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PoE 2 Guide

PoE 2: Ignite Explained

Beginner
Mechanics
Updated on Feb 4, 2025
Feb 4, 2025

Overview

Ignite is a Fire-aligned Damaging Elemental Ailment in Path of Exile 2. You'll often find Ignite-related stats on Fire clusters, typically on the left side of the passive skill tree.

Tip: check out our guides on the other Damaging Ailments: Bleeding and Poison!

Basic Mechanics

What is Ignite?

Ignite is a Damaging Elemental Ailment that deals Fire Damage over time by default, and is typically inflicted by a Hit. The base Damage dealt by Ignite only accounts for the total Fire Damage in a Hit. Ignite does not stack by default and only the highest Damage Ignite on a target will deal its Damage. However, all inflicted Ignites will be present on a target and will remain for their full Duration, with the next highest Damage Ignite dealing its Damage once the current one expires.

Chance to Ignite

Any Fire Damage in a Hit has a chance to inflict Ignite. However, the chance to inflict Ignite is based on the total Fire Damage of a Hit relative to the target's Ailment Threshold. For the majority of monsters, their Ailment Threshold is equal to their maximum Life, with the exception of stronger monsters such as some Rares and all Unique bosses. Stronger monsters have their Ailment Threshold adjusted to allow players to inflict Ailments on them. By default, the Fire Damage in a Hit has 1% chance to inflict Ignite per 4% of the target's Ailment Threshold dealt by that Hit, calculated pre-mitigation.

Modifiers that grant an increased chance to Ignite do not apply a base chance, and instead directly scale the existing chance for a Hit to Ignite based on the Fire Damage relative to the target's Ailment Threshold. For example, if the Fire Damage in a Hit dealt Damage equal to 80% of the target's Ailment Threshold, it would have a 20% base chance to inflict Ignite. If the character had 50% increased chance to Ignite, that Hit would have 30% chance to inflict Ignite.

Some Skills or Unique items have special modifiers that interact with Ignite chance, such as Perfect Strike which has the modifier 'Always Ignites'. This modifier bypasses the chance to Ignite calculation, but can still only Ignite with Fire Damage by default.

Magnitude of Ignite

The default Magnitude of Ignite is 20% of the Fire Damage of an Igniting Hit, dealt as Fire Damage per second. Modifiers to the Magnitude of Ignite, such as 'increased Magnitude of Ignite you inflict', are multipliers to the base Magnitude. For example with '25% increased Magnitude of Ignite you inflict', your Ignites will deal 25% of the Fire Damage of an Igniting Hit per second (20% * 1.25 = 25%). Note: modifiers to Magnitude do not affect Ignite Duration.

Calculating the Damage of Ignite

The Damage dealt by Ignite only accounts for the total Fire Damage in an Igniting Hit by default. The final Fire Damage dealt by a Hit prior to the target's mitigation will determine how much Damage is dealt per second. This is inclusive of any relevant Damage modifiers you have such as 'increased Fire Damage', or if the Hit was a Critical Hit, but does not include any modifiers that specifically apply to how much Damage the target takes from the Hit, such as Penetration.

Duration of Ignite

The default Duration of Ignite is 4 seconds and can be increased with modifiers to Ailment duration such as 'increased Ignite Duration on Enemies' or 'increased Duration of Damaging Ailments on Enemies'. Increasing the Duration of Ignite will improve the total Damage dealt across the full duration of the Ailment, but not the Damage dealt per second. Modifiers that make an Ailment deal Damage faster will cause the Ailment to deal its total Damage over a shorter period of time, essentially increasing the Damage dealt per second.

Scaling Ignite Damage

Modifiers to Ignite Damage

Since your Damage modifiers are factored in when calculating the base Damage of an Ignite, they won't apply a second time directly to the Ignite itself. Therefore modifiers that improve the Magnitude of Ignite are exceptionally powerful in scaling Ignite Damage as they essentially function as direct Damage multipliers. For example The Searing Touch has '100% increased Magnitude of Ignite you inflict', which alone would double the base Magnitude, and thus Damage, of Ignites you inflict.

Modifiers on the Target

Another way to scale Ignite Damage is with modifiers that increase the amount of Damage the target takes from Ignite. For example, by lowering their Fire Resistance with Flammability or Exposure, or by inflicting Shock which makes them take increased Damage from all sources.

Interactions

Bringer of Flame

The Infernalist Witch ascendancy has access to the Bringer of Flame notable that provides the modifier 'All Damage from you and Allies in your Presence contributes to Ignite Chance and Magnitude'. This modifier changes the Ignite calculation for both the chance to inflict Ignite and the Magnitude of Ignite to also include any non-Fire Hit Damage, providing the powerful option of being able to Ignite with non-Fire based Skills. All of the Damage in a Hit is summed and used to calculate the chance to inflict Ignite and its resulting Magnitude.

Blackflame

The Blackflame Unique Ring has the special modifier 'Enemies Ignited by you take Chaos Damage instead of Fire Damage from Ignite'. Importantly, this modifier only changes the Damage type that the target takes from your Ignites, not the Damage used to scale Ignite on your character.

All of the normal modifiers that would scale an Igniting Hit, such as 'increased Fire Damage', still apply in regards to scaling Ignite Magnitude. However, scaling the Ignite Damage with modifiers on the target instead requires modifiers that would increase the amount of Chaos Damage the target takes, such as Despair or Withered.

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