Does This Shield Maiden Have A Spot In Your Squad?
In this post:
Introduction
Hi folks. Welcome to another Guardian spotlight on The Nexus.
If you asked me why I chose to do a write up on Prielle, I’m not sure I’d have a clear answer for you. I read a few comments from people in the Discord which peaked my interest. I also like her amazon brawler aesthetic.
That somehow convinced me to try her out, and what I CAN tell you is that her first stint in my squad only lasted 5 minutes.
I was ready to ship this article with a much more negative assessment of Prielle, when I happened to see her featured on Tomahawk and ToadManSam’s twitch stream last night.
They tested Prielle against lower-level enemies, and she performed well enough. The issue is that her skills don’t scale well as the game gets harder.
But where does that leave her?
In this article, I’ll try to answer that question by covering her kit, how I use her in the game, and whether she’s worth holding on to or not.
If you’re sitting on a bunch of her duplicates and aren’t quite sure what to do with her, you’ll want to read on.
Let’s get started.
About Prielle
Prielle is an epic Imperial Solas Warrior from the Founder collection. She uses strength gear and belongs in the front row of your formation where she can soak enemy attacks.
If Prielle looks familiar, it’s probably because she reminds you of another short-haired, blonde heroine with light-based powers who goes around saving everyone.
Unfortunately, shooting baddies with photon blasts and pummeling them with inhuman strength isn’t in the cards here. Prielle is all about shields the same way Flix is about healing.
Her ultimate, Sanctuary, gives everyone in your squad a golden shield that lasts 8 seconds and soaks up damage for up to 260% of your entire roster’s attack.
Based on my testing, that includes the attack ratings of the 5 additional Guardians you carry in your reserve in Adventure and Endless mode.
Once the duration on her shield expires, it explodes, dealing damage in a small AoE area based on whatever HP her shield had left.
Her other two abilities mostly just reapply her shield at certain intervals.
Righteous Fury deals up to 280% of her attack rating to a single target and applies Sanctuary.
Reinforce just basically re-applies Sanctuary every 8 seconds at level 5.
The idea is that she’s always shielded. So, she’s more durable than your average warrior, but she can also contribute to damage output when her shield can last its whole duration.
That works out well enough when enemies are at a much lower power level than your squad.
It doesn’t scale very well at higher difficulty levels however, and you’ll notice that the shield breaks almost instantly under concentrated fire from more powerful enemies.
If her shield never lasts 8 seconds, then it never deals any damage. Since her entire kit revolves around Sanctuary, it’s not really clear what she contributes other than asborbing hits and dealing basic attacks.
How I Use Prielle
If her shield isn’t powerful enough to provide your squad with cover and doesn’t really deal any damage, then what is it good for?
Well, it turns out there is a very specific scenario where she can excel. Here’s how it breaks down:
Optimize Her Shield
No matter what, Prielle won’t be of much use unless you strengthen her shield before you face harder content.
So how do you make it stronger? It starts by stacking the right Guardians in your reserve formation.
Her skill scales on all of your Guardian’s attack ratings combined, so I chose as many Cinder rangers and assassins as I could in my test formation.
Why Cinder? Because it has three high-attack Imperial legendary Guardians in Atticus, Ashwyn, and Phoenicia.
You can then use the Scorching Cinder, Full-Bellied, and three Imperial runes to increase their attack stat — making Prielle’s shield more durable in the process.
Prielle won’t kill many enemies, so you’ll also need to stack energy boosting runes like Stamina, Well Rested and Leading The Way if you want to use Sanctuary every battle.
Prodigy won’t help her because she’s not likely the most powerful Guardian in your squad.
Use Her On Endless
Eventually, enemies in Adventure mode will be 10–30 levels higher than your Guardians when you get to later stages. Meanwhile, enemies on Endless increase in difficulty gradually.
On top of that, you can complete 20 to 30 more fights in Endless than in Adventure. More fights means more runes, and a better chance of rolling the ones you need to max out her shield.
It doesn’t always work out because your choice of runes is random, but when it does, you’ll notice a huge difference in her shield’s durability.
Does that mean she’s only good in Endless? Not necessarily. I could see her having some success in PVP, where you’ll fight formations with relatively the same power levels as yours.
Even though her shield is weak, it can still cancel one or two of your opponent’s attacks — and anyone who’s played PVP arena competitively knows that it can make all the difference between winning and losing.
Pair Her With Phoenicia
Yes, specifically her.
