PoE 2: Damage Taken As Explained

Damage Taken As is a defensive mechanic in Path of Exile 2 that allows an entity to take one or multiple types of Damage as another type of Damage.

What is Damage Taken As?

Damage Taken As, also known as Damage Shifting or commonly incorrectly referred to as Damage Conversion, is a mechanic that forces a type or types of incoming Damage taken by an entity to be taken as a different type of Damage instead.

Note: Damage Taken As is not Damage Conversion. These are two entirely different mechanics. Learn about Damage Conversion by reading our guide here.

Damage Taken As is a scarce stat in Path of Exile 2 due to how defensively-powerful these modifiers can be. One of the most notable sources is Cloak of Flame, a Unique Body Armour that makes the wearer take 40% of incoming Physical Damage as Fire Damage instead.

Importantly, Damage can only be shifted once as all modifiers to Damage Taken As are applied simultaneously at the same stage of the Damage received order of operations.

Damage Taken As and Mitigation

Damage Taken As is calculated prior to the mitigation phase of the Damage received order of operations. You can find out more in our article on the topic here.

When Damage is shifted to be taken as another type of Damage, the inherent properties of the Damage type are lost. This includes any methods of mitigating the incoming Damage. For example if you're using Cloak of Flame, the portion of Damage taken as Fire would be mitigated like any other incoming Fire Damage, using your Fire Resistance and anything else that would normally apply to this Damage type. The portion of Damage that is shifted from Physical Damage to be taken as Fire Damage would no longer be mitigated by any Physical Damage Reduction that you have, as it's no longer Physical Damage.

However, the remaining leftover Physical Damage that wasn't shifted would still be mitigated by any modifiers that would apply to that Damage type, such as Armour, and therefore Armour is more effective when combined with Damage Taken As due to the nature of the Physical Damage Reduction formula being stronger against smaller Hits.

Tip: learn about how Armour works in Path of Exile 2 by reading our guide here!

Damage Type Properties

Damage that is shifted from one type of Damage to another type will lose any Damage-type specific properties that it has. For example if you're playing an Infernalist with Altered Flesh and you take a Hit of Cold Damage that has Cold Penetration, the portion of Damage that is shifted to be taken as Fire Damage would lose its Cold Penetration, as the modifier can no longer apply.

Damage type properties also include inherent properties such as Cold Damage being able to inflict Chill or Freeze. A portion of Cold Damage that is shifted to be taken as another type of Damage can no longer inflict Chill or Freeze by default.

Importantly, a shifted type of Damage will gain properties that are inherently tied to the new Damage type. For example a Hit of Fire Damage that is shifted to be taken as Lightning Damage can no longer inflict Ignite, but it can inflict Shock.

Hit Damage and Damage over time

Damage Taken As is not specific to Hits unless it's otherwise stated as so in the modifier text. For example the Catalysis Passive Skill Tree Notable has the modifier '5% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Damage of a Random Element'. The modifier on this node specifies that it only applies to incoming Physical Damage Hits, and therefore it will not shift incoming Physical Damage over time.

Cloak of Flame on the other hand has the modifier '40% of Physical Damage taken as Fire Damage'. This modifier does not specify that it only applies to Hits, and therefore all forms of incoming Physical Damage, including Damage over time, will have 40% of the Damage shifted to be taken as Fire Damage.

Damage Taken As above 100%

Unlike Damage Conversion, when modifiers to Damage Taken As exceed 100% for a particular Damage type, the stat is not normalized down to 100%. This means that if you have more than 100% Damage Shift for a particular Damage type, you will take more Damage than the originating packet of Damage whenever you take the origin type of Damage. For example, if you had a total of 115% of Physical Damage taken as Fire Damage and you take a Hit of 1000 Physical Damage, you will take 1150 Fire Damage after the Damage has been shifted.

Tip: if you have 100% Damage Shift of a particular type of Damage, you can become pseudo-immune to any Damage-type effects or Ailments that are tied to the origin type of Damage by default. For example with 100% of Physical Damage taken as other types of Damage, you can no longer be inflicted with Bleeding by default because you no longer take any Physical Hit Damage.