Sadist and End bosses question

I know elemental ailment chance is based on how much damage I deal on the boss but I still have some questions.

If I critical, is it guaranteed to cause elemental ailment? I am trying to see if Sadist is worth stacking.


If I have something like 10% chance to Chill, Shock and Ignite, I can reliably causing ailment on End bosses?


I am debating to go for either Elemental cluster jewel or Attack cluster. I will be using Explosive Concoction which has Lighting and Cold damage as well.

If it's Attack cluster, I am thinking Martial Prowess, Calamitous, Devastator
(on a side note, is Devastator worth it even if I don't have +physical damage?)

If it's Elemental cluster, I am thinking Corrosive elemental, Sadist and something else that's affordable.

Just causing the ailment is not based on how much damage you deal, just that some form of damage can apply the ailment. So any amount fire damage to ignite, cold to chill and lightning to shock. Or have some way to make ailments apply with non standard damage like 3 dragons or call of the brotherhood.

And yes crits always cause ailments so if you crit reliably and have at least one point of damage for each element then sadist will always be applied at full power.

If all you have is the 10 chance to freeze, shock, ignite I dont think it will be that reliable though.


Actually slight amendment to this, shocks get discarded if their value is less than 5% so you will need some amount of lightning damage to always shock or cause shock with a different element.

I see. So is my lightning damage is too low and can't deal at least 5% of End boss life, I am not causing any shock?

I will have critical chance for sure.

If I have 20% chance to cause Shock, do I still cause Shock if I am not dealing 5% of boss' health?

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chinesefoodverygood wrote:

I see. So is my lightning damage is too low and can't deal at least 5% of End boss life, I am not causing any shock?

I will have critical chance for sure.

If I have 20% chance to cause Shock, do I still cause Shock if I am not dealing 5% of boss' health?

Not quite on the first statement. Bosses have what is known as "ailment threshold," which means you can cause ailments on them with far less than the standard 5% of their life. PoB has these thresholds calculated. Just load your guy up and check the calculations. It will tell you how much ailment % you do to Sirus A8 (he's a good proxy for this).

Chance to cause an ailment does not override the need to do a certain amount of damage in a hit. What it does do is give you a chance to cause the ailment when you do NOT crit. So if you have 20% chance to shock, you will shock 20% of the time that you don't crit and 100% of the time that you do. How much damage you did will then determine the magnitude of the ailment as well as whether it sticks or not.

With Sadist, I don't care how much elemental damage I do as long as I can cause all 3 ailment right?


While lighting/cold damage from Explosive Concoction isn't very high, I think it's enough to cause ailment and plus, I will be doing criticals as well.


Looks like I won't be getting the 10% chance to cause elemental ailment node then. It seems kind of pointless if I can critical often.