Status Effect-Powered Ability

A form of Power-Up, and a common tactical element in video games, this is when an ability depends on the existence of Status Effects, whether in the user or in the target.

There are many forms this can take:

• Attacks/abilities that become more powerful if you're afflicted with a certain status effect.
  • For Status Buff specifically, the property of "increased effects" must be on the attack/ability itself, rather than the buff. If the two things happen to overlap, that's a bonus.
• Attacks/abilities that become more powerful if the enemy's afflicted with a certain status effect. Overlaps with Injured Vulnerability since it allows status effects as "injury".
  • If the debuff directly increases damage, that is a Damage-Increasing Debuff. Here, the property of "increased effects" must be on the ability itself, rather than the debuff.
• Attacks/abilities that only activate when the user (or occasionally the enemy) has a certain (or any kind of) status effect.

Compare Damage-Increasing Debuff, and contrast Defense Mechanism Superpower which is a defensive version of this trope.

Consuming the Status Effects on usage is optional, depending on the ability. Related to - and may overlap with - Situational Damage Attack.

See also Hydro-Electro Combo (electrocuting a drenched enemy) and Literally Shattered Lives (smashing a frozen enemy).

Not to be confused with Marked to Die, which is a narrative trope about characters being signaled out for death.

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Examples

Action-Adventure

• Nobody Saves the World: Rat's Detonate skill damages enemies that have Poison status effect, and Slug's passive ability increases the critical damage inflicted on enemies with debuffs.

Beat Em Up

• In Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, Monica's passive ability, "Shrewd Operator", allows her to inflict extra damage on enemies afflicted by elemental status ailments.
• Honkai Impact 3rd:
  • Some characters have passives that allow them to increase damage that they deal if the enemy is afflicted with certain status ailments. For example, Lightning Empress (one of Mei's "suits") can deal higher damage in her attacks on enemies that are either paralyzed, slowed (i.e movement and attack speed decreased), or frozen.
  • Some weapons and Stigmata either lets the user deal more damage on enemies with certain status ailments, or give them various effects and boons if they attack enemies with certain status ailments.
  • The Quick Time Event system allows you to tag your certain partner in for a powerful attack if the enemy is afflicted with certain status ailment that triggers said partner's QTE skill.

Card Battle Game

• Caller's Bane: Unbind is a One-Hit Kill card that can only be used on an enchanted unit. Since the faction that uses it also specializes in harmful enchantments, this isn't usually a problem.
• Hearthstone: Mages have a number of cards that gain bonus effects if used on Frozen targets, usually dealing extra damage or outright destroying the target.
• Plants vs. Zombies: Heroes:
  • The Winter Squash will One-Hit Kill any Zombie that gets the Frozen status effect.
  • The Snowdrop gets +2 attack and health every time a Zombie gets the Frozen status effect.
  • The Cryo Yeti gets +2 attack and health whenever a Plant or a Zombie gets the Frozen status effect. It also freezes a Plant when played.

First-Person Shooter

• Borderlands 2:
  • Hitting a slagged enemy with another element will increase the damage.
  • Several of Krieg's skills will only activate if he's on fire.
• Team Fortress 2:
  • The Pyro's Flare Gun, Dragon's Fury, and Detonator deal Critical, 400%, and Mini-Crit damage, respectively, on a target that is already ignited.
  • The Pyro's Axtinguisher and Neon Annihilator deal Critical damage if the target is already ignited or wet (i.e., hit by Jarate or Mad Milk, or been in a body of water), respectively.
• Unreal: Under the effects of the Energy Amplifier, shots fired with the Dispersion Pistol and the ASMD are more powerful.

