Local VS Global - Path of Exile

Local modifiers will only affect the item they’re on, and global modifiers affect your entire character. For example, the global critical chance increase from daggers increases the chance of all your skills critting, but the local accuracy bonus from one-handed swords only affects attacks that use the sword.

  • Local stats will only be added to the relevant source.
  • Global stats are applied globally as the name suggests.

As a general rule (though there are occasional exceptions), if the values in the top section of an item are different to the normal basetype, they are benefitting from local modifiers. If a modifier on an item doesn’t seem to be affecting anything in the top section, then it is global.

1. Local VS Global

Item mods tend to come in two varieties: ‘global mods’, which act like the passive skills, and ‘local mods’, which affect the item itself. Compare the weapons below, and note that the magic weapon (on the right) has ‘Increased Physical Damage’. You’ll see that the weapon’s Physical Damage is higher, and is a different colour. It is this number that is used when other modifiers, such as your passive skills, are used to calculate how much damage your attacks deal.

PoE Local VS Global

The same is true for increases to armour on items that naturally provide armour, or increases to evasion on items that naturally provide evasion, and so on.

Some mods, such as ‘Increased Attack Speed’, can appear on both weapons and armour. Like the Increased Physical Damage modifier, the Increased Attack Speed on the weapon shown below is local to the weapon, and changes that specific weapon’s rate of attack. The gloves shown below also have Increased Attack Speed, but they affect any weapon you are holding and use the Attacks Per Second value displayed on the weapon to calculate how quickly you attack.

PoE Local VS Global 2

The attack speed mod on these gloves is a global modifier, so it adds together with other global increases to attack speed, including those on your passive tree.

As a general rule (though there are occasional exceptions), if the values in the top section of an item are different to the normal basetype, they are benefitting from local modifiers. If a modifier on an item doesn’t seem to be affecting anything in the top section, then it is global.

See if you can work out which mods are local and which mods are global in the image below.

PoE Local VS Global 3

The Full Scale Armour has one local mod (increased Armour and Evasion) and one global mod (Lightning Resistance). The Steel Gauntlets also have one local mod (increased Armour) and one global mod (increased Attack Speed). The Sharktooth Claw’s increased Attack Speed mod is local, and so is the implicit (life gained on hit).

Is there any way to definitively distinguish whether a modifier is local or global, if it could reasonably be either?

In general, if a modifier can modify the base behaviour of an item (what a white item of that type would do) then it will be local. There are very few exceptions to this, but they do exist, so the answer to the question is no.

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2. Global stats example

If you have

  • 3x +1 Maximum Frenzy Charges from the Passive Skill Tree
  • +1 Maximum Frenzy Charges from Equipment
  • +3 Maximum Frenzy Charges your Character starts with

You will get:

  • +7 Maximum Frenzy Charges total

3. Local stats example

Assume you are dual wielding two one-handed melee weapons.

On each of the weapons, you have rolled the modifiers Heavy and Squire's at their maximum value, which grant the following respectively:

  • 49% increased Physical Damage
  • 19% increased Physical Damage and 20 to Accuracy Rating

On each weapon, you will get a total of:

  • 68% increased Physical Damage
  • 20 to Accuracy Rating

However, as you can see the stats from each weapon will not add up, because they're local to each weapon.

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