Ascended Witch

The Ascended Witch is a cultist, blessed by her Eldritch god. She utilizes the same moveset as her counterpart, mainly causing massive stress damage and marking with Fate's Reveal, much rarely using her shuffling attacks. This enemy can be encountered on the first 2 expeditions in the Darkest Dungeon

Abilities
The ascended witch possesses the same skillset as her lesser counterparts albeit renamed. Nevertheless, they are significantly more dangerous, specially her stress-inducing attacks.

Behaviour
- COOLDOWNS: The Ascended Witch's "Fate's Pull/Push" cannot be used more then once every fourth turns. They are not mutually exclusive, so her using one of these skills does not prevent her from casting the other on the next turn.

- PREFRENCE: She will most likely open her first turn with "Fate's Reveal" (20x greater chance), causing some stress damage and marking your party for the ascended brawler's. The next turn, she has a tenfold higher chance of casting "Fate's Pull".

It should be remembered, that she WILL NOT use "Fate's Reveal" if:

· 2 or more of your heroes are MARKED.

· 3 or more of your heroes are VIRTUOUS.

On another note, at any given turn, the Ascended Witch will have a ten times greater chance of using "Fate's Reveal" if the target is highly stressed (+50 stress) on said hero. Similarly, marked targets are ten times more likely to get "Fate's Pull" used on them, thereby allowing marked targets located on the back to be moved forward where they will be mercilessly rended for extra damage by the brawlers.

Strategy
Much like regular Cultist Witches, they should be your top priority, as to reduce directly applied stress and indirect damage done to your heroes due to the extra damage caused by the markings. Furthermore, considering the above described mechanics of these fiends, they will focus already stressed heroes, easily making them snap in a few turns, or, even worse, suffer a heart attack.

For this reason, consider using a Plague Doctor with extra speed in form of trinkets or quirks, so she may nullfiy their first round of stress, posibly allowing the rest of the party to wail on them and quickly dispatch the Ascended Witches before stress becomes unmanageable. Move skills are drastically less useful than when using on other monsters due to her being able to still casts most of her skills from any rank. Any stun+Damage skill would be a welcomed addition aswell, although you might be tempted to inflict some burst damage on them in order to wipe them out as quickly as possible.

As common for heavy stress-hitters, stress-healing heroes such as the crusader or jester will provide your ranks with some relief should you be unable to deal with their "Fate's Reveal". It might be a wise choice to keep your heroes at below high levels of stress, as that will cause the Witches to quickly make them reach the threshold's of sanity.☁