Warhammer: Mark of Chaos - Warrior Priest

This is a discussion of skills for a hero unit in Warhammer: Mark of Chaos v1.72. A list of all our Warhammer: Mark of Chaos articles can be found here.

Warrior Priest Skills
  • You get every skill at rank 0 as long as you fulfill the prerequisites.
  • Any skill with no skill prerequisite deserves special attention because you can bank your points and get 5 ranks of it immediately when you reach the necessary level, instead of spending your points on low-level skills you may not want.
  • Look for passive skills that require no mana, because one or two really good skills on a hero will monopolize use of the mana pool anyway.
  • Aim for at least rank 0 Faith Endures. We experienced a bug with The Undying Servant, so test the skill before you invest points in it.
Combat Skills

Spell Focus (Level 0)
  • Reduces the cooldown of all spells by 6% per rank.
Strength of Sigmar (Level 0)
  • There is a 30% chance (+5% per rank) that the hero's attacks will inflict +2 damage for 15 seconds (+1 second per rank).
  • Most units have only 1 HP, and tougher units may have 2 to 3 (e.g., knights) so this can result in one kill per blow against even Large creature units. Remarkably good, especially when combined with a weapon that does additional damage. In the Empire Campaign, you get a Warrior Priest who starts with a hammer that deals +1 damage. This brings it up to 4 damage per hit.
Strength of Sigmar > Prayers of Sigmar (Level 15)
  • Increases the duration of the Strength of Sigmar spell by 2 seconds per rank.
  • Maximum increase is 10 seconds, or a total of 25 seconds for the Strength of Sigmar.
Spell Focus > Indomitable Constitution (Level 5)
  • Increases HP by 1 per rank.
Spell Focus > Indomitable Constitution > Faith Endures (Level 25)
  • Heals the target hero for 5 HP (+1 HP per rank).
  • Combined with the Strength of Sigmar, duel outside in regular combat instead of getting a bunch of Duelling skills that are only good in a duel.
  • Interesting possibility of drawing fire with a lone hero but having a Warrior Priest in the back constantly healing. Rather long cooldown on this skill, however.
(no prerequisite) > Magic Resistance (Level 5)
  • Increases the hero's magic resistance by 1 per level.
(no prerequisite) > First Strike (Level 15)
  • Increases the hero's chance to hit while charging by 10% per rank.
Duel Skills
These skills are only available during a duel. All other skills that need to be activated are disabled. Therefore, any points put here may be unavailable most of the time, and specializes your hero into an anti-hero build. Even so, it is hard to say whether you will get enough mileage out of a duelist hero because after a bout, he may have low health and no be able to handle a second bout. Damage is typically done by attrition unless you have invested a lot of points.

Strength of Purpose (Level 0)
  • In a duel, the hero's morale will not drop below 10% per rank.
Guided Hand (Level 0)
  • Increases the hero's next attack by 1 damage with 33% chance to hit (+10% per rank).
Guided Hand > Deadly Strike (Level 5)
  • Gives 5% (per rank) chance to do 1 extra damage with melee attacks.
Guided Hand > Deadly Strike > Avenger (Level 15)
  • When the enemy hero makes a successful attack, your hero's chance to hit is increased by 5% (+5% per rank) for 5 seconds.
(no prerequisite) > Sigmar's Shield (Level 5)
  • 20% (+4% per rank) chance to block an opponent's attack. Lasts 10 seconds.
Sigmar's Shield > Witchbane (Level 15)
  • Interrupts an opponent's casting and stuns him for 2 seconds (+0.5 seconds per rank).
Sigmar's Shield > Witchbane > Fortitude of Faith (Level 25)
  • Replenishes the target hero's life for 5 seconds (+1 second per rank) at the rate of 2 HP per second.
  • Unlike other Level 25 duelling skills, this does not require an 8-second casting time, so it is unlikely to be disrupted.
  • If you can keep this up, theoretically you can win by attrition.
Command Skills
Passive Command skills work on the hero if they are not attached to a regiment.

Implacable Abhorrence (Level 0)
  • Target friendly unit does not suffer morale loss, and has +10% (+2% per rank) chance to hit for 15 seconds (+1 second per rank).
Implacable Abhorrence > Unshakeable Faith (Level 5)
  • The hero and the attached regiment suffer 10% less casualties from a charge.
  • The usefulness of this skill depends on how often a regiment is destroyed by an initial charge attack. If you have reasonably good tactics and put tough regiments in front, it may often be the case that no models are lost to a charge.
  • This typically useless skill is nevertheless a prerequisite for the pricey resurrection skill.
Implacable Abhorrence > Unshakeable Faith > The Undying Servant (Level 25)
  • Resurrects one recently lost member of the attached regiment. Power cost reduced by 10% per rank.
  • Since only one member is resurrected (and must have died only recently), this skill is best used when attached to a small, high-HP regiment, such as knights. In larger regiments of low-HP models where you could lose several models, you might not have time to resurrect them all before running out of mana or time (only "recently lost" members can be resurrected).
  • Somewhat long casting time. Wait for the cooldown before giving the regiment or hero any other instruction.
  • We experienced a bug where the skill was available for use (because a model in the regiment had died) but could not be activated no matter what, until several models were lost.
    • If you decide not to deal with the unpredictability of this skill, you can basically save 15 skill points and start on getting Tenacity (for more armour) and getting more skills from the excellent Combat skill tree.
Tenacity (Level 0)
  • Increases the armour of the hero and the attached regiment by 0.4 per rank.
Tenacity > Warmonger (Level 5)
  • The hero's and the attached regiment's chance to hit increases by 2% per level.
(no prerequisites) > Courage of Sigmar (Level 5)
  • The hero and the attached regiment suffer 10% per rank less morale loss from fear and terror.
  • This presumably does not reduce morale losses from combat. Only some opponents inflict fear-based morale loss, such as the HellCannon.
Courage of Sigmar > Bellowed Exhortations (Level 15)
  • The hero's and the attached regiment's stamina increases by 3% per rank.

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