Mark

Mark is a negative status effect. A does nothing on its own, but many hero and enemy skills deal extra damage to a marked target. Most skills that apply also apply additional debuffs, for example, to the target's PROT or DODGE, and enemies also have a much higher chance to target a marked hero.

A Mark cannot be resisted, although the marking skill's other effects can, and the skill itself may miss.

Like most other status effects, Mark typically lasts for 3 turns.

Hero Skills

Marking Enemies

Skills that apply mark
Sniper's Mark	Marked for Death	Come Hither	Target Whistle	Call the Shot	Vulnerability Hex
Arbalest	Bounty Hunter	Bounty Hunter	Houndmaster	Musketeer	Occultist
Mark Target (3 rds) -(20~30) DODGE	Mark Target (3 rds) -(10~20)% PROT	Mark Target (2 rds) Pull 2 (100~140)% base	Mark Target (3 rds) -(20~30)% PROT	Mark Target (3 rds) -(20~30) DODGE	Mark Target (3 rds) -(15~20) DODGE

Dealing Bonus Damage to Marked Enemies

Skills with bonuses against marked targets
Sniper Shot	Collect Bounty	Thrown Dagger	Pistol Shot	Hound's Rush	Bellow	Aimed Shot	Captivate
Arbalest	Bounty Hunter	Grave Robber	Highwayman	Houndmaster	Man-at-Arms	Musketeer	Shieldbreaker
+(50~100)% DMG +(9~13)% CRIT	+90% DMG	+(25~40)% DMG	+(25~50)% DMG	+(60~100)% DMG	+5% CRIT received while marked (100~140% base)	+(50~100)% DMG +(9~13)% CRIT	+(40~60)% DMG

Marking Self or Ally

Skills that mark self or ally
Protect Me	Bulwark of Faith	Solo	Withstand	Intimidate	Retribution	Suffer
Antiquarian	Crusader	Jester	Leper	Leper	Man-at-Arms	Flagellant
+(4~8) DODGE +(10-20)% PROT Mark Target (3 rds) Force Guard by Ally (2 rds) Limit: 3 Uses per battle	+(20~30)% PROT (1 Battle) Mark Self (1 Battle)	Forward 3 Mark Self (3 rds) +(20~30) DODGE (4 rds) +(3~7) SPD Finale: +75% DMG (8 rds) Finale: +8% CRIT (8 rds) Limit: 2 Uses per battle	Mark Self / +(20~30)% PROT +30% Blight, Bleed, Debuff, Move Resist (1 Battle) Limit: 1 Use per battle	Self: Mark Self (4 rds) +(2~4) SPD	Self: Mark Self (2 rds) Activates Riposte* (3 rds) Riposte: -(40~20)% DMG +(0~4)% CRIT	Effect: Clear Marked Target Transfer Blight/Bleed Self: Mark Self (2 rds) Receive Blight/Bleed -(20~40)% Stress (4 rds) +(6~10)% Death Blow Resist (4 rds)

Removing Marks

Mark-removing skills
Rallying Flare	Suffer	Skeet Shot	Sandstorm
Arbalest	Flagellant	Musketeer	Shieldbreaker
Bypass/Remove Stealth Torch +3~7 Other Heroes: Clear Stun Clear Marked Target Stress -(1~3) (60~67% chance)	Effect: Clear Marked Target Transfer Blight/Bleed Self: Mark Self (2 rds) Receive Blight/Bleed -(20~40)% Stress (4 rds) +(6~10)% Death Blow Resist (4 rds)	Bypass/Remove Stealth Torch +3~7 Other Heroes: Clear Stun Clear Marked Target Stress -(1~3) (60~67% chance)	Can't Be Marked (4 Battles)

Enemy Skills

Marking Heroes

• Brigand Raider: Shank
• Crone: Curse of Vulnerability
• Cultist Acolyte: Stressful Incantation (Veteran and Champion only)
• Fungal Artillery: Mark Prey
• Hateful Virago: Ruinous Hex
• Large Carrion Eater: Weaken Prey
• Swine Drummer: Drums of Debilitation
• The Collector: Life Steal
• Webber: Web
• Wilbur: End This One and End These Two

Dealing Bonus Damage to Marked Heroes

• Bone Arbalist: Quarrel (+25% for Apprentice, +50% for Veteran and Champion)
• Carrion Eater: Munch (+100% Damage)
• Cultist Brawler: Rend for The Old Gods (+50% Damage)
• Fungal Scratcher: Rend The Marked (+50% Damage)
• Large Carrion Eater: Tentacle Devour (+100% Damage)
• Spitter: Spit and Bite (+100% Damage)
• Swine Prince: Obliterate Body and Obliterate Masses (+100% Damage)
• Webber: Bite (+100% Damage)

Strategy

Offensive

A Mark does little by itself and requires a second attacker to make full use of it. The value of a should be weighed against other actions that the hero may take, like stunning the enemy or simply attacking.