Phoenicia has one of, if not the strongest shield ability in the game. My Phoenicia is still at 5 star enlightenment with no radiance, and her shield far outclasses Prielle’s even with her additional star and 3 radiance levels.
As long as Phoenicia’s shield is up, she’ll keep reapplying it without the HP cost to your party — effectively making you damage proof for the rest of the battle.
The problem with Phoenicia’s skill is its long cool down.
It takes approximately 15 seconds from the start of the battle for her to use it. That’s enough time for your enemy formation to use their ultimates on your squad first.
Prielle can’t shield your squad for a whole battle, but she can buy you time until Phoenicia steps in to do the rest.
On Endless, the Order of Valos shield helps with this too because it makes your team invulnerable for 8 seconds from the start of battle. All Prielle has to do is cover the 5–7 seconds in between.
As an added bonus, Phoenicia’s shield absorbs damage before Prielle’s for some reason.
Once Blood Brood is active, Sanctuary always lasts its entire duration and Prielle starts spamming AoE damage every 8 seconds.
Since your party is shielded for most of the battle, you can speed things up by adding a tanky damage-dealing Guardian to your front row like Tian Long instead of a tank.
Adding Tavros instead of Flix also helps with your squad’s damage output thanks to his Pentagram ability and huge bonus to attack speed. Elohatt is another worthy substitution if you’re on a budget.
Is She Worth Owning?
The good news if you’re holding Prielle already is that she can be useful if you’re the type who grinds to always meet the recommended level before moving ahead.
Outside of that, I don’t see many people reaching for her because:
- Prielle is a very niche Guardian
- It takes a big investment to power up her shield
- There are better alternatives
Prielle Is A Very Niche Guardian
When I first tried Prielle, I tried to fit her into the test squad I built for Salve by just replacing one of my tanks with her. She died immediately — and that’s why I pulled her out after five minutes.
Prielle isn’t very good against difficult content if you don’t optimize her shield, and that significantly limits the number of squads you can insert her in.
The only way I found to make her useful was to put her with a better shielding unit and a horde of high attack Guardians in support.
The unit in question goes for around 340 USD on the secondary market at the time I’m writing this. Prielle herself costs 25 USD.
That’s an expensive price point just to make an epic Founder perform well.
It Takes a Big Investment To Power Up Her Shield
Like I mentioned before, Prielle can be viable if you pace yourself and make sure your party’s level and gear always matches the content you’re trying to beat.
In the test version, that got much harder to do as you advanced through the game.
Once you pass level 150, it takes a few days to raise your Commander Level and gather the scrolls you need to upgrade your main squad’s level by two.
And, don’t even get me started on how long it takes to farm and upgrade a full set of legendary gear!
Of course, if you did stick with it and built up those ten Guardians with full sets of upgraded Legendary weapons and boots, Prielle could reach a new level.
There Are Better Alternatives
Problem is, there are so many alternatives out there, why would you bother?
If you want shielding, you’ll probably reach for Phoenicia or Takati depending on your budget. The latter has a stronger shielding ability than Prielle and more survivability as a tank.
You can also make better use of that second front row slot with a different warrior.
Gwynn’s ability that pulls enemies together is very useful and makes her a versatile pick for almost any build. Corvus is also a great choice if you want to balance DPS and durability in your front row.
Conclusion
Ultimately, testing Prielle did change my mind about her a little. Still, I’d have a hard time recommending her to anyone as a viable Guardian to help them compete in the game.
It’s not that she’s bad as much as she doesn’t contribute a whole lot.
Warriors in general are durable enough to serve as a meat shield, but you could just as soon choose another one with more damage output or a tank for better durability.
Even if you do put in the time to build up Sanctuary, it isn’t a game changer. You still have to rely on other Guardians to take over defensive duties and offense.
Endless is the only mode where I can clearly say she has some utility because you can create the ideal conditions for her to be successful.
So, should you dump her? I’d wait until the game launches. She’s a clear candidate for re-balancing, and the team may decide to give her some attention.
She could become a different Guardian altogether if they increase Sanctuary’s damage absorption and change its damage formula.
That said, I wouldn’t bother reaching for her if you don’t own her already. There are many other Guardians who are easier to fit in your squad and will provide better results.
If you liked this article, don’t forget to clap and follow me for more Guild of Guardians content!
Also, don’t forget to follow Tomahawk and ToadManSam’s stream at 7pm on Sundays. They show gameplay footage, talk about the game’s features and offer up prizes. It’s great content if you want to learn about GOG.
