In Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2), building an effective character often comes down to finding the right passive skills to enhance your playstyle and damage output. One such passive skill that offers significant boosts to critical and elemental damage is POE2 Currency Storm Charge. Whether you're chasing high-damage crit builds or trying to empower your elemental abilities, understanding how Storm Charge works—and how to apply it—can dramatically enhance your overall performance.

Storm Charge is a passive skill that players can acquire either by spending points on the passive skill tree or by applying it directly to an amulet. It’s especially useful for characters that rely on elemental damage and critical hits. Here are the specific effects of Storm Charge:

40% increased elemental damage if you’ve dealt a critical hit recently.

20% increased critical strike chance.

The term “recently” in PoE mechanics typically refers to actions taken within the past 4 seconds. This means that as long as you've landed a critical hit within that window, your elemental damage output will receive a sizable 40% boost.

Importantly, this elemental damage increase applies to all elemental damage, not just elemental critical strikes. This makes Storm Charge an excellent tool for builds that don't necessarily rely on elemental skills to deal crits themselves but still want to benefit from increased elemental output. For example, if your main elemental skill is more consistent than explosive (like a channeled or AoE spell), and your crits are coming from support skills or weapons, Storm Charge ensures you still benefit.

The core mechanic is straightforward:
If you land a critical hit, you activate the elemental damage bonus for the next 4 seconds. Since Storm Charge also increases your critical strike chance by 20%, it helps ensure that those crits happen more often, maintaining high uptime on the damage bonus.

For example, if you're using a spell like Fireball or Lightning Tendrils, and your build has a moderate critical strike chance, Storm Charge can quickly turn that into a damage engine. Even if your elemental damage doesn’t crit often, just triggering a single crit every few seconds is enough to keep the 40% elemental boost active.

If you want to apply Storm Charge to an amulet rather than investing in the passive skill tree, you’ll need to perform an infusion using special items called Distilled Emotions. This is particularly useful if your skill tree is already tight, or you want to stack additional benefits without respec'ing.

Required Distilled Emotions (in order):
Distilled Fear

Distilled Terror

Distilled Envy

These items can be obtained in the following ways:

Random drops from Delirium enemies found in the Ultimate Delirium map.

Currency Exchange with Alva in your Hideout, where you can trade for Distilled Mood (an umbrella term that includes the required emotions).

Note: Monsters encountered in maps accessed via an Infused Waystone will not drop Distilled Mood.

Infusing the Amulet
Once you have all three required Distilled Emotions:

Place the Amulet you want to infuse and the Distilled Emotions in your inventory.

Right-click any Distilled Mood to open the Infuse window.

Insert the Amulet into the top slot.

Place the Distilled Emotions in the correct order (Fear, Terror, Envy) into the slots below.

Look for the text at the bottom to confirm it says “Storm Charge”.

Click “Infuse” to complete the process.

Once infused, equipping that amulet will grant your character the Storm Charge passive effect.

Storm Charge is a high-value passive skill that offers synergy for both critical-based and elemental-damage builds. With a significant 40% increase to elemental damage and a 20% boost to critical strike chance, it adds both consistency and power to a wide variety of playstyles. Whether you choose to path to it through the passive tree or anoint it onto your amulet, understanding how it works—and how to maintain its effect—can make a real difference in your damage output. Mastering Storm Charge is a buy POE2 Currency solid step toward optimizing your build in Path of Exile 2.