Paracelsus the Plague Doctor is one of the characters available by default in Darkest Dungeon 2. She also happens to be one of the most integral to your party given her abilities. Here’s our Darkest Dungeon 2 Plague Doctor guide to help you unlock the best skills and complete the Shrine battles.
Paracelsus the Plague Doctor Skills | Darkest Dungeon 2
| Skill Name | Effect | Unlock Method |
|---|---|---|
| Noxious Blast | Low direct damage that applies blight; upgrade increases blight damage-over-time effect | Available by default |
| Blinding Gas | Affects two enemies in the backline; causes blind, combo, and dazed effects once upgraded | Available by default |
| Incision | Average damage; ignores 30% of bleed resistance; causes bleed | Available by default |
| Battlefield Medicine | Healing ability (if below 50% HP); removes bleed, blight, and burn effects | Available by default |
| Ounce of Prevention | Stress healing ability; provides bleed, blight, and burn resistance | Available by default |
| Emboldening Vapors | Buffs your target with strength and speed tokens | First visit to a Shrine (narration) - The Good Student |
| Plague Grenade | Hits two characters in the backline; causes blight | Second visit to a Shrine (battle) - Head of the Class |
| Indiscriminate Science | Can heal herself or an ally (below 50% HP); amount healed is increased based on number of positive and negative tokens; removes tokens upon casting | Third visit to a Shrine (narration) - Extra Credit |
| Cause of Death | Deals damage based on the remaining turns left for bleed, blight, and burn effects on a target; removes the status effects after casting | Fourth visit to a Shrine (battle) - Failing Grade |
| Disorienting Blast | Afflicts target with dazed and weakened; shuffles target’s position | Fifth visit to a Shrine (narration) |
| Magnesium Rain | Deals low damage to all enemies; causes burn; destroys all corpses | Fifth visit to a Shrine (narration) |
Shrine Battle: Head of the Class - How to beat the Professor
When you visit a Shrine as the Plague Doctor for the second time, you’ll get to battle Paracelsus’ Professor. Your opponent will cast Lecture a couple of times, and you should only use the Review Notes while this is happening. Otherwise, you’ll take Stress damage.
In a short while, the Professor will cast Conclusion. Use Heated Rebuttal when this happens. This will greatly damage the Professor and inflict him with a Coughing Fit that also causes his HP to dwindle.
Go back to using Review Notes, followed by Heated Rebuttal when Conclusion is cast once more. You’ll receive the Plague Grenade skill as mentioned earlier.
Shrine Battle: Failing Grade - How to experiment with the Reanimated Professor
During your fourth visit, the Plague Doctor will check on the Professor. She actually just killed and reanimated him, and now it’s time to experiment with his corpse.
Use Stitch to heal the zombie and prevent bleeding. Unfortunately, your target will continue moving around, wailing and increasing the Plague Doctor’s Stress. Eventually, you’ll see the Stab action. Use it when possible until the Reanimated Professor is dead. You’ll receive the Cause of Death skill as mentioned earlier.
The Best Plague Doctor Skills | Darkest Dungeon 2
Paracelsus the Plague Doctor is one of the best characters you can have in your Darkest Dungeon 2 team. She has all the right tools from HP heals and Stress heals to offensive abilities that hit multiple enemies.
Here are our picks for the best Plague Doctor skills in Darkest Dungeon 2:
- Ounce of Prevention - The Stress healing and resistance buffs will last you the entire run. This will likely be the first ability that you’ll use a Mastery point on because of how amazing it is.
- Plague Grenade - This will be a bread-and-butter skill due to the damage-over-time (DOT) effect on two targets.
- Blinding Gas - You can easily debilitate a couple of foes by causing them to miss their attacks due to blindness.
- Magnesium Rain - A powerful ability that hits all enemies, all while causing the burn effect to whittle down their health. Likewise, it clears corpses to make hitting enemies a lot easier.
- Indiscriminate Science versus Battlefield Medicine - Battlefield Medicine is okay as a starter skill, and it’ll last you a long while. Later, once you get Indiscriminate Science, you’ll learn to love it. Assuming your teammates often have a lot of positive and/or negative tokens, it provides higher healing throughput. It can also be used indefinitely after a one-turn cooldown, as opposed to Battlefield Medicine’s three maximum uses in a fight.
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