Dark Deity features a total of 54 different classes across 6 broad archetypes. As you play through the game you get two major opportunities to choose what class you would like each character to occupy. Classes affect the weapons and armor your characters wield, their aptitudes for each of the game’s stats, and the skills they pick up to improve their odds in battle. The purpose of this guide is to provide a useful reference to the details of each class. Each section will start with the base class on which an entire archetype is built, then describe the tier one classes before moving on to the tier two classes.
Table of Contents
Class Fundamentals
There are six base classes in the game on which the other 48 are built: warrior, ranger, cleric, mage, rogue, and adept. Each of these classes has four tier one classes they can promote into at level 10. There is then a second promotion into tier two classes at level 30. There is no way to change to a different class once a promotion is chosen, nor is there a way to change into a different archetype entirely. However, when moving from tier one to tier two, it is possible to choose a tier two class that isn’t on the same row as the tier one class (and therefore thematically similar).
Base classes don’t have their own aptitudes – instead, each character has their own personal aptitudes. Base classes also don’t have skills except for the unique action that the class enables: shoving for warriors, healing for clerics, etc. Instead, each character has a personal skill that influences how they play. Tier one classes and tier two classes both grant 2 new skills as well as adjusting the character’s aptitudes. It is important to understand that in this guide, the aptitude adjustments you see should be applied to the character’s base aptitudes. This may seem obvious for tier one, but for tier two this means that aptitude changes will look different depending on what tier one class you chose for a character. For example, the tier one acolyte class adjusts the character’s base speed aptitude by +30%, while the tier two paladin class doesn’t change speed aptitude at all. When an acolyte turns into a paladin, you’ll see their speed aptitude drop by 30% back to the character’s original base. Here’s another example: the tier one blaze class increases magic aptitude by 10% while the tier two windrunner class decreases magic aptitude by 25%. When you change a blaze to a windrunner, you’ll see a magic aptitude decrease of 35% – because you’re losing the positive bonus from the blaze and taking the penalty for the windrunner. If you’re using this guide to plan your character’s class, remember that the tier two aptitudes shown are applied directly to the character’s base aptitudes, not to the aptitudes they have in their tier one class.
Warriors
Warrior
Class Level: Base
Weapon: Swords (Slashing)
Armor: Plate
Skill: Push – Shove a single unit (ally or enemy) 1 tile away
Warriors are the melee combat specialists of your army, capable of both dealing and enduring heavy physical damage. They aren’t particularly fast and they are vulnerable to magic. Their push ability allows them to shove a single unit by one square; it is generally useful for pushing allies out of danger or closer to an objective, though it can also be used to farm a bit of XP when your warrior isn’t close enough to danger to make an attack. When warriors promote to tier one at level 10, they can become knights, barbarians, defenders, or dragoons. When they promote to tier two at level 30, they can become champions, berserkers, sentinels, or dragon riders.
Knight
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +5% | +15% | -5% | +25% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Swords (Slashing)
Armor: Plate
Skill 1: Chivalry – Gain 6% power for every adjacent ally unit
Skill 2: Sturdy – Increase health by 35%
Knights are what I refer to as the “safe class” for the warrior tree – a class that has almost no aptitude penalties that pretty much any character can slot into and be semi-useful. The substantial boost to health adds a lot of survivability to your units and chivalry is a useful skill that’s easy to take advantage of. Slashing weapons do well against leather and cloaks so these units are going to be doing the most damage to enemy mages, as well as multiple rogue and adept classes. The thing to watch out for with the knight is what’s not getting boosted. If the warrior you’re promoting has low defense, fortitude, or speed, being a knight is not going to do them any favors in those departments. Knights are your tool for going all-in on damage, getting in at least one big hit with your unit and likely being able to take a big hit back as well.
Barbarian
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -20% | -15% | +5% | +5% | -15% | +25% | +10% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Axes (Cleaving)
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Savage – Attacks ignore 50% of defense
Skill 2: Shove – Push range +1
Barbarians are warriors who sacrifice some of their survivability for extra speed and the ability to tear through armor with their attacks. While they don’t receive a strength aptitude boost, they also don’t take a penalty, so your unit can apply their base strength along with the ability to ignore 50% of an opponent’s protection in the process. Speed and power means that the barbarian is likely to be one of your biggest damage dealers on the field in exchange for being a bit on the squishier side than your other warriors. Having a cleaving weapon also means this warrior type can actually deal some impressive blows against plate armor units like sentinels, but the danger goes both ways as swords cut through the barbarian’s leather armor with ease. To whatever degree you can manage, try to finish fights with barbarians rather than starting them.
Defender
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +5% | -5% | +30% | +20% | -15% | +10% | -20% | +10% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Swords (Slashing)
Armor: Plate
Skill 1: Bastion – Adjacent player units will have their defense increased by 20% while in combat
Skill 2: Hulking Presence – Enemies will attack this unit more
Defenders are tanks: slow with low mobility but highly protected. They draw aggro from enemy units and improve the layer of protection on your adjacent allies. Defenders can do decent damage but with their low speed and no abilities for buffing their own damage output, they are most likely going to be useful primarily for enduring blows rather than dealing them out. The fortitude bonus here, while valuable, may not make every character who can become a defender resistant enough to magic to where they don’t have to worry about it – fast spellcasters like acolytes and magicians will be particularly threatening. Use defenders to hold chokepoints while their ranged attacking allies fire upon the enemy from a position of safety.
Dragoon
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -5% | -5% | -5% | +35% | +5% | -5% | +10% | +25% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Spears (Piercing)
Armor: Chainmail
Skill 1: Deft Strike – Gain +2.5% crit for each tile moved during the turn
Skill 2: Deadly Precision – Crit increased by 20% of dodge
Almost every archetype has a class branch that focuses on critical hits as their primary tool for dealing damage – the dragoon fills this role for the warrior archetype. They have two tools for increasing their critical hit rate: moving a large number of tiles and having a high dodge rate. The dodge rate is helped to some degree by the increased aptitudes in speed, but in my experience dragoons are not nearly as dodgy as other character types that place a greater emphasis on avoiding damage. If you want your dragoon to perform well, heavy token investment in their finesse weapon as well as using aspects to increase their dodge or transfer potency from crit rate to power is going to do a lot for you. That said, their high movement range is nice since most warrior archetypes tend to be a bit slower moving than other classes.
Champion
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +5% | +10% | +5% | -5% | +10% | -10% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Swords (Slashing)
Armor: Plate
Skill 1: Heroic Might – No longer able to double attack. Power is increased by speed.
