Path of Exile 2: Aftershock, Explained

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What are aftershocks?

What causes aftershocks?

There are many ways to deal with damage Path of Exile 2. Its skill tree is more of a skill forest, and if you've fallen into the warrior's side of the woods, you've probably heard about the Aftershock effect a few times.

Aftershock is one of the options players can take when deploying a warrior Path of Exile 2, and it can be very satisfying to use if done right. Here's what you need to know about how Aftershock works, including the things you can use to trigger it.

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What are aftershocks?

Aftershock is an effect exclusively tied to skills with the Slam tag (with some exceptions), and it basically makes abilities hit twice. Slam refers to any ability that involves striking the ground with a weapon to cause AoE damage, such as Rolling Slam and Sunder under the Mace skill and Vaulting Leap under the Quarterstaff. When an aftershock occurs, the ground where the original Slam attack shakes after a short delaydamage all enemies standing on it. This is a great way to scale your damage in awesome severity and beyond.

The damage caused by an aftershock is the same as the attack that caused itunless otherwise specified by which Support Gem or passive skill caused the aftershock in the first place. In the case of the Sunder skill, Aftershocks causes an extra wave of spiked spikes to burst forward, essentially making the skill cast twice (or more).

What causes aftershocks?

Players can trigger Aftershocks by unlocking certain passive skills or using specific Support Gems in PoE 2. Some skills also have guaranteed Aftershock procs. Notable aftershock triggers include:

Aftershock Skills and Passives
Skill	Effect
Impact Shockwave (Tier 1 Support Gem)	Melee skills cause aftershock after Heavy Stun an enemy.
Aftershocks (Tier 2 Support Gem)	Supported Slam skills have a 25% chance to cause aftershocks.
Tremors (Tier 3 Support Gem)	Supported Slam skills deal 35% reduced damage but can trigger multiple aftershocks.
Earthbreaker (Titan Ascendancy Passive)	Sludge you use yourself has a 20% chance to cause aftershocks.
Split The Earth (Mace Passive)	Slam and Strike skills with Maces have a 10% chance to cause Aftershocks.
Mace Aftershock Chance (Mace Passive)	All Slam skills with Maces have a 10% chance to cause Aftershocks.
Seismic cry (Mace Skill)	Let out a war cry. If it hits a Heavy Stunned enemy, your next Slam attack is guaranteed to trigger an aftershock.
Supercharged Slime (Mace Skill)	Charge up for a heavy blast. Guarantees up to four aftershocks when fully charged.

Effects that boost or give you a chance to trigger Aftershocks work together, but they don't necessarily stack on top of each other. For example, using the Aftershock Support Gem with Titan's Earthbreaker passive gives all relevant skills a 45% chance to trigger Aftershocks according to the in-game tooltip window. However, this does not account for the Split The Earth and Mace Aftershock Chance passives, which appear to roll separately from the established 45% trigger chance.