MMORPG

• Elsword:
  • Lord Knight's passive "Counter Patience" gives him increased strength that stacks based on the number of negative status effects he's suffering.
  • Fury Guardian's "Caladbolg Pain" skill does extra damage the more status ailments the enemy has.
  • Blazing Heart's "Fire Blossoms" passive, by random chance, turns any status ailments she may have into a flower of fire, which can be picked up by her or her allies for a buff.
  • Iron Paladin's Burst Wolf skill lets him transfer any status ailments he may have to the enemies that get hit by it.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic:
  • Several classes have abilities that trigger when targeting an enemy who is affected by a Damage Over Time effect, either causing increased damage or spreading the effect to other nearby enemies.
  • High Impact Bolt and Rail Shot are powerful ranged attacks that can only target an enemy who is either stunned or suffering from a damage over time effect.
• In Vindictus, the attacks Judgement and Execute both deal increased damage if the user has the Awakening status effect, with Execute also reducing the level of Awakening to zero. There are also several other abilities with similar mechanics, and one character has a mechanic based around stacking debuffs on the target and then triggering them with destructive results.
• This is a common mechanic in World of Warcraft. An example — depending on the balance patch — is the Paladin's Avenging Wrath which not only provides a hefty percentage buff to all of your damage, but also allows you free use of Hammer of Wrath without having to reduce your target's health below a certain percentage. However, this benefit is only if the Paladin is specialized in the Retribution (damage dealer) role.

MOBA

• Heroes of the Storm:
  • Fenix's heroic ability Purification Salvo deals heavily increased damage to slowed enemies. He can apply a slow himself with his Plasma Cutter ability.
  • Murky's Slime lightly damages all enemies around him and covers them in slime. If they're still slimed when they're hit by the ability again, it instead deals very high damage. Considering Murky has the health pool of a minion, this is harder than it sounds.
  • Chen's Keg Toss throws a barrel of alcohol that slows enemies and soaks them in booze. If he recasts the ability within a few seconds, he'll use Breath of Fire, which ignites booze-soaked enemies for Damage Over Time.
  • Several heroes have access to Executioner or some variant, which is a talent that causes your basic attacks to deal extra damage to enemies under any form of negative status effect.

Real-Time Strategy

• Warcraft III:
  • The Drunken Haze spell slows enemies and causes them to miss, while Breath of Fire does a lot of damage at once to multiple enemies. A unit hit by Breath of Fire while still under the effect of Drunken Haze will continue to take damage over time.
  • The Banish spell makes a unit temporarily ethereal, where they are immune to regular attacks, but move slower and take increased damage from magic-type attacks and spells.
• South Park: Phone Destroyer: Infiltrator Kevin's attacks deal more damage against frozen or stunned enemies.

