Monster

Monsters are the primary enemies encountered by the player. Killed monsters may grant experience and drop items and gold. Monsters can belong to four rarity types:

• Normal: This is the weakest and most common rarity of monsters, but such enemies appear in larger numbers, often forming 'monster packs'. They can have some innate abilities but do not have any modifiers by default (though they can have properties granted to them by nearby rare monsters).
• Magic: These monsters are more powerful and less common. They will randomly generate with one or two modifiers that empower them and improve their drops.
• Rare: These are the least common and most powerful type of randomly generated monsters. They can have multiple modifiers which can significantly increase their difficulty. Certain monster types have different base abilities and stats when they appear as rare monsters, beyond the random modifiers affecting them. Some of the modifiers that can affect a rare monster can take the form of auras or other buffs that empower other nearby monsters, and the combination of modifiers that affect any specific rare monster can make it more dangerous than a similarly levelled unique monster.
• Unique: These monsters are not randomly generated. Specific unique monsters are guaranteed to appear in specific campaign areas and maps when they are inhabited by a boss, as well as certain Atlas encounters such as rogue exiles. These monsters have carefully constructed abilities and move sets to provide a challenging and rewarding fight, and many in the campaign are required to be killed to complete Quests.

Boss

Bosses are unique monsters typically encountered in boss arenas. Boss arenas are usually preceded by checkpoints. Dying against a boss will reset the encounter.

Mechanics

Unblockable attacks

Many bosses are capable of using deadly attacks that ignore block and evasion, indicated by the boss flashing red and giving a sound cue before unleashing the attack.

Anti-burst damage

Bosses take less damage when they first spawn in. This damage reduction gradually tapers away over time, and tapers off faster while the boss is moving. Bosses which cannot or barely move have a shorter damage reduction period.

Version history

Version	Changes
0.4.0	Bosses now have an Anti-Burst damage mechanic: Once a boss has finished it's emerge or becomes aggro the damage reduction period starts counting down. The damage reduction tapers down from full effect to no effect over the course of this duration. For every unit the boss moves from it's starting location the damage reduction will fall off even faster. Bosses which cannot or barely move have a shorter damage reduction period.
0.3.0	Monsters have 30% more Stun Buildup against players who have their Shield Raised, and ~12% more Stun Buildup vs players who are Parrying. Lowered the growth on Monster Evasion Rating with level. This results in level 80 monsters having 30% less Evasion Rating than before. Incrementally improved Monster behaviour.
0.2.0g	Except for a few Unique Bosses at the start of Act 1, all Unique Monsters will always drop a Rare item. In campaign, you only get the guaranteed Rare item the first time you kill each boss. In maps you always get it.
0.2.0f	Moderately reduced the capacity for monsters to Light Stun you especially towards Cruel and Endgame by lowering the amount of Stun-Damage they deal, and increasing the minimum they must deal to Light Stun you. Additionally, Elemental, Chaos and Ranged stun-damage has been penalised even further so you're less likely to get stunned by random stray projectiles and other things of the sort. These changes don't affect Light Stuns dealt by players. Some Endgame Monsters can no longer interrupt their attacks if you move too far out of range during the attack to relentlessly chase you.
0.2.0e	Many human monsters including the Cultists in Freythorn, the Faridun and the Tribal Humans in Act Three have behaviour where they can interrupt their melee attacks if the player moves too far out of range during the attack, especially for attacks that have multiple hits like a swipe left into swipe right. These interrupt events have been primarily removed especially on things that were attacking very fast as it caused the monsters to be relentlessly able to pursue and attack you giving you no time to engage or use skills between their attacks. Further improvements to the pushiness of various monsters (read: less pushing).
0.2.0b	All non-unique monsters have less life, tapering from 100% to 75% of what they had between levels 8 and 15. All monsters between level 15 and 46 now have exactly 25% less Life. All monsters between level 46 and 64 now have less life, tapering up from 75% to 100%. This results in all monsters in Endgame having the same Life as before this change. Their thresholds for Crowd Control and Ailments have been adjusted proportionately by the same amount. Reduced the life bonus of the minions of Rare monsters from 400% to 94%. This undoes a change that was made in 0.2.0 that when paired with the life change made yesterday, significantly improves the grindy feeling in 0.2.0.
0.2.0	Bosses that need to perform certain actions to progress their fight will now become immune to damage if their life is brought significantly past the point at which that action should be used. This should have no noticeable effect to most players, but will prevent cases where bosses could get semi permanently crowd controlled and prevent the fight from progressing. Armour on all monsters has been reduced by 30%. Monsters now have higher Light Stun damage scaling with level. In the very early parts of the campaign there is no change, scaling to around twice as much light stun damage in the endgame. Rare Monsters' minions have been made stronger defensively and now scale far more appropriately in party-play.
0.1.0e	Critical Strikes from Monsters now deal 40% less bonus Damage. Chaos Damage now scales less aggressively over the Endgame.
0.1.0	Introduced to the game.