Poison

Poison is a nature-element damage-over-time debuff that deals 1 damage per stack at the end of the afflicted unit's turn. Poison damage ignores both Shield and Holy Shield, making it a reliable way to whittle down heavily armored targets. Unlike Bleed, Poison does not escalate automatically, but it also does not decay on its own. Stacks persist until the unit is cleansed or downed. If a cat is downed while poisoned, it sustains the Poisoned injury, permanently losing 1 Constitution and 1 Intelligence.

One of Poison's key mechanics is its interaction with healing. When a poisoned unit receives healing, 1 Poison stack is removed per heal instance, effectively reducing the healing's benefit. This makes Poison particularly effective against enemies or cats that rely on regeneration or healing spells to sustain themselves. Poison can be applied through numerous sources: the Poison Lace and Poison Lace Weapon buffs add Poison to basic attacks and weapon strikes respectively, while the Poisonous status applies Poison on melee contact, similar to Thorns. Many nature-element spells and abilities also apply Poison stacks directly.

Elite enemies with the Creepy buff inflict Poison with their basic attacks and leave creep trails that can poison units stepping on them, making positioning critical in those fights. Poison-focused builds benefit from stacking as many applications as possible per round, since the damage scales linearly with stacks and persists indefinitely. The Brace buff can reduce Poison damage (minimum 1 per tick). Poison pairs well with other damage-over-time effects like Bleed and Burn to overwhelm enemy healing and bypass shield-based defenses entirely.