Priest Spell Mastery

[Mavynn]

I’m new to the game and on my first playthrough with MC as a priest. I have standard companions with Eder, Pallegina, Aloth, Kana, Sagani. I just hit level 9 and get to pick my first spell mastery. What is the best choice for a level 1 priest spell to master?  All the options seem pretty bleh. Blessing seems good except with a paladin in my group running Zealous focus, Blessing is mostly a waste because the ACC buff does not stack.  I guess I lean toward Armor of a Faith but it seems not that great. I thought about Halt because a free CC every fight seems nice but I typically open every fight with buff spells anyway and don’t want to delay those by casting Halt.  Prayer against fear is situational.  Barbs of condemnation seems ok but not much better than just smacking something with a scepter.

What do you like for level 1 mastery? What about the other levels?

I’m loving the game so far by the way. 

[Boeroer]

Depends on your role in the party of course but generally I would say Armor of Faith or Holy Meditation. Especially if you have chars with dumped RES in the party Holy Meditation can save the day (or encounter). Other alternatives can be Divine Terror (is actually comparable to +10 to all defenses - if you hit with it) for a fairly long time.

Halt is a superfest cast - so you normally can cast it before buffing the party easily. It can be very benefical to take one (melee) enemy out of the fight for such a long time. It's especially good if you like to sneak up on enemies and then retreat a bit.

By the way: Barbs of Condemnation's base damage is a lot higher that that of a scepter. I still wouldn't choose it unless I'd play a damage dealing Priest though (which can work very well, too). 

If you have a Chanter with Dragon Thrashed in the party then Withdraw would be my no.1 choice: You can place the Chanter in the midst of the enemy and then cast Withdraw on him: he will continue dealing damage with the chant while being untouchable. Also works with all other chants. But obviously he can't do Invocations etc. then - only chanting. Withdraw can also be very good to block doorways with your tank. If he doesn't do much damage anyways but is only a dmg sponge you can also withdraw him, make him untouchable while he's still blocking the doorway. Enemies' AI often gets messed up because of that which helps a lot.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Boeroer

[Mavynn]

Thank you!  Great thoughts. I ended up taking Armor of Faith.  I have to say that the biggest change with level 9 is that now that Kana has Dragon Thrashed everything just melts and my priest barely does anything :) 

[Boeroer]

If you have Kana with Dragon Thrashed you should have taken Withdraw.

Kana would get +12 accuracy for his Dragon Thrashed chant if he would use a single handed weapon (and nothing in the offhand). It's an oversight that was never nerfed. So you'd have +12 ACC with the chant. Now Kana isn't as sturdy anymore but luckily you can just withdraw him... Win-win! 

Armor of Faith is a solid pick though.

But should you also have a cipher in the party I would def. retrain and take Withdraw at some point. There's this neat trick (guess it still works like it did back then) :

• gear/skill up Kana defensively with a shield, weapon and shield style and so on
• either use Little Savior or Ilfan Byrngar's Solace and then one of the other Preservation items: shield + item will stack their effects to +100 to all defenses while stunned(!)
• walk into the mob with Kana while he's chanting Dragon Thrashed, then withdraw him: since Withdraw also stuns he will get +100 to all defenses. Not much use since he's withdrawn anyway, right?
• But now the cipher casts Defensive Mindweb: all party members will share Kana's ridiculous defense numbers. You could retrain everybody except Kana into crazy glass cannons now. 

 

Edited September 30, 2019 by Boeroer