Buffs, Debuffs, & Conditions Guide
(making it easier to understand how Status Effects work and what they do)
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Status Effects in Dark Alliance are positive or negative effects that can benefit or hinder any character in combat for a specific amount of time. Status Effects can be triggered by various things, such as: enemy attacks, enemy abilities, player combo moves, player abilities, equipment stats, equipment set bonuses, environmental hazards, and more. Status Effects are separated into three categories: Buffs, Debuffs and Conditions. Every Status Effect has its own symbol that appears near an enemy’s HP bar when it’s affected or on your HUD (interface) when your character is affected by it.
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Buffs:
In Dark Alliance, just like in many other RPG games, Buffs are positive effects that boost your stats or benefit you in other ways in combat. Some of those can come from consumables (like the Elixirs of Physical or Elemental Resistance), others could come as stats rolled of an piece of equipment, some come from an Item Set’s bonus (at 3, 5, or 8 pieces equipped). There are many, full list below, but just to name a few: you can get things such as increased Strength, boosts to all or a specific type off elemental resistance, boosts to your critical chance or critical damage, health regeneration, etc.
Some of those buff you can apply to yourself or your allies after using a certain ability or a combo move so look out for those and try to stack the buffs during combat. Catti-Brie has a melee combo that can apply Precision Strikes and that can be combined with her Heart Seeker Volley ability’s Precision Strikes buff (not sure if you can stack them but you can surely rotate between on and the other) and you can even top it off by using her Ultimate to get some extra Legendary Resistance buff on you or your allies. All classes’ Ultimates can apply some sort of defensive or offensive buffs that benefit the whole team or your hero so make sure to use those wisely (I always try to get closer to my teammates with Catti-Brie before ulting so they can get buffed too).
Acid Damage – Grants your attacks and abilities additional flat Acid Dmg (for example +200).
Acid Immunity – Prevents all incoming Acid Damage from enemy attacks, skills or abilities, as well as from environmental hazards.
Acid Resistance – Reduces the Acid Damage taken from enemy attacks, skills or abilities, as well as from environmental hazards.
Cold Damage – Grants your attacks and abilities additional flat Cold Dmg (for example +200).
Cold Immunity – Prevents all incoming Cold Damage from enemy attacks, skills or abilities as well as from environmental hazards.
Cold Resistance – Reduces the Cold Damage taken from enemy attacks, skills or abilities, as well as from environmental hazards.
Concentration – !!!Not sure. Most likely casting can not be interrupted. Or casting speed increased!!
Elemental Resistance – Reduces all Elemental Damage taken from enemy attacks, skills or abilities, as well as from environmental hazards.
Fire Damage – Grants your attacks and abilities additional flat Fire Dmg (for example +200).
Fire Immunity – Prevents all incoming Fire Damage from enemy attacks, skills or abilities as well as from environmental hazards.
Fire Resistance – Reduces the Fire Damage taken from enemy attacks, skills or abilities, as well as from environmental hazards.
Frenzy – Increases all damage done. Not sure if it’s just physical or if elemental also gets affected.
Invulnerable – Prevents taking any incoming damage.
Legendary Resistance – NOT SURE!!! Others say it “Reduces Legendary Damage” but that makes no sense so my guess is this grants a solid amount of Physical and Elemental resistances.
Lightning Damage – Grants your attacks and abilities additional flat Lightning Dmg (for example +200).
Lightning Immunity – Prevents all incoming Lightning Damage from enemy attacks, skills or abilities as well as from environmental hazards.
Lightning Resistance – Reduces the Lightning Damage taken from enemy attacks, skills or abilities, as well as from environmental hazards.
Necrotic Damage – Grants your attacks and abilities additional flat Necrotic Dmg (for example +200).
Necrotic Immunity – Prevents all incoming Necrotic Damage from enemy attacks, skills or abilities as well as from environmental hazards.
Necrotic Resistance – Reduces the Necrotic Damage taken from enemy attacks, skills or abilities, as well as from environmental hazards.
Physical Resistance – Reduces the Physical Damage taken from enemy attacks, skills or abilities, as well as from environmental hazards.
Powerful Strikes – Increases your critical damage.
Precision Strikes – Increases your critical chance.
