Trying to figure out Bleed

Good day, community.

Can someone please help me understand Bleed?

I'm trying to get away from the content creators, and their "already functional" builds, and try to actually use those 1 1/2 brain cells that I believe occupy the premises of my "hat support structure".

I am currently looking at the topic in terms of PoE 2 (but want to continue going at it with the next PoE 1 league).

I did read the wiki, and think I actually got a general understanding of the mechanic.

Bleed is calculated from a hit (usually), but increases to attack damage do nothing. From this statement (if I actually worded it correctly) I understood that the increases to a hit's damage is the first stage, and the second one is the actual increases, which happen (before the defensive layers of the target kick in).

But the hit's damage is the local damage source(or similar) is evaluated through the skill's mechanic (attack damage: 9001%), and that is the starting point of bleed like attack, which then gets transformed into (the total damage applied is spread across the default 5 seconds).

And the multipliers here would be:
1. Magnitude/+% multiplier
2. Increases to DoT
3. Increases to speed of DoT

and the "target takes increased damage".

Again and again I look at this formula

(Base_Damage + Added_Damage) * Increased_Damage * More_Damage * Hit_Rate * (Critical_Strike_Damage * Critical_Strike_Chance)

And see that the part
`* Increased_Damage * More_Damage * Hit_Rate *`
is left out of the equation

But the `Critical_Strike_Chance` does give a +100% to multiplier (if I'm not mistaking).

If I actually managed to get to this part without anyone fully correcting my upper assumption of how and why (fat chance!), I'm struggling to figure out how cool kids actually make Bleed really do mils of damage.

I do understand that poe.ninja would be a start, but even if I find something, I'm a bit lost in understand why those numbers were achieved, and not "how".

Would appreciate some help in this question.
Last bumped on Apr 12, 2025, 10:30:42 AM
I'll be honest OP the words are confusing me so i'm just gonna ignore them and write the answer i think you want instead.

Firstly ailments in PoE1 vs PoE2 are drastically different in how they scale, do not conflate them and make sure you are reading the correct wiki page before you process the information you are reading.

In PoE1 the hit damage for ailments is absolutely irrelevant, base damage is basically duplicated to produce an ailment branch and a hit branch to prevent the modifier applying twice and you just need to know which modifiers will affect which branch.

So for example attack damage makes your hit better in PoE1, it does nothing for your ailment damage however because bleed/ignite/poison are not attacks.

Physical damage will scale both

Area damage will only scale the hit portion of an area skill etc.

Basically you learn what the modifiers are and apply the usual - base damage * increases * mores (simplified but basically right).


In PoE2 the ailment damage is derived from the hit specifically but the damage calculation is written differently to prevent modifiers applying twice (which is why PoE1s works as above).

So attack damage scales both the hit and the ailment as long as the attack that applied it is an attack. Area damage will also scale your ailment damage if the skill is an area skill. This is much simpler to understand for players (though a pain in the ass if your brains hardwired to PoE1 like me).

So in PoE2 the modifiers to scale your bleed is as follows

Base damage comes from the hit that applied it ignoring modifiers which indicate they apply to HITS specifically. This is then multiplied by magnitude increases added together then multiplied by magnitude mores much like PoE1.

In both games bleed doesn't care about armour, the base hit is used prior to reductions to prevent negative double dipping. Modifiers apply afterwards as normal.

I'm sorry that this turned into a big block of text but if you have any specific examples you need me to run through I'll try to help. Incidentally bleed doing millions of damage in PoE1 is fairly trivial to achieve, high bleed in PoE2 is very challenging as it is absolutely pathetic numerically (aggravated bleed in PoE1 is 210%, its 30% in PoE2 for reference). You can't quite apples to apples that but they are drastically different is the point im trying to get across.
Last edited by Draegnarrr#2823 on Apr 12, 2025, 10:13:32 AM
Let's focus on the PoE2 portion of the topic for now (since I am playing amazon right now).

"
In PoE2 the ailment damage is derived from the hit

What is the "hit portion" exactly?

I have a regular stick. The stick's attack damage is 3-5 (with all the local increases to damage, which are defined in the weapon's affixes).

Next, I have a "+10% increased attack damage" on the tree.

And now I have a skill. A skill has an "attack damage: 200%".

I strike (excluding accuracy, chance to bleed and that sort of stuff).

And here the "bleed ailment" is created.

What will be applied to the damage? All the upper mentioned? Or only some of them?

"
bleed doing millions of damage in PoE1 is fairly trivial to achieve

May I ask an example for PoE1(if you have something in mind)? My PoB "make it bleed" game usually ends with me giving up on trying to actually make it go even close to 1 mil.
Last edited by Fenrisian89#2971 on Apr 12, 2025, 10:36:14 AM

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