Role-Playing Game

• AdventureQuest: Enemies or players who are Frozen take increased damage from Fire attacks in addition to losing their turn for the duration of the effect.
• In Bravely Default, this is the function of the Arcanist class, which has spells that do massive damage to anyone on the field — friend or foe — who is either asleep, poisoned, or has gained or spent extra turns.
• In Culdcept, the spell Punisher deals damage to each creature on a territory with a status effect active. A few creatures also gain bonuses if they are on territory with a status effect.
• Darkest Dungeon:
  • The Marked status effect powers up the skills of several different heroes, allowing them to deal majorly increased damage against targets suffering the debuff. Those that can both Mark a target and Combo with the resulting damage next turn include the Arbalest, Bounty Hunter, and Houndmaster. While they have no way of applying the Marked status effect, the Highwayman and Grave Robber both have attacks that deal increased damage to Marked foes as well.
  • Uniquely, the Grave Robber's dagger throw deals extra damage if her target is Blighted, and the Bounty Hunter's Finish Him deals bonus damage against Stunned targets.
• In Dark Souls, you can only inflict any sort of damage on ghost-type enemies if you are Cursed (majorly debilitating debuff that halves your maximum Hit Points). Luckily, there is a consumable item that imitates the effects of a Curse minus the HP debuff for a short time.
• Divinity: Original Sin II:
  • A talent adds elemental damage to your arrows if you are currently standing on a surface of corresponding element. In other words, if you are on fire, your arrows gain added fire damage.
  • Some status ailments upgrade to a more severe version if the target already has specific status effects from attacks or Geo Effects. "Warm" is a harmless effect that stacks with itself to become "Burning"; "Wet" combines with "Chilled" or "Shocked" to freeze the target solid or stun them; and so on.
  • The skill "Spontaneous Combustion" deals moderate fire damage, but if the target has the Burning status effect, it also turns all the Damage Over Time for the rest of the effect's duration into a single hit.
• Dragalia Lost:
  • For every affliction that players can perform on enemies there is a punisher print that will make adventurers who have it equipped do extra damage to enemies afflicted with the debuff the print boosts.
  • Lily's Glacial Blossom and Fjorm's Frigid Smash are not only capable of inflicting frostbite and freeze on enemies, but they also do additional damage to enemies who are already frostbitten.
  • Xania's Ivyblaze is capable of inflicting extra damage on enemies suffering from burn. However this only applies if Xania has the proper node in her spiral unlocked.
• Dragon Age has had this concept evolve over the course of the series.
  • In Dragon Age: Origins, there were "spell combinations." Mages could afflict certain targets with debuffs, which would cause other abilities, primarily other mage spells, to deal increased damage or cause some other debilitating effect. For example, using Drain Life or Drain Mana on a target afflicted by Vulnerability Hex (which increased magic damage taken) would cause the drain spell to be twice as effective as normal; for another, using Horror on a target affected by Sleep would cause a Nightmare effect, dealing a large amount of damage. The most versatile one was Shattering, where an enemy frozen or petrified by a mage could be one hit killed by a critical strike; unlike the others, this could be exploited by any class.
  • Dragon Age II built upon the concept with "cross-class combos." Each class now had a specific debuff unique to them — Brittle (caused by mages, increasing damage taken from critical strikes), Stagger (caused by warriors, reducing enemies' chance to hit or dodge), and Disorient (caused by rogues, reducing only enemies' to dodge, but by a larger amount than Stagger). These could be exploited by certain abilities, usually massively increasing damage taken from the attack and disabling the enemy for a short period.
  • Dragon Age: Inquisition alters the concept further. Now there are 4 types of debuffs — Stun, Sleep, Freeze, and Paralyze — which are caused by a variety of abilities not necessarily unique to any one class. Instead, each class has a specific type of "detonator" ability (Impact for warriors, Precision for rogues, and Eldritch for mages), and combining a particular debuff with a particular detonator can cause one of several effects: Rupture (heavy damage over time), Shatter (heavy cold damage), Discharge (Area of Effect electric damage), Nightmare (strong damage and a panic effect), Weakness (strong damage and damage reduction), or a Basic Combo (moderate extra damage and nothing else).
• Dragon Quest IX: The knife skills Victimiser and Persecutter deal extra damage if used on enemies who are poisoned/paralyzed and confused/asleep respectively. These skills can also be unlocked in Dragon Quest XI for Erik and Sylvando. Erik in particular can combine this with his Divide skill to deliver eighteen times the damage of a regular hit.
• Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan: The Nightseeker and Sniper both specialize in Status Infliction Attacks and exploiting them:
  • The Nightseeker's class proficiency gives them a massive damage boost when attacking an enemy suffering from a status ailment, while their Assassinate skill has a higher chance of successfully causing a One-Hit Kill on such an enemy.
