Path of Exile 2 – The Difference Between [+], Increased and More

Quick Guide to Flat [+], Increased and More

By lasagnaman.

The 3 main types of modifiers we can see for stats are:

• [+] Often called “Flat”.
• Increased.
• More.

All stats work via the following Main Algorithm:

• First, add up our Flat values, along with any base values.
• Multiply by each applicable More modifier (separately).
• Finally, multiply by the sum of applicable Increased modifiers (in a single step).

In other words:

Final value = (sum of flats) * (more modifier 1) * (more modifier 2) * ..... * (all increased modifiers)

[-], Reduced, and Less work the same way, and are simply the negative counterparts to the above. They work in the same layer/step as the positive versions. (In particular, this means that Increased/Reduced modifiers of the same size can cancel each other out, while the same is not true for More/Less.)

When we say “applicable” modifiers, we simply take every modifier that applies to the thing we’re scaling and combine them all. If we are casting a spell that does cold damage, Increased Cold Damage, Increased Spell Damage, Increased Damage, Increased Elemental Damage, all do the same thing and all add together.

For stats like damage, armour, energy shield, crit chance, attacks per second, etc., found as base values on gear, the entire value from the item is what we sum in Step 1. That means we compute the weapon damage or weapon crit chance or body armour ES using the above procedure locally, and then that final number contributes to the “Flat” portion of our overall stat.

Simple Example

We have 4000 flat Evasion from items. We also use an amulet with 30% Increased Evasion. We have Acrobatics keystone (giving 70% Less Evasion) and Sorcery Ward ascendancy node (giving 50% Less Evasion). We also have a Total of 170% Increased Evasion from the tree. We also have Leather Bound Gloves on the tree, which gives us “+1 to Evasion Rating per 1 Armour on Equipped Gloves”, and our gloves have 500 Armour. Finally, we are using Wind Dancer at level 15 (giving 18% more Evasion per stage) and have 3 stages.

Then our final Evasion will be:

Evasion = (4000 + 500) * (1 - 0.7) * (1 - 0.5) * (1 + 0.18 * 3) * (1 + 1.7 + 0.3)
        = 4500 * 0.3 * 0.5 * 1.54 * 3
        = 3118.5

Stats Which Are Percents

A common source of confusion arises from computing stats which are themselves %s, like Resistances or Crit Chance. The key concept is to distinguish between % as a unit (for flat stats) and %s listed for Increased/More modifiers.

Say we have a weapon with 5% Crit Chance. It also has +2% Crit Chance as a modifier. We have 150% Increased Crit Chance from our tree, and we’re using an attack with Inevitable Critical Support, which gives us (at max stages) 100% Increased Crit Chance. Finally, we have Struck Through on our tree which gives +1% to Crit Chance.

Then our final Crit Chance is:

Crit Chance = ((5% + 2%) + 1%) * (1 + 1.5 + 1.0)
            = 8% * 3.5
            = 28%

Conversion

Conversion sounds complicated, but…. well, ok, it’s somewhat complicated. But it fits pretty neatly into the process above, and while it is an additional concept, it doesn’t have a bunch of edge cases or exceptions that would make it difficult to apply in practice. Here are the rules to remember about conversion:

• Conversion happens between steps 1 and 2 of the Main Algorithm
• For damage conversion, there are 2 steps: First, conversions inherent to the skill used will apply. Then, all other conversions will apply simultaneously.
• “Gain X as Y” is also a type of conversion (except it doesn’t remove the source stat)

Implications

Let’s talk about the implications:

• #1 means that once a value is converted, it forgets everything about its previous state. That mean physical damage converted to lightning will scale with modifiers to lightning damage, but not to physical. Likewise, Energy Shield converted to Mana will scale with Mana, not ES.
• #2 means that if you have items that grant 100% cold damage converted to fire and 100% fire damage converted to lightning, any cold damage you have will end up as fire, not lightning.

However, if you had an attack skill with 100% phys to cold conversion, that physical damage would also end up as fire, since skill-based conversion happens before everything else in a separate step.

• Finally, #3 means that if we have an active Ice Bite buff (gain 35% of damage as cold damage) along with a Cold Infusion on our skill (gain 25% of damage as cold damage), we would end up with a total of 60% of our base damage gained as cold (the two “gain” effects don’t interact with each other). Furthermore, it would stay as cold damage even if we had some other effect that converted cold to fire, because the conversion effect would be happening simultaneously with the gain effects (not after).