User:Evil4Zerggin/Map notes

Some of this is my own, some paraphrased from.

Monster quantity
These affixes cause more monsters to spawn.


 * Anarchic: Area is inhabited by 2 additional Rogue Exiles. (15%) Gameplay: A rewarding but potentially dangerous affix, depending on which exiles you get---some are very easy, some are very deadly. Note that Rogue Exiles may spawn even without this mod. The loot generated compares favorably to that of a second boss, and the quantity bonus is higher.
 * Twinned: Area contains two Unique Bosses. (6%) Gameplay: Nasty on maps with difficult bosses, especially if they cannot be separated, but may be decent on small maps with multiple easy bosses (e.g. Promenade) where the bosses make up a larger proportion of the total loot.
 * of Champions: 20-50% more Magic Monsters. (3%) Gameplay: Probably the best affix---more Magic monsters means more and higher-level loot and experience.
 * of Commanders: 20-50% more Rare Monsters. (3%) Gameplay: Very good affix, though usually not as good as Champions due to the much smaller base rare population. The extra item level can produce good crafting items on top-level maps, though.
 * of Hordes: +20-50% Monster pack size. (0%) Gameplay: Another very good affix. Stuffs the map full of monsters and loot. However, many maps don't have the room to hold the extra monsters.

Monster type
These prefixes change the type of monsters that are on the map. Note that statues remain unchanged. These can be useful to remove a map's signature monster if it is unfavorable, e.g. Dark Forest's Devourers.

Text: Area is inhabited by...


 * Bipedal: Humanoids. (12%) Gameplay: A good mod to have---humanoids are numerous and easy to kill, and the quantity modifier is decent.
 * Capricious: Goatmen. (16%) Gameplay: Formerly one of the most feared mods due to the possibility of being stunlocked and killed by leaping Goatmen packs. However, Goatmen have since far been superseded in danger by monsters such as Devourers and Croaking Chimerals. At a solid 16% quantity this is a decent mod to have.
 * Demonic: Demons. (15%) Gameplay: A dangerous mod due to Whipping Miscreations and their Vulnerability on Hit as well as Avian Retches. However, Demons do give more experience.
 * Emanant: Ranged monsters. (12%) Gameplay: A good mod for most builds, especially those with Ondar's Guile. While ranged monsters can focus fire better, their projectiles can also be dodged, and they tend to be easier to kill.
 * Feral: Animals. (12%) Gameplay: Devourers count as animals.
 * Multifarious: Increased monster variety. (6%) Gameplay: Poor quantity. You are more likely to draw dangerous monsters, but their numbers will be proportionally smaller if you do draw them, so it's roughly a wash in difficulty.
 * Skeletal: Skeletons. (8%) Gameplay: A good mod overall; skeletons are slow and not particularly durable, allowing you much more control over the tempo of battle. Watch out for Necromancers, though; you may want to carry or  to dispose of corpses.
 * Slithering: Sea Witches and their spawn. (0%) Gameplay: Not a dangerous mod, but with no quantity bonus and a large number of annoying spawns, it's an irritating mod to run for no reward. Much more so with Fracturing.
 * Undead: Undead. (8%) Gameplay: Similar to Skeletons.

Monster buffs
These affixes make monsters more powerful.

Added Monster Damage
Text: Monsters deal 80-100% additional damage (i.e. add 80-100% of physical damage) as... (12%)
 * Burning: Fire
 * Freezing: Cold
 * Shocking: Lightning

Deadly: Monsters deal 25-35% extra damage. (18%)

Overlord's: Unique Boss deals +30% damage and attacks +25% faster. (11%)

of Venom: Monsters poison on hit. (16%)

Gameplay: The actual damage added from the elemental damage affixes is a quarter of the stated value at the default cap, so it's not as scary as it might look, unless the map also has elemental resistance-reducing affixes. Furthermore, the extra damage is computed from physical damage only. On the other hand, the quantity bonus is only middling.

Deadly is broad-band increase in monster damage. Risky, but good quantity.

Overlord's is very risky on many maps, and the quantity bonus is only middling.

of Venom deals 20% of damage over two seconds as additional Chaos damage, which is comparable to the elemental damage prefixes after typical resistances are taken into account. However, there are two major factors that make this suffix less threatening. First, the damage is dealt over time, giving you more time to react. Second, multiple poison effects do not stack. At a solid +16% quantity this is a good affix to have.

