Debuffs & Ailments
Two different words get used loosely in combat chat, and they mean different things to the code. A debuff is a harmful status sitting on a target. An ailment is one of the elemental damage-over-time effects a wand or bow applies. Different enchants care about different ones, and Predator in particular only ever looks at the debuff list on this page.
What counts as a debuff
Predator (armour, Elite, max 3) gives 8% increased damage per level (24% at L3) against a target that is slowed or debuffed. The check is a fixed list. A target counts as debuffed the moment it carries any one of these:
| Status | Notes |
|---|---|
| Slowness | The most common trigger by far |
| Poison | The vanilla Poison potion effect, not the Poison enchant |
| Weakness | The vanilla Weakness potion effect, not the Weakness enchant |
| Wither | |
| Mining Fatigue | |
| Nausea | Also called Confusion |
| Blindness | |
| Hunger | |
| Injury stacks | The Injury axe enchant, checked separately, it slows through an attribute, not a potion |
One of those nine is enough. They do not add up: a target with Slowness, Poison and Wither at once is worth exactly the same 24% as a target with Slowness alone.
Darkness does not count. It is on Resilience's list of harmful effects but not on Predator's.
Which enchants make Predator fire
These are the enchants that actually put one of the nine on a target:
| Enchant | Slot | Debuff it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Frostblade | Sword | Slowness I (II at L2+) for 2–4s |
| Famine | Sword, Axe | Hunger I for 3s — players only, it does nothing to mobs |
| Injury | Axe | Injury stacks, refreshed on every hit |
| Frostbite | Wand, Bow | Slowness III on the chill proc |
| Crippling Shot | Bow | Slowness and Weakness for 3s |
| Caltrops | Bow | Slowness while an enemy stands in the spikes |
| Petrify | Wand | Slowness VII while rooted, PvE only |
| Daze | Sword, Axe | Nausea, but only against mobs. Against a player Daze jerks the camera instead, which is not a potion effect and does not count |
Frostbite and Petrify against shades and wraiths do not count either. Those two chill and freeze a shade through its own AI rather than through a potion effect, so Predator sees nothing. Against players and ordinary mobs they apply the real Slowness and do count.
Enchants that look like debuffs but do not count
This is where most of the confusion comes from. Several enchants weaken a target without ever applying one of the nine statuses, so Predator ignores them completely:
| Enchant | What it really does |
|---|---|
| Poison (sword) | A custom damage-over-time tick. It never applies the Poison potion effect |
| Weakness (axe) | Makes the victim take more damage for 4s. It never applies the Weakness potion effect |
| Bleed, Plague Arrow, Splinter, Acid Blood | Damage-over-time only |
| Ignite, Venom, Combustion | Ailments: damage over time, not statuses |
| Shock, Hunter's Mark, Sunder, Voodoo | Increase the damage the target takes |
| Dominate | Cuts the target's outgoing damage, without the Weakness effect |
| Trap | Freezes movement through its own system, no Slowness applied |
| Silence | Blocks the target's enchant procs |
| Fling, Repel, Shockwave | Knockback |
If you want Predator switched on reliably, put a real slow in your kit — Frostblade on a sword or Injury on an axe are the two that fit a melee set.
Other things that count
Predator does not care where the status came from, only that it is there:
- Ensnare roots with a heavy Slowness, so an ensnared player is a valid Predator target for the whole root.
- Boss and Uber abilities: Echidna's poison, Lamia's Wither and Slowness, Thanatos' tether — all count while they are on you.
- Erebus Tear effects that apply Slowness, Poison or Wither.
- Frost Mage cell defenders stack Slowness, Weakness and Mining Fatigue on raiders.
- Any Slowness, Poison, Weakness, Wither, Mining Fatigue, Nausea, Blindness or Hunger from any other source.
One oddity worth knowing: Berserk gives you Nausea while it is active. That is one of the nine, so for those 3 seconds an enemy's Predator hits you harder.
How Predator's bonus is applied
- Predator does not stack across pieces. Four helmets' worth of Predator is still one Predator — only the highest level on any piece counts, capping at 24%.
- It is an increased bonus, so it lands in the same additive pool as Honed, Giant Slayer, Determination, Riposte and your jewel damage lines. It is not a separate multiplier on top. See Damage & Combat for how increased and more differ.
- It applies to your melee swing in both PvP and PvE. It does not scale enchant proc damage — that is what Spellblade is for.
Ailments are a separate system
Ailments are the wand and bow damage-over-time effects: Ignite (fire), Venom (poison), Bleed, and the Frostbite chill. They are scaled by Catalyst (all ailments), Combustion (Ignite only) and spread by Contagion, and they are the effects Tough Skin and Elemental Mastery defend against.
An ailment is not a debuff for Predator's purposes. The only overlap is Frostbite, and that is because its chill applies real Slowness, not because it is an ailment.
Shortening what is on you
Resilience (Godly armour, max 5) makes harmful effects on you wear off 6% faster and hit 6% weaker per level — up to 30% faster and 30% weaker at L5. Its list is the same nine plus Darkness. Tough Skin shortens Bleed specifically, Escapist shortens Trap freezes, and Composure shakes off Injury stacks.
Everything here lives in the wider Enchants system.