Pestilence Rising

Poison everything. Harvest the suffering. Roll a dice and drink something that might kill you. The Plague Doctor weaponizes disease itself — blowpipe darts, a plague aura that drains life, and a pet Frankenstein monster that does the punching for you.

Powered By Suffering

The Plague Doctor has a unique mana system: plague mana. It doesn't regenerate passively. Every enemy you poison, irradiate, or aura-tick gets tracked as "plagued" — and each plagued enemy generates mana every second. More plague means more mana means more spells means more plague. It's a beautiful, toxic cycle.

Dart spells don't cost mana — they summon a temporary dartgun loaded with special ammunition. Each cast creates a blowpipe with 3-5 darts that lasts 15-20 seconds. The big spells (summons, corpse explosions, miasma) cost both mana AND HP. So you open with darts to build plague targets and mana, then spend both your mana pool and your health on the heavy stuff.

Spreading The Disease

Plague Aura

Your base ability from level 1. Toggle it on and everything within eight meters starts taking poison damage. It costs your own HP to maintain — you're burning your life force to spread pestilence. Auto-shuts off before it kills you. Probably. The real value is mana generation: wade into a group of NPCs, toggle aura, and watch your mana bar fill as every enemy gets tracked.

Radiation Dart (20-30s cooldown)

Summons a temporary dartgun loaded with radiation darts. Against players, it stacks radiation. Against NPCs, it deals poison. Every hit plagues the target for mana generation. The dartgun disappears after 15-20 seconds, so fire fast.

Incapacitate Dart

Same dartgun mechanic — this one slows and blurs the target on hit. Hit them, backpedal while your aura eats their health. The kiting tool of choice.

Scatter Dart

Sprays darts in a cone, hitting every enemy in the arc. Each hit plagues the target. This is how you seed a whole pack for mana generation — scatter into a group, toggle aura, and farm mana from every poisoned body.

Things That Go Boom

Corpse Explosion (20s cooldown, 13 mana + 12 HP)

Kill some enemies, pile up the bodies, then detonate them for 40-70 poison AoE around each corpse (scales by skill level). The synergy with Plague Aura is disgusting — aura weakens them, you finish them off, then use their remains as weapons.

Miasma (30s cooldown, 10 mana + 10 HP)

Deploy a poison cloud ahead of you. It ticks poison damage and plagues everything inside. Great for area denial — block a doorway, cut off a retreat, or just make a hallway very unpleasant. The Plague Mastery passive extends its duration.

Drink Potion — Roll The Dice

Every Plague Doctor carries mystery potions. Drink one, always heal some HP, then roll a D20 for the bonus effect. Nat 20? Full heal, speed boost, and damage buff for twenty seconds. Nat 1? It poisons and slows you. Everything in between scales from "modest mana refund" through "speed boost" to "damage buff plus overheal." The Efficient Brewer passive cuts the cooldown so you roll more often, and Loaded Dice lets you reroll natural 1s.

Your Own Personal Monster

Summon Guardian (60s cooldown, 20 mana + 20 HP)

Conjures a scarecrow guard that fights for you. A D20 roll picks its weapon — it could get a bone club or something nastier. 400 HP, lasts 30 seconds (longer with Plague Mastery). Good for when you need a friend and don't have any.

Summon Abomination — The Ultimate (120s, 40 mana + 40 HP)

A Frankenstein monster. You slam down a Frankenstein table, a D20 roll determines part quality, and the monster rises with its own AI. This is a native Rust pet — you get the actual pet UI with follow, guard, and attack buttons. Lasts 40 seconds base (extended by Plague Mastery). Pop it at the start of a monument pull or boss fight and let it soak damage while you rain darts and aura from behind.

The Pestilence Passives

Pestilent Healing is the passive that makes the Plague Aura playstyle work — you heal for every plagued enemy while the aura is active. More plague targets means more healing, easily out-healing the HP drain. Plague Resilience caps your own radiation so you can stand in rad zones without a care. Toxic Blood makes enemies that hit you in melee take poison retaliation damage — and it tracks them as plagued, feeding your mana generation.

The Blowpipe Connection

The Plague Doctor is the only class designed around Rust's native blowpipe weapon. Your spell darts are the primary casting tools, but the physical blowpipe is your sustained DPS backup. Blowpipe hits with radiation darts convert to bonus poison damage against NPCs, and all hits track targets as plagued for mana generation. Five dart types, one class that uses all of them.

The Plague Doctor is coming soon to Tarnished Crown. See the full Pestilence tree at the Plague Doctor class page.