There are tons of ways to deal damage in Diablo 4. Critical Strikes, Overpower, and Lucky Hit are all interesting mechanics that practically beg to have builds made around them, but in the mix of all these flashy effects, there's one damage-oriented status effect that often gets lost: Vulnerable.
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The Vulnerable status effect isn't unique to Diablo 4. Many other games have their own equivalents, and if you're like most Diablo players, you likely assumed that Vulnerable works much the same way it does in other games, but that's not quite true. Vulnerable is far more complicated than it appears on the surface. So, if you're looking to work Vulnerable into your build, here's everything you need to know about this unique status effect.
Vulnerable in its purest form is a status effect that increases your damage against enemies. Certain attacks and skills will apply Vulnerable, or have a chance to do so, and will specify a duration. If you hit that enemy again while the status effect is applied to them, you'll deal 20% extra damage.
You can tell when you make an enemy Vulnerable by watching them. When the effect applies, a large yellow "Vulnerable" will pop up where the enemy is standing, and their health bar will glow purple for the rest of the effect's duration.
Finally, keep in mind that Vulnerable doesn't just apply to enemies. Various elites and minions in the game can also make you Vulnerable to their damage, which is indicated by a broken glass texture over your health gauge. Since you'll be significantly weaker when you're Vulnerable, it's a good idea to back off and wait for the effect to end.
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Using Vulnerable in your build comes down to two things: understanding how the damage works and finding ways to make the status effect more valuable. At the moment, Vulnerable damage seems to operate in a slightly different way than most of the damage in the game. Instead of getting lumped in with most damage increases, it seems to apply after all the other calculations have been completed, making it much more valuable.
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For example, the skills and effects that increase your damage against stunned enemies will all be calculated together using your base damage and then that final result will be increased again by the extra damage from Vulnerable. This means hitting a Vulnerable enemy will often increase your final damage more than you think it should, and no matter what build you're going for, Vulnerable will always be a good addition since it doesn't clash with other damage increases.
As far as making the Vulnerable status effect more valuable, plenty of skills operate off of hitting or killing Vulnerable enemies, letting you tag additional effects onto these already easy-to-kill targets. However, sometimes all you need is to apply Vulnerable as fast as possible. In that situation, something like the rogue's Shadow Imbuement skill works wonders, applying Vulnerable to any enemy in a wide AOE blast.
With other gear and skills, you can increase the amount of extra damage you do to Vulnerable enemies too. It's also important to note that these increases are additive, meaning a 5% increase in Vulnerable damage would take your total damage increase against these enemies to 25%.
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