Skill 2: Vigor – Push range +1
The champion class is one that I have generally found to be disappointing. Heroic Might is a skill that sort of makes sense on paper – if a unit can rarely double attack, why not put that useless speed into their damage? But since most champions will have low speed, you’re not really giving them all that much extra damage to work with, and the promise of taking out enemies in a single mighty blow is rarely delivered upon. If you want to make your champions squishier but give them the potential to maybe deliver on the premise of the class, instead of going knight then champion try doing barbarian then champion instead. You’ll have 20 levels of higher speed growths to pump up your damage and the Savage ability allowing you to ignore 50% of the target’s defense, making it more likely that you can take out tougher foes rather than just whittling them down.
Berserker
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -20% | -5% | -20% | +15% | +5% | -15% | +25% | +15% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Axes (Cleaving)
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Bloodlust – Gain extra damage proportional to missing health (up to +75% damage at 90% health missing)
Skill 2: Mayhem – Chance to attack again, increased by enemy missing health
Berserkers take the basic premise of the barbarian – “what if I had a squishy guy who did lots of damage?” – and amps it up by literally increasing your damage when you keep your health at lower values. It is a risky premise but a powerful one, as giving extra power to a unit who is already ignoring 50% of the enemy’s defense makes it very likely that your berserker will be disposing of foes relatively quickly. But keeping your health low intentionally is playing with fire and failing to protect them from even one enemy could spell disaster. If you’d prefer a smaller boost to damage in exchange for more safety, consider making your barbarians into champions instead. But if you truly want maximum damage potential – especially with a weapon that’s more effective against the most defensive enemies you’ll be dealing with – the fast and mighty berserker is certainly the way to go.
Sentinel
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +5% | -5% | +20% | +40% | -15% | +15% | -20% | +10% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Swords (Slashing)
Armor: Plate
Skill 1: Bulwark – Adjacent allies get 20% of unit’s defense
Skill 2: Towering Presence – Adjacent allies get 10% power
Sentinels are a truly imposing class to encounter as your enemies – even with powerful damage-focused weapons at your disposal, their massive defense and respectable fortitude make them a force to be reckoned with. On your team, a team that is far more likely to need mobility as well as killing power, they’re still solid units to have but may struggle during the most common mission types. If you’re okay with spending turns on your other units to shove, phase, or hasten the sentinel into a position where they can shine, they can do some great work holding bottlenecks for you and making your party more defensive. Bulwark in particular is a great skill, allowing you to boost allies’ defense based on the sentinel’s defense stat rather than just their own. If you want to run a sentinel, probably best to do it with a character who has been a defender first – sentinel benefits very little from the other tier one class skills.
Dragon Rider
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -5% | -10% | +20% | +5% | +15% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Spears (Piercing) for finesse and accuracy weapons, Fire magic for damage and balance weapons
Armor: Chainmail
Skill 1: Doomclaw – Able to use fire magic in addition to spears
Skill 2: Pyreheart – Magic is equal to strength+5
Dragon Riders are interesting as they kind of take a hard left turn compared to the class that comes before them. Dragoons are all about crits – while dragon riders do have decent luck aptitude, their real focus is on blending physical and magical attacks together and having boosted magic as a result. If you want to play as a dragon rider that leans as hard as possible into strength in order to have high magic, you’re better off starting as a knight and then becoming a dragon rider from there instead. Of course, the dragon rider is also the best class for taking advantage of the dragoon’s deft strike, so if you don’t mind the emphasis on critical hits then following that path straight across is perfectly fine. Note that which weapons become magical is set by the class – your strongest and lightest weapons always become spells while your crit weapon and accuracy weapon remain spears.
Rangers
Ranger
Class Level: Base
Weapon: Bows (Projectile)
Armor: Chainmail
Skill: Haste – Increase the movement of an adjacent ally by 1 tile
Rangers are archers who fire arrows from a space away, able to attack enemies from a distance but not in melee. The ability to attack opponents from relatively safely allows them to weaken enemies for other units in your battlegroup to defeat. Caught in melee, however, they cannot respond at all to enemy attacks. The Haste ability allows rangers to give extra movement to allies who have not taken their movement yet. The limitation to active allies reduces some of the potential for this move as an XP farming tool but it is definitely useful during missions which require reaching a specific position on the map. When rangers promote to tier one at level 10, they can become archers, drifters, striders, or witch hunters. At level 30, their options expand to snipers, outlaws, blade dancers, and green knights.
Archer
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -15% | +10% | -5% | -10% | -10% | +10% | +10% | -10% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Bows (Projectile)
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Specialist – Crit +8% per adjacent ally
Skill 2: Deadeye – 1.25x hit bonus from dexterity
Fire one strong, accurate arrow into an enemy – that’s the archer way! All those aptitude decreases may look scary but all you have to do is never get attacked and it’s fine. Archer is a bit of a strange bird because it gives some boost to critical hit without any other elements of the class that leans into it – if you’re looking for a crit happy ranger there’s a better option. But archers do combo well with other classes that give bonuses to adjacent units while also providing protection such as the defender or the battlemage. A 10% aptitude drop to speed isn’t ideal in my view but if you start with a ranger who has great speed aptitude to begin with it will be manageable and you can potentially be firing two strong arrows into an enemy instead.
Drifter
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -5% | +5% | +5% | -10% | +25% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Axes (Cleaving)
Armor: Chain
Skill 1: Ruthless – Crit modifier increased by a flat 50%
Skill 2: Outcast – Crit +30% if only one adjacent unit
Ah yes, the drifter. These units lean real hard into critical hits and operate at their best when you maintain the conditions which make their crit rate highest. Outcast activates when the drifter is only adjacent to a single unit – that includes enemies too, so you have to make sure that every attack is made from a position away from ally or enemy units in an adjacent space. On a good crit weapon with a ranger who has high base aptitude in luck, this will give you crit rates generally in the 50% range and of course your critical hits also do 50% extra damage thanks to ruthless. Not every ranger is great for this class but when you choose the right person to be a drifter, it can be a pretty effective class, if a bit gimmicky. Drifters combo well with units who can give passive bonuses from 2 tiles away rather than needing to be adjacent, such as the magician class.
