While your Minions might do most of the fighting in Iratus: Lord Of The Dead, the star of the show is always the necromancer himself. As your campaign progresses, Iratus regains many of his former powers in the form of Talents. These include passive abilities that bolster your forces and spells that can turn the tide of battle.

Talent points are accrued slowly, making the choice of how to spend them a difficult one. These top-tier Talents are always a good choice, from strong early-game picks to game-changing endgame selections. Read on to learn more.

10/10 Whip

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While it's often smart to spend your first few Talent points on passive abilities that will buff your Minions, this first-level spell from the Magic tree is a direct upgrade over basic movement. For a paltry three Mana, it moves a Minion two positions forward and gives them a healthy boost to their Accuracy.

While there might be some limited cases where you only want to move a Minion one space instead of two, using Whip to get a frontline unit back where they belong provides excellent value at any point throughout the game.

9/10 Calcination Mastery

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By the time you've reached the third or fourth floor, you might find yourself with an abundance of parts and not much Mana, especially if you're making heavy use of Destruction spells. The Alchemy Table lets you break down parts into Mana via Calcination; three parts nets forty Mana.

Once you've unlocked Calcination Mastery, you'll also get fifteen additional Spell Power in your next battle each time you convert items to Mana in this way. It doesn't stack, but if you're going to be using the Alchemy Table anyway you may as well get the most possible value out of the deal!

8/10 Amateur Surgeon / Surgical Practice

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These Talents feed into one another, and are especially valuable on higher levels of difficulty where resources are harder to come by. Surgical Practice and its prerequisite, Amateur Surgeon, are both found in the Alchemy tree and increase the chance of getting Uncommon or better parts from combat and transmutation.

High-quality parts grant Minions extra stat points. The more you can collect during a campaign, the more effective your undead army will be in combat.

7/10 Advanced Ballistics

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There are few things worse in any turn-based game than missing with an attack. Every turn is vital, and seeing one wasted on account of bad luck is never a good feeling.

Advanced Ballistics, a second-level Talent from the Ire tree, gives all of your Minions a permanent twelve points of Accuracy. This allows even units with a middling hit rate such as the Head Hunter find their target more often than not. It also happens to be the sole prerequisite for Overwhelming Ire, making it an even more worthwhile pick.

6/10 Relentless Evil

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Relentless Evil is exceptional on the third floor and above, potentially saving your Minions by a hair. Try to get the Abode Of Wrath to at least rank two by the time you're ready to unlock this Talent so that you'll have a decent starting point for your Wrath each battle.

As long as Iratus' Wrath is over seventy-five, Relentless Evil causes all Minions to heal five Vigor at the start of their turns. Wrath increases when a Minion takes damage, so chances are you'll have plenty of opportunities to use Relentless Evil as you battle through the later stages.

5/10 Mocking Slap

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Zombies, Blood Phantasms, and Brides Of Iratus all have ways of setting your opponents on fire. If you make heavy use of these incendiary abilities, be sure to learn Mocking Slap from the Destruction tree.

In addition to having the best name out of all Iratus' spells, Mocking Slap deals fifty percent more damage to targets that are on fire. Remember, if an enemy is on fire you don't need to kill them with the spell; you just need to get them close enough to zero that the flames will do it for you when their turn comes up.

4/10 Blood Curse

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Early in the game you might not be paying attention to higher-level Talents - after all, there are plenty of basic ones that need unlocking before Iratus leaves the Mines. If you're able to get a bunch of Talent points at once, though, either through experience manipulation or disintegrating artifacts, spending them all at once to get Blood Curse is worth considering.

Blood Curse inflicts an enormous Luck penalty on a targeted enemy. This will keep you safe from critical hits and set up the victim for a Mummy's Amplify Curses ultimate ability. This combo should remove most or all of the target's Sanity, making them much weaker until they can be dispatched.

The best part of Blood Curse is that if the victim escapes without being killed, they'll return under your service as a Vampire at the end of the battle!

3/10 Architecture Buff

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Souls are an important resource since you need them to upgrade the various buildings in the Graveyard. Architecture Buff helps speed the process by increasing the number of Souls you receive after winning a battle by one-fourth.

Upgrading the Graveyard is so critical that it's usually a good idea to unlock Architecture Buff at the very beginning of the game using your starting Talent point.

2/10 Volley Of Spears

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For efficient, direct damage in the late game, Volley Of Spears is one of the best Destruction spells available. It deals twenty-five physical damage to a target, but doubles that amount if the target has any debuff on them.

Be sure to bring a Werewolf along to shred the armor of your foes when deploying this spell. The Mana cost is reduced based on Iratus' total Spell Power, so with a build geared toward maximizing magical might you can deal moderate to heavy damage repeatedly for very little cost.

Combine Volley Of Spears with Indiscriminate Fire, which grants an extra fifty Spell Power if there are two or fewer enemies alive, to quickly mop up isolated opponents.

1/10 Overwhelming Ire

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Overwhelming Ire is expensive, but you'll see results almost immediately. If you have artifacts that enhance Wrath generation or a fully-upgraded Abode of Wrath, you'll be unleashing ultimate attacks from the beginning of every battle.

Overwhelming Ire reduces the Wrath cost of all Minions' ultimate abilities by ten. You'll still need to be somewhat judicious with your Wrath, but it means you'll rarely come up short when you really need to fire off a Cannonball or other huge ability.

If it's late enough in the game that you have the Talent points to spend, try to pair Overwhelming Ire with Dark Enlightenment in the Alchemy tree. With fifty percent more Wrath gained during battle and reduced costs, the mortals will tremble before your approaching horde!

Next: Darkest Dungeon 2: Every Boss Fight, Ranked By Difficulty