Spiritspeaker Serena

By Vitezslav, in Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Hi everybody!

We've playen "Forgotten Souls" recently and I've chosen spiritspeaker Serena as my hero. I found it extremely cool - supreme healing, good fortitude with coat that converts damage to stamina and an opportunity to recover 6 HP during rest.

The only real problem I came across and suffered a lot is that spititspeaker cannot remove conditions. And I want to know what to do with it in a full campaign. The only thing is to prey to get a rumor quest from Manor of Ravens which gives a tome that gives +1 knowledge and removes condition for an action and knowledge test.

Can anyone help with this problem?..

This is no "problem" but a choice.

The Prophet cannot remove conditions too. Since you made the choice that the healer and class you chose can give back many heart, in other hand, the Overlord will toy with you with condition.

The book relic of manor of ravens can help you

there's also the curse doll on the search deck

the belt of alchemy from the act 1 items deck looks like the thing you're searching for

This is no "problem" but a choice.

That doesn't seem to be a real choice. A group with no condition-removal seems to de doomed especially in Mists of Bielhall. And it really suffers from it. So, purchasing Trollfens seems to be the only thing that saves heroes :)

or playing 2 healers

or playing 2 healers

Yeap, was thinking about it even earlier when played with a bard. About a group of Bard-Spiritspeaker-Mage-Scout with Augur or Lindel.

Sahla is a good option too for removing conditions (and send it back to the Overlord furthermore)

Mists of Bilehall is a very condition heavy campaign. Because in Descent all the info is available to all players, this should have been a factor in choosing your hero because like Rugal mentioned, choosing a certain hero is not a problem, it's a choice.

The Spiritspeaker is one of my least favourite healers, for exactly that issue. I consider condition removal one of the important jobs of a healer and a healer that cannot remove conditions gets a serious downcheck in my book.

Serena is a very fun Spiritspeaker, and I think she puts the class in the ideal light with her amazing Stamina and Willpower. Sadly, that doesn't change the fact that it is mostly a terrible class that scales poorly into Act II and has an extremely lackluster starting skill in Stoneskin.

I would love to see an errata done for the Spiritspeaker, as I think it is great in concept and *could* be great in execution if it was tweaked and buffed. Add condition removal, improve Stoneskin, and make skills that synergize with each other more (rather than mostly be mutually exclusive) and I'd be very happy!

I would recommend playing her only for more casual campaigns, or against inexperienced Overlords. It is neat playing a hero that rarely needs to perform a traditional move action. She just fatigue-moves around and Tempests things for heals and softening targets, then rests, ready to go again.

Even more fun if you pair her with the Undying Skull + Ring of Power. As the OP has stated, throw a Cloak of the Mists on her as well for good longevity vs. attacks despite her Brown defense die, too.

In general though I agree with everyone else. Condition removal is super important. If you want to not be crippled by a condition happy Overlord, you'd better run a second healer, or compensate with heroes that are less vulnerable than normal to conditions (e.g. Logan Lashley, Grisban the Thirsty, etc.).

The new Terrify condition is especially nasty and effective, and no fun to deal with.

Due to this, I'd unfortunately have to say that if you want to play a highly competitive hero team, you basically have to write off the Spiritspeaker and Prophet as the primary party healer.

An exception though is Sahla makes an outstanding prophet, and nicely compensates for the lack of condition removal inherent to the class.

Edited by Charmy

The new Terrify condition is especially nasty and effective, and no fun to deal with.

I second this. Condition removal is usually beneficial for the heroes to have, though it can often be sacrificed if attributes are high enough. However, if you're playing a Bilehall campaign with Terrify in the mix, condition removal becomes essential.

The new Terrify condition is especially nasty and effective, and no fun to deal with.

I second this. Condition removal is usually beneficial for the heroes to have, though it can often be sacrificed if attributes are high enough. However, if you're playing a Bilehall campaign with Terrify in the mix, condition removal becomes essential.

Terrify is... terrifying...

The only way to remove it is to, in the words of Monthy Python "Run away! Run away!" or kill all monsters in line of sight... while not having access to your bonus damage surges, or pierce surges... :o

You better have a class power that allows you to do damage without needing surges, buddy! :wacko:

I'd also like to give Sahla an up-vote not just for Prophet, but also Spirit Speaker.

His hero ability can help mitigate conditions, if you are lucky enough to get one of the equipment cards that raises your willpower (Belt of Waterwalking) and/or one of the cards that give you re-rolls on attribute checks (Lucky Charm) he can be a pretty effective healer regardless of class.

Now if you combo him up with a Champion that purchased Inspiring Presence and Raythen, then Tempest can be really nasty for those low health mobs.

...combo him up with a Champion that purchased Inspiring Presence and Raythen, then Tempest can be really nasty for those low health mobs.

Yup. Our last hero party was:

Sahla: Prophet with Belt of Waterwalking and Battle Vision (not to mention the Sage's Tome). [4 2 3 4]

Mordrog: Champion with Inspiring Presence. [3 5 1 2]

Master Thorn: Runemaster. [3 1 5 2]

Tetherys: Bounty Hunter. [1 3 2 5]

It was a great spread. If there was a test we had to pass, we had the means.

As "The chains that rust" have been announced there may be one more solution - monk Serena with spiritspeaker deck added.

Got confused a bit - monk is a pure scout class :(

Not sure that monk should be a pure scout class

Got confused a bit - monk is a pure scout class :(

You sure serena can't ? Since the card is half blue and half green, I would have say she could.

Raythen seems to be too powerless for a healer :( Lindel seems to be more effective as a real healer

This may be stating the obvious but since Serena's Labrynth of Ruin story has her singing mostly all the time, she's probably a great Bard.

You sure serena can't ? Since the card is half blue and half green, I would have say she could.

I guess it could be used by healers too. And in fact, I'm going to play thoses as if it could not be played by scouts, to avoid strange things

Going off of the announcement page alone, it sounds like the way it works is that each of the four archetypes has a single hybrid class.

In the case of the monk, it is a Scout class specifically. This means only Scout heroes can take this class, and in so doing, get the Monk skill cards along with most of the cards from a single chosen Healer deck.

I'm not a big fan of Bogran the Shadow bursitng into song or Tomble using Divine magic myself.. but unfortunately this isn't the first time I've seen expansion products to a game introduce a little 'too much' flexibility to the core product.

I personally would have been much happier if Chains had given us a new Mage and Healer class to round out the sets.

Edited by Charmy

I'm not a big fan of Bogran the Shadow becoming a Bard or Tomble being a Disciple myself.. Unfortunately this isn't the first time I've seen expansion products to a game damaging the lore and immersion.

I would have not said it better. I'm totaling according to you

I disagree that this damages lore. I mean look at Battlemage Jaes (before he was renamed for Crown of Destiny). A mage with a big sword.

Additional examples of "cross-archetype" heroes:

Lyssa- she's pretty scouty/warriorlike for a mage

Andira and Jonas- definitely have some knight qualities as far as healers go

Durik and Nara- These warriors are quite rogue-like.

The list goes on.

The difference about thoses is that thoses heroes have been made to be some sort of different archetype. But Lyssa is still a mage, Jaes too, and even if andira looks like some sort of warrior, none of them should be in different job

Now, if thoses would be played in different job, balance, lore, and all would be damaged, for sure.