Strider
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -5% | -10% | +20% | +20% | -15% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Swords (Slashing)
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Relentless – The second attack in a double attack deals increased damage
Skill 2: Weightless – Reduce the effect of weapon weight
Has there every been a cooler character archetype than “person with two swords?” I personally don’t think so. Striders are one of my favorite classes partly because of the synergy between their skills – Weightless makes it more likely that you’ll get to activate the benefits of Relentless, dealing extra damage with your followup attack. Striders can struggle a bit when they don’t have the strength to do damage with their fast attacks so you want to invest tokens in their longsword and it probably doesn’t hurt to throw on a power-boosting aspect – an obvious choice Pelagia’s Flash which essentially has the same mechanical effect as Relentless. Slashing weapons mainly beat leather armor and cloaks so striders are going to be most effective at tearing through dangerous mage or rogue archetypes in a single turn, but they can whittle down enemies in heavier armor so that another character can come in and finish the job. Striders tend to be dodgy but you want to watch out for enemies with high accuracy weapons that can do a lot of damage in one hit; archers and snipers especially will be a problem.
Witch Hunter
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +5% | -5% | -5% | +20% | +20% | +5% | -10% | -15% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Bows (Projectile)
Armor: Plate
Skill 1: Silencing Shot – Power is increased by 50% against magic users and hybrids
Skill 2: Stand Together – Haste grants +40% defense while active
Do you really hate magicians? Then is this the class for you! Witch hunters deal bonus damage to enemies with magic and get a nice fortitude bonus to help deal with them. Projectile weapons are effective against leather and chainmail so witch hunters particularly thrive when dealing with adept archetype spellcasters or conjurers. When not using them to attack, you can also have them buff allies defense while also giving them additional movement range with haste. This is useful for loner classes like drifters or duelists to give them additional protection while also reaping the benefits of their “be by myself” skills. Witch hunters are the slowest rangers so double attacks can be a problem, and while their higher fortitude aptitude is helpful the fact that they wear plate armor means that the arcane and holy spellcasters they hunt will be a pretty serious threat if you don’t finish them off.
Sniper
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +5% | +10% | -5% | -10% | -10% | +10% | +10% | -10% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Bows (Projectile)
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: From Three – Gets extra attack range
Skill 2: Preparation – Accuracy +35% if the unit hasn’t moved
Being able to attack from three squares away, where not even other archers or magicians can reach you – finally you can feel like a true sniper. Sniper as a class isn’t too awfully dependent on the skills from archer to function well so this is a good opportunity to do some experimenting. Personally I think the witch hunter’s Silencing Shot on an archer that can actually hit spellcasters from a safe distance is a pretty cool premise. And as someone who prefers a fast archer to a slow one (or really, a fast version of any class compared to a slow version) the 20 levels of speed growth from strider along with the benefits of Weightless and Relentless could make for a pretty potent sniper character as well. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with graduating from archer and just enjoying the bit of extra crit and accuracy.
Outlaw
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +20% | -5% | +5% | -10% | +30% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Axes (Cleaving)
Armor: Chainmail
Skill 1: Brutality – Crit modifier increased by a flat 50%
Skill 2: Hit and Run – Ignore 50% armor if only one adjacent unit
Would you like some more drifter for your drifter when you drifter while you drifter? It’s crit o’clock when the outlaw blows into town and if you started the character as a drifter back at tier one, you’re looking at a 100% boost to crit damage at all times and a +30% crit rate with 50% armor reduction when the only people around are your unit and the bad guy. If you thought the drifter was a bit gimmicky and their core mechanic was hit or miss, the outlaw solidifies the concept and makes it excel. It’s not perfect – you lose the most important advantages when getting attacked by more than one enemy or when any of your allies are adjacent, so any buffs and healing will need to be handled by units who can do it from a space away and you never want your outlaw to get swarmed. It can also be a pain to raise up a unit in a class that doesn’t really feel like it delivers until the final tier. But in my experience, the drifter is good enough as a base that when you reach outlaw and the fun truly starts, it’s all worthwhile.
Blade Dancer
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -10% | -5% | -15% | +20% | +20% | -15% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Swords (Slashing)
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Dancer’s Grace – Dodging increases retaliation power by 30%
Skill 2: Bladestorm – Guaranteed to hit if below 40% HP
Blade Dancer is the logical followup to the strider class, though I feel that the skills in this class lack the same beautiful synergy of Relentless and Weightless. Bladestorm in particular is risky in the way that it encourages this already squishy class to stay near death just for the benefit of additional accuracy. But Dancer’s Grace is pretty solid, giving these dodgy swordsmen extra damage in exchange for doing something they’re probably doing already: dodging stuff. Increasing dodge with an aspect or taking advantage of a particular ranger’s personal skill will help to make Dancer’s Grace activate more frequently and keep your blade dancer doling out maximum damage. Like with the strider, watch out for archers and snipers as a highly accurate projectile can put your character well under 40% in a jiffy.
Green Knight
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +25% | -10% | -5% | +20% | +25% | +5% | -10% | -15% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Bows (Projectile)
Armor: Plate
Skill 1: Forester’s Blessing – Haste grants +40% fortitude while active
Skill 2: Magebane – Half of magic-using enemy’s magic added to damage
For people who hate spellcasters even more. The green knight not only deals increased damage to magical units based on their own power but based on the power of the target as well, making it very likely that a green knight’s arrow may have the hitting power to take out weaker magicians in a single hit. Like witch hunters, they’re also great for giving buffs to loner units thanks to their boosted version of Haste, and you’ll get the biggest benefit by going witch hunter into green knight to make sure Haste buffs both defense and fortitude. I’ve had a green knight during both of my major Dark Deity playthroughs and I really enjoy this class – even if they are a bit on the slow side and still have a bad armor type for dealing with the enemies they are sworn to destroy.
Clerics
Cleric
Class Level: Basic
Weapon: Hammers (Crushing)
Armor: Plate
Skill: Heal – Restore HP to an adjacent target by a value equal to the cleric’s magic + 20% of the target’s fortitude
Clerics are an important unit type thanks to their ability to heal allied units, keeping them healthy on the battlefield without having to spend resources – food takes time from your stronger characters on the battlefield and costs money to purchase while healing from a cleric is free! As combat units, clerics wield heavy, inaccurate weapons that are good for damaging plate and chainmail but bad for enemies in cloaks or leather. At level 10, clerics can become inquisitors, guardians, priests, or acolytes. At level 30, they gain access to the crusader, paladin, prophet, and phantom classes.
