Combat - Status ailments - October 14, 2018

In The Demon Rush: Legends Corrupt, status ailments have a level of involvement and importance that require their own dev blog page. The following will discuss status ailments as though the mode is Story Mode or Endless Dungeon Mode (which are the modes offering full access to character abilities, as opposed to Onslaught's presets).

Status ailments can be divided into two groups: Those that the player and enemies can inflict one each other, and those that the player can inflict on enemies (but the enemies cannot inflict on the player).

Status ailments that can be inflicted on both player and enemy

Stagger, Stun, Knockdown and Knockback can be inflicted to both player and enemy.

Stun and Knockdown have a "lockout" timer, meaning that for 3 seconds after recovering from that ailment, they cannot be inflicted with that respective ailment again.

There is also a "hierarchy" to these 4 status ailments, where the higher status ailment overrides the lower, but the lower cannot override the lower, and is, from highest in the order to lowest:

Knockback > Knockdown > Stun > Stagger

Basically, a Stunned character can be inflicted with Knockdown, but a character inflicted with Knockdown cannot be inflicted with Stagger (as Knockdown not only lasts longer than Stagger, but also has a defense debuff applied to it; having Stagger undo this would be problematic).

Stagger

For 30 frames, the victim of Stagger is pushed a small bit away from the user and cannot act in that time. The Body Field Effect raises Stagger time to 60 frames, while Mind drops Stagger tine to 15 frames.

While not an overly powerful or influential status effect, it is still capable of interrupting an enemy's attacks without great changes in the enemy's position (as Knockback would cause) while allowing some time to attack the target. Unlike Stun and Knockdown, there is no "lockout" period to Stagger, so mini-bouts of Stagger lock can be inflicted on enemies.

Every playable character has immediate access to Pushback (Body ability that inflicts Stagger with only an 8 second cooldown) and melee attacks done to a blocking character (player or eligible enemy) will inflict Stagger on the attacker. Jimmy's customization layout has more options for Stagger than the rest of the cast.

Stun

For 2 seconds, the victim of Stun cannot move or act (some passive abilities can boost how long an ability inflicts Stun for). On recovery, the victim cannot be inflicted with Stun for 3 seconds, preventing cases of Stun lock.

While a number of characters have some form of access to inflict Stun on enemies, Alberto has the most proficiency with Stun, in both ability variety and lengthening Stun time.

Knockdown

For 2 seconds, the victim of Knockdown cannot move or act, and take 50% more damage while knocked down. On recovery, the victim cannot be inflicted with Knockdown for 3 seconds, preventing cases of Knockdown lock.

The Water Siphon Field Effect puts pools of water in play that inflict Knockdown on non-Water Elemental combatants. Every playable character has immediate access to Knockdown (Body ability that inflicts Knockdown with a 30 second cooldown).

Claire has the most proficiency in working with Knockdown, not only having access to more Knockdown options than most of the team and getting cooldowns to the long-wait 30 second Knockdown ability, but also gains access to the Prone ability, which allows her to deal double damage to knocked down opponents rather than 50%.

Knockback

The victim is launched away from the attacker or effect, and if they collide into a wall or battle boundary, they suffer 10 damage (in most cases). This knockback damage ignores defense, as well. Unlike Stun and Knockdown, there is no "lockout" period to Knockback, so mini-bouts of Knockback lock can be inflicted on enemies (though this means little if they do not collide into anything).

The Wind Siphon Field Effect randomly throws bursts of wind into the battlefield that inflicts Knockback on non-Wind Elemental combatants. Brooks has the strongest proficiency with Knockback, not just in range of ability options, but can also deal more collision damage to knocked back enemies.

Status ailments that can be inflicted only on the enemy

The following status ailments can only be inflicted by the player onto the enemy (all of these can affect any type of enemy, from normal enemy to boss). 'Tis better to give than to receive.

Poison

Enemies inflicted with Poison take 10 damage (at its base) once every second for 5 seconds (at its base). Poison ignores defense. The Poison Damage and Poison Duration abilities boost the base damage and duration of Poison respectively.

One nice reason to include Poison in team builds is that Poison damage output is unaffected by the Field Effects. The player's team can use the defensive Mind Field Effect to take less damage while enemies inflicted with Poison do not have their Poison damage reduced in any way.

Only Knight and Claire are able to inflict Poison on enemies.

Knight's Energy Flow inflicts Poison on all enemies, regardless of their position, and he can raise the power of his Poison power to 30 damage with the maximum time being the base 5 seconds.

While Claire does not have a "Poison all" option like Knight does, she has many more options and her Poison power can be raised to 60 damage with a 10 second timer. Her Toxic Gas ability inflicts Poison to an area in front of her, and with the Acid Rain passive ability, she can imbue any pools of water on the battlefield with Poison, spreading its range further. With the Mind Field Effect active and the Poison Knife weapon equipped, Claire gains access to Scorpion Sting, which not only gives her Throwing Knife ability the potential to inflict Poison, but also ups Poison's power, making these Throwing Knives have Poison power of 110 damage at a 10 second timer at maximum, making this the most powerful Poison in the game.

