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Diablo 4 has significantly more depth than its predecessor, featuring many more ways to augment your build and overall playstyle. Part of this added depth comes from new terms and keywords added by Blizzard in this installment, some of which are confusing on the surface.
While scaling your damage and attack speed is simple enough, figuring out how Lucky Hits and Overpower damage work can intimidate newcomers. Thankfully, this guide will help cover these keywords for you. This glossary of sorts covers all important effects and terms in Diablo 4. Use the table of contents above to find a specific keyword you’re interested in learning more about.
Armor
Armor reduces the damage your character receives from attacks. It can be obtained from all armor types for all five classes, scaling based on the armor’s Item Power rating and additional armor modifiers you have through affixes or the Paragon Board.
Armor applies its full value against physical attacks and 50% of its total value against non-physical attacks—elemental resistance modifiers determine the remaining 50%. While Armor itself is a flat value, it reduces incoming damage by a percentage. This percentage can be found by hovering over your Armor tooltip on the character screen. Listed mitigation values are for PvE monsters equal to your character’s level.
In PvP environments, Armor mitigates 65% of all incoming damage. Elemental resistances make up the remaining 35% of non-physical damage you receive. This is calculated after your inherit PvP damage reduction value.
Barrier
Barrier is a second health bar that can be generated through certain skills and Legendary Aspects. It is the Sorcerer’s main defensive mechanic. Sources of Barrier will protect the user’s Life pool for its listed duration, absorbing 100% of all incoming damage until the Barrier is broken. Overkill damage to the Barrier will affect your HP pool. The maximum value for your Barrier is equal to your maximum HP.
Common sources of Barrier include the Protector Legendary Aspect, the Sorcerer’s Ice Armor skill, and the Barbarian’s Iron Skin skill.
Control Impaired
Control Impaired refers to a target currently under the effects of Crowd Control, disabling the usage of skills, potions, or the evade input. Crowd Control (CC for short) refers to a status ailment that limits the character’s ability to move, attack, or otherwise perform actions.
Players can break out of CC effects by using any skill that grants Unstoppable or Immune. Elite monsters will become Unstoppable if they suffer from multiple CC effects in a short period. Bosses cannot be Control Impaired until their stagger meter breaks, showcased as a blue bar under their health bar. Stagger is built up by inflicting CC effects on the boss.
When you break a boss’ stagger meter, they are considered debuffed by every crowd control effect simultaneously. This lasts until their stagger meter resets.
Common sources of CC include stuns, freeze, daze effects from certain monster attacks, and fear.
Critical Chance And Damage
Critical strikes inflict bonus damage to the target, dealing your skill’s expected damage multiplied by your critical strike damage modifier (150% by default). All attacks in Diablo 4 have a base critical strike chance of 5%, and other sources of critical chance are additive with one another. Critical damage modifiers are also additive with each other.
Common sources of critical modifiers include item affixes, one of your class’ core attributes, Legendary Aspects, and skill tree passives.
Crackling Energy
Crackling Energy is a mechanic that’s exclusive to the Sorcerer class.
Crackling Energy is an orb of energy that Sorcerers can pick up to imbue themselves with lightning, causing their body to release chain lightning when targets approach. By default, picking up a Crackling Energy orb will grant three charges of the Crackling Energy buff.
While you have this buff, you will release chain lightning to nearby targets every 0.5 seconds, dealing roughly 10-15% weapon damage. Crackling Energy can chain between enemies three times by default, and it has a targeting range of roughly two-thirds of your screen. Legendary Aspects and skill tree passives can augment Crackling Energy’s damage, maximum chains, or grant other boons when grabbed.
Common sources of Crackling Energy include lightning skill augments, the Static Discharge passive, and the Spark Enchantment.
Damage Reduction
As the name suggests, damage reduction effects reduce incoming damage after Armor and Resistance mitigation sources have been applied. Damage reduction (DR for short) sources are multiplicative, causing diminishing returns with heavy investment. Your current DR sources can be seen on your stats page in the character menu.
Common sources of damage reduction can be found as item affixes and skill tree passives. Barbarians also have an intrinsic 10% damage reduction modifier against all damage types.
Dexterity
Dexterity is one of four core attributes in Diablo 4, granting dodge chance to all classes. Certain classes also gain additional benefits for investing in Dexterity, such as added critical chance or base damage. These bonuses can be found below:
- Barbarian: Grants critical chance and dodge chance.
- Druid: Grants critical chance and dodge chance.
- Necromancer: Grants critical chance and dodge chance.
- Rogue: Grants skill damage and dodge chance.
- Sorcerer: Grants critical chance and dodge chance.
Elemental Resistance
Resistance modifiers reduce half of all incoming non-physical damage. For example, if an attack deals 100 Fire damage, 50 of that damage would be mitigated by your Fire Resistance rating. The other half of that damage would then be mitigated by your Armor rating.
There are resistance modifiers for the following damage types: fire, cold, lightning, poison, and shadow. Resistances apply to both direct damage and damage-over-time (DoT) sources.
Common sources of resistance include jewelry, armor affixes, and gems socketed into jewelry.
Fortify
Fortify is a second health pool that can be generated through certain abilities and passives. It is available to Necromancers, Druids, and Barbarians. Fortify grants 10% damage resistance while active and evenly splits all incoming damage between your Fortify and Life pools. Your Fortify pool slowly decays over time.
