Status Effects

Status effects are temporary modifiers applied to characters — buffs that help, debuffs that hinder, and crowd control that restricts action.

You author the effects. Every status effect is a definition you create, name, colour and tune — there is no fixed list to work around. What the engine provides is a set of behaviour types: each effect picks one, and that decides what the server actually does with it. "Burn", "Blight" and "Dragonfire" can all be damage-over-time effects with completely different numbers, elements, icons and VFX.

The tables below group the behaviour types by what they do, using the names the seeded starter effects use.

Damage Over Time (DoT)

Healing Over Time (HoT)

Crowd Control

Hard crowd control obeys diminishing returns when the CC Diminishing Returns feature is on: repeated stuns, roots, silences and knockbacks on the same target wear off faster and then grant brief immunity, so perma-CC chains aren't possible.

Buffs

Stat Modifiers

Shields

A shield is a pool that soaks damage before it reaches health. It is a status effect like any other, so anything that can apply a status effect can grant one: an ability, a passive, a worn item, a consumable, a quest reward, a boss phase.

Where to author it

Database → Effects → Status Effects → New, with Type set to Shield (damage absorb).

1. Set Shield pool — how much damage it soaks. Switch the mode to Percent of the holder's maximum HP if you want it to scale with the wearer. 2. Set Duration. Leave it as-is for a cast barrier; it is ignored entirely when a passive or a worn item holds the shield open. 3. Open When the pool empties and pick the shape you want (see below). 4. Bind a break VFX and break sound on the VFX tab if you want the shatter to land. Nothing is bundled — an unbound slot is silent.

The one setting that decides everything

Every field

Putting a shield on a worn item

A status effect only lands from an ability. For gear, a skill level or a quest reward, it travels through a Passive:

1. Create the shield status effect (above). Give it Recharge after a delay and a Recharge rate — worn shields that simply end never come back. 2. Database → Effects → Passives → New, and list your shield on its Status Effects tab. 3. On the item, Skills & Effects → Passives (while equipped), add that passive.

Worn shields open empty and charge up on login, so relogging is never a free refill.

Gotchas

• Environmental damage pierces shields by default. Ground hazards, the

battle-royale ring, damage floors and starvation ignore them unless you turn on Shields vs. Environmental Damage in World → Features.

• Shields drop at logout and on death, but survive a portal.
• A shield held by a passive or worn item cannot be dispelled, and does not

end when broken if it can recharge.

• A passive's Max Stacks does not multiply a held shield — it always opens at

one stack.

• A status-immunity entry naming your shield blocks it silently, even

though it is a friendly effect.

• "Set HP to X%" ability effects are not damage — shields do not apply to them.
• Pet battles are out of scope. They run a separate HP system.
• A shield with no recharge that is held open by a passive or worn item will

not come back after its first break. The editor warns you about this.

Survival Effects

Effect Properties

Author effects in Database → Status Effects → + New Effect.

The form follows the type you pick. Choose the behaviour type first: the editor then shows only the fields that type actually reads, labels them in that type's own words ("Slow amount", not "Magnitude"), and explains what the engine does with it. A Stun has no magnitude to set because a stun is on or off; a Heal Over Time asks which pool it refills; a Fear asks how fast the target runs.

Setting one up

1. Open Database → Status Effects and click + New Effect. 2. On Basics, give it an ID (locked after creation — abilities reference it), a Name, and pick the Effect Type. Read the one-line summary under the dropdown: it is what the server will do. 3. Pick the Affected Stat if the type asks for one. Slow and Haste default to move speed when you leave it blank; Stat Buff and Stat Debuff require one — without it the effect applies and changes nothing. 4. On Magnitude & Timing, set the strength, and for Slow / Haste / Stat Buff / Stat Debuff choose whether that number is flat or a percent of the target's own value for that stat. 5. Set the Duration, the Tick Interval (damage- and heal-over-time only), and Max Stacks if the type stacks. 6. On Behavior, set dispel category, whether damage or acting breaks it, and any type-specific options. 7. On VFX, point at the apply / active / expire visuals.

Fields

Effects can stack up to their configured limit. Each stack tracks its own duration independently.

Gotchas

• A Stat Buff or Stat Debuff with no stat does nothing. The editor warns you; the server has nothing to change.
• Enter penalties as positive numbers. Slow and Stat Debuff subtract what you type — a Slow of 30 in percent mode is 30% slower.
• Stacked slows can't stop anyone. However many land, the target keeps a crawl of its normal speed rather than freezing in place. Use Root to actually pin something down.
• An effect shorter than its tick interval still fires once, on its final tick, rather than expiring for nothing.
• Knockback and Stealth are tags, not actions. Knockback shares crowd-control diminishing returns but pushes nobody — add a Displace effect on the ability for that. Stealth marks a target without hiding them; Invisible hides them.
• Old effects are repaired on load. Definitions seeded before the current type list (hot, cc, buff, debuff) matched no behaviour and silently did nothing. They are now mapped onto the real types — check any you had authored, because they will start working.

Mobs and classes can declare status rates per effect (a multiplier on how likely it is to land, with 0 meaning outright immunity), and elements can be bound to an effect so any hit of that element rolls to apply it.