Inquisitor
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +5% | +15% | +10% | +30% | -5% | +5% | -20% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Hammers (Crushing)
Armor: Plate
Skill 1: Inquisition – Power increased by 40% of enemy’s magic stat
Skill 2: Righteous Cause – Healing increases accuracy by 25% for one turn
Inquisitors are what I consider the “safe” class for the cleric line – with essentially only pluses to aptitudes across the board and Righteous Cause addressing one of the biggest drawbacks of the inquisitor’s weapon type, pretty much any cleric can excel in this class. The main reason you might choose a different class rather than this one for any given cleric would be for the way many of the other classes add extra features to the Heal ability while the inquisitor stays rather normal in that regard. In terms of drawbacks, while the inquisitor looks like they should be good against magicians on paper courtesy of the Inquisition skill, their weapon and armor type means that they do reduced damage and take extra damage from multiple spellcaster classes. They’re a hard counter to battlemages and aegises (aeges? aegi? aegeece?) though, so definitely utilize them for that purpose.
Guardian
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +5% | +5% | -10% | +25% | -10% | +5% | -5% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Hammers (Crushing)
Armor: Plate
Skill 1: Resonance – Healing power +25%, effect spreads over three turns
Skill 2: Last to Fall – Defense is increased by % of missing health
Not only is the guardian a mounted healer able to cover more distance than other cleric types, but they have a very unique effect on their healing: it heals more health but is broken up into smaller individual values over a series of turns. This means that once a guardian heals someone, they’ll be getting some health back for a couple of turns in a row while your healer runs off to help someone else. This is a very useful effect and is a major draw of the guardian class. You just need to be careful with these units because they have a pretty glaring weakness in their lack of aptitude in both speed and fortitude. In plate armor, a fast spellcaster like a magician or an acolyte can quickly put your healer in the hospital.
Priest
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +15% | -5% | +15% | -15% | +15% | -10% | -5% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Light Magic
Armor: Rune Cloak
Skill 1: Righteous Horizon – Healing range +1
Skill 2: Light’s River – Dodge increased by 15% of power
When your healer just can’t reach, the priest is there for you. Righteous Horizon allows the priest to heal an ally that isn’t adjacent, which has advantages in terms of positioning as well as allowing certain ally types (duelists and drifters for example) to benefit from skills that only activate when they are separated from allies. More than any other cleric archetype the priest is probably the least suited for combat, preferring to avoid attacks rather than dole out any meaningful damage. You particularly want to watch out for any bad guys with slashing or cleaving weapons as a strong physical attack from an advantageous weapon will certainly spell doom for your priest. That’s the other advantage of distance healing – you’re keeping your vulnerable healer one step further from danger.
Acolyte
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -20% | -10% | +10% | -20% | -5% | +10% | +15% | +30% | +15% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Light Magic
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Consumption – Healed for 20% of damage dealt
Skill 2: Unholy Fervor – Crit increased by 6% for each ally healed, stacking up to four times
Ooh, a dark healer? Now we’re talking. If the inquisitor is your physically offensive healer archetype then the acolyte is magical side of the same coin, with an increased emphasis on dealing critical damage thanks to their elevated luck aptitude and the Unholy Fervor ability. The acolyte’s self healing is nice because except for a certain cleric’s personal skill, most healers cannot heal themselves so having the ability to do so makes a big difference. Not every cleric excels as an acolyte but the ones who do will probably function better in this class than in any other. Just watch out for accurate piercing or projectile attacks that will quickly whittle your acolyte down to nothing.
Crusader
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +15% | +10% | +30% | +5% | +5% | -20% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Hammers (Crushing)
Armor: Plate
Skill 1: Divine Purpose – Attacking increases the effect of your next heal, stacking infinitely
Skill 2: Zealous Rush – Gain movement range when a bonded unit reaches low health
An unfortunate name for a pretty solid class. Zealous Rush is one of the only mechanics in the game where the bonds you form between characters actually matter from a gameplay perspective. Divine Purpose when combined with Righteous Cause creates a clear cycle for how to play the crusader: make an attack to gain healing power and then when you use your heal, your next attack gets more accurate. If you like the way that Resonance works on the guardian but then want to pivot that unit to something more combat-oriented, the Crusader is a great option. Crusaders do have similar weaknesses to the inquisitor so keep that in mind when wading into battle. But overall, this is an incredibly safe choice for the majority of your cleric options in the game.
Paladin
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +5% | +20% | +5% | -5% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Hammers (Crushing)
Armor: Plate
Skill 1: Indomitable – Damage over 20% of max HP is reduced by 50%
Skill 2: Savior’s Grace – Healing leaves a ward on allies that increases their healing taken for three turns
I’ll be honest – the paladin is one of the classes I have used the least in Dark Deity. While I like how the guardian’s healing works, the paladin class doesn’t build on it in a way that I find particularly compelling or necessary. And while Indomitable seems useful on paper, I don’t find paladins nearly as combat capable as their inquisitor/crusader counterparts, making it largely irrelevant. I will typically make my guardians into crusaders or pivot them into prophets so they can grant the three-turn healing from a short distance away. If you want to use a paladin, they’re probably going to function best by leaning into their role as a mounted healer, able to reach distant units thanks to their larger movement and to keep effective healing going on allies while they ride away to help someone else.
Prophet
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +15% | -15% | +10% | -15% | +25% | -10% | +5% | +5% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Light Magic
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Light of Shaliz – Healing range +1
Skill 2: Hand of God – Dodge increased by 15% of power
“Hey Ian, did you accidentally copy over the priest skills and just change the names?” Nope, this is actually how the prophet works. They are precisely identical to the priest, simply doubling down on what the priest already does. If you want an even dodgier healer who can reach allies from three spaces away, priest into prophet is a great choice. Personally, I like to use prophet to give some additional range to the unique healing from the guardian class’s Resonance skill, or to make it easier to activate the acolyte’s Unholy Fervor by allowing some ranged healing for the unit. That said, three square healing is nothing to sneeze at, allowing these units to stay well behind your defensive line and still restore health to their allies.
Phantom
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -20% | -25% | +10% | -15% | -5% | +5% | +10% | +30% | +25% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Light Magic
Armor: Rune Cloak
Skill 1: Ethereal – This unit can move through tiles occupied by enemy units
Skill 2: Reaper – Power +.4% per % of enemies with health missing
Is this…still the healing archetype? Phantoms are interesting units who can zip behind enemy lines and deal increased damage based on how many enemies have already been damaged on the map. The self healing and increased crit rate from the acolyte attack is a logical fit for the phantom, but defensively speaking the value of the priest’s increased dodge is useful for a unit type for whom dodging will be their main line of defense. If you’d like a fast, offensive spellcaster with a high crit rate who can double as a healer, the phantom is an interesting option that feels quite different from the other cleric classes available in the game. Just watch out for big dudes with sword or axes, and it’s probably best to stay away from other holy magic spellcasters while you’re at it.
