Status effects

Status Effects are conditions that affect heroes and monsters health, stats and turns. They are similar to quirks, except where quirks are permanent unless treated in town, status effects only last a few rounds (normally 1 to 3) and are then removed. Knowing how to avoid, prevent, treat and use status effects is essential if you plan to keep your heroes alive.

Below is a list of status effect, what they do, how to remove them, and hero related abilities. Afflictions and Virtues are different status effects which occur uniquely whenever a hero hits 100 Stress.

Bleed
Bleeding is a damage over time effect, represented by a red drop. At the beginning of an affected hero's turn they will take damage equal to the bleed strength, ignoring any protection points. It lasts for a specified amount of turns, which can be seen by hovering the cursor over the red drop. Be very careful with a character on Death's Door, as this can kill them before they can use a bandage on their turn. If out of combat there will be a chance to use food or a bandage to prevent death. The Bounty Hunter, Hellion, Highwayman, Hound Master, Jester, and Plague Doctor all have at least one ability capable of inflicting the bleed effect on an enemy. Notably, the Occultist can inflict the bleed status on himself and his allies through his Wyrd Reconstruction. Bleed can be cured by the item Bandage. The Plague Doctor's Battlefield Medicine cures both Bleed and Blight on herself and the target if there is one; the Hellion's Adrenaline Rush and the Grave Robber's Toxin Trickery also cures both the Bleed and Blight ailments, though only on self. Creatures in the Warrens and Weald are more susceptible to bleed, while the fishfolk of the Cove are resilient because of their scales and the skeletons of the Ruins are nearly immune.

Blight
Blight is mechanically the same as bleed, dealing damage over time, but is represented by a green drop rather than red. What sets them apart is that many enemies will have a high resistance to one and a low resistance to the other. As with bleed, blight can kill a character on Death's Door, so be very careful of those afflicted. The Abomination, Grave Robber, and Plague Doctor all have at least one ability capable of inflicting the Blight effect on an enemy. Blight can be removed with the item Antivenom. The Plague Doctor's Battlefield Medicine cures both Bleed and Blight on herself and the target if there is one; the Hellion's Adrenaline Rush and the Grave Robber's Toxin Trickery also cures both the Bleed and Blight ailments, though only on themselves. Creatures in the Ruins and Cove are more susceptible to Blight, whereas the pigmen of the Warrens are resilient because of their unclean living and the mushroom zombies of the Weald are already infested with toxic mushrooms. Note: another important difference between Blight and Bleed is that bleed attacks tend to do a lot of damage, while the bleeding itself is weak, such as with the Hound Master. Conversely, most blight attacks do little to no damage, yet the blight itself is very strong. There are exceptions to this, notably the Hellion's "Bleed Out" and the Uca Crusher's "Arterial Pinch."

Stun
Stun is a condition that always last just one turn. However, it causes the character affect to skip their turn entirely. Stun is represented by a yellow crescent and diamonds above a character's head. Stun is one of the more helpful status effects, as it can be used to stun a monster heavy hitting monster to prevent damage for a turn, or stop a back row stress attacker from using their magic while you work to finish them off. One should note that any character who is stunned will get a temporary buff after the stun wears off that will grant them an extra 40% resistance to stun (this is to make it difficult for a character to have their turned continually skipped). The buff will disappear at the start of a character's turn. However, if a character is stunned with this resistance still in place, they will gain an additional 40% stun resistance for their next turn, making it 80%. This will continue until the character has a turn where they are not stunned. The Arbalest's Rallying Flare can remove Stun and Mark effects.

Debuff
Debuff is a condition that lowers the stats of a character, such as ACC, Damage or Dodge.
 * Many monsters inflict debuffs in tandem with their other skills. For example, the Bone Bulwark and Bone Shieldwall's Axeblade will debuff a hero's resistance to move and stun, while their attack Dead Weight will attempt to stun and knock characters back. Additionally, there are some heroes who will Debuff themselves after an attack, like the Hellion's Breakthrough or the Jester's Finale.
 * Debuffs can be removed with Medicinal Herbs. So far, however, no character abilities will remove debuffs.

Mark
Marks are a unique condition. No character or monster can resist them and they do nothing on their own. However, there are many hero and enemy skills that will deal extra damage to any character bearing a Mark. One should be careful if one of their characters are marked. Heroes that have attacks that deal extra damage to marked targets are the Arbalest, Bounty Hunter, and Hound Master. These classes can also mark targets, as can Occultist. The latter two's mark abilities are more effective as they can also debuff the enemy at the same time (reducing protection and dodge, respectively). As noted above, the Arbalest's Rallying Flare can remove Marks.

Move
Move is an instantaneous effect that causes the affected unit to switch position with another one in the same formation. Move abilities can affect the user, opponents or both, and can cause them to move randomly across the formation or toward specific directions. Due to the high reliability of many abilities on the position of the user, move is generally considered a negative effect, unless used by self-moving abilities to reach specific positions. Although many heroes make use of this effect, most notably the Bounty Hunter is able to apply all varieties of move to the enemies, while the Jester is the hero that makes the most use of self-moving abilities.

Buff
Buffs are positive conditions that increase one or more stats or resistances of the unit. Their usual duration is three rounds and they can stack indefinitely until they expire. Buffs are represented by two light blue arrows pointing upward, as an icon appearing over the health bar of the affected unit.

Guard
Guard is a buff that a unit can apply to an ally. Doing so allows the user to receive the attacks of the guarded unit in its place, making it much harder to bring it down. Generally, abilities that guard another unit will also apply a defensive buff to help withstand the increased punishment. Heroes making use of this buff are the Man-at-Arms, able to also increase his own Protection to reduce damage taken, and the Hound Master, who fortifies his own dodge so as to evade attacks directed at him or his guarded ally. Guard is also one of the main abilities used by Pelagic Guardians.

Riposte
Riposte is a defensive effect that causes the user to respond to any suffered attack, evaded or not, with one of his own, making it a perfect synergy for other defensive buffs and, naturally, the employment of Guard by the unit. Riposte is a very rare effect, notably usable by the Man-at-Arms, who is also able to guard allies to be targeted by more attacks to which he can then respond.