The term hit refers to an effect that applies a discrete amount of damage to a target instantaneously. The damage can be mitigated down to 0, but can never be negative. Damage dealt by hits always has one of 3 damage sources (attack, spell or secondary, but note that damage over time never hits.) and is combined of any 5 damage types (physical, fire, cold, lightning or chaos).
Besides the amount of damage, its type and source, ‘hit packages’ also contain certain mechanics and effects, such as:
and others.
A critical strike is a hit which is intrinsically multiplied by your critical strike multiplier and has a chance to occur on any hit. The chance to critically strike is governed by your critical strike chance. By default, critical strikes of the appropriate elements will inflict elemental ailments.
Critical strikes always inflict elemental ailments (ignite, freeze, and shock by default) if possible. These ailments can still be discarded if they do not reach the minimum ailment threshold.
Damaging ailments (bleeding, poison, and ignite) inflicted via critical strikes do not scale with crit multi by default, but inherently have +50% to Damage over Time Multiplier, which stacks additively with other sources of Damage over Time Multiplier stats. Allocating the Perfect Agony Keystone allows critical strike multiplier to scale the Damage over Time Multiplier value.
Ignite, chill, freeze, shock, scorch, brittle, and sap are referred to as elemental ailments because they are associated with elemental damage types. Bleeding and poison are non-elemental ailments.
Damaging ailments are those that inflict damage over time. They include bleeding, poison, and ignite. Non-damaging ailments include chill, freeze, shock, scorch, brittle, and sap.
| Ailment | Associated damage type | Effect | Elemental | Damaging |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bleeding | Physical | Bleeding can only be inflicted by physical damage from attacks. Bleeding enemies take physical damage over time, at 70% of the physical damage of the hit that inflicted bleeding per second. Moving enemies take an additional 140% damage. The base duration is 5 seconds. |
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| Poison | Physical and chaos | Poison causes the affected target to take chaos damage over time, at 30% of the combined physical and chaos damage of the hit that applied it per second. Poison can stack multiple times on a single target. Additional stacks do not refresh the duration, but stack independently from each other. The base duration is 2 seconds. |
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| Ignite | Fire | Ignite causes the affected target to burn for 90% of the fire damage of the hit that applied it per second. The base duration is 4 seconds. |
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| Scorch | Fire | Scorched enemies have their elemental resistances lowered by up to 30%, based on the fire damage of the hit. The base duration is 4 seconds. |
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| Chill | Cold | Cold damage always inflicts chill. Chill slows all actions of the affected target up to 30%, based on the cold damage of the hit. The base duration is 2 seconds. |
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| Freeze | Cold | Freeze prevents the affected target from taking actions for a duration based on the cold damage of the hit. The base minimum duration is 0.3 seconds and the base maximum duration is 3 seconds. |
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| Brittle | Cold | Brittle causes hits against enemies to have up to +6% Base critical strike chance against them, based on the cold damage of the hit. The base duration is 4 seconds. |
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| Shock | Lightning | Shock causes the affected target to take up to 50% increased damage from all sources, based on the lightning damage of the hit. The base duration is 2 seconds. |
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| Sap | Lightning | Sapped enemies deal up to 20% less damage, based on the lightning damage of the hit. The base duration is 4 Seconds. |
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