Damage over time (DoT) refers to damage inflicted continuously over a period of time in killing monsters to hunt for POE Items. Unlike the other three damage sources, damage over time does not hit.
Separate applications of the same damage over time effect do not stack cumulatively, while several damage over time effects of the same type may be applied to a target at the same time, only the one with the highest damage per second may take effect at any given time; this is true even in the case of effects applied by different players or sources.
How Damage Overtime Works for Hunting POE Items
For example, if two players each apply the Ignite status ailment to the same target, only the higher damage per second of the two Ignites will affect the target, at least until the higher fades and leaves the second Ignite to become the new highest. In this context, two damage over time effects are to be considered the same only if they have the same name; a target may be affected by multiple effects that deal burning damage and also by multiple effects that deal chaos damage over time.
In case of an enemy being killed by damage over time while being affected by multiple DoT effects, the kill is attributed to the owner of the effect that was inflicted first.
Damage Scaling
For purposes of modifiers, damage over time is tagged with the following:
- Damage over time
- Damage type (physical, fire…)
- Delivery system (projectile, area…)
- Source (minion, trap…)
Empowering Damage Overtime with Path of Exile Items
For damage over time effects that are based on amount of damage dealt in the initial hit, damage type, delivery and source modifiers which were already applied to initial hit will be applied again to the DoT.
However, damage over time is not:
- Spell damage
- Attack damage
- Weapon damage
- Melee damage
Path of Exile Items Modifiers specific to those types will not natively apply unless specifically stated so, as observed on skills like Contagion, Essence Drain or Vortex. Damage conversion also does not apply to damage over time.
Tampering with the duration of damage over time effect will affect the total amount of damage dealt by it but not its damage per second. The exception to this is the ignited enemies burn faster mod, which will ‘speed up’ ignites inflicted by you, increasing their damage per second at the cost of duration, leaving the total amount of damage unchanged.