Afflictions in Wizard of Legend 2

In Wizard of Legend 2, you wield a variety of elemental spells known as Arcana. These provide your Wizard with various ways to deal with foes during the trials. Some Arcanas can inflict status effects known as "Afflictions" on enemies. These work similarly to Curses in Hades, inflicting damage over time, applying a crowd control effect, or amplifying your damage. You can get a few afflictions through other means, like Relics, but most do come from Arcanas and Arcana Variants.

Afflictions are additional effects that your Arcanas can inflict upon enemies. There are 8 afflictions in Wizard of Legend 2: Burn, Shock, Shackle, Fracture, Slam, Slow, Airborne, and Frozen. Some of these are specific to one element, whereas others can be applied by Arcanas of different elements. The "+25% additional damage against afflicted enemies" Arcana Enhancement is a potent way to scale your damage by inflicting a status on your enemies. Additionally, many afflictions are valuable for more than their damage output as they provide crowd control effects, which can turn the tide of battle or temporarily disable a dangerous foe.

Bosses and Crowd Control

You cannot apply Crowd Control effects to disable bosses the way you can with normal enemies. Instead, both damage and crowd control effects build up their stagger bar. They are stunned when the bar fills.

Burn is an affliction associated with the Fire element, found on Arcanas like Flame Breath. Burning enemies take damage over time.

This affliction is a nice way to get some extra damage, but it isn't super impactful on your run.

Lightning Arcanas like Volt Surge can Shock enemies. Shocked foes take continual lightning damage and are unable to move or take actions for the duration of the effect.

Working Shock into your build is a great way to give yourself a window of opportunity to unleash a barrage of damage without worrying about enemies fighting back.

Another lightning affliction is Shackle. This unique effect chains multiple enemies together, causing the other chained enemies to take damage when you strike any of the chained foes.

For example, with the Electro Bind dash Arcana, you can aggressively dash through foes to Shackle them together. After that, follow up with a high damage AoE (area of effect) spell to melt large groups of enemies. You can also use Shackle to transform an Arcana that normally deals single-target damage into a cleave effect.

Earth Arcanas can inflict Fracture on foes, causing them to take damage when they move or are moved. This effect is at its best when paired with Arcanas that knock foes back.

For example, the Stonestrike Kick applies Fracture to enemies while pushing them away, triggering the affliction for even more damage. Even if your Arcanas don't move enemies, you can still kite most enemies to trigger the Fracture damage.

Many water Arcanas Freeze the enemies they strike. Similar to the Shock affliction, a Frozen enemy is prevented from moving or acting. However, Freeze only lasts for one instance of damage unless you have Arctic Gloves.

Ice Spear is a powerful Water Arcana that both Freezes enemies and pushes them back. You can use it to set up for another highly damaging Arcana or take a foe out of the fight temporarily while you deal with some of the other enemies within the arena.

You can Slow enemies with Air Arcanas. This reduces enemy movement speed, making it easier for you to kite them when using ranged Arcanas or allowing you to more easily avoid enemy attacks while playing a melee build.

Slow is ineffective compared to other crowd control afflictions. It lasts for a reasonable duration, so you can easily use it to enable the Arcana Enhancements that say "deal #% increased damage to afflicted enemies." But the effect itself isn't great. Why slow an enemy down when you can completely disable them through Shock, Freeze, or Airborne?

Most afflictions are tied to a specific element or Arcana, but Slam is the exception. Any Arcana that moves enemies can activate Slam by knocking enemies into a wall or other object, and a few Arcana specifically inflict Slam.

Slam is a great source of additional damage, and it is primarily introduced through careful positioning rather than selecting specific Arcanas. You should prioritize knocking enemies into pits over triggering Slam, since a pit kills the enemy. But if there aren't any pits nearby, look for a wall or terrain feature to Slam foes into for additional damage!

Knocking an enemy Airborne is an effective way to prevent them from fighting back for a significant duration. This powerful effect is found on a wide variety of Arcanas and Arcana Variants.

Unlike Freeze, Airborne isn't interrupted when you deal damage to the afflicted enemy, making it a highly effective form of crowd control.

Summary

Afflictions are debuffs that deal damage over time, crowd control enemies, or provide unique utility effects and are primarily applied by your Arcanas. Most afflictions are associated with a specific element, but a few are shared across a wide variety of spells.

• Fire Arcanas Burn enemies, causing them to take damage over time.
• Lightning Arcanas can Shock enemies, crowd controlling them, or Shackle them so that multiple foes share damage.
• Earth Arcanas Fracture enemies, causing them to take additional damage as they move.
• Freeze enemies with Water Arcanas to prevent them from acting until they take another hit.
• Air Arcanas can slow foes, decreasing their movement speed.
• Slam deals damage to enemies when they are knocked into walls and objects.
• Airborne foes are suspended helplessly in midair for a short duration.

Credits

Written by: Tenkiei
Reviewed by: IBoilerUp