Marks perform well against certain types of enemies:

• High-health enemies that require many attacks to kill, like bosses and large enemies.
• Enemies with frustratingly high amounts of PROT, like the Pelagic Guardian and Ghoul; or DODGE, like the Spitter and Rabid Gnasher.
• Enemies out of reach of the marking hero.

The Arbalest, Bounty Hunter, and Houndmaster all have skills that roughly double their damage against targets with Mark. This means that a effectively pays for itself in terms of damage, and becomes more efficient with subsequent attacks. Of particular note is the Arbalest's Sniper Shot; its ridiculously high buff to CRIT, on top of the hero's base CRIT (the highest in the game), transforms the Arbalest's middling base attack into a formidable source of backline damage.

It is important to manage Speed when building a Mark party: -appliers should ideally be much faster than the rest of the party. One popular and effective party comprises the three damage dealers above (Arbalest, Bounty Hunter, and Houndmaster) along with the Occultist, in some order—each hero can apply , and most can deal bonus damage to marked targets.

Of the five Mark-applying skills, the Houndmaster's Target Whistle and the Occultist's Vulnerability Hex are generally considered the most useful. Target Whistle is the largest PROT debuff in the game and has an extremely high debuff chance. Vulnerability Hex synergises well with the Occultist's SPD and his debuff-oriented skill set.

Both of the Bounty Hunter's Mark skills can be situationally quite useful. Come Hither's pull works well on a support/stunner Bounty Hunter, with its being a nice bonus effect. Mark for Death is not as strong of a PROT debuff as Target Whistle, but it greatly boosts the Bounty Hunter's own SPD, allowing him to take advantage of his own more effectively. It can also allow him to indirectly contribute damage to the back ranks by setting a for an ally to use.

The Arbalest's Sniper's Mark is mostly a niche skill, owing to the Arbalest's low SPD and the skill's worse stats/synergy compared to other available marks.

Aside from the big three Mark users above, the Highwayman, Grave Robber, and Shieldbreaker have skills with minor bonuses to marked targets. While it is rarely worth it to use specifically in order to empower these skills, can still be a nice situational source of bonus damage and can lead to synergies with other users.

Defensive

Most enemies prioritise attacking marked heroes, with the probability increasing in Veteran and Champion dungeons; and some dangerous enemies, like the Spitter, Webber, and Collected Highwayman, have a particularly high chance to target marked heroes. Thus self-marking can be a great strategy for redirecting damage: most self-marking skills synergise well with their users' intrinsic defensive bonuses, allowing them to efficiently mitigate the extra incoming damage.

Two archetypal examples are the Jester's Solo and the Leper's Withstand:

• Solo allows DODGE-tanking Jesters to nullify a large proportion of incoming enemy attacks for three turns.
• Withstand boosts the Leper's already strong survivability, allowing him to absorb enemy damage, which he can then heal at the end of the battle with Solemnity.

Being Marked

Conversely enemies will often Mark a hero in order to deal more damage—Wilbur and the Swine Prince being a notorious example. The threat of increased damage is compounded by a tendency for the enemy to focus all their attacks on a single marked hero.

• Stunning or killing mark-appliers is often the most effective way to prevent this from happening.
• A marked hero can be Guarded to mitigate the mark's negative effects.
• The Arbalest's Rallying Flare clears all marks from her teammates (but not, notably, herself). This trivializes a large part of the Swine Prince fight.
• A number of users are highly position dependent—Spitters and Bone Arbalists, for example, do much less damage in the front ranks, while Fungal Scratchers and Cultist Brawlers can't use their mark-damage abilities from the rear. Forcing these enemies out of position, or moving a hero out of their reach, can be effective.
• The Shieldbreaker's camping skill, Sandstorm, can make a party member immune to .
• The Flagellant can remove an ally's mark with Suffer.

See Also

• Status effects