Cleric – Tier Two Reveal

Hey, friends! It’s Jared Saramago from the HEX R&D team. I’m here today to preview the new tier of cleric talents coming with the launch of Chapter II of the campaign, the Alachian Sea.

Through the first chapter of the campaign, the cleric was very well suited to handle many of the diverse challenges found within the Howling Plains and its various dungeons. Without having to worry about the limited starting hand-size of the warrior or the precariously low health of the mage, the cleric was a good all-around class choice for many players. Praying for victory takes on a whole new meaning when your deck takes advantage of the plentiful health gain and artifact-centric talents the cleric has available. Smiting your enemies becomes a matter-of-course for the well prepared!

But the challenges of the Alachian Sea will shake even the deepest faith. Let’s take a look at how your cleric will stand resolute with a new tier of talents.

Count Your Blessings

Let’s start by examining the new talents that are focused on creating or interacting with Blessings. Blessed Birth will let you start the game with four Blessings already in your deck. That’s the equivalent of having already activated your charge power, Pray, twice before you’ve even taken a turn. This effect gets doubled if you have 100 or more cards in your deck. Getting a head start on Blessing creation means you’ll likely gain health earlier and more often than before! If you’ve been thinking about playing a 100 card deck, you might also be interested in the Stout talent. You’ll gain a bonus talent point to spend for cards you were already adding to your deck anyways.

After unlocking Blessed Birth, you can take an adjacent talent that compliments it rather nicely: Child of the Right Hand. This talent lets you draw an extra card for any of the Blessings that end up in your starting hand. This combo can make for some really explosive starts, especially when combined with cards that care about playing cheap actions like Hatchery Malvoker, Embertongue Skarn, and Psychic Ascension. It also has some impressive synergy with cards that want you to put even more cards in your hand like Forbidden Tomeseeker; Puck, Dream Bringer; and Bowie Starlight.

You can also combine these talents with Discipline of the Mind, which allows you to conjure a Blessing from your deck, once per game, on demand. Use it to find that desperate heal you need in a tight damage race, create an immediate buff for your Righteous Paladin, or add the final counter to transform your Incantation of Ascendance or Incantation of Righteousness. This talent also has the potential to search up the impressive coyotle Zodiac Blessings, making it a great choice for a coyotle cleric.

Playing it Safe

Until now, clerics have increased their survivability almost exclusively by raising their health. Now, there are some new tools to endure enemy attacks that are less about laying on hands and more about keeping your opponent’s hands off. One of those abilities is Armed Against the Darkness. Beginning the game with 1 point of armor may not seem like a big deal at first, but just ask anyone who’s played a dwarf or necrotic cleric how helpful it can be. There are a number of enemies in the campaign that need to deal damage to be effective (hello Mr. Killipede!), and that armor can really shut them down. Doubling up on your armor bonus is sure to be a favorite talent choice for the necrotic and dwarven clerics out there.

Another staple defensive tool for clerics is the talent Cleanse. Once per game, you have the ability to wipe away most negative status effects (like burning and dazed) and recover some health in the process. This is the sort of amazing utility power that will keep clerics churning through those dungeons with debilitating ailments. Where the other classes will start to struggle and stumble, the cleric can use their Cleanse skill to just shrug it off and keep going.

Faith Some More

Let’s take a look at the continuation of talents that use both artifacts and troop buffs to secure victory. First, we have an extension of the talent path that upgrades Monument of Faith in Loyal to our Leader. Another troop-friendly talent is the Altar of Might, which creates a Shrine of Briggadon. These effects are obviously useful in your more straight-forward troop decks, but they also provide extra power to decks using cards like Electroid, Rocket Ranger, and the cleric’s own Soul Vessel, which are dependent on having artifacts in play. Last but not least, there’s The Chosen One. Making the right troop Invincible can help protect a vulnerable combo piece or win condition. It also lets you stave off an opponent’s attacks with an impervious blocker.

Send in the Congregation

Speaking of combo pieces, let’s take a look at a pair of talents that are interesting from a deck building perspective. Premonitions gives you an effect similar to a free Arcane Focus or Peek at the start of the game. This kind of consistency is always welcome in HEX, especially if you are trying to find specific cards to pair with the ones in your hand. Diligent Study makes finding additional copies of a card more likely. Besides the obvious synergy with Blessings, this effect has all kinds of other potential that’s just waiting to be discovered. For example, it pairs well with Escalation cards, like Crash of Beasts, improves the odds of chaining together multiple Pack Raptors or Sliver of the Immortal Spear, and might even cause some shenanigans with cards like Replicator’s Gambit and Syzygy.

If that sort of deck building craziness interests you, you may also want to consider Holy Hands. Having two extra copies of your cards equipped with gloves will not only make drawing those cards more consistent, but it also lets you navigate around the Shard Alignment restrictions on deck building. Want to play more copies of Angel of Glory but you’re limited to a single Diamond legendary? Well, just equip it with Glorified Gloves and Holy Hands will do the rest!

Haven’t Lost a Game in Aegis

Before we wrap up our preview, it would be silly not to talk about the new cleric-only class gems. The Cleric Class Gems talent will give you access to the Minor Orb of Aegis and the Major Orb of Prayer. I can imagine the Minor Gem being used with double-socket cards like Cockatwice and Royal Diplomat, but I’m most interested in seeing what sorts of combinations you all come up with. Aegis makes it that much harder for your opponent to get rid of your critical combo piece or bomb. As for the Major Gem, I imagine both Mad Robomancer and Cosmic Shaman as strong socketing candidates. What do you think? If you’ve got some interesting socketing ideas for these new gems, share them with us in the forums.

That’s about it for the new cleric talents. Our goal in designing these new powers was to build upon the strength and diversity of the talents in the first tier, while also empowering new strategies and synergies that further develop what it means to play a cleric in our campaign. I think you’ll find that tier two has a lot to offer as you make your way toward the new level cap. Here is the full tree so you can plan out your favorite paths yourself:

Click the links below to share your thoughts, and let us know if you’ll be playing a cleric when Chapter II arrives. Stay tuned for more previews coming soon. Until then, may all your top-decks be blessed!

Jared Saramago, HEX R&D Team

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