Mages
Mage
Class Level: Basic
Weapon: Arcane Magic
Armor: Rune Cloak
Skill: Phase – Place an ally on the opposite side of the mage from where they were before
If warriors are your physical damage specialists, then mages are your magic damage specialists. They wield arcane spells both in melee and at a distance, easily blasting through metal armor like plate or chainmail. With the phase ability they can help move allies away from danger – or towards it – even when those allies have spent their turn, making it relatively easy for mages to scoop up some quick XP when they can’t make an attack. Mage archetypes vary between offensive and defensive variants and specialize in different types of magical spells. At level 10 a mage can become an arcanist, a battlemage, a conjurer, or a magician. By level 30 this list of options expands to wizard, aegis, pyromancer, or illusionist.
Arcanist
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +5% | +5% | -5% | -10% | +10% | -10% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Arcane Magic
Armor: Rune Cloak
Skill 1: Focused – Power increased by 25% if the unit doesn’t move
Skill 2: Sharpened Will – Mastery increases accuracy
Arcanists are the closest thing you get to have to a cannon in Dark Deity. Keep them still and watch them blast whatever is on the receiving end of their spells to smithereens. The heightened accuracy from mastery is nice and helps make sure you can use your biggest, baddest spells and get the full impact of the Focused bonus. Since arcanists are a bit on the slow side and don’t have great defenses, they function the best from a safe position protected by other unit types. And hey, need to get that Focused bonus but there’s no enemies in range? Maybe another mage or a warrior can just…move the arcanist to the right position for you?
Battlemage
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +5% | -15% | +25% | +5% | -15% | -15% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Storm Magic
Armor: Plate
Skill 1: Strength of Storms – Defense increased by 10% of magic
Skill 2: Superconductor – Attacking grants adjacent allies +15% power for one turn
I’m not particularly a huge fan of the battlemage class. I appreciate the thought – you put armor on a mage and now they aren’t as squishy. Good deal! But there’s a few issues. The low mobility makes it difficult for these units to stay abreast with other characters if you aren’t sacrificing turns phasing, hasting, or pushing the battlemage into position. The decrease to magic reduces the overall hitting power of the class and they are primarily useful only as defensive specialists rather than being able to do much in terms of damage. Battlemages also use my least favorite weapon in the game, storm magic. The primary damage spell of storm magic never gains a single point of accuracy no matter how much you level it and the balance spell is unusually heavy, making it harder to double attack with it. Having the battlemage serve in a tank role and pass along passive buffs to your allies is the intended use, but I prefer to use a different mage archetype to hold bottlenecks…
Conjurer
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +10% | -10% | +15% | -15% | +5% | +10% | -10% | +10% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Fire Magic
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Sorcerer’s Siphon – Healed for 20% of damage done
Skill 2: Sorcerer’s Sting – 35% chance to add 15% of current HP to damage
When hunting for a defensive mage, I prefer to go the conjurer route to the battlemage route. Conjurers don’t get as much defense as battlemages nor is their fortitude as good, but what they do get is the ability to restore their own health. They can also do additional damage based on the amount of health they currently possess, making them a lot more effective offensively. I also prefer the stats of fire magic significantly to the way storm magic works. So far both times I’ve used a conjurer in my group, it went well for me even if the conjurer class wasn’t necessarily the ideal build for the character I placed in it. Just watch out for sentinels and witch hunters.
Magician
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -15% | -5% | +5% | +10% | +15% | -15% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Arcane Magic
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Beam Me Up – Phase range +1
Skill 2: Maestro – Allies within 2 tiles have increased accuracy
Okay here we go, this is what I like. Fast magic. Hit bad guys twice with your magic spells, that’s what it’s all about. Magicians are frail units but they do have solid dodge and while their hitting power is diminished compared to some other mage archetypes, their increased speed makes it likely that they’ll ultimately do more damage because of getting in two hits. The extra phase range makes phase more useful; it’s not necessarily my favorite type of skill but it’s relatively easy to take advantage of and does have some decent practical applications from time to time. Magician is one of very few classes that I prefer in spite of its skills rather than because of them – the stats just fit with my preferences that much more. The accuracy bonus from a distance is also nice for units who benefit from not having adjacent allies such as outlaws or gladiators.
Wizard
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +5% | +10% | -5% | -5% | -10% | +15% | -10% | -10% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Arcane Magic
Armor: Rune Cloak
Skill 1: Arcane Overload – Power is increased by an extra 20% of magic
Skill 2: Ancient Wisdom – Mastery is increased by 20% of power
Shoot, I already wasted the canon metaphor on the arcanist. Not that I need it here because the beauty of the wizard is in the synergy between the two wizard skills right there in the previous paragraph! The wizard’s magic stat contributes more than usual to their power, and their power then factors into their mastery, the stat that factors into armor penetration. Together these two skills guarantee that the wizard hits like a truck. Now bring in the arcanist skills. That extra mastery also means more accuracy, and if you stand still that’s another boost to power which means another boost to mastery which means another boost to accuracy – do you see how these abilities build on one another? Arcanist into wizard may have some of the best skill synergy in the game and the architect of destruction that results is lovely to behold. Now note that moving reduces some of these benefits, so you’ll still have to do some weird positioning tricks with other units to always reap the full benefits of the wizard’s powers. And watch out for buff ladies with swords or axes. But the wizard is a strong bet for almost any mage you can build up.
Aegis
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +5% | -15% | +30% | +5% | -10% | -15% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Storm Magic
Armor: Plate
Skill 1: Warded Armor – Taking magic damage grants a healing ward to adjacent allies
Skill 2: Shroud of the Eye – Defense increased by 10% of magic
So let me get this straight. The aegis – particularly one promoted from battlemage – primarily has skills for increasing physical defense. Sure. So why does warded armor give your allies a buff when you get hit with magic? The type of attack that the aegis is not protected against? I truly don’t get the appeal of this class, but if you want to use it, make sure you’re promoting a mage that already has solid fortitude growths so you can actually tank magical hits in order to make Warded Armor relevant to your team. Assuming you’ve promoted from battlemage, you’ll also want to invest tokens in your accurate weapon – you need to successfully hit your attacks in order to pass on the damage bonus to your allies. The aegis is primarily a support role meant to provide boons to other characters, taking hits on their behalf and softening up the enemy so another character can get the kill. If that’s your style, chances are you’ve already got a better vision than me of the best ways to use the class!
