Added in patch 0.3.0, Abyss monsters have a suite of dangerous monster modifiers. Some are very obvious, such as Crystalline Barrier and Soul Siphoner. Others are subtle killers, especially Shade Walker and Amanamu's Void.
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Abyss Monster Mods & How To Beat Them
Beginner
Overview
Why Can't I Hurt This Monster/Why Can't I Recover Life?
If you aren't recovering life, Shade Walker or Bubonic Trail is the reason why. Shade Walker is the nastier, and is most scary if you are playing a Dexterity-aligned character wearing Evasion gear, but is still nasty for everyone.
Shade Walker causes enemies to teleport to you and conjure two lingering effects - a cloud of smoke and areas of desecrated ground.
Clouds of smoke are a nuisance but not overly dangerous, inflicting Blind. Blind nerfs your accuracy and evasion rating by 20% until you leave the cloud.
Desecrated Ground, however, is much worse. Desecrated Ground applies a physical damage over time effect, a damage type that is hard to mitigate, and simultaneously prevents all recovery of life and energy shield. The smoke makes it hard to see.
Bubonic Trail just makes desecrated ground.
Counterplay: When fighting Abyssal monsters, treat every Smoke Cloud as a terrifying threat... just in case they are in the same location as a patch of Desecrated Ground. They often will be. And if you aren't recovering, move away.
Worst Case Scenario: A monster has Bubonic Trail, is faster than you and has 'melee monster AI' - it tries to stay as close to you as possible. In this case your counterplay is to dodge roll into a sprint, then run, use your life flask while moving, and find terrain you can fight near that slows the monster's speed.
If you aren't hurting a rare monster, Amanamu's Void is the reason why. This is most effective against players who are attacking from close range.
Amanamu's Void summons a large cloud of black smoke around the monster. If you are inside this cloud, you can only hit targets that are also inside the cloud.
Your first thought for counterplay may be to run into the center of every smoke cloud, but this opens you up to serious trouble when facing Shade Walker monsters in the same encounter.
For this reason I recommend doing something else.
Counterplay: When fighting Abyssal monsters, assume every Smoke Cloud is Shade Walker, and get out of it, when it's Amanamu's Void instead, you'll have time to realise the mistake and change approach.
Modifier List
This will include the really nasty ones mentioned above.
Modifiers on Abyss monsters are associated with modifiers on monsters slain near the Abyss.
Modifiers that are more dangerous than most are colored yellow.
Abyss Modifier | Associated Normal Monster Modifier | What It Does |
Soul Siphoner | Siphons Mana and Deals Lightning Damage | Three effects. Physical DOT over a large area, the outer donut of it slowing the player and the inner ring reducing player damage. |
Shade Walker | Shroud Walker | See Above. Extreme danger. |
Crystalline Barrier | Ice Prison | Summons exploding crystals. A lot can hit at once. Explode when the player is close. |
Eruption of Souls | Lightning Storms | Very similar to the Lightning Storm mod, but fire damage and looks volcanic instead. |
Kulemak's Desecration | (uncertain) | Conjures projections that fire a slow-moving beam, this applies physical DoT. |
Kurgal's Final Gasp | Temporarily Revives | Revives at full health on death |
Ulaman's Legion | (uncertain) | The monster spawns extra copies of itself |
Amanamu's Void | Proximal Tangibility | See Above. Extreme danger. |
Meteoric Demise | Bombardier | Impossible to miss, this conjures massive meteorites. They do significant damage. |
Bubonic Trail | Trail of Fire (or Ice, or Lightning) | See Above. Dangerous. |
Soulflame Geysers | Flame Walls | These are similar to the Flame Wall mod. Avoid. |
Volatile Souls | Volatile Crags | This creates red and green versions of the Crags that are hard to see. Damage isn't high, but dodge when you can. |
Unstable Revenants | Lightning Mirages | Works just like Lightning Mirages, but harder to see. |
Undying Will | Periodic Invulnerability | Allies of the Undying Will monster in its green aura are invulnerable. |
Lithomantic Runes | Periodic (Element) Explosions | Places very large, very obvious rune traps on the ground. These explode on touch. Individually easy to dodge but they can drop a lot. |