Enemies
7.1 Rarity
Normal Enemy
https://i.imgur.com/7lJV9l2.png
- have their names written in white coloured text
- don’t have modifiers applied to them unless the enemy has a modifier inherent to them
- for example, the Imperial Guard enemy will always spawn with the “Blocks Hits From Distant Enemies” modifier
Magic Enemy
https://i.imgur.com/I7SmPyj.png
- have their names written in blue coloured text
- have one random modifier applied to them in addition to any inherent modifiers they may already have
- in comparison to normal enemies
- are more likely to drop items
- have more damage and health
- have increased size
Rare Enemy
https://i.imgur.com/hzNbdEF.png
- have their names written in gold coloured text
- have two random modifiers applied to them in addition to any inherent modifiers they may already have
- are guaranteed to drop at least one Rare item
- in comparison to magic enemies
- are more likely to drop items
- have more damage and health
- have increased size
- can drop Lightless Arbor keys in level 25+ zones, Soulfire Bastion keys in level 47+ zones, and Temporal Sanctum keys in level 54+ zones
- can drop Arena Key of Memory in level 90+ Timelines if you have conquered at least 15 Echoes in that Timeline
Unique Enemy (i.e. bosses)
https://i.imgur.com/3MyByGu.png
- have their names written in pale gold/red coloured text
- in comparison to rare enemies
- are more likely to drop items
- have more damage and health
- have increased size
- can drop Lightless Arbor, Soulfire Bastion, and Temporal Sanctum keys from Timeline bosses in the Monolith of Fate
- certain bosses have drops specific to them
- Monolith of Fate Timeline bosses
- Dungeon bosses
- Arena Champion bosses
- Orchirian The Rampant campaign boss
7.2 Skills & Damage
Most, if not all, enemy skills have some form of telegraph that warns the player of an impending dangerous attack. These telegraphs can be audio, visual, or a combination of both. Players will want to watch out for these telegraphs and avoid standing in them at all costs, especially those of bosses.
The damage type of enemy skills can be distinguished by their colour (i.e. purple is void damage, teal is necrotic damage, etc and these colours are the same as those displayed for resistances on the character sheet). However, physical damage is a bit different in that it will always be attached to some form of physical object striking you, and is generally accompanied with a secondary damage type. For example, the Avalanche attack from Rime Giants has both cold and physical damage. Enemy skills with two damage types will have their damage split evenly between the two.
Most enemy skills comprise of one or two damage types, and each era of the campaign will generally have two or three dominant types of damage that the player should prioritize defending themselves against.
- Ancient Era - physical, fire, cold, poison
- Divine Era - physical, elemental, poison
- Imperial Era - physical, necrotic, poison, elemental
- Ruined Era - physical, void, elemental
7.3 Offense & Defense
Enemies do not have any additional offensive stats unless acquired through modifiers. By default enemies have 5% critical strike chance.
Enemies can also apply resistance shred ailments, but for most enemies the only way to do this is through specific modifiers that give a chance to shred that resistance type on hit. These modifiers are generally more rare because they only appear on enemies of a corresponding type; for example, a fire enemy can have the fire shred modifier but not the lightning shred modifier.
Most enemies do not have any defensive stats by default, though they can acquire these stats through modifiers. These defensive stats have the same rules and restrictions on enemies that they do for players. For example, if enemies were given two identical “enemies have 60% endurance” modifiers while in the Monolith of Fate then their final endurance would still be 60% because that is the cap for the endurance stat.
- enemies have no resistances unless they have a modifier that explicitly states it, and in that case the resistance amount varies but is usually pretty high
- only a select few enemies in the game have an inherent resistance modifier, such as the Voidstone Scorpion with its “Resists Physical Damage” modifier
- enemies do not have armour, endurance, block, dodge, glancing blow, critical strike avoidance, stun avoidance, or health regen by default
- like resistances, these defensive stats can be applied to enemies through modifiers
7.4 Modifiers
Enemy modifiers can be inherent to the enemy type, added randomly during enemy creation, scaled based on area level, selected by the player in some endgame modes, or scaled increasingly higher by certain endgame systems. Inherent and random modifiers will be visible under the enemies name located at the top of the screen when targeted.
Inherent Modifiers
Some enemies have modifiers inherent to them, such as the Imperial Guard enemy with its “blocks hits from distant enemies” modifier. Enemies with these modifiers will always spawn with them.
There are also certain bosses that receive these types of modifiers, which are not found anywhere else in the game. For example, the Abomination boss has the “invulnerable until soul vessels are destroyed” modifier.
Random Modifiers
There are many enemy modifiers that can appear on enemies that grant them additional offensive and defensive stats, buffs, summons, and even resurrection. To see the full list click here. These modifiers are applied randomly when the enemy is created, though not all enemies can have just any modifier applied to them. For example, a fire enemy can have the fire shred modifier but not the lightning shred modifier.
