With Season 2 of Diablo 4 on the horizon, understanding the shifts in damage mechanics is crucial. From damage buckets to the nuances of overpower, we'll demystify these changes for you.

What are Damage Buckets?
Picture them as groupings of damage stats, such as damage to slowed enemies or damage with elemental types.
Historically, not all damage stats were treated uniformly. Some were categorized for specific calculations, resulting in inconsistent damage outputs.

Historical Approach (Season 0 & 1):
Damage stats like "damage while in werewolf form" or "damage against stunned enemies" were in the additive bucket, meaning they were summed before multiplying your base damage.
Certain stats like Critical Strike and Vulnerable were in unique buckets, causing them to be considerably more potent.

Uniform Damage Treatment
Stats like vulnerable and critical strike damage have been moved to the additive bucket. This ensures that a 14% lightning damage is equivalent to 14% vulnerable damage in terms of its effect on your total damage.

Global Multipliers
Vulnerable: Now a fixed 20% global multiplier. If a target is vulnerable, it'll suffer 20% more damage.
Critical Strike: A fixed 50% global multiplier. No matter how much critical strike damage you have, it will always boost the total by this fixed rate.

Overall Damage Reduction
With these changes, overall damage output is expected to drop. To balance, enemy health and strength will be scaled down, making encounters more manageable.

The New Overpower Mechanics
Overpower attacks now increase up to 50% based on your life percentage.
Overpower's effectiveness now also depends on fortify amount, base life, and life increase from gear.
Fortify generation is now based on max life, leading to approximately an 80-90% rise in fortify generation.

Conclusion
Season 2 aims to level the playing field, ensuring a diverse array of builds are viable and that players aren't confined to just a couple of dominant strategies. Dive in, experiment with your builds, and may your adventures in Sanctuary be ever thrilling!