Rarity Tiers

Items, monsters, strongboxes, and later even maps, can all have different rarities. Something's rarity determines what properties it has. Generally, something that is 'magic' is stronger than something that is 'normal', and something that is 'rare' is stronger than something that is 'magic'. This is achieved through random modifiers, or 'mods'.

Rarity determines how many mods something can have. Magic rarity typically imbues something with either one or two mods, while most rares can get up to six.

Unique Items:

If you're lucky, you may also find something that is of 'unique' rarity. Unique items always have the same mods, but those mods can be very different to the ones you find on magics and rares. For example, this unique staff changes how your projectiles work:

Many unique items come with a downside, or provide specialised or conditional power without staple mods, such as elemental resistances or life. As a result, using many unique items doesn't necessarily always benefit you! Unique items also have their own special art, names and flavour text.

When people talk about 'uniques', they are usually referring to unique items, but there are also unique strongboxes, maps, and monsters throughout Path of Exile. Major content updates usually includes a number of new uniques.

Stats and Mods I: How Are They Calculated?

Your Path of Exile character is primarily built from a combination of passive skills, skill gems, and items. Both the passive tree and the items can seem overwhelming at first, so in this tutorial we will cover some of the basics.

The Passive Tree:

The most important thing to know is how the passive tree interacts with your character. In general, passive skills affect all the relevant stats on your character, regardless of where they come from. We call these global modifiers.

In the example above, we see that the 'increased maximum life' passives add together before they affect the character's life. Most passive skills, especially any that use the word 'increased', act this way.

'More' and 'Less':

Passives that specifically say they grant 'more' or 'less' of something are the exceptions to the above rule. These are applied after all of the increases, acting like multipliers. Unlike passives which increase something, passives which provide 'more' or 'less' of something never add together and instead each apply their multiplicative effect separately. These terms appear on Keystones in the passive skill tree, but are most commonly seen on support gems.

Global VS Local:

Item mods tend to come in two varieties: 'global mods', which act like the passive skills, and 'local mods', which affect the item itself. Compare the weapons below, and note that the magic weapon (on the right) has 'Increased Physical Damage'. You'll see that the weapon's Physical Damage is higher, and is a different colour. It is this number that is used when other modifiers, such as your passive skills, are used to calculate how much damage your attacks deal.

The same is true for increases to armour on items that naturally provide armour, or increases to evasion on items that naturally provide evasion, and so on. Some mods, such as 'Increased Attack Speed', can appear on both weapons and armour. Like the Increased Physical Damage modifier, the Increased Attack Speed on the weapon shown below is local to the weapon, and changes that specific weapon's rate of attack. The gloves shown below also have Increased Attack Speed, but they affect any weapon you are holding and use the Attacks Per Second value displayed on the weapon to calculate how quickly you attack.

The attack speed mod on these gloves is a global modifier, so it adds together with other global increases to attack speed, including those on your passive tree. As a general rule (though there are occasional exceptions), if the values in the top section of an item are different to the normal basetype, they are benefitting from local modifiers. If a modifier on an item doesn't seem to be affecting anything in the top section, then it is global. See if you can work out which mods are local and which mods are global in the image below.

Stats and Mods II: What to Look Out For

Character builds in Path of Exile are extremely varied, and which items and passives are important to a character is highly dependent on what that character is trying to achieve, but there are some things almost everyone should look out for.

Dealing Damage:

Unless you're in a coordinated group, every character needs a way to kill monsters. Figure out how you plan to deliver damage and look for items that amplify that. If you plan to shoot arrows at monsters from afar, a high-damage bow, as well as passive skills that benefit your chosen weapon, are a must. If you plan to cast spells, look for weapons with 'increased Spell Damage'. If you're strictly dealing fire damage, look for things that boost your fire damage. A fire spell like Fireball benefits from increases to fire, spell, and projectile damage. A character who wants to smash things with a one-handed mace should look for modifiers to one-handed weapons, maces, attacks and melee attacks specifically.

Staying Alive:

You can't kill monsters if you're dead, so you should also carefully consider your defences. Most characters will want some armour, energy shield or evasion, or some combination of the three. Sources of life and increases to it are a great way to extend your lifespan, but you'll also want to seek out ways to mitigate the damage before it ever touches your life pool. Fire damage, such as the fire from a cannibal's thrown torch, can be mitigated by sources of 'Fire Resistance'. Merveil's spells deal cold damage, so 'Cold Resistance' is very useful against her. If a certain spell or attack deals significantly more damage to you than anything else, it might be of an element that you don't have much resistance to. If you're ever unsure where you spend your next passive point, it's almost always worth investing in a relevant defence.