During the course of collecting Path of Exile items, a player will encounter several types of damage. In Path of Exile these come in three variants: Physical, Elemental and Chaos. Knowing how each is calculated is key in selecting POE items to mitigate them.
Damage types received when collecting Path of Exile items
Damage received by characters fall into three categories: Physical, Elemental, and Chaos. Physical damage constitutes damage from weapons and basic attacks. Elemental damage is further broken down into three types, specifically: Fire, Cold and Lightning damage. These usually come from enemy skills as well certain attacks with modifiers. Similarly, Chaos damage from skills and poison effects. Note that damage does not come solely from enemies, but can also be due to certain skill gems and Path of Exile items.
Mitigating damage with Path of Exile items
Reducing Physical damage is as simple as equipping Path of Exile items with higher Armor rating. As for Elemental Damage, improving Resistance via modifiers obtained through Path of Exile Orbs or passives is the way to go. Chaos damage can be reduced similarly.
Returning damage with Path of Exile items
Reflect damage is a mechanic in the game where an attacking entity receives a portion of the damage it dealt to the target. Players can get this for their character through skill gems, and modifiers for Path of Exile items obtained from Path of Exile orbs. Certain map modifiers, as well as monster auras can grant this effect on enemy mobs however.
Handling reflected damage with Path of Exile items
Reflected damage poses a big threat to high damage characters. As such, it pays well to be cautious of enemies that may have the Damage Return
modifier. Note that damage reflected off mobs is treated as normal damage. This means it can be evaded and mitigated using skill and Path of Exile items.