Pyromancer
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +15% | -5% | +20% | -20% | +5% | +15% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Flame Magic
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Burning Heart – Crit is increased by your percentage of health, up to 30%
Skill 2: Dragon Soul – 35% chance to add 20% of current HP to damage
Pyromancers thrive in circumstances where they have as much health as they can hold, being much more likely to inflict a critical hit as well as dealing more damage with their special attacks. These abilities allow pyromancers to deal some significant damage in the right circumstances, but they also make them one of the least consistent classes in terms of performance. Most crit-focused classes function on the basis that their crit rates get so high that your gamble turns into more of a guarantee – the pyromancer doesn’t really hit that threshold. The decent defense combined with access to self healing (assuming your promote from conjurer, and there’s not much reason to jump around when it comes to mages) means that the pyromancer can sometimes hold a bottleneck for you but you may not have the same degree of confidence with them that you would with an aegis. The tradeoff is that the pyromancer is a lot more likely to kill something, especially if they hit their rolls. It’s up to your whether to focus on offense or defense, but broadly I think the mage probably has better options if you’re looking for someone to do big damage reliably.
Illusionist
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -5% | -20% | -5% | +5% | +20% | +20% | -15% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Arcane Magic
Armor: Rune Cloak
Skill 1: Projection – Phase range +1
Skill 2: Mirror Images – Allies within 2 tiles have increased dodge
Now this is what I’m talking about. See that speed? Illusionists are dodgy as heck highly likely to get two attacks against most enemy types. This makes them valuable for tearing away at slow, heavily armored units that other classes struggle with. The passive dodge bonus to units 2 spaces away means you can buff your allies without being adjacent to them for those situations where that is beneficial. Plus illusionists have incredible mobility thanks to their flying carpets, allowing them to cover a lot more space than any of the other mage archetypes. Now the thing to watch out for with this class is of course what happens when you actually do get hit, because illusionists don’t have great protection in either the physical or magical defense categories. When you’re in trouble, use that huge phase range to throw a sentinel or something between you and the bad guys while a healer moves in to keep you in fighting shape.
Rogues
Rogue
Class Level: Basic
Weapon: Daggers (Piercing)
Armor: Leather
Skill: Disarm – Remove the bonuses from the enemy’s weapon for a single turn
I’m typically a big fan of rogue characters in RPGs. If you’ve been reading this guide from the beginning then you have probably picked up that I consider speed to be one of the most important stats on my units. As it turns out, rogues are broadly my least favorite archetype in Dark Deity, but I’ll still do my best to outline the ways they can be useful. Disarm, for example, is a nice tool for making a particularly dangerous enemy less dangerous so that another unit can move in and get the kill. At level 10 your rogue can become a stalker, a thief, a duelist, or a raider. By level 30, you gain access to the assassin, trickster, gladiator, and slayer classes.
Stalker
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +5% | +5% | -15% | -5% | +5% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Dagger (Piercing)
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Cruel Efficiency – Guaranteed to hit enemies below 40% health
Skill 2: Fatal – 5% chance to instakill
The stalker is a useful cleanup unit who specializes in finishing off the job someone else started. Enemies under 40% of their health are guaranteed to get hit, so investing tokens into the stalker’s baselard and then unleashing havoc on wounded foes is a viable strategy. This will work best on chainmail-clad foes like multiple ranger archetypes as well as certain types of warriors and adepts thanks to the stalker’s piercing weapon type. You don’t want to risk your stalker getting hit, so using them in the opposite manner – to whittle the foe down – is a risky proposition, particularly since that tempting Fatal skill only activates about once a campaign in my experience.
Thief
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -15% | +5% | -5% | +5% | -15% | +15% | -10% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Dagger (Slashing)
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Measured Strikes – Speed increases armor penetration
Skill 2: Nimble Fingers – Disarm range +2
Thief and stalker are pretty similar in terms of how they play thanks to both being quick, dagger-focused classes. I prefer thief personally due to the extra boost in speed and replacing the very rare Fatal with the more consistent Measured Strikes. I also find the increased disarm range to be a useful feature as disarm is an ability that I almost never use, but having it as a ranged option when you can’t reach with your weapon is nifty. Thieves don’t do great damage but there are certain unit types they excel against, particularly magical characters in cloaks or leather.
Duelist
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +20% | +5% | +20% | -20% | +15% | -5% | -5% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Swords (Piercing)
Armor: Chainmail
Skill 1: The Thrill – Power, crit, dodge, and accuracy +15% when no adjacent ally units
Skill 2: Dexterous Style – Defense +20% of dexterity
The duelist isn’t a class I used all that much during my first foray into Dark Deity but which I have developed an increased appreciation for recently. The high aptitude for both defense and dexterity plus the bonuses to defense from dexterity make it a surprisingly durable class, especially when you factor in the bonus from The Thrill. The Thrill is a bit easier to activate that the loner skills for the drifter and the outlaw because it is only affected by ally units, so multiple adjacent enemies don’t remove the benefit. Plus it gives a broader set of bonuses! I was regularly able to have my duelists hold bottlenecks for my team by pairing them off with a priest or prophet to heal from a step away. They were rarely able to get kills except for against enemies with vulnerable armor like chainmail, but having a fast unit with good mobility that can reliably tank is a definite advantage for your team.
Raider
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +15% | +25% | +10% | -5% | -20% | -20% | +5% | -20% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Axes (Cleaving)
Armor: Plate
Skill 1: Ambush – +35% power against enemies with full health
Skill 2: Pillage – 3% chance to gain a stat-up item after a kill
What is up with rogues and abilities that activate at a ridiculously low, flat percentage? Pillage is even less useful in my mind than Fatal so the raider is all about that extra damage bonus against full health enemies. It’s a notable bonus – 35% is nothing to sneeze at – but it can be frustrating when it seems like a double attack should kill but the second hit is weaker than the first. It’s the opposite effect of the strider, where your second hit is more powerful and so can finish off the enemy even if it doesn’t look like it will at first. Raiders are slower than other rogue types and lean more into strength, but most rogues lack the strength to do the same kind of damage that you might see from an axe-wielding warrior. I do think there’s some value to the raider but only once they reach the second tier Slayer class – whether you want to deal with their subpar damage and vulnerability to magic damage up to that point is a worthwhile topic to think on before making a raider.
