Status Effects

Status effects are unique ailments and conditions that can affect both enemies and units. Some of these effects are only available either to units or enemies.

Some effects occur naturally while others are caused by certain attacks and abilities.

Natural Effects

Both units and enemies on the battlefield can have effects related to their morale. These effects can be applied only via random and unique conditions.

Inspiration

An inspired Ranger.

Inspiration (units with this effect are also referred to as lucky or courageous) is a positive effect that can be applied to units at a 10% chance whenever they spawn. Inspired units have their movement speed increased by 20% and their Agility increased by 5.

Visually, units that are affected will have a faintly glowing, yellow laurel over their head and briefly glow yellow when they gain this effect.

Individual units can get this effect randomly when they come out of the bus. Both Cap and Pepper with their special ability unlocked are able to apply this effect on all units on the battlefield at once. Cap can use it an unlimited amount of times as long as he stays alive. Pepper, on the other hand, can only use it once immediately after being sent out of the bus.

Fear

A scared Medic.

Fear (units with this effect are also referred to as scared) is a negative effect that can be applied to units. Units that are afflicted suffer from worsened reaction speeds as demonstrated by units attacking enemies more later than usual, making occasional pauses in-between attacks, and idling for brief moments without doing anything.

How badly their reaction time (agility) and attack delay (aggression) will be negatively affected is determined by the unit's stat named "Agility/Aggression modifier", which is then multiplied by the unit's agility/aggresion value. Meaning that some units can get affected more or less by it when under the fear status ailment.

Visually, units that are affected will have a scared, screaming face over their head and glow purplish-blue.

Some units are partially resistant to fear. The strength of each individual unit's fear resistance varies between one another. Units with the fear inspiration perk are the only ones with fear immunity but are capable of applying fear on their teammates as well, much like their enemies. Their fear inspiration is particularly strong which makes sending just two or even just one of these units onto the battlefield a potential hindrance to other units' total DPS. Some units have resistance to fear with varying strengths. The stronger they are as a group or as an individual, the more enemies are needed to scare them. The inspiration buff can partially override the effects of fear as it improves a unit's reaction time. However, it doesn't provide any direct resistance against it.

Individual units can get affected when they face a lot of enemies or particular zombies at once but fear is dependent on range. This range is fairly large, making it more common for melee units to become scared as they come into range of more enemies compared to ranged units who usually stay further back. Fear will stop affecting a unit once there are fewer enemies nearby or when units with the fear inspiration perk are slightly distant from them. In the 3.6.2 update, Marauders can now show fear when a unit is over their level.

Red Aura

A Zombie with red aura.

Red aura is a positive effect that can be applied to most enemies at a 10% chance whenever they spawn. Enemies that are afflicted generally have an increase in both damage and movement speed by 20-25%. This percentage varies for a majority of enemies, and the received buff is naturally rounded up to whole numbers. Necromancer and Twins, the two slowest non-stationary enemies in the game, simply have their base speed doubled.

Visually, enemies that are affected will glow red and small red particles will fly up out of their body. Sometimes, this effect can be obstructed when in crowds, making it slightly difficult to point out the specific affected enemy. Big enemies can hide most of the effect within their larger frames while others can shroud it with other visual effects.

Individual enemies can get this effect randomly at the start of the mission or when they enter the battlefield. Sergeant and Undead are capable of randomly gaining or regaining the effect after reviving. Enemies like Sapper and Armored Skeleton can degrade and randomly gain red aura as well. Certain enemies and most bosses are unable to gain this effect. Enemies emitting a red aura always grant an additional 15 points of rage on top of their usual amount when killed, totaling up into one number.

In most cases, enemies affected by red aura are only slightly more dangerous than their regular counterparts. As a general guideline, this effect is only dangerous if it's applied to an enemy with damage higher than 20 and/or speed faster than 12.

Damage Effects

Both units and enemies are capable of delivering harmful damage effects that can affect combat in varying ways.

Fire

A burning Prisoner.

Fire is a DoT (Damage over Time) debuff effect that can be used against both enemies and human units. Those that are afflicted take damage every second. Fire damage always fluctuates, dealing slightly more or slightly less of the documented amount of damage with each interval.

Visually, those that are affected immediately darken and gradually turn darker and darker as their health diminishes, to the point that they char into a solid black color right before they die. Small fire particles rise from their feet to their torso and smoke particles emit from their bodies just like those from fire pools.

Units with the fire resistance perk will completely ignore fire damage. Enemies can either be fully or partially fire-resistant. Both units and enemies become fire-resistant during rainy weather, as both groups cannot take additional fire damage. Nitrogen is capable of removing the fire debuff from affected units and enemies, although they will remain visibly darkened in appearance. Reversely, if Nitrogen stuns enemies or units, fire cannot deal damage or inflict the fire debuff until the stun wears off. Healing from things such as Medkit, Chopper's manual ability, or Paramedic Nancy's healing ability can fix damage done by fire but cannot remove it, making it a temporary measure at best to extend a unit's survivability.

Fire is most commonly created in the form of a fire pool. Zombies will always walk mindlessly through them and inflict themselves with the fire debuff. Units and marauders will simply walk around fire pools to avoid unnecessary damage if they lack fire resistance. There are two exceptions, Mechanic and Crazy. While Mechanic can also avoid fire pools, he won't if he's currently charging in to perform his additional damage attack. Crazy, on the other hand, will always run through fire pools without fail. Only a level 13 Carlos with his special ability unlocked, Flamethrower, and Swat can deal fire damage directly with their weapons; out of all three only Flamethrower deals pure fire damage.

