Leech

"Life Leech" redirects here. For the support gem, see Life Leech Support. For the passive skill, see Life Leech (passive skill).

"Mana Leech" redirects here. For the support gem, see Mana Leech Support.

Path of Exile: Life Leech

Leech recovers an amount of life, mana or energy shield over time, relative to the damage inflicted on an enemy. Leech cares about the damage taken by the enemy, not the amount of life removed.

Mechanics

Default Leech limitations between different resources.

Resource	Leech cap	lps	Tot lps
Life	10%	2%	20%
Energy Shield	10%	2%	10%
Mana	10%	2%	20%

All leech mechanics act the same way for life, mana and energy shield. Examples in this article will use life, but if the character has equal statistics for a different resource (mana or energy shield), they will apply in the same way.

Whenever a character with some source of leech hits a monster a leech instance is created. A life leech instance has the following properties by default:

• Each life leech instance is independent.
• Recovers the character's life for the Damage Dealt * #% damage Leeched as Life up to 10% of maximum life.
• Recovers at a rate of 2% of maximum life per second.
• Recovers until the instance expires or the character is at full life. Therefore at full life all instances are removed.

Multiple leech instance stacks and apply to the character simultaneously which will lead to the total life leech rate increasing. There is no limit in number of active leech instances but the total sum of leech rate is instead limited to 20% of maximum life per second. The extra healing over that cap will be ignored. Reaching the max leech rate is quickly achieved when using an area of effect skill, a single hit that struck 10 enemies will result in 10 separate leech instances.

Leech grants recovery to the entity that hit the target. If a minion or totem with leech hits another monster the leech will grant recovery to that minion or totem only, not the character. Leech on a trap or mine has no effect, as the source of the hit has no life to recover.

Modifiers

Leech can be modified significantly through passives, support gems, and equipment. Beyond just adding various sources of leech, modifiers such as #% increased total Recovery per second from Life Leech or #% increased Maximum total Recovery per second from Life Leech can change how leech is applied to a character.

• 50% increased Maximum Recovery per Life Leech increases the default 10% of the character's maximum life pool leeched per hit/instance to 15% of the character's maximum life pool leeched per hit/instance.

• 50% increased total Recovery per second from Life Leech increases the default 2% of maximum life that can be recovered as life per second from a single instance to 3% of maximum life recovered as life per second from a single instance.

• 50% increased Maximum total Recovery per second from Life Leech increases the default 20% of maximum life that can be recovered per second from all instances combined to 30% of maximum life that can be recovered per second from all instances combined.

There are a few notable ways to affect leech:

• The of Smothering modifier for maps slows life and mana leech recovery rate by 50%.
• For life leech by a skill supported by the gem.
• and the Tukohama, War's Herald passive, which allow other entities to leech life to you.
• Brutal Fervour or allows leech instances to continue even if the character has reached full life.
• Players can become immune to being leeched from items such as
• Items such as prevents the user from leeching.

Leech duration

The leech recovery duration is how long in seconds a leech instance will last, based on damage dealt and character's Leech modifiers.

By default a maximum of an instance is 10% of character's maximum Life, and maximum Rate is 2% of character's maximum Life per second, resulting in a maximum 5 seconds duration of a single Leech instance.

Combined Recovery Rate

The total leech recovery rate (accounting for all instances of leech) can be calculated by

total_leech_recovery_rate_per_second = max_life * 2% * instances_of_leech

where max_life can also be the character's maximum mana or energy shield.

This combined rate is subject to the total leech rate cap, which is by default 20% of the character's maximum health. This maximum is increased by #% increased Maximum total Recovery per second from Life Leech modifiers.

As such, each character only requires a certain number of leech instances before they will be recovering at their maximum rate. This maximum can be found with the below formula:

max_instances = (20% * (1 + increased_maximum_total_recovery_per_second)) / (2% * (1 + increased_total_recovery_per_second))

For a default character, this is 10 instances, but any increases or decreases from #% increased total Recovery per second from Life Leech or #% increased Maximum total Recovery per second from Life Leech will change this number. If a character has too many leech instances, the extra healing will be ignored.

Types of leech

There are several types of leech that specialize on certain types of skills. Some leech types only work for attacks, others only works with elemental damage or all sources of physical damage. If there is specialization it will be defined in the modifier.