Assassin
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +10% | +5% | -15% | -5% | +5% | +5% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Daggers (Piercing)
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Relish in Death – Gain 50% crit chance for one turn after every 2nd kill
Skill 2: Creed – +20% crit damage for every friendly deployed rogue
Oh, Assassin’s Creed, get it? I’ve already discussed how I prefer the thief path to the stalker path and that continues to be the case here. The assassin does have relatively safe aptitude gains outside of that huge drop to fortitude, but relying so much on critical hits without a more consistent ability for maintaining the high rate is aggravating. Not to mention relying on the number of rogues in your party when the game broadly rewards having a balanced party with multiple archetypes is less than ideal. The assassin continues to function well as clean-up and can clean up even better with the elevated crit rate after every other kill, but I find the utility of the alternative dagger-wielding rogue to be a lot more beneficial. Part of this is due to the difference in their damage types: piercing is way better against chainmail but its minor advantage against rune cloaks is pretty low, whereas the trickster’s piercing weapons have a more balanced advantage chart.
Trickster
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -10% | -5% | -5% | +5% | +10% | +15% | +5% | -20% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Daggers (Projectile)
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Dazzling Display – Crits have a speed% chance to deal 50% more damage
Skill 2: Sleight of Hand – disarm range +2
Rogue archetypes are generally pretty squishy – the trickster solves this problem by getting away from danger. With the ability to throw daggers and to disarm from further away (a total of 5 if you go thief into trickster), these are fast units you can keep out of harm’s way while still getting the benefits of a rogue’s offensive applications. Projectile weapons are still effective against leather similar to the thief’s slashing attacks, but tricksters have a greater edge against chainmail wearers which I personally like. Like most rogue archetypes, tricksters are pretty squishy, but their high speed means you’ll be dodging pretty frequently which is valuable for survivability. Watch out for accurate swordsmen or archers and you’ll do great.
Gladiator
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +25% | +10% | +20% | -20% | +15% | -15% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Spears (Piercing)
Armor: Chainmail
Skill 1: Thumbs Down – Gain +30% power for one turn after killing an enemy
Skill 2: Flourish – Heal 40% HP after a crit
The gladiator builds upon the weaknesses of the duelist in a couple of interesting ways. The duelist has low killing power – Thumbs Down addresses this by giving you additional power when you manage to successfully take down an enemy. Flourish helps the gladiator’s survivability without having to sacrifice their bonus from The Thrill, allowing them to persist through self healing rather than relying on an ally as long as they are getting crits. It’s valuable then to invest tokens into the gladiator’s crit weapon so they can try to keep as healthy as possible, and once you get that first kill you can ride the +30% power wave to continue getting more and keeping the bonus going over time. As long as you watch out for magic, the gladiator will likely be your most durable rogue, and this promotion helps them to bring a little bit of offense to the table too.
Slayer
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +20% | +20% | +15% | -25% | -25% | +5% | -20% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Axes (Cleaving)
Armor: Plate
Skill 1: Rampage – Get an extra action after a kill
Skill 2: Annihilation – Gain +35% power when attacking an enemy at full health
Slayer leans harder into what makes the raider work, and that’s exactly what the class needed to function well. Increasing the power of the slayer’s initial blow by a total of 70% means that squishy enemies may die immediately while more durable foes are still likely to be slain by your second attack. The additional action from Rampage is great too, allowing you to ride the momentum of your successful attack to get some more work done with a single unit. Slayers should still never be at the receiving end of an enemy attack, particularly a magical one, but at least in this class they finally have the hitting power to defeat enemies. Factor in the extra actions and the horse mobility and you’ve got the makings of a decent class.
Adepts
Adept
Class Level: Base
Weapon: Spears (Piercing)
Armor: Chainmail
Skill: Chain – Prevent a single adjacent foe from moving for one turn
The adept class is an interesting one. They don’t quite have the physical power of warriors but their different weapons and armor give them different advantages and disadvantages in combat, and their magical potential is much higher. Similar to clerics, adepts can gain access to magical spells as they increase in tier, allowing them to serve as offensive specialists in either magic or physical attacks. Their chain ability doesn’t prevent enemies from attacking but it does lock them in place, potentially protecting vulnerable allies by keeping a dangerous foe from approaching them. Of course, I personally prefer to stop them from doing that by killing them instead, but chain does have its uses. At level 10 adepts can become a gale, a blaze, a surge, or a reverie. By level 30 that list expands to include the windrunner, the firelord, the thunderlord, and the astral traveler.
Gale
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -10% | -15% | +10% | +15% | -15% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Spears (Piercing)
Armor: Chainmail
Skill 1: Storm Strike – 50% chance to do 1.3x damage
Skill 2: Swiftwind – 10% chance to hit again
Gales are the speed experts of the adepts, reducing power and crit chance in exchange for quickness and accuracy. Gales double attack pretty reliably and occasionally get an additional attack with Swiftwind, which gives them an extra blow 10% of the time. Throw in Storm Strike for a 33% damage boost every other attack and gales can have decent damage output relative to their strength. Since both of their abilities rely on dice rolls the gale can be a bit inconsistent in terms of damage output, but particularly with Storm Strike having a 50% chance I’ve generally found the gale class a lot more consistent than something like the conjurer, which also depends on a lucky role to do big damage.
Blaze
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +10% | -35% | +10% | +35% | -10% | -5% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Fire Magic
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Heat Flash – 33% chance to deal 1.6x damage
Skill 2: Bonfire – Kills grant +4% power
I didn’t make a blaze during my first playthrough of Dark Deity, and I realized my folly when I was making my character guides. The blaze is quite good thanks to a solid boost to magic and health, plus the penalties to speed and mastery are relatively small. Assuming you make a fast adept into your blaze, they’ll be able to double well enough which makes it easier for them to get those sweet, sweet kills. Your power builds slowly over time and as you get stronger, it becomes even easier to get stronger because you’re more likely to accomplish the feat that gives you a power boost. Bonfire by itself sells the class – Heat Flash is just an occasional present you get to enjoy on top of the normal benefits. The lack of a defense boost does mean that most blazes will be pretty vulnerable to physical damage, so you’ll want to take advantage of the ability to attack from a space away with magic.
