Deacon

The Deacon is a Cosmic/Cultist enemy in Darkest Dungeon II.

Description
Deacons, like their counterpart The Cardinal, are one of the highest ranking members of the Cultist faction. Their imposing figure and giant battle axe are steadfast reminders that these are not enemies to be trifled with. These massive creatures are a fearsome encounter for the player to run across, able to tank large amounts of damage while dishing out some of the most painful attacks the player will recieve. These enemies are also able to manipulate their own flesh, making them receive less damage from certain types of attacks. Along with the Cardinal and the Exemplar, Deacons are able to be worshiped by lesser allies. This allows them to be healed whilst also giving them access to devastating attacks.

Strategy
The Deacon poses a singular threat to the enemy team in the form of massive single target damage, the ability to immobilize the players entire team, remove block tokens, and mitigate incoming damage. He requires solid forethought before his encounter to ensure he doesn't quickly wipe out the players entire roster.

The Deacon will always go first, having a free action called "The Flesh Warps". This ability applies a debuff that reduces either melee or ranged attack damage he receives by 50%. This buff will swap from one to the next at the start of every round. Therefore it pays to have both types of attacks on a team in order to ensure the player can deal maximum damage to him every round. This buff does not apply to DOT damage received, making DOTs a surefire way to deal consistent damage.

The Deacon tends to focus the front two ranks, using his ability Sundering Steel. It can be useful to use taunt and block to help mitigate the large amount of damage this ability can cause. Though do keep in mind this ability will remove ALL block tokens on the target it hits. Thus abilities like Stand Fast on the Man at Arms or Withstand on the Leper can be very useful due to their ability to generate more block tokens over time.

The Deacon has one cleave ability, "Weight of Worlds", which deals little damage but stresses and immobilizes your team. Ensuring you have a team that can still deal out damage while locked in place is useful for ensuring this ability doesn't cause too much disruption.

As with other large cultists, the Deacon can be worshiped. Upon receiving two worship tokens he will use his Exaltation ability. This ability hits for massive damage, and applies the single largest bleed in the game at 10 Bleed. It also can deal 4 stress, meaning a target can go from half stress to meltdown in one hit. The easiest way to handle this is to remove the ads that spawn with the deacon before they can apply the worship tokens on him. If unable to do this, then dodge, blind, and stress/bleed resist are the best ways to mitigate the impact of this ability.