Last Updated on by Samuel Franklin
Gloomhaven Voidwarden Guide – Cards, Builds, Perks, Enhancements & Items
This guide to the Voidwarden details how to play this aggressive support and utility focused mercenary through the Gloomhaven and Jaws of the Lions campaign content. Opting to command other heroes and even enemies to do their bidding rather than a focus on direct attacks the Voidwarden has many different tools to utilise in their larger hand size of 11 and stands out as a unique character design in the franchise. In this Voidwarden Gloomhaven guide I detail the suggested card choices from start to finish along with the decisions across perks, enhancements and item options.
Designed as one of the four Jaws of the Lions expansion characters the Voidwarden is a human character that brings with it all of the baggage of this race given their locus like expansion across the continent. Known for their rules and regulations the human race is a diverse species just like the real world with each human having a high level of curiosity in their craft. For the Voidwarden this is an understanding of the Void which is a dark and dangerous place that literally turns anything it touches into a coarse black sand. With a past that includes a near-death experience with the Void the Voidwarden has been left scarred physically and mentally by the experience that ahs turned them into a protector through the abilities they gained following the incident to manipulate the minds of others. This event has also given them some powers of healing and blessing others although these gifts come with a price tag attached as they do not come from traditional methods. With these trade offs the Voidwarden is more suited to larger party sizes and also a difficult character to play without appropriate prerequisite game knowledge and party co-ordination.
For information and build guides on other Gloomhaven character options visit our Gloomhaven classes overview and the related Gloomhaven class tier list. Note that from this point onwards this guide contains full card spoilers for this class and minor item spoilers (general themes only and not specific non starting items).
Table of Contents:
– Voidwarden Cards, Perks, Enhancements and Items Overview
– Voidwarden Cards Detailed
– Voidwarden Perks Detailed
– Voidwarden Enhancements Detailed
– Voidwarden Items Detailed
Gloomhaven Voidwarden Guide Overview
In the overview section to cards, perks, enhancements and item priorities you’ll be provided my recommended template to playing the Voidwarden and will set you up for success in the vast majority of situations. It’s primarily written from a Gloomhaven perspective rather than solely a Jaws of the Lion perspective which does change some minor decision points that are discussed in the detailed section where relevant as I spend most of my Voidwarden game time in the core Gloomhaven campaign.
The template provided in the overview section leans into the Voidwarden’s specialty as a supportive focused character while grabbing our direct attacks as they become available to ensure we are still effective at the smaller party sizes where we need to be a little more self reliant compared to the largest 4 player party size that Gloomhaven offers. We also seek to maximise our flexibility by grabbing some useful heals, movement cards, attacks, curses and not leaning too heavily on burn actions so that we can meet a number of situations head on and as a result players can opt to specialise in a specific theme a little outside of this overview if it suits their current party dynamics. It also assumes you’ll be using the top of Master of Influence to empower the attacks we provide our allies to make them just a little bit better than their base forms.
Voidwarden Cards Overview
- Level 1: Remove Grasp of Doom, Cold Embrace and Sap Warmth to create your starting deck of cards
- Level 2: Give and Take replaces Black Boon
- Level 3: Taunting Fate replaces Signs of the Void
- Level 4: The Last Journey replaces Turn Out the Lights
- Level 5: Stand Fast replaces Close to the Abyss
- Level 6: Withering Conviction replaces Suggestion
- Level 7: Hateful Blast replaces Wicked Scratch
- Level 8: Lull into Oblivion replaces Resigned Frenzy
- Level 9: Possessed By Fate replaces Give and Take
Voidwarden Perks Priority Overview
- Remove two -1 cards (take twice)
- Remove one -2 card
- Replace one -1 with one +0 heal (ally) card
- Add one +3 card
- Add one +1 curse card (take twice)
- Replace one +0 with one +1 dark card (take twice)
- Replace one +0 with one +1 ice card (take twice)
- Add +1 poison card
Voidwarden Enhancements Priority Overview
- Add Attack to the bottom of Stand Fast
- Add Attack/Wound/Poison to the top of The Last Journey
Voidwarden Items Priority Overview
- Minor Stamina Potion
- Boots of Striding
- Minor Healing Potion
- Cloak of Invisibility
Gloomhaven Voidwarden Guide Detailed
Within the detailed section of the Gloomhaven Voidwarden guide goes into the depths of the decisions presented in the overview section and explores some of the alternative choices you can make from level 1 to 9. These choices have some minor impacts to playstyle and can push the Voidwarden closer towards one of their many specialisations be it healing, blessing or providing attacks depending on what your party needs. If you tweak your card choices this will naturally have a flow on to the other portions of Voidwarden build which are similarly discussed in the respective detailed element.
