Contagion - Path of Exile

Contagion Contagion is an active skill gem.

Unleashes a vile contagion on enemies, dealing chaos damage over time. If an enemy dies while affected by Contagion, it spreads to other enemies.You are taking Chaos Damage Over Time

Spell, AoE, Duration, Chaos. Level: 1–20. Cost: 5–20 Mana. Cast Time: 0.60 sec. Requires Level 4.

  • Deals (3.5–235.9) Base Chaos Damage per second
  • Base duration is 5 seconds
  • Modifiers to Spell Damage apply to this Skill"s Damage Over Time effect

Place into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket.

NameAdditional Effects From QualityWeight
Contagion(0–10)% increased Area of Effect50

When Contagion spreads Essence Drain, is the degen order maintained or somehow changed? For a specific example - I cast Contagion linked with Item Rarity on a group of monsters, then cast Essence Drain on one of them and they all die from Contagion spreading ED. Will Item Rarity affect them all?

First Contagion is added to the monsters, then Essence Drain. If they were not already under the effect of debuffs, contagion will be the "first" debuff on them, until that contagion runs out.

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Related Gems

Level Effect

LevelRequires LevelDexterityIntelligenceCostDeals 3.5 Base Chaos Damage per secondExperience
1471053.5841
2691364.33,099
39121765.77,433
412142177.422,895
5161826810.249,725
6202231913.695,714
72425371018169,595
82829421123.3283,759
93233471129.9453,996
103636531238.1703,128
114040581348.11,061,223
124444631460.32,065,870
134848681575.22,507,110
145251741693.32,573,731
1555547816109.57,611,351
1658578217128.113,437,908
1761608618149.625,052,147
1864629018174.443,869,436
1967659419203242,081,178
2070689820235.9
217220260.5
227421287.5
237621317.2
247821349.7
258022385.4
268222424.5
278423467.3
288623514.3
298824565.7
309024621.9
319124652
329225683.5
339325716.5
349425750.9
359525787
369625824.7
379726864.1
389826905.4
399926948.5
4010026993.6

Contagion is a chaos spell that applies a chaos damage over time effect to all enemies in the area, and spreads itself when an enemy dies. Contagion interacts favourably with Essence Drain, a skill that deals heavy chaos damage over time and is spread by Contagion.

Skill functions and interactions

  • Modifiers to Spell Damage apply to this skill's Damage Over Time Effect: Modifiers to spell damage only affect the damage over time effect of Contagion granted by the gem and do not affect other sources of damage over time caused by the skill.
  • Essence Drain: When an enemy affected by both Contagion and Essence Drain dies, the resulting Contagion proc will spread both effects. This is a unique interaction. Contagion will not spread other damage over time effects.
  • Duration: Increases and reductions to duration function normally. The duration of Contagion and associated degeneration effects (Essence Drain) is not reset when spread to other enemies on death.
  • Area of Effect: Modifiers to area of effect affect both the skill radius and spread radius of Contagion. Modifiers to area damage (such as Concentrated Effect Support) do not apply.
  • On hit effects: Contagion does not hit, and therefore cannot activate the effects of supports such as Hextouch Support.

Item acquisition

Contagion can drop anywhere. Drop level: 5.

Recipes

Contagion can be created from the following recipes:

Amount Part Description
3 The Bitter Blossom Random corrupted level 21 Chaos gem with 23% quality
13 The Cataclysm Random corrupted level 21 Spell gem
6 The Fox Random level 20 gem
8 Dying Anguish Random level 19 gem with 19% alternative quality
8 The Hook Random corrupted level 21 gem with 23% alternative quality
3 Gemcutter's Promise Random gem with 20% quality
1 Gemcutter's Incubator Random gem with 1–20% quality
1 The Void Random divination card set exchange

Quest reward

This item is given as a quest reward for the following quests:

Class → Witch Shadow Ranger Duelist Marauder Templar Scion
Quest ↓
Breaking Some Eggs
Act 1		 ✓ ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗

Vendor reward

This item can be bought at the listed NPC vendors, after completing the following quests:

Class → Witch Shadow Ranger Duelist Marauder Templar Scion
Quest ↓
Breaking Some Eggs
Act 1
Nessa		 ✓ ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✓ ✓
A Fixture of Fate
Act 3
Siosa		 ✓
Fallen from Grace
Act 6
Lilly Roth		 ✓

Related helmet enchantments

The following helmet enchantments affect Contagion.

Name Level Labyrinth Stats Spawn Weighting
Enchantment Contagion Damage 1 66 Merciless Labyrinth 25% increased Contagion Damage helmet 100
default 0
Enchantment Contagion Damage 2 75 Eternal Labyrinth 40% increased Contagion Damage helmet 100
default 0
Enchantment Contagion Duration 1 66 Merciless Labyrinth 20% increased Contagion Duration helmet 100
default 0
Enchantment Contagion Duration 2 75 Eternal Labyrinth 30% increased Contagion Duration helmet 100
default 0
Enchantment Contagion Radius 1 66 Merciless Labyrinth 16% increased Contagion Area of Effect helmet 100
default 0
Enchantment Contagion Radius 2 75 Eternal Labyrinth 24% increased Contagion Area of Effect helmet 100
default 0

Alternate skill effects

Contagion has the following alternate skill effects:

Item Effect(s)
Arcane Contagion Effect Your Contagion becomes a blue arcane effect.
Celestial Contagion Effect Your Contagion becomes a Celestial Effect.
Project Contagion Effect Your Contagion becomes a Project Effect.
Scientist Contagion Effect Your Contagion becomes a Scientist Effect.
Sunprism Contagion Effect Your Contagion becomes a Sunprism Effect.