In Last Epoch, Ailments are negative status effects—essentially debuffs—that can be applied to enemies or even the player. These effects either deal damage over time (DoT), weaken the target, or combine both effects, playing a crucial role in combat strategy and build customization Last Epoch Gold.

Types of Ailments
Ailments generally fall into three categories:
1. Damage-dealing debuffs: These inflict damage over time, such as Poison, Ignite, Bleed, and Electrify.
2. Weaken debuffs: These reduce enemy stats or resistances, like Marked for Death (which lowers resistances) or Shock (which reduces lightning resistance and increases stun chance).
3. Hybrid debuffs: These both damage and weaken the enemy, with Poison being a prime example—it deals damage and reduces Poison Resistance, making subsequent Poison damage more effective.

How Ailments Work
Ailments are applied through skills, weapons, or environmental effects. When you hit an enemy, there’s a chance to apply one or more stacks of an ailment depending on your build’s stats and skill nodes. Notably, if your chance to apply an ailment exceeds 100%, you can apply multiple stacks at once, increasing damage or debuff effectiveness rapidly.

Most damaging ailments scale by increasing their duration rather than the damage per tick. To boost ailment damage, players often invest in skill nodes that increase “More Damage” for the specific ailment or increase its duration. Non-damaging ailments scale by increasing their chance to apply or the number of stacks.

Interaction with Resistances and Penetration
Enemy resistances reduce the damage inflicted by elemental ailments. For example, if an enemy has 75% fire resistance, only 25% of your Ignite damage will affect them. Resistance reduction effects like Marked for Death can lower these resistances, increasing damage taken. Additionally, resistance penetration applies after resistance reduction, further increasing damage. Penetration can even push resistances into negative values, causing damage amplification.

Importance
Understanding ailments is vital for creating effective builds. Many players focus on hybrid ailments like Poison for both sustained damage and resistance reduction. Others may specialize in crowd control ailments such as Freeze, which immobilizes enemies briefly, or Shock, which increases the chance to stun buy Last Epoch Gold.