Generally the leech modifiers follow this template:

#% of X Y Damage Z Leeched as Life/Mana

Where X can be:

• Physical/Fire/Cold/Lightning/Elemental/Chaos

Y can be:

• Attack/Spell

and Z can be:

• Dealt with {Weapons}

Note that if X, Y or Z are not specified it means that it applies to all those types.

A couple of examples:

• has the mod #% of Damage Leeched as Life implying it works for all types of skills that hit a target.
• has the mod Cursed enemies grant #% Life Leech when Hit by Attacks, specifying it applies to attacks. All types of damage from the attack will be counted, but not Spells.
• The notable passive Lust for Carnage grants the mod #% of Physical Attack Damage Leeched as Life specifying it applies to Physical Attacks. All types of weapons can make use of this notable, however not Spells.

Items

Active skill gems

Main page: List of leech related skill gems

Support skill gems

Main page: List of leech related skill gems

Other items

• Elder amulets can have +(3–5)% of maximum Life per second to maximum Life Leech rate.
• Elder amulets can have (0.3–0.5)% of Physical Damage Leeched as Life.
• Elder amulets can have (0.3–0.5)% of Fire Damage Leeched as Life.
• Shaper amulets can have (0.3–0.5)% of Cold Damage Leeched as Life.
• Shaper amulets can have (0.3–0.5)% of Lightning Damage Leeched as Life.
• Shaper boots can have Socketed Gems are supported by Level 15 Life Leech.
• Shaper gloves can have Socketed Gems are supported by Level 15 Mana Leech.
• grants (0.5-1.3)% of Physical Attack Damage Leeched as Life to weapons or quivers.
• grants (0.2-1)% of Physical Attack Damage Leeched as Mana to weapons or quivers.
• grants 0.5% of Chaos Damage Leeched as Life to amulets.

Passive skills

There are passive skills that grant passive leech or bonuses to leech.

Life leech

Attack Damage Leeched as Life

These passive skills grant passive life leech when dealing any damage with a weapon.

Increased Life Leeched per second

These passive skills increase the rate of life gained while leeching.

Increase to Maximum Life Leech rate

These passive skills increase the maximum life leech rate.

Minion Life Leech

These passive skills grant life leech for minions.

Keystones

These keystone passives change the way Life Leech works, but do not directly enhance Life Leech. These effects do not apply to Mana Leech.

Mana leech

Attack Damage Leeched as Mana

These passive skills grant passive mana leech when dealing any damage with a weapon.

Increased Mana Leeched per second

These passive skills increase the rate of mana gained while leeching.

Increase to Maximum Mana Leech rate

These passive skills increase the maximum mana leech rate.

Version history

Version	Changes
3.5.0	Added Energy Shield Leech. This is functionally similar to Life Leech, except it leeches to your Energy Shield and is limited by your maximum Energy Shield Leech Rate. Several passive skill clusters have been added to support this new form of leech. Added a cap on the amount of any resource you can leech from any individual instance of leech. By default, that cap is 10% of that resource's maximum. In other words, a character with 4000 life will, by default, be able to leech a maximum of 400 life from a single hit.
2.0.0	Multiple leech effects now stack. A single hit against multiple targets grants multiple effects, as do multiple hits against a single target. The speed at which you leech has been substantially reduced for both life and mana, with less of a reduction to mana leech rate, bringing it in-line with life leech rate. These now default to 2% of maximum life per second. It can be increased. A maximum leech rate caps the rate at which you can leech. It's set to 20% of maximum life or mana per second. Methods of improving leech, leech rate and increasing your maximum leech rate have been added to new clusters in the passive skill tree, primarily in the regions between the Marauder, Duelist and Ranger. Some of the already existing clusters in this region that specialized in specific weapon types have also had leech elements added to them. All existing values of leech have been substantially reduced, including values on existing items. Some things such as Support Gems and Warlord's Mark have had their values brought in line with the other leech changes. Previously, we had modifiers for "increased (or reduced) Life/Mana Leech rate". These did two things: They increased the amount of Life/Mana you're gaining per second for each leech effect and they reduced the duration of each leech effect, such that the total life/mana gained over the duration remained the same. All such modifiers have now been changed to "increased (or reduced) Life/Mana Leeched per second". This still increases the value of Life/Mana you're gaining per second for each leech effect, exactly as it did before. It no longer affects duration of the leech effects, meaning you'll gain more total life/mana from each one as a result.