In Last Epoch, the Harvest skill's damage mechanics involving Added Damage Effectiveness and Dexterity operate through a nuanced interaction of flat and percentage-based scalings, crucial for optimizing build damage output. Harvest’s base damage is relatively low (around 2 damage), but it benefits significantly from attribute scaling and external added damage sources, which are multiplied by the skill's specific Added Damage Effectiveness value, set at 70% Last Epoch Gold.
Added Damage Effectiveness is a multiplier applied to the flat added damage component of a skill, affecting how external sources of flat damage—such as weapon affixes, gear bonuses, or passive tree nodes—contribute to the total damage dealt. For Harvest, while its base damage remains constant, any flat added damage gained from equipment or other sources is multiplied by 70%. This means that if you have +100 flat added damage from gear, only 70 of those points effectively contribute to Harvest’s damage output after this modifier.
Dexterity, as an attribute, influences Harvest in two important ways. First, every point of Dexterity grants a 4% increased damage to Harvest, which is a direct multiplicative increase on the skill's total damage. This part of Dexterity’s scaling is fully effective and not reduced by the 70% Added Damage Effectiveness. Second, Dexterity does not provide any flat damage, so its benefit is purely multiplicative rather than additive. This makes Dexterity extremely valuable for scaling Harvest damage since its percentage-based buff is unaffected by the Added Damage Effectiveness limitation.
Conversely, Intelligence adds flat necrotic melee damage to Harvest at a rate of +1 per point. This flat increase is treated like any other added flat damage source and thus is subject to the 70% Added Damage Effectiveness. So, for every point of Intelligence, only 0.7 damage effectively contributes after factoring in Added Damage Effectiveness. This contrasts with Dexterity’s percentage bonus and creates a difference in how these attributes contribute to overall damage scaling.
When building a Harvest-focused character, balancing Dexterity and Intelligence becomes important. Dexterity boosts the damage multiplier directly and consistently, making it critical for percentage-based damage scaling and ensuring smooth skill rotation by enhancing proc rates. Intelligence supplements base damage through flat increments but with diminished effectiveness due to the 70% Added Damage multiplier. High Dexterity typically offers greater damage gains, while Intelligence provides a steady but reduced flat damage boost buy Last Epoch Gold.
Finally, it’s essential to understand that the damage formula for Harvest integrates both base damage, multiplied by added damage, and the percentage increase from Dexterity in a layered calculation: total damage equals base damage plus (added damage × 0.7), all multiplied by (1 + 0.04 × Dexterity). This means optimization prioritizes sources with percentage increases (Dexterity and increased damage modifiers) while recognizing flat damage sources (including from Intelligence) are dampened by the added damage effectiveness penalty. Effective gearing and skill point distribution should therefore emphasize Dexterity alongside targeted flat damage sources to maximize Harvest’s damage potential.