Voidwarden Cards Detailed
The Voidwarden card choices are included below in level up order and explores my recommended level up options alongside some alternative decisions and the reasons behind the overview template.
- Starting Cards: For starting cards that are removed the weakest card for the Voidwarden is relatively straight forward with Sap Warmth being an all around weak card that is healing our allies with extra steps on the top action and then a burn move and heal when we already have an abundance of healing options. Your other choices are a little closer but I generally see Cold Embrace as our second weakest option given the burn top action which only gives us 3 or at most 4 curses that we can accumulate through other means. Thebottom of Cold Embrace is actually not too bad in a 4 player party and I can absolutely see the Voirdwarden player pairing this with Signs of the Void for a first round combo when your team starts together but after this point its likely going to be impossible to gather your allies together for the bless buff. The last card for removal is one of the most flexible with my choice generally being Grasp of Doom as the top burn doesn’t provide significant value to us and while we do give up a large move for it the 5 move is often overkill and move 3 is only 1 higher than the default move so I don’t mind doing without it.
- Level 2 Cards: Level 2 can be a tricky level choice as Crushing Cold is a decent card combination with a reusable bottom action that generates one of our elements and then provides a reasonable burn top action at the right time although it’s not going to scale significantly. The alternative in Give and Take is my preference as it adds a nice initiative to our card selection while providing our preferred element in dark alongside ally buffs of bless and strengthen at the cost of poison but most parties will have one ally that can be targeted without too much risk before removing it later with Close to the Abyss to double down on blesses.
- Level 3 Cards: At level 3 I find Taunting Fate to be a clear winner and it also plays perfectly into the thematic of the Voidwarden as it gives us a large heal when necessary and the bless card is somewhat mitigated by the large number of curses we will be stacking as well. The top is more of an emergency button though with the bottom of Taunting Fate a great setup for some of our stronger attack granting cards (often top burns) particularly if we can pick up ice beforehand and the quick initiative ensures our plans for that round work out. The initiative also makes it a nice replacement to Signs of the Void which is starting to lose it’s effectiveness at 1 shield but ensures we can still act fast when required.
- Level 4 Cards: Level 4 gives us the first option to grab our own self attack card which generates dark for us and adds an enemy curse as a nice little bonus and makes The Last Journey a clear selection for us as it adds a tremendous amount of flexibility when nobody is in a good position to be granted an attack or we have nobody to heal on our team. I take this opportunity to remove Turn Out the Lights which has grown increasingly weak over time and the similarities between the two card designs.
- Level 5 Cards: Level 5 once again gives us only a single card option for Jaws of the Lion characters and while it’s not the most exciting of the four available characters it is a solid pickup as it gives us a flexible bottom attack that can be used on either allies or enemies with a reasonable base and range to it. We will basically never be using the top though outside of claiming the 2 experience towards the end of a scenario. While I recommended dropping Close to the Abyss at this point as the decisions are only getting harder it’s actually quite a powerful card in the right team composition that is happy to absorb your poisons because they have attack mitigates (like stuns or disarms) they can use to reduce the poison effect and if that is the case for your party you can hold onto this a little longer as the potential to add 2 blesses in a round is quite attractive. Regardless of your choice you will want to add back Close to the Abyss into your hand in any scenario that is poison enemy heavy as it’s power is quite overwhelming in those instances.
