Weaken

Curses a group of enemies, reducing the amount of damage they inflict.

Weaken is a level 6 Necromancer curse (Curses tree, requires Amplify Damage; it unlocks Terror). Every monster in its radius deals less physical attack damage: −33% at level 1, one more point a level, −52% at level 20. It is the only curse of its tier whose main number grows with level, and the cheapest at a flat 4 mana.

The numbers

• Enemy damage is the aura stat damagepercent set to ln56: Param5 −33 at level 1 plus Param6 −1 a level ("% Damage Dealt baseline" and "per level" in skills.txt): −33 at level 1, −52 at level 20, −62 at level 30. The Basin's page records the older value as a flat 33% in Lord of Destruction and 33 + level in Resurrected; the table is the current game.
• Duration is Param3 350 frames plus Param4 60 frames a level, at 25 a second: 14 seconds at level 1, +2.4 a level, 59.6 at level 20.
• Radius is Param1 9 plus Param2 1 a level, ×2 ÷ 3 for yards: 6 yards at level 1, 18.67 at level 20.

All three lines read the skill's full level, so +skills count toward them.

How it works

Weaken is a cast curse: no attack roll, no damage of its own. It puts the weaken state on every monster in the radius, and that state carries a negative damage percent, the same stat that Enhanced Damage adds to. The Basin spells out what that means: a monster with no +% damage of its own deals 33% (or 33 + level in Resurrected) less physical attack damage; a monster that has +% damage has the curse's percentage subtracted from it, so the reduction is against that bonus rather than a fresh multiplier on the result.

The reduction is to physical attack damage. The Basin lists what it does not touch: physical cast damage such as a Bone Fetish's or Suicide Minion's death explosion, a Fire Enchanted's explosion and Nihlathak's corpse explosion. Elemental damage is not reduced either.

Like every curse it occupies the monster's single curse slot, so casting Amplify Damage or Decrepify afterwards replaces it. Decrepify applies the same damagepercent reduction at −50% and adds a slow and −50% physical resistance; Weaken's advantage is that from level 19 its reduction is the larger of the two, and its duration and radius are far larger at every level.

Synergies and +skills

No synergies: Weaken has no synergy lines in skilldesc.txt and feeds none. Every line reads lvl, so a +1 from items is worth exactly one hard point: one more percent off enemy damage, +2.4 seconds and +0.67 yards.

Against players

A player's hit on another player is cut to 17% of its value (difficultylevels.txt PlayerDamagePercentVSPlayer) before anything else; a cursed player's physical attack damage is reduced by the curse's percentage as above. The Basin's page records no other player-versus-player rule for this curse. See Player versus Player.

Build notes

• Level 20 gives −52% for 59.6 seconds over 18.67 yards at 4 mana; level 1 gives −33% for 14 seconds over 6 yards. The percentage grows by one a level, so twenty points buy 19 extra points of reduction.
• From level 19 Weaken reduces monster attack damage by more than Decrepify's fixed 50%, and it lasts about four times as long; Decrepify's slow and −50% physical resistance are what it cannot offer.
• It does nothing against elemental attackers or against death explosions, so it is a curse for physical melee and archer packs.