Use your favourite features in-game with our Desktop AppDamage in Path of Exile 2 is categorized as one of 5 different types, each of which can have unique inherent interactions and properties. In this guide you'll find a basic overview of each Damage type and what to expect when you run into them in-game!
There are 5 different types of Damage in Path of Exile 2:
Each Damage type interacts differently with a defender's mitigation layers. For example Physical Damage does not have an associated Resistance, while Chaos Damage has a special interaction with Energy Shield in which it removes twice as much of this resource.
Damage types are also dealt in different ways by an attacker, and even have specific attribute-alignments. Fire Damage for example is associated with the Strength attribute - you'll find the majority of Fire-themed Passive Tree clusters on the left side of the Passive Skill Tree, along with themes on Strength-aligned classes such as the Warrior's Smith of Kitava ascendancy option.
Note: Fire, Cold and Lightning Damage are also considered to be Elemental Damage.
Physical Damage is typically the primary Damage type for attacks such as 
Boneshatter. If an attack skill does not have any inherent Damage Conversion, it will deal the flat Damage types on your weapon and any added Damage from modifiers on other gear slots such as Rings, or 'Gained as Extra Damage' modifiers. The majority of weapons have baseline Physical Damage and local modifiers to enhance that Physical Damage, and therefore many attack Skills will deal Physical Damage by default.
Physical Damage is not limited to attacks however, as there are also spells that deal Physical Damage. Pure Physical Damage spells are amongst the highest Base Critical Hit Chance spells in the game, for example 
Bonestorm has a Base Critical Hit Chance of 15%, making it considerably easier to scale than other options.
Physical Damage does not have an associated Resistance for mitigation purposes, and instead uses Armour and Additional Physical Damage Reduction as a basis for the go-to mitigation layer against this Damage type.
Tip: check out this guide to find out all you need to know about Armour!
Another commonly encountered form of Physical Damage is Bleeding, which is a Damaging Ailment that deals Physical Damage over time. Corrupted Blood is a similar Debuff which also deals Physical Damage over time. Physical Damage over time dealt to an entity will cause Blood Loss equal to the total amount of Physical Damage over time taken. Note that while Poison can be inflicted by a Hit of Physical Damage, it does not deal Physical Damage itself.
Tip: you can find our guides on Bleeding, Corrupted Blood and Blood Loss here!
Fire Damage is associated with the Strength attribute and therefore many of the Mace attack Skills have Fire themes, such as 
Molten Blast or 
Perfect Strike. These types of Skill inherently have a Damage Conversion component to Convert a portion of your Physical Damage into Fire Damage. Additionally, as both the Crossbow and Spear weapon types are hybrid-Strength, some Crossbow and Spear attack Skills also have Fire themes.
Fire-themed Spells are the opposite of Physical Spells in regards to Base Critical Hit Chance scaling, having some of the lowest Base Critical Hit Chance numbers of all Spell options. For example 
Fireball has a Base Critical Hit Chance of just 7%, less than half of that of Bonestorm. However Fire Spells are often made up of components which cause them to be very potent at covering large areas, making them ideal at clearing packs of Monsters.
Fire Resistance is the primary method of mitigating Fire Damage. You can find many defensive Fire-themed Passive Skills on the left side of the Passive Skill Tree, especially in the Strength area where the Warrior starts. For example 
Unnatural Resilience provides a way to scale your Maximum Fire Resistance by stacking Fire Resistance.
Tip: check out this guide to learn about Resistances in Path of Exile 2!
The Ignite Damaging Ailment is inherently tied to Fire Damage, and deals Fire Damage over time by default. An entity that is Ignited is considered as Burning, or considered to be taking Burning Damage. Many of the Effects in Path of Exile 2 that deals Fire Damage over time are attributed to Ignite, such as Ignited Ground.
Tip: check out our guide on Ignite here!
Cold Damage is associated with the Intelligence attribute in Path of Exile 2. A pure-Intelligence weapon type does not exist just yet, but hybrid-Intelligence weapon types such as the Quarterstaff has many Cold-themed skills such as 
Glacial Cascade. However, the attribute alignment of Skills and Damage types is not fully strict, as Skills such as 
Glacial Lance exist for the Spear, which is a hybrid Strength and Dexterity weapon type.
Behind pure Physical Spells, Cold Damage Spells are amongst the highest Base Critical Hit Chance Spells in Path of Exile 2. Many Cold Damage Spells have a focus on large area denial, slowing Monsters with Chilling Areas and creating Ice Walls to impede Monster movement.
