Dungeon curses in Fellowship are one of the many things that set it apart from other games in similar genres. While we as gamers are all too familiar with difficulty-increasing mechanics, Fellowship compliments the negative effects with positive ones with a system known as ‘kiss-curse’.
Fellowship Dungeon Curses
There are currently nine dungeon curses that will both challenge and buff your hero’s as they progress through the leagues of Fellowship. Dungeons will begin with one curse as early as Adept, increasing to two curses in Champion. You will never have more than two curses on a dungeon, and you will never have double of the same curse on a dungeon.
The curses on dungeons will rotate, meaning you may have a particular curse on Stormwatch Adept 1, but you could have a different curse on Adept 3. This increases replayability by ensuring as you progress through the leagues, you will get different gameplay from the same dungeon.
As you can see, you’ll have a variety to choose from as you progress. When you get into Eternal, you’ll have a choice between the one-boss and three-boss dungeons, but the one-boss dungeon will always have at most one curse.
Fellowship Dungeon Curses Table
Here are all the dungeon curses available in Fellowship. We’ve included all their bonuses and we’ll go over each one individually below.
| Icon | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
 | Binding Ice | Periodically, one hero is afflicted by an icy curse. After 5 seconds the curse erupts, dealing magic damage to all heroes within the radius and rooting them for 3 seconds. BONUS Enemies also take damage from Binding Ice |
 | Blood Shards | Blood Shards erupt from dying enemies, dealing 2% of their maximum health in damage to all heroes. BONUS Heroes hit by Blood Shards gain 1% Expertise for 30 seconds, stacking up to 15 times. |
 | Carnage | All incoming damage applies a bleed for 6% of damage taken on all heroes divided evenly. When a hero’s health is above 90% the Carnage bleed is removed. Carnage is dispellable. BONUS Heroes heal for 10% of all damage dealt by any hero, divided evenly in the group. Each time a Boss is defeated, heroes gain an additional 2.5% healing from damage dealt. |
 | Empowered Minions | Several enemies in each dungeon are empowered, gaining +100% Health and +150% Power. BONUS Upon defeating an Empowered Minion heroes gain +20% Haste and +20% Movement Speed for 40 seconds. |
 | Malevolent Shade | As heroes kill enemies, eventually a Malevolent Shade will appear, reducing all damage taken by other nearby enemies by 50% and increasing their Haste by 20% until the shade is killed. BONUS Heroes instantly replenish 30% Max Health and 15% Max Mana upon defeating the Malevolent Shade |
 | Meteor Rain | Periodically, burning meteors crash down on heroes, splitting up into fragments that damage and stun on impact. BONUS Each time a meteor strikes the ground, heroes generate 2 Spirit towards their Spirit Ability. |
 | Shadow Lord’s Trial | The Shadow Lord has intervened, accumulating all kill score. As enemies are killed, Shadow Orbs are spawned nearby that can be collected by heroes. Upon collecting 30x Shadow Orbs, an Emissary of the Shadow Lord will arrive to challenge you. Defeating it will reward Kill Score. BONUS Each time an Emissary of the Shadow Lord is defeated, heroes gain Shadow’s Defeat for 60 seconds, increased all damage dealt by 20% and increasing Haste and Movement Speed by 20%. |
 | Stone Skin | Non-boss enemies have 30% increased Maximum Health BONUS Non-boss enemies explode on death, dealing 15% of their maximum health as physical damage over 6 seconds to all other enemies and bosses in an area around them. This effect does not stack. The highest damage Stoneskin effect overwrites existing ones. |
 | Ultimatum | Bosses deal 5% more damage and have 10% more health. BONUS Heroes’ ability cooldowns are reduced by 10%. |
All Dungeon Curses
Dungeon curses will potentially be a determining factor in what dungeons you will want to run so knowing the ins and outs will help you make a educated decision. Don’t be afraid of trying them out though, you never know what you might accomplish if you try hard enough.
Binding Ice
This curse will spawn on a random player as frequently as every 35 seconds and as infrequently as every 50 seconds. Once applied, the curse will last 5 seconds before exploding and rooting all players within a 6yd radius. Additionally, the explosion deals damage to both players and enemies.
We feel the benefits from this curse do not outweigh the negatives. You could end up rooting an ally at an inopportune time or outright killing them with the damage. The damage dealt to enemies is negligible, so we recommend not going out of your way to keep the enemies within the circle.
While it’s not amazing on the offensive front, this curse isn’t too difficult to manage. Don’t be afraid to choose it if it comes up.