  • The Sniper, meanwhile, learns Snipe Mastery, which gives them a higher chance to critically hit an enemy that is bound (which synergizes well with their class proficiency, which increases the damage bonus from a critical).
• Epic Battle Fantasy:
  • The Giga Drill skill does more damage the higher the enemy's defensive buffs are (and is most visible on bosses).
  • In Epic Battle Fantasy 5, every element can be boosted by a neutral or negative status effect. However, the neutral status effects like Dry or Light will also protect you from damage of other elements, such as Light decreasing Earth damage.
• Fate/Grand Order :
  • Arjuna Alter (Berserker) has a skill that lets him do increased damage towards any enemy that has any kind of debuff.
  • Robin Hood's Noble Phantasm "Yew Bow" will do extra damage if the enemy is poisoned (and he has a skill that poisons an enemy). Its damage can be further increased with more stacks of poison debuff (from another party member).
  • Romulus Quirinus' specialty is applying the "Roman" trait to both allies and enemies alike. Two of his skills and his Noble Phantasm are all capable of making enemies "Roman," and his Noble Phantasm does extra damage to all enemies based on how many "Roman" traits have been stacked on them, up to a maximum of ten stacks.
  • Tomoe Gozen's Noble Phantasm "On Arorikya Sowaka" both afflicts the enemy with a burn debuff and also applies an effect that increases the damage taken from burns by 100-300%. If you're able to stack multiple burn debuffs (from herself or another party member) and cycle her Noble Phantasm a couple of times, the damage can add up in a hurry.
• Final Fantasy:
  • In Final Fantasy VI, the Imp Armor set — the Impartisan, Tortoise Shield, Saucer, and Reed Cloak — turn the character into a Lightning Bruiser if they're under the Imp status effect. Trouble is, an Imp can only attack, use items, and cast the Imp spell.
  • In Final Fantasy VII, Tifa's Powersoul gauntlet doubles her attack power if she is near death, and quadruples it if she has Doom/Death Sentence cast on her. That means a Tifa with both Critical and Doom deals eight times her normal damage.
  • Inverted in Final Fantasy X, in the battle with Yunalesca. Here, the Zombie status effect which Yunalesca liberally uses is a lifesaver from the mass Death attacks she spams. When under Zombie, your characters cannot replenish their health but are safe from the One-Hit KO all-hitting attack.
  • In Final Fantasy XII, the Technick Sight Unseeing is an ability that has a low chance (higher if the user's level is significantly higher than the enemy's) to reduce the target's HP to single digits, but it can only be used if the user is blinded.
  • In Final Fantasy XIII, Vanille's Death spell deal immense damage, but also has a chance to deal a One-Hit Kill depending on the number of ailments on the target. The chance starts at 1% and goes up an additional 1% for every ailment.
  • Final Fantasy XIV: Prior to being reworked into a simple damage ability in Endwalker, Bard's Shadowbite attack would normally deal low damage to an unafflicted target, but applying both of Bard's Damage Over Time effects onto the target greatly ups Shadowbite's damage output.
  • Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Bangaa Tricksters have a suite of status-inducing abilities that combo well with their Traumatize skill, which deals increasing damage the more statuses a target is suffering from.
• Genshin Impact: The Bathysmal Vishaps in Enkanomiya can induce a status effect called "Cleansing Shower" on your party members which drains your Elemental Burst gauge. If your gauge reaches zero and there are no elemental particles to refill it, the Vishap's attacks will deal double the damage to you and take a large chunk of your HP away (sometimes leading to a One-Hit Kill if your characters are underleveled). This makes using Elemental Bursts on them a very risky move as using one immediately drains your Burst gauge to zero, thus making you more prone to brutal punishment from the Vishaps.
• In MARDEK, Zach's Coup De Grace attack deals damage based on the number of status conditions on the target. Despite the name, it is actually most effective against enemies that use many different buff-granting abilities.
• Mass Effect 2 introduces power combos, with Mass Effect 3 improving the concept. Some abilities can inflict status conditions (called priming) which have some small effects on the target's condition. Other abilities (called detonators) can then react with these charges to create explosions. For example, warp primes a target with biotic charge, which can then react with throw, a biotic detonator. This leads to an explosion. With single player being rather easy, they only become relevant in multiplayer. It also doesn't help that the game doesn't mention them in any way.
• Mega Man Battle Network:
  • The Bubble chip will encase the foe hit by it in a bubble. They'll take double damage from Elec chips in that state.
  • Getting frozen (commonly by getting hit with an Aqua chip while standing on an ice panel) will make you vulnerable to Elec or Break chips, depending on the game.
  • The Machine Sword in the sixth game will only hit opponents that are paralyzed.
• Octopath Traveler II
  • Warrior's Enervating Slash becomes more powerful based on the amount of buffs on the user. It, however nullifies these buffs in exchange. The description falsely claims that it's powered by enemy's buffs, but it's not actually the case.
  • Castti's EX Skill, Drastic Measures, becomes stronger based on amount of ailments and debuffs on the enemy, and also removes these effects after going off.
• In OMORI, several skills are stronger when the user or target are afflicted with certain emotions. Omori himself specializes in these types of skills.
