Dark and Darker is a free-to-play extraction shooter with elements from action role-playing games, roguelike, and survival games. It takes cues from early tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons, especially in the use of character classes with scalable attributes. In this article, we will look at one of the nine character classes: the holy and divine Cleric.
Table of Contents
What is a Cleric?
Aside from being an alternate term for “priest,” the Cleric is primarily a magic user that is very useful in a party because they provide different buffs and heals, which is needed in Boss raids. In solo play, the Cleric can do respectable damage in a particular range and has an array of offensive spells aside from the heals and buffs. This makes the Cleric a beginner-friendly character class.
Overview of Skills and Perks
Skills
- Divine Protection: Adds a 30% physical damage reduction. This effect lasts four seconds.
- Holy Purification: Deals 100 Divine Magic Damage to Undead within a 5 meter radius. It has a 45 second cooldown.
- Judgment: Deals 25 Divine Magic Damage after a 0.75 second channeling. This skill also decreases the enemy’s movement speed by 30% for two seconds. Channeling requires the mouse crosshair to be on the desired target within 5 meters. If the target goes out of range, the channeling cancels and the skill will enter a 28 second cooldown.
- Smite: Deal an additional 10 Divine Magic Damage for seven seconds after successfully hitting a target using melee attacks.
- Spell Memory 1 & 2: Allows the user to memorize spells to use in dungeons. Second tier adds a new spell tree.
Perks
- Advanced Healer: Increase Magical Healing stat by 5.
- Blunt Weapon Mastery: Increase physical power bonus by 15% when using a mace.
- Brewmaster: Drunk effects are reduced. Adds 10 Strength.
- Faithfulness: Gain 15% Divine Magic Power bonus. Add 15% movement speed reduction to enemies when using Divine attacks.
- Holy Aura: Adds a flat 15 points to armor rating and magic resistance rating for all party members, including yourself. This effect has an area of 4.5 meters.
- Holy Water: All removable curses are cleansed when drinking.
- Kindness: When healing an ally, you also heal yourself for 15% of the spell’s total heal amount.
- Over Healing: Healing with Magic Healing can add more HP to the character by 25% of Maximum Health. The additional HP will have a 1% decay per second.
- Perseverance: Reduces all incoming damage instances by 3 per tick, including ticks during damage over time. True damage is not included.
- Protection from Evil: Grants a 50% debuff reduction.
- Requiem: Allows the player to resurrect an ally. Resurrecting an ally gives 50% of their max HP.
- Undead Slaying: Deal an additional 20% physical damage versus Undead.
Spells
Unique to the Cleric are spells which they can use in dungeons through the Spell Memory skill. Here is the complete list of spells the Cleric can use.
- Protection: Conjures a shield that blocks 20 physical damage. This lasts for 20 seconds.
- Bless: Grants a +3 buff to Strength, Agility, and Will of a selected target. This can be cast to yourself if no one is at range or in solo play.
- Divine Strike: Grants an additional 5 Divine Strike damage to a target. This effect lasts 20 seconds.
- Cleanse: Removes harmful magic effects from a target.
- Lesser Heal: Grants a 15 HP heal to a target. It can be cast to self if no one is within range or in solo play. This spell scales in heal in relation to magic healing.
- Bind: Binds target in place. This effect lasts 0.75 seconds.
- Holy Strike: Creates an area-of-effect burst damage to a specified area within 1 meter. This affects everyone within the area including allies. The burst damage deals 20 Divine Magical Damage and blinds them for two seconds.
- Holy Light: Heals the player for 25 HP or deals 100 Divine Magic Damage to Undead. Healing scales with magical healing, same as Lesser Heal.
- Sanctuary: A channeled spell that has an area-of-effect healing. Every ally within 3.5 meters from the Cleric will receive a 5 HP per second as healing over time. This also deals 14 Divine Magic Damage to Undead. Like Holy Light and Lesser Heal, the healing scales with magical healing.
- Locusts Swarm: Summon a swarm of locusts that deal 2 Divine Magic Damage per second to targets within a 3 meter
- Earthquake: Creates a fissure in a specified area. This deals seven Earth Magical Damage per step with a 50% movement speed reduction bonus to targets within the area move.
- Resurrection: Targets an ally to resurrect them.
Weapons
- Ceremonial Staff
- Magic Staff
- Quarterstaff
- Spellbook
- War Maul
- Divine Staff
- Staff of Righteousness
- Sterling Staff
- Troll’s Bane
- Club
- Boneshaper
- Divine Rod
- Light Bringer
- Rod of Righteousness
- Sterling Rod
- Flanged Mace
- Morning Star
- War Hammer
- Buckler
- Heater Shield
- Round Shield
Picking the Best Weapon for Cleric
The best weapon for Clerics is a mace-type weapon. That said, the Flanged Mace works in every situation for this class. A good second choice is the Spellbook which gives the Cleric a ranged weapon.
Maces, when paired with the Blunt Weapon Mastery, will deal a great amount of damage which is good for solo players. In a team, it is essential to know what your role is and how your party wants to maximize you: as a pure healer/buffer, as a spellcaster, an attacker, or a hybrid of these choices.
I would count the different spells as a weapon, but I think it would be best to follow this simple tactic: since Spell Memory holds about five spells, you can choose to have two healing spells, two attack spells, and one buff spell. This way, you can be a balanced Cleric with useful spells.
General Tips
- Always bring a Campfire with you. A Campfire provides the Cleric with cast refills which are necessary for this character class.
- You can equip Plate Armors for high defense.
- Use Holy Purification for room-clearing.
- Find a way to upgrade your movement and action speeds. The Cleric is known to be one of the slowest character classes in Dark and Darker.
- Since the Cleric has no movement-based skill, know when and where to position before casting spells.
Conclusion
Despite its limitations, the Cleric is very useful in Dark and Darker. The heals and buffs alone can make you a valuable addition to any team. For solo players, stocking up on good weapons and spells will take you a long way.
