Reading Path of Building's numbers without fooling yourself
What Path of Building's DPS and effective HP numbers mean for PoE2, and the configuration settings that quietly make them wrong.
Path of Building calculates what you tell it
Path of Building is the standard tool for theorycrafting Path of Exile builds, and its numbers are only as good as its configuration. It doesn't know whether the enemy is shocked, whether you're standing still, how many totems you place or whether you keep charges up - it uses whatever the Configuration tab says.
If you imported your character from poe.ninja, those settings came along with it. They may be defaults that don't match how you play.
DPS: which number is which
The sidebar shows the damage of your main skill - the one selected at the top of the sidebar. If that's a utility skill, the number means nothing for your clear.
Combined or full DPS adds up skills marked to be included, which can count damage you rarely deal in practice. For triggered spells, the DPS depends on how often the trigger fires, which Path of Building estimates.
Some effects aren't counted at all: extra projectiles hitting the same target, totem placement, or mechanics like Exposure clashing with other supports. When a gem or passive looks useless in Path of Building but every ladder player uses it, that's often why.
Settings that change everything
- Enemy type: a pinnacle boss has far more armour and resistance than a map monster. Check whether you're scoring against the right one
- Charges: 'use power/frenzy/endurance charges' assumes you always have the maximum. Items with a downside per charge then look much worse (or better) than they are
- Enemy conditions: shocked, chilled, ignited and the rest add damage only if they're actually true for most of the fight
- Moving or stationary: some passives and supports only work in one of them
- Resistance penalty: for a levelling character, set the act you're in, not the endgame
Effective HP and maximum hit
Effective HP estimates how much damage you can take before dying, counting resistances, armour, evasion and your pools. Maximum hit taken shows the biggest single hit of each type you'd survive.
Both are better guides than raw life. Maximum hit matters most against bosses with big slams; effective HP is a better general picture. Watch the weakest element in particular - one uncapped resistance shows up as a low maximum hit for that element.
Comparing items
Hovering an item in Path of Building shows what it changes. That comparison runs from a slightly different baseline than the sidebar on some builds, so compare tooltips with tooltips rather than with the sidebar.
PoE MVP measures every upgrade the way those tooltips do and notes on the report when the sidebar number differs, so the gains it shows match what you'd see hovering the item yourself.