  • Omori's Stab always deal critical damage. If Omori is Sad, it also ignores the target's defense. Lucky Slice does more damage if Omori is Happy. Hack Away is also stronger if Omori is Angry.
  • Omori has the skill Mock, which does big damage, and additionally lowers the enemy's Attack if they're Angry. Trick and Shun are similar. Trick lowers the enemy's Speed if they're Happy, and Shun lowers defense if the enemy is Sad.
  • Exploit does more damage if the enemy is afflicted with any emotions period.
  • Final Strike does more damage if Omori is inflicted with an emotion. The more intense the emotion is, the higher the damage
  • Aubrey's Headbutt does more damage if Aubrey is Angry. Mood Wrecker does more damage to Happy enemies.
  • Kel's Comeback usually just makes him Happy. But if he's inflicted with Sad when using it, he also gains Flex effect (double damage next turn).
  • Kel also has Curveball, which does more damage to any enemies with emotion, and then randomly changes their emotions. He also has Snowball, which makes an enemy Sad, and does more damage if they're already Sad.
• Pokémon:
  • The Pokémon abilities Guts, Quick Feet, and Marvel Scale will only activate if the user is afflicted with a status condition.
  • The ability Poison Heal causes the user to restore health from being poisoned instead of losing it.
  • Toxic Boost, exclusively the Hidden Ability of Zangoose, increases its Attack if it's poisoned.
  • Flare Boost, exclusively the Hidden Ability of the Drifloon line, increases their Special Attack if they're burned.
  • Facade doubles in power when the user has a status ailment.
  • Dream Eater can only be used when the opponent is asleep.
  • Sleep Talk and Snore can only be used when the user is asleep.
  • The moves Smelling Salts and Wake-Up Slap deal double damage to a target that is paralyzed and asleep, respectively. Each move also cures the target of said affliction.
  • The move Hex deals double damage if the target has a status condition.
  • Venoshock deals double damage if the target is poisoned. Unlike Smelling Salts/Wake-Up Slap, it doesn't cure them.
  • The move Venom Drench inflicts a stat debuff on poisoned opponents only.
  • In the gen 1 games only, Leech Seed deals extra damage each turn to a foe inflicted with Toxic poison, due to a glitch.
• Path of Exile:
  • The Support gems Immolate, Hypothermia and Bloodlust modify skills to do additional damage to enemies that are burning, chilled or bleeding, respectively.
  • The Boneshatter skill is a melee attack that creates a damaging pulse if it stuns its target.
  • The Lightning Conduit spell only works on shocked enemies, hits harder depending on the shock's potency, and removes the shock effect.
  • The Hexblast spell deals additional damage and also damages anyone near the target if the target is hexed, then removes the hex.
• Prayer of the Faithless: Some abilities, like Chaos Breaker:
  Critical hit against targets with Panic.
• In Sonny, the Corruption attack requires the enemy to have at least 1 shadow-type buff or debuff, which it will attempt to dispel.
• Shin Megami Tensei series:
  • In Digital Devil Saga, 'Hunting'-type attacks become more effective if used against enemies suffering from the 'Frightened' effect. The misleadingly-named Null Sleep passive skill allows the user to dodge most attacks while they're sleeping.
  • In the Persona series from Persona 3 on, the Ghastly Wail attack is a One-Hit Kill against any target with the fear debuff active and harmless otherwise. The skill Cruel Attack and its stronger version Vile Assault deal more damage to enemies with the Down or Dizzy status effects in Persona 3 and Persona 4.
  • Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth, being a fusion of the aforementioned Persona and Etrian Odyssey games, gets in on this as well. The Guillotine skill does additional damage against enemies suffering from a status ailment, while the Death's Scythe passive increases the damage done by all attacks on enemies afflicted with a status ailment.
  • Shin Megami Tensei IV has the spells "Death's Door," which instantly kills characters who are sick, and "Eternal Rest," which kills those who are sleeping.
• In Persona 5 and Persona 5 Strikers, this is an actual battle mechanic. Being inflicted with status ailments, in addition to their usual effects, also make you take "Technical Damage" from certain attack types.
  • Burned characters takes more damage from Wind attacks. Frozen and Shocked characters take more damage from Physical and Gun attacks. All three ailments above take more damage from Nuclear attacks.
  • Dizzy and Sleep take technical damage from any attacks, but the ailment will be removed afterwards.
  • Psychokinesis attacks deal more damage to enemies inflicted with "psychological" ailments (Confuse, Fear, Rage, Despair, and Brainwash). In Royal this also includes Forget.
• Weird and Unfortunate Things Are Happening: Lamar's Nocturne skill does "Double damage if target is asleep."
• Xenoblade Chronicles 1:
  • The damage dealt by Riki's Say Sorry art is multiplied by the number of debuffs its target has plus one, but it also cures those debuffs.
  • The final character's Spear Blade art deals triple damage to a toppled enemy.
  • Sharla's Head Shot has a chance to One-Hit Kill enemies that are dazed.
• A few attacks in Yakuza: Like a Dragon deal higher damage if an enemy's afflicted with a specific condition, usually one that can be inflicted with a character's other attacks. On top of that, Zhao's Drunken Tiger Fist has a higher chance of critting if he's drunk.