Blind

Similar to Dragooned, an enemy inflicted with Blind will stay in position and lash out wildly, though in The Demon Rush: Legends Corrupt, the angle the enemy is facing will change to a random angle, meaning the player can still end up risking taking some hits during this time. Blind has a base duration of 2 seconds, though the Blind Duration passive ability can boost this.

Knight can inflict Blind with his Moonlight ability, and can boost his Blind Duration so that it lasts for 7 seconds. Knight can also equip the Sightless weapon, which allows all 5 of his Body abilities (including the normally undamaging Pushback and Knockdown) to inflict Blind, giving him a large number of abilities to hinder his enemies with Blind (with his Body abilities inflicting 9.5 seconds of Blind).

Jimmy can inflict Blind through the Astral Glow ability, which can be obtained only through equipping the Zipmore Dirks. Astral Glow allows Jimmy's Shuriken and Smoke Grenade abilities to inflict Blind, and with the cooldowns for both of these abilities able to hit as low as 4 seconds, Jimmy can inflict Blind frequently, to a maximum of 4.5 seconds of duration (with max level Zipmore Dirks).

Brooks' Flashbang projectile, on collision with an enemy, wall or boundary, will explode and inflict Blind to a large area (which can be increased to an immense area with Wide-Area Flashbang). Though Brooks has only the one ability to inflict Blind with, his Blind Duration is large, allowing enemies to be blinded for up to 12 seconds, and this one Blind ability can have its cooldown reduced both through Brooks' Soul Triad customization and equipping the Tactical Rifle for more frequent Blinding (not to mention the very large area it Blinds).

Cooldown Add

Adding to enemy cooldowns is in its own way meant to be similar to a Silence status ailment, with the one key difference being the enemy must already have an ability in cooldown in order for its cooldown to have time added to.

Though it will be practically useless early on (when enemies are not a high enough level to have abilities), in late-game and Legend Difficulty (where enemies have half cooldown on Legend Difficulty), being able to remove enemy's usage of their abilities can be a lifesaver if they are forced to only be able to engage with basic melee attacks only to deal with setups that prevent them from inflicting damage, such as Cherry's Stand Ground/Cover combo (which also staggers melee attackers), Pound's Barrier and Jimmy's Withstand Seal.

Knight's Energy Flow, aside from inflicting Poison to all enemies, will also add 3 seconds to each ability's active cooldown for all enemies. The Enemy Cooldown ability can boost this to 8 seconds of added cooldown time.

Tara's Mindcloud, like Knight's Energy Flow, adds 3 seconds to all enemies' ability cooldowns that are on active cooldown. Her capability to inflict "Silence" is stronger than Knight's, as her Enemy Cooldown ability can boost this to 11 seconds of added cooldown time. Tara can take cooldown adding even further by equipping the Restrict Axe, which adds Brainfog (also the name of the "Silence" status ailment in the original The Demon Rush). Brainfog allows her Backhand and Skill Strike abilities to add to enemy cooldowns, but at a maximum of 2.5 seconds more than Mindcloud does (with a maxed out Restrict Axe).

Instant Death

Unlike other games, where inflicting Instant Death is often done on a gamble/percentage basis, inflicting Instant Death in The Demon Rush: Legends Corrupt is done in a fashion similar to the Cult Blade weapon in Skylight Freerange 2: Gachduine, where when the enemy's HP falls to a certain threshold, the attack will instantly kill the target (normal enemy or boss) and can shorten some fights considerably when used well. Unlike Skylight Freerange 2: Gachduine, there are no setups for a guaranteed full-HP instant death kill (sorry).

Knight can inflict Instant Death with his Death-Defying ability, which deals damage and inflicts Instant Death if the enemy's HP is at 10% or less of their maximum. With the Razor Focus ability, this value for Death-Defying is raised to 25% if the Mind Field Effect is active.

Tara has a wide range of Instant Death abilities at her disposal. Her Decapitate ability has only a 5 second cooldown and inflicts Instant Death if the target is at 10% HP or less. This value can be raised to 20% through Decapitate Threshold, and an additional 20% can be added with Clean Cut if the Mind Field Effect is active.

Tara's Chasm cannot normally inflict Instant Death, but the Bottomless Pit passive ability adds a 30% Instant Death Threshold while the Earth Siphon Field Effect is active. With the Styxpath passive ability, using Path to Hell will power up all Chasms in its area of effect, raising the power of Bottomless Pit Chasms to a whopping 60% Instant Death threshold.

Tara's Path to Hell inflicts Instant Death to a wide area around her at a 10% threshold (able to be raised to 15%). With the Styxpath ability, every Chasm that the Path to Hell touches adds another 3% threshold for that one Path to Hell calling.

Tara's Ceres Cleaver weapon also provides the Instant Death Threshold ability, boosting the Instant Death thresholds for Decapitate, Bottomless Pit Chasms and Path to Hell by up to 10% each.