Appearance: The added damage will not appear on the monster description, but the elemental damage prefixes may be detected by looking for the elemental burst on hits of monsters that usually deal only physical damage.

Antagonist's
Text: Rare Monsters each have a Nemesis mod. (12%)

Gameplay: Most Nemesis mods are fairly benign, making this a decent affix in terms of risk-to-reward ratio. Some particular mods of note:


 * Bringer of Fragility: One of the more dangerous mods if you cannot kite the monster. (Remember Whipping Miscreations?) Keep a flask of Warding handy.
 * Corrupting Blood: Make sure to bring a Staunching flask, and meter its use.
 * Inner Treasure: Drops a bonus Unique item! The two-stage crabs will drop one item for each stage.
 * Nullifier: A potentially dangerous mod for the unprepared, as it wipes all charges and flask effects (including healing) on hit.
 * Shroud Walker: One of the most irritating mods for accuracy-dependent characters, especially on a regenerating rare. Be prepared to move out of the smoke a lot, or else use traps.
 * Soul Conduit: You can avoid having other monsters resurrect on death by getting rid of their corpses. A Bone/Flesh Offering or (Vaal) Detonate Dead gem will do the trick.
 * Storm Herald: One of the most dangerous mods. The lightning strikes tend to put down a lot of damage and even shock stacks in a hurry. Make sure to keep moving.

Appearance: Nemesis mods are shown in red text with a yellow border. Note that some rares will have a Nemesis mod even without this map affix.

Fleet
Text: 25-35% increased Monster Movement Speed, 25-35% increased Monster Attack Speed, 25-35% increased Monster Cast Speed. (23%)

Gameplay: The highest quantity from a prefix, and although the monsters move more quickly and the DPS effect is similar to Deadly, the risk of being one-shot is no higher. Therefore this is usually a good prefix to have... unless the map has leaping or charging monsters like Goatmen, Croaking Chimeras, or Rhoas. Then your life will suck.

Appearance: Monsters will move obviously faster.

Immunity
Text:

Hexproof: Monsters are immune to curses. (18%)

Unwavering: Monsters cannot be stunned. (12%)

Gameplay: Hexproof is much more dangerous that it appears---the loss of can easily result in 35%+ more damage taken! The quantity is solid but not exceptional, making this a poor affix to have. Unwavering has middling quantity, but has negligible effect for most builds.

Appearance: These do not appear on the monster text.

Projectiles
Text:

Chaining: Monsters' Skills Chain 2 additional times. (18%)

Splitting: Monsters fire 2-4 additional projectiles. (18%)

Gameplay: Good quantity. Primarily a threat to parties and summoners. For solo non-summoner players, Chaining has no effect. Most projectiles are single-target, so Splitting will also usually little effect for the solo player as well. However, Splitting can be nasty even for solo players when applied to monsters with shotgunning attacks such as, , and. For summoners, Chain is very dangerous especially combined with monsters with multiple projectiles as many projectiles will chain from summons to the player. Extra dangerous for users of as the only valid chain target may be the player.

Appearance: As the corresponding skill gems.

Reflect
Text: Monsters reflect 18% of... ... damage. (18%)
 * Mirrored: elemental
 * Punishing: physical

Gameplay: These prefixes can be extremely deadly or practically free quantity depending on build. The main threat is using an area-of-effect skill on a large pack and instantly dying to the massive combined reflected damage, especially on a critical hit. Ways of mitigating reflect damage include:


 * Flasks are a versatile solution, but tricky to manage due to limited flask charges. This can be the appropriate elemental resistance flask for your main elemental attacks, or a Granite flask for physical attacks.
 * Life Gain on Hit, Vaal Pact, and to a lesser extent regular Life Leech, will go a long way towards counteracting the damage reflected.
 * Immortal Call linked to Cast When Damage Taken is an excellent way for physical damage characters to counter the Punishing prefix when attacking packs. As soon as the first few hits from an attack are registered, Immortal Call will trigger and prevent any further reflected damage for the next fraction of a second, which is generally enough to cover the remainder of the attack.

Ranged characters can use the feedback from reflect damage to detect off-screen monsters.

