Crimson Moon Status Effects — Bleed, Burn, Frost, Frozen, Marked, Poison, Rage, Sunderance
Every status effect in Crimson Moon: what each one does, which weapons and Boons apply it, and how to counter it. Cites the official 'How Runs Work' and 'How Builds Work' dev posts.
Crimson Moon Status Effects
Every damage-over-time, debuff, and stacking buff confirmed for Crimson Moon, sourced from the developer's "How Runs Work" and "How Builds Work" gameplay explainers and the launch trailer. The game's classless build system leans hard on status-effect families — Frost, Bleed, Poison, Burn — so choosing a weapon whose Weapon Art applies one of these is the core decision behind every build.
The eight effects below are confirmed by official sources or by the developer-run Crimson Moon Wiki. Where a status is named only in community play, it is marked (community-claimed, unverified).
Quick reference
| Effect | Type | Applied by | Builds around it? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bleed | Damage-over-time | Specific Weapon Arts + Bleed-scaling weapons | Yes — Poison Bleed is a confirmed community meta build |
| Burn | Damage-over-time | Fire-aspected Weapon Arts | Yes |
| Frost | Damage-over-time + slow | Frost halberds, halberd-class Frost scaling | Yes — Frost is the dominant launch-week meta |
| Frozen | Hard crowd-control | Stacking Frost past the slow threshold | Implicit (status of Frost) |
| Marked | Damage taken debuff | Mark-applier Weapon Arts / Boons | Yes |
| Poison | Damage-over-time | Poison-scaling weapons, Poison Boons | Yes — paired with Bleed in community builds |
| Rage | Self-buff (damage ↑ taken / given) | Boons at Nexus Gates | Yes |
| Sunderance | Armor / resistance shred | "Sunder" keyword weapons and Sigils | Yes |
Bleed
Type: Damage-over-time.
Effect: Deals a percentage of the hit as additional damage over a short window. Stacks up to a cap, then refreshes duration. Per the How Builds Work dev post, Bleed-scaling weapons and Bleed Boons stack multiplicatively in the right setup.
Applied by: Bleed Weapon Arts on specific weapons; Bleed-granting Boons at Nexus Gates; the Poison Bleed build runs double-debuff (Bleed + Poison) as its identity.
Counters: Run ends naturally on death; in-combat, the only mitigation is resistance shred via Sunderance or avoidance via dodge i-frames (frame data confirmed by launch-week Steam discussion threads, mirrored in the player-tips guide).
Builds around it: Poison Bleed (NewDengs, 12K views) — DoT alternative to the Frost meta.
Burn
Type: Damage-over-time.
Effect: Per-tick fire damage that scales with the weapon's fire aspect. Faster ramp than Bleed but lower per-tick ceiling. Confirmed in the official "How Runs Work" post as one of the stacking DoT families usable mid-run.
Applied by: Fire-aspected Weapon Arts; Burn Boons.
Counters: Same as Bleed — duration expires, dodge through attack wind-ups, or run-resistance buffs.
Builds around it: No community Frost-tier Burn build has surfaced in launch week — see How Builds Work for the system explanation.
Frost
Type: Damage-over-time + movement slow.
Effect: Slows enemy attack and movement speed, plus per-tick Frost damage. Stacking Frost past the slow threshold applies Frozen (see below). Frost is the single most-mentioned status effect in launch-week community content.
Applied by: Frost-scaling weapons (e.g. Crescent Moon Halberd in Hellish Frost Reaper); Frost-scaling Weapon Arts; Frost trinkets (community consensus: "The Crusaders Frost" referenced in both RPJames and FIDISTI's Frost builds).
Counters: Bosses with Frost-resistance affixes (per launch-week Steam discussion, cited in player-tips guide); rotating gear at Gajov.
Builds around it: Hellish Frost Reaper — Crescent Moon Halberd (RPJames), Frost Build BREAKS Crimson Moon (FIDISTI). Frost is the dominant launch-week meta build.
Frozen
Type: Hard crowd-control (status).
Effect: Locks an enemy in place for a short window. Reached by stacking Frost past the slow threshold — confirmed in the Frost Reaper build writeup and the FIDISTI build.
Applied by: Reaching the Frost stack cap.
Counters: Enemy-specific resistance affixes; Boons that grant ally damage during Frozen windows (community-sourced, see player-tips guide).
Builds around it: All Frost-scaling builds benefit — Frozen windows let you land full combo rotations safely.
Marked
Type: Damage-taken debuff (enemy-side).
Effect: Marked enemies take increased damage from all sources for the duration. Strongest when paired with high-burst weapons or Boons that snapshot on apply.
Applied by: Mark-applier Weapon Arts; Mark-granting Boons at Nexus Gates.
Counters: Bosses with Mark-immunity affixes (developer-run Crimson Moon Wiki notes several late-game bosses).
Builds around it: Marked + Frost is a strong combination — Frost stacks apply DoT while Marked multiplies incoming burst.
Poison
Type: Damage-over-time.
Effect: Lower per-tick than Bleed, but stacks higher and refreshes cleanly. The Poison Bleed combo (Poison + Bleed running concurrently) is the most-mentioned off-Frost meta build.
Applied by: Poison-scaling weapons; Poison-granting Boons; specific Poison trinkets.
Counters: Same as Bleed.
Builds around it: Poison Bleed (NewDengs) — double-debuff counter-identity to the Frost meta.
Rage
Type: Self-buff.
Effect: Self-applied buff that increases damage dealt (and sometimes damage taken). Rage-scaling effects are confirmed in the developer-run Crimson Moon Wiki as a Boon family; specific Boon names will be expanded as more are officially published.
Applied by: Rage-granting Boons at Nexus Gates.
Counters: Not a debuff — no direct counter. Build around it by stacking damage multipliers.
Builds around it: Common pairing with high-risk / high-reward burst setups.
Sunderance
Type: Armor / resistance shred.
Effect: Reduces enemy armor or elemental resistance, multiplying damage from subsequent hits. "Sunder" is one of the confirmed Weapon Art keywords in the How Builds Work dev post.
Applied by: Weapons carrying the Sunder Weapon Art; the Sunder Sigil in the Angels system.
Counters: Bosses with resistance-shrud-immunity affixes (developer-run Crimson Moon Wiki).
Builds around it: All sustained-damage builds — Sunderance windows are when Bleed / Poison / Frost actually delete bosses.
How status effects interact with the build system
Per How Builds Work, a Crimson Moon build is:
A classless combination of weapon + Weapon Art + Boons + Angel + gear.
Status effects are the connective tissue. Pick a weapon whose Weapon Art applies one status (Frost, Bleed, Poison, or Burn), then choose Boons at every Nexus Gate that extend that status's uptime or damage. Stack status until you reach Frozen / Marked / Sunderance breakpoints. The three launch-week community builds all follow this pattern.
Related
- How Runs Work — Nexus Gate Boon selection mid-run
- How Builds Work — the classless system
- Loot & Progression — gear that applies these effects
- Angels — Aegis and Sunder Sigils that interact with Sunderance
- Bosses & Enemies — enemies with status-effect resistance affixes
Confirmed by
- Steam store page ↗ — Bleed, Burn, Frost, Poison confirmed as DoT families
- "How Runs Work" dev post (linked from How Runs Work guide)
- "How Builds Work" dev post (linked from How Builds Work guide)
- Developer-run Crimson Moon Wiki (crimsonmoon.wiki.gg) — Rage, Marked, Sunderance as named Boon / Sigil families
- Launch-week community build guides: RPJames Frost Reaper, FIDISTI Frost BREAKS, NewDengs Poison Bleed