PoE 2: Immune Explained

Immunity is a property granted by specific modifiers that prevents an effect from being applied to an entity in Path of Exile 2.

What is Immunity?

Being immune to an effect means that the Buff or Debuff cannot be applied to you. This status is typically provided by modifiers that state that you cannot have a specific effect applied to you. For example, Ashrend has the modifier 'Cannot be Ignited', making you immune to Ignite by preventing the Damaging Ailment from being applied to you under any circumstances.

It's important to distinguish immunity from a similar terminology - Unaffected. Being immune to an effect means that the effect can never be applied to you, whilst being Unaffected by it means that it can be applied to you and will persist on you, but will have no impact at all.

Tip: see our full article on Unaffected here.

Immunity, Avoidance & Reduced Effect

Modifiers that grant immunity are absolutes - they simply provide complete immunity to the effect when active and provide nothing when inactive such as when their source is from an inactive weapon set. This results in any instance of the effect being immediately removed from you when a source of immunity to that effect becomes active.

Modifiers that grant a chance to Avoid something such as those on Perfidy are mechanically similar to immunity, but must first succeed a chance based roll to determine the outcome. However unlike immunity, obtaining 100% chance to Avoid an effect whilst the effect currently persists will not remove the existing instance of the effect on you, though no new instances will be applicable.

Modifiers that make a Debuff have reduced effect on you such as those on Bronzebeard, are more mechanically similar to being Unaffected by an effect. These stats lower the impact that the Debuff has on you, potentially all the way to having no impact at all, but still allow the Debuff to be applied to you.

Note: in the case where an 'Always' or '100% chance' modifier exists alongside a 'Cannot' modifier, and where both apply to the same effect, the 'Cannot' modifier always takes priority. For example if a Monster has an effect that causes them to always inflict Light Stuns with their Hits, and that Monster Hits a character that has immunity to Light Stuns, the character will not be Stunned.