Choose Your Path Archer Warrior Priestess Assassin Mage General Tips

“Well, a doctor cures people, the medic just makes them more comfortable. While they die.”
-Doc, Red VS Blue

Overview by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Name: Priestess
Armament: Staff, Cure and Corrupt spells
Role: Medic/Midrange combatant

I know you probably groaned when you saw the word “priest”, but in Dark Messiah the Priestesses have a good variety of spells to both aid their allies and put the hurt on their enemies. Healing is simple and worth quick experience, and the heal spell’s dual function allows it to function as a damage spell if you target an enemy. A player can specialize in either the cure or curse function of the spell to improve one’s effectiveness at the cost of the other. At an early level you can actually resurrect nearby comrades at half health, but with a catch. When you die, so do the allies you have raised, giving them quite an incentive to keep you alive.

The Priestess sees souls like other characters see bodies, meaning she can spot cloaked Assassins. Priests are extremely valuable team members, though they are also generally targeted first by the enemy. They can heal themselves, but have little more durability than a mage beyond that, at least when their Stoneskin ability is inactive or if they haven’t caught the enemy in Thorns. Their damage spells are effective and easy to use, but don’t hit quite as hard as those of a mage or an archer’s arrows. Oftentimes you’ll find yourself needing more mana than you have, but there is no way to get any more of it.

Though Priestesses are more group-centric than other classes, they can still hold their own alone and are a fun and effective class.

+The only class with healing/resurrection capabilities
+Access to useful damage and status effect spells
+Moderate defensive potential with thorns and
-Mana pool an obstacle
-Always a target

Skills by arturchix

• Cure / Curse: Basic ability of Priestesses, this skill allows them to heal friends and harm targets. Note that like all of the ‘Cure’ spells, the effects are different depending on the team orientation of the target. Curing your own team gives them health. ‘Curing’ (or ‘cursing’) the enemy is the same spell, but reduces their health. Pressing ‘Defend’ will heal the Priestess.
• Cure Sphere: Creates a spherical cure field in a similar manner to Magic Reflection. Sphere has a maximum amount of curing ability, depending on radius (so shrinks as it cures). Cure Spheres act as Curse Spheres to enemy characters.
• Heal Team: This skill allows a priestess to sacrifice her own energy to heal nearby friends in a wide radius.
• Mark Target: Allows a priestess to ‘mark’ an enemy and highlight it to their own team. Teammates who kill the marked target gain extra XP.
• Slow : Conjures ‘bramble grenades’ which the priestess throws down to create patches of writhing thorns. Running through these thorns does damage. Additionally, enemies inside a slow area suffer a damage penalty if cursed. Priestesses are immune to their own thorn effects.
• Stone Armour: Allows the healer to cast the StoneSkin spell on friends or themselves to gain enhanced temporary armor.
• Resurrect: A Priestess can resurrect friendly characters, bringing them back from the dead to fight anew. Resurrected characters must protect their benefactor - if the priestess dies, so does the resurrected. Priestesses can also ‘eat soul’ on the bodies of enemies, which gives them XP and prevents enemy priestesses resurrecting them.
• Mass Resurrect: Like Resurrect, but works on multiple friendly souls simultaneously.
• Blind: Ranged Blind attack
• Toxic Cloud: Creates a cloud of toxic fumes which poisons and disorientates

Tips by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

• Level up ASAP! Easy way to gain experience is to heal your teammates. Just stand aside of a battle and once you’re nearby one of your fellows, heal him.
• Use Slow - if there are many assassins and warriors in the game (as enemy) choose slow first. With the slow spell, no assassin or warrior won’t get as near that he can hurt you. Cast slow around you (one in front and one behind you). Know that enemy will get seriously hurt if will try to sprint in this area.
• Curse your enemies! – if the enemy has many warriors and assasins, try to get the Curse spell ASAP and master it. Combined with Slow spell this makes you a nightmare of all melee fighters! Watch out for ranged attackers.
• Use Resurrect spell - If there are few Assassins or Warriors, choose resurrect with your first level up. After learning resurrect, you can eat souls (steady left mouse click on the skull of a dead enemy) of enemies or resurrect friendly player (heal steady mouse click on the skull of a dead friend). This way you can gain experience quickly.
• Use Mark Target often. It'll help your team grow stronger IMMENSELY. Your team will love you for it.

Playing a Priest by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you decide to play it support, stick with team members whenever you can, the more the better. Stay a bit behind the action, but make sure you’re not far enough back to make yourself vulnerable. Healing is easy, just hold down the left mouse and your target will either get hurt or healed, depending on whether they’re your friends or not. Just don’t hold it down without a target in your sights, as it will drain mana the whole time. The right mouse can be used to heal yourself. Spamming heal is a decent way to level up early on, and Curse is a surprisingly effective damage spell.

Thorns are ridiculously powerful. You can either throw them down at your feet to escape melee, or throw them near some approaching enemies to rack up kills with curse. Once you get resurrection, use it when it’s prudent, but not if you think you’re in a situation where you might die shortly after. Irresponsible ressing can make your team a little irritated with you, so if you’ve got people linked to you, stay a tad bit out of harm’s way. Stoneskin can help a little bit in cases like that, as it provides a surprising amount of protection, which in tandem with heal specialization can make you very hard to bring down as long as you have mana.

Essentially, the key to playing support properly is staying alive, but within line of sight of your teammates. If you keep your force resurrected and topped off in HP without dying yourself, it’s hard to lose a war of attrition. Mass resurrection can also be handy in situations like when ball lightning destroys three or four nearby friendlies, though you REALLY need to be careful not to die for awhile after dropping that spell.

If you’d rather play for damage, stick to open areas where you can more easily get a lock on other players. Keep thorns ready whenever possible, and get good at throwing them properly: it makes it much more difficult for them to get at you, and offers up a respectable damage bonus to your attacks.