage) your dps would go up to about 600k.

There is obviously a lot more you could do to push this build past 1M dps and then some. But you gotta start somewhere and this is really quick and easy to do.


If you dont wanna trade for items, you will have to accept thats its going to be 10x harder/slower to get there. This game IS balanced around trade, so pick your poison I guess.

Ok, fair points. If I get another free socket, I could add another "30% more damage" from a support gem. When it comes to the weapon, it's not bad at all, it's the elite version and has one of the highest damage that a unique mace can provide. Maybe a crafted mace would give more damage? I don't know, but if it would, what would be the numeric differences and how would that impact the final damage? I'd say that not by much. I have Haste active when my tooltip displays 90k dps, and also use faster attacks support, which is a great layer that increases the number of attacks per second and, therefore, multiplies the overall damage. I have the flame golem to provide another damage boost (although it's just "increased") and he's included in the calculation as well. I use Vulnerability as a curse, which isn't included, but how much can that scale the final damage? Bottom line, when it comes to the passive tree, there are no more things to add, except critical strikes or frenzy charges, but losing some "increased" nodes as a consequence will have an impact, I'm sure. From the gear, here and there you could gain some small improvements, but I don't see it too relevant. Thus, I'm really skeptical that gear improvements and another support gem will do more than double my current dps, at most. I just don't see how you could reach even 1 million, as it's generally claimed. But I'm still waiting to be proven wrong and use those tricks to improve my current build. Although, investing in critical strikes or frenzy charges is out of the question for my current build. Even with basic Frenzy charge support, how would 3 charges heavily impact the overall damage? It would grant only 12% more speed and damage, I think. It is an improvement, but I don't think it will double the output just like that.

The weapon is awful. Base damage is such an important factor for scaling the rest of your damage and that weapon provides very little. Its very rare that unique weapons are going to the best option in this game. A well crafted rare will outperform most uniques.

Gladiator is also in rough shape as an ascendancy at the moment. You are getting no damage from it at all and the point on exploding enemies is mostly wasted. Not to mention ground slam is just not a good skill either.

You would be better off finding a different skill and ascendancy.

Well it seems u still don't grasp how much impact items have in PoE.

Items are the main factor in scaling ur build. It is normal so start mapping with a character that does 20-50k dps. Once u start upgrading ur items, that number will increase exponentially and reach upwards of 20 million dps for alot of builds. Very good builds can obviously get to 100million and more. Items are also jewels, which have a huge impact on ur damage. (additional skillpoints and optimizing the tree is important aswell)

The best items in most cases are not uniques either, especially for weapons. There are very rare cases where unique weapons are actually the best in slot, most of the time rares exceed them.

I'll actually check ur build now to see what u're playing. I'm sure I can give some advice.

Btw. just to give u an example of PoE tooltip vs. real damage. The tooltip of my character says 107dps, but he actually has around 13mil atm. Soon I'll transition to a new item setup that will get my damage up to around 20mil. Maybe ur tooltip is still kinda accurate because u're not taking advantage of alot of what PoE has to offer.