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InPath of Exile 2, Witch players whochoose the Lich Ascendancywill be able to gain access to a buff called Unholy Might through two of the Ascendancy passives: Necromantic Conduit and Blackened Heart.
The in-game tooltip description states that Unholy Might converts 30% of all damage into extra Chaos damage for that character, but the behind-the-scenes calculations may be different from what many players may imagine. Here’s the breakdown.
How Does Unholy Might Work in PoE 2
Unholy Might has the following description:
Unholy Might is a buff that grants 30% of all damage as extra Chaos Damage.
What’s confusing about this buff is that the ‘30% of all Damage’ seems like a lot, but in actual practice, it doesn’t seem very impressive. To understand why this is, we have to understand how the‘extra’conversion works in PoE 2.
If you have a damage source that does 100 Lightning Damage, 30% of that damage will be converted to Chaos and added on top of the base damage type. This means you would do 100 Lightning damage and 30 Chaos Damage, for a total of 130 damage.The base damage value is not converted to Chaos.
Now, the tricky part is that if you have an item that, for example, gives you 50% increased Lightning damage (let’s sayEarthbound), it does not apply to the Chaos damage in any way, shape, or form. This means that with Unholy Might and 80% increased Lightning damage Earthbound; you would do 180 Lightning damage and 30 Chaos damage. 80% of 100 is 80, which added to 100 is 180, so 180 Lightning damage. Chaos damage is calculated based on the base value of 100.
If you do have increased Chaos damage modifiers, the extra Chaos damage would be buffed by it, but only that. So, if you have 50% increased Chaos damage, it would mean the damage would be 100 Lightning damage + 30 Chaos damage + 15 Chaos Damage (from the 50% modifier).
The only exception to this is if your base damage type is also Chaos damage. This would make it so that the scaling values would apply to both the base value and the extra Chaos damage gained from Unholy Might.
The ‘extra Chaos damage’ from Unholy Might does not apply to damage over time; it only applies to Hits.
Because the scaling of the base damage type and the extra damage type if they are different, Unholy Might only really works when it is used in a mono-Chaos damage-focused build that scales with only this damage type.
What Does ‘Presence’ in Unholy Might Mean
Presence refers to thearea of effect within which Unholy Might will be active. By default, this area has a 4-meter radius, but this can be increased using Presence Area Modifiers, typically found on Sceptres, Time-Lost Jewels, and certain Notables in thepassive skill treelike Enveloping Essence, Long Distance Relationship, and Profane Commander.
Presence is only affected by ‘Increased Presence Area of Effect’, not by ‘Increased Area of Effect’ or ‘More Area of Effect.’
How to Get Unholy Might in PoE 2
There are two ways to get access to Unholy Might inPath of Exile 2.
With Vis Mortis, only the minions summoned by the wearer gain Unholy Might; the character does not.
