Can we talk about the DoT cap?

Dear GGG, surely it's time to revisit the supposed limitation of per minute calculation that caps damage over time builds to 35.7 million DPS and change.

Poison builds are severely hamstrung by this limitation, and I don't buy the official reasoning that there is a 32 bit ceiling on variables used in the calculations. That may have been true in the past - maybe - but I know enough about code to know there is always a way around such things.

PoE 2 is live now, and it's 2025. Don't you think it's time to fix this?

Last league I played EA totem elementalist and I had dot cap. I had the same post about raising the dot cap. Most of the replies were about it would trivialize the game because you just run around after inflicting a big ignite. I mean sure I can see why but then on the other hand why do we have 500 million dps builds possible? Is that not trivializing the content when you phase the boss in 1 second.

the DOT cap is exactly 2^31-1 damage per minute.

2^31-1 is the upper limit of a signed 32 bit integer.

So the "official reasoning" is solid. There's not a technical reason they can't change the data type to something that's not a 32 bit signed integer, but I'm quite certain it would involve an incredible level of testing in order to make sure they haven't completely messed something up.


have you ever considered that GGG just doesn't actually want people to deal more than 10s of millions of damage?

Every time a good build comes out they take steps to nerf it, the DOT cap is just a convenience for them to not have to figure out other ways to nerf DOT damage.

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deadly992#6490 wrote:

the DOT cap is exactly 2^31-1 damage per minute.
have you ever considered that GGG just doesn't actually want people to deal more than 10s of millions of damage?

There's no shortage of ways to deal more than 10s of millions of damage. Or 100s.

If anything I suspect ubers having damage reduction instead of massively more HP is a way to let DoT builds suffer less from the technical limitations since it allows you to deal roughly 119.3m dps from dots before the 70% reduction caps it back to 35.79m.

35m dps = severely hamstrung? Holy insane standards as a HCSSF player it doesnt even make sense to me

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Fernanda#5108 wrote:

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deadly992#6490 wrote:

the DOT cap is exactly 2^31-1 damage per minute.
have you ever considered that GGG just doesn't actually want people to deal more than 10s of millions of damage?

There's no shortage of ways to deal more than 10s of millions of damage. Or 100s.

If anything I suspect ubers having damage reduction instead of massively more HP is a way to let DoT builds suffer less from the technical limitations since it allows you to deal roughly 119.3m dps from dots before the 70% reduction caps it back to 35.79m.

Correct, that is one reason for the damage reduction. The second reason is that boss HP also has a cap and the damage reduction allows GGG to give bosses more survivability past the HP cap.

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Scarletsword#4354 wrote:

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Fernanda#5108 wrote:

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deadly992#6490 wrote:

the DOT cap is exactly 2^31-1 damage per minute.
have you ever considered that GGG just doesn't actually want people to deal more than 10s of millions of damage?

There's no shortage of ways to deal more than 10s of millions of damage. Or 100s.

If anything I suspect ubers having damage reduction instead of massively more HP is a way to let DoT builds suffer less from the technical limitations since it allows you to deal roughly 119.3m dps from dots before the 70% reduction caps it back to 35.79m.

Correct, that is one reason for the damage reduction. The second reason is that boss HP also has a cap and the damage reduction allows GGG to give bosses more survivability past the HP cap.

What's the cap on boss hp?

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ZarkBit#6794 wrote:

What's the cap on boss hp?

The HP cap for monsters is a 32-bit signed integer or ~2,15 billion. The only place to reach this is deep delve.

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Scarletsword#4354 wrote:

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ZarkBit#6794 wrote:

What's the cap on boss hp?

The HP cap for monsters is a 32-bit signed integer or ~2,15 billion. The only place to reach this is deep delve.

Right, makes sense lol ^^

Like others said (and appear to be ignored)....the DoT cap is not a function of any rationale on damage on GGG's part. It is purely a limitation of how the system can calculate DoTs.

It's not just "oh lets tweak the numbers": its a reprogramming of how the ENTIRE game calculates damage and instances. Because the 32-bit programming isn't JUST DoT's....

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t0lkien#7048 wrote:

but I know enough about code to know there is always a way around such things.

Problem is....your post doesn't suggest this is true. I would recommend NOT talking about code or speculating about code unless you are absolutely 100% sure you know what you are talking about because it is incredibly easy to tell when you are not.

Hit damage, by its very nature of non-continuous single calculation, doesn't share the same limiter. It would make far more sense for GGG to limit or cap hit damage than it would for them to restructure the entire underlying foundation of how the game works to increase DoT.

But good luck suggesting a limit on hit damage lol.


It might actually surprise many of you to know that this same limitation is pretty much in every game, but its the itemization or character design in those games that already make it impossible to get anywhere near those "caps". Unfortunately, PoE did a very poor job controlling power creep for too long and now the caps are real.