The number of random modifiers applied to an enemy will denote its rarity, with one random modifier being a magic enemy and two random modifiers being a rare enemy. Inherent modifiers are not used when identifying an enemies’ rarity.
Level Scaling Modifiers
Enemies gain certain stat modifiers throughout the campaign and endgame based solely on area level.
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All enemies gain 1% penetration per area level, up to a maximum of 75%. Enemy penetration is applied after the resistance cap for players, which is 75%. This means that any overcapped resistances on the player will not affect enemy penetration.
If the player character has 75% resistances or greater in a level 75+ area then their effective resistance is 0% when factoring in enemy penetration. For the player, this means that for every 1% they’re below the resistance cap they take 1% more damage from enemies.
Only enemies that apply ailments which reduce resistances, such as Resistance Shred, Shock, Poison, or Mark for Death, would benefit the player character having overcapped resistances as these are applied before the resistance cap for players.
For example, if the player character has 75% lightning resistance in a level 75+ area and enemies have applied 10 stacks of shock (-20% lightning resistance) to the player character then their lightning resistance has now decreased to 55%, but will really be -20% lightning resistance when enemy penetration is factored in. However, if the player character had 95% lightning resistance to start, instead of 75%, then their final lightning resistance would have been 0% in this example.
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All enemies gain % damage reduction based on area level which alters their actual health based on the effective health that enemy should have at the corresponding area level. At levels 1-6 there is no damage reduction, at level 7 there is 1.5%, then it gradually scales up to 30% at level 26, 50% at level 46, 60% at level 56, 75% at level 76, 83% at level 90, and finally reaching 87% at level 100.
Enemy effective health is calculated first, then this level based damage reduction is checked to see how much actual health the enemy has so the system doesn’t actually make enemies tankier. For example, if a level 46 enemy is supposed to have 2000 effective health, it will have 1000 actual health, because it has 50% damage reduction from level. If a level 76 enemy is supposed to have 2000 effective health it will have 500 actual health, because it has a 75% damage reduction from level.
Endgame Modifiers
Each endgame mode applies additional modifiers to enemies in some way to make their content more challenging. Both the Endless Arena and Monolith of Fate have systems that scale specific enemy modifiers infinitely based on player progress.
Dungeons
Selecting higher difficulty tiers and progressing further into a dungeon increases enemy health, damage, and rewards. Each floor of the dungeon provides options for differing increases to these modifiers that will persist for the remainder of the dungeon.
Arena
Similar to dungeons, selecting higher difficulty tiers and progressing further within the Arena of Champions will increase enemy health, damage, and rewards. At each 10th wave interval you are presented with two options of modifiers with you required to select one before moving forward. This happens three times during an Arena of Champions run. These will add modifiers to further arena waves, as well as modify the Arena Champion’s drops.
The Endless Arena will increase enemy damage, health, movement speed, and pack density as the player delves deeper into its infinitely scaling progression system. However, enemy movement speed and pack density do have limits to their scaling. Enemy damage and health also have scaling increases at each 100th wave interval.
Monolith of Fate
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Additional modifiers are selected by the player based on the Echo they’ve chosen. These modifiers will affect all enemies or specific enemy types in that Timeline for a predetermined number of Echoes. To see the full list click here and select each of the Timelines to view the full selection of enemy modifiers available to the player in that Timeline.
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The Monolith of Fate also incorporates an infinitely scaling system called corruption. Corruption increases enemy health, enemy damage, experience gained, and the increased item rarity modifier.
7.5 Adaptive Boss Mitigation System
Bosses receive a separate damage reduction system. Its implementation causes bosses’ damage reduction to decay over time, but temporarily go up when they lose 1% of their maximum health. The result is that differences in player damage have a smaller impact than they do against most enemies, so high health bosses don’t take forever for low damage builds, and high damage builds don’t kill them before getting to experience their mechanics.
- Bosses can take up to 170% more damage than most enemies, but start off with a lot of temporary resistance so they initially take about the same amount of damage as most enemies.
- Once they have dropped to 99% health this initial temporary resistance begins to drop off linearly over time. The exact duration depends on the boss’s health compared to its level, it’s about 150 seconds for the Abomination boss.
- Whenever the boss loses 1% of its total health it takes 2% less damage for a duration. The exact duration depends on the boss’s health compared to its level, it’s about 30 seconds for the Abomination boss. This 1% does not need to be dealt with a single hit.
- Whenever a boss takes lots of damage at once the damage is reduced based on how many of these stacks of damage reduction it would have procced. This just means that one big hit deals the same damage as lots of small hits over a short duration (where the later hits would be affected by the temporary damage reduction).
- With this system unless your build has exceptionally high single target damage you should never deal significantly less damage to a boss than you would to a regular enemy. Meanwhile if you’re struggling to take down the boss in the normal amount of time you will end up dealing more damage to the boss as the fight goes on.
This system applies to all bosses except those found in randomized Monolith zones or the Endless Arena.