Fire is capable of entirely destroying bodies. Ultimately being killed with fire or a fire-based attack reduces its victim to a pile of ashes. Fire pools are capable of burning unit and marauder corpses on the floor to prevent them from turning into a zombie. This won't work if the corpse belonged to someone that naturally possess fire resistance such as Firefighter and Biker, or those that possess infection resistance such as Specops. Both Sergeant and Undead can be burned to ashes to prevent them from reviving.

A unique property of fire is that the effect can indefinitely stack in certain cases. Each bullet from Swat or a level 13 Carlos that ignites an enemy will be treated as an individual source of fire, allowing for fire damage to essentially stack on top of each other. Multiple fire pools can similarly stack as well. However, Flamethrower's weapon cannot stack fire damage.

Poison

A poisoned Mechanic and Sonya.

Poison is a damage over time effect exclusively used by Epidemiologist (melee) and Slob (death explosion) against human units. Poisoned units take a fixed amount of damage at set intervals, and persists until the unit has been destroyed.

Visually, units that are affected have their health bar and damage display number turn blue. Units will curiously bleed out small blue droplets every time they take damage and emanate floating blue particles from their bodies, similar to enemies such as Dark Skeleton or Medic (Zombie) who naturally emit the same effect. Formerly, poisoned units would have a green health bar.

There are a few ways to get around poison. All units with the poison resist perk are actually immune to it. Glenn's ability to resurrect himself and units revived by Paramedic Nancy are able to get around because poison does not carry over during each revive, although it does not grant immunity to the effect again. Failing that, healing sources like Medic, Medkit, Chopper (manual ability) and Nancy will be able to partially counter it by recovering lost health.

Stun

Willy stunning Ram.

A group of "frozen" zombies.

Stun is a damage effect that can be used against both enemies and human units. Those that are afflicted will have their movement inhibited in general. There are two forms of the stun effect; the first is an electricity-based paralyzing stun that causes a very short, full movement halt and the second is a severe slowdown that affects movement and attack speed. Jailer, Nitrogen, Willy, Dr. Norman, and Rogue all possess the stun perk. Blue, Blue Runner, and Big Blue are the only enemies with the ability to stun. Jailer, Willy, and Rogue both utilize the first form of the stun effect while Nitrogen, Dr. Norman and all the listed enemies utilize the second form. Nitrogen's stun duration can be upgraded while everyone else has a fixed stun duration.

Stun durations are calculated independently. In the event multiple instances of such attacks connect with their target, only the latest one applies.

Visually, enemies that are successfully afflicted by Willy/Jailer/Rogue's stun effect will flash a cyan color. Both enemies and units affected by Nitrogen/Dr. Norman stun effect will glow a bright white. This also occurs for units who are stunned by enemies.

Willy, Jailer, Dr. Norman and Rogue's stun abilities apply to every enemy they hurt with said attacks, with Cephalopods being the only stun-immune to enemy in the entire game. Likewise, no units are directly resistant or immune to enemy stun effects. Nitrogen will not stun burning targets, instead extinguishing all fires on them.

Freeze

Freeze stuns have some extra unique characteristics from a normal stun, such as:

• Gives temporary ignite resistance
• Paramedic cannot use its counter attack (lightning strike when hit by melee attacks)
• Forces character to go idle and disallows all movement
• Sets aggression and agility to 0
• Prevents sandstorm from moving it
• Disallows usage of abilities

Knockback

Knockback is a damage effect that can be used against both enemies and human units. Those that are afflicted will be pushed some distance away from their attacker.

Units with the undocumented knockback resistance perk and enemies with the knockback resistance ability can either completely or partially negate knockback. Units under the Heavyweight class, most bosses, and certain zombies are unable to be knocked back at all. Some units, most of which are in the Damager class, and some zombies have varying amounts as to how much knockback they suffer. When units are knocked back, they will momentarily idle before moving again.

Many units and enemies can cause knockback. While most units deal knockback with their critical hits, some can deal it with every attack regardless. The same applies to enemies that deal knockback, but there are also very few enemies who can only cause knockback with only their regular attacks and not their critical hits. Psy is the only enemy who can cause a varying amount of knockback depending on how close a unit is to him when he performs his psi attack.

Trivia

Pre-3.0.0 poisoned Chopper.

• Before update 3.0.0, the poison debuff used to turn the health bar and damage display number of poisoned units green instead of blue. This was likely changed to prevent confusion for unit healing numbers introduced in the same update, which were also green.

Several inspired Sergeants.

• In the past, when an inspired unit dies, the zombie they turn into will somehow keep the bonus.
• If Glenn is inspired, he will always keep the effect after reviving, meaning inspiration is never lost even after death (as proven by the courageous zombies previously mentioned). Glenn also has a chance to revive with the inspiration effect if he didn't have it before.
• Interestingly, Slob and Epidemiologist cannot poison marauders, though this is only observed when they are spawned through third-party tools.
• The effects of fear are not limited to just human units. Fear can affect other living entities. These include most marauder enemies and Princess.
  • In the case of Princess, she just runs to the bus and dodges everything in her way, so fear has no effect on her.
  • In the case of most marauder enemies, fear does have an effect in their ability to fight as their attack speeds will suffer. However, unlike player units, the effects are slight and almost unperceivable in some cases. Some possess a bit of fear resistance and may require more than one unit with the fear inspiration perk to affect them. Uniquely, if there are enough marauders near each other, they can reduce the effectiveness of the fear inspiration perk. They can even counteract the effects entirely if there are enough of them standing close to each other. Crazy is the only fear immune marauder.

Quarantine red aura effect on a Soldier (Zombie).

• The red aura effect for enemies used to have a different appearance.