Monster Traits in Diablo III are special abilities that are added to Champion, Rare, Unique and Minion monsters. These traits appear beneath the name of the monster. The number of traits depends on that of your hero's level; to be specific, a Champion/Rare/Minion encountered at lv. 1-29 will have only one trait, those encountered at lv. 30-49 will have two traits, 50-59 will have three, and 60+ will have four traits possible. Unique monsters have one to four affixes regardless of their level. Some traits cannot appear on Champions / Rares at lower levels: for example, Arcane Enchanted only rolls at level 31 or later.
In Champion packs, all monsters have the same skills and can use them independently. In Rare packs, skills can apply to the leader only, or to both leader and minions, but some affixes (like Missile Dampening) can only be present on the leader. Note that a monster having a natural skill similar to an affix can still have that skill as a result of being an elite pack. For example, naturally fast creatures can have Fast skill, and creatures naturally able to become immune to damage can still have Shielded skill.
The traits are detailed below.
Arcane Enchanted
Monsters imbued with the Arcane Enchanted trait can summon glowing orbs of arcane energy that fully form after a few seconds. Once activated, these transform into rotating beams called Arcane Sentries, which deal significant Arcane damage per tick, spinning either clockwise or counter-clockwise. If the monster who summoned the Arcane Sentry is killed before the beam forms, the orb vanishes.
This affix is extremely dangerous when combined with Vortex, or just in an environment with little place for maneuvering. Kite monsters with this affix often to leave the dangerous laser-swept area behind.
Min. Monster level: 31.
Available to: All.
Damage Type: Arcane.
Avenger
The death of each Champion in the group infuses the remaining Champions with greater strength and speed. To minimize this affix's usefulness, do not kill each member until every last one of them is barely away from death. Empowered monsters are easily identified by increased size, growing after each death of their group members.
Min. Monster Level: 51.
Available to: Champion.
Damage Type: N/A.
Desecrator
Monsters with the Desecrator trait can conjure a deadly pool of void energy directly underneath the Player Character. A Rare monster's minions cannot cause their own voids. These pools deal very little damage at first, but their damage constantly increases (doubles every 0.5 seconds you remain in that pool, to a limit of ten stacks), becoming tremendous if you don't move quickly to avoid them.
Min. Monster Level: 22.
Available to: Rare, Champion.
Damage Type: Physical.
Electrified
Electrified monsters release a volley of sparks flying in all directions when hit by any damaging attack. These sparks deal slight Lightning damage, but can easily overwhelm a hero in proximity. This is identical to Diablo II Lightning Enchanted bonus.
The number of sparks released per hit grows as the monster is losing more and more Life. As of Patch 2.1.1, there is a very small (0.1 seconds) internal cooldown on the sparks generation, which protects players from overdose of sparks when using damage over time (see the image to the right).
Min. Monster Level: 26.
Available to: All monsters.
Damage Type: Lightning.
Extra Health
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As the name implies, this trait simply gave the monster additional Life, usually +40%. As of patch 2.1.2, it no longer rolls; only Unique monsters retain it as legacy.
Min. Monster Level: 31.
Available to: All.
Damage Type: N/A.
Fast
The Fast trait increases attack, casting and movement speed for the imbued monster. Movement Speed is increased by 40%, Attack Speed is increased by 20%, and Casting Speed is increased by 10%. Fast creatures excel at chasing you down when you're wounded and use their increased speed to quickly move around the battlefield.
Min. Monster Level: 31.
Available to: All monsters.
Damage Type: N/A.
Fire Chains
This trait periodically connects Champion monsters with Flaming Chains, linking the entire group with lines of fire that deal significant Fire damage. Another factor to its deadly power is that the AI of the affected monsters has been altered to try and surround the player at all costs, even if they are ranged attackers. Killing individual monsters in the group will reduce the length and mobility of the chain. For this affix to have any effect, more than one monster of the group possessing it must survive. Once only one monster remains, the affix is disabled.
Min. Monster Level: 31.
Available to: Champions only.
Damage Type: Fire.
Frozen
Frozen-imbued monsters create 6 frozen bombs around the player, which explode after 4 seconds. Until they explode, the crystals deal periodic Cold damage to anything staying within the explosion range (visible on the ground). The final explosion also deals heavy Cold damage and Freezes heroes caught in their blast radius. The freeze duration for heroes lacking any form of crowd control reduction is 3 seconds.
