It’s been over a year since Obsidian’s fantasy RPG Avowed landed on Xbox and PC, and while time has smoothed over some of its rough edges, one enemy type continues to drive players up the wall. The combat in Avowed was never its crown jewel—clunky animations, painfully slow weapon swapping, and a baffling lack of lock-on made every skirmish feel like a chore. But the real villain lurking in the Living Lands isn’t some godlike tyrant or Dreamscourge monstrosity. It’s the humble Priest.
Every enemy faction in the game—from the reptilian xaurips to the fungal-infested dreamthralls to plain old human bandits—packs a Priest in their ranks. These robed nuisances have exactly one job: heal their allies. And they do it with a ruthlessness that would make a Soulsborne boss blush. In an instant, a Priest can take a foe from the brink of death back to full health, no casting time, no cooldown, absolutely no chill. It’s less of a tactical challenge and more of a cosmic joke at the player’s expense.
When Avowed launched, some defenders argued that Priests themselves are fragile—a couple of solid hits and they’re toast. The logic went: just focus fire the healer first, duh. But in practice, that’s like telling someone to thread a needle while riding a bucking horse. The game’s lack of lock-on means singling out that one brown-robed enemy in a mosh pit of glowing effects and flying limbs is a proper headache. By the time the Priest starts glowing green and you finally spot them, half the squad they just resurrected is already stomping your face in.
And these Priests don’t even fight fair. They love to hide inside caves or huts, waiting for you to whittle down the big bruiser of their group before popping out to undo all your hard work. This nonsense hits peak frustration during Bounty quests. You’ll track down a named target—some solo outlaw you need to off for a reward—only to have a random wandering priest (who has no business knowing this stranger) stroll up and cast a full heal. Suddenly your almost-dead bounty is back to 100%, and you’re left questioning every life choice that led to this moment. It’s the gaming equivalent of a referee stepping in to give the other team a second wind, then vanishing into thin air.
The devious design doesn’t stop there. Your own healing options feel like they come from a dollar-store bargain bin by comparison. Your party’s dedicated healer, Giatta, can’t hold a candle to enemy Priests. Health potions are sip-worthy at best, and the classic RPG crutch of scarfing down food mid-fight has been neutered into a bizarre “hypothetical health bar” that slowly fills your real HP over several agonizing minutes. Meanwhile, a random lizard cultist can snap their fingers and cancel every arrow, spell, and spectral bear you threw at them.
Even after multiple patches, Avowed’s combat still swings wildly between button-mashing chaos and frustrating gotcha moments, and the Priests remain the poster child for everything wrong with the system. They force players into a tactical loop the game refuses to support: identify a specific target in a messy brawl, close the gap before they heal again, and pray you don’t get body-blocked by a freshly restored ogre. Lowering the difficulty only makes your own damage spongier; the Priests’ healing output stays the same. Story Time mode? Forget it—the heal casts are as merciless as ever.
The community has spent the past year cooking up workarounds: corner-camping with arquebuses, spamming stuns before the healing animation triggers, or just turning the game off and going for a walk. One popular Reddit thread from late 2025 even joked about converting the protagonist’s faith to whatever deity empowers those lizard priests, just to get a taste of their power. But no mod or patch has yet to dethrone them as the game’s most infamous buzzkill.
In a title that prides itself on player choice and exploration, being railroaded into “kill the healer or suffer” every single encounter feels like a betrayal of its own design philosophy. Avowed still has its moments—the characters, the discovery, the sheer weirdness of shoving mushrooms into your face. But whenever a Priest shows up, the fun unceremoniously hits the bench. Here’s hoping Obsidian takes a hard look at this mess before their next outing. Until then, may the gods of Eora have mercy on your stamina bar.