Deep Dive: Diablo 4 Damage Buckets Explained (Updated Season 2)

Diablo 4 Damage Buckets (How Damage Works)

In this deep dive, we’ll be covering how Diablo 4 damage buckets work, which will also explain how damage output in general functions.

By understanding how this works, you’ll be able to maximize your damage output, no matter what build you’re planning to play, by making sure that your numbers are multiplied rather than added.

This is definitely a complicated topic so do not hesitate to ask us any questions in the comments below!

Since this post was created before launch and some of the theories have been confirmed or debunked since then, make sure to check out the Editor’s Note.

New Diablo 4 expansion is bringing in a new class. Make sure to check out the best Spiritborn builds for leveling and endgame now!

Damage Buckets Overview

In Diablo 4, damage stats are divided into categories or “buckets”. By understanding how the different types of damage stats and types, you can deal more damage by multiplying stats rather than just adding them.

TLDR, the goal in Diablo 4 is to stop doing this:

And instead, do this:

In this article, we’ll help you understand how they are categorized to help you optimize your build’s damage output!

EDITOR’S NOTE

The original video by our friends at Goblin Inc. was based on testing from the beta period.

Since then, although many of the concepts were confirmed to be true, some have since been adjusted after the game’s release.

Here’s another look back at the video to explain the overall concept and theory:

At the time, the theorized Damage Buckets were:

• Main Stats
• Critical Strike
• Vulnerability
• Damage Versus
• Damage While
• Damage With
• Damage From
• All Damage

However, things have changed since then and more changes will come in Season 2, the damage has gone through a complete rework and now buckets have been almost all removed:

Season 2 Changes

Diablo 4 Developer’s Note: Builds that utilized Critical Strike Damage and Vulnerable Damage have been disproportionately powerful. This is because these stats were previously calculated as part of separate damage buckets that were fully multiplicative when combined with other damage bonuses.

In order to promote greater build diversity, we are changing how Critical Strike, Vulnerable, and Overpower damage is calculated. These damage types will now always have a baseline multiplicative bonus. Additional sources of bonus Critical Strike Damage, Vulnerable Damage, or Overpower Damage will be additive to your other damage bonuses. Overpower will also receive additional additive damage based on your Maximum Health and Fortify amounts.

This change represents an overall decrease in damage output, so we are adjusting monster scaling to ensure that the best Class builds are still as powerful as before.

This change is not intended to lower the power of the best builds, but rather allow more builds to reach that same level of power. We have also added a variety of mechanics to classes that encourage them to chase other stats for multiplicative bonuses, rather than always chasing Critical Strike and Vulnerable Damage.

What you need to know:

Multipliers

(x) Multipliers: Anything that says x% increased damage will remain a multiplier, these are all your talents, Legendary nodes, some Glyph effects, and most of your Aspects.

Stats

Almost all stats are now Additive, even Critical Damage and Vulnerable Damage. But applying Vulnerable effects and Critical Strikes will have a baseline x% Multiplier tied to the status effect, this number does not change and is a baseline value. An interesting fact is that now also Overpower will apply a passive damage increase like Vulnerability and Critical Strikes.

Overpower

Overpower attacks now always deal up to x50% increased damage, based on your current life percentage.

• Overpower attacks gain +2% damage per 1% of your Base Life you have in Fortify.
• Overpower attacks gain +2% damage per 1% of your Base Life that you have in bonus life above your Base Life.

Critical Strike

• Critical Strikes now always deal x50% increased damage. On top of that x50% damage boost any Critical Damage will be an additive bonus.

Vulnerable

Dealing damage to a Vulnerable enemy now always deals x20% increased damage. The Vulnerable Damage Affix will now add additive damage, it will not increase the baseline 20% debuff.

While all stats have been adjusted to balance things out after the nerf, it’s evident that this is a significant hit to overall damage. However, this doesn’t imply that Vulnerable and Critical Hits are no longer valuable; quite the contrary, they might become even more crucial since they offer a foundational x% Damage Increase that’s now more challenging to come by.

In Season 2 of Diablo 4, Overpower is expected to be a key stat to watch out for, and it’ll be intriguing to see how it shapes new character builds and strategies.

Thanks for reading! For more in-depth breakdowns like this, check out our other Diablo 4 deep dives.