Cold Resistance is the primary way to mitigate incoming Cold Damage. Because Non-Damaging Ailments such as Freeze are calculated after the Damage of a Hit has been mitigated, Cold Resistance and any other mitigation layers are important to ensure you get Frozen less. In addition, Elemental Ailment Threshold is used to calculate if a Hit would inflict Freeze on you or how much Freeze is built up by that hit, so increasing your maximum Life or directly boosting your Elemental Ailment Threshold with modifiers such as 
Unbreaking is a good idea.
Tip: read our guide on the Freeze Ailment here!
Both Chill and Freeze are Elemental Ailments that are inherently tied to Cold Damage by default. Chill and Freeze are both Non-Damaging Ailments that cause an Action Speed slow. Any Cold Damage Hit can inflict Chill and/or Freeze buildup.
Tip: find out more about Chill in Path of Exile 2 here!
Lightning Damage is commonly associated with the Dexterity attribute. You'll find many Lightning-themed attack Skills on Dexterity-aligned weapons such as Bows, Spears and Crossbows. For example 
Galvanic Shards or 
Lightning Rod to name a few. Notably there are currently no Lightning-themed Mace attack skills in Path of Exile 2, but there are multiple Lightning-themed Unique Maces including 
Mjölner and 
Olrovasara, allowing you to focus on dealing Lightning Damage with Skills that do not inherently have any Lightning Damage Conversion.
Lightning Spells follow Physical Spells and then Cold Spells as generally being the third-highest Base Critical Strike Chance Spell option. Many Lightning Spells are much less focused on large area clearing abilities and are instead more single-target focused, with some options for branching chain-Lightning style effects for more coverage.
The primary method of mitigating Lightning Damage is Lightning Resistance. A Hit of Lightning Damage can inflict Shock on the receiving entity, so scaling your Lightning Resistance can go a long way to helping prevent being Shocked as the chance to Shock is based on the Damage taken from the Hit after mitigation.
Tip: take a look at our guide on Shock for more information!
Shock and Electrocute are both inherently tied to Lightning Damage by default. These are both Non-Damaging Ailments. However, whilst any Hit of Lightning Damage can inflict Shock, for Electrocute this Ailment needs to be enabled by a special modifier or the inflicting Skill. For example 
Voltaic Grenade can inflict Electrocute with the Lightning Damage dealt by this Skill, whilst a character using the 
Kitoko's Current Unique Gloves can inflict Electrocute with any of their Lightning Damage Hits.
Tip: want to find out more about Electrocute? Find our guide here!
Chaos Damage has less of an attribute alignment than the Elemental Damage types, however the type of Chaos Damage being dealt will typically relate to a specific attribute as a result. For example, Poison is a Damaging Ailment that deals Chaos Damage over time. You're unlikely to find Poison related stats on a Mace Skill gem, but you'll find some Poison-themed skills on Dexterity-aligned weapons such as Bows or Crossbows, for example 
Gas Arrow and 
Gas Grenade.
Meanwhile many of the Chaos-themed Spells aren't related to Poison, and are instead dealing non-Poison Chaos Damage over time. These spells offer a very different option to any of the Elemental Spells, with less of a focus on hard-hitting raw Damage output, and more of a slow burn lingering style of Damage that can cover large areas and spread from Monster to Monster. 
Essence Drain and 
Contagion are great examples of this.
Chaos Resistance exists as the primary method for mitigating Chaos Damage. However, Chaos Damage has some special inherent properties in regards to how it interacts with different resources. By default, Chaos Damage removes twice as much Energy Shield whenever it would impact Energy Shield directly, and therefore Energy Shield is significantly weaker against Chaos Damage as a result. However, you can choose to specialise into only using Energy Shield as your primary hit pool by using 
Chaos Inoculation, at which point Chaos Damage no longer deals any Damage to you.
Poison is a Damaging Ailment that can be inflicted by a Hit of Chaos or Physical Damage. Poison deals Chaos Damage over time by default regardless of whether it was inflicted by a Hit or Physical Damage or Chaos Damage or both. Poison has a special property that makes the Chaos Damage over time that it deals directly bypass Energy Shield to deal Damage to Life.
Wither is a Debuff that makes an entity take increased Chaos Damage from all sources.
Tip: check out our guide on Poison here!
Damage types are often indicated by specific colours of effects created by Skills or Monster attacks. Be aware that whilst the colour coding of Damage types is mostly on-point, there are some outliers where a type of Damage is not correctly identified by the colour of an effect.