Min. Monster Level: 22.
Available to: All.
Damage Type: Cold.
Frozen Pulse
Monsters with Frozen Pulse as a trait are enabled to unleash a crystalline globe of ice that will home in on a player. Once it reaches the targeted player's location, it will stop and start to continuously expel ice, dealing heavy Cold damage and Chilling on a successful hit.
Available to: All but a Rare's Minions
Damage Type: Cold
Health Link
This trait is only applicable to Champions, and only activates if more than one Champion monster is present. This trait will split the damage dealt to a Champion among all of the present Champions. If one member of the group ventures too far from the others, the effect is temporarily nullified. Monsters with 5% Life or less stop taking shared damage, but can still share their own damage taken with others.
While it may seem beneficial in the fact that the monsters have damage reduction, this affix has a very high chance of backfiring upon said monsters, especially if the player has any 'on hit' or 'on critical hit' effects on their items or skills, those effects will have a separate chance to trigger for each enemy linked by the Health Link, as technically each of them is receiving damage from that hit.
Min. Monster Level: 51.
Available to: Champions only.
Damage Type: N/A.
Horde
The Horde trait is only available to Rare monsters, increasing the number of Minion monsters they have with them (usually doubling it). Horde affix is extremely dangerous when combined with affixes like Arcane Enchanted or Frozen, as it allows monsters to cover the entire battlefield with deadly traps in one cast, leaving no space to fight without getting into those. A good example of a bad combo to fight against could be Horde, Arcane Enchanted, Plagued, and Molten; erratic enemy A.I, highly damaging ground effects, and able to dominate even a wide open area rather quickly.
A potential weakness that can be exploited, although not as effective as if the Rare monster had Illusionist instead, can be the effectiveness of AoE skills that heal the hero over time. An example of this could be a Barbarian using Rend with the Blood Lust rune and a high Life total; hitting each target with a Rend could substantially increase survivability.
Min. Monster Level: 31.
Available to: Rare only.
Damage Type: N/A.
Illusionist
Monsters with the Illusionist trait have the ability to create clones of themselves when damaged. These duplicates deal normal damage, but have only 5% of normal health. The illusions also do not benefit from most other skills, like Fire Chains and Health Link. Destroying an illusion counts as a killing blow for the purpose of Life per Kill and other similar effects, but awards no experience or loot. Killing the 'original' monster destroys all remaining illusions outright.
A possible weakness that can be exploited is that while an illusion is many times less threatening, the effectiveness of affixes that restore a hero's Life does not diminish. A melee hero exploiting this weakness can last long under the effects of Plagued longer than he/she would otherwise. The only drawback to this is if it still proves too powerful on their health, they cannot escape unless done through movement skills.
Min. Monster Level: 26.
Available to: All Monsters.
Damage Type: N/A.
Invulnerable Minions
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This trait, which only applied to Rare monsters, granted their minions Invincibility. Note that Invincible minions were only immune to damage; Status Effects could still work on them. When the Rare monster was killed, the minions would have automatically died.
Min. Monster Level: 51.
Available to: Rare only.
Damage Type: N/A.
Additional Resistances: None.
Jailer
The Jailer trait enables monsters to trap the target in place, dealing low damage at lower levels and scales to very high damage in higher difficulties, and preventing any form of movement for a short period of time. Some rapid relocation skills (like Teleport) will remove the trap.
Min. Monster Level: 8.
Available to: All monsters.
Damage Type: Arcane.
Knockback
Knockback grants the imbued monster the chance to send the target flying backwards with each attack landed on the target and apply an 80% slow effect for 3 seconds. There is no extra damage from this attack. This applies both to usual attacks and to other special affixes that deal non-periodic damage. This affix can sometimes backfire, sending the player outside the range of the monster's own attacks, or kicking them away from areas contaminated with dangerous affix objects.
Min. Monster Level: 0.
Available to: All Monsters.
Damage Type: N/A.
Missile Dampening
This trait is shown by a blue sphere around the imbued monster. Projectile attacks that enter this sphere have their speed decreased by 90%, making ranged attacks less effective. Damage of the projectiles does not change. In addition, beams, torrents and non-missile ranged attacks are not affected by this affix.