Blood Shards
Blood Shards spew out from enemies upon death, dealing damage equal to 2% of their maximum health to players. More importantly to us, it also applies a 1% Expertise buff to each player hit, stacking up to 15 times.
Since the damage scales with the maximum health of the enemy, you’ll need to be careful in large pulls on higher difficulties. Killing several enemies at once can be extremely dangerous. Diminishing returns do not affect the Expertise you receive from this effect, so you get a full 15% damage and healing effect for 30 seconds at maximum stacks.
We like more damage, and this gives us that. Generally okay to pick at all difficulty levels as long as you take into consideration what we said above.
Carnage
Carnage causes all incoming damage to apply a stacking damage-over-time (DoT) effect on all players. This DoT is equal to 6% of the damage taken, divided evenly to the party. This means that even when only the tank is taking damage, the entire party will still be taking damage from the DoT. Since it stacks, party-wide damage is especially dangerous as it can apply multiple stacks at once.
The benefit from Carnage is a 10% leech effect, which distributes 10% of all damage a player deals as healing evenly to all party members. Killing an enemy boss increases this effect by 2.5%. Importantly, the curse is dispellable, so a healer’s single-target dispel or the Ancient Wardstone relic can remove it in a pinch.
If you let the stacks get out of hand, this can quickly become the most dangerous curse. However, with good health management and timely dispels, you should be able to handle this just fine in most cases.
Empowered Minions
This curse buffs specific enemies in a dungeon with additional health and damage. These empowered enemies are static per dungeon. This means you will always find the buff on the exact same enemy in Stormwatch, regardless of difficulty.
The extra health means priority damage because even more important, and the increased damage makes some enemies worth avoiding if possible. Skipping Empowered minions is a viable strategy since the buff is sometimes not worth the effort to kill them.
Malevolent Shade
Malevolent Shade’s will spawn when completing 22% of the kill score for a 1-boss dungeon, and every 15% in 3-boss dungeons. All enemies near the shade take 50% reduced damage and gain 20% haste. Upon defeating the shade, all players will have 30% of their health restored and 15% of their mana.
The benefits of this curse are weak, but a shade spawning mid-pull becomes a priority target. A tip to avoid dealing with the shade is to plan your route so you finish a pull right as it spawns. Instead of killing it, you just move on to the next pull.
Meteor Rain
Meteors occasionally raid down about the party, telegraphed by an orange circle with arrows pointing in four directions. After a three second delay the meteors crash down, sending meteor fragments in the direction of the arrows. Players are stunned when hit by the meteors and their fragments. This Meteor Rain happens approximately every 40 and 55 seconds.
Not only is this curse easily dodgeable, but the additional 2 spirit towards your Spirit Ability is fantastic. In a one-boss dungeon, this can amount to one or two additional uses.
Shadow Lord’s Trial
Shadow Lord’s Trial is a curse that prevents kill score accumulation from killing enemies. Instead of providing kill score, enemies drop orbs on the ground. An Emissary of the Shadow Lord spawns upon collecting 30 orbs from killed enemies. In one-boss dungeons you need to kill two Emissary’s for 100% kill score, and three in three-boss dungeons.
The Emissary of the Shadow Lords themselves pulse damage every 2 seconds, applying a stacking debuff that increases the damage you take from each additional pulse by 5%. You will want to save defensive abilities for the later half of the bosses health when the damage will be at it’s most potent.
The buff given by defeating an Emissary is incredibly powerful. You can use it to perform pulls you wouldn’t otherwise be capable of, or you can kill a boss faster by defeating the Emissary right before.
Stone Skin
All non-boss enemies have increased health, but these enemies will apply a damage-over-time (DoT) effect on other nearby enemies upon death. The DoTs do not stack, and the more powerful version will override the weaker one.
This curse incentivizes chain pulling to keep the DoT rolling on as many enemies as possible. You want to take advantage of this by pulling high maximum health enemies into another pack right before it dies. You’ll find Stone Skin can do 20% or more of the overall dungeon damage if utilized well.
Ultimatum
Ultimatum is the simplest of the Fellowship dungeon curses, giving bosses more health and damage. However, these small increases can cause certain bosses to become more difficult faster than others. The passive 10% ability cooldown reduction is negligible, especially compared to the extra difficulty the curse adds to the hardest part of a dungeon.
Additional Information
If you enjoyed this guide and want to learn more about Fellowship, check out our incredibly thorough Beginners Guide to read more!