- Level 6 Cards: It’s easy to ignore the dual burn actions of Surge of Power especially when they are both on the weaker side of burn actions which makes Withering Conviction our card of choice here. Thankfully it is actually a decent card too with the ability to lay down two curses with a bottom action and then offer a large attack burn on top when the setup is right. The choices of what to drop continue to get harder with Suggestion being my recommendation given the similar bottom and top actions.
- Level 7 Cards: Once again giving us the opportunity to add our own attack to our options with a massive 5 attack this time we take Hateful Blast which like our level 4 card adds solid flexibility to our hand of 11 cards and is well ahead of the alternative in Spirit Hunger that gives us more heals that we really don’t need. For replacement Wicked Scratch is starting to feel a little weak so it makes room for this attack although means we are getting short on dark generators (we reclaim one at level 8 though).
- Level 8 Cards: Level 8 gives us two interesting approaches to the Voidwarden and both are viable depending on your preferences with one offering crowd control and the other focused on stacking plenty of blesses for our team mates. By default I prefer to the appeal of Lull into the Oblivion as I’m never sad about having a stun around especially one with multiple target capabilities will adding a curse although like other strong Voidwarden cards there is a catch. I also find there are many allies that will appreciate the bottom of this card as it allows us to pick up our entire group at great initiative to create some interesting combo potential. On the other hand Empowered Link has a mediocre top that won’t really be used at all but it does have quite a powerful bottom for adding bless to ourselves and nearby allies. If you’ve got a party that often stays tightly packed it’s quite possible this will deliver more value and thus completely acceptable to pick.
- Level 9 Cards: For level 9 I recommend Possessed by Fate as like our previous self attacks gives us some nice flexibility to our rest cycles as it removes the need to rely on allies or enemies having specific positions. The biggest weakness of this card though is 2 range that makes a specific item that provides extended attack ranges critical to using this effectively. If you don’t know about this item because it’s currently not available then Eye of the Void does increase in attractiveness for the simply move, true damage and strengthen that while not overly strong is incredibly consistent until we decide to activate the attack on a boss or high health enemy.
Voidwarden Perks Detailed
The Voidwarden perks are fairly typical in the Gloomhaven universe and despite us having a small pool of self attacks our modifier deck is still important for either the attacks we do have or when we grant enemies attacks with Master Influence activate. This means our path is removing all the negative options we have which also gives us some additional healing before adding the juicy +3 attack and curse cards that play nicely into our general curse theme. At this point I generally turn my attention to the elemental generators in the order of dark to ice before finally taking poison as it’s not always going to be a useful outcome and we have some other targeted poison options to use before this instead.
Voidwarden Enhancements Detailed
Assuming you’re playing Gloomhaven and not just the expansion as a standalone you’ll have enhancements available although the Voidwarden like other Jaws of the Lions character is not necessarily swimming in high priority options here. For me Stand Fast bottom extra attack is an obvious one as we’ll never use the top action of this card and the extra attack helps it to stay relevant as we push the later levels of our mercenary group and second to this is buffing the top action of The Last Journey with either damage or a debuff since again the bottom is rarely if ever used.
If you want to go even further with enhancements the only other two notable options are buffing the attack of Hateful Blast or Possessed by Fate further but these are going to be expensive for the value provided. If you took Empowered Link at level 8 an extra move there can also go along way to improving it’s effectiveness.
Voidwarden Items Detailed
From the starting item pool of Gloomhaven the Voidwarden benefits from the Boots of Striding, the respective minor potions and the defensive Cloak of Invisibility for when we make a mistake or see an aggressive opportunity that is too good to pass up on.
It’s beyond these starting items where the Voidwarden choices becoming interesting though and players should look out for items that improve our ranged attack distances, allow us to improve our default movement and general team support utility items through healing, elemental creation, card recovery or even additional turns for the Voidwarden to create some high burst rounds of damage.
