If no enemies are nearby, the skill fails and goes on a half-second cooldown.
If the teleport completes, the targeted enemy is inflicted with a status effect causing it to take a scaling amount of extra damage on the next hit, and the skill goes on its normal cooldown.
Upon teleporting, the enemy is rooted in place and cannot turn around.
Bonus damage from affixes such as "+60% damage on bleeding targets" is calculated when the affected enemy is attacked.
Because of this, the root effect applied by Phaser is able to trigger the affix "+75% damage to rooted targets", effectively giving the item a +75% damage buff.
The debuff applied by Phaser is recognized as a melee attack and will therefore trigger relevant effects from mutations like Open Wounds and Ripper.
The root effect applied by Phaser can trigger the mutation Heart of Ice, instantly resetting the skill's cooldown.
Due to how the game qualifies what counts as a ranged kill, killing an enemy using Phaser immediately followed by a ranged weapon will not activate the mutation Hunter's Instinct. However, it will activate the mutations Predator and Killer Instinct. Other ranged and melee mutations will work normally.