Last Updated on by Samuel Franklin
This guide to the poison and cursed themed Plagueherald maximises their debuff focused playstyle. With a non traditional support path the Plagueherald (Cthulhu) debilitate enemies with this page detailing the ideal starting cards, level up card decisions, corresponding perks, enhancements and equipment.
Table of Contents:
– Plagueherald Cards, Perks, Enhancements and Items Overview
– Plagueherald Cards Detailed
– Plagueherald Perks Detailed
– Plagueherald Enhancements Detailed
– Plagueherald Items Detailed
Gloomhaven Plagueherald Guide Overview
This quick reference overview for level 1 to 9 creates a Plagueherald that will curse enemies to reduce the effectiveness of their attacks and in time leverage this for damage output.
Plagueherald Cards Overview
- Level 1: Remove Foul Wind, Blistering Vortex and Scattered Terror to create your starting deck of cards.
- Level 2: Under The Skin replaces Grasping Vermin
- Level 3: Fetid Flurry replaces Biting Gnats
- Level 4: Nightmarish Affliction replaces Virulent Strain
- Level 5: Accelerated End replaces Paralyzing Bite
- Level 6: Stinging Cloud replaces Vile Pestilence
- Level 7: Baneful Hex replaces Epidemic
- Level 8: Airborne Toxin (level 7 card) replaces Spread the Plague
- Level 9: Spreading Scourge (level 8 card) replaces Gathering Doom
Plagueherald Perks Priority Overview
- Replace one -2 card with one +0 card
- Replaces one -1 card with one +1 card (take twice)
- Replace one +0 card with one +2 card (take twice)
- Ignore negative scenario effects and add one +1 card
- Add two +1 cards
- Add two rolling curse cards
Plagueherald Enhancements Priority Overview
- Add move and bless to the bottom of Winged Congregation
- Add target to the top of Nightmarish Affliction
- Add jump to the bottom of Wretched Swarm
Plagueherald Items Priority Overview
- Minor Stamina Potion
- Boots of Striding
- Cloak of Invisibility
Gloomhaven Plagueherald Guide Detailed
The detailed section details several alternative decision points for different playstyle preferences.
Plagueherald Cards Detailed
- Starting Cards: The Plagueherald has several weak level 1 cards with several options removed due to them offering weak burn actions or only one average aaction. As an unlockable class the chances of starting at level 1 are low but if you do find yourself in this position my recommendations are Foul Wind, Blistering Vortex and Scattered Terror for removal which offer actions that simply don’t fit into our playstyle. If your party is short on effective options to handle shielded enemies then Scattered Terror can sneak back into your hand at the loss of something else like Grasping Vermin although you’ll need to carefully time the usage of this burn pierce attack.
- Level 2 Cards: Level 2 presents a difficult choice for the Plagueherald with an above average attack 5 card for this level which is tempting while also offering a multitarget bottom heal. The weakness of Rot Maggots though is in the short two range and poison impact to our allies that makes it exceedingly difficult to use in practice although you may find it easier at particular party sizes and dynamics. Ultimately I recommend Under The Skin for the consistency it provides with one of our larger move cards and an easy to utilise pierce attack. If your party needs an extra source of healing or isn’t heavy on melee characters you can use Rot Maggots though if preferred.
- Level 3 Cards: Level 3 gives a solid attack and curse card with Fetid Flurry adding another method to introduce curses into the enemy deck that makes it a clear winner and also one of our faster initiative cards. The wind bottom also unlocks a critical combo for our future high level Plagueherald which means we shouldn’t miss this card.
- Level 4 Cards: Level 4 gives us a multi target attack that inflicts our primary status effects of poison and curse that make it a staple of our combo rotation and while it only comes with a single attack value as our modifier deck improves it can deal some reasonable damage. With the strong top of Nightmarish Affliction it is a great candidate for an enhancement as well to convert this into a three target attack. It’s also with this card we can start to remove the other poison cards we’ve been holding onto so far given we have another source to apply it and we start shifting towards the curse playstyle from here.
- Level 5 Cards: Level 5 cards for the Plagueherald are both poison focused although the double burn nature of Willing Sacrifice means this is easily skipped. Instead we use Accelerated End and while we aren’t going deep into poison the ability to poison three targets at 5 range for a bottom action is fantastic for the damage output boost and gives a useful bottom action for those turns where moving isn’t a priority. Utilising the top also gives us a method to deal with certain enemy types in Gloomhaven where direct damage is important.
