Diablo 4 Guide - Overpower Mechanic Explained

Diablo 4 is an action RPG with many mechanics under its hood. Most of them are easy to understand but there is a handful of them that require some experimentation and research to fully grasp what a particular mechanic can do for your character. One of them is Overpower, a new mechanic added in Diablo 4 and this quick guide fully explains how it works. 

Diablo 4 Overpower - how it Works

Overpower is a new addition to the series and is not a critical hit or a lucky hit, it’s a special hit that triggers from any direct damage skill you do. You might have seen it trigger when you were going through the game’s campaign as Overpower damage is displayed as a blue damage number on the screen when it triggers. This Overpower can also trigger a critical hit, and when it does it is shown as a dark orange damage number. 

How to trigger Overpower

But how often does Overpower trigger? Sadly, it’s a flat 3% chance across all classes when you attack with skills and so far there’s no way to increase these chances. The only thing a player can do with Overpower is either increase its damage output or use a passive kill in the Skill Tree or an Aspect to guarantee an Overpower on the next hit. 

The overall damage an Overpower hit can do is a bit tricky, so here’s a quick summary of how it works:

• The Overpower effect grants extra damage to whatever skill triggered the effect.

• An Overpower hit has a base value of an additional 50% damage that can be increased with gear or skills

• The Overpower hit then scales higher based on your current life at the time of the hit plus the amount of Fortify you have on your character at the time.

• Damage over Time (DoT), passive abilities, and channeling skills cannot be Overpowered.

The classes that benefit the most from the Overpower mechanic are Barbarians and Druids as they are more flexible in increasing their total health pool and applying the Fortify effect, making any Overpower hit more potent. 

You can guarantee an Overpower hit

The flat 3% chance sounds a bit rough, but as mentioned earlier, there is another way to trigger it as certain passive skills and Aspects from classes can guarantee an Overpower hit.

Some classes do have perks and abilities that force an Overpower on their next hit. For example, in the Barbarian Skill Tree, the passive skill Combat Bash for the Basic Skill Bash guarantees an Overpower if you critically strike 4 times with the Bash skill using a two-handed weapon. 

There are Aspects that can also guarantee an Overpower hit. For example, there is an Aspect called Earthstriker’s Aspect for the Barbarian that when you swap weapons 10 times, your next attack will Overpower and deal 30% increased Overpower damage.

That’s a lot of conditions to make Overpower trigger, which is why in the current state of the game, Overpower is a difficult mechanic to make a build around it as it feels more like an extra effect that could turn the tide during a fight.

Diablo 4 is now available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC.

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