Appearance: A "hit" will display and sound on your character when you damage an enemy.

of Charges
Text: Monsters gain 1-3... ...charges every 20 seconds. (15%)
 * of Endurance
 * of Frenzy
 * of Power

Gameplay: Solid quantity. The charges will be active around half of the time. Direct charge effects are fairly weak, so this is an easy suffix to have in most cases, the exception being monsters that expend charges via e.g. Flicker Strike or Discharge.

Appearance: Charges will appear around all monsters.

of Curse
Text:

Players are cursed with...
 * of . (17%)
 * of ment. (18%)
 * of . (27%)
 * of . (25%)

Gameplay: The offensive curses are very dangerous suffixes. All map curse affixes operate at level 15, which means -34% to all elemental resistances in the case of (!) and 27% increased physical damage taken in the case of. Overcapping resists can help with the former; otherwise, one might as well gun for of Exposure as well since it may give no further effective penalty. Elemental Weakness is especially dangerous with the monster elemental damage prefixes. To top it off, the quantity given by Elemental Weakness is not great.

The defensive curses are much less dangerous but will affect clear speed. Level 15 Enfeeble makes you deal 27% less damage, with critical- and accuracy- based characters suffering more, quite severe for the amount of quantity it gives. Temporal Chains gives more quantity but also affects your move rate; users will fare better here in terms of speed.

Note that these curses do not count towards the curse limit on the character, and that Flasks of Warding do not work against map curses, even temporarily. However, you cannot suffer the same curse again.

is effective against map curses and is a great help.

Appearance: The curse will appear on the character as usual, but with no expiration timer.

of Exposure
Text: -15-25% maximum Player Resistances. (30%)

Gameplay: Very dangerous---applied to the default cap this will up to double elemental damage taken. Especially dangerous with the monster elemental damage prefixes.

Appearance: Visible on the character sheet.

of Less Regeneration
Text:

of Smothering: Players recover Life, Mana and Energy Shield 50% slower. (20%)

of Stasis: Players cannot regenerate Life or Mana. (30%)

Gameplay: Very lucrative but very troublesome mods, especially for regeneration-based characters. Note that Stasis is not simply a stronger version of Smothering, as it does not apply to Energy Shield, leech, gain on hit/kill, or flasks. Leech on gems, gear and passives,, and instant flasks will help you keep topped off.

Appearance: A test use of a skill will reveal the affix.

of Suffering (obsolete)
Text: Players take 16.66-33.33 chaos damage per second. (18%)

Gameplay: A very easy mod as long as you have access to some form of regeneration---at this point in the game 2% life regenerated per second should be more than enough to counteract this mod. Chaos Inoculation users, of course, get a free ride. On the other hand, this mod is troublesome for hybrid characters and a nightmare if you need to rely on flasks (perhaps due to other affixes).

Appearance: Even with enough regeneration to offset the degeneration, the player's life total will tend to flicker or appear at one point below the maximum.

Ceremonial
Text: Area contains many Totems. (12%)

Gameplay: Not great quantity, but not particularly difficult either. Ranged characters will have an easier time drawing enemies away from the area of effect of totems. While there are a few attacking totems, they are quite weak. Some totems are the same as those in Caverns/Ancient Pyramid but others are exclusive to this mod. Perhaps the most dangerous totems are the Diamond Totem (allies always get Critical Strikes) and the Allies Cannot Die totem. Totems give negligible loot and experience.

Note that totems may appear even without this mod, but only the types encountered in Caverns/Ancient Pyramid.

Appearance: A very large number of totems appear, including some that only appear with this mod. These are a) non-aura totems, and b) totems with auras that cannot be found on standard rare monsters.

of Ground Patches
Text: Area has patches of... ... ground. (11%)
 * of Desecration: chaos degeneration
 * of Flames: burning
 * of Ice: chilled
 * of Lightning: shocking

Gameplay: Not particularly dangerous as long as you keep a cool head when maneuvering in combat, though indoor maps may force you to advance through patches at times. is useful for getting across these situations. Burning ground is the least dangerous of the ground patches; the damage is gradual and not particularly strong as long as you have fire resistance capped. Desecration seems to deal somewhat more damage, but is not particularly dangerous either. Note that contrary to its appearance, it does not actually produce extra corpses. Chilled ground hinders movement but for the most part you should be able to avoid fighting on it. Shocking ground is the most dangerous with an eye-watering +50% modifier to damage taken.

Patches can be quite hard on graphics hardware, resulting in lower frame rates.

Appearance: Very obvious visually. Patches will appear on the ground.