Overpower Damage is a damage mechanic in Diablo 4 that gives additional damage to an attack or a spell. It can be a stat that can be built around, and though it requires a more involved way of playing the game, it can result in dishing out more powerful attacks. Read ahead as we talk about how to work around and take advantage of Overpower Damage in Diablo 4 and share tips on how to effectively play with it.
How Overpower Damage works
Overpower Damage is a stat that applies to all of the classes in the game. It has a flat 3% chance of proccing and it can only be raised by a certain item affix, although there are some specific skill modifiers that can guarantee an overpower proc after meeting their requirements.
The amount of overpower damage adds scale on the character’s current health points plus their fortify level. This damage also depends on whether it gets procced by a regular attack or a spell, and it can be further appended by skill modifiers or with the Willpower stat.
The chances of proccing overpower are applied to the attack itself, unlike the critical rate, which is based on the target. This is more apparent in AoE skills, where if an overpowered AoE hits, all of the targets take overpower damage, whereas if an AoE skill crits, only a fraction of the targets take crit damage.
It is possible for both overpower and a critical hit to proc in a single attack, boosting up the damage to the maximum that the attack can reach. On the other hand, overpower does not apply to damage over time, passive abilities, or channeled skills.
You can see that you are dealing overpower damage by the color of the damage numbers:
- White – base damage
- Yellow – critical damage
- Blue – overpower damage
- Orange – critical overpower damage
Overpower Damage per Class
Even though all classes possess the overpower stat, only certain classes can take full advantage of it, such as the Barbarian, Necromancer, and Druid due to the overpower-related modifiers that some of their skills have. Rogues and Sorcerers are recommended to build around the crit stat instead when it comes to maximizing DPS.
Barbarians have the following skills:
- Brute Force – Overpowered attacks deal 15% increased damage.
- Gushing Wounds – Hitting a bleeding enemy with an overpowered attack causes an explosion that inflicts 2% bleeding damage over 5 seconds.
- Bash – After critically striking 4 times with Bash using a two-handed weapon will cause the next Core or Weapon Mastery skill to be overpowered.
- Hammer of the Ancients – After overpowering with Hammer of the Ancients, you deal 30% more damage for 5 seconds.
- Legendary Aspect: Earthstriker’s Aspect – After swapping weapons 10 times, your next attack will overpower and deal 30% to 50% increased overpower damage.
Necromancers have the following skills:
- Tides of Blood – Blood skills deal 5% increased overpower damage.
- Rathma’s Vigor – After being healthy for 15 seconds, your next blood skill overpowers.
- Blood Surge – Having 5 stacks of Overwhelming Blood makes the next Blood Surge overpower.
- Blood Lance – After casting Blood Lance 8 times, the next Blood Lance overpowers.
- Blood Mist – Casting a skill that overpowers reduced the cooldown of Blood Mist by 2 seconds.
- Legendary Aspect: Aspect of Rathma’s Chosen – Whenever Blood Skills overpower, you gain 20% to 50% attack speed for 4 seconds.
- Legendary Aspect: Aspect of Untimely Death – Each percent of your maximum life you heal beyond 100% grants you 0.5% bonus overpower damage on the next overpowering attack, up to a 20% to 60% bonus.
Druids have the following skills:
- Provocation – When you remain in Werebear form for at least 30 seconds, your next skill will overpower.
- Pulverize – Your next Pulverize will Overpower every 12 seconds while you remain healthy.
- Boulder – If Boulder overpowered, enemies are stunned for 4 seconds instead of the usual 3.