Primal Instinct – Grants you bonus Damage and Armor based on your missing Health.
Reckless Attack – NOT SURE!!! My guess is that it grants you increased damage but also makes you take more damage.
Regeneration – Grants you a Healing over Time (HoT) effect.
Shielded – Prevents any stuns and knockdowns. Any Damage received will be dealt to your Shield bar instead of your Health bar.
Stalwart – Grants you a temporary Strength bonus.
Thorns – Either enemies who hit you take damage or nearby enemies take damage without even hitting you. not 100% sure which one but it normally requires you to get hit in games to trigger this.
Unstoppable – Prevents any stuns and knockdowns. You will still receive any incoming damage.
Vampiric – Grants lifesteal to your attacks/abilities. Meaning you heal as you do damage.
Debuffs:
In Dark Alliance, just like in many other RPG games, Debuffs are negative effects that lower your stats or hinder your combat prowess in other ways. Most of the debuffs you encounter in Dark Alliance will be inflicted by an enemy skill, ability, or attack. There are many, full list below, but just to name a few: you can get things such as taking various types of Damage over Time (DoT), being unable to use your abilities for a short duration, making you take 50% more damage, slowing your movement speed by 50%, etc.
Bleeding – Inflicts Physical/Bleeding Damage over Time (DoT)
Burning – Inflicts Fire Damage over Time (DoT)
Charmed – Makes you unable to attack (can still move tho).
Corrupted – NOT SURE !!! Most likely reduces your resistances.
Cursed – Increases all damage you take by 50%
Fatigued – Slows the combat speed an animation to those affected.
Frightened – Makes you unable to move.
Hexed – Inflicts Necrotic Damage over Time (DoT)
Poisoned – Inflicts Poison Damage over Time (DoT)
Sapped – NOT SURE !!! but it looks like it drains your stamina.
Silenced – Temporarily unable to use any abilities.
Slowed – Reduces your movement speed.
Weakened – Reduces all damage you do by 50%
Conditions:
Conditions are a special kind of status effect that’s different than debuffs and they CAN NOT BE COUNTERED by any potions, elixirs or equipment. Some are positive and can be caused by player skills/abilities while others are caused by the special abilities which some enemies use, for example, Icewind’s Ice Breath, some are even caused by AoE hazards on the ground like the frozen spikes ground that will damage you if you stand on it without having Warmth on you. They work in combination with Debuffs. Some of those can be super annoying like Confused that inverts your movement and camera controls 😀
Pay attention to your surroundings and make sure to always get that Warmth buff (from those giant burning swords stuck in the ground) before stepping on that spike frozen ground.
Blinded – Your attacks will miss.
Confused – Your character’s movement and camera movement are inverted. One of the most annoying conditions LOL.
Ethereal – NOT SURE!!! Usually this makes you able to phasewalk/pass through enemies without collision. But sometimes in games it makes you ‘dodge’ spells.
Exhausted – Your stamina has been fully depleted. The character cannot move until it starts regenerating.
Frozen – Freezes you and renders your character unable to move. You have to press a button rapidly to break free or allies can hit you to remove this effect.
Grappled – You are caught in a trap which renders your character unable to move. You have to press a button rapidly to break free.
Invisible – Enemies can not see you. Doesn’t seem to properly work tho 🙁
Taunted – Increases your threat level towards affected targets. Meaning increases your aggro/makes enemies attack you.
Warmth – Prevents all incoming Cold Damage from environmental hazards (that spiky frozen ground).
This concludes my Buffs, Debuffs, & Conditions in Dark Alliance Guide. I’ll be making more guides and builds for each hero in the coming days/week.
The Dungeons & Dragons Dark Alliance aRPG developed by Tuque Games released on June 22nd 2021 for PlayStation, XBOX & PC (both Steam & the Microsoft Store) and is also available for both the XBOX & PC via the XBOX Game Pass. The game got shredded by the reviews on Steam for many reasons but after playing it for over 60 hours I can say that it’s not as bad as people make it out to be. It’s true that there are a lot of things that seem unpolished with the co-op and there are a some badly designed features (such as the looting mechanic that only rewards at the end of a mission), however, there is a lot of fun to be had while playing the game.
