Aside from damage, players in Path of Exile need to be wary of Status Ailments. Characters can receive these from various sources as well as deal it using specific Path of Exile items. Knowing their sources can greatly help in picking POE items to counter them.
Elemental Status Ailments from Path of Exile items
Elemental damage does more than deal hard to mitigate damage. They also have a tendency to leave behind status ailments. Fire, for example, can Ignite targets as a DoT effect. Path of Exile items that deal cold damage can Chill or Freeze. This will then slow or completely paralyze targets. Finally, Path of Exile orbs that bestow lightning modifiers to weapons will cause them to Shock targets. This ailment increases damage from further lightning attacks.
Non-elemental ailments from Path of Exile items
Certain Path of Exile items and skill gems also give non-elemental status ailments. These include Bleed which is DoT effect dealing physical damage. Blind, meanwhile, lowers chance to hit and light radius for those affected. Finally, Poison deals chaos damage over time.
Applying stun using Path of Exile items
Stun in the game can be applied through simple damage dealing. If a single hit damages a character or monster a certain percentage of their maximum life, then they will be stunned. The damage used for this calculation is the damage after mitigation provided by Path of Exile items. Note that there are also other POE items and skill that apply stun.
Improving stun with Path of Exile items
Stun duration, and how often it can be applied can be enhanced. Certain modifiers on Path of Exile items, obtained from Path of Exile Orbs can do this. Passives, as well as the energy shield can also affect a character’s ability to receive and deal out stuns.