- Level 6 Cards: At level 6 players have the option of Black Tides that is a perfectly average card with 4 attack and move values while generating the two elements that the Plagueherald is based on and with several enhancement slots can turn into something quite powerful. Looking ahead at our level 7 card though the muddle area of effect that Stinging Cloud offers will provide much greater value to the Plagueherald who maximises their potency of curses when they can muddle enemies regularly.
- Level 7 Cards: The level which finally allows us to turn our curses to not only a defensive mechanism but an offensive one through Baneful Hex that turns enemy curse draws into damage. From level 7 onwards as the Plagueherald it can feel like a different experience as we now have all the tools to play as a curse focused hero which only get better as we progress to level 8 and 9. While it can be tempting to play Baneful Hex in the first round it’s actually a bit of a trap for the Plagueherald and should only be played once we have sufficiently cursed the enemy (noting the maximum 10 curses that enemies can have) which will generally happen at round 3 or 4 instead. Our other level 7 card is important for our playstyle and while we will still take it at level 8.
- Level 8 Cards: At level 8 we will want to grab the level 7 card of Airborne Toxin given it’s strong potential to curse and muddle many enemies at once. In order to find the wind element players will want to call on the bottom of Fetid Flurry the round before which creates our base combo at the start of a scenario and can combine with a critical starting item (Cloak of Invisibility) if we find ourselves in a risky situation as a result.
- Level 9 Cards: The Plagueherald is one of the few Gloomhaven characters where I suggest players take neither of the level 9 cards available as they simply don’t help our Baneful Hex playstyle that we’ve built towards. One of our options (Convert the Flock) is a slightly stronger version of our level 4 card (Nightmarish Affliction) but is a burn action that we can’t consistently utilise with the bottom allowing us to drain our enemies of health if we’ve poisoned them. Mass Extinction is slightly more interesting with up to 4 poison damage on the bottom action and the ability to curse and wound literally everyone but we already have enough methods to reach the maximum curses allowed so it is a bit of overkill. It’s for this reason that I prefer to go back to level 8 to take the consistently useful Spreading Scourge which comes with our favourite muddle in a large area and a bottom heal that gives us some added team utility.
Plagueherald Perks Detailed
Similar to other Gloomhaven classes remove the negative modifiers to improve damage output and consistency and then players can focus on removing zeros before adding positive cards. During this process players can also obtain the useful ignore negative scenario effects if you are struggling with a specific negative campaign effect. After this players can start adding debuffs which I recommend in order of curse, stun, poison, immobolise.
Plagueherald Enhancements Detailed
The Plagueherald has a small pool of enhancements but each offer great quality of life to our playstyle although not necessary from a power perspective. For utility bless and move on the bottom of Winged Congregation is useful and affordable although can be skipped if your party already has this available.
With Nightmarish Affliction being core to our combo it’s an obvious source of enhancement albeit more on the expensive side. It’s not a necessary choice to max out the monster deck in curses but definitely helps if your mercenary group has the gold to spare for you. My last recommendation is to sneak jump into our cards somewhere as we simply don’t have that available to us and once we add bless to the bottom of Winged Congregation it can hurt to use the persistent top so adding jump gives us an alternative.
Outside of these recommendations the Plagueherald really doesn’t need other enhancements although the odd extra base attack, extra target, larger move value or even extra curse on an attack are all options if you have gold.
Plagueherald Items Detailed
From starting items the Plagueherald will want the Cloak of Invisibility, Boots of Striding and the Minor Stamina Potion. The cloak provides a get out of jail free card or alternatively the option to make an aggressive play which becomes increasingly important at the higher levels with the boots providing similar flexibility. Like many Gloomhaven characters the Minor Stamina Potion is a great way to double dip into our strongest cards for stacking curses faster.
Beyond starting item decisions the Plagueherald wants to keep an eye out for items that allow you to extend your attack range to help the effectiveness of our multi target attacks and have multiple turns in a single round to stack curses quickly.
For information and build guides on other Gloomhaven character options visit our Gloomhaven classes overview and the related Gloomhaven class tier list.
