Plague Marks is an enemy debuff that stacks on a single target through Light Attacks with a plague weapon. Heavy Attacks consume all accumulated marks for bonus damage, with a healing threshold when enough marks are consumed at once. The mechanic is distinct from Plague Echoes, which is a wielder-side self-buff.
How it Works
Property | Value |
|---|---|
Application | Light Attacks apply marks on hit. |
Stack cap | 8 marks on a single target. |
Consumption | Heavy Attacks consume all accumulated marks, dealing bonus damage per mark consumed. |
Healing threshold | If more than 5 marks are consumed at once, the wielder heals for 35% or 40% of maximum Health depending on weapon. |
The gameplay loop is four to six Light Attacks to build stacks, then one Heavy Attack to consume them for a burst of damage plus (if the threshold is met) a meaningful self-heal.
Source Weapons
Rapier of Devastation - heals for 40% of Maximum Health when Heavy Attack consumes 6+ marks.
Plague Halberd - heals for 35% of Maximum Health when Heavy Attack consumes 6+ marks. Also runs Plague Echoes on the wielder in parallel.
How to Use the Mechanic
Against bosses, Plague Marks is a big burst-and-heal window. Against trash mobs, Light Attacks tend to kill the enemy before stacks fully build, which means Plague Marks wastes most of its value on crowd fights. The mechanic is at its best on bosses and mini-bosses where the target lasts long enough to absorb 6+ Light Attacks without dying first.
For build synergy, see Plague Echoes for the full Plague sustain loop, and Retribution / You Will Answer for This for the talent layer that multiplies plague weapon sustain further.
See Also
Plague Echoes - parallel wielder self-buff
Status Effects - full effect roster
Rapier of Devastation
Plague Halberd
How Plague Marks Stack
Each light attack landed by the Rapier of Devastation places one Plague Mark on the struck enemy. The marks visibly accrue on the target rather than on the wielder, and the cap is 8 marks on a single target. Reaching the cap is what unlocks the largest possible heavy-attack burst, so most boss openers consist of four to eight unbroken light pokes before the first heavy.
Marks live on the enemy, not on the player. If the marked target dies before you fire off a heavy, every stack is lost. Switching aggro to a different enemy also resets your effective stack to zero on the new target, even if the previous target is still alive. Plan rotations on bosses and elite enemies first; trash packs usually die before stacks finish building, which wastes the mechanic's value.
Consumption Mechanics
Heavy attacks consume all stacked marks in a single hit and convert them into bonus damage. Two qualities make this consumption stronger than the equivalent burst on plague two-handers:
It can crit. The mark-consumption hit rolls for critical strike like any other rapier attack, so crit chance and crit damage scale the burst directly. The Privateer Set plus a Necklace of Mastery and Major Cutthroat Ring stack into very large numbers on a full eight-mark consume.
Big self-heal threshold. If at least 5 marks are consumed in a single heavy, the wielder restores 40% of maximum HP on the same swing. Boss fights effectively become trade rotations: light attacks build, the heavy consumes for damage and heals you back to near full.
Bonus damage type. The mark-consumption hit reads as bonus damage rather than crude weapon damage. Slash damage rings boost it; crude damage rings do not. Build accordingly when picking jewellery.
The Double-Consume Stab Tech
Community testing has surfaced a hidden interaction with the rapier's special attack input (mid mouse on PC, B button on controller). Build up to roughly five marks with light attacks, then immediately chain a heavy stab via the special-attack input rather than the normal heavy-attack input. Under that exact sequencing the mark-consumption triggers twice in quick succession, effectively double-dipping on the burst from a single stack pool.
The interaction is consistent enough to plan around but is not formally documented in any in-game tooltip, so treat it as a community-tested technique rather than a guaranteed feature. The healing threshold also seems to fire on whichever consumption pulse meets the 5-mark requirement, so opening with five stacks before the chained stab is the safe baseline.
Wielder-Side vs Target-Side
Plague Marks is the only major plague mechanic that lives on the target. The companion mechanic, Plague Echoes, instead stacks on the wielder when using weapons like the Plague Halberd or Arboris Saber. The two systems share the plague theming but behave very differently in practice:
Plague Marks (target-side). Stacks live on the enemy. Killing the marked enemy or switching targets wipes them. No effect on the wielder until the heavy consumes them.
Plague Echoes (wielder-side). Stacks live on the player. Killing an enemy keeps them; the stacks survive across multiple targets. They are spent when the wielder triggers the special attack on the source weapon.
Practically, Plague Marks rewards locking onto a single high-HP target and chaining lights into one big heavy. Plague Echoes rewards mowing through a crowd and saving the special for the moment the stack is full. Both can be active in the same fight if you swap weapons, but the Rapier of Devastation only contributes to the Plague Marks side of that equation.