One of the most important aspects of Diablo is to know how your damage works and how to use all the different multipliers to maximize it using Damage Buckets.

Damage Buckets are essentially a term that the Diablo 4 community refers to when discussing the different stacks of damage you can combine in order to increase the attack power of your skills. It’s not an official term, but many popular content creators use it when discussing damage.

In this guide, we will help you understand Damage Buckets and all the types of damage indicators in Diablo 4 to help you combine them to synergize with each other.

What Are Damage Buckets?

Damage Buckets are essentially different categories of damage in Diablo 4 that players can stack up together in order to figure out damage multipliers and total damage.

Here are a few things you need to understand in order to really use Damage Buckets to calculate your total damage when creating a build:

  1. Some types of damage will stack together. This is what is referred to as a Damage Bucket.
  2. To use this method effectively, you need to try and use various Damage Buckets to multiply the amount of damage you do.
  3. When you combine two different Damage Buckets in an attack, you are essentially multiplying how much damage you are doing. This is much more powerful than just stacking damage together.

Damage Buckets in Diablo 4 are typically split up into the following categories:

  • Main Stat for Class
  • [X]% Damage
  • Vulnerable Damage
  • Critical Strike Damage
  • Damage Modifiers
    • Aspects, Passive Abilities, Glyph Paragon Bonuses

The best way to use Damage Buckets is to use a build that properly distributes stats in each of these categories. This way, when you use an ability, you’re using damage that multiplies with each other to reach the highest level of damage possible for your build.

Each category has a very in-depth set of damage types that fall into, but you can get the entire breakdown in SnowRaven’s spreadsheet here.

An example of a powerful combination of Damage Buckets can be seen with the Chain Lightning Sorcerer Build:

  • Main Stat (Intelligence)
  • [X]% Damage (Weapon and Chain Lightning’s Damage %)
  • Damage Modifiers (Aspect of Control: Deal 35%x Damage)
  • High Critical Strike Chance of the build
  • Vulnerable Damage (Frost Nova Skill)

With this setup, using Frost Nova and then Chain Lightning immediately after will help you trigger most Damage Buckets and really stack up the multipliers.

However, to help you get an idea of what each Damage Bucket consists of, we’ll go into more detail with each category below.

All Damage Bucket Categories Explained

Each Damage Bucket can be broken down and understood by looking into the following stats:

Main Stat for Class

Every class in Diablo 4 has one stat that directly affects the amount of damage they do. It is essential for players to know what stat that is because it serves as one of your Damage Buckets.

Here are the main stat attributes for each of the classes in Diablo 4:

  • Barbarian – Strength
  • Rogue – Dexterity
  • Necromancer – Intelligence
  • Sorcerer – Intelligence
  • Druid – Willpower

Make sure to raise the stat appropriate for each class in order to maximize the attack damage of your skills and weapons.

Class Stat Damage Bucket Diablo 4
Main Stat for Necromancer

[X]% Damage

This Damage Bucket includes any damage multipliers that you obtain from your weapons or skills. When you have advanced tooltips enabled, you can see which types of damage are multiplied by the small [x] next to the number.

You can use the advanced tooltips to look through your skills to help you see which ones exactly will help you increase this Damage Bucket.

Usually, damage in this Damage Bucket appears as “(#) Damage” in your inventory.

X Damage Diablo Damage Bucket

Vulnerable Damage

There are skills in Diablo 4 that will make enemies Vulnerable and increase the amount of damage that your character deals to them. It is one of the main forms of damage in the game and one of the best Damage Buckets to use to multiply your damage.

It’s pretty easy to increase your Vulnerable Damage, but it doesn’t work well by itself. You need to increase your other Damage Buckets as well in order to make the most of it.

Vulnerable Damage Bucket

Critical Strike Damage

Every attack in Diablo 4 has a chance of becoming a Critical Strike. The higher your Critical Strike Chance, the higher the probability of inflicting Critical Strike damage to an enemy.

When you land a Critical Strike on an enemy, the damage indicator will appear as yellow. It multiplies all of the damage that you would’ve inflicted, so it’s one of the best Damage Buckets in Diablo 4.

Critical Strike Damage Bucket

Damage Modifiers

There are various damage modifiers that players will encounter in Diablo 4 with their passives, aspects, and Paragon Board.

It is one of the easiest to raise because almost every Paragon Glypb bonus and Legendary Affix falls into this category. Most damage bonuses that list a condition to activate will also fall into this category.