While most of the time serving the monster well against ranged attackers, there are certain cases in which this skill backfires; to name an example, a Demon Hunter uses Elemental Arrow with the Ball Lightning rune. While a normal Elemental Arrow would have to be well-aimed for a chance at hitting the Rare monster, Ball Lightning damages nearby monsters as it moves across the battlefield. Since it has no limit to how many times it can hit one monster, its slow movement actually gives the Demon Hunter a better effective DPS against the Rare monster.
Min. Monster Level: 8.
Available to: Rare only
Damage Type: N/A.
Molten
Monsters imbued with the Molten trait leave harmful pools of lava behind while they move, dealing high Fire damage over 4 seconds. 3 seconds after they die, their bodies explode into extremely high-damaging gouts of fire that can kill an adequately-geared player in one hit. Their AI is altered to move more erratically and closer to the player. Multiple lava trails in the same area stack, increasing damage proportionally.
Min. Monster Level: 8.
Available to: All Monsters.
Damage Type: Fire.
Mortar
Monsters that are imbued with the Mortar trait fire three Grenades at the player every 4-5 seconds. The mortar does Fire damage. These attacks have minimum range (move closer to avoid being hit) and show their impact zone roughly 0.5-1 second before they hit.
Note that Mortar grenades are not missiles, and they can be launched over walls and other obstacles.
Min. Monster Level: 22.
Available to: All monsters.
Damage Type: Fire.
Nightmarish
Monsters that are imbued with the Nightmarish trait have a chance to send your character running in fear when they hit you. The fearing lasts 3 seconds for a hero with no resistance to control impairing effects.
Min. Monster Level: 0.
Available to: All monsters.
Damage Type: N/A.
Orbiter
Monsters with Orbiter as a trait will occasionally call up a Lightning Globe. This globe will cause smaller, slowly rotating lightning globes that do low damage, but tick very fast. The main globe itself deals more damage. Each monster can only summon one Globe at a time, and that globe will remain immobile.
Available to: All but a Rare's Minions
Damage Type: Lightning
Plagued
Monsters that are imbued with the Plague trait occasionally summon green toxin pools on the ground that deal Poison damage to players standing in them, and disappear on their own after a long time or immediately when the monster that spawned the pool is killed. Damage is very small at first, but constantly increases (effectively doubles every 0.5 seconds, to a limit of ten stacks) if you stay within them, quickly becoming lethal.
Min. Monster Level: 14.
Available to: All Monsters.
Damage Type: Poison.
Poison Enchanted
Monsters with Poison Enchanted as a trait will periodically summon a group of acidic slimes. These slimes will spread out after 3 seconds, leaving poison in the shape of a cross in their wake. Players foolish enough to stand on the poison trails receive fast ticks of damage. Each trail lasts 6 seconds.
Available to: All but a Rare's Minions
Damage Type: Poison
Reflect Damage
Monsters imbued with the Reflect Damage trait return a small portion of any damage dealt to them back to the player. The exact amount is based on basic damage of the attack, before Critical Hits. Damage is only applied while their aura is active (it turns on and off over time, but you'll be able to tell that it's active if you keep an eye on them). The amount reflected does not depend on the type of the attack, but damage done by pets and followers is not reflected to the player.
Min. Monster Level: 26.
Available to: All Monsters.
Damage Type: Standard (same as original attack, mitigated by respective resistance).
Shielding
Monsters imbued with the Shielding trait have the ability to make themselves immune to all forms of damage and status effects for 5 seconds.
As of a recent patch, only one member of the pack that possesses this can be under its effects at any time. Also, if there is only one monster alive of the whole pack, this affix is disabled, effectively leaving it with one less affix under its command.
Min. Monster Level: 22.
Available to: All.
Damage Type: N/A.
Teleporter
Monsters imbued with the Teleporter trait are able to teleport around the field at will. Generally, they will teleport away from the player when too close, and towards the player when too far.
Min. Monster Level: 0.
Available to: All monsters.
Damage Type: N/A.
Thunderstorm
Monsters with Thunderstorm as a trait will periodically call in a storm of Lightning. This will strike the targeted player several times in rapid succession, dealing almost impossible to avoid damage. The lightning can follow the player, but is rather slow, so it is possible to escape the area of effect.
