Diablo 4 Status Effects and Their Effects
Every day in Hell is a dangerous one, with diverse demonic monsters coming at you from all angles. Chipping away at them with crowd control abilities and dealing mitigating damage ignores their ability to inflict status effects on you. Knowing which ones to look out for by learning from previous, painful deaths can increase your chances of survival, allowing you to concentrate on causing maximum torment to demons as the action-RPG game’s elemental mage.
Hardcore dungeon-crawlers require fast reactions in a hostile open world setting, where you have to deal with point-blank monster attacks and aim devastating abilities at targets. Monsters hurt, and undesirable status effects introduced in previous iterations of the game can linger and completely take over the game. Crowd control abilities and defensive skills are essential, while passives and abilities to remove and prevent status effects will add another layer of strategy to your Diablo 4 builds. Here’s what to look out for and what to do to remove such negative effects from your character.
Chill, Frozen, Daze, Fear, Immobilize, Knockback, Knockdown, Pull, Slow, and Tether are status effects worth remembering, as they can hinder your movement and leave you wide open to attacks. As you can see in the list above, many status effects impair movement to such an extent that it will result in a character death if not dealt with. Skills with Unstoppable are able to break out of these effects, but if you’re slotting defensive skills, it’s best not to forget one.
This status effect’s description doesn’t exactly lie, as it slows down movement, resulting in a Frozen state if the effect is not removed. Skills slot a Chill Effect every third hit, and Frozen occurs when a character gets hit while under Chill.
It’s recommended to acquire crowd control against Chilled targets by using skills that stasis enemies or dispel crowd control. Alternatively, Barbarian has a skill which buffs the effect of Canisters and other utility items to add extra Chill stacks.
Frozen characters can’t move in any way, except for Sorcerers, who can still use crowd control skills when frozen under Glacial Seal. The addition of this skill has been an interesting element in PvP against Sorcerers in Diablo 4, as you desperately run away from a skill that’s cooling down. Ensure you slot defensive skills if you’re choosing skills that leave the enemy Chilled.
This status effect causes the user to daze an enemy. Dazed enemies will stop attacking or using skills, but they can continue to move. This can be a finely balanced status effect in PvP, as dazing an opponent prevents them from using mobility skills and Crowd Control (CC) abilities. Rogues can innately cause daze to enemies using Shadow Strike and Dusk Strike, which frustrates opponents in arena and open world PvP, while enhancing your survivability.
This status effect causes fear in the target, which causes your character to flee from the target. Decaying what it means to be alone in Diablo 4, this status effect is as terrifying as it sounds. This can be beneficial if the feared target is a boss in a very dangerous phase, or chasing an ally at full life in PvP.
These status effects root the target in place, but variations exist. The knockback effect causes the target to be knocked away from the user, while the knockdown causes the target to fall. The knockdown effect interrupts any action the enemy was performing, while the strongest knockback can cause knockback immunity after being hit by one.
Similar to roots, this variation of crowd control skill causes enemies to be pulled towards the Sorcerer, pulling fragile ranged classes (Necromancer, Rogue, Wizard, Druid) into melee range. Pull is extremely dangerous, especially if the enemy has AoE abilities, such as Diablo 4 Witch Doctor’s Broom. Look out for the Tanky in MP video, as its Wolf Spirit skill pulls ALL nearby foes. Not even Sanctuary is safe from Rhul-Zahrun’s wrath.
The Diablo 4 Harvester debuffs the tank’s armour, making any CC effect even more powerful. Warlock in MP uses the skill Blessed Harvest to pull enemies in, with Diablo 4 Harvester and Big Boioil, who uses crowd control skills to CC nearby enemies, effectively pulling them to the AoE dps.
Diablo 4 Basilius Guide
There are also several status effect debuffs in the RPG game, like Basilius in MP, which strips an enraged enemy of their Strength, making Crowd Control