Unlike Barrier, Fortify counts as HP for the purposes of calculating Overpower damage, making this a potent survivability and damage increase for Overpower builds. Fortify’s maximum pool can be increased through certain class passives and items.
Common sources of Fortify include the Necromancer, Druid, and Barbarian’s various skill augments. Certain Legendary Aspects can also grant Fortify under certain conditions.
Healthy
A character is Healthy when their Life pool is greater than or equal to 80%. If your character is currently Healthy, a red circle will appear on the outside of the Life globe on your HUD.
Intelligence
Intelligence is one of four core attributes in Diablo 4, granting bonus elemental resistance to all classes. Other classes gain additional bonuses for investing in this stat, as showcased below:
- Barbarian: Grants elemental resistance.
- Druid: Grants resource generation and elemental resistance.
- Necromancer: Grants skill damage and elemental resistance.
- Rogue: Grants critical strike chance and elemental resistance.
- Sorcerer: Grants skill damage and elemental resistance.
Lucky Hit
Every attack in Diablo 4 has a chance of being a Lucky Hit, giving the attack a chance of activating Lucky Hit conditionals found on your skill tree passives, certain skills, and item affixes. Simply put, Lucky Hit refers to a skill’s proc coefficient, the probability it’ll trigger certain Lucky Hit effects when used.
Unlike critical hits, your Lucky Hit chance varies from skill to skill. You can check your skill’s Lucky Hit chance by toggling «Advanced Tooltip Information» in the options menu. In general, slow-hitting skills tend to have high Lucky Hit probabilities while fast, multi-hit skills have low Lucky Hit values. Modifiers to Lucky Hit chance are multiplicative with your base Lucky Hit chance.
When a Lucky Hit procs, all Lucky Hit effects you have will individually roll to see if they occur. For example, if you have three different «on Lucky Hit’ affixes on your gear, all three effects would each individually roll when you land a single Lucky Hit. Lucky Hits do not alter your damage directly, although these Lucky Hit effects typically provide powerful damage or utility effects.
Common sources of Lucky Hit modifiers include skill tree passives, item affixes, and certain Paragon Board nodes.
Overpower Damage
Every attack has a 3% chance to deal Overpower damage, adding your current Life and Fortify values to the attack. For example, if your attack deals 100 damage and you have 1,000 Life, an Overpower attack will deal 1,100 damage. This bonus damage is based on your current Life and Fortify values, not your maximum values.
A skill’s base Overpower chance of 3% cannot be modified through item affixes or passives. With that said, certain skills and passive effects can guarantee Overpower damage if certain conditions are met. For example, one of the Druid’s Snake Spirit boons provides a guaranteed Overpower hit for every 10 Earth skills you cast.
Overpower damage modifiers do exist, however, and are fairly accessible. Certain item affixes, skill tree passives, and Ruby gems can add an Overpower damage multiplier. You can also modify your base Overpower damage by increasing your Life and Fortify pools. The more HP and Fortify you have when an Overpower skill triggers, the more damage you’ll deal.
Common sources of Overpower include Druid’s Pulverize skill, most Necromancer Blood skills, and certain Legendary Aspects.
Strength
Strength is one of four core attributes in Diablo 4, granting a flat amount of Armor to all classes. Certain classes gain additional bonuses for increasing their Strength value, as shown below:
- Barbarian: Grants skill damage and armor.
- Druid: Grants armor.
- Necromancer: Grants armor.
- Rogue: Grants resource generation and armor.
- Sorcerer: Grants armor.
Thorns
Thorns deal a flat amount of damage to enemies when they hit you. Excluding damage-over-time effects, every instance of damage you receive will trigger Thorns on the attacker. Only the attacker receives this damage, although certain Legendary Affixes can make Thorns apply over a small area. Thorns damage can also be scaled by your class’ main attribute—for example, the Strength stat for Barbarians.
Notable sources of Thorns include item affixes, passive nodes on the Barbarian’s skill tree, and the Razorplate Unique body armor.
Unstoppable
An Unstoppable opponent is immune to all crowd control effects, denoted by a pair of broken chains floating above the target’s head. Players can use an Unstoppable skill to break out of any crowd control effect immediately. Elite monsters can also gain Unstoppable for a few seconds if you repeatedly crowd control them. It’s also worth noting that bosses are considered Unstoppable until their stagger meter breaks.
Common sources of Unstoppable include the Sorcerer’s Teleport skill, the Barbarian’s Charge skill, and certain Legendary Aspects.
Vulnerable
Vulnerable targets receive 15% more damage from all sources, denoted by a purple aura around the target’s Life bar. If you are affected by Vulnerability, purple cracks will appear on your Life globe. This damage bonus is multiplicative with all other sources.
Common sources of Vulnerability include most Sorcerer ice skills, Barbarian skill augments, and certain Legendary Aspects.
Willpower
Willpower is one of four core attributes in Diablo 4, increasing all healing received and Overpower damage dealt. Additional bonuses are also tied to Willpower for certain classes, as shown below:
- Barbarian: Grants resource generation, Overpower damage, and buffs all healing received.
- Druid: Grants skill damage, Overpower damage, and buffs all healing received.
- Necromancer: Grants resource generation, Overpower damage, and buffs all healing received.
- Rogue: Grants Overpower damage and buffs all healing received.
- Sorcerer: Grants resource generation, Overpower damage, and buffs all healing received.