Available to: All but a Rare's Minions
Damage Type: Lightning
Vampiric
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Monsters imbued with the Vampiric trait used to recover a small portion (roughly 20%) of all unmitigated damage they dealt as Life. This trait was relatively no threat whatsoever in endgame content. The reason for this is because the life leeched was simply too low. Even an unprotected hero unfortunate enough to be hit by a monster with this will generally heal the monster for very little compared to the hits it would have received attempting to do so. In patch 2.1.2, it was removed altogether, only some Unique monsters keeping it as a legacy trait.
Min. Monster Level: 31.
Available to: All monsters.
Damage Type: N/A.
Vortex
Monsters that are imbued with the Vortex trait are able to occasionally pull the player to their position. Vortex cannot pull you through walls, obstacles and impassable terrain (will stop right next to the intervening object), but can pull you through allies and other enemies. Also causes a small, but unavoidable, amount of Physical damage.
Min. Monster Level: 8.
Available to: Champion, Rare.
Damage Type: Physical.
Waller
Monsters that are imbued with the Waller trait are able to erect impenetrable barriers for a short period of time. Summoned walls will vanish after 6 seconds. Most (but not all) ranged attacks (both yours and monsters') are blocked by the walls.
For ranged attacking monsters, this affix sometimes backfires, as they block their own shots with the walls.
Champion monsters summon one section of the wall each, placing them independently from one another, trying to trap you in a triangle-shaped prison. Rare monsters only have this power on the leader, who summons 3 walls at once, placing a U-shaped trap (with opened end on the monster's side, player being on the closed one).
Waller will be more of a threat to ranged heroes like the Demon Hunters, than melee classes like the Barbarians. The reason for this is that while a Barbarian can just swing through the wall and be able to hit his/her target, the Demon Hunter's projectiles cannot pierce through the wall. This is not to say that Waller is worthless against a melee hero, however; positioned right, retreat is many times more difficult.
If the player has access to Reaper of Souls, walls can be broken through with the assistance of the Legendary Potion drop Bottomless Potion of Kulle-Aid which only drops in Torment I-VI games. Illusory Boots also allow moving through the walls. Speed Pylon causes characters to break the walls as they move.
Bug: at very rare occations, it is possible for a hero to be literally stuck in the wall. This happens if the monster places the wall atop of the player due to pathing error. While stuck, said player won't be able to move until the wall fades. It usually happens when the player is facing Champion monsters, not Rare.
Min. Monster Level: 8.
Available to: Champion, Rare.
Damage Type: N/A.
Wormhole
Monsters with Wormhole as a trait will occasionally leave two glowing spots of Arcane. Should a player be so foolish (or smart, depending on the situation) as to step on one of these spots, he/she will suffer a small amount of Arcane damage, and appear on the location occupied by the other spot. Typically one Wormhole is placed under the player's feet, and the other as close to the caster as possible. After a single teleportation, the Wormhole dissipates.
Available to: All but a Rare's Minions
Damage Type: Arcane
Caveats
- Champions and Rares can not spawn with four of the following monster affixes and the frequency at which they can spawn with three is relatively low when compared to other affixes:
- Arcane Enchanted
- Desecrator
- Fire Chains
- Frozen
- Frozen Pulse
- Molten
- Mortar
- Orbiter
- Plagued
- Poison Enchanted
- Wormhole
- Champions and Rares can not spawn with both Plagued and Desecrator at the same time.
- Champions may not spawn with both Avenger and Health Link affixes at the same time.
Special Affixes
Some Unique Monsters, Bosses and Rift Guardians may have abilities going beyond the simple affixes, such as:
- Double or triple attack speed (visually, a small cloud of red cuts appears around the monster)
- Increased damage of attacks
- Increased damage, reduced cooldowns and other enhancements for common affixes
- Additional Elemental Damage on attacks
- Poison Nova: either a delayed blast of Poison damage in a specific range (shows a green circle before being unleased) or a volley of Poison Bolts in several directions.
- Multiple shot (either at different angles or one by one in rapid succession)
- Fire Nova: releases swirling piercing fireballs in all directions that travel outwards, damaging enemies they touch.
- Summoning: allows calling additional Minions at the monster's side.
These affixes are not displayed, but players will still find them out empirically (that is, by suffering damage from them). For Hardcore characters, it is especially risky, therefore one should check the monster's abilities before engaging.