PoE 2: Slow Explained

Slow is a Debuff that causes actions to take longer in Path of Exile 2.

What is Slow?

Slow causes a target to have slower action animations, causing them to activate over a longer period of time. Slow can specifically apply to a particular stat, such as slowing Attack Speed, but if a source of Slow does not specify a stat, it will instead apply to a target's Action Speed, effectively slowing all actions including Movement Speed, Attack and Cast Speed, and Skill Speed. Hinder is an example of a Slow Debuff that only applies to Movement Speed, whilst Chill is an Elemental Ailment Debuff that slows all actions.

Notably, slows from multiple Debuffs do not stack additively with eachother. This is to prevent the ability to fully impede an entity's action speed to the point that they would be unable to process any actions. Instead, multiple Slow Debuffs that apply to the same stat(s) will stack multiplicatively with each other.

Magnitude of Slow

The Magnitude of a Slow Debuff is the amount of Slow imposed on the target by the Debuff. This can be improved with modifiers that directly apply to that type of Debuff.

There are also rarer modifiers that will improve the Magnitude of any Slow Debuffs that you inflict, such as the one on The Prisoner's Manacles Unique Gloves.

Monster Rarity & Diminished Effect

The rarity of a Monster has an impact on how much they're impeded by a Slow Debuff, with rarer Monster generally being more resilient. These modifiers cause incoming Slow Debuffs to have less effect and are inherent to Monster rarity, and are therefore not part of a Monster's Magic or Rare Monster modifiers.

For example the Pinnacle Boss Xesht, We Who are One is a Unique Monster and therefore there's an innate 50% less effect of any Slow Debuffs applied to this Monster.

Party Play

Playing alongside additional players will cause all Monsters in the area to become more resilient to Slow Debuffs. For each player in a party beyond the first, any Slow Debuffs inflicted on Monsters will have 10% less effect, scaling up to 50% less effect with a full party of six players.

Defence against Slow

You can invest into modifiers that reduce the effectiveness of Slow Debuffs on you, or even outright prevents them from affecting you.

Charms

Silver Charm is used automatically the moment you become affected by any Slow Debuff. For the Duration of this Charm's effect, you'll be unaffected by all Slow Debuffs. Like any basic Charm, the Silver Charm requires enough Flask Charges to activate. By default it can be activated twice before being fully depleted of Charges, and therefore may not be a suitable option outside of general mapping gameplay.

Reduced Effectiveness

Modifiers exist that reduce the effectiveness of Slow Debuffs on you so that they have less impact. For example Edyrn's Tusks reduces the potency of all Slow Debuffs on you by 50%. There's also nodes on the Passive Skill Tree that provide the same stat, such as Unhindered.

Unaffected & Immunity

Rarer modifiers also exist to prevent the effects of Slow Debuffs from applying to you, such as the Pathfinder's Relentless Pursuit which allows you to effectively ignore any Slow Debuffs on you as they'll no longer slow you down, though notably the Debuffs will still be present. You can also obtain modifiers that will grant immunity to certain Slow Debuffs, fully preventing the application of those Debuffs on you. For example Dream Fragments prevents you from being Chilled or Frozen.