If your Limbus Company runs keep stalling in Mirror Dungeon or a late Canto boss, the fix is almost never "pull a better Identity." It is picking a status keyword and actually building around it. Limbus rewards specialists brutally and generalists barely at all. A team where every Sinner feeds the same keyword snowballs into damage that trivializes fights a scattershot roster grinds through.
There are seven status keywords. Learn what each does, learn the one rule they all share, then commit to one. Here is that in full.
The one rule that governs all seven: Count and Potency
Before the individual keywords, internalize this, because it is the thing new Managers get wrong. Every status is described by two numbers:
- Potency is how strong each activation is. Higher Potency means more damage (or a stronger effect) per trigger.
- Count is how many times it will activate, and usually ticks down by one each time it does.
The whole game of status stacking is balancing these two. Pile on Count with no Potency and you get a hundred limp ticks. Pump Potency with no Count and you get one big hit that expires immediately. Good status teams are built to raise both in the same turn, then trigger them while both are high. Keep that Count-versus-Potency tension in your head and every keyword below reads the same way.
The seven keywords at a glance
| Keyword | Sin affinity | Type | Triggers when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Burn | Wrath | Damage over time | End of each turn |
| Bleed | Lust | Damage on action | The bleeding unit acts or flips coins |
| Tremor | Sloth | Stagger / burst | On Tremor Burst |
| Rupture | Gluttony | Damage on hit | The target is struck |
| Sinking | Gloom | Sanity / damage on hit | The target is struck |
| Poise | Pride | Self-buff | Applies to the wielder |
| Charge | Envy | Self-resource | Spent to empower skills |
Notice the split: five keywords hurt the enemy, two empower your own unit. That split decides how you build around each.
The damage keywords
Burn (Wrath). The simplest to understand. At the end of every turn, a burning enemy takes fixed damage equal to its current Burn Potency, then the Count drops by one. Burn ignores the clash entirely, which makes it reliable chip that ticks whether you win the round or not. It rewards front-loading Potency early so every end-of-turn tick hits hard.
Bleed (Lust). Bleed activates when the afflicted unit itself acts, taking Potency damage on its coin flips and clashes, with Count falling each time. Because a boss with a full skill slate flips many coins per turn, Bleed has one of the highest theoretical ceilings in a drawn-out fight. It is the keyword that punishes enemies for doing anything.
Rupture (Gluttony). Rupture triggers on hit: every time you strike a ruptured enemy, it takes fixed damage equal to Rupture Potency and loses one Count. That makes multi-hit skills and multi-coin attacks into rupture detonators. Stack the Count high, then feed it a flurry of coins to cash it all out at once.
Sinking (Gloom). Sinking also triggers on hit, but it attacks Sanity as well as HP, dragging the enemy's mental state down and dealing Gloom damage as it goes. It is a slower, grindier keyword that pays off in longer fights and pairs naturally with teams that also want to win the Sanity war.
Tremor (Sloth). The odd one out. Tremor does not deal damage on its own tick; it raises the enemy's stagger threshold and then pays off through a Tremor Burst that staggers and, with the right Identities, converts into Sloth damage. It is the most mechanically involved keyword and the most rewarding when a full Tremor team lines up a burst, because a staggered enemy takes far more damage and loses its turn.
The self-buff keywords
Poise (Pride). Poise is not something you inflict on the enemy; it is a stack your own Sinner builds on itself. Each stack raises damage and effectively lets the unit crit, scaling with both Count and Potency. Because it ignores enemy resistances entirely, Poise is the keyword that works against anything, at the cost of needing a turn or two to ramp.
Charge (Envy). Charge is a resource meter your Sinner fills and then spends to empower specific skills, with some Identities banking permanent power once they consume enough. It is a warm-up keyword: weak in the opening exchange, dangerous once the meter is full. Protect the ramp and it delivers.
How to actually build around one
Reading the keywords is easy. The build is the point.
- Pick one keyword and stack the roster. A Bleed team wants six Sinners who all apply and benefit from Bleed. Mixing three Bleed and three Rupture Identities gives you two half-built statuses and neither snowballs. Commit.
- Line up Count and Potency in the same window. Use your setup skills to raise both, then unload the triggers, on-hit for Rupture and Sinking, on-their-turn for Bleed, end-of-turn for Burn, on burst for Tremor.
- Let the Sin affinity guide your clashes. Each keyword lives on a Sin, and stacking that Sin also shapes your coin power and your clash and coin math. A mono-affinity lean helps both your status and your ability to win the exchange that applies it.
- Match your E.G.O to the keyword. The right E.G.O can seed a huge chunk of status in one cast, at the cost of Sanity. Slot E.G.O that reinforces your chosen keyword, not a grab bag.
Where to take this next
Statuses are the payoff; the clash decides whether you get to apply them. Read the clash and coin combat guide so your keyword actually lands, then the team building guide to assemble a squad that all feeds one status, and the E.G.O guide to seed it in bulk. Ready to grind it? The Mirror Dungeon guide is where a committed status team feels absurd. New Manager? Begin with the beginners guide, then browse the Limbus Company hub and its tier list.