Roguelikes

• The Binding of Isaac: Tainted Azazel normally fires a very weak, thin laser as his main attack. However, he can also sneeze to knock back enemies in melee and cover them in blood. Enemies covered in blood this way take greatly increased damage from the laser. This makes him a unique hit and run-style character that wants to get close to enemies then pull back to make use of the laser's range.
• Risk of Rain 2: the Death Mark item applies a powerful Damage-Increasing Debuff to enemies, but requires them to have four different debuffs applied on them.

Tabletop Games

• Magic: The Gathering:
  • Chained Throatseeker, Corrupted Resolve, Septic Rats, and Viridian Betrayers all gain various bonuses if an opponent has at least one poison counter.
  • The "corrupted" mechanic enables additional effects if opponent(s) have three or more poison counters.
• In the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, rogues and various monsters deal additional damage against targets they have "combat advantage" against, which is a status provided by several other status effects such as "prone" or "immobilized". This is used mostly to represent sneakiness and backstabby-ness.
• In Fabula Ultima, the Adversity heroic skill gives a player character a stacking bonus to their checks and damage output for every status effect afflicting them.

Third-Person Shooter

• Warframe:
  • Covert Lethality is a rare mod that turns any finisher attack with a dagger into a One-Hit Kill. Besides the obvious Stealth Finishers, finishers can also be triggered on blinded (several Warframe powers blind enemies) or Stunned (from the blast some weapons can make when one has earned enough Experience Points while having it drawn). It can lead to a situation where one Tenno can blind enemies and then kill an entire room worth of enemies. Even worse, one dagger can be fitted with a mod that gives an area of effect attack that triggers when gaining enough Experience points, and when said attack triggers, restore Energy.
  • Condition Overload is another rare mod that enhances the damage of the melee weapon it's equipped to by 60% at max rank per status effect inflicted on the target. Combined with melee weapons that can reach nearly 100% status chance with the right mods or a status-heavy firearm just before swinging, nearly any melee weapon can deal incredible damage against any enemy but the status immune.

Turn-Based Strategy

• Disgaea:
  • Disgaea D2: A Brighter Darkness: Lanterns with the "Peasant" Personality have the ability to "reverse" any Status Ailments they're hit with for the positive. (IE: Poison becomes Regenerating Health, Paralysis doubles movement)
  • Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten: Prinnies have Evilities that increase their EXP and Mana Gains when Paralyzed or Depraved.
  • Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance: The Imp inherits the Lantern's ability to reverse certain Ailments (Poison, Paralysis and Weaken specifically) through some of its available Evilities. This installment's Prinnies meanwhile can equip "Through Adversity," which gives them a flat 30% increase to stats when afflicted with any ailment.
• In Terra Battle, the skill Poison Predator deals strong physical damage to all enemies inflicted with Poison.

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