Surge
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -35% | -5% | -5% | +10% | +15% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Storm Magic
Armor: Rune Cloak
Skill 1: Eye of the Storm – 35% chance to guarantee a crit and +25% crit
Skill 2: Fettering Winds – Chain range +1
This is the class I chose instead of blaze when I played Dark Deity the first time. This was not a wise choice, in my opinion. The surge is a crit-based class that gives a smaller bonus to your crit chance than something like the acolyte or the drifter in exchange for having two separate crit rolls – Eye of the Storm has its own 35% chance in addition to modifying your normal chance. This makes it so the surge has two okay chances at getting a crit instead of one pretty good chance. With the second skill just focusing on extending the range of chains, the surge mostly has to function off of their aptitudes and uh, well, you can see how well those are going. The surge only gets a boost to mastery and luck, which really just doubles down on the need for a critical hit to be effective. Add all of that to the fact that storm spells are my least favorite weapon and you have the perfect recipe for a class that I find pretty disappointing until you get a chance to see what the promoted version is capable of.
Reverie
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +20% | +5% | -15% | +35% | -5% | -20% | -15% | -20% | +10% |
Class Level: Tier One
Weapon: Hammers (Crushing)
Armor: Chainmail
Skill 1: Dream Eater – Heal 20% of damage dealt
Skill 2: Dreamwalker – Attacks ignore 20% of the target’s defense or fortitude
Reveries remove some of the focus on offense that most adept classes have and instead lean in hard on defense, able to tank heavy physical blows and restore their own health when they deal damage to foes. While their strength aptitude doesn’t necessarily point to being able to deal a significant amount of damage, their damage is boosted somewhat by the Dreamwalker ability. I’ve not had great luck with reverie due to some poor decisions about which characters to make a reverie in each of my attempts with the class, but they make decent tanks against physical enemies and the self-healing definitely helps them to hold bottlenecks for a longer period of time compared to other classes you might put in a defensive position. That decrease to dexterity can make their accuracy pretty rough though, so be sure to invest a lot of tokens into the accurate weapon.
Windrunner
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| -15% | -25% | +10% | +10% | +10% | +10% | -15% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Spears (Piercing)
Armor: Chainmail
Skill 1: Squall Strike – 50% chance to do 1.3x damage
Skill 2: Tempest Strike – 50% chance to do 1.3x damage
Do you like having a 50% to do 1.3x damage? If you make a gale into a windrunner, you’ll have a whopping three different skills with exactly this effect! The likelihood that at least one of them will activate and give you a damage boost is pretty high, and sometimes you’ll get more than one of them kicking in at once. Add to that the fact that the windrunner gets aptitude boosts to defense, fortitude, dexterity, and speed, and it’s really hard not to see this class as a pretty safe choice for any member of the adept family. I personally like to give my windrunner the aspect that splits magic between defense and fortitude to make them even more well-protected against enemy attacks. They’re great units and you’ll almost certainly want to have one in your crew.
Firelord
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +25% | -35% | +10% | -5% | +35% | -5% | -10% | -5% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Fire Magic
Armor: Leather
Skill 1: Unwavering Heat – 25% of strength is added to magic
Skill 2: Magmatic Flux – 33% chance to do 2x damage
The firelord?! Why is that jerk here? Anyway this class builds logically on the power of the blaze, using strength to further boost the impact of magic and thus create more opportunities for kills, which boost power and make it even easier to get kills so power can continue boosting. You also get Magmatic Flux, a more powerful version of the blaze special that doesn’t replace the original. So you have two separate 1 in 3 chances to deal increased damage, either 1.6x or 2x. This is a nice feature to add on top of the firelord’s other benefits but really the big appeal is the high magic – boosted by strength – on top of building power from kills. The firelord’s defenses aren’t great so you want to avoid getting damaged but otherwise it is an excellent class to have in your battlegroup.
Thunderlord
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +5% | -35% | -5% | -5% | -5% | +5% | +10% | -5% | +20% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Storm Magic
Armor: Rune Cloak
Skill 1: Ride the Lightning – 50% chance for a crit to deal +60% damage
Skill 2: Catalyst – Crits against full health enemies deal +60% damage
The thunderlord has some good points compared to the surge, I’ll give it that. Boosts to health and dex in addition to mastery and luck are nice, and the dragon that the thunderlord rides on gives a lot of additional movement range. Where it falls apart for me are those abilities. Both of them are dependent on landing a critical hit, and if the enemy isn’t at full health then you’re praying for an additional dice roll to hit so you can actually get the bonus damage you are fishing for. There are so many rolls to hit: accuracy, one of your two different crit rolls, plus the roll to see if your crit does extra damage or not. None of the other crit-focused classes have so many hoops to jump through, and it makes the thunderlord more inconsistent than even something like the pyromancer or the windrunner. If you want to make the thunderlord work, make sure to use a high luck adept in tandem with tokens in your finesse weapon and probably an aspect that gives a crit boost.
Astral Traveler
| HP | STR | MAG | DEF | FOR | DEX | MAS | SPD | LCK |
| +10% | -15% | +20% | -5% | -20% | -15% | -5% | +5% |
Class Level: Tier Two
Weapon: Hammers (finesse and accuracy) and Arcane Magic (power and balance)
Armor: Plate
Skill 1: Phase Shift – Able to both cast and use weapons
Skill 2: Cosmic Tide – 30% chance to heal 20% of max HP and ignore 25% of resistances
The astral traveler is an interesting concept, one of only two classes in the game that combines both physical attacks and magical attacks into a single class. Additionally, Cosmic Tide is an unusual skill that essentially gives you a 30% chance to activate the same skills you already get from the reverie class. I don’t have a lot of experience with the astral traveler personally but part of what has pushed me away from it is the low magic aptitude for both the reverie and the astral traveler, making it less likely that your magical attacks (which replace your strongest and most balanced weapons) will be as potent. This is helped along somewhat by the 20% reduction to the enemy’s defense or fortitude – getting the extra 25% from Cosmic Tide is nice but it’s relatively unreliable. Still, this is your best shot at building a tank unit with an adept class, and the self-healing is a useful feature that a sentinel or an aegis are not going to bring to the table.
Disclaimer and Questions
Finally, that’s the end! This guide was made using version 1.54 of Dark Deity, so if you are reading it after any additional patches have happened then some information here may not be correct. Heck, some of it may be incorrect anyway because I noticed a bug when I was taking notes that was displaying some skill descriptions incorrectly! So if you see something off let me know so I can fix it, and if you have any questions based on my experience with the game feel free to ask them in the comments below. I hope the guide has been helpful for you!
Adventure Rules 
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