Couple examples of what this change would accomplish:

Currently you already have +500% ALL damage from stats, and so whether you have +50% Aether damage but only +15% Fire damage on your gear means very little. You'd simply deal 550% extra Aether and 515% extra fire damage.

With this change, you'd have 750% increased Aether, but only 575% increased fire - already a very large difference you would actually feel.

Your selection of %Dmg nodes would actually become meaningful.
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It would also create a balancing act between raw stats versus %Dmg modifiers, If they were multiplicative with one another.

Furthermore - It would diversify builds by allowing them to become more concrete. Currently, almost everyone plays with a wide variety of elements and Immortal Offering because this is one of the only ways to multiply damage.

with my proposed change, there would actually be some merit to going all-in for Aether damage, or All-in for Fire damage.

Playing a build with a multitude of ailments and going for IO damage multiplier is fine, but should not be the only way to play the game. This change would be a good step towards enabling themed builds - like Occultist builds, Elemental builds, Projectile builds, etc.

Thoughts?

I, for one, think this change would make for a better game in the long run.

And keep in mind - balance changes after the fact may be necessary, I do not expect this change to be made without any further changes.

ya for sure, im surprised it ever worked any differently to what ur suggesting, the current implimentation makes no sense to me at all.
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I dont want to hijack ur thread and i dont want to add a load on to your point that maybe you dont agree with and want to co sign, but youve kind of opened can of worms so to speak and I have some opinions of my own along similar lines so Im gonna say some stuff now but these are my thoughts seperate from those of the op here, and I give an unconditional +1 to his thoughts regardless of these further ideas, i post them because i think they are related to this train of thought.
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I think you make the boost from core stats multiplicative with all other increased % damage, and for me I think u probably cut it in half, make them give half the current % damage partly as a means of then reducing what will be a massive spike in damage resulting from a multiplicative system but also because they give other bonuses like life and crit that make them valuable anyway.

I think the more specialised a node is the higher the value should be, much higher, and if it gives a drawback even higher still. % damage, smallest, % material/melee/projectile/occult etc significantly higher, % fire/aether/shadow etc should be much higher than any of them. why would i ever take % aether damage and pigeonhole myself into aether if the node is 15% and i can just take 12% spell damage and avoid any need to follow through with specialisation when it comes to my skills and gear?

i think there needs to be a cap of how many different ailments a character can apply to a monster too. say 3 or 4 ailments, if it were me I would go with 3. obviously adjustments need to be made there in regards to damage cause right now everyone is applying every ailment in the book and that is fighting against the idea of anyone making any kind of specialisation when it comes to what kind of damage theyre dealing. if you can only apply 3 at most, and applying a 4th will overwrite the oldest ailment removing it from the monster or simply not be applied because the monster is capped at 3 suddenly you go from "I am the ailment build who does all the ailments" to "I am a burn + shock build but im excited to try a poison build at some point" and you actually have reasons to keep playing the game and trying different things.
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I feel like someone then needs to go through the game with a fine tooth comb and make a deliberate distinction in the wording on passives to indicate what is additive and what is multiplicative in the same way poe uses 'increases % damage' and 'more % damage'. right now passives like immortal offering do actually seem to be multiplicative % damage, but ud never know because its not really worded any differently to other obviously additive damage % nodes.

theres nodes like salvatory anchor grant "gain all resistances equal to all resistance score on heavy chest piece". ok, cool. the follow on node then states "gain all resistance score equal to 1 multiplied by all resistance score on heavy helmet"... ok thats exactly the same thing, the same mechanic, its gonna double the all resist score on my heavy chest and my heavy hat. so why is the wording different? gain equal to and gain equal to 1 multiplied by? there needs to be some kind of standardised language so we can look at passive A and B and understand from what is written how they actually work.