Status Effects refer to temporary modifications of enemy stats or AI. In RWBY: Grimm Eclipse, there are currently only 3 things that affect enemies to this magnitude, Freeze, Stun, and Team Attack Setup. All of these technically function the same way, in that they cause the affected enemy to have its Guard broken.
Guard
Guard is, very basically, an enemy actively blocking your attacks. Strong attacks, or a chain of attacks, can break through an enemy's guard. An enemy that is not guarding will take increased damage from melee combos or attacks. For example, Ruby's fully charged Heavy attack doubles in damage when it is used against an enemy with a broken guard, from 350 to 700. Ranged attacks, and special attacks like Ultimates or Team Attacks are unaffected by Guard.
Blake attacking a Beowolf with its guard broken, note the lack of arms blocking her attack
A Beowolf with its Guard up- notice the arms blocking Blake's attacks
Blake breaking through the Beowolf's Guard- note the arms are no longer blocking, and the yellow visual effect
Freeze
An Alpha Beowolf encased in ice, i.e. Frozen
A Frozen enemy is covered in ice, and therefore can't move, which means it can't block or guard against your attacks. You can trigger a Team Attack from a frozen enemy as if it was a non-frozen enemy, but it will no longer be frozen. How long an enemy is frozen is affected by how it was frozen.
- Ruby's Ice Dust Blast freezes for 6 seconds
- Weiss's LLH combo freezes for 4 seconds
- Weiss's Novacaine freezes for 8 seconds
- Weiss's Frost Bolt freezes for 6 seconds
- Weiss's Hypothermia freezes for 6 seconds
- Weiss's Ice Queen freezes for 4 seconds
- Blake's Ice Clone freezes for 3 seconds
You can't freeze Boarbatusks, Mutant Beowolves, Ursa Minors, Majors or the Mutant Deathstalker
Stun
A Stunned Alpha Beowolf. Note the angry red symbol above its head.
A Stunned enemy is briefly unable to move, having it's guard lowered against the next attack, as hitting it will knock it out of Stun. If you hit a stunned enemy with a fully charged Heavy attack, it will always enter into a state of Team Attack Setup. How long an enemy remains stunned is affected by how it was stunned.
- Any character's counter will stun the enemy for 4 seconds.
- Yang with Brawler, doubles the counter timer to 8 seconds.
- Ruby's Electric Dust Blast will stun for 6 seconds.
- Weiss's Improved Nova stuns enemies for 4 seconds.
- Blake's Earth Clone stuns enemies for 3 seconds.
- Blake's Stun Blades stuns enemies for 3 seconds.
- Yang's Concussion Missiles stuns for 6 seconds.
- Nora's lightning chains from LLH stun for 2 seconds.
- Ren's Improved Aura Charge stuns for 4 seconds.
- Ren's Draining Aura Charge stuns for 8 seconds.
You cannot stun Ursa Majors, although they do stun themselves after their slam rock attack.
Mutant Beowolves technically can't be stunned (they do not display the red stunned icon) but they still take extra damage on the next hit after countering or some other methods of stun.
The Mutant Deathstalker cannot be stunned either.
Team Attack Setup
An Alpha Beowolf in Team Attack Setup
While setup for a Team Attack, an enemy will constantly take damage as if its guard was down, but unlike Stun, hitting it won't knock it out of this state, until a Team Attack is used on it.
No matter how an enemy got into this state, it will always last for 8 seconds.
The only ways for an enemy to leave this state are time, death, or someone executing the Team Attack on it.
You cannot setup team attacks on Creeps, Mutant Beowolves or the Mutant Deathstalker.