How to Stack Afflictions/Status Effects – Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Similarly to any good RPG, Dragon Age: Veilguard brings a plethora of Status Effects that can be placed on enemies! Afflictions are a sub-category of Status Effects that deal damage over time to enemies and can be stacked with a variety of other Status Effects and Afflictions. You can even stack multiple instances of the same Affliction by using Abilities or Movesets with the same effect while the duration of the initial one is still active.

This guide will offer a brief but in-depth explanation of Afflictions and Status Effects, how they can be applied, and how they can be stacked!

What Are Afflictions and Status Effects?

Status Effects are typically known as something that can temporarily affect an enemy or an ally, while Afflictions generally have an association of curses or diseases placed on enemies. In Dragon Age: The Veilguard, all Status Effects that deal damage over time are called Afflictions.

Afflictions are a sub-category of Status Effects and can stack with similar other Status Effects, like: Knocked Down, Frozen, Interrupted, Weakened, Overwhelmed, Sundered, etc.

Most Afflictions in the game can be applied using Abilities or Passives from the Skill Tree. However, some of them can be acquired from equipment. You can inflict Afflictions from item effects by either equipping the item yourself or having a companion equip an item with a specific bonus that triggers an Affliction.

All Stackable Affliction Types (for Enemies)

• Burning
• Shocked
• Chilled
• Bees!
• Necrosis
• Bleeding
• Siphoned
• Quietus

All Stackable Status Effect Types (for Enemies)

• Weakened
• Overwhelm
• Sundered
• Frozen
• Knocked Down
• Knocked Back
• Interrupted
• Staggered
• Arcane Mark

How to Stack Afflictions and Status Effects

As previously mentioned, you can place Afflictions using Abilities, Passives, and Item Effects. Those Afflictions can stack with other Status Effects mentioned above. You will also gain the ability to inflict multiple stacks of the same effect on a target.

As an example, the Spellblade Mage Build focuses on afflicting targets with the Shocked & Burning Afflictions. Those effects can be further enhanced by acquiring Minor and Greater Passive effects from the Skill Tree. The starting number of Stacks you can inflict on a target is 3, and you will be able to reach 5 stacks in later parts of the game. Some special items will even get you additional stacks for some of the effects — Cordova’s Toothpick is one of such items, allowing you to inflict up to 9-10 Stacks of Bleeding.

There is no prerequisite for stacking multiple different Status Effects on a target! Depending on how many effects you can place at once, you could achieve between 5 to 8 different concurrent Status Effects & Afflictions on a target.

The only limit you have to work with is the Duration of the effect itself — effects may expire before allowing you to reapply them. But, this is not the case with all of the Status Effects or Afflictions. Some Abilities apply stacks over time, or directly apply all of them all at once! Abilities that hit once and don’t pass from enemy to enemy will likely only place one stack of the effect, while sustained abilities will add multiple stacks over time.

In the images above and below you can see two examples of gameplay where multiple Status Effects and Afflictions are placed at the same time!

Hopefully, this guide teaches you everything you need to know about Afflictions & Status Effects. Let us know in the comment section below if we missed any effect and which effects are your favorite!