While players battle dangerous foes in Elden Ring, they’re almost guaranteed to see an icon for a status effect. Understanding each one can be a bit tricky without getting inflicted by them, but each one is highly dangerous. However, these status effects can also be inflicted on enemies with the right tools. Knowing each of the status effects in Elden Ring will be vital for anyone exploring the Lands Between – especially when facing off against other players.
All Elden Ring Status Effects
These statuses activate after their bar fills up. You can see the bar filling whenever being inflicted by a status. Players should assume every enemy has their own hidden bar that fills up when being attacked by a weapon or ability that inflicts statuses. Each status has its own use and is labelled with a special icon:
- Madness – Icon looks like a yellow, punctured eye. Will damage health and take away some FP when it’s inflicted. There are only a few locations where a player can be inflicted with madness. Its usability in the form of spells and weapons is lacking; the player will need to explore quite a lot to find those spells, and they’re only really useful against other players or NPCs.
- Death blight – Icon looks like a pointy black mass. Will instantly kill the victim when it’s inflicted. There are more sources of death blight throughout the world, and its usability outside of PVP is once again lacking. However, it is much stronger than Madness due to how instantaneous it is.
- Poison – Icon looks like four green, glowing bubbles. Will slowly drain HP when it’s inflicted. Poison is an incredibly common status effect, but many enemies can be inflicted with it as well. Poison is easy to cure and not as harmful to players as other status effects, but it isn’t a very useful tool against enemies due to its low damage.
- Scarlet Rot – Icon looks like four red orbs with veins coming out of them. Will rapidly drain HP when it’s inflicted. Generally deadlier to players, harder to cure, and effective against less enemies. However, there are better spells and abilities that can inflict scarlet rot on your foes. Scarlet rot is one of the most troublesome effects and one of the most useful, as a result.
- Frost – Icon looks like a white-and-blue gash. Will damage health, decrease damage absorption, and lower stamina recovery when it’s inflicted. Not many enemies take advantage of this status effect, and there are many weapons and skills that allow the player to wield frost. It can be annoying to deal with when inflicted on you, but frost’s existence is generally more helpful to players than not.
- Blood Loss – Icon looks like a red, bloody gash. Will greatly damage health when it’s inflicted. Bleed is one of the most common statuses players will find. Almost every enemy in the game is weak to it, and it can be extremely useful in both PVP and PVE battles.
- Sleep – Icon looks like a blue, closed eye. Will stun players and temporarily knock enemies out when inflicted. Many foes are immune to sleep, but numerous enemies – including certain boss duos – are surprisingly weak to it. Very few enemies will inflict this status, making it almost completely centered around player usage.
In a way, the best status effects for Elden Ring players are frost, blood loss, and sleep. Anyone interested in inflicting these statuses should level up their Arcane attribute as much as they can. When making the most of them, these effects can give the player a smooth ride throughout the entire game no matter what foes they might face.
Elden Ring is available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
