Plague Echoes
Plague Echoes is a stacking self-buff applied to the wielder (not to the enemy) by the plague weapon family. It is the sustain engine for every Plague archetype build: stack Echoes during a fight, spend them for a large heal when HP runs low.
How It Works
Property | Value |
|---|---|
Application | Dealing damage with a plague-family weapon grants a stack to the wielder. |
Stack cap | 5 stacks. |
Threshold ability | At 5 stacks, a special [F] attack becomes available. |
Special attack effect | Instantly restores 35% of maximum Health. |
The stack is self-applied (to the wielder), not applied to the target. Because it is a self-buff, the enemy being struck does not resist or cleanse Plague Echoes the way they might resist debuffs.
Source Weapons
Arboris Saber - Strength-scaling saber dealing Crude damage
Plague Halberd - Strength-scaling halberd; also runs the Plague Marks system on the target in parallel
Plague Pistol - Precision-scaling pistol
These three weapons share the Plague Echoes mechanic. The Plague Halberd is notable because it also applies Plague Marks to the enemy, giving it two distinct plague mechanics running simultaneously (self-buff and enemy debuff).
Talent Interactions
The Plague Echoes loop is the centerpiece of the canonical Plague sustain build, paired with:
Retribution - converts Temporal Health to permanent HP more effectively (up to 100% more at rank 3).
You Will Answer for This - increases Temporal Health gained on damage taken by up to 75% at rank 3.
The Retribution plus You Will Answer for This plus plague weapon triangle is the canonical self-sustain Plague loop. Without that combination, Plague Echoes is still useful as a clutch 35% heal on a long cooldown, but the build does not reach its full sustain ceiling.
Plague Marks vs Plague Echoes
Plague Echoes and Plague Marks are distinct mechanics that run in parallel on some plague weapons. Plague Echoes is a wielder-side 5-stack buff with a 35% heal threshold at 5 stacks. Plague Marks is an enemy-side 8-stack debuff consumed by Heavy Attacks for bonus damage (and a 35-40% heal if more than 5 marks are consumed at once).
The Plague Halberd runs both systems simultaneously. The Plague Pistol and Arboris Saber run Plague Echoes only. The Rapier of Devastation runs Plague Marks only.
See Also
Plague Marks - the parallel enemy debuff
Retribution - talent for the sustain loop
You Will Answer for This - talent for Temporal Health
Status Effects - full effect roster