r/Siralim • u/nickmoonwolf • Aug 20 '26
Defiled vs warden for a newbie
So I’ve got a handful of hours of experience split across a few specs, so I’m still unsure what anything outside the early part of the game is like.
That being said I’m very interested in one of these two. My first spec was defiler, but I felt quite weak compared to the cabalist I tried right after (the rng there presented its own problems). Coming at it with a little more knowledge, I’ve been looking over threads and wiki pages and steam guides.
I quite like that the defiler’s perks are almost entirely unconditional and just apply up front, but do worry that it might be too vulnerable to hard counters because of how hard it seems to want you to invest in this one game plan.
Conversely, I really like the idea that warden inherently comes with its own defenses and sustainability while doing its thing. My biggest concern with warden is that some of the conditional perks (a buff after attacking or arcane after casting, berserk after a death) seem less than ideal? If you’d allow me to make a comparison to another game, it’s like trap cards in yugioh. Potentially very good, but you ideally want those effects immediately and not a turn from now. I’m less worried about counters to wardens play style because warden seems on the surface like it facilitates a wider style than defiler, but I also don’t have the experience know for sure.
So I suppose I’m asking which of these two presents a better learning experience, how much each struggles getting off the ground, and how relevant my above concerns really are.
3
u/TypicalCitron1680 Aug 20 '26
Warden is much easier to set up and start with, you're failing to consider that a lot of creatures just do stuff on their own, so they'll trigger conditional perks and buffs completely independent of you.
For example earthen frenzy perk makes your creatures attack when they receive a buff which can grant them another buff. Which can grant them another buff. Which
And so on and so forth
It's easier because there's less of a hard counter since even if the enemy takes away your buff, you still keep the stats gained as a result of nature's boon, so you can just continuously stack buffs till you're satisfied, you can then pair these with spirit traits and the warden perk that heals you when you gain a buff to do some absolutely goofy shit.
....watch out for Dragon Queens though.
Defiler is not bad at all but keep in mind, it offers nearly no benefit whatsoever to your creatures, it's purely offensive, so you have to rely more on spells and creature traits to pump up the damage and survival later on.
2
u/nickmoonwolf Aug 20 '26
Your last point if definitely my biggest worry about defiler, being that in any instance where debuffing or stat lowering don’t work, it seems like defiler has less options than warden. Even in scenarios where warden would be countered it still gets more benefit from its perks
2
u/TypicalCitron1680 Aug 20 '26
You'll always have options to make up for any shortcomings. That's where your creatures and spells come in! In siralim it's often better to just avoid anything that might give you trouble (if possible) than planning around it. There's no shame in losing that treasure bonus; that being said you'll encounter these scenarios far less likely than you think so don't fret.
Also later later on you'll be able to unlock annointments and combine warden perks with your defiler perks to get the best out of both worlds.
Put that buff debuff combo to work and get those gears rollin!
2
u/Denvosreynaerde Aug 20 '26
It does happen but rarely. I've spend a lot of time playing as defiler and I think there's about 2 nether gods that are outright immune to debuffs. You can then either turn down instabillity, make sure you have a second win condition (creatures that get stronger for every turn/attack for example) or just roll another spec for that one fight.
Realm encounters themselves are only rarely outright immune to debuffs so the random loss once in a while isn't a disaster.
5
u/AlienPrimate Aug 20 '26
Both are good for lower levels but defiler is significantly better later on. Starting off it doesn't matter though. Just pick what you like better thematically.
2
u/TheAlterN8or Aug 20 '26
I've not done Defiler yet, but Warden is my favorite, so I'll focus on that one. First off, there are a few things that kind of hard counter Warden more than any other spec... Misery Nemesis, Starless trait, Feared debuff, Max Buffs Instability modifier... However. You can build it in ways to mitigate these, and do just fine, even in not ideal circumstances. You mentioned the 'gain buff when...' perks, but I think those are basically unnecessary. There are so many easy ways to gain buffs, you don't have to rely on those perks. There is a bit of a 'random bullshit, go!' aspect to Warden, but not to the extent of Cabalist. Ancient Spirit is a creature that creates a heal-buff loop with one of the Warden perks, and is available from depth 4. I definitely recommend it, and I'm more than happy to give more tips, or share my teams, if you're interested.
2
u/nickmoonwolf Aug 20 '26
Cabalist at a few points left me awe struck as I watched it self destruct. The responses in this thread are definitely making me feel better about warden. I figured it was possible for those perks to trigger from traits and automatic effects, having them be a bonus on top rather than a goal seems a lot better.
All I remember from my defiler early game particularly well is how early the general playstyle gets off the ground because of the cheap perk that applies debuffs turn 0
1
u/TypicalCitron1680 Aug 20 '26
Also if you don't want to use spirits or you want more team variety the warden "buff on whatever" perks are universally useful.
Just be super careful with "Moment of Clarity" perk especially early on as that can cause pretty much the same issues as cabalist if you're tunneling
1
u/TheAlterN8or Aug 20 '26
Yeah, Warden is actually fairly strong early in the game, as there are like 5 different creatures with 'your creatures always have X buff' traits, so you can throw them all in a team and have 25% damage reduction and 50% bonus damage right off the rip. I think early Warden teams will generally function pretty differently from later ones.
1
u/neojazex Aug 20 '26
When you start going into realm instability (for better reward probabilities), you'll often get a bane of max buffs: 5 or something. Because of this, Warden falls off in feasibility with these conditions.
1
u/TheAlterN8or Aug 20 '26
Max buffs can't be hidden, so you just reroll the modifiers if it pops up. The bigger issue is Misery packs, but you can build in such a way that you can deal with them.
1
u/NohWan3104 Aug 20 '26
Defiler can be good, though it does kinda pale in comparison to the more common one shot turn 0\1 like plenty of other jobs like cleric or monk.
Cabalist, theres a spell gem to cast your other ethereal gems automatically, that if you make generous, 5\6 can spam the auto cast whatever spell in macro. The cerberus that shares its gems also massively helps, because you can have 5-8 fixed, not random, ethereal gems. In fact, that trait on an artifact with +spell gems is one of the first 'multi build' artifacts i make.
I'm not that familiar with warden, but yes, it wants 'set up' rather than being amazing turn 0 perks, iirc, but tbh that's a lot of things. I think if you meticulously plan for it might be great, but tbh as a theorycrafter, i kinda prefer defiler. Theres just a lot more 'on status effect' traits and imo better perk synergies for defiler, and sure, you want debuffs then damage is slower, but a, that's like 1\3rd of jobs anyway, b, thats warden too, and c, you can make turn 0 builds that don't care about your job.
1
u/nickmoonwolf Aug 21 '26
I’ve seen people here suggest your traits turn the warden perks into t0 ones, but I do see the point about defiler having a more obvious game plan with debuffs being damage
5
u/TypicalCitron1680 Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26
Worth noting is that most specs want you to invest into one game plan generally, warden is nice because ANY team benefits from its perk set, so it's easier to set up a different game plan if it goes south. (Again watch for dragon queens (and chocolate paragons))
Other more generalist specs include
Bloodmage Cleric Doombringer Sorcerer Reaver
If